I was up early today, as I seem to be doing more and more lately for some odd reason, and I wanted to get out of the house. I was in the Las Vegas Strip area so I thought I should ride over by the New Frontier’s property and take a look at the aftermath from the implosion. Wow.. I know I can be a bit stupidly sentimental but there was this sort of sad pile of rubble laying there all forlorn. On the top of the pile were a couple of reflective remains of what used to be the huge letters that spelled “Frontier” on top of the structure - the only thing that’s left of the tower where so many millions of people stayed throughout the many years of its operation. For me, it’s a little personally sad, because on a big trip to Las Vegas from Houston, Texas back in the late 70’s, my Mom and Dad stayed there. They actually stayed at the New Frontier two nights and at the Desert Inn one night on their trip. The Desert Inn is long-since gone and the property is now the amazing Wynn Resort. Since my Mom died several years back and I ultimately ended up moving to Las Vegas, it was the only place I could go on rare occasion and take a little bit of solace in the idea that my Mom had once been here, walked these same halls. Now it’s gone. Alas, time must march on and progress with it…
The owners of the property seem to be in high gear to move on with the construction of the new hotel and resort that is going to be built on the property. They own the venerable Plaza Hotel in New York City and are said to be building it’s twin here on this parcel of land where the New Frontier once stood. While I’m excited about a place as storied as The Plaza going in here in Las Vegas, I always cringe whenever I see or hear of developers putting in new buildings that mimic the other great cities of the world’s finest properties. Las Vegas is a world class destination in its own right and we should never be imitators, in my humble opinion, but we should lead the world in architectural style by creating places and spaces that the world would want to imitate. We don’t need to build mini New York Cities or mini Eiffel Towers, but I digress. I’m sure the place will be lovely and employee lovely people who serve lovely guests for decades to come. I just wish that people would lose the whole “themed resort” mentality altogether and let’s build the future without mimicking the past.
Last night proved to be a bit of a trying experience for me. As is often the case, bloggers don’t get the same treatment that mainstream media gets, and our efforts to secure the implosion of The New Frontier here in Las Vegas last night was met with some typical but ultimately funny run-ins with Las Vegas Metro.
This guy told me he could not say “officially” that it was okay to walk down the closed-off Desert Inn arterial to film the implosion from what was a good vantage point (well out of the way and behind lots of television crews below us on the ground, as well as construction/demolition workers and onlookers behind a fence.) He said that it was sort of a at-your-own-risk/knowing what is safe for you sort of thing. So we went.
At some point after we’d carried our equipment a quarter mile down Desert Inn, Officer Dweezle decided that he changed his mind after someone else said something to him. By that point we had no choice… either leave or walk very, very slowly back towards our vehicles, since we were being threatened to be cited or arrested and our cars towed. What ever shall we do officer?!?@#? Drag our feet like we’ve never drug them before, that’s what. The video is shaky and not up to the “While Las Vegas Sleeps..” quality assurance department’s standards.. but it will have to do.
Having a cop on video telling me via his bullhorn that I’m seriously testing his patience is, well, priceless. Enjoy! (I feel a ringtone coming on, baby!)
Thanks to DJ Miss Dust and Kevin Forte for some slick house beats for our video…
Without anything further to add… here’s our New Frontier Implosion Video! It’s complete with normal speed, reverse video, and slow-motion implosion! Complete with DJ Miss Dust providing some groove…
While not necessarily a very political blog, While Las Vegas Sleeps… and those of us involved here try to be politically and socially aware. One huge, often ignored by the general public issue regarding the future of the Internet is that of “net neutrality.” In a nutshell, this is the guiding principle of openness, freedom, and a hands-off approach to providing Internet service, insuring freedom of speech and a rich, competitive, environment where the little guys can stand toe-to-toe with the corporations. YourDot.com or Google.com - if the content is available it shouldn’t be any quicker to access that of a giant than that of a gerbil.
Right now there are forces in the world that have changed the playing field of providing internet service. In the not too distant past, providing service was a specialized field with many smaller companies providing service and support at the local and sometimes regional level. During the dot com boom, many giants started gobbling the smaller companies who historically always supported the idea of net neutrality. Now that you get your internet service from the same people that provide, say, your telephone service, and/or your cable for your television, they feel like they are in a position to start charging or taxing certain services for an insured fast, reliable connection, and possibly make some content unavailable altogether. If this trend, like what is going on at Comcast and other providers continues, it will be just one more area of human life that requires you to be rich in order to get richer. It’s an incremental process that has to be stopped now before it is unstoppable.
Please visit Save the Internet and become aware of the fight that’s going on for internet freedom.
The girl that’s about to get in my taxi is jumping around, full of energy and obviously happy just to be alive. I might even go so far as to say that she’s “buzzing with excitement.” …….but only because she’s dressed like a bee.
Her ladybug friend has on some kind of boy short/thong hybrid that exposes most of her butt and, much like a ladybug, is less frenetic. She makes sure her wings don’t get crunched in the door as she gets in the front seat. The guys with them have no costumes and, from what I can tell, have probably been switching out their full drinks for the girls’ empties all night.
They all seem to want to drive to different destinations and, not surprisingly, the bee girl wants to find the next place to party. I don’t think it’s ever been so loud inside the cab. Miss Bumblebee and Princess Ladybug are talking at the same volume that they must have been using inside the club. One of the guys says, “Stop whispering! Can’t you guys speak up? I don’t think he can hear you.” The sarcasm doesn’t seem to have any effect and then the other guy says, “I’m sure this cabbie is having a rough day. You should show him your tits.” I don’t know what kind of guy he thinks he is… but I like his style.
Unfortunately, the new comment has no effect either. It takes a few more variations of “c’mon, flash him!” before Miss Bumblebee finally catches on. “Do you want to see my boobs?” she finally asks. “Absolutely yes. Very much so,” I think, but why I don’t say that I’ll never know. Instead I say “you really don’t even have to ask” or something equally dorky and she pulls down her top…revealing a black tube-top type bra device. She laughs and then almost immediately screams out the window at some guy in a truck asking if he wants to see her boobs. He says “Absolutely yes. Very much so” or something like that and then her boobs are out. They are pert, perky and pierced…and I completely understand why it was necessary to free them from their elastic prison.
We arrive at their hotel instead of another club and I get one more glimpse of ladybug butt before they disappear. I love Halloween. We really need more fun, dress-up holidays….
One short skirt girl friend of theirs yelled to her three short-skirted friends as they exited the taxi: “Don’t show your Britneys!”
[editor's note: Nick, our resident taxicab driver and taxicab confessional writer/aspiring screenwriter has been suffering from acute penographer's infarction, or API (writer's block,) so this is his first article since mid July. He's feeling a sudden burst of creative cab-juices lately, so I think we can possibly expect a bit more from him in the near future. Let's us cross our fingers and take full odds on cabs #6 and #8... And hope Nick the Cabbie figures out he needs to start bringing us so damn pictures!]
The girl that’s about to get in my taxi is jumping around, full of energy and obviously happy just to be alive. I might even go so far as to say that she’s “buzzing with excitement.” …….but only because she’s dressed like a bee.