All That Glitters

So I went to Vegas for a hobby-related event, and to see some friends. Ilse tagged along, partly because she believed all those stories from last year's trip about me and my buddy Hooley Whoremonger and the massage industry, and partly because she'd never been there and wanted to find out how easy it would be to break into the massage industry. Once it became apparent that she was going along, our friend Hamsterpuss and her husband, The Right Reverend Mister Hamsterpuss, came up from their desert lair near the bar featured in From Dusk Till Dawn to meet us.

Vegas is, of course, a marvel of human...uhm...something. Human inhumanity, maybe. Human nature, perhaps. Human hydraulic and electrical engineering, certainly. My favorite thing there is the fountain at the Belaggio, which I could just stare at for hours. It is, of course, way pleasurable to watch the fountain show (except for the Celine Dion songs) and pretend you're one of Ocean's Eleven staring at the fountain contemplating the cool cranketybajillion you just heisted from Andy Garcia, and all the massages you're going to get for that kind of heist-haul. Even Hamsterpuss was caught up in the dream, even though the Right Reverend Mister Hamsterpuss keeps her little rodent butt rolling around in fabulous multibling. While he massages it, presumably, but there are some things you don't ask even good friends.

Everyone, including the Right Reverend Mister Hamsterpuss, was also impressed with the street show at Treasure Island, which is, as you may know, called The Sirens of TI and features a couple of fake pirate ships and a bunch of lingerie-clad ho-bags dancing and singing suggestive songs to muscular, piratey sorts of men dancers. This is impressive, because the Right Reverend Mister Hamsterpuss is an actual Reverend, except he tends to leave off the fire and brimstone and judgment and stuff. I don't know how this affects his career in reverending, but his willingness to sportingly enjoy nearly nekkid ho-bags makes it way fun to hang out with him on the Strip.

I had some warm and fuzzy moments at the blackjack tables at the lowdown, carnival-tent casino where we were staying (my friend John Cusack, who was the King of this year's event, had trouble procuring us a decent venue and we ended up at the Boardwalk, which is slated to be demolished), and even more at the Aladdin, where the cocktail waitresses are much better-looking and there are fewer people who live in trailers in real life. I actually won a whole crapload of bling at the Aladdin, which I managed to piss away at both the Aladdin and the Boardwalk in a phenomenal orgy of loserheadedness on my last day in town.

There was also food. And alcohol. And that hobby thing, which was a tournament won by my good friend Frodo Hobbitfoot, which was sort of a random and puzzling thing to many of the attendees, which is unsurprising given that, when we were assessing the scoring and deciding who won, John Cusack and I pretty much pulled Frodo's name out of our collective ass. Our buddy Constantine the Hair-Free put down a crapload of collected money on the roulette wheel, playing a number special to our hobby, and won enough money so that we can do next year's event (for which I am, officially and in fact, the King of Vegas) at a casino with better-looking whores.

Speaking of whores, anyone who's spent time on the Strip knows about the slappers, the little immigrant persons who stand on street corners slapping packs of whore cards against their hands and offering them to all of the men who walk by. We were puzzled by this; in fact, Ilse and Hamsterpuss were vaguely insulted that they were apparently perceived as not good enough to be offered whores. It's also puzzling that, even when I'm walking down the Strip arm-in-freakin'-arm with Ilse and Hamsterpuss, these people want me to free up a hand to take one of their little whore cards. What's with this? With two stunning babes on my arm, these little people think I need to call Dial-A-Whore?

Okay, enough cryptology. In plain English, yeah, we had a blast, no, we didn't get married in the Chapel of Paratrooping Elvis, and yes, I still wanna be Brad Pitt in Ocean's Eleven. Actually, I wanna be Brad Pitt in Ocean's Twelve, because that's where he gets to bang Catherine Zeta-Jones, but that's a story for another day, methinks.