Hans Klok, come back!

Sometimes one experiences an experience so awful that its sheer awfulness is awfully far beyond the power of words to describe. That’s what happened last night at the premiere of Vegas Magic Theatre at Gold Coast. (How bad was it? The only person yukking it up was professional pushover Robin Leach.) Before an audience that included Bill Boyd, Lance Burton, Mike Weatherford and Siegfried Fischbacher, VMT bombed … horribly. The warmest applause went to Burton, when he was acknowledged from the stage, probably because we all wished he were performing instead. (Siegfried milked his [slightly smaller] ovation shamelessly.) If you absolutely must see it — and you’d probably have to be a severe masochist, if that’s the case — do so quickly, because VMT won’t be long for this world.

Performed without pace or rhythm, and running a tortuous 105 minutes, VMT featured an array of performers whose acts were so lame they’d get booed off the stage at a child’s birthday party. The recurrent volunteer-from-the-audience bit was a mortifying disaster. It could be entirely different story next week, as the cast rotates every Thursday. The presenters vow to scour the globe for talent but the opening-night lineup — including itinerant vocalist Jasmine Trias and a host whose coiffure bore an astonishing resemblance to a porcupine’s pelt — looked more like what the cat dragged in on short notice. (And, yes, there was a cat.) I was reminded of those raggle-taggle variety evenings Harmon Theater used to fling onstage, featuring whatever comics and magicians had just rolled in from L.A. on their last gallon of gas and a cloud of reefer jokes. But hey, Boyd Gaming‘s pre-show spread was superb by media-event standards, so all us ink-stained whores felt obligated to stay the course, no matter how desperately we yearned to flee — and rarely have I wanted out of a theater more in my life. And to think I could have been snug at home, preparing for …

30 minutes with McDowell. Just before typing this, I got off the phone with Isle of Capri CEO Virginia McDowell, a delightful interview subject. Topics of our conversation included the former Lady Luck in Las Vegas, the ever-fluid situation in Florida, reversing Isle’s “Pile of Debris” reputation and the experience of working for Donald Trump. It’ll be next week before I get it transcribed but I promise you it will be worth the wait.