Vegas Gays Prove They're As Tacky As Straights!

OK, folks. I'm embarrassed by the Vegas gays at this very moment.

Here's an image of the first couple who married in Massachusetts in 2004:


Here's what one of the first gay couples to wed in Iowa earlier this year looked like on their wedding day:



And, most touchingly, here's what the first couple in California, ages 84 and 87, looked like on their wedding day last year:


And here's an example of what the news media is going to circulate two days from now when Nevada gays begin to legally unite under the new domestic partnership law:


No, really. Let me explain.

The push for marriage equality is about showing that, as couples, gays are essentially the same as any hetero couple in ways that matter. The same relationship issues, same motivations for wanting to be devoted to one another, same variation of "lifestyles" including being parents or childless, urban or rural, conservative or liberal, etc. To persuade straight people that gay couples deserve the rights they have, gays must show that they're more similar than different.

That's part of why the first couples to join in other states have enjoyed elegant, tasteful ceremonies that are palatable to a still-uncertain Middle America.

But not in Vegas! Check it out:

History to be Made when Nevada’s First Same-Sex Couple Walks Down the Aisle Under New SB 283 Legislation

LAS VEGAS – At precisely midnight Thursday, Oct. 1, the first same-sex couple to be legally united under SB 283 Domestic Partnership legislation will walk down the aisle at the Erotic Heritage Museum Wedding Chapel. The ceremony will represent the first domestic partnership recognized under the newly-passed legislation effective Oct. 1.

Elvis-impersonator Jesse Garon, named the ‘official Elvis impersonator of Las Vegas’ by Mayor Oscar Goodman, will officiate the ceremony. The first couple to be united under the new legislation will also release seven doves to commemorate the number of years it took to pass Act 283.

...

Celebration of the new legislation will officially kick off at 10 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 30 at the Erotic Heritage Museum. Courtesy of the Cupcakery, a giant wedding cake with seven symbolic candles will be unveiled to guests with a surprise guest popping out of the cake. DJ Chris Adams will get guests in the groove with hot beats and a performance is scheduled by the Sin Sity Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Various Las Vegas artists and entertainers will be on hand to mark the occasion, including famed Frank Marino of An Evening at La Cage.

Yep, you read that right. The first same-sex couple(s) to hold a ceremony tied to their Nevada domestic partnerships will do it at a SEX MUSEUM and be officiated by an ELVIS IMPERSONATOR. It takes place after a party with RELIGION-MOCKING DRAG QUEENS.

You've gotta be kidding me. Is there nobody involved who can't see the obvious and humiliating PR disaster in the making for those who hate the gays and seek proof we're all just a bunch of sex-crazed, debauching, godless cross-dressers?

I've got nothing against sex, nothing against drag queens, nothing about religious spoofery. (Lots against Elvis impersonators, but that's besides the point.) Yet if the gays were bound to make a symbolic show out of this landmark, this is how they choose to do it? What's worse, this is apparently orchestrated by the fine folks at Q Vegas, the local gay monthly, who ought to know a thing or two about how the media works.

It would be one thing if the Erotic Heritage Museum did this on their own -- and it's clearly a publicity stunt to them to promote a wedding chapel there that also opens on Thursday -- but for Q Vegas to assist in building this whole freakfest around the moment? Why do I have the feeling that, had someone asked, queer-adoring Harrah's would've been more happy to throw a thing atop the Eiffel Tower or something? But instead it's this?

Thursday should've been a proud day for Vegas gays and their supporters. Instead, what'll be beamed out across the valley and around the world is that the gays around here have no class, no sense of propriety, no sense of occasion. Lame.

Frank Marino To Reopen @ IP

This is the sort of thing I'd normally just Tweet, but with Twitter all funkied up, I'm going Old School and blogging. (BTW, that Tao Tweasure Hunt was reskedded for next week and this is a funny bit called "When Twitter Is Down.")

While Erich Bergen and I were at Vegas.Com today for a meeting about our big "Las Vegas Celebrates The Music of Michael Jackson" fundraiser at the Palms later this month, Frank Marino was there filming a TV spot for their site. I sensed the Marino aura when I spotted a rather plain Caddy out front with the La Cage license plate. It surprised me, actually, because the last time I saw Marino's car it looked like this:


Anyhow, I caught Frank in full drag and asked him when he'll be back on stage. He said he opens Labor Day Weekend at the Imperial Palace. "We're going to teach those Human Nature boys a thing or two," he said. The show features the cast of the 25-year Riviera production that was shut down suddenly earlier this year. Norbert Aleman, the longtime producer, will not be involved, Marino pointedly said.

I mentioned to him the kerfluffle I got into with Aleman's peeps when I Tweeted that I had heard Crazy Girls would be shutting down soon and that it had just 80 people in attendance, mostly comps. Aleman's folks sent a statement insisting they were NOT shutting down but never suggested the attendance figures were incorrect or explained the financial math of having a show running with that large a cast and that little revenue.

"You ought to have said that what you meant to say is that the show should close," Marino said drily.

Meow!

Revisiting Manilow, Le Reve, Shark Reef

Hey kids. Miles and I are just now going to sleep after a treacherous travel day from Vegas to Long Island on that trailer park in the sky, Southworst. I didn't realize we were committing to two layovers -- in ABQ then BWI -- and in BWI we had weather problems that grounded us for five hours. Then we got on the plane and sat because, well, in five idle hours they forgot to make sure there was someone on hand to fly the bird. Sheesh. Anyhow, we're here now, will be in NY for a few days seeing some shows and unveiling my late grandfather's headstone, a Jewish year-after custom. So, for now, I leave you with this week's Weekly column about the spree of shows and attractions my niece and I saw last week and my thoughts on revisiting them.

The Manilow Principle

Why some shows are better the second time - and why some are not

By STEVE FRIESS

About 15 minutes into Barry Manilow’s Music & Passion show at the Las Vegas Hilton last week, I received a mocking text message from my partner. Miles had ducked out of having to go with me, my 16-year-old niece, Courtney, and my mother because he had to go to work at the last minute, but he hardly seemed unhappy about that twist of fate.

“So, does it suck yet?” the message taunted.

I missed the message. To my utter shock, I was having much too good a time.

Yes. At Manilow.

But, faithful and puzzled readers might be thinking, didn’t you just a few weeks ago mention how much you despised that very show in that commentary about all that was wrong with the new Cher production?

Indeed, that is why I was so bowled over. When your family visits, you tend to do things you wouldn’t ordinarily want to, and my mother was, is and probably always will be a Fanilow. So off I went, preparing both myself and poor young Courtney to suffer. I prepped the teen for the idea that this would fall into the so-bad-it’s-good category.

Except it wasn’t. It was so good it’s good. Really. In my guidebook, Gay Vegas, I had given this production a “C” and complained that it was a “rush job” with “dancers who seem confused about what they’re doing.” Yet on this night, a good 75 percent of the songs were not in the prior edition, Manilow was unstoppably exuberant and energetic, and even the closing “Copacabana” was less grating and, so it seemed, mercifully a little bit shorter. Also, unlike Bette, Celine or most notably Cher, Manilow remained on the stage for all but about three minutes of the concert. Of course, his “costume changes” involved changing his sportcoat. But still.

This revolution in my thinking led me to a spree of revisiting shows and attractions I hadn’t seen in a long while.

Read the rest HERE

Stupid Pic Of The Day

This was distributed by Frank Marino's folks, probably from the Global Gaming Expo where James Gandolfini is appearing to promote the new Sopranos-themed slot machine. What a riot! See, it's funny because James Gandolfini is holding the fake stuffed breast of a female impersonator! Oh, the hilarity!

Ironically, while it's presumably Gandolfini who's the attraction at this thing, it's Marino's still got a career.