Perhaps the man/woman parlays which follow were just as bald back in New York. There, though, unlike here in Las Vegas, the couples involved are more discreet.
The Mojave Mecca’s transient nature permits the sort of convention flouting which would make proper Easterners recoil. Of course Westerners could claim by their openness they’re unbound by rank hypocrisy. Continue reading People Who Parlay
We never called Anne the Modigliani Girl or even “Shadow,” her stripper alias, to her face. Klanger and I should’ve. She might’ve gotten a kick out of it. Continue reading The Ménage of the Modigliani Girl
Observed and evaluated. That’s the sole commonality Klanger and I shared with Anne’s peculiar Japanese clientele.
They fetishized their relations with her. We simply enjoyed ours. Continue reading The Modigliani Girl Acquires a Harsh Master
Absent in person, Anne materialized between Klanger and me in spirit. Didn’t we almost expect her to emerge at Rick Blaine’s Place and simply gesture that one of us light the cigarette she’d jammed into its holder?
Oh, yes. A minor affectation, her cigarette holder. A narrow three-toned contraption spun in onyx, silver and ivory stages. Part of her Madame Sin persona no doubt. With the right, um, suitor, the wand could become a conversation piece.
Whether Anne used it to reduce the tobacco’s effect, liked the way it made her look, or as a prop that somehow lessened the unseemliness behind the pursuit of what a much higher percentage of those living outside Las Vegas might’ve seen as an unsavory practice, it was an effective distraction that deepened interest in her. Maybe I should’ve asked but why must all mysteries be solved? Continue reading Deeper into the Modigliani Girl
Let me liken entering Rick Blaine’s Place to delving into the blackest night. Particularly on sun-blasted Las Vegas afternoons. Continue reading The Modigliani Girl Appears
Watching John Boehner well up, I wonder what father would’ve thought of such displays. While it’s good the Speaker of the House is comfortable enough in himself to let tears roll at the drop of a charged moment, isn’t there something unnerving about the leader’s, uh, expressiveness? Continue reading Cool. Resolute. Polished.
Journalism disabused me of any hero-worshipping. While it is fine to admire and acknowledge exceptional feats, those performing them are just as human as the rest of mankind. Having acquitted themselves well in stressful situations the remainder of us might’ve fallen woefully short, I learned often that more than the feet of such people were made of clay.
All the more so here in the States. Maybe it’s part of the American character. Maybe it’s possessing an adolescent outlook in a mature bulked-up body, but our culture craves heroes. We’re quick to anoint them, almost as fast to discard them, and on continuous searches for the next one regardless. Continue reading A Piropo of Nothing