By Tardsie

My wife and I recently got back from Las Vegas, where we saw the Killers in concert on Friday night. It was an awesome, once-in-a-lifetime performance by a band at the top of its game and comfortably on its home turf. Here’s a clip from that kick-ass show (the song stops at 1:37 because a fight breaks out, then starts up again):

So we had a great time, both in Vegas and on the trip there and back, in which I got to visit a new medical marijuana dispensary and my wife got to stop at produce stands. As usual, I employed my foolproof gambling system to break even (my system is that I don’t gamble). But I don’t want to talk about how much fun we had on the trip or all the great memories we made–I want to bitch about Las Vegas.

Here goes:

This place calls itself ‘Sin City’ while managing to keep a straight face. Apparently, the whole of the ‘sin’ experience begins with blowing your kid’s birthday cash at the craps table and ends with walking down the boulevard with a beer in your hand. So while you can bounce your eyes in time with the silicate breasts of leathery showgirls, you can’t actually have sex with them. You can get liquored up enough to drunkenly piss away in a few hours what you’ve worked a lifetime to build, but you can’t legally smoke a joint.

And talk about a genetic clusterfuck! I’ve been to places like Georgia, Poland and Omaha, Nebraska–so you know I’ve seen some ugly people in my time, but never so many collected in one neon-ringed exhibit. Whether you’re dodging blubbery slugs on mobility scooters or avoiding the gaze of the shaking hardcase with the the 8:00 AM bloody Mary, Las Vegas has the power to make you feel special for achieving nothing more than an associate’s degree and a set of at least thirty teeth.

People claim they go to Las Vegas to have fun. Have you ever watched people while they gamble? You’ll see more human expression from Keanu Reeves playing an Easter Island statue in a made-for-TV movie. The rows upon rows of people at slot machines look like junkies in a shooting gallery, continuing to fix long after any sensation is gone.

And lastly, it was cold! It’s the fucking desert, why is it cold? The response I always hear is that it’s cold because it’s the high desert. Bullshit–I was high as a motherfucker, and I still froze my ass off!