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My 2007

 

Performance of the Year

By K.W. Jeter

There are a lot of indications for a bright—or at least brighter—future for the fine arts in Las Vegas. But a particular shout-out needs to go to the stars of 2007’s biggest production, the continuing public opera sometimes referred to as La Scammiata, or more accurately in English, Pro SportsLas Vegas’s Iraq. So thanks, Pacman; way to go, O.J.  And the NBA Weekenders—you guys are the real troupers.

The parallels to that other, bigger and nastier Iraq stageshow were obvious even before those virtuosi sang their arias: leaders convinced of a big box office for a production that nobody actually wants to see, and a consequent financial rat-hole down which lots of public money can be poured, with nobody making a profit except the contractors who pour the cement. As one of the biggest local rooters for a new sports arena confessed in the Review-Journal, it can’t be done without public money. Neither could taking Baghdad, for that matter, and look at the return we got on that investment.

Problem is, Vegas is the single greatest experiment in the history of crowd control, and we have to do it without calling in the National Guard—which is a good thing, since they’re not available anymore, at least not in this country. The situation is in hand for the inevitable frictions and collisions of a lot of less-than-sober people out to have a good time, but add in even a small element of people whose notion of fun runs to knifings and gunshots, and the available resources get quickly max’d out. That’s when you get everyone from harried Strip waitresses to CEOs of the big casino companies dscribing certain visitors as a bunch of gangbangers and thugs, and pulling the welcome mat out from under their Nike-shod feet. Bonehead NBA stars and fans are bad enough, but their white suburban imitators will be even worse, should they pick up on the notion that Vegas is the gangsta playground of choice. That word gets out to the general public and then all of a sudden, we don’t have a billion-dollar gaming and entertainment industry here; instead, we have the world’s largest unpaved parking lot and scorpion farm, just as before Bugsy Siegel came along.

So thanks, guys. Regular folks, who aren’t addicted to sniffing increasingly steroid-pungent jockstraps, couldn’t have made a better argument than the one you gave us, about how pro sports are a sucker bet for this town.

Year of the Unemployed LLC

By Kate Silver

It started out as a somewhat typical bitchfest with a friend. We’d both  recently left our jobs and had formed our own individual companies, working for ourselves and feeling very much by ourselves. Though proud to have founded our own LLCs, we missed the daily human interaction that comes with having a job. When you work from home, it’s all too easy to feel like a housewife (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

“I’m having an identity crisis,” I moaned. We were on the patio of Three  Tomatoes and a Mozzerella and had managed to resist ordering wine with  lunch, even though we had no office or boss to return to.

“Me too,” she whined. “Maybe we need some kind of support group.”   

As our employed lunchmate looked on without a hint of pity or understanding, we founded Unemployed LLC, an organization for the self-employed who, from time to time, get sick of themselves. At its height, we had eight women as members.

Though two have since gotten jobs working for other people, we’ve allowed them to remain grandmothered in.

We have no set meetings and no defined goals—aside from having T-shirts made with Swarovski crystals that say “Unemployed LLC”—but it’s still been a valuable reminder that if I have something to complain about, someone else is bound to be struggling with the same issue. It’s networking for the untraditionally unemployed. Even if it hasn’t quite stopped the identity crisis, I can better distract myself from it, as needed.

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