2001-03-31 - 7:45 p.m.
The coolest thing about staying at the Stratosphere is that no matter what skanky part of town you wind up in, you can always find your way back. You can be without a vehicle at 3 a.m. in that no-man�s-land north of the Strip with your sense of direction all shot to hell by those three Long Island iced teas you had--and even then all you have to do is get that big-honkin� neon-lit phallic tower in your sights and make sure you keep heading toward it.
The downside is, that tower is so tall that it�s impossible to judge your distance from it. Particularly after three Long Islands. So you usually end up just calling a cab anyway.
***
Actually, when you scrape away the glitz and the sleaze, Las Vegas is like one long, endless South Park episode.
Wal-Marts. Trailer courts. Pancake Houses. Tiny, longwindedly-named evangelical churches ("The Jesus Is Love Fellowship of God�s Judgment") on every third streetcorner. Teenagers in Marilyn Manson T-shirts spending weeknights in movie theater parking lots smoking dope and drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon. Hard-faced women with nicotine-stained fingers and mullets that scream "SLOW PITCH SOFTBALL" at 120 decibels. Exploding meth labs. Right-wing talk radio 24/7.
That�s the Vegas most visitors never see. Lots of people have written essays in the last 10 or 15 years waxing nostalgic for the city�s mobbed-up past and lamenting the Disneyfication of the Strip--but come on now. The sin and vice haven�t gone anywhere--right next to the Stratosphere there�s an entire city block full of nothing but titty bars--and you can build "family-friendly" hotel-casino-resorts along I-15 clear to Barstow and that�s not going to change the fact that tens of millions of tourists and conventioneers come to Vegas for exactly three reasons: to gamble, to drink, and to get fucked in ways they never would have even thought of. What�s truly weird about the place is that at the same time, politically, it�s one of the most conservative cities in the U.S.--not only does it have its cake and eat it, too, it gets to sermonize the next morning about the evils of cake.
I love Vegas. It�s so ... American.
***
Mucho thanks to Uncle Joe for serving as guest diarist in my absence. He managed to be entertaining without upstaging me--I guess he won�t be needing to have an "accident" after all. (Note to self: Call Vito and cancel the contract.) His hymn of praise to Clan Badsnake was so beautiful, it made me cry.
I don�t think I�ll be trying to jump the ravine next to my building anytime soon, however. Joe may have forgotten Evel Knievel and the Snake River Canyon, but I haven�t. And even if I did make it all the way across, I�d just crash through the roof of the Masonic Lodge across the street and injure one or more of the bellydancers practicing inside. We wouldn�t want that, would we?
***
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