There’s lots of great stuff in the exchange between Malcolm Gladwell and Bill Simmons, but it’s hard to top Gladwell’s take down of Las Vegas:
Simmons: Second question: Can you explain in one paragraph why you’re against Vegas?
Gladwell: Where to start? You get there. You can’t get a cab. Last time I waited 30 minutes in line at the airport. You get to your hotel, you wait another 45 minutes to check in. Its 120 degrees outside, and inside its 45 degrees and all you can think about is there’s about to be a epidemic of Legionnaires Disease. The food is terrible. Everyone loses money — everyone. The amount of plastic surgery is terrifying. There are large packs of enormous, glassy-eyed people in stretch pants, pulling the levers on slot machines. (By the way, greatest and most under-appreciated gambling story ever: William Bennett, he of one bestseller after another lecturing Americans on moral values and virtue and the bankruptcy of our culture, turns out not only to be a degenerate gambler, but a gambler who only played the slots. The slots! Had he been a great poker player — even a decent poker player — I’m in his corner. But the slots?) I digress. Back to Vegas: Why would I want to see Celine Dion, ever (and I’m Canadian)? Or white mutant tigers? Or the Village People? Or Tony Orlando and Dawn? I have more fun walking to the laundromat from my apartment in New York than I do in Vegas.
The entire exchange, beginning yesterday, is terrific. Just so you know, it is mostly a discussion of sports and sports management.
I want to marry the man. I’d even become Canadian.