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Steve Friess

Story Archive

  • As We See It

    Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2009

    Whether it’s the economy or a newfound savvy, Vegas resorts have stopped worrying and learned to love the Internet.

  • Stage

    Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2009

    The events of last week represent a serious cultural step back for Las Vegas, from a disastrous opening for Zowie Bowie and CineVegas being canceled to Playboy model Aubrey O'Day whining about topless photos.

  • A&E

    Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009

    Even at 81, Broadway legend and Phantom director Hal Prince has lost none of his enthusiasm for what he does.

  • Film

    Thursday, Sept. 10, 2009

    Every article and interview available online refers to Ted V. Mikels as a savant of sorts. But there's a different story to tell. Ted V. Mikels is 80 years old and broke.

  • LV Weekly

    Thursday, Sept. 3, 2009

    My wild, wacky, journalistically complicated Michael Jackson benefit journey.

  • Dining

    Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009

    Why we hope a hotel executive’s decision to populate properties with locally based restaurants is a hit.

  • As We See It

    Thursday, July 30, 2009

    Somewhere along the way, all the reasons to love Sin City went bye-bye.

  • Film

    Thursday, July 23, 2009

    Lottery tickets, magic tunnels, scorching heat in January and other Vegas-movie flaws.

  • Poker

    Thursday, July 16, 2009

    Twitter is giving new life to the World Series of Poker.

  • As We See It

    Thursday, July 9, 2009

    A trio of the worst ideas in Vegas right now.

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, June 18, 2009

    In New York and Los Angeles, when a major star drops dead of unknown causes, there is a repulsive ritual that takes place. In Las Vegas, when left to our own devices, we do things a little differently.

  • Casinos

    Thursday, June 11, 2009

    Why the people of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, should be grateful for, not suspicious of, their new casino.

  • Casino

    Thursday, June 4, 2009

    I was a bit confused when I showed up at the Treasure Island on Monday for lunch with its new owner, Phil Ruffin, and his assistant told me on the house phone to meet the Kansas billionaire at Francesco’s Pizzeria.

  • Issues

    Thursday, May 14, 2009

    Just a couple of days before one of the most important votes in the gay history of Nevada, David Parks stood, as he usually seems to, in the background.

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, May 7, 2009

    How does someone become such a mammoth, wealthy star, entertain untold millions and still remain largely anonymous in the broader popular culture?

  • Dining

    Thursday, April 30, 2009

    Top Chef began filming Season 6 in Las Vegas on Monday. This could easily be the start of an economic recovery. It’s not as ridiculous as it sounds.

  • Dining

    Thursday, April 23, 2009

    Sometime back in the 1990s, an eccentric fellow wanted to eat at a restaurant. He sent his advance team to scope out the place and its various exits, baffling the owners of the fine establishment.

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, April 16, 2009

    There was never any remote possibility that Nevada was going to impose a tax on sex acts at legal brothels. But it still gave attendees at public hearings an excuse to talk about the good stuff: whores!

  • Casino

    Thursday, April 2, 2009

    Having evidently learned a little something from the hundreds of acrobats who perform astonishing death-defying feats nightly in its Vegas resorts, MGM Mirage last week leaped headlong into the open air.

  • Casinos

    Thursday, March 26, 2009

    I’m a loser. I lose things. All the time. So far today alone I misplaced one of the dog’s leashes, my wallet and my wedding ring. And it’s only 1 p.m.

  • M Resort

    Thursday, March 12, 2009

    For the nearly 30 years Walt, an 83-year-old retired doctor, and Terry, a 65-year-old travel agent, have lived in Vegas, they’ve had a charming tradition: They eat breakfast at every new hotel-casino on the first Saturday it’s open.

  • Politics

    Thursday, Feb. 19, 2009

    There is an axiom I’m sure you’re all very familiar with that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. It is, it often seems, a central and guiding principle of one Oscar B. Goodman.

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, Feb. 12, 2009

    Something very odd happened at Wynn. Danny Gans, the brunt of my jokes and my ire for several years now, made me laugh. A lot.

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, Feb. 5, 2009

    A few weeks ago, the Review-Journal’s Doug Elfman wrote something shocking. Or, rather, it was shocking to me, and it was even more shocking when it drew no more attention and, thus, was not shocking to anyone else in the national media.

  • Economy

    Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009

    "You know,” Michael Weaver says to me at the tail end of a lunch appointment that has been filled largely with gloom about the state of the Vegas economy, “there actually is one segment of the population that is actually up over the year before.”

  • History

    Thursday, Jan. 22, 2009

    A legitimate mob museum at the beautiful, restored historic old federal building Downtown would be an enormous success for Las Vegas.

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, Jan. 15, 2009

    I am one of just 70 people packed into an air-conditioning-less basement at an “experimental” theater in SoHo watching a gargantuan, nearly naked gender-bender stomping through a miniature set of New York City, à la Godzilla.

  • Entertainment

    Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2008

    My 9-year-old niece sat next to me at the Minskoff Theatre in New York City, utterly enthralled. Her widened eyes were glued to the visual feast before her, the mammoth puppets and the ebullient, multiethnic cast performing colorful, energetic song-and-dance numbers, the Elton John/Tim Rice score.

  • Encore

    Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2008

    A few weeks ago, I was staring at Steve Wynn while he went on about his theories as to why the economy was in the shitter when I noticed something far more interesting to me. “Your eyes are sparkling,” I interrupted,

  • Business

    Thursday, Dec. 11, 2008

    If I were an investigative reporter working for one of the local daily newspapers, near the top of my list for digging would be the complex, expensive and probably unprecedented relationship between R&R Partners and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

  • Crime

    Thursday, Dec. 4, 2008

    Accused in October 2007 of raping a 21-year-old Seattle woman whom he allegedly picked out of his audience and lured to his Bahamian getaway for a sexual liaison, David Copperfield underwent media scrutiny, a FBI raid and grand jury investigation. The thing that happened next is the most important: nothing.

  • Casino

    Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2008

    Oh God, will this laptop keyboard spontaneously combust if I even type such shameful, forbidden words?—lower the legal age for casino play to 18.

  • Poker

    Thursday, Nov. 13, 2008

    Peter Eastgate’s cheering section broke out into jubilant Danish song—it sounded a bit like the Oompa-Loompa song in a different melody—when he laid out an ace of diamonds for a straight that beat opponent Ivan Demidov’s two pair.

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, Nov. 6, 2008

    This column was supposed to be about Criss Angel’s new theater. In short, the theater is terrible. So instead, this column is about Wanda.

  • The Strip Sense

    Thursday, Oct. 23, 2008

    You know the formula: A star hits it big, looms large in our collective consciousness, struggles with his fill-in-the-blank inner demons, hits rock bottom, comes to terms with his problems, triumphs and enjoys either a resurgence or at least a peaceful dotage.

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, Oct. 16, 2008

    It’s not being billed as such, but there’s a concert this weekend that could very well redefine Vegas entertainment (and bring The Jerry Springer Show to town in the process).

  • Real Estate

    Thursday, Oct. 2, 2008

    Andrew Fonfa doesn’t want me to write this. He knows I have to, he knows I want to, but he also wants us to know that everything in this column is entirely speculative.

  • OJ Simpson

    Thursday, Sept. 25, 2008

    As recently as 10 days ago, I was just like most of you out there. I had absolutely, positively, 100 percent no interest in whatever tawdry affair would unfold in a criminal trial that was news solely because it involved one Orenthal James Simpson.

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008

    I was pushing my editor at a major newspaper hard last week to let me do a piece on Donny and Marie Osmond’s surprising resurgence as a resident act on the Las Vegas Strip. She wasn’t buying it.

  • Sheldon Adelson

    Thursday, Sept. 11, 2008

    As the election cycle heats up and money flies in every direction for the political parties and their causes, several members of the media have branded our own Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson the right-wing version of financier George Soros.

  • Olympics

    Thursday, Aug. 28, 2008

    Back when I lived in and covered Beijing earlier this decade, I used to have this odd little game I played with my friends...

  • The Strip Sense

    Thursday, Aug. 21, 2008

    Even for me, even with all that I say and write and do to evangelize the cause of digital media in this city, it was a stunning, perplexing, delightful moment. My husband and The Strip Podcast co-host Miles Smith was similarly surprised. He arrived a little late, and, looking around the room, he asked me, “Are all these people here for this? Are you sure they’re not just hanging out here because they saw the lights were on?”

  • The Strip Sense

    Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2008

    Gary Peck is a little bit ticked off with me. Earlier today on the New York Times Web site, I broke the story that the Nevada Equal Rights Commission had declared gender-based prices violate Nevada law. The five-page ruling has some wacky stuff in it and has the potential to fundamentally change how many Las Vegas Strip resorts do business, both of which I’ll get to shortly.

  • The Strip Sense

    Thursday, Aug. 7, 2008

    Within hours of last week’s not-terribly-shocking news that Boyd Gaming was halting construction on its $4.8 billion Echelon project, message boards and blog comment sections across the web filled with a reaction that surprised me.

  • The Strip Sense

    Thursday, July 31, 2008

    I am not one of those 9-11 conspiracy nuts. I have an eccentric British pal who does believe that George W. Bush, despite his incompetence at ordering in lunch, was behind the most horrific events of our time. This friend is constantly forwarding e-mails asserting that the Baltimore family behind Vegas casino implosions actually imploded the World Trade Center and made it look to the stupid people of the world as if some “hijacked” airplanes caused their fall.

  • Nightlife

    Thursday, July 24, 2008

    Before you roll your eyes and groan, hear Adam Russin out. He’s not trying to get any money, he’s not trying to draw any attention to himself, and he’s absolutely, positively not trying to ruin your good time. He just has a simple question that seems to have only one logical answer. And very soon, odds are good the state will agree with him, and a lot of melon carts will be upset. Russin’s question: How can anyone seriously believe it is not discriminatory to charge a man more than a woman for the same access or service?

  • The Strip Sense

    Thursday, July 17, 2008

    I'm sitting at the lobby bar of the undeniably pretty Trump International Hotel on a Sunday evening about to tuck into a $21 burger and sip from an $8 pink-grapefruit soda. I didn’t mean to splurge on dinner here, but I popped in to take a look-see and realized that this was the only thing for me to do. Which is, of course, the big problem here. The slender gold tower with the most famous name in real estate emblazoned atop it is a bafflement to all who consider its existence. It is also, by a large measure, the very last place most Las Vegas tourists should ever feel comfortable visiting.

  • The Strip Sense

    Thursday, July 10, 2008

    Joanna Freund and her boyfriend, George, have flown in all the way from Toronto to be here at the 2008 World Series of Poker’s Main Event. Neither of them actually is playing in the tournament, but they’ve watched it on television for years, and, the weak U.S. dollar being what it is, they figured they could make a holiday out of it and see their favorite poker players in action.

  • Poker

    Thursday, July 3, 2008

    t was a Monday, I was overdue on more than one assignment—including that week’s Strip Sense entry—and I don’t usually watch sports on TV anyway. But the human drama of a hobbled Tiger Woods somehow managing one amazing comeback after another in the U.S. Open was so compelling that it even made watching privileged people using a crooked metal stick to hit a small white ball across a water-guzzlingly lush and exclusive private park worth my attention.

  • The Strip Sense

    Thursday, June 12, 2008

    Next week, when Californians start allowing same-sex couples to legally marry as a result of a recent state Supreme Court ruling, the Golden State will reap a massive financial bonanza that should go a long way through the summer toward softening the harshest impacts of an ongoing recession and record fuel prices.