Las Vegas Day Drinking

You know what is terribly disappointing?  Meeting famous people.  Or even semi-famous people.  I mention this not only because I lived through it this evening, but because it occurs to me now that there is big industry in this town (and on this week’s Seven) in doing just that- allowing you to brush up against or even speak with a “celeb”.  But the dirty little secret of the evening is that I was not drunk.  Nor even pleasantly buzzed.  I know, I know, I’ve been slacking, so perhaps I deserved all that I got, after all, they say you get what you give, and the DayDrinker sans alcohol probably richly deserved being totally disappointed in an encounter with a writer whom up until the moment I actually met him face to face, I admired greatly.  I was asked after I expressed my disappointment if this would change my experience of his writing, and no, I don’t think that it will, in the same way I believe people ought to have stood for Elia Kazan’s artistic achievement when he won the Oscar, regardless of his politics, I will still find this writer’s stories witty and charming, even if he, himself, was not. 

But I guess that’s life, the mystery is always better than the reality.  The idea of the VIP room is better than the room itself.  The thought of being grown-up seems like a good one, until you realize there is no guidebook to help you muddle through, and in fact every “grown-up” you meet is really just like you and hoping desperately that you won’t figure that out. 

But, as part of my jumping back into flowing or whatever, I will end on a positive note: there has been only one “celebrity” encounter that has not profoundly (or completely superficially) disappointed me: of all people, Pete Wentz, a surprisingly articulate (and incredibly short, like most of ‘em) gentleman with whom I had a brief conversation about the works of Hesse and the meaning of life… until his PR agent reminded me it was time for him to pose with his branded birthday cake.  Ah Vegas.  Ah “celebrity”.  Ohhh cake… best idea I’ve had all day. 

The DayDrinker had the most illuminating conversation with an old friend this afternoon in which the concept of being in the universal flow was discussed.  The old friend has apparently jumped into the flow and things are now working out just swimmingly for her.  Well done, old friend.  The DayDrinker on the other hand has obviously lost mojo as the seven second challenge at Todd English’s PUB restaurant at City Center laid me low. 

In fairness to me, the strawberry beer probably was not the best choice for chugging.  Thick and sweet and refreshing yes, easy to glug not so much.  Even the eyebrow plucking bartender from West Virginia (shout out Tudor’s Biscuit World- my hips continue to thank you) agreed.  Not that it stopped him from charging me $14 dollars for the brew.  Overpriced?  Perhaps, but at least I made up for it later with nickel PBRs!  Quite possibly the best deal in town. 

But back to this flow business.  I feel like there have perhaps been times in my life when I was smack dab in the middle of this universe current, happily buoyed along towards my destiny, but somewhere along the ride, the wheels came off the wagon, the train fell off the track, I jumped the shark to mix all the metaphors in one fell swoop. 

Is it tragic that I’m fairly certain I peaked in 8th grade?  But then again, I couldn’t drink in 8th grade.  Not during the cool spring afternoon at the marble topped bar at PUB.  I know this for a fact, as Jason (of eyebrow plucking and West Virginia fame) actually carded me when I ordered.  Normally that might have been kinda nice, make me feel young again- remind me of those happy days at the top.  But, of course, I had managed to leave my id in the car, which was in the self-park, which as anyone who has attempted the ludicrous adventure of self parking at City Center will tell you is about five and a half miles out in East Siberia or West Kansas, take your pick- they do however leave ample room between the cars for no apparent reason other than to frustrate anyone who may be trying to park (or retrieve one’s id) in a hurry.  I mean really City Center, if there is one thing that Vegas really actually does remarkably well it is parking structures (see Wynn & Encore for the way a parking structure should work). 

I’m not sure how one plugs back into the universal current, but I’m going to order another quarters’ worth of nickel PBRs at PUB and give it some serious consideration.

Your humble correspondent took a day off yesterday and decided to see how the other half lives, waiting for the sun to set before imbibing.  And wow, was it a colossal waste of a perfectly good day.

Turns out a half the “rock stars” of yesterday and tomorrow are on the wagon, so they’re only drinking energy drinks and water, which on the one hand means more free bottle service vodka for me, but on the other hand makes me wonder what life must have been like before images were so carefully curated.  Gig here, personal appearance there, can’t be seen drinking, can’t smudge the eyeliner, blah, blah, fuckity blah. 

Here’s the dirtiest little secret in Vegas: the VIP rooms are really fucking boring. 

To be fair, I’ve not sampled them all, and to be fair I have no idea what constitutes “fun” for porn stars, quasi rock stars or the people who hope to profit off them, so perhaps they are actually having a grand old sober time.  All I can say is that the Asian bachelorette party in matching white boas seemed to the naked eye to be having a much better time on the general dance floor than anyone was having in the back room or even in the bottle service areas off or above the dance floor.  It was kinda like, and I promise this will be the only time I make reference to this movie, but it really was like that scene in Titanic where you start in the stuffy upper deck where the corsets are too fucking tight and end up in the steerage section where the pints are being chugged, jigs are being danced and then Kate Winslet does that stupid balancing on her toes thing, Vegas is an awful lot like that (come to think of it including the stupid balancing act).

All of which is to say that the DayDrinker got more than my fair share of free booze last night and somehow still managed to leave feeling cheated.  Hmmm…  I wonder if this is how the tourists feel?

I feel like I ought to end on a high note, so I will say this, the Crazy Horse 3 is a strip club, but that notwithstanding, they have a pretty great front room for bands to play and last night the Paper Dolls tore it up.  For a minute there this homesick Los Angeleno felt like I was on the Strip of the Sunset persuasion.  And when the dichotomy of the half naked chicks rubbing on cheesy guys on one side of the wall and this crazy awesome lead singer chick rocking out on the other side got too much for me, I just said “Jack and Coke” please and good old Captain Jack got me through the night, that and the fact that Frank Gehry’s favorite building on the Vegas Strip is the Excalibur.  That slays me.  There’s a man who understands Vegas better than Vegas understands itself. 

In the lobby of the Howard Johnson’s lives a surprisingly magically delicious place.  They tell me that HoJo’s have always been known for their delectable dining establishments.  My own mother once waitressed at one such place, in fact, she missed Woodstock because she had to work a double.  But that’s neither here nor there, she can’t stand mud, she wouldn’t have held up well anyway. 

More to the point, the best mojito in Las Vegas is to be found at the Florida Cafe in the Downtown HoJo’s.  Now, to be fair, you do have to be sure that it is the male bartender whose name escapes me who makes it for you, his is the best.  But even if you get stuck with the other lady who doesn’t use the homemade simple syrup and puts the bitters in at the end, it is still better than most of the mojitos you will find in this town.  Plus they have conga drum barstools and the best Cuban food in town too.  There are those who argue for that other Cuban cafe place over on Flamingo.  They are wrong. 

Now, the DayDrinker has got something in mind, and while I know that it is not particularly popular and that as someone who drinks in the middle of the day I have not perhaps the sturdiest of soap boxes on which to stand, but all the same, I just have to wonder about all this quasi-prostitution going on in this town.  There’s the straight up prostitution, evidence of which is literally strewn about:

and then there is the quasi-prostitution that was discussed in the latest New York magazine in their article about Rachiel Uchitel and bottle service girls (to be clear, since she apparently was very specific on this point, RU is NOT a bottle service girl).  Look, I get it, making $500,000 a year for being seductive is seductive.  But reading some of the blogs and even just that article makes you wonder why it is that we continue to put women in this role.  A new list was just published on the highest paying woman’s positions (missionary not so much, but apparently doggie style cleans up) and what was startling was the fact that women still on average only make .75 cents to the male dollar. (http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/20/news/economy/highest_paying_jobs_for_women/) 

WTF?!  And I don’t think I’m alone in saying that the media bias against Hilary would never have flown had she been a member of any other marginalized group. 

We laugh when Iranian clerics suggest loose women cause earthquakes, we think ourselves so evolved when it comes to women, and yet Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh (three predominately Muslim nations) have all had female prime ministers, not to mention Israel, the UK and about a zillion other nations and yet we can’t seem to get even a female vice president.  I guess I just wonder what these women would be, could be doing if they weren’t busy escorting overpriced bottles of vodka.  As a free market believer, I’m trilled the economy is able to support this industry, I’m happy these women are able to make money.  But one has to wonder about some sort of overarching societal good that is perhaps being overlooked, that perhaps we might want incentivize other activities?  That and it really does make one wonder what those chicks were doing in the Woodstock mud, writhing around for “woman’s lib”. 

But in the mean time, I will climb down off the crumbling soap box, back onto the conga drum and indulge in Cuba’s best and still mostly legal export (depending on where you drink it…I’m looking at you glorious bar in town, you know who you are.)

There are certain things that are really quite fabulous about Atomic liquors: they hold the oldest continuous liquor license in Vegas, their already quite reasonably priced beverages ($1.25/can of Busch) are even more reasonably priced during their conveniently timed Happy Hour: 7am-11am, during which they can be had for $1, on this particular occasion, their parking lot was empty as we were the only ones who had driven to the bar, and I gotta say, I’m still a sucker for a bar that buzzes you in- it’s like a poor man’s VIP experience. 

That being said, Atomic Liquors was a somewhat sobering drinking adventure.  At the end of the day, or even at the beginning of it, as the case may be, we are all just looking to get through the day with a modicum of dignity and if we’re lucky a warm place to spend the night and if we are even luckier, a nice cold one to help us get there.  

Leaving the bar, I picked up a brochure that was one of a stack left out on the corner, it was for a job with the census, the only thing you needed to apply was a passport or baring that, a valid ID from column B AND a document from column C.  From the looks of it, these people weren’t exactly passport holders.  

It is easy to wallow, or else to get swept up in the glitz of the Strip, but sometimes it is good to get a little perspective, Atomic Liquors is good for that.  The place got its name because they used to go up on the roof and watch the mushroom clouds.  I used to wonder about that when I was little, about how they knew that once they set off that first chain reaction it wouldn’t overwhelm them and the entire universe with it.  I guess to a certain extent, they didn’t, and they just did it anyway.  Looking around the Atomic, it is easy to see how sometimes things do just overwhelm. 

But at the same time, at least there is an Atomic, with bartenders who get a kick out of making you jump when they blast the buzzer to let you in, old fashioned Heinekin signs and a dedicated Veterans corner.  The jukebox screetched “Welcome to the Jungle”, ain’t that the fuckin’ truth.   

There is this strange pull in America between breaking the rules and being drones.  I mean the Pilgrims broke all the rules running away to America so they could be more strict in their religious practices. Now normally this type of tension only really annoys me when I have to take my flip flops off at the airport (I’m just waiting for the class action suit for when people start getting foot herpes or whatever nastiness you just know is all over those foot pads) and I get over it, understanding the TSA for the grand job creation scheme that it is. 

BUT when this bullshit gets in the way of my enjoying a quality cocktail, well, that I cannot stomach.  Take for example my situation yesterday.  Being the cultured DayDrinker that I am, I had gone to take in the artistic offerings of the Imperial Palace casino: Human Nature (the four white Australians who sing Motown hits), Diva Las Vegas (Frank Moreno and his merry drag queens) and of course, the Rockhouse Guitar (80oz of frozen alcoholic slush in a plastic guitar shaped drinking vessel).

The day started okay enough with a solid Mai-tai during the show, but then, in the break, I thought we’d take advantage of the free entry and drink at Rockhouse.  The bouncer was delightful, the music sing-a-long-able, and the bartendress a fucking bitch on wheels.  Visibly holding my drink coupons, I ordered a vodka redbull (the night was young) and a Jack and coke (what else?) she took my order, came back, hands full of glorious alcohol and said “Oh, you can’t get redbull with that.” then she paused and added “Or Jack.  You can’t get Jack with that either.”  “Ok, what can I get?” “anything just not name” “Ok, so I can get I get a whisky and RC Cola and a vodka cranberry?” Now up until this point, annoying yes, but infuriating, well, after you’ve been in Vegas more than a week, no. 

BUT THEN, THE BITCH DUMPS THE TWO PREMIUM DRINKS IN THE TRASH!!! 

WTF?!!?!?! 

She tosses the drinks and pours new, bottom shelf drinks, hands them to me and leaves for greener pastures. 

Look, I get it, the coupons are only for certain drinks (not that they specified that on them, but whatever), and I get it, you should tell me that before I order, but if we both somehow manage to get to the point where you have poured the drink, you would rather dump it in the trash than give it to me?!?!  In what fucked up universe does that make sense?  How does that help your bottom line or your reputation?  Are you just following orders?  Did you ever stop to wonder if these orders made any sort of sense? 

ARGHHHHHHHHH 

I hope she gets that hideous toenail fungus I hear is going around at the Vegas airport.  And that she doesn’t hear about the class action either. 

For the record, I still tipped her.  I probably shouldn’t have- how is she ever going to learn if I continue rewarding this sort of behavior? 

But, putting aside the bitterness of the beverage, I must say that the Divas Las Vegas fucking rocked it!  If you want a really fun night out, go see them. 

So here’s the thing about Fremont- make sure you are drunk.  It’s not hard to do, nor is it expensive, so get drunk and then you will find Fremont more than charming.  Tonight was country night at the Experience and I gotta tell ya, I’m here tonight to stick up for “America”.  I must admit that when we first arrived and we went to Mermaids for deep fried Oreos and a deep fried Twinkie on a stick and I wasn’t yet drunk (daydrinker got a late start, but drinking on Fremont anytime of the day is the equivalent of daydrinking anywhere else) the sight was somewhat jarring- overweight people chowing down on deep fried food, made by a large woman with a fresh tattoo… like i said, not particularly confidence inspiring.  

But after a 99 cent frozen margarita that tasted like liquid key lime pie and the rockin’ sounds of Luke Bryan (All my friends say) and Miranda Lambert life got much better.  And I must say in defense of “America” that “America” is actually way more diverse and polite than what you might expect.  If the Strip is home of the “do not touch or breach the rope” than Fremont Street is home to everyone, come on down, we won’t judge you- you’re old, but you still want to have a good time?  Come on down!  You’re in a wheel chair, but you still want to dance, go for it, we’ll dance around you and your chair, you’re ugly but you want to dress up and go out, that’s cool, it’s not your fault!  I saw the tallest woman I’ve ever seen tonight, along with the cutest Mexican three year old on his dad’s shoulders, everyone was more than polite, smiling at each other, whether they had four beers, like the dude standing next to me (one in each pocket and two in one hand) or four teeth, like the dude standing next to him trying to negotiate for one of those four beers, everyone was dancing, toe tapping, singing along, hooting and hollering and snapping cell phone pics.  

Black, white, hispanic, mixed, cowboy hat sporting, mexican mullet wearing, dressed up white girls drinking beer from the plastic boots at the Golden Nugget, whatever and whoever you were, you were guaranteed to have a blast tonight down on Fremont- with no judgement from anyone.  And the best part was that these people haven’t gotten the memo that it’s cool to pretend not to care about anything, so they actually sang along and cheered and demanded an encore, not like the whimpy crowds one occasionally encounters at “hip-er” places that are too cool to scream for their band. 

And then, just when I thought the evening couldn’t get any better (after that surprise visit by Blake Shelton and his Hilbilly Bone (hehe, or should I say yehaw!), I discovered Tilt at the corner store.  

Awesome.  

Once again, another classic day brought to you by Las Vegas. 

And for a moment there, the Bible thumpers had me nervous: 

But then good woman Miranda reminded me that “Jesus drank wine” and I felt much better, after all, I was in good company. 

ps: Luke Bryan “All My Friends Say”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PatJKQwxN5k

Blake Shelton “Hillbilly Bone”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGoiiwxTWeE

Miranda Lambert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxWEwgYfYGU

For the record, I have been saying (both drunk and sober) for a long long time that Goldman Sachs was full of it.  So for you, burly stockbroker who sat next to me on the plane and got all upset because you found it unconscionable that I could say such a thing about your beloved GS, please let me be, if not the first, at least the first on this blog to say: I fuckin’ told you so bro. 

Maybe if someone had been hanging on the stoop down on Wall St, this bullshit never would have happened… I’m just sayin’…

Today as part of my ongoing quest to find the perfect high alcohol malt beverage (a big plus if it happens to have some energy drink properties too- I’m dreaming of you Four Loko…) I decided to go for the 99 cent deal at the Mighty Mart and take a big gulp of “Earthquake”. 

It being such a lovely day (yes, they do exist here in lovely (and okay fine, fabulous) Las Vegas) I walked to the market.  It just seems like the whole town comes alive on days like this - the tire shop broadcasted a “have a nice weekend Tom!” message over their loudspeaker to Tom as he was leaving work, the drunk guy crossing LVB complimented me on my shirt, (so I must be doing something right), even the drug runner on his bike gave me a smile as I passed and, as I walked into the Mighty Mart, I heard some guy offer to buy his friend Luv-it across the parking lot “Come on dude, such a nice day- my treat.” (I was tempted to ask for some Luv-it myself, but in that parking lot, I was afraid he might misunderstand me.)

In keeping with the spirit of this glorious day, I decided to go total WT on the neighborhood and eat grilled hot dogs and guzzle my Earthquake in the front yard.  But, just to keep my father from spinning all the way to China in his early grave, I did pour the beverage into a more suitable jam jar glass.

Why don’t more of us “stoop” these days?  When I lived in DC people used to do it all the time, and when I lived in Kentucky, people had full on Laz-y boys on their front porches, but I don’t really see it at all here and that’s a pity, cause the mailman sure was nice, assuring me that he loves the desert and can’t wait to walk around all day in the three digit summer swelter, I saw a cool old orange carmengia, and an exceptionally large woman piloting an oversized red pickup blasting light country (God I love it when stereotypes are true!). They say that a good stoop culture can help prevent crime and clean up neighborhoods.  I remember reading somewhere that the murder scatter plot in Vegas is fairly consistent, that is to say that you have just as good a chance being killed in this town downtown as you do in Summerlin or Green Valley, so may I recommend more people head out to the front lawn, or gravel pit as the case may be, and, after carefully chaining your bench to a conveniently placed tree (that is location dependent) sit down, open a cold one and enjoy the all the free charms your neighborhood probably has that you never knew.

And yes, for anyone still wondering, though from the over comma-ed and parenthesis laden treatise above you could probably deduce that yes, indeed, the Earthquake was at least a 7.0. 

For a while now, the Champagne Cafe has haunted me, always coyly peeking out from the side of an otherwise boring stretch of Maryland Pkwy.  I mean to stop in, but never have.

Until today.  And a Jack and Coke later boy am I ever glad I did! 

I think the best part about it though, is the 24 hour “Happy Hour”.

Once you get a little tipsy, the happiness flows easier in Vegas.  I think the Vegas thing that makes me most happy even when I’m not day drinking is something I was reminded of driving home from the Champagne Cafe when I saw this vanity license plate: MOCWBEL.  The plate is of course a reference to the SNL “more cowbell” skit and I am of course making reference to the wonderfully wacky wall of Walkin at the new City Center. 

There’s not a whole lot to recommend City Center, unless you happen to be a fan of mid-sized American city airports (or exceptionally good pastry, but you can get that at the Bellagio too), but what City Center has that no other place in the whole entire universe has is a whole wall of Schnabel created crazily shellacked Walkin portraits like this one:

I’m not kidding, there’s an entire wall of these things. 

Ah Vegas. 

Ah Walkin. 

More cowbell.

More Jack.

Stuck inside the convention center, the Drinker was worried for a moment that the daytime hours might slip away before a beverage could be obtained.  And then I realized I was in Vegas and had only to look a little closer to find the overpriced alcohol which today comes at us in the form of this $7 can of Jack Daniel’s “Downhome Punch”.  While tasty and delicious, it was a little lacking in the alcohol department which was quite a pity as Phillip Bloom bailed on us and left us with someone else who, while I suspect he is a very nice gentleman, was not the most engaging of speakers, but we stuck it out for the free Corona we were promised. 

  Victory in our (day) time! 

My mother once told me that the magic of Sanskrit was that it captured perfectly the vibration of the object in the word, so that if one focused properly and chanted the Sanskrit for an object, one could in fact manifest it, hence the chanting of mantras looking for God or peace or what have you. 

Of course the trick is that you must know what it is you are hoping to manifest before you can know the word and so create it.  And a neat trick that is too.  (Don’t judge, I know the Day Drinker is not alone in my extended adolescent existential angst.)  But, on Sunday, we knew exactly what we were hoping to conjure: the ever refreshing Paloma, mixed to perfection at Tony’s birthday party, by lovely busty ladies behind the backyard bar. 

The Paloma was a new beverage for the Drinker, comprised of salt, tequila, and Squirt.  I’m sure there are other ingredients, but I must say between the Patron sponsored Saturday night party and the mindless midday Sunday drinking, the Drinker had consumed rather more than my fair share of tequila, and we all know what wonders that does for one’s memory (and selectivity). And besides, let’s be honest, it is much more fun to just say Squirt.  Sounds so dirty, doesn’t it? 

I’ll have another Squirt please.  

And in the mean time, until my memory returns, I did pick up Tony and Mary’s lovely new book: The Modern Mixologist full up of positively delightful drink recipes so one need not wrack one’s brain for the Sanskrit, but just stumble to the corner store for mini-bar bottles… 

Oh, and thus far our favorite quote from the book: “He who never takes risks never gets to drink champagne”.  We think that walking to the White Cross qualifies as a risk and therefore we feel even more justified in our Andre consumption!