The day before leaving for Las Vegas to attend the “World of Concrete” Trade Show and Testosterone Festival, my lovely assistant and I found ourselves in the bookstore at the local suburban mall. As we walked in, we, along with everyone else in the store, were treated to a young woman’s cell phone conversation that went something like this:“So I’m like you were cheating on her when we were sleeping together, and I was just like, whatever M****f****r!”
What a lovely young lady, so refined, so cultured. I’m sure she was Delbert and Nadine’s daughter…
On Super Bowl Sunday my assistant and I traveled to Sin City. On the plane I had the pleasure of sitting next to a gentleman who was in the aisle seat and seemed put out that the airline “put the big guy in the middle seat.” Hmm, imagine how that big guy felt….
We arrived in Las Vegas about 90 minutes before kickoff. Las Vegas, which loosely translated means “The Vegas,” was nuts. My assistant and I checked into our hotel and then searched for a place to watch the game. We finally ended-up in my XXIVth floor room to watch Super Bowl XLIII.
It was a great game, I was rooting for the Cardinals and they almost got ‘er done. Halftime was incredible! Let’s just say The Boss is still The Boss.
After the game, we decided to do the buffet thing and ended up at the Garden Buffet at the Flamingo. Like most things here, it was overpriced, but the food wasn’t real good. By the time we finished dinner and headed back to our hotel, the city had gone completely bonkers; it seemed there were drunken Steelers fans everywhere. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, as I have been to Pittsburgh a couple of times...
Monday was a day full of seminars; I was thinking that by the end of the week I would know more about cracks than most proctologists…
Much to my surprise, my lovely assistant had obtained tickets to see “Jubilee” at Bally’s on Monday night. Oh my, what a show! When the curtain came there were 40 pairs of the most beautiful bre… oops, I mean legs, you ever saw. Yeah that’s it, legs.
Jubilee!
Ahem, anyway, the show was great – dozens of beautiful women, incredible costumes, singing, dancing. My assistant said she liked the “hunky young men with the nice glutes.” We must’ve been at different shows, because I don’t remember any male performers…
After the show we followed an older couple with decidedly east-coast accents out of the theater and overheard this conversation:
“Artie, that was bee-yoot-eee-full. Just bee-yoot-eee-full.”
“Are you freakin’ kiddin’ me Irene? Theh wadn’t anythin’ bigger’n a B-cup out theh!”
That’s the thing about Las Vegas, all cultures, as well as all languages, are welcome.
Speaking of languages, apparently English is not real common in the desert.
One of the instructors at a seminar I attended used the words “acourse” for “of course” and “tords” for “toward.”
One of the 5 gazillion hucksters along the strip asked me “Are you going to be in town today?” as I walked past. Apparently that whole time-space continuum can be very confusing for some people…
I overheard someone talking about some humorous thing that had created “comical” relief.
Someone else said they “needed an electricianist.”
Another said that was about “alls they could do.”
Pronunciation? Grammar? Who needs it? This is Vegas, baby!
Tuesday’s highlight was getting a really good deal on some Super Bowl merchandise the Officially Licensed NFL vendor didn’t want to “take back with her.” Although I never found out where “back” was, I was able to negotiate a price of $25 for a spiffy $64 fleece pullover. While some would attribute that to good negotiating skills, I’d like to believe it was due to my charm and good looks…
Late Tuesday afternoon, after the seminars had ended, I entered some promotional thing at O’Shea’s on the strip, and won $50. Well not exactly, I won a voucher for $50 that I could use on one of their promotional slot machines. The catch was that you had to build up 4000 credits to win one-hundred actual dollars. I did make it to 102 credits for awhile. Anyway I was able to play the slots for about half an hour for free.
On Wednesday, my travelling assistant joined me for dinner at Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville, which is located in the Flamingo hotel. We had about a 30-minute wait for a table, so we stood outside of the restaurant and did some people watching on the strip. We were also entertained by a group of 50-something cougars who were displaying their, ahem, assets to any male that was breathing…
There was a live band performing at Margaritaville, so we got to enjoy some great music while eating dinner. My assistant had coconut shrimp and I had the blackened mahi-mahi with mango salsa. Yummmm.
The Las Vegas Margaritaville, along with the one JB sings about, is a crazy place. There was the music, two guys walking around on stilts, and a scantily clad young woman who had to go for a swim in a giant blender whenever JB’s Margaritaville was played. That was a very popular song for some reason…
Margaritaville
I really enjoyed the band; they played several of the songs we’ve been working on at guitar lessons. The only difference between them and me was, and this crucial, they were able to play the correct notes and chords at the correct time and tempo…
Thursday night we went and saw Rita Rudner at Harrah’s. We sat at a table with an older couple from Golden who spend half of the year in the desert and the other half in Colorado. They were a very young 70-ish and had been doing the two homes thing for about 20 years. They were enjoying the good life.
Rita Rudner’s shtick is the daffy, slightly confused wife/mother/homemaker. She’s pretty funny and if you ever have a chance you should take in her show.
On Friday, the gambling bug finally hit me. And, as a lot of you know, I’m a big-time player Las Vegas kind of a guy. So I put $20 in a slot machine at the Bellagio and won enough to pay for lunch. I then went over to the Flamingo and took a lesson on how to play craps. It seemed so simple when they explained it, but afterwards, when I walked up to a table, it all seemed very confusing and intimidating, even for a big-time player Las Vegas kind of a guy like me. I watched for a while and tried to understand the rhythm of the game. I figured out two things, you can lose a lot of money in a short amount of time playing craps, and the $10 minimum bet seemed exorbitantly high.
We left the Flamingo and went to the Imperial Palace and walked through their car collection. They had about 200 or so exotic vehicles in their collection, and since we had passes for free admission (big-time player Las Vegas kinds of a guys like me get “comped” a lot…) the price was right. There were some pretty amazing cars there and it’s worth an hour of your time to check it out.
IP Auto Collection
My assistant and I then went to Harrah’s and tried their buffet, and it was very good. Lots to choose from, and because we had coupons, it was affordable…
Harrah's Buffet
Afterwards, we went back to the Bellagio and I found the same machine and played for a little longer. I finished down $10 for the trip.
I dutifully attended all of my scheduled seminars, learned some things, saw a couple of great shows, had some good food, and only lost $10.
Not bad for a week in the Cleavage Capital of the western world…
