The Show, Such As It Is, Is UP

This is what happens when we don't have a proper studio. The audio's a bit rough, to say the least. I should have done some extra tests to make sure it worked well, but I didn't. I tried to fix it, I'm not sure I was all that successful. BUT...the interviews with Fator (starts @ 26ish) and Brown (starts @ 1:01ish) are quite loud and clear. They're also really good interviews. The tourist tip, poll and trivia question can be read at TheStripPodcast.Com, too. It's a good show - there's even a bit of a surprise within the first minute - but I feel the need to offer all of this disclaiming because, unlike a certain other media outlet in town, I am embarrassed when my product is substandard. OK, with that, here's the weekly info: Click on the date below to listen or right-click and save to your computer. Or subscribe via iTunes here or via Zune here.

Feb. 15: The Impressionist Era Of Vegas...

with Terry Fator and Gordie Brown

Call it the impressionist period of Las Vegas. This month, three major impersonator acts open – or reopen. Danny Gans relocated to Encore, Terry Fator took Gans’ space at the Mirage and Gordie Brown, late of the Venetian, has returned to his old Golden Nugget haunts. Fator and Brown both join us this hour. Find out what Fator’s new Mirage-appropriate puppet will be and hear all about Brown’s early years as a celebrity stalker. Plus, Steve grills Brown on parts of his act he didn’t like.

In Banter: Behind the scenes at Cirque dance auditions, Oscar v Obama, Curtas v Encore, bye-bye La Cage and Heidi Fleiss, the Excalibur’s new deal.

Links:

Get tickets for Terry Fator at the Mirage here
Get tickets to Gordie Brown at the Golden Nugget here
Get tickets for Danny Gans at Wynn Las Vegas here
Terry Fator’s website is here
Gordie Brown’s website is here
Danny Gans’ website is here
Read Steve’s column on Danny Gans’ show here
Find out what happened to the LVRocks studio here
Read Steve’s posts on the Obama v Oscar row here and here
Hear the 2/12 Oscar Goodman press conference here
Read John Curtas’ blog review of Encore here
The Review-Journal’s report on the closure of La Cage is here
The Las Vegas Sun’s story on the rebranding of the Trop is here
If you care, Richard Abowitz discusses Heidi Fleiss’ no-go of a stud farm here
Read about the smoker to fell out of the Circus Circus window here
Our listeners’ new show Seattle Geekly, can be found here
Buy an Edirol that we use to record interviews here
See the list of companies likely to go under, with two Vegas-related entries, here

Is this regression?

The Golden Nugget announced today a multi-year deal with...Gordie Brown. The same Gordie Brown who appeared there regularly several years ago, then moved on to a showroom at the Venetian, then did some shows at the Planet Hollywood and now is on tour with Celine Dion.

Gordie's due to start a five-night-a-week gig at the GN in February with a four-piece band. They're even renaming the showroom for him.

Excellent Deals, Great Cause

There's a silent auction going on through Dec. 9 for a long list of pretty cool Vegas-related items and packages at what are, at present, offensively low prices. The auction benefits a charity called Family Promise, an agency that helps homeless Las Vegans get off the streets.

Go here and take a browse at the dozens of items, including a long list of Phantom-related packages, tickets for O, Blue Man Group, Stomp Out Loud and Gordie Brown, massages at Canyon Ranch, Starbucks stuff, art and, of course, "Gay Vegas" by yours truly.

Vegas, Disabilities and the Hard of Hearing (Like Me!)

The Department of Justice today released information on a settlement with two casinos, the Mandalay Bay in Vegas and the Circus Circus in Mississippi, both now owned by MGM Mirage.

The settlements are exhaustive and the Vegas end of it involves Mandalay paying a $30,000 fine (whoop-de-doo) and enacting a long list of physical alterations to accommodate people in wheelchairs that undoubtedly will be a road map for compliance used by every other property in the city. Accessible rooms must have 32-inch-wide doorways, public bathrooms have to be however wide, they must provide accessible rooms for most every level of room style, etc. The Alain Ducasse eatery Mix was singled out as needing to provide a way for people in wheelchairs to get to upstairs dining areas. You can read it for yourself at this link until May 5.

So here's my complaint: What about those of us with disabilities not related to being unable to walk? In all of this, the only thing that touches on, say, people with hearing loss, is a requirement that they provide visual fire alarms in rooms.

I go to a lot of shows. I estimate fewer than a quarter of theaters on the Strip offer hearing assistive devices for their patrons. Every single cinema and Broadway theater does, but in Vegas, almost nobody bothers when they're spending tens of millions building them to include this convenience for their deaf and hard of hearing audience members. The theater that Rita Rudner was in -- and now Roseanne Barr is chilling in for a time -- at New York-New York was the first I ever saw that actually had signage for it, and I think the Cirque shows may have it which is ironic because you don't have to understand anybody's talking when you see one of them.

What's more, some that do have amplification devices don't advertise it. You have to ask. And then the ushers and box office personnel typically are baffled and don't know whether it's available or not. Nobody's training them. And I'm a young, assertive New Yorker/journalist; most of those looking for such things are elderly and not terribly comfortable even asking in the first place.

I particularly loved this response from an usher at the Gordie Brown show at the Venetian: "No, we don't have that, but it's really loud." It would be funny if I didn't hear this answer almost every time the answer turns out to be "no."

Don't tell me what's loud and what isn't. If I could hear like you, I wouldn't be asking, y'know?