By Royal Hopper

How did it ever come to pass that walking down Las Vegas boulevard in oversized knee length plaid underclothing is a cool thing. The whole week I saw grown men and women  well I didn’t actually look at the men,  wearing what my generation called underwear and the way they were strutting they thought they looked good.
“Look at me I’m such a stud I can wear geeky looking neon underwear and I look good…” really seriously.

I can win. I know it…Photo by Royal

The Electric Daisy come to town and bad hairdos
Well some of the women did actually look kind of good.
As the Electric Daisy Crowd stumbled and raved their way into town shedding glitter and brain cells as the walked down the boulevard, sporting neon frog backpack, bus passes and fairy outfits. For those who don’t the Electric Daisy is basically a huge rave where the participants where neon underwear and glitter and dance til they drop and imbib all kinds of chemicals.

Many of the girls and some of the boys wore what looked like neon underwear in broad daylight as they strode down the street and many just stopped where they were and decided to be unconscious, brightly colored and unconscious.
Perhaps seeking to put forward a regular guy alternative to the Electric Daisy in the week leading up to the EDC many wore plaid neon boxer like shorts whiel power walking down the street.
Now I don’t feel so bad about my generations flirtation with leisure suits, bell bottoms, yellow jogging suits and feathered hairdos for men. ( Sue me it was the 70s)
Its not surprising as it might sound to see silly people convinced into thinking they look cool in the same fairy princess outfit’s my 16-year-old refused to wear for Halloween when she 10. (she opted for the white ninja instead.)
 It’s something that the ten beautiful women sited wearing fuzzy pink leggings should have been told before they stepped out on the street looking like the kindergarten version of Pretty Woman.

The epiphany

 This paradigm was also the cause of a personal epiphany for me this week when I sited a young man wearing almost exactly the same hairdo I sported for a few brief months back in 1978 or so. I’m told fashions come back every 15 to 20 years and seeing this young person with that same cool hairdo made me realize just how silly I looked in the Led Zepplin decade all those many years ago.

Think about it. The very name of this city is a contradiction.
The way I understand it Las Vegas means The Meadows. A city located in the middle of the worlds largest sandbox and surrounded by miles and miles and miles of sand, rock and cactus is called The Meadows.  Imagine the first time Bugsy Segal stood in the sand near whatever gas station occupied the city’s four or five street corners shooing the coyotes away from his Cadillac and saw fat guys named Murray handing him their life savings.
  This is Vegas. It is built to convince people they are gorgeous, lucky, stylish and invincible when even they know they are not.
“You’re a stud handsome,” said the leather mini skirt clad woman to the man drooling at her heels with a slot ticket in one hand and a handful of tourist maps in the other.
“I am?” asked the man, “I mean I am…”
Kind of like the lady in the red white and blue plaid shirt who strutted back and forth in front of confused group of Asian tourists. Now Daisy May as I’m going to call her was probably a hot number in Topeka back in the day;  the hit of Elvis Jam 82 as it were; but this week all she did was confuse the group of mullet wearing Asian tourists. ( I’m talking full on Billy Ray Cyrus, Ziggy Stardust _  Do you Know the Mullet Man, the Mullet Man the Mullet Man glory) which just goes to show Billy Ray does have a future playing two shows a night at the Hong Kong Hilton.
“Don’t give up Billy Ray,” the Achie Breakie mullet still lives in parts of the world.

The very name of the city is built to spin.
There are dollar signs everywhere you turn. the sound, smell and taste of money life sized cartoon characters and monolithic modern art projects disguised as hotels pleases and assaults your senses at the same time.

Everything is built to convince people who should know better they are invincible and that everything they see is built for them, the world is for their taking.

Something else I saw
Like the person who watches while a young girl struggle to pull the family Pit Bull away from his eight pound cat and makes no effort to help the young lady by pulling his future Pit Ball lunch side item away from the dog who wants to eat it??
What do you call the cat ???
I just call the man an ahole with delusions of grandeur. I call the cat a tourist. Yes there are cats tough enough to take on a full grown dog, my sister had one when we were young, but 99 percent of the time the cat is tackled by a Pit Bull the cat is going to be Pit Bull lunch and you know it and the poor teenager holding the dog is going to be traumatized. 
Tramatized kind of like the family who was almost run over by the convoy of motorized wheel chairs speeding down the sidewalk weaving in and out of pedestrian traffic trying not to spill the drinks some of them were holding or the drunken Indian????who tottered through the casino looking for lost keys and making eyes at the men he was passing by.

Such is Life in the City of Sin
Til Next Week
Take Care