Being Loud in the City of Sin

By Royal Hopper 

We have spoken about social camouflage before. The clothing and manners that help you blend into the environment that help you make a statement true or not. Las Vegas is a place full of loud garish sights sounds and people wearing all sorts of social camouflage and uniforms that are often just s disguise. It is hard to stand out here .. You have to be truly loud in appearance and actions to get noticed..
Sometimes the easiest way to make people believe you are harmless is to pretend to be a loud mouthed clown who is pretending to be dangerous…It is an old Vegas trick…A social uniform that is all too common in this city The City of Sin… A bad ass pretending to be a clown pretending to be a bad ass. ( a variation of the theme of the old Victor/Victoria movie look it up).

a man and his dog

That goofy guy in the big bird outfit posing for pictures or that silly chick in the short skirt flirting with your old ass or that yocal in the plaid leisure suit offering to get you change for that $100 might secretly be a bad ass waiting to spring a trap.
There is always an angle always a payday even when the players are honest.
I remember once years ago while plying my pay the bills trade as a casino security officer I was called upon to roust a 425 (thats what they call a suspicious person causing trouble in casino security speak) from an open portion of the old Treasure Island casino.
He was loud and drunk and passing out cards to to some lame ass money making scam with three of us standing several feet from him. As we were walking him out the door he was singing to himself and acting the fool and before we got to the door he handed me a card and actually pitched me his scam as he took a provocative step forward .

Fully prerpared to kick him in the baby maker I tgook the card and had to suppress a giggle. “Seriously,” ? I seem to remember saying. He smiled dropping his loud foolish act for a moment a llittle and patted me on the shoulder ( yeah I know a mistake on my part letting him get that close) and uttered the age old excuse of many if not most bad actors…
“A man’s gotta make a living,”
Walking through any casino in the City of Sin in the middle of the night after the gamblers have gone upstairs to pass out beside the drunks who passed out hours ago if they havent been sent to jail you notice many things. You see bored cocktail waitress wandering the rows of slot machines hoping that a tipping customer is still up.
You see husbands who have argued with their wives and vice versa sitting quietly in dark corner with resentful frowns on their faces when their forever 17 attitudes have met with resistance from the grown ups in the room.

“Look at us we are gaudy loud phonies pretending to be tough..See we are really harmless ..” says all the sights and sounds of the City of Sin.
Don’t you believe it …
Even when it is empty Las Vegas is a loud place. You can hear the bells and whistles of the one armed bandits like gaudily painted wolves demanding to be fed…..Slot machines are digital now and graced with various themes from ancient television shows to pretend fishing boats to old west ….dont fal for it..
There are hours when even the City of Sin slows down to rest and is relatively empty except for a few daring souls on different internal schedules. It should be quiet right ….Right …
There is always noise in this city and it is always part of the game. ..always

It not a fairy tale or a sitcom ..It is life in the City of Sin

A man and his sheets 

A man dressed in a black T shirt with a tannish brown jacket wrapped around his waist like a suede kilt from times gone by suddenly stops in his journey down the sidewalk of a Sin City byway that is heavily traveled by casino workers and tourists alike.
He seems to stare at something in the landscaped hedges of the apartment complex he is walking by. Then he bends down stretching like a ballerina and staring at something only he can see and begins to speak.
Perhaps he is speaking to the invisible friend he spied while walking or simply talking to the hedge but whatever it is it has captured his attention. He is oblivious to stares of others on the sidewalk or the commuters staring at him from their cars or perhaps he even likes the staring for the attention it gives him. Satisfied that the invisible friend or the hedge as the case may be has understood what he is saying but whatever he stands up clearly very proud of himself and strides off into whatever world his mind had taken him too……still oblivious to what the world sees in him or doesn’t see …I’m jealous aren’t you …
I’m not sure what this means I just felt I had to tell you about it now onto to this weeks rant….maybe it has something to do with the theme of this weeks rant

To be a clueless happy Mutt or a Wise and Sad Princess

By Royal Hopper 

There is an old saying about the difference between the wise and the foolish.
It goes something like the Wise are always full of doubts and questions about the world and the direction it is going . They know they dont really know. They know they are making educated guesses about the world and have questions about their guesses.
The foolish are always full of certainity and seldom entertain the whys and hows and questions of fact that keep the wise up at night and fill them with doubts.
I suppose the same can be said of dogs….

Petra’s little Dog faces off with the Wolf that devoured her Goose in a Puppet version of the classic Peter and the Wolf at the Smith Center last week 

I have or rather my family has two dogs a Princess named Reddy and a big lunk named Kuma …
Kuma is nicknamed the Lunk or the Lug because she is a happy go lucky clueless love bug who loves all people and hates all other dogs except Reddy who she seems to love like an adorable stoner big sister. Kuma will walk up to strange children with her tail tucked and beg to be petted. Our Nephews Girl Katie was in town with her traveling show playing at the Smith Center. She came over and Kuma instantly took to her plopping all 90 pounds of her on Katie’s lap until she got her fill of head scratches and belly rubs. When Kuma wants to cuddle she will run across the floor and jump into someone laps and beg for attention her mouth open in that huge mouthed Pit Bull/American Bull Dog smile her tongue which is as big as your face…

Petra and the Goose at the Pond. A little grainy but it was just to good a shot to let sit

Reddys nick name is Princess Drama Nuerotica because she is so wound up so worried about the outside world we have to give her doggie calm down pills when there is loud noise or activity outside.. We also call her our Goth dog because of the ring of black fur around her eyes and her Goth attitude…She loves her people and no one else. She isnt vicious she just doesnt have any use for strangers. She litterally turns her nose up at strangers because you know shes Princess Reddy
Keep in mind anything will set Reddy off …A moto cross tourney at the Stadium across the street ….the neighbors washing machine turning on during a quiet day. A thunderstorm will make this water hating dog jump into the shower while it is running and we are in it to get away from loud noises . On the other hand she is one the smartest dogs I have ever owned ..Nothing much gets past Princess Drama ..Once she knows somethign she knows it …By dog standards she is smart ..
This begs the question is it better to be a clueless, lovable and cuddle bug who is addicted to hugs like a drug addict Jonesing for meth and never seems to worry about a thing or a Cynical nuerotic Princess who jumps into showers at the sound of thunder but is pretty smart…
Is it better to be smart and worried or stupid and happy
Such is the question in today’s mussing on Life in the City of Sin