Downtown's Year of Reckoning | Vegas Seven Magazine | Dec. 12-Dec.18 by Vegas Seven

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FEBRUARY 15 NEW YEAR’S EVE WEEKEND

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DEC 29

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14 | THE LATEST

Seeds of hope for UNLV basketball and serious money for an urban design competition. Plus, Ask a Native, The Look, The Deal and Tweets of the Week.

16 | Next Exit

“Truth, Guilt and Forgiveness,” by Stacy J. Willis. Thoughts on the power of words to wound—and to heal.

20 | Sports

“The Bennett Perspective,” by Matt Jacob. Can former UNLV star and NBA top draft pick Anthony Bennett turn around his disastrous rookie season?

22 | Politics

“Harry Reid’s Very Good Year,” by Michael Green. Love him or hate him, it’s hard not to admit that the senator from Searchlight had the wind at his back in 2013.

24 | Style

“Gift Bag.” A hearty helping of holiday cheer for him and for her.

26 | COVER

“Downtown: Year One,” by Geoff Carter. Why 2014 might mark the real beginning of Tony Hsieh’s renaissance—and what that means for the rest of us.

33 | NIGHTLIFE

Seven Nights, a look at three spots that keep the winter days sizzling, and photos from the week’s parties.

57 | DINING

Max Jacobson on Stewart + Ogden. Plus, Diner’s Notebook, bartending runs in the Cooper family, and The Grape Nut.

63 | A&E

“Art House Advantage,” by Jason Scavone. We used math to find the real takes of fake casinos.

66 | Music

Jarret Keene’s Soundscraper, CD reviews and our concert pages.

70 | Pop Culture

“Cat Got His Tweet,” by Jason Scavone. The world lost a voice of honest irony when Deadmau5 left Twitter.

72 | Movies

Out of the Furnace, The Ghosts in Our Machine and movie capsules.

86 | Seven Questions

Dr. Jeffrey Cummings of the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health on research progress for Alzheimer’s, studying fighters and how he feeds his brain.

DEPARTMENTS 15 | Seven Days 18 | Gossip

9 ON THE COVER Photos by Ryan Olbrysh

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PHOTO BY RYAN OLBRYSH

20 | Going for Broke

December 12–18, 2013

11 | Dialogue

las Vegas’ weekly City magazine FounDeD February 2010

Publisher

Michael Skenandore

eDitor

editorial

Greg Blake Miller

senior eDitors Matt Jacob (news and sports), Xania Woodman (nightlife, beverage and dining) a&e eDitor Cindi Reed senior writers Geoff Carter, Heidi Kyser, Stacy J. Willis Copy ChieF Paul Szydelko assoCiate eDitors Steve Bornfeld, Sean DeFrank assoCiate style eDitor Jessica Acuña CalenDar CoorDinator Camille Cannon

Contributing editors

Melinda Sheckells, style; Sam Glaser, nightlife; Michael Green, politics; Max Jacobson, food; Jarret Keene, music; David G. Schwartz, gaming/hospitality

art

CreatiVe DireCtor Ryan Olbrysh art DireCtor Christopher A. Jones graphiC Designer Jesse J Sutherland staFF photographer Anthony Mair

VegasseVen.Com

Deputy DireCtor Felicia Mello teChniCal DireCtor Herbert Akinyele eDitor Jason Scavone interaCtiVe proDuCer Nicole Ely staFF writer, runrebs.Com Mike Grimala

ProduCtion/distribution

DireCtor oF proDuCtion/Distribution Marc Barrington aDVertising manager Jimmy Bearse Distribution CoorDinator Jasen Ono

sales

business DeVelopment DireCtor Christy Corda aCCount manager Brittany Quintana aCCount serViCe manager Nicole Bullis aCCount exeCutiVe Robyn Weiss

interns

Adam Culler, Devin Howell, Susanna Kelly, Allison Kyler, Tye Masters, John Schmitz

Wendoh media ComPanies

Ryan T. Doherty | Justin Weniger presiDent Michael Skenandore ViCe presiDent, marketing anD eVents Kyle Markman eDitorial DireCtor Phil Hagen CreatiVe DireCtor Sherwin Yumul marketing CoorDinator Maureen Hank

FinanCe

ChieF FinanCial oFFiCer Kevin J. Woodward assistant Controller Donna Nolls general aCCounting manager Erica Carpino

letters and story ideas December 12–18, 2013

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GOLDEN NUGGET ENTERTAINMENT

dialogUe A Family-Friendly Strip? Twenty Years Later, the Debate Goes On

From the Emerald City to Pharaoh’s Tomb

168

Twenty years ago, the MGM Grand, Treasure Island and Luxor

ushered in a new Las Vegas. What happened to it? “From the Emerald City to Pharaoh’s Tomb,” David G. Schwartz’s December 5 feature on the legacy of Luxor, Treasure Island and the MGM Grand—each of which opened 20 years ago—set off a discussion among readers about whether there’s still a place for family-friendly entertainment on the Strip. Some lamented the demise of attractions such as MGM’s Grand Adventures theme park and Treasure Island’s original pirate show. “The Strip … doesn’t have to be for kids, but they don’t have to kill the personality of the area,” wrote reader Guy Chapman. “Grown-up versions of castles, pyramids, pirate ships ... all of these places were different and lots of fun for ‘big kids.’ Now it’s all continually being stripped out for overpriced retail shops.” “This article is so good, it makes me sad,” wrote one commenter. “Am I old? I was there, remember the early-’90s boom and miss it—the excitement, the newness of it all. I’m not fearful of change or progress, but the familiarity of home is slowly eroding away.” Others were more pragmatic: “Kids don’t gamble, don’t see shows, don’t get bottle service, don’t shop at Crystals,” Mindy Clark wrote. “It was an attempt in the early ’90s to broaden the demographic of tourists, and it failed, miserably.” – Felicia Mello HOTO BY TK

BY DAVID G. SCHWARTZ

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This week @ VegasseVen.com Rebels, Thunderbirds and Highlanders

Follow Mike Grimala’s live coverage and pre- and postgame analysis as the UNLV men’s basketball team travels to Southern Utah for a matchup on December 14 before coming home to play Radford (Va.) on December 18.

Musings on Munchies

Las Vegas’ dining scene bursts with so much activity, it’s hard to keep up. Get the latest news on restaurant openings, menu makeovers and more at VegasSeven.com/DishingWithGrace, plus answers to all your foodie questions from critic Max Jacobson at VegasSeven.com/AskMax.

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Cities from Los Angeles to Kansas City are working to speed up their public wireless networks, and now Downtown Las Vegas has gotten into the act. The area’s free wireless Internet experiment has plans to increase both its speed and its reach: Could it be coming to your neighborhood soon? Find out at DTLV.com/WiFi.

December 12–18, 2013

Wi-Fi for the Masses

EVENT

BOTTOMS UP!

VEGAS SEVEN

[ UPCOMING ]

Dec. 13-14 Clark County Museum’s Heritage Street Holidays Festival (ClarkCountyNV.gov.)

Dec. 14 Junior Achievement of Southern Nevada’s Suite Holidays (JALasVegas.org)

PHOTOS BY TOBY ACUNA

December 12–18, 2013

Bottles were poppin’ at the Mob Museum on Dec. 5 in honor of the 80th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition. More than 300 thirsty revelers—including toastmaster Oscar Goodman and his wife, Mayor Carolyn Goodman— raised a glass (or three) at the second-annual soiree that included museum admission and hors d’oeuvres, plus performances from The Broadway Rat Pack cabaret dancers. New this year was the Boss of the Bars cocktail competition, won by Keith Baker of Vanguard Lounge. Proceeds from the evening will benefit the museum’s educational programming. We’ll drink to that!

“Reid makes his own breaks—and takes advantage of them.” POLITICS {PAGE 22}

News, essays, politics and forgiveness

Rebel Evolution?

Afer the team’s poor start, many UNLV basketball fans had harsh words for coach Dave Rice. But then the Rebels nearly knocked of mighty Arizona—and showed that the season can still be saved.

VEGAS SEVEN

A FUNNY THING happened to the UNLV basketball team as it entered the final minutes of the second half of the seventh game of what had been unfolding as a nightmare season. Khem Birch scored with 3:29 left to put the Rebels ahead of Arizona, 57-56, in Tucson. The underachieving Rebels, who had lost by 21 points on their home court to UC Santa Barbara last month, showed themselves to be the equals of the No. 2-ranked Wildcats. Almost. Final score: Arizona 63, UNLV 58. Rewind to, say, one minute before that game began on December 7: It seemed that about the only people in Social Media Land not calling for third-year UNLV coach Dave Rice to be fired were San Diego State fans, who had been using the hashtag #SaveDave to mock the Runnin’ Rebels’ struggles. (With Rice holding a 3-1 career record against the Aztecs, you would think they'd be the first ones to want him gone.) The Rebels were coming off losing three of their last four games at the Thomas & Mack Center, their worst home stretch since the 2002-03 season. And Rebel Nation—or at least a handful of its unruly districts—was leading a rebellion against Rice. Recent Tweets from followers of the 3-4 Rebels have a distinct sky-is-falling tone. Of course, in onlinecommenter-land, the sky is always falling, but a special brand of venom seems to

Rebels Christian Wood and Kevin Olekaibe battle for a rebound at Arizona.

have been reserved for Rice: Dave Rice is a horrible head coach. Clueless. … Dave Rice is so dense. … Dave Rice outcoached again last night. … Rice is not the answer, sadly. Dude is in way over his head. … Rice brand of bball is unwatchable. Like a bad AAU team. What’s strange is that the vitriol toward Rice isn’t new; it started almost immediately after he was hired in April 2011 over another, much fashier, former Rebel, Reggie Theus. Rice won over some early critics with his hire of UNLV legend Stacey Augmon as an assistant—and with his plan to run like the Rebels of old. But

soon Rice became a victim of that stylistic promise (and the incessant marketing of it): The Rebels were slow to master his fast-paced system, and nostalgic fans began to complain as much about aesthetics as about results. Meanwhile, Rice fell victim to his own recruiting success: By attracting high school All-Americans and talented transfers to UNLV (including this year’s top NBA draft pick, Anthony Bennett; see Page 20), he’s ramped up many fans’ expectations to Final Four-or-bust levels. It takes time, though, for even the most talented groups

to learn to play as a team—and most of this year’s Rebels never played together before last month. Let’s also not forget that despite the Rebels’ rough start this season, Rice’s career record at UNLV is 54-23, a better mark in his third year than any Rebels coach since Jerry Tarkanian, who was more experienced than Rice was when he came to UNLV. If the Rebels plan on going to the NCAA Tournament in March, it’s going to take an impressive run in Mountain West Conference play—maybe even a conference title. The talent is certainly there: One-

quarter of the team’s players (junior forward Birch, junior guard Jelan Kendrick, freshman forward Christian Wood) were McDonald’s High School AllAmericans; junior transfer Roscoe Smith (the nation’s leading rebounder at 14.7 per game) started on Connecticut’s 2011 national championship team as a freshman; and junior guard Bryce Dejean-Jones might be the Rebels’ best allaround player. Last season, the biggest knock on UNLV was its lack of a true point guard. But freshman Kendall Smith has adapted quickly to the position at the college level, earning the starting spot after just two games, and has shown the ability to be the Rebels’ best point guard since Marcus Banks a decade ago. And senior transfer Kevin Olekaibe has provided a much-needed outside threat at the two-guard position. Of course, much improvement is still needed: The Rebels rank almost dead last nationally in free-throw shooting at 58.4 percent; they are averaging just 69.6 points per game (255th in the nation); they need to shore up their perimeter defense; and they still haven’t shown the ability to score consistently against zone defenses. With six upcoming games against mediocre nonconference opponents, Rice has time to fne-tune his talented collective before conference play starts in January. This could still turn out to be the season the Rebels really learn to run. Maybe then UNLV fans will be the ones embracing the #SaveDave campaign.

REBELS BASKETBALL PHOTO BY CASEY SAPIO/USA TODAY SPORTS

December 12–18, 2013

By Sean DeFrank

By Bob Whitby THURSDAY, DEC. 12: Henderson isn’t the kind of city that lets the holidays slip by without a party. In other words, it’s time for WinterFest at the Henderson Events Plaza and Convention Center on Water Street. At 7 p.m., the Henderson Symphony Orchestra opens the celebration with Sounds of the Season. Festivities also include a parade, decorated trees, kids' contests, food and music. Festival continues 6-9 p.m. Fri and noon-8 p.m. Sat., HendersonLive.com.

How much is a good development idea worth in Las Vegas? By Stacy J. Willis

WOULDN’T IT BE NICE of the federal government to just give someone an $800,000 prize to come up with a cutting-edge redevelopment idea for Cashman Field? Or for the medical district around University Medical Center and Valley Hospital? Or maybe for a local business park that needs a shot of economic stimulation? Maybe. Hopefully. But critics of the Strong Cities, Strong Communities grant wonder if the money would be better used to actually implement a plan, rather than as pure prize money for creating a good idea. The City of Las Vegas partnered with the U.S. Economic Development Administration to award $800,000 in federal money to the redevelopment proposal that wins a global competition. The City was required to contribute another $250,000 to implement the winning idea, which caused some City Council members early this fall to question whether that money might be better spent. Plus, some local urban designers worry that the large prize will attract large, out-of-state frms with more resources, essentially pricing locals out of having an impact on their own community. But the program is under way, and on November 20 the City Council awarded market-

ing frm Faiss Foley Warren a $90,000 contract to oversee the proposal and judging. Mayor Carolyn Goodman is expected to tout the launch of the Strong Cities, Strong Communities initiative in the State of the City address on January 9. Multidisciplinary teams will have 10 months from the launch to submit proposals in round one for the selected redevelopment areas: Cashman Field, the medical district, a business park or an area already identifed by the City as a “redevelopment area.” The top three fnalists will have another six months to perfect their proposals. Locals will be invited onto the judging panel, says Faiss Foley Warren managing partner Melissa Warren. She adds that Las Vegas frms are encouraged to enter the competition. “We’re going to make outreach locally, regionally and nationally,” Warren says. “But the strategy is not to blast it globally for anyone with an idea, but to very directly target urban-planning frms. We have a whole list of universities that have strong urban planning departments.” (That list includes UNLV.) The contract calls for Faiss Foley Warren to attract 50 “qualifed teams.” “If you’re seeking solid proposals and plans,” Warren says, “you’re going to get frms who

put in hundreds of thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours.” That’s exactly what concerns Ken McCown, director of the UNLV School of Architecture’s Downtown Design Center, which focuses on engaging the community in solving development challenges. “We fgured out that you could get 18 ‘person years’ of jobs out of that $800,000,” McCown says, noting that employing locals is key to economic redevelopment. “[The Downtown Design Center] could basically look at these sites and come up with a plan within the community.” But the Strong Cities’ program was set up by the Obama administration in 2011 as a new type of incentive. In 2012, the Economic Development Administration identifed Greensboro, North Carolina, Hartford, Connecticut, and Las Vegas as communities that “lacked a comprehensive plan to reach their job creation and economic development goals,” and targeted them with “economic visioning challenges.” Las Vegas’ struggles were largely attributed to being hit hard by the recession. “This program," the EDA website says, "aligns with the administration’s commitment to use prizes and challenges to promote innovation.”

SATURDAY, DEC. 14: The Clark County Fire Department holds an open house from noon to 3 p.m. at Fire Station 65, 3825 Starr Ave.— a perfect chance to participate in the Fill the Fire Truck toy drive. Bring a new, unwrapped gift, have some refreshments and check out the cool rigs. ClarkCountyNV.gov. Also, head out to Sunset Wonderland at Sunset Park for skating, carriage rides, a petting zoo, a Ferris wheel and more. 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Sat-Sun., 4 p.m.-10 p.m. Mon-Fri. through Dec. 22. SUNDAY, DEC. 15: You can’t

call yourself a holidays enthusiast unless you take in at least one showing of The Nutcracker annually. Fortunately, you can take in several here, as the Nevada Ballet Theatre’s production of this classic tale is in residence at The Smith Center through Dec. 22. Shows started Dec. 14, and there are two scheduled today: 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. $52-$178, TheSmithCenter.com.

MONDAY, DEC. 16: Combine man and machine, and what do you

get? The Terminator, yes, but also the Symbioid Art Exhibition at UNLV’s Lee and Thomas Beam Music Center. View the future as envisioned by artists with grease in their veins, through Feb. 21. UNLV.edu.

TUESDAY, DEC. 17: Hey, it’s

free movie day at the Clark County Library’s Main Theater. They call it Tuesday Afternoon at the Bijou, and today features The Apartment, an Academy Award-winning tale from 1960 about what we’d refer to today as a no-tell motel. Juicy. 1 p.m. at the main library, LVCCLD.org.

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 18: You’ve still got a couple of weeks to check

out Too Much of a Good Thing Is Wonderful: Liberace and the Art of Costume at the Cosmopolitan. This collection of the master showman’s wardrobe and stage pieces, including his rhinestone piano, is on display. 3-10 p.m. daily, until Jan. 2.

December 12–18, 2013

For Would-Be Urban Visionaries, an $800,000 Question

15 VEGAS SEVEN

[ DESIGN ]

FRIDAY, DEC. 13: We mentioned the Cowboy Christmas Gift Show last week, but neglected to note its partner in downhome fashion, the Country Christmas gift show,, through Sunday at the Sands Expo & Convention Center. If you’ve always wanted a plastic deer for your front yard, you now know where to go. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Sunday, CountryChristmas.com.

THE LATEST December 12–18, 2013 VEGAS SEVEN

Truth, Guilt and Forgiveness Thoughts on the power of words to wound—and to heal

SISTER ROSEMARY LYNCH was the only human from whom I’ve sought divine forgiveness. I’m not Catholic. When I met her, I was in a hybrid Buddhist/Taoist/Pablo Neruda phase. I had written a story for the Las Vegas Sun about two women who were war refugees. Sister Rosemary was my connection; she and Sister Klaryta Antoszewska ran a refugee outreach from a house in west Las Vegas. My story told the tale of two women who had come from different sides of the Russian-Chechnyan conflict and had escaped together. They’d bonded in a way most of us could never understand. They’d suffered through the deaths of their families, escaped by stowing away on a plane, landed in Mexico, sneaked across the U.S. border and were sent to a California jail. Finally, the two of them were driven to Las Vegas, where Sisters Rosemary and Klaryta, two aging Catholic nuns, helped them. Other than the nuns, the refugees were at frst each other’s only friends. But once they moved into a home together, got Strip hotel cleaning jobs and began a new life, their national and philosophical differences re-emerged, and they began fghting. They carried their feud into the halls of the hotel where they worked, and into the home they shared, and re-created the confict on a smaller scale. I thought it spoke to the odd turns of human nature. Sister Rosemary called me after the story was published. She was unhappy. The subjects of the article were unhappy. “They didn’t know you were going to write about their fghting,” she scolded me. “Why would you do that?” My heart sank. I mean really, really sank. I am, perhaps particularly for a journalist, a bit thin-skinned, and frequently wrestle with the ethical questions writing stories poses. But truth is often unpleasant, and in the end,

we can learn from such stories; They can give us empathy and perspective. “Because that was their story,” I said, “and I thought it was meaningful.” Sister Rosemary told me that one of the women in the story had cried when she read it. Then I, too, began to tear up. I really hadn’t meant to cause any more grief to two people who had endured a lifetime full of it. Why did I write it? Later, I’d debate and re-debate that in my head. But at that moment, I said to Sister Rosemary, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt them.” She was silent, and in her silence was pissed-off-ness. Quiet nun pissed-off-ness. I rattled on,

trying to explain to her and to myself why I found the details of their story worth publishing. And then this came out of my mouth: “Do you forgive me?” I was dumbfounded to hear those words come from me, a non-Catholic, to a Catholic nun, about a story that later was positively recognized by the Nevada Press Association. To this day I attribute it to the intangible, supernatural power packed into that spitfire woman, a righteousness that extended way beyond any church. She was serious about helping people; spartan but effective in a ratio so many religious leaders have reversed. “God forgives you,” she said. Somehow that wasn’t the point. I said, “Do you forgive me?” Pause. Long pause. I remember looking out the window, the sun shining, thinking that I was a nut job—a spiritual wanderer long at odds with the Vatican asking an angry nun for forgiveness. She took a frustrated breath. I can still hear it. “Yes. I forgive you.” It was the last time I spoke with her. Nearly 10 years, hundreds of stories and countless ethical debates later—and not a bit less sensitive—I got up one winter morning in 2011 to write. But frst, I perused the news online with a cup of coffee. Sister Rosemary Lynch, 93, founder of group against violence, dies after car hits her. Lynch ... was walking with fellow Franciscan Sister Klaryta Antoszewska in their Las Vegas neighborhood Wednesday ... when a car backing out of a driveway hit her and she fell. It seemed absurd—the way that life and death frequently do. A random brush from a car taking out such a powerhouse of spirit. My tribute to her will always be in respecting, if not fully understanding, the power of forgiveness. And the power of the truth.

I’m heading back to Las Vegas after a 20-year absence. Can I still score a 99-cent breakfast? My mother, who briefly worked as a coffee shop cashier at the Maxim (one of the last places to offer the special) recalls the cafe being dead after dinner until about 11:30 p.m., when a massive line would form. And why not? Bacon or sausage, two eggs, hash browns, toast—all for under a buck?! Unbeatable. This is the stuff of Vegas legend. How things have changed! Much of the old gamblers’ Vegas has disappeared in favor of what amounts to a gentrification of the sport. Most casinos that offered the special (Bourbon Street, the Continental) are long gone. As I recall, the last of the casino coffee shop graveyard specials (which had inflated to $1.99 by then) disappeared in the mid1990s. The closest you’ll get today—at least without consulting our Deal Czar, Anthony Curtis (see Page 22)—is the casino special at Henderson’s Rainbow Club ($1.89 6-11 a.m. Mon-Fri). Arizona Charlie’s also has a $3.99 breakfast special with a players card—and it’s available most hours of the day.

Will casinos still cash in my mixed coins? One of the sounds I miss most from my childhood is the clang-clang-clang-clang of coins striking the metal collector of a slot machine when a lucky player lined up a winning triplet. The sound was ubiquitous: casinos, bowling alleys, grocery stores, the corner 7-Eleven. Now that most modern slot machines are fed with paper money and cashed out via paper ticket, that gorgeous jackpot sound has all but disappeared, and along with it another piece of the authentic Vegas landscape: change girls wearing manually operated change dispensers around their waists. Sigh. Also obsolete? Most of the casinos’ coin-counting machines. It seems like only yesterday when I would step into the Hard Rock Hotel with a bucket of change and walk out with folding money. There are, however, a few joints that still have some classic coin-fed slots, including the “retro” gambling floor at The D (upstairs) and El Cortez. A quick ask of El Cortez VP Katie Epstein reveals that the casino does indeed use coin counters, but they only count half-dollars, quarters and nickels (dimes and pennies get lost). Still, I’d rather drop a few bucks in Downtown than pay a percentage to cash in the coins at HellMart.

Questions? AskaNative@VegasSeven.com.

The LaTesT

@StartsWithanX Nelson Mandela wasn’t in a movie about fast cars, so a lot of my FB friends don’t care.

@IAmVonStroheim Remember when Farrah Fawcett died then Michael Jackson died a couple hours later? Apparently that’s Mandela and The Sound Of Music tonight.

@HeerJeet

Secrets, Ultralounges and Gamblin’ Zombies By Jason Scavone

VEGAS SEVEN

as Nixon when your best friend starts making casual, offhand references to the Joey Season 2 DVDs you’ve stashed for them under the tree. (Also: Maybe don’t be friends with people who watched Joey.) Don’t even get us started on Secret Santa. Claus himself is a sneaky bastard, demanding your unconsciousness as part of the deal if you want him to give up the goods. The two main points are A) Christmas is the time for stealth and subterfuge, and B) It’s too bad ninjas were around in feudal Japan, because they’d have been great at this. Sneaking a new look behind closed doors will be Lavo, which went dark December 9 and won’t reopen until December 27. The rumor is that the restaurant will be expanded and the venue won’t be a full-on nightclub anymore, instead being reimagined as an ultralounge.

@franklinavenue Fizz, the Champagne bar near the Colosseum at Caesars Palace from Michael Greco, David Furnish and Steven Kennedy opened late in November, and it’s committed to a Clausian level of secrecy. Photos aren’t allowed inside the lounge, taking another swing at a policy places such as Savile Row tried in the past. Finally, El Cortez and Jennifer Cornthwaite quietly painted over the Interesni Kazki mural on the outside of the Emergency Arts building they own and operate, respectively. The mural was put up for Life Is Beautiful, but given that it depicted a cowboy with a slot machine in his chest reaching out to zombie hands coming out of the desert, it wasn’t exactly, uh, pro-gambling. There will be a contest held by El Cortez, Emergency Arts and Life Is Beautiful to choose a new mural from a local artist.

Santa, Shania and Scary Spice Of course, the flip side to all this is that Santa is everywhere. Including Downtown, hanging out with Shania Twain. The 10,000-Claus-strong Great Santa Run was December 7, and Twain served as the 5k charity race’s grand marshal. But the important takeaway from all of this is that St. Nick and Twain seemed so close, it’s probably pretty reasonable to send her a letter this week asking for a new PlayStation 4. … Britney Spears was relatively tight-lipped when she made her grand entrance up the Strip on December 2. She only noted that “this is my city” when she spoke at the Planet Hollywood stunt. Though the Spice Girls may argue with her—Scary Spice Melanie Brown was recently quoted as saying she’d like to get the girls back together for a residency of their own to rival Spears’ Britney: A Piece of Me. … Kelly Clarkson’s musical-comedy twist on A Christmas Carol, the verbosely named Kelly Clarkson’s Cautionary Christmas Music Tale, filmed portions at the Venetian along with Blake Shelton, Trisha Yearwood and Reba McEntire. We’ll patiently wait for Bill Murray’s musical adaptation of Scrooged instead. – J.S.

Just think, had Season 4 of American Idol gone the other way, we’d be watching THE SOUND OF MUSIC LIVE! STARRING BO BICE right now.

@BowtieRambler With Anchorman 2 releasing their own line of Scotch, I can’t wait for the Leaving Las Vegas rerelease where somebody just punches your liver.

@emilymayamills Nelson Mandela died today & every person I pass in the streets of Los Angeles has a look in their eyes that says, “Is this scarf too much?”

@MrGeorgeWallace My bells on bobtail wouldn’t ring tonight. Happens sometimes at my age.

@VegasDegenerate Vegas has the marathon, Santa, Glow, Zombie and Color runs. How about some pub crawls for the alcoholically gifted who don’t want blisters?

@JackPMoore Every kiss begins with K. Also every kidnapping. Also every knifing. Hey you know what, maybe this isn’t the best way to write a slogan.

Share your Tweet. Add #V7.

IllustratIon by ChrIstopher a. Jones

December 12–18, 2013

One of the things that makes the Christmas season so compelling is that there’s this weird, unspoken tension working between two of the holiday’s biggest moving parts. On the one hand, you’ve got the bright lights and aggressively dialed-up-to-10 cheer and the relentless bustle. On the other, you’ve got a secretive, clandestine streak a mile wide. You’re implored to walk around with a stage smile for a month, dress in bright red and literally go door to door, bothering strangers for figgy pudding. But in the middle of all that what-you-see-is-what-you-get maneuvering, there’s the demand that you do at least some of your shopping alone, away from prying eyes. You take the time to camouflage your gifts and generally act as paranoid

I remember the time I watched The Sound of Music with Mandela. I said I’d love to see a remake. He said that was a dumb idea. A great man.

THE LATEST

SPORTS

The Bennett Perspective Critics are rushing to proclaim the former UNLV star an NBA bust. Not so fast—he’s only been on the job for six weeks.

December 12–18, 2013

By Matt Jacob

VEGAS SEVEN

WITH THE FIRST pick in the 2013 NBA Draft, the Cleveland Cavaliers select … Nobody saw it coming—not the fans, not the pundits, probably not even some chief decision-makers in the Cleveland Cavaliers’ organization. And right up to the moment when NBA commissioner David Stern said his name, not even Anthony Bennett saw it coming. Bennett—a one-man wrecking crew in his one and only season at UNLV last year—was most certainly going to be a Top 14 “lottery” pick, and a high one at that. But No. 1? Even in what was widely considered to be a watereddown draft, and even with his unique skill set as a big man who could shoot from the perimeter, Bennett couldn’t climb that high. But he did. And after the 6-foot-8 forward ambled up the steps to the stage at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on June 27—a burgundy Cavaliers cap sharply contrasting against his gray suit—Bennett shook Stern’s hand and joined an exclusive fraternity of No. 1 overall NBA draft picks. A fraternity where the famous (Kareem, Magic, Olajuwon, Ewing, Shaq, LeBron) rub elbows with the infamous (Pervis, Olowokandi, Kwame, Oden). ***** There’s an immense sense of pride that comes with being the frst player drafted in any professional sports league, not only for the draftee and his inner circle, but for the community

that bore witness to the player’s amateur dominance. So when the Cavaliers selected the Canadianborn Bennett, who starred in high school at Findlay Prep before moving on to UNLV, we pumped our fsts, too—just as we did when wunderkind Bryce Harper was the top pick in the 2010 Major League Baseball draft, and when Rebels legend Larry Johnson was taken No. 1 in the 1991 NBA Draft. For years and years to come, the thought went on draft night, we’d be able to fip on the tube, watch Bennett drain a deep 3-pointer (perhaps with Kobe’s hand in his face!) or slam home a thunderous dunk (perhaps over LeBron!), and promptly (and proudly) Tweet something like, “AB doing his thing again! #SawThatBackInTheDay #RunninRebelsRepresenting.” Except, well, nobody saw this coming, either: 15 consecutive missed shots to start his career … 28 misses in 32 attempts over his frst nine games … Four “DNP’s” (Did Not Play) in the span of eight games from November 11-27 … Multiple national media outlets mocking Bennett and slamming the Cavs for “wasting” their No. 1 pick … Multiple rumors (all denied by Cleveland management) that Bennett would get demoted to the D-League (think minor leagues). Look, there’s no sugarcoating it: The frst month of Anthony Bennett’s NBA career was a disaster. He ended November averaging 2.2 points, 2.4 rebounds

and 11 minutes per game. Put another way, in his frst 17 games, Bennett tallied 28 points. By comparison, Johnson—to whom Bennett was frequently likened during his one season at UNLV— averaged 15.4 points and scored in double fgures 14 times in his frst 17 NBA games (then did so in 64 of his fnal 65 games as a rookie). Not surprisingly, given the current sports-media culture, there’s been a rush to carve the word “bust” into Bennett’s NBA headstone. Perhaps instead there should be a rush to dial up the defnition of “perspective”: This is still a raw talent who took up the sport later in life than most prodigies; someone who was playing in a tiny Henderson gym two years ago; someone who can’t legally drink a beer for another three months; someone who’s been on the job for a few weeks. Indeed, just as LeBron James’ Hall of Fame career wasn’t built in a month, neither was Michael Olowokandi’s Hall of Shame career. Translation: There’s still plenty of time for Bennett to justify the Cavs’ investment, to make his critics eat crow, to elbow his way into the exclusive part of that frat house where only guys like Kareem and Magic and Olajuwon are allowed. In other words, there’s still time for UNLV fans to have the opportunity to fre off that aforementioned Tweet, punctuated by this addendum: #IToldYouSo!

Blinding blizzards and single-digit temps. Miracle last-second comebacks. Yet another miracle lastsecond comeback—ripped from the pages of CalStanford—foiled by a pinky toe. Eli Manning mercilessly booed all afternoon in a 23-point loss in San Diego. Fantasy football playoff chaos, thanks to injuries (Adrian Peterson, Rob Gronkowski, Wes Welker) and incompetence (Cam Newton, RG III). Thirty-five college bowl matchups unveiled (UNLV playing on New Year’s Day? A national championship game sans Urban Meyer and Nick Saban?). Now that was one glorious football weekend—a weekend that even included a “Best Bet” winner for yours truly. No, really, it happened: Michigan State over Ohio State in the Big Ten title game, part of a third straight winning week. I’m in such a solid handicapping groove that my kids are no longer frightened when I predict that Santa will indeed show up this year. Of course, as is often the case for me, around every positive corner is a brick wall: With the pool of games dramatically depleted (bowl season doesn’t kick off until December 21) and the NFL season winding down (which crappy teams have mentally checked out, and which playoff teams are just trying to avoid injuries?), this is the toughest time of the year to pick winners. But I figure no matter how badly things go, I can’t possibly finish in the top three for “Most Embarrassing Performance of the Month”— not after watching Carrie Underwood act on live TV, Miley Cyrus twerk on St. Nick and the Houston Texans play football. So here goes: I’m backing three of this week’s nine road favorites (Seahawks, Eagles, Bengals) because each has something to play for, and each is facing a dead-in-the-water opponent (Giants, Vikings and Steelers, respectively); I’m pouncing on two feisty Florida underdogs (Dolphins and Buccaneers) who are catching opponents (Patriots and 49ers) in great spots; I’m laying points with a squad that’s 3-10 (Falcons) and just lost to Matt Flynn, because they host a 3-10 foe that’s a million times more dysfunctional (Redskins); and I’m playing that same game over the total, because you’ll see more defense in the Pro Bowl next month than you will in Redskins-Falcons. Lucky Seven: Seahawks -7 at Giants (Best Bet); Eagles -4½ at Vikings, Bengals -3 at Steelers; Dolphins +2½ vs. Patriots; Buccaneers +5½ vs. 49ers; Falcons -5 vs. Redskins; Falcons-Redskins OVER 51. Last Week: 4-3 (1-0 Best Bet). Season: 47-52-1 (2625 college; 21-27-1 NFL; 2-12 Best Bets). Says RJ Bell (@ RJinVegas) from Pregame.com: Agree with the play on the Eagles. A bettor must be extremely selective with road favorites—clearly, superior teams laying short numbers are almost always tempting. In this case, Philly is a team with stats better than its record, a history of strong road performances and an overall trend pointing upward.

Matt Jacob appears Wednesdays on Pregame.com’s First Preview, which airs 10-11 a.m. weekdays on ESPN Radio 1100-AM.

PHOTO BY DAVID RICHARD/USA TODAY SPORTS

’TIS THE SEASON WHEN HANDICAPPING GETS DICEY

THE LATEST

Harry Reid’s Very Good Year

December 12–18, 2013

Love him or hate him, it’s hard not to admit that the senator from Searchlight had the wind at his back in 2013

VEGAS SEVEN

HARRY REID’S CRITICS insist that he is both an evil genius and an incompetent boob. That doesn’t explain how he rose from a Searchlight mining shack to become the U.S. Senate’s most powerful member. But as an admirer of Jackie Robinson, who broke baseball’s color barrier in 1947, Reid is no doubt familiar with Branch Rickey, the Dodgers general manager who signed Robinson. Rickey had a favorite phrase: Luck is the residue of design. So it is with Reid: He makes his own breaks—and takes advantage of them. That’s what he did in 2013: • The House Republican majority teamed with a few right-wing senators to shut down the government and bring the nation to the brink of breaching the debt ceiling. The last time matters looked this dire, Vice President Joe Biden went around the Senate majority leader and made a deal with Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, that raised tax rates for those making at least $400,000 a year in a way that somehow defned those making $399,999 as somehow not wealthy. This time, Reid opposed concessions and told the White House to keep Biden out of it. In the end, the U.S. government shut down and Republicans fnally gave up after a deal in which Reid gave them nothing substantial and created several pegs on which to hang future political ads. Democrats around the

country hailed Reid’s spine, as if they just discovered it. • Late this year, Reid took a signifcant step against Republican obstructionism, introducing a rule change to allow a simple majority of the Senate (rather than a supermajority of 60) to green-light a vote on executive appointees and federal district and appellate judges (but not Supreme Court justices). Almost as many Obama appointees have been blocked through cloture motions—the proper term for what is commonly called the flibuster—as there were for his 11 predecessors combined. The move doesn’t eliminate the GOP’s ability to block the president’s nominees, but it reduces needless gridlock. Now whichever party is in the majority will fnd it easier to make appointments that refect the will of that majority. That’s better for everybody. • A recently commissioned poll shows Assemblywoman Lucy Flores with a good chance to become the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor. The poll signals Democrats that they can and should fall in behind Flores. Why is that good for Reid? Anybody who follows politics expects Governor Brian Sandoval to be

re-elected—or, more presciently, if re-elected, to try to leave the governor’s offce for greener pastures during his second term. If Flores wins, she becomes an issue to use against Sandoval: Do Republicans want him to leave the state in the hands of a Democrat—a female, Latina Democrat at that? If Sandoval leaves anyway and takes a run at Reid for the Senate in 2016, Reid still has an advantage: Governor Flores would help Reid solidify his already strong support from two key constituencies: women and Hispanics. • The beltway media actually made Reid look better than the average Washington politician this year. Mark Leibovich, a fne longtime political correspondent, published This Town, about the essential phoniness of Washington, D.C. And Double Down by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann professed to go inside the 2012 campaigns, much as their 2008 Game Change did. In both books, amid an endless array of backslapping capital fakery, what emerged about Reid was the tagline of the late comedian Flip Wilson: What you see is what you get. And 2013 served as a reminder of his power and importance at home and in the nation’s capital. Worse things could be said about the year that was. Michael Green is a professor of history at the College of Southern Nevada.

Holiday deals dominate this month, starting with ice skating. In 2011, the Venetian put up a rink as part of its big Winter in Venice celebration; as is often the way in Las Vegas, others followed. Last year the Cosmopolitan skated into the fray, and this year you can add Caesars Palace and the Gold Spike. The Venetian’s rink is synthetic “Ven-ice” and a similar surface is being installed in the area behind the Gold Spike, while the two other rinks offer the real thing. Prices haven’t been announced for the two newcomers, and it’s $10 again at both the Cosmopolitan and Venetian, with the Cosmo claiming the better deal with unlimited skating versus the Venetian’s one-hour limit. • For a Vegas spin on St. Nick, head to the Silverton where, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays through December 22, Underwater Santa will don scuba gear and pose for pictures in a 117,000-gallon aquarium filled with 4,000 tropical fish, sharks and stingrays. If that doesn’t quench your underwater Yuletide jones, the upgraded Atlantis attraction in the Forum Shops at Caesars now features Scuba Elves. Yikes! • Skating rinks and aquatic North Pole denizens are cool, but I’m still partial to that other great holiday tradition from Ellis Island: homemade alcohol-infused eggnog. This one packs a punch and is $6 by the glass or $29.99 for a bottle. • In non-holiday news, there’s a new Elvis memorabilia exhibit at Binion’s called King’s Ransom. It’s free, and afterward you can hit Benny’s Bullpen for its $3.49 10-inch pizza special. ... Meanwhile, get a good bar deal at the Riviera’s Wicked Vicky Tavern, where 15 wings and a pitcher of beer (15 choices include Hoegaarden, Guinness and Butte Porter) are just $15 during any college or pro football game on Monday, Thursday, Saturday or Sunday. The Vicky has retained all the elements of the former Queen Victoria Pub, including the Brit menu; more than 100 draft beers; big-screen TVs; plus pool, darts and other pub games. • If octagon battles get you in the spirit, the new Wildfire Valley View has brought back free UFC broadcasts, a staple at the former Lift bar, just in time for the big Anderson Silva/Chris Weidman fight on December 28. • If you’re looking for a room on New Year’s Eve, 87 hotels had availability when our Las Vegas Advisor researchers searched last week. The best price overall was the Lucky Club for $90. Downtown, it was the new Downtown Grand for $199. And on the Strip, it was Circus Circus, where a two-night package was $324 ($162 per night). Anthony Curtis is the publisher of the Las Vegas Advisor and LasVegasAdvisor.com.

PHOTO BY MICHAEL REYNOLDS/EPA

SWIMMING SANTAS AND SCUBA ELVES

THE LATEST

STYLE

Gift Bag A hearty helping of holiday cheer for him and for her Photographs by Zack W

7 4

December 12–18, 2013

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1 Morgenthal Frederics Royals Collection Thom sunglasses, $535, Optica in Fashion Show, 7337624. 2 Sony QX, a lens stylecamera that links to a cellphone, $250, Sony.com. 3 Brixton Hooligan in gray, $34, The Hard Rock store, 693-5003. 4 Printed wash bag, $225, Paul Smith in The Shops at Crystals, 796-2640. 5 Rod’s Royal Treatment men’s grooming products (shampoo and conditioner, $20 each), RodsRoyalTreatment.com. 6 Call of Duty Ghosts Prestige edition with a mountable 1080p HD tactical camera, $199, GameStop. 7 LSTN Headphones The Troubadour in beech, $150, LSTNHeadPhones.com.

1 Morgenthal Frederics Sex Symbols Collection Brooke sunglasses, $450, Optica in Fashion Show, 733-7624. 2 Ballet flats, $185, Tieks.com. 3 Fitbit Aria Wi-fi Smart Scale, $130, Fitbit.com. 4 Wing earrings, $165, King Baby Studio in Caesars Palace, 866-227-5938. 5 Monkey See Needlepoint pillow, $195, Tory Burch in the Forum Shops at Caesars, 369-3459. 6 Grgich Hills Estate Olive Oil, $35, 800532-3057. 7 Hello, My Name is Paul Smith: Fashion and Other Stories, $65, Paul Smith in the Shops at Crystals, 796-2640.

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December 12â&#x20AC;&#x201C;18, 2013

VEGAS SEVEN

December 12–18, 2013

Downtown: Year One

BY GEOFF CARTER | PHOTOGRAPHS BY RYAN OLBRYSH

December 12–18, 2013

has finally come. Here’s why 2014 might mark the real beginning of Tony Hsieh’s renaissance—and what that means for the rest of us.

27 VEGAS SEVEN

After two years of expectation, preparation and ballyhoo, the Zappos invasion of Downtown—complete with thousands of employees—

’ve got a story to tell you. It takes a few twists and turns, but stick with me; it’ll make sense in a minute. ¶ In the summer of 2003, I began work at the Seattle Times’ New Media division. The newspaper’s headquarters was a campus of several buildings in the city’s Cascade neighborhood, a hilly area just north of Seattle’s downtown core and just south of picturesque Lake Union. ¶ Cascade’s acres of empty warehouses and shuttered businesses were overrun with drunks and prostitutes, one of whom was brazen enough to proposition me in broad daylight as I walked to my car. The neighborhood was

December 12–18, 2013

a bit raw, to put it kindly. But I also loved certain things about it. My

VEGAS SEVEN

offce was one block away from Kapow, a terrifc coffee joint in what was technically a storage shed. The streets and alleys were lined with great-looking old buildings: Craftsman-style homes, funky 1950s industrial structures and one of the prettiest mosques I’ve seen. And the pleasures of the Eastlake neighborhood—including the late, great Café Venus, home to the best damn mac and cheese I’ve ever had—were within walking distance.

But almost immediately, the neighborhood began to change. Our offce building was sold to make way for senior apartments, so we moved into an eight-story offce building a block away, right at the edge of a huge chunk of land belonging to Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and his investment company, Vulcan Inc. Vulcan had a vision of transforming the area into a hub for biotech companies, and constructed several buildings for that purpose. City offcials even directed the creation of a streetcar line from the downtown core to the new buildings on Westlake Avenue, reasoning that those medical professionals would want to run downtown for lunch but leave their cars parked at work. And to indicate that this was indeed a fresh start, the Cascade neighborhood was renamed South Lake Union. At frst, it didn’t look like Allen’s gamble would pay off. Only a few biotech frms moved in. A chorus of locals called out the streetcar as a boondoggle; many took to calling it “The S.L.U.T.,” short for “South Lake Union Trolley.” (Its offcial name is “South Lake Union Streetcar,” but the derogatory name has largely supplanted it.) Some called for a re-examination

of Allen’s redevelopment plans, invoking the specter of the never-built Seattle Commons—a massive project that would have re-centered the Cascade neighborhood around a 61,000-acre park. The Stranger, the city’s famethrowing alternative weekly, even suggested making the area a legal red-light district. And then, one fine day, Amazon came calling. The online retailer, which was fast outgrowing its headquarters in a former Marine hospital in the Beacon Hill neighborhood, announced its intent to move its entire Seattle operation, including some 15,000 employees, to South Lake Union. Shortly after Amazon moved in, I lost my job at the Times in a round of layoffs. After that, I had few reasons to visit South Lake Union. But whenever I did return, I was shocked by how quickly it had changed. Mid-rise apartment buildings were going up everywhere. My garage coffee joint was gone; in its place was a score of upscale cafés. And the corner where a prostitute approached me is now home to a Whole Foods. But nothing is more disorienting than walking around this once-failing neighborhood and seeing

i have been the editor of DTLV.com, a sibling to this publication, for a little more than a year. As befts a website devoted to covering Downtown Las Vegas, my offce is in the middle of the Fremont East Entertainment District—a neighborhood that,

with my eyes, and the Shrimp Grits at Eat are heaven’s own chosen. And the reputation of Fremont East’s bars is fast growing beyond Las Vegas; more and more tourists are drinking here every week. And the retail component of the neighborhood is growing, as well. The Downtown Project’s Container Park—a retail complex created largely from repurposed shipping contain-

spot, and I can walk there from my Downtown offce in less than fve minutes. It also has a giant, metal, fame-shooting praying mantis at its entrance. Being this close to my subject has its advantages and disadvantages, both of which I was made keenly aware of on Container Park’s opening day, November 25. In a little less than 20 minutes, I was exposed to two

“This is really nice,” one friend said of Container Park. Another said, “This is a mall. It’s not what the neighborhood needed, but they built it anyway.” from walking in South Lake Union. There are handsome historic buildings, including the art deco-faced Las Vegas High School (circa 1931) and the El Cortez Hotel & Casino, built in 1941 and recently added to the National Register of Historic Places. There are fne eateries in the neighborhood, serving up dishes I’ve come to crave: I can pretty much taste Le Thai’s spicy Three Color Curry

ers—has opened at the corner of Fremont and Seventh streets. Container Park is as friendly and inviting a space as has even been built in this town; think Town Square, only on a more intimate scale and with only local vendors. It boasts alfresco dining and cocktails, underneath trees festooned with twinkling lights; it has a sprawling playground with interactive electronic games; and bands play there daily. It’s a terrifc

radically differing opinions of Container Park, both of which I agreed with. First, I ran into an artist friend who loved Container Park at frst sight: “This is really nice. It’s very chill, and I love that they’ve got real sod planted by the stage,” he said. “And it’s a lot better than having an empty lot here, or a motel full of meth addicts.” Then I turned a corner and collided with another friend

who, while stopping short of advocating the return of an empty lot, didn’t have much love for what replaced it. “This is a mall,” my friend said. “It’s a pretty mall, but it’s a mall. It’s not what this neighborhood needed, but they built it anyway, because they don’t really understand what this neighborhood needs.” These comments are the most benign examples of an argument that’s been going on for a while now. One side tirelessly beats the prorevitalization drum; these are usually the same people who call Downtown “a blank slate” and celebrate the Downtown Project’s efforts to “build a city within a city.” They’re predominately young people, and many of them are new to Las Vegas, brought here by Hsieh’s vision of making Fremont East into some sort of tech startup/Burning Man art utopia: “The co-working capital of the world,” as Hsieh succinctly puts it. The dissenting opinion is perhaps best expressed by a piece of graffti I saw written on the wall of the men’s room at a venerable Downtown dive bar: “FUCK ZAPPOS,” it screams. (“NOT WELCOME,” says an unnecessary addendum.) This side believes that the Downtown Project is

December 12–18, 2013

*****

like Cascade, is in the midst of transformation. For the sake of this discussion, I’ll call it the Fremont East corridor, so I can include the Ogden—a high-rise apartment building and, for all practical intents, Hsieh’s Downtown base—and the Gold Spike, a small hotel/casino that the Downtown Project purchased earlier this year. Walking the Fremont East corridor isn’t that dissimilar

29 VEGAS SEVEN

young, fresh-faced Amazon employees everywhere— walking dogs, pushing strollers, eyeballing the new roadsters at the recently opened Tesla dealership. They have taken over to such a degree that once, as I walked into a neighborhood restaurant full of Amazonians, a friend of mine who works for the company spotted me, greeted me with a hug and asked, “Geoff, how did you get in here?” I’ve told that story to several friends who are, in one way or another, tethered to the fortunes of Downtown Las Vegas—either as part of the Downtown Project, or as residents or business owners unaffliated with Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh’s $350 million urban redevelopment initiative. And I usually get the same response: “Yeah, it’s coming here.” One group of friends is smiling when they say it; the expressions of the others are grim.

December 12–18, 2013 VEGAS SEVEN

bringing on the same kind of gentrifcation that’s come to South Lake Union. While they don’t necessarily want Fremont to go back to being empty lots and meth addicts, they are distrustful of Downtown Project’s intentions, and would like to see some restraint and humility introduced to the redevelopment process. And an end to that “blank slate” meme would probably help, too. I’ve been hearing from both sides of this fght since before I left Seattle in May 2012 to take the DTLV gig. But something has changed, and only recently: Over the course of these past six months, the two dissenting parties have fnally been given concrete examples to work with. Zappos fnally moved into its new Downtown headquarters in September. The Downtown Project “clubhouse” at the Gold Spike has been active since late May. The Projectsponsored 9th Bridge School is teaching classes. And Container Park, some 18 months in the making, is open. These things are real. Practically speaking, the next 12 months are the Downtown Project’s Year One. The “Zappos Invasion” that has been foretold in countless Facebook posts and on bathroom walls has

fnally arrived. That means two things: It’s time for the Downtown Project to prove that its plan for Fremont East works, and it’s time for this reductive pro-and-con discussion to mature. Now that everyone has taken their seats at the table, it’s time for us to discuss the particulars of how this ambitious remake of the city core can be made to work for both sides.

of the businesses that have opened in Fremont East over the past few years—including Commonwealth, Atomic Liquors and the Downtown Grand—have no Downtown Project money in them at all. But I’ve heard people assuming that they do, simply because Hsieh owns a hell of a lot of real estate. The discussion that should be happening right now is

want to move your billiondollar online retailer’s entire workforce to within a mile of the workplace, you need apartments that workers can afford on the company’s average salary: $39,000 annually, according to job search website Indeed.com (Even the FAQ section of the Zappos Insights website admits that the company’s pay isn’t great: “While the

When the number of Fremont East residents equals the number of visitors, will the Downtown Project be able to accommodate their needs and wants? ***** here are the facts: According to Downtown Project spokeswoman Kim Schaefer, the Project owns more than 80 properties in and surrounding the Fremont East corridor, amounting to some 60 acres of Downtown. And while that’s quite a bit of land, it’s worth noting that many

what’s to be done with it. Thus far, the Downtown Project has invested heavily in some of the things that it’s nice for a neighborhood to have—a preschool, a medical center, an off-leash dog park—but not the thing that a city neighborhood really needs: While Hsieh has purchased several already-occupied apartment buildings, he has yet to build any housing from the ground up. And if you

Zappos Family tends to pay on the low-average to average side of the scale, the relaxed environment and potential for advancement both add value that cannot be counted on a paycheck.” It also boasts of the “aboveaverage” benefts package and a companywide 70 percent retention rate.) This worries me, because I want Downtown to succeed, and, judging from a meeting

I had with Hsieh in the summer of 2012, he’s as stymied by the housing question as I am. (“Will there be housing for all the employees you’re bringing to the neighborhood?” I asked. His response was bracingly honest: “Yeah, we’re wondering about that ourselves.”) To be fair, it’s entirely possible that Hsieh could have changed his mind over the past year, and that the Downtown Project could be planning to build some apartments of its own. (The Project website even hints at it: “… We aim to create dense residential that’s accessible to all types of people.”) But here’s where things get weird: Let’s assume that Downtown Project will continue to build jazzy new properties in Fremont East over the next few years: bars, restaurants, a boutique Airstream trailer park hotel (yes, that’s really being planned). The more Downtown Project works to build a perfect neighborhood, the more likely it is to drive up property values. By the time they get around to building those apartments, their employees won’t be able to afford to live in them, unless rent control comes to the new Downtown—which seems unlikely, considering that demand for Fremont

***** recently, i went back to Seattle to visit with friends and to poke around my old neighborhoods: Ballard, where I lived, and South Lake Union, where I worked. Once a sleepy neighborhood largely populated by older Scandinavian folks, Ballard is

now one of the city’s hottest locales; boutique hotels and fve-star restaurants are beginning to crowd out the dive bars of Ballard Avenue, as a young, moneyed tech crowd slowly and steadily replaces the lutefsk set and drives up property values. Huge apartment buildings are going up at 15th Avenue and Market Street, and they’re charging rental prices no sane person should pay. That’s real gentrifcation, and I hate to think of what old Ballard will be like in another 10 years. South Lake Union is something else. Unlike Ballard, SLU still had some room to grow; it has those old, defunct warehouses, and a few rarefor-Seattle plots of empty land. And though Amazon has claimed much of it, there’s still opportunity for SLU to become something more than a corporate campus. Walking around the former Cascade, I was reminded of Fremont East in dozens of ways, but one stuck out: I was fascinated, and not displeased, by how much new stuff had gone up. Amazon’s presence has brought some good restaurants to the neighborhood. The Museum of History and Industry has moved into a rehabilitated Navy building at lakeside.

Extensive roadwork is being done to alleviate area traffic; the so-called “Mercer Mess,” an SLU traffic bottleneck of some renown, will soon be no more. And the streetcar, once ridiculed as a civic extravagance, is operating at capacity. There’s even talk of extending the line. Halfway through my stroll, I instinctively began walking toward Kapow, only to remember that the tiny, ramshackle coffeehouse has been closed for many years. I suspect the building it occupied has been demolished and replaced with midrise condos, but I haven’t the heart to go back and look. South Lake Union is an object lesson that both the Downtown Project and the rest of us could stand to examine. It’s taken a long time for SLU to get to where it is now, but every step of that transformation has been marked by intense, yet thoughtful, discussion and occasional compromise. The City of Seattle listened to its residents—no more Mercer Mess!—and Paul Allen worked with city planners, not in parallel to them. That’s the kind of conversation we should be having. Zappos is here to stay, and it has the potential to do some real good in the

years to come. Downtown Las Vegas is not a blank slate to be rewritten, and the Downtown Project should be sensitive to the existing ecosystem. And the City of Las Vegas has a greater role than simply showing up to the ribbon-cuttings, and it needs to start acting that way. There’s a passage in the introduction to Jane Jacobs’ 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities that’s been running through my mind lately. In it, she decries the “wistful myth” that we could fx our slums, solve our traffc problems and “anchor the wandering middle class” if we only “had enough money to spend.” That naïve wish is addressed on Page 4 and debunked over the course of the next 444 pages. Money alone can’t make Downtown Las Vegas new again, even $350 million of it. You need respect and understanding between the old guard and the new—and you need to temper your ideals with reality. We have to get everyone back into the same room together, so to speak. And we need to quit asking our neighbors, “How did you get in here?” Everybody belongs in Downtown Las Vegas. Coming to an understanding of that should be our project in the year ahead.

December 12–18, 2013

Judging by the Downtown Project’s frst few brick-andmortar steps, I have some doubt that its immediate plans include things like auto repair and hardware shops. After all, these are 20th-century businesses; no doubt there are those who think we can gin up 21st-century smartphone apps to replace them. But cities don’t work that way. Someone has to actually get under your sink to fx the plumbing, and if you want him to be someone you can afford, he’ll need a place to live nearby and a restaurant where his family can eat for less than $40. These are the people who make up a city, and as long as we’re having a zero-sum dialogue—either drinking the metaphorical Kool-Aid or screaming that these dot-com kids should be run out of town—we’ll never be able to fgure out how in the hell we’re supposed to make a place for them.

31 VEGAS SEVEN

East housing is already rising outside of the Zappos family. If this isn’t a bull real estate market yet, it soon will be, as people hungry for urban living overrun the Ogden and whatever comes next. And that begs another question: When the number of Fremont East residents equals the number of visitors, will the Downtown Project be able to accommodate their needs and wants? At present, it’s fairly easy for Zappos to indulge itself—like, say, to completely close off Fremont East for a company party, like it did last August—because, for the most part, it has only dirt lots and transient motels to challenge its whims. What happens when a Fremont East resident tries to walk from his apartment to the corner market and is told to walk several blocks out of his way? More importantly: What if he doesn’t have a market to walk to? Let’s say a developer builds a 100-unit midrise apartment building on a plot of land that Hsieh doesn’t own. These new Downtowners will need places to shop for groceries, do their dry cleaning, get their cars repaired, heal their ailing pets and eat meals within a budget. These are all basic urban needs that places like Container Park simply cannot address.

BY SAM GLASER

“The beat drops, the confetti canons explode, showering the room with a rainbow of colors, the cryo guns spray the room with cold fog.” SCENE {PAGE 34}

Your city after dark 4

THU 12 It’s the most wonderful time of the year … when the ladies put on their sexiest Santa suit, that is. Grab a handful of mistletoe and head to Tao’s Bad Santa Party, where a $5,000 prize goes to Santa’s naughtiest helper. (In The Venetian, 10 p.m., TaoLasVegas.com.)

FRI 13 Jay-Z’s Magna Carter World Tour (1) pops into the Mandalay Bay Events Center tonight and tomorrow. The 17-time Grammy Award-winner’s latest album is certifed double platinum, and is Hov’s 13th album to debut at No. 1. (8 p.m., Ticketmaster. com.) While A-Trak has been making recent rounds on the Strip DJ circuit, he’s already a legendary world champion DJ. At 20 he was the youngest and frst Canadian winner of the prestigious Technics/DMC World Championships. He’s also one half of Duck Sauce and the infuential label head behind Fool’s Gold Records. In Mandalay Bay, See the multitalented maestro tonight at Light. (In 10 p.m. TheLightVegas.com.) Dillon Francis drops it at Surrender. His Mad Decent hit, “Without You,” recently teased a “rebirth” that Francis describes as a “huge-ass, big, roomy remix.” The full version was released Dec. 10, with remixes from Flux Pavilion, Torro Torro and others. (In Encore, 10:30 p.m., SurrenderNightclub.com.)

SAT 14

Save the ugly sweaters for your house party. XIV-Mas will be one of the top holiday parties of the year. Whether you’ve been naughty or nice, the Champagne will fall like snow at Hyde. Dress up like sexy sugar plum fairies or elves, and get ready for this holiday blizzard. (In Bellagio, 6 p.m., HydeBellagio.com.) Keep it local with seminal Las Vegas DJ Dave Fogg at XS. Fogg, now the XS music director, debuted in the Las Vegas scene—and helped build it—in 1986. In case you missed it, read about Fogg and the city’s other DJ pioneers at VegasSeven.com/DJ-Pioneers. (In Encore, 10 p.m., XSLasVegas.com.) Stay up late for Dorm Days’ Red Tie Holiday Party at Body English, featuring a rare DJ set from Linkin Park’s Joe Hahn, sponsored by the Belvedere (RED) vodka. (In Hard Rock Hotel, 10:30 p.m., HardRockHotel.com.)

MON 16

DJ Five, the self described DJ/poker player, is a SKAM Artist staple on the Strip. Catch Five as he migrates from the poker tables to the turntables tonight at XS. (In Encore, 10 p.m., XSLasVegas.com.)

TUE 17

WED 18 1

One of Las Vegas’ fastest rising bands, Rusty Maples, rocks Vinyl. The folk-inspired group played South by Southwest and Life Is Beautiful this year, and is working on a full-length album for 2014. (In Hard Rock Hotel, 7:30 p.m., HardRockHotel.com.) Chicago’s Krewella (4) fies into Light. The trio recently collaborated with Headhunterz on a powerful new single, “United Kids of the World,” which is being rightfully lauded as an anti-bullying anthem. (In Mandalay Bay, 10 p.m., TheLightVegas.com.) Lace up your ice skates, or just rent a pair, for the Industry Skate with Miss Joy at the Cosmopolitan’s Boulevard Pool. Or chill and roast s’mores at the fre pits. (8 p.m. CosmopolitanLasVegas.com.)

December 12–18, 2013

House music addicts, get your fx and party till dawn with Tao Group resident DJ Javier Alba at Lavo’s All Night Tuesdays. (In the Palazzo, 11 p.m., LavoLV. com.) Ascend to Moon’s One Night Stand: Pajama Edition, where the largest industry group wins a Palms Sky Villa after-party. (In the Palms, 10:30 p.m., Palms.com/ OneNightStand.)

33 VEGAS SEVEN

Italian superstar Benny Benassi (2) returns to Marquee. Last month he debuted his new track, “Back to the Pump,” on Ultra Records, followed by a cool stop-animation music video. (In the Cosmopolitan, 10 p.m. MarqueeLasVegas.com.) Tommy Trash blows into Hakkasan, and with that fowing mane it’s no wonder the Aussie DJ has something against wind. So much so, in fact, that his new single is called “F*ckwind,” and was actually inspired by the ferce winds at Electric Daisy Carnival Las Vegas in 2012. (In MGM Grand, 10 p.m., HakkasanLV.com.) DJ Crooked (3) has been leaving his mark on Las Vegas for years as the street-wear entrepreneur behind Chinatown’s KNYEW boutique and a prolifc DJ. This installment of Crooked looks straight at the Bellagio fountains from Hyde. (In Bellagio, 10 p.m., HydeBellagio.com.) In November, amid his 3D Morgan Page Presents tour, Morgan Page released an anthemic progressive house single, “Against the World.” The house veteran takes on XS tonight. (In Encore, 10 p.m. XSLasVegas.com.)

SUN 15

Nightlife

Scene

Party All The Time

When the pools close, Las Vegas’ daytime craziness is just getting started. Vegas Seven goes behind the themes of three parties that keep the winter days hot

December 12–18, 2013

By Sam Glaser

VEGAS SEVEN

LAVo’S ChAmpAGNE pArty BruNCh the Dates: 2-6 p.m. on Saturdays. the DJ: Lema. the Deets: While there’s no charge for entry, bar chairs start at $100 per person, and tables start at $500 per person for food and beverage minimums; LavoLV.com. Success Factors: “Lavo was the frst to bring the daytime party brunch concept to Las Vegas, after successfully launching the concept at Lavo in New York City,” Tao Group managing partner Jason Strauss says. “It combines what we do best: great food and an incredible high-energy party. We pull out all of the stops, and everyone really has a great time. The Champagne is fowing and it is all happening during the day, which gives it a very hedonistic feel.”

the themes: “It’s different every week as we are continually developing creative bottle presentations, new themes and more. It can range from costumed hosts being carried on shoulders or the miniEscalade flled with bottles driving through the middle of the restaurant.” the prep: “We do a lot of creative brainstorming to come up with themed brunches, and then we have to pull together all of the elements, from the advertising to special costumes and décor, so it is quite an extensive process.” GhoStBAr DAyCLuB (a.k.a. GBDC) the Dates: 1-6 p.m. on Saturdays. the DJ: Mark Stylz. the Deets: Local ladies get in free and enjoy a compli-

mentary Champagne open bar from 1 to 2 p.m.; local guys get in free till 2 p.m. Then ladies are $10, guys $20; Palms. com/GBDC. Success Factors: Ghostbar Dayclub is Las Vegas’ original cold-weather daylife party, and has become one of those must-see-to-believe events. The party rages on with nonstop confetti explosions, different themed costume parties, beer bongs, piñatas, group shot-skis, cheeseburger attacks, beautifully adorned dancers (some on stilts), wild bottle presentations, and resident and guest DJs who play to the vibe of the room. the themes: “The explosive moment typically happens when the room is at capacity,” 9Group assistant director of nightlife Roberto Semidei says. “The patio is packed, the go-go dancers are placed

throughout the room, the DJ is killing it on the dance foor bringing the party to a climax, and then everything happens at once: The beat drops, the confetti canons explode, showering the room with a rainbow of colors, the cryo guns spray the room with cold fog and the entire room literally erupts with excitement.” the prep: “GBDC is always a labor of love that involves many people to create this party, every week. From marketing to operations, it’s all hands on deck, and the timing always has to be just right. We strive to keep the content, themes and quirks as fresh and zany as possible, which means a meeting every week to determine how we can top the last big party.” XIV At hyDE the Dates: One Sunday each month, from 5 p.m. till very late. the DJ: D4N13L and guests. the Deets: $40 for ladies, $50 for men, with VIP tables available for $5,000–$10,000; HydeBellagio.com. Success Factors: “We put a lot of passion and energy into making XIV a completely immersive experience through larger-than-life decorations, special effects and elaborate-

ly outftting our staff,” says Mio Danilovic, vice president of nightlife operations for SBE. “But the culture that’s formed around XIV here in Vegas is what makes the parties truly epic.” the themes: “Our VIP table guests purchase ‘Champagne Showers,’ bottle service packages that allow them to spray Champagne over the dance foor. It’s wild and unexpected—and the crowd loves it. VIPs will also spray Champagne at neighboring tables and receive volleys in return, launching a Champagne shower war. It can get pretty intense, and we do provide ponchos and umbrellas for guests who’d prefer to stay dry.” the prep: “Because the themes change monthly, we work throughout the month planning outfts and makeup for the staff, and producing decorations that will transform Hyde into another world for just one night. The day of the party, we’re at Hyde early in the morning decking out the venue with signs, props and lighting. We create elaborate invitations for invited guests and deliver them in costume to make sure the whole town is buzzing about the event.”

XIV photo by tony tran; GbDC sphoto by teDDy FujImoto

Clockwise from left: XIV at Hyde, GBDC and Lavo’s Nutella crepes.

NIGHTLIFE

PARTIES

Encore [ UPCOMING ]

VEGAS SEVEN

See more photos from this gallery at SPYONVegas.com

PHOTOS BY DANNY MAHONEY

December 12â&#x20AC;&#x201C;18, 2013

Dec. 13 Cedric Gervais spins Dec. 14 Morgan Page spins Dec. 15 Dave Fogg spins

NIGHTLIFE

PARTIES

THE BANK Bellagio

[ UPCOMING ]

VEGAS SEVEN

See more photos from this gallery at SPYONVegas.com

PHOTOS BY TONY TRAN

December 12â&#x20AC;&#x201C;18, 2013

Dec. 29 T-Pain hosts Dec. 30 Icona Pop performs Dec. 31 Common hosts

NIGHTLIFE

PARTIES

LAVO BRUNCH The Palazzo [ UPCOMING ]

VEGAS SEVEN

See more photos from this gallery at SPYONVegas.com

PHOTOS BY KARL LARSON / POWERS IMAGERY

December 12–18, 2013

Dec. 27 Lavo opens following renovation and redesign.

NIGHTLIFE

PARTIES

LILY

Bellagio [ UPCOMING ]

VEGAS SEVEN

See more photos from this gallery at SPYONVegas.com

PHOTOS BY TONY TRAN

December 12â&#x20AC;&#x201C;18, 2013

Dec. 16 Football viewing party Dec. 31 Daniel Park performs

VEGAS SEVEN

See more photos from this gallery at SPYONVegas.com

PHOTOS BY JOE TORRANCE AND TOBY ACUNA

December 12–18, 2013

NIGHTLIFE

PARTIES

LAX

The Mirage

NIGHTLIFE

PARTIES

TRYST Wynn

[ UPCOMING ]

VEGAS SEVEN

See more photos from this gallery at SPYONVegas.com

PHOTOS BY DANNY MAHONEY

December 12–18, 2013

Dec. 27 DJ Spider spins Dec. 28 Jermaine Dupri spins Dec. 31 Lil Jon spins

DINING

“When David Cooper taught his daughter Amanda how to make the perfect margarita, he was simply passing on the family business.” SCENE {PAGE 60}

Diner’s Notebook, Just a Sip and the wine gadget that’s taking the Strip by storm

PHOTO BY JIM K. DECKER

The iconic Vegas cofee shop gets a do-over at the intersection of Stewart + Ogden By Max Jacobson

down-market Lady Luck, and the transformation, I must say, is impressive. The new casino foor has a slick, modern look. Adjacent to Stewart + Ogden is a small sportsbook with good deli sandwiches and hearty soups, and there is also Red Mansion, a Chinese restaurant with a menu designed by chef Can Duong of Wendy’s Noodle Cafe in Chinatown. Just inside the doors from the valet, and to the right, Stewart + Ogden is a narrow room with a tin ceiling, a stainless-steel bar and seablue leatherette booths. There

are also two rows of rather generic white tables and yellow plastic chairs that look like they come from an IKEA warehouse. When I remarked to a young but wise server that the chairs had to go, he had a rejoinder: “The designer is proud of these chairs.” Maybe so, but they just don’t match the elegance of these surroundings. The menu is executed by chef Michael Sellman, who has worked in Las Vegas since the 1970s, with Caesars Palace and MGM Grand on his résumé. But if you’re expecting a ge-

57 VEGAS SEVEN

A Grand Idea

STEWART + OGDEN at the recently opened Downtown Grand is named for two 19th-century food lovers, Archibald Stewart and Peter Skene Ogden, who are also honored with street names in the neighborhood. It’s a three-meal restaurant just off the main casino foor, and clearly, the management and designer are shooting for a bistro atmosphere. At any rate, Stewart + Ogden’s an alternative to the more upscale Triple George Grill across the street, and it serves a mean breakfast, too. In a former life, this was the

December 12–18, 2013

Dr Pepper-braised pot roast at Stewart + Ogden.

TALKING TURKEY AND SPICE, GREEK DEALS AND LAVO’S PROPER BRUNCH

MAX’S MENU PICKS Fried-green-tomato Benny, $13. Lemon-ricotta waffle, $9. Sick From School chicken noodle soup, $4.50. Dr Pepper-braised pot roast, $17. Butter brioche bread pudding, $7.

[ JUST A SIP ]

LAS VEGAS ROLLS OUT THE BAR MATS FOR COCKTAIL ROYALTY Mentorship is the bedrock of bartending. Before he famously set the industry standard for an all-fresh casino cocktail program at Bellagio, the “Modern Mixologist,” Tony Abou-Ganim, learned the trade from his cousin Helen at Michigan’s Brass Rail. Later, as an actor and bartender in New York, Abou-Ganim was inspired when he met “King Cocktail” Dale DeGroff, a sage often credited with reinventing the profession. And Southern Wine & Spirits of Nevada’s executive director of mixology and spirits education Francesco Lafranconi has advised countless bartenders at the Academy of Spirits & Fine Service he founded that, “We’re December 12–18, 2013

not drinking, we’re learning.” In fact, there isn’t a bartender in America who—whether he or she knows it—hasn’t in some way

VEGAS SEVEN

benefited from the trio’s collective innovation and passion. Which is why it’s so amazing that these three will unite December 13 and 14 for the inaugural Masters of Mixology Cocktail Competition during Winter in Venice at the Venetian/Palazzo (Venetian.com/WinterInVenice). Lafranconi and Abou-Ganim will each mentor a team of four bartenders vying for a trip to Italy. DeGroff and yours truly (humbled beyond all comprehension) will judge with first two rounds at 8 p.m. Friday and the final three rounds at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the event that coincides with Culinary Clash. Both competitions are the brainchild of Venetian/Palazzo vice president of food and beverage Sebastien Silvestri, and both are open to the public. While they’re at it, DeGroff and Abou-Ganim will appear with chef Rick Moonen on December 16 for a Holiday Takeover appetizer and cocktail tasting soiree at Rx Boiler Room ($50, 7-10 p.m., RSVP to 632-9900). And for an extra $50, you get three signed books, one from each of the evening’s hosts. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Helen David Memorial Fund, started by Abou-Ganim in honor of his first mentor, to provide assistance to bartenders affected by breast cancer. – Xania Woodman

Chuck Frommer has built a large local following at his Northside shop, John Mull’s Meats, and on Saturday the lines at Road Kill Grill, a food stand outside his retail store (3730 Thom Blvd., 6451200), can be staggeringly long. Frommer sells a huge variety of product, such as terrific beef jerky and lean elk sausage. But during the holiday season, he does smoked turkey, whole birds scented with applewood, hickory and red oak. I used to mail-order smoked turkeys from Greenberg’s in Tyler, Texas, but there are shipping charges, and a Greenberg’s turkey, while powerfully smoky, is also a saltier bird than Frommer’s, which are sold in three sizes, 12-14 pounds ($40), 16-20 pounds ($50) and the big Kahunas at 24-plus pounds ($65). There is still time to get one for a blowout Christmas dinner. Meanwhile, if you’re planning a home-cooked dinner, you’ll want to know about The Spice Outlet (6960 W. Warm Springs Rd., 534-7883, TheSpiceOutlet.com), which opened in midNovember. The store reminds me of a national chain of spice shops called Penzeys, and sells more than 200 spices, spice blends and seasoning mixes, as well as extracts, oils and gravies. There is powdered habanero and whole Pequin chilies, Jamaican-style jerk seasoning, even barrel-aged vanilla extract. Samples are available on request. Estiatorio Milos (in the Cosmopolitan, 698-7000), our top Greek restaurant, is pricey during the evening. But now it’s offering a trio of three-course affairs, all great deals. The evening Sunset and late-night Moonlight menus are $49, but the Pre Event menu is only $29.50, and offers the Milos Special—a fried eggplant and zucchini tower with kefalograviera cheese in the center, or a Greek salad—fresh lavraki (Mediterranean sea bass) or lamb chops, and a choice of dessert. Finally, I stopped in for Proper Brunch at Lavo, the Italian restaurant and nightclub in the Palazzo (791-1800, 10 a.m.-12 p.m. Saturdays, 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Sunday) to sample the wares of chef Massimiliano Campanari, who most people on the Strip know as Max. Dishes such as his 16-ounce Kobe meatball and classic veal-chop Parmigiana leave little doubt that he can cook his native dishes, but who knew his American brunch favorites were done so well? From the griddle, there are perfect pancakes and a delicious almond-crusted French toast, and for a more indulgent experience, the lobster Benedict pairs an entire pound of lobster meat with poached eggs and Champagne vinaigrette. The bartender makes one of the Strip’s best Bloody Caesars (Canadians love it). A complimentary pastry basket starts you off. The everything bagels—tiny, crunchy and completely addictive—are made in-house. Hungry, yet? Follow Max Jacobson’s latest epicurean observations, reviews and tips at VegasSeven.com/ DinersNotebook.

PHOTOS BY JIM K. DECKER

DINING

neric, coffee-shop menu, you won’t fnd it here. Many dishes have unusual twists, such as Dr Pepper-braised pot roast and the Cubana, a Cuban sandwich with a black-bean schmear and tomato-chipotle sauce, in addition to the roast pork and cheese. Breakfast is just fne. The fried-green-tomato Benny— lavishly sauced with a classic rémoulade and layered with fresh lump crabmeat— wouldn’t be embarrassed to fnd itself on a menu in a top New Orleans restaurant such as STEWART + Galatoire’s or Com- Fried-green-tomato Benny (above) and lemonricotta waffles. mander’s Palace. If OGDEN you’re a griddle perIn the Downthe fsh and chips is a remarkably son, you can hardly town Grand, greaseless version using Arctic cod, improve on the springy 206 N. 3rd although the fennel slaw is overly lemon-ricotta waffe, St., 719-5100. sweet, and those chips, ordinary redolent of sweet lemon Open daily for french fries, were faccid. preserves. breakfast 7-11 And although I enjoyed The lunch menu is a.m., lunch 11 the eccentric Dr Pepperreasonable, and the a.m.-4 p.m., braised pot roast, it is quite restaurant already and dinner 4 sweet, and the sweetness is seems to be attracting a p.m.-1 a.m. amplifed by the presence of Downtown crowd, many Lunch for two, diced, braised sweet potatoes of whom come in large $22-$39. under the enormous, tender groups. Sick From School chicken noodle soup has hunks of beef. Colorful spears a 10-cent name, but don’t let that of broccoli rabe, however, give deceive you. This is a hearty bowlthis dish an almost impressionful with rich broth, egg noodles istic appeal. Additional entrées and shredded dark-meat chicken. such as roast chicken, trout and It’s a real treat. salmon also shine on the dinThe Garden Shed is a nice salad ner menu. And for dessert, the of arugula, kale and spinach leaves butter brioche bread pudding dressed simply with light vinaiis an alliterative delight. grette and topped with shaved The boys, Stewart and Ogden, Parmesan. Among main dishes, never had it this good.

DINING

SCENE

Raising the Bartender Pouring drinks isn’t just the Coopers’ family business, it’s a way of life By Al Mancini

December 12–18, 2013

➧ TEACHING YOUR UNDERAGE child

VEGAS SEVEN

how to mix drinks could be seen as bad parenting. But when David Cooper taught his daughter Amanda how to make the perfect margarita, he was simply passing on the family business. Today, the 25-year-old Amanda tends bar with her stepmother Lisbeth at Gordon Ramsay Steak, while David (whom friends refer to simply as Cooper) slings drinks at Mario Batali’s Carnevino. Together, they represent the frst family of the local bartending scene. David alone has spent more than 40 years working in Las Vegas bars—and has seen just about everything you can

imagine. His father, whom he describes as a professional “slot cheat,” owned six bars (some on the record, some off), where David worked as a teen, stocking them and occasionally pouring drinks. His frst “legitimate” job was at famed mafa hangout Villa D’Este, which he believes was secretly owned by the infamous Tony “The Ant” Spilotro. As a valet, he parked cars for movie producers, models and mobsters. “One day a server came out,” David recalls, “and brought me my bowl of food. And he said ‘I can’t believe you do this job.’ And I was like ‘What do you mean, I’m a valet.’ And he said ‘No, you start

cars for the mob.’ And I went home and told my mom, and she made me quit because she was afraid I was gonna get blown up.” Once he was legal, David returned to bartending at Caesars Palace, where he poured drinks for Rodney Dangerfeld, Billy Crystal and Robin Williams, among others. (He describes seeing Evel Knievel walk naked into the Caesars’ fountains as simultaneously the best and worst thing he’s ever witnessed at a casino!) Caesars was also where he met Lisbeth, who was working as a barback after immigrating from Mexico to Las Vegas by way of Idaho. (She, too, soon graduated to bartending.)

When I ask the couple who makes a better cocktail, they laugh before David diplomatically replies that it depends on the spirit. If it was tequila, he insists his wife would be victorious, while he would win on bourbon or rye. When asked which of her parents’ cocktails she prefers, Amanda is equally diplomatic, telling me, “I would have my dad make me a cocktail to start, then [my stepmom] would make me one to finish.” Despite Amanda’s early cocktail lessons, David says he was a little surprised to see his daughter enter the family business. “We thought she was going to be the one to be the FBI profler or some kind of big important crazy job,” he explains. “But with her love of people, I think [bartending] was natural for her.” Amanda, who’s also an aspiring model and dancer, began her frst bartending job on her 21st birthday. She’s already worked for Wolfgang

Puck, José Andrés and now Gordon Ramsay, and explains her career choice simply: “I am my father’s daughter!” Given the family’s strong attachment to both Las Vegas and its dining scene, they also feel a need to give back. Last month, the entire family (including Amanda’s two brothers, who are also in the food and beverage industry) organized their annual charity golf tournament and silent auction in Henderson. About 80 players, most from the local restaurant community, helped raise enough money to feed and clothe a local family over the winter months. Needless to say, all the Coopers spent some time behind the four bars set up on the course, pouring drinks for the participants. “[Being] true Las Vegans, we wanted to do this golf tournament to give back to a local family,” Amanda says. And they’ll continue to give back to the rest of us, from behind the stick, year-round.

PHOTO BY JON ESTRADA

The Coopers, from left to right: Lisbeth, Amanda and David.

The Grape NuT

Extreme by-the-Glass Innovative new device, the Coravin, lets wine directors unleash the wild side of their menus

gone off the rails. At Carnevino, Craftsteak and Le Cirque, fne and rare wines are showing up on the by-the-glass menus, offering a few precious ounces of Opus One, Insignia, Château Margaux and Sassacaia for not unreasonable prices. This alone isn’t entirely new; restaurants have happily poured rare and expensive wines by the glass in the past, and happily charged exorbitant prices to make it worth their while. And there’s no telling how long the bottle’s really been open. Ranging from $25 to $575—depending on the wine and number of ounces—these new pours represent some actual value. So, what has changed? Answer: It’s the Coravin, a “wine access” device with a slim needle that allows somms to extract wine from a bottle directly through the foil capsule and cork. As the wine pours, inert argon gas is simultaneously injected, after which the cork, which has natural expanding capacity, reseals itself. Greg Lambrecht, a medical professional with a background in engineering and patenting medical devices, designed the Coravin. An avid wine afcionado, Lambrecht faced an interesting conundrum when his wife gave birth and stopped indulging: There had to be a way to get a glass or two of wine out of the bottle without his having to fnish it. And indeed, 14 years and 23 prototypes later, thanks to him, there is. But let’s back up and talk about the problem the Coravin ($300, Coravin.com) so effciently solves. Diners are more educated about wine (and wine-and-food pairing) than ever before. So they might not like that powerhouse Napa cab with their delicate crab salad. Also, they’re curious and eager to try new things. Restaurants have responded, adding by-the glass programs in increasing numbers. But despite the immediate savings and perceived value, that’s where wine consumers feel the greatest pinch. In that one glass, you’re essentially covering the bottle cost for the restaurant, which is hedging in case they don’t sell the rest. “Within the frst third, you should pay for the bottle; two thirds should be the proft,” says Kirk Peterson, a sommelier and beverage director for B&B Hospitality Group in Las Vegas. “If it doesn’t sell out quickly enough, we have to dump it down the drain.”

Commercial wine dispenser/preservation systems such as Cruvinet and Enomatic have made it possible to keep open bottles viable for weeks. Vacuum pumps and argon gas sprays can achieve similar results. But no matter what, in removing the cork, oxygen gets into the wine and starts the clock ticking for that bottle. The Coravin is the paradigm shifter. Peterson demonstrated the device for me a week after he launched seven Coravin-accessed wines by the glass at Carnevino on November 15. He clamped the Coravin (it looks like a Rabbit wine opener, if you’ve ever seen one) around the top of a 1999 Fontodi Flaccianello ($235 by the bottle); the hollow needle hovered just off center, so that you can pierce a cork multiple times without hitting the same spot. I pushed down, effortlessly sending the needle through the foil and cork. As I released the argon into the bottle and inverted the bottle over my wine glass, about 3 ounces poured forth. No longer fearing loss, Peterson can offer three ounces for $28, six for $56, where before the Coravin, he might not have offered this wine by the glass at all. So far, Craftsteak offers the largest Coravin wine list in town, with 14 reds and four whites. MGM Grand wine director and master sommelier Joe Phillips started small, offering Caymus Special Selection by the glass in November, “but it quickly expanded into a more comprehensive list,” he says. Prices range from $25 to $130 for 6 ounces, with 14 incredible selections for less than $75. Similarly, Bellagio wine director and master sommelier Jason Smith started Le Cirque’s Coravin program December 10, offering 2- and 6-ounce pours of six wines previously available only by the bottle. Labels range from Château Gruaud Larose 2003 ($32 for 2 ounces, $90 for 6, $345 for the bottle) to Château Margaux 2003 ($200 for 2 ounces, $575 for 6, $2,180 for the bottle). Observing the ease with which Peterson accessed the Fontodi again, we fantasized aloud about a future where the Coravin is the industry standard, allowing restaurateurs to keep prices in the realm of the possible. Peterson envisions library collections “vetted” by top professionals instead of your plunking down $1,500 in the hopes that the wine you select is to your liking. Save the gambling for the casinos.

61 VEGAS SEVEN

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December 12–18, 2013

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A&E

“The Las Vegas native who got her start singing “cutesy” folk songs is now dipping into neo-soul, fusing jazzy riffs and hip-hop bounce with the warm and delicate rasp of a voice beyond her years.” MUSIC {PAGE 66}

Art House Advantage

We used math to fnd the real takes of fake casinos By Jason Scavone

ANYONE CAN LOOK at an annual report and fgure out how much gaming revenue different properties are generating—if you want to take the coward’s way out. But what we’d rather know is who was raking in more dough, Rick Blaine or Montgomery Burns? The mobsters behind the Tangiers or James Caan and his Montecito? We examined seven fc-

tional gambling halls in an effort to put a peg on revenues. Our methodology was to use available data from the UNLV Center for Gaming Research and apply win per unit per day fgures—normalized for average hold percentage to try to neutralize year-to-year fuctuations—to gaming offerings, adjusted for 2013 U.S. dollars. We also tried to take context into account.

Mr. Burns’ Casino, for example, is the only game in town in Springfield. We know that casinos with less competition tend to have a higher slot hold, but they’re also doing less total handle. Or in the case of Rick’s Café Americain, baccarat and roulette would have been more popular in a wartime French colony than craps, but European roulette was

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Excellent: Mr. Burns’ Casino is a $9.4 million jewel in our film Strip.

December 12–18, 2013

Movies, music, concerts and a cat-and-mouse game

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single zero—much better for the player. We also didn’t include casinos explicitly based on real-life properties. The Bellagio of Ocean’s Eleven is still the Bellagio, and Moe Green was making his bones at the Flamingo, according to the original Godfather script. Revenue fgures are for gaming only. We’re not adding in entertainment and food, and we’re not accounting for overhead, asset depreciation or employee pensions. We’re frivolous, not masochistic.

ONE-EYED JACKS

Twin Peaks, 1990 Main assets: One roulette wheel, one craps table, two blackjack tables, three slot machines. Annual revenue: $1,662,590. Annual revenue (1990): $850,037 ($1,062,547 Canadian). The skinny: The annual take of less than $1.7 million makes this the smallest revenue generator on our list, but the underground Canadian casino has a couple of things going for it. First, Ben Horne was the only owner, and management was confned to Blackie O’Reilly. Second, it must’ve catered to a reasonably affuent crowd. When Agent Cooper sits to play blackjack, he plays with more than $5,000—not bad money considering Coop’s onerous pie-and-coffee budget. Other assets: An even bigger draw than the tables and bar were the 12 to 15 prostitutes who populated the brothel. Other liabilities: Paying off Mounties to turn a blind eye.

December 12–18, 2013

LOLLY’S CASINO

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Boardwalk Empire, 1920 Main assets: One roulette table, one craps table, one blackjack table, one faro table. Annual revenue: $1,902,257. Annual revenue (1921): $145,421. The skinny: Lolly Steinman is the owner and operator of this small parlor on the second story of an Atlantic City townhouse, but he has Nucky Thompson in with him as an “investor” who takes a cut and provides protection. Arnold Rothstein went on a tear, racking up a $60,000 win in one day, necessitating Thompson’s intervention to cut off the high-roller, lest he clean out the small operation.

Which fictional casino would you visit?: (Clockwise from above) Casablanca’s Rick’s Café Americain; Robert De Niro at Tangiers in Casino; artwork from Ian Fleming’s book Casino Royale; Lolly’s Casino in Boardwalk Empire; and the cast of Las Vegas at Montecito.

Other assets: Steinman had a great provider of bootleg hooch in Thompson, which helped keep the wheels greased, so to speak. Other liabilities: Unfortunately, he had to give out booze to keep customers happily gambling, and when the sauce was scarce it was liable to kill business.

RICK’S CAFÉ AMERICAIN

Casablanca, 1941 Main assets: One craps table, two roulette tables, two baccarat tables, three poker tables. Annual revenue: $2,380,125. Annual revenue (1941): $149,425. The skinny: Like Lolly’s, Rick’s was an illegal casino run fairly openly, though German collaborators weren’t welcome. With entertainment options in Casablanca seemingly limited, Rick’s boasted a full house nightly. But all the

expatriates in political limbo who had enough money to fee their countries in the frst place found themselves against the wall by ’41, because even expensive jewelry couldn’t fetch much on the black market. Other assets: Rick Blaine had access to fne Champagne, presumably expensive food and a killer piano player. He did well enough to continue paying his staff for weeks even when the operation was shut down. Other liabilities: A weakness for telling desperate young romantics where to bet on a fxed roulette wheel; allowing Capt. Renault to win, even though he’d still shut the place down when shocked—shocked—to fnd gambling there.

MR. BURNS’ CASINO

The Simpsons, 1993 Main assets: 150 quarter slots, three blackjack tables, two craps

tables, two money wheels. Annual revenue: $9,409,706. Annual revenue (1993): $5,806,996. The skinny: Despite an atrocious marketing team that let Mr. Burns design the logo, the casino must have fared well. It got Marge Simpson hooked on gambling after her frst pull on a slot machine. At only $9 million a year in revenue, it seems like this would be a minor holding in the Burns empire. However, its possible profts from the casino funded genetic engineering research into creating dogs that shoot bees when they bark. Other assets: The Flamboyant Magic of Gunter and Ernst had a line well out the showroom door; the Concrete & Asphalt Expo ’93 would have brought in valuable convention business; and Gerry Cooney was a celebrity face to welcome guests.

Other liabilities: Krusty’s Midnight Show was a fop (signature bit: “Herpes, herpes bo-berpes”); Robert Goulet was a no-show after the casino paid him up front; and Jim Nabors couldn’t have been cheap to keep cryogenically frozen.

MONTECITO

Las Vegas, 2004 Main assets: 150 slot machines, 14 blackjack tables, one roulette table, two craps tables. Annual revenue: $21,323,312. Annual revenue (2004): $17,202,607. The skinny: Although the pilot was shot at Mandalay Bay and the Montecito was modeled after it, a behind-thescenes feature for Las Vegas reveals the casino set was only 20,000 square feet, making it tiny for a Strip property. Other assets: Vibe dining forerunner Mystique; the

Casino Royale, 1953 Main assets: 17 roulette tables, 11 baccarat (punto banco) tables, two boule tables, fve trente et quarante tables, fve chemin de fer tables. (Estimated—because Royale-les-Eaux was based on the Casino de Monte Carlo in the pre-slots era—we can guess about 40 tables to the real casino’s current 35. The boule tables were described as only breaking even, so we know there wouldn’t have been many. While chemin de fer was the main event, the punto banco version of baccarat was also popular.) Annual revenue: $62,228,828. Annual revenue (1953): $7,095,949 (or in French

francs, 1,632,970,000). The skinny: When Bond sat down for his big chemin de fer match with Le Chiffre in Ian Flemming’s debut novel (the 2006 flm version only offers us a look at one absurdly high-stakes poker table in the casino), they each have about 25 million francs with which to do battle in this baccarat version contested between players. That works out to just under a million in 2013 U.S. dollars each. Their climactic hand—a 32 million franc bet Le Chiffre makes that Bond

accepts—is described as the biggest in the casino’s history. But because Bond won, the casino wouldn’t have earned its 5 percent commission, about $28,000 in one hand alone. That season offered the “highest gambling in Europe this summer.” When Bond frst arrived, he won 3 million francs in two days at roulette, and that while trying to blend in. So no hoi polloi allowed. Roulette at the modern Monte Carlo accounts for 70 percent of gaming revenues there. Other assets: Luxury hotel,

fne dining. Other liabilities: Win a big bet against the wrong guy and there’s a very real chance you end up strapped to a chair with no seat, getting your undercarriage pummeled.

TANGIERS

Casino, 1973 Main assets: More than 900 slots, several pits of tables, poker and the frst sportsbook of its kind at the time. Annual revenue: $129,710,000. Annual revenue (1973): $24,595,980.

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ROYALE-LES-EAUX

MANNERLESS COWBOYS, THIEVING WIVES, TREACHEROUS FRIENDS AND THAT MASSIVE SKIM WINGING ITS WAY TO KANSAS CITY WERE AMONG THE TANGIERS’ LIABILITIES.

The skinny: Casino was flmed at the Riviera in 1994, which generated $82.1 million in gaming revenue that year. The Tangiers is referred to as a hundred-million-dollar empire in the papers, and Ace Rothstein himself says, “I got a hundred million a year goin’ through the place,” but it’s possible he meant in handle and not in win. Because otherwise, even with baccarat player K.K. Ichikawa dropping a million in a session, there’s no way Rothstein could have hit a number that big with the casino foor as it was presented onscreen. Especially not with the monster skim going out of the count room. Other assets: Another Siegfried & Roy stand-in, this time as “Jonathan and David”; the morale boost that having Don Rickles on staff provides you. Other liabilities: Mannerless cowboys, thieving wives, treacherous friends and that massive skim winging its way to Kansas City.

December 12–18, 2013

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irresistible charm of James Caan. Other liabilities: The bomb that ripped through the joint at the end of Season 2, requiring the place to be rebuilt.

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Music

slot rocker, bearded puNk, fruity sibliNgs

Sabriel’s Got Soul The teenage singer-songwriter is done with cute

December 12–18, 2013

By Camille Cannon

VEGAS SEVEN

NiNeteeN-year-old singer-songwriter Sabriel is in the midst of a reinvention. The Las Vegas native who got her start singing “cutesy” folk songs is now dipping into neosoul, fusing jazzy riffs and hip-hop bounce with the warm and delicate rasp of a voice beyond her years. “When I frst started performing, I was kinda just doing things that people told me I should do,” says Sabriel Hobart, a graduate of the dance program at Las Vegas Academy for the Performing Arts. “After a while of doing things that people tell you to do, you get bored.” So earlier this year, Sabriel began a stylistic evolution. The singer— who made her public singing debut in 2011, at a Talky Trees open-mic session at Emergency Arts—revisited the music on which she was raised. She immersed herself in ’90s-era crooners D’Angelo and Maxwell, and R&B icons Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder. Refecting their soulful quality in her own sound felt “natural” and “more comfortable.” But she could only take the change so far on her own. In the spring, Sabriel assembled an eclectic new backing band, recruit-

ing moonlighters from local reggae regularly at First Friday, Gold groups Haleamano and One Pin Spike, Eat and, most recently, on Short, ska band the Remedies and the Homegrown Stage at the Life Is hip-hop crew RNR, whose bassist Beautiful festival, she wishes there CoCo Jenkins was the frst on board. were more options available to “She’s very open-minded, musically,” the under-21 crowd. “We just need says Jenkins of Sabriel. “She’s really one really cool spot where it’s just developing into her own style.” about music,” Sabriel says. “Fingers While this transition has been crossed, it would be the Huntexciting for Sabriel and the band, ridge,” the Downtown theater and her more recent material has been former music venue that’s planned met with mixed reviews. When to be renovated. performing, she sees “a lot of heads As for her own future, Sabriel turn in confusion.” She’s been would like to continue exploring confronted with a barrage of quessonic possibilities. She’s already tions and continuously pressured released a self-titled EP on iTunes to defne herself: “What’s it like to and a live session recorded at PBS be a jazz singer? … What’s it like studios. Next, she’d like to do “a playing R&B? ... How is it being a secret Soundcloud album, with a pop singer?” lot of acoustic, lovesongHer response: “I didn’t y type stuff,” she says. “I sabriel know I was any of those want to do [different] althings.” bums like that a lot; that 8 p.m. Dec. 14, Being under 21, Sabriel way I’m not tied down to Container Park, has also been challenged one sound.” 707 Fremont by the nature of Las Still a teenager, she St., DowntownVegas’s bar-centric music has plenty of time ahead ContainerPark. scene. After a recent gig to develop as an artist. com. For more in Los Angeles, where age “Hopefully,” she says, “I on Sabriel, visit wasn’t an issue, she found can keep growing into SabrielMusic. it hard to return home. something less safe. I com. While she has performed don’t like safe.”

i had the pleasure last week of lunching with the bassist in one of my favorite ’80s jangle-pop bands, Dream Syndicate. Mark Walton joined the L.A. group with 1986’s Out of the Grey, widely considered the Syndicate’s best album. Whenever possible, I select the title track on barroom jukes. The band broke up in ’89. Walton played on Syndicate bandleader Steve Wynn’s solo records and on Giant Sand’s 1990 breakout Swerve. Walton moved to New Orleans with college-rock act Continental Drifters, big in the ’90s bayou scene. After Katrina fooded his house, Walton moved to Las Vegas, fnding work as a webmaster for Bally Technologies, a slot-machine manufacturer. (Over the years, Walton had designed sites for rock bands.) With a corporate job and wife and kids in the suburbs, Walton’s touring days were behind him—until Wynn rang him last year for a festival gig in Spain. They hadn’t played Syndicate songs in 25 years, but it went well. In recent weeks, the group has rocked Cleveland, Chicago and L.A. “Our goal is to have fun,” Walton says. “Obviously the band needs to pay for itself to be viable. We’ve talked about the possibility of doing a new record. If [a label] were interested, I’m sure it would happen.” Dream Syndicate hasn’t been invited to play Vegas—yet. Maybe this column will fx that. (Hello, Beauty Bar?) Fingers crossed. Bearded acoustic punk rocker Brock Frabbiele (who’s in local hardcore act The Core) has a new live disc out, Unemployment Is a Helluva Drug. Recorded earlier this year at the Bunkhouse (please re-open it soon, Downtown Project), the album will be celebrated with a show at 6 p.m. December 14 at Artistic Armory (a warehouse space behind a tattoo parlor at the corner of Arville Street and Reno Avenue). Frabbiele is touring the West Coast with the Drunks Go Acoustic tour. This particular show, though, features sets by Lawn Mower Death Riders, Dead Frets, Matt Salkeld, Lowbrow, Mercy Music, Zabi Naqshband, Tony Savelio and Mike Law. I’m not a huge admirer of musical comedy, but the Apple Sisters look worth biting into with their close-harmony singing and jumpblues arrangements and odd lyrics. (Think the Andrews Sisters on acid.) The Sisters are throwing a release party for a disc, Happy Holidoozy Merry Christ-mess, at 10 p.m. December 15 at ArtSquare Theatre (1025 1st St.). They write original tunes such as “Simple Christmas Rules,” about stuffng peppermint and reindeer poop in your stockings and wearing them near the freplace so your feet “smell like Christmas cheer.” Jolly good!

Your Vegas band releasing a CD soon? Email Jarret_Keene@Yahoo.com.

music

(LocaL) aLbum REViEWs By Jarret Keene

Epic indiE

Avalon Landing, Reside

(Self-released) Las Vegas’ indie-rock dark horse has to be this quintet, led by singer-guitarist Mike Vargovich and singer-keyboardist Josh Rabenold, whose voices blend majestically on this collection of bigger-than-life pop songs. Starting with the twilight-fading, guitarchiming splendor of “About Face” and ending with the charging call-to-arms of “Escape Yourself,” the immaculately produced Reside mines emotional territory between despair and faith in love. Avalon Landing has clearly arrived. Fans of Coldplay and The Fray should buy this pronto. ★★★★✩ powEr pop

The Bones, What Would Ginger Do?

(Self-released) Each musician in this outfit has served time in established rock acts—Ace Frehley, Lynch Mob, Nuclear Assault. But the Bones sound entirely different, closer to Cheap Trick and The Jam. Every song on their debut slugs your eardrums with a sing-along hook—from the naughty, retro come-on of “The Marcia Brady Song” to the hot-and-heavy, riffcrackling Weezer homage “Catholic Girls.” Sure, the Bones are a bit on the horny side, but their lyrics are more clever than crass. Terrific band. ★★★✩✩ cowboy HardcorE

The People’s Whiskey,

Upcoming albums on Jarret’s radar … Jan. 7: Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks continue their experimental foray into weird ’60s garage-pop with their sixth studio disc, Wig Out at Jagbags. First single “Lariat” namechecks the Grateful Dead, which should give you an indication of the jamming, psychedelic turn Malkmus is taking here. Jan. 14: James Mercer (the Shins) and Brian Burton (Danger Mouse) reconvene as broken bells for a second album, After the Disco. This one channels—can you believe it?—the Bee Gees, at least judging from initial single “Holding on for Life,” which boasts a thumping electronic beat and layered, Gibbs brothers-esque vocal harmonies.

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Disc scan

December 12–18, 2013

The People’s Whiskey (SquidHat) Gaze too long into the bottom of a whiskey glass, and the bottom gazes back at you. Nietzsche or Hank Williams Sr.? This bluecollar country-punk quartet would likely go with the latter given the pedal-steel guitars and honky-tonk flourishes that spice up their self-titled full-length. Most tracks here echo earlier Americana-tinged bands such as X and Social Distortion. But when the Whiskey pours its collective heartbreak into the ballad “Drunk Dial,” this band is simply unbeatable. Solid fucking disc. ★★★✩✩

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CONCERTS

HEY NOW, HEY NOW/ DON’T DREAM IT’S HOVA: Hot on the heels of wife Beyoncé’s recent concert appearance, Jay-Z brings his Magna Carter World Tour to Mandalay Events Center on December 13-14 ($39$150). Any rapper can boast about Lamborghinis and Bugattis, doing drugs, sleeping with models and making fat stacks. Jay-Z, whose recent album Magna Carta . . . Holy Grail was his 13th No. 1, distinguishes himself by rapping about Sotheby’s auctions, Basquiat, Picasso, Fendi, Gucci and Tom Ford. On “Crown,” he informs listeners, You in the presence of a king/Scratch that, you in the presence of a God. Considering he can tackle racism while simultaneously mocking Miley Cyrus (“Somewhere in America”), he’s probably right. Let Hova have his fun; rappers with low selfesteem aren’t worth a listen. SOMETHING TO CROWE ABOUT: When it comes right down to it, there’s

NAVAJO

The Griffin, Dec. 4 Local band Navajo turned in a notable alternative to much of the rodeo celebrations happening in town. With a style reminiscent of prog-jammy-electronic-non-pop the likes of Radiohead and Lapalux, they turned in an eight-song set of originals written over the year and a half that the band has emerged. After some microphone issues, singer-guitarist Phillip Seaton sang moody stories of love gone bad and life gone south with a falsetto vocal delivery that often hit the notes. Guitarist Michael Romano used his instrument in unconventional ways, at one point laying it on the floor and plucking it like a Japanese koto. Drummer Justin Truitt banged along, at times wildly in the vein of Ginger Baker, at others precisely a la Stewart Copeland. Keyboard player Brandon King rounded out all the lower tone registers and provided spacey fluidity to the sometimes-choppy melodies. Their song “ Crawling” is the one that sounds most like a potential breakout number, but it’s still refreshing to see somebody being brave and different in the local music scene. ★★★★✩ – Danny Axelrod

absolutely nothing wrong with being known as a good-time jam band. The Black Crowes may be 20 years removed from the height of their fame, but that name on the marquee still guarantees an evening of solid, Southern-fried sonic entertainment. Chris Robinson and the gang rock The Joint on December 13 ($34.50-$70), which means they’re going to perform the hell out of their mid’90s hits, along with some well-chosen covers. Can I get an amen?

VEGAS SEVEN

reason I never heard of Danish rockers

JAM HSIAO

The Orleans, Dec. 7 I like experiencing new and musically interesting shows. Unfortunately, the Taiwanese native’s perfect pop persona failed to bring much beyond Top-40 knockoffs. Hsiao, a talented vocalist with a camera-ready jawline, was discovered via a popular Taiwanese talent show and has been selling No. 1 hits in Asia since 2008. But he seems transparently groomed for a mass market so saturated by Western pop tropes that if it hadn’t been for the Mandarin lyrics and stage patter, I could have been listening to New Kids on the Block rip-offs and arena rock stylings a la Triumph. Still, my disappointment seemed unique. The manufactured, syrupy, vanilla tunes—such as “Marry Me,” “Loving You Too Deeply” and “Miss You Forever” (the titles are rough English translations)—were replete with aching-heart vocals and crying guitars. They drew fans, like the young couple next to me, who traveled from L.A. to cheer and squeal and wiggle their light wands. ★★✩✩✩ – Kurt C. Rice

New Politics. I don’t play video games, so I didn’t get exposed to “Yeah Yeah Yeah” when it appeared on Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit in 2010. And my kids are too old for Disney movies, so the fact that “Harlem” is featured on the Frozen trailer doesn’t mean squat. But you know what? I like both of those songs. New Politics plays Vinyl on February 12 ($15), and if you’re anything like me, you’re probably going to go.

NAJAVO PHOTO BY MYRON HENSEL

December 12–18, 2013

ON SALE NOW: There’s a perfectly good

Gastro Fare. Nurtured Ales. Jukebox Gold.

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POP CULTURE

Cat Got His Tweet

The world lost a voice of honest irony when Deadmau5 lef Twitter

VEGAS SEVEN

HERE’S THE THING that makes Deadmau5, if not compelling to non-EDM fans, at the very least interesting: He came up with the greatest marketing hook any DJ ever had by putting on that mouse head, but he doesn’t show any indication of wanting to play the same self-promotion game that chipper, relentlessly positive DJs normally do. He can command hundreds of thousands of dollars a night to pump tracks over a sea of glow sticks, but he just did a drop-in set at XS for, if the hype is to be believed, free. He told Justin Bieber to “grow the fuck up” and said of Madonna’s cynical foray into dance music that he “fucking can’t smack my head hard enough right now.” In other words, he’s acting like a good old-fashioned temperamental artist. It’s wonderfully retro. That don’t-give-a-fuckness is what made his Twitter account one of the incredibly few DJ social media channels worth following, and also what seemingly made him rage-quit the whole shebang in November. After posting a suite of songs that had the Latin names for the seven deadly sins—one of which was “Ira” for “Wrath”—Deadmau5 started catching static for it on Twitter. From people who thought he was supporting the Irish Republican Army. The IRA. (And not, as I originally suspected, from legions of furious Ira Glass fans.) Deadmau5 claims he didn’t fee Twitter because of the heat. In a statement, he said, “I’m going to let management deal with that account. My reasons are my own, not because of something I said, not because of this hilarious IRA vs “Ira” craic, not because of Lady Gaga’s infnite legions of

brain-dead fans. But as I said … reasons of my own.” On the one hand, we’re pretty much obligated to take those “reasons of his own” at face value. Deadmau5 hints at the need to focus on work instead of checking his phone every fve minutes, and there’s no reason to suspect that he’s using that to cover for his crippling Legend of Zelda addiction. (Everyone knows you budget in your crippling Legend of Zelda addiction to your weekly planner, anyway.) On the other, the Irish Republican Army? That is a transcendent achievement. It’s the Felix Baumgartner Stratos jump of achingly beautiful stupidity: A stunning testament to man’s ingenuity in a feld no one actually asked for. Who wouldn’t take a long, hard look at an elemental force like that and walk away from that particular pipeline of the

commodity men. In theory. In theory, communism works—in theory. Instead, we’ve got ourselves a Frankenstein scenario, where outrage stands in for torches and pitchforks. To the point where it’s left poor Deadmau5 huddled alone, by himself, on an ice foe—with nothing but two synthesizers and a mouse

part of the Terminator canon you buy into. In the meantime, the rest of us are left to sort through some spectacular point-missing. Like in several reviews for the Ridley Scott/Cormac McCarthy moviemaking superhero team-up, The Counselor. It’s a deeply cynical, bleak fick (which you knew as soon as we wrote “Cormac

THE IDEA WAS TO BREAK DOWN THE WALL BETWEEN ARTIST AND AUDIENCE IN THE SPIRIT OF HARMONY AND COOPERATION, WHICH WOULD HAVE BEEN OUR BIRTHRIGHT IF NOT FOR THE CYNICAL MEDDLING OF THE COMMODITY MEN. inter-tubes? It’s John Wayne turning back into the wilderness at the end of The Searchers. Sometimes a man has to know when he don’t belong. The idea was to break down the wall between artist and audience in the spirit of harmony and cooperation, which would have been our birthright if not for the cynical meddling of the

head to keep him warm. Actual smart people can sit down and fgure out where the Internet Outrage Machine came from, what it wants, and whether or not it will achieve sentience and launch a coordinated nuclear strike against humanity on August 4, 1997, July 25, 2003, July 25, 2004 or April 21, 2011, depending on which

McCarthy”) that deals in the fner points of McCarthy’s misanthropy. There were several reviews, though, that went out of the way to note the fick’s misogyny. Which misses the point on two very important levels: A) McCarthy has never once in a decadeslong literary career indicated he thought anyone, male or female, was

worth a damn, and B) the mastermind, the person who wins, the one who carefully maneuvers enemies into the most unescapable traps (and I’m about to spoil the holy living hell out of this movie because the plot mechanics are like the 10th-least important part of it, slightly behind “Whatever happened to Cameron Diaz’s cheetahs”) is Diaz. If all you’re going to tune into is the misogyny—out of the mouth of Javier Bardem’s character, and not systematic to the flm—you’re missing out on a fick that will suckerpunch you in the soul. Why would anyone, especially a critic, trade in a blistering moviegoing experience for a few seconds of cheaply won moral certitude? Deadmau5’s decision to leave Twitter is utterly defensible in that light. If he’s going to take the time to put together an interconnected suite of songs—and the thing people start talking about is a manufactured faux pas by way of 4 a.m., 14th martini logic—it’s readily apparent that he can’t win. With all those Space Invaders tattoos, the dude obviously is a student of the ’80s. He learned the lesson of WarGames: The only winning move is not to play.

ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTOPHER A. JONES

December 12–18, 2013

By Jason Scavone

stage

LittLe Boy PeeP Josh Strickland doesn’t lose a beat moving from Peepshow to Vegas! The Show

STRIP POSTSCRIPT: Oh, what a Vegas web he’ll weave when Spider-Man downs a yard-long margarita, goes clubbing with a Kardashian, then tries to scamper across the rafters of a Strip theater. Such a scenario is possible now that Broadway’s notoriously problem-addled Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark has announced its Gotham closing come January, with an intention to relocate to Vegas in 2015. Hey Cirque, there might be a new ceiling-scraper in town. Be a good scout and welcome him with a gift basket of Dramamine. Got an entertainment tip? Email Steve.Bornfeld@VegasSeven.com.

December 12–18, 2013

the lengthy lead-in (they call you lady luck, but there is room for doubt … ). Recreating the Rat Pack clowning from their Sands heyday, he channels the Chairman’s “cuckoo” charm. Happily, during the Elvis segment, Strickland doesn’t distract us with a clichéd impression—even his spiffy white suit and tie is classier than the hoary white jumpsuit that’s long been a visual joke. Instead, Strickland reaches his zenith in a spinetingling take on the King’s “If I Can Dream,” following it up with a raucous “Devil in Disguise.” Only Strickland’s fnal appearance—garbed as Elton John warbling “Rocket Man” to clips of hotel implosions—falls shy of a bull’s-eye when he dons oversize Elton specs and sequins. Though Strickland can sing Elton convincingly, like most impersonations, his fails to capture the pop legend’s grand eccentricity. Still, given what Strickland adds to Vegas! The Show, you hope his run is prophetically refected in the “Rocket Man” lyrics: I think it’s gonna be a long, long time …

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Jeepers, creepers, what do you do when you’re no longer a Peep-er? Left gig-less after Peepshow quit peeping in September, singer Josh Strickland transferred his power pipes to another corner of Planet Hollywood, joining Vegas! The Show. Peeking in on a recent performance revealed that Strickland is gelling nicely with his new peeps in this affectionate paean to retro Vegas. Likable and sensual in equal measure, Strickland adds unruffed sleekness to a show that thrives on a hellzapoppin’ vibe as it compulsively leaps from performer tributes to vaudevillian shtick to balls-out production numbers. Entertaining as all that is, this show equates taking a breath with taking a nap. Keeping pace while keeping cool, Strickland blends into the vocal ensemble but anchors the antics almost intangibly. When he’s on, a ring-ading-ding ease envelopes the stage. Asked to assume the veneer of Vegas legends, he does so with style, if not dead-on impersonation. Admittedly, it’s tough to fall into the illusion of Strickland as 15-year-old Wayne Newton making his baby-faced Vegas debut, but he imbues “Danke Schoen” with the sweetness and fnger-snappy swing upon which Newton built his career. It’s not an impression, but an interpretation that conjures up Mr. Las Vegas just as well. Likewise, he meets his Frank Sinatra requirements just as impressively in an extended Rat Pack segment. Taking turns with talented David Villella as Dino (singing “Mambo Italiano”) and high-spirited Eric Jordan Young as Sammy (“Once in a Lifetime,” “The Candy Man”), Strickland purrs and powers his way through “Luck Be a Lady,” especially effective milking

A&E

MOVIES

Christian Bale and Casey Affleck play brothers in this talent-laden ensemble.

Boiling Over

This working-class revenge fick simmers with some heated performances

December 12–18, 2013

By Michael Phillips Tribune Media Services

VEGAS SEVEN

OUT OF THE FURNACE is a lot of movie, a lot of it good and pungent. In the first hour especially, its many moving parts keep a sprawling ensemble cast busy and engaged. Christian Bale and Casey Affleck play Russell and Rodney, sons of a dying Pennsylvania steelworker. Russell has gone into the family business, working in the mill. Rodney enlists in the Army. The year is 2008. An early twist of fate lands Russell in prison. Upon his release, he and his brother, back from a punishing fourth tour of duty in Iraq, must learn to

adjust to new versions of their old lives. Russell’s ex-girlfriend, played by Zoe Saldana, now goes around with the mild-mannered local sheriff (Forest Whitaker). Rodney tries to work off his gambling debts (Willem Dafoe plays his bookie) by bare-knuckle boxing in the realm of a vicious New Jersey backwoods gang headed up by Woody Harrelson. Everyone in Braddock, Pennsylvania, and environs knows everyone else’s business, and in some cases they know they’d better keep quiet about it.

Writer-director Scott Cooper’s debut feature was the simple, satisfying country ballad Crazy Heart, and if that Jeff Bridges showcase operated like a three-minute song expanded into a full-length movie, Out of the Furnace is more like a mournful Springsteen album reimagined for the movies. The film opens with a grim prologue, barely related to the stories to come. We’re in a drive-in, and the Harrelson character commits an act of sexual violence so rough it risks throwing people straight out of the movie. It’s effective in one way, certainly:

It establishes the casual venality of the story’s chief adversary, a meth-addled sociopath thriving in a tough economy where honest workers have criminally few options. In its setting and portraits of machismo under duress, Out of the Furnace recalls the homefront sequences of The Deer Hunter. The actors clearly are enjoying one another’s screen company. Sam Shepard is also in the cast, as the brothers’ wise old uncle, who joins Russell in his search for the brother who messes with the wrong criminal element. There is an oddly frustrating showdown at the end of the script’s increasingly familiar, predictable and wearying path. Cooper’s strength as a writer lies in creating dramatic situations in which there is no simple matter of right or wrong at stake; often, it’s a matter of two rights. So why does the picture settle, in the end, for good-versus-evil revenge? Audiences demand

such things, I suppose. But audiences are open to other sorts of depictions of the American working class. They simply need some help fnding movies that come and go in a fash, such as the recent, ambitious Place Beyond the Pines, which married melodrama with sociology in ways Out of the Furnace cannot reach. It’s the little things we take home with us, such as the handwritten menu above the bar in the local tavern (“We Have a New Fried Hot Sausage Sandwich”). The big things, such as the cross-cutting between a deer hunt and the grisly demise of a major character, betray a heavy hand. Yet Affleck, in particular, finds something fierce and noble in uneven material and in his character’s rage. He’s not like any other actor in American movies. Out of the Furnace has four or five actors of which you could say the same. Out of the Furnace (R) ★★★✩✩

A&E

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a squeal for Help This animal rights documentary makes its case with graphic and gorgeous imagery By Betsy Sharkey Tribune Media Services

many documentaries steeped in social or political issues get very insistent and often very noisy in expressing a point of view. Michael Moore is, of course, the model for effective, engaging and defantly in-your-face activism in this arena. In contrast, The Ghosts in Our Machine, a heartfelt meditation on animal rights, comes at you as a whisper. It depends on the persuasive powers of creatures great and small—in their natural habitat or in cages—to argue that we stop using them for food, clothing, research and entertainment. That the cages be tossed away. There is a secondary story on activism itself and how a belief can shape a career, defne a life. Both narrative threads are compelling in writer-director Liz Marshall’s fnely wrought new documentary. The flmmaker spent a year following animal photographer Jo-Anne McArthur into the fox and mink factories, the cattle slaughterhouses, the monkeyexporting trade and other dark corners where proft margins make for such misery that one

magazine editor concedes that McArthur’s imagery is exceptional but too much for a mainstream audience. Equal time is spent in animal sanctuaries, not to soothe but to show us the other side. It’s a bit of a meta-experience to watch Ghosts. Marshall’s camera team captures McArthur with her own camera trained on the tranquility that is possible and the terror that too many animals experience. Four cinematographers contributed their efforts: John Price, Iris Ng, Nick de Pencier and Marshall. Though there are some difficult images in the film, Ghosts is more a case of letting haunting beauty do the talking. Close-ups of eyes are strikingly effective, whether they belong to a cow, a piglet or a beagle who spent years on and off an operating table in the name of science. The footage also makes a persuasive case that behind those eyes are personality, emotion, the ability to feel fear, pain, pleasure, joy. A shot of piglets going at a milk pan is adorable;

Writer-director Liz Marshall wants you to wallow in a pig’s plight.

the way they snuggle together afterward suggests sentient beings making choices. They are the “ghosts” of the title, forgotten when we grab that leather handbag, roast Thanksgiving turkey or use lifesaving drugs. The machine is all the infrastructure required to feed consumer demand. While Marshall was flming, McArthur was turning her photos and thoughts on the human-animal dynamic into a coffee-table art book, We Animals, due December 13. Much of the narrative is built around McArthur’s discussions with editors, animal-sanctuary

workers and other activists as she shapes her ideas and takes her pictures. McArthur has fused her work with her ideals, and Marshall is defnitely into agenda-setting too. The flmmaker’s 2010 documentary debut, Water on the Table, looked at whether the liquid of life was fair game as a consumer commodity or an inalienable human right. Ghosts is urging us to rethink our relationship with the animal population—what they owe us, what we owe them. The flm has a few loose story arcs built around various species, but a spent milk

December 12–18, 2013

short reviews

VEGAS SEVEN

Frozen (PG) ★★★✩✩

Big, bright and often beautiful, Frozen comes from Walt Disney Animation Studios. While crediting the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale The Snow Queen as inspiration, the movie owes a lot more to Broadway’s Wicked. It’s a tale of two sisters. Elsa (voiced by Idina Menzel) has been blessed/cursed with the emotion-triggered ability to whip up ice and snow in threatening amounts. Anna (Kristen Bell), the heroine, is a shrewd mixture of assertiveness and relatability. Following Disney tradition, Frozen works magic in its nonhuman characters—Sven the reindeer and Olaf the snowman.

Black Nativity (PG-13) ★★★✩✩

Writer-director Kasi Lemmons struggles with uneven success to find a cinematic home for the 1961 Langston Hughes “gospel song-play” setting of the Nativity story. A Baltimore teenager (Jacob Latimore) is sent by his cash-strapped mother (Jennifer Hudson) to spend the holidays with the boy’s estranged grandparents (Forest Whitaker and Angela Bassett). Their relationship with their daughter is a fraught and weighty affair, which must be righted right around the time Black Nativity gets to the Christmas Eve church service, complete with Mary J. Blige as an angel.

Homefront (R) ★★✩✩✩

A bloody bore featuring Jason Statham wasting piles of rednecks in small-town Louisiana, Homefront tries to be a modern Western but ends up being a swampy, derivative action film. Sylvester Stallone wrote the script, adapting Chuck Logan’s crime novel. For a time the picture was being shaped as a Rambo film, to star Stallone. Instead it became a Statham revenge outing, in which he plays a DEA cop who infiltrates a nest of drug dealers, survives a bust gone bad and relocates to bayou country with his preteen daughter. James Franco provides a bit of color as the local meth kingpin.

cow and her calf claimed by an animal sanctuary are the stars. The beagles who’ve been sprung from research facilities are a thematic choice, but they also serve to bring the point home, literally, since we already see dogs as members of our human families. Data and animal-rights fndings are woven into the main narrative, but some of the more interesting stats come in the title cards dropped into the credits—a loss for anyone who leaves before the very end. The Ghosts in Our Machine ★★★✩✩

[ by tribune media services ]

Oldboy (R) ★✩✩✩✩

This American remake of a 2003 Korean revenge drama stars Josh Brolin as the victim of a kidnapping and 20-year imprisonment. Upon his release, he must determine who did this to him, why, and why he’s being framed for his wife’s murder. His ally in his detective work is a social worker played by Elizabeth Olsen. By the time everyone onscreen realizes what’s up and who’s who, the audience may be more in a “Why? Why?” mood. The sleek lines of the original have been replaced by Spike Lee’s wobbly directorial signature. The revenge in Oldboy is neither sweet nor sour; it’s just drab.

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THE DEANA MARTIN CHRISTMAS SHOW Deana Martin takes the audience on a musical sleigh ride, flled with classic yuletide tunes and songs honoring her legendary father, Dean Martin, and other great performers who shaped American music and popular culture for over four decades. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (PG-13) ★★★✩✩

Consider Catching Fire an example of successful franchise installment delivery, on time and in sturdy condition. Heroine Katniss Everdeen begins this second Hunger Games movie fulfilling a PR tour as penance for her killer—literally, killer—popularity. The movie is part treatise on the hardships of notoriety, part blood sport revisited, the games this time played by an all-star cadre of past winners. The violence can get rough, but the reason these movies work relates to our ability to take the carnage seriously.

Nebraska (R) ★★★✩✩

This is the feature-length equivalent of a wry comic ballad, observing ordinary lives. A lot of Alexander Payne’s film is funny, in that gently sardonic way distinguishing his best work. Some of Nebraska feels thin, but Payne elevates the material with images of paradoxically ordinary beauty. Bruce Dern won the Best Actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival this year for his portrayal of a man who believes himself to be the lucky winner of a million-dollar sweepstakes and is determined to travel from his home in Billings, Mont., to Lincoln, Neb., to collect the prize.

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Delivery Man (PG-13) ★★✩✩✩

The Best Man Holiday (R) ★★★✩✩

The Armstrong Lie (R) ★★★✩✩

Dallas Buyers Club (R) ★★★✩✩

Diagnosed with AIDS and given a onemonth death sentence by his doctors, drug-using heterosexual Ron Woodroof scrambled to stay alive and used the next seven years to create an underground pharmaceuticals way station for others with HIV and AIDS. Matthew McConaughey lost 50 pounds to play Woodroof, and co-star Jared Leto lost 30 to play transgender character Rayon, Woodroof’s business associate and the movie’s secret weapon. McConaughey and Leto may well find themselves with Oscar nominations come the new year.

December 12–18, 2013

Documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney initially set out to make a movie called The Road Back, a look at cyclist Lance Armstrong’s comeback. How could he lose? But then Armstrong, the subject of investigation, caved under the weight of the “one big lie” (his phrase). The Armstrong Lie is pretty good when Gibney is able to focus on the 2009 Tour de France itself, a race fraught with old rivalries and backstage dramas. It’s the movie he set out to make, after all. But getting there is tough going.

This sequel follows in the footsteps of writer-director Malcolm D. Lee’s successful 1999 comedy The Best Man. The Best Man Holiday is a far more Tyler Perry-ish mixture of comedy and tragedy than the easygoing Best Man. Still, some of the writing is pungently funny, as when Nia Long’s new squeeze Eddie Cibrian is described by one of the characters as “a tall vanilla swagga latte,” and the movie, while nothing visually special, earns its queen-size dose of pathos honestly.

75 VEGAS SEVEN

A meat truck-delivery driver (Vince Vaughn) going nowhere in his life learns that as a young man, his rampant sperm donations led to 500-plus women being impregnated. More than a hundred of his offspring are suing the errant sperm bank to learn their father’s identity. The film isn’t terrible, but it’s all sort of unseemly. Vaughn’s character has no defining traits other than a mysterious, heal-all lovability.

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7 QUESTIONS

there are relationships, for example, between educational level and [cognitive] effects from boxing, in particular. The lower the educational level, the more vulnerable the boxer seems. Our real goal is to sort out which boxers have cognitive risk. Because we know that some boxers have no cognitive risks; they do just fne. But what we would like to understand is which boxers are likely to undergo cognitive decline, so that we can empower that fghter to make a decision about his or her future.

Dr. Jeffrey Cummings

The director of the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health on research progress for Alzheimer’s, studying fghters and how he feeds his brain

more clinical trials with that money. And we are going to fnd a way to do that, even if nobody slips that $5 million check under my door. But I hope they do! [Laughs.]

So what’s the best thing a person can do to improve their brain health? Exercise—physical exercise. It’s clear, and it’s the strongest literature that we have, that 30 minutes of vigorous exercise three times a week to get your pulse up will make a difference in your brain health. The studies are most compelling for midlife and late life, but I would confdently extend that to early life.

What’s the status of the Professional Fighters Brain Health Study that the Lou Ruvo Center is conducting? We are going great guns. I think we have now seen 340 fghters and mixed martial artists—it’s by far the largest combat-sports study in the world. And we’re already seeing results. We can see that

When is the last time you couldn’t remember where you left your keys? I can’t remember. But that’s because I’m very systematic. So it would be very rare for me to misplace something like my keys or my wallet. Whereas my wife, I’m sorry to say, isn’t as systematic, and we’re always looking for her keys!

December 12–18, 2013

By Matt Jacob

VEGAS SEVEN

You’ve been working in neurology for more than three decades. What attracted you to this particular field of medicine? I’ve always been interested in the mind and the life of the mind. And the brain is the physical basis of the life of the mind. At the University of Wyoming, I double-majored in philosophy and zoology, so [I encountered] all the philosophical questions, the mind/brain problems: When is someone dead? What comprises a mental life? These are all actually brain issues, so I was pulled into this idea of cognitive neurology. How far away are we from a cure for Alzheimer’s? It’s impossible to tell. We might be one step away or

100 steps away, but we can only get there if we take the next step. It is a very complicated disease, [but] we understand its complexity more as we go along, and we’re defnitely making advances. For instance, in 1990, we didn’t have a single approved medication for Alzheimer’s disease. Now have we fve. We didn’t have anything like the kind of scans that we have now. Our trial methodology has matured so that we’re able to test drugs more effectively than before. So there have been many, many advances in our understanding of the disease and even our therapies. But when that’s going to represent the breakthrough of a new treatment, it’s very diffcult for anybody to foretell.

If you came to work tomorrow and found that a $5 million check had been anonymously slipped under your office door, what would you use it for? I would create a brainhealth education registry, try to get as many people in Las Vegas registered as I could and make this a demonstration city—a model city—for how one can reach out and provide brain-health information, from the youngest people to middle age to old age. Brain health is something that has to be built over the lifespan; our concept is that we need to build a brain span that matches our lifespan. I would [create the registry], and then I would use that to bring people in for clinical trials, and I would do

What are some tricks to help improve your memory? And is it true that elephants never forget? Find the answers in the full interview at VegasSeven.com/Cummings.

PHOTO BY JIM K. DECKER

Your wife, Dr. Kate Zhong, does clinical research at the Ruvo Center and has spoken about the relationship The Clevebetween nutrition land Clinic and brain health. Lou Ruvo How often does she Center for harass you about Brain Health your diet? is conducting [Laughs.] Well, we clinical trials collaborate in trying for Alzheimer’s to have a good diet. disease, ParWe eat a lot of fsh, kinson’s disease and we do try to and multiple adhere to a Meditersclerosis. If ranean diet. And interested in she’s convinced me participating, that it’s good food call 483-6025. and that I enjoy it!

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