Why vice?

The hippies, who had never really believed they were the wave of the future anyway, saw the election results as brutal confirmation of the futility of fighting the establishment on its own terms. There had to be a whole new scene, they said, and the only way to do it was to make the big move — either figuratively or literally — from Berkeley to the Haight-Ashbury, from pragmatism to mysticism, from politics to dope... The thrust is no longer for "change" or "progress" or "revolution," but merely to escape, to live on the far perimeter of a world that might have been.

-Hunter S. Thompson

Under a Las Vegas night..

Las Vegas.
It's more of a sub-culture than a city. The past couple days I spent there I observed this cult in almost a third person capacity.
Outside the sidewalks sprinkled with snow still occupied by the prostitutes in their less than all-season costumes and the hustlers looking for an easy buck. Inside miles of slot machines sparsley inhabited by the few diehard patrons on a frosty winter Wednesday at 3:00am.
I walked the casinos top to bottom partly from insomnia and partly from curiosty. It's an empty feeling to stand there in the almost silent parade of flashing lights and janitorial staff. The faithful focused people of this "city of sin" are just looking for a break to get them on top of the pile, but then again aren't we all in our own way. Are we not all looking for that lucky break that'll ease our toil? It occured to me there that waiting for your ship to come in is foolish in the middle of the desert surrounded by conartists and cutthroats. In this daily conundrum is it possible to really have perspective of life? On the strip looking up the only stars are on billboards. The sky just a dull black haze.