The Blooper Show is FINALLY Up!

Our blooper episode, recorded on 8/14, turned out to be a blooper in and of itself. I forgot to set GarageBand to record the feed from the mixer, so instead we recorded what the Mac's mike heard. It was a terrible mess and a huge loss because the original version was so much fun. But frequent guest co-host Amy came back on Saturday, 8/20 with another pizza and we re-did it with updated Vegas news and no chat room. This means the chat room folks haven't heard this version, either, which is unusual. Anyhow, enjoy! I'll post whenever I know when we're doing another show, but the grand finale episode will definitely by Sunday, Sept. 4, from Ann Arbor. Also, there will be MANY specials and extras coming in the podcast feed over the next week, so subscribe via iTunes. I won't be announcing them here. -sf

Aug. 20: BLOOPERPALOOZA!
Extra: More bloopers that didn't make it in the main show

Episode Guide:
Open & Banter: Start to 36ish
Intro/End-Show Bloopers : 36:45-44ish
Wordplay Bloopers: 44:30ish-50ish
Banter/Midshow Bloopers: 50:50-1:07ish
Trivia/Poll/Feedback: 1:07ish-1:20ish
Interview-related Bloopers: 1:20:35-1:31ish
Cursing Bloopers: 1:31:20-1:35ish
Miles' Voices Bloopers: 1:35:30-1:40ish
TSTToTW: 1:40ish-end
Something More: 1:53-end

As faithful listeners know, this podcast is edited. We appreciate being independent, but we don’t believe that independent means we should be careless and sloppy. So Steve goes through every week and cleans it all up so you don’t have to waste your time hearing long pauses and unnecessary or irrelevant banter. Also, there’s a whole culture that’s built up around the chat room and we interact with those out there in ways that the podcast listener wouldn’t follow. So, anyhow, each year we have created a Bloopers Episode. Hear us curse, bicker and ponder deep but Vegas-irrelevant thoughts. It's fun. You'll laugh. Mostly.

In Banter, we mulled our encounter with Mrs. Wynn in Sun Valley, talked about the de-Elvising at Aria and the likely implosion of The Harmon, we explained our strategy for packing and moving and much more. Near the end, we also discuss Steve's bingo adventure.

Links to stuff discussed:

What our ReLo Cubes look like, from Upack.Com
Aria is De-Elvising and removed the ugly wrap
Links (when available) to the Eureka Flickr Slideshow, The Daily article, the KNPR segment and the LV Weekly column
The site for Tanked
Steve's Las Vegas Weekly cover story on the Jockey Club
MGM Resorts wants to implode The Harmon, according to the WSJ
360Vegas Podcast is worth a try
Pix one, two and three of Steve’s Bingo adventure at Sunset Station

It's a Wrap, Speaking Of Damaging The Brand...

MGM Resorts CEO Jim Murren was just talking about not wanting to damage his brand, but yesterday he began doodling on a starchitect's building, so it's hard to take him seriously, isn't it? Yup. That, above, is a sunrise shot of the beginnings of what is no doubt going to be a hideous wrap of Aria. That was shot by guest host Amy, and listener/reader Weston P. sent along this closer version:


I'm not the only one who hates this, of course. We shouldn't need to lecture MGM Resorts on the importance of respecting their architecture, but Weston thinks people should do so anyway:

I, for one, am disgusted by it. They began today and three glass panels now have wrapping on them. How can MGM go so low as to deface one of the prominent luxury hotels in our skyline for who knows how long?! Hopefully, they will receive a few harsh phone calls about this. I know I am going to do my best to talk to someone as this is, in my opinion, appalling.

Sing it, brother! Oh! Guess who else hates wraps? From last week's interview:

Friess: Would you ever put one of these advertising wraps on your resorts?
Steve Wynn: When hell froze over.
Friess: And why? Why wouldn't you do it?
Wynn: It's terrible, terrible looking. It's OK if you're running a Motel 6 or a low-end place like Circus Circus.
Friess: The county just gave MGM permission to put a wrap on Aria for their Viva Elvis show and I'm just really offended by this idea. I mean I took them seriously when they said they are doing something high class with their architecture and then they throw up bumper stickers all over it and it gives everybody who hates Vegas a chance to say, "Look at that."
Wynn: This is the same group that built the place. It's the same brain that built the place.

Meanwhile, the worst part is that what they appear to be putting on that gorgeous building looks even worse than we expected. This was the VegasTripping.Com mock-up:



The VT gang gave the MGM gang too much credit. That, above, would be stately and dignified compared to what they're actually doing.

This Week's LVW Col: Critical Divide

Here's this week's LVW column. Nothing too profound, but I thought it was worth taking stock of. -sf

Critical Divide
Are out-of-town reviewers blinded by the lights?

By STEVE FRIESS

One week before Viva Elvis “officially” opened, Time magazine’s Richard Corliss wrote the most effervescent review of the new show that Cirque du Soleil could have ever prayed or paid for.

“They’ve concocted an experience that’s both symphonic and in every way fantastic,” Corliss gushed in a line destined to be bathed in exclamation points and emblazoned on advertisements and probably the marquee for the show for years to come.

Corliss’ commentary came out long before Cirque’s requested embargo on reviews; those of us who went to see it for reporting purposes prior to the February 19 opening were asked not to judge because it was still a work in progress even though Aria and Cirque were happily taking good money from patrons. Alas, as the Time writer’s piece was so uniformly gleeful and full of absurd smiley faces like “no tribute show can touch this one in its level of sophistication and its power of evocation,” I don’t imagine anybody from Montreal complained.

Here in Vegas, however, those of us who keep tabs on all things Vegas and Cirque were flabbergasted. Most had endured the dreadful 15-minute preview staged for journalists in December and some had a chance to see the show in improved form in the weeks preceding the big debut. But while there was plenty of chatter about how the show had gotten better, the notion that it was in the league that Corliss claimed was baffling.

And yet after the show’s bow, the critical divide grew even more pronounced. That is, local reviewers were highly critical and out-of-town critics could not have been more thrilled.

It forced the question: Why? This was the very first time in my memory that I can recall such radically different takes from two populations of reviewers on a Vegas production. When Le Reve and Criss Angel Believe opened, the critical response everywhere was unanimous: They sucked. Anyone and everyone who came into even casual contact with those disasters went forth to warn people in the sternest of language that these were productions unworthy of a tourist’s precious time or money. Likewise, when a show was an obvious masterpiece—The Beatles Love and Garth Brooks spring to mind—everybody everywhere seemed to get that, too.

There is only one conclusion: When it comes to Vegas and Elvis, the prejudice toward stereotype and mockery and the expectations of banal schlock are so intense that anything even remotely elevated seemed to the out-of-towners like brilliance incarnate.

Read the REST at LasVegasWeekly.Com

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.

Viva Elvis: B-; Viva Elvis Party: F

Throughout the hourish that I stuck around at the shockingly lame "Viva Elvis" premiere party, I was confronted countless times with a reasonable but strangely irksome question: "What's you think of the show?" It's expected, obviously, but it made me uncomfortable.

Why? Because days later, I'm still not sure. Would I recommend it to die-hard Elvis fans? Absolutely. Would I recommend it to Cirque fans who have seen everything else in Vegas? Sure. Would I recommend it to people who love watching dance? Yes, if they've already seen "Love."

So that's a lot of recommendations. But then there was director/creator Vince Paterson standing outside the theater after the premiere performance openly criticizing pieces of the show that had been moved, changed or shortened. That's just never happened to me before.

There is something perplexing about Viva Elvis, something that Dave McKee of Las Vegas CityLife may have clarified when he pointed out that there are six choreographers and two artistic directors credited. The result is a show with parts that were very enjoyable, parts that were idiotic and almost nothing in between.

A few random thoughts:

* Some of the tableaux were really cool. I still love the hanging guitar acrobatic duo, still love the American flag made out in underwear, still love the bit where a singer stands atop a gigantic wedding dress, home movies of Elvis and Priscilla projected on it. I enjoyed the energy and the showgirl iconography of Viva Las Vegas, too.

* A somewhat violent sequence in which a male dancer is throwing his female partner all over the place made me bust out laughing because her eyes kept popping out of her head as she was thrust about. Similarly, there is a fire-rope-twirling sequence. In both cases, I turned to my companion and whispered: "That's a Roy-and-the-tiger moment waiting to happen."

* The segment where superheros are bouncing about for "Got A Lot o' Livin' To Do" has grown on me after being horrified by it at December's media preview. That said, the notion of scrawling a piece of lyric across the set piece seemed like a bankruptcy of imagination. The show is already only a few steps removed from a very elaborate karaoke performance.

* After the tender wedding scene, something weird happens. These two yellow beds appear on the stage, one with a man and one with a woman laying on it. From the ceiling descends two giant male and female wedding rings, heading for those yellow beds. In each ring was an acrobat of the opposing gender of whoever was laying on the bed. The two couples become physical. My read: After the wedding, the bride and the groom went off to bang other people.

* Many critics have baffled over the awful delivery of the actor who plays cliche-spewing, cigar-chomping Col. Tom Parker, Elvis' manager. My confusion is why he's the guy at all. As I understand it, Parker was one of the key forces in Elvis' destruction, driving him to keep performing to help cover Parker's debts. Would anyone ever consider having a jolly Joe Jackson as loving narrator of a Michael Jackson tribute? No. Well Parker, like Jackson, was a significant reason for the star's untimely demise.

I've summarized the other major Vegas critics in a separate post. But my ultimate conclusion is that I have no conclusion. And that's not good because it means that Viva Elvis is going to blend into the backdrop of the Vegas entertainment scene. People aren't going to care about it one way or the other. And in that way, it will be unique among Cirque's work on the Strip.

* * *

OK, so the party. Memo to Murren and Laliberte: WTF?

Please let me stress that it is NOT that I feel we in the press, the VIPs and the celebrities on hand were owed anything. We're not. But Cirque du Soleil has a reputation when it comes to its post-debut parties and this one was by far and away the limpest, lamest effort by Cirque or any other Vegas standard.

After the show ended, invitees were ushered to Haze, a subterranean nightclub at Aria. There they offered an open bar and some passed hors d'oeuvres. And that was it.

OK, so compare and contrast. For the opening of "Zumanity" they carpeted the top level of the NY-NY parking garage and held an all-night rave. At 2 a.m., in fact, a crane dangled overhead with a dozen or so Cirque performers twirling about over us. It was surreal. Ka (in the Grand Garden Arena) , Love (in a Mirage ballroom) and Believe (at the Luxor pool) were also huge events with dozens of food stations, cool set pieces, the works.

At Haze, there were celebrities around, but they were sequestered in an upstairs area of the club. So the best shot at star-gazing was the Blue Carpet (which I missed to appear on Nevada Week in Review) and after the show when I spotted Taye Diggs, Gene Simmons and Neil Patrick Harris. Actually, a fire alarm about 5 minutes into the show stopped it for about 10 minutes, so I did spy Holly Madison, Ryan Seacrest, Rita Rudner and Lisa Marie Presley then.

Mostly, though, the party baffled me because Aria and CityCenter actually needed this opportunity to show off its new dining options to a large, prestigious crowd of taste-makers. Having been in the conference center at Aria earlier in the day for the Obama speech, I can attest it's gorgeous and plenty spacious for them to have done this back there.

While I get that times are tough, this was a special, concentrated audience of the city and the country's political, business and media leaders. And it's ELVIS. There's a whole food culture, an era, involved here. For "Jersey Boys" at Palazzo, for example, they rolled in all these classic cars and had all this 50s and 60s iconography everywhere. Elvis got cheese puffs and some green liquid sludge in a little glass.

Why does it matter? Well, this was the final shot, the last big CityCenter-related opening. The cycle is over, the complex now settles into whatever its place in the Vegas pecking order it will be.

An Obama-Elvis Friday

As you can see, I'm at Green Valley High School awaiting the arrival of President Obama. Fun tidbit: This is the same gymnasium where then-Sen. Hillary Clinton made her first stump speech for candidate Obama after he vanquished her in 2008.

I'll be pretty busy today, obviously. I've got to get from GVHS to Aria for Obama's second speech, then file for AOLNews.Com, then tape Nevada Week in Review at 6:30 p.m. before returning to Aria for the premiere and party for Viva Elvis. In other words, I've got two events at Aria today and odds are I'll be late for both.

I'll be Tweeting throughout the day, and you can follow that either via this link or in the upper left column on this blogsite.

OH! Also - tomorrow's episode of The Strip will be presidential-minded as well. We're expecting to have an interview with Palms owner George Maloof on hosting the $30,000-a-person Obama fundraiser on Thursday night and then a totally fascinating chat with David Osbourne, the Bellagio pianist who has played for six presidents including, at the White House, for Obama, Bush and Clinton.

Join us live online and listen/chat at LVROCKS.Com at 5 pm PT Saturday. Amy will be subbing for Carson City-bound Miles, off to cover a special session of the Nevada Legislature.

Friday Funnies and Stuff

Happy Friday everyone! Here's some amusement for you to take with you into the long weekend.

First, Stephen Colbert honored the Rosa Parks of Male Sluts:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Alpha Dog of the Week - Markus Bestin
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Skate Expectations

Funny part of this: I didn't know Patrick L. Norton actually had a fake LAST name, too!

Next, it shouldn't be funny, but in an odd way, it is. Here's the AOLNews.Com teaser headline regarding the tragic suicide of designer Alexander McQueen:


God, what a drama mcqueen.

Also more odd than funny is that Republican Senate candidate Danny Tarkanian is running this ad even though, perhaps he hadn't heard, health care reform is by all accounts dead:

I mean, if people told Harry Reid this, his best response might be: "Oh, don't worry about it. I already killed that all by myself. We're good."

Meanwhile, Time Magazine slobbers all over Viva Elvis. Evidently when Cirque tells reviewers not to say anything until Feb. 19, they really only mean it if you're going to offer even a single critical statement. Richard Corliss, apparently, could find nothing to temper his exuberance. But what's even stranger is that I didn't realize just how DEEP Viva Elvis actually is. Here's the screen shot from Time...


...and here's a close-up of the caption under that photo:



Oops.

I don't know why I've been away so long from the various comics-related blogs, but this morning, having trouble sleeping, I made it back to the Comics Curmudgeon just in time for this classic. Click on it to read the analysis:


While there, I discovered GarfieldMinusGarfield.Net. The blogger removes Garfield from all the cartoons and suddenly it makes hysterical sense. You have to see several to really get it, tho, so click on these:

And here's the shocker: Garfield cartoonist Jim Davis LOVES it. Not only did he not sue, he sent over his compliments. Wow, huh?

Don't forget to join us at LVRocks.Com from 4-6 pm PT on Saturday for an hour of The Petcast followed by an hour of The Strip. See here for details.

The show is UP: Kenny Kerr's Hard Fall

Here's this week's show. Click on the date below to make it play or right-click to save it and listen at your leisure. You can subscribe, too, (it's free!) in iTunes or in Zune.

Jan 6: Kenny Kerr's Hard Fall

He was the longest-running solo headliner in Las Vegas history, but just a few years since the end of his last gig, he’s probably largely unknown to most of you. Kenny Kerr was the first female impersonator to go mainstream on the Strip, opening in the late 1970s at the Silver Slipper, paving the way for Frank Marino. But Kerr’s story is that of great success and constant financial problems, and when Steve spoke to him in December he had left a gig at a small Italian restaurant miles from the Strip because the owner hadn’t paid him. This hour, hear Kerr provide some fascinating history about Las Vegas, go into some shocking detail about drag queen life and, of course, some delicious slaps at his archrival.

In Banter: Drama at Casino Montreal, a visit to Cirque's mothership, Aria v Bellagio, news on the Fontainebleau, Matt Goss and Krave and more.

Links to Stuff Discussed:

Steve's Las Vegas Weekly column on Kenny Kerr
The website for the Casino Montreal
A YouTube video of the Royal Ascot Sigma Derby-esque game at Casino Montreal
The website for Martini Time, a live cooking show at the M Resort
The sites for Viva Elvis and Criss Angel Believe
VegasHappensHere.Com on the snake-box thing and gay-travel survey
LVA blogger Dave McKee’s post on the emptiness of CityCenter’s Crystals
The Review-Journal’s Howard Stutz in Fontainebleau’s sale to Carl Icahn

The Wayner on Norm, Cirque & eBay

I've been so busy traveling that I'm afraid some critical nuggets from my Wayne Newton interview earlier this month may have gotten overlooked. Sure, I podcasted the conversation and did a point-of-view column for the Weekly, but these bits are just too savory not to blog about as well.

1. The Wayner Buys His Own Stuff Back On eBay


I asked whether there's anything special about his cufflinks and studs, given that his stage uniform for 50 years has been tuxedos. He said his wife has the studs monogrammed, which led to this exchange:

Wayner: At the Stardust, one of them got knocked off and it went on stage, bounced into the audience. I realized when it happened. I said, "You know I just lost one of my studs in the audience." I said, 'Don’t bother looking for it now, but at the end of the show I sure would like to have it found.' And needless to say it was never found.

Friess: And it was found in eBay a few years later.

Wayner: Listen, I have found on eBay that I bought back that have been stolen form the ranch here.

Friess: No! Like what?

Wayner: Like signed pictures of Lucy, on and on and on. Signed pictures to me end up on eBay.

Friess: You’re telling me people come to your home, take things, and then try to sell them and you are the one who buys them back?

Wayner: Yes.

Friess: Why don’t you just call the guy who owns it and say, "Hey that’s mine"?

Wayner: We can’t find them. They’re protected.

Friess: Wow. How much have you paid to get things back?

Wayner: None of them have been very, very expensive because they would be afraid ot steal those kinds of things that you would immediately miss. I would bet you I have bought back 10-15 different items on eBay.

Friess: That’s amazing. That’s just shocking.

Wayner: And it’s just easier to buy them back than to go through all this.

* * *

2. The Wayner Expresses Regret About the Norm Clarke Plagiarism Flap


Back in the summer of 2002, R-J gossip columnist Norm Clarke turned over his space to guest writers during a medical leave. The piece run under Wayne Newton's byline, however, was actually largely lifted from something written from an Anna Quindlen book. Anna Quindlen had a great deal of fun with it in a Newsweek column on Aug. 12, 2002 but on a recent episode of "The Strip," Norm said Mr. Las Vegas never acknowledged or apologized for the situation. Read on.

Friess: You substituted for Norm Clarke a number of years ago, you remember this?

Wayner: Yes, I do.

Friess: And apparently the piece that you wrote came from an Anna Quindlen column of some sort. Did you actually write that piece or did someone on your staff pick that out?

Wayner: Actually, someone on my staff write it. I didn't realize that part of it had been plaigarized. And the person that wrote it, to a great extent, believed they had not done anything wrong. And, in fact, I called the original author. Now, certain aspects of it had been changed a little bit but there were no questions that it had been plaigarized. I called the person, it was a lady, who could not have been nicer, and I explained the conditions and I said, "It's the last thing in the world I'd ever do and I just want you to know that I was so impressed with the article that I wish the person who had written it for me had truly written it for me." She couldn't have been nicer.

Friess: This was Anna Quindlen of Newsweek.

Wayner: Yes, and she was very understanding and that ended that.

* * *

3. Wayner Will NOT Be Seeing "Viva Elvis"


He was describing the historic Vegas entertainment trends -- magicians with white tigers, Danny Gans-esque impressionists and now "the Cirque syndrome," which he says is waning.

Friess: Is that because they've made bad choices like working with Criss Angel or because things go in cycles?

Wayner: I think it's both, actually. Both.

Friess: You were a friend of Elvis Presley's. They have an Elvis show they're about to open. Are you excited to see it?

Wayner: Uhh, no.

Friess: How come?

Wayner:I’m not a big fan of Elvis impersonators. I’m not a big fan of Wayne Newton impersonators.

Friess: Are there? Are there Wayne Newton impersonators? Are there many?

Wayner: There are about three that I can think of and I’m not a big fan of Frank impersonators. And the reason for it, frankly, Steve, is that having known those people and been friends with to those people and have them be friends to me, these people are simply touching on the aspect of what the tabloids write. They really don’t do an honest impression of Frank or Dean or Sammy. They do what they think the audience expects. Frankly, they're making a living and careers that people spend their whole life creating.

Friess: I just can't think of the last time I saw somebody doing a Wayne Newton impersonation and I was wondering why there aren't more of those.

Wayner: Well, it's probably because I'm still alive.

More Celebrity, More Puck

Here's this week's episode of "The Strip," a rare 30-minute sit-down with Wolfgang Puck in part of his space in Crystals. In addition, see renderings at bottom of the new Puck Brasserie, which opens at Crystals in January. Click on the date below to make the show play or right-click to save it and listen at your leisure. You can subscribe, too, (it's free!) in iTunes or in Zune.

Dec. 21: More Celebrity, More Puck

He can hardly keep track of how many restaurants bear his name, so he’d be forgiven if he found opening yet another one in Vegas to be run-of-the-mill. And yet Wolfgang Puck, seemed as giddy as ever as he inspected the construction site that will, in one month’s time, open as Puck Brasserie at CityCenter. Amid the hullabaloo surrounding Aria’s opening day, the 60-year-old restaurateur found time to chat with Steve about his childhood food memories, what the most famous celebrity chef in the world means by his “less celebrity, more chef” advertising tagline and why he’ll never open a restaurant in a Steve Wynn resort.

In Banter: A recap of the Aria opening, the latest on the P-Ho/Harrahs transaction, Wynn’s art purchase, Trump and Adelson’s CityCenter hate and more.

Links to stuff discussed:

Wolfgang Puck’s home page
See renderings of Puck Brasserie in Crystals
Wynn’s no-comment comment in the New York Times on his art buy
A VegasHappensHere.Com teleplay between the Steves
Listen to guest host Amy’s podcast, GritstoGlitz.Com
Forbes shows how bad Sheldon Adelson believes money is love
Flickr photo collections by Hunter Hillegas and Steve on the CityCenter opening
See special Strip video episodes of the Aria opening and preview of Viva Elvis
Read VegasHappensHere’s full coverage of the opening of Aria
The Strip Sense column about journo Tweeting
The Associated Press on the NFL’s decision to allow Vegas ads
Fox 5 Las Vegas on the recent Las Vegas sign vandalism

Renderings courtesy of Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group

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.

Bye Bette + Buffet! Hi, Viva Elvis!

Some comings and goings today.

* Bette Midler announced today she's done with the Colosseum after two years. Her last show is Jan. 31. Her statement was peculiar in scrambled backhanded slaps at Las Vegas and inscrutable explanation of her future plans:

"What a fabulous two years this has been, and I thank AEG and Caesars Palace for the best partnership a showgirl could imagine. Who knows? These legs have had such a great run in the desert -- it may be time to haul them to places with more humidity and fewer slot machines. But first I need to finish recording my album of the sexiest new love songs that only a showgirl could sing."

Huh? First, what does that "Who knows?" mean? What is that in response to? Was someone asking her a question? Is it "Who knows, I may end up at the Wynn by Labor Day?" Second, really, she had to observe the humidity and slots? Is this news to her? Was she here THAT much that it grated on her? And, third, when she says, "But first" before the shameless plug for her new album, does that mean she has to record the album BEFORE she vacates the effing-arid den of gambling? Couldn't she have come up with anything more clear and graceful?

* Someone who is always clear and graceful? Richard Abowitz. I'm so sorry to report that Richard's "Movable Buffet" blog on the L.A. Times' website has been halted. This comes a year after my weekly celebrity interview pieces for the L.A. Times were halted because the section I was writing was eliminated. So these are tough times for that newspaper, to be sure, but it did seem that every time the L.A. Times does a significant piece on Las Vegas, those pieces rank high on their most-read lists. Hopefully Vegas-obsessed Los Angelinos will find their fill elsewhere, but the more voices the better and this change is really a shame.

* There's good news, though, too. Cirque du Soleil finally unveiled the name of the new show at Aria. It is -- wait for it -- Viva Elvis. What's that? Oh, yeah. That's right. I broke that two months ago. But, still, they're making a big to-do about it. They posted this utterly idiotic video, too, of the cast shouting the name. Here's hoping their dance movements are in better synch:


Here's an interesting tidbit from my CityCenter tour the other day, though. The directional signage inside Aria just reads "Elvis Theater." Kind of silly of Cirque to go to such lengths to keep a non-secret under wraps to the point of not even having the show's name on the signage, especially when that video seems to show that the cast recorded that moment in June in Graceland.

Also, something that would send Steve Wynn through the roof: Scalpers have already set up shop! Check it out! This is the third entry when you Google "Viva Elvis" right now and tickets haven't even gone on sale yet!

Cirque Buys Other VIVA ELVIS Domains

Yesterday, I broke the news that the Cirque du Soleil show at Aria will be called Viva Elvis. The creator-director had told me so and I discovered that Cirque owns the domain VivaElvis.Com. I wondered on VegasHappensHere.Com yesterday why the company hadn't yet snapped up VivaElvisLV.com and VivaElvisLasVegas.Com, variations that would be wise for them to own as a standard preventative measure taken to ensure traffic doesn't go elsewhere by accident.

Someone in Montreal was paying attention. Within a couple of hours of my posts appearing, look what happened:



They done gone and bought up the two domains I referenced and, I imagine, other variations! This is obvious action-reaction. It's unclear to me, though, why they're not cloaking their ownership if they don't want people to know who owns a site, also standard cyber-behavior for companies of this size.

Meanwhile, Cirque spokeswoman Ann Paladie wrote me back on my request for confirmation: "We're not ready to announce the show name at this time. Thank you!!!"

P.S. Robin Leach interviewed director-creator Vincent Paterson the other day and got some terrific bits on the content of Viva Elvis, which opens in December.

The show is UP: The Next Big Li'l Thing

I pulled rank as the producer of the MJ show to have the first serious interview with Elijah Johnson since he exploded on stage in the Pearl. Tomorrow I should have video to show those of you who weren't there what we all witnessed, but until then, here's this week's show with the revelation that Johnson leaves the cast of Lion King in October because he's outgrown the role. Seriously. His dad says the contract says he can't grow more than 2 inches. (!?!) Also, thanks MUCH to Dave McKee of Las Vegas Advisor for filling in for Miles at such short notice as co-host. So, anyhow, right-click on the date below and save it to your computer. Or you can subscribe (it's free!) via this iTunes link or via this Zune link.

Sept. 3: The Next Big Li'l Thing

If you were at the Palms on Saturday for the Michael Jackson tribute benefit, you might want to put your ticket stub in a safe place. Years from now, the concert may very well be remembered in the same light as Motown 25, a magical moment when the world witnessed the birth of a major talent. This time, it was Elijah Johnson, the 11-year-old star of the Lion King at Mandalay Bay, who flew onto the stage in a burst of energy and confidence and sang and danced with an exuberance that now has the Tonight Show calling. Johnson, who leaves the cast of Lion King in October, joined us this hour with his father in the studio to discuss that magical moment last weekend and what it could mean for his future.

In Banter: MJ benefit follow-up, Earl Turner's peeps are jerks, McKee's Carmen Electra infatuation, MGM Mirage's condo issues and more.

Links to stuff discussed:

Elijah "LilElijahJ" Johnson’s website
Dave McKee’s blog is Stiffs and Georges blog
Coverage by John Katsilometes and Norm Clarke of the Michael Jackson concert
Cinevegas’ podcast of the Moonwalker Q-and-A
VegasHappensHere.Com breaks the Viva Elvis title for Cirque’s new Aria show
McKee’s Carmen Electra infatuation
VegasHappensHere.Com on Bill Lerner’s Union Gaming Group report on MGM Mirage condo pricing
MGM Mirage CEO Jim Murren’s CNBC interview
VegasHappensHere.Com on all the dirt behind the MJ event
The Myspace site and homepage of "Jersey Boys" star Travis Cloer, whose gorgeous cover of "The Music and Me" closes this episode

The Smoking Gun on VIVA ELVIS!

This...

...would seem to seal it. Ta-da! I wondered how much Cirque had to pay to buy it, but Whois says they have officially owned VivaElvis.Com since December of 1999?!?! Or could that just be when the domain was created by whomever owned it before?

I'm surprised, though, that this...


...and this...



...are still up for grabs. Although not for long, methinks.