Like a hot potato, the Tropicana Las Vegas continues to bounce from Columbia Sussex to Tropicana Entertainment and now maybe into the hands of Alex Yemenidjian. (This management-contract arrangement looks more like laying the groundwork for a sale ... if so, thanks for taking S&G's advice, guys. It's worth what you pay for it.)

A top price of $380 million can be viewed either as a bargain -- $11 million an acre, a long way down from the berzerk price paid by ColSux two-plus years ago -- or a boondoggle, seeing as even $380 mil represents an 84X cash-flow multiple. Somebody's got a job ahead of them.

Unfortunately, TropEnt CEO Scott Butera hasn't had his eye on the ball. Now, there wasn't anything he could do to keep the Titanic and Bodies exhibits from jumping ship to Luxor. But he pulled the plug on Folies Bergere and the Comedy Stop. Then, having given magician Dirk Arthur the boot, Butera's minions had to reverse field and grant the illusionist a reprieve through September. (So if you go to the Trop in April, the only entertainment offering will be an afternoon magic show. That's it.)

Just another day at the Trop.

As of Sunday, the Trop will have no (as in "zero") marquee attractions to tout. So it's an understatement to say that an agreement "in principle" with comedian Bobby Slayton doesn't come a day too soon and a formal contract needs to be inked yesterday.

When Nero played an as-yet-uninvented instrument, Rome burned. Whilst Butera fiddles, the Trop merely continues fade. Unless TropEnt's song and dance about repositioning the Trop is just a softshoe act, playing for time until the whole problem can be deposited in Yemenidjian's lap.

Ever since he took the reins at TropEnt, Butera has been fixated upon getting the Tropicana Atlantic City back (which he should) and, secondarily, with regaining Casino Aztar in Indiana (which he did). But the LV Trop has clearly been a low priorty and now he's washing his hands of it. Which means the real problem won't be Yemenidjian's but that of Trop employees and their equally neglected customers.

Patience, thy name is a Harrah's Entertainment bondholder. A surprisingly large number of these long-suffering souls are willing to wait just shy of a decade to redeem their distressed Harrah's debt. They're better men than I.

This book looks like a must-have. And, no, Huntington Press didn't publish it. But we do have a nifty new edition of Whale Hunt in the Desert, thank you for asking.