WCS 22: Dad Rock, Far from The Strip

Las Vegas has puzzled me for so long. Maybe I've approached it wrong

Ah, Super Bowl Monday. A time for recollection and appreciation. Just now the golden memory of Andre Rison and and Lisa “Left-Eye” Lopes being showcased on Monday Night Football passed through my mind.

Wait, that shit never happened.

Must be the new Vegas bud I just bought. More on that bud to come.

No, the recollection that shall drive this Sin City newsletter comes from the suburbs—the west side of Portland to be exact. Lately when I’ve been a pedestrian in Tualatin and Beaverton and finding myself wondering whether the workers who poured the concrete for their sidewalk realized how little their work would be used?

The same way that a local entrepreneur might think twice before starting a mid-level restaurant without including a gambling component, no sales or support person in Las Vegas is going to let you feel less than their guest. It’s just not what this place is about.

The sidewalks in suburban Las Vegas—near Interstate 215 and the Summerlin area—got their purposes fulfilled by me quite a bit this week. In LA, pedestrians are regarded as minor annoyances, like gnats. Here—a city of profound hospitality—we’re more of a human spectacle. A walking human is meteor shower rare.

I could have fooled myself into thinking I was walking a chilly San Fernando Valley, until the landscape’s detail refuted that accusation robustly.

Most of my Big Game weekend was spent in this part of Vegas. Being on The Strip with all of the tourists is a thing I’ve done, and I’ve never been able to crack the code of this sprawling town. The only fact that I absolutely know about The Strip is that its owners don’t want weed there. They’re hip to the fact that we don’t spend money the same way as drunks. Stoned people don’t impulse spend at the craps table, in The Strip’s stores, or for Las Vegas sex.

On Saturday afternoon I visited The Strip. The weather was crisp and the casinos packed. Already an anti-abortion activist had ascended The Sphere to publicize his protest and NFL fans were wearing team jerseys in a volume that I find disconcerting. Game on; these people could be capable of anything.

I wish I could say I was listening to Immortal Technique or even Yasiin Bey’s recent Drake critique while experiencing the Vegas that the old sage Victor Wembanyama described as “the closest thing to a dystopia” on Earth. Instead, filling up my ear holes was The White Album, world-changing music that changed into sonic wallpaper. White Dad Rock. (Black Dad Rock)

I went to the big sports book. People watching a wall of random college hoops didn’t appear to be having fun. Of course the dead-eyed and repetitive slot-machine players were the worst.

I wanted to light up some cannabis so bad, but settled for buying a pint of Guinness from the eponymous store at the Mandalay Bay casino/mall. There is something liberating about sipping a brew while walking about a mall. Score one for The Strip.

On the second level of The Deuce—the double-decker that rolls up and down the street at a glacial pace—a handsome woman of 51 tried to cozy up with conspiracy and racism.

“He/she? Whatever they’re calling themselves these days,” she giggled. We were talking about the purported prostitution on Fremont Street.

“I’m pretty sure the consensus is ‘trans', not ‘he/she’,” I said, agreeably.

Sweetly crocked off purse booze, she was the second white woman in three days who tried to earn my attention by sharing her bias. It’s fuckin’ weird. Vegas is weird.

And there’s a lesson that hit home out by Summerlin, but was certainly on display here: Hospitality seems as ingrained in the local culture as gambling.

Like water, Vegas gotta have it. The same way it’s risky for a local entrepreneur to open a mid-level-or-lower restaurant without including a gambling component? No sales or support person in Las Vegas is going to let you feel less than their guest. It’s just not what this place is about.

A Green bud tender named Celeste embodied this sensibility in her sale of a budget eighth to me. After quickly digesting my concept of work weed—good cannabis that hovers around 20-25 percent THC—she efficiently took me through the viable brands and price range without a bunch of sideways energy. Just as important, Celeste’s small talk was completely credible. Not all bud tenders got it like that.

I smoked some of the dispensary brand before I wrote this. That’s some good-ass work weed—and Dad Rock is still in my mixture.

Before we move on to the 10 things, please note that the print form of my talk with cannabis advertising maven Kaisha-Dyan McMillan is due out tomorrow. If you don’t want to pay for the podcast, then enjoy the read.

10 Jelly Roll at the NBA ASG Weekend

Folding the Super Bowl into Las Vegas made all of the sense in the world and the impact of a half-million extra tourists didn’t upend the town. This weekend, Indianapolis gets the NBA All-Star Weekend festivities, and that nowheresville lil burg is going to be transformed.

Especially now. The Mac McClung of All-Star Game Weekend performers, country star and former MC Jelly Roll has been added to this week’s long list of performers.
Indianapolis Business Journal

• Saturday night’s TNT All-Star Celebration Concert with Jelly Roll starts at 9:30. In the same convention center, Keith Urban and Walker Hayes have a 3:00 pm NBA gig.

Lil Hit

• Weed changes your workout in ways worth examining. If you don’t believe the Washington Post, believe Tommy Chong.
  Washington Post/Instagram

9 Vegas Envy’s Not Becoming, San Francisco

Losing to the Chiefs in overtime was heartbreaking, but that’s just one day. Think too hard about all the teams that Sin City has lured away from The Bay and you might just want to call the cops.

As the Oakland A’s get ready to bounce, Northern Cali anger toward Nevada is building. But ask yourself: Aside from Mark Davis, who do we really have to be angry with?
San Francisco Chronicle