Way Out West: the Vegas bit (Part 1) ( 2 ) ( 3 )
When: June 2003
Where: Las Vegas (obviously)Coming up... giant
stinging things / a wooden horse / 1200 water nozzles / Einstein's feathers / two
revolting parts of my body / two very small parts of someone else's body / feeding the
gorilla / lonely lands made fruitful / the world's worst safety briefing / 1 mile descent
in 90 seconds / indoor gondolas / a neat truck / unfeasibly flexible people / a very big
glass of beer / what Siegfried & Roy say you mustn't wear
The usual pattern with me is that I get invited to give a show or a lecture somewhere,
and then I build a vacation around it. So when I was invited to give my Mind Power
lecture at the California Institute of Technology, I put together this itinerary:
- 10 days in Las Vegas
- 10 days in Pasadena / Los Angeles
- 10 days in San Francisco
This part of my website covers the Las Vegas leg of the trip.
June 10. A Sting, A Sign, A Strip.
Las Vegas McKerran airport welcomes visitors with scorpions and slot machines. Two
things that can sting you, before you've even claimed your luggage. The scorpion was one
of several giant sculptures posted around the airport. The usual 'ha ha' joke is to point,
nudge your friends and say 'Actual size'.
 
My friend Willie had agreed to meet me at the airport. We had enjoyed
plenty of email correspondence about magic, but we had never actually met. "No
problem," said Willie, "I'll hold up a sign." And he did. Just a small one:
In case you don't know Vegas (and I didn't), here's a quick introduction. It's a huge
city built in the heart of the desert. That anyone can live here at all is a
great tribute to human engineering and irrigation. 95% of Vegas is just a normal city full
of normal people, and is completely ignored by the tourist. What tourists come for is The
Strip.
The Strip is neatly divided into large blocks, each the size of three or four normal
city blocks. On each block is a colossal hotel/casino complex with several thousand
rooms. The aim of these super-hotels is to provide every conceivable amenity for (a)
giving visitors a good time or (b) extracting cash from them like a leech on a wound,
depending on your point of view. The only reason to come to Vegas is to have a good time,
knowing that whatever kind of 'a good time' you want, it's available here 24 hours a day.
 
Most of the biggest complexes have their own specific theme. For example, The Venetian (above) has gondola rides and a
replica of St. Mark's Square. The Luxor has an Egyptian theme, with hieroglyphic friezes,
palm trees and over-sized mummies.
One of my aims was to see every magic show in town. This may sound obsessive,
but it was my first chance to see shows I had been reading about for years. The
magic shows I saw were: Lance Burton, Penn & Teller, Rick Thomas,
The Amazing Johnathan, Mac King, Siegfried & Roy, David
Copperfield, Showgirls Of Magic and Steve Wyrick. I also went to
see Ronn Lucas (ventriloquist) and Cirque Du Soleil's Mystere show.
That's eleven shows in ten days. Click here
if you want to know what I thought of them.
After I'd checked into my hotel, Willie drove up and down The Strip a little, just so
that I could see it all, and then took me to see the fabulous Forum mall inside the Caesar's Palace complex. It's the only mall in
the world where you can see Greek Gods, a Fountain, a Wooden Horse and a Gorilla.
 
As with all of the major Vegas complexes, you have to actually be there to appreciate
the sheer scale and splendour of the place. It seems that an infinite amount of time,
money and creative effort has been lavished on this vast, opulent citadel of systematic
cash extraction.
Vegas eats money with a voracious appetite. All the casinos have full-time squads of
burly guys hauling sacks of money away into basement vaults. They are doing this
routinely, round the clock, because otherwise the front-end of the operation (the bits the
tourists see) would simply drown in money.
After the Forum, Willie drove us out to Boulder Station, a quieter resort north of the
main Strip. Just to ensure I would regard him as a friend for life, he found a place where
I could enjoy really excellent chicken fajitas and Coors beer. This is a
combination which I love dearly, and for which I will do just about anything.
Willie was a fascinating man to get to know, with a markedly warm and generous outlook
on life. Having spent some time in the military, he was now happily settled with a lovely
wife and young son. He contacted me because he was into mentalism and was thinking of
turning pro, or at least semi-pro. I was happy to pass on to him whatever advice I could.
It had been a great first night in Vegas.
June 11. From Gyros To Boomers.
I'll give a quick mention to my chosen hotel, the Boardwalk. Not one of the most lavish
hotels, it nonetheless has much to recommend it. It's relatively inexpensive, and is in a
good location being near two general stores (rather scarce on the Strip) and an internet
cafe (ditto). In the evenings, it is quieter than most because it doesn't host any big
shows. While this may sound a bit boring, it also makes it a calm, peaceful place to come
back to. My room was good, and the service was excellent.
Here's a photo from inside a Boardwalk elevator. Gamblers are superstitious people, and
won't book rooms on Floor 13. So there isn't one:
I spent lunch and most of the afternoon with Philip, a very talented
young man who was into close-up magic. He is also a maths whizz-kid, a sketch artist and a
very entertaining conversationalist.
We went to 'Paymon's Mediterranean Cafe and Lounge', which offered predominantly Greek
cuisine. I had my first (and so far only) taste of 'gyros'. I have no idea what 'gyros'
is, but it tasted wonderful.
In the evening my friend Bob Kohler, a master magician and all-round
good guy (below), kindly collected me and took me out to Boomer's Bar.
Every Wednesday night, this is where the magic geeks congegate to talk shop, share
miracles and drink until the early hours of the morning. It was only much later in my
trip, when I got to Pasadena, that I noticed just how honoured Bob
Kohler is there.
> > > Continued in Part 2
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