Impressions of Las Vegas, Friday August 10-Tuesday August 15, 2000
I flew to Vegas on Friday, connecting through
Charlotte with a 3-hour layover. My flight was on
time, amazingly enough, so I had some time to walk
around and eat some Pizza Hut breadstix. The Charlotte
airport has gotten really nice?I think it's been over
a decade since I was in there. There were white
rocking chairs placed out around the food court, and a
little jazz trio playing. I actually kind of enjoyed
the enforced wait for my connecting flight!
Erin was landing around the same time as I was in
Vegas, and we managed to connect thanks to the
technology of cell phones. His coworker Gary was with
him. Gary's a friendly, somewhat urban-hipster-tech
gay guy. Erin left Gary and I at the baggage carousel
while he ran off for some quick foodage. Gary was
looking through a printout listing of queer clubs in
the Vegas area between chatting with me and looking
for his suitcases. He said he intended to go out that
night, which amazed me since it felt like 11:30pm
already (it was 8:30 local time).
Erin showed up right after we'd pulled everything off
the carousel, and we went to catch a cab to our hotel.
As Erin was getting into the cab behind me, Gary
accidentially slammed the door on Erin's finger. Wups.
The cab ride was mostly occupied with Gary feeling
guilty, me trying to soothe Erin, and Erin emitting
streams of curses. I didn't catch many of the Strip's
lights, since we were along the interstate and I was
alternately trying to look at and avoid looking at
Erin's finger.
We pulled up to the Venetian in short order. The
exterior was designed just like a square in Venice,
with a small canal and everything. Very opulent. I was
surprised to see several fountains, both at the
Venetian and especially across the street at the
Mirage. Aren't there serious water restrictions there?
They must lose gallons upon gallons from those
fountains to evaporation every day, since the air is
so dry.
The Venetian is a brand-new huge, sprawling hotel that
matches all the other brand-new huge, sprawling hotels
around Vegas, feature for ostentatious feature. The
whole place is done up with these fake columns and
frescoes and statues, which I later learned were
mostly made of space-age plastics. The level of
service is completely amazing everywhere you turn. The
casino is large and noisy and buzzes with
international gamblers of every stripe. The shopping
mall has a canal in the middle, and you can take
gondola rides along it if you wish. [This canal is
located ABOVE the casino level. I'd be curious as to
how the builders, designers, and engineers responsible
for this place felt so sure that there would be no
leakage.] There's a restaurant row with installments
from such celebrity chefs as Stephen Pyles, Emeril
Lagasse, Wolfgang Puck, and Charlie Trotter.
The rooms have the Guinness record for largest hotel
rooms. Our bathroom had a huge, sunken tub like the
one we have at home, a large glass-walled shower,
brass fittings, a vanity, and a separate small room
with just the toilet in it. There were 2 tvs, one in
the bedroom area and one in the living room area.
There was a fax machine/printer in our room. And so
on.
We put down our bags, and I ran down to the casino
level to grab some quick food from a food court I'd
noticed on the way in. I carried it back to the room,
we snarfed, and then we crashed. I barely woke up when
Erin let KC into our room around 2:30am.
We woke up around 9am, famished and ready to explore.
After showers and dressing, we went downstairs and ate
a breakfast buffet. The fruit was a-ma-zing! We ate a
ton of pineapple. I guess they don't have to fly it as
far as they do to get it to DC, so it's super-fresh.
We ate so much that we didn't need to eat again until
around 7pm.
We went outside and walked around. It was very, very
hot, and dry as a bone outside. I think it was around
107 degrees. I wanted to at least see the Siegfried
and Roy tigers, who I'd heard were in a cage for
viewing at the Mirage. [Side note: Mom told me this
story once about visiting the Mirage and going to see
the tigers. The tigers weren't in the cage, but a guy
was there cleaning it out. And there was a huge crowd
of people watching him clean the cage. Hah!] Only one
was in there, and he was sitting in the pool, blissed
out. How come our cats don't like to recline in a pool
like that? The tiger stood up and shook out, and we
saw that there was a Jacuzzi jet where he'd been
reclining. Sweet.
KC had to go to the bathroom, so Erin and I stood
outside and waited for her. There was some old geezer
playing a $1 slot outside the bathrooms, and in the
time we waited we watched him lose over $50. WTF?? I
could have put $50 to much better use. He didn't even
appear to be having fun. He was just hitting the
buttons and looking bored.
Well, we wandered on, to Caesar's Palace, and KC and I
checked out FAO Schwartz while Erin watched a 3-D IMAX
flick that took about 15 minutes. $10 for 15 minutes
of film! I don't know why Vegas has a reputation as
being cheap if you don't gamble. It certainly isn't.
We headed back to the hotel around 1 and Erin and I
went off to the Canyon Ranch SpaClub for workouts
while KC napped. This was far and away the best
experience I had in Vegas. The level of service, and
the quality of everything around me, could not be
beat. Free bottled water, no wait for anything I
wanted to use, all kinds of funky cardio machines,
computerized LifeFitness weight circuit. The locker
rooms gave me my own locker with its own combination,
funky plastic nubbly slippers, and a thick bathrobe.
There was a Jacuzzi, a steam room, a sauna, and a cold
dip. After a workout and some time in the Jacuzzi, I
went into the lounge and relaxed and ate a banana and
drank some juice. Very peaceful, very calming. The
showers had salon products (Philosophy) and thick,
thirsty towels stacked right there waiting for me. I
worked out all three full days I was there, and it was
absolutely the best part of the whole Vegas trip.
We had made reservations at Star Canyon, Stephen Pyles
Tex-Mex restaurant, for 6pm that night. Erin and Gary
had tickets to see the Blue Man Group at the Luxor, a
show we thought started at 8. Well, as Erin and I were
waiting for KC outside Star Canyon, he looked at his
ticket and saw the show started at 7. Wups. So we
cancelled the reservation and cabbed down to the
Luxor, meeting up with Gary in the cab line by chance.
I walked around, got some Chinese food, and played
some nickel slots while Erin and Gary watched the
show, and then we went back to the hotel room and
crashed. KC went to Caesar's Palace to see Chuck Berry
and Little Richard while we were at the Luxor. Her
report of the concert primarily concerned the advanced
age of the two musicians and her shock at realizing
how decrepit they were (especially Little Richard).
Sunday, we went back to the same place for breakfast,
mostly since we'd been so impressed with the fruit
there. We then relaxed in the room for a while, and
then the three of us went back to Canyon Ranch to work
out. Erin's conference started Sunday night, but
before he went off to that the three of us had a
chance to dine at Pyles' Taqueria Canonita, a more
casual restaurant. I had a black bean and corn tamale
that was outstanding, and some mushroom tacos.
Yummmmm. KC and I then split off from Erin and walked
down to the Riviera for a show.
The Riviera is a somewhat has-been type of hotel and
casino. Very tacky, very cheesy, not posh at all like
the Venetian is. We went there because I didn't have a
lot of money for a really great show, but I'd wanted
to see boobs, drag queens, or both during my trip. I
kind of sensed that KC was a little disappointed with
what a cheapskate I was being, but she denied it when
I asked her about it (I would have done the same
thing). I just couldn't bring myself to spend $50-60
on a show?I never spend that much on a concert or a
club night, and would rarely approach it even if I
went out to dinner beforehand.
We chose to take in Crazy Girls, a topless revue. We
bought our tickets and then went and waited in line in
a lobby area that probably looked really cool around
1983: chrome and glass panel railing near the
escalators, mirrored columns, flashing lights.
Eventually they herded us in, and KC and I managed to
snag a table. The theatre probably held all of 250
people, and was much dinkier than I'd expected to see.
The people who were there were a mixed crowd, both
ethnically and in terms of gender. I was a little
surprised to see so many women there; topless shows
are definitely not a man's world in the same way they
are in other cities.
Every single one of the dancers, with the possible
exception of the one woman of color, had fake boobs.
They all had tiny, barbie-doll bodies, and most of
them had strong muscles, especially in their legs. The
show started off with a cheezy song called "crazy
girls" that they lipsynced, dancing in a line wearing
chaps, g-strings, and little leather vests. There were
screens on either side of the stage showing film of
the womens' G-strings and butts. I didn't realize
these screens were showing taped footage and not
displaying images from a live camera until later, when
the film and the dancing were obviously unsynchronized
(bad, bad, bad!). The show segued into lots of
predictable numbers about issues like boobs, why these
women dislike their men, and so on. (I kind of enjoyed
the en Vogue "Never Gonna Get It" number, just 'cause
I like that song a lot.)
Every few numbers, a comedian came out and chatted us
up. She told lots of sex and dick jokes, which were
kind of cheap humor but at least they weren't
offensive jokes about sexual orientation or anything
like that. I was amused by a comedian at a tit show
turning out to be a woman, half of whose jokes were
based on her husband's sexual proclivities. I kind of
liked her. I like it when women talk trash. It's
unconventional, and she was at least moderately funny.
One number involved two women dancing and caressing in
a spotlight over a padded massage-type table on the
stage. The music was all fake-ethereal with high piano
notes, and there was fake fog on the stage. Come on! I
leaned over to KC after the number was over and asked,
"What do men think women do in bed, anyways??" Women
FUCK, they don't caress each other gently while
reenacting "Claire of the Moon"?and they definitely
don't do it for the enjoyment of men.
After the show was over, we considered checking out
the drag show, but we found out we were too late?it
had already started, and neither of us wanted to be
stuck all the way in the back. We played some nickel
slots in the "nickel heaven" section, and then walked
back to the Venetian.
The part of the Strip between the Riviera and the
Venetian is pretty weird. This is where I saw a bunch
of all-you-can-eat buffets, the places that host
concerts by people like Wayne Newton, and a million
guys trying to hand out prostitution advertisements
("We come straight to your room!") One of the
strangest things along the way was a small Kosher meat
carryout, with pastrami and hot dogs on the menu and
not much else. If it'd been a dairy place, I'd have
wanted to try it just for the culture clash of a
Kosher meal on the Strip. This whole area was the
sleazy, cheezy Vegas I'd somewhat expected and hoped
for. Even though the show was kind of bad, I was glad
I'd had a chance to see the campier, seamier side of a
newly "Disneyfied" city.
Speaking of Disneyfied?this city is not what I'd
consider "kid-friendly." Every newer hotel has
SOMEthing?the Venetian has Madame Tussaud's Celebrity
Encounter, a wax museum?but it all costs a pretty
penny, and it's not like there's attraction after
fascinating attraction. Vegas is still about gambling
and sex work, and there's no avoiding it, not even if
you hole up on the edge of town in a Holiday Inn with
a swimming pool and have bookoos bucks to spend on
things like IMAX movies and FAO Schwartz toys. You'd
still have to drive past the ads for topless shows,
and walk past the casinos on your way to the hotel and
the movie or shop.
I s'pose I could tell you all the gory details of the
rest of my trip, but there's not much point. We didn't
do anything else all that interesting. I finished off
the quarters I'd brought with me for slots, but I
didn't win anything, I didn't go anyplace amazing, I
didn't eat any food as interesting or well-prepared as
the stuff from Taqueria Canonita. Even Gary, Erin's
coworker, said the gay club he went to was filled with
old trolls and was pretty boring with bad music.
I guess I could say that I had a decent time, but I
didn't like the city too much and I certainly wouldn't
go back unless I had a conference or some such to draw
me there. I mean, Vegas has this veneer of sin and
decadence. I'm a fairly decadent person, and I looked
forward to visiting a city that celebrated it. But
instead of being a real and fleshy decadence, Vegas
celebrates a very plastic, veneer kind of decadence.
It's a commercial nightmare of what decadence is. I
circulate in a community that celebrates real
sexuality, that makes the most delightful evenings
accessible via good inexpensive restaurants, friendly
intelligent conversationalists, and decent dance
clubs. Vegas didn't offer any of those things, as far
as I could tell. It just offered some fake boobs and a
vague ringing bell sound that promises somebody,
someplace is scoring?and it sure as hell ain't you.
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