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.