It's all still there, the old strip those of us of a certain age remember.
It lives on like an open time capsule, north of the glitter that attracts crowds from all over the world, few of whom make it down here.
It's a bit grimey, seedy, faded, an old road trip in an age of international flights and package deals.
"You can get anything you want at..."
No, not Alice's Restaurant, Arlo, but you can sure find it here, in old Las Vegas, including a lot you might not want, as well.
If this were an archeological dig (which someday it will be), you'd have to cut your way carefully through the new strip, which is monstrously huge in all ways to get down here to a time when gambling, skimming, prostitution, and crushed dreams all somehow seemed more accessible on a human level.
There's nothing polished here, nothing upscale, really.
So, yes this is the real deal, and you can find luxuries here that don't exist uptown any more, like showing off.
Here you can see a gold limo.
The Golden Gate in cubes, swaying back and forth like dice dressed up as hula dancers.
You can get married.
You can get divorced, and marry somebody else.
You can have it annulled and become a cowboy riding a sign.
Maybe you'll be famous.
Maybe you'll become rich.
Looking is free.
Meeting is not.
Fantasy never dies here.
It just slinks out of town on a bus, only to return again somewhere on down the road to ruin.
-30-
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