Things I Hate: Vegas

I was approached by my boss yesterday and asked if I wanted to go on a trip. "Sure!" I said, thinking he was referring to one of our typical trips, which involves meeting with a client in Poughkeepsie or Bridgeport or Gary, Indiana and having day-long meetings about their new Web site. That I'd enjoy. But then he revealed that he was actually talking about a mid-week conference in Vegas. "I'll pass," I said.

I hate Vegas. I hate everything about it. I had a bad experience there, but it wasn't the type you think. I didn't get rip-roaring drunk and pass out on the street or get crabs from a two-dollar hooker or anything. What happened was that I was surrounded the whole time by the hollow artificiality that is Vegas.

Everything I saw was fake in one way or another, often a bald-faced copy of something great somewhere else. It's a whole city of "faux," of cheapness (often cheapness that cost a lot of money, paradoxically), that is badly masquerading as elegance. And not in a kitschy fun way. It's fake in a calculated, focus-grouped sort of way. When I was there, I felt manipulated just walking down the street.

And the streets I've walked were the newer Disneyland-for-adults part -- maybe if I had been in the legendary grungy old part I wouldn't have felt this way. Instead, I would probably felt sad and disgusted. I guess that's not a lot better.

I'm sure there are parts of Vegas that I could enjoy. It's a big place, after all. But I know I wouldn't see those parts if I went on this junket. See, I would apparently be going with a nice, well-meaning coworker of mine who would be the only person I know there. He would want to hit the strip after the meetings, and being a nice person (no, really, I swear), I would probably feel obligated to go. I would walk around and feel uncomfortable everywhere. We would hit the big, touristy bars, spend way too much, feel like yokels, and meet no one. Whee.

Perhaps I'd meet a few people at these conferences and maybe go out with them -- but that would mean lots of forced, strained small talk. Or, more likely, they'd turn out to be obnoxious drunks and I would spend the whole time being irritated and wanting to escape.

Obviously, I'm not that wild about being drunk in public. Or, moreover, being around drunks in public. Young drunk people are the worst people in the world. In a place like Vegas, young people get full license to let their true selves let loose, which means acting like the insufferable pricks they truly are. A whole city full of them does not sound like a good time to me.

But I'm also not wild about gambling. I've gone to a few casinos and occasionally had a good time. But the problem is that the costs are not worth the benefits for me. When I win some money, I'm sorta like, "Hey, that's not bad. Now I can afford one of those horribly overpriced cocktails." If I lose the same amount of money, I'm more like "Jesus, what's wrong with me! I blew that money on nothing! Fuck!" Maybe I have a bit of a bias towards negativity.

And there are other issues at work here. There's the conference itself, which sounds like several days of nonstop awkward mingling. I don't know if you've ever been to an "industry event," but it's awful. It's like a party where you can't have fun. You can't be yourself; you have to be your work persona. You have to "network," which is a term that is appropriately soulless and mechanical-sounding for what happens. You have to pretend like you actually give a shit about what you do for a living, carefully hiding the fact that you really just go through the motions and then collect a check.

And then there's the simple fact that Vegas is unbelievably expensive. That's been my experience, anyway. Long gone are the days when you got a free shrimp buffet just for setting foot in a casino. Maybe those places are still out there, but I really don't want to sift through the rest of it to find them.

And there's also my contrarian nature at work here. The assumption is that everyone loves Vegas. In fact, the Web site for this conference says so explicitly: "Everyone loves Vegas!" That's the kind of thing that invariably makes me want to say, "Well, I hate Vegas. And I want you to hate it too, now." Any time it's expressed as a universal given that something is fun, I have the need to pop that balloon. I don't know why.

Maybe it's the programming that I feel everyone has succumbed to, the whole mythology that the Vegas marketing whizzes have created. I find all that bullshit very grating: Not only does everyone love Vegas, but it's the place to go crazy! Woo! What happens here, stays here! Like when the hooker you bring to your hotel room ODs on coke and pukes blood! Uh-oh! Well, what happens here, stays here!

And I don't think it's because I'm a prude -- I believe people should have the right to gamble and get drunk on the streets and snort coke with a hooker who then bleeds through her nose if they damn well please. I just happen to know that that I don't damn well please. I would rather go to Poughkeepsie for day-long meetings. Cuz what happens in Poughkeepsie, stays in Poughkeepsie!