Audience members at one local showing of Million Dollar Baby laughed when Clint Eastwood's character took a swing at the Las Vegas medical community, saying that if they knew what they were doing they wouldn't be living out in the desert. But after the movie, a little old couple having trouble negotiating the theater stairs on the way out weren't as amused. "Saddest part of the show is that what he said about doctors here is true," the woman said to the man. Ouch.
Stretched over a tipsy, fat tourist body, the shirt said it all: "I got ripped on the Strip." He was staggering around in Caesars Forum shops with buddies, midday, enjoying life in Mammon. Strangely, he apparently got a craving for a protein bar, the price of which at Caesars' convenience mart in the shops gave double meaning to his shirt: $4.50 for one nutrition bar, typically half that much off the Strip. I got ripped on the Strip indeed. His buddies opted for a pint of Bacardi in a bag, a better deal at under $13.
Brandon Flowers, lead singer of the Killers, in an interview with the AP:
Q: So what inspired "Somebody Told Me"?
Flowers: I love the play on words. I think of it as a great icebreaker. I think of it as the ultimate pick-up line. If I was a girl, I would think that it's very clever, if a boy came up to me and said that to me.
Q: Have you used that line?
Flowers: No. But I hope somebody does. I think the girl would melt?
Q: Or freak out?
Flowers: No, not freak out. It would be funny, and it would be a great way to break the ice. Oh, I don't know. It's our most lighthearted, most Las Vegas song. It's good, clean fun.
Q: Yet your band doesn't really give off that Las Vegas feel.
Flowers: A lot of people think we do, and I don't get it. But then a lot of people also think we just rip off English bands.
Staff writer Todd Witcher got into a place most of us won't: It wasn't the Palazzo Suites themselves that surprised me. The luxury suites at the Rio are enormous, about the size of a house, and opulent. The dining room was sumptuous. The living room was big enough to double as a tennis court, and the fireplace was wide enough to roast a few pigs in. There also was the expected array of high-tech control pads and stainless-steel kitchen appliances. I had walked a mile through the Rio without seeing a single sign for the Palazzo Suites—clearly the idea was that if you had to ask, you probably didn't need to know.
What astonished me was the ease of entry. Last week, I went there to see my cousin, who was in town and visiting an old grade-school chum, who happened to be the manager of singer Macy Gray. I came through a sliding glass door into a cool marble foyer. A bellman was right behind me, pushing a cart of luggage. Turns out we were both heading for the same room. We walked down the hall, past an empty check-in desk, and straight onto the elevator.
I mean, it's harder to get up to a regular room at the Luxor. Where was the mandatory check-in at the front desk? Where was the—I dunno—thumbprint ID? The retinal scan? The fat-bank-account-sniffing dogs? The suspicious looks?
Upstairs, Ms. Gray appeared briefly, surrounded by a dozen friends, family and staff. She wore oversized, smoky-lensed sunglasses. Very retro. She looked like Lenny Kravitz. I didn't actually meet her, of course—there were no introductions, no hand shakes. (The only way to deal with encounters with famous people is to feign utter indifference; the stars, for their part, presumably don't give a damn.) She grabbed some food, and disappeared into the bedrooms. I didn't make it to the bedrooms.