Livin' Las Vegas Loca

I lived in L.A. for a good four years or so before ever visiting Vegas. To native Angelenos, this is almost sacrilege. After visiting Vegas, I could see their point. A weekend visit is perfect, but any longer than two or three days spent inside this bubble of whimsy and earthly delights and any reasonable human being would contemplate suicide.

Of course Vegas is overdone, overripe to the point that its sweet, sticky stench fills your every pore, but there is a beauty there to be found nowhere else. It exists not in spite of the burlesque and melodrama, but because of it. It resides in the New York skyline, and the South American rainforest, and the Roman collonades, and the obsidian pyramid, and the grand fountain of Bellagio; and in the fact that all of these facades are coexisting in one sphere. It exists in walking from the cobblestones of Paris in the shadow of La Petite Tour Eiffel to the grand illusion of New York's Grand Central station in ten minutes. The proud whores and the immigrants who shove pornography into your hand as you pass them on the Boulevard don't see it, but it is there. You have to look past the lights, up to the wide western sky and the mountains in the distance beyond the desert to bear witness to the purity of it. This place is a mutated candy apple. A huge experiment gone horribly but happily awry. A diorama that the gods built for kicks and then refused to take apart because its striking singularity amused them. People walk through the giant hotels and casinos without seeing it, but it is there. It is a giant theme park for adults. "If you're not having fun (or luck) in Ancient-Egypt-Land, just mosey on over to Camelot-Land, they'll take care of you!" Free booze, cheap buffets, and lots and lots of cleavage. The attraction of Las Vegas lies in its unattractiveness. It is Disneyland on acid. Everyone is friendly (save a few jaded cab drivers and strippers) and feels that sense of camaraderie, that spirit of togetherness in a strange and wonderful land. Many do not see it, but the beauty is there, and they feel it, and that is enough. Angelenos and cowboys, hillbillies and debutantes, all partaking in the glory and decadence of this oasis in the desert, this plastic paradise, this El Dorado of the modern age. There is no other place like it on Earth...and let's hope the Earth keeps it that way.

Viva Las Vegas.