THE LATEST
BETTING
Predicting the Unpredictable
BCS Championship Game matchup epitomizes what was a truly wild college football season
BEST OF THE REST …
The college football season concludes with the BCS Championship Game between topranked Florida State and No. 2 Auburn. But before the main course is served on January 6, there are few appetizers to nosh on, as four bowl games are scheduled from January 3-5. Here are my best bets for those contests: COTTON BOWL (Jan. 3): Oklahoma State vs. Missouri The Pick: Oklahoma State +1 ORANGE BOWL (Jan. 3): Clemson vs. Ohio State The Pick: Clemson +2½, OVER 68½
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EVERY YEAR AT this time, college football’s end-of-season hyperbole machine kicks into overdrive, and the song generally remains the same: Wow, what a crazy, unpredictable year that was! Man, [insert overachieving team] came out of nowhere! And what about that collapse by [insert underachieving team]? And we knew [insert Top 10 team] would be really good, but … THAT good? I’ll admit I’ve done my part to grease that machine over the years. And I’m about to do it again—only this time, it’s justifed. No, really. For proof, check out the path of the two BCS Championship Game participants: Florida State, ranked No. 11 in the preseason, ran the table while running up the score, winning its 13 games by an average of 42 points. Only Boston College (a 48-34 loser) came within two touchdowns of the
Seminoles, who throttled their other 12 opponents by at least 27 points. Oh, and Florida State did this after losing 11 players to the NFL while handing the ball to redshirt freshman quarterback Jameis Winston (who would go on to win the Heisman Trophy). But that’s not even the Seminoles’ most impressive accomplishment. This is: Despite being favored by an average of 34½ points per game, they went 11-1-1 against the spread! In other words, much like opposing teams couldn’t catch up to Florida State, neither could the oddsmakers.
While the ’Noles played the part of Secretariat from the opening kickoff, Auburn entered the season looking like a three-legged pony at a kiddie carnival. The Tigers fnished 3-9 last season, including 0-8 in the SEC, results that got their coach fred just two years after he won a national championship. So, understandably, Las Vegas this summer installed Auburn as a 1,000-to-1 long shot to win it all. And when the Tigers followed a somewhat lackluster 3-0 start with a 14-point loss at LSU, those odds seemed justifed. Then Auburn bounced back with a win. Then another. And another—nine straight victories in all, including consecutive last-second miracles against Georgia and Alabama. Now the Tigers fnd themselves facing Florida State in
the fnal BCS title game—a 1,000-to-1 long shot vs. a 40to-1 long shot. Which brings me to my wagering advice for this January 6 showdown at the Rose Bowl: Proceed with caution—extreme caution. Because while you may look at Florida State’s 11-1-1 ATS record and 42-point average victory margin and be tempted to unload a stack of Benjamins on the Seminoles minus-8½, you need to remember that Las Vegas couldn’t fgure out Auburn this season, either: The Tigers arrive in Pasadena with an 11-2 ATS mark, having cashed in 10 consecutive games. What’s more, the SEC has won seven straight national championships—and now an SEC team is catching more than a touchdown from oddsmakers. Then again, Florida State has won
BBVA COMPASS BOWL (Jan. 4): Vanderbilt vs. Houston The Pick: Houston +2½ GODADDY BOWL (Jan. 5): Arkansas State vs. Ball State The Pick: OVER 64
and covered fve straight bowl games, with those fve victories by an average of 15 points. So what’s a gambler to do, you ask? Bypass the side and play the game “under” the infated total of 67 points. Because after a month-long layoff, both defenses will be ahead of the offenses. And because in the 15 previous BCS title games, only three have surpassed 67 total points. What’s that? You want me to man up and make a prediction? Fine: Florida State 34, Auburn 24—because the Seminoles’ defense is that good. For Matt Jacob’s NFL wild-card playoff selections, visit VegasSeven.com/GoingforBroke.
PHOTO BY JEFF SINER/CHARLOTTE OBSERVER
January 2–8, 2014
Top-ranked Florida State, led by Heisman Trophywinning QB Jameis Winston (left), is one victory away from a national championship.
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January 2–8, 2014
o truly understand the world of 3-d printing, you’ll have to expand your current defnition of the verb “to make.” For instance: Two years ago, local 3-D printing guru Andrew Morrow and his then-9-year-old son, Simon, decided to make a robot. They didn’t buy a kit for the project, or even build the thing out of spare parts. They actually made it. From scratch. On a 3-D printer. ¶ “We went to Tinkercad.com,” Morrow says. “We dragged a square [to the design pad on the computer screen]; we dragged in a few cylinders to make four legs; we made a little square and then cut a cylinder shape out of it. After we printed it, we put a motor with an offset load in it, put a battery on it, and it vibrated its way across the foor.” ¶ Morrow describes how he and his son then improved on the design, testing it and reprinting parts based on what they learned. When they had exhausted the capabilities of Tinkercad, they used SketchUp, a more sophisticated software for computer-aided design, or CAD. ¶ “We got another version of the same bot, and it printed better, ran longer and worked better,” he says. “And we
January 2–8, 2014
still hadn’t spent any money on software or gotten any training.” That’s what making means in 2014. The names associated with the Make-ItYourself, or MIY, movement— Maker Faire, Maker Shed, Hackerspace—resound with self-empowerment. Robotics … not just for MIT grad students anymore! But with great power comes great responsibility. And perhaps no niche in the maker world illustrates the need for clear thinking and restraint better than 3-D printing. In 2014, key patents covering a type of 3-D printing that’s not currently available to consumers will expire, cracking open a heretofore controlled feld of innovation. Insiders predict this will cause a seismic shift in the technology, its costs and capabilities. So it’s time for government, industry and the public to consider: What can we do with 3-D printing, what should we do, and—perhaps most importantly—what should we be allowed to do?
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The $10,000 Genie three-dimensional printers are exactly what they sound like: electronic machines that turn digital images into tangible objects. Most 3-D printers look like some combination of robot and printer—early models have more exposed working parts and less casing. There are several different types of
3-D printing technology, but most consumer models today fall into the “extrusion,” or “fused deposition modeling,” category. Translation: a plastic cord wound onto a spool, weed whacker-style, is melted and squirted out a nozzle. (Imagine a really fancy hotglue gun.) The nozzle lays the plastic down in successive layers comprising thin slices of the 3-D model. Such a process is called “additive,” because it’s adding material layer by layer. Most 3-D printing technologies are additive processes. If you have a few hundred bucks, you can have an outof-the-box 3-D printer by this weekend. The Printrbot Simple, which Make magazine editors named the best value for 2014, comes assembled for $399, as a kit for $299. Amazon and Staples both began selling 3-D printers and supplies last year. Commercial models are pricier. Local 3D Systems dealer Advanced Imaging Solutions (AIS) says its models range from the $2,995 CubeX, which would work for school classrooms and small businesses, to the ProJet, for professional production, starting at $75,000. As you’ve undoubtedly heard or seen on the news lately, the applications of 3-D printing are seemingly infnite. A recent PBS documentary highlighted current work being done with food, such as chocolate; with concrete, to re-create the Great Barrier Reef; and with living cells to replace damaged vessels in the heart.
But the hype can be deceiving. “It’s like you’ve got a genie in a lamp that, every time you rub it, will give you $10,000. But in the newspapers and on TV, it’s $1 million every time you rub it. Don’t oversell it. It’s awesome enough as it is,” says Morrow, who teaches 3-D printing classes at Downtown hackerspace SYN Shop. The common man’s use of 3-D printers is currently limited by several factors. Printing areas are basketball-size or smaller. Plastic is just about the only widely available material. And, for now, users must be able to create images using CAD software. In addition, it’s slow. AIS shows a toiletry bottle printed on one of its professionalgrade printers that used 6.63 cubic units of resin (it’s about 8 inches high and 3 inches wide). It took 3 hours and 15 minutes to print at a cost of $36.79, says Ryan Lamb, a document management specialist for the company. Still, to an architect or product designer, the idea of creating a presentation model at that cost in that amount of time is a dream come true. The technology is also popular with craftsmen who create small, custom parts. Lamb says most of his existing clients are in aerospace, automotive, education, dentistry, health care and jewelry. And the barriers to entry are coming down fast. Morrow and AIS technical engineer Don Hesskamp have both experimented with “exotic” print materials, such as wood and stone, and the day when users can upload PDFs to their print-
ers, skipping the CAD lessons, is on its way. Joseph Flaherty of Wired.com told PBS that, in a few years, 3-D printers would be no more diffcult to operate than camera phones. For now, though, machines require either some technical acumen or the patience to carefully follow instructions. “Our clients love them, but there’s always some type of technical challenge,” says AIS President Gary Harouff. For him, this is a plus, because the company sells itself in part based on its ability to provide technical support along with equipment. For people such as Morrow, the hurdles are part of 3-D printing’s appeal. A founding tenet of the maker movement is community: Members gather to learn new things together and troubleshoot one another’s problems. It’s an attractive proposition, judging by the numbers on SYN Shop’s Meetup.com profle: 590 makers have gathered 170 times since the meetup group started in 2012. But even if you aren’t an engineer, can’t afford technical support (or a printer for that matter) and aren’t MIY-minded, you can still have a 3-D printed object on your desk. At online markets, such as Shapeways and Ponoko, anyone with a credit card can order prints of designs they upload, and shop for wares printed by others. Harouff predicts it won’t be long until walk-in print-for-pay services are available the way Kinko’s used to do photocopying. Just in case, AIS is holding 5,000 square feet of space for
such a store next to its existing 27,000-square-foot imaging facility in North Las Vegas. The day of the $1 million genie, when anybody can make anything, may not be far off.
What Would Sony Do? the pandora’s box aspect of the proposition that anyone can make anything isn’t hard to see. The ability to do something such as create living human tissue raises all sorts of ethical and practical questions, the frst of which is, How should we, as a society, proceed? For starters, we’ll have to rethink manufacturing. People all along the supply chain, from fabricators to retailers, will have to transform themselves into maker-facilitators. AIS’s Lamb offers this projection: “By the year 2020, companies like Black & Decker will no longer be selling their parts at big-box stores. You’ll go to BlackAndDecker.com, pay a fee, download a fle and either print it on your own printer or go to a third-party service and pick it up. You’re using the same material that they’re using at the factory; you’re just doing it as a oneoff, versus a mass quantity.” Some things will always be cheaper to produce in mass quantity than individually, says Julian Kilker, UNLV associate professor of emerging technologies. Other items, such as the actual power tool in the example above, may be cost-
January 2–8, 2014 Don Hesskamp of Las Vegas’ Advanced Imaging Systems demonstrates an extrusion 3-D printing process.
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January 2–8, 2014
Don Hesskamp demonstrates a 3D Systems ZPrinter 450: “This is a powder-based printer: A layer of binder and color is put down. Then a new layer of gypsum-based powder is spread, and the process is repeated until all of the layers in the object are printed.”
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prohibitive to print, diffcult to assemble or restricted by safety regulations. Stores will have to evolve accordingly. Imagine Home Depot, for example, as the place where you both buy a Black & Decker circular saw and pick up any 3-D-printed replacement parts you need for it in the future. This change is already underway, courtesy of services such as Shapeways, which has raised $45 million in venture capital funding in the past four years. The ability it gives individuals to design and print custom items affordably will wreak havoc on proprietary systems. Kilker uses the example, which he says he frst heard at South by Southwest, of parents printing pieces to connect their children’s wooden train tracks with Legos. Big money is fowing to 3-D printing—Harouff says the fnancial analysts he follows set the sector’s market cap at $1.5 billion a year ago, compared with more than $8 billion today—so the challenge to the status quo will be well-fnanced. To avoid repeating past mistakes, manufacturers and brand owners should study the history of the music and publishing industries, most notably the disastrous case of music fle-sharing company Napster, which several record companies sued for copyright infringement. Napster not only lost the fght in 2001—to the tune of a $26 million settlement and injunctions that prevented it from continuing its existing operations—but also went out of business as a result. The thing is, people still steal music, and the record labels—perceived as corporate bullies that prevented music lovers from sharing interesting fnds—lost in the court of public opinion. Monday-morning quarterbacks argued that the situation could have been avoided if the pioneers had been folded into the status quo. One way to build a bridge from old-school to newfangled is through education. Harouff hopes we’ll soon see 3-D printers alongside circular saws, sewing machines and watercolor sets in woodshop, home economics and art classes. The less 3-D printing is seen as a rogue technology, the easier it will be for businesses and consumers to embrace. This would professionalize the craft and foster a sense of value for the products created. Meanwhile, makers will have to fght for their right to
comes home with a suitcase full of memorabilia. But imagine him with a 3-D printer at home. What will stop him from printing Mickey Mouse dishes and Goofy toothbrush holders to his heart’s content? Michael Weinberg of digital advocacy group Public Knowledge told PBS that he believed artistic objects would be protected by copyright, while functional things might fall outside the scope of such protection. Patents may cover some of these. There isn’t much existing case law about
Probably the thorniest issue to resolve, because it brings religion into the equation, is that of flesh and blood. The beneficial medical applications of 3-D printing abound: Harouff describes orthopedic surgeons using CT and MRI scans to create an exact replica of a patient’s hip or knee, pre-surgery, so that by the time they slice someone open, they’ve already practiced the procedure and custom-sized the necessary medical devices. But there’s a creepy side,
‘Not God’ we may as well start with guns, or to be more specifc, Cody R. Wilson, the Austinbased founder of Defense Distributed, an open-source site for 3-D printable weapons. Having gone on for a couple of years already, the 3-D gun debate that Wilson started already seems tired. And yet, in some ways, it’s just begun. AIS’s Harouff and 3-D guru Morrow argue, obliquely, that this isn’t their fght. Morrow says that being able to print a gun won’t affect existing laws that govern how it’s used. It’s illegal to rob or murder someone, whether it’s with a plastic or a metal gun. What will change, he says, is that “more people will be forced to make decisions to respect the responsibility we already have.” Harouff says he doesn’t tell people what to do with the technology, and he certainly doesn’t advocate or participate in anything illegal. He fgures that, soon enough, laws and law-enforcement mechanisms will evolve to cover the 3-D printing of contraband similar to those that prevent printing counterfeit currency on color copiers. The 3-D-printed gun legislation train has already left the station. In January 2013, TechCrunch.com trumpeted, “Like it or not, 3-D printing will probably be legislated.” Indeed, in the frst week of December,
HOME 3-D PRINTING COULD ELIMINATE THE LAST BARRIERS TO FILLING OUR HOMES WITH EVERYTHING THAT CAPTURES OUR PASSING FANCY. take into account someone who would make the up-front cost worthwhile, fnancially speaking, by mass-producing guns in his basement. And someone with limited resources who wants to keep a low profle—say, a member of a terrorist organization—would ft that bill. Legislators around the world will have to fgure out how that scenario could be prevented. Another 3-D thorn under the government’s saddle will be intellectual property law. Consider, for instance, your Disney-obsessed friend. Right now, he heads to Anaheim or Orlando once a year and
everyday people making copies of copyrighted products, he adds. So, lawmakers will be starting from scratch. Here, too, the music industry might provide useful models, such as iTunes, which took years to iron out a workable business model and user interface. Returning to the idea of the pay-for-print service, where someone can custom order a part he needs and go pick it up, Harouff wonders who will “own” the digital fle. Can it only be used once? Or can the buyer print the part multiple times? How much would it cost?
too. Lamb cites rumors of complete organs being grown from stem-cell tissue and transplanted in wealthy patients on an experimental basis. The idea isn’t too farfetched, since there are confrmed cases of 3-D printed skin-replacements for burn patients. If we’re printing live human cells, it’s only a matter of time until we can print a human being. Ironically, early models of 3-D printers, such as the RepRap Mendel, were named after biologists. “I’m not God; I don’t want that responsibility,” says AIS’s Lamb, considering the im-
plications. “But 99 out of 100 people we talk to want it for a legitimate business operation, something that can beneft other people and would do good for humankind.” That’s small comfort to anyone who falls victim to the remaining one out of 100. Finally—at least for now— how might the environment pay for unbridled technological enthusiasm? To 3-D printing advocates, this question is settled: On-demand printing uses less material than mass production and reduces its carbon footprint, since all that has to be shipped are spools of plastic. Morrow tells of how he printed the plastic valance clips for his window dressings. The outdated models were out of production, but rather than chucking the whole mechanism, he was able to hand-make replacements for the small parts. “Now, things can be made locally,” Kilker says. “It reduces packaging. You don’t have the articles floating around the sea from when ships capsize. Materials still have to be shipped, but they could be produced regionally. Some of these resins could be categorized by type and chipped down into small pieces and reused. I see no reason not to have a recycling model for this. They could even mark the components so that they’re easily sorted.” But it’s naïve to assume that people will recycle everything they create. (To see the limitations of recycling, Google “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.”) And home 3-D printing could eliminate the last barriers to filling our homes with everything that catches our passing fancy. The online mecca of 3-D printing, Thingiverse, demonstrates the potential for crap to proliferate. For every useful item, there are several that have “destination: landfill” written all over them. Still, the vexing ethical problems related to violence, hubris and environmental damage pale in comparison to the beneft society could reap from 3-D printing. Moreover, none of these problems is unsolvable. Consumers are currently in a position of relative power over the future of this technology. Of all the things we can make, the most important one will be our own fate.
January 2–8, 2014
both houses of Congress voted to extend by 10 years the Undetectable Firearms Act, which bans the sale or possession of guns that can’t be detected by X-ray or metal detector. Proposed language dealing specifcally with 3-D printed guns didn’t make it into the bill because, opponents said, the expense and rarity of the technology rendered it unnecessary. AIS’s Hesskamp put it this way: You’d need a $4,000 machine to print an operable gun, and for that you could buy a trunk-load of metal weapons. But such thinking doesn’t
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innovate. New technologies are bound to corporatize—indeed, industry giant Stratasys bought MIY hero MakerBot for $405 million in June—but we shouldn’t let that stanch the exciting discoveries coming out of garages and hacker spaces. We need the type of innovation that bottom-line thinkers are less likely to come up with than enthusiasts such as Morrow. “There’s this sort of empowerment that comes from being able to take control of the technology and not let it fall into the hands of the big guys,” he says. The to-do list of practical “shoulds”—reimagine the product supply chain; study up on past mistakes (so as not to repeat them); educate the masses on the new technology; and make sure the innovators have plenty of creative freedom—is imposing. But it’s nothing compared to the roll call of ethical “thou shalt nots.”
NIGHTLIFE
Vagabond Bob is Back Gone Again
Veteran VIP host Bob Shindelar refects on chasing the opening of Marquee Sydney with 10 months on walkabout By Sam Glaser
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What were the challenges of opening Marquee Sydney? A “regular” was something we had to adjust for. Here in Las Vegas, the amount of people coming in on a weekly basis dictates how your marketing is, and in Sydney it’s much more of a New York mentality: The locals have to sign on. There is a percentage of the population where they’re in just a beach-bum trucker hat, tank top and fip-fops, and if you say I can’t come I’m gonna hate on you and blast you on social media. No matter what we try, they’re gonna hate on us because we have a dress code and we’re from Las Vegas and we’re not local. For the people who were openminded, we won them over with programming, a constant infux of DJs whom Australia never sees. Other challenging things with Australia are it’s obviously so far away, you need a work visa for DJs two weeks in advance, and that’s a big process. We overcame that because of the relationships we have in place in the U.S. Why did you head off for 10 months of vagabonding? I really started to plan for it like seven years ago with my frst international trip to Italy. Something just struck me with
the traveling bug, and I never shook it. I was determined to live a different lifestyle than most people in nightclubs. I would do triathlons, marathons, go backpacking and mountain biking—kind of an anomaly for people who were working till 4 o’clock in the morning. I’ve always had this dream of traveling for a year or two or three. What were the highlights of your adventures? When I left Sydney I went to see Ayers Rock, “Uluru”; everybody calls it Air Rock. That was my only outback experience. I did a little bit of surfng in Byron Bay. There were a couple of cool festivals going on, like Fringe in Adelaide. Just south of Adalaide I went cage diving with the great whites, a bucket list thing. I went from there to Tasmania and had this eightday hike, Overland Track, one of the best trails in the world. I went to New Zealand and I rented a van, I drove around for a couple of weeks on the North Island and did a couple of treks there. Then I went to the South Island, got a jumpon-jump-off bus pass to see the South Island a while and do the treks I wanted to do. Then I headed to Nepal, and I did the Everest Base Camp trek and the Annapurna circuit. I defnitely have some good advice for people looking to do the Everest base camp. I lost three different sherpas on the mountain. What’s that story? First I few into a little airport called Lukla. It’s the most dangerous airport in the world statistically for crashes. They have to fy through the Himalayas and most of it is blind, in old prop planes without computers or anything. On top of everything else, it’s not a fat runway—it’s like a 2 or 3 percent incline. So they have the most fatalities of any airport in the world. Then there was a game sherpas played on
me. I read that hiring through corporations didn’t give money to the people who earned it. So I hired locally, and they baitand-switched me. The next day they told me a girl needed to go to the hospital in Kathmandu, so he left me with someone else, who left me with someone else. Then he ended up getting altitude sickness, so I carried his bag back on the third day. I ended up meeting with this Australian and German guy, but I was carrying my own bag at that point. What did you learn on your trip? How to not get fucked over by a sherpa. I wasn’t really searching for a meaning of life or anything. It wasn’t a spiritual journey. I remember one time in a hostel I overheard a girl, one of those self-righteous travelers—which I was determined not to turn into—say, “The more you travel, the more you appreciate the things you have.” She was on the right track, but completely wrong. The big lesson I had was that the more you travel, the more you realize the shit you have, you don’t actually need. There are some happy people in the world who don’t have anything. It was a lesson on material wealth, what’s important and what makes people happy. Why did you ultimately decide to return? I made a promise to my mother I’d return for Christmas when I frst sailed off. But I returned earlier because my plan is to continue traveling, so I wanted to come home and get everything situated. I still have a house here, and I still have two dogs here. Vegas is always home to me. So I wanted to come check off some things I had to do, and then fgure out my next step with traveling. Do you have any professional plans? I don’t. I’d like to open up a little bar somewhere and chill. I’m not saying I’ll
“Vagabond” Bob Shindelar trekked to the Mount Everest Base Camp on his 10-month, 18-country journey through Oceania, Asia and Africa.
never get back into nightclubs again. I had a great time working in nightclubs, but I’ve been working in the industry for 12 years. You build a network, and you build a skill set that doesn’t really translate into too much else. It translates into a bar business if I wanted to do that. I was working at good places for a long time, and I made a lot of friends who would help me out if I ever wanted to get back into it. I’ll be back in Vegas 100 percent at some point. I still plan on calling
this my home base. I’m not gonna do an extensive, completely off-the-grid [trip] for another year. I’ll be driving around and coming back to Vegas every few weeks. I’ve been overseas and abroad for two years, and now I’m back. There’s not gonna be another “Welcome back.” This is it. Where’s Vagabond Bob heading next? Get the complete itinerary at VegasSeven.com/Bob-Shindelar.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF BOB SHINDEL AR
January 2–8, 2014
BOB SHINDELAR SPENT six years with Tao Group, a constant presence at Tao’s door as the club’s director of VIP services, then as an emissary of Las Vegas nightlife culture charged with opening Marquee Sydney in 2012. But a year later—poof! He struck out on what would prove to be a 10-month journey that took him to 18 countries. It was the adventure of a lifetime, and one invisible to everyone, apart from “Vagabond Bob’s” 5,000 Facebook followers. Vegas Seven caught up with Shindelar during what proved to be a quick stop back in Las Vegas. Now he’s at it again, this time northbound, chasing snowstorms.
NIGHTLIFE
PARTIES
XS
Encore [ UPCOMING ]
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See more photos from this gallery at SPYONVegas.com
PHOTOS BY DANNY MAHONEY
January 2–8, 2014
Jan. 3 MakJ spins Jan. 4 Wolfgang Gartner spins Jan. 5 Dave Fogg spins
NIGHTLIFE
PARTIES
BODY ENGLISH Hard Rock Hotel [ UPCOMING ]
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See more photos from this gallery at SPYONVegas.com
PHOTOS BY BOBBY JAMEIDAR AND TOBY ACUNA
January 2–8, 2014
Jan. 16 AVN Naughty Circus Jan. 17 Second annual Adult Star White Party
NIGHTLIFE
PARTIES
GHOSTBAR The Palms
[ UPCOMING ]
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See more photos from this gallery at SPYONVegas.com
PHOTOS BY SEAN AKARI
January 2–8, 2014
Jan. 2 Work Hard Play Hard Thursdays with sounds by DJ Alie Layus Jan. 3 Benny Black and Presto One spin Jan. 4 Lisa Pittman and Alie Layus spin
NEIGHBORHOOD EPICUREAN DINING
Have it your way with the made-toorder pies at Custom Built Pizza.
By Al Mancini
➧ THE STRETCH OF Grand Canyon Drive just south of Flamingo Road is engulfed on both sides by a
PHOTO BY ANTHONY MAIR
sprawling series of parking lots and strip malls bounded by a Target and Kohl’s on the west and the Las Vegas Athletic Club on the east. Within this area are plenty of spots for physical-ftness buffs to grab a bite after their workout. But three stand out. Each is locally owned; they’re all committed to the local community and their menus are all dedicated to the idea of letting guests be the masters of their own dining destiny. Custom Built Pizza Sure, pizza is inherently a “build-your-own” concept. But the folks at Custom Built truly encourage you to get creative by not charging for toppings. The price of your pie is determined by the type of crust you choose. The basic is $9.45, with honey/wheat and
gluten-free available for $1 and $2 more, respectively. From there, you can go crazy. Want to mix creamy alfredo sauce with pistachio pesto, then add a combination of mozzarella, gorgonzola and asiago cheese? Go for it—there’s no extra charge. Then toss on as many of the 21 toppings as you
like, everything from chorizo and chicken to pineapple and sun-dried tomatoes. You can actually get cheaper pies for a bit less cash, but the buildyour-own experience is well worth the price of admission. On a recent visit, I witnessed the students and teachers from Ober Elementary School hav-
Pasta Fresh Why let a chef decide what sauce and toppings belong on your pasta? In the same complex as Custom Built is Pasta Fresh, a restaurant that lets you build a pasta meal from the ground up. Noodle choices include tagliatelle, pappardelle, francobolli, rigatoni and ravioli. Among the sauce options you’ll fnd marinara, alfredo, pesto, carbonara, extra-virgin olive oil and butter. And you can top them off with your choice of fve cheeses and a menu of toppings (extra charge) that includes spinach, zucchini, meatballs, shrimp and steak. Everything, from the most complex custom dish down to a simple mac ’n’ cheese, is made fresh to order. On the community front, the owners are
For Goodness Shake Once you’ve loaded up on pasta or pizza (hopefully not both), take a brisk walk across the road to For Goodness Shake. The dessert spot serves up milk shakes and nonfat yogurt shakes mixed in superpowered blenders that quickly render even the heartiest ingredients ft for slurping through a straw. If you want something healthy, go with the various available fruits. Or, if you want to get really decadent, throw in Ho-Hos, Ding Dongs, Twix and Kit Kat bars or Cocoa Pebbles. Whatever you order, a portion of your purchase will go to Three Square food bank. And once the weather turns nice again, keep your eyes peeled for one of the parking-lot parties. 4220 S. Grand Canyon Dr., Suite 8, 4836590, ForGoodnessShake.com.
January 2–8, 2014
Three customizable dining experiences within a stone’s throw of the gym
regular supporters of the local Sandpipers swim team. 4165 S. Grand Canyon Dr., Suite 102, 4456163, PastaFreshVegas.com.
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If You Come, They Will Build It
ing a blast experimenting with the possible combinations, part of the restaurant’s community outreach programs. 4165 S. Grand Canyon Dr., Suite 105, 4739918, CustomBuiltPizza.com.
DRINKING
TALKING TO A SOMMELIER How to get the wine you want without sounding like an idiot By Kirk Peterson
ORDERING WINE. Yeah, you’re doing it wrong. Carnevino beverage director and certifed sommelier Kirk Peterson cuts the foil and pulls the cork on everything you thought you knew about doing the deed. ***** There you are, sitting in a beautiful restaurant, wine list in hand. You crack it open and are immediately confronted with myriad confusing choices, some of which cost more than your frst car. The next thing you know, someone in a suit is standing there offering his or her assistance, and all eyes at the table are on you. No need to panic; all you need are some basic principles to get the wine you want for the price you’re willing to pay, and look competent while doing it. RELAX. The sommelier is there to help you. Sommeliers are hoping to guide you through the wine list, to aid you in making selections that you will enjoy and that will complement your meal. Despite what insight you may think your subscription to Wine Spectator has imparted you, they still know more than you do. Use their knowledge to your advantage. And put your phone away. (Good luck asking Siri how the wine you aren’t familiar with pairs with the food you haven’t tasted yet.) Your sommelier knows more about the food and wine combinations at the restaurant than some random website.
January 2–8, 2014
HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY. Don’t say “Bring me the best one” or “What’s your favorite?” Even something as simple as “red wine that goes with lamb” or “I really like pineapple” is enough to start a dialogue that will help the sommelier fnd you a bottle you’re going to be happy with.
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IF YOU CAN’T SAY “SOMMELIER” DON’T TRY. It should sound like “SOMM-uhl-yay.” If that’s too much of a tongue twister, just say “wine steward.” Sure, it makes you sound a little old-fashioned, but that’s far better that being called a “SUMM-un-yay,” or “somm-ILL-ier.” DON’T PRATTLE ON ENDLESSLY about the amazing cellar you have at your house, the tremendously rare and expensive wines you’ve enjoyed
in the past and your last trip to Bordeaux … and then order a $35 bottle of sauvignon blanc with your porterhouse steak. Wine shouldn’t be about pretension; it should be about enjoyment. If you don’t want to spend a lot of money, either say so or point to a price on the wine list and say, “I’m looking for something like this,” and your guests will be none the wiser. DON’T COMMENT ON THE “LEGS” of the wine, for God’s sake. It is confounding that this particular speck of minutiae has made it into the popular consciousness regarding wine, and actually stuck. The saturation of color and rate at which the drops of wine drip down the side of the glass does give some minor insight into the wine’s origins that can be helpful in terms of professional blind tasting. But otherwise, it’s a completely useless detail that clearly reveals you to be someone who has no idea what you’re talking about. TAKE A PROPER TASTE OF THE WINE. When the sommelier pours you the frst taste, actually taste it. Get a mouthful of wine, swish it around a little, swallow it and see what you think. Don’t take a tiny little baby sip. Wine has favor and aroma, but it also has texture and structure that are just as important in terms of your total enjoyment of the wine. Finally, stop looking at the pin on my lapel. My eyes are up here, buddy.
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tion of, and refection on, pop culture, I fnd that my overall satisfaction with the past 12 months’ media morsels—from movies to music to political scandals to celebrity Twitter feuds—fgures signifcantly into my grade for the year. And by that measure, it would be hard to fail more spectacularly than 2013. It didn’t help that we went out on a particularly low note, sung with constipated aplomb by True Blood’s Stephen Moyer as Captain von Trapp in NBC’s ill-advised live broadcast of The Sound of Music. That might have been the worst thing ever aired on TV, and I watched an entire season of Living Lohan, so I know. In fairness, though, Carrie Underwood’s blank, frightened stare was a spot-on imitation of my reaction to many of this year’s freshman shows. While there were standouts, such as Orange Is the New Black, Orphan Black and Masters of Black—I mean, Sex, there were so many duds (Dads, The Goldbergs, Welcome to the Family, Do No Harm, Sean Saves the World, I could go on) that I felt like tossing bombs on them from a helicopter, Sharknado-style. Add to that the fact that two of my favorite shows ever—30 Rock and Breaking Bad—met their makers and that Mad Men belly-fopped up to the bar for a somewhat less-thangimlet-eyed sixth season, and I was in such a mood that I didn’t even enjoy watching Michael Douglas bang the ivories (and Matt Damon) as Liberace in HBO’s Behind the Candelabra. Then, of course, there were MTV’s infamous Video Music Awards, which actually took place a few blocks from my apartment in Brooklyn, and which I watched only through online GIFs the following morning. It probably shows my age to confess that my frst reaction was confusion— Why was Beetlejuice humping a Kewpie doll?—and my second was that I had no idea what they were singing. No blurred lines here; apparently, I can stop … listening to any music not featuring vocals by Elmo. Incidentally, my 2-year-old was very into the twerking teddy bears. I did manage to listen to two pop hits of 2013: “Best Song Ever,” by the foppy-haired fetuses of One Direction—because I’m very trusting and took the title
“So, Long, Farewell” to lucky ’13: Carrie, Kanye and Kim.
(wrongly, it turned out) at its word; and Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky,” which was actually very catchy, although I’m not sure how R2-D2 and C-3PO fgure into the music video. Downtown’s Life Is Beautiful festival, featuring Vampire Weekend and Las Vegas’ own stars the Killers and Imagine Dragons, was the hot ticket of the year. Sadly, I spent my time watching
Station, Inside Llewyn Davis, The Wolf of Wall Street: All of these fine films will this year’s race a must-see nailbiter, with the added bonus that host Ellen DeGeneres will likely refrain from belting out a reprise of “We Saw Your Boobs.” In keeping with my generally playpenbound existence these days, I watched most of 2013’s movies on the small screen,
of them isn’t promising for the human race as a whole. We had the unmasking of Deen as a secret racist; Reese Witherspoon getting arrested while belligerently drunk; Anthony Weiner sexting—this time with a Las Vegan!; Lance Armstrong doping; Justin Bieber being photographed making a saggy-pantsed departure from a Brazilian brothel; Edward Snowden
CARRIE UNDERWOOD’S BLANK, FRIGHTENED STARE WAS A SPOT-ON IMITATION OF MY REACTION TO MANY OF THIS YEAR’S FRESHMAN SHOWS. the auto-tune of Paula Deen awkwardly apologizing for making her waitstaff dress as slaves—a gem that I suspect will be overlooked come Grammy time. Movies didn’t fare quite so poorly, although the Oscars telecast on February 24 hosted by a smug and bloviating Seth MacFarlane wasn’t great for morale. (As far as I’m concerned, the Academy has failed if Billy Crystal doesn’t enter on horseback.) Gravity, 12 Years a Slave, The Butler, Blue Jasmine, Fruitvale
but two that I did happen to catch in theaters were This Is the End and The World’s End, both hilarious comedies that managed to make the very astute point that all is lost and we should just give up. (A few other blatant warning signs: Adam Levine’s crowning as People’s Sexiest Man Alive; Kanye West’s “Bound 2” music video.) Speaking of the irascible Louis Vuitton Don, the scandals of 2013 were of exceptionally high quality, although the sheer number
blowing the cover off the NSA; and, oh yeah, the entire federal government shutting down for 16 days. Lucky for us, Canadian police chose to declassify a video of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack right around this time, and suddenly John Boehner didn’t look bad by comparison. He would have made a great Captain von Trapp, in fact, if he didn’t cry so often. Maybe NBC will consider him for a live production of Les Miz next year. That’s the thing about New
Year’s. There’s a sense of magic that lingers over these frst few weeks, convincing us that anything is possible; that everything will improve. And despite the stubborn persistence of our personal travails and the steady march of time across our faces, pop culture gets more of a break, with a slate wiped as clean as a brand-new DVR queue. Who knows what fresh glories await us? Britney Spears just landed in Vegas for her residency at Planet Hollywood, which is intriguing if not exactly dependable (the last high-profle thing she did here, Jason Alexander, didn’t stick). In a week, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler will host the 2014 Golden Globes, which is as exciting for me as a Hillary-RuPaul 2016 ticket. Miley Cyrus will bring her Bangerz tour to the MGM on March 1; who knows what inanimate object she might grind! Over the summer, reptiles will do for scales what vampires did for fangs as Godzilla and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles both stage long-awaited comebacks. The rest is, as Natasha Bedingfeld would tell us, still unwritten. But as I look ahead to the many, many weeks of my life I am willing to sacrifce, yet again, to screens both big and small, and to stages from Broadway to the Strip, I can’t fght the creeping, titillating suspicion that the odds may be fnally with the evens.
MUSIC
L.A. Guns brings the ’80s back to Vinyl on Jan. 4.
January 2–8, 2014
GUNS, JUNKIES, GERMAN GUITARISTS
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RESOLVE TO ENJOY more underground live music in 2014? Great, you’ve reached the right column. In Her Own Words intend to leave people speechless at 5 p.m. January 3 at Eagle Aerie Hall (310 E. Pacifc Ave.) in Henderson. These L.A. pop-punkers sound like early, raw Blink-182 or a Saves the Day 2.0—just guitar riffs and vocal hooks and nothing more. In Her Own Words is touring in support of their EP Everything I Used to Trust, released last summer. It features raucous tracks such as “What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say?” in which more than a mere cookie crumbles—a whole relationship falls apart bitterly, too. Great band. Also on the bill: For the Win, Seasons Change, Tonight We Fight, Characters, Victoria Falls and For You, My Lady. In the mood for some L.A. glammetal circa the ’80s? Then allow me to suggest L.A. Guns at 9 p.m. January 4 at Vinyl at the Hard Rock. The Guns, with a lineup that includes original singer Phil Lewis and drummer Steve Riley, aim to blow out your earholes with classic Sunset Strip-era cuts such as “Sex Action” and “The Ballad of Jayne.” (Interestingly, the band’s exguitarist and founding member Tracii Guns is busy playing in Raiding the Rock Vault at LVH.) Hopefully, L.A. Guns will also perform a few songs from their 2012 disc Hollywood Forever, which is pretty damn good—especially midtempo rocker “You Better Not Love Me.” Check ’em out.
If that’s not enough fretboard shredding for you, you’d do well to take in a show by legendary German-born rock guitarist Michael Schenker (UFO, the Scorpions) at 10 p.m. January 7 at LVCS. The 58-year-old is touring in support of last year’s Bridge the Gap album, and his band is tip-top—Wayne Findlay (guitar/keyboards), Rev Jones (bass), Pete Holmes (drums) and ex-Rainbow and Yngwie Malmsteen singer Doogie White. This show’s gonna smoke, I tell you. Finally, remember toxic shock-rocker GG Allin, who died of a heroin overdose in 1993? Well, his backing band the Murder Junkies, who helped make Allin-penned songs such as “I Kill Everything I Fuck” such instant feel-good classics, never really went away. They continued as a band, covering their late singer’s songs and writing new ones as well. The Junkies even released an album last year, A Killing Tradition, which some critics characterized as being “polished.” Don’t let that fool you. The band can always be counted on to deliver sonic mayhem, and the Junkies’ 10 p.m. January 9 show at the Dive shouldn’t be an exception. If you dig three-chord-banging punk with a few country-music inflections, you’ll adore this. Just make sure you’re caught up on all your shots, please. Your Vegas band releasing a CD soon? Email Jarret_Keene@Yahoo.com.
MUSIC
ALBUM REVIEWS By Andreas Hale
PERFORMANCE-ART RAP
Childish Gambino
Because the Internet (Glassnote) A really massive mainstream album is trapped somewhere within the mind of Childish Gambino (a.k.a. Donald Glover of Community fame). However, because of his insistence on doing things his way, his musical complexities block that stream from flowing. Some may see this as a good thing. Where Camp was his autobiography, Because the Internet is his artistic testament to the hip-hop community. The album hybrids the pop crooning of Drake with the abrasive electronic sounds of Kanye West and is sprinkled with Gambino’s own highbrow humor and expansive wordplay. From the dreamy lyrical ride of “The Worst Guys” to the chilling “No Exit,” Gambino’s latest is performance art from an actor who knows how to deliver. ★★★★✩
FUNKY HIP-HOP
Dam-Funk & Snoopzilla
7 Days of Funk (Stones Throw) Snoop Dogg has been flirting with an identity crisis for the past year. From his reggae-infused Snoop Lion to the newly minted funk doctor Snoopzilla, the Cali rapper is seemingly having more fun than ever. 7 Days of Funk is no exception as the album takes the “Sexual Eruption” Snoop Dogg and puts it on steroids as Dam-Funk injects the album with relentless funk. Not to be taken too seriously, Snoop playfully bounds about on “Do My Thang” as if it were a gangster Zapp & Roger song. Although nonsensical at times, 7 Days of Funk is the perfect album for a Soul Train line and a game of dominoes. ★★★✩✩
HOMAGE HIP-HOP
An Ode to Reasonable Doubt (Loyalty Digital Corp) With An Ode to Reasonable Doubt, New York MC Skyzoo and producer Antman Wonder pay homage to Jay Z’s debut album, Reasonable Doubt. They do so in a flattering manner that doesn’t desecrate the original. The influence is evident as the original production gets revamped while Skyzoo’s rhymes snare bits and pieces from Jay Z’s lyric sheet. It works beautifully on “Meeting the Presidents,” where the lush instrumental and rhymes about acquiring wealth mesh. “The Hustle Never Sleeps” doesn’t fare as well. The song follows too closely to the original, making it border on creative karaoke. One misstep doesn’t doom the project, and An Ode to Reasonable Doubt is a well-done ode to a contemporary classic. ★★★✩✩
Upcoming albums on Andreas’ radar...
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JANUARY 7: Kid Ink will drop his second studio album, My Own Lane, to kick off the new
VEGAS SEVEN
DISC SCAN
January 2–8, 2014
Skyzoo & Antman
year. It’s littered with a plethora of guests, but let’s hope it doesn’t overpower his sound. JANUARY 21: Longtime collaborators Evidence and Alchemist join forces for another Step Brothers album. Lord Steppington will hopefully be another feather in the cap for the tandem.
ART
A&E
SPEAKING OF 18B …
Brett Wesley Gallery.
Open Late
Can a new weekly art walk succeed in the Arts District?
January 2–8, 2014
By Pj Perez
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IT’S A THURSDAY night in Trifecta Gallery at the Arts Factory, where about 10 people sit on couches and chairs in a semicircle, surrounded by the vibrant, geometric, cut-foam works of local artist Philip Denker. Most of those in attendance munch on chocolate cake or sip drinks smuggled in from the neighboring Bar + Bistro. Seated next to a television cart is Kansas City-based artist (and Denker associate) Dylan Mortimer, who narrates as images of his pop-culture/ religion mash-up art fash on the TV screen. The vibe is casual, the attendees are respectful and engaged—it’s about as good as you can hope for an art event in Las Vegas. Trifecta owner Marty Walsh has been hosting these weekly evening events for several months at her gallery, promoting them collectively as
“ONO! - One Night Only.” The primary goal was to provide an informal, social atmosphere to build relationships between art collectors—new and existing—and Trifecta’s artists. Beyond that, however, to also encourage patronage of the gallery outside of the two nights a month most businesses in the Arts District are flled with people: Preview Thursday and First Friday. “I want to take Preview Thursday to the next level, where it’s every Thursday,” Walsh says. To that end, Walsh teamed up with local website ArtsVegas.com to expand these events beyond the confnes of Trifecta and into the rest of the 18b Arts District. Offcially launched on December 12, Late Until Eight is meant to tie together multiple art events under a single banner, cross-
promoting programming at different venues on the same night to create a walkable, “art progressive” in the 18b. “The bottom line was that all the art galleries are competing on Thursday nights for the same 15 or 20 people,” says David Hardy, creative director of ArtsVegas. “[Walsh] said it would be great if we could do this as a progressive party where the schedules are transparent and each gallery staggers the programming so people can enjoy a bit of each gallery.” The inaugural Late Until Eight night included a discussion at Inside Style—co-owned by 18b Neighborhood Association President Marc Abelman—about the importance of art in the home, followed by a talk by Walsh at Trifecta about her own process as an artist, and then a poster
exhibition by Hardy’s College initial Late Until Eight offerof Southern Nevada design ings seem underwhelming, students at Art Square. Walsh it’s not for a lack of trying on hopes the more intimate nabehalf of its organizers. Both ture of Late Until Eight will set Hardy and Walsh say their itself apart from events such proposal hasn’t been met with as First Friday. universal enthusiasm by other “This isn’t a sales-driven galleries in the Arts District so event,” she says. “It’s not about far. But both remain optimisbuying art. It’s about connecttic about its potential. ing with the artist and learn“We’ve had a lack of ing about an artist’s lifestyle.” response from a few other On December 19, Amanda parties, but nothing negaHarris Gallery of Contempotive,” Hardy says. “We’re rary Art joined the promotion hoping that now that we’ve with a book signing by the announced it, other people photographers behind Fade to will participate in it.” Gray, a book examining Vegas’ Walsh knows that gaining street art scene. Harris—who traction for such a regular also hosts the 18b Speaker event will be an uphill battle. Series at her gallery every But she is more concerned second Tuesday (see sidebar)— with quality over quantity, has typically hosted opening and hopes that—like First receptions and events at her Friday and Preview Thursday gallery on odd Thursdays, so before it—Late Until Eight will participating in Late Until grow into its own organically. Eight is a natural choice for “Collectively, if we say her. However, she admits be‘Come to 18b and look ing concerned about around,’ it gives arbitrarily opening people an opporLATE UNTIL late to lackluster tunity to know on EIGHT traffc. Thursday nights, “We’re going to be that galleries will be 5-8 p.m. involved one or two open and you can Thursdays, Thursdays a month,” plan a customizable, various Harris says. “I walkable evening in locations in the haven’t committed the 18b,” Walsh says. Arts District, to being open every “I’m just going to do ArtsVegas.com/ Thursday.” it, demonstrate, and Late-UntilShe isn’t alone in hope people can folEight/. that hesitancy. If the low.”
PHOTOS BY CHECKO SALGADO
Art enthusiasts can add the second Tuesday of every month to their calendar. The 18b Speaker Series at Amanda Harris Gallery of Contemporary Art launched on December 10 to a standing-room-only crowd. The series will alternate between two formats: The first is 18x18, which features rapid-fire presentations inspired by the Tokyo-born PechaKucha 20x20 designer networking events. The second is “Culture Spark,” which offers a forum for discussion on issues facing the 18b Arts District. According to 18b Neighborhood Association President Marc Abelman, the next entry on January 14 will focus on gentrification in the Arts District and “how we approach growth in the 18b.” – P.P.
A&E
ART
Dam Sexy
Erin Case restyles the Southwestern landscape
January 2–8, 2014
By Camille Cannon
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IN THE SUMMER of 2012, Erin Case was perusing the Internet, contemplating fresh looks for her coif when inspiration struck. Open in several tabs were her potential new do’s, in another was the Instagram profle of her friend Andrew Tamlyn, full of photos snapped during his vacation in lands the likes of Death Valley, Hoover Dam and the Las Vegas Strip. Looking at the glossy tendrils and golden, dusty landscapes onscreen simultaneously, her artistic reaction was “instantaneous.” In minutes, she snipped and patched the pieces together in Photoshop. Those composites became the stunning Haircut Series. Distracted as she was by that burst of ingenuity, Case didn’t end up getting her haircut. Instead, she and Tamlyn submitted the series for consideration in numerous online art publications—to an overwhelming positive reception. Further exposure followed, and soon Haircut was featured in 42 malls in Canada where it was curated as part of the country’s Art in Transit initiative, on display to a projected audience of 22 million people. Such success has been astounding to the Michigan native, who once saw no prospect in the medium. “I’ve been making collages since I was a teenager,” Case says. “But it never even occurred to me that I was making art. I just viewed it as me being crafty.” That is, until college. When Case enrolled at Saginaw Valley State University, close to her home in Midland, Michigan, she had her heart set on a career in fashion design. The school didn’t offer such a program, however, so she began to
“Haircut 7” shows the softer side of the Hoover Dam.
pursue a degree in art. Along the way, she found herself in a pop painting class where she received high praise for her collage assignments. For her 2011 piece titled “Rub It In,” Case received the first of many future accolades—Best Black and White Artwork—awarded to her by the university. “That was one of the first things that made
me think that maybe I could actually be taken seriously as an artist,” she says. As for what sparks her creative fre, Case says it’s a cathartic process. “I see making art as a sort of therapy. All the good and bad things that happen to me, that I see going on in the world ... I feel like I have to say something.” So she responds with images, sourced
mainly from magazines (National Geographic is a favorite), most often hand-cutting and pasting the materials to achieve her desired pastiche. Regardless of her own aesthetic, Case isn’t trying to push a particular agenda. “I’d like people to take away from it whatever they do, naturally,” she says. “That’s how I feel about art gener-
ally. If it evokes anything, it’s successful.” And so she hopes the scope of her artwork will continue to swell. “I feel like I’m just beginning,” she says, but one day, “I want to walk into a stranger’s house and see my art on their walls.” For information on how to make that happen, visit ErinCase. Weebly.com.
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7 QUESTIONS
7 million people from around the world who come here every year—with real money.
Tom Skancke
The CEO of the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance on our need for light rail, the best way to attract foreign businesses and fying high with a candy baron
January 2–8, 2014
By Matt Jacob
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Shortly after taking over the Nevada Development Authority a little more than a year ago, you rebranded it the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance. What’s your mission? In every presentation I make, I close with an Albert Einstein quote: “You have to change your current pattern of thought in order to solve the problems you’ve created with your current pattern of thought.” And I live by that. Recently, the state created an alliance—300 people coming together to work on [Nevada’s] comprehensive economic development strategy, and in my 25 years of living here, 300 people haven’t come together to agree on anything. So the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance, when it was all said and done, really refects the direction and vision of where this community needs to go from a global point of view.
Recently, you talked about the importance of addressing “some of the systemic defciencies that hold us back in the community.” What did you mean by that? Oh, that’s my favorite topic! We have a systemic defciency in our [public education] system. We now have the right superintendent with direction and courage, but he can’t do it alone. We must, as a business community, stop pointing fngers and saying, “Let somebody else do that.” We have to be engaged. And this organization is going to get engaged with education. … If we’re going to attract a tech economy and logistics and goods-movement and energy and renewable energy and those types of industries, we’ve got to have the workforce here to drive that. That may mean changing the legislation for how people are educated here.
Your background includes serving as an adviser for numerous transportation infrastructure projects. What’s our most pressing transportation problem or need? We must build a light rail and transit system in this community if we are going to attract the millennia generation, which is the next generation of decisionmakers in our country. They are not buying cars, and they are not moving to communities that require a car. They move to tech-savvy communities. And we don’t offer their [preferred] mode of transportation. Where do we currently stand when it comes to getting light rail? The [Clark County Regional Transportation Commission] is looking at the Maryland Parkway corridor to connect the airport to UNLV to the medical district to Downtown. But it’s going to take awhile—
this is a 20-year plan, because you have to study everything to death. If this was China, they’d say, “You’re moving out of your house tomorrow; we’re putting in a light-rail system.” “But where do I go?” “Figure it out!” In America, we study things forever. Go to Phoenix and look at what they’ve done with Valley Metro. The Phoenix airport has a transit system that goes up and over an active taxiway—you can put a 747 under the light-rail system! They ain’t doing that in Paris. That’s American ingenuity, right here in our region. What’s the one type of business you’d love to see set up shop in Las Vegas? I’d love to see the Bank of China or the Merchant Bank or Banamex or Deutsche Bank or some bank from France in this town. Nothing against our banks; we’ve got some amazing fnancial institutions. But I’ve got to look, walk and act like a duck if I’m going to be a duck, right? If I’m going after Mexican businesses, they’re going to say, “Where’s Banamex?” Because when I go to Beijing or Shanghai or Mexico City or Abu Dhabi or Dubai, I see Citibank. I see Chase. I see Deutsche Bank. And we should have those [foreign] institutions here, because we’ve got
If you were alone in an elevator with Warren Buffett, what’s the one question you’d ask him? I haven’t been in an elevator with Warren Buffett, but I sat next to Forrest Mars on an airplane one day, and what an amazing experience that was. We were fying between Reno and Las Vegas, and he sat down next to me and said, “What do you do, young man?” And I said, “I work for the Nevada Opera Association.” He said, “Oh, really? My wife and I gave Piper’s Opera House in Virginia City 500 bucks many, many years ago to keep the opera house open.” I said, “That’s great. So what do you do?” And he said, “I’m in the candy business.” Now I looked at him, a very unassuming guy, and I was thinking maybe vending machines or something like that. I said, “What kind of candy?” He said, “Ever heard of the Mars bar?” And I said, “My dad loves it—it’s a great candy.” And he said, “Boy, it took a long time for people to like that candy bar, but I knew they’d like it eventually.” And I looked at him and I said, “Jesus Christ, you’re Forrest Mars!” And he said, “I am. Who are you?” I said, “I’m Tom Skancke, and there are about a billion reasons why I should know you.” He said, “Young man, there are 1.6 billion reasons why you should know me.” That was a turning point in my career. This man told me how he invested his entire life in M&Ms—I think he told me he went bankrupt two or three times on M&Ms, but he stuck with it. Perseverance.
PHOTO BY ANTHONY MAIR
What’s the biggest sign on the horizon that economic diversity is here? What Tony Hsieh is doing with the Downtown Project is a great indicator of what’s happening with our new economy—that’s a tech economy, and is a great start. What Rob Roy is doing with Switch and the InNEVation Center is an amazing start. We have a bigger tech economy than most any other cities I know. We’re [also] moving on a logistics and goods-movement economy. We’re moving on medical tourism. We’re moving on looking at how we use our airport differently besides just heads in beds—how the airport better connects to the community.