The Show is UP: Marie Osmond, Part I

Off to the tax lady now. Enjoy the show! Click on the date below to listen or right-click and save to your computer. Or subscribe (it's free!) via the iTunes link or via the Zune link. Enjoy.

April 2: Marie Osmond, Part I

She’s a little bit country and a little bit, well, you know the rest. But she’s also now a big bit of a Strip headliner. Marie Osmond, she of the gigantic gleaming smile stretched across the Flamingo, joins us this hour to talk about show business nepotism, performing with everyone from Groucho Marx to Snoop Dogg and the night she and Donny performed their Vegas show in the dark.

In Banter: Freaks at O'Sheas, MGM drama, Follies bye- bye, Vegas impersonator jailed in Suriname.

Links to stuff mentioned:

Tickets for the Donny and Marie show
The 2009 results of the R-J’s Best of Las Vegas survey
The VegasHappensHere.Com post on the mayoral chips for Airmen
The website for SeaWorld’s Military Program
Sites for Minskoff and Mandalay theaters, both of which now house The Lion King
KNPR, the Las Vegas NPR member station
A Las Vegas Sun piece on Freaks, a gross new show at O’Sheas
VegasHappensHere.Com on MGM making their payment
MGM Mirage CEO Jim Murren’s letter to employees
News on Hooters, Riviera and Bally’s closing its sportsbook until September
Mike Weatherford’s coverage of the closure of Folies Bergere at the Tropicana
Gaming Today’s Monti Rock III on Bobby Slayton’s Trop deal
Norm Clarke’s coverage of the Toni Braxton impersonator jailed in Suriname

The Show Is UP: Bobby Slayton

Comic Bobby Slayton talks about why Hooters asked him not to say certain words and tries -- somewhat unsuccessfully -- to explain why his use of derogatory words about gays is not offensive. Plus, a wacky Top Secret Tourist Tip of the Week. Click on the date to hear it or right-click to download the show and listen whenever you want. Or subscribe via iTunes here or via Zune here.

Oct. 2: Bobby Slayton Rants and Raves

There is a fine line in comedy between being Don Rickles and being Michael Richards. Somehow, comic Bobby Slayton has carefully negotiated that complicated path, spicing his act with stereotypes, insults and foul language while never actually sparking any widespread controversy. Slayton, who appears nightly at the Hooters Hotel-Casino, joins us this hour to explain how he does it and what it may have cost him in career opportunities.

In Banter: The Lion King is coming, Donny & Marie are here, the Believe theater, a poker whippersnapper and the OJ and Plaza v Plaza cases are still in court.

Links:

Get tickets for Bobby Slayton here
Slayton’s website is here
Read more about the “Lion King” decision here
See the buggies that Steve saw on the Strip here
Read more about Dave Schwartz’s Plaza testimony here
See pix of Steve and Trevor at Donny and Marie here

The Strip is LIVE tonight with BOBBY SLAYTON

Hooters headliner Bobby Slayton is this week's guest on "The Strip." There's some wonderfully awkward moments in there as Slayton explains his use of certain gay epithets, among other fun stuff.

Also, thoughts on the Criss Angel Believe theater, Donny & Marie's opening and a very, very weird Top Secret Tourist Tip of the Week.

Join us from 7-8 pm PT at LVRocks.Com for the live show and chat or wait until Thursday for the podcast version.

The Strip is LIVE tonight @ 7 p.m.

Join us live in the chat at LVRocks.Com from 7-8 p.m. PT for this week's show which will most likely feature Grateful Dead drummer/Mirage volcano scorer Mickey Hart and ex-Beach Boy Brian Wilson. But we may just use the Bobby Slayton interview. It depends a little on some factors, including what happens with me and the OJ Simpson trial. Here's my NYT dispatch on the case from today's paper.

I know we spoke last week on the live show and in the chat about starting earlier, but we can't do that right now because of my workload with O.J. So join us at 7 p.m. PT. We'll start promptly with news, letters, a new trivia question and, as always, the Top Secret Tourist Tip of the Week.

So join us tonight or wait for the podcast when it's available Thursday morning!

I committed a thought crime

So this morning I open the Review-Journal to read Doug Elfman's odd interview with Brian Wilson, who performs tonight in the showroom at Primm. It was one of those strange reads in which Elfman offers this disclaimer: "I caught Wilson on the phone while he was rushing to the airport, so our interview was more weird and strained than our previous chats."

And I thought to myself, "How unprofessional! Reporters shouldn't blame their subjects for their own failures!"

Then, several hours later, I had my own crack at Wilson. It was a bit of a surprise; ticket sales must not be going too well if his publicist is setting up interviews at noon the day of the show. Yet my request for our show finally came through and I had about 90 minutes to prep.

But that's besides the point. All I can say to Doug is:

(a) I'm sorry I doubted you, pal
(b) The problem wasn't that Wilson was rushing to the airport.

Wilson was just hanging out in a Vegas hotel room when I caught him and, even in the absence of other stress, he offered me one of the more bizarre interviews I've conducted in a while. Wilson and I were on different planets, and not in the charming way Liza Minnelli was two years ago.

We'll be playing it on the show probably next week. It's mercifully brief, oddly instructive and listeners will, I suspect, enjoy my suffering. But, happily, an hour later I had a rollicking chat with comic Bobby Slayton, restoring my confidence that it wasn't me having an off day. Slayton will be on the week after next, I think.