Vegas is exciting, Vegas is sad. It's a microcosm of America, so much so that marketing researchers use it for surveys all the time. Clark County Nevada has been one of the fastest growing places in the US for quite a few years now. The Mafia is largely gone, but corporatism has moved in big-time. The more the Right represses, the more Vegas will grow. It's not hard to find a job - maybe you'll clean rooms, maybe you'll deal craps for six bucks an hour but earn good tips and work your way up. Vegas is multi-cultural but more of caste system than melting pot. "You have to know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone," I heard a service worker say.
The first time I was there it was for my first convention. Someone took my suitcase, ticket and money out of my room. I sat and watched people win and people lose - thousands, and I lived for awhile by eating at hospitality rooms. The second time I was just passing through. The third time was for a convention but I went out enough to get oriented. This time was for pleasure and to document what is being born and what is dying. It is no coincidence that there is now a "boneyard" for old neon. "Las Vegas has no sense of history," a bus driver told me. "Ever since someone wrote 'In God We Trust' on the dollar bill, this town has run by one fiver letter word." "Money?" I guessed? "No, Greed," he said. "Greed - those who come here & those who make money off them."
Before the Millennium, there was a push to make Vegas family-friendly. There are still things that children enjoy, like the lions at the MGM grand or the Arcade at Circus Circus or the exploding volcano at the Mirage. They are up at all hours, whether carted along by tourist parents or children of local Hispanic families out on Saturday night. The promoters have recognized that adult-oriented venues make more money, so now "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," which is to say that there is a more overtly sexual thrust. It's quite jarring in these times of "family values" and ostensible morality, to see burlesque shows, an X-rated Cirque du Soleil show and pulp magazines full of women for hire (though not overtly prostitutes).
On the Strip, things have gone crazy in that all the towering hotels have false facades, each with a gimmick. It's like Disneyland for adults and the themes run abruptly one into the other. You can travel north to south for a couple of miles - from Burma to Egypt to Middle Ages Europe, to Monte Carlo, New York City, Rome, Lake Como, tropical isles, a pirate ship, the frontier, a Circus and a Space Tower. Cross the street you'll find more Tropics, Morocco, Paris, Miami, China, Venice, a strange building that looks like a neon bank (they call it "Wynn" and it's not for losers). If you want to branch out perpendicular to the Strip, you can go to Rio or New Orleans. San Francisco is in the works. If the idea is to escape from the real world, it works - The Sands, The Sahara, Aladdin - they all have themes which evoke imagery from countries we're at war with.
The historic southern Strip (Stardust, Frontier, Riviera, Sahara, Circus Circus) is now called "the Hood" and anything reminiscent of the 40s, 50s, 60s or even later will be gone in five years - or less. The clubs that featured Wayne Newton, Elvis and Frank Sinatra are now surrounded by cranes and rubble.
The Riviera, where I've stayed twice now, was the first high-rise in a time when The Strip was motor inns and the action was downtown on Fremont Street. Now it's kind of quaint and you can Win A Mercedes For A Penny at an arcade which plays 50s hits. This is the kind of thing that is endangered now that the downtown has been brutally murdered by Steve Wynn and his ilk.
It's not just about resorts. There is M&M World, with five floors and a three-D movie. You can see a Coca Cola bottle elevator or a giant Harley. These are free, but no one really leaves without buying at least something. There is the Liberace Museum and there is an Elton John Store. You can go to a Nascar Theme Park, ride around New York City in a roller coaster, or have a bungee-like experience at the Stratosphere, which is twice as high as the Space Needle. There are still 60 wedding chapels, there are three of the nation's biggest convention centers, there are several big malls and every casino/resort has one as well. Under the half-scale Eiffel Tower at Paris Paris is a French village, and under Aladdin in a kind of Moroccan souk, where the sky changes and there might be a storm but no one really gets wet.
Each casino has a competing gimmick - shark reef, lion preserve, dolphin pool, barge, beach, waves, exploding volcano, pirates vs sirens, gondolas. If you time it right, you can have free shows up and down the Strip. There are sexy nightclubs with suggestive names - Tangerine, Pure, Tryst, Coyote Ugly, Krave, Lure. Magicians, big names (Celine Dion, Elton John), oldies (Temptations, Don Rickles), shows (Beatles "Love" by Cirque du Soleil, Blue Man Group, Phantom of the Opera). It's overwhelming. I'm sure they're all drop=dead gorgeous and breathtaking. The Beatles show certainly was, and Paul and Yoko and Ringo and Debbie Harry and Sting all thought so too, when they were at the premiere. It's at the 30 million dollar theater where Siegfried and Roy performed before they got mauled. There are 6000 plus sound sources and speakers in the seats.
Things have changed. When I first went to Vegas in 1974, the old MGM Grand and Caesar's Palace were the glamorous places to go. Circus Circus was trendy. In the 1980s, the MGM Grand burnt down and now it's replacement has 6000 rooms. In the old days, a fancy casino was called a "carpet joint," and now marble and slate are coveted. Gold reflective glass is popular and gold neon. Circus Circus now is considered downscale, though it still brings in alot of gambling revenue. It has an RV park behind and brings in families and locals. Mirage was the place to go, in its time, as Steve Wynn tried to bring in the yuppie money. Now Wynn, his new resort, is trendy, as were Mandalay Bay, or Bellagio not so long ago.
Twenty-somethings seem to be more interested in drinking and checking each other out than gambling or going to shows. They seem to like Rio, with its big clubs and fake beach. Hooters, Hard Rock and Margaritaville make the corporatism complete. If you pay extra, you can be a "VIP" and go to the head of the line for the ultralounges (which are something like humongous discoteques). I didn't see Britney Spears or Paris Hilton, but I did hear someone screaming into a cell phone that she had just seen "freaking Jennifer Lopez" get out of a limo.
Transportation - free corporate monorails going only to their own casinos, double-decker bus belonging to the city, the real monorail used by service workers, the trolley system. Don't try to walk - each "resort" (with its own mall, spa, clubs, 4-star restaurants, buffets, casinos, and thousands of hotel rooms) covers several regular city blocks. You can rent a classic car, a limo, a Harley - or the latest - a Hummerzine (which is a limosine-sized Hummer), and there will be screaming girls hanging their heads (or more) out.
Food - don't worry if you can't afford four star (Wolfgang Puck, Emeril etc). There are plenty of buffets at all levels of quality and price, and there are alot of people who look like they are completely and totally into buffets. If one is truly desperate, Denny's and MacDonalds never close. Alcohol is everywhere, with free beer at Slots of Luck and mixed drinks by the bottle in the convenience stores. There are mobile bars as well as mobile billboards advertising that you can have a nineteen year old delivered to your room. Scattered areas are dicey and there are so many scouts handing out cards for escort services or enticing people with freebies if only they will listen to a presentaion about a time-share called Tahitian Village. In places, it has the feel of a third world place, made up of only rich and poor. Then there are the big thuggish security guys who keep the hawkers away from the casinos (and make sure everyone else stays in line).
The downtown has been turned into a Mall, the old casinos raped and covered by a five-block-long overhead multimedia projection system. They have literally covered the entire historic downtown with a no-cars theme park whereby the casinos turn off their lights every hour and a giant movie is projected over a five block area. Do you want to see aliens or the birth of civilization? You can. Downtown used to have a lot of character and was vibrant, like Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Now it's not possible to take decent photos of the neon on the casinos without the big framework for the multimedia show getting in the way. It is clean, it feels safer and it really makes me think of Mall of America, not historic downtown Las Vegas. Steve Wynn actually managed to make downtown Las Vegas itself into a theme park.
If you read the history, you'll learn that the Mafia were once powerful enough to elect polticians. Now corporations are able to do the same thing. When Howard Hughes didn't want to be evicted, he bought the hotel he lived in. Now it appears that Kirk Kerkorian and Steve Wynn own most of the town, with Donald Trump moving in from the east. There is wheeling and dealing going on at all levels, from the people who carry your bags and transport you into town, to those who offer to comp you meals if you'll consider a time share, to those who would massage you with their bodies (and more, if you are willing to run up a credit card bill). Who are the real sellouts? What is really being prostituted?
"A baby boomer retires every 11 seconds," said Steve Wynn (owner of Mirage, Mandalay Bay, The Venetian and Wynn). He wants to bring Las Vegas to a whole new level (you could call it "gentrification") - the problem is that he can't keep ordinary people from wandering in to watch the show for free. He can't hide the obesity epidemic, he can't orient the elderly who return, and the way things are going, he may not be able to pay the electric bill.
Already there is an electricity surcharge that you pay when you leave your hotel. There is a fuel surcharge for your plane ride. When you wash your hands, a controlled amount of water and soap are released automatically, especially at the airport. Never mind that the electricity for the old Stardust sign is more than would be used for a town of 30,000 or that the Mirage uses a natural gas pipeline for a volcano eruption every half hour.
They also pump pina colada into the air, to cover up the gas smell. There must be a lot of sewage produced in a typical weekend, given the number of buffets and the portion sizes. Not every one can try the five star restaurants, so steak and lobster for $12 still sounds like a pretty good deal. Every city has a characteristic aroma. Paris smells like perfume, bread, cigarette smoke and diesel. Bangkok smells like jasmine, cigaretter smoke and and diesel. Las Vegas smells like sewage, pina colado, cigarette smoke and diesel.
One old lady from Indiana made me think of Mister Magoo. The bus went by New York New York and she mistook the Lower East Side and she said, "Look at those apartment buildings." She saw a billboard with the Chippendales. Her friend told her they were male strippers. "I thought those were the guys who could change their voices and sang real high" (meaning Alvin and the Chipmunks). "No, you're confused," said her friend, "You are thinking of Chip and Dale."
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