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REGULAR FEATURES
The Epicure's Thanksgiving
A Lizard Diary, Part VIII
by A S H Smyth
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Friday, November 23rd, 2007
The eighth day. ‘Black’ Friday.
‘Name?’
‘Daniel Ocean.’
‘Very amusing, sir. Sixth one today…’
Vegas is an insane place. There is a multi-storey car-park just for the staff of
the Bellagio, for starters.
But if you have to have a 6-hour lay-over in the middle of the night, a city
which quite genuinely never sleeps is not a bad place to be.
Vegas has no shame, is not coy, and doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not.
Which is how it ends up marketing itself as the ideal place for a family
vacation (a nightmarish scenario on a par with being exiled to CenterParcs)
while Mexicans in hats and gloves hand out fliers: ‘Girls direct to your door in
20 minutes.’*
You can see Defending the Caveman, a collection of Titanic artefacts, or the
Bodies exhibition. You can also see a troupe of midgets impersonating stars
(guest appearances by Danny DeVito?) and ‘America’s Funniest Dog Show’ –
a title which begs questions as to the competition in the field.
You can see The Producers, the Blue Man group, and about 7 incarnations of
Cirque du Soleil. And for $50** you can see a ‘vampire’ strip show. Alas, it’s
only on Thursdays.
The Hardrock runs a nightclub called Body English, which presumably isn’t
supposed to make me think of the adidas-tuxedoed guests on The Jeremy
Kyle Show. Bally’s does slightly better, advertising their Jubilee cabaret with
the line: ‘Making the world better, one dancer at a time.’ Quite so. Give the
people what they want, etc.
My attorney has plans of his own, involving the kind of club where my
switches aren’t going to be flicked, so, deciding my irony duct has received a
thorough enough work-out of late, I go to check out the new Planet
Hollywood casino.
I have never lost any money in Vegas, by the simple expedient of not
gambling. I don’t have anything against gambling; I make stupid bets all the
time regarding the minutiae of films, or the order of Radiohead’s album
releases. But I win those bets. If I just want to throw my money away, there
are more creative ways of doing it than playing card games I don’t
understand. Think Rat Race for the kind of thing I have in mind.
I stroll around the various prongs of the maze that is Planet Hollywood –
there are no signs for exits – generally lapping up the assault on the senses.
A pianist is playing, but she’s basically inaudible unless you’re sitting in the
four or five seats nearest to her platform.
The shops are all closed, but I admire the peach-perfect physiques of the
models in the window. Perhaps I misremember, but I am struck by the fact
that, unlike in UK shops (La Senza, et al, excluded) here the dummies actually
have breasts and arses. I wonder why, and would spend much longer doing
it, too
‘Professor Avenarius strolled happily along, feeling like the director of a gigantic
orgy…’ – Milan Kundera, Immortality, p170.
were it not that I can now hear ‘Diamonds on the Souls of Her Shoes’ in one
ear, and Daft Punk’s ‘One More Time’ (a particularly annoying song in its own
right) in the other. I move.
Still half drunk, and it’s pushing 2am. A man in a white Stetson, with ‘JESUS’
on the back of his shirt, wishes me a Happy Thanksgiving. Another man has a
nosebleed in the toilets. Uhuh…
I drift towards Starbucks, but the smell of burnt coffee makes me reconsider.
Drink through the pain… much better idea. Besides, it’s cheaper: most non-
alcoholic drinks here are in the region of $3-4, but the nice people who run
the casinos will sell you a Coors for $1.50.
Home is where the Heart Bar is, and my heart was drawing me to the sort of
place which pays girls in bikinis to dance on a podium for my pleasure. I sit
and read a book for four hours. My idea of heaven. Armed with a steady
supply of beer – brought to me by a woman who looked like she might not so
long ago have been on the podium herself – I listen to the sound of people
losing their money in the nearby Pleasure Pit. Well, if you’re going to be
duped out of your cash, you might as well have a croupier in a bodice and
fish-nets.
All around the Pleasure Pit, Asian gentlemen appear to be putting not very
many coins into the slot machines.
I am astonished by how few people are actually paying attention to the
dancers. They are immaculately toned, and can’t be more than about 20.
More to the point, they perform for about 30 minutes, and then swap,
providing a nice variety.
That said, if you watch even one of these girls dance for more than about 10
minutes, it becomes clear she only has about 5 moves, most of which look
suspiciously like default settings (which gets interesting for a few seconds as
one song fades out and the other fades in). It also becomes clear that it is
very difficult to read about Umberto Eco when there’s a semi-naked college-
girl dancing in the corner of your eye.
I wonder if this girl gets a lot of folk paying her no attention. By Vegas
standards, of course, this is pretty lightweight fare; but I’d swear she turns
towards my end of the room when she sees I am actually watching.
But then that’s the dream of every man, isn’t it? That the porn-star is really
looking at him. It’s easier to deal with than the reality that you’re just one
chump anywhere on the sliding scale from repressed puritan to pimp.
When a remix of ‘YMCA’ comes on, 3 middle-aged men at the bar tell her she’s
getting it wrong. A nasty little voice in my head says: ‘Oh, really? Then
perhaps you’d rather stay home and have your wife do it for you…’ On which,
there are couples here, and you wonder how the women feel when
confronted by the dancers, and by the ill-concealed ogling of their
husbands/boyfriends.
I meet a Norwegian (‘Norwegian’) called John, who wants to be a writer.
Either that or this is the worst pick-up attempt ever: we spend the whole
time discussing the girls (see philosophical digressions above) and he buys
me a Johnnie Walker Black.
John smokes. You still can, indoors, in Vegas. You’d not think this was
surprising, really; but after a few days of ultra-No-Smoking California, it
comes as quite a shock.
A cranky-looking old-timer does laps of the bar. At half 3, the girls seem to
have finished, and besides, my book’s got boring: I head off for that much-
needed coffee.
I want to return to this off-the-Strip Mafiosi restaurant (replete with checked
table-cloths, naturally, and pictures of Tony Bennett on every wall) where my
attorney and I dined last time we transacted business here. Alas, on that
occasion my punishing flight schedule – against the clock, as it were, from
London to Washington, Washington to LA, and LA to Vegas, pretty much non-
stop – prevented me from taking full advantage of their ‘bottomless wine-
glass’ policy, and I have felt unmanned by the experience ever since.
But I don’t find it, until (of course) we speed past it in a taxi back to the
airport.
As I pass out on the flight to Colorado, I enjoy watching a man remonstrate
with the overhead bins of ‘20-year-old planes that don’t fit today’s luggage’.
Needless to say, he seems to be trying to get away with a fully-mounted
moose as hand-luggage.
Vegas was cool enough by night, but thanks to a little something called
geography, Denver is shrouded in fog and snow (both seemingly managing to
be simultaneously on the ground and in the air). This is very scenic, but the
temperature implications have begun to pall by the time the third set of Avis
‘senior supervisors’ can’t find any of the paperwork for the hire car.
Boulder, CO. Thirty seconds on Google proves insufficient to explain why
Boulder is so-called (did someone have to blast railroad tracks through
here?), so you’ll have to make do with this.
My football education continues, at the Colorado Buffaloes vs. Nebraska
Huskers game. My attorney has a visceral hatred of Nebraska and all things
Nebraskan. He says this is because he’s had to drive across it so many times,
and each time the tedium nearly killed him. I’m prepared to take his word for
it: if ‘husking’ means what I think it means – i.e. an organic form of whittling,
but with less exciting results – then the name of the football team is
something of a vote of no confidence in the entertainments the great state
has to offer. Certainly, another 30 seconds on Google*** suggests nothing in
Nebraska so stimulating as a Naked Pumpkin Run.
The game is won decisively by Colorado, to the delight of my attorney and
everyone else in the stadium, barring the two ginger behemoths (recall the
idiot twins in Evolution****) who’ve spent most of the game obstructing our
view of the pitch, in collusion with their even-more-appalling wives. In the
face (as it were) of this repugnant foursome, I try to maintain equilibrium by
focusing on the very tall blonde who was in charge of the half-time buffalo.
Accordingly, I miss most of the play; but I gather it was very exciting and
Colorado came from behind for a strong finish.
I’ve sunk the best part of a gallon of hot chocolate in an effort to keep my
circulation going, but find there is still space for some excellent burgers and
good beer at the Walnut Brewery in town. We watch more football (including
a match that went to extra time: you have to have a win over here, it
seems), then drive back to Denver airport, to fly to SF via Phoenix, AZ.
As my eyes close on the fourth flight in 24hrs, I observe that, not before time,
the No Smoking signs in the overhead panels are slowly being replaced with
Please Turn Off Electronic Devices signs. But surely the signs themselves…
Issue of the Day
Can hookers be sued under the Trades Descriptions Act if they’re not as
pretty as the fliers make out? Answer with reference to a Holborn phone-box
you’ve recently visited.
Or
There has to be a winner: why does this concept seem so alien to Brits?
---
* Prostitution – since you’re wondering – is legal in Nevada, but not actually
in Vegas itself. By a miracle of coincidence, though, The Strip turns out not to
be within the city limits.
** $10 off if you bring the listings guide from the taxi. This booklet will also
get you $5 off any automatic weapon at The Gun Store.
*** Writing is time-consuming.
**** Now recall Julianne Moore: it’ll help ease the pain.
A Lizard Diary, Part VIII
by A S H Smyth
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Friday, November 23rd, 2007
The eighth day. ‘Black’ Friday.
‘Name?’
‘Daniel Ocean.’
‘Very amusing, sir. Sixth one today…’
Vegas is an insane place. There is a multi-storey car-park just for the staff of
the Bellagio, for starters.
But if you have to have a 6-hour lay-over in the middle of the night, a city
which quite genuinely never sleeps is not a bad place to be.
Vegas has no shame, is not coy, and doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not.
Which is how it ends up marketing itself as the ideal place for a family
vacation (a nightmarish scenario on a par with being exiled to CenterParcs)
while Mexicans in hats and gloves hand out fliers: ‘Girls direct to your door in
20 minutes.’*
You can see Defending the Caveman, a collection of Titanic artefacts, or the
Bodies exhibition. You can also see a troupe of midgets impersonating stars
(guest appearances by Danny DeVito?) and ‘America’s Funniest Dog Show’ –
a title which begs questions as to the competition in the field.
You can see The Producers, the Blue Man group, and about 7 incarnations of
Cirque du Soleil. And for $50** you can see a ‘vampire’ strip show. Alas, it’s
only on Thursdays.
The Hardrock runs a nightclub called Body English, which presumably isn’t
supposed to make me think of the adidas-tuxedoed guests on The Jeremy
Kyle Show. Bally’s does slightly better, advertising their Jubilee cabaret with
the line: ‘Making the world better, one dancer at a time.’ Quite so. Give the
people what they want, etc.
My attorney has plans of his own, involving the kind of club where my
switches aren’t going to be flicked, so, deciding my irony duct has received a
thorough enough work-out of late, I go to check out the new Planet
Hollywood casino.
I have never lost any money in Vegas, by the simple expedient of not
gambling. I don’t have anything against gambling; I make stupid bets all the
time regarding the minutiae of films, or the order of Radiohead’s album
releases. But I win those bets. If I just want to throw my money away, there
are more creative ways of doing it than playing card games I don’t
understand. Think Rat Race for the kind of thing I have in mind.
I stroll around the various prongs of the maze that is Planet Hollywood –
there are no signs for exits – generally lapping up the assault on the senses.
A pianist is playing, but she’s basically inaudible unless you’re sitting in the
four or five seats nearest to her platform.
The shops are all closed, but I admire the peach-perfect physiques of the
models in the window. Perhaps I misremember, but I am struck by the fact
that, unlike in UK shops (La Senza, et al, excluded) here the dummies actually
have breasts and arses. I wonder why, and would spend much longer doing
it, too
‘Professor Avenarius strolled happily along, feeling like the director of a gigantic
orgy…’ – Milan Kundera, Immortality, p170.
were it not that I can now hear ‘Diamonds on the Souls of Her Shoes’ in one
ear, and Daft Punk’s ‘One More Time’ (a particularly annoying song in its own
right) in the other. I move.
Still half drunk, and it’s pushing 2am. A man in a white Stetson, with ‘JESUS’
on the back of his shirt, wishes me a Happy Thanksgiving. Another man has a
nosebleed in the toilets. Uhuh…
I drift towards Starbucks, but the smell of burnt coffee makes me reconsider.
Drink through the pain… much better idea. Besides, it’s cheaper: most non-
alcoholic drinks here are in the region of $3-4, but the nice people who run
the casinos will sell you a Coors for $1.50.
Home is where the Heart Bar is, and my heart was drawing me to the sort of
place which pays girls in bikinis to dance on a podium for my pleasure. I sit
and read a book for four hours. My idea of heaven. Armed with a steady
supply of beer – brought to me by a woman who looked like she might not so
long ago have been on the podium herself – I listen to the sound of people
losing their money in the nearby Pleasure Pit. Well, if you’re going to be
duped out of your cash, you might as well have a croupier in a bodice and
fish-nets.
All around the Pleasure Pit, Asian gentlemen appear to be putting not very
many coins into the slot machines.
I am astonished by how few people are actually paying attention to the
dancers. They are immaculately toned, and can’t be more than about 20.
More to the point, they perform for about 30 minutes, and then swap,
providing a nice variety.
That said, if you watch even one of these girls dance for more than about 10
minutes, it becomes clear she only has about 5 moves, most of which look
suspiciously like default settings (which gets interesting for a few seconds as
one song fades out and the other fades in). It also becomes clear that it is
very difficult to read about Umberto Eco when there’s a semi-naked college-
girl dancing in the corner of your eye.
I wonder if this girl gets a lot of folk paying her no attention. By Vegas
standards, of course, this is pretty lightweight fare; but I’d swear she turns
towards my end of the room when she sees I am actually watching.
But then that’s the dream of every man, isn’t it? That the porn-star is really
looking at him. It’s easier to deal with than the reality that you’re just one
chump anywhere on the sliding scale from repressed puritan to pimp.
When a remix of ‘YMCA’ comes on, 3 middle-aged men at the bar tell her she’s
getting it wrong. A nasty little voice in my head says: ‘Oh, really? Then
perhaps you’d rather stay home and have your wife do it for you…’ On which,
there are couples here, and you wonder how the women feel when
confronted by the dancers, and by the ill-concealed ogling of their
husbands/boyfriends.
I meet a Norwegian (‘Norwegian’) called John, who wants to be a writer.
Either that or this is the worst pick-up attempt ever: we spend the whole
time discussing the girls (see philosophical digressions above) and he buys
me a Johnnie Walker Black.
John smokes. You still can, indoors, in Vegas. You’d not think this was
surprising, really; but after a few days of ultra-No-Smoking California, it
comes as quite a shock.
A cranky-looking old-timer does laps of the bar. At half 3, the girls seem to
have finished, and besides, my book’s got boring: I head off for that much-
needed coffee.
I want to return to this off-the-Strip Mafiosi restaurant (replete with checked
table-cloths, naturally, and pictures of Tony Bennett on every wall) where my
attorney and I dined last time we transacted business here. Alas, on that
occasion my punishing flight schedule – against the clock, as it were, from
London to Washington, Washington to LA, and LA to Vegas, pretty much non-
stop – prevented me from taking full advantage of their ‘bottomless wine-
glass’ policy, and I have felt unmanned by the experience ever since.
But I don’t find it, until (of course) we speed past it in a taxi back to the
airport.
As I pass out on the flight to Colorado, I enjoy watching a man remonstrate
with the overhead bins of ‘20-year-old planes that don’t fit today’s luggage’.
Needless to say, he seems to be trying to get away with a fully-mounted
moose as hand-luggage.
Vegas was cool enough by night, but thanks to a little something called
geography, Denver is shrouded in fog and snow (both seemingly managing to
be simultaneously on the ground and in the air). This is very scenic, but the
temperature implications have begun to pall by the time the third set of Avis
‘senior supervisors’ can’t find any of the paperwork for the hire car.
Boulder, CO. Thirty seconds on Google proves insufficient to explain why
Boulder is so-called (did someone have to blast railroad tracks through
here?), so you’ll have to make do with this.
My football education continues, at the Colorado Buffaloes vs. Nebraska
Huskers game. My attorney has a visceral hatred of Nebraska and all things
Nebraskan. He says this is because he’s had to drive across it so many times,
and each time the tedium nearly killed him. I’m prepared to take his word for
it: if ‘husking’ means what I think it means – i.e. an organic form of whittling,
but with less exciting results – then the name of the football team is
something of a vote of no confidence in the entertainments the great state
has to offer. Certainly, another 30 seconds on Google*** suggests nothing in
Nebraska so stimulating as a Naked Pumpkin Run.
The game is won decisively by Colorado, to the delight of my attorney and
everyone else in the stadium, barring the two ginger behemoths (recall the
idiot twins in Evolution****) who’ve spent most of the game obstructing our
view of the pitch, in collusion with their even-more-appalling wives. In the
face (as it were) of this repugnant foursome, I try to maintain equilibrium by
focusing on the very tall blonde who was in charge of the half-time buffalo.
Accordingly, I miss most of the play; but I gather it was very exciting and
Colorado came from behind for a strong finish.
I’ve sunk the best part of a gallon of hot chocolate in an effort to keep my
circulation going, but find there is still space for some excellent burgers and
good beer at the Walnut Brewery in town. We watch more football (including
a match that went to extra time: you have to have a win over here, it
seems), then drive back to Denver airport, to fly to SF via Phoenix, AZ.
As my eyes close on the fourth flight in 24hrs, I observe that, not before time,
the No Smoking signs in the overhead panels are slowly being replaced with
Please Turn Off Electronic Devices signs. But surely the signs themselves…
Issue of the Day
Can hookers be sued under the Trades Descriptions Act if they’re not as
pretty as the fliers make out? Answer with reference to a Holborn phone-box
you’ve recently visited.
Or
There has to be a winner: why does this concept seem so alien to Brits?
---
* Prostitution – since you’re wondering – is legal in Nevada, but not actually
in Vegas itself. By a miracle of coincidence, though, The Strip turns out not to
be within the city limits.
** $10 off if you bring the listings guide from the taxi. This booklet will also
get you $5 off any automatic weapon at The Gun Store.
*** Writing is time-consuming.
**** Now recall Julianne Moore: it’ll help ease the pain.
