Mob Museum In The D.C. Crossfire

[Update: Norm Clarke led today's column with this very blog post and Barack Obama was asked on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos about comments in my NYT piece. The prez-to-be responded: "We don't want is this thing to be a Christmas tree loaded up with a whole bunch of pet projects that people have for their local communities."]


If you couldn't tell from this bit of screen-shot imagery...

...from this Thursday post, I was working at the time on a piece that appears in today's New York Times about the flap over whether federal stimulus money should go towards the $50 million Mob Museum planned for the old federal building in downtown Vegas. (Yes, the thing is technically called the Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, but its website URL is, in fact, TheMobMuseum.Org.) LV Mayor Oscar Goodman and others don't see why not, but both Democrats and Republicans say that's the sort of localized project that would start making the stimulus package look like a Christmas tree.

For the piece, we obtained two renderings of the museum, which is supposed to open in 2010 but for which only $15 million of the $50 million budget has been raised. In the NYT today, they published only one, so I thought I'd provide both here, courtesy of Dennis Barrie, the creative director. (Barrie also did the International Spy Museum in DC, the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland and the Woodstock Museum in upstate New York. He was also arrested for displaying those naughty Mapplethorpe pictures in the late 1980s in Cincinnati.)


In addition to that, I had one terrific quote from the mayor that I was unable to include in my story but is sure to tick off more than a few arts lovers around town. I asked him to explain how he came up with the idea for the mob museum. He noted that the deal with the federal government for the deed on the old post office and federal building, where some of the landmark Kefauver hearings took place in 1950, was that it be used for a cultural/museum attraction.

Said the Happiest Mayor Alive:

"I’m saying to myself, although my mother was a great artist, nobody’s going to come to downtown Las Vegas to look at paintings, they’re not going to look at watercolors, they're not going to look at porcelain, they’re not going to look at miniature trains. What will they look at? They’ll look at something that’s really embedded in history, that makes us unique and distinctive from any other city, that has a historical nexus, a keystone because of the Kefauver hearings, and I said, 'A mob museum!' And I think it’s a natural."

Is he right?

Bad, AOL News People

I just went to look at my e-mail and was stopped by this new headline out front on AOL's home page...


Can't see it? How about now:

And I'm like, "Whoa!" Did something break when I wasn't looking? The biggest new hotel being built on the Strip right now is either Aria or Fontainebleau. I hadn't heard of any delays in either of those.

Alas, you click on the link and it takes you to a 4-day-old Reuters story about the shorning and delays for The Harmon, which was never supposed to have more than 400 hotel rooms and had lost its 200 condo units because of construction mistakes. In fact, oddly, at 400 rooms, The Harmon actually qualifies as the SMALLEST new hotel to have been built on the Strip in as long as I can remember. Sure, it's a piece of the largest construction complex, CityCenter, but this headline is bad.

Just saying.

Way to go, Joe S

Twice in recent weeks I've fallen into reading long, really interesting and well-researched pieces in the Las Vegas Sun before pulling back to see the byline. And in both cases, the byline has belonged to none other than Joe Schoenmann, the writer whose work I have pilloried several times over the past year on this blog because of lengthy, shocking and still-unexplained corrections.

Well, it appears the Joe's gotten his mojo back. Both his piece this morning about controversy surrounding the expansion plans of this weird old bar in rural Goodsprings, Nev., and his Jan. 2 look at the fury of pet owners who can't get their animals back at the Lied Animal Shelter were first-rate and, so far as I could tell, required serious amounts of legwork. The second piece, in particular, was a topic so observant yet unexamined -- animal shelter workers can be put in harm's way by angry, emotional pet owners -- that it never even occurred to me or Emily to discuss the notion in 188 episodes of "The Petcast." Hopefully we will soon, though.

This is really, really good news. I don't know what happened to Joe to have him produce the kind of stuff that resulted in those really gruesome corrections, but I repeat what I said the very first time I had to point out problems in his coverage: Until then, he had been one of my favorite and most creative local writers and one of the few I could see giving me a serious run for my national freelancing money if he ever decided to try.

Keep it up, Joe. I would've pointed out the Lied story sooner but I usually wait until I have something to say about a few items in the media before making a post of it. Sadly, there's been so little that's really stood out to me lately. Then I find myself two weeks in a row quite impressed by a story by not just the same reporter but by the very one who has received so many barbs here. Hooray.

P.S. to the R-J: As I wrote this, I received two breaking-news Twitters to my cell phone. I'm sorry, but the fact that the AFC divisional playoff is tied at the half and the fact that UNLV and Texas Christian are playing today are not breaking news. Or news at all. Who on Bonanza Road thinks otherwise?!!?

This Week's LVW Col: One Hot Mamma!

Here's this week's heartfelt LVW "Strip Sense" column on, yes, the MM! closing. Hope you like it.

One hot 'Mamma'!

Honoring an often-mocked, but ultra-entertaining, Vegas production as it says goodbye

By STEVE FRIESS

There is a nasty rumor going around that as the last numbers began to swell through the Mandalay Bay Theater on Sunday at the final performance of Mamma Mia!, I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket to dab away some precipitation flowing from my eyes. I would like to inform everyone that I had spent the entire weekend laid up with a head cold, and there could be other explanations for why a hard-bitten journalist would need a Kleenex to regain his composure.

If that’s a non-denial denial, then it probably comes from the fact that I am in some sort of bizarre disbelief over the fact that this show is finit, that there will be no further chances to link up on the Strip with Donna and Sophie, Sophie’s three possible dads and a cast that somehow managed to make a decades-old catalog of ABBA songs into a meaningful soundtrack for my current, 21st-century life. I mean, here I am at 4 a.m. feeling the need to write about it when another perfectly good column for this week has already been in the can for days.

But, yes, it is true that I am a bit at bay. For some reason I don’t quite comprehend—it was still making money, damn you!—Mamma Mia! is gone, its last “Waterloo” gloriously and gratuitously belted by actors in bright spandex performing at the end, concert-style, the one song everyone needed to hear but nobody could figure out how to weave into the story.

I don’t often attend closings in Las Vegas, but then again the shows I love this much don’t tend either to last long enough to merit a closing of any emotional heft (Avenue Q, Madhattan) or to ever close (Mystère, Kà, Love). Siegfried & Roy never got a proper send-off, of course, because it went down amid tragedy and controversy; Wayne Newton leaves but always comes back; and I probably would’ve attended the finale of Céline Dion’s … A New Day if I hadn’t been out of town, but it wouldn’t have been the same.

And why not? Well, for one thing, I don’t worry about Céline Dion. She’s Céline Dion. She came, she conquered, she left in a shower of roses and plaudits and celebrity audience members, a red carpet and a new album and a world tour before her, not to mention a standing offer to resume making megabucks for Caesars and AEG Live whenever she deigns to return. The show-biz universe may have been skeptical at the onset that she could fill 4,000 seats a night for all those years, but she proved those skeptics wrong within the first few weeks and never looked back. Plus, if she needed a bump, she could always show up on Larry King Live.

No such luck for Mamma Mia!, which required constant love and attention to keep it noticed amid the cacophony of only-in-Vegas offerings that barrage visitors from the minute they book their rooms to the eons it takes to collect checked baggage at the airport. (As I write that, I wonder: Is there a deal with the resorts to move luggage slowly at McCarran to give advertisers around those carousels their money’s worth with a captive audience?)

Sure, the show was always mentioned—and always shall be, given its historic success—in stories about Broadway coming to the Boulevard. And it does receive due credit for having kicked off a more successful but less often noticed trend, the modern-day respect and interest by Vegas resorts in catering to female tourists after decades of this being strictly a hetero male’s fantasyland.

Yet, if Céline departed as a head of state would, Mamma Mia! went out the way it always operated.

Read the rest HERE

Somebody likes Criss Angel Believe

It's always interesting to take a look at those reviews that run dramatically contrary to the vast majority. If they're done well, you have to respect the writer, as was the case of Encore dissenter Tony Illia of CityLife, whose piece I linked to and mildly examined the other day. He gave his opinion and his reasons and you didn't have a sense that he had an axe to grind. He was just calling it as he saw it.

When it's done badly -- and especially when it's an excessively laudatory review of something that most serious critics not just didn't like but despised -- it raises questions about the writer's motivations. Certainly, there is the true possibility that someone actually loves some piece of art that nobody else enjoys. And there's a lot of joy for some reviewers in seeing their names below an advertisement blurb, so they'll corrupt their commentaries for that end. Or maybe it's something else.

Thus we come to the curious case of Travis Michael Holder who gave an off-the-charts rave review of Criss Angel Believe at the Luxor for EntertainmentToday.Com. The strangest thing about this review is that he began by essentially declaring pretty much the entire Vegas-reviewing press corps incompetent. To wit, this is the start of his second paragraph:

"[T]he reviews of Cirque du Soleil’s sixth and newest permanent Las Vegas extravaganza, Criss Angel’s Believe, which opened Halloween night at the sadly un-Egyptifying Luxor Hotel, have been decidedly mixed. For me, the problem is that most critics have forgotten to wipe away all those nasty expectations and have failed to keep that slate clear as though they’ve never seen a Cirque du Soleil production performed before."

Uh, Mr. Holder, the reviews haven't been "decidedly mixed." They've been "decidedly horrendous." Your positive review was the only one that the creators of the online Cirque-fan newsletter Fascination could find that was even remotely kind. They excerpted yours after providing links to negative reviews from the UNLV Rebel Yell, the Toronto Star, the L.A. Times,Bodog Beat and the Las Vegas Sun. And, again, Mr. Holder, if you're going to hop into the brains of all reviewers who disagree with you and explain to the world their either crooked or inept methods and motives, be prepared to hear my suspicions about yours.

In a minute, though. First, I need to show my readers what a sycophant you sound like. Here's some more of this review:

"Guaranteed, if this had been the first exposure to the continuously stellar work offered by the Cirque—or, for that matter, a first look at the individual style and signature talents of Criss Angel—those same writers would have been sufficiently awestruck."

Guaranteed!!! Here's some more:

"Angel says Believe is the culmination of a lifelong dream and frankly, I for one think he should be proud as hell for what he has accomplished along with the inimitable sanction of the Cirque’s unwavering and unrestricted support for the innovative methods its artists need to create. ... Don’t let anyone tell you different: this is a haunting one-of-a-kind production that truly defies anyone’s expectations, even the creators’ original concepts, I’m sure....[The plot leads to a] gorgeously psychedelic hallucination inhabited by demonic forest creatures of all shapes, sizes and robotic functions on a sweepingly dark and grandly atmospheric set..."

Mr. Holder has a strange theory as to why the critics AND AUDIENCES were so hard on this and it goes like this:

"This must also be the problem for a lot of patrons not in the business of writing about theatre but instead perhaps, as diehard Cirque du Soleil fans, think Angel’s in-your-face style of non-traditional roughhewn sleight-of-hand gets in the way of the company’s lyrical dreamlike splendor, while the generally rabid Angel fans must equally feel balletic rabbits and Eric Serra’s ethereal musical score have nothing to do with watching their Joe Pesci-voiced rockstar-y Goth-dripping New Yaawk-bred cult hero let himself be run over by 20-ton industrial steamrollers. See, again: if no one had any preconceptions of what to expect, I’m convinced no one would be disenchanted with Believe for a minute."

Well, ain't real life a bitch? Both Cirque and Angel have developed reputations and brands. This show fails to deliver the better sides of what either is known for. Both sides are counting on said reputation and brand to propel ticket sales. It's why they believed that people would want to come to the show and precisely how they built hype for the production. But when reviewers and fans of either don't find that which they have come for, it's not Cirque or Angel's faults. No, the whole world just doesn't get it.

Except here's the strange thing. After several paragraphs of fellatio-level praise, even Mr. Holder shows that he understands why so many people don't enjoy this production. A few lines earlier it was defying anyone's expections, something to be wholeheartedly proud of, etc. Mr. Holder is nothing if not colorful and descriptive in his account of what happens in the show.

And then, suddenly, he's being honest. Mr. Holder calls the tricks "surprisingly, all fairly standard illusions." Angel's acting needs work because he is "not yet someone who has found his sea-legs as an actor." Mr. Holder even mocks Angel's "Lon-gah Island-tinged accent" (as one who has such an accent, I must say that it's "Lon-giland") and compares it to the Tony Curtis "Yondah lies da castle of my fadda" thing.

After that, Mr. Holder returns to blowjob mode, referring ot Angel's "exceptional talents, unstoppable imagination and streetwise charisma" in concluding that Believe will someday belong in the Mystere-O pantheon.

So what's going on here? I actually do not believe that Mr. Holder was trying to get his name in a marquee. I went looking around at who Mr. Holder is. He has a website and here's his resume.

Mr. Holder is a performer, writer and artist. That resume is impressive. He's been around show business a very long time. Certainly, he's no break-out star, but anyone who has that much in his vitae deserves respect. And I suspect that Mr. Holder has been in his share of things that earned plaudits and that were viciously savaged. That's the nature of the beast with a resume that varied.

So here's my conclusion: Mr. Holder feels sorry for Criss Angel. I actually do, too, but I wouldn't allow that sympathy to cloud my recommendation about how other people should spend hundreds of dollars. But Mr. Holder didn't spend that; he was comped as most of the media is in these circumstances. Mr. Holder didn't have to take that into account that he had just spent money that could go for a few hours at the craps table or a nice dinner.

It is Mr. Holder, not the rest of the press corps, who was unable to set aside his preconceptions and biases. And his bias is towards encouraging and lauding anyone who takes the enormous risk of getting up on stage before thousands of people to entertain them. He knows how hard that is and he probably knows what it's like to be torn down by people who have never taken that chance.

But Mr. Holder also knows that this show does not achieve greatness. He admits as much when he ackowledges that the tricks are run-of-the-mill, the faux-sponaneity is jarring and the acting is lousy. It's a magic show. What's left after you run through all of that?

The Show is UP: Mamma Mia! Exit Interviews

This show was a helluva lot of fun to do. Those of you who missed the live version will have to wait till the annual August outtakes episode to hear me explode in a cursing fury at the &$*holes who do the show after us for talking loudly in the next room while we were in our closing minutes. It wasn't the first time and I was in no mood. But, hey, that's the kind of thing the live crew gets. But the podcast version is still great and you can hear it by clicking on the date below or right-click to download it and listen whenever you want. Or subscribe via iTunes here or via Zune here.

Jan. 8: Mamma Mia! Exit Interviews

The skeptics – including Steve -- said it would never work. A two-act, full-length musical scored by decades-old pop songs telling a convoluted story about parenthood and spandex could never, possibly succeed in Las Vegas. But succeed “Mamma Mia!” did, emboldening another half-dozen or so musicals to believe they, too, were Strip-worthy, only to find out that what Mamma Mia did so effortlessly was actually quite a feat. But all good things must come to an end, and on Sunday, Mandalay Bay said goodbye to Donna, Sophie, her three possible dads and the rest of the cast. We, however, aren’t done yet. Tonight we have live in the studio Brad Grey and Tim Tucker, the only two actors who stayed with the show for its entire, record-breaking Las Vegas run.

In Banter: New Year's Eve fireworks sucked, CityCenter's hiring, Stratosphere's laying off, The Harmon's in limbo, Tamara's stalled and Paris' empty showroom is a blessing.

Links:

See Tim Tucker's website here
Hear Steve euologize Mamma Mia! on KNPR by clicking here
See more on CityCenter's Harmon stall here
See rants from Fox viewers about the lousy NYE fireworks here
See the last blog post about Tamara at Venetian, now stalled, here
See more about Stratosphere's restaurant woes here

When Will Obama Be OK By MSWord?

Is it possible to teach Microsoft Word a new word? As in:


It's a very small thing, I know, but I just hate seeing that little red squiggly line under Obama. Arrgh!!! There it is again! Blogger does it too! See:

I mean, I don't get a squiggly line under Reagan or Clinton or Quayle or Kerry. I do get one under Biden. And under Kefauver. So I'm not claiming racism or partisanship here. I'm just wondering how long it will take before the 44th president of the United States is not viewed as a misspelling.

Just wondering.