A Walk Down Memory Lane

(Elle.....did I hear your gasping?.......LOL..J/K)

All of these 'subtle' reminders that there are those of you on vacation, or 'vacay' if you prefer (and I happen not to) has me looking forward to this coming Friday. Thats when I leave for Las Vegas (PLEASE..if you're so kind to comment here, PLEASE do not call it 'Lost Wages, mainly because, while there may be some truth to that, I fucking hate that phrase...don't know why, just do).

Haven't been to LV in damn near 30 years and yes, I have heard it has changed. Now 30 years ago, 'someone' told me that hookers (I prefer 'escorts' btw ) had a 'going rate' of $100. Uh, I didn't ask if that was an hour or a night but geez...$100 thirty years ago was a lot of money (was going to say 'a lot of 'fuckin' money but didn't want to go for the cheap laugh). I have no idea what that brings it to in todays world. I mean on those Law & Order shows (my favorites) they always have a hooker who gets whacked and they refer to her as "$1000/night pro". WTF....a grand for one freakin night?? Really..is that for real?? If any of you have any friends (or family members) that can fill me in on this, please do. And, its not because I want to see how many pounds of aluminum cans I need to collect between now and Friday (uh...that would be 1076#), I'm just wondering.

That last trip there was like a dream. Two of my Chicago buddies met me out there. Real funny guys, real Italian guys. One's family was in the wine business, the other's Dad had something to with the Union. Anyway, I reaped the benefits from their families 'knowing people'. Back in the day, the Stardust and The Riviera were the places to stay. We stayed 5 nights, 2 in a suite at the Stardust, 3 in a hufuckinmongous penthouse deal at the Riviera (we were cool..we called it 'The Riv'). The best part here, besides the obvious, was that none of those nights cost us one fuckin cent! The rooms were 'comps' as well as some of the meals. The waiter or maitre'd would simply come up to the table and say "Its all been taken care of". Man, I felt like I was in a movie. My buddies would just look at me and laugh. Though they did say "My Dad said if we fuck up and cause any fuckin problems, we have all had it". Never quite sure what 'all had it' meant but I was fairly certain since I wasn't one of their kids I would probably 'have it' more so than them.

One guy had a real penchant for hookers (weren't call escorts back then so :~ )We knew this because he told us about a thousand times. One night my buddy and I came back to the room, about 3:00 AM or so, and we met him leaving the room with 'Darla'. Maybe 20 minutes or so later, he's back. This time with 'April'. I remember these gals like it was yesterday. 'April' was really a pretty and intelligent girl...oh, that and she had huge boobs. Said she was from Dallas but who knows. I've read where hookers don't always tell you the truth. By the time we left, I know the guy had 7 or 8 'dates'. He won close to $900 playing roulette and I guess he figured they really didn't cost him anything. Oh, and thats where I saw my 1st and only pregnant hooker. Outside on a corner, across from a Denny's. She was offering a '3 for 1' special, we passed but I did see 'that look' in my one buddy's eyes.

Lots of funny shit happened in those 5+ days. We were in a taxi going who the fuck remembers where when all of a sudden, the cabbie yells out one of my friends name. Turns out they went to high school together in Chicago. Think about that..pretty fuckin wierd. He went out there to be a dealer, lasted about a month. Said he fucked up too many times dealing blackjack but he liked it there and he was staying. We laughed our asses off about that too, as did he. Great fucking time. Why do I feel like this trip is going to be soooooooo different?