This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
What Happens in Vegas
From the Slope of Hope: I'm not a very good hedonist, I guess.
Here I am in Las Vegas, and to my way of thinking, everything I hate about the human race is conveniently compressed into one tidy package.
And I ask myself: what's my problem? Why do I let places like this get to me so much? I mean, after all, why should I care what other people do with their time and their lives? What business is it of mine?
Well, it's none of my business, of course. The whole human race could wallow around in whatever it wants, and as long as it doesn't adversely affect me or the people about whom I care, it really shouldn't matter. And, on the whole, this is the state of affairs, because I have designed my life in a tidy little bubble and need not trouble myself with such thoughts.
It still chews at me, though, why I get so irked by hoardes of people engaging in as many bacchanalian propensities as they can muster. Drinking. Drugs. Sex. Slack-jawed gaping of The Things That Are So Bright and The Things That Are So Big. It just isn't my cup of tea.
My little girl, whose competition brings me here, expressed it wisely beyond her years when, unprompted, she said to me: "Dad, I notice that everything in this town is fake." And that, I finally realized, was what had my panties in such a wad.
The blonde hair is fake. The big boobs are fake. The wretched, fawning smiles are fake. The attitudes are fake. The posturing, preening, and posing are all put-ons designed by the ho-bags and douche-wads stumbling up and down the streets to hopefully bed whatever quarry about which they fantasize.
So is it because I'm repelled out of some sense of moral repugnance? Nope. I think we're pretty much responsible for our own souls. I don't really care what these nitwits do.
How about disappointment? Well, I think we're starting to get close. And it isn't because I'm personally associated with these folks. I don't directly care about any of these people, but I guess since I identify myself as part of this group as a fellow human, it's disheartening to see it race to the bottom by the most basic cravings. Aren't we capable of more than this? Do we really need to make these distractions and destructions the high point of our existence?
In other words, is heading to a place like this the best thing to which people may look forward? I see nothing around me but (a) ads for sex; (b) ads for drinking; (c) and, in the greatest abundance of all, ads for personal injury lawyers (the most popular one of which has the unlikely surname of - - and I'm not making this up - - Golightly).
Now, look, I realize that the human race doesn't consist of a bunch of poets and artists. We're not all going to be sitting around engaging in witty bon mots and cerebral repartee. Bell curves are everywhere, and most people, ipso facto, are average. I'm not naive enough to believe that humanity can elevate itself to its highest potential.
I also recognize that this place is a house of mirrors, and authenticity is still present in the world. But what puzzles me is how persistently people are drawn to this circus.
"Oh, Tim, you're such a stick-in-the-mud! They're just having fun!" Yeah, yeah, I know. And you're not convincing me. And as this cancerous convergence of self-indulgence and glitter (understood broadly as "Western Culture") metastasizes in China, Russia, India, and everywhere else it can be developed, more and more of our fellow humans are going to squander at least a portion of their lives exchanging their dollars for the hope of some kind of temporary escape.
The best I can do is stay as far away as possible and draw whatever edifying lessons I can from my repulsion to what troubles me. We can learn of ourselves by what we love, what we hate, and what causes us to react.
Party on, Wayne!
- advertisements -
Tim, looks like you may be more fun to mock than the Mad Hedge Fund Trader !
I enjoy Timmy's own site, not only for it's good writing, but esp. for cheesy fakery like this --
http://slopeofhope.com/2012/02/welcome-to-this-fridays-bar.html
Some nice slopin' charts !
here's what the T-man says about this pic of 3 hooting hotties:
"I was originally going to title this post "Can I get you something wet?", but I didn't want to offend the four remaining females on the blog."
This article is only about the bullshit on the strip. Actually living there and getting out into the surrounding suburbs & experiencing life on a day to day basis is infinitely worse than the strip BS. Hell on earth.
I've heard the story so many times...if you think an area is economically depressed *now,* just go ahead and see how things change when the casinos roll in.
Uy.
"why I get so irked by hoardes of people engaging in as many bacchanalian propensities as they can muster."
It's called life you square. What, when you finally draw the short straw, you think you're gonna get some kind of award because you didn't fulfill some of your "propensities"? Sick to death of these moralizing dopes. By the way "Tim," sex for men is as important as breathing -- or take David Carradine, it's more important than breathing.
I'll take Vegas any minute of the day versus the fake fucks you apparently surround yourself with, preaching "higher morals" while secretly touching themselves to the most deviant shit you can find on the interwebs. Also, what the fuck is this bullshit, and why is it at the top of the page? I mean this seriously, I'd sooner take 100 plastic chicks from Vegas out to dinner than read another idiot missive like this one. Truth.
Are they talking about Vegas or just most TV channels?
Invested some time in card counting back in the 90s, several books and videos passed around. I can only count a single or double deck for any length of time, but am pretty consistent with it. Coupled with basic strategy and money management, I have been to Vegas about 6-7 times since the 90s and been up every time (over a period of days).
To this day, I will not put a lot of cash on the table for any single bet, even when i statistically have the advantage in bending the basic strategy to my favor. By side effect - I am never down or up a *lot* at any point in time.
It works, but it's mechanical (which is not fun for most people), you gotta sit at the table, sober, for quite a while. The rule of large numbers to kicks in, eventually. At my bankroll/betting levels (to keep from getting thrown out) I don't make a killing, however, You might get out with enough to pay for the room and food.
Of course, no amount of counting can protect you from a cold table. You got to be able to get up and move - my rule is to move if table wins ~ 10 in a row. I almost never bet big, no matter what (2-3% of bankroll max). Keeping this rule along with long term concentration with accurate counting prevents most from doing it successfully, I suppose.
The fun mostly comes when I cash in a handful of black chips after a long session. I have yet to see a show or other aspects of Vegas.
I have never seen another counter to date. The pit boss will invariably come over to distract me in conversation as they can spot me easily. When you get good, it only takes a glance at the cards at the end to get a count.
Unfortuately, my trips to Vegas are highly unsocial. It's a bit of conquering the beast for me.
If you can add a golf score, you have the mental capacity to count.
Best thing I've seen written about the arm pit known as Vegas in a long time.
thanks.
Next stop Macao ...?
Its a global world of douche bags, they come in all shapes, sizes and colours!
To me, Las Vegas is just boring... overwhelmingly boring. And yes, massively fake. What kind of place thrills me? My last trip to explore what most call "extreme boonies". Just the memory thrills me! Extreme solitude is joy.
What a wonderful feeling to be 100+ miles from the nearest human being, in the middle of wild, crazy geology, overlooking the endless pacific ocean from a mountaintop in the middle of a truly martian landscape (zero life of any kind, not even one blade of grass). Look east, I'm on mars. Look west, I'm 6400 feet above waterworld. The next day? Drive 150 miles along the coast, mountains on my left, ocean on my right, not a single car, not a single dwelling, not a single human being the whole time. Stop anywhere and play on the beach and lava-rocks. Too bad the water is cold here, otherwise I'd go snorkel.
Las Vegas? Hoo... freaking... hum. Enjoy it humans. It suits almost all of you perfectly.
Don't fret too much bro. As soon as they drain the Colorado Las Vegas will be Stonehenge II.
Las Vegas is just Israel West but without the Palestinians.
Tim,
What happens in Vegas ... is none of your business.
Go preach (whine?) someplace else.
Hasta la vista.
Tim,
What happens in Vegas ... is none of your business.
Go preach (whine?) someplace else.
Hasta la vista.
Because once is never enough.
I feel almost the same way. I don't care about it being sinful or whatever, really Debauchery as such is lost on me... It's just that Vegas is... plastic, fake, and obviously grabbing directly for my wallet all while trying to TELL ME TO MY FACE "Gee, we're having so much FUN $$$ Aren't WE?" When really, I know it's the money grab. Sure gambling can be exciting, but I can also do math. I like looking at women, etc. But when none of it even seems real, when it's all talking back to me telling me how much great fun it is, it feels like a douchebag telling me how great this free weed he's giving me a hit of is... with the emphasis on the word free because he's going to ask me for a favor later. Vegas, I already know the favor you want from me is to empty my wallet.
I have a friend with a gambling jones who liked to go to Vegas. He was a millionaire so the casino would actually fly him in on their plane. One time they comped him a room, hookers, blow and ecstacy for four days, then called me to come get him. He was outta dough and they didnt' want to stake him any more because the "x" was getting him outta hand.
Then, a couple of weeks after he was home, the casino sent a couple guys to have a chat with my friend about how exactly he planned to pay them the humongous amount of money he owed them thru gaming losses.... They worked it out in a gentlemanly way.
And then flew him to Vegas again!!
Its the sleaziest and cheesiest place you might ever visit, but if you want to go totally nuts you've picked the right place!
I agree that Vegas doesn't hold a candle to the scum (we're talking bottom of the barrel, pit of hell, pondscum) in D.C.
Comparing the two really is unfair to Vegas. It's still illegal to rape U.S. citizens in the ass in Vegas.
vegas or washington DC ; your pick. In Vegas you hurt only yourself. In DC they screw everyone to the tune of thousand dead american soldiers, ten of thousands of injured and mentally ill american soldiers, and hundreds of thousands of dead iraqi, and trillions of dollars wasted over a war that was bogus.
Sorry, which place is the sleaziest and cheesiest again. take your pick zombie.
Fact is, I go to Vegas only occasionally and then only for laughs. I never go to DC because I don't think what they do there is very fun or funny either.
Don't think I don't know how fucked the gov't is. The topic of this particular post happened to be Vegas, a town which is not responsible for most of the shit you're so unhappy about.
lol. as a fan of Tim's "perma-bear" chartist blog, I look at Tim's above NAIVETE and self-proclaimed innocence with both a touch of charm... and annoyance.
Tim's a big fan of Steve Jobs... who infamously crushed Apple clone-makers, retail stores, Apple-store employees benefits, not to mention China wage-slave factory employees on his way to amassing Apple's multi-billion cash pillow. Talk about CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION - I agree with MK that Job's/Apple's cash hoard is/was obscene, bordering on illegal.
As an "investor" aka market speculator, Tim believes he is ENTITLED to reap the wealth the world has to offer, right there from his Palo Alto T-1 connection. The fact that "our" oil comes from various CIA approved dictator hell-holes never seems to bother him much.
Speaking of Tim's comfy upper/middle class American lifestyle (ENTITLEMENT?!), Tim's last line is a beauty! - "The best I can do is stay as far away as possible..."
EARTH TO TIM... HELLO?! You live in California, "The land of the lotus eaters" - a hop-skip away from LV, and most certainly part of the same "we Americans can't go any more west without getting wet" cultural millieu. I mean, even if you could CHOP LA, Hollywood, and SoCal AWAY from Northern CA (Hollywood, HELLO?! the ENTERTAINMENT capital OF THE WORLD!") you would STILL be living in a state dedicated to living the good life, drinking fine wines, and attempting to live like the DECADENT, CATTY gods on Mt. Olympus.
Giving Vegas its due, they have some damn good builders there, and their stage acts are merely the best entertainment that NY & Hollywood can come up with, performed daily... quite a grind for good entertainers.
Now, if Tim wants to take on Sheldon Adelson or Steve Wynn... two neocon billionaires who made their billions fleecing AMERICA's union-scale-wages empowered middle-class of their lifetime earnings - then have at it!
Jebus- ouch! I don't know who you burned worse with that, the living or the dead...
Nice work!
forgot ta mention... you can't find many "native Americans" in CA... where Tim "retreats" to when he is "staying as far away from" those Vegas gauche mobs as possible - because, you know, in the wake of the 1849 gold rush, White Americans pouring into the western-most state, sort of WIPED OUT the native population there.....
not that modern, "civilized" bedrock-of-American-middle-class Californians should dwell on such unpleasantness, or anything...!
Fiat Money
This always sets me off for some reason. Don't know why. Anyway, we didn't kill all the Indians in California. The Californios did it. The California missions were death camps. The Spanish/Mestizo came in 1750 to 1820 and kidnapped and enslaved the natives, brought them to the missions as slave labor, and then did it again when they died off to epidemics.
Beats me why my mom visits the missions when she gets out here. Like touring Auschwitz.
Complete agreement about the Catholic Missions being the so-called "good" side of the Conquistador frenzy of rape, pillage, plunder, extortion, & mass-slaughter. Father Bartolemew de las Casas TRIED to stand up for the natives in early 1500s.... he was lucky to be shipped back to Spain, before the "Hacienda" (slave plantations) owners & settled Spanish (ex- Conquistadors) hacked him to little bits. They needed to import African slaves to Spain & Portugal's "New World" colonies - because the ruthless Spanish EXTERMINATED the native labor pool, working them to death in the silver mines and plantations.
re CA in the 1850s, I was just trying to conjure up the images of all those hundreds of thousands of last-gasp "white trash" immigrants - poor & penniless, toughs & thugs from all over the world - streaming in to California to make their fortunes in the gold fields or die trying.
No doubt, by THEIR wild, wooly, rough, and dangerous standards - claim-jumpers, highway-men, bushwackers, chain-gang bosses, cattle-rustlers, ruthless cattle bosses, etc. etc. etc. etc. - TODAY's Vegas is the very model of decorum, civility, and class !! Needless to say, today's "civilized" Californians are descended from those wild & tough 49's.
You should move up north here to Washington. We have lots of "Native Americans" still around.
They own and run all the casinos...
US citizen like natives, managing their 1/th to get US government approval.
I would take the deviants over the self-righteous any day. Though I suppose Vegas is for people like you too Tim. It feeds your ego with a real sense of superiority. I thought that you evolved people know how to be gracious. I thought that you strived to see the gifts in every moment. Just be honest about how good you feel right now about being so much better than all of those "Douche Bags", and say, "Thank you."
Joisey-shorish douchebags are deviants? They are just another supremely predictable demographic block.
The point you are trying to get across is that, in being fake, Vegas is actually a destructive rather than creative force. The same could be said of much of America.
You see, Americans are never satisfied with "good enough." It's not part of their vocabulary. Which is why everything must be paved over, the landscape obliterated with tawdry signs and sprawl. And when this no longer satisfies them, they simply move somewhere else to do the same thing over again.
It's why L.A. is gone, it's why we accept so many immigrants and hope to become a country of 500 million people. Because Americans associate just "being" with decline and death. It's why we wiped out the Native cultures.
Not all Western cultures are like America. Germany, for example, is not. The Germans take care of the places they have, they don't obliterate. If they do obliterate, it's usually somewhere else like Poland or Russia.
Americans are one of the few people I can think of who take immense pride and joy in destroying their own backyards and calling it "progress."
Vegas represents this, to the extreme. Vast tracts of the American built landscape are actually complete wastelands, but you have to pay attention to see it, you have to look around when you're driving. Or visit any city in Europe or Asia for comparison. When American Empire goes to the dustbin of history, when the money dries up and when the country itself collapses, Vegas will barely register at all in history. It's not a place worth preserving, worth caring about, worth passing on. The Old World countries have cities with structures and monuments that have lasted centuries.
And we have...Vegas? Think about it.
Jesus, just when I think I could never see such a pompous, self-congratulatory screed as Mr. "Vegas is icky!", along comes Herr Scheissenbloomers to top it. So the "germans take care of the places they have", do they? Und they don't shit in their own backyards, hein?
Then why so many strangely new buildings in Berlin, und Hamburg, und Dusseldorf? Vot's dot? "Destroyed in der war", you say?
How did those wars start? Who started them? Why did the entire world find it necessary to partition Germany, weaken it, station superior military forces *right there in Germany*, as if it were Hannibal Lecter they were dealing with? Why was that? Think about it.
Ya, ya, but shuss- dot vas in der past, ya? Und it vasn't die Deutches herrenvolk who macht mit der bombink von Dusseldorf, Berlin, oder Dresden, n'rechts?!! Vonce again it vos der verdammta Yankees, ya?!?!!? Vanting to practice urban renewal on der Reich!!!
Anyway, it von't happen again, ok?
I use to live in Seattle, on weekends we would go to Vancouver, it stuck me one day; there are no fat humongous pigs, not one Canadian women was double-sized.
There are trust me. However, women in VC are on a league of their own (very pretty). I think is the lack of sun.
Conversely when making the trip south of the border, we Vancouverites drop our jaws and stare.. How do people get so fat and why are there so many? Seattle's only a ~3 hour drive away...
Seattlites are fat for self protection. Its actually a very hostile town...
More like passive aggressive.
You haven't been on the West Seattle bridge at rush hour...
Gosh this is so amusing, all my posts from the last few days have been at the Mandalay Spa. We often come to Vegas on our way to ski at Wolf Creek CO. We don't gamble so much of our time is enjoying good food, going to a few specialty stores that we like that are not found at home. Of course the town is fake. We like to laugh at the ridiculous carnival like atmosphere. I guess I have a hard time being offended by it all. I was raised in San Fran in the 60s and when I asked my mom what the people were doing in Golden Gate Park (fucking their brains out on the grass), she said "expressing themselves" and walked us by. Frankly it's kind of sad this country is so Puritanical we have shove this city of debauchery in the middle of a desert, as if a kind of containment. Been in Paris and they do it a lot more elegantly. Walked down Pigalle with my 10 and 13 yr old daughters few years back and they sure got an eyeful (liked the Sexadrome the best :-)) Actually, Vegas is fun, Mr Miffed sure is more wild in bed! Must be the sex aura in the air.
Miffed :-)
Why, again, is TK posting this Lifetime channel special here? Because he has a terrible record (permabear) and has zero investment thoughts, except the market is rigged and it is going to go down, someday, alot. This type of post belongs on Oprah's website, not on ZH. I don't know what naked picutrews he has of you Tyler but they can't be possible as bad as this, another steaming pile of self aggrandization.
Spot on, Stepback.
Tim is as fake as Vegas ... only he doesn't think he is!
It couldn't be better said ... TK is another steaming pile of self aggrandization.
Pleeeeeease keep this guy off the site ... he'll ruin ZH's reputation for being serious and mature.
We don't need his distractions.
TJ
Spot on, Stepback.
Tim is as fake as Vegas ... only he doesn't think he is!
It couldn't be better said ... TK is another steaming pile of self aggrandization.
Pleeeeeease keep this guy off the site ... he'll ruin ZH's reputation for being serious and mature.
We don't need his distractions.
TJ
the only reason the "perma-bears" have been "proved wrong" over the past few years, is because "little economic death squad leader" Timmy G. has been PRINTING TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS since 2008... in form of "BAILOUTS," "Liquidity Injections" (and UTTER FAILURE to REGULATE banksters) when he was PRESIDENT of the NY Fed during Bush-II years... or his ALLOWING "helicopter Ben" to PRINT MORE TRILLIONS since Timmy G. became O's _Treasury Secretary_ (ugh!)
remember that week the "mainstream media" made the BIG FUSS about (former GS loan-shark chairman) Hanky-Pank Paulson begging/extorting $700 billion in "TARP" bailouts out of the Pelosi Con-gress in Sept. 2008???
well.... why... that SAME WEEK, little timmy g. miraculously COUGHED UP ANOTHER $630 BILLION for the same failed, bankrupt, insolvent, stocks-SHOULD-be-AT-ZERO banksters... effectively almost DOUBLING the REAL "bailouts" cost, in ONE WEEK, ALONE !!! http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a9MTZEgukPLY
if you're BRAGGIN on your cap gains for past few years... you can thank all that SOCIALIZED BIG GOVT MONEY that helicopter ben & little timmy g have been a-printin!! (20+ trillion and counting!)
I wasn't bragging at all. I was just making the observation that TK's post thus far have been terrible. Go back to the SoH with your fearless leader. haha
"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."
Benjamin Franklin
I think Old Benny would have enjoyed a little Vegas from time to time.
Vegas is an escape - enjoy it for a few days, then go home and be happy that you do not live there.
I also think the past 10 years Vegas has become an extension on LA ( SoCal) which has increased the doucheyness.
Agreed! "Old Benny" was quite the favorite... with French noble-women at the court of King Louis ___ at VERSAILLES palace, THE ultimate expression of royal/noble indulgence for all time!
(can you say, "decadence," "inequality," "too much time on your hands" and "catty high-school girls cliques" - all the nth degree?!!)
Fortunately for "American" history, Franklin was a master of navigating the shark-stewn rivers and by-ways of the French court... without Franklin's great diplomatic skill, the French would never have backed the American Revolution; and Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Hancock (et al) would have been hung as traitors. But if I recall my history... didn't French support for that war BANKRUPT the French Treasury... leading to King Louis XVI LOSING HIS HEAD a few short years later?!
Talk about "high stakes gambler" - without Frankln, the would BE NO Las Vegas !!
I went to Vegas in the 80's, back when the mob ran things. Had a blast. Great place back then. Great food. The drinks were well liquored. The babes were hot. Getting laid was easy. Titsapopping.
Went again in 2000. The place sucked. Corporate took over. Cheap food, shitty drinks. Crap and ugly whores everywhere.
Bring back the five families!
What Bugsy Siegel built Joe Bonano destroyed by letting in the Corporates. World Inc.'s "bread and circus" show, headquartered in Las Vegas Coliseum, now looks a dicy bet, as mainstream America goes ragged...Cash flow is mother of "Panem et Circenses" as the Romans knew. Berlusconi showed it by making close circuit TV in Italy his panem and circenses cash cow. It made him third richest man of Italy.
Now the Corporates, rich as Cresus, need to find new cash cows in MAcao and Cyprus or Dubai; where people still have cash flow. All this stashed away riches on Caymans and no place to spend it like Oligarchs. What is the world coming to!
Sheeple is what feeds the treasure trove of first world Oligarchical cash flows! If the sheeple bleed dry so do the Oligarchs.
Depression is such a witch with sharp teeth and sticky fingers... Bitchezzz.
lol. of course, it wasn't ALL fun and games - as Joe Pesci portrayed so (annoyingly!) brilliantly in the Martin Scorcese film, "CASINO" (as the East Coast thug who loved to dig burial holes for his butchered victims in the Vegas desert)
but, gimme a break: you couldn't find ANY good food, in Vegas ???!