Stuff I Found Cleaning Out My Vegas Office

As you may have read in my acclaimed love-letter essay to Las Vegas and my life there in Las Vegas Weekly, I spent my final days in Nevada packing up a house and office stuffed to the gills with historical and peculiar Vegas stuff. There was a shelf in my office closet with at least a six-foot pile of press materials that proved akin to an archeological survey, newest to oldest layered upon one another like a geological formation.

The stuff I unearthed was Vegas in its most optimistic, boosterish form, such as the above document outlining the expansion plans for the airport. I also found this promo for CityCenter...

...which is technically true because, uh, the future always begins now. Duh.

I loved this relic...

...and made sure to put this piece of Frontier glass in a safe place.

I found this magnet from the late, great Dive at the Fashion Show Mall, where I used to take my little brother all the time for fries and to peer through the periscope that offered a Strip view. It was just last month that a listener of the podcast asked me something about this place:

I found these artifacts of the earlier days of our podcast...

We used to send CDs and thank-you notes to all our guests, and once we got this back from the amazing Paula Poundstone:

Here was one of the table centerpieces from the final performance of Siegfried & Roy, a fundraiser for Keep Memory Alive, the foundation that funds the Lou Ruvo Cleveland Clinic for Brain Health in Vegas:

I found it rather unsettling that I did not and still don't remember that I had actually been a patient in 2002 of the most infamous endoscopy doctor in America:

At the same time, I find it awesome beyond words that I found this, which my old R-J friend Natalie Patton sent to me in 2000 when I was about to depart for China:

And I have no idea whatsoever how I came into possession of this rather invaluable bit of family history...

...but I'm so glad I have it.

"Wait Wait" Coming To Vegas!

It's been a while. A few years, I'm pretty sure, and I seem to recall they taped somewhere off the Strip back then. But Miles and my favorite NPR program, "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me," is slated to tape the Nov. 18 episode here in Vegas at the Paris resort.

Tickets are a little pricey, though. When they record the shows in Chicago, all seats are $25. In Vegas, they're charging $50, $75, $100 and $150 plus fees/taxes. And so far as I can tell, all the money goes to Chicago Public Radio and NPR, not to our Vegas affiliate, KNPR.

That said, this is a really big treat and, while high for public radio prices, it's about right for a decent Vegas show these days. Buy them at Ticketmaster, in person at the Paris box office or at 800-745-3000.

No word yet who the guest panelists are, but Paula Poundstone would seem a natural seeing how she plays Vegas every so often and she is the big favorite for show listeners. And if they're smart, they'll invite Barry Manilow on for "Not My Job" and quiz him with questions about, I dunno, Barry Bonds or something. No offense to Mayor Oscar Goodman, but I really hope they resist the itch to haul him in there.

I'm eager to interview Peter Sagal if only to tell him about the times they'd turned my stories into jokes, the transplanting-scalps-of-cadavers thing and the Fremont Street hula hoop drama. You know I'll be on the prowl for something spectacularly weird the week before this show.

Wait, Wait Does Hula Hoops!

Yes!!!

For the second time in my career, I've achieved a supreme honor: "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me" on NPR used one of my pieces for humor. Given that I cover Vegas, it's sort of stunning that it doesn't happen more often. Certainly, more stories I've handled have hit the national joke circuit before, but it's not that big a buzz when they're stories EVERYONE covers.

In this case, it became clear my AOL News piece on the potential hula hoop ban inspired this week's "Bluff the Listener" segment when Paula Poundstone (!!!) cited the quote Las Vegas City Councilman Stavros Anthony gave me: "These aren't little Hula-Hoops. They're big Hula-Hoops." (Fair's fair, though: The Review-Journal's Alan Choate covered it first, leading to my piece. But the use of my quote indicates the NPR show didn't know.) They even went back to Anthony for a version of this comment for radio.

Listen to it by clicking here. It's about six fun minutes long. Go ahead. I'll wait.

It's particularly fun because I'm in New York at my aunt's and we've got NPR on live as we get ready to depart for Fairbanks, Alaska, on some family business. After thousands of bylines in all these major publications over all these years, my aunt's glee over this odd achievement was still a kick.

In case you're wondering what the first time was for me and "Wait Wait," it was in October 2007 when I wrote for USA Today about a new technology to perform full scalp transplants for bald people using the scalps of cadavers.

[Earlier: My blog post on the original story.]

We love Paula Poundstone but...

This is really, really weird. Paula Poundstone posted this trainwreck of a YouTube Xmas letter. Don't think you're alone if you shudder when her scary look first appears on the screen. But then it gets worse, with Paula reading off her lap some sort of not-funny Xmas letter of the David Sederis ilk. Her delivery is awful, given she's a comic who appears on TV and in concert regularly.

Check out the un-hot mess here. The cat at the end is cute, tho.

Paula Poundstone's Pet Parade!

Comic Paula Poundstone has "11 cats, a big stupid dog, two tadpoles, a bearded dragon lizard, and a bunny." The "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" regular panelist joined "The Petcast" to talk about her brood and to explain the difference between being a cat enthusiast and being "the cat lady."

She's really sweet and we had a terrific pet-oriented chat. Listen by clicking here or right-click here to download the show and hear it whenever you want.

Also, subscribe to the show at iTunes by going here.

The Petcast Is LIVE Saturday 9-11 am PT with Paula Poundstone!

Emily and I are recording four new episodes of "The Petcast" Saturday 9-11 am PT. Join us in the chat and listen live at LVRocks.Com.

Here's the line-up:

9 am: Comic and cat enthusiast Paula Poundstone
9:30 am: A woman from the World Canine Freestyle Org (a group that dances with their dogs.)
10 am: Bird fan Amy of Grits to Glitz on the dead birds in Emily's neighborhood
10:30 am: A guinea pig expert

Plus, the latest in pet news and personal chit-chat.

These shows won't be posted as podcasts until early June, so hear them now or catch them later at ThePetcast.com