STATE OF THE CITY |
Boys Gone Wild The children are our future; in the last week or so, that's really scared us. And not only because we worry about whether kids baby-sat by video games will grow up to be doctors who can pay attention during our five-hour heart procedure. No, we worry more for reasons perhaps best illustrated by that classic work of sociology, Children of the Corn. Consider: • The 13-year-old Fremont Middle School student arrested last Thursday for making terrorist threats. "I'm going to create another Columbine. I'm going to kill as many people as possible. I'm mad," police quoted him as telling a school operator, which caused the 1,400-student campus to go on lock down. • The quartet of Boulder City teens who were recently arrested for the murder of Jared Whaley (a fifth is still at large). The 17-year-old was shocked with a stun gun, hit with a tire iron and shot in the head with a 20-gauge shotgun, then beaten postmortem to an unrecognizable pulp and buried in plastic bags in a premade desert grave. • Sean Larimer, the 16-year-old sentenced to two years in juvenile detention in the deaths of three friends riding with him while he drove drunk. • Tim McCleary, 17, who on Monday was sentenced to juvenile detention for an unspecified amount of time after admitting he started the September 4 fire that consumed an under-construction apartment complex. It was one of the biggest blazes in recent history. This isn't the space to hash out questions of trying-kids-as-adults and what-is-it-with-kids-these-days. We just didn't want to let a week of scary kid news pass without comment and a shudder of anxiety. If this keeps up, we may need that heart operation sooner than expected. |
Do It Another 999 Times and We Might Show Up
In a stroke of media manipulation we could definitely get accustomed to—we skipped out the day they taught journalistic ethics in kindergarten—"Comedian Extraordinaire" Jeff Hobson tried luring the ink-stained masses to his "hilarious new show" at the Excalibur by enclosing $1 bills inside his press release, earmarked as valet tip money (screw that!).
Payola! Yippee! That's what we got into this media-whore business for in the first place!
But then we started to ponder the ponderous implications of accepting—gasp!—graft.
What would the Poynter Institute say? What would the Columbia School of Journalism say? What would CityLife say?
We found that among staff recipients, Contributing Editor Steve Bornfeld was still deciding what to do with his ill-gotten booty (or is it his ill-booten gotty?), while Arts/Entertainment Editor Martin Stein simply pocketed the green, Associate Editor Stacy J. Willis bought four—count 'em: FOUR—gumballs and Managing Editor Scott Dickensheets fed it to the Holy Vending Machine for an 85-cent bottle of Diet Coke which, he insists, "got me through a crucial deadline period." The fate of the remaining 15 cents remains unknown.
Not one flat-out returned of the dough to Hobson.
We felt ashamed. For approximately .083 seconds.
Screw the Poynter Institute. Screw the Columbia School of Journalism. Etcetera.
Say Goodnight, Rita... 'Goodnight, Rita'
She's a lady of style and Gracie, now that Vegas stalwart Rita Rudner has won the Gracie Allen Award—for those of you born a few decades after her death, Gracie did a cute little routine with some guy with a cigar—for "individual achievement, program host" for her syndicated TV show, Ask Rita. She'll personally collect the kudo from American Women in Radio and Television (AWRT) in New York in June. On her show (which airs 10 a.m. weekdays on KVBC Channel 3), Rudner and a celebrity panel offer solutions to the woes of regular folk. "I meddle in the lives of people I have never met," Rudner says in a press release. "We handpick a crack team of celebrities who know nothing and aren't afraid to share it. We won't feel your pain, but we will point at it."
In the end, about as useful to the culture at large as either Oprah or Jerry Springer.
That Doesn't Work Here, Mr. Hollywood
The queue for the quote-unquote regular people stretched from the ground floor around corners, upstairs and down halls so it was no wonder people were swarming the VIP entrance at Studio 54 on Saturday. The cause of the excitement? Playboy's 50th Anniversary Club Tour, in which there's no sign of Hef, the Bunnies are showing less skin than you'd see at Bikini's on a slow night, and there's more sausage than at an Italian deli. But that didn't stop one young buck from trying to bluff his way past the Keeper of the Very Important List. With my wife pressed close to me for safety, and others pressed even closer, I caught snippets of his pleaful pitch, invoking the mighty-in-LA name of CAA. "What's CAA?," the doorman said. In Hollywood, the mention of one of the town's most powerful talent agencies opens entire gated communities. Here, it evoked a blank, bored stare. I missed what the next proper noun was to fall from the Angeleno's lips, but it didn't seem to help. "I don't know who that is, either. Stop saying that name; it doesn't mean anything." Stunned silence. Catatonia in the midst of chaos. Finally, a mew. "Well, what can I do to get in?" The doorman's reply was swift, and joy to my crowded ears: "You can get out of the way so other people can try." A moment's lost hesitation and the name-dropper was off to drown his sorrows elsewhere. And to think, tickets were only $40.
Why Do People Think Vegas is Where Washed-Up Celebs Cling to Their Last Bit of Stardom?
Tony Danza and Lou Diamond Phillips will perform a single performance of "Conversations" on March 13th at the Suncoast Showroom. The event is free.
We Wonder How Many Tax Dollars They Burned To Come Up With This Important Decision
"In a move toward more effective public communication, the Nevada Division of Industrial Relations is changing the names of its two largest regulatory sections, effective immediately: The Occupational Safety and Health Enforcement Section is (now) the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The Industrial Insurance Regulation Section is (now) the Workers' Compensation Section...We wanted to make the agencies and their functions more identifiable. It's just plain good government to call agencies by the services they provide..."
Publish Some Photos of Dead People and All of a Sudden, India Cares
Las Vegas made world news this week when the Hindustan Times ran a story about the Clark County Coroner's Office published photos of unidentified dead bodies on their website. Thankfully, there was no reference back to the now-expected Convention Center's campaign of What Happens Here Stays Here.