Post #582469 by Club Nouméa on Wed, Mar 30, 2011 5:07 AM

Part 6: Las Vegas

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the fringe of the desert, when the sugar began to kick in. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded – it’s just as well I’m not driving!” Twelve hours on the road from Oakland, dodging the hellish mayhem caused on the highway by a lemming-like rush of both nuclear and extended families deciding to take their seasonal vacation, had by now taken their toll.

There was an incessant roar all around us, the road full of oncoming SUVs and people carriers, swooping and screeching and driving too damn close, on a two-lane road with only the faintest suggestion of median road markings.

“Holy Jesus!” I exclaimed. “Who are these goddamn animals?”

But I had come prepared: I had two bags of trail mix, a box of chocolate peanuts, seventy-five chocolate gold coins of the world in a little string bag, five slabs of industrial-strength artisanal fudge, and a whole array of chocolate in various forms, from some of those little cherry-flavoured foil-wrapped jobs, right through to bars of the hard stuff:

Not to mention the dregs of a bottle of Fanta, a maxi-sized cup of Sprite from a roadside chain eaterie which shall pass unnamed, and the remains of a burger and fries takeaway meal settling uncomfortably in my stomach. Not that I needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious sugar collection, the tendency is to push it for all it’s worth. The only thing that really worried me was the fudge. There is nothing in the world more depraved than a man on a fudge binge, and I knew we’d be diving into that head-spinningly sugary stuff pretty soon.

As we approached, the shimmering lights of Vegas grew ever-brighter on the horizon until, finally, we were in their midst. Whilst remonstrating with Ms. Nouméa to keep her eyes on the road, my gaze too was drawn to their glistening promise of sleaze, hedonism and moral depravity. Fighting their siren call, I looked at my watch (it was well past midnight), guzzled some more chocolate and slouched down in my seat, hoping their tendrils would be unable to grasp me. In my reckless quest for tiki culture, had I finally come too far?

The morning brought bright sunshine and the most tropical mid-winter’s day I have ever experienced in the Northern Hemisphere. A quick breakfast at the Golden Gate diner and we were off to see the sights. And there were interesting sights to see. Being stuck in traffic on the Strip seems to usually involve vistas such as this:

“Imagine that!” I exclaimed: “Girls... that want to meet ME! Someone must have told them I had arrived.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet they’re all psychic,” commented Ms Nouméa.

Our first stop was the Atomic Testing Museum, where we learnt about how clean, safe nuclear weapons kept the world free during the Cold War.

And yes, while the powers behind the museum did admit in their informative displays that the bombs were indeed exploded on Indian reservation land, just 65 miles away from Vegas, and that once the tests went underground, they also created the possibility of radioactive materials leaching into aquifers, there was clearly nothing to be worried about, because they’re all infallible scientists and they know exactly what they’re doing. Ms. Nouméa was so shocked afterwards that she felt nervous about even drinking the local tap water. I told her not to worry – as casual visitors in town for just a few days, we were fine; it would take years of drinking the local water before there was any possibility of hideous mutations developing.

But there was no denying that as the result of the tests, Las Vegas was a zoo, full of mutants. These second-class citizens, shunned by the more fortunate locals who have not developed hideous deformities, are reduced to working in menial occupations such as being doormen:

Or even panhandling, for want of any other means of making a living in a society that shuns their kind...

But enough of such sad matters – I came to Vegas in quest of tiki culture. My first sign of it was Tiki Lee’s joint at the Charleston Antique Mall:

And there were even signs of tiki culture to be witnessed as we wandered around the mean streets near Charleston Boulevard:

And mean streets they were. We were walking to El Cortez Casino when I overheard the following tale loudly being retold by a homie to his bro walking just ahead of us on the sidewalk: “So there I was man; he was lookin’ at me and I said “Well I’m packin’ a gun, and you’re packin’ a gun, so whatcha gonna do now?””

I didn’t wait to find out the outcome of the story. I steered Ms. Nouméa (who hadn’t heard a thing), across the street and well away from them. It may have been broad daylight and they may have been in a jovial mood, but I didn’t want to put it to the test.

In spite of it being in the process of receiving a facelift, the Downtown area still had rough edges that had not been smoothed off. One ground-floor apartment we walked past had a large sign taped to its window stating “THIS IS NOT A DRUG HOUSE”. There were handwritten notes taped to street furniture advertising pharmaceuticals, and even local landmarks bore the traces of violence. The Atomic Bar, which closed late last year due to gangsta violence:

Atomic Bar bullet holes:

Still, for most, Vegas is a land of fantasy, and we too pursued it. I was intrigued by some tiki shot glasses from the Mandalay Bay Casino that I saw in the Charleston Antique Hall, and we found some traces still left from a more exotic past when we walked around the giant complex:

There were function rooms at one end of the complex with South Pacific names that hinted at a more tiki-oriented past, but apart from the occasional mural, there was little other sign of such things.

Indulging in another theme, we decided to dine at Red Square while we were there.

Who wouldn’t want to dine in a restaurant with a giant headless statue of Lenin outside, and that had a waitress who was so authentic-looking that I initially mistook her for a Russian hooker when I entered the joint? Not to mention the wonderful food, and absolutely outstanding cocktails, out of which The Chernobyl was the high point.

Wobbling our way back along the Strip to our hotel, we marvelled at the supersized surrealness of it all. Las Vegas is an endless giant spectacle; a town you need never leave because they have created a version of the entire world along this one street. We laughed at the silly things we saw:

And gasped at the monumental architectural reproductions:

We watched the cops and villains at play:

And even came across a bit of tiki culture:

But the high point of our time in Las Vegas was Frankie’s:

Frankie’s was perfect – the décor was just right, the drinks were great (and prepared phenomenally quickly), they had the coolest bar jukebox mix I have ever come across, and the ambiance was very relaxed – the perfect way to end an evening after navigating through the oversized craziness of The Strip.

But before finally leaving Las Vegas, there was one last place which could not be missed:

We pushed our way through hordes of ghastly little tykes dragging along their long-suffering parents, and shielded our eyes from the period Hammer Horror circus design nightmare that was the building’s interior, forcing ourselves ever onward until we finally reached it:

Only to find that it was now a soda shop. Well, there was no booze, and definitely no Hunter S. Thompson, but we did see this guy:

CN

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Toto, j'ai l'impression que nous ne sommes plus au Kansas !

[ Edited by: Club Nouméa 2011-03-31 03:03 ]