I've not read Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Lothing in Las Vegas, but I think I will.
Vegas is NOT my kind of town. I can't explain why it's not my kind of town, but I think it's got something to do with the lack of reality and originality. It almost certainly has something to do with me being no longer young and carefree - not to mention being cautious with my money. I can imagine enjoying Vegas if I was 21 and single. I can even imagine surviving Vegas if I was 21 and single - almost.
At 39 and married with children, Las Vegas made me suddenly and severely depressed.
I cried a lot in Las Vegas.
At first glance, it's certainly impressive. Everything exists on a grand scale. All of the world's most iconic monuments reproduced and thrown together along a couple of miles of "strip". But they're just repoductions. And they're not faithful reproductions. They're reproductions calculated to find an economic sweet spot where visual impact is maximised on a budget. It all feels like Emerald City in the land of Oz - and the man behind the curtain is a shifty bastard!
The most appopriately named casino in Vegas .... The Mirage
So, after a long ride on a Greyhound bus, and a short-ish ride in a taxi - we arrived at our castle. And let me firstly say that my romantic notions of Greyhound buses were shattered. But I can't blame Greyhound for my unrealistic romantic notions. I don't know that Greyhound ever did anything to create the images in my mind. Music and movies are to blame for that. Why should I assume that vagrants fleeing across vast tracts of land to escape their past and create new lives with nothing more than the clothes on their back and perhaps a battered guitar case would be doing so on luxury coaches? Sorry, my bad, but I get it now.
As I said, we arrived at our castle, and in typical Vegas style, first impressions are impressive. Which is no great surprise. For an impression to be other than impressive would require at a minimum some mangling of our language. Of course, what could be more fun than mangling a language? They don't call English a manguage for nothing. In fact, they don't call English a manguage at all. Or, if they do, I've not met them.
Our hotel - Excalibur - is vast. Almost 4,000 motel rooms and about a dozen turrets. All themed in medieval style.
The second thing you notice is the smell. My talents with describing odours are limited - so I fear I can do not justice in describing the smell. It's not a particularly bad smell. It's almost a sweet smell, in a disinfectant sort of a way. I presume it's a cover for the smell of smoke - of which there is plenty in the air. For me, not liking Vegas, the smell quickly became associated with my
overall distaste, and so every time I entered the building, it triggered my feelings of entrapment and revulsion.
Visual impression. Check. Olfactory impression. Check. The next thing we find is a very friendly chap directing us to what we assume to be the check-in desk. Another friendly face at what we still assume to be the check-in desk offers us cheap show tickets. We choose 4 passes to the Tournament of Kings, including an alleged 5 course meal (according to the friendly face), for the kingly sum of $50. Seems like good deal. And to receive our tickets, we just need to attend a short presentation - no more than two hours - at a motel 5 minutes down the road. Now, I have been to Queensland, so whilst I may not recognise the smell of a medieval themed casino, I can smell a timeshare presentation from 100 kms away at 1 part in 1000. Unfortunately, I'm also a sucker for a cheap show ticket, so we agreed to show up at 1:45 the next afternoon - with no obligation - to receive our tickets.
We took our first stroll down the strip. Plenty of street performers are happy to pose for photos in return for a small tip. One of the Michael Jackson's was even creepy enough to pass as a real paedophile.
Still in search of a bargain, we visited a "Tix4Tonight" booth to buy some cheap passes for dinner. If your not familiar, the theory here is that each night you can buy unsold show tickets at reduced prices. They also sell tickets for discount meals. Of course, Vegas being Vegas, things are not always as they seem. The small print on our tickets, which I read as we sat down to eat, specified that a 15% gratuity would be charged on the undiscounted price. Can it really be a gratuity if it's a contractual obligtaion? It can in the English manguage.
So, we've got gambling (obviously), we've got smoking (not surprisingly), but two other vices are on constant display in the city of sin. Firstly, alcohol. Everyone seems to be sipping from a receptacle better suited to fighting forest fires. Some are shaped like plastic guitars (and close to full size), some are shaped like the eiffel tower (and, again, close to full size). And won't those enormous novelty cups come in handy when it comes to packing your suitcase for the trip home?
The other conspicuous vice is sex. At every street corner along the strip you find at least four short Mexicans snapping credit cards and pamphlets into your hand, advertising attractive ladies who can be at your hotel within 20 minutes. If the pictures on the cards are anything to go by, then Vegas has some incredibly hot ladies. If the chaps handing out the cards are anything to go by, then I'd doubt the pictures on the cards are anything to go by. Curiously, I saw as many women's clothing shops in Vegas as I saw casinos - yet looking through these cards you'd get the impression that there are no clothes to be had. Only strange ethereal points of light, and I'm still unsure whether they are intended to hide or to accentuate the rude bits.
But it's not just the cards on the street corners. Every casino seems to have dancers in lingerie, and girls delivering drinks to gamers in lingerie, and girls dealing cards in lingerie. And the breasts are all impressive (though no doubt only cheap replicas of the real thing). There are billboards advertising strip shows. Sex is everywhere. And it gives me an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. And it's not just the employees. There was a lot of very impressive cleavage and short skirts and high heels, and I love to see it, and yet I can't help feeling I'd be better off if I didn't.
And does any city need a shop four stories high dedicated to M&Ms?
So, on day 2 of Vegas we met our tour group for the timeshare presentation. The friendly person who loaded us onto the bus assured us that he valued our vacation time, and that we would return as soon as possible. We were bussed to the Grandview. Now, the guy who booked us in told us it was five minutes down the road. They must have forgotten to drop us off the first time past, because it was 20 minute trip, and I'm sure that no-one trying to sell us timeshare would lie to us.
We waiting in a designated waiting area until, and when our names were called, a very friendly agent gave us some lunch and then a lenghty tour of the motel. It looks very nice - for a place sitting on its own nowhere near the rest of Vegas. By this stage our two hours was up, so we were getting impatient, and we were sat down for the sales pitch. We made it quite clear that we were not interested, and had only attended for the promised cheap tickets. But on she went. And we said no. And on she went. And we said no. And so she called in the big gun. All gold rings and chains. And he sweetened the deal. And we said no. And so he sweetened some more. And with barely concealed impatience we said no. And he made one last pitch. And we said no. And so he stamped an all important slip of paper to confirm that we had put up with his nonsense.
By this stage our friendly representative had turned nasty and refused to speak to us. We were ushered to the next stage, and another almost firendly person. We made clear that we were fed up, that they'd already taken more than 2 hours of our time, and that we wanted to get back to our holiday. "But it says here that you didn't arrive until 2:22pm". Aha, the five minute bus trip that took twenty minutes isn't included in the "no more than 2 hours". So, we answered some questions about how wonderful the sales presentation was, and just how low the final offer we refused was. Then we were ushered to another friendly person, who filled out yet more paperwork, and finally gave us our tickets. Well, not tickets as such. Vouchers to obtain tickets - subject to availability.
And what a fun bus trip back, with a bus full of passengers seething with hatred for the Grandview Las Vegas. Actually, it was probably good to blow off a little collective steam.
By the time we returned to our motel, our "no more than 2 hours" had been 3 hours and 20 minutes.
So, to understand just what's involved in selling timeshare, let's recap how many people chanelled us through this labrynth.
1 - the guy who directed us to the desk in Excalibur
2 - the guy who took our $50 and signed us up for the tour
3 - the guy who loaded us onto the bus
4 - the bus driver
5 - the person who led us from the bus to the waiting area in the grandview
6 - the lady who showed us around and tried to sign us up
7 - the big gun who tried really hard to make the offer look good
8 - the lady who surveyed us
9 - the lady who printed our tickets
10 - the bus driver who returned us to our motel
That's 10 people, or, as I like to call them, cunts, who presumably all received some payment for this unsuccessful attempt (with the possible exception of cunt number 6, who may work for commission - but probably still receives some retainer).
We spent the rest of our time in Vegas fending off offers from other cunts throughout the motel who attempted to feed us back into the machine. I employed my right to dimiss them less than politely.
And the silver lining from this dark cloud? The Tournament of Kings show was really quite good. I'm still having trouble indentifying the five courses that the friendly man at the desk (cunt number 2) promised. We had soup, we had a main meal, we had dessert. I don't claim to be any mathematical genius, but that sounds like three courses to me. I had a glass of coke. Perhaps that could be considered a fourth course.
This has been a pretty long and somewhat vitriolic post, but I'm not yet done with Vegas.
Whilst sitting in the spa at the motel with Jesamine and Connick, a guy who'd clearly been drinking for too many consecutive days and with a chip the size of a Las Vegas margarita clearly upon his shoulder, decided to lecture me about how Jesamine really can't stand me (I believe the proof being that his daughter can't stand him - and I can her point). It was a little uncomfortable, but I have a pretty good sense for which drunken idiots to needle, and which to smile at and nod along with. And so I smiled and nodded, and when his brother joined us, I smiled and nodded some more. Still, I felt it was only a matter of time till matters took a sour turn, and verily did a member of the resort staff arrive of queue and request that they leave the spa. Much agression ensued. And many were the security staff who arrived to herd them from the resort.
And herd they did. There must have been nearly a dozen security staff eventually - but never using undue force. Just herding.
For our last dinner in Vegas, we caught a shuttle to Rio Casino, and to Gaylord's Indian restaurant. This was one of the best Indian meals I've had.
We wandered home through many of the casinos, marvelling at the vacuous and ostentatious fixtures. Indoor fountain anyone? How about a canal complete with gondolas passing under four or five bridges? On a second floor?
No one can deny that Vegas is impressive.
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