Planet Ho's Big Night, The Review

Streisand only lasted about 20 minutes and the escalator kept breaking -- with people on it. There. I'm done being catty and snarky.

Other than that, the P-Ho Grand Opening was really a much better time than I had anticipated, primarily because I brought as my date Amy from Grits to Glitz and she got molested. But I'll get to that in just a sec.

The festivities were actually pretty straightforward: A red carpet with loads of stars, which I skipped because I don't do red carpets unless Elizabeth Taylor might be rolling down it. Instead, I met up with Amy, whose new duds bought for the occasion were sensational. (see left)

Then a concert at the Theater For The Performing Arts featuring comic/actor Kevin Pollak, whom I could hardly hear because the hearing-assistive device didn't work real well, but at least they had one. The main entertainment, Streisand, gave us about eight songs - "Memories," "Evergreen," "Smile," "Don't Rain On My Parade," "Rain or Shine," "Happy Days Are Here Again" and one or two others - that she read off a TelePrompTer. I thought she sounded great, and I loved how she was all business and didn't even bother to congratulate P-Ho on its "opening." Also, no political jabbering, either.

From there it was on to the big, star-studded party. Well, we all tried, but there was this escalator problem. Which is funny because two years ago when this place was still Aladdin and they were hosting Miss America, the exact same thing happened - the thing stopped moving. This is the main escalator from the casino up to the conference area. Bad.

The path to the party went through this long, winding hallway of white and pink where Amy took this pic of me with one of the babes showing us all the way.






Once we got there, this is what the room looked like:

There was an open bar, of course, and lots of yummy food...


The first celeb we saw was Criss Angel, who happened to follow me into the bathroom...


Amy and I were both tired and her feet were hurting, so we were going to call it a night but we sat down at a table right next to a velvet rope where, shortly thereafter, Danny Glover was chit-chatting with the common folk. I wonder the conversation between the two commoners in the foreground...

Next thing we know, though, a woman I know is inviting us to tag along into the roped-off area, where we got to spot such people as Tom Arnold, Frank Marino, Tom Jones and Sugar Ray Leonard...



But the classic moment of the night was when Amy spotted Gene Simmons of Kiss. You know, the misogynist who said all kinds of creepy things to Terry Gross on "Fresh Air" a few years back. And Amy, emboldened by wine and adrenaline, simply had to have her photo taken with him. So she went right up to him and he, uh, grabbed her by the hair...



So that was the deal. If you want to hear Amy's version on the Grits To Glitz podcast, click here or right-click here to download it and hear it whenever you wish. Especially hilarious is hearing Bay hearing about the Gene Simmons thing for the first time.