March 24, 2008

When I Knew We Were In Trouble: Detente

I'm really hoping Spencer or Kanu takes a stab at recollecting Saturday night if they ever make it back, because I don't have the adjectives to do justice to The Fremont Experience. I have no flash memories. I'm relying entirely on Twitter feeds, scribbled DiddleBug notes, and camphone timestamps to get by here. The salient point being: As near as I can tell, we hit eleven (11) casinos between Saturday afternoon and Easter sunrise.

The facts are these:

  • After leaving Paris to recharge our various implements of Future Journalism, we set off for the MGM Grand to watch the late games.
  • The boys taught me roulette. I won $20. Kanu lunged forward at the last second with a Battle of Helms Deep possessed gleam in his eye and threw a hundred at the dealer. It died a Viking's death.
  • Spencer got on a bit of a winning streak....at a Kenny Rogers-themed slot machine. Seriously, he found some kind of warp zone that took him to a poker screen and won a ticket for less than a dollar. Which the machines would not redeem for cash due to insufficient funds.
  • If it's not apparent by now who was dragging the other two around to the most ludicrously-themed pieces of gaming apparatus in sight, allow me to relate that he then proceeded to win again at an Enchanted Unicorn slot machine.
  • It's important to note at this point that no one had been drinking since we left Paris, and that the morning's champagne buzz had evaporated. This made crossing the street to get to the Excalibur (in order to talk very, very loudly in Peter O'Toole voices; only this and nothing more) and still ending up on the wrong side all the more alarming.
  • Once we made it inside I made a beeline for my true home, the skee-ball lanes, and fell one ball short of winning a stuffed pony. My notes read: I AM SHIVA, GOD OF SKEE-BALL.
  • Seriously, I'm really, really good at it, and yes, it's harder than it looks.
  • Bat country on the horizon: There's a three hour gap between this and this, wherein we hooked up with two other blogger boyos and left the strip for Fremont Street, which should explain everything.
  • Fremont Street is downtown Las Vegas. I knew I felt at home on Thursday night at the Imperial Palace, but I didn't figure it out until days later: You know the China Knife Bazaar in Gatlinburg? OK, that's basically the Imperial Palace. And Fremont Street is the Pigeon Forge of Vegas. There are all these little trash-ass casinos slammed together on a street with a goddamn LED ceiling over everything (trivia sidebar! ceiling footage created by a former coworker, and I wish I'd known that, SO I COULD HAVE BEEN WARNED that on the hour, all the lights would turn out and forty-foot-tall women in snow parkas would prance around while their tits burst into flame). And once I figured this out, I was home.
  • We were still looking for the worst sports book in Vegas at this point. Jackpot.
  • Kanu, 1:00 AM: "The Four Queens is looking bashful in the corner there. Let's ask her to dance." Four Queens was followed by Binion's, Mermaids, Golden Gate, La Bayou, Vegas Club, and Fitzgerald's. By the time we piled into a cab and staggered back to the diner at the Hard Rock, it was 5:30.
  • The worst sports book was a gem of a discovery, but the worst casino is a different race altogether, and I couldn't pick between La Bayou and Mermaids if my life depended on it. Or set foot in either again to make sure.
  • In one corner: Mermaids, into which we were lured by a sign promising deep-fried Oreos, in which I put my hand in a coin return slot and came out with what I hope to freshly-risen Jesus was a handful of merely cigarette ash. In which the top shelf behind the bar contains blue curacao, peppermint schnapps, two varieties of creme de cacao, and Volkov vodka, which I didn't even know came in a glass bottle. (Spencer: "We're running with the wolves now!" The wife of one of our motley crew the next morning: "Running with five or more wolves, actually.") In which they serve ICE HOUSE ON TAP, which the bartender made fun of us for purchasing, apparently forgetting for the moment that he was being paid to serve it up.
  • In the opposite corner: La Bayou, a dead ringer for your local mall's Claire's store, no lies. We were handed beads and drink tickets on the way in, got about 2/3 of the way into the place, then turned right around and marched back out, and gave the beads back. (Well, I hung mine on a security guard.)
  • Everything from this point on is a three-strip Technicolor Swedish breaks video. Kanu won lots of money. Spencer and I did not. Kanu taught me craps. I won $20 at poker and somehow managed to turn it into quarters instead of singles at the change machine. Spencer double-fisted Red Bull and vodka at 4 AM. We were menaced by a young sociopathic roulette dealer who wouldn't speak or take our money, but would only stand and thousand-yard stare, slamming chips over and over again onto his empty table. And by the time we got back to the hotel it was six in the morning.
  • I fell into bed as the sun was turning the desert sky blue. I've washed my dress and hair twice since then and they both still smell like smoke.
Tune in tomorrow for Sunday: Denouement, or Things To Do In Vegas When You're Lying Prone In A Grassy Median At 4 PM, And Not Because You're Drunk.

Posted by Nastinchka at March 24, 2008 10:54 PM

Comments

I'm terrible at SkeeBall. Mostly because I can't resist going for the 500s in the corner.

Posted by: goathair at March 25, 2008 07:43 AM

Damn, I'm jealous of y'all. The copious gambling losses notwithstanding, y'all sound like you had a great time.

I'm coming out West this fall for Georgia-Arizona State -- maybe we can make a detour to Vegas at some point over the weekend? Pretty please? This Alabama rube has never been there, and I'm looking to lose my Vegas Virginity in a particularly nasty and dirty way.

Posted by: Doug at March 25, 2008 07:55 AM

Done and done, if we're recovered by then. I had never been either, except the airport. This is what we might call the immersion experience.

Posted by: Holly at March 25, 2008 07:57 AM

Reading this feels like being there - only cleaner. Sorry I didn't make it out this time. Next time I'm there.

Posted by: jhc at March 25, 2008 08:20 AM

Wait, I thought you came out ahead? Fess up, baby girl.

Posted by: Stella at March 25, 2008 09:15 AM

The only glaring omission seems to be "The World's Most Liberal 21 Table", which is exactly what the sign over the table says. Vegas Club I think. Hell it entertained all 5 of us immensely for almost 2 hours, and included both residents of Brokeback Mountain On The Sly, Kansas as well at the real life iteration of Subcommandante Wayne. Please re-edit post to include, because you be better with them wordz than mee.

Posted by: Kanu at March 25, 2008 09:56 AM

YES. I forgot about that. And the toe ring thing. I tried to post this at your place but Blogger won't let me.

Stella, I did come out ahead, but my Vegas virginity is such that I was all WOOO TWENNY DOLLA! while Kanu was raking in the hundreds left and right.

Posted by: Holly at March 25, 2008 10:10 AM

No, no- "whoo twenty dolla!!!" is great.

Remember, it's like golf- as gamblers we're not competing with each other, it's just you versus Lord Gamblor, and if you win, ANYTHING, then that is a victory that must be celebrated. {yes, even if you are cashing a voucher for $.02}

And I ain't no superstar. I've had the Orson Swindle Betting Experience: Vegas 2008 Edition before, and I'll have it again.

I'm starting to think the Gods just smiled on me because I had the stupidity to come to their town when sick to begin with, ultimately deciding against the rational and sane decision of staying home and getting better. Somewhere, Bugsy looked down and said "respek". Next time they'll get it all back, and then some. They always do...

Posted by: Kanu at March 25, 2008 11:30 AM

still vastly irked i was not invited to partake and only found out about the hijinks AFTER i bought my ticket to peru. the photo evidence would have been a lot less fricking grainy if nothing else.

also, kanu, your new blog appearance looks like warmed over shite in opera. content is still stellar tho. so it's got THAT going for it.

Posted by: kleph at March 25, 2008 01:14 PM

My sincere apologies for rocking the camphone instead of hauling a tripod and light meter to ELEVEN CASINOS, and any offense it may have perpetrated on your delicate sensibilities.

It's Vegas, man, fuck mise-en-scene.

Posted by: Holly at March 25, 2008 01:17 PM

Holly's an extremely talented photographer, but there are times to huddle in the corner trying to be the guy CAPTURING THE MOMENT, and there are times to live the moment.

Posted by: Shea at March 25, 2008 01:21 PM

This vastly entertaining six-part wrapup, and some jackoff's complaining about the photo quality? I wouldn't invite him either.

Posted by: Stella at March 25, 2008 01:25 PM

:kleph: I know you're different - I can accept that. But this has gone beyond what I'm willing to listen to. I'm vastly irked that you're still whining about not being invited. You're coming off as a petty, crabby, child. Shut it.
Forserious.

Posted by: jhc at March 25, 2008 01:37 PM

Are you four years old? GTFOOHWTBS.

Everyone else is enjoying this.

Get on our level.

Posted by: The Great Barstoolio at March 25, 2008 01:41 PM

whoah. the hive mind is workin hard today. ease up kids, it's all good.

Posted by: kleph at March 25, 2008 01:43 PM

Croupier's are fucking assholes.

Posted by: Unsilent Majority at March 25, 2008 01:46 PM

:kleph: That's rich coming from someone who's handled this with the aplomb of a 7-year old who didn't get invited to a sleepover. Some people went on a trip without you. That's all. Can you understand that? If you would have stopped whining all over the internets 5 days ago, I would not have had to tell you to shut it. So shut it.

Posted by: jhc at March 25, 2008 01:55 PM

@UM: Ours was an utter bitch, but I'm pretty sure I was doing everything wrong. Except for the winning money part. That was all right.

Posted by: Holly at March 25, 2008 02:12 PM

Thanks, Kleph- glad to hear that you like the new look!

Posted by: Kanu at March 25, 2008 02:57 PM


Holly,

Anytime you come back from Vegas with more money than you left with (even twenny dollah), you did well.

You said Kanu taught you craps; did you shoot the dice? Did you win?
It's an old craps superstition that females who have never played before are lucky their first time shooting.

I don't see any comment on the Excalibur sports book, which I consider to be the best in Vegas,simply b/c they don't have the odds board cutting into the middle of the television screens - and they have comfy chairs.
Did y'all visit there?

Also, I don't think the Four Queens sports book can beat the Ellis Island Casino & Microbrewery sports book. It's located just off the Strip, past The Westin.
The book is a small room, with the boards with placards, and three elementary school chair-desks, facing six television sets.
It makes a good place to wait for the host to call you to eat in the Ellis Island restaurant, which is home to a famous $6.99 steak dinner, though (used to be $4.99 and was considered the #1 deal in Vegas).

Posted by: Beergut at March 25, 2008 05:12 PM

Can't have possibly done lasting damage during one Tweekend in Vegas (See what I just did?), right?

Also, I'm Bruged all over. Glorious.

Posted by: Big Daddy at March 25, 2008 09:44 PM

@Beergut--

I did not play. Just stood there being lucky, and hammered. We went to Excalibur but I honestly don't remember whether we hit the book or not.

Posted by: Holly at March 27, 2008 08:54 PM
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