Up the escalator to the Gold Coast Casino’s Arizona Ballroom, where signs warn that communication devices and smoking are not allowed, and all raffle prizes must be claimed within 30 seconds. Gotta step out into the hall for cell-phone chatter and long draws off thick cigars. The median age hovers around 60 for the folks packed at the round tables, themselves packed into the carpeted expanse under banks of eight big-screens. Four even-bigger-screens in the corners project massive horses thundering around dirt ovals; they remain the main source of kinetic motion in the room. One station serves hot dogs, another alcohol; another takes the bets. Yet with no frilly and/or straw hats, seersucker suits or mint juleps, it’s not really much of a Kentucky Derby “party,” is it?
Voices remain hushed, eyes cast downward. Things are intense here as high noon passes. It’s been this way for four hours, and will be for another four. Difficult to imagine that elsewhere on this Cinco de Mayo/fight night Saturday, revelers at other parties have been drunk, nude and uproarious for just as long.