For a 65-year-old, 9-foot guy (most of it legs), Tommy Tune does OK.
The ex-EFX star (he was somewhere between David Cassidy and Rick Springfield) made his Vegas return last weekend, performing at UNLV's Ham Concert Hall with the three-man Manhattan Rhythm Kings, nicely backed by UNLV's swingin' jazz ensemble. (The evening doubled as the university's "media appreciation" night, a seldom-uttered phrase, to be sure.) Tune was vintage Tommy, dipping into the 1930s-'40s vault of golden standards by Gershwin, Porter and the rest of the gods, all of them garnished with quicksilver dance moves that haven't slowed a step. Tune was resplendent in a couple of, uh, bright outfits, culminating in a spangly, fire-truck-red suit that made his enormous gams look like 6-foot tubes of cherry Chapstick. And on encore "Nowadays," from Chicago, Tune did a bit of lyric substitution, changing the words, "You can even marry Harry / But mess around with Ike" to "You can even marry Mary / but mess around with Mike."
Wait a minute. Gender-bender lyrics ... Lipstick-colored suit ... Ooooooh, we get it!
"You could do it for between $250 million and $300 million. Between bonds, the naming rights, some sort of sin tax and having the owners of the team kick in a small percentage, you could pay for the building without public money."
Vegas Partner Lounge, an online casino company, recently announced it was donating 25 percent of casino wins on two slot games at five of its seven casinos to the Nebraska AIDS Project. Austin Green, manager of Sun Vegas Casino (Vegas Partner Lounge also owns Crazy Vegas, 777 Dragon, Maple and Cinema casinos), said in a press release: "We began the charity project on 13 October 2004 and it will end on 1 December, which is World AIDS Day."
Chris Matteo's voice has that what-the-f--k tone. He'd just received word that Viacom, Sumner Redstone's media conglomerate—owner of CBS, MTV, BET, Showtime, etc.; producer of $26 billion in revenues in 2003—wants him to change the name of his Boulder City business, Matteo's Restaurant and Underground Lounge.
"It has recently come to our attention that you are promoting live music events under the [Underground Lounge] mark at Matteo's Restaurant. Infinity has concluded that your uses of the mark violates pertinent laws governing trademark infringement, dilution, unfair competition and misappropriation under the Lanham Act and state laws," writes Rebecca Borden, vice president/counsel of intellectual property for Viacom Inc. "Your use of the Infinity mark creates the false and misleading impression that Infinity is connected with or endorses your company's services, or indeed, that Infinity's services are being offered at your restaurant. For the foregoing reasons, we demand that you confirm that you have ceased using the Infinity mark by no later than Friday, November 5, 2004. ... Please be advised that Infinity is prepared to take such further action as is necessary to protect its intellectual property rights ..."
For the past three years, Viacom-owned Infinity Broadcasting of Las Vegas has hosted live concerts, dubbed the Underground Lounge, via its KXMB 94.1-FM radio station. Reached in New York, Viacom spokeswoman Susan Duffy declined to say whether Matteo's Restaurant, which hosts live musics, was siphoning customers from KXMB events. "We're asking them nicely not to use it. We'll see how it plays out."
Unwilling to comment on the legal facets of the situation ("I've gotta talk to a lawyer first"), Chris Matteo sprung to his own defense.
"Lounge singers come in every weekend ... and bands that play here love it, they say it's much better than playing in some rinky-dink lounge in Vegas," says Matteo, whose voice oozes you-gotta-be-shitting-me. "Our lounge is actually underground, like in the catacombs. Theirs isn't. I don't know why they're coming after me. This is classic David vs. Goliath."