A Circus of Human Misery Turned Comedy

In a retrospect that only becomes sharper with age, the epic Vegas nights of my youth were better as stories than they were as lived experiences. The high of arriving—Anything is possible! I am not myself!—and the low of the next morning—I cannot look myself in the mirror—is a blessed cycle of amnesia that keeps us all coming back. Vegas is grotesque. I mean that as praise: it is a funhouse mirror that will reflect your own grossness, your own monstrosity, in exaggerated, strange shapes. What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas was the city’s slogan for years. It was designed to be a dump, where one can unload and bury one’s vices before returning home to signal virtues.