Steve, Steve, Steve

I'm popping up in a whole bunch of places in the media this weekend besides for the Vegas Podcast-a-Palooza!

First, I discuss the rough state of the Nevada Republican Party on today's episode of the WashingtonPost.Com's Post Politics Podcast following a piece I wrote on the subject that appeared in Thursday's WP. You can click here to hear it or right-click here to download the 15-minute show. I come on around the 7th minute. It's a bit of a thrill as I listen to the PPP every day and think it's the most impressive podcast effort by a major mainstream newspaper.

Tomorrow morning, I'm heading to Planet Ho at the offensively early hour of 7 a.m. to go live with Today Show Travel Editor Peter Greenberg for his very widely distributed two-hour travel radio show (also, it's streamed live online by clicking here) as an expert on the intersection between celebrity and travel in Vegas. Other guests include fellow media whores Oscar Goodman and "Vegas Gang" regular Dave Schwartz.

Then at noon on Saturday, the National Geographic Channel premieres an episode of its "Man Made" series about the Loizeaux family and their casino-implosion enterprise called "Vegas Casino." It's a behind-the-scenes of the Frontier implosion and I was interviewed by them while on the site doing my piece on the family for the New York Times. Stacey Loizeaux tells me I made the cut. I take it they rerun these things quite a bit.

Finally, I appeared last Friday on Nevada Week in Review, where we discussed state and presidential politics and the journalistic ethics behind the CityCenter Drunky McDrunk expose in the R-J. It just went up online. Click here to download that.

Inside the FRONTIER Implosion, Part II

OK - I crawled all over the Frontier today and will post more pix probably Monday morning. In the meantime, though, I also just posted a special BONUS edition of "The Strip" in which implosion dude Mark Loizeaux explains in depth the details of how this implosion will work, what's next in Vegas -- the Island Tower at the Trop, in January or February! -- and what sort of $$$ is in the implosion biz. He also notes that the Elad Group, owners of the site and future Plaza Hotel, are having the implosion piped via closed circuit TV to their investors in Israel. At least they get to watch at a less ungodly hour, huh?

Hear that chat here or right-click here to download the conversation and hear it whenever you wish.

I've got a piece on the Loizeaux family running in the New York Times on Monday that you can read here. Plus, we'll be on site early Tues to do some video.

Inside the FRONTIER Implosion, Part I

Today I got to walk around the New Frontier site and interview the owners of Controlled Demolition Inc., the Loizeauxes. This is the Baltimore family behind every implosion on the Strip since the Dunes. I'm working on a feature on them for a major national paper to run Monday in advance of the implosion early Tuesday. The sun was setting fast when I was done with my interviews, so I'm going back Sunday to shoot some inside pix. And yes, I grabbed some trinkets for keepsakes -- some pieces of glass, some old ticket-in tickets and the Associate Handbook pictured below from the floor of the vacant space.

I'm obviously very proud of the above image and its cool Wynn reflection. Below are more shots, including one of the Loizeaux family threading dynamite to stuff into pillars in the building. One surprise is how intact so much of the building is -- why didn't they take down the Frontier lettering and auction it off or give it to the Neon Museum? And the pool area still has all its grown palm trees; I would think there would be a market for those, too.

Loizeaux explained that the contractor on this job is not the same as the Stardust's and does not have the same eco-friendly approach. There are tax breaks and other perks to stripping buildings of their wood and carpet and such and recycling most of the building materials. Not this crowd. Oh well. Enjoy the pix and, if other sites or bloggers want to use them, go for it but give us credit.