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OSCAR GOODMAN
Oscar Goodman is the mayor of Las Vegas. I think everybody remembers the day that they arrived in Las Vegas. I got here August 28, 1964 and I remember it like it was yesterday. My wife and I drove across the country. We stopped at the top of Boulder Dam in Boulder City and looked down over the mountain. I still remember, it was a Standard station where we stopped. It still may be there. We looked out, there were just a couple of twinkling lights down in the desert and some sagebrush, which we=d never seen before. It sort or rolled by the car, and my wife said, AWhere have you brought me?@ We had $87 between us when we arrived here. Before I got here, Las Vegas had the allure of a Damon Runyon-type town. It did not disappoint me in that respect when I got here. It was Sin City. It was a place where everything went. Although I was wrong, I thought that prostitution was legalized. Gambling was rampant. It was exciting with entertainment. It was an adult play land. It also represented a new frontier where somebody could come out and if they wanted to work hard, they could succeed. It was wide open and there were no rules except the rules that you made. Those were my impressions before I decided to come here. It was even more exciting to live it. I saw all the characters in town. Wherever you went, there were free buffets, free drinks, free shows. People got dressed up when they went to the casinos. There was an awful lot of glitter, a lot of neon. It was very, very exciting. There were characters around here at those times. I got to represent them, so it was even more exciting. It was, in many respects for a guy from Philadelphia, the wild west. There=s no question, people acted differently out here than they did back east. They dressed differently, they had different values. We have the entertainment, we have the cuisine. We=ve got the gambling, we=ve got the electricity. I think that=s the way people think of Las Vegas. I think we=re thought of very positively now. But I hope some of that Sin City image remains because it adds to our mystique. If people want Disneyland they can go 150 miles down the road and get that. People don=t want that when they come here. I=m convinced they want to see a little Bugsy Siegel under a rock, not a little Mickey Mouse. I haven=t had a bad day here. This is a great town, because you can do whatever you want to do here, or do nothing. That=s the wonderful part about it. When you go to other places there=s sometimes nothing to do. Here, not that I=m up at 2:00 in the morning, but if I were, I could do anything I wanted to do. I could go anyplace, eat anyplace, meet people. It=s a three shift town, whereas most other towns are one shift, maybe two shift, but I don=t know anyplace that=s a three shift town other than Las Vegas. I just think it=s a very exciting place. I think that it=s a place where we have tremendous growing pains, but at the same time, we move very quickly here. This is not a slow moving town. I can=t think of anyplace other than New York City that even approximates how quickly we do things, how vigorous we are. At least the people I=m around are movers, we=re shakers, we make things happen. And we can do it here. It=s small enough to do it. If you have enough power, influence, and energy, you can accomplish anything you want here. I love Las Vegas. I think I loved it even more as a criminal defense lawyer, because you=re right in the thick of the action. I can=t tell you why I love it, but I can tell you that when I leave for a day and come back, I get a lump in my throat when I fly in and I see the lights there, or if I drive over the mountain and I see the town. I don=t know why I love it so much, but I do love it. What would I miss? I just think every day in Las Vegas is exciting. I think I=d miss the excitement. I have a little condo down in Coronado. It=s gorgeous. Right on the ocean. Magnificent. And yet, you know, one or two days there is plenty. I can=t wait to get back here and see the town humming and buzzing. In order for Las Vegas to be a truly great city, the University has to be a truly great university. Down at Georgia Tech, one of the reasons Atlanta is getting all these bright people coming there, is Georgia Tech went up to Harvard, and they raided their science departments. They brought tenured, chaired, professors down to Atlanta, who brought their Ph.D. students with them. Overnight they developed a very intellectual climate. Las Vegas has been slower to do that. Las Vegas, for some reason, even though we talk about the best and the brightest, when we get rated by U.S. News and World Report, we=re not there anymore. I mean, we=re off the map, which is a damn shame. Instead of going forward and becoming the university of the millennium, we=re mired in the same thing. I don=t know what causes it, but nobody says that this is the Harvard of the West. I would like to have us become that. As a matter of fact, I had a conversation with the Senior Vice President of Microsoft today. Because I told him that I need Microsoft to come here. I need them to come into the community, and work with the University, and work with the downtown area, and do what they=ve done up in the Seattle area, where they=ve actually made these universities great universities, with R & D for terrific products, and contribute to a community. Our university has to become a fine university, and unfortunately, it=s not.
What are your thoughts about communication and community?
I was raised before television was popular. Television was like a treat. It wasn=t even in our home, my parents wouldn=t even allow it. We went to the next door neighbors= to see the Ed Sullivan Show, and The Milton Berle Show. Those were our treats. Then we went back and we did our homework, and we took our music lessons, and we did whatever people were doing in those days. Today, people don=t know how to talk. They don=t know how to communicate and it=s not just Las Vegas, it=s everyplace. They don=t know how to emote. That=s why there are so many crimes out there of a violent nature, because everything is just rageBroad rage. People are like Billy Budd.[1] They can=t express themselves, so they take a knife or a gun or a hammer, and that=s the way they express themselves. People don=t know how to talk anymore. I was raised in a family, and I raised my children, where we sat around the dinner table and we=d have discussions: how did you do in school? What=s new? What=s your friend doing? Now they come home and they sit in front of the TV. I don=t watch TV. I read the newspaper, but I think the newspapers stink, both of them. I think they=re irresponsible and I don=t think they=re complete. There are very few people in Las Vegas who scour through the newspaper like New Yorkers do the New York Times, or even Chicago, through the Trib, or Boston through The Globe. We=re a very fast community. So we read, and we look at [media], quickly. Whereas in the east, most people commute with public transportation, and they take the newspaper and they go on the train or the bus, and they=re reading their newspaper and they=re studying it, and they finally get to the crossword puzzle before they hit their destination. Nobody does that here. The alternate papers are more intellectual than either of the dailies. At least there=s a little thought. They=re not necessarily kind to me, but there=s a little thought that goes into their articles. I know from my days as a lawyer, as well as my days as a mayor, that TV has a far more substantial impact than the print media. I could be written about in five different columns, and nobody says they read about it. If I=m on TV, everyone says they saw it. So people talk about what they see on TV. TV makes an impression, whereas print media really doesn=t. And radio does, too. Radio is important. I learned that during the campaign. People would tell me that they loved my radio ads, and could actually repeat it word for word. They=d hear it in the car, and they were able to repeat it. They saw my TV ads, they were able to repeat them. Whereas if I had something in the newspaper, they wouldn=t even read it.
[1]Foretopman Billy Budd, by Herman Melville, was published in 1924. It is the story of the sailor Billy, though a decent man, is treated badly by his master-at-arms, Claggart. Billy strikes him, killing him unintentionally. The cause of this unfortunate event is Billy’s stammer that prevents him from defending himself in words when he is wrongfully accused by Claggart. The tale follows his trial under Captain Vere and his subsequent hanging. After his death we are told of his apparent Christ-like return in "glory as... the Lamb of God", and his fellow sailors begin to question whether the man has died at all. The opera of the story by Britten (1951) is extremely popular and one of the most important modern works in the classical repertoire. Melville=s purpose in writing the story originates in the part his older brother played in presiding over the court martial of a sailor involved in insubordination whose punishment was execution. (From, http://www.bibliomania.com/0/0/36/1006/frameset.html ). ( BACK ) |
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