While Las Vegas Sleeps…

Last night I was walking into Treasure Island from the parking garage when I happened upon what I believe to be a new discovery in the realm of insobriety-while-remaining-mobile. Naturally, if such a discovery were to be made, Las Vegas would be a prime breeding ground for a state of inebriation like this, due to the sheer volume of people that get unbelievably plastered beyond belief here each and every day.

Before last night, even my seasoned, well-alcoholed, professional party person eyes had never seen such an amazing attempt to remain conscious after drinking what most definitely had to have been a heroic amount of ethanol. I’m talking about inebriation at a level that most any mere mortal would have long since been passed out in a bathroom stall somewhere… or worse.

So I walk into the bridge to the casino from the parking garage and as soon as I open the door I see a guy, maybe twenty-nine or thirty years old, doing what I thought was a pathetic, possibly evil attempt at dancing to the music that was playing in the hallway. Okay, I thought that for maybe a millisecond, because I immediately saw him take a misstep that can mean only one of two things: masochistic alcohol consumption or ether… and Hunter S. Thomspon has gone on towards the Great Magnet in the Great Beyond… so alcohol it was.

To the normal flow of foot traffic here, I would have maybe three to five seconds before a passerby would go behind me and I’d no longer be able to observe the beast in action. Something different was at work here. It was almost as though someone had put really heavy, randomly depolarizing magnetic space boots on this guy. His legs would start to go forward and suddenly be yanked backwards to a place further back than where the foot had started. Then a sudden burst of what had to be massive electromagnetic activity from the wall ten feet to his left caused him to take two wild, intriguing steps to the side. He was almost unable to bear the forces acting against him. Almost. This guy had to be attempting to do for alcohol consumption what Chuck Yeager did for the sound barrier. Pushing the envelope, he was…

As I walked closer to our hero and was about to pass, I saw what was really at play here: He had apparently shifted slightly outside of our time continuum. I looked at his face and saw it - he was using his lips to make sure that his right ear was still attached to his head as the forces gripped him, in a way that could only be possible in at least four dimensions. I’ve never seen lips stretch that far. He actually got pretty damn close to his ear. It was valiant effort, anyway. And the craziest thing was that for him, it all seem to be happening in slow motion as I watched. Everyone else was moving in normal time but I watched this guys’ lips and eyes move and contort in the same direction - up and to the right - trying to check for correct ear positioning. Damnedest expression I’ve ever seen on a human’s face that wasn’t being performed by a comedian or on purpose!

As we walked on I was considering the sight that I’d just seen. And then it hit me: This fool was heading to the parking garage and there was something small - key size - in one of his hands!!! In horror I turned around to immediately intervene with a cab ride offer, but he was gone. I remembered that there were security guards in the parking garage, but were up on the level I’d come from and he went straight in, so I hoped for the best and put my faith in the superlative work done by MGM Mirage security. Fair well, ye alconaut. I barely knew ye… or your fears… or your loathing…

So this is how the world works, all energy flows according to the whims of the great magnet.
Hunter S. Thompson

Tags: alcohol, casino, drugs, Entertainment, Treasure Island

In an article back on January 26th I wrote about how I thought our hometown girl Katie Rees was robbed when Donald Trump and company stripped her of her crown for having a night of Las Vegas-style fun while out in Florida. Too bad the photos cost her her tiara and sash, but I think she’s gotten way more benefit out of the publicity than she would have had without it. She’s a celebrity now. Before this, no one knew who she was, really.

Anyway I was walking by a magazine rack last night and Katie Rees’ name jumped out at me on the cover. When my eyes focused I realized it was the cover of Hustler Magazine. The model on the cover was obviously carefully chosen to look like Miss Rees but it is definitely not her. The photos inside the magazine were the ones from TMZ.com’s original story but there is nothing new in there. Way to go, guys.. You’ve successfully salaciously relived January.. in June!!

I’d say that this shameless attempt to confuse readers into buying magazines - and all at Katie Rees’ almost certainly unpaid expense - should earn Larry Flynt Publications their very own title: Asshole of the Month.

I mean, for the right price even I am available for prurience-oriented photo shoots

Katie Rees: If you’re out there reading, we’d love to have you write a column for “While Las Vegas Sleeps…!!“

Tags: Hustler Magazine, Katie Rees, Miss Nevada, photos, pics, shady people, sin, strippers

That’s right. Pilot. He thinks “driving a cab” just doesn’t sound quite right so he looks at it as being a pilot. I kinda like that. Not only is he probably the best driver I know (and a great personal friend,) he’s available for his drunken, debauched friends when in need of a lift from Rehab or various other clubs around Las Vegas! That’s right…. Our personal, Las Vegas driver, VIP style. Okay, well as VIP as you can be in a taxicab

How does one go about ending up a cab driver? Well, apparently a good way to start is being a screenwriter, because that’s what Nick is. In classic Hollywood mogul fashion, he has a half dozen or so scripts in various stages of production..

Being a great, old friend of mine, I’ve been trying to get Nick to move out west to Las Vegas for a number of years now. This town is the perfect combination of glitz, glam, girls, gratuitous iniquities, gossip, and probably a lot of other things that begin with a “g.” Such an environment is perfect for a writer looking for inspiration as he works on his next screenplay. (I didn’t want to alliterate with “s” or this would be way too long.) So I finally talked him into moving…

So what’s a move without a plan? I figured, hey if it’s things to draw from that you need, what a more rich environment to be in than driving a taxi, and in Las Vegas, no less?? Plus, the gig pays well! (You get bonuses every time you take someone to a strip club or send an escort to someone’s hotel room.) So for Nick, driving a cab is something of an international work-study program, if you will.

Nick always has funny stories to share when he gets off of work… Like the one with Ron Jeremy and his out-of-control female friend that he won’t write about because he made a promise to Ron. That’s our Nick - a cabby with ethics and a story to tell. Go figure.

So in the next day or two Nick’s first story will be posted on here and they are going to keep coming once or twice a week. Just look for the heading - “Nick’s Las Vegas Late Night Cab Confessions.” This is gonna be good.

…And if you are coming to Las Vegas or are already here and need a driver, shoot Nick an email

Tags: cab confessions, cabbie, cabby, cheap Las Vegas, convention, Conventions, Entertainment, escort service, escorts, film, lap dance, Las Vegas strippers, movies, porn star, pornstar, Rehab, screenplay, sin, Southern Nevada, strip club, strippers, taxicab confessions, VIP service, writer, writing

Last week my little nephew was in town visiting from Houston. He’s been coming out the last few summers to stay with me for a week or so and I always like to take him on a little trip. In the past we’ve gone camping up on Mount Charleston, gone to Disneyland and the Santa Monica beach.. that sort of thing. This time I thought we’d go up to a place I’ve wanted to visit for a number of years and never got around to going to for whatever reason, a place a little Cub Scout could definitely appreciate - Zion Canyon National Park.

Zion Canyon, obviously renamed to its current moniker by religious folk, has been inhabited by humans for thousands of years. It’s a truly beautiful area to see, the canyon walls having been carved over millions of years by the Virgin River. Though surrounded by desert, the river and the altitude, as well as the fact that it’s a bit further north than Las Vegas, make for warm days and cool nights.

I’ve chosen to feature Zion as #1 in my Las Vegas Day Trips series, as it is about two to two and a half hours away in the southwestern part of Utah. You could drive up early, have lunch, explore the area and be back in town by dinner time if you want to, though it would make for a pretty long day. We opted to take a tent and a little gear and camp in the canyon. We set up camp at one of the two main camping areas - Watchman Campground - which is run well, has clean restrooms, and a tiny man-made stream of fresh water running along behind the tent and picnic table areas at your site. Our four person group had three adults, one child, and two tents and it was $16 to camp for all of us. (there is a $25 per car fee to enter the entire park, but it is good for an entire week.)

In order to eliminate over-crowding of vehicles and ruin the natural, peaceful setting with unnecessary noise, the only cars allowed further into the canyon beyond the two camping areas are those belonging to people staying at the lodge. Don’t worry about that, though, as driving isn’t what you want to do anyway - there’s too much to look at. The National Park Service provides (as part of your $25 per car admission fee) a propane-power tram that simultaneously takes hundreds of visitors as deep into the canyon as they want to go while reducing CO2 emissions from vehicles that would be driving in there otherwise. The day that we were there on the tour there were sixteen trams running, all capable of taking several dozen passengers each. You can park at the main visitor facility, wait a few minutes and begin the tour, which takes about 90 minutes round-trip if you don’t get off of the tram, which you absolutely will want to do because there are so many great hikes to take.

We opted to go a fairly short distance into the canyon on the tram and take a short hike, having more of a laid back visit than some of the more adventurous people that were there that day, as my nephew was getting over being sick and we didn’t want to push him to hard. As it turned out, we accidentally chose a neat little hike called the Emerald Pools. A short .6 mile hike is paid off with a natural pool collecting water from springs seeping through the cliff’s cracks and two waterfalls overhead. It was very lovely. As pretty and relaxing as this area of the canyon was, it’s apparently even more beautiful the further in you go. I plan on going back before too long. When the heat is pretty killer down in Las Vegas, the nights up in Zion Canyon are still pretty airish. We had to snuggle pretty good to stay warm while we were sleeping later that night…

The village just before you arrive at Zion Canyon proper is a quaint little place, filled with tourist shops, local crafts, and some pretty interesting food. There’s one ice cream parlour in town and we went in (I suspected they had some unique sorts of ice cream for some reason and I was right!) I had my first ever huckleberry ice cream and I have to say, damn it was good! The next morning on our way out of town we had bumbleberry pancakes from the Bumbleberry Inn. I don’t believe in bumbleberries! I think they are blueberries rebranded by a very well-paid marketing department staffed by crafty Mormons! Tasty, those things were, though.

And oh yeah! They had horseback rides in the canyon! I didn’t have enough time to go on one, but next time it’s on like Donkey Kong.

So there you have it.. My first “While Las Vegas Sleeps…” recommended Las Vegas day trip!

Tags: camping, Entertainment, ice cream, Las Vegas outdoors, Mormons, nature, Utah, waterfalls, Zion Canyon