Here's a great "then and now" look at Las Vegas, the "then" being 1988, which is about the time I began visiting that town an average of "all the time." It was, for me, a magical place for many reasons. Here are some of them in no particular order…
I was pretty adept at card-counting in Blackjack — a short term skill which I learned, did for a few years and then gave up forever. I wasn't like some counters who played 24/7 and intensely tried to rack up as many bucks as possible before the casinos got hip and barred them. I was only "backed off" (told to go play elsewhere) once and that wasn't even a time I was winning due to counting. I'd play 'til I was a few hundred ahead but still looked like a guy who was just lucky…the kind who'd give it all back when he kept playing. I just didn't give it back. I always went home in the positive.
I had my first really good, practical laptop computer so whenever I gave up Blackjacking for that trip, I could just stay in my room and write scripts. It was kinda fun to work, untethered to a normal get-up-in-the-morning, work-until-night schedule. I ate, slept and wandered around Vegas whenever I felt like doing those things.
It was cheap. Food then in Vegas was cheap and shows were cheap. In 1991, expert magician Lance Burton opened one of the best shows I've ever seen at the Hacienda Hotel. It was $15.00 and I saw it many, many times. Hotel rooms were also cheap but because of all my Blackjack playing, I had plenty of "comps" to stay in different hotels for nothing. And to get to and from the city on Southwest Airlines was like taking the bus both in terms of frequent departure times and cost.
I had other reasons for visiting Vegas but I'll save them for a follow-up post. Right now, here's the video. It starts with a look at Bob Stupak's Vegas World, the tackiest hotel-casino on the strip. The interior of it looked like it had been decorated by a ten-year-old Star Trek fan and Mr. Stupak made all his employees — even the Asian and Hispanic ones — wear these badges that said, "Kiss me, I'm Polish." I miss that kind of place in Las Vegas…