This town is one of a kind. It’s where every permutation of human being is drawn like a bug to a bright light.
My first night in Vegas started out rather tamely. Dinner at Little Buddha with someone with whom I’ve spoken with on the phone and emailed a lot but never met. Those are always interesting. It was good to meet Lisa in person and I’m sure we’ll find ways to work together.
When Frank Fahrenkopf and the AGA crowd showed up, I joined them at the bar when my friend left. We dissected the recent political developments in the US. As former Chairman of the Republican National Committee, I’m always curious to hear his views…. although we agree to disagree.
I was fortunate to ride along on their coattails into the G2E reception at the Rain Nightclub and avoid the long queue developing. Once in the club, I perched in one of the upstairs conversation pits awaiting the arrival of my office colleagues (two new folks on their first trip to G2E.) Unfortunately, they faced a series of delays at the airport, hotel check-in lines, etc. so I made new friends who joined me in the pit. As the grousing about the long lines at the food stations and bars increased and the music turned from conversational to increasingly louder “ooonz ooonz ooonz” I decided to move back to my base of operations, Paris.
Luckily, my old friend Andy called right then so he met me in the bar in Paris for a catch-up. Before long, a man came up to our table and began to tell us a story. I kept surreptitiously asking Andy if he knew him since the guy was acting like he was his long lost friends He emphatically said No.
Andy then asked the guy why he stopped to talk to him. Andy says this kind of thing happens to him all the time with crazy people coming up to chat him up and he’s curious why. Our guest was stumped though and couldn’t put his finger on it. Of course, I was thinking, “takes one to know one” but that was too easy.
The guy had a tall tale, quite pornographic in nature, about his recent trip to the Paris hot tub where a couple made his acquaintance……in a big way. He even pealed off his newly purchased Paris socks to show us how shriveled up his feet were from hours in the Jacuzzi. The hot tub encounter led to being invited to their room to continue the escapade. Andy and I were enthralled by the story at that point and had found our entertainment… temporarily.
The guy then finished his story, saying that the couple then kicked him out of the room under threat of calling security. His biggest complaint was that they kept his bottle of Absolut. (It just goes to show that people who come to Vegas often engage in risk-taking behavior that goes above and beyond gambling.) We got more of his life story which was a bit convoluted to say the least.
I made the mistake of asking our visitor what was in the duffel bag at his feet. Andy made a crack referencing a movieand by then I was beginning to get a bit uncomfortable. The guy struggled with opening the bag when it was determined that the zipper had no zipper thingee. But, he was determined so he just ripped open the zipper and showed us the bag. It was completely empty. He must have really left that hotel room in a hurry.
By then, we were bored and a little creeped out. Andy very deftly, ushered the guy out of our space saying that we hadn’t seen each other in a while and wanted to catch up. Gratefully, our visitor got it and moved up to the bar to his next audience. Within 15 minutes, we watched him be escorted out of Paris by security.
We spent another couple of hours discussing politics, life, love, business but we kept coming back, in awe, to our strange encounter at the beginning of the evening. Ya’ gotta’ love this town!