If you are looking for honesty, you’re in the right place. If you are looking for reviews by people paid to write them, that are butt kissing to get free stuff or are afraid the mob will get them for telling it like it is, you may want to read someone else’s magazine. Our goal is to get some of these places mentioned in this edition to either become what they say they are or go back to the way they used to be so the public can enjoy themselves once again.
I realize this is the Jerry Springer generation and the smarter of our populous tend to use Oprah as a yardstick to measure their belief system, but come on, we need a break here! We shouldn’t be treated as walking mats, we pay your bills! Bring back the Vegas we loved! Either the staff ourselves visited these locations or we sorted through the several emails about each location via our affiliates, got a consensus and ran with the best one (no, submissions from the same people again and again did not count). If the commentary is in quotes, it was submitted…
Almost 50 million people visited Las Vegas last year. 20% came for conventions. Around 250,000 got married (some by Elvis). The Las Vegas area (including Henderson, Laughlin, Mesquite and Primm) has nearly 250,000 hotel rooms and is growing daily. Las Vegas itself has almost 200,000 alone. Hotel occupancy averages 95 percent annually and Las Vegas is the 4th most popular vacation destination in the world. It is also the number one summer destination in the United States and the number one place for gambling on Earth!
Over 1000 flights a day carry more than 4 million visitors a month through Las Vegas making it one of the top 5 busiest airports in the world too. This town boasts 9 of the 10 largest hotels anywhere. The average annual temperature in Las Vegas is 66 degrees humidity around 30% (including rain days). Las Vegas has over 1000 taxis and limos and 100 bus routes. Over 2 million people call Las Vegas home and it's still considered a small town! Now you know why half our time is spent in Los Angeles! It's crazy to be in Vegas all the time! Coming to visit? Maybe you should know the low points along with all the high rammed down your throats before coming here.
Oh, it’s a great city, a lovely town, a fantastic place to live but at the same time, it is not all you think it is. Then again, maybe it is... Please, by all means, send us your reviews, tell us your stories... I think Las Vegas is a town that is full of Mormons (not exactly bad people), street gangs, casinos, strippers, elderly people, tourists and other folk blindly blowing their hard earned money much faster than they can walk or think. Personally, we like Mormons and elderly people. The crime, crowds and slower than snail traffic (on the street and in the casinos) can pack up and leave anytime it likes.
Where did Vegas come from? How did it crop up in the middle of the desert? Is it better now than it was 50, 40, 30, 20 or even a mere 10 years ago? There is no telling. Is it a bad thing that when I first drove through here in 1990 that the only thing I had to base an opinion on was Circus Circus or was that a blessing in disguise? In 1991, almost a year later, I spent a weekend here at the Las Vegas Hilton. The time I spent there and hanging out at the pool was one of the best times of my life. The Mirage was the hot topic from Vegas to any of the other 4 corners of the planet. What a site! An actual volcano was going off outside of it!
We went to the Shark Club and a place down on Flamingo past Maryland Parkway that is most notorious for Tupac Shakur being a partial owner sometime after that. It wasn't for another year, 1992, that I came through again, stayed at the Dune's and didn't leave for a full year. There wasn't much here at the time. Treasure Island was new. The Stratosphere was just being started. The Dunes was being blown up. Times were changing. The MGM, the Luxor, Lord, was the growth going to stop? The waitress with the big hair, bug eyed glasses and big butts migrated 'dow town' as a tent of metal was built over Freemont Street.
Strippers from all over the country came to work in the 'gentlemen's' clubs and to 'moonlight' as cocktail waitresses on the 'Strip' too. At one point they say the big names in entertainment, the stars that faded, only had a chance if they came to Vegas. Now we have the biggest names anywhere performing and others, who yes, fizzled a bit, came here to revive. Nothing has changed, but it's not the same place it used to be. We dream of the days that the Rat Pack went from club to club and partied all night long and are insulted that Hollywood comes here to act as though they live here.
We are proud of our city, but at times, a little embarrassed. And why shouldn't be? What's left of real entertainment has spent their lives trying to be Elvis, Sinatra, or anyone else who has made a name here before them.
As the hero of many, Joe Bob Briggs has said:
"You might be interested to know, then, that the favorite Las Vegas magician among other Las Vegas magicians is not Lance Burton--although he's considered brilliant--and not Penn & Teller-- although you have to go back 130 years to Harrigan & Hart to find a comedy team that original--and certainly not Siegfried & Roy, whose official portraits make them look increasingly like pasty-faced cryonic cyborgs, preserved from 1936 Berlin. So they did save Hitler's brain! No, the magician's magician in Las Vegas is the guy who does the afternoon show at Harrah's, and his name is Mac King."
Our favorite magicians in town here today are supposedly imposters of themselves. Our showgirls are actually men. Well, let's just get say, that ain't right....
