Friday, May 20, 2005

The Absence of the Editor is Apparent: Drinking near Fremont St.

I have the good fortune of having my sweet wife as editor of my Vegas-based website, Las Vegas Arts and Culture. I do not here, and will appear much less eloquent as a result. I may know how the words sound, but unless I use Google as my dictionary, there will be misspellings galore. But if not writing is the alternative, then poorly spelled/written/punctuated entries will be published instead. I also was drinking this evening, go figure.

I had the good fortune of going to the Beauty Bar Las Vegas with my friend Donald. He, as a lifelong resident of Vegas and all-around fan of the city, should in all truth be named an honorary good-will ambassador of Las Vegas. Drinks were had, the people watching was great inside and out. The bar on 517 Fremont St. is on the cusp of Vegas' historic vortex of high hopes and soul-sucking reality, the Fremont Street Experience. The first of the city's casinos started and remain here. And those who are most attracted to the most base attraction of the city end up here. The glitzy strip hotels work to attract trendy hipsters and their penchant for spending money for the sake of appearance, to the exclusion of the hopelessly addicted. But Fremont welcomes those gaming refugees who do not want the fancy facades, celebrity chefs, and endless Cirque Du Soleil shows. All these things are barriers between them and the undefinable thing they aim for. Placed before cards or into a machine, the money they offer is tithing, an offering to shift cosmically, religiously, hopelessly the odds in their favor.

The lack of results are easy to observe. Even more fun is to contrast the folks going into the Beauty Bar. The young hipster types are worlds away from the often wrinkled dejected types floating away from the casinos below the illuminated canopy above the street. The two girls at the Beauty Bar wearing the matching Enjoy Cock t-shirts and white mini-skirts attracted a lot of attention on Fremont St. when they left and walked down the street.