THE US/Letter from Las Vegas/Ian Kilroy: Joel put it best: "If you ain't got anybody in your life, you come to Las Vegas." I didn't take up his offer of a $369 helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon, but I did take his word on Vegas. He was right.
Everyone I could see was sad and lonely, chained to a slot machine and trying to escape the ghost of Christmas present. Only the Vegas newly weds seemed full of holiday cheer, and they could get divorced in the morning. Everyone else could buy companionship for the night.
"College Cuties direct to your hotel room in 20 minutes" - that's what the flyer said. I was handed it outside Caesar's Palace on Las Vegas Boulevard. I wondered what the "College Cuties" were studying.
Philosophy, art history, medicine? If they were students of theology they might be able to explain to me the original meaning of Christmas. Hadn't it something to do with spirituality, with being nice to one another, with prayerful contemplation? Not in Vegas. This is Sodom and Gomorrah, the town one of the 9/11 hijackers visited to convince himself he was doing the right thing. Here everything is amoral, senseless entertainment. You can watch a "re-enactment of the sinking of the Titanic - designed to impress", or hire a Porsche for an hour, to blaze a trail down the neon Strip. And if the stale air-conditioned atmosphere of the casino becomes too much, you can get a few hits from a tube of oxygen for a couple of bucks.
But Las Vegas hasn't always been "Sin City", the corrupt hiding hole of America's dregs. In 1855, the Mormons settled here, bringing their godly ways. They built a temple and made a small fortune making the bullets which were used to kill many people in the old west. A saintly legacy they abandoned in 1858, when the Indians ran them out.
Yet, even today, among the gambling and the prostitution, the drunks and the pickpockets, even today there is the odd good soul working the Las Vegas Strip, trying to keep the Christmas message alive among the fallen. Near the fake canals of Venice, a man is collecting to "Stop Hunger", while by the Vegas copy of the Eiffel Tower the Salvation Army are trying to save souls.
But these are the few and far between. Here in the heart of Nevada's Mojave Desert, even the climate is less arid than the spiritual life of the dollar-hungry hoards, prowling the casino bars for action, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with Christmas no exception.
Indeed, if it weren't for the piped Christmas carols, you wouldn't know it was Christmas at all. The odd intoxicated Santa Claus impersonator on the streets does help you place the season, but somehow in the desert "dashing through the snow on a one-horse open slay" just doesn't make sense.
Then again, very little makes sense in Las Vegas.
Replicas of New York, Venice and ancient Egypt in the middle of Nevada don't make sense. Paying to watch women "Bikini Bull Ride" on mechanical bucking livestock doesn't make sense. Getting married at four in the morning by Elvis Presley doesn't make sense. Sense is not what you come to Vegas for. Sensation is the attraction here.
This is a place to let off steam, to forget inhibitions, to go wild in the full knowledge that what's done in Vegas stays in Vegas. In many ways, it's a lot like modern Dublin.
Wander down the neon Strip and you'll see bands of stag and hen parties staggering about. Here everything's expensive and everyone is out to rip you off. Sound familiar? If anything, Vegas is tamer than Dublin late on a Saturday night. No one tries to punch you in Vegas, there's less vomit on the pavement, Vegas bus drivers call you "Sir" and even "Sweetie".
Sure this is "Sin City", a monument to debauched, excessive materialism. But at least they're upfront about it. In Ireland, we continue to keep up the pretence that Christmas is still some kind of spiritual festival, not the booze binge it has become.
Maybe that's why Las Vegas doesn't seem so strange and unfamiliar to a visiting Irishman in Christmas 2003.
Vulgar and excessive it is, but that's old hat to anyone that's lived through Irish reality for the last 10 years. Hell, you could feel right at home here.
There's O'Shea's Irish-themed casino opposite Caesar's Palace, and Nine Fine Irishmen super pub, established in 1848 (even though Vegas was only founded in 1905).
Yes. Sham and greed are the order of the day here.
It's so familiar and comfortable. It's so much like home.