Living in the past in the City of Sin

 

By Royal Hopper

He walks past you as stroll down the polished marble hallway in a Sin City casino and for a moment you are whisked back in time.

As you gaze in disbelief at the blue button up print design shirt, the long sweeping Wyatt Earp mustache and the bell bottom pants and lost in the disco era shoes you are momentarily swept back to the days of solar powered watches, smiley face icons and leisure suits _ back to the days 60 cent a gallon gasoline bright green polyester, big rings and jewelry on tough guys _ to the days when mustaches on young guys was cool and the debate over your class song was so intense the administration had to intervene and pick a song nobody really wanted.

Then you snap out of it and realize this is not 1970s Texas .. This is Las Vegas and dress like the 70s guy with his mid length hair and long brushy mustache is just another old dude who cant let go of the glory days. It then hits you. With growing sense of apprehension you realize that the guy is probably a few years younger than you _ sigh ?

On your way out of the casino you spot a kid with the same hairdo you sported in 1978. It is the third such 70s perm you have spotted on a young face in as many years and you restrain yourself from pointing out to the young people that the hairdo was bad in 1978 and it is bad in 2016.

Still further down the Sin City path you see the cast of Sin City show meandering down the avenue. They are French and dressed like characters from American culture _ there is a midget Elvis, a female torch singer (look it up) and a mass of poodle skirt wearing chorus and a Madonna look alike who it turns out was not a cast member.

Neither was the Hair Metal guru who followed closely behind making sure everyone saw him. The tattoos were real and the T-Shirt was vintage in perfect condition.

They were not cast members of the Vegas show they were just people who could not let go of 1987 and had dug deep in their closets and their supply of hair spray to do it.

Vegas is not the same place it was _ in the 50s, 60s, 70s or even 80s. In some ways it is bigger, more over the top, more in your face than it was before. In other ways it is more sterile, more casual wear, more plastic, more bean counter controlled and corporate than ever was before. Go figure. . . . .

It is what it is _ the City of Sin . And perhaps it is long past time for some of us to let go of the past and live in the here and now.. . . . And finally put those leisure suits, ripped concert shirts. . . .pleather jackets and lace over shirts and super sized cans of hair spray _ away
You can feel the tension in the between the Bee Gees loving “Mods and Zepplin loving Freaks and the Metal Heads and Hip Hoppers .. No not really _ nobody cares ..This is the City of Sin and if you got cash ..let your freak flag fly baby..

Take Care Sinners

Drive down the Boulevard on normal day and date
You see a lot of things

A bearded Hipster teaching a dog to fetch

A wanabe artist making a sketch

A fortune teller looking at his own hand

And reading his own fate

What is today, what is tomorrow

And what does it bring

A pro standing on the sidewalk and shouting at the wind

A drunken cowboy running across the highway

A dog in a tutu, a Mormon on a scooter and giant bottle of gin

It is just life everyday in the City of Sin