No exaggeration - 600-pounds if he was an ounce

So...which do I prefer, someone asked me on the drive back from New Jersey: Atlantic City, Las Vegas or Reno. I was the only one in the car who had been to all three. A dubious honor, especially considering that my exposure to each is pretty limited, I have to admit. My total amount gambled is probably something like eight dollars. I can never tell if I'm too broke to gamble, too sensible, too chicken, not enough fun or just too much of a tightwad (I am Scottish, after all). Actually, I kind of think it's something else - I once bet two dollars on a horse at the Del Mar racetrack (Falling Down Rain to win) and won twenty-four dollars, and stopped betting immediately, not because I was poor, sensible, scared or cheap, but because I immediately began envisioning what I would do when I bet bigger and won bigger.

But as to the gambling meccas, the sad fact is my time in all three of those places combined is less eventful than the night I spent in the dreadful town of Winnemucca, Nevada. For those who don't know, it's the place to go gamble if you're not up to the hectic pace and glamour of Reno. Or Chinook Winds Tribal Casino. Or a middle-school band concert. The night in Winnemucca involves my first paid stand-up comedy gig, sitting in a brothel having a beer with a bunch of prostitutes and swapping life stories, nearly getting my ass kicked by a 600-pound silver miner and his buddies, all of whom were completely (clothes, hair, skin, etc.) gray from the dust in the mine, a stripper teaching me to pole dance, and being hit on by a gay Country & Western singer. It's a good story.

But anyways...

Which do I like best? Reno? Sorry. It's out because Reno is dumb. It's like someone wanted to replicate Vegas, got about a third done and thought, "Eh. Close enough." This is appropriate, I suppose since it seems to be designed for people who want to go to Vegas, but get part way there and think, "Eh. Close enough."

Vegas is the most fascinating. Anyone who doesn't understand why the world hates us has never been to Vegas. Vegas is what happens when three hundred million Puritan descendants - with our repressed sexuality, our gluttony, all of our hypocricies, nuances and quirks, and even with our optimism and can-do spirit - designate an area to turn a moral blind eye. To pretend not to see each other. It is the collective repressed Id detonated across a desertscape. But that has plusses as well as minuses. It is the most fascinating. Also it's the funniest and hands-down winner for sheer spectacle. And the Bellagio fountains are purty.

Atlantic City is a little sedate, but it does have the beach, and the boardwalk (an asset and a hindrance), and all those streets from Monopoly which are impossible to see without flipping out like a celebrity sighting ("Omigod, that's THE St. James Place! I had a hotel there once! Get a picture!"). Sticking a big hospital in the middle of the uptown casinos is an interesting choice. Bit of a downer, but perhaps, given the plurality of drunken geriatrics, simple pragmatism. Also there's a Kenneth Cole factory store. But most importantly Atlantic City has some sense of time, of its own, however limited, history. I like that. Vegas exists in an eternal now, not in a Zen spirituality sense, but in a desperate, keeping-the-blinders-on-to-our-own-mortal-existence kid of way. And Reno exist in a perpetual yawn. If I were to spend a night gambling, Atlantic City seems like the place to meet your sin needs, but also has a touch of humanity, and you could show some class without feeling like you're jsut pretending. So there it is, I guess. Congratulations, New Jersey, even with your toll booths.

Oh, and to the restroom attendant at Bally's: I'm sure you thought it was total bullshit, someone being in a casino with no cash, but I really just stopped in to use you parking lot. I wasn't trying to stiff you on the tip. The bathroom was very nice and clean and the towel you handed me really did the trick.