New Marketing Strategy for Downtown Vegas: "Fuck You If You're Disabled. "

The Fitzgerald's in downtown Las Vegas has just 86'ed my wife, a PhD in sociology with a billion years of experience in undergrad-level instruction, for recharging her mobility scooter with one of their electrical outlets.

When we first moved here, three years ago, there was actually some expressed interest in making the Fremont Street mall (aka the "Experience") more accessible to disabled patrons. I'm not sure if the interest was legitimate of if it was just "handling. " In either case, it is gone now.

Downtown Vegas has supposedly struggled to redefine itself in the last two years. But I'd like to know who the marketing genius was who came up with "Fuck You If You're Disabled" as a feature of the new strategy. Overlooking every other thing that is immediately stupid about the matter, disability is correlated with age, and retirees make up a disproportionate share of the (remaining) patrons of the downtown area. I don't expect brilliance from "marketers," but an inability even to read elementary demographics is a new pinnacle even still.

The "Old Vegas" paradigm used to mean "good food, good whiskey, and a good gamble," to quote Benny Binion. The subtext was one of affordability, among other things: Las Vegas survived its adolescence by offering the thrill of the casino lifestyle to the 99% of the travel industry's customers who could not afford to pursue it on the level traditionally required by European gaming hot spots. Las Vegas faced a number of criticisms, but it was one of the short-listers on the destinations list where affordability was concerned, and no one disputed the matter for long. Nowadays, the implicit arrangement is a grotesquerie of its historical self: show up and walk around for three days, and you can tell all of your friends you've been to "Las Vegas. "

Open resentment of the client/customer has been faddish in marketing circles of late. A number of going concerns have decided that a first principle of their relations with the public will be to display irritation that the public doesn't just stay home and mail in money. But if this is the best that the marketing minds behind the New Old Vegas can do, that says something about the quality of management at the establishments in question. Not even the recreational gambler is a complete sheep, and some are less sheeplike than others. The strategy in question raises other issues as well in each specific case (such as rudimentary competence in execution). It's a little harder than just deciding to decide this time, folks.

I have no personal interest in this matter. If downtown Las Vegas wants to continue to shoot itself in the foot, I won't care too much. But it annoys me as an MBA to see the goodwill (in both senses of the term) of an 80-year-old brand wasted. Downtown has always been cut-rate, but that used to be true in a good way. Now it is just petty, insubstantial, and ultimately trashy: there is nothing trashier than playing adolescent dominance games to the point where self-interest itself is compromised. You can take your one-and-a-half stars and go to hell for all I care.

Da Spike!

P and I have had an uneventful one-day staycation in downtown Las Vegas. We are topping it off with a thrilling climax, however: dining at the renovated Gold Spike. The decor is tidy, and the staff is pleasant.


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EXACTLY WHAT THE INTERNET NEEDS MOST -- CUTE EVIL CAT VIDEO

Here's Anawim, our sweet little demon cat who loves to sing and dance.

KNEAD YOU
(With Apologies to Leo Sayer)

Congratulations to Dr. Thomas!

Pattie has gotten an article she has (co-) written into the newly-published The Fat Studies Reader, edited by Esther Rothblum and Sondra Solovay. The text is available from NYU Press. Nice work, Doc!

The Doctor Vs. Health Care

Dr. Thomas has a few quick thoughts about the way the health care debates are going. But first, I am obliged to insert some Las Vegas shtick (this particular morsel is re: the weather).

The Las Vegas Two Meet The Chicago 10

Pattie checked out the film "Chicago 10" to show one of her classes at the College of Southern Nevada. I previewed it with her and had a few (verbose) thoughts I wanted to record for posterity, so she ran the videocamera as I talked and chimed in now and then with her own insights. You can share the experience and cry "Yippie" with us (or not) as you watch the resulting video below.

Couponeros!: Stimulus Packet, Vegas Style!

Pattie and I are in a bit of a cash crunch this month. But living in Vegas provides a palliative: casino coupons! We spent Wednesday casino-hopping, using up free slot play coupons we had obtained via the Las Vegas Advisor coupon book (formerly entitled Pocketbook of Values, now entitled something less to our liking) and a few less-opulent sources. Pattie got the coupon book as part of her ClubWPT online membership.

We have done "Vegas Welfare" (our term for the free slot play coupons we get in the mail here and there) before, but Wednesday marked a more concerted effort than usual in this area.

There was some sort of nationwide protest taking place involving libertarianism and drinking tea. Pattie suggested that we play Texas Tea slot machines where available as way of participating in the protest. So we had a Tea Party, the Vegas Way!

We played at the El Cortez, Fitzgerald's, and Binion's downtown. We also got in some play at Planet Hollywood in the evening. Picking up one's "welfare" is enjoyable in this city, and we enjoyed playing tourist a bit by munching on hot dogs from Mermaid's and getting souvenir photos taken at Binion's of us with the famed million-dollar display (whether readers enjoy the photos is their concern, not ours). Click on each photo to view at higher resolution and drink in the aesthetic richness of the shoot.

By the time it was all over, we had cleared $36 in cash for our trouble (without risking one dollar of our own), kept the wolves from the door for another couple of days and had enough left over to enjoy closing out the evening with dinner at Ellis Island, taking advantage of their famous steak dinner special and a 2-for-1 entree coupon that we shared with our friend Andrew, who has moved here from Council Bluffs, IA.

Pattie was impressed at my preparedness and resourcefulness and took time from our busy grifting schedule to do a brief (Blackberry) video spot on location in beautiful downtown Las Vegas: