Folks here at LVA HQ must be feeling a little punchy, as they’ve come up with this bit of Humpday drollery, which I pass along for your diversion.
Recipe:
Take one Steve Wynn …
Add a splash of Marty Allen …
… and you get — a Wayne Newton!
Or, in mathematical terms …
This latest tempest in a teaspoon has inspired a yawningly predictable reaction amongst Nevada politicians. The lone witty note was struck by Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority President Rossi Ralenkotter, who deployed irony in lieu of indignation: “While we appreciate Las Vegas is top of mind for the President, we would ask that he offer words of encouragement instead of criticism.”
As for the windbaggery of Mayor Oscar Goodman, Sens. Harry Reid & John Ensign, etc., before they vent, perhaps they ought to stop and think. Was the term “Vegas” being used symbolically rather than literally (much as S&G employs “the Boardwalk” as a euphemism of Atlantic City‘s casinos or “Peking” as a catch-all term for Sheldon Adelson‘s favorite government)? And has not Vegas enriched itself by marketing itself as a synonym for free spending and heedless excess (*cough*Golden Globe-winning The Hangover*cough*)? Thus, aren’t we reaping the consequences of what the LVCVA and others have sown so adeptly? The monetization of “Vegas” has succeeded rather too well, it would appear. Anybody remember “Shut up and play“?
Casino industry leaders don’t — or at least ought not — hop on the “We must defend Las Vegas’ honor” bandwagon. Why? Like a globe-trotting fundamentalist Mormon, they’ve assembled a harem of sister wives stretching from the United Kingdom to Macao. Vegas is the senior spouse in the compound but she’s just one of many now. That’s simply enlightened (?) self interest, but when Las Vegas is suffering because you can get a bite-sized version of the real thing at MGM Grand Detroit or Sands Bethlehem, you’re in a poor position to bluster about a situation you’ve helped create.
Anyway, our public “defenders” need to dial down the hyperbole — perhaps even take a few classes at the Ralenkotter Institute for the Advanced Study of Bon Mots.
“When times are tough, you tighten your belts. You don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage. You don’t blow a bunch of cash in Vegas when you’re trying to save for college.” — President Barack Obama, in New Hampshire today. Sounds like old-fashioned folk wisdom (and, except for the Vegas bit, it’s standard-issue Jim Gibbons rhetoric) but just wait for Nevada politicians to start demanding en masse that the prez retract his remarks and say that splurging in Las Vegas should take priority over the college fund — or something comparably silly.
… except for Jackie Gaughan‘s old casinos (Vegas Club, Plaza), where Tamares turned money into crud. Kind of a reverse-Midas touch skill.
Jace Radke sez Tamares sold to Forest City Dev., not LV, which gets Oscar off the hook. Ya gotta credit Tamares w. turning crud into money.
Queen of Hearts motel demolished for new City Hall. Wonder how much $$ Tamares Group bilked LV for that pile of rubbish. Tamares, 1; LV, 0.
Carrot Top announces nat’l prop contest. 1st prize: a comped stay @ Luxor. If that’s the grand prize I’d hate to see what also-rans get.
He’s chowing down lustily on some Friskies “Sea Captain’s Choice” at this very moment. Having worked all weekend, I’m taking a slight “staycation” from S&G. That translates as “I’m doing long-deferred housework.” I have no idea what’s happening in the casino industry today — but my garage is looking hella better. There’s a neighbor cat nosing around outside. I have no idea what his/her business is, but perhaps the aroma of canned Friskies, borne upon the breeze, mandated immediate investigation …
No, really. Now that’s putting the “sport” into hunting. Meanwhile, out in the Aloha State …
A McDonald’s employee in Hawaii, commenting on the customer who got impatient at the drive-through and ran over a fellow customer — twice, and fatally in the parking lot — with his SUV: ” It was uncalled for.” I think that may have been the same vehicle whose owner tried to flatten me at Imperial Palace in order to get at a parking space.
(S&G thanks Webmistress Jessica for the Golden Arches news flash.)
“What we’re seeing emerge here in Nevada is an economy that will not repeat the boom-like conditions that we saw just a few short years ago. I doubt very much in my lifetime we’re ever going to see consistent job gains over the course of several years … I think what is going to emerge is an economy that grows at a much more moderate pace. But on the flip side, it will be arguably a little more sustainable. We won’t see the booms and, like we’re seeing right now, the busts.” — Nevada Department of Employment Training & Rehabilitation economist Bill Anderson, speaking last Friday.
“Bidder for Fontainebleau says Las Vegas probably a bit overbuilt” — caption for Las Vegas Review-Journal story about Carl Icahn‘s F-bleau acquistion. “Probably a bit overbuilt” … now there’s a masterful understatement.
A new analysis of the White House‘s latest set of proposed economic stimuli tells us not to expect much … and why. Since the main target for pump-priming is small business, we’ll not expect much of any direct benefit to the casino industry and, in terms of consumer spending, not a heckuva lot of trickle-down either. People who are working 32 hours a week going back to full-time employment is a good thing but highly unlikely to support, say, a Las Vegas Strip that was predicated on a coked-up economy floating blissfully atop a bubble of cheaply obtained debt. We’re all running hard to stay in place, never mind get back to the lifestyle we enjoyed a few years ago.
My personal hope is that there’s a sufficient loosening of consumer spending that all those casino workers who have seen their schedule (and, consequently, pay) whacked by 20% or more, can enjoy the benefits — literal and figurative — of a 40-hour work week once again. As for the industry in general, it probably ought to pretend that the 2004-7 revenue bubble never occurred. It will make for a more realistic set of expectations. It’s been said several times over that, when a recovery comes, Nevada will feel it last (even later than Atlantic City — surely not!), so we’d better settle in for a long wait.
If LV simply *must* have a poster boy, better Goss than Gosselin.
San Francisco will have the federal funds to build high-speed rail to Anaheim. (Doubtless the Bible Belters are already shrieking about hordes of “sodomites” descending upon Disneyland and corrupting its spiritual purity.) Las Vegans and Southern Californians, meanwhile, will have to content themselves with, in lieu of a rail corridor — a political pissing match. In this corner, Hapless Harry Reid; in the other, Midnight Jim Gibbons.
Each is blaming the other for Nevada‘s failure to get stimulus money for high-speed rail and — guess what? — they’re both right. The mag-lev route in question was doubly doomed. Gibbons is rarely seen in the governor’s office and his notorious indolence has infected what remains of his administration. Not only was he slow and stingy when it came to allocating the stimulus bucks the Silver State had already received, seems he misplaced the postage stamps or something when it came to asking for train money.
But it’s completely disingenuous for Reid to try and dump all the blame on Midnight Jim. After all, who was it who made a big deal of pulling his support from the mag-lev project, saying it had made insufficient progress? Hapless Harry. By a series of remarkable coincidences, Reid prominently threw his support to Sig “The Fixer” Rogich‘s Choo-Choo to Nowhere (aka Victorville). Ol’ Sig just happened to have recently endorsed Harry and also just so happened to be lining up big names from Big Gaming to do the same. (Reid says, Don’t you fret, chilluns; if ‘n when Desert Xpress is extended from Victorville to Palmdale, everything will be hunky-dory.)
To bring matters full circle, while Sig is currently carrying water for Reid, he’s also largely responsible for lumbering the state with Gibbons. So maybe we should just put this whole mess on Rogich and call it a day. We hear the weather’s nice in Victorville this time of year, Sig. Maybe you could do Nevada a favor and move there. If you’re super-duper lucky, someday you’ll only be an 84-minute train ride away.
“Freddy Mercury meets Andrea Bocelli.” That’s one description applied to androgynous vocalist Jimmy Hopper, whom The Palms has signed for a once-a-week concert series. This is a sweet deal for customers: It’s a three-hour show and it’s free.
The seating policy is first come, first served (or, as a French monarch put it, “After me, chaos”) and one can presumably wander in and out as your fancy takes you. We’re talking an old-school Vegas lounge act here, much spoken of but rarely seen of late. (Not to beat on the Riviera but it generated some resentment by curtaining off its lounge and trying to run it as a profit center.)
Jimmy Hopper doesn’t look quite like any Vegas headliner I’ve seen to date (think family-friendly Goth). Gosh knows, we could use a reprieve from the recent string of performers who all too clearly think they’d have been running with the Rat Pack, had they only been playing the Strip 50 years ago. (I’m looking at you, Chris Phillips, and you, Matt Somethingorother.) Short of getting Vince Neil to dust off his Sinatra songbook, I can’t think offhand how George Maloof could have done better.
The Palms’ new Sunday-night crooner will be hanging out his shingle in the room which annually hosts Podcast-a-palooza and which is now being called “The Lounge.” What? That’s its old name? Right, Palms folks did make a big deal last year of calling it something else … lemme see … oh yeah, “The Gossy Room.” Whatever became of that?
Spendthrifty ways of Herbst Gaming playing hob w. bankruptcy plan. Foolish casino buys termed “fraudulent,” too. http://tinyurl.com/y9gb9ul
LV Hilton pinches Andrew Dice Clay from the Riv. An LVH dagger thrust to the Riv, as bottom-feeders grapple unto death. Clay’s not worth it.
We’ve got a problem and could use your help. Mandarin Oriental gave me eight-plus minutes of great B-roll footage. Trouble is, it’s silent and I lack the Mac wizardry to lay some appropriately trippy (think Tangerine Dream) music behind it, like those groovy travelogues Ian Sutton makes for GamingFloor.com. Our IT Dept. assures me we can support the end result on our server — not always a given in these parts. So, if anyone wants to give it a try, I’ll put the footage on disc and get you some LVA swag in lieu of payment. Contact me at [email protected].
Now if only someone in a position of power would listen to you guys about your proposed Slot Machine Hall of Fame …
“[Matt] Goss also would bring back some of Sinatra’s bygone sensibilities, chief among them being loyalty to friends.” That’s an interesting remark, considering that the singer began talks with Caesars Palace President Gary Selesner a month after Palms owner George Maloof had prominently featured Goss in a TV spot (he’s 15 seconds in).
The well-dressed Brit sounds like a wonderful chap, the sort of fellow you’d ask to babysit your kids. I won’t pretend to understand the imperative to make him some kind of Vegas insta-phenom (and his woozy Frank Sinatra interpretations veer dangerously close to parody) but he certainly is possessed of the enviable ability to make middle-aged women ovulate on cue. (Hugh Hefner must be green with envy.) Still whatever claim to Vegas celebrity he owns — including the coinage of the baneful adjective “Gossy” — he owes all but exclusively to Maloof. If Goss jumped ship to Cleopatra’s Barge (rather than being made to walk the plank), Maloof’s got a right to view those comments about “loyalty” with just a tinge of bitter irony.
Amid all the ink that’s been spilled about the phenomenon that is Garth Brooks at Wynncore, we have a winner. No review is more eloquent, detailed or well-observed than the one newly penned by my estimable CityLife colleague Mike Prevatt. His critique, more than any other, gets to the heart of what makes Garth-in-Vegas one of the few truly momentous artistic events to have hit the Strip in the last decade. (Fighting words, I know. Bring it on, M. Laliberté.) For example …
“Like Wayne Newton down the Strip at the Tropicana, Brooks is using his and others’ songs to tell the story of his artistic development. But unlike Newton, Brooks makes himself the least important character in that story. And that is why Newton’s show is so insufferable and smug, and why Brooks’s show is so revelatory and charming.”
Of course, I do retain a soft spot for Steve Friess‘ wry description of Brooks’ winningly disheveled appearance …
“He strolls on stage looking like the guy who’s come to fix your sink, in mom jeans and a grey hoodie, topped by a baseball cap and standing in tan workboots.”
But if you compare, say, my very mundane review of Brooks with Prevatt’s, it’s pretty clear that Mike is the one who’s really nailed what makes a chubby guy with a guitar the most impressive spectacle on the Strip.
Will govern for food. A picture worth a thousand words (or bucks).
MGM, Chamber kiss & make up. Both the prestigious name and — more importantly — the large checkbook of MGM Mirage will again be at the disposal of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce. Does this mean that the tax-dodgers at the Chamber have caved on their opposition to an MGM-supported gross-receipts tax … or vice versa? Or is this another instance of MGM CEO Jim Murren demonstrating that he’s his own man, not Terrence Lanni Jr.?
The Chamber is one of the worst offenders in Nevada when it comes to freeloading off of tourists and right now we’re learning what happens when there’s no one behind the tree to tax. I attended a budgetary meeting headlined by Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman last night and the economic forecasts weren’t worrisome — they were darn near frightening.
