Iowa's Filthy Secret
Lean a little bit closer; I have an alarming secret to share with you about Iowa. It's such a filthy, disgusting secret that I'm almost afraid to put it in print here... but I bursting to tell somebody so it might as well be you. Are you ready? All right. Listen carefully, because I don't want to have to say it again.
Casino gambling is legal in certain Iowa cities.
Dear God, you have no idea how good it feels to get that off my chest! It's been bottled up inside for so long.... And now you know, because I just told you. But how do I know? Well, now, that's an interesting story.
This past weekend, I had the pleasure of celebrating the bachelorhood of one Muffin (along with The Madame, Nip-Nip, and Marathon Man) in Omaha's suburb across the river: Council Bluffs, Iowa. Council Bluffs has a number of fascinating tourist draws, including a zoo where primates are forced to solve puzzles in order to eat, one of only three surviving examples of a frontier jail where inmates ran on hamster-wheels to facilitate the guards' observation, and a dinky skyline. But were we there to see any of these things? No, we were not. We were there to stay at Harrah's Council Bluffs, a Vegas-style hotel-casino with table games, slot machines, and a dog track. Does this sound like a dirty secret yet?
Everything was going fine for our merry band as I drove our majestic yellow sports sedan down 35 and across 80 for six hours toward our destination. We found the hotel, pulled up, and arranged for the car to be valet parked, all without incident. I even managed to get to the front desk of the hotel and claim my reservation without any trouble of any kind, which is, in retrospect, rather jarring, since I had done all of these things without the benefit of having brought along my driver's license.
That's right. Fate and exhaustion had conspired behind my back to insure that I would arrive in a place where the only thing to do is hit the casino (provided you're over 21) without any way to prove my age. Needless to say, I gulped. What would happen? Would I be able to do anything other than sit by myself in our lavishly appointed hotel room and drink? Surely, I would not be allowed onto the riverboat casino or inside the dog track. Or maybe I would; after all, nobody ever checked for ID in Las Vegas, and since this place claimed to be a "Vegas-style hotel-casino," then maybe there'd be no problem. Maybe.
But, you see, Council Bluffs is not Las Vegas. No matter how it tries, it's still a little town stuck in west-central Iowa. Instead of delightful doors, the entrance to the casino was heavily barricaded with stainless-steel piping. Large security guards (who would later eject Muffin, Nip-Nip, and Marathon Man from the casino for drunkenness) hovered over turnstiles and carded every person who tried to come in. Without my ID, I thought, I was sunk.
But was I sunk? Hell no! There can be no sinking me and my beard, which has been saving me from being carded everywhere I've gone since I was fifteen. At the entrance to the casino, everyone in line besides me was carded. At the dog track, the guard chose to stop the line and start carding starting with Marathon Man, who was immediately behind me. I am invisible to those who want to check for ID. I am a god.
And how did the gambling go? Well, despite the fact that The Madame and myself were not quite as well bankrolled as our co-conspirators, we managed to make $2 at the dog track, largely due to a series of prudently placed "show" bets over the course of all fifteen races. I might add that we were the only team to make money on the venture, but that's another matter entirely.
So, you ask, what is Iowa's Filthy Secret anyway? If you ever go to Council Bluffs, you will know: Iowa has gambling, but clearly does not want gambling. Every effort is made by Harrah's to ensure that its casino maintains a squeaky-clean Midwest Image in Council Bluffs. If you are drunk, you may not enter the casino. While inside the casino, you will pay for the drinks that are served to you as you gamble. All people will be carded as they clunk through the entries to the houses of ill-repute. See, this is one of the reasons why I like Las Vegas. The casinos there know that drunk people lose more money, so they serve free drinks. They know that people get bugged when they have to show ID at the door, so they don't ask. Here's my analysis of the Council Bluffs situation: some state legislator once decided that it would be good to allow riverboat gambling in Iowa, and, because it would make money for the state, the measure passed, all the while flying in the face of public opinion. Now that it's there, it makes so much money for the state that it can't reasonably be banned, but the people still hate it. Hence all the measures to make gambling seem dirty and sad.
There's nothing sad about how I put that system in a head-lock and pounded its teeth into the curb until its face bled, though. I am moved to quote Ice Cube: "Pimping ain't easy, but it's necessary." Truer words were never spoken.
Casino gambling is legal in certain Iowa cities.
Dear God, you have no idea how good it feels to get that off my chest! It's been bottled up inside for so long.... And now you know, because I just told you. But how do I know? Well, now, that's an interesting story.
This past weekend, I had the pleasure of celebrating the bachelorhood of one Muffin (along with The Madame, Nip-Nip, and Marathon Man) in Omaha's suburb across the river: Council Bluffs, Iowa. Council Bluffs has a number of fascinating tourist draws, including a zoo where primates are forced to solve puzzles in order to eat, one of only three surviving examples of a frontier jail where inmates ran on hamster-wheels to facilitate the guards' observation, and a dinky skyline. But were we there to see any of these things? No, we were not. We were there to stay at Harrah's Council Bluffs, a Vegas-style hotel-casino with table games, slot machines, and a dog track. Does this sound like a dirty secret yet?
Everything was going fine for our merry band as I drove our majestic yellow sports sedan down 35 and across 80 for six hours toward our destination. We found the hotel, pulled up, and arranged for the car to be valet parked, all without incident. I even managed to get to the front desk of the hotel and claim my reservation without any trouble of any kind, which is, in retrospect, rather jarring, since I had done all of these things without the benefit of having brought along my driver's license.
That's right. Fate and exhaustion had conspired behind my back to insure that I would arrive in a place where the only thing to do is hit the casino (provided you're over 21) without any way to prove my age. Needless to say, I gulped. What would happen? Would I be able to do anything other than sit by myself in our lavishly appointed hotel room and drink? Surely, I would not be allowed onto the riverboat casino or inside the dog track. Or maybe I would; after all, nobody ever checked for ID in Las Vegas, and since this place claimed to be a "Vegas-style hotel-casino," then maybe there'd be no problem. Maybe.
But, you see, Council Bluffs is not Las Vegas. No matter how it tries, it's still a little town stuck in west-central Iowa. Instead of delightful doors, the entrance to the casino was heavily barricaded with stainless-steel piping. Large security guards (who would later eject Muffin, Nip-Nip, and Marathon Man from the casino for drunkenness) hovered over turnstiles and carded every person who tried to come in. Without my ID, I thought, I was sunk.
But was I sunk? Hell no! There can be no sinking me and my beard, which has been saving me from being carded everywhere I've gone since I was fifteen. At the entrance to the casino, everyone in line besides me was carded. At the dog track, the guard chose to stop the line and start carding starting with Marathon Man, who was immediately behind me. I am invisible to those who want to check for ID. I am a god.
And how did the gambling go? Well, despite the fact that The Madame and myself were not quite as well bankrolled as our co-conspirators, we managed to make $2 at the dog track, largely due to a series of prudently placed "show" bets over the course of all fifteen races. I might add that we were the only team to make money on the venture, but that's another matter entirely.
So, you ask, what is Iowa's Filthy Secret anyway? If you ever go to Council Bluffs, you will know: Iowa has gambling, but clearly does not want gambling. Every effort is made by Harrah's to ensure that its casino maintains a squeaky-clean Midwest Image in Council Bluffs. If you are drunk, you may not enter the casino. While inside the casino, you will pay for the drinks that are served to you as you gamble. All people will be carded as they clunk through the entries to the houses of ill-repute. See, this is one of the reasons why I like Las Vegas. The casinos there know that drunk people lose more money, so they serve free drinks. They know that people get bugged when they have to show ID at the door, so they don't ask. Here's my analysis of the Council Bluffs situation: some state legislator once decided that it would be good to allow riverboat gambling in Iowa, and, because it would make money for the state, the measure passed, all the while flying in the face of public opinion. Now that it's there, it makes so much money for the state that it can't reasonably be banned, but the people still hate it. Hence all the measures to make gambling seem dirty and sad.
There's nothing sad about how I put that system in a head-lock and pounded its teeth into the curb until its face bled, though. I am moved to quote Ice Cube: "Pimping ain't easy, but it's necessary." Truer words were never spoken.
posted by Buckwalter at 12:35 PM
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