The City Consumes Us

“Streets like the rest of them, that I can't forget. Faces familiar and full of regret. I hated this place and all who came from it.” - 'The City Consumes Us' – The Delgados.

I am back, back in the city where sterile, plastic happiness is the pinnacle of one's dreams and aspirations. It's a place where you surrender five figures' worth of cash to park your posterior in a room full of vapid, preening never-will-be's while badly produced music that is as ill-conceived as the surrounding decorations pollutes the air quicker than the overpriced limousine that brought you here.

Give me a dingy bar that plays 50's blues until 3am and has but four patrons then forces me to walk home in the rain any day of the week. At least then I won't have to stand behind the girl in the taxi queue at the Venetian who is telling her friend she isn't going to date this guy who she previously describes in such fantastic terms that I thought he was a cross between Jesus and Superman. Why? Well, mainly because he “...isn't working over the summer and won't have that much money.” The irony of that statement become even more deliciously clear as she asks the taxi driver to drop her and her expensive-looking shoes at the Encore resort.

The nearest I have is the media meet-up at the Gold Coast, an event which was almost completely ruined by a very drunk local who called himself 'C-Dog' and attempted to challenge my knowledge of Doctor Who. It didn't take long for C-Dog to become C-Sick then simply C-U-Later as security got bored of his loud and fairly aggressive antics. As he was escorted out I resisted the urge to shout out, “How can David Tennant be your favourite Doctor? You boring bastard! Everyone knows Tom Baker was CLEARLY the best Doctor!” (Though I had to agree with his earlier statement that “There better be a black Doctor soon or this shit gonna get real.”)

Nothing really has changed since my last visit, walking down the strip at 3am, you'll still see the familiar sites of a child screaming, surprisingly it is not because of the ungodly hour that his brain-dead parents have decided to drag the impudent sprog around at. No, it's because his dad has decided his only mission (presumably having already blown the family savings on Pai Gow earlier) is to consume his son's (un)healthily gigantic ice-cream, savouring a last sugar rush before he creates his own hastily made cardboard sign and collapses to the roadside, begging for divine assistance. Like the city itself, they eat their own young here, Goya would feel vindicated.

Even the stories remain the same, it's just the little details that have changed. I'm reminded of Benjo's story of French players paying hookers with tournament chips as the taxi driver tells me the story of the girl he picked up from Ballys yesterday morning.

The girl claimed to have no money and told the driver that her boyfriend would be the one to pay when he met her. With the ride underway it didn't take long for the lady to show the driver the $7,000 worth of chips she had laid back for and asked if they can go via 'The Dunes' so she can cash them out. Our taxi driver friend pointed out that the Dunes had been knocked down years ago to be replaced by the Bellagio. The chips were clearly bygone souvenirs that had be passed on by a wily punter.

"Ok, so can I cash them out at the Bellagio?"She had asked with a hint of urgency.

The taxi driver told her that the Bellagio had nothing to do with the Dunes, it was built by Steve Wynn.

“Steve Wynn? So I can change them at the Wynn then?” came the desperate reply as the taxi unsympathetically drove her on to her waiting 'boyfriend' – the latter most likely being the rest of the cab ride plus about two minutes from a screaming fit.

New decade. Same old shit.

Off to cover the O8 event tomorrow, it's the Buick Skylark of poker games.

Song of the day, 'The City Consumes Us' – The Delgados. Obviously.