Picking Up The Pieces

Five days and four nights in Las Vegas can be a traumatic experience. Like the infamous film “The Hangover,” I stayed at Caesar’s Palace while I was in Vegas. There was also some alcohol involved and someone in my small group of people had a partial blackout… but the similarities end there.

Instead I had a great time and came back spending less than I expected. I know, that shouldn’t be possible, but my wife hit a nice jackpot on a slot machine our second day in at New York New York and we lived off those winnings the rest of the trip. Along the way we had a great time with friends we haven’t seen in a couple of years and stayed very busy.

I’d hoped to see some of the Mr. Olympia show or expo while we were there – I know I was asked countless times how the show was going and if I was competing (yes, I was really asked that on numerous occasions, as well as an invitation to join an arm wrestling contest and another guy advising me not to get mad and hit anybody). Instead we saw the sights and took in some great food. Mesa Grill and Hiyakumi were the two best dinner experiences, with the sushi and sashimi at Hyakumi taking our top spot. The new Bacchanal Buffet at Caesar’s was impressive too, but overpriced considering there’s no way we could eat the amount of food offered. Especially when the chefs took a look at me at the meat station and said I needed one of everything. Eating all that meat damn near killed me (prime rib, spare ribs, lamb, turkey, chicken, a couple of sausages, brisket, and a few others I can’t remember).

The pools at Caesar’s Palace were great too. Nine pools, including the European Style Venus pool. And by European I mean tops optional. We wanted to check it out and almost went over to it…until we found out there was an additional $20 cover for men to go there. Disappointing, we really wanted to experience everything Caesar’s Palace had to offer but we weren’t going to spend the money for that purely on principle.

Our last night there my wife and I went to see Zumanity, a Cirque Du Soleil show at New York New York. It’s claimed to be a very sensual show that will leave you wanting to tear your significant others clothes off by the time it’s over. It doesn’t do that. I’d also heard that it hits every fetish imaginable in its exploration and exhibition of human sexuality. It doesn’t do that either. Now granted, my experiences as a writer have left me a bit jaded in the realm of human depravity.

What Zumanity does do is entertain. It was a lot of fun and I was very impressed with the different acts and feats of strength, skill, and poise. And yes, there were some rather sensual acts in it, as well as a lot of humor. The only thing that left me wishing I could un-see what I’d seen was one member of the troop who was faintly reminiscent of a raging homosexual version of Prince. This character stayed in the background mostly, other than when he was supposed to sweep across the stage with a Batman like cape that covered everything. Even with that particular character creeping me out I highly recommend the show to anyone who’s not afraid of a little adult humor. Just be warned, if you sit in the front row or two you might find yourself becoming a participant.

But what about the research? I did a lot of that, and I’m very happy with what I saw and experienced. Loads of material for Bounty, and maybe someday I’ll write something else that takes place in or near Vegas. I do wish I’d had the time to see a couple more sights and to corner one waitress at the pool so I could ask her more questions. I don’t know what her name is but she had an awesome tattoo on her side that read, “I’m a Barbie Girl in a Barbie World.” So yes, I instantly took to calling her Barbie. Barbie was a waitress five days a week and then her second job was that of a go-go dancer. I wanted to get the behind the scenes on that second career.

On the off chance anybody reading this has experience at that sort of thing, shoot me an email – I’d love to pick your brain! Until then, I’ll just have to make things up and fill in the blanks with glamorous fun. Bounty won’t stand for anything less than being an over the top sensation!

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