10.31.11 · 6:54 PM

The Frankie Moreno Show, and sitting in on a manual typewriter is …

It started like this: “I’ve had this idea for a while now, where I would write from the stage of a concert.,” I told a group of bemused friends and entertainers. “I mean, actually write a column while looking out into the audience as the band is playing. An inside-out story about a show.” Eyes lit up around the room. “We have to do this,” Frankie Moreno said. “We have to get a typewriter, put a mic on it, have ... Read more...

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10.28.11 · 4:26 PM

In Las Vegas, it really is Lopez Tonight, as he takes the stage at Mirage

George Lopez talks a lot of family, and in the Las Vegas context that family is his new performance home on the Strip. “I’ve had a great relationship with the Mirage and have already sold out two shows there, and it’s a great system and community of hotels they (MGM Resorts) have, and it’s great to be part of their family.” Lopez is returning to a busy stand-up schedule in the aftermath of the cancellation of his TBS talk show ... Read more...

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10.27.11 · 12:38 AM

Andre Agassi reaches fundraising milestone, talks of film options for autobiography

Somewhere in the conversation, Andre Agassi will drop the names of Gene Hackman and Prince. But not quite in the same sentence. Agassi is working toward his 16th Grand Slam for Children benefit concert, dinner and auction. The event is Saturday night at Wynn Las Vegas, and the list of performers is customarily impressive for a Grand Slam event: Michael Buble, Jimmy Kimmel, Martina McBride, Smokey Robinson and Train are all scheduled to sing and joke and otherwise entertain. The ... Read more...

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10.26.11 · 12:57 PM

Absinthe rolls on with new skaters: Brace for the Green Tornado

Absinthe has reopened at Caesars Palace’s Roman Plaza in a new, white tent I call the “AbsintheDome.” What is happening inside AbsintheDome continues to amaze, and for those who loved the Skating Aratas — one of the original production’s signature acts that has spun off to V — Ultimate Variety Show — you are in luck. A pair of highly regarded and well-known (at least in the circus culture) skaters are due to step/roll into the show, tentatively, on Dec. ... Read more...

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10.25.11 · 6:22 PM

Michaelina Bellamy receives financial, and emotional, support following benefit

This week Michaelina Bellamy is to be issued a check for $9,600, money raised at a benefit in her honor at South Point Showroom on Oct. 16. A total of 292 tickets were sold, a pretty good turnout for a Sunday afternoon. That money raised help offset Bellamy’s staggering medical bills, which amassed since she was diagnosed with bone cancer in March. The former vocalist in the Air Men of Note United States Air Force Band, in “Folies Bergere” and ... Read more...

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10.25.11 · 12:17 PM

Jerry Lopez’s ode to his father receives unexpected Grammy attention

The great Jerry Lopez has recorded reams of music over the past 30 years or so but didn’t expect “Mis Raices” to generate much buzz. The CD was an inherently personal project, an ode to Lopez’s 83-year-old father, Gilbert, who he says is “my best friend and confidant.” Funny thing is, the CD has been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Regional Mexican or Tejano Album. “It was just something to do to honor my father, but we did ... Read more...

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10.23.11 · 7:33 AM

GBDC opens at the Palms, and George Maloof hints at yet another nightclub

It is 2 p.m., and a woman in a red wig, spiked sunglasses and studded lipstick (from the new Revlon Dominatrix line, I guess) is blowing a whistle loudly in my face. In such an environment, you might wonder, “What the heck is going on here?” But you’d be lost to find a point to all the midday frippery, as this is what you encounter at the new GhostBar DayClub — the name already truncated to GBDC — that formally ... Read more...

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10.22.11 · 2:42 PM

VegasVille Photo of the Week: A high-up look at the Trop’s pink hue

Most of the aerial shots of the Strip are similar today — the familiar string of gleaming resorts stretching from Mandalay Bay up to the Stratosphere. But on Thursday night, during a helicopter tour high above the city, I took note of a rare image — a pink hotel, which is this week’s VegasVille Photo of the Week. When: Thursday, Oct. 20, 9:45 p.m. Where: High above the Las Vegas Strip. The Circumstance: During a helicopter trip on a Heli ... Read more...

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10.18.11 · 7 PM

Donny Osmond ponders long-term Las Vegas affiliation and (another) career in TV

Saturday broke warm and brilliant, and Donny Osmond was hobbled by a trick hip. “I’m running on an injured hip,” Osmond said as he waded through the masses at the Danny Gans Memorial Champions Run for Life at Discovery Park. Osmond is suffering from a partially torn tendon in his right hip. It’s a wear-and-tear malady Osmond incurred after repeated leaps from a Flamingo stage platform during a song the French really dig, “Wild Horses.” But given the option of ... Read more...

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10.18.11 · 3:19 PM

Tropicana looks to Las Vegas veterans to fill nightlife management positions

In building its new nightlife management team, Tropicana Las Vegas has added a Las Vegas nightclub veteran and a marketing wiz who most recently worked for BASE Entertainment. Joe Bravo, formerly of Chateau Nightclub & Gardens at Paris Las Vegas, Pure at Caesars Palace and Studio 54 at MGM Grand, is now on board as director of nightlife operations. Signing on as the Trop’s director of nightlife entertainment/social media is Anthony Pecora, most recently a member of the marketing team ... Read more...

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10.17.11 · 5:37 PM

Rick Faugno dons a new jersey with Body & Soul at Shimmer Cabaret

Let’s say you have a great job. This job affords you a good deal of fame and acclaim. You are well compensated in this job, no doubt of that, and blessed with job security for years. Most of your colleagues and contemporaries would perform any measure of gymnastics just to be considered for this job. And, yet, you are willfully leaving this job. Stepping away, or in the case of Rick Faugno, tap dancing into the great unknown. For five ... Read more...

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10.15.11 · 4:10 PM

Operating at low risk, MGM Resorts ‘dabbling’ in outdoor shows with 48 Hours Festival

When it was announced that The 48 Hours Festival, a high-octave orgy of 22 bands playing on two stages, would be held on something called the Luxor Festival Grounds, my first thought was: “Wha-a? Korn is playing the Luxor?” It’s just something of a mismatch, a Strip version of the Monterey Pop Festival occupying two stages on a vacant lot across the boulevard from Luxor and Mandalay Bay (the concert runs through Sunday; go to the 48 Hours Festival Web ... Read more...

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10.14.11 · 4:24 PM

Michaelina Bellamy benefit show set for Sunday at South Point

An all-star benefit show is happening Sunday afternoon for longtime Las Vegas vocalist Michaelina Bellamy, for years the vocalist in “Folies Bergere” at Tropicana who toured with Englebert Humperdinck and performed with the Air Force’s Airmen of Note. Bellamy is suffering from bone cancer, and proceeds will go toward her mounting medical bills. She was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in March and has spent more than 200 days hospitalized during her treatment. She was able to sing last weekend, ... Read more...

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10.14.11 · 11:49 AM

More than a year after winning ‘AGT,’ Michael Grimm is still along for the ride

The stage is an ocean, and playing the role of cork is Michael Grimm. That’s how it sounds when you talk to the Las Vegas singer-songwriter who stunned TV viewers across the country (and many of his contemporaries here in Las Vegas) when he won the championship of NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” in September 2010. It wasn’t as if Grimm fluked his way to the title — those who saw him perform at such Vegas haunts as Ovation and Hank’s ... Read more...

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10.13.11 · 10:07 PM

Disorder in the court! Showgirls, martinis expected on Oscar Goodman’s judge show

By John Katsilometes Oscar Goodman plays a gunned-down former mayor well enough. Now we’ll see how the late-blooming thespian handles his role as judge and jury. Details of Goodman’s next entertainment foray spilled out like an overflowing Bombay Sapphire martini Wednesday night. Fittingly enough, the scene was the Plaza, the epicenter of Goodman’s post-mayoral career forays. The event was a grandiose, Vegas-styled viewing party in the Plaza Showroom to celebrate Goodman’s appearance on Wednesday’s episode of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.” ... Read more...

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10.12.11 · 2:52 PM

Sea change for Brad Garrett as he plans move to MGM Grand

Brad Garrett is navigating his big boat to a new port. Brad Garrett’s Comedy Club is moving from the Tropicana, it’s home since July 2010, to MGM Grand. The club’s general manager, Tony Camacho, confirmed today that the club has given its 60-day notice to Tropicana officials and plans to reopen under the same name on March 29, and Garrett is expected to perform. The move first surfaced today on Fox 5’s “More” show. Coincidentally, or not, the club opens ... Read more...

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10.12.11 · 1:38 PM

Oscar Goodman acts out a shooting and weighs Vegas Night Court option

As Oscar Goodman was plugged at The Mob Museum, his wife was meeting with the mayor of Mexicali. This is true — except where it isn’t. Oscar Goodman was not actually plugged, or, rather, shot on the steps of The Mob Museum in tonight’s episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. He was merely acting as if. The scene opens the popular CBS crime drama, and to celebrate Goodman’s latest wade into the thespian pond, a viewing party has been set ... Read more...

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10.11.11 · 3:34 PM

Michael Douglas and Matt Damon’s Liberace film gets a title and a cable TV home

Cue the pianist: The long-anticipated feature film telling the story of Liberace’s life and career has a title and a home. “Behind the Candelabra” is the title of the film starring Michael Douglas in the lead role and Matt Damon as Liberace’s longtime lover Scott Thorson. HBO announced today that it would broadcast the biopic. No air date has been revealed, but shooting is to begin next summer. Oscar winner Steven Soderbergh is directing, and the producer is Jerry Weintraub. ... Read more...

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10.10.11 · 5:44 PM

Tom McCartney leaving his post as president of Tropicana

Tom McCartney is out as president at Tropicana Las Vegas, a source close to the hotel said this afternoon. A news release formally announcing McCartney’s departure was expected later today. At this moment, no replacement for McCartney has been announced. McCartney was hired in December 2009 by Tropicana Chief Executive Officer Alex Yemenidjian to help head up the hotel’s $165 million expansion. Since, the famed hotel-casino on the corner of the Strip and Tropicana Avenue has undergone an extensive renovation ... Read more...

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10.9.11 · 12:54 PM

Frankie Moreno has a new playground, as Stratosphere lands its headliner

For Frankie Moreno, it’s a long way from the Crazy Armadillo Bar in terms of career advancement. But it’s just a short distance in geographic advancement. Figuratively and in fact, Moreno is riding the “up” escalator at the Stratosphere. The Crazy Armadillo is where Moreno was hired to play just days after he moved to Las Vegas after a short stint in Nashville in late 2001, performing with no band and playing a keyboard off to the side of the ... Read more...

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10.8.11 · 4:53 AM

Trop moves forward as Richard Wilk assumes club exec role

The post-Nikki Beach era is moving forward at Tropicana, and the hotel has recruited an executive who knows his way around the Las Vegas nightclub scene. Richard Wilk is on board at the hotel, assuming the title of vice president of strategic marketing and operations. Wilk was previously the senior director of customer development at the Hard Rock Hotel. He is known as one of the city’s best-connected club officials, with a bevy of celebrity contacts. In one example of ... Read more...

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10.5.11 · 11:50 AM

Rossi Ralenkotter: ‘What Happens Here’ is a celebration of ‘adult freedom’

That “What Happens Here, Stays Here” won the online vote to be placed on the Madison Avenue Walk of Fame is not entirely surprising. It is one of the most oft-repeated slogans in the history of advertising. But the margin of victory raises eyebrows. The little idea hatched by then-R&R Partners ad writers Jeff Candido and Jason Hoff topped a field of 20 nominees with a stunning 54 percent of the public online vote. Placing a distant second with 11 ... Read more...

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10.3.11 · 3 PM

There is no dousing Montreal premiere of ‘Michael Jackson’s The Immortal World Tour’

MONTREAL, Quebec — It has been raining in Montreal. The timing for this light but persistent drizzle is inopportune, to say the least. Cirque du Soleil officials were hoping for a sunnier setting to debut its newest and boldest partnership, the arena production Michael Jackson’s The Immortal World Tour. But after absorbing Sunday night’s manic red carpet arrivals and the sold-out show itself, it seems not at all strident to say Jackson’s family and most devoted fans would say that ... Read more...

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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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