Cowboy Confessional

There is no place quite like Las Vegas to give one perspective, typically by first disposing of all perspective through bright lights, vivid primary colors, and copious quantities of alcoholic disposition adjustment fluid.

For those readers who have never sojourned in the Big Sleazy, dispense now with your black-and-white celluloid visions of cigarette smoke obscured stages where Frank and Dino sing lusty songs while Bugsy Siegel watches everyone suspiciously from the corner of his steely eye. Vegas has gone through two major changes in my minor life span, and it is evolving into something even more frightening than before.

Last year I had the great fortune to accompany a lady of good repute and devastatingly skilled prose to Vegas. In all her years – which numbered more than mine — she had not once landed in Vegas, despite having lived in more places in the U.S. and Europe than I ever plan to. Hell, the number of cities she has lived in number more than the times I’ve been drunk in Vegas, which by itself is an impressive sum.

She “got” Vegas in less than 60 seconds. Walking down the strip and into one of casinos, she suddenly said “This is Disneyland for adults.”

Bingo. Give that lady a cigar.

Vegas was once called Sin City, because that was its precise design — a place in the uptight and (back then) utterly puritan United States where one found reasons to later on attend confession. Businessmen (there were few business women in that era) planned conference in Vegas for the secondary reason of conducting business. Their primary mission was to drink heavily, squander other people’s money, and fornicate with hookers.

You know, a typical day for a New York governor.

But something quirky happened as the baby boomers entered the middle-class majority, and redefined where “the money was.” With kinder in tow, the grandfatherly paternity of Ronald Reagan in their heads, and with what all we did with and to one another in the 60′s, the old Vegas vices were no longer a powerful draw. So Vegas reinvented itself, turning from a district of debauchery into a colorful playground with something for kids as well as adults. Sure the seamy side of Vegas remained — after all it is still a convention town — but one could bring a child there and not have it become completely corrupt before the vacation was over. And if the kids were perverted beyond repair, then you at least knew where they would reside after turning 18.

Along with the burgeoning baby boomers came the building boom. Vegas exploded in size not only due to the influx of tourist, but an evolving economy that required suburbs and stable families. The boomers, having visited Vegas, decided to stay, forever wrecking the nasty noir that we cynical folks found so endearing. Beside suburbs as far as one can see from atop the Stratosphere, the strip itself exploded — growing from a mere 1,300 rooms in the early sixties, to several bizzilion today … at that is just at the Wynn.

But the City of Excess changed yet again. Though not planned as the earlier family-friendly shift was, the city somehow recognized that being all sin or all family was a profit-limiting exercise. One commentating bartender said to me during this week’s trip “There is now something for everyone. Roller coasters for the kids, hip night clubs for the twenty-somethings, resident acts for middle-aged farts, and bingo for the retirees. Oh, and hookers.”

Condominiums are the next change. Not content to reside in surrounding suburbs or in swank casino hotels, the strip is being invaded with high-rise condominiums for the well-heeled. Many or the riche buying these apartments-with-mortgages will be part-time residents. Others won’t.

Imagine the level of boredom one must have in order to desire living on the Vegas strip. To spend every day surrounded by a swarm of pot bellied tourist, pale legs exposed under Bermuda shorts to the blazing desert sun, jiggling their way down the strip in search of their next margarita and a “guaranteed payout” slot that is “due.” For one’s daily scenery to be the plastic veneer of a completely artificial town, echoing poker chips, never ending streams of whiskey and the occasional flesh show …

Hmmmmm. Suddenly it is not sounding all that bad.

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This entry was posted by Guy Smith on Friday, April 4th, 2008 at 8:59 pm and is filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.