Monday, August 20, 2007

Viva las V.

It's my blog and I'll comment, even if 803,000 others already have (I mean, I don't know, but I'm sure they have): Viva Viagra? What the hell. The King and ED. Did Priscilla or somebody need a sudden influx of cash? Why aren't I more shocked? I'm not. It's so....Boomer.

I was actually in Vegas last weekend. And (really really randomly):

* I went to some topless swimming places in Europe, many years ago, but this was the first time I went to a topless pool, if you see what I mean. Partook. Drank from the (non bra) cups of freedom. It felt naughty, at first, but then, frankly, kinda normal. Really normal. It was different to actually inhabit that behavior rather than just defend the right to do it. Left me feeling very what's the big deal? Insouciant.

* I had so much amazing pineapple in Vegas. The produce is so good. Which goes right along with the fact that I took a gas-guzzling plane to the middle of a desert to float in a chlorinated pool and become dehydrated until I bought some imported water to take into the pool with me. At a 3,500-room hotel. In the desert.

* The most depressing place in Vegas: the dark wood and 70s stained glass of (formerly Barnaby Coast) Bill's Gambling Palace, despite the great squishy rolls at the Victorian Room 24-hr diner staffed by hostesses in their high-necked, maxi-skirt 70s/Victorian uniforms. It's also kinda fabulous, as are most depressing places in Vegas, but still. A chic, velvet-rope club stuck in the middle of all this rumpus-room gloom (Drai's) makes it even weirder. Oh were the skirts in that place short. And it wasn't just the 21+older pool (see first item), but man did I see a lot of breasteses this weekend, all-told. Just...acres.

* I have now been to a Margaritaville, one of the chain of Jimmy Buffett experiences. It was...um...it was... The bartenders pump Super-Squishee margaritas from the big machines for a stream of people (boring bar-keeping, I thought) and the whole atmosphere is super-saturated with the Ray-Bans-on-a-Croakie-around-yer-neck, leathery tanned, not really all that mysterious Parrothead mystique. There is a huge screen playing JB songs and JB-like songs, a big gift shop in all neon pinks and yellows selling shirts and drink mix and cookbooks and (this is the best thing) once an hour or so these Margaritaville employees come out for some enforced fun, dancing on stilts and blowing whistles as the song "Margaritaville" itself finally plays, clapping their hands and exhorting the guests while a woman in a bikini slides down the giant exploding volcano into a 15-foot tall glowing green glass of margaritas. Then a huge hook lifts her out and she table dances while people 1/2-eat their nachos and 1/2-watch her and then the frat boys get their pix taken with her and she dries off to do it all again in an hour and wonder about her Juilliard training going to waste. Or something. It was very Itchy and Scratchy Land. And you know? The food wasn't bad. In for a penny. Vegas. BTW I wanted to sit next to the big green margarita. My bad. Like the front row at a Gallagher show.

* I saw some hypnotist dude do his HypNaughty show. Yes, I did. It didn't quite rival the topless Showgirls of Magic show I saw with my friend John at the Hotel San Remo some years ago, but it was pretty....yeah, whatever, yeah. Yeah!

* I have a tacky streak a mile wide in me that lets me enjoy the glare and mercenariness and usury and sounds and addiction/compulsion-enabling without getting cripplingly depressed, but I've never quite had the experience I wanted to in funny ol elusive Vegas. Someday. Maybe there's too much pressure to have fun? I hate to think $ is the cause, but perhaps that's partly it too. I can tell you I lost $1 on the penny slots, and will declare it on my income taxes as required by law.

* All these new condos going up near the strip with gold windows the same color as the mountains and desert around them. They feel bleak and other-wordly, not luxe. In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree... Very Dubai school-of-arch. They seem like they're already relics from the bursting of the bubble.

* I had my first really bad fat girl flying experience coming back on the anthropomorphized Ted (formerly United) Airlines. Somewhere there is a meathead, muscle-bound dude in Chicago with a fierce hex hanging over his head from the horrid, unkind way he handled having to sit next to me. NOT GOOD.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Uhhhh, I just watched the viagra link. I get to leave the planet now, right? I've done my time?

Clover said...

are we to assume that these MARRIED men are then off to vegas to cheat on their wives?