Atomic City First Impressions

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The plane descended onto an island of light after four and a half hours of traversing sunsets, stars, darkness, and xanax. The orb I had come to visit lit up the skyline as we taxied to a gate that would admit me to Atomic City to start a three week journey through the American desert. The early hours of Late Night had no effect on the city's infamous strip that night or any other, and I took a short stroll among the casinos and circuses with a frozen daiquiri in hand as soon as I was able. But there was work to be done in the morning, and I headed back for three days of labor, pools, and U2. (I will save my comments about the Sphere and the shows for another post.)

I wandered a bit each day I was in the city, my flip-flopped feet black with filth from streets unwashed by rain, the least pedestrian-friendly city I have ever walked. I found myself turning down dumpster drenched alleys or darkened parking garages, sometimes coming to dead ends, before I realized you were actually supposed to walk through the casinos to get anywhere. Marketing takes many forms...

The entire economy of Las Vegas is built on idleness, aside from the thousands of hardworking service industry folks that keep it running. (They are about to go on strike. Go labor!) The goal of the casino industry is to redistribute the wealth of the have nots, who gamble in the hopes of getting rich so they don't have to work, to the haves, who don't work and will never be rich enough to satisfy their own greed. I have no interest in that racket, except to watch it all as a curious observer.

The city is a show itself, with plots and subplots and sub-subplots. Casino owners, mobsters, and politicians are the main characters, many of whom belong to more than one of those groups at a time. Longtime figures, both living and dead (and some who may not quite be either) play prominent roles in the story. A pantheon of deities are still worshiped, with The King of the gods ever present. The shows are sometimes subplots, and sometimes part of the main story, almost religious services, even.

One night I ventured into The Venetian after looking at its fake canals in both disgust and wonder. It has been more than two decades since I've been to the real Venice, but the memory of it has been engraved in my brain. The fake version is terribly accurate. I went inside almost against my will, like something was pulling me in. What I saw was completely unexpected - a full canal running through a shopping mall, gondolas and all, under a fake blue sky dotted with fake fluffy clouds. I still don't understand why it exists, but it is...well, something to see since it's there. After I went home I looked up the cost of flights to the real Venice, Italy. They were cheaper than my flight to Vegas.

This being my first trip to a city I had never had a desire to visit (I was there as a small child but have no memories of it), I had not been prepared for the sheer tackiness of it all. I hated it but was fascinated at the same time. Later we had dinner in fake Paris (which was very good, btw), and then I started to appreciate the kitsch. I actually wanted to see fake Egypt and fake New York and fake Caribbean for the spectacle of it all.

But what I wanted to see most was the real Las Vegas, or at least the one that dwells in the nostalgic mind. I wanted to see the historical remnants of a city that shouldn't exist, for human civilizations weren't meant for deserts. A bunch of mobsters needed a base to operate, so what had been a tiny settlement for railworkers, miners, and courtesans became a major American city. I went downtown, first to the neon sign museum, a kind of graveyard for signs of old, many from casinos and motels that no longer exist. That was the first time I felt enthusiasm for what I was seeing, if only because it was from an era that preceded late capitalism's unbridled nihilism, even in a city that existed solely for money.

 

Then I walked down Fremont Street. Oh, what have they done to history? The famous street is covered with a massive screen flashing images of video games and ads for junk and seizure-inducing swirls of colors. Beneath it sounds a cacophony of idiocy, from the talentless rappers on fuzzy mics to death metal guitarists competing for highest decibel level to soundscan-inspired playlists blasting from every bar and store on the block. National junk food chains inhabit historic buildings alongside neo-drug stores with all manner of modern ways of killing yourself slowly.

I had to get out. So I wandered east, then I wandered some more, past the chic bars and the hip music venues to sketchy corners where people had lost more than a nickel in a slot machine. Then I found it - a part of old Las Vegas that still stood, a road with old motels who had their original signs and stories of millions of travellers who had passed through this desert town. An odd beauty wrapped itself around these old buildings as the October sun created a golden aura.

 

 

Sinking sun. I had to get back before the light faded into the darkness of poverty and the side effects that come to neighborhoods of human suffering.

So I went to the Mob Museum.

(To be continued...)

Here's what Fremont Street looked like in 1987:  

 

 

https://youtu.be/e3-5YC_oHjE?si=Jq3zB1UGYiM0gQMj