The Dog Days 2014 | Vegas Seven Magazine | July 3-9, 2014 by Vegas Seven

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RED, WHITE & VIEWS Enjoy the Fourth of July from a whole new perspective at 550 feet atop the world’s largest observation wheel right in the center of the Strip. JULY FOURTH SPECIAL: $49.95 WITH FREE DRINK | BOARD 8:30PM – 9:30PM* *Weather permitting. Firework shows around Las Vegas scheduled to take place 9pm – 9:45pm.

Tickets at TheLINQ.com or High Roller Box Offce

18 | THE LATEST

“The Language(s) of Gaming,” by David G. Schwartz. Why Vegas casinos should brush up on their Spanish—and more. Plus, Baker’s thermometer returns, the Rebels hustle on the basketball recruiting trail, and Three Questions on how a kennel keeps ’em cool.

20 | About Town

“Next-Level Care for Canines (and Cats, Too!),” by Paul Szydelko. For the most complex animal ailments, a specialty center is just what the doctor ordered. Plus, when a hose in the yard just won’t do for your dog.

22 | Green Felt Journal

“The Customer Is Always Right. So, Who’s the Customer?” by David G. Schwartz. A fresh study sheds light on the habits of the Vegas visitor.

29 | THE DOG DAYS

Our annual tribute to the trying times of Vegas midsummer brings you tales of heat, forbearance and muddling through.

37 | NIGHTLIFE

“Breaking Down the Booth,” by Camille Cannon. Taking a spin at Blend, the Valley’s first DJ institute. Plus, a Q&A with Mika Gold, a preview of the Fourth of July and photos from the week’s hottest parties.

61 | DINING

Al Mancini on Giada De Laurentiis’ restaurant debut. Plus, how Joe Romano escaped fine dining for PT’s, Dishing With Grace and Cocktail Culture.

67 | A&E

“Cold Comfort,” by Maile Chapman. What can a decades-old crime scene reveal? Cold Justice’s Yolanda McClary sees the truth. Plus, anticipating Widespread Panic, CD Reviews, Tour Buzz, The Hit List and a review of Kraftwerk in concert.

72 | Stage

“Welcome to Puppetland,” by Jason Scavone. Now that a second plush-filled residency hits the Strip, could this be sign of a trend?

74 | Movies

They Came Together and our weekly movie capsules.

94 | Seven Questions

Dog Whisperer Cesar Millan on stereotyping canines, defining mistreatment and how a South Park spoof made him a cool dad.

ON THE COVER Photo by Anthony Mair

July 3–9, 2014

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13 VEGAS SEVEN

PHOTO BY ANTHONY MAIR

DEPARTMENTS

LAS VEGAS’ WEEKLY CITY MAGAZINE

FOUNDED FEBRUARY 2010

PUBLISHER Michael Skenandore

EDITORIAL

Greg Blake Miller Matt Jacob (news and sports), Xania Woodman (nightlife, beverage and dining) A&E EDITOR Cindi Reed COPY CHIEF Paul Szydelko ASSOCIATE EDITOR Sean DeFrank SENIOR WRITERS Steve Bornfeld, Geoff Carter ASSOCIATE STYLE EDITOR Jessica Acuña CALENDAR COORDINATOR Camille Cannon EDITOR

SENIOR EDITORS

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Melinda Sheckells (style), Michael Green (politics), Jarret Keene (music), David G. Schwartz (gaming/hospitality)

ART

Ryan Olbrysh Jon Estrada, Cierra Pedro STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Anthony Mair CREATIVE DIRECTOR

GRAPHIC DESIGNERS

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Christy Corda Nicole Scherer ACCOUNT MANAGER Brittany Quintana ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Robyn Weiss

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR DIGITAL SALES MANAGER

INTERNS

Allie Amato, Brett Lawson, Jessie O’Brien, Eleni Parashos, Amber Sampson

Ryan T. Doherty

| Justin Weniger

Michael Skenandore VICE PRESIDENT, MARKETING AND EVENTS Kyle Markman CREATIVE DIRECTOR Sherwin Yumul MARKETING COORDINATOR Maureen Hank PRESIDENT

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PUBLISHED IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE OBSERVER MEDIA GROUP Vegas Seven, 888-792-5877, 3070 West Post Road, Las Vegas, NV 89118 Vegas Seven is distributed each Thursday throughout Southern Nevada c 2014 Vegas Seven, LLC. Reproduction in whole or in part without the permission of Vegas Seven, LLC is prohibited.

DIALOGUE CONTRIBUTORS Leela

Cover girl ➜

after making her modeling debut on the cover of our 2011 Dog Days issue, Leela the English bulldog has come out of retirement. Three years and 40 pounds later, the former pup ingénue—the pride of Vegas Seven advertising manager Jimmy Bearse— has learned a lot about the joys of Las Vegas summer. She loves her barbecues (mainly the food dropped on the ground), the trips to Sunset Park to root on Mom and Dad while they play softball, her skinny dips in the pool, her everlasting battle against the dreaded water hose—and, of course, her naps!

CORRECTION Hold the Bouquet In “Blood, Sweat & Beers,” (June 24), we pronounced Crafthaus brewers and TwoBrewersAbroad.com bloggers Steven Brockman and Steph Cope husband and wife. While the two certainly will log work-spouse hours making beer for the Booze District brewery, they are not, in fact, wed. Still, Cope says, “Who knows? After a big beer fest ... maybe a drive-through wedding?” And our invitation to that has been assured.

THIS WEEK @ VEGASSEVEN.COM HAVING A BLAST ON THE FOURTH

With casinos putting on simultaneous fireworks displays, plus North Las Vegas and Henderson in the mix, the Valley is the place to be on Independence Day—and you don’t have to be a hotel guest or high-rise dweller to enjoy the show. For our roundup of local pyrotechnics and where to watch them, visit VegasSeven.com/Fireworks.

DOWNTOWN’S NEXT SPEAKEASY

RAISE A GLASS TO YOUR FAVORITE BAR

MEETUPS FUEL VEGAS TECH SCENE

Hawthorne, a 1920s-themed bar set to open this fall on Casino Center Boulevard, was named for the hotel from which Al Capone ran his bootlegging operation. Get a preview of the beverage lineup and space at VegasSeven. com/Hawthorne.

The votes are pouring in for our third annual Las Vegas Bar Hall of Fame—more than 7,000 so far. Voting lasts through July 10 in categories from Neighborhood Bar to Specialty Bar, so log onto VegasSeven.com/ BarHall2014 and let us know which local watering holes you think should join the pantheon this year.

In Vegas’ relatively warm and fuzzy tech community, meetup groups play a key role in sparking innovation, says Nicole Ely in this week’s Bytes column. Plus: advice for startups, and a homegrown company begins to make good. Get all the latest tech news at VegasSeven.com/Bytes.

Twitter.com/7Vegas

VEGAS MOMENT

Made in the Shade

Have you taken a photo that captures the spirit of Las Vegas this week? Share it with us at VegasSeven.com/Moment.

July 3–9, 2014

You try to take the dog out before it gets too hot—but when, exactly, is that? Fortunately, this gang at Downtown’s Hydrant Club dog park had a backup plan on the morning of June 30: stake out a spot in the speckled shadow of the big Chinese elm and just chill.

VEGAS SEVEN

Photo by Jon Estrada

“Almost every weekend, I bathe her. I enjoy it; I’m guessing she enjoys it, too. But there are limits to our relationship.” ABOUT TOWN {PAGE 20}

News, essays and insights into why our town’s still hot

The Language(s) of Gaming Why Las Vegas casinos should brush up on their Spanish—and more

VEGAS SEVEN

BINGO LOTERÍA MADE HEADLINES earlier this month when it debuted at the Lucky Club in North Las Vegas. With four sessions a week, the English and Spanish-language game has a twist: One winner each session plays a bonus round based on the cardbased Mexican game of Lotería. That a few sessions of bingo a week in a small casino are now called in both English and Spanish might not sound like a big deal. But it’s a reminder of the primary law of casino management: Give your customers what they want. That’s nowhere more obvious on the Strip in late January, when casinos deck themselves out in red and gold as they compete for the attention of visitors celebrating Chinese New Year—or any other time of the year when casinos take steps to cater to a niche clientele that likes to play. The Lucky Club’s move speaks to the growing presence of Spanishspeaking players in and around Las Vegas. And it’s not without precedent. In 2010, Buffalo Bill’s casino in Primm started offering bilingual blackjack, with dealers speaking to players in both English and Spanish. Combined with Spanish-language concerts, the game was an attempt to counter the inroads that California’s tribal casinos have made into the driveup Southern California market. To all appearances, the move was successful—Buffalo Bill’s Latino offerings continue to draw. With the Latino population of Clark County nearly doubling since 2000, it isn’t surprising to see a new game geared towards that market. Like any other casino innovation, it will be judged by one criteria: Is it proftable? If it is, we can expect to see more bilingual games. With so many casinos in town, there’s great pressure to give potential patrons a reason to drive past competitors.

Speaking to them in a language they prefer is one way to do that. Even if Bingo Lotería doesn’t succeed, it won’t be the last attempt to engage the local Spanish-speaking population. It is simply too large a market to be ignored. Competition among locals casinos remains fierce, with the lingering effects of the Great Recession still strong. Employment

is ticking up slowly, but with the economy still sluggish, the casino business just can’t grow the way it used to, when simply adding new games translated into earning more money. Now the challenge is to reach previously untapped markets, something that can be done by conducting games in a language other than English, whether it’s

Mandarin or Spanish. Casinos used to prosper by catering to the broad middle; now they are catering with greater focus to a variety of smaller groups. The bottom line: Casinos here are fortunate that gamblers of all backgrounds speak fuent Vegas. And Vegas is savvy enough that it will learn to answer in whatever language patrons want to hear.

ILLUSTRATION BY CIERRA PEDRO

July 3–9, 2014

By David G. Schwartz

The Endless (Recruiting) Trail Rebel basketball looks to the future

By Camille Cannon

By Mike Grimala THURSDAY, JULY 3: It’s perfectly

Follow all the latest Rebel basketball news at RunRebs.com.

goes over 78 degrees. If it does, we have an alarm that sets off to let us know that it’s getting too warm, and we adjust it accordingly.

ZIMMERMAN PHOTO BY ANTHONY MAIR; BAKER THERMOMETER PHOTO BY BARBARA HERRON

★

THE KENNEL

★

It’s the age-old question when you’re planning a summer vacation: What the heck do I do with my dog? Taking the pup on a road trip can be tough, but you’re hesitant to kennel your canine in the heat of summer. Camp Bow Wow Las Vegas kennel manager Michele Samaniego told us how her facility keeps dogs cool. How do you keep the kennel comfortable?

Our facility is temperature controlled: Our doors are open to our back area, but we have refrigerated faps that help keep the air inside the building. The dogs can just run in and out through them. The building never

Have you ever had a dog that just loved the heat?

We do have a lot of sunbathers. Our counselors who are in the yard with them monitor how long they’re staying out. And then in our back areas we have a canopy, so there’s a shaded area—and we have play pools as well.

What should we know about walking our dogs in the summertime?

Walk them early in the morning before the sun comes out, or later at night. And you defnitely don’t want to be walking your dogs on asphalt. It will burn the pads off of their feet, literally. There are little booties that you can buy for their feet that can protect them. But basically, if your bare foot can’t be on it, their feet probably shouldn’t be on it. – Amber Sampson

HEATING UP AGAIN The World’s Tallest Thermometer is ready to rise again.

The 134-foot-tall structure in Baker, California, was turned off in 2012 after years of disrepair (see story at VegasSeven.com/BakerThermometer), but the roadside icon is scheduled to be relit at 3 p.m. July 10, with the adjacent gift shop also reopening that day. The date is significant in that it’s the 101st anniversary of the 134-degree day in nearby Death Valley, the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth, and also the inspiration for the thermometer’s height. The family of Willis Herron, who built the thermometer in 1991, reacquired the landmark in March. – Sean DeFrank

acceptable to celebrate Fourth of July a little early, but let’s not annoy your neighbors with fireworks just yet. Instead, join the City of North Las Vegas at Craig Ranch Regional Park for the 15th annual Independence Day Jubilee. Expect food, carnival rides, live music from Michael Grimm and, of course, a fireworks show. 628 W. Craig Ranch Rd., 3-9 p.m., CityOfNorthLasVegas.com.

FRIDAY, JULY 4: Now celebrate America’s 238 th birthday

at the Valley’s largest Independence Day parade, the 20 th annual Summerlin Council Patriotic Parade. Enjoy 70 floats and 25 inflatables—it’s like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, only in red, white and blue. Parade begins at Hillpointe Road. and Hills Center Drive, 9-11 a.m., Summerlin.com. For other best bets for Independence Day, visit VegasSeven.com/Fireworks.

SATURDAY, JULY 5: Now that your veins are coursing with

patriotism and adrenaline, don’t miss the UFC Fan Expo at Mandalay Bay Convention Center. The event, which runs through tomorrow, offers programming for fans and aspiring fighters, from autograph sessions to training seminars. UFCFanExpo.com.

SUNDAY, JULY 6: Escape the escalating heat by visiting Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard Resort, which opens this weekend for the summer season. While you’re unlikely to find snow, you will be able to ride the chairlift, hike, play disc golf and mountain bike. 6725 Lee Canyon SkiLasVegas.com Rd., 10 a.m.-6 p.m., SkiLasVegas.com. MONDAY, JULY 7: Whether you’re returning to work or continuing a summer of leisure, you can set up shop at The Window, the recently opened Downtown co-working space on the first floor of the Ogden. You never know whom you may collide with serendipitously. Did we mention there’s free Wi-Fi, too? 150 Las Vegas Blvd. North, 9 a.m.5 p.m. Mon-Fri, DowntownProject.com. TUESDAY, JULY 8: Like to spend the warm nights outdoors? Then cruise to West Wind Drive-In for Family Fun Night. On Tuesdays, general admission drops from $7 to $5, and as always, kids 5-11 get in for $1. You can even catch a double feature, leaving more cash to spend on popcorn and candy. 4150 W. Carey Ave., WestWindDriveIns.com. WEDNESDAY, JULY 9: If live entertainment is more your speed, head up to Spring Mountain Ranch Park as the Super Summer Theatre debuts its next production: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Back in its Broadway days, the show won a Tony Award for Best Musical. 8:05 p.m., SuperSummerTheatre.org.

July 3–9, 2014

by 6-foot-6 former Findlay Prep shooting guard Rashad Vaughn—is perhaps the best in UNLV basketball history, but coach Dave Rice hasn’t stopped to savor the moment. Partly because the 2014 class features players unlikely to stick around for more than a year or two, and partly because the program has so much recruiting momentum, Rice is targeting some of the top high school players in the nation for 2015 and ’16. The Rebels have offered scholarships to at least 10 players ranked in the top 50 for 2015, and they’ve offered at least 11 of the top 50 players for 2016, with Bishop Gorman 7-footer Stephen

Zimmerman (pictured) headlining the 2015 class and Martinsville, Virginia, forward Thon Maker topping the 2016 group. The Rebels’ recruiting reach continues to expand: If there’s an elite talent in the high school ranks—no matter where he’s from— there’s a good chance Rice has pitched him on the merits of UNLV. And sometimes the recruiting trail leads right to your doorstep: Several prestigious AAU tournaments and the LeBron James Skills Academy are headed for Las Vegas this summer.

19 VEGAS SEVEN

THE 2014 RECRUITING CLASS —led

THE LATEST

ABOUT TOWN Emergency department supervisor Kelly Winschel accepts a patient’s gratitude.

Next-Level Care for Canines (and Cats, Too!) For the most complex animal ailments, a specialty center is just what the doctor ordered By Paul Szydelko A MINIATURE PINSCHER’S SKULL, fractured by an inadvertent practice golf swing, requiring weeks of intensive care. … Another dog born with a serious birth defect, surgeons and therapists working with a prosthetic company to improve its life. … Still another, accidentally run over by its owners, necessitating amputation of a rear leg and a hip replacement on the other side. … Just as your own general practitioner will send you to a specialist for a complex case, your pet’s veterinarian can turn to the Las Vegas Veterinary Specialty

Center. “It’s unique in that we have multiple disciplines in one facility 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” administrator Dean Penniman says, noting that it’s rare for a city this size to have only one veterinary specialty center. The LVVSC (8650 W. Tropicana Ave., LVVSC.com) has taken on the region’s most challenging cases from St. George to Flagstaff since 2005, averaging 100 referrals a month. More than a dozen specialists—including surgery, internal medicine, oncology, cardiology, ophthalmology and

physical rehabilitation—and 80 employees make LVVSC a veritable Mayo Clinic for pets. Canines make up 85 percent of the practice; felines and exotic animals are treated as well. The 20,000-square-foot facility recently upgraded its CT unit and added fuoroscopy equipment. In May 2011, an adjacent Veterinary Emergency + Critical Care facililty debuted. A neurology department is on its way in September. It’s another small step for man toward truly being dog’s best friend.

[ DOG DAYS ]

July 3–9, 2014

WASH THAT POOCH!

VEGAS SEVEN

OK, I’m not ashamed to admit that my 100-pound boxer mix and I sometimes share our bed with my wife. And when she’s down from her pedestal long enough for a bath, I think she deserves more than a hose in the yard. The dog, that is. Almost every weekend, I bathe her. I enjoy it; I’m guessing she enjoys it, too. But there are limits to our relationship. I am loath to bathe her in our tub or shower with all the attendant hair and other unmentionable debris that must be scrubbed away before it’s once again fit for humans. So it’s worth it to me to take her to a DIY dog wash. The tub, water, aprons, shampoos, conditioners, facial wash, ear cleaner, towels, brushes, combs and dryers are provided. A final spritz of perfume commemorates the occasion. The most important convenience, though? The cleanup. My favorite is Henderson’s The Soggy Dog (TheSoggyDog.com) with its ubiquitous coupons that knock the price down to $10. A Happy Dog Wash (AHappyDogWashLV.com) boasts a bright, cheerful environment. Those in the far southwest Valley are lucky to have Barking Dogs (BarkingDogsLV.com)—which in addition to luxurious bath facilities, has an enormous selection of food and clothing, as well as a bakery case full of fresh post-bath treats. - Paul Szydelko

Our city’s Independence Day celebration once hinged on a big firefighter-produced benefit that, in its later years, lit up the skies over the Silver Bowl/ Sam Boyd Stadium. If you weren’t there, you were in the street firing up whatever you could scrounge at the corner fireworks booth. And if you were really lucky, you had a crazy uncle who’d power his 1982 Trans Am an hour north to Moapa Tribal Enterprises (which, according to relentless radio ads, would “rise from the desert floor like a sleeping buffalo!”). Uncle returned with a trunkload of tax-free smokes and insane pyrotechnics, the latter of which your older brother and his buddies would use to torment you, destroy mailboxes and send neighborhood dogs diving under the bed. The Firefighters Benefit Association show launched in 1951, but lost spark in the mid-1990s, as many newcomers balked at paying the $25-acarload donation and watched from outside the stadium for free. Pressure also emerged from casinos, which stepped into a familiar role of community benefactor. I recall traffic-stopping, dueling fireworks extravaganzas produced by the neighboring Santa Fe and Fiesta casinos in the mid-1990s. It was likely a combination of these factors—and perhaps the 1996 150-acre brush fire ironically sparked by the firemen’s stadium show—that ended that tradition. By 1998, the stadium show was gone and the Firefighters Benefit Association was relegated to collecting a portion of tickets sold to the fireworks show at Cashman Field (that show’s on July 3, following the Las Vegas 51s’ 7 p.m. game against Salt Lake). Other Fourth of July traditions have flamed out as well. The Las Vegas Philharmonic’s annual patriotic concert and fireworks show started at Hills Park in Summerlin and moved to The Smith Center last year, but it won’t take place this year. Similarly, Red, White & Boom—a popular event at Desert Breeze Park—was canceled in 2007 by Clark County due to cost concerns. But other traditions continue. Summerlin hosts a 9 a.m. patriotic parade for the 20th time, while Henderson stages a free concert and fireworks show starting at 6 p.m. at Mission Hills Park. Meanwhile, Boulder City has the long-running Damboree, a daylong celebration punctuated by fireworks at 9 p.m. Station Casinos continues what the Fiesta and Santa Fe started by offering big, free fireworks shows at Red Rock Resort and Green Valley Ranch, choreographed to a patriotic soundtrack broadcast on a local radio station, so you never have to leave your car. (How Vegas!) Other resort fireworks shows include the Stratosphere, Mandalay Bay and the Linq. Each offers enhanced access and entertainment for a fee. But as the firefighters learned, anyone can look up and see the sparkles for free.

Questions? AskaNative@VegasSeven.com.

VETERINARY PHOTO COURTESY OF LV VSC; DOG WASH PHOTO BY JULIA SZYDELKO

Whatever happened to the big freworks show at Sam Boyd Stadium? And what should I do instead that night?

THE LATEST

The Customer Is Always Right. So, Who’s the Customer? A fresh study sheds light on the habits of the Vegas visitor

July 3–9, 2014

THE LAS VEGAS CONVENTION AND

VEGAS SEVEN

Visitors Authority does many things well; one of them is to keep tabs on who is coming to Las Vegas, why they’re coming and what they are doing while they’re here. That kind of knowledge is important, because the average Las Vegas visitor is changing. A comparison of the recently released 2013 Las Vegas Visitor Profle with the 2004 edition gives us a good sense of the city’s trajectory. The big question is, Why do people come to Las Vegas in the frst place? Naturally, there are many reasons, so GLS Research, which compiles the profle, asks subjects for the primary purpose of their most recent visit. Having heard so much about how the Strip is about “more than gambling” these days, the trend is surprising: 15 percent of respondents said they came here primarily to gamble—more than three times the 4 percent who said that in 2004. With all of the new non-gaming attractions, one would assume that those coming for general vacation fun are growing in number. But that’s not the case: In 2004, 63 percent came mostly to vacation, while only 41 percent did in 2013. Given the resort industry’s increasing investment in non-gaming amenities, that may seem like a disturbing number. Is the Strip heading in the wrong direction? Should the city focus more on gambling? That’s where it pays to look at what visitors actually did once they got here. Over the past decade, no matter what visitors said they

intended to do, fewer of them wound up gambling: In 2004, 87 percent of adult visitors gambled at least a little. In 2013, only 71 percent did. Those who are gambling, however, are starting to spend more over the course of a trip after tightening their budgets during the Great Recession. The average spent on gambling crested at $652 in 2006 but fell below $450 in 2011. In 2013, it bounced back to $530. Gambling is becoming, it seems, a niche activity in the tourist corridor, with fewer casual gamblers and a core group of serious players. So it makes perfect sense to build attractions that appeal to nongamblers. That accounts for what I’ve called the “festivalization of Las Vegas” (see VegasSeven.com/ Festivalization). In 2004, 2 percent of visitors came for a special event; in 2013, the number more than quadrupled to 9 percent. The continued success of the Electric Daisy Carnival, Downtown’s embrace of Life Is Beautiful and MGM’s rolling the dice on Rock in Rio on the north Strip are all signs of the trend. Meanwhile, casinos continue to confrm that the path to visitors’ wallets goes through their palates. The average visitor in 2004 spent

$238 on food and drink; last year, that number increased to $279. That doesn’t seem like such a big deal—what’s $40 spread out over a whole trip?—but when you multiply that by 40 million visitors, you get an additional $1.6 billion or so spent eating and drinking. And yes, visitors to Las Vegas really are getting younger. In 2004, 29 percent of those surveyed were under 40. In 2013, 42 percent were—the result of steady gains over the course of the decade. We can expect to see casinos experiment with attracting millennials: New projects and redesigns will look more like the Cosmopolitan, the Cromwell and the Linq. One pending project speaks to another major trend: Despite the proliferation of casinos around the world, the percentage of international visitors continues to rise—up from 13 percent in 2004 to 20 percent in 2013. So despite the seemingly excessive number of rooms on the Strip, Genting’s planned Resorts World—geared toward international visitors, particularly those from Asia—makes perfect sense. These numbers show how the motivations and behaviors of Las Vegas visitors have changed over the past decade; they also spotlight the ways local operators have responded to that change. As our visitors’ tastes evolve, we can expect further transformation of our city. After all, this is hospitality—and the customer, as they say, is always right. David G. Schwartz is the director of UNLV’s Center for Gaming Research.

If you follow the news, you know that new casinos have been opening and more are on the way. You also know that Las Vegas is on pace to break its all-time visitation record this year. Everything seems to be getting back to normal, except that room rates remain at low levels. Actually, not just low, but amazingly low. Aside from the December holiday period, July is the best month of the year for room bargains, as the casinos compete for tourists who aren’t already committed to family vacations elsewhere. Hence, the Las Vegas Advisor always does a big July canvassing to see just how low the rates can go. This year’s audit of 94 hotel-casinos turned up 52 properties offering rates of $50 or less. Of those 52, 40 had rates of $40 or less, 28 had rates of $30 and under, and eight—Golden Gate, Palace Station, Circus Circus, the Quad, Fiesta Rancho, Texas Station, Riviera and El Cortez—were below $20, which is double last year’s total in that category. Pretty amazing results, but it gets better. While you’d expect that the good deals would all be at Downtown and locals digs, that’s not the case: Several good rates were found on or near the Strip, including $18 at the Quad and Circus Circus; $19 at Riviera; $22 at Hooters; $23 at Wild Wild West; $25 at LVH, Excalibur, and Flamingo; $26 at Harrah’s; $27 at Stratosphere; $29 at Luxor; $37 at Monte Carlo; $44 at New York-New York; and $46 at Planet Hollywood. Want more? Check out the higher-end properties: Palms $50, Tropicana $50, Hard Rock $51, The Mirage $60, Palms Place $62, Mandalay Bay $64, Vdara $79, Caesars Palace $82, MGM Grand Signature $84, Aria $95, THEhotel $96, Cosmopolitan $101 and even the ultra-posh Nobu at $149. As good as these low rates are, there are even better deals to be had when you consider some of the bundled offers that include resort credits and other add-ons. Bally’s had a $29 base rate with $20 in daily (as in, yes, you get them every day of your stay) food and drink credits. Apply the credits and that’s a $9 base rate! Rio had $34 with $20 in credits and Paris had $50 with $25. Remarkable! Keep in mind that these examples are the absolute lowest rates found, even if they were available for a single day in July, so you may not be able to duplicate the numbers exactly. Also, the rates don’t include resort fees where applicable (which is most places), so the bottom line for most is higher than listed. As an example, the best base rate of all that we found was $9 at Golden Gate, which turned into $33 after the tax, resort fee, and tax on the resort fee, but that’s still mighty low. I mean, try finding that at a Motel 6 in Victorville. Anthony Curtis is the publisher of the Las Vegas Advisor and LasVegasAdvisor.com, a monthly newsletter and website dedicated to finding the best deals in town.

ILLUSTRATION BY CIERRA PEDRO

HOW LOW CAN THEY GO?

THE LATEST

@BleedRebelRed ...so today Khem Birch went undrafted while UNLV receiver Jerry Rice Jr. signed an NFL contract. ... That’s not what I predicted this morning.

@NekoCase America, stop pretending you have even given 2 shits about soccer.

@TonyDasco They should shut down E. Fremont St. and put up large TV screens so locals can gather, like other large cities, to watch U.S. World Cup games.

@BillBurr

VEGAS SEVEN

OUR CITY’S STATUS as a judgment-free DMZ for those desperate to reinvent themselves is well documented. This, unfortunately, has led to a curious side effect: our extraordinary tolerance for people in costume. Or have you never tried to dodge a sad-bored Peter Criss on Fremont Street? (To be fair, that could be the actual Peter Criss.) Even our onceproudly debauched Halloween has burst at the seams, to the point where we’ve seen costumed tourists wandering the Strip in the summer heat, with nary a bag of candy corn available at the nearest Walgreens. Sanctioned by the calendar or the confnes of an Imperial Palace blackjack pit or not, the time to create a new temporary identity is, always, now. Shaquille O’Neal was never any stranger to the idea of reinvention. He had done four albums and three movies just six seasons into his NBA career, including all-time cinematic achievements Kazaam and Steel. “Shaquille O’Neal: Basketball dude and only basketball dude” was never exactly on the agenda. But he found a new gear on June 27 when he did his frst public DJ set at Chateau. O’Neal went on around 1 a.m. and played for about half an hour. Which doesn’t seem like enough time to spin all of Shaq Diesel, but whatever. He did say

he’d love to do a Vegas residency in the future, which should immediately drive down Tiësto’s nightly booking rate, now that he has some legit competition. Phish made an annual tradition of playing an entire album by another artist on Halloween. In 1998, they were here and did the Velvet Underground’s Loaded, for instance. They call it a “musical costume,” because that sounds better than “We forgot the 26-minute breakdown we normally do during ‘A Picture of Nectar.’” Rumor has it that Vermont’s fourth most recognizable export (after maple syrup, Ben & Jerry’s and a wary distrust of New Hampshire) will land at the MGM Grand Garden Arena for three days during Halloween. Just in time: As frontman Trey Anastasio noted of the traditional Halloween show, “The last couple of years, it started to feel like a trap we had built.” Penn & Teller got to try on the veneer of propriety June 23 when

Prince Charles invited them to perform at Windsor Castle for the 40th anniversary of Chuck’s membership in the British abracadabra organization the Magic Circle. Even Justin Bieber got to pretend he wasn’t someone terrible. Three of Floyd Mayweather’s kids were involved in a car crash June 29 while Mayweather was on the red carpet for the BET Awards in Los Angeles. So, according to reports, Bieber picked the kids up from the scene of the accident and brought them to Mayweather at the Nokia Theatre. But the best costume of all came courtesy of WoodRocket.com, a Vegas-based website that specializes in what can only be described as “porn-comedy.” It’s masterminded by Lee Roy Myers, the director behind The Honeymoaners, A Wet Dream on Elm Street, The Human Sexipede and, of course, Game of Bones. WoodRocket paid tribute to Las Vegas’ most prone-to-hangout-backstage-with-Guns N’ Roses resident, Nic Cage, by dressing up a pair of models, Tabitha Stevens and Vuko, in multiple Cage costumes (including those from Raising Arizona and Peggy Sue Got Married), and then posting pictures of them getting down to their national treasures. (You know: with their clothes/off.) Can Kick-BareAss be far behind?

@JennyJohnsonHi5 To be fair, being a Hobby Lobby employee is its own form of birth control.

@eclasper Airport shuttle driver (with a look of alarm) : “There are going to be HOW MANY librarians here this weekend??? “#alaac14

@DougStanhope Shot of shirtless Greek fans with their arms raised was almost a scratch-n-sniff of a bathhouse in hell.

@steveagee A sequel to Michael Keaton’s My Life where his son can’t watch those tapes because they only have a DVD player :(

@darrenrovell UNLV to pay Hillary Clinton $225K for a speech. Basketball coach Dave Rice makes $700K for season.

@RiskOne Welp, Shaq’s debut DJ set in Vegas looks JUST as awkward as I imagined …

@ChrisRock John Legend is kind of like Lionel Richie without the Jerry Curl.

Share your Tweet! Add #V7.

ILLUSTRATION BY CIERRA PEDRO

July 3–9, 2014

All Dressed Up

I’ve been informed that the U.S. plays Belgium on Tuesday not Saturday. This new development will not effect my schedule. #FlopFest2014

THE LATEST

NATIONAL

VEGAS SEVEN

Stay the hell away from my allergies By Jordyn Taylor, The New York Observer

IN MY EXPERIENCE, PEOPLE who can’t eat gluten stick together. One evening in my senior year of college, I bonded with a girl at a party after

we proclaimed ourselves gluten-free. ¶ However, sometime deep in the night, I watched her arm swing drunkenly through the air and plunge into a bowl of pretzels. I lunged across the table and grabbed her, rescuing her from a night of intestinal agony, or worse. ¶ I get angry when I remember what happened next: the girl shoving a pretzel in her mouth, giggling, “I’m not gluten-free when I’m drunk!”

ILLUSTRATION BY JON ESTRADA

July 3–9, 2014

Fear and Resentment Among the Gluten-Free

***** You would think the world’s evergrowing gluten-free community would be able to come together in joint pursuit of edible baked goods that don’t taste like sawdust. But that’s not the case. Erin Smith was diagnosed with celiac disease in the 1980s, when she was 2. She runs two blogs, Gluten-Free Fun and Gluten-Free Globetrotter, and is the lead organizer of the NYC Celiac Disease Meetup group. At a vendor fair last year, Smith met a baker who was marketing glutenfree cupcakes made with oat four. Insisting they were celiac-friendly, the baker tried to get Smith to eat a cupcake, but Smith resisted because, unusually for celiac sufferers, she’s also intolerant to oats. When the baker found out, she refused to speak to her. “I fnd it interesting how people, especially those who already have a dietary restriction, openly judge others when they’re verbal about what they can and cannot eat,” Smith said.

***** But what about the french fries? Fries don’t have gluten, but serious gluten avoiders usually steer clear of them because of the potential for cross-contamination in the oil vats where breaded items might have been cooked. Smith went for the fries a few years ago at lunch with a fellow gluten-free friend. “You cheat, and you’re

body … like it’s an affront to the fact that they like bacon.” The same anti-vegan hatred reared its head when she went on dates. “I went out with one guy,” Lorenz said, “and when I got back from the bathroom he was trying to sneak cheese into the sandwich I ordered.” It’s not just bacon lovers who give her a hard time. As in Smith’s case, the worst judges can be fellow vegans, such as the branch that rejects even imitation animal products, or the vegan friend who visited Lorenz’s apartment and chastised her for drinking red wine that had been processed with a fsh bladder (or so she claimed.) “It’s like when you move into a nice community and think, I’ve fnally made it,” Lorenz said. “And now that I’m there, and I live in the shittiest apartment on the block. That’s how I

IF YOU’RE LUCKY ENOUGH TO BE ABLE TO EAT A MUFFIN AND NOT FIND YOURSELF IN GASTROINTESTINAL HELL, YOU SHOULD PROBABLY JUST EAT THE DAMNED MUFFIN. not really gluten-free!” the friend snapped. “She still brings this up,” Smith recalled, “like she’s more gluten-free than I am. I don’t know if it’s a jealousy thing, but it’s almost like ‘I’m better than you’ because I don’t eat french fries. I just talked to her the other day, and she brought it up again, and I was like, ‘Really? That was fve years ago. Let it go.’” Smith and I agreed that her friend had been irrational—it’s wrong to judge people for their food choices. People should eat whatever the hell they want to eat. Then we agreed how infuriating it is when people go gluten-free as a way to get the perfect bikini bod. ***** Taylor Lorenz is wary of telling people she’s vegan. There was a time when the Daily Mail’s head of social media and emerging platforms was more open about her dietary choices, listing them when she flled out an OkCupid profle, for example. “I literally didn’t get any messages for two weeks,” Lorenz said. “I got normal weird creep-o messages from old men in the Bronx, and then people venting about how I am destroying my

feel as a vegan half the time.” Yet as much as New Yorkers argue over whose diet is the most restrictive, nobody, as far as Lorenz can tell, has actually transcended food—not the “raw vegans” who barely eat anything but plants, not even the juicecleanse advocates who never eat solid food. (“Then you’re just a juice head, and you’re crazy because you never eat solid food and you’re probably fucking up your intestines,” Lorenz pointed out.) There’s no “one highest way to eat,” as Lorenz put it. But New Yorkers love fghting their way to the top, whether or not the top actually exists. We’re in a perpetual state of vicious, hungry motion. “Until we’re all drinking Soylent, I don’t think New Yorkers will ever rest,” she said. ***** Can science explain dietary competitiveness? Are we hard-wired to judge each other for the imitation cheese or real pork belly we eat or do not eat? I spoke with Dr. Amanda Baten, founder of the Center for Integrative Practices, and a New York-based clinical psychologist who specializes in behavioral therapy, neuropsychol-

ogy and nutritional psychology. In her opinion, it isn’t the specifc wheatfree, dairy-free, solid food-free plans that make us freak out at each other. Rather, it’s that in a competitive city such as New York, we often end up with distorted beliefs making us feel unworthy, inadequate and ashamed of ourselves. Sometimes, that shame results in envy, a “healthy though negative response,” Baten explained in an email. “Envy allows us to check in with our goals and objectives, and problem solve to meet them,” she continued. But sometimes our reaction is jealousy, which we experience instead of envy “when we tell ourselves we cannot tolerate the healthy negative feelings … which leads us down an unproductive path and keeps us mired in shame. That actually confrms our beliefs of feeling inadequate and unworthy.” In other words, it’s when we’re mired in shame that we become hateful monsters who secretly stuff cheese in our dates’ sandwiches while they’re in the bathroom. “Our primitive response to shame is to either lash out at others, attack ourselves, or both,” Baten said. So every time we condemn a juicer, it’s because deep down we’re jealous of that person’s ability to maintain a restrictive diet. Our jealousy might even stem from something non-diet related, like work, fashion or wealth, but we’ll seize upon food because it’s an easy way to knock each other down. It all reminded me of something Lorenz had said to me a few days before. “You meet people that are just total health nuts, or on some juice cleanse, and you’re thinking, ‘God, I could never do that, because it would be so diffcult and challenging,’” she said. “But you’re not going to say that to them. You’re probably like, ‘That’s stupid and unhealthy. You’re an idiot. Cleanses are a joke.’” Or as Baten put it, “If someone is feeling pretty good about themselves, what do they care if someone’s a vegan or not?” ***** We’re all fghting a status war. But how many of the things we compete over have a fxed end? Too rich, too in shape, too successful–too good at riding the hamster wheel. On the fip side, the never-ending struggle is what makes New York, well, New York. Without any fxed goals, we’re conveniently positioned to be in perpetual motion, which perhaps means perpetual progress. If we didn’t tear each other apart, the city would become the shark that stops swimming and drowns. Maybe ripping on each other’s eating habits is actually the healthiest thing we can do.

July 3–9, 2014

I have a strong intolerance to gluten. I can usually handle a little cross-contamination with a drop of soy sauce, but eating a whole bread roll can send me on a gastrointestinal adventure, and also set me up with a really attractive skin rash. Yet I love gluten, so dearly that every once in a while I decide, “Screw it! I’m having the gnocchi!” And I spend two weeks looking like I’ve been attacked by killer bees. Some people discover they are unable to eat gluten as kids. Cruelly, my allergy did not kick in until college, giving me 18 blissful years to discover how much I love carbs. I still nurse memories of the hot, doughy bagels sprinkled with tiny salt crystals that my dad and I used to share at our local Jewish deli in Toronto, savory slices of pizza at the end of a night out with friends, and cakes and cookies that don’t taste like cardboard. So it makes me crazy when people without gluten allergies choose to eliminate such things from their diet. If you’re lucky enough to be able to eat a muffn and not fnd yourself in gastrointestinal hell, you should probably just eat the damned muffn. I often share these feelings with my “gluten-free” co-worker, who’s gluten-free except on pizza Tuesdays. I told her I was going to pitch a story on people like her, a rant where I voiced my pent-up frustration. But that wasn’t the story, she told me. “Why do you care what other people do to be healthy?” she asked. “Why do you hate them so much?” She was right. It enrages me when people follow diets I don’t, and I’m not exactly sure why.

The gluten-free community can in fact be viciously competitive: Everyone believes they’ve found the remedy and tries to prove the superiority of their digestive health routine. “People are sick for so long—it takes 11 years on average to get a diagnosis of celiac disease,” Smith said. “So I think people, when they fnally fnd a solution, want to preach it to everyone.”

27 VEGAS SEVEN

*****

The Dog Days

Our annual tribute to the trying times of Vegas midsummer brings you tales of heat, forbearance and muddling through PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANTHONY MAIR

ILLUSTRATIONS BY RICK QUEMADO

The Heat Is On! T A L E S O F T O L E R A N C E A N D ( M A L ) A D J U S T M E N T

LOOSHIE ON THE ROCKS By Sean DeFrank

Eddie V and the Cop Cruisers

July 3–9, 2014

By James P. Reza

VEGAS SEVEN

i am a desert native, and the heat, as you know it, doesn’t bother me. I love the sun and, yes, it does matter that it’s a dry heat. At about 50 degrees, I privately start to whine; at 40, I openly bitch. I didn’t even drive an air-conditioned car until I was 27; until then, I scooted around in a series of 1960s VW Bugs, handily equipped with wind wings (Google it) so I could effectively direct incoming air fow. Nothing cools like hot! Clumsily, that leads to the heat that has actually made me sweat: The Heat. I’ve been pulled over more times than I typically admit. Mostly many years ago. Certainly well outside the statute of limitations. And defnitely far enough in the past to not affect my insurance rates. On this, I want to be crystal clear. It’s mostly been for (ahem) “excessive speed,” mostly on deserted highways in the middle of nowhere (though not far enough from a Highway Patrol outpost), and occasionally near UNLV, where

I was almost always tardy for my frst class (apologies, Dr. Simich). I was such a serial violator back then that in one calendar year, I went to traffc school in every local jurisdiction—Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson and Clark County. I’m not particularly proud of that. I have also been “lit up” four times under what I consider to be unusual circumstances. All but one was during what I romantically refer to as my Eddie Vedder Era: torn and worn jeans, beard, hair down to the middle of my back. Once—not kidding—it was for driving the speed limit on Sahara Avenue, instead of slowing down when I saw a police cruiser. (That, apparently, is what most drivers do.) Another time, it seemed to be for driving an old Mercedes with a bike rack on top. Another, I was driving a lowered Bug with a sporty exhaust and a cracked windshield. I also once slowly passed a stopped car—on the right—and the tires of my VW Thing (again, Google it)

barely crunched the gravel beyond the pavement. Of these instances, that was the only time I was cited (“leaving the roadway while driving”), but each time I was presented with the same question: “Have you ever been arrested?” No, I would say. “Never?” Sigh. While I can’t say for certain that it mattered, I decided to cut my hair. And I like to think I’ve grown up. I’ve accepted that passing the “attitude test” is an important part of interacting with police offcers, because they deal with so much crap every day that they use it as a way to gauge what kind of person you are. That doesn’t mean I don’t get pulled over now and again. But The Heat and I now coexist to the point where I thanked the last offcer who pulled me over. I was polite; he was polite. I didn’t cop an attitude, and he didn’t have an attitude like a cop. I guess, with apologies to Eddie V, I’ll keep my hair short. The Heat may be on, but I don’t need it on me.

➜ The dog was first spotted on a hot day near the end of May, meandering along the majestic sandstone cliffs. She had been abandoned at the Calico 1 Trailhead, the first stop along the 13-mile Red Rock Canyon Scenic Drive. With the temperature reaching triple digits, it was essential to round up the dog as soon as possible. Animal Control was immediately called, which is the protocol, but had no luck spotting the stray. Hikers who happened to come upon the dog tried to lure her with food and water, but also without success. After nearly two weeks of futility, and with the dog getting thinner, Animal Control suggested leaving a trap out to catch her. She was losing weight fast, and officials didn’t think she would survive if she were tranquilized. Kirsten Cannon, a public affairs specialist with the Bureau of Land Management, says this was the first time a trap had been used at Red Rock to corral a stray animal. The trap was placed near the Calico 1 parking lot on June 5. Calls were placed to staff and Friends of Red Rock volunteers. Because of the heat, they were prepared to check the trap every hour. Within 30 minutes, the ploy proved successful. She was a black-and-brown, 2-year-old female Australian Cattle Dog mix. The volunteers named her Looshie. She had no tags, nor had she been reported missing. Looshie was taken to the Las Vegas Animal Foundation, where she was kept for 72 hours before becoming eligible for adoption. Looshie would have probably been euthanized on June 15 if no one had claimed or adopted her. But this story has a happy ending: On June 12, Erika Colon-Nieves adopted Looshie after hearing about her from friend Shauna Leahy, a former Red Rock volunteer who had received an email about the dog. Colon-Nieves changed Looshie’s name to Lucy and brought her home as a companion for her other Australian Cattle Dog, Bettie. Colon-Nieves reports that Lucy has quickly recovered from her ordeal at Red Rock, gaining more than five pounds since coming to her new home, which has a big backyard and doggy door for easy access, and even snuggling up with Colon-Nieves’ two cats after initially chasing them around the house. “When I got her, you could see all her ribs and her spine sticking out,” Colon-Nieves says. “But now she’s looking healthier. She’s been eating a lot. She’s doing great.” It seems Lucy has had enough of braving the elements. After getting heated up while running during a recent trip to a dog park, Lucy turned her attention toward a shady, muddy part of the park to cool off, and had to be hosed down before leaving. She wasn’t hard to catch this time.

By Lissa Townsend Rodgers

“i don’t want to be cold anymore.” That’s what I said when I moved to Las Vegas from New York City. Grad school was the ostensible reason, but it also had something to do with years of shivering, wearing two sweaters to bed, pacing with teeth chattering on concrete subway platforms, running 10 blocks in 20 degrees with icy blue 30-mile-an-hour winds. Sure, it was a tumble from the icebox straight into the

barbecue pit, but my willingness to do so should tell you how desperate I was … six months after the move, i’m in an apartment complex somewhere east of the Strip. Squat, sand-colored buildings huddled around a courtyard of straw-dry grass. Inside, dirt-colored carpet, walls the texture of melting ice cream and ceilings like curdled milk. Most of my summer classes are via In-

31 VEGAS SEVEN

Inertia

ternet; freelance writing also entails working at home—fortunate because, once again, the weather is my enemy. I’ve gone from a frozen moon of Pluto to a solar fare front-row seat on Mercury, and I suspect that if I went outside at noon, I would burst into fame like a Spinal Tap drummer. So I don’t leave. Hell, I barely move— the air conditioning does its best, but like me, its prime was during the grunge era, and neither of us could go full force for days without slowing down anymore. Minor tasks involve a level of planning and motivation more appropriate to scaling Mount Everest or arranging a 500-person wedding: First, I will get off this couch. I will walk across the room, put the book on the shelf, I will go into the kitchen and put the glass in the sink. Starting … Now! ... OK. First, I will get off this couch … But the lethargy extends beyond me

and my one-bedroom. In New York, my neighbors were an ever-changing cast, hustling past on stairways and sidewalks; now it’s a half-dozen folks who barely change positions. An old guy with a salt-and-pepper crewcut slouches on a sagging lawn chair, menthol perennially pinched between his fngers, occasionally calling out greetings in a gravelly voice while his daughter’s little white poodle yips counterpoint. A one-armed man scowls in his doorway, except when he emerges to stand over his grill. The college guys across the way slump on their futon, eyes bloodshot, game controllers in hand. The lady downstairs sits in shadow, telenovelas blaring behind the tangle of satin drapes and vertical blinds. She “babysits” about 10 kids, which means she keeps her door cracked open as her squadron of preteens tear through the neighborhood, climbing fences, throwing rocks and ceaselessly squabbling. What does rouse me from my torpor is the return of my … oh, let’s call him my roommate. (He has moved permanently to the couch, after all.) Fortunately our hours are different, but when we do interact, it’s proof that the most Siberian of emotional chill between two people will do nothing to affect the actual physical temperature of the room. Instead, we have “Hell is other people,” with temperature to underline the statement. We’re at the point where we have little damned use for each other (though, to be fair, we both are people who normally have little damned use for most human beings), the point at which you’re tired of the situation and tired of each other, but no one is ready to sever the last ties. So we practice avoidance: He’ll stomp out to go skateboarding for a few hours; I’ll sulk and slip out to the library or the pool; he’ll have an urgent, whispered conversation in the hallway and disappear until the next afternoon; I’ll do up my cat eyes and pop my tits into a strapless dress and stay out until 5 a.m. Regardless, someone has to leave; someone has to step out the door and into the blast furnace, into a place where the streets smell like fre and the stagnant air scorches strip-mall signs black. It’s not that late when I drift home, but the infernal sun has been down for a few hours. Even so, the 30 steps from the parking lot to the front door leave me with a shiny forehead and damp pits. He’s on the couch, watching Platoon, and I sink down next to him. Even at the happy outset, we were better at talking when it did not involve talking about each other. But he begins discoursing on how he’s Tom Berenger and I’m Willem Dafoe. He’s a realist, an asshole, but he’ll survive. I’m a better person than he is, but I’m going to get screwed because of it. I gaze at the screen. Dafoe is trapped in enemy territory, staggering through a wall of fame. Betrayed, stuck, burning. I separate my spine from the couch, the ice cubes rattle as I put down my glass of water and draw a long breath. “I think it’s time for you to move ...”

July 3–9, 2014

Dog Days 2014

The Heat Is On! T A L E S O F T O L E R A N C E A N D ( M A L ) A D J U S T M E N T

Words and Fire

July 3–9, 2014

By Geoff Carter

VEGAS SEVEN

i couldn’t find the mixtape, so i had to re-create it from memory. Who knows if I got the order right, or even accounted for all the songs? I’d remembered Texas’ “Tell Me Why,” Shona Laing’s “South” and Chick Corea’s version of “The Great Pumpkin Waltz,” but … I dunno. There might have been some Smiths on the mixtape, too, but I couldn’t remember which exact songs I’d used. I once used Smiths songs on mixtapes as a type of punctuation; they commuted sentences, closed open-ended discussions. The revised mixtape, burned antiseptically to a CD, was playing in the car as we drove up the mountain to the cabin. My friend J nodded her head along with The The’s “The Beat(en) Generation” and smacked a pack of American Spirits against her palm in time with Hunters & Collectors’ “Back on the Breadline,” but didn’t ask me about the mixtape. In fact, she only spoke once, about halfway through the drive from McNeil Estates to Mont Blanc Way: “This thing you’re doing, Geoffrey,” she said. “It’s fucking dumb.” “Enjoy the music,” I said. The mixtape was important to me because it was the frst one I’d made after moving to Las Vegas a dozen years earlier. Since arriving from Southern California, I’d relied on Sunday afternoon drives to Mount Charleston to maintain my sanity; my then-girlfriend and I needed to see green things, blue things. We could no longer drive to the ocean within an hour, so the mountain had to fll in. And it was only natural that I’d make a soundtrack for the drive, just as I’d made dozens for the Pacifc Coast Highway. The mix felt more celebratory in tone than I’d remembered. I didn’t remember being particularly happy about coming to Las Vegas in 1989. But now, in July 2001, even the most melancholy songs—like Terence Trent D’Arby’s cover of “(What a) Wonderful World”—all seemed lit from within. And as we parked in front of the cabin, I fgured out why: Because at that exact moment, I was happy. I fshed the journals out of the back seat while J gathered up the Trader Joe’s bags. It was a crisp, cool 65 degrees on the mountain, and as we climbed the steps to the porch we wordlessly devoured the air, pulling it deep into our lungs and holding it there until it started to bite back. I surveyed the tree line while J unlocked the door, then I grabbed a couple of logs from the woodpile. “I wish you wouldn’t do this,” said J. “The worst damn thing a writer can do is destroy their work. Even if they don’t like it anymore.” “You’re right,” I said. “But I wasn’t a writer when I wrote these.”

I arranged the logs in the freplace and lit some newspaper under them while J decanted two huge cups of chai tea and poured a bag of trail mix into a pale green ceramic bowl. She threw my mix CDs on the carousel, along with a few others: Charles Mingus’ Pithecanthropus Erectus, Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, Moby’s Play. I got the fre lit just as she stuck a cigarette in her mouth and lit it up. “So, what’s in there that’s so awful that you can’t live with it?” she asked. I looked at the notebooks in my hands. These were my journals, four of them in total: three that I’d written at the age of 14, and one that I’d written when I was 26. The earlier scribblings were on yellow legal pads; the later ones were in a spiralbound notebook. “These three legal pads are from 1981,” I said. “That was just after my parents got back together, and I still resented my dad

“WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO RE-CREATE SOMETHING LIKE THAT? WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO LISTEN TO IT?” for having left. I was also still in the Jehovah’s Witnesses, so going to school was pretty much wall-to-wall angst. “And this one,” I said, holding up the spiral-bound, “I wrote while my girlfriend, who I’d lived with for nearly six years, was cheating on me. This was late 1993. I knew what was going on, and I was lying to myself to make myself feel better. Goes up to the night she didn’t come home.” J spoke, the cigarette dangling from her lip as if glued. “All the more reason to keep them.” “No,” I said. “Why? I remember these things well enough. Those wounds have closed up. Reading this old shit—it’s like phantom limb pain. I don’t need it.” “A writer needs to relive those old pains sometimes. They inspire honesty.” “The world is all too happy to hand out new ones,” I said. “Yeah … and no,” she said. “This is kind of like cheating. Maybe not for anyone else, but for a writer, this is cheating. You put those things down there. You have stewardship over them.

You shouldn’t destroy them.” “This isn’t destruction. It’s editing. I’m editing my life story. All the stuff from these books that I need to remember, I’ll remember. The rest can burn.” J shook her head sadly, but said nothing more. We sipped our tea and watched the fre grow, and when it was well and truly kindled—when the logs were crackling loudly and pools of pine sap were welling up on them—I threw my journals on the fames. “You’re gonna regret this,” J said. “Let’s go out to the porch.” We sat for a long time, leaning back in our chairs, our feet propped up on the railing. The smell of the fre mixed intoxicatingly with the smell of the ponderosa pine, and it made us hungry; we devoured the trail mix within a matter of minutes. We just sat, and J smoked a few more cigarettes, and the sun went down. “Y’know, about that mixtape,” I said. “Yeah?” “I made it after my girlfriend and I had a huge fght,” I said. “I wanted to give us something nice to listen to as we took our weekly drive up here. I wanted her to feel like she did back in California. Like we could be happy here together.” “Did she like it?” “I can’t remember if she did or not. All I remember is the fght. I wasn’t keeping a journal that year.” “What … why would you want to recreate something like that? Why would you want to listen to it?” “Because I still like the songs,” I said. “I want to take them back. An afternoon with a friend seemed the best way to do that.” J looked at me uncomprehendingly. “It’s more editing, changing the story,” I said. “I took something out of a passage I wasn’t enjoying, and dropped it into one that I am.” Her face softened, and she let out a resigned breath. She stood up and walked inside. I heard her throw another log on the fre, pop open a bottle of wine, mess with the CD player. She came out with two glasses of merlot and handed me one just as my mix came on: Stan Ridgway, “Lonely Town.” “You gotta promise me,” she said, voice level, “that you’ll never burn up a piece of your writing again. You keep it, even if it can hurt you later. If you don’t wanna live with it, don’t look at it.” I nodded. “It’s a deal.” She sat back down. “Time’s gonna come when you’re going to want to remember things as they were, not as you wish they were. Tell you what: We’ll start now. I’ll make it real easy.” She held out her glass for a toast. I clinked mine against it. “Chapter One,” she said. “Two friends at a mountain cabin.”

➜ There are no jazz standards about September in Paris. And when—after dragging two giant suitcases through Charles de Gaulle airport—I finally stepped outside to breathe that rarefied French air and wait for a bus to take me to my new home in Northern France, I discovered why. It was cold. When I’d packed for the year sojourn, in the late-summer swelter of Arlington, Texas, I’d intellectualized the idea of cold. But I had not understood it. Now, however, it was tangible, seeping in through the air and through that bench, like foreign armies attacking on all fronts. The wind smelled like diesel fumes, and it carried no sound except for car honks, engine rumbles and brake squeaks. Where was my zany-yet-ultimately-hopeful accordion soundtrack? So far, this was nothing at all like that Meg Ryan film where she travels to Paris and finds her soul mate, a lovable French rogue played by the American actor Kevin Kline. Part of the problem, as I’d soon discover, was that I had the wrong clothes. Everybody in my adopted city of Amiens (an hour north of Paris, by train) wore this anklelength, downy thing that had a hood and also acted like a raincoat. Before France, I never knew this garment existed, and wouldn’t have been able to picture it had somebody described it. But life warmed up considerably once I’d bought my own. Also, scarves. Growing up in the loamy heat of Texas, I’d always assumed that scarves were perpetually out of style, consigned to the same historical Goodwill bin as bustles and petticoats. Yep, I was wrong. In this place, everybody wore their scarves a certain way, and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how they tied them. It was like there was a scarf-tying club, and I was “knot” a member. I was in the club of damp losers whose scarves bellowed and swung in the cold rain, letting the air in and getting everything wet. There were no French people in my bad-scarf-wearing club. The cold in Northern France wasn’t a German fairy tale of snow. This was a soggy, rainy cold, with the weather “warmed” by the Atlantic. Just as there is never rain in Las

the power to burn clouds away. On some days, I wasn’t certain the sun had come out at all. The cold, the rain, the darkness, the perplexing scarves and bulky coats—all of this I bore with the youthful good spirits of an intrepid foreign exchange student who insists she’s not a tourist but a traveler. Until the désespoir hit. Perhaps it was homesickness or vitamin B deficiency. Or the fact that I had not seen any French season other than winter. Or that April in Paris had come and gone, and still it was cold. But there was a point when I stopped believing in summer. Or that the clouds would ever break. And then it snowed … in May. I

parks under green trees and blue skies. There was probably an accordion playing nearby. And the sun, as if making up for lost time, was always around. It would arrive at something like 4 a.m. and shine until long after the town shut down and its citoyens went to sleep, turning the city into a cheery post-apocalypse, abandoned in broad daylight. That season, my newfound French friends invited me to the beach, where our winter-pale skin burned on contact. It turned out that there was a sandy seashore only an hour away. It had been there all along, waiting for me, just as winter waited on the other end of this brief, bright respite.

July 3–9, 2014

By Cindi Moon Reed

thought of my family back home, who were probably all wearing shorts and having watermelon seed spitting contests. And I felt left behind, trapped in a land of eternal darkness. Just as I now live in the land of eternal sunshine. One day, when I had given up on the possibility of a French spring, spring and summer came all at once, hot and sticky. There was no air conditioning, only open windows, and every man, woman and child went outside for an impromptu national holiday. Church bells rang and brides did wedding shoots in city

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THE ABSENCE OF HEAT

Vegas, there was never not rain in Amiens. Eventually, I considered drizzling to be as good as dry. Even the sun was complicit in my shiver. In all the other places I’ve lived—Texas, Arizona, Las Vegas—the sun is an angry, powerful god who slings down skin cancer and liver spots and turns car surfaces molten. But France only had our sun’s shy, cloud-castrated younger cousin. That dying star didn’t dare make the full circle across the sky, just a pathetic little arch on the horizon that arrived late and left early, and never even had

July 3–9, 2014

Dog Days 2014

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SUMMER FICTION

My Dog’s Identity Crisis By Greg Blake Miller

sometime in the hazy midsection of the sunbaked summer between fourth and ffth grades, a dozen or so boys and girls from my class took it upon themselves to profoundly alter their lifestyles. I did not know what had led to this decision; I only knew that the boys who had been best at burping and the girls who had been best at braiding were suddenly, come autumn, pairing off behind the backstop for after-school sessions of experimental and notentirely-chaste kissing. This being the 1970s, none of the authority fgures at Gardner Bumbry Elementary School seemed interested in dispersing these gatherings, which presumably were part of normal child development, though not part of my normal child development. ¶ I had, at the time, a very tall friend named Dino. Dino and I liked playing basketball and telling jokes. Our jokes were of a gentle genre, one no longer rewarded by the new social

til I got the unthought properly accomplished and an appropriate new thought appropriately thought. our brindle boxer, brassy, was a year older than me. I have seen pictures of her guarding my cradle. When I think about her, my feelings are strangely similar to my feelings about my mother. Since my eighth birthday, it had been my job to give Brassy food and water. Each morning I gave her two cans of Alpo and flled her water bowl from our chewed and battered backyard hose. It was a simple enough job for a while, but soon I got poor Brassy all tied up in my anxieties. By the time I was 10, this was a very real and time-consuming problem. If, for instance, I thought an envious thought about Danny C. while flling Brassy’s bowl, I’d have to pour the water on the lawn and start over. The problem here was not that I would suffer Danny C.’s destiny, but that Brassy would. She’d drink that water and she’d still look like a dog afterward, but deep down she’d have turned into Danny C. And I really couldn’t live with it if my dog,

I really couldn’t live with it if my dog, who was like a mother to me, turned into Danny C. most often results in a sore throat.) On bad days, getting from place to place took a long time, starting from the early morning, when I would clean and unclean body parts, eat and uneat Wheaties, brush and unbrush teeth, wear and unwear underpants. Getting my socks on was a particular problem. So many toes, and the envious thought could accompany the moment the sock passed over any of them. My walk to the bus stop was a strange footrace of covertly retraced steps, halting strides and little backward head thrusts to put my nose behind the branch above as I refected that, No, I do not need Danny C.’s nonchalance. Not one bit. I became skilled at making these movements almost invisible to the eyes of others. They were very quick, or performed when no one was looking, or so tiny that they hardly passed as a twitch. I also learned to foresee envious thoughts and to pause, motionless, while either pre-empting them or allowing them to pass before I took another step. I suppose, though, that I could be spied from time to time walking back and forth across a crack in the neighborhood’s old asphalt un-

who was like a mother to me, turned into Danny C. Think about it: How would she be able to tell me what had happened? How would I even know, except to have a sickening sense in my stomach that I had traded away her beloved existence? The terrible thing about turning into someone else, or having your pet turn into someone else, is how do you know that it happened? For all I know, I may be living Danny C.’s life right now. The stakes were high in the dogbowl game. If I lost my destiny, well, I brought it on myself. But if poor Brassy lost hers, I’m a criminal! What right did I have to trade away another being’s destiny? What can a destiny-trader do but despise himself for all eternity? And, while I’d feel sorry for Brassy, I’d also feel sorry for me, because who wants their dog to be Danny C? One particular winter morning, a morning that sticks in my mind more than all the others, I had dumped one bowl of water and was carefully reflling when the thought of Danny C. and his dozen girls came to mind. I poured the water out and tried again, but the thought kept springing up like a stiff hair. Soon there was a small pond on the lawn. I had to keep trying until I’d

thought just the right thought, one from which Danny C. had been cleanly excised. It had to be a thankful thought, about me being me and my brindle boxer being my brindle boxer and us being extremely grateful to God and Mom and Dad and my big brother, Simon, for the blessing of being who we were. On my ffth try, the hose touched the rim of Brassy’s chunky blue bowl just as I had a mindfash of a smirking Danny C. Now I was really in trouble. I would have to touch the hose to the exact same spot on the rim of the bowl while the bowl was the exact same percentage full as it had been at the moment of the envious thought. My mother looked out the back door and saw me tap-tap-tapping the hose on the bowl while tip-tip-tipping the bowl to spill minute amounts over the side and swallowing and unswallowing and blinking and unblinking (don’t ask) with poor Brassy circling me wildly waiting for a drink. “What are you doing?” I looked up and shrugged. Mom shook her head and closed the door but kept looking out the window. I had to get it right on my next try. Be gone, Danny C! But Danny C. wouldn’t be gone. I kept tapping the bowl and tipping the bowl, but I tapped a little to the left of where I should have tapped and I tipped out a little more water than I should have tipped. I finally tapped and tipped just right, but as I was putting the bowl down I saw Danny C., arms bent and eyes narrow, grinning. I poured some more water out. The puddle was spreading around me and Brassy’s paws were getting cold in it and my shoes were soaked, and I thought, I bet Danny C. doesn’t have to deal with this. My mother was looking out at me and down at me, her brow a little wrinkled and her mouth a little open, wondering what had become of her son, as if she hadn’t been watching all these years. I vowed to try one more—one last— time, and I took a deep breath and I tapped the hose to the rim of the bowl while imagining myself and Brassy running joyfully through a vast forest where a glorious morning sun shone through lime-green leaves and cast speckled shadows on the twiggy tan ground. Danny C. dropped down from a branch, agile, fushed and smiling, and said, Don’t you wish you could climb like me? And I said, But I can! And with that, I thought I had him beaten, but he wouldn’t disappear, and said only, Whatever. At that point I knew I’d never have him beaten. You cannot beat someone who, when beaten, says, Whatever. I turned and threw Brassy’s blue bowl at our cinderblock wall. It struck with a great thud but did not crack. Brassy ran toward it, barking wildly. My mother walked out once more and said, What the hell are you doing? How could I possibly tell her? Excerpted from the forthcoming novel This Game We Play.

July 3–9, 2014

my boyhood was mostly a private affair, concerned with such matters as whether, if I envied someone, would God, with a shrug (Fine, if that’s the way you want it), erase my own destiny and assign me the destiny of the fellow I’d envied. This possibility disturbed me to no end. Though I lamented my today, I was quite sure that my tomorrow was something wondrous. And here I’d gone and forfeited it by refecting on, say, loverboy Danny C.’s nonchalance with the girls, and wishing for an instant that it was mine. To envy was an act of inexcusable ungrateful-

ness, nothing less than telling God the life He’s given you just isn’t good enough. You can’t expect to say that to God and go unpunished. I decided that God, being a witty fellow, would punish me by giving me exactly what I asked for, but writ large: You want to be like Danny C? Here, BE Danny C. In this game of destiny poker, I’d have an envious thought while performing some action such as, say, walking through a doorway, and the only way I could regain my own destiny was to back through the door while unthinking the thought, then pass through again with less perfdious thoughts. Sometimes, instead of a step through a door, the reversible action would be a spoken word, which was to be undone by a series of rapid swallows, as if retracting the utterance letter by letter. (This had nothing to do with the meaning of the word itself; it mattered only that the word—any word—had been spoken as I thought an envious thought.) The reversible action could also be a blink or a breath or a swallow itself. (Try to undo a swallow. It is neither easy nor pleasant, and

35 VEGAS SEVEN

paradigm: What’s a slumber party for wood? A LUMBER party! Dino and I did not play with girls behind the backstop. We were aghast as a pair of Salem Puritans. I really did say the words, “I don’t need to grow up that fast,” and Dino really did agree with me. Partly, though, I think we were a little disturbed that we didn’t want to join the behind-the-backstop brigade. Nevertheless, Dino and I decided to fght those rogue elements of change that did appear in our personalities. When we, almost overnight, began to swear like sailors, we decided it had to be stopped, and made a pact that each time one of us cursed, the other would give him a “frog” in the arm—that is, a punch with the middle knuckle protruding. Frogs hurt. For a little while our arms were always black and blue. Then we stopped swearing. The new lovers, meanwhile, ruled the school. The boys walked with strange struts, their arms bent halfway as if they were too musclebound to hang at their sides. They always wore narrow-eyed looks as if they’d just kicked someone’s ass when all they’d done was touch tongues with some exuberantly confused girl. We had not trained for the game they were playing; we had no concept of the fundamentals. All we could do was stay on the basketball court, as far away from the backstop and its mysteries as possible. One day, six crooked-armed loverboys led by the smooth and recklessly self-assured Danny C. asked us if we wanted to play four-on-four. “We’ll play you two-on-six,” said Dino, who was less smooth but equally self-assured. Dino and I beat Danny C.’s boys, 66-14, game called on account of darkness. The next day we came to school expecting that we had vanquished the odd new world and returned childhood to children everywhere. We had not. That year, I became a sort of tourist in the world of 10-year-olds, the kind of tourist who steps from the plane, scouts the scene, and shrugs. I didn’t even bother to speak pidgin-kid. I was becoming a big boy, but I didn’t much dirty my hands in the world of big boys. I passed through it, hit the books, shot my jump shots, ran solitary suicide sprints, fought for position under the boards at recess, threw a few elbows in anger, tried to be wise like an old man and innocent like a little boy. I thought I was upholding family standards, but I suppose I did it for myself.

NIGHTLIFE Your city after dark, photos from the week’s hottest parties and a she-jay who can actually DJ—no really!

Breaking Down the Booth Taking a spin at Blend, the Valley’s frst DJ institute

DJ Presto One.

July 3–9, 2014

AMID FOG-MACHINE SMOKE and the glow of LEDs, there’s an undeniable mystique that emanates from a DJ booth.In recent years, the rising clout of DJs and producers has sparked mainstream curiosity and parody (such as The Lonely Island’s comic music video “When Will the Bass Drop?”), along with national attention to their popularity in our own city (see the New Yorker’s 2013 examination of XS, “Night Club Royale”). For most outsiders, however, what really goes on around the turntables remains a mystery. A local DJ school wants to change that. Opened on May 31, Blend DJ Institute is the city’s only brick-and-mortar business solely dedicated to hands-on DJ and production instruction. Courses are offered one-onone in tiers according to skill level, with topics ranging from beat-matching basics to advanced turntablism, as well as production software such as Ableton and FL Studio. At the helm of it all is Presto One, a veteran local DJ and current resident at the Palms and Chateau’s 33 Group. Now a nightclub fxture, he began his career under the radar 20 years ago by piecing together his education from multiple people, initially spinning only as a hobby. Presto, who prefers his stage name, maintains, “You should surprise people when they fnd out you DJ.” And surprise is usually the reaction I receive whenever someone fnds out that I, a reserved writer by day and most nights, moonlight as a DJ. Five years ago, I learned fundamental mixing and scratching through a peer-taught college course. Shortly after, I purchased equipment secondhand and have since spun at a handful of house parties and family functions. Although you won’t be seeing DJ Cami Can (that’s me) anywhere close to a Strip-side marquee, I fgured it couldn’t hurt to further my education, so I recently stopped

37 VEGAS SEVEN

PHOTO BY CIERRA PEDRO

By Camille Cannon

NIGHTLIFE

Clockwise from top left: the “Come-Up Corner,” Presto One and DJ Cami Can, and the vinyl wall.

VEGAS SEVEN

by Blend for a lesson. Located in a strip mall near Tropicana Avenue and Fort Apache Road, the Blend space is comprised of a small retail boutique, production studio and DJ/turntablism classroom, equipped with vinyl turntables and controllers of various makes and models, “so that students can familiarize themselves with different gear,” Presto One says, recalling how an early gig went wrong when he arrived to a unfamiliar setup. “When I learned [to DJ], everything was so secretive,” he says. He’d thought about opening a school for years, and says it’s been about one year since Blend’s inception. To make it happen, he researched established schools—such as the New York-based Scratch DJ Academy—and assembled a team of fve fellow professionals to broaden the course offerings beyond his own expertise.

During my DJ 101 lesson, Presto Blend’s FL Studio instructor, also a One began by assessing my skills, former student and longtime friend as he does with all students. At frst, of Presto. “That’s not even him being I struggled on the Serato control ‘an instructor’; that’s him being records, but after he himself. Every time we led me through a few talk, I learn something.” beat-counting exercises, Both Cervantes and BLEND DJ my nerves shifted to Presto emphasize INSTITUTE excitement. I scribbled that, although it’s not 5165 S. Fort Apache notes as he demonstrated hard to find online Rd., Suite 175, proper technique and instruction nowadays, open 11 a.m.-7 p.m. shared his wisdom: in-person interaction Tue-Sun, “When you’re mixing,” he is irreplaceable. BlendVegas.com. said, “you want someone “YouTube’s not going not to know where you to tell you if you’re start one song and end doing something the other.” For my homework, he improperly,” Presto says. suggested I count bars the next time Additionally, by bringing interested I listen to music, so that I can better students together in a physical understand song structure, which will space, he hopes to cultivate “a improve my ability to mix smoothly. barbershop feel,” where members of “He won’t tell you to do something the community can feel comfortable without telling you why you’re doing connecting and collaborating with it,” says PJ “Produkt” Cervantes, one another.

“We want more producers and more DJs with a solid foundation,” Presto says. Payment plans are available for all courses, which run $499 for six one-hour sessions. In the retail boutique, you can peruse hard-to-fnd accessories and rare vinyl. (From a shelf of vintage records Presto calls the “Come-Up Corner,” I scored Shaquille O’Neal’s “What’s Up Doc?” for just $3.99.) Following my first lesson, I’m anxious to return, and I’m not alone. Sixteen-year-old Alejandra Matheu-Rios is enrolled in DJ 101 and Ableton courses, and after three sessions, she says the classes have “helped build [her] confidence.” One day, she says, “I would like to play a Vegas club.” In the nearer future, her mentor is helping her prepare a mixtape for her mom. Says Presto One: “I just want to be the big brother DJ I wish I had.”

PHOTOS BY CIERRA PEDRO

July 3–9, 2014

“YOUTUBE’S NOT GOING TO TELL YOU IF YOU’RE DOING SOMETHING IMPROPERLY.”

NIGHTLIFE

Camille Cannon

Wayne and Drake. Or you may just recognize his beard as one of the most robust in the biz. (In the Venetian, 10 p.m., TaoLasVegas.com.)

SUN 6 G-Unit’s DJ Whoo Kid returns to The Bank. If we’re lucky, he might drop previews from the freshly reunited rap crew’s forthcoming mixtape. If we’re not, we can at least delight in a recent radio interview Whoo Kid conducted with UNLV alum/star chef Guy Fieri. The bleached one gabs about jerk chicken, guest DJ sets and Food Network groupies. It’s as amazing as it sounds. (In Bellagio, 10:30 p.m., TheBankLasVegas.com.) Meanwhile at Hakkasan, Swedish duo Dada Life go bananas and New York’s The Chainsmokers encourage you to snap self-portraits with their viral earworm “#SELFIE.” (In MGM Grand, 10:30 p.m., HakkasanLV.com.)

MON 7

Ne-Yo.

July 3–9, 2014

THU 3

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Dance music is no longer NeYo’s main chick. After having success with his EDM-heavy R.E.D. album, the Las Vegas product says his upcoming release, Non Fiction, will be “99.999998 percent R&B.” Maybe he’ll sneak some of that favor into his appearance at Surrender. We wouldn’t mind being serenaded with his new single “Money Can’t Buy.” Not at all. (In Encore, 10:30 p.m., SurrenderNightclub.com.)

FRI 4 Ain’t no party like America’s birthday party! There is a wealth of options for going hard on our nation’s big day.

Get splashy with Afrojack at Wet Republic (at the MGM Grand, 11 a.m., WetRepublic.com) or mash-up duo DJs from Mars (they’re really from Italy) at the Palms Pool for Ditch Fridays (at the Palms, noon, Palms.com.) Bring it back to the Bay when Oaklandraised rapper Too $hort headlines Flashback Fridays at 1 Oak. Although, thinking of his 2006 hit “Blow the Whistle” as a throwback jam makes our joints hurt. (In The Mirage, 10 p.m., 1OakLasVegas. com.) For more hip-hop, pop over to Downtown’s LVCS for a set by DJ Drama. (425 Fremont St., 9 p.m., LVCountrySaloon.net.) Back on the Strip, Drai’s Beach Club & Nightclub (a killer locale for watching Strip freworks)

hosts Ummet Ozcan of Turkish/Dutch descent. (In the Cromwell, 10 p.m., DraisNightlife. com.) For more Fourth of July parties we couldn’t ft here, turn to Page 52 or visit VegasSeven.com/July4.

SAT 5 After yesterday’s blowout, you might need a spa day, or at least a Champagne facial. Nightlife photographer Kirill Was Here comes to the rescue at Tao Beach for another edition of LasRAGEous. (At the Venetian, 11 a.m., TaoBeach. com.) By night, DJ Khaled spins at Tao. You may know him for his Grammynominated track, “I’m On One” with Rick Ross, Lil

Looking for your missing puzzle pieces? You might just fnd ’em at the Stop Light Singles Mixer: Rubix Cube edition in the Foundation Room. You’ll pile on six strands of different colored beads, then swap with other singles until you have only one hue around your neck. (In Mandalay Bay, 8 p.m., MandalayBay.com.)

DJ Khaled.

Too $hort.

TUE 8 If you didn't go to Bloq Party at the Linq last month, fear not. While it was originally announced to run through June, the Tuesday bash continues this month. This means you still can dance at the silent disco at 9 p.m. (now held atop the fountain), score restaurant and retail deals, and ride the High Roller for half-price with Nevada ID. (6 p.m., Caesars.com/ TheLinq.)

WED 9 Check out Las Vegas local Jeremy Cornwell at Lavo. He does his own beat boxing, vocals and guitar to create fresh covers of pop favorites. Sneak a peek at Facebook. com/JeremyCornwellProject before you go. (In the Palazzo, 9 p.m., LavoLV.com.) Or, swing by Light to catch Dutchman Sandro Silva. (In Mandalay Bay, 10 p.m., TheLightVegas.com.)

NIGHTLIFE

Yes, She Can DJ Mika Gold is more than just a pretty face By Deanna Rilling PARIS HILTON. CRYSTAL HEFNER. That one chick who was in Playboy (not even the American version, by the way). It increasingly seems like a lot of women with a good airbrush artist and an inkling of marketing potential now think it’s time to be a “DJ” (we use the term loosely). So what about those she-jays who can actually spin? They’re still out there gigging with their mad skills, even if you don’t see them on a glossy ad. Take Mika Gold, for example. She’s been a Las Vegas staple for seven years and has also toured overseas. And then there’s her unique journey, which took her from the circus—yes, really—to the DJ booth. What was your path from B-girl to DJ? I used to be really into break dancing, circus [acts] and performance. I had DJ boyfriends when I was 12 or 13 years old. I’ve always been into music; my mom was a professional dancer, my grandma was a musician. It was just really a fun hobby for me for a long time, and then when I moved to Vegas, there were so few female DJs. I was working with a promotion company doing modeling, and they asked, “Do you have any other talents?” I said, “I can DJ.” Within a week, I was working fve nights a week. Was there a deep DJ culture in your hometown? I’m from Merritt Island; it’s the sticks in Florida. There are literally alligators in retention ponds outside of my house.

July 3–9, 2014

So that’s a no. But you frst went to L.A. to work in flm? I was in the circus at Florida State, and I wanted to be a stuntwoman—that was my initial career choice. So I moved to L.A. and they were like, “Uh … you’re 5 feet [tall]. You’re not going to be a stuntwoman.” I was in L.A. for a while, and worked in TV, but then I broke my femur and couldn’t walk for six months. My roommate at the time was some weird closet DJ, so all I had to do for six months was play on turntables.

VEGAS SEVEN

Nowadays you see lots of “model DJs,” girls who stepped behind the turntables with little experience, but who get big billing. Do you worry people may confuse you with them and assume you don’t have the skills? Yeah, defnitely. If I could go back and talk to my 21-year-old self, I would be like, “You probably shouldn’t be photographed just wearing records.” [Laughs.] But I also went to school for marketing. At heart, I’m a tomboy, and I play out in the desert a lot. It’s hard because there are a lot of really horrible female DJs who don’t take the time to actually learn what they’re doing or any of the technical aspects, and they don’t have respect for the DJs who have paved the way—especially in Vegas—like R.O.B., Michael Toast and DJ Crime. Who’s technique did you study? I love DJ Rectangle; he’s amazing with his mixtapes. Crime is a huge infuence. Joey Mazzola:

my house guy. I really, really, really love Featurecast and A.Skills, the guys who do a lot of ghetto funk. Stickybuds, too, is awesome. What’s the scope of the sets you play? I love old-school hip-hop. But I also am really into some minimal, tech-y house. I really can play everything: I can play rock, a huge Top 40 nightclub and a desert party. I make a lot of my own mash-ups in Ableton. I really dislike Top 40 music, but of course our job as a DJ is to play what people want to hear, not always what you want to hear. Do you get the chance to play a lot of desert

parties and indulge in your preferred sound? I defnitely do, and it’s such a different vibe. I’ve been really lucky. I would say Tatiana and I are the only two girls who’ve gotten to play a lot of these outdoor parties in Vegas that are underground and been able to play my type of music and have people like it and dance. With regard to fake female DJs, would you ever consider battling Paris Hilton? Absolutely! To check out music from Gold, visit Soundcloud.com/MikaGold.

NIGHTLIFE

PARTIES

HAZE Aria

[ UPCOMING ]

July 3–9, 2014

July 3 Crazy Daisies host the Dukes of HAZEard July 4 Octagon Girls Arianny Celeste and Brittney Palmer host July 5 TurntUp with DJ Pauly D

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52 See more photos from this gallery at SPYONVegas.com

Make ’Merica proud by partying hard on July 4: Flash a Nevada ID at Marquee Dayclub for complimentary entry to see British bro duo EC Twins. (At the Cosmopolitan, 11 a.m., MarqueeLasVegas. com.) Macklemore and Ryan Lewis make good on their residency at Encore Beach Club. (In Encore, 11 a.m., EncoreBeachClub.com.) Then Keys N Krates shakes Hard Rock Live with live drums, bass and sampling; it’s catchy trap that our Founding Fathers would approve of. (3771 Las Vegas Boulevard South, 8 p.m., Ravealation.com.) A true American classic, Crazy Horse III’s Red White and Boobs party boasts $150 Absolut vodka and Absolut Tune, plus $20 beer buckets and, of course, the aforementioned boobs. (3525 W. Russell Rd., noon-9 p.m., CrazyHorse3.com.) Speaking of those, Revolver hosts its fourth annual Build Your Own Bikini contest July 4 and 5. Register at 8 p.m. with a suit made from unconventional material and you could win $5,000 in cash and prizes. You can also score $1,250 in door prizes just for showing up in clothes. (In Santa Fe Station, 10 p.m., RevolverLasVegas. com.) Want a different kind of show? Hop on the High Roller between 8:30-9:30 p.m. for Red, White & Views. Ride with a comped drink during prime fireworks time for $49.95. (At the Linq, TheLinq.com.) Stop by Stratosphere’s Level 8 Pool for a concert by Zowie Bowie and a spectacular view of the fireworks set off on the tower. (6 p.m., StratosphereHotel.com.) - Camille Cannon

HAZE PHOTOS BY TOBY ACUNA AND TONY TRAN

THE CHEAT SHEET: SIN-DEPENDENCE DAY

NIGHTLIFE

PARTIES

XS NIGHTSWIM Encore

[ UPCOMING ]

VEGAS SEVEN

See more photos from this gallery at SPYONVegas.com

PHOTOS BY DANNY MAHONEY

July 3–9, 2014

July 6 Zedd spins July 20 Morgan Page spins July 27 Skrillex spins

DINING

“You think, chicken wings are chicken wings. You throw them in a fryer. But that’s not necessarily the case.” {PAGE 64}

Believe the Hype So far, Giada De Laurentiis’ frst restaurant is living up to its high expectations By Al Mancini

IN A CITY ALREADY PACKED with celebrity chefs, it’s pretty amazing how much buzz has surrounded the arrival of Giada De Laurentiis’ frst-ever restaurant, Giada, in the Cromwell. (A buzz to which I admittedly contributed with my recent cover story in this publication about the restaurant’s opening.) By now you’ve undoubtedly heard the backstory of how the Food Network superstar has been an admitted control freak, overseeing nearly every aspect of the launch. Of course, you can’t eat a backstory, and attention to details only matters if you get those details right. So is Giada’s namesake Italian restaurant worthy of the hype? While the price tag is a bit steep, and a few service kinks still need to be worked out, it’s a gorgeous room with far more hits on the menu than misses. De Laurentiis has told people that she wants her restaurant guests to feel like they’ve been invited to her home. And the open, airy lounge and dining room defnitely have a homey feel. The frst thing you see when you enter is an antipasti bar, and chefs laboring in front of two ovens. But the key seats are away from the open kitchen area, next to the wraparound glass windows that offer a view of the Bellagio Fountains and the towers of Caesars Palace. Those windows are retractable, and I’ve heard some people complain about the noise level when they’re open, given the proximity to the street. But I personally love the energy of being right on one of the busiest corners of Las Vegas Boulevard. The menu here is intended to be shared family style. The frst page features a large selection of antipasti—vegetables, meats, seafood, cheese, salumi and crostini—as well as a handful of pizzas. I love the orzo meatballs, which substitute the tiny pasta for breadcrumbs to provide a lighter consistency. Miniature peppers stuffed with rich, creamy goat cheese are outstanding. And the broccoli rabe has a wonderful smoky favor from the grill, accented with a hint of chili vinaigrette. Other standouts include bacon-wrapped dates and a pizza bianca piled high with mortadella. Once you’ve shared some starters, the menu offers various soups, salads and family-style pastas, main courses and sides. I’ve had three of the house-made pastas so far, and all of them were delicious, only lightly

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PHOTO COURTESY CAESARS ENTERTAINMENT

A selection of items from Giada’s antipasti bar.

July 3–9, 2014

Restaurant reviews, Dining news and Downtown’s next Prohibition-inspired watering hole

DINING

Seven floor-to-ceiling cantilever windows overlook the city.

Al’s

Menu Picks Orzo meatballs ($14); baby sweet peppers with goat cheese and olive tapenade ($12); tortellini with pea pesto, pancetta and mint ($26); rack of lamb ($45).

sauced so the pasta favors are able to shine. Don’t leave without trying the lobster ravioli. The chef uses her mascarpone and ricotta sparingly so as not to drown out the delicate favor of the lobster, which is accented with a touch of tarragon and citrus. The tortellini are another highlight, thanks to a bright pea pesto sauce. From the grill, the mustardcrusted lamb with spinach, raisins and walnuts is delicious. But I was unimpressed by a massive veal chop saltimbocca that was

disappointingly bland. And a side of sweet corn and spicy sausage just didn’t work for me, with the disparate tastes fghting for attention rather than complementing each other. Be forewarned: While some dishes—such as the aforementioned veal chop and a massive burrata appetizer—are large, others (particularly the pastas and the meatball appetizer) are tiny. And nothing is cheap. So ordering enough food to fll you up can be a pricey endeavor. Given how tough it is to score a reservation here, however, at least you’ll have time to save up for that check. When I called on a recent Thursday, I was told the place was sold out for Friday, Saturday and Sunday! That’s due in part to De Laurentiis’ decision to limit the

number of covers they do daily until the staff is fully on its game. And based on the slow service I received on a recent visit (when the restaurant was technically sold out, but there were numerous empty tables), that’s probably a good idea. In light of all of this, some might want to give Giada a few more weeks before visiting. But if you’re the kind of person who just has to try the town’s hottest new eatery, they don’t get much hotter than this.

GIADA

In the Cromwell, 855-442-3271. Open for dinner 5–10:30 p.m. Sun–Thu, 5–11 p.m. Fri–Sat. Dinner for two, $150-$300.

[ JUST A SIP ]

THE NEXT HAWTHORNE IN YOUR SIDE Attention all you dames, skirts, wise guys and boozehounds:

Prepare to meet Downtown’s next watering hole, Hawthorne, slated for a fall debut at 1115 S. Casino Center Boulevard. Bar owner Brittany Michelle named the spot for the infamous Illinois hotel from which Al Capone ran his bootlegging operation. But unlike Capone, we will soon be able to enjoy a classic cocktail or glass of wine at Hawthorne without fear of being interrupted by the coppers. ¶ “The Hawthorne is a place where people can go when they get off work to

have a decent bottle of wine and wind down,” Michelle says. That wine could be any of 12 whites or 14 reds. Southern Wine and Spirits mixologists Francesco Lafranconi and J.R. Starkus will supply their takes on Prohibition-era cocktails with names to match. You might feel like a gangster sipping on drinks named “Machine Gun Killer” or “The Snitch,” July 3–9, 2014

surrounded by the 1920s décor and listening to music akin to The Great Gatsby soundtrack. ¶ Michelle is a former

VEGAS SEVEN

ballerina who went into hospitality and bartending full time after suffering a foot injury; she currently manages the Hard Hat Lounge. Her intimate two-story, 2,000-square-foot space (not a Downtown Project joint) will hold about 100 people with indoor and outdoor seating. Michelle already plans to have live music events in the shared courtyard space beneath the foyer—low key during the week, electronic on the weekend—as well intimate acoustic sets inside. So bring on the giggle water—Hawthorne sounds like the bee’s knees. - Jessie O’Brien

Get the latest on local restaurant openings and closings, interviews with top chefs, cocktail recipes, menu previews and more in our weekly “Sips and Bites” newsletter. Subscribe at VegasSeven.com/SipsAndBites.

Red Rock Resort’s new Mexican restaurant Mercadito is now open to the public, but I was able to get a few bites in during the spot’s pre-opening play days. Based on what I sampled—all of which was well-balanced, with interesting flavors and riffs on well-known dishes—Mercadito is a welcome addition to Las Vegas’ dining scene. The restaurant’s Toreado guacamole combines the familiar avocados with sautéed, then pureed onions and Serrano chilies for heat. The addition of Maggi (a seasoning sauce similar to soy sauce) delivers an umami punch. The Toreado will be on the menu by July 14. Also, as a nacho aficionado, I am looking forward to Mercadito’s version, which has been created just for the first Las Vegas outpost, and promises to be properly constructed with even distribution of cheese and chipotle mojo so that no chip feels left out. Meanwhile, on the Strip, the 90-second Neapolitan-style pizza cranked out by 800 Degrees (in Monte Carlo, 702-730-6800) comes in the traditional margherita style, topped with tomato, fresh mozzarella and basil that’s supposed to be an homage to the Italian flag. But I’m more interested in the bianca, or white version, that puts that creamy buffalo cheese right on the chewy, blistered crust along with pungent Parmigiano Reggiano, garlic, oregano and fruity olive oil. Add on any other toppings you have a taste for, but I’m partial to the Tartufo, the specialty pie that uses the bianca as a base and adds truffle cheese, mushrooms, roasted garlic and arugula. Some of the best chicken wings in town are by Blue Ribbon, and while you can certainly order a bucket of them at the Cosmopolitan’s installation (702-736-0808), you can score them for half the price all summer at Brooklyn Bowl (in the Linq, 702-862-2695) from noon to 4 p.m. and again from midnight to close. The Bowl has also introduced a weekend brunch that includes challah French toast, a meat frittata and two dishes whose names alone have intrigued me to try them: the Jim Morrison, which involves a 10-inch pancake and more fried chicken, and the Sloppy Josephine, made with queso fresco, baked eggs, mashed potatoes and Sloppy Joe meat. Between the aforementioned dishes, the ice cream desserts benefiting Three Square, the bowling and, oh yeah, all the huge musical acts onstage nightly, it seems as if Brooklyn Bowl wants to become your summer destination. Grace Bascos eats, sleeps, raves and repeats. Read more from Grace at VegasSeven.com/ DishingWithGrace, as well as on her diningand-music blog, FoodPlusTechno.com.

PHOTO COURTESY CAESARS ENTERTAINMENT

A TASTE OF MERCADITO, PIZZA BIANCA AND BLUE RIBBON CHICKEN AT BROOKLYN BOWL

DINING

SCENE

From Foie Gras to Chicken Wings How Joe Romano escaped fne dining for PT’s

VEGAS SEVEN

IN MANY WAYS, Joe Romano’s career has followed the traditional trajectory of a successful chef. After graduating the Culinary Institute of America in 1992, he secured a job with celebrity chef Charlie Palmer. Over the next eight years, Romano rose through the ranks of Palmer’s organization in New York and Florida before relocating to Las Vegas to open Aureole in Mandalay Bay as executive chef. He went on to open his own restaurant, JW’s Tavern, in the Rio, only to sell it shortly thereafter. Then, 10 years ago, he landed a position as corporate executive chef for a major restaurant group for which he now oversees 43 restaurants in Southern Nevada as that company’s vice president of operations. It’s a classic success story. What makes Romano’s tale a little different, however, is where the former fne-dining chef is currently working: PT’s Entertainment Group, owners of those local video-poker watering holes, as well as Sierra Gold taverns. Romano says the career shift was motivated by a desire to touch the lives (and palates) of more people than the select few who could afford Aureole’s $167-a-person check average. “You realize you are only touching 10 percent of the population,” he says of his life in fine dining. “It’s way out of the average person’s reach.” In the midst of fielding various fine-dining offers, he was contacted by Steve Arcana and Blake Sartini of PT’s parent company, Golden Gaming, who offered him the executive chef position. In addition to a wider audience,

Romano was attracted by the hours, which were a lot more reasonable than the brutal workweeks required at most high-end restaurants. “Honestly,” he says now, “I thought, ‘Wow. I’ve got two kids. This would be a great job to get into. How hard could it be?’” He soon learned that even bar staples such as chicken wings would prove a lot more challenging than he expected. “It took about a year and a half to develop a wing that we, as a company, were happy with,” he says. “Because you think chicken wings are chicken wings. You throw them in a fryer. But that’s not necessarily the case. To get a wing that’s really crispy, that you can coat with a sauce and that still stays crispy, is very difficult.” He says perfecting the pizza took just as long, because of owner Sartini’s exacting standards. “The expectations that Blake has for food, his passion rivals half the big-time executive chefs who have all these major restaurants all over the country,” he says. “He wants to be the best.” Romano still gets to create higher-end food at the company’s three Pahrump casinos. And he’s introduced dishes such as sesame-crusted ahi, gourmet sliders and rice bowls to the PT’s and Sierra Gold menus. But he says one finedining lesson he learned transcends price point and cuisine. “We treat our patrons like guests,” he says. “There are tons of choices for people to go to. Why are they gonna choose us over somebody else? It’s how we take care of them.”

PHOTO BY JON ESTRADA

July 3–9, 2014

By Al Mancini

July 3–9, 2014

Bound To Be Up All Night

➜ Bartenders wince when chocolate or coffee cocktails are called martinis. (And rightly so; that word should be reserved for one thing only: The Martini.) But equally painful is a cocktail opportunity lost to a can of energy drink. World-renowned barman Salvatore Calabrese faced this very Vegas conundrum when he swooped in to christen his namesake bar, Bound by Salvatore Calabrese, in the Cromwell (also home to Drai’s Beach Club & Nightclub and Drai’s Afterhours). His very Italian solution? Ultra-high-end espresso martinis—er, cocktails. For the Madame Moka ($16), Champagne is substituted for water in a Moka coffee pot along with cinnamon, a dusting of ground nutmeg and a crushed cardamom pod. The resulting brew is infused with subtle Champagne and spice favors, then shaken with Hennessy V.S.O.P Cognac, Disaronno amaretto and a touch of sugar. Bound bartenders also infuse espresso with red and white Italian vermouth as well as Peroni beer, for other eye-opening adult beverages aimed at the Drai’s crowd. And yes, he even uses Red Bull. Gotta love that Italian sense of humor. Find the Madame Moka recipe at VegasSeven.com/CocktailCulture.

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PHOTO BY ERIK K ABIK

DRINKING

A&E

“Las Vegas novelist Laura McBride wastes no time introducing a gun in her debut. It’s right there in the frst chapter, in the lingerie drawer of Avis Gisselberg.” READING {PAGE 71}

What can decades-old crime scenes reveal? If Yolanda McClary is looking, the answer is ofen justice. By Maile Chapman

Helgenberger’s fctional character on CSI; she’s a former member of Dateline’s Unsolved Case Squad; and, without meaning to be, she’s the reason her grueling, demanding and sometimes flthy profession seems so glamorous. Now, with former Texas prosecutor Kelly Siegler, she appears on Cold Justice, an unscripted crime investigation drama dedicated to unsolved murders in rural areas. The series resumed its extended second season on TNT in June.

July 3–9, 2014

Cold Comfort

YOLANDA MCCLARY is really good at what she does: investigating crime scenes. In her 26-year career with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police, 16 of those with the crime lab, she worked thousands of cases involving murder, suicide, accidental death, domestic violence, sexual assault, battery, vice, robbery and burglary. She’s also really good at helping the public try to understand the importance of what she does. McClary was the inspiration for Marg

67 VEGAS SEVEN

PHOTO BY K AREN BALL ARD

Movies, music and the dawning age of Strip puppetry

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Not everyone fnds true-crime investigation shows comforting, but I do when they try to make sense out of senseless violence. Cold Justice does this by re-examining evidence from every angle to see what really happened. Sometimes this leads to an indictment or a confession. At the very least it makes for a more complete version of the story, and this helps everyone: local investigators, family and friends of the victim who haven’t had closure, even innocent people living under suspicion who can fnally be excluded. The crime scenes are McClary’s area of expertise, and her narrative of events is crucial to understanding each case. “If you understand your crime scene,” she says, “then you understand what your suspect really did—hopefully from beginning to end. This is also a way to go after your suspects. You understand what they did, versus guessing at what they did.” Listening to McClary speak, in person or on the show, is reassuring even when she’s describing horrifc events. She is grounded, logical and empathetic; it also helps that she makes sure I can follow just about everything she says during our interview. Like a good storyteller, she draws a listener in without dumbing anything down, a skill honed through testifying in front of juries. “I learned a long time ago that the big fancy words don’t help you,” McClary says. “So I just went back to normal English—things we all get. Even on TV, you never hear me talking in

big technical terms. I do when I’m in a lab, talking to my colleagues and associates, naturally. But when I’m talking to somebody who doesn’t do what I do for a living, I don’t.” McClary uses the present tense a lot, which gives a sense of immediacy to what she says, and sometimes slips in and out of the second person so that “you” become part of the narrative. This can be disconcerting because the stories are all true, and all terrible, not just from the show, but from her entire career. “I quit counting after 7,000 crime scenes,” she says. “I probably saw some of the worst things that a human can do to another human.” ***** On Cold Justice, McClary puts the narrative of a crime scene together in the same place the murder occurred. For “Hiding in Plain Sight,” from Season 1, she walked through the house that once belonged to Eric Baxter, a well-liked Tennessee grocery store owner who was shot to death in 1998. She wondered, for example, why he’d been found in the hallway. There were no signs of forced entry, and it seemed unlikely that after opening the door to a killer he would knowingly back himself into a dead end. Maybe he’d been leaving the bedroom? Of the two suspects, it made sense to her that the victim’s lover would come in through the front door, being familiar with the house, but that the other, a disgruntled employee, would be more likely to use the back door. At that point, the backyard became an important part of the crime scene.

PHOTO BY K AREN BALL ARD

A&E July 3–9, 2014

*****

“In a lot of our cold cases, we don’t have a lot of evidence,” McClary says. “You’re going to have to go more into your expertise on what you’ve seen over the years, how something is likely to have happened. And that happens on these cold cases a lot.” In “Copper Dollar Ranch,” the team investigated the 1983 double murder of a young couple in Iowa, a case that McClary describes as being at the center of two different stories: Half the small town still believed the murders of Steven Fisher and Melisa Gregory were meant as a threat to their drug-smuggling landlord, while the other half were convinced that Fisher’s estranged 20-year-old wife, Terri, had killed them out of jealousy. Both victims were beaten severely. Steven had been left to bleed to death in the mud outside, while Melisa was attacked in bed and fnally killed in the front area of their tiny trailer. “That was a fascinating crime scene,” McClary says. “I never understood, why not just kill Melisa in the back bed? She’d been hit back there. She Yolanda McClary, along with was hit hard. It already stunned her, former prosecutor Kelly Siegler (left), investigate small-town and she could barely walk to the front. crime scenes in Cold Justice. Why walk her up there? And I never got that until we were there. I was looking out the door, and I thought, oh, my God, Terri wanted Melisa to see “When you’re there, you can see, oh, Steven—that she’d already beaten him my God: [the suspect] could just literto a pulp and that he was dead.” ally sit back here in this fenced area After so many years, the families and watch him. He was talking to his of these and many other victims now best friend on the phone, while the know what happened, and there suspect was sitting in the back, just is a lot to be said for knowing the waiting for his moment. And the dogs full story. But that doesn’t mean it’s started barking, and pleasant information he let the dogs out. to deliver. But he never locked Early in each epiCOLD JUSTICE the door.” sode, McClary and Since its premiere in From there my Siegler meet with September, Cold Justice has mind jumps to a victim’s family, helped local law enforcement questions like, What to hear from them agencies secure 12 arrests, kind of creepy person about the person eight criminal indictments, could bring himself they lost. And each four confessions, two guilty to that? What was he episode ends with pleas and a 22-year prison thinking while he sat in seeing the family sentence. The series airs at the dark, watching the again, to let them 9 p.m. Fridays on TNT. windows? But those know what, if anyquestions, I realized thing, has changed while talking to with the case. It’s McClary, are the easier, a little, when stuff of fction—details us civilians there is good news. “You can feel need in order to fnd such a violent act them, at that moment. You can literbelievable in terms of character. ally just feel their emotion,” McClary But in McClary’s kind of narrative, says. “It’s so overwhelming. what matters is what she sees when Sometimes, even when the team she looks at the scene. Given the has done its best, parts of a story known elements—the location of the are still missing. What does it mean body, the dogs barking, the sight lines for those families when a murder from the backyard, the little sensor cannot be solved … or can be solved, on the back door that chimed when but not proven? opened (which the lover probably “Families think after years go by knew about, but not the employee)— that nobody cares: It’s been 10 years, what probably happened was this: it’s been 15 years, they never even open Baxter’s dogs barked at the murderer that fle anymore. They do. They just waiting in the darkness, he let them don’t always have any place to take out without knowing why they were it,” McClary says. “I think that’s the barking, went into the bedroom, most important message for families heard the sensor chime when the out there who think law enforcement killer entered, and was in the process doesn’t care. Trust me, there’s a of coming back out when he was shot detective sitting there with that fle in the hallway. who cares very much.”

A&E

CONCERT

ALBUMS WE'RE BUYING 1 Mastadon, Once More ’Round the Sun

2 Lana Del Rey, Ultraviolence

3 Jack White, Lazaretto

4 Deadmau5, While(1<2)

5 Phish, Fuego 6 Linkin Park, The Hunting Party

7 Riff Raff, Neon Icon

Kraftwerk's Original Genius Shines in All Dimensions, The Chelsea at the Cosmopolitan, June 28

8 Arctic Monkeys, AM

The German quartet of electronic music pioneers took fans on a low-fi 3-D journey through retro technology. The show was a history lesson of sorts, complete with a few nods to Las Vegas. Imagery included throwback computers during “Computer Love” and “The Man-Machine,” vintage transportation footage in “Tour de France” and low-tech graphics (think Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing” video) on “Autobahn.” Kraftwerk was more about experiencing the lengthy songs than watching lasers and banging in-your-face 3-D tactics. ★★★✩✩ – Deanna Rilling

Get Your Dog Whispered

THE ROCK STAR OF YOGA Krishna Das, the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter who specializes in "devotional yogic chanting with a Western influence," will make at tour stop at the Center for Spiritual Living at 7:30 p.m. July 8. Read Jarret Keene's interview with this meditative music maestro at VegasSeven.com/Soundscraper.

DON’T GET YNGWIE, GET EVEN Swedish-born guitar virtuoso Yngwie Malmsteen headlines Guitar Gods 2014, alongside blues and surf-rock specialist Gary Hoey and Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal (Guns N’ Roses). Uli Jon Roth quit the tour, but there’s still enough talent to satisfy. See for yourself at House of Blues on July 7 ($27.50).

ON SALE NOW There’s no release date for the new Weezer album, Everything Will Be Alright in the End, but the band plays the Chelsea at the Cosmopolitan on August 1 ($52-$100). Maybe by then leaked songs will be part of the set list, alongside standards such as “Buddy Holly,” “Hash Pipe” and “My Name is Jonas.”

KRAFTWERK BY ERIK K ABIK/RETNA

July 3–9, 2014 VEGAS SEVEN

10 G-Eazy, These Things Happen

According to sales at Zia Record Exchange at 4225 S. Eastern Ave., June 22-29.

Are you the not-so-proud owner of a four-legged, panting, drooling canine who just ate your shoes and took a whiz on your sofa? Dogwhispering reality star Cesar Millan wants to help (See page 94 for an interview with Millan). He’s looking to cast bad-behaving pooches (and more) to star in his Leader of the Pack Live show at the Pearl at the Palms. Got a dog with a story so powerful you tear up every time you tell it? Millan wants to hear it, as well. Are you the parent of a wolf pack? A family of dogs rolling three and four deep? The casting welcomes you all, too. We’ve shaken the bone in front of you, now grab it! Apply at CesarsWay.com/VegasDogs – Amber Sampson

KILLER QUEEN Queen + Adam Lambert play The Joint on July 5-6 ($49.50 and up), and even though there will never be another Freddie Mercury, Lambert hits all the right notes alongside founding members Brian May and Roger Taylor. Expect dazzling vocals, ace guitar and drum work, and lots of costume changes for Lambert.

9 Sam Smith, In the Lonely Hour

When the venerable jam band Widespread Panic comes to The Joint at the Hard Rock (8 p.m. July 3-4, $55 and up), we’ll have one redheaded comic to thank. “It’s all

because of Carrot Top; it’s his fault why were coming to Vegas again,” jokes percussionist Domingo “Sunny” Ortiz. “Carrot Top and Panic go hand in hand, being

[ BOOKINI ]

WIDESPREAD PANIC BY ANDY TENNILLE

WE ARE CALLED TO READ Are we all familiar with Chekhov’s gun? It’s one of the maxims of dramatic storytelling, according to Anton Chekhov, the master playwright and short-story writer. Basically, if an author introduces a gun in the first act of a story or play, that gun must be fired at some point. Las Vegas novelist Laura McBride—who was featured in Vegas Seven's 2014 Intriguing People issue—wastes no time introducing a gun in her debut, We Are Called to Rise (Simon & Schuster, $25). It’s right there in the first chapter, in the lingerie drawer of Avis Gisselberg. Avis is 53, a Las Vegas native, recently devastated by the news that her husband, Jim, is having an affair after three decades of marriage. Avis is no stranger to bad news. Growing up in weekly motels with an unstable mother, she’s a firsthand witness to domestic violence. Avis has endured more than her share of personal tragedy, and now she’s worried about the erratic behavior of her son Nathan, a war veteran turned police officer who takes out his anger issues on his wife, Lauren. As it turns out, there are more guns in McBride’s arsenal. Violence and emotional trauma are everywhere in We Are Called To Rise, and Avis’ story is delicately intertwined with three other main characters: Bashkim Ahmeti, a bright, sensitive third-grader from Albania; Luis Rodriguez-Reyes, a suicidal soldier who lost his grip on sanity surveying for IEDs in the Iraqi desert; and Roberta Weiss, a compassionate lawyer who volunteers as a court-appointed special advocate for neglected and abused children. It’s hard to criticize a novel as earnest as We Are Called To Rise, and I suspect book groups will go crazy for it. Not because it’s flawlessly plotted or because the characters

are so well-developed, but because this novel stirs up so many different emotions. There’s a lot of pain and suffering here, and many emotional scars. The book was partially inspired by actual events, but real life feels even messier than the story McBride tells, and I had a hard time believing everything the characters said and did during the last third of the book. In her afterword, McBride acknowledges the “unbearably sad” nature of the story, and it’s clear she felt compelled to inject some hope and optimism. I think this story will strike a chord with readers, but I found the ending a little too neat, a little too easily resolved. All the characters in We Are Called to Rise are faced with navigating some kind of physical or emotional minefield. Accidents happen, mistakes are made, and one can’t always count on the legal system for true justice. I admire McBride for tackling such difficult subject matter, and if the book finds the audience I think it deserves, it will be due to McBride’s belief that despite enormous obstacles and the darkest personal tragedies, people can be rehabilitated and learn to forgive. ★★★✩✩ – M. Scott Krause

HIT LIST TARGETING THIS WEEK'S MOST-WANTED EVENTS

By Camille Cannon

SNAPS TO THAT Las Vegas Poets Organization marks 10 years of verse in 2014. You can celebrate by attending Pop-Up Poetry’s Preview Thursday edition on July 3. Featured poet Catharine Holm will read her enchanting works at the Nevada Humanities Office at Art Square. Facebook.com/LasVegasPoets. UP AND STRUMMING Support the city’s rising musical stars when Goldboot, American Cream and Almost Normal play a Local Music Showcase on July 3 at the Boulevard Pool at the Cosmopolitan. It brings a happy tear to our eyes seeing Las Vegas-raised talent grace the same stage as national headliners, and a good turnout means we could see more of it in the future. CosmopolitanLasVegas.com. IT’S TECHNICALLY FIRST FRIDAY It’s also America’s birthday. In the absence of an official First Friday festival, Downtown Spaces offers an Independence Day Block Party, promising galleries and sidewalks chock-full of artwork, live music and a prime second-floor viewing spot for Strip fireworks. We’ve heard rumors of free barbecue, too. Facebook.com/ DowntownSpacesDTS. MUST LOVE BOOKS It's tough enough finding love in Las Vegas, but doing so while struggling to keep a bookstore alive here, too? That’s near impossible, and it’s the subject of the romance novel Gaming for Love, written by local author Crystal Perkins. She’ll sign copies of her book on July 8 at the Barnes & Noble on 2191 N. Rainbow Blvd. BarnesAndNoble.com.

July 3–9, 2014

Widespread Panic’s Far-Flung Friends

The

71 VEGAS SEVEN

Jam on: Ortiz (fourth from left) and his band.

from the South, so to speak.” They also go way back. “Back in the lean glory days— late ’80s and early ’90s—Carrot Top and us would play in the same club in South Carolina. We’d almost always share dressing rooms. We noticed that somebody had been drinking our beer and eating our food, and we couldn’t fgure out who was doing it. So we set a trap [with beer] and caught Carrot Top coming into our dressing room munching on our grub. That’s how we met. To this day, it's always fun to go to Vegas, check him out and have him come to our shows.” But Carrot Top isn’t Widespread Panic’s only connection to Vegas. “We’ve enjoyed coming to Vegas for 25 years,” Ortiz says. “Our frst gig in Vegas was [in a venue] owned by Paul Anka [Shark Club]. We thought we were the cat’s meow playing in Vegas.” This time around, Ortiz is especially looking forward to the July 3 show, where his band will share the stage with guest Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe (Dirty Dozen Brass Band is the guest on July 4). According to Ortiz, performing with guests is like, “Putting vegetables in your vegetable soup and letting it simmer in there in that big old pot we call The Joint.” – Cindi Moon Reed

A&E

STAGE

Dunham and Fator will duke it out.

Welcome to Puppetland Now that a second plush-flled residency hits the Strip, could this be the sign of a trend?

VEGAS SEVEN

HERE ARE THE TIMES puppets are acceptable and not terrifying: On The Muppet Show, The Muppets Take Manhattan, The Great Muppet Caper or other Muppetrelated properties. Especially the ones that involve Madame Trash Heap. End of list. But here we are, about to enter a golden age of puppetry on the Strip not seen since Edgar Bergen brought Charlie McCarthy to Caesars Palace on his farewell tour in 1978. Bergen died three days after the end of his twoweek run there. The Strip is clearly a vengeful god that doesn’t tolerate ventriloquism. Which makes Jeff Dunham’s upcoming residency at Planet Hollywood somewhat troubling. Dunham, as you’re now aware if you’re the kind of person who gets excited when they’re re-running one of his specials on Comedy Central 63 times a week, signed a six-month residency deal starting November 28 at the Planet Hollywood Showroom. This all does make a certain amount of sense. Planet Hollywood already has one dead-eyed headliner who moves her mouth to sounds emanating from somewhere else. And Dunham routinely clocks in near the top of Forbes’ top-earning comedians lists since at

least 2009, so it’s logical for the P-Ho from a business standpoint. Especially when bookers can look across the street to The Mirage, where Terry Fator is fve years into a deal that takes him through 2016—and is rich enough to generally place him either right before or right behind Dunham on those same Forbes lists. Caesars Entertainment took a good long, hard look at MGM Resorts packing asses in seats, and decided that what America wants is puppetry. So, so much puppetry. Even the Riviera, in its Pawn Shop Live! sports an oversize Old Man puppet. So we have to ask you this, sincerely, and in a spirit of emotional honesty and intellectual curiosity: America, what is your deal? Why do you have an insatiable lust for cheap puns delivered through 80 bucks worth of felt? Is there just blood and stuffng in the water and everyone’s reacting like one giant googly eyed, plush great white? Is this like a peanut allergy thing that sprung up out of nowhere and all of a sudden people are recoiling at the sound coming out of the mouths of people purporting to make it? Or is this a weird side effect of going gluten-

free? Like when they used to use mercury to treat animal fur and all of a sudden every hatmaker from London to Lisbon was freaking out and inspiring Lewis Carroll characters? With Carrot Top entrenched at the Luxor, Dunham on his way and Fator established, we’re seeing a ton of broad, cartoony comedy take the top spots as headliners. Had Frank Caliendo hung on for the full ride he signed for at the Monte Carlo—he’d be fve years into a 10-year deal by now—that would be four. It could be cyclical. Gallagher was, for a time, one of comedy’s top draws (and he was, until recently, headlining the Laugh Factory at the Tropicana). It could be Cirque fatigue. There isn’t much that’s further away from the high-end pretense of O than a jalapeño puppet making vaguely racist jokes. Unless someone straight-up signs a fart-noise keychain to six shows a week. (This was actually under consideration at the Sahara before Sam Nazarian came knocking.) But whatever it is, it’s unsettling. Can two puppet shows thrive in competing venues? Fator has often been complimentary of Dunham’s act in interviews, but that was before he was go-

ing head to head with him. But Fator’s routine, with its musical component, at least has a hook to keep some space between the two. What we’re really worried about is the Puppetpocalypse this portends. If Dunham is successful, buckle up. An All-Star Tribute to Wayland Flowers and Madame nightly at Paris? Those Creepy DirecTV Marionettes: The Musical taking over Monte Carlo? Team America: World Police getting a stage adaptation at The Smith Center? (That makes a ton of sense, actually.) Avenue Q at Lux—oh. Sorry. Old wounds and all. It’s all on the table. Frankly, Pawn Shop Live! could, in retrospect, be ahead of its time. But if all that comes to pass, don’t expect us to stick around for it. We’ve read the tea leaves, and we told you right up front the Strip is a vengeful god. If one more guy turns up with a trunk full of dead-eyed characters, we’re getting the hell out of here. The last thing we’re sitting through is a 50-foot Peanut pulling his best Stay Puft Marshmallow Man routine on Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo Road. Nobody steps on a church in my town? We’re not equipped for that. Stomp on what you want. We’ll be in San Diego.

ILLUSTRATION BY JON ESTRADA

July 3–9, 2014

By Jason Scavone

STAGE

TRIO WITH BRIO

PHOTO BY KIRK MARSH

Las Vegas Tenors bring pure joy of performing to Westgate stage LOVE YOUR WORK as much as these three—almost frighteningly so—and you ought to get hit with a pleasure tax just to console the rest of us (if the IRS isn’t too busy with shenanigans that get them hauled before Congress). Evaluating the percentage of pay the Las Vegas Tenors should fork over to cover their work joy, I’d estimate around 98.2 percent. (Surely there’s 1.8 percent drudgery there somewhere.) Slotted into the rotation of acts at Westgate’s (formerly LVH’s) Shimmer Cabaret, this trio of talents—Bobby Black (formerly of Bite), Shai Yammanee (billed as the classical/musical theater stylist) and Lou Gazzara (onetime Vegas! The Show cast member and American Idol contestant, and son of late actor Ben Gazzara)—repeatedly tell the crowd how they adore singing. This isn’t hyperbole. Performing against backing tracks and playing off their puckish promo tagline—“What, you were expecting opera?”—the Tenors assemble an inventively packaged repertoire to complement their affable personas. Plus there’s that endearingly odd group visual—rail-thin Gazzara, medium-build Yammanee and rotund Black, defying conventional onstage symmetry. As Black quips: “We even sing while we eat. Me more than them.” Trading lush solos, they translate the Moody Blues’ “Nights in White Satin” into Spanish with swoon-y romanticism before reverting to English. That nicely establishes their eclecticism following the rollicking pop of the Doobie Brothers’ “Listen to the Music.” Combining the poetry of timeless Irish folk song “Danny Boy” (a.k.a. “Londonderry Air”) and Josh Groban’s inspirational “You Raise Me

Up,” their harmony produces headto-toe tingles. During a medley that stylistically ricochets from “My Girl” and “Stayin’ Alive” to “It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing,” the guys highlight it with a fascinating riff on the Four Seasons’ “Who Loves You,” rendered in an upper-register minor key, lending it a unique freshness. Several exquisite solos include Yammanee’s passionate, yet delicate “Maria,” Gazzara shaking the room with Elvis Presley’s “If I Can Dream,” and Black’s warm, emotional take on the blueeyed soul of Billy and the Beaters’ “At This Moment.” In “The Prayer,” the Tenors rearrange the Celine Dion/Andrea Bocelli duet into three-part harmony, then mine the depths of regret in Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word.” Finally conceding to operatic urges—as well as expectations raised by their name—the Tenors climax the set with “Nessun Dorma” from Turnadot, a widely recognized aria that gives the fnale a classical sheen while not feeling at all elitist or exclusionary. Founded in 2005 by Black—the lone original member—the Las Vegas Tenors step in when Mo5aic is off on other dates. Visual presentation isn’t prioritized—they perform in front of a plain white curtain goosed by primary-color lighting—and there’s a shaggy-dog appeal to the simple way they offer themselves to us. Slick showmanship is an important, but nonetheless calculated aspect of performing. Joy is not. Joy just … is. You can’t keep a lid on it. And the Las Vegas Tenors blow that lid right off. Got an entertainment tip? Email Steve.Bornfeld@VegasSeven.com.

A&E

MOVIES

FOR ‘MEG RYAN’ OUT LOUD

Rudd and Poehler meet cutest.

Rudd and Poehler take on rom-com clichés By Michael Phillips Tribune Media Services

THE AGREEABLE ROMANTIC-COMEDY

critique They Came Together is occasionally very funny, and moderately funny the rest of the time. In mathematical terms that adds up to pretty funny or “funny enough.” Director David Wain has worked in genre spoofs and other comedies, never more engagingly than in the summer-camp goof Wet Hot American Summer, a beloved flm very few people have actually seen, co-written with his frequent collaborator Michael Showalter. Their script for They Came Together recycles every lame, predictable and hackneyed rom-com trope its makers can scrounge out of our collective, mushy memories of You’ve Got Mail, a number of Katherine Heigl and Sandra Bullock vehicles, Bridesmaids (which doesn’t really count, since it’s good) and dozens more. The actors know exactly what they’re doing. Over dinner with friends played by Ellie Kemper and Bill Hader, candy conglomerate executive Joel, portrayed by Paul Rudd, joins Amy Poehler’s chipper confectionary emporium owner Molly

in telling the adorable, improbable tale of how they met, fell in love and fell into a vat of rom-com clichés. The setting is New York—a place that’s “such an important part of our lives,” as Joel says, “it’s almost like another character in our story.” Flashbacks reveal their meet-cute at a Halloween costume party, when they arrive sporting identical and decidedly unsexy Ben Franklin get-ups. Screenwriters Wain and Showalter are hitting some fantastically easy targets here, but they get a lot done in the movie’s 83 minutes. Molly and Joel’s bond over their shared love of “fction books”

hits the rocks when Joel’s controlling babe of an ex (Cobie Smulders) comes back into the picture. These two clearly are wrong for each other, as indicated in an early exchange. “I love you,” Joel says. The reply, indifferently delivered: “And I adore your spirit.” The cameos are plentiful, including a late-breaking spot for an axwielding, insanely mugging Michael Shannon. The best jokes tend to be a little off the satiric topic, as when we see outrageously limber shadowplay depictions of sexual intercourse, with members of the bendy-twisty Pilobolus Dance Theatre standing in for Rudd and Smulders.

July 3–9, 2014

SHORT REVIEWS

VEGAS SEVEN

Transformers: Age of Extinction (PG-13) ★★✩✩✩

The fourth installment of Michael Bay’s $2.6 billion franchise about a race of robot freedom fighters is an aggressively charmless act of digital confetti. Transformers will bury us. It’s no spoiler to point out that this chapter ends with Optimus Prime, long-winded leader of the nice robots, soaring into space to continue the fight with someone or thing. Except, oh, there’s a bad robot who collects Transformers and wants, no kidding, to spread his “seed” around. Also, demolition: Lots of it. What’s disappointing is the lack of confidence.

Third Person (R) ★★✩✩✩

Women! They’re all desperate harpies and relentless sources of conflict in writerdirector Paul Haggis’ exasperating multistory drama about how hard it is for a nice guy to be left alone to write an exasperating multistory drama. Liam Neeson stars as that guy. He’s a famous author holed up in a Paris hotel, trying to wrestle his novel into shape. He recently left his wife (Kim Basinger) for a sensual younger woman. (Olivia Wilde). A veteran screenwriter, Haggis has many strengths. But often his dramatic situations are as hoked-up and galling as his writerly flourishes.

Jersey Boys (R) ★★★✩✩

Jersey Boys the movie is a more sedate animal than Jersey Boys the Broadway musical. Those who missed the theatrical edition of the tale of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons—how they found their sound and wrestled with temptations—may wonder what the fuss was about. It begins in Belleville, New Jersey, in 1951 and ends with a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 1990. Some scenes are frankly theatrical, such as the hardship tour of the famous Brill Building. Jersey Boys is rationally exuberant to a fault.

Poehler and Rudd are such intuitive and creative comic performers, they have a way of both maximizing uneven material and showing it up a tiny bit. Throughout They Came Together you’re aware of witty people trashing, affectionately, a generally witless genre. The leads provide the affection; the script’s riskiest gags, including white supremacist in-laws and a deeply inappropriate grandson/ grandmother clinch brought off with panache by the ever-wholesome Rudd, ensure that the well-worn grooves here offer the occasional surprise. They Came Together (R) ★★★✩✩

By Tribune Media Services

X-Men: Days of Future Past (PG-13) ★★★✩✩

Midway into Bryan Singer’s delightfully convoluted flick, there is a prison break so exuberant and uncharacteristic of superhero movies that you sit up a bit. As much as a pricey, box-office-savvy international franchise can indulge in fun anymore, it does here. The film brings together the cast of the original X-Men films and the upstarts of the clever 2011 reboot X-Men: First Class— teaming up generations of X-Men (and ensuring that someone seated behind you will be asking, “Wait, who is that again?”).

Edge of Tomorrow (PG-13) ★★★✩✩

Insanely derivative, frenetically enjoyable, Edge of Tomorrow takes gaming to a new level of big-screen indulgence, sending Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt through the same alieninvasion scenario over and over until they learn how to win, put down the consoles and get off the couch for a little lunch and some fresh air, maybe. The climax involves Paris in flames and up to its landmarks in water, and a certain museum featured in The Da Vinci Code.

22 Jump Street (R) ★★★✩✩

The peculiar sweetness of 21 Jump Street has taken a hiatus in this brazen sequel that’s both slightly disappointing and a reliable, often riotous “laffer.” 22 Jump Street tests the bond of this police partnership when the boy-men are assigned to work undercover, again as brothers, this time at a college where a new designer drug has claimed at least one life. Be sure to hang around for the closing credits, which imagine all sorts of Jump Street sequels to come, all of which look funnier than A Million Ways to Die in the West.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 (PG) ★★★✩✩

In a world of tired sequels, this DreamWorks Animation offering feels and flows like a real movie. It’s as satisfying as the initial 2010 Dragon, based loosely on the Cressida Cowell books. Now a young adult, adorkable Viking lad Hiccup (Jay Baruchel, voice) and his intended, Astrid (America Ferrera), live the good life in the remote village of Berk, ruled by Hiccup’s benevolent father (Gerard Butler). This is a coming-of-age story, and the film rewards our investment in it.

Think Like a Man Too (PG-13) ★★✩✩✩

A 105-minute ad for Caesars Palace, this passably engaging sequel allows Kevin Hart to hijack whole sections of the Las Vegas-set hijinks as he lets loose with his little verbal tsunamis of braggadocio. The gang reunites in Vegas for the meticulously planned wedding of Candace (Regina Hall) and Michael (Terrence Jenkins). The funniest scene is familiar, but it works: a series of mug shots after the strip-club melee lands everybody in jail, the morning of the wedding.

The Fault in Our Stars (PG-13) ★★✩✩✩

In the discreetly assaultive film version of The Fault in Our Stars there’s a scene, faithful to the one in the best-selling John Green book, where Hazel and Augustus visit the Amsterdam home of a novelist whose cancer-related novel holds great personal meaning for two teenage Indianapolis cancer patients in love. The Fault in Our Stars pushes every button. Shailene Woodley is an ace at handling laughter through tears—“my favorite emotion,” as a character in Steel Magnolias once said.

Malefcent (PG) ★★★✩✩

The formula works: humanizing characters formerly known as evil, so that another tale emerges from the story we know, driven by female antagonist/protagonist hybrids who aren’t bad, just misunderstood. So it goes with Maleficent, Disney’s bombastic explanation of why the “queen of all evil” from its 1959 Sleeping Beauty got that way, and why she wasn’t, really. This is Angelina Jolie’s show. Maleficent is all about second thoughts. Our anti-heroine is Aurora’s fairy godmother, her heart warming, reluctantly, to the girl under the spell.

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SEVEN QUESTIONS

LEADER OF THE PACK

Cesar Millan brings his live dog-training show to the Pearl at the Palms at 8 p.m. Aug. 15, $39 and up, Palms.com.

Which species is more amenable to behavioral change, man or dog? Dog. Because they’re not thinking, they’re reacting. The only goals dogs have are harmony and balance, while humans have goals like to become wealthy, to become famous, to get a degree. Sometimes it’s hard for humans to use common sense. How did you come up with the idea of doing a live show like your upcoming one at the Palms? It comes from the honest understanding that people don’t know dogs. I wanted to create a show that is educational and entertaining, so people can see themselves in certain cases and be able to refect. It’s not just a show for people with dogs. It’s important that everybody understands dogs.

Cesar Millan

The Dog Whisperer on stereotyping canines, defning mistreatment and how a South Park spoof made him a cool dad

July 3–9, 2014

By Jessi C. Acuña

VEGAS SEVEN

When did you realize you had the skill to relate to man’s best friend? I came to America 23 years ago with the mentality that I was going to learn from Americans how to train dogs. I loved watching Lassie and Rin Tin Tin, and I believed that everybody had that type of relationship with their dog. But soon I realized I could do something different. I saw people didn’t know how to walk their dogs. The dog was always in front pulling them. At people’s homes, the dogs were always barking. I came from a different en-

vironment—from Mexico—where the dogs are never on a leash. That’s when it hit me that I can actually do something or teach something different. You rehabilitate all kinds of dogs. Is there any breed that you have found is tougher to train than another? No, but people stereotype dogs a lot. They think one breed is smarter than another. Rehabilitation is just bringing someone back to his or her natural state. For example, a nervous dog, he has just lost his trust, so it doesn’t mat-

ter what breed he is. Just like people: There are different races, but anybody can get angry, anybody can get fearful, anybody can get insecure. It has nothing to do with race. What I work more with is the psychological aspect, not the trainability aspect, like agility and dog training and tricks. What is the biggest mistake that dog owners make? They don’t go into the relationship knowing how to be with a dog. People go into a relationship loving the dog, but love is one thing; knowing is another. People can love cars—doesn’t mean they know how to drive them. If you don’t know how to relate to a dog, you’re not going to be able to mold its behavior with rules, boundaries and limitations to create what everybody wants: an obedient dog. The obedience comes from knowledge. … All my clients are dog lovers, but they don’t trust their dogs, or the dogs don’t respect them. There are three ingredients dogs need: trust, respect and love. Most of my clients only have love.

How do you get a dog to trust again if it was mistreated or abused by a former owner? Dogs that are fearful are going to take a bit longer, because those are the ones that have lost the trust. Aggressive dogs are actually easier to rehabilitate. You can mistreat a dog in many different ways. For example, if you don’t exercise a dog each day, that to me is mistreating a dog. If you don’t guide the dog or challenge the dog psychologically or mentally, that’s mistreating the dog. A lot of people only think that mistreating is when you hit the dog. Mistreating a dog is not allowing it to achieve its ultimate goal of a normal life. A lot of people spoil their dogs, and that’s all they do. I’m not saying it’s bad to give a dog whatever you can afford, but if you only give affection, that is mistreating a dog. A lot of dogs can become extremely aggressive, extremely dominant because they’ve never been told “no.” A few years back South Park depicted you in an episode titled “Cartman vs. The Dog Whisperer.” Did you see it, and do you think someone like Cartman is really trainable? Oh yes! But, what did my kids think of it? Even though I have my own TV show, it’s not a cool thing, but when I was on South Park, I became a cool dad. It obviously worked. Exercise and affection did it. Standing your ground did it. [Cartman’s] mom was doing positive reinforcement. How much does Cesar Millan believe in using positive reinforcement when training a dog? Read the full interview at VegasSeven.com/CesarMillan.

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