David Mckee's Stiffs & Georges - Planet Hollywood

Eight Vegas shows reviewed

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:10:00 -0700

As promised, Mike Shackleford's WizardOfVegas.com site has launched. It took a while to get the bugs worked out, hence my review of Scarlett & her Seductive Ladies of Magic didn't appear until after the show had closed. However, to the best of my knowledge, you can not only read about but still see all of the following ...

• Amazed

• Anthony Cools

• Gordie Brown

• Marriage Can Be Murder

• Matsuri

• Sin City Bad Girls

• V - The Ultimate Variety Show

Sample line: "Yes, Marriage can be murder ... and so is the food." Enjoy!

Why does Steve Wynn hate America?

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:31:00 -0700

Or maybe the question should be, What was Steve Wynn smoking before he told CNBC "Money Honey" Maria Bartiromo that Wynn Macau was making more than all other 30 Macao casinos combined? Perhaps he meant his joint is the single-highest-grossing casino in the Chinese protectorate, but his phraseology is misleading:

Wynn's remarks on the importance of staffing and customer service are, as usual, on point. However, he starts sounding like a puppet of Peking ("One thing about the Chinese government, I think they get it right."), praising the steadiness and thoughtfulness of its policies. Here's an example of Peking's steady, thoughtful policymaking in action:

Wynn's comments that infrastructural improvements don't help at tourism-dependent (casino) industry make him sound naive -- doubly so if aforesaid projects put disposable income into consumers' pockets. Still and all, Wynn is far more reasonable on CNBC -- and immeasurably less obnoxious -- than during his obstreperous Fox News Sunday rants.

Although Wynn clearly fancies himself the new political pundit on the block, he's got but one string to his bow: bellowing "Tax policy" over and over. Which translates as "Tax cuts (for me)!" Yup, if Big Guvmint would just stop collecting taxes from Big Bidness, everything would be hunky-dory, economically speaking. We'd have new jobs coming out the ass.

Here's the problem with that line of argument: We're fresh off eight straight years of tax cuts, tax holidays and corporate loopholes big enough to encompass every square foot of CityCenter. How did that work out for us?

More to the point, given a tax-averse administration and Congress, how did Wynn's casino colleagues handle their newfound largesse? Did they invest it responsibly? Hell to the no! That "bundling of the Strip" which Wynn has decried is the poisoned fruit of companies that were awash in capital and easy credit, who then used it to try and eradicate the competition. (Similar phenomena occurred in the regional casino markets and in the slot industry.)

Having cannibalized their main rivals, casino companies then began to devour themselves, in the form of insupportable debt levels and insane LBOs. And if Wynn really believes that government spending has never improved anyone's lot in life (he must have forgotten the New Deal, for starters), then how many standards of living are raised by merger-and-acquisition orgies? For the average worker, it means jobs are "consolidated" out of existence. Heck, not even executives are immune. Just ask some of the Mandalay Resort Group or Park Place Entertainment higher-ups who are now enjoying involuntary retirement.

Should the current administration hand out the kind of tax vacation Wynn is demanding, would the casino industry A) buy new and shiny objects, B) retire debt or C) create jobs? B & C would probably finish a distant second and third to A.

Just look at Harrah's Entertainment: It can't repay its creditors dollar for dollar but thinks nothing of snapping up 16% of Planet Hollywood. If there's degenerate gambling going on in the casinos, the worst of it can be found in the executive suites. If these guys ever took to playing Russian roulette, they'd probably leave at least five bullets in the revolver.

Wynn is probably feeling his oats, given the bullish, odds-defying early performance of his Hong Kong IPO. The real story may be that gains realized in the Hang Seng will be used to prop up Wynn's Las Vegas operations rather than to expand in Macao.

This just in: The two-week run of A Bronx Tale at the Venetian has been extended to a third weekend. A spoken-word play in a Strip theater seemed like a dicey prospect so this is very good news indeed.

Signs of the Times

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:02:00 -0700

You know the casino industry's in the crapper when, next week, Spectrum Gaming Group is hosting a conference entitled, Distressed Gaming Properties: The State of the Industry. This is so hot-of-the-presses Spectrum hasn't even got the registration page up ... yet.

Quoth Spectrum's e-mail blast: "With the recession battering gaming jurisdictions from Connecticut to Nevada, a new sector of the industry has come to the fore: distressed operations. Investment firms now have funds that specialize in distressed gaming assets, regulators are being asked to deal with situations they never considered, and operators are turning to outsiders to either right their operations or provide interim management services. In this session, experts will discuss the benefits and risks to distressed Gaming M&A, and how regulations and bankruptcy court can impact a successful takeover. They will also discuss how to properly apply multiples, and how EBITDA can be enhanced by skilled operators."

Maybe Penn National Gaming CEO Peter Carlino should attend this before he goes all in on Fontainebleau. His spokesman says Penn "is evaluating other Las Vegas opportunities." They may have "evaluated" Planet Hollywood right out of their grasp and passed on God knows what else. But F'bleau? That's a keeper. Yeah.

Goodman: "We're in the toilet"; "Peepshow" redux

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:42:00 -0700

Mayor Oscar Goodman sounds increasingly motivated to run for governor next year. He's angry, which is good: Nevada needs someone who's nettled about our sorry -- pardon the pun -- state of affairs. (I tried umpteen times to embed the KRNV-TV video but had to admit defeat; sorry again!)

As to Goodman's fear that a governor couldn't make a difference, recent history is a poor guide. Both Gov. Jim Gibbons and predecessor Kenny Guinn developed reputations for doing as little as possible to move their legislative agendas through Carson City. The rap on both was that they'd issue their budget and then basically take the phone off the hook. One cannot imagine such passivity from Goodman.

On the issue of why we need an irate candidate, just replace "Somalia" with "Nevada" and this is where we're headed, fast:

We don't have cholera yet but we had a dandy hepatitis outbreak recently. And our assembly-line endoscopy centers will be happy to literally rip you a new one. (Remember, it was Goodman who took action during the hepatitis crisis, while Gibbons dithered. Even the Gibbons-adoring Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial page likened Midnight Jim's crisis response to a kitten trapped in a paper bag.)

Peepshow 3.0: The R-J's Mike Weatherford goes back for the band-less, Aubrey O'Day-augmented version and finds that this addition-by-subtraction thing is working pretty well. He also makes some trenchant points about the dainty approach that has ill-served the show from its inception.

The casualties mount

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:54:00 -0700

Just yesterday I was lamenting the dearth of possible fallback positions for entertainers bounced from this or that casino. Heck, even the formerly volatile V Theater is enjoying its first stable lineup of shows since forever.

Sadly, we can add Scarlett and her Seductive Ladies of Magic (aka Abraca-Sexy) to the casualty list. With Charo literally and figuratively ailing, the Riviera's formerly robust lineup of shows is getting Slim-Fasted in a hurry.

Hopefully, somebody else can find a spot for Scarlett and her red bikini. Or she might take a cue from Bobby Slayton, who's literally getting out of town. So might Barry Manilow. However, we ran this down for a Question of the Day last week and the smart money has him taking up residence at the long-empty Paris-Las Vegas showroom. If Manilow can't break the jinx on that theater, nobody can.

I hope WizardOfVegas.com gets my Vintage Vegas review up before the show becomes history, because this Zowie Bowie extravaganza is an act of the so-bad-it's-good variety. It has the potential to go into posterity as one of the great Strip trainwrecks of all time.

Despite not having seen Vintage Vegas, Steve Friess channels the experience uncannily well: "I missed, for instance, what must have been a pretty disastrous opening night at the Monte Carlo for Zowie Bowie and its Vintage Vegas act ... even our most obsequious of entertainment scribes trashed them ... the idea here is that a major theater on the Strip is now given over to the alleged romance of Old Vegas. When it fails, I wonder, will anyone (else) suggest that maybe it wasn’t the execution that flopped, but the fact that people are bored with the effort to relive a bygone era?"

Having witnessed the completely pointless Rat Pack covers of spicy-as-mayonnaise Matt Goss, I'm inclined to agree. The 'retro' shows that work best -- like Rick Faugno's once-a-month showcase at South Point -- are ones in which the artist takes familiar material and makes his/her own. For Faugno, the songs associated with Frank Sinatra or Fred Astaire are as fresh and vital today as 50 years ago, and it comes through in his performance.

Much the same could be said for the Motown covers of Human Nature, a fantastic act that's literally crimped by management's determination to pack the absolute maximum number of tables into the Imperial Palace showroom. Memo to Rick Mazer: If you take 8-12 tables out, people will actually get up and dance, instead of merely wishing they could.

Speaking of showrooms, is there a smaller, crappier one than that at O'Shea's? You have to feel sorry for the performers who are relegated to this broom closet. Given the general disrepair evident at the Irish-themed casino, my best guess is that Harrah's Entertainment has decided to just let the place to go to hell until such time as they're ready to gut it and make it an anchor of their proposed off-Strip retail/restaurant mall.

Trop, Sands purges continue

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:36:00 -0700

It's official: "Pit Bull of Comedy" Bobby Slayton has snarled his last at the Tropicana Las Vegas. Thus endeth a brief, inauspicious reign by Anthony Cools over the Trop's upstairs showroom. A well-placed source advises LVA that Beatles tribute show Penny Lane was pulled after EMI hit it with a cease-and-desist letter. In any event, it left as invisibly as it arrived.

Trop CEO Alex Yemenidjian still has three shows he inherited from predecessor Scott Butera but it's pretty clear that he's going to put his own stamp on the property. As for Cools, well, he'll always have O'Shea's.

Movement at Cosmo. Buried in the Review-Journal (six items deep) is the news that the Cosmopolitan has wooed ~~John~~ Marshall Andrew away from Las Vegas Sands to be its CFO and hired Station Casinos refugee Marshall Andrew as chief information officer. Deutsche Bank looks serious about making that September '10 opening date.

Will the economy have improved sufficiently to have absorbed most of the CityCenter rooms and the Planet Hollywood Westgate ones by then (and maybe, but not very likely, Fontainebleau)? Boyd Gaming is betting otherwise. The Echelon cranes have been seen coming down, marking an additional hiatus in the project, which reportedly will not be resumed until 2012.

Las Vegas Sands: Execs overboard!

Andrew is just the latest exec lured -- or chased -- away from Sheldon Adelson's employ. Former Venetian veep Paul Pusateri (who helped launch Paris-Las Vegas back in the day) was just nominated as president at The Palms and ever-helpful Sands spokeswoman Mindy Eras has gone to Preferred Public Relations. Whether these moves are part of Adelson's promised cost reductions or are a winnowing out of perceived William Weidner loyalists, it must be getting lonely at the top.

There's quite a debate going on at the Las Vegas Sun on the rise and fall of themed resorts on the Strip. Surf over, check it out, maybe weigh in, if the spirit moves you.

Case Bets: Wynn in Macao, "Peepshow" strips down

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:30:00 -0700

• Steve Wynn is accelerating his timetable for developing on the Cotai Strip™. If Wynn continues to learn from his early miscalculations (and I see no reason to expect otherwise), a gaming-centric Wynn Resorts property on Cotai is a far better bet than Sheldon Adelson's retail- and hotel-heavy business model.

• While the unpredictable Aubrey O'Day is the ostensible focus of this Peepshow update, she's not the main point of interest. Rather, it's the spate of cheesparing moves made by BASE Entertainment.

The show's band has been thrown overboard and the cast has been reduced, requiring some performers to double in other roles. This explains the disappearance of Katie Webber, a strong vocalist whose big number has now been reassigned to Ms. O'Day. At some point, I'm going to be obliged to revisit Peepshow but I can tell you right now I'm not looking forward to it.

• Despite Sen. Harry Reid's juice job on the Sig Rogich Victorville Flyer (aka Desert Xpress), backers of an alternative maglev project are fighting back. Given that the most difficult part of the SoCal-to-Vegas drive is past once you reach Victorville, why anybody would park their car in the broiling sun and hop aboard Sig's Choo-Choo to Nowhere remains a mystery.

Crime doesn't pay; Wyden wimps out

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:19:00 -0700

Five dimes worth of damage, $40,000 bail -- and all to wrest a measly two grand from some vending machines at Harrah's Atlantic City. That's the losing bet made by two security guards. Couple this with the floormen who destroyed their careers for a comparably picayune sum of money they allegedly scammed from Planet Hollywood, and we're seeing a level of desperation in casino crime the likes of which I can't recall.

City of Dreams. Voters in Ohio haven't approved casinos in any form yet, but that's not stopping Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, who's already had a design executed. Gilbert has lined up critical support by promising to forego hotel rooms and restaurants (though he's left himself a little wiggle room there).

But don't be fooled: Phil Satre used the same Trojan Horse strategy to get an onshore casino in the heart of New Orleans. A few bankruptcies and legislative showdowns later, Harrah's N.O. has a hotel and a couple of restaurants. (Like it or not, Satre was brilliant.) I'll be so not surprised if Gilbert gets his casino, then discovers the numbers don't pencil out at a 33% tax rate, and starts waffling on his non-aggression pact with hoteliers and restaurateurs.

Damn that vox populi! Seems that Harrah's Entertainment had a bit of contractual noblesse oblige written into its pact to purchase Thistledown Racetrack. If the issue of racinos has to be put to a vote of the people, all bets -- so to speak -- are off. Which means that Harrah's can take its $89 million and skedaddle, leaving bankrupt Magna Entertainment holding the bag. For the moment though, Harrah's is playing the issue down, saying talk of a pullout is "premature" and hasn't been given much thought.

Even Las Vegas Sands appears to be feeling disappointed with early results from Sands Bethlehem. A massive, 2,000-slot expansion, slated for November, has been scaled back by 88%. Even so, Pennsylvania casinos are busy planning for the addition of table games (although the Lege hasn't approved it yet). The price of table games will probably be higher (18% tax + $15 million upfront) than casinos want, but at least they've been successful in battling back an expansion-sapping 34% tax rate on tables. For slots, they still have to pay a usurious 55%, one of the worst rates in the nation.

But if Sands wants to maximize its drawing power, it might want to think about finishing the hotel and other amenities that got shoved onto the back burner when Sheldon Adelson's coffers began to run dry. At least Sands has gotten a temporary reprieve from sliding to sixth place because -- even with financing in place -- Neil Bluhm is taking a go-slow approach to his $355 million Philadelphia casino, out of deference to historical preservations. (Funny how Bluhm can build a Philly casino complex for half of what Adelson blew on his unfinished Bethlehem resort.)

Fortune favors the bold, which means it won't smile upon Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who apparently caved to pressure from increasingly useless and counterproductive Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV). It looks like Hapless Harry is behind Wyden's craven withdrawal of an amendment that would have taxed Internet gambling to help pay for health care reform.

Incidentally, an amendment that would have authorized $100 billion to close the infamous Medicare "doughnut hole" was voted down yesterday. Jeez, those 'Net-bet taxes could have come in handy as an alternative means of plugging the hole. (Oh, and fuck you too, Max Baucus.)

And that goes double for you, stock-picker Jim Cramer, whose spam rips through our LVA filters like Japanese torpedoes through the hull of the U.S.S. Oklahoma. It makes me sorry I ever said anything nice about you, Jimbo.

O'Day meltdown at "Peepshow"

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:39:00 -0700

Do you think that Peepshow's producers are just maybe beginning to regret hiring loose cannon Aubrey O'Day? The former insta-band member canceled her second-ever performance of Peepshow because somebody (surprise, surprise) snapped a photo of her, topless, and posted on -- where else? -- the Internet. And don't bother Googling it because Ms. O'Day's lawyers have done a very efficacious job of banishing said photo into cyber-Siberia. The lady's apologia pro tantrum sua is a doozy:

O'Day's finger-wagging might carry more authority were it not coming from someone who flaunted her birthday suit in Playboy magazine (where she actually looked much less attractive than in the supposedly sans-makeup video confessional). Also, if you're going to show your "naughty bits" to the public and charge good money for the privilege of seeing them, one's physical appearance becomes fair game. (And, besides, name one intelligent person who cares what Perez Hilton thinks.)

Anyway, Ms. O'Day might want to enjoy Las Vegas while she still can, because in three months (or less) she's going to be Aubrey O'Who?

If you want to see a good show, skip the trainwreck at Planet Hollywood and head on up to CSN, where -- for the next two weekends -- Reefer Madness: The Musical is the best entertainment money can buy.

It's war!

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 19:04:00 -0700

If you are on Twitter, you're unlikely to find a feed more entertaining than that of Richard Abowitz. He's been lobbing a series of verbal artillery shells at new Peepshow headliner Aubrey O'Day. For instance, the Fidel Castro-admiring Ms. O'Day had her picture taken -- and published -- next to where the Planet Hollywood backstage entry code is posted. Clearly, she's not the sharpest tool in the shed and Abowitz is having great fun pointing this out ... frequently.

Are you ready for some football? No!

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:45:00 -0700

Galaxy Theatres' multiplex at The Cannery has scrapped all its big-screen showings of Monday Night Football, it was announced today, one week into the NFL season. Perhaps the incessant jabbering of Jon Gruden sent patrons screaming out onto the casino floor.

"Historic Announcement" at Trop: New CEO Alex Yemenidjian has booked a press conference on Wednesday morning with a "Special Guest" who represents an "exciting new partnership" in the entertainment sphere. It's the worst-kept secret in Vegas that Mr. Special Guest is better known as blogger Chuck Monster's least-favorite Strip headliner, Wayne F. Newton.

Also, the Sahara is (finally!) pulling the plug on Larry Marshak's ersatz Platters/Coasters/Marvelettes revue. Alas, the last act in this shameful saga of exploitation has yet to play out. The Marshak troupe will actually move up the Strip food chain, to Planet Hollywood. However, its new home is the Wyrick Entertainment Complex, otherwise known as the "Venue of Death." If that doesn't kill the show, nothing will.

Well that's ... weird: The Las Vegas Sun's Brendan Buhler reports that waitresses at Monte Carlo's lounge within the Dragon Noodle Co. restaurant "are dressed as characters from Japanese animé cartoons, a hobby known as cosplay." This strikes Buhler as odd because the U.S. cosplay cosmos is dominated by teens and pre-teens, and is "geeky." (He said it, I didn't.) He likens it to a Miley Cyrus-themed nightclub, before noting that the uniforms resemble "schoolgirl outfits."

Which would explain a lot.

Eight isn't enough. Yet another GOP challenger enters the lists against Sen. "Hapless Harry" Reid (D-NV). Just FYI.

Penn hearts F'bleau ... maybe

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:24:00 -0700

So the much-bruited suitor for stalled, bankrupt Fontainebleau has been "outed" and it's ... Penn National Gaming. Ace reporter Alexandra Berzon, late of the Las Vegas Sun, broke the story. However, she notes that Penn and F'bleau have been dickering for three months: "Talks could still fall apart at any moment."

Given the criteria that Penn CEO Peter Carlino has been citing for any major casino purchase, F'bleau is an illogical choice. It's expensive, it's unfinished, it's location-challenged, it's a high-end property in a depressed market, it has a problematic condo component (read: units that will never sell) and, most of all, it's a snakepit of litigation. Plus, the cost of completion seems to escalate by the hour and is currently pegged at $1.5 billion.

Remember, Penn balked at paying $1 billion-plus for The Mirage, a turnkey, trouble-free resort. Meanwhile, Harrah's Entertainment is snatching Planet Hollywood right out from under Penn's nose and the company whiffed on a chance to acquire newly ascendant Greektown Casino in Detroit. Go figure.

A Penn spokesman "could not confirm or deny" the Wall Street Journal story. We'll take that as a "yes."

Aubrey has landed. As in "O'Day." Webmistress Jessica has forwarded the following from Holly Madison's Twitter feed: "@hollymadison123 Damn! I can't take one day off work without everything going to hell in a handbasket! Back to spreading the positive energy!" Like I said, word from the wise is that Madison and new Hitler-lovin' co-star Aubrey O'Day are anything other than BFFs.

Do not resuscitate?

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:01:00 -0700

Most of us hew to the standard English-language definition of "fixation" (as in "I have a sudden fixation with actresss Crystal Chappell"). However, in Cirque du Soleil-speak, "fixation" means "damage repair." To wit: Criss F. Angel vehicle Believe has been in need of fixation since before it opened. (Only Crazy Girls and Steve Wyrick get lower ratings from LVA members.)

It's nigh upon 11 months since Believe was foisted upon an eagerly skeptical Las Vegas and apparently, the "fixation" process still drags on within the catacombs of Luxor. Or not. Whatever the case, Cirque du Stuck on Themselves ain't tellin', not even to the Los Angeles Times.

Two thoughts: If the show's problems are so intractable they take nearly a year to "fixate," why not just bag it? Also, if what Cirque is presenting is a work in progress, ought not Believe to charge consumers a "price in progress"? Like, oh maybe $15/person to see Mr. Angel and his Cirque enablers try to figure out what the hell kind of show they want to do?

While I don't share Richard Abowitz's enthusiasm for Zumanity (for me, it's a show about sex that's staged by eunuchs). Ka is awe-inspiring and Mystere is enjoyable if you have a very high tolerance for whimsy. But it is with masterly understatement that Abowitz writes, "Cirque can be pretentious on stage and in the corporate culture."

Guy Laliberté's cosmic dream, our nightmare

Scarily, he reveals that head Cirque jerque Guy Laliberté is planning to spread coulrophobia to the cosmos. Is no place safe from putty-nosed clowns? Can't they accidentally-on-purpose open the airlock when Pennywise is trying to juggle in zero gravity or whatever Laliberté has in mind? (Given the reports of Laliberté's heterosexual athleticism, I have my suspicions as to what he really wants to experiment upon in zero G's.)

On the subject of ass-clownery, this takes the cake. I guess he believes "If you haven't been bookmarked, re-Tweeted and blogged/You might as well not have existed."

Adios, Charo? Moving further up the Strip, Abowitz speculates that an ankle sprain may provide the excuse for the Riviera to draw the curtain on Charo in Concert. (I accidentally typed "Charon." A Freudian slip?) Even reliably everything-is-better-than-ever Robin Leach concurs. Who'd have thought that, back when I reviewed Charo's show for CityLife, in tandem with Ali Spuck's cabaret act, that two months later, the plucky Ms. Spuck would be the one -- pardon the pun -- still standing?

Since the flamenco-guitar portion of Charo's show was a bit light on content (five songs), the Riv could have turned lemons into lemonade by working in more guitar and less coochi-coochi. But evidently not. But don't despair, guys. The Riv's still got Scarlett, Princess of Magic and her red bikini.

In an unrelated rumor, Tony 'n Tina's Wedding is alleged to be halfway out the door at Planet Hollywood. That always seemed a mismatch of show and venue; it will surely pop up somewhere else (LVA members give it our highest rating), should the rumor turn out to be true.

Harrah's buying spree

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:33:00 -0700

Thanks to reader Todd Bristow, who tipped me to Harrah's Entertainment's $89.5 million purchase of Thistledown Race Track, near Cleveland. Thoroughbred Times reports that over half of that amount ($47 million) is a "contingency" payment. The extra 47 mil would kick in if legislation is upheld that would allow conversion of Thistledown to a racino. The track is one of several assets being disposed of by bankrupt Magna Entertainment. If Harrah's can't step up to the plate, Penn National Gaming and Pinnacle Entertainment are in the on-deck circle.

As you've probably heard, Harrah's is also gobbling up the debt carried by Planet Hollywood. It's a strategic move, considering that Harrah's already owns acreage that extends back from Bally's and Paris-Las Vegas to Koval Lane and then wraps south around Planet Ho. It's also been posited that this could be a "passive investment," a gamble that Planet Ho will come back in a big way in the future. Sounds rather iffy to me but stranger things have happened.

Mind you, this is also the same Harrah's that has been buying back its own debt at distressed rates (most recently at 67 cents on the dollar) and restructuring payment schedules like mad to stay ahead of an avalanche of $19 billion-plus it owes on its LBO. Harrah's creditors, are you feeling like suckers yet?

Or perhaps the money is coming from sugar daddies Apollo Management and Texas Pacific Group. Apollo has already been kicking the tires of Fontainebleau and may well be the "potential buyer" who's poised to take the keys to that Edsel. Even with Harrah's skill set, a high-end condo-hotel like F'bleau would be new business model with which to tangle.

At least the likely scenario is that Harrah's would be merely the mechanic, pocketing a fee for trying to get F'bleau up and running. Gives new meaning to "cash for clunkers," no? (Then again, Penn Nat'l may be smarting so much from that thwarted breakup fee in Ohio that it decides to buy F'bleau as a bank-shot means of getting back at Harrah's. Who knows, when CEO's egos have been bruised.)

As the cherry on top, Harrah's furtive move on Planet Ho inspired the following "No shit, Sherlock" headline, courtesy of the Las Vegas Review-Journal: "Harrah's debt purchase could lead to takeover, analyst says." Gee, ya think? I look forward to, "Beginning of autumn could lead to lower temperatures."

From the mailbag #4: California, tech troubles & 'resort fees'

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:02:00 -0700

Reader Kerr Mudgeon is less than amused by a recent dig at the cuisine offered by Commerce Casino to California firefighters. He writes: "The firefighters can go to numerous other nearby eateries if they don't like the FREE meals offered by the Commerce Casino -- same as paying casino customers can eat at other places if they choose. Sound like 'looking the gift horse in the mouth.'"

Good news from IT: Our "austerity regime" of no photos and no links will, it is promised, be ended today. I can think of several potential blog entries yesterday that went unwritten because no linking capability was available, so this should put some wind back in S&G's sails ... although some might say a lack of wind is the least of this blog's problems.

It's absolutely imperative that you read our 9/10/09 Question of the Day. No, I didn't write it. Our hard-working research duo of Jessica & Tanya did. (Also, Steve Friess recently mis-credited me with the Today's News column; that's a J&T Production, too, along with the occasional assist from Anthony Curtis himself.)

Aaaaaaaaannnnyyyyy-way, today's topic (and it's only online for one day) is the pernicious Vegas phenomenon known as the "resort fee." The winner of the Sustained Greed Award goes to longtime gouger Station Casinos. Station's Green Valley Ranch is also the premier resort-fee offender ($25).

Others who provide optional amenities -- of varying desirability -- in return for the fee include Bellagio ($25), The Mirage ($15), Planet Hollywood ($5) and Gold Coast ($3, which actually buys you quite a lot). The geniuses at Morgans Hotel Group get the Steal the Stripes out of Your Socks Award for charging you $7 for "in-room safe, parking, minibar (but not its contents), bath products, and a plasma TV."

There's a word for that Hard Rock Hotel & Casino practice and the word is "chintzy." As our researchers note, "For hotels to presume to charge guests for amenities that they have no intention of availing themselves of, but cannot avoid, seems a very counter-productive measure that can only generate ill-will."

Kudos to the following fee-eschewing properties: Venetian, Palazzo, Wynn Las Vegas, Encore and anyplace owned by Harrah's Entertainment. Yes, Harrah's. I tip my fedora to you, Gary Loveman.

Optimism in Macao, euphoria at CityCenter

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 17:33:00 -0700

Relaxation of stringent visa restrictions from Guangdong Province came a full four months sooner than expected, starting Sept. 1. Now, residents will be able to visit Macao once a month instead of quarterly. While this has prompted J.P. Morgan to raise its price target on Las Vegas Sands stock, analysts also fret that Sands may overreact and go pedal to the metal on its unfinished Cotai Strip™ hotels.

Those same analysts are bullish on the manufacturing sector, though. They think casinos will be more willing to reinvest in the slot base as 2009 draws to a close. Also, the onward march of casino expansion means more jurisdictions and facilities to whom IGT, Bally and WMS can peddle their products. They're 'meh' on regional casino operators like Penn National, Ameristar Casinos and Pinnacle Entertainment, due to flattish performance. (Penn could catch a break in Kansas, though I still think Cordish Gaming has that sewn up.)

But that's a rave notice compared to the long face Morgan analysts pull when pondering Boyd Gaming's prospects. They cite the slow-to-recover, promo-driven locals-casino market in Las Vegas ("trickle-down" economics of the worst sort); Atlantic City's critical condition -- "the best-case scenario here is that [Borgata] would do less bad" than most of A.C. -- those blah regional metrics and new competition for the Blue Chip riverboat in Indiana, which had been looking like 2009's feel-good story.

Intriguingly, the prospect of a Strip acquistion is floated in lieu of a 'stalking horse' bid for floundering Station Casinos. Boyd's still got enough unused borrowing capacity it could even swing an acquisition of The Mirage (with money to spare), not to mention some of the lower-hanging fruit, which now includes Planet Hollywood. But if the J.P. Morgan guys are gun-shy concerning Boyd ...

They're over the moon about MGM Mirage's CityCenter: "we are increasingly under the belief that City Center will be a new must-see property for both domestic and international gamers/travelers that should drive solid visitation volumes to the Strip in 2010. We were impressed with the massive 18m-square-foot complex ... a new type of high-end product for the Strip that should garner increased trips. It has a very contemporary feel that is different than anything else on the Strip, with lots of natural light and high ceilings, interesting room product and, for a massive property, ease of getting around from one 'neighborhood' to the next."

More good news comes in the form of a press release from Commerce Casino (in Commerce, Calif.), which rolled out the welcome mat for a group of undoubtedly weary firefighters. A strike force of 30 Bay Area-based firemen is being housed in the casino's hotel, with the casino comping all meals and picking up most of the hotel tab. Let's hope that such civic-mindedness spreads through the industry like -- if you'll forgive the analogy -- wildfire.

In case it matters, "super-starlet" (yes, that's the official term) Holly Madison has been given a 12-month contract extension at Peepshow, so she's obviously earning her pay. Also, I've heard through the grapevine that she and incoming Aubrey O'Day do not get along, so the timing of the Madison announcement should make clear who's got the upper implant in this situation.

'Peepshow''s little Hitler problem

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:20:00 -0700

Congratulations (not!) to the producers of Peepshow, whose rent-a-headliner stratagem has finally blown up in their faces. They're replacing a Jew (Shoshana Bean) with a fan of the leadership abilities of -- I kid you not -- Adolf Hitler. Oh, and she's a googly-eyed admirer of Fidel Castro, who -- among other offenses against humanity -- ran the casino industry out of Cuba.

Of course, this town has a tycoon or two known for cozying up to the authoritarian regime of Singapore and the downright despotic one in Peking. So perhaps Ms. O'Day's pathetic excuse for a brain will just be a 48-hour story ... but that's what we thought about Sen. John Ensign's escapades, at least until Mike Ensign's role as payola daddy came into play.

(Thanks to Richard Abowitz for the heads-up on this one.)

A reader informs me that the site LasVegasDowntownNews.com appears to be defunct. I couldn't get it to load either and blogger Jeff Burbank's output was sporadic at the best of times. Has this site gone the way of all flesh? If anybody has the skinny on this, please let S&G know.

"Oh shit!" headline of the day: Seen at Huffington Post, "Harry Reid to take the wheel on health care." That's like finding out the one family member who's certifiably incapable of navigating the driveway is going to pilot the family car up Mount Charleston.

"Viva Elvis"

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 01:38:00 -0700

Obssessed? Moi?

Yes, Viva Elvis will be the long-awaited, enshrouded-in-secrecy title of the Cirque du Soleil show scheduled to debut this December at CityCenter.* Wow, they must have had to really burn the midnight oil in Montreal to come up with that one ... Speaking of name changes, Scarlett and her Seductive Ladies of Magic (at the Riviera) is now Abra-Ca-Sexy. Well, it's catchier ... The wheels continue to fall off the Riviera train: An Evening with Dean and Friends has closed, as has the dinner buffet (again) ... Lost in the bankruptcy tumult at the Greek Isles was the opening of a new show. Its cumbersome title is Chinaman: A Rock & Roll Comedy Experience. Moving right along ... By the time you read this, Rockstar: The Tribute should have reopened at the Harmon Theater after a disastrously short stint at the Wyrick Entertainment Complex (aka, "the Venue of Death") in Planet Hollywood. However, the Harmon has given it as much advance publicity as an IRS raid on a Vegas nightclub, so that's not a promising start ... In like manner, Beatles tribute Penny Lane tiptoed into the Tropicana without so much as a 'by your leave' ... Back at Planet Ho, Tony 'n Tina's Wedding evidently isn't performing up to expectations. Ticket prices have been reduced 13%-30%, although they're still steep ($63-$143) ... It looks like Deutsche Bank is going to wait a spell and open the Cosmopolitan in Sept.-Oct. 2010. Which, given that the Strip's been strangling on a glut of high-end rooms, is probably the wisest course of action. Wall Street's former Holy Grail, "another wave of megaresort openings," has become a phrase to be dreaded.

Ready for some good news? The most remarkable dancer of the late, lamented Sin City Kitties, Koree Kurkowski, is now part of the ensemble of Bite. The show is kitsch to the nth degree but it's entertaining in its own so-bad-it's-good fashion. The Stratosphere casino floor was pretty dead for a Friday night last weekend, but Bite was definitely packing them in. It's not as good as Sin City Bad Girls (at the Las Vegas Hilton) but way better than forgettable X Burlesque (at the Flamingo).

* -- the Viva Elvis revelation was let slip during last weekend's Michael Jackson festival at The Palms. I learned of it after being invited -- on 75 minutes' notice -- to co-host an episode of Steve Friess' The Strip Podcast, in which I am teased for being "obsessed" with Carmen Electra. I'll link to the edited version once it's available, so you can hear me date myself with a Barbi Benton shout-out.

This isn't Photoshop but an ad clipped from a Michigan newspaper, I kid you not:

The things you can find at the grocery store these days ...

Quote of the Day

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 14:13:00 -0700

"At Privé, coming out of the bathroom, some blonde girl is surrounded by people and can barely stand. We step aside, she comes in ... Paris Hilton. Wasted." -- from the Twitter feed of Peepshow star Shoshana Bean. Stay classy, Privé. As for Hilton, there's no hope there.

Abraca - OMFG!

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:53:00 -0700

Scarlett, Princess of Magic has settled into her new revue, Scarlett and her Seductive Ladies of Magic, which finally gives me a reason to encourage people to visit the Riviera. The video below is taken from Scartlett's family-friendly V Theater show (long since closed) but many of the same tricks are reprised, on a bigger scale -- and with far less clothing. Her instance, the one-piece has devolved into a 'barely there' red bikini. Make sure your pacemaker is in working order.

There's some incredibly perfunctory toplessness from two assistants/dancers but it's Scarlett who brings the sexy -- and how! If this doesn't work out, she'd make a formidable contestant on Dancing with the Stars, too. I'm no great judge of magic but Scarlett is definitely the most hot-cha Strip headliner not named Marie Osmond. In a classy gesture, Scarlett's former presenter, David Saxe, was at the Riv last night amidst the well-wishers.

As for the Riv itself, corner-cutting is omnipresent, sometimes amusingly so. The post-Scarlett cocktail party featured but a lone plate of bruschetta and some cheese cubes. When they were (quickly) gone, they were gone. The Riv is just hanging on by its fingernails, even if it's not fallen off the cliff yet.

Amazed. It looks like an open-ended run is assured for this afternoon comedy show, highlighted by guitar-playing impressionist Mark Rayburn. (After you've seen him, you'll never take Gordie Brown seriously again.) Tickets are just a wee bit steep for a 2:30 p.m. show, but this is a winner, much better than certain comedy shows which I've seen and/or reviewed recently. I can't recommend it too highly. My more extended impressions of Amazed and Scartlett are due for publication in the near future.

Buffet bulletin. No word yet on whether MGM Grand, Luxor, Excalibur or Stratosphere are reining in their all-day buffet specials. Ben Bernanke's confidence notwithstanding, optimism in Vegas should be tempered with caution ... and price increases probably should not even be contemplated until those downward-trending visitation numbers start heading up for a change. One needn't be an economist to see that Nevada's recovery, when it happens, will be slow in coming.

The juice behind the juice. Could the speedy restoration of Privé's liquor license, following some cosmetic changes in management, have had another motive? Like maybe a precipitate dropoff in Planet Hollywood foot traffic? Xania Woodman reports, you decide.

Goliath gets a clean bill of health.

Goliath adopted? There's a glimmer of hope that little Goliath may soon find a new home. Why then am I so melancholy?

Privé: behind the juice; Chucky vs. Jaws; Wynn pages Scalia

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:46:00 -0700

Had the Nevada Gaming Control Board not come down upon Planet Hollywood like a hod of bricks, it's entirely probable that Privé would still be up to its scofflaw antics. That's because Clark County has a long history of looking the other way or, at most, administering the occasional love-tap on the wrist. But when Gaming Control lays down a half-million-buck fine, it's kind of hard for Clark County Manager Virginia Valentine's crew to keep their heads in the sand, pretending to be invisible.

Hence the revocation of Privé's license, quickly restored once the Titanic deck chairs were rearranged and the vessel rechristened the Lusitania. I feel much better now, don't you? (It should be noted that there's a sizeable constituency in Las Vegas that thinks the county and NGCB should turn a blind eye and laissesz les bon temps roulez. Hey, why don't we bring back bribery, too? If those officials are going to be ignoring the laws they're charged with enforcing, shouldn't they be compensated for it?)

Kudos to the ever-clever management of Cannery Casino Resorts. They've struck a deal with ESPN to allow simulcast of Monday Night Football on Galaxy Theaters' giant DMAX screen at the original Cannery. The festivities begin on Sept. 14 with a Bills/Patriots and Chargers/Raiders doubleheader. (OK, the nightcap sounds like a real dog, but MNF doesn't get the pick of the litter since moving to cable.)

A 60-foot-tall Terrell Owens? Scary! More worrisome still: Will egomaniac Jon Gruden hog the mike this season, elbowing aside co-analyst Ron Jaworski? Nobody breaks down a play like "Jaws" but will "Chucky" let him get a word in edgewise?

Steve Wynn must be getting a little apprehensive about how Labor Commissioner Michael Tanchek's long-running hearings on tip confiscation will play out. Wynn's benched the able Gregory Kamer, as well as Wynn Resorts' in-house counsel, in favor of Beltway attorney Eugene Scalia. And, yes, his dad is that Scalia. (Does anybody else think the Bush administration passed over Scalia Sr. for Chief Justice in favor of John Roberts because he -- unlike Roberts -- was too contentious to forge majority rulings? Just me? OK.)

Wait Until Dark (@ CSN) obtains tepid praise from the R-J. I saw it last Friday. What's my verdict? Tune in tomorrow!

There's only one Native American currently serving on the federal bench. Might Nevada make it two? Vito de la Cruz, S&G hopes you receive due consideration.

Economic parable: Once upon a time there were two thrift stores in my neighborhood. One, run by Catholic Charities, sold good merchandise. The other, Goodwill, peddled garbage. Guess which one went out of business? It's like the nonprofit version of the Walmart saga.

Juice job at Privé

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:45:00 -0700

After three weeks of hand-wringing about the closure of Privé and What It All Means, it's back to business as usual in the Las Vegas nightclub scene. In a remarkably prescient analysis of the Privé scandal, reporter (and former nightclub insider) Xania Woodman laid out how it would go down -- as indeed it did.

Basically, it works out as follows: Designate a couple of fall guys, play musical chairs with the myriad ownership entities, hire a lawyer who's swimming in "juice," make a few concessions and -- voila! -- Opium Group, which bears ultimate responsibility for the scandal, is right back in the drivers' seat.

If there's a silver lining, it's that Planet Hollywood -- whose own request to take over Privé was backhanded by Clark County -- isn't left with a defaulted tenant and unpaid bills. That consolation doesn't come cheap. Planet Ho's already out 500 large for allowing Privé to run amuck and it'll have to pony up another 250 grand if it happens again. I've said it elsewhere and I'll say it here: Until somebody's license gets pulled permanently, few in town are likely to clean up their act.

Hey, Greenspun Media! Since when does the birthday party of one of your own reporters merit being pimped on the front page (down, down toward the bottom) of the Las Vegas Sun's Web site? Maybe the Pulitzer committee should rethink that lovely prize they recently bestowed upon you.

Colony Capital strikes (out) again; Big Bleauh

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:02:00 -0700

Despite taking a 22% gouge out of expenses, Colony Capital and its Goldman Sachs sidekicks managed to convert a 2Q08 profit to a $10.5 million 2Q09 loss. Revenues were down $30 million (or 40%), half of that from diminished room bookings. Could the service cuts be driving the revenue plunge? It wouldn't be the first time we've seen "death spiral" management be a company's undoing.

It's certainly interesting to see the bracing effect the recession has had on Vegas casino execs. They, who once took convention business for granted and looked upon conventioneers as less desirable than gamblers, have had a salutary wake-up call ... hopefully not too late.

Colony also threw in the towel on Resorts Atlantic City, although it left CEO Nicholas Ribis behind to run the place. That means he will serve two Boardwalk masters: The Resorts mortgage holders and Colony, with whom he co-owns the Atlantic City Hilton and which Ribis has also been running (into the ground, some charge). What happens if it's in Resorts' best interest to steal business from the A.C. Hilton?

It's difficult to decide who was more foolish here: Colony, for borrowing 2.5X the value of a casino whose best days were behind it, or the bankers who secured $360 million in loans with a $140 million casino. Let the floggings commence!

Speaking of death spirals, when you can get an Imperial Palace room for $18 (as an acquaintance recently did), who'd stay in Mesquite? That exurb's travails continue drag Randy Black's oligopoly down with them. Scant competition appears to have bred slackness and complacency in the Mesquite and Primm markets. It may be mere coincidence that the competition-rich Laughlin market has suffered to a much lesser degree ... but I don't think so.

Defaulted interest payments, renegotiated loan covenants, drawn-out cash reserves ... these are some of the unappealing alternatives facing Planet Hollywood. No property's struggle is fun to watch but this one is sadder than most because there's been considerable reinvestment (and some stunning redesign) made to turn the ex-Aladdin into something viable. However, all Robert Earl's horses and all Robert Earl's men have come up a bit short.

Plummeting ADRs have precipitated this crisis and, although losses at Planet Ho have consistently narrowed (and continue to do so), this isn't the first time we've heard that Earl's place was really struggling. And, no matter what Earl does, his casino-hotel has intractable, customer-hostile design flaws that cannot be solved by any means short of implosion.

I've been given reason to believe that whoever ends up owning the physically and fiscally bloated ($4.4 billion, at latest count) Fontainebleau, it won't be Penn National Gaming (at least not unless it's free and clear, and presumably cheap -- a tall order). If Steve Wynn has indeed already spurned F'bleau that'd leave Apollo Management, which never saw a bad casino investment it didn't like, and this one's nearly $1.8 billion underwater.

F'bleau would also give Master of the Universe Leon Black a de facto Harrah's Entertainment property on the north Strip, although Harrah's needs to fill thousands more hotel rooms like it needs a gaping hole in the noggin. Considering that it costs Boyd Gaming $3 million a month to keep Echelon on ice, preserving the F'bleau monstrosity until such time as new rooms can be absorbed seems a better use of capital than trying to finish the accursed thing.

Shakeup at Sands. Geez, you don't think executives on the chopping block could have anything to do with Genting Bhd's rival project getting ahead of slow-moving Marina Bay Sands, do you? Naaaaah! After all, the executive situation at Las Vegas Sands has been so very tranquil this past year. Just ask William Weidner ... or Bradley Stone or ...

Comedy Quest

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:26:00 -0700

Having made the rounds of a few laugh lounges lately, I can report that L.A. Comedy Club is not to be sneezed at, especially in its new digs at the Four Queens. However, Tickled Pink, at Planet Hollywood, is one of the more remarkable value propositions in town. Hower, Sin City Comedy Show (not reviewed), also at Planet Ho, manages to be both overpriced and mediocre, and the layout of the room is terrible.

Vegas (isn't the only place that) needs Carmen Electra

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:51:00 -0700

Occasionally, S&G readers allow me to share their off-list bon mots with the general public. Such is the case with one Pacific Rim-based gentlewoman who's familiar with the sights and sounds of Macao. Evidently, it's a place where voluptuousness is craved all the more for being in short supply. Hence, the gyrations of a certain Carmen Electra at Crazy Horse Paris prompted this sage observation:

"Macau sure could do with some of this type of sizzle"

No doubt ... but we need Ms. Electra here. (And aren't you gents glad S&G was given a non-gratutious rationale to post yet another photo of Carmen?)

On a serious note, the Electra guest gig stirred up local media "buzz" far out of proportion to its duration. In terms of oomph for the buck, it's given the Holly Madison push at Planet Hollywood a serious run for its money: more evidence that stars are born, not fabricated. Whatever one thinks of Ms. Electra's troubled personal life, she's a "stage creature" and Vegas could use a few more right now.

Supporting the troops. Big ups to the El Cortez for giving $15 dining credits to active-duty servicemen (and women) at its Café Cortez and Flame steakhouse. Our military is grossly underpaid for guarding our liberties (such as appreciating Carmen Electra), so anything the casino industry does by way of a "thank you" deserves S&G's salute.

If you're in the Reno area and are an aficianado of the stellar cable TV service known as Cinemax, I consider it my civic duty to alert you to the following fact: Monique Parent (aka "The Thinking Man's Sex Symbol") will be spokesmodeling -- or something of that ilk -- at a Reno-area Costco next week.

Among the prolific Parent's many titles is the Citizen Kane of erotic films, Play Time ... or so they tell me. <cough> So if you've admired Ms. Parent's fine, wry thesping in Dark Secrets or The Key to Sex, stop by and show your gratitude.

Just a suggestion.

Case Bets: Midnight Jim, Sands, "Peepshow", Hard Rock, Reid

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:50:00 -0700

Chronic ineptitude by Nevada's governor is endless fodder for comedy (like entrusting your re-election campaign to the former marketing director of a ski resort and political novice.)

But it also has perilous consequences. For instance, his thoughtless decision to pack the Nevada Gaming Commission with lawyers now threatens to hamstring the board. Jane Ann Morrison details how new Commissioner Joe Brown had to abstain from 24% of last month's votes. Seems he had conflict-of-interest issues with a couple of miniscule slot houses called Station Casinos and Harrah's Entertainment. Whoops. Brown's is the most egregious problem but it's hardly the only one.

Most of Jim Gibbons' appointments to the NGC and the Nevada Gaming Control Board have been solid but this was a real boner and somebody up in Carson City should have seen it coming.

Midnight Jim discovers Facebook. He also learns the need to think before you "friend." He sure won't be getting Bill Raggio's vote next year.

Rescue may be at hand for the beautiful and historic Boulder Dam Hotel, thanks to a mysterious benefactor. As for recent arrival Shear Madness, not so much. I hear that the "interactive" show may not have been interactive enough to ride the Vegas wave of Marriage Can Be Murder and Tony 'n Tina's Wedding.

In case you missed it ... Apparently eager to stanch the flow of exiting executives, Las Vegas Sands has given Rob Golstein a promotion to senior VP. The new title comes with a $535,000 raise. For those of you keeping score at home, that's $2,758 for each of the 194 workers Sands just pink-slipped.

Bean out, O'Day in: The producers of Peepshow are, more than anything else, great at generating publicity. It's official that Shoshana Bean will be supplanted in late summer by Playboy cover girl Aubrey O'Day. It sounds as though Bean was plugged into the cast on very short notice (with seven days or fewer of rehearsal), lending credence to the reports that Mel B.'s disappearing act came as an unpleasant surprise to the erstwhile Scary Spice. At present, Bean is the best thing Peepshow has going. How unfortunate it was but a brief fling. Shoshana, we barely knew ya.

Rushing in where angels fear to tread, Morgans Hotel Group will open 490 more Hard Rock Hotel rooms on July 27, well ahead of schedule. The timing seems odd but Morgans and financier/hostage DLJ Merchant Partners have to make their rash of expansions at the HRH start turning a buck.

Reid safe at home. The window of opportunity for unseating Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) is closing fast. Thanks to Reid's support of assault weapons, the National Rifle Association has got his back. Avowed challenged Sharron Angle is woefully short of cash, while GOP dream candidate Rep. Dean Heller has even less financial traction. If Reid's unpopularity with the home crowd makes him a low-hanging piñata, the GOP just keeps flailing at empty air.

Back from Michigan

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 01:25:00 -0700

With the cats fed and their indiscretions cleaned up, I can report that I have just returned from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, land of indescribable scenic beauty and intermittent Internet access. I spent the better part of five days in the bosom of a truly wonderful -- and big -- family, and only one did I hear the dreaded words, "Michael Jackson." And, lemme tell ya, the annual Pioneer Days fireworks display in Negaunee, Mich., put Las Vegas' most recent Fourth of July shoot 'em up to shame.

Along with souvenirs, I also brought home a nasty cold, so I beg your indulgence as a I get back up to speed. While on the subject of bacteria, I see that "Johnny Casino" has dragged his dad, ex-Circus Circus coporate ringmaster Mike Ensign, into his increasingly sordid sex-fund scandal. Oh, and S&G was way ahead of Huffington Post on this angle. As my U.P. pal Sydney Dorow would say, "Score!"

Wynn vs. Dealers: The final (?) round of the tip-confiscation controversy played out last week. The Transport Workers Union is right about one thing for sure: If Wynn Resorts prevails, its policy will spread like wildfire throughout the state.

Peepshow 2.0: The second time's the charm. As for nearby After the Show, how much you like it will probably be in direct proportion to how many drinks you've had.

Blood: The Last Vampire: Internet responsive to this Chinese-Argentinian-French sanguinary spectacle has been universally derisive. So, wouldn't you know, I liked it.

Sandbagged at F'bleau

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 16:47:00 -0700

Bank of America has fired another salvo in the ongoing war of legal briefs involving bankrupt Fontainebleau. The latest B of A blast depicts F'bleau management as considerably less than candid with its lenders. Not only did the former allegedly stiff-arm the latter when meetings were requested, there was an episode that might be called the casino industry's version of an "October surprise."

According to page 18 of the court filing, last April 17, F'bleau sprang a double whammy on the bank. Supposedly, it had been budgeting upfront for a "Base" plan while keeping hidden an "Enhanced" plan that "included restaurants, retail, nightclubs, and pool deck gaming and bar area." Not only did F'bleau reveal that the "Base" budget was unfunded to the tune of $180 million, the "Enhanced" budget would tack on another $203 million.

What F'bleau told the bank -- but not the public -- was that it wanted to push back the opening until Feburary 2010. Its own estimates also showed that it would recoup only 60% ($35 million) of the projected LEED credits. In short, the bank is accusing F'bleau of merrily spending away even as it knew the numbers weren't going to add up.

Three days after the F'bleau surprise, the project was notified that it was in default. At that time, the megaresort was still $1.5 billion away from completion, a sum that couldn't be financed without ignoring existing loan covenants -- and one that included $300 million in change orders.

An appraisal ordered by B of A concluded that F'bleau -- which was on pace to cost $3.2 billion -- was worth only $1.76 billion. Even that figure may be optimistic, as it's predicated on F'bleau doing better-than-Strip-average numbers on the casino floor, especially at the tables, plus a 91% hotel occupancy rate.

The project also stands accused of asking to be simply forgiven over $1.3 billion in existing debt. That's more than the cost (in unadjusted dollars) of either Bellagio or Mandalay Bay and roughly equivalent to that of the new Aladdin (now Planet Hollywood). You or I could build quite a dandy casino-resort, too, if we were allowed to pay for it in Monopoly money.

Of course, if one pretended that aforesaid $1.3 billion in costs had simply ceased to exist, it would soften some gloomy ROI projections. According to the Las Vegas Sun, F'bleau's own number-crunchers found that, after two years of operation, the resort would generate $162 million-$252 million in cash flow. So we'd be looking at a 5%-8% return on investment on a $3.2 billion megaresort (the unspoken implication being that would come after two even leaner years at the start). We can have megabudget megaresorts on the Strip or high-yield Vegas casinos but we clearly can no longer have both.

House of wax

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:05:00 -0700

I call your bluff, comrade. As you may have heard, casinos in Russia can stay open by converting to poker rooms. A tip of the fedora goes to reader mike_ch for pointing out this story, which delineates some of the pros and cons. In Vegas, even the strongest poker rooms don't generate nearly the body count that table games and slots do. But Russian casinos are much smaller and at least a few might be able to hang on, depending on the size of the rake.

It's mighty big of the Kremlin, by the way, to concede that poker is a sport, not a game of chance. Now if only Uncle Sam would do the same ...

Rescue the Riv! Random observation from driving down Las Vegas Boulevard last night: The Riviera suddenly looks so much better and more classic when juxtaposed with the incredible bulk that is Fontainebleau. Land values have fallen, RIV stock is worthless and the property itself provides ready access to the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Time, methinks, for Penn National to get off its duff and make an offer ... unless Penn CEO Peter Carlino is waiting for the Riviera to go into bankruptcy, so he can pluck the carcass at auction. Then again, if Carlino really thinks that Planet Hollywood and some or all of Station Casinos are low-hanging fruit, who am I to second-guess him?

Who's the dummy? The purpose of our excursion was to attend an incredibly pointless media event at Madame Tussauds at The Venetian. If there was a point, it was so that the assembled media hordes would serve as extras for yet another episode of Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D List. A waxwork of Ms. Griffin was being unveiled and suffice it to say that Wax!Griffin looks far better than Real!Griffin. (I must be Officially Jaded, for I scarcely gave the comedienne a second glance.) The various and sundry female impersonators on hand -- led by Frank Marino -- had clearly taken greater care of their appearances than Griffin had of hers. There was, in fact, just about every stripe of LGBT humanity on hand last night, so it was almost more Rainbow Coalition than media event.

What excitement there was went on outside, where a smallish crowd surrounded the Michael Jackson statue. Tributes were in evidence but everything was tasteful and no hysteria was to be seen. As for Mme. Tussauds itself, I've been to the original one in London, and I recall its wax figures as being more believable and the setting itself as more atmospheric (especially the tableaux of infamous British homicides and regicides) ... but that was 35 years ago this month.

Give Vegas Tussauds props for having a Joan Rivers dummy who looks more animated than her real-life counterpart, as seen on the NBC sitcom Celebrity Apprentice. All that's missing is to give the waxwork Rivers a voice box that periodically squawks, "A pokuh playah! A pokuh playah!" Still, we easily spent more time checking out the doodads and gizmos in Brookstone than we did in the wax museum.

"Peep" who?

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:47:00 -0700

An S&G source says that an L.A.-based PR firm is putting it about that Aubrey O'Day, late of insta-band Danity Kane, will shortly be replacing Holly Madison in Peepshow ... but that the local ABC-TV affiliate reported Ms. O'Day would be supplanting newly arrived Shoshana Bean. All I know of O'Day is what I've seen in Playboy -- and at least her implants are considerably less grotesque than Madison's. Don't sit in the VIP area or they'll put your eye out.

Re-"Peep"

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:06:00 -0700

A few business-oriented observations about last night's kickoff of Peepshow Mark II.

• Dollar for dollar, Planet Hollywood is making a better investment with new leads Shoshana Bean and Holly Madison. And it's a lead-pipe cinch neither is pulling down anything close to the prohibitive $1 million/month commanded by Mel B. and Kelly Monaco.

• Mel B. has left the building -- but her costumes have not.

• If indeed the operative plan is to use Madison's notoriety to put fannies in the seats and Bean's voice to keep them there, it's not a bad line of thinking.

• I've come to doubt the theory that obstreperous behavior by Mr. Mel B. was behind the non-renewal of her contract. Casinos put up with far worse -- consider the infantile tantrums of Planet Ho favorite "Omar" Siddiqui -- from high rollers on a daily basis. No, I suspect that one of Robert Earl's minions breathed that tidbit into the ear of Norm(!) Clarke to lay the groundwork for a big salary dump. A replacement as talented as Ms. Bean doesn't fall into your lap on two weeks' notice.

The seating disposition for media night was indicative of the local pecking order: gossip-mongers (Clarke, Robin Leach) down front, tourist magazines (ourselves included) off to one side and newspaper people -- including the Las Vegas Sun's John Katsilometes and Pulitzer Prize-winning Alexandra Berzon -- further back still, but more centrally placed. At least, Clarke -- whose circulation greatly outnumbers Leach's -- got the better seat of the two.

Don't do it, Alex!

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:29:00 -0700

Noooooooo!

That was my reaction upon reading the Mike Weatherford shocker that the Tropicana Las Vegas may be putting many of its future entertainment eggs in the basket of Anthony Cools. The latter produced an ultra-craptacular topless show, Ooh La La at Paris Las Vegas.

Shoehorned into a large, low-ceilinged banquet room, Ooh La La had terrible sightlines (kind of a problem for a T&A show), pushy ushers and charmless performers. Were it not for Raw Talent Live, it would have been the worst show I've ever seen in Las Vegas. Cools has been threatening to bring it back ... please, Alex Yemenidjian, stop him before he "presents" again.

Our long civic nightmare continues. Five more years! Five more years! Yes, Luxor has extended Carrot Top to 2015. Mr. Top accepted the honor in typical family-friendly style.

While I'm under the knife at the dentist next Tuesday, Lance Burton will be fielding questions at Monte Carlo. The venue alone makes the nature of the announcement self-evident. Three cheers to MGM Mirage for pulling back from the brink and not evicting Burton at a time when he's been getting some of the best reviews of his career. There was nothing like the fumbling Criss F. Angel to make people appreciate just how much better Burton seems to be.

Reading Room axed. You know those three cheers for MGM? Make them three Bronx cheers. "Literature? Pah! We no like! Make way for shiny trinkets!"

Why launder money in Las Vegas or Macao when there's ... the Dominican Republic?

Peepshow 2.0 tonight. The pain of yesterday's dental procedure is likely to be but a gentle zephyr compared to the near-certain ordeal that lies ahead. For reasons too convoluted to explain, my review won't appear in CityLife until July 9. With luck, the show won't have closed by then.

Not what the doctor ordered

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:29:00 -0700

While the Better Half and I managed to quaff at least some of the infamous bacon martini w/o negative ramifications, we were not so fortunate with Sunday night's visit to a certain casino buffet. Suffice it to say that the carnitas cosseted a modest case of Montezuma's Revenge and that blogorrhea was KO'd by otherrhea.

So I'm taking advantage of a 20-minute lull between a doctors' visit and a trip to the dentist to bang this out. The big news in Vegas this morning is the collapse of a rebar column out at the McCarran International Airport expansion, injuring five. So far there have been no fatalities, thank God.

A Bataan Death March of shows continues tonight with Sin City Bad Girls at the Las Vegas Hilton. I wriggled out of seeing Todd Paul at Hooters last night, though I hear he was very funny. (Hooters scares me; is death contagious?) Wednesday brings yet another visit to Phantom of the Opera, followed on Thursday by Peepshow 2.0 and a Friday pair of one-acts featuring members of Insurgo Theater Movement. After which, I will not leave my apartment for a long, long time.

"Peep" slow

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:44:00 -0700

Saturday night's 8 p.m. performance of Peepshow played to an audience one might describe as "pitiful." If the auditorium was even half-full, I'll eat my hat. Planet Hollywood has got to be beseeching the heavens that the curiosity/trainwreck factor of adding Holly Madison will get bums in the seats and that Shoshana Bean will keep them coming back. We're talking wing + prayer, folks.

Rump faction: Mel B. with the star of Peepshow.

If you've not seen "original cast" Peepshow, I'll confine myself for now to two observations: A) it's a 75-minute tribute to Mel B.'s derriere -- which is admittedly spectacular -- and; B) Kelly Monaco has the easiest paycheck in show business. Her once -- and future? -- General Hospital costar Nancy Lee Grahn was sitting in front of us.

As star sightings go, that wasn't quite up there with Rita Rudner taking in Sunday night's performance of Patti LuPone: The Gypsy in My Soul at The Orleans. If a meteorite had, God forbid, fallen on the Orleans Showroom, Las Vegas' gay community would have been annihilated. The same projectile could strike Peepshow and miss all four spectators in attendance.

ABBA plays Vegas

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:40:00 -0700

On Sept. 24, 1979, the Swedish superstars played the Aladdin Performing Arts Theatre (now part of Planet Hollywood, of course). Last weekend, eight songs from that one and only Vegas show belatedly surfaced.

It's an extraordinary document, both historically and musically. There are one or two "in house" recordings of ABBA in concert that are of decent listening quality. Most, however, are sonic abominations that make one of the world's two most popular pop groups resemble a garage bad -- and not a good one.

The Aladdin recording, however, sounds as though it was either made with very high-end equipment or run off of the sound board. It's got a wide stereo spread that allows the listener to hear the "live" arrangements in manifold detail.

Several numbers on the '79-80 tour were played in versions quite different from those enshrined on record, and both "Hole in Your Soul" and "Summer Night Night City" are much to be preferred as expansively heard here. The abbreviated "official" versions that are commercially available aren't a patch on these take-no-prisoners renditions. (A Vegas-area kiddie choir gets into the act on "I Have a Dream.") It's further ammo for those of us in the heretical minority that believes ABBA live ≥ ABBA in studio.

Most important of all, herein lies confirmation of a contention made by ABBA chronicler Carl Magnus Palm in his Bright Lights, Dark Shadows. Palm, whose scholarship is the furthest thing from hagiography, writes that "contrary to most of their attempts in the studio, on stage ABBA really knew how to rock. Their live sound was vividly energetic and rumbling, with many extra, half-improvised piano riffs from Benny[*] and on-the-spot vocal ad-libs courtesy of Frida."

* -- at a Vienna performance, he slipped the theme from The Third Man into the "Money, Money, Money" intro.

Not from the 1979 tour ... but who cares?

You can hear, with remarkable immediacy, the qualities Palm describes. They're captured in these too-few Vegas tracks, culminating with the show's double-barreled finale of "Does Your Mother Know?" and "Hole in Your Soul." One can only hope that the other 15-odd songs on the set list were taken down with similar fidelity and will soon see the light of day.

Serendipitous timing marked the unveiling of the 1979 bootleg, since the Las Vegas Hilton spent this weekend hosting tribute band abbacadabra, comprised mostly of California- and Reno-based musicians. Most of the look of the show, in fact, was derived from the '79 tour that played the Aladdin (though the decision to eschew a lead guitarist in favor of a second trap set was a serious mistake.)

Yes, I was there Saturday night. Bought front-row seats, in fact. And special thanks to the conscientious ticket salesperson who talked me out of springing for (more expensive) stage seats. We saved $10 and enjoyed the show not one whit less. Plus, as my girlfriend pointed out, I can now say that I shook hands with "Frida." Not a bad way to end an evening at the LVH.

Wheels coming off 'Peepshow'

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:45:00 -0700

Will Planet Hollywood's big-ticket extravaganza, Peepshow, even last until my July 2 CityLife review runs? Just maybe ... but I don't like the odds for this one making it to the six-month mark.

Various types of faintheardness have dogged this production from the get-go. A Vegas T&A show sans toplessness? Much-ballyhooed headliners signed to only three-month contracts? Peepshow had "low expectations" writ large.

Peepshow: Soon with 100% less Mel B.?

As the revue awaits the arrival of Holly Madison and her two left feet, it's losing Dancing with the Stars winner Kelly Monaco, who will presumably reclaim her niche on General Hospital. However, as Monaco's headed out the door, she might trip over the luggage of co-star Mel B. The DWTS finalist and ex-Scary Spice is reportedly being dropped, leaving Robert Earl's casino-resort with less than two weeks to scare up a replacement and get her prepped.

This unwelcome news doesn't come as a complete surprise after Norm! reported that Mr. Brown was becoming a major nuisance over at Planet Ho. But it does leave the problem of a headliner-driven show whose "name" talent will now be a woman best known for being the armpiece of Hugh Hefner and Criss F. Angel, starring opposite ... who? Earl & Co. could revamp Peepshow as an out-and-out nudie act, though director Jerry Mitchell might prefer swallowing hemlock to that bitter pill. More importantly, a star-free Peepshow would have greater difficulty justifying its ticket price.

Can Peepshow be rescued from being an expensive bust (so to speak)? Dunno, but we'll soon be out of non-gratuitous excuses to post photos of Mel B.

Rumble in Macao

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:34:00 -0700

Although an oft-promised loosening of visa restrictions by Peking stubborny refuses to materialize, an air of cautious hopefulness has crept back into Macao now that City of Dreams has opened on schedule -- and it looks dazzling. Aggressive revenue projections have literally reversed the fortunes of co-owner James Packer, whose disastrous venture into the U.S. casino industry is now seen by some as a blessing in disguise.

At $2.4 billion, City of Dreams rivals the cost of Venetian Macao and is hoped to equal or surpass the latter's 20% return on investment. One projection has it leapfrogging Wynn Macau into third place, with 20% of the Macanese market.

It also represents a double-edged sword for Sheldon Adelson's mammoth casino-resort. If it draws more punters to the Cotai Strip™, good. If it dilutes Adelson's customer base, not so good, obviously. In comments to the Wall Street Journal, Adelson seemed at pains to temper some headstrong pronouncements he'd offered to Steve Friess. As expected, an Adelson without the restraining influences of William Weidner and Brad Stone, is a pedal-to-the-metal Sheldon, saying Las Vegas Sands should have gone faster, faster, faster with its Cotai Strip™ projects, not slower. (The mind reels.)

"I just came back from Macau and we have five or six different options that we can pursue, each one of which would solve our liquidity problems," the Venetian's doge proclaimed ... which doesn't sound a lot different from what he's been saying for months. That is, until he contradicted himself by buying up a truckload of LVS stock -- something he wouldn't have done were a major deal in the offing.

Adelson predicts all his suspended Macao projects will be back in gear by year's end. He's on the curve in one respect, suggesting that his aborted St. Regis condo-hotel on the Strip could be revived by Sands' acting as lender to prospective unit buyers. Palms Place just started doing that very thing.

Sheldon's Commissariat for Optimism never closes, so one tends to grow skeptical of each new variant of "Victory is mine!" Anyway, Adelson was just off the plane from China, so perhaps jet-lag accounts for this reality-challenged assertion: "Our numbers have been going up and the [Macau peninsula] have been going down."

'Fraid not. Scarcely had that Adelsonian utterance made print than Lusa reported May's revenue numbers. If April had seen Wynn Macau falling back toward the pack, with 13% of market share, it returned with a vengeance in May. Steve Wynn's 18% market share -- with far less capacity than Adelson -- put him only three points behind LV Sands and came at the latter's expense. Stanley Ho still leads everybody with 30% -- as much as Galaxy Entertainment, Melco Crown Entertainment and MGM Grand Macau combined.

A few days earlier came news that visitation from Mainland China to Macao had been -43% in April ... hardly propitious conditions for flooring the Cotai Strip™ gas pedal. Ditto a 10% drop in May gambling revenues. Until that much-mooted visa liberalization actually happens, going apeshit with casino-hotel construction makes no sense whatsoever.

Nor did Adelson do his public image any favors with a gratuitous slam against jilted sidekick Weidner. (The latter, given the opportunity to respond, took the high road.) This 'hit 'em when they're down' move will accrue exactly zero sympathy for Adelson -- and it might have some nasty repercussions should it hamper Weidner's attempts to find another job. Then again, he's as rich as Croesus, so he can probably spend the next few decades on the golf course, should he so desire.

There's been no additional movement on the rumored Genting Berhad offer for MGM Grand Macau. However, even in a $13.8 billion/year casino market, the numbers don't look great for MGM. After it splits its 8% market share with partner Pansy Ho, it would have $55 million from which to pay an onerous tax bill, plus operating expenses. (The ROI must be dismal.)

Borgata, in Atlantic City, does $55 million a month -- in a bad month -- and MGM basically cashes a check from Boyd Gaming. So if MGM elects to stay in Macao and vacate Atlantic City, it won't be because the Chinese enclave is contributing more to the bottom line. Who ever thought MGM Grand Macau would function as a glorified "loss leader"?

Steve Wynn has a dragon ... and now Lawrence Ho does, too.

Back home, MGM is going downmarket at The Mirage. And they didn't even have to sell the place to Penn National in order to get there.

Strangely enough ... Penn's recent expression of interest in both Planet Hollywood and Station Casinos passed with scarcely a murmur of comment locally. You'd think that a well-capitalized company like Penn's hanging of a target on Robert Earl's or Frank Fertitta III's back would make headlines -- or maybe Vegas journos have tired of Penn's endless feints and tuned the company out. Well, almost all of them, anyway.

Planet Hollywood, at least, is acting far more aggressively than one would expect from a property that is contemplating a sale. So perhaps Earl is more pursued than pursuer. However, his conversion of Desert(ed) Passage into Miracle Mile appears to have run out of steam -- or money -- at the halfway point. Try as he might, Earl is never going to completely de-Aladdin-ize that place. A magic lantern and three wishes would come in real handy down there.

Also flying under the radar was former Planet Ho boss Michael Mecca's enlistment with Galaxy. Mecca jumped -- or, more likely, was pushed -- from the Planet right when the Omar Siddiqui scandal was at its height. Informed speculation had it that Mecca was thisclose to being tapped to head up James Packer's projected North American gambling empire. Crown Ltd. CEO Rowen Craigie was noncomittal, though, and Crown's big Cannery Casino Resorts acquisition fell through soon thereafter, leaving Mecca hanging.

Success being the best revenge, Mecca not only landed a prestigious new gig -- it's with one of Packer's direct rivals in Macao. Mecca shoots, he scores!

Which brings us full circle to Macao. That worked out tidily, didn't it?

Planet Ho Towers peep show

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:42:00 -0700

As for Nov. 1, PH Towers -- the Westgate condo component of Planet Hollywood -- will be open for business. Time constraints preclude creating an entire photo gallery, so I'll just direct you here. (Be warned that there's some damned annoying "house" music that you'll probably want to mute.)

If the photos are a reliable guide, some of the units look a mite cramped. Then again, when you're paying for a lot of high-end fixtures and furnishings, it feels like a waste of money not to be spending as much time in your room as possible. We've come a long way from the days when then-Imperial Palace owner Ralph Engelstad forbade bathtubs in his hotel rooms for fear guests would spend more time soaking than getting soaked.

Hunter S. Thompson: The Game. Human imagination doth run riot in a new parlor game. Your grandmother's Parchesi set never looked like this. I'm not sure why you'd buy this $3,500 placebo in lieu of taking a Vegas vacation with the same dinero but give the creators high scores for creativity.

Sweat, the final frontier: Embattled Neonopolis supremo Rohit Joshi may have principle on his side but when your adversary is perspiration, principle has to take a back seat. In hindsight, it's a good thing the reopening of Star Trek: The Experience got pushed back a year. Who wants to look at Trek artifacts in a Borg-like steambath?

Boob job

Tue, 19 May 2009 17:34:00 -0700

You've have to enlist Tom Stoppard if you were trying to script something as incredibly, comedically non-responsive as the following exchange between Peepshow producer Scott Zeiger and the Los Angeles Times' Richard Abowitz, regarding The Great Pasty Controversy of 2009:

A: Who is replacing Mel B or is she staying on?

Z: That role is undecided. I think Holly Madison will be great.

A: Does she sing?

Z: She has other talents.

A: What are they[?] Please feel free to say what they are.

Z: You can say what they are.

A: I can't say. All I know is she dated Hugh Hefner and Criss Angel. What is the talent in that?

Z: She was also on Dancing with the Stars and she is quite beautiful.

Peepshow star Mel B ... because she's hot and Holly Madison is not.

It's wise of Zeiger to simply say Madison was "on" DWTS, because it would be a painful stretch to say that she "danced." Then again, I doubt the Peepshow choreography will be anywhere near as demanding.

Actually, the best Zeiger quote comes higher up, when he says that the show's producers "are in Vegas and we are watching the audiences and evaluating the competition and deciding what is appropriate for the market."

Pardon my impertinence, but isn't that what you do in pre-production or, at the very latest, during the preview process ... not one month after opening? The Peepshow braintrust gives the impression that it's been in a Planet Hollywood biosphere and needs to get out more.

Speaking of boobs ... the Nevada Lege has slapped together its budgeterial Band-Aid for 2010 -- and it's a disgrace. As widely predicted, it's a slapdash assortment of hikes on existing taxes -- almost all of them regressive -- plus some robbing of Peter to pay Paul. Probably the single more reprehensible stopgap is the pillaging of a county-level fund to help indigent victims of auto accidents.

Of course, the counties will have raise this and other plundered monies somewhere, so the tax-hike ball just keeps a-bouncin' along. Casinos were spared an increase in the privilege tax, so that's one bullet dodged, but upping taxes regressively -- especially in tandem with salary cuts for teachers and other guvmint-paid folk -- means less discretionary income for many bread-and-butter casino patrons. So the gaming industry will take it in the shorts, after all.

State Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford (D) has been making some noble noises about revisting Nevada's volatile revenue structure ... two years hence, when everybody's safely reelected. Unlike Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley (D), Horsford actually pushed for substantive changes this session.

But we've been hearing that arthritic "wait 'til next session" excuse for a long time now. If a recession of this magnitude -- one in which we learned that casinos, retail and tourism do not comprise a stable fiscal tripod -- doesn't bring us the long-promised re-examination of how Nevada pays for itself, nothing will. My money's on "nothing."

The MGM/Pansy Ho verdict: It's in and it's bad

Tue, 19 May 2009 11:15:00 -0700

After nearly four years of investigation, the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement has released its long-awaited "suitability" findings on MGM Mirage joint-venture partner Pansy Ho. As MGM itself reported to the SEC yesterday, "While the report itself is confidential, at the conclusion of the report, the DGE recommended, among other things, that: (i) the Company’s Macau joint venture partner be found to be unsuitable; (ii) the Company be directed to disengage itself from any business association with its Macau joint venture partner; (iii) the Company’s due diligence/compliance efforts be found to be deficient; and (iv) the New Jersey Commission hold a hearing to address the report."

The grinning ghost of MGM Grand Macau

While the reason for the DGE's disapproval isn't given, it's also not difficult to guess. When someone with the sleazy reputation of Stanley Ho has an interest in your casino -- by dint of loans to two of his daughters -- a jurisdiction that takes probity as seriously as New Jersey is unlikely to give its benediction.

Slightly further down in its SEC bulletin, MGM offers one of the most Pollyanna-ish statements of recent memory: "The Company does not believe that the report will have a material adverse effect on it."

Let's back up a second. The matter of Ms. Ho now goes to the New Jersey Casino Control Commission for adjudication. The NJCCC is not obligated to act on the DGE's findings. However, the last time it exercised such discretion, it was to override the DGE's recommended probation for Columbia Sussex in favor of kicking ColSux out of the Garden State forthwith.

So the likelihood is that MGM will be faced with a choice between liquidating its New Jersey holdings or its Macao ones. The latter include a 50% stake in Borgata (and Boyd Gaming can afford to buy its partner out), plus some undeveloped land, which will be a much tougher sell.

As for MGM Grand Macau, it would revert to the Ho family. MGM could still, in all probability, count on an ongoing stream of revenue by leasing out the brand name or even by negotiating a management contract for itself (although management is rumored to have been the casino's Achilles heel).

Unless the NJCCC grants clemency (in which case, MGM loses face but nothing more, as one analyst puts it), "material adverse effect" is inevitable. But there may be a silver lining for CEO Jim Murren. He was able to get debt-covenant violations waived in return for an accelerated repayment of the company's whopping debt load. The diñero from a Borgata or MGM Grand Macau sale would come in mighty handy as the company tries to de-leverage itself.

Walking (out) in Memphis. A 21-year veteran of the Harrah's Entertainment hierarchy resigned last week, another casualty of the company's downsizing.

And then there were 135. It used to be the execs jumping from the sinking Cosmopolitan ship reached for a lifeline from Fontainebleau. Now they'll be looking for another rescue vessel. (Hey, the Tropicana may be hiring soon.) A F'bleau spokesman says negotiations with Deutsche Bank are continuing, in a notable ratcheting-down of the bellicose rhetoric that's been lobbed to and from F'bleau of late.

Heard last night as part of an act at Sin City Comedy, re the Vegas Trop: "A $20 bill and all my teeth -- I'm a whale!" Conclusion: Alex Yemenidjian cannot arrive soon enough.

"Peepshow" buys a clue

Mon, 18 May 2009 14:56:00 -0700

"Peepshow" prime donne Kelly Monaco & Mel. B

By now it's old news that Planet Hollywood's new resident spectacle, Peepshow, has gone topless for real. Though some question the move, to me it always seemed retrogressive and counter-intuitive to present a T&A show in contemporary Las Vegas that had scarcely a nipple in sight. That's so 1956.

What's newsworthy is the co-producer's rationalization for not daring to bare: "All of the other shows in this genre play to a smaller house. What we didn't want to do is alienate what could be 50 percent of our audience. We wanted to do a show both men and women are comfortable seeing."

In this context, "smaller" is anything less than 1,400 seats. By that Double-D measurement, Cirque du Soleil's nudity-friendly Zumanity plays to a "smaller" (i.e., 1,256-seat) house, but we're hardly talking Crazy Girls-cozy there, now are we? Jubilee! over at Bally's, seats 1,040. The sight of literally scores of bare breasts hasn't kept that show from racking up a quarter-century run.

If Jubilee! "alienate[s] ... 50 percent of [its] audience" -- which is very unlikely -- it's done no evident harm at the ticket window. (For that matter, I know some women who wouldn't mind seeing Peepshow's Mel B. in her knickers ... )

So you have to ask, "What were the Peepshow peeps thinking?" They evidently came in not knowing the market and seem only now to be getting up to speed. Fig-leaf prudishness and the Las Vegas Strip just don't mix.

Perp Show

Thu, 14 May 2009 12:38:00 -0700

If you're bald, weight 285 lbs. and have one arm in a cast, you're not exactly inconspicuous. So how was it that that such a hefty man was to infiltrate a VIP area of Planet Hollywood and bust into Peepshow headliner Kelly Monaco's suite? It gets weirder: Merrill Wetter was a long-term denizen of Planet Ho and had been 86'd last month for following a money cart around. And yet his reappearance on the 50th floor didn't raise any alarms, literally or otherwise. This new information suggests a serious lapse of security at Planet Ho, something that the Nevada Gaming Control Board might want to investigate.

April in Atlantic City. The numbers are out and they suck. Again. Unless you're Borgata, which was basically flat with April '08 -- a veritable triumph in this context. The Showboat didn't do too badly (-7%), pushing ahead of the larger Tropicana Atlantic City (-21%). However, another Harrah's Entertainment property, Bally's Atlantic City is way off last year's pace (-19% YTD) and risks joining the Dead Man Walking quartet of Trump Marina, Trump Plaza, the Hilton and Resorts.

The partial reinvention of Trump Taj Mahal continues to pay off, with gaming win down less than 1% through the first four months of the year. Don't you wish we had this kind of reporting transparency in Nevada?

Reid's smooth ride: Would-be GOP challengers to Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) are not only thin on the ground they're probably hearing casino-industry check books slam shut after the Senate Majority Leader jawboned banks on behalf of CityCenter and Fontainebleau. (It was a futile effort but, at this particular moment, that says more about the lending-averse banking industry than Reid.)

Party leaders say a "highly motivated" "strong GOP challenger" is out there and will emerge ... in five months or so. The only person shaking the money tree so far is former state legislator Sharron Angle. She'd rough Reid up, to be sure, but has an Achilles heel or two. To date she's been a single-plank candidate -- property taxes; not what you'd call a senatorial issue. Also, state GOP chairwoman Sue Lowden doesn't want a divisive primary ... and Angle was very divisive when she ran against Dean Heller (R-NV) three years ago for the congressional seat Heller now holds. She even tried to have the primary results overturned in court. But for now she's the only game in town.

Double duty: For the unforeseen future, I'll be spelling the estimable Dave Surratt as CityLife's theatre critic. First up is a show directed by Zumanity emcee Christopher Kenney. Called The Facts of Life: The Lost Episode it's ... it's ... well, it's different.

Case Bets: B'way in Vegas; Trump bloviates

Wed, 13 May 2009 15:48:00 -0700

Opening night for The Lion King is three days away. Which means the New York Times is right on schedule with another hand-wringing piece about whether Broadway-style shows can succeed in Las Vegas. By now it should be obvious that it's a strictly case-by-case proposition. In the instance of Spamalot, Steve Wynn maintained that the show was profitable; he just wanted more profit. (Enter Danny Gans ... briefly.)

Could six -- soon to be seven -- Cirque du Soleil shows coexist on B'way? Most Vegas shows certainly wouldn't last there. Comparisons of the Strip and the Great White Way are apples and oranges, and always will be. At least the NYT piece has a colorful slide show. That Mel B. has quite the gams, doesn't she?

Ticker symbol: BHO. Even if Donald Trump couldn't keep pace with the casino industry and can't get anyone to buy his condos anymore, he'll always have the Miss USA pageant, over which he presides in a manner best described as "papal." He's also sufficiently astute to know that when your own brand equity is in the tank, latch onto a stronger brand, specifically President Obama's. The full video of the press conference is not for the squeamish, mainly because very unfortunate lighting made it seem as though Trump's hair color had leached into his skin, turning him completely orange.

Since what happened at Planet Hollywood didn't stay there and simply refuses to go away -- has, in fact, turn into the PR equivalent of a Megabucks jackpot -- it's time to roll out the heavy artillery. Ladies and gentlemen, I yield the floor to Mr. Keith Olbermann ...*

* -- including an extra-special cameo appearances by anti-casino nabob Dr. James Dobson and even Satan, disguised (?) as Perez Hilton.

Case Bets: Caesars, Criss Angel, Lance Burton, Earl & Lani and Trent

Wed, 13 May 2009 14:44:00 -0700

Seen last night by an S&G source, Pit One at Caesars Palace empty save for one or two baccarat players. It's just a small indicator of a larger disconnect that I hope to address later.

PR flack Robin Leach has been transcribing more of the gospel according to Criss Angel, the latest being that Cirque du Soleil's wunderkind "will juggle his schedule" of Believe dates to make room for filming the next season of Mindfreak. Do you think this might be a face-saving way to cut back on performances of a show that's already having to be deeply and frequently discounted? Naaaaaaaaaaaaah!

And is MGM Mirage really content to let Lance Burton walk, as appears to be the case? With only a month remaining on Burton's contract, no extension has been signed and MGM punted our query to Burton's manager.

Two of the Strip's major showrooms are currently vacant. Burton's act is probably too downmarket for Wynn Resorts' tastes (or pretensions, if you prefer) but Alex Yemenidjian could steal a march on his former employer by bringing Burton back to the Tropicana. Lord knows, the place could use him and Dirk Arthur is working on a short-term contract now -- a stopgap arrangement made when interim Trop management screwed up and came within days of having no shows at their property.

Value for the $$. Last week's adventures included checking out Voices at the Las Vegas Hilton, which gives the LVH a long-needed shot in the arm. Stars Earl Turner and "the beautiful Lani Misalucha" (as she is always introduced) wisely minimized expectations prior to opening. For one thing, their energetic, caution-to-the-winds revue features far more interaction than they led people to expect. Who knew if these two very different singers would "jell" ... but they do.

It's a rouser and -- at an $80 top -- a considerably better value than Elvolution, starring Trent Carlini. Eighty bucks at Voices gets you two headliners and a six-piece band. A $92 top at Elvolution buys you an Elvis Presley impersonator ... singing to backing tracks. That takes some nerve, I tell ya.

Quote of the Day

Mon, 11 May 2009 12:31:00 -0700

"It's a little bit lager lout-ish, yeah." -- Peepshow star Mel B., on the Vegas Strip during daytime, to Chelsea Handler.

Updates: Pinnacle, Boyd, Foxwoods, Donald Trump & Criss Angel

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:07:00 -0700

Don't wait by the phone if you've got a date with Pinnacle Entertainment. It has just pushed back the timelines on its Baton Rouge and Lake Charles projects by five months. It cited investor reluctance and warned more delays are likely.

Analysts like few gaming stocks and one of those lucky few is Penn National. But a Morgan Joseph analyst thinks Penn has gone about as high as it should and perhaps too high. The sparked an early sell-off of PENN, thankfully followed by a rally.

One more thing to blame on casinos. The tighty righties (and lefties) are going to have a field day with this. It's a windfall of free publicity for Foxwods Resort Casino, though.

The mouth that snored: How far over the shark has casino mogul-turned-TV performer Donald Trump jumped? Would you believe he was "spotted dozing off during Paul McCartney's concert Sunday at The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel," according to gossip columnist Norm(!) Clarke. By all accounts, the McCartney show was far and away one of the most electrifying concerts given in Vegas in quite some time, launching Joint 2.0 in style. Sleepy Uncle Trump, though, officially qualifies for fuddy-duddy status.

Mike Weatherford, author of Cult Vegas, has a refreshingly contrarian take on the Criss Angel brouhaha from last weekend. Both MGM Mirage and Cirque du Soleil knew what they were getting (or at least thought they did) when they signed Angel. The real disgrace here, IMO, is that it took Cirque nearly 72 hours to crawl forward with an apology. D'ya mean to say they actually had to think it over? Ridiculous ... though not as ridiculous as the amount of oxygen being consumed by the Carrie Prejean kerfuffle. Would the vaudeville hook please drag that Stepford Wife-to-be and her have-they-nothing-better-to-do detractors off the stage, please?

(Prominently visible in at least one clip from the show was Treasure Island owner Phil Ruffin, separated from Old Man Trump by a stunning beauty whom I took to be Mrs. Ruffin. Whoever she was, the leading pageant contestants weren't a patch on her.)

Case Bets: Fasolt, etc.

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:17:00 -0700

A reader has asked how Fasolt got his name. I'm to blame for that, because he was called "Marble" when I met him. He was living in a foster home in Minneapolis, after a woman had thrown out her boyfriend and his cat, but not before her bratty kids has smeared bubble gum in his (the cat's, that is) fur. "Marble" was a logical reference to his coloration but it's also cold, smooth and impersonal ... in short, nothing like the friendly and gently inquisitive -- albeit huge -- cat to whom I was introduced.

Fifty bucks later (the best $50 I ever spent), the mega-kitty was mine but the name had to go. Casting about for inspiration, my mind fell upon Fasolt, the soft-hearted giant from Richard Wagner's opera Das Rheingold. In it, Fasolt has a surly brother, Fafner, who clubs him to death in an argument over some gold. Fasolt, to his credit, only had eyes for the goddess of spring, Freia, but once the brothers are persuaded to take mere money instead, they're at each other's throats in nothing flat. (Allegory much?)

Fasolt, the giant, as portrayed in the Bayreuth Festival's 1980 revival of Das Rheingold.

Since Fasolt is the only character in the Ring of the Nibelung whose morality doesn't come into question at some point, he made a perfect namesake for my new feline friend. It's been the despair of veterinarians, who always misprononounce his name "fasOLT," but they've come to love him so much, I no longer mind. He lives with two Norwegian Forest Cats, Shadow and Mr. Bit, so that's a lot of plus-sized felines lumbering around my little pied-a-terre.

Magic's a Drag: I was persuaded to see it last night and, yes, it is indeed a drag. How anyone can justify $50 a ticket for such a cheaptastic show is beyond me -- especially when you can now get into Cirque du Soleil's Love for as little as $60.

Dix Nix Snix: Some gay-bar hanky-panky (third item) will cost Snick's $50K and a sex-, er, six-month loss of its slot route, unless the Nevada Gaming Commission overrules an already lenient settlement. Moral: Sex and slots don't mix.

Actually ... I can think of some off-color variants of that lesson, but I'll spare you.

Pulchritude at Planet Hollywood

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 19:16:00 -0700

Given the plethora of recent bad news, it's important to remember that Nevada casino profits still exceeded $700 million in FY08 and that important events like the Miss America pageant are still held here, and ... aw hell, let's face it: We could use some gratuitous cheesecake right about now. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

Would-be Misses America descended upon Planet Hollywood yesterday.

Putting America's happiest mayor, Oscar Goodman, in a particularly cheerful mood ...

... to see wholesome contestants like Miss Utah.

Misses Nevada and California have the glassy-eyed-stare thing down pat ...

... nor does Miss Tennessee look like somebody on whose bad side you'd want to get.

Diversity was the order of the day ...

... and even though residents of the District of Columbia are denied congressional representation, they can still be Miss America. Is this a great country or what?

Rogues' gallery

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 13:08:00 -0700

After a fitful start, blogorrhea is sweeping the business desk of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, resulting a veritable flood of news nuggets today ...

Planet Hollywood prexy Michael Mecca has resigned to pursue the proverbial "other opportunities" at a time when revenues have been up. On the next Vegas Gang, Jeff Simpson predicts -- with unassailable logic -- that Mecca is going over to Crown Ltd. to head up James Packer's North American gambling operations (in which case Mecca will have his work cut out for him, but congratulations all the same).

A less-charitable alternative theory would be that Mecca has been scapegoated by Planet Ho for having been in charge when it got dragged into the Omar Siddiqui scandal. (The indicted ex-Fry's Electronics exec lost $9 million there in one gambling session alone.) Planet Ho's lawsuit against Siddiqui got tossed last month.

"No more wire hangers!" Whatever the case, somebody leaked Siddiqui's player profile to the San José Mercury News and, geez, this "whale" sure is a whiny little bitch. (Sorry, I meant that to read, "a high-value, loyal customer and a good friend of our casino staff, who look forward to his every visit.")

Good news for visitors: The Nevada Department of Transportation is at least talking about widening I-15 south of Tropicana Ave. Whether NDOT can get the money from Gov. Jim "Scissorhands" Gibbons is another matter, but it can at least remind Midnight Jim that he himself identified California as Nevada's Numero Uno tourism priority in the course of disparaging Asian marketing as "a waste of taxpayer money."

And who knew that the Circus Circus RV park was the new "in" place to stay?

Randy Black, aka Mr. Thrift. Many of his employees are out of work, the former Si Redd's Oasis may be a hollow sepulchre these days and his Black Gaming has defaulted on debt. But we don't need to pass the hat for the self-aggrandizing Black Sr. quite yet.

Seeing financial havoc all around him, Black decided that austerity measures are for other people (like his employees) and awarded himself a nearly 4% raise for this year, escalating to 5% for each year afterwards. Whatever meagre EBITDA Black's Mesquite casinos achieve, 5% of that will be redirected into Black's pockets as a "management fee," on top of $21,200 in other goodies.

At a time when Nevadans from all walks are being asked, or sometimes told, to accept wage freezes and outright reductions, Black's greed is a disgrace to the state. R-J reporter Arnold Knightly is to be commended for keeping tabs on SEC filings and ferreting out not-so-niceties like this.

In other news ...

Folies Bergere: 49 is the new 50.

From showgirls to no-girls: What's Ron Thacker's first official act as president of the Tropicana Las Vegas? What else but shut down Folies Bergere well shy of its 50th anniversary? The no-frills spirit of Columbia Sussex remains, protestations to the contrary, clearly alive and well [sic] at the Trop.

Thacker's press release made noises implying that the Trop had a replacement for Folies waiting in the wings but, when pressed by Norm(!) Clarke, a Trop flack could only weakly respond that it was "exploring options" and was "definitely not closing up shop." (The Trop gave the Las Vegas Sun a different, more definitive story, saying it does have a new show en route.) Unspecified property improvements are also promised. Pardon my skepticism, but we've heard that before -- and are still waiting.

Geez, first Titanic and Bodies take a hike over to Luxor (where they're doing even bigger business). Now this. Since it's a just a wee bit too cold for swimming right now, is there any reason left to visit the Tropicana? Bueller ... Bueller?

Harmon blame game: It looks as though the truncation of The Harmon into a 25-story stump is ultimately the fault of the same people who overlooked scofflaw remodeling jobs at sundry Harrah's Entertainment properties: Clark County's ever-(not)-vigilant building inspectors. "What? Fifteen floors of deficient rebar you say? Gosh, I guess I missed it. My bad. When's lunch?"

The Las Vegas Sun's story comes with a helpful graphic that shows how Perini Building Co. and its subcontractors ineptly installed and then further compromised the rebar that ultimately turned the (would-have-been) 49-story Harmon into what we might call The Half Harmon. In the accompanying video, Clark County's Ron Lynn threatens the culprits with a "potential disciplinary hearing." Oh, they must be quaking in their boots.

Peppermill exec in line for state job. No, not the beloved Peppermill restaurant on the Strip but rather Reno's Peppermill Resort Casino. Director of Marketing Kim Stoll is one of six finalists for the job of Nevada's tourism czar. Not making the cut was underqualified Gibbons crony Kirk Montero. Then again, Gibbons wants to eliminate the selfsame job that he tried to gift-wrap for Montero, so maybe the also-rans in this competition are its real winners.

Deep Red: Encore

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:53:00 -0700

As much as casino-watchers have been vexed by the total media clampdown on all but the smallest scintillae of revelation about Steve Wynn's Encore, it was worth the wait. Or, to put it differently, Aria and Fontainebleau have just been given an exceptionally difficult act to follow.

I say that as someone who was disappointed with Wynn Las Vegas when it debuted in 2005. Despite the modernity promised by the exterior, what I found inside was a pastel-colored version of Bellagio -- smaller, muted, rearranged and more than a bit fussy.

Let it not be said that there is anything pastel about Encore, nor anything tentative. For starters, primary colors are back "in" with a vengeance, specifically red. Now, I like red but we're talking RED!!! For relief, the VIP area is dominated by green. But did I mention to utter profusion of RED??? If Dario Argento designed a casino, this would be it.

My tour group, which included fellow Vegas Gang-sters David G. Schwartz, Chuck Monster and Robert Earl's favorite writer, Hunter Hillegas, had the good fortune of being in the tour group led by Wynn Resorts design guru Roger Thomas. For the latter, Encore represents his Vegas swan song and it closes the circle in other way: As Thomas put it, when Wynn and he remade the downtown Golden Nugget, it was the death knell of that Vegas staple, "the red casino." Not another would be built after that. "We killed [the red casino], we get to bring it back," Thomas says by way of explaining the riot of scarlet luxuriating throughout Encore.

Above and beyond its coloristic impact, Encore is the most tactile casino on the Strip and probably in the U.S. You'll be wanting to "cop a feel" many times over, whether it's of the wood finishes, the wall coverings or the sculpted textures like the "wall of bodies" that ushers you into nightclub XS. (Once you get in -- if you get in -- the view across the dance floor and the "European" [read: topless] pool to the al fresco bar opposite is one of the bigger "wow" effects at Encore.)

They mix a mean sangria there, too. The color scheme is as gilded as the casino is reddish and Thomas confesses, "I'm certain Goldfinger had a little to do with it." Whatever the case, it's like Christian Audigier -- The Nightclub (right down to the fashion boutique) but for people with taste.

There will be other articles and blogs appraising the aesthetic and functionality of Encore, so I'll leave the assessment to experts and confine myself to various jottings made while trying to walk and scribble simultaneously.

Thomas, who's been with Wynn since 1981, describes himself as the "partial author" of The Mirage, the seminal property of contemporary Las Vegas, and "full author" of Treasure Island. He's not necessarily patting himself on the back, as he says that one of the lessons learned at the Island was not to fully theme a casino (a lesson that several non-Wynn casinos failed to heed) and not to have one designer do the entire hotel. His subsequent approach has been to assemble teams he knows and admires, who hit it off with Wynn himself, and who have the reputation of being on time and on budget.

Despite those last criterion, not every last light fixture or handrail was in place (some uninstalled fixtures, left carelessly in the middle of a hallway, nearly cost posterity the future writings of Dr. Schwartz). Nor did we get more than the teensiest peek at the Encore Theater, which has been redone -- again -- for Danny F. Gans. The proscenium has been moved back but that's the only specific we were given.

Flocked with butterflies. Other than the ocean of RED, the design element likeliest to be mentioned are the omnipresent butterflies. They're in the moldings, the tiling, the wall coverings ... in short, everywhere. Not only do they "represent an abudance of good luck," they provide Thomas with a metaphor for the transformative process he and Wynn enjoy: turning the unromantic elements of cement and steel into an escapist paradise. There are no Strip views at ground level because, Thomas says, "When you're cocooned at Wynn, everything is beautiful." (He did not, however, croon" ... in its own little way.")

The third design element, less obvious to the eye, is a running motif of garlands of laurels. These were inspired by the most famous tale of metamorphosis (no, not Franz Kafka's), the myth of Daphne, depicted in a statue in the Lobby Bar & Café. Yet another reinvention is Switch, the restaurant whose decor changes every 20 minutes. It sounds godawfully corny but, in actuality, it's wondrous to behold -- like a dining experience by way of Cirque du Soleil. The revelation of multiple 18-foot chandeliers is a particular coup de theatre. "Steve can't help himself," Thomas explains. "He's a lover of theatre."

Encore's Esplanade mall has less natural light, more space than its opposite number at Wynn LV, which was one of the areas where it was most obviously "Bellagio II." The decision to mix design styles is evident in the amalgam of sharp angles and wave forms in the conjoined Rolex/Wynn & Co. boutiques. It provides relief from the overall aesthetic -- as intended -- without making a violently contrasting statement.

(My favorite design element, in truth, was the chair in Wynn & Co.; pure Heaven to anyone with an aching back. I want one, dammit!)

If natural light is somewhat lacking in the mall, Encore's atrium more than compensates. This vaulted, latticed space is Wynn's biggest "You have arrived" statement to date. Its conservatory-writ-large style manages paradoxically to be both grandiose and subdued. It's crowned with a pair of huge sconces salvaged from a demolished hotel in Cap d'Antibes.

Path of Excess = Palace of Wisdom? In the mall and, in fact, throughout the property, Thomas' preference for layering details sometimes induces sensory overload. The stated intention was to create a property that would require several visits to fully appreciate and one can report: Mission Accomplished. For instance, if there's a spa in town more ornate and in-your-face indulgent than the mere lobby of the Encore spa, well, I've not seen it. Several in my group agreed that Wynn could charge people for audio tours of Encore, and rightly so. It feels less like you're being shown through a resort and more like being given a walk-through of a working palace.

A good thing, though, that Wynn's attempts to buy up and demolish the nearby Guardian Angel Cathedral were rebuffed, though. Not only could Wynn use some guardian angels in the current economy, Encore's beauty parlor overlooks the cathedral and, were it not there, you'd have an all-too-clear view of some genuinely craptastic buildings on Covention Center Drive. The Catholic diocese did Wynn a favor by turning him down.

Of the many iterations of "suite" at Encore, we were shown two: a Tower Suite that makes up in comfort what it lacks in size (it's generous to call it a "suite," though it may make you feel better about what you're paying to stay there) and a Salon Suite in which you could land a helicopter. Something very intense and Asian was going down in what appeared to be an even larger suite at the end of the hall -- a huddle with the CEO of Tagruato Corp. perhaps?

Even the elevators are differentiated in their decor. One had a red alligator-skin motif while another was clad in butterflies rampant on a field of purple. I mean, we're talking spare no expense here, folks. The fabric for the drapes in the VIP room was purchased three years ago and kept under wraps until now.

The Sinatra restaurant is dominated by gargantuan, larger-than-life-size portraits of the Chairman of the Board himself. Is it a restaurant or a shrine? I felt I ought to genuflect or at least make the Sign of the Cross. But the real conversation-starters here are two hefty obelisks which flank the bar, while overhead sails a bejeweled galleon. Thomas rescued these from the shipwreck that was a failed New York City restaurant.

Society will be, for want of a better term, Encore's bread-and-butter restaurant, as well as a must-visit for chocoholics. Thomas' goal here was, "A room that Oscar Wilde would like."

Now stop for a moment. Can you imagine Thomas saying that to William Weidner and getting anything more than a basilisk stare? Or having a conversation with Gary Loveman about the metaphorical significance of butterflies? The Harrah's Entertainment CEO would probably just want to know what the return on invested capital from butterflies was going to be.

Which goes to the heart of what makes a Wynn property different from anything else in the marketplace: His willingness to invest monetary and artistic capital in things which don't translate to the bottom line in a quantifiable way but which create a "must-see" factor. I have no idea what the ROI of the Bellagio fountain is but it's -- and not arguably, I'll contend -- the fulcrum of the Strip, the icon off of which everything else plays. Wynn is an anomaly: a casino industry CEO with the temperament of an artist ... but an artist who's chosen a very unusual art form by which to express himself.

To have come all this way and not have spoken of the Encore casino floor itself is not to imply that it's an afterthought (the way the Venetian's casino floor feels like a waystation between the super-grandiose lobby and the Grand Canal Shoppes, for when you simply must shoppe 'til you droppe). Actually, quite a bit of thought has clearly gone into the casino, the part of Encore in which Wynn's experience with Macao is most prevalent.

Even more than Wynn LV, it's dominated by semi-secluded areas. But unlike the serpentine traffic patterns of its sister property, Encore's casino is neat and orderly, laid out in a street-and-block system, with superior lines of sight. Bucking the "more is more" trend, Encore has only 850 slots, which we're told are on an infrastructure ready for server-based-gaming when (or if) it takes off.

The innate conservatism of Wynn's approach here is the sort of thing that stands him in good stead with the banks. (Server-based Aria could be a triumph of gaming technology but it's a helluva ski jump.) In the mass-market area, each '21' table is flanked by a pair of table lamps, providing an appealingly homey (or "very residential," in Thomas-ese) vibe to the table game pit.

Steve Wynn looks suspiciously like he's been Photoshopped into his own atrium at Encore, but at least it gives you a sense of scale.

It's difficult to rank Encore in the pantheon of recent Las Vegas megaresorts because Wynn's most serious competion in the last decade has been ... Steve Wynn. Even had Palazzo's rollout not been a near-total botch, it still has that expensive-shopping-mall-that's-doomed-to-fail look about it. Planet Hollywood, had it all reopened simultaneously, would have flung some serious "Wow!" at its audience, but Robert Earl's had to relaunch it incrementally and progress of late has been agonizingly slow. Other than the Criss Angel bomb Believe, it may be the Strip's most expensive work in progress.

So ... will Encore create excitement unto itself? I believe so. Does it represent not only a leap forward for Wynn but an even bigger one than expected? Yes and yes. But ...

Will it drive business? If I owned WYNN stock (which I don't), I would sleep very well tonight.

Pinnacle's Bahamas debacle

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 18:22:00 -0700

It wasn't so long ago that Pinnacle Entertainment was the fair-haired boy of the casino industry, especially after it hit a home run in the Lake Charles, La., market with tony L'Auberge du Lac. Then it nearly followed Columbia Sussex over the precipice in the crazy Aztar Corp. bidding war. Its much-anticipated Lumiere Place in St. Louis is now regarded as a succes d'estime, a budgetary overindulgence. (It's certainly failed to make any significant dent in proximate Ameristar Casinos and Harrah's Entertainment operations.)

Pinnacle paid a bundle to agglomerate land on Atlantic City's Boardwalk that it now can't afford to develop -- and may be regretting the precipitate fashion with which it shut down and demolished the Sands, which could have been generating a modest revenue stream all this time. A Baton Rouge riverboat project is behind schedule, and now ...

Isle of Capri Casinos and Harrah's now can welcome Pinnacle to the club of U.S. casino owners who have found nothing but a dead end in the Bahamas. (In fairness to Harrah's, it never got a chance to operate there, its Baha Mar project having fallen victim to internecine plotting and counterplotting that still haven't been sorted out.) The torrent of red ink from Exuma has done a number on Pinnacle's bottom line, which really doesn't need any more bloodletting right now.

It seems that Pinnacle decided last summer to either sell or outright close its casino on Exuma and will draw the blinds on Jan. 2 (which tells you just how bad business must be). Given that the Bahamas also turned out to be a fiscal graveyard for "Pile of Debris" (one of the bad decisions that ushered out the Goldstein Era), no wonder Pinnacle's Exuma casino is wanting for takers. Yes, they couldn't even get James Packer to take this turkey, so things must be very dire indeed. The ill-starred property has even been purged from Pinnacle's corporate Web site. "Bahamas casino? What Bahamas casino? No, we never had one of those. Where did you read that?"

I'm tempted to say this is the end of U.S. casino operators trying to reinvent the Bahamas as a market for Vegas-style gambling. But this is an industry with no shortage of persistence and optimism, mostly justified but sometimes not.

Last-minute reminder: The final episode, "Vegas" of Stargate Atlantis -- partly shot on the Strip -- airs tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific. I'm just sayin'.

When all is said and done

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:32:00 -0700

The way old friends do. Last Sunday, I received an early Christmas present in the form of tickets to Mamma Mia!, entering its antepenultimate week on the Strip (where it's still the best entertainment value around). Happily, the cast was still grabbing all the gusto they could, to paraphrase an old beer commercial. You'd never know this particular ensemble had been together for three of the production's six years.

... to fill the hole in your soul.

The visitors. Anyway, I figured that might be my last-ever look at the show that's successfully flouted conventional wisdom about what "won't work in Vegas." And which is still packing them in, I might add. Well, the ABBA gods (or goddesses, for those who worship at the shrines of Frida and Agnetha) must have smiled upon us, as the Better Half just scored tickets to Jan. 4's last-ever performance of Mamma Mia! at Mandalay Bay.

It's liable to be a bittersweet experience. I'm sorry to see it end but we can take some consolation in observing that -- like ABBA itself -- it's going out with a full head of steam instead of being put out of its misery. (Compared to, say, Fuego Raw Talent Live, where you expect the closing notice to be posted in mid-show.) Besides, the same evening sees the final performance of Stomp Out Loud at Planet Hollywood, so it will be a dark night indeed for theatre on the Strip.

Why did it have to be me? At least in the case of Mamma Mia!, if it had to depart, I can think of no more auspicious successor than The Lion King.* (Did subliminal associations with Leo the MGM lion play any part in the decision?) Second-hand word from last week's media preview is that it will be the full-scale Lion King, without any of the downsizing that was hinted at in the initial announcement. Also, the Lion King's producers are prepared to go into the M'Bay theatre "as is," which must have endeared them to MGM Mirage no end. A seventh (God forbid) Cirque du Soleil show would have required expensive, er, I mean extensive customization of the space.

(* -- Of the mooted replacement for Stomp Out Loud, the less said the better.)

Nonetheless, Cirque high pajandrum Guy Laliberté has continued to play the role of spider on the valentine, openly coveting the M'Bay space for himself even before Lion King has planted its first paw there. Hey, M. Laliberté, don't you have a Criss Angel vanity project that's stinking up the joint over at Luxor? Why don't concentrate on your three months of "fixations," as you call them, while MGM Mirage gets on with a show that's certain to succeed (and I don't mean Believe).

Oh, and thanks for asking people to shell out $160 apiece to see a work in progress. Quel schmuque.

Here's to six long years or more of The Lion King -- and at least as many before we have to endure any more of M. Laliberté nicotene-stained bombast. The silver lining to Jan. 4's dark cloud is that Mamma Mia! will be making room for another class act.

Quote of the Day

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:15:00 -0700

"Anything involving a former Spice Girl, nothing good can come of that." -- LVA staffer reacting to the announcement of Planet Hollywood's new production, Peepshow. The adult revue will feature the song stylings of Mel B., aka Scary Spice.

Planet Straight-to-Video; Midnight Jim strikes again

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 12:00:00 -0700

Robert Earl's big-deal movie premieres at Planet Hollywood Resort Casino continue to slide into Z-List territory. Last night's big whoop-de-doo was Repo! The Genetic Opera. The heavy hitters on the red carpet were as follows: Criss Angel, who'd show up for the opening of a soda can (plus his Hefbot); Benji Madden; Alexa Vega; Crystle Stewart (Miss USA -- product placement!), "ohGr" from Skinny Puppy -- which I presume is a band of some ilk -- and the all-too-inevitable Paris F. Hilton. At least she and some of the others could plead the extenuating circumstance of actually having appeared in the film.

This Planet Ho "tradition" began, if memory serves, with Rocky Balboa and has been on a downhill slide ever since. Heck, Earl couldn't even get Old Reliable (aka Sylvester Stallone) to show up for this one. He needs to either book a better class of movies for these shindigs or put the "star-studded galas" out to pasture.

Clayton retires. Or was he nudged? Nevada Gaming Control Board member Mark Clayton won't seek a second term, saying, "I felt it was best to let this governor select his own board member." Since Gov. Jim Gibbons has been pretty territorial about NGCB appointments, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Gibber took time out from his heavy text-messaging schedule to let Clayton know that he shouldn't get his hopes of a second term up. (Midnight Jim doesn't have much chance of a second term of his own right now, but that's a whole 'nother stew.)

Actually, Clayton may be the only NGCB member currently holding a valid appointment. Gibbons had himself sworn in at midnight on Jan. 1, 2007 (hence his sobriquet), even though his Congressional term didn't end until Jan. 3, when Rep. Dean Heller was sworn in as his successor. Here's the relevant lingo from the Nevada constitution (dug up for us by CityLife Editor and constitutional scholar Steve Sebelius):

Sec: 12. Person holding federal office ineligible for office of governor. No person shall, while holding any office under the United States Government hold the office of Governor, except as herein expressly provided.

Which means that unless Gibbons formally resigned his congressional seat prior to taking the oath of office (for the first of three times), any actions he performed between 1/1-1/3/07, including the appointment of NGCB member Randall Sayre and the reappointment of NGCB Chairman Dennis Neilander are invalid. Null. Void. Ixnay. Game over. And if that's the case, every action the Control Board has subsequently taken could be challenged in court and most likely thrown out.

That's one big-ass can of worms. Anybody wanna open it?

The 'Point Break' mystery

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:46:00 -0700

So what the heck gives with the four-performance lifespan of Point Break Live! at the forever-in-flux V Theater at Planet Hollywood? At 10:26 a.m. on Tuesday morning, David Saxe Productions (which runs V) issued an abrupt e-mail that read, in part, "We regret that we announce the closing of 'Point Break Live!' ... please cancel all future performances in your systems ..."

No further explanation was given. V's Web link to PBL! had already been disabled. Nothing was mentioned by the daily papers until Thursday, when Jerry Fink of the Las Vegas Sun passed along this rather windy non-explanation by PBL! producer Eve Hars: “The V Theater, although great for the purposes it usually serves, is not appropriate for an intimate and immersive punk rock theater experience like ‘Point Break Live!’ Distracting aesthetic issues, combined with unforeseen and irreparable audio and lighting issues, broke up the continuity and intimacy of the performance, thereby leading us to decide the V Theater was not fitting for ‘Point Break Live!’”

Fink wasn't buying it and theorized curtly, "The show wasn't filling the theater." City Life's Dave Surratt wasn't persuaded, either. But Hars must have opened up a back channel to Las Vegas Weekly. Although the Weekly went to press well before Fink's column appeared, its review of PBL! was amended to note that "producers reached an agreement with a different venue, the name of which hasn't been released yet."

So which is it? Has Hars found a new home for the show or is the company still looking?

One indication that trouble may have been brewing for a while is that Saxe Productions rolled out a replacement show at 2:17 p.m., Thursday, less than 52 hours after PBL! had officially gone dark.

Which makes this as good a time as any to ask rhetorically: Why the heck did Saxe ever close down Marc Savard's Mesmerized! in the first place? And to say: Congratulations on bringing back an extremely funny show.

Savard had taken up residence in Trader Vic's for a time, but it was a dollar-store version of his V Theater production. Not only were his two comely assistants AWOL, but Savard himself seemed to be hurriedly going through the motions, and the sightlines in the room were wretched.

In its V incarnation, Mesmerized! is an adults-only show and you do not want to try and sneak the kiddies in. (Trader Vic's Savard was much more family-friendly than V Theater Savard.) Oh, and his therapeutic CDs are a good buy: I use his "Insomnia" CD all the time. All.The.Time.

As for the orphaned Point Break Live!, if anyone out there can clear up the confusion, please let us know. As things stand now, it will enter the history books as the fastest flop in Vegas history.

Lights! Camera! Straight to video!

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:46:00 -0700

Saw 5 and a Paris Hilton vehicle will be the next two movies premiered at Planet Hollywood. Owner Robert Earl must be so proud. The red-carpet pickings over there become less and less impressive. If Kathy Griffin were invited to either of these premieres, it'd mean she'd moved down to the E-list.

"beyond embarrassment"

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:17:00 -0700

Dave Surratt's review of Point Break Live ("a deadening waste of time") goes a long way toward explaining the show's ignominious four-performance run.

Just another day at the office at Huntington Press.

Further up the Strip, the new production show at the Sahara, Raw Talent Live (above), sounds lametastic on paper. (I ask you: "The Laptop of Life"? It gives me visions of eternally computer-clutching Dr. Rodney McKay on Stargate Atlantis.) However ... the buzz coming out of preview performances -- see "Comments" -- is mighty heady, far better than what's being said about Cirque du Soleil's troubled Believe, down at Luxor.

Since Criss Angel is apparently having difficulty carrying a stage show and problems have befallen Cher, maybe the two shows could be merged, with Cher taking over the singing duties from Angel. It would give Cirque access to a much better title song ...

(And, no, I'm not being serious.)

Food for thought, jumbo platter

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:52:00 -0700

There's a fascinating debate unfolding at VegasTripping.com. It gets rolling with a whole slew of provocative and difficult-to-answer questions about CityCenter (and its long-term implications for the Strip) from Chuck Monster, whereupon Hunter Hillegas chimes in with some well-considered responses, and things escalate quite productively from there. It's one of the best threads I've seen on the Internet in quite a while, so head on over, check it out -- and contribute, by golly!

If there's anything likely to fill the void that will be left by the impending departure of Mamma Mia!, it's the Vegas debut of Point Break Live! Consider: They both have audience participation and exclamation points in their titles. 'Nuff said.

While the official press release doesn't deign to mention the opening date (Oct. 1), the performance schedule (Wed.-Sat. at 10 p.m.) or ticket prices (????), why quibble? After all, it does contain this wonderful disclaimer: "don't think that just because Point Break LIVE! has made it to the Las Vegas Strip that it's becoming another glitzy spectacle with amazing special effects. Point Break LIVE!’s producers are committed to keeping the ridiculously lo-budget, lo-fi aesthetic of cardboard waves and inflatable plastic palm trees that makes the show that much more hilarious … and it's not just because they don't have any money."

Think of it as the anti-Cirque. Awesome!