out in vegas in the booth with lil jon at tao beach club x2 [special report]

I think at this point the Mayor of Vegas should give me a key to the city. I’ll have finally made it, not on the day you see me accepting my Emmy on ABC or my memoir is on the NYTimes bestseller list, but when I appear in an ad on your airplane TV, hawking the joys of gambling, unlimited crab leg buffets, and the Thunder from Down Under. Make me an ambassador, Vegas, I dare you.

This time I was in town with my family to see Dead & Company at the Sphere three! times! in! a! row! And I’d already seen them once before on my last trip. In total, I have seen 12+ hours, a workday with overtime, of the Dead. I’m sorry to my reply guys who slide in, horny for a girly girl Deadhead, when it’s all a sham. I’m just a lover of free tickets, my Deadhead friends & family, and, more than anything, merch.¹

Naturally while my dad and siblings went to the Hoover Dam… I went to the day club. I spent Saturday and Sunday at the Venetian at Tao Beach Club, first to see Zedd and then to see Lil Jon. This time, I had no special access, just skimpy new matching swim sets and a dream. I struck out with Zedd, but, you’ll never believe it, I made it into the booth with Lil Jon. YeAH, it was wHAt? More than oKay. It was AWESOME. This is a double sized essay so you might want to read in the app!

THE STATS

• Day of the Week: Saturday

• Neighborhood: The Las Vegas Strip *special report*

• The Crew: My best friend from college, Ava, who is an actual Deadhead (she’s taken, reply guys!) and a frequent plus one on my family trips.

• The Fit: I was introduced to my Mecca, the Promised Land, a boutique called Hotties World that is only in Vegas and sells clothes for human girls who would rather be Bratz Dolls. I bought a lime green bedazzled bikini and cover up set. The vibe was (as always) stepmom.

• Home By: We changed into clothes appropriate to see my dad and made it to an Italian pasta dinner by 5pm…iconic.

THE GAME: Zedd at Tao Beach Club

Immediately upon touching down, my first text was to my special guy, my Vegas promoter James, to say “I landed! Where should I shake ass? xo”

Having a promoter contact in Vegas is essential, and the easiest way to meet one is to approach him like you would a NPC in a Pokemon video game. They are easily spottable because they are small men that wear all black and stand around in lobbies (very Team Rocket coded). I shared more details about how to find a special guy of your own in my last Vegas letter linked below.

Catch up on promoter strategy here:

Aesthetic: 6/10

Tao Beach Club is cultural appropriation paradise. It is covered in East Asian iconography, Buddha statues, and extremely good looking staff/models in vaguely tribal swimwear. But… it does give oasis more than any of other day clubs. Yeah, no, it would be racist to rank it anything higher than a 6 for aesthetic.

You are the piece of me, I wish I didn't neeeeeed

Wait Time: 3/10

The headliner goes up at 3pm so Ava and I arrived at 2:30pm and joined the ~10-15 minute line. We were on the promoter’s list, but we didn’t get any special treatment. Tragically, Ava’s pack of gum was confiscated :(. One ID check should have made it clear to the bouncers that we’re too old to be the girls stashing drugs. We’re 32! Death by hangover!

One time when I went day clubbing in Vegas, they tried to confiscate Tums from my group of girlfriends so rather than hand them over (Death by tummy issues!), one of my brave brave girls went into the bathroom and stashed it in her p*ssy. She’s an ally, a war hero, and Biden should give her a Purple Heart for her service. Kind of an amazing pitch for a commercial for Tums, no?

Yummy-ness: 3/10

I bought Ava a Tequila Soda ($24.00), and I had a Tequila with Sour Mix so I was UPCHARGED to a Margarita ($29.00). If I had known, I would have just ordered a Margarita. Evil. As far as the eye could see there were GINORMOUS platters of sushi that looked delicious at 2:30pm, but lethal at 5pm after sitting out in the sun (Death by Food Poisoning!). Tao really is a minefield, which is also in many ways, MORE! cultural! appropriation!

Special Girls Room Report: 10/10

The Bathroom is maybe the best part about Tao aside from the DJs. It’s heaven on Earth - spacious, beautiful lighting, perfect selfie mirrors, girls girling,…more about that below.

Shaking Ass Factor: 10/10

I’ve always loved Zedd. He’s my special little guy (more than the promoters or my reply guys). I listen to Clarity sometimes 3x a day as I walk around NYC and feel absolutely unstoppable. I could get hit by a bus and survive. And someday I probably will be hit by at least a Citibike and lose a piece of me, I didn’t neeeeeed.

He’s got banger after banger - Stay the Night, I Want You to Know, The Middle, Break Free. C’mon! He' makes my favorite genre of music - crystal clear female singer floating on top of an uplifting beat - songs that make you want to cry, but also shake ass. Songs for girls like me - sensitive and emotional, but also from New Jersey.

I danced HARD.

Husband Material: 4/10

Ava and I picked a spot where I could make eye contact with a) Zedd (but he was too busy bouncing and smiling like an EDM angel) and b) the bachelor parties in cabanas so that they would invite us in to share their bottle service.

When the guys didn’t bite, I took matters into my own hands and asked a group of four men with Gen Z haircuts (there was more than one mullet) and high- socks-at-the-club if they had swampy ankles. Yeah, I’m a *flirt.* Again, no bites.

BUT the girls in their joint Bachelor-Bachelorette party, all from Arizona, took pity on us and offered us cups of ice…which they told me to put directly on my nipples to cool down. Okaaaay, they’re the flirts. If they had been true girl’s girls, they would have given us a cup of ice with…tequila.

There was one duo of Jewish boys from Ohio, decked out in Star of David’s on their chains (drip), who asked us to take a picture of them in front of the Hot-Girl-Buddha statue on my phone because they “forgot theirs.” I texted it to them, and they invited me out to LIV. Us Jews have always been innovators. That’s the spirit that kept the oil burning for 8 days, created the plagues, built the pyramids, etc…

Again, the only person I want to take home is ZEDD, but I’m banned from Raya so I don’t have a chance. If anyone sees him, will you tell him for me?

Final Bar Tab: $67.00 for two kind of shitty drinks and a free cup of ice, no alcohol.

I was disappointed in myself to not make it into the booth, and especially to miss out on meeting my boyfriend, Zedd. But we don’t give up, we don’t back down, and we live to shake ass another day.

So I returned to Tao the next morning on the Lord’s Day, *alone,* with one mission and one mission only. Get in the booth with maybe the man most meaningful to my Bat Mitzvah, Lil Jon. And I succeeded.

THE GAME: Lil Jon at Tao Beach Club

THE STATS

• Day of the Week: Sunday

• The Crew: I went alone!! But I was quickly adopted by two 21st birthday parties.

• The Fit: Ava gave me a one-piece black bathing suit that she doesn’t like on her (girl’s girl), and I paired it with a sparkly chain coverup from Am*zon. The vibe was spy who is going to give Bond a BJ (mediocre) then try to kill him (also mediocre).

• Home By: Made it to the Mirage for Shin Lim with my family at 5pm…again, iconic.

shots shots shots shots

I’m going to keep the rankings consistent with above with one exception. We’ll be bringing that WAIT TIME up to 8/10 because on a cloudy Sunday, there was no wait.

Like in the Hunger Games, I made a mad dash to stock up on my weapon, a double Tequila Soda, heavy on the lime ($60.02), then made my first strategic move. I went directly to the bathroom to find reinforcements. Without fail, I got complimented on my cover-up by a duo. I said “omg, it’s from Am*zon, can you believe it?” and an alliance was made. I went in alone, I came out with sisters in arms.

Turns out the girls were celebrating a 21st birthday that included four very good-girl Christian best friends, heavy on the cross jewelry and biblical verse tattoos, from San Diego who met line dancing, including two blondes named Mikayla. I offered to buy the birthday girl a shot ($25), and they happily adopted me as their new day club mommy.

I followed them into the pool, and unlike Saturday, when the pool was in many ways an actual cesspool, there was room to get in. And I felt re-baptized into a 21-year-old again, a born-again virgin like the girls I was with and open to accepting the HPV in the water. They asked me if I was rich, and I explained credit card debt to them. My final bar tab was $85.02. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber.