Tuesday, May 27, 2008

A Very Venetian Memorial Day

My mother and 16-year-old niece (left) are visiting me this weekend so we've been doing all sorts of touristy stuff. In another post and on this week's upcoming episode of "The Strip," I'll get into both our Barry Manilow and Madame Tussaud's experiences. But for the moment, a few Memorial Day weekend bits about the Venetian/Palazzo:

1. Pay It Forward. Las Vegas Sands was ordered to pay $43.6 million. Read all about it here. Odds are high that sum will be reduced on appeal. Which will take years. So good luck with that.

2. Causing A Commotion. A loyal reader/listener, Chris, was in town and at the Venetian for a conference in the past few days when he noticed people gathering, cheering and clapping in the casino. He went over to see what was up "expecting to see some famous athletes, musicians or stars of some type." What did he see? "
A young man, mid-twenties, who I didn't recognize. ... As he drew closer I noticed that he seemed to be struggling to walk, I then noticed that he had a prostetic leg. Behind him another young man with a cane, next a young man with dark glasses and a seeing eye dog. Then I realized why I should be cheering for these guys, why we all should be cheering for them. These celebrities are injured veterans. ... It was a moving moment. I was proud of these soldiers, I was proud of the hundreds of people who honored them with all the Las Vegas lust they possessed." Indeed, Sheldon Adelson paid for 40 wounded vets to fly to Vegas, stay in fancy digs and see shows. Read the AP's account here, but note that LVS did *not* put out a press release on this. They did not go out seeking coverage. That's quite honorable.

3. Tamara, Tamara. After many months of being the only media person to tell you all about this new interactive show called Tamara coming to the Venetian, there's finally some actual physical evidence outside of the show's future entrance in the Grand Canal Shoppes:


4. Tale of the Tape. Many on the Internet, including me, have been monitoring this silly little thing as some sort of bellwether of quality or attentiveness. There's blue tape hanging from a rail at the Palazzo. It's been there since the place opened. We're all wondering when they'll notice. We're now up to six months, as of this photo today.


It's pretty meaningless, really. And funny.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read a story on the Sun about Mr. Adelson bringing the wounded in. It was dated Friday, and I read it yesterday (Monday). My point is, there were no comments about the story after 3 days. I think this is telling about Mr.
Adleson's level of respect in the community. When no one wants to compliment him for doing such a nice thing, he can't be highly regarded. Jeff Leatherock

Anonymous said...

that's because the media has portrayed him as a rich, greedy billionaire. When there's an alternate "persona" it doesn't fit with their story so they'll ignore it and bury the story. And people who hate him will ignore it. Just look at how Mr. Fries gave it play. The story about the multi-million-dollar judgment was the first item, and the vets item was way down the list. If it bleeds, it leads. Even Mr. Friess agrees.

Anonymous said...

see, and actually i read that as steve sort of dismissing the whole thing and grudgingly covering it. he's spoken about it almost not at all on his show and i don't think he's covered it at all in his normal work. if he wanted to just embarrass these folks, the tape thing would've gone first. i think you're reading far too much into it.

-another SF