Las Vegas is strange.

If you're ever in Las Vegas, you should definitely check out the jam session they have at the Stratosphere every Monday night. If you have at least some appreciation for music of the past you'll enjoy yourself.

That being said, I wanted to write a blog post about my general feelings about this place. Let me say first that I enjoy myself every time I come out here, and I'll do it again and recommend others to visit as well - but Las Vegas bothers me on a fundamental level. It really is a world unto itself, and not for the obvious reason of widespread gambling, whoring and boozing all hours of the night. After all, that description can pretty much be applied to New Orleans. Walking into the Wynn hotel & casino, the most recently built of the megacasinos which cost a billion dollars, I realized what was at the heart of everything that bothers me here. It's completely artificial, in every single aspect of the city. Always has been.

They built a city in the middle of a scorching desert, miles and miles away from the body of water they suck all the city's water from. Obviously, no city's growth is 'natural' in the true sense of the word, but Las Vegas is far worse than any I've ever seen. Driving around here for three weeks taught me that pretty well. I realized, walking around the Strip by myself on a Saturday night, that I was 'sight-seeing' in Vegas - a laughable concept, really, because I was walking through a mini-mall full of stores like Louis Vatton and Dior. Everything that you can see as a sight within the city is commercial and devoid of culture. Sure, there's plenty of entertainment, but I don't think anything produced in the city is done for art's sake. Maybe Cirque du Soleil. And the jam session I just mentioned. Even in New Orleans, where the main occupation for citizens and tourists alike is getting drunk, there are still fantastic examples of historic architecture, jazz museums, art galleries, and other forms of culture.

Now, there's some gorgeous scenery if you go outside the city. Mt. Charleston, the Valley of Fire, Lake Mead (although you can see how far Lake Mead has dropped in the last 15 years or so and that's just depressing). But the city itself, the city that has the biggest tourism industry in America, the city people come from all over the world to see - what's there to see, but the most flagrant example of America's waste, excess, and fuck-it-all attitude?


ps- to answer the question, I'd prefer to BE Jack Nicholson and then have sex with Meg Ryan.