Two people perhaps Thrift store employees adjust a sign advertising the store. Sunday the year in review and the week in review….Wearing carpet to work or Your not all that.
Month: December 2012
People of Sin City: Like totally we are lost
Two Sin City Denizens navigate their way down the streets of the city
The People of Sin City: on the way home
A commuter strides the streets of the City of Sin late last week
People of Sin City: They call me the working man
One of the working men on Las Vegas Boulevard
It’s Christmas time in the City of Sin
By Royal Hopper
Christmas in the City of Sin is like the United Nations. Diverse, loud and often drunk. Everyone doesn’t celebrate Christmas and everyone who doesn’t celebrate it flocks to Sin City this time of year shouting things at people in languages they don’t understand.
The statue of Liberty at New York, New York Casino
They also don’t understand a lot of things about Vegas like the fact that six-year-olds are not allowed to sit in their laps and shovel quarters into a slot machine or slam shots of Jim Beam while their parents reach for the rear ends of cocktail waitresses and shout how much at the women who are going to steal your wallet in ten minutes.
It’s against the law here.
These world visitors tend to drink a lot and take many, many controlled substances that simply don’t seem to be in keeping with the Christmas spirit.
One lady from the far away land of Korea was spotted laying on the carpet in a popular Vegas casino dressed in a bright red evening dress her black satin underclothing visible to anyone who dared to look and lots of people did.
She said she was waiting for a bus but eventually gave up and wet to lay down in the hallway in front of a room not registered to her, only to discover her tour group was waiting for her near the spot she had been laying on the floor and hour before.
On the other hand many locals in the City of Sin greater Metropolitan area spent the week deep in preparation for the holiday season.
I mean what says Christmas more than putting a red nose and a phony pair of reindeer antlers on your pick up truck as you are on your way to the two for one Budweiser beer special at Wal-Mart.
Except maybe putting a wreath on the front of your 18-wheeler as you are guzzling 5-hour energy drinks and hurtling down the Interstate past 
frightened car loads of afternoon commuters.
…and _ who knew Santa was a salesman. Rumors has it that the red suited Christmas Claus was sighted near a half off sale on Flamingo Road Christmas Eve waving at passersby.
Santa on Flamingo Christmas Eve
A young woman spotted walking down a Sin City street was definitely a Christmas fan if he red hair, red clothes, bright red lipstick.
One City of Sin casino denizen looked a little bit like Santa Claus. If Santa Claus had started drinking years ago and was skinny with a thousand yard stare that would scare the heck out of Jack Frost or the average Christmas Eve reveler as the tugged their matching Santa hats over their faces in an effort to avoid his wide eyed stare.
Bumble Bee hanging out on The Strip
Homer Simpson hangs out on the Strip Christmas Week
Still there were bright spots in the holiday Sin City Scene. Homer Simpson and Bumblebee the Transformer were spotted hanging out at a local casino posing for holiday pics.
MC Hammer and Tone Loc are preparing to bring back that 80s rap to the Holiday season and a sea of Santa Hat wearing tourists floated down Las Vegas Boulevard past collectors for local charities who were having a banner year from all accounts.
Such is life in the City of Sin
Rock On Fellow Sinners
And Merry Christmas, Glorious Yule and Happy Freaking Holidays
Angry Drunks and Holiday shoppers in the City of Sin
By Royal Hopper
The world did not end. It went on tears triumph, tragedy silliness and all. The tears of innocents is nothing new to the City of Sin and it barely missed a beat this week.
My life was uninterrupted in the midst of Sin City Christmas shopping madness except for the horror of last minute stocking stuffer shopping madness I was recruited into by my 17-year-old daughter. The men and non shopping women in the store looked on with sympathy as she dragged me down the store’s aisles with an enthusiasm only teenaged girls can muster.
Pardon me for a moment while I vent…aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh
…………………….aaaaahhhhhhhhhh……aaaah …ah
Christmas Houses at the Shopping Mall last week _ Photo by Royal
There now I feel better.
As recent events in the country and the totally of Sin City experience have revealed in their natural state Human beings are very angry even when they are happy.
Like when they pass out in a restroom of a Sin City hotel with a smile on their face and are so tightly wedged into the bathroom stall and so unconscious paramedics have to be called they are pissed of at the world.
The lady I am talking about cursed like a ..well a drunken sailor..when paramedics came to take her to the hospital. Her fingers were locked in the middle finger salute as they wheeled her out of the door of the strip hotel whose bathroom she had passed out in.
Then she passed out and started snoring.
I’m not quite sure if she even knew who she was angry at but she had a smile on her face as her hand flipped the bird to whatever Pink elephants her fevered mind was conjuring up.
This week what passes for winter hit the City of Sin we brushed the dust off of our winter clothes and bundled up against temperatures and winds that would New Yorkers giggle adjust their sun glasses and sip on their iced tea.
A City if Sin resident waits to cross a City of Sin street in her Christmas
Season splendor..as usual photo by Royal
Las Vegans took a hiatus from debauchery crowding into malls and shopping centers for last minute Christmas gift acquisition. One lady dressed head to toe in red drew particularly intense attention especially from a few inebriated locals who seemed sure Ms Santa Claus had made a side trip into the City of Sin and seemed determined to pester Ms. Claus for extra gifts.
There were rodeos ( all you goat ropers out there will know what the National Finals Rodeo is) and cowboy concerts and the City of Sin was full of men and women with big hats, button up shirts and a healthy fearlessness of angry livestock.
One local casino fixed up one of its old lounges like a Honkie Tonk bar complete with a mechanical bull and one Levi clad cowboy was sighted having a meaningful conversation with the mechanical bull who we shall call Mechanical Bull and later with the giant blow up whiskey bottle located near the front of the goat roping room. ( Goat ropers means cowboys and Country and Western fans in the cool breeze jargon of 1970s Texas.) One enterprising Goat Roper walked up the security booth at one local casino and asked if he could have a beer and another asked if anyone remembered where he had parked his car.
I remember one occasion years ago where an obviously wealthy casino patron was angry about the people gathered around them to watch as they shoveled hundreds of dollars worth of tokens into a slot machine like it was a handful of dimes.
This patron was playing a slot machine that took $500 token and insisted on having security guards stand around them to protect them from “the peasants” gathering around them to gawk. All the while this wealthy slot patron was constantly looking over their shoulder and basking in the awe of the mostly middle class patrons as he shoveled tokens into a machine spending more in one pull of the one armed bandits handle than most of the people looking on made in a week.
He was angry when people were watching him and angry when they were not.
This city is a place filled with dangerous folks from time to time but this week people in the City of Sin went shopping, put reindeers noses and antlers on their trucks, bundled dressed like Santa and rode mechanical bulls named Arthur or was it Fred.
Such is life in the City of Sin
Until next time
Rock On Fellow Sinners
Have a great Christmas and a New Years Eve you don’t remember
My Daughter’s Christmas Wall display –aint she talented
Jogger report: In spite of the cold people still jogged they just didn’t stop until they were back inside where it was warm. One man apparently decided to was just to cold and started to run down the street in his street clothes. He wasn’t getting in shape he was cold and wanted to get inside.
Bikes ready to go
Bikers on the way to work _ the muscle powered types of bikes…This week Big Hats invade the city of Sin and Angry drunks are very angry
The People of Sin City : Dude with Beard
Santa Claus out for an afternoon walk in Henderson
The People of Sin City
A blonde Sin City denizen considers helping the homeless while the helper tries not to look and a sign informs all who look not to sell water or food.
Chuckie the killer doll, the horror of holiday shopping at the mall and the zombie texters of Sin City
By Royal Hopper
I saw Chuckie, the animated killer doll standing on the Boulevard this week and strangely no one wanted to cuddle up to Chuckie long enough to take a picture….strange.
It seems to me that if you make your living by posing as a cartoon character to attract picture taking tourists posing as a homicidal doll that kills people with a butcher knife might not be the best approach and imagine the people you would attract.
“He he …..wanna take a picture …he he …I tried a butcher knife …he he ….its messy …he he …”
The red head Chuckie the killer doll recruits passersby for posed pictures
with the cinematic murderer while passersby appear to avoid him
Photo _ by Royal Hopper
This week I took a week off and hiked around the desert countryside with my wife, my teen aged rocker daughter, (you haven’t lived until you have a teenager who knows more about the music you listened to as a teen than you do) and our hyperactive dog Reddy. I also (and I know I’m going to lose man points for this) went shopping.
In my manly defense I didn’t go shopping on purpose I was tricked by two devious women into this unmanly activity.
I just wanted to go to lunch and take a few cheesy tourist pictures for my face book page and was greeted with a response that should have sent chills down my manly spine.
“If you really want to …” ( no screaming damn it my ears are hurting)
A bit of advice to all non-shoppers of any gender, kind or proclivity. When the significant others in your life ask you if you want to go to the Strip and then utter those most infamous of Sin City words chances are you are going to spend the day shopping.
The day wasn’t a complete loss I did get a few pictures and overheard the following conversation. “Okay lets go,” said
one youngster to an attractive friend sitting down near a planter at the Miracle Mile mall near a mall kiosk.
The holiday shopping crowd at the mall. Everyone seated at this kiosk took their phone out at least once.
“Hold on a minute I’m texting..” said the attractive friend bent over engrossed in the contents of her I Phone . “Yes I know,” said the friend with an incredulous look on her face “ your texting me dingbat I was at the ****(I think she said kiosk)
“Hold on a minute,” the texting friend said finally finishing and hitting the send button on her $900 cell phone. The text warning on the other friends phone dinged almost instantly.
“Okay,” they said, “lets go,”
“Hold on,” said the friend with the cell phone “I’m expecting a text…” she said burying her head in the expensive cell. Outside the mall the usual crowd of peacocks, performers and hustlers and that most horrid of mixed blessings tourists. Including one fairly homely street magician who was basking in the attention of two attractive young women who were clearly wowed by his street level slight of hand. I snapped a few pictures and backed away thinking to not cramp the young man’s style because I admire a homely unemployed guy who can make time with good looking women.
The this poor man’s street Houdini dissed me imagine the nerve.
You have never really lived until you’ve been dissed by a street performer wearing a hat that is probably older than he is. I mean this kid was probably riding his big wheel across the school playground when I when I first sat foot in the City of Sin more than two decades ago.
Now me and my old lady aren’t exactly veldt okay but we are not nearly so huge or ravenous looking as one of the patrons of the Miracle Mile food court who was staring at us from a distance like a hungry Polar Bear staring at a couple of gazelles as we munched on our Chinese salads. As we made our way back into the Miracle Mile holiday crowd I was walking Past this ravenous human Polar Bear (Is there such a thing as a Were Polar Bear) and I thought he was going mug me for the few dollars in change I had in my pocket. Instead he said…”How was it…” with a look of lust on his face.
A Sin City Street Magician wows a small crowd on the strip
Tuesday _ Photo by Royal
“Yeah it was all right,” I replied trying to get away as fast as I could before this rotund individual mistook my arm for a leg of lamb. As I walked away I saw him fishing in his pockets furiously for enough cabbage to purchase the succulent salad he had witnessed me eat, like an alcoholic looking for that last shot of near beer to ease his thirst.
Somehow on the days I pick to take a break from work and life in the City of Sin I keep get getting dragged back to the infamous Las Vegas Strip for that most infamous of activities. ….shopping. (Guys guys stop screaming please It wasn’t that bad really)
This week there were Shoppers and Chuckies, everywhere in the city of Sin. I saw street magicians and street performers in wheelchairs and panhandlers hiding behind signs and hordes and hordes of shoppers…
Such is life in the City of Sin
Until next time
Rock on fellow Sinners
Royal's Sin City Journal 