Sex, Start-Ups, and Diplo: A Weekend in Vegas

[Editor's Note: Every once in a while, random brands offer to fly us or our writers to places to do things in the hopes that we write about how great their product is. The formal term for things like these is a "junket." We usually ignore them, because who wants to give some random-ass brand free advertising? But one day, we got an email from someone asking if they could fly a representative of Noisey to Las Vegas to go to a Bruno Mars concert. We immediately said "Yes," because that sounded ridiculous. Almost immediately after that, we asked our friend Jazper—who embodies the holy trinity of smart, funny, and totally batshit reckless—to go and wreak havoc. This is his story.]

FRIDAY

10:34 AM –There is a limo parked outside my apartment to take me to the airport. I’m getting emotional.

12:23 PM – Boarding my flight. I see on Twitter that Diplo is playing in Vegas. Luke Davis, pro surfer and amateur Twitter thot, slides into my DMs saying we’re on the same flight. We make plans to link.

1:55 PM – “Welcome to Las Vegas. You can now turn on your devices to text your friends or tweet about how fabulous your all-male crew was.”

2:40 PM – Check in at The Cosmopolitan. I’m given a private terrace bedroom suite on the 32nd floor. The room is exceptionally beautiful. I feel ridiculously lavished. A handwritten card advises I start my stay by taking a selfie since “breathtaking moments are sometimes forgotten.” True.

4:39 PM – I have to see Diplo so I leave my hotel and catch a cab to Encore at the complete opposite end of The Strip.

5:00 PM – I get to Encore, this outdoor beach club where Diplo is playing, and already only have an hour left before my meet and greet, but have convinced myself that even if just for two seconds, I NEED to express myself for Diplo to get my weekend started. The bouncer takes one glimpse at me and says I’m not allowed in because I’m “not in proper swim attire.” I’m about to cry because I’d just changed for dinner. Kicked out before I was even in.

6:10 PM – Cocktail meet and greet at Comme Ca where I was given some shpiel about the brand that I didn't pay attention to, and met the five other media reps invited out to the trip. We receive gift bags.

7:31 PM – The restaurant we’re at, Rose. Rabbit. Lie., is a “social experiment” that explores what it’s like to have dinner backstage at a show. While we munch on manchego-cheese-fried Brussels sprouts, slices of caviar pizza, and deconstructed beef stroganoff, there are literally gymnasts swimming in and out of an orb of water, a guy stripping then balancing his whole body upside down on a couch, and acrobats hanging off rings suspended from the ceiling.

9:36 PM – After dinner we watch Vegas Nocturne, what can best be described as a mindfuck of an adult variety show. My favorite act were def the twins tap-dancing to Skrillex.

11:51 PM – Charging my phone in a limo on the way to the grand re-opening of Drai’s at Bally’s.

12:58 PM – After waiting two hours to get into the club, I am being poured 72 vodka crans, and am jumping on beach chairs.

1:52 AM – Trapping with Luke Davis in his bottle service, then breaking onstage to twerk for Steve Angello.

3:19 AM – Meet up with some friends at a gay club off the strip. It’s not a thing so I convince them to come back to The Cosmopolitan. The sun comes up and I try to hook up with someone off Grindr, but to no avail.

SATURDAY

10:30 AM – Last one to arrive to breakfast. There’s only half an hour left before our first activity so I frantically start grabbing one of each dish, but only end up eating the fried chicken.

11:35 AM – Limo to this helicopter joint. I express myself on one and tweet it at Diplo.

12:20 PM – I AM IN A HELICOPTER FLYING OVER SIN CITY. THIS IS THE GREATEST MOMENT OF MY LIFE. Diplo retweets the pic of me expressing myself on a helicopter so I Triple Salchow into his DMs about his Major Lazer show later in the day. I love Twitter.

1:53 PM – Chilling at Queue Bar, having cocktails, being served platters of croissantwiches. I’m having a cocktail that is supposed to simulate drinking literal DIAMONDS. The music playlist in the casino is on point. Does The Cosmopolitan have a Soundcloud?

2:28 PM – Given a private Craps lesson and $200 worth of chips to gamble with. I’m too drunk to understand anything so I just cash the chips out, trapping out The Cosmo.

3:15 PM – Wasted at Talon Club, a high-limit speakeasy lounge. My skin is starting to break out in blotches. I look like A$AP Yams. Why am I smoking a cigarette?

4:22 PM – Given a $500 gift card to get outfitted in the hotel boutiques for Bruno Mars later. Under the pretense that Major Lazer is playing the same beach club I wasn’t let into the day before, I buy swimming trunks, quickly change into Tevas, and cab again to the other side of The Strip.

5:00 PM – I pull up to Encore in my swimwear look only to find out MAJOR LAZER ISN’T EVEN PLAYING.

5:22 PM – I start putting jewelry on hold at Hermès to distract me from the fact that I failed to see Diplo twice. I try to take a selfie with Jermaine Dupri but his security guard knocks my iPhone out of my hands and I have a dive down and grab it before it gets scuffed on the marble floor of the Wynn.

6:47 PM – There is no time to look for an outfit so I show up to this fancy steak dinner wearing my DIPLO SWIMWEAR LOOK while everyone else looks classy and done up in their new clothes. I am so embarrassed. I want to die.

8:58 PM – Meet and greet with Bruno Mars. We do prayer hands.

9:08 PM – From a private opera box ontop of The Chelsea we are served bottles of glow-in-the-dark Dom Perignon. ANYTHING CAN BE AN EDM. I get so drunk during the opening female DJ that I start doing my own PERFORMANCE, pouring Dom all over my body, straddling one of my legs over a glass ledge hanging 7,200 feet above the floor, then grinding on it, as the entire audience below cheers me on. I am so turnt one of the execs of The Cosmopolitan has to run up to our box and grab me off before I fall and die.

9:37 PM – Bruno’s voice touches me. Suddenly I forget about how dumb I look wearing swimming trunks and Tevas to a concert. I’m so overcome with emotion that I literally start to cry tears of $250 luxury champagne.

12:30 AM – The entire staff and their entourage is blacked out pouring up 72 bottles of Grey Goose next to Kaskade at Marquee, all chanting cult-y chants about their brand. At this point I’m honestly sick of hearing EDM so I manage to drag some of the media reps, and this guy I want to hook up whose name I can’t remember but that I think is Jack, to the rap stage, which is straight fire.

2:09 AM – I cab to the Wynn with Jack. It turns out that Diplo only listed me for Surrender without a plus-one, so I use $100 of the $200 gambling chips I cashed out to pay his cover. I FINALLY MAKE IT INTO DIPLO. He is DJing out the top of a supersized Major Lazer head. Walshy Fiya and Diplo’s dancers are yiking. My trip culminates in the moment I break onstage to express myself.

4:05 AM – Jack and I find ourselves back at the rap stage at Marquee. The DJ is playing an all trap set for the 20 or so people in the club who are still up partying. ALLOFASUDDEN this crew of British Indians and their ethnic thots get ontop of the DJ booth, each holding a stack of ones, and start MAKING IT RAIN. Dollar bills are flying in the air like confetti. Everyone is on their hands and knees scrambling to pick up as many ones as they can shovel into their bodies. The DJ booth is completely COVERED in ones. I’m almost kicked out for taking too much. I leave the club with my pockets stuffed.

5:16 AM – I’m a thot.

SUNDAY

The next morning I wake up naked in bed to the crunching noise of Jack casually eating hummus and pita chips. AM I A DJ? I pack up all my shit, check out of the hotel, but the limo driver who was scheduled to take me to the airport CEASES COMMUNICATION and NEVER COMES. I only have an hour and half before my flight and am freaking the fuck out. I end up sharing another one of the media rep’s limos to the airport. We’re dropped off at his airline, Virgin, which I assume I’m also on since we were on the same arriving flight, but when I go to check in I realize I’m flying out of a SPIRIT, which I am told is in a completely remote part of the airport. I am having a panic attack in a cab. I get to Spirit but by the time I get there IT’S TOO LATE TO CHECK IN. I frantically try to get ahold of the onsite trip contacts but none of them are responding because they’re all in the air. I am having a mental breakdown crying into my chicken tenders. An hour later, I get word that another flight has been booked for me, and choke on a french fry breathing in a sigh of relief. I arrive in Los Angeles five hours later, and am taken in my last limo back home. I spend the night straightening out and counting each of the crumpled up dollar bills in my suitcase that I’d caught in the club the night before. $156. Thanks, Vegas.

Jazper Abellera lives in Los Angeles and has some important information about Robesman. He's on Twitter - @BOYTWEETSWORLDX