Vegas baby!!

We've all heard those words. Well, uh, I went this last week, just got back as a matter of fact. We went as the Williams Footprint-big and smelly. Most of us went to celebrate Jeannette and Tara's respected birthdays. We stayed in the MGM and did Vegas stuff. If you are reading this, two things- one-boredom has overcome you and two-go out and kiss your sidewalk for living where you do.

Listen, I've been to Las Vegas for work and pleasure. I've walked and been one of the privileged few to actually have run down the center of it a few years back, so I'm not some Puritan prude pontificating pleas of propriety. We had fun and laughed-a lot. But there were things observed and witnessed that I wish I could take a Brillo pad and scrub from my brain.

Let's address the sound issue. IT'S TOO FRIGGIN' LOUD IN THAT TOWN! There is no place-no place-you can go to where it's quiet, unless you count filling the bathtub with water and submerging yourself under the water but then you can still hear the guy flush the toilet two floors above you. Bells, chimes, people screaming, radios, announcements, cars honking, people honking, gee whiz guys, can't we all just take a breath?

Drinking anything seemed to be pretty high on the list of things you do there. When I went down for a coffee from Starbucks at 6:15 am, bars were open. Okay, I get that. That's fine; I'm hip; I'm in the know. But that's for people just getting off third shift at the docks. Who the hell is swilling Jack at 6:15 in the morning and DOESN'T have a drinking problem or entered in some weird reality TV docu-drama? How about the "Yard of Alcohol?" Yep, they measure liquid by the foot in Vegas. Interesting.

Good deals are still found in this little hamlet. But you have to looooookkkkkk haaaarrrrrddd. Coco's still had a breakfast for $3.99 and McDonald's in the MGM still had their dollar menu but that's it. Yeah, there were buffets but good luck finding the all you can eat for $5. We were shopping in Caesar's Forum and Joni wanted a Gellato and an ice tea. Okay, it was hot outside and we were on a sort-of vacation and she wanted some treats, I get that.

$18 later I felt they should have kissed me first. "They over-charged you, let me talk to them," she will say when she tells the story. I told her 'no,' don't bother. She will say I weenied up and wouldn't let her "discuss" the issue with the person who was having trouble with the translation from English to some language from Southeast Asia via Nepal. She's right, I didn't. I admit. I figured it was just part of the pain, since I had paid, just an hour before, $9 for a baby hot dog and a water. At least with the Gellato I got to taste it. Actually, I licked the bowl and wiped it out with my fingers. The slime we normally leave on a container like that is about $2 in this market.

Speaking of early mornings, the collection of people out at the slots working hard to buy mommy a new pair of shoes is impressive. They are propped up with their feet on the chair next to them, apparently having been in that position for hours, smoking their cigarette holding it with their thumb and forefinger, like the old Gestapo. Their eyes long since done tearing from the smoke and the three teeth still left in their head, made easy work for sipping their Jack through a straw. Just one more spin would bring them home to papa.

Speaking of three teeth, we went to Coyote Ugly.

It's a bar in the New York, New York Hotel. Its famous, although I don't remember seeing it advertised in Newsweek. I am sure I have lost some of my hearing and here is where the Brillo pad comes in. You see, its not your typical bar. It's the last hope for men. If you were trolling the bars on the Strip and your pick-up lines were not working as well as once or twice you got your face slapped, you wind up here. This is where people of last resort go. Women, grandmothers, the handicapped, dancing on the bar, taking off their bras and hanging them from the ceiling. But the good news was the beer was only $3 and it was cold. The music was real good even though it was at a decibel level that caused my bowels to spontaneously release. We went as a group because the birthday girls wanted to go see it. It was Travis and I as the two men with a herd of women. Travis was with Tara and watching over her and I had my son's back and, I guess, everyone else. You see, we were in a bar, a bar with drunk men, who had wound up here after being slapped by thousands of women, not just that night and all up and down the Strip, but probably for their entire lives. We had some nice looking ladies in our group. Anyone one of them could have made a nice kidnapping victim. The girls were young and naive enough to not even know they had been kidnapped until the next morning when they woke up on the tramp steamer. Frankly, this isn't a place where you go and meet and strike up long conversations with each other to learn the deep secrets and inflame your heart's interest in the opposite sex; you are there to fish the game and get out. Gaff something and leave with it. I could just see this thing erupting into a drunken brawl.

I thought "The Russian" might have taken a shot. He looked either like Napoleon or one of those factory workers from the Ukraine. Oh, and he was drunk. How do I know? He was dancing by himself while carrying on a conversation-with himself. "Geko Man" might have tried. His eyes worked independently of one another making him able to see around corners. When you looked at him, you didn't know what eye to make eye contact with. But he got lucky with a woman; at least I think she was a woman. Hmm.

All in all, it was fun. I discovered something about myself there. I like comfort. Now, I can camp, survive, get dirty, crawl, hunt, and handle myself in 'close quarter crisis management' situations with the best of them, at least that's what my 18 year old heart says feeding my 12 year old boy's brain. But why? Hmm. I'm fifty-one. I like soft and cozy things now. I want a hotel that doesn't smell like stale Pal-Mal's. They all did except for The Venetian. That place makes a hearty man say "Ahhhh." I want to do shows, sleep, and instead of walking, take the tram. Something with air-conditioning. I will watch Treasure Islands ships sink and re float every time. And I really don't mind paying $18 for some tea and Gellato. As long as there is a foot rub in the deal.