I dragged my mother and Ray to see Wayne Newton Saturday night. I even put on heels and makeup for the event. We were really excited as we drove down I 19 towards Nogales and the casino. [The I19, by the way, is the only US Interstate that has kilometer markers instead of mile markers and that gives measurements in terms of kilometers. Its sort of weird and random.] We walked to the "venue" and were told that we had to go into the casino to pick up our will call tickets. That's how they get you, by the way. We got our tickets (there was a little bit of a line) and went to one of the numerous bars to have a drink. My mother's stomach wasn't feeling right so she wanted some brandy (for medicinal purposes of course).
By the way, I have a fond memory of my mother ordering brandy or cognac and directing me to duck under the table to take a sip (when I was 15) because I had a stomach ache. It definitely helped my stomach -- and I got the thrill of illicitly drinking in a public place -- yee haw. My mother likes the occasional 7&7 so she thought she would have a sip of straight Seagram's 7 to help her stomach. Apparently the 7-Up is a totally necessity because Seagram's tastes like swill without it. Yep, we're a classy family.
Being the totally classy joint this casino was, they didn't have any brandy and after several rejected suggestions my mother had a shot of chilled tequila. Of course, I couldn't even smell the tequila because of past bad associations with the stuff. Let's just say that I have vague memories of singing Judds' songs and smoking cigarettes in a bar near Ft. Dix, New Jersey before I threw up all over my shoes. [Involuntary shudder.] So, I had to step away. I literally cannot get that stuff down my throat any more. My body just says "NO WAY." My mother said it made her feel better -- so that's all that counts.
We had some time before the concert so after both my mother and I lost 20 dollars each (in about 3 minutes) at a slot machine, my mother suggested that they watch me play Blackjack. I wouldn't hear that and I made my mother sit down and play with us. She'd never played before and, not surprisingly, got about 7 blackjacks while I was losing my shirt. She took to it pretty well and we decided that it was much more fun to lose our money that way than to put it in some ridiculous slot machine. My brother and I love Blackjack and have a lot of weird superstitions whenever we play in Vegas. My brother is also annoyingly lucky at Blackjack. Everytime I go to Vegas with him, he puts down his initial $100 to play and keeps pocketing his winnings. AND HE ENDS UP WITH WINNINGS EVERY TIME. So annoying. One time I just went back to the room to sleep and regroup after losing and he kept coming in and out and putting his winnings away so that he wouldn't spend it. One time we were at the Hard Rock Cafe (a lucky place for both me and my brother -- Caesar's is bad, the Luxor is good and MGM is bad) and I had two aces and wanted to "split them" and double down but didn't have enough chips left (and wasn't willing to pull out any more cash) so my brother lent me a few chips. This drunk guy lifts his head up and says "That's nice, helping out your lady." My brother got this disgusted look on his face and said "That's no lady, that's my sister." Yes...it sounds like an old vaudeville joke put it was exactly what he said. I then told him that this "non-lady" wasn't giving him back his chips. Ha.
Back to the story, we finished and went to the "venue." I put quotes around the word "venue" because it was more like some hotel's conference room with those banquet chairs all lined up in rows. There was a large band on the small stage and a huge Plexiglas shield around the drum set. My mother initially thought that it was a shield that Wayne Newton stood behind to protect him from tossed underwear or something. I couldn't imagine that this audience could lift their arms high enough to toss underwear. Yes, I never thought I'd say this again in my entire life but I genuinely thought I WAS THE YOUNGEST PERSON THERE. (Later I saw a teenager so I wasn't actually the youngest person there....but its definitely something to even think you're the youngest when you're an old geezer like me.) Also, they served me beer in a plastic bottle (like I was near a swimming pool or something). I can only imagine that they were worried that someone would cut themselves.... Weird. We sat in our assigned banquet chairs and this woman sat right in front of Ray and proceeded to flip her long nasty hair over the chair and onto Ray's lap. We alerted her to this and she apologized. [No chance that me or my mother are going to be quiet in that situation.]
Finally the long-awaited man came on the stage. Now I'm not sure exactly how to describe him but he looked like someone had put a tuxedo on an egg and attached two very long things as legs to the bottom. It was like a tuxedo-ed orange with very long toothpicks as legs. Very odd proportions and his legs looked very chickeny. His head was also huge and his hair was dyed black and it was very tall. In fact, his hair was about as large as half of his head. He didn't have ONE SINGLE WRINKLE on his face and his teeth looked like white chicklet gum pieces. In other words, I wasn't initially sure whether he was real. He did a few very lame dance moves and grabbed the microphone and opened his mouth and.....WHAT?!?....did he have laryngitis?.....why wasn't an announcement made before the show?....that COULDN'T be his actual voice.... Yes, he sounded HORRIBLE. In fact, my mother and I looked at each other and felt immediately sorry for the fellow. How could he possibly be doing shows in Vegas with that wreck of a voice? He then spoke/grumbled a few "jokes" between lyrics and I stopped feeling sorry for him. His first stunt was to pretend to be doing an Indian "pow wow" dance to the drummer's solo and he said "look outside, I'm sure its raining now." He then told a whole slew of jokes about the "little blue pill" or viagra -- which were pretty disgusting and embarrassing. He said a few knock knock jokes and accepted gifts of teddy bears and candy from admiring fans as they came up to the stage (I was starting to believe that they were allowed to give the gifts in order to stop his singing). Weird. It was almost as disturbing as the time I saw Don Rickles in Vegas. I sat dumbfounded as Rickles launched into a series of "black people eat watermelon and fried chicken" jokes and "chinese people doing laundry" jokes. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I guess, based on that experience, I shouldn't have been surprised at Mr. Newton's tirades but still.... I was expecting an ambulance to pull up any minute.
We excused ourselves between songs (only because Ray thought it would be rude to leave in the middle of the screeching/warbling) and drove back up to Tucson to have drinks and pie. A great combo! I guess my adventures can't always be awesome. I DO have some guaranteed awesomeness in my future though. Chris and I are planning on attending the Phoenix Comic Convention next year and "Chief Tyrel" from Battlestar Galactica is going to be there. Is that too much information? Should I have kept that to myself?
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