Glad I Don’t Gamble

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

When people I meet in UK ask for recommended places to see when coming to America, Las Vegas is always on the short list, right up there with the Grand Canyon and San Francisco. It’s not a natural wonder or cultural oasis like the previous two sites, it’s more of a must-see just as an ode to decadence and excess, and it’s been that way for a good 60 years.

This is my first time working a full week here in 22 years. My last week was in April 1992, and it would be the last pairing of LA’s Comedy Store and Vegas’s late lamented Dunes Hotel, which up until the mid 1960’s was THE place to go, but eventually got dwarfed by the other casinos that offered more spectacle and energy. All the Dunes could offer above anyone else was its own golf course. Still, the comedy room did well there for about five years, being the largest of any venue at about 700 seating capacity, and also attracting more locals than the other rooms. That last week I was there was also the week of the LA riots, so by the weekend, the line-up was jammed with comics who were fleeing the violence and the curfews. Within a couple of months, the room closed, and within a year, so did The Dunes. The grandiloquent Hotel Bellagio, with its dancing fountains, now occupies that corner of Flamingo Road and Las Vegas Blvd.

I have been to Vegas a few times since. Most recently I went there in 2011 for a corporate gig at The Mandalay Bay. When I arrived at McCarren Airport that time, I immediately experienced the greed that seemed to have taken over so much of this town. I had only $25 in cash, and asked the cab driver (after waiting in a line of about 100) if that was enough to get to Mandalay Bay. He said it would be fine, the ride took 15 minutes and the fare was about $20. I’d have been OK with that had I not woken up the next morning, and upon looking out my window, there right below me was….The Airport! Asshole took the “scenic” route, obviously.

But I had noticed some changes earlier than that, when in 2007, my then-wife and step-son spent a couple of days there. At that time, I hadn’t been there for about 7 years. I tried to score guest passes for us to see Penn & Teller, but we’d picked the one week out of about six months where they were off. Scouring the other venues, it seemed that your choices of headline acts were limited to the ones who’d taken semi-permanent residency, at that time Celine Dion & Barry Manilow. I’m sure the shows they put on are more interesting than their records, but I just didn’t feel like gambling $250 per person to find out. A far cry from when I saw The Carpenters at Harrah’s in Lake Tahoe in 1976, and the cover was $10, which included three drinks! (Not to mention Richard & Karen putting on an unexpectedly GREAT show)

The other choices were the comedy rooms, which were almost all veterans I knew from The Comedy Store who’d gotten their own full-time venue. Would I want to pay $80 to see the same acts I used to see in LA for free? Or would I want to try to scout them up personally to see if I could get guest passes, a la “Hey, guy, I know I haven’t seen you for over 15 years, and we were never really close friends, but could you…?” So the easy answer to both questions was no.

What has really changed about Vegas since my time working there from 1987-92 is most of the perks that came with hotels are gone. The Dunes had a reasonably priced 24-hour coffee shop, plus buffet breakfasts, lunches, and dinners available in another room, each for $10-15. The Tropicana, which is one of the older and less gauche hotels, will charge over $10 for a burger even in the snack bar, and VERY few places have buffets anymore. I think what mostly happened over 20 years was Vegas opted to be more family friendly. Most casinos now have some G-rated revue or attraction. The Excalibur, where we stayed in 2007, had several King Arthur-ian theme shows. The Tropicana currently is featuring its own production of “Mamma Mia.” I must mention that in the space of about three weeks in 2006, I saw both the live musical AND the film versions of “Mamma Mia,” and was prepared to hate them both…. and I DID!

Getting back to the family-friendly move, the casinos’ main source of income was from the gambling, so they could afford to offer cut rate prices on everything else. But if they offered things to amuse the kids, then EVERYBODY would be happy, or so the thinking goes. I know when I was a kid and went with my parents to Vegas or Tahoe, it was real easy to be bored, though they did take me to see a headliner show (Tiny Tim) when I was 17. I noticed the change in 2007, as not only did the Excalibur offer their medieval productions, but there was also a huge games and amusement facility in the basement meant for kids, so my step-son actually found more to do than his mom and I did.

Aside from the expense, the only other thing that annoys me, and maybe this is a sign of age, is that EVERY casino I’ve been in this time around plays contemporary music at an unusually high volume. Is it really going to raise the party atmosphere and the betting stakes to have Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, or Pitbull turned up to 11? Maybe they’re going for the younger demographic, but that would seem an ill-advised move, especially since the older folk probably have more money to gamble. It’s good to have something to drown out that monotonous sound of those four-note slot machines, but I seem to remember casinos playing classic Pop and Rock & Roll at a slightly less obtrusive volume.

Oh yeah, and how are the shows going? Actually quite well, though slightly low attendance the last two nights. The venue is affiliated with LA’s Laugh Factory, but the Tropicana has consistently had a comedy venue, even back in my 80’s-90’s heyday, when it was affiliated first with New York’s Catch A Rising Star, and then Rodney Dangerfield’s club. From an artistic point of view, the current shows are better for me, because I’ve been allowed to experiment from show to show. Back in the day, I was given a mere 12 minutes as part of a one-hour show featuring five comedians, and I had to do that EXACT SAME 12 minutes for all 15 of the week’s shows. I now do 20 minutes, and there’s only bits at the opening and closing that remain the same. Sadly, I made more per show back in the Dunes days than I’m making this time around, there’s one less show, 20 years have passed, and as I may have already mentioned, prices have gone up just a teeny weeny bit over that time.

In light of the tightness of the money, it’s just a good thing that whatever bug I had for gambling was pretty much exorcised from me way back in the late 70’s, when Rick & Ruby worked venues in Lake Tahoe on and off for the better part of three years. I haven’t placed a bet at any table since the early 80’s. Now if only I could use that same discipline with alcohol!

June 13th, 2014



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