See Laughlin and die

It’s standard industry practice to jam slot machines up as close to the front door as humanly possible. Hell, if they could put them out on the street, they would. (Casino Royale actually has machines on the Strip, but they’re just a gimmick; money doesn’t change hands.) And now two women are dead in Laughlin because somebody piled his car into the slot floor of the Edgewater. Forget about putting metal detectors at casino entrances; it looks like what’s needed is a moat, drawbridge and portcullis.

If Christ were alive today He’d be top-lining a UFC match or so the churchy set contends. Next thing you know, the Fertitta Brothers will be touting an overcard betwen Jesus “The Carpenter” Christ and Kimbo Slice.

Even a town built on hyperbole, the orgasmic prose of Robin Leach stands out for its absurdity. Readers of his Luxe Life blog were treated to the breathless news that, Saturday night, “Palazzo food and beverage executives have opened the ultimate in decadence with the Laguna Champagne Bar on the casino floor,” as Leach’s keyboard shrieked.

It happens that I was at the same media event and if this was “the ultimate in decadence,” then Leach needs to leave the house more than once or twice a year. Laguna is nothing more nor less than a makeover of an existing bar smack dab in the middle of Palazzo’s cavernous casino floor, serving champagne and more champagne-based cocktails than one can shake a flute at. (Although the presence of bar-top gambling machines wars with the up-market image, as though Moet & Chandon had taken over a P.T.’s Pub.) You can see more “decadence” in five minutes at an after-hours club.

The atmosphere was actually — dare I say it? — sedate. There were lots of plush settees, filled with respectable ladies in their party duds … sort of like being trapped in a scene from Sex and the City. The hard-to-miss Mr. Leach was not in sight, so perhaps he was reporting from a Laguna Champagne Bar in an alternate reality. (Actually, he seems to have left early.) Lindsay Price is porcelain-delicate and looks as good in person as on TV, although a couple of cocktail servers with Jane Russell-like proportions put her somewhat in the shade. (The event also posed an interesting social conundrum. What do you say to the former Lipstick Jungle/Eastwick star? “I really liked you in [canceled TV show here].” Probably not.)

Leach, incidentally needs to get a better “spywitness” in Macao (which he somewhat quaintly describes as a “Chinese colony”). Booted Las Vegas Sands executive Mark Brown could not possibly “be leading a group to buy the Grand Waldo Casino on the Cotai island strip there” because you can’t buy a casino in Macao (or else everybody would be doing it). Brown would have to buy Galaxy Entertainment, Grand Waldo’s owner, lock, stock and VIP rooms. Considering the huge runup in Macanese casino revenues going on now, if Brown’s aiming for Galaxy then he’s going to be looking at a price tag of galactic proportions.

Leach adds that William Weidner (left) also recently purged from Sheldon Adelson‘s palace guard, is shopping himself around Macao. In light of Weidner’s culturally maladroit performance during the Richard Suen trial, he’s got a lot of spinning to do. (Memo to Leach: It’s Venetian Macao, not “Macau.” Like S&G, Sands hews to the more traditional spelling.)

Laguna was ho-hum compared to the new Mexican restaurant in Mandalay Place, Hussong’s Cantina. (It’s apparently pronounced “Who Song’s,” conjuring up the image of Sino-Mex fusion cuisine.) By Strip standards, the prices are incredibly reasonable — translation: I can afford to eat there — and the food has the, for want of a better term, earthiness that one normally only associates with off-Strip (usually way off-Strip) Mexican eateries like Fausto’s Mexican Grill, Pepe’s Tacos and Chapala’s — not to mention a wonderful hole in the wall just ’round the corner from LVA HQ, El Alacran. As impressed as the Better Half and I were with a recent, coupon-enhanced trip to Pink Taco, Hussong’s quickly effaced it from our memory bank. Besides, where else can you hear the in-house mariachi band interpreting Pink Floyd‘s The Wall? Only Hussong’s.

My next task for the pages of Las Vegas CityLife will be to profile the Erotic Heritage Museum. This may be the ultimate mismatch of reporter and subject. My brief is that it’s to be done with “chastity.” Well, at least I’ve had some expertise in that department.