Opening Aria IV: The Weird & Quirky

My apologies for the blurriness of that photo, but it required some quick work once I realized what I was, unbelievably, seeing. This image was shot on Wednesday at Aria during the VIP party and, yes, that is five of the guests having CLIMBED UP THE WINDOW for unknown reasons. Here's a clearer shot after the grinning guys in suits told them to get down.


Wow, huh? If a group of kids did that AFTER the place were opened, I suspect they'd be sternly removed from the premises. But these are VIPs, so whatever. Fun times.

I know you're likely sick of hearing about the Aria opening last week, but this is the post in which I point out all the weird stuff I observed or thought through the course of the big event. Like, for instance, Sirio Maccioni, the Starship Enterprise called and...


...they want their lighting fixture back.

Oddly, take a look at the ceiling design at the CityCenter model/sales office at Bellagio:


Kinda the same, right? Maybe it's a tip off. See, Jim Murren keeps saying he built an urban environment for urban living. He just didn't mention on what planet the model for his definition of urban life exists.

I took that shot above and this one below...


...on Thursday. A day after CityCenter had officially opened. And still people just stood there for long periods of time analyzing the model. Hello? It's open. Go see the real thing. It won't bite. Well, not literally, anyway.

Then again, with these guys running around Aria...


...maybe they should wait?

One of the most amusing things I saw after the opening were these croupiers...


...struggling -- and FAILING -- to open up the box that contained the chips at this craps table. I assume they worked it out, but not before telling these folks to go find another table for the time being.

And speaking of crap, this below is architect David Rockwell chatting with Aria President Bill McBeath at the non-ribbon-cutting opening ceremony earlier on Wednesday.


I wonder if Rockwell was laying out his plans for creating a matching gigantic vagina to go with...


...the enormous phallus he built -- and inexplicably sold as a "treehouse" -- inside The Crystals.

Surprising, really, that they'd go for such a sensational piece of male anatomy -- maybe this is why Dave McKee bizarrely declared the Crystals the next hot spot for the Vegas gay crowd? -- when the one Old Vegas element that CityCenter certainly wasn't shy about were the babes.

I think these were just decoratively on hand for the big party which, again, seemed to have had an extraterrestrial theme that nobody told me about...


...but this poor thing was brought along for Murren's big mid-afternoon NYSE closing bell-ringing event because...


...nothing says Wall Street like a freezing half-naked Vegas cocktail waitress shaking a commemorative cowbell!

By and large the Aria folks pulled off cleaning up the place all spiffy but it was sort of a lost cause since, of course, the place was overrun by smoke and smokers immediately upon opening.


But hey, it's cool with the U.S. Green Building Council and MGM Mirage's green czar Cindy Ortega told me for my L.A. Weekly piece, "The air will often be cleaner than outside air.” Often, perhaps, but not evidently 10 minutes after opening. Or maybe this is a commentary on Vegas' outdoor air quality?

This design on the glass doors...


...bugged me. I kept thinking they didn't get all the sticky stuff off of some decal or something. I mean, what IS the design supposed to be?

And, not surprisingly, this drawing on the wall by one of the CityCenter trams...


...is NOT counted among the vaunted $40 million collection. What IS it? Naked people with birds? That says, "Take me to the Monte Carlo" to you?

We've all had loads of fun with the whole pocket park thing. Everyone takes a drink in the chatroom of the live recordings of our podcast whenever the term is used, double shots if it's Murren himself saying it. But the thing that I kept harping on pre-opening was that Murren would talk about sitting in the pocket park gazing at the Henry Moore and the Maya Lin just beyond that and yet there was no place to sit.

Well, I'm so ecstatic to report that there now benches! See?


Two of 'em! So now a total of about six people -- or four if they're Americans -- can sit. If, of course, they can get Murren to give up his designated seat once in a while.

Finally, I'm sure you're wondering what acerbic, geeky blogger types who make these sorts of obnoxious observations look like when they attend these sorts of things. Well, I've got the good on that, too.

There's DieIsCast.Com's Dave Schwartz trying his best to look cool in shades, Chuck from VegasTripping.Com shooting a photo of me and RateVegas.Com's Hunter Hillegas no doubt tweeting something earth-shattering.


Quite a hip bunch I run with, huh?

Sunday Media Musings for Tourists

I caught up on some of the media I had missed this week this morning and wanted to point out a few things:

* NFL fans ought to bookmark this Review-Journal link so they know which bars to go to to watch their games with like-minded fans. I've used this in the past on the podcast as a Top Secret Tourist Tip of the Week, a very useful guide that more tourists ought to use. Cool interface, too. When I say bookmark it, though, I mean it, because you'll never find it again on that ridiculous website if you don't.

* If you want to hear something truly, positively weird, listen to the first five minutes or so of KNPR host Dave Berns' "State of Nevada" interview on Wednesday morning with comic Bill Cosby. Honest to God, I have no idea what Cosby is saying and Berns' valiant efforts to make sense of it was fruitless, too. But since it's Cosby, there's something fascinating about it anyway. I'm not all the way through this interview yet, but already I know it's going to be a thrilling mess.

* I just noticed that Life Magazine's website now offers a pretty photo album of 26 Cirque du Soleil photos. They call it "Cirque du Soleil's Freakiest Acts" and, really, it's not, but the photography is terrific, colorful and fun. Downside: Only three Vegas images -- I think just one of an actual moment in one of their six-going-on-seven shows -- and none of its best, most eye-popping and "freakiest" show, Ka.

* Two Las Vegas Weekly pieces (other than my own column, natch) are of great tourist interest this week. First, Dr. Dave Schwartz of UNLV and DieisCast.Com stands up for you (and us) against the presumption that people who love Vegas and gambling are stupid. Then Richard Abowitz writes glowingly about RateVegas.Com's Hunter Hillegas' groundbreaking Vegas Mate iPhone app. Buy it at the iTunes store or win a subscription by being right and being picked in my show's biweekly trivia questions, by the way. And unlike that Monte Carlo-Hotel 32 thing we debunked recently, this is a real app.

Cinevegas + WSOP = All In

As folks following my Tweets and Facebook statuses know, I've been running around like mad the past few days, working on a new piece for the Times that has sucked up a huge amount of time away from the computer and I've also been trying to keep tabs on Cinevegas because the lineup is the most interesting in all the years I've covered it.

I was a little concerned, though, after "Saint John of Las Vegas" yesterday. The opening night premiere, starring Steve Buscemi and Sarah Silverman, was a weird little flick that just didn't engage me and that distracted me by the several smaller details about its titular city that it got wrong.

But I knew there were a number of really good pictures in the lineup because I'd already seen all the gay-related ones for this Advocate.Com piece. In particular, "It Came From Kuchar" is wonderful and I'm looking forward to Friday's premiere and the Q-and-A session with the Kuchars on Sunday at 9 p.m.

Still, I was unprepared for how much I enjoyed "All In: The Poker Movie" tonight. Premiering as it did during the early stages of the 2009 World Series of Poker across the street from the Palms at the Rio, it drew some poker stars who are also in the film including WSOP commissioner Jeffrey Pollack and two-time bracelet winner Howard Lederer...



Annie Duke and Phil Hellmuth were supposed to be there, too, but they were doing so well in one of the WSOP tourneys they couldn't. Occupational hazard. Amarillo Slim was there, however.

As for the film itself, let me first say that I'm someone who became interested in poker in the first place because it's a perennial story that someone is asks me to cover each year. We also get huge download numbers whenever we have poker stars on "The Strip." (We've had Chris Moneymaker, Jamie Gold, Annie Duke, Howard Lederer, Phil Hellmuth, Jennifer Tilly, Joe Hachem, Jerry Yang and Greg Raymer over the years, all of which can be found at TheStripPodcast.Com.)

But "All In" tonight really taught me something else: The poker boom is about as American as anything ever was. The variation on the game itself -- Texas Hold 'Em -- is an American invention. Risk-taking is the foundation of our capitalist society. And the ingredients that turned it into what it is today include new technology (hole-card cams, Web poker) and anyone-can-succeed chutzpah (Moneymaker) that have deep roots in our national traditions.

It wasn't just that it was a sweeping, artful film. It was that, although some of the blurry camera angles and odd tics of speakers could be grating. But from dignified Doris Kearns Goodwin to cool-cat Matt Damon, from Southern-fried Slim to lovably goofy Phil Laak, from scholarly Dr Dave Schwartz to curmudgeonly Frank DeFord, documentarian Douglas Tirola really cast a very wide net of diverse voices to explain where this phenomenon came from and who it impacts. I also appreciate that not everyone is likeable -- World Poker Tour's Steve Lipscomb comes across as a total, arrogant prick -- and that not everything is positive, as when Tirola delves (briefly) into recent online poker cheating scandals.

That said, there are gaps: No discussion of problem gambling or sexism in the game, no serious effort to allow anyone who objects to online gambling or gambling in general to offer a cogent argument for their side. And Ira Glass? Really? Blech.

But even without all that -- it's not a Ken Burns PBS special after all -- it's really a compelling movie that needed to be done and done with this sort of maturity. If you're near the Palms on Friday at 12:30 p.m., check it out. Too bad it's not on over the weekend. Also too bad I cannot find a YouTube trailer of this film or even a website to point you to.

Meanwhile, Cinevegas has really taken over the Palms. The Lounge, where we did the Vegas Podcast-a-Palooza (and are waiting for the OK to do again in October) last year has been transformed into a headquarters for media and film folks. There's video games...


...and a pool table...


...and music...

...and fun couches.


Finally and appropriately, I was stuck behind this on the way home...

Somebody dislikes Encore

Well, I'm sure more than one person does. But since I had yet to read anything in the media that was seriously critical of Encore Las Vegas and its design, I thought I'd post the link to Tony Illia's Las Vegas CityLife critique in which he states that Encore lacks "restraint."

A few excerpts:

Wynn, always the pitchman, believes it's his greatest achievement yet. "Intimacy and richness is the difference with Encore," says Tom Breitling, the former Golden Nugget owner-turned-Wynn employee. "It's really like a boutique hotel." But nothing about the 653-foot-tall, 2,034 room mega-resort seems small or boutique-like. ...

...There is an island bar that somewhat resembles a circus merry-go-round, with four TVs and six gaming tables. There are also daybeds, lounge chairs and a sunglass-cleaning service....

...The main casino is drenched in bordello red,...

...The building is a type of large brown package, nay, present, waiting to be opened. But one architect called it a UPS truck turned on its side....

...The attention to detail is stunning, albeit excessive....

...Encore is trying too hard to impress. Every square inch is adorned with a texture, pattern or contour. There are no blank spots that simply let you breathe and experience the space. The composition is overwrought, too tightly packaged together. It can be suffocating. Encore is a sensory overload. Wynn's need to dazzle and overwhelm guests doesn't always pay off. ...

And, to be fair, he closes with this trying-to-end-on-an-up-note bit:

That said, Encore improves upon Wynn Las Vegas in many ways. The main entryway off Las Vegas Boulevard is much better. Guests pass through the front doors into an uplifting double-height space with diffuse daylight, trees and flowers. Casino corridors have natural light, which is a bold but pleasant surprise; sunlight has long been an industry taboo. The floor-level backwall is also entirely glass, allowing sunlight inside, blurring the line between indoors and out. The retail promenade, meanwhile, is wider and more leisurely than Wynn Las Vegas, which seems cramped at times. And the rooms are splendid. The mood is more relaxed, less kinetic. Glass-encased showers, deep tubs, floor-to-ceiling windows, and plasma TVs in both the bed and bathrooms encourage a pampered, lazy attitude. Rooms have couches, ottomans, writing tables and wireless Internet access as well as fine art prints and safes.

Contrast this to the glowing reviews by UNLV's Dave Schwartz in the Business Press and the Christopher Reynolds of the L.A. Times, the paper whose architectural critic once said the Wynn Las Vegas' theme was "midrise office tower in Houston, circa 1983."

I'm not saying Illia's wrong or that his opinions are invalid. I'm just posting this because they're almost the only critical thing I've seen written about the new resort.

Dave Schwartz Takes The Stand

[This post was updated at bottom with more information.]

I'm typing from inside Courtroom 14C where the Plaza v Plaza case over whether the Elad group may use the name for their property across from Wynn Las Vegas and who would be on the stand by Dave Schwartz from the Center for Gaming Studies at UNLV and the Vegas Gang podcast.

Having sat through days of very grim OJ witnesses being beaten up from every side, the thing that strikes me most is that Dave looks like he's having a terrific time up here.

Schwartz has established his credentials here as a gaming historian by holding up his various books for the jury. If he were smart, he would've pulled an Oprah and left one of each under each juror's chair! My favorite, incidentally, is Suburban Xanadu. I highly recommend it, although I cannot imagine why it's priced so high by Amazon.Com.

As I write, Dave is being shown a litany of advertisements from various periodicals over the years proving that the Plaza Hotel-Casino in downtown Vegas owned by Tamares Group has been going by some variation of Plaza for decades. He is, however, testifying for the DEFENSE that the Plaza has used variations of Plaza -- including the Union Plaza -- and thus they have not consistently used the trademark throughout their history.

UPDATE: The Tamares Group is now grilling Schwartz because for many years there have been large neon signs that just said "Plaza Hotel." Schwartz says the place was still commonly known as Union Plaza (see left) because of a huge looming marquee that said so. The lawyer also pointed to this piece Schwartz did for the Las Vegas Business Press in which the lawyer asserted Schwartz sided with the owners of the NYC edition of the Plaza as evidence he's a biased witness. It's worth noting, by the by, that a Google search of "Union Plaza" yields as its first entry ... the Plaza Hotel and Casino.

Steve, Steve, Steve

I'm popping up in a whole bunch of places in the media this weekend besides for the Vegas Podcast-a-Palooza!

First, I discuss the rough state of the Nevada Republican Party on today's episode of the WashingtonPost.Com's Post Politics Podcast following a piece I wrote on the subject that appeared in Thursday's WP. You can click here to hear it or right-click here to download the 15-minute show. I come on around the 7th minute. It's a bit of a thrill as I listen to the PPP every day and think it's the most impressive podcast effort by a major mainstream newspaper.

Tomorrow morning, I'm heading to Planet Ho at the offensively early hour of 7 a.m. to go live with Today Show Travel Editor Peter Greenberg for his very widely distributed two-hour travel radio show (also, it's streamed live online by clicking here) as an expert on the intersection between celebrity and travel in Vegas. Other guests include fellow media whores Oscar Goodman and "Vegas Gang" regular Dave Schwartz.

Then at noon on Saturday, the National Geographic Channel premieres an episode of its "Man Made" series about the Loizeaux family and their casino-implosion enterprise called "Vegas Casino." It's a behind-the-scenes of the Frontier implosion and I was interviewed by them while on the site doing my piece on the family for the New York Times. Stacey Loizeaux tells me I made the cut. I take it they rerun these things quite a bit.

Finally, I appeared last Friday on Nevada Week in Review, where we discussed state and presidential politics and the journalistic ethics behind the CityCenter Drunky McDrunk expose in the R-J. It just went up online. Click here to download that.

Show is UP: Eddie Izz On

Here we go, everyone! 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:

July 24: Eddie Izzard

Eddie Izzard has many claims to fame. He’s a well-regarded comedian, a terrific actor in such programs as FX’s "The Riches" and, of course, he’s probably the world’s most famous out-of-the-closet heterosexual transvestite. Oh, and he’ll be playing Vegas on July 25-26 at the Palms, so Steve chatted with Izzard about all of those things—and Izzard makes Steve a "Rich" promise that will delight many.

In Banter: Wynn takes on the blogosphere, why Steve has tampons, is this woman pregnant, why won't Dave Schwartz change his hours, put that snake away and all hail that great philosopher Laura Bush!

Links:

Get tickets to see Eddie Izzard at the Palms on July 25-26 here
Eddie Izzard's awesome website is here
Wynn takes on bloggers in this R-J story found here
Read about Wynn's weird press release declaring unemployment records here
Hear whether the Kinsey folks think THAT WOMAN is pregnant here
The Gambler's Book Shop podcast can be found here
Learn more about the 9/11 Memorial, which memorialized the great Laura Bush, is here
The report on the Phoenix airport slot idea is here
Diablo's Cantina's site is here
Noir Bar at Luxor is here
An online discussion of the Atlanta "skill games" Miles mentioned is here