What Happens In Vegas

Kids, some of the best moments of my life have happened in Vegas.

For full effect, download “Tribute” by Tenacious D, and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post.

Please don’t misinterpret my hook line, because I’m not trying to impose in your minds any type of sexual or alcoholic innuendo whatsoever. All I’m saying is that I have been to Sin City many a time in my 10-plus year history in the small town 110 miles north, and some of the best stories I can tell open with the line, “So we all jump in my car and head down to Vegas...”

For the record, I’m not here to tell you that the modern day Sodom has some kind of special place in my heart. Because it doesn’t. I don’t get a warm, fuzzy feeling in my soul when I think about the disgusting amount of life savings that are littered into slot machines and craps tables. That butterfly effect in my stomach doesn’t show up when a taxi drives by broadcasting a topless woman. Seriously, this is a filthy place where good things go away to die, where STD’s are handed out like watermelon Jolly Ranchers. When your motto is don’t tell people what we do here, there has to be something wrong.

With that being said, I have truly had some glorious moments in this city of smut, glorious moments I tell you. I’ve been attacked by a drunk Russian Ambassador, watched the best athletes on the Earth duke it out at the Thomas & Mack, wandered the drunk-laden streets as a sober 21-year old on New Years Eve, sold worthless software in an economy soaked with a depression, and soaked myself in world-class saunas. None of these moments mean anything to you, because none of you were with me, therefore they’re not really part of your stories. But that’s okay. Vegas is a cornucopia of sin and stability. A place where choices are made that instantaneously trigger regret. A place the devil hangs his hat. 

And so here I sit. In a white suburban with five of the finest people in the world, somewhere in the middle of the Nevada desert listening to the most confusing Spotify playlist ranging from “Bone Thugs” to “The Proclaimers”, all of us getting ready to cheer our faces off and convert a room full of people to the gospel of Dixie State University. Seriously kids, some of the best stories of my life have happened in this metropolis of muck, and the reality is that what ever does happen in Vegas doesn’t really stay in Vegas.

And it shouldn’t.