Breaking Exclusive: Fremont St Zipline Opens Friday

A couple hours ago on Gadling.Com, I broke a pretty fun one: By this Friday, the folks behind the Bootleg Canyon Flightlines attraction in Boulder City are slated to open a zipline that launches into the Fremont Street Experience from the plaza to the east of it with all that cool restored neon.

The Fremont Street Flightline is expected to go about 800 feet to the center of the Fremont Street Experience outside of the Four Queens and right by the main performance stage. See where Greenheart LLC owner Ian Green is standing by the pink X above to your right? That's where the landing platform is planned to stand.

If you look carefully at the top photo, you'll see the folks in the foreground with a tape measure, mapping out the location of the tower from which riders will leap from 60 feet and swing down to 14 feet up. Folks will buy their tickets ($15 from 2-6 pm, $20 from 6 pm to midnight) at an office on the ground level (the former office for condos at Streamline, in fact) and then ascend to the top floor of the FSE parking garage to get to the launch pad.

Greenheart LLC is spending $150,000 on a temporary four-line system that will hurtle folks a relatively genteel 20-25 mph over the FSE crowds and under the canopy. Yes, you'll be able to fly during the light show itself, although they're planning to time rider launches so that you go over Fourth Street when traffic is stopped at that light as a safety precaution.

If it goes well, Greenheart and FSE will go before the Las Vegas City Council for approval for a permanent attraction that they hope will span the entire length of FSE and land roughly in front of the Plaza Hotel. They got a 90-day temporary permit on Monday, just in time to get the thing up and running for Green's big Halloween idea -- a broom-racing championship. After that, he's looking at outfitting the lines with reindeers and such depending on the time of year.

Could be a lot of fun and definitely could bring a new crowd to downtown. My biggest concern is that the price is way too low and will result in very, very long lines. That will discourage people on the Strip from coming down. I wonder if some sort of a number or reservation or appointment system might not bring people down there and then set them loose in the casinos and such until it's their time.

I reminded Fremont president Jeff Victor that his folks contend that hula-hooping on the plaza is hazardous and distracting to tourists and could cripple old people and want that dastardly deed outlawed. I'll play his prickly response to that on Saturday's episode of "The Strip."

Unlike the Boulder City attraction, where the attendants are willing to shoot your photos and such for free, Cashman Photo will be shooting pictures of riders on the line and selling them at their kiosks. Green hopes the visibility will spur more interest in the Boulder City attraction which is, by the by, awesome. Here was my YouTube video from my day out there with my friend Trevor:

Next up, they hope: the long-discussed zipline at Excalibur. Hear on this coming weekend's episode of "The Strip" where Green might go, too.

[h/t to Sparky of LV.]

Anti-Hula Hoop Bill Going National

[UPDATE: Fark picked up the AOL piece. Go vote there.]

This. Must. Be. Stopped.

Or so, in a gift to national writers like me, somebody at Las Vegas City Hall believed when he/she injected into a new proposed ordinance that seeks to also segregate unauthorized vendors and entertainers at the Fremont Street Experience the following provision to ban...

* The launching or throwing of projectiles or other objects through the air except in connection with special events and mall entertainment conducted or authorized by the Fremont Street Experience Limited Liability Company;
* The twirling of hoops (such as hula hoops) around the human body or portions thereof, the use of such hoops for recreation or entertainment, except in conncetion with special events and mall entertainment conducted or authorized by the Fremont Street Experience Limited Liability Company;

My AOL News piece went up earlier today and has already been linked to hundreds of times on blogs, Tweets and such.

Lost in the shuffle -- although I spend plenty of time on it in my piece -- is that they also want to shunt lots of other activity into one of two 1,200-square-foot free expression zones. That would mean this guy...


...and these folks...


...would be put in a corner with, presumably, an impersonator of Baby from Dirty Dancing, should there ever be a market for one. The guy on the left, by the by, is an out-of-work security guard most recently of Mermaids, the casino on Fremont that has a lady dripping white goo from her mouth in the video billboard to promote their deep-fried Twinkees. He says he makes $40-$100 a night in tips meandering on the mall taking photos with people and, he admits, "I don't even look like" Elvis.

I did get an interesting email already on this piece from someone named Amy:

I don't know how I found your article on hula hoops but they really are a public safety concern. I am sure LV can come up with something creative like a hula hoop park with wild lights, etc. We need to respect our elders. Not everyone gets around like a hula Hooper. One good smack on the brittle hip bones of a sight challenged, older lady and, that lady's life could change faster than fast by a blast from a hula hoop. LV needs to stay senior citizen friendly.

Now, I do love my elders and I'm very protective of them. Everybody who reads my LVW columns knows that. And a Hula Hoop Park does sound enticing.

But any Mrs. Magoo so fragile that being knocked down by a plastic hoop could lead to crippling injury might want to steer clear of the Fremont Street Experience or any other public place where thousands of unpredictable, mostly drunk people gather. There are lots of other people doing lots of things there that could be similarly dangerous. Like, say, some babe from the Jersey Shore flailing her arms about as she talks, maybe.

While I've not witnessed these Hula Hooping hooligans myself, I'm finding it hard to imagine that you're just standing around minding your own bees wax, perhaps wholesomely watching the Mermaids video chick drooling Twinkee filling, when all of a sudden somebody spontaneously smacks you down with a hoop. Most Hula Hoopers try hard to avoid having the hoop hit anybody or thing because the point of the activity is to get the hoop to continually circle you for as long as possible, not to rob the aged of their mobility. You won't be a very good Hula Hooper if your radius is populated by hip-replacement candidates, right?

Anyhow, this should be a fun one. The ACLU says all these provisions are unconstitutional and would challenge them if the City Council passes in next week, and the ACLU is batting a 1.000 on combatting the many, many efforts the city has tried to restrict activity at FSE over the past 15 years. So odds are pretty high this attempt is mainly good for giggles and won't ever actually be implemented.

Did the Viva Vision folks READ the lyrics?!?

In 1989, the middle of my three sisters married the wrong guy. She was pregnant, my father was a traditionalist -- which is odd since he'd go on to pay for a lavish gay wedding a decade later that ALSO ended badly -- and several unhappy years came to pass. Well, that and two terrific kids, but that's besides the point.

It's been a tradition in my family for my mother and, often, my youngest sister to sing for guests at weddings. Both are talented; my youngest sister was a finalist for the lead role of "Annie" on Broadway in the late 1970s and a former Miss Pee Wee New York or something like that.

Anyhow, here's the odd thing: Lynn chose to sing "The Words Get In The Way" by Gloria Estefan, a tune about doomed love and bad communication. Which is really a very inappropriate -- and yet, as it turned out, prescient -- song to choose for a wedding reception.

This came to mind when Troy in Las Vegas pointed my attention to a press release trumpeting the special Fourth of July weekend edition of the Fremont Street Experience's Viva Vision show under the downtown metal canopy to be set to that classic tribute to the U.S. of A., "American Pie" by Don McLean.

Did I say tribute? Right, sorry. I meant, indictment. A brilliant one, indeed. I love the song. We even analyzed the lyrics in Nina Wolff's 10th grade English class as an example of modern American poetry rich with allusions, literary references and metaphors. Great stuff.

But appropriate for a patriotic celebration? "The day the music died?" A song about racial strife, violence, war, fake nostalgia, murder, the phoniness of religion and nuclear panic? This is the picture of America painted by the song:

And in the streets: the children screamed,
The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed.
But not a word was spoken;
The church bells all were broken.
And the three men I admire most:
The father, son, and the holy ghost,
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died.

Here's how the Fremont Street folks hyped their new show:

LAS VEGAS – June 26, 2008 – Fremont Street Experience premieres "Don McLean's American Pie" Viva Vision light and sound show with a weekend-long 4th of July celebration free to the public, 4 p.m.- midnight July 3-5 in downtown Las Vegas.

The world premiere showing of "Don McLean's American Pie" Viva Vision show will open to the public on Thursday, July 3 at 9 p.m., including an opening ceremony hosted by Nellis Air Force Base's Honor Guard and a live performance of the National Anthem. The rock ballad "American Pie", released by Don McLean in 1971, became the anthem for a generation and is still one of the most well- known songs in American musical history. McLean's most famous composition, "American Pie" is a sprawling, impressionistic ballad inspired partly by the deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. Richardson (The Big Bopper) in a plane crash in 1959. The song would popularize the expression "The Day the Music Died" in reference to this event. McLean has stated that the lyrics are also somewhat autobiographical and present an abstract story of his life from the mid-1950s until the time he wrote the song in the late 1960s.

Uh, yes and no. "American Pie" is a song about how America's best days seemed to be over. You know, the "bye, bye" part? "The day the music died" isn't simply a reference to the Buddy Holly plane crash but a turning point in the good times for America in general.

So, sure, that seems like a perfect tune for the Fourth of July!