Tremors, Rugburns, and a Mugging -- August 2014

[Rpun]

So I’m headed back to Las Vegas in 3 weeks, and I am getting that antsy, impatient, can’t wait feeling. So I figured I would write a TR to pass the time, I have been to Vegas twice since my last TR, so I am going to try and write both, but ill start with the first of the two in August of 2014 (It was a shitshow, so forgive me if it’s not super detail heavy; I may not remember everything)

Cast of Characters

Myself – 27 year old, single guy from the SF Bay Area
R- 27 year old, single guy from SF Bay Area – One of my Best Friend’s, grew up with him, was my roommate in college, etc etc. – Been to Vegas with me a bunch of times
Rags – 27 year old, single guy from the SF Bay Area – One of my Best Friends, Met him in college, been to Vegas with me a few times.
T$- 27 year old, in a relationship, from the SF Bay Area – One of my Best Friends, Met him in college, been to Vegas with me a few times.
Persia- 27 year old, single guy from the SF Bay Area – One of my Best Friends, Met him in college, been to Vegas with me a few times.
Pez- 22 year old single guy, from SF Bay Area – My younger Brother
J-23 year old, single guy, from SF Bay Area – My younger brothers friend and roommate, this trip was to be a celebration of him getting his CPA license
B.Dot, CC, TD,SS,DC, Shaff, Smilo - All Friends of my brothers.

SONG OF THE TRIP --Tremor (Dmitri Vegas, Martin Garrix, Like Mike)

Background

So in June of 2014 my brother hits me up and says him and his friends were going to Vegas to celebrate J passing his CPA exam. He wanted to know if I could help setting up the clubs/pools for him (I took him to Vegas on his 21st bday, and he had an awesome time, so he reached out to me). Additionally he invited me to come along and asked me if I had a friend who wanted to come as well. He told me not to blow it up as they didn’t want to make this a trip with too many people since there were already 9 people committed to the trip. So I hit up R and posed a question that rarely if ever is answed negatively, “Vegas?!!?”, his Response: “yeeeeeee!”. Vegas was on like mother fucking Donkey Kong

Remember how Pez aka my brother asked me to not blow it up, well word got spread and long story short: Rags, T$, and Persia were also joining us on this trip!!!

[Rpun]

Day 1 – Friday Day

So the day of the trip finally rolls around, and the wave of excitement is just about to crest. Head off to the Airport and swoop Rags first then R from his place in SF and off to SFO we go. As soon as R gets in my car “Tremor” starts playing off my Spotify, little did we know that this song was going to be stuck in our heads all weekend. Get to SFO, park the car, and head to the airport Bar. Have a drink, board the short 1 hour 15 minute flight where another alcoholic beverage is consumed.

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R, RAGS, MYSELF GETTIN OUR BUZZ ON, ON THE WAY TO VEGAS

Now our flight was running a bit late, so we had to rush from the Vegas airport to the Venetian where we were staying. See the 3 of us had appointments for Haircuts and Shaves at the Art of Shaving at the Venetian. So we don’t even have time to stop at CVS for room supplies, we just rush to the hotel. Rags checks in our luggage for us while me and R head over for our appointments. I’ll say this, I’m not a huge fan of Art of Shaving services, I usually think they are too pricy, when back home my local barber can do a better job for 1/4th the cost. But the guys at the Venetian location do a damn good job; haircut/shave, hot towel, cucumbers on the eyes: the whole 9 yards. And my man Rags is a boss too, after he checks our bags he cops a couple drinks and brings them to us so we can sip on something while getting lined up.

After The Art of Shaving me and R go to the front desk to check in, slip them a $50 sandwich and voila! Upgraded to a Palazzo Bella Suite on a High floor with a view of the TI show and a bunch of food and drink coupons (which ill be honest I only used like 2 of them). Hit up brother Pez once we get to the room to see where he is; him and his friends actually got to Vegas the night before. Shout Out to Booby Y, for taking care of them at Tryst. Got them 2 of the Goose/Goose specials for $1200 and a prime table. Pez swings up to our room and chills with me and R for a bit, telling us some crazy story about how he hooked up with a 40-something year old cougar the night before. Play on Playa, but please try and leave out the gory details. I’m not trying to hear about how my baby bro “got to intimately know a cougar”.

While we are waiting for the bags to get delivered, I remember I had a package waiting for me at the business center. I call them to confirm its there and have them bring it too my room, but they say they can’t since they close at 6PM. I look at my watch it says 5:55PM. So I tell them not to close the damn shop, and sprint from my room in the Palazzo all the way to the business center which is hidden in some corner near the Venetian conference center. Get there just as its closing and get the package, thank freaking god. But completely out of breath now so I stop at a bar and grab a water and another shot. Head back up to the room and Rags and the luggage is waiting there. Tell Pez that we would meet in his room at about 9ish for the pregame. We kick it for a bit in the room and see Paul George’s horrific injury. Watched that replay like 100,000 times and since they were playing for the USA training camp in Vegas at the time lots of people were talking about it all weekend.

We are waiting for Persia and T$ to show up as they are flying in later than us. We get a text from them around 8 that they have landed and should be at the Palazzo soon. Well 8:30 comes and goes, they text us they are in the Palazzo; 9:00 comes and goes. Where the fuck are these idiots!?!?! It doesn't take 30 mins to get from the lobby to the room. Finally they show up in the room at like 9:20. What were they doing, wandering from bar to bar in the Palazzo and taking shots. Hahah, can’t blame them for that. Anyways I tell them to get ready and meet me in my bothers room ASAP. Head over to the venetian to my brothers room, and just as I walk in “Tremor” is bumping hard. Let the pregame begin, because in reality this trip has just started!!!!!

TO BE CONTINUED – HAKKASAN AND DRAIS AFTER HOURS

[*ho_train*]

Looking forward to the rest! This is getting me pumped for my next trip! 24 more days!!! Not that I'm counting...lol

[KinStock77]

Nice TR so far! I've got 22 days to go so I know that antsy feeling haha

[wat]

Liking the start of this, sir. Keep up the good work with the reports!

[Cirilo Medina]

That video AND this story got me pumped for Vegas!!!! Too bad it's not until September guess I better plan a sooner trip

[ENC012E]

That Paul George injury!!! Same weekend I was in Vegas and I believe ArmyVegas as well.....can already tell it'll be an amazing weekend and will probably involve some Canadians lol

[RayDay]

Great TR so far looking forward to the rest! It's crazy PG could come back this season yet after basically snapping his leg in half!

[braden801]

Great writing! Keeps you involved and makes you feel like you were there...or hoping you are there! LOL

[BayAreaOlli]

Yay another great TR, keep it coming please.

[Rpun]

Day 1 – Friday Night

So the pregame is running strong: music bumping, shots flowing, people just getting ready for what is supposed to be an amazing ass night. J comes up to me at like 10PM and says “bro shouldn’t we leave so we don’t have to wait that long in the line” and before I can answer B.Dot says “Bro you obviously haven’t partied with Rpun before, he doesn’t do lines” (B.dot had been to Vegas with me the previous year, he has specifically told me he won’t go to Vegas unless I’m there with him). I assure J that no need to worry, I’ll make sure everything is taken care of, we are here celebrating for him, so no need to stress.

Around 10:45 I collect up everyone’s $$ and start herding the cattle down to the to the lobby. Get to the front of the Venetian and ask the guy there for a limo for all 14 of us. He said one would be pulling up in 5 minutes. I expected some sort of Hummer or Escalade stretch, but the behemoth that pulled up was insane I don’t even know how to describe it, it had 3 axles of wheels, we could have fit 25 people in there no problem. Anyway everyone is the limo with a drink in hand wilding out to Tremor; going crazy to that hard hitting baseline. Anyway as we get to MGM I text Thomas Gorman that we arrived, and he told me to let him know when we get to the line and he will come get us. At this point I realized I forgot to eat anything (this happens to me a lot in Vegas), and I really hoped it wouldn't screw up the night for me.

So we walk up to the club and the line is bonkers. Tiesto is spinning so we knew it would be wild But the front is a complete zoo. I don’t think there were even defined lines just massive blobs of people. Text Thomas, and he comes out and meets us and gets us through the line and hairball of people in about 30 seconds. Thomas also had texted me earlier that night that he may be able to get us a table upgrade (we had booked a first row pavilion table for a 3k min spend), when I saw him in person he said he had a cancellation and was able to give us a tier 3 table in the main room for the same spend!!! So big shout out to Thomas, for taking care of us like he always does!! Side Note in the end: we did go about 1k over our min, but hey whatever. the goose was flowing, and it was GAME TIME!

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Myself, R, Persia at Hak

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T$, Rags, R, Myself

The night at Hakkasan was a blur, the opening DJ (Dzeko & Torres IIRC) really got the crowd going, and the LED wristbands they handed out at for Tiesto before he came on were a huge hit ( I’m pretty sure I gave away all 3 I had to girls at our table at some point). I’ve seen Tiesto so many times now, and even though he is probably my favorite DJ of all time, I was worried his set was going to be played out, but damn I was wrong. He was on fleek the whole time. Playing some of his new poppy stuff, dropping festival bangeres like C’mon and Maximal Crazy, all the way back to old school Tiesto with Adagio and Traffic. The only really solid memory I have of the night, is sometime early in his set Tiesto sampled Drake’s “0-100”, and 95% of the group I was with are huge Golden State Warrior Fans; so when the line “I been Steph Curry with the shot” came on all of us guys turned to each other, sang it out loud, and did the little basketball shooting motion. I’m pretty sure to all the girls at our table it looked weird as fuck, but that was some real Vegas style male bonding moment there.

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Goose Got Me and R Feeling Loose

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Do not rememebr taking this picture, but its the only one i have of the Short Indian girl from HK

As for the rest of the time at Hakkassan I only have blurry memories: making out with some short Indian chick, bouncing to Tremor with a few of the guys, and singing at the top of my lungs to Light Years Away. But damn if it wasn’t a hell of night, the 3 B’s were in full play: booze, bros, and biddies. Anyways at about 3:30 HK is winding down and our group has got split up real quick, but me, B.dot, and J aren’t ready to call it a night. So I shoot a text to Chris Traer @ Drais to see if he can give me a contact for Drais Afterhours. He tells me that he was about to go home but will wait there for me. SO the 3 of us hop in a cab; Head over to the Cromwell, where Chris is waiting for us in front of the mess that is Drais Afterhours. He slides through he line and gets us a 1 bottle table, won’t even take a tip from me, but does come chill with us for about an hour and has a couple drinks. Get to catch up with Chris (who is the 1st host I ever met in Vegas, and still to this day the 1st host I recommend to anyone going to Vegas, can’t say enough about this guy). Anyways as Drais gets into full swing I meet a couple girls from Sydney, Australia that me and J chat up. Dance for a bit and then we all bounce from Drais back to the Venetian; J and B.dot go and get some food at grand lux. I end up going to one of the girls rooms to continue the night. About 8 in the morning I strut of pride it back to my room in the palazzo, pop 2 advil and chug some water. Lie down on the bed with the thought process that I was just not going to sleep as I wanted to be up by 9:30 to get food/place some bets at the book/get ready for EBC. So I lied there on my phone, just surfing the web/fb/twitter repeatedly thiking: “Vegas is always always always FUCKING AMAZING”.

TO BE CONTINUED – EBC/TAO

[xAmrit]

Sounds like a sick night. Good TR so far, thanks.

[Cirilo Medina]

Please sir, may I have another!

[tony67]

Envious! Good shit!

[Rpun]

Day 2 – Saturday Daytime

Surprisingly I was woken up with a shock with a loud buzzing on my face; like I said before I hadn’t planned on going to bed, just resting, but I guess I fell asleep with my phone literally face down on my face -_-. Woke up with a shout to B.Dot calling me, he wanted to know if I wanted shots; I asked him if he was crazy it was like 8:45 in morning. He not so politely pointed out that it was already 10:40 and we were supposed to leave for EBC @ 11. FUCKKKKKKKKKK—so I jumped out of bed ran through the room waking everyone up and jumped in the shower. Texted Trevor P. over at EBC that we were running late and were going to be there by11:30, he told me to take my time. Which was cool of him, but it should have thrown up some red flags to me since Zedd was DJing at EBC, it was supposed to be a clusterfuck. Trevor had let me know the day before that they had like double the amount reservations than table service spots. He actually had me fill out a CC auth form so that my spot was guaranteed. Anyways we all rally and get ready real quick, meet down in the lobby with the crew and you can tell that people are struggling. Rags looks hit, Pez is still too hungover to even have done his hair, J I think is still drunk from Drais the night before. I’m not going to lie I was struggling a bit myself. But 2 Advil’s, water, and a couple shots got me feeling right. So we hop in a couple cabs and make it over to EBC by 12:15.

When we get there we see signs everywhere that Zedd isn’t playing today b/c he is sick, they have one of their house DJs filling in. Any ways even w/o Zedd we could already see it was gonna be popping at EBC, line was loooooonnngggg already. Hit up Trevor slide him the agreed upon $300 handshake. Trevor apologizes to us for the DJ cancellation but tells us he has us upgraded from two couches on the side of the pool, to two daybeds right in the middle. It was a prime spot right across the pool from the DJ booth, good view of all the talent by the pool. Anyways we drop the CC and order a few pitchers, a bottle of belvedere, and some appetizers (none of us really eaten that morning). We had a $4k min to hit and I could tell it was going to be a struggle to make that, the crew just had no energy. Things were looking good, Pez came up to me and told me he couldn’t hang he had to go back to the room to sleep, he took some cash for a cab, I gave him a $100 (only bill I had on me, and as an older brother I couldn’t say no). He said he would bring me the change back when he came back, little did I know that this was the last time I would see him for the entire trip, he spent the whole next day in his hotel room doing nothing.

Anyways back to the people who were actually trying to get it popping in at EBC. Sucked down a couple vodka/lemonades and was feeling much better, it probably would have helped if I ate something, but once again I forgot to eat. Started making friends with groups of girls who walked by, needed to recruit some people in order to drink through this minimum; once the booze started flowing ppl started perking up for the most part. Although J had to tap out and get back to the room as well, CC and Rags were just posted on the daybeds laying down, people watching. Apparently some of my brother’s friends had met some girls at HK the night before who were at EBC so who came over to hang out with us. They were from Redding, CA which is only a couple hours from the Bay Area. They were pretty cool chicks, in Vegas for a bachelorette party, but once they got some drink in them they were wild n ‘out. One girl kept poppin out her top, one girl had some “fun” with one of my brothers friends in the pool, and a couple of the other girls basically took a bunch of ice and used it as a makeshift dildo for the bachelorette right on our daybed. They were a lot of fun .

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Fuck it lets drink

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T$ Wildin out!

The music is turning up pretty good now, EBC is in full swing, booze is flowing. We dancing just having a great old time. Even Rags is awake now and turnin up. Tremor comes on, and this point everyone in our crew is just getting down. I actually twisted my ankle jumping in the pool to that song, alcohol does wonders for pain, I would feel that the next day for sure. I love pool parties for this b/c everyone is just out there day drunk having a good time, aint nobody tryna look thug in the club and start shit. Its just a big happy drunk family. So im really having a good time with this one girl form the bachelorette party, r starts chatting up this chick from Colombia, actually chatting up is misleading term; she doesn’t speak English, he barely speaks Spanish. So it’s a lot of pointing and a lot of making out. Which is quite amusing to my drunk brain. At this point its almost 5 and EBC is starting to wind down, so we settle up the bill and make plans with the girls from Redding to meet up with them later that night. We actually had no definitive plans for this night because I didn’t know how many people were going to hang, and at this point it was a good idea because half the crew looked down for the count. R got the # of the girl from Colombia and we bounce from EBC and walk back to the Palazzo.

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R with the Colombian

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T$, Rags, Myself, R

Me and T$ go sit down at a blackjack table while R, Rags, and Persia go to Grand Lux to eat. I promptly lose $100 real quick so we go join the others at Grand Lux, at this point Persia is smashed: he is making these weird sounds instead of words, sounds like he is trying to clear his throat, or he is a mentally incapacitated Candian, its was like : “ehhhhhhhhhh” or “eeeeeemmmmmmm” I don’t know it was just weird as hell. R’s buddy from High School (AT) who lives in Vegas stop by to say what’s up, and he sees Persia making noises, and has a look on his face like “what the fuck did I get myself into!??!?”. At this point Persia decides he is hungry asks if he can have half my patty melt (min you this is the first time I have eaten since I got to Vegas), I tell him to go ahead and take half, and instead of taking the completely untouched half that is in the plate in front of me, he takes the half eaten half that is in my hand and proceeds to smash that down.

At this point we all decide we need to get some rest before we go out that night, wo we head up to room to figure out what the plans are and rest up.

TO BE CONTINUED – TAO