The Mojave Desert looks otherworldly. I can totally grasp why Hollywood would choose this region to film Mars landscape footage, or any other desert like planet in a sci-fi epic. Death Valley was the locale for Tatooine in Star Wars, I know. Death Valley is just a ways north of where we were driving. I kept getting lost in thought amongst the mountains and rocky cliffs. It was great. There was even a defunct waterpark along I-15, totally overrun by weedlike desert vegetation. I want to explore there one day.
Getting into Vegas, you're not thrust headfirst into a clusterfuck of stimulation. Small scale towers show up here and there, and then you see the Strip. A small oasis of towers along the freeway. It looked like we were pulling up to a theme park. The towers aren't massively huge. They're okay from the angle of the freeway, their true scale. But from their front angle, along Las Vegas Blvd., they appear as towering monoliths, Holy Towers for the American Playground, beckoning the fool to come closer, to partake in their hidden innards.
We immediately sought The Mirage in order to procure our tickets for "Love", the Cirque du Soleil show honoring The Beatles. It was a prologue to madness. To the overstimulation I hinted at above. The Mirage totes a small but satisfying biodome as their main rotunda, complete with lush tropical gardens and cascading waterfalls. I've seen that before. The casino within, Mystic Lake provided me with enough know-how about the casino racket to not be too overtaken with "WOW!"-ness. It wasn't until we walked up to the "Love" box office that I started getting wind to how crazy Vegas would be. It is a rainbow of psychedelia, the floor changes color, the ceiling made of silver reflective balls, making it so that massive amounts of Sgt. Pepper colors are falling all around you. We got our tickets and made our way to the Paris.
Here's where my heart kicked up a notch. The Paris sports a half-scale Eiffel Tower in the front of the building, with the back half's bottom nestled within the main center room. You go inside the building, and all around the Eiffel Tower are fountains, slot machines, fake skyscapes painted on the ceiling, bars and lounges that look like French cafes. A Cabaret theatre is placed in one corner, a nice restaurant (Mon Ami Gabi) in another, and a crystal chandeliered check-in hall juts off from one end as well. We dropped our bags in this check-in hall, and my aunt said, "You're a Vegas virgin, aren't you?" I nodded, eyes wide, looking into the Paris casino. She said, "Go buy your first drink at the lounge there and walk around, I'll watch the bags."
I bought a $9 Gin and Tonic (nine goddamn dollars?!) and casually strolled along fake French alleyways, art galleries celebrating French book cover art, took in a game of Craps (I always think of someone shouting "Silva Tuna tonight!!!!" as they shake their dice, ready to let 'em roll), marveled at the Tower crashing through the ceiling like a lone Godzilla leg that has carelessly strolled through in its rampage, peroused the night club (Risque), the chocolate shoppes, the winery . . . the place was overwhelming.
We got to our rooms and I couldn't wait to get out onto the Strip. I looked out of my window and could see Caesar's Palace across the street, Trump Tower down the way, Treasure Island and The Mirage. We quickly got dressed up, had a few Cosmo's made by my uncle, and walked over to Caesar's for dinner. Again, fake skies, massive fountains, waterfalls . . . this was the first time that I noticed that every hotel holds a small mall within its bowels. Complete with theming.
We ate an expensive crab dinner (talking family politics, I don't grow tired of this). I cut my finger peeling a crab claw pincher. A crab cut. I bled all over my dinner before I realized what was happening. I then had the best Filet Mignon I've ever tasted (sorry fellow veggie friends).
We headed on over to The Mirage for "Love".
We first stepped into the Revolution Lounge, a fully immersive bar blasting Beatles music, complete with interactive coffee tables, walls that would spontaneously show movies of the Beatles, it was a great place to lube the senses with alcohol before stepping into the "Love Theater" . . .
I was left teary-eyed five times over. At Miniapple, I had found the CD version of "Love" hidden within a case designated for classical music. We've been waking the kids up to it for the last month cranked high enough that I'm sure other rooms can hear it at distracting levels. The kids love "Hey Jude", "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", "Octopus's Garden" and "Sgt. Pepper (Reprise)" the most, it seems. I kept thinking of them and my coworkers, wishing they could see how beautiful the production was. Every song was different. My personal favorites were probably "Within You Without You" (a table of dreaming clowns spreads its dining cloth so that it covers the entire audience with a white tarp, making it appear as if the table is floating through a massive dream landscape of clouds and thought), "Octopus's Garden" (huge jellyfish prosthetic puppets worn by the performers rocket through the air from all around at dangerous speeds), "Come Together" (a great light show spotlight fiasco focusing on one performer at a time, going perfectly with the music, simple as can be idea-wise, but the moves the performers do are downright almost humanly impossible!). All the songs were great.
Here's a documentary I found from the BBC detailing "Love" and the conception of it with the surviving members of The Beatles to the current production. Click on the video to go to YouTube and you can watch the successive parts of the show.
Afterward, we were beat. I was drunk and tired. It was a great first impression of Sin City, which so far, didn't seem to have Sin in massive quantities like I had thought. It was very family friendly so far.
The Beatles -- "Helter Skelter"
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