Cross Country #16
How to Never be Out of Lux
Rabbi Goldie Milgram and
Barry Bub, MD
Goldie: Hi honey I'm home. Thought we were going to work on being more politically correct.
How do I look? [Little does he know that getting off the plane I was dressed in old t-shirt and hiking boots.....saw a sale in a little airport boutique and came away with a cerulean-blue swishy dress and sun glasses studded with rhinestones [costuming is everything on the stage of life] (all together came in under $49)...changed in the powder room, an airline hostess catching a smoke between planes did my hair while she had the giggles over my retaining a kippah....]
Barry: Or the very impressive Luxor, built in the shape of a pyramid containing all things Egyptian including a recreated King Tut's tomb next to La Salsa Mexican Restaurant in the atrium.
Some say the official bird of Nevada is the Crane - you see cranes all over town towering above the new buildings. I believe the telephone directory is published twice a year because of the steady influx of newcomers.
Spoke to the waitress in the buffet restaurant of the hotel($4.99 for breakfast.) They have upward of 12,000 people a day in this one restaurant alone.
Goldie: Vegas has changed dramatically since I was here as a teen on a USY on Wheels tour of America about 30 years ago. Then it was tawdry, smoky, small and when I dropped a quarter into a slot machine in the bathroom and $250 rolled out, the counselor kept the money saying it was illegal for kids to gamble.
Of course Barry has a way of turning each day of travel into a work of art. He reviews every possible map (not my field), brochure, chats people up and develops a pastiche of the most glorious and most absurd elements of each place we visit. Vegas is no different.
Barry: Our modest room in the Tropicana is $59 a night. At the check in I heard them offering rooms at $49 and apparently the prices are constantly changing. The price on the door in our room lists it at a maximum of $500, no doubt to make suckers who spent $100 feel good.
In front of the hotel they are selling oxygen to the gullible. They have different colored O2, each one designed for a different effect at $5 for 5 minutes. Nothing seems to be a straight deal over here. All over town there are "official" tourist information booths selling "discount show tickets". VIP express lines at restaurants are jammed with tourists. Waiting in an express line is supposed to make one feel privileged? Like arriving 3 hours late flying first class instead of economy. Same principle.
The ultimate gamble for those who find the casino action too tame - 108,000 marriage licenses were issued here last year. Unlike the buffets, there is no wait. 24 hr. a day wedding chapels in every casino and on every street. Weddings can be had for as cheaply as $200 and on credit if necessary. Didn't see any quickie divorces advertised.
Goldie: Brides flounce by at every turn. Divorces are advertised by price not speed, one billboard claimed $39, cheaper than a hotel room.....wonder if they even have Hertz Rent-a-Rabbis? My soul is real queezy at being here....everything leads you back to a slot machine....free drinks are...over by the slots.....free shows are.....over by the slots......magic show takes you....over by the slots. I once lost $15 in nickels gambling at Resorts Casino when it opened in Atlantic City...never gambled with money again (trips to South Africa and the Ukraine...well, we all have our risk tolerances) ...meanwhile, I WANT MY $15 BACK....could'a gone to tzedakah.
Barry: On the other hand, given a day to find my feet, I was able to see beyond the sleazy. The buildings are marvelous extravaganzas. The best entertainment is free. Just to walk around and gawk at the excess of it all. Seeing a simulated volcano erupting at the Mirage, water show at Bellagio, and the sailing ships battle at Treasure Island. I soon forgot the insanity of this place .....wish my granddaughter was here.
Goldie's punning her head off. We decided on a truce ( which lasted about 30 minutes when I asked her what drug would fix the van. Answer: Vangomycin. ((Vancomycin is an antibiotic for you non-physicians.))
Goldie: In the $100 minimum bet pit the guy with a lovely smooth bald head, gold bangle, black leather pants and a diamond earring is sweating bullets. I want to take him for a walk, talk.....anything. He goes to the phone and placates someone who's waiting somewhere.....slides $2000 of chips onto a number............I have to walk away...keep remembering the Holocaust survivor, from a town I long ago lived in, who lost his house and business to the big "g" addiction. It's like a decadent Disney land here, only, instead of paying a flat fee for entertainment, the entertainment is free and the fee is endless for those who get caught up in the slots.
Barry: The ultimate moment was seeing the show called "Mystere".. It left me feeling stunned from the intensity of the experience. If I had seen nothing else in Vegas, this show alone would have made the trip worthwhile. A pearl in the oyster that is Las Vegas.
Goldie: Have to agree. It was one of the best pieces of "circus" theater I've experienced....a hybrid of Greek myth-like motifs, Japanese theater, pre-war German humor, Klez vivacity........the costumes must have been by a Danskin designer on acid.....and the effect is at the level that Fantasia must have taken society in its time.....breathless, joyful, imagination stimulated and a sense of what lies beyond the visibly possible is evoked.
Some of the best and the worst that America can be is reflected here. Most places are fun and operated efficiently, creative
ly and effectively. There's not much smoke anymore, probably due to a combination of technology and changing habits....that's good.
Visually this place is a total stitch......one arrives to see the NY sky-line, which turns out to be a tromp d'oeil building which is a gargantuan casino, another is shaped as a humongous pyramid, another is a duplicate of the Eiffel Tower, yet another duplicates a square in Venice down to the very cracks in the walls and trolling gondolas on winding channels. Water fountains dance on a created lake to classical music......not much skin is shown, on the street one is handed flyers advertising discreet visits available as a room service....
Barry: Having taken in the essence of the place, (including a $4.99 breakfast of steak and eggs for me...Goldie on the other hand is turning orange from all the carrots), I am ready to point Van Go due west and in a few hours hit the California coast where she assures me I can lie on the beach while she works on teaching materials.
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