Antony Bourdain writes over at CNN about Vegas "Bad Behavior":
You come here because Las Vegas promises, with a wink and a nudge, that "What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas." That's what Vegas has always promised, implicitly -- or explicitly, as when Nick Tosches asked his hotel manager if he could smoke in his room.
"Buddy, you can kill your wife in this room," was the response.
That promise of Vegas confidentiality is not true by the way. Maybe when the mob ran things, or when an act of indiscretion might lead directly to a hole in the desert. Or when Vegas truly was a company town.
But today, I'm guessing, if Justin Bieber found himself (hypothetically) splashing around the fountain at the Bellagio with a platoon of hookers in various states of disarray, somebody would be Instagramming that shit right quick. If he (hypothetically) made a late-night call down to the concierge for a band saw, a 55-gallon drum of Astroglide, a bucket of hot wings and a tarpaulin, I doubt very much he could be assured of absolute discretion.
I suppose everybody wants to be king for just a little while. To be the one who calls the shots. To think one can actually become such a thing is the illusion which so much of Vegas is built around. That illusion, though, sells itself to the worst within us, to the tyrannical and the psychotic. So, is it really worth it?
I would say it's not. We ought to not kid ourselves that we can, even for a moment, become the center of the world. Such is not a role a mere human being can approgate for himself.
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