The Strip Sense

Lead Photo Can you feel the length tonight?

Steve Friess | Wed, Dec 31, 2008 (midnight)

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.

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Lead Photo In the margins

Steve Friess | Wed, Dec 24, 2008 (8:30 p.m.)

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,

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What really happens in Vegas …

Steve Friess | Thu, Dec 11, 2008 (midnight)

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.

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Lead Photo A real magic trick

Steve Friess | Thu, Dec 4, 2008 (midnight)

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.

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Lead Photo 18 is enough

Steve Friess | Wed, Nov 26, 2008 (midnight)

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.

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Lead Photo Elaine Wynn, embracing change

Steve Friess | Thu, Nov 20, 2008 (midnight)

What was the secret weapon that won over Elaine Wynn? Michelle. The wife. Elaine Wynn was so impressed that she found herself bucking her entire industry and her irate husband and actively working on behalf of a Democratic presidential candidate after a lifetime of voting only for Republicans.

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Lead Photo Bad Beat

Steve Friess | Thu, Nov 13, 2008 (midnight)

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.

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Lead Photo What happens with Wanda …

Steve Friess | Thu, Nov 6, 2008 (midnight)

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.

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Lead Photo No ado about something

Steve Friess | Thu, Oct 30, 2008 (midnight)

As momentous occasions go, this one should have been a big deal. And yet, until a friend who works there mentioned it last week, I had completely forgotten it was the Bellagio's 10th birthday.

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Lead Photo Still the defiant one

Steve Friess | Thu, Oct 23, 2008 (midnight)

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.

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Jerry-rigged Vegas

Steve Friess | Thu, Oct 16, 2008 (midnight)

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).

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Lead Photo Don’t “Believe” the hate

Steve Friess | Thu, Oct 9, 2008 (midnight)

The week before Mystère opened at Treasure Island, an enraged Steve Wynn tore into the creator, Franco Dragone. “This is shit,” a red-faced Wynn shouted. “It’s a fucking German opera.”

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Flower Tower

Steve Friess | Thu, Oct 2, 2008 (midnight)

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.

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He Dunne it

Steve Friess | Thu, Sep 25, 2008 (midnight)

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.

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Star Blight

Steve Friess | Thu, Sep 18, 2008 (midnight)

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.

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A&E

Mamma Mia!, by the numbers!
How many yards of Spandex have been used in the construction of costumes for The Dynamos in the Mandalay Bay production of Mamma Mia!?
Still fab-“O”-lous at 10
O quietly marked its 10th anniversary in 2008. Far from dating, however, the show remains a timeless experience; even its technology still impresses.
Paint the town
The three-story building at 601 E. Fremont, at the edge of Downtown’s Fremont East District, has seen duty as a Sears store and a fingerprinting lab used by Metro. It was almost the site of a 10,000 square-foot nightclub.

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Cocktail of the Week

Cocktail of the Week Dec 31, 2008
by Xania Woodman

The Bearded Clam

A verrry distant cousin of the Mojito, the Caipirinha and the Batida is the Bearded Clam, created by Frankie's Tiki Room by bartender Alice Hartling. In a pint glass, muddle ...
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