She’s hotter and more comely than ever. Cranked-up and made-up. Glimmering and shimmering. Compliant and generous, seductively teasing, but so anxious to yield. She flatters and shamelessly panders, igniting a panoply of instant desires and promising to sate them as quickly as they flare.
Not bad for a lady that turns her 100th birthday this coming week.
Happy Birthday, baby. Vegas, baby.
Let the windbags bloviate over elite, liberal, secular humanist culture, but there smirks and prospers an undulating Sin City barely into her second century, sucking in the lookie-loos at a clip of 40 million per year. Even the Lord Jesus himself would stand today bedazzled, transfixed and ultimately paralyzed by the awesome, whirring, non-stop pulsating spectacle of the Strip. He might even get comped a penthouse at the Wynn if he invoked his father’s name.
It should be little wonder that in this America that neither recognizes its past nor ponders it future, the City of the Eternal Now –- Las Vegas-— should become its virtual capital.
Doubling in size every decade, devouring the desert, lighting its skies with atomic-level neon, Las Vegas –at least glimpsed through the dust clouds of globalized de-industrialization— looks more and more like the best bet in town.
When 120,000 workers at United Airlines get jammed into the largest pension-plan default in U.S. history, mightn’t they had gotten a better break at the Bellagio’s Caribbean Stud Poker table? When faced with losing a fourth or more of their promised pension, wouldn’t it been safer to risk it all on an Ace-Ten full boat?
“It’s not unheard of a worker losing two-thirds of their monthly benefit,” says the flak for the federal agency that took over 200 busted out private pension plans just this past year. Yet, even the worst sucker game at the Mirage – the Wheel of Fortune --offers an 89% return. Play computer-perfect Double Bonus Deuces Wild video poker and clock a 101% payback. It's hard, tedious work and the hands click by every 8 seconds but it's a lot more rewarding than banking on your 401k statement.
The latest reports from The Street show major stock funds down 3.9% and 4.2% just since New Year’s. But on The Strip, even the house-tilted, odds-shaved game of multi-deck, shoe-dealt blackjack is still paying 3 to 2 on a natural 21. Spend a buck on a laminated basic betting card, learn when to hit your 16’s and split your 8’s and you’ll be beating the market by a solid two points, playing a card game of 98% return. Toss the bones just the right way with a couple of Ben Franklins straight up on eeyo-eleven and take the rest of the month off.
Or get smart and quit forever. Pick up the paper and read of Maytag closing its flagship factory in Newton, Iowa and lazily dream of suddenly being liberated and released among the country’s 5.2% unemployed. Did I say 5.2%? Well, that also happens to be the paltry house advantage in roulette! Look for a job or spin the wheel and it's the same friggin' odds. Why not tell Maytag to take the job and shove it, anyway. Sleep until noon, have a Krispy Kreme, load it all on number ten black, and then close your eyes and cross your fingers as the steel ball drops.
For all of America’s manifold promises of upward mobility and coasting onto Easy street, only Vegas always comes through. Maybe only for a long weekend, and only as long as you have chips on the table, or so long as your credit line doesn’t expire. But what the hell? You may never surpass the Joneses, but with the three-night-two-day special at the Excal (dinner show and buffet breakfast included) you’ll live like an airline CEO. At least, until check-out time. And without even having to change out of flip-flops and a NASCAR t-shirt.
In this America of infinite opportunity and breathtaking risk, light a candle, lift your head high and join together in shouting out loud: “Happy birthday, baby!”