I heard about this “Hawaiian Restaurant” which was supposed to be decent, so I went over to check it out today.

It’s called “L&L Hawaiian Barbecue”, and is on the corner of Sahara and Maryland Parkway … so off we went to have some lunch.

Now, Hawaiians are a pretty wacky group of people in their own right. They are unable to be photographed without making that goofy “hang loose” gesture with their hand, and they won’t shut up about the goddamn “Aloha Spirit”.

What is the “Aloha Spirit”?

It’s never really been explained to me, but I think it’s the Holy Spirit’s arch-nemesis.

I think the Aloha Spirit and Holy Spirit have some sort of a Shaq vs. Kobe thing going on to see who can be the greater attention whore.

Not to mention, the Hawaiian language is the most ridiculous language ever created in the known solar system.

From what I understand, their alphabet contains almost no consonants, and it takes 3 1/2 years for them to say “Please pass the bread”.

Speaking proper Hawaiian, asking for bread would go something like this:

“Huaaannnaaaaaaaaapuuuueeeeeeeenuuuuuuuuaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeluuuuuuuuuuaaaaaaanuuuuuuuuuuuuu”

And that just means “Please”.

You don’t want to see the whole phrase.

Therefore, in response to the babytalk language, the Hawaiian people decided that they would take it no more, and simply replace every word in their language with “Aloha”.

It means basically everything.

With a very slight voice inflection, and two “hang loose” hand signals, “Aloha” can represent the entirety of the novel “War and Peace”.

It’s slightly genius, yet at the same time, you just want to smack them.

But despite their overall dopeyness, they are usually good natured, happy people.

That is, until they move to Las Vegas.

Nothing can turn a good person bad like living in this town.

Las Vegas has the most surly, mean-spirited, rude population I have met anywhere. And this is coming from someone who lived in Brooklyn for quite awhile. And I didn’t live in the nuevo-hip, Sex and The City part of Brooklyn. At one point, Christopher Wallace (Notorious BIG) was my neighbor.

Despite the stereotypes (perpetrated by the media, who likes to peddle geriatric porn), most New Yorkers are not rude.

Obnoxious, loud, and overbearing? At times, yes.

Mean and intentionally rude? Rarely.

But the 5% of Las Vegas residents who can speak English are the nastiest motherfuckers I have yet to meet. They would just as soon kick you in the balls as look at you, they’ll run you over to avoid getting stuck at a stoplight, and they’ll steal your wallet if you have a heart attack on the sidewalk.

Just awful, dreadful people.

For crying out loud, they once stole my bicycle lock. They stole the goddamn lock! Which was completely useless to them since it was at that point … broken. But it didn’t matter. Since it was not under 24 hour armed guard, it had to be stolen on principle

The official, unwritten slogan of this town is: “Don’t even think about bringing it here if you don’t want it stolen”.

One family got all of their worldly possessions stolen recently when they made a stopover here in Vegas. They parked their moving truck in the Venetian parking lot, and it was stolen, along with everything else they owned. And the Venetian basically told them to go fuck themselves. “At your own risk, blah, blah, blah”.

The Hilton told me the same thing when my bike was stolen from directly underneath a security camera. Make no mistake about it, those cameras are there to protect the casino … they could not give a shit less about you.

When my buddy fell in the Monte Carlo last month, security refused to review the tapes. Why? Because it was not in their best interests to do so.

Slip an extra chip on the Blackjack table, though … and you’ll be in Clark County Jail before you know it. They won’t miss that.

Welcome to Las Vegas! Now give us your goddamn money and get the hell out.

We get the people the rest of the country doesn’t want (why do you think I live here?)

People come to Las Vegas optimistic … lured by the bright lights and promises of better lives, and after a year of swing shifts and being shouted at by the floor manager, disillusionment quickly sets in.

They were sold on the promise of Real Estate riches and recession-proof jobs … just before the housing market imploded and layoffs started.

And once this happened, they became “stuck in the bowl”. (Las Vegas is actually a bowl and not a “valley” as we are surrounded on four sides).

They hate life, they hate you, and it shows.

The average Las Vegan wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.

The bus drivers don’t know the routes, and I once got thrown off a bus for explaining to the driver that he had missed an entire city block. I held up the map, and politely pointed out his error.

He realized I was correct, and therefore I had to be booted off of the bus (citing “security” or some shit) to teach the other passengers that CAT will drop you off wherever they damn well please, and you better not complain about it or your ass will walk … bitch.

This is generally not a happy town outside of tourist areas. And even the tourist areas aren’t all that happy anymore.

There is a shyster on every corner, and almost everybody has a scheme in this town. Whether it’s long-hauling you through a tunnel, running awful websites with their names in the title, requiring insane bribes to get into nightclubs, not inspecting rooms, bribing off local agencies, or breaking your arms in the back of Crazy Horse II over a bogus lapdance tab … everyone is running a ruse in this town.

If a person is not running a scheme here, they often have a gambling problem, or a drinking problem, or a gambling and drinking problem (Adam), or a methamphetamine problem, or a citizenship problem (Adam), or just hate you for some another, more random reason.

Either that, or they take shitloads of Prozac, become stepford-people, and move to Henderson or Summerlin, where they dine at P.F. Chang’s and live in fake cities.

The schools here consistently rank last in the nation, and the offspring of our disillusioned adults aspire to be either Dr. Dre or Charles Manson.

The average IQ of our population is twelve, and if you walk into a store, be prepared to be greeted with contempt as DeShaun screams “Where you at?!” to his bitch on the other end of his Boost Mobile phone while giving you a “Don’t even think of interrupting my conversation” stare.

I realize that this is a broad brush. It goes without saying that not everyone is like this. There are certainly exceptions. I have also met some very fine human beings in this town and they make up the core of who I hang out with … but as a group, Las Vegas has a higher percentage of assholes than any city in which I have yet to live. And if you are not an asshole when you move here, it’s only a matter of time until you become one.

But you don’t have to believe me.

The restaurant at the top of this post actually was relevant.

If there is one, last, final group of people that you just can’t make pessimistic, it is those ever-smiling, goofy Hawaiians.

If anyone can take a pile of shit and turn it into sunshine, they can.

With that in mind … imagine my worsening depression when I arrived at the Hawaiian restaurant only to be greeted with this posted prominently at the entrance:

I rest my case.