The Joys of Vegas

I made it through my portion of the 20th century without ever once having to go to the place known as Sin City. Even the 4th grade choir trip out to California managed to slip around that city. However as the new decade/century/millennium arrived, I have managed to visit that city perhaps a dozen times or so. Usually for trade shows. I really don't like Vegas very much, and this trip was a particular horror show.

I planned to make it brief. Go on Monday, do the trade show on Tuesday, and return Wednesday. That is, pretty much what happened. But things didn't work very smoothly in the town.

The primary problem was where I stayed. I elected to use the Imperial Palace hotel/Casino , last time I was there it wasn't too bad, and it was convenient to the monorail that goes right to the convention center. So what went wrong? Examine this picture:



My room was well at the top, in fact I think the tiny porch was actually between the letters 'P' and 'E' on the sign. No big deal since the light all went outwards. The problem was from below. See that little thing that looks like a circus tent? Its a bar, with a stage, and an overwhelming sound system. In there, several typical Vegas cover bands play covers of 80's music almost constantly. From 12 noon until 3:00 AM. Nothing stops the bass beat, I had the fan on and sometimes the TV, the sound still made it through. I can sleep through a lot, but not bad 80's covers with the bass cranked up to earthquake levels.

I should say that the bands were actually very good at covering music. Most Vegas bands are, they play so often that they can often pass for the real thing if you don't see them. For all the fuck I knew, it could have been Steve Perry and the rest of Journey belting out 'Don't Stop Believin' at least four times Monday night.

Bands like this remind me that I really don't like much of the music I grew up with. Every time someone says they like 80's music I think 'Yeah, me too', but a second later reality hits and I think 'No I don't! What was I thinking?'. Most of the 80's was MTV bulldogged crap interspersed with a handful of decent trends, such as New Wave and the proto-grunge stuff. That's the stuff I actually like, not Journey, not Madonna, not NightRanger. I look back now and remember that I despised the music on the radio so much that I rebelled and sought out oddball stuff without limp lyrics. I listened to Jean Michelle Jarre, Vangelis, and Tangerine Dream in an effort to try and get away from the crap being sent over the airwaves. There was actually good stuff out there, it just was not to be found easily. You couldn't sample music the way you can these days via digital sound and the internet.

Sorry, I've gotten off subject here.

Anyway, as you might have guessed I did not sleep much Monday night. Even less Tuesday night (my flight left LV at 6:45 AM). Had I been able to think a little more rationally, I might have demanded a different room. But when it is 12:00 and you are in bed, with bass speakers making the window vibrates, all you can think about is hoping they will stop soon, not about solving the problem. I tried to sleep later Tuesday morning, but my damn internal clock kicked in. What happened to the me that could sleep until the crack of lunch? I seem to have deliberately killed him as my second era of unemployment began, having not liked the results of the first unemployment.

I was pretty much finished with the trade show early on, on Tuesday. So, rather than sit in my room moping and hearing the bass beats through out the structure, I went for a walk around Vegas' various shopping locations.

Every time I go to Vegas there is something there that freaks me out. This time it was a 'statue' in the Venentian shopping center. I walked by it once, whilst going through their various stores. On the way back I notice the statue had drawn a crowd, and money was piled up on the railing around the 'statue'. Of course, it wasn't a statue at all, but rather an actor holding the pose while in white makeup an cloak. He would blink, but other than that he would not move, except to gracefully give a 'thumbs up' to anyone who left a tip. If you Google Images 'Venetian Living Statues' you'll get an idea of what these folks are doing. I admire the talent, but still found it creepy.

Most of the 'shopping areas' in the Hotel/Casinos are just the same stores over and over with mostly overpriced clothing and such. Very little variation between them: The all have a Brookstone store, for example. I did try to the Alladin shipping center and actually found some stores that were a bit different. They had a hookah store, for example. I was actually impressed and decided to overlook the eight sunglasses stores that had in there.

The concert went as late on Tuesday night as it did on Monday night. So with my plane pulling out at 6:45, I managed to get about 2 hours of sleep. Bringing my total for three days to about 6 hours or so...maybe. When you get this low on sleep, it actually gets kind of hard to get to sleep again. My mind spurts without focus and so I cannot think about sleeping. My flight home was actually fairly quick, but my seat was a middle seat. *sigh*. On the decent into Philly I suddenly got a headache that was a bit different, part of it felt like a forehead headache, but some of it actually felt like the skin on my face was in pain. It kept up for about 5 minutes, bringing tears to my eyes, but then it slowly receded. I wonder if it had to do with the changing air pressure from the decent, but how?

Anyway, I walked in and resisted collapsing into bed since it would destroy my sleeping schedule. But now, after typing this rambling mess, I am to bed.

Night.