Vegas: Local style

Sin City, an oasis of endless opportunities for debauchery in the midst of a harsh, inhospitable desert landscape devoid of hydration or comforts. For all the fun and enjoyment one can have while vacationing in the glittering casinos, there is more to the city than the gaudy glimmering front portrayed for the world stage. When your luck runs out and there's nowhere else to turn, many people find themselves adrift, wandering the scalding hot, sandy streets and alleys for any meager measure of respite they can eke out for themselves. Las Vegas is a city built for the winners, after all, with luxurious marble and gold-studded suites larger than most middle-class homes, and expansive buffet tables groaning under opulent spreads with caviar and import delights. The idea of a social safety net, while mandated to some degree by the federal government, is not something that latched on especially well in this city. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Las Vegas ranks as one of the highest populations of people without homes despite being one of the country's smaller cities and things aren't looking to get much better as the population grows. There are homeless shelters, a 24/7 open courtyard with port-a-potties, and food banks, but they're often full up or devoid of supplies before the end of the day, and the local government isn't overly concerned with spending money on helping the unfortunate when there are literal fortunes to be made by catering to the rich passing through on vacation. 

This is not to say that there aren't people with good hearts living in the city of Las Vegas! There are truly some incredibly generous, loving souls that do their best to help their community and fellow human, like the Critical Care Comics group, among many many others. It's just that, when it comes to the focus of government spending, you're unlikely to find it going back into the local communities. Vegas thrives by appealing to and attracting visitors from elsewhere, bringing their tourist money to over-indulge and get away from it all, and the locals are more a necessary cog in the machine, replaceable pawns. Yeah, you need a local population to operate as staff for the many different restaurants and casinos, but they don't need to be especially well educated or well-off.  Given as much, it doesn't take much for the rug to come out from under many of the city's working population, and with the cost of living going up while pay remains stagnant, where do they go from there? It doesn't take a genius with odds to see that things are a bit bleak. 

I don't have the answers, I'm afraid. What I do know is that without sufficient awareness, things won't improve. Knowledge is power, isn't it? If you want to help, you can make a donation to the Las Vegas Rescue Mission, or look into other options. 

Vegas: F*ck you. I'm trying to have a good time

Say what you will about Frank Sinatra and the Rat-Pack, and I don't give a rat's ass what any of those headlining mega-stars that adorn any given showroom on the Las Vegas Strip on any given night might hope to say, you've got to look out to the people on the streets to get the real read on Vegas. What sentence better sums up the ethos behind the city of sin and revelling in hedonistic excesses quite like his sign? Fuck you. I'm trying to have a good time. That could be the advertising slogan for the city, where your entertainment and depravity is of the utmost priority! Behaviors and ensembles that would be considered abhorrent or embarrassing back home are not only given the light of day but a green-light pass as every casino's glittering orifice promises to indulge you in excess, whether your poison be booze, boobs, or buffets. Eat to your triple-bypass-coronary-heart's delight and load up plate after plate with greasy glistening goodies, fresh from the kitchens! You can even get paddled for not finishing your towering portions of food at the Heart Attack Grill, if you're into getting food-shamed in front of strangers, because why not. Not enough alcohol in your Fat Tuesday's tower of neon-colored-oblivion? Get some extra shots in that beeyotch! Because, why not, baby? It's Vegas! If, in your pursuit of having a good time, things might get out of hand, never you fear. That's what it's all about, after all, isn't it? Should you find yourself laying spread-eagle on your belly upon a cold linoleum floor in front of the bathrooms at Harrah's, awash in the highlighter-hues of your drink of doom, security and medical staff will be there to hoist you back up again and jettison you off to a hospital for quick tending to if need be...if you're a tourist, of course. If, on the other hand, you look a bit more like our friend above, a victim of a good time that derailed hard, security will be happy to escort you from the premises expeditiously. Wouldn't want the out of towners to get a glimpse of their potential future, after all, should their good time get out of hand. 

But fuck you. I'm trying to have a good time.

Vegas: People (and pigeons) of the Strip

People in the West tend to talk a lot of crap about pigeons, calling them "rats with wings" (which is in and of itself offensive to us people who've had pet rats before), "vermin" and other unpleasant monickers that the poor little birds have done naught to earn. It's not the pigeons' faults that the relentless spread of human civilization has encroached upon natural lands where wild pigeons would have happily gone about their business far removed from most human activity, though the pigeons in the Americas today are all the descendants of domesticated pets. The original, indigenous pigeon, the passenger pigeon, went extinct a long time ago.  I'm sure the pigeons would rather not have to eat our garbage and instead prefer to feast on fat worms, seeds and grubs out of the grasses and fields, fresh and natural, juicy. Coincidentally, though, the spread of humans was a big factor in why the pigeons (and doves) were able to proliferate as well as they have, due in large part to the aforementioned domestication. For eons they were bred for food, their chubby little nestlings (aka squab) made an easy protein source for the people living in growing cities throughout the Middle East and Europe at the advent of civilization... then they were kept as pets, admired for their monotonous pairings, messenger and navigation abilities, and the simple lives that made them easy to cage. Now, instead of being the food source themselves, pigeons are able to scavenge from the endless detritus that collects around any large human city. In this much, they at least share an obvious kinship with rats, who found their way to the Americas onboard shipping vessels and were not originally native to the lands. They've done exceptionally well and endured due to their symbiotic, or at least reasonably tenable, relationship with humans.  

People without homes, or the homeless, also share this kinship with the misunderstood animals aforementioned. Any large enough group of humans gathered into a township or city will begin to accumulate their own human vestigials, lingering around the periphery of the acceptable spaces to squeak out a living on the remains and shrapnel of others, largely trying to skirt by unnoticed by the masses who would maybe try to stamp them out. 

Vegas: People and pets on the Promenade

Winners and losers love Las Vegas, though for their own entirely different reasons. Those lucky few winners are able to amass gargantuan piles of cash, obscene quantities of paper power filling their happy hands eagerly, while the losers...well, what is life without hope? Without the glimmering of hope at the end of the tunnel life becomes meaningless, but dangle the proverbial carrot a sufficiently tantalizing distance away and that optimism will power a horse (or person) through otherwise insurmountable challenges. The homeless population of Las Vegas has plenty to hope for, in the city of Sin, after all one of our biggest sales points is the fact that you can go from zero to hero with one fortuitous spin of the slot's reels, all it takes is luck! While I, personally, would never wish (or wish for my enemies) to be homeless in this unforgiving desert climate, there are benefits to the near endless parade of sunny days to be sure, namely the constant flow of tourist's foot traffic that means crafty buskers can make a fairly decent chunk of untaxed income, especially when they have an outstanding talent or deformity. There's one fellow you can regularly find in front of the Bellagio's fountains who draws portraits with his mouth, due to his lack of hands. 

It's not just the homeless that are likely to gather in these large public arenas, of course. You will invariably encounter several superheroes in varying stages of accuracy, decency, and dress. These hopefuls will pose with their eager fans for an exchange of currency, so don't try to take their photos without their permission (unless their backs are turned), as you're likely to find yourself in an awkward confrontation with a pissed off Defintely-NOT-Ryan-Reynolds-Deadpool. Like it wasn't bad enough it wasn't the real Ryan Reynolds, but to get hostile too?! Not very X-Force, man. But when you're dealing with money-hungry imposters like this, instead of the anti-heroes themselves, what can you expect?   

But the people watching is something else, that's for sure. 

All photos in this post were kindly provided by Antho Jay, who has been my faithful photographer!

Vegas: Living on the street in the city of Sin

This human pictured above, this is Peanut. He's originally from New Mexico, according to a conversation he and Antho had one afternoon. Peanut likes to drink alcohol, like a lot of alcohol, a hobby he's had since he was a wee little baby when his mum would put booze in his bottle to keep him quiet and sleepy. Perhaps this makes it no surprise, then, that Peanut is now a homeless young adult at the ripe old age of 23, and he's right on track for needing a kidney replacement within the next year or risk a more or less certain death. And so it goes, another homeless young American wasting the dwindling days of his short and brutal life here on the streets of Sin City, where he points to tourists and tells them if he thinks they're hot between swigs of malt liquor. I mean, we could wax poetic and try to write an optimistic tale of how his future will invariably be brighter and better than his current lot in life, but for people like Peanut that would be a bold-faced lie. It's highly unlikely that there's any sort of GoFundMe campaign to get Peanut a kidney, because who is worried about a homeless kid like Peanut? At the end of the day, he's just another face blending into the background, another awkward aversion of the eyes for the residents and tourists alike. Homelessness is not an easy thing to fix and there's an incredibly complex web of variables and choices coalescing together to land someone in such an unfortunate position, and how much of that is fated and how much of it is personal manifest destiny is hard to decipher at a quick glimpse. 

It takes a whole lot more than a quick glimpse to work out a solution to the problem of homelessness, and here in the city of sin, it's an especially unfortunate situation to wind up in. Not only is the city itself rather hostile to the homeless, who wind up camped out on the walkways and stoops of downtown, but the environment too is extremely harsh and very dangerous. A lot of our homeless in Las Vegas have taken to hiding underground, making their homes in the drainage tunnels that exist to spare citizens the brunt of the flash flooding, and coincidentally end up drowned when those floods find their way to their intended corridors. It's a lose-lose situation, though some intriguing new ideas have been added to the mix in an effort to help alleviate the issue, or at least divert it to less tourist-prone areas. Whether this is really the right solution is yet to be determined, but again, this isn't an easy issue with a clear solution. Unfortunately for Peanut, it's probably too little, too late.  

Photos in this post provided by Antho Jay...