David Mckee's Stiffs & Georges - Oscar Goodman

From the mailbag #9

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:55:00 -0700

One reader asks, regarding senatorial aspirant Sue Lowden's esteemed Pioneer Hotel & Gambling Hall:

I'm confused (as usual, but...) - Isn't the Pioneer NOT a gambling hall now, its shell hosting an ABC convenience store & various other small shops?
I don't remember if I ever patronized the place when it was a casino, but its stores are in a good location for the Downtown tourist crowd; the ABC Store is especially popular with our Hawaiian friends. That's good for sales taxes, right?

As for the Vegas Club, please don't vaporize it yet: We're going to stay there at the end of the month, mainly because it's free for me - and a separate free room for a friend of mine - allowing him to attend the Speedway races for that much less money.

You're thinking of the Pioneer on Fremont Street, while Ms. Lowden's establishment is down in Laughlin. And it very much has gambling. As for dematerialization, S&G did not nominate the Vegas Club for that dubious honor but suggested that, as long as Sen. Harry Reid's people are threatening to "vaporize" Ms. Lowden that they make themselves useful and turn their phasers on her grind joint, which is regarded as a bottom-feeder even by Laughlin standards.

The Vegas Club is very much on people's minds, as another reader asks:

How is it possible that TV series VEGA$ starring Robert Urich came out on DVD on October 20 and I saw nothing in the Las Vegas media celebrating the occasion. I saw an ad in Newsweek. They couldn't get something with Wayne F. Newton at the Tropicana or Phyllis Davis and Judy Landers in front of the Plaza or the Las Vegas Club? Sad, sad, sad.

Ah, a Phyllis Davis shout-out. You're speaking our language. And, yes, that VEGA$ release really snuck by, didn't it? In a classic case of the blind following the blind, local TV stations take their cues from the newspapers. The various Greenspun-owned organs have been slashing staff at a fearsome rate, so it's understandable that they'd miss it.

As for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, suffice it to say that staffers there, up to and including head cheese Thomas Mitchell, had to be told that the Moulin Rouge was burning down because -- even though it was happening across the street -- they work in a penetentiary-like building with no windows to the outside world (architecture as institutional metaphor).

So it's not the least bit surprising that our insular and rapidly declining local media would totally blow this one. As for Mayor Oscar Goodman, he had a previous commitment in London, but still ... no proclamation? No declaration that Oct. 2009 was hereby "VEGA$ Day"? Another missed opportunity for some free ink.

Case Bets: Reid, Goodman, Madison (Holly) & a kegger

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:06:00 -0700

As they say on Dancing with the Stars, in no particular order ...

Eight against Harry: For a speedy primer on the myriad challengers to Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), you can't go wrong with Jon Ralston's droll and speedy primer. It even gets props from John Chachas (R-Central Park West), who recently tossed his homburg into the ring. At least one among the posse Ralston calls "Snow White [Archon Corp. Treasurer Sue Lowden] and the Seven Dwarfs" has a sense of humor.

Reason vs. rage: While Steve Wynn was ranting on the boob tube this weekend, Thomas Krugman's column offers an indirect rebuttal to Wynn's Johnny One-Note ("Tax policy!") table-pounding.

Run, Oscar, run! If these poll numbers don't nudge the World's Happiest Mayor into the 2010 gubernatorial race, perhaps nothing will. Oscar Goodman not only has the highest favorables among Nevada politicians included in the survey, he wins one theoretical electoral matchup and ties for first in the other.

Gov. Jim Gibbons' political future looks bleak (read: borderline nonexistent) and there's not much comfort for Hapless Harry, either. Just think how much worse it would be if Reid had an opponent possessing genuine gravitas. Besides, given the rising tide of discontent among Nevada's progressives, there's a good chance that much of Hapless Harry's old base will just stay home on Election Day.

In Oscar's domain, an architect suggests ways to revitalize Downtown by decreasing energy use, increasing sustainability and generally targeting long-term cost savings. The proposal makes a lot of sense -- a virtual guarantee it will be ignored.

Holly Madison tapped an Oktoberfest keg at Siegfried & Roy hangout Hofbrauhaus last Friday. [Your punchline here.]

"Serpent Head" Jr.: If CNN ever has to let James Carville go on vacation, don't worry ...

... SNL's Bill Hader can fill in and nobody will notice a difference.

From the mailbag #8

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:08:00 -0700

"Doesn't the IOC realise it will be winter in Brazil in August, 2016?" -- comment Blackberried in by a reader, regarding the award of the '16 games to Rio de Janeiro. Y'know, I'd been wondering about that myself. The average August temperature in Rio hovers between 66 and 78 degrees. Not frigid but not exactly torrid, either. Meanwhile, the IOC promises to keep an eagle eye on the betting lines for the Vancouver games in 2010.

From Jeff in OKC, regarding the recent National Coming-Out Day promotions on the Strip: "Casino ads need a gambling reference in their marketing, I found it cute. If I want to offend easily, I would say that 'Two queens are more fun than a straight' suggests that straight people are inherently less enjoyable than gay people, and NY-NY doesn't want my money. I think we can always be offended, if we look hard enough."

From kerr_mudgeon, on the growing possibility that Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman will tilt at the 2010 gubernatorial race: "I don't think he'll run because the odds are less than 50% in his favor as a non-partisan + he'd not want to disrupt his family by taking a job in Carson [City] - BUT if he runs and wins, he'll start pushing immediately to move the state capital to Las Vegas (maybe to take over one of the partly-built Strip complexes in/near bankruptcy)."

It's not the worst idea I've heard. Nor is this ...

Singapore is building an expansion of its ocean-liner terminal, enabling it to berth four cruisers at a time. The good news for Las Vegas Sands and Genting Bhd is, obviously, that this means more potential customers for their ultra-megaresorts. The not-so-good news is that the new berths won't be ready until late 2011, by which point both casino-based resort will have been open nearly two years.

Everybody's got a private equity fund these days, like the 21-year-old owner of a Persian resaturant in Maryland. Youthful Artin Afsharjavan claims he's got the scratch to buy Trump Entertainment Resorts, prompting Trump CEO Mark Juliano to reply, "Show me the money."

Hey, if some kid wants to throw as much as $500 million into acquiring five (mostly) bottom-of-the-barrel Atlantic City casinos, including Resorts Atlantic City and the A.C. Hilton, I'd like to see the color of his money, too. If it's for real, TER and the others ought to pluck the guy clean. You don't get a pigeon like this every day.

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.

Quote of the Day

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:12:00 -0700

"With his ruddy nose, droopy eyes and imposing belly, the mayor might not be much of a looker, but the middle-aged woman behind the counter blushes, and tattooed men jump up from their brown leather armchairs and grin like schoolboys. 'Hey Oscar,' yells one of them. 'Where’s your martini? Where are the showgirls?'" -- from a Times Online profile of Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman and his impolitic utterances. Goodman is about to make his first-ever visit to London. Those Brits won't know what hit them.

Salvation for Nevada?

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:59:00 -0700

Former Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval has made it official: He's stepping down from the federal bench to challenge incumbent Gov. Jim Gibbons. That means Midnight Jim can start packing up the governor's mansion. Maybe he already is. Whatever he's doing, he's not attending to the state's crumbling tourism infrastructure. This dereliction of duty is reprehensible at a time when Las Vegas, Reno and points beyond need all the traffic they can get.

I've dealt with Sandoval in the past and he's a class act. Heck, unless Oscar Goodman throws his martini glass into the ring on the Democratic side, I might have to re-register as a Republican to vote for Sandoval in the 2010 primary. Sandoval may be fairly conservative but he's capable and widely respected, two qualities one does not associate with Nevada's current governor.

Midnight Jim has given us nearly three years of unmitigated cronyism, scandal and incompetence, and Nevada cannot be rid of him and his do-nothing "leadership" soon enough, in my opinion. Thank you, Sheldon Adelson and especially J. Terrence Lanni, along with any other gaming CEO who helped foist this buffoon upon the Silver State.

If you've sent me an e-mail and haven't heard back, it's because our current e-mail platform is -- what's the technical term? -- fucked. So I apologize for my apparent bad manners. Also, we cannot upload new imagery into the blogs. Which means that, for instance, an extremely droll image forwarded by kerr_mudgeon cannot be viewed at this time. Which really sucks.

To make matters worse, some subscribers aren't receiving automatic notifications of new blog entries because these are being randomly kicked back by the dozen. So I apologize for that, too. Our LVA tech people are doing their best but they're fighting a multi-front war right now. Thanks for your patience.

Vegas snubbed again

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 02:03:00 -0700

So the Death Star decides to drop by Planet Earth and where does the Imperial Fleet choose to spend its shore leave? San Francisco?!? Doesn't the Empire know Las Vegas is America's leading vacation destination, is renowned for its shows, nightclubs and high levels of inebriation, has legal prostitution just across the county line in Pahrump, and is generally a real bargain right now? Boy, is Oscar Goodman going to be demanding an apology from Emperor Palpatine or what? Harry Reid may even make an almost sort-of forceful speech on the Senate floor or, scarier still, read extensive passages from Searchlight: The Camp That Didn't Fail. That'll show those Vegas-scorning Sith!

11:59 p.m. for Midnight Jim

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 12:38:00 -0700

• Bad news for Gov. Jim Gibbons: Were he to run against former Attorney General Brian Sandoval (or rather, vice versa) undecideds would have to break 3-to-1 in Midnight Jim's favor for him to win the primary. Dr. Joe Heck and North Las Vegas Mayor Michael Montandon, thanks for playing; maybe you'd prefer to take on Sens. Harry Reid or John Ensign instead.

• Good news for Gibbons: The Mason-Dixon poll used a pitifully small sample (400 respondents), although the resultant margin of error -- 5% -- still doesn't afford Midnight Jim much hope. And even the anemically polling Rory Reid needs only 4% of undecideds to put him across the top vs. Gibbons, if the poll is to be trusted.

• Good news for Republicans: Sandoval would cruise to victory against any Democratic challenger. I've interviewed Sandoval in his gaming-regulator and AG days, and -- other than then-Sen. Richard Bryan -- he's probably the classiest public servant I've dealt with in Nevada (close third: then-Secretary of State Dean Heller). He's got my vote unless perhaps his opponent is ...

• Oscar Goodman. The World's Happiest Mayor will be made more joyful still to see himself trouncing both the spineless Barbara Buckley and the surprisingly unpopular Rory Reid. (The son does not also rise, it seems.) During Hizzoner's recent 70th birthday celebration, the Fremont Street Experience showed a montage of Goodman family photographs (births, weddings, bar mitzvahs, etc.). After the seedy sexual shenanigans of Messrs. Ensign and Gibbons, Oscar looks -- dare I say it? -- downright wholesome.

• Bad news for Goodman. Even he loses to Sandoval in the theoretical general election ... but the generous (6%) margin of error and large number of undecideds hold out a slim Reid, er, reed of hope.

I still say: Run Oscar, run! Goodman vs. Sandoval would be the best choice Nevadans have had in 12 years. Sandoval knows how the levers of power work in Carson City (unlike maladroit Midnight Jim), while a Gov. Goodman wouldn't be afraid to put some elbow grease and forceful rhetoric behind his budget proposals, unlike former Gov. Kenny Guinn. Nevada would be well-served by either of them.

Quote of the Day

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:32:00 -0700

"I bet more on a football game than what the city's received [in federal stimulus money]." -- Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, who obviously doesn't mind betting large: His city has received $4,833 in federal stimulus money to date.

God, save the Queen!

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:28:00 -0700

Another victim of the Comment-Eating Server, Jeff in OKC, writes:

Isn't the Queen of Hearts property part of what is to become the new City Hall? I know the Nevada Hotel and Casino isn't pretty, but it is the first casino built by Sam Boyd as owner, I think I read, and was owned for many years by Downtown icon Jackie Gaughan. That would be enough to give it preservable cachet in most cities.

IMO, Tamares has been a bad landowner in Las Vegas, having done nothing to enhance their properties, and barely doing any maintenance. I recall reading that they let the unrestricted gaming license on the Nevada lapse. I think the City should pressure them to sell out (The Stevens family's Desert Rock holdings that owns half the Golden Gate could tie the Nevada Hotel tastefully into a complex with the Golden Gate) to others who have a desire to invest in the City. The Siegels have done a miraculous transformation of the Gold Spike, showing that it is possible to do business in the City of Las Vegas.

The Plaza [Hotel] and Las Vegas Club are two properties that have beautiful 1970's and 1980's charm, which are rapidly disappearing in Las Vegas. Their time in the sun is coming, and a fiscally responsible touch up would be in the best interest of the operators and the City. I wish the Mayor was as interested in appropriately keeping what is 30 years old as much as instilling his vision of 30 years into the future.

Tamares' crown jewels

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:45:00 -0700

Ian Sutton posted this today at GamingFloor.com and I couldn't resist snurching it. Sandwiched between footage of the Lady Luck and other Downtown detritus is a long, loving look at those two fine Tamares Group dereli ... er, acquisitions: the Queen of Hearts and the Hotel Nevada. The latter has long been closed as was (supposedly) the QoH. But I saw some lights on at the old Queen when we drove past it Tuesday night, so who knows?

The bigger question is why Tamares continues to let these eyesores fester, especially with nearby development on Oscar Goodman's famous 61 acres proceeding apace. It's past time to knock this crap down. Even empty land would be an improvement. Ditto the Lady Luck. For a three-syllable solution to that gargantuan hulk, I defer to the time-honored wisdom of Jimmie J.J. Walker:

MGM booting Midnight Jim?

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:56:00 -0700

Whilst Gov. Jim Gibbons is overseas, engaged in top-secret derring-do, there's bad news on the home front. News outlets are starting to report that MGM Mirage is directing all of its 2010 gubernatorial donations to Clark County Commissioner Rory Reid. (The Sun had the story first but good luck trying to find it with Greenspun Media's FUBAR search engine.)

Why does this matter? Because MGM was a veritable cash register for Midnight Jim during his '06 race. Gibbons was then-CEO J. Terrence Lanni's parting gift to the state of Nevada. Lanni doubled down on his support of Gibbons after the then-congressman was accused of getting frisky with a cocktail waitress after a boozy night out with influence peddler Sig Rogich.

Even with a ski-lodge pitchman running his campaign, Gov. Jim Gibbons is going to learn that his re-election bid won't be a run on the bunny slopes.

Lanni's boosterism toward Gibbons never made sense: Nevada's leading proponent of widening a gross-receipts tax onto non-casino business supporting a candidate whose entire platform boiled down to "No New Taxes. Period"? Does.Not.Compute.

Once elected, Midnight Jim showed his true colors, jilting Lanni for the cozy embrace of Sheldon Adelson and basically taking his marching orders from Las Vegas Sands HQ.

If MGM has crossed Gibbons off its Christmas list now, he might as well call it a day. This is the biggest footprint planted on his backside to date. True, Reid fils is no shoo-in, even for the Democratic nomination. Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley is expected to put up a strong fight, although some of us wish she'd done the same in the '09 Lege, where she played the role of doormat to both the mining industry and the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce.

As I said before of an Oscar Goodman "spoiler" candidacy, What's there to spoil? Run, Oscar, run!

Case Bets: F'bleau, Adelson, Oscar

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:03:00 -0700

Whether it's the banks or the subcontractors, somebody's going to take a big screwing at Fontainebleau. That's the nub of a new lawsuit, whereby developer Jeffrey Soffer asserts that Turnberry West Construction (which he also owns) has superior repayment rights to those of the project's backers.

I believe this is called, "One hand washes the other." However, the legal issues involved make fascinating reading. Some new-to-Vegas casino developers have screwed the pooch and eventually come out smelling like roses (Sheldon Adelson, for one). I don't Soffer's going to make into that elite club. And you can forget about Big Bleau opening before July 1, 2010, at the very least.

Speaking of Sheldon ... results at his new Sands Bethlehem continue to disappoint. Adelson's tradition of half-assing his casino openings, dribbling the product onto the market, may finally be catching up with him. Marina Bay Sands should be the acid test of this managerial style. (Personally, I believe it's going to be Adelson's Waterloo, at least to the extent that the casino is expected to drive everything else.)

Sands Macao: Sheldon's best bet

Ironically, it was the comparatively "quick and dirty" Sands Macao, built for considerably less than any other Adelson casino, that has been his biggest hit. The cost-to-date of Sands Bethlehem, by the way, has been revised downward to $675 million (from $743 million), which ought to help the ROI numbers. However, early predictions that Sands Bethelehem was going to siphon business from the Philadelphia area were clearly unrealistic and should have been reported with greater skepticism.

Berzon: caped crusader

Truth, justice and the American way have one less champion in the Las Vegas area now that Pulitzer Prize-winning Alexandra Berzon has been hired by the Wall Street Journal. Good for Berzon, better still for the WSJ. But who will keep a gimlet eye on OSHA enforcement and the CityCenter clusterfuck now? (And she was moving into gaming coverage, too ... the prospect of a Berzon/Liz Benston/Rick Velotta trifecta would have dwarfed all other casino reportage in this burg.) With the loss of Berzon and editor Drex Heikes, the Las Vegas Sun is suddenly in a world of hurt.

Oscar gets whacked. Somebody's fantasy, anyway. (Were there any thumbless graffiti taggers in the house? Homeless advocates? Civil libertarians?) Hizzoner was the celeb-victim at the reopening of Marriage Can Be Murder in its new digs at Fitzgeralds. MCBM recently left the Four Queens and a good move it was, seeing as the 4Q is at risk of being evicted. Movie veteran Goodman (Casino) evidently forgot whatever he learned from The Master (aka Martin Scorcese) and didn't hit his "mark."

As for MCBM, a dinner-theatre show, I can't say it compared favorably with the ones we did at Grinnell Community Theater. I was the "juvenile lead" in several shows there and humbly submit that our gung-ho amateur troupe could have done better. Hey, we "killed" with Ten Nights in a Barroom. That thing could have run for six months, easily.

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.

Case Bets: Our LVA mascot; Menopause; Mob museum

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:19:00 -0700

Woe betide anyone who dares to plunder LVA HQ, for we are under the protection of a fierce -- but beautiful -- watch iguana. Mojo, as she is named, is at this moment sunning herself on the balcony of my office. The photo above shows Mojo in her customary habitat: a massive iguana "condo" that takes up nearly half of one of the downstairs offices.

As cushy as her lifestyle may be, Mojo occasionally gets cabin fever and either rampages around the research department or attacks her "evil twin" in the mirror. Watch your head if you're coming in the front door; Mojo recently leapt off the second-floor balcony in pursuit of (we presume) some fat, juicy pigeons and suffered no injury whatsoever. She's one tough little hombre.

Menopause The Musical: I don't mean it pejoratively when I say that if you like this sort of thing, then this is the sort of thing you'll like. Either you get the joke(s) or you don't. It's that simple.

Oscar Goodman's pet project, the so-called "Mob museum" just got whacked, albeit not fatally ... we think.

Goodman for governor ... again?

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:21:00 -0700

It's been bruited since at least 2002 and it's happening yet again: Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman is mulling a gubernatorial run for the umpteenth time. "Spoiler!", cry some. I look at the uninspiring field (Montandon, Heck, Midnight Jim, Buckley, R. Reid) and ask, "What's there to spoil?"

Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story: Drove the Chevy (Cobalt) to the levee but the levee was dry. How do you stretch a 75-minute tribute act into a two-hour/two-act Broadway musical? Badly, it seems.

Xanadu: It wasn't just a wretched Olivia Newton-John movie, Kubla Khan's pleasure palace or Charles Foster Kane's crib. It was also was also Martin Stern's unbuilt casino magnum opus. Dr. David G. Schwartz has revived his online museum dedicated to this project, "Paradise Misplaced." If it had been built, over 30 years ago, Xanadu would probably be one of those Strip casinos we now chuckle at, thinking it small, quaint and perhaps overdue for implosion. But it might have saved us from having to look at the oversize eyesore that is Excalibur, which looks laughably crude next to Stern's elegant designs.

Dr. Schwartz even recreates the Vegas of 1975. We've come a long way since then ... but who wouldn't want to hop into the Wayback Machine and experience the more spacious Strip that existed 34 years ago?

In between trying to wrap up Question of the Day essays on Carl Icahn, Stan Fulton, and condo sales in Las Vegas, I'm clearing the blotter of a few things that have fallen through the transom lately, such as ...

Elements: CityLife's Al Mancini didn't care for this new eatery, just off Tropicana Ave. The not-quite-missus and I ate there on opening night and had a better experience for our money. This review, intended for the most recent Las Vegas Advisor, didn't make the cut, so I offer it for your delectation:

Oscar didn't turn up for the May 13 opening but he'd definitely be in his, uh, element here, considering that the menu boasts no fewer than 253 martinis. Choosing but two was difficult but we opted for a chocolate-banana martini and the Miami Vice. If you want Strip-quality (or better) eating and drinking at off-Strip prices, you cannot go wrong with Elements. Both the martinis and the small plates inhabit the $7-$9 range, while the costliest entrée tops out at $25.

We started with the Kona beef short rib on gorgonzola polenta ($9) and it did not disappoint in either tastiness or generosity of portion. There are only two steaks on the menu but both were outstanding, though the black angus flank steak ($21) is quite a bit spicier than even the peppercorn-garnished black angus filet ($25). Both were accompanied by mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables. Only the dreaded cold butter-on-cold bread basket and sluggish service (despite a small crowd) detracted from a flavor-rich experience.