Vegas Hustle

You see it everyday, women in purple track shoes, Chanel handbags, and Juicy Couture sweats being pushed by some invisible force immersed in a bubble impentrable by the general public, an array of scars cover her body and her mind, as she readies herself for the cocktail waitress circuit, go-go dancing stage, or worse, while boutique hustlers lay on their most coveted sales pitch, imagination that would put a smile on the likes of Mark Twain, part used car salesman, part lifestyle coach, as customers stand by these spinners of high tales and outright lies, frozen too afraid to offend the salesperson, while the customer unconsciously nods their head to the rythmns of a well rehearsed product advertisement.

Still, slim days on the sales trail as valet drivers sprint past high end luxury sedans and SUV's clutching a handful of car keys like some prisoner on the run or pimp chasing down his money, hotel servers talk casually as big money companies right on the other side of a ballroom door practice the artform of excess on levels not seen since Caliglia, the mood is relaxed, while servers eat extra leftovers of filet mignon, take the ocassional gulp of Chardonnay wine, then top the night off with a couple slices of dark chocolate cake. The homeboys in the back have a beer stash to pass the hours while washing dishes from the corporate event, enjoying their jobs even in the rigided structure of the hotel industry. The drones find ways to take the edge off the routine nature of their jobs.

Fast cars with tinted windows run red lights, hop curbs and pay off the appropriate legal channels all in the name of the sex trade, where every minute, really does mean, money lost. A smile, hello, payment, cum shot, and then its off to the next client, a fix in human form if there is much humanity left in this woman walking past me, as if she was in preperation for the 2012 games in London, she would give any power walker a test, all the while booking her next john, while texting her unemployed boyfriend/driver as she applies a fresh coat of lipstick for the next cock and who says prostitutes aren't talented, outside of what their industry professes them to be great at.

Right on cue, as I hang out backstage at this mega corporate event, is the semi cute female photographer who will use her looks as a wedge in such a male dominated industry, dressing a bit sexy, a look that mediocre meathead technical types and stageworkers find attractive, mainly due to the fact that these guys have neither the social skills or the looks to mingle amongst the business crowd out in the ballroom at the moment, that middle, upper middle class two parent family phenomenon which is quickly becoming something of legend and lore. This kind of upbring though still maintains the most convenient step ladder to socially commerical success if that is what one desires, to be amongst similar folk.

Not with the stagehand worker bunch backstage here, too rough, rebellious, they are too caught up in the freedom that part time employment and good drug connections provide. Let's not take anything away from the ladies, I would rather work with them, cuts through all the BS conversations on sports, loud talk of putting the moves on various female conventioners, and inquiries on my personal escapades while partying, as they hit me up for narcotics. Maybe I am a bit too cerebral for the stagehand crew, not that I can't be base, vulgar, and dim witted, but I can only act that way, not live it.

At the end of the day, I'm left with only these memories, these various people trying to get paid in a city that specialize in taking it away. It is a fight till death who will remain at the end, the towers or the myths, the casinos or the storybook novels. I guess, that's up to you.