The CEO of the Sofa (O'Rourke, P. J.)

  What is it with Americans? America’s malls are full of clothing stores. America does almost nothing but shop. Then why are Americans dressed like Muffin when she’s allowed to choose her own clothes? Except much fatter. Italians don’t look like this. You don’t catch Italians going into the Basilica di San Marco in flip-flops and a halter top with extra butt hanging out of their Speedos. But I digress. Venice vs. The Venetian. Is Venice as romantic as I remember it being, after nine Bellinis at Harry’s Bar? Will video poker ever inspire a novella by Thomas Mann? Would it be easier to read than other Thomas Mann stuff? I’ll provide the answer in my article. About the Bellinis, I mean. I could care less about Thomas Mann.

  Now some people might think that Venice vs. The Venetian would be no contest. After all, Venice is the most romantic city on earth. I remember—when you and I were first married, dear—an evening in one of those beautiful mahogany motoscafo water taxis, coming back from Harry’s to the Excelsior Hotel on Lido Beach….

  “It might have been a heck of a night,” said my wife, “if you hadn’t had nine Bellinis and wound up hanging over the gunwale.”

  Yes. Well, anyway, as you’ve pointed out, Venice can be handicapped in a contest with the Venetian. And actually I think you and I did another good job of handicapping it, last year, when we returned by car (we weren’t thinking that through) in the middle of winter with a two-year-old in tow.

  Then there’s the matter of taking one’s wife to Venice at all. Nothing personal, darling. It’s just that wives will want one of those Murano glass chandeliers that’s the size of a sailing dinghy even though our dining room ceiling is less than eight feet high, and this would leave all the handblown dangling glass chandelier stuff dragging in the butter dish….

  “The butter dish that was the only thing you’d let me buy in Murano. And which you broke by stubbing out a cigar in it,” said my wife.

  Plus there’s the matter of getting a chandelier into the overhead bin on the return flight, I said. Furthermore, Murano chandeliers cost as much as…as much as the water-taxi fare from where the autostrade runs out of dry land to the dock at the Gritti Palace Hotel. And let’s not talk about what the Gritti Palace costs. A phone number. That’s in dollars. The trail of zeros from the Italian lire hotel bill spilled off one receipt page and filled two others.

  However, we did have a good time last year, even though there is practically nowhere in Venice that you can push a stroller without going into the drink or carrying it up and down the stairs on those cute little bridges, Venice being woefully behindhand in Americans with Disabilities Act compliance.

  And you can’t take the toddler out of the stroller because Italians are too nonchalant—or too short on tort lawyers—to put guard rails along the canals. Also, the balusters on the cute little bridges are spaced so far apart that toddlers are tempted to run a quarterback draw even on fourth down and ten. You recall the one time we did let go of Muffin’s hand, in the middle of St. Mark’s Square? A Japanese tourist handed the child an open bag of bird feed, and ten thousand filthy pigeons re-enacted the climactic ten minutes of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds on our baby daughter’s head. Don’t order squab in Venice—or, come to think of it, for God’s sake, do.

  Las Vegas was a very different experience. For one thing, I was alone. And I had a good-sized wad of cash—a financial windfall resulting from your failure to buy a Murano chandelier. [Hint to husbands wishing to avoid chandelier purchases: When you go to the Murano glass shops take a two-year-old. And turn her loose. This is expensive, but not as expensive as the chandelier. Your wife won’t have time to buy anything anyway because all three of you are going to get the bum’s rush from every glass shop on the island.]

  But is The Venetian “essentially the real Venice”? For a Venice that’s on the wrong continent, in the middle of a dust bowl, and was built last year, The Venetian is surprisingly authentic. The Campanile, for instance, is fake, but so’s the one in really real Venice. The original Campanile, completed in 1173, collapsed in a heap in 1902, and a replica was constructed in its place.

  The Venetian’s architectural unity is marred by a large, ugly, modern parking garage. Ditto Venice’s. The Autorimessa Comunale is on the Piazza Roma, and getting a space in it is more of a crap shoot than anything in Las Vegas. Then there’s Giorgio Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, Donna Karan, and Calvin Klein. Are these brands for sale along the Grand Canal in Venice or along the Grand Canal in The Venetian? Both. Plus The Venetian’s Grand Canal is not only indoors, it’s on the second floor. I’d like to see Venice’s famed Renaissance architect Jacopo Sansovino pull that off. Not that I’d let him try. When Sansovino was building his namesake Libreria Sansoviniana in 1545, the roof fell in and Sansovino went to prison for a while. Nevada has too many tort lawyers for Sheldon Adelson to let something like that happen. And Adelson’s Libreria Sansoviniana is not, like Sansovino’s, filled with musty old books that you aren’t allowed to touch. It contains Madame Tussaud’s Celebrity Encounter. You aren’t allowed to touch things there either, but who’d want to touch a wax Wayne Newton?

  However, back to the Grand Canal. The gondolas don’t actually go anyplace in the indoor version, just back and forth. But they don’t actually go anyplace in the outdoor version—just around in circles until your wallet is empty and your head is ringing with a pidgin English rendition of “That’s Amore.” And the American tourists in the Las Vegas gondolas look less uncomfortable than the American tourists in the Venice gondolas because, in Las Vegas, the gondolier isn’t some sneering foreigner in suspiciously tight pants; he’s a nice out-of-work actor or musician who feels just as dumb in the gondola as you do. Furthermore, the water in the Las Vegas Grand Canal is clean, chlorinated, and shallow. And if you do fall in, so what? There are enough coins on the bottom to play the slots for hours.

  Most of the things that aren’t authentic about The Venetian’s Venice are, like the smell, an improvement. The ten thousand filthy pigeons of St. Mark’s Square have been replaced with fifty trained white doves that are released for a brief flyby, on the hour, from 1 to 4 P.M. In the Grand Canal food court you can get—as opposed to authentic octopus in its own ink—pastrami with mustard on rye.

  The suite we had at the Gritti Palace was half the size of the single I stayed in at The Venetian. The Venetian’s room decor was not equal to the gilded ceiling mirror and ormolu bidet rococo of the Gritti, but I didn’t mind. And I would have minded even less if I’d had, as we did in Italy, a two-year-old girl along. The walls of our rooms at the Gritti were certainly covered with enough paintings of the very naked mythological type. “Where their clothes go, Daddy? What’s that? What’s that? What’s that?” And the Las Vegas Rialto Bridge has—bless those tort lawyers again—metal bars between the balusters to keep toddlers from getting a first down in the clean, chlorinated lagoon.

  Las Vegas gambling is a terribly vulgar affair, of course. I certainly thought so after losing all my Murano savings at blackjack. But maybe some better-bred, more white-shoe sort of games of chance could be developed to suit the refined taste of those who appreciate nine Bellinis at Harry’s Bar. Sending the children to Brown and betting that they don’t become communists is a possibility, as is marrying chorus girls without getting prenuptial agreements.

  And the entertainment at The Venetian C2K nightclub wasn’t very good. A “tribute show” featured some guy who did pop music impressions, including all the stages of the Elvis career. But it could have been worse. An Italian doing impressions might have run through all the popes.

  So, darling, our next European vacation is going to be spent in the Mojave. And yet…and yet…there’s something about the damp, smelly, expensive Venice of old. Maybe it’s the gleam in your eye (although I suspect that’s the Murano chandelier), or maybe it’s the thought of what Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Las Vegas would be like.

  ACT I, SCENE III

  Shylock to Antonio:

  If you repay me not on such a day,
br />   In such a place, such sum or sums as are

  Express’d in the condition, let the forfeit

  Be nominated for an equal pound

  Of your fair flesh….

  Enter “Porsche,” scantily dressed.

  A pound of flesh? Here’s a hundred and sixteen pounds!

  With a pair of D-cups! And get a load of these gams!

  Making out our Christmas list? I said to my wife, who was making out our Christmas list.

  “Yes.”

  [My wife has chosen the Christmas presents ever since the year we gave her parents a vacation trip. The “See Ireland’s Back Roads Like You’ve Never Seen Them Before” holiday package, on which I got a very good price, featuring a glass-bottom-bus tour.]

  I’ll browse through the mail-order catalogs, I said, and make helpful suggestions. Look, here’s a miniature closet from the gift shop at the New York Museum of Affordable Two-Bedroom Apartments. And check this out: the It Takes a Village Catalog, with quotes from Hillary Clinton about each product. We’ll have to get a “Socktapus” for the neighbors’ children. It turns eight used men’s dress socks into a creative toy.

  “I believe the neighbors’ children are in their forties,” said my wife.

  That’s okay. Hillary Clinton says, “Often a sock turned into a hand puppet is enough to fascinate them for hours.”

  The World of Remainders Bookstore, I continued, has an interesting offer: “Buy two of our books and we’ll pulp one for free.” They’ve got a wide selection of Frappaccino Table Books. The Worst Golf Courses in the World is only $4.95, in color. Your dad would like that. You should see the water hazard at the Marianas Trench Club. And the ninth hole at the Grozny Par-3 has tank traps all around the green. The Illustrated Guide to Adventure Bowling would be good for your sister. She likes the outdoors. There’s an amazing photograph on the cover of a guy making a 7-10 split on the north face of K-2. Speaking of which, the X-Treme Sports Company Catalog has a family road luge for $395. Dad sits up front, Sis and Junior ride outrigger, Mom’s on the brake. Could be fun when we have another kid. Says it’s been highway tested from the Rockies to the Alps and is safe up to speeds of seventy miles per hour. They’re also offering a wheelchair-access Stairmaster.

  I see Bad Dog Pet Supplies is trying to broaden its market. They’re having an introductory sale on Bulgari shock collars, “perfect for wives who range too far and so beautiful and chic she won’t be able to resist wearing it.” Shocks can be adjusted from “reminder buzz” to “mortal” and programmed via cell phone to operate worldwide.

  Wait, here’s my favorite, the Long-Pig Specialty Food Catalog. They’ve got a new line of naturally sugar-sweetened desserts “for that saccharine flavor without harmful chemical additives.” And baby beluga whale veal straight from Japan. And an entire section on cooking with popcorn. Orville Redenbacher’s Deluxe Turkey Dressing “lets a small bird feed the whole family.” The popcorn-stuffed grape leaves look exciting, not to mention the ravioli. Did you know we can give a gift membership to the Lunch Meat of the Month Club? January is Vietnamese Puppywurst. And there’s a resort in Idaho where you can dig your own potatoes. The Midwest “Gor-Met” Basket of Cheer includes Ice Cheese from Wisconsin, canned Baloney-O’s—you don’t see those on the East Coast—and Liquid Chicken. Mom used to use that for baking cookies. Then there’s the Grub-to-Go products from famous restaurants, such as the Tort Sauce they serve at the Ms. Steak chain, where all the waitresses are dressed as lawyers; the toothpick-flavored after-dinner mints from Doe’s Eat Place in Little Rock, and the House of Blues’ unique blue-flavored frozen yogurts: blue-point oyster, bluefish, or Bluebonnet Margarine with real oleo added. Here’s something that might be good for New Year’s Eve, a Piñata Colada Kit that lets you hang from the ceiling while drinking blindfolded. And a perfect stocking stuffer for Muffin, little jars of Baby Soul Food—mashed chitlins with grits, strained catfish and collard greens, hog jowls in hominy. Did you know that Long-Pig carries genuine Jamaican Goatmeal? Oatmeal with natural goat flavoring. I’ll bet my godson’s vegan sister would love that. Only goat droppings are used, so no actual goats are exploited while obtaining their flavor.

  But I’m afraid my wife missed that last helpful suggestion, having left the room rather hurriedly.

  The Political Nut who lives around here came in just then, as he tends to do when my wife goes out. This year, for Christmas, he said, I think I’ll buy everybody a copy of Pat Buchanan’s new book about the American Indian, I Have My Reservations. Serves ’em right for giving the popular vote to Al Gore.

  You know, the Political Nut went on, I’ll bet a lot of people think I’m upset by all the legal challenges to George W. Bush’s victory in Florida. Nope. I’m too excited about Hillary Clinton’s win in New York. Gosh, I wanted Hillary to get that Senate seat—the one Pat Moynihan had for years until he misplaced it after a long lunch. Is it too late to send five dollars to Hillary’s campaign fund? Make that ten dollars, because she got gypped on the $1.7 million house in Chappaqua. From Whitewater to Castle Grande to Palestinian statehood, Hillary has always been dumb about real estate. And a lot of other things. And why not? If you think about it, she’s just another Suzy Loser with endless man troubles living in public housing at the taxpayer’s expense. What’s she know? Actually, I can answer that question because I watched her television interviews, listened to her speeches, and read her appalling newspaper columns.

  Fortunately a U.S. Senate seat was open. The Founding Fathers, in their wisdom, devised a method by which our republic can take one hundred of its most prominent numskulls and keep them out of the private sector, where they might do actual harm. At any given moment a full five score of America’s largest corporations are being spared Paul Wellstone as CEO. This could be the entire secret of America’s economic advantage over western Europe and Japan. Let Hillary loose in the free enterprise system, and the New York Stock Exchange winds up like Madison Savings and Loan. Our 401k’s will be invested in Arkansas pea patches.

  And I’m glad that Hillary was elected, because this is fitting punishment for a person who has made a fatuous claim to be a mover and shaker, who believes she is a political colossus, and who thinks the earth trembles from her great progressive strides. Into the tar pit of the Senate with you, you soon-to-be-extinct mastodon of Poli Sci, you fossil in pants suit. Let’s watch you squeal and bellow as you sink helplessly to the very bottom of the seniority system ooze.

  Furthermore, putting Hillary in the Senate keeps Rudolph Giuliani out.

  “She didn’t run against Giuliani,” said my wife, emerging from the powder room with a cold washcloth pressed against her forehead.

  “Giuliani dropped out when he got sick. He has prostate cancer.”

  Just like Vince Foster! said the Political Nut. This is the kind of thing that happens to everybody who crosses the Clintons. I’m being watched myself. Just the other day I found a piece of paper in the pocket of my new Dockers that said INSPECTED BY NO. 4. Giuliani wasn’t needed in the Senate. Rudi is a cold, angry, vengeful martinet of a man—exactly the person that we 263 million Americans who don’t live in New York City want that town to have as its mayor. Rudi’s what New Yorkers have deserved for years. I hope he recovers and stays mayor forever—if not of New York, then of some other horrible city. Seattle leaps to mind. Ah, the Nose Ring Leash Law of 2003.

  But saving the economy, bugging Soho twits, and bringing snot-bobbers to heel are mere fringe benefits to a Hillary election. The real prize is a guaranteed six years of Hillary in high-profile public exposure. Consider what this means to Republican fund-raising efforts. That little smirk of hers, that faint suggestion of a self-cherishing pout, is worth thirty million a year to the GOP, easy. Here is a woman who can give $30 million to fight the good fight without—literally—lifting a finger. A small change in the shape of her pie hole, and we’re rich.

  We’re rich. And we’re smart. Suddenly we’re thinking critically again. The theatrical c
raft, the special effects, the stage business of the New Democrats made us almost forget that liberalism has a plot. Hillary’s role is to remind us of the scheme: Liberals plan to take everything and give it to bad actors as a reward for talking crap. Speaking of bad actors, we’ve lacked a villain. Pickled, lardy Ted won’t do. Jeering Ted Kennedy is like making fun of Falstaff at the end of Henry IV, Part II. Lady-Macbeth-in-a-headband, however, will more than suffice. And what’s that she’s trying to get off her hands? Bill, probably. Those hands of Hillary’s will be busy in any case. Rest assured, no mulligatawny of social legislation will be served up in the Senate without Hillary’s thumb in the soup bowl. She has ideas about everything—education, minimum wage, earned-income tax credits, college tuition, Social Security, Medicare, the national debt, and making “a mean tossed salad,” just to mention a few of the subjects I recall being touched upon during her campaign kickoff speech. Hillary has ideas the way Arkansas has cars on blocks. Ideas are to Hillary what sex is to her husband—something to be had indiscriminately and often and the results of which, thank goodness, go right down the drain. And every time Hillary gets one of these ideas she starts exercising the smugness muscles with which the Liberal face is so richly endowed. Her mouth compresses in a suck-purse grimace. Her lips form a simper of sanctity. And then—oh, man, it’s triple cherries on the campaign chest slots!—treasure just comes tumbling into the laps of the prudent and the wise.