GRAY MATTERS

"What Happens in D.C. Shouldn't Stay in D.C."

Jobpredictor.com is an online service that consults "the stars" to determine the line of work you should be pursuing. Simply type in your name and let the stars do the rest (although the site notes that changes in the solar system change the predictions over time). Here are actual results for some prominent Las Vegans as of June 25. However tempting it was, the Weekly did not tamper with the site's results:

(Mayor) Oscar Goodman, your ideal job is as an unemployable layabout.

(Entertainer) Wayne Newton, your ideal job is as a funeral director

(Senator) Harry Reid, your ideal job is as an alcoholic tester.

(County Commissioner) Myrna Williams, your ideal job is in a land far, far away.

(Review-Journal Editor) Thomas Mitchell, your ideal job is as a brain surgeon.

(Defrocked County Commissioner) Erin Kenney, your ideal job is as a drag queen.

(Senator) John Ensign, your ideal job is as a goal-scoring superstar hero.

(State Senator) Bob Beers, your ideal job is as a lumberjack.

(Casino Mogul) Steve Wynn, your ideal job is as a professional shopper.

(Strip Club Bagman) Lance Malone, your ideal job is as a supermodel.

(TV newscaster) Gary Waddell, your ideal job is as a mad scientist.

A magazine referring to Las Vegas with dismissive sarcasm? Who could have seen that coming, huh? But there it is—again—in the June 20 issue of New York, in a story about Hilly Kristal, cash-strapped owner of Gotham punk-rock mecca CBGB, "threatening" to move his club to our fair city. After asking in the story's sub-headline, "How would Joey Ramone look next to Elvis?" writer Keith Gessen quotes Kristal as saying, "They were very nice to me in Las Vegas. ... There's a very nice space on Fremont (Street), in downtown. It's the right size and the right shape." But Gessen feels compelled to note: "He has fallen in love, in his old age, with the idea of turning CBGB into a museum, and Las Vegas, already the museum of so much discarded culture, offers just that." Not enough? Speculating that perhaps CBGB is now a shadow of its legendary self, he writes that "it's tempting to say that such a living shadow should be in Las Vegas, or just nowhere at all."

Is there a writer alive—outside of our hometown—who doesn't speak in Vegas cliches? C'mon out, Hilly. Bring CBGB with you. And leave those patronizing putzes behind.

Last week the Nevada Gaming Commission voted to ban betting on the 2007 NBA All-Star Game in a bid to host the game in two years. The decision doesn't guarantee Vegas will get the nod, but the NBA had made clear it would not consider Sin City without it. The decision makes sense. There's not much betting on the All-Star Game to begin with, and hosting the game could improve the city's chances of landing a pro squad, which would improve the city's chances of Being Taken Seriously, Becoming A World-Class City, Insert Uplifting Phrase here. (As if Vegas doesn't get enough ink. As if McCarran doesn't get enough visitors. As if the city doesn't welcome enough new residents already.)

Yet the move seems curiously feeble. We have the image of the mighty brokers of gaming in Las Vegas cowering to the mousy David Stern, commissioner of the NBA. And where does it lead? An NBA team on condition that there's no betting on any pro basketball? A Major League Baseball team on condition that no one bets on baseball? A true city of the world has no need for such back-bending.

Review-Journal gossip guru Norm Clarke refers to Richard Jefferson (New Jersey Nets), Luke Walton (Los Angeles Lakers) and Kareem Rush (Charlotte Bobcats) as NBA "stars" in his Monday column. Huh? Jefferson scored 15.8 points a game in the playoffs (top scorer Allen Iverson dropped 31.2 per). Walton rode the bench for much of the Lakers' forgettable season—the first time since 1994 that the Lake Show missed the playoffs—averaging a scintillating 3.2 points per game. Rush "starred" for the Bobcats, chipping in 11.5 points per game—phenomenal improvement over the 4.3 points he averaged in two years with the Lakers—to a team that finished with the NBA's second-worst record, 18 wins, 64 losses. Some stars.

Outside The Lines, Inc., a wine and hospitality consulting firm, recently sent out a newsletter listing the benefits of having fun at work, and giving suggestions for how to achieve that jovial end. We at the Weekly are already on top of that issue, having reached the stage where putting together the paper has become a bothersome interruption to our study of how many cover models we can fit into a cube without spilling our cocktails. With our fun-at-work expertise, we were surprised to learn that folks who work with booze and food might be having problems. But then we read one of the suggestions: "Create a 'Fun Committee' to help plan fun things during each month." Because there's nothing more enjoyable than meeting in an airtight room for two hours each week to create 'Fun Committee Spreadsheets' after hearing the minutes from the last meeting.

The Killers are profiled in the new Rolling Stone, and singer Brandon Flowers shows his Vegas roots with his unabashed love of Paul Anka:

"... He (Flowers) heard Bowie's Hunky Dory and decided he wanted to be a musician. That album contains the song 'Life on Mars?'—which, Flowers points out, has the same chord changes as 'My Way.' He sings lines from both songs to prove his point, then says, 'Without Paul Anka, there would be no Killers.'"

Last Wednesday, Las Vegas police arrested 23-year-old Jose Luis Rubio for allegedly beating his girlfriend's 3-year-old son, Joseph Rivera, to death.

It was the fourth such child-abuse death this year. March was particularly violent. That month, 30-year-old Henderson resident John Schutts was arrested for violently shaking his 4-month-old son, Matthew; Schutts was charged with (and pleaded guilty to) second-degree murder when Matthew died due to severe brain injuries.

Also in March: 26-year-old Osvaldo Lopez was arrested for shaking his girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter, Jada Southall, to death while the girl's mother was at work; and Duchess Davis, 18, and her 28-year-old boyfriend, Michael Sabatino (who also goes by Theodore Stevens), were charged in the death of their 6-month-old son (whose name wasn't released). Sabatino allegedly hit the child in the head several times. He was charged with murder by child abuse. Davis was charged with neglect.