Fountains Of Bellagio Quotes

Water problems in the western United States, when viewed from afar, can seem tantalizingly easy to solve: all we need to do is turn off the fountains at the Bellagio, stop selling hay to China, ban golf, cut down the almond trees, and kill all the lawyers.

Like the motherfucking Bellagio fountains.

Water problems in the western United States, when viewed from afar, can seem tantalizingly easy to solve: all we need to do is turn off the fountains at the Bellagio, stop selling hay to China, ban golf, cut down the almond trees, and kill all the lawyers.

I like to think of it as ‘I’m trying to keep us calm.’ You’re dead certain we’re headed to Alcatraz.” “Alcatraz isn’t a functioning prison anymore,” I say. “You’re a functioning prison,” she says. “That doesn’t make sense!” “Neither does splashing and frolicking and groping your dick in the Bellagio fountain, but in case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a whole buffet of doesn’t make sense going on right now. So load up your plate, grab the crab legs before they run out, and eat.

But the Bellagio’s fountain, often mocked as a symbol of water excess in the arid Southwest, may in fact represent some of the highest-value water around. The 12 million gallons a year needed to keep it topped up starts as water too salty to drink, drawn from an old well that once irrigated the Dunes Hotel golf course. Twelve million gallons sounds like a lot, but it’s really just enough to irrigate eight acres of alfalfa in the Imperial Valley.3 Total revenue at the seven giant casino–resort hotels contiguous to the fountain, at the corner of Flamingo Road and South Las Vegas Boulevard—the heart of the famed Las Vegas Strip—is an estimated $3.6 billion.4 Include all of the hotel/casino operations in the greater Las Vegas metro area, and the total rises to $21 billion.5 That compares with total agricultural revenue of $1.9 billion in all of Imperial County.6 Imperial County’s farmers get ten times the water Las Vegas gets. Las Vegas makes ten times the money Imperial County farming does. Given the crowds lining the sidewalks for each one of the fountain’s dancing-water shows, the fountains must represent one of the most economically productive uses of water you’ll find in the West.

When Japanese people visit the West for the first time, they must think we are backward heathen medieval savages based on our toilets alone. And they might be right. Without getting too graphic about the art of poopery, I have to say that our Western approach to the follow-up operations after number twos are not perhaps up to speed with other lessons learned in personal hygiene in the centuries since the Black Death. If, for example—and I wouldn’t wish this on you unless it was something you wanted and participated in with another consenting adult—you inadvertently got some poop, some human feces, some man dung on your hand or arm or face, would it be sufficient for you to wipe off said ass fruit with a piece of soft, dry paper, wash your hands, and chalk the whole thing up to experience? No, of course it wouldn’t! You’d want hot water and soap and towels and more soap and some sanitizer and maybe the kind understanding counsel of an old friend. Why then is it okay for us to drop, wipe, and walk? It is not enough, I say. Not nearly enough. The Japanese are sublimely and impressively aware of this. Any of you who have had the luxury of executing a humpty in the Land of the Rising Sun will know what I mean. My first time in a Japanese bathroom was a life changer. You enter the cubicle and the lights change. They become moody and dim, like something big is about to happen. Like something intense is going down. Which with any luck it is. The toilet lid opens automatically as if welcoming you to a ride, a ride to another dimension. Nervously you drop your pants and sit on the cushioned seat, which is warmed! Warmed! And by electricity, not by the fat guy who used the stall before you at the airport. You conduct the business which cannot be named, and you think to yourself, “Well, that was nice,” or you cry or sing or whatever it is you normally do and you think that it’s over. But it’s not over, it’s just about to begin. First come the water jets pushing and throbbing, scooting from some hidden hose beneath your nether regions; these temperate jets, aimed by discreet robots, hose your portal of doom and sandblast away any residual entourage left over from the main event. It is transcendental. It’s euphoric. It is as if the fountain display outside the Bellagio in Las Vegas has been transferred to your anus. You think, “Wow that was nice, it can’t get better than that!” but you are wrong. It can get better than that. Then the dryers start. Dryers! A balmy mistral, a soothing trade wind to dry the now scrupulously clean landscape. When they finally, sadly, stop, you think, “That was unbelievable, there is no way it can get better than that!” But you are wrong again! When the wind stops—POOF!—a shot of scented talcum powder right in the tiger’s eye. It is not often I say this, but I left that bathroom a better man than when I walked in. When it was all over I thought the same thought I had on the airplane as it left Japan.