First, what I hate about Vegas

It’s no secret that everything is arranged in Las Vegas to facilitate gambling. The floor plans and signs in the hotels direct the unwary along the most circuitous route possible, winding through endless rows of blinking and bleating slot machines. Restaurants play loud, grating music, ensuring that patrons don’t linger too long over their meals. The casino area of one large hotel I walked through was ringed with several Starbucks – just in case you get sleepy before you make your money back again. You can even gamble in the swimming pools, and play Keno at the coffee shop. I eagerly await the advent of toilet slots.

In fact, there is almost no place where one is safe from the temptation to transfer money to the casino owners. From the moment you step off the plane to the moment you go back through airport security, you are forcibly entertained. Even the TSA video educates travelers by showing various hypothetical Vegas characters going through security. You see a showgirl stuffing her massive headpiece thingie through the X-ray machine. Visitors are allowed no opportunity for reflection or introspection. That might interfere with the ability to relieve them of their money.

Mr. T and I used to gamble occasionally back in our 20s, before my populist worldview hardened sufficiently to realize that gaming – at least in Vegas – is the most effective means, short of simple force, to transfer wealth to the super rich from the rest of us.* And all without giving anything in return except the frisson of imminent loss.

And when someone does manage to wrest some lucre from the clutches of The House, she need only walk a few steps to the stores waiting just beyond the casino area to give it all back again. I suspect that very little money actually leaves a given hotel, and even less leaves the city. This is a clever strategy, to be sure, but a dreadfully cynical one nonetheless.

In short, this industry preys on hopes and manipulates desperation for the gain of the corporate or the already wealthy. And while most people escape with no more than a headache and a bit of lingering self-disgust, others suffer more. One of the most appalling things I saw with some frequency were signs depicting an adult hand holding a smaller hand, with the caption: “Don’t leave your children unattended while gaming.” Dear God. It was enough to make me gather The Kid protectively in my arms.

But what really got me was the artifice of it all. As I walked through the airport on the way home past the zillionth public message congratulating me for my numerous acts of unrepentant decadence, I couldn’t help but think: Okay, I get it. You’re Vegas. You’re outlandish, outrageous, and totally transgressive. Whatever. Now show me something that's actually interesting.

But the thing of it is, there is nothing about Las Vegas – at least the famed Vegas that you find on the Las Vegas strip – that is remotely subversive of the establishment. Here is the order of things in Vegas: 1) First we’re going to get you to give us money by tricking you into thinking you have a good chance to take money from us; 2) If that doesn’t work, look over here at this nearly naked woman!!! 3) Be sure to smoke and drink a lot, too!

Perpetuation of the existing economic power structure through heterosexual sex, smoking and drinking. How original.

I kept comparing Vegas to Key West, which actually does have some genuinely subversive elements. I’m not a huge partier – I prefer ocean kayaking and scuba diving to doing the bar scene when I’m there. But I have no real objection to it, and people doing it in Key West aren’t being fed a line about it – they’re just doing it. By contrast, Vegas congratulates you for your edginess when you’re not really being edgy at all.

This is not to bash on people who like Vegas, and enjoy doing all the things that Vegas tries to get people to do. It can be fun, in its way. But look through the artifice so you can do it with a clear understanding of the elements in play.

Next: It's not all beer, babes and blackjack, or: Would I go back? You bet. So to speak.

*Except, perhaps, the credit card industry and our current taxation scheme. But the latter qualifies as a form of force, I think.