A fitting decoration for a Sin City casino..The piper is calling you to ….to blackjack and complimentary show tickets and showgirls named Bell etc etc ..Photo RMH III

Telling stories and assorted mayhem in the City of Sin

By Royal Hopper

Old guys, and by old I mean anyone who remembers disco and ever owned a leisure suit, tend to tell a lot of stories.
I once had a homeless tell me a long story of woe about how he ended up asking for hand outs on the street and then ask me if he had gotten it right..
Southern men and redheads and former small town reporters especially tend to tell a lot of stories and some of them are even true.
As you may guess southern (well it is mostly gray and brown now but hey) red heads who used to work at a small town newspaper tend to tell a lot of stories..
“I saw a fish with two heads and boobs ..I am telling you it was nine feet long,” A bear chased me up a tree and ate me and I fought my way out of its stomach and still made it home it time for the Cowboys kick off..you get the idea.. When I was 9-years-old me and a friend of mine once convinced the neighborhood girls that lettuce makes you pregnant.
“My sister still will not eat vegetables.”

We call it telling tall tales. No one is expected to believe these tales. They are told just for the glory, the mania of telling a good story.. . Tale telling is just the opposite from the form of story telling I practiced as a reporter. In the news facts are everything and the object is to tell the facts in an interesting dramatic manner. In tale telling facts are cool but sometimes only a distraction from the important duty of telling a good story.
One residentially challenged Sin City Sinner explained to me how he was actually wasn’t sleeping in his chair he was there to enjoy a little poker action and play pool in the week end tournament. The casino in question did not have poker room and had not for years. The pool tournament was months away.
Another Sin City patron I happened upon in my meanderings launched into a long story of why and how he had ended up standing all but naked on a Las Vegas street corner (not that I cared or wanted to know) .. . .he muttered on about something about losing his clothes in a poker game with aliens or politicians and being drugged by ET in the process.

He slurred his words occasionally making sense,  he explained why he was standing on a street corner in torn gym shorts and occasionally looking down the bottle in his hand as if not sure how it had gotten there.
He stopped suddenly as if remembering he was repeating himself and for several seconds looked like he was concentrating on a new story to tell before shrugging his shoulder and clearly giving up the bother of thinking and raising the lip of the bottle to his mouth. It was empty and he raised his arm as if to throw it on the sidewalk. Perhaps noticing the police officer just down the block approaching him in a patrol car he thought better of that idea and simply sat down on the sidewalk..

So I have to ask you what do you do when you are suddenly struck by storytellers mania in the middle of your tale and you realize you are repeating yourself .You have told this story before.You realize it before the people who are listening and still cannot stop yourself .
I actually did once chase a possum from under our house when we briefly lived in the country in those long ago hazy days of my late teens. I really did heft a brick at the thing to prevent it from biting my dog and it really did just blink and hiss at me.

Stories like that are good for one maybe two tellings and then you really need to move on.

As you may have guessed I started to tell this same story perhaps for the third or fourth time.and realized almost as soon as I had said the word possum but I could not stop myself man ..I could not stop.. Just like the coworker could stop himself from making the same joke about “a cement pond” and critters referring to the fact I am the only southerner on my shift..like the drunk who just could not come up with a good story for his condition people in this city _ the City of Sin _ sometimes get so caught up in the Sin City story telling that is part of the culture here they just cannot stop themselves.

Life goes on in the City of Sin _ a “working girl” hands out business cards to potential customers, a man found sleeping face down in a bathroom stall gets angry when he is told not to sleep face down in his own piss, some people spend fortunes others beg for gas money while the shopping carts full of his worldly possessions is parked on the Italian marble inside a Sin City casino and on and on and on..

Life in the City of Sin my friend
Take Care Sinners

PS I actually did see a fish with two heads once but it was in an aquarium and it was six inches long not nine feet and I hadn’t slept in two days..

I know most people are riveted to the news of bombing in Syria ..I wrote this two days before it started so I am going to just publish it and go back to watching the news..

Just walking along singing a song ….RMH

Two people functioning as a single social and romantic unit are a couple. The need to be part of this modern archetype is a hallmark of civilized _ one of its greatest strengths and most profound vulnerabilities.. When it fails when there is a break up it is the definition of existential pain. When it works .it is a truly uplifting life affirming experience

The tale of two couples

by Royal Hopper 

What the ???? RMH

Two men stand face to face on a small elevated walkway above a Sin City swimming pool at one of the city’s many Gambling Houses.
It is the middle of what passes for a peaceful night in the City of Sin and the two men are literally buckle to buckle backs straight and shoulders arched heads lowered grimacing with emotion and manly pride. They stand like two pit bulls growling at each other in the I am a man and I am going to smack you across the room posture men often take before attempting to smack each other across the room. It is clear to an experienced eye they have been drinking.
It is the middle of the night and for all appearances and the two men are arguing and clearly upset with each other.
A security guard mindful of his duty to keep the peace in the casino he works at approaches from a safe distance carefully putting the railing that separates the elevated walkway from the pool between him and the men as cover and maintaining the two second reaction gap he will need to defend himself if the men turn on him.

It is a routine call and the men would have to either leap the four foot tall fence and manage a seven foot drop or run 20 yards down a ramp and around the corner to get to the guard so he feels confident as he walks up to the men. He stops in front and to the side of the two men squaring off ask in that time honored casino security guard manner.
“Is everything all right gentlemen,” at once feeling both bold and a little silly.
“I am tired of your crap,” says one of the men and for a moment as the tow men look like they might attack each other the guard an old Sin City veteran regrets not calling for back up before approaching the quarreling gentleman.

RMH

“Fellas is there something going on here. Is everything all right. Can I help you with something?” the guard asks repeating the time honored security guard questions. Asking if you can help someone is a good non accusatory way of finding out what is going on without provoking a reaction from a customer.

There is no hesitation. One of the men, the larger of the two at more than six feet tall turns to the guard and says with tears in his eyes.
“The problem is he doesn’t care about me and never has,” he says.

The two men are a clearly couple. Thirty years ago that realization would have left this security guard flabbergasted, wide eyed and open mouthed with confused shock but after so many years in the City of Sin he simply asks the men to keep the peace and walks away without cracking smile. The couple continues to argue at a lower volume and eventually walks away to their domestic ire exhausted having not thrown a single blow or cursed at each other even once.

Earlier that same night, a mismatched couple, a woman barely five foot tall swings her heavy purse with all her might hitting her lover a hefty guy with a shaved head with it several times until police are called by security at a nearby casino.
A romantic triangle of three women resolves itself also without a single blow or curse one woman retiring to the emotional safety of her hotel room and the other two walking off hand in hand and arm in arm.. An older couple together for 30 years both rattle on likely saying the same thing to each other they have said for 30 years and both pretending to listen to the other as the ramble and vent and a man assist his drunken wife to their hotel room perhaps returning the favor she has so often bestowed on him.

Such is life in the City of Sin..
Take Care fellow Sinners

Rock on

Question: What do you say to someone who is so obnoxiously drunk his own best friend wants to knock him across the room ? ..stayed tuned

Even in Las Vegas people get bored _ Photo by Royal Hopper

A Half a bottle and the week in question

By Royal Hopper

“Oh look a car almost hit me ..Is that a half empty bottle of Budweiser I see,” White T-shirt homeland guy seemed to say as he stood unconcerned standing in the middle of an intersection during rush hour shift traffic on a street in a city where 40 percent of drivers are drunk or stoned at any given time.

On the way to work last week I saw this man who we shall call Crazy Homeless White T-shirt guy standing in the middle of the road, his pristine white T shirt in stark contrast to greasy hair and Jack Daniels tan. His six foot tall 120 pound frame stood as straight as an arrow cars zooming back and fourth around him around like angry two ton hornets.

Open Bar in Vegas really ???? Yes this is the City of Sin _ Photo by Royal

Just down the road another man dressed in the shorts and team jersey popular with the mainstream these days decided to simply sit down where he was. He sat by a newspaper rack unmoved by the throng of late night Sin City sight seers who “thronged” around him as he sat on the section of Sin City sidewalk he had claimed either to tired or to drunk to care people were watching him.

Even further an ordinary looking 50 something stood on the corner of a Sin City median showing off his middle-aged physique for all four of he observers standing on the corner nearby by and several early morning commuters who were to tired to comment or care.
“Look at me I am a middle-aged stud,” the shirtless posing middle -aged guy who we shall call shirtless middle-aged posing guy seemed to say _ “and it only took four cases of beer a day to look like this.”

Driving down the streets of any city in this country is like walking through a art gallery. If you don’t look closely at the canvas you are driving through it all blurs together like a really bad photo of a kids birthday party. If you really look around while you are driving

Cities are the same way. The individual pieces are easy to ignore. If you don’t look all you see is blotches of paint of paint on antique canvas, under paid security guards in uncomfortable uniforms and a sea of anonymous faces just as confused as you are.. But of you pay attention you will see all the mini melodrama going on right underneath your nose.

This is also Las Vegas _ Photo by Royal Hopper

What do you do when someone is so obnoxiously drunk his own best friend wants to punch him in the face ? I don’t man .I am still trying to figure that one out.
Jogger report:
This week is the official beginning of the scantily clad good looking jogger showing off their assets to onlookers part of the season. I am not sure how you manage to jog half a block with your bare bottom hanging out for all to see but hey such is life in the City of Sin..

Take Care Sinners

Rock on

Keeping order in the City of Sin _ Photo by Royal Hopper

Question a very nice older couple from Denmark comes to Las Vegas for a week what do they do ?

Stay tuned for the answer.

Zigging and zagging in the City of Sin

This regular Strip commuter rides his unusual device down the Strip ;ate last week

By Royal Hopper

Sometimes working every day in a casino full of drunks, gamblers and assorted bad actors and hordes of talented people who spent years zigging when they should zagged seeing things like seven foot tall transvestite hookers, androgynous couples making out by the side of an empty swimming pool and middle aged men dressed like fashion impaired super heroes becomes so common that it fades from your mind almost as it occurs..

Like the man who fell off his bar stool.

“I’m good was all the intoxicated man sitting at the bar would say.”

What is your name Sir ? Answer: “I’m good.”

“Where are you staying?” Answer: “I’m good.”

“Why did you fall off your stool?” Answer: I’m good

“Do you know where you are???” Answer: I’m good

The abovementioned super hero fan strode through a local casino hauling his luggage dressed head to toe in pale blue green tights including head dress pale blue green boots and gloves and an orange mask hanging from his neck.

Larry

This week I also talked to a musician named Larry (lets leave it at that Whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas and all that). Larry, now in his mid 60s explains back in the day he had a shot at fame and fortune. He was offered a cent and a half for every record sold that he played on by a studio executive an unheard of price for studio musicians in those days. Driven by bad advice he insisted on 25 cents a record and the executive stated they more than 500 guys like him on retainer walked out..

“It is probably a good thing I didn’t get rich and famous. You have no privacy,” Larry explains that he works for a living between gigs sometimes 12 hours a day and it is these wages that financed his trip to the City of Sin.
As he waits poolside for the Vegas hotel he has booked a room in to have a room available Larry explains he has played every end of the musical spectrum form country to rock. For awhile he was oldest white rapper in his musical community Larry says breaking into the rap that earned him the label Papa Rap.

Vegas is a City full of talented smart people who somehow zigged when they should have zagged. Larry can make a list of great gigs he has played and now famous musicians he has jammed with.

Former Guns and Roses “axman” Slash played on a band Larry was a member of he says. His band once went up against BB King for a gig and sold out many of the small arenas in southern California,

Those kinds of wrong turns is probably something the man who wandered around a casino stone drunk barely able to speak telling anyone who would listen he was missing $30,000 and was staying Jan Hammer who is incidentally the Czech composer who wrote the theme song for the original Miami Vice.

The couple who only stopped in Vegas to rest for a couple of days and to give their RV a rest ended up selling personal possessions for gas money can also relate to.

Now as to what a nice respectable older couple from Denmark does???

Do they Listen to music?, take pictures of the Belagio fountain and other tourist sights?. Do they take in a few shows graze the urban landscape of cafes and restaurants ? Do they prowl the showrooms of Sin City looking for autographs of the lounge acts that populate the city.

No silly they spend all night drinking and gambling get drunk off their ass and finally get so drunk they need help getting back to their room to sleep their all nighter off.

This is after all the City of Sin.
Take Care Sinners
Rock on

Jogger Report
Jogging season has once again reared ugly well manicured head as day time temperatures finally drop below 100 degrees in the City of Sin..

Jogging season is a big event in this City. It is the precise moment in time when people suddenly assume everyone actually wants to see them trotting down the boulevard in their name brand running shorts and the temperatures dip low enough so they don’t pass out in the desert sun doing so. _ Jogging season.. Jogging season started with a bang this year in the City of Sin.

Well no actually it didn’t. It started with a man my age wearing $2,000 or so of Gucci jogging outfit actually stopping from time to time to allow people to take pictures of him. A meticulous hair cut and shoes that he wears once a week. The really hot female joggers show up much later in the season.

“Look at me you peasant I am a jogger,” this well dressed pedestrians seem to project as they pound the pavement down the man street of the country’s preeminent tourist town pretending they don’t want to be bothered.

Maybe they are afraid of being mugged for their $800 pink running shoes or Gucci running accessories who knows.

Chick sitting _ all Photos by Royal Hopper

Cityscape By Royal Hopper