Today's Strange Foreign Snapshot

As promised, here's your daily odd photo from my heretofore private collection. This was seen on a city bus in Beijing in 2001:


Which one are you? And, more intriguingly, which one are the figures in the graphic?!?

Of Chicken Wings and Irresponsibility

I take many others to task in my profession for their careless use of words and their unwillingness to explain themselves. Now it's my turn.

A few days ago, I blogged a quick analysis of why I think the 40/40 Club failed at the Palazzo. I have a two-part view. One was that it was badly located in the resort and the signage for it was substandard if not non-existent.

The other, more controversial, is that it was a bad match for the Palazzo. The 40/40 Club is a business popular elsewhere among young, black urbanites that was poorly matched with the overall emphasis of the resort itself. The Palazzo is not marketing itself in any way, shape or form to the broader black community, does not advertise in any national black publications. Certainly, they seek wealthy patrons of all types, but the wealthy at the level of the Palazzo's clientele are not typically folks who hang out in sports bars. As I wrote, the 40/40 Club could have worked in many other places on the Strip. But the Palazzo was not in any way actively engaged in pursuing either of the 40/40 Club's core constituencies: Middle-class sports-bar goers or blacks.

I stand by this analysis.

However, I made a reference that was very poorly considered and placed in exactly the wrong context. I wrote of the intent of the post:

"I mean it to be an objective look at an inappropriate pairing between the aesthetic of a resort that envisions itself and markets itself as the lap of luxury and a place known for being popular among rappers and folks who like a good chicken wing."

I can see now how the reference to chicken wings was taken, as some sort of a slap against food seen by many as stereotypically "black." And that is absolutely, positively, not how I intended what I wrote. Chicken wings are also a food stereotypically found in sports bars.

It is the first thing I think of when I think of food in sports bars; I suspect I'm not alone in that. I've never been in a sports bar that didn't serve them. They also are widely associated with watching sporting events, or at least they have been in my life dating all the way back to the first time I attended a fraternity party in college on through every single Super Bowl viewing I've ever been to. You, too, I suspect.

I did not intend to use this as an allusion to black people. And I totally see why people think I did. So I apologize for the carelessness of this sentence and I'm sincerely sorry about the ire it has drawn.

I should have known better and I really, truly am sorry.

Other interesting stuff from Sunday's paper...

Amid the acres and acres of very, very predictable opinion pieces on the election in both Vegas papers today -- I'm just shocked, shocked! that the R-J's Erin Neff found Obama's speech on Thursday exciting and that the editorial board would be impressed by Gov. Sarah Palin's resume -- there was some actually interesting stuff.

* The R-J came through again with an extremely useful clip-n-save feature laying out at what bars and restaurants football fans can flock to watch their favorite NFL teams play. This would appear to be a lot of painstaking work and incredibly useful both to local Las Vegans, given we don't now and probably never will have a team of our own, as well as tourists who want to be amongst their brethren on Sundays. We used this feature on Aug. 17, 2007 as a Top Secret Tourist Tip of the Week for "The Strip" podcast, and I'm happy they decided to update and republish it. Check it out here and bookmark it if you are so inclined. If my New York Jets are doing well -- big if, seeing how they play with the cast-off formerly great parts of other teams and all -- I may find myself at the Bunkhouse Saloon myself. Now, R-J, how about doing a similar feature for baseball and basketball? (If you have and I missed it, I apologize.)

* The casinos in the Gulf Coast region are shutting down this weekend in advance of Hurricane Gustav. I'd love to point you to Howard Stutz's short piece in the R-J today detailing this, but I cannot locate it anywhere on their fabulous website or even indexed in Google News. Of course, everyone's hoping this storm isn't as bad as advertised. But it did make me wonder something. How is it there haven't been any punishing typhoons beating the crap out of Vegas' other significant colony, Macau? Tis the season. I recall several times when I was in Asia typhoons did intense amounts of damage. Just something that crossed my minds; look for this to happen sooner or later.

* Norm Clarke's lead item about Tom Riccio, the guy who set up the OJ-Palace Station confrontation that is forcing me to sit in a courtroom for much of September waiting to see if The Juice finally get it, is just utterly chilling. Riccio strikes me as the very worst, the most cynical and corrupt sort of being our celebrity-scandal checkbook-journalism culture has produced. He set up the incident in the first place to sell the audio tapes, which he did. And now he's selling ad space on his limo for $7,500, dinner with him the night of his testimony for $5,000 and you can pay $6,000 to wear a hat with your logo. This is just pathetic. There's a whole site devoted to what he'll do for how much money. Ick. Maybe we can scrape together the money to get him to wear a hat that reads, "I am a disgusting human being and I have no shame." It's really hard for many people to feel sympathy for O.J. Simpson, but this guy helps.

* The Travel Industry Association has been wasting its members' money for the past two weeks taking out full-page ads in certain tourism-dependent cities and presidential battleground states including Vegas demanding first Obama and now McCain offer a plan to rescue the nation's travel business in their convention acceptance speeches. This is an expensive media campaign -- spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, it would appear -- that results in precisely nothing. Do they really think that either candidate is going to lay out a plan to help one particular industry? I'm not saying that there aren't good reasons for this trade group to raise awareness of its issues, but it's ridiculous to write something to either candidate that reads: "We want to hear a real plan from Senator McCain/Obama to help make travel and tourism in the U.S. work better for travelers and millions who serve them." You can't just come out of nowhere and make such a demand on the eve of each man's most important public moment. When neither of them respond -- and neither will -- then what? Condemn them? Sure, that'll get them caring what you've got to say next time.

Greatness/Silliness in a Snapshot

This...


...is brilliant. It was shot in Denver at the DNC last week by Review-Journal photographer John Locher. The paper ran it in Sunday's paper and made me laugh out loud.

Immediately, it brought to mind this photo I shot on a boat on the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok, Thailand in February 2002:


Here's what the little sign says:


Didn't know monks wore pink sweatsuits and had bad blonde dye-jobs.

In the process of digging up this photo, I realized I have a treasure trove of goofy signs from my time in Asia. So starting with this one, I'm going to post one roughly every day until I run out. Feel free to email me yours.

But just so you "get" what I'm looking for, this was shot in the women's bathroom stall at a McDonald's in Beijing in 2001 by my friend Debbie...

Why Wasilla May Seem Familiar To You

Longtime readers of this blog recall that Miles and I honeymooned in Alaska in March 2007. After Friday's shocker pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate, much has been made of the years she spent as mayor of Wasilla, a town with a population smaller than most New York City blocks.

That town name, despite, its obscurity, might've sounded familiar to some of you and you've been trying to recall why. Well, here's an extremely amusing refresher:

Yes! That wacky mattress salesman was one of Gov. Palin's few constituents! Here's a different version:

What a great dance, huh?

While we're on the Palin topic, the minute McCain picked her I said to Miles, "Oh, the editorial cartoonists are going to have a field day with this." And, indeed, Daryl Cagle's Professional Cartoonists Index came through as always with a growing round-up. Many were funny, this one from a cartoonist for the Calgary Sun was probably beyond the pale:



Take a look for yourself at several of them here.

Opening the Cannery

This morning, I joined my friends Walt and Terry, an elderly couple with whom I'm close and refer to fondly as my Fairy Grandparents, for their uniquely Las Vegas ritual: They always go for breakfast at a new casino the Saturday after it opens. So off we went to the newly debuted $250 million Eastside Cannery! The place is in our part of town anyway and seems poised to compete mostly with Sam's Town just to its north.

Overall, it's a cute place, serves its function well as a mid-market value joint with a mid-century aesthetic. Breakfast was adequate; we had decent coffee and shared an excellent breakfast burrito along with a rubbery plate of Frosted Flakes-coated French toast. (I did not do the ordering; Walt and Terry did it before I arrived but then Walt went home before I got there because a neighbor called them to say their poodles had gotten out of their backyard and were wandering the cul-de-sac. Drama.)

Here's the coffee shop, which was jammed at 8 a.m....

...and the sportsbook that was less so.


Terry admired the furnishings, especially these very mid-century tables and chairs at the lounge on the sportsbook's edge...


...and I was amused that so many locals were there at that early hour to stand in line for their players' club cards...


I asked a guy in line if there was any sort of giveaway. Sometimes they hand out coolers or movie tickets or some other such prize to lure 'em in. But, no, they were just standing in line to get their cards so they could start earning points.

Which reminds me...I found these on a couple of the slot machines and had intended to hand them in to somebody but spaced it as I walked outside to take the first photo in this post.


Do you think Marissa Smith or Erlinda Falconer need their cards back? I don't have any of these cards, so I don't know. I assume if they go back, they'll get new ones with the same balance?

First Look: The Vegas Blimp

Are you ready to see this and its massive LED screen hovering over the Vegas Strip?

The M Resort-Spa-Casino, which is young Anthony Marnell III's $1 billion joint venture with MGM Mirage about 9 miles south of the Strip on Las Vegas Boulevard, is unveiling next week the inaugural flight of its M-branded Lightship. (Marnell was discussed in my NYT piece on the young moguls of Vegas; his father is the city's uber-builder and original owner of the Rio.) I didn't really know what a lightship was, so I called up to ask and the PR folks graciously provided these images to share.

Basically, it's a massive blimp with a 70-by-30-foot LED screen on its side that will hover between 800 and 1,000 feet up. Here's what the screen looks like:


The manufacturer is Florida-based Lightships Group (not to be mistaken with the Light Group) and here's a shot of what one of these guys looks like in the air. Their site is here.



As I understand it, there are only two others out there with the LED screens on them; the company has been building blimps with internal illumination systems (they glow, thus they're "lightships") for many years and, in fact, the company website indicates that they even held a wedding over Vegas in the gondola of one a few years back. No word yet if such events will be offered by M.

M unleashes its lightship Sept. 3. It'll fly over the Strip advertising the hotel-casino for hours at a time, several times a week, as well as floating above feeder markets like Southern California from time to time. It's certainly an innovative marketing tactic. The resort is due to open in March, so at first it will advertise that they're hiring and also, one would think, work to gin up awareness of the brand.

Here's some of the factoids offered about the vessel:

M LIGHTSHIP DIMENSIONS
• Length – 178 feet
• Height – 55 feet
• Width – 45 feet

ENVELOPE
• Volume – 170,000 cubic feet
• Length – 175 feet
• Diameter – 45 feet

GONDOLA
• Length – 25 feet
• Width – 6 feet
• Cabin Length – 11 feet
• Cabin Height – 8 feet

BY THE NUMBERS
• 8 – The number of hours it takes to fill the M Lightship with helium
• 12 – The number of months it took to complete the M Lightship
• 18 – The number of crew members for the M Lightship
• 30-35 – The miles per hour that the M Lightship cruises above Las Vegas
• 525 – The number of tiles that make up the M Lightship’s lightsign
• 800-1,000 – The number of feet the M Lightship flies above Las Vegas
• 7,705 – The number of pounds the M Lightship weighs
• 23,000 – The number of square feet of Tedlar material that compose the Lightship’s envelope
• 170,000 – The number of cubic feet of helium that the M Lightship needs to be fully-inflated
• 235,000 – The number of LED lights that make up the M Lightship’s lightsign

I'm still trying to get an estimate on the cost, but it's got to be expensive. According to the Lightships website, these babies require a crew of 16 to fly. Or at least I think I'm reading that correctly.

Thoughts?