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MITCH IN VEGAS
30 August 2005
My friend Mitch rolled into town from Los Angeles Saturday afternoon. Mitch is a filmmaker, graduate of AFI, who somehow
ended up running the Palm Springs Film Festival for a while and now works as a festival consultant, traveling all over the
world for the job.
He is also a wicked, wicked man -- I had forgotten what a bad influence he can be.
We hit the ground running -- with drinks and some tasty appetizers at the Pink Taco, in the Hard Rock. Later we headed
downtown for some fine prime beef at Binion's Ranch Steakhouse, which is a good place to start off a trip to Vegas, because
of the view, which gives you a sense of the mystery of the town, phantom lights in the middle of a desert.
We walked over to the El Cortez and played some roulette. I had a bit of luck, Mitch not very much -- and Mitch suddenly
decided he'd like to play some poker. Mitch had played poker before but never Texas Hold-'em, the only game going at the
El just then. I gave him a fifteen-minute crash-course introduction to the game and he sat down happily.
I was very impressed by this. Playing poker in any Vegas card room is intimidating -- playing a new game in one is rather
rash. But Mitch pulled it off with great aplomb -- winning some big hands, losing a lot of smaller ones. We played until
the sun came up and our financial resources were exhausted. I lost about $80 in about four hours -- which seemed to go by
in 15 minutes.
We managed to find a taxi and make it home in the gorgeous morning light.
When my hangover had subsided sufficiently the next afternoon we went over to New York New York and got some tickets to the
Cirque du Soleil show "Zumanity" -- sort of a combo sex-show/circus. We had some beers and some fried clams sitting
at a table on a replica of a West Village street. Mitch and I have spent a lot of time in the real New York, so this was
doubly surreal -- like being on the set of a low-budget movie of our lives.
"Zumanity" was cool. The theater lobby is themed -- with tiny peep holes in padded walls through which you
can watch erotic images. In the bathroom, a sound system pipes in low voices that seem to be whispering some sort of ecstatic
sexual monologue in your ear.
Once you're seated in the theater -- also themed, with a big apron stage that juts out from the main proscenium stage
-- characters from the show start insinuating themselves into the audience and putting on various lewd displays for the patrons,
with various lewd suggestions thrown in for good measure. This is climaxed by two hefty but cute twins who move through the
audience offering strawberries from big trays. They were delicious.
Then the show starts. There's a crossing-dressing MC who guides one through the various acts, but Mitch and I both agreed
that some semblance of a narrative thread would have been more satisfying.
Two lovely female Asian acrobats cavort with each other in a big transparent bowl full of water. Aerialists fly above
the audience on ropes and cloth ribbons. A ribald comedienne discusses fake breasts -- while exposing her own real ones.
A topless ballerina dances -- a bunch of hunks act out a homoerotic prison scene.
My favorite moment happened when two statuesque dancers holding helium-filled balloons released them, and the balloons,
attached to their filmy gowns, lifted the gowns into the air, leaving them mostly naked.
It was an experience, with lots of thrilling moments, in the Cirque du Soleil style -- but not, in the end, a great piece
of theater. It was just a very stylish and sometimes brilliant revue.
We then headed to the Voodoo Cafe at the top of the Rio, fifty stories up, for some food. The Cajun-Caribbean cuisine was
good but not spectacular and the service was just so-so -- always shocking in an upscale Vegas restaurant.
We then walked up to the very top of the Rio, to check out the Voodoo Lounge. This was once a very trendy joint but has
fallen from grace with the Vegas hipsters. The crowd on this night could have come from New Jersey -- except for random gangs
of girls, presumably attracted to the Rio by its courting of bachelorette groups. (It has added a wing with a Chippendale's
theater to this end.)
These gangs of girls were drunk and wild and off in a girlworld all their own. Guys are sometimes used as props in this
world. An adorable young thing named Danielle, in town from Dallas on a bachelorette spree, came and asked if she could sit
next to me. I said sure. She draped herself more or less on top of me and announced that she wanted to dance. I tried to
explain that I didn't really know how to dance and in any case didn't want to, but it was like trying to reason with hurricane
Katrina. We danced and it was fun. She introduced me to her friend at the bar, who was wearing a tiara and lots of Lifesavers
taped to her skimpy black dress. Her name was Candy.
When I finally got Danielle's permission to go sit down again, Candy came over, wrapped her legs around me and gave me
a modest little lap dance, as we discussed her personal opinions of the live band performing at the moment. It was hard to
talk to these women, because they were so drunk, and tempting as it was to whisk them off to some more exciting club I don't
imagine that either of them were much more than 45 minutes from passing out or barfing.
We watched them direct their sirens' song to other more encouraging guys with a mixture of regret and relief.
Still, it was nice to play a modest role in their night of dissipation. They seemed as vehement and fierce and independent,
in their way, as Jane Eyre -- they were like some kind of primitive female force given free rein to be itself.
The view from the Rio terrace is awesome, but it didn't divert us for long -- we went off in search of a poker game.
This took a while to track down. The Gold Coast, next to the Rio, had a non-smoking room. The smoking room at Arizona Charlie's
was dead -- no action at all.
We ended up back at the El Cortez, where we again spun out our buy-ins most agreeably until dawn -- and this time I ended
$24 up. I felt like a million bucks.
Mitch had to leave the next evening, so we contented ourselves on Monday with a visit to Red Rock Canyon, where we contemplated
our sins amidst the severe scenery. Then we had a splendid meal at Panevino -- a spectacular restaurant at the far edge of
the McCarran Airport runways. There, in a retro-Populuxe dining room, that looks like a set from a James Bond film, but a
bit classier, you can see the lights of the Strip in the distance come on at twilight and watch planes take off on the runways
in startling numbers.
It's all most surreal and romantic -- in a way only Vegas can be. I missed Danielle and Candy then.
Mitch headed back to his responsibilities in Los Angeles and I crashed. Too much fun, too fast -- which is what Las Vegas
is all about.
"Y'all come back, now!"
KID VEGAS
Part Six
22 August 2005
On their sixth day in Vegas I abandoned the Rossis to go see the Hopkins-Taylor fight at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
(A report on the match can be found in the Fists Of Fury boxing section.) The Rossis took the opportunity to revisit Caesars
Palace -- the first of several returns to the casino resort, which was much enjoyed by Harry and Nora.
The next day we all visited the Hard Rock. It was late afternoon and the place was swarming with tipsy young people who'd
attended the weekly pool party called Rehab. The girls were in various stages of undress, many wearing only tiny bikinis
as they stumbled about looking for more fun or a place to collapse. Nora found their brazenness intriguing -- as did I.
We wended our way through the mayhem checking out the rock memorabilia.
We had a terrific meal at the Pink Taco, which concluded with fried ice cream -- surprisingly tasty. Nora got a cool
Pink Taco T-shirt and Harry got a Maraca. Harry and Nora rated the Hard Rock scene at 10 (out of 10) on the cool-fun scale.
Nora rated the Pink Taco at 10 and Harry rated it at 9.8 (because we had to wait a while to get a table.)
PODCASTING
18 August 2005
"Businessweek" recently reported that podcasting is taking off at a faster rate than any other new Internet
technology ever has -- largely as a result of its incorporation on Apple's iTunes, which makes it very easy to search for
and subscribe to podcasts. It also reports that major media players like Disney are jumping on the bandwagon and that independent
podcasters are already facing the danger of getting lost in the Shuffle, so to speak.
A podcast, for those who don't know, is an audio program in MP3 format which can be downloaded and played on your computer
or iPod. You can download individual episodes or subscribe to the program and let an application like iTunes automatically
download new episodes for you as they become available.
The independent podcasts are fascinating but very few of them are worth listening to on a regular basis. The best of
them offer a window into some exotic realm. Four of my favorites at the moment are:
Card Club On Lord Admiral Radio
A very good podcast on the subject of poker.
Planet Japan
A survey of Japanese culture from the viewpoint of two Americans living in Japan.
Podcast Princess
A witty and unvarnished report from a place even stranger than Japan -- teenworld -- by actual teen Kristina Summerfrost.
(Kristina is trying to collect e-mails from all 50 states and abroad, so if you live in a weird place like Nevada, send her
a message -- she'll give you a shout out on her program, as she did me . . . "What happens around Lloyd," she said,
"stays around Lloyd.")
Podfinder
A weekly survey of new and mostly independent podcasts.
Clicking on the names of the podcasts will take you to their respective web sites -- all of them can also be accessed
via iTunes by searching for their names in the Podcast Directory and then clicking on the subscribe button.
KID VEGAS
Part Five
12 August 2005
The Rossis' fifth day in Las Vegas coincided with the final day of this year's World Series Of Poker. The early stages
of the competition took place at the Rio but moved downtown to Binion's, where the Series originated, for the final two days
of the main event, the no-limit Texas Hold-'em tournament. Rights to the World Series Of Poker were bought last year by Harrah's,
which owns the Rio, and Binion's has in any case outgrown the massive phenomenon the Series has become. This would be the
last time any of it would be held at the venerable downtown casino.
The Rossis and I headed downtown to check out the scene and participate in a bit of history. We first dined at Binion's
Ranch Steakhouse. Of the seven Vegas steakhouses I've checked out so far -- the others being A. J.'s at the Hardrock, N9NE
at the Palms, The Steakhouse at Circus Circus, The Golden Steer and Del Frisco's Double Eagle -- the one at Binion's is certainly
the best, with a great old-fashioned atmosphere, a great view and the most perfectly aged prime beef. (The Golden Steer,
the oldest of the bunch, dating back to Rat-Pack-era days, rivals it for atmosphere and charm.)
Harry, a steak aficionado, rated the Binion's New York strip the best steak he'd ever had, and both he and Nora rated
the restaurant at 10 (out of 10) on the cool-fun scale.
After dinner we checked out the Fremont Street Experience and then went up to the second floor at Binion's where the final
table of the Hold-'em tournament was just getting going. There was at least a two-hour wait for general spectators to get
into Benny's Bullpen, the room where the action was going down, but we could peek through the door at the island of TV lights
over the green felt at the center of attention, and almost as soon as we arrived one of the first players to get knocked out
walked past us. He didn't look too upset -- he'd won over a million dollars just by making the final table. There were a
lot of famous poker players milling about -- we saw Phil Helmuth and Jennifer Harman, among others.
We soaked in the scene and then headed home -- the champion wouldn't be crowned until around six the next morning, as
it turned out. But it was a fine thing to have been present for the Series's last night at Binion's, and it will be fun to
watch the play going on in Benny's Bullpen when ESPN broadcasts its coverage of the event.
Harry and Nora rated the overall downtown experience at 10 on the cool-fun scale. Below is a picture of the carpet outside
the Bullpen, with the edges of Nora's and my shoes barely visible. We were there!
D BAR J
8 August 2005
For the past decade or more the best Western hats have been made by the D Bar J hat company, located in Las Vegas. I
bought my first one about ten years ago on the advice of my pal and riding partner Kevin Jarre. It was Kevin's version of
the old Stetson "Boss Of the Plains", the most popular hat on the frontier in the second half of the 19th Century.
Kevin likes a wider brim than the "Boss" sported originally, and I must say his version is a handsome thing.
When I moved to Las Vegas I decided the time had come to order a second hat from the venerable company. This time I decided
I wanted a high-crowned hat similar to the one Hopalong Cassidy wore in his movies -- a style popular among screen cowboys,
like Tom Mix, throughout the Twenties and Thirties.
D Bar J hats are handmade, and the new one took about three months to get finished. I picked it up a couple of weeks
ago and have been reluctant to take it off ever since. I'm pictured above wearing the hat out at Red Rock Canyon but I wear
it everywhere in Las Vegas. It elicits startled or curious looks, and sometimes smiles, from strangers, but not, generally,
any second glances. Two people have asked me, covetously, where I got it. This is Las Vegas, and the West, after all.
The only person who has felt moved to comment on it was a check-out clerk at the trendy Whole Foods Market in the planned
community of Summerlin, a yuppie haven out on the west side of town. He praised it extravagantly and said he wished he had
the nerve to wear a hat like it. Summerlin is not Las Vegas, or the West.
D Bar J's founder and hat-maker recently sold the company to a party in Texas, moved from his storefront in the Chinatown
Mall to a new facility, still under construction, in a large garage in the northeast part of town, where he will continue
his work under a different company name.
I'll report later on his continued adventures in the hat trade, and on the next hat I plan to order -- a copy of Buster
Keaton's porkpie.
Meanwhile, for purists, the new hat in black and white:
KID VEGAS
Part Four (Fight Night)
6 August 2005
On the Rossis' fourth day in Vegas I decided to take Harry to see his first prize fight -- to instill in him a higher
appreciation of the manly virtues. (There were no girl fights on the card of the exhibition we attended, so I was unable
to instill a corresponding appreciation of the womanly virtues.)
We went to see a highly-touted bout between Kassim Ouma and Roman Karmazin, in which Ouma was expected to fulfill the
extravagant claims of his promoter Oscar De La Hoya -- namely, that Ouma was on his way to becoming the next big boxing superstar.
It didn't work out quite that way.
Harry wasn't sure what to expect of prize fighting and worried a bit that there might be disturbing amounts of blood on
display, but in the event we just saw a series of clean knock-outs and stoppages on the undercard, and Harry found the whole
spectacle of the thing intriguing.
All of us visited the Orleans, where the fight was to take place, in the late afternoon to pick up some tickets and to
dine at Big Al's Oyster Bar there. We got great seats and had some fine eats. Harry devoured two orders of steamed clams
-- his favorite seafood. Then we spent some time at the Orleans amusement arcade, next to the multiplex cinema.
Harry and Nora had a blast there. They rated the Orleans, and Big Al's in particular, at 10 (out of 10) on the cool-fun
scale.
Lee and Nora went home and Harry and I headed off to the Orleans Arena for the fights.
The main event turned out to be a shocking upset for the hot prospect Ouma. He entered the ring smiling goofily for some
reason and never seemed to be in the fight at all. (There were reports afterwards that he was suffering from a serious case
of the flu.) His opponent, an awkward Russian fighter, beat him up pretty thoroughly and won an easy decision -- taking away
Ouma's IBF junior middleweight championship belt.
Harry appreciated the drama involved in the challenger's unexpected victory.
He rated the live boxing experience at 9.9 on the cool-fun scale. It fell just short of perfection for him because so
many of the undercard fights ended in the early rounds and didn't give him enough time to study the sweet science as carefully
as he would have liked.
VON STROHEIM'S PROFLIGACY, VON STROHEIM'S GENIUS
4 August 2005
When Erich Von Stroheim was supervising the construction of the Monte Carlo sets for "Foolish Wives" (1922)
on the Universal lot, he insisted that a series of large, genuine plate glass windows be installed in the Cafe de Paris facade
so that he could film in them the reflection of the facade of the building opposite.
The windows cost $12,000 -- an enormous sum at the time. But as Von Stroheim biographer Richard Koszarski points out,
the effect of the reflections remains startling, if subtle -- it creates the illusion of a whole real world, including buildings
BEHIND the audience. It is an effect beyond the means of any theater, and purely cinematic.
It is also emblematic of Von Stroheim's vision of cinema -- radical for its time. Koszarski supplies us with a quote
from Jean Renoir which sums up this vision eloquently.
Renoir said he saw "Foolish Wives" at least ten times, and that it was this film which inspired him to dedicate
his life to filmmaking. Renoir said that the film impressed him with "the possibility of creating within a film a world
that might differ greatly from reality but still would be experienced as having a wholeness and coherence like that of the
world we live in."
All great directors from Griffith onwards have at least intuited this fundamental and unique essence of the film medium,
but Von Stroheim was the first to use it consciously as the basic organizing principle of his style.
It's almost impossible to overestimate the importance of Von Stroheim's creative insight to the art and subsequent history
of film. Without it, just for starters, Jean Renoir might have decided to go into some other line of work.
KID VEGAS
Part Three
1 August 2005
On their third day in Vegas the Rossis and I had a late lunch at the Rainforest Cafe in the MGM Grand. The Rainforest
Cafe is part of a national chain of kid-friendly restaurants with spectacular tropical jungle decor, including animatronic
animals and regular thunder and lightning displays.
It's not cheap and the food and service are barely adequate by Vegas standards -- but Harry and Nora loved it to distraction.
They ordered the "volcano" dessert -- a mountain of fudge enclosing tons of vanilla ice cream, which is delivered
to the table with a sparkler burning on top as all the waiters cry out "Volcano!"
They rated the experience at 10 (out of 10) on the cool-fun scale.
Afterwards we went to see the lion habitat at the MGM, featuring descendants of Leo the MGM lion. There you get to walk
through a plexiglas tunnel on top of which lions are sleeping, inches from your head. It's somewhat unnerving. Harry and
Nora had their picture taken with a lion cub.
Nora rated the lion experience at 10 on the cool-fun scale -- Harry at 9.5. Harry thought it was cool and fun but not quite
as cool and fun as other Vegas attractions.
Then we moved on to some real big-time fun -- Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum at the Venetian.
This was a real hoot for all concerned.
All the dummies are arranged for interactive photo ops. Here, Nora cavorts in bed with Hugh Heffner:
Harry joins the pro golf tour:
I pose with Evander Holyfield:
My sister Lee marries George Cluny:
Harry and Nora rated the wax museum at 10 on the cool-fun scale -- emphatically.
We ended our visit to the Venetian with a gondola ride through the Grand Canal Shoppes.
This also rated a 10 from Harry and Nora. The gondolier sang us an Italian song as part of the experience. He was a real
Italian who'd moved to Vegas with the promise of a job at the Venetian when it opened six years ago.
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