Pop Whore Time Capsule: A Letter To“TI”

Back in the innocent days of ought-three, before you came to know and love us as Pop Whore, Nick and I were two endearingly sexy dorks who met through mutual friends at a birthday party and bonded over television, sarcasm and the brilliance of David Lynch’s masterful “Mulholland Drive.”

Three years later, not much has changed.

Over the long weekend, I was rifling through some as yet-unpacked boxes (which I’m guessing will remain unpacked forever, thus becoming the proverbial “boxes that I haven’t unpacked yet”) and came across a lovely semi-open/unsent letter to the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino, co-written by Nick and I on the road trip back from Las Vegas in the summer of 2004.

Besides obvious highway hypnotic boredom, the driving force/main motivation for writing this letter was outright fury that the awesome pirate show had been replaced by a tacky show about a siren’s song. Read: scantily clad girls tittering their saline filled mammary glands to entice and ultimately destroy hapless, shirtless men in bandanas.

I don’t know about you, but if that had been the premise of “The Goonies," I would have offed myself by the ripe old age of eight.

And remember the awesome pirate skull sign?

It became this hideous monstrosity:


Anyway, in a preemptive strike against blindness and a catatonic stupor from trying to decipher our handwriting, I opted to transcribe said letter for you...

Case in point:

I would, however, like to preface this letter by saying that it was written in a back and forth motion from the front to backseat of a Honda on the 15 freeway after two debaucherously sleepless nights in Vegas, during which we had our “nice Catholic girl” friend convinced that we were getting a call girl for a raunchy foursome.

What you are about to read has not been altered it in any way, shape or form. My parts are normal, Nick's parts are italicized.

Dear “TI”

(AKA, once cool themed hotel, but now tacky piece of shit)

Let me preface this by admitting that I once sat through almost the entire movie “Dirty Work.” Yes, the one directed by Bob Saget. That said, a hundred horrible Norm MacDonald vehicles could never compare to the fantastically putrid mass of rodent shit that your hotel put on stage last night.

Last year, we visited Las Vegas, only to find that your outdoor show was on hiatus due to “renovations.” Upon returning to Las Vegas this past weekend, I was devastated to find that your pirate ship was painted in the queerest shades of pink and purple and the British ship replaced by a red-masted skull/bull-shit, I mean, ship. Not only that, but the sign that mascots your hotel is possibly the gaudiest thing I’ve ever laid eyes on, and I’m from L.A..

Seriously, I never realized how un-cheesy all the shows at Disneyland were. You have taken the idea of offensively tacky tourist-trap entertainment to a disturbing new level. But at least the stuff at Disney is wholesome and family-friendly, as disgustingly pedestrian and silly as it may be. You have shown that offensively tacky and offensive, period, can coexist peacefully.

If you’re trying to make your hotel/casino more adult-oriented, the least you could’ve done is made “Siren’s Cove” into the “Island of Lesbos” and given us something more interesting to watch – or at least distracted us visually from the gut-wrenching dialogue, song and dance, and basically non-existent storyline. My boyfriend (Eti’s note - now ex) commented that he’s seen better plot lines in raunchy porn, and rightly so!

And my other boyfriend, I mean my platonic non-boyfriend, said that whoever created the show should be required to sit through every performance of it for the rest of his/her/its life. Here’s a hint: next time, don’t write the script while taking a crap, especially when the finished product of both is already so hard to tell apart.

And if you think adding some half-assed quasi fireworks at the end will make up for the eight minutes of life that I lost, you’re sadly mistaken. I never thought Vegas could exhibit such low quality production value. Even the call girl I was with last night was a better dancer/actor. If only your “sirens” could've recreated the sex scene from Mulholland Drive like she did, your hotel wouldn’t have to try so desperately to make more money and target a more adult audience.

So send your “talented cast” back to Hollywood Boulevard to resume turning tricks, and hire some boys and girls who know what the hell they’re doing.

FIN.

If you’re a masochist or simply feeling masochistic, please click the “Siren’s Website” to witness said idiocy for yourselves.

And if you really, really like pain, download the free screen saver.

And if you really, really, really like pain, give me a call so we can agree on a safe word before I come over.