06.25.10 · 11 PM

Four years after a mind-blowing opening, ‘Phantom - Las Vegas Spectacular’ faces an uncertain future

Recently Kelly Clinton told me a story about the night she met Carol Burnett. Clinton has been an entertainer in Las Vegas for decades and currently organizes and headlines performances at Stirling Club at Turnberry Place. For years she’s put on open-mic shows at Bootlegger Bistro, where patrons are served pasta from the kitchen and ham from the stage. Clinton met Burnett four years ago. It was a chilling moment for Clinton, as she was meeting one of her idols, ... Read more...

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06.25.10 · 6:16 PM

Note parade: Is Lady Gaga turning lifeless for 2011 MGM show?

Lady Gaga — tomb raider? A story in Wednesday’s edition of the British tabloid The Sun reported that Lady Gaga actually is consulting with a highly advanced … cadaverist? … to enliven her stage production during the 2011 version of The Monster Ball tour. The newspaper says that Gaga has conferred with one Gunther von Hagens, who is in fact an anatomist — and a controversial one — to quicken her creative pulse. Von Hagens’ work, termed “plastination,” is used ... Read more...

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06.20.10 · 6:10 PM

Vegas magazine turns the page with help from the Kardashians, Goss, ‘Pawn Stars’

When Vegas Magazine launched seven years ago, the site on which Encore and Wynn Las Vegas stand was the shuttered and partially demolished Desert Inn. I got a great room rate that night. But Saturday night the scene was freshly opened Surrender nightclub at Encore, and the event was the seventh birthday of Vegas Magazine, our Greenspun Media Group’s Niche Media glossy sister pub. The anniversary cover is a shot of the Kardashian sisters — Kourtney, Kim and Khloe — ... Read more...

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06.17.10 · 8 PM

A year later, Trina Johnson-Finn looks back at incarceration in disbelief

In retrospect, it would have helped if the Surinamese audience knew what a celebrity impressionist is. Instead, the 1,500 or so fans in the antiquated Anthony Neste Stadium in Paramaribo, Suriname, did not readily know of this art form. They paid to see Toni Braxton. The real Toni Braxton. Miss Un-Break My Heart herself. A tribute act? Most Surinamese music fans had never witnessed such a thing. Therein began a legal odyssey that landed the unwitting Trina Johnson-Finn, who was ... Read more...

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06.17.10 · 4:30 PM

Brad Garrett knows the comedy, and is getting used to the juggling, too

Brad Garrett is in Vegas and he’s doing business. He’s been doing the funny in media interviews and cutting deals with ticket agencies and directing construction workers on where to place the big black VIP booths in his new comedy club. He’s even straightening the frames on the artwork hanging on the club’s walls. Yes, Garrett is a true Vegas juggler — only Penn Jillette does it better — and is hustling in every sense of the word as the ... Read more...

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06.17.10 · 1:15 PM

The questions, and the answers, from ‘Sgt. Pepper Live’ at Paris Las Vegas

Questions you might have, and I know I did, as Cheap Trick’s “Sgt. Pepper Live” returns to Las Vegas at Paris Theatre: Where’s Bun E.? At the hop! (That is a joke ripped off from John Lennon, actually, when he recorded “I’m Losing You” with Cheap Trick.) In fact, the most noticeable change in the production from its previous incarnation at the Las Vegas Hilton is that Bun E. Carlos is not playing drums. This is remarkable because he has ... Read more...

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06.7.10 · 8 PM

Sheldon Adelson feeling some recovery momentum in tourism, convention business

Notes from the week, and for the weekend: • Sheldon Adelson reported during a Friday interview for CNBC that there was light at the end of Palazzo regarding the city’s tourism and meeting business. The chief executive of Las Vegas Sands Corp, which owns Venetian and Palazzo on the Strip, said, “weekends are coming back strong and I think by next year we’ll probably be 80 percent of normal for the (convention) business.” Adelson also said that Marina Bay Sands ... Read more...

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06.7.10 · 11:55 AM

Burlesque legend Tempest Storm falls, breaks hip during Burlesque Hall of Fame performance at the Plaza

The Burlesque Hall of Fame’s 20th anniversary weekend was jarred by an onstage injury suffered by one of the art form’s most famous and revered performers. Tempest Storm, an icon in the burlesque universe for more than six decades, fractured her left hip in a fall near the end of Friday night’s nearly four-hour program at the Plaza Showroom. The 82-year-old Storm slipped and fell backward onto the stage during the second song in a two-number medley, Engelbert Humperdinck’s “My ... Read more...

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06.3.10 · 10:27 AM

Barbara Greenspun was a regal presence in the Sun newsroom

Even if you didn’t know who she was, exactly, you knew she was someone. There was an air about Barbara Greenspun that made it clear she was a person of high caliber. You could feel it. She was prim and dignified, even regal. If there could be true royalty in Las Vegas, she was that, elegant and smart and stylish. She seemed from another time and place, when people of her stature would not be seen in public at less ... Read more...

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06.3.10 · 9:21 AM

‘SATC’ deconstructed in a tidy 146 words; Burton talks of leaving his ‘home’ at Monte Carlo

I saw a preview screening of Sex and the City 2 last week at Aria’s Elvis Theater. Following is a 146-word synopsis, which is one word for every minute of this film: SATC 2 offends anybody: Karaoke artists. Aussie rugby players. Male attorneys. TV manufacturers. Abu Dhabian man-servants, street merchants and hoteliers. Camels. The four-headed lead character hearkens to the Marx Brothers, Three Stooges, and Hope and Crosby during their “road to” period. This film was The Road to Abu ... Read more...

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06.1.10 · 8 PM

A crash course at the Indy 500: Seeing the action is not always part of the experience

The racecar’s disintegration unfolded on the 199th of 200 laps at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where the track straightens between Turns 3 and 4. The explosive incident happened as British driver Mike Conway had attempted to outmaneuver Ryan Hunter-Reay, a good, young driver from Boca Raton, Fla. Conway had led the Indy 500, briefly, in the final 10 laps. His was likely the fastest car in the field by the end of the race. And Hunter-Reay? Suffice to say he ... Read more...

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06.1.10 · 3:55 PM

Goodman ponders Cullotta; Wynn’s Strip walk sparks chitchat

Wynn on see en be see CNBC got a lot out of Steve Wynn during his Friday appearance on the cable channel to promote Encore Beach Club, which opened over the weekend and (from what I understand) set some sort of record for sunscreen slathered. During the interview, Wynn said he dismantled the old entrance to Encore — you might remember that $13 million eyesore — because the view across the street to the unfinished Echelon was bad for business. ... Read more...

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Featured Cocktail

Cocktail of the Week May 23, 2012
by Sabrina Chapman

Rhumbar’s Scorpion Bowl stings so good

Ready to celebrate the official start of summer? Prepare for takeoff. Memorial Day Weekend picks up speed with the addition of Rhumbar’s Scorpion Bowl ($49) to the weekend’s party lineup. ...
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