On Dave Hickey's 'A home in the neon'

Vegas baby!!! A loud voice screamed in my head and movie snippets from ‘Hangover‘ in my mind’s eye made me giggle before I even started to read the text as I knew it would be about ‘Sin City’, the ‘entertainment capital of the world’, the ‘capital of second chances’, in one word: Vegas! Now, I might seem overly excited but to be honest before I read the text I thought of Las Vegas as fake, a pool of sins and lost souls and most of all, I thought it was actually just a tiny city with nothing else then casinos and hotels. I did not realise that it is in fact the 31^st-most populous city in the USA. I was not thinking about the people who live there all year, who have a house, two kids, a dog and a white picket fence. I though Las Vegas was one big street with neon signs stuck above each other to each side of it. I must say, I was clearly wrong.
It does not happen very often that a text can change my mind on something by 180 Degrees. But this has happened for some reason. I do not exactly know if it was his style of writing that convinced me or also that I read the text about Dubai (see my next blog), which is said to be the eastern equivalent to Vegas, right after reading this one, and I despise Dubai from the bottom of my heart and therefore funnily enough tried to defend Las Vegas against this juxtaposition.
I love the story-like atmosphere of the Hickey text. One can clearly sense that it is his very personal view on the city. He shares his memories of his childhood when he would go to Las Vegas with his dad and his jazz musician friends, especially Shelton, who was able to get

                                                             ‘steady gigs’

much to the envy of his father. One of the main aspects of Las Vegas according to Dave Hickey is that everybody is the same. You can walk the streets in your

                                                          ‘choice of apparel’

without getting the ‘What-the-hell-are-you-wearing-look. Vegas has a

                                                    ‘flat-line social hierarchy’,

it just does not matter if you are a professor, rock star or Aunt Sue from Minnesota. Everyone is sitting at the same tables, playing the same games, getting the same odds. I would say, Las Vegas is probably one of the last honest places on earth. What you see is what you get. I like that. He also notes that it is one of the few places on earth were the

‘vast majority of the population arises every morning absolutely delighted to have escaped Hometown, America and the necessity of chatting with Mom over the back fence.’

I think he has definitely a point there. Where else does a majority of people wake up each morning, happy to start the new day? Las Vegas seems to be some kind of magical playground for adults. It is like back when we were kids and got to go to one of these huge barn-like places with mountains of toys, games and well, other children. We spent the whole day playing on every playground equipment there was until we found the one that we stuck to and just did not want to leave when it was time to go home. Mum and Dad would sit somewhere else, talking to some other Mums and Dads. We were kind of on our own, and we loved it! Vegas is somewhat alike. Hordes of people inside an artificially lit room with games in it. You would try them all out until you get stuck to one of them and beg your friends for ‘5 more minutes and just one last try’ before they drag you out.

I also agree with Hickey that Vegas is probably the only place where a group of grown, heterosexual men would have some kind of a sleep over party by sharing a room, no one feels weird about this ( it is like in football when it is totally acceptable for a guy to slap another guys butt...it is like in games everything is allowed). Everyone is just there to have a good time, to let yourself go, be a grown up child for a couple of nights before real life grabs you with its cold fingers and drags you back to your 9 to 5 desk job.

Now, apparently there are only two rules in Vegas:

                             ´1) Post the odds, and 2) Treat everybody the same’.

As Hickey describes in his text especially Easterners have a problem with this as they are just not used to the absent of a hierarchy. What brings me back to Dubai but I will elaborate on that more in my next blog. Just so much: Hickey says they are desperately searching for the

                                                               ‘secret Vegas’,

the exclusive Vegas, the hidden door that would get them to the room where only their kind would play. But this does not exist according to Hickey.

                                            ‘Vegas is about stakes, not status’.

But this apparently

                                               ‘offends their sense of order’.

Well, it certainly does not offend mine, and I think it is great.
Oh and I LOVED the story about the teddy bear; it actually made me laugh so much. The legendary Herr Teddy being bought by some lad for a hooker who would then bring it back the next morning for cash and then the next night this ‘game’ would repeat (I just feel for the poor teddy who never finds a nice place to live).  Well there you go, ‘Sin City’ can still live up to its name. I bet the groups of men do not only come here for the gambling. But then, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas (except for STDs guys, that’s following you home, just saying)…