Just returned from a three-day visit to Sin City. Haven’t been there in a very long time. 1975, in fact.

It’s changed a bit since then.

It’s too much to take in, three days of sensory overload. To wander the Strip and take in the state of the art in wallet-vacuuming technologies is an education in the raw potential of the Free Market. At least I was there in the winter, and could walk down a public street in the low sun and upper 50s. In summer the average outdoor temperature, day or night, is over 100°F and you have to retreat to the air-conditioned comfort of the casinos.

A few impressions:

• Fremont Street Experience: One of the really great attractions in Vegas. A four-block -long curved canopy of LEDs that puts on an hourly show that has to be seen to be believed. Managed to catch two shows: A Queen themed one at 9 and the following one which was set to Don McLean’s “American Pie.” I don’t know how you feel about this song (which was #1 for four weeks in 1972 and ranked the #5 song of the 20th century by the RIAA) but I can’t stand it. I was sick of it the first time I visited Las Vegas. Anyway, that show features go-go dancers cavorting all over the screen and computer-graphic hippie flowers and little news clips of JFK and Elvis and such. At one point, during one of the “heavy” verses, a tremendous video inset chugged it’s way across Fremont street, a clip of Charles Manson. I’m sure the creators of this particular show were making some sort of point, but as I stood there, surrounded by tourists, gamblers, drunk kids, and cowboys (lots and lots of cowboys: The National Rodeo was in town) all staring up at his demented visage, I realized Manson was getting what he deserved up there. He was like one of those villainous Kryptonians from Superman 2, trapped in a space-traveling acrylic paperweight, beyond relevance.

• There is a weird tone in every casino floor I walked through– And believe me, I walked through a LOT of them, from the Luxor at the south end of the Strip to the Golden Gate downtown. The collective sound of all the hundreds of slot machines make a deep minor-note drone. I was reminded of cicadas, so prevalent and omnipresent it was a dimensionless, so deep a sound it gets inside your head. It was a bit like the organ notes at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey– You know you’re in for something big, but you’re not quite sure what. Since nothing in Vegas is actually left to chance, there is no question this tone is being created on purpose. My wife and I took to giving it an Eastern flavor as we cruised through the labyrinthine gaming areas, chanting as we walked: “Oooommmmmm… Time to gammmmble… Ommmmm… Feeeeeling luuuuucky… Ommmmmmm…”

• Silliest theme for a casino: The Bellagio. As far as I can tell, it has no theme. I seems like nothing more than massive tribute to the polyurethane-detailed faux-rustic architecture of the average McMansion.

• Silliest theme for a casino on purpose: Circus Circus. Of course.

• Most Honest Theme for a casino: Caesars Palace. The place was dreamed up in the 1960s, the era of the sword-and-sandal epic and Cleopatra. It was in the depths of the Cold War, just before Vietnam, Pax Americana at it’s fullest. The place has grown since then, but it is still an elaborate tribute to the excesses of the Roman Empire. Fluted Corinthian columns, talking, moving statues of the Pagan gods (they had those in antiquity!), a sense of the sheer majesty of power. Not much is said about the Fall of the Empire, of course, and anyone who looks like a Goth or a Vandal (bearded, barely civilized, penniless) is not-too-gently escorted to the Strip by helpful centurions.

• Must-see attraction: The Atomic Testing Museum, located well off the strip. Chronicles the history and utility of the Nevada Nuclear Test Site, less than 100 miles north. The last above-ground nuclear detonation was in 1970, and it was accidental: An underground test got out of control and shot out above the surface, a mushroom cloud visible all the way to Vegas.

• What a Las Vegas travel blog has to do with Show Biz: Everything. Las Vegas is pure show biz. more so than Hollywood. The corner of Flamingo and Las Vegas, the heart of the Strip, is dominated by the largest billboard I have ever seen, so large it covered an entire side of the Flamingo Hotel. It featured Donny and Marie Osmond.

• The Fight: Oscar de la Hoya vs. Manny Pacquiao at the MGM Grand. It was going down the last day I was there. So naturally the MGM Grand and the immediate area around it became a tremendous a**holes-only zone. Obnoxiously dressed rich people, jerks in rented Ferraris driving on sidewalks and packs of falling-down-drunk trust-fund kids were in abundance. Every religious nut and t-shirt seller and strip-club-hired, nudie-card-distributing undocumented immigrant in Vegas was also there, piled up like hamsters in a pet-shop cage. We got out as quickly as we could, running for the dubious safety of M&M World, a four-story establishment devoted to the edification of little round candies.

• Total gambling losses: $16. Take that, Vegas!

–Skot C.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 12th, 2008 at 11:34 am and is filed under Ancilliaries, Digital Wonderland, General, Hosts, Long Tail, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.