Las Vegas Weekly

Beer Summit West

Vegas’ best feuds need to be settled, Obama-like, over a beverage

Robin Leach uploads his first twitpic of the night. Columnist Norm Clarke can be seen in the background.

Photo: Tom Donoghue/www.donoghuephotography.com

It’s been a couple of weeks now, but I still can’t get that White House beer-summit image out of my mind. There they all were, the leader of the free world playing genial host to the black professor arrested at his home by a white cop in that symbol of racial conflict, the Ivy League city.

President Obama viewed the gathering as political damage control, er, I mean, a “teachable moment.” Yet none of those erudite cable-news pundits have divined what lesson we were all supposed to glean from this ham-handed photo op. (Or, for that matter, why Joe Biden was there.)

I think I know. The three of them weren’t modeling a way to diffuse tension between blacks and whites but, much more generally, between people who feud in the public square.

(Biden? He’s just a mooch.)

Which brought me back to Las Vegas. Believe it or not, we have lots of prominent people who dislike one another, too. I’ve picked the five most ripe for beer-or-whatever summits. Consider this a Road Map to Peace.

No. 1: Criss Angel v. Penn Jillette

Mediator: Lance Burton

Location: Little Bavaria

Awkward fourth: Montecore

Libation of choice: Propofol

Backstory: Yes, Angel has many detractors and could fill several columns with feuds. But this one must cut deepest, because it comes from a genuine colleague and fellow Vegas headliner, who told Chelsea Handler last year, “What I like most about Criss Angel is that cross he wears around his neck is big enough to actually staple a Jew to it.” When Handler asked if Angel was really a magician, Jillette answered: “He’s I Dream of Jeannie. He does camera tricks.”

Why they should get along: Both are loud, multimedia East Coasters.

No. 2: Robin Leach v. Norm Clarke

Mediator: Alicia Jacobs

Location: Guy Savoy Wine Dinner

Awkward fourth: Tim McDarrah (Google it)

Libation of choice: Champagne (duh)

Backstory: For the record, the Jolly Brit does not acknowledge said feud. But The Patched One was none too pleased when Leach claimed to have an exclusive on Terry Fator’s divorce hours after Norm had Tweeted about it. Earlier in the same week, Norm wrote in his Review-Journal column that Leach had described a tasteless Criss Angel TV stunt in “a breathless booster tone.”

Why they should get along: Because Doug Elfman and John Katsilometes are standing by to take over their respective empires at a moment’s notice.

No. 3: Jon Ralston v. Oscar Goodman

Mediator: CityLife editor Steve Sebelius

Location: Downtown Cocktail Room

Awkward fourth: Lois Tarkanian

Libation of choice: Bombay Sapphire gin (double duh)

Backstory: Lots of people despise the Las Vegas Sun columnist and TV host for his cutting, take-no-prisoners commentaries and journalistic relentlessness. But whereas Ralston’s sustained attacks on the likes of Sen. John Ensign, Gov. Jim Gibbons and Las Vegas Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson have been influential on how each is viewed publicly and by the Vegas intelligentsia who read Ralston’s daily e-mail blasts, his persistent attacks on the Happiest Mayor in America have led to some entertaining outbursts from time to time, but no real impact of any other sort.

Why they should get along: I got nothing—but the photo op would be fascinating in a Bill Clinton-Kim Jong-Il kind of way.

No. 4: Brian Greenspun v. Sherm Frederick

Mediator: Mitch Fox

Location: Stage Door Casino

Awkward fourth: Flo Rogers

Libation of choice: $2.50 beer-and-hot-dog specials

Backstory: This one is as old as the hills, a blood feud between the Greenspuns and whomever is in charge of the Review-Journal. For the past few decades, that’s been publisher Sherm Frederick. The attacks between the two have spanned the eons and frequently turned vulgar. Frederick, for instance, once likened Greenspun to a masturbation-addicted cage monkey and has referred to Greenspun as “the Paris Hilton of Nevada’s brain trust.” Greenspun, for his part, has compared Frederick to Forrest Gump and in March wrote, “As much as I think my friend Sherm is too far over his head in trying to run a large-city newspaper—unless running it into the ground is a desirable direction—I hold him no ill will.” Very convincing.

Why they should get along: Because they actually need one another now more than ever, what with the print daily newspaper business in its death throes. Plus, more recently, their products complement one another rather than compete. The Sun wouldn’t have the time or resources to do Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism if it didn’t cede the job of covering the day-to-day stuff or worrying about advertising revenues to the Review-Journal. And the R-J, one of these days, will discover that its online operations are a farce and that nobody’s watching Nate Tannenbaum’s ridiculous daily web show and decide to actually listen to what Greenspun Media Group’s A-team of Internet experts has to say.

No. 5: Steve Wynn v. Sheldon Adelson

Mediator: Me

Location:Horse-Around Bar

Awkward fourth: Bob Stupak

Libation of choice: Asian Equation (A fitting selection, given their now-global interests/rivalry, this Ty Ku-based drink is, according to Wynn mixology director Patricia Richards, Wynn’s favorite cocktail and one he decreed to appear on every drink menu in his properties.)

Backstory: In the battle royale of Vegas titans, each has given as good as he gets. Adelson told me for a USA Today piece in January 2008 that Wynn’s time “has come and gone,” and in 2006 ranted: “Do I like Steve Wynn? No, I’ll tell you that right upfront. His standard of principles are, uh, somewhat different than our standard of principles. Do I want the main individual involved here to be successful? No, because of the way he practices business and life and interpersonal relationships. I don’t think he deserves it.” Wynn generally laughs it off, but did tell me last year that Adelson was “delusional” after Adelson claimed the root of their conflict was that Wynn was offended when Adelson offered him a job designing hotels for him following the opening of the Mirage.

More recently, Wynn has offered faux-pity for Adelson’s inability to enjoy his accomplishments because of Adelson’s physical infirmities, and lambasted his next-door neighbor for starting “six hotels at once without the money to finish them.”

Why they should get along: What separates them is greater than what brings them together. Both think an enormous amount of themselves, both have a tremendous stake in turning the north end of the Strip into a center of gravity, and both have a lot to gain from Macau becoming successful. Their politics are nearly identical, too; both rejected the Las Vegas Monorail and forced it to make its ridiculous question-mark-shaped path around their properties; and both have uneasy relationships with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. If they weren’t at war with one another, imagine what they could accomplish together. Also, Wynn wouldn’t find it so awkward to have to go next door for the great Broadway theater he himself wanted to provide.

I know, I know. There are so many others. Adelson v. Shelley Berkley, Ralston v. John L. Smith, Goodman v. Jan Jones, Annie Duke v. Joan Rivers, Criss Angel v. All Decent Vegas Journalists, Alicia Jacobs v. Holly Madison, Frank/Lorenzo Fertitta v. Tillman Fertitta, and on and on. Alas, time, space and miracles are short. My work here, at least for now, is done.

(Editor’s note: Katsilometes, Ralston, Leach, Greenspun and the Sun are all part of Weekly’s parent company, the Greenspun Corporation.)