Oh Danny, You Kidder You

Danny Gans has a new photo for his billboards and taxi ads. Danny Gans is at least 45 years old, based on his Web bio, which claims he spent 15 years on the road before he settled in Vegas in 1995. Danny Gans does not presently look like the photo to your left. Danny Gans presently looks like the photo to your right, which was taken in February by Ethan Miller of Getty Images.

See, they're different. But I won't go so far as to say it's a lack of truth in advertising. If anything, it shows that Danny Gans' image, just like his act, is obviously stuck in the '90s.

Sunday At The Trop Pool With Jamie

It was much too hot Sunday to do anything other than swim, but where to go? My 16-y/o Little Brother Jamie and I weren't in the mood to rub elbows with the neighbors in the unremarkable pools at either of our complexes, what with the Las Vegas Strip just up the way. And thanks to one of our most celebrated past journalistic collaborations, we know the ins and outs of every pool of any importance in Vegas, and the Tropicana is the best unguarded option. The Flamingo is also pretty good and usually easy to enter, but they do occasionally have guards asking for ID and we just weren't in the mood, the high being 108 and all, to do battle.

Amusingly (see pic above right), the Trop now has a sign we hadn't ever noticed before warning us to "be prepared to show Hotel I.D." We never saw a suspicious soul again. What's more, they provided towels!

Tropicana, why do we love thee? Well, for starters, unlike most pools on the Strip, it's more than three feet deep. The crowds tend to be lighter, especially on hot Sunday afternoons, and that pounding 20-foot waterfall (see beyond Jamie's shoulder) always feels so nice. The Trop also seemed to have a fair mix of young hotties and unappealing oldsters rather than one or the other, which always makes people like us feel out of place. (...since crashing the pool of a hotel we're not staying at never bothers us much for some reason.) I will say, however, that the guy to Jamie's left in the waterfall shot had piercings in both nipples and a colorful Speedo, both inappropriate for someone on the far side of his flabby forties.

I was a little surprised by one thing: The swim-up blackjack tables indicated you can't play unless you're a hotel guest. That seemed to fly in the face of recent information we'd heard that the very presence of gaming means that the pool must be in some way open to at least the gambling public. On the other hand, I wonder how they could handle people's money in the pool, so I wonder if I had gone inside the casino and gotten some chips, would that have covered me? But what is the policy, that's what I need to find out.

OK. I was surprised by two things, actually. Wi-Fi at the pool is a good idea. Wi-Fi for $14.95 is extortionist. I wonder if this is a separate fee from what a hotel guest would be charged in the rooms. Or maybe there isn't any Wi-Fi in the rooms at the Trop? Entirely possible. But still. That's probably the highest Wi-Fi fee I've ever seen anywhere.

Also, why does it look like an egg? And read that sign carefully, please. Check E-Mail! Chat With Friends! Keep In Touch With Associates! Does anyone who would possibly wish to be online by a pool really need an explanation of the thrilling benefits of the Internet! I'm a little stunned it doesn't also say, "Find a sex partner for tonight!"

The Petcast is LIVE now!

Catch us in the chatroom frm 9-11 am PT -- that's right now -- for the live taping of "The Petcast!"

Come to LVRocks.Com and click on cam/chat.

see ya!

A Vexing Bathroom Mural

My apologies for laying off the blogging since I returned to Vegas from the funeral. It's been all I could do to simply focus on getting some work done and make up financially for last week. It is the curse of the self-employed that we must worry about money during a dramatic family emergency. I'll be posting a lot this weekend to make up for it, I suspect.

ANYHOW... let's get this party restarted with a little quiz for you. Take a good look at this mural above. It's recently been painted over the toilet at ReJavaNate, the brilliant independent cafe where I do most of my writing.

Can you help me identify all the buildings? This is what I've got from left to right:

Mandalay Bay, Luxor, DON'T KNOW A, DON'T KNOW B, DON'T KNOW C, Wynn Las Vegas, DON'T KNOW D, Stratosphere. Here's a closer look:

Anyone?

"The Strip" is LIVE from 7-8 pm PT TONIGHT!

Really this time... join us for the live chat during the show at LVRocks.Com at 7 pm PT (OK, we usually don't start till 7:05 pm PT!) as we record this week's episode featuring a news-breaking interview with the iconic Donny Osmond!

Plus, news from Vegas, the trivia question, the poll and, as always, the Top Secret Tourist Tip of the Week.

See ya later!

Believe it or not...

...Miles and I are doing a live show on Tuesday night. He asked if I was up for it; I am SO ready to get back in the swing. I'll fly back to Vegas early Tuesday; the funeral was today.

So join us if you can from 7-8 pm PT on Tuesday at LVRocks.Com for the live chat and our long-awaited Donny Osmond show. We will, I'm sure, discuss my grandfather but then get back to the Vegas news and all the rest of the stuff that you all crave.

Thanks for being so supportive through all of this. I'm too exhausted right now to write about the funeral and where I'm at emotionally. But I did want to let our weekly chatters know we'll be on tomorrow night. It'll be nice to be with you all at the conclusion of this dramatic time.

R.I.P. Morris Friess, March 27, 1914-July 8, 2007

My grandfather died this morning.

Miles and I often debate euphemisms for that verb, since I'm a stickler for word economy and accuracy, and the term "passed away" always sticks in my craw. Yes, even in mourning I am a bit of a language curmudgeon.

That's him back in around 1991 with my grandmother and grandpa's sister, Aunt Sadie, browsing one of my earliest clip books. Other than me, they're all gone. And each of them died past 87 years of age.

We got the call from hospice at about 7:30 am today; it happened overnight and now my aunt is kicking herself over not staying last night. But, as I told her last night, when you're trying to go to sleep, it's easier when people aren't talking to you and the TV's not on. Grandpa wanted that peace to be on his way.

Or whatever. It's all in what you believe, what you need to believe, what makes these things seem better, more noble, more meaningful.

But now, this being a blog, I turn to a rant: AIRLINES SUCK. Bereavement fares are fictitious or, at the very least, anti-Semitic. That is, Jewish funerals are very quick affairs, no open casket and little pre-burial to-do. He died this morning, he'll be buried tomorrow at 2 pm in New York, then the weeklong period of mourning known as shiva occurs, largely a period of sitting around visiting with thoughtful relatives and friends and eating many bagels and whitefish. So, with just a few hours to arrange for Miles' crosscountry journey from Vegas to New York we discover the rates are obnoxiously high -- nothing short of $360 each way. Just too much. With the "bereavement fare" charade. I actually hung up on the reservationist for Delta, the airline of my salvation just a day earlier, when she started citing a fare of "One thousand two..." Click!

So I'll go it alone, although I'll be with my entire family. And I'll hightail it back to Vegas early Tuesday morning and Miles, who was going to visit his family in Atlanta the same day, will leave one day later so we can be together for a day. Thank goodness for Southwest Rapid Rewards tickets and the affordability and flexibility they provide.

And so it goes. I'll be giving a eulogy tomorrow for my grandfather, whom I adored and admired, on behalf of my sisters, their kids and my cousins. I'll post that later tomorrow since everyone's been so kind and since I really will want the world to know what a marvelous man Morris Friess was.