Above: The beautiful, picturesque skyline of “The District” from the 215 freeway.
Given that I had breakfast at Red Rock last weekend, we decided to go the opposite direction on Sunday morning and have breakfast at Green Valley Ranch. Also known to many of my readers simply as “suburban hell“.
Not much has changed. Henderson still sucks, and security at GVR still sucks.
I made a realization this weekend. Much like cops, the security hacks appear to have quotas.
In other words, they have to harass X number of customers per hour to prove to their superiors that they are, indeed, working.
I took pictures all over the casino, but when I snapped the shot above, a (in)security lady came up to me, and told me that I could not take pictures. I said “okay, and put my camera away”.
Then, she picked up her walkie talkie and said, “One camera warn at station number 2571″. I don’t remember the number, but it either denoted her employee number or the location of the “incident”.
Basically, every time a security person annoys someone, they proudly radio it in so that they will get credit for pissing off a customer. I guess they get a gold star or something after they annoy the hell out of a certain number of people.
I get this harassment all the time, but this was the first time I heard the formality of radioing the “kill” back to headquarters.
The other thing that surprised me about GVR this Sunday, is that it was dead. Completely dead. The entire casino.
Here was the Poker Room:
Here was the casino:
It was a relative ghost town.
Sunday mornings (around 11am) usually have some action. People checking out, getting in some last minute gaming, poker playing, or whatever.
But there was nothing.
As a matter of fact, this was not unique to GVR. The Strip was also quite dead the day before (Saturday).
In my travels in and around town, I am beginning to see a very noticeable decrease in tourists as compared to the norm.
I think the economic conditions may be a little worse than the town is letting on, and I am not sure if I believe the numbers that show only a small decline. Numbers can be made to say what you want them to say.
I would estimate that I see a good 20%-40% fewer people milling about the casino areas in town than I did at this same time last year.
The town isn’t deserted by any means, and things are still going on. But the crowds have perceptibly thinned in the last two or three weeks based on my own personal perception.
I actually ended up eating the exact same dish, at the exact same restaurant “Huevos Rancheros at the Grand Cafe” … except I ate them 20 miles apart from each other.
The food at these places is good and filling.
I took some pictures toward The Strip, but they didn’t come out well because of the nasty air quality this weekend.
There were a few yuppies hanging around The District, but even that fake place was pretty dead (not that it has ever been “alive”).
I dunno. It was an enjoyable trip. I liked the food. The casino is nice. Some of the staff sucks. I probably don’t need to elaborate more since I have already beat Henderson’s suckiness to death.
I do still hate Henderson.
Everyone does.
I mean, how could you not?
But my trip to GVR this time was slightly less annoying than it was last time.
That’s really about as positive as I am ever going to get about the place.
Yesterday, I attended the taping of the Oprah show at Caesar’s Palace, and it was an all-day affair.
I had an extra ticket, and decided to invite my friend and fellow local (and blog writer) Pam.
We walked into Caesar’s at about 11am, only to be greeted by a casino full of post-menopausal women milling about in herds, interspersed with a bevy of cross dressers … either dressed as Tina Turner or Cher.
I really stuck out like a sore thumb. There weren’t that many white dudes under 50, and excluding myself, there was exactly zero heterosexual white males under 50.
The wait in various lines was about an hour and a half in and of itself, and they made us go through metal detectors.
METAL DETECTORS!
What the bloody hell was that all about?
It was like airport security, even though Oprah had been spotted moments earlier wandering through the casino. If you are going to be walking around Caesar’s, don’t make me submit to an anal cavity search to see you in a different room.
I started making friends immediately.
At one point I pulled out my two tickets, and exclaimed to Pam, “You do realize that with these two tickets that I have here in my hand, I can get any 50 year old woman on the planet to fuck me.”
I heard one slight gasp, and turned around to find something like … ten people looking at me with utter disgust … and five people trying to suppress a laugh because the person they were with was looking at me in utter disgust.
We stood in line for what seemed like forever, and I began getting extremely annoyed. I hate waiting in lines. I began to express this to some degree. I shouted that Oprah better “Big Give” me some cocaine to make this hellish boredom tolerable. Several people laughed, several people shot me dirty looks (the alternating laughs and dirty looks are a recurrent theme). People were either laughing at me, or shooting daggers at me from their eyes throughout the entire day.
Oprah was a deity to this herd. She’s the Jesus of women. Women love Oprah. You don’t joke about Oprah. That’s tantamount to telling Texans that the Iraq war isn’t going well. It’s sacrilegious.
I then tried to amuse myself with Harpo staff.
I told one female usher that I was the illegitimate child of Oprah, and demanded to be seated immediately. We then got into a debate with some other line-standers about whether at 39, I could conceivably be a bastard child of Oprah’s. It was eventually decided that it was indeed chronologically possible, but unlikely due to our slightly dissimilar appearances.
One of the staff members was walking around with a big sign held above her head that said “Pollack Family”.
Apparently these people were VIP’s.
I loudly proclaimed to be a member of the Pollack family, and actually had the lady convinced for a few moments. However, after she figured out that I was not a “Pollack”, I began chastising her for running around with a sign promoting racial slurs. “Oh real nice, you can’t call these people by name, you have to resort to slurs. What do you have against Polish people? What’s next, are you going to run around with a sign that says ‘Jewish Family’ on it?”
Like a sore … fucking … thumb … poking out of a dead squirrel’s ass.
That’s me at an Oprah show.
Anyway, we finally got seated, and the seats were actually very good. First row of the second floor section. Maybe 10-15 rows from the stage.
Most of you have probably been to TV show tapings before, and are familiar with the ??hype man? (or woman as this case was). They come out before the show, and try to build up audience enthusiasm. More often than not, the hype man is a comedian.
I found Oprah’s ??hype woman? to be a little insulting. She coached the audience on how to cheer and when to cheer. She coached the women on how to say ??awwww? when something sweet happened, how to ??booooo? when something negative happened, how to say ??oooooooh? when something unexpected happened, etc, etc.
I’m 39 fucking years old. I know how to goddamn react. But here was this heard of ewes (female sheep) compliantly ??oooh’ing? and ??ahhhh’ing? in unison like a bunch of trained seals.
Pam and I just looked at each other in disbelief as in ??Is this shit really happening??
I give Pam a lot of shit on this site, but it’s because she is a friend and I actually respect her. I like Pam because I don’t find her repugnantly stupid. Yes, she has her moments when I re-evaluate that position … such as when she drives, or speaks, but otherwise she is very cool.
Thank god she wasn’t buying this shit any more than I was. We were the only people in the whole Colosseum who weren’t participating in this degrading clusterfuck of being told how to react. We decided that we would just go ahead and wing it with our gut reactions … confident that our decades on the planet would serve us well to react properly at the appropriate time.
Eventually Oprah unceremoniously emerged, and the crowd got excited. She talked to the large audience for a minute or two, then started the show taping.
I had never before watched Oprah’s show, and did not know what to expect. I was kind of assuming that it would be a Leno type show taping, and that the whole thing would just run in a linear manner. The Tonight show takes an hour to tape, what you see in the studio is exactly what you will see on TV the next night, and all mistakes and flops are left in.
I was actually in the audience during this taping:
Chronologically correct filming is not the case with Oprah.
The show doesn’t just flow from start to finish like the Tonight Show. There are a lot of re-takes, chops, and out-of-sequence filming.
It is produced and put together later.
If Oprah doesn’t like something, she tells the audience that it will be edited out of the show. They had to re-film parts of the interviews because someone said something they weren’t supposed to say, or because it wasn’t said or performed correctly.
I prefer Leno’s way, but whatever. It wasn’t that bad. Just different.
Tina Turner and Cher both did multiple renditions of their performances. I didn’t mind this at all, because the Tina/Cher duet of “Proud Mary” completely kicked ass each and every time. I didn’t see a flaw in any of the performances, but am glad they re-shot them.
Tina also did a searing rendition of ??Nutbush City Limits?, which tore the place up.
Tina Turner really did make this whole thing worthwhile. At 68 years old, she still rocks the mic like a demon. It’s fucking unreal. I actually want to see a full Tina show if she ever rolls through Vegas.
Cher also performed a solo song. It wasn’t quite as raw and kicking as Tina’s set, but she sounded very good.
Her song was more ??Vegas-y? with more ??show-like? choreography and dancing.
The music was the overwhelming highlight of the show. I don’t know how it will look on TV since they are going to chop it and edit it, but it was just incredible to see live.
Unfortunately, there was one thing that I really did not like about the show … and it will probably prevent me from ever becoming an Oprah fan.
Man-bashing. Oprah really eggs on the ??Women Good, Men Bad? thing, and I find it terribly annoying and disingenuous. Unfortunately the ewes in the audience, desperately looking for a shepherd, knew full well to ??boo? on cue every time Ike Turner’s name was mentioned, and even Sonny Bono to a lessor degree.
I very rarely see male celebrities go on talk shows and publicly declare what a bitch-ass whore, piece of shit shrew their former wives are/were (and let’s face it, many of their wives are) … but women really love to shit on their husbands in public. I’m not sure why. It’s a woman thing, and I would never understand it. I don’t dig it, and part of the show was devoted to the predictable ??I was a poor helpless waif until I broke free from my controlling asshole husband” routine.
The female audience eats that shit up, and they could not care less how much of it is true or false. They just like to scream ??You go girlfriend!? Women feel good when they shit on men, and love it even more when female celebrities shit on men.
Say what you want about Ike Turner. Maybe he was flawed (Aren’t we all?), maybe terribly so … but he was an incredibly gifted musician, and remains well-respected in the music community to this day. He was one of the greatest guitarists of his time, and without Ike, there would be no Tina. Ike Turner was a musical genius. Yet not even a shred of posthumous props were given to Ike.
I found it especially tasteless given his very recent passing. Talking badly about someone when they can’t defend themselves because they are dead disturbed me a little.
And I still find it nearly impossible to believe that these two ladies were perfect angels. They wanted something out of the men who brought them stardom, and when they got what they wanted, they all of a sudden stopped ??wanting to be controlled?, and booked out of there. There are two sides to every story, but women only care about one side. The woman’s side. I’m sorry, but that shows a lack of intellect and reason.
The audience boo’ed when Cher revealed that she had to pay $2 million to Sonny Bono after breaking her contractual obligations.
Well, welcome to the real world, moo-bitches. If you have a contract, you have to fulfill it or buy it out like the rest of us. As much as you think women should get a free pass to break them because ??they want to be free? (Cher’s rationale) … I just don’t think contract law should be altered to give chicks a “free out” because they ??changed their mind?. What if Sonny had broken a contract and was ordered to pay Cher $2 million? Would they have boo’ed Cher? I guarantee you that they would not have.
This is why the business world doesn’t take you seriously.
So, the male-bashing and knee-jerk reactions from the audience did annoy me.
It was a relatively brief portion of the show though, so I didn’t have to listen to it for too long.
Oprah joked with the audience about the toilets in her Caesar’s Suite, regaled us with tales about how she had been snowmobiling with Tom Cruise in Colorado the night before, and she borrowed some eyelash glue from an audience member during a break. She called the audience member ??Sisterfriend?. I shit you not. I saw a sketch on Saturday Night Live making fun of Oprah and that phrase, and thought it was an exaggeration.
It’s not.
It scared me.
Anyway, they made an ??announcement? at the taping, and we were asked not to discuss it before the show airs. When telling us about the secrecy, the hype woman said “What happens in Vegas!” … then she pointed the microphone toward the audience, and the ewes immediately shrieked “Stays in Vegas!”. My “Is treated with Penicillin!” was drowned out.
I should reveal the secret in big, bold, screaming print across the front page of this site, complete with dates, times and locations … simply because they used that tired, horrible, completely inaccurate slogan. Since they punished me by making me listen to a thousand harpies scream that shitty slogan in unison, I should punish them back.
But as usual, I will take the high road.
Given the couple thousand or so people in the audience, there is zero chance that it will stay silent. I’m sure everyone in the audience has an Internet connection to tediously research the various ways in which men are evil, and they will email the secret to every sisterfriend they know.
I don’t really think they can keep this ??secret? under their hat for long.
Hell, I had already heard the rumor before attending the show. And it’s not that big of a deal. I don’t understand why it is a “secret” in the first place.
Oh the drama.
I’ll just say that Tina Turner fans will be happy to hear the news verified on Oprah’s show , and leave it at that (no, unfortunately Turner is not doing a Vegas residency).
Anyway, all things considered, it was a mostly enjoyable experience. I try to be honest, and include the bad as well as the good, and overall it was good.
Oprah seems very nice.
I talked to one of the cameramen for a few minutes, and he told me some tales of working on the show (they tape two shows daily and only work four days a week), and told me that he loves his job because Oprah treats him well. I later offended this same cameraman by telling him that the Tina impersonator onstage probably had a larger penis than I did.
He didn’t find it funny, but I wasn’t joking.
Anyway … her people do love her, and it probably is because she really is a genuinely great person.
Harpo staff treated us well, and Caesar’s treated us well.
Oprah does a fine, entertaining show … I am simply not part of the demographic. That doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with it.
People are different.
Oprah has an audience, and she obviously serves them well. Her audience loves her and they are very loyal to her. She is successful and deserves all the accolades she gets. She has earned them.
Again, the ??Oprah, Tina, and Cher - Caesar’s Palace Las Vegas Special? airs nationally on May 8th on CBS. If you are into any of the above, it will probably be worth an hour of your time to watch it.
I have had some requests over the months about an “Awards Show”.
The problem is that the concept has been done to death, and this is the reason I have not done so to date … but a few people have convinced me that it could still be potentially interesting.
Most sites and other outlets give out “awards” simply as gimmicky, gratuitous advertising for their sites or publications to make themselves seem far more important or relevant than they really are.
Afterwards, the winners place notifications of their victory on their respective sites so that when you click the “award”, it goes to the site that gave the award … upping the “Page Rank” of said site/publication into the stratosphere. It’s also free advertising and branding for the award-giver.
Some of the Las Vegas award-givers are not even based in Las Vegas.
Most people don’t think about things in these terms (which is why it works), but it is usually why “awards” exist. Even the Grammy’s and Oscar’s are advertising and marketing vehicles.
“Awards” are an extremely well known marketing ploy, and exist solely for that reason … to give some kind of “credibility” to the entity giving the award … deserved or not.
??Awards? are also often given to entities friendly to the award-giver, for obvious reasons.
You really do have to be cynical and skeptical about everything in life, because absolutely everything has an ulterior motive. There really are few exceptions.
I try very hard to just be straight and honest (which is why I remain poor), and the skeeziness of “awards” is the whole reason I have rejected doing this from the outset.
Everyone gets incredibly excited every time the RJ releases their “Best Of” Poll, and they are interesting to a degree, but they seem a bit predictable after awhile. Or maybe they are just 100% right, I don’t know.
Yes, the Bellagio is the best hotel again. I think we all could have predicted that. It is such an overwhelmingly safe choice. Who is going to disagree with it? Even if you didn’t take a poll, you could safely report that result.
Sure, the RJ may hit the nail squarely on the head, but I also know many people who think the Bellagio is overrated.
I think a better idea would be to list the top 2 or 3 rather than stop at the #1 rankings, and give close seconds some well-deserved pub (if indeed they deserve it).
Many people who come to this site think a little “differently” (or maybe not).
Most of our people are pretty frequent Vegas visitors, with opinions of their own that aren’t fueled by groupthink (ie: Circus Circus is the worst at everything).
I was thinking of doing our own awards from our own readers, to see what places/things in town “our” people preferred. I can obviously write a routine that will screen out ballot stuffing, and other nonsense, and maybe make the thing really honest. I don’t know to what extent the other ones are rigged or easily manipulated (if at all), but I think it could be reasonably screened.
I don’t have a bias toward anything one way or the other. I could not care less who wins, loses, or comes somewhere in the middle.
This site isn’t affiliated with other sites. We have almost zero links coming either in or out.
We don’t have any sponsors or advertisers to be concerned with, and that is also fairly unusual with entities that conduct voting.
We get anywhere from 10K to 20K unique readers daily, and if I ran it for a couple of weeks, we could potentially get 50K people to vote (assuming they cared to participate).
I think that 50K is a statistically significant sample, and even though this site in and of itself is by no means important, it doesn’t mean that we could not run a completely valid reader poll, the results of which might be at least as valid as a mainstream venue’s poll.
A truly “independent” or “alternative” poll, if you will.
I think ??our people” are arguably as relevant as the mainstream readers, because a large percentage of our readers actually come here often, and will vote for things they actually personally experience on a regular basis.
It might even be a larger percentage than a mainstream site. It’s very hard to tell, but it is possible. I can’t help but think that a mainstream site’s poll isn’t stuffed by the shareholders/employees/interns of the companies that are in the running for said award. “News” is big business.
Being the site we are, I doubt that would really be an issue for us.
Do you think the Best Of/Worst Of thing has been done to death, or could it be of some mild interest since we would be getting the opinions of people who actually “get” this site to some degree?
I don’t think this will really benefit us in any way. Hopefully it will just recognize good (and bad) things. We don’t get paid for traffic, and any increase in traffic will probably cost us instead of benefit us. The people that come here, already come here. I don’t see something like this creating an artificial stampede.
Before doing it, I would kind of like some feedback.
I am going to make the polls anonymous and hidden before the results to ensure that there is no ??bandwagon effect?, in other words, the natural human tendency to vote with the crowd and/or for a winner to ensure that your vote counts despite your true opinions (see: Nearly every Presidential Election ever held).
We also want the readers to be an integral part, instead of us handing them choices they may or may not care about.
To vote on whether the Awards should take place at all, and to vote categories into the eventual ballot, please free to vote on the issue here:
Again, it reminds me a little of “Fremont East” in regards to what it is supposed to do.
Oscar is championing a new project that he swears is going to “revitalize” Downtown, and this time he really means it.
Unlike last time when he was just yanking our chain.
This new area is being called “Las Vegas’ Second Downtown”.
It’s a $6 Billion project that will sport a snazzy 60-story jewelry building, and hotel by Charlie Palmer, a casino, a bunch of residential and retail space, and a performing arts center.
It’s kind of Downtown’s answer to MGM’s “City Center”.
What is notable, though, is that much of the property will be devoted to non-entertainment ventures. There is going to be a lot of retail and trade businesses, as well as several medical offices, such as a large Alzheimer’s research center.
Is this going to “revitalize” Downtown from a tourist’s point of view?
Probably not.
Unless you have Alzheimer’s.
But for the city itself, it may turn into something.
It should be completed sometime around 2012.
That gives me a solid 4 years to make fun of it.
Seriously, the artist renderings certainly make it look potentially very cool, and it might breathe some economic life into Downtown Vegas.
Donny and Marie will take the stage at the Flamingo with a variety show.
This has been the worst kept rumor in the history of Vegas, and everyone has known it was coming for almost nine months … but now we have a date.
So right about now, everyone is expecting me to take some jabs at Donny and Marie.
But I’m not.
Well, other than wondering how they got out of the polygamist compound in Texas, I am not going to say anything negative.
Why?
Because they are actually entertaining.
When I was younger and living in D.C., my two female cousins from the sticks had a big thing for Donny Osmond.
They came to visit me one summer, and it just so happened that the Osmonds were playing the Kennedy Center during that time.
I happened to know someone who worked at the Kennedy Center, procured several tickets, and we even got a meet and greet with Donny … and my cousins went on stage for one song (where they were each given a rose by Donny).
Even during the height of his popularity, the guy couldn’t have been more pleasant.
The show was also surprisingly good. I was expecting some lip syncing cartoon type of show, but the Osmond brothers played their own instruments (”Crazy Horses” kicked some ass):
The family put on a very entertaining show.
Of course, that was nearly 30 years ago, but I was impressed with the gig.
It was a departure from what I thought it would be, and the entire family is actually extraordinarily talented. I really hope some of the other members of the Osmonds will be guests at the show.
BTW, I am also a fan of Hanson … fuck you in advance for your comments!
Anyway …
The Flamingo show is going to be a variety show of the “I’m a little bit country, I’m a little bit rock and roll” type, and while it is cheesy … Vegas is cheesy.
Anyone that comes to Vegas and complains about the cheese is as idiotic as a person that goes to Disneyland and complains about the kids.
It’s supposed to be that way. Take it for what it is, sit back, and enjoy.
