Cash and Redemption (Part One. Part One?)
It’s easy to think, upon visiting Las Vegas for the first time, that the much touted scheme concocted by the big resort corporations to make Vegas family friendly has been a mixed success at best. While there’s certainly a lot of stuff around – albino tigers drugged out of their furry little minds, roller coasters, magically alive fountains, foreign people – primed to entertain the youngsters, every major casino has some sort of nude or nudity-themed revue, prominently displayed throughout the casino itself and on the massive jumbotrons outside each complex. All and all, more substantive efforts have been made to make adults who aren’t, you know, profoundly creepy, happy than to allow them to bring their children along. The Strip is clotted with upscale eateries – I particularly enjoyed the California Pizza Kitchen in the Mirage - upscale shopping, and, yes, ridiculously out of place art exhibits. I had the pleasure, for example, of wandering through an exhibit called - I shit you not, dear blog – Russia!, a joint presentation by the Hermitage and the Guggenheim, hosted by the Venetian. It was a miserable, classy affair, this exhibit For the most part, there hasn’t been much of a move to remove the sin from sin city, then, but to provide it with some new, similarly expensive friends to play with. Gluttony, greed, lust, sloth, and pride, playing a no-holds barred game of Monopoly in greed’s kitchen on a rainy Sunday afternoon, and for some reason greed’s kitchen is done up in an ancient Rome theme.
So it’s easy to say that sex and booze and gambling – traditional sin – has lost its foothold, has lost some market share to more socially smiled-upon consumption options. Having been in Vegas for three days, however, I can say the truth is more elegant: the move to make Vegas family friendly has done something different than to move all the adult stuff to the fringe and the background, it has softened it without marginalizing it, has transformed it. While individual casinos have specific themes, Las Vegas itself – or at least the Strip - has successfully made itself into a gigantic, all-serving, all-pleasing casino with a theme of its own.
That theme? Tits.
Now isn’t that impressive? Don’t give it too much thought before concluding that it totally is. Las Vegas has finally done what pretty much every element of modern capitalism, from deodorant advertising to automotive design, has been trying to do since the dawn of time: putting the right spin on sex. And they’ve done it through shadowplay and body paint, through feathers and floorlights. Or so they tell me. I can tell you about my brief, all-too-unscintillating encounter with the new Las Vegas take on sex(xxx)iness. My first night in Vegas, I found myself on the main floor – the forum, naturally – at Caesar’s Palace, losing a lot of money at video poker. If I looked across from my relatively cheap seats, perhaps hoping (in vain, it turned out; they stay away from the quarter slots) to catch my eye of a wandering drink-woman, through the blackjack and craps tables, I could just make out some sort of show going on sort of behind these curtain things. In the wall to wall stimulation provided by a Vegas casino floor, this wouldn’t have held my interest on its own merits. I’m a busy guy – I have free whiskeys to not be able to get anyone to get for me and money to lose to a bank of machines. I have this Asian dude not to befriend, and his cigar to not object to. But there was this radio deejay like guy in the curtained space trying to get the crowd inside – an at this point hypothetical crowd – excited. He asked if they enjoyed the previous song (they had indeed) and if they were enjoying their dancers (merry hoots indicating a definitive yes.)
Boobies! As soon as I had poured the rest of my five dollars into the nice video poker machine, I got up and wandered over to get a closer look. Here is the first thing I noticed. The club’s name was Shadows, and it was well-named, as all the naked – presumably - --although some had hats – ladies were shadow screened, were silhouettes against bright green or red or blue or yellow backgrounds. They shimmied, they pivoted, they taunted and they skanked. They seemed to be having a good time. Shadows may be the only nightclub in the world with an iPod commercial theme.
The second thing I noticed about Shadows was the clientele, which were uniformly 25-35 Italianish men with open collared shirts and gold chains around their necks, crowding and bumping around each other as if to verify through more than one sense that yes, there are no actual not shadowscreened women in this club. But they were, it must be noted, adept at masking their disappointment.
In conclusion, I did not find Las Vegas to be particularly sexy. But maybe that’s kind of the idea – after all, if you came to Vegas with the idea of seeing some boobs, drinking some booze, and losing some money, you’re not exactly a hard person to please. You’ll be just as happy in a place where the fleshpeddling is more self-pitying and self-mocking than it is, I don’t know, debaucherous. You are also probably Italian.
So it’s easy to say that sex and booze and gambling – traditional sin – has lost its foothold, has lost some market share to more socially smiled-upon consumption options. Having been in Vegas for three days, however, I can say the truth is more elegant: the move to make Vegas family friendly has done something different than to move all the adult stuff to the fringe and the background, it has softened it without marginalizing it, has transformed it. While individual casinos have specific themes, Las Vegas itself – or at least the Strip - has successfully made itself into a gigantic, all-serving, all-pleasing casino with a theme of its own.
That theme? Tits.
Now isn’t that impressive? Don’t give it too much thought before concluding that it totally is. Las Vegas has finally done what pretty much every element of modern capitalism, from deodorant advertising to automotive design, has been trying to do since the dawn of time: putting the right spin on sex. And they’ve done it through shadowplay and body paint, through feathers and floorlights. Or so they tell me. I can tell you about my brief, all-too-unscintillating encounter with the new Las Vegas take on sex(xxx)iness. My first night in Vegas, I found myself on the main floor – the forum, naturally – at Caesar’s Palace, losing a lot of money at video poker. If I looked across from my relatively cheap seats, perhaps hoping (in vain, it turned out; they stay away from the quarter slots) to catch my eye of a wandering drink-woman, through the blackjack and craps tables, I could just make out some sort of show going on sort of behind these curtain things. In the wall to wall stimulation provided by a Vegas casino floor, this wouldn’t have held my interest on its own merits. I’m a busy guy – I have free whiskeys to not be able to get anyone to get for me and money to lose to a bank of machines. I have this Asian dude not to befriend, and his cigar to not object to. But there was this radio deejay like guy in the curtained space trying to get the crowd inside – an at this point hypothetical crowd – excited. He asked if they enjoyed the previous song (they had indeed) and if they were enjoying their dancers (merry hoots indicating a definitive yes.)
Boobies! As soon as I had poured the rest of my five dollars into the nice video poker machine, I got up and wandered over to get a closer look. Here is the first thing I noticed. The club’s name was Shadows, and it was well-named, as all the naked – presumably - --although some had hats – ladies were shadow screened, were silhouettes against bright green or red or blue or yellow backgrounds. They shimmied, they pivoted, they taunted and they skanked. They seemed to be having a good time. Shadows may be the only nightclub in the world with an iPod commercial theme.
The second thing I noticed about Shadows was the clientele, which were uniformly 25-35 Italianish men with open collared shirts and gold chains around their necks, crowding and bumping around each other as if to verify through more than one sense that yes, there are no actual not shadowscreened women in this club. But they were, it must be noted, adept at masking their disappointment.
In conclusion, I did not find Las Vegas to be particularly sexy. But maybe that’s kind of the idea – after all, if you came to Vegas with the idea of seeing some boobs, drinking some booze, and losing some money, you’re not exactly a hard person to please. You’ll be just as happy in a place where the fleshpeddling is more self-pitying and self-mocking than it is, I don’t know, debaucherous. You are also probably Italian.
posted by Jeremy at 2:57 PM
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