LETTERS

I'm one of those people who DON'T put up with couples letting their maggots run rampant in a restaurant. ("Leash that kid!," April 12.) I will get up and bring the child's, or children's, bad behavior to their attention. If the couple doesn't like my attitude, that's their tough shit. I grew up being taught that one behaved when in a restaurant or out in public. My parents have said they never were embarrassed to take me out to a restaurant. This was because I knew that if I didn't behave, I'd be disciplined.

Maybe it's because I'm older now, but I refuse to put up with other people's maggots disrupting my dinner. I WILL get up and inform the parents that the behavior of their rotten maggots is not appreciated. Usually the parents just get upset that someone has "insulted" their little precious darling, and they'll end up leaving early. This is usually accompanied by applause from other patrons.

I have had people come up to me and thank me for telling off the parents of these maggots.

If this embarrasses the parents of misbehaving children, that's too damn bad. I expect civility from people when they're dining out, and if they can't even fake that, then I will publicly call them on it.

Editor's note: However much we might applaud your sentiment, you lost us at "maggots," jerk.

After reading Ms. Phelan's article on the Arts Gateways and the Jack Solomon/Agam idea ("Gateway to the arts," April 12), a few basic questions come to mind:

1) How will putting a ton of money into an object by a fading Israeli Op artist assist Downtown? What exactly is the tie-in with Las Vegas (again)? I don't see a strong connection there.

2) Why would tourists come to the arts district just to see an Agam sculpture? What market research has been done to suggest that people will come to the arts district?

3) Furthermore, why would Las Vegas be interested in purchasing a public work by Yaacov Agam?

A quick Google search presents this possibility:

Agam: From the 2nd, to the 3rd, into the 4th dimension

By Jack Solomon, published by Circle Fine Arts Press

A relation perhaps? Who owned Circle Fine Arts Press?

As you stated, Solomon is also a board member of the Las Vegas Sculpture Park Foundation.

With some research can you determine if there is a conflict of interest here? It appears Solomon may have written about the artist and perhaps even represented the artist. Furthermore, Solomon may have interest in other properties in the immediate vicinity of this work—this will also need to be determined. More importantly, does Mr. Solomon stand to gain financially from all of this?

My suggestion is to stop considering mindless acquisition and begin to support what we already have here—art, architecture, NEON, etc. Quit wasting valuable public funds on private pursuits. The city will need to give land and funds for this—but for whose benefit?

I think the money could be better spent on art education, the Neon Museum (talk about a real Las Vegas artform), etc. Las Vegas needs to morph into a real city with its own direction and psyche—not pursue vanity projects.

Editor's note: This arrived with the usual tiresome notation, "I dare you to publish this." Whatever, dude.

You really must've had nothing else to write about this week. ("Aaahhh! Aaahhh!," April 5.) I knew Sam Kinison fairly well, and he was always very nice to me. When I first auditioned at the Comedy Store at the end of 1986, he dragged Mitzi Shore, the owner, into the room and made her watch me. I killed, and she made me a paid regular on the spot when it was still fun to go there, and I'll always appreciate him for that. BUT ... Sam started out really funny, but he later became a sad parody of himself and lost his edge big time. He started dressing like a Polish circus clown and pretended he was a badass heavy-metal cat (he was a very mediocre guitarist), and his comedy suffered greatly. You can see the difference between his almost flawless first HBO special and his second and last one that sucked beyond repair. It was a bad joke on himself, and it was more of a coked-out circus than a comedy show. He got heavily into cocaine, alcohol and God knows what else, surrounded himself with lowlife spineless cokehead assholes, parasites and the lowest of strippers and skanks. He also started bullying the creeps he surrounded himself with, and although most of them deserved it, he also started messing with people who never did a thing to him, pulling guns on them and throwing drinks in their faces. Sam is rightly only remembered by a very small handful of dumbass hillbilly wife-beating monosyllabics and is pretty much forgotten by at least 98 percent of the public. A lot of that is his fault, since he didn't leave that much behind on film, and his drugging and drinking became more important to him than his career. If you're gonna remember a true genius, then give it up to Bill Hicks, who was funnier than Sam could ever hope to be, stayed brilliantly funny right until the end and was always a super nice guy. Bill deserved to stay around a lot longer, and Sam just got what was coming to him. It was like God was taking him out of the picture because his ugliness and viciousness got to be way too much. Sam was a bad King, and all bad Kings fall hard.

To Hell with Sam! BILL HICKS IS THE MAN!!! Get it right, people.