Viva Las Vegas
Mike Marchand
Undistinguished Alumnus
There's absolutely nothing in the world quite like Las Vegas, and there's absolutely no way to experience it quite like doing so with your mother. Oh sure, it's nice, this being her very-delayed-thanks-to-Sept. 11 graduation present for me, but all the same, it's strange seeing your mom looking over your shoulder at the blackjack tables. "Hey, split those eights, kiddo. We're getting lunch, you want something to eat? Oh, hey, dealer busts! Booyah!"
But yet, there we were at the South Bend Regional Airport at about 5:15 a.m. Thursday morning, watching her husband — my stepfather — being inappropriately touched by airport security personnel. Evidently, they thought he, a specialty mechanic, represented enough of a danger to the other passengers to pull him out of the regular line and give him the full-monty examination. Every now and again, the security guy's magic wand would beep somewhere over my stepdad's pants.
After a brief layover in Detroit, we arrived in Vegas, and the first thing we did, even before getting our luggage, was play slots. Yes, there are slot machines in the middle of the terminal at McCarran International Airport. My stepdad, fresh off his frisking, won $6 with his first quarter. Meanwhile, I couldn't win diddly. It was getting so bad that I nearly begged a security guy to grope my crotch for luck. Finally, I heard the happy whooping of the machine signaling a winner, and:
Clank.
I won one damn nickel. It was my same nickel I put in the machine, too. I put it right back in, saying "First time's the hardest." The machine whooped again, and this time I looked down to watch my riches roll in:
Clank.
The same nickel again. I was done after that. Slots are for suckers, I reasoned.
I hardly fared better at the table games. At craps, poker and blackjack, I started off on a winning streak. I actually won my first three hands on the poker tables. I was having so much fun (and enjoying wonderfully uninhibiting drinks ferried to me for free by lovely waitresses) that I didn't notice when my luck went cold and I was starting to lose money. Attempts to dig myself out of the hole only resulted in sinking further, except for blackjack, in which I finished $5 ahead.
My one shining success came at the sportsbooks. Faced with the difficult choice of betting on the Florida State-Miami game or the Notre Dame-Pittsburgh game or both, I decided to let it ride and plunk down $50 on Notre Dame to cover. Thankfully, Ty's lads scored a touchdown in the closing minutes to lead by eight; the final interception sealed it, and I doubled my $50 simply because Notre Dame covered the seven-point spread. God bless you, boys. (Oh, I would still have been happy if they won by one point.)
But of course, gambling is only one facet of the Las Vegas experience, and really not even the best. While tourists are advised to go to a bunch of different casinos to diversify their experience, I learned pretty early on that it was basically all the same, only with a different decor. The Excalibur, where we stayed, looks like a castle and has a medieval look to it; whereas the adjacent Luxor is pyramid-shaped and has an ancient Egyptian motif.
Anyway, there are also the shows, which can be broadly divided into two categories: "adult" and "everything else." (If I had won a ton of money here, I would finance a show featuring naked women doing magic. It would kill.) I decided to get a liberal dose of both in the same night, electing to see Penn and Teller at the Rio over the Blue Man Group at Luxor (P and T were simply the coolest thing I've ever seen), then staying for the showgirls at the Rio.
Before I get any angry letters calling me a perverted deviant for wanting to see topless women, I hasten to point out that the show I saw was called "a celebration of artistry." I wholeheartedly agreed, being in the front row and at times less than two feet away from some delightfully jiggling and gyrating artistry. Seriously, though, there were more women in the audience than men, and one of the recurring themes of the show was how men are all vain, ignorant brutes.
But for all the glitz Vegas has, there's a seedier side. Like tourist traps that charge $20 for 90 minutes of Internet access, making this a very expensive column. Or ads for porn and prostitutes being handed out on Las Vegas Boulevard with hardly a peep of protest from passersby (of course, the road is called "The Strip," so adult themes are to be expected, I guess).
In the end, while Las Vegas is a fun diversion for a few days, eventually, it gets old. Even the Rat Pack spent time in other places occasionally, and the guys from "Ocean's Eleven" all left. So I'll be happy to get back to the Bend, being only a little worse for the wear monetarily. But before I leave, I have some slot machines to break.
There are 1,000 women livin' devil-may-care, and Mike Marchand, class of 2001, is the devil with love to spare. By the time you read this, he will be back in town and available to e-mail at Marchand.3@nd.edu. "Undistinguished Alumnus" appears every other Monday.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Monday, October 14, 2002
