Deborah Hill Cone expected class but found the land of the living dead on a visit to Nevada.
I just shoved an almost naked Mariah Carey, in her thin flat period, into a keyhole. She clicked and we were in. Thanks Mariah!
Mariah Carey was the key to our large but terrifyingly bland and air conditioned suite, one of almost 4000 rooms at Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas. It has a chandelier and fake plants. I just arrived in Vegas and I'm here without kids which is a good thing as I fear my children would never want to leave - Vegas seems to be just like Disneyland but sluttier.
I walked past a bar with a pirate ship and a lake of real water. Inside. This is apparently all part of making Vegas a seemly place for family vacations. Which just seems wrong.
I went to Saks Fifth Avenue in my Roman sandals and bought a pair of Christian Louboutin heels which looked like they would be just the va-va-voom factor for Vegas.
New Christian Louboutin heels were supposed to supply the va-va-voom factor. Photo / Supplied
Little did I know. I imagined Vegas would be, well not Monte Carlo exactly, but you know, just a little bit glam: classy Cary Grant crossed with Oceans Eleven and Entourage. I didn't realise that people would slouch or say "douche" so much or be quite so dead behind the eyes. Also: everyone is incredibly fat. See, this is why I was a hopeless libertarian.
I believe in freedom, but then get me to a place like Vegas and all my shameful obsessive Dutch puritanical side comes out. I hate other people telling me what to do but I do get the tendency to tell them. I felt like running up to the sluggish people in the Caesar's lobby and saying please, please, you must listen to me. Stop wearing Daisy Dukes, start eating vegetables, read a book. And stop playing bloody pokie machines. No good can come of it.
You can tell I will never be joining Mike Hosking as a spokesmodel for SkyCity any time soon.
As we walked through the casino - me in stupid shoes and a wafty red chiffon Cybelle dress trying to channel Grace Kelly - I felt like Bridget Jones turning up at the vicars and tarts party, only to find the theme had been cancelled and she was the only one dressed like a hooker.
There is a lot of milling around at casinos it seems. The headlines on the TV were that a pig called Giggles is standing for governor in a town in Michigan. There were restaurants with US$1 shrimp cocktails and a bar called Numb and a lot of posters of women's lips wearing red lipgloss.
I grew up in a house where practically everything came from Trade Aid or was woven or handmade, so Vegas seems particularly strange to me. It certainly makes money. Caesars Entertain-ment had revenues of $1 billion for the first quarter of this year. So much money, so much concrete, so much of everything - it is hard to believe Las Vegas was only established in 1905. And now look at it. There are sculptures and lights and fountains and pools. And so much concrete.
There are has-beens, whether alive, barely alive or dead. As I look out our window I can see billboards for Donny and Marie, Olivia Newton John, The Beatles Cirque de Soleil show and some sort of Michael Jackson tribute, without even turning my head.
Here is fakery, so magnificent that it has almost taken on its own patina of kitsch authenticity - so naff its naffness has become unique.
Las Vegas is one of the wealthiest cities in the US, but despite all that money people do not seem very cheerful. There is still a blankness behind people's eyes. They just look so BORED.
I know the Broken Windows theory has largely been debunked, but perhaps if Americans started making some small changes to their basic dress code they might feel a bit more classy? No track pants. No grown men dressed like toddlers in shorts and T-shirts. No muffin tops. No camel toes. Sportswear is for playing sport, people.
But there is, I hope, a kinder part of me that looks at those sad, grabby, greedy people trying to win money on their vacation and tries to imagine what the rest of their life is really like. They are trying so hard to buy the fantasy.
Anyway I will go and put more sticking plaster on my blisters and wear my Louboutin instruments of torture, and pretend to feel fabulous.
And no, just in case you're wondering, I'm not getting married just to alleviate the boredom either.
