The Show is UP: Heavy Metal's Sweetest Star

Here's the terrific conversation with Dee Snider. Plus, there's some good news nuggets in Banter you won't hear anywhere else...yet! 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.

April 16: Hard Rock's Sweetest Star

In retrospect, Dee Snider was born to play Vegas. And finally, thanks to Monster Circus at the Las Vegas Hilton, that time has come for the long-haired, gravel-throated, lingerie-wearing front man for the heavy metal band Twisted Sister. The former choir boy from Long Island speaks this hour to Steve about the show, about just how subversive all that hard-rocking crossdressing was back in the day and about Barry Manilow’s reaction to sharing his showroom with this bunch. Plus, is Gene Simmons of Kiss really is as big a jerk as he seems? Snider has some interesting thoughts on that, too.

In Banter: Le Reve's new ending, the Venetian's umbrella act, Wynn on TV, Hellmuth via chariot, bye-bye whore tax and a great new Vegas pay-per-view idea.

Links to stuff we discuss:

Dee Snider’s website
Monster Circus tickets
Snider’s radio shows Fangoria and House of Hair
A Monster Circus review by Joe Brown of the Las Vegas Sun
Shecky Greene’s website
The Washington Post on NPR’s record ratings in 2008
American Anonymous by Benoit Denizet-Lewis
Vanity Fair piece on Bernie Madoff
The “60 Minutes”, uh, loving portrait with Steve Wynn
Jon Ralston’s interviews with Steve Wynn, Day One and Day Two
Steve’s Las Vegas Weekly column about the death of the whore tax
VegasHappensHere.Com photos of The Joint
The logo of Loves Park, Illinois

Every 76 Seconds, Lovin' Happens In Nevada!

As I expected from my reporting in The New York Times in January, State Sen. Bob Coffin has introduced a bill this week to tax legal prostitution in Nevada. The state has inserted itself in a massive budget hole and Coffin hopes Nevada can lick up some bits and pieces from a business that hasn't had to come up with any dough for all these years. The lovelies shown here are just some of the wares at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, by the by.

What's interesting here are Coffin's numbers. He estimates that taxing each legally sold sex act $5, the state could raise $2 million a year. That's 400,000 legally sold sex acts sold per year, or about 1,096 a day. Also, 45 an hour! A legally sold sex act is occurring in this state every 76 seconds!

That does seem high, doesn't it? I mean, there are only 225 licensed legal prostitutes in the state. They'd have to be awful busy. But I suppose it also brings up what the definition of a sex act is. I mean -- hide the kiddies -- if fellatio and intercourse occur in the same encounter, is that two acts? Is the prostitute running a mental tally in her head to figure out how much tax to, uh, assess?

Gov. Jim Gibbons reacted to SB369 by telling the Associated Press' Brendan Riley, "I'm not a supporter of legalizing prostitution in Nevada. So by taxing it, there's a recognition of the legality of it. And that's all I want to say."

Um, but it IS legal. I'd like to not pay my speeding tickets and not recognize the legality of speeding limits, but that's not working out so well for me or my auto insurance bill.

The governor's missionary-inspired (he's a Mormon!) position isn't really that relevant anyway because any tax would have to be approved by a supermajority of the Legislature, which means that it's also a veto-proof majority. And Coffin's bill isn't likely to pass anyway; as I wrote in January, both the House speaker and state Senate majority leader oppose it.

Still, the hearings could be very colorful, particularly when lawmakers must answer some of the questions I've posed here.

Brothels: Tax Us!

Still on vacation -- we're returning to Vegas this evening -- but I wanted to point to the piece I have in today's New York Times on the brothel industry's request to be taxed by the state and the state saying, a la Sarah Palin, "Thanks, but no thanks." Read it here. Above is the glory screenshot; the paper had the story out front for a while last night.

I'm curious what you folks think about (a) taxing the legal brothels or (b) legalizing it in Clark County.