Part I: The Poverty of the Glutton (Las Vegas) - written in January, 2005.
There isn’t really a particular time that I truly enjoy flying. However, 7:00 am in the morning must rank particularly low. Case in point: Irwan and I had pulled a truffle-fueled all-nighter through to the early hours of Christmas Day, and then flew across the great plains of North America to the most treasured of holiday tourist traps, Sin City Las Vegas (baby!). I’ve never been one to snap out of sleeping too well, and so falling asleep on level ground and awaking to the roar of our plane, thousands of feet higher than where my conscious world had previously been, was disorientation of the highest order. I yawned my way through the airport shuttle ride to our hostel, a colorful converted motel in a charming neighborhood populated by drug dealers and the sad and confused. Once settled, Irwan and I did what any self-respecting student traveler would do to revive himself and plunged into the icy waters of the hostel jacuzzi. Irwan said he’d reached a level of comfort at about shoulder level; I only reached that of near-hypothermia.
Soon enough, we were ready to hit the Strip. Vegas is fantastically simple, topographically speaking. If you’ve ever dreaded getting lost in the rough boroughs of New York or the endless sprawl of Los Angeles, you’ll be pleased to find that LV is a blissful walk-in-the-park. Or, more accurately, a crawl-down-the-road. The bus trip into the heart of town must have been no more than three miles in length, but it took us a solid hour and 15 minutes to reach the action. Las Vegas Boulevard, commonly referred to as ‘the Strip,’ is the only set you’ll find in this little story. It is also thoroughly carved into numerous parallel streets, and so life on the road passes slowly. That’s quite the point, however, as traveling around Vegas is not so much about going somewhere, as it is about showing some bling. I saw enough Hummer limos and dark shaded sports car drivers chugging along that bloody road to last me into the next century.
I found the spectacle itself to be much like a B-level action movie. The city initially attempts to thump your senses into satisfaction with a whole lot of noise and neon and faux-nude waitresses, and then seeks to do the same to you over and over again. The first couple of times I took the bait, muttering a bit of “Wow, that’s crazy” or “This is unreal” and gleefully snapping pictures. It doesn’t take long, however, as you float between one super-mega-ginormous-money-lights-money-showgirls-money-resort-casino to the next, to realize that you’re seeing the same scene, only with the same actors slipping on pirate suits or French maid outfits for each show. I wandered past the same cheesy, singing slot machines and high-end keno rooms, same fake-blue-skies as ceilings and same high-end boutiques, arcades, eateries, et. al. at which to play “Throw your greenbacks down the shoot.” Literally – the dealer take the hapless player’s bills and shoves them through a small hole in the table, through which the money probably slides down an elaborate, spinning chute into a massive, ever-accumulating mountain.
The casinos themselves are all - and there’s no surprise here - connected by an almost universal card the player inserts into the slot machine to track her credit. It’s packaged to give one the feeling that you’re being done a great service – “Now you can play slots at heaps of casinos instead of one, all with the same card!” The size and efficiency of the whole operation is remarkable. I’d been told before, but Vegas truly is simply the massive gaping mouth of a hungry hungry hippo, and this hippo is being stuffed well proper. Be they the cowboy-hat-and-boots type, the Italian-stallion-and-his-trophy-wife type, or the brooding-Asian-looking-rather-sly type, or even that sad little old lady on the quarters machine, Las Vegas is brimming with folks of every persuasion who reverently kneel down at the altar of the dollar. Before long, I started to wonder if there really is some grand poobah sitting behind the glass wall, into whose pockets this handsome pile is collecting, and surprise surprise, it seems there actually is. His name, Steve Wynn, is somewhat appropriate, for there are a whole lot of losers in his grand game. (Bah dum, spash!) Brother was behind the Bellagio, the Mirage, Treasure Island and the Grand Nugget, and is now putting the finishing touches on what will be most obscene, most over-the-top, most that’s-Vegas-baby! casino yet, known simply as…shoulda guessed it: ‘Wynn.’ (I found a bio at http://lasvegas.about.com/cs/famouslocals/a/Steve_Wynn.htm) I suppose when people commonly exclaim “Who’s your Daddy?!” and happen to do so in Las Vegas, the correct answer would be “Steve Wynn, actually.”
As the casinos and their over-priced shows weren’t really doing it for me (I actually nodded off as the (Texan, jack-ass) magician I paid good money to see made a hummer disappear), I soon turned my attention to the people. And geez Louise were there a lot of them. (Yes, I said ‘geez Louise.’) The Strip was absolutely swarming with tourists, tourists, tourists taking dodgy pictures, debating where to eat, or looking forlorn on buses that didn’t move. The city played out like a veritable “Who’s Who 2004” display of movers and shakers in the roulette game of advanced global capitalism. It certainly was interesting to see them rub shoulders. In full force we had the old vanguard of classic chic Italians, always draped in black and sporting ridiculously large eyewear. Coming up on their heels were the emerging-yuppie-class Chinese, doing a lovely job of donning designer turtlenecks and flowing pant suits like its 1974. Western Europe in general was in good stead, but also worthy of mention was the Paris Hilton-lite college girls (fully equipped with ear-threatening nasal inflection) and the blue-denim American-flag shirt families with their big bangs, snapping glamorous pictures by parked limousines and eyeing the “I went to Vegas and all I got was this lousy shirt!” racks. Most of them, however, were quite oblivious to one another, swept up in the singular etiquette that because this is Vegas, one’s only concerns are gambling and getting robbed raw.
As it was Christmas Day and as we didn’t have too many social engagements to speak of, we elected to take the limousine-tour (and strawberry daiquiris and free entry) path our hostel offered. I’d never taken a spin in one before, and I can’t say I was overly impressed. The fact that we weren’t really going anywhere and that I was already a tad skanked may have played a role. Perhaps half-way to Coyote Ugly, the good liquor that was had forced me into a situation of no return. I was busting like I have not busted since early childhood. Several minutes of me demanding to know how long the ride would be (too long), looking around and jeering madly, and seriously contemplating rolling down the windows and unleashing my bladder-fury on those who happened to be street-side ended in the most decent way possible. I said my piece and flew out the door of the crawling limousine, hell-bent on swooping upon the nearest casino bathroom, delivering my royal flush and then racing back to the car. According to the plan, said car would be no more than a block or two down the road. It all sounded so logical until I returned to the Strip, head still spinning but otherwise physically unencumbered. I jogged along for a few minutes, my hope of reuniting with my newfound hostel-mates fading as I passed each car. Eventually, I settled on taking that trustiest of services, the 115 bus, all the way to Coyote Ugly at ‘New York, New York,’ the casino which housed our small international party of bingeing Brits and Aussies, along with a Finn, two hilarious South Koreans and my worried mate Irwan, whose hostel ID was good enough to get me through the door.
The following days were far more sobering. Post-Christmas revelry, the angry Socialist in me was all revved up for the deconstruction and biting critique of Vegas my TA had alluded to. He wasn’t half-kidding – living in the downtown section of the city made removing its flashy but tragicomically thin shell that much easier. In downtown, the casinos still ply their neon-flashing wares, but without the illusion of class to be found at a Bellagio or a Caesars Palace. Downtown’s gambling demographic is much more local – apparently, the average Vegaseno spends $3000 annually on the habit. Rows upon rows of empty, forgotten faces stared unblinkingly at cheap slot screens as animated 7s and Men in Black themes rolled onward. Across the road, souvenir stores dished out the sort of nihilistic, small-minded sloganeering and debauched cheerleading I remember all too well from a Senior (Leavers) week spent in Ocean City. There was bikini bull riding and topless revues, bail bond stores wishing passers-by “a Merry $mas” and pawn after porn stores interspersed by charge-by-the-hour motels. I’ve never seen so much smut interspersed so regularly with so many one-hour wedding chapels. Alright then, before Vegas I’d never seen a one-hour wedding chapel. Within our short stint there, Irwan and I must have seen at least three arrests by the ever-present, shady-as-heck police force.
And therein lies my Vegasian revelation. All the seeds of glamour that “Ocean’s Eleven” or tabloid spreads might place in our minds at the thought of Sin City, all the well-thumbed notions of excess and ephemeral entertainment, are nothing more than illusion. It’s almost too ironic that Vegas is filled with magic shows; irony seems to be the pervasive theme of our life-imitates-art, “buy my soul on Ebay” existence. Those billions of dollars that Steve Wynn floods into these “state-of-the-art” complexes and the billions more that tourists drop into his pecuniary oasis each year, all serve to keep afloat this incredible piece of illusion, a phenomenon that only develops by the year. (Vegas is apparently one of the country’s fastest growing cities*) Because just as our self-inflated magician-friend Steve Wyrick could make his oversized show car disappear, and just like Wynn’s flagship casino the Mirage, the Vegas that we’re shown isn’t there. It’s nothing more than mythology.
This irony and symbolism can be seen in the very structure and recreation of Vegas itself. The city’s most memorable images are perhaps those of a 50-foot mock Eiffel tower at Paris and the cut-out city skyline of New York, New York. All along the strip, the process of cultural commodification and mimicry continues: Luxor is a giant Egyptian pyramid and Sphinx parking-lot, Caesars Palace plays on gaudy Roman iconography and the Venetian offers yet another shallow take on representing a historic city. All of these resort-casinos are real buildings, the hundreds of workers, vast amounts of concrete and steel and the spectacle that they provide ample testimony. But through their efforts at representation and at giving themselves thematic significance, these places fail miserably. Unlike the cities of New York, Paris, or Venice, the Vegas casinos that seek to emulate them have no real history, no cultural heritage, and no essence of the raw, emotive humanity through which the pulse of great places flow. As valiantly as the moguls of Vegas may try, they cannot overcome the simple fact that money does not equal the human condition. Money only equals money. But they are putting on an awfully good show through highlighting minority cultures in their free, mall-located performance troupes or mini-zoos at the Flamingo. And somehow, people (millions of them) fall for the act not just once, but over and over again.
At its soulless core, Vegas is not about good times and leaving behind daily routine. It’s about cold, bitter, stomp-him-into-the-ground profit. It is one large, highly efficient machine designed to lure you in, feed you its poisoned bait and then pillage from you. Not only does Vegas leave you with empty pockets and nothing to show for it, but any semblance of your spiritual or social value is stripped bare. This is clearly visible in the social relations of gambler and dealer. I saw dealers with nothing but thin smiles and cold eyes. For them, the high-rollers or the unprepared first-timers are nothing but oversized dollar bills attached to small human beings. They are nothing more than the dealer’s paycheck, her food on the table and her promotion to higher earnings. It is extreme alienation, and it’s particularly painful to watch all the beautiful layers of human relation sanded down to the mechanized, empty dealings of dealer and gambler, slot machine and little old lady, valet and the lines of cars that are waiting to be parked. To the black hole of Vegas, you are nothing more than the gravitational attraction of your disposable income. And like it’s many brief hour and a half shows, a visitor to Vegas may have been there one time or many dozen. When she has left, neither city nor individual has a single lasting thing to show for it, bar money lost and money gained.
If you look closely at pictures of Las Vegas, you’ll notice that it is completely surrounded by nothing but mountains, out in the middle of the Mojave Desert. It almost looks like it shouldn’t really be there. After spending a couple of days there, I was ready to believe that it isn’t.
There isn’t really a particular time that I truly enjoy flying. However, 7:00 am in the morning must rank particularly low. Case in point: Irwan and I had pulled a truffle-fueled all-nighter through to the early hours of Christmas Day, and then flew across the great plains of North America to the most treasured of holiday tourist traps, Sin City Las Vegas (baby!). I’ve never been one to snap out of sleeping too well, and so falling asleep on level ground and awaking to the roar of our plane, thousands of feet higher than where my conscious world had previously been, was disorientation of the highest order. I yawned my way through the airport shuttle ride to our hostel, a colorful converted motel in a charming neighborhood populated by drug dealers and the sad and confused. Once settled, Irwan and I did what any self-respecting student traveler would do to revive himself and plunged into the icy waters of the hostel jacuzzi. Irwan said he’d reached a level of comfort at about shoulder level; I only reached that of near-hypothermia.
Soon enough, we were ready to hit the Strip. Vegas is fantastically simple, topographically speaking. If you’ve ever dreaded getting lost in the rough boroughs of New York or the endless sprawl of Los Angeles, you’ll be pleased to find that LV is a blissful walk-in-the-park. Or, more accurately, a crawl-down-the-road. The bus trip into the heart of town must have been no more than three miles in length, but it took us a solid hour and 15 minutes to reach the action. Las Vegas Boulevard, commonly referred to as ‘the Strip,’ is the only set you’ll find in this little story. It is also thoroughly carved into numerous parallel streets, and so life on the road passes slowly. That’s quite the point, however, as traveling around Vegas is not so much about going somewhere, as it is about showing some bling. I saw enough Hummer limos and dark shaded sports car drivers chugging along that bloody road to last me into the next century.
I found the spectacle itself to be much like a B-level action movie. The city initially attempts to thump your senses into satisfaction with a whole lot of noise and neon and faux-nude waitresses, and then seeks to do the same to you over and over again. The first couple of times I took the bait, muttering a bit of “Wow, that’s crazy” or “This is unreal” and gleefully snapping pictures. It doesn’t take long, however, as you float between one super-mega-ginormous-money-lights-money-showgirls-money-resort-casino to the next, to realize that you’re seeing the same scene, only with the same actors slipping on pirate suits or French maid outfits for each show. I wandered past the same cheesy, singing slot machines and high-end keno rooms, same fake-blue-skies as ceilings and same high-end boutiques, arcades, eateries, et. al. at which to play “Throw your greenbacks down the shoot.” Literally – the dealer take the hapless player’s bills and shoves them through a small hole in the table, through which the money probably slides down an elaborate, spinning chute into a massive, ever-accumulating mountain.
The casinos themselves are all - and there’s no surprise here - connected by an almost universal card the player inserts into the slot machine to track her credit. It’s packaged to give one the feeling that you’re being done a great service – “Now you can play slots at heaps of casinos instead of one, all with the same card!” The size and efficiency of the whole operation is remarkable. I’d been told before, but Vegas truly is simply the massive gaping mouth of a hungry hungry hippo, and this hippo is being stuffed well proper. Be they the cowboy-hat-and-boots type, the Italian-stallion-and-his-trophy-wife type, or the brooding-Asian-looking-rather-sly type, or even that sad little old lady on the quarters machine, Las Vegas is brimming with folks of every persuasion who reverently kneel down at the altar of the dollar. Before long, I started to wonder if there really is some grand poobah sitting behind the glass wall, into whose pockets this handsome pile is collecting, and surprise surprise, it seems there actually is. His name, Steve Wynn, is somewhat appropriate, for there are a whole lot of losers in his grand game. (Bah dum, spash!) Brother was behind the Bellagio, the Mirage, Treasure Island and the Grand Nugget, and is now putting the finishing touches on what will be most obscene, most over-the-top, most that’s-Vegas-baby! casino yet, known simply as…shoulda guessed it: ‘Wynn.’ (I found a bio at http://lasvegas.about.com/cs/famouslocals/a/Steve_Wynn.htm) I suppose when people commonly exclaim “Who’s your Daddy?!” and happen to do so in Las Vegas, the correct answer would be “Steve Wynn, actually.”
As the casinos and their over-priced shows weren’t really doing it for me (I actually nodded off as the (Texan, jack-ass) magician I paid good money to see made a hummer disappear), I soon turned my attention to the people. And geez Louise were there a lot of them. (Yes, I said ‘geez Louise.’) The Strip was absolutely swarming with tourists, tourists, tourists taking dodgy pictures, debating where to eat, or looking forlorn on buses that didn’t move. The city played out like a veritable “Who’s Who 2004” display of movers and shakers in the roulette game of advanced global capitalism. It certainly was interesting to see them rub shoulders. In full force we had the old vanguard of classic chic Italians, always draped in black and sporting ridiculously large eyewear. Coming up on their heels were the emerging-yuppie-class Chinese, doing a lovely job of donning designer turtlenecks and flowing pant suits like its 1974. Western Europe in general was in good stead, but also worthy of mention was the Paris Hilton-lite college girls (fully equipped with ear-threatening nasal inflection) and the blue-denim American-flag shirt families with their big bangs, snapping glamorous pictures by parked limousines and eyeing the “I went to Vegas and all I got was this lousy shirt!” racks. Most of them, however, were quite oblivious to one another, swept up in the singular etiquette that because this is Vegas, one’s only concerns are gambling and getting robbed raw.
As it was Christmas Day and as we didn’t have too many social engagements to speak of, we elected to take the limousine-tour (and strawberry daiquiris and free entry) path our hostel offered. I’d never taken a spin in one before, and I can’t say I was overly impressed. The fact that we weren’t really going anywhere and that I was already a tad skanked may have played a role. Perhaps half-way to Coyote Ugly, the good liquor that was had forced me into a situation of no return. I was busting like I have not busted since early childhood. Several minutes of me demanding to know how long the ride would be (too long), looking around and jeering madly, and seriously contemplating rolling down the windows and unleashing my bladder-fury on those who happened to be street-side ended in the most decent way possible. I said my piece and flew out the door of the crawling limousine, hell-bent on swooping upon the nearest casino bathroom, delivering my royal flush and then racing back to the car. According to the plan, said car would be no more than a block or two down the road. It all sounded so logical until I returned to the Strip, head still spinning but otherwise physically unencumbered. I jogged along for a few minutes, my hope of reuniting with my newfound hostel-mates fading as I passed each car. Eventually, I settled on taking that trustiest of services, the 115 bus, all the way to Coyote Ugly at ‘New York, New York,’ the casino which housed our small international party of bingeing Brits and Aussies, along with a Finn, two hilarious South Koreans and my worried mate Irwan, whose hostel ID was good enough to get me through the door.
The following days were far more sobering. Post-Christmas revelry, the angry Socialist in me was all revved up for the deconstruction and biting critique of Vegas my TA had alluded to. He wasn’t half-kidding – living in the downtown section of the city made removing its flashy but tragicomically thin shell that much easier. In downtown, the casinos still ply their neon-flashing wares, but without the illusion of class to be found at a Bellagio or a Caesars Palace. Downtown’s gambling demographic is much more local – apparently, the average Vegaseno spends $3000 annually on the habit. Rows upon rows of empty, forgotten faces stared unblinkingly at cheap slot screens as animated 7s and Men in Black themes rolled onward. Across the road, souvenir stores dished out the sort of nihilistic, small-minded sloganeering and debauched cheerleading I remember all too well from a Senior (Leavers) week spent in Ocean City. There was bikini bull riding and topless revues, bail bond stores wishing passers-by “a Merry $mas” and pawn after porn stores interspersed by charge-by-the-hour motels. I’ve never seen so much smut interspersed so regularly with so many one-hour wedding chapels. Alright then, before Vegas I’d never seen a one-hour wedding chapel. Within our short stint there, Irwan and I must have seen at least three arrests by the ever-present, shady-as-heck police force.
And therein lies my Vegasian revelation. All the seeds of glamour that “Ocean’s Eleven” or tabloid spreads might place in our minds at the thought of Sin City, all the well-thumbed notions of excess and ephemeral entertainment, are nothing more than illusion. It’s almost too ironic that Vegas is filled with magic shows; irony seems to be the pervasive theme of our life-imitates-art, “buy my soul on Ebay” existence. Those billions of dollars that Steve Wynn floods into these “state-of-the-art” complexes and the billions more that tourists drop into his pecuniary oasis each year, all serve to keep afloat this incredible piece of illusion, a phenomenon that only develops by the year. (Vegas is apparently one of the country’s fastest growing cities*) Because just as our self-inflated magician-friend Steve Wyrick could make his oversized show car disappear, and just like Wynn’s flagship casino the Mirage, the Vegas that we’re shown isn’t there. It’s nothing more than mythology.
This irony and symbolism can be seen in the very structure and recreation of Vegas itself. The city’s most memorable images are perhaps those of a 50-foot mock Eiffel tower at Paris and the cut-out city skyline of New York, New York. All along the strip, the process of cultural commodification and mimicry continues: Luxor is a giant Egyptian pyramid and Sphinx parking-lot, Caesars Palace plays on gaudy Roman iconography and the Venetian offers yet another shallow take on representing a historic city. All of these resort-casinos are real buildings, the hundreds of workers, vast amounts of concrete and steel and the spectacle that they provide ample testimony. But through their efforts at representation and at giving themselves thematic significance, these places fail miserably. Unlike the cities of New York, Paris, or Venice, the Vegas casinos that seek to emulate them have no real history, no cultural heritage, and no essence of the raw, emotive humanity through which the pulse of great places flow. As valiantly as the moguls of Vegas may try, they cannot overcome the simple fact that money does not equal the human condition. Money only equals money. But they are putting on an awfully good show through highlighting minority cultures in their free, mall-located performance troupes or mini-zoos at the Flamingo. And somehow, people (millions of them) fall for the act not just once, but over and over again.
At its soulless core, Vegas is not about good times and leaving behind daily routine. It’s about cold, bitter, stomp-him-into-the-ground profit. It is one large, highly efficient machine designed to lure you in, feed you its poisoned bait and then pillage from you. Not only does Vegas leave you with empty pockets and nothing to show for it, but any semblance of your spiritual or social value is stripped bare. This is clearly visible in the social relations of gambler and dealer. I saw dealers with nothing but thin smiles and cold eyes. For them, the high-rollers or the unprepared first-timers are nothing but oversized dollar bills attached to small human beings. They are nothing more than the dealer’s paycheck, her food on the table and her promotion to higher earnings. It is extreme alienation, and it’s particularly painful to watch all the beautiful layers of human relation sanded down to the mechanized, empty dealings of dealer and gambler, slot machine and little old lady, valet and the lines of cars that are waiting to be parked. To the black hole of Vegas, you are nothing more than the gravitational attraction of your disposable income. And like it’s many brief hour and a half shows, a visitor to Vegas may have been there one time or many dozen. When she has left, neither city nor individual has a single lasting thing to show for it, bar money lost and money gained.
If you look closely at pictures of Las Vegas, you’ll notice that it is completely surrounded by nothing but mountains, out in the middle of the Mojave Desert. It almost looks like it shouldn’t really be there. After spending a couple of days there, I was ready to believe that it isn’t.
posted by Mark Hiew at
9:04 AM
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