The Movable Buffet

Dispatches from Las Vegas
by Richard Abowitz

Category: April 2007

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Klok loses Carmen gains Pamela

April 30, 2007 | 10:30 am

I am sorry to be so slow with this report on last week's press conference at Planet Hollywood/Aladdin about the replacement for Carmen Electra in Hans Klok's "Beauty of Magic." As I am sure you've heard by now the lucky lady is Pam Anderson. This all happened so quickly that walking to the press conference I noticed a promotional banner with Electra was still hanging.

Pam Anderson is certainly a fame upgrade from Carmen Electra. But I still have real doubts about the chances for this production. This was especially true after seeing a horrible video clip offered at the press conference of Klok's show. The look and feel was just like flashing back to 1989 and watching young Siegfried: from the choreography, to the staged box tricks to the haircut. But with Hans Klok there is no Roy and no white tigers and, seemingly, nothing at all original or distinguishing. At least, so far. Not that Vegas requires originality. Hardly. But a winning Vegas show does demand you imitate something that is successful now and not recreate something that was hot decades ago. Vegas changes quickly. Even guessing what will be hot in the future doesn't work in Vegas unless you have a lot of money to lose while waiting for the future. More than most places, timing is everything in Las Vegas. There is no room for error on either side. So, Klok may learn that it has been a long time since tourists in Las Vegas enjoyed this style of cheesy, stage prop driven, heavily choreographed magic.

It isn't impossible for Klok. Right now, Lance Burton is a headliner able to pull this sort of magic show off full time on the Strip. (But I think Burton's show is the exception that proves the rule, and Burton's show is really one you can take the kids to.) Also, Pam Anderson has charisma and fame that will help Klok's show get attention, at first. But there is only so much magic the magician's assistant can do for a show's attendance numbers. And, I saw nothing in the preview video or in the couple simple tricks Klok did to expect that he is going to excite an audience away from Burton, let alone really hot shows like Penn & Teller. (And, let's not forget, over at the Luxor, Cirque is working with Criss Angel on an upcoming show.)

This all leads to the most depressing moment at the press conference: a mom held her kid up on her shoulder to see, describing Pamela Anderson to the child as "the older blond lady." But there was truth in that, too and it is the same truth, obsolescence, that runs through the entire feeling that this show is giving off. One final problem for Klok: the competition isn't even very far away; magician Steve Wyrick offers a new show at the mall attached to the resort.

(photo by Sarah Gerke)

How big is MGM's City Center?

April 30, 2007 | 9:40 am

I just discovered the blog by local journalist Steve Friess who, among much else, does many of Newsweek's Las Vegas articles. I am hooked. On Friday, Friess focused a paragraph of intelligence on what should be a simple question about City Center, the MGM project that is being called the world's most expensive privately funded construction effort. How big is it? According to all of the information I originally got from MGM (and reported in the press) the construction project was 66 acres. But Friess points out The New York Times in an April 24 article referred to City Center as 67 acres. Finally, a spokesperson for the company tells Friess this masterpiece of confusion (and, yet a third number) from MGM: "Please use 76. There is some technical debate internally, but 76 is in use far and wide and it's not inaccurate." This is now the official "not inaccurate" number on the City Center site, too.

The truth about celebrity wrangling

April 27, 2007 | 10:11 am

A few people have suggested I read Blender magazine's May 2007 Vegas package. I finally got a copy last night. Of special note is "Rent a star" by Michael Joseph Gross, an article about the fight for celebrities between the various resort nightclubs. I recommend the story highly for the interviews with some key players on the nightclub scene on a topic that very few people in Vegas (in a position to know) are willing to talk about: paying celebrities to come and play.

Digression: Vegas is very good at controlling the view of national media (and, I am sure, often, my own). The resorts create a massive illusion meant to blind people briefly to both their problems at home and, perhaps, more to the point, to things like the laws of chance. Reporters, in general, can become as taken (in all ways) with Vegas as anyone else. But there is another difference that the current of money flowing through Vegas makes. Unlike some other entertainment industry towns (like Hollywood or New York publishing), even the people at the very, very bottom of the food chain (the lowliest assistants) at a Vegas resort eat well. No one a reporter is likely to encounter is ever going to risk a job by talking about an employer off message in any way. This town presents a very united front that way. The traditional rule of thumb from the resort perspective: if they have a message to get out they can buy advertising. Reporter access has always been seen in Vegas as very discretionary. Back in the day, if the reporter was totally unknown by people in Vegas, the story was often deemed by resort marketing as too risky to allow any access for interviews and especially to photographers (a shrewd way to try to sabotage a story from appearing). As Blender points out, George Maloof at the Palms began to change that starting in 2001. But things haven't changed that much as the fundamentals in Vegas are the same. So, really, to get the best information in Vegas, you need real interviews with actual players in town. But, of the people who matter here, those with a tendency towards too much candor, well, those people quickly decide not to talk to the press.

Now, back to the article in Blender. One of those people in a position to know the secrets of Vegas by any stretch is Steve Davidovici, a partner in Pure Management Group (Pure, Tangerine, etc.). My hats off to Gross for getting an interview with him. That could not have been easy. Stevie D., as he is known, is both a creative visionary and also very much a detail driven and hand's on nightclub operator. He also has no interest in talking to the press. Here is my Stevie D. anecdote. A few years ago, I started out on a behind-the-scenes story on the opening of a nightclub at a resort. The story didn't wind up going very far.

Wherefore art thou Jenna!

April 26, 2007 | 11:03 am

The stick that is Jenna Jameson was with friends at Pure Tuesday night. I think the picture says it all.

(photo courtesy of Pure)

Teller tells of Zero Gravity

April 26, 2007 | 6:37 am

Yesterday on the front page of the Review-Journal was a photo of Teller (of Penn & Teller) floating in a space suit. Even in Las Vegas, flying headliners are not normally in the headlines. But Teller had just taken the Zero Gravity flight, the latest attempt to package and bring to Las Vegas tourists (who can afford it) the most extraordinary of experiences. I called over to Penn & Teller's office to talk to Teller about his trip and bellow is his account of being in a 727 that is maneuvering so as to defeat gravity and create, briefly, for its passengers the feeling of simulated space travel. So, here are the words of Teller, who onstage does not speak, but in reality is one of the two most articulate headliners in Las Vegas (the other being his partner Penn), describing the experience:

"I've been acquainted for several years with the guys who are putting this project together. Some of the guys originally came out of NASA. In fact, when they were at the very beginning of experimenting with this, they took Penn up on a trip with Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top). What I heard is that Penn stripped totally naked and vomited into his own hair. That seems like the natural thing to do. That is no longer part of their program. It is actually a very clean cut program right now with everyone in cool official looking space jump suits and a very official briefing. Also, there is a light breakfast; so that you will have the right amount in your stomach and not be inclined to throw up in your own hair. And, indeed, while I was up there no one did.

You hop on a bus and they take you out there and they have an aircraft that looks like the aircraft you could dream of. The plane is like a tubular gymnasium. It is padded all around. There are a couple of windows, but those are very small. There are airplane seats at one end. The entire time I was thinking this is such a wonderful good time, how did they ever get this by the FAA? Of course, they have been working on this for 10 years. But what they got from the FAA is a 100 mile long and ten mile wide corridor to run the plane. I am in awe of their ability to navigate government bureaucracy. But you still go through a TSA screening on your way on. It killed me to see TSA people wanding down heads of casinos and newspaper owners like somehow a terrorist could slip onto such a flight. This is really for people with the money and the enthusiasm, who want to float around like they dreamed of when they were kids.

Magician makes Carmen Electra disappear?

April 25, 2007 | 6:37 pm

It looks like German magician Hans Klok's upcoming show "The Beauty of Magic" is going to have a new beauty. Recent rumors (reported on the Buffet)suggested that issues between Electra (the celebrity) and Klok (the ostensible star) had resulted in a delay of the show. Now, comes a late afternoon announcement of a press conference scheduled for tomorrow to announce a new celebrity to join Klok. Electra's name appears nowhere in the announcement and I have confirmed that Carmen Electra is no longer performing in "The Beauty of Magic."

Correction: Hans Klok is Dutch not German.

(Photo by Sarah Gerke)

A massage, just a massage.

April 25, 2007 | 5:46 pm

I asked Jennifer Whitehair, the senior online editor for the popular tourist site Vegas.com (owned by the same parent company as Las Vegas Weekly, where I am on staff), how to get a late night massage in Las Vegas that is a legitimate massage. Here is her answer:

"Many hotel spas (For example The Spa at Wynn Las Vegas) offer in-room massages. You can call the hotel spa directly using your room phone or any house phone. You can also call the hotel's concierge desk. The concierge can help you make reservations. However, most hotel spa facilities close between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. at night. For an in-room, after hours massage or other spa service, contact your hotel concierge. The concierge will know if the hotel spa offers after hours services. They can also tell you if the hotel has contracted with any other Las Vegas company to provide in-room massages and spa services."

This and other conversations today have led me to think that in Las Vegas you would generally do best to check with a hotel concierge or spa rather than asking a taxi or limo driver where to go; that is, if you are looking for a massage that is meant only to be a professional massage.

More on Operation Doll House

April 25, 2007 | 9:32 am

Operation Doll House continues to generate tremendous local interest. The raid on Saturday night was part of a two year investigation that closed a string of allegedly illegal brothels in Las Vegas utilizing, according to police, unwilling prostitutes who are victims of human trafficking. Therefore I was surprised that not a single customer was arrested. The Review-Journal interviews the district attorney on this point, about why no customers were charged in the raid, and he offers this:

"Clark County District Attorney David Roger said it would be nearly impossible for police to arrest customers who were found at a brothel, even if they admitted to what they were doing there.

'A typical solicitation (charge) involves an undercover detective who has direct communication with the alleged suspect,' Roger said, explaining that prosecutors need that direct line of evidence to nail down a conviction. 'There is no such evidence when you go into a place like this (a brothel) and find a male and some prostitutes.'"

Can that be true? A male is found with a bunch of prostitutes in an area which is described elsewhere in the Review-Journal's story as containing: "four beds, four TVs, a bulk order of 1,000 condoms and eight gallons of lubricant." And, in this hypothetical the man even admits to police what he is doing there. You still could not charge him in Las Vegas? Or, is it that juries here won't convict him? I am going to make some calls on this to the DA and local defense attorneys today and see if I can get some clarification.

Anyway, if the police really believe these women have been victims of human trafficking and forced into prostitution, it seems to me, that charging some of the customers that flow money into that system would be appropriate. It was, after all, a two year investigation; so, I assume all sorts of evidence against regular customers and others should have been obtainable to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

One side issue: I am curious about (and anyone with information please e-mail me) how hard it is to get a legitimate massage in Las Vegas late on a Saturday night? I called over to the Mirage spa to see if a customer could schedule or request a massage on a Saturday night. I was told the spa closes at 9 PM and there was no other service available after that. I then called the Mirage concierge desk to ask if there was anyway they could arrange a legitimate massage late on Saturday night and was told that there was nothing they knew to do.

California sheriff at Vegas brothel?

April 24, 2007 | 4:04 pm

One of the more disturbing stories in Las Vegas right now is Operation Doll House. As reported in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, this is the name given to a police and FBI investigation and raid that has resulted in 8 arrests at 8 alleged brothels and the rescuing of 25 women who apparently were being forced to work as prostitutes in an organization tied to what the authorities have so far only identified as Asian organized crime. No customers were apparently charged in the raid. So, one fact omitted from local coverage was that both the sheriff of San Mateo County and his undersheriff were found by police and questioned in the Saturday night raid. They were not arrested. According to San Francisco Chronicle, Sheriff Munks offered this explanation for his late night presence at a brothel that apparently billed itself with the usual code of massage parlor:

"Munks called the incident a 'personal embarrassment' and apologized today to sheriff's officials, the county and his family for his 'lack of personal judgment.'

'I believed I was going to a legitimate business,' Munks said, reading from a written statement. 'It was not.'

Munks said he and Bolanos were both questioned by authorities and released. Bolanos was still outside the establishment when it was raided, Munks said.

'I would not, nor did I, break any laws,' Munks said. 'Neither did the undersheriff.'

He declined to answer questions."

I bet he did. Come on! This crime fighter allegedly goes to a massage parlor near the Strip on Saturday night and he expects, what, a massage?

Greening of Las Vegas?

April 24, 2007 | 2:51 pm

Megaresorts in Las Vegas by their very nature are wasteful things. Why would you build something like Mandalay Bay or Bellagio in a desert where all of the building materials (not to mention the fish and other fresh food on the menus at all of those fancy restaurants in the finished resorts) has to be imported?

Yet, the arrival of Earth Day on Sunday caused me to wonder if there has been any greening trend in Las Vegas. Gathering any information in Las Vegas takes time. So, far I have heard back from contacts at MGM-Mirage and am waiting to hear back from Harrah's and Wynn. From what I learned at MGM so far (more coming), particularly for the massive currently being built, Project City Center, (billed as the most expensive private construction effort ever) the resorts have been putting far more thought into this issue than I expected.

MGM-Mirage is actually pursing a LEED certification for Project CityCenter and has the Strip's only water recycling plant at TI, which processes 100,000 gallons of gray water from TI and The Mirage daily. The recycled water is then used in the Sirens Cove at TI, at the Volcano at The Mirage, and for landscaping purposes. Also, the company just converted a bunch of its parking decks at various hotels to low diode-emitting lights, for what I am told, is a tremendous amount of energy saving.

This may not seem like a lot to you in LA but in Las Vegas recycling is still not commonly practiced among citizens (myself included), and it is interesting to see that MGM-Mirage's basic approach in that sense is more environmentally aware than much of the community here.

(Photo by Sarah Gerke)

Dispatches from Las Vegas by Richard Abowitz

Dispatches from Las Vegas
by Richard Abowitz