A Chef, His Brigade and the Indomitable Next Course

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@sethmeyers I can’t personally remember an Olympics with better toilet reporting.

@Home_Halfway Sochi was a terrible site for the Olympics. They should’ve picked a much prettier city, like Detroit or Fallout New Vegas.

@pennjillette My number of Twitter followers seems to track pretty close to the population of Vegas, and that makes me happy.

@ellenpotter31 The most troubling part of my day? Secondgrader putting “going to Las Vegas” at the top of her bucket list during morning work.

@sammyrhodes I like my coffee like I like my Sochi Olympics: pretending it’s better than it is to make the owner happy.

February 13–19, 2014

By Jason Scavone

VEGAS SEVEN

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Is there anything better than coming home from a long day of work and putting on those flthy sweatpants you’ve worn every day for the last six years, including for 54 consecutive hours every weekend? No. No there is not.

There’s a certain beauty to familiarity, and the Las Vegas entertainment scene knows it well.

Flamingo headliner George Wallace is getting back together with old buddy Jerry Seinfeld for an episode of the latter’s Web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee—which you might have heard of from the weirdly confrontational Super Bowl commercial with Seinfeld and Jason Alexander.

The comedy interview/automotive love letter series is in its third season. Recent episodes have featured Howard Stern, Tina Fey and Jay Leno. Wallace’s episode will be available on

Crackle.com on March 20, to coincide with his 10-year anniversary at the Flamingo.

Another warm reunion is in the works at the Hard Rock Hotel. The property has been pushing word of Guns N’ Roses—which completed its Appetite for Democracy residency at the Hard Rock in November 2012— returning this spring.

Meanwhile, Slash will be in town February 27 for the Kerry Simon beneft at the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health.

SLS will offer just a hint of old familiarity for people who liked to do their gambling on the corner of Sahara and Las Vegas Boulevard starting Labor Day weekend. That’s when those old sandstone-colored towers will come back to life in their fancier new incarnation. Still, no one involved at the project would take our suggestion to simultaneously capitalize on the property’s past while maintaining an eye on the future by installing a House

Music of Lords steakhouse.

Finally, in whatever the opposite of “comfortable old sweatpants” is, Mike Tyson is rumored to be expanding his dramatic horizons. By being in Werner Herzog’s Vernon God Little. As an ax murderer. Well, that should shake off any lingering Hangover typecasting.

Herzog is the mad German genius director behind critical faves such as Aguirre, the Wrath of God; Fitzcarraldo and manbear love story Grizzly Man. He is also the man responsible for pushing Nic Cage into exciting new territories of unhingedness in The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, a movie in which Cage demands a dead man be shot again because his soul is still dancing.

So the Tyson casting could be the most landmark moment in Las Vegas cinema since the Diamonds Are Forever car chase and/or Sharknado star Ian Ziering doing a stint with the Chippendales.

I’m watching Winter Olympics in Russia on NBC TV. Sarah Palin is watching from her backyard. Life’s not fair.

@PennyPibbets “I love my stamp collection..” and it was that moment, when I said those words out loud, when I realized I would be alone on Valentine’s Day.

@longwall26 Idea: Leaving Las Vegas but with gas-station corn dogs instead of booze.

@TheJK_Kid Dear Bank, I’d like to report some fraudulent activity. I was not in Vegas this weekend. Please remove all those charges from the weekend.

@jzellis Holy shit, this means I can finally marry Chumlee Russell.

LET THE CHIMES OF FREEDOM RING!

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Slash, Wallace, Tyson: In Vegas, Everything Old Is New Again

@marcsavard

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upset that Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto chose not to challenge Sandoval’s re-election in 2014. But if she ever does seeks higher offce, it will be interesting to track the effects of her original position supporting the state’s argument for upholding Nevada’s ban on gay marriage in the case of Sevcik v.

Sandoval. She reconsidered the brief her offce fled, but it’s hard to unring a bell, especially when the brief unnecessarily invoked bigamy and incest as part of its argument.

• Sharron Angle is back with an initiative petition to block Nevada’s health care exchange. If she and her fellow Tea Partiers fnd enough tinfoil wearers—101,667—to sign by June 17, it will be on the ballot. This puts Republicans in a tough position. On the one hand, Sandoval and his team—including his choice for lieutenant governor, Mark Hutchison, who represented the state in its misbegotten lawsuit against Obamacare—support the exchange. On the other hand, the Republican base doesn’t. This initiative could be like the gay marriage initiative on the ballot a decade ago: an effort to drive turnout. But if it turns out Tea Partiers, will they vote for less right-wing Republicans in November?

You have to hand it to The D, as it continues to do the little things that pull gamblers into its casino. The recent buzz has been about its move to join the Golden Gate as the first casinos in the world to accept the Bitcoin. For now, the use of the new digital currency is limited to the front desk at either casino for hotel charges, as well as The D’s gift shop, American Coney Island and Joe Vicari’s Andiamo Italian Steakhouse. It cannot be used for gambling, but don’t be surprised to see more of the Bitcoin soon: Kiosks allowing both deposits and withdrawals could be next.

Another example of how The D thinks outside the box is its baccarat game with a 4 percent commission. When I say “game,” I mean it: There’s only one table in the casino.

But it’s also the only one in town dealing the commission reduction. Standard baccarat games take a 5 percent commission on winning bank bets, which sets the casino edge at 1.04 percent. The commission drop to 4 percent lowers the edge to 0.6 percent.

The D has also installed three new blackjack tables upstairs; they’re square-shaped and have $5 minimums.

A block up the street at the Downtown Grand, you can participate in a free daily slot tournament. Play anytime between 11 a.m. and 9 p.m., and get a no-risk shot to win free play from a $1,000 prize pool. Get there a little early and grab a free cup of coffee, available in the lobby from 6 to 10:30 a.m.

For a snack, the Fremont’s shrimp cocktail is an easy play. It’s not the Golden Gate, but it’s the best 99-center remaining in town, and it’s available almost 24 hours a day (11 a.m.-7 a.m.) from the easy-to-access Lanai Express snack bar. Wash it down with a $2 Heineken or Corona from any casino bar.

Out on the Strip, Pin-Up Pizza has opened at Planet Hollywood. The deal here is the “longest slice on the Strip,” or anywhere in town for that matter. At 15 inches by 6 inches for just $4.75, it’s roughly twice the size of the $4.50 slice at the “secret” pizza place across the street at the Cosmopolitan. A New Yorkstyle pizzeria, Pin-Up is accessible directly from the Strip, and is open till 2 a.m. Sunday through Thursday (4 a.m. on weekends).

Speaking of the Cosmopolitan, the casino is distributing neat little gift boxes to passengers on United Airlines flights that include a two-fer for the Wicked Spoon buffet and $25 in slot free play.

Finally, Downtown’s Mob Museum will celebrate its second anniversary with free admission for Nevadans on Valentine’s Day.

Michael Green is a professor of history at the College of Southern Nevada.

Anthony Curtis is the publisher of the Las Vegas Advisor and Las VegasAdvisor.com.

Makin’ Copies: Nevada Edition

February 13–19, 2014

A silly season in Silver State politics—which is to say, a week like any other

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HERE ARE SIX recent stories on political posturing, pre-electoral positioning and perplexing priorities. In other words, just another week in Nevada: • North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee has blistered the administrations preceding his for leading the city to the brink of bankruptcy.

Former Mayors Michael Montandon and Shari Buck published an op-ed in the Las Vegas Review-Journal advising him on how to run a city. Beyond the two of them having very little credibility on that particular subject, it’s worth noting that two right-wing Republican Mormons are criticizing a conservative Democratic Mormon. Mormons traditionally have wielded great power in North Las Vegas, but they occasionally have had nasty splits that roiled the city. Stay tuned.

• Governor Brian Sandoval tore into Xerox, the company hired to run Nevada’s health insurance exchange. This brings two thoughts to mind: First, his fellow Republicans are unlikely to be as critical of his handling of this as they were of the president over the national website’s problems (which are now resolved, with enrollment growing).

Second, nationally and locally we continue to avoid the main issue: why major initiatives by and for a government that runs

as a nonprofit are outsourced to profit-seeking companies.

• Speaking of Sandoval, the state GOP has announced a process by which it will determine primary endorsements, and the governor has refused to participate. Granting that the governor and the state party apparatus haven’t been bosom buddies, it’s nice to see that Nevada has its own version of the battles going on nationally within the Republican party between conservatives and the far right.

• The state’s Board of Regents approved a $200,000 annual pay raise for Bobby Hauck, who led UNLV’s football team to a winning record for the frst time since the days when players wore leather helmets.

State offcials continue to fret that they can’t afford to end furloughs for employees, including university staffers relying on a food pantry to eat, or raise pay for higher education staff whom consultants have found to be underpaid—while other consultants are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to study arenas and other subjects. It would be nice if some people drew the connection between these stories.

• Some Democrats have been

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DEALS AT THE D, FREE COFFEE AND A MONDO SLICE

A Chef, His Brigade and the Indomitable Next Course Photo by Anthony Mair

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BY LONN M. FRIEND

February 13–19, 2014

For four decades, Kerry Simon has been one of the culinary world’s most dashing— and most beloved—kitchen warriors. Now a rare disease has him fghting for his life.

t’s approaching 1 p.m., and the boss is running late. the sunday Pajama Brunch at Simon inside Palms Place started three hours ago. The sixth-foor, poolside restaurant is crowded and downright kinetic. “Where’s Chef?” asks a patron piling a dozen shrimp off the bountiful buffet onto his plate. “He’ll be here,” says an attractive server named Christian, her Paul Frank-designed pajama bottoms summoning the gaze of several bloodshot males. “Chef never misses Sunday brunch!” chirps another comely server, crossing the room with a tray of tequila shooters. But on this particular Sunday, it isn’t important whether Chef Kerry Simon is on time. Given the

February 13–19, 2014

circumstances, it’s a miracle that he’s coming at all.

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Just before 2 p.m., the celebrated kitchen magician and global restaurant entrepreneur—knighted by Rolling Stone two decades ago as the “Rock ’n’ Roll Chef”—rolls into the room in an electric wheelchair and, with the help of his devoted assistant, Jason Strange, lifts himself into a booth. Within seconds, the procession begins, like the receiving line at some very hip wedding: “I went to a wild house party last night in the northwest,” smiles the frst familiar face. “Guess you can tell I’m still in the same clothes.” Chenzo Dobarro from John Varvatos—a stylish fellow who keeps the chef looking sharp when he’s not in his whites— joins the main table and hugs his friend. “How you doing, man?”

Chef Simon is asked that loaded question dozens of times over the next three hours. With modest variation, the response is always the same: “Hanging in there.”

The brunch is a strange hybrid: part family gathering, part induction into some as-yet-unnamed hall of fame.

Since the mid-1980s, when a young chef with personal fair and a gift for making just about everything taste better landed at New York’s Edwardian Room, Simon has been living proof of the old saw that the way to a man (or woman’s) heart is through the stomach—gathering an extraordinary array of friends, many of them famous, most of them unusually devoted. When he brought his already-global brand to Las Vegas in 1998, his followers didn’t miss a beat—when you’ve got a lot of friends, it’s nice to live in a town with an international airport and more than 100,000 hotel rooms. Today, as

old and new friends approach, he enjoys the small talk and happily accepts embraces from women. “There’s a party of 15 ladies in the private room,” says sous chef Matt Andrews. “Really?”

Simon responds. “Make sure you take good care of them. But frst, can you make me some egg-white huevos rancheros, not too spicy? You know how I like ’em. And some fruit.”

After the greetings subside, Simon feeds voice commands into his iPhone that initiate texts and reminders for his calendar. He can’t tap the keypad the way he used to. He can’t do anything the way he used to. “I’m getting picked up at 5 p.m. for the Max Jacobson beneft dinner,” he says. Jacobson, a veteran restaurant critic (and a Vegas Seven contributing editor), was struck by a car while crossing a street on December 23; his condition is improving but remains critical. Marquee chefs from around the Valley are putting on a dinner at the Rx Broiler Room in Mandalay Bay to help his family raise money for medical expenses. “Have to be there for Max,” says Simon. “He was always there when I opened a new restaurant. So tragic, what happened to him.

Blindsided. Guess I can relate, huh?”

***** the clinical term for the anatomical truck that plowed into Kerry Simon is MSA—multiple system atrophy—a rare, progressive, neurodegenerative condition that presents itself with symptoms similar to those of Parkinson’s disease, only far more aggressive and debilitating. The disease generally affects men and women over 50; recent fgures put

its prevalence at about fve cases out of 100,000 people. Life expectancy with MSA averages 10 years; nerve cells die off over time, and regions in the brain stop working. Nobody knows the cause of MSA, and there is no cure.

“Three or four years ago, I started to feel like something was wrong,” says Simon. “I felt a pain in my groin after a run. Back then I was jogging three miles a day. Then my legs started to get affected. I was losing my stamina. First doctor I went to treated me for a swollen prostate. This went on for months. Then I was diagnosed with transverse myelitis.

I was sent to the Cleveland Clinic. It was getting diffcult to walk just a few steps; I was losing my balance. Another doctor in L.A. put me through a bunch of tests and thought it was Parkinson’s, but it wasn’t until I got to the Mayo Clinic, just around four months ago, that I really understood that it was almost certainly MSA. Science has no way of knowing for sure—that’s the crazy thing. But it’s moving very fast now.”

***** until about 14 months ago, simon, now 58, had the countenance, stride and shoulder-length, jet-black locks of a considerably younger man. He’s still got the warm, disarming baby-face gaze, but he’s visibly aged, weary from the battle.

The energized mobility he once enjoyed has been severely compromised. In two months, he’s transitioned from cane to walker to motorized chair. Simon even cut his hair, which wasn’t easy, either. (“I thought it was time for a change,” he says. “A girl I know came over, and I said, ‘Cut it off!’ She started chopping away—

in the middle of it, I said, ‘Is it too late to turn back?’”)

Simon is sitting at a 20-foot picnic table in his Grand Canyon Estates home in the southwest Valley. The table was made from the original doors of Simon Kitchen & Bar at the Hard Rock Hotel.

In one hand he holds his iPhone; in the other, the controls to his 20,000-song digital music library. He has been welcoming guests all day as songs from his personal vault fll the room. Visitors bring homemade offerings to keep his belly flled, his heart engaged and his mind distracted from the devil running amok in his weakening body.

Kurt Lambeth arrives, his arms piled high with the fxings for homemade lamb tacos in tomatillo sauce. Simon is quite fond of his Cedar City-born attorney; Lambeth has impressive skills in the kitchen, not to mention an encyclopedic knowledge of rock.

“That turkey soup the other day was really good, Kurt,” says the chef.

“Hey, man, when you’re cooking for the master, you gotta up your game,” fres back the barrister in the Keith Richards tee. “Wait until you taste this lamb—comes straight off my family’s land in Utah.”

Simon is hungry. He may have lost a good portion of his motor skills, but he hasn’t lost his appetite. Food has always been a social experience for Kerry, a sharing of bounty—the tribal dance of tongue, taste and tunes. His website proclaims, “Ecstasy of Gastronomy,” which could have been the title of an early Blue Öyster Cult album.

The Simon sanctuary is a pop-culture museum; its treasures refect the triumphs of a remarkable career: There’s

drön’s The Places That Scare You, The Mayo Clinic Diet, 90 Minutes in Heaven: A True Story of Death and Life, Eckhart Tolle’s Living a Life of Inner Peace, Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf: Zen Poems of Ryokan and various other soul-expanding volumes. “I listen to music a lot, but I’m also starting to appreciate silence,” says Simon, thumbing through the new issue of National Geographic bearing the cover line, “The New Science of the Brain.” “Meditation, going inside myself to fnd a little peace or an explanation for something that doesn’t make any sense to me at all. I’ve had all sorts of healers in the past couple of years—some good, some crazy.

But you get to a point where you have to make choices, perhaps suspect, because you just want to stay alive.”

***** linda and jason strange are the attentive, adoring mother/son caretaking team on 24/7 duty in the Simon home. She met Simon in a Starbucks 14 years ago, had no clue who he was and has worked for him ever since.

She’s a laid-back hippie who ends every encounter with “Have a grateful day” and prays every moment for her boss’ recovery. Jason is colorful, confdent and completely devoted to the man he refers to as “Mr. Simon.”

“Mr. Simon is a badass,” Jason says.

“The outreach has been huge, so many friends calling every day. He’s got love in spades because he’s given so much to people and to this city. But it’s rough, man. His breathing is labored, especially at night. He needs a CPAP [continuous positive airway pressure] device to kick-start his lungs. He also blows into this thing—the Voldyne 5000—fve or six times a day. We’re training him for the stem-cell trial like an athlete getting ready for the Olympics. The man is poise and grace in the face of adversity, and I’m honored to be by his side every day.”

***** kerry simon was born on june 17, 1955, in the Philadelphia neighborhood of Germantown. He spent his

early years going to see ’60s bands like Canned Heat in Atlantic City before he was old enough to shave, no less manage a paring knife. In 1970, after his mother died, his father moved him and his two brothers to Evanston, Illinois, just outside Chicago, which he has long and fondly referred to as his hometown.

After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, Simon worked in Manhattan with culinary legends Jean-Jacques Rachou of La Côte Basque and André Soltner of Lutece. Then he worked at the historic Lafayette Restaurant in the Drake Hotel. There he met his mentor, friend and business partner, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, with whom his career would be intertwined for decades. The team was formidable, and The New York Times awarded the Lafayette four stars.

In 1988, Ivana Trump appointed Simon executive chef of the Plaza Hotel’s Edwardian Room. This brought him increasingly into contact with celebrities—and he began to evolve into a celebrity in his own right. He cooked

25 VEGAS SEVEN

the framed poster proclaiming his Iron Chef burger victory over Cat Cora; the purple ceramic bust carved for him by Colorado artist Dave Parvin; the haunting portrait by storied surrealist David LaChapelle. Every wall is covered with priceless inscribed memorabilia meticulously organized and hung by his personal curator and longtime friend, famed photographer Lynn Goldsmith.

The collection rivals the wares of the Hard Rock itself: the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, the Beatles, Jim Morrison, The Who, Elvis Costello, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Blondie— they’re all here in iconic shots. Vintage guitars stand silently on the foor—a hint that the Rock ’n’ Roll Chef really could rock. (“I haven’t been able to play for a couple of years,” he laments.) Staring down at his musical control box, he cues up “Sweet Burgundy” from another fallen rock hero, ax wizard Tommy Bolin. Simon closes his eyes and meditates on the verse: Pour me another glass of sweet burgundy, maybe that will help ease my pain.

There are stacks of books everywhere.

On the picnic table rests Pema Chö-

February 13–19, 2014

Portraits of the chef as a young man.

Clockwise from left: Simon in his high school days, with Bianca Jagger at the Edwardian Room, with Jean-Georges Vongerichten at Lafayette in 1986.

up meals for the likes of Matt Dillon, Diane Keaton and Debbie Harry. It was in Simon’s Edwardian kitchen that David Bowie asked Iman to marry him. In New York City, word of mouth travels faster than a cab down Second Avenue at 4 a.m. Star sightings from the chef’s private table soon leaked into the local press as paparazzi perched their lenses on Central Park South primed for pix of the rock populi exiting the Edwardian after dinner. Even the hallowed pages of Rolling Stone couldn’t help but devote ink to the hearty happenings.

From this formidable base in Eloise’s mythical palace, Simon imagined expansion of his culinary dream to other cities, states and countries, so while keeping his main residence in New York City, he made frequent trips wherever opportunity was knocking.

In the mid-1990s, Simon opened Blue Star at Miami’s Raleigh Hotel, where he developed what would become his signature approach to American comfort food. Blue Star’s success led to the Starfsh, a seafood restaurant in the same high-end hostel. The love affair with southern Florida was on.

Simon next opened Max’s South Beach with Dennis Max. Then as executive chef of Kenneth Jaworski’s restaurant, Mercury, Simon took his quartercentury’s worth of culinary expertise and training to its highest level yet.

In 1996, Simon returned to New York to work more closely with Vongerichten, who was making huge moves in the shifting world of exotic dining.

They teamed up at Mercer Kitchen; a culinary empire was growing. But Simon still hadn’t set foot in Sin City.

*****

February 13–19, 2014

that would change on a chilly night in the fall of 1996, when Simon wound up in a room with two major stars in the Las Vegas hotel-dining frmament: Steve Wynn and Elizabeth Blau. They were visiting New York City to dine at the newly opened Vong, Simon and Vongerichten’s Vietnamese-French fusion venture. Wynn was about to add a new jewel to his Las Vegas crown: It was to be called Bellagio, and it needed great restaurants. So Simon and Vongerichten pitched Prime, a steakhouse with a French fair—and Wynn said yes.

The restaurant cost $6 million to open in 1998 and grossed $12 million the frst year. The table was set for Chef Kerry Simon to rock the desert.

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The Rock ‘n’ Roll Chef: Simon with Sammy Hagar, chef Roger Verge and Alice Cooper in 1994, and with Elizabeth Blau at Simon Kitchen & Bar in 2002.

***** with the help of blau, simon kitchen & Bar at the Hard Rock opened in October 2002 and was named one of the Top New Restaurants by Esquire. Simon LA at the Softel Hotel followed in 2006.

Back in Las Vegas, Simon’s most provocative fusion adventure to date was taking shape. “The CatHouse at Luxor was a blast,” smiles Simon with a slightly wicked glint. “The servers wore lingerie, we had vintage porn-inspired paintings on the walls, a real Bettie Page pinup

vibe. Adult flm stars frequently came in, and it got kinda wild some nights.

I had too many business partners and some problems with the building’s structure. It was fun while it lasted.”

Restaurants followed in downtown Los Angeles, on the Jersey Shore and in the Dominican Republic. In 2010, Simon became a pioneer of the gourmet burger craze with KGB (Kerry’s Gourmet Burgers) at Harrah’s. He seemed to be on the swell of every wave: When

daylife rolled into town, Simon provided dishes at Sapphire Pool and Day Club. And most recently, despite his condition, Simon brought Pork & Beans to Downtown’s Container Park.

***** if anyone is positioned to get the nation to rally behind the fght against MSA, it’s Kerry Simon. And if any city was poised to be the national vortex

for clinical research and treatment for MSA, it’s Las Vegas. Three times a week, Simon goes to therapy—a regime of intense mental and physical exercise—at Downtown’s gleaming Frank Gehry fever dream, the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, home to world-class Parkinson’s specialists such as Ryan Walsh, who just happens to be Simon’s doctor.

Walsh, who envisions a clinical home for the illness at the Ruvo Center, says

“i always knew i could cook, ever since that frst chicken cacciatore I made at home,” the chef says. That cacciatore—the Dish That Started It All— came after a long day slinging pies at Little Caesars Pizza in Evanston, where Simon worked alongside a wry future comedian named Bill Murray. “I tried to talk him into being a chef, but I think he made the right career move.”

(The two remain friends to this day; Simon recently told Murray about his impending stem-cell trial at the Mayo Clinic. “He said to tell him what days I’d be there, and he’d make a celebrity appearance,” Simon says. “Make sure I get good treatment.”)

Having proven that ample inspiration can come from Little Caesars, Simon built his success around his openness to a wide swath of infuences—some from across the globe, some from the street corner. “It could be simply tasting something that inspires you to go home and tweak it a bit. I guess that’s where my signature dish came from—meatloaf. It was really my mom’s recipe. Putting a dish like meatloaf on the menu was a gutsy move back when I introduced it at the Raleigh Hotel in Miami. A local food critic wrote after we opened that it was the best meatloaf he’d ever eaten. The recipe has evolved over the years to make it more palatable to customers—like adding pork to the beef, bacon on top.”

Simon’s mother died when he was 15. “My mom was a wild alcoholic. She went into rehab, got out on a weekend pass, fell asleep drunk one night, dropped a cigarette in her bed, the room caught fre and she was overcome by smoke inhalation. I was living with

done with the MRIs? I’ve got a restaurant to open.’”

Simon is once again holding court at his home. An old INXS tune, “Devil Inside,” bellows from the ceiling speakers. The voice belongs to Simon’s friend Michael Hutchence, who committed suicide in 1997. Simon talks about the devil he’s busy battling.

“The pain comes and goes,” he says.

“I’ve cut back on the meds. The Mayo Clinic wants me to have as clean and drug-free a system as possible before the stem-cell trial. They’re going to inject stem cells into my spine—like

“Mr. Simon is a badass.

The outreach has been huge, so many friends calling every day.

He’s got love in spades because he’s given so much to this city.

But it’s rough, man.” so kind. There’s nothing like the opening of a new place.”

When he gets too sick to think about the next dining destination, that will signal the time to ask for the check.

Until then, Kerry Simon keeps the fame burning. “I’m really excited about Carson Kitchen,” says Simon.

“Design is done, build-out is happening, I’m working on the menu right now.” The restaurant, a Downtown collaboration with Tony Hsieh, is set to launch early this spring. “We’re supposed to open in March, probably while I’m on a table at the Mayo Clinic. I can see it now: ‘Hey, are we

a spinal tap, twice. Each procedure takes three days. They do a bunch of MRIs and watch the growth of the cells.

There’s no real answer to any of this, but what am I gonna do? Trying to go with the fow, right? Am I afraid to die? Not really. I’m afraid to live. Like this. When you start seeing life as death, it’s a hard thing to embrace. This is no fun. And I used to know something about fun.”

That last line is a woeful understatement. Was it fun accompanying Goldsmith on a shoot at the home of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson? (“We stayed up all night talking about wine, sports, food and politics. It was

awesome.”) Was it fun assisting another famed photographer, Mark Seliger, at a Jay-Z photo shoot in Bangkok? Or lugging his pal Mark’s lights and umbrellas to Lenny Kravitz’s ranch in Brazil for a two-day feast and photo session? Was it fun hosting a backstage dinner party for Led Zeppelin at their 2007 reunion? (“Check out that incredible Ross Halfn signed photo—one out of a hundred—of the boys that night,” says Simon. “Jimmy Page looks like the super rock star, doesn’t he?”) Was it fun throwing Debbie Harry’s private birthday party in the Plaza Hotel kitchen when he was executive chef of the star-studded Edwardian Room? (“She came out of the clubroom dressed in lingerie,” he smiles.) Was it fun nibbling pasta at Dave’s Italian Kitchen in Evanston and having conversations with his dough-kneading mentor about having his own restaurant some day? Was it fun throwing out the frst pitch at a Dodgers game with his Palms Place partner, George Maloof?

***** kerry simon has traveled the world, but his rock ’n’ roll heart is in Las Vegas. In January, he was honored at the Venetian with a Best of the Silver State Award. It was just a day after the news broke publicly about his condition, and the audience rose to its feet in appreciation. Emcee Robin Leach introduced Emeril Lagasse. “God bless, Kerry Simon,” Lagasse said. The room took a collective breath as the evening’s honoree motored across the stage. Holding back tears and fanked by the city’s most celebrated restaurateurs, Chef Simon caressed the mic, his right hand quivering, partly from nerves, partly from the MSA. “Wow,” he began. “I’ve been here since 1997. I love this city. Elizabeth Blau and Steve Wynn got me out here.

Been tons of fun. Haven’t been the same since. I’m not gonna stop. Such a great city. So much food has come here since I arrived. It’s pretty amazing. The whole thing is amazing. This is amazing.

Thank you for coming.”

Amazing also describes what will take place on February 27 at the Keep Memory Alive Event Center at the Ruvo Center, when Simon’s friends from across the food and rock spectrum gather for a culinary and musical spectacular to raise awareness, spirits and, of course, money to help fnd the cause of (and, ultimately, a cure for) MSA. Alice Cooper, Sammy Hagar, Slash, Vince Neil and pizza-spinning partner Bill Murray are on the bill of fare.

“If we get super ambitious with our goals after this frst event, I know we can raise $10 million,” Blau says. “And that’s what Dr. Walsh needs to build that dedicated neuroimaging center in Kerry Simon’s name.”

The campaign’s logo and social media message are in your face—just like the music Simon has loved his entire life: Simon Says, #FMSA. Face it, fuck it, fght it!

Gloves and apron off. The fght is on, and this beloved chef’s loyal warriors are poised for battle.

February 13–19, 2014

*****

my dad at the time in Chicago. He died in ’92 from chronic leukemia. Went in for a checkup and never came out.

MSA, what I’ve got, it’s nowhere in my gene pool. Not anywhere in my family.”

Simon doesn’t like to dwell on his legacy, his former youthful image or managing his many restaurant properties. His brother Scott is taking care of Chuck’s: A Kerry Simon Kitchen at the Hard Rock on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue. The December opening was quite a homecoming. “It was awesome,” he beams. “Friends I grew up with came out. The media was nuts. Everyone was

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awareness is growing geometrically, in part because of the notoriety and visibility of Chef Simon. “Kerry can tell you that a lot of different parts of your life are affected by this disease,” Walsh says. “Not just problems with movement, but there are problems with a number of other systems of the body. The two issues are: What causes MSA, and how do we better diagnose it? Hopefully we’ll be able to leverage our growth as a center, the research that builds around it from a diagnostic standpoint, and connect that with others in the feld more broadly to actually build a real pipeline around us.”

In March, Simon will travel to the Mayo Clinic to participate in a highly experimental stem-cell trial. The hope is that the injection of stem cells derived from Simon himself will help him combat the disease. Walsh stresses, however, that the procedure is still in a very early research phase.

So the frontiers of science await, in all their mystery and distant promise.

In the meantime, Simon keeps doing his part, regularly going to Las Vegas’ FitLab to stay strong and master the physical challenges of MSA. At one recent session, he walked across the room on his own power and started pounding a punching bag.

walking onstage and seeing what had been built for him, and watching him go on for the frst time and the lights go out, and the way the entire room just went absolutely crazy. The ground just shook when he went on.

Waits: We also added a ton of sound for that show. It was rumbling in here.

Wood: It made the hair on the back of your neck stand up just to see the crowd when he popped up. Everybody had their mouse heads on.

Mugnier: Sometimes on the same stage, at the same time, we’ve had Afrojack, Skrillex, Deadmau5 and Sebastian Ingrosso all playing together one after the other. You only see that here—it’s pretty amazing.

Nicolli: The frst time seeing that 2012 lineup on a graphic; that’ll never be replicated. The lineup we had in 2012, there’s no way that anyone in the world could ever come out with that again. Seeing all these names together.

Waits: Deadmau5, Tiësto, Avicii, Calvin Harris, David Guetta, Afrojack, Axwell, Steve Angello, Skrillex, Alesso—we had every single star.

Nicolli: The stage area has become a real industry hangout. We have DJs who are no longer with us come back and hang out in that area because they’re so used to that environment.

Who are your celebrity frequent fiers?

Mugnier: Jeremy Piven.

Waits: Warren Buffet.

Waits: We had Tom Hanks. Leonardo DiCaprio. Rihanna. Every young celebrity comes through; athletes, boxers, UFC guys.

Nicolli: [Soccer star] Cristiano Ronaldo.

Waits: Katy Perry’s been in here a few times; we just had a party for her a couple of weeks ago, actually.

How come there are no women sitting at this table?

Mugnier: Actually a lot of the team is women, working at a very high level of the operation.

Waits: Our senior host is female.

Wood: [Natalia Badzjo] is No. 1 now in sales, too.

DEADMAU5 BY ERIK KABIK

How have you managed to cultivate a loyal clientele?

Wood: We’ve had a 40-person team for years, and most of our people have stuck with us. We preach acquisition retention: We go out and fnd customers, and then we fgure out how to retain them. So we send a host to [the prospective customer’s] hometown to hang out with them, to take them to dinner, maybe fy them to Miami, fy them to Chicago, and then we get them here and make sure they have the best experience.

There have been slow and subtle modifcations to the physical aspect of the club. What are some examples?

Waits: Moving the DJ from the corner area to the center of the room on a stage.

Wood: Deadmau5 was eye-opening for us.

Mugnier: Everybody was excited about it. There was so much energy around the room. It was defnitely a big change. The next week we were trying to think of building something different—and it’s constantly evolving.

Waits: We also upgrade the things you don’t [immediately] notice, like the lighting and the sound.

Wood: The hotel was willing to make

major changes for us to accommodate our line out front; they took out a lot of the retail. It was tough to operate with the space that we were given, and so we needed that change.

Mugnier: Another major change was outside by the pool. We totally changed the seating area because when we opened, this place was supposed to be where people went to chill and a social experience. Now it’s totally different.

It’s a nightclub experience outside.

What has been your most memorable moment over the last fve years?

Wood: It would probably be the twoyear anniversary with Deadmau5. Just

Mugnier: We probably have one of the most welcoming doors at a nightclub.

We are well known for that.

Waits: Clubs in L.A. and New York have hard doors. And then you’re lucky if you get in. We are an industryfriendly city, where we are happy to have you here. We want you in our club. We appreciate who you are, and we want you to come and spend money. We want you to be happy and go back and tell your friends that you had the best time of your life. And that’s been our policy from Day One. XS celebrates its ffth anniversary February 15 with Dom Pérignon Champagne and a performance by Kaskade.

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stars in one spot, because there are only so many days to program.

February 13–19, 2014

What is the XS philosophy?

NIGHTLIFE

PARTIES

HAZE Aria

[ UPCOMING ]

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See more photos from this gallery at SPYONVegas.com

PHOTOS BY AMIT DADLANEY, JOE TORRENCE AND TEDDY FUJIMOTO

February 13–19, 2014

Feb. 14 Omarion performs Feb. 15 Turnt Up with DJ Pauly D March 1 Eric Bellinger performs

NIGHTLIFE

PARTIES

HYDE Bellagio

[ UPCOMING ]

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See more photos from this gallery at SPYONVegas.com

PHOTOS BY TONY TRAN

February 13–19, 2014

Feb. 14 Konflikt spins Feb. 15 Crooked spins Feb. 16 XIV Neon Jungle

THE BAR NUT

You can take it with you at Rose.Rabbit.Lie.

BOTTLED AT BOND Classic cocktails hit the bottle at the Cosmopolitan

By Xania Woodman

spicy nod to Yoo-hoo, the biggest seller).

They’re batched, bottled and capped daily, and don’t require anything you can’t fnd at a homebrew store: measuring pitcher, funnel, glass split bottles, bottle caps and a capper. Along with two traditional cocktails (the Georgia Peach and Uptown Girl), Mercer calls the menu “a celebration of female sensuality. Except for When Life Gives You Lemons, of course,” she says, laughing.

If the whole idea has you ready to try this at home, continue your research at Rose.Rabbit.Lie., where lead mixologist Marshall Altier bottles a variety of bottled cocktails in 17- and 9-ounce glass, re-sealable swing top fasks ($45), including the Blue Moon, El Presidente and Jacquemot Rose. Just don’t stash it in your back pocket.

Find The Spy Who Loved Me recipe at VegasSeven.com/Cocktail-Culture.

Pop bottles at Bond.

PHOTOS BY JON ESTRADA

“I SHOULD COME HERE MORE OFTEN.” That’s the kind of thing bar owners and bartenders always love to hear, especially after putting as much into a place as they do.

Bond bar in the Cosmopolitan recently got an upgrade and a new buddy, Bond Meets Boulevard, a sleek little party pit that debuted quietly just before New Year’s Eve. Manning the gaming tables are a pack of tall, slender female dealers in black, spaghetti-strap rompers, their hair pulled up into prim little buns. In keeping with that subtle ballet theme, dancers in leotards perform firty routines every so often on the LED barres.

And whether you hit the tables or the bar, it’s worth it to belly up here so you can partake in one of the hottest, speediest trends to appear on the Strip. Twice.

House-made bottled cocktails frst made a splash at Lynyrd Skynyrd BBQ & Beer in 2011 at the hands of BarMagic of Las Vegas owner Tobin Ellis. While the venue didn’t last, the idea of bars making as much as possible fresh and on premise endures. At the Cosmopolitan, a dedicated central mixology kitchen prepares mixes, syrups, purees and garnishes for the property. And mixologist Mariena Mercer has a new task for them with her menu of 10-ounce house-made bottled cocktails, $13-$14 each, or complimentary to guests playing the tables.

“I had to get out of my comfort zone,” Mercer says of creating cocktails for gamers. “They like white Russians, Cosmopolitans and apple martinis!” After nixing a bottled Singapore Sling, she settled on When Life Gives You Lemons (an elevated lemon drop), How Do You Like Dem Apples? (an updated apple martini) and The Spy Who Loved Me (a

Gastro Fare. Nurtured Ales. Jukebox Gold.

A&E

Burk was rearrested on January 28, 2013—in front of a gathering crowd of Onyx theatergoers—for possessing an iPad, a violation of the rule prohibiting the use of telecommunications devices, as discovered during a random check.

He was returned to prison.

Although he’s since been granted parole, he faces a new hearing on that same incident, which was not only a work-release violation when he was technically still a prisoner, but a separate act of breaking the law. He will face the court anew on March 26.

“I’m hoping for probation; I think that’s reasonable, but there is a chance they can send me back,” Burk says. “But I think it’s a very good sign that they granted me parole even after that charge was made.” If he is spared more imprisonment, he will instead be put on probation on top of his parole, which could keep him under state supervision for up to fve more years. Meanwhile, Burk travels the road to rehabilitation that began in lockup.

“I’m really focused on my recovery program,” he says.

“I did a lot of drugs in high school and college. I was addicted to cocaine for a little while, and marijuana, of course. Alcohol was the biggest problem, the one I always came back to. But they’re all a problem for me. I can’t handle it like a normal human being, so I choose not to do it.”

Meanwhile, the man who hones the vision and sets the agenda for the creatively daring Onyx makes his return to its stage as an actor in Anton Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard of the Living Dead, writer/director Troy Heard’s original comic riff on the angst-ridden works of the Russian playwright, February 21-March 9.

February 13–19, 2014

*****

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Ask ex-inmates about the one memory that lingers after even the most traumatic have faded, and most would likely agree with Burk. “It’s the frst time that metal door closed behind me,” he says. “That’s a sound you never forget. It’s like, ‘Here we go.’” Is prison life how we on the outside imagine it, fltered through Hollywood’s habitual melodrama? “In the show Oz, it got overdramatized, but that’s not daily prison life,” Burk says.

That doesn’t mean it’s The Cosby Show, either.

“I saw some things I wish I hadn’t seen. People got beat

up and stabbed. It’s diffcult to be around and maintain a diplomacy with others in prison. You have to walk this line. Fortunately, for the most part—and I don’t know why— people were respectful of me. They allowed me to stay separate from the stuff I didn’t want to be a part of, without treating me like an outcast.”

Shuttled between several institutions, Burk was put to work in multiple capacities, including on a state forestry crew, cutting down trees and burning leaves at parks.

Eventually, he was assigned to the governor’s mansion, where

a different language.’”

And yes, he remained the Onyx artistic director from inside the joint, constantly phoning theater co-owner Michael Morse and theater manager Ernie Curcio. Together, they set up the season fare and hashed out details of individual shows via 30-minute calls, a limitation that is no longer necessary as Burk has returned to the Onyx’s little offce square down the hall from the theater.

“I was always a theater scholar, but in prison I had the time to study the craft even more, and to think

remembers the drinking, but not the consequences.

“I hadn’t intended to get into my car that night, but that’s not a justifcation or a cop-out,” he says about his elbow-bending at the Rio. “I was waiting for a friend working there as a bevertainer to take me to a party. I got a buzz going, as I too often did, and blacked out completely. I must have wandered off, got in my car and started driving.

I wound up going the wrong way on the 95.”

His next clear recollection?

Waking up handcuffed to a hospital bed. “They told me

Burk in happier times: performing Carnival at Nevada Conservatory Theatre.

“THERE ARE CLOTHES I HAVE WITH ME, TO REMEMBER WHO I WAS WHEN I WAS THERE, AND HOW EASY IT WOULD BE TO GO BACK IF I STOP THINKING ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE.” – Brandon Burk he and fellow inmates worked parties and events, setting up catering, sprucing up the yard, decorating for the holidays. On a couple of occasions, he was even invited to sing.

By and large, though, prison is not the place to indulge one’s love of theater.

Yet Burk did manage to share his passion with a few willing inmates, schooling them in Shakespeare via complete works sent by his mother. “We broke down some of the major plays—Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet—and it was a lot of fun. You could feel them starting to understand, that ‘click’ where they go, ‘This really isn’t

ahead,” he says. “What are the aesthetics I’m looking for in the theater? What is it as an artist I want to see more of onstage? I knew the frst thing I had to do was come back here to the Onyx.” ***** Hindsight isn’t always 20/20, especially when it’s soaked in booze.

Probe Burk now about the night that changed his life and took Stephen Tomlin’s, and the picture you get is largely incomplete. “What haunts me is that I don’t remember it,” he says. Actually, he

there was a car accident and I had been driving, that I had injured someone and it didn’t look like he was going to make it.”

While images from that awful night remain fuzzy to Burk, images from the sentencing are vivid and likely seared deep into his memory, especially that of Tomlin’s elderly mother taking the stand. “She showed me a picture of Stephen; it was his graduation photo from boot camp, and she said, ‘This is my son, my only son,’” Burk recalls. “I couldn’t help but picture my own mother sitting in that chair, holding

a picture. I’d never seen him before, I didn’t know what he looked like. I have seen him every night since then.”

Seeking vengeance was not her agenda at the hearing. “She said, ‘I don’t want revenge, I just want a sentence that proves that a life is worth something,’’’ Burk remembers. “I thought it was a graceful thing to say, and I appreciated it.”

When Burk became eligible for parole after serving the minimum of his sentence, Tomlin’s parents did not oppose it. But neither did they wish to engage in emotional healing when, two years after the accident, Burk wrote to them from prison.

“Of course it was an apology,” he says. “But I tried to open the lines of communication, not so I could say what I wanted to say to them, but to give them the opportunity to say what they wanted to say to me. They never wrote back. I anticipated that, and I understand it.”

Some ex-convicts are determined to banish the memory of prison. This one is determined to keep it. “It would be tempting to push it all away, but I need the reminder,” says Burk, who took memorabilia from the unhappiest chapter of his life.

“They have electronics you can buy while you’re in. I had this little tube TV. I decorated it over the years, and I have it with me. There are clothes I have with me, to remember who I was when I was there, and how easy it would be to go back there if I stop thinking about other people.”

On the Onyx stage, Burk will once again tap a comic talent that is prodigious.

Anyone familiar with his work in Tony n’ Tina, or his riotous performance in Nevada Conservatory Theatre’s The Gamester years ago, or even his gig as a dialect coach in the Vegas production of Spamalot, can second that.

Yet Burk is acutely aware that whoever else might buy a ticket, take a seat and enjoy his stage return, one man can’t. His name was Stephen Tomlin.

ANTON CHEKHOV’S CHERRY ORCHARD OF THE LIVING DEAD 8 p.m. Thu-Sat, 2 p.m.

Sunday, Feb. 21-March 9, Onyx Theatre, 953 E. Sahara Ave., $15, 732-7225, OnyxTheatre.com.

WHAT WE'RE BUYING 1 Behemoth, The Satanist

4

Lorde, Pure Heroine

5 Within Temptation, Hydra

According to sales at Zia Record Exchange at 4503 W. Sahara Ave., Feb. 11-17.

Get this girl some bunny ears: Chloe Louise Crawford.

[ STAGE ]

COULD THIS FANTASY DANCER BE THE NEXT HOLLY MADISON?

Read our reviews of Mayer Hawthorne (pictured) and Zeppelin USA at VegasSeven.com/concerts.

Strip stars change as often as the seasons. Exit Holly Madison, enter … Chloe Louise Crawford? Just like the buxom blonde before her, this Barbie-esque Brit dances in a Strip revue (Fantasy at Luxor) and is one half of a power couple (her hubby is Murray Sawchuck, for whom she plays lead assistant in his Tropicana show, Murray Celebrity Magician).

Now there’s one more similarity: Playboy named Crawford its Cyber Girl of the Month for February. Says Crawford: “Since The Girls Next Door and Holly Madison made it big in Las Vegas, it’s exciting!” – Allison Kyler

LEE BY TOM DONOGHUE; CRAWFORD BY HOLLY RANDALL/PLAYBOY.COM; MAYER HAWTHRONE BY LINDA EVANS

[ ART ]

Tree and ink There’s nothing like using leaves as art supplies to get the feel of the tropics.

In Botanical Factory, Alexander Lee, the latest artist in residence at the Cosmopolitan's P3 Studio, invites visitors to help make nature prints. The California-born, Tahiti-raised and New York-based artist provides silicone molds of breadfruit tree leaves—symbolic of his home—for use as paintbrushes of sorts. Participants dip the leaves in black housepaint (in lieu of his usual ink) and press them on polypropylene (in lieu of paper pulp), print over careful print. Lee directs the work as it takes shape, eventually forming a wreath that resembles the Tahitian hei, a garlandshaped adornment.

Likewise, a conversation gradually unfolds—not as a lecture, but as an organic outgrowth of strangers asking questions, informal storytelling and clumsy acts with art materials in an unlikely place. Lee mentions, for example, sweeping up breadfruit tree leaves as a kid. Cycles emerge through the stories, just as garlands of collaboration unfold on the paper.

Lee chose the breadfruit tree as a multilayered emblem of Polynesian sustenance, and a history of colonization and subjugation. Viewed in one light, the show evokes the paintings of Paul Gauguin, visions of sea-loving Polynesian wanderers and the blurry remains of a culture docu-

Lee with his collaborative art in P3 Studio.

mented by missionaries who made ink prints of indigenous plants. In another light, the stark black paint is reminiscent of Chinese calligraphy, Lee’s Chinese ancestry and that nation’s role in taking a bite out of Tahitian abundance.

Participating in the piece can be monotonous. But it’s hard to walk away until the piece is suspended on a wall,

with a myriad of mysterious faces, shapes and symbols peering out from inky foliage.

- Gina Rose DiGiovanna

THE BOTANICAL FACTORY P3 Studio at the Cosmopolitan, 6-11 p.m.

Thu-Sun through Feb. 16.

PERFECT FITZ: Most pop bands try to work a little soul vibe into their sound, but where other musicians seem content recycling classic Motown rhythms or Stax-inspired bass lines and calling it good enough, Fitz and the Tantrums actually get it right. Frontman Michael Fitzpatrick composed the group’s earliest songs on an old Conn electronic organ, they have a full-time saxophone player on the payroll (multi-instrumentalist James King), and co-vocalist Noelle Scaggs shakes a mean tambourine. This band is tight, and their songs (“MoneyGrabber,” “Don’t Gotta Work It Out,” “Out of My League”) sound great live.

Your feet will be sore from dancing, your hands will hurt from clapping and you’re probably going to end up with confetti in your hair. Fitz and the Tantrums play the Chelsea on February 18 ($30), and it’s worth getting there early to see the opening act, Capital Cities.

NOW ON SALE: Remember when nobody knew who Bastille was and now almost everybody knows? Fans should plan on storming House of Blues on April 19 ($20) for a chance to hear “Pompeii,” “Flaws” and “Bad Blood” up close.

February 13–19, 2014

3 Of Mice & Men, Restoring Force

SWIFTER THAN EAGLES, STRONGER THAN LIONS: I know Queens of the Stone Age are in town this week (February 13), but there’s nothing old people like better than senior discounts, short buffet lines and Eagles reunion concerts. The whole gang (Henley, Frey, Walsh, Leadon and Schmit) bring their History of the Eagles tour to the MGM Grand Garden Arena on February 15-16 ($85-$255), nearly 30 songs in all. It’s as much an oral history of the band as a generous helping of their most popular songs. Judging by the audience response and the sold-out venues, this is the way a greatest-hits show ought to be.

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Broken Bells, After the Disco 2

A&E

MUSIC

Cirque du Soleil brings the Beatles back 10 times a week.

A Life in the Day One rock journalist looks back on the moment the Beatles turned him on to music

By Lonn M. Friend

February 13–19, 2014

BECAUSE THE WORLD IS ROUND, IT TURNS ME ON.

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The iconic Abbey Road lyric flls the theater-in-the-round where 2,000 Beatlemaniacs are gathered for Cirque du Soleil’s The Beatles Love. It’s no Mirage. Love is in the air tonight, super thick. It’s February 9, 2014, the golden anniversary. My cells are celebrating.

Can you take me back where I came from, can you take me back?

If you were the four lads from Liverpool who landed on American soil 50 years ago, the answer to that question would be affrmative. Why? Because I was born on February 9, 1964, the day the Beatles performed on The Ed Sullivan show.

Let me clarify, my biological birthday is July 29, 1956. But I have no memory, no prenatal anecdotes prior to pop culture’s big bang. “All My Loving” was the slap on the ass.

My lungs flled with this remarkable amniotic elixir called music. John, Paul, George and Ringo became my teachers, shamans and best friends. Their songs are attached to the mental Polaroids of my life.

Mowing lawns and babysitting for cash, I bought every slab of vinyl as soon as it hit stores—from Meet the Beatles the day after Sullivan to 1970’s Let it Be when the band (and innocence) evaporated.

Since then, I’ve hit countless potholes en route from rock-loving kid to rock-chronicling journalist to midlife mystic. When George Harrison died in 2001, I was in Miami doing yoga on my friend Les

Garland’s (one of the founders of MTV) back lawn. Throughout it all, I have always kept February 9 sacred.

But the golden anniversary required something special. So I went to see The Beatles Love at The Mirage. Love on the 50th. Let it Be. Why? Because I believe in yesterday. And today.

Cirque’s interpretation of “Drive My Car” motors me back to my Chevy Malibu—high school free wheeling, faux chrome-plated automotive chaos. The scene onstage is insane, the hook of the What’s your Beatles memory?

Visit VegasSeven.com/Beatles to read an account by Kerry Candaele, writer-director of Following the Ninth: In the Footsteps of Beethoven’s Final Symphony, and to contribute your own.

song indelible. Plasticine porters with looking-glass ties. Oh, if Lucy could see me now, swaddled in this dreamscape of airborne gypsies and costumed crazies.

As Cirque magicians and maidens bend into lotus and dance among candles and sparkles during the hypnotic “Here Comes the Sun,” I’m Tao for the count—fully present, watery eyed and worry free.

In December 1967, when Mr. Lambert’s sixth-grade class hit the asphalt at Chandler Elementary in Sherman Oaks, California, for recess the Friday after the release of Magical

Mystery Tour, I had a spontaneous idea. Get everyone to sing the fnal chanting verse of “Hello, Goodbye.”

I’d listened to the album a hundred times in three days. If there’d been a girl in school named Penny, I would’ve asked her to marry me, never mind I was still years from my frst pubic hair. Hela heba helloa. Tiny voices rose skyward. We were silly and symphonic.

Walking home from school that week, I actually saw an “I Am the Walrus” lyric: yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog’s eye. Poor pup was hit by a car and just lying there, its right peeper bulging from the socket. Why do I remember this so clearly? Because long before I could envision cellophane fowers of yellow and green towering over my head, my head and heart were full of song. Their song.

The doll-like, gravity-defying redhead swirls in sorrowful ballet.

While her guitar gently weeps, I’m ecstatic in the presence of Love’s ineffable brilliance. The pain, confusion, depression, spiritual madness, acute anxiety and all other self-created shadows that have kept my rubber soul bouncing for however many years—disappear like the fog upon L.A.’s “Blue Jay Way.” The audience rises in voice and vibration to join the cast in the triumphant fnale. “All you need is love!” the manta repeats, and I’m waving my arms in my seat like the pimpled punk on the playground. And once again, all the kids joined in.

Lonn M. Friend is the former editor of RIP magazine, author of Life on Planet Rock and Sweet Demotion, and host of Energize: the Lonn Friend podcast on iTunes. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Friend has recently relocated back to Las Vegas where he hopes to pen his frst novel … about a middle-aged man who falls for a Cirque du Soleil dancer.

Parade of Lights is preparing to illuminate the airwaves and beyond.

On February 11, the band, which coalesced in Las Vegas before relocating to L.A., is dropping a remix package for their single “We’re the Kids,” featuring contributions by New Division, Cash Cash X Gazzo and Adrian Lux. On March 25, Parade of Lights brings out its debut EP on the Astralwerks label.

The band is playing its first Vegas headlining gig at 9 p.m. February 20 at Vinyl in the Hard Rock Hotel.

Watch for the strength of ebullient yet bittersweet tunes such as “We’re the Kids” and “Golden.”

“Our goal is to make that contrast interesting for the listener,” singerguitarist Ryan Daly says. “Our songs are about living life to its fullest and trying your best to appreciate the things you have—even if those things aren’t always positive.”

Daly cites U2, Bruce Springsteen and Ryan Adams as heroes. “Their music is universally accessible, and yet they still maintain their integrity and stay true to who they are.”

Parade of Lights wrote, recorded and produced their EP by themselves, the results sounding as good as anything French rockers M83 ever recorded. “It was a bit stressful at times,” Daly says, “and we took on a lot of responsibility. That said, we had a great time doing it. This new EP is the most fully realized version of Parade of Lights yet.”

Other cool shows this week: Lynch Mob swings into Count’s Vamp’d at 10 p.m. February 13. Lynch Mob blends shred-guitar pyrotechnics and compressed, to-the-point songwriting with huge choruses.

L.A. old-school punkers the Perverts will corrupt Double Down Saloon at 10 p.m. February 15. Their seriously unpolitically correct songs include “Shut Up and Take Off Your Clothes” and “I Was a Pre-School Jerkoff.” If you like Ramones-style, three-chord melodic rock ’n’ roll with its tongue firmly in its own butt cheeks, this show will satisfy you.

Also on the bill: Thee Swank Bastards, Tartar Control and Fuck You & the Shut Ups. Your Vegas band releasing a CD soon?

Email Jarret_Keene@Yahoo.com.

PHOTO BY TOMAS MUSCIONICO

LIGHTING IT UP

MOVIES

A&E

BRICK-SOLID LAUGHS More than product placement, The Lego Movie is a genuinely funny flm for kids and their parents

By Michael Phillips Tribune Media Services

FINALLY! A COMEDY THAT WORKS. AN

animated flm with a look—a kinetic aesthetic honoring its product line’s bright, bricklike origins—that isn’t like every other clinically rounded and bland digital 3-D effort. A movie that works for the Lego-indebted parent as well as the Lego-crazed offspring. A movie that, in its brilliantly crammed frst half especially, will work even if you don’t give a rip about Legos.

The Lego Movie proves that you can soar directly into and then straight past product placement into a realm of the sublime, if you’re clever enough.

This isn’t just the funniest PG-rated animation in too long; it’s the funniest flm, period, in months, since the kidhostile This Is the End and The World’s End came out last summer.

I would like to nominate the screenwriting team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (21 Jump Street, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs) for the Nobel Peace Prize, even though very little about The Lego Movie is peaceful. It is, in fact, a manic wonder, sneaking in so many small, medium and large jokes on the sly, it has an instantly re-watchable appeal.

The setup of The Lego Movie, also directed by Lord and Miller, recalls both Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the recent Wreck-It Ralph in its mashup of familiar characters and imaginative

worlds. (Confession: I always found Roger Rabbit a technically remarkable but mean-spirited drag, and consider Wreck-It Ralph clever but exhausting.

So consider that when considering my response to The Lego Movie.)

The prophecy dictates that the one who will save the world is a person born with “face of yellow.” So says the Yoda-style soothsayer voiced by Morgan Freeman. The hero? An ordinary Lego construction worker, with the classic waist-bendy design and fondness for right angles and orderly skylines of many colors. Emmet is his name, and he lives and resides in the bustling community of Bricksburg. This world’s overlord, President Business (Will Ferrell doing the vocals, in full snivel), has nefarious plans for maintaining that order permanently. But a mighty band of resistance fghters has other plans, and pretty soon safe, routinized, anonymous Emmet is mistaken for the saviors’ ringleader and mastermind, even though he’s never really put much stock in individuality. He’s a good little Lego. The way Chris Pratt of Parks and Recreation voices this fellow, his sweetness is never in doubt.

The movie fings Emmet, and the audience, into one Lego universe after another. There’s a Wild West sequence that owes as much to Son of Paleface as

“Everything Is Awesome” about this film.

anything else. When other Lego favorites are introduced into the action—Will Arnett voices an exceedingly narcissistic Batman—they’re given distinct and vivid comic personalities. Liam Neeson is superbly cast as the voice of the quickchange artist Bad Cop/Good Cop, tasked with capturing Emmet and implementing the end of Bricksburg as we know it.

Each facet of Emmet’s world is part of an insidiously entertaining mindcontrol experiment. The citizens of Bricksburg all tune into the same offcially sanctioned hit show, “Where Are My Pants?”; everyone sings the same annoyingly hummable hit song, “Everything Is Awesome.” (Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo did the score.) This isn’t paradise; it’s hell. Or both. The satire’s extremely deft, and even when Lord and Miller, working with animation co-director Chris McKay, indulge their snarky post-adolescent sensibilities with one too many torture sequences, the style of the animation doesn’t mistake “realism” for “quality.” We’re hap-

February 13–19, 2014

SHORT REVIEWS

VEGAS SEVEN

66

The Monuments Men (PG-13) ★★✩✩✩

A genial disappointment about the preciousness of art amid the destructive horrors of war, The Monuments Men is scored to a military march by composer Alexandre Desplat. The whole film, with its unfashionable techniques (slow fades and dissolves by the dozen) and uber-relaxed, old-school vibe, almost works. George Clooney plays a Harvard art historian based on George Stout, a World War I veteran returning to the fields and villages of battle of battle with a different objective this time.

At Middleton (R) ★★★✩✩

At Middleton is formulaic and contrived. It’s also worth seeing because Vera Farmiga and Andy Garcia know what they’re doing as they guide this appealingly simple brief encounter of a romance. Their characters, Edith and George, meet at fictional Middleton College, where they’ve come with their respective offspring for a tour. Both Edith and George are married, not miserably but not happily. A lot of it feels slightly pushy in the comedy. The film itself functions as a catchy, bittersweet waltz. You’ve heard it before, but the dancers are fun to watch.

Labor Day (PG-13) ★★✩✩✩

We can buy a lot in fiction, on the page.

The movies make romantic balderdash easier to swallow in some ways but tougher in others. Kate Winslet has such sound and reliable dramatic instincts (that Face doesn’t hurt, either) she very nearly makes something of Adele. Josh Brolin lets his mellow, insinuating voice do the heavy lifting as tight-lipped Frank, a hunky amalgam of Shane and a drifter out of a William Inge play. For all his skills, Jason Reitman hasn’t fully mastered the director’s most important tool: the BS detector.

pily and fully in thrall to the stop-motion Lego world writ large, to the point that when a huge change occurs at the climax, it’s a bit of a killjoy. We don’t really want to leave the Lego world, even for sincerely wrought pathos, and a complicatedly affecting message to parents everywhere.

Nick Offerman pirates his way, merrily, through the role of Metal Beard; Elizabeth Banks is Wyldstyle, the driven revolutionary with the mad motorcycle skills. The sight gags, most of them quick as an eyeblink, are shrewdly timed; considerable credit goes to editors David Burrows and McKay, who really know how to bite off the end of a scene at precisely the right moment.

I suppose it’s a bit much toward the end. A little more breathing room en route might’ve helped sell the heartfelt wrap-up. But most of the way The Lego Movie plays like the world’s greatest fan tribute, and I can’t wait to see it again.

The Lego Movie (PG) ★★★★✩

By Tribune Media Services

That Awkward Moment (R) ★★✩✩✩ More grating than peppy, this Manhattan-set romantic comedy proceeds as a series of awkward moments in search of a premise and a protagonist a little less stupid. Zac Efron bed-hops around as writer-director Tom Gormican’s narrator/hero. He’s a graphic designer whose life is one long hookup.

This lady-killer, meant to be fetchingly blasé on the surface and a fine fellow underneath, comes off like such a pluperfect egotist, you find yourself rooting for everyone but him.

That Awkward Moment sets such a low bar for Jason’s redemption it becomes a drag.

Marketplace

Seeing how many chefs and food-and-beverage insiders have rallied around Max and Kerry suggests that the local restaurant industry is very tight-knit. True?

Without a doubt. These people are selfess. And nobody has cared about promotion.

The only thing we’re trying to promote is awareness for Kerry’s [disease], and for Max, it’s awareness and [raising funds] for his family. He’s a journalist. Who could foresee walking to the gym, getting hit by a car and losing your entire livelihood and your health?

So this is all just about people gathering together and sending a message, and people from all over the world have reached out for both of them. Honestly, I would be honored to just have a quarter of the friends that Max and Kerry have.

February 13–19, 2014

Elizabeth Blau

VEGAS SEVEN

78

The restaurateur and industry consultant on fnding inspiration in the wake of tragedy, feeding her sweet tooth and choosing bread and butter over tuna bone marrow

By Matt Jacob

Much of your time recently has been spent organizing events to help two dear friends: chef Kerry Simon, who has an incurable brain disease, and Vegas Seven food critic Max Jacobson, who suffered a serious brain injury after being struck by a

car. What have you learned about yourself in the wake of these tragedies?

I’ve learned that I’ve never cried so much in such a short period of time! I have also learned that you have to have utter focus and dedication. For me, trying to organize these

events, especially with an active 9-year-old son and a brandnew puppy, you just have to throw yourself in 1,000 percent and not slow down. Just think of the reality of how sad the situation is for both people. But I was in the hospital last week to see Max, and he’s fghting;

You and Kerry have been partners for more than a decade with your restaurant consulting frm, Blau + Associates. What story about him makes you smile?

When we opened the frst Simon [Kitchen & Bar] at the Hard Rock Hotel, it was the frst big break for both of us, the frst time going out on our own. But two weeks before opening, we still hadn’t decided on the silverware.

And I found out that Kerry had two sets of silverware in his backpack, and he was agonizing over that minute detail, going around asking [for opinions]. And I was like, “Kerry, we’re going to open with plastic if you don’t make a decision!” Kerry has so much attention to detail, and he was not going to make the wrong decision on the silverware.

Honey Salt, the restaurant you own with your husband, chef Kim Canteenwalla, has been quite the hit in Summerlin since it opened about 16 months ago. What’s been the secret?

This is so personal for Kim and I, because it’s just an expression of all things that we love. (Points across the restaurant.) There’s a picture of my son; there’s a picture of our dog; there’s Kim’s Canada hockey book over there; that’s

SIMON SAYS FIGHT MSA Dozens of celebrity chefs and rock stars will join forces Feb. 27 for a beneft to raise awareness for multiple system atrophy (MSA), a rare and fatal disease afficting chef Kerry Simon. For tickets, visit KeepMemoryAlive.org.

my chandelier from my dining room because I couldn’t fnd one that I liked; the kids menu is called “Cole’s Corner”—that’s our son, and he and his friends wrote the whole menu. …

That’s what makes the fact that people like it even more special to us, because it is such a personal expression.

What’s the one area in the kitchen where you’re superior to your husband?

This is an answer he would agree with: It’s baking. Because he doesn’t bake, and I love pastries, so I’m in charge of dessert at home.

So what’s the one dessert you can’t resist?

Pie. I’m obsessed with pie.

But I’m also crazy for candy— all candy. Like the bad stuff: Jujyfruits, circus peanuts, M&Ms, Twizzlers. I love good dark chocolate, but give me a box of Jujyfruits at the movies, and I’m a happy camper.

Worst dining experience of all time?

Oh, goodness. I don’t know if I would say worst of all time, but there is an unnamed threestar Michelin chef in Europe, and the food was all of that crazy molecular gastronomy; nothing was recognizable, it was so experimental. There were favors like pine resin and tuna bone marrow that were just so unpleasant. The restaurant was in the most picturesque setting, and I think I ended up eating 12 rolls and 14 pats of butter.

How often do you walk into a local restaurant and think, “Boy, what I could do with this place …”?

I try not to do that. When I’m off duty, I try to enjoy myself, relax and not be overly critical.

So if the service is a little off, well, that’s something you can work with. Or if the ambience isn’t quite right, but you can see that people are trying, that’s great. But if the food’s not good, then there’s no mercy.

PHOTO BY JON ESTRADA

SEVEN QUESTIONS

he’s breathing on his own, he’s moving his hands. He’s there fghting every step of the way, and Kerry is there fghting, too.

These two men are inspirations in my life, so there’s not even a question that I’m going to fght right alongside them.