Manilow To Open At Paris On V-Day Weekend?

The official announcement just came that Barry Manilow's tenure at the Hilton ends Dec. 30. KVBC's Alicia Jacobs had reported as much last month and I had already Tweeted on Oct. 1 that I had confirmed that Manilow was in talks with Paris LV to move over there.

While the Paris folks have been coy because negotiations are ongoing, I now can report that Manilow has hired a new show director and is gunning for a Valentine's Day weekend 2010. Nothing's set in stone and no contracts have been signed, but the pieces are clearly falling into place.

How big, and how much, is CityCenter?

Sorry to revisit stuff we've covered before here, but I was struck this morning once again by the fact that the media is all over the place with the price of CityCenter. Howard Stutz in the Review-Journal refers to it as a $9.1 billion project, but Liz Benston and Lisa Mascaro, both of the Las Vegas Sun, put the figure at $8.7 billion in different stories.

Benston's piece even includes this explanation:

Dubai World says at the time of the joint venture agreement, MGM Mirage estimated CityCenter would cost $7.5 billion. MGM Mirage has since increased that estimate by about $1.2 billion, with further increases likely despite recent moves to scale back some aspects of CityCenter, the lawsuit says.

So I wrote to Alan Feldman, MGM Mirage's spokesman. As recently as Jan. 8, he told VegasHappensHere.Com: "The safest apples-to-apples would be our previously stated $9.2b less the just announced $600m in savings" from shortening The Harmon. I asked at the time if that meant $8.6 billion was the current figure and Feldman said yes.

Well, that was two months ago. Today, inquiring about who's right now, Feldman replied via e-mail: "The Sun is correct. $8.7 total, $1.2 of which we are hoping to finance."

Okey dokey, then, although the Sun and Feldman can't both be correct because the Sun was operating off of figures given to Dubai in 2007 and Feldman said two months ago that the figure was $9.2 billion less $600 million. See how this can make you crazy? And this is a PUBLICLY traded company!

To Feldman's credit, back in January he did offer this caveat: "This is a number that you need to understand is moving. We continue to bid stuff, we continue to get new pricing. We talk about these numbers as if they're fixed but they're really not."

I am not casting aspersions on Stutz or any other reporter here, so please don't take it that way. These numbers change by the week or month. It's dizzying. Especially when you receive two newspapers in one every morning and the same thicket of newsprint offers different numbers. So the best I can suggest is that journalists, every single time they write about this project, ask Feldman what the current figure is.

MEANWHILE, how BIG is CityCenter? Well, in April 2007, VegasHappensHere.Com puzzled over that, too. Different reports had it at 76, 66, or 67 acres. MGM Mirage's original literature when the project was announced said 66 acres, a New York Times reporter called it 67 acres and other media were using 76 acres.

At that point, Feldman responded: "Please use 76. There's some technical debate internally, but 76 is in use far and wide and it's not inaccurate."

Okey dokey again. But then I noticed recently that the press was using 67 acres and the signage at the condo-sales kiosk for CityCenter at the Mirage said 67 acres, too. So today I asked again. Feldman's response: "Acreage: 67 acres."

Well, where'd the other 9 acres go?

"I believe some land was transferred to Monte Carlo for a parking garage."

Must be some parking garage at 9 acres. I pressed Feldman to explain further and he said he didn't have the time. I suggested holding off on this post until tomorrow if it would make a difference. He said it would not.

So there you have it. Make of that what you will. What I make of it is that numbers are very loosey goosey in this project so critical to the welfare of Nevada that U.S. senators need to get involved in to saving it even as MGM Mirage also insists it is totally capable of paying to finish construction so chill out, Mr. Dubai Dudes and Mr. Wall Street Dudes.

No wonder, then, Dubai is so uncomfortable. None of the numbers MGM Mirage provide ever come with comprehensive explanations. The 10,000 employees that CityCenter will hire? Who knows if that's a real figure, either?

Chips Ahoy!

(Note: Click on all pix to make them bigger.)

I wrote this piece for Sunday's Chicago Tribune on the big chip collectors confab in Vegas, which was terrific fun to cover. I went in thinking, "These people are gonna be nuts" and I left totally getting it. In fact, I'm going to edit down a charming interview I did with a couple of these folks and put it out on "The Strip" podcast feed as an extra. Here are some pix of the intriguing non-chip stuff people brought to show, trade and sell.



I also, of course, bought a little something. OK, two things. The first is this fantastic music box (pictured below) from the 1991 opening of the Stardust tower. It even plays "Stardust."

I grabbed it for my mom, who collects music boxes, but I think I may keep it. The amazing part was that the seller had wanted to sell it for $25 and started a silent auction with bidding beginning at $5. It was too silent. When I came along his deadline had passed and he let me have it for $5!!!


My other treasure was a June 1955 Life Magazine that is constantly referenced whenever people ask if Vegas is hitting its outer limits of growth. The main art is of a Moulin Rouge showgirl but in the upper right corner of the cover was the headline "Las Vegas - Is Boom Overextended?" That was 52 years ago. The guy had five of them, each going for $25. I bought three, including one for the LVRocks.Com studio and one for an as-yet-determined friend or professional contact. I'll sit down to read the stories later and let you know what I uncover.

The Strip is LIVE tonight w/the shocking Amazing Johnathan

Join us for the live show at LVRocks.Com at 7:05 pm tonight for a shocking interview with The Amazing Johnathan in which he takes on some of his competing Strip magicians, among other startlingly frank observations!

Plus, news from Vegas, the tourist tip, letters, the poll and a new trivia question.

Catch it live or pick up the podcast on Thursday. Either way, see you soon.

Revisiting WHHSH

I thought you all got sick of my ranting over misuses and overuses of WHHSH (that's What Happens Here Stays Here for new readers), so I laid off it for a while. Now I'm back with a vengeance because people keep sending me stuff and I keep meaning to post it.

To wit, here are the three worst offenders:

WHHSH: The Movie. No, really. Amy of the Grits To Glitz Podcast pointed this one out today. Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz will star in "What Happens in Vegas," described by the Hollywood Reporter thus: "Following a night of debauchery in Vegas, two strangers (Diaz and Kutcher) discover they have gotten married and one of them wins a huge jackpot with the other's quarter. In trying to determine the rightful beneficiary of the winnings, the duo embarks on a series of plots to undermine the other, falling in love along the way." Isn't Diaz a little young for Ashton?

WHHSH: The Lawsuit. Miles caught this one. A girl and her grandparents are suing the Chicago Board of Ed because a substitute teacher showed "Brokeback Mountain" in an 8th grade class and knew she shouldn't and now the little girl is afraid of camping with Jake Gyllenhaal, I think. How do we know the teacher knew better? According to the lawsuit, she told a student to shut the door and said, "What happens in Ms. Buford's class stays in Ms. Buford's class." Ms. Buford should be sued just for saying such a thing. Oh, wait. She kinda was. Justice!

WHHSH, The Hack's Crutch. Gregory of the Anything SF podcast pointed out this one. The sheriff and undersheriff in San Mateo, Calif., were arrested in a prostitution sting in Las Vegas in late April. It's a sensationally tawdry tale and the cops' denials are painful and silly, but San Francisco Chronicle scribe John Cote deserves to be jailed, too, for beginning his juicy story with: "What happens in Vegas doesn't necessarily stay in Vegas after all."

Any others out there?

WHHSH Violator No. 1 on "The Strip" LIVE tonight!

OK, he's not a violator. In fact, Jeff Candido and his co-writer Jason Hoff are probably the only ones who can legitimately claim to have used the "What Happens Here Stays Here" thing the "right" way since back in 2002, when they were young pups at R&R Partners in Vegas. (See my Boston Globe piece about them at the time.) Candido went on to a job with Arnold Worldwide, a very large East Coast ad agency.

Candido will join us at about 7:45 pm PT to discuss how WHHSH has affected him and why he supports our efforts to use it, uh, correctly.

Join us in the live chat at LVRocks.Com by clicking "CAM & CHAT" starting at 7 pm. We'll also have comic Joe Piscopo live at about 7:15 pm. Plus, the trivia question, a new poll and, as always, the Top Secret Tourist Tip of the Week. If you miss it, of course, the podcast will be up later tonight as always. Subscribe to it in iTunes or in Yahoo.

New Podcast Posted: Nicholas Pileggi

My New York Times interview with Nicholas Pileggi, from which I used just two sentences in my Tuesday story on the Stardust implosion, was aired in full tonight on the show, with a few interesting revelations including that he plans to write a book about former Clark County Sheriff Floyd Lamb.

Hear the new show here!

Also, vote in the new poll or answer the trivia question to win fabulous prizes! Or learn how German listener Thomas W suggests doing Vegas on $100 a day. It's all here.

Hey, Sweetheart, Git Me Some Wings!

KVBC's terrific Denise Rosch did this hilarious piece this week about the El Cortez offering a fancy tableside or slotside food service so gamblers don't have to get up off their asses to eat OR play.

The guy into the wings is just a scream. Find it here.

The Stardust and 9/11 - a connection???

Oh, dear. I have been proved wrong. In my interview with Stardust imploder Mark Loizeaux aired on a special edition of "The Strip" earlier this week, he made reference to being constantly accused of being part of a gov't conspiracy, that he frequently gets attacked as the agent of the gov't who brought down the World Trade Center and Murrah federal building in OK City.

I didn't quite believe him. Seemed far-fetched. And then some nutjob left this comment as a response to my Stardust piece and photo-video package that was posted on Wired News late yesterday:

Now this was an obvious controlled demolition. I've seen this on the news at a different angle where the lighting was better but still in this video you can see at the bottom left side of the building blowouts or "Squibs" from taking out the building's colums from inside. This is what needs to happen so that structure can collapse. Does this remind anyone of anything? Perhaps ummm The WTC twin towers 1 and 2? If you don't believe me there is plenty of video footage of these blowouts or the technical term, "squibs" from both Towers when they were collapsing as well. Don't think I'm just making this up, see for yourself. Go find the Network footage on the internet with these things in there. -- Ed

I'm not even sure how to respond. I invite you to do so.

Catching up...

The Stardust thing took a massive bite out of me, but I've rested up and finished a pretty cool piece for a lawyer magazine on Bob Faiss, the father of Nevada gaming law. He's really an interesting and super-nice guy -- and the inspiration for this week's trivia question at TheStripPodcast.Com -- and what I love most is that he lives in Boulder City. You know, the only city in Nevada where gambling is illegal.

Anyhow, those who listen to "The Strip" know I have a love-hate relationship with the Review-Journal. I worked there for three years in the 1990s, which was the happiest time in my career as a full-time employee. And many of the reporters there are friends and they do the best they can with the limited vision and resources they are provided.

BUT... the features section is a disgrace. They seem to try their level best to bore the crap out of everyone, with some minor exceptions, which must be a challenge in a city like, uh, VEGAS. Entertainment scribe Mike Weatherford is excellent and unmissable and Corey Levitan's schtick as a stooge working odd jobs is wearing thin but I admire his pluck and I'm delighted the R-J is doing ANYTHING multimedia since I'm told the editors nixed the idea of political reporters doing blogs.

Still, I was reminded AGAIN how silly the section is by this bizarre piece by John Pryzbys (who shares my birthday, so he can't be all bad) from Monday's paper about SHARING A FRIDGE AT WORK. Can you imagine the incident at the R-J that spawned this brilliant idea?

The other baffling thing is a recent Sunday addition called "Strip Tips" in which they give away such important Vegas tourist secrets as, uh, that there's some little water show in front of the Bellagio. No, really. I can't find the link right now, but, wow.

Our Stardust Video

Here's the first version of our Stardust footage. We'll have a full-fledged version with an interview with the Echelon CEO later today in the podcast feed. Thanks to the brilliant Mark Vavrick for capturing this for us!

Bye, Cough, Bye

Wow. So the thing comes down faster than I can even watch it and the next thing you know, we're in post-9/11 NYC without all the death and destruction. Everyone is getting caked with debris, the fireworks show is canceled due to everyone trying to get the hell out of the way. Somehow, through all that, the Wynn sign still glowed.

Here's my New York Times piece on the event and, below, my favorite pic:



Among the oddest parts of the thing was the Boyd grandsons pushing the lever. Aside from the fact that none of these kids look alike (see below), there was a granddaughter in the crowd. She was only acknowledged because Bill Boyd's remarks turned out to be about five minutes too short. Odd, no?

More to come, including video. The full photo gallery is up so go check it out.

Is the Sahara next?

I just posted a new, special edition of The Strip, a brief interview with Controlled Demolition Inc owner Mark Loizeaux, who also knocked down everything from the Dunes in 1993 to the Wynn parking garage last week.

He has some interesting comments about what's next and what he's been asked to assess.

Listen to it HERE.

Funny, because the voting on TheStripPodcast.Com poll this week so far indicates most folks think the Frontier's next to go. He doesn't even mention it, I don 't think.

Stay tuned for Stardust implosion video.

Exclusive: See the fireworks plans for Stardust Implosion

Check it out -- the actual PDF document of the plans for the fireworks and light show at the Stardust-turned-Echelon Place site!

It's here.

What do you think of what you see?

Exclusive pre-implosion Stardust pix

OK... let's get this blog started off right - with an EXCLUSIVE.

Yesterday I got to tour the carcass of the Stardust in advance of the impending implosion slated for sometime in the next few days. I've posted loads of pictures here for all to see. And yes, I got a souvenir - two pieces of glass shards, one orange and one blue. Plus, I learned that the foundations of Strip hotels are sprinkled with poker chips when they're wet during construction -- for luck. When they buildings come down, the demolition team always finds that.

Also...if you really really want to know when it'll be, there's a clue in some of the pictures.

This is my favorite one...