Viva Las Vegas: A city of contrast

We travelled from Zion national park and instantly the scenery changed from lush to brush desert. Then we arrived in Las Vegas. I broke 3 laws within half an hour of entering Las Vegas. I took a photo in a casino and Hannah took a picture of me playing on a slot machine, that’s illegal to the power of two! I also entered a liquor store, an offence in itself in America. Pah, the law remains ignorant thus far!

Here is an extract from a Flog I wrote at the time, it’s rather entertaining reading back…..though awfully opinionated I must say….must have been the Nevada heat (‘my blood’s always been too thick for Nevada’ H S Thompson) anyway, here it is:

This place gets my skin right up straight away. There is something instantly suspicious and uneasy about it. The facade is the most important than the substance, just like Hollywood, yet here there is a vicious edge of greed. Sucking in the weak and baffling all with its concrete composites of flashing shit. Water is sold illegally by immigrants out of suitcases on street corners. Alcohol and greed are taxed over the counter at agreed rates with the government. Shifty preachers stand on street corners, awkwardly refreshing our memories of the warnings and guidance the Bible provides (see Photoblog)

On approach Las Vegas did have an impressive Skyline. A space needle, a pyramid with sphinx, a statue of liberty entwines with a rollercoaster like some tacky theme park. They even provide free drawn maps of the city, much like any big Theme Park. You can see where a film like Westworld would draw inspiration. The Eiffel tower, not full size, ‘towers’ over a crowded St Mark’s Square. I saw both in real life last summer, but these are all half-hearted attempts to capture something of the quality. This is the second attempt to copy Venice I’ve seen in the US. But these are weird. Like a celebrity look-a-like at the local Tesco. At first glimpse the brain tells you it’s the real thing, but your rational brain says ‘no way’. These forms fail to do more than provide a hint of the original in the shape of shops and casinos. They guide you into the money and away from the exits.

At night, like some rare and sordid bird, Las Vegas changes and its colours are displayed in a sexual dance of temptation. Amazing and baffling at once is also the sheer scale which is hard to take in. For example, a huge volcano made of water and light is edged by flame throwers. Amazing to watch, for a few seconds, while it is still new. After that, cheap and seedy like a prostitute in a window in Amsterdam. I expect they’ll try and remake that City next….it would fit in.

Las Vegas is cool though, don't get me wrong, but its this whole snake in the flower thing that corporate America has with all its customers. All the casinos acting like you are needed and they want to entertain you, when all they need is one person to loose it and fund the next hour’s electricity bill. They are like some kind of hideous mutated Venus fly-trap. They create false and attractive scents for the fly-like punters who they then grip in an inescapable claw which squeezes their money out, powering the perpetuation of their cause. It is a chain reaction started by greed and maintained by a faceless, mindless self-perpetuator .



A perfect illustration of the place was the all-you-can-eat I went to. I never see these places as challenges, more of obligations to consume EVERYTHING I possibly can, without wasting it naturally. Now remember, I went to the best all you can eat in Tacoma ( a cause of the Log Blog….) and this place was a million miles off that standard. From the first bite it was clear that all the food was ash. The apples were crunchy water and the only decent food was the unfarmed fish.


My conclusion about Las Vegas is that it needs some kind of wave of destruction. It sounds harsh, but it hasn't been built to last. I really can’t see it thriving in 500 years’ time. For a start it is dependant on the Hoover Dam, which has a time limit on it for sure. Once that blows, it will be a ghost town, too pointless to replenish, left only with skeletal steel girders poking up and deep underground, ransacked vaults filled only with worthless paper and rotting sewage. That’s how I see it. This place has nothing new to offer except excess on a level trumped only perhaps by Dubai. Vegas can only imitate. It is America’s biggest Remake. Bigger than any of the crap Hollywood is repumping out. It is perhaps the embodiment of an endemic quality found among many of our generation.

Generation 2.0: Remake.
That's us.
We can do it better!

But how?


In Las Vegas it’s with Concrete and bribes.

The whole mentality of our generation…jealous of past success yet perhaps scared to try anything too culturally radical. As a result we just try to do the same again, feeding off unoriginal thought that wasn’t THAT great in the first place.


We can do it better! I’ll remix the songs of the past, plaster over progress in the name of progress yet blanket out character in favour of pre-fab concrete mixes.

Yet this all said…In many ways Vegas is very futuristic and offers a glimpse of a future no city could realistically justify. It has money to burn so can do what it likes. For example, you can only cross some roads by escalators. Everywhere looks like one of those computer generated promotional videos made by architects. Yet in contrast there are flyers advertising prostitutes everywhere on the floor, scattered after being thrust them by over-weight sweaty Mexicans. The people tell much about the city too. You see people of all shapes and sizes. Some like they have a spare tyre and others look like skeletons with boob jobs. At Caesar’s palace they placed Bacchus at the centre of their decorative piece with Orpheus at the edge entertaining and Venus distracting. I doubt many would be pretentious enough to read into the classical connotations, but I felt the figures were very apt.