LAS VEGAS -- This week’s Bucket comes to you from the Las Vegas strip, because that’s where my day job has transported me for an entire mother-loving week. Obviously you’re thinking, “a whole week in Vegas? Mmmm … sounds healthy and cleansing.”
And you’re right: Las Vegas is void of temptations, toxins or any harmful agents to your body or finances - only as long as your face is glued to a laptop and your fingers are hammering out a Bucket of Bullets and not throwing caution and paychecks to the wind.
So a gracious, heartfelt and genuine thank you to Bucknuts upper management for staving off my impending squalor for at least the next hour or so. It’s a minor tragedy that they only need one Bucket from me this week; not that they lacked the faith in me to get it done amidst all of the neon distractions around me. Here is an actual text message I received from Bucknuts’ concerned publisher Dan Rubin:
“Ramzy - how is the Bucket coming along? We are worried you will delay it to spend another five hours at the Spearmint Rhino.”
That’s just silly. As if the Rhino doesn’t have wireless in the champagne room.
Simplistic mischaracterizations aside, there’s really no finer place in the 48 contiguous states - outside of maybe the pizza valhalla of Tommy’s in Upper Arlington - that can be quite as wholesome and nurturing, where you can have the spitting image of your Nana overfeed you while the nostalgic images of your childhood flash before your eyes - as Las Vegas.
Sin City is a big playground for people who have long-graduated from the playground age. And like your formative years on the real playground, having fun and playing with others is a privilege that requires a significant amount of personal responsibility in order to survive. Poker tables are the rickety monkey bars of life: You can have blast or incapacitate yourself forever. It’s all up to you.
Vegas is a microcosm of the new American dream, where citizens and aliens young and old chase the fantasy of instant retirement at the expense of bad math and worse odds. Working may be for suckers, but ironically this sucker is in Vegas to actually work.
But before I get to work work, it’s Bucket time: No whammies, craps or busts this week - just bullets. LEGGO!
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***PREMIUM SUBSCRIBERS: HEAD DEEP INTO SIN CITY WITH RAMZY BY CLICKING HERE
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***NON-PREMIUM USERS: TO SUBSCRIBE SO YOU CAN GET BEHIND THE ROPE, CLICK HERE
- Ramzy Nasrallah
- columnist for Bucknuts - Bucknuts
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