By Royal Hopper

 I meant to start this weeks column with some deep thoughts about human nature but the character I spotted crossing Las Vegas boulevard this week washed those thoughts right out of my tired mind.
“What are you looking at,” is what the man dressed in shiny black leggings, (boots, ????)   a pink short sleeved button up shirt, with a faded denim vest over it and colorful knee length shorts appeared to be saying to imaginary friends and inanimate objects as he crossed the street.. He was pissed at something or somebody. It could be he heard the 80s revival show was fully stocked and the Las Vegas break dancing team wasn’t taking auditions. Whatever the case Mr. Pink shirt Denim vest talking to pieces of machinery guy is the City of Sin Peacock of the week.
Can you picture it ????It takes a lot to make a man who sales time shares on a Las Vegas street corner to lose it but the one I saw standing on the corner where Mr. Pink Shirt crossed the street was laughing his ass off….

Stop–Slightly altered photo by Royal

 

No sweat brightly colored pink shirt guy. Even after a long day at work I’d just as soon forget I remember guys like you and chicks like 60s chic chick that I saw a couple of days later. She rocked the wine colored hippie chick slacks and striped long sleeved shirt and beret that could have been yanked right out of the 1975 J.C. Penny hippie chick catalogue although I am told there were no true hippies created after 1974 there were hangers on in the 70s. I saw dozens of outfits just like this throughout my teenage years and much like Elvis you can still see them every day more or less in the City of Sin.
…and you know that’s all right…it really  is

 

Before I get very far into this weeks rant I want to once again scream compliments at the elderly German rockers of the Scorpions hard rock mega band and their opening act the 80s hard rock group Tesla for last weeks awesome ( if I may use a hackneyed cliché)  concert. Here in Sin City amongst a sea of imitation Elvi (plural for Elvis) Rat Pack inheritors and perversely talented and perverse acrobats this collection of old rockers was a pleasant surprise.Vegas may now be the town old acts go to kick ass one last time or one last tour because these old bastards rocked the house for two hours and their opening act 80s hard rock phoneme Tesla most of whom were my age ( I remember disco that’s all I will say) offered no apologies and had the crowd easting from their hands.

I lost it ….
People lose stuff in this city.
 A lot of what they lose is very mundane like their money or their wallets some of it more esoteric like their pride, their virginity or their sanity.

Sometimes the stuff people lose is pretty weird.
It has been said that the function of people in this society is to buy stuff….and stuff is what peoole here in Vegas have the most trouble holding on to.
When I worked at Treasure Island in the 90s one forgetful guest left his glass eye sitting on the night stand  in his room.
I have seen people leave oxygen bottles, wheelchairs, and artificial limbs lying near a bank of slot machines. That’s’ right people even leave artificial legs and arms where they don’t belong. Imagine being so drunk you hop away from a slot machine leaving one of your arms or legs laying next to the free Vodka tonic you have been slurping for seven hours straight and do not notice. 
Groups lose individuals all the time even to the point of driving away and being half way home before they realize they are one man short.

 

Talk about being ditched
Imagine your in a foreign land where you don’t speak the language and you wake up realizing you have been left behind and spend several tense minutes trying to explain yourself to the hotel employees who are sent to tell you your room has been rented and is supposed to be empty.
A man who doesn’t speak English, he was Chinese in this case was left in his hotel room by his tour group because he got a little tipsy and fell asleep forgetting his tour bus was ready to leave.
“Tours……..” the man who was incredibly polite under the circumstances said followed by a long polite string of Chinese words no one understood.
His tour group in fact left him asleep and probably intoxicated in the room and he only realized he had been well and truly ditched  when security guards came to roust him from the room because the room was supposed to be vacant. He came to the door in his underwear having been asleep minutes ago and after several minutes of ridiculous sign language and the idiotic human habit of believing that if you repeat yourself often enough and speak slowly people who don’t speak your language suddenly will understand you.
“You have to go to the front desk and pay for another day…Yoooouuuuu  hhhaaaaaavvvee tooo goo to the fffrrroooonnnnttt ddddddeeeeessssk and paaaaayyyyy….” You get the idea.

Looking into the desert from a Vegas roof top   –Photo by Royal

 

Can you picture It…
Sin City Memory loss bullet  points from this week
* Help my purse was stolen from the bar I was at,“ said one Sin City hotel guest. “No wait she later told hotel employees. It was while I was at the slot machines. No wait it might be in my room…..????  She said perhaps being embarrassed when it was discovered wedged in between two slot machine where she had left it forgotten and alone.
This is not an uncommon occurrence. More than once casino customers have walked up the security booth in the casino they happened to be in and asked if anyone had turned in their wallet/watch/whatever and admitted they had no idea where it might be or even if they had been in that particular hotel the night before.
“It is probably somewhere between here and Caesar’s Palace,” said one patron squinting her attractive eyes at the security guard on duty
* There was a man this week that forgot to pay his $40 bill at the Steak House he ate at until he realized he had left his cell phone worth far more and containing who knows what information at the self same table he had eaten the ill-gotten piece of beef. Perhaps he was just so intoxicated he walked away from the table without paying his bill or picking up his phone from where it lay.

A bridge player was sitting quietly in her bridge playing chair when it collapsed ….and she asked for an ambulance to be called.
As I had said before we are what we are Mickey Mouse sweat shirt minimalism or talking to fence posts Peacock Proud and Bawdy, regular guy plain or big, bright and extroverted and talking to inanimate objects and reacting when they talk back the City of Sin welcomes you all. Come and be yourself only keep one hand on your wallet and the other on your cell phone…to take pictures of the people you see.

Oh and incidentally if you call a …girl to your room… for a massage yeah that’s it a massage and she asks you to take a shower before you start …massaging ….chances are when you get out of the shower your stuff including your wallet and your Mickey Mouse sweat shirt will be gone.

 

A crowd of fans waits outside the Thomas and Mack  a week ago for the 

Scoprpions and Tesla concert —Photo by Royal

This week’s Jogger report
Dog walking down Las Vegas Boulevard is the latest fad in Sin City morning exercise.
During this week a man was seen walking his dog down the strip in the hot summer Nevada sun.  Later the man was seen carrying the dog who apparently had more sense than his master and decided to stop walking in the hot desert sun.
The joggers seem to get better looking as the season wears on perhaps because middle aged  fat joggers like me had an epiphany while jogging in formation with his fellow soldiers while serving in the late Cold War US Army sometime in the late 80s.
Running a lot and being hot sucks big rocks. I hike which is really walking with attitude and style someplace somewhere there are BFRs and cactus and I look cool doing it (which is important)

 

Such is Life in the City of Sin

Til Next Week

Take Care