CityCenter, The Second Pictorial

Don't you just love that? That's the kind of fun stuff that gives me a thrill when I get to walk around a yet-unopened piece of new Vegas. Here's a closer look at this sign which, I'm sure, is already erected:


There it is, in one sign waiting neatly to be stood up and serve, most of CityCenter and its relationship to the Las Vegas Strip summed up in a directional.

I walked around again on Friday, my second tour in about 15 days as I finish up this weekend a major magazine piece on the project. It is impressive how much more cleaned up and polished the place looked and how many new angles I was able to see of these huge, gleaming buildings. Gleaming is a word you're going to see a lot in reference to CityCenter unless it's cloudy throughout December.

I was able to get into Mandarin Oriental for the first time to see the Sky Lobby. There was still a prohibition on taking any interior photos, but I did get some shots of its front porte cochere:


Here's Mandarin PR queen Alyssa Bushey's nifty construction helmut:


It's been said before by Hunter Hillegas of RateVegas.Com and others, but the 23rd floor Sky Lobby at Mandarin is going to be one happening bar. When I walked through, the bar staff was placing those pretty bottles of liquor on glass shelving behind the bar which, too, was in front of floor-to-ceiling windows.

I did ask whether average tourists would be allowed to just wander around the lobby and the answer was actually...not really. A reception person at the first floor will ask you what your business is. You can say you want to have a drink at the bar, but if you're not wearing appropriate attire -- read: those shorts and baseball cap I wore for my $21 burger at Trump last year won't cut it -- they can refuse you entry.

[Aside: VegasTripping.Com offered up this great link to a Mandarin Oriental spa designer's blog with images of what it will look like. It appears to be the first interiors of the space, so if you care, enjoy!]

One of the things I seek out when I'm in CityCenter are moments, angles and locations where I really feel like I could, if I squint the P-Ho out of the frame, imagine I'm really in Manhattan. There's a tall staircase that takes you down to the Mandarin's front door and check out these views looking down and up from the middle of it:


Right? You can see it, yeah? And this view straight up is arty:


There's a glass walkway across the front of CityCenter into the Crystals shopping area, and I thought these views from it were fun:


See, I'm not totally opposed to advertising on the side of buildings. That Gucci sign is hot. But it's also appropriate, not like this crap that MGM Mirage CEO Jim Murren himself admitted to me in a recent interview he dislikes, too, but feels dutibound to accept (I still disagree):


One part of the exterior that is more available to see and photograph now versus two weeks ago is some of the public art pieces. For instance, here's the pocket park in the crook between Aria and Crystals where the Henry Moore sculpture sits:


In that image and the following one, we're facing the glass wall behind Aria's registration desk. Here's another view and if you click on it, you might be able to make out Maya Lin's silver -- and fantastic -- Colorado River sculpture:


In an interview I did with Nancy Rubins for this magazine piece I've got going on, she talked about how one of the reasons she wanted to do her soon-to-be-iconic boat-tree sculpture was for the chance to have it cantilever over the road. Here's the best shot I've gotten yet of how it does so:


This classic Claes Oldenburg piece is so whimsical and fun, too:


Finally, I thought the western view was worthwhile, too. As you may know, my father and I are invested in a condo unit in the left-most building you see below:


When that road opens, a flyover of I-15, it should make those buildings more accessible and, perhaps, more valuable as time goes on. Fingers crossed, anyhow.

Yes, I continue to withhold more extensive commentary about the interiors of the various buildings and I'm glad I have done so as some opinions I had two weeks ago have changed -- for better and for worse -- as things have become cleaned up, adorned, appointed and unwrapped. And until real people start flooding the property to actually use these spaces, it's hard to know if anyone's instincts about their functionality is accurate.

That said, I do hope everyone out there is enjoying and appreciating this special period we're in now. It's been a sad time with lots of bad news, and now we're in the throes of the run-up to something we won't see for a long, long time: A major opening. Whether you end up loving or hating CityCenter, I urge you to indulge in its moment. It will be over soon enough and there won't be a whole lot of Christmas Mornings like this for Las Vegas for years to come.

Live shows TODAY!

Join us 4-5 pm PT for two live episodes of "The Petcast" and then from 5-6 pm PT for "The Strip" featuring my interview with new Vegas headliner Frank Caliendo. Come to LVRocks.Com and listen via your smart phone and chat in the chatroom with other listeners! See ya there!

AWOL Blogger!

Sorry everyone. I've got a deadline on a pretty substantial CityCenter magazine piece to finish up in the next day or so. I'm still Tweeting aplenty because it's easy and quick, but I've just got to get this piece done so I apologize for sparse blogging.

That said, we'll still have an hour of The Petcast and an hour of The Strip tomorrow live at LVRocks.Com from 4-6 p.m. PT. I'll blog the details on that a little later today. So we're not shutting down the store. We're just, if anything, making sure the store is properly capitalized to continue operating!

The Show is UP: Bill Boyd

Here's this week's show. At the end of it, Miles shouts out for your Vietnamese and Thai favorites (no Lotus of Siam, please), so go ahead and share if you wish in the comments here. Otherwise, the banter this week is especially amusing and we hope you enjoy it all. Click on the date below to make it play or right-click to save it and listen at your leisure. You can subscribe, too, (it's free!) in iTunes or in Zune.

Nov.16: Good Ol' Boyd
[Update 11/17: New link and show audio fixed -sf]

At 77, William S. Boyd could just sit back, count his money and let his children carry on his family’s casino and philanthropic legacies in Nevada. But for Boyd, retirement from running the company means being active in it in other ways, and he remains very much involved in the important decisions of Boyd Gaming. Mr. Boyd speaks to Steve this hour about halting construction of Echelon, making a play for the properties of bankrupt rival Station Casinos and old versus new Vegas.

In banter: Frank Caliendo opens, Steve bets on Cotto for a friend, WSOP ratings are flat, the Rio is NOT all suites, three popular attractions are now neighbors, crazy Bette fans attack and Jim Murren claims he listens to this show.

Links to stuff discussed:

Steve’s blog post and column on the Main Street Station walkabout
Frank Caliendo’s home page
The VegasHappensHere.Com explanation of how the MJ money was spent
Steve’s Bette Midler failure column and WSOP’s ratings drop
The new locations for the Gambler’s Book Shop and Pinball Hall of Fame
See the weird Aubrey O’Day YouTube rant after the first Peepshow performance
The VegasHappensHere.Com rant against the wrap on The Harmon
The first CityCenter pictorial on the blog
The latest from the R-J’s Howard Stutz on the Boyd-Station tussle
The Dave Berns chat on KNPR with Bob Arum about maybe-gay UFC

This week's LVW col: After The Flop

Here's this week's LVW col. Let's see if the poker peeps can muster the shock and awe that Batsh*t Bette fans did. -sf

After the Flop
Poker's time in the sun may have come and gone, if recent ratings are any indication By STEVE FRIESS

If there were ever a year when the World Series of Poker should have enjoyed a renewed boost, it was 2009. The stars had aligned in every conceivable way, and grandiose predictions seemed warranted.

“This is going to be the most-watched Final Table in history,” legend Phil Hellmuth predicted to me before it took place in two spurts on November 7 and 9.

And I believed him. It certainly made sense. Alas, he was wrong.

After all the noise in recent weeks about the conclusion of the 40th WSOP Main Event—the $10,000 Buy-In No-Limit Texas Hold ’Em tournament viewed as the pinnacle of the game’s prestige—virtually nobody bothered to report the outcome that actually mattered. TV ratings for the two-hour Final Table broadcast on ESPN on November 10 were actually down from the 2008 broadcast. The difference was nominal—this year’s show drew about 1.8 million viewers, and last year’s drew 1.9 million—but still, down is not up. Worse yet, ESPN says the 2009 ratings for the 31-telecast, 15-week season had a 1.0 share, which was even with the 2008 season.

All of which invites this important question: Now can we say that poker has plateaued in the United States?

This notion is one that makes World Series of Poker bosses groan. Skeptical journalists have long been taking note of poker’s relative weakness versus its white-hot years, 2003-2006, when poker TV shows were all the rage and Internet poker blossomed into one of the universe’s all-time most profitable enterprises. In 2006, when 8,773 players entered the World Series of Poker’s Main Event and the top prize hit $12 million, there seemed nothing that could slow the game’s stampede into the hearts and minds of American popular culture.

Poker overlords like to note that Congress put the kibosh on poker’s growth by passing a law in the fall of 2006 severely restricting the ability of most Americans to easily put money into their online poker accounts. This certainly is true and did result in a dramatic drop the following year in WSOP Main Event entrants. In fact, in the three years since, that figure has yet to top even 7,000.

That’s all well and good, but that does not explain the waning interest in watching poker on TV, and it is only via TV that tournament poker can become anything more than a peripheral part of mainstream American culture. Why would one’s inability to play online reduce one’s interest in following the pros? If poker wants to be compared to the big sports leagues, don’t they know that the vast majority of people who watch the NFL or NBA don’t actually play football or basketball?

Read the rest at LasVegasWeekly.Com.

How We Spent the Michael Jackson Benefit $$$

That 2.5-minute report was KVBC's Hetty Chang breaking news of some of what we're doing with the money we raised from "Las Vegas Celebrates The Music of Michael Jackson" at the Palms. Now I'm going to provide a fuller explanation.

First, I'm a wee bit bummed to say that after expenses were factored in, Erich Bergen and I actually did not hit the $100,000 mark I had hoped, believed and said we had. We're still waiting for the check from the concession sellers, but when it's all done we'll have raised a little bit more than $96,000. There were a couple of expenses that I wasn't aware of when I made the previous estimate, but that's just a function of we show-producing newbies having so much to do pulling this off that we didn't always remember to tell one another about some costs.

There's still the potential for more proceeds once we edit and package the DVD version sometime early next year and small donations come in every so often via our site VegasLovesMJ.Com. And, as previously stated, any credible journalist who wishes to review our records, including receipts, is more than welcome to contact me.

To answer one question that had been asked, though, nobody from the Jackson family received a dime for anything. Per union rules we did have to pay the members of our band, but every other performer on the Pearl stage appeared for free. Also, neither Erich nor I received a thin cent of compensation unless you count the box of leftover T-shirts in my garage, and the records we submitted for reimbursement held by the Clark County Public Education Foundation prove this. The money from our various revenue sources -- concessions, tickets, the Paypal donation account and the Moonwalker screening -- goes directly to them and then has been disbursed when we provided receipts and two members of the CCPEF board review them.

All that said, we DID raise $96,000! And here, after some meetings, is what we decided to do with it:

* 30 percent goes to the Artists 4 Kidz program, a partnership between the CCPEF and entertainer Clint Holmes that pairs aspiring student performers to be mentored by professional singers, dancers, musicians and actors of which there are so many in Las Vegas. That's about $28,000.

* $5,000 goes to pay to bring the Canadian group Barrage to perform at Sierra Vista High on April 7 for a concert for which several schools will be selling tickets. The schools keep the proceeds from the tickets and, since past years' shows of similar type have raised as much as $8,000, this arrangement allows our funds to grow. All proceeds of that ticket sales must go to music education programs, per our original edict.

* Eleven schools will receive $2,500 grants for their music departments to use buying instruments, risers, sheet music and whatever else they need. If the principals commit a matching $2,500, then we will give them another $2,500. It's a way to give principals, who have so many demands for discretionary funds, an incentive to push some of it this way. Those schools are Robison Middle School, Monaco Middle School, Findlay Middle School, Cashman Middle School, Swainston Middle School, Knudson Middle School, Cram Middle School, Lyon Middle School, Brown Middle School, Bonanza High and Desert Oasis High. That's $60,000 and, so far as I've heard, all principals are meeting the challenge.

We held back a small bit of the money just in case there are further expenses. In a few months, we'll give that to a 12th school if there's enough. Rick McEnaney, the director of secondary fine arts for the CCSD, chose those schools based on need and provided us with lengthy explanations for each pick.

As Hetty's KVBC report shows, the needs in this district are dire. It is so gratifying to be able to put on a show that Norm Clarke declared the best in Vegas this year and to do actual, tangible good at the same time.

This is Wynn (Warehouse)

After taping this week's episode of The Strip, I hightailed over to Wynncore to check out something unusual I had picked up from some Twitterer: Wynn Warehouse. Basically, the resort has an overstock of various merchandise and they set it up in the LaFite Ballroom for the public to come and buy and dramatic discounts. It is open Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 14 and 15, from 10 am-7 pm. I was told it was the first time they'd done it in at least four years, so it's a rare opportunity.

In fact, I'd never heard of a Strip resort doing any of this -- Tweeter said Station Casinos has done so -- and I thought it might be good for some early holiday shopping. Because I only had 20 minutes, though, I just ran around shooting photos and figured I'd go back tomorrow to buy some more items.

ALSO, they handed out fliers about a separate Wynn sale from Nov. 14-17, 9a-5p, at a real warehouse at 6650 Spencer St. where they offer "fabulous discounts on furniture and restaurant equipment." I may check that out tomorrow, too, because Miles and I remain in love with the comfy red seats at the restaurant now known as Stratta. (What'd it used to be? I'm blanking.)

The bulk of the offerings at Wynncore are clothes, presumably from the various shops on the property, although there are plenty of pieces with "Wynn" on them.

The track suits above were a gift to employees last year, I was told. They only have XL, XXL and XXXL, but they're $9 for the set and I got one for Miles. And I thought these (below) were kinda handsome, the first I believe being part of some Wynn uniform and the second being a sweater:


See how it says $375? Well, according to this legend...


...that means it's going for $50. There are loads of those golf shirts that fell into the $20 range and LeReve and other T-shirts that were as little as $2. As you can see, the place functioned just like Old Navy:


The furnishings ranges from cool stuff like these, uh, $1 pen holders(?), china and, uh, well, what DO that call that curvy thing?



In fact, I'm not sure what many items are including these:

On Twitter, some folks suggested the green thing is some sort of Chinese restaurant table tray but all I'm able to make out a funny-face in the lower part and a paw print in the upper region. No clue on the orange helmutish things.

And these candle holders...


...are not worth even $5, are they?

There are ALL manner of clothes and accessories, even some kinky stuff:


...and this (below) is some sort of Jean Paul Gaultier handbag. Eek. My dog would eat it.


I was sad to see this reminder of failure:

They have notecards, pins and posters from Avenue Q for a dime! Also, they have these Spamalot dolls:


There are lots of knick-knacks, including Wynn pins and magnets -- even some from Macau -- as well as diaries, parasol Xmas ornaments and various Ferrari swag (including a golf putter?):


And, of course, even at Wynn Warehouse there's going to be...


...the seed of an idea for a guest for "The Petcast!" What Wynn store sells such a silly item, I may never know. But it can be yours for...uh...OK. I didn't care enough to look.