There’s no question that Las Vegas attracts an upside-down bell curve of residents, no matter what scale one uses for measurement. We have a lot of gamblers, drunks, deadbeats, quick-buck-artists (or wannabes), fraudsters, greedsters, and lowlifes. We have transients, dreamers, and losers. We have a high ratio of service personnel to professionals, making our population quite unlike other cities. Not too many intellectuals choose to live in Las Vegas.

So I wasn’t surprised to see a billboard showing a naked hunk (strategically held box in hand), offering $500 to “show us your package.” Another billboard shows a sexy-chick, not unlike the “gentlemen’s club” billboards all over town, but its headline is “Co-Stars Needed. Earn $500 tonight.” Another says “Get Tugged. Get $1000. The Las Vegas Review Journal published a lengthy article about this public pitch for future porn stars, complete with video.

Such a Vegas story. No wonder most people don’t want to raise their families here. Children grow up with billboards and taxi ads showing suggestive near-nudity, Cirque du Soleil is the dominant cultural activity, and the phonebook has color pages of “entertainers.”

I’ve known my fair share of people in alt jobs here in Vegas. I used to have a friend in the 900-number business. On a tour of his phone-sex factory floor, he explained that he liked to hire the handicapped, the overweight, and the ugly. He was no altruistic hero; he simply found that these employees made him more money in the phone-sex business. After all, he told us, most of the men calling in wanted compassion more than passion, and empathy above eroticism. To maximize minutes on the line, the callers had to feel heard and understood.

This fascinating, off-the-charts man, this friend we long-ago lost touch with, had let me read a book he’d written. I don’t recall its title, or know if it was ever published. The book was an argument against marriage and a lesson in how to find, and write a “modular contract” for, a mistress. His experience had taught him, he told us, that a man is better off defining his expectations and paying a woman to fulfill them, than living locked in blind hope of compatibility and paying after the fact in support and settlement. His modular contract was meant to be renegotiated once or twice a year to both parties’ satisfaction, pay adjusted.

Over the years of our friendship, we met a series of his mistresses. I particularly remember “Miss Kitty” and “Peaches.” Our friend advertised for his women in the jobs sections of newspaper classifieds. High pay, odd work hours, no skills or experience necessary. And no baggage. He wanted women who’d hit bottom, had no place to go. No kids. No family. He interviewed the applicants with brutal honesty. His demands included renaming the woman, choosing her clothing (sleazy—which he bought for her), and her undivided attention to him during her working hours. During the years that we knew him, and now, after hearing an update from a mutual friend, I don’t think that he found any more happiness than ordinary married folks (divorced or not).

I used to live in a townhouse in Las Vegas, where my next door neighbor was a prostitute. Uh… entertainer. When she went out she’d turn on her answering machine, but she must not have realized how loud it’s volume was. We heard all her messages. “Hey baby, I’m coming into town tonight…” etc. I wouldn’t say we were friends, but enough that she gave me a key to go in and feed her cat when she went away for a few weeks. One time, her brother, a stranger to me, showed up at my door, begging for cash. I gave him $20, out of fear. A few months later, when my neighbor was out of town again, she called me and asked me to go in and see what was missing. She’d just been tipped off that her brother had burglarized her house. He had.

I have other interesting Vegas friends with odd jobs. One runs a porn site. One started AmericanLowlife.com, a swingers social networking site. If you live in Vegas, you meet these sorts. I like odd people.