This guy is just chilin’ photo by Royal Hopper

Youth and Age in the City of Sin

By Royal Hopper

You see two friends sitting across a table from each other at a café in the City of Sin. Now and then one of them starts to speak and then stops as if he already knows what the other is going to say. It has all been said many times. . . Eventually they finish and as you leave you hear on of them say or mumble .. . . “your right . . Damn it.” The other doesn’t even ask about what .. . . . He just shakes his head finishes off his steak and eggs and suppresses the smile that is forming on his face. After all these years there is no point in gloating.

For a brief second I thought this was actually and election poster for Mr Jumper Cables _ Royal Hopper

Later you see four men playing catch in a parking lot with a softball. You get a good look as you drive past the parking lot they play in and surprisingly they are not children or even teenagers. They are grown men playing softball catch in the parking of a business in the City of Sin just blocks from a half dozen billion dollar casinos.

Youth doesn’t think. It does . . .

Four young men paying catch on a country road in Utah ..is a lazy spring day. Four grown men playing catch in the parking lot of a business in the City of Sin is _ a little weird and kind of sad.

This guy is just chilin’ photo by Royal Hopper

Perhaps it is a way of powering through their lunch break of their dead end jobs _ perhaps they just don’t have the money to actually eat lunch or perhaps they are engaging in that older than Sin practice of preserving a youthful mindset _ long after it has ceased to be helpful or even makes any sense.

It is something the paunchy middle aged man in his cargo shorts and flowered Hawaiian shirt can probably relate to playing Frisbee with his Ray-Ban wearing rebel without a clause (think about it) spiked flat top 40 something lawyer friend im a spot of grass between casino can likely relate too.

guy walking in the City of Sin _ Royal Hopper

One of the myths the City of Sin is built on is the false sense of eternal youth that it wraps its visitors in. People step off the plane in Vegas and sometimes undergo a transformation. The hair goes ponytail, those bell bottoms that have been locked in the closet for decades come out and that light purple OP shirt you once thought you looked cool in pops its ugly head out of the suitcase and somehow hops onto your shoulder.

out for a stroll in the City of Sin _ Photo by Royal Hopper

Make no mistake properly dressed people have second teens again too they can just afford to do it indoors where no one can see them or film them and put it on Facebook.

If you mental calculations start with If the little voice in your head tells you Yes I can still ..then you probably really cant ..

The city of Sin and Breakfast by Royal Hopper

Its not a fairy tale or a bad trip or a second childhood. It is just life in the City of Sin.

Love You Sinners

Guitar man walking in the City of Sin the Day after Valentines Day _ Royal Hopper

Valentines Day in the City of Sin

by Royal Hopper

Guitar man walking in the City of Sin the Day after Valentines Day _ Royal Hopper

As you drive to the job that pays your mortgage and lets you get the good gourmet coffee you use to pry your tired eyes open in the morning you spy two men embracing.

Two men comfort each other in the socially acceptable bro-man embrace in a dusty dirty desert crawl by a bar (?) that is the definition of “a Dive.” It is Valentines day the bro – man embrace seems to say. The one _ the strong one pats the others back like a brother or cousin might after a football game they lost. It is Valentines in the City of Sin and we are hanging out in the same spot we passed out in a few days ago and don’t even have a B-Girl named Brandy Wine to give a Valentine.

Valentines Day in the City of Sin _ Royal Hopper

One man is clearly in the grips of sorrow _ perhaps for days gone by and the love that left him because of the lifestyle and the other is being a good bro _ letting his friend hold onto him and giving the bro pat on the back as a form of comfort.

Even the people who can pay for drinks in this place are not well off and no notices the scene as the drive by on their way to their mortgage paying jobs. Us Sinners don’t impress easy and if you ran naked down the street I front of their cars they would probably just honk and stare at your assets for a few seconds before going on their way. It is part of who we are.
You drive past the roadside stands selling giant bears piles of roses stuffed Unicorns, toys, balloons and candy for the recalcitrant Sinners who forgot it was Valentines Day and don’t want Ms Sinners to exile them to the couch for the night.

Valentines Day in the City of Sin II _ Royal Hopper

We Sinners have armor that even Valentines Day cannot penetrate but everyone from high to low has highs and lows and sometimes needs comfort for a loss or a bad memory.

Valentines Day For Sinners

by Royal Hopper

Valentine Day in the City of Sin
Oh children oh children where
Do I begin
The man on the corner selling a bear
The woman down the road in pink underwear
A couple in drag hugging and groping
The man? gets a kiss horny and hoping
A girl for hire handing out cards
An ugly man sings to his love with the voice of a Bard
A man plays guitar to the love he must win
A heart full of gold and a ear made of tin
Its not crazy or loony of weird my friend
It is just life and Valentines Day in the
City of Sin

Take Care Sinners
Love you guys

On the Way home from Valentines Day shopping _ Royal Hopper

A Sin City denizen discovers something useful on the ground late last week _ Photo Royal Hopper

Once in the late 90s a medium sized Vegas casino dropped around $16 million in one shift of Super Bowl sports book betting. This week untold thousands of people gathered in the City of Sin to repeat that ritual on a a larger scale _ to make bets on the Super Bowl and drink until they couldn’t stand.

The Art of Practiced Courage

By Royal Hopper

You see a man standing on the corner walking toward an unseen unknown goal and you decide instantly he looks beat down .. . world weary . Life has kicked him in the jewels more than once and they have started to hurt a little and he seems to flinch with every step even before there is danger in front of him.
He notices people are watching and mumbles something to himself _ like he is remembering the lines from a script of favorite B- Movie _ as if he remembers suddenly that he has gone off script and everybody is noticing.

A couple walks down Tropicana Avenue late last week _ Photo by Royal

He straightens his crumpled hat, rearranges his face to look unconcerned. Dangerous and a little crazy and eventually picks up a random object tossing it in a random direction. He smiles a little at the people who have noticed him and strides away like an action movie star walking away from s staged explosion as if on cue. When almost out of sight the beaten down slump returns and the Sin City social script is apparently forgotten. He is just a tired world weary commuter. . Making his way slowly to the sanctuary of his home.

There is a certain way things work in the City of Sin a certain script _ social and otherwise things that happen here are supposed to follow. There is a way you are supposed to look, act and hold yourself so that people will assume you are one of the animals that populate this city and leave you be or even join you on your daily trek into the wilderness.

Waiting at a Sin City bus stop _ Photo by Royal Hopper

I call it practiced courage. The kind of display and interaction you see in this city every day .. . People in this city who come here to stay or to work soon learn that anything can be faked _ In a City full of performers ..nothing is what it seems. Practice what you are supposed to be _ what gets you through the day _ be good at it and people will generally at least leave you alone _ and those that don’t it wouldn’t matter anyway.

Hey there _ Photo by Royal

Sometimes the denizens of the city are to tired to bother liker the man I saw laying on the sidewalk flat on his back in the sun late last week. He was stock still _ his arms crossed. I think he was alive.. The man trying to wake him up certainly thought so but crumpled up flat on his back guy was just to tired to pretend he gave a crap anymore.

Waiting at the light _ Photo by Royal Hopper

The Super Bowl gamblers in the City of Sin largely forgot their Sin City scripts. Some bit their fingernails _ some prayed openly some buried their faces in their hands to afraid to watch the game they bet their money on. One man babbled in a foreign language and took what from a distance looked like a voodoo doll from his pocket held it up to the screen playing the game for a full minute then tossed it away in disgust. Damn discount voodoo dolls he seemed to say with his body language. Hey this aint the City of Voodoo . This aint New Orleans man. This is the City of Sin and the odds always favor the house.

Take Care Sinners
Love You Guys

This bicyclist makes his way through the urban landscape in the City of Sin _ Royal Hopper

In a world of their own 

by Royal Hopper

You look at the woman standing on the corner with her head phones and her jogging outfit. She is performing an understated dance to the music on her headphones ..Performing for no one but herself and unconcerned with what critics or commuters think she doesn’t so much dance as quietly move to the music. No wild gestures she just giggles with her feet and arms and body as opposed to belly laughing for effect.
She notices you staring art her as she continues her subtle celebration.

This couple is either about to kiss or beat the crap out of each other. That is the City of Sin folks. The best and worst in humanity _ Royal Hopper

She doesn’t get angry or offended. She manages a friendly smile waves at you and you despite years of Sin City training that tell you don’t wave at people dancing in the street you hesitantly wave back which seems to please her and for a moment she looks your way as you look toward her and smile a little too.
She smiles again and then goes back into her own music headphone enhanced environment and moves to the sound as the traffic light changes color and you are forced to move on down the avenue toward the job you hold down to pay the mortgage and buy good coffee _ and that health insurance thing.

Are you looking at me. The city of Sin Folks_ Royal Hopper

True individuals unlike many people they don’t bother with social camouflage or social uniforms. They listen to what they like and dance where and how they like _ they even wave at you and smile when you stare at them.

I get the feeling that there are a lot more of us Sinners who quietly rebel against the requirements of “social culture.” Not as bold as the bus stop dancers above they exercise their individuality from the confines of their car or apartment of home or club protected by all the right social protection >>>>>like a social condoms they put on to avoid being stared at or made fun of by people they don’t know _ but they do it. . . .

In closing I would like to relate an obvious fact Las Vegas is a weird place.

Tropicana Avenue street art _ Royal Hopper

I had a conversation with an English comic the other day .. We agreed on one thing Las Vegas is the weirdest place on earth. He confessed that he had had enough of the weirdest place on earth and was moving back to Florida where normal weird people like him can function without being bothered by people who don’t make waves they are just them . . . They dance they sing they wave and yes that is life in the City of Sin.

Just another lonely bike rider in the City of Sin _ Royal Hopper

Just another lonely days walk in the City of Sin _ Royal Hopper

Love ya Sinners

Rock The Sin

Later

You guessed it. The City of Sin _ Royal Hopper

You guessed it. The City of Sin _ Royal Hopper

Plane landing in the City of Sin _ Royal Hopper