You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The Vegas Group!
Vegas is a lot of things. It’s short skirts and bottle service. It’s pool-side night clubs and excess.
As a friend of mine says; “Vegas tastes like glitter.”
Vegas is visceral. It has a vibe that gets into your loins and percolates like a coffee pot loaded with Viagra.
Vegas has a beat. it gets into your soul and makes ya want to limbo under a corn-fed Iowa girl.
Vegas has a sneer. It makes you say “thank you. thank you very much” like Elvis Presley.
Vegas is slot machines and high heels so high your nose bleeds.
Vegas is a place where people run in packs.
Couples come and couples go.
But it’s the group that makes Vegas Sin City.
Perhaps nowhere in the world do people travel in packs.
Like wildebeest on the Serengeti, Vegas friends walk across casino floors in groups.
They graze together. They go to the water hole together. They gamble and loiter in the middle of the casino like it’s a reunion of stupid.
No place in the world do friends fly in from every point on the compass to be with each other.
The components of these groups are similar.
Friend, relatives, school mates. Groups pick people like themselves.
A group of firefighters look like a group of firefighters.
College Sorority sisters look like over weight bubs from the row.
Gangsters and nerds and the guys hoping to meet Russian mail order brides.
No matter the group, the group all looks the same. The individuals that make up the pack look like one another.
A bachelorette party of white girls from Peoria? The group is a walking sash, chewing gum, with heels higher than the wide load would allow for. Strip away the make up and the sash that says “bride’s bitches” and one spoonful of butter looks like the next.
Same for the guys.
A group of tatoo gang bangers all rolling with their pants around their knees. Singularly, each component is a mug shot tattoo with a tear drop. But together, it’s a security alert.
A group of frat boys, all rocking the latest bow tie and suspender combo. It’s singularly wrong, combined a visual felony.
While each person is probably unique, as a group, they look like pre-packaged humanity. Add alcohol and 100 degree debauchery and stir.
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
I saw a group of 40-year-old women, all wearing black cocktail skirts.
There were 8 of them. A gaggle of giggling women pretending they were young and still had their looks.
I just knew who they were. They were pasty face Michiganders, celebrating a birth, a divorce, a reunion. Some wore wedding rings, some had tan lines on their finger. Some cocktail dresses were a size to small and a year out of fashion.
Vegas groups are predictable as they move like a human blob through a casino.
That’s what makes our group different.
We are an enigma.
We flew in from all over the country. We are a group of 8 men. We are the new species of fish discovered at the bottom of the Marianas Trench 27,000 feet down.
We are the group that makes other groups stop and go Where the F*** did they come from?
Our group is the united federation of uniqueness.
Our group is a multi-national, singularly difficult to predict, organism of extremes.
We are old and young. We are white and black and brown. We are smart and stupid and everything in between.
Big Daddy is a vet who speaks in a dialect of Mardis Gras and free beads. He’s the round mound who can hold you spell-bound with his quick wit and a literary quote. He’s seen life from all points on the compass and when you need a story about Asian Librarians from the 70’s, nobody comes close.
Next on the growth cart: Godfather, our magnanimous leader. A silver-haired 3rd baseman in search of the next adventure. He goes to the church of fun equals life. “you can sleep when you die,” he says. He’s the buddy who opens the shower door and hands you the Patron bottle butt ass naked. “Shoot it Motha F***er”
Next up, AC. His smile is deceptive. his wit quick. His bright eyes and curly locks disguise the fact he’s in his 50’s. After a night of hard living, the two hemispheres of his brain often separate. Communication inside his skull is difficult to establish, much like 1960’s East and West Berlin. Tear down that wall Mr. Gorbachev.
Gonzo is a bilingual spiritualist. I’m not sure what that means. He is passionate, the ultimate consumer of life. He is always story telling, always looking for a laugh, constantly performing on the never-ending stage of life.
Capt America is our resident good guy. If Captain America could vomit tequila, and sing the praises of Kansas all day, this member of the Justice League would be in super hero heaven. Capt. America tires at 9 pm and lets everyone know it. By 4 am, he is drag assing so bad, he is apt to sneak off to the room. The only reason he doesn’t, he knows eventually we’ll come back and pour something gooey on him while he sleeps.
Tall Dark and Handsome. He’s black and chiseled and eloquent like an Ivy League professor. His dance moves are hypnotic, his quiet swagger worth noting. Men want to be him. Women wonder what his marital status is.
D is breveloquent. When he’s out, he uses his words judiciously. He commands attention with his silence. He is brooding and only speaks in public when he has something to say. “Don’t make me use my words,” he will often say. “I only have so many.” I’ve seen him engage in conversation for 30 minutes and not say more than hello. That’s a skill.
This year 3 babies were indoctrinated into the group. They are 21 years old. It was somebody’s 21st birthday. Vegas Virgins, they were. They reveled in it, rolling in, wrapping themselves in it. Our Vegas spoiled them. Suites and bottle service and VIP flavored oxygen. Go make some money college boys. You won’t see the inside of this 2200 square foot suite again for some time.
What’s interesting about us is that we are hard to define.
We walked into a restaurant and I heard one person remark. “What is that?”
It’s as if we were a new species of group. We are not easily recognized, our genus, our classification, not easy to place.
Only a Vegas anthropologist knows for sure.
We are Lucy, the missing link of Vegas. We are the group that binds the old and the young. We are the group that celebrates our differences as a strength, not a hinderance.
If Martin Luther King were alive today. He would like at our group and proclaim; “I had a dream, and this group proves dreams do come true. Let freedom ring!”
Old guys and young guys. White guys and black guys and Mexican guys. College boys and military vets ready for AARP benefits. This group is the Benneton of Vegas.
We are smart and fun and heavy on horsepower.
If we were a car we would be a Hummer combined with a Corvette. Tough off road, fast in the corners.
If we were in the zoo, we’d be both a Lion and a hyena. Strong enough to take down a gazelle, and then make the gazelle laugh.
If we were an actor, we’d be the Rock and a younger version of Andrew Dice Clay.
The next time you’re in Vegas, look around.
Are you the group of predictable sameness?
Or are you the united federation of Who the F*** are those guys?
Life’s Crazy™