Viva Las Vegas
June 18, 2012
It was the summer of 1956 and I was on a family road trip across the United States in our four-door, hardtop, aquamarine and white Buick Roadmaster. The night of July 1st, we stayed in a small motel out on Las Vegas Boulevard and it was fiercely hot. My dad got tickets to see Ken Murray, Busty Marie Wilson and the Blackouts (showgirls) at the New Frontier. But I had other plans...
A new talent, Elvis Presley, was going to be appearing live on the Steve Allen Show that same night... I just could not miss it! So I feigned cramps and stayed in the room until they left for the show and then raced up to the manager’s office and pleaded with him to let me watch Elvis perform on his tiny black and white rabbit eared TV. I silently shrieked in rapture as I watched... Oh the shame! Oh the thrill! (This is spite of the fact he was only filmed from the waist up. I knew what swiveled beneath)
Fifty-six years later: walking...
It’s 93° out and thousands of people are flowing along the Strip tonight. I guess they think that merely wearing a tee shirt that says “Rat Pack” “Vegas Baby” or the omnipresent “What Happens in Vegas Stays In Vegas”, imbues the wearer with a sense of hIs or her own coolness or bad-ass-ness.1 I did rather like the rarely seen and somewhat intellectually challenging, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” tee.
Watching, listening...
A man wearing a “Mafia Hit-Man” tee shirt passed by holding his wife’s hand, while she held a struggling little boy in her other arm.
Childlike women clad in tiny little dresses, giant platform heels and training bras are giggling and posing on street corners.
Groups of three or four teen-age guys sport black Goth tee shirts and black baggy shorts, somehow staying up even though they are “belted” below their skinny asses. Do you suppose those baggy tee shirts hide hidden suspenders?
Middle aged men in pastel short-sleeve button shirts and khakis walking along and talking in loud, loud voices about the “15th hole” and “comps”
What are we all doing here?
I am trying to figure out why Las Vegas feels so different to us this time. The lights are just as bright, and there are certainly more of them. Where once the RV Park at Circus Circus Casino was sort of at the quiet end of the strip, it is now almost surrounded by new casinos and hi-rise buildings. We have decided the glitter and pleasure of friends flying out from New York City to visit us has outshone all the bright lights and attractions that Las Vegas has to offer.
We are walking at night, and staying cool inside all day. We are surrounded by fabulous gleaming towers for playing games of chance... which none of us did.
For the tourist there are two Las Vegas’s. There is The Strip with its hi-rise hotels and casinos. And then there is downtown. Past all the hokey wedding chapels, there is old Fremont Street which has been brought back to life with intense and close flashing neon, overhead projections and blaring music. The downtown was a place where many not so fortunate citizens, some toothless and misshapen, rolled amongst the costumed showgirls and tourists in their wheelchairs.
For the gambler and high-roller, I am sure there is another Las Vegas entirely apart from the two we saw.
We walked, we ate, we watched light shows, dancing waters, flaming walls of fire and sharks, saw Chihuly glass sculptures, and ate---oh, yes, we ate. There were steakhouses and glorious buffets, magnificent burgers and all you can eat slabs of roast beef, fried pork tenderloins the size of a garage roof, large $10 pitchers of margaritas and half price cocktails. Much of much.
No matter how we cut it, the town was a one trick pony. Gambling is that trick. The one armed-bandit, now an electronic impostor with no handle and playing the sounds of coins pouring out, fill acres of floor space on all the casino floors. The slots account for more than half of the city’s income.
We saw no tuxedoed men nor gowned women sipping martinis and glamorously winning tens of thousands of dollars at the gaming tables.
Walking in Las Vegas
1 Other Tee Shirts Seen: “Rack Pack”, “CSI Team”, “High-Roller”, “Vegas Baby!”, “Mafia Wars”, “Viva Las Vegas”, “Girls Gone Wild/Welcome to Las Vegas”, “This is My Dam Shirt”... as in Hoover, “In GodFather We Trust”, “Mob Boss”, “I Survived the Valentine’s Day Massacre”, “RatPack” (Featuring two gray and one black rat in suits with microphones) “Do Be Do Be Do”, “Las Vegas - Sin City” There were also many X-rated slogans.
Loved this....This story reminded me of myself and my experience with Vegas. Been there twice. Once in 1967 with my parents and 2 years ago on my way from San Diego back home to KC. It changed....and stayed the same....just the way you described it. (When my folks went to a dinner show at the old Sands, My brother and I, who were supposedly left alone in the room to watch t.v., snuck down to the "strip" and watched "Cool Hand Luke" in one of the theatres...:)
Marty
There is no amount of money you could pay me, to go to Las Vegas !
AP (as in Bernie's Mom)
What a wonderful, freaky, fascinating place! I guess it makes one really ponder about the human psyche, and what it considers reward, satisfaction, fun, entertainment.
I visited for the first time in the late eighties to attend an educational conference. These were held there because prices were cheap. I was just blown away by the desert heat, the razzle dazzle, and the whole weird atmosphere.
I will never forget!
Ilo-mai
What a great synopsis of Vegas. I haven't been since about 2007. You two are so cute expecially with Bernie's arm sticking straight out. Are you on your way to California. Have a safe trip.
xoxo kathy
