To be totally honest, I am not sure what made me do it. I was having a really good day running errands with my wife. Catching up with The Mob Museum, stopping by PES Studios, and even a stopover to see our friends at Count’s Kustoms. It was a really good day.
So I thought that since I was passing through the low rent district of Las Vegas, I would swing in and check out the fake set/store/tourist rip-off for the reality TV show American Restoration. A.K.A. Rick’s Restoration. The man who scammed my old buddy Angel Delgadillo on a $4k restoration project Rick F’ed up and never once apologized for.
If it weren’t for appearing on the show Pawn Stars way too many times, this family of nut jobs would probably be on food stamps and hustling games of 3 card monte with drunk tourists on the strip… What’s worse is that there are people who buy into this tourist trap and pay $25 for an autographed picture or $35 for their “Boneyard” tour… (just my opinion)
In all honesty I guess the same could be said for people buying a $25 coffee mug of Chumlee at the Pawn Stars gift shop or a $300 metal sketch drawing from the guys at Counting Cars/Count’s Kustoms. But the people on those two shows PAY clients for their business, not scam business from their clients the way Rick does/did.
Walking through the small gift shop and seeing the signs begging people to buy their $35 Boneyard tour and all the other “Rick is wonderful” merchandise, complete with signs telling everyone to watch out because they may be recording here soon and no photography is allowed if they are… Yea, as if this is where they shoot the show… I kept getting the feeling I should feel sorry for someone suffering from small penis syndrome…
Anyway, that entire escapade including finding a parking spot, took a whole 10 minutes of my life that I will never get back. Afterward, my wife suggested we go someplace less seedy before heading home… So we went to the Erotic Heritage Museum. Somehow seeing the history of porn felt much cleaner than the place we had just left…
Now just for my own warped sense of humor; I would love to get Rick on a Podcast and see if he can defend his actions with Angel or address his many critics.. It would be a dynamite show for sure…
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