You pull out of home heading once more to work
Half way you see a body and stop with a jerk

A Days Journey in the City of Sin

By Royal Hopper, a herd of unicorns, four angels and a Dragon named Spirit 

A man on the sidewalk lying across it so still
flopped and not moving by reflex or will
His buddy nearby playing the guitar
So certain it seems one day he’ll go far
Strumming and singing and sitting in style
The light changes soon and you travel the mile

To work past sign holders the rich and the poor
man sleeps in the gutter girl stands in the door
A wheelchair flys sidewalk bound a lady in red
she smiles like child and speeds like I said
Fearless and free she is gone in a blink
you look at her smiling and she gives you a wink

A car behind you blows his horn again and some more
You turn up the radio wait a second or two and begin to explore
what to do what to do ignore the gadfly or honk back in kind
In the end asthe light turns red leave them behind
You pull into work with a sigh and a grin
its now that is now not once or was or then
Its not heaven or hell just some lose some win
The weeks paycheck and another day in the City of Sin

Love you Sinners
Take care

PS
When your weeks starts with seeing a man lay on the sidewalk near a liquor store un-moving and his buddy sits nearby strumming guitar his head resting just below a sign that says BEER and your only thought is …was that the theme from friends ??/You know its time for a vacation…Your brain just work and when you sit down to rite your weekly blog you know its time for some dysfunctional poetry and a marathon of Buffy fan videos (Dark Willow fanatic here) and a bunch of Doors You Tube vids to force your brain out of the tiresome treadmill of every day life and back into the other world of magic and thought where it belongs…..

Noise is a statement in Sin City

By Royal Hopper

 

You see them approach the elevator in the decades old monument to gambling and vice in perfect matching pink polos and matching designer pale blue pants like some middle aged prep school drill team. The stop and smile as they approach certain that they look like the coolest thing since Elvis and as they approach you in perfect smiling unison.
So they stop and prepare to speak…to each other of course not the non polo prep drill team humans around them the tensions build (not really it just sounded cool) and one thing echoes across the many thousands of times polished marble …everything in this city is noisy.

The inane conversation of the polo drill team is suddenly drowned out by a blaring radio, a couple arguing and a pre-programmed digital announcement casting a glare on the thousand square feet of polished white marble in the long gilded hallway and the fall out of a nearby neon sign. Everything here is noisy in some way sound, distracting visual stimulation and social differences that would shock those from less enlightened.

When I first arrived in Las Vegas in mid 1989 I just out of the US Army via SE Texas both places of intensely enforced and predictable social order where people are loud at appropriate and rare moments like at football games and when you are shooting heavy machine guns but not when they are eating lunch it was a shock to say the least. The noise alone and the jungle of neon signs. Needless to say the first time I saw two men holding hands or two women kissing it was a shock. It isn’t such a big deal in this city and it shouldn’t be….
First remember there is no such thing as absolute silence in the normal world. A normal human body generates several decibels of sound by just working, breathing heart beating ect ect. ect. I remember once actually being asked by a customers at a casino i worked at. “Can you do something about the volume,” she said pointing at something I could not see. I looked around thinking she was talking about the music on the PA or a band playing nearby. I looked in the direction she was pointing and saw nothing but sky. One of the rare desert rain storms was dancing across the desert sky drenching the dry terrain and creating a racket as the rain drops crashed onto the oily dirty concrete and asphalt.
“I will see what I can do,” I said as amiably as I could manage. Incidentally about that time the rain let up. Just mother nature taking a break. The woman smiled a surprised sleepy smile and said “Well thank you,” and half giggling skipped away down the walkway toward the Sin City sidewalk to look at the drenched landscape.

It is said that whispering between two people can generate 30 decibel of detectable sound and a normal human voice as many as 60 decibels. There is visual noise as well. Huge mountains in the background dominating the skyline and down in the valley miles of neon signs some 30 feet tall flashing every attraction know to civilized man. On the quietest day in this city there is still music every where. There is still a neon cowboy flashing his welcoming wave somewhere. There are still people dressed like Big Bird and Power Rangers posing for pictures somewhere. There are still people holding signs telling about aliens or ninjas or just saying they are hungry. There is something somewhere all the time. That is life.
Its never really completely quiet here or anywhere else either in sound or vision but here the loudness is obvious and constant. It is easy for people sensitive to such things to feel overwhelmed by all the visual and audio noise or in a twisted way somehow protected by it _ as if with all the noise no one will notice them. Perhaps that is why many people come to this town to end it all.
I once had a fairly tough looking man confess to me he couldn’t stand the noise of the place any more and couldn’t seem to clear his head. I half jokingly told the man about Zion National Park. “The wife and I have been several times it beautiful.” Go somewhere safe and isolated. Play only music that calms you and makes you think. Look at things that make you calm like sunsets in the mountains and only be around people who calm your mind and soul. You cant get away from the noise it is everywhere so only be around the noise that calms you and helps you think. Your mind will figure itself out when it only has to deal with noise it likes. Quiet is a myth.
“Wow yeah,” he said with a look of resigned determination coming over him. I turned to look at the man and continue our conversation but he was gone. I saw him a few minutes later with abag on his should and a paper ticket of some kind in his hand…”Thanks man,” he said as he hurried on his way, “Thanks.” I never saw him again. I hope he is okay,
Whatever the reason the constant noise audio and visual and social is why so many people who come to live here or even visit a lot , try to generate their own noise pollution _one of their own choosing ..Their own City of Sin Cammo Cover..there own weird noise to protect from the bombardment they constantly face.
Just imagine a huge building full of people drinking, talking, yelling sometimes, music playing in the background, thousands of slot machines with exotic themes each making several decibels of noise each playing what modern folks call a cut scene to entice people to play. Now imagine a city full of them surrounded by a natural environment that is full of noise. I remember once years ago having to wait several minutes for a group of coyotes to cross the road while they constantly yelped and yipped.
Add to that the thousands of vehicles traveling the byways of Sin City roaring from their overpowered engines blasting music from their collective stereos and lets no forget the desert wind roaring down out of the mountains. Even the neon signs this city is famous for generate multiple decibels of noise and the juice that keeps them bright hums and sparks the night away. I remember once when I was working at the poor doomed Riviera having a contingent of bikers roar by in groups of 100 followed by a huge truck with a broken muffler, two more trucks blaring adds for local shooting ranges and tour bus with a group of students shouting and screaming and exposing various body parts. The noise was louder than the Metallica concert I saw in the 90s and the man sleeping in the planter near the road never even woke up.

It is the Sin City way…Sometime there are screams. Sometimes howls of laughter and debauched glee. Sometimes the sound of couples laughing, arguing and doing other things couples do.
http://www.decibelcar.com/menugeneric/87.html
https://www.alpinehearingprotection.com/wiki/5-sound-levels-in-decibels/

One of the things you notice about LasVegas , the City of Sin if you come to it from the worlds smaller more tranquil locations is _ It is loud.
Thats life in the City of Sin Sinners
Love you guys

Overgrown Children in the City of Sin

 

by Royal Hopper
“I want my drink,” a man once said while standing in a Vegas casino literally stomping his feet like a 5-year-old as employees at a sin City gaming establishment told him he had been cut off. Imagine a man well past his prime jumping up and down and screaming like a tantrum throwing child.

Now further imagine a grown man peeing on a pool deck out of spite and starting a scrap with the security officers who arrived to escort him out and then crying when they put him in handcuffs.

The City of Sin is for adults goes the time honored refrain. Kids have no place here goes the cliche. This place is for grown ups. In fact the reason the City of Sin has survived all these years is that it is a city full of demanding sometimes dangerous overgrown children.

Think about it. This City is in the middle of the desert whose only real factory a rocket fuel plant blew up years ago. It has no standing water and only has enough water in its natural aquifers for 200 people. Without the gambling, drinking and playful things that are part of the Vegas legend it would be a bathroom stop on the way to LA with four gas stations, a couple of bars and a cheesy 100 room motel named after someone’s favorite aunt.

People come here to remember who they were and who they could have been and to indulge in appetites best left in the past. many times you see someone in their 70s rocker best or dressed like an Urban Cowboy warrior or rocking that sporty mullet. I once actually saw a man come out onto the pool deck at a Sin City casino hotel dressed to the nines in rebel gear..dark sun glasses, leather jacket, metal studded black pants, pony tail and all.

He stepped out toward the water and stood staring at his image in the clear water. “Oh who am I kidding,” he said sliding the jacket and glasses off and turning around just as his grand daughter came running up behind him and jumped into his arms from a running start.

These days everyone comes to Las Vegas ..not only do drunken accountants come to Sin city to pick fights with drunken decorators …Young athletes from every sports come here with their parents to decide the champions of their sport….be it volleyball, basketball, Taekwondo or Karate.

You see them sometimes wandering in groups through the casino watching their parents spend their vacation money before being shooed away to place kids are allowed.  It is not actual children that keep the City of Sin alive and thriving.
Las Vegasis in fact thriving exacly because most of its visitors have never really grown up and they come to Las Vegas to let their inner 17-year-old out to play.

That is life and childhood in the City of Sin

Love you Sinners

Take Care

Keeping your stuff safe

by Royal Hopper
“Who would take a half smoked cigar,” remarked the badly dressed man puffing on a fresh stogie and chomping on it like J Jonah Jameson (Marvel look it up) five minutes before deadline.
Someone had stolen his half smoked stogie from the slot machine where he had left it while getting change and the man was completely bewildered. This is an all to common occurrence _ both the theft and bewilderment. People sometimes get fooled by the the plethora of security cameras in a Vegas casino and the ever vigilant security officers walking around into leaving their stuff laying around or forgetting it on their way to the airport.

This is the city of Sin brothers and sisters. There are people in this town who will steal your underwear if you give them a chance while your wearing them and they will damn sure steal your money or your virtue if you allow it _ and far to many people do.
There is one solid golden rule in the City of Sin that every tourist would do well to remember. If you leave your stuff where it can be gotten someone will take it…..If your lucky the security officers patrolling the area will spot it first and take it somewhere safe _ but they are busy keeping an eye on a Vegas casino and often have their hands full. Chances are if the hotel or casino employees are busy it will simply be taken by some random scumbag and guess what most of the time you are out of luck.

Keep your hands on your stuff or you will lose it and it is just as much your fault as the scumbag whose stole it because as jaded as this will sound their are thieves and assholes everywhere and if that somehow doesn’t sink in you don’t belong here even for the weekend.
I remember once years ago there was a couple who came to a casino I was working at circa 1989. The man won a jackpot, cashed it out, stole the couples plane tickets and cash ran off to a nearby town with a random bimbo. We actually looked for this guy which but he was long gone.

Once alongh time ago very nice older lady left her purse, full of medication and money sitting at a slot machine while she went to the bathroom …for 30 minutes. No surprise it was gone when she got back. “I cant believe someone would steal my purse. I was only gone a little while,” said the very nice lady now sans purse, medication and cash.
Once a man in another casino i worked at actually had to nerve to complain that someone had stolen his cocaine. Another was outright furious that he had left his door open to go down the hall for an hour and low and behold the pile of cash he left on the bed was gone.
At any given time the lost and found departments of most hotels are full of stuff left by guest and found by employees before some ahole found it and took it home. They are the lucky ones….

Think about it. If even 10 percent of the 49.2 million visitors to the City of Sin in 2016* were bad actors then there are 4.9 million people passing through this city _ the City of Sin_who will to take your stuff if they have a chance.
. The casinos will do their best to keep you alive but it is up to you to keep a hold of your stuff.

Lastly it is called the City of Sin for a reason genius.

Love you Sinners

* Las Vegas Review Journal Jan. 10, 2017

Random tips

If the room has a safe use it

Take what you need leave the rest in the safe or safety deposit box

Take what cash you need out of the bank shortly before an event leave the rest in the bank

Have a designated sober person to carry your stuff if you plan on getting toasted

When you move from place to place get in the habit of taking an inventory of your stuff

Relaxing is for Nebraska be alert