The Show Has Been UP: Donny & Marie

This show's been available in the show feed now for a few days, but I've just been too swamped to get it updated on TheStripPodcast.Com. Remember if you subscribe -- for free! -- in iTunes or Zune, you'll always get it first. Anywho, enjoy. -sf

March 29: The Donny & Marie Show

As we record this episode of our show, the folks at the Flamingo Las Vegas are busy applying a spankin’ new wrap to the hotel’s Strip side. And while the faces will be the same – Donny and Marie, of course – they’ll look a little less cheesy, a little more rock n roll. As Donny Osmond explains this hour, the original wrap was thrown up in a hurry when the sibling duo opened there in 2008. But now they’ve weathered a withering recession and passed their 500th performance, so it’s time for something more current and durable. How much longer can they dominate Vegas? Donny’s answer: Forever. Sort of. Stick around to hear what the big brother has to say about their future and hear him play some bits of their first album of new music in decades. Also, Marie chimes in a bit as well.

In Banter: Celine's return, Terry Fator's gay puppet, the Loews Las Vegas' William and Kate deal, the ex-Rao chef's new gigs, and much more.

Links to stuff discussed:

Steve’s bathroom-related Tweet
Blog wrap-up, review, Flickr and special edition of The Strip, re: Celine
Steve’s Las Vegas Weekly column about rude Vegas tweeting
Steve’s Pine Mouth affliction, per ABC News
Terry Fator’s Berry Fabulous
Loews Las Vegas' $249 Royal Wedding Deal
The Alaska Daily News on Alaska’s new Vegas effort to lure tourists to Palin Country
Doug Elfman’s take on MGM Grand’s Scott Sibella on "Undercover Boss"
Former Rao’s chef Carla Pellegrino’s new restaurant and taking over the Trop place
Donny & Marie tickets at the Flamingo
The sites of Donny and Marie
Apple suing others for use of the term App Store

Marie Osmond = Class

Wow.

I'm not sure there's any other word to sum up the press release I just received, but this very rare time I mean it in a good way.

You probably know that Marie Osmond's son committed suicide last week. Obviously, this shut down the show at the Flamingo where she and her brother appear nightly. The depth of this woman's grief is unimaginable.

There was never any question of whether the siblings would return to the stage and that date has now been announced as March 9, 12 days after the tragedy. That's surprisingly soon, but I suspect that being on stage performing and singing is a therapy of sorts for the Osmonds.

But the thing that gets me is that they're also adding five shows in April "to accommodate guests who had tickets to the recently canceled shows" from March 2-6. Now, I'm sure there's some contractual obligation the duo have to the Flamingo to give them a certain number of performances a year and all. But I'm equally confident that no suit over at Harrah's would have held these missed dates against them.

What's just amazing to me is that, even in their suffering, the Osmonds feel an obligation to their audiences. It's just another reminder that they not only perform one of the best shows on the Strip but they're also really, really good people.

The Strip is LIVE tonight w/ Marie Part II

We're live tonight @ 6:45 p.m. PT at LVRocks.Com with the second half of the conversation with Marie Osmond and the president of the hotel whose fancy suite almost none of you could place. Marie Osmond gets a little controversial this time, particularly when she’s talking about what she knows about the behind-the-scenes world of Dancing With the Stars and American Idol.

Come to the chat room at LVRocks.Com and listen live and converse with others. Or wait for the podcast, which you can subscribe to for free in iTunes.

The Show is UP: Marie Osmond, Part I

Off to the tax lady now. Enjoy the show! Click on the date below to listen or right-click and save to your computer. Or subscribe (it's free!) via the iTunes link or via the Zune link. Enjoy.

April 2: Marie Osmond, Part I

She’s a little bit country and a little bit, well, you know the rest. But she’s also now a big bit of a Strip headliner. Marie Osmond, she of the gigantic gleaming smile stretched across the Flamingo, joins us this hour to talk about show business nepotism, performing with everyone from Groucho Marx to Snoop Dogg and the night she and Donny performed their Vegas show in the dark.

In Banter: Freaks at O'Sheas, MGM drama, Follies bye- bye, Vegas impersonator jailed in Suriname.

Links to stuff mentioned:

Tickets for the Donny and Marie show
The 2009 results of the R-J’s Best of Las Vegas survey
The VegasHappensHere.Com post on the mayoral chips for Airmen
The website for SeaWorld’s Military Program
Sites for Minskoff and Mandalay theaters, both of which now house The Lion King
KNPR, the Las Vegas NPR member station
A Las Vegas Sun piece on Freaks, a gross new show at O’Sheas
VegasHappensHere.Com on MGM making their payment
MGM Mirage CEO Jim Murren’s letter to employees
News on Hooters, Riviera and Bally’s closing its sportsbook until September
Mike Weatherford’s coverage of the closure of Folies Bergere at the Tropicana
Gaming Today’s Monti Rock III on Bobby Slayton’s Trop deal
Norm Clarke’s coverage of the Toni Braxton impersonator jailed in Suriname

The Strip is LIVE tonight w/ Marie Osmond, Part I

Really this time. Except that we're only playing the first half of our Marie Osmond interview on this episode because it's long, there's other stuff to deal with including the Review-Journal's annual Best of Las Vegas results, and our most recent shows have been very long.

Join us at 6:45 p.m. PT at LVRocks.Com for the live show and chat.

Also, for those of you wondering where the Anthony Marnell III episode is in your iTunes, something went awry with the RSS feed and we are moving it to a different service. That should all be completed later tonight and you should be receiving it immediately. I'll postpone dropping this week's show into the feed until Friday to let y'all catch up. You can also download it directly from TheStripPodcast.Com.

Anywho, Marie provides a good, lively conversation, as do Miles and I. So join us in chat tonight. If it's anything like last week, you won't want to miss the outtakes.

Program Note: Marnell, Not Marie, This Week

Sorry, Osmond fans. I had my chat with Anthony Marnell III today and there were a few bits of news that came out of it that I don't want to wait a week to post. So we'll hold Marie Osmond to next week's show. But this one's pretty good, so don't abandon us! Join us at 6:45 p.m. PT at LVRocks.Com.

The Strip is LIVE tonight! Really!

We're back! LVRocks is back! All is better with the world!

Join us at 6:45 p.m. PT at LVRocks.Com for a live chat and to listen to how we sound and all the foibles we make before I edit the show and post it for podcast consumption! (Don't know if the studio cam will be working yet.)

Woo hoo! Marie Osmond's the guest. Plenty in the news. Join us!

Or wait a day and get the podcast on iTunes or at TheStripPodcast.Com. Your call.

A sign of things to come...

On the live version of "The Strip" this week, Miles and I were chattering about the wrap at Flamingo. We cut that bit out of the edited podcast because neither of us had a clue what was going on down there and someone in the chat said the Toni Braxton hoo-hoo wrap had been replaced by Nathan Burton. There was some other reason that we cut it out, but I can't remember it right now.

Well, as you can see above, Donny and Marie are, in fact, being unfurled across the face of the building. Burton has a wrap on a smaller building a bit farther north obstructed in this image by a utility pole. I shot this photo this afternoon.

Speaking of D&M, I got an email earlier this week from an uber-queer friend who had seen them at the MGM Grand this week and who reported, uh, exuberantly: "THEY CRUSHED IT! I felt like a teenage girl all over again...they were so good!!! And Marie still looks great!!!"

My friend wanted to know why I'm so down on them coming back to the Strip, so I wanted to clarify that. I'm not down on this. What I am is confused by how this fits into the Flamingo Las Vegas' plans under ex-Hard Rock president Don Marrandino to sex-up and modernize the resort and its clientele. Everything else they had done, from the Go Rooms to Toni Braxton to Margaritaville to kicking out Gladys Knight seemed on track to make this place the mid-Strip, mid-market 40-and-under place to stay.

Donny & Marie just don't fit into that program. It doesn't mean I don't think they'll do a good show or draw people in. I just don't get the big idea here. It would seem they would fit the demo of Harrah's Las Vegas better. That's all.