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USA - NEVADA - LAS VEGAS : THE MONEY PUDDLE by Dave Abbott   Rita Rudner opens her 90-minute stand-up routine at New York New York in Las Vegas by noting "No matter what city or place you come from Las Vegas is the total opposite." 35-million visitors and 1-million residents, representing American pie and the Global Village, clearly agree. A city-state, unlike any other on the planet, devised by the fertile imaginations of herb-friendly comic book writers, sci-fi illustrators and MTV video producers, everyone should see Las Vegas. It is visually stunning, an extraordinary phenomenon of blinding opulence. Conceived by Bugsy Segal, a neurotic gangster, who 60 years earlier discovered a god-forsaken desert a few hours drive from Los Angeles, he’d persuaded the Mob to back his dream of building a grandiose casino/hotel, for a couple of million bucks. Sadly, he never lived to taste success having been ‘hit’ for going over budget. From such questionable origins arose this modern Gotham-Gomorrah complete with an Eiffel Tower, Venetian Canals, New York skyscrapers, a Roman Coliseum, a faux 18th century Italian hotel, The Bellagio, and a Treasure Island hotel with Pirates and Sirens that would make Robert Louis Stevenson weep. Superman would feel at home. At night neon, miles and miles of neon, a rainbow of colors, light up the desert sky, dazzling, sparkling, twinkling, spinning, vertically, horizontally, up and down, down and up, around and around like a never-ending kaleidoscope fading only when the sun rises. The flood of humanity on the crowded sidewalks of Las Vegas Boulevard is a plethora of exotica. A few blocks long, the streets are so wide a team of mules and wagons could make u-turns without touching a pedestrian. Las Vegas is a money puddle. A cash delta. It’s as if all the wealth of Wall Street has run down the Continent and found its way here. This is where greed hits the road. It’s welcomed, applauded and cheered on. Gambling is the attraction. It heightens ‘hope’ that the next roll of the dice, or pull of the one-arm bandit or the next blackjack hand promises happiness, a new Mercedes and unlimited sex. And it does happen to the lucky few. Las Vegas is an attack on the senses. Honeymooners love Las Vegas, especially girls who enjoy playing make-believe wearing the ubiquitous tiara. In Nevada, holy matrimony is actually brought to its knees to accommodate the lowest denominator. Drive-in Wedding Chapels are endemic. Brittany Spears ‘mock’ 24 hour marriage required an apology to the conservatively-inclined surgically-enhanced matrons of Las Vegas. They were aghast! One wedding reception, into which I wandered inadvertently, in a Steak House had the most violent noise accompanying the post-nuptial celebrations. An array of slot machines buzzed, chimed, clanged, dinged, pealed, flashing enticing jackpots accompanied by a cacophony of repetitive synthesizers trumpeting “WINNER!” “WINNER!” Las Vegas is a perfect Convention venue. The ‘boys’ as they’re affectionately known, actually realize hedonism. The wives are happy shopping. The facilities and entertainment is world-class including the quirky brilliance of three Cirque du Soleil circus troupes (who assume more positions than any politician), Elton John, Canadians Paul Anka, and Celine Dion, Howie Mandel, Lance Burton, and other celebrities. There’s a profusion of moms and pops, with teenagers who have thighs like hippopotamus babies, testifying Las Vegas is a family affair, a part of the American dream. The dad’s with shaved heads and various tattoos have a vacant look, as though they’d forgotten where they’d parked their Harleys. The moms look like founding members of Weight Watchers who’ve lost the battle of the bulge and decided ‘to hell with it’. They’re having fun. Perched precariously on barstools playing the slot machines hour-upon-hour fixating on the rotating cherries and fruit flashing a win or loss every six seconds, their patience, infinite, passionless, like automatons in "Night of the Living Dead". Their moment of animation is getting in and out of taxis like sardines pried from the corners of cans. My favorite is watching silver-haired seniors, sitting contentedly side-by-side, merrily playing ‘the bandits’. Togetherness is! Inside the countless casinos time has no meaning beyond the next turn of the tumbrels, the next throw of dice, the next card dealt. Without windows or clocks, time is not measured – it’s suspended, postponed, ignored until the last bet is made. As for SEX, Las Vegas semaphores sex, reeks of sex, dribbles and bays for sex but you know there’s actually very little actual face-to-face real-time sex going on. Las Vegas is like seeing the USA with the lid off. You can see the works, the intricate engineering, a fantastically complex and beautiful series of cogs and wheels and springs and checks and balances that makes America work. Photo courtesy Las Vegas News Bureau
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