I was listening to an Old Nirvana song the other day on the PA of a casino and one line in the song struck me like a neon two for thunderbolt…..drink ticket.   
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5iOLGVXqEs                 

It struck me like a thunderbolt right about the time the 90-year-old woman, wearing a broad hat that was at least as old fashioned as I am old and a gray sun dress Jackie O (look it up) would have been comfortable in, called me over to the slot machine where she was playing slots and whispered to me as if someone who shouldn‘t know what she was saying was lurking nearby. “Hey,” she said whispering conspiratorially into my ear, “Do you smell that,” she added drawing me closer with and leaning in to tell me something important about what the unseen villain was doing.

Before I go on
The song I heard playing on PA was called I Smell Sex and Candy. It is a bizarre tune about a man hanging out downtown obsessing about himself who then spots an imaginary woman who takes his fantasy about himself to the next level. In the chorus the downtown hanger outer sings about smelling Sex and Candy here and about some mystery women lounging in his chair and giving him a devious stare….and then he admits its probably a dream,  a fantasy an overblown self image you know kind of like Las Vegas itself.
Self Image and adult fantasy are two of Sin City’s most handcrafted sought after assets people could do the things they do here almost anywhere but style and image despite what some will tell you do matter and in the City of Sin they matter a lot.
 

Now momentarily back to the smell and the conspiratorial whisper.

“I smell it,” the woman who flagged me down said in a tone of voice that was probably considered cool when The Beatles made their US debut  and I was a toddler ….”Somebody,” she whispered again leaning as close as her fragile frame allowed “ is smoking Hashish,” she whispered winking at me and shaking her head knowingly.
 “I smell it,” she said again drifting off as she did lost in the intensity of her discovery, some memory of those glory days in the innocent 60s, or the possibility of three 7s lining up on the face of the slot machine she was playing. 
Now standing in the middle of a Las Vegas casino it might not have been such a surprise to find out somebody was lighting up a Doobie ( look it up) or that they were stupid enough to do it in the middle of the casino with security guards just feet away so I was not taken aback by the information in the woman’s conspiratorial whispering – it was the fact no was there. There was no one within 50 feet that I could see, smoking a cigarette or cigar much less the a huge fattie.  Maybe grandma was just remembering the good old days when she and the mop tops used to smoke the Chronic under the board walk or hanging out as the token fashionista in Haight Ashbury back in the day.
There is little wonder that even in casinos dedicated to decades old dance tunes play this song all the time and often follow it up with another Nirvana called Lithium which to me is about a lot of things including the insanity of the human condition _ an insanity that makes Vegas what it is.

The containers people who take daily injections for medical reasons out their needles in is called a Sharps container after the company who made them or their primary purpose or both.
Apparently people are now stealing used needles from Sharps containers in restrooms in this city for what ????reuse ???? That’s gross and dangerous, but as much as million dollar jackpots, girls named Bambi and free cigars at scotch tasting dinners and the joy of listening  to A-list has beens relive the glory days, I love Las Vegas T-shirts, fake Pirate Shows and fake Volcanoes and fake Elvi  ….as much as all that
It  is life in the City of Sin

Til Next Time et al
Take care

Jogger report: There weren’t may weird joggers in the City of Sin this week. The archetypes. The fashion jogger who spends more on their jogging outfits than most people spend on their condos. Jogging Barbies I call them. Then there are the regular guy joggers who are clearly miserable running anywhere and just as determined to prove they love to run but there was really nothing new for runners. I did see a guy riding a bicycle with hauling around a sign advertising naked women and another guy riding a burnt orange Chopper wearing a superman T-shirt and a pack of muscle bound tourist walking down Las Vegas Boulevard  flexing their pecks like cartoon characters perhaps hoping to get the attention of Hard Body Barbie who was jogging by at that minute.