I Was The Absinthe -Minded Confessor at Caesars Palace!

Tittsburgh? I thought I Was In Vegas!

What Happens In Vegas, Happens!

From my Vegas Fremont Street Experience!

The Chess Master

Talking about numbers and money and chess and genius babies....

I tell you, kids say the darnedest things. My great nephew Nicholas is no exception. Provided me with food for thought if you really want to know the truth! —

Look Ma, No Hands!

Checkered Past

 

For some odd reason, I think this guy has a checkered past!  Well, well, well I bet he's thinking about a game of chess and he's considering a face-off. Who knows, who really knows.

I Ain't Gonna Buy Your Umbrella!

While  living in Las Vegas I was walking to the corner store when I was intercepted by a ragged looking man who smelled like he had slept in the dumpster for a long spell. I'm not quite sure if I had seen this man before, probably did. I just didn't recognize him now with the long scruffy beard and tattered and splattered coat. And, I couldn't, for the life of me, understand how and why in God's name was he wearing a coat. After all, the thermometer was as hot as Mercury, perhaps hotter. A good ninety seven degrees, my friends.

Whew! How this poor soul in front of me could've mistaken this Vegas heat for an arctic blast is beside my meager comprehension. And here he is, with an umbrella. You know as well as I that it doesn't rain much in the desert. Too bad, this poor specimen of a man doesn't realize it. But suddenly, it occurred to me. He could use it to block the sun from his face. Before all his skin peels off or something. Yes, that is my thought. But I guess he doesn't like my thoughts. In a raspy and hoarse, three-pack a day voice, he says, "Hey, you want to buy an umbrella?"

Not to spoil his party but I had to answer. "No, I'm saving my money for a rainy day." And he looks at me like I'm crazy or something. In which, I probably am. Something, I mean. I suggested he keep his umbrella.

"It can provide you shelter against the blazing rays of the sun, my good man," I said.

He looks at me like I'm crazy again. Which I'm not although there have been a few in this lovely world of mine who may have thought otherwise. Nah, I'm not crazy, just a bit quirky at times I suppose. Ah, so much for idiosyncrasies. We all have 'em you know. The poor man without a place he could truly call home shoves his umbrella up to my face and pleads with me to buy it.

Again, "I'm saving my money for a rainy day," I say. Now he's mad, livid. I can't help the way he feels by my reasoning but I am not going to buy his umbrella, no matter how cheap it is and no matter if, all of a sudden, the meatier ologist (the carnivorous scientist with a huge appetite) predicts rain for the next seven days. I would welcome the rain with uncovered head anyway. Living in the desert, one could easily adapt to a good rainfall. And seven days of it, a blessing. Fill the reservoir, give the little creatures a pool to play in. Oh, and send some more water to the casinos and mega-resorts. It was at one of those places where this unfortunate homeless man lost his first shirt. And then his second. And then his car. His house. His wife. A part of his sanity. And now, look at him, hopelessly trying to sell me, of all people, an umbrella.

"Keep your umbrella, my good man and follow me to the corner store. I'll buy you a sandwich and a big bottle of water. Since it hadn't rained in eons can't really get it from anywhere else." And so, after filling his belly, the man took off his heavy coat and walked away, the umbrella opened and covering his face from the blazing sun.

Ricky J. Fico

The Word "Sex" Has Had Me Sold!

You know, I've been around for a while, not as long as some of you but I've been around long enough to know that sex is like a magnet. No matter where you put it, it will draw a crowd.

If you insert "sex" into your headline or in one of your tweets, you're automatically guaranteed 69 clicks or reviews, minimum. Make no mistake about it, folks, sex is the most sought after three-letter word known to humankind. It gets more of a reaction than God. I don't like using sex and God in the same sentence and this sentence I just penned was an accident, I didn't mean to do it. I swear to God I didn't mean to put sex in the same context. No, not like so many other sex-possessed heathens.

Sex sells, bottom line. You know, there was a time when sex was sacred . . . not any more. No siree, Bob or whatever your name is -- sex has been cheapened by its velocity, ubiquitousness and rather tainted allure--which nowadays includes a bikini-clad sister of the convent sitting pretty atop the church steeple selling the latest craze--eelskin sheathed condoms painted purple and as she claims in the advertisement, "goes good with the bell bottoms." Hell, I thought bellbottoms went out of style along with Timothy Leary's ergot-funded looking glass.

Make no mistake about it, my cherished colleagues, but sex is not at all what it's purported to be...as is glamorized in your fantasy-driven Soap Opera or that new show...what is it again?...er, um. . . oh yeah, Despotic Housewives. That's not how it is in the real world, no siree Bob or whatever your name is.

I ask myself why does sex sell? I give myself all types of answers, some make sense and others, well, forget it... I might as well be Daffy Duck on LSD for goodness sake. I think to myself, hmm, maybe I should ask a professional this question. Perhaps one of those ladies you see in the yellow pages. Or in Senator Turnover's Black book.

So there I am, in Madame Bouvier's Brothel. . Research of course... There, answers don't come cheap. First I had to pay the Madame three hundred bucks just to have an interview with one of the young professionals who work in the back office. I go to the young professional's office and immediately it strikes me that she hasn't a desk. Nor a computer. Or a telephone. And besides, I am seeing red. Lots of red. Red Curtains, red carpet, red sofa, red lights, red pillows.

What kind of office is this? I ask myself. Suddenly the young professional comes out in a slinky red negligee and all of a sudden I don't have the heart to ask her my questions. My heart's beating too fast. I don't know why. She purrs at me, looks me up and down, licks her lips, my heart's beating faster and faster. I don't know why. She purrs some more and for some odd reason I immediately pull out my wallet and hand her five hundred dollars. Don't know why! Maybe to help further her education; perhaps to help her through post-graduate school.

After about an hour I realized what had happened... I came to a full realization why sex sells. The answer is hormones. And libido. And slinky negligees. And red lights. And green lights. And.. . And.. . and. . .

By Ricky J. Fico aka Dan (The Man) Landers