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According to the porn industry website Adultfyi.com, Paris Hilton's 22nd birthday party at Bellagio apparently resulted in a special souvenir: yet another homemade sex video. This time the frisky heiress and reality television slut/star is allegedly having her way with a model identified only as Nicole. Maybe someone should have told Paris that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, unless you make a video. Ah, Paris, we continue to enjoy your 15 minutes!
Kindly show our resident Nutmeister some respect—of the congressional kind. The Library of Congress has announced the addition of 25 films to its National Film Registry—including Jerry Lewis' The Nutty Professor. (For you kiddies out there, Eddie Murphy's version was NOT the original concept.) Jer's classic was drafted alongside such other indelible films as Ben Hur, Schindler's List, Unforgiven and Popeye the Sailor Meets Sinbad the Sailor.
You read that right.
Broadway Babies Diaper Up for Vegas
Revisiting a sore spot—spelled L-A-S V-E-G-A-S—New York magazine reminded readers of their theatrical dismay in the Gotham glossy's year-end retrospective.
In a Q&A headlined "Avenue Q Took the Tony and Ran," the mag-rag chats with the Broadway hit's writer, Jeff Whitty, under the guise of Rod, the show's star puppet. Topic A is the show's vigorously campaigned-for Tony award—Broadway's ultimate honor—followed by the producers' controversial decision to skip a national tour and set up shop at Steve Wynn's upcoming Wynn Las Vegas next September, a move that enraged Great White Way cognoscenti, who financially feed off regional productions, and felt royally screwed:
NYM: What does your Vegas move mean for the future of touring companies?
Rod: While it may not be good for Peoria, it's great for actors like me who can stop living out of a Tumi bag and lay down roots in the Vegas sun.
NYM: Why Vegas?
Rod: Hello? Liberace Museum? Celine? Steve Wynn? Showgirls?! It's long been my dream to follow in the footsteps of Siegfried and Roy, but, you know, I'd gay up my act a bit.
"The days of building the Bellagios and the Wynns are over," James Murren, president and CFO of MGM Mirage told the New York Times on Sunday. Of course, Murren is one of the latest wave of visionaries who are banking on the future of hotel-condo-village-on-the-Strip as the future. Murren goes on to tell the Times that in MGM's planned CityCenter project, on 66 acres between Bellagio and Monte Carlo, "You won't see a Wal-Mart, but you will see Whole Foods." Whole Foods on the Strip? Can we get a bag of imported arugula with our foot-long margarita, please?
Well, Duh?
In a story on the County Commission's challenge of dealing with growth's impact on resources, infrastructure, air quality, traffic, police presence, delivery of services, neighborhood preservation—you know, all the things that matter—incoming chairman Rory Reid told the Las Vegas Sun thatt the biggest challenge is "just dealing with the whole growth issue."
Comedy icon/Vegas headliner George Carlin has announced he's checking himself into rehab for a dependence on wine and Vicodin. "I recognized the problem and took the step myself," read a statement by Carlin, whose book, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?, is a best seller.
We certainly wish him well on his return trip to good health. But we're a tad worried about how this experience will fit into his scorched-earth comedy. Will recovery turn our man soft on the absurdities he's likely to find at rehab? Get well, George. But keep the comic fires burning.
Because Our Heads Are Completely Up Our Mass Transit Corridors
"We think there's no better way to thank everyone for their support than to invite Las Vegans and the visitors to Las Vegas to ride the monorail as our guests for five days during the holiday season."—James Gibson, chairman and CEO of Transit Systems Management, the monorail project's management firm, on reopening the falling, stalling travel capsule.