Month: August 2013

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The Chutzpah of Shameless Sinners in the City of Sin

Crossing the Street with a walker in Rush Hour in the City of Sin surely that merits at least one star on the Sin City Chutzpah scale _ Photo by Royal

When I first came to Las Vegas oh so many years ago when Nirvana was a hot new act I thought Chutzpah was some kind of Chick Punk Band from Poland or Estonia. I quickly found out from the New Yorkers in this town what chutzpah and as I have often said …. brother the City of Sin has it spades

The Chutzpah of the Shameless In the City of Sin

by Royal Hopper

Planet Hollywood ..what a perfect symbol for this City…._ Royal

If you can stand in a store check out line with torn clothes covered in road dirt, smelling like pair of dirty gym sock and pretend to be fishing through the trash bag that contains your worldly possessions for correct change brother you can

Notice this sign says right lane must turn right and has a bright orange sign telling them to turn left _ Photo by Royal

Advertising Psychic Readings for $20. That has to at leats rank on the Sin City Chutzpah scale _ Photo by Royal

Sin City on a Rainy Day _ Photo by Royal

perform under pressure. That is what people back east call Chutzpah.

By that definition man I saw standing at a check out counter in a convenience store in this city was a trooper of academy award winning caliber.

Perhaps he just wanted something to eat that didn’t come from a trash can or perhaps he didn’t want to get nabbed for shoplifting food.  His torn barely functioning bell bottom jeans and grease smeared almost white hair indicated had seen his better days sometime around the dawn of disco, black lights and Alice Cooper. Perhaps somewhere in the test of time he had flunked the final exam.
Whatever the reason for his deception he stood in the line at this store counter under the incredulous stares of fellow patrons for several long minutes without blinking .
Also ignoring the stares of the store cashier and a delivery man he moved his meager pocket change back and forth across the counter like Sisyphus in his eternal labors .
Perhaps he was hoping that someone would lose count and mistake the 37 cents in change for the $12 or so he actually needed to but the stuff he had picked out. Perhaps was simply stalling so he could make off with his ill gotten bootie of candy bars, toothpaste and assorted curiosities when no one was looking.

Perhaps but whatever the case eventually even this residentially challenged trooper knew the game was up and no amount of Chutzpah could change the fact he had 37 cents and needed $12.

When the lone security guard assigned to keep order in this particular part of establishment walked up he did not have to say a word. The trooper was a veteran of this cat and mouse game played between security guards and the homeless all over this city hundreds of times a week.
He just shrugged and walked out of the establishment under the silent reproach of the security guard who said nothing and just let the trooper move on to his next performance, his next display of Chutzpah.

You have to admire the confidence it takes to shuffle 37 cents in assorted change around a store counter in hopes someone will lose count long enough for you to buy the $12 worth of stuff you want or need. Man what confidence what Chutzpah.

This city is full of performers with  Chutzpah. It is full of performers like the man with the long gray ponytail flirting with the phony farm girls in leotard like outfits who likely later that night slipped a mickie in his fizzie grape juice and made off with his favorite pair of suede shoes and his prize disco light.

steaks and chops

Think about the 40-year-old man who stands on Las Vegas Boulevard dressed like Sponge Bob, or Elmo or My Pretty Kitty posing for pictures with strangers to pay the bills or the man who sits on a Vegas sidewalk selling water for $1 a bottle 50 yards from a store that sells it for 50 cents…Chutzpah baby…Chutzpah.

As my many New York co-worker informed me later that year.  Chutzpah is not a female Punk band from Estonia ..damn it. It simply means audacity and impudence. It means a person with the ability to steal your shotgun empty your shotgun into the neighbor’s cow and then ask both of you for a loan because you cant afford shotgun shells.

HD and PT

It’s kind of like the man who tried to panhandle money from the security guard who was walking. About the same time give or take a day he had to walk a man with 37 cents to his name out the casino doors this man asked for a dollar so he could play a game.

Dude Seriously. That is Chutzpah and that is life in the City of Sin.
Rock On Fellow Sinners
Stay Cool

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Laying Down on the Job in the City of Sin

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Construction crews take advantage of balmy 90 degree temperatures last week to work on one of Sin City’s Classic casino/resorts _ Photo by Royal

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This residentially challenged gentleman asks for help from Sin City passerby _ Photo Royal

by Royal Hopper

The  man who spent part of Sunday sitting down on a Sin City sidewalk his head propped on his knees his eyes closed didn’t look homeless just tired and to drunk to move.
Just down the street another man lay down on a planter his smart phone still in his manicured hand as he cut a healthy load of zzzsss and ignored the fact he was laying on a planter just 12 yards or so from Las Vegas Boulevard .

He was grumpy when he was awakened.
Not everybody in this city you see laying down in odd places these days is homeless. In a disturbing new trend many of these sidewalk sleepers are just tired or drunk and to far away from their hotel rooms to go there or to broke to get one. Okay maybe its not disturbing but it is funny.

In yet another section of Sin City a young woman apparently decided renting a room in Sin City was to expensive and time consuming. Tables are just as good a place to sleep on and under signs is good and a table under a sign is even better and sleeping on a table under a sign with a small canine is the best baby…the best.
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The continuing saga of this City is simple. Many who come here have so many issues to vent and so many ways to vent them that many keep on going and going until they run out of juice or have one to many glasses of Vodka.

The Pool playing bar flies that invaded the City of Sin this week 5,000 strong are dedicated to the game of billiards. To be fair most of the people who come here are just normal people who save for months to blow off some steam in the City if Sin.
In the process they lose themselves in the ambience of the world’s biggest theme bars and sometimes don’t know when to stop.
Caught up in the Sin City ambience they play and play and play until they cant do anything else including remember to take off their pajamas and pull up their pants like. One enterprising billiards fan was seen stumbling down a Las Vegas side street his pool cue slung over his back in its leather case, his jaunty pair of plaid briefs pulled up to his waist on the outside what looked like pajamas or a JOGGING OUTFIT.
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Some of these epic party animals drink and drink and drink until they can’t do anything else including sit up or stand or remember their names. Reportedly in one section of the city one hard drinking pool player was so bitten by Demon Jack (Daniels) he didn’t move

an inch when kicked repeatedly by enterprising bystander and told to get his ass up.  Another reportedly just groaned a little when asked his name and rolled over.

Some of them just walk around taking pictures and walk around taking pictures until the cant do anything else. One well dressed tourists continued to take pictures after his legs gave out on him and he sat down on the sidewalk. He continued taking picture until he could no longer sit up and lay down on the ground pointing his $4,000 Nikon at the city scenery; As his head lay on the sidewalk he continued to for shot after shot at the ordinary objects near his head. I can see that wall of prize winning photos of the pavement and drain pipes and pigeons lining his wall.

One man seen sitting on the ground near a bus stop bench ( on the ground near the bench mind you not on it) looked surprised when a charitable passerby handed him a dollar bill and even more confused when another handed him the bulk of his fast food breakfast. Apparently he wasn’t homeless just tired. He put the sandwich in his mouth and the dollar bill in his pocket and rolled over and went back to sleep.

Such is life in the City of Sin
Rock on Fellow Sinners

Sometimes this City is better than Disney land for cuteness and family attractions. Not usual but sometimes _ Photo by Royal

Sin City Sidewalks and being cool when you sleep

By Royal Hopper

This week I saw a man curled up in a ball on a sidewalk a mostly empty plastic bottle of Vodka near one side of his head a mostly empty plastic bottle of water near the other.

If you ask the sidewalk sleeping veteran commonly seen clutching an empty Vodka bottle in his gnarled hand as he lies curled up on the Sin City Concrete will tell you his name is George.

I have to tell you fellow sinners when I first saw George I thought the dude was gone, a victim of whatever demons drove him to the life of a sidewalk sleeper. George however still had some life left in him and when roused from his sound sidewalk slumber picked up the trash bag containing his meager possessions and prepared to find a more peaceful sidewalk to slumber on.

Sin City Conspiracy Theorists started showing up on Sin City streets as soon as the weather turned cooler…Photo by Royal

Winnie the Pooh and Tigger too parade across Sin City Sidewalks late last week much to the delight of a nearby tourist who was busily snapping photos of the two and everything else around her…Photo by Royal

As he made ready to leave his lonely corner of Sin City concrete between a sidewalk and a planter full of blooming flowers he stopped for minute as if forgetting something then suddenly remembering what that something was.
With shaking hands he picked up his almost empty bottle of water and attempted to pour the remaining liquid into his nearly empty bottle of Vodka. After several futile attempts he gave up and proceeded with a futile attempt to put the lid if the water bottle on his beloved  plastic Vodka container.
Perhaps he was hoping some magic would transform the ordinary water in the container into that tasty fermented and distilled potato juice (that’s what Vodka is ) It was a futile effort because the lids were clearly different sizes but George was not to be denied. He   kept trying to make the odd sized lid fit  where he wanted it to fit. No many how many times he turned the lid

When told he was holding the wrong lid George mumbled his agreement but did not try to switch lids. Instead he stalked away the still open bottle of Vodka in one hand and the disobedient lid in the other.

George like many of us Sin Citiers  is stubborn. We don’t give up our way of doing things just because it doesn’t work and is kind of weird and unpopular. We are who we are …We make things fit…..

feather girls
This week began with the last few Roller Derby Chicks preparing to leave the City of Sin tattoos, skates and all.

The Roller Derby girl or woman I met this week who I will call Zoe could do both and was actually a pleasant person to talk to all things considered. What do say to a chick who might win a fight with your high school PE teacher flirts with you and knows more about comic book history and retro jazz rock fusion music than you do.
“Where were you when I was a teenager Zoe?”

“Yes Mam,…”
Five thousand of these roller skating tough girls and tough guys rolled into and out of town this week showing off tattoos and colored hair and flexing well earned muscle and treating Sin City to their uninhibited in your face glory…and hip checking the occasional trouble maker.and what did these wild, fearless roller skating trouble makers do when they were in the City of Sin. A lot of the time they went to classes, shopped for new gear and went swimming…go figure.  

As high season in the City of Sin begins rolling to a stop and desert temps ease down into the low 100s, the city as always is filled with tourists, tattoos ..and the usual assortment of party animals, has beens and talented ner do wells…
This weeks visitors were so busy getting new body art, tattoo artists in town reported hand cramps from all the skin art they wrote this week. Tips were good  and the tattoos were better but little else changed in the City of Sin.
People still held signs, partied all night and woke up in hall ways and Elvis still makes an occasional appearance.
One enterprising sight seeing nomad …apparently found a cardboard sign like the kind commonly used by the local panhandlers to ask tourists for money …where he had decided to take a quick Jack Daniels inspired nap. He quickly snagged the sign and lay it on his face either to shield his eyes from the glare of Sin City neon or perhaps he believed if people thought he was a homeless beggar they would leave him alone and let him catch a few zzs on the sidewalk.

Such is Life in the City of Sin
Rock on Sinners
Stay Cool and Free

Don’t Sit on Moola

By Royal Hopper

This week I learned you shouldn’t sit on cows named Moola or expect normality in the suburbs.

It was a long week in the suburbs. I was on vacation and broke as a beer peddler on  Friday. ( I have no idea what that means ..a distant relative of mine said it once years ago _ the same one who tried tell my future with a deck of souvenir playing cards and discounts on quarter sticks of dynamite.)
But fear not Fellow Sinners there is still much to report from this Sin City Sinner. During my exile in the suburbs I encountered the complete cast of characters you see every day in the City of Sin and I didn’t go anywhere near Las Vegas Boulevard.

Moola the Cow sits on the Laughlin River Walk near an ice cream stand Wednesday afternoon _Royal

You know you can see the strangest people eating a box of chicken nuggets in the suburbs and hanging around a Wal-Mart here is a lot like being in the Peace Corp in a strange distant Island like Bora Bora.
I one place you see many dangerous strange, oddly dressed natives engaging in difficult to understand rituals, and dancing to strange beat of native drums as isolated wide men try to bring enlightenment to the unenlightened. It is a weird place. It is dangerous and exotic. Then there is the Bora Bora Peace Corp.

I saw a lot of things in my week off in the burbs
I saw a man with a bottle of whiskey in his hand hanging out by a doorway. I saw a woman in a cheesy costume,  a pink woolen heart on her sleazy denim shirt, a pair of Daisy Duke short shorts on her healthy rear end.
There was and a man talking to himself banging his head like  champion metal head jamming out to what I hope was a song on IPOD I couldn’t see and not the invisible friend inspired by those purple stamps he licked repeatedly at the Guns and Roses so many years ago…..Welcome to the Suburbs ..we got SUVs ..we got anything you want if you got ID……Those are the words right ….

Laughlin this week _ Royal

The Cow I spoke of is named Moola. Moola is parked in front of a casino along the River Walk in Laughlin, Nevada. I should add that Moola is made of wood and is the mascot if a ice cream stand on the walk.
Apparently the patrons of the River Walk, mostly older people with gray hair like to sit on Moola.  These gray haired rabble rousers sat on Moola  on her often enough that Moolo the cow had a sign taped on the side of her body that read,,,Don’t Sit On Moola

I saw all of these things several times and did not go near the Strip. The day I went back to work and had to drive into the heart of Sin City the first thing I saw was a man stumbling down a Sin City roadway several feet from nearest sidewalk _ because you know using sidewalks on a busy city street is for woosies. Real men stumble drunk down the road and trust their fellow men not to run their drunken ass over. I saw men with bottles in their hands and people wearing silly costumes. The same stuff I saw in the City of Sin.
I even saw a sign that said honk if you love Virginia…I swear that is what it said. What’s wrong with Virginia. It is a lovely state. _ What’s that you say ….put on my glasses next time……

Their Freaking ducks swimming in the water near the Riverwalk in Laughlin _ Royal

The problem with Vegas is that in spite of what you may think. It isn’t all that weird or different. It isn’t an alien colony or a cult of schizophrenics who worship Dr. Pepper bottles named Fred with eyes painted on them. Vegas is us. It’s dysfunctions are our dysfunctions let out of the bag and given a costume.