by Royal Hopper

People often reach a point in there lives where they are so low nothing phases them and I mean nothing.  Even being covered with bugs or dancing to the Bee Gees in a bikini in full view of men old enough to remember the Bee Gees doesn’t seem to phase these desperadoes.

Security guards at one local casino found woman lying in the bushes with beetles crawling over her. She was oblivious to the bugs crawling all over her and just wanted a convenient place to sleep it off. She was very annoyed when she was awakened by peopel who told her it wasn’t cool to sleep in shrubbery with bugs crawling all over your face.
“Why are you F****n with me,” she reportedly slurred as she was rousted from her bush and dirt covered bedding. The bugs were reportedly also very annoyed as they fell out of her hair onto the trash covered ground beneath her.
Now to this week’s theme _  Sin City archetypes. There are dozens of types and sub types of personalities that come to the city of sin. Most are harmless enough and that’s kind of the point.
You can always tell the tourist that come to the City of Sin from quiet, safe, protected conservative places. Here in the City of Sin the friendly fuzzy kittens of the world stand out like a working girl ( by that I mean a Ho) in a wedding chapel. In other words as the cliché goes they just fell off the turnip truck and it is not hard to tell.

There are three main kinds of  “I just got off the turnip truck tourists.’  The brave ones who just don’t understand how far over the heads they are about to be in deep, deep water and how dangerous it is for them once their toes don’t touch the bottom.
This group are like cute, ferocious little kittens hissing and fissing at an angry rooster 50 times their size looking almost cute as a a kitten as the rooster they plan on having for dinner prepares to smack them across their cute little faces and into the arms of several hungry Pit Bulls.
The “biker” I saw posing on Las Vegas boulevard was one of these. He rocked the look and his ride was fully dressed but when he stepped on the gas it didn’t roar like a Hogg or purr like a rice rocket _  it puttered like the scooter it actually was.

Then there are the frightened or over awed ones. This group does understand very well they are in over their heads and they broadcast it at a volume akin to an amp at a Metallica concert. ( I went to one in the 90s sat in the bleachers and was half deaf for three days)
This archetype is represented by the couple I saw walking across the casino this week. They were tiny, skinny over groomed people who looked like tiny walking business casual clothes mannequins were clearly out of their element and knew it.
They guy was average looking and the woman was Pixie-like  and gorgeous. The guy seemed somehow realize he was out of his league held onto his woman like she was a lamb surrounded by badly dressed wolves in baggy T-shirts and bright neon green running shoes, who would snatch her away and run of to the wilderness or the suburbs like Green Valley (same thing except with SUVs and gardeners ) which she kind of was and they kind of would.
One lady security guards walked out of the door at a local casino for panhandling was another. The guards looked bored more than anything else as they escorted this “residentially” challenged  rail thin, cigarette smoking, dry wrinkled sun raisin whose frazzled blonde, gray mop probably weighed more than the rest of her did.  They were surprised as much as anything when she suddenly jumped several feet in the air and sprinted out the door like the only rabbit in a room full of wolves on a meat only diet in the direction they were trying to get her to leave anyway.
Most numerous are the oblivious ones.
This archetype walks around like giant sized sheep eyes wide, wallets out smiling so broadly it seems they will almost crack their over groomed faces.
They are by far the most numerous Sin City archetypes and if you stand on The Strip on any given day you could almost hear them bleating like lost baby bovines as you walked through the casino straining to hear their bovine conversations over the mixture of Pop Music and 50s favorites playing on the PA right behind the acoustic version of “Staylin’ Alive”

They are the ones that look like little does staring at the headlights of huge pickup truck full of hunters bearing down on them on an empty highway.

They have that Hansel and Gretel aura about them, lost in the neon jungle and uncertain if the breadcrumbs they are leaving to find their way back to Kansas will be eaten by the strange man picking up cigarettes off the pavement and talking to unseen puppies named Dave as he searches the trash for half empty drink containers shaped liked guitars, miniature skyscrapers and martini glasses.
They are the ones you see moving in groups taking pictures of billboards and wearing I bought this T-shirt in Las Vegas T-Shirts. Think about it……think about it ….

Then of course there are the hedonist. They are the ones who discover that their particular poison is so easy to get in the City of Sin and so plentiful they tend to forget about everything else except getting the poison.
Beetle girl is one of those,  as is the man you see tip toeing to the news stands full of adds for naked women with a drink in each hand  the kind you get for free while gambling at any casino in town (incidentally do tip your waitress they get taxed for the drinks they serve you because it is assumed they get tipped.)
Later this archetype will likely be found unconscious in their room with an empty container of spiked champagne and a flyer with the name Bambi scrawled across the front of it or sleeping in a bush covered by beetles, or collapsed in the hallway in front of their room with their room key in their hand.
Lastly, there are the people who are taken in  by the very thing I have discussed in these columns before _  the wonderful apathy of the city of Sin.
Often they mistake the fact that people living and working here don’t’ care if they are kissing their poodle dressed like Elvis or kissing Elvis dressed like their poodle for adoration   Its not that they are fans although they may applaud and even tip you if you are entertaining enough

( and remember I said may tip)  if the show is good  they just don’t care enough about you being weird to stop you.

This week a young woman starting dancing to the ancient disco tunes wafting across the smoky air of the city. Perhaps encouraged by the people who were staring at her generous assets she began to dance wildly and soon encouraged others around her, including her intoxicated male escort  to also dance wildly. Several men about my age standing nearby started dancing in turn inciting a seven second orgy of demographically diverse disco dancing, complete with old ladies, middle aged fat guys, geeky toddlers et al. As someone who remembers the age of Disco I can tell you it was the most freakin nightmarish seven seconds in dance history.

Today the street was full of archetypes of every sort and many who didn’t belong to any archetype in particular. Two street people panhandling  regulars resumed their usual spot _  sitting down in front of a orange construction barrier near a fast food restaurant where people had to walk past them.
A man carrying an instrument case and wearing a large black hat and heavy denim in 105 degree heat sat on a oversized planter, an orange tag  hanging from his pocket, perhaps a musician dreaming of the glory days long past
Nearby two confused archetypal tourists stared  wide eyed  bleating quietly to each other as they stared around the city and one young man with hair down to his waist leaned against a concrete barrier texting to friends perhaps and perhaps admitting to himself what his archetype usually realizes right away….”What the hell was I thinking ?”

Such is life in the city of Sin
Rock on fellow Sinners
Take care

Just because its cool and yes I took this photo too–Royal

Jogger/pedestrian report: The weather is cooling down here in Nevada…well no not really. It’s freakin hot and groups of body builders for whatever reason have taken to walking down the street during the hottest part of the day sans shirts which really annoys all the rest of us by setting standards that are unfair and unobtainable…….