More Proof Sahara Closer Sam Nazarian Is Full Of Sh*t

The Las Vegas Sun turned its entire section today into a Sahara tribute, complete with John Katsilometes sleeping over for the final nights. And that's nice. But buried deep in the eight-page commemoration was owner Sam Nazarian's baloney and pastrami about his plans for the property. Here's what he told Kats:

The bones and history of the Sahara are worth preserving. What we want to create is a resort that is as charming as it is elegant, that reflects the new era of Las Vegas while honoring its history.

And, evidently, that's ALL he had to say or surely Kats would have told us.

That that's the extent of Nazarian's remarks is bizarre and telling because, allegedly, he has a much more specific super-secret plan that, for reasons that can only be clear to him, he chose not to share with the solace-needing Las Vegas readership.

You see, this is an excerpt from a stunningly idiotic and obsequious L.A. Times piece on him five weeks ago:

A month ago, industry observers thought that even the bullish Nazarian wasn't immune to the ravages of the recession when he announced plans to shut down the iconic Sahara Hotel in Vegas, acquired in 2007 for an estimated $300 million. At the time, Nazarian would not comment on the closure, but he now says the plan from the beginning was to close the hotel for renovation. He said he was committed to reopening it in 2014 as an SLS Las Vegas, with six restaurants and two nightclubs.

"We've spent $30 million in design development drives; we're shovel-ready," said Nazarian, who formed his company in 2002 with proceeds from real estate investments as well as a wireless telecommunications company he sold. "If we were admitting defeat we would have admitted it."

So in April, he was telling the LA media that he's "shovel-ready" with a new scheme that will be open in 2014 with six restaurants and two nightclubs. Why, exactly, would he not tell Kats the same thing? Why would he suddenly be so vague when speaking to the local press? (Also, as an aside that tells you just how lost the L.A. Times was on this one, what industry observers thought Nazarian's Sahara had not succumbed to the ravages of the economy?!?)

Mayor Monster of VegasTripping nailed it in his blog post on that inane article, and it bears repeating:

Where's the public release of mouthwatering renderings? Where's the facts and figures? Who is the architect of record? Where's the big press conference with suited bozos carrying silver shovels and SLS branded chrome hard hats? What about the presentation before Clark County Planning Commission? Where's the press release touting where the money to build this - $3,4,5,6 Billion dollars? - is coming from? Is it possible to destroy and cart away Sahara and build a gigantic new place in 3 years? Where's the SLS Vegas website, with countdown clock, construction cam and sultry photos arranged in a sexy, 'this should be your life' kinda way?

It doesn't exist. None of it. Like nearly everything Sam Nazarian and SBE have said about their goings on in Las Vegas, this is all a magic trick.

The speculation is Nazarian is puffing himself up in advance of an IPO for his nightclub conglomerate. What he -- like his new BFF Jim Murren before him -- seems to forget is that whatever he says now will be measured against . . . what actually takes place. So when 2014 rolls around and the tumbleweeds continue to blow -- and why would any bank put up the billions necessary with so much decay in that neighborhood? -- we'll know.

Odds are good by then he'll feed the L.A. Times some further malarkey, believing that that, too, won't ever make its way across the Mojave.

Food Critics and Anonymity, Redux

So after the heated debate that my Las Vegas Weekly column spurred last month over the recent book "Eating Las Vegas" and the disturbingly clubby relationships between the three critic authors and prominent Vegas restaurateurs, the topic just erupted in a massive way in Los Angeles, too.

The L.A. Times' food critic, S. Irene Virbila and some companions went to a new restaurant called Red Medicine in Beverly Hills the other night. For 16 years, she has worked as under-the-radar as possible. But someone on the staff at Red Medicine believed he spotted Virbila, who had made reservations under an assumed name. The managers spent a little time confirming it and made the party wait 40 minutes before bursting out, shooting her photo and informing her they would not be serving her at the restaurant.

The restaurant then put out a photo of Virbila on their website, too, and Gawker and Eater.Com also posted it. Her anonymity, such as it was, is gone. She spent 16 years avoiding photos of herself being published.

There is much to say, obviously. Managing partner Noah Ellis thinks he's a hero, telling the L.A. Times that Irene's reviews in the past have been "unnecessarily cruel and irrational." She is said to have immense power over the fate of new restaurants, and she tends to eat at least three times at a place before making a decision.

This situation is a Rorschach test for those who line up on various sides of the debate. I, of course, believe that food critics ought to try their best to visit restaurants unannounced and incognito in order to have as accurate a representation of the food and experience as possible. Those have been the phrases I've been using for weeks on this matter, so imagine how gratifying it was to read Virbila in the L.A. Times story on her outing saying that it is preferable to not make a spectacle of yourself because if you do, "it's not an accurate representation of the restaurant."

If I'm deluded into believing that it's not that hard to be a quiet, effective food critic, then the other side -- including L.A. Weekly critic Jonathan Gold, who thinks there's "absolutely no difference in being recognized in restaurants" -- is at least as equally, but more insidiously, delusional. It's shocking and laughable when Vegas Seven critic Max Jacobson said on KNPR that he doesn't evaluate service because service doesn't matter, showing how insufferably removed from the reality of ordinary restaurant patrons he is. (Jacobson also announced on that show that anyone who needs to try a restaurant more than once to evaluate it is a poseur, someone lacking in "instincts." Good grief.)

Those who believe that anonymity is a total myth, however, point to the fact that Virbila was noticed at Red Medicine and that chefs say they know who the important critics are and coddle them whether they know it or not. The entire charade is worthless and silly, they squawk.

Except there are 72-oz-porterhouse-wide holes in that logic in this situation:

* After 16 years in Los Angeles, it took Red Medicine a great deal of deliberation before they could determine if, in fact, this was the person. Thus, they don't ALL have her photo up in their kitchens or her face memorized. These were veteran restaurant people and they weren't entirely sure.

* The purpose of this outing was to forewarn other restaurant owners and make Virbila's work harder. That implies that she had managed to be successful at her undercover work at least some -- a lot? -- of the time.

* The logical conclusion of this idea that critics ought to give up being anonymous and allow restaurants to shower them with extra goodies and attention is that criticism by the very people who have real culinary expertise -- such as Mancini, Curtas and Jacobson -- becomes disregarded by the public. The reader knows these guys are coddled and that they won't be, so the reader is more likely to discount rave reviews as the result of some nefarious, unfair meddling. That leaves, essentially, the Yelp! universe. I don't mind that -- I look to Yelp! often -- but the odds are the Yelpers don't have the history or expertise that long-term professional critics have. The outcome is the triumph, essentially, of less informed opinions.

Of course, there's a space between the true-anonymity and the critic-as-rock-star poles. In there, food critics simply try to keep a low profile, to not draw attention to themselves, do their best and at least maintain the implicit contract with the reader that they're working on their behalf. They don't make chums with chefs and owners any more than I'm chums with top casino executives I cover or Jon Ralston is chums with politicians or Mike Weatherford is chums with actors and directors. You can be friendly and civil without it becoming a friendship, you can maintain a detachment that allows you to assess situations and information through a prism that enriches the public that you serve.

There is a reason why this topic -- and now the Red Medicine event -- is so fascinating. There is also no other discipline where an artist or purveyor of creative goods is permitted to select their critic. No author or film studio can stop a critic from consuming the material and rendering a response. Only in food criticism is it even possible to alter the product for a person's specific tastes or actually exclude them altogether from being able to evaluate it.

That's why the Virbila situation is so weird. No matter where you stand, it ought to be instinctively offensive that Ellis would actively work to out this woman and refuse to serve her. That reflects, to me, two things:

* The restaurant must truly suck.

* The owner is incredibly bitter.

The Show is UP: FOODIE FIGHT!

We don't do live interviews much on the Saturday show because they're a pain to arrange, but this week they sure did make the episode pop. Al Mancini and I had a really fun and respectful scrum, as had hoped, and Ric Guerrero from Slidin' Thru did something that's never happened before: He broke news in the Top Secret Tourist Tip of the Week. Anyhow, a good time was had by all, and now it's your turn. Find the show in the feeds for iTunes or Zune (that's free, fyi) or can click on the date below to get it to play or right-click on it to download it to listen at your leisure.

Dec. 5: Foodie Fight Three Ways...
...with Franck Savoy, Al Mancini & Ric Guerrero

By now everybody who listens to this program, reads Steve’s blog or enjoys eating out on the Strip must know about all the controversy kicked up over this little book that recently came out that names the 50 quote-unquote essential restaurants in Las Vegas. Steve had some issues, so on this show he’s invited co-author and food critic Al Mancini into the LVRocks.Com studio to hash it out on the air, live. Before we get to that, though, Steve interviewed Franck Savoy, the 31-year-old son of Guy Savoy who was just named director of restaurants at Caesars Palace. Savoy dishes about growing up in Paris as the son of the famed chef, what’s really happening at rumor-riddled Bradley Ogden and, of course, what his fast-food guilty pleasures are. And, in a special INTERVIEW edition of the Top Secret Tourist Tip of the Week, Ric Guerrero of Slidin Thru breaks some news.

In Banter: The mayor's Ferris wheel, Ruffin's Starbucks, Wynn's expo center, Rhumbar's kangaroos, Frank Marino's blood drive and other absurdities.

Links to Stuff Discussed:

Franck Savoy’s ascendancy at Caesars Palace
Steve’s Las Vegas Weekly column on the book “Eating Las Vegas”
The Slidin Thru website
VegasHappensHere.Com on Slidin’ Thru’s new brick-and-mortar store
VegasHappensHere.Com on the Bradley Ogden drama
Steve Wynn is engaged, per Robin Leach and Norm Clarke
Steve’s LA Times piece on the topless shows in Vegas
Vote for us for the Trippies
The Eating Las Vegas book site
Al Mancini’s blog, The Second Deadly Sin
The Rhumbar, Sea World and the kangaroo
News about Susan Anton in Menopause, Bobby Slayton at Hooters and Boys II Men at Flamingo
Singer Tommy Held’s website
Frank Marino’s blood drive and why Frank can’t give blood

Ranking Vegas' 8 Naughtiest Shows

As podcast listeners knew, I spent the summer checking out topless shows on the Strip with Jamie, my Little Brother from Big Brothers Big Sisters. (He's 20 now and it's legal, so chill out.) The conceit of the piece was that he's straight and had never been to any topless shows before I took him to our first of eight, Fantasy. And I'm gay, so I had a different point of view that might be of use to women considering attending these shows on their own or with their straight male counterparts.

The piece is up as of yesterday on the Los Angeles Times' website. (In the end, the editors decided the subject matter was a little too risque for the print edition.) We did not include the new topless shows at Sahara and the Westin mainly because I don't believe the Westin one will be open for long and the Sahara one bowed after I had filed the story and Jamie didn't have time to go.

There's detail and discussion of each in the piece, but here's how Jamie ranked the shows:

1. Zumanity

2. Peepshow

3. Jubilee!

4. X Burlesque

5. Bite

6. Crazy Girls

7. Crazy Horse Paris

8. Fantasy

I did not attempt to sway Jamie, I swear. I wanted his ranking so that it would be useful to his peers, not mine. If I had to rank, my order might have been a little bit different. For my money, Jubilee! is just the coolest thing and Crazy Horse Paris the worst.

I also did a quick sidebar on the male stripper revues to go alongside this. You can find that here.

LA Weekly Cover On Mike Penner & Christine Daniels

Today, the L.A. Weekly published my 7,000-word cover story providing the fascinating, crushingly sad inside story of an L.A. Times sportswriter who transitioned to living as a woman, then reverted (outwardly) to male and, in November, killed himself. [When Mike Penner first announced his transition to Christine Daniels, the headline on this blog was: "Unbelievable courage."]

It's not part of my Vegas stuff, true. But it is one of the finer pieces of journalism, with the space and time truly needed, I've had a chance to do. So if you're interested, please read it.

That image above, by the way, was done for the cover by Matt Mahurin, one of the biggest names in both journalistic illustration and music videos. That's kind of awesome all by itself.

Bye Bette + Buffet! Hi, Viva Elvis!

Some comings and goings today.

* Bette Midler announced today she's done with the Colosseum after two years. Her last show is Jan. 31. Her statement was peculiar in scrambled backhanded slaps at Las Vegas and inscrutable explanation of her future plans:

"What a fabulous two years this has been, and I thank AEG and Caesars Palace for the best partnership a showgirl could imagine. Who knows? These legs have had such a great run in the desert -- it may be time to haul them to places with more humidity and fewer slot machines. But first I need to finish recording my album of the sexiest new love songs that only a showgirl could sing."

Huh? First, what does that "Who knows?" mean? What is that in response to? Was someone asking her a question? Is it "Who knows, I may end up at the Wynn by Labor Day?" Second, really, she had to observe the humidity and slots? Is this news to her? Was she here THAT much that it grated on her? And, third, when she says, "But first" before the shameless plug for her new album, does that mean she has to record the album BEFORE she vacates the effing-arid den of gambling? Couldn't she have come up with anything more clear and graceful?

* Someone who is always clear and graceful? Richard Abowitz. I'm so sorry to report that Richard's "Movable Buffet" blog on the L.A. Times' website has been halted. This comes a year after my weekly celebrity interview pieces for the L.A. Times were halted because the section I was writing was eliminated. So these are tough times for that newspaper, to be sure, but it did seem that every time the L.A. Times does a significant piece on Las Vegas, those pieces rank high on their most-read lists. Hopefully Vegas-obsessed Los Angelinos will find their fill elsewhere, but the more voices the better and this change is really a shame.

* There's good news, though, too. Cirque du Soleil finally unveiled the name of the new show at Aria. It is -- wait for it -- Viva Elvis. What's that? Oh, yeah. That's right. I broke that two months ago. But, still, they're making a big to-do about it. They posted this utterly idiotic video, too, of the cast shouting the name. Here's hoping their dance movements are in better synch:


Here's an interesting tidbit from my CityCenter tour the other day, though. The directional signage inside Aria just reads "Elvis Theater." Kind of silly of Cirque to go to such lengths to keep a non-secret under wraps to the point of not even having the show's name on the signage, especially when that video seems to show that the cast recorded that moment in June in Graceland.

Also, something that would send Steve Wynn through the roof: Scalpers have already set up shop! Check it out! This is the third entry when you Google "Viva Elvis" right now and tickets haven't even gone on sale yet!

Somebody dislikes Encore

Well, I'm sure more than one person does. But since I had yet to read anything in the media that was seriously critical of Encore Las Vegas and its design, I thought I'd post the link to Tony Illia's Las Vegas CityLife critique in which he states that Encore lacks "restraint."

A few excerpts:

Wynn, always the pitchman, believes it's his greatest achievement yet. "Intimacy and richness is the difference with Encore," says Tom Breitling, the former Golden Nugget owner-turned-Wynn employee. "It's really like a boutique hotel." But nothing about the 653-foot-tall, 2,034 room mega-resort seems small or boutique-like. ...

...There is an island bar that somewhat resembles a circus merry-go-round, with four TVs and six gaming tables. There are also daybeds, lounge chairs and a sunglass-cleaning service....

...The main casino is drenched in bordello red,...

...The building is a type of large brown package, nay, present, waiting to be opened. But one architect called it a UPS truck turned on its side....

...The attention to detail is stunning, albeit excessive....

...Encore is trying too hard to impress. Every square inch is adorned with a texture, pattern or contour. There are no blank spots that simply let you breathe and experience the space. The composition is overwrought, too tightly packaged together. It can be suffocating. Encore is a sensory overload. Wynn's need to dazzle and overwhelm guests doesn't always pay off. ...

And, to be fair, he closes with this trying-to-end-on-an-up-note bit:

That said, Encore improves upon Wynn Las Vegas in many ways. The main entryway off Las Vegas Boulevard is much better. Guests pass through the front doors into an uplifting double-height space with diffuse daylight, trees and flowers. Casino corridors have natural light, which is a bold but pleasant surprise; sunlight has long been an industry taboo. The floor-level backwall is also entirely glass, allowing sunlight inside, blurring the line between indoors and out. The retail promenade, meanwhile, is wider and more leisurely than Wynn Las Vegas, which seems cramped at times. And the rooms are splendid. The mood is more relaxed, less kinetic. Glass-encased showers, deep tubs, floor-to-ceiling windows, and plasma TVs in both the bed and bathrooms encourage a pampered, lazy attitude. Rooms have couches, ottomans, writing tables and wireless Internet access as well as fine art prints and safes.

Contrast this to the glowing reviews by UNLV's Dave Schwartz in the Business Press and the Christopher Reynolds of the L.A. Times, the paper whose architectural critic once said the Wynn Las Vegas' theme was "midrise office tower in Houston, circa 1983."

I'm not saying Illia's wrong or that his opinions are invalid. I'm just posting this because they're almost the only critical thing I've seen written about the new resort.

Show's UP: A Very Wynning Xmas

Merry Xmas and Happy Hannukah everyone! Hear the show by clicking on the date or right-click to download it and listen whenever you want. Or subscribe via iTunes here or via Zune here.

Dec. 25: Wynn's Encore, Part I

This is Steve Wynn’s week, no doubt about it. On what is traditionally one of the slowest nights in Las Vegas and in the middle of the worst recession in generations, he opened the doors to his $2.3 billion expansion, Encore. The results were a flood of curious explorers that led to bumper to bumper traffic on the Strip as far south as the Mandalay Bay and a line all the way into the Wynn casino. In honor of that milestone, over the next two weeks we’re presenting our interview earlier this month with Wynn in which he talks about everything from the shape of the buildings to the original plans for the Encore TV commercial.

In Banter: Encore, snow, Criss Angel, City Center, Elton John.

Show links:

See Encore here
See pix of the snow in Vegas here
Read CityLife's cover of Criss Angel here
See the breaking news about Elton John here
See the L.A. Times' glowing review of Encore Las Vegas here
See the video for Richard Cheese's"Christmas in Las Vegas" here
See Steve's coverage of the Treasure Island sale here
See the Vdara sign photo here

TSTToTW: The LA Times Story

Amid these bleak economic times, it dawned on me that we here at "The Strip" podcast are sitting on a treasure trove of three years' worth of Top Secret Tourist Tips of the Week. That, for those of you who don't listen to the program, is the feature that closes the show.

So, given that these are tough times, I thought it timely to offer the L.A. Times travel section a piece based on this venerable segment, choosing some of the best of them. And so it is that 21 tips under $21 (get it? 21? Blackjack? Vegas?) appear this Sunday when the TSTTotW gets its unbilled close-up.

That piece is already online. Check it out here. It's fun. And send me new ones, as it's always a challenge to come up with one every week.

Show is UP: The Wayans To Leno

Enjoy this extra-long show! My L.A. Times profiles of Leno and Wayans can be found here and here respectively. Click on the date to hear it or right-click to download the show and listen whenever you want. Or subscribe via iTunes here or via Zune here:

July 3: The Wayans To Leno

Jay Leno has always been comfortably inside the lines of mainstream American comedy while Damon Wayans has built a family business out of going out on a limb. So what do these two comics have in common? For one, both are performing in Las Vegas this month. For another, they’re both on the show this week. Leno reacts to questions as about why he’s not more respected by the entertainment media while Wayans tries to explain the method to his mad career.

In Banter: Steve Wynn's cocktail, Steve Friess' drinking binge, Harrah's environmentalism, Penn v Angel and a George Carlin tribute.

Links:

Get tickets to Damon Wayans' Orleans show here
Get tickets to Jay Leno's Mirage performances here
Learn how to make Steve Wynn's favorite cocktail here
Check out the Downtown Cocktail Lounge here
Read Penn Jillette's diss Criss Angel here
Learn more about Noir Bar at the Luxor here
The site for Miles' would-be obsession, Clean House, is here
Steve's scoops on the blue tape and the Criss Angel delay is here and here
Read how the AIDS Rides turned out to be a scam here
Read Harrah's press release on their WSOP carbon-credit buy here
That 7/1 WSJ piece on Vegas casino debt is here
See the George Carlin clip we played on the show here
Watch the whole Wayans three-titties routine excerpted on the show here

Dear MGMMirage.Com Peeps...

I was looking up times for the Jay Leno Midwest flood-victim benefit shows on June 25 and June 27 for a piece I'm doing for the L.A. Times and look what popped up atop the pop-up window!


Brothers, Siegfried & Roy are gone. We, too, miss them sincerely. But it's been almost five years. It's time to fix your HTML. Really.

Try it yourself! Click here. Then click on "headliner tickets." Yes, it morphs a split-second later to something else. That's why this screen shot is so lousy -- I had to do it really fast. But still. Something tells me you're going to be much, much faster about purging all evidence of Danny Gans come the winter. Also, when was "O" ever at The Mirage anyway?

And, speaking of Bellagio, congratulations on finally shutting off that annoying music at Bellagio.Com and MandalayBay.Com. Now take care of that at MGMGrand.Com, too, will ya? Still, not so sure the whole "who-will-you-be" thing at MandalayBay.Com works. The voice cuts off rather abruptly, leaves users a little disoriented. I'll play with it a little more, though.

One final thing: Don't tease me! You know I love, love, love anything related to Las Vegas and podcasts. So when I saw that y'all had a "podcast" for the MGM Grand, I got all giddy. Until I subscribed and listened to them.


Huh? Twelve-second recitations of the names of your shows or acts? Five-second identifications of the chef at your restaurants? WTF? Why bother? You folks should be embracing this medium to provide news, tourist tips, giveaways, interviews with stars, chefs, executives... oh, wait. Never mind. Who would ever listen to such nonsense?

Respectfully,
Steve

Caan Disses "Get Smart" in LAT

James Caan, honored this year with the Vegas Icon award at CineVegas, was in rare form when I interviewed him last week. With only 500 words available to me for my weekly Los Angeles Times piece, there wasn't room for all of the bombshells. Look forward to more news to break from that chat when it airs on "The Strip" next week. Topics? The now-dead "Las Vegas" TV show for one, Sarah Jessica Parker for another.

But for now, Caan is in the L.A. Times dissing the upcoming "Get Smart" film he's in that opens this weekend. I asked what he thought about Hollywood going back to the classic-TV well and he said:

"I think that people must be taking drugs, because they can't come up with anything new or maybe every story's already been told. That's why I'm looking for writers and waiting for something good to come along."

Ouch.

The Strip is LIVE tonight @ 7:05 p.m.

For the second week in a row, we've got a live interview, this time with an in-studio guest, the sitting World Series of Poker champion Jerry Yang. Yang spent $225 to enter a satellite tournament and ended up besting more than 6,300 players to win $8.25 million last July. (Here's my L.A. Times piece previewing this year's WSOP, which opened on Friday.)

Listen live and chat with us and fellow listeners from 7-8 pm at LVRocks.Com. Or wait until Thursday and the podcast will be up.

R-J Bafflingly Sucks Up To Criss Angel

Yesterday, tickets for Criss Angel's new Cirque show went on sale. That, evidently, is considered important news to the local media. I can't figure out on what journalistic planet that ought to be the case, but whatever.

The trouble is, Criss Angel stands accused by Norm Clarke of the R-J of having shoved and threatened him over his coverage. Several very credible eyewitnesses saw the incident. Angel has refused to answer questions about it, then whined to me on the carpet at the ACMAs the other day that people don't know the whole story.

Imagine, then, my surprise when the normally excellent Mike Weatherford ran this embarrassing puff piece on Angel and his ticket sales in yesterday's newspaper. There is nary a question, comment or no-comment in it about the most significant, most newsworthy relevance of Criss Angel at this point in time, his alleged threat to a journalist.

I asked Mike about this omission and here is his response, which was also sent to Richard Abowitz of the L.A. Times' Vegas blog when he, too, asked:

"This hasn't been actively discussed, but I think it has gone unsaid that since Norm and I mostly work independently already, I need to keep doing my thing (cover this show all the way through its opening) and let him do his. Besides, the interviews weren't one-on-one and there was a sense of the meter running in the presence of Kats and the AP on my side of the table, and the show's director and choreographer on the other, none of whom would probably appreciate the limited window of time sidetracked by Norm talk."

Wow. There are so many things wrong with this I can't get my head wrapped around them all. First, all journalists at all times are responsible for asking the most newsworthy questions. It doesn't matter if others are covering it and it doesn't matter if you're sharing access with other people.

And particular in this circumstance, why does Mike, Kats and the AP think they were invited to sit down with these people? Oh! That's right! To promote their forthcoming $100 million show. Something tells me they were going to sit right where they were as long as it took to give the journalists the promotional bits they wanted to get out there in the ether. They were using the journalists in no uncertain terms, but the journalists owe it to the public to ask the hard, uncomfortable questions and not just go along for the ride.

Think of the case of Martha Stewart thinking she'd get a free pass at the height of her tax-evasion scandals when she went on the CBS morning show and got badgered by the anchor during a food segment. Martha didn't get to decide what sorts of questions she answered or to merely focus on her salad just because she thinks that she picked a softball forum. And if she wouldn't answer the questions, then she didn't get to do her little self-promotional thing.

That this hasn't been "actively discussed" within the halls of the Review-Journal is even more shocking, although not surprising given the famous contempt for Clarke possessed by R-J Editor Thomas Mitchell. Violence and threats of violence against reporters are not small matters. They weren't back in the day when journalists were being threatened for covering the Mafia and they're not today when a star with thousands of rabid goth-crazed followers can cause serious harm that even the star himself doesn't intend.

It also does not matter if the subject matter is celebrity gossip nor the regard with which anyone holds journalist involved. (In this case, I happen to hold Norm Clarke in quite high regard because he's pretty much the only journalist in Las Vegas who actually credits others for stories they break. That's a level of uncommon integrity and generosity that deserves a great deal of respect.)

I do wonder, too, how such excellent reporters as Greenspun's John Katsilometes and whomever was sent by the Associated Press similarly fail to understand the gravity of the matter. Threats against journalists can cause a chilling impact on their comfort level in covering someone in the appropriate manner. It's a serious situation.

No self-respecting journalist ought to be asking Angel anything else until he at least responds to this situation and disavows any violence, suggested or otherwise, against journalists.

Star-gazing at the ACMAs

[Click on any photos to enlarge them]

I had to go for USA Today on Sunday to the Academy of Country Music Awards at the MGM Grand Garden and stand in triple-digit heat along that journalist trough known as a red carpet. In this case, it was an orange carpet, but nobody could/would say why and one colleague's suggestion that it's because Home Depot is a major sponsor was incorrect.

Anyhow, all of us journos were pretty set on doing sleepy little tales of Vegas-gone-country, lifetime-achiever Garth Brooks worship and pretty new young things winning big when Entertainer of the Year Kenny Chesney forced a total rewrite by complaining backstage at the end of the program about a change in how the award he won is decided. For the first time, it was purely determined by online public voting, making it harder for him to compare his fourth-in-a-row triumph to the four-straights of Garth Brooks of the five-straights of Alabama. He started by pausing to say he had to "choose his words carefully," but then he unloaded pretty spectacularly.

Since he won, it wasn't just sour grapes. And that explains why my piece ended up being written as it was. Read the main piece here. I also grabbed Dr. Phil McGraw and put him on the spot about those racy Vanity Fair photos. Read that item here.

I didn't bother to interview LeAnn Rimes on the carpet since I profiled her here for last week's L.A. Times. The conversation for that piece will air on this week's episode of "The Strip," too. Oh, and she also didn't give a fig about talking to print reporters, which may explain why this shot came out so unflattering as she virtually sprinted past us after charming the TV cameras.


Now, you can tell that I'm not modern country fan -- I was probably 15 years too late to catch my fave, Collin Raye, here -- since in our haste I screwed up the name of one of the Brooks & Dunn guys in my piece. But in my prep I fell in total love with Sugarland, which won Song of the Year and Single of the Year for the wrenching ballad "Stay." I challenge you to go watch this Sinead O'Connoresque video and come back unimpressed. Here they are, with Jennifer Nettles also showing off her backless dress.



Aside from Dr. Phil, there were others with tenuous ties to country music showing up including American Gladiator's Wolf and some Victoria's Secret model with the longest, barest legs I've ever seen.



The model is being asked by some dippy woman from some Web video thing called HollyScoop to answer the same inane question Dippy asked every single person who came by: "What's country to you?" Yes, folks, Dippy got a better spot on the carpet than USA Today, People, the Associated Press and several other major print/online outlets. In fact, everyone with a video camera did, leaving us with only the stars so early, so patient or so desperate for attention to be bothered to speak to print scribes by the time they got past the 100 or so TV softball tossers.

Speaking of which, I didn't have any questions for Jewel and, besides, I couldn't stop thinking of lemon meringue pie for some reason as she stopped by...


We could've gotten out of the heat sooner if we hadn't had to stand around waiting for Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban to race by us minutes before the awards show started. You can't see it, but the reason why Kidman is holding down her YSL maternity frock as though it might blow away -- there was no wind -- was because there was evidently some sort of ironing disaster that left a huge region of wrinkles to our left of her bump. There's a story there, but nobody had the guts to ask her. Or the time.


Backstage, we heard from award-winners including the awful cute Brad Paisley...

...the awful cute (and young!) Taylor Swift...


...and the awful thinner Garth Brooks.


This was before Chesney came along with his bombshell, so I actually was able to pay attention to Garth. He seemed really nice. I've always been a fan. He should really think about playing Vegas. Maybe even the Colosseum. Now there's an idea...

And that was that. Yee-haw.

Bad Readin's - and a couple of goods

Fact-checking these days isn't really that hard. You start with a search engine. Which is why the following two errors -- regarding search engines! -- are especially befuddling:

* In an L.A. Times review of ABC's all-girl gabfest "The View" that is online now but in print on Sunday, author Mary McNamara writes: "If you employ one of (Rosie) O'Donnell's favorite research tools and Google "The View," you will, on most days, come up with a list of "recent news" entries long before you hit the show's website." I tried it. Didn't happen. Will keep trying, but it seems like an ill-conceived cheap shot aimed at Rosie's reference to Donald Trump's alleged bankruptcies several months ago and where she claimed to find the information. As if Mary McNamara herself doesn't also, as a journalist every single day, use Google to start her research. (Another L.A. Times piece posted today, profiling "View" host Elisabeth Hasselbeck, is terrific and well worth a read.)

*In yesterday's Doonesbury -- which I've taken to reading online because the Review-Journal buries it somewhere behind the Classifieds for no apparent reason -- Garry Trudeau is mocking the shifting political positions of former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney. In the third frame, Mike Doonesbury asks Mark Slackmeyer, "Mark, what happens when you do a search on 'flip-flop' and 'Mitt Romney?' " And Mark replies: "You get 5,435,000 hits, Mike." You try it. I just did. I got 106,000. Probably a lot of repeat results in there, too.

Elsewhere in the media this morning, the Review-Journal ran a completely ridiculous story about a complaint hotline at McCarran Airport that led callers to the wrong place. This was the TOP local story in the newspaper's estimation, based on where it placed it. Did the errant information lead callers to a Chinese take-out? Maybe a little old lady who is getting sick of having her "Wheel of Fortune" interrupted? Perhaps, this being Vegas, a phone-sex line? No! Any of those things would've been fun, interesting, newsy. In this case, it sent callers to a recently disconnected FAA number and the cell phone of a Las Vegas city public information officer. So? The airport spokesman, a former R-J scribe himself who must be appalled now to be on the other end of this stuff, says it was an honest mistake. But what kind of a story does that make?

I know how these stories get done -- a reporter stumbles over the glitch and calls around for comments or somebody in the public calls the reporter. Doesn't make it a real story, even if you can get the mayor to opine on it in a way that suits your narrative which, in this case, is that the airport hates people.

This journalistic tactic only works if there's a legitimate problem. Like this story I did for the R-J in 1997 when I was alerted by a parent to the fact that the Clark County School District's own website on how to enroll kids in kindergarden was riddled with appalling spelling errors from top to bottom. I opened the piece with my favorite lead ever: "To enroll you're childeren in kunderfarden, it is improtant and nessary to bring a coppy of a utility bull, even in outlaying areas." All of those mistakes were on the site. Now that is irony and news.

Today's Las Vegas Sun, meanwhile, had two excellent pieces, both of which I may end up using for stories of my own. One, by my "Petcast" co-host Emily Richmond, looked into early signs that the school district, which is chronically understaffed even as it opens new schools every year to keep up with population growth, has seen a plummet in the number of teacher applications to date, portending an even greater crisis this year than ever before. See? A little more important than a screwy phone line, no?

And Mike Trask writes about this guy in Henderson, Nev., who is digitizing a huge collection of vintage TV shows and tossing them up on the Internet at TV4U.com. The site, by the way, is brilliant and free!