If you ever decide to go to Las Vegas, be sure to arrive at night, and the magic of the first meeting will last longer and the neon lights and neon signs allow large swallow, almost with gratitude, the world of cardboard and plastic that, under the protection of the shadows, the sound of slot machines and the curves of women who smile from generously displayed large posters that abound everywhere, lies a stunning machine-created under the aegis of the mafia, the blessing of dollars and lulled by the music of Sinatra, so that tens of thousands who visit every day squander what they have (and did not have) in this "Disneyland for adults" as someone explained to me.
arrived at noon, big mistake (I was dragged by the willingness of my neighbors-charming and hospitable sons of Mexico, who pass the test, always difficult, always fascinating, the journey together and coexistence-). Daylight, which makes the Nevada desert looks spectacular with red spots, is, however, very bad combination for the palaces of plastic, brass pyramids, sculptures, porcelain and all the paraphernalia made to look impressive covered by artificial lights, but unable to resist the kiss of reality.
fainted from hunger (the nearly four hours late, took flight and dream of dawn did little to my good mood and that "a matter of illusion with which I was warned when I started my criticism corrosive) and that, after completing the paperwork and leave your bags each in their rooms, got out and started walking to a hotel "is here no more" and we got twenty minutes to cross streets and bridges, escalators and up mechanical crossing with beggars best sneakers mine and avoid tripping over a hundred thousand other people who were going there who knows where, many with a beer in hand.
The hotel, like all the hotels around, it was awesome, huge, bulky, but not smart (so it seemed, after a constant in this city where everything "appears", but nothing "is" where the cult of forms has shifted completely to the core and their meanings). We had come to lunch "to the most expensive hotel in Las Vegas", as I reported, it was all lights, slot machines, long corridors, guards guards dressed discreetly disguised as civilians, and many people moving, playing and betting. "It has the best buffet" and not mistaken. We arrived to an environment where no one will glamor corresponding charged dollars before proceeding to one of the many great halls that made up the place, we were assigned seats and "turn to serve." What I saw was almost an epiphany, I found that for fat is the same as for a child a toy store at their disposal. He had everything and, in disproportionate numbers, huge, exaggerated (like everything in this country where the shortcomings of the soul are filled with the excesses of the body). Ate infamous and obscene. Mea culpa.
Passing hours, and give the sun into the shadows of the night, the lights that illuminated everything with its thousand colors, were drawing the face that I knew of this city, like the painted face of his dancers and waitresses, the face accommodated for the photos, the poses and flashes . The city that surprises the world from the movie screens or TV and tempts us all with its magnificence and the ability to become millionaires in a stroke of luck that allows us to join the list of those traveling by jet private and stay in the presidential suite until another stroke of (mis) fortune in charge of middle-class return to reality with accounts payable, credit mortgages and cards that are ballooning on behalf of a new financing (luck is a currency and as such, has two sides, but I forget).
hotels at night and shine in them-purpose and only true personality of this city, the casinos become crowded space that looks, each more exorbitant and stupid screen machine that promises I will make you rich while sucking, like a vampire and post-modern cyber, virtual dollars credit card. Something
attracted wide attention, I do not know if I disappointed or excited me, "the dealer , contrary to what one imagines, are older people. When one thinks of Las Vegas, in the light of the pictures, it is difficult to assume that they serve are young guys with tuxedo to yeimsbon and stunning blonde hiding a knife in the wrong league covering miniskirt. Nothing that abound, on the contrary, ladies and gentlemen faced have been handing out cards boringly two or three decades ago and who think more in retirement than to leave "to follow" when their shift ends at five o'clock.
Prostitution is a crime, of course, but it is not to advertise, for that they are "requested" that I won a legal battle by the city government can work freely. They are all Latino-looking (do not remember seeing Africans, Asians or gringos) placed at the end of streets, bridges, streets, where space permits, and there dealt a card with pictures of stunning women (race, age and various forms) that offer their services for a few bucks. Not only that, in free newspaper dispensers (in other cities are used to put the inserts from supermarkets or the magazine that gives the town) had just published, in full color, with an unimaginable number of women in this or fee which will "discreetly" to your hotel. Say it Sin City is, but I think that is different from any other city, perhaps more obvious and less cynical, but no more sinful.
However, there were no large buildings, or the luminous casinos or shows millionaires, or the prostitutes advertised or nocturnal bustle, as I say, is endless, so I left the clearest impression of the city. As I've always said, "places are the people" and to me Las Vegas is Mary, the hairdresser of Mexican parents born in San Francisco, with whom I spoke at length about being immigrants everywhere and on its third single than lets go "when want and wherever "Yessuf, the driver, an Ethiopian who came simpatiquÃsmo twenty years as a football player, he married a white woman (white woman whant only my money ) that the divorce was left with the house children and the guest house, a cheerful and optimistic man, John, another taxi driver, an elderly gentleman, he gringo from New York where the rents are very high, "he moved with his wife to the city in the desert" for save a little, because the pension is low "but at parties traveling to see family, or Hassan, the Moroccan who was selling neckties at a store that was broken tops all" because is no business for the owners, when closed it will open another, under another name, because they are the ones who never lose, but he was sure to get a job after twenty years of experience "ever in Las Vegas."
They are ordinary beings, those who work every day because the fantasy of this huge and expensive playground work and we give away, all that we seek not know what, that happiness is not the illusion that it is possible to have fun amidst props castles, pyramids and statues, plastic cardboard, deafened, the soul and worldly concerns- by ringing (electronic and artificial) of the many coins you earn to lose it later (along with half or retirement) away by the vain, ephemeral and delicious illusion of fortune.
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