The Show is UP: Fluff LeCoque's Jubilee!

For some reason, this was a particularly laborious editing experience. It may have been because I had to remove the outtakes of Miles being lewd and crude and making hilarious voices, which is great for our final outtakes show but perhaps not so great for me working through the audio. Either way, here's what we did. Enjoy. Click on the date below to play or right-click to save the show. Or you subscribe -- for free -- in iTunes or Zune and you'll always get it first. -sf

July 15: Fluff LeCoque's Jubilee!

EXTRA: Jubilee!'s most successful alum, Tina Walsh

Thirty years is a blink of the eye in most places, but it’s an eternity for the every-changing Las Vegas. This summer, the venerable, historic Jubilee! celebrates the start of its fourth decade at Bally’s, so we chatted with the 88-year-old firecracker who has ruled the land of massive headdresses and sequined skivvies with an iron fist for all this time. Fluff LeCoque talks to Steve about bruised thighs, chubby guys, fake boobs and so much more this hour. Also, we’ll hear an excerpt from our conversation with Jubilee’s most successful alumna, Tina Walsh, who was a principle singer for the show in the 1980s and is presently appearing as Madame Giry in Phantom: The Las Vegas Spectacular. The entire conversation with Walsh will be posted as an extra edition into the feed and on the website.

In Banter: Miles makes HIS big announcement, Steve has a WSOP adventure, several Vegas closures afoot, the Plaza has some odd new things coming, more MGM misfortune and a Titanically bad restaurant idea.

Open & Banter: Start to 41ish
Fluff LaCoque Part I: 41-103ish
Trivia/Poll/Letters: 104ish-1:13
Fluff LaCoque Part II: 1:14-1:33ish
TSTToTW: 1:34ish-end

Links to stuff discussed

Get tickets for Jubilee! and the backstage tour
Tina Walsh’s Phantom bio
Steve’s essay for The Daily about his WSOP adventure
A piece on the “bubble” bursting at the 2011 WSOP
A feature about Michael Stevens, the quadriplegic who lasted to Day 3 of the WSOP
Steve’s piece on The Daily about Paul Pierce’s WSOP playing
A piece on Phil Hellmuth’s Day 2 drama
News on Rosemary’s and Carluccio’s closing
That weird Titanic dinner at Bernard’s
The questionable news outlet known as Las Vegas Entertainment News
Howard Stutz’s latest on the Perini-MGM scrum over The Harmon
The Plaza’s plan for a sexy salon and the Swingers Club
Legionnaire’s Disease drama at Aria
Project Linq is coming, supposedly
Steve and Jamie’s piece for the L.A. Times on the topless shows in Vegas

Special Reissue: Terry Lanni in 2008

I'm racing out to an important lunch and interview, but we just re-posted our April 2008 conversation with the late Terry Lanni, the former MGM Mirage CEO. He has died at age 68. Listen here or right-click here to download it.

I don't have time to offer much in the way of thoughts, but check out the Review-Journal, the Sun, David McKee and Dave Schwartz's stuff.

The Strip's 2008 interview is fascinating to listen back to, a time when MGM was narrowing down their pick for architects for Atlantis 3000, the project planned for Sahara and the Strip, and was having trouble picking a name for what would become Aria. We discussed succession plans, Atlantic City and much more.

Here's one poignant bit, though. I was asking about the young new executives taking over Vegas and I asked, "Do these guys make you feel old or past tense in any way?" His reply:

Past tense. I’ve never thought of myself as past tense. I look in the mirror in the morning and I don’t see a 65-year-old. Maybe I should, but I don’t. Maybe I should have my eyes adjusted. No, I think it’s great. That’s what happens in life. You go through and next generation comes along and they’re going to have to learn some things from people such as me or people my age and then it’s their turn to take over and I’m gonna be the biggest cheerleader in the world for them.

Very, very good and classy man. Complicated legacy. More later.

Source: Bellagio Abandoning Awful Floral Wallpaper In Redesign

The Twitterverse, podosphere and blogland have been going nuts in the past week or so over photos leaked to VegasTripping.Com that show some fairly hideous design features for the redesigned basic rooms in the main Bellagio tower. A disgusted Chuck Monster of VegasTripping.Com, on the most recent episode of The Vegas Gang podcast, said it made the rooms look like they belong in the Stardust and others chimed in that it looked like something that would give Roger Thomas hives.

With good reason. That above and this...


...are pretty awful. Also, it reminds me of Blanche's bedroom in Golden Girls:


Well, I'm happy to report that a trusted MGM Resorts source tells me that even when the sample rooms were being shown to various employees, the staff was being told the designer herself had decided she didn't care for that wallpaper and that it would be replaced with something understated. No word yet what that choice is.

The rest of the furnishings and such, however, will be as these photos show them and actually look "pretty cool" in person, I am told. If you look at the pictures and imagine that wall print gone, the whole scheme is infinitely better if still not all that great.

The first floor of rooms come into circulation within 10 days, I am told. Starting last month, they are taking four floors out of commission at a time in the main tower and plan to completing/releasing a floor a week until December when they're all done. It's the first main-tower room redesign since before the Spa Tower opened, which puts it at about 7 years. That's letting things slide modestly, given the high-end Vegas standard is to redo the rooms every 5 years, but these haven't exactly been the flushest of times for MGM.

I tend to think that Chuck's analysis on Vegas Gang was fairly spot on: This is appears to be an effort to bring the Conservatory into the rooms the way Mirage has borrowed design motifs from the volcano. But, really, the pale greens and stripes and the clashes with the carpet do not feel sophisticated, and that will harm the Bellagio brand.

Still, at least someone had the wisdom to realize that wallpaper would be offensive in a Radisson, let alone in the best-loved and most iconic luxury resort on the Vegas Strip. Can't wait to see it for myself.

[Thanks to Chuck for permission to use these images. Check out a couple others on his site.]

How Responsibly Do Casinos Want You To Game? Not Very.

Yesterday, I needed to look up when the Monte Carlo offers free gambling lessons for an upcoming update of my Random House/Knopf guidebook of Vegas. I went to the resort's website, then clicked on the tab for CASINO and found myself on a screen with many options.

This one intrigued me:


Huh. What exactly is a "Responsible Gaming Tour"? I clicked on it because I thought perhaps it would lead me to the dates and times for those free lessons. Knowing the rules of the games is certainly one way to play responsibly, no?

Well, no. When you click on that, you end up with this:


When you click on this video, you watch a lesbo-erotic scene at a craps table where sexy ladies score big on a bet.


That looks like FUN, right? Winning, duh!

OK. So imagine this. You think you might be an addicted gambler and you want to know more, and the first thing you see are the words "HIT THE CASINO." Awesome! Then, after being inserted in this girl-on-girl fantasy of gambling, you scroll down below to boilerplate about what a phenomenally altruistic place the Monte Carlo is. A variation of the the same screed appears on every MGM Resorts site that provides a responsible gaming section -- the sites for Aria and Circus Circus don't even bother, which is interesting -- and what is there is very poorly written, self-congratulatory hooey.

Go look for yourself; the first 260 words of the 400-word copy block is all about the things the resort does to combat problem gambling. Only near the end -- almost as an aside -- do they stick this little bit of useful intel:

If you feel you need help, please call the following 24-hour confidential national hotline:
Nevada Council on Problem Gambling 1 (800) 522-4700

Yeah. They're really trying to help you.

I became curious, so I went to see what the other casino sites do on this score. The results were fascinating and surprising. The Mirage, MGM Grand and New York-New York were reasonably straightforward and appropriately understated...


...but some of the others offered imagery that defeats the message. Mandalay Bay and Luxor, for instance, think happy hot babes aptly illustrate compulsive gambling...


...as did Hooters, although it's hard to understand why Hooters couldn't do a better job on this, uh, front:


I like how the Bellagio seems to suggest that the addictive-inclined may find alcohol a wonderful alternative to putting the college fund on the Steelers:


There's also the having-fun-and-getting-lucky approach of MGM Grand Detroit, Stratosphere, Foxwoods, the Tropicana, Treasure Island and all the Boyd resorts:



The Excalibur also seemed to imply compulsive gambling could lead to a happy relationship...


...although maybe they're making a subversive remark about this woman's impaired judgment seeing how her alleged paramour also appeared here:


The Caesars Entertainment properties all feed to the same place where, evidently, gambling makes you very happy and royal flushes are yours for the taking:


The trouble with Caesars is their sites don't even offer a responsible gaming tab under the heading for casino information. Instead, you must scrape the bottom of each resort's site to the fine print. Here's the whole Caesars Palace homepage...


...and way, way down on the bottom, look at what you find:


The Boyd properties pull the same gag:


Like MGM, the most important thing to Boyd and Caesars about responsible gaming is . . . how great Boyd and Caesars are about responsible gaming. Of the 2,200 words of blather on Caesars' site, it takes 900 before they get to what you should do it you think you're an addict. And even then it's all about them, see:

In 1995, Caesars Entertainment helped fund the creation and start-up of the first national helpline (1-800-522-4700) for problem gambling - providing callers with counseling and direction to local assistance in any state. Our funding to assist local health service agencies, councils, and seminars continues yearly through funding efforts by our corporate office and casino properties. Knowing gambling problems can potentially reach the "other side" of the table, Caesars Entertainment provides confidential counseling assistance for employees through our Employee Assistance Program.

Gosh, aren't they just the noblest?

The Palms and Cosmo don't dress up their RG sites. Look how plain and unadorned they are:


Meanwhile, the art on the Wynn site is at least appropriate, showing some manicured shlub forking over his dough...


...and this guy in the Station Casino image doesn't look like he's enjoying at ALL.


Still, in all these cases, links to various entertainment and gaming options -- where you'll find happy images of lucky, sexy winners, no doubt -- are right there next to the wet-blanket message. Can you imagine a site for information about alcoholism that has links to all the best brands of beer and the nearest saloon? Or a sex addiction site adorned by images of really hot, undressed men and women? Or an overeaters anonymous site with fried chicken-and-Doritos wallpaper?

I do appreciate the simplicity of the copy on the Palms' page. This is all there is, and perhaps all that's necessary:

For most people gambling is entertainment
For others, it can be a serious problem. Report a problem.
Gambling is exciting, entertaining and should be fun, but for some it’s a serious problem.
If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, please call 1.800.522.4700 or visit the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling at www.nevadacouncil.org.

Two examples of better efforts stood out from my survey.

First, Borgata in Atlantic City. This is interesting because it's co-owned (for now!) by MGM Resorts, which does a poor job of providing Web information and often packages it with such defeating imagery, and Boyd, which makes visitors pull out a microscope to even find the RG link. The Borgata's RG tab is still hard to find -- the link is tiny and at the bottom of each page -- but then there is this pop-up:


There's a lot less of the we're-so-awesome crap; it's just straight advice on what to do and how to define problem gambling. But more importantly, it's disembodied from the rest of the site. Plus, they make it easy to print out, too. It's as if someone's thought about this or something.

But the folks who do this the best and most sincerely are . . . the Las Vegas Sands. I know, that shocked me, too. They make their RG section so prominent on their homepage that Google shows it as a top option...


...and they seem to have considered what sort of art to display with their message:


You wanna be that despondent fellow? I sure don't.

What's more, there's some brief blah-blah about what Sands does but much more prominent is the hotline phone number right there for where to call. And rather than littering the page with all sorts of advertisements and links enticing you to do the activity that you're concerned you can't stop doing, you see this rail instead:


Check it out. This is how it ought to be done. Given that LVS CEO Sheldon Adelson actually once told me that there's no such thing as gambling addiction in Asia, I'm further impressed that there's information and an organized program available specific for Macau and Singapore. Then again, Adelson's wife is an addiction specialist, so maybe it's her influence.

Bottom line is that it's clear from the material that MGM, Boyd and Caesars, among others, view this primarily as a feel-good public relations tool rather than information that could save someone's life. If they were serious about this they would:

* Skip all the yappity yap about how responsible they are and lead with how you can get help
* Make sure visitors don't have to hunt too hard to find the information on every page of their sites
* Choose imagery that does NOT whet one's appetite to do that which the visitor is attempting to abstain
* Set up a page separate from the rest of the site without alluring links

I didn't intend to do all of this -- I got on a kick and couldn't stop -- but I think this is a pretty important matter. Anyone who has ever had an addiction knows how hard it is to stop. If the casino industry actually wants to be taken seriously, they need to fix this today. Otherwise, their next "Responsible Gaming Week" will be a farce.

Is Cosmo Cooling Off?

Our old pal Robert LaFleur of Hudson Securities is back with another entry in his weekly Vegas rate tracking effort and there are some interesting indications that the well-received Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas may be starting to cool off just a tad.

Every week, LaFleur marks down the asking rates for basic rooms on Wednesdays and Saturdays over the coming three months. This way, he can see from week to week and over the course of the three-month period who is raising and dropping rates and by how much.

Among his findings:

* Cosmo lowered its rates on nine of the 17 dates checked in April and May and raised them on one day, 5/14, by $10. Among those changes, the rates for 4/9 and 4/27 plummeted more than $100 a night. You can click on the chart above to enlarge it and look for yourself. It's fun.

* Cosmo had far too low expectations for its own rates prior to the opening. When March rooms went on sale in November 2010, the weekend average was $276. The same rooms if booked in March cost $432, a 56% surge.

* Bellagio remains firmly ahead of Aria on price. This past Saturday -- amid a busy Vegas weekend with the ACMs and the NCAA Final Four -- Aria nonetheless slashed rates $110 to $269 while Bellagio raised them $70 to $299. That means that the prior week, the MGM pricing braintrust thought people would pay $379 for Aria rooms but only $229 at Bellagio. Apparently, they were quite wrong. It's almost as if they were using some pricing psychology to shunt guests towards Bellagio, which MGM owns 100%, instead of Aria, which it only owns half. Hmm.

* Meanwhile, Cosmo asked $395 for rooms on Saturday night. That's almost $100 more than Bellagio and $126 more than Aria.

* Asking prices for sad, stranded Vdara were knocked down for 11 of the 17 dates checked in April and May. On some Wednesdays, Vdara rooms go for as little as $105.

LaFleur also provided some interesting discussion of the impact of resort fees. MGM Resorts now has them at all their properties, having added Bellagio in January. Why do they do this if it so annoys people? Well, MGM will include the resort fee revenues in its first quarter earnings and that should help the company realize more than 10% growth, LaFleur predicted. MGM brass themselves have said if they had included resort fees during the fourth quarter of 2010, they would have announced a 2% increase in revenue rather than the 2% drop. That's big money.

By the way, LaFleur provided this handy guide to Vegas Strip resort fees, with the caveat that different hotels "provide" different amenities for their fees:

MGM Resorts Holds A Presidents Day Fire Sale!

It seems the fine folks at CityCenter are ready to unload a whole bunch of damaged or excess, well, crap. I spotted this tiny ad in today's paper, and it turns out the sale is 11 a.m. on Monday, Feb. 21, at this website.

As the notice indicates, the auction is mainly a sale of various pieces of room furnishings and hardware that were intended or have been deployed at Aria, Vdara, Mandarin Oriental or Veer. It's a Web-only event in every way, including that there's no opportunity for any on-site inspection of merchandise.

There are 1,076 lots, and you can review them here although there's no suggested auction minimum prices listed in the catalog. There's stuff like this 65-by-38-by-20-inch tub...


...or several of these 56-by-32-by-30-inch chaise lounges...


...or perhaps this 10-inch chrome, lighted, 3x-magnification vanity mirror with "no mounting hardware":


I can't imagine why this design didn't work out...


...or what good a broken mirror would be to anyone...


...or what the charm would be in buying these chairs for which "fabric needs to be cleaned, one chair has tear, one has cigarette burn."


I honestly have no clue what this -- described as an "e-tray" -- is:


But the thing I truly, truly cannot live without, is...


...a "Kirin Dragon." That beaut there is a 7.5-foot-tall fiberglass statue. I can't imagine where it was supposed to go or why, with this on hand, they threw that crappy Henry Moore into the pocket park.

Obviously, this auction isn't really intended for ordinary people, but it's fun to browse and watch anyway. Nothing, so far as I could tell, had any resort logos or branding anywhere. But if any of you "go" to this and buy something, totally let me know.

WOW: Blue Man Group Heads To Monte Carlo

[UPDATE: MGM Resorts says BMG will play at Venetian until September 2012 before moving to Monte Carlo. Also, she says Jabbawockeez' contract is over in April and they'll decide then whether to renew it.]

Wow. No really. Wow.

I'm in awe right now. A press release just came over announcing that Blue Man Group will leave The Venetian and heading for Monte Carlo in fall 2012. That's 2012. Twelve.

It's astonishing news for a number of reasons. First, BMG started out at the Luxor in 2000, then moved up the street in 2005 to The Venetian. Now, after nearly six years there, they've found a third home and it happens to be back in the original fold, MGM Resorts. I'll have to go back and look, but I thought the Luxor gave them up to make room for Criss Angel, so that would have been a MGM decision and not some remainders of the pre-merger Mandalay regime.

So BMG appears to be one of the most indestructible brands in Vegas history and that's funny because nobody ever really talks about them. I can't think of another production of this scale that has hopscotched through three major Vegas resorts. Keep in mind, this is a show with a rotating cast that presently does two shows a night every single night.


Somehow, nonetheless, it keeps trucking along even as other productions cut and alter their schedules because of the economy.

Other questions follow:

* When does BMG depart Venetian? The release doesn't say and tickets remain on sale through this May.
* What becomes of Jabbawockeez? Does this imply it's not doing so great?
* Does this ascertain that the Cirque-Michael Jackson sitdown production will land at Mandalay Bay, as has been expected ever since The Lion King's departure at the end of 2011 was announced? There's really no place else left for it other than Excalibur or Circus Circus, right?

I suspect BMG will be much happier at Monte Carlo where, as was the case at Luxor, it can be the dominant, most visible attraction on the property. At Venetian, it was one of so many productions and the resort was only nominally involved in promoting it. MGM Resorts takes a much more hands-on approach to that and, really, there's not much else happening at the Monte Carlo.

I also predict that BMG will be heavily marketed as a sort of second-show for neighboring CityCenter, which has 6,000+ rooms across three hotel-ish buildings and just one theater option. At the same time, it gives those folks two bombastic (in a good way) options and nothing more mature or sedate.

Anyway, if MGM believes BMG still has some serious life in them, then boffo to them. Can't wait to hear the new tagline, too! BMG was once "Live From Luxor" and never really had an alliterative moniker for the Venetian. (We on The Strip had recommended Vivacious at Venetian, but nobody cared.)

So perhaps it'll be Madness At The Monte Carlo? Can't you see that on the inevitable building wrap?

Aria Wrap Coming Apart At The Seams?

How long has this thing been up? A week? LOOK AT IT!


These were shot by Amy from Panorama Towers tonight. She didn't notice it this morning, so she thinks it might be intentional or that they're working on fixing something. But I just can't figure out how that could be; if they were peeling some of it off, would they send a crew out there to just pull at corners and leave them hanging?


What's interesting is that when I was at the Panorama condo on Monday, there was a chunk of the H that was missing. That's been fixed. So my hunch is that they've had trouble applying this wrap because the building surface isn't smooth. Part of the reason they got LEED Gold Certification for Aria was that the windows are designed with a small overhang above it that reduced the amount of sunlight gets into the rooms and, thus, reduced the A/C usage.

Here's another theory: Aria is uncomfortable with this desecration and humiliation as our dogs are when Miles tries to put a sweaters on them. The soul of the building is protesting, Mr. Murren. Set it free!

By the way, it occurs to me that MGM Resorts would've been wiser to wrap Vdara instead. It's not as prestigious a property, it actually faces south so as to face to California-to-Vegas-bound cars and -- added bonus! -- it could mitigate the sun glare from the Death Ray. And now there's another reason: The wrap would probably stick better.