Retro Relapse: The 25 Lessons of Las Vegas

RETRO RELAPSE is a series of older articles from various places where I used to write before Talking Pulp.

*Written in 2011.

I recently got back from Las Vegas. In fact, this time last week I was still partying pretty hard in that damn town. I was there for work but it didn’t mean that I didn’t party like a raging mastodon. I entered the neon desert as a man and left as a more educated man. What knowledge did I gain during my exploits in this once mafia ruled party town? Well, here are twenty-five things, in no particular order, that I walked away with.

1. Japanese tourists cannot walk by snow globes without shaking them. When I went to the Walgreens attached to the Venetian, it was like walking into a foreign land. It was confusing; I wasn’t sure if I was in a Walgreens in Baghdad or Tokyo. It was a mixture of primarily Iraqi and Japanese tourists. I know the people in Muslim garb were Iraqi because one of them said, “There are a lot of us Iraqi in here, huh?” The Iraqis were pretty much grabbing knick knacks and slushies while the Japanese were thumbing through Vegas calendars and shaking literally every damn snow globe in the store. These snow globes were like crack to the Japanese tourists. I watched one walk by the display and he tried to fight the urge but ultimately gave in to his bullshit temptation and frantically shook three or four of them within a five second span! I swear I heard homeboy laugh maniacally when he did it too. Dude sounded like an anime villain after sniffing video head cleaner!

2. Birth control pills are often taken with alcohol. This came as a surprise to me but it probably shouldn’t have. I can’t tell you how many times I was at one of the many casino bars just hitting on some random chick and the girl got titillated enough to pop a birth control pill right in front of me. I have to admit, when they took a big sip of their cosmopolitan right after, I thought it was quite hot. In some cases it was hard for me to properly articulate my lustful feelings because in Vegas, my speech was ridiculously slurred.

3. There is never a free bench! This really pissed me off because I had to do a lot of walking from casino to casino. Just to give you an idea, if you’re familiar with the layout of Las Vegas, I had to walk from Treasure Island, across the Strip through the Venetian and all the way to the Sands Expo Center multiple times a day. My damn feet hurt! So all I wanted to do every now and again was to take a seat on a bench. However, no matter where I was, inside or outside, inconsiderate people were just sitting on benches with big ass “F.U.” smirks on their faces.

4. Strippers try and follow you home. Man, all I did with a few of my boys was walk by a strip club. Suddenly this half-dressed porn star wannabe was following us. I thought nothing of it as there are lots a big ass titties and people walking around in Vegas. Man, we went for blocks and blocks and split off in different directions. The last friend I was with wanted to go into the Venetian. We walked inside, went to the bar and this stripper sat next to us. The overly sultry lady was asking us if we wanted to bring her up to the room. We were hesitant as I didn’t need some pushy and shady trick jacking my MacBook Pro and my dirty underwear. After leaving the bar, she followed us for another twenty minutes and finally gave up. She caught an attitude when we refused to buy her a drink when she requested one. Buy me a drink bee-otch, I’m the one getting macked on!

5. Why buy a hooker when there are plenty of hot non-hookers willing to have sex with anything free of charge? Now I personally didn’t purchase a woman of the night but a few of my homies were game and were willing to spend some serious cheese. I thought to myself, “Man, there has to be an easier and cheaper way.” Well, there is. What I learned is that a lot of the people in Vegas on vacation just want to get their sex on and I mean hard – I’m talking about women too. I can’t tell you how many wanted to get pregnant with my seed every time I sat at any random bar and shot the shit. What I realized through this experience of aggressive flirtation and over-the-clothes genital rubs is that I need to move to Vegas and open up a condom store!

6. Gambling is the lamest thing to do (besides going to see the Blue Man Group). That’s about all I have to say on that.

7. Rita Rudner is never funny. This is a fact. I’m sure she is a nice lady but every time I walked by that theatre in the Venetian where they have the comedy shows, I was bombarded by videos of Rita Rudner telling her jokes. I’m assuming the two clips they run are her funniest moments, why promote her with her worst moments, right? Well, the clips weren’t funny. They were pretty awful actually. For a fifty-something chick, I’d hit it, but damn, she needs to not call her show “Now Funny”.

8. “Jackpot” isn’t just a gambling term. It is also slang for something involving a person’s head and man’s genitals. Well, at least according to this gay dude I met at Binion’s named Chip.

9. One’s comedic timing is enhanced (except Rita Rudner’s apparently). I noticed that, for whatever reason, my hilarity was at an all time high. My comebacks, insults, wittiness, general joking and tomfoolery were all at peak levels. I had myself in hysterics pretty much the entire trip. Some of this has to be attributed to the fact that I was drunk for nine straight days and I was feeling some elation from the oxygen being pumped into my room every night but goddamn! I was like Chris Rock buttfucking Carrot Top with Richard Pryor filming it and George Carlin holding the boom mic while Denis Leary was handing out disposable cameras and snacks.

10. Downtown trumps the Strip. I can’t really explain it but Downtown Vegas felt real while the Strip just felt like touristy bullshit. The style and the atmosphere were legit and I enjoyed walking around this area even though peeps kept hitting me up for change to buy beer or to have one more shot at winning it all back. Plus it was like ’80s night when I was there, not sure if it’s ’80s themed all the time but the DeLorean in front of one of the casinos mixed with the sounds of the Talking Heads gave me a serious boner.

11. Friends don’t let friends drink and pick prostitutes. I’m not getting into the details on the fiasco that taught me this lesson. You’re just going to have to trust your boy on this one and be thankful that none of us got cut by a crazy bitch lactating all over the goddamned casino. My stomach churns even thinking about it but I’m alive, no thanks to my friend’s stupidity and bad choice in seedy women. He actually, at one point, handed her his black AMEX to buy drinks.

12. Dennis Rodman digs my artwork. I found this to be a great honor because Rodman is the most stylistic cat in the history of the NBA. For him to give props on something I created was pretty badass.

13. C+ level food can be sold at A+ level prices if it is covered in enough B level sauce. Man, the food in Vegas is expensive but it isn’t as good as it looks and especially isn’t worth the price range, except for a few places. Out of all the meals I had in the nine days I was there, only two meals were all that memorable. Most of the food is mediocre and smeared in good sauces to cover up the lack of anything spectacular. Trevi in Caesars Palace provided the best meal I had in the neon desert.

14. Frankie’s Tiki Room is as good as it’ll ever get for anyone. I have to go on record and state that this is quite possibly the greatest bar or lounge I have ever been in. The place feels authentic as fuck. It’s like it has been sitting on some Vegas side street for 50 years, undiscovered. The truth is, the place was established in 2008! The music, the drinks, the atmosphere, everything is perfect. The bartender was cool as hell. I was so blown away by the awesomeness of this majestic place that I vowed to return home and open up a place as close to this as possible, except my Tiki Room will serve burgers and tots. I left this bar with a huge list of new bands to check out off of their jukebox. It was a surf rock and Tiki bar fan’s heavenly haven.

15. You can get a draft beer and a blowjob at Ellis Island for $41! I didn’t get to go to Ellis Island, which is one of my biggest regrets on this trip, but I did learn from multiple people that they have dollar drafts and one can easily get a blowjob for forty bucks behind the dumpster out back. Granted I wouldn’t want a blowjob from a forty dollar hoochie but I know a lot of people that would, so I am sharing this with you. Go get some sucky sucky, boys!

16. Supply and demand is a MFer in Las Vegas. I first realized this on my first day when I was thirsty as shit walking around the desert atmosphere. I went into a pizza place and grabbed two bottles of Aquafina. The cashier charged me $8.11! Talk about no condom shit-pushed-in prison rape! Then one of the more popular bars charged me $32 for two shots of Jameson! I quickly learned where not to buy stuff in Vegas.

17. People in Vegas believe that pirate ships had DJs. Well, at least the people who run the attractions and shows at Treasure Island believe this. I watched their pirate show and I was a bit perplexed at how they had a DJ on the pirate ship not to mention the fact that there is nowhere at sea to plug in an amp. Also, half the pirates were women which was against pirate code. Plus, these women obviously shop at Rave, which wasn’t around back then, and they danced and sung Pussycat Dolls sounding pop tunes. I guess historical accuracy isn’t important in Las Vegas.

18. The Bellagio and the Cosmopolitan are the only casinos with any real style. I stick by this statement, although the Tropicana, Bill’s and the Imperial Palace all had some unique shit. Everywhere else is exactly the same. I couldn’t tell which casino was which if I wasn’t in any of the ones already mentioned. The Bellagio is just off the charts and absolutely beautiful. The Cosmopolitan is on some next level shit. The lounge Bond in the front of the building was one of the coolest places I ever sat in while drinking a Pabst (although it was $7!). I also had a Tom Collins and a bourbon sour. The best part about Bond was that there were multiple go-go girls dancing over my head! Needless to say, I fell in love with both of these awesome casinos.

19. Celebrities are much cooler in Vegas. Well, at least the handful that I met were cool as balls. I won’t name them because I ain’t out to give free publicity and I’m not trying to wow anyone with a list of people who’s hands I shook. In any event, every celeb I saw was mad cordial and cool with shooting the shit for a few minutes. One celeb I got to hang out with at the casino bar for a good hour. He was a dope ass cat.

20. Cab drivers are the coolest dudes in town. That may sound crazy and you may think that they are all foreign dudes with little to no knowledge of the English language. In some cases this is true but the few who I really talked to were badass. One guy I met used to fight off elephant poachers in Africa. He was like the African Teddy Roosevelt. I should have got his autograph because my time with him trumped any of the celebrity bullshit. The conversation was well worth him “getting lost” and sticking me with a $78 cab bill.

21. Casino security won’t stop a pimp from hunting you down. This is a scary thing because when a friend of mine dissed a hoe, the pimp came hunting. When the pimp tried to follow him, security didn’t even attempt to stop the brute. Luckily for my friend, he got away safe. The lesson learned here though, is that pissing off a pimp in Vegas is a bad idea, especially when security isn’t going to protect you from getting a brick bounced off of your eye.

22. After 4 am, most high class prostitutes run 2-for-1 specials, as in you can get two hoes for the price of one hoe! Just don’t get swindled and make sure your important shit is in the safe before bringing these pro-sluts up to your room. Then again, you’re probably not getting sloppy seconds or treacherous thirds, you’re getting frothy fourths or filet-o-fish fifths (and we’re talking extra tarter sauce if ya feel me). So play it safe!

23. Blueberry pancakes and Mai Thais compliment each other like “whoa!” That is all. Just go try it! But you better have a hell of a sweet tooth and be inebriated beyond comprehension.

24. If a girl tells you that she has been drugged and that the couple who are buying her drinks are trying to have a threesome, she is probably trying to recruit you for an orgy full of old fat Canadians. I started to think this girl needed to be protected from these vile creatures but then instincts prevailed and I realized that it was a ploy to get my seed. Nope, not happening trollop!

25. Nine days in Las Vegas is probably too long because then you start seeing things you can’t unsee. Just a word to the wise.