In the Spirit of Las Vegas

Two Streets, 160 Pages

This blog goes to lots of places but usually keeps its Las Vegas and timely events theme. Las Vegas has become a haven for not only gamblers, those who love entertainment, fun seekers, and shoppers. In 1980 I attended the grand opening of the Fashion Show Mall. Anchored by Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom, Nieman Marcus, and Robinsons, it was a shoppers paradise like none other in our town. Since that time its next door neighbor, the Frontier, has become rubble, Across the street the Desert Inn disappeared and was replaced by Wynn Las Vegas, caddy corner the Sands was literally blown away and replaced by the Venetian, and on the remaining corner the Mirage replaced the Castaways and a few years later the Mirage parking lot gave way to Treasure Island (TI). Throughout the Fashion Show changed her clothes regularly to keep up with the times and she remains as glamorous as she ever was.

Last night while attending a function at Nieman Marcus inside the Fashion Show I picked up Jen Worthington's new book, In the Spirit of Las Vegas." Its 160 pages present an overview of the birth and growth of the Valley of the Dollars both with text and photos. The author follows a time line from the earliest settlers in the valley to the boom of the downtown area and subsequent booms both in downtown Glitter Gulch and later on the Strip. The photos range from nostalgic to avant guard and include several classics including the famous "floating craps game" photo in the Sands swimming pool. The book is a good read for locals as well as tourists as well as a feast for the eyes.

Las Vegas is often considered a town without history, save Ben "Bugsy" Siegel whose legendary building of the Flamingo Hotel and his subsequent demise as the result of cost overruns and the hotels poor performance after its grand opening. But many gems of history exist. An early example is the Hollywood power couple of Rex Bell and Clara Bow who bout a ranch in Searchlight, a slice of desert in the farthest southern corner of the state. They had a son, Rex Bell, Jr, who grew up to be a Notre Dame football player and booster of the UNLV athletic program as well as the local District Attorney. The little village of Searchlight must have had something in its water because it spawned other prominent Las Vegans including a poor kid who literally fought his way through college (as a boxer) to become a local politician and the go on to Washington to become one of the country's most powerful senators - Majority leader Harry Reid.

Not all prominent Las Vegans were home grown. Steve Wynn parlayed a leveraged grub stake to buy the faded downtown Golden Nugget which he rebuilt into a downtown gem, sold it, and with creative financing built the Mirage then the TI, the Bellagio, and finally Wynn Las Vegas. Kirk Kirkorian has his fingerprint on several Strip hotels and of course the Howard Hughes story is legendary. Las Vegas has been described in various ways, some accurate, some not. But Jen Worthington got it right when she described it as, "The spectacle of brilliance and innovation."

A little traveling music maestro.... how about "Viva Las Vegas."

Dr. Forgot

Send Immigrants Back

Charges of Racism

Immigration problems exist in Las Vegas as in many parts of the United States but some of the local natives recently spoke out passionately at a rally. The feds were called in and patiently listened to all arguments. They got an earful. More than 200 people attended the rally and it was clear that the locals had made their voices heard - immigrants are causing problems now and have been causing problems for decades in the area. Charges of racism and the government's right to make decisions in the matter were discussed but the message rang clear - "those people came here uninvited, many illegally, and they continue to cause problems." Now they are trying to use the federal government to force their right to be here and enjoy the kinds of activities to which they feel entitled. One of the leaders even accused the others of racism.

The setting for this rally was of course Las Vegas and the topic was whether or not the federal government should be permitted to bury some 77,000 tons of nuclear waste deep underground in Yucca Mountain, just north of Las Vegas. The immigrants who want to place the poison near the Valley of the Dollars are people who have come from other places with their nuclear waste. They want to use Nevada and Yucca Mountain as a garbage dump but many locals are fighting the move. Among them are the real locals - members of the Western Shoshone Nation who have lived in the area long before the white, black, brown, and yellow immigrants arrived in the desert.

The Western Shoshone were not asked to provide input on the proposed dump site and that caused their leader to hurl angry words at the planners.Western Shoshone Nation Council member Ian Zabarte spoke, "Transportation of waste to Yucca Mountain would place a disproportionate burden on the Western Shoshone Nation. It is environmental racism."

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman countered claims that the waste material was not harmful. "If it is as safe as we're told it is, let it stay where it presently exists."

Nuclear waste is generated from a number of sources. In the process of making nuclear power and military applications, toxic waste is created. The federal government has proposed dumping all that waste in a big hole in the ground dug under Yucca Mountain. The current administration has been trying to bulldoze this plan through since they first got into office but Nevadans have been able to stave off their efforts thus far. Perhaps the theory is that Nevada is mostly desert so it must be wasteland. Perhaps they feel that since LAs Vegas has neon glowing all night, another glow from Yucca will complement the view. Whatever the logic of the Beltway Boys, Nevada's native sons and daughters will continue the fight to keep the nation's toxic trash at arms length.. A little blogging music maestro.... how about "Light My Fire."

Dr. Forgot

Stand Up and Be Counted

Millions, Billions, Zillions

Las Vegas is growing up, out, and every other way. When I arrived in our fair city in the 1960s vestiges of the mob still operated in the town (which many old timers will tell you was not all bad), rain was rare but gully washers (floods after summer rains) were common occurrence when the 3.75" annual rainfall fell, and the two tallest structures were probably the Mint downtown and the Dunes, both of which boasted "Top of the ..." restaurants. A sign at the city limits announced the population as 152,000.

Let me clarify that when locals say Las Vegas they usually mean greater Las Vegas which includes Clark County. Few non-Vegans realize that the city of Las Vegas ends before the Strip begins. The Sahara Hotel, which is the first hotel on the "Strip" actually resides not in the city of Las Vegas but in Clark County. Although the city has grown over the years in size, county commissioners have strongly resisted the city's entreaties to merge the two entities. In the early 1970s Las Vegas City Police which sported fancy blue and white cruisers merged with the County Sheriff police force to become Las Vegas Metropolitan police and adopted their more traditional black and white prowlers. City and county fire departments remain independent.

Greater Las Vegas includes the cities of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson, Boulder City, Mesquite, and several smaller villages as well as plenty of unincorporated land. Why the geography lesson? Greater Las Vegas reached a milestone of surpassing 2,000,000 residents. As recently as 1980 the area boasted only a half million permanent residents.

Consistent growth has mixed blessings. The good news is that since 1981 the economy has been in a growth mode every year. That means more taxes paid and lots of people making lots of money while other parts of the country saw slowdowns. The bad news is the infra structure that has struggled to keep up and outguess where development would take place. But it is fascinating to track the growth of the Las Vegas Strip hotels. Before the area reached the one million mark the Mirage opened (1989) followed by Excalibur (1990), Luxor, Treasure Island and MGM Grand (1993).

The boom continued with the opening of the Monte Carlo (1996), New York New York (1997) Mandalay Bay, Paris, and The Venetian (1999) and the Wynn (2005). They built it and they did come - not only tourists (39 million last year alone) but those who came for work and did not leave. Each new hotel room that was built brought seven new jobs and 14 new residents. The pace made Las Vegas the fastest growing area in the nation 19 out of the past 20 years.

Other facts and changes include the billions of dollars put it into flood control to tame the gully washers, usually successfully, two billion dollars to build 285 miles of pipeline to bring more water to the valley, five billion dollars to build streets and highways, and opening the equivalent of one new school each month over the past couple of decades. Locals used to describe Las Vegas as, "Big city, small town." Much of that has changed since more than 50% of todays population did not live here thirteen years ago.

Entertainment on the Strip has changed too. Live music in showrooms is pretty much gone, a victim of cutbacks, name entertainers have given way to variety shows, and Lido, perhaps the variety show that started it all in the 1950s is gone as its host hotel the Stardust - which is now all dust awaiting a new even more grand edifice to replace it.

The rate of growth might have changed and some housing might be overpriced at the moment, but latest reports say that new residents still arrive at a rate of 5,000 per month. You've gotta love it. How about a little blogging music maestro.... how about "Runaway."

Dr. Forgot

Leaded? Unleaded? Bull Chip

Gaming May Be Hazardous

Anybody who has seen The Godfather or any of its 2,000 sequels, or anybody who has watched Tony Soprano knows what happens to guys who welsh on their gambling debts. Their lives become, well, hazardous. You know, a guy named Guido or Jelly, or Fatso, or some other musical sounding name either beats the poor sap to a pulp or worse. Those kinds of retributions, so we are told, only happen in the movies but now gamblers have one more thing to worry about - tainted chips.

Years ago some bright entrepreneur had a brilliant idea to make potato chips in Las Vegas and call them "Vegas Chips." They weren't bad as potato chips go but they must not have been that good either because the company went belly up. No horses head, no kiss on the cheek, just poor business practices. Still those aren't the chips that we refer to here. According to an Arizona reporter, there might be gold in them thar hills in Arizona and silver in Nevada mines, but dad gummit, there's lead in the gaming chips. And we're not just talking any old tiddly-wink chips here but the Paulson chips made by Gaming Partners International, the largest chip makers in the world. Their chips might not be as well known as those once made by Famous Amos, but they are used as a means of exchange in virtually every casino in Nevada and most outside the state, not to mention home games and others. Up to 20 million chips are minted each year according to the report.

Word has spread through the gossip channels faster than a 777 jackpot. Some dealers are reportedly terrified that they have been handling lead tainted chips for years. Could this be a plot to get the lead back to China by sending leaded chips to Asian casinos? Could it be the beginning of a new advertising plan by the group that brought us "What Happens in Las Vegas....?" How about "Better Red than Lead." Or could this be all just part of the plan to frighten American citizens take our minds off Iraq?Yes, exposing the public to unhealthy levels of lead is serious, but we have seen so many Chicken Little "The Sky is Falling" instances that we can't help being a bit skeptical. Gaming Partners International denies that its products are unsafe and experts say the chances of being harmed by handling leaded chips is remote. Whether the response is the beginning of damage control or the real deal remains to be seen, but to some dealers and their union reps, company responses are going over like a lead balloon.

Just exactly what components are mixed to make the chips is as closely guarded secret as the Nieman Marcus chocolate chip cookie recipe. While most in the casino business admit to some lead in the chips, they say that the amount of lead in the secret ingredients has been reduced substantially. Still the two sides are like two chips passing in the night.

If you want to make a safe wager, bet on the fact that gaming will continue, chips will continue to be used, and some hillbilly in Mississippi will find a lawyer willing to sue the chip makers for millions. But I don't see this as a storyline for a Julia Roberts movie. Gaming Partners International will continue to be a blue chip stock, and the debate will cause no harm to the Chippendales. A little blogging music maestro... remember "Chip, chip chipping away?"

Dr. Forgot

We Got Class

What's a Little Plaza Among Friends?

The 1950s were idyllic years. I remember delivering papers when I saw the headline that screen idol James Dean had been killed in while racing his sports car in California. Some time later I remember following the exploits of James Starkweather and his 14-year old girlfriend as they ran from police after murdering hr parents. The third big shock to my tender young idyllic mind was watching the movie, "In Cold Blood," made after Truman Capote's spine tingling story about Kansas killers. For some reason I was so fascinated that the killers were caught in Las Vegas during a routine traffic stop on Fremont Street near the train Depot.

When I first arrived in Las Vegas in the 1960s I remember the Union Pacific railway station at the top of Fremont Street in downtown Glitter Gulch. A circular driveway stood before the entrance of the depot encircling a lawn where both locals and tourists stopped to rest between gambling gambols or enjoying a 25-cent shrimp cocktail in the hotel just across the street. Many is the afternoon that I sat there and imagined how the two killers were captured just a block or two away.

Some time afterward the old train depot was demolished, a precursor to how we deal with our history in Las Vegas. The train depot was moved a block or so to the south and merged with the Greyhound bus depot. In the vacated land was build a brand new hotel called the Union Plaza, preserving part of the Union Pacific name. Inside the hotel was a 50,000 watt radio station as well as a restaurant which overlooked Fremont Street and Glitter Gulch. It was a grand hotel by downtown Las Vegas standards. The hotel was sold to to a local casino owner and re-branded as the Las Vegas Plaza. It has stayed as such for the past couple of decades even though ownership has changed hands.

Fast forward to Las Vegas present. As many easterners have done in the past, Donald Trump has discovered us and has begun to build, as has ex-frau Ivana. Owners of New York's famous Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue have also decided to follow Horace Greely's advice and go west. They found a little patch of dirt in Las Vegas that suited them and promptly paid more than one billion (with a B) dollars for land that can only grow crops that are green and made of paper. Then the New Yorkers put forth their planned $ 5 billion resort - the Plaza Las Vegas Resort. Whoops.

A dispute over the name "Plaza" is festering. Unlike the fellow named Howard Johnson who was enjoined by the hotel chain from using his own name on his own planned hotel marquis, Plaza Las Vegas argues that it has had a long and proud history and that the bully boys from the city that began as New Amsterdam (yup, that was the original name of New York) cannot just come in waving their 5 billion smackeroos and demand naming rights. The plan is just too uppity.

Ok, let's face it. The Las Vegas Plaza is.... well, say Roseann Barr with visitors who live in trailers and the New York Plaza is.... ok, say Angelina Jolie but without adopted children. Owners of the New York joint want the case heard in federal court. The locals want it heard locally. But name changes happen all the time - the old Castaways became the Mirage. The Dunes became Bellagio. Sands became Venetian, Desert Inn became Wynn, the Bonanza became MGM Grand then MGM became Bally's, and the Showboat became the Castaways before it was demolished and became a pile of rubble. A little blogging music maestro.... how about a few bars from "What's Your Name?"

Dr. Forgot

Las Vegas Marathon Hero

A Hop Skip and a Jump

Where else but Las Vegas would 18,000 people show up to take off most of their clothes and run around early on a Sunday morning in December? Where else but Las Vegas would showgirls wearing more clothes than runners, hand out free drinks to people racing by? Where else but Las Vegas would 150 couples say their wedding vows while running 26 miles? And where else but Las Vegas would a Russian woman win $ 45,000 without first having pulled a slot machine handle? The 2007 Las Vegas Marathon has run its course and been put to bed until it will be revived next December.

President Bush and Vladimir Putin might be at odds over world affairs but Las Vegas showed the best kind of détente when Russian distance runner Silviya Skvortsova ran away with all honors including a heads up victory over her male competition. I'm not sure how much $ 45,000 is in rubles but no doubt it will spend like new money in the old Soviet Union. Aside from the money, why anybody would want to run a marathon is all Greek to me. My version of exercise is pushing the remote often enough to channel surf.

Admittedly Las Vegas is better known for its smilers than for its milers, but as in every event brought to our fair city the marathon was done with Las Vegas style and panache. With more Elvises per square mile than anywhere else on Earth, disappearing tigers, Blue Men, swooners, crooners, and even a few mooners, Las Vegas put its unique stamp on the Marathon.

On this day, however, there was one hero that was pretty much overlooked. Four years ago a couple of durggies who had allegedly been duped over the sale of some snow sought retribution. They knocked on the trailer door of the salesperson but only an 10 year old girl and her younger sister were inside. The druggies tricked the kids into opening the door and proceeded to stab both children viciously. The younger child died from her wounds but the 10 year old fought off death like the hero she is.

The injuries did take their toll though on Britteney. Paralyzed from the waist down she will be wheelchair bound for life. While adults all felt sorry for her, Britteney decided to get on with her young life and make the most of the hand dealt to her. She became an honor student and active in school activities. About three years ago she began to compete in wheelchair races and at age 15 she entered this year's Las Vegas Half Marathon wheelchair division. Oh yes, she not only completed the race, she won her division. Nobody who knew her seemed surprised.

The marathon was again a success. How about a little traveling music maestro.... let me think..... ok, "Hail to the Victors."

Dr. Forgot

Las Vegas Marathon

No Streaking on the Strip

The 2007 Las Vegas Marathon is scheduled to be run and walked Sunday. The weather promises to be cold, which is a relative term. The low 60s might feel a bit chilly if you live in San Diego, but downright pleasant if you hail from New England. But if you are one of the 18,000 or so who traveled to the Valley of the Dollars for the weekend in order to run, I hope you have a good time. A marathon is way too much exercise for me.

The Boston marathon is famous, as is the New York City Marathon. Las Vegas is small change by their standards, but Las Vegas has its unique marathon features. The race is kicked off with the help of a fireworks display and 4,000 volunteers line the 26 mile route to hand out water, render first aid and provide what ever it is marathon runners need. Several entertainers will take part in the run including members of the Blue Man Group as well as cast members from the many Circus de Soliel shows and other dancers and performers.

That got me to thinking. Is there a marathon in Boise? And if so do the runners include potatoes? What about the Boston marathon? Are runners fed baked beans for energy and additional speed? Ok, let's not go there. But what about Washington D.C.? Do politicians run for more than just election results? And how can they run 26 miles with their hands in their own pockets when they are so used to having them in the pockets of the public? Does the Pittsburgh marathon require runners to have steel-toed shoes?

The Las Vegas Marathon will start and end on the Strip but it will begin at 6 a.m. when most serious gamblers and partiers will jest be getting to bed. The famous Las Vegas Strip will be closed to auto traffic for most of the race so the drunks will have to find another venue to run into each other.

Runners come from around the world. Some are actually professionals whose job it is to run marathons. The winner can benefit more than by hitting three sevens on a quarter slot machine. Last year's winner ran away with $ 65,000. Not bad for a quick 26 mile jog. Of course, the other 17,999 people who don't win the race get to soak their bunions in hot water after the race. But at least they can catch a few shows and maybe hit a jackpot or two. A little marathon music maestro.... how about "I'm walking to New Orleans."

Dr. Forgot