You Know What’s Crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy!™
A little something called Tao Beach in Las Vegas.
If you don’t know what Tao Beach is, don’t feel bad, I didn’t know what Tao Beach was before I infiltrated the vibe at Tao Beach.
FYI, this pool was made famous as a back drop for an MTV video by the rap group LMFAO. The video showcases the pool and hot babes and the band’s affinity for shots of any flavor alcohol.
So like a young karate kid learning to “wax on and wax off” I became aware of Tao Beach, a chlorinated oasis in the middle of crap tables, palm trees and swinging thongs.
If Tao Beach was a treasure map, it would be the big X where reality ends and fantasy begins. It is the pot at the end of the sin city rainbow.
On the Friday I arrive, Godfather tells me that Sunday is going to be a day I would remember the rest of my life.
“You don’t go home on Sunday,” he said with a gleam in his eye. “Sunday is when it all happens and it happens at Tao Beach.”
Never were more prophetic words spoken.
What is Tao Beach? Glad you asked?
Imagine if you will the hottest night club you’ve ever been to. Then imagine all the girls at the hottest night club wearing string bikinis that double as dental floss. If you are a girl reading this, then imagine that studly dude with the 6 pack abs and the guns that make you drool. Then imagine pools all around you, calling to you to relax with an adult beverage. Then imagine a driving beat so loud, so hypnotic it binds you in its spell, compelling you to gyrate in a way that would cause you to throw out your back if you were back home.
Now imagine a corner cabana that affords you a 360 degree view into the well oiled theater of the absurd. Tao Beach is like a kaleidoscope of humanity that bounces and jiggles across your field of vision on an ever changing conveyor belt of salaciousness.
Now imagine, if you ever did sit down, a sofa so comfy your ass has a secret love affair with the cushion. Imagine a real life pin ball machine set to tilt, but actually exploding, and this is your brain as it consumes this overload of stimuli. Now imagine those thoughts, saturated with sweat and chlorine and alcohol and sunscreen in a jambalaya of sensation so frenzied, it’s like a million fire flies smashing against a neon colored street light.
Now imagine the luxury of leaning back into the cabana shade if you need to relax or cool off. Then imagine the ease of leaning forward and filling your face with a warm blast of sunshine that floats down from an interminable blue sky.
Imagine looking past the Roman Amphitheater of excess, over the palm trees and dancing girls and cast your gaze upward, and you will see a paradise surrounded by 50 story golden glass. The reflective windows of the nearby Wynn create an omni-present sunset that warms you and makes you realize that life is good.
As I gaze at the clouds floating in the golden glass, I imagine this is what my version of heaven looks like.
Now imagine a squadron of waiters hauling bucket loads of beer and vodka and putting it all on ice on a table so accessible, you don’t ever have to bend over to reach your drink.
Now imagine this adult beverage being brought to you by hard bodied hotties who never stop smiling because every day is sunshine and money at Tao Beach.
Now imagine body art the likes of which you only see at a biker rally or Kim Kardashian’s home. Now imagine body piercings in places that make you say; “how the hell did they get that in there?”
Now add in sunshine and good friends and you have an elixir for a Sunday brunch enjoyed by the Crazy Crew™
AND THAT IS WHAT TAO BEACH IS TO ME!
So as he was lathering sun tan lotion upon his broad shoulders, The Godfather looked at his boys and said; “Sunday fellas! You never ever go home before Sunday. Dale is a stupid Mother F***er!”
The Godfather was right. Dale was a stupid Mother F***er” He’s the member of the Crazy Crew that woosed out hard Sunday morning and flew home when he had a free pass to shangri la. Dale if you are reading this. Ha Ha “Mother F***er!!”
Unlike other vegas venues, like Club Rehab at the Hard Rock, Tao Beach is cozy, almost small. It certainly feels small by the time a 1000 inebriated 1/2 naked people all paying top dollar, cram themselves into this gyrating labyrinth of unbridled fun.
The pool deck is a cross word puzzle of navigation, bordered by day beds and countless bodies, swaying and dancing and thrusting without certainty or balance.
Moving anywhere here forces you to steady yourself, to feel the ground with your feet, to literally grab onto other humans to steady yourself as you walk to and fro.
Can you imagine walking down the hall at your work, and reaching out and touching your co-worker on their thigh, to steady yourself? How bout grabbing your wife by her waist as you negotiate past the dish washer in the kitchen. She’d probably give you the kind of look that John Edward’s ex-wife now gives him.
Yeah, touching people as you walk by them might be inappropriate in real life but Tao Beach is not real life. It is the heartbeat, the pulse of fantasy island. It is here where you set your compass to anything goes. It’s where NIKE invented its slogan; JUST DO IT.
Imagine walking by a woman so beautiful, she could have easily competed in the Miss America contest. Imagine having to pass this siren and the only way to pass her safely means you have to touch her arm, her shoulder, her waist, her whatever. Maybe she looks at you, maybe she doesn’t. Maybe she smiles and it initiates a conversation, maybe she moves on. It doesn’t matter. This is how people react to one another as they navigate around Tao Beach. You touch her. She touches you. It’s a reciprocal relationship, a new social dynamic, where barriers melt as easily as a cheese tray left in the sun.
If sunshine is the energy at Tao Beach, music is its mistress. Speakers the size of suit cases are tied to the top of each cabana. Each sound is amplified at a deafening level energizing the crowd like nuclear fusion energizes the atom.
“The music is busting up my kidney stones,” Double-A will say smiling a silly smile that only comes when you are standing half way between Ecstasy and joy.
As if there is not enough insanity raining down upon this place, the DJ will suddenly scream SHOT SHOT SHOT SHOT SHOT SHOT.
This is a testimony to the LMFAO music video and the crowd inhales it like laughing gas.
That’s when hundreds of hands begin banging the top of the water. The somewhat calm pool erupts into a bubbling cauldron of crazy. Water splashes and geysers spew in a thousand funnel clouds of confusion.
As I cup my hand and bang the pool as hard as I can screaming at the sky, I feel like I am in a slow motion movie of my own life. The water slowly explodes around me, covering me, consuming me.
Like angry cannibals dancing around a ceremonial fire pit, we howl like jungle creatures celebrating decadence, preparing to sacrifice the virgin.
Through my water stained glasses, I see the Godfather smiling, banging the water ferociously, set to the rhythm of SHOT SHOT SHOT.
I smile knowing I am standing in the middle of a once in a life time experience. I make sure not to let the water in my mouth because it is a biological swamp, filled with sun tan lotion, and who knows what else.
All around me in this tribal dance I see young women dancing, their arms over their heads, their hair flying wildly. It is like a crazy scene from Lord of the flies.
As if this is not a visual overdose all ready, as if this is not some super sized view-master where you can push the button and change the scene anytime you want, there is a serving staff that is beyond description.
Imagine a group of women hand picked from a stable of potential aerobics instructors who also happen to be Ex-beauty queens who also have the verbal skills of used car salesmen. With not an ounce of fat, these women, wearing thongs and tissue paper like wraps, saunter from Cabana to Cabana bringing whatever you want, whatever you need. They make sure you are no longer hungry. They make sure you are no longer thirsty. If you spill it they clean it. If you just want to talk they will listen. If you just want to stare at them and dream, they invite you to do so.
This is Tao Beach.
And that is Crazy.