Not A Dollarshort

For amusement only.

At Vegas' Luxor, on our 21st birthdays, we got a rude awakening with regard to the future of our offspring. Apparently, our son will have Ben's nose, my eyes and Tom Jones' hair.

What can I say, Ben and I don't genetically mesh.

It's all digital voodoo, if you ask me.

---

Yeah, but she has a great personality.

Atomic radiation vs. Circus Circus? Tough call.

Excerpt taken from The Players : The Men Who Made Las Vegas edited by Jack Sheehan:

The story of Howard Hughes in Las Vegas is largely the account of an indomitable mind trapped in a worn-out body…

Hughes suffered from a menagerie of phobias, manias, obsessions, delusions, and an inordinate fear of germs. To insulate himself from germs, he shunned handshakes and opened doorknobs with a Kleenex tissue. His eating utensils were wrapped in Kleenex. His imitation-leather recliner was blanketed with paper towels, as were his bed sheets. And yet, he very seldom bathed and never brushed his teeth. While in Las Vegas, he went through a period when he would splash rubbing alcohol on his body in a monotonous ritual of purification. He had a litany of phobias: bacteria, dust, sewage, rats, flies, dirty fingernails, atomic radiation, and the circus at Jay Sarno’s Circus Circus casino.

"The aspect of the Circus that has me disturbed is the popcorn, peanuts and kids side of it," Hughes wrote in a six-page memo to Robert Maheu, the man who ran Hughes’s Nevada operations. "And also the Carnival Freaks and Animal side of it. In other words, the poor, dirty, shoddy side of Circus life. The dirt floor, sawdust, and elephants. The part of the Circus that is associated with the poor boys in town. The part of the Circus that is associated with the common poor man.

"It is the above aspect of a circus that I feel are all out of place on the Las Vegas Strip. After all, the Strip is supposed to be synonymous with a good looking female all dressed up in a very expensive diamond studded evening gown and driving up to a multi-million dollar hotel in a Rolls Royce. No, you tell me what, in that picture, is compatible with a circus in its normal raiment, exuding its normal atmosphere and its normal smell?"

Does anyone like the circus?

Let's go to Vegas!

My father's a bit flighty. He's one of those people who, in moments of excitement (or insanity), will make rash decisions based on how he's feeling at that moment rather than weighing the practicalities of the situation. You know, the kind of person I'm striving to become more like each day.

When they were younger, these rash decisions often involved Las Vegas.

In the middle of the night, my father would frequently feel an overwhelming urge to get in the car and drive from Los Angeles to Vegas.

"Let's go to Vegas" was his battle cry to my mom. This meant, "Clare, pack up the car and tell Mamma and Daddy (my grandparents) that we're going to Vegas."

"Mamma" and "Daddy" entered the mix because we lived with them and they were my sole babysitters.

One night, for some reason, they didn't consider the implications of bringing a toddler to Vegas and loaded me into the car along with their tan Samsonite luggage.

This was my first trip to Las Vegas. I was three or four years old.

Today, with the amusement-parking of Las Vegas, bringing a child to Sin City is as logical as bringing a child to the Grand Canyon. It's all about water-slides and roller-coasters, pirate ships and pyramids, volcanoes and pseudo-European attractions.

In other words, Circus Circus is not the only option.

The novelty of bringing a baby to Vegas wore off the moment my dad realized that he was tired of gambling alone. Despite my mom's protests, they decided to find a babysitter.

Let me take a moment to emphasize that during my entire childhood, meaning before and after this trip, I never had a babysitter other than my grandmother and grandfather. My family is a worrisome lot and, for the most part, believe that you can't trust anyone.

Apparently, my parents decided that, in times of need, (and when free drinks and money enter the equation) you can trust some people. After calling the hotel concierge, my mom told me to "pack up your Barbies."

For someone who still had a pacifier at four, a trip down a dark hall into a strange room was as bad as it gets. Despite my tears and protests, my parents plopped me down on some shag carpeting and told me they would be back soon. Devastated, I imagined being abandoned and left to fend for myself. Where was I, I wondered, and who was that strange woman with the cigarette and the bad dye-job?

Amazingly, my pint-size anxiety attack passed quickly, and the remarkable happened: I found myself playing Barbies with another little girl. A new and exhilarating experience, I was socializing with someone my age.

Ten minutes later. A knock on the door.

Mom: I can't do it! I can't leave my baby alone!

Babysitter: She's fine.

Mom: She's only a baby!

Babysitter: Whatever.

Me: I don't want to go.

Dad: Let's get out of here.

Sure, it was only fifteen minutes. But what a liberating fifteen minutes.

You got to know when to hold them.

I come from a long line of gamblers.

My great-grandfather, Pappy, was known to be pretty loose with his money. In fact, many of the old family stories often conclude with a "What can you expect when Pappy gambled all the money away?" The way my grandparents tell it, Pappy, not the Depression hit our family the hardest.

I only remember two things about Pappy. One, he kept a really wide rubber-band around his wallet. And two, that his theme song was "My Way." You've got to respect someone who actually has and is known to have a theme song. Let alone such a ballsy one.

Time has a way of romanticizing vice. Pappy's gone and his habits, however damaging to the family at the time, are now lovingly related through anecdotes.

My uncle, on the other hand, has a way to go before any of his misadventures are retold in any sort of cherished manner.

I'm kept in the dark about most of my immediate (meaning not dead) family's troubled pasts. What I do know about my uncle is that, when in Las Vegas, he goes to some sort of "special" casino off the strip where, like Cheers, everyone knows his name.

My mother often reminds Ben that I have the gambler blood in me. Although I have never demonstrated any sort of addiction to gambling, Ben also reminds me of this fact whenever I want to buy a lottery ticket. Which, of course, is about once a year.

I don't think the gambling bug skipped me. Instead, I think I learned early on that I'm completely unlucky and will never win anything substantial in my life. I don't win. Period.

I still love Vegas, though.

Finally, it's here! Vegas week (or a couple days) on dollarshort.org