If you love those Las Vegas Sun slideshow-riffic stories (15 intersections of certain death! click now!), you might like this quick, numbered list of potential future events that will likely never come to pass but may give you a chuckle.
On the heels of this morning's delightfully-sequined astroturf "angry showgirl" march to protest resort fees, I started pondering what other marches protesting other indiginities or inconveniences of today's Vegas I'd like to see. My brain stopped working after five, so that's all you get. If you've got any ideas, feel free to add them in the comments.
I'll continue to delight you after the jump.
First, just for fun, here's a video encapsulating just why the showgirls are ANGRY"
If the lead showgirl had started by saying, "Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry," there wouldn't have been a bucket large enough to hold the social media win. But it's a nice effort anyway.
So what are the five (5!) protest marches I think we might see if the trend of staged public demonstrations on the Strip takes off? Here they are, with no additional clicking needed, all in the same place:
1. "No CapEx, No Peace"
Anthony Marnell III leads a coalition of custodians, painters, and electricians to protest declining maintenance standards and property reinvestment along the Strip. He talked about the issue on the last Vegas Gang podcast, and I think he'd be up for translating his words into action.
You could call it the Million Mop March, with an army of guys (and gals) with cleaning implements, paint brushes, and powerwashers taking it to the streets. Everyone gets arrested when the group storms the Paris balloon in an attempt to paint it. (Seriously, guys, just paint the thing already.)
2. Urban Blight and Nightlife
Everyone's favorite casino mogul, Steve Wynn, leads a phalanx of employees through his North Strip neighborhood to protest the shabbier-by-the-day environs of his twin towered resort enclave. Starting at the former New Frontier, they head north to Echelon's stumpy skeleton, then cross over to Fontainebleau.
They are met by a counter-protest, however, of long-time Wynn aficionados upset by the recent turn towards nightlife and daylife revenues. When their demands--that all nightclub patrons be kept out of visual sight of any position on the casino floor occupied by someone actually gambling there, and all club venues be refitted with super-ablative noise-suppression armor--are not met,they mourn the loss of the Wynn they remember by symbolically setting a pile of Ed Hardy clothing and plastic fedoras alight.
3. "A Payout Too Far"
This event isn't organized by a casino property--it's a more or less spontaneous gathering of casino-goers appalled by the growth of 6:5 blackjack along the Strip.
Billed as a mile march, it actually lasts only 4/5s of a mile, as protesters leave that last 1/5 of a mile untrodden in deference to 6:5's 20% shortage on natural blackjack payouts vs. the customary 3:2.
It ultimately fails, though, as another group of novice Vegas visitors, drawn by the convenience and nice appearance of that empty 1/5 mile of Strip frontage, eagerly push through it in search of of those generous 6:5 payouts.
4. "Making It So"
Since the 2008 closure of Star Trek: The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton, Trekkies, Trekkers, and just plain fans of redshirts and green women haven't had a place in Vegas to call their own. Despite an incredibly successful movie that reinvigorated the franchise and whose sequel is currently in the works, no Las Vegas casino properties have stepped up to add a reborn Star Trek: The Experience to their property.
Taking a break from the action at the upcoming Creation Entertainment Star Trek convention, a group of concern fans will stage a ceremonial walk from the gates of the closed-but-not-replaced The Experience at the Hilton to the central Strip. Armed with phasers, batleths, and even Ushaan-Tors, the group will nevertheless behave with full decorum, living by the Vulcan creed of IDIC...as long as one of those infinite combinations includes a reborn Star Trek: The Experience and a fully-stocked Quark's Bar.
5. "Freelancers against Carpetbagging"
Converging at Vdara, this group of hardworking local freelance journalists marches down the Strip in protest of the seemingly-weekly dispatches written for--and sold to--national news outlets by out-of-towners who blow in and blow out of town guided only by their own previous misconceptions. Stopping at a penny slot machine, a strip club, and a bottle-service nightclub, the protesters demand equal access to lucrative commissions for both slice-of-life and ruminations-on-Vegas-and-the-American-dream that invariably seem to go to those who know as little about the city as possible.
So there you have it--five marches that will probably never happen, but would definitely brighten things up if they did.
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