“What happens in Vegas, stays in….” By Jizzy Pearl

“Are you looking for a music scene here in Vegas?”

        —- I turned off the TV. Truth be told I wanted to ‘Elvis’ the fucking thing after a week of nauseating non-stop coverage of the Osama Bin Drama. Flag wavers, Deniars, Truthers, Birthers and now Deathers all fill the hall waiting for our Dear Leader to speak. Mission Accomplished! They say. Good thing they kept that banner from the aircraft carrier. Emmanuel Goldstein is dead but worry not People, there are 4 more Goldsteins ready to take his place at the head of Evil Inc. Welcome back my friends—to the War that never ends…

           Are you a Birther or a Deather? I think I’m a Mirther, I want to spread mirtharound as long as I can before the pole shift scares us back into our holes. So here’s a tale of Vegas…

         WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS STAYS IN VEGAS

           People come to Vegas for one reason; to party. I’ve seen them at the airport taxi stand on Friday afternoon, delirious, excited, half in the bag already from the flight over. They can’t wait to drink, gamble and hopefully fuck. I’ve also seen them at the airport on a Sunday morning and oh what a different mood it is.

            When people find out I live in Vegas they think my life is like the commercials, or the show Rehab. In truth Vegas is a very small quiet town, not a party town at all. Except for the Strip that is. Locals like me AVOID the Strip like plague, it is Jerry Springer Unleashed. You can drink openly on the street so everyone carries those long fluted I Dream of Jeannie goblets full of sickeningly sweet daiquiris. Guys are all dressed like the Situation, same shirt, same hair, same bravado. Girls are all dressed in the same identical black cocktail dresses, like Barbies. They go to Tao or Coyote Ugly or any one of a hundred bars on the Strip and in no time at all are liquored up to the nines. Around 10 o’clock the amateur drunks start dropping off, pretty girls bent over a planter chirping up their Southwest airline nuts. Guys start getting loud, brawling pushing and eventually end up sloshed in an alley somewhere. Korean tourists here on business sit with their heads face down on the bar, snoring; I’ve seen it all. The smart ones go back or are carried back to their rooms to sleep it off, the dumb ones go straight to the gambling tables. The casinos smile, they put up with your piggish behavior because THEY WANT YOUR MONEY. They dig watching you lose, that’s why they ply you with drinks. You can drink all night in Vegas, no 2 o’clock curfew! That’s dangerous. Around 2 o’clock the pickpockets come out, they see you staggering down the empty street with a large bulls-eye painted on your chest and they take advantage. People get mugged, women get dosed, if you come to Vegas STAY IN A GROUP. I liken it to those Animal Planet shows where the young calf gets separated from the herd, there are plenty of hyenas here to strip the flesh from your bones. But we don’t like to talk about that, because what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas…

           Are you looking for a music scene here in Vegas? There is none, trust me. Like a lot of Angelenos I moved here because I was tired of the Rainbow and all the LIARS out there. The busboy who’s really a screenwriter, the musician who’s ‘this close’ to a record deal, the model who’s not really a hooker etc. Everyone lives a dual life, the real one and the fantasy one. It’s like an alternate universe, where musicians can spout the most absurd bullshit about their ‘career’ and the bimbo babes drink it in because they wanna believe it…

           “The guy I just met says he’s in Pretty Boy Floyd, he seems really nice, he’s rich but I had to buy him a drink at the bar because he left his wallet in his suite at the Hyatt. He wants me to come back to his hotel but he doesn’t want to have sex, he just wants to talkbecause he’s lonely and then he’s going to take me sailing on his yacht…”

            Just so you know this conversation actually took place, in a stairwell at the Rainbow right before closing time. It was an excerpt from my story ‘Lounge Lizardry’ from my Angst book that didn’t make the cut. I actually had to yank this poor naïve girl away from this imposter fuck before he sank his teeth into her and carried her away. This one got away…most don’t.

           Also don’t move out to Vegas if you think people give a shit that you sold records ‘cause they don’t. The only good paying work for musicians out here are the casinos and they don’t care if you were in White Lion or White Sister or White Wizard or whatever. You are basically handed a song list of the lowest common denominator rock songs and you’d best play them. Highway to Hell, Sweet Emotion, Pour some Sugar on Me, Livin’ on a Prayer and so on. Also don’t forget Sweet Home Alabama and Brown-eyed Girl, my personal favorite. Every band in every casino, day or night have to play the same fucking set list; no exceptions. My friends in the Sin City Sinners would beg to differ but they know I’m right. The people barely look at you, you are a jukebox to them and a short respite from the gaming tables. It’s harsh, spending 20 years of your life as a professional musician and ending up as a Spazmatic.

            Sunday morning at the airport is a whole different vibe, a not-so-happy vibe. The line at the security checkpoint stinks, people literally stink of booze and cigarettes and they’re MAD, the party’s over and they’ve got to fly back home to their real lives.  I’ve seen fistfights occur, in line, over absolutely nothing. People have gambled and lost, girls have partied way beyond their comfort zone, maybe one of them did something scandalous and had a one-night stand with a stranger. It will be the topic of conversation at the office water cooler until the persistent itching sends her to the local clinic.    ome Alabama and Home

            Bukowski said some people never go mad–what boring lives they must lead. I guess it’s good to let off a little steam, to go mad once in a while. Spend some money while it’s still worth something, get laid while you still can. Vegas is a small microcosm of unabashed abandon and people will always come here, even if they can’t afford it. People need to lose their minds once in a while, I think, turn off the constant brain-washing about fear and terror and the Fukishima thing that seems to have fallen off the radar…but I’m sure there’s still something in the air. But that’s a conspiracy theory we must leave for another time.

Jizzy