Las Vegas: ‘What Happens Here, Ends Up On Your Mastercard Bill’
Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 01.13.06 | 12:02 AM ET
I love Las Vegas, but I still found Chris Ayres’s takedown of the city hilarious. Ayres spent several days in Vegas covering the recent Consumer Electronics show, and he proclaims in the Times of London this week that he “hated almost every second of it.”
I realise this is not a popular opinion—and will not win me many friends at the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, which is largely responsible for Sin City’s thoroughly misleading image. This was the organisation, after all, that commissioned the slogan: “What happens here, stays here.” What other city on Earth would entice tourists with a boast about the lax relationship between its police department and Interpol? But no other city’s image is based on the willing suspension of tourists’ disbelief.
[snip]
In reality, there is nothing remotely edgy about Las Vegas. The place is one giant leisure/retail megaplex, populated by has-been celebrities, owned by a handful of entertainment conglomerates, and patronised by men in corporate-sponsored polo shirts who feel more interesting when surrounded by waitresses in bunny suits. There is more counter-culture to be found at Alton Towers. The proof? In 2003, Las Vegas made $6.1 billion from gambling—and $6.5 billion from business conventions.
Yet Las Vegas is like Voltaire’s God: if it didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent it. In our non-smoking, decaffeinated, low-fat society, we need to believe there is a place where you can load up a Cadillac with booze, guns and drugs, and entertain yourself with impunity. We need a place where the normal rules don’t apply—where cocktails don’t come with hangovers; and where gambling isn’t for losers who dump their kids ’ college money on black. Las Vegas is our collective fantasy; a virtual reality of Americana.
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Michael Yessis is the cofounder and coeditor-in-chief of World Hum.
Jen Leo 01.13.06 | 11:47 PM ET
Oooh, what a challenge. It’d be a tough job, but I dare him to let me take him to Vegas. I’d like to think that I could find where his fun spot is, and introduce him to the appropriate Vegas venue. Sure Vegas is a fantasyland, but so what? Suspend your reality, let your hair down, bet only double what you think you want to bet, or don’t even gamble at all—just enjoy yourself.
And I’m all for bragging about it once you get home. It doesn’t *have* to stay in Vegas.
Ted "Mr. Las Vegas Shows" Newkirk 01.15.06 | 4:08 AM ET
When someone trashes Las Vegas ... generally they are leaving a LOT out of the story. The fact that they tried to get laid and didn’t ... that the mystery of Vegas is that is pretends that everyone will be treated like a high roller ... when they aren’t.
Perhaps the original writer was lookin for culture instead of what we offer: Hot women in skimpy clothes serving cocktails. Last I checked, we here in Las Vegas have never been selling culture. Sure ... you can see a few paintings at Wynn. And yes, more Broadway shows are coming here. But the Las Vegas commercials don’t say “Come To Las Vegas ... We Have Culture.”
And I’ll add a personal note: I’ve lived in Las Vegas since 1993, and made a living from covering the city for the past decade. It isn’t quite as fun when you have to work.
Don’t get me wrong ... personally, I love Las Vegas and love covering it. But when I’m out for the evening covering something I have to for work, it is not 1/50’th as fun as when I go out just to have fun.
And if you have to fly in during one of the most crowded times of year (CES) and you are on the clock and must cover it, you simply won’t have fun. Add to that the fact that CES draws mostly men, and the usual 50/50 ration of male/female here at any other time is out the window.
You think three hot girls from Pittsburg are going to come to Las Vegas when CES has driven rooms to four times what they normally go for? Never. (They will be here during Spring Break to party, or in mid-August when the heat here has driven room rates way down).
One final thought: Who the F&#@ pays $40 for a salad? Anywhere? Anytime? Even out best steakhouses that offer salads a la cart don’t charge that. If the original writer was stupid enough to order one from room service without checking the tab (as oppossed to staggering down to the coffee shop and ordering one to go for probably $10 or less), then he deserves the miserable time he had here.
Las Vegas is a fun place for many people ... but it does not watch out for the stupid! I would have been embarrassed to even tell people I ordered a $40 salad, let alone to write an article where the underlying theme was that “I’m so lame, I couldn’t even find something interesting or fun in Las Vegas.”