What happens in Vegas...

What would a scan of the news be without a satirical gem from the Onion? Not much, in my reckoning. To my delight, volume 40 issue 31 had as its top headline Deadbeat Dads March on Vegas:

As many as 40,000 deadbeat dads descended on Las Vegas Friday for a massive, weekend-long show of non-support for their children.

All right, let's get this party started!" said Tom "Turk" Turkelsen, an air-conditioner factory laborer. "I was sick of Cathy nagging me for diaper money all the time. Now she don't know where to find me—at least for the weekend."

Mike Hicks, who arrived in Las Vegas on a $20 bus ride from Los Angeles, began demonstrating his non-support the moment he set foot in the lobby of the Rio.

"Point me toward the loosest slots in town," Hicks said, waving a sign that read "Rum & Coke over here, NOW." "Can't drop no brats off at my place if I ain't there to open the door!"

Although he was not appointed to speak for the non-centralized delegation of terrible fathers, Hicks succinctly conveyed the group's sentiment. Angry shouts of "Screw the baby—I needs a new pair of shoes" echoed up and down the strip, from the Luxor to the Stratosphere, all weekend long.

"Quarter'a my check, my ass!" Dearborn, MI resident and part-time PA-system installer Derek Hindle shouted.

Some 2,500 of the deadbeat dads arrived en masse on Freedom Buses, chartered through the Freedom Tour Bus Company of Taos, NM. The common bonds of shoddy parenting and alcoholism quickly integrated the negligent fathers, both those who arrived alone and those who belonged to larger groups.

After some manufactured quotes from a "Harrah's casino manager" that don't exactly portray either casinos or their clients in the best light, the piece ends with this coda:

Almost to the last man, the deadbeat dads who were awake and not in detox agreed Monday afternoon that the march had been successful.

"They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," Turkelsen said Monday, waiting in line to make a collect call to his court-appointed attorney. "Well, I got news for you, Cathy—so is your goddamn child support."

Deadbeat Dads March on Vegas

I'll say this for R &R advertising and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority: they've got everyone, even the satirists, totally on message with "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." It seems this phrase is on the tip of everyone's tongue.

I like the Palms' variant. I'll get a photo of the billboard soon, but I think that it is the usual scantily clad couple with the tag line, "What happens at the Palms...never happened."

George Maloof has long said "what happens at the Palms stays at the Palms" (particulary on the Howard Stern show, where he refused to divulge the name of a female celeb busted for public sex in and around the property's pool and elevator.

Try to wrap your mind around the metaphysical ramifications of "what happens at the Palms never happened." If it never happened, how could it have happened at the Palms in the first place? It's almost a Yogi-ism.

Meditate on that apparent logical anomaly sometime. Next time I'm on the scene at Skin, Rain, or the Ghostbar, I'll try to solicit some other opinions. Or maybe not.

On a related note, I'm frustrated that Vegas has much cooler t-shirts than Atlantic City. For an upcoming TV appearance, I wanted to represent the 609, and I figured a great way would be to wear a cool Atlantic City t-shirt with my suit. I think I could have pulled it off. So I spent a lot of time looking all over the boardwalk for an "Atlantic City: Always Turned On" shirt, with the new logo. It's a pretty neat logo, and I think it would look totally great.

Instead, I find a bunch of really lame 4 for $10 cursive-script shirts, and two of my favorites:

1) Image: poker hand with an ace, king, ten, queen, and seven.
Text: "I was a jack off in Atlantic City."

2) Image: Kicking donkey
Text: "I lost my ass in Atlantic City."

I happily didn't see "The Happy Fisherman," but that's a perennial boardwalk favorite. Google it if you have any questions. All in all, the selection left something to be desired.

I think those shirts under a suit will just look boorish, and not at all irreverently hip, which is what I'm going for. Well, at least the irreverent part.

Speaking of jackasses, I had to work this poignant image into the blog somehow, and this seems as great a spot as any:

I don't know what this means, but it rules

I show this talisman to people when they laugh about my being from Atlantic City. I've found that if I acknowledge the perceived stigma of being from there with humor, I don't come across as defensive when I tell people that it's actually not a bad place to live or spend time.

Anyway, I'm going to forward my t-shirt inquiry to the Atlantic City Convention Center and Visitor's Authority, whose website is looking much spiffier. We'll see what happens.

UPDATE: See the conclusion to this quest in Turned off. The title should tip you off as to how it went.
posted by Dave at 9:42 AM

Hi from Atlantic City. You can get a shirt with the new logo at the Boardwalk Information Center right outside Boardwalk Hall on the boardwalk. They are also available at the Visitor's Welcome Center on the Expressway. Atlantic City's a great place to live and work man...I also find myself defending it a lot, but a lot is changing down here...lots of new construction and new restaurants and retail shops. Keep spreading the good word...the next 5 years are going to be interesting...

What happens in Vegas...

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