Since Las Vegas is often sneered at for its fake, artificial veneer, it's no surprise that it's biggest fakes and most artificial performers came under recent scrutiny by Entertainment Weekly. The Gotham-based glossy published a big (translation: six pages, with words and pictures and everything!) feature on local celebrity impersonators—the Xeroxed copies of the entertainment world—whose copycatting prowess powers the likes of American Superstars and Legends in Concert. So, in that same monkey-see/monkey-do spirit, here are some of their choice words (did we get the inflection and intonation exactly right, EW?):
• "Tribute artists are as prevalent as slot machines, shotgun weddings and cigarette smoke in Sin City. The Imperial Palace even extended the act onto the casino floor with the introduction of its own 'Dealertainers': celebrity-impersonator blackjack dealers like Rod Stewart, Pat Benatar and Stevie Wonder—the last of whom is a bit odd because you would assume most people would prefer their blackjack dealer to not be, you know, blind."
• (Inter-viewing Elvis impersonator Matt Lewis): " 'I realized I was making more money playing Elvis on the weekends than if I became a schoolteacher.' If ever there was an omen for the apocalypse, that last sentence just might be it."
• "Damian Brantley is grabbing his crotch for approximately the 937th time. There's a reason for this. He plays the part of Michael Jackson in American Superstars. ... Which also puts him in the unenviable position of asking audiences to embrace an accused child molester."
• "La Cage is headlined by Frank Marino as Joan Rivers. In real life, Marino actually resembles an '80s Richard Marx."
• "Barbra & Frank: The Concert That Never Was—for those of you who yearned for a Streisand-Sinatra match-up. Anyone?"
• "Cheesy? You betcha."
Jealous, EW? Just because Frank Marino looks hotter in drag than that dude-dame on Broadway in La Cage aux Folles?
After years of being pilloried for penny-pinching on problem-gambling treatment—since gambling was legalized in 1931, the state has kicked in, oh, approximately nothing; casino corporations have provided all the funding in the past, $382,000 in 2003—lawmakers recently passed a bill to create a $2.5 million fund for problem- gambling treatment. The measure now sits on Gov. Kenny Guinn's desk. (The funds would come from taxes on every gaming machine in Nevada, $1 the first year and $2 in the second year; also created via measure is a problem-gambling advisory committee under the Department of Human Resources.) According to 2002 state figures, there were 3,900 pathological gamblers in Nevada.
"One thing lacking both on the Strip and downtown are places to sit. The marketers sure know what they're doing when they put the only available seats in front of a slot machine."
And the Skies Are Not Cloudy All Day, and the Streets Are Lined With Gumdrops, and All the People are Hap-Hap-Happy. Or, Who Needs an Ad Campaign?
"Dude, in Vegas they design the casinos so that you never know what time it is, and they just send beautiful women your way with drinks all night long, and the drinks are so strong—way stronger than they make them here—they just pour the liquor in and keep on pouring. You gotta go there, dude."
$75 million: Prize money for the 36th Annual World Series of Poker
15,000: Number of players expected to register to compete
$10,000: Buy-in for the main event, the Texas Hold 'Em
July 7: The poker tournament's opening day
Headlines of the last six press releases on the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department website:
—Homicide on East Craig Road (05-31-2005)
—Homicide on Fort Apache (05-29-2005)
—Homicide on Ivy Creek Court (05-26-2005)
—Update on North Shore Road Homicide (05-25-2005)
—Body Found on North Shore Road (05-20-2005)
—Arrests Made in Double Murder (05-16-2005)
As we reported last week, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department disagreed with data included in a report about marijuana arrest rates in Clark County. According to the Washington D.C.-based Sentencing Project, marijuana arrests (both sale and possession) jumped from 107 in 1990 to 4,032 in 2002.
The department was unable to counter with new data for 1990 (though it maintains that the 1990 figures are too low), but it claims that in 2002, combined marijuana arrests in the city totaled only 2,216. On its face this does not contradict the higher numbers reported for the county as a whole in the Sentencing Project report.
Nevertheless, say the police, marijuana arrests have declined as a percentage of narcotics arrests made. (The drug du jour these days is, of course, crystal methamphetamine.) This year-to-date in Las Vegas, Metro has seized 42,431 grams of crystal meth, 163,739 grams of powder cocaine, 1,306 grams of crack cocaine, 20 grams of heroin and 160,329 grams of marijuana but Metro PIO Bill Cassell points out that this is very little.
"Marijuana is not quite as rampant as it used to be," Cassell tells the Weekly.
"Manhattanization.com is the first online magazine geared exclusively towards vertical residential developments happening in the United States," says a press release featuring Vegas condos.