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Nothing Personal
Rack of hams
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People Feature
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Nothing Personal
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[12/14/99]

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"A man who takes nothing but his wallet to Las Vegas is no one to be trifled with."

There comes a time after you have lived in a new place long enough that you finally feel at home. Mine began in January of this year when I boarded a plane bound for Las Vegas to see the Mike Tyson/François Botha fight:

Scampering down the jetway, I'm carrying nothing but my wallet and a particular type of excitement, a confident bubbliness over things coming. I am not giddy because of the possibilities of what might happen, I am giddy because I know exactly how the trip will go. That confidence, I know now, is what marked the switch.

Squeezing through first class, I glance around a few arms and shoulders and a beautiful blond woman catches my eye. She has an empty window seat next to her.

"Of course that's my seat," I say to myself. I check my stub. It is.

About halfway through the flight, this woman and the man sitting next to her (recently married, I assume, because of how vigorously they hold hands) decide to look at a photo album. I'm thinking wedding pictures. But of course they're not wedding pictures, they're pictures from the nude photo shoot on the beach the blond woman had done recently. And, surprise, she's not shy about opening the book wide enough so that it gently bumps my thigh. She wants me to look.

No tattoos. Anywhere.

The taxi line at McCarran is very long. I stand in it for a few minutes. No one moves. There is a white limo parked across the street. The driver leans nonchalantly against it. He doesn't want to stir up business. He only wants to carry people who come to him. I raise my finger at him from across the street. He nods and chucks his toothpick to the asphalt.

"You going to the Grand?" a guy behind me says. He's with three other dudes. "Throw your stuff in the trunk," I say, and we're off.

Introductions all around. They're from New York. They want to know which strip club is the best. I give them a rundown. They seem pleased with the information. When we get out, I pay the driver.

When the New York boys try to give me money, I shake it off and tell them to buy me a drink at the strip club later. We all know we'll never see each other again. Handshakes, and I disappear into the roiling crowd.

Matt greets me in the lobby of the MGM Grand with a VIP pass and a smile. The place is utter chaos. Pushing through the crowd, we swap airplane stories. He sat with Montel Williams on one of Paramount's private jets. Montel (whom I met later at ringside) is a hell of a nice guy. After relating my story to Matt, it dawns on me how things are different. The old me would have run off the plane and called friends to tell them I sat next to a beautiful woman and saw pictures of her naked. I would have yammered to the limo driver and those guys from New York the entire ride. But I didn't. I didn't tell anybody but Matt, 'cause he already went through the change.

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