1. By Royal Hopper

    

   It was a surprisingly boring week in the city of sin.

    Disco Returns
   This week the city was filled with Karate Kids, photographers and assorted party goers.
   Las Vegas casinos record an incident where a woman fell down dancing and hurt herself. I guess the Cha Cha can be really hazardous after your fifth half priced cocktail.
   One local casino decided to replace its normal array of top forty hits aimed at younger customers with a continuous supply of 70s soul, disco, and pop tunes.
   “Can you say  Bee Gees, bell bottoms and mood rings? …I knew that you could….”
   As one who remembers those bell bottom blues hits from his teen years, and the disputes they caused between dance fans and the local rockers and cowboys, I was taken aback to see many of the establishments younger patrons wiggling and jiggling in sympathetic rhythm with the 30 + -year-old melodies.   (They were dancing a little as they waited for friends to catch up with them on the way to the coffee shop)

2. 

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• A sign knocked down by a driver who apparently cant
• read lays on the ground in the back of A Las Vegas casino
1.  _______________________________________________________________________________
2.  Dude Dances
   One guy appeared to have studied all his parents dance moves and consumed several shots as he showed his moves to a group of passersby and players at a nearby gaming table.
   Trust me dude Stayin’ Alive stuff wasn’t that cool a song when I first heard or rather saw John Travolta dancing to it on the
3. silver screen in 1976 and that shaggy Earth, Wind and Fire perm your buddy sports looked just as silly on you today as it did on me in 1978 and that
4.  
5.  
6. when some people actually thought leisure suits, disco lights and polyester prints were cool. (think about it)

    

   Dancing Queen
   One guy was seen practically skipping across the casino keeping time with the 70s soul sounds with a babe on his arm that was clearly out of his league. While not quite in the trophy wife category she was very cute and this guy was clearly fighting above his not insignificant weight class.
   He was short flat faced homely Tabby with a strutting sultry lady jaguar on his arm.
   As that ultimate in white bread disco cool from Sweden, the all female vocal group ABBA filled the place with their most white bread of white bread hits “Dancing Queen” he strutted across the casino and you could almost hear him thinking …I’m an ugly dude and my woman is gorgeous. I’m homely and my girl is better looking than yours na na nanana ..” How exactly do you poke a hole in a guy who is playing that far out of his league and knows it and the woman appears cool with it.
   “I’m ugly and I got a good looking woman na na na na na….”na na na na hey hey good bye ….” 

   Signs
   That day on the commute home I saw people carrying protest signs waving them at drivers on the way home. I think they were protesting cuts in the local education budget I’m not sure and neither was anyone else. Once again that wonderful apathy of the City of Sin comes into play….
   “Oh look a protest sign………are those designer jeans,,,,,???

   Sliding the big one  
   Being that this was such a slow week in the City of Sin I decided to retell the story of lets call him ……Frank…(and for the record I am deliberately distorting his name and leaving his description vague)
   Frank was an older openly gay man who worked at a local casino in the 90s which is fine but Frank had this catch phrase he used to use when security guards who worked there came to pick up the gaming chips from the chip bank he managed and take them to the tables. 
   “Slide me the big one my boy…” he would say causing many guards and fellow cashiers to blanch a little and a few to quip back.
   Now in those days I was much less worldly than I am today, and being only a few years out of the military and southeast Texas and all that West Coast style tolerance I now embrace had not been tested in real life.
   When I first came to Vegas walking around the city or working here was a little like watching the Rocky Horror Picture Show in Gucci and Armani and other assorted costumes enacted in public over and over and over again.
   However when a downcast Frank was forced to stop using his catch phrase it was not me who ratted on him to human resources nor any of the other mildly macho security guards I worked with at this casino.
   We never did find out for sure who ratted on Frank or at least I didn’t but word and rumor was that it was a gay woman who worked there who ratted on Frank and forced him to stop using that catch phrase, rumor has it they felt it was stereotypical and improper or something uptight.
   What the hell?  Poor Frank was just trying to make a joke and he got his catch phrase taken away from him.

   Judge ???
   As for me I don’t judge. I don’t judge not because of any pretentious moral superiority I long ago gave up such illusions. I refuse to judge because of the most selfish of middle class bourgeois reasons
   It takes more energy to worry about such things than I have to offer these days and accomplishes nothing that helps anybody least of all me and mine. Much like the City of Sin itself  for the most part as long as you don’t harm me or mine or pee on something I walk on I just don’t care how weird you are.
   Whatever gets you through the day is fine by me, whether it inappropriate catch phrases, silly costumes or drunken dancing and shout outs.
   I’m going to write about it to be sure but afterwards assuming you don’t try to mug me or call me Frank I’ll still shake your hand wave at you as I make my way to my pick up truck to go home to the City of Sin Suburbs.

   Such is life in the City of Sin.

   Til Next Week

   Take Care