While Las Vegas Sleeps…

Only in Las Vegas, Nevada, would you see a man’s privates in public before dinnertime, and if you did happen to see said man’s now public privates, there’s a good chance it would be on Tropicana Boulevard.

A few weeks ago I was driving down Tropicana from the office of a service that offers “strippers to your room,” when on the opposite side of the road, I saw a man in his fifties with only sweatpants on and his shirt laying on the ground. Reluctantly standing next to this guy was a man who picks up the trash for the Wild Wild West Casino and Truck Stop who was trying to do his job of emptying out the trash barrels along the road and parking lot of the property. He couldn’t do his job very well, though, since the half naked man was yelling at him, pushing him, and then suddenly trying to hug him, as if to say, “I’m sorry. That was wrong of me.” He’d go through this process, over and over – yelling, pushing, then apologizing.

The craziness with the casino janitor was interrupted, though, when the half-naked man suddenly decided to walk away from the worker, stop traffic on Tropicana, and yell at a car before returning to the sidewalk. After getting out of the road, he proceeded to pull down his sweatpants and reveal his shriveled privates to all who were watching.

The best timing by a cop I have ever witnessed was when a Metro officer pulled up on the curb just as this nut pulled his pants down. The now naked man had the most shocked look on his face when he realized he was caught red handed with his pants down. Literally. Mind you… This was all before 2:30pm on a chilly day. I would have kept my pants on even if I were inside… I’ll reserve my stripping for warm hotel rooms!

Tags: homeless, Las Vegas, Nevada, Sin City, Stories, strippers, Tropicana

Las Vegas, Nevada, is famously dry in the middle of the desert. Most people think of the desert as a place where things are dry as a bone - barely supporting life as we know it. The truth is, everything needs water. It rains here. It even snows here upon occasion (though it almost never sticks to the ground anywhere near the Strip.) In fact, it snows here every year on the mountain. That’s why we even have our very own little ski resort, The Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard Resort (owned by the same people that own the Park City Mountain Resort, incidentally.)

The last couple of nights we’ve been experiencing one of two parts of what I think tend to generally constitute our “rainy seasons” here in Las Vegas. The Winter portion of that takes place at any time between December and February and usually happens when conditions in the Pacific Ocean cause a low pressure area to set up off the California coast and allow for sweeping bands of moisture to move in, resulting in the closest thing Las Vegas has to an actual “season” of rain. This is because it’s one system that’s affecting our weather for several days, as opposed to just several hours. This may or may not happen more than once or twice during the winter. Slow, steady rain is great for us around here just like it is anywhere. The difference for guys like me is that whenever it rains for a night or two here in Las Vegas, forty minutes away up on Mount Charleston, they’ve probably gotten a half a foot or more of fresh powder. That means it’s skiing/snowboarding time, baby!! Tomorrow I’m heading up to Mount Charleston on what will probably be the best conditions day up there in a couple of years. *crosses fingers*

[The other "rainy season" is when we get a monsoonal flow of moisture in late July and August that causes brief thunderstorms to zoom across the valley floor, often times causing flash flooding in some places while other parts of the valley remain bone dry. This slow, steady sprinkling rain is where it's at, for sure.]

Tags: fresh powder, Mount Charleston, rain, skiing, snowboarding, winter

I like to think I know a little bit about this town we call home - Las Vegas. The truth is, Las Vegas is big enough and has spread out enough that it’s really hard to keep up with all the new spots. There are hot spots and there are sweet spots. There are even best-kept-secret types of spots. There’s usually some overlap with those different types of places.

Last Friday my friend Dorothy, upon my suggesting that we drink fine wine until standing becomes challenging, said she has just the place. I thought I had just the place because I was in the mood for my favorite zin, and that can only be obtained at one of Emeril’s restaurants due to a contract with the winemaker, but she insisted. She had to make me feel a little guilty for always suggesting the place and not listening to others’ suggestions, which I don’t think is the case at all, but whatever her angle was, it worked. I’m glad it did!

I love wine. No, I mean I seriously love good wine. I like smelling it, I like tasting it, I just really love the whole wine experience. You might say I’m something of a wine snob in training… I know just enough to be dangerous, but it’s fun. Like some people say about sex, even when it’s bad it’s still good: wine always leaves you with a smile within a few minutes of it going down the proverbial hatch.

The problem with the process of trying new wines - figuring out what you like and don’t like about them, et cetera - is that you go to a wine shop, make a selection, take it home, maybe cook a meal, then you enjoy your bottle. By that point you might not feel like going back to the store to get another bottle or two. In a nutshell, the process takes time. In a restaurant the selection is, of course, bigger, but they also charge a 2-to-1 or 3-to-1 markup (or more) on what the bottle would actually cost either them or you in a retail shop. That comes with the territory, naturally, but sometimes you just want to have a decent meal and really try a number of wines without all the overhead.

For people who love wine and a good meal, thanks to Dorothy, I have found a place that might represent the perfect model for wine and food lovers: Marche’ Bacchus. As I understand it, Marche’ Bacchus started as a wine shop. There are rows of bins and racks on the walls with a a great selection of wines. They have a little bar where you can take your wine selection and for a $10 corkage fee they’ll open your bottle, decant it if necessary, and serve you at their bar inside the wine shop. They added a small cafe to their wine market a couple of years ago and it appears they have expanded it to its current size and menu, with outdoor dining on one of the three fingers lakes in Summerlin (it’s temporarily enclosed and heated during Winter.) The whole place still has the market in front and is still small and quaint. The great thing is, you don’t get the multiple price that is charged in a restaurant for your wine, and yet, from the smell of it, you can enjoy your wine over a tasty meal, all in a great environment outside, if you like. When that bottle runs out, you have an entire market to choose something different in the adjacent room. It’s sort of an interactive take on wine and dinner. I love it!

Thanks Dorothy!

I’ll be visiting Marche’ Bacchus again soon for more wine and will actually eat a meal, at which time I’ll be writing a review over at the new site we’re working on, Las Vegas Critics.

Tags: cafes, dining, las vegas secrets, Summerlin, wine

Oh yes… Just like that. Mmmmm The sweet taste of political relevance! No more voting in Texas where the rural, overwhelmingly conservative vote and Washington influence usually makes the primary election winners a foregone conclusion.

Since different states have different primary election or caucus rules, it turns out that the Republican Party does not allow you to vote in their caucus in Nevada unless you are a registered Republican, unlike the Democratic Party, who allows you to register as a Democrat at the time of the caucus. This is unfortunate, because unlike some states, such as Texas where I grew up, you can fully intend to vote Libertarian, Green Party, Dem, Republican, or whatever in the general election, but weigh in with your vote in the primary election for another party. The way it works in the Nevada Caucus, the Democratic Party in effect allows that by letting you register as a Democrat at the time of the caucus to select the party’s candidates before the general election, and that’s what I intend to do. If the Republican Party weren’t a bunch of conservative elitists they would allow you to do the same thing and I would be showing up at that caucus to cast a vote for Ron Paul, even though I know he has almost no chance of winning the general election. I’ve been a Libertarian Party member since 1994 and I would definitely want to give him every chance of making it as far as possible and hopefully share some Libertarian ideals with some people along the way.

As it stands, Hillary Clinton is expected to carry Nevada, but a judge has ruled today to allow “at large caucuses” on the Strip in casinos. The reason why something so arcane actually matters is that a large number of minority voters work in Strip casinos and are members of the Culinary Union. That union has pledged its support to Barack Obama. That support is not worth nearly so much if all the voting members are at work in kitchens on the Strip, so they have gotten a judge to rule in favor of allowing these workers to hold caucuses at their workplaces so that they can vote. It’s possible that that might make it hard for Hillary Clinton to win Nevada, which is now considered a key early primary/caucus state. It’s nice being important! I’m fairly certain having such growth in recent years and more importantly having the Senate majority leader being from your state were huge factors, but I’m glad that they moved our caucus to this timeframe. Nevada is an important state and needs more politically and socially aware, positive attention pointed its direction.

What is a caucus, you ask? Well, in the context discussed here, it’s a form of primary election that causes the participants to take - literally - a more active role in the process. You have to show up to your precinct at a specified time and register, et cetera. Then, instead of casting a secret ballot, at the time of the vote in your precinct, you walk over to a prearranged part of the room to stand next to your choice of candidate. If there is not a clear winner, it becomes time to actually discuss politics! You can choose to be silent if you want, but it’s actually encouraged that you speak your mind as to why you feel your candidate is best and try to sway the other voters to cast their vote for your candidate. It’s a more active approach to being involved politically, at least in the primary elections. I’ve never participated in a caucus before, so I am really kind of excited about it.

I love caucus (and I can not lie!)