So I return from Vegas for the second time, with the same fundamental questions: “Why do people like Las Vegas?” and “Why would I not hesitate to return, given even the slightest of justifications?”
After thinking hard about these questions at 2 a.m. while sitting in Phil’s car in Long Term Parking B (Long Term Parking A is a rip-off, and I hear is run by terrorists to support the homosexual agenda), and then again this morning, while sitting in Phil’s parents house watching Phil eat Cheerios (you know, ’cause he lives there now), I think I have come up with the following answers: “America Brett Favre Bush 9/11 America” and “Irony,” respectively.
Vegas is America and vice versa. Period. Khakis. Period. Etc. Period. Every single thing done is a thing done, if not well (and in fact, almost NEVER done well), then at least ginormously. Casino/Hotels stretch for miles, and walking “next door” means girding your loins for the onslaught of 110 degree heat, pamphleters handing you cards with reproductions of Van Gogh’s famous “Starry Boobs,” and endless advertisements for Danny Gans, the douchiest douche in Vegas, or entertainingest entertainer, or somethingest something. Meals come in three sizes: large, extra large, or Super Midwesterner.
Themes are taken to the most illogical of extremes. Casino based on Roman times? Have an endless number of 30 foot tall statutes located haphazardly around your betting floor, the people at the nickel slots need some goddamn culture (and uncircumcised penii). Old school Venice more your style? Replicate San Marco square and sparkle it with a football field-sized baby pool of 2 inch-deep water, then stick gondoliers in the pool and take unsuspecting/Asian tourists for the longest 7 minute trip they’ve ever taken/spoken highly of once they were home for reasons unknown.
If you can’t match the themey goodness, then by all means, use animals. Best suggestions: lions, flamingos (best if your Casino is actually called the FLAMINGO), and go-go dancers on rotation.
No themes, no animals? Offer insane betting possibilities like Casino War (exactly what it sounds like…high card wins the bet) and beer pong (also exactly what it sounds like). Give people free cookies and “dealertainment” while bleeding them dry at varying speeds. Basically, casinos print money, and they, like the rest of America they entertain/use/represent/crush to soullessness soullessly, have NO IDEA HOW TO SPEND IT.
And….we love them for it. We don’t want to go where things are good, we want to go where they are big. We want to pay 30 dollars for a breakfast buffet and eat until we have to take a nap 3 hours after waking up, ESPECIALLY if there are hundreds of less expensive, more delicious, but LESS LARGE options. We want to see replicas of the Eiffel Tower, paintings on the 50 foot high ceilings, and enough fake breasts to choke a motorboating gorilla, because we are a terrible people. We are, well, America, and so is Vegas.
So, then, given all this, why would I go back, and not for a second think twice about it? Why do I feel bad that the last paragraphs make it seem like I am COMPLAINING?
Easy answer: Sean theory. Originally devised in College Park while watching another endless game of college football, it’s premised on the basic idea that “Not only is this specific form of X terrible, but ALL forms of X are terrible.” Obviously, this is true of college football teams.
Not only was Maryland terrible, but the team they were playing is terrible, and in fact, all college football teams are terrible. Go backand watch the USC-Texas championship game that people claim is the greatest college game of all time (which may very well be a true claim, but a sort of pointless one once you finally give in to Sean theory). I dare you. Now explain to me why either of those teams was “good.” Evenly matched? Sure, I grant that. Great individual performances? Absolutely. Was it particularly good football? Of course not. There could not have been more missed tackles, errant throws (if whatever Vince Young does is considered throwing) and mindblowing defensive brainfarts that have to, at some point, be ascribed to terrible coaching. And THAT in a game between two of the greatest teams since Notre Dame 2009.
Well, slowly the theory coalesced. More categories began to fit the mold. First, college basketball teams, then all sports teams, then sports itself. As ever, it turns out that my view of sports as a microcosm of the world is correct and, in fact, ALL THINGS satisfy the basic rationale. That is, ALL THINGS are more or less terrible.
Some would think this is a pretty empty life theory, but it is insanely rewarding for me, given a few other character traits of mine. First, I LOOOOOOVE being right. And a life theory that basically predicts everything failing you at one point in time or another is more often than not going to be right. Then I throw it in the grieved party’s face, and can also prove that all friends are also terrible. Second, I am unbelievably delighted in the sorrows of humanity. Maybe not specific people as much, but I do have a fairly unusual sense of shadenfreude towards other people, especially if I think they deserve it (and, given that people are a thing, they usually do in my eyes). In fairness, I also quite frequently think that I deserve it, so this amounts to a pretty equal view of the world and humanity, and a pretty “stiff upper lip” in the face of personal tragicomedy.
The end result is perhaps best explained in an example from the gambling world (or, more likely, I was just gambling somewhere for 4 days, so it’s the first thing that comes to my mind other than “old people falling asleep in front of electronically beeping instruments of death”): a blackjack table. In some very clear ways, the outcomes of the players are tied together. If the dealer busts, there is very likely going to be multiple players who win, if not the entire table. In general, this makes people happy.
Sean theory, on the other hand, taken to its natural conclusion, basically sets the preferred outcomes like this (from most preferred to least preferred):
Everyone, including Sean, loses;
Sean wins, everyone else loses;
Everyone wins.
As you can see, the theory rarely makes rational sense, at least not in traditional “people like to reward themselves and only SOMETIMES punish others” way. Still, it is what it is. So I enjoy Vegas for containing literally EVERYTHING that I hate, in overwhelming abundance. Fat people with fat kids, check. Guys who talk to you about “beating the system” in a game with a 10-12% house edge, check. Douchy frat guys who ogle women professionally, drink all night and slur the gays before striking out at the strip club and falling drunkenly into bed together with their penises touching? Check. Good-looking women with hard-looking faces? Black people only where attached to brooms, mops or guns? Paying seven dollars for a beer you could get next door for free if you sacrificed 4% of the “atmosphere?” Check, Check, DOUBLE CHECK. The list goes on, and maybe one day I will post every single facet of Las Vegas that drives me insane enough to visit again. It will very likely mirror the list of ways Vegas is like America above. Still, the IRONY of enjoying myself there while every terrible part of America is reenacted writ large is so strong, it needed a blog post. Please enjoy the list of Vegas hilarities below while a Matchbox 20 song plays in your head and I fade away to sleep:
Lions in the MGM that are driven hundreds of miles a week to make appearances for tourists that mostly consist of the lions being stroked and prodded until they half-roar and everyone claps.
The correct answer to every single “Where is X…?” question being: “Across the street from Caesar’s”
Guys on the street cannot verbally advertise for hookers. But they can wear T-shirts that promise the hookers will be at your room in 20 minutes or less, and hand out phone cards with hardcore pornography to anyone passing by….which is made funnier/sadder because….
Millions of parents now bring their kids to Vegas, despite there being, at last count, ZERO things for a kid to do that doesn’t involve growing up way too fast, Kentucky-style.
See-through Tattoo shops located inside casinos. Seriously, try to explain.
84 year-olds who claim to never have drunk water….IN THEIR LIVES. And everyone smiling because it’s only the 17th most bizarre thing they’ve heard or seen at that particular Pai Gao table. (number 16: Andrew failing to correctly set his Pai Gao hand twice in 35 minutes)
People unashamed to tell you how rich they are/poor they are at a poker table, especially if their meager resources are the reason they couldn’t afford to buy a hooker to double team themselves and their significant others.
Slot machines in the airport….which is somewhat refreshing because its the only place you can bet in Vegas without sucking on the tailpipe of every cheroot- and cloves-smoking idiot on the greater West Coast.
