When did this become a Walmart? It's one more thing. I'm one more thing that reminds me I'm a little late to the party, I guess.
But the whole gag where somebody goes hun a rant and the answer is, ma'am, this is a Wendy's right, does it never fails to amuse me. Right.
It's always funny.
Like my old buddy Brian the Umpire, you know, we'll be having lunch or something like that. His phone will ring and he'll be like, sorry, Jesus, give me a minute, Give me a minute. He'll talk, you know, for five minutes, then say wrong number every time.
That is pretty funny. So I was in Vegas over the weekend, couple of things to clean up on one talking about seeing the Eagles and how they're almost eighty years old and they shuffle around the stage and talk like, you know, an old man, but then they sing and play fine, which I couldn't figure out. He did get a text from somebody who works with dementia patients, and music is stored deep in the brain. That's why people with dementia thrive and kind of come out of it
when they hear music. Your ability to sing every word and remember every word hangs around long after all the other stuff, And that's one of the reasons they're kind of studying and trying to figure out what is it about the way we store music stuff, and can we do that for other stuff, to try to figure out how dementia works and everything like that. But it's clearly true, right, clearly true. It's just I don't know, it's interesting.
Oh yeah, I'm sure I could recite, like, I don't know, the entire Declaration of Independence from memory if it was set to music. And I like the music, but I memorize all of it easily. But the fact that it's also your body movements. So you got this eighty year old guitar player. It's like his hands are shaken as he gets a pick off his thing.
Or whatever, and then he just launches into playing like he's twenty seven years old. I mean, what the hell is that? But I don't know. It's a cool thing, and maybe that will be an answer to unlocking the way our brain's work and all that sort of stuff. Other couple other things about Vegas before I really, I'm sure I'm going to get criticized for being h I don't know what is the right term. We have fun with this looking down on people early later which elitists, Yeah, exactly.
I'm sure I'm gonna be criticized for being elitist, but I'm gonna say, but saw the best street performance I've ever seen. And luckily I was there with my son, Henry, who's thirteen and he really hates Las Vegas, but we were there to see the concert. We saw a street performance of these I guess you'd call him acrobat. They're kind of breakdancer dudes, a bunch of black guys, which I got to mention because that was really a part of their act, was them being black and making all
these racially insensitive jokes that really made people laugh. But just I've always been amazed by this kind of entertainment that is so unstructured. It's like the old Vaude days that you have honed your act one hundred percent around necessity of like are people stopping and watching? Are they
staying and watching? Are they giving us money? And I mean, and you see, so you would learn what jokes work, what things don't work, and I mean you'd have to actually apply all that because it's the only way you're gonna make it function. And these guys had quite the honed act of getting your attention with loud music and breakdancing and all this different sort of stuff. And they were super fit dudes, and then stripping off their shirts, which I'm sure many of the women in the crowd enjoyed.
And when it went to ask later to ask for tips, the one guy said, women, for a hundred bucks, you can go home with one of these guys. Guys for ae hundred bucks, you can also go home with one of these guys. We aren't gay, but one hundred dollars.
One hundred dollars. But they were all black guys. In one of his lines that he kept repeating, he was building up to their ultimate trick bringing people out of the crowd, where he's gonna have a bunch of people stand in a line, and this other dude was gonna, in theory jump over them and talking about how horribly it could go wrong, they could get their next broken, all these different things. But he's going around into donating money.
He's trying to build up the amount of money people were putting in the bucket as they go around and everything like that. Before they do their their trick, and and he said, you know, you should respect us. We're not on drugs, we're not listening to hip hop music. You know, we're all students. We're studying, and we're out here. We're trying to earn a lot honest living. So that's a good reason to donate. And if you don't donate, we're gonna come and break into your homes tonight. Oh
my god. A good thing to say. But for the actual trick, and they were all just unbelievable freaking acrobats, the strength they displayed, and just all of them could do that thing where you just do a full flip on the on the pavement, which is just amazing to me, just I mean just just constantly just hopping and flipping around anything like it. But this guy, they cleared out
the crowd and everything like that. He lined up the people he had him bent down and put their hands on their knees, so they were a little bent down, but there was six of them in a row. And then he said, take that last one off. I'm not feeling today and I hate to kill a guy. So
they lose little guy out of them. That's a funny thing also to say but he went running down there on the sidewalk and leaped into the air and did a flip in the air, a somersault in the air, and landed on his feet and ran off down the sidewalk again, jumping over his people. And everybody was like, holy crap. And I don't know how much money they made off of there was six of them, but we gave him twenty bucks. I thought that was easily twenty dollars.
With the entertainment. Oh sure in Vegas? Are you kidding me? And I spider, if they do that all day, they could make some pretty decent money.
Yeah.
I was just gonna say, I wonder how many shows the day they do.
Yeah, we'll come break into your house tonight. That's a pretty funny joke for a whole bunch of white people standing on the sidewalk. Yeah, you know, I took your early point. Though.
That's so true about sports and entertainment and for all of the oh my gosh, to to see a great video of a guy taking down the Hollywood stars for lecturing people about politics and how you're the last people in the world to be lecturing people who work sixty hours a week to feed their families.
Blah blah blah.
You know nothing about real people in their real lives, and the effect of government policy on them is great and funny. But in show business and stuff, there's no sympathy. You either deliver the goods and succeed, or you don't and you fail. And those guys out there, like you said, nobody's saying. You know, it's not like they were in academia where they had tenure. No, they either bring the goods and get them people to give them money or they don't. That's meritocracy its finest.
Yeah, and pretty impressive. Yeah. The uh, maybe you can explain this to me, Katie. The getting your picture taken with people who are practically naked on the sidewalk? What is? What is that whole thing? I've never had any inclination into it, like super hot almost completely naked chicks or super hot almost completely naked dudes who just stand there on the sidewalk, And you.
Can not entirely sure why you think I would know something about.
Well, maybe as a woman either, I found that offensive. I thought maybe as a woman you'd understand the dude part. Getting your picture taken with a practically naked man I mean, who do you show that to? And what is the.
I think that whole thing's creepy, be.
Honest with you, it's it seems obvious to me.
It's the look how crazy things were in Vegas, because everybody who goes to Vegas tells the same sort of Oh you were crazy, you got so drunk, or playing cards till exa clock and look at this hot guy.
Or no, I don't think it's a hanging out thing. It's maybe just like a look like a spectacle, look what I saw.
Look how crazy things are in Vegas? Yeah, I don't know.
Do they still It's been so long since I've been to Vegas? Are there still all those little escort cards all over the sidewalks?
Yeah? Really, That's what I'm gonna get to if it's been a long time since you've been to Vegas, because it has changed over the years, and I just finally have recognized that. But the other side of the street performer thing, though, is funny. It was right before I got to the really impressive street performer that I was like, Wow,
these guys are incredible. There was this guy. So now anybody can have a portable amplifier setup it used to be not that long ago, Like loud speakers and amplifier stuff are really heavy and expensive and everything, but now they're super light and cheap, and so you can get a really good amplifier speaker situation, don't it's not very much to carry it around and set it up and
battery powered and do your thing. So this is this Hispanic guy singing in Spanish, and he had this thing set up on the corner, and he was the worst public singer I've ever seen. I mean, just like, not even close. Like I've known a few people that don't realize they have no rhythm or can't carry a tune, and they don't know it because they can't hear it in their own end. But this had zero singing ability. And he's out there in the corner completely alone. Nobody
was gathering around him. I don't doubt anybody gave him a cent all day. How long would you do that before you realize, oh, I just I'm not making any money here.
Probably wonder what's wrong was he was he strumming a guitar or anything he had he had, you know, backing tracks on CD or whatever you're singing.
Looks they hammered. No, it didn't seem to be. It seemed to be putting out a real effort, but nobody was even slowing down to looking just made a request. And then I saw one family do in the street. It just looked like a family looked like a husband, uh wife, and then their kids playing music and they like full on music, guitar, bass, drums, everything like that, but the kids looked miserable. These little kids just looked miserable.
Made me feel horrible for them, standing out in the hot sun, playing for crowd walking by because your parents made you.
I guess I'm not down with that.
Yeah, I didn't read Jackson fivey vibe there, but so I have. I used to go to Vegas a lot, but I realized I haven't been to Vegas hardly at all in like twenty five years. I mean, it's been a long time, but I used to go a lot way back in the day and I really enjoyed it. It had and I've had a couple of people say to me recent years off Vegas sucks, I hate Vegas, It's awful. Everything like that. Really, I really like I hadn't really paid any attention because I hadn't been much.
It is awful now it has changed into something different. It is Walmart with booze. It is just the unwashed of unwashed masses jammed together in their cross and tank tops. This is the elitist part. This is the elitiest part. Yes, yes, this is the elast And that's not what Vegas used to be. I remember when, like I would go with people and there was kind of a thought that you kind of ought to dress up a little bit and look good and go around in a kind of nice shows,
a nice dress. But it isn't. That is not the vibe anymore in Vegas.
Really.
Yeah, I'm sure it makes more money than it's ever made, but it's it's a different thing now.
And it may have been a full decade ago that I first became aware that it. Vegas became a huge family vacation destination, right, And I remember back then it was like second to our Orlando, Florida still as a travel destination.
Yeah, but it is, it's a definitely a they went for a different price point and then I mean it's it's it's more like Myrtle Beach, South Carolina or the places like that. If you've ever been than it then you know Frank Sinatra and the rat Pack. Definitely, which is fine if that's what you want, but it's not the same thing as it used to be. And dirty. It just came off to me as like dirty and just I don't know, not where I want to walk around like Kent. Yeah, low RENI my hotel was dirty
and smoky. I'm like a blast. If that's what you want, that's what you want.
Yeah, I haven't been in ages, Judy. My wife has never been to Vegas, never been, and I keep saying, we're gonna go.
You just got to see the strip. You've got to see the excess. It is something to see. There's still a couple of really nice places to stay. I talked to some people that are into Vegas, like said, unless you stay at Aria Bellagio and one other place, it is pretty dirty and grimy. But there are still some nice places to say that are just freaking insane. I mean how nice they are. There's nothing like that anywhere else in the world.
It's been fifteen years, I think, but I really enjoyed the old strip.
Fremont Street.
Yep.
If you're going down there.
It's kind of quaint and and well old timey.
Yeah, just like it felt just like a little less chaos.
Uh, it was nothing but chaos. It was just shoulder to shoulder stumbling around Pug. A lot of smell of weed too, A lot of weed.
Yeah.
Yeah, weed is the thing now. Yeah, not with your money. I got other things I could do. Well, I guess that's it.