Vegas Royalty

So, The Stardust in Las Vegas has died. Murdered to make way for a modern resort that will cost billions and is projected to be completed in 2010. But I ask that we take a moment and think about what we have lost. Some might think it was just a trashy tinsel building from a trashy tinsel town, and part of me is inclined to agree with you, but there is always that other side. The other side says that this hotel and casino was a record breaker in many ways from the day it was designed. It was the largest in Las Vegas for a long period of time, the venue that brought us Sigfreid and Roy, had notorious and public mob connections, and was given the largest fine ever issued by the Nevada Gaming Commission. This building as shady as it sometimes was held a wide variety of entertainments and was ever changing to please the public. It housed the famous and long past Aku Aku Polynesian restaurant with the even more popular Tiki Bar. At one time the hotel was the pinnacle of prestige, but like so many of the places and people made popular in that era it grew to be more of a symbol for the times. Never with out grander, the hotel once sought after by Howard Hughes, it went out with as much excitement as it came in. So we bid farewell to The Stardust, with all the trashy Las Vegas glamor that it held on to from the time of movie stars and the mob. Never again will anyone imagine that Elvis has walked those famous corridors one last time, day dream about the Rat Pack, or go to see Wayne Newton croon with perfect hair to a drunken crowd. There are still remnants of The Stardust around, and I am sure there always will be. You will always be able to visit those things in museums and know that some parts of Vegas will never really die.

By the by, James Brown was finally buried on Saturday in his daughters back yard. I'm not going to say anything about the choice of resting because I am just relieved he has finally been laid to rest some where.