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Richard Abowitz

Story Archive

  • Entertainment

    Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009

    Why saving Las Vegas will come down to entertainment that's both cheap and essential.

  • Noise

    Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009

    Keep an Eye on the Sky is the grail for Big Star diehards.

  • Entertainment

    Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009

    To court and back to stay onstage in Vegas for Fantasy at the Luxor.

  • Print

    Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009

    The lack of expectations has actually helped a long-ignored art form survive.

  • Music

    Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009

    Weekly editors weigh in on the Leonard Cohen selections we'd gladly keep on repeat.

  • Comedy

    Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009

    George Wallace has often been complimented for his marketing savvy, his skill as a promoter and his friends who jump up to guest with him. But lost sometimes is the amount of talent he has as a comedian.

  • Entertainment

    Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009

    Newton could be a great host of a Vegas variety show. But he prefers to keep his show focused on his singing and not on his legacy. The result is sad.

  • Entertainment

    Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009

    John Varvatos believed there had to be a way to mix music, fashion and commerce together and keep it interesting.

  • The Strip

    Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009

    The second annual Podcast-a-Palooza brought three of Vegas’ most popular podcasts together to question Gordon Absher, a vice president at MGM Mirage, who complained about the inaccuracies of new media.

  • Entertainment

    Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2009

    Matt Goss and Zowie Bowie are trying to reinvent and revive lounge for Las Vegas. Neither is a total pioneer.

  • Entertainment

    Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2009

    Le Rêve, against the odds, is a show with a distinctive quality—more than Cirque minus the corporate brand.

  • Print

    Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2009

    If you don’t know anything about the poetry world, The Anthologist remains a fascinating if lightly plotted study in obsession, creative ambition and the quirks of the human mind.

  • Entertainment

    Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2009

    Stephanie Dianna Sanchez has no hard feelings about leaving Fantasy. She understands: That's show business.

  • Entertainment

    Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2009

    It's not all T&A. Peepshow was created with production values and staging in mind, and from the start, compared amazingly well to a traditional Vegas topless show.

  • Entertainment

    Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2009

    He's already an actor-singer-dancer-comedian, and Wayne Brady is determined to add even more hyphens to his description.

  • Entertainment

    Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2009

    The show has survived the collapse of the Broadway West model, a nightclub revolution that pulled people’s money away from showrooms and, now, the recession.

  • Entertainment

    Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2009

    Even in a recession, the first-ever Phantom convention was a moment true fans could not miss.

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009

    Bite has all the elements common to Vegas shows - magic, aerialists, dancing, a singer - but it's got topless vampires, too.

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009

    There are few opportunities to work a Las Vegas magician and Shakespeare into the same sentence—most probably involve trickery, irony or metaphor. This one doesn’t involve trickery, though there is a magician.

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009

    With Smokey Robinson producing and fronting for them, Human Nature better be able to deliver the Motown goods at the Imperial Palace. And mostly, the four Australians do not disappoint.

  • Fremont Street

    Thursday, Sept. 10, 2009

    Novelist Ivy Pochoda doesn’t get Las Vegas literally correct in her new book, but she wasn’t trying to. It’s the latest entrant in the growing collection of literature set here.

  • Technology

    Thursday, Sept. 3, 2009

    It took a Vegas-obsessed techie from California to create the killer LV iPhone app.

  • A&E

    Thursday, Aug. 27, 2009

    For his recent Las Vegas cover story in Time, writer Joel Stein scored a rare sit-down with Sheldon Adelson. Stein describes the interview as one of the strangest of his career.

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, Aug. 27, 2009

    Emily Jillette doesn’t need the money—note the famous last name—but she’s still working her ass off on a super-risky venture: helping open shows in this economy.

  • adult

    Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009

    Meeting the mystery woman behind the sexy courtesan blog.

  • Music

    Thursday, July 30, 2009

    Forty years on, looking back at a Vegas residency that spawned a stigma.

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, July 23, 2009

    After months of speculation that he would retire following the expiration of his contract, Burton recently announced a multiyear extension of his contract at the Monte Carlo.

  • Dance

    Thursday, July 23, 2009

    Since opening in November 2001, the Palms has never featured a regular headliner. In September 2009, that changes, with the arrival of English singer Matt Goss.

  • Comedy

    Thursday, July 23, 2009

    For two nights recently, an interesting and confusing group of celebrities was brought together at Town Square’s Shear Madness theater to create an interesting and confusing entertainment experiment.

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, July 16, 2009

    Crazy Horse’s stars are more natural than the silicone- and saline-sacked showgirls elsewhere. Otherwise, though, Crazy Horse Paris has not aged well.

  • Business

    Thursday, July 16, 2009

    At the time, Amaryllis was 17, Matt 28. The two began to post their sex life on a website available to subscribers for $19.95. Matt and Amaryllis do not see themselves as pornographers.

  • Prostitution

    Thursday, July 9, 2009

    Can male prostitutes legally work in Nevada? We may soon find out.

  • Culture

    Thursday, July 9, 2009

    From my dating life to my friendships, covering strippers, hookers and porn stars has changed me. Here, in chapters, is a look back at my decade working for the Weekly.

  • adult

    Thursday, July 2, 2009

    The adult entertainer and reality-TV star spills the beans one her personal life, as well as her children's.

  • Business

    Thursday, July 2, 2009

    The Kirvin Doak Communications partner's firm handles some of the biggest accounts in town, but do his kids know the marathon runner has "juice"?

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, July 2, 2009

    There was a time when Michael Jackson’s statue at Madame Tussauds wax museum, in the Venetian, wore a red-and-black outfit and black loafers. No more; wax Jackson now wears a militaristic spacesuit of white and gold.

  • A&E

    Thursday, July 2, 2009

    Scott Zeiger, the co-chief executive officer of BASE Entertainment, chats about building a brand with Peepshow, compares Vegas audiences to Broadway, and why he has no need for a house.

  • As We See It

    Thursday, June 25, 2009

    To many in the press, what started as the media using the Vegas clubs for celebrity material quickly twisted into the clubs using the media to attract patrons.

  • Literature

    Thursday, June 18, 2009

    When Allen Ginsberg first performed parts of his Howl manuscript in San Francisco on October 7, 1955, the rhapsodically incoherent poem was clear in one way: the announcement that the taboos and hidden things of American life were eating the nation’s soul.

  • World Series of Poker

    Thursday, June 11, 2009

    Whoever bought Binion’s to get the World Series of Poker for Harrah’s, and then dumped the casino, still looks like a genius—even in this economy.

  • Music

    Thursday, June 11, 2009

    Even at his worst, Elvis Costello is pretty competent.

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, June 4, 2009

    Legendary hippie rocker Carlos Santana and the Vegas tourist are on different wavelengths.

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, May 28, 2009

    For years the Siegried & Roy shared a home with Danny Gans at the Mirage; now both of their shows have come to shocking and unexpected ends.

  • Business

    Thursday, May 21, 2009

    Developer Jim Rhodes and his wife, Glynda, probably count the past couple of months as one of the worst periods in their lives.

  • Literature

    Thursday, May 14, 2009

    Comparing the two most notorious documents connected to our city: Jay Bybee’s torture memos and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

  • Casino

    Thursday, May 7, 2009

    Anthony Curtis can gamble, but prefers to make his living writing about it.

  • Music

    Thursday, May 7, 2009

    Of course, it should not matter that Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter co-wrote all but one song on the new Bob Dylan record. But there is something unsettling about the greatest lyricist of all time going to the hippie Diane Warren.

  • Planet Hollywood

    Thursday, April 30, 2009

    I just can’t help believing,” Elvis once famously sang. And that is how Trent Carlini is approaching launching his new show, Elvolution.

  • Entertainment

    Friday, April 24, 2009

    Long before Criss Angel called flying on a Vegas stage a magic trick, Liberace did it as showmanship.

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, April 23, 2009

    When you enter the studio, everything is new and shiny except for the collection of vintage amplifiers from manufacturers like Marshall, which date back to classic rock.