By Royal Hopper

A blurry photo of me

The last thing you expect when you are sitting quietly in a casino waiting for the work day to end is a question that goes something like….
“Can you get Viagra over the counter here on Las Vegas…?”
That is not a joke. It happened.

This week on the morning commute I saw a man standing in the roadway with his zipper partially undone his hand  laying flat on his abdomen just above his family jewels. He was facing a car whose occupants I could not see and he was moving his hand in a way that seemed to threaten to unzip his pants the rest of the way.
You know I don’t mind watching people dance as long as its in a safe indoor environment  there is at least one chick in the mix and they have

In short , what appeared to be a residentially challenged individual was doing a strip tease on the morning roadway threatening to show his stuff or not show it as the case may be. The same lady dressed as a statue of liberty hid behind a sign advertising tax services.

A Las Vegas “news stand” sits alone on the strip on a gray February day —photo by R.M. Hopper                                                                          

Also in the City of Sin this week. A person gambled and then complained when they lost and tried to get their money back, another was sighted eating toilet paper and yet another seen talking intensely to an invisible friend.
There was the kid on a leash trick and the young girl dancing to tune that were new when her grandmother was a teen holding her mother hand with one of hers and cupping the other over her ear because the version of “Stayin’ Alive playing on the PA was to loud for her young ears.
Las Vegas was full of something stranger than pool players and more numerous than Roller Derby fanatics and louder and drunker than a whole town of rodeo riders…ie an entire town full of football fans in the week leading up to the Super Bowl.
Drunken football fans from as far away as Germany and France packed the City of Sin in to cheer their teams and their betting tickets on to victory.
One fan desperately failed the redneck fashion sense test. This test, as I have said before, simply means that when the red neck who has no fashion sense and doesn‘t need or want one ( me in this case) can tell your outfit is a disaster then you should probably change clothes right away with no hesitation.
As a rule I don’t give a rats left toe what someone wears. For all I care you can wear a tuxedo in the bathroom or a pajamas to a formal dinner but the whole black button up dress shirt and black gym shorts , black leather tennis shoes and black dress socks is a bit much even for a anti-fashionista like me.
There was also the opposite number, the female joggers wearing their pastel velour jogging suits by Gucci with pampered over groomed poodles with painted toenails in tow. “Like totally, cliché much for sure..” 
One particular Austrian dressed head to toe in a Buffalo Bills jersey was determined to tell his life story to security guards who after several warnings and ejecting the man from the gaming tables twice sent him to his room still telling his story to a friend and asking for the number to his embassy to complain about his losses at the tables and the reason his Bills were not in the Super Bowl.
It never ceases to amaze me how much women are able to overlook differences and flaws that men would find difficult to ignore. Or is it in reverse
This week I saw my second couple with a huge difference in height. The man was at least 6 foot 5 inches tall and the woman was lucky if she was 4 foot 5 inches.  They looked happy but to be honest I had trouble seeing them together, ( you know what I mean and you all do it)
I saw another couple where the woman was a little person and the guy was large and I mean large around.

Ya gotta love Las Vegas

 I’m  proud to announce that the same casino that revisited the 70s last week this week made its was into the 80s in a light hearted poppish kind of way …
”Words are very unnecessary they only get in the way…..”  ….The City of Angels lonely as I am …..“I made it through the wilderness somehow I made it through….” etc etc etc
Lets see if the decade of Me and Glitter, and big big hair and bright pastels holds true or is Kurt Cobain and his irony laden ilk that will be the next on the list of casino background music favorites or will the incomprehensible glitter rock of the modern age resume its horrid rule.
Will we be serenaded  with speed metal, death metal, ghost metal and dead metal puppies or will we continue down the path of bell bottoms and earth tone leisure suits with the occasional break for Led Zepplin, Madonna and The Human League.

This week another man also went missing in the City of Sin  ..this time a young man simple vanished.

You gotta love Las Vegas

So long from the City of Sin

Til Next Week take Care