By Royal Hopper

There is a point in your life when you really need to stop trying to be cool. It is a fact that often seems to elude visitors to the City of Sin.

For instance streaking was all the rage back in the day. In 1975 running butt naked down the avenue was a very cool courageous thing. In 2012 not so much…like the guy who decided to strip down to his birthday suit and haul ass down Las Vegas boulevard with several of Las Vegas’s finest (who were wearing clothes) pursuing him.
No one knows why the gentleman decided to run naked down a Sin City street down the street mind you in broad day light but rumors were that he was singing a medley of Bee Gees tunes as he sprinted.
“Stayin alive…Stayin alive…Stayin aaaallllllliiiiii iiii ive woooh,”
I also saw a couple walking down the street down the street in the wee hours of the morning this week who fit that paradigm to a T. 
“I look good don’t I,” said the body language of this confused pair of walking old people following fads paradigm.

there are times in life when people should just stop

Their race, or wealth or proclivity doesn’t really matter they were my age, late 40s early 50s and really very couch potato average. The man was wearing these Capri-like plaid knee length underwear looking shorts so many guys wear these days. They drive me nuts and still make my 69-year old mother shake her head.
Now as a once proud possessor of 13 pairs of bell bottom jeans ( all totaled from age 13 to 19), three leisure suits and seven count ‘em seven Ocean Pacific Ts of all colors I don’t judge.
But I have to say it, and I say it with respect and the honesty of experience the dude looked pretty silly walking down a dark Las Vegas street sporting his knee length underwear while gesturing at the Sin City neon and standing next to his girl who was attractive and clad in normal unassuming clothes, normal and unassuming _  for a 18-year-old prom date that is.

Some people who come to the City of Sin are real butts

                             I’m an expert damn it
 There is another Sin City paradigm that was widely apparent in the City of sin. The expert. You can tell this Sin city type before you even get close. You see them at the head of a group gesturing at the surrounding buildings as if they know everything there is to know about a city they’ve been in twice in 20 years on a business trip they mostly don’t remember until waking up in a ball next to people they don’t remember meeting.
I think the young man I saw being dragged down the Strip by his elderly grandparents who were struggling to take pictures and chat about the old daze back in the 60s while their bored grandchild thought about Transformers and Spiderman and ice cream and fidgeted like spastic Dachshund staring at his 6-year old feet as the three of them wandered past the bronze naked lady statues, plastic clowns, and half naked divas and junior continued to cast an uninterested eye at the sidewalk. Years from now I can hear the conversation in 10th grade chemistry class.
“Dude your grandparents to you to Vegas…..Vegas..man,” and junior will have to make something up and pretend to remember everything there is to know about the City of Sin.

The moral of this week’s Sin City Missive is simple. There is a point when you should stop trying to be trendy, fashionable or rad and in fact just be you even if you aren’t that interesting.
Not that I was ever part of the cool trendy crowd or that, that’s even possible in southeast Texas but I did once believe, like many young men and women do that it mattered beyond the mood of the day which it doesn’t. 
We all wear uniforms and at least sometimes dress to impress but clothes do not and never have made the man or the woman.
This week a man bicycled down the street dressed head  to toe in white
Cotton jump suit covered with graffiti honking a horn and shouting something unintelligible. I caught a brief glance and I swore the letters scrawled on the white cloth he wore read President of the World….Another man jogged naked down the street, dozens forgot where they were, many others dragged young children on early morning family outings just down the street from a working girl draped in black artificial silk was dragging her tired  over dressed behind down the road after a long night at work.

The City of Sin continues on its way the way it always does, beckoning everyone stopping for no one, simply being what it is without apology or pretense.
And as always such is life in the City..the city of Sin.
Til Next Time Take care

The Jogger report The most noticeable thing on the strip this week was large mounds of female flesh  bouncing down  the avenue attached to well endowed women as they jogged. Sue me I’m a guy. …a nice guy who has been married for 18 years but still a guy and when hordes of generously endowed women who are in danger of knocking themselves out as they run jog down the street I notice.