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