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Jennifer Grafiada

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  • Sunday, Nov. 23, 2008

    "Look at all these white people who came to see me! I didn't know y’all knew me!" Mike Epps says as I walk into the ballroom. From what I can make out, my date and I are actually two of the only white people here.

  • Saturday, Nov. 22, 2008

    Bursting through the curtain with his shirt up and his gut out, David Alan Grier strutted around stage as the crowd screamed in approval. Like a southern preacher delivering an irreverent sermon on sex and dope, Grier preached and his congregation ate it up.

  • Friday, Nov. 21, 2008

    If you’ve ever tried to build furniture, you know about the inevitability of arguing with one’s spouse. “Their motto should be ‘Ikea: We hope your marriage is stronger than our furniture.’”

  • Thursday, Nov. 20, 2008

    The holiday season is all about parties. Or is it giving? Tonight, Mist is encouraging both with an offer of one complimentary cocktail for one donated non-perishable food item.

  • Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2008

    What happens when you mix Christmas cheer with electric guitars and a heavy dose of pyrotechnics? You get the Trans-Siberian Orchestra carol rockers, playing at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on Thursday, November 20.

  • Saturday, Nov. 15, 2008

    A crowd gathers like another Bellagio water fountain show is about to start, except that everyone is much more transfixed. Side-by-side it’s hard not to compare the contestants for Miss Nevada 2009. Kevin Polce offers his selection, "At first glance, South Las Vegas."

  • Friday, Nov. 14, 2008

    This weekend you can revive your sodden past and belt it out with concerts from two '90s fabulous artists at the Joint: Alanis Morisette and Blues Traveler.

  • Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2008

    Mi Casa Grill Cantina at Silverton has made amazing decor part of dinner, with an elaborate lighting system that recently received an award from the Illuminating Engineering Society.

  • Monday, Nov. 10, 2008

    Laraine Russo Harper looks like a brothel madam. She wears thick makeup and sports garish gold rings on every finger and stacks of bracelets. She calls everyone “gorgeous” and “sweetheart,” and says that when she was running the show at Pahrump brothel her "ladies" called her "mom."

  • Saturday, Nov. 8, 2008

    In the 20th century, due to human rights activists, political correctness and the advent of MTV and the Internet, the freak show became almost obsolete. But it's back, and on Saturday, November 8th with 999 Eyes Freak Show, it's back in Vegas.

  • Friday, Nov. 7, 2008

    Vegas Police Sergeant Harry Fagel has seen things you can’t forget, bad things, really bad things. He looks hardcore, hulking like a WWF wrestler with a shaved head, often packing guns under his off-duty t-shirt. He looks like he could kick your ass (he probably could), but Harry is a poet.

  • Friday, Nov. 7, 2008

    Downtown’s Icehouse Lounge may not seem the obvious choice for this event, but it’s like Snoop’s Vegas Holiday Inn, a place he can chill and make as small a scene as is possible when your name is Snoop Dogg and your cornrows receive more press than most people get their whole lives.

  • Thursday, Nov. 6, 2008

    Tool's Maynard James Keenan was in town signing autographs this week, but not on T-shirts, CDs or the occasional bare breast. Keenan was at Henderson Whole Foods signing bottles of his Arizona wine.

  • Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008

    These “movers and shakers of Las Vegas” are too occupied with networking and passing out business cards to watch the election progress. I ask an older man why no one is reacting to the historic occasion. “This is a mature crowd,” he replies. So, I leave.

  • Monday, Nov. 3, 2008

    Every year on November 1 and 2, Mexicans gather to invite the souls of their deceased relatives back for a quick visit to the land of the living. This past weekend, thousands gathered in Vegas to do just that with food, flowers, candles and song.

  • Friday, Oct. 31, 2008

    When A.J.'s Steakhouse first opened in 1999 the New York strip steak cost $33. By 2008 it was up to $44, but no longer. Before it closes this December A.J.'s is inviting diners to "dine like it's 1999" with a return to its original prices.

  • Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008

    When you were a kid Halloween meant heading to chocolate-coated, caramel nougat town. This year try some of the more chocolates available in Las Vegas. You won't regret it.

  • Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2008

    Through my cracked windows the tourists see a bat-out-of-hell girl behind the steering wheel, night-driving glasses on, one lens missing (thankfully, the left, my stronger eye), hair and makeup decidedly un-Strip worthy. I get ready in the casino parking lot.

  • Monday, Oct. 27, 2008

    Score big this Halloween: cash and action, not candy corn and Snickers. Our guide will help you pick and choose out of a week stuffed full of Halloween parties, as well as give costume ideas that could win contests and points with the opposite sex.

  • Saturday, Oct. 25, 2008

    By mid-October summer in most places is nothing but a salty, sun-tanned memory, but today, one last pool party at Rio's adults-only Sapphire pool bids a final adieu to the oven-baked season.

  • Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2008

    Theory of Flight is three things at least, but tonight it's mostly the local alt-rock band that will bring their high-inducing sound to Wasted Space.

  • Monday, Oct. 20, 2008

    A man tips his head back to get his dreadlocks out of the way and hoovers a sword. A seven-foot drag queen—introduced as a “bastion of beauty” – simulates sex with a random woman kidnapped from the audience.

  • Thursday, Oct. 16, 2008

    The 12th Annual Bite of Las Vegas sounds like a promising afternoon: 11 bands, 3 stages, 45 restaurants serving small tasting portions. But the full-day outdoor festival is sadly lacking teeth.

  • Music

    Thursday, Oct. 16, 2008

    Charles Earland jumps up and down on the checkerboard floor, sips his beer and makes love to the microphone.

  • Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2008

    Before Vegas was a metropolis of almost two million people, before the Strip had become a Mecca of non-stop entertainment, this area was a blend of desert and meadow – lots of cacti, few people, no one going by the name Elvis.

  • Monday, Oct. 13, 2008

    In the bowling alley upstairs at Jillian’s, a guitar player from a local band brings me a plastic cup of beer. The Earland brothers of Vegas band Lips Like Morphine, fair-skinned despite being the sons of a famous black jazz musician, are working their way through a heady line-up of songs.

  • Saturday, Oct. 11, 2008

    As a child the annual Renaissance Fair was a beloved treat - full of elaborate dresses and thrilling battles. Fourteen years later, I'm still excited to head to Sunset Park, though more for the men in leather underwear than the period arts and crafts.

  • Friday, Oct. 10, 2008

    Joshua Kane may be in an Armani suit, or he may be in an old-fashioned vest and ascot. Anything could happen this Saturday night at the Historic Fifth Street School, but a few things are certain. “An old man will be murdered, eight politicians will be set aflame and there is one creepy black bird.”

  • Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2008

    A red, white and blue VW bus, stenciled with the words: “Obama-Biden,” “hope,” “change” and “progress,” is lost somewhere in Vegas, trying to find the UNLV campus from the intersection of Rainbow and Sahara.

  • Monday, Oct. 6, 2008

    Devin Haman, the founder and owner of Sunset Tan, looks the part. He's well-muscled, unabashedly trendy, and of course, he's got a permanently killer tan. In fact, Haman embodies the Sunset Tan show's appeal, which is based around the allure of the Hollywood lifestyle, full of big breasted blondes, celebrity clients and lavish parties. Sounds a lot like Vegas, eh?

  • Monday, Oct. 6, 2008

    Paper or plastic? No one seems to ask the question anymore ... except CatHouse. Tonight the loungerie poses the classic inquiry to local ladies, who can work their feminine wiles and a little shameless self-promotion to compete for paper or plastic - $2,500 in cash or $4,500 in plastic surgery.

  • Saturday, Oct. 4, 2008

    Four men are on stage at Jillian’s in tube socks, booty shorts and headbands. They throw stuffed monkeys and homemade headbands into the crowd, while “mandancers” boogie behind them in spandex suits. They are local pop-rock band Air Raid Anthem, and they are willing to do whatever it takes to make it.

  • Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2008

    “If you’re deranged enough to kill yourself, you come here to do it,” remarks Jac, the top hat wearing tour guide for the Vegas Haunted Tour. “Las Vegas is the suicide capital of America.”

  • Sunday, Sept. 28, 2008

    Inside The Rox this Saturday night a crowd gathered that was not of the Strip, not even of our time. Most of the audience looked as if they had stepped out of the 1940s and ‘50s. Real live Marilyns stood next to Bettie Pages, James Deans and Buddy Hollys. The place was packed for the 2nd annual All Tease, No Sleaze Burlesque Pageant.

  • Friday, Sept. 26, 2008

    A mischievous white rabbit peeks from behind a red curtain; above it Criss Angel’s Severus Snape eyes stare out of the poster promoting his upcoming Cirque de Soleil show, Believe. The poster begs the question, what’s behind the curtain? So you think you can dance? gave us a hint.

  • Culture

    Thursday, Sept. 25, 2008

    On a sunny afternoon, stroll down the dusty aisles filled with puppies and parrots and boots and bikes and soccer balls and strawberries, feel the reggaeton music pounding out of huge speakers and, when the sun gets strong, buy a freshly cut coconut.

  • Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2008

    A lime green low-rider pulled up to me in a Green Valley parking lot, and the young Mexican driver informed me that I was in the wrong Las Vegas neighborhood. “In North Las Vegas, hay mucho más diversión” (it’s much more fun). He listed street racing, dance clubs and pick-up soccer games as some of the diversión in a community that has been developing over the past few years into a Little Mexico, or at least a Little Tijuana.

  • Saturday, Sept. 13, 2008

    It wasn’t too long ago that Garrett Bauman was entrenched in real estate, constantly thinking up entrepreneurial ideas, but “too busy” to make them happen. Now, he and his fiancé, Annie, are living a far more stylish life, selling clothes to the likes of Nicky Hilton, as owners of the Palazzo's high-end vintage boutique Annie Creamcheese.

  • Saturday, Sept. 6, 2008

    If you’ve been feeling deprived of lively local music and cool downtown culture, Neon Reverb is arriving to inject you with a vital dose.

  • Monday, Sept. 1, 2008

    If Saturday night was any indication, Vegas' collective taste is becoming a bit more European. Inside the Orleans Arena were a head-countable handful of women in nipple tape and platform boots, men in faux-fur top hats and fake bling, clusters of pretty, petite Asians in pin and, surprisingly, quite a few over-the-hill couples (Swingers? Retired porn stars? A creative Saturday night date?). I had expected hordes of nearly naked sex goddesses, booths and entertainment like at the AVN convention, but what I'd found was a tad lackluster. Maybe the real strippers and hustlers didn't feel like dressing up. Maybe they went to the Palms.

  • A&E

    Thursday, Aug. 28, 2008

    Baby-faced Michito Sanchez gives it to them good and long, just how they like it. The Cuban bandleader of the 11-piece salsa orchestra has a way with the Thursday-night crowds at the South Point, especially the women.

  • Thursday, Aug. 28, 2008

    "Who that dude sleeping with your girlfriend? Getting nude and rude in your bed? Same dude that your sister like. Mickey Avalon, call me Mr. Right."

    Who is Mickey Avalon? He has been, at various times of his life, a drug-using kid with drug-addicted parents, a young husband and father, a prostitute in Portland trying to fund his heroin habit and a hot hip-hop star living the Hollywood highlife.

  • Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2008

  • Criss Angel

    Monday, Aug. 18, 2008

    Everyone loves a carnival – the bright lights, the clang of laughter and shrill music, the smell of gummy sweetness rising from roasting nuts, frying mounds of dough and Hudson Valley foie gras mousse on duck confit with a cardamom apple glaze. Um, what?

  • Thursday, Aug. 7, 2008

  • Thursday, July 31, 2008

  • Monday, July 28, 2008

  • Monday, July 28, 2008

  • Friday, July 25, 2008

  • Thursday, June 19, 2008