The 50s are back I guess ..lots of plaid shirts and cheap sunglasses filled the Boulevard this week. The City if Sin hosted cowboys, racers, superheroes and general weirdness this week.

By Royal Hopper

A week of questions and answers

Also what does the gentile older lady do when a much younger, much drunker woman confronts her and calls her an F’n lying (all you kids don’t read this) bitch?
Does she shriek and cower ? Does she pull a pistol from her purse and pepper the younger woman who accosted her with lead pellets? Does she jump on a table and strike a Kung Fu pose and brag about her martial arts prowess? The answer at the end of this missive.

Sin City Casinos use all kinds of enticements to lure people into their

clutches. This one stands in Front of Terrible Herbst’s Casino on Flamingo

Road _  Photo by Royal

Remember Bob the Dancer…The bearded dirty gentleman who stands on Sin City sidewalks and breaks into dance in front of bewildered tourists even when there is no music. What do you think Bob, who states his occupation is entertainer said to people who confronted him after he snagged something from another Sin City guests while on a Sin City gaming table?

The answer to that question will also follow.

Also at the request of a friend I would like to repeat a question from last week and go into more detail in the answer….The question I posed last week was this.
Have you ever seen chicks with tattoos dragging guys into elevators by the crotch ? I will expand on the answer to this question in a moment.

Image and confidence…
Before we answer those questions consider this. As I have said before Sin City is a place for peacocks. Human Peacocks of all kinds that enjoy being noticed and simply do not care what people think about it live here and visit the City of Sin.

You have to admire a person who truly doesn’t care what other people think about what he wears. You don’t have to dress like them or like the lady who went jogging in her pajama…To tired to put on pants??? Late for bed time ???? To color blind to tell her jogging pants had kittens on them. So angry at her 13-year-old daughter she deliberately decided to jog in her pajamas.?? I have to know.

The man who strolled down Las Vegas Boulevard wearing a Stetson, pair of Bermuda short and a button up work shirt fits into that category of Sin City Denizen.
How about the guy who can stroll down the middle of a Sin City casino dressed like a superhero red body suit fake muscles and all?
It either takes a massive amount of self confidence, a massive amount of alcohol consumption or a lot of both to do such a thing and something else to do it and believe the eyes that roll as you walk by are doing so because they admire your costume and your fake six pack.

There were six or seven young ladies that seemed to admire the mans costume and danced and whooped on the casino floor as he passed. Of course they were six year old girls who were dressed like Fairy Princesses and giggled every other word of admiration they mumbled to each other. Right on.

Just a cool car I took a picture of ..Rock On all

More questions ???
What do you say to a man who says ..you better get out of my way as he and a well dressed friend are walking down the aisle of a casino and there is nobody around him. Nobody for at least 30 feet. My solution is to leave the dude alone and let his well dressed invisible friends take care of him and his pal the way they always do and apparently always have.

In the lead up to Halloween, costumed figures of all sorts were every where in the City of Sin leading me to comment to one gentleman dressed as what appeared to be a pirate ..Nice Costume….to which he replied in a drunken slur of words ..Costume..what costume ???

In the last missive, the last funny one I close with this…

The lady with tattoos dragging the man into the elevator by his crotch ..who knows ..even in the City of Sin some things are best left as mysteries.
I didn’t see what happened in the elevator but then again maybe we will talk about what probably went on in that elevator…Loud noises and groans ????alien parasites eating someone’s brains ….zombies …
The truth is I’m not sure what happened to these two but the tattooed lady seen forcing the man into the elevator was later seen high fiving another tattooed beauty and making rude hand gestures and then high fiving the other again.
Roll reversal ??? Is the gentleman in that scene sobbing his broken heart out somewhere while the beauty and her friend swap stories of the weekend’s conquest ? I don’t know but I did later see her smoking a cigarette …What does that mean exactly????It means I’m jealous for one.

Now back to the gentile older lady confronted by an intoxicated younger woman with the foul mouth.

http://youtu.be/RBLvsoeYpgE
What does the gentile older lady do when a younger woman when a younger drunken woman confronts her and calls her an F’n lying bitch you ask? The gentile older lady looks right at the other woman and says “well you’re her a fat ass,” Grandma refused to back down. She held her ground and composure with the help of 10 or 15 bystanders who leapt to her defense. Yes as I have said it before sometimes this city will surprise you ..not often but sometimes.

Lastly lets talk about Bob again. (That is of course not his name its just what we call him) When confronted by his accusers saying they had proof he had taken cash from a fellow Sin City gambler, bearded , dirty Bob the Dancer with chin whiskers that will likely live on years after Bob has passed on to his glory called his accusers Jews and asked them.
“What would you do if you had baby Jesus in your hands????
Well what would you do????

Such is Life in the City of Sin
Rock on Sinners

http://youtu.be/RBLvsoeYpgE

by Royal Hopper
One warm Sin City Summer in 1998 I was working at a Strip casino as a security guard when the Las Vegas police department made a vice sweep through the casino arresting prostitutes and their associates.
One of the “girls” arrested in the round up was 14-years-of age. That is a fact.
As much as the twin hedonisms of gambling and the alcohol consumption , women and sometimes men who sell themselves for money are a Sin City trademark. On most Las Vegas street corners you can see “new stands with pictures of scantily clad women who will “dance” for you in the privacy of your hotel room.

You see them everywhere in the City of Sin. Women and sometimes men selling themselves for money to strangers. It is almost a cliché in this city and incidentally it is against the law here in Clark County.
True story once myself and a security supervisor named Sheldon at a property I was working at in late 1989 were called to the front lobby of the hotel to break up a domestic dispute. When we got there we saw a young man standing there with no shirt on and an older man holding the shirt.
“Give me my wallet back,” said the older man. “Give me my shirt,” back the younger man said. “Give me my wallet back,” the older man repeated. “Pay me what you promised,” the younger man said. ….More …..needless to say Sheldon who was from New York told them to take their spat outside and made sure each got their property back.

As another casino I worked at I once actually heard that a man asked security guards to get his money back because he hadn’t gotten his money’s worth from the working girl he had hired and even a few of the working girls seemed confused about the illegality of their trade actually on at least one occasion I can remember one asking security guards to obtain the money they had been promised.
Once one in the mid 90s security was called to a room at the Treasure Island Hotel and the guest was adamant that the girl he had hired had stolen money from his pants. Apparently he took the working girl to his room and shortly thereafter took his pants off in preparation for his ..half priced message and I think went to the bathroom. The girl suddenly changed her mind and started to leave. The man grew suspicious and detained her until we got there.
In the process of interviewing both of them the young woman said..I don’t have the money you can search me in there …” she said pointing to the bathroom. Now I’m no saint but you know eeeewwwww no …..
“Just give him his money back and we will ….” the memory fades at that point but suffice it to say the man decided not to press charges I’m guessing that since soliciting prostitution is illegal in Vegas calling the cops would have been bad for him.

Funny Stuff huh No Not really
At the time I was a young man with no family and all the sights I had seen and have seen were just good stories to tell.
Now that I have a 17-year-old daughter, who is to the best of my knowledge an innocent,  the stories these police officers and parents tell and the ones I see at work hit me on the head like a ten ton boulder. They give me headaches. I can’t _ no one who has a female child could ever listen to these stories with quite the same the humor again.
Every time I hear these stories now I can see my daughter’s blue eyes and crooked smile and I can remember the…”shouts of Grasshopper Hug” as she jumped from our couch into my arms after I got home from work.
I also think about the guy dressed like Snow White talking up a group of businessmen on a holiday excursion….

Las Vegas news stand with pictures of private dancers for hire…photo from last winter

You can’t miss them if you come this city. The girls I mean.
I have seen two of them arguing over customers and wandering around hotels with a room number scrawled across a piece of paper trying to find their next customer.
I have watched the same woman go up into an elevator with a stranger come back down. I have seen them stumbling out of hotel elevators hair messy and weary make up astray only to go up with a different man or woman after a quick make up fix and then again do the same thing and again and again.
To be sure sometimes it is the men who wind up as victims. They wake up hours later after a free glass of spiked champagne sans wallet and memory but make no mistake about it most of the risks in these transactions is taken by the working girls some of whom are not even old enough to drive in this state.
Of course some are much older and nothing takes more confidence than strutting your stuff on the Boulevard when you can remember seeing Saturday Night Fever in its original 1976 format and own nine pairs of bell bottoms…Okay I made up that last part.
Sometimes the City of Sin is a fun place. But sometimes it has a dark side ..and sometimes it has a very dark side….

Anyway such is life in the City of Sin
Rock on Sinners and remember what you do matters

Human Trafficking Seminar at Basic High School Tells parents be aware ..teens beware
By Royal Hopper

Every parent’s nightmare is a phrase you often hear on the late night news or in a gripping newspaper story and it is always something that is followed by very bad news. It is a nightmare Andrea Swanson a Las Vegas area school nurse and the wife of a cop knows all to well.
“Our daughter’s picture was on Craig’s List. Her picture was on Craig’s list,” Swanson told a largely teenaged crowd attending a Clark County School District seminar at Basic High School on the effect of sex trafficking in the city known for Sin.

Swanson told the crowd how a young man lured her daughter, whose name will not be used in this article, into the life of a prostitute working the infamous Las Vegas strip. Her daughter’s story ended much better than most of the girls lured into this life. Her daughter’s victimizer ended up in prison and is likely still there she said.
Swanson urged parents and teens at the seminar to recognize the signs and to protect their children, sisters and friends from the sea of predators that lurk in the City of Sin and all over the country. Be aware she said.
The predators that lure young women into a life of prostitution are brilliant manipulators who use any youthful disaffection to lure the young women from their families into “the life.”

Andrea Swanson addresses a crowd of teens and parents at the Clark County School District Human Trafficking seminar Wednesday
Photo by Royaltheir families and a normal life.

There are signs the transformation is taking place pay attention she said.
They use code words like “wifey”and lingo that is a dead give away she said. There is rebellion that doesn’t make sense and physical signs of change and abuse.
These predators will go so far as to tattoo a kind of brand on their “girls” one of them even placing a bar code on them to remind the girls who they belong to said experts like Las Vegas Police Lieutenant Karen Hughes who helped organize the task force that is taking on the human trafficking epidemic in Las Vegas.
There is a plague of human trafficking in the country said seminar speaker Stacey Cramer of the Salvation Army and Las Vegas is one of the world wide hubs of the vile practice. According to a web site dedicated to keeping track of the problem. The victims are usually young women brought in for the sex trade but forced labor is another form of human trafficking in this country.
The sex trade is a rough life Hughes explained and most of the girls are abused in some form and many don’t live past their early 20s. Twenty two is the average age for those who do not make it and many who don’t survive the life are much younger she said.

“ The US federal government believes Las Vegas is a top destination for “human trafficking” victims – from indentured servants to massage parlor workers and prostitutes held captive and forced to commit sex acts,” according to the human trafficking web site http://www.humantrafficking.org/
More than 17,000 humans mostly women and girls were trafficked to the US according to the site .
http://2001-2009.state.gov/g/tip/rls/rpt/78948.htm
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/apr/03/one-womans-escape-human-trafficking/

http://lasvegas.cbslocal.com/2011/04/06/sex-trafficking-vs-prostitution-debate/

http://www.change.org/petitions/take-action-to-end-human-trafficking-in-nevada

In my blogs I often relate funny stories about working girls named after woodland creatures, food items and mythological characters as a backdrop for the weeks events because they are part of the City. Make no mistake about it however if this ever happened to my angel I would have to write these missives from jail cell for a long time….

by Royal Hopper

Have you ever had conversation that you were not aware of or seen naked people posing on city streets or aliens landing on Las Vegas Boulevard . Have you ever seen chicks with tattoos dragging guys into elevators be the crotch ?
More on this in a minute.

The City of Sin at night – Photo by Royal

First conversations you are not aware of.
Hedonism is a decades old past time in the City of Sin. Most people handle it fine like the young woman who maintained her poise and femininity while purging herself of the previous night’s indulgence……In other words she was vomiting the last of the free drinks she had forced down her throat the previous night.

Others don’t do so well.
I cannot reveal the details due to privacy concerns but when another young woman, and when I say young I am being satirical who had had to much to drink several years ago and probably never stopped.
This not so young follower of Jack Daniels happened to turn to me for a split second and said something to the effect of do you see what I’m saying. At least I think that’s what she said. The words were kind of blurred together and incomplete but apparently I had been having a conversation with this person for several minutes and didn’t even know it….

Do you know what I’m talking about ? At least I think that’s what she said it was either that or Duar no bllbbbb rrrb bout…..”
It is also not uncommon in the City of Sin to hear people talking to themselves but sometimes they also simply like to parrot the things other people are saying word for word.

There is another quieter form of Hedonism. In the City of Sin and Hedonism.

Like the impulse strippers.
This is something I heard about and didn’t see like the young woman who stripped off her clothes ran in front of a group of famous and similarly clad bronze statues had a friend snap a picture of her nude body and then threw a coat over her naked shoulders and skittered away before she could be caught and advised not to be naked. In front of bronze statues at any rate.

In closing I would like to mention Cowboys, Hippies and The Grateful Dead.

Back in the day the Grateful Dead would pass through Las Vegas on a yearly basis sometimes about the same time the National finals rodeo. I used to date a Dead Head chick.
I won’t tell you her name, because I liked this chick a bit. She went by Gidget, because like the movie character she was a girl and a midget. She hitched hiked to Vegas from her native Los Angles to visit the City of Sin and sometimes me.
In spite of it’s gangster/cowboy origins the Dead Heads seemed to fit in Las Vegas. They were hedonist of the nth degree wore crazy clothes, lived in 60s in their THC soaked brains and just didn’t give a …hoot what anybody thought about it. Most of the Dead Heads were decent folks many would make their way to the next show selling T-Shirts sitting on the sidewalks often T-shirts very similar to the ones that turned up missing from gift shops the day before.
On one occasion one was found up on the fake sea side cliff in front of the Treasure Island Hotel/Casino lying on the fake rocks many feet in the air a victim of the infamous Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
On at least one occasion the Dead Heads would arrive in town at around the same time as the National Finals Rodeo and clash between counter cultural images and sometimes between the followers of the counter cultures was not epic. As far as I know of there was one short lived fist fight that neither of the participants likely remembered…

Ahhh the memories. Such is Life in the City of Sin

Ohh yeah about the aliens landing on Las Vegas Boulevard ….they were Canadian and they weren’t landing so much as jogging in their Hockey Jerseys (I’m from Texas ..I have no idea what team…) and The lady with tattoos dragging the man into the elevator by his crotch ..who knows ..even in the City of Sin some things are best left as mysteries.

Then again maybe we will talk about what probably went on in that elevator…Loud noises and groans ????alien parasites eating someones brains ….zombies …tune in again and find out …..

Rock on Sinners and tune in again next week

By Royal Hopper

I saw an accident this week. It happened right in front of me as I was traveling down Flamingo Road. A red truck that was hauling ass tried to make it across the road against traffic and was broadsided by a white pick up who was as far as I could tell driving normally.
The red truck flipped over several times and landed on its side. More about this in a minute.

Two members of the Las Vegas area 47 percent take a lunch break from actually working for a living. Sue me I was in a political mood – Photo by Royal

Today there was all sorts of silliness in Sin City even the birds wanted to get in on the act. One determined blackbird stood by the front door of a Strip casino periodically jumping toward one of the doors and looking surprised and angry when he hit the glass doors. He had jusy finished drinking somethign off the sidewalk that looked suspiciously like spilled beer. (lets hope that what it was.)

He then flew into the air several times hit the glass doors again only to jump up and walk at them again in the air. Finally he flew up and away like some of the tourists from this summer’s Electric Daisy Carnival did or thought they were doing at any rate. The bird was toasted.
For the record you don’t look cool hanging around a bus stop with no shirt on like the two sub geniuses standing at a bus stop on the north end of Las Vegas Boulevard.
They were sporting gym shorts, flexing their ..not so impressive physiques and actually posing for onlookers while they waited at the bus stop and their girl friends stood by protecting their male egos by not rolling their eyes. At least not  while they were looking.
They were not Charles Atlas by any stretch of the imagination and they looked more like cartoon characters than the bad asses the were pretending to be.

these two spent several minutes trying to figure out the bus stop ticket machine last winter

Talking about the egos of my fellow males_  kudos to the guy who was spotted walking up and down Las Vegas Boulevard wearing a huge Feax crown in his head. Its takes a lot of confidence to walk the streets of Las Vegas dressed as a Burger King character and even more to make a play for a good looking local girl while doing it. Vegas chicks are not known for being awestruck by dudes in costumes and although I didn’t stick around to see the results of his efforts she probably thought he was posing for pictures and maybe even tipped him a dollar as she walked away laughing.

Oh lastly lets talk about shoes. There is a rule ladies should consider when picking out an ensemble. I call it the redneck rule. When even the middle aged redneck watching from a distance can tell your outfit is a disaster you should rethink wearing green shoes with six soles and even bigger heels.
In in the city of sin today there were men and women pushing their possessions down the road in shopping carts. One gentleman fell asleep on a flight of stairs by a swimming pool the victim of Lord Ethanol and his cohort and certain his problems stemmed from the imaginary men who jumped him and forced him to fall asleep on the stairs.
On the boulevard outside an athletic young woman in custom jogging clothes ran easily down the Sin City while nearby a man who had seen his better days long ago shambled down the street every step taken gingerly as if each one was a great effort.
A dog the size of a giant tea cup barked like a lion from the protected care of his overdressed owner, a mother tries to corral her four hyper children bored by the leather clad wanderers nearby and a of men all dressed in what appears to be uniform bowling shirts walks down the street like extras in a movie about Mariachi band playing bowlers ????????

Back to the wreck. Within seconds people had surrounded the incident and people were on their cell phones and someone even brought put a backpack I assume had an oxygen bottle or an automatic external defibrillator in it. People were there to help. Sometimes the people in this city will surprise you ….sometimes …

Such is Life in the City of Sin
Rock on Sinners

By Royal Hopper

Before I tell you about the blackout that shook the City of Sin Friday I want to tell you about ..lets call him Bob.
Bob looks like a Mountain man and smells like a gym sock. He has a big gray streaked beard that reaches nearly down to his surprisingly thick middle and a layer of dirt on his donated clothing that probably makes him impenetrable to radar. Bob carries his modest possessions in a green plastic bag and has one other thing that sets him apart from most Sin City denizens. Bob like to dance. Not with anyone mind you he just likes to dance. Bob will stop on the sidewalk in front of a Sin City casino and just start dancing.
When asked what exactly he was doing Bob just smiled at me ..I mean at the person interviewing him and said …”I’m a regular here I put on two shows night. I dance with the girls,” he said here and at the Peppermill which is a excellent restaurant on the north end of Las Vegas Boulevard. 

Dancing with myself
Imagine the self confidence and imagination it takes to stand on Las Vegas Boulevard with tourist and Sin City denizens alike looking on …just dancing as Billy Idol sang with himself. Actually the fact he was alone is a very good thing the thought of Bob up on a stage with topless dancing girls is an image that is hard to get out of your head.

Maybe he got tips because of his dance technique or his Mountain Man beard but when asked to leave he just shuffled off to his next gig dancing to his own unheard tune or perhaps the 80s dance mix emanating from nearby buildings.
Bob was on his way. You know Im thinking people may actually pay Bob not to dance. Bob please leave and stand up wind will you.

Now back to the black out….
You don’t really understand what a loud, bright place a Las Vegas casino really is even empty until you walk through a piece of the City of Sin when there is no canned music the lights are off, and the one armed bandits are silent. 
This week, in the wee hours of the Las Vegas morning  the power went out in a large section of the City of Sin and for a brief few hours a few of brightly colored beasts of the neon jungle were dimmed and some of them went to sleep.  
“So the powers out..” said one particularly bright individual. No we’re just testing our night vision goggles we use during alien invasions ….Okay ….
Many people like the man who stated emphatically that he was important and wanted to watch television and somebody had better get the power back on so he could watch  Judge Judy or Friday Night Lights I’m not sure which one.
One gentleman who said he was a military veteran and had served in combat zones said after what he had seen in the service of his country a little darkness was nothing. 
“Focus on the important things” he said in the lilting accent of southern drunkese.
He was concerned whether the 30 pack of beer he had purchased earlier in the day would be warm by the time he was able to get back to drinking them.
Keep in mind people were still trying to gamble find their way to cabs, get a drink,  look for love and a few even tried to snap a few pictures of the blackout.
“Right …totally…radical.. dude….” such is life in the City of Sin.

Til next time
Rock On Sinners 

This weeks jogger report: As the high season in Vegas draws to a close and joggers stop worrying about looking good and just admitted that jogging kind of sucks.

This week in the City of Sin a sea of overgrown children descended on Las Vegas Boulevard with very expensive toys and a swagger that would have made John Wayne proud.
When I saw Gene Roddenberry, the founder of the Star Trek phenomena, speak at SFA university in the early 1980s  It was a powerful experience.

He talked about the power of television,  of social theater _  of image and perception to shape the opinions of the nation and its people. Its was a truly moving speech although I had to hold my breath through half of it because of the wreath of bluish smoke that was rising from several nearby seats and when it was over I had to stifle the urge to spend my last three dollars on donuts and brownies.

Yes I was a Trekie way before it was remotely cool and no I didn’t have Spock ears or wear uniforms to Sci Fi conventions…..Okay I had a Spock haircut for a few months but it was the freakin’ 70s okay…)

  Photo from the Protoform website listed below

Speaking of Star Trek I saw Mr. Spock in Vegas this week. He had a spiky mullet and was a little overweight but he had pointy ears and a beam me up Scotty T-shirt on as he worked on his very expensive model car. The International Indoor Championship brought their expensive mini race cars and unique sense of competition to the City of Sin.
Paint ball combatants of all types also brought their unique form of the Cowboys and  Indians game we all played as kids to the city. Many wore uniforms not dissimilar to those worn by NASCAR drivers, jumsuits covered with logos, others stuck with more conventional camouflage and leather jumpsuits.

Several were seen at whooping and screaming in triumph shocking the early morning, hung over casino crowd after winning a jackpot of several dollars….It was a penny machine…
Where else but Vegas can you see convention of model car racers with receding hair lines mullets and gray streaks in their beard down the street from gun-toting camo wearing desperado who have to get dropped off by their Moms because their aren’t old enough to drive.
Such is life in the City of Sin
Til next time
Rock on Sinners

In keeping with the practice of polishing up my skills in traditional feature writing the next few paragraphs are going to be a short explanation of one City of Sin event. Some names have been left off because of privacy concerns and because I still have to work for a living in a casino town. A short feature like this would have been called a brite or something else I can’t remember.

Bryan Carbone poses for cameras at his work table where he prepares his mini race car for rounds at the International Indoor Championships in Las Vegas last weekend. _ Photo Royal  

Racing fans get small and fast in the City of Sin
 

Bryan Carbone  spent some of the last week-end  bent over a table performing emergency surgery of a sort on his pint-sized racing car as hundreds of competitors nearby feverishly worked on their miniature speed machines.
Carbone and dozens of other Indoor International Championship racing fans from Canada the US, Germany, Finland and across the world packed the convention center of a Las Vegas hotel racing their foot long hotrods around an indoor track. 

Spectators cheered as round after round of mini race cars sped around the makeshift track and sometimes gasped as the dwarvish mean machines crashed into side rails or each other at dizzying speeds.
“They can get up to 40 miles per hour on the indoor tracks,” Carbone said adding that on straighter, longer outdoor tracks greater speeds are possible. Speeds of 60 mph and higher have been recorded for the mini Indy cars. Rumors have it that speeds of up to 80 mph have been reached on the less regulated European tracks he said.

This is not a cheap hobby. Prices for the little race cars run from around $500 for basic car capable of racing at the local level to around $1,400 for those capable of competing at higher levels of miniature racing.
As the cars race around the track there are monitors who stand around righting those mini race cars that flip over or rescuing those that cannot race on. The men and women who race the tiny titans are serious about their hobby, their cars and their racing skills.

“Damn it,” said an unlnown racer as his mini race car lay on the table and he tried to fit new tires on it in time for the next race.

Some of the results from the races held in the City of Sin as posted on the Protoform web site

http://racepf.com/blog/

IIC – Touring Car Modified
Ronald Volker (GER)

Keven Hebert (CAN)
Juho Levanen (FIN)
Hayato Matsuzaki (JPN)
Paul Lemieux (USA)
Mike Dumas (USA)
Mike Haynes (USA)
Rick Hohwart (USA)
Andrew Hardman (USA)

By Royal Hopper

 This week  I saw a lady who looked like a  living anime doll, like a Gothic Japanese version of red riding hood. I saw an man in a rainbow colored tie dye T-shirt hanging out with paint ballers in camo and leather on their way to pretend to kill each other.
As usual I saw men exhausted from living on the street watching football and sacrificing their drink money to make bets.

I saw cyclist and bikers streaming down Las Vegas Boulevard past men asleep on the sidewalk and women wearing red polka dot hats sneering at 45-year old cocktail waitress wearing pantyhose and black skirts.
I heard fat men complain about buffets, drunken ones fall backward down a flight of stairs because they were to drunk to finish the fight they tried to start and was asked serious intelligent questions by a woman wearing a $40 take me home and cover me with whipped cream you stud cocktail dress. I heard the sounds of fake gunfire and splattering paintballs echo across a City of Sin Avenue as I walked to my car to go home after a long day of seeing all the things.

I saw all these things and more and after 14 -years-on and off in the City of Sin none of them really surprised me that much. It is the urban legend I heard in a quiet moment talking with a coworker about the good old days ( which men over 40 tend to do and its none of your business) that kind of surprised me and turned my image of the city slightly on its head. Cognitive dissonance can be a pain. (look it up)

                                                         The Legend

   I heard this legend from a coworker who has stalked the hallways of Las Vegas casinos in one form or another for a quarter century arriving here well before I arrived to work at the Mega Resort that began the corporate era in Las Vegas in 1989. What I heard about the the City of Sin before squeaky clean corporate image of modern Vegas full took effect might surprise you.
Once upon a time it was common practice, this legend goes, for local hotels to give homeless people surplus food and allow them to bath in some of their restrooms. Once upon a time the City of Sin had a heart _ sorts.
This Sin City veteran says he remembers personally handing packages of food to homeless men and women. It wasn’t an every day thing he explains, but it wasn’t altogether uncommon either. 
This was the thing that threw a monkey wrench into the Sin City generosity or rather the lawsuits that followed.

 The legend states that some lawyer apparently got the idea of suing the hotels for food poisoning on behalf of several homeless people who got an upset stomach from eating the donated food. The suits garnered the homeless a few thousand dollars each, the legend goes and the lawyers much more.
Now facing the possibility of more food poisoning lawsuit’s the casinos stopped the once not uncommon practice of donating surplus food to people in need. Many casinos now deal with the huge excess of left over food these places generate by dumping it in a special container destined for pig farms throughout southern Nevada. They are perhaps the very pig farms that provides pork chops and ham steaks many hotels serve in the buffets that

This guy was not homeless he was trying to get out of the rare Las Vegas

rainstorm last winter—yes I took it _ Photo by Royal

these places generate.

For the record, although I will not say where I have witnessed it, I have witnessed men and women going through trash cans for half eaten bacon cheese burgers and aluminum cans to cash in for cheap hotel fair. I have seen people sleeping on sidewalks for lack of a better place to sleep.

I have seen dumpsters full of food that graced the tables of local casinos minutes before or at least hours before. I have seen generosity in this city and cruelty. I have seen insanity in the City of Sin and cold selfish reasoning.
I have seen blind faith,  petulant wealth and grinding poverty. I have seen true charity ( no seriously one chicks name was True Charity) and on and on and on – I have seen almost everything in this city.

I have seen all these things and I have  seen it all on the Monday mornings commutes down Sin City Streets.I have seen all these things on the backs of T-shirts worn girls with multicolored hair and in the faces of people who simply sat down because they were two tired to walk or to drunk to get up off the carpet walk across the hallway to their rooms. 

Such is life in the City of Sin
Til Next time 
 Rock on Sinners

Jogger report: This week the I want to look good in a bikini crowd good bad or indifferent began to drop away and were replaced by the I’m a serious runner what are you looking at