This is Petula Clark at seventy-five years old singing her 1960s hit “Downtown” and it seems so appropriate for this blog post.

I’ve been after my favorite blogger, VegasRex, to go hit downtown at night. We both have raved about the place often, and I’m not talking in a good way. I think I speak for Rex too, that we thought it was skanky, overridden with crime, just plan scummy all around. The city invested a fortune into ‘upgrades’ that seemed to be nothing more than throwing a new façade on top of a ghetto. However, a reader of my blog had some questions about the place and asked me to take a look. Thinking I probably should not be slamming a place where my experience was a quick daytime drive through; it was time for a real look. After VegasRex mulled this over for a month he decided he was going to venture into the ghetto we call Downtown.

We didn’t start with the Downtown adventure. We were actually headed for the Rio to check out the new version of the free show “Show in the Sky”. On the way there I had Rex check all my camera settings because I’m NO photographer and he is. He made a bunch of adjustments for me to get the best shots for the videoing the show.

Well… that didn’t work out so well. My video camera isn’t exactly a video camera. The sound on it is horrendous. If I get the video posted on youtube, I’ll put a link here. But really, Rex posted his awesome video of the show on his site and that is probably where you ought to see it.

I loved the new version of the show. The dancers were professional and well choreographed. The dancers were actually professional and happy to do their show, unlike the last one. More guys were added, which I find was a plus. How many half naked chicks in Vegas do we girls have to endure, I ask you? This was hot, sexy and loads of fun for the girls. The music was greatly improved. It opened with a Billy Idol tune. I miss Billy Idol.

They still had the big floats rotating around up above with dancers on them. Yeah, all girls, oh well.

The show was fun and I’m looking forward to seeing it again. Hopefully without tiny, Asian women begging me to get down in front in their very broken English. I felt bad about that, but I was going to video it, I couldn’t squat down on the floor. As it was, I wasn’t high enough. I tried to explain it her, but I don’t know how much of what I said was understood. I’m sure the rest of her group didn’t speak English at all. She seemed to be the elected official.

The show came to a close and so did all available memory in my camera. Right on cue. I had installed a bigger memory thingy because I ran out of memory the last time we took this video. Yeah, Rex’s settings. I got the best possible video with my camera, but at a price. Haha Not being a photog, I didn’t plan ahead for just such a disaster. My old memory card is somewhere in the house and I am somewhere on the strip. Lesson learned. I thought it might be in my little red M&M zippered pouch in my purse but it wasn’t.

This is why all the photos you see on this blog today were loaned to me by VegasRex. I have none. LOL He is a very good photographer, so this is truly to your advantage. Actually, the only good shots of me which exist today were all taken by VegasRex. Maybe one day we should have a real photo shoot so I have some good photos of me for the blog. And the dating websites and such.

After the Rio show was taken care of we didn’t much feel like going home yet. We were out, having some fun and so we decided to check off another thing from Rex’s to do list. We went to the car to drive the strip.

All the way to the parking garage we ‘discussed’ the show. He thought the old one was a lot better and I loved the new one. Why? Guys, lots of new guys are in the new show. It is obviously geared towards women this time around. This makes perfect sense to me. Men go where their women go. Men go where they find women. It is in Rio’s best interest to attract women to their casino. This has been the marketing ploy of many nightclubs and bars for probably thirty years or more.

His take on it was something along the lines of women don’t come to Vegas, men come to Vegas to get away from their women. They want guy stuff.

Oh whatever.

We found the car right where we left it. Suddenly, he doesn’t understand why women find penises attractive. Going into great detail about what they look like, he ended his tirade with, “Why would ANYONE want to put that in their mouth?” I had to laugh and I told him to cut it out because I haven’t seen one in QUITE some time so I would not know.

Being the accommodating individual he is, he stopped describing penises and then began to lecture me on the top reasons I should become a lesbian.

Suddenly he yells I should have gotten on the freeway. FREEWAY? WTF? We are going from the Rio to the strip, why the f*** do I have to get on the scary freeway? So, on the freeway we went. Me putting along in my sports car, I had some reenactment of the movie Duel going on the entire mile we were on there…

Once again, I did not agree to become a lesbian. Freeway, ok. Lesbian, sorry, not going there. I’m sure he filed that away in his nasty little brain for a later tirade.

The strip was kind of dead. Really. Here it was a Thursday night while the sun was going down in May. The crowds were thin. The people were more zombielike than touristlike. There was no traffic jam and we cruised right along the strip (With Rex videoing the ride through the sunroof) from beginning at the Welcome to Las Vegas sign to the end after the Stratosphere.

This easy ride on Las Vegas Boulevard was unheard of. Never on a Thursday night as the sun was setting should people ever be able to just cruise down the strip. There should have been traffic jams. It should have taken forty-five minutes for that drive. At the least, a half an hour! Nope. Not a problem. No swearing. I only got cut off by one cabbie. Surely, it is the end of the Vegas we know.

I have a theory. Nobody agrees with me. Well, nobody ever agrees with my wild theories, but sometimes I AM right. We transitioned into this Corporate Control Vegas in some point in the eighties, I think. Anyway, it sucks. Gambling, customer service, and treating the tourists like Kings and Queens is out. It has been out for a long time now, decades. Only a handful of corporation own all those casinos on the strip and their members of the boards don’t even live here. They are not gamblers, they know nothing about Las Vegas and they have ruined our fine tourist destination.

For god sakes, Steve Wynn has even ordered no more free booze to be given to the slot players. ?? It would make a lot more sense to just take out the slot machines, don’t ya think? And he now takes a percentage of the dealers tips and splits them up for management. How eager are you to tip your dealer now? Anyway, this is typical of the attitude of the new generation of casino owners. Everything that was done to loosen up a person’s wallet has been removed. It is now about Brittney Spears being paid to party at a casino nightclub, soaking people for lame to good shows, fine chefs at restaurants, and screwing the tourist with overpriced rooms. Gamblers are hardly catered to. And they wonder why the street crowds have been reduced by half. It is so over.

My theory is this. Corporate control is going to be broken up. As they venture out in to Asia or whatever it is they are quietly building casinos now on the side, they will begin to sell off their losing strip casinos. These casinos will become independently owned and controlled like back in the old days when the mob ran this city. And they will get a hell of a deal on them too.

I believe the next control of Las Vegas will be much like when the mob ruled, but it will be legit. All things will be accounted for and thugs won’t do the security. Of course, security will still be short guys who dreamed of being cops so they could push people around but the force wouldn’t take them, just like right now, but the rest will change.

The customer service will be back. Casinos will be known by their new owner’s names once again. Steve Wynn will probably still be here tinkering in that entrepreneurial way he loves, but his name will no longer be a draw. Probably sooner, rather than later, he’ll unload the Wynn and the new owner will rename it. All the rest of those casinos will be broken off by the corporations and sold one by one.

Ceasar’s Palace might one day be a palace again.

When all of that is fully in play, the housing market here will skyrocket. Everyone will want to have a second home in fabulous Las Vegas where people have class, where you can go out all dressed up and gamble and sit next to a movie star at a blackjack table. And street crime will probably be worse than ever as society further decays and the gap widens greatly between upper and lower classes. But… whatever.

We will, by that time, be at capacity for home building. We only have so much water. A cap will be put on building new homes here within six years or so. Once that cap is in place and the strip is transformed into a classy place again, we’re all going to make a bundle in real estate. I will think back on these days with fondness of scrambling to find the fifteen grand to gut my bathroom. The future will be all glittery and I can’t wait.

So anyway, that’s my theory, and I’m sticking to it. You’ll see. It’ll happen. It’ll probably start happened in a very visible way within ten years. Some of it is already beginning to happen.

Las Vegas Boulevard doesn’t end, it just continues in to downtown with a fork in the road. We took the fork. Wanna go downtown? Sure!!

To be continued after my lunch and my soap opera.

Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city,
Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
How can you lose? The lights are much brighter there…
You can forget all your troubles; forget all your cares, and go
Downtown — things will be great when you’re
Downtown — you’ll find a place for sure
Downtown — everything’s waiting for you

Tags: Freemont Street Experience Las Vegas

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