Here are some observations and thoughts from my trip to Las Vegas…
As always, one of the best shows in town is just talking with your cabbie. They're all great. As noted in this article, I used to ask every taxi driver I had to tell me his Redd Foxx story. Back in the eighties, every cab driver had a Redd Foxx story, some of them even tellable in mixed company. Alas, back in the nineties I had to give up that line of inquiry. Too many "Who's Redd Foxx?"es in reply. My favored question now is what convention that comes to town brings the best tippers and which one brings the worst? Consensus reply: The World of Concrete — a construction supplies convention that I believe is in Vegas this week — is hands down the best. No one could explain why but apparently selling cement makes a man party hearty and tip big. The worst? Jewelers.
I rode the Vegas Monorail because…well, maybe because it may not be there much longer. The 3.9 mile line was opened in 2004 by taking a free train that used to run just between Bally's and the MGM Grand and expanding it. It's no longer free and it now reaches all the way to the Sahara, raising a question similar to the old "What if they gave a war and nobody came?" This one is "What if they built a monorail and nobody rode it?" The route is of so little benefit to most folks that the project has been losing a small fortune every week since it opened. Expansion plans, some of which have sounded like they might make the system more useful, get announced but do not happen. It seemed like a pleasant ride to me but it didn't take me anywhere I really wanted to go. I rode it just to ride it. I monorailed from Bally's to the Sahara, then caught a cab at the Sahara to take me to my hotel. My hotel, like most, is nowhere near anywhere the monorail goes.
This was my first Vegas trip since Gastric Bypass Surgery and eating was a little odd. Everything available to me was either way too much food or not enough. Friday night, I went to a place that serves a prime rib dinner with soup, rolls, baked potato, corn and a nice-sized piece of meat for $6.99. By the time I'd finished the soup, I barely had room for the meat so I left about two-thirds of it and most of the tater. With no refrigerator in my hotel room, there didn't seem to be anything else I could do. Saturday, I went to a $7.77 buffet and barely consumed $2.22 worth. The lady who clears the dishes looked at mine, then said in partial English and with an uncanny guess at my heritage, "Jew no like our food?"
So what's the deal with all the Michael Jackson records? As you roam Vegas, you always hear popular records of the seventies and eighties. It's the old Wayne Newton theory: "People are most comfortable when they're hearing a song they know well." (Wayne sings almost nothing in his show that most of the audience won't recognize.) Okay, so that's the premise but I still want to know: What's the deal with all the Michael Jackson records? Whoever's programming the Muzak must really love The King of Pop. Does hearing "Billie Jean," as I must have at least five times in four days, make people more prone to gamble? Or is this just to scare underage kids out of the casino?
Before Spamalot, I wandered around the Wynn, which wasn't yet open for business the last time I was in Las Vegas. Lovely hotel. Confusing layout. Expensive, pretentious stores. I was in the gift shop buying a souvenir for my mother when a couple came in looking for a candy bar. The man just wanted a Hershey's Anything or a bag of M's or a Snickers…but everything on the candy rack had a French name and a six dollar price tag. I heard his wife say to him, "Just ask them if they have Milky Ways somewhere." And then I heard the man reply, "No, I'd be embarrassed" and he dragged her on outta there.
Shortly after, still roaming the Wynn, I paused to watch a bit of Blackjack, picking a table at random. A lady playing by herself had about two thousand dollars in chips out and the dealer dealt her a soft 15. The dealer had a three showing. The lady scratched her head and squirmed and pondered and finally she turned to me and asked, "How should I play this?" Hey, lady: If you're playing two thousand a hand, you should know how to play it. The answer was to hit but I decided not to get involved. So she decided to stand on it and she won. If she'd hit, she would have lost. Didn't even thank for me for not telling her the right thing to do.
As I think I've mentioned here, ticket prices for Vegas shows have soared. It's not inflation, or at least not primarily inflation. It's that an awful lot of shows have learned that you can raise your prices these days without losing enough customers that your grosses drop. So they raise their prices. But at the same time, a "low end" play has emerged. There are a few booths around the city that sell tickets, like the TKTS operation on Broadway, for half price. A few are reduced by lesser amounts but about two thirds of the shows in Vegas are available at significant discounts if you're prepared to go to one of these booths. You have to go after 11 AM for shows that night and you may not get your first choice…but for example, this morning they had Penn & Teller, David Copperfield, a couple of the Cirque du Soleil shows and The Producers for 25%-50% off. Worth checking out if you're in town. Here's a link.
Lastly, this morning I browsed a few of the downtown souvenir shops and was greatly disappointed that the quality of Vegas souvenir items has risen slightly. If it had risen a lot, that would be great because some of those products would now be good enough to purchase and display proudly. It used to be that they were all so schlocky that you could buy a plastic Elvis Dog Toy or a cheesy Vegas Showgirl t-shirt with fake breasts and give it as a gag or display it for friends to mock. Now, the level falls uncomfortably between those extremes: Nothing was good enough to buy, nothing was bad enough to laugh at. I'll bet sales are down because of it. They really need to work at improving their product…or just undoing the recent improvements.