Mom and Pop on the Boulevard _ Photo by Royal 

Rising temperatures in the City of Sin

By Royal Hopper

In the City of Sin temperatures and tempers rise with the onset of summer as does the consumption of cheap alcohol and the display of young athletic bodies and memories of the best forgotten past.
I’m sure it is something the man who stumbled across Las Vegas Blvd. in a Frampton Lives T-Shirt , a pair of boxers and two mismatched shoes can relate to.

Now this guy is having a bad day _ Photo by Royal 

The woman with the pair of socks in each of her pockets and a handful of one dollar bills who walked up to me and three times started to say something but could not quite remember what she was trying to ask can also understand.

Regret means something different in the City of Sin. Lets talk about regret now stay with me..

A few weeks ago as desert temperatures first started to rise I talked to a man named Frank. Frank, who didn’t give his last name, said he was Vietnam vet from Ohio by way of Atlanta. As he sipped on the brown liquid in his glass Frank admitted he was still haunted by memories of the things he saw and did in that desolate war torn Southeast Asian country so many years ago.

He cant help it. The heat of summer and several doses of Mr. Jack Daniels ethanol anesthetic bring the memories back like a lightning bolt. The very thing he does to quiet the unholy symphony in his head turns up the volume..
“There wasn’t supposed to be any civilians there,” he said adding something about a young innocent that got caught in the crossfire of that chaotic conflict.
Frank’s trip to Vegas was a gift from family.

Photo by Royal

After listening to his tale I thanked Frank for his service to our country those many moons ago and he shook my hand, smiled in gratitude took a gulp of JD and stumbled off the find a good $3.99 breakfast. His only real regret was that he had tapped into the family reserve once to often and nobody would loan him more money to play the ponies or roll the bones with lady luck.

That life in the City of Sin this week..
So Long Sinners
See you soon

P.S. Also In Las Vegas one woman of Polish extraction discovered just how empty the City of Sin can be on an empty stomach and how rummaging around Sin City food courts is somehow not an allowed activity.

The City of Sin and the Deep Sultry South

By Royal Hopper  

After a week spent in the warm, sultry confines of deep, deep south.
I am back in the my city the City of Sin. This week’s column on the central question in the minds of pundits, philosophers, Sinners and southerners alike.. With a central question in mind. Can two people named Billie Jean living in towns separated thousands of miles and a Gulf of culture and time be compared ?? Do they both speak English .Do they have the same taste in clothes??? What color shoes do they wear. Are small towns in Mississippi and Las Vegas the famous City of Sin really that much alike ???? Hmmmm. Stay Tuned for the answers to those questions and more bits of Sin City versus down south wisdom.

Sunset on the Boulevard _ by Royal

When I flew into Texas this week to meet my sister I wore nothing but 15-year-old suit, a pair of black ankle boots and a two day old pair of underwear.
Needless to say I had to stop at Wal_Mart on our way to Mississippi to get some clean clothes.

So lets talk about the clothes people wear in these two far flung places..(Okay transitions are tough to write after five cups of coffee)

In Las Vegas this week hordes of gender bending cross dressers gathered in in the City of Sin to strut there stuff compare dress sizes and ways to deal with razor stubble. They gathered in hotels and on streets lined with fine dining, high end shopping and a culture built on tolerance of self expression and diversity. They wore bikinis and one gender bending giant verbally labeled Billie Jean by her companion strutted through a local establishment his or her store assets giggling proudly as he/she walked. Everyone wore shorts..One woman decided sidewalks were a good place to catch a few zs in her underwear and one man stood on the side of a Sin City suburban street wearing a red dress and smoking a cigar and stroking his bushy beard waving at passersby_ and no one noticed.

Hey babe i’m an Avenger _ Photo by Royal

In the Mississippi burg I spent a few days the prior week in I saw many people at the Applebees happily wearing the same suit they wore in 1987..remember 1987… I do it was a good year for suits _ really..
And if Applebees wasn’t your style the Cracker Barrel was only a short drive down the Interstate. _ and you know that the chicken fried chicken was really good. Just be in by 9 p.m. because that is when the sidewalk gets rolled up and put away for the night. A man wearing leisure suit and a solar powered watch and a pony tail stood on a Mi’sippi street corner with a bucket of chicken and nobody noticed or tried to give him a dollar to wash their windshield.

Mississippi Billie Jean as her name tag named her wore a halter top uniform in a restaurant where everything from the fish to the ice cream was deep fat fried.

Photo by Royal

In Vegas this week the cross dressers lounged by the pool at hotel with 4,000 rooms and walked down streets full of cartoon characters and people who will wash your car for a dollar.
In Mississippi well you get the idea.

Now to answer question two..
The Billie Jean in Vegas is 6 foot 5 inches tall and is built like a linebacker. The one in Mi’sippi (and yes that is how they say it) is just the girl who works in the Fry shop in the 1950s Ellie May frock.

Question 1…How alike are Mississippi and Las Vegas ????
Well Mississippi has casinos .
And Las Vegas has casinos.
It gets really hot in Mississippi and it gets really hot in Las Vegas
There are many things alike between Las Vegas and that tiny town in Mississippi. ..What is the answer to this weeks question?? Are Las Vegas and Mississippi are exactly alike. No of course there not dumb ass T his is Las Vegas

Such is Life in the City of Sin and the deep, deep, deep south..
Rock on Fellow Sinners

Stay Cool

Just cause its cool

Oh Darth you are such a drama queen _ Photo by Royal

Being ditched in Sin City or the DADQ strike again

by Royal Hopper 

I was going to make this weeks missives on the definition of what a Dumbass Drama Queen or DDQ really is. Instead I would like to touch on that most important of skills knowing when to ditch the dude and how not to get ditched in the City of Sin.

You see them every day in this City _ someone walking around with a lost/betrayed look on their face, a half empty bottle of spirits searching for the “friends” who left them stranded and hung over in the middle of Sin City.
Last year when the high season ( a word than can have multiple meanings in this city) was going strong a Las Vegas visitor woke up in her car with no clue of how she got there, no clothes to speak of other than the bikini she woke up in and no clue what door the room key stuffed in her right hand opened and no clue how long she had been sleeping her car. This woman had been ditched by friends and left to sleep it off in a convenient parking garage.

Photo by Royal

What does it mean to get ditched and how to know when you have been ditched exactly.

When your roommate throws a temper tantrum because you can’t find her cell phone which is plugged into the wall where she left it and then throws a bottle of beer thru a window you are registered to as happened in this city time and time again that’s makes them an ahole it doesn’t mean you have been ditched.
What about when breaking a window you are responsible for isn’t enough your room mate punched the window cutting her hand deeply? That isn’t necessary ditching. It makes them a Dumb Ass Drama Queen who desperately needs Dr. Phil but it doesn’t mean she ditched you.
When she leaves without a warning and sticks you with the $500 bill for the damage she caused yeah you have been ditched.

Preventative: Even if you pay for the room make sure your Dumb Ass Drama Queen friend is registered to the room and her credit card is on file. So when she destroys the room she gets the bill.

Every month, week even a man in Las Vegas gets ditched by or woman he picks up in a less than reputable bar. Ditching is what these women do for a living usually after they have taken your wallet or cash or expensive watch.

When informed by local security officers the woman was notorious professional ditcher he scoffed. “I am a good judge of character,” the man said sure he wasn’t going to get ditched.
A few hours later he was reporting a missing wallet to hotel security. “Yeah, man the guy was ditched by a pro.”

What do you do about the possibility getting ditched..or needing to ditch somebody???
1) Always keep a ditched/ditching kit in a safe place ie hotel safe deposit box, a locked luggage that is held in a secure lock up like a hotel bell desk or rented storage. Make sure you have cash, ID and a credit card with some credit still on it, spare boarding passes, bus tickets or anything you need to get back home safely stored away.

2. Make sure you are on the registration so you cannot be locked out of the hotel room you rented..

Lastly if you do have to ditch someone don’t leave them without funds or ID or a way to get home.. Don’t do what one dude did at my first week at the Mirage in 1989.. This master ditcher left his wife in their hotel room, took the plane tickets, the money and clothes and ran to a nearby city with a cocktail waitress he had picked up the night before. It is bad karma _ and yes it does make you a penis .

In the end if the person you are with has funds and ID there is nothing you can do to stop them from ditching you.

That life in the City of Sin
See You later Sinners

PS. Does riding a bunch of bicycles down the middle of a busy Sin City byway and continuing to do so when one of you inevitably gets hit by a car makes you a dumb ass Drama Queen????