By now, Chris and I had seen our share of good photo projects (Paris) and bad (Rhianna, although in the end it worked out OK, but better for me) and now we got one that would fall in between the two. Chris got an assignment to do tour photos for an up and coming female duo called Tigress. They seemed to me like a 2 girl version of the Pussycat Dolls. But compared to these two, the Dolls truly were rocket scientists. When we were introduced to "Candy" and "Mandy" it was like they had just landed on earth and were now learning the language. They seemed to be all giggles and jiggles. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but even "Hollywood Jim" has his limits. The big bonus for us was that their debut shows would be in Las Vegas. And it was on a weekend when the Dolls were headlining in the same place. "What a coincidence." we both thought.
But Vegas is still Vegas, and we were all prepared for a wild weekend. The hotel was the brand new Painted Desert casino, right on the strip.
When our flight landed, we had a long wait for our luggage. Chris was starting to get nervous, as was I. The record company didn't spring for a private jet, so we were at the mercy of the airlines to have our stuff there. My eyes were strangely attracted to an overweight, seemingly plain-looking girl wearing a garish, mismatched pantsuit. Her hair was tightly wound into her floppy hat and she seemed to speak with a thick accent. Her luggage looked well-worn. She turned to see me and then turned away. Looked again, and did the same thing. I breathed a sigh of relief when our gear finally appeared. We gathered up our stuff but my eyes kept focusing on the mystery woman. Whose eyes followed us as we exited the terminal.
Our eyes glazed when we drove down the strip, with the top down on our convertible, tunes blasting, we were ready for action. It was tough for us to resist the urge to do everything in one night. We still had an assignment, paying big bucks too.
Chris spent the better part of the afternoon shooting the girls on the hotel's rooftop. It was one of those great Vegas days, the sun was like an inferno but Chris was getting great shots of the girls, using every photo trick he could think of. Probably so he could avoid doing another session. I was there with my laptop, organizing the photos and doing whatever touchups were needed. When we were finally done, we all nearly ran over each other trying to get inside first.
Their show that night was hysterically bad, at least to me. The audience seemed to be 99% guys who couldn't get tickets to the Dolls show and were stuck with the next best thing. Chris and I took lots of photos and tried not to crack each other up. With the show over, we decided to stow our gear in our rooms, get some dinner and try our luck at the tables.
I headed up to my room and when I popped the door open with my keycard, I noticed an envelope with the hotel's letterhead had been slipped under it. Inside the envelope was another keycard. But this one was jet black (mine was a plain white), with the hotel's logo and room number embossed in gold. The room number was 711 (how appropriate). That's odd, I thought. I called Chris
"Hey, what color is your keycard?"
"White, why?"
"I just found one that's black and gold under the door."
"Man, that's weird. I've never heard of that. Try calling the front desk."
I called down and they said it was a VIP card
"What does that mean? I mean, I know what it means, but well, what does it mean?"
(Man I can sound like an idiot sometimes!)
"Well sir, the way you describe it, this is the keycard for the VIP rooms. They're made differently than the others. And the rooms are on the top floor in the west tower section."
"Well, can you tell whose room this belongs to?"
"I'm sorry sir, that information is strictly confidential, hotel policy."
