Published: November 06, 2009 08:43 am      

Las Vegas: A man-made wonder

I will be leaving for Las Vegas Saturday. Yes! I haven’t been for about five years and I know a lot has changed since then with new, magnificent hotels and casinos built to replace the old (or not so old). I’ve always flown into Las Vegas at night and every time, The Strip has redecorated itself, like a show girl constantly changing her magnificent costume to hold your attention.

Las Vegas is like a two-faced goddess. One of them beckons with a beguiling smile offering excitement and optimism. But when the head turns, you see that behind the glitz and glamour are dashed hopes and dead dreams. If you’re there to have fun, you try not to notice that supporting the flash are mountains of trash — low-rent motels and gritty bars and cheap strip joints that cater to the saddest of Las Vegas residents and guests.

That’s probably not so different than any other place, but in Las Vegas, the self-destructive spiral can be super-charged. Instead of gently sliding to the bottom, the obsessed cycle down at mach speed. You need to pack your self-discipline when you go.

Still, I think the city is one of the man-made wonders of the world. Everyone should see it at least once even if they’re not interested in gambling. Because most of us live in ordinary places, it does us good to experience the thrill of plunging into the spectacular every now and then. Because we live our lives bound by pre-set schedules, we occasionally need to be jolted out of our commonplace monotony to get our blood stirring. In Las Vegas, there are no clocks and no closings. Doors are never locked, lights are never shut off, slot machines ching-ching-ching 24/7. For however long you are there, you can indulge in your own natural bio-rhythms. Eat, sleep and gamble when you please. Las Vegas will be there to serve you at your command.

I’ve always thought the downtown Viva Vision canopy was most revealing of what Las Vegas is about. I remember when the city’s downtown was dying. All the action and money was flowing to The Strip while once famous casinos, like the Gold Nugget, Binion’s and Fitzgerald’s were sliding into irrelevancy because most tourists avoided the deteriorating, and increasingly crime-ridden, downtown.

Many cities in America, large and small, sat back and watched their downtowns die. Las Vegas was different. The movers and shakers decided they wouldn’t allow it to happen.

In 1995, the first light show was staged on the world’s largest screen above Fremont Street. The canopy is 1,500 feet long (the length of 5 football fields) and contains 12.5 million synchronized lamps consisting of 555,000 watts and capable of displaying 16.7 million color combinations.

When I was last there, Fremont Street was plunged into darkness at the top of every hour. People flooded out of the darkened casinos and into the street to watch and hear the incredible light and sound show (a different one every hour). Above their heads, herds of buffalo thundered across the canopy; flowers bloomed, space ships soared into galaxies far away; rock and roll bands played; dancers danced, schools of rainbow-colored fish swam under water. It was like a huge block party, all of us with our heads craned back in awe, marveling to our neighbors on the street.

We stayed downtown longer than we had planned in order to see the next show, and the next. By now, 25 million people have been drawn to see The Fremont Street Experience.

So instead of giving up as most people would have when faced with the seemingly impossible mission of competing with The Strip, Las Vegas faced the challenge head on and created a companion piece to bring the tourists back.

Las Vegas is the Donald Trump of cities. Build the next fabulous thing and hey, if you go bankrupt, you borrow a few dollars and try again. The show must go on! And it has to be bigger, brasher, louder and brighter than before. In addition to gambling, give your visitors erupting volcanoes and pirate battles and white tigers and art galleries and roller-coasters diving along the tops of hotels. Give them block-long buffets and light shows and free drinks. Make it so much fun, they won’t even care if you’re picking their pockets while you’re entertaining them because they’d spend just as much money if they went on vacation somewhere else, wouldn’t they?

I love Las Vegas because you’re cast into a completely different environment that’s so much freer than the staid every-dayness of home.

And besides that, there’s always the chance, slight though it may be, that you’ll hit the big jackpot. That’s never going to happen at Disney World.

• Vicki Williams is a columnist for the Pharos-Tribune. She can be reached through the newspaper at ptnews@pharostribune.com.