Las Vegas is where old acts go to …Dance

By Royal M. Hopper III

People love to talk hear to friends, to strangers to invisible bunnies named Fred..everybody _ Photo by Royal

This week I watched a man push his shopping cart full of possession like a champion. In fact lets call him that ……

Champion is proud of his profession and shows it smiling broadly and basking in the afternoon sun and the attention he received as he pushed his stainless steel chariot down the boulevard expertly weaving in and out of an obstacle course so well made no one else could see it.

A times he raced in from one Sin City fire plug to another clad in skin tight racing shorts dark running shoes with out socks of course and nothing else besides some athletic support hose of some kind wrapped around his thighs hitting the brightly colored hydrants with the front of the cart and then spinning on a dime turning 180 degrees and hurtling off to the next hydrant.
Perhaps his minimalist clothing was just the ragged remains of racers jump suit he couldn’t bring himself to take off for the past 15 or 20 years, perhaps but whatever.
Wherever Champion went he went shirtless as he raced against an unseen time clock looking around at his many likely imaginary admirers pumping his legs with the effort stopping only to pick the finest of leftovers from Sin City trash cans, a hat here, a sandwich there and an occasional left over beer.

There are always people behind the scenes cleaning and trimming and making this city pretty and wearing really big hats _ Photo by Royal

He is generous this Champion. At one Sin City trash can he fished a particularly attractive piece of trash out of the less attractive flotsam and jetsam and when he saw more conventionally dressed tourist staring at his trashy prize. This shirtless Champion generously offered the prize left over to the better dressed gentleman who of course politely refused.

This city is full of normal people believe it or not. We have thousands of boring suburbanites, millions of ordinary working stiffs and some of our rich people are even ..you know kind of not crazy. ..But we also have a lot of opportunist, drama queens and compulsive hedonist

I never will understand what it is in this city that inspires such confidence in the people who visit who come here.
I mean the express purpose of the City of Sin is to get you to spend all your money…everything is an angle or a failsafe to catch people working an angle.
Every casino in Vegas with cameras designed to catch people doing things and employees whose livelihood depends of their ability to catch you doing things.
According to one Sin City urban legend a decade or so ago authorities were chasing a man who darted into a local casino in an effort to escape by getting lost in the crowd. The man who may very well have gotten away if he had kept running and you know not been a moron, stopped to play slots near the front doors with some of the booty still on him.
Surrounded by cameras, security guards, and was captured (you think..)

The City at night in early May _ Photo by Royal

What do you call someone who comes to Vegas for a job interview as an “exotic dancer” with $20 in their pocket and a maxed out credit card. Brave ??? Confident??, silly ????
I call it Tuesday…almost every week.

That’s life in the City of Sin brother
Rock on
See ya’

A green trophy guy poses on the boulevard last week in the the City of Sin – You guessed it photo by Royal…

Leaving me alone in the City of Sin

by Royal Hopper

Generally speaking when you lay on the concrete in a hidden Sin City breezeway next to a bathroom and don’t know what city you are in its time to call it a week and go home. That happens somewhat often in the City of Sin.

When asked what city they are in, these suspiciously well dressed people found laying on the ground will answer Los Angles or Denver and insist they have a room in a hotel they have never been in until passing out in a back portion of it.
“Weird huh,”

Sometimes when people appear to want to be left alone they really need someone to tell them …”No do not take that last purple pill….Stefano ..no don’t lay down on the concrete with your arms crossed like a deceased man …no don’t do that you idiot this is  a Las Vegas sidewalk not a pool party in the burbs. This guy was left alone when maybe somebody should have been a little nosy.
Down the road from passed out on the concrete guy on an older part of the Boulevard the head bobbing guy is at it again.
Every week on what seems to be a random day the head bobbing guy sits in front of an orange construction divider that protects Sin City tourists and patrons of a nearby burger joint from a construction site that has sat idle for years. Head bobbing guy sits down in leans back and bobs his head rapidly up and down.

This fellow is clearly sending out the leave me alone signals as
he waits for a Sin City bus late last week – Photo by Royal

Perhaps he is praying. Perhaps dancing to unseen dance floor tunes or rocking out to some awesome head banging music that played at his 15th birthday party back in the day and that none of the rest of us can hear or really want to hear for that matter. (Lets hear it for Weird Head Metal. I can hear the solo already).
Perhaps, praying, perhaps dancing silently perhaps remembering the good old days following Guns and Roses around SoCal ..yeah that could be …or perhaps he is just acting crazy so people will leave him alone while he stares out at the cityscape in his scary homeless guy outfit.

Not surprisingly most regular people  who pass by this frizzy haired Sin City Dead zone character leave the dude alone. ( I will not say normal people because this is Sin City you know) Sometimes when people act like they want to be left alone they really want to be left alone. Should you ?…I don’t have a clue….

A lady with a stroller, a man in a wheelchair and a rough looking
dude in a sweat suit stand at a Sin City Street corner. What do they
have in common??? Nothing Genius it was a trick question…
Photo by Royal

Down the road further still an older woman in a wheel chair sits parked in the same spot every day all alone, usually asleep or staring out at the Boulevard. I honestly do not know if she wishes to be left alone but when I see her she always is.
I thought I saw a child walking down the boulevard alone but ..He was just a little Person in a Winnie the Pooh jogging suit  who growled a little as people took pictures of him as he ran to meet the bus. …well he did kind of look like the Winnie the Pooh character.

Earlier that day a young woman and her shopping cart stood on a Sin City street corner. She wore a black dress cut cocktail waitress style and embroidered with gold lace designs. She just stood there in her gaudy seductive cocktail dress leaning on the shopping cart  Every day I drive down Tropicana on the way home from work I see a couple sitting on the side of the road as always sleeping eating or surviving the desert heat. I saw a bright neon green trophy standing on the boulevard, I saw Elvis, I saw kids wearing balloons on their heads and tourists with bags full of souvenir T-shirts complain about the price of the two for one lunch buffet.

What appears to be a man walking past a digital photo studio checking his digital device
past what appears to be a sidewalk portrait painter. Irony ? – Photo by Royal

Ahh well. Such is life in the City of Sin

Take care fellow Sinners
Rock the World any way you can

Royal

P.S. Las Vegas was full of pool players this week as the APA held its annual singles championship in the City of Sin. I hear one quite often an enterprising pool player will make it all the way to within ten feet of his room before deciding the final three steps were just to much effort and will lay down to sleep on the floor. I hear that…I’m just saying ..you know ……

Mickey, Mini, the Hulk and the Captain ….Photo by Royal

The Art of Being Confused in the City of Sin

By Royal Hopper

What The ?????

Question: How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop? Lets find out.

I know what you are thinking. I know the thoughts that are crossing your mind right now. They are probably like the kind of like the thoughts in the mind of the drunk trying to stagger across Las Vegas Boulevard in the middle of the day only to look up and see a car bearing down on him as he stumbled your thinking W.T.F. which stands for Wonderful Totally Fine or Wonderful Teutonic Fox. No I’m sure it does.. You see WTF what the ****..ohh never mind. Anyway on to the Tootsie Pop.

There are a lot of commonly occurring mental conditions here in the City of Sin with one of the most prevalent being cognitive dissonance called in Sin City parlance the What The F***  ( What do you want from me? My Mom might read this.)

WTF 1 Giant Neon Funk Rock Chick

People or places that do not match up to stereotypes or do match up in unexpected ways can cause serious cognitive dissonance  It just means that the reality you are confronted with your established mental image.
Kind of like the time I saw a cute pair of legs pair of shapely legs in bright neon leotards coming around the corner and prepared to be wowed by female femaleness ( I looked it up it is a word)

Now what do you think I said or thought when I saw this pair of shapely legs in bright neon leotards coming around the corner and then stepped back as the legs and their owner stepped around the corner with her I miss 80s Funk Rock, Rick James was a God  posse trailing closely behind her. You guessed I said or rather thought WTF. This chick, (and I’m giving her, him, they or whatever the benefit of the doubt because there was a lot)  was 6 foot 9 inches at least not counting the sic inch platform shoes she stole from her grandmothers disco will never die wardrobe closet.
He, she, they smiled at me which was the polite thing to do and I am not to proud to admit this really spooked me a little.

WTF 2. The Cute Cable Guy Couple
These days seeing two guys holding hands is no big deal unless you live in Tehran. …and is certainly not completely unusual in the city of Sin.

Im not sure what your mental image of two guys holding hands is but when you see two 450 pounds plaid clad bohunks who look more like Larry the Cable Guy than RuPaul or Liberace it does cause your mental WTF meter to go off like a hurricane.
Guys who look like they could wrestle grizzly bears and eat 20 Big Macs for breakfast are not generally who you picture walking hand in hand through a Sin City casino. Am I wrong about that ?
They didn’t seem to care what anybody thought about it because I’m guessing they were both close to a quarter ton and outweighed everyone around them,  including the two body builders carrying their young children through the casino in cutie pie back packs,  by at least 200 pounds.
Las Vegas boulevard is not the place you expect to see street preachers standing at attention with their arms upraised in a bright red suit but he was there all week just down the street from the fountain show at the Belagio. He stood there just down the sidewalk from the guy selling bottled water or rather re-bottled water and across the street from the man dressed in orange from head to toe.

This week one Sin City denizen seemed to determined to win an argument with herself. This person told onlookers she was solving a murder that had occurred and wanted to know where she could go to broadcast her findings and then continued to berate the invisible friend that seemed to doubt her theories.

A man who staggered across the street into traffic was surprised when he was actually hit by a car, a man sold tap water to tourist watching a fountain show and other posed with Mickey Mouse, The Incredible Hulk and Captain America in front of fake Roman cityscapes, fake volcanoes, fake pirate lagoons while women wearing feathers and a large weight lifter dressed like a toddler tease and flirt with them.

Such is Life in the City of Sin
Rock On Fellow Sinners

Later

In news paper parlance we would call this wild art. It is just a cool picture of a man riding his bike down the boulevard Saturday waiting for the moment no one is looking to take something out of it _ Photo by Royal Hopper..P.S. if a newspaper here hires me I
promise to come up with more clever cut lines and put the focus bar on his nose as
prescribed

Dog shows, demographics and conversations in the City of Sin

By Royal Hopper

A snapshot of a street corner by a fast food restaurant in Las Vegas. It is mid morning and the usual suspects are sitting on the ground. Two are four legged, one is slumped over and another stares at the morning sun. Standby to hear more about this epic.

Question: What do you call it when hundreds of Las Vegas convention guests urinate and defecate on the grass in broad daylight and without shame while others named Mac, Prince, and Red Furnace strut across the convention center floor waiting on the commands of their boss and sniffing other conventioneers hairy buts.
Well you could call it an S and M fetish convention, a meeting of Panderers local 459 or a really bad day at the adult book store but most of the people at the convention called it a dog show.
It is amazing the parts of conversation you hear in Sin City locals and this week was no exception.
One convention guest was speaking to another and said something to the effect of ….“and then he showed his bitch…” In this case bitch literally meant a female dog which is what of course it literally means and bitch is a word you often hear one dog owner say to another because that is what bitch means… a female dog.

Earlier this week fire destroyed an abandoned Casino called the Key Largo at the
corner of Flamingo Road and Paradise Road. This photo taken Friday shows fire crews still spraying hotspots in the old building in preparation for a search of the building. Local news said this week that investigators searched for the bodies of homeless people that may have been living in the old casino but found none_
Photo by Royal Hopper

Another conversational tidbit went something like. “Maybe he can go back where he came from…” There was no one around these two people at the time so maybe they were talking to their imaginary friends walking nearby.

Another conversation tail end went something like this….”If that was the reason why ..but it could be an issue of character…
What do you say to a person who talks about character as he is standing in line at a Las Vegas ATM getting more money _ perhaps to gamble, drink or otherwise indulge himself in decadent activities…or perhaps he came to Las Vegas to get money for his sick mother….or for his church . ,…..yeah that it.
Do you call him self righteous, do you call him a hypocrite?? Do you call him a congressman?  Or do you just call Jim the annoying tattooed black shirt wearing guy wearing a shirt with Christian logos strutting through a Vegas casino with his smarter than he is girlfriend trying to convince him not to be an organ with little obvious success.

That one corner of a Sin City Boulevard was a portrait of the City itself a demographic frozen in time and space (I was recently replaying an old copy of the Rocky Horror Sound Track and line from the closing song stuck in my mind)
One man sits by a side door perhaps seeking protection from the morning wind or perhaps he had no where else to go. An older middle class lady sits with two dogs on the lawn feeding them breakfast and waiting for her morning coffee fetcher to return from his errand.
Nearby two Sin City Boulevard regulars sit in front of a construction site one bobbing his head to the rhythms of an unseen band the other slouching against an orange construction barrier catching a few zzzs in between asking for cash and Mickie Ds left overs. The man with the white beard stands in his usual spot handout as always a diligent panhandler with  the work ethic of a businessman.
Later the dog owners get up and return to the dog show, the others grown weary of trolling for leftovers and move on to other corners while the man with the white beard stands with his hand still out as a man with an expensive camera and custom leather shoes struggles to get his holiday pics just right snapping badly framed photos of the same clowns, clouds and neon as the millions before him and the millions yet to come.

“The Strip” at night _ Photo me

A working girl winks at businessman, a couple holds hands and man riding a custom motorcycle thunders down the road past a double decker tourist bus and probably realizes he is in the wrong city for anyone to care.

Such is Life in the City of Sin

Rock on fellow Sinners
and watch where you walk

By Royal Hopper

For the man fishing for consumable carcinogens in Sin City a trash cab Friday, somehow managing to look like he is on a shopping trip at Macy’s making a difficult choice of which item to purchase – simple and cheap is good. Having something, anything is enough.

Mario is a Cuban refugee who doesn’t mind expensive food or hotel rooms because he has something to spend his money, something not so certain in his native Cuba. Mario does however sometimes get nostalgic for the USA he first arrived in when he escaped Fidel Castro’s Island empire. I spoke to Mario briefly last September while he was enjoying the sun and a dose of nicotine at a Sin City swimming pool.

“Sodas cost 5 cents and they gave you 2 cents back when you turned the bottle in,” Mario said remember the cost of things when he arrived in the United States 40 some odd years ago.

For another Sin City visitor lets call him Earl (because I never thought to ask his name) visiting the City of Sin From LA the old days were indeed better. There was, a kind of balance in Sin City Earl and I agreed
You could take the bus to Vegas spend your money and still have enough for the 50 cent breakfast or $2 lunch. Spending money on some things was good if everything else was cheap. There was we both agreed a balance of sorts.
“It’s just not like that anymore,” he mused as the decently dressed middle class man waited for the bus going to downtown Vegas. His hair was matted his clothes torn and you could see madness in the eyes ( or it could have been Jack Daniels) and you didn’t need to talk to the homeless man shopping for smokes in a convenient trash receptacle to know he wouldn’t mind limited choices if the things he needed were easier to get.
World War was raging across the globe in 1942 when Mario ( we wont use his last name) was born on the Sunny shores of his native Cuba. Food was cheaper, life was simpler and things usually made more sense in a plain desperate kind of way.

SIn City Shopping Cart

Mario is from Cuba originally and from California lately and his dual socialization, gives him a unique insight into differences in economies now and in the past. He fled Fidel’s Cuba with few regrets despite the orderly way of life offered by the Castro regime.
You could walk up to the corner and see the buses lined up,” Mario explains about his native Cuba. Not only does the bus service in his home city of Los Angles just stink gasoline prices are through the roof so driving is expensive but that is okay he said restating his position of few regrets about leaving his island home.
Earl as a frequent visitor to the City of Sin over a 30-year time frame and I as an off and on again resident of Sin City since 1989 reminisced about the day when you could break your last five before pay day and eat all day starting with the 49 cents breakfast buffet at Westward Ho. Life was cheap and money went a long way if you were careful.
“Ahh well we agreed things are just not that way,” we agreed.
The gentleman shopping ion the trash cans actually managed to look like he was in the middle of a difficult shopping decision as he grabbed several empty beer cans and one that was half full before holding several items of personal hygiene in his hand for several seconds deciding that using a discarded toothbrush was even to much for his pragmatic standards of survival. He crushed the beer cans drank the remaining beer in one and crushed it to for easier carrying to the recycling center for cash and continued his shopping trip.

People talking in the City of Sin as people often do

The world was a very different place “in the old days,” Mario said on a Sunday on last September between sessions of the convention he had come to attend. Things were cheaper back then in Cuba and here in the States he said., the busses ran on time.
Money doesn’t buy as much these days not Cuba or in the US, his adopted country not nearly as much not even close.
Mario doesn’t let that fact phase him because this country, the US, in spite of all its problems is a land plenty.
“We,” Mario said, including himself in that inclusiveness, “are still a wealthy nation,” and there is still plenty to spend what money you have on.
The man shopping in the trash can finished looking and moved on obviously disappointed in this week’s bargains brushing his greasy dirty hair back with a greasy dirty hand as he walked away.
Earl’s arrived and he bid a pleasant farewell as lost in thought as he hopped on the bus in his black business suit.
As he finished his cigarette Mario finished his verbal essay on the effect of modern prices on every day life. This is still a wealthy nation he repeated and you can get what you need if you can somehow find the money.
This was not always the case in his native Cuba. Money bought very little in Cuba then or now because despite low prices there was nothing to buy.
“You can’t eat money,” Mario said appearing to be lost in some memory he would rather forget.

Woody and Buzz seem to ponder great questions like should there be mayo on hotdog at a recent secret meeting on Las Vegas Boulevard surrounded by cartoon secret service agents named Barney. No Really _ Photo by Royale

Is B.O.N.E a good name for Sin City

By Royal Hopper

This week we will talk about money back deals on naked dancers, the sanity of March Madness, giant killer trucks and address the burning questions of the year. Should we change the name of Las Vegas and does mayonnaise really belong on hot dogs.

In some parts of the City of Sin there were very ordinary things going on. For instance at one end of town the one I live in there was a giant metal monster that shot fire from its mouth as it tore apart a old Buick. At this same location huge mechanical vehicles ran over random valuable objects and smashed the objects.

There were sanity defying leaps by bicycle riders over piles of twisted metal. There were hordes of leather loving boot wearing ( I can say that since I grew up in such a place) rabid fanatics screaming approval at the destructive scenery in front of them and of course there were curly fries.

The Monster Jam, a Monster Truck rally visited Las Vegas’ own Sam Boyd Silver Bowl this week as the  rest ofSin City continued drinking, gambling eating and posing for cheese cake pictures with life size cartoon chracters and women named Lolita wearing feathers on their head.

Now to business. For the last time. There is no refund for the services of strippers, massage artists named Candy or how shall we put it ….women of leisure…naked princesses you know (censored)
Believe it or not prostitution is illegal in the City of Sin and in Clark County Nevada wherein the city lies aaannndddd ….Believe it or not some of the women who are seen of flyers advertised as naked dancers don’t do anything but dance….
One gentleman who was from the country that gave us wine snobs, five vowels in a two syllable name, good pastries, bad cars and croissants insisted the hotel security get him his money back from a woman who came to his room and took $400 of his money, took her clothes off and then refused to do anything else.

Dancing naked, as advertised on the flyer he had picked up, was all she did it seems. She gave him back some of his money but would not give him back the rest. A Girl has to make a living apparently and stripping in private has a price.
The gentleman insisted hotel employees call the police for him despite being told several times the police would arrest him …for soliciting a prostitute and he would still not get his money back. Prostitution is illegal in Clark County, Nevada. It is legal in every other part of the state but not here in the City of Sin…go figure.

A Mechanical T-Rex “rests” in between shows at the Monster Jam at
Sam Boyd Silver Bowl Friday – Photo by Royal

This City is full of operators, magicians, performers, and hustlers who make a living letting you think what you want to think and then making off with your money while you scream about how this never happens in your country. Sometimes people win and sometimes they win a lot and sometimes they don’t. It is the nature of the City.

I will say one thing about March madness. In Vegas it is practical in a depressing kind of way. One man was overheard cursing the University of Indiana for their performance in a recent game. He had taken the Hoosiers and the 20 and one half points they were favored by and was upset when they won by only 20 points..sheesh ..were they even trying…..
Those bastards made me bet $7,500 and only won by 20 points the man seemed to say.

Fun City ??????

There are some people who think the City of Sin should be renamed something more fun. 

It should be called something like Bugsy’s Ostentatious Neon Emporium and Magical Escapade land. Or B.O.N.E M.E. Land for short.

There has been some suggestions that we call this city in the desert the City of Sun until someone pointed out there is already a place called Sun City Summerlin and that sounds to much like the City of Sun.
It gets very hot in the desert …because you know it’s the desert so Sun City could work.

My favorite is Fun City or the City of Fun. It has a ring to it. Of course it sounds more like an amusement park in Nebraska than a city devoted to gambling, drinking and other non Sunday school activities. But it does have a ring to it ….
BTW This may brand me as a Sinner in my native Texas but I have discovered that mayo isn’t so bad on hotdogs. Apparently its something they do in New York, New York and apparently in Vegas you know what it aint bad.

Jogger report:
Does someone running down the street stoned with a Gatorade in his hand count as a jogger ????