Las Vegas Visit 3

   Across the street from the Trump are the two brown-glass thin sheets of curving elegance called the Wynn and something called Encore, which is a duplicate of the Wynn only facing the other way. I am saying brown but they are not really brown. They are more of a metallic watery chocolate copperish color that arc and curve against the sky like huge sculptured waves. Donald Trump and Steve Wynn are two of the more interesting men on the planet and seeing their buildings right next to each other gives a good synopsis of the both of them. The Trump building is an upright tall block of gold, like a fucking ingot, that says "I'm rich and I like talking about it." The Wynn buildings say "Won't you join me in an elegant moment on my property that I think you will appreciate?" Of the two men, Wynn, of course, is the more dangerous. I don't think Donald Trump could bring himself to push someone off the roof. I think Wynn would not only push someone off he'd go down and drag the body up to push off a second time if it suited him. And then if the cops asked him about it he'd say "That's none of your fucking business" and tell them to leave. Meanwhile Donald would charm his way out of any such incident, and if that failed he would use hypnosis, which he seems able to manipulate and throw around if it suits him. I think both men are cordial rivals who see in the other a viable partnership as long as Trump stays out of the gambling business. Which he apparently is content to do.
   Where Trump is an in-your-face flaunter of wealth and shiny surfaces, Wynn is an aesthetic maniac. There is an attention to detail that is exhausting: there are uniformed personnel hand-washing the leaves of the plants. There are Mexicans pushing carts with thousands of colored replacement tiles the size of square nickels for the floors when one or more of the millions of mosaic tiles gets punctured or broken. There are women in high heels all over the place and if one of them hooked a shoe in any of the craters that appear constantly there would be all kinds of maneuvering room for a "legitimate" lawsuit, so a lot of time is just spent on damage control keeping the broken mini-tiles in repair. This could all be easily avoided with a normal floor. And that just ain't in the cards. Steve Wynn wants tiled design motifs for people to walk on.
   I have watched Donald Trump and Steve Wynn in one venue or another and have concluded that Donald Trump is the sort of man who wants to get to the bottom of every incident and situation and hear every side and watch every witness before he comes to a fair conclusion about a matter: that's it's important to him to see and hear all he can about something before coming to a decision about another person's fate. Steve Wynn strikes me as someone who could give a flying fuck about the particulars, just do what I say and shut the fuck up about it or you'll find yourself out on your ass and probably with my foot still up it. Steve Wynn also seems oblivious to the horrific facework that is being eternally performed upon him, which makes little sense to me when I see the attention to detail and aesthetics that he puts into everything else. Then when his face is concerned he let's Methy Crackhead The Clown take over and gives him a bonus if he does an especially ridiculous job of things. Carrot Top has to be Steve Wynn's first number in his Rolodex when it comes to rounding-up a drinking buddy for the night so that he will be seen sporting-about with a kindred spirit in the horror department.

Las Vegas Visit 2

   Staying at Treasure Island, now called TI in an effort to change the name without actually changing the name, if you are facing west and are on the 18th floor what you see is a listless industrial expanse that goes from horizon to horizon, and the Trump building. Trump chose his lot of land with care, the Strip curves suddenly about 45 degrees to the east. If Trump had built his building along the Strip road itself instead of placing it way to the east of the highway - you never would be able to see the Trump letters that cross the top edge of the building if you were ten miles out in the desert to the south where the approach to Las Vegas exists. As it is, however, the word TRUMP is all you can see as you approach the Strip, it's the only word you can clearly see in the whole town and it gives you the distinct impression that you are actually entering the city of Trump. But it's not the city of Trump it's the city of Wynn. The only reason Trump is there at all - in my opinion - is because Wynn made him agree to never open a casino in any building he built or had built by the mob-run construction industry. Apparently - in my opinion - Trump is not good at running casinos. Or - in my opinion - at least someone thinks he is no good at it.
   Well, some accord was - in my opinion - reached and there the Trump building sets, the most noticeable thing in town from out of town.
   I have never entered the Trump because, like they did the Duck Dynasty dude, I would likely get kicked out. Unless I was in disguise, which means, unless I was in a suit. And I would have to make my entrance immediately after putting the suit on because I tend to look like I just wrestled a steer in an arena made of manure after I am dressed up for five minutes or more. I have been this way since childhood. I just cannot stay clean. It's like dressing a leopard in clothing: two minutes later the clothing is either hanging in the branch of a tree in shreds or still on the leopard and looking like the leopard took a machete to it. The first time Cecily stopped me from going into someplace - about 30 years ago - and started fixing how I looked she uttered "I swear, you need a valet." I responded - in all truthfulness - "My mother started saying that to me when I was eight!" Which is in fact factual. My mother could not believe what I would look like when I would come home from school or from play. I was also at that age and those years surrounding that age, in lots and lots of shows and recitals and this that and the other thing in which i had to perform, alone, and on stage and there were lots and lots of auditions for another pile of these those and other things. I had to be "in costume" for these performances, which usually consisted of some outfit cesar romero might wear at the club or desi arnaz might don while "hosteeng de cho." These duds had to be put on me mere instants before I was to perform or else they would look like the leopard's clothes up in the tree. If dressing me long-prior to the performance was the only alternative I had to be watched and monitored and ordered to sit and stay put. Otherwise I would come out on stage in the spotlights looking like Emmett Kelly when I was supposed to look like Cary Grant.
   This is why I didn't attempt to enter the Trump. Also I was approaching on foot from Industrial Blvd. Industrial Blvd is the next street to the west of the Strip. It is lined with strip joints. High end ones too, at least as high end as these things get: Deja Vue and Sapphire and a few others of renown. They are only high end by reputation, however, and not by real estate appearance. Especially during the day. You would be afraid to enter any of the places during the day: they look like vampire retreats from the sunlight. They look like buildings the apocalypse devastated first before moving on to more posh places to obliterate.
   To the immediate east of this industrial glut of wooden warehouses is a vast vacant lot, another vast lot on which something is being started made of steel and rising above it all is the Trump. The Trump reflects a golden light onto the huge mall immediately south of it because the Trump has golden glass all up and down it. The entrance, which I peeked at, is all golden with golden chandeliers and golden people and the usual thug wannabes and trainees in uniforms greeting the people and opening the doors of the cars and taxis and limos and moving racks on wheels around because god forbid you should have to lug your own luggage.