Well, the Trade Show is over and we’re back in the LAX Departure Lounge.

It feels good to relax. The show was a non-stop assault. We’d been pretty busy even before we left home, what with house alterations and preparations for the trip, and in Las Vegas the only way to get away from it all was to hide in your room. But now we’ve showered and have almost an hour to fill.

The drive back to LA had its thrills and it felt like a close-run thing for a while. Sitting in rush-hour traffic was nerve-racking, with check-in looming and absolutely no idea how far we had to go — but suddenly the traffic sped up and then — boom! — the airport exit was right ahead — just a quarter mile ahead — across six lanes of traffic — and off a whole other freeway (the 105 not the 405, for the locals).

The flight over was terrible — absolutely full — and our agent had reserved, just for us, the worst seats on the plane – PLUS my seat wouldn’t recline. I spent the night trying to sleep bolt upright with my head falling in my lap like a 90-year-old at Riverview.

It was great to spend the night with Jeff and Terri again — this time with lovely 4-month-old twins. We had a great dinner at a harbour-side restaurant whose claim to fame was having 250 beers on tap. Terri led this Doubting Thomas round the bar so I could do a quick visual confirmation — and yes, they’re drinking our beer here.

Next morning we headed to Vegas over a spectacular landscape of ranges and sagebrush desert basins.

We stopped at Yermo for lunch at Peggy Sue’s ’50s Diner. Peggy Sue had worked in the movies and there were photos of her with everyone — quite a long time ago, it must be said — including a picture of The King (or an impersonator, more like) climbing all over her with what appeared to be a whole lotta tongue down her throat. There were signs like Keep Yermo clean — wipe your feet as you leave, and If your meal’s not ready in 5 minutes, it’ll be along in 10 or 15, and (in the urinal) Whole Lotta Shaking Goin’ On. We had Big Bopper BLTs and left.

On the other side of the road from Peggy Sue’s was a huge Marine Corps base, with a train in the siding unloading enough tanks and armoured personnel carriers to give our Lady Prime Minister conniptions. This was pretty much the last place we went to for the next five days that had no slot machines.

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The Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino was just off the Interstate, so we went straight there. The scale of the place was phenomenal. There must have been at least 10 check-in stations, and still a long line waiting to be processed. There were about 1500 suites in our tower, and there were two towers. 2,500 catering staff, 16 restaurants, a gazillion slot machines, and a constant din wherever you sat — except your room. But our room didn’t have the luxury of 100 channels of TV — they wanted us back out there to spend, spend, spend. From our room through the casino to the convention centre was a ten-minute walk.

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If you wanted a cab in the evening you joined a never-diminishing line of (I don’t know, a hundred people?) piling into taxis and limousines that came and left as fast as passengers could be stuffed into them.

We made it to the top of the line and took a cab Downtown with a very pleasant but strange woman driver — the best, but not the strangest, that we had while we were there. Our worst, for the record, was straight out of the movies — he looked like Nick Nolte or Mickey Rourke after a week on the booze.

We drove past an intersection on Maryland Parkway with huge bill-boards on either side — on the left, FREE VIAGRA TRIAL (five bucks for the prescription), on the right, TOTALLY NUDE PRIVATE STRIP AT YOUR PLACE (presumably more expensive).

After dinner at a Chinese Restaurant we called another cab. The restaurant was only a few minutes from The Rio, and we’d only just pulled out when the cabby said, “I dunno — once a week I’m the mug who’s gotta take the radio calls… It’s all short trips. There’s no money in it — just a coupla lousy bucks and then the fucken bastards don’t tip — especially the aliens — those fucken Asians are the worst.”

We apologised for wasting his time and he replied, “Well, at least you’re Americans.”

I could feel the steam rising off the Canadians in the back.

We explained politely that there wasn’t another American in the vehicle.

“Well”, he said, “At least you’re white.”

He managed to vent his spleen about the whole effing modern socio-political system in the space of an effing lousy five dollar effing cab ride, with special emphasis on how the effing commie bastard socialist teachers didn’t teach any real history any more, just filled our kids’ heads with effing commie propaganda, and how the working man in America didn’t stand a chance.

He did have a soft spot for the current Alberta premier, who’s tightened up the state welfare system and told all the out-of state bludgers that if they don’t like what he’s doing he’ll buy them a one-way bus ticket home.

I don’t know whether he got a tip or not — I was out of the effing cab before it stopped effing moving.

Anyway…

When Malcolm arrived he looked even more disoriented than us — maybe because he’d driven twice as far as us and had already driven himself down the Strip and back. He’d been dredging up customers for us in the UK. He began a futile, week-long effort to get a drink of Tonic Water with Ice. When he left after the show he still hadn’t succeeded. Meanwhile Chris was happily ordering Vodka and Tonic without difficulty whenever he felt the urge. Maybe Malcolm needed to ask for the same, but hold the vodka.

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We rose late and spent a relatively quiet day driving. That evening we walked across the Freeway and down the Strip, past Caesar’s Palace (astoundingly huge) and The Mirage (almost as big). The Volcano erupted for us, but our feet were getting sore, and who gets excited about volcanoes at casinos these days?

We had dinner at The Venetian (spectacular) and walked home past hordes of hawkers trying to entice us to nudie bars and the like.

Next day was pretty quiet — it was set-up day for the Trade Show, which only took us an hour or two. Heather made sure we kept our stock hidden from prying eyes. We made contact with Darlene and Chris, our Canadian agents. They’d come with Darcy and Wynna from Burch Studio, who turned out to be a totally engaging couple. The four of them come to Vegas every year, which shows a certain cultural sang froid that we Anzacs didn’t possess.

The only event that day was the warm-up cocktail party in the evening. It had a tropical theme. Our resident Aussie starred in a fetching outfit of (from the ground up) tramping sandals, a grotesque pair of baggy shorts and a loud yellow shirt with a cartoon version of the Australian national heraldic device showing the supporting emu and wallaby flat on the backs, blind drunk. Cultural self-belief of a different flavour.

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Next day was the first day of the Trade Fair. I was late arriving, and turned up to see people crowded three deep round our display with Malcolm, Heather, Chris, Darlene and Kerry (an Aussie customer) all red-faced, shouting at the prospects over the tables that held our display albums. In front of us was the effing Canon stand with some screeching woman shouting into a microphone while Monte Bloody Zucker or some other hero photographer shot pictures of pretty girls, blew smoke and generally made our lives a misery.

It went on pretty much like that for three days. When it was over we’d go back to the Casino for a quiet drink in the din of the Slot Machines and worry about how much everything was costing us. After the first evening Malcolm tended to avoid our British clients, who certainly knew how to tidy away the drinks.

People quite obviously loved our stuff and all the competitors started to descend. On Day One we tried really hard to sell Queensberry Starter Kits to at least two of them, and then got really tight-lipped when they smirked at us from behind their own displays.

On Day Three the Market Leader seemed to send all his Reps down to see us, and eventually the Big Head arrived himself with two Mafioso types in support. He and I did this brief macho dance in which he said he understood I wanted to meet with him and I scratched my head and said No I didn’t — and he said yes you did, and I said no I didn’t.

When we got over this he congratulated me on our “fabulous product” and said that if we ever wanted to discuss transfer of production from Noo Zealand to his facility in Mexico maybe his people could talk to my people. Blah blah and a hand shake.

Art Leather went out of business a few years later ~Ian

Everybody performed very well in trying circumstances — and it was really nice to have Kerry helping out much of the time. In fact it was un-nerving to see how many people we needed on our stand — this, the first year we’d attended. Here in the beating heart of global commerce we felt we were pretty naive salespeople — except Darlene, who taught us to say, “Are you ready to order?”

Come to think of it, though, I’d read somewhere that the one thing a salesman shouldn’t do is ask prospects questions to which they can answer “No”.

It’s the simple things…

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One evening we went to Bellagio (spectacular, like all the new casinos) and saw the Cirque du Soleil show, O. The stage set is a “lake” with a segmented floor that raises and lowers so the players appear to dance on the water and then dive into it. Huge over-head gear, magnificent back-drops. And great athletes. I can’t describe it. It was stupendous. I never thought I’d say that synchronised swimming was breath-taking, and in a sense it was just the continuity. The show catalogue comes complete with a statement from the writer/director that’s supposed to invest the whole thing with deep meaning. If so, I don’t know what it is. It just is.

Before the show we’d watched the Bellagio’s outdoor water display, set in another “lake” in front of the casino, with all the fountains dancing like a chorus line to an operatic sound-track. Equally breath-taking.

After the show the line for cabs seemed to be thousands long. We hiked to another casino for a cab.

We didn’t get to visit all the big Casinos — like Paris, built round a replica of the Eiffel Tower (“because you can’t stay at the The Louvre”), or The Luxor (like a magnificent, huge, black ceramic cook-top pyramid), or the MGM Grand (“The City of Entertainment”), or Treasure Island (where the older Cirque du Soleil show has been sold out for five years), or New York-New York, with the Stature of Liberty, its facade a Disney version of the Manhattan skyline.

And all this — and so much more, at so many places — paid for by the hordes at the Slots and Tables, and all of them served by the supporting caste who work in that pandemonium.

I came to sneer, but even if the ceilings in Bellagio and The Venetian aren’t by Michelangelo, it’s amazing.

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Before we left Vegas we did put a few dollars in the slots. Chris played enough at the tables to get his Vodka and Tonics free, but the rest of us demurred. Of course there was another opportunity to play the slots at McCarran airport. 

Oh yes, and Darcy resuscitated a young lady in the Bakery. Such an accomplished fellow. He’s getting us Ice Hockey tickets in September too.

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When it was all over, and packed away for shipping home, Heather and I hit the road back to LAX for the next leg, stopping only for a quick Shake ‘n Bake at Peggy Sue’s on the way.

The only excitement — and it was exciting — was when our rental’s engine cut out as we came back down the San Gabriel Mountains — leaving us free-wheeling to the bottom with no power and no brakes. We managed to steer into a weigh station and bring the car to a halt. After a bit of a breather the car pulled itself together, the engine restarted, the brakes promised to behave, and we drove cautiously back to the depot. Cautiously, that is, until we had to cross those six lanes of rush-hour traffic in the space of a quarter-mile to hit the LAX off-ramp. That was un-nerving given the circumstances.

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