Opening Aria III: The Elvis Maybe-Mess

Back when I was lambasting MGM Mirage for the hideous and tacky Viva Elvis banner adorning the already tragic Harmon, CEO Jim Murren told me it was necessary to promote the show and build awareness. I replied that the one part of CityCenter he needn't worry about was his Cirque show. It seemed like a no-brainer. Everyone loves the music and Cirque's prior similar endeavor, Love, was such a knockout. They'd earned our trust, even despite their idiotic Criss Angel foray.

Oops. Murren knew something I didn't.

I'm not ready to declare this show an official disaster yet because it sounds from the coverage by Mike Weatherford that they have dramatic overhaul plans already in motion. Also, they didn't show the press the whole thing at the Dec. 15 preview.

What they did show us, though, is troubling. And you have to think that they put their best 15 minutes forward for the media, right? Here's my YouTube video of about a half-minute:

That number, the Blue Suede Shoes bit, was actually a good opening even if it does feature an Elvis impersonator on stilts. [Aside: Why did Doug Elfman write that there are no Elvis impersonators in the show when he attended this preview and saw this number?] And I loved the imagery of the two acrobats on the hanging guitar.

The trouble I'm sensing, though, is that this show is going to be incredibly literal and obsessed with Elvis the quirky celebrity instead of Elvis the groundbreaking musician. Notice that the people we saw from the Elvis background at that press conference were those responsible for the mass-merchandising of dead Elvis. Unlike with "Love," we never heard that they were using original tracks, remastering old music, bringing in the folks who created it, nothing. There's been no emphasis at all on the history of this music. They're certainly not going to win any Grammys for the cast recording of this.

The reason "Love" works is because Cirque trusts that we are aware of the Beatles and their significance and gets us to refocus on the wonderful music against some visually inventive tableaux. When you use song lyrics as decorations...


...you're tapped out of imagination. In this sequence, there are actors in superhero capes and tights running all over the place doing nothing in particular. If you know this bit of Elvis trivia, you get it. If you don't, you're confused. Nothing in Love that is biographical about the Beatles, by contrast, confuses anyone or leaves anyone feeling left out. Other parts they showed feature really uninspiring choreography and uninteresting visuals.

It's telling that the Viva Elvis theater didn't even bother to include speakers in the seats as Cirque did for Love and Ka. That showed that they aimed at providing a pitch-perfect acoustical experience for the guests. The big innovation at Viva Elvis is...


...school bus-style seating with cupholders in front, not besides, the guest. Wow.

In fact, the whole theater is, to my mind, recession-era Cirque. They built this thing from the ground up with...no technological gizmos? No folding or flying stage? Nothing transformative? Just a standard-issue proscenium theater that could, if need be, be modestly altered for some other show?


Ka, Zumanity and Love were all renovations of existing theaters -- EFX, Madhattan and Siegfried & Roy respectively -- and yet they really tricked them out or gave them appropriate stylizing. No tricks at Viva Elvis, except those cupholders.

It's no surprise -- and hard to fault them -- for going apeshit on the souvenir side of this.


Again, I look forward to seeing the whole show. I agree with Elfman that they shouldn't be charging serious money ($87-$149) to see the thing if it's clearly in preliminary form, but that's an ongoing argument that Mike Weatherford and I have been beating the drum about for years and nobody in Montreal seems to give a damn.

But the early signs are really not good. They clearly didn't care enough about this thing to really invest in the theater in a way that would make this anything more than a typical show experience. And coming from the folks who redefined the live show experience via their Vegas efforts, that's quite a disappointment.

Titty Smackdown: Crazy Horse v Peepshow

It is true, this show was not for me. Literally. "Crazy Horse Paris" is a burlesque show at MGM Grand that, ostensibly, exists primarily to turn on heterosexual men. And there's nothing wrong with that, exactly. It's what this city was built on, right?

Except that I feel a little sorry for the heterosexual guys out there. You deserve better.

I was primed to like this show, which I finally got out to see last night because of the publicity stunt that is the blink-and-miss-her guest star gig by ex-"Baywatch" jiggler Carmen Electra. The posters look cool, the showroom was intimate and exotic and so much else about MGM Grand these days is all so classy. Plus, R-J columnist Doug Elfman said the other day when we were prepping to begin our semi-regular sparring match on KNPR that he considered CHP to be the best, most artistic stripper show in the city.

Sigh. I suppose that could be so if you ignore the awful choreography, simplistic tableaus, kaleidoscopic lighting, extremely poor lip-synching and comical costumes. There were some geniunely erotic and creative moments -- there's a scene where we see just the bottom half of a woman with a perfectly formed bottom and legs as she removes her stockings -- but more often it's a bunch of women bopping around in wigs, doing something repetitive until the music ran out. All yours for $60 a seat; what's it cost for a pole dance at Olympic Gardens these days?

And Carmen Electra? That was just...sad. Like a couple of years ago when we all got snookered into seeing the atrocious Hans Klok magic show at P-Ho because Pamela Anderson was in it, we all waited and waited and waited for the former Mrs. Rodman-Navarro to appear and she finally did about halfway through. She showed no boobies at that point, just shook her big hair about and rolled around on a lip-shaped couch. Yawn. She returned a good 20 minutes later to dance with some bendy poles, vulgarly grinding her g-stringed crack into one of them and sort of obliterating the patina of high-class CHP pretends to attain. Oh, and she showed one breast at the end of the misery, clad in a pasty which, I'm now told by every straight male reader of this blog, doesn't count.

Carmen, in the show through this weekend, does return in one final scene fully topless -- and her surgically created boobs are quite lovely with a cute flair to the nipples -- so I guess the vaginally inclined boys got what they wanted and seemed forgiving of how brief the satisfaction was. But I kept feeling sorry for Carmen that, at 37, she was reduced to such tawdriness to pay the mortgage. There could be no other explanation for why she's there other than the money; she sure didn't put a whole lot of pride in making the performance much.

There are dissenting opinions, to be sure. The R-J's Norm Clarke Tweeted during the show: "Carmen is writhing on the red velvet couch in the shape of Michelle Pfeifer's lips. Eat you hearts out Baker Boys." A few moments later, he Tweeted this: "Swinging door routine...they might be the 8 --ok who's counting -- most breathtaking performers on stage at one time in Vegas."

But even Norm seemed to lose interest; his next two Tweets, sent during the show, were about the Vegas location of the Travelocity Travel Gnome. I thought maybe someone else was Tweeting that stuff for him, but then he wrote: "But I digress....back to the Land of Merkin...and the Hot Legs routine."

OK, so you're thinking, "You're GAY. What do you know about shows about sexy women?" Fair enough. Except that I love "Peepshow" at Planet Hollywood. That is a show with high production value, a bit of a story, original music sung live and really creative ways of presenting gorgeous topless women. Also, at the moment, it has another It Girl, Holly Madison, who unlike Carmen is actually in her career prime. Holly's also required to do a little actual dancing and acting, however uncomfortable she may appear doing so.

The irony of all this is that Crazy Horse Paris is more akin to Crazy Girls, the struggling Riviera show whose operators insist remains a viable business despite a nightly audience of about 100 -- and God knows how few of those suckers paid full price -- and a cast larger than the now-gone "An Evening at La Cage." The most important difference between the two, besides the fact that CHP admittedly has more beautiful women, is that Crazy Girls doesn't pretend to be high art. CHP does, but it ain't.

The Show is UP: G-Force Winds

After last week's blustery Andrew Dice Clay chat, saxophonist Kenny G would seem like a light-hearted antidote. And he is, for the most part. But he also gets a bit crabby and snarky, so it was a good time all around. You know the drill: click on the date below to listen or right-click and save to your computer. Or subscribe (it's free!) via this iTunes link or via this Zune link. -sf

July 9: G-Force Winds

On stage and on your stereo, he is laid back and comfortable. But in tonight’s interview, saxophonist Kenny G shows other sides of his persona: arrogant, vain, opinionated and controversial. The musician, who has sold 75 million albums worldwide, also provides a fascinate behind-the-scenes story about his first time on Johnny Carson, discusses Bill Clinton’s influence on the popularity of the sax and has some terse words for audience-scolding showstoppers like Patti LuPone.

Plus, a special INTERVIEW edition of the Trivia Question featuring Las Vegas Advisor publisher Anthony Curtis, aka Curtis Flowers speaking for the first time about his alias.

In Banter: Michael Jackson's memorial, Steve is Hispanic, the WSOP is off and running, The Hangover is mostly Vegasly accurate and more.

Links to stuff discussed:

Tickets for Kenny G on July 10-12 at the Orleans
Kenny G’s website
Alan Albert’s restaurant on Yelp
YouTube clips of Paris Jackson, Mariah Carey and Jermaine Jackson at MJ’s memorial
VegasHappensHere.Com on the possible Jackson Fourish show
VegasHappensHere.Com on Steve’s Hispanic excursion
Survey America’s website
Phil Hellmuth’s arrival at the WSOP on YouTube
Doyle Brunson’s Twitter feed
The Review-Journal’s report on the overage at WSOP’s Fourth Day One
Doug Elfman’s column about Carmen Electra in Crazy Horse Paris
Who is new "Peepshow" Aubrey O’Day?
The YouTube clip of the Vegas TV reporter’s Fremont Street tussle
Kenny G’s Guiness Record for holding a note for 45 minutes challenged

Inside The Presidential Suite

[UPDATE: Several sugary sources insist Reese's does make squatter, smaller peanut butter cups. My apologies to Mr. Elfman for this scurrilous accusation. I am concerned, though, that our president may be so out of touch with average 'Mericans that he eats untraditional Reese's products as well as Dijon mustard on his burgers. Hannity's gonna have a field day...]


I happened to be at Caesars on Friday for lunch with a fellow journalist when it dawned on me to ask for a tour of the 22,000-square-foot Marc Antony-Cleopatra Suite where President Obama stayed on Tuesday night after Obama: The Las Vegas Spectacular, the benefit for Harry featuring Bette, Sheryl, Rita and Clint.

The photo above is another piece of hand-out art from Caesars, showing one of the atriums. Thanks to Mike E, you can look at the floor plan via this link. The rest of these images here were shot by me.

To give you an idea how gargantuan the thing is, see this photo below?


I took it from one of the terraces. The other terrace? You're looking at it over there on the other edge of the building. Wow, huh?

The place has: six bedrooms, eight bathrooms, two full kitchens to service two 10-seat private dining rooms ready with full settings of Sant’ Andrea Royal porcelain, two outdoor decks with waterfalls that flow into private pools, a dry sauna and two sitting parlors.

Some of the sights of the spread:
[Click on any images to enlarge them]

All are arrayed off a central corridor of bronze-swirled marble floors and pillars as well as Roman antiquities.

All of this is arrayed along this marble hallway...


The beds themselves were actually sort of plain and smallish. The president's a tall guy, right? No one could tell me, by the way, which one he used, but here are two of the three from the master bedrooms. (Obama was here alone, btw. No Michelle or kids.)


I spotted this candy wrapper (below) in a dish. Evidently, there were two but the Review-Journal's Doug Elfman is shown in this R-J video tour snatching one. (Elfman also controversially claims they were Reese's Peanut Butter Cup wrappers even though everyone with as many fillings as I have knows Reese's are wider and thinner. Plus, he thinks the existence of bidets are funny and sorta tries to get his viewers to imagine an Obama Enema. No, really.)



Here's the dining room, one of two that Obama didn't use when he ordered up a steak from Neros.


And here's the treadmill The One did not use. Instead, he went to Qua. They shut down the whole spa for his 45-minute workout.


They also, by the way, emptied the floor below this suite. And the Obama entourage occupied 100 rooms in the tower.

In case you're wondering, I don't know what the White House paid for the pad. Caesars spokeswoman Debbie Munch says Obama’s suite has no price tag; it’s only available to high rollers or celebrity guests. But the White House couldn't take it for free, could they? Especially for a fundraising trip, right?

Others who have used the suite, by the way: Marc Anthony and J. Lo (they were first after a recent renovation, renewing their vows along with New York Met Carlos Beltran and his wife, Jessica in October 2008), Celine Dion, Cher, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Two who have not: former presidents Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush. Both stayed at the resort since their presidencies – Obama is the first sitting president to check in – but they were lodged in other suites.

Of course, the obvious question was asked: Will Caesars now rename the space the Presidential Suite?

“Ha ha,” Caesars spokeswoman Debbie Munch chuckled. “No. But I'm sure it will become known.”

On The TV, Radio, Podosphere

In what's becoming a regular gig, I appeared on KNPR yesterday alongside foil Doug Elfman of the Review-Journal to rap about all things entertainment and I'm going on Nevada Week in Review tonight on Vegas PBS (7:30 p.m. PT on Channel 10, rerun a zillion times over the weekend) to rap about, I'm assuming, all things Carson City politics and Strip economics. You can subscribe to Nevada Week in Review via iTunes to get the show sometime early next week. Plus, there's a new Petcast posted today featuring an interview with library-cat documentarian Gary Roma. Subscribe to the Petcast via iTunes, too.

Something for everyone, huh?

Split Decision on Fator

The morning paper featured an interesting contrast on the Terry Fator premiere on Saturday. On the front page, the Review-Journal's Doug Elfman offered a baffling declaration of the consensus of the "elite" crowd in attendance that the show was a knockout. Baffling, that is, because he and I were in the same room and I heard largely uneven responses. I would never pretend to speak for an entire audience -- especially one biased by free tickets and booze -- but Elfman chose to do so.

Elfman's sample was also tainted by natural human behavior. I've always found if you encounter a friend effusively happy about a performance, you tend not to want to disabuse them of their pleasure. It's awkward. Why would anyone want to take away another person's satisfaction? I had precisely that experience on Saturday with my friend Dave Berns, host of KNPR's "State of Nevada," who started the discussion with something like, "Wasn't that great?" Because I have no reflex for being polite, the best I could answer was, "Uh, it was OK." I recovered quickly by saying Fator fits a viable demographic of which I am not a member, a statement I do believe.

But an opening-night party didn't feel like an appropriate forum to start a debate over the merits of different bits I disliked so I, like some Elfman may have chatted up, chose not to expound on how hackneyed the Michael Jackson stuff was or how out of place the Obama attacks seemed. Most people stifle their own displeasure altogether and respond to those who enjoyed themselves with a smile and something like, "Yes, he's very talented." (Note to Berns: It could be some interesting radio to bring me and Elfman on KNPR to debate the show. Could be a fun regular segment when new shows open.)

It's also clear Elfman does not count me or Las Vegas Sun reviewer Joe Brown among the "elites." Brown's review was more mixed and hit many of the same points I did in my VegasHappensHere.Com post yesterday. It's one of those funny RJ-Sun moments when the front page says "Everyone who matters loves it!" and the Sun's headline says, "Mixed impressions!"

One thing everyone agreed about and felt the need to state -- including me yesterday -- is that Fator is a swell fellow who has been incredibly engaging to the media. And that approach has earned him an inclination among even those of us who had criticism to make some allowances and give him a chance.

And so, a thought: How might the Criss Angel experience have gone differently had he come across as friendly, humble and accessible rather than the Second Coming of Harry Houdini? If he seemed sincerely earnest to answer questions from the public's proxies as honestly as possible rather than threatening local columnists with violence or using his dating life as a fame-enhancer? How might it have gone had he not been given to outlandish, easily disproved boasts about his greatness, innovation and boffo sales? Would we have been more forgiving or patient when his show finally opened?

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.

ReviewJournal.Com, Porn Purveyors!

VegasRex.Com had an awesome post today that you need to see. But shield your eyes and those of the young 'uns around you: He caught the Review-Journal trafficking in oldie porn.

As I understand it, until probably this morning there was a user-generated element of the front of that mess of a site where they showed photos uploaded by readers. I guess nobody was moderating that and, surprise surprise, someone posted a nude photo of an aged woman. Hot!

Here's the screenshot that VegasRex grabbed, and thank GOD he did...


The Your Pix section is now gone. It's sort of amazing it took this long for something like that to happen, isn't it?

While I've got your attention regarding the RJ's site, I did want to address another new feature, the roundtable chat between Doug "VegasLand" Elfman, Carol Cling, Mike Weatherford and Jason Bracelin, the paper's entertainment columnists and bloggers. It's called "Hot In Vegas This Weekend," which means that nobody could be even the slightest bit creative about what to call the thing.

I won't comment on the quality per se because it's a new venture and the first go-rounds are always going to be rough as the people involved get comfortable with one another and the medium. I'll just make a few hopefully helpful suggestions:

1. Make it more fun and interactive. Have an actual discussion, debate, throwdown, whatever. Right now, it's a video/audio calendar listing service, with each telling us what's coming up this weekend in their various disciplines. I can get that from Neon and I don't have to sit in front of my computer to do that. The idea of having multiple people ought to be to have a chat, y'know?

2. Change your focus, Carol Cling. Your very best, most Vegas-relevant material is your Shooting Stars column on Mondays in which you tell us what TV, movie or other visual media crews are in town. Your movie reviews are fine, but they've got no Vegas relevance, usually. Everyone else is talking about upcoming shows, concerts and such that are happening here.

3. For God's sake, explain RSS to Al Gibes already. Your "Online Guy" and supposed Web guru really needs to understand that your program -- and all of your blogs, too -- will reach many times more people if they can subscribe to it via RSS and have the content come to them via Google Reader or iTunes or whatever. Take a cue from the Washington Post's daily Post Politics Podcast and the Herald of Rock Hill, S.C.,'s Popcast podcasts, both of which have increased awareness of and traffic to their websites by not forcing people to come there for non-written content. I know, it sounds counterintuitive. But everybody's doing it. Not having RSS tags for your video and audio content proves you just don't get the portable media revolution.

Oh, and more porn would totally make your little show rock! Maybe Bracelin can show a little leg. God knows, he loves to talk about bodily functions in his columns.

BREAKING: Tina Turner To Tour, Oprah Hearts the CP Toilet

I'm just in from the taping of the May 8 "Oprah Winfrey Show" at Caesars Palace where Tina Turner announced she's going back on tour at age 68 for the first time in eight years. Tickets go on sale on May 12 for a tour that kicks off from Kansas City on Oct. 1.

I must say, I'm a little confused about whether there was an embargo on that news. The woman who prepped the audience told the thousands who filled Cher's new performing home, Caesars Palace's Colosseum, not to tell anyone. But a group of us journalists were invited to attend -- including Robin Leach, the L.A. Times columnist/blogger Richard Abowitz and Review-Journal columnist Doug Elfman as well as the local CBS affiliate that airs "Oprah" -- and I was given no preconditions whatsoever.

So, that said, Tina's going on tour having been prodded, she said, by Sophia Loren to stop lolling about her Swiss home and go back to work. But first, Cher came out to perform "Take Me Home" in a shredded blue dress with a matching blue headpiece and about a dozen dancers in 1970s outfits including, unlike the all-female Bette show, a few male dancers. Later, Tina did "Nutbush City Limit" on her own and then the two divas -- Oprah, being Vegasy, called them "a pair of queens" -- shared the stage for a rousing (is there any other version?) "Proud Mary." Cher looked particularly fetching in a shiny red mini-dress and a long-straight-black-hair wig.

The "Oprah" show also includes some video of Cher with designer Bob Mackie showing a few of the 17 daring costumes she'll sport when she opens in Vegas on May 6. There's a body-length Indian headdress, something Cher refers to as "Cleopatra comes to Caesars Palace" and a "warrior goddess" look she'll don for the Pat Benatar classic "Love Is A Battlefield." Cher said the show will span her pre-Sonny career and include the Sonny & Cher tunes "It's The Little Things" and "The Beat Goes On" as well as a rendition of the Sammy Davis Jr. standard "I Gotta Be Me."

Cher also went on a bit about having dated Tom Cruise, which I hadn't heard but which has been out for a month or so and has a lot of online skeptics scratching their heads about when this could've been and how nobody would've known it until Cher said it. It's further baffling because Cher told Oprah about some incident where Cher and young Tom went to a restaurant in New York, I think, and some waitress turned out to be an old schoolmate of Tom's who, Tom told Cher, wouldn't have spoken to him back in the day. I suppose that's possible since Tom crew up in Syracuse, but kind of amazing nonetheless.

The most interesting stuff, though, was what Oprah rambled on about OFF CAMERA. First, she'd just come from visiting Tom Cruise's home in Telluride, Colo., where she rode on a snowmobile with him and spoke of his firm buttocks and how hot he was to grip as they took their spin. "You're like, 'Take me home, Tom,' " she enthused. There was no discussion of Suri or Katie, but someone shouted out from the audience something related to Cruise's infamous I-love-Katie meltdown because Oprah replied, "I didn't jump on his couch." Good to know. She said that episode airs May 2.

NOT as good to know, but perversely fascinating nonetheless, was Oprah's lengthy aside to the crowd about the high-tech toilets in her Caesars Palace suite. As it happens, the thing lifts the lid automatically when you enter the bathroom and, she explained in shocking detail, it is capable of washing and blow-drying your butt and other parts. "I swear, I gotta get one of these on the show and show everybody," she said. "I'm coming back here! I'm cleaned up AND cleaned out!"

I wondered what she was referring to, so I Googled "butt-cleaning toilet" and found this. There. We're done. Oprah, you need not ever speak of this again. In fact, please, please, please don't!

That said, quite a fun show. I was a little worried in the beginning when it seemed every Vegas cliche was coming into play -- "Viva Las Vegas" blared as the audience prepper came on, there was much to-do about the Tina and Cher impersonators in the audience and the prepper did lay that tired "What Happens in Vegas" line. Yes, she got it wrong. She must've read Christina Binkley's book.