"Former President Donald Trump s campaign is hiring extra medics, loading up on fans and water bottles and allowing supporters to carry umbrellas..."

"... to an outdoor rally Sunday in Las Vegas, where temperatures are expected to exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit.... Campaign organizers say they will have ample water bottles to hand out to attendees and that cooling tents will be place throughout the venue. Misting fans will be given out. The campaign has paid for additional EMS services to be on site in the case of emergency. The U.S. Secret Service will be making an exception to allow people to bring in personal water bottles and and umbrellas. During a Trump rally in Arizona on Thursday, the Phoenix Police Department said 11 people were transported to hospitals, treated and released for heat exhaustion. Many Trump’s supporters waited in line for hours and some were unable to get inside before the venue reached capacity. The temperature reached a record 113 degrees Fahrenheit... that day...."

ABC News reports.

He's got dedicated supporters.

UPDATE: A NYT account of the Las Vegas event:

The monetization of the legalization.

I'm reading a NYT article titled "Travel’s Back. And It’s High Season/While the pandemic had travelers cooped up, a growing number of states legalized cannabis. Love it or hate it, you will probably encounter it on your next trip" by the aptly named Julie Weed. (Excellent illustration by Russell Cobb, by the way.)

The article begins:

For Caitlyn Hunter’s 21st birthday trip to Las Vegas last month, her mother booked spots on a “Las Vegas Cannabis Tour,” a business started during the pandemic that guides tourists through marijuana dispensaries in that city. Ms. Hunter, of Houston, Texas, expected an educational afternoon where she, her mother and grandmother could smoke marijuana together, and her grandmother could learn about different marijuana strains that might help her with knee pain.

What they got instead, Ms. Hunter said, was a “crazy experience,” involving a guide in 4-inch pink stilettos cracking dirty jokes, a raucous van ride around the Las Vegas Strip (with a sober driver), the consumption of multiple cannabis products, a shopping bag full of decorative bongs to use as flower vases back home and, at one point, a grandmother unable to speak without bursting into uncontrollable laughter. In short, Ms. Hunter concluded, a perfect celebration.

I don't understand what's crazy. A mother, daughter, and grandmother got their hands held so they could get inebriated and buy bad souvenirs in Las Vegas. It's all subjective. They felt they were having a crazy time.

I guess these ladies are not from the set of people who have abstemiously excluded the word "crazy" from their vocabulary, as we were discussing 2 days ago. Looking for that post in my archive, I ran across a post from 2018 where I noted the problem "crazy":

By the way, some people think it's wrong to make an insult out of "crazy" and words that mean crazy, because there's collateral damage to persons with mental illness. But it's so common. It would be insanely inhibiting to self-censor that one, but I did used to have many long conversations with a person who insisted on my refraining from deploying "crazy" as an insult. I know what you're thinking: He sounds crazy.

Back to the NYT article. It begins with that Caitlyn Hunter birthday story, but you have to read quite far down to get to the cold facts: Those ladies paid $150 apiece — that's $450 — to get driven around and cracked dirty jokes at for 2-and-a-half hours. 

What else is there in the world of cannabis travel? According to the head of the Cannabis Travel Association International, there are "things like the cultivation tours at Huckleberry Hill Farm and Papa and Barkley Social, which offers a cannabis-themed spa, dispensary and consumption space," and "cannabis pairing," where you "get advice on the strain of marijuana that might best enhance a hike or specific meal." 

So... don't think of cannabis as the equivalent of alcohol generally, think wine specifically, and there's your monetization of the legalization. 

ADDED: In the comments at the NYT article, there's a lot of talk about involuntary encounters with cannabis while traveling: Smelling marijuana smoke in your hotel. Of course, the hotels ban smoking anything, but that smell is there — or is there a smell of something else that was used to mask the smell? One solution is to steer people toward edibles, but with edibles the effect is different and it's also delayed, as Maureen Dowd famously demonstrated.

I strained to remember where I was or even what I was wearing, touching my green corduroy jeans and staring at the exposed-brick wall. As my paranoia deepened, I became convinced that I had died and no one was telling me.

Crazy! 

"The multimillionaire former CEO of online shoe store Zappos died on Friday, nine days after he was dragged unconscious by firefighters from a blazing Connecticut house..."

"... in the middle of the night. Tony Hsieh, who was worth an estimated $840 million, had retired three months earlier from the billion-dollar business he helped found, and was just 46 years old. The alarm was raised at 3:30am on November 18 and firefighters forced their way into the New London home after being told someone was trapped inside.... He insisted on a $36,000 annual salary... and he sat in an unassuming cubicle among the other employees. When Zappos set up a new warehouse in Kentucky, the paper said, he packed a pickup truck with materials, drove to Kentucky and got to work bolting together shelves and unpacking shoes.... Hsieh, who had a passion for llamas and alpacas, had a pet alpaca named Marley and dog Blizzy. He lived in an Airstream trailer, part of a village... known as Llamapolis... [I]n 2014, he transformed a parking lot in the city into a 'micro-living oasis', made up of around 30 RVs. He also had two pet llamas which lived in the trailer park community with him. As of 2020, he was still living in the tiny trailer, unmarried and with no children."

The Daily Mail reports.

Here's a view inside Hsieh's Airstream:

Las Vegas is back.

Feels like the need to gather in groups and socialize and feel together is both the strongest and weakest thing about humanity https://t.co/Uqui6ahzYQ

— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) June 6, 2020

The claw machine.

It's the iconic arcade game, don't you think?







Those are 3 photographs I took in the arcade at New York, New York in Las Vegas last week. Today, I'm reading the Wikipedia article on what is also called the claw crane, the skill crane, or the teddy picker:

The success rate of winning a prize is dependent on several factors including operator settings, player skill, type of machine, and the prizes available (size, density, and distribution). A prize may be lost due to player inexperience, player error in manipulating the claw, the weakness of the claw, or the specific crane configuration...

Modern claw machines are fully computerized and are remotely programmable by the owner (via a hand-held device). Settings and features commonly available include:

• Claw strength and aperture
• Motion speed, in any direction (that is, the claw can be made to drop slowly but come up quickly, or move right faster than it moves forward)
• Pick-up strength and retain strength can be specified separately, as well as the delay between pick-up and return.
• Payout percentage: Cranes equipped with this setting have onboard programming which cause the claw's grip parameters to be continually adjusted to achieve a pre-set payout percentage, usually specified with respect to the value of the prizes inside
• Fail limit: If the machine dispenses too many prizes in a given time period, it stops accepting coins and is out of order...

The machine declares itself "out of order" if people win too much!

Blue Las Vegas.

From the past week, when I was in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas nightscape.

The moon and the balloon...



The moon and the Eiffel Tower...



Blurred vision...



M... Britney...



Trump!

Colossi of Las Vegas.

Devil woman:



Coke bottle:

Waiting for Britney.

A Britney Spears slot machine reflects on the Planet Hollywood casino floor as a woman in a spangly dress totters by. I took that photo last night near the Britney Spears show "Piece of Me," which Chris and I saw last night.

I'm reading Wikipedia's summary of the critical reaction:

MTV News contributor Sophie Schillaci wrote that "Spears delivered on her signature style of larger-than-life production, blaring beats and rapid-fire dance moves, whirling through seven costume changes and even a couple of wig changes." Schillaci also commented that long-time fans would appreciate the concert as it is "more of a look backwards than forwards," and added that, while Spears may not sing completely live, "[the singer's] sweet voice shone through the backing, or we could hear her catching her breath between numbers." She concluded her review saying that "if you're looking for a powerhouse vocal performance in your Vegas entertainment, head over to The Colosseum for Celine Dion. But Britney fans will find no better show on the strip than 'Piece of Me'."...

We had kind of bad seats... especially after a man who must have been 7 feet tall sat down in front of Chris. I laughed a few times at the sheer bad luck of that and wondered how the guy feels every time he sits down in front of someone.

Anyway, Britney Spears isn't exactly my kind of music and I don't even like concerts that much, but I thought it was a good choice for a classic Las Vegas experience. Lots of flashing lights and swirling imagery and undulating dancers. Undulating and also, very frequently, doing what I consider Britney's signature dance move: walking emphatically.

At the Las Vegas Escalator Café...

... you can walk right by or come on up...



(And consider using The Althouse Amazon Portal.)

If it weren't for Tim McGraw's nipple, I'd have to say this casino is sexually harassing me.

Blogging from the Pacific Time Zone.

I tried not to get up too early, but I'm often up at 5 in the Central Time Zone. At least I made it to 5 in the Pacific Time Zone, but what do you think it's like at 5 a.m. on the floor of a Las Vegas hotel that the elevator designates not as "lobby" or "main" or "1" but "CASINO"?

There must be at least 10 restaurants in this hotel, and I'd like to sit in a place where a server fills your cup and asks how you want your eggs. But there's only one place open, a little snack bar that's playing disco and disco-like pop. Oh, now it's Prince, "Raspberry Beret." I love Prince, but still, it's not what I want with black coffee and blogging. I put her on the back of my bike/And we went riding/Down by old man Johnson's farm....

The casino operates around the clock, but it's mostly empty machines right now, flashing lights, eternally longing for one more ass to plunk down and feed in a few bills. I did see some gamblers as I made my way from the elevator to this nutty little snack bar. They can't be up early. They must be up late. But what difference does it make? The inner space called "CASINO" always looks the same, dark with lights.

No windows. But it's my duty as a blogger to attempt to look out on the world and have something to say about it. I'd like some windows. At home, my computer faces a wall of windows. But there's always the window that is the computer screen. It's hard to look in there though in this place that's designed to enclose you in an alternate, distorted, synthetic reality.

Talk to me! I feel like you're going to tell me that the news is an alternate, distorted, synthetic reality, so what difference does it make? But I'm feeling what I'm feeling from inside this strange place.

It's hard to blog from the Pacific Time Zone.

Sorry to get such a late start, but this is not a late start for me. I'm in Las Vegas...



... doing some family reunionizing.

I'll still be blogging. Don't worry. But it will be Pacific Time Zone blogging.

"A gunman firing from a Las Vegas hotel rained a rapid-fire barrage on a huge outdoor concert festival on Sunday night..."

"... sending thousands of people fleeing until SWAT units found and killed him," the NYT reports.

More than 50 victims died, and at least 200 others were wounded, officials said, making it one of the deadliest mass shootings in United States history.

Sheriff Joseph Lombardo of Clark County... identified the gunman as Stephen Paddock, 64. He said the police were seeking “a companion” named Marilou Danley, and the authorities later said they were “confident” they had located her....

Video of the shooting captured nine seconds of rapid-fire, continuous bursts, followed by 37 seconds of silence from the weapon amid panicked screaming. The barrage of gunfire then erupted again in at least two more rounds, both shorter than the first.

Who was Stephen Paddock? I'm not seeing any details other than that he was 64 and "of Mesquite, Nevada." I put that in quotes because "of" is different from "from." It indicates only his current place of residence.

ADDED: As for Marilou Danley (who is in custody): "She is described as an Asian woman, around four feet 11 inches tall and weighing 111 lbs." That's from The Daily Mail, which also says that Paddock's lived in a house built 3 years ago and valued at $396,000.

I'm seeing the street address as a particular number on Babbling Brook Court, but Google Street view only gets me to the entrance to the neighborhood:



UPDATE: "At least 50 dead, more than 400 injured after shooting on Las Vegas Strip" (WaPo).

The carnage in Las Vegas surpassed the death toll of 49 people slain in June 2016 when a gunman in Orlando, who later said he was inspired by the Islamic State, opened fire inside a crowded nightclub....

Police believe Paddock, a local resident, was a “lone wolf” attacker. Lombardo did not give further details, however, on Paddock’s background or possible motivation.

“We have no idea what his belief system was,” Lombardo said during a briefing. “Right now, we believe he was the sole aggressor, and the scene is static.”

CNN uses the concept of "Vegas" to try to titillate us about the debate.

I found this inappropriately sexual:



Received, just now, in my email.

Now, I'll check my instincts by Googling "what does what happens in vegas stays in vegas mean," because I know the internet is quick with answers to questions like that. For example, earlier today, I found the answer to a question I had: What is happening to the weasel in "Pop Goes the Weasel" when the weasel pops? That question has a very interesting answer:

[T]here have been many suggestions for what... "Pop! goes the weasel" [means], including: that it is a tailor's flat iron, a dead weasel, a hatter's tool, a clock reel used for measuring in spinning, a piece of silver plate, or that 'weasel and stoat' is Cockney rhyming slang for "throat", as in "Get that down yer Weasel" meaning to eat or drink something. An alternative meaning involves pawning one's coat in order to buy food and drink, "weasel" is rhyming slang for "coat" "pop" is a slang word for "pawn.'

A clock reel is commonly called a spinner's weasel, and consists of a wheel which is revolved by the spinner in order to measure off thread or yarn after it has been produced on the spinning wheel. The weasel is usually built so that the circumference is six feet, so that 40 revolutions produces 80 yards of yarn, which is a skein. It has wooden gears inside and a cam, designed to cause a popping sound after the 40th revolution, telling the spinner that she has completed the skein.

As for "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," it was originally a tourism marketing slogan — "What Happens Here, Stays Here" — that was designed connect Las Vegas to something other than just gambling. The idea was:

The emotional bond between Las Vegas and its customers was freedom. Freedom on two levels. Freedom to do things, see things, eat things, wear things, feel things. In short, the freedom to be someone we couldn't be at home. And freedom from whatever we wanted to leave behind in our daily lives. Just thinking about Vegas made the bad stuff go away. At that point the strategy became clear. Speak to that need. Make an indelible connection between Las Vegas and the freedom we all crave....

Shows we saw in Las Vegas.

1. Murray Sawchuck:



2. Cirque du Soleil, "Love":



#2 is the entrance area. That's just some lady posing for someone else's picture, not a Cirque du Soleil performer. You can't take pictures inside that show, and how incredibly annoying people would be if you could. But at Murray's show, we were encouraged to take photographs. The small shows, I take it, are hoping for a social media lift. We saw a third small show, Gordie Brown, and you could take pictures but I never felt moved to do so. Murray's small-time stage seemed deliberately sadly bad, and I got a pleasurable Neil-Hamburger-ish vibe from the thing. Even though the magic tricks worked, the patter tended to circle around the idea that the audience wasn't paying attention and might be asleep or dumb. That's something comedians in small clubs have done forever. As for Gordie Brown, he tended to mock himself when we didn't laugh enough. Maybe it was because he was doing impersonations of celebrities from long ago — Katharine Hepburn, Sammy Davis Jr., The Bee Gees — and he genuinely worried that the audience was too young to know them. Maybe he felt sheepish about the empty seats in the audience. All the seats were filled at Murray's show, including the 4 seats my group filled for free, having scored tickets through a seat-filling scheme that local residents like my brother can tap into.

ADDED: I was going to say there was nothing special about the visual experience of Gordie Brown's show, and that's why I don't have a photograph. But there was. It was just too hard to capture. He was excellent at making his face look like the person he was imitating. This was one reason he spent so much time on Sammy Davis. He really nailed that blind-in-one-eye look.

"Rod Stewart left to pay huge bar tab after offering fans in Celtic kits a 'free beer' following Vegas residency."

Unlike The Independent, which reports this "news," Stewart used the word "shirt," so Americans understood what he was tweeting about.

Signs of Las Vegas.

(I'm back in Madison. These are pictures taken last week.)

Rolling.

A man in a "High Roller" T-shirt and a woman holding one of those tall glasses wait for a vicious truck to pass:



"Kick Me in the Nuts" gets attention...



... and I'm sure he gets more handouts — for nothing (you're not going to pay $20 to kick him) — than most of the sign-holders of Las Vegas.

A dog sizzles on hot pavement next to a sign that says "Fish [something] Asshole":



Headless Minnie Mouse drinks a Coke:

At the Jet Lag Café...

... I'm still on Pacific Time, but I'll be fully back soon. Watching the Sunday morning shows with Meade. Meanwhile, carry on. Talk about whatever you like.