The village idiot of Las Vegas visits a whore house.

Up until a few days ago I can honestly say I had only been to 'a house of ill repute,' as my mother so eloquently called them, one time. It was on a family trip to London a long time ago. My cousin and I were partying in the SOHO district and somehow or another we found ourselves there. It's a funny story; but one that will have to be told on another occasion. Well, fast forward twenty some years and sixty some pounds and wouldn't you know - I was back - in a 'house of ill repute' that is.

My friend Norris called me the other night and told me his brother was in town. "He's down at the strip partying all night and he left me his rental car. Let's take a cruise up to the whore house in Pahrump." At first I denied his request, and then he started begging, "Please - I know a girl up there and I want to see her. I am way too drunk to be driving that far. Come on, you're not doing anything. Just drive me up there. You can sit at the bar for an hour or so while I do my thing and will head back. I will owe you one." He was right - I wasn't doing anything - so I agreed. Besides, I was curious. How many guys can say they have been to an actual whore house?

He shows up twenty minutes later. I take the driver's seat, and after an hour and a half trip. We find ourselves pulling into the parking lot of the world famous Chicken Ranch in Pahrump, Nevada:

We walk in and the madam shows us to the bar/lounge area. It must have been a slow night because it was just Norris, me and another guy. I take a seat at the bar and Norris seats himself on one of the leather couches in the lounge. "The girls will be out shortly," the madam tells us. Five to ten minutes pass and then five girls walk into the lounge. One of them approaches me at the bar and asks me to buy her a drink. I had exactly twelve dollars in my pocket and her drink took ten of it. She then asks my name. I give her my alias - "Jack Gallegos," I then ask her name, "Star," she tells me. Turns out she wasn't much into small talk. "What are you looking for Jack?" I tell her this, "I want to go around the world, the whole enchilada baby!" I had two dollars in my pocket, so anything past that was going to be out of my price range.

"The works will cost you twelve hundred. I promise it will be the best time you ever had." Unfortunately, she was $1198 more than I could afford. So I politely declined the offer and she took her ten dollar drink elsewhere. Five minutes or so passes and another girl approaches me. "What's your name sugar?" I tell her Jack Gallegos, "Jack, my name is Willow, would you like to have a good time with me?" she says. I ask her what an around the world will cost. She was a little more cost friendly than Star, "Baby - I will show you the time of your life for eleven hundred." Even with the price reduction, Willow was slightly more than I could afford. So I politely declined the offer. After Willow leaves my side, not a single girl approaches me again. I'm surmising the girls at the world famous Chicken Ranch are mighty adept at spotting a tire kicker.

I hadn't seen my friend for an hour or so and then he reappears from a hallway area in the south corner of the lounge. He was carrying the widest grin I have ever seen on a man. "You ready to head out?" he asks. I nod and out the door we go. I was planning on asking him how things went on our ride home; but he passes out before I get the chance.

As I am staring at the at the lonely stretch of highway through the windshield of my friends brother's rental car and listening to him snore, I begin thinking to myself - "Most men would find it incomprehensible that I found myself bored to death at a whore house. What man in his right mind would believe such a thing? The simple fact of the matter - if you venture into 'a house of ill repute' without any money - you might as well consider yourself a leper on a deserted island."

 

The village idiot of Las Vegas folds his new roommates underwear.

I came home last night from a friends and decided to tackle the stack of laundry in my basket. I grabbed the detergent and walked into the laundry room of my apartment. I open up the washing machine door and find a load of my roommates laundry. I then check the dryer and it has a load of his laundry as well. No big deal, I take the load out of the dryer and place it on the couch. I then take the load in the washer and move it to the dryer. I throw my load in the washer and problem solved. After his load was done in the dryer, I take it out and place it on top of the previous load. Well, as I am sitting there waiting for my clothes to finish drying. I can't stop staring at the disorganized heap of clothes on the couch. So I fold them.

This morning I was fixing breakfast when I hear my roommates voice behind me say, "Good morning." It startled me at first and then I smiled and told him the same. He then says this, "Thanks for folding my clothes last night, but next time would you just leave them there and I will get them. I have something about other people touching my underwear." My new roommate is all of twenty two years of age. The first thing I thought when he told me that was, "Jesus kid - I have been folding laundry for longer than you have been alive. And as far as I know, I have never given anyone cooties or been bitten by a piece of underwear; not a men's pair anyways." I thought about telling him to 'grow up.' And then I changed my mind. Truth is I didn't care enough to comment. It was just annoying to look at all his clothes heaped on the couch. Next time I will throw them in a closet so I don't have to view them.

The village idiot of Las Vegas calls Roxy 'his girl' and gets told otherwise.

"Hey, I have a song that I want to dedicate to you. I believe it is very fitting for the two of us," I then started singing My Girl by the Temptations. It's a little joke the two of us have going when I say things of that nature. I think it is funny, she does not -"I am not your fucking girl! How many times do I have to tell you that? I swear Jethro - one of these days I am going to reach through the fucking phone and strangle your stupid ass! Do you understand me?" I love goading her, so when she got a all nasty with me, I told her this, "Shut-up, everyone knows you're my girl. There's no use denying it."


After my comment she starts laughing and says, "Jethro, I have to admit something about you," whenever she tells me she has to 'admit something about me,' I brace for an insult. "If you really think that I am your girl, Jesus, you are the dumbest asshole in the world. Look, moron, Jeff and I are back together. You want to hear something funny? I told him that I slept with you while I was in Las Vegas. He went with his buddies to Palm Springs the same weekend and I was jealous. So I came and saw you. You know what he said after I told him about us?" Oh boy, here comes another insult, but hey, I am the one who called her - "He said, 'If you are going to fuck another guy with the intentions of making me jealous. Please don't embarrass yourself again with a moron like you.' You know what Jethro - I agree with him completely."

The village idiot of Las Vegas talks about Mad Max to a young Mormon from Wichita.

Today's version of the phrase Mad Max is best used as a connotation to describe chaos, disorder and anarchy. Example: "The other day I was reading an article in the Las Vegas Sun. The article told the details of a drug deal gone sour in North Las Vegas. Apparently, the buyer wanted to buy a kilo or so of coke and started to argue about the price with the seller. The seller became angry about the argument and pulled out his gun and went Mad Max on the potential buyer."

It doesn't take a Nobel Laureate to spot a young Mormon serving his two year mission in Las Vegas. They're the ones wearing shirt and tie and peddling a bike through the crazy streets of Las Vegas in a hundred and twenty degree weather. An ambitious bunch they are. Well, the other day I had the pleasure of meeting one of them:

"Are you from Wichita?" The golden Wichita State basketball shirt is what prompted me to ask the question. "I sure am. NW Wichita to be exact. I have been in Las Vegas the last eight months serving my mission. Are you from around those parts?" he replied. I then told him how my family hailed mostly from around Hutchinson and Haven and how I grew up around the Emporia area, "I know Wichita very well. I used to live there for a little while," I added. We shook hands and then I asked him why he wasn't in a shirt and tie - the traditional garb for young Mormons out spreading the word. "What do you think of Las Vegas?" I added as well. "I was helping an elderly lady with yard work, so I went with a more casual look. Las Vegas is a lot different from Wichita. A lot more people out here could use god's help." was his reply. We chatted a bit more and then I asked his age. "Nineteen, sir," he stated. 

Las Vegas, being so close to Utah, has a healthy supply of Mormons. I've had the privilege of meeting a number of them. Some I like, others, not so much. But, it would be damn near impossible not to like my new friend. He had the vim and vigor of a young man. Which left me a long time ago. "I would like to ask you something," I said - he looked straight at me and replied, "Go right ahead sir." - his youthful tone was proving infectious - "What do you think the country will look like in ten years or so? Do you think things will be better or worse than they are now?" Without the slightest hesitation, he looked at me and said, "Worse, much worse! Everyone my age knows the hole were in and the debt that is being accumulated. And they expect my generation to pay it back. Fat chance with that!"

My new friend was funny, not just a little, very funny. The Midwest in him was obvious as we continued our conversation. I then asked if he thought things could go 'Mad Max' in the country. He wasn't sure what I meant by the statement so I gave him a better description - "Have you ever seen any of the Mad Max movies with Mel Gibson?" he shook his head no. "They show what a post-apocalyptic world will look like. Anyways, Mel Gibson plays the character Mad Max," my new friend was smiling and laughing as I went on with the description, "I have a friend of mine who I grew up with. I call him 'Mad Max' because he is positive we are headed that way," I concluded.

As I sit here writing the last paragraph for this post, for the life of me, I cannot remember my young friends name. So I have come up with a solution for now. I will call him The Road Warrior. If you ever see this young fella - Road Warrior is the last thing you would think - but, until I can remember his name and since he got a big chuckle out of my prognosis, well, I am going to refer to him as that for the time being.

The village idiot of Las Vegas has a frivolous chat with a Mormon friend of his.

I got in a rather heated argument with a friend a while back. He stated the best looking women in Las Vegas were originally from Utah. I told him he needed to quit smoking whatever he was smoking and the best looking women in Las Vegas were originally from California. Well, it just s
o happened that I ran into him the other day at Walgreen's. We immediately resumed our previous discussion:

"The thing is with California girls - it's beach time year round. They have to take off their clothes at any given time of the year. So it keeps them motivated to stay in shape. I have a friend from Cali and I can tell you this. She would never be caught with an inch of fat on her or a hair out of place, and all her friends are the same." A number of other reasons crossed my mind. But the conversation was of such a frivolous nature, that basically, it wasn't worth the effort.

Nevertheless, my friend had to have his say - "Look, I can see why you think California girls are it. They're nice, but what you have to take into account when you look at a girl from Utah is her breeding lines. Mormons breed extremely well. It's a custom that goes back damn near two hundred years. Think about it for a minute. When was the last time you saw an ugly Mormon?"

As we were leaving the store and about to head our separate ways, he added this - "Why don't you come to church with me some time and I will show you up close and personal what I am talking about." I notified him I was Catholic and thus attending a Mormon church would be sacrilege. He laughed and said, "Alright, I was just trying to prove my point. They're are a ton of them at church, and they are all looking for a man."z

The village idiot of Las Vegas shows off his movie knowledge to a yoga pants wearing babe.

"I remember when Leonardo DiCaprio played the homeless kid in Growing Pains. I knew way back then he would be a big star." Girls in yoga pants are my absolute favorite thing in the world and fortunately for me SW Las Vegas provides a myriad of them - "Did you know that Leo was originally slated to play Dirk Diggler in Boogie Night's? But he ended up passing so he could do Titanic." It was a great feeling sharing movie knowledge with my new yoga pants wearing friend. I first noticed her standing in front of me at the Red Box returning a copy of The Wolf of Wall Street.

"You sure know a lot about Leonardo DiCaprio," she says. I took her response as a sign that she was eager to hear more. "Did you know that Leo is a Scorpio?" I tell her with a wide smile. "No, I didn't know that either, but thanks for telling me," she answers with a grin of her own. My new friend was young and smoking hot (I would guess early 20's). At this point I was feeling it imperative to show off more of my knowledge, so I added this, "My sister says I have a man crush on Mark Wahlberg. Did you know I am the unofficial president of the Mark Wahlberg fan club in Las Vegas? Did you know he was in the Funky Bunch before he became a movie star?"

She looks at me and smiles again (I was beginning to feel a vibe between the two of us). So when I noticed her reading the description of Indiana Jones & The Crystal Skull on the Red Box, I added another tidbit. "Did you know that Tom Selleck was originally slated to play Indiana Jones? But was unable to get out of his contract on Magnum P.I." She fluttered her eyes and smiled at me once again (the vibe I was feeling had now gone into overdrive). I started to say something else, but before I could get the second word out - she tells me this in an irritated tone - "Look dude, this is my space," she then sticks her arm directly out in front of her, points her forefinger and draws an imaginary circle around her."You are invading my space. It's nice to know you are such a movie aficionado. But please!" She then draws another imaginary circle around her, "Don't come into my space uninvited!"