In Vegas, people-watchers get a free ticket to the best show

By Christopher Percy Collier, Globe Correspondent, 04/07/02

		If you go  Mojave outshines city  Leaving Las Vegas for an adventure  The West, Southwest  Favorite getaways

LAS VEGAS - The heavy-set man in his mid-30s peers through thick yellow-tinted glasses at a foot-high action figure of The King. Wearing a shiny purple shirt, and with a rhinestone ring wrapped around one finger, the visitor strokes a dark bushy sideburn that extends to the bottom of his jaw.

"Look, honey, these look like yours," says his girlfriend, holding up a pair of plastic glasses for sale in the Elvis-O-Rama gift shop. Instead of a Groucho Marx-style mustache and nose, these have fake sideburns attached.

"Yeah, but mine," he says, "are prescription."

The gold lame curtain rises, but this colossal King wasn't the one up on stage. Instead, it was a svelte, lip-synching, hip-swiveling, guitar-swinging 18-year-old who was doing the Elvis song and dance. The one with the girlfriend and the glasses, it turns out, wasn't even part of the show.

It's no surprise that Las Vegas - with its bright lights, brash architecture, and great glittery performances - rallies around a moniker like Entertainment Capital of the World. But these days, bearing witness to the people this ever-growing land of the outlandish attracts is entertainment enough. It's the best show in town, and it starts as soon as you get off the plane.

Sometimes, like when my wife and I flew out recently for a friend's surprise party, it starts as soon as you get on.

The man with feathered blond hair, tight jeans, and a black leather suitcase swaggers toward an empty seat on the Boeing 737 next to two plump women in black. He shoots them a seductive glance that makes their pale glittery faces blush, then takes his seat. They soon start chattering away about the best places to party while in Las Vegas.

After the plane takes off, gambling guides come out. Decks of cards are unsheathed and shuffled. Midway through the flight, the drink cart makes its rounds. It's early on a Friday morning, but cups of ice, cans of mixers, and plenty of miniature bottles of liquor make their way off the cart.

Hours later, the plane begins its descent. The pale brown expanse of the Mojave Desert comes into view. The inky blue water of Lake Mead snakes its way through a flat unremarkable landscape immediately below. The cool white caps of Mount Charleston stretch across the distant horizon. The chatter grows louder.

A math teacher from Baltimore pulls on a lucky black baseball cap with the words "Stay Green" on it.

Beside him is a housewife from Connecticut, dressed in a full-length camel-hair coat, hot pink corduroy pants, and diamond earrings who starts clapping excitedly and bouncing in her seat.

The plane lands and passengers spill out into the airport. Some pull out their wallets and head for the airport slot machines before even considering a cab to town.

"I bet you want to know where the action is," exclaims the recorded voice of Wayne Newton as the door closes to our taxi headed for the Las Vegas Strip. "During your stay in Las Vegas, I'll be riding along with you."

These days, Newton stays with you during every cab ride you take. Other not-yet-forgotten performers like Sheena Easton, Rick Springfield, Tom Jones, and The Righteous Brothers pervade billboards, magazines, and local stages. And should a favorite celebrity of the past not be available to perform for some reason, rest assured that someone else will come along who at least acts the part. A Marilyn Monroe double. A Brat Pack wannabe. A Cher impersonator. And, of course, the endless array of Elvises.

The cab pulls in under the Sahara hotel's great illuminated dome, and we exit, passing through great glass doors leading directly into the heart of the casino. We meet one friend, Spade Rose, already at a craps table.

ufx

Big money, getting bigger

Before his trip here, Rose, a business owner from Knoxville, had never gambled, so he studied up and learned that craps had the best odds on the casino floor. He did some research, practiced religiously on the Internet, and came with what he thought was enough money to have the odds fall in his favor. After three days of gambling, he has won (and lost) hundreds of dollars in an almost constant game of craps, stopping only for a few four-hour sleep breaks.

"Come on big money! Come on big money! Right now! Right now! Come on! Give me an eight!" yells a shooter with a pair of red dice in her hand before she flings them toward the back wall of the craps table only to reveal . . . a seven.

"How much are you down for the day?" Rose's wife, Lucia, asks, glancing at his rapidly dwindling chips.

"Well, let's just say a lot," he replies, grinning slightly while keeping his eyes on the game. Before long, he would win it all back, and then some.

Chips fall onto the green felt like keys on a kitchen counter as a dealer rakes in the dice with a long wooden wand, passing them to the shooter at the end of the table.

Ash droops from the burning cigarettes held by white-haired women parked in front of spinning slot machines. Beside them all are oversized cups full of nickels.

Dealers set out cards in a semicircle in front of blackjack players who scratch the felt for a hit or wave off additional cards.

Upon a roll of the dice, the turn of a card, or the pull of a handle, the jubilant cries of a big win can be heard over the melodic drone of an army of slot machines.

The next morning, at the nearby Stratosphere Tower, "Viva, Las Vegas" blasts through the air as Ty Houck hovers 1,100 feet above the city's 12,000 hotel rooms. Fighting to keep breakfast in his stomach, he squints at a few of the older hotels in the foreground along the famous Las Vegas Boulevard: the Sahara, Circus Circus, The Riviera. Straining to open his eyes wider, he peers farther down the Strip where newer hotels stand. The Bellagio, Luxor, Excalibur, and New York-New York dominate their skyline.

Houck, a park service official from Greenville, S.C., is one of the friends that we've met in Vegas for his fiancee's surprise birthday party. He wasn't too sure how he felt about touring the casinos for five days - until he discovered the thrill rides. As he bounces like a pogo stick on Big Shot, a thrill ride attached to the top of the tallest building in the city, it crosses his mind that if he paces himself and continues to drink enough fluids, he can probably go on every thrill ride in the city.

There are almost 20 on the Strip alone: Adventure Canyon at Buffalo Bill's, Canyon Blaster at Circus Circus, Manhattan Express at New York-New York, Merlin's Magic Motion Machines at Excalibur, Race for Atlantis at Caesars Palace, Speed - The Ride at the Sahara, Star Trek: The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton, and more.

ufx

Sweet smell of success

Another night, another casino. I hold down a poker table when my wife, Bre, heads to the bathroom. As she adjusts her hair before the bank of sinks and mirrors, a slender woman in her mid-30s sprays cucumber vanilla scent all over her body. She's wearing skin-tight jeans, black lace-up boots, and a low-slung tank top tied right below the bustline.

"That smells good. Where did you buy it?" Bre asks.

"The drugstore down the street. Your man would love it," the woman answers in a smoker's raspy voice.

"Thanks for the tip," Bre says, smiling. "See you later."

"Ah, I don't think so," she replies with a chuckle, then tugs at her shirt to reveal a little more cleavage, grabs her bag, and heads out of the bathroom and to the elevator, on her way to meet a client upstairs. She is not a tourist, and she's not on vacation. But in the sea of humanity on the Strip, she is part of the show, just like the rest of us.

Christopher Percy Collier is a freelance writer who lives in Charlestown.