Who wants to see a Millionaire shake her booty?

The sheer unfiltered hell of weekday drudgery is entirely neccesary to enhance the experience of weekend insanity.

That ought to have been a quote made up by someone wiser than me but no such luck this time.

The Warped Tour was better than usual mainly owing to the cooperation of the weather. Typically this annual affair consists of scrabbling your way through crowds of the ignorant generation while trying to survive the skin-blistering heat and have a modicum of a good time. We always succeed. This year, however, the heat was turned down to a very pleasant warmth, the crowds for the most part were well trafficked and thus the beer could flow and the good times could roll.

Kids really are idiots. I suppose I was at that age – yet again, I was one of the oldest folks there – but I like to think I had some little respect for others and for our society. Besides the usual raging gamut of half-naked girls, posturing males and simian behaviour I also had to wade through inordinate amounts of Bushate. In truth, there was more anti-Bush hatred on display than at any average MoveOn.org gathering. Funny that kids not old enough to vote and with no discernable interest in reality would be so concerned about the outcome of the Presidential election. Or maybe they were just going along with the artists. Such is modern punk; like I say about bikers, “For a bunch of individualists you all seem to dress alike.”

Saturday was the real winner. The proposed jaunt to Washington was cancelled as the tour was sold out. I didn’t really want to get up early and drive to DC anyway so my original plan of the annual Atlantic City excursion substituted nicely. Off I go to Philly to get my brother, fifteen minutes of looking for a parking space later I give up, see him walking down the street with our proposed lunch and tell him we’re SOL on parking and ought to move ahead. So the adventure starts with a steak, whiz, wit at Pat’s in South Philly. Not a bad way to start the day.

Two hours later we roll into the Borgata – it’s the latest and greatest, a slice of Vegas in AC and I hadn’t seen it yet. Verdict? Unimpressed. It may be a slice of Vegas but I think without the whole Vegas atmosphere swirling around you something gets lost. A large, golden hotel building standing on a mud flat ain’t Vegas kids.

On the plus side parking was five bucks with the added bonus that your receipt gets you into any other casino’s parking that day. No more parking in the Showboat for the price of the city tax, oh no. We’re parking in Caesar’s twenty dollar lot for a mere five bucks. Next time I come to town I’m driving through the Borgata lot, getting my receipt and then heading downtown. Hell of a deal.

Finally we arrive at my favorite place: the Boardwalk on a beautiful warm sunny day. The place was mobbed, crowds everywhere soaking up the sun and drinking in the decadence. Ran through a couple of casinos to see how the numbers were rolling on a Saturday – not so hot, in fact – and eventually wound up in the brand new Bikini Beach Bar outside Bally’s.

My friends, there are few things in this world more satisfying than having a reasonably attractive woman in a bikini bring you booze while you recline under an umbrella with a view of the unending Atlantic. Despite the fact the beer selection was pitiful and the mixed drinks were questionable life was good. And remained good right up until the moment the wannabe Jimmy Buffett band finished sound check and the bar cranked the bad 80s pop music up right in our damned ears to kill time until the band played. Regardless, I’m definitely going back to that joint.

Suppertime was the by now semi-traditional stop at Merv’s joint for the buffet. Excellent prime rib, chilled stone crab claws and piles of crab legs in one of the last original AC hotels. If only the place served booze it would be perfect. Outside, just off the lobby was a bit of a rock n roll exhibit which featured, among other things, Janis Joplin’s mug shot, lots of cheques written by George Harrison and a Jimi Hendrix contract from when he still spelled his name Jimmy.

The final stop of the day was the Taj to answer the question posed in the title. What do we run into in the Boardwalk entrance but four “reality’ TV girls playing blackjack under the lights in order to drum up business for their Reality Revue burlesque that evening. Very peculiar. Being the red blooded American males we are we set off on a fifteen minute trek to find the box office which was conveniently located, sans directional signs, around a corner and behind the low stakes poker parlor. Apparently the show wasn’t going to be the hot spot of the evening as we were immediately offered second row seats. Excellent.

The show was interesting. Out of the sum total episodes of reality television produced in the history of mankind I have watched a number approximately equal to the number of ex-reality show stars in the revue so naturally their semi-stardom had no meaning to me. Apparently two got naked on Survivor as well as in Playboy (one of whom was the afore-mentioned millionaire), one was on something called Temptation Island, and the last on For Love or Money. The girls brought along a equal number of professional dancers to somewhat disguise their ineptness. Oddly, the highly-charged group of ladies sitting next to us in the audience were related to one of the professional dancers and live in the same town where I work. Small world.

One beer and fifty minutes of unerotic but entertaining inanity later we headed out certain that it was now our duty in life to seek out true burlesque in the fan-dancing, Trocadero Theatre, Coney Island mold. Anyone up for an adventure?