Graveyard

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

Two sides of Las Vegas exist. Before midnight and after midnight.

If you've gotten into any sort of trouble in Las Vegas, I can almost guarantee that those hijinks occurred during the midnight through 6am hours. Day time in Las Vegas is vanilla... for sheeple with straight jobs, unadventurous tourists, and elderly retirees waiting to die.

A semblance of order falls over the city during the daylight hours, but something happens once the devious darkness sets anchor and the fiends, ruffians, vampires, and wastrels roam the Strip and take over the city.

Night time in Las Vegas is for the freaks. They own the fuckin' city. As the saying goes... that's when the inmates take over the asylum. The zombies relish the moments when they can roam the streets and the gaming floors. The aliens assimilate easier during the late night hours, much more difficult to spot the shapeshifters after a few cocktails than you could during normal daylight hours.

You really have to engage in outlandishly outrageous behavior in Las Vegas before the local law enforcement types step in and cart you off in handcuffs. The long arm of the law seems to be more forgiving unless your belligerence tests the elasticity of Sin City's rules of conduct before you're greeted by thick-necked casino thugs. Peculiar expressions of civil disobedience are accepted, but once you stumble across the line and act sophomoricly stupid, that's when Big Brother loses patience and quickly sends in the muscle to end your sauced revelry.

I've always had a deep admiration and appreciation for the night shift in Las Vegas. Once your eyes can adjust to the darkness, you finally see the after Midnight hours for what it is... an orgy of opportunity. Poor defenseless Little Red Riding Hood traipsing through the forest is on the verge of being violated by a viciously starved rabid animal and she has not a clue of the impending attack. Don't believe what you read in the book. In real life, she loses her innocence and ends up as dinner.

Most of how you understand life is affects on how you view the difference between night versus day. And I'm not talking about the obvious differences, rather to deeply rooted psychological fuck ups inside of you, a sleeper cell of degeneracy and deviancy that rears its ugly head at 2am. That's the bewitching hour of suspicious activity... maxed-out ATM withdrawals, haggling with working girls, sitting down at a blackjack table when you should be taking a seat at GA meeting.

Any sordid behavior encouraged by the catchy "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" motto is scorned upon in most of the world... stoned to death in some Muslim countries, genitals mutilated in African tribes, shunned by the Mormons in Pennsylvania, tossed into lock up in most Southern states... yet outlandish douchebaggery is universally accepted within the state of Nevada.

Diabolical and crapulous antics are largely ignored by the casino employees who get paid an hourly wage (plus tips) to look the other way and withhold judgment. No one likes to clean up feces and regurgitated steak fajitas off the ceiling of your hotel room's bathroom.... yet some unlucky Guatemalan woman does that every fucking morning on a daily basis. Wonder what sort of hope she has every morning when she reads her horoscope? You think when she goes to Sunday morning mass that she prays to God that she'll have a few easy days of work and not encounter tough-to-remove semen stains on the remote control and alarm clock?

Most Vegas visitors cling to blind faith that "God will look after me" during those lapses in sanity, whether it's tilting at the poker tables and spewing seventeen buy-ins, or getting inebriated on too many Jager Bombs that you lose all control of bodily functions and sucking face with a plastic palm tree in the foyer of a rub and tug joint on Spring Mountain. Maybe you hit the lottery and it's your turn to get rolled by a strung out sex worker because you're too sozzled to get it up and too cocked to notice she lifted your credit cards and bankroll.

Nobody wants to openly admit on Facebook or Twitter that the very last thing you remember is yakking up your breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the walls of the elevator and twitching like a Parkinson's patient on the ground in a violent manner that you scared off the trio of Hells Angels who wanted nothing to do with you. When bad ass bikers with scars the size of yard sticks think you're possessed by a feral spirit... then you know you crossed the line. It's time for a stint in rehab or change in locale.

Perhaps a visit to the Alamo for your next vacation will be less detrimental to your health.


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.