The Good, The Bad And The R-J

Many folks have asked for my take on news that disgraced ex-RJ publisher Sherman Frederick has bought weekly newspapers in the rural Nevada towns of Ely and Eureka from his former employer Stephens Media. You'll have to wait at least another day; I've got some calls out on this and am gathering some intel. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, some other media ruminations:

* There's a truly wonderful piece on today's R-J cover by Sonya Padgett about the clown in "O" who has been setting himself on fire twice a night since 1998. It's just perfectly executed, evocative and fascinating. Read it.

* If Padgett's work represents the best of the features section, John Przybys' truly horrendous and incomplete job on Thursday about Vegas smartphone apps reflects the reason why the new regime needs to shake things up in that section pronto and find someone who knows a thing or two about technology. Consider, for instance, that he claims his search took him to various app stores to "see what we could find." Take a look at what he should have found if he had searched "vegas" in iTunes:


The search results come up in order of popularity. And for both the iPhone and iPad, the No. 1 app is VegasMate, the $1.99 mobile guidebook put out by RateVegas.Com's Hunter Hillegas. Yes, I contributed to it and perhaps you can dismiss this criticism on that basis, but the fact is that it's beyond baffling to do a piece on Vegas apps and not write about the most popular -- because it's the most professional, convenient, independent and user-friendly -- one.

Instead, he deems "particularly cool" an app from MGM Resorts called Vegas Reality and then regurgitates some techno-babble from MGM's own app description. Funny thing is, it doesn't actually work all that well. I am seated at the Crystals right now, but look at what it tells me:


Oops! No wonder every review for the app that's NOT written by an obvious MGM Resorts shill is withering.

I'm willing to bet this writer didn't actually try out the apps he described, but what's more important is that this is an example of a Features Section without any edge or currency. A smart Vegas scribe knows that it's at least as valuable to tell people what not to buy/download as what you should. What would be actually useful would be for the R-J to download the top apps and grade them on an ongoing basis the same way they provide reviews of books, movies, TV shows, stage productions and so on. This drive-by schlock is a disservice to everyone and assumes a level of ineptitude among readers that is a carryover from the halcyon days of Al Gibes. Fix it.

* You know what else the R-J needs to fix? It's own mobile site. You may recall, I blogged on May 19 about the fact that it doesn't work, that when you click on story links on smart phones you end up not at the story you wanted but at a main menu. Within hours of that post going up, the R-J folks turned off that automatic bounce, so here's what you get now if you take this link...


and click on it.


You get the story on the normal site, not the mobile, made-to-fit version. And that's fine if they're still working on it, although it shouldn't require weeks and some super-secret new technology to make it work correctly. Nonetheless, the paper seems oblivious to the worthlessness of its offering as it consumes half-pages with this:


* I don't usually pick on Mike Weatherford because he's almost always spot on and he's just so frigging nice, but here's the opening of today's column about the Strip's history of unusual stage appearances:

Who says the Las Vegas headliner tradition is dead?

I dunno, Mike. Who? Nobody I know. If anything, it's fairly well established that we're enjoying another heyday for headliners, both resident (Celine, Garth, Barry, Donny/Marie, Gladys and so on) and top-shelf passers-throughs. But the rest of the piece is quite fun.

* Over on Twitter, the topic of local coverage of our mayoral race arose this weekend because Jeff Simpson was on Nevada Week In Review and really socked the MSM over the paucity of it. He happened to be seated next to Delen Goldberg, who did not respond on TV but did on Twitter after I noted that she didn't say anything back to Simpson. It seemed she took offense and posted this:


Now, at this point neither Jeff nor I had said anything about whether Goldberg ought to "stand by" her reporting, just that we wished there had been more of it. I even acknowledged that the race got drowned out by the important doings in Carson City, which isn't her fault.

But I did find it hard to fathom how she could "stand by" at least one crucial piece she did, the May 11 one in which she reported as news the results of a Giunchigliani poll claiming this is a 2-point race. That number defied any logic or rationality -- it would have required some major event to alter the election's dynamic where none exists -- but there was Goldberg saying the poll was a credible reason to think the race might be tightening. She said pretty much the same thing in radio appearances, and her only source for whether the race had tightened was . . . some data released by a campaign desperate for traction.

It was particularly egregious that the article she wrote didn't even mention that it was a campaign-funded poll until the seventh paragraph, and she never really made a clear point of that.

As it happens, Goldberg had already addressed this in this Tweet, although she did so in the context of an R-J poll that some say is demographically flawed:


But that, ladies and gents, is precisely what is wrong with political coverage in America today. Not all polls are equal and the outcome of a survey is not the same as a campaign ad, which is a reflection of how a candidate is selling herself or defining her opponent. They're completely different things.

Also, here's a news flash: Campaigns have agendas. That's why their polling should never be newsworthy. Ever. Their aim is to alter or create narratives, to manipulate the media. Campaigns can run 20 polls and then pick the one outlier and give it to the press. There's no way for a journalist to know. And if she really wanted to be fair and not provide extra oomph for the ludicrous Giunchigliani poll, her lead would have been something like, "The campaigns issued vastly different polls today, with Giunchigliani's suggesting the race has tightened in dramatic ways and Goodman claiming it's a blowout." That's not how she did it. Take a look.

To blindly "stand by" this, to be impervious and dismissive of legitimate criticism, is the mark of a journalist unwilling to learn from her errors or to even revisit how things went. Goldberg shows a tremendous amount of promise, but to regard admitting an error as a flaw is nothing less than self-defeating and dispiriting.

What's more, check out this tweet:


Can she seriously look at that initial Giunchigliani poll story and say that she did that? Really?

Meanwhile, it's worth reiterating something truly fascinating for every Vegas political consultant to take note: Goldberg just opened up the doors, everyone! If you're running for office and you want her to report some bogus-but-helpful poll numbers you've got, she's just announced she is obligated to do so because, hey, it's how we do it! Whee!

Oh, one more thing. This tweet is nice...


...but be wary, my friend. Jon Ralston only has your back so long as you're working in some form or fashion on his team. Take it from everybody else who once was a member of his mutual masturbatory society and then left it. The journalism universe is littered with such people, none of whom suffered in the long run for being on his wrong side and probably slept better at night, too. It is -- and I suspect he knows this -- the tragic flaw of a brilliant reporter and entrepreneur, but I guess we all must have one. Mine, according to him, is that I co-hosted a pet show. I'm good with that!

The Petcast + Strip Are LIVE on Sat!

For the first time ever, Miles will be co-hosting The Petcast with me. No, really! With Emily away until May, we've been using guest hosts whenever we do the show and last time out Miles asked why I never ask him. So, finally, after slaving in obscurity on The Strip, he's getting his crack at the big time. What a thrill.

We'll do one episode of The Petcast at 12:30 p.m. PT with an interview with author Hal Herzog ("Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat") and then go right into The Strip featuring my recent interview with dance legend Twyla Tharp, whose "Sinatra Dance With Me" got an A- today from R-J critic Mike Weatherford and raves yesterday from David McKee of Stiffs & Georges. This was the interview that gave rise to this Las Vegas Weekly column and this piece for BroadwayWorld.com. Miles and I will recount our Vegas-tinged NYC trip and talk a bit about that little gambling shack that just opened up.

Listen live and chat with fellow listeners from 12:30-2 p.m. PT at LVRocks.Com for all of it. It is quite likely this is our last live show this year given the holidays fall on Saturdays, so bring some spiked egg nog and make it festive! Although if Miles cusses on The Petcast, I may be driven to drink, too.

If you can't make it, get the podcasts when they're up! Subscribe to The Strip (it's free!) in iTunes or Zune or to The Petcast in iTunes or Zune.

The show is UP: Paul Rodriguez

Stars say the darnedest things, don't they? This may be the first time "blockbuster" and Paul Rodriguez were used in the same sentence, but wow, he really unloads. Here goes. Subscribe (it's free!) in iTunes or in Zune. Click on the date below to make it play or right-click to save it and listen at your leisure. Enjoy!

May 31: Paul Rodriguez In Not Amused

When was the last time you heard a newly minted Strip headliner complain that he’s unhappy with his host resort and already flirting with defecting to competing properties? Well, fasten your seat belts because never-shy comic Paul Rodriguez is about to knock your earbuds off. Rodriguez, who started at the Tropicana last week to middling reviews, explains – get this -- what’s wrong with his own show. Rodriguez, one of Comedy Central’s top 100 comics of all time, is also owner of the Laugh Factory in California where Seinfeld star Michael Richards had his racist meltdown which, he said, was incredibly good for the comedy club’s bottom line. He also had some new details about the Gloria Estefan-themed show expected to come to the Trop.

In Banter: Bye to Dennis Hopper, Gary Coleman and Woo Restaurant, hello to Surrender/Encore Beach Club, and eff-you to downtown's Plaza.

Links to stuff discussed:

Paul Rodriguez’s website
Paul Rodriguez’s famous skateboarding son’s site
Tickets for Paul Rodriguez show at the Trop
Rodriguez’s very funny opening act, Shayla Rivera
VegasHappensHere.Com coverage of the opening of Encore Beach Club and Surrender
Norm Clarke’s piece on the Beach Club
The Twitpic of Steve’s chocolate pancakes at Society Encore
The Strip’s interview with Roger Thomas when he revealed the design of EBC/Surrender
Dennis Hopper’s obituary and his 2006 Strip appearance
Nu Sanctuary at Town Square
Changes to dining at Cathouse reported by John Katsilometes
Firefly in downtown Las Vegas
Gary Coleman’s Vegas ties on The Surreal Life
MGM Mirage iPhone apps that we can’t try because of it’s for 3GS devices
Woo Restaurant closing at Palazzo
Steve’s LVW column about how LVS screwed over Woo Restaurant
Las Vegas Advisor’s news ticker
Mike Weatherford’s C+ review of Paul Rodriguez
Rodriguez’s involvement with a water-rights fight, the Latino Water Coalition for Farmers

Summary of Judgment: Viva Elvis

Cirque du Soleil must've been feeling mighty fine last week after that unequivocal, utterly puzzling super-duper thumbs up from Richard Corliss of Time Magazine, who declared "Viva Elvis" as "an experience that's both symphonic and in every way fantastic" and said "no tribute show can touch this one in its level of sophistication and its power of evocation."

But now here comes the real critics, the ones who don't necessary matter as much for a quote in an ad in Conde Nast Traveler but whose ability to assess this against not just Cirque's ouevre but what else is on stage in Las Vegas makes them far more useful to your travel preparations.

These commentaries are so consistent and fit precisely with my own views that it makes you wonder if Corliss was positioning for some special access to Cirque's New York show, Banana Shpeel or looking ahead to their Kodak Theatre show. Or maybe he just actually thought it was that good.

Here's a summary:

* Mike Weatherford of the Review Journal gave the show a lukewarm B. "Isn't it supposed to aim just a bit higher?" he asks of the production's ambition. He's baffled by the fiery-rope-twirling sequence and sees in it an effete-Canada-v-white-trash-Deep-South back story. It is "a genuine "Huh?" moment, one cynics might see as Cirque wandering adrift in its first journey to the red states, uncomfortable and pandering to strangers." His summary may be this line: "'Viva Elvis' is indeed a happy mess. It's loud and joyful and full of surprises, even if they stem from jarring in­consistency."

* Dave McKee of Las Vegas CityLife says it's "a noisy, incoherent mess." The superhero trampoline sequence to "Got a Lot O' Livin' To Do" is "just long, shapeless and ultimately pointless." Echoing my own concerns about the acoustical system in the theater and the treatment of the music itself, McKee writes: "Erich van Tourneau has dumped the original recordings into a gumbo of backing tracks, and live vocals and instrumentals, then puréed them into incomprehensibility. The theater’s sound system, which sounds like being trapped inside a cheap stereo speaker, only makes things worse." But how could that BE? Cirque CEO Daniel Lamarre told me it was as sophisticated as Love!

* John Katsilometes of the Las Vegas Sun also wonders about the trampoline scene. "You're wondering what is the point of all these costumed characters bounding around the stage other than to take a segment of Elvis' personality and expand upon it simply because costumed characters jumping on trampolines is a Cirque hallmark." Of a flaming-rope-twirling scene, he writes, "It's terrific fun, but when we think of Elvis, is a cowpoke spinning a flaming lasso something that springs to mind?" Also, "The production does present several moments when you're unconvinced about the strength of the link between what you're watching to the life and career of the King."

* Joe Brown of the Las Vegas Weekly and Sun pulls a bait and switch in his commentary, declaring up top the show is "likely to be lucky number seven for Cirque du Soleil." So the Montreal Mafia thinks, "Whew." But then Brown gets his digs in. "Viva Elvis" is probably good enough to crowd-please, but that doesn't mean it's any good, he says. "[I]t delivers exactly what many — most, probably — want from a Vegas show. Which would be vivid image after eye-sizzling sensation. Cirque is at its peak technically here — nobody (except maybe China) can top the Canadian spectacle factory’s powers when it comes to creating visceral images. But the flaw of this show, the missed opportunity, is that something so stylish is so insubstantial. ... The directors and designers have taken the all-too-familiar iconography of Elvis, dipped it in cheese, deep-fried it, sprayed a hard candy coating over it and dished it up on a stick. Eighteen-hundred served, twice nightly. Next!" And, finally: "Watching "Viva Elvis" is an oddly inert and passive experience, like watching a movie."

* Ubiquitous travel freelancer Eric Gladstone, on his Orbitz.Com blog reviewing all seven Cirque shows in Vegas, draws similar conclusions and makes the inevitable and deadly comparison to Love as in "unlike Love, Viva Elvis is an oddly disjointed, sloppy set of postcards caricaturing episodes in The King’s life." Like me, he likes some bits a lot but wonders what it all adds up to. He also praises the theater, which I find boring. In fact, the school-bus-bench-style seats with no arm rests are just irksome.

My own conflicted review is here.

Opening Aria III: The Elvis Maybe-Mess

Back when I was lambasting MGM Mirage for the hideous and tacky Viva Elvis banner adorning the already tragic Harmon, CEO Jim Murren told me it was necessary to promote the show and build awareness. I replied that the one part of CityCenter he needn't worry about was his Cirque show. It seemed like a no-brainer. Everyone loves the music and Cirque's prior similar endeavor, Love, was such a knockout. They'd earned our trust, even despite their idiotic Criss Angel foray.

Oops. Murren knew something I didn't.

I'm not ready to declare this show an official disaster yet because it sounds from the coverage by Mike Weatherford that they have dramatic overhaul plans already in motion. Also, they didn't show the press the whole thing at the Dec. 15 preview.

What they did show us, though, is troubling. And you have to think that they put their best 15 minutes forward for the media, right? Here's my YouTube video of about a half-minute:

That number, the Blue Suede Shoes bit, was actually a good opening even if it does feature an Elvis impersonator on stilts. [Aside: Why did Doug Elfman write that there are no Elvis impersonators in the show when he attended this preview and saw this number?] And I loved the imagery of the two acrobats on the hanging guitar.

The trouble I'm sensing, though, is that this show is going to be incredibly literal and obsessed with Elvis the quirky celebrity instead of Elvis the groundbreaking musician. Notice that the people we saw from the Elvis background at that press conference were those responsible for the mass-merchandising of dead Elvis. Unlike with "Love," we never heard that they were using original tracks, remastering old music, bringing in the folks who created it, nothing. There's been no emphasis at all on the history of this music. They're certainly not going to win any Grammys for the cast recording of this.

The reason "Love" works is because Cirque trusts that we are aware of the Beatles and their significance and gets us to refocus on the wonderful music against some visually inventive tableaux. When you use song lyrics as decorations...


...you're tapped out of imagination. In this sequence, there are actors in superhero capes and tights running all over the place doing nothing in particular. If you know this bit of Elvis trivia, you get it. If you don't, you're confused. Nothing in Love that is biographical about the Beatles, by contrast, confuses anyone or leaves anyone feeling left out. Other parts they showed feature really uninspiring choreography and uninteresting visuals.

It's telling that the Viva Elvis theater didn't even bother to include speakers in the seats as Cirque did for Love and Ka. That showed that they aimed at providing a pitch-perfect acoustical experience for the guests. The big innovation at Viva Elvis is...


...school bus-style seating with cupholders in front, not besides, the guest. Wow.

In fact, the whole theater is, to my mind, recession-era Cirque. They built this thing from the ground up with...no technological gizmos? No folding or flying stage? Nothing transformative? Just a standard-issue proscenium theater that could, if need be, be modestly altered for some other show?


Ka, Zumanity and Love were all renovations of existing theaters -- EFX, Madhattan and Siegfried & Roy respectively -- and yet they really tricked them out or gave them appropriate stylizing. No tricks at Viva Elvis, except those cupholders.

It's no surprise -- and hard to fault them -- for going apeshit on the souvenir side of this.


Again, I look forward to seeing the whole show. I agree with Elfman that they shouldn't be charging serious money ($87-$149) to see the thing if it's clearly in preliminary form, but that's an ongoing argument that Mike Weatherford and I have been beating the drum about for years and nobody in Montreal seems to give a damn.

But the early signs are really not good. They clearly didn't care enough about this thing to really invest in the theater in a way that would make this anything more than a typical show experience. And coming from the folks who redefined the live show experience via their Vegas efforts, that's quite a disappointment.

EXCLUSIVE!!! NORM v. ROBIN GRUDGE MATCH!!! BREAKING!!!

Here's some internecine media fireworks to admire alongside the crappy shooters with which your asshole neighbor is presently littering your street and freaking out your dog.

My esteemed colleagues, a tiff that has been bubbling up between Norm Clarke and Robin Leach spilled over earlier tonight. Norm, of late, has been increasingly snarky about some of Robin's stuff. Earlier this week, for instance, in his Review-Journal column, writing about a tasteless upcoming Criss Angel trick, the Patched One referred to "Leach, taking a breathless booster tone, ...". That was eyebrow-raising.

Today, though, the gloves came off, sort of, over the news that Mirage ventriloquist Terry Fator is divorcing his wife of 18 years. About three hours ago on his @Norm_Clarke Twitter feed, The Patched One wroth:


If you can't read it, it says: "A competitor is claiming, again, that he has an 'exclusive' -- this time Re Terry Fator's divorce. Vegas Confidential had it hours ago. WTH"

Norm had been Tweeting about the Fator breakup for six hours by then. It didn't take much sleuthing to find this Tweet from @Robin_Leach:


The Jolly Brit wroth: "Breaking News: Top Strip headliner reveals longtime marriage is ending. Full exclusive on VegasDeLuxe.com shortly. He says 'A sad day' ". That was about an hour after Norm started his Tweets, so Norm clearly wins this round.

I caught Norm via text-message to ask him about his decision to go public with his displeasure. He wrote back: "I made a similar comment on Twitter a couple weeks, saying a 'celebrity blogger is claiming an exclusive on a press release that came out yesterday.' I hoped that would nip it in the bud. It didn't."

As I said, this has been festering. I asked Norm why it mattered so much to him.

"It mattered to you when Perez Hilton plagiarized you. It matters when a competitor claims 'exclusives' that appeared first elsewhere. We all try to be professionals, especially when it comes to giving credit where it's due. It's the honorable thing to do."

Fair enough, and for the record both Norm and Robin have routinely given me, this blog and my podcast proper credit. So I have no complaint of my own, but can see what Norm's issue is. I asked Norm if he had tried to address this with Robin privately. This was the exchange:

Norm: I pointed out some examples of "exclusives" that weren't by e-mail a couple months ago. His response was that he wasn't responsible for the headlines.

Friess: Do you buy that?

Norm: No, I don't buy that, not when "exclusive" keeps appearing in the text and tweets. It's tabloidy.

A bit later, Norm texted me again: "Just got a message from RL saying he doesn't write headlines or put it in his copy...so I guess an editor is inserting it in stories and tweets."

Why, if I didn't know better, I'd think Norm was getting snarky again. I don't know how that works, either, given that I've been at events where Robin was Tweeting and it doesn't seem like there are any intermediate steps between his hitting "send" and the Tweet appearing on my phone.

I contacted Robin via email. He's out on the beat right now Tweeting away about Steve Wyrick's Fourth of July publicity stunt. He began by insisting: "The story posted on the Vegas DeLuxe website is not marked exclusive."

Well, no. Not anymore. Here's the earlier screenshot...


...and how it looks now.


Robin also wrote: "I had an exclusive interview with Terry very early this afternoon and Tweeted accordingly at first possible moment on a holiday weekend. When I learned Terry talked with Norm after me and I posted the full interview and story on the website I did not use the word exclusive."

Hmm. That actually raises an interesting question. What *is* an exclusive, anyhow? I mean, Norm broke the story, that's clear, but I wouldn't begrudge Robin from also calling it "breaking" since it is very new news and the proximity of their scoops pretty close.

But the issue here is Robin's use of the term "exclusive." There's a difference between an "exclusive" and an "exclusive interview," isn't there? Robin clearly shouldn't claim he had the Fator news "exclusively," but can he say his interview with Fator was "exclusive"? Sure! Used loosely, that could just mean that Robin had a one-on-one interview with Fator. That gets unwieldy, to be sure -- by that definition, every single interview I conduct one-on-one could be considered an exclusive -- but the TV media does this all the time. Captain Sullenberger had already been on CBS and NBC by the time Fox News called their chat with him "exclusive" when he spoke to them the next day. And, remember, Robin Leach comes out of a TV tradition.

And another thing, in Robin's defense: I have no doubt Robin generally has no idea what Norm reports or when. It's all flying by so fast, who has the time to research everybody else's minute-by-minute work? I've fallen prey to this, too; I've thought I was breaking something that had been buried in a Mike Weatherford column I had missed from weeks earlier. When it is noted, I fix it if it can be verified. (The Review-Journal, by the way, never makes such corrections for anybody once they've claimed to be first on something that they were, in fact, third or fourth on. But that's a whole other thing.)

In any event, the whole lot of it gets very messy. But The Jolly Brit, taking a cue from the gazillion feud-plagued celebs he's quizzed over the eon, insisted it's not.

"Competition is healthy and I'm glad we both got the story," Robin concluded. "I don't know what you're noticing--Both of us doing the best job we can! I have the greatest respect for him."

Norm-Robin photo credit: SteveDacri.Com

Criss Angel Facade Cracks Further

Astute listener and reader David F. from Manchester, U.K. pointed out that Criss Angel Believe, just two months into its official, post-preview run, is offering 40 percent off tickets. He caught it on the LuxorLV's Twitter stream. I dug a little deeper and it seems that this discount is through 2008 and the normal prices resume after New Year's Eve.

It is absolutely without precedent for Cirque to be discounting a 10-week-old show. What happened to this being the No. 1 show or at least the No. 1 Cirque show in Vegas? Yes, they've lowered prices on several shows, including Mystere and Ka, but those are older shows. If the Criss Angel show were of the Love or O caliber, not even the worst recession would be reducing it to this. Also, the period between Xmas and New Year's is still one of the busiest times in Vegas, so it's telling that they're discounting these seats for shows in that span, eliminating the explanation that they're trying to fill seats in the traditionally slowest period prior to Christmas.

MGM Mirage spokesman Alan Feldman had some thoughts. Admitting he's not up on occupancy for the new Luxor magic show and was not involved in the pricing for the discounted shows, he said: "I don't know what the pricing situation is for that show, but I think what's up is that we're in the midst of an all-time historic economic downturn. We're not getting the same room rates during that time, either. Even New Year's Eve, where the prices usually go up dramatically, they're not going up as much as they once did. There are New Year's Eve weekend packages that average out to less than $2o0 a night. That's unheard of."

Well, OK. And in a way, perhaps the recession is a good thing inasmuch as it may kill off bad shows faster than if there was the cushion of better days. It may be that Las Vegas CityLife, which put Angel on the cover of their annual Get Out of Town issue, could get its wish sooner than later, although the R-J's Mike Weatherford did report this week Cirque will be spending the next few months working on a "fixation" plan.

On the upshot, though, Angel has surged a little in TicketNews.Com's weekly Vegas show rankings. He'd actually fallen off the list and sat behind such hot tickets as Jubilee! since the Oct. 31 opening and subsequent critical savaging.

Looking at the list on that site -- and I have been week after week -- all I can say is that it must be nice to be the Colosseum. Bette, Cher and Elton are perennials atop this list.

Funny sentence

I'm still recovering from yesterday's headache -- going to an eye doc later today to see if maybe all these headaches are coming from eye strain or just bad karma -- and the time I lost on that, but I did want to send a hearty kudos out to Mike Weatherford of the R-J because this sentence made me LOL:

Little Bo Peep will be working the Strip with Little Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks next spring. Don't confuse them with "The Lion King."

C'mon. That's clever. And there's so little clever in the R-J.

Weatherford was referring to the announcement yesterday of a new $12 million topless show called "Peepshow" to open at the increasingly appropriately nicknamed Planet Ho. You can read Mike's report here and then check in on Norm's speculation about who might go topless in the production here.

But here's a question: Does Mel "Scary Spice" B (left) count as a "pop superstar" anymore? The press release hyping the announcement last week said it would be a “lavish multi-million dollar adult show starring a pop superstar and a siren of the small screen." Mel B is that "pop superstar" and the "siren of the small screen" is Kelly Monaco, a "General Hospital" actress who won the first season of "Dancing With The Stars." That's her above. I figured I owed my straight male readers a little something yummy. If she poses like that, odds are pretty high the former Playboy model will show the rest in Vegas come spring, right?

Oh, and this was also pretty humorous, albeit unintentionally. Monaco, when asked whether she might move to Vegas, told Weatherford it's possible and that raising kids here received high marks from her pal Toni Braxton. Braxton told Monaco: "Trust me, the schools out here are great for kids." HAHAHAHAHA.

To be fair, Braxton's oldest kid is only 6, which means he was 3 or 4 when Braxton moved here. But the Clark County School District is nothing short of a disaster. There are some good schools and many excellent teachers, but it's underfunded, overcrowded and about to get worse. There are many good reasons to live in Vegas. The public schools? Not one of them.

Show is UP: Steve 'N Stevie

Here we do, y'all! Click on the date below to hear it or right-click or download the show and listen whenever you want. or subscribe via iTunes here or via Zune here:

July 31: Steve Lawrence

They’ve become known as the casino closers. Four times in the past decade, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme have been called upon to be the final performers at the closing of a resort or a famous showroom. But the act itself keeps on trucking. Well, sort of. Steve Lawrence is performing solo in August at the Orleans while his wife deals with a variety of health problems, as you’ll hear this hour. Lawrence spoke to Steve last week about Frank Sinatra, the original Tonight Show, about fighting with Eydie on stage and about why they haven’t seen a resurgence like Tony Bennett and Frankie Valli. Plus, he talks about their son, David, who composed the scores for the “High School Musical” movies. That’s all coming up.

In Banter: Trump IS having layoffs, Jerry Lewis is packing heat, Ping Pang Pong is wonderful, Miles is hung up over a gross Secret commercial and the prospect of the Las Vegas TV show as a movie.

Links:

Buy tickets to see Steve Lawrence at the Orleans Aug 15-17 here
See that Steve and Eydie is on What’s My Line here
See a spoof of the Secret Flawless ad Miles is so irked by here
Others hate that Secret ad, too, and they chatter about it here
Find the Global Gaming Business podcast with Vegas biz exec interviews here
Read all about Jerry Lewis packing heat at McCarran here
Find out more about the terrific Ping Pang Pong at the Gold Coast here
See the KVBC report on the Trump layoffs and Trump’s denial of same here
See the drive-thru article about the Fiesta Rancho sportsbook here
The Burger King drive-thru ad Miles whines about is here
Chris Lawrence’s blog post about the potential “Las Vegas” film here
Weatherford breaks news about a new poker show at the Venetian here

Sunday Readings...

I finally caught up on the week's worth of newspapers, plus some from earlier in July that just sat there forever, last night. A few thoughts:

* Two Studies in One, Or Something. Read these two pieces side by side, Howard Stutz's from the Review-Journal and Liz Benston's from the Las Vegas Sun, both from the July 23 papers. You're forgiven if you thought for a moment they were writing about different studies on Internet gambling coming out of UNLV. I truly did for a minute. Benston focuses entirely on findings that people in online poker rooms are ruder and meaner than gamblers at live casinos and this makes some people feel bad though not bad enough to stop playing and get a life. The "potential to be more addictive than gambling in a casino" is one that this study "largely side-steps," she writes. Stutz, on the other hand, writes that "the results of the study show that online gamblers wager more frequently and more aggressively." The author is quoted as telling Stutz that "online gamblers are much more prone to suffer from all the negative aspects. The activity lacks social interaction, which can increase the risk of addiction." Very strange.

* Trump Is A Silly Dilly. Or A Fabulist. Speaking of Stutz, he had a follow-up to the KVBC report on the Trump layoffs that started with the, uh, company line: "Don't call them layoffs." Trump is totally unconvincing, as he is when he called KVBC's Steve Crupi to cuss him out over the piece. Crupi and KVBC stood their ground. When you relieve a fifth of your workforce of their jobs, it's not really a reassurance that they'll get them back whenever you're ready to have them. Those people are out of work. They had jobs, then they didn't. Those are layoffs. It's also not credible, when that happens, to pretend you've got an "incredible success" on your hands.

* Mike Weatherford's Good Week. First, he broke an interesting piece about a live poker show at the Venetian featuring amateurs going up against well-known pros. And then he offered some terrific insight I hadn't thought about as to why the soon-to-close Second City didn't do as well as it should/could've at the Flamingo. The bottom line seems to be that the SC folks failed to deliver on the promise of guest appearances by its famous alums.

* I Didn't Know This. Did You? F. Andrew Taylor of the View, the weekly freebie section of the R-J, had a really fun, revealing piece in honor of National Drive-Thru Day, which was last Thursday. (Aside: Isn't it always drive-thru day?!?) All the basics were in there -- the drive-thru chapel, pawn and smoke shops, sexy cafe -- but did you know that they have a drive-thru sportsbook at the Fiesta Rancho casino? I sure did not. God forbid you find yourself behind ditherers like those folks who stand in front of the $1 movie rental machines at the supermarket forever, though.

* Monday Sadness. Remember how gangbusters great the R-J was doing, per its publisher Sherm Frederick, who claimed a circulation gain that didn't exist? Then why, as of today, does the paper no longer have a Living section on Mondays? Mondays were one of that department's best, most original days with Carol Cling's Shooting Stars column and Corey Levitan's sometimes-funny, sometimes-grating stooge-in-odd-jobs "Fear and Loafing" columns. Levitan sent an email out last week that a friend forwarded my way indicating that he'll be doing one of those a month from now on instead. So, Mr. Modesty noted, "the silver lining is that, with only 12 columns a year, all of them will be astonishingly great." Uh, OK. Levitan was mysterious about the switch -- "I am not permitted to tell you any more" -- but it's clear what's going on here. I just got through praising Cling's long-running weekly Shooting Stars column, in which she took note of various TV, movie, commercial and other crews filming around the city, as her "very best, most Vegas-relevant material." So, of course, they had to dismantle the entire page. Sorry, Carol.

Carol's final print SS column indicated that she'd be blogging her Shooting Stars material on the R-J's website here. So far, though, she has not done so, but here's hoping.

ReviewJournal.Com, Porn Purveyors!

VegasRex.Com had an awesome post today that you need to see. But shield your eyes and those of the young 'uns around you: He caught the Review-Journal trafficking in oldie porn.

As I understand it, until probably this morning there was a user-generated element of the front of that mess of a site where they showed photos uploaded by readers. I guess nobody was moderating that and, surprise surprise, someone posted a nude photo of an aged woman. Hot!

Here's the screenshot that VegasRex grabbed, and thank GOD he did...


The Your Pix section is now gone. It's sort of amazing it took this long for something like that to happen, isn't it?

While I've got your attention regarding the RJ's site, I did want to address another new feature, the roundtable chat between Doug "VegasLand" Elfman, Carol Cling, Mike Weatherford and Jason Bracelin, the paper's entertainment columnists and bloggers. It's called "Hot In Vegas This Weekend," which means that nobody could be even the slightest bit creative about what to call the thing.

I won't comment on the quality per se because it's a new venture and the first go-rounds are always going to be rough as the people involved get comfortable with one another and the medium. I'll just make a few hopefully helpful suggestions:

1. Make it more fun and interactive. Have an actual discussion, debate, throwdown, whatever. Right now, it's a video/audio calendar listing service, with each telling us what's coming up this weekend in their various disciplines. I can get that from Neon and I don't have to sit in front of my computer to do that. The idea of having multiple people ought to be to have a chat, y'know?

2. Change your focus, Carol Cling. Your very best, most Vegas-relevant material is your Shooting Stars column on Mondays in which you tell us what TV, movie or other visual media crews are in town. Your movie reviews are fine, but they've got no Vegas relevance, usually. Everyone else is talking about upcoming shows, concerts and such that are happening here.

3. For God's sake, explain RSS to Al Gibes already. Your "Online Guy" and supposed Web guru really needs to understand that your program -- and all of your blogs, too -- will reach many times more people if they can subscribe to it via RSS and have the content come to them via Google Reader or iTunes or whatever. Take a cue from the Washington Post's daily Post Politics Podcast and the Herald of Rock Hill, S.C.,'s Popcast podcasts, both of which have increased awareness of and traffic to their websites by not forcing people to come there for non-written content. I know, it sounds counterintuitive. But everybody's doing it. Not having RSS tags for your video and audio content proves you just don't get the portable media revolution.

Oh, and more porn would totally make your little show rock! Maybe Bracelin can show a little leg. God knows, he loves to talk about bodily functions in his columns.

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.

The *$*@& R-J

No, really. Amy of the "Grits To Glitz" podcast pointed out to me that Mike Weatherford's review of "Defending the Caveman" in Friday's R-J included the use of two curses, "asshole" and "dick." Strange that a family paper would allow that, especially when it could've been dashed out. And apparently, he did it twice; the word "asshole" also appeared in his May 31 discussion of the Golden Nugget show's impending arrival.

We're on the Web; we can say whatever the f--- we want.

HouseseatsLV.Com FLIPS OUT!

This is just bizarre.

Yesterday I posted a blog entry about the fact that "The Beauty of Magic" is showing very early signs of trouble: They're giving away free seats through a group called Houseseatslv.Com. This is a subscription service where people pay a flat annual fee and then when free seats become available, usually on short notice, they must answer an email or log onto the site and sign up. I'd plugged this thing on my podcast in the past and it seems like a neat deal.

And apparently it has the Houseseatslv.Com folks FLIPPING OUT. They sent their members this "IMPORTANT" email:

"We are committed to bringing you fantastic entertainment, and know you are committed to enjoying it. However, we need to talk to you for a moment about a very serious issue, indiscretion. As stated in the house rules, you are not to disclose how you receive tickets or what we have available to anyone outside of the house seats family. Doing so is a strict violation of membership rules and could result in a suspension or revocation of your membership. We urge all of you to log on to the site and review the rules of membership. Not adhering to these rules could cost everyone the wonderful entertainment opportunities we have been able to offer thus far. Your cooperation is appreciated."

Of course, I was curious: WTF? What's with all the secrets? And how practical is it, anyway, to believe that people aren't going to pass along the information to their friends or talk about it at the water cooler? How suspect is this if a member's talking about what they did the night before could foil the whole enterprise?

So I went to read the "House Rules." Take a look for yourself. The whole operation suddenly started feeling really weird to me. Basically, it's two well-connected public relations folks who profit off of the fact that many shows need people for their audiences so that other audience members don't feel lonely. They get their tickets free and distribute them, using the money in part to host the site and organize the activities, and they donate 10 percent of the proceeds to various charities. It's a pretty good deal and people's connections are earned, so I'm not sure I quarrel that much with this arrangement.

There's something vaguely referred to as "special shopping services," too, but God knows what that means. Most of the rules are sensible, but some are impractical, odd or contradictory. Here are some, in their original syntax:

* members MUST NOT CONTACT THE BOX OFFICE.
* you must be discreet when picking up tickets at the box office; we do not want to hinder their ability to sell full price tickets.
* house seats reserves the right to refuse service to anyone who is unpleasant, discourteous, or creates a problem of any kind at the theater or directly with house seats.
* listings are confidential information for members only. anyone found disclosing information in a public setting or chat room will have their membership instantly revoked.
* house seats reserves the right to review applicants before processing them for membership.

So don't contact the box office when you pick up your tickets at the box office? Oh dear, I am so not going to be approved for membership!

My source was confused as to what's up with all these rules. I think I know. These shows are trying to pretend for the public and the media that they're in demand. But they're not. So they give away seats and it looks like they can draw a crowd. If you tell everyone about it, however, you end up with &#@&$ journalists and bloggers like yours truly pointing to the deception as a sign of weakness. It's another reason why the tickets available at the discount ticket counters on the Strip aren't listed online; that would make it too easy for reporters to know what's doing badly. How many journalists would actually go down and see for themselves on a busy Saturday afternoon that "Spamalot" tix are available on the cheap? Oh, wait. I did that. OK, one.

Unlike in New York City, touring companies, concert venues or the movies, Las Vegas properties don't report their box office grosses to anyone. There's no way to know how they're doing. It is argued that they're private businesses, so they don't have to. But the same could be said for the aforementioned entities that do report, so I don't know why we don't get that sort of information. Perhaps it's so that the casinos and show producers can drum up illegitimate "Best Of Las Vegas" claims (by, say, putting out their own little circular with some phony writer crowning their show such) and slap them on their advertising.

That brings us back to why any of this matters. There's no official way for Vegas journalists to have any reliable gauge on the success or failure of any show, so we're reduced to relying on rumors, show-time changes or, say, the discovery that a heavily hyped train wreck of a magic show with Pamela Anderson that has only four shows a week to sell must give tickets away to fill the room.

And make no mistake, this show is a mess. It's receiving the worst word-of-mouth since "Le Reve," panned so far on our podcast this week -- it's in the first 10 mins of the show if you want to hear -- and by Mike Weatherford in the Review-Journal today. I'm grateful I didn't include it in my guidebook, which is being printed as I type, since I doubt it'll be around by the end of the year. It's that awful.

Oh, and by the way. There's another free-ticket outlet out there that's actually free and doesn't play all these cloak-and-dagger games. It's called VegasSeatFillers.Com. The shows aren't as high-profile, I gather, but I imagine that would change if more people used the service.

Signs of Woe for "The Beauty of Magic"

The summer's most hyped new Vegas show, the Hans Klok-Pam Anderson production "The Beauty of Magic" at Planet Ho, is showing signs of struggle -- already.

Yesterday, subscribers to a service called HouseseatsLV.Com were offered free tickets. Subscribers pay a flat $169 a year and can have up to four tickets to any shows they come into passes for. It's actually a terrific deal and has been featured on "The Strip" as a Top Secret Tourist Tip of the Week.

Now, we thought it was startling when "Spamalot" was available at discount brokers on Fight Weekend and for free to folks at First Friday in May. But "The Beauty of Magic" has been only been open for ONE weekend. And, unlike any major show in recent memory, its schedule is just a measly four performances - one Thurs, two Fri and one Sat -- a week.

I inquired and was told this is not unusual for a show just getting up and running without previews. Not buying that. This show has, for a split-second anyway, Pamela Anderson.

Word of mouth isn't kind thus far. Mike Weatherford in the R-J hasn't put out his full review, but he did write in his column today:

"Say what you will about the Hans Klok magic show at Planet Hollywood, but it was a classy gesture to invite most of the other lcoal magicians to the big opening-night bash last weekend. Since Klok wheeled out illusions already seen up and down the Strip, it was only fair to invite his predecessors to the party."

Ouch.