Wednesday
Now, this is amazing. Here I am in a nightclub called The Bank. It is at Bellagio, a fab hotel on The Strip. I am here to speak to a successful group of life and disability and annuity insurance people. They have rented out this space for a fine meal of chicken and beef, and I am getting pictures with all of them.

I am also being brought Diet Cokes by a server who is as beautiful as any human being on this earth except for my wife. Her name is Candace and she is simply breath taking. She was a sociology major in college, but she found out that through the workings of the market, she, with her unique beauty, could do better serving drinks at “bottle clubs” in Vegas. Well, that’s the workings of the free society. There are a lot of sociologists, not much money to be made in the field, and people won’t pay much to hear about sociology, I guess.

On the other hand, we pitiful men will pay to be hovered over by a staggeringly beautiful young woman bringing drinks. So, that’s the market, once again.

What must it be like to be Candace and wake up in the morning and look at herself and say, “Wow, am I hot OR WHAT?” It must confer amazing power. The power of beauty is like nuclear fusion.

I really want to know what men say to her to get her full attention. She must have some great stories.

There is an imitation singing group of three men who pretend to be Dino, Frank, and Sammy. With them up on a platform are four super tall, super beautiful showgirls in 1950s costumes, with headdresses and bright red flashing off them as if they were fire trucks. (I enclose above a pic of yours truly next to two of them.) They are each roughly six feet tall minus high heels and headdress. One of them was a bit rude to me, but another, a spectacular specimen named Carolin, from Dusseldorf, was friendly and cheerful. I love them all.

I went back to my room, watched pictures of our new pal, Bowe Bergdahl and his captors, our new pals, the Taliban, and thought about how the Taliban would feel about Candace or Carolin. The Talibs would probably shave their beards, become mortgage brokers in Newport Beach, lease a Porsche, and go for the gold. Or the red.

My room was fantastically dark and I slept like a baby.

Thursday
I had lunch with one of the headdress girls, the magnificent Carolin from Westphalia. She could not have been more pleasant or outgoing and self-deferential. She is a singer by training. She worked at the little German village at Disney World when she first moved to the USA. She’s lived in New York City, L.A., Orlando, and Vegas, and likes Vegas best. She has a simply mesmerizing smile. I talked to her about German films and about Leni Riefenstahl. She did not even know the name. I said I would send her some of the famous Nazi director’s finest work. She ate like a sparrow, which is (I guess) how she stays so thin. She even sang a few words of her favorite song, “Roxanne.” (By The Police.) What a beguiling fraulein.

I went back to my room and prepared for my speech. Then I gave my speech to the insurance brokers. They were all connected with Mass Mutual and they were incredibly smart people. I was really impressed.

Then, off to McCarran Airport (how many people remember Pat McCarran, bosom buddy of “Tailgunner Joe”?).

Then back home to my wifey and my Julie, who are incomparably more compelling even than the super girls of Vegas (and they really are super girls). But Vegas is a great story of beautiful girls and economics. The girls have an asset — their appearance — that often induces men to spend a lot of money just to have them nearby. Why not use it? Isn’t that what the free market is all about?

But they had better invest what they make smartly. Youth is a fleeting bird.

On the way home from the airport, my driver, Robert, told me about his parents’ stay at Auschwitz, about the Death March in 1945, and how his parents met at a DP camp in Hamburg and within six months, they were going out dancing.

Jews. We’re amazing. Humans. We’re amazing. Jews and Germans and Americans and Julie the German Short Haired Pointer and Alex whose father was awarded the Silver Star for fighting the SS hand to hand. Women in red headdresses. Stunners earning more than college professors serving high end liquor — and someday that one will be famous. What a world.

I slept next to Julie and felt very happy to be there.