What is Beauty? | Vegas Seven | July 18-24 by Vegas Seven

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CUPCAKE BAKE-OFF

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[ upcoming ]

July 26: Henry Prendes Charity Golf Classic (HenrysPlace.org) August 17: One Drunk Puppy Wine Tasting (SilvertonCasino.com)

Photos by Derek Degner. Winner and contestant photos provided by Three Square

July 18–24, 2013

It was a battle of the batters on July 14 at the second Las Vegas Cupcake Bake-Off. Sponsored by Gigi’s Cupcakes to benefit Three Square food bank, the sugary showdown in the Suncoast’s Grand Ballroom combined allyou-can-eat treats with an open bar provided by Johnson Brothers Liquor. After snacking on sweets, the more than 1,000 attendees sifted through 45 entries and chose their favorite 10 cupcakes based on presentation. Then a panel of judges—including Justin Willman of Food Network’s Cupcake Wars—tasted and deliberated to select five finalists. In the end, Shanna Elliott took home the $1,500 first-place prize with her burger-inspired cupcake.

The LaTesT

national

Motion to Dismiss From catcalls to kisses, gender bias in the courtroom

July 18–24, 2013

By Kat Macfarlane The New York Observer

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While Wendy davis’ 10-hour flibuster was a marvel of political assertion, the best moment from the nail-biter of a Texas Senate session came minutes before midnight, when Democratic Senator Leticia Van De Putte petitioned Senator Robert Duncan for permission to speak. She had been crisscrossing the Senate foor, failing to get Duncan’s attention, as broader-shouldered men

blocked her at every turn. “Mr. President, at what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male colleagues in the room?” she asked. The protesters gathered above the Senate foor cheered, and they continued cheering past midnight, ensuring that the bill, which would have shuttered most of Texas’ abortions clinics, failed.

“Amen,” was my reaction to Van De Putte’s comment. I’m an attorney who spent two years practicing in New York federal courts. I’m a nobody compared to Van De Putte and Davis, but like them, I’m a woman participating in public life. And whether negotiating a settlement with an adversary or appearing in court, I always felt like I was fghting to be heard on the same terms as my

male counterparts. Some challenges are obvious—even physical—but women are made to feel unwelcome in subtler ways too. In my own offce, a male colleague would greet me in the hallway with a series of wolf whistles. I didn’t confront him because I didn’t want to talk about why he was whistling at me in the frst place. So I pretended I didn’t hear. I walked away from him as quickly as I could whenever the whistling, which made me cringe, started up behind me. This strategy failed. He whistled even louder, thinking I hadn’t heard. The whistling didn’t stop until he caught up to me after I rounded a corner too slowly to get away. He asked if the whistling bothered me. “Yes,” I told him.

“Why didn’t you say so sooner?” he stammered, as though this was my fault. The answer I didn’t give? “All I want to do at work is work, you jerkoff. I don’t have time to explain sexual harassment to you.” Did I mention he was a lawyer? Things were much worse outside of my workplace. My adversaries, civil-rights attorneys representing plaintiffs in federal court, were overwhelmingly male, and they loved to yell at me, both over the phone and in person. When they didn’t like my strategy, they called my motions “stupid.” When I made a cogent argument that I refused to back down from, I was “too sensitive.” In a case involving a punch to a plaintiff that I thought never happened, I repeatedly asked my adversary

to meet with the lawyers and recommend a settlement based on his or her evaluation of the case. I should say “his evaluation,” because of the 20 or so cases assigned to mediation, the mediator was a man 19 times. There is something unnerving about a female entering a room in which the mediator, your adversary and your adversary’s client are all male. In my worst mediation, I was pitted against two lawyers instead of one, the more senior of whom was a veteran attorney involved in many of New York’s most important civil rights cases. I noticed that he raised his voice louder and louder each time I made a point that highlighted how little he knew about the facts of the case. He responded to my arguments with dramatically delivered

non sequiturs about the history of his civil rights practice. One of the hallmarks of mediation is that what you tell the mediator outside of your adversary’s presence remains confdential unless you expressly permit the mediator to share the information. I’d mentioned to the mediator that I found it interesting that the veteran attorney was involved in such a small case. The next time the mediator and I spoke, he told me that he’d informed the other side that I was “intimidated” by my adversaries, especially the veteran attorney. At the end of the session, I packed up my fles. My adversaries hung around, engaging the mediator in small talk about football. I tuned out. When the conversation ended, the senior attorney turned to

You get yelled at enough and you start to wonder if you really are out of line. Was I imagining things? When I shared these stories with male colleagues, they had no idea what I was talking about. Thank God for my female friends. We agreed that we were either ignored or yelled at in ways that men were not. In the worst case that I heard about, a lawyer wrote a letter to a federal judge complaining of having to negotiate with one of the women in my offce, whom he described as young enough to be his daughter. What are we supposed to do about this behavior? Every time I complained to the lawyer who called me sensitive, I became a self-fulflling prophecy. The stakes are too high to call out a judge on his or her sexism. A judge who doesn’t like you can deny every procedural request you make and get away with it, as long as it’s not an abuse of discretion, a very diffcult charge to prove against a judge. Cases can be lost this way. Women in the public sphere, who argue cases in federal court and vote on bills in state legislatures, already fnd themselves “sitting at the table” that Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg so much wants us at. But once they’ve taken their seats, they still aren’t recognized as legitimate speakers, a problem Senator Van De Putte highlighted so eloquently. I just don’t know how to fx it. I am happy to be out of the courtroom for a while, having recently accepted a law school teaching job. Now, if anyone’s doing the yelling, it’s going to be me.

Kat Macfarlane is an assistant law professor at Louisiana State University. She spent two years as an assistant corporation counsel with the New York City Law Department.

July 18–24, 2013

why his client never mentioned the punch to the dentist he saw days after the alleged incident. “Let me put it this way,” he countered. “Are you going to tell your gynecologist about your injured shoulder? That’s not what you talk to your gynecologist about, right?” One attorney took a different approach, pulling me into his arms so he could kiss my cheek after I’d tried to shake his hand. This happened in a Southern District courtroom at the time a hearing was set to commence— that is, just when the judge was about to take the bench. My opponents weren’t the only ones determined to make me feel like I didn’t belong. My cases were often referred to mediation, an out-of-court process through which a neutral third party is assigned

me and asked, “Does it make you uncomfortable when the men talk about football?” The answer was no, the football conversation didn’t make me uncomfortable. But a question intended to put me in my place—that is, outside of the conversation the men were having—most certainly did. I smiled, laughed and left. I could deal with the sexist adversaries, who were trying to gain a tactical advantage by riling me up. As for the mediators, their recommendations were nonbinding. But I expected more from judges, most of whom didn’t even bother to make it seem as though women had a fair shot in their courtrooms. This wasn’t Texas, after all, it was New York, a legal community that has produced some of the most distinguished female lawyers and judges the system has ever seen. I practiced in both the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, courts admired across the country for their legal excellence. The Eastern District, located in Brooklyn, is slightly less formal than its Southern counterpart, in Manhattan. In one courtroom, my male adversaries were addressed by their frst names. As for me, I’d have to snap to attention whenever the judge said the word “City,” the client I represented. This was the judge’s way of ordering me to start talking. In one of my cases, when my male adversary interrupted the judge to make a point, the judge would say, “You’re right.” I was never invited to counter his arguments, and had to resort to interrupting. When I interrupted the other lawyer, I was told to “LET HIM SPEAK!” When I interrupted the judge, I got “I AM SPEAKING, MS. MACFARLANE, AND I AM NOT INTERESTED IN HEARING FROM YOU.”

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I could deal wIth the sexIst adversarIes. But I expected more from judges, most of whom dIdn’t even Bother to make It seem as though women had a faIr shot In theIr courtrooms.

the latest

style

Super Model Tyler Jones’ opulent—and wildly popular—model home doubles as his business card

VEGAS SEVEN

tyler Jones isn’t sure exactly when his newest model home became a Las Vegas visitor attraction. But on a recent weekday morning, groups of cargopanted, fip-fopped tourists were oohing and ahhing their way through the builder’s sexy, sophisticated four-level home, admiring the zero-edge pools and the state-of-the-art kitchen, and imagining the parties that could be hosted in the huge, open-air basement bar. Built as the New American Home 2013—a showcase for the National Association of Home Builder’s International Builder’s Show held at the Las Vegas Convention Center—Jones’ more than 8,000-squarefoot model residence in Henderson’s Marquis Seven Hills development is drawing visitors long after the trade show ended. “We had about 7,500 people come through the house during the show in January,” says Jones, principal of Blue Heron, a design-build custom home development company. “We’re still getting about 100 groups a week.” Having a sleek, modern design that seamlessly blends indoors and out in a sea of dark, fauxTuscan mansions helps draw the crowds, as do articles about the house in The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. Jones, who founded Blue Heron in 2004, is an attraction himself. Rock-star handsome, the 35-year-old builder has thrived during the economic downturn, creating a niche market for architecturally innovative, contemporary custom and semi-custom homes—all the while inspiring a cadre of dedicated followers an associate dubs “Blue Heron groupies.” Jones, a Las Vegas native, grew up in the business, working at his father’s Merlin Contracting

Photos by Checko Salgado

July 18–24, 2013

By Nora Burba Trulsson

What Is Beauty?

A Las Vegas photographer braves age-old questions about the masks women wear By H E I D I K Y S E R | Photographs by S T A C I E F R A Z I E R

nly a few of the 20 or so women at Stacie Frazier’s house knew that the party would culminate in some of them taking off their clothes and being photographed nude. Frazier, who would take the pictures, her bevy of assistants and a reality TV producer shooting footage for a webisode had all managed to keep their plan a secret. But even if the photo subjects had known that around 10 p.m. they’d be asked if they wanted to strip naked and pose on Frazier’s white leather couch in a supermodel-inspired cluster— naughty bits artfully concealed—some of them would have been less nervous about that than what was to come before it that afternoon and was the real reason they were there: to take off their makeup and, one by one, subject their faces to the camera, au naturel. The day was one phase of Frazier’s yearlong No Makeup Project, a photographic exploration of feminine beauty that she says was conceived to liberate her clients from social expectation and help them fnd comfort in their own skin. When all’s said and done, though, nobody will have benefted more from the work than Frazier herself.

July 18–24, 2013

The art of the mask

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Lest you think being photographed makeup-free is trivial, put yourself or a woman you know in this scenario: You’re taking a trip, traveling light, so there’s no makeup bag in your carryon. You arrive at your destination to fnd the airline has lost your luggage, including toiletries and cosmetics. How do you feel? “Panic and horror. I would run and get new makeup as soon as possible, before I had to wash my face.” That’s Frazier’s reply, and it’s hard to believe, coming from a pretty redhead with ocean-green eyes and a laugh that lightens the hearts of everyone in earshot.

Frazier’s No Makeup Project is part of a wider social trend. Earlier this year, in the Facebook group she created for shoot participants, she shared a video that she says resonates deeply with her own mission. Produced by Dove soap and titled “Are You Your Own Worst Beauty Critic?” the video shows a series of women describing themselves to a sketch artist, who can’t see them but draws what he hears. The artist then sketches the same women based on descriptions given by people who just met them. A side-by-side comparison of the sketches demonstrates how women sell themselves short: All the strangers’ descriptions render more

attractive portraits than the selfdescriptions do. And the video goes further, delving into the causes and effects of this nasty self-critique habit. “I should be more grateful for my natural beauty,” says Florence, one of the women sketched, after contemplating her ugly self-image next to the prettier and more accurate illustration. “It impacts the choices in the friends we make, the jobs we apply for, how we treat our children. … It couldn’t be more critical to our happiness.” The video is part of Dove’s broader social mission targeting women’s and girls’ self-esteem, and the soap company isn’t a lone crusader. Lately, the public discourse has echoed

“I don’t want my self-worth to be based on my looks.” – April Holladay

with similar inquiries, such as The Huffngton Post’s March article, “Porn Stars Without Makeup: Before and After Pictures”; and Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s Miss Representation, a 2011 documentary exploring depictions of women in the media. Girls in Tech Las Vegas screened the flm at a public event this spring, and during a panel discussion that followed, audience members raised questions about the specifc pressures placed on Las Vegas women. For performers and waitresses especially, looks directly determine professional success—and the heavily made-up showgirl typifes Strip beauty. “At the end of the day, when our faces are scrubbed and we’re in our pajamas, we don’t look that different,” said panelist April Mastroluca, a national PTA executive and former Nevada Assemblywoman, at the Miss Representation screening. Indeed, Frazier’s No Makeup shoots invite subjects to wash their faces clean and wear either nothing or their favorite nighttime outft. The idea was born a year and a half ago, when a librarian from out of town hired her to do a boudoir shoot. Frazier’s company, Haute Shots, takes a highly stylized approach to these pinup-style photo sessions. Costumes, lighting and heavy grooming help achieve a glamorous look for everyday women. In this setting, the librarian told Frazier about a challenge she does each year with a group of girls from her school. Together, they abstain from makeup for a week, talking and writing about the experience as they go. It sparked an epiphany for Frazier, who had been looking for a personal project to work out the self-image and -esteem issues she frequently encounters during Haute Shots sessions. Women come to her saying they want the photos for their signifcant others, but often, she fnds, they’re really doing it for themselves—to convince themselves they’re sexy and beautiful. Seeing her

Each set of photos shows No Makeup Project participants bare-faced (primary photos) and madeup (from separate boudoir shoots).

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NOTE ON PHOTOGRAPHY

July 18–24, 2013

“I have no limitations on what I can do to be more comfortable with myself and others.” – Leslie Stein

many layers of meaning to the women who wear it. It may be part of their professional persona, something they don—like an expensive suit—to signal standing. It may be an artistic enhancement of their features, a creative expression of femininity. Or it may be a mask they hide behind, a false self that defects attention from painful, unresolved issues. Projects like Frazier’s help women to question their relationship with makeup, gauge their dependence on it, Ressler says. This alone is a worthwhile exercise, but it’s even more fruitful if they can also identify the source of their anxiety about going makeup free. When this happens, they reveal more than their individual hang-ups. They question social norms and constructs that may be holding them back.

The beholder’s eye

July 18–24, 2013

“This is about women empowering other women, instead of tearing them down.” – Angela Anderson

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clients both adorned and naked, in all their insecurity, Frazier began cultivating an eye for the beauty that radiates from within. “I’ve always wanted to do something that’s the opposite of what boudoir is supposed

to be. I even thought of [photographing] girls crying,” she says. “I usually have such an intricate setup, and I wanted to strip that away.” Frazier is stripping away more than she may realize, says Adrienne Ressler, a

body-image specialist at the Renfrew Center, a residential eating-disorder treatment facility that does its own makeup-free challenge each year, called Bare Faced & Beautiful, Without & Within. Makeup, Ressler says, has

It’s a crisp, late-autumn day in 1993, and West Point cadet Leslie Stein is jazzed. The 18-year-old, slightly overweight brunette with bright chestnut eyes is standing and cheering in the traditional cordon formed to rally the Army football team for its annual clash with its archrival, Navy. As part of the sendoff, school groups parade down the cordon, eliciting cheers from the crowd. Suddenly, some physical education professors appear. They’re wearing sweats that are two or three sizes too big and stuffed with pillows—impromptu fat suits—and messily stuffng their faces with junk food as they prance by. Their chests are emblazoned with the letters “CWMP”—cadet weight management program. “I was mortifed; I wanted to die,” recalls Stein, now 38 and preparing for her No Makeup shoot with Frazier. At the time of the cordon, she was in the CWMP program— and sure everybody knew it. “I realized that’s how people saw me,” she says. Although she’s recently slimmed down to 135 pounds and raced in her frst triathlon, the 5-foot-6 Stein used to average 155. She thought that was normal until joining the Army, where she was repeatedly referred to weigh-ins. “It was a brutal environment,” she says. “They would

mock you, belittle you. They were constantly yelling at me for being too slow.” On the other hand, she adds, there was no nutritional or psychological guidance for losing weight in a healthy way. Experiences like these, Ressler says, have a profound, lasting impact. And although people may think of body image as being neckdown, it plays out dramatically on the face, too. “I saw a woman in treatment [for eating disorders] who said she grew up in a household where her mom got up an hour before her father so she could put on her makeup before her husband saw her,” she says. The client was terrifed to go to the grocery store without her face completely made up. “When I’m at my heaviest, but my face is pretty, I hope people will look at my face more than my body,” says April Holladay, another No Makeup shoot participant at Frazier’s house party. The voluptuous redhead had her eyelashes and brows dyed, and says she puts on tinted moisturizer to go to the gym, in order to smooth out her freckled complexion. “When Stacie [Frazier] said ‘No makeup,’ that was a personal challenge for me,” Holladay says. “It shouldn’t be such a big deal, and I didn’t think it was until I got here, but it is.” Perfect makeup is an integral part of the perfect woman, as she’s been conventionally depicted, explains Mary Pritchard, a psychology professor and body image expert at Boise State University who has studied the issue for 15 years. “For many women I’ve talked to, the makeup is … the mask they put on to portray this vision they think society wants to see,” she says. “But more and more, I fnd, they’re getting tired of wearing this mask.” Particularly in the past year, she says, she’s seen more women than ever embrace their blemishes and wrinkles as testaments to the lives they’ve lived, rather than hiding them as socially unacceptable faws. Not all faws are embraced at Frazier’s shoot, however. At one point, Stein complains about waking up with a cold sore—“today of all days, when I’m being photographed with no makeup.” Laughing, Frazier tells her not to worry:

nightlife

parties

Wet republic MGM Grand [ Upcoming ]

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See more photos from this gallery at SpyOnVegas.com

Photography by Teddy Fujimoto and Tony Tran

July 18â&#x20AC;&#x201C;24, 2013

July 19 SpyOn Hot 100 July 20 Laidback Luke spins July 21 Bob Sinclar spins

nightlife

parties

rehab

Hard Rock Hotel [ Upcoming ]

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See more photos from this gallery at SpyOnVegas.com

Photography by Mario Garcia

July 18â&#x20AC;&#x201C;24, 2013

July 19 Pay It Forward Fridays July 20 Nectar Saturdays with sounds by Mightyfools July 21 Rehab Bikini Invitational

nightlife

parties

Marquee Dayclub The Cosmopolitan [ Upcoming ]

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See more photos from this gallery at SpyOnVegas.com

Photography by Powers Imagery

July 18–24, 2013

July 19 Darrigo spins July 20 Wet Wonderland with sounds by Arty July 21 Kaskade’s Summer Lovin

nightlife

parties

Moon The palms

[ Upcoming ]

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See more photos from this gallery at SpyOnVegas.com

Photography by Bobby Jameidar

July 18â&#x20AC;&#x201C;24, 2013

July 20 Battle Saturdays with Allie Layus & Exodus July 23 Full Moon Party with Exodus & Kid Conrad July 27 DJ Glenn Morrison spins

nightlife

parties

Marquee

The Cosmopolitan [ Upcoming ]

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See more photos from this gallery at SpyOnVegas.com

Photography by Powers Imagery

July 18–24, 2013

July 19 Sunnery James &Ray Marciano July 20 Kaskade’s Summer Lovin July 22 Eric D-Lux

nightlife

parties

1 Oak

The Mirage [ Upcoming ]

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See more photos from this gallery at SpyOnVegas.com

Photography by Amit Dadlaney and Teddy Fujimoto

July 18–24, 2013

July 19 The Cataracts perform July 20 Ryan Cabrera’s birthday celebration July 23 Major Lazer presents Kung Fu Warrior

drinking Dining

[ Scene StirS ]

July 18–24, 2013

For Julian Luna’s recipe for the Watermelon Cream, visit VegasSeven.com/Cocktail-Culture.

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Do the Summerlin Crawl

beer cockTAils Are Tricky. Bitterness can be diffcult to balance, and carbonation can be clumsy to integrate, resulting in a cocktail that tastes “prickly.” Nitro beers, on the other hand—that is, beer effervesced with nitrogen instead of CO2, such as Guinness—have a creamy texture and thick mouthfeel that combines well into

cocktails. At Bradley Ogden’s Hops & Harvest, a farm-to-table concept with a craft-beer focus, company mixologist Julian Luna tops fresh watermelon purée, Luxardo Maraschino liqueur and Heering cherry liqueur with Pyramid Weiss Cream spiced ale to create the Watermelon Cream ($9), one of this summer’s best cocktails. Here,

the luscious nitro cream ale (suggested by general manager Derick Rossmiller) does all the work. It’s brewed with orange peel and vanilla, then nitrogenated for that velvety texture that folds so well into the purée. And the watermelon and cherry favors are there to let you know—as if you didn’t already— that summer is in full swing.

By the time you read this I’ll be gone—to the 11th annual tales of the cocktail, the world’s premier cocktail festival. And judging by the way my inbox has been flooded with events, competitions and tasting invites, I’d say it’s shaping up to be the biggest year yet. I’m looking forward to seminars on the concept of “simplexity” and on the Dark Ages of mixology (shudder). The Las Vegas chapter of the United States Bartenders’ Guild will meet up with other chapters for the annual midnight toast. I’ll lose personal belongings and all sense of time. And it’s not Tales till someone is fully clothed in the Hotel Monteleone pool. (I just hope it’s not me.) I’m especially looking forward to the annual Spirited Awards, which honor the World’s Best Cocktail Bar and American Bartender of the Year, among other such biggies. Las Vegas’ own Tony Abou-Ganim is up for Best Cocktail Book for his sophomore tome, Vodka Distilled, and Francesco Lafranconi, who has educated hundreds of Las Vegas bartenders through his academy at Southern Wine & Spirits of Nevada, is up for Best Bar Mentor. I’ll be there to cover the ceremony, which this year is themed— surprise, surprise—after The Great Gatsby. In preparation, I took my flapper dress for a test-run July 9, to the grand opening of Velveteen rabbit and then to the Gatsby Gamble at One Queensridge Place, a benefit for Three Square that featured a poker tournament, live performance by Frankie Marino, and cocktails by Absolut Elyx, Hendrick’s gin, Sailor Jerry rum and Lillet. Regarding that book’s most recent film adaptation—was it the greatest Gatsby? My two cents: no. But face in palm, tongue in cheek and eyes rolled back so far into my head that I can see yesterday, I will admit (and only under such circumstances would I) that Baz Lurhman’s whimsical whack at F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Roaring ’20s novella The Great Gatsby from earlier this summer is a confirmed commercial success. And boy was it ever commercial! Whatever Downton Abby didn’t do to affect the way today’s “bright young things” are dressing, decorating and drinking, this most recent Gatsby has finished off. Even as I write this, I have the film’s soundtrack (a Jay-Z joint) on repeat, especially the contributions of chanteuses Lana del Rey, Florence + the Machine and Sia. They sing me right back to the movie theater, where I tried in vain to count the not-so-subliminal and often outright branded beverage suggestions tucked into the film. I lost count in just the first linen-suit-clad moments. Oh, there’s plenty of boozing in the book, too: whiskey, highballs and enough Champagne for both West and East Egg to do the backstroke in the stuff. But the movie takes product placement to a whole other zip code. Watch it anyway, or better yet, just mix a cocktail and read the book. — X.W.

Photo by Kin Lui

Wheels up for nolA And TAles 11, And The lATesT gATsby

3824 PARADISE RD. LAS VEGAS 702.369.3971

Gastro Fare. Nurtured Ales. Jukebox Gold.

July 18–24, 2013

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Photos by Checko Salgado

insect, an ironic framing device over the depiction of the nuke site. “It’s very similar to the markup imagery used in satellite. They’re very precise and indelible. Here I’ve overlaid some substantive craters and a setup for underground tests.” Another piece, pointedly titled “Problem Child”—taken from the song by British rock band The Damned—is based on an iconic 1970s photo revealing the expanse of craters receding into the distance. Using juxtaposition, he offsets the photo by adding a color gradient and superimposing sharp geometric lines over it. “That’s what I work with in all my paintings,” LoPresti says. “There is a source photograph, which I repaint, a color gradient and black iconography of some kind.” Two works depart from the Nevada site for their inspiration. Again tellingly titled, “Bad Star” revisits the Hanford site. Framed by two facing triangles, it is a representation of a waste pit north of LoPresti’s hometown. By chartering local aircraft, he gained perspective by fying over the Hanford site. “There are containers full of stuff that probably need to be stored for tens of thousands of years,” he says. “But this is my hometown. It’s also a vast and beautiful place that outsiders would think is rather bleak, but it’s the minimalist beauty you get in the West.” Venturing even farther afeld to address the nuclear theme—all the way to the Soviet side— is “Semi,” which is an abbreviation for Semipalatinsk, the Eric LoPrEsti: Soviets’ primary nuclear test site tEst sitE in northeast Kazakhstan. During the Cold War, the Kazakh 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Soviet Socialist Republic was the Mon-Sat, second-largest republic in the noon-5 p.m. Sun former USSR. through Septem“[Semipalatinsk] is broadly ber 1, National analogous to the Nevada Test Atomic Testing Site, a pretty abstract landscape Museum, 755 E. from a satellite image, overlaid Flamingo Road, by a couple of vectors,” LoPresti $14 for entrance says. “What matters for the to the museum, purposes of this museum is it’s $20 with Area important to touch base with 51 exhibit, 794the other side. Who were we 5124, NationalAfghting? You think we had a tomicTestingMuproblem? Russia and Kazakhseum.org. stan are on a different level in dealing with their past and their inheritance.” Dwarfng all these, which are sized at 40by-30 inches, is the 72-by-54-inch crown jewel “Instrumentation Tower,” based on a government aerial photo and depicting an underground test. “The instrumentation tower is on the left, where they’re going to drop the device, and the scale of it is enormous and kind of loosely painted,” LoPresti says. Abstract as the works are, the LoPresti collection nonetheless conveys the uneasiness of a Cold War legacy that—especially in an era of North Korean nuclear saber-rattling and terrorists bent on unleashing the ultimate terror—is very much a hot-button topic. “I want to show some of the pathos, the fear, the terror of this sort of activity,” LoPresti says. “Who knows what it was like to work on these things—but I think people here already know.”

A&E

Music

Pastoral indie, coMic PoP and guilty Punk

Alabama Shakes guitarist Heath Fogg (far left) longs for his sweet home.

Rockers on a Roll Afer critical acclaim and sold-out shows, Alabama Shakes still values the simpler things By Camille Cannon

July 18–24, 2013

it’s been a little more than a year since Alabama Shakes released its frst album, Boys & Girls. With a sound that recalls the soulful rock ’n’ roll of a past era, the record earned the Athens, Alabama, group three Grammy nominations—including Best New Artist and Best Rock Performance. Before they play Las Vegas on July 19, the band is taking a brief break, writing material with the plans to record a follow-up album in the fall. Recently, guitarist Heath Fogg stepped out of a hometown jam session to discuss their humble approach to newfound stardom.

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Boys & Girls sent you on a whirlwind of success. What’s been the greatest challenge you’ve faced since its release? This may not be a challenge for some people, but just getting time at home. We’ve spent so much time on the road in the last year, the last two years really, we haven’t had time to write as many songs as we’d like to and get in the studio as often as we’d like to, and just be home with family and friends and get our heads on straight. If you would have asked me that two years ago, I wouldn’t have said that, because I wouldn’t have known any better. Now I know how touring really takes it out of you.

We’ve gotten to play our songs, our little rock ’n’ roll songs, in front of so many people. It’s been pretty special how many people like to tell us how our songs affect them. Some people really hold [our] songs to heart. It means more to them than just coming out to see a rock ’n’ roll show and having a beer. It’s a really important experience. They’re glad to let us know that, and I’m glad because it means a lot to us. Do you feel pressure because of the positive response you received from the frst album? We never expected most of the things that have happened to us. I think we’re just trying to get back to zero and start from scratch as the same band. We’re not thinking about topping what has already happened.

Any particularly frustrating moments from being on tour? When we played the Glastonbury Festival [in London] the sun was That’s a really cool attitude to just beaming on us. For England have. it was hot. It wasn’t that hot but it We’re trying to have that. We’re was making our guitars all out of practicing at my parents’ house tune. There’s a video of us playing right now, and there’s a gold record “Hang Loose,” it was like hanging on the wall. the second song in the But I think a alabaMa shakes [Laughs.] set. BBC was broadcastlot of other people feel ing it, and it’s already on the pressure more than with Fly Golden YouTube. I watched it, us. Everybody wants to Eagle and Hurray and it was like nails on a know when the [next] for the Riff Raff, chalkboard to me. record is coming out, The Pearl at the and we don’t really Palms, 8 p.m. July What’s the most excithave an answer for that. 19, $45, 944-3200, ing thing you’ve expeWe’re just trying to get Palms.com. rienced? back to being us.

Indie-folk ensemble Lord Huron is from L.A., but its majestic, big-sky sound is perfect for our desert landscape. The band’s debut last year, Lonesome Dreams (see my Nov. 1 review in Vegas Seven), is one I never tire of spinning—from the interstellar cowboy-gallop of “Ends of the Earth” to harmonica-haunted ballad “The Ghost on the Shore.” Layers of acoustic and electric guitars wash over the listener like sand ripples in a desert. Lord Huron plays Beauty Bar at 10 p.m. July 18, and I can’t wait to be in the thrall of a lush, widescreen-sounding rock group. At 5 p.m. July 19 in Henderson’s Eagle Aerie Hall (310 W. Pacific Ave.), Vegas pop-punk band Ministry of Love plays its first all-ages show in almost a year. The show also kicks off the band’s first tour in a long time—from Utah to New York City. The Ministry recently released two singles, “Bus Pass” and “Better Sorry Than Safe,” via iTunes, and they contain a few surprisingly blues-based, straight-uprockin’ guitar riffs. Also on the bill: Scream the Lie, Dennis Is Dead and Set Your Anchor, with locals Apex of Apathy, Tonight We Fight and Azalea. The little Las Vegas indie-punk label that could, SquidHat Records, has been busy signing local bands. In addition to recording and distributing new material by these groups, SquidHat has been re-releasing neglected or obscure albums by Peccadilloes and Guilty by Association. The latter is enjoying a re-mastered double-disc release of its first two albums, Detox and American Decay. The CD party (10 p.m. July 19 at the Triple B) features Guilty by Association, Surrounded by Thieves, The Quitters and Soto St. Guilty was birthed in 2001, and over the years the band has shared stages with everyone from Dead Kennedys to Circle Jerks. After the party, they go on a two-week tour across the U.S., from Arizona to Chicago. Nerd-rockin’ Seattle band Kirby Krackle returns to play a new Downtown comics shop called Supernova Comics (450 E. Fremont St., Suite 167) in Neonopolis at 6 p.m. July 21. The band just dropped new disc Sounds Like You (see my July 4 review in Vegas Seven), which sounds like your favorite power-pop artist singing about Spider-Man and Peter Parker’s split identities (“Web-Slinger/ Hope-Bringer”), and the fun we had as kids baking treats with our grandparents (“Grandma’s House”). Pinch my Doc Martens, or is British goth-rock king Peter Murphy really playing LVCS at 9 p.m. July 24? If you know anything about the Brit-goth scene, you know Murphy fronted Bauhaus starting in 1978. He and his bandmates called it quits in ’83, and while they formed the successful Love & Rockets, Murphy went on to release an acclaimed solo effort Deep in ’89. He’s released five albums since and inspired everyone from fantasy author Neil Gaiman to Crow comic-book artist James O’Barr. Dude looks like a legend! Your Vegas band releasing a CD soon? Email Jarret_Keene@Yahoo.com.

A&E

Movies

Contrary to appearances, this is not Son of Transformers, but a scene from the effects-loaded Pacific Rim.

Quirky Blockbuster

Guillermo del Toro’s ocean adventure movie pairs a little poetry with all that CGI By Michael Phillips

July 18–24, 2013

Tribune Media Services

VEGAS SEVEN

The suMMer of Loud continues this week with Pacifc Rim, full of sound and fury signifying nothing more than a monster movie in full roar. Director and co-writer Guillermo del Toro’s clever if rather wearying ode to Japanese sea-beast mythology is best enjoyed with a pair of earplugs and on a short night’s sleep. That is to say: It’s closer to the hammering Transformers aesthetic than expected. Yet the weirdness around the edges saves it from impersonality. In this near-future scenario, the valiant men and women of the Pan Pacifc Defense Corps take on the amphibious dragons from the deep. There’s another battle afoot: the battle between a fne director’s strongest storytelling instincts and the clobbering prerogatives and perceived box-offce

requirements of a picture that needs to make hundreds of millions to break even. We’ve encountered whole sections and faming chunks of Pacifc Rim many times before. We’ve seen them in the training sequences in Avatar and the generic relationship banter of Starship Troopers and, more to the water-based point, the Godzillainspired pictures released in the decades following World War II, when irradiated beings and smog critters and other progeny of humankind’s mistreatment of the planet gave us the retribution we so richly deserved. At the start, Pacifc Rim dispatches with the necessary expository blah-blah in delightfully forthright fashion. The audience is debriefed via extended montage on the emergence from beneath the

ocean foor of the Kaiju, prehistoric, steroidal dinosaur-y visitors that come in a variety of shapes, sizes and threat levels. They keep coming, these Kaiju, and they wipe out Manila, San Francisco and other cities in short order. So the nations of the world settle their petty land disputes and political wars and agree to work together on a solution. Solution: 25-story-tall human-made robots known as Jaegers, controlled by two pilots strapped in and mind-melded in “a neural bridge.” It’s a tough job, and many lives are lost in the battles, but when a Kaiju war veteran (Charlie Hunnam) teams up with a newbie (Rinko Kikuchi), Earth’s rightful owners get a second chance. For anyone with an abiding affection for plus-size beasts, here

very large indeed, Pacifc Rim offers considerable visual panache of the digital effects variety. I wish the rooting interests among the heroes and heroines were stronger. Hunnam’s character has a brother (Diego Klattenhoff), also in the Corps, also not very interesting. Max Martini and Robert Kazinsky portray an Australian father-and-son team in the Corps, likewise given insuffcient material to make us care about their fates. But del Toro has a few aces up his sleeve, or rather in the control room overseen by Commander Stacker Pentecost (love that name!). Idris Elba’s the commander, the one who delivers the rallying cry about how “we’re canceling the apocalypse!” He’s a welcome presence. But he’s no match for the mugging scientists and factotums lower down the chain. In modern-day monster movies, too many performers favor an approach of deadpan under-reaction in the face of supernatural narrative occurrences. Not in Pacifc Rim. Watch what Clifton Collins Jr., Charlie Day and Burn Gorman manage here, in fearsome close-up, when they’re bugging out about the latest terrible development of the Category 4

Kaiju. They hit the panic button over and over and over, like mice in some sort of “feed me again!” lab experiment. Enormous, tantrum-prone beings are on the rampage! Overact like you mean it, men! Ron Perlman, a del Toro and fanboy god, has a wonderful time as an underground dealer of Kaiju body parts. In effect, he’s into monster memorabilia—the world’s most menacing comics emporium dealer. Perlman’s fate is memorable for a host of slimy reasons, and his storyline comprises a movie inside the larger movie, much like the pilots operating inside the mechanical sluggers invented to vanquish the tourists from the center of the earth. It’s noisy, overscaled fun, this picture, and now and then a little poetry sneaks in to tantalize. My favorite moment is an underwater shot of the frst major Kaiju, just a-swimmin’ along in long shot, about to rise above the water’s surface to show us what’s what. Tellingly, the shot’s a second or two too short. But Pacifc Rim has a lot on its plate, and always another clash of the titans to prepare. Pacifc Rim (PG-13) ★★★✩✩

A&E

movies

millionaire man-child With Grown Ups sequel, Adam Sandler is the Peter Pan of comedy for a paycheck By Roger Moore

Tribune Media Services the gang’s all here for Grown Ups 2, Adam Sandler’s latest lowbrow make-work project for all the Saturday Night Live has-beens and other hangerson he keeps on payroll. It’s another pointless romp through Sandlerland—where the women are buxom, the kids have catch-phrases and the jokes are below average. Basically, the sequel to the hit Grown Ups fnds our Hollywood pal Lenny Feder (Sandler), his wife (Salma Hayek) and brood moved back to his hometown. That’s where childhood pal Eric (Kevin James) runs a body shop, Kurt (Chris Rock) is a cable guy and Marcus (David Spade) has just learned he’s a deadbeat dad. Apparently, Rob Schneider was too busy to do the sequel. (Probably as much a shock to him as to us.) We follow these clowns through a long day—the last day of school for their kids—as they reminisce at Kmart (where Tim

Meadows ended up), feud with frat boys (Taylor Lautner plays their martial arts-mad leader) at the quarry that’s the town swimmin’ hole and fnd other ways to not quite grow up by throwing an ’80s-themed party that night. The big message here: “You can’t back down from a bully.” The jokes? Broad variations of “the dozens,” guys giving each other the business in elaborate, limp insults. Spade’s character is “Betty White” because he’s old and his hair’s a wreck, Rock’s is “skinny Danny Glover, ” James’ is “Crocodile Dumb-BEE” and Nick Swardson does his human punchingbag shtick. Scatological gags, guys leering at cheerleaders, women leering at male cheerleaders (Sandler protégé Andy Samberg among them) all have their place. As does every comic, from ancient Norm Crosby to creaking Colin Quinn, as an

Sandler and Hayek try to parent without growing up.

ice cream vendor who gives a nice speech justifying Sandler’s entire farts-over-art career. He got rich doing this, Quinn rants. So there. It’s dated, it aims low and Sandler is, as always, self-

aware enough to get that he’s pandering. At least the guy’s out there, stimulating his little corner of the economy. Sandler is one businessman who takes the president’s edict about make-

short reviews

July 18–24, 2013

The Lone Ranger (PG-13) ★✩✩✩✩

VEGAS SEVEN

Alas, while we “wait” on the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean picture, Disney and Johnny Depp churn out this mess of a film. While it never works from the start, the story follows Tonto (Depp), the trusty Native American sidekick of the famous masked Texas Ranger (Armie Hammer) hell-bent on revenge. The Lone Ranger and Tonto spend most of their time mugging, acting silly and leaping around lavish action set pieces while extreme violence occurs all around them. The tone here is off, and while Depp takes the lead with Tonto, it’s not enough to warrant the spectacle, budget or price.

Despicable Me 2 (PG) ★★✩✩✩

You could do worse than this sequel, but reports of this installment’s charm have been greatly exaggerated. Here, the Anti-Villain League recruits Gru (Steve Carell) to track down the supervillain, El Macho. AVL agent Lucy (Kristen Wiig) gets partnered up with him, and the two go undercover at the mall. There are the goofy Minions from the first film, and some fellow mall tenants (Ken Jeong and Benjamin Bratt), but this film relies too heavily on just the timing and charm of Carell and Wiig.

Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain (R) ★★✩✩✩

This short concert film captures standup comic Kevin Hart’s Madison Square Garden show and pads it with a long, dead, scripted prologue that doesn’t really work. Hart has hit the big time, and it shows, but we tend to like our comics angry and dissatisfied. While he’s an impressive performer, the writing just isn’t as strong, and most of the show just has Hart working too hard to make inferior material go over. His surprise hit Laugh at My Pain from 2011 is much funnier.

work projects to heart. As deep as it gets in Grown Ups 2, you know the fellow loves his movies to be “shovel-ready.” Grown Ups 2 (PG-13) ★✩✩✩✩

[ by tribune media services ]

The Heat (R) ★★★✩✩

This buddy cop movie is female-based for once. Sandra Bullock plays an FBI agent bucking for a promotion. She travels to Boston to nail a drug lord. That’s about all the plot there is, even though the movie goes on another two hours about it. Melissa McCarthy is the local blowhard with a badge. The odd couple learns to work together, eventually winding up, as these movies always do, in an abandoned warehouse full of criminal scum. It’s simple, but the co-stars are great.

movies

This may sound familiar, but in this movie, the White House is under siege. Jaime Foxx plays an earnest but earnestly funny commander in chief. Channing Tatum plays Cale, a war vet/D.C. cop who can’t convince Maggie Gyllenhaal to let him in the Secret Service. He has to content himself with guarding the speaker of the House and getting his daughter (Joey King) a White House tour. Naturally, the bad guys bust in, and the only person who can save his daughter, the pres and the world is Cale.

Monsters University (G) ★★✩✩✩

World War Z (PG-13) ★★✩✩✩

In this wildly budgeted zombie apocalypse film, Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) and his family are stuck in traffic. Suddenly: zombie attack. In a matter of minutes, many of the world’s cities are in flames. The zombies turn quick and are fast as lightning! Gerry escapes with the fam, are rescued by U.N. forces and relocated to an aircraft carrier. From there, Gerry gets sent on a series of ad hoc missions (South Korea, Israel, Cardiff, Wales) to find the elusive origin and concoct a cure. It’s a wild ride, if a little light on story.

Man of Steel (PG-13) ★★ ✩✩

Pixar hasn’t quite gotten the hang of sequels, and that much is evident in this charmless sequel to the 2001 hit Monsters, Inc. Mike (voiced by Billy Crystal), dreams of going to Monsters U one day. The day arrives and he meets his polar opposite, and future best friend, Sulley (John Goodman). Sulley’s a natural monster with poor study habits and a bullying arrogance that’s egged on by the meanest frat on campus. The rest tells of how these two become pals. All in all, not funny, and a weak effort.

The latest Superman effort takes a grim turn similar to producer Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. As the planet Krypton is destroyed, Jor-El (Russell Crowe) sends his powerful son Kal-El to Earth, specifically Kansas. Raised by farmers (Kevin Costner and Diane Lane), the newly named Clark Kent grows up to discover his special abilities. In time, he meets journalist Lois Lane (Amy Adams) and battles the evil General Zod (Michael Shannon) as Superman. The film is solid, but the destruction is excessive.

This Is the End (R) ★★★✩✩

The Internship (PG-13) ★★✩✩✩

Somehow, this apocalyptic farce works. Co-filmmakers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg take a simple premise, invite a ton of their comic friends along to play alternate versions of themselves, and make an Endof-Days picture that’s crude and wildly entertaining. Rogen invites his Jay Baruchel to L.A. They attend James Franco’s party, along with tons of other actors (Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Paul Rudd—even Emma Watson!). Then the world begins to end, and all bets are off.

This reteaming of Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson plays like a commercial for Google. By the end of the picture, that too-familiar logo is seared into your psyche. Wristwatch salesmen Billy (Vaughn) and Nick (Wilson) find themselves out of work. Eventually, the duo video-conference their way into a summer internship at Google headquarters. There, they team up with a few fellow outcast interns in a competition to see which team wins those coveted full-time jobs at summer’s end. Not many laughs here.

July 18–24, 2013

★★✩✩✩

99 VEGAS SEVEN

White House Down (PG-13)

Marketplace

What special issues do you face with the heart of Las Vegas just minutes from the gates? Nellis does tend to have a little bit higher rate of incidents than some other [bases] around the country. That’s to be expected, especially when you bring young folks here who maybe have never experienced [Las Vegas]. Our leaders work to instill our core values, to remind them that a military member is never off-duty. There is great fun to be had Downtown, but there are also some things that can happen that aren’t going to be so fun, and we need to steer them in the right direction. There are other bases that just don’t have those temptations that we have here, so it takes a lot of handson leadership.

Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Lofgren

The commander of the Air Force Warfare Center on lean budgets, Nellis’ growth and fying on empty

July 18–24, 2013

By Kurt Rice

VEGAS SEVEN

110

The 21-square-mile Nellis Air Force Base, which bills itself to newly arriving personnel as “the most exclusive and guarded community in Las Vegas,” is many things: It’s an operational hub that drives air-combat tactics development and controls joint operations with all branches of the Defense Department; it’s home to forces from allied nations that come to work on Nellis’ additional 5,000 square miles of range space; and it’s a community, in the truest sense of the word. The mayor and CEO of the complex—which could swallow 37 Las Vegases—is Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Lofgren, the U.S. Air Force Warfare Center commander. An Air Force Academy alum who has accumulated more than 3,000 fying hours (primarily in F-16s), Lofgren has commanded units in the Pacifc and Southwest Asia. Big, blond and with a ready smile, Lofgren is a keenly observant and square-jawed epitome of a veteran fghter pilot while at the same time possessing the kind of mild awkwardness you’d expect from a Scandinavian farmer forced to talk about himself.

How is Nellis’ overall relationship with the Southern Nevada community? As strong as I’ve seen it anywhere I’ve ever been, and I’ve been in many places around the United States. We continue to work with community leaders to make sure we have what we call “compatible growth,” which keeps our mission going yet still allows them to achieve objectives as business leaders. We don’t need to say “no”; we need to come up with an acceptable “yes” for both of us and create a win-win scenario, and that’s the approach we’ve been taking. It is always nice to have a community that is very supportive and understanding of what we are trying to get accomplished here … and we do appreciate everything the community does to support our airmen.

Given the current fscal situation in Washington, D.C., what plans are in place to maintain the U.S. Air Force’s fghting edge? It does actually give us a little bit of a break to go back and make sure we have the right tactics and techniques we are going to employ and [that we] are teaching correctly. We are also looking at our weapons systems’ vulnerabilities to cyber attack, plus something called “live virtual constructive”—think of it as simulators—so we can strike a balance between live-fy operations and simulator operations to get the maximum product for the available dollars. It’s a little tough, because we aren’t doing what we normally do around here, but at the same time we still have valuable work to do. What’s the latest on the base’s building boom? We have a lot of construction going on with our F-35 facilities and some new dormitories. I think the number is up around $400 million in the last couple of years just for construction [costs] on base. We estimate we put about $5 billion into the Las Vegas economy each year. That’s not a trivial number. How have your previous command experiences informed your command here? It’s made me realize that no one specifc capability in our arsenal can do it all. Integration is the hard part: [It’s about] improving and refning and maintaining those capabilities and the readiness to do what our nation expects us to do, which is to win. What was your most harrowing fying experience? Immediately after Desert Storm, I was fying F-16s out of Saudi Arabia [in 1991]. We started having [Iraqi] surface-to-air missiles shooting at us, so they pulled everybody back. But they had some folks who were in harm’s way, and we had to turn back to support them. We were able to suppress the enemy fre and get the guys out. But then as we turned around [to head home], we were so low on gas we had to call the tankers across the line [into enemy airspace]. All this was done at night. I had a very young wingman at the time; I can very distinctly remember landing and talking to him afterward, and his eyes were as big as saucers.

Photo by Lucky Wenzel

7 questions

This month marks your frst anniversary as Warfare Center commander. Are you enjoying the gig? This is an incredible job where we can impact so much of the Air Force, our joint partners and our coalition partners with what we do here. Whether it’s in the testing arena in tactics development or the training programs we have, we produce the highest-caliber folks that our Air Force can produce. Everybody likes to [make] an impact, likes to feel they got something accomplished each and every day when they go home, and this is one of those jobs where you really feel that you can do that.