I just returned from my annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas. Each visit follows a precictable set of stages (I am currently in the “recovery” phase). First, there is the excitement of arriving. I still recall my first visit to Vegas in the early 1970’s. We were flying in from the East Coast at night. I peered out the window into the vast Nevada night, nearly as dark as it is landing on an aircraft carrier in the Atlantic Ocean in the middle of the night. Finally, off in the distance lights appeared – as the plane got closer, the surreal image of a city sprung out of no where began to appear, much like what I imagine a moon base station will look like someday. And this way back when the Las Vegas Hilton was the major hotel…the unindoctrinated arrivee today must truly be aghast at the conspicuous consumption of electricity the city devours.
As soon as you exit the plane, you quickly enter the shock phase. The clanging of the slot machines and the gaudiness of the show posters (Wayne Newton still has one, that hasn’t changed), and finally, the magnitude of the hotels. The latter still shocks me, more now than ever in fact. You drive down the strip…Treasure Island, the new Wynn, the MGM, the Bellagio and a few dozen more. This time I stayed at the Venetian which inexplicably took Vegas to a new level for me.
After a few hours of sensory overload, the innovator and capitalist in me begins to take over and I enter the most profound and enjoyable phase of the process which is pure appreciation and marvel at the audacity of Bugsy Malone and all that have followed in his footsteps. There is nothing small about Vegas. Everything is over the top and no one apologizes for it. In a land of timidity and sameness, Vegas is a bastion of originality, dreams and pure Americana gone wild. I wish I could have been in the meeting where the founders of the Venetian said “oh yes, and then we’ll put an entire canal system inside the hotel, complete with Italian gondaliers”. And the best part is they did it, and it works.
Unfortunately, this phase ends and one then enters into the “hog wild” phase which is what the entire system is predicated and for which the bottom line of Vegas eagerly awaits. The call of the blackjack table, the scores of fine restaurants, $100 shows and the perpetual night clubs overwhelms the rationale mind and one begins to imagine being a rock star living this lifestyle for years on end. Unfortunately, few have the money or liver to pursue this line of work, and on the second or third morning of too little sleep, and too much cheap casino gin (I dare not say free, because if you amortize your losses over those relatively few drinks, they get expensive very quickly – alas, another wonderful Vegas mechanism), you begin to yearn for the pedestrian life of home, work and sleep.
That is when the recovery phase begins - I will let you know when that ends. However, I am sure that sometime in the next few months, the itch phase will start again, but for now, I hold Vegas in my fond memories, much less for having taken my money, and more for having done it with such singular focus and creativity.
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