Strange musings from the bakery:

The Spring Break Chronicles, Volume 1: The American Dream wears a leopard print thong

By David Baker

Welcome to Las Vegas:

Where in one pull of the lever - the boring pressing of a button on newer slots - can send a flood of coins spewing out of the machine and around your ankles. But, there aren't coins anymore either. Vegas operates on vouchers. Bar coded-receipts have replaced the Hawaiian shirt full of dollar tokens.

Where the international sound for, "Take my pornography," is the faint clicking of card stock spiced with naked female flesh and artfully placed stars.

Where 20 dollars won't buy you two drinks, but for 20 plus one, you can have strippers sexually assault you. But is it really sexual assault if you're paying? Probably not, but that, my friends, is beyond the point.

Where the necklines plunge, the cleavage balloons. The shorts and skirts shirk.

Where many find the American Dream, and others find the toilet, both financially and physically.

Lucky for me, Vegas smiles on a virgin. I think it's the way they get you to come back.

At 3 a.m., on Saturday morning in Treasure Island Casino, it was looking like Vegas was going to win. I could have cared less. I'd been playing slots at about $15 a pop, and milking it for at least two drinks - enough to keep the fire stoked - each time. I was drinking for free and playing with money I'd already put in the loss column.

I was waiting for the cocktail waitress to bring the Bud Light I'd ordered, squeezing the last drops out of my $15 deposit into the Hot Hot Super Jackpot machine, when my luck changed.

I pulled the lever, watched the reels spin and somehow took note that after the spin ended I only had 10 cents left and no beer. If luck was a lady, she must have been just as drunk as I was, because for at least a split second, she was being easy. In her moment of weakness, I racked up the three bonus icons necessary to chalk up 15 bonus spins.

All I could think was, "Cool, at least I can play until my beer gets here." Which I did. And that was the only concrete detail I can rake out of the next 10 or so minutes, because after my bonus spins were up, I was walking, beer in one hand - snugged tightly into my red National Wild Turkey Fedeartion koozie - cash voucher with "$96.00" shouting out in bold type in the other - if i was forced to, I'd guess it was in my left hand, simply because I can only apply the proper flow of beer into my mouth with my right hand, I'm not an ambidextrous drunk. That's a detail that doesn't really matter. Well, I was doing a little detective work, shoot me. We deduced later that I was hitting 8X multipliers like they were going out of style, and that's how I went from being down to my last 10 cents to packing my $96 in one of my hands. Moving on.

With an extra $96 and a fresh Bud Light, I strode like a conquering pirate captain out of Treasure Island, flanked by Berto and Marcus, my first mates.

"This, my friends is the American Dream. You put in the money. You pull the lever. You get the money and the whole time hot chicks bring you beer. Ain't it America." That's a little more articulate, much less profane reproduction of the things I was shouting as we crossed the street in front of the Venetian.

My temporary high was shaken by a man, somewhat more inebriated than me, who was asking us to look up into the sky to watch the birds.

"Are you serious?" I asked, very skeptical of his intentions. "You'll steal my beer. I've seen this little trick done before."

"No, man there are birds," he yammered back at me. "I'm high, but there are definitely birds, look."

"Nope, not going to do it," I said, turning to my crew now. "To hell with the birds, we need to have a celebratory feast. Something grand to celebrate this occasion."

So we did what any true American would, we went to McDonald's.

I was standing in line, casually drinking my beer, reveling in the booty we'd taken - and on our first conquest of Vegas, no less - when a voice snapped me back to reality.

"You can't have that in here!" The fiesty Black cashier was pointing at my beer. At least I thought she was, so I held it up, making sure that was the target of her malice. Bingo.

"What? I thought this was America," I said, quoting an episode of "South Park" - one she'd never seen, because she didn't think it was funny. I thought it was ridiculous that you could have your drinks anywhere else in Vegas, at any time, but not in McDonald's. I bet Ray Croc would have wanted me to have my beer with my snack wraps. Instead of fighting it and getting kicked out of a fast food joint, I downed the last half of my beer, threw it in the garbage and ordered.

***

I just remember after my conveniently placed ***'s that I had started out with the intent to write about sex and strippers and Sin City. How did I get so far off track? Starting at the beginning, that's how. The people only need what's important. I did want to talk about the American Dream, but not that much. For hell's sake, my damned original subtitle was "Sex sells and I'm buyin'." Clever, I think, but not workable now. That's what I get for titling the bastard before I actually write it. I tend to work backwards and it's bitten me in the ass this time. Enough of this, I'll change the subtitle to "The American Dream wears a leopard print thong," that'll cover all the bases. So on with it.

Everyone knows Las Vegas is Sin City. Everyone knows what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas - unless you write a drawn out narrative about it and have it published on the Internet, but that's my masochistic side, I suppose. Everyone also knows the joke, "The VD you contract in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas."

I wasn't about to pick up a prostitute to get my welcome basket full of disease. Hell, I wouldn't even pick up the advertisement cards that carpet the sidewalks of the Vegas Strip. You don't want to be the only person that stops and grabs some. You look like a perv, which is hard in a city run on the power of tits - I probably can't even say that and I'll have to clean it up to say breasts, oh well.

Although I was above any Spitzerish behavior, a strip club didn't seem out of the question. I'd never been to one. What better place to pop that gentleman's club cherry than Las Vegas?

I didn't want to venture off the Strip just to see some pole dancing, though. I figured it was far too dangerous, especially in my state of drunken vulnerability. But alas, on our last evening before leaving Las Vegas - you know, like the movie, but without Nick Cage to piss on my nudity parade - I got my opportunity. We decided to go up to Fremont Street, an older, budget version of the Strip, which is exactly what Glitter Gulch was - an older, cheaper version of the strip.

After being groped by the Eastern European girl at the door during my inquiry about prices and such, I spent the next hour and a half trying to talk people into going. No dice. Berto had Rachel - his girlfriend - there, so he couldn't go with me, and Rach wasn't drunk enough to go along with the idea of all of us going. Marcus didn't want to spend the $20 to get in.

At 10:20 p.m., I finally gave the finger to the blatant creepiness involved in going to a strip club by yourself and walked in. I paid my 20, got 10 one dollar bills and followed my cocktail waitress - who was dressed modestly for a club selling unabashed nakedness, well, toplessness - to my bar stool in between poles two and three, right in the crux of the action.

To my left was a Latino man with a goatee and a collection of other patchier facial hair, a ponytail and the name Seabass. No joke, Sea Bass - I'm not sure how he spelled it, we didn't get into particulars. There's no time when there are nipples floating around above you. To my right, - wearing a Boston Red Sox hat, was the oldest Asian man in Las Vegas - this guy taught Mr. Miyagi karate. I never caught his name. Nudity will do that to a man's journalistic work ethic and commitment for accurate details.

I wasn't even seated long enough to sip down my Crown and Coke before a short, kangaroo-faced girl came up to me and pulled on my arm. "Come talk to me," she said in my ear.

"How much is that going to cost?" I ask, knowing strippers are notorious for being money grubbing wh... I can't really say that either. And it's not necessary, because saying a girl is a stripper really covers the whole money grubbing thing anyways, right?

"It doesn't cost anything to have a conversation."

"OK."

She drug me, drink in hand, to the booth behind my seat. I slid in, set my drink on the table and watched, probably wide-eyed, as she straddled me. I was either wide-eyed or in a state of sheer panic, caused by my fear that she was going to kick my drink over. It's unclear which expression it was, but my bet's on panic.

Somehow the topic of my strip club virginity was broached.

"How about I take you back and pop your cherry, then?"

I really wanted to say something witty: "That actually sounds painful." "I only have figs, sorry." "I'm saving myself for the right woman." Instead, all that came out of my mouth was, "Sorry, I'm broke."

If you want to get a stripper to leave you alone, just tell them you're broke. It's like a swan dive into the Arctic Sea.

"Well, that's rude that you don't want a dance from me," she said in an offended, angry tone.

"It's not you, it's me," was what I wanted to say. That line usually works, but all I could choke out was a, "Sorry."

It really wouldn't be appropriate to describe all the things I saw. Nothing too wild, it wasn't fully nude and these girls weren't drunk enough yet, or something. I couldn't stop laughing about the situation. Miyagi Sr., gave way to some British guys who were very disappointed in the quality of the girls - they must have seen the 60-year-old in the black lace.

Sea Bass was enjoying himself, and in doing so, imparted some knowledge on me - being my strip club Miyagi, if you will. Ninety-nine percent of that stuff isn't printable. But the advice that stuck was this: You have to be picky with your money. If you don't like what they do on the stage, don't give them money. Make them earn it. Sage-like.

So I spent the rest of the night nursing my limited amount of ones, but I found it hard not to give at least one of my dollars to a tall blond that, swear to God, lit her nipples on fire. Now, in my America, that sort of talent deserves a crumpled up George Washington. I had to buy my hat back when it was stolen off of my head by a Black stripper. She looked better in it than I did.

I got good at turning down dances in new, innovative ways. Rosario, the world's most timid Latino stripper. Victoria, the Russian from Jersey. Lola, whose chest, at least, was the property of a man named James. But it was an unnamed Black stripper with a gap in her teeth, who gave it the best shot.

"I've been watching you across the room all night," she said, kneeling next to me and rubbing my leg.

"Really? I do look pretty good tonight, I guess." She didn't appreciate the humor, but it didn't stop her hands.

"So can I dance for you?"

I wasn't even being creative here, "Nope. I just don't have the money."

"Well, do you have a tip for a pretty girl," her voice rung of desperation.

It took all my power, all my restraint to not say, "I would if you could find me one." But I didn't. Instead I gave her a dollar, even though she didn't do any fantastic gyrating or pyrotechnics. I learned that sometimes you just pay strippers to leave you alone.

Peace for a dollar. Maybe that's the American Dream.

MS
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