Vice is Nice

We here at The Monkey Journals wish to welcome the new millennium with a fresh start, a new look, and a new dedication to writing even more junk that no one will read. We recently visited Sin City, otherwise known as Las Vegas. Now, for your enjoyment, in an exclusive engagement, one night only, we share with you some things we learned while there, including the very simple, yet surprising axiom, that Vice is Nice.

A First-Time Visitor's Impression of Las Vegas

Our plane landed in the morning, local time, about 9:45 or so. I was already hungry for lunch, even though the airline had provided a fairly nice in-flight breakfast consisting of dry cereal, fruit, and nut bread. It seemed strange at the time to be craving lunch so early in the day, but I quickly learned that no time is the wrong time for anything in Las Vegas, and nothing there is strange.

As our Airbus A320 approached McCarran International, I glimpsed the city through the window. I was seated in the middle, and the woman passenger in the window seat was not making it easy for my to see out the tiny opening. The integral pull shade was drawn about half way, and her enormous head was blocking most of the rest of the view. I asked her if she would mind opening it so my wife and I could have a look, and she looked at me as if I had asked her to undress or something, which if you had seen this lady you’d know that I certainly would not have done. She reluctantly opened the shade and I was greeted by my first-ever real life view of Las Vegas, bathed in morning sunlight. “Oh,” I said.

The city, as seen from high above, is essentially split into two major sections: The Strip and Downtown. The intermediate and surrounding areas (quite large, actually) are low-lying residential and commercial areas, as best as I could tell, given my limited view. Beyond the sprawl, a necklace of Mountains spread evenly around the city, framing it in a kind of crown. No, crown is the wrong word. Ashtray is closer to the mark. Yes, it is much like an ashtray. The city is completely covered in a thick blanket of smog that lingers day and night. They say that the light emitted from the pinnacle of the Luxor pyramid can be seen from space. Surely, the astronauts and cosmonauts and any other ‘nauts floating around up there must look down on Las Vegas and wonder aloud, “Hey, that thing that looks like an ashtray, is that Las Vegas?” The grand hotels—The Ventian, Bellagio, Mirage, Mandalay Bay, Paris Las Vegas, and all the others—stretch toward the heavy brown blanket like cigarette butts, while the scattered, low-lying homes and businesses dot the surrounding area like ashes. It is breathtaking on many levels.

The Strip

The Strip is an interesting place, to be sure. It’s the only part of the city that we experienced, except for a single liquor store where we stopped to buy gin—a bottle of Tanquerey Malacca to be exact. I had many times before seen images of the Strip in magazines and on television. To my surprise, it didn't seem as intimidating as I had expected it to be. I imagined walking down Las Vegas Boulevard under a canopy of twinkling lights about to close in on me. Instead, the Strip is built on a larger-than-life scale. One foot equals one inch. Small and subtle are words unfamiliar to the builders of Las Vegas.

The Las Vegas Book of Virtues.

Only someone who had spent his entire life inside a can of Pringles would be unfamiliar with the moral lassaiz-faire that is characteristic of Las Vegas. However, one really must experience it for oneself to understand. In general, all vice is virtue in Las Vegas. It is embraced and encouraged, albeit with greater emphasis on certain behaviors than on others. This prioritization of vice is easily observed after only a short time.

• The granddaddy of virtue in Las Vegas is, without question or hesitation, gambling. Everyone knows this, and this was something I certainly knew before I traveled all that way. It was not until I was there, though, that it really hit home. Slot machines in the airport. Restaurants advertising card games and book. Casinos that never—and I mean never—close. You're never out of earshot of the sound of slot machines ringing, dinging, or whatever that infernal noise is. You're never more than a quarter turn away from a Keno board. It wears you down, like Chinese water torture. You will eventually gamble, like it or not, because that’s the way the city is designed.

• Drinking runs a distant second in the Las Vegas Book of Virtues. The principal reason for this is that, in theory, impaired gamblers will surrender more of their money to the house. Naturally, drinking is made as easy as possible for everyone. Bars stay open all night, people stroll casually along the sidewalks with drinks in hand, and of course, a cocktail waitress is never far away.

• Smoking, though not really a revenue generator at all, is extremely well accommodated. Non-smokers are the spurned minority in Las Vegas. In fact, the hotel offered us a smoking discount if we promised to smoke at least a pack a day for the duration of our stay. Readers over the age of 30 may recall a time in America when smoking was not the no-no that it is today. To hell with the History Channel, come to Las Vegas if you want to see the past come alive.

• Only basketball rivals eating for the title of most popular sporting event in Las Vegas. It’s funny and sad all at once, these people lined up by the hundreds waiting to get into the buffet. And it’s not just the big fat cows, either; it’s everyone. Like they haven’t eaten for years or something and they’ve been saving every penny they ever found on the street so they could come to the buffet and consume until their insides explode. I shudder just thinking about it.

• Shopping exists in Las Vegas as a kind of second line of defense, standing against those arrogant souls who would dare to imagine going home with more money than when they arrived.

• Finally, prostitution remains as the sixth and final virtue. Direct solicitation is illegal, but passing out color catalogs to passersby is not. So, an army of pamphleteers takes to the streets each evening, peddling cool sex, hot sex, casual sex, Mona, Wendy, Lisa, fun, delivered right to your hotel room door. Pay by the hour. All major credit cards accepted. Ask about our two-for-one special. Not even the Joint Chiefs of Staff have figured out a way to get past Caesar’s Palace without having these people jam this filth in their faces.

Pedestrians Beware

Walking the Strip requires a special sort of readiness, not unlike the preparations made by an athlete before taking the field. Mental discipline and physical stamina are key. Before venturing out, be prepared for numerous minor altercations with other pedestrians. They range from the relatively minor incident wherein you're almost thrown in front of oncoming traffic by someone unwilling to yield any part of his nine-tenths of the sidewalk, to near-fatal run-ins with taxicab drivers.

Speaking of taxicab drivers...

All traffic laws are optional on the Strip. This is particularly important for pedestrians because the cab drivers earn frequent flyer miles for every pedestrian that they hit. Points are also awarded for a variety of near misses and related altercations, according to the following scale, which I secretly removed from one of the cabs during my stay:

Do You Like Shows?

Every visitor to Las Vegas will hear this question many times. It will be asked by a sleazy guy (or, less frequently, a woman) dressed in clothes that just don’t match the face. He will ask you several leading questions, intended ultimately to part you from a very large sum of your money. As though the gambling wasn’t enough, these guys are out here in broad daylight trying to sell you desert timeshares or some shit like that. Honestly, the most distasteful part of my entire visit was when I ran into these people.

“Helllllooooh. How you folks today?” Many of these guys really do talk this way, an obvious sign that English is not their first language.

“Great, thanks!” I didn't realize what I had done until it was too late. I’m a pretty good-natured fellow, I thought, I’ll just say hello and casually be on my way. Not so.

“Where you from?” I knew it. Keep walking.

“Ohio.” What was that? The first response was bad enough, but now I’m in a conversation with this creep.

“Ohio! My home town!” Oh my. Is this guy for real? He’s picking up speed to match us. Quick! How fast can we jump to light speed?

Silence. It is worth a try, right?

“You like shows? How about casino coupons? Just step inside.”

“No, thanks. We’ll just be on our way,” I say. I don’t know where I got that from, but it seems to work fairly well. Actually, I think if you can wait them out for the time it takes you to walk through their territory, you’ll lose them automatically. Some of these guys don’t make it very easy, though. Another exchange, later the same day:

“You folks enjoying Las Vegas? How long are you in town?”

“No, thanks,” I say, attempting to diffuse the situation early. Our pace quickens.

“You don't like shows?” No, asshole, I hate them.

“Thanks,” I say politely.

“Lighten up, buddy.”

Time to Go

As the sunlit city shrunk into the distance, I breathed a sigh of relief. Safely back in Ohio, I now take comfort in the familiarity of life in the Midwest, where people still indulge their vices—albeit not the same extreme limits as in Las Vegas—but they do so in private, out of plain view, secreted in safe hideaways. They don’t talk about such things in the open, but rather with whispered tongues in shadowy, smoke-filled rooms with loud music. They do this because they’re dull when measured against the Las Vegas moral yardstick, if there is one.