News Flash (?): Hans Klok Is Gay

Brava to Erica Grimaldo and the crew at Q Vegas for insisting on asking Hans Klok about his sexual orientation, which produced the news-breaking cover story in which he comes out. And shame on the handlers who forced him into the closet and a pretend romance with Pamela Anderson. (Note: You have to download the PDF of the issue to read the story.)

I'm going to opine in depth on this in my Weekly column next week, so I'll hold off until then. But this is a fascinating textbook case of too many cooks in the kitchen. Had Hans Klok burst into town as an openly gay headliner and Pam had played the campy fag hag that she is, the entire tone of the media surrounding him would've been different and a certain loyalty would've been earned about an important constituency.

Not, of course, that it would've saved a bad show. But when you read Erica's story and realize what kind of foolishness went on surrounding this matter, you'll realize that someone didn't get the memo that out gay performers are IN. Sheesh.

Butterfingers: It's What's For Dinner

So we bought sacks of Starbursts, Butterfingers, Take Five and Kitkats and we had a grand total of six groups of kids go ding-dong. So guess what I ate for dinner!!!

What'd you give out? Did anyone come by for Halloween?

When sycophancy becomes idiocity

I like Carrot Top well enough. He was an affable guest on "The Strip" back in 2005 and I gave his show at Luxor a respectable B- in my book, "Gay Vegas." It's not brain surgery but he's likeable and he tries so hard you have to give him props.

But.

Do you recall a number of months ago, I wrote about a fellow named Michael Politz, who runs Las Vegas Food & Beverage Magazine and has a blog called The Vegas Eye?

Well, Mr. Politz's insistence on sucking up to his favorites has now made him seem even more ridiculous than he already did. Today he not only called Carrot Top the "best show on the Strip," but he claimed it's sold out six months in advance. (I'm including a screen shot because Mr. Politz is known for removing stuff and claiming it never existed.)

That, my friends, is not only false but silly. There is no such thing as that kind of advance booking in Las Vegas. I can't imagine what Politz was thinking and I imagine Mr. Top himself would be embarrassed by such a claim.

See to your left. You can buy tickets to his show any day you'd like. And you should. It's a fun time.

OK, Geeks: Does This Make Any Sense?

I asked today for a specific explanation for the computer mess at seven MGM Mirage properties last week. Yvette Monet, one of the spokeswomen, wrote me this response:

Our guest reservation system is now fully operational with no outages. We determined the source of the dormant “bug” to be within the Microsoft Windows 2003 operating system and a patch has been applied. The cause, or the “trigger” of the bug is still being investigated.

I'm not enough of a geek to know if it makes any logical sense or not. Anyone?

The Strip is LIVE tonight with BONNIE TYLER

Come join us as always tonight at about 7:05 p.m. for an hour of rollicking and occasionally obscene fun (aka the Miles-curses drinking game) as we record this week's episode of "The Strip." Our guest is Bonnie Tyler, who's got a greatest-hits record out and a concert in Vegas this month.

Plus, more on the MGM Mirage mess, McCarran's growing pains, Steve Wynn sort of offends the Chinese, street closures for O.J. and much more.

Join us at LVRocks.Com or wait till Thursday to grab the podcast!

P.S. Who knew Tyler looked so much like Baby Spice?

Weird, Erroneous LV Sun Report on MGM mess

Liz Benston and the Las Vegas Sun are usually a lot better than this.

On Friday, she had this short report about the MGM Mirage computer mess. It implied that the mess was over by Tuesday (it was not, as evidenced by postings here) and had a really strange line about how lucky MGM Mirage was not to have had these problems over a weekend when there's a Jimmy Buffett concert.

It's a weird comment in part because MGM Grand was not one of the affected properties (the much-smaller Signature at MGM Grand was) and, also, as one of my front-desk sources chuckled, "What, do Jimmy Buffett concerts sell out 5,000-room hotels?"

But, more importantly, it continues to downplay this event, which caused disruptions for thousands and cost the company millions in lost business and comps.

Sheldon Adelson's Response

On Sunday, the R-J published this response by Sheldon Adelson to an attack by Review-Journal Editor Thomas Mitchell and the general topic of why he continues to press his libel suit against bankrupted columnist John L. Smith.

Read it here. I'm very curious your reaction. I'll comment on it later, after I hear what y'all think.