by Royal M Hopper III

This week I saw a saloon girl, an outlaw, dozens of Marshall Dylans, Calamity Janes, and an entire posse of armed desperadoes and two or three turn of the century Texans a smattering of  riverboat gamblers and lots and lots of cowboys.
Between the national final rodeo and a group of Cowboy action shooters parts of Las Vegas looked like a Goat roper bar in Fort Worth or the set of a bad B-movie western made in the 50s. I don’t know if you have ever seen a character right out of a Clint Eastwood movie staring at his laptop fondling his slots tickets while toking on a Cuban cigar, then you have never been to Vegas. It’s everyday stuff here.  (Cont. after photo)

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One of the Las Vegas denizens who make a living posing for pictures poses on the blvd outside of a strip casino during a bout of fair weather last week – Photo by R.M. Hopper

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These aspiring B-movie cowboys dress head to toe in costumes from the Wild ,Wild West and take turns shooting single action revolvers that made the old west showdowns so famous in many many Bmovie westerns at the same time the National Finals Rodeo rolled into town.

This meant mechanical bulls in many Las Vegas bars casinos a wide variety of Wild West denizens and country and western music blaring 24 hours a day.  One song still sticks in my mind. It goes something like this.  …

The first time we did it I was scared to death
She snuck out in that cotton dress
Jumped on in and we drove to the lake
Put her hand on my knee and said I can’t wait
I had everything we needed in the bed of my truck
Turns out my baby loves to…

Fish, she wants to do it all the time
This is actually a song by a fellow named Craig Campbell …No offense Craig this song sounds like a Jeff Foxworthy routine…If you go to the lake in the middle of the night with a hot looking babe and you actually fish…and enjoy it ….you might be a redneck.
I nearly wore out my Godsmack and Ozzie Cds trying to get that ballad out of my head.
Just for the record I was born and raised in SE Texas and my maternal grandparents are from Mississippi.
One of them was apparently from Germany. He walked up to me and asked.  “Excuse me please (please insert cliché’ German accent) I think I left mine glasses in the bathroom…”   A few had English accents and still others were Canadian.

It was cold this week in the city of sin something that is somewhat counterintuitive for a desert dweller. Those of us born in warm climates (Like I said I was born and raised on the Texas Gulf Coast) tend to walk around with a somewhat mystified look on our faces. I did see one transient fellow with a brand new Clint Eastwood poncho smiling from ear to ear like a child with a new toy perhaps he was keeping up with this weeks cowboy theme in the city of Sin or perhaps he was warm for the first time in days who knows.
Many of the bundled up pedestrian looked positively bewildered.
One dude perhaps a denizen of SoCal (Southern California) one gentleman stood out in the chilly December weather in a pair of surfing shorts and a Ocean Pacific T-shirt clearly bewildered why his legs were numb and his nose was running.  He was talking on his cell phone and I believe the conversation went something like this “Dude its like totally gnarly here…my legs are like numb and stuff totally lame and like where’s the beach,”

One Vegas patron discovered it is a bad thing to get drunk and leave your motorized scooter parked with the keys in it begging to be stolen and today I helped a lady who had been stranded in the City of Sin by a friend with 50 cents and a dead cell phone. The friend apparently made off with everything she had and she needed to borrow a cell phone….to call a millionaire friend……aaahhhh well. Such is the human animal in its true form…

From this weeks City of Sin Missive

Til Next Week

 Take care

Next Week more Sin City insanity and The story of Bobs Brother