This town can really get on your nerves.

THERE’S NOTHING VAGUE ABOUT LAS VEGAS.

It’s a living monument to energy, excess, vulgarity, fun and mind-numbing dumbassery. 

People who get hitched by an Elvis impersonator after knowing each other for two-and-a-half tequilas? Check. 

Sexed-up bridesmaids looking for love in all the wrong jock straps? Totally.  

Single bro-douches draining casino-floor ATMs of cash? No doubt.

But one cannot deny that Vegas is non-stop action.

If it’s so action-packed, WHY ARE YOU LEAVING, CAGE?
**(Photo: MGM/UA Studios)**

Now, let’s talk biology for a moment. The longest and most complex nerve in the human body is called - remarkably - the vagus nerve. It plays a crucial role in digestion, breathing, mood control, heart rate and immune response by collecting vital info and relaying it to the brain. It responds to - and causes - massive stimulation. In other words, it’s non-stop action with this thing.

The vagus is the Vegas of nerves.

Leaving. Staying. Dressing up like The King. MAKE UP YOUR DAMN MIND, CAGE.
**(Photo: Columbia Pictures)**

This brings us to MY Vegas story - and I’ve only been there one time in my life. If you’re expecting me to recount large mounds of pure, uncut Columbian cocaine sniffed off the hood of a hooker’s Camaro, then you’re in the wrong story-telling place.

[✏️ Editor’s Note: Wherever the right place is for those stories, I beg you; please send me to work there instead].

Many have a tale of unadulterated debauchery when it comes to that bright Nevada town. Mine happened when I was nine in 1978 (accompanied by my grandmother, no less), so my story is a lot more Snack Pack than Rat Pack.

But by the standards of a then-9-year-old, I had all the stimulation my tiny vagus could handle.

“Waitress, a few more whiskey sours and you’ll be ‘pudding’ me to bed on the craps table.”
(Photo: Conagra Brands)

Regardless of age, my Vegas stay was a kind of mini-high roller adventure that most pre-teens could never fathom - and it’s likely the first time my vagus got Vegas-ed. My aunt had married a very wealthy Sin City resident - we’ll call him Wilton - who was more than happy to impress me for the three weeks I visited.

Private jet to Disneyland? Check.

Front row table at The Hilton to see Tina Turner open for Bill Cosby? Totally.

An unlimited budget to play games at the Circus Circus kids’ arcade that resulted in winning a teddy bear so large that Wilton bought it its own seat for the trip back home to NJ? No doubt.

I could get used to this kind of treatment (although if I’m being honest, the Duck à l'orange at the Golden Nugget was a bit bland). 

But if this was the Vegas/Vagus experience, I was an eager beaver for more, more, more.

[✏️ Editor’s Note: As a complete aside, in the late-20th century, food manufactures used castoreum  - a substance secreted from beaver anal sacs - for vanilla flavor. But I digress. Deliciously.]

Hey Coz…MY favorite Pudding was pudding your roofie-drugging ass in prison.
Oh, and your instant vanilla mix tastes like late-70’s beaver-ass.
(Photo: Kraft Heinz)

Great side story about Wilton: he and my aunt had just built a mansion and she wanted to show us where he lived before the union. Surprisingly, she took us to a dingy basement apartment where the only distinguishing feature was a direct view of Vegas’ premiere medical center. Why did Wilton live there? He wanted to keep his eye (literally) on Valley Hospital because he OWNED THE DAMN PLACE. 

Great side story about Wilton, part two: While I was there, Wilton thought it would be great for his similarly-aged young son to visit. We’ll call him Baskin. The story I was told was that Wilton had a family with his first wife and Baskin was born out of wedlock from an affair he had many years later. And my aunt casually mentioned to my grandmother - as we sat in an ice cream parlor - that Wilton bought THREE DOZEN West Coast franchises of this same ice cream shop for his young son. The chain may have had 31 flavors but Baskin had 36 places to try to each one. Do the math!

Great side story about Baskin-Robbins: The chain once created a lox-and-bagels-flavored ice cream - but nixed it for introduction into stores. 

[✏️ Editor’s Note: I guess they were never shmear-ious about it 🥁.]

**I spy with my little eye, something that is…a serial rapist.**
(Photo: NBC)

There were two things I remember more than any about my near-half-a-century-ago Vegas visit (ok, three if you count staring mouth agape at Tina Turner). 

The first was the heat. It was nearly 120 degrees in the shade. These are the hottest temps I’ve ever endured. So whenever someone says “It’s hot today.”, I get to break out my “'78 Vegas temperature experience” because I refuse to be weather-beaten.

The second thing? Well, one Friday night of my stay was spent at a birthday party for the daughter of my Aunt’s close friend. Thankfully, Baskin came along because the girl’s entire class was there and I didn’t know anyone. But there is ONE KID I never forgot. 

And despite my not even meeting him that night, his name is mentioned in my home almost weekly.

[Mocking tone] Gee, Cage, whaddya gonna do next… MARRY ELVIS’ DAUGHTER?!?
Oh.

You might ask “Martin J., how on earth do remember the name of some random kid from 1978 that you never even spoke a single word to?”

Oh so glad you asked.

As Baskin and I stood around, bored and not knowing anyone, a young girl approached us with some apparently great news. She excitedly said:

‍“Guess what?…“JACK’S GONNA DO GREASED LIGHTNING!” (The emphasis was hers).

And then she told us:

“Spread it around!”

Thoughts darted through my young mind such as: “What?” And “WHAT?!?”.

Now, Grease was already such a huge pop culture juggernaut by the night of this party that everyone there had likely already seen it. I know I had. But this was 1978 and lip-syncing wasn’t a known commodity yet (although as I look back now, most tv performances from that era were totally lip-synched). So, strangely, Jack was a man of his time.

As he climbed up on a table, standing far above the throng of screaming girls (yes, they actually screamed), his blow-waved Shawn Cassidy hair bouncing over the collar on his black satin jacket, Jack lip-synched the entire song - including all the hand/arm/body motions performed in the film - while Baskin and I couldn’t roll our eyes back any farther in our heads. 

Right then and there, Jack etched his name in the history books by lip-syncing to a movie musical about lubricated high-schoolers who looked 27. 

And with that performance, did Vegas secure its title as the Eternal Epicenter of Empty-calorie Entertainment? 

The answer is a resounding YES.

I’m guessing “yes” is not a word you heard too often. You dead yet, Coz?
(Photo: Kraft Heinz)

The thing that still gets me is the girl said “JACK’S GONNA DO GREASED LIGHTNING!” in a way like this was some regular occurrence, as if Jack was famous for this. So, every Friday at 3:00, did Jack jump up on the teacher’s desk and musically drag his 9-year-old finger through the air across the room? Is this how the class knew it was dismissed?

In a place known for hedonism, vice, indulgence and perversion, who would have guessed that the best show in town was a pint-sized John Revolting doing sorta-karaoke. 

Well, at least according to the female contingent of the Vegas Rich Kids School for the Easily Impressed.

Ok T-Birds, point to da kid whole stole our thunder…ah mean, lightning. Whatevuh. Let’s just beat da crap outta him.
(Photo: Paramount Pictures)

But maybe there's a case for celebrating Jack’s musical accomplishments. He took the biggest cultural phenomenon of the late 70’s, put his black-satin, table-jumping spin on it and it’s STILL being discussed a half-century later. 

In fact, whenever someone now says “Guess What?” to me, my answer is always “JACK’S GONNA DO GREASED LIGHTNING?!?” Even Randomoisselle says it. And it never gets old.

I know I didn’t have the courage to publicly lip-synch as a pre-teen. So credit to Jack; the kid had a lot of nerve.

But hey, what else would you expect in Vagus Vegas.

What Happens In Vagus…(And Jack’s Gonna Do Greased Lightning!).

‘Cause Every Girl Crazy Bout’ A Sharp Dressed Man (And “Ma, Is Tuberculosis Worse Than Polaroids?”).