Why Las Vegans can be a tad defensive about how others see their city

By Jack Sheehan

Sunday, April 13, 2008 | 2 a.m.

We Las Vegans need to keep a thick skin, and not just because the desert sun will bake us harder than an armadillo shell if we get too much exposure to it.

More because the rest of the country has never quite gotten up to speed on what we’re up to out here in the middle of all this national parkland. In an informal poll of tourists we took two years ago while making a documentary film, I discovered that nearly half of the 100 respondents we spoke with still thought Las Vegas was extending its welcome to families.

Oh, they had all heard of the What Happens Here campaign, but somehow it didn’t register with many of them that we weren’t alluding to keeping our collective mouths closed concerning any sightings of visiting children picking their noses or snatching extra M&Ms out of the minibar in the hotel suites.

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No one in Las Vegas was particularly surprised when a U.S. Senate-House negotiating committee about 15 or 20 years back voted to rework the nation’s nuclear waste program to make Nevada the first and only choice for a high-level dump. Southern Nevadans could almost hear the whispered chorus, from sea to shining sea, “Serves ’em right! What better place for it!”

So much of the national publicity that emanates from here has scandal or illegal behavior attached to it. If you watch “America’s Most Wanted,” it seems every show has at least one bad guy hiding out here, thinking he can pull a David Copperfield by becoming invisible among the madding crowd along the Strip.

In just one recent news cycle we had Mormon polygamist leader Warren Jeffs busted nearby with a carload of cash and weapons; O.J. Simpson allegedly stealing back property he claimed was rightfully his while his posse waved guns in people’s faces; Britney Spears’ ludicrous comeback attempt at the video music awards; Michael Jackson seen lurking around town in a mask and bandages that made onlookers wonder whether his entire head wasn’t falling off; medical clinics reusing vials and syringes and engaging in other unhealthy practices; and the biological weapon ricin found in a local hotel room.

All these stories got big play in the national media, giving the talking heads ample reason to sneer our city’s name out of the sides of their mouths and by implication suggest that it’s not the least bit surprising that these odd events happened here, and nowhere else.

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This is what we’re up against, those of us who occasionally wage the lonely battle to defend the virtue of this painted lady, Las Vegas. It’s been going on for more than 60 years now, the business of folks coming to this gambling and entertainment center for three or four days, enjoying a splendid vacation, then returning home and bashing the city for its godless pursuit of pleasure.

Though it’s not against the law to gamble here or stay up past a decent hour or indulge yourself in ways you’d never dream of back home, it’s also not against the law to refrain from these earthly pursuits. But then what would our visitors have to report to the boys at the bank or the women in the bridge club, who most likely aren’t interested in hearing how beautiful Red Rock Canyon is, or how our arts scene has been dramatically upgraded in recent years? The folks in Abilene want the unfiltered dirt, and it’s the returning tourists’ job to dish it out.

Though there’s no question that nefarious activities occur here because of our 24-hour nature (Shoot, I was able to get an entire book out of these misbehaviors), the public should be informed that the range of services and conveniences here — some edgy, others healthful and still others simply practical — is as eclectic as the town itself, and they’re available on a round-the-clock basis.

Should you desire, at any given hour in Las Vegas you can do the following: find a bail bondsman, drive golf balls (at a lighted range), get your carpet cleaned, rent a maid, rent a date, rent a mate, rent a stripper, strip a fender, call a plumber, get your back cracked, buy a backpack, purchase a shirt, pawn your watch, get married, get divorced, rent a movie, repair your car, sell your car, rent a car, tow your car, lift weights, lose weight, get a tan, get your cat spayed, and get cremated. You can even get your cat cremated and yourself spayed.

When I’m on occasion asked what there is to do here other than gamble, eat and go to shows, I usually suggest short trips to Hoover Dam, the Valley of Fire, the Springs Preserve, the renovated ski area at Lee Canyon, or one of the art museums on the Strip. I offer those alternatives as an antidote to what essayist Tom Wolfe calls “the communal fear that someone, somewhere in Las Vegas is going to be left with a totally vacant minute on his hands.”

I know these suggestions will more than likely be ignored, but it appeases me to know I’m doing my civic duty to expand awareness of the variety of options that do exist here.

Despite all the abuse that has been leveled at Las Vegas through the years from the legions of gamblers and writers and normal folk just passing through, there’s only one insult that truly shakes the foundations upon which the city was built.

You can hurl epithets, pound your fist on the felt tables, fail to tip the maitre d’s and the valet parkers, look down your nose at the showgirls and cocktail waitresses, and curse the city as a bastion for heathens and reprobates.

But please, whatever you do, don’t say you found Las Vegas boring. I mean we have feelings, too.

Jack Sheehan’s column appears every other week.