Best Strip bargain yet? Plus: Loveman’s verbal gymnastics, pool fees, etc.

Luke Jermay is a charming English mentalist who does a low-budget but worthwhile show at O’Shea’s. His presentation may not be as polished as that of rival Gerry McCambridge, but what Jermay lacks in razzmatazz, he makes up in personality. Best of all, his show is now free (uh, with the purchase of two drinks, that is). Admittedly, Harrah’s Entertainment ought to pay you to go into O’Shea’s, which is so low on the Strip’s food chain CheapoVegas.com hasn’t even deigned to review it. If Harrah’s owns a casino that’s more like a dumpster with slot machines, I’ve not yet had the misfortune of encountering it. However, free — sort of — admission to Mental may be all the excuse you need to investigate the Harrah’s grind joint so grungy it makes Imperial Palace look like Caesars Palace. Jermay’s show, however, is time well spent … or comped, as the case may be.

On the subject of Harrah’s, my shock at Gary Loveman‘s unhealthy appearance on a recent Reuters Webcast caused me to mentally skip over a couple of salient points in the conversation. One was the CEO’s decision to join the pile-on of Harrah’s execs who have badmouthed the previous ownership and management of Planet Hollywood. If ex-owner Robert Earl really and truly thinks Harrah’s is going to be seeking his counsel in the future it’s looks he’s due for a rude awakening.

Also, Loveman was quite explicit and voluble in making the point that Harrah’s next casino acquisition would be outside the Las Vegas market (indeed, outside any market with an existing Harrah’s presence). However, even as he was telling Reuters one thing, Harrah’s co-owner Texas Pacific Group was conducting a panty raid on distressed Palms debt.

Admittedly, there’s a degree of separation here that gives Loveman plausible deniability. However, it’s a pretty thin degree and means one of three things: A) What Loveman says is literally incredible; B) Harrah’s right hand doesn’t know what its left is doing; or C) My preferred theory, that “long-term strategy” is oxymoronic when applied to Harrah’s. Like a spastic octopus, it flails in all directions, seemingly without logic. One week it’s purchasing Planet Ho, the next it’s trying to buy out Crown Ltd. in Macao, the week after that it’s moving on the Palms. What the company will do next is an eternal mystery — even to Harrah’s itself, it seems.

MGM vs. MGM. A sharp-eyed S&G reader drew my attention to the imposition of pool-use fees at Gold Strike Tunica, one of the lesser islets of the MGM Mirage archipelago. I put the matter to a company representative, who replied, “Your info seems incorrect. No one is charging paying hotel customers for pool access. There was (is) an experiment at Luxor to sell day passes for NON-hotel guests. Don’t know its exact status though.”

And thus the matter might have rested but I poked around Gold Strike’s Web site and there it was in fine print: A “refreshing dip” is “subject to a nominal fee.” There may be some loophole for hotel guests or perhaps for them it’s rolled into the $5.35 “resort fee,” but either way Gold Strike is clearly making people pay to even dip a pinkie toe into its piscine. Players may want to investigate other means of keeping cool. Of course, Tunica-bound fans of a certain Patrick Swayze movie might want to stay at Harrah’s rechristened Tunica Roadhouse (formerly the Sheraton Tunica), although I can’t as the new name is likely to do wonders for the downmarket stereotype under which Harrah’s chafes.

Upper-Midwest readers will have yet another chance to check out the terrific Finnish vocal group Rajaton next week. I saw them do an all-ABBA program in June 2008 and their arrangements (particularly of hidden gem “Head over Heels”) were top-notch, their stage presence very winning. When will somebody book them in Vegas, even for a one-night stand? [crickets …]