The Show is UP: The Caveman & The Chip Monk

Can't give too much of a prologue because I gotta take a pre-Celine nap. So here's the show. Enjoy. As always, you can click on the date below to get it to play or right-click on it to download it to listen at your leisure. Or, of course, subscribe for free in iTunes or Zune. -sf

March 15:The Caveman and the Chip Monk

A Caveman and a Chipmonk walk into a bar. Actually, they’ve never even met, but they have one thing in common: They both were interviewed by Steve last month. The Caveman is comedian and actor Kevin Burke, who has clocked more than 1,500 performances in “Defending The Caveman” first at the Golden Nugget, then the Excalibur and now Harrah’s Las Vegas. And the chip monk is the nickname earned by Arthur Nelson, the organist who has cashed in casino chips for Guardian Angel Cathedral on the Strip for decades.

In Banter: Sahara closing, Celine opening, re-reviewing Criss Angel, geocaching shut down, earth-moving extravagance ramps up, Rumor for rent and Gladys on the cheap.

Links To Stuff Discussed:

Get tickets for Defending The Caveman
See the column and pictorial about the Guardian Angel Cathedral and the Chip Monk
The Strip episode with Richard Marx
Jean Bartel podcast and Strip Sense column
VegasHappensHere.Com on Sahara closure
Dr. Dave Schwartz’s comment on the Sahara closure via David McKee’s blog
Gladys Knight is the Trop’s Celine Dion
A photo of the Alabama lady’s betting slip
Sinatra Dance With Me Extended to April
The R-J TV columnist Christopher Lawrence in the Sister Wives moving to Vegas
Spirit Air helps LA-LV flights plummeting
Rent Rumor for $13,000 the whole thing, 180 rooms
Go move earth for $400 for three hours in Vegas
Adrienne Packer’s column on the geocaching shut down along the Extraterrestrial Highway
A bill pending in the Nevada Legislature as an end-run around the federal restrictions on Web poker and gambling

Column/Pictorial: The Chip Monk & The Strip Church

If that's not the coolest stained glass in the history of Catholic churches, I don't know what is. (Click on it to enlarge and see the uber-Vegasy detail.) It's the lower portion of the panel in the far northeastern window of the main santuary and is actually tough to find, tucked back behind where the choir and organist do their things. Here's another, closer shot of the 1975 artwork. Just one of those casinos is even still standing.

I was at Guardian Angel to do this week's Las Vegas Weekly column about the Chip Monk, the fellow whose job it is (or was) to go cash in casino chips dropped in the collection baskets. They used to get more than $2,500 a month that way and he used to be able to cash them all at Caesars or the Trop, but times have changed. Go read all about him in my Las Vegas Weekly column.


Meanwhile, here's a Flickr slideshow of images of from the church and my visit. One fun part is that many of the stained glass panels were paid for by famous Las Vegans like Danny Thomas and Wilbur Clark, as you'll see.

And here's just one shot I thought was artful. I call it "Two Cathedrals."