LVW Col: The Monorail's Signage Woes

So the Paris Hilton thing turned out to be a good story for me after all. Sorta. Read on. -sf

Signs of trouble
Finding the Monorail isn’t easy
By STEVE FRIESS

I just couldn’t stop staring at the blurry image on TMZ.com showing Paris Hilton being arrested for allegedly possessing narcotic-flavored Trident or something like that. No, I don’t care what becomes of vacuous stoners; what caught my eye was a sign behind her, indicating a Las Vegas Monorail station somewhere to the south.
Hilton was collared, you see, in front of the Wynn. You don’t have to be packing cocaine to think, seeing that sign, that you’re close to getting out of the 115-degree heat and onto public transit.
Except you’re not. The nearest stop from that sign sits behind Harrah’s, nearly a two-mile hike once you’ve wended through the casino. Not undoable, certainly, but far enough away that pedestrians ought to know so they can decide if they should cab it or just walk to their destination.

Read the rest at LasVegasWeekly.Com

The Show is UP: Jerry Lewis

Sorry I didn't get this up on the blog sooner, but the show has been in the feed since yesterday morning. I'm just getting really backed up with assignments, so apologies. Click on the date below to listen or right-click to download and listen at your leisure or subscribe to get the episodes instantly when they're available via iTunes or Zune.

Sept. 6: The Nutty Prognosticator

Three years ago, at the height of the Vegas boom, Jerry Lewis predicted that the resorts were overbuilding and would eventually smother one another. He just didn’t expect it to happen so fast. Now, with the city in a world of hurt, the tough-talking, foul-mouthed comedy legend both commiserated with the current state of affairs and suggests some solutions. Steve spoke to the 84-year-old in advance of that much-cherished Labor Day tradition, the annual Jerry Lewis Telethon to benefit the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and the two talked about the mob, Steve Wynn and the current state of his career. Yes, he still has a career, and we’re likely to hear a lot more from him in coming months.

In banter: The R-J lawsuit campaign could hit the Strip, the Great Petcast Roadtrip, the screwy monorail directional signs and more.

Links to stuff discussed:

How to donate to the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon
Send a Salami video from YouTube
The Jerry Lewis CD of standards from 1956 on Amazon.Com
Yelp! on Bagelmania, Firefly and Emeril’s
Steve’s blog and Flickr on the Great Petcast Road Trip
Roadfood.Com, Urbanspoon and Dogfriendly.Com
The Sun and Review-Journal on the R-J lawsuit against Sharron Angle
Steve's coverage of the lawsuits, including the Angle suit
VegasHappensHere.com on Paris Hilton and the monorail signs
Vinnie Favorito’s “new” contract at the Flamingo, as covered by us in June
Mike Weatherford’s perfect column about how silly the Madonna-Vegas rumor
The Bon Jovi rumor from the Examiner.Com
Zowie Bowie’s website
The VegasHappensHere.Com link regarding NPR’s “Wait Wait” using Steve’s story as a joke

The Only ? That Matters, Re: Paris Hilton is...

...in what universe is this Monorail Station sign in any way useful, helpful or appropriate?


There's the vacuous socialite being arrested on cocaine possession charges, per this photo that TMZ.Com paid God-knows-what for. You whose life I don't give a damn about? Do you have any clue how thrilled I am to have left Vegas in time for this idiotic story? Or how proud I am that the Casper Star-Tribune, which Emily bought me here in Cheyenne as we proceed to Day Two of the Great Petcast Road Trip, had no trace of Paris' arrest anywhere in the Sunday paper?

What I do care about: How the Las Vegas Monofail gets away with a sign like this, implying there's a station somewhere in the vicinity. Hilton was arrested on the east side of the Strip across from Fashion Show, so outside Wynn. The nearest monorail station south of there is at Harrah's/Imperial Palace. How far a walk is that? I'm betting nearly two miles by the time you get to the backass of those properties.

Check out Google's view of this "public transit" option:


Are they kidding?

Also, are the COLOR Salon publicists from Wicked Creative kidding when they proudly tout in a press release Saturday this thrilling bit of news?

Aug. 27: Paris Hilton was pampered at one of Las Vegas' most luxurious salons, COLOR: A Salon by Michael Boychuck at Caesars Palace on Friday evening. Hilton, a longtime client and friend of Boychuck's, had her signature platinum blonde tresses perfected by Boychuck and his team.

That was accompanied by glamorpuss photos. It's very instructive to know where to go to make sure that county jail mugshot looks just right!

Anyhow, the road trip has been fabulous. We put in 850 miles yesterday, and I've posted loads of pictures and comments via Twitter. This was mile 530:


Pretty!

Off to see the Cheyenne Capitol, then we drive to Lincoln. Have a great Sunday!

Mid-Air Over Minden

The reflection from a window of me with the plane I went up in today. Cool, huh?

So here's the thing. I went up on a four-seat Cessna this afternoon with a local flight instructor who told us he knew the location of the fancy Flying M Ranch, owned by Paris Hilton's grandpa and where Steve Fossett took off. I wanted to see it. I shared the tab for this flight with journalists from the Sunday Telegraph and the Sunday Times of London, lovely blokes both.

Sadly, for $200 an hour our pilot was a bit incompetent. We wandered through the region searching for it and couldn't find it. My cell phone was working from up above, so I text messaged Miles and my "Petcast" co-host Emily to get them to find me GPS coordinates. We ended up with five different sets of coordinates, the final one of which was probably the most precise although all would have been in the right area. Emily, in fact, managed to spot the thing on a Google Earth map, but by the time we had that specific a pinpoint, our pilot said he really had to get back in for another appointment! Later, one of the Civil Air Patrol officials expressed bafflement that the pilot couldn't find a landmark that obvious and easy to spot; it's apparently right at a fork in a very prominent river. Oh well. I started to think the place was like the island on "Lost" and worried that if we did find it, we'd have to kill a legion of Others to get away.

Anywho, it was still a nice ride that gave us good perspective on the vast and difficult terrain the planes are facing as they seek Fossett. And I may have set myself good for some future assignments with the British newspapers, too. Always working an angle, I am.

Here are some more pix, each of which can be enlarged by clicking on them:

The mountainous terrain (above) and the flat area. The greenery you see is hay farms.

Palms Marquee is Punny

So the marquee is up, as previously reported. But down a the bottom is the catch. Click on the image to read the fine print. Very cute. We hear it's some sort of promotion for the hotel-casino's new buffet.

Palms Marquee: "Free Paris"

Miles text-messaged me to let me know there's a marquee at the Palms, where Paris Hilton loves to chill with her pals and owner George Maloof, that reads: "Free Paris."

Will get a photo for the blog later today when I'm on that side of town.

Reminds me a little of the folks who wrote "Free OJ" in masking tape on the top of their mortar boards at my graduation in June 1994 from Northwestern, the morning after the famed OJ car chase.