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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!
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BTW, there are a hell of a lot of decent Americans trying to earn a living working on the strip and off, so why not just give the place a break...Las Vegans have been through the wringer big time these past few years. If you can't stand the fakeness, fine, take yourself and your kin and book a trip to WallyWorld.
3 days in an alcoholic haze is the only way to do Vegas. Otherwise you realize how pathetic it all is.
Another way:
Hike out of the Grand Canyon by 3PM.
Drive to Vegas and set up a tent at the campground on the shore of Lake Mead - $20
Walk the strip and see every free show and hit an all you can eat buffet
Enjoy the street theatre and the lights
Love that pathetic town for all its worth
Catch a few winks or not
Drive to Death Valley and chill
WAK! You so know that town, have you been out on the Lake Mead docks where they rent the crappy floating RV boat things, look down and see the horribly fungaly infected carp, shit from dead gangsters and their "pals",
fungus gill, dead lake fishoids.
We pitched our tent as far from the water as possible. That is one scary dying puddle pretending to be a lake.
I would love to see the dam removed and the Colorado run free again.
You sound like the kind of guy who would love to read Edward Abbey (in case you haven't figured that out already). He was one of the few people who rafted Glen Canyon before the dam and he ended up with a lifelong hatred for the dam and the civilization that built it. He had a deep aesthetic love of the desert, and also recognized its main practical uses as a place to free the mind and stage a rebellion. Desert Solitaire was his best work, closely followed by The Monkey Wrench Gang.
Last time I was in that town I watched the people, then realized I didn't see any or very few smiles. We all know a smile is an indication of pleasure or happiness.
I have been to other places where I have seen more smiles on the street.
Despite Vegas being obviously fake down to its roots, there is something even worse. It is irrelevant. Like many American cities, their best features cost tens or hundreds of millions but still cannot hide the general fray, frump, and filth. There is no vibrancy, no health, no spirit or ascendency, just the soul of a exposed schemer drowning in emptiness.
Go to Macau to find out what Vegas was like many years ago.
we need more info on why you apparently have just seen Las Vegas for the first time...and why you would take your daughter there for any sort of "competition"...
This isn't me being mean, OK Tim?
I assert that you're a better hedonist than you realize. What "competition" was it that was so important for your daughter to attend? World chess championship? I'm guessing not.
It sounds like you've fallen prey to the "My kid's special..." strain of douchebaggery. It's just as annoying as most of the variants you describe above. Those parents who endure about 8-hour road trips so their 10-year old soccer "prodigy" can find other 10-year olds that can keep up.
It never occurs to these people that if their superstar took the field against average twelve year olds, he'd get his ass handed to him. And what happens inside that kid's head when he realizes that despite traveling to eight different states to find competition when he was ten, he isn't good enough to make his high school team at 17? I'm guessing nothing good.
So don't be real surprised if your daughter grows up with unrealistic expectations of her place in the grand scheme and seeks to escape the reality of her existence every chance she gets.
The important thing is that you look at yesterday's spoiled brats with disdain today.
(OK, this turned out considerably meaner than I expected at the start. Sorry dude, but you may be a bigger part of the problem than you think.)
It's a business. Just like those poetry books, they are coming out with a new volume, your kid's teacher thinks your son/daughter has the talent to submit something great. He/she will be published author for only $250!
Exactly. I wouldn't take my Daughter within 500miles of Las Vegas, and I never did. And she's not going on her own, either; got many better things to do. The Dude is part of the Hive and thinks he's special; oh well.
It seems to me that everything thing there use to available in many parts of the US just undercover. Then all of it was all stopped. Now it is in just one big phony place run by giant corporations. Most thinking people like this author sees it for what it is. Freedom was much better.
Haven't been in Vegas for years, and hopefully my life will be good enough that I never have to get close to the place again, but I have been in Reno a couple of times last few years - on a Grand Canyon trip, and last December, for a service for a paraliding buddy that died (pancreatic cancer - it was shockingly fast, and he was about 25 years younger than me - shit!)
What you did not mention specifically, which surprised me, was the gambling (in general), and the zombie gambling in particular. The biggest downer, for me, was walking through the smoke filled gaming rooms to get from here to there - especially the slots. Oh jeezuz - the slots. Maybe it is because I don't gamble (cards and slots and shit - the New York casino, ah stock exchange is plenty, thanks, and flying an antique plane), but the slot rooms in the big casinos are some level of Dantesque hell - take a stroll sometimes and watch the folks - automans - pick up change from bucket, stick in machine, pull lever or push button - repeat.
Just watch during a slow stroll. their eyes are dead. These folks are absolutely mind dead, so spiritually bereft as to bring about a great sadness in your soul. And I don't wanna hear about me playing Mother Superior here, or some snobish do-gooder or shit like that - just look for yourself with a clear mind. This is some of the most disheartening shit you can endure, if you just look with a clear mind. I have promised myself never to do it again. Strolling among the prostitutes in Brooklyn seems much more enlightening:
http://www.businessinsider.com/check-out-the-stunning-pictures-from-the-...
At least they are alive...
I don't give fuck about Vegas Dave and the smart-ass comments that will follow - Vegas and Reno and just soul dead, embarrasing excesses in the desert - and un-ecological as hell to boot. Sucking up all that water to build palaces of excess to getting rich quick - fundamentally insane. These places are already getting hit with some of the highest foreclosure rates in the country - if (when) the SHTF, they will be the first to go, and good riddance. My one friend and her son in Reno have a hidey hole at my place when required...
You are Right ON Tim.
The real societal benefit of a place like Vegas (or Atlantic City) is that you collect all the most hardcore addicts in one place.
We could do the same with drugs and sex, too. If some people are going to piss away their lives, so be it, there's good reason to keep them out of the way of the rest of us.
Aren't half the heroin addicts in NYC or SanFran, I swear I read that somewhere. I know 3/4 of the spare change zombies are in SanFran.
Probably so on the junkies, but I was thinking more like a fenced-in area with lots of patterned thick carpets and sick-bags. NYC hasn't been the same since they evicted those old Tompkins Sq. Park residents.
And of course the Red Light district for the sex-folks...maybe even put a giant sports-bar in the Midwest somewhere for that set.
I'm not sure what you expected, but that is where people go to fulfill their inner douche.
What better place to go "insane" than in the middle of the desert?
There is a reason Trashy loves it there
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA25LcbWbHc
Mmm...there is no doubt my friend Miles, some men are not logical, they can't be bought, bullied or negotiated with, some men just want to see the world burn.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efHCdKb5UWc
Sometimes ya just gotta burn the shit off
http://books.google.com/books?id=b1aV28GQL94C&pg=PA29&lpg=PA29&dq=burnin...
While some folks will take the dive
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIrehaK5Jks
When you're up to your neck in shit and someone tosses a bucket of puke at you, do you duck? As Janis reminds us, that happy crappy only goes for so long
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTHRg_iSWzM
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose....
But what they do does impact you ... the entire spend now pay later or never mentality is what is behind resource depletion and global warming. We have but one planet and some assholes are using more than their fair share of the resources we have to share.
If we were on an intergalactic spaceship with 100 other people and a few of them (or most of them) were using up more than their share of the food and resouces of the ship, to the point that the mission was likely endangered, of course you would be pissed, and hopefully would do something about it. Of course Earth is exactly an intergalactic spaceship with limited resources
Vegas is the toilet of the US. It just needs to be flushed and cleaned every few decades or lest it fester too long and start upsetting the upstanding moral types.
However, it isn't the only herpe blemish in our culture (far from it). D.C. and Wall Street are just as puss-filled. Problem is they are never cleaned out and the same nasty rash keeps coming back.
When I reflect on it I would rather have Vegas the capital of our country than D.C. and I think Wall Street might be able to fit there just as well. Best to concentrate it all in one easy to flush package.
don't hate ...... there are nuggets of good in Vegas.... bitchez!
What business is it of yours? None, but that hasn't kept generations of self-righteous bigots from butting in.
You took your daughter to Vegas? Why? So you could bitch?
It's not my cup of tea either, but America is prudish, tight-assed, and backward. Ideas have consequences.
Hiding sex, drugs, and rock and roll, simply drives up the price and the hypocrisy.
It also leads to the sort of self-righteous, hypocritical whoring that is far too common among our females. Why not let women be women. It works pretty well. There are women on the planet who actually like men. Try it, you'll like it.
You need to get out more, Tim. Look at the ways in which the rest of the world is better than the States, have a drink and enjoy yourself, AND MIND YOUR OWN DAMN BUSINESS.
As for the depressing spectacle of Las Vegas, be that as it may, it must still be some large multiple of better than a casino in Detroit, where sad people in a state of squalid despair stare fixated in front of slot machines, slowly watching their rent and grocery money fade away.
this post sucked. whoever wrote it, fuck you .
Dude, your in Vegas, what did you think it would be like?
Hollywood, Compton, Brussels,Athens,Beijing, The city of London inc, Manhattan, were you hoping for the uplifting face of humanity seen by travelers in Zimbabwe and Calcutta,the true face of mankind in Laguna beach and Miami........Vegas is the puss filled tip of the boil.
Bangladesh might cheer you up a bit, Glasgow is lovely in August.
Or better yet, compare Vegas to DC, where everyone is a blood sucking zombie whore.
Vegas. Capital of the religion of naked materialism and self indulgence. The ideal world the elites sought to create, but like everything they do, it utterly lacks soul or refinement. But because they are lacking in a key area, its the best that they can do.
The author is dead on. I've lived here part time for 3 years in Summerlin and NYC.
The people here are not-educated, broke, and very fake. Don't even try to hire here. You'll get transients and the "flee's", meaning those who run away from other areas to get a job here. Anyone can pick up and leave their home and come here and go to blackjack dealers school where they can in most cases get a job at 60k/year at a casino.
From what I've heard, this is the only city in the US that publishes the whitepages 2x a year.
It is what America truly is. Not Southern California or the tri-state NYC metropolitan region. I'm here for another opportunity, however, everything that is wrong with this country is epitomized here.
More accident attorneys here than I've ever seen. I guess that's the only job creator out here today.
The weather is nice. The tits are big and getting girls here if you are a decent guy from the northeast are definitely stacked in your favor.
That's all.
john39
The ideal world the elites sought to create
Not hardly, the city the Mafia built.
Built with stolen money, bootlegged booze bucks, tons of hookers, and millions of pounds of illegal drugs,and murderers trying to become regular Bizness mens,respectable,with a new Rep.............with laundered cash piled a mile high.
The Moe Greens,the gangs of Chi Town(funny Chi Town is still owned and operated by THUGS).Las Vegas the city that crime built................
Also, its now a shadow of its former infamy, barely alive, and highest UE rate,and foreclosures on nice homes in the US of A.(or was)
So paybacks are a bitch.
At least Timbo didn't share his thoughts on anything related to investing this time.
The biggest mistake I've ever made is assuming people reason through things logically, or have the ability to detach themselves from the emotion of a moment.
On the flip side, this makes them quite open to properly framed suggestions. I don't know if I should enjoy this, or lament for the future.
it's just business
One good thing in Vegas is the Museum of Nuclear Weapons Testing, run by the Smithsonian Institution, pretty close to the strip [my wife and I walked].
The guides are good old folks who [mostly] used to be involved in the testing programs.
Considering that nukes are still part of our reality, it is good to get up close and friendly with them now and then.
As old Blue eyes sang: This town is a make you town, a break you down town. In my experience it has been the latter.
Still for guys with money to blow on a lark, why not? To take your family there though expecting a version of Disney world, forget it. It will not end like the Chevvy Chase movie with you all driving off in new cars. More like the way the blackjack dealer put it to Chevvy as he sits down at the table again ( I paraphrase): Why don't I just save you the trouble? Give me a couple of hundred bucks and I'll just kick you in the balls. LOL
The bright morning regret following a night of wretched hedonistic excess may represent the pang of inner common sense trying to understand it all.
More context: ~30% of women in 18th Cent. London are estimated to have been prostitutes; 100% in parts of the 19th Cent. NYC Lower East Side, w/ clients slumming-in from affluent parts of Manhattan further north.
Vegas is good for a few things, but none of them have anything to do with Casinos.
I agree drunken debauchery when paid for by the company you work for is fun; clubs, conferences, trade shows, thrill rides (Big Shot ride on top of that tower was fun), although personally quite like the casinos too.
I agree that taking Vegas as a yardstick western civilisation is wallowing in the gutter, but hey, giving in to one's weaknesses can be a good release, and few places are better than Vegas for that.
I think the mistake the author made was being there with his kid.
Yes bringing the kids puts a different spin on it. I do not recommend bringing kids to Macau, which pales Vegas in comparison.
The proper way to do Vegas was pioneered by Hunter Thompson.
Ah, yes. The Good Doctor is sorely missed...
He was an ass-hole,by any measure other than that of a 19 year old boy.
A Dick, a star to the Shit Generation.
Shhhhhhhhh......... Most ZHers love right royal assholes as their heroes. Cue beaver shooting Kyle Bass, the man who is always right!
;-0
ori
How many miles out of Barstow was it, before the drugs began to take hold?
"...there's nobody more helpless or irresponsible than a man in the depths of an ether binge."
I think the good Dr. had the place pegged then and to this very day.
"My little girl, whose competition brings me here".
Assuming 'little girl' isn't figurative, buddy, you're part of the problem and you're not so far removed from the people you loathe, if she's in a competition that's being held in Vegas.