The first time I went to Las Vegas was for a bachelor party. Highlights of that trip included seeing Siegfried at the airport, my first limousine ride in which a limo driver handed me a beer, playing the card game War at Circus-Circus and – after 24 straight hours of mayhem – falling asleep inside one of the world’s worst strip clubs. I don’t even think it had a name. I think it was just called “Strip Club.”

For the record, there is no sleep like strip club sleep. It is a far superior experience compared to falling asleep on the toilet at work, a phenomenon that I have documented extensively.

When I moved to Los Angeles I returned to Vegas every six months or so. No matter the company, it was always good times. The best flight in the country might be the Southwest flight from LAX to Vegas on a Friday night. (They leave every 35 seconds after 4 PM.) The girls are dressed to party. The cocktails flow. The pilots leave the cockpit and play Frisbee with the black box. It’s good fun.

The best part is how quick it is. You go wheels up in L.A. and within an hour you are on the streets of Las Vegas. There are many advantages to living in Los Angeles and easy access to Sin City is one of them.

(Above: Southwest flight 089 from LAX to Vegas.)

It was bound to happened. After six years of good times I finally soured on Las Vegas.

A few years ago I had a bummer of a weekend at a bachelor party. At the strip club I was one of the few guys buying drinks and lap dances – something everyone should have been doing. At dinner, some of the groom’s friends bought bottles of wine and steaks and demanded that we split the bill equally. Because I’m a spineless dolt, I paid $75 for a $25 meal. (If my buddy is reading this – I think the world of you and your wife, but some of your friends are cheap. I had a good time with you and our friends.) I am not sure why, but I blamed the weekend on Las Vegas. I felt like I had made too many withdrawals from the Clark County Good Times Bank Account and I was overdrawn.

I finally returned last year to celebrate my parents’ anniversary. It was a good trip – my family is great – but it’s a far different experience than when you’re hopped up on Bud Light and peel ‘n eat shrimp with eight of your friends.

So here I was, ready to write Las Vegas off forever, checking out pamphlets for Laughlin and Primm, when my brother calls and asks if I want to go to Sin City for 24 hours. We had a free flight and accommodations. All we had to do was attend an event for his work.

Thus began my Las Vegas Renaissance.

We flew from LAX to Vegas in the early afternoon, arrived at our hotel and did something incredibly smart. We both took naps. This is one of the best-kept secrets of Las Vegas, something noted Vegas-phile Bill Simmons doesn’t write about on ESPN.com and the tourism board will never advertise. Naps are the battery that powers Las Vegas. They’re nature’s Red Bull. Without that one hour of laying unconscious in your hotel bed in the middle of the afternoon, the entire city does not happen. No drinking, no gambling, no sleeping with women named Yvette. You have to nap. Bugsy Siegel knew it. Frank Sinatra knew it. Danny Gans knew it. And now you know it. No city’s economy relies more on the mid-afternoon nap than Las Vegas.

After finishing our naps – and shaking each other’s hands in congratulations for being the smartest brothers ever – we hit a pre-event happy hour for free food and drinks. I am a journalist by trade and have never been close to the money stream in any company at which I’ve worked. My brother works close to the money stream. My advice to my children will be to bathe in the money stream, to let it wash over them in free Jack-on-the-rocks and delicious skewered meats. They may lose their souls in the process, but they’ll never open an empty refrigerator and contemplate eating the light bulb.

We attended the event. I am going to give the event short shrift because it’s never really about the event in Las Vegas or Hollywood. It’s about the after-party. And we were given access to a kick-ass after-party at what is arguably the hottest night club in the country – PURE at Caesar’s Palace. This is where Paris and Britney and Arab guys whose fathers hold hands in public with President Bush go to party.

The line outside the club was 200 deep. I didn’t have to wait because I was part of a VIP party. This 25-pushing-44 hag in a red cocktail dress scowled at me like “How are you getting in and I’m not?” I actually shrugged my shoulders as if I knew what she was thinking. I didn’t turn around to see her reaction, but I like to think she ran off and shoulder-tackled a slot machine into the ground.

My PURE experience was probably different than the average person’s. I was let into a roped-off section that featured a table, seats and “bottle service.” “Bottle service” or “table service” is when you purchase $50 bottles of vodka for $400. For reasons that are still unclear to me, vodka just tastes better when it costs $350 more than you would pay retail. I remember thinking, “I wish poor people were here to see this.” I also remember thinking, “This vodka would taste better coming out of the last bald eagle’s dry white skull.”

I am not a night club regular. (No! Joe, are you kidding? Come on. Your wardrobe is sporting goods chic and you drive a car that can at its best be described as “sensible.” You’re a party animal, bro! Nope. Not true, bro.) As a non-regular, I was struck by how many sections were off-limits to other people. Our section was roped off to everyone who was not in our party. Tables were roped off. Stages were roped off. The supply closet where they kept the rope was roped off. Everything was roped off.

(Above: The upstairs roof at PURE. Note that the western half of the city has been roped off for VIP access.)

Everyone in town has a little bit of money, but those who have a lot of money can show off by purchasing access to roped-off sections. A small table sets you apart from the Joe Public crowd. Having your own elevated stage section sets you apart from the table crowd. Our driver from the airport to the hotel said that there are guys – rich heirs, mostly – who go into these clubs on weeknights and drop $10,000 like it’s nothing. (That could buy me so many workout shorts.)

The evening completely confirmed for me that Las Vegas is no longer a gambling destination, it’s a clubbing destination.

After a 24-hour blitz through the city on someone else’s dime, I fell back in love with Las Vegas. I won a couple bucks at roulette, met some new people, was given more beer by more limousine drivers and traded “Caddyshack” quotes with 12 complete strangers in a limo while riding up and down the Strip.

It’s a great city. Las Vegas is the girlfriend you can’t break up with, mainly because she’ll let you do anything to her. You know you can’t marry her, but you also know you’re an idiot if you ever dump her.

(To hear Sean, Mike, Carlos and me - and special guest comedian Hal Rudnick - talk about this column on The Second Column podcast on iTunes, click here.)

Update: The History of the Joke re-airs Saturday night at 10 PM. I appear 1 hour and 20 minutes in. For more on this … read below.

I made my TV debut as an entertainer Monday night.

Before I get into the awesome story of my two seconds of glory, it should be known that this was not my first appearance. From 1998 to 2002 the back of my head, my hands and my notebook appeared on ESPN at least once a month at the various events that I covered as a professional sports journalist. If you assembled my back-of-the-head footage from every one of those press conferences, and played it fast-forward, you can actually watch all of my hair fall out until I am completely bald. When I run for president in 2028 I am sure my enemies will use this footage against me.

I also once sat in the “Jenny Row” of the Jenny Jones Show. This will probably also be used against me at some point in my political future.

Monday night was different. Monday night represented a major step down the path to entertainment glory. Someday when I am invited to a party where I am offered cocaine I will look back on Monday night and say, “Thank you Monday, February 18, 2008, for helping me attend the types of parties I had only heard about in Eagles songs.”

So, on what channel did I make my comedy debut? Was it Comedy Central, which has launched so many careers? Was it HBO, the network that all comedians long to be on? Was it one of the Big Four – NBC, ABC, Fox or Weather Channel? No. It was that chronicler of all things important, that sleep tonic for men aged 40-72, the home channel of the Fightin’ Luftwaffe – The History Channel.

My comedy music group Hero Style, which consists of me and my friend Mike, appeared on a History Channel documentary entitled The History of the Joke. I do not know when it will air again – or if it will air again – but I do know you can buy it online here for $29.95.

(Above: Hero Style performs on the night it was taped for television. Any minute now those History Channel groupies will come rolling in. Yep, any minute. Whistle sound.)

Here’s the back story. Last fall Hero Style played a weekly comedy show called Punk House, hosted by our friend Ed Galvez. (Ed was on the Feb. 7, 2008 Second Column podcast.) Ed told us that people would be there taping the show as part of a documentary on comedy. The segment we’d be taped for would focus on new comedians.

I am happy to say that the presence of a History Channel camera did not alter the quality our performance. At one point I did say to myself, “Come on Joe, you have to be funnier than Modern Marvels: Mountain Roads.” But otherwise there was no extra pressure. Mike and I had a good set. (“Set” is comedy-speak for “the thing I do every night that I have never been able to properly explain to members of my family.”) The producer we spoke with said he had not taped many music comedy acts, so we figured we had a chance to stay off the cutting room floor as the French fry in Los Angeles’ comedy box of onion rings.

Monday night our dreams came true. We made the final cut. And we looked good.

For both of the seconds we were on TV.

Sure, we were used as B-roll footage. Sure, the words we were saying were not audible. Sure there was a graphic for an upcoming History Channel special covering half the screen. Sure, the editor followed our shot with a shot of a DIFFERENT audience not laughing. That’s OK. Didn’t matter. We were on television.

Since I am pretty sure you have not seen the footage, I have taken the liberty of breaking down our appearance second by second, so that you may enjoy our cable television debut the way the rest of America did Monday night.

SECOND 1: A Time of Beginnings
We are on stage at the Westside Eclectic theater in Santa Monica. You can tell it is the Westside Eclectic because the crumbling brick wall in the background makes it look like we are performing comedy in Afghanistan. I start off seated on a stool in a listening position. It is clear that Mike, also seated on a stool, holding a guitar, has just said something funny. I smile, shift my body down and to the left, look up and laugh. Mike then raises his left arm in the air, and for reasons that are still unclear to both of us, he forms a backward C with his hand.

Mike is a fine comedian, but during this second I own the stage. I am chewing up the scenery, just killing with my smile, shift, look and laugh. I am like Robin and Whoopi and Billy all rolled into one big Louie Anderson ball. The audience probably does not realize Mike is on stage, or even alive. If his parents are watching, they forgot he was even born. I am on. But that all changes during…

SECOND 2: A Season of Changes
I pull up lame in Second 2: A Season of Changes. I have already smiled, shifted, looked and laughed. All I do now is direct my attention to Mike so I can hear the rest of what he has to say. It’s a supportive move of a good comedy partner, which I clearly am, but it’s pretty evident after watching this 45 times that I’m a huge letdown, entertainment-wise, in this second and final second. Hollywood ain’t gonna come knocking for that kind of performance. Meanwhile Mike is magnificent. He is holding the audience in rapt attention with his backward C, which he shifts, ever so deftly, from left to center, so that it lines up in symmetric proportion a few inches in front of his forehead. I have no idea what he said at that point during the show, but it didn’t matter. Backward C said it all.

Mike, with his grand hand gesture, stole the final second.

And thus concluded Hero Style’s TV debut.

Comedy Scoreboard
Joe 1
Mike 1
Winner: America

I can understand why the editors chose not to include our act or both of the interviews they conducted with us before and after our show. We’re not exactly famous. It’s just unfortunate, because they left a lot of gold on the cutting room floor. Here is what I remember from our pre- and post-show interviews. You Hero Style buffs out there should enjoy this. These things are all true.

• Mike saying he was the better half of Hero Style. (Which is probably true – but I was standing right there. Ass.)
• Mike saying Hero Style had been playing for five years when it had only been around for two. (Mike was counting all of our time together as comedians. If this is how he does his taxes, he is going to prison.)
• Mike saying that I am like a scared little lamb on stage. (That is what is called personality transference. I’m a beast on stage. Mike’s lip often quivers during shows and sometimes he makes in his pants when people say the word “theater.”)
• Mike calling Andy Dick, whom neither of us knows, a dick. (I am wondering if Mike has a history with Andy Dick that I should know about.)
• Mike mocking me by saying that I have a golden voice. (In a city full of musical sluggers, I am a journeyman infielder at best. Still, I was standing right there.)
• Mike saying that we often buy each other hamburgers. (Now he is just out of control with the lies.)
• And finally, after our interview was over, Mike stepping back into the shot, pointing at the camera and saying “Watch the History Channel!” To which our friend Ed responded: “They are.” To which everyone within 20 feet responded by laughing their asses off. (This really should have made the documentary. It was the funniest thing that happened all night.)

It turns out that when you put a camera on Mike, who is normally the quietest guy in the room, he becomes a raving, backstabbing egomaniac who will lie about anything (including hamburgers), calls out celebrities we don’t know and likes to tell people to do a thing they are already doing.

But I can’t get mad. The guy’s hilarious.

Next time you watch The History Channel remember to always … Watch the History Channel!

(To hear Sean, Mike, Carlos and me - and special guest comedian Doug Dreisel Jr. - talk about this column on The Second Column podcast on iTunes, click here.)

Craisins are the only way to eat a cranberry. If there’s a better way, I don’t want to know about it.

I am catching up with The Wire and am halfway through Season Two. Right now I am calling it the second-best cop drama of all time, after The Shield. I have an open mind, though, and if keeps getting better I will consider flipping those top two spots. For now: 1.) Shield 2.) Wire 3.) NYPD Blue

(Above: Vic Mackey of The Shield hears the news that I may bump his show down to No. 2.)

Also, Lost has been completely compelling this year. I am enthralled the way I was in Season One. Can’t wait to see where they are going with the Oceanic 6.

Book-wise, I just finished a fantastic one called Common Genius by Bill Greene. It is about how ordinary people are the ones who have shaped the course of human history for the better. And, as the perfect follow-up to that book, I am reading The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstram, which is a book about how intellectuals led the United States into Vietnam.

Music-wise, I have not been downloading anything because I got the new Sirius Stiletto 2, which allows me to listen to Howard Stern/rock music/sports all day through my WiFi connection.

I have not seen a movie in months.