Las Vegas — There he was, Mr. Barry Manilow, looking retro-glam and kinda-fab, splashed across a billboard on my way from the Las Vegas airport to the Mandalay Bay Hotel. Red satin jacket, plenty of hair, dreamy smile. He was playing the Hilton, and I had $1,000 to spend. But on him? I didn't think so.

I'm not cool, but cool people tell me the Mandalay Bay is the place to be in Vegas these days. When I arrived, the gleaming marble lobby was already filling with fancy people. Like the other big Vegas hotels, the Mandalay is a destination in itself, an entertainment zone, and the briefest perusal told me just getting out of the place might be a challenge — it has 23 restaurants, eight lounges, endless shops and an aquarium with 15 kinds of sharks.

JIM COOPER/STR (ENLARGE)

It's hard to miss Barry Manilow on a visit to Vegas, where the pop star performs regularly at the Las Vegas Hilton.

My room, on the 20th floor and $283.35 with tax, was comfortable but not luxurious, most notable not for the shark-cam on the TV but for the view: I could see the Luxor, the Excalibur, New York-New York, the Monte Carlo, the Tropicana, the MGM Grand, the Bellagio and, far in the distance, Caesars Palace.

Each was a palace of branded entertainment in itself — as was the view: Not only was I in Las Vegas, but I also got to see that I was in Las Vegas.

Better go bet

Indeed, there was betting to do. After breakfast in my room ($25.90), I wanted to check out the hotel's sports book, one of the largest betting parlors in town. Its huge wall of 31 screens reminded me of Mission Control. You could bet on anything: horses, NBA and college basketball, pro hockey, whether the Kansas City Royals would win the 2006 World Series (odds: 200 to 1) and, of course, the NFL.

It was a playoff weekend, and though still morning, lines were forming. I hadn't followed the NFL season closely and so had consulted my teenage son, who had prepared a cheat sheet for me. "Pick Seattle to win but Washington to beat the 9.5-point spread," he explained.

The clerk at the counter seemed disgusted by my bets, perhaps because of the minuscule amount of money I'd wagered. Fifty bucks? I slunk away and soothed myself at a $1 blackjack machine.

But other entertainments soon beckoned — as they do in Vegas, where the limits of self-indulgence are officially measured by one's wallet.

A quick lunch in the Mandalay Bay's buffet ($21.31), and it was time to pay my respects to the old downtown, the classic Vegas of Fremont Street, where it all began some 60 years ago. The famous winking neon cowboy atop the Pioneer, the one in all the old black-and-white clips of Vegas — was it still there?

I cabbed downtown, only to discover Fremont Street had become the Fremont Street Experience, a five-block roofed mall. The winking neon cowboy was there. "Yep, they ruined it," agreed a silver-haired gentleman in the Golden Nugget when I asked him about the change.

Nearby winked the inducements of the Girls of Glitter Gulch, a strip club, and inside, over two rather expensive beers, one of the entertainers agreed that the downtown wasn't what it used to be. Then again, neither was she. But hey, neither am I.

With cabs, beer and a little slot-machine action at El Cortez, I had frittered away $60. The money was going fast.

Barry Manilow's town

It was at the corner of Fremont and Las Vegas Boulevard that I saw him again, flashing by on the side of a municipal bus, retro-glam and kinda-fab. Barry, I muttered to myself, I know you have a new album, that you're hot-hot-hot now, but give it a rest, OK?

I explored the Strip in all its glory. At the Imperial Palace, I wandered past antique cars and watched blackjack dealers impersonate Elvis and Dolly Parton. I felt so good that I blew another $50 playing Big 6 and blackjack.

The crowds along the Strip were dipping happily into one giant casino after another. The distances between them were deceivingly great: Man small; casinos big.

I paused outside the grandly enormous Bellagio. A sense of happy unreality pervaded. Vast sums were being bet and lost, yet all was good. Perhaps it was the warmth of the sun. Perhaps it was the Beatles tune coming out of the Bellagio's lampposts.

Speaking of vast sums, how were my NFL bets doing? I returned to the sports book at the Mandalay, where the room was packed. Seattle went ahead 20-10 with about two minutes to go, clinching the game and covering the spread. Packs of guys high-fived each other; others of us stared miserably at our tickets.

Evening approached; time to pick a show. Here Celine Dion and Jay Leno, there Joan Rivers, and something with Aussie male strippers called "Thunder Down Under." And then, in yet another ad, smiled Barry.

Who was he kidding? I could hear my wife howling with derision.

And yet. He was everywhere — taunting me, teasing me, betting me I'd be entertained. Maybe I could win for once. And why not pay homage to the very idea of the Vegas nightclub act, a sacred line that stretched back to Elvis and Sinatra? How could I understand Vegas if I didn't go?

I succumbed. The ticket was $132.50, and with the long cab ride to the Las Vegas Hilton and a drink, I was out $169.50.

I settled into a seat designed for plus-size Americans and attempted polite conversation with a 70-ish woman, but she looked at me in sullen silence.

Only later — after Barry had jacked the crowd into a frenzy — did I understand that I had witnessed her disbelief that a stranger might rob her of precious seconds within the Church of Barry. This somewhat arthritic-looking woman became a fist-thrusting, torso-gyrating soul-groupie so transported that she nearly whacked the drink out of my hand.

Grudging admiration

Let me say this about Barry. The guy has pipes. He hit all the notes. He mixed his nostalgic, self-deprecating banter with the old hits perfectly. The "Copacabana" finale featured a snazzy runway dropping from above that allowed him to frolic out over the audience, and as the gray-haired patrons went nuts, I realized not only had he atomized my skepticism, but also that the guy was going to do this again, tonight. There was a 10 o'clock show! The guy was pushing 60! You win, Barry. (Manilow performs four nights a week, resuming Aug. 2.)

Next up, a faux sexual adventure. Sex is for sale seemingly everywhere in Las Vegas; there are the strip clubs, massage parlors and fliers for call girls. But for those who want their Sin City experience at a safe distance, the city offers many fleshpot revues.

I chose "Zumanity," a Cirque du Soleil extravaganza whose announcer was a vampy Mistress of Seduction, presiding over contortionists, dancers, women swimming in a glass pool, and spectacular gymnastics. With cab fare and a drink, it set me back $135.

Setting aside cash for the next day's breakfast, I was down to my last $75. What to do? The cool people had told me to hit the Mix Lounge, an open-air bar atop THEhotel, the Mandalay Bay's super-upscale venue that thrusts to the sky like a gold cigarette lighter. I paid a sum of $25 to take a fast elevator to the top, where indeed very cool people were mixing.

I wandered about inauthentically with a drink, enjoying the air, which had a kind of crystalline, binocular clarity. You'd need to be in an airplane to have a better view.

I'd like to report that my remaining funds held me under my limit, but my weakness for blackjack caught up with me in the airport, where I blew my last $20 on the slots.

Total cost: $1,000 and, somewhere, a smiling Barry Manilow.

— Colin Harrison is an editor at Scribner. His latest novel is "The Havana Room."