The Show is UP: Cheech & Wilson

We're finally offering up the elusive, strange conversations with the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson and Cheech Marin. Hooray! Also, we mull a lot of news and much more. To your left, here's the results of my own personal application of this week's Top Secret Tourist Tip. Just a reminder that all the old tips are archived on the site here. Anyhow, hear the show by clicking on the date or right-click to download it and listen whenever you want. Or subscribe via iTunes here or via Zune here.

Dec. 4: Brian Wilson, Cheech Marin

We never know quite what to do when Steve emerges from his office after an interview and says, ‘Well, that sucked.’ Usually, he’s wrong. And tonight, we’re going to find out. This fall, Steve chatted with Cheech Marin and Brian Wilson and, each time, he was initially dissatisfied with the outcome. But in reviewing them later, decided the conversations were Strip-worthy after all, perhaps because of their weirdness. So, this week , we let ‘em rip.

In Banter: Viva McDonalds is a McDonalds, Copperfield's still great, the gingerbread house display is pretty cool, R is for what?!?! and Wynn's doing it Sinatra's way.

Show links:

See Brian Wilson’s website here
See Cheech Marin’s website here
See pictures of Steve and Miles’ dogs, originally named Cheech and Chong, here
Read about the first new smokefree casino in Nevada here
See the website of the Blue Moon Resort here
See Steve’s column about David Copperfield here
Get tickets to the David Copperfield show here
The MGM’s Mastercard promotion can be found here
The Encore website is here
Norm’s reportage about the Sinatra restaurant is here
Norm’s scoop on Wynn’s effort to buy the Guardian Angel Cathedral is here
Doug Elfman’s report on how hard it was to interview Brian Wilson is here

The Strip is LIVE tonight w/Cheech! (Really!)

The time has come for Cheech Marin and Brian Wilson. The two more challenging interviews of recent months finally make their way into the show, so come on down to LVRocks.Com tonight at 6:45 p.m. PT to hear that plus witty banter about the news, a new poll, listener feedback and, as always, the Top Secret Tourist Tip of the Week.

Or, if it's just too much of a bother for you to show up with your fellow listeners and hear all the outtakes, cursing and bickering, wait a day or two and the podcast will be available. Your call!

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.