The Strip is LIVE tonight w/ Marie Part II

We're live tonight @ 6:45 p.m. PT at LVRocks.Com with the second half of the conversation with Marie Osmond and the president of the hotel whose fancy suite almost none of you could place. Marie Osmond gets a little controversial this time, particularly when she’s talking about what she knows about the behind-the-scenes world of Dancing With the Stars and American Idol.

Come to the chat room at LVRocks.Com and listen live and converse with others. Or wait for the podcast, which you can subscribe to for free in iTunes.

Foto Fun: Inside The Wynn Artist's Studio

A few weeks ago, while working on a lengthy profile of Wynn designer Roger Thomas that is scheduled to appear in The Advocate in June, I got a tour by his assistant of the Wynn design studios near McCarran Airport where plans for Wynn and Encore as well as the Macau editions of both were hatched. Because there were concerns about the publication of proprietary designs on this blog, I had to have Thomas' permission to post these photos, which I finally have.

Also have this news: In the next two months, Thomas said his team will be presenting to Steve Wynn ideas for redesigns of the original Wynn Las Vegas rooms. There will be new color schemes, new furnishings, new linens and drapes and mattresses. I didn't get to see any of that, but the resort is coming up on five years old in 2010. That's the typical cycle for redoing rooms for Wynn.

Anyhow, the studio. As you might suspect, there are a series of workrooms overloaded with bits and pieces of potential designs. On a daily basis, Thomas and his staff are inundated with fabrics, carpets, images of artwork and other samples from hopeful designers, precious few of which actually end up being used.

Here's the frame wall, a variety of sconces and lighting fixtures and other stacks of stuff...





There is a system intact, as much to keep track of all this as to not get accused of stealing ideas:


This got damaged and is being fixed:

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Below is an earlier iteration of the space at Encore where there is now a stage off from the pool and conference rooms overlooking:


Something needs to be hung at the Sinatra restaurant at Encore:


There are original Boteros in the hallway...


...and plenty of art involving Thomas himself:


Click on this one below to see what sort of books lurk in Roger Thomas' office library...


...but the books that really matter are these, those that Thomas has carried with him and sketched his ideas in as they occur to him for decades, all saved and lined up behind his chair:


The kids from the private Meadows School made this for Thomas after a visit:


And, of course, there is the hardhat. The pink hard hat. I did mention I was writing for The Advocate, yeah?


I shot some photos of the Sky Casino at Encore last week with Thomas. Will post that, too, when he OK's them.

A Sunday Funny

Loyal readers know I love Argyle Sweater, the latter-day Far Side cartoon by Scott Hilburn. Today's was another winner, although I wonder if any of you keen-eyed Vegas lovers can spot the mistake in the artwork...

Lackland: The List

He must be his Big Brother's Little Brother. In anticipation of his first weekend of relative freedom when he graduated last week from Air Force boot camp at Lackland AFB, Jamie made up a list of things he wanted to eat while he was permitted. Remember, this is an 18-year-old who had just endured eight weeks of a strict military diet. But, still, it's notable that almost everything on the list contained sugar. (Click on it to see it more clearly.)

I've already shown you Jamie's reaction to a helping of Baskin Robbins at the BX and the frustration that the first Burger King we went to on the base had no burgers. Well, we remedied the BK thing...


...and a whole lot more. There was IHOP...


...and Sun Chips...


...and Shamu-shaped pretzels and funnel cakes at SeaWorld...


We made it to Rudy's, a classic San Antonio-area BBQ place that many readers suggested.


Jamie's girlfriend actually has some great shots of Jamie over a messy plate of food covered in his mother's jacket to avoid sullying his Air Force blues but has yet to share 'em with anyone. His fastitidiousness was comical; this kid never before gave a darn about getting messy!

The only rule that Jamie had to adhere to was that an Airman in uniform evidently never eats or drinks standing up. So he took a seat for some Monster...


...but I was under no particular rules at all, as you can see.


And what goes well with all those goodies? How about some video games in his mom's room at the hotel!


As you can see, Jamie looks good and dignified at every turn. Not like SOME people.


Funny. Fingernails weren't on Jamie's list.

The PETCAST is LIVE on Saturday 10-11:30 a.m. PT

Now that LVRocks.Com has a spiffy new studio, we're back on track with The Petcast as well! Join us to listen live and visit in the chat room at LVRocks.Com on Saturday, 4/4, from 10-11:30 a.m. PT. If you're there, you get to ask our guests questions through us. This week's planned lineup includes:

10 am: Gary Roma, documentarian of "Puss in Books" on library cats.
10:30 am: Mutts cartoonist Patrick McDonnell (see above)
11 am: Dr. Tony Woodward, a Colo.-based vet dentist

Join us or catch the podcast. You can subscribe in iTunes for free.

The Show is UP: Marie Osmond, Part I

Off to the tax lady now. Enjoy the show! Click on the date below to listen or right-click and save to your computer. Or subscribe (it's free!) via the iTunes link or via the Zune link. Enjoy.

April 2: Marie Osmond, Part I

She’s a little bit country and a little bit, well, you know the rest. But she’s also now a big bit of a Strip headliner. Marie Osmond, she of the gigantic gleaming smile stretched across the Flamingo, joins us this hour to talk about show business nepotism, performing with everyone from Groucho Marx to Snoop Dogg and the night she and Donny performed their Vegas show in the dark.

In Banter: Freaks at O'Sheas, MGM drama, Follies bye- bye, Vegas impersonator jailed in Suriname.

Links to stuff mentioned:

Tickets for the Donny and Marie show
The 2009 results of the R-J’s Best of Las Vegas survey
The VegasHappensHere.Com post on the mayoral chips for Airmen
The website for SeaWorld’s Military Program
Sites for Minskoff and Mandalay theaters, both of which now house The Lion King
KNPR, the Las Vegas NPR member station
A Las Vegas Sun piece on Freaks, a gross new show at O’Sheas
VegasHappensHere.Com on MGM making their payment
MGM Mirage CEO Jim Murren’s letter to employees
News on Hooters, Riviera and Bally’s closing its sportsbook until September
Mike Weatherford’s coverage of the closure of Folies Bergere at the Tropicana
Gaming Today’s Monti Rock III on Bobby Slayton’s Trop deal
Norm Clarke’s coverage of the Toni Braxton impersonator jailed in Suriname

Nicely done, Mr. Knapp!

I don't ordinarily wade into commentary about the local TV news because my partner, Miles, is the executive producer at KVBC, the NBC affiliate here. That makes it difficult and awkward and, happily, the Review-Journal's Steve Bornfeld has his "Mediaology" column analyzing the topic so I don't have to.

But it's a pretty big deal that George Knapp of KLAS, the local CBS affiliate, has won a George Foster Peabody Award this week for their special, "Crossfire: Water, Power and Politics," a hard-hitting analysis of the impact of growth on the southwestern U.S. You can view all seven parts via this LasVegasNow.Com link. Also honored was Knapp's photojournalist, Matt Adams.

To get an idea of what a huge deal this is -- it's the equal to the R-J winning a Pulitzer -- consider who else got Peabody honors this year: ABC for "Lost," HBO for "The Gates" and "John Adams," NBC for its Beijing Olympics coverage, PBS for "Washington Week With Gwen Ifill" and CNN for its coverage of the presidential primaries.

Congrats, Mr. Knapp. Let's hope your station can continue to spend this kind of money on this kind of journalism in these, you know, tough economic times.

They Can Call It CityCenter Station!

The Wall Street Journal reports today that MGM Mirage may have a new sugar daddy, Colony Capital. These are the folk who own the Las Vegas Hilton but, more importantly, own 75 percent of Station Casinos which, from what we've been hearing, is about to go into bankruptcy itself. They also own Resorts Atlantic City, which is facing foreclosure.

So I'm baffled. Why is Station going into bankruptcy if its major owner has money to invest in another risky project on the verge of bankruptcy? Is it all, as we've always suspected, just Monopoly money after all? The WSJ says that Colony has raised $1b in capital to invest in distressed assets. Shouldn't they invest it in the distressed assets they already own?

On a similar but different front, I continue to be confounded by the dollar figures involved with CityCenter. Dubai is a 50-50 partner with MGM Mirage. MGM Mirage said last week that the project cost is $8.7 billion, although the WSJ used $8.6 billion today. Either way, the WSJ says Dubai World has already kicked in $4.3 billion. Why does Dubai still owe anything? Or is the $8.7 or $8.6 billion figure inaccurate? If Dubai still needs to give more, then MGM Mirage must know the project will cost more than $8.7 billion. Or maybe the WSJ is wrong and Dubai has not yet actually kicked in $4.3 billion? ACK!

Am I the only one confused here?

This week's LVW Col: When The Fun Stops

Here's this week's Strip Sense column, trying to make sense of last week's MGM-related events. Enjoy, and hat tip to Hunter at RateVegas.Com for letting me poach this headline.

When The Fun Stops
Is MGM Mirage Nevada's AIG or GM?

By STEVE FRIESS

“Pardon me for asking, but if a company is too big to fail, maybe—just maybe—it’s too big, period.” –Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich

Having evidently learned a little something from the hundreds of acrobats who perform astonishing death-defying feats nightly in its Vegas resorts, MGM Mirage last week leaped headlong into the open air, held the world in terrified suspense as it twisted and turned to avoid a hail of fiery spears and then, at the last possible moment, grabbed the bar and swung to relative, if momentary, safety.

Yet rather than supplying the raucous applause that greets such moments in the theater, the world just heaved a sigh of relief. Unlike the safe distance we feel watching, say, a Kà aerialist, where we know it’s only his neck that will be broken should he fall, the experience of last week wasn’t a mere spectator sport.

No, that wasn’t just a large casino company flying without a net in the face of oncoming doom, it was each and every Nevadan.

We came to realize with sobering clarity this week, in fact, that MGM Mirage in general and its $8.7 billion CityCenter development in particular are the closest things for this state to entities that are “too big to fail.” Nobody from MGM Mirage would use those four specific words because companies that are TBTF—AIG and GM are usually the ones mentioned—are so important that their significance is what justifies taxpayer-funded bailouts.

But just because a company’s not TBTF on a national level doesn’t mean it’s not TBTF in a local sense. And last week’s events were so frightening precisely because we were told repeatedly that CityCenter’s collapse would reverberate in the worst possible ways throughout the entire Silver State economy.

Read the rest at LasVegasWeekly.Com.