I have just returned from a glorious spring break in Nevada with some girlfriends. We stayed at one of the casinos. Casinos are a great place to people watch. You can really do a great story on fashions don'ts. We saw every fashion faux pas known and a few that were invented. You also can observe every human quirk under the sun. I saw plenty of grandmas with good luck charms or rituals at the slots. This one old lady slipped the coins in by hand but she only would push the spin button with the Elvis medallion on a massive silver chain she wore around her neck. She seemed to be stooped over by it's weight.
The slot machines are a study themselves. There are Elvis machines. When you win something, Elvis comes on the monitor and sings. There are even Wheel of Fortune Games for grandmas. I wonder if there are Matlock based slots? The slots have great names. Double Diamond. Triple Diamond. Triple Diamond Deluxe. Super Triple Diamond Deluxe. New and Improved Super Triple Diamond Deluxe. A rose by any other name will still take your money! In the elevators they continue the gambling propaganda with posters showing some young woman who won $40k on her first pull of a $25 slot machine. She and her longhair boy friend stood there smiling for the camera. She could have the check. I just wanted the Longhair. (Yall know Longhairs are my weakness) Speaking of long hairs, man I saw a pile of Mullet Heads. I should have mentioned this in the fashion faux pas section. Can I just take this time to do a little public service announcement. MEN OF AMERICA AND EVERY OTHER NATION ON EARTH POPULATED BY MEN AND WOMEN: DO NOT DO THE MULLET HEAD THING. IF YOU WANT LONG HAIR, SHAVE IT OFF AND START ALL OVER. Okay. I feel better.
I have two words for Casinos: watered down drinks. Yeah as long as you are sitting around poking a coin in the slot like a newly wed couple, they will bring you complimentary drinks. These are not designed to get you drunk. No, no, no. They are just to make you get up and head to the rest room so some geriatric escapee from California can come take your machine. They are the preferred customer at this time of the month because their Social Security checks have just come in.
We did manage to catch a show. There was a nostalgia review called "60s Mania." A couple of geriatrics wandered in thinking it was a seminar for seniors on mental illness. But when they heard the Beach Boys music, they bolted for the Keno Lounge. Some of the performers were close to geriatrics themselves. They came out as the early Beatles in those little grey suits, boots and really bad wigs. I thought the guy being Paul had a very phony accent. The I found out he was from Australia. The show was great until the show girls had to come out in next to nothing. Then I started feeling guilty for skipping the main courses at the Casino Bountiful Buffet: Tribute to Asia and going straight for the Den of Dessert: Tribute to Fat and Sugar. There should be a law about naked, young, shapely women. Like-- they should be force fed a king size Whopper Value Meal and shot. However, the men started to get into the act with the booty arrival. Some Grandpa came out of the audience and started dancing with the seven drunk women from the Tax Commissioners Office Typing Pool in Boise. They kinda mobbed him. He liked it. He later claimed to be having chest pains and was soliciting mouth to mouth.
The act was good. They were very talented. However, I saw
no life behind the eyes. They were there physically, but every member
was mentally somewhere else. Los Angeles maybe? I kinda got the feeling
they realized they were stuck in hell until April 9th when they would
move to another small casino somewhere else. This was even more funny,
when the impressionist guy came out. He had done Mick Jaggar, Neil
Diamond, and Elvis already. Now he was going to present us with his
rendition of Tom Jones. He came out in skin tight pants. There
was something odd about how the pants laid across his belly. I squinted
and looked closer. I turned to my friends who were doing the same.
Yup. This guy had a some phallic item stuffed in his pants.
Here is a hopelessly bored guy, gyrating around with a simulated erection
singing "It's Not Unusual..." And in the state of Nevada, it sure
isn't.