Chicago and Vegas Vacation

That’s where the wifey and I travelled recently for 10 days on vacation. My son and daughter joined us in Chicago, where we had never visited before. What a great, great city that place is.

 

 

My kind of town.

 

We were unfortunately only there for three days, but crammed a lot into it - the Navy Pier, Second City Theatre, top of the John Hancock Building, the architectural boat tour, and just lots of walking around in general. The best time was at an Irish bar across the street from the Second City Theatre, where we had seen (participated in) a production of Tony ‘n Tina’s wedding. What a hoot that show is. It’s also playing in Vegas, and the wifey and I almost decided to do it again Saturday night.

Back to the bar: Naturally I can’t remember the name of it (I’m terrible with names), but I had a weird experience there. The bar has for many years been a favored haunt of the Second City troupe members, and the walls are lined with caricatures of dozens of the cast members who have gone on to fame on Saturday Night Live and elsewhere. Aykroyd, Belushi, Murray, Candy, Ramis, Radner - they and many, many more are up there.

Also up there on the wall is the guy who played the monster in Young Frankenstein, Peter Boyle. Or at least, that’s who I’d swear it was. Sure looked like him, and everyone at our table agreed, but none of us could remember his name. So I get up and ask the old guy manning the door who had told me earlier he’d worked there for more than 40 years to tell me the guy’s name, he gives me a blank look and asks which one again? I pointed and said ‘that one, the guy who played Young Frankenstein’.

“You mean Peter Boyle?” he asks.

 

Not just another heroin addict. 

“Yeah, that’s the name!”

He says, “Aw, that’s not Peter Boyle, that’s just some heroin addict who used to hang around here in the early ’70s.”

Now, the weird thing was, there’s an Irish bar in Washington DC I try to hit whenever I’m there. The bar’s walls are littered with photos and caricatures of politicians and other famous people who have habited the place over the years. A few years back I was in there with some friends, and we were picking out the names to go with the pictures when we came to one that stumped us. We all recognized the guy, but couldn’t place the name. Same deal. So, while ordering another drink, I ask the bartender to identify the guy, saying, “you know, he was a senator from Connecticut.”

“That guy there?” the bartender asks, pointing at the picture.

“Yeah”.

“You think that’s Lowell Weicker, right?”

“That’s it. Thanks.”

“Aw, that’s not Weicker, that’s just some herion addict that used to hang around here back in the ’70s.”

So, here’s my question to you: is this just some extremely weird coincidence, or is that a gag that doormen and bartenders at Irish bars like to play on their customers? I’m guessing it must be the latter, because the odds against the former are pretty high.

———————————————————–

On to Vegas.

I saw an article last week about the hard times the Vegas tourism industry has fallen on. You couldn’t tell it over the July 4 weekend. The wifey and I always stay at the Bellagio when we’re out there, and it was as busy as we’ve ever seen it. We were there with friends who stayed at the Flamingo, and that place - where I much prefer to play Blackjack over the Bellagio - was bursting at the seams as well.

The restaurants were all full, and the shows we saw - Cirque du Soliel’s “Love” and Bette Midler at Caesar’s - were sold out. Traffic was, as it always is in Vegas, the shits.

So it seemed like business as usual to me. And before any of you jackasses starts in on me about paying good money to see Bette Midler, let me just say I had no desire to do it, but my wifey is a big fan and our friends are both gay men, so by agreeing to make this trip I defaulted in to seeing that show. And, to my surprise, I actually enjoyed it - it’s a hell of a Vegas-style production.   There are more bare breasts, thighs and legs in that show than at your local Popeye’s.

That was Friday night. Thursday night we took in “Love”, which is Cirque’s tribute to the Beatles and their music, and which the wifey and I had seen a year ago when we were out there but were glad to take in again. We had passes to before and after receptions, which was held in a club there at the Mirage that had the most beautiful wait staff I’ve ever seen (yes, they were girls, hopefully heterosexual). I left there with drool running down my chin wondering where in the world all these gorgeous women come from?

Well, they come from all over the damn place. Early Friday evening, I was heading down to the Bellagio casino while the wifey was getting ready to go out. As I head to the elevator lobby on my floor, I can hear a man and a woman arguing loudly in Russian. I’m thinking ‘oh, boy, this’ll be a fun ride down.’ Turns out, it was ok.

I board the elevator with what turns out to be a large, thirty-ish balding Russian guy and an amazingly beautiful, 6′ tall Russian girl who looked about old enough to be my daughter’s younger sister. She’s wearing very high heels, very tight, very short shorts, and a very tiny blouse that reveals about 38 inches of bare midriff. I somehow managed to avoid fainting.

 

 The greatest elevator ride in the history of me.

Anyway, the guy’s basically yelling at her, and she’s yelling back with wild hand gestures, and they’re going in and out of English and Russian - it was like Tex-Mex, only with a Commie accent - every third or fourth word is “fashion show”, “runway”, and other stuff that quickly leads me to believe they’re discussing some aspect of her career. This assumption is confirmed when the girl wheels on me and asks…

“So, how do YOU think I look?”

“ahem…uh, er, ah, huh?”

The guy looks at me and says, “Go ahead, tell her how she look!”

“Well, uh, what do you mean?”

He says, “Tell her if she looks good enough to be in fashion show tonight!”

Now, I’m assuming he doesn’t think so, and she disagrees. So I’m thinking that my answer here could either set this guy off, or set her off, given the obvious tension. But at the end of the day, I just decided what the hell, might as well be honest.

“Shit, man, are you kidding? This is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. She’d look good wearing a burkha.”

Silence. The guy kind of cocks his head at me, and then busts out laughing. The girl bends waaaaay down and gives me a little peck on the cheek and says thanks. Then the elevator opens and off they go, arm in arm, laughing and smiling. No more yelling. Strange stuff.  I have done my good deed for the day.

Saturday we had reservations at the SM Steakhouse at the Wynn, our favorite place in town. Business is so down in Vegas that we couldn’t get in until 10:00, and that was only after they’d had a cancellation and called me that afternoon.

 

So we head over to the Flamingo about 7:30 to join our friends in some pre-dinner gambling. The wifey likes to play roulette, so we stop there first. After about half an hour, she’s winning, I’m even, so I decide to go hit the blackjack tables. For some reason I’ve always done well at blackjack at the Flamingo and lousy at the Bellagio. No idea why, but it just seems to happen that way.

 

Any of you familiar with the place will know that the Flamingo has a pit of $10 - $50 blackjack tables right at the front entrance to the place which looks out over the Strip. During the days there’s a really bad Elvis impersonator who serves as a combo entertainer/pit boss, and at night they have a bunch of cute, skimpily-clad young women who serve as the dealers. Hmmmm, maybe that’s why I do better at the Flamingo.  Or maybe I just think I do.

 

 

 

 

At any rate, I plop down at a $25 table shortly after 8:00 and immediately start winning. The cards are just coming my way, and when they don’t, the dealer busts (and no, that’s not a bad pun). Within 15 minutes I’m a couple hundred dollars up, when I see a couple of girls wearing black g-strings and tiny little bras enter the pit and climb up onto a stage in the center of it. The loud music starts, and they commence to gyrating.

 

I ask our cute, blonde, Romanian dealer whose name is unpronounceable what’s up, and she explains that these are two of the girls who star in the new Burlesque show that has begun running at the Flamingo. Great, so I’m basically sitting in a strip joint with my wifey playing at a roulette table not 30 yards away. This is not going to end well for me.

 

 

 

 These ladies almost got me in trouble.

 

 

So I start to cash in with the intent of moving to another table away from the strippers, but then I think, dang, I’m hot. This table’s hot. The cards are hot. This dealer, well, she’s pretty damn hot. The wifey can’t see the strippers from her roulette table, and technically I was here before they were so it’s not like I went to a strip joint on purpose, and is there really anything wrong with that anyway and wouldn’t my loving wifey, who is the most understanding wife who ever walked face of the earth, understand that I couldn’t leave the table until I had maximized my earnings, and is that really any different that what you’re supposed to do with an IRA or a money market fund?

 

Yes, all of this and much, much more incredibly stupid and self-destructive shit went through my head in about 2.5 seconds, after which I took one more look at our blonde Romanian dealer with the unpronounceable name and placed another $25 bet.

 

30 minutes later, I’m now $400 up and the cards are still coming. Two more strippers have replaced the first two, and the blonde Romanian dealer with the unpronounceable name is still looking awfully good. I feel a hand on my shoulder, and look back into the eyes of my wonderful wifey.

 

“So, Ben (one of our friends) told me you were over here watching the strippers.” He would tell her that.

 

“Uh, yeah, I was… they were… uh, I got here before they did.” The hot Romanian’s eagerly nodding her head to support me, her ample cleavage bobbing up and down in rythm with her head.  I don’t think that’s likely helping anything.

 

“Um, hmmm.” The wifey’s not impressed.

 

“Uh, I’m $400 up.”

 

Suddenly a pair of Jimmy Choo’s are dancing across her mind. “Really? Man, you must be hot.” Yeah, well, I was the very least hot person in the vicinity, but I’ll take whatever rope she throws me.

 

“Yep. I kept intending to leave once the cards got cold, but they just keep on coming.”

 

“Ok, well, I’m up $200 myself, so I think I’ll go play some more Roulette.” Just like that. Had I been down $400, I’d be in the doghouse for a month. Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.  Lombardi was right.

 

The little wifey leaves, and five minutes later the hot Romanian leaves to take a break. New dealer, and the cards quit coming. Just like that. Still, I’ve won enough to pay for dinner, so we got that going for us.

 

It gets to be 9:30, so we head out to catch a cab to the Wynn. As we climb into the cab, Ben says something funny and I let out a loud laugh behind the driver’s head. The driver’s an older guy with some indeterminate foreign accent, and he just starts going off as he begins to pull away.

 

“Hey, hey! Calm down you! Have some consideration - you’re making me a nervous wreck. Show some self-control! You people come out here and just think you can go crazy in our town! Self-control is a good thing - try it sometime!” On and on in a constant stream as he is inching down the drive towards the street.

 

Finally, after about 30 seconds of this nonsense, I’ve had enough.

 

“Hey, guy, stop the damn car.” He does. “Are you talking to me?” Just like DeNiro, I swear.  Scorcese would’ve been proud.

 

 

 

You tawkin’ ta me? 

 

 

“Yes, you with the big laugh and no self-control.” Still going off. By this point I am as pissed off as I’ve been in years.

 

“Look, Bud, I’m sorry I laughed when I got in your car, but you have a choice to make here. You can either shut the fuck up and drive this car to the Wynn and take the fare with a decent tip, or we can get out right here and go get another cab, and you can get back in that hour-long queue. Whatever you want to do is just peachy with me.”

 

He started in again, so we got out and immediately grabbed another cab in which laughing was allowed. The jackass was still sitting there yelling at me as we drove past him. Sheesh.

 

So we get to the Wynn and head over to the Steakhouse. As we approach the entrance, I note a sign that says “No Shorts Allowed”. It’s Las Vegas. It’s July 5^th. It’s still 98 degrees outside at 10 pm. But the SM Steakhouse doesn’t allow shorts.

 

Guess who’s wearing shorts? That’s right, yours truly. No one had bothered to tell me that you had to wear pants to get a steak at the Wynn, and I hadn’t bothered to ask. I suppose I’d always had pants on the other times we’d been there.

 

 

 

 Seriously?  You think your patrons will mind these???

 

 

So I look to the right and see another sign that says “Hostess Will Help You With Any Problems”, and walk over to the pretty young girl who is dressed in a Wynn employee uniform and standing right next to the sign.

 

“I have a problem,” I say, as if it isn’t obvious already.

 

“How can I help you?” she asks.  Ok, this is going well so far.

 

“Well, I made a reservation for our group for a 10 o’clock dinner tonight, but was obviously unaware of the dress code.”

 

“Well, sir, the SM can’t seat you in shorts.”

 

“Yes, I’m aware of that now, but the reservation is guaranteed by my credit card, and I understand there will be a charge if I don’t show up. How can I make sure that charge doesn’t happen?”

 

“I’m not sure - perhaps the hostess can help you.”

 

I do a double-take, first at the sign, and then at her. “You’re not the hostess?”

 

“No, sir.”

 

I point to another girl in a Wynn employee uniform standing just to her left. “Is she the hostess?”

 

“No, sir, the hostess is inside the restaurant.” Ok, this is getting silly.  It’s like I’m living in an Abbott and Costello routine.  Next stop, Vaudeville.

 

“But I can’t go into the restaurant because I’m wearing shorts, right?”

 

“Oh, you can go in to talk to the hostess, you just can’t go in to eat.”  Oh.  Ok.

 

Hooboy. So we go in and explain our situation to the pretty girl who actually is the hostess, and she says “it’s no problem, there will be no charge, and we can even get you a table at the fancy French restaurant right next door.”

 

“So, I can wear shorts to the French place, but not to the steakhouse????”

 

“That’s right, sir.  Or, if you’d rather, you and your party could sit at our bar and have dinner there.”

 

“Seriously?” I ask, looking over to the bar, which is fully open to the dining room.  “So, we can sit on a stool at the bar and eat in full view of the rest of your clientelle, but we just can’t be seated at a table?”

 

“Yes, sir, that’s right.” 

 

And all this time I thought it was the French who were haughty.

 

Viva Las Vegas!