Las Vegas apparently means ‘the meadows’. There’s another The Meadows just off the M3 in Camberly, Surrey, with a Marks & Sparks and a massive Tesco which is open 24 hours. I’d have to say the latter gets the nod.
Anyway, I was invited to a wedding in Las Vegas last weekend, and I went. I got a lift with two dudes from Stab Magazine, the Australian surfing version of the National Enquirer. This is them, Wheels and Des:

Wheels drove the Toyota Camry all the way from Orange County to Vegas. They picked me up about 6pm and we got there around 11pm. We were staying at the Artisan Hotel. To get into the hotel to check in we had to queue up and get past the bouncers and get an ID stamp on our wrists. This is because the hotel is also a nightclub for mainly fat people. Eventually we got past morbidly obese security guards and checked-in. We went straight out to meet the groom, Chas, at a club called XS at the Wynn hotel. When we got out of the cab the one called Wheels approached some chicks to ask them if they were going to XS and if so if we could line up with them, seeing as all-saus parties struggle to get in. They said, “Are you looking for guys or for girls.” As it went we didn’t need help getting in, Chas came out and got us in past a cordon of about 30 flexers in suits. Inside, there was no bar, just table service. We were being served bottles of French vodka(!). Gray Goose is massive in the USA. The taxi there was $11.50 and Des paid. The taxi back (to the same destination) was $43, and I paid. Bollocks.
The next morning I walked into town to get brekkie and came fairly close to suicide. My god it’s depressing. You are not supposed to walk in Vegas, it’s just not what’s supposed to happen. If there were a length of rope lying around I may well have used it. There are billboards that say “God is watching you in LV”. Well if He is, He’s not doing a very good job. Because the walk in nearly extinguished my will to live, I decided to get a taxi back to the Artisan. At a set of lights two ugly prostitutes rolled up next door in a crapped out car. The one driving was massive with enormous breasts bursting out of what looked like underwear. The other one was thin and even worse. The thin one spoke, she asked where I had been. “Breakfast,” I said. They followed my cab all the way back to the hotel. They were literally the ugliest hookers in the world, ever. I was deeply insulted at the insinuation that I would pay them to see them unclothed.
At lunch the one called Des convinced me to go to an ‘organic health food’ cafe 5 miles down the road. We got a cab. Everything on the menu had chicken in and was about as organic and healthy as enriched Uranium 235. We started to walk back and it started to rain.
The wedding was at 8pm in a small room in the hotel. Afterwards the party was outside under space heaters by the pool. I went to bed early and woke up early projectile vomiting. I vomited thick orange bile between 7am and 9am, at which point I switched to the dry heaves. At about 1pm Wheels appeared at my door looking cheerful and informed my we were leaving Las Vegas. I felt compelled to kiss his face.
The highlight of the entire trip was In n’ Out Burger on the way home. They only put 3 things up on the menu board, everything else is secret and has to be asked for in code. FYI, the veggie burger is called ‘grilled cheese’. The tap water was contaminated so they only had bottled water to drink, no fizzies. You should have seen the shit storm that caused among the expectant pack of driving back to LA fatties with Vegas hangovers/dirty comedowns.

A while after the moon rose over Nevada behind us. There was a light dusting of snow on the hills. With each mile that passed I was a mile further away from Vegas, orange bile and a very, very, lower-than-Death Valley low ebb.