Desert Companion - March 2014 by Nevada Public Radio

In it for the kicks: Aubrey Madden

THE

SPORTS,

LEISURE & WALK THIS WAY CITY TRAILS THAT BRING THE WILD TO YOU

BETTOR ALL THE TIME

THE LIFE AND GRIND OF SPORTS GAMBLERS

Jon Ralston asks: What the (Joe) Heck?

OUTDOORS

ISSUE

FIELDS OF

DREAMS

THESE RISING STARS OF SPORTS HAVE PROMISE, PASSION — AND GREAT PROSPECTS P LU S: A flood of questions for the new water czar

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editor’s note

Foot work

Next month in Desert Companion

Style is in bloom with our spring fashion and home design issue

2 | Desert

Until fairly recently, I was an enthusiastic runner. Not fast or graceful, mind you (my style was sorta this methodical, low-impact creep like a ninja dad in sweatpants), but certainly enthusiastic. Then my knees began gently reminding me — okay, not so gently reminding me — that the last scant nubs of my cartilage had cashed out way back in my skateboarding salad days of the ’80s (O sweet era of slappy grinds and “Skateboarding Is Not a Crime” stickers!), so I’d best, you know, cut this running nonsense out. Scaling back was a tough adjustment, and not just because I had become somewhat hooked on that dubious wheezing joy known as “runner’s high.” There’s something elemental and pure, something vital and basic about running. And being chased by the occasional stray Doberman only adds a frisson of primal terror that puts me in spiritual communion with my caveman ancestors. So, yeah, at least until my cybernetic knee implants arrive, I’ve had to pull back and experiment with that form of exercise known as walking. (It, too, can feel primal, but only if you also forage for nuts and berries.) This new perch of mandatory moderation has kicked loose a few observations as I’ve watched this new wave of punishing, high-intensity fitness grow in popularity. Even the names suggest pastimes for robot viking sol-

Companion | March 2014

diers: P90X! Ragnar! Insanity! Tough Mudder! Spartan Race! There’s this thing we do when it comes to health and fitness, and “overdoing it” doesn’t quite capture what I suspect is a distinctly vivid American mania: the feverish embrace of an exercise craze that entails less a positive lifestyle change than an obsession-driven personality transplant. Even more modest phrases like “couch to 5k” hint at this — the hard shift into fifth gear that turns friends and loved ones, seemingly overnight, into FitBitleashed Ragnarokers. On balance, this is great. I’d rather my friends and loved ones be marathon-running paleo warriors than couch potatoes. But, hey, what’s wrong with a casually vigorous volksmarch on a neighborhood trail? Our disconnected lives and fragmented suburbo-scapes have turned us into creatures of compartmentalization — this is exercise, and this is life, this is nature, and this is life. In our feature “Wild in the City” on p. 64, we propose an integration. Breaking news: There’s a bit of nature in your neighborhood and, hey, it wants you to walk all over its face. These seven trails span the valley and feature everything from walks along washes burgeoning with local flora to secret freeways that can zip cyclists around the city to meandering paths amid reeds and murmuring streams. (If you want to

go all Tough Mudder, try catching and eating one of the ducks at The Wetlands Park — best workout I’ve had in a while!). My point is that the world is your home gym. Of course, this isn’t to downplay the importance of extreme dedication in service of excellence — and that’s where our feature “Champions on the Rise” (p. 53) comes in. For the second year in a row, we profile five talents to watch in local sports. Better yet, these athletes don’t just excel on the field; they’ve also got qualities — focus, determination, discipline, self-respect — that suggest true character. No extremes required. Andrew Kiraly Editor

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contents desert companion magazine // desertcompanion.com

03.2014

DEPARTMENTS 11

All Things to All People Hazy future By Heidi Kyser

Open Topic The lonely alien By Jon Ralston

Discomfort Zone The miserable bastards By Barry Friedman

Gambling

A bettor’s life By Joshua Longobardy

Unfiltered By Heidi Kyser

Dining

Get your goat By Debbie Lee

Guide

Music, art and more

FEATURES 53 Champions on the rise

Meet five up-and-coming athletes who excel both on and off the field

End note

Sports, explained By Scott Dickensheets and Andrew Kiraly

64 Wild in the city

Don’t have time for a daylong hike? Check out these civic and urban trails that bring a bit of nature to you

In it for the kicks: Aubrey Madden

the

Walk this Way City trails that bring the wild to you

Bettor all the time

The life and grind of sporTs gamblers

Jon Ralston asks: What the (Joe) Heck?

4 | Desert

Companion | March 2014

SportS,

Leisure & outDoorS

issue

Fields of

dReAms

These rising sTars of sporTs have promise, passion — and greaT prospecTs Plus : A flood of questions for the new water czar

on the cover Photography by Sabin Orr

A u b r e y m a d d e n : s a b i n o r r ; va p e r : b r e n t h o l m e s ; i l l u s t r at i o n : aa r o n m c k i n n e y ; ta c o s : c h r i s to p h e r s m i t h

Q&A

THE SPRING SE SON

Renée Fleming, Soprano

Academy of St. Martin in the Fields with Joshua Bell, Director & Solo Violin

Photo by Rahav Segev

Patti LuPone in “Far Away Places”

Doc Severinsen & His Big Band with Mary Wilson

Lily Tomlin

An Evening with Chris Botti

Alvin Ailey® American Dance theater’s Antonio Douthit-Boyd. Photo by Andrew Eccles.

Satin & Soul featuring David Sanborn & Jonathan Butler

Photo by Mark Seliger

Photo by Jenny Risher

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Desert Companion is the premier city magazine that celebrates the pursuits, passions and aspirations of Southern Nevadans. With award-winning lifestyle journalism and design, Desert Companion does more than inform and entertain. We spark dialogue, engage people and define the spirit of the Las Vegas Valley.

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NE W S PEOP L E

to all people

SPORTS S H OP H EA LT H

h e a lt h

Hazy future What’s not to like about inhaling nicotine vapor instead of smoke? Plenty. But as some states move to regulate the vape craze, Nevada is a bit slow on the uptake by Heidi Kyser photography by brent holmes

Hear more more

“I used to smoke about a pack a day,” says Laura Stephens. She started smoking when she was 16; during her deployment to Iraq as an Army medic, she’d burn through as many as three packs a day. Now she’s a vaper. She got into vaping five months ago, after her 6-year-old daughter asked her to quit smoking. Stephens hasn’t touched a cigarette since. She prefers zero-nicotine juice and a variablevoltage unit, because it allows her to control the thickness of the vapor. “It gives you that mental thing,” she says, “helping with your pacifier effect — the sensation that you’re still smoking.” In case you haven’t been to a bar, nightclub or college campus lately and witnessed the phenomenon for yourself, a vape is a vaporized nicotine inhaler. A user puts one of a variety of devices to his lips and draws on it, pulling flavored, nicotine-infused liquid (“juice”) over an element (“coil”), heated by a battery pack, which turns the liquid to vapor. The user inhales the vapor and then exhales what isn’t absorbed by his body. Vaping devices range from small plastic cylinders that resemble toy cigarettes to larger plastic cylinders that look like sex toys to metal contraptions that resemble shop tools. You could spend hours at a vape shop learning the intricacies of the practice; less fussy types can pick up a pack of disposable e-cigarettes at a gas station and start vaping right away. Or, you can order a starter kit online. Since it’s an as-yet unstandardized practice, there is an array of approaches and supplies. But a lack of standards hasn’t stopped vaping from picking up a head of steam. An analyst for Wells Fargo Security estimated that the e-cigarette market would reach $2 billion in 2014, top $10 billion by 2017 and surpass the conventional tobacco market by 2021. Localvapers.com estimates there are 48 vape shops in Clark County — and that’s not counting all the hookah stores

Nevada Brendaleads Priddy thediscusses nation in secondhand-smoke “car spy photography” exposure. on “KNPR’s Learn more Stateon ofKNPR’s Nevada” “State at desertcompanion.com/hearmore of Nevada” at desertcompanion.com/hearmore DesertCompanion.com | 11

society

Vape of things to come: A variety of nicotine inhalers

and regular smoke shops that sell e-cigs. Major Las Vegas thoroughfares are dotted with billboards advertising them. Much of the hype reflects Laura Stephens’ experience with e-cigarettes as a smoking alternative. The ad aired during this year’s Super Bowl by NJOY, an e-cigarette manufacturer, had the tagline, “Friends don’t let friends smoke. Give them the only electronic cigarette worth switching to.” Up in the air The U.S. Food and Drug Administration hasn’t approved e-cigarettes as cessation tools. Still, why shouldn’t smokers be encouraged to switch to vaping? If someone’s going to inhale nicotine anyway, he may as well choose the option that doesn’t come with tar and the other noxious elements of tobacco smoke. Right? Maybe. The vaping industry makes plenty of claims but provides few verifiable answers: Is it really a safe alternative to smoking? Is the vapor just harmless steam? Will the playfully named juice flavors and toylike vapes lure kids? The authorities intend to clear the smoke. Following a legal battle that held up sweeping regulation, the FDA recently announced its intention to propose a rule allowing it to regulate e-cigarettes as “tobacco products” (nicotine is extracted from tobacco leaves). The resulting regulations could cover marketing, ingredients listings and testing. The FDA won’t give a timeline, but insiders expect it to happen this year. Some states aren’t waiting. New York has banned the sale of e-cigarettes to minors; California’s and Oregon’s attorney generals have pursued e-cigarette makers in court, resulting in settlements that have banned certain sales and marketing practices. Nevada, perhaps true

12 | Desert

Companion | March 2014

State health officials fear e-cigs could give Big Tobacco a new way to reach adolescents. to its libertarian nature, has declined to take such action. The 2013 legislature determined that local regulation is not permitted, that ecigarettes are not covered under the Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act, and that there are no restrictions on advertising them. Left with no ammunition, Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto could do nothing but join 39 other states in urging the FDA to make its move. (There is some local movement, however: UNLV recently banned vaping in its Student Union facility or within 20 feet of any entrance. And the Southern Nevada Health District, which banned vaping on its property three years ago, has integrated e-cigarettes into its $850,000 public awareness campaign.) Judging by the steady decline in youth smoking over the past decade, projects like the Health District’s anti-smoking campaign Xpoz seem to have worked. Maria Azzarelli, head of the district’s Tobacco Prevention and Control Program, believes e-cigarettes could undo her team’s work by giving Big Tobacco a new entrée with adolescents. Indeed, Lorillard, the third biggest of the Big Three in U.S. tobacco, now owns blu, a top-selling brand of e-cigarette. The other two are entering the market as well. The 2012 National Youth Tobacco Survey indicated that 1.8 million middle and high-school students nationwide had tried e-cigarettes. And Azzarelli points out that e-cigarette marketing bears a striking resemblance to Big Tobacco’s old bag of tricks: celebrity endorsements, the glamorization of the practice and, perhaps most troublesome, flavoring. Additionally, health experts are concerned that the candy and fruit flavors of vape juice will entice young users. Vendors of vaping products, by and large, avoid selling to minors, but current regulation doesn’t actually prevent it. And while existing law stops tobacco companies from putting flavoring in cigarettes, Azzarelli can show you a storage box full of flavored tobacco products — now including e-hookah and e-cigarettes — demonstrating the numerous ways manufacturers get around this restriction. Puffin’ stuff It’s yet another reflection of the Wild West phase in which vaping finds itself. There is a lot we don’t know — starting with, what’s in the vapor? Juice comes in two broad

categories: with and without nicotine. Ask an e-cigarette merchant how the nicotine content is measured, and you’ll get interesting answers. Consider this conversation I had with Alan Phu of Yosi Vapor Boutique: Phu: It comes in 12 and 18 mostly. We have 24, but we discourage people from using that. Me: Is that 12 or 18 milligrams, or percent? Phu: Either one. Me: But … Phu: Percent. Juice labels may also be confusing. In a 2009 study, FDA product testing found that some juices labeled as “0 nicotine” did actually contain the drug, and that percentages indicated on labels weren’t always accurate. To avoid this, Phu says, Yosi only buys from well-established, reputable juice vendors; staff does not mix the juice themselves, as many vape merchants do. One such merchant is Dale Rohrbaugh, co-owner of Las Vegas Vapor Lounge, who says both that he mixes his juice to be 12 percent nicotine and that a 10 milliliter bottle of it contains 3 milligrams of nicotine. Measures aside, the nicotine itself is problematic — a highly addictive vasoconstrictor. But the biggest mystery about vape juice isn’t the nicotine; it’s whatever else is in it. Proponents of vaping are frequently heard to say the flavoring is made of plant extracts or foodgrade chemicals. “There’s nothing harmful in that,” Rohrbaugh says. “It’s what we eat every day.” But even he doesn’t know for sure. As of now, the solid science is scarce, and manufacturers aren’t required to list ingredients on labels. That could change if the proposed FDA regulations pass and the Health District succeeds in spreading its message. Where would that leave the dozens of vape shop owners in the valley? Rohrbaugh doesn’t sell to minors, he labels his products to be kept out of the reach of children, and he points out that his business is making a contribution to the economy. He’s suspicious of regulation. “Believe me, this would have been stopped a long time ago if it was dangerous,” he says. “The only restrictions politicians would put on e-cigarettes would be because of lobbying from big tobacco companies. They’re buying up all these little companies to run them into the ground.”

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Kinder, gentler football A temperate February Sunday in Green Valley. On a large rectangle of winter-ravaged grass at Greenspun Middle School, youth sports is taking place. Football and soccer. Furious shouts of “Get out there and kick some ass!” do not ring in the air. Coaches, intent on winning, do not bawl out their players. Red-faced confrontations between parents and referees do not disturb the peace. The only sounds are positive, supportive — lots of cheering, mostly. It’s almost as if life isn’t like “Friday Night Tykes.” “Tykes,” as you may be aware, is the Esquire Network’s reality show about hypercompetitive youth football and the adults who get off on it. It’s come under fire for its depiction of a severe win-at-all-costs fervor. Earlier this year, two coaches were suspended for, in the words of the ABC News website, “encouraging dangerous play and bad behavior among their 8- and 9-yearold players.” James and Holly Campbell are going a different way. Former government contractors who say they provided cultural instruction to troops bound for the Middle East, they recently bought the local franchise of i9 Sports. It’s a kinder, gentler league, with some 600,000 kids enrolled

14 | Desert

Companion | March 2014

nationally, that counters the rising intensity (and fear of injury) that lately has marked traditional youth sports. i9 is competitive, yes; hyper, no. The football is flag, so there’s less risk of injury. Parents sign a code of conduct, so their emotions don’t catch fire. Coaches and refs — anyone who deals with the kids — are background-checked, so parents can worry a little less. There’s a slaughter rule, so no team wins by a humiliatingly wide margin. Not to mention weekly “core value” lessons (courage, fairness), practice and games on the same day and sportsmanship medals each week. “Fun, safety and convenience,” James sums up, as Holly whoops for their daughter, a flag football player who just now almost caught a pass. “We’re just trying to make this a very fun league that’s comfortable on parents,” he adds. The same-day practice and games, for example: Families aren’t giving up two or three nights a week for practice, missing homework and cramming down fast food on the way home. The Campbells launched i9 last September with football and soccer leagues in Summerlin that drew about 100 players. (Nationally, i9 also offers other sports, including baseball and basketball.) When the new season started in January, registrations were up 60 percent and they had enough interest in Green Valley to begin a small league there. Players range in age from 3-13, with three divisions in each sport. Have the Campbells seen “Friday Night Tykes”? “Fifteen minutes was all we could take,” Holly says. She shudders to think about parenting or coaching in that atmosphere, adhering to some improbable belief that youth sports stardom will springboard your child to sports greatness in high school and maybe a scholarship to college. “There are so few people that really become those kinds of athletes,” she says. And if a player isn’t that gifted, his role on the team becomes “the kid who gets in the way of the players who want to tackle the good kid.” “I used to be one of those parents who try to live out their sports dreams through their kids,” James admits; he thinks it took all the fun out of his son’s basketball playing. That explains his passion for the i9 program. To those who’d argue that blunting the win-or-lose edge of sports ultimately hurts the child — by failing to prepare them for the competitive way adult life sorts winners from losers in the workplace and any number of social settings — Holly would counter: They’re just kids. “The fun of it is the best part,” she says. — Scott Dickensheets

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PROFILE

16 | Desert

Companion | March 2014

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Bill Hughes

Confused about hearings aids? Overwhelmed by all the hearing aid ads?

Billy Johnson President, COO, Las Vegas Wranglers We catch up with Wranglers boss Billy Johnson on a day when he’s acutely suspended between past and future, between old and new. This morning, former Chicago White Sox skipper Jim Fregosi died. “He was one of the first guys I knew who was really nice to me in pro sports, when I was a 19-year-old mascot and he was manager of the (Louisville) Redbirds,” says a rueful Johnson, who doesn’t like to see old-school wisdom pass from this world — one reason he enjoys Vegas is that there are still oldtimers here. Then, later this afternoon, he and Wranglers owner Gary Jacob will conclude the negotiations that’ll land the team at The Plaza downtown, ending the lessthan-pleasant drama that began when The Orleans declined to renew the team’s lease at its arena. As we talk, Johnson can’t tell us what’s up, only that it would be “funky” and a surprisingly good fit. Later, after the news breaks, he will text us a smiley face. Asked to don a Wranglers jersey for this photo, Johnson declines, for the same reason he won’t be photographed with a hockey stick: He never played the game and doesn’t want to disrespect the athletes who do. Sometimes, the past foreshadows the present. As a mascot, Johnson didn’t merely hop around in his overlarge bird suit or spazz out when the other team scored. He has the heart and mind of a writer — it’s all about narrative. “I had a set list of 90-second routines that had setups and punch lines,” he recalls. “I had 20, 25 of those, and I would create a set list every night. I basically had my own show. For two or three years, it put me on the front lines of the entertainment part of sports.” Now he employs the same instincts as the Wrangler’s promotional mastermind. You might’ve heard about Dick Cheney Hunting Vest Night. What about Rob Blagojevich Prison Uniform Night? “It was programmed from

start to finish,” he says. “It was theater. We had bars painted on the penalty box, I made the goal judges wear powdered wigs and robes, the music was all Johnny Cash-themed …” He needs such transcendent silliness. “According to some research, 95 percent of the people in Las Vegas don’t care about minor-league hockey,” Johnson says. “So I only have 5 percent of the people.” If he’s going to pump that percentage up, he’s got to reach more than the pucking faithful. “I want to invite the uninvited,” he says — the people who might not otherwise be comfortable engaging with the city’s entertainment-industrial complex. “The tapestry of promotions and publicity stunts all invite people in.” If they won’t come for the hockey, he reasons, give ’em a different kind of fun and maybe they’ll stay. (Though “fun” is, of course, a subjective concept. “The Cheney thing resulted in a few death threats on my phone from people in other parts of the country,” Johnson says wryly.)

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About that narrative impulse: You can look up Johnson’s novel, If I Die, Tell Steve Martin I Found His Journal, on amazon.com. “Smart, funny, intelligently written,” says the top review. “I’ll give you an anecdote,” Johnson says. We’ve been talking about the team’s relationship to the city, about how difficult the venue hassles have been. “On Jan. 31, we came back after an extended road trip, and the place was sold-out. We sold standingroom-only tickets. The guys were so moved by that, we probably played the best hockey game of the year. That community connection just tied into that one night — it was probably the most perfect night in Wranglers history, and we didn’t win a championship, we didn’t win a big game …” Weeks later, he’s still moved by the memory. “To be part of something good is worth fighting for,” he says. — Scott Dickensheets

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Candace’s five must-haves for spring 4

Model, hairstylist and co-owner, Stone Fox Salon; owner and designer, Indigo Moon Vintage by Christie Moeller

Your personal style? I’m a vintage girl. I like to take my favorite things from the ’50s to the ’80s and mix them together with modern clothes in ways that make me happy. Spring trend you’re looking forward to? I’m excited for all the flowy, cream-colored bohemian dresses! I love that dreamy, soft, clean feeling after months of sweaters and boots. Personal styling tricks? I always feel like a girl has genuinely good style when she’s cute on her day off. You know, with her coffee in hand, running errands, etc. Everyone is cute when they go out. I think effortless style is the best, so I always try to keep it simple and make it seem like I easily fell into the look. If you look like you’re going to prom every day, everyone’s gonna know you spent all day trying to get this together. I just back up, take off a few accessories, brush out my hair. Minimize and usually go with your first choice. Favorite fashion era? The ’70s for sure! I get constantly told I was born in the wrong era. Do you have any seasonal rituals for changing from winter to spring? I cry and put all my vintage fur coats away. Favorite color combo? Right now, I’m loving all the creams and peaches but I’m always a black-on-black kinda girl. With nude lipstick, of course. If you could only wear one designer for the rest of your life, who would it be? I could live and die in the Yves Saint-Laurent spring 2013 collection! High-fashion witchy woman. What are your secret shopping spots? I rummage through vintage shops and shop online. My favorite Las Vegas shops are Gypsy Den, The Jeweler’s Daughter, Nikdreamer, Electric Lemonade and Widow Den. I also love TOPSHOP, American Apparel and Free People. Favorite piece in your wardrobe? My vintage Louis Vuitton Stephen Sprouse black and white “Graffiti Speedy” bag. The only Louis Vuitton collection that isn’t a boring grandma print. PHOTOGRAPHY BY christopher smith

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BIDS, BITES & BEVERAGES PRESENTING SPONSOR: THE RIDGES IN SUMMERLIN

On February 6th, Nevada Public Radio invited its major donors, Board of Directors, Community Advisory Board, corporate supporters, and community dignitaries to our premiere annual event, Bids, Bites & Beverages. In addition to enjoying signature beverages and gourmet bites, guests participated in both silent and live auctions. The event raised $40,000 and welcomed nearly 400 guests to The Donald W. Reynolds Broadcast Center. Thanks to all our sponsors, including presenting sponsor The Ridges in Summerlin.

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BIDS, BITES & BEVERAGES PRESENTING SPONSOR: THE RIDGES IN SUMMERLIN

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What’s the Is future Las Vegas of immigration getting fatter? reform? HearHear experts a discussion weigh in on “KNPR’s “KNPR’sState Stateof ofNevada” Nevada”at atwww.desertcompanion/hearmore desertcompanion.com/hearmore

department open topic

The lonely alien of Congress In a hyperpartisan age and a tough Congressional district, coming up with actual ideas can be fraught with peril

j By Jon Ralston

Joe Heck frustrates Democrats. They want him to be a Tea Partier. But he’s not. They want him to be a frothing rightwinger. But he’s not. They want him to be anti-immigration reform. But he’s not. And it is on this last point that the Republican congressman’s political enemies are most thwarted as they, especially his Democratic opponent, Erin Bilbray, try to get traction. The cookie-cutter attacks employed by both party committees and then channeled through candidates have been flowing for months. And immigration, with its emotional tug and incendiary rhetoric, lends itself like few others to the small-mindedness and small-heartedness of political campaigns. As Heck faces re-election, it’s interesting to watch what seems to be a serious and engaged legislator grapple with tough issues — in a hyperpartisan environment in a critical swing district where you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t, seemingly damned no matter what. Heck, who was recently judged by The National Journal to be a moderate (sorry, Democrats), has caused some of his own problems.

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He’s an analytical workhorse — I’m not sure any other member of the Gang of 535 has read the entire Affordable Care Act, much less the Senate and House immigration bills. But his own rhetoric and approach often appear to be insensitive or arrogant, mostly because he is so matter-of-fact. For instance, he used to use the term “anchor babies” to refer to immigrants born in this country to undocumented parents. (Joe Heck hates kids who are illegal through no fault of their own!) And he voted for an amendment by Iowa anti-reform zealot Steve King to override the president’s

executive action to not deport the so-called DREAMers. (Joe Heck hates young people who want to stay here!) Editor’s note: Welcome to the first installment of “Open Topic,” a new column. What’s it about? Everything — politics, culture, media, wry and trenchant personal observations, and all kinds of other stuff that doesn’t really fall into a neat category. Watch this space for the city’s finest writing talent to offer up fresh insights each month about, well, everything.

Heck, who now talks about “birthright citizenship,” is quite circumspect, even evasive, on the subject. “It is worthy of a debate,” he told me in a recent interview, saying what politicians generally say when they don’t want to take an unpopular position. Then he added, “We are one of two or three industrialized nations that continue to offer (automatic) citizenship.” On siding with the rabid King, I wondered if Heck, who has cited the principle of stopping Obama from overstepping his executive authority, considered that this amendment actually could result in the deportation of young people desperate to fulfill the American Dream. “I do not cast votes based on being pummeled by political opponents,” he answered. “The president had the House and the Senate for two years and squandered that time. So two months before the election, he throws a bone to the Hispanic community. That is usurping the authority of Congress.” Heck may well be right, but the politics of this are awful for him. And yet, his willingness to meet with potentially adversarial groups and his drafting his own immigration reform bill have helped him keep reasonably high numbers for a Republican among Hispanics. A Review-Journal poll during his last race showed Heck at 41 percent with Hispanics, and his folks tell me he consistently scores in the high 30s and low 40s. Granted, his 2012 foe, John Oceguera, was a disaster. But even in recent times, Heck has done all he could to shun the anti-reform label the Democrats so want to affix to him. Heck chafes at the notion that he is a Johnny come-lately to immigration reform, that he is now engaged in the issue because he is up for re-election against a presumably better opponent who will have the full-throated support of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and national women’s groups. He correctly points out that he began talking about the issue in the previous Congress. But you also can’t ignore that nearly a quarter of his district is Hispanic and Asian, and he cannot miss the political imperatives, especially as House GOP leaders have made his life more difficult in his swing district. Heck is not the kind of congressman who grabs his chance at two-minute floor speeches to make a political point, so he hasn’t been out there publicly hectoring the leadership on immigration. But in October, when he came out with a jarring statement, it spoke volumes: “It’s extremely frustrating and very disappointing to hear reports that the House does not plan on voting on immigration reform legislation this year,” he said. “This is yet

“The president had the House and the Senate for two years and squandered that time. So two months before the election, he throws a bone to the Hispanic community. That is usurping the authority of Congress.” another example of the leadership vacuum in Washington that rightly has so many people frustrated with this dysfunctional Congress.” Accidents rarely happen in politics. And this was not one. Those close to Heck say, as one insider told me, “He actually believes in it and thinks there is a leadership void on the issue as both sides posture and no one actually is willing to make progress. He is stepping out, a calculated risk, to see if he can help break the gridlock.” That is either Pollyanna, naïveté or crap. But soon afterward, Heck was meeting with groups and proposing his own plan instead of one of the measures Democrats insist he support: the Senate version, backed even by Dean Heller, or the House analogue, known as HR 15. Similarly, I’m sure he gave it no thought — until he was called on it — that using the term “anchor babies” might be insensitive. But Heck is nothing if not a quick study, having learned his lesson and readily pivoting to more politically correct terminology. He soldiers on like the soldier he is, seizing opportunities if his opponents make mistakes to shred them, always as well-informed as any of his interlocutors, having done his homework. If you ask Heck why he did not support the Senate immigration bill or HR 15, he will launch into a disquisition showing you he has read the measures. He opposed the Senate bill because of its “weak border provisions” and because senators larded it with “pet projects.” It was 1,300 pages by the time it was done — and you get the sense Heck read every one. As for HR 15, Heck says it is “basically the Senate bill,” with the same border security problems. But what really irks Heck is when Democrats — and journalists — refer to the House approach as piecemeal because the leaders won’t pass either of those other measures. “I take exception with the word ‘piecemeal,’” Heck says. “It’s

actually a deliberative process. You don’t need a 1,300-page bill.” So Heck himself has created a measure, which so far remains in the netherworlds of his own computer for lack of support, that is essentially a scaledback DREAM Act. But it would provide a path to citizenship, which doesn’t fit the narrative his political enemies want to etch for the campaign. Heck hawked his measure to a variety of local groups last November and then later in Congress, but it is going nowhere. So his foes are pummeling Heck for not introducing his bill or not talking to top leadership about the measure. Heck insisted that “there has been a lot of movement” within the caucus and that the “goal is to build a groundswell in conference, see who we can get and who we can’t count on.” Heck claimed that he “speaks as often as I can” to members and tries to “get five minutes wherever possible to push my priorities, just as any member does.” But, he conceded, he was “more optimistic last fall than I am today because quite honestly, now it becomes much more about politics than it is about policy as we get closer to the election.” You don’t say. Here’s a perfect example: When House Speaker John Boehner was in Las Vegas in January, Heck told me, he did not talk to the speaker about immigration, even as he was being hectored by the Democrats to do so. Why not? Because, Heck said, it just didn’t come up during Boehner’s Vegas sojourn. What? The outrage! He had the House speaker here and did not lobby him. The congressman must not care that much about the issue, after all. When he hears that — and he will — I bet that will frustrate Joe Heck. Jon Ralston’s political program “Ralston Reports” airs weekdays at 6:30 p.m. on KSNV Channel 3. He covers politics at ralstonreports.com.

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discomfort department zone

Are retirees Is Lassaving Vegasenough gettingto fatter? live comfortably Hear experts in weigh Las Vegas? in on Hear a discussion from“KNPR’s KNPR’s “State State of ofNevada” Nevada”at atwww.desertcompanion/hearmore desertcompanion.com/hearmore

“What? Yeah.” He does, after pushing every button on the remote. “I told you, remember? They buy dinner, but you have to sit through a seminar. You’ll come. I’ll tell them you’re a business partner. Just don’t say we’re related — no, wait, you’re a partner. You could be related. Okay, tell them you’re my son, but not from Oklahoma. But eat something first, because they don’t serve till afterwards. You want to come?” “Sure.” I don’t. “You want a hardboiled egg?” “Sure.” I don’t. “You going to change?” “No.” I do.

The miserable bastards

Five days in Vegas with Jack Friedman, my dad By Barry Friedman | Illustration Hernan Valencia My father was born in Brooklyn on Oct. 14, 1926, and in 1953, he married Florence Ulrich, also of Brooklyn. They had three children: Wayne, Barry and Susan. I’m Barry. After my mother died, my dad, a semiretired accountant, moved to Las Vegas. I live in Tulsa, Okla., and visit about once a month. Sometimes I hear my mother: “Go see your father.” This is the story of a recent visit.

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W EDNESDAY (Summerlin, Tumble Brook Drive, foyer) My father is on the sofa; the television I could hear from his driveway. “Ba, they’re buying us dinner at Fleming’s,” he says, as I stand in the hallway. “We just have to listen to a tax lecture.” He had mentioned something about this on the phone. “What? Hi. Oh, right. Can you turn the TV down?”

WE D NES DAY NIG H T (Fleming’s, Charleston Boulevard) The meeting starts at 6:30. We get here at 5:45. The organization has rented a meeting room in the back. At the sign-in table, when asked our names, my father replies, “Jack Friedman. This is my son, my partner. We’re CPAs. I’m an accountant. He’s from Oklahoma.” He’s blown his own cover. We find an empty table in a room full of them. I sit in the chair in front of a floor-toceiling bookcase, each shelf filled with wine. “Put your cell phone away,” my father tells me. “No way. I’m taking notes.” “Of what?” “You.” “Me? Why?” A few seconds later. “Barry, grab a bottle,” he says, pointing to some wine above me. That’s why. Another couple joins us. The table seats eight; it is just the four of us. Other tables start filling up. I’m guessing 10 total. A man bounds to the front of the room. His name is Berger. “Gotta be Jewish,” my father says. “Who else wishes people a prosperous year in September?” Berger is screaming. “Is money falling through the cracks of your fingers? Is it?” “Let me check,” my dad whispers, holding out his hands. “No, nothing.” “Shhh!” Fast f o rwa r d two h o u r s … Dinner comes with one nonalcoholic beverage. My father orders a root beer with his filet. He tells the couple at the table a joke about a man who kills his wife’s lover, which ends with the guy’s wife saying, “You keep doing that, you’re going to lose all your friends.” The man at the table doesn’t laugh, doesn’t smile, says he and his wife like Joel Osteen

and, thus, do not like off-color jokes. “My son’s a comedian,” he says, pointing to me, like it’s my fault. That they laugh at. Dessert comes. My dad asks for coffee. He waits. No coffee. He makes eye contact with the waitress, points at her and mimes drinking a cup. Something’s wrong. “Sir,” she says, “you’ve had your beverage. I’m sorry. I can’t serve you coffee.” “What do you mean?” “You’re only entitled to one beverage. You had a root beer, remember?” Here it comes. “One beverage? She got a refill of tea,” he says, pointing to the woman at our table. “Doesn’t that count as two beverages?” The woman smiles but doesn’t want to get involved. The waitress, too, is unswayed. On the way home: “These miserable bastards! How do they not offer coffee? It’s standard.” T H URS DAY MORNING (Southwest Medical Associates, Grand Montecito Parkway) He’s not letting it go. “It’s a lousy cup of coffee! I wouldn’t have had the root beer had I known.” His appointment is at 9:30. It’s 8:20. My father’s blood pressure dropped to 80/40 the previous week at a party after drinking, according to his friends, four glasses of wine. He was taken to the ER. His physician, from Nigeria — he calls her “EZ Lou” — asks about that. “I had a little wine,” he says, holding his thumb and forefinger an inch apart, “but I don’t even like wine.” In Jack Friedman’s world, if you don’t like the alcohol you’re drinking, it doesn’t count. “How much do you drink usually?” I stare at my father. He still has upper body strength, but his skin has begun to sag. He’s asked if I notice. I lie, tell him I don’t. “Maybe three drinks a night,” he tells her, “three times a week, but it’s only gin.” EZ Lou face-palms. F RI DAY (Red Rock Casino, Valet) My father bounds towards me. “I was flirting with the dealer,” he says, handing me a hundred. “Here … buy yourself something. Anyway, her husband is dying of cancer, but said he doesn’t interfere with her social life. I think she wanted my number.”

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discomfort zone

What other explanation could there be, for she’s a dealer, working mornings, and her husband’s dying — what could be better than getting the phone number of an octogenarian in black sweats, a blue Nike shirt and slip-ons? Before his present girlfriend, he was dating a woman 20 years younger than he. “Does that make me a pedophile?” he used to ask. It’s funny, trust me, the first 117 times you hear it. We have three more stops: First to Lowe’s for an oven (he’s been using Scotch Tape to keep the door closed on the one he has); then, to Dollar Tree for 3-liter bottles of pineapple soda (don’t ask); and finally to the Suncoast Casino for his Friday bowling league, where, he tells me, “If Judy says one more goddamn word about what I do wrong when I bowl, I’m going to start charging her for her tax returns.” SATURDAY NIGHT (Tumble Brook Drive, Living Room) He keeps falling asleep in his recliner, watching I, Robot. My mother used to say that when she’d see him in front of the television, she’d look at his belly. “If it’s moving up and down, I know he’s breathing. I know he’s okay.” It’s moving up and down. He wakes up. “Where’s your mother, Barry? Where’s your mother?” Fourteen years she’s dead — breast to bone cancer, awful stuff — and he tells me he’s been thinking about her more and more. He didn’t want to move to Vegas in the first place, he told me, because if she came back to Jersey looking for him, she wouldn’t find him. “She had a life, Ba. She wasn’t cut short, but she went too soon. She should have had another 10 years. Wouldn’t have killed anybody.” SUN DAY MORNIN G (Tumble Brook Drive, in front of hats that hang on his office door) “I’m not wearing this,” he says, taking off the beret, “it makes me look like an old man.” This from a 87-year-old who wears toupees he buys online. “Dad, the hairpieces don’t fit.” “What do you want me to tell you? That’s the way they come.” (Sometimes there are no comebacks) We are going to Primm with his girlfriend, Jeannette, whose name he can’t always remember (but who, good sport that she is, an-

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He’s trying to flirt with his Russian cardiologist. “How does Moses make tea?” he asks her. “He ... brews it.” Nothing. swers to Jennifer). She’s not 20 years younger than he is — probably seven or eight — but he still uses the pedophile line. Jeannette is bringing Barbara, her friend. On the way to Jeannette’s I notice my dad’s car has no brakes. None — metal on metal. “Nah,” he says, when I ask if he hears the grinding, “that’s just the sound of the tires on these fakakta roads in Vegas.” We ask Barbara if we can take her SUV. We’ll buy the gas. She agrees. I drive. On the way, she and Jeanette talk about a mutual friend, Enid, with whom they take casino trips and with whom they are both fed up. “What’s the matter with Enid?” I ask. “First off, she never stops telling jokes,” Barbara says, “but the big thing: She wears dresses that don’t cover her heinie.” SUN DAY A F TERNOON (Primm — Buffalo Bill’s Casino, Miss Ashley’s Boarding House Buffet) “Where’s the meat on this chicken?” my father asks the server. He doesn’t suffer bad service gladly. And he’s right — this chicken not only has no meat, it’s so undercooked, it’s barely dead. Okay, so we buy Barbara lunch in lieu of the gas — it’s $14.95. We believe we made this clear — in lieu of — however, when we get back to Vegas, she directs me to her favorite station, apparently thinking it was in addition to. “Lunch and filling up her car?” my father says after we drop them off. “And we have to go to a special station? Oy!” The Friedmans were played today. MONDAY (Southwest Medical Associates, Rancho Drive) My father has another doctor’s appointment. This one’s scheduled for 8:20. We get there at 7:30. He’s trying to flirt with his Russian cardiologist, who, at the moment, has a stethoscope pressed to his chest. “How does Moses make tea?” my dad asks

her. “He ... brews it.” Nothing. She asks if there is any violence in his home. My dad says he lives alone and doesn’t think so. TUES DAY (On the 215 Beltway) On the way to McCarran, my father asks, “So Barbara really expected gas, too, after we bought lunch? A fire on her.” “And what about the coffee you didn’t get?” I remind him. “The miserable bastards.” We’re looking for my drop-off point. “Vegas keeps moving these roads, Ba. Give me the name of an airline, for Chrissakes! Terminal 1, Terminal 2, Terminal 3. How many goddamn terminals they got here?” “Three.” (“Why do you answer him?” I remember my mother asking.) I hate saying goodbye to him because I never know if I’ll see him again. I’ve done my best to be a good son but still don’t know who the man is who is my father. He’s agreed to move to Tulsa on his 88th birthday. “I want one more year on my own, Ba, one more year.” He needs to come now, but how do you argue with that? I have him stand on the curb near baggage claim so when I hug and kiss him, which I do more and more these days, I won’t dwarf him — his stubble against my face I remember from when I was a little boy and he dwarfed me. In May, after we visited his 92-year-old brother in Delray Beach, Fla., I watched my dad walk down the jetway to his plane with a turkey sandwich in a bag I bought him. The last thing he said to me that day: “Did you remember the mustard?” Today he gets into his car, pulls the seat closer to the steering wheel, and puts on the reading glasses he bought at Dollar Tree — the $700 ones he has from the optometrist aren’t as comfortable or as clear, he tells me — then waves and drives to the Suncoast Casino for his Tuesday bowling league. He will get there two hours early.

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department gambling

A bettor’s life for me To make a living at the pinnacle of sports wagering, you need talent, discipline, a good wi-fi hookup — and, increasingly, a sports book that will take your action By Joshua Longobardy | Illustration by Aaron McKinney

See the people, more than a thousand of them converged in the sports book at LVH, among the largest and most extravagant in the world. Converted years ago from the theater made famous by Elvis Presley, back when it was the Hilton, the room retains something of its old excitement, now manifested in the foaming insides of the sports bettors awaiting kickoff. A motley collection of men, squares for the most part — that is, recreational gamblers — surrounded by television screens and waited upon by young women in tight outfits: “Cocktails? Cocktails?” Jan. 6. The night of college football’s national championship game between Auburn and Florida State. The majority of the betting action had come in backing the underdog, Auburn. Among those were 14 bettors who, even before the season began, had bought tickets on Auburn to win the title — at 1,000-to-1 odds, a serious potential loss for the house. At least two of those ticket-holders returned to the LVH to watch the game. They were joined by many in the sports book that night, some who’d taken Auburn on the money line for petty bets ranging up to $100, and others purely for the schadenfreude of seeing the house take a big hit. The city’s wiseguys — that is, elite professional bettors — were responsible for much of the money that sided with FSU, a favorite by more than a touchdown. Though absent from the sports book, the wiseguys’ presence was felt, as their money carries the power to move betting lines, and their wagers evoke respect and sometimes — because they can cost the house big money — apprehension from bookmakers. Indeed, few in town are any longer game to accept the challenge. Jay Kornegay, director of the LVH sports book, is one who is. He’s experienced, confident, sharp himself and chiefly responsible for LVH’s reputation as a place where wiseguys’ bets are welcome. Despite his book’s potential liabilities, Kornegay betrayed no insecurity. Behind

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the betting counter he stood, unruffled and slightly amused. “I’m not stressed at all,” he said without a tremor in his speech. Making him about the only one. By the time FSU’s Levonte Whitfield took an Auburn kickoff for a 100-yard touchdown, putting his Seminoles up 27-24 with fewer than four minutes left, it was necessary to recruit two more cocktail waitresses from elsewhere in the casino; the entire theater was in a state of tension.

With 79 seconds left, Auburn running back Tre Mason took it to the house, not only reclaiming the lead for the Tigers, 31-27, but also seeming to fulfill an omen already written for this “team of destiny,” as the media had coined it. In the sports book, bedlam. Men fell to their knees very near tears. Others rose from their seats as though weightless. The uproar drowned out the calls of the cocktail waitresses.

So the celebrants nearly missed the end of the game. FSU’s quarterback, Jameis Winston, drove his team the length of the field in the remaining minute and tossed a two-yard touchdown pass to complete the victory, 3431. What followed in the sports book was an instantaneous and surreal quiet, and the rank stench of so many gamblers forced to eat shit. Only the waitresses broke the silence. “Cocktails? Cocktails?” That’s how the squares experienced the big game. Many miles removed, wiseguy Chuck Edel watched it in his living room, as though he’d seen it all before — clinical, sober, impervious. Because the hard work of handicapping had been done prior to placing his bet, he brought to his reclining seat a sangfroid that resisted the visceral excitement inherent in gambling. Nor would you be able to tell, by watching him watch the game, which team Edel had bet on — let alone that it was a four-figure wager (a fractional, disciplined allowance from his bankroll). Even after it became clear that Florida State would not cover the eight-point spread, Edel didn’t flinch. He swallowed his loss with the last bite of his steak dinner, turned off the TV, tucked his daughter into bed, then went back to work handicapping games for the rest of the week. Observed from a distance, Edel’s is a quiet suburban life. This is a departure from the old guard of professional sports bettors, who used to scamper from book to book looking for the best lines, but it’s typical of modern wiseguys. Edel and his contemporaries invariably work out of a home office, the essential paraphernalia little more than a TV, a computer and a handheld device. Nor do they look the part. Most are fathers, clean-cut, unassuming, difficult to identify in a crowd of tourists on the Strip. Yet make no mistake: With the recent explosion in the popularity of sports betting, and with their ability to make $50,000 to $500,000 a year from it, these wiseguys are 21st-century standard-bearers for Las Vegas’ enduring mystique. ‘THE WHOLE THING HAS GONE CRAZY’ According to Nevada’s Gaming Control Board, the NCAA basketball tournament elicits around $100 million in wagers, spread over three weeks, among the state’s 183 sports books. That’s a figure comparable to what people bet each year on the Super Bowl, in addition to the $100 million more in economic activity generated by gamblers who descend

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Wiseguys getting wiser: At left, professional sports bettors Bryan Leonard, R.J. Bell, Ken Thomson and Chuck Edel break down the odds in the offices of pregame. com. Bell, below, has become a popular figure in the bookmaking industry.

“But you can’t be a contrarian for the sake of being a contrarian,” adds Bell. “You also have to be right.” on Las Vegas for the game. These numbers are indicative of the ever-rising popularity of sports betting. Yearly revenues reported by the state’s sports books have steadily risen at a 45-degree angle on growth charts since 1975, and in 2012 the total amount exceeded $170 million, or about 5 percent of the $3.5 billion handled. In other words, as longtime oddsmaker Jimmy Vaccaro put it, “The whole thing has gone completely crazy.” Las Vegas is its epicenter. In lieu of a professional sports team, we champion the betting lines, which in turn is a conduit to following every team in all the major sports. Skilled and experienced bettors — sharps, in the language of the profession — fill the slots in local media vacated by pro athletes; those with the most elusive insight are the wiseguys, some of whom can be found on the handicapping information site pregame. com, where they provide counsel as paid touts, and where each was recruited and

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retained by the website’s founder and CEO, R.J. Bell. “I’m lucky that the model of pregame.com has brought together some of the sharpest minds in town,” says Bell. He has positioned himself to be a voice in great demand — bylining weekly columns for Gaming Today, as well as for Grantland, an ESPN offshoot and home to perhaps the hottest sportswriting in America. Between football season and March Madness, Bell maintains a weekly regimen of roughly 10 media appearances, ranging from CNN to the Wall Street Journal, most prominently on ESPN’s widely syndicated sports talk radio show “The Herd,” with Colin Cowherd. To prepare for these appearances, he taps the wiseguys tethered to pregame.com, such as professional bettors Edel, Ken Thomson, Bryan Leonard and Steve Fezzik; sometimes he checks with a top bookmaker like Kornegay. So ubiquitous and authoritative has Bell become that for many sports fans he represents Las Vegas.

‘IT’S A GRIND’ See Ken Thomson. With his sunny appearance showing no signs that his day started very early in the morning, Thomson wrapped up his weekday radio show on 720 AM at 9 p.m. on the last Friday of November, and, as he always does, drove straight home to scour the lines for the weekend’s games. In particular, college basketball, for which Thomson had spent 25 years on the sidelines as a broadcaster before moving to Las Vegas. Two from that Sunday’s lineup piqued his interest: Pacific vs. North Dakota, and Memphis vs. Oklahoma State. Pacific was a good buy at minus-2.5. The worth of a sports team is never centrally determined by any one analyst or media network, but rather by the betting market at large: the bookmakers, the sharps and the public, their regard for any given team re-

flected in real time in the betting lines. In this way Las Vegas propagates the true value of every team. Yet because football attracts an inordinate amount of attention, it was a good time for college basketball sharps like Thomson to catch the market in a moment of inefficiency. Which, in short, is the wiseguy’s warrant. To locate inefficiencies in the lines. All of Thomson’s knowledge, talent and time go toward attaining this edge. It’s an unrelenting process. Pregame.com’s Bryan Leonard puts in some 60 hours a week reading newspapers from around the country, injury reports, anything that might lend itself to his purposes. On Tuesdays he breaks from this ruthless scholarship to conference over lunch with the Tuesday Group, a handful of wiseguys who, in roundtable fashion, pick apart future games and their nascent lines. One of these is Steve Fezzik, another of Bell’s sharps. During football season his Sundays commence at 6:30 a.m., so he’ll be prepared for the opening lines of next week’s college football schedule, and continue at top speed online and in the sports books until the final game of the NFL’s lineup concludes, typically around 8:30 p.m. At which time Fezzik grabs a breather, a snack and a comfortable place on his couch to scout the games he’d missed during the day. “It’s a grind,” says Leonard, ruining any romantic preconceptions about the lifestyle of professional bettors. “Day in, day out.” Thomson scrutinizes each game like a college student does novels, rarely for pleasure but always with purpose. So that while bookmakers and the analysts downplayed Memphis’ chances against a tough Oklahoma State team that had crushed Memphis two weeks earlier, Thomson had seen something in that blowout that told him Memphis would prevail in the rematch. Whosoever would be a professional bettor must first and foremost be a nonconformist. “But you can’t be a contrarian for the sake of being a contrarian,” adds Bell. “You also have to be right.” With Pacific and Memphis, Thomson felt sure that he was. Since the start of the college basketball season he’d gone 21-5 with his picks. “I felt locked in,” Thomson says. “It’s an unbelievable feeling.” Yet despite this, he placed only a dime — that is, $1,000, less than 5 percent of his bankroll — on each game. It was a cautious reflex. For in that temporary transaction, Thomson had coupled his fate with that of college-age men wholly unaware of his interests and who themselves are made up of the least reckonable

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‘AFTER A WHILE YOU BECOME PESSIMISTIC’ For wiseguys, betting is neither entertainment nor an addiction, but a taxable means of livelihood. And so it’s only natural that they take losses harder than the weekend gambler. Especially bad beats, those defeats that occur suddenly and unexpectedly. “I’ve known a lot of professionals,” says Leonard. “And not one of them thinks luck’s on their side.” See Chuck Edel. In December, he bet a nickel — $500 — on the Buffalo Bills to cover at home against the foundering Atlanta Falcons. Watching the game from his living room, in which he has a setup of three televisions to take in as much football as he can, his play looked good all the way to the last minute of the fourth quarter, when, facing a fourth-and-long, Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan threw an errant pass that all but sealed the game for Buffalo, bringing a rare rise out of Edel. Then, out of nowhere, like a personal affront to Edel himself, a yellow flag appeared. Penalty on Buffalo. Edel didn’t need to watch the rest to know his bet was doomed. That pass-interference penalty would help the Falcons send the game to overtime and then ride the shift in momentum to victory. Edel sunk into his seat, sunk deep into himself. The feeling is bottomless. “I can go on for the next 45 minutes telling you in detail about bad beats,” he says. “They stick, and after a while you become very pessimistic.” ‘IT’S NOT A NORMAL LIFE’ By custom, wiseguys like Leonard and Fezzik bet the house limits, anywhere from $500 to $5,000 per game. It’s not unusual for them to have a blue-collar worker’s yearly income at stake on a busy day. Often-

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times Leonard’s day is so packed, his bets so voluminous, that he doesn’t have time to watch the games on which he’s placed a wager. Besides money, pride and ego are on the line with every bet. What hurts most about a loss is not always the money, according to Leonard, but rather the realization that you faltered in your handicapping. Such is the romance and potential payoff of the gambling life that many people come here intending to make a living at sports betting. Most are ill-formed and ill-prepared. “Besides talent, it takes incredible discipline to make a living from this,” says Bell. “I’d say one out of every thousand bettors has the talent; one out of every 10,000, the discipline.” Of the millions who place bets in Nevada’s sports books, a fraction of a fraction are profitable in the long run. Because the bettor must put down $11 to make $10, on account of the house’s commission, he must win at least 52.38 percent of the time to come out ahead, and roughly 55 percent to make a livelihood. To pick sides in a game, many sharps rely strictly on stats, algorithms and other quantitative measures; others, on situations, historical analyses; yet all bets are founded on supposition and never prescience. All of which is to say, good handicapping is rare and always has been, and only reveals itself over thousands of repetitions, with the difference between success and failure a few perentage points. All of Bell’s wiseguys have sustained losing spells that unsettled the ground beneath their feet, and other handicappers less resilient have fallen by the wayside. “It’s not a normal life,” says the Southpoint’s Jimmy Vaccaro, an icon in the business and one of the last remaining vestiges of the old guard of bookmakers. “To get to this point you had to have gone broke a bunch of times. It’s enough to drive you crazy.” Still other wiseguys — with far less scruples — try to counter humans’ fickle nature by corrupting athletes and fixing games. Recall Tim Donaghy. In 2007 the NBA referee collapsed under the weight of a scandal, having moonlighted for several years as a handicapper while officiating basketball games. Presently a tout with his own syndicate, Donaghy had defended himself back then by asserting that he’d never bet on games that he refereed. But that claim was dispelled in a masterful analysis Bell produced on his website. That was how Bell introduced himself to the mainstream media, which had been tracking

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“It’s getting harder and harder for me to get a bet down. And I’m not going to travel to Beatty or Reno to bet a line. I live in Las Vegas. I moved here for a reason.” the Donaghy scandal. His name now in their contact lists, Bell became the nation’s go-to source for stories involving matters of sports betting, which is in reality all sports stories. Whenever there is competition, betting odds have risen, attracting handicappers and turning innocent bystanders into inveterate gamblers. Bell’s practice is to seek out the best sources possible to prepare for interviews with the media. For this reason his wiseguys are all handpicked. Among them are some of the most incisive betting minds of the past three decades: Fezzik, once a vice president of the TransAmerica Asset Management insurance company, who’s won the World Series of handicapping competitions — the LVH SuperContest — twice, in succeeding years, fattening his bankroll by a total of $400,000 and change; Leonard, a founding member of the Tuesday Group and veteran handicapper of 30 years, who hasn’t worked a single day in a straight job; Thomson, host of “Sports X Radio,” a sports betting show that for 10 years has been essential listening for the city’s bettors; and Edel, who has supported every one of his past 17 years in Las Vegas by no means other than making weekly withdrawals from the city’s sports books. “Many of those who try to be pros will fail,” says Bell. “But that, too, is the American way.” ‘THE SITUATION HERE IS GETTING RIDICULOUS’ Kornegay’s LVH is known as a sharp book — it takes on a lot of wiseguy action. There are few left in town that do. The sports book at the M Resort, run by Cantor Gaming. Jimmy Vaccaro’s sports book at the SouthPoint. “With the Internet, and all the information it makes accessible, everybody’s a wiseguy,” says Vaccaro. “But there’s always a few who are very good at what they do. They’re known as respected money.” Bell’s wiseguys are respected money. “I like being around guys who know more than I do,” says Vaccaro. “I’ve always tried to treat them fairly.” That attitude among book-

makers is disappearing. In 1975, the year Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal established the archetype for the modern sports book in the Stardust, casino activity accounted for 58 percent of the Strip’s overall revenue, according to the Gaming Control Board. In 1999, as modern nightclubs began to proliferate, casino revenues dipped below 50 percent of the overall pot for the first time. Today, that figure stands at 35 percent. Now, many casino-resorts no longer even operate their own sports books, but contract with global companies like Cantor Fitzgerald and William Hill. And very few bookmakers are willing to jeopardize their casino’s bottom line by accepting wiseguys’ bets. Bell says it takes a lot of guts to book bets the way Kornegay and Vaccaro do, just as it was done in the days of the Stardust. The problem is, Las Vegas’ corporate climate no longer employs such gamblers. “The situation here is getting ridiculous,” says Bryan Leonard. “It’s getting harder and harder for me to get a bet down. And I’m not going to travel to Beatty or Reno to bet a line. I live in Las Vegas. I moved here for a reason.” Moreover, says Bell, with today’s technology allowing for wagers to be placed via handheld devices, it’s become easier for sports books to track individual bettors. Above all those like Leonard, Thomson, Edel and Fezzik; that is, winners. The Gaming Control Board allows bookmakers great latitude when it comes to accepting or rejecting bets. Leonard has been turned away point-blank from several sports books in Las Vegas for “betting into too good of numbers.” Quizzical, exasperated, he responds, “Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?!” So that even as a record handle came into Las Vegas for this year’s Super Bowl, plus an expected $100 million or more for March’s NCAA tournament, Leonard says, “Las Vegas is the hardest place in the state to be a professional gambler.”

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department Q&A

What do you get for $260,000 a year? We get John Entsminger, the new general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. For his part, Entsminger gets a big, fat dehydration headache: A region of 2.5 million people kept alive by a water source, the Colorado River, that’s quickly drying up; a controversial Plan B to pipe groundwater from the eastern part of the state; a “third straw” expansion that’s behind schedule and over budget; and a citizenry that’s highly skeptical of public officials. Still, Entsminger says he’s happy he got the job. The Colorado native, who was plucked from UC Boulder’s law school to be the authority’s environmental attorney, believes this is his chance to make a real difference in the world. Over the last 15 years, he’s paid his dues at the authority. Who is this guy? Is he just a ghost of Pat Mulroy’s past? Does he have what it takes to steer thirsty Southern Nevada through what may be its direst — and driest — straits yet? How does being from the upper basin of the Colorado River (as opposed to the lower basin, of which Nevada is a part) influence your view of water law and management? I think it’s extremely helpful, because I grew up with water issues in Colorado, and now they’re one of our main partners in negotiating river issues. So understanding the wants, the needs, the politics of your partner helps to form a better partnership.

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Tell me a story that helped shape your view of water. I remember when I was an undergraduate at the University of Boulder in Colorado walking back towards my apartment at the time, and somebody told me, “You know, the Colorado River no longer makes it to the ocean.” I was appalled by that statement. And I’ve not gotten a chance in my professional life to work on very complex issues, where you’re balancing the needs of municipalities, the needs of agriculture and the needs of the environment, as well. Through Minute 319 (a 2012 water agreement with Mexico) we were able to effectuate the first flows of water from the Colorado River back to the ocean in about 50 years.

New water chief John Entsminger on lakes, lawns and how he plans to keep the taps flowing in Southern Nevada (hint: It’s not all about the rural pipeline plan anymore)

That hasn’t happened yet, though, has it? It’s planned for this year. The pulse flow is supposed to be this year.

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You would eat a fish caught in Lake Mead? Probably, yeah. Do you drink our tap water? I do. Do you filter it? I do not. Is there still perchlorate in the water? Very low levels, within the EPA guidance. Can you quantify that? One-point-two parts per billion. Since SNWA recruited you straight out of law school, effectively, you have no other job experience, right? It depends on what you mean by job experience. I’ve worked in construction jobs, as a Quizno’s sandwich delivery boy. I’ve been a bartender, worked landscaping. During college? And high school, yeah. During law school, I worked for the Department of Justice in their Indian Rights division. I worked for a private law firm in Denver, also during law school. What would you say to someone who feels your experience isn’t broad enough to qualify you for the job you’ve taken on? Any time you’re looking for a chief executive, you can go outside and bring in someone with different experiences, but they’ll have a steep learning curve on the specific situation of that utility. Or you can go with someone from the inside who obviously has a firm grasp of all the operational issues, all the resource challenges, but probably doesn’t have as broad an exposure. That’s a choice every community has to make whenever a job like this comes up. Pat Mulroy has said she hand-picked you to replace her. Can you describe the grooming process from your perspective? Well, you’d have to ask Pat when she made that decision, because, in terms of a conversation with me, the first time she ever really said, “You should move out of the legal department and start getting ready for bigger, executive-level responsibilities,” was about 2010. But I think the grooming process probably goes back to 2002, 2003 when Pat, early on, started giving me additional roles and responsibilities. With that came quite a bit of tough love, too.

Tough love? Well, I walked around for a good part of 2006, and every time Pat saw me, she’d call me a loser, because I hadn’t given her the Memorandum of Agreement to get certain environmental compliance activities completed. She wanted that, and she wanted it now. (Laughs) Did she ever have conversations with you, one-on-one, where she said, “When you’re me, you’re going to have to do this”? Over the last couple years … she was pushing me out into different processes. An example is the IRPAC (Integrated Resource Planning Advisory Committee) process that she had me lead for most of last year. She would not attend those herself, but 30 seconds after it was done, I’d call her and she would run through everything that happened, coaching me or telling me what I should’ve done differently — really, that sort of game-time experience.

business licensing, any number of things — where government has a say in whether and how we grow. I think the water part of the equation is twofold: First, I think the water agency needs to be responsive and give the community the tools it wants to be the community it wants to be. But I also think they need to be honest and tell them, “If you want to grow one way — if you want to have halfacre lots with wall-to-wall turf — there’s a

limit to the amount of growth and economic expansion that our water supply can sustain. The day will come when you won’t be able to do that anymore. If you want to build another Manhattan next to the Strip, and have 100-percent indoor use and no outdoor use, there’s really no limit on how much you can grow.” Now, whether or not the community wants 9 million people is a question for them to decide.

Why you? Well, I think what makes this job unique is, you have the (Las Vegas Valley) Water District side of operations, which is a pretty traditional retail utility that probably somebody from Phoenix or Denver or anybody who’s run a water utility could probably come in and do. But in addition to that, you have this regional water overlay of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which brings with it the role, really, of the de facto lead negotiator for Nevada on the Colorado River with six states, the federal government, NGOs (nongovernment organizations). And that, in my opinion, is where I’ve made my mark, where I have the bona fides and the relationships to say, “I’m the best person to sit at the table for Nevada and protect all our interests on the Colorado River.” Will you differ from Mulroy on any significant issues? You’d almost have to have an example, because if Pat were still here, the challenges of 2014 and 2015, I think she would probably address them in a different way than she addressed the challenges in 2002 and 2003. I think Pat and I, philosophically, are very much aligned … but when I make a decision six months from now, when people ask, “Would Pat have done the same thing?” there’s no way to know. Because the facts are going to have changed. How about growth, for example? Well, I don’t think the Water Authority or the Water District is the final decision-maker when it comes to growth. We have a number of democratic mechanisms — zoning,

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Q&A It sounds like you’d agree with the idea that growth is in Southern Nevada’s DNA. I don’t know. It sort of makes it sound like I’m agreeing that we should have a goal of getting back to where we were in the ’90s and 2000s, and I don’t think we’re going to see that kind of cycle again. I think of those as Las Vegas’ teenage years, and I think our community is maturing, so that we’ll get more of the, if you can call it normal-level growth, of 2, 3, 4 percent, where the community will have a more normal maturation process after this. You said philosophically you and Mulroy are aligned. Does that apply to the proposed water pipeline? I think so, but I want to make sure I say what my philosophy is. I view the groundwater project as the community safety net. I think that — with 90 percent of the water supply for seven out of 10 people who live in the state of Nevada coming from one source (Lake Mead) that’s demonstrably dynamic and variable and could be at risk, given the ongoing drought and emergence of cli-

mate-change impacts on snowpack in the Rocky Mountains — a prudent water manager has to have a Plan B. … There is clearly a preference to solve our problems on the river, to be able to secure the community’s water supply without resorting to the groundwater project, but at the end of the day, we need a failsafe. With the recent court decision overturning the state engineer’s approvals, plus intense public opposition and high cost estimates, is this project still even feasible? It’s absolutely feasible. It’s not easy, and it won’t be popular, but it’s feasible. If you look at the overall costs of the groundwater project, they’re big numbers, but if you had to do it with zero growth … the average cost of people’s water bills would still be less than the average cost of their cell phone bills. Mulroy often invoked the 1,075 number as a kind of alarm bell. Is that the Lake Mead water level that triggers emergency measures? Yes and no. At 1,075 feet, the secretary of Interior declares a shortage in the lower basin (of the

Colorado River), and Nevada takes its first-ever reduction to its legal entitlement. But our community has been so successful with our conservation that there wouldn’t be any mandatory reductions to consumers at that point. We’ve absorbed that first level of cut. Can you unpack that, please? In 2002, we consumptively used 325,000 acre feet of water off the river. Last year, we used approximately 240,000. So we’ve reduced our consumptive use of water off the river by about a third. We have an annual legal entitlement to 300,000, so we’re not using 60,000 of that. So, at 1,075, the first (mandated) cut for Nevada is 13,000 acre feet, which would take us down to 287,000. But we’re only using 240,000. So we have a little bit of a cushion before we’d feel the cuts. Yeah. At 1,050 feet (at Lake Mead), it (the cut in our allotment of river water) goes to 17,000 (acre feet). And at 1,025 it goes to 20,000. So, even at the third level of cut, we still aren’t us-

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ing enough water to require anybody to begin mandatory rationing. But all three water intakes into Lake Mead wouldn’t work at that point, would they? That becomes the question: What happens below 1,025? Below 1,025, your intakes are becoming imperiled; your water quality could become drastically reduced; and you don’t know what the Secretary of the Interior is going to do. There are more cuts below 1,025, but the 2007 guidelines left them unquantified. How big are those, and what impact would they have on the community? You’ve said you’ll explore all options, including desalination. Mulroy once told me the amount of power it takes to run a desal plant requires a nuclear facility, and that’s so risky that it wouldn’t happen. Is that still the case? Desalinating water is incredibly power-intensive. Moving water is incredibly power-intensive. One of the proposals — probably the one Pat was talking about — mainly emanating out of Arizona — has been for a nuclear facility com-

bined with a desal plant at Port Peñasco on the Gulf of California. Her thinking, and I would tend to agree, is that in the wake of Fukushima, you’re probably not building another nuclear power plant at the tip of the San Andreas Fault. So, what are your other options? What are your other options? I think our best option for desal is with Mexico. I think that, with the completion of Minute 319, we’ve come a tremendous way in solving some of our issues with Mexico. … In particular, there’s an existing power facility at Rosarita Beach, just north of Tijuana that has a lot of promise for desal, and the beauty of that one is you could do some direct importation into Southern California, and maybe leave a piece of their water or Mexico’s water in Lake Mead. So if we did a desal deal with Mexico, would it be a swap situation, or would we try to haul the water up here? To be cost-effective for Nevada, any desal plant has to be, as you characterize it, a swap.

It has to be used locally? Yes, in the coastal areas, and we have to trade water back up-river. The cost of moving that amount of water from the coast is prohibitive. Kind of like moving it 300 miles across the desert? Except for the fact that the groundwater project is almost all gravity. It’s downhill, right. Rank these on a potential reality scale, with 1 being impossible and 5 being likely: the water pipeline, a desalination plant in Mexico and draining Lake Powell. I’ll go backwards. Draining Lake Powell is a 1. The upper basin states will go to the Supreme Court; they’ll go to Congress (to stop it). It is a political hill to die for, for them — and with good reason: That’s their bank account. They owe the lower basin, under the (Colorado River Water) Compact, 75 million acre-feet over every 10-year period. And without Lake Powell sitting there to act as their bank account for that, you could literally be talking about shut-

DesertCompanion.com | 41

Q&A

ting off water supplies to Cheyenne, Salt Lake City, Denver, Albuquerque, together with all the agricultural and industrial uses they have up there. The groundwater project, I’d probably put it at a 2, 2.5, just because, like I said, we need that safety net in our portfolio. Desal, either in California or in Mexico, I think it’s a 4. Now, we’re not talking timeframe here, but, if I had a time machine and I could go out 30 years, or 40 years, I expect there to be major desal facilities on the West Coast of the North American continent. Do you have a lawn? I do have a lawn — in front, but not in back. In back, I have artificial turf. In front I have a small grass area. What kind of grass? Fescue? Kentucky blue? I don’t know. It was there when I moved in.

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Will you still be able to spend weekends doing fun things with your wife and kids, lying on the couch reading, now that you’re the chief of one of the three or four biggest water districts in the Western United States? Yes. I only have so many things in my life. I have a big job, and I have a family that’s extremely important to me, and other than that, I don’t have a lot on my plate. I intend to take care of them both. So you’re not training for a marathon or anything? No. But I did go to the gym this morning. I might be training for, like, a 5k. You read a lot of books, I hear. How many have you read so far this year? Ten, 12. What was the last one? The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT US ONLINE AT DESERTCOMPANION.COM/EVENTS 42 | Desert

Companion | March 2014

Are you happy to have this job? I am happy to have this job. I think it’s important for the community. I recognize that it’s a job where you’re not going to make all the people happy all the time, but I don’t think there’s anything more important than water as a public trust for all areas of our community and for the region. And I’m happy to get to work on important things. Read more of our interview online at desertcompanion.com.

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For Those Who Know Vegas You’ve seen it all. And done it all. But you’ve never had a steak like this.

Introducing the new Fleming’s, conveniently located at Town Square. Featuring the ﬁnest Dry-Aged Prime Steaks, decadent Steak Companions and award-winning list of 100 wines by the glass. In one visit you’ll know. The best in Vegas has just been topped. Opening January 2014.

Located at 6515 S. Las Vegas Blvd. Las Vegas, NV 89119 To make a reservation, visit FlemingsSteakhouse.com or call 702-407-0019

03.2014

News Reviews the dish at f i r s t b i t e l at e s t b u z z

The dish

Our nom, nom, nominations for best odd meats

eat this now

Finally, a true culinary use for corn flakes

On the Plate

Marchâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dining events

at first bite

Small plates good, small plates ho-hum

Capitalization confusion ahead: Sausage flatbread from the oddly named CRUSH eat, drink, love

PHOTOGRAPH BY christopher smith

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the dish

Get your goat ... your duck tongue, your chicken gizzards and your pigs’ feet here. The valley’s more unusual meats are carni-licious! By Debbie Lee Photography Christopher Smith

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Companion | March 2014

As a professional diner, I’ve had more than my share of meals that resemble the offerings at a mediocre wedding. Don’t get me wrong — any dinner that involves the three Cs (Caesar salad, chicken breast, chocolate cake) can be perfectly satisfying. But in a town that touts itself as a global dining destination, it would be nice to see such pedestrian options balanced with riskier dishes. The good news is that opportunities for adventurous eaters do exist — you just have to know where to look. Some require careful reading, lest you miss the tongue-and-cheek pierogi on the menu at Public House. Other unusual experiences, like the goat at Tasty Island, require a trek to nondescript shopping plazas. With wedding season approaching,

there’ll be plenty of time for filet mignon and roast chicken down the road — now’s the time to hunt for some truly fresh meat.

Vi va C h i na taco at C h i na Po bl a no José Andrés’ Chino-Latino mash-up is one of the most imaginative casual concepts on the Strip. For conservative guests, there are plenty of safe bets such as queso fundido, fried wontons and Caesar salad (of course!). But a taco menu that includes duck tongue with fresh lychees and braised baby pig with pork rinds is probably unlike anything in your average abuelita’s recipe box. And the Viva China, made with crispy beef tendon, a raw Kumamoto oyster and Szechuan peppercorn sauce,

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Clockwise from Left: Viva China tacos from China Poblano, tongue-and-cheek pierogi at Public House, crispy sweetbreads at B&B Ristorante

and cheek stand in for the usual leaden mashed potatoes, and a pool of wine-spiked butter sauce serves as a tasty alternative to traditional applesauce. It’s an ideal way to prep your stomach before sampling the restaurant’s excellent whiskey selection. (The Grand Canal Shoppes at the Venetian, 702-407-5310, publichouselv.com)

Crispy sweetbreads at B & B Ri sto ra nte is one of the best and most unique bites I’ve had in the last year. (The Cosmopolitan, 702698-7900, chinapoblano.com)

Pi er og i at P ublic H ou s e Oh, look: Caesar salad, roast chicken and chocolate cake. The requisite dishes are all on offer at this trendy gastropub, and I am sure they’re well-made. But if you’re finally ready to break the cycle of predictability, order the beef tongue-and-cheek pierogi. The hearty dumplings — a kind of Polish twist on potstickers — are surprisingly refined. A tender filling of braised tongue

For “low cuts” and guts in fine dining form, this Mario Batali restaurant is the city’s foremost destination. Warm lamb’s tongue and Roman-style tripe are dishes that will immediately catch any offal-lover’s eye — and those are just the appetizers. For your entrée, skip the spaghetti for a plate of crispy sweetbreads. Yes, that’s the pretty and palatable term for a calf’s pancreas and thymus glands, but don’t let that discourage you. At their best, the tender morsels of tissue are fondly compared to a chicken nugget. (The Venetian, 702-266-9977, bandbristorante.com)

Table 34 Featuring Chef Wes Kendricks’ contemporary American cuisine including safe harbor certified fresh fish, wild game, duck, lamb, angus beef, and comfort food classics. Conveniently located off the 215 and Warm Springs. Dinner Tuesday - Saturday 5pm until closing (around 10pm) 600 E. Warm Springs Road Las Vegas, NV (702) 263-0034 DesertCompanion.com | 47

dining

Stick it: Assorted skewers at Kushi

C urry g oat roti at Tasty Isl a nd

Bike Valet available.

HendersonLive.com | (702) 267-4TIX Schedule is subject to change or cancellation without prior notice. Management reserves all rights.

ROADMAP HOME D RE AM TO RE ALIT Y E X P O

A FREE HOME BUYER AND HOME OWNER’S EXPO •

Saturday, March 15 10am-4pm Winchester Cultural Center 3130 McLeod Drive Las Vegas, Nevada 89121

• • • • • •

Learn about the home buying process and financing options 2014 real estate forecast Home energy efficiency and sustainability How to maintain a home after purchase Foreclosure prevention Meet with banks, mortgage companies, realtors and community service organizations Noticias de casas por expertos de habla hispana

For more information contact Nevada Rural Housing Authority 702.992.7215 | halinfo@nvrural.org C O - SP O NS O RED BY:

U.S. Senator Harry Reid | Housing For Nevada | Nevada Rural Housing Authority City of Las Vegas | Nevada Attorney General’s Home Again Program 48 | Desert

Companion | March 2014

During an eight-month stint in the Caribbean, I quickly grew accustomed to a steady diet of jerk chicken and festival, or Jamaican fry bread. This hole-in-the-wall is one of the few restaurants in the entire city that can supply my fix when I’m feeling nostalgic. Tripe with beans and cowfoot soup are just a few of the typical island dishes you can sample, but for the uninitiated, the tender curry goat is a safer entry-level dish. Served in spicy brown gravy, it’s a gamier version of classic beef stew. Don’t forget to order a side of flaky roti (flatbread) — it’s required for sopping up any curry that’s left on your plate. (6820 W. Flamingo Road, 702-222-0002, tastyislandlv.com)

Kush i (asso rte d skewers) at Kya ra Ja pa ne se Tapas If I had any say, I would gladly forsake our city’s all-you-can-eat sushi restaurants to make way for more izakayas. (It’s a simple formula: take meat on sticks, add icecold beer.) This particular tavern, run by the owners of Naked Fish, is a personal favorite for its selection of unusual proteins. Quell queasy friends with grilled chicken and shrimp; then, unleash your own inner caveman with skewers of beef tongue, chicken skin and gizzards. And be sure to save room if you have a sweet tooth, because yes, there’s a delightful chocolate cake for dessert. (6555 Jones Blvd., 702434-8856, kyaraizakaya.com)

Za mpo ne at Ec h o & Rig Want to experiment with nose-to-tail cooking at home? It’s doable, but again, it requires a little extra work. This means skipping the bland, factory-farmed pork tenderloin from your nearest supermarket and supporting smaller butchers. At Echo & Rig, zampone, or stuffed pig’s feet, are available through the restaurant’s first-floor retail shop. The traditional Italian dish is not only impressive; it’s also said to bring good luck to those who eat it — an apropos incentive for the food lovers of Las Vegas. (Tivoli Village, 702-489-3525, echoandrig.com)

eat this now! Our favorite recent dishes that have us coming back for seconds

ON THE PLATE

Upcoming dining events you don’t want to miss taste of excellence march 8. This fundraiser supports the Jazz Scholarship Fund, which encourages young musical talent at UNLV. The wine and food pairings feature the culinary talents from students of UNLV’s William F. Harrah College of Hotel & Administration, We love Sushi, SBC Catering, B with a Twist; Las Vegas Fruits & Nuts, Via Brasil, Hash House A Go Go, Wine 5 Café and other local restaurants. The event also features a silent and live auction and live jazz by Darren Motamedy. 6p. $60. World Market Center. 646-2615

Not your daddy’s bbq

Corn flake-crusted brioche French toast at La Cave

Tucked in a hallway off the buzzing Wynn gaming floor, La Cave is oddly located. But a location that seems like an afterthought starts to feel like a secret when you enter the cellarlike space on a Sunday midmorning — and when you turn the corner and find yourself on a sunny patio overlooking the pool, it becomes a secret you’ll want to keep. Yeah, total hidden brunch spot here. La Cave’s butler-style Sunday brunch buffet (10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., $48) features a flurry of pure small-plate decadence: a trio of unapologetically rich eggs Benedicts, a hearty veal short rib hash, Angus mini-burgers with a smear of rich onion jam — and, yes, saner fare such as fruit salad and a simple plate of heirloom tomatoes and mozzarella. Pace yourself — the servers are cheerfully relentless — and save room for the corn flake-crusted brioche French toast. Crunchy outside, almost gooily tender inside, they stand up courageously to even the most heavy-handed dose of maple syrup (guilty as charged!), and their small-bite size means you won’t feel completely gluttonous asking for another plate. Which you will. — Andrew Kiraly

Wynn Las Vegas, 702-770-7375, wynnlasvegas.com

Garlic pepper ribs at Pan Asian

As far as I’m concerned, these are the very definition of umami. Meaty pork ribs, served on a bed of gently cooked baby bok choy, are caramelized on the outside and tender at the bone. A shower of toasted garlic and freshly ground black peppercorns enhance the savory flavor bomb, making you question everything you think you know about ribs. (Sorry, Kansas City, you are not the only experts on the matter.) It’s a tasty and restrained dish that belies its origins. In fact, it’s better than any Asian dish I’ve ever had on the Strip — no small feat for a take-out joint with $8 lunch specials. — Debbie Lee

march 9. Downtown’s newest breakfast, lunch and brunch spot MTO Café hosts its first pop-up dinner, “Not Your Daddy’s BBQ.” It kicks off the all-new Sunday Night Supper Series, which will happen on select Sundays through the year. In this installment, five Las Vegas chefs, including Johnny Church of MTO, Tim Doolittle of Table 10 and Vincent Pouessel of Aureole, will whip up appetizers and entrees, allowing diners to create a unique dinner experience. 5:30p. $55. MTO Cafe. 380-8229

health food fair of las vegas april 12. Whether you’re vegan, vegetarian or just trying to improve your diet by cutting out those lard-filled Pop Tarts, the Health Food Fair promises something for every palate. There’ll be cooking and tasting stations, physical fitness experts doing exercise demos, live music and carnival attractions (all carnies are certified to be fair-trade and gluten-free). Nutrition counselors will also be on hand to dish out information about healthy eating. The event supports the mission of Rosie’s Wish and Life Skills & Skillets, tax-exempt, nonprofit organizations that teach life skills for people of all ages who suffer from diabetes, and for prevention of diseases such as obesity through healthy cooking and eating habits. Nutritional advice is combined with personalized movement information to create a healthier lifestyle. 11a-6p. $3-$5. Clark County Amphitheatre

2980 Durango Drive #101, 702-629-7464, davidwongspanasian.com

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at f i r s t b i t e

CRUSH eat, drink, love By Debbie Lee Photography by Christopher Smith

Clockwise from Left: Ricotta gnocchi, sea scallop “Benny,” sausage flatbread.

Confession: Ordering entrées gives me the jitters. Chalk it up to a fear of commitment. Like the young groom at a shotgun wedding, I balk at the very thought of being tied down to one dish. Am I sure I want this? What if I’m stuck with a total dud? And why am I suddenly coveting my neighbor’s chicken? I often opt for a more polyamorous arrangement, constructing meals out of appetizers and bartering for bites from my tablemates. It’s a style

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that should have been well-suited for dinner at CRUSH eat, drink, love, the new “cosmopolitan shared plates restaurant” at MGM Grand. Previously dubbed “Project Lion” by husbandand-wife restaurateurs Michael and Jenna Morton, the space formerly occupied by Michael Mina’s Nobhill Tavern has re-emerged as a stylish, wine-centric respite from the casino floor. It’s a shame that the rumored $3 million budget couldn’t buy a more sensible

restaurant name, because much of the food is lovely. Chef William DeMarco, who also oversees the kitchens of La Cave and La Comida, provides an eclectic selection of small plates for every palate. In the spirit of sharing, skip the soups and salads. Flatbread, baked in a 700-degree wood-fired oven, is the perfect communal fare. As for toppings, you can choose from the familiar (sausage) or unorthodox (dates, artichokes and jalapeños). They bear a striking resemblance to those served at La Cave, but that’s not a bad thing by any means. From the small plates menu, there is an excellent ricotta gnocchi served with short ribs and pea purée. It’s a restrained and well-executed twist on meat and potatoes. For breakfast-lovers, the smoky flavor of chorizo and chipotle in DeMarco’s sea scallops “Benny” will have you licking your plate clean (although one might also attribute this unbecoming behavior to its minuscule portion). Unfortunately,

other seafood preparations are too flawed to ignore. Hamachi crudo with cucumber, yuzu and chili sounded promising but was offensively fishy on two separate visits. On another evening, the octopus in a grapefruit and jalapeño-spiked ceviche tasted tough and old. Not exactly the best catch. The kitchen staff is far more adept with red meat. Highlights from a limited entrée selection include a perfectly cooked filet mignon, as well as tender lamb sirloin with an earthy celery root purée. Still, there were sparks missing. Each taste had me longing for another bite of those scallops. Finish the meal with a Nutella-flavored frozen dessert and any earlier transgressions are easily forgiven (but not necessarily forgotten). Despite a couple of missteps, DeMarco is an underrated talent. I’ve enjoyed his safe but solid approach at La Cave, and his ribs at La Comida are some of the best (and unexpected) in the city. At CRUSH, he also deserves credit for accommodating all kinds of finicky eaters. (Vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, dairy-free and shellfish-free menus are available upon request.) But by the same token, a “something for everyone” approach is why I remain ambivalent about CRUSH. The shared plates concept is muddled by the addition of entrées; exciting flavor combinations are tempered with tourist-friendly (read: boring) picks; and vegetarian dishes sometimes outshine items on the main menu. With so many risky options, I’d sooner settle for a single plate of that ricotta gnocchi. And for once in my life, I’m not willing to share.

CRUSH eat, drink, love inside the MGM Grand, 702-891-3222, crushmgm. Open daily 5p

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ON CHAMPIONS RISE The Keep an eye on these promising young athletes as they score big, break records â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and make their hometown proud

PHOTOGRAPHY BY

Sabin ORR

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ON RISE CHAMPIONS The B aseba l l

ERICK

Fedde UNLV Junior Baseball Starting Pitcher

Don’t blink — that raging blur is Fedde’s killer fastball

Erick Fedde began laying the

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foundation for his eminent role as UNLV’s Friday night starter years ago — in family games of Candy Land. Intensely driven to win even as a kid, Erick would devilishly prearrange the stack of cards so his game piece would leap across the board, ensuring victory. “My parents give me crap about it,” Fedde says with a grin. “I was never fun to play with as a kid.” The more things change: Even now, teammates enjoy watching him steam when he loses a card or video game in the clubhouse, which usually sends him stomping outside for fresh air. To say Fedde is the most competitive UNLV baseball player is an understatement. It’s a trait that has served him well. With a steady diet of fastballs that reach up to 96 mph — not to mention his crafty sliders — Fedde has become one of the nation’s most coveted collegiate pitchers. Baseball publications have tabbed him at 12th and 20th for the pro draft in June. Fedde’s maturation is timely, since baseball players at four-year institutions can only be drafted after their junior seasons. He’ll start two Friday home games in March, two in April and one in May.

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He became the full-time Friday ace last season, when he outdueled Stanford top hurler Mark Appel in the first game of a series at Stanford. That triggered an improbable three-game sweep over a program regarded as one of the finest in the nation. And that sweep surprised many: Appel, the first overall draft selection by Houston in June, was known to baffle many UNLV hitters. In the game, Fedde studied Appel, who remained relaxed, composed and smooth despite the intensity of the face-off. He never rushed his delivery or lost his cool. Taking a cue from Appel, Fedde is working on refining his pitcher’s composure. He’s also improved his changeup and cutter in the off-season, aware that two additional weapons in his repertoire will keep batters off-balance. But his fastball and slider can be devastating. At a home game last season, he rejoiced after striking out all three Air Force batters in the ninth inning, making for his first career complete game. UNLV assistant coach Kevin Higgins played for the San Diego Padres and saw Fedde’s type often in the big leagues: Such an intense competitor is genial and approachable for four days — but on the fifth, when he rotates onto the pitcher’s mound to throw, nobody talks to him, Higgins says. “The mound is his. The plate is his. He’s not giving in. He’s relentless.” As if he were playing Candy Land. — Rob Miech

T he b u z z For a second consecutive season, he’ll be the Rebels’ Friday night starter — the de facto ace of the pitching staff.

T he prospects The Las Vegas High School graduate is projected by one baseball authority as the 12th overall pick in the next amateur draft.

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T he b u z z State prep high jump record-holder; Gatorade 2013 Athlete of the Year.

T he prospects He plans to polish his technique at USC and represent Las Vegas at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

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ON RISE CHAMPIONS The T rac k an d f ie l d

Randall

Cunningham Jr. Bishop Gorman High School Senior Boy's track High jumper

He dreams big — and jumps very, very high

After Randall Cunningham Jr.

Trophy supplied by vegas Trophies

cleared 7-feet-1 in the high jump at the state high school track meet in May, he requested the bar be bumped to 7-feet-3-1/4. He knew no student athlete in the nation had conquered that height in 2013. After he sailed over the steel, Gatorade hailed him as Nevada’s boys track and field athlete of the year. Cunningham can thank exceptional genes and peerless coaching. Randall Sr., his pastor father, played quarterback for UNLV and threw for nearly 30,000 yards in 16 NFL seasons. Felicity, his South African mother, was a professional ballerina. In his lone season as quarterback, Cunningham also guided Gorman to its fifth consecutive state football title in the fall. However, his heart — like his father’s — has always been in the high jump. A knee injury in his youth forced Randall Sr. to quit jumping, but he reignited his passion for the sport after football — this time as a coach. Randall Sr. has tutored a half-dozen recent Nevada prep champs, including Cunningham’s younger sister (and fellow Gorman student) Vashti, at either Calvary Chapel High School or on the Nevada Gazelles club team.

Next in Cunningham's crosshairs is James White, the University of Nebraska senior who established the national high school high jump record of 7-feet-5-3/4 in Missouri in 2009. Cunningham aims for 7-feet-6 this season, and he will increase his sprint distance from 48 feet to 74 for added propulsion. He can be found attempting the feat at various meets and invitationals in the valley through May. The state meet will be staged at Carson High School May 23-24. Next fall, Cunningham begins classes at the University of Southern California on a full-track scholarship. That’s when he starts his assault on 8-feet-1 — or three-quarters of an inch higher than the world record established by Cuban leaper Javier Sotomayer in Spain in 1993. Cunningham has dreamed about vaulting 8-1. In the dream, he’s at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The famous Maracana Stadium is fuzzy; the cacophony of exuberant fans is faint. But the bar is ultraclear. It doesn’t budge as a plush pad swallows him. He brings a world record and gold medal back to Las Vegas. He knows only one way to top that vision: by bringing another gold medal and world record home from the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. — R.M.

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ON RISE CHAMPIONS The S occer

Aubrey

Madden las vegas premier soccer club Senior S0ccer Center back

She plays soccer for the kicks — literally

You win games in practice! Games aren’t won during games, they’re won in practice!

seihporT sagev yb deilppus yhporT

Football coaches often spew bluster and hyperbole like this, and the staff at Coronado High School was no exception last fall. That was one of the windfalls Aliza Madden took from her exceptional season kicking extra points for the Cougars. “That really got me hyped,” she says of the emphasis coaches put on practice, on precise execution and impeccable technique. “I train harder in soccer because of that.” That will please UNLV women’s soccer coach Michael Coll and the rest of the Rebels next fall. Madden spurned offers from powerhouses Santa Clara and North Carolina, among others, to enable her family to follow her collegiate career in her hometown. She’ll be taking those lessons from the football field and applying them to the soccer pitch. Coach Coll knows Madden’s gridiron grit will bolster his defense. He already envisions her taking most of his team’s free kicks, believing her robust right leg will deliver many scoring opportunities from 50 to 65 yards. In any case, she’s already in historic company,

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taking her place among Nevada women who’ve distinguished themselves in high school football. Luverne “Toad” Wise became the pioneer of the group when she booted six prep extra points in Alabama in 1939. Jessica Leverett became the first in Nevada, for Sparks High School, in 1986, and Ashleigh Shoughro (Palo Verde, 2006) and McKenzie “Jammer” Karas (Arbor View, 2009) occupy the short Silver State roster that now includes Madden. With the elite Las Vegas Premier Soccer Club, Madden has participated in tournaments from New York to Hawaii. An accident last year, in which she tripped and caught the heel of a rival team member’s boot on her noggin, led to medical episodes that were ultimately diagnosed by a Salt Lake City neurologist as complex partial seizures. After Madden took a few months off from soccer, the seizures eventually disappeared; she had no recurrences playing for the Cougars’ football team. Madden wore a red Full90 padded crown — covering about half the surface area of the full headgear that famed Chelsea goalie Petr Cech dons in England — when she returned to the pitch, a practice she’ll likely continue at UNLV. It’ll protect her as she protects the Rebels with that powerful right kick. — R.M.

T he b u z z Madden joined an exclusive club when she kicked field goals for the Coronado football team this past fall.

T he prospects Devoted to family, she turned down scholarship offers from several prominent soccer programs to play center back for UNLV.

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T he b u z z Three-time varsity team captain, two-time state champion, multiple all-star team participant, honor student.

T he prospects Huber plans to use his lacrosse scholarship to study cognitive science at Johns Hopkins University, a Division 1 lacrosse school, beginning this fall.

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ON RISE CHAMPIONS The Lacrosse

Jeremy

Huber Palo verde High School Senior Varsity Lacrosse Defenseman

His easygoing smile masks an insatiable desire to beat opponents down

Go ahead, just try and find

Trophy supplied by vegas Trophies

“lacrosse” in the Athletics section of the Palo Verde High School website. It’s not there. For all you’d know from browsing the school’s sports pages, lacrosse doesn’t exist. As a sport not sanctioned by the state organization that governs high school athletics, it’s less visible than flag football and golf. And yet, for Jeremy Huber, it’s everything; tangibly, tens of thousands of dollars. That will be the ultimate value of his partial-tuition lacrosse scholarship to Johns Hopkins University, which Huber will attend this fall. The Palo Verde senior, who carries a 4.8 GPA, plans to study cognitive science at the Baltimore, Maryland, university. But the truly impressive accomplishment, for a kid from a state that doesn’t really even acknowledge lacrosse, is to have gotten financial assistance to play for the team ranked 17th in the country by the NCAA. “Every kid who plays lacrosse dreams of playing for a Division 1 team like Johns Hopkins,” Huber says, explaining why he accepted a scholarship that will only cover a to-be-determined fraction of his tuition at an expensive private school. But why lacrosse? Why stick with a relatively obscure sport, when he could, potentially, be going to UCLA on a full ride to play baseball or football? “A lot of kids think those other sports are really great,” Huber says, “but you get the best chance to meet people in lacrosse. I travel all over the country playing this sport.”

Gary Campo, who coaches both Palo Verde’s and UNLV’s teams, explains the choice more succinctly: “Jeremy is born to play lacrosse. He is a lacrosse player.” Specifically, the 6-foot-1, 200-pound Huber is a senior defenseman, which, he says, means he gets to “beat the crap out of people legally … I’m the one who makes sure nobody gets to score a goal.” For those unfamiliar with lacrosse, the agility with which Huber consistently outruns and outmaneuvers his opponents might be surprising. Unlike defensive positions in football and other sports, a defenseman in lacrosse has to be quick on his feet. Campo says lacrosse was already faster-paced than mainstream American sports when recent rule changes made it even faster. There are few timeouts, and when the ball is in play, it’s zigzagging around the field at lightning speed. Because of this, anyone who can run can play lacrosse; it isn’t exclusive to the monster-sized mutants who excel in other sports. But those who think fast and move fast — those like Huber — have the most success in lacrosse. “Jeremy has that combination of athleticism and smarts,” Campo says. “His desire, his head for the game is beyond most of the kids here.” Huber doesn’t seem intimidated by the prospect of leaving Las Vegas, where he’s lived since fourth grade, and moving to the East Coast, with its daunting concentration of Division 1 teams. He will miss his buddies, though. “These guys are like my brothers,” he says. “I’ve known them most of my life. We’ve grown up playing lacrosse together.” — Heidi Kyser

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ON RISE CHAMPIONS The R o l l er d erb y

Noelle

Long Sierra vista High School Sophomore Roller Derby Jammer-blocker Bugsey’s Babes (team) Sin City Junior Rollers (league)

She’s quick, she’s sneaky, and she never loses her cool

Noelle Long’s dream of being in

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the Olympics is even more of a long shot than those of other 16-yearolds with visions of gold, silver and bronze dancing in their heads. That’s because her sport, flat-track roller derby, failed last year to make the cut of new sports that the International Olympic Committee accepted for the 2020 summer games. Protests have caused the committee to reconsider other sports, though, and Long, whose skate-name is Lone Wolf, isn’t giving up. “My goal is to be in the Olympics,” she says. “Hopefully in 2020.” Roller derby in the Olympics? Is it even a real sport? Oh, it is. It’s not — Long is serious about this — clownishly clad women on roller skates punching each other in the face. Well, OK, the athletes are given to creatively accessorizing their uniforms and equipment. But there’s definitely no punching. The rules forbid it. In fact, the rules forbid a lot of things. For instance, if, like Long, you’re a jammer (scoring points by skating past opposing team members), and you get shoved out of bounds, you must jump back on the track behind the furthest-behind person to have touched you before you went out. Got it? No? “It’s complicated,” Long says. “There’s rules — a lot of rules.”

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The well-developed structure of the game, along with the skill and strategy required to navigate it (not to mention the profusion of leagues mushrooming around the nation), explain why Long and other derby competitors bristle at the suggestion that it’s not a real sport. They dispatch that notion in the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association’s tagline: “Real. Strong. Athletic. Revolutionary.” Actually, for Long, derby is more than a sport. Fumbling past words such as “career” and “passion,” she lands on, “It’s everything to me.” She doesn’t have specific ideas about college yet, but hopes to move to the Pacific Northwest after high school so she can continue competing in an area that has more and better teams. On the track, she’s stoic. And fast. Watch her catch a pack of opponents unaware and zip through them like they’re vapor, and you’ll see the payoff of spare time spent honing her skating skills while other high-school sophomores are playing video games and reading vampire novels. “What separates Wolfie and top competitors like her from others is that she doesn’t lose her head,” says Melanie Long (known as “Stardust Dunes” in the women’s league, Sin City Rollers), who is both Noelle’s mother and her coach. Roller derby is a contact sport; players fall a lot. They get injured, shaken. “You have to be mentally strong as well as physically strong,” Long says. “Noelle has that strength.” — H.K.

T he b u z z Founding member of the city’s first (and only) junior flat track roller derby league, general bad-ass on eight wheels.

T he prospects Long is crossing her fingers for roller derby to be admitted to the Olympics while she’s still young enough to vie for a spot on the team; either way, she plans to move to the Northwestern U.S. after high school to pursue a career in the sport where it’s more prevalent. DesertCompanion.com

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Wild Go take a walk, run or ride on these seven civic trails â&#x20AC;&#x201D; right in your own neighborhood

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in the city Sure, nature beckons — but we’re often too busy to heed the call. A weekend camping trip? A leisurely daylong hike? They’re wonderful — when our crowded calendars allow it. Luckily for those of us whose hiking boots seem to gather more dust than dirt, Southern Nevada boasts an impressive network of neighborhood trails and regional parks. Here are seven of our favorites that bring a little bit of nature to your neighborhood. From brisk, invigorating jaunts to peaceful paths hidden in housing subdivisions, they’re sure to tide you over until you finally get around to tackling the south summit of Frenchman Mountain.

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H EN D ERSON

Pittman Wash Trail A tree-lined stroll amid stately suburbs If Henderson is a mild-mannered suburban dad, Pittman Wash is its alter ego, the weekend granola warrior who sleeps in, skips the morning shave and has a craft beer with lunch. The rock-and-gravel wash rolls through Hendo in various guises — now a ravine, now a natural culvert, now a placid park walk — in a strangely pleasing complement to the stately rows of stucco mansionettes that embrace it on either side. Pleasing, perhaps, because the trail partakes equally of both the wild and the tame: Pittman Wash features planted trees, asphalt paths and interpretive signs — and is lovingly watchdogged by a volunteer organization, Project GREEN — but has enough raw appeal to make you think you may get pounced on by a mountain lion (or at least bumbled into by a runner in the ecstatic throes of her iPod mix). For the best views, start at Legacy West Park on the southeast corner of Windmill Parkway and Pecos Road; it features a short interpretive walk that takes you right down into the rocks and scrub. Further east, the downhill slope offers a picturesque view of a good portion of the wash.

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Look out for: A veritable living Wikipedia of desert flora — clusters of doughty creosote, desert willow spreading their fine veils and mesquite stretching their spindly branches. If you or your kids think of desert plants as an undifferentiated mass of vaguely brown scraggly things, this is the place to download a little 101 .

Desert Companion | march 2014

Beware of: Fast, oblivious runners Ideal for: Morning or evening strollers seeking a head-clearing walk or a brisk, lung-pumping jaunt — Andrew Kiraly

The Wetlands Park Trail Birds, bugs and, oh yeah, rushing water Here’s how cool The Wetlands Park is: Every time I stand on the bridge and watch

Amargosa Trail A walk — and then a scramble You can walk it your way at the Hidden Falls Park trailhead: If you’re looking for a short, undemanding postprandial stroll amid something that sort of resembles nature, there’s a Z-shaped path up a nearby hillside; it’s also good for young kids and their grandparents. For a slightly more demanding walk, hang a left onto the flattish, relatively easy, neighborhood-adjacent trail that meanders south and offers a couple of climbable boulder formations and, at one point, a nice view of some guy’s backyard. But the real draw here is the 1.6 miles of rocky trail and loose gravel that pushes upward, then north, alongside

a graceful heron standing as though in meditation at the bank of the softly churning, mist-wrapped wash as the morning sunlight veils the scene in shimmer and glint, my mind goes all haywire with cliché: I can’t believe this is in Las Vegas! What a marvel, this oasis in the desert! It feels like I’m a million miles away from the city! Wowie! And though you could easily while away a family day at The Wetlands Park, gorging your soul on the visitors’ center exhibits, interpretive signs and targeted strolling, it’s also convenient enough for an early-morning jaunt for east-siders and Hendersonians. There are myriad trails and themed walks, but my advice is to park at the Nature Center and unleash yourself upon a restorative, aimless walkabout — and take your camera for the ducks, cormorants, storks and hawks doing their National Geographic thing. Look out for: Sometimes it pays to pause: Stop and train your eye on the green reeds just west of the bridge, where startlingly white egrets hang in their own private ultralounge Beware of: The victim of a genetic splicing experiment gone horribly wrong, the fearsome Manaconda is said to slither through the reeds, hunting by the light of the full moon. Just kidding! The Wetlands Park is safe and scrupulously maintained. Ideal for: Harried cityfolk who need a quick dose of Mother Nature; Instagram shutterbugs; and avid birdwatchers — AK

Black Mountain and down to the Shadow Canyon trailhead. There’s a bit more up-and-down to this, and the paths aren’t manicured. Watch where you put your feet. Look out for: The jumbled volcanic rockscape that flanks the upper trail as the wonders of Hidden Falls Park and suburban Henderson spread panoramically below; the postcard view of Las Vegas when you get along to the second half of the trail Beware of: Near the trailhead, at least, the occasional kid on a bike barnstorming the downhills Ideal for: Sunday strolls within easy distance of civilization; a vigorous Saturday morning pump-up — Scott Dickensheets

Ph o t o g r a p hy C hristo pher S mith

EAST SI D E

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Central

Flamingo Arroyo Trail An urban hike in a concrete jungle Not into (sardonic air quotes) “nature”? Do you like a trail that’s less about dirt than urban grit? A trail that sometimes smells funny? You’re a hardy city strider, and Flamingo Arroyo is the trail for you. This mixed bag of a route shows you several sides of the valley: For much of its length, the walk bops through concrete culverts or arches over roads via pedestrian bridges. Still, it’s interspersed with pockets of riparian dampland, too, as it winds toward its eastern terminus. It’s a tour through some of Vegas’ socio-economic strata, as well — from the

Craig Ranch Regional Park Runners, rollerbladers and skaters welcome

dense urban setting of the Winchester

Craig Ranch isn’t so much a re-

neighborhood to a golf-course neighbor-

gional park as it is a 170-acre outdoor

hood near the other end.

wonderland for people of all ages and

NORT H

activity preferences. While grandparLook out for: At the Pecos-McLeod

ents snap phone pix of the little ones

trailhead, the artist-designed shelters are

riding the jumbo jackrabbit in the Adventure Playground, parents can

mixed with chunks of the old Stardust

jog the 4-mile trail that loops around the park, and teenagers can

casino building — a piece of pool stair, a

work on their backside disaster in the humongous skate park. There

crumbling pillar. A ground plaque explains

are basketball, tennis and volleyball courts for your organized types,

the logic.

as well as meadows where the more right-brained can while away

Beware of: Trash

an afternoon. Bicycling, rollerskating, running, skateboarding and

Ideal for: Adventurous urban

walking are allowed on paths, and pets (on leashes, of course) are

wayfinders who don’t need stylized

welcome. Built on the former site of the Craig Ranch Golf Course on

references to nature — SD

west Craig Ranch Road, the park was made possible by the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act, which allowed the City of North Las Vegas to buy the land and set it aside for public use. Wisely, the city decided to offer a little something for all members of the public. Look out for: A memorial tree garden, coming this fall Beware of: Goose poop; the big birds love to hang out in and around the pond Ideal for: Outings with family and/or group members who have divergent outdoor interests — Heidi Kyser

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Look out for: Coyotes, rattlesnakes, scorpions and other wildlife Beware of:

Buckskin Cliff Shadows Park Suddenly, you’re in the Wild West

Coyotes, rattlesnakes, scorpions and other wildlife

Turn to the northeast and you can hit a suburban home with a wellchucked rock. Turn to the southwest and you’re suddenly on the set of a Clint Eastwood film — the part where he roams the desolate rangeland (not when he rides into town). Buckskin Cliff Shadows Park is mere yards from the Cheyenne exit off the 215 Bruce Woodbury Memorial Beltway, and yet it feels every bit as wild as a Red Rock trail. One caveat: The trailhead isn’t obvious from the parking lot. After leaving your car, go around the retention basin to the left (south) and look for the sign that prohibits motor vehicles past that point. A piece of advice: Bring sturdy shoes. The

WEST SI D E

trail is rocky like an empty riverbed. And a bonus: Horse-sightings happen here, due to the equestrian area near the parking lot.

Bonanza Trail The city cyclists’ secret freeway First off, don’t think of the Bonanza Trail as a “trail” trail — you know, a crunchy, dirt-based path emanating with nature vibes or whatever. Instead, the Bonanza Trail is a freeway-hugging underground railroad for walkers, runners and cyclists who want to go, go, go places — which you will on this multi-miler that meanders from Bruce Trent Park on Rampart Boulevard and Vegas Drive to Bonanza High School — and serves as the nerve center for several other intersecting valley trails. You’ll spend a good portion of your time next to the 95, so if you’re put off by the quaint bucolic song of whooshing traffic, consider a cruise elsewhere. But if you like a little room on your ride or run to really lay in and go for some speed, this broad sidewalk trail won’t steer you wrong. You can access trailheads at Bruce Trent Park, Bill Briare Park on Tenaya and Washington or (deep breath) the Charlie Kellogg and Joe Zaher Sports Complex on Washington and Buffalo. Look out for: A nice view of suburban splendor as Bonanza Trail crests a hill just west of Durango Beware of: Cyclists going very HEY THERE MAN SLOW DOWN Ideal for: Avid cyclists who want something close to a continuous urban ride without traffic signals and stop signs cramping their style — AK

Ph o t o g r a p hy B rent H o lmes

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Ideal for: Those who want a wilderness experience within a 90-second drive of the freeway — HK

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Companion | December 2013

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Spectacles for Spot? Eye Care and Your Dog

He is not doing much reading and he does not need to see the chalkboard in class, but he still needs an eye doctor of his own. This is especially true if he is a hunting, retrieving, guide or therapy dog. While you often do not see spectacles on Spot, dogs experience many of the same eye diseases and conditions that afflict people. Dr. William Weinstein at Las Vegas Veterinary Specialty Center treats dogs suffering from a variety of eye problems and diseases that can compromise vision and quality of life. When it comes to eye health, not all dogs are created equal and some are more likely to have problems that require medication or even surgery. Dogs suffer from cataracts, glaucoma, retinal degeneration and eyelid problems. They also can have corneal ulcers and suffer from conditions such as conjunctivitis, in which the eyes become reddened, and dry eye disease, which occurs

when they cannot make enough tears. Some dogs have eye problems that worsen in sunlight and they need to be fitted for special doggie goggles to protect their eyes. Some symptoms of underlying eye problems include runny eyes, squinting, redness or cloudiness. You also may notice your dog is having problems moving around his or her surroundings and may be bumping into things. By talking to your veterinarian about your dog’s eye-related problems, you can obtain a referral to Weinstein who can treat these eye conditions. LVVSC has specialized equipment to pick up on eye problems early on, which could make the difference in saving your dog’s eyesight. Dogs are given complete eye exams using slit lamp biomicroscopes, ophthalmoscopes, ultrasonography, retinoscopes and even computed tomography, better known as a CT scan,

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LVVSC is located at 8650 W. Tropicana Ave., Suite B-107, in Las Vegas. The center is open 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. For more information about the LVVSC, call 702-871-1152 or visit www.lvvsc.com.

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Art Music T h e at e r Da n c e

FA M I LY

a r t s + e n t e r ta i n m e n t

take

We take clean, convenient water for granted. For example, I’m writing this in the shower I’ve been taking for the last two hours! But that’s not the case for millions of people around the globe. Cirque founder Guy LaLiberté’s One Drop aims to make water accessible to everyone — and if anyone could do that, LaLiberté is the guy. You can help — it’s as easy as watching some contortionists dressed like plush baby aliens. The One Drop benefit show is 7:30p March 21 at the Michael Jackson ONE Theatre at Mandalay Bay. Tickets $225-$1,800. Info: onedrop.org

Until the development of fine arts training programs for women in the 1870s, painting was an exclusively male province, marked mostly by an unaccountable obsession with depicting fruit. “Painting Women: Works from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston” showcases the work of female artists, including Mary Cassatt (whose “Mrs. Duffee Seated on a Striped Sofa, Reading,” is pictured), Georgia O’Keeffe and Berthe Morisot. “Painting Women” is on exhibit at the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art through Oct. 26. Tickets $11-$16. Info: bellagio.com

People just love them some Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor, Op. 23 — its spirited thrusts and turns, its flights and plunges — so the pressure’s on young pianist Alexander Schimp. He’s the stellar talent of this “Rising Star” Las Vegas Philharmonic concert, with a program that also features Sibelius’ Second Symphony. David Lockington is guest conductor. The Las Vegas Philharmonic performs 7:30p March 8 at Reynolds Hall in The Smith Center. Tickets $25-$94. Info: thesmithcenter.com

Before Internet porn started gushing out of our computers in an unstoppable wave of quivering flesh, there was burlesque — risqué but classy, sexy but sophisticated, raucous but never raunchy. Members of this panel, including some famous performers, will discuss the history of burlesque and the state of its current revival. “Putting the Sin in Sin City: 60 Years of Burlesque in Las Vegas” is 7p March 20 at the Clark County Flamingo Library. Free. Info: lvccld.org

UNLVino hits the big four-oh this year, and you know what that means: a big silver Mylar balloon that reads, “Lordy lordy, look who’s 40!” The annual spate of fine dining and drinking events supports scholarships for UNLV’s hotel college, so know that every sip and nibble takes a student that much closer to being able to afford that outrageously priced textbook. UNLVino is April 9-12 at various venues. Tickets per event $125$275. Info: unlvino.com

Want your event in our guide? Submit your event with a brief description to guide@desertcompanion.com.

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a r t s + e n t e r ta i n m e n t

Art SCHOLASTIC ART & WRITING AWARDS Through Mar. 2. Explore the best artwork from local students (grades 7-12) in a variety of formats, from photography to painting and jewelry to digital design. See the Gold Key winners from the region before they are submitted for the national awards competition. Free with general admission. Big Springs Gallery at Springs Preserve, springspreserve.org/ artandwriting.org MAYUMI AMADA: ETERNITY IN MORTALITY

Through Mar. 14, Mon-Fri 9a-4p; Sat 10a2p. A solo exhibit by Japanese artist and University of Minnesota faculty member Amada explores the connection between recyclable materials and other thematic interests to focus on eternity and mortality. Free. CSN Fine Arts Gallery, sites.csn.edu/ artgallery BOBBIE ANN HOWELL Through Mar. 14. This artist explores Nevada, its landscapes and its cultures, in photographic collages and cut paper works. Shapes, textures and colors observed and recreated by the artist reverberate and intersect throughout the art, inviting the viewer to look closer. Free. Winchester Gallery at the Clark County Government Center, clarkcountynv.gov MYTHS AND MUSES

Through Mar. 15, Wed-Sat, 1-7p. Winner of 2013’s Best in Show for “12 Inches of Sin,” an international, juried art exhibition, artist Jeff Wack will showcase his unique blend of photography and digital painting. His figurative works are an idealized vision of feminine beauty and timelessness. Free. Sin City Gallery, sincitygallery.com RACE HORSE TO RODEO

Through Mar. 21, 6-8p. Long drawn to the beauty and grace of horses, artist Larry Darnell Stokes sculpts the animal, along with other characters of race and rodeo, in cast bronze. Free. The Pueblo Room at the Clark County Government Center Rotunda Gallery, clarkcountynv.gov TERRAINFIRMA

Through Mar. 29, Tue & Fri 12-5p; Sat 10a3p. Local artist Jevijoe Vitug’s works often deal with survival and the effects of globalization on the environment and economy. “Terrainfirma,” wordplay on terrain firma and terra infirma, takes a deeper look at the earth’s precariousness. Free. Left of Center Art Gallery, leftofcenterart.org LEONARDO DA VINCI: MACHINES IN MOTION Through May 4. These full-scale machines were built after detailed study of da Vinci’s designs by a group of scientists and skilled craftsmen in Florence, Italy. Visitors may

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Companion | March 2014

touch and set them in motion, creating a captivating hands-on experience with an exploration of the principles da Vinci utilized to create each machine. Free with general admission. Springs Preserve NEVADA WATERCOLOR SOCIETY SPRING SHOW Mar. 14-May 10. An exquisite array of watercolor paintings showcasing works by outstanding local watercolorists and exploring subjects as varied as still life, abstracts, portraits and landscapes. Free with general admission. Big Springs Gallery, Springs Preserve HILLARY PRICE

Mar. 25-May 16. Price’s oil paintings extend off the wall and into the space of the viewer. Fragmented images are painted onto layers of stretched pantyhose nylon, suggesting a visual representation of memories within the space of the brain. Free. Winchester Gallery at the Clark County Government Center, clarkcountynv.gov MEMORIES FOR THE FUTURE

Mar. 31-May 23; Artist reception Apr. 3, 6-8p. An interactive performance and sitespecific installation presented by artist and former U.S. Marine Michael Barrett. Barrett will crawl on hands and knees, individually shining the more than 6,000 pennies making up his mosaic pattern on the Rotunda Gallery floor in order to honor service men and women. Free. Clark County Government Center Rotunda Gallery, clarkcountynv.gov

Dance CSN STUDENT DANCE CONCERT Mar. 7, 7p. Join the CSN Dance club for its 15th annual student-generated display of kinetic creativity with various types of dance. $8 adults, $5 students/seniors. BackStage Theatre, 3200 E. Cheyenne Ave., 702-651LIVE (5483), csn.edu/dance ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER Mar. 22, 7:30p; Mar. 23, 2p. Under the artistic direction of Robert Battle, this program offers something for every taste, from the pulse-racing thrill of new works by some of the world’s best choreographers, to the spirit-lifting joy of Mr. Ailey’s beloved classic, “Revelations.” $26-$125. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center INFORMAL DANCE CONCERT Mar. 26, 1p. Experience what transpires in the wide array of the Department of Fine Arts’ Dance classes, including ballet, ballroom, jazz, Middle Eastern dance, modern dance and yoga. Free. Nicholas J. Horn Theatre, csn.edu/pac ETHNIC EXPRESS INTERNATIONAL FOLK DANCING Every Wed, 6:30-8:45p. Have an evening

of fun learning international dance styles, including Arabic, Armenian, Bulgarian, Chinese, Greek, Israeli, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian and Turkish folk dances. No need to bring a partner. $4. Ages 8+ only. Charleston Heights Arts Center, 800 S. Brush St., ethnicexpresslasvegas.org

Music LAINIE KAZAN Mar. 1, 7p. From her start as Barbra Streisand’s understudy in Broadway’s “Funny Girl” to appearing on “The Dean Martin Show” a record 26 times, to her beloved turn as Maria Portokalis in the hit film “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” Kazan has proven herself to be the torch song diva. In this show, Kazan also pays homage to her idols Judy Garland, Ethel Merman and Sophie Tucker $39-$49. Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center THE ST. PETERSBURG PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA Mar. 1, 7:30p. Founded in 1882, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra is Russia’s oldest symphonic ensemble and a beacon of the country’s passion for art and music. It was with this orchestra that Tchaikovsky chose to premiere his Symphony No. 6 (“Pathetique”). And it is with this orchestra that Russia shares its cultural spirit with the world. $39-$150. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center TONY SACCA

Mar. 2, 2p. Showman Tony Sacca presents a captivating musical journey featuring a 10-piece ensemble with strings, rhythm section and horns, along with two female singers. His riveting personal song exploration will be sprinkled with his hometown sounds of Philly, tributes to Barry Manilow, The Four Seasons, doo-wop, his original Vegas songs and a touch of Broadway. $33-$39. Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center CLASSICAL GUITAR CONCERT WITH PETER FLETCHER Mar. 5, 7p. Peter will perform music by Bach, Praetorius, Frescobaldi and Rodrigo, and the concert will culminate with his transcription of Paganini’s Caprice #24. Free. Main Theater at Clark County Library, lvccld.org JAZZ FOR THE AGES

Mar. 7-8, 7p. Jimmy Mulidore and his N.Y. City Jazz Band perform a generous compilation of time-honored compositions and originals that span a wide interpretive range of the jazz music genre. $36-$49. Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center SHANA TUCKER: CHAMBERSOUL CELLO & SONGS Mar. 8, 2p Cellist, guitarist and singer/songwriter Tucker ‘s voice has been compared to Cleo Laine and Diana Krall’s. Currently a resident performer in Cirque de Soleil’s “Ka”

at MGM Grand, she is building her reputation in Las Vegas. She is backed by a stellar crew: Otto Ehling on piano, Jeff Davis on bass and John Abraham on drums. $10 advance; $12 concert day. Winchester Cultural Center at the Clark County Government Center, clarkcountynv.gov NEVADA CHAMBER SYMPHONY: ORCHESTRA FUTURA Mar. 16, 3p. Young musicians join the Nevada Chamber Symphony for the final performance of the 2013-2014 concert season. Free. Main Theater at Clark County Library, lvccld.org VANGUARD UNIVERSITY GUITAR ENSEMBLE IN CONCERT Mar. 18, 7p. Best described as an orchestra of guitars, unamplified and expressing every possible tone, timbre and nuance from the instrument. Regardless of the repertoire, the guitar ensemble is a fresh and exciting experience for the ears, mind and soul. Free. Main Theater at Clark County Library, lvccld.org ACADEMY OF ST. MARTIN IN THE FIELDS WITH JOSHUA BELL Mar. 18, 7:30p. Master violinist Joshua Bell commands and directs this brilliant chamber orchestra, known worldwide for its polished and refined sound. Formed in 1958, they have come to represent the pinnacle of musicianship. $39-$150. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center PFX - THE PINK FLOYD EXPERIENCE Mar. 19, 7:30p. The English rock band that is world-renowned for its elaborate live shows and philosophical lyrics lives on through six outstanding musicians who will perform some of Pink Floyd’s greatest hits. In keeping with tradition, PFX entertains every sense with interpretive videos and a one-of-a-kind light show. $24-$65. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center PATTI LUPONE IN FARAWAY PLACES

Mar. 20, 7:30p. This two-time Tony-winner shares her penchant for wanderlust by taking us on a musical journey, with thrilling renditions of songs by an eclectic list of songwriters which includes Stephen Sondheim, Cole Porter, Willie Nelson, Kurt Weill, Edith Piaf, Frederick Hollander and Bee Gees. $39-$129. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center TOUMANY KOUYATE AND BOUNTALO (BLACK SCORPION) Mar. 21, 7p. Kouyate is one of the world’s foremost players of the kora, the African harp. He came to Las Vegas from his native Senegal and plays in “O” at the Mirage with Cirque de Soleil. His ensemble includes many of his musical friends from Cirque and forms a brilliant mix of world music. $10 advance; $12 concert day. Winchester Cultural Center at the Clark County

Channel 10

Rick Steves’ Italy: Cities of Dreams Saturday, March 1 at 9 a.m.

Nature: Ireland’s Wild River Wednesday, March 5 at 8 p.m.

Masterpiece Sneak Preview

Mr. Selfridge, Season 2 Sunday, March 9 at 9 p.m.

Celtic Woman: Emerald Monday, March 17 at 9 p.m.