Editor Scott Dickensheets watched a little TV Sunday night: CBS's weather-disaster movie got off to a rousing, heartland-warming start by destroying Las Vegas. As bad special effects gathered in the sky overhead, clichés unspooled on the ground: a libertine in a Hawaiin shirt hit a jackpot and immediate bought female companionship; a young couple dashes, all agiggle, into a wedding chapel. Then a pair of angry tornados wade in and ransack the place.
Although this was written and filmed before November 2, it's hard, in the wake of an election that turned on the "values vote," not to see it as an allegory for a red-state beatdown of America's Gomorrah: righteous heartland fury (tornados!) rips apart Sin City; the destruction is heralded by a freaky Jesus impersonator toting a cross (off duty from Legends in Concert?); the libertine doesn't even get his shirt off before the tornado sucks him away; the high winds tear away the quickie bride's wedding gown, letting the movie have it both ways—symbolically stripping her bare for trivializing marriage while tittilating us with a glimpse of her unmentionables.
The scene ends with the same heavy hand: 50 miles away, in the ficitonal hamlet of Last Chance, Nevada, a pair of good ol' folk—we can assume they weren't Kerry supporters—watch with amazement as gaming tables plunk into their dirt farm, followed by a shower of $100 bills. Sin City is trashed, but at least the decent people of America get something out of it.
When Rick Tabish testified last week, he recounted how distraught Sandy Murphy was after Binion died. So he tried to comfort her in the best way he knew how: He offered to take her to Luv It for some frozen custard, a treat the two had enjoyed throughout their relationship. Talk about a marketing windfall! Are some new sundaes are on the horizon? A Dandy Sandy with powdered sugar? A Ricky Ticky Tabish, covered in silver sprinkle balls? Endless possibilities!
The dealership's ads still incorporate footage of longtime Henderson fixture Ben Stepman saying "In Henderson, of course." That catchphrase enjoyed a brief vogue a decade ago, thanks to the ubiquity and mild low-tech charm of Stepman's commercials.
But Stepman died years ago, Henderson has mostly outgrown its pretensions of small-town hokiness, and the Valley is full of recent residents who, if they notice the commercial at all, wonder who the hell the old guy is. No doubt the dealership means it as a sincere homage to a genuinely nice guy—which Stepman was—but it's time to let him go.
The December Vanity Fair carries a feature on the New York Post gossip institution, Page Six. And there, on Pages 354-355, in the middle of a two-page photo of people trying to look like they haven't spent their professional lives breathlessly reporting on the doings of various Hilton sisters, sits former Las Vegas Sun gossip-slinger Timothy McDarrah. (He co-edited the section in the early '90s.) Not that the actual article matters as much as the pic, but McDarrah is quoted once, about the necessity of breathlessly reporting on the doings of John F. Kennedy Jr.
The WebmasterWorld Conference runs through today, bringing more than 2,500 Palm-Piloting Poindexters to our very un-techie hometown.
A newish spot for the classic-rock station (96.3-FM) depicts CGI machinery—working along to the thump-thump-clap chorus of Queen's "We Will Rock You"—stamping out the names of bands featured on its airwaves. Led Zep, the Beatles, the Stones, the Eagles, Santana, AC/DC.
Not included: Queen.