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

What Might Have Been

I was just poking around, curious about something, and I found this relic of a bygone era, how The Harmon was -- and still is -- identified, imagined and described by the the website for Foster + Partners, its architects.

The ultimate luxury getaway, the Harmon Hotel is a non-gaming hotel that forms a striking gateway to the MGM Project in Las Vegas. Fronting the Strip at the corner of Harmon Avenue, it will be one of the tallest buildings on this famed Las Vegas boulevard.

Of course, not so much, eh? So sad. The Harmon, incidentally, is no longer mentioned at all on Lord Norman Foster's Wikipedia page.

Bad, AOL News People

I just went to look at my e-mail and was stopped by this new headline out front on AOL's home page...


Can't see it? How about now:

And I'm like, "Whoa!" Did something break when I wasn't looking? The biggest new hotel being built on the Strip right now is either Aria or Fontainebleau. I hadn't heard of any delays in either of those.

Alas, you click on the link and it takes you to a 4-day-old Reuters story about the shorning and delays for The Harmon, which was never supposed to have more than 400 hotel rooms and had lost its 200 condo units because of construction mistakes. In fact, oddly, at 400 rooms, The Harmon actually qualifies as the SMALLEST new hotel to have been built on the Strip in as long as I can remember. Sure, it's a piece of the largest construction complex, CityCenter, but this headline is bad.

Just saying.

The Show is UP: Mamma Mia! Exit Interviews

This show was a helluva lot of fun to do. Those of you who missed the live version will have to wait till the annual August outtakes episode to hear me explode in a cursing fury at the &$*holes who do the show after us for talking loudly in the next room while we were in our closing minutes. It wasn't the first time and I was in no mood. But, hey, that's the kind of thing the live crew gets. But the podcast version is still great and you can hear it by clicking on the date below or right-click to download it and listen whenever you want. Or subscribe via iTunes here or via Zune here.

Jan. 8: Mamma Mia! Exit Interviews

The skeptics – including Steve -- said it would never work. A two-act, full-length musical scored by decades-old pop songs telling a convoluted story about parenthood and spandex could never, possibly succeed in Las Vegas. But succeed “Mamma Mia!” did, emboldening another half-dozen or so musicals to believe they, too, were Strip-worthy, only to find out that what Mamma Mia did so effortlessly was actually quite a feat. But all good things must come to an end, and on Sunday, Mandalay Bay said goodbye to Donna, Sophie, her three possible dads and the rest of the cast. We, however, aren’t done yet. Tonight we have live in the studio Brad Grey and Tim Tucker, the only two actors who stayed with the show for its entire, record-breaking Las Vegas run.

In Banter: New Year's Eve fireworks sucked, CityCenter's hiring, Stratosphere's laying off, The Harmon's in limbo, Tamara's stalled and Paris' empty showroom is a blessing.

Links:

See Tim Tucker's website here
Hear Steve euologize Mamma Mia! on KNPR by clicking here
See more on CityCenter's Harmon stall here
See rants from Fox viewers about the lousy NYE fireworks here
See the last blog post about Tamara at Venetian, now stalled, here
See more about Stratosphere's restaurant woes here

Rumor Patrol: MGM Mirage

I got MGM Mirage VP Alan Feldman on the line today for this AFP piece on the start of hiring of the 12,000 or so employees for CityCenter. As usual, some interesting stuff didn't make it into the story.

I happened to be calling Alan after buzz on the Web had reached a fever pitch that (a) the company was this/close or even done with a deal to sell off the Mirage resort, (b) the Light Group has been pushed out of management of the Harmon hotel-condo and (c) plans are afoot to halt construction on some portion of CityCenter, most likely the aforementioned Harmon.

It seemed worthwhile in that cacophony to publish Feldman's direct responses to those issues.
(a) Mirage: After reiterating that as a publicly traded company that must seriously consider any serious offer to buy any of its assets, I asked if there was any credible offer now pending on this or any of the MGM Mirage properties. His careful, inconclusive response: "There is nothing of which I am aware." That said, he also made light fun of my question as well as that of "one of your colleagues from the local newspapers who called me breathless about the sale of the Mirage. And I asked him, 'Did you get the press release?' And he said, 'No, I didn't get a press release!' And I said, 'That's because there is none.' "

(b) The Light Group and The Harmon: On this, a bit more of a solid denial. "Nothing has changed. The Light Group is the managing entity of the Harmon. There’s been no discussion otherwise on the part of the company."

(c) A CityCenter Delay: "When Boyd made a decision to put a hold on Echelon, that gave everyone pause. Obviously we’re paying very close attention to what’s going on. We’ve also had to deal with structural issues. Some rebar had to be redone at the Harmon. That’s probably added to the rumor mill. We’re going to be make certain that CityCenter is the best it possibly can be when it opens. To the extent that any other decisions are made, we’ll make them and let you know in due course."

Oh, one more thing. On the condo front, there are about 2,400 condos for sale at CityCenter. About half are reserved with 20 percent non-refundable deposits. They've gotten virtually no new ones reserved in the fourth quarter of 2008. So is there danger that if they don't sell more of them they won't be able to fund the rest of the construction?

"We’re not one of these companies running on such thin margins that we need to close on these units to make these projects work. We’re on pretty solid ground and this is real estate that’s not going anywhere. As Las Vegas goes, this is still beachfront property.”

Get it? Beachfront property in Vegas? He made a funny. He also provided a lot and a little bit of information at the same time. Thoughts?