Die Las Vegas, You Die!

So, to reiterate, thanks to the bumbling inefficiency of the Moldovan visa authority, I was taken into custody when I originally tried to leave Moldova in the summer and consequently had to cut my three-week visit to the USA down to two weeks. Hence, I was unable to hit all four places on my itinerary that I wanted to: Austin, because family is there; Santa Fe, because of the awesome desert and my even more awesome friend Laura; San Francisco, because it is the world's most perfect city and home to my very cool friend Isaac; and Las Vegas, because I had never been there. I knew I had to cut one destination off the list, and so cut San Francisco in favor of Las Vegas - for the very simple reason that I wanted an adventure.

This was a mistake!

Las Vegas is nothing like the seedy frenzied pit of deviant action it is so gloriously portrayed in American media. The lurid "What-happens-in-Vegas-stays-in-Vegas" promise of seedy debauchery is a crock of hype. From what I saw, Vegas is nothing but a dumbly buzzing hive of family Americana. It's an unimaginative Disneyland where the elaborate joy of themepark rides have been scaled down to the tinniest of joys found in a slot machine, where childhood celluloid heroes the likes of Mickey Mouse or Goofy have been reduced to plasticine showgirls and silicon strippers (or, even worse, the ghastly whores). From what I saw, Vegas is a sweltering pit of blundering masses - overweight Midwesterners with their scampering brood - all writhing about searching for their God of promised excitement, finding Him nowhere, and flinging money about in vain attempts of sacrifice for His summoning. Oh, Jesus, Vegas is BORING!

Learn from my mistake: if you get to choose between San Francisco and Las Vegas, choose San Francisco!

So, my trip - such that it was - went like this. I stayed at the Luxor hotel, a monolithic faux-pyramid that - in much the same way that the Egyptian pyramids served as immortal chambers for the spirits of the Pharaohs - serves to encapsulate and immortalize the spirit of American commerce. Inside the sloping walls you'll find a labyrinth of restaurants, boutiques, bars, and casinos all waiting to devour your cash. Oh, and there's a pool.





Finding nothing at all of interest in this particular hotel, I ambled about the city in search of the aforementioned nonexistence of excitement. Unfortunately, as each hotel is itself a monstrosity of shops and casinos, it takes one nearly half an hour to walk from building to building. An evening's stroll down the Vegas strip, then, can really only negotiate three hotels, max. Not that one would really want to experience more than that anyway. Despite the flashing lights and elaborately themed architecture that may lure you inside, each hotel's inner workings is pretty much the same: a twisting hive of confusing corridors glutted with wandering mobs and pinging slot machines. It's enough to make you want to go running into the desert in search of some space.









I spent the next couple days like that. Bored and wandering. My last evening I decided to experience a glamorous, pricey nightclub where black designer clothes, multihued shots, and overplayed MTV hits were the order of the evening. What I found very strange about this venue though - the Buddha bar, it was called - is that they had velvet ropes, not just at the door, but in front of each TABLE. Forget how impossible this made it to actually move around in the club, having to negotiate as a spider the webs of fuzzy ropes spiraling everywhere, the effect was just PATHETICALLY elitist. Hair-waxed Tom Cruise clones would occasionally strut from behind their fuzzy roped fortresses to lure young ladies from the dancefloor with the promise of passing the forbidden red line. And when the group of girls I was talking with - hell, buying drinks for! - were likewise lured (I'm wondering, now, off the top of my head - could this work anywhere? Say a Denny's perhaps? If I roped off a corner booth, for example, with fuzzy red twine, could I lure the coffee-swilling vixens at the counter to join me?) I called it a night, and an end to the pathetic display of vapid inhumanity that is Las Vegas.

But was my time in Vegas, then, a total waste? No! Indeed, I had a great experience there, of which I will tell you in my next romping installment of this unread blog. (And no, I'm not talking about the Spearmint Rhino, which for all its certain allures is far too mundane to actually comment upon. Besides, this is the internet! What about the children!) Stay tuned!