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14 | THE LATEST
“Breaking (Into) the Law,” by Camille Cannon. Despite a daunting post-graduate job market, now is the ideal time to give law school a shot—if you’re serious. Plus, our 2014 gift guide, Gramercy gets busy and helping the homeless.
16 | Breaking Stuf & Making Stuf “No Comment,” by Greg Blake Miller. Speed, surveillance and the roots of Internet incivility.
18 | Green Felt Journal
“Controlling Interest,” by David G. Schwartz. How the efforts of a few good regulators in the early 1960s kept Nevada’s gaming industry from crapping out.
22 | COVER
“In Black (Book) and White,” by Jason Scavone. The legal framework for Nevada’s Excluded Persons List has been repeatedly tested and upheld in the courts. Now one man seeks removal via an untested path: The rules themselves. Plus, a Q&A with Oscar Goodman, a look at landmark legal figures in Nevada history and the trends and big decisions of the year.
29 | NIGHTLIFE
“Highly MOTi-vated,” by Kat Boehrer. The Dutch DJ reached out to Tiësto, and now he’s a star.
61 | DINING
Al Mancini on Bocho. Plus, the new Off the Strip fulfills brothers’ dreams, Dishing With Grace and Cocktail Culture.
67 | A&E
“Baby, Remember His Fame,” by Steve Bornfeld. Long past ’80s stardom, Billy Hufsey plays the fame game in the classroom—and now on a Planet Hollywood stage. Plus, Hertzenberg and Fortenberry team up, The Hit List and Tour Buzz.
72 | Music
“Rocking Around the Foil Tree,” by Jason Scavone. Our staff Christmas fanatic mines the mid-mod sonic stylings for his annual list of seasonal songs that don’t suck.
80 | Going for Broke
What to do when NFL teams clearly quit on the season? Bet against them!
86 | Seven Questions
Jackie Glass, retired district court judge, on the O.J. Simpson trial, the challenge of celebrity and why the timing of her term on Swift Justice was fortuitous.
DEPARTMENTS
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DIALOGUE
OUR SITES TO SEE
RETURN TO BATTLE
After aerialist Sarah Guyard-Guillot died last year during the final battle scene of Kà, Cirque du Soleil removed the sequence from the show. Now, equipped with new safety measures, the scene returns December 12. Watch a preview at VegasSeven.com/Ka.
ANOTHER HOMECOMING
K À BY TOMO MUSCIONICO; IMAGINE DRAGONS BY ERIK K ABIK
Imagine Dragons returns to Las Vegas on December 11 to perform at The Joint, but their show is also a homecoming for a little-known local alternative band called Brumby. Ian Caramanzana introduces the bandmates and their new EP at VegasSeven.com/Brumby.
HIT THE SLOPES
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GAME ON … AND ON
Winter means snow, and snow means skiing. Stay on top of all your winter sports news with Vegas Seven’s monthly ski report. This month, check out what’s new for this season at the little ski resort that could, plus a snowcat adventure in the backcountry at VegasSeven.com/ SkiReport.
Want to shop local this holiday season? Our firstever DTLV shopping guide gives you the scoop on the retail outlets that will fill the stockings of loved ones, and perhaps deck your halls. DTLV.com/ ShoppingGuide.
The PlayStation Experience blew through the Sands Expo Convention Hall on December 6-7 and left a swarm of satisfied gamers in its wake. Watch videogame creatures come to life, players get lost in virtual reality and other highlights at VegasSeven. com/PlayStation.
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December 11–17, 2014
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The odds were in favor of fundraising Dec. 6 as Eglet Law Group turned its annual holiday soiree into the End Hunger Games Ball at its Downtown advocacy center. More than 450 guests attended the benefit for Three Square food bank—including Nevada District Court Judges Jerry Wiese and Nancy Allf, attorney Israel Kunin and state Senator Tick Segerblom. The Las Vegas Youth Orchestras serenaded the guests as they sampled a feast from Wild Truffles Catering. All leftovers were donated to Veteran’s Village, and an estimated $20,000 was raised for Three Square.
“They may operate under the cover of false names, but their actions are lit by the glow of a million screens.” BREAKING STUFF & MAKING STUFF {PAGE 16}
News, gaming, deals and spare thoughts on our passion for bowling
Breaking (Into) the Law
Despite a daunting post-graduate job market, now is the ideal time to give law school a shot—if you’re serious
December 11–17, 2014
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VegasSeven.com
IN NOVEMBER 2013, A LAW OFFICE IN
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Chicago announced that it would offer a $1,000 scholarship “to dissuade students from practicing law.” The Anything But Law School Scholarship was open to students with a minimum 3.0 GPA entering an accredited graduate school, and required a one-page essay detailing why some feld other than law would be interesting and proftable. That’s kind of like your friends who are parents telling you not to have kids because diapers are a bad investment. Kind of. Certainly, this unique scholarship hits on a major concern for today’s law students: slim pickings in the job market. According to a June report by the National Association for Law Placement, only 84.5 percent of 2013 graduates found employment, and that percentage has been declining since 2007. Large law frms that used to hire in herds scaled back during the Great Recession—and haven’t turned back. And of that 84.5 percent that found employment, only 64.4 percent held a position that required passage of the bar exam. In other words, there could potentially be some seriously overqualifed minimum wagers out there making up the difference. But as the number of job opportunities has dwindled, so has the number of people pursuing a law degree. The American Bar Association reports an 11 percent decrease in frst-year law school students from fall 2012 to 2013, which is a 24 percent decrease since fall 2010. Somewhat incongruently, the number of law schools has actually increased over time. While the number of law students in 2014 is roughly the same as it was in 1975, there were 163 ABA-approved law schools back in the disco era; now there are 204. In tandem, this trend of fewer applicants and more schools is advantageous to prospec-
tive students. In a June article titled “Apply to Law School Now! Yes, We’re Serious,” Slate’s senior business and economics correspondent Jordan Weissmann predicted that the number of graduates fnding longterm, full-time work in the legal feld will hit 91 percent for the class of 2016. (“The only reason,” he says, “is that enough students gave up on the idea of becoming lawyers amid
a market that was fooded with jobless young people.”) Daniel Hamilton, the dean of UNLV’s Boyd School of Law, concurs with Weissmann’s assessment. “This is the best time to apply and go to law school in a generation,” he says. “The competition is ferce, and the ability to negotiate tuition is widespread.” Negotiate tuition? Yep. Nowadays, applicants can—and should—leverage multiple offers to get the best deal,
Hamilton says. “A student applies to law school at UNLV or anywhere else, and calls you up and says, ‘I’ve got this offer at school A and this offer at school B. Let’s talk.’” Indeed, this is what The New York Times describes as a buyers’ market for law students. Popular legal-specifc websites such as LawSchoolNumbers.com and TopLaw-Schools.com permit applicants to post and share personal stats and scholarship offers, meaning the fnancial factors of the equation are more transparent than ever. This doesn’t mean a J.D. comes cheap, of course. According to the ABA, the average amount borrowed by law students in the 2012-13 academic year was $32,289 at public schools and $44,094 at private institutions. Multiply that by three years and … yeah, that adds up to a crapload of diapers. But all of these factors work in favor of the legal industry in this regard: Anyone pursuing a law degree today is likely in it for the right reasons, which is to say they’re wholeheartedly devoted to pursuing a legal career. “I think it’s fair to say that in decades prior you could apply to law school as a kind of holding pattern,” Hamilton says. “[These changes] in legal education have done away with law school as a default option.” Still, whether you’re newly enrolled or Elle Woods, there’s no denying that a law degree is a huge fnancial and emotional undertaking. Shane Jackson, a frst-semester student at Boyd, estimates spending anywhere from 20 to 40 hours a week on his studies. So while optimistic about fnding a job when he graduates (expected: 2017), he’s realistic about the journey to that destination. “If you don’t have a masochistic urge to bury yourself in diffcult texts,” Jackson says, “law school probably isn’t for you.” Fair enough.
ILLUSTRATION BY CIERRA PEDRO
By Camille Cannon
Finishing Touches
By Bob Whitby
Long-awaited Gramercy fnally nearing completion
THURSDAY, DEC. 11: Henderson is cranking up the holiday machine this weekend with the WinterFest celebration, three days of making merry down on Water Street. Things get rolling tonight with the Henderson Symphony Orchestra’s Sounds of the Season concert, and continue through Saturday with carriage rides, a festival of trees, arts and crafts, a parade, etc. HendersonLive.com.
By Brian Sodoma PROJECTOR SCREENS, WINE, CHEESE AND TREADMILLS
are just a few things on Jay Krigsman’s mind these days. The executive vice president for Krausz Companies, which is a joint owner of the Gramercy in the southwest part of the Valley, is in the midst of a lease and letter-of-intent maelstrom. But it should all pay off in the spring with plenty of live-work-players at the new community, which is being billed as an “urban village.” To date, Krausz has leased about two-thirds of the 200,000 square feet of offce space at the former Manhattan West recessionary casualty. The three main tenants are custom homebuilder Touchstone Living, Regus offce suites and HDI (Health Data Insights), a medical and fnancial services company. HDI currently has some employees on-site, and hiring is under way. Regus and Touchstone are building out their spaces. The Gramercy is intended to be a chain-free dining destination with hip concepts, such as DW Bistro’s market and kitchen, which is under construction. So is Cuppa Coffee House and Alex Stratta’s Italian Steakhouse. All should open in the spring. Krigsman says a ftness operator must also gel with the Starbucks- and Subway-free dining offerings. “We don’t want them only using four walls.
… You see it all the time at apartment complexes: a couple of treadmills, an elliptical [machine] and a plasma screen,” he says. “We want to see exercise groups, yoga, stretching in the central park area. This place should always have energy.” That central park area is positioned between the Gramercy’s two residential buildings and will be home to a pool, fre pits and the largest outdoor projection screen in the Valley. Krigsman says the frst residents should be moving into the New York-style apartments by January, with monthly rents ranging from the $900s for studios to more than $4,000 for penthouses. And it appears that demand is outpacing supply by about a 5-to-1 ratio, with more than 1,000 names inquiring about the 245 units. “I’m hoping by late spring we’ll have evenings in the plaza, movies under the stars, farmers markets,” Krigsman says. “By next summer, we should be humming.”
The scene at Hot Diggity Dog’s feedthe-hungry event.
GRAMERCY BY JIM K. DECKER
HELPING HANDS Southern Nevada has the fastestgrowing homeless population in the nation—a population that’s increased 28 percent since 2013, according to the Clark County Department of Social Service. What’s more, WalletHub recently named Nevada as the least charitable state in the U.S. But some locals are out there helping to disprove the latter assertion, if not improve the former statistic. Gene Gunnels, a musician and owner of the Hot Diggity Dog stand, does his part every December. The effort began about six years ago, when friends and colleagues pitched in to help Gunnels get his business off the ground. “When the holidays came around, I thought I would like to
give back to the community,” he says. Naturally, he chose to serve hot dogs to the hungry and homeless, offering a variety of options. “It lets [them] feel like their choices are important to us, and that makes them smile,” he says. Several food trucks have since joined in, volunteering time, food and facilities; others donate food, blankets and other necessities. “We know we cannot change the homeless situation by doing this,” Gunnells says. “But we do want to put a smile on a few faces for at least a day.” Jordan Cohen, a drummer with Blue Man Group, has been organizing a drive for the Las Vegas Rescue Mission for almost a decade. Along with fellow Blue Man cast and crew, Cohen gathers food, toiletries, clothing, household items and toys. “I wanted to do something for the community, and I
saw the homeless problem growing,” he says. “When you do charitable things, you can’t get away from the fact that you feel good about yourself, but then you get over it and do the work.” Merideth Spriggs has a personal interest in helping the homeless: When the recession hit in 2008, she briefly joined their ranks. “I saw how it could happen to anybody: I was homeless with a master’s degree.” Now she works with the Downtown Rangers on their homeless outreach program, connecting the less fortunate with shelter and other services. She’s also begun working on a partnership with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department called the Giving Project. “It’s a safe space where the homeless can come and people can give,” she says. The next Giving Project is from 9:30 a.m.noon December 13 at the American Legion-Las Vegas Post 8, 733 N. Veterans Memorial Drive. – Lissa Townsend Rodgers Want to help? Contact Gene@ HotdiggitydogLV.com for the Dec. 14 food-truck event; Las Vegas Rescue Mission at VegasRescue.org; and the Giving Project at TheGivingProject@ Hotmail.com.
FRIDAY, DEC. 12: Don’t know about you, but we think
the holidays could use a few new traditions. Here’s one: A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant! It’s kind of a mash-up of actual Scientology teachings and a nativity scene, if you can grasp that. 8 p.m. at Art Square Theatre, with shows through Dec. 20. Table8LV.com.
SATURDAY, DEC. 13: Every year about this time we
strongly suggest that you catch a ride on Boulder City’s Santa Train. It’s the Nevada State Railroad Museum’s holiday run in a real train, and it allows you to hang with Santa and Mrs. Claus. Warning: The Santa Train is only this weekend and next, and it always sells out. Buy tickets in advance at NevadaSouthern.com.
SUNDAY, DEC. 14: While we’re on the topic of don’t-miss annual events, it’s time once again for the Nevada Ballet Theatre’s production of The Nutcracker at The Smith Center. It features a full orchestra, lush intricate sets and some beautiful dancing. 7:30 p.m., with shows through Dec. 21. TheSmithCenter.com. MONDAY, DEC. 15: Remember when the
UNLV Solar Decathlon Team pretty much cleaned up at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon competition last year? Their project, a 754-square-foot self-sustaining desert home, is now on display at Springs Preserve. Yes, you really can live comfortably without 3,500 square feet. Open daily. SpringsPreserve.org for info.
TUESDAY, DEC. 16: Winter officially arrives in five days, but there’s no reason you shouldn’t go ice skating right now. That’s possible at several places during our relatively warm cold period, including at Downtown Summerlin’s Rock Rink. Open daily through midJanuary, the rink blends skating with light shows and a DJ on weekends. DowntownSummerlin.com. WEDNESDAY, DEC. 17: What makes one building a place people want to be and another a place people want to avoid? What goes into designing the physical spaces that surround us? These and other questions are explored in Reflecting and Projecting: Twenty Years of Design Excellence, a new exhibit of award-winning design projects at UNLV’s Marjorie Barrick Museum. Through Feb. 28. UNLV.edu.
Speed, surveillance and the roots of Internet incivility IN THE PAST YEAR, MANY ONLINE
publications have told would-be commenters that they would need to take their conversations elsewhere. One of the frst, Popular Science, decided that comment threads, often rife with misinformation, detracted from the articles that preceded them. More recently, the technology site Re/code dropped its commenting function, declaring that social media was a more appropriate space for discussion. And this fall the English-language Moscow Times— one of the last sources of nonPutinized information in Russia— had to shut down what we might call The After-Party of the Trolls, a comment-thread cage match that would have a left tag team of Rush Limbaugh and Lenny Bruce bloodied and weeping. Readers of online media can be forgiven for snorting at the notion that the original, conversation-starting article is the product of hard work and refection. This is a medium, after all, that brings you thrice-regurgitated stories under fresh bylines, illustrated lists of celebrities with cellulite and political meme photos with fabricated quotes. But let’s assume for a moment that a world survives in which writers are appropriately trained and paid: It’s reasonable enough to hope that unexamined conspiracy theories and gleeful hate speech should not attain equivalency with well-informed and thoughtfully rendered articles. Even if a reader disagrees with the article, the comment thread below the big Neil Armstrong feature probably isn’t the place for musings on how 8-year-old Barack Obama singlehandedly faked the moon landing. The renowned foreign correspondent Anne Applebaum recently issued an elegant warning in Slate about the power of paid trolls who can profoundly shift online discussion. She concluded that the real problem was not the payment, but the empowerment that comes with anonymity. It’s a powerful argument: University of Houston researcher Arthur Santana has found that more than 50 percent of anonymous posts include “vulgar, racist, profane or hateful” language. But what if we go one step further in our dissection of Internet incivility? What if the producers of content and comment alike
J A M E S P. R E Z A
Seems like the entire world is doing business on Twitter these days, so I recently turned to the social media titan to solicit questions. Here are two I received:
@K ANDITAM2001 ASKS: IS BOWLING REALLY THAT POPULAR IN LAS VEGAS?
Breaking Stuff & Making Stuff
Mad musings on the creative life GREG BLAKE MILLER
suffer from the same disorder: speed addiction? What if the problem of anonymity begins with surveillance? What if the virus of harsh judgment begins with the fear of being judged? In other words, what if the galloping falsehoods and rampant discourteousness of what is potentially the greatest storytelling medium ever conceived are the result of our basic assumptions about the Web? If we view the Web as a place for quick words, loosely held secrets, vast reach and swift judgment, should we be surprised that we’ve created an engine for fear and aggression? Thoughtful communication begins with a measured study of our surroundings, private refection upon what we’ve learned and rigorous questioning of our own assumptions. It’s pretty antiquated stuff, but then so is the old saw about looking both ways before you cross the street. To productively take part in the big conversation, we need not
only to live our lives, executing a series of actions in time, but to process those lives, taking the time to think and dream about what it all means. It makes sense to withhold the music of public communication until the score is written. We nurse, nurture, study and work upon our thoughts so that at the point of communication these thoughts are fully rendered into the currency of civil discourse. The perceived need for speed, the nagging anxiety (or exhibitionist glee) that one is being watched, and the sense that one must judge or be judged has created a Hobbesian struggle online. Some of us choose to opt out; some choose to wear a mask of chirpy positivity, hoping that fulsome praise will provide shelter from the storm. Others, however, decide that the best defense is a good offense. They may operate under the cover of false names, but their actions are lit by the glow of a million screens. All at once they experience the opiate power of being both known and unknown. They move swiftly, and without mercy. Greg Blake Miller, Ph.D., is the director of Olympian Creative Education. OlympianCreative.com.
It certainly seems that way. As is the case in the rest of the country, most freestanding Southern Nevada bowling centers have disappeared (RIP West Hill Lanes; long live Boulder Bowl!). But at least ours were replaced by lanes in many of our so-called “locals casinos.” (Of note: the original Arizona Charlie’s was built to incorporate the existing Charleston Heights bowling alley. Charlie’s eventually closed the lanes in 1992.) And thanks to the casino subsidy, not only is bowling in Las Vegas cheaper than in most other cities, it’s also (ironically) shed its shady stigma to emerge as family-friendly fun in a city starved for it. Gone are the smoky lanes and scantily clad cocktail waitresses; now it’s cosmic bowling and “Kids bowl free!” Add to that the fact that Vegas is a competitive city whose future rests on beating other cities at their own game (see the aggressive way in which we retained the National Finals Rodeo last year after it considered riding off to Orlando). Hence the new $35 million, 60-lane South Point Bowling Plaza. Separate from the casino’s public lanes, the center is set up specifically for pro competition, with 360 spectator stadium seats and two 167-foot digital displays. Combined with Reno’s National Bowling Stadium, South Point’s facility will help make Nevada the country’s bowling capital. You’d better get practicing on picking up your splits.
@MRBLUELOUBOYLE ASKS: WHAT IS THE BEST SPORTS BAR OFF THE STRIP? Depends on what you want, though I think we all want cheap booze, decent food and great TVs. There are plenty of joints that turn extra special for fans on game days because of their affiliation with specific teams. That explains why, for instance, Green Bay Packers fans flock to Big Dog’s Draft House, a home away from home for Wisconsin folk. And why my favorite is Born and Raised, perhaps the city’s only UNLVspecific sports bar. A close second for me is the Crown & Anchor British pub near the university; at least there I don’t get mocked for liking soccer. Want to bet the farm without fighting Strip crowds? Download one of the popular mobile betting apps from a place like William Hill or Station Casinos and fund your account. Then, hit up your favorite bar, where you can eat, drink, socialize, play video poker and place sports bets—all without ever leaving your own neighborhood. Talk about vice convenience! Questions? AskaNative@VegasSeven.com.
ILLUSTRATION BY CIERRA PEDRO
THE LATEST VegasSeven.com
| December 11–17, 2014
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THE LATEST
Controlling Interest How the eforts of a few good regulators in the early 1960s kept Nevada’s gaming industry from crapping out
Nevada Governor Grant Sawyer and gaming adversaries U.S. Senator Estes Kefauver and U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
December 11–17, 2014
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VegasSeven.com
GRANT SAWYER DESERVES MUCH OF THE
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credit for Nevada taking its current shape. In his frst year as governor in 1959, Sawyer created the Nevada Gaming Commission, taking the responsibility for issuing licenses and directing policy away from the state’s Tax Commission. According to Sawyer’s then-executive assistant Bob Faiss, who would go on to shape gaming law in the 1970s, Sawyer had a simple directive for the new body: “If there are any members of the underworld in the gaming industry, get them out. If they are not here, keep them out. I want you to hang tough!” Sawyer’s “hang tough” policy emerged at a crucial time: Bobby Kennedy’s Justice Department would ratchet up pressure on Nevada casinos starting in 1961, and without the good-faith efforts of Sawyer’s appointees to clean house, more sweeping federal action seemed inevitable. While the Gaming Commission was a key part of the equation, the Gaming Control Board—created in 1955—was actually empowered to investigate and police the industry and its applicants. That body— which included three members appointed by the governor, as well as administrative, accounting and enforcement staff—would in large part decide just how tough to hang. Ed Olsen, chairman of the Gaming Control Board from 1961 to 1966, was an unlikely choice for such a prominent role at such a perilous time. Born in New York in 1919, he worked as a journalist in California, Nevada, Idaho and Oregon before Sawyer asked him to serve as an intermediary between the Board and the Gam-
ing Commission. An intermediary was needed because things were not as peaceable at the time as one might imagine; apparently there was some tension between Milton Keefer and James Hotchkiss, two members of the Commission (Keefer was chairman), and Ray Abbaticchio, Sawyer’s pick for Board chairman; all three were former FBI agents. Olsen managed to smooth things over between the regulators, but ultimately Abbaticchio’s unpopularity led to his removal. Needing a replacement, Sawyer turned to Olsen, who was as surprised as anyone to get the call from the governor. Olsen certainly had no problem adhering to Sawyer’s “hang tough” directive: He stared down Frank Sinatra over the singer’s decision to host Sam Giancana at the CalNeva. Sinatra blinked. But he also knew when to keep an open mind. Teamsters Union head Jimmy Hoffa was, at the time, locked in a death struggle with Attorney General Kennedy. Should the Board recommend that the union’s pension fund be prohibited from investing in Nevada casinos? Olsen and the board took a calculated risk by allowing Teamster loans, a risk that gave casinos an infusion of capital at a critical juncture. Olsen also was instrumental in seeing that Nevada’s gaming indus-
TIME TO CASH IN ON HOLIDAY OFFERINGS
try kept true to its pledge (and legal obligation) to desegregate. Olsen deputized an African-American man as an undercover agent, and made it known that denying anyone access to casino facilities would not be tolerated. That wasn’t a universally popular action in 1961, but one Olsen saw as vital to ensuring the integrity of the industry. Richard Schuetz, a gaming industry veteran and current member of the California Gambling Control Commission who interviewed Olsen in the former regulator’s fnal days, was struck by Olsen’s ethics and personal strength. “His greatest signifcance,” Schuetz says, “was that he realized the threat to the industry imposed by the federal government and ensured that these threats did not [destroy] the industry. When one looks at the lineup of people who were antagonistic toward Nevada gambling, including Senators [John] McClellan and [Estes] Kefauver, [FBI Director] J. Edgar Hoover, Robert Kennedy and a national press led by the Chicago Sun-Times, it really is amazing that Nevada gaming survived.” With another man at the helm of the Gaming Control Board, it’s possible that the 1960s would have ended with Nevada gaming in shambles, instead of being on the cusp of the corporate era. As today’s Board and Commission face new challenges, it’s important to realize that much of their regulation is not about blindly enforcing statutes, but making tough— though necessary—decisions.
Holiday deals dominate December, and it starts with ice skating. The Venetian ditched its rink this year, but you can still get your skate on at the Cosmopolitan and Caesars Palace, as well as at Downtown Summerlin, through early January. The Caesars rink opens earliest every day (11 a.m.), but it’s $20 for a 90-minute session, as opposed to $10 for locals at the Cosmopolitan and $15 at Summerlin for all-day access. The Summerlin fee includes skate rental, which is $5 more at the other places. Do some shopping before or after skating, and you can parlay that into a buffet two-fer. Through December 24, show a same-day receipt of at least $20 from a Downtown Summerlin store to get a 2-for-1 buffet at nearby Red Rock Resort. While the Venetian is rink-less, it is offering locals what amounts to a 2-for-1 deal for the holiday version of the show Human Nature. Buy a $79 or $99 ticket for a December 12-16 performance and get a second ticket for $1 when you use the code “BOGO1.” The Venetian also has a locals-only deal for two tickets to Rock of Ages for $99 when you use the code “99 LOCAL.” Another locals-only offer gets you 50 percent off dining at the Commissary and S+O at Downtown Grand. Just show ID. And Silverton is offering 2-for-1 buffets or 50 percent off for single diners on Wednesdays in December (excludes Dec. 24). Print out the necessary coupon at a casino kiosk. With the rodeo still in town, plenty of drinking specials are out there, but I’m partial to that great holiday tradition from Ellis Island: homemade alcohol-infused eggnog. This one packs a punch and is available from the bar for $6 by the glass or $30 for a bottle. If you haven’t been playing Boyd casinos’ Pick the Pros free football contest, this is a good time to start. For the final four weeks of the season, the weekly prize pool has been upped from $30,000 to $50,000. Just swipe your B Connected card at a kiosk in the Orleans, Gold Coast, Suncoast, Sam’s Town, California or Fremont to play. You must submit picks before kickoff of the first Sunday games. Granted, 99.99 percent of you won’t cash, but the .01 percent who do are gonna be real happy! If you’re contemplating securing a “saferoom” for New Year’s Eve, there were 77 hotel-casinos with NYE availability when our Las Vegas Advisor researchers called around last week. The best price in the entire Valley was at the Lucky Club for $130. Downtown, it was the Plaza at $189; on the Strip, it was the Riviera at $289. I also like the two-night packages at South Point for $220, and Downtown Grand or Four Queens for $338 each. Hurry, these go fast!
David G. Schwartz is the director of UNLV’s Center for Gaming Research.
Anthony Curtis is the publisher of the Las Vegas Advisor and LasVegasAdvisor.com.
THE LATEST
STYLE
WRAP IT UP Still searching for that perfect gif? Here are 30 ideas for him, her and home.
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Compiled by Melinda Sheckells 5
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ELECTRONICS
Samsung Galaxy Note 4, $299 (depending on carrier), and Gear Fit, $150; Samsung.com.
1 GoPro Hero 4,
December 11–17, 2014
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$399 (silver), $499 (black) with Fetch (dog harness), $60, in REI at the District at Green Valley Ranch, 702-896-7111; REI.com.
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Destiny PlayStation 4 Bundle in glacier white, $399, Target, various locations; Target.com. WD My Cloud 2TB, $149, Fry’s Electronics in Town Square, 702-9321400; Frys.com. PowerBeats2 Wireless In-Ear Headphones, $200, Apple Store, various locations; Apple.com.
FOR HIM
2 Nixon the Diplomatic,
$1,200, in Tourneau at the Forum Shops, 702-7328463; Tourneau.com. Brixton Hooligan Cap in Washed Black, $34, in Nordstrom at Fashion Show, 702-862-2525; Nordstrom.com. AllSaints Conroy Leather Biker jacket, $650, in AllSaints at the Forum Shops at Caesars, 702-9200745; US.AllSaints.com. Norelco 9100 Series laserguided beard trimmer, $90; Amazon.com. Herschel Supply Campaign Luggage (carry-on size), $190; Zappos.com.
FOR HER
Dior New Couture by Patrick Demarchelier, $115; RizzoliUSA.com. Neiman Marcus PopSugar Must-Have gift box, $250; Musthave.PopSugar.com; NeimanMarcus.com. Adidas Originals by Rita Ora sweatshirt dress, $85; Adidas.com. Luxe by Lisa Vogel Essentials, $53-$95; Swimspot.com.
3 LeSportsac x Tokidoki
Rondine Weekender, $278; in LeSportsac at Fashion Show, 702-731-0988; LeSportsac.com.
PERSONALIZED ONLINE SHOPPING
Five Four Club (private label for men), $60 for $120 worth of clothes; FiveFourClothing.com.
4 Trunk Club (designer
labels for men), a personal stylist handpicks a trunk of clothes and ships it to you for free; TrunkClub.com. Bungalow Clothing (designer labels for women), a style concierge builds a dressing room and you try before you buy; BungalowClothing.com. Glossy Box (five luxury beauty products), monthly plans start at $21; GlossyBox.com. Birchbox, monthly delivery of personalized beauty or grooming samples, $30$60; Birchbox.com.
BEAUTY
5 Kiehl’s Creme de Corps
Norman Rockwell Limited Edition, $18, in Kiehl’s at the Forum Shops at Caesars, 702-784-0025; Kiehls.com. Beauty Kitchen JetSetting Travel Kit, $30; HeatherMarianna.TV/Shop. Pout by Amy customizable lip gloss, $20; to purchase, email amybeth317@gmail.com. Amope Pedi Perfect Electronic Foot File, $40$50, Walgreens, various locations; Walgreens.com. The Selfie Brush By J&D, $17, Sally Beauty Supply, various locations.
HOME
Keurig 2.0 Brewing System, $200; Keurig.com. T-Fal OptiGrill, $180; Macy’s, various locations; Macys.com. Baz Dazzled Holiday Gold Fur-Trim Crown Topper, $68, in Barneys at the Grand Canal Shoppes at the Venetian/Palazzo, 702-6294200; Barneys.com. Sur La Table Cooking Classes, starting at $39, Sur La Table in Downtown Summerlin; 702-448-8611; SurLaTable.com.
6 Prisma Gold Frame, $13,
in the Paper Source at Town Square, 702-262-1379; PaperSource.com.
T H E
L E G A L
I S S U E
The legal framework for Nevada’s Excluded Persons List has been repeatedly tested and upheld in the courts. Now one man seeks removal via an untested path: the rules themselves.
December 11–17, 2014
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louis tom dragna died in November 2012 at 92. Not bad by any standard, but as far as wise guys go, it’s positively Methuselean. Dragna was the son of Tom, consigliere to Jack Dragna, who headed the Los Angeles mob until his death in 1956. Louis might have been the acting boss of the L.A. family; he might have turned the gig down. Details are a he-said, she-said between mob rats, the feds and purported insiders. Either way, he was one of the 11 men originally placed on the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s Excluded Persons List—a.k.a. the Black Book—in 1960. It took Louis Tom Dragna until May 2014 before his name was removed, proving the Black Book is like the old Othello slogan: A minute to join, a lifetime to get off. While the reality of the Black Book is well known, the legal processes around it are still somewhat arcane and disturbingly vague. It starts with two interlocking regulations—Nevada Revised Statutes sections 463.151 through 463.155, and the Regulations of the Nevada Gaming Commission and State Gaming Control Board section 28. These two moderately verbose hunks of legalese give the state the authority and means to ban people from casinos. Technically, there are four criteria outlined that get you the scarlet letter treatment:
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• Prior conviction of a crime which is a felony in this state or under the laws of the United States, a crime involving moral turpitude, or a violation of the gaming laws of any state; • Violation or conspiracy to violate the provisions of this chapter relating to: The failure to disclose an interest in a gaming establishment for which the person must obtain a license; or willful evasion of fees or taxes; • Notorious or unsavory reputation which would adversely affect public confdence and trust that the gaming industry is free from criminal or corruptive elements; or • Written order of a governmental agency which authorizes the exclusion or ejection of the person from an establishment at which gaming or pari-mutuel wagering is conducted.
What started in 1960 with a bunch of mobsters and associates has become over the years a repository largely for slot and card cheats who had the bad luck to draw the Gaming Control Board’s attention. It’s more historical oddity than crucial bit of public service at this point; a ward against ghosts. It’s been 10 years since anyone accused of organized crime ties made the cut. But the above language gives broad power to state authorities in deciding who to sacrifce on the regulatory altar. In practice, what happens is the Gaming Control Board accepts nominations from law-enforcement agencies or, in rare cases, from casinos themselves. Since the 1970s, anyone nominated to the Black Book can get a hearing. If the Board votes to accept the nomination of an individual, the wheels go in motion. The Gaming Commission becomes the arbiter of evidence and decides the
Craig Jones Vargas. “They are actively pursuing their trade of cheating at cards or whatever they’re doing that they are deemed unft to be in a casino. I guess it’s probably habitual.” Frank Citro Jr. was convicted in 1985 on one count of racketeering. He was caught up with six others accused of running a loan-sharking operation that targeted poker players at the California Bell Club. The government said the group all had ties to a Chicago crime family and were trying to set up a largescale loan-sharking and bookmaking operation from Southern California to Las Vegas. Three of seven who were accused walked, but Citro was sentenced to two years in prison and fve years’ probation. He got out in 1990. That’s when a certifed letter arrived, telling him he would have to appear before the Commission. Most people fngered by the Board don’t show for their hearing. Citro did.
“I THINK THE BLACK BOOK IS THE MOST UNCONSTITUTIONAL INVENTION THAT HAS EVER HIT THE FACE OF THE EARTH.” – Oscar Goodman nominee’s fate. If it isn’t a foregone conclusion, it’s close. No one the Board has sent to a hearing has escaped the Black Book—unless they died or went to jail prior to the Commission’s decision. (James Tamer had the rare honor of a second-ballot call. He was nominated twice, dismissed the frst time in 1986 and entered the second in 1988.) So how does law enforcement decide whom to target in the frst place? Why are some enemies of the industry while others, like John Kane and Andre Nestor—who were recently the subject of an extensive Wired magazine piece about exploiting a bug in video-poker software to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars—are still allowed in Nevada casinos without the threat of a gross misdemeanor? “I don’t know. I imagine it’s because they reach a certain level of frequency or seriousness of the crime,” says Gaming Commissioner Joe W. Brown, who is the director of the frm Fennemore
On the frst day, he wore a tux. The Commission, apparently, didn’t see the humor. When the hearing reconvened on November 21, 1991, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Miller presented, on behalf of the Board, the bill of particulars for Citro’s inclusion. (It’s always the deputy AG for gaming who presents the Board’s case.) She leaned on four felony convictions—particularly the last one that supposedly proved Citro’s association with organized crime fgures—as the meat of her argument. Citro’s attorney, William Watters, was ill-prepared. He disputed one of the felony convictions, but couldn’t produce supporting documents. His argument against “unsavory reputation” was even less convincing. “We’re here to tell you that the reputation has been manufactured by the government, giving him a moniker. You can’t be a gangster without a moniker. … [It] was given to him. He didn’t earn it.” Inherit the Wind, this was not.
The convictions are what they are, but “unsavory reputation” is sharkskin slippery. It gives the Commission enormous leeway when they’re making their decision. And that decision, Brown says, comes if the Commission is swayed by a preponderance of the evidence—not nearly the beyond-areasonable-doubt of a criminal-court case. Even hearsay is allowed. “It’s the best judgment or discretion of the Board,” Brown says. “Perhaps maybe a thing you might argue about is an unsavory reputation. I guess that may be in the eye of the beholder. For the most part, things I’m aware of are if a guy is arrested and convicted of cheating or [committing] some crime against the casinos, or obviously some blatant crime of murder.” That’s, of course, if they come under formal review in the frst place. None of the co-defendants in Citro’s racketeering case ever faced down a hearing. Commissioner Kenneth Gragson even asked about Joseph Bolognese, a Las Vegan acquitted in Citro’s trial. Miller demurred because of the acquittal, even though Bolognese’s reputation was, in theory, just as unsavory as Citro’s. Hell, at the James Tamer hearing, the Board tried to contend that his association with Moe Dalitz was proof of his unsavory reputation. Yes, the Desert Inn’s Moe Dalitz. Citro brought his family to the hearing and testifed on his own behalf. No dice. It took less than two hours for the Commission to vote him in. And for 22 years, that’s where it stood. Then, in 2013, Citro did something unexpected: He went public with his intent to mount a challenge to be removed under a provision—section 28.080—titled “Petition to remove from the list.” It states: “Any person who, after a fnal determination by the Commission, has been placed upon the list may petition the Commission in writing and request that his name be removed from such list. The petition shall be verifed and state with specifcity the grounds believed by the petitioner to constitute good cause for removal of his name.” Citro believes he has “good cause,” and hired Arlington, Virginia-based at-
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L E G A L
I S S U E
torney Michael Lasher to handle his case. “The large argument is that Frankie for 26 years has not reoffended. He has done charitable works. The inability to get into the casinos hampers his ability to raise more money for the charities and frankly support himself,” Lasher says. “If we were just trying to expunge any collateral consequence of a conviction, he’d be able to do it. For this statute to have any meaning or validity, [the Gaming Commission] has to entertain these things.” Citro isn’t the frst to shoot for removal. Two men, Ruby Kolod and “Icepick” Willie Alderman, did the nigh-impossible and got themselves off the Book in 1965, probably with the substantial aid of Dalitz. John Marshall, another of the original 11, challenged the law itself on constitutional grounds, but the 9th Circuit shut down that avenue in Marshall v. Sawyer, saying due-process rights didn’t apply. Marshall tried to take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, but was denied a hearing in 1967. Tony Spilotro took a similar shot with the help of Oscar Goodman, this time in the Nevada Supreme Court, but the high court in 1983 was as unsympathetic as its federal counterpart 16 years earlier. Lasher says that if Citro’s petition fails— and the Commission could simply elect not to hear it—he could consider attacking the statute under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, arguing that because a felon could expunge it proves the excluded are being treated unfairly. There’s one problem with that theory: Marshall and Spilotro both failed specifcally with 14th Amendment arguments. “I think the Black Book is the most unconstitutional invention that has ever hit the face of the Earth,” Goodman says. “People are branded with the mark of Cain. ... It would be different if it would be a gambling-related offense, but to tell somebody who has been convicted of insurance fraud he can’t go into a casino restroom makes no sense. It was just a way of showing some muscle.” In their 1995 book The Black Book and the Mob: The Untold Story of the Control of Nevada’s Casinos, UNLV criminal justice professors Ronald Farrell and Carole Case got to the end of the same rainbow. “So the Black Book indeed has served a purpose, though it’s largely a symbolic one. It has helped convey a public image of gaming as a legitimate industry and of the state as capable of keeping it free of crime and corrupting infuences. Neither the possibility that the stated threats are not the real ones nor the continued existence of numerous other threats to gaming is as important as the belief that all is well in Babylon.” At the moment, though, it’s moot. Citro says a recent surgery has caused him to sideline his pursuit. Lasher says he’s waiting on supporting evidence from his client before he can fle. Once he gets it, he can have the petition fled within hours. “I’m not gonna lay down, baby,” Citro, now 69, says. “I’m not a punk. I’m not the toughest guy in the world, but I ain’t gonna lay down. If these guys don’t put me back in that casino, I’m gonna come back and haunt them. The only way to dispute it is for me to do what I’ve done all these years: Be a good guy.”
Las Vegas resident Frank Citro Jr. has been banned from Nevada casinos since being placed in the Black Book in 1991.
PHOTO BY JON ESTRADA
December 11–17, 2014
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T H E
Laying Down the Laws
FROM GAY MARRIAGE TO UBER, NEVADA HAS BEEN AT THE CENTER OF SEVERAL KEY LEGAL MATTERS IN 2014 By Tye Masters
By Michael Green
GRANT SAWYER AND BOB FAISS
THE NEVADA CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION Delegates met in Carson City
in the summer of 1864 and wrote the document that governs us—a document that’s more detailed about individual liberties than the U.S. Constitution. How it divides power between the three governmental branches means legislators only meet every two years and don’t confirm the governor’s appointments, setting in motion not only Nevada’s antiquated budgeting process, but also our libertarian approach to so many issues. Take note, Cliven Bundy: The Nevada Constitution also disclaims any right to the federal land that the U.S. government already owned, having acquired this area in the treaty that ended the Mexican-American War—meaning it never was Nevada’s land. Besides thereby depriving Nevada of much of a tax base, our constitution gave the mining industry a tax break that lives on to this day. FELICE COHN The first Nevada-born
woman (1878 in Carson City) to practice law here, she served as an assistant U.S. attorney, was a leading advocate for women’s suffrage and a bankruptcy court referee. She also was one of the first women in the U.S. admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court. She helped found the Nevada Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs, and was a longtime lobbyist on behalf of children’s and women’s rights. Women attorneys—indeed, a lot of Nevadans, period—stand on her shoulders. THE FOLEY FAMILY Thomas Foley was the
first to arrive, landing in Goldfield in 1906. His son Roger T. moved to Las Vegas to stay in 1928, became a district judge and then a federal judge, and heard, among other cases, Greenspun v. McCarran, in which Las Vegas Sun publisher Hank Greenspun sued U.S. Senator Pat McCarran—and almost every hotel-casino owner in town—for conspiring to deprive him of advertising because he had criticized McCarran. Foley’s even-handed hearing of the case enabled Greenspun to win a settlement, survive as a publisher and go on to play an important role in Nevada history (see, among other things, the community of Green Valley). Roger Foley’s five
MGM GRAND HOTEL FIRE The November 21, 1980, fire killed 85 and injured more than 700. Its legal significance? In addition to many resulting lawsuits—2,000 plaintiffs and several hundred defendants—that led to the passage of laws to make Nevada buildings safer (sprinkler systems), the fire resulted in the influx of an army of lawyers who greatly expanded the legal profession here. How the MGM fire lawsuits were handled also influenced subsequent large-scale trials involving such topics as the effects of tobacco and breast implants. HARRY CLAIBORNE A legendary Las Vegas
attorney, Claiborne became a U.S. district judge in 1978. Federal officials almost immediately targeted him, believing him to be crooked mainly because of his being a great defense attorney who also represented Horseshoe owner Benny Binion. The feds gave immunity to brothel owner Joe Conforte, who lied under oath about bribing Claiborne. Those charges didn’t stick, but the investigations found that Claiborne screwed up his taxes, and in 1986, he wound up being the first federal judge impeached, convicted and removed from office since the Civil War. The controversy over Clairborne’s case roiled Southern Nevada and raises questions to this day about the area’s image and the federal government’s dealings with Las Vegas.
THE NEVADA SUPREME COURT
Not the current seven justices, but the group in the 1980s and 1990s who publicly fought over everything from political campaigns to an investigation into the actions of a Washoe County district court judge. Their fights—including demanding investigations into who leaked information, plus trying to block investigations and interfering in cases—were a national embarrassment for the legal profession. Only in the last few years has the state high court’s reputation recovered.
VegasSeven.com
➜ John Adams talked of the need for “a government of laws, and not of men,” while Frank Zappa called the United States “a nation of laws, badly written and randomly enforced.” While Adams was the greater founding father, Zappa had a point: Who we are and what we think shapes our laws, and this is particularly true within each of our 50 states. Here are the seven most important people and events that have shaped Nevada law:
They’re a tag team. As governor, Sawyer pushed for the Nevada Equal Rights Commission, which still deals with civil rights cases. He also revolutionized gaming regulation in the state with, among other things, the Black Book, barring certain unsavory characters from entering casinos. Entrants such as John Marshall and Tony Spilotro challenged the Black Book’s constitutionality, to no avail. After leaving office, Sawyer co-founded a major law firm whose specialties included representing corporations that were just beginning to enter Nevada gaming. Of equal importance was Faiss, who was one of Sawyer’s aides as governor and also one of his law partners. Faiss wrote the original guidebook for the Nevada Gaming Commission and shaped many of the laws governing gaming in the state and, eventually, in other jurisdictions.
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employees believe they should be compensated for that time, while Amazon argues otherwise. The Nevada District Court initially dismissed the case, but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision. The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in October, and if it decides to reinterpret when work time begins and ends, the decision could impact many business and put millions of dollars at stake. Of a more high-profile nature is NV Transportation v. Uber Technologies. On November 25, Washoe County District Judge Scott Freeman approved a preliminary injunction to halt Uber’s ride-sharing operations in Nevada. Freeman agreed with the Nevada Transportation Authority that Uber was illegally operating here since it failed to comply with state-licensing requirements prior to launching service statewide in October. The judge said that Uber’s noncompliance with state regulations potentially risked public safety. Uber countered that it shouldn’t be subject to state regulations because it’s not a transportationservices company but a technology company connecting customers with independent contractors. However, not even Uber’s requirements of driver background checks and vehicle inspections swayed the judge from granting the injunction. While the Uber saga has played out statewide for the past month, another legal controversy back in April generated national buzz: the intense standoff between Cliven Bundy and the Bureau of Land Management, whose personnel sought to enforce a court order to stop Bundy’s cattle from grazing on federally owned land. After hundreds of armed supporters flocked to Bundy’s defense, BLM personnel withdrew for employee and public safety rather than escalate the situation. Since the standoff ended, the BLM has said it is attempting to resolve the matter in the courts. Meanwhile, Bundy and his cattle remain on the contested land. Not to be left out, Nevada voters were responsible for one of the year’s biggest legal decisions when they overwhelmingly approved Question 1 during November’s general election, creating an intermediate appellate court. Under the new setup, all district court appeals will still be filed with the Nevada Supreme Court, which will then assign cases to the new intermediate court. Prior to the passage of Question 1, Nevada was one of only 10 states in the country without a court of appeals.
December 11–17, 2014
➜ The sound of the judge’s gavel banging against the block always carries beyond the courtroom, because so many judicial decisions directly impact our lives. That’s been particularly true in Nevada this year, as a slew of legal developments have made headlines—some big, some small, all significant. The year’s most talked-about legal decision came down October 6, when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear petitions regarding the ban on same-sex marriage, thereby upholding the appellate court’s decision to strike down the ban. The Supreme Court’s decision marked the tipping point for marriage equality and eventually led to more than half the country legalizing same-sex marriage. One day after the Supreme Court had its say, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Nevada and Idaho’s same-sex marriage bans. While it would take two days to clear legal hurdles, Nevada issued its first same-sex marriage license October 9. Now, gay couples no longer have to worry about if they can get married, only whether it will be in a chapel or a drive-through, and whether they’ll use a traditional officiant or Elvis. The Nevada Supreme Court made a major ruling this fall that will have lasting effects on banks. In SFR Investments Pool 1 v. U.S. Bank, the court left some banks feeling robbed by ruling that a homeowners association’s priority lien may wipe out a bank’s first deed of trust. The case revolved around real estate investors who purchased a Southern Highlands home for $6,000 from an HOA foreclosure sale, which extinguished U.S. Bank’s first deed of trust. That same day, the Nevada Supreme Court de-pantsed the strip-club industry, upholding a ruling that club operators must pay Nevada’s live entertainment tax. One month later, in Terry v. Sapphire Gentlemen’s Club, the court ruled that dancers at Sapphire Gentlemen’s Club are employees and not independent contractors. As a result, Sapphire has to pay retroactive wages to the 6,500 dancers involved in the class-action suit. Speaking of arguments about wages, Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk is a notable ongoing U.S. Supreme Court case considering whether workers at an Amazon warehouse in Las Vegas should be paid for mandatory security screenings conducted after their work shift has concluded. The screenings are meant to prevent theft but can take as long as 25 minutes;
sons all became attorneys and politicians, with oldest son Roger D. also becoming a federal judge (George Foley Jr. continues the tradition as a federal magistrate). Roger D. Foley’s famous cases included Baneberry (in which he opened up the federal government to challenges from Nevada Test Site workers who had been victims of radiation exposure) and the Ash Meadows Desert Pupfish, which he protected from developers.
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T H E
L E G A L
I S S U E
From Spilotro to O.J., Oscar Goodman recounts his eventful career as a defense attorney
December 11–17, 2014
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Growing up as a son of a prosecutor, was there any doubt you’d go into law? Oh, ab-
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solutely. I was going to be a coach. I was going to be a rabbi. I was going to be a lot of things, never even thinking of being a lawyer. Then my wife said, “You’d better go to law school.” She made a very compelling argument that, when you’re a rabbi, you have 800 bosses, and I never liked a boss. As a coach, it’s so iffy that you could get a solid profession.
What was the case that led to you representing organized crime figures? By accident I
became the country’s leading expert on wiretap cases. My wife, we would go out to dinner once a month. We went to the Hacienda. After dinner, she would take $10 and play blackjack. The dealer who
dealt her the cards became very friendly with me, and he called me [to handle his] bankruptcy. A couple of weeks after that, a phone call came into the pit at the Hacienda. It was from an organized crime fgure from the Northeast whose stepbrother had been arrested on the Dyer Act [a.k.a., the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act]. All they had to prove [to get a federal conviction] was a car was stolen and transported from one state to another. It was the kind of case you don’t win, but I didn’t know any better. So the organized crime fgure calls into the pit at the Hacienda. The guy who answered the phone said, “Hello, what can I do for you?” He says, “Who’s the best criminal lawyer in Las Vegas?” Nothing changes in 50 years in Las Vegas. Instead of saying, “I don’t know,” he goes like this [covers receiver, whispers], “Who’s the best criminal lawyer in Las Vegas?” And the guy who dealt my wife the cards, who I did the bankruptcy for, said, “Call Oscar.” That’s where it all started. I won the case. I could try the case 1,000 times.
I would lose it 999 times, but somebody was shining on me. The frst legal wiretap took place down in Miami. They had the public phones wiretapped. A father-son team were calling all over the country for line information—placing bets and accepting bets and the like. One of the fellas providing this information was a bartender at the Golden Nugget. He got picked up on the wiretap. They had about six, seven, eight defendants. I moved for a severance, because my client was such a small fsh in a big pond. The judge would deny it. Every day for about a week and a half, I moved for the severance, because I haven’t heard my client’s name mentioned. Judge fnally says, “I’m granting the severance.” [Meyer] Lansky’s lawyer was involved in the case. He says, “Why don’t you help us?” Here I was a young lawyer. It’s a great opportunity for me. Well, all [the other defendants] are found guilty. But the word gets out, this kid from Las Vegas, Goodman, he beat the case. Ev-
erybody assumed I was an expert on wiretaps, although my client was severed out. They never tried him again. There’s the famous footage of Frank Costello storming out of the Kefauver Hearings. Did you ever have to work to keep a lid on any of your clients in court? A couple of
them. I was involved in the [Nicky] Scarfo case back in Philly, representing Philip Leonetti. They were a pretty hotheaded group of defendants. In the Chagra case, when the principal witness testifed, [Chagra] got up and called him a lying motherfucker right in front of the jury. The most famous wasn’t a trial, but Frank Rosenthal in front of the Gaming Commission. He held a press conference out there. But a guy like Spilotro never said anything. There’s this image a lot of people have of the tough, defiant wise guy in court, but were they ever scared to go to trial? I have
to believe. I’ve been held in contempt of court and was going to jail. Anybody
PHOTO BY DARRIN BUSH/L AS VEGAS NEWS BUREAU
before he was the happiest Mayor on Earth, Oscar Goodman was one of the most famous criminal defense lawyers in the country, with a roster of underworld clients that ranged from Tony Spilotro to Meyer Lansky, the latter being one of the most important men in both organized crime and Las Vegas history (at the risk of sounding redundant). Not to mention, Goodman’s the attorney who scored an acquittal in the seemingly impossible Jimmy Chagra case, where the drug lord was implicated in the 1979 assassination of federal judge John Wood. We caught up with hizzoner to talk about growing up with the law, his brush with O.J. Simpson’s double-murder trial and being held in contempt of court.
who isn’t fearful of something like that, they have a screw loose. There’s nothing pleasant about it. But with the exception of maybe one or two clients, they all showed up and went to trial. They fgured if they played they would pay. That’s the way it was. They were men about it, to be honest with you. How did you find yourself in contempt of court? I had a client, Natale Richi-
chi—they called him Big Chris. He was supposedly the consiglieri for [John] Gotti. The government subpoenaed me before the grand jury. They wanted to fnd out who paid my fee and how much it was. I told them to drop dead. They brought me before the judge, Phil Pro. And I knew what the law was, that my fee was not a confdential communication. But I was making a new argument that it undermined my client’s confdence in me. So I told him I’m not going to do it. The judge said, “You are going to do it, or else I’m holding you in contempt.” The judge set a date. It seemed like every member of the bar was outside the courthouse with bullhorns saying, “Judge Pro, Let the O Go!” It was pretty dramatic. I get into court and I never showed any fear, but the prosecutor gets up, right before the judge is about to incarcerate me, and says, “You know something judge, jail doesn’t scare Goodman. You’ve got to hit him in his pocketbook.” Judge says, “Well, if that’s what you want, I’m going to fne him $25,000 and $2,500 a day hereafter.” I went [to Orange County] for [another] case, and there was a group of Strike Force attorneys having a convention there. A fella I had known said, “You’re in a lot of trouble. You know, they’re going to go for criminal contempt. You’re not budging. That’s real trouble, because then you lose your ticket [law license] and you go to prison.” I went back and to Richichi and said, “Chris, I’m going to do whatever you want me to do here, but if they indict me, I won’t be able to represent you anymore.” He told me to give them whatever they want. I turned over the receipt, and because I’m a little smarter than they are, I turned it over in open court. It had “Anonymous” and the amount, but it didn’t do [the prosecutors] any good because I had already deposited it. When I was under this contempt I had been retained to represent a fella up in Boston. I was in my room in the hotel with my wife when I got a phone call from somebody representing themselves as O.J. [Simpson’s] agent. They wanted to send me $25,000 to retain me to represent him. We’re watching TV, and we’re seeing the white [Bronco] as the phone call was actually made. I told him, “I can’t even think of getting involved, because I’ve got a big problem. I may go to jail on contempt.” That’s when they went to Robert Shapiro.
Do you ever think about “what if”? It would have been a great case. My friends in Los Angeles always said there was no way Simpson could lose. When they moved
it out of [Brentwood] into downtown [Los Angeles], the case was over for all intents and purposes. I have no idea, to be honest. I don’t know if I would have been smart enough to come up with “If the glove doesn’t ft, you must acquit.” It would have been a nice case, though. What was your strategy to get a jury on your side? It’s like anything else. It’s why I was
a halfway successful politician. I think jurors know when you’re trying to fool them. Jurors are very smart. Putting the 12 parts together and coming up with justice is a fascinating phenomenon. I always was very honest. I rarely let my client take the witness stand. I felt I could do better in the closing argument than he could under cross-examination. Basically, I tried all my cases the same way: I put the government on trial. If [the jurors] were offended enough by the government’s misconduct, then I would win the case. If they weren’t, I would not be so successful.
What was more satisfying: getting a win in court or settling without shots fired?
I didn’t have any settlements to speak of. A guy like Spilotro, they offered lethal injection or the electric chair. Neither of them would have been satisfactory. All my clients were like that. I was the lawyer of last resort.
What did you feel like when you walked into the courtroom? I felt great. A lot of law-
yers always have other lawyers with them. I’d say 99 percent of my cases where I was representing a single defendant I was always by myself. In the Chagra case, it was almost David and Goliath. The courtroom was just flled with DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] agents, IRS agents, FBI agents, local cops, paralegals, lawyers. It was like 1,000 people against poor David sitting there. It’s an awesome feeling. You have a person’s life in your hands. It’s like Spilotro said: “You know, this United States v. Anthony Spilotro, that doesn’t seem fair.” I always liked to represent the underdog. It’s why I can’t win a bet.
Do you miss the law? I miss certain aspects, but I have a son who practices, and I have another son who’s a [justice of the peace]. Just as my father and myself would have been oil and water, even though there’s a great deal of love and affection between us, same thing. What advice do you give to law students?
If you don’t love going to work every single day, go do something else. It’s a great profession. It’s a profession a little bit different than any other in the sense that a doctor has a closed door and speaks a language not every layperson understands. A lawyer, at least a trial lawyer—and I wouldn’t want to be any other kind of lawyer—can’t be a phony. The jury speaks the same language that I speak, and they’d be able to see it in a New York second. You have to have a way about you. And my way was to attack the opposition.
What’s Trending Now
WHETHER IT’S MARIJUANA OR E-DISCOVERY, SPECIALIZED LAW HAS GOTTEN QUITE TECHNICAL IN THE 21ST CENTURY By Lissa Townsend Rodgers ➜ Constant change is sort of the status quo in the legal world, as new technologies, regulations and issues spring up seemingly daily. However, some fields are seeing more activity—and more advances—than others. Here’s an overview of seven specialties that are keeping the legal community in business. HEALTH CARE
The Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. “Obamacare”) changed the health care game for many people and businesses. “Whenever major ‘disruptive’ legislation such as the Affordable Care Act becomes law, lawyers in the affected specialty spend an inordinate amount of time advising clients on new opportunities and challenges that the legislation may present,” says Alan C. Sklar of Las Vegas law firm Sklar Williams PLLC. “To date, the bulk of our work arising from the ACA has been in the formation and organization of clients that are designated—or are seeking designation as—Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.” MARIJUANA
Legalization of medical and/or recreational marijuana continues to spread across the nation. Applying for a license to operate a marijuana-related business can involve thousands of pages of paperwork. “It’s remarkable how something the people of Nevada made constitutional sat untouched for 14 years and then with a sudden dump of nutrient-rich convolution seemingly grew an instant bumper crop of (sometimes contradictory) regulations from all quarters,” says Dayvid Figler, a Las Vegas lawyer who has worked on several successful marijuana applications. “This degree of regulation is akin to opening a pawnshop with gambling in a day-care center that serves alcohol.”
ENERGY
The energy sector has always dealt with regulation and legislation, but the steady development of new methods and technologies has increased legal activity. Leases and royalties for those that own oil-producing land have been complicated by horizontal drilling, fracking and other new extraction methods—not to mention the challenges posed by communities that oppose fracking. Renewable energy has seen job growth in all areas, especially the legal side of the field: Many states require energy providers to work toward increasing their volume of renewable energy, which requires legal help whether companies intend to comply with regulations or challenge them. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
The concept of “fair use” continues to evolve in our post-modern sample-and-satirize, appropriate-and-adapt era. There are still no hardand-fast rules, which is why Google Books can scan an entire novel without the author’s permission, but a musician can’t sample four notes of a song without receiving full licensing permission. Copyright infringement is also becoming increasingly complex in our Internetlinked global economy. There have been numerous legal challenges involving technology and software patents, and ongoing questions about the boundaries of patentable subject matter. LABOR
As our economy increasingly moves toward using “contract workers” rather than employees, legal disputes have risen about how a person qualifies as one or the other—and wrongly categorizing workers can lead to problems later on. Both FedEx and Sapphire Gentleman’s Club have recently lost class-action suits for mislabeling employees
as independent contractors. Another question is the status of unpaid interns, and what duties they can perform and how many hours they can work before being considered employees. Other 21st-century legal ambiguities in the labor world involve employees using social media and personal devices to conduct employer business. ELDER LAW
As the baby boomer generation continues to get older, the legal issues associated with aging become more important. Families attempt to navigate both the health care and financial systems, trying to find a way to hold onto at least some of their loved one’s assets without sacrificing care. The best way to do this: Be proactive. “A big part of elder law is doing what you can to plan ahead, as there are more options when you have more time,” says Kim Boyer of Durham, Jones & Pinegar, a Las Vegas firm specializing in elder law. “You can get proper estate-planning documents to plan for a possible nursinghome stay, as well as create specific assetprotection trusts,” she explains. E-DISCOVERY
Emails, databases and other electronic records have become increasingly valuable as evidence in court cases: E-discovery is the process by which legal teams can find the one incriminating message or Web search among all the terabytes of data on a server. Electronic discovery affects cases in many fields of law; simply put, if parties are using electronic communications or data storage, e-discovery will be part of the pre-trial discovery process. What is available for search and how it will be searched—coding or keywords, specialized software, etc.— is something both parties have to determine with the help of e-discovery legal professionals.
NIGHTLIFE
The Dutch DJ reached out to Tiësto, and now he’s a star By Kat Boehrer
VegasSeven.com
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Highly MOTi-vated
IN THIS AGE OF INFORMATION, it’s not uncommon to form a relationship with someone over social media before ever meeting that person in real life. Dutch DJ MOTi—or Timo Romme if you’re checking his I.D.— made friends with EDM powerhouse Tiësto via Twitter, and was soon on the fast track to success. Impressed by a string of singles that MOTi sent to him over a short period of time, Tiësto has endorsed his new protégé’s career with bookings to open for a number of shows across the U.S., including January 1 at Hakkasan.
December 11–17, 2014
ILLUSTRATION BY JON ESTRADA
Your city after dark and photos from the week’s hottest parties
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NIGHTLIFE
MOTi at Ultra Music Festival.
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Tiësto did a compilation album with Dance (RED) Save Lives. It was a free album to help raise money for AIDS awareness, and he put a track of mine on there. Afterward, he started following everyone who had a track on the album and I was like, “Oh, what’s this? Tiësto is following me on Twitter! What happened?” So I sent him a direct message and said, “What’s up? Can I send you some music?” And every track I sent to him, he liked. After four or fve tracks he said, “Why not do something together?” That was the start with Tiësto. You’re good friends with Dutch DJ Quintino, too, right? How do you guys know each other?
We both started DJing about eight or nine years ago. The scene in Holland is really small. That’s why all of the Dutch DJs know each other. We
started being friends and hanging out and making music together. He used to live just around the corner from my place. We’ve been friends for a long time. Who are your favorite producers to work or hang out with?
We have a group of friends in Amsterdam: Kenneth G, Quintino, Martin Garrix—he was amazing to work with. It was fun to work with DVBBS. And, of course, with Tiësto. We’re all friends. You have a slew of new releases coming out. Do you produce them all at once or make music on an ongoing basis?
It kinda depends. When I’m touring, I’m always working on my laptop. So it doesn’t matter if I’m at home or in the studio or my hotel room. I can always work. Sometimes I make a lot of tracks all at once, and sometimes I don’t make anything for two months because I have [writer’s] block or some-
thing. I try to work as much as I can. You’ve just completed your first headlining tour. Any standout moments?
It was amazing, but at the same time scary. I’ve always toured with Tiësto in the States, but it was the frst time I went by myself. I think Webster Hall in New York City was amazing, because Tiësto came with me as a surprise guest and nobody knew. So I just pulled him onstage and people went nuts. Where haven’t you played yet that is on your list?
There are a lot of cities that I really want to play. This was a short tour, only 10 shows. I really wanna do Miami. I’d love to do Atlantic City. And, of course, Vegas! I want to do a headlining show in Vegas. Have you made any plans to hit any of those spots yet?
Yeah, I’ll be [in Miami] somewhere
between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. I think I’m doing fve or six shows that week, so I have to fy [somewhere new] every day. That’s a lot of travel. How do you recharge when you’re on the road?
I have to sleep a lot to make up for all of the traveling. And the drinking during all of the shows. What gets you in the zone to make music?
I drink a lot of coffee.
Your new track is called “Ganja.” What’s the inspiration behind it?
The line before the drop says something about ganja. I worked on that track with Dzeko and Torres while we were in New York together a half-year ago. The title is purely based on the vocal sample. So, do you love the ganja?
Well, I am from Amsterdam …
PHOTO BY JORDAN LOYD
December 11–17, 2014
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VegasSeven.com
How did you connect with Tiësto on Twitter?
By
NIGHTLIFE
Camille Cannon
DJ Five.
right? And it’s housed at everyone’s favorite zombiethemed bar, The End. (4821 Spring Mountain Rd., 10 p.m., Facebook.com/LockdownLV.)
SUN 14 It’s time again for late-afternoon imbibing at Hyde, and The Grinch Who Stole XIV Vegas Sessions brings an early dose of Christmas. (Yes, you can recycle that sexy Santa outft!) But will you hear any Christmas songs in the mix? Only if you made the Nice List. (In Bellagio, 6 p.m., HydeBellagio.com.) Afterward, head to Hakkasan to see Fergie DJ in the booth. The club will close for a holiday break tomorrow through December 26. (In MGM Grand, 10:30 p.m., HakkasanLV.com.)
lent disco at 9:30 p.m., halfoff the High Roller with local ID) is still in effect, however, there is now a tubing hill with real snow in the parking lot. Oh, yeah, and a bar. Because Vegas. (TheLinq.com.)
MON 15
WED 17
Got a case of the Mondays? Nothing cures it quite like German trance duo Cosmic Gate at Marquee. These two refuse to “just press play,” telling MagneticMag.com in August “[We] follow our intuition when it comes to the next track to play or how to build a set.” (In the Cosmopolitan, 10:30 p.m., MarqueeLasVegas.com.)
“Dear Santa: All I want for Christmas is a $50 gift card to Crazy Horse III.” Sound like your wish list? Well, you’re in luck! The venue will give away such gifts (and offer an open bar 10 p.m.-midnight) during Neon Flow. Just look for Santa’s elves working the North Pole. (3525 W. Russell Rd., 10 p.m., CrazyHorse3.com.) Oh, and before we forget, this is your last opportunity to RSVP at SpyOnVegas.com for Industry Skate Wednesdays at the Boulevard Pool. Get free skating access and only pay $5 for skates. (At the Cosmopolitan, 8 p.m., CosmopolitanLasVegas.com.)
TUE 16
December 11–17, 2014
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THU 11
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Have you ever found yourself in a costume shop wondering why the Sexy Santa costumes exist? We have. The answer is—among other unmentionable reasons—yuletide traditions such as Tao’s Bad Santa Party. The annual contest returns with a $5,000 prize for "Santa’s naughtiest helper" and sounds by DJ Five. (In the Venetian, 10 p.m., TaoLasVegas.com.)
FRI 12 Insert Coin(s) gets in the holiday spirit with 3 Kings, a series of events paying homage to three infuential artists. Tonight’s debut highlights hits, remixes and covers from the catalogs of Stevie Wonder,
Michael Jackson and Prince spun by DJ88 and Peter Shalvoy. A portion of proceeds beneft the I Have a Dream Foundation for youth, and new coats and monetary donations will be accepted at the door. (512 Fremont St., 10 p.m., InsertCoinsLV.com.) At Life, Las Vegas’ very own Justin Blau (better known as 3Lau) makes his residency debut. (In SLS, 10:30 p.m., SLSLasVegas.com.) Vegas Seven’s Best Underground Leader, After, has mined the techno felds of gold to bring France’s Julian Jeweil to Artistic Armory. The Jul-tide Carol (kudos on that name) also features sets from Stellar, Spacebyrdz, Justin Baule, Rob Dub and Bad Beat. (5087 Arville St., 11 p.m., Facebook.com/AfterLasVegas.) Still feelin’ the spirit of the season? Swing by Chateau
with a new, unwrapped toy for complimentary entry and cocktail today, Saturday or Wednesday. Donations will be given to Toys for Tots. (In Paris, 10:30 p.m., ParisLasVegas.com.)
SAT 13 Get funked up at Beauty Bar’s second Saturday soiree Off the Wall. ISI Group will curate the live art during the “graffti disco” while a slew of local DJs spin soul, hip-hop, R&B and everything in between. (517 Fremont St., 9:30 p.m., TheBeautyBar.com.) Shift gears for Lockdown, the monthly medley of speed garage and drum 'n’ bass music. There will be drink specials, visuals by j4son, and FX Logik and Madame Filth on the turntables. Awesome,
To cure a case of the Tuesdays (trust us—it’s a thing) visit Linq for Winter Parq. The usual pre-Hump Day fun (si-
Madame Filth.
Cosmic Gate.
NIGHTLIFE
PARTIES
ARTISAN
1501 W. Sahara Ave. [ UPCOMING ]
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PHOTOS BY TEDDY FUJIMOTO
December 11–17, 2014
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Dec. 12 Sound with Justin Hoffman, Frank Richards and Eddie McDonald Dec. 13 M!ke Attack and Chris Aurelius spin Dec. 14 Social Sundays with Justin Key
NIGHTLIFE
PARTIES
DRAI’S NIGHTCLUB The Cromwell [ UPCOMING ]
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PHOTOS BY TEDDY FUJIMOTO AND JOE FURY
December 11–17, 2014
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Dec. 11 DJ Skratchy spins Dec. 12 Borgeous spins Dec. 13 Makj spins
NIGHTLIFE
PARTIES
HYDE Bellagio
[ UPCOMING ]
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PHOTOS BY TONY TRAN
December 11–17, 2014
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Dec. 11 Live Music Thursdays with Patrick Sieben Dec. 12 DJ Scooter spins Dec. 13 Joe Maz spins
PRESENTS
NEW YEAR’S EVE 2015
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Must be 21+ with valid ID. Subject to capacity. Dress code strictly enforced. Management reserves all rights.
Advance ticket sales available at luxor.com or call 702.262.4529
NIGHTLIFE
PARTIES
TAO
The Venetian [ UPCOMING ]
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PHOTOS BY TOBY ACUNA AND TEDDY FUJIMOTO
December 11–17, 2014
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Dec. 11 Bad Santa Party Dec. 12 Four Color Zack spins Dec. 13 Justin Credible spins
NIGHTLIFE
PARTIES
LIFE SLS
[ UPCOMING ]
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PHOTOS BY TEDDY FUJIMOTO
December 11–17, 2014
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Dec. 12 3LAU spins Dec. 13 EC Twins and Bynon spin Dec. 14 Zen Freeman spins
DINING
“Everybody would say, ‘We can’t get this kind of food on the Strip—simple comfort food at a reasonable price.’ And that’s what struck a chord.” {PAGE 64}
Restaurant reviews, news and a memorable French-inspired holiday cocktail
Swimming Upstream Bocho flls a fsh niche Downtown, but doesn’t quite hit the gourmet mark By Al Mancini
An assortment of sushi and sashimi offered at Bocho.
VegasSeven.com
| December 11–17, 2014
PHOTO BY JON ESTRADA
ONE THING THE DOWNTOWN DINING SCENE HAS BEEN
sadly missing for years (at least outside of casinos) is sushi. Dan Coughlin has fnally changed that with Bocho in the John E. Carson Hotel. Coughlin is particularly suited to bringing raw fsh to the Fremont East area, having brought the neighborhood its frst serious restaurant with Le Thai. His reputation among locals and their craving for sushi have made his new spot an almost overnight success. (When I visited on a recent Wednesday, there was a 30-minute wait for a seat.) But is it good? The answer really depends on what you’re looking for in a sushi spot. I should start by saying that Bocho is a beautiful two-story space, with the type of modern minimalist décor you’d expect in this neighborhood. The frst foor is dominated by the sushi bar, while the second is reserved for tables and a midsize bar—the kind that serves booze, not fsh. Two private dining areas are expected to double as karaoke rooms. Seating can be a little cramped, but that’s the norm when dining in an up-and-coming urban neighborhood. When I toured the space with Coughlin a few weeks before it opened, he told me the emphasis would be on sashimi, not specialty rolls, which was music to my ears. He seems to have changed his mind, however, as there are 19 of the crazy American-style rolls on the menu, the kind that feature multiple types of fsh paired with everything from cream cheese to avocado, often unrecognizable under various sauces and mayo, and occasionally deep fried. (I suppose you have to give the people what they want.) There’s also a full page of hot and cold appetizers and entrées, as well as a complete sushi menu. The most interesting thing to me, however, is the $75 omakase (daily chef’s tasting) menu—an extremely pricey commitment for a Downtown restaurant. In Bocho’s defense, it’s a lot of food! While the menu states seven courses, one of those single courses when I visited was actually a quartet of salads and pokes. My dinner for two could easily have fed four, and it included two pitchers of soju cocktails. The weird thing about this omakase, however, is that it’s dominated by raw seafood—which is not the norm in most restaurants where I’ve dined.
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WINTER EATS, INDUSTRY PIZZA AND MILK-SHAKES FOR ALL
On the night I visited, that included two types of poke, a ridiculously huge sashimi boat, a nigiri course and a whole Spanish mackerel. The problem is, they were not of the gourmet quality you expect at this price point. For a sushi snob like me, in addition to high-quality fsh, great sushi and sashimi require chefs with serious knife skills. Slicing fsh is a precise, delicate art. And while the fsh at Bocho was high quality, the cuts I got were awkward and unattractive. Some were tough to handle with chopsticks. And many just didn’t feel right as I chewed them, indicating that the chef didn’t understand which cuts of fsh should be cut against the grain, and which should be cut with it. Now I’ll admit there’s a restaurant in my neighborhood that offers a similar product—good fsh cut carelessly—which I still often recom-
mend. But that’s because they offer all-you-can-eat sushi and sashimi for less than $30. It’s a bargain play; a $75 meal isn’t. And given how much of my dinner went uneaten, I’d have preferred that Bocho serve me less food that was better prepared. Moving past the raw seafood, the rest of my meal drew mixed reactions. I enjoyed an egg custard starter. Baby clams in dashi were delicious. The yellowtail collar was a bit dry, but well seasoned. But the beef tataki was almost too tough to eat. When I returned a few days later, I sampled some more sashimi and sushi that was just slightly better. I also tried some of the specialty sushi rolls that were much larger and better than I’ve had at most places. I enjoyed the Spider Roll, but as I’ve said, that’s not really my thing. If you’re Downtown and craving sushi, Bocho is defnitely a god-
send. The setting is funky. The a la carte prices are attractive. The portions are huge. And the fsh is high quality. If you’re looking for a gourmet omakase experience, however, I’d suggest you keep searching.
BOCHO
124 S. Sixth St., 702-750-0707. Open for lunch and dinner 11 a.m.–11 p.m. daily. Dinner for two $40-$175.
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.
The first wet, dreary days of the season are our only real indicator that it’s winter in the desert. This coincides with the start of comfort-food season, where food and beverages that make us feel warm and fuzzy hold us over in hibernation. To keep things fresh, Andrea’s (in Encore, 702-770-3463, WynnLasVegas.com) offers rotating menus for the its Winter Wine-derland (it’s a stretch, but we’ll take it) that combines the talents of both chef Joe Elevado and sommelier Samuel Roe. Everyone’s favorite food-sharing vehicle, small plates, are specially priced and paired with wines and cocktails. The first week’s noshes from December 1-7 include hamachi sashimi with crispy garlic, pickled cherry pepper and sudachi soy ($11), and you can slip into something more comfortable with an accompanying glass of Sonoma Coma pinot noir ($9). Through December 21 (keeping in mind the restaurant is closed Dec. 14-18), you’ll get into interesting bites, such as crispy pork korokke (or croquettes), served with radish and aioli ($11) and eggplant miso with shrimp, scallops and mayo ($9), while you can sip on a barrelaged Negroni ($17). The final week of the year, the specials turn to fusion with short-rib poutine with wasabi demi-glace ($10) and duck confit lo mein ($10), both of which can equally be served by a fantastic glass of Justin cabernet ($9). Feeling more casual? Industry nights are usually reserved for Sundays and Mondays, but Thursdays at Five50 Pizza Bar (in Aria, 877230-2742) show hospitality folks some love with the joint’s perfectly blistered pies. Your employee ID or business card scores half-off all pizza and draft selections from 9 p.m. to midnight, turning industry professionals into #PizzaPros. This may not be the right time of the year to think of cold treats, but we’ll categorize a milkshake bar in the “comfort food” genre. At any rate, Sticks & Shakes is bringing all the boys to the yard at both the Galleria at Sunset and Fashion Show on the Strip. As the name suggests, frozen treats come in popsicle or concrete-form, but are completely customizable. Sticks can start with gelato, sorbet or cakes as a base that is coated and topped with such bits as crushed Oreos and hazelnuts. Also, if you miss your alcohol being frozen, sorbet sticks can be booze infused—don’t say we didn’t warn you about the mixed berry Long Island Iced Tea (or Long Island Iced Teas in general). The shakes take on more than 500 different combinations, all starting with a neutral gelato base upon which you can build your own flavors thanks to tons of candy. There are also Shock Shakes, such as Vegas Wings, made with Red Bull, PopRocks and Sour Skittles, for a little extra pick-me-up. 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.
PHOTOS BY JON ESTRADA
December 11–17, 2014
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DINING
Baby clams in dashi broth and a sashimi boat.
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DINING
Tom Goldsbury oversees construction at Off the Strip in the Linq.
Off the Strip Is On Its Way How a humble neighborhood joint gets catapulted to the big time and makes two brothers’ dreams a reality By Al Mancini
December 11–17, 2014
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IF YOU THINK A CASINO IN THE HEART OF
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Las Vegas Boulevard seems like an odd location for a restaurant called Off the Strip, you’re not alone. But as Tom Goldsbury and I chat just across the way from his new restaurant, slated to open December 24 in the Linq’s shopping promenade, he makes it sound logical. “If I’m standing here, and you ask me where the Strip is, I’m gonna point that way,” he says. More importantly, the restaurant is an extension of his Southern Highlands spot of the same name, which he opened with his brother, Al Hubbard. The pair always dreamed of bringing their concept to a Strip hotel. Unfortunately, Hubbard died four years ago. But Goldsbury is about to realize their vision.
After operating a restaurant together in New York, Goldsbury and Hubbard moved to Las Vegas 30 years ago. Both worked at various Strip locations over the years: Goldsbury tended bar at Smith & Wollensky for a decade, and Hubbard worked as a chef at the Luxor, MGM Grand and Imperial Palace. In 2007, they decided it was time to go into business for themselves again, and the next year opened a casual Italian/American restaurant in Southern Highlands. Off the Strip was a hit with locals and—surprisingly—tourists. The latter were the ones who originally planted the seeds of expansion. “We had a huge international following because of a stellar Trip Advisor review,”
Goldsbury says. “And everybody would say, ‘We can’t get this kind of food on the Strip—simple comfort food at a reasonable price.’ And that’s what struck a chord.” The place also caught the attention of several Caesars Entertainment executives who lived in the neighborhood. And in 2010, Rick Mazer (then, president of Harrah’s, the Flamingo and the Quad hotel-casinos) approached the brothers about participating in the Flamingo/Quad redevelopment project. Hubbard, who had recently been diagnosed with stage-four brain cancer, died just a few months later. The tragedy didn’t deter Goldsbury from moving forward with their dream. Off the Strip will be acces-
sible from both the hotel and the shopping promenade. The two-story, 11,000-square-foot restaurant will be open 24 hours, offering breakfast, lunch and dinner. The top foor will be a chophouse and meeting space. The menu on the ground foor will stick primarily to the American and Italian cuisine of the original restaurant, with some additions intended to attract health-conscious diners. “All of the guys I know at XS and all the nightclubs, when they get off at 3, 4 or 5 in the morning, they might not want to eat waffes, pancakes and carbohydrates,” Goldsbury says. “Most of them are working out, doing crunches all day. So I’ll have a Fresh & Fit menu for them.” The restaurant is hoping to attract late-night diners from both the Linq and the Flamingo. And all of the food might even eventually be available to guests at the Linq via room service. It’s an ambitious undertaking, and Goldsbury is certain his brother would be pleased. “Being that we started here 30 years ago, and he was a relatively small, unknown cook,” he says, “to have this opportunity that Caesars has offered us, he’d be more than proud.”
DRINKING [ SCENE STIRS ]
Get the recipe at VegasSeven.com/CocktailCulture.
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➜ It was dinnertime in Dijon, France. I was in a foul mood—hangry and jetlagged. That’s when a mountain of a bistro owner presented me with a shot. Of all things? My incredulity lasted only until I had drained the glass: Marc de Bourgogne (think grappa, but with a French accent) layered atop crème de cassis de Dijon, mother’s milk in this town where every other shop sold either cassis products or mustard. It was viscous, strong, warming, tangy and earthy. In other words, perfect. Spirits lifted, I jotted down the ingredients, acquired a bottle each and forgot about them ... till recently, when Wirtz Beverage of Nevada’s Andrew Pollard and I conspired on a cocktail made with marc, Giffard crème de cassis, lemon sour, aromatic bitters, sage and Champagne—the perfect drink to serve friends and family during the holidays! Alas, there’s no marc to be had in Las Vegas. But it’s the thought that counts anyway, n’est-ce pas?
December 11–17, 2014
NEW YORK SOUR PHOTO BY JON ESTRADA
Marc My Words
Brett Ottolenghi’s been holding out on us! The owner of Artisanal Foods on East Sunset Road and purveyor of gourmet ingredients keeps Las Vegas’ pro and home chefs in truffles, foie gras and jamón Ibérico de bellota. But he has also very recently and very quietly begun distributing cans and kegs of his family’s apple cider to restaurants and bars around town—five varieties, all of which are raw, natural and low in calories. There’s no shortage of similarly hipsterific products out in the market, all of them straining for an air of homey authenticity and a share of your imbibable discretionary income. But Jack’s Hard Cider (JacksHardCider.com) is the real deal, named for Ottolenghi’s grandfather, Jack Hauser, who started working for Musselman Foods in 1936 and later served as its president from 1944-1979. It was Jack who also planted the family’s own apple orchards in the 1940s, but in the 1980s, the production-apple market soured. “Chinese apple juice concentrate and apple products took [over] the U.S. market for production apples,” Ottolenghi says. And it’s not like the family could suddenly redirect its apples to supermarkets. “Production apples are grown with few sprays, and don’t look as perfect as most fresh fruit in grocery stores. For 20 years we operated the orchard at a loss.” It was then that Ottolenghi proposed using the apples for cider. That was nine years ago. For the last seven, Jack’s has been produced and canned at the family’s Hauser Estate Winery, just eight miles west of Historic Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, from apples native to Adams County. It took another five years for Ottolenghi to obtain a wholesale liquor license and bring the cider to Nevada. “I started the paperwork in 2009,” he says. “And that was with a consultant.” The flagship, Jack’s Hard Cider, is sharply dry at 100 calories and 5.5 percent alcohol. I loved it before dinner, in place of a dry white wine or aperitif to whet the appetite. Just a touch sweeter and rounder was the Helen’s Blend ($6 at Atomic Liquors) at 180 calories and 5 percent, and named for Ottolenghi’s grandmother. There are also three seasonal varieties: a single-orchard label, one fermented with estate-grown peaches and a shandy, brewed with coriander, bitter and sweet orange peel and lemon. The only question is, can Jack’s keep up with demand? The brand currently counts its production in just thousands of gallons per year—a drop in the apple bucket compared with other ciders. Ottolenghi doesn’t seem too worried: “It’s a good problem to have.” – X.W.
VegasSeven.com
LOCAL F&B DYNAMOS SHARE THEIR SECRET PET PROJECTS. PART 2: THIS LITTLE CIDER COMES TO MARKET
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A&E
“He never just sits down and plays the notes on the page. He’s all about bringing out the best in the singer or instrumentalist he’s playing with. It’s like he taps into your skull.” MUSIC {PAGE 72}
Movies, music, stage and a nut that’s worth cracking ➜ Quick sprint along this man’s timeline: Hell. “I lived out of garbage cans for the eight months I lived on the street,” says veteran Las Vegan but rookie Strip headliner Billy Hufsey, rewinding his memory 34 years, to 1980 Los Angeles. Goals? Daytime auditions. Nighttime survival. “It was an arduous time. I had E. coli. I woke up with guns at my head. I stayed behind this one building where the heat got pushed out, so it was warm. But it was unfltered air, so I got pneumonia, bronchitis and scar tissue on my lung. But ya do what ya gotta do.”
FIRST STOP:
Long past ’80s stardom, Billy Hufsey plays the fame game in the classroom—and now on a Planet Hollywood stage By Steve Bornfeld
NEXT STOP: Upswing. Parachuting back into The Biz in elderstatesman-style, Hufsey nutures another side of himself as kid-star agent and coach-teacher. “C’mon, you went up there like you took fve Valium!” Hufsey says—booms, really—to a 12-year-old
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Baby, Remember His Fame
NEXT STOP: Trouble and Transition. There’s an unwelcome intruder: skin cancer. He kicked its ass. Backpedaling from The Biz, he struggled through other medical miseries: misaligned discs in his neck, exploding into grand-scale pain. Cue banking, real estate and venture capitalism endeavors born of an entrepreneurial acumen—successful, proftable, but where’s the pizzazz, the adulation, the freakin’ spotlight when building strip malls? Then enter (eww) reality TV, like VH1’s Confessions of a Teen Idol, etcetera. Action!—and fade in on career fadeouts, Hollywood’s chew-up/spit-out story.
December 11–17, 2014
PHOTO BY JASON OGULNIK
NEXT STOP: Breakthrough. Series stardom arrived in his twentysomething salad days, 1983-87. What in? Sing along: FAME!/I’m gonna make it to heaven/Light up the sky like a fame/ FAME!/I’m gonna live forever/Baby remember my name. And for a time, we did remember (re-MEM-ber/re-MEM-ber/ re-MEM-ber) Hufsey’s back-fipping jazz-dance student, Christopher Donlon, fying across the foor and scrambling halfway up the damn walls. Giving girls the sweats. Remember the nearly nekked, Billyby-the-steaming-shower poster—all ripped, glistening bod and jet-black curls run amok, only his bashful privates taking refuge behind a towel? Then came a daytime soap—like sands through an hourglass, so were the Days of His Life, 1987-91. Bangin’ around the industry followed, bouncing gig to gig. Married … With Children and Webster, anyone? How about, um, Crazy Girls Undercover?
A&E
From a late-’80s headshot to his new show Celebrity Idols, Billy Hufsey shines.
singing to a pretty girl. … Here’s a little trick, honey: When you don’t have a large voice, you come down stage. … Gimme attitude, ’cause you got it. Let’s go! … That’s what you have to start with, that much energy, because we don’t usually get a second chance. … You have to say that my job is to go in there, kick ’em right in the face, have them chase me down the hall—‘Could you come back tomorrow at 12?’” Verdict on Hufsey the mentor? Ask the parents: • “Thanks to Billy, some of the kids here know more than some adults who are teaching classes,” says Ed Whitesell, whose son, Will, joined a national tour of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. • “He’s a great infuence on all the kids, amazing,” says Danielle Ross, whose son, Tyler, is a student. “He’s very outgoing, very personable and has a great heart.” Ask the kids:
• “He’s really funny and he mo-
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ment to the power of relentlessness. “My mother’s philosophy was, when you think you have exhausted every possibility, know you have not,” says Hufsey, who is a challenge for interviewers because he forces us to jot NEXT STOP: Tonight. And every night down almost as many exclamation (except Wednesdays). points as actual words, both often Fame!/I’m gonna live forever/I’m gonna sandwiched between boisterous laughs. learn how to fy/High!/I feel it coming to“I told my dad I wanted to act, and gether/People will see me and cry. That’s he said, ‘What? You can’t act!’” Hufsey Billy Hufsey, singing (nostalgically) to remembers about his early career open Celebrity Idols: Movies and Music, stirrings growing up in Brook Park, the new revue he top-lines at Planet Ohio, just outside Cleveland. “I also Hollywood’s Sin City Theatre, in his said I wanted to become a singer. He full-circle return to performing. said, ‘Singer? When you sing I have Life can be one hell of a journey. to put earmuffs on!’ I said I wanted to be a dancer. He said, ‘You have no ***** rhythm!’ But he and my mother were there at every performance.” What’s left to know, or at least highlight, Performances now are at Celebrity about 56-year-old, jack-of-multipleIdols, his frst stage work since 2000, trades Hufsey? That, pre-homelessness/ when he starred in Dancing to the Hits pre-Fame, he was an unat the former Flamingo defeated Golden Gloves Hilton Laughlin. Idols— boxer before a hyperwhich he agreed to do CELEBRITY IDOLS: extended elbow KO’d because co-producer MOVIES AND MUSIC, his dreams of pugilistic Nannette Barbera, his STARRING BILLY glory in the Olympics? pal and onetime dance HUFSEY That in 1979, pop-culcolleague, asked him 7 p.m. Thu-Tue, Sin ture eons before Dancing to—is a potpourri of City Theatre at Planet With the Stars, he won tributes to a stable of Hollywood, $60the U.S. Singles Dancing celebs including John $80, 702-777-7776, Championship? That, as Travolta, Jerry Lee IdolsTheShow.com. current child sensation Lewis, Carrie UnderAsia Monet Ray’s manwood and Billy Idol, ager, he was featured plus iconic flms and in this season’s Lifetime cultural trends. Endocu-series, Raising Asia? ergetic singers and dancers assist the Yes, but more to the point: Billy star, who now employs his body—site Hufsey is a Big Personality encased in a of nine medical procedures triggered Big Man. Beefy and muscular, tanned by injuries over the decades—for gag and passionate, he sometimes tips into lines, not leg splits. gush-speak, spraying phrases such as “I’ve got a screw in this foot, a “giving love,” “so, so, so blessed” and screw in that foot, a screw in this “putting a smile on people’s hearts.” knee, a screw in that knee,” he tells And he’s a perpetual-motion testathe audience at a recent show.
“I’m all screwed up!” What he’s given up in dancing, he makes up for in song, and in heart: kibitzing with the front row; blowing sax on “Greased Lightning”; cracking rim-shot jokes (“I tried to open a Big and Tall store in Tokyo”); and belting out “Great Balls of Fire,” “Johnny B. Goode,” “Mony Mony” and “Open Arms.” Just shy of the fnale, Hufsey invites one of his teen/pre-teen students—out of hundreds he’s prepped and placed in scores of TV shows and flms—to knock out a chorus or two onstage. Then he stands by, radiating 1,000-watt pride. ***** The journey to that stage begins in this room. Students try out scenes and songs in a small classroom in a modest suite in a nondescript offce building on the Valley’s west side. They’re animated, passionate and a tad nervous. Leaning back and rocking in his chair in the rear of the room, Hufsey cajoles, barks, applauds, giggles, evaluates—all of it cascading out of him like a waterfall. “Get it out there. Stop that! Get that mouth out there! You’ve got to be more aggressive. … That’s much better, but 99 percent of the time, you’re going to have a casting director who’s 70 years old. You’ve got to sing like you’re
***** Boomerang back to that timeline. THIS STOP: National Resurrection.
Living the Dream: Seven Key Principles for Success (self-published, $20)—his book that’s part biography, part motivational life lessons—was published this year. Plus his new EP, The Lover in Me, has been performing well on the adult-contemporary charts. If this dude ever gets melancholy, as most of us occasionally do, his knack for concealment speaks to his acting chops. That internal engine, which he always seems to be gunning, pedal-to-themetal style, speaks to everything else. “I’m always going to give you the best Billy I can give you,” Hufsey says. “When they put that last nail in the coffn, I’ll be singing that last song.”
NEXT STOP: Just wait for it …
CELEBRITY IDOLS BY JASON OGULNIK
December 11–17, 2014
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singing hopeful who’s not quite bringin’ it in front of classmates at the Hollywood Bound Acting Academy on South Cimarron Road. “This is not a business for sissies.”
tivates us.” (Will Whitesell, 12) • “I used to be in the theatrical business [translation: school plays] but he helped me get out of that, all the big emotions. He taught me not to overact, just play it as if it were a real-life thing.” (Tyler Ross, 13) • “I started out in the beginning classes, but then I heard about Billy, who is more of an advanced coach. And I’ve been working a lot since I started Billy’s class.” (Joseph Huebner, 16) • “He understands me as a dancer, where I’m coming from, why I do certain things. I sometimes think, oh, my God, I’m with him?—wow!” (Kalen Bull, 13) Class is over. Kids don’t fle out—they bolt toward him like a cluster of little magnets whooshing toward the giant magnet, crowding him, hugging him, hanging on him. Grinning broadly, he’s clearly tickled by their breathless efforts to snatch his attention. Yes, he loves it. They just might love it more.
A&E
[ I WANT THAT BOOK ]
NUTCRACKER, SWEET!
Nevada Ballet Theatre’s The Nutcracker offers something slightly strange. “Think of it as a
Tim Burton-meets-Dr.-Seuss take on the classic," artistic director James Canfield says. “It’s a little forward thinking, but the narrative is still there.” Costumes, choreography and the setting are all enhanced. Canfield took an exaggerated approach—placing the audience in the shoes of 7-year-old Clara. “The idea of ‘bigger than life’ is how we see things as a child,” he says. “How do we reinvent that, reimagine it so an adult can see it through the eyes of a child again?” The answer is found in a 40-foot-tall dollhouse and the enormous, colorful costume of Mother Ginger. But there is another reason for the goal of childlike amazement. Canfield hopes to re-create the Strip’s “wow” factor. “Shows in Las Vegas are like nowhere else in the world because they’re epic in scale,” he says. “We tried to have that as an experience. The scale of it is definitely like nowhere else in the
The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books (and Two Not-So-Great Ones) Saved My Life (Harper Perennial, $15) is booklover Andy Miller’s attempt to become well read in a single year by tackling 50 classics as he approaches his 40th birthday. Starting with Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita and breezing through everyone from Austen to Eliot to Tolstoy, Miller weaves a compelling narrative about why we read what we read, and why classics matter. – M. Scott Krause
December 11–17, 2014
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KÀ’S BATTLE SCENE IS RESTORED
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The show must go on is not just the law of Las Vegas, but anywhere there are performers and an audience. And the cast of Cirque du Soleil’s Kà have learned more about carrying on in the face of adversity—and tragedy—than most performers can imagine. On June 29, 2013, Sarah Guyard-Guillot died after a fall while performing in Kà. The production was briefly closed and then reopened, but with the final battle scene (in which her fall occurred) replaced by a film. On December 12, Kà will return to battle with a modified version of the scene. “It’s integral to the story, the final scene of good vs. evil,” says Calum Pearson, vice president of Cirque du Soleil’s Resident Shows Division. He went on to explain that “no one thing” caused the
accident, but rather “a chain of events.” Cirque performer Marc-Antoine Picard was onstage during last year’s tragedy and now he is act captain for the new battle scene, a role he sought out. “It meant a lot to me to put the act together and bring it back to the show.” The new version of the scene is still an exciting fight between the forces of light and darkness, played out on a vertical stage as though the audience is watching it from above. There have been changes in the rigging and backup computer systems added; the performers have slowed their speed and altered some movement. What does Picard hope audiences take from the new scene when it premieres? “I hope they are happy. I hope they will be entertained,” he says, “That’s what I love to do.” It’s what all performers love to do and why the show must, finally, go on. – Lissa Townsend Rodgers
SOMETHING TO “SHOUT” ABOUT Tears for Fears has been prepping their first album in 10 years and whetting fans’ appetites with covers of Arcade Fire and Hot Chip. All this, on top of a deluxe reissue of Songs From the Big Chair. Tears for Fears plays the Pearl on Dec. 13 ($43-$103).
Kà's vertical stage.
BEING BILLY Smashing Pumpkins has a new lineup: Brad Wilk (Rage Against the Machine) and Mark Stoermer (the Killers) join Billy Corgan and Jeff Schroeder. Expect to hear “Being Beige” and “Tiberius” from Monuments to an Elegy when they hit Brooklyn Bowl on Dec. 13 ($58-$60.50).
ON SALE NOW Billy Idol, the snarling, leather-clad singer of “Rebel Yell” and “White Wedding” has a new album (Kings & Queens of the Underground) and an ambitious tour schedule—not bad for 59. He plays the Cosmopolitan on Feb. 21 ($50-$75).
NUTCR ACKER BY VIRGINIA TRUDEAU; KÀ BY TOMAS MUSCIONICO
world, I can guarantee you that.” The Smith Center, various times Dec. 13-21, $29 and up, 702-749-2000; NevadaBallet.com. – Ian Caramanzana
The
HIT LIST TARGETING THIS WEEK'S MOST-WANTED EVENTS
By Camille Cannon
ZADORA BY AMANDA EDWARDS
TRADE VOORHEES DROPS A VIDEO Given his stage name and song titles such as “Horror Movie Kid,” it’s obvious where Vegas emcee and producer Trade Voorhees gets his inspiration. But to classify him as horrorcore would be a mistake. Sure, he calls himself the “Stephen King of the rap game,” and says he’s “R.L. Stine with my design,” but it’s far from gratuitous shock rap. On his new Video EP, Trade gives a warning to rappers on the brooding, Boogie Nights-referencing “Little Bill” and gets a little funky with the samples on “Dreamin.” Of course, there are several references to death, too. Buy that EP at TradeVoorhees.com. Check out Zoneil’s other music recommendations at VegasSeven.com/HearNow and follow him on Twitter @zoneil.
MORE OF ZADORA Actress/singer Pia Zadora (pictured) played a pint-size extraterrestrial in the above-mentioned Santa film. Now 61, she’s home at Piero’s Italian Cuisine for the holidays. She’ll serenade you with Christmas tunes Dec. 12-13, 19-20 and New Year’s Eve. We hear her old friend St. Nick stops by, too. PierosCuisine.com. BEYOND CITY LIMITS Artist David Ryan has exhibited in Paris, New York and Los Angeles. Some of his paintings are on display at The Smith Center. But the Las Vegan’s first solo show is happening now … at MCQ Fine Art Advisory. You can join him at the opening holiday soiree Dec. 11, or see his colorful works on display through Jan. 30. MCQFineArt.com STILL SHINING BRIGHT In November 2013, Rock of Ages actor Mark Shunock assembled the first Mondays Dark. Now the monthly charity fundraiser rings in one year with a swarm of celebrity appearances and performances. This edition is so big, in fact, it’s happening at The Joint, instead of its usual, cozier home in Vinyl. HardRockHotel.com.
VegasSeven.com
[ HEAR NOW ]
RED ALL OVER Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is a so-bad-it's-good kinda movie released in 1964. And it only gets better as a live production. Foam tomatoes are provided to attendees at Onyx Theatre, where it’s staged select dates through Dec. 27. Discounted tickets for “sexy” elves and martians! OnyxTheatre.com.
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KRISTEN HERTZENBERG’S SINGING VOICE IS A GIFT.
The former Phantom–The Las Vegas Spectacular co-lead can tear up a blues number, navigate the twists and turns of an operatic piece or perform a humble campfre folk song ... and she can do all these things one after the other, without a break. That’s a gift, real and true. At 2 and 7 p.m. December 13, Hertzenberg and pianist Philip Fortenberry will perform Holidays From the Heart, featuring songs from their 2011 album of the same name, at Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center ($26-$36). Before you recoil in fear—more holiday music?—know that Hertzenberg and Fortenberry aren’t re-gifting junk. “We’re defnitely going to do some songs you don’t hear in regular rotation on the radio and in department stores,” Hertzenberg says. “There are some songs we hadn’t even heard before we recorded the album; we dug them up doing research. … Phil and I get burnt out on holiday music, too.”
Expect a lively program that draws from Broadway tradition and the more personal realm of the singersongwriter. Past Cabaret Jazz shows by Hertzenberg have included nods to the Indigo Girls and Rufus Wainwright; she names Lyle Lovett as one of her inspirations. “We’re doing a few unexpected things, and a few unexpected moods, too,” Hertzenberg says. “It’s not just going to be a show full of cheerfulness. We’re trying to dive into all the different aspects of what Christmas means to different people.” What Christmas means to Hertzenberg is another opportunity to perform with a collaborator whose work she’s admired since they frst played together in 2007. “He’s an amazing listener. He never just sits down and plays the notes on the page. He’s all about bringing out the best in the singer or instrumentalist he’s playing with. It’s like he taps into your skull.” Hertzenberg tips her hand a bit when I ask her which holiday song she enjoys singing most: “There’s Still My Joy,” a Beth Nielsen Chapman/Melissa Manchester/Matt Rollings composition, and the seventh track on the Holidays From the Heart album. “It’s not a big, fashy song; vocally, it’s pretty simple,” Hertzenberg says. “But it requires you to tap into a really honest place. That’s an interesting challenge, particularly when it comes to Christmas music.” – Geoff Carter
December 11–17, 2014
KRISTEN HERTZENBERG AND PHILIP FORTENBERRY OPEN THEIR HEART
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MUSIC
Rocking Around the Foil Tree Mining the mid-mod sonic stylings for our annual list of seasonal songs that don’t suck By Jason Scavone
OF ALL THE CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS — decorating, shopping, spending time with family—my absolute favorite is, without a doubt, getting blasted on eggnog. My second favorite, though, is combing through the stacks to make a killer Christmas mix. It’s a disease, and I’ve learned to live with it. I’ll be handing out red-and-green awareness ribbons at the corner of the Boulevard and Flamingo later this week. Close your eyes and picture Christmas in Las Vegas. Does it include bigfnned rides cruising down the Strip and kidney-shaped pools behind the hotels? Of course it does, because we could no less divest that association between mid-century modern aesthetics and Vegas than the history-loving heroes of the Neon Museum could divest themselves of La Concha. It’s sort of possible, but you’d be ashamed if they did. So let’s get conceptual, and lay out a Christmas mix that dodges the obvious Frank and Dean, and gets to the creamy center of weirdo mid-mod goodness. Bust out those Shiny Brite ornaments and hang ’em from your aluminum tree, sister.
“Space Age Santa Claus” by Patty Marie Jay with the Hal Bradley Orchestra. And now we get to the heart of it. Santa Claus in a space suit, driving a rocket sled. This song was retrofuturistic fve seconds after it came out and nothing has made me want to join NASA harder in my life. This is the happiest thing ever put to wax and makes Pharrell’s cut from last year sound like Joy Division trapped in a pediatric oncology ward. It is defnitive proof that everything has been getting worse since 1961. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Mambo” by Billy May with Alvin Stoller. Have you ever heard someone describe a song as “boozy” and wondered what they meant? This is what they meant. The only reason more ’50s cocktail parties didn’t end in more knife fghts was because they had the imported strains of exotica to soothe their gin-soaked nerves. “Silent Night” by Scott Weiland. The Stone Temple Pilots frontman did an admirable job recapturing the “screw it, just add a bossa nova beat” aesthetic of the era from this cut off his 2011 platter The Most Wonderful Time of the Year. You will not be surprised to learn this is the only decent jam off the album.
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“Jingle Bells” by Esquivel! Speaking of boozy, Esquivel! was the king of “Space Age bachelor pad” music. He was in the thick of it in the day, but didn’t turn out a Christmas record until 1996. This gem includes lyrics like “Zoo zoo zwee, boink boink, pow.” Esquivel! is possibly the Black Eyed Peas’ spirit animal.
“Seymour the Beatnik Elf” by Larry Barton and the Freebees. So now let’s backtrack to our temporal wheelhouse. Instead of making toys, Seymour liked to play the bongos. He’s essentially the anti-Hermie. Sure, he might have ended up on the Island of Misft Toys, too, but he would’ve been way too cool to hang out with a Charlie in the Box.
time? Are we sure the naughty and nice list isn’t really the cats and cubes list?
“Big Red and the Cool Yule” by Jimmy Bowman. What’s that? More jazzbos spitting archaic slang? Well, OK. If you insist. Big Red, in this case, does not refer to gum. Santa delivers albums of rhythm, blues and bop, suggesting Santa may actually be Thelonious Monk. Have you ever seen Santa and Thelonious Monk in the same place at the same
“The Offce Party” by Jim Backus. The skit sorbet of our decadently rich 12-course all-fruitcake meal. If midmod were a character doing a thing, it would be Backus’ Thurston Howell III knocking back something that involves eight kinds of rum and a coconut mug. Which explains why Frankie’s Tiki Room has a cocktail named after him.
“Jing-A-Ling-A-Ling” by Wayne King and his Orchestra. How this song hasn’t been deployed by some dreary, tiresome blowhard documentarian in an ironic way to underscore the evils of holidaythemed capitalism, I don’t know. What I do know is I’ll crawl through the Interstellar black hole to get to a ’50s-era mall and shop to this. With a chorus line of girls in Santa suits behind me.
“The Merriest” by June Christy. If you already know anything on this list, it’s probably this one. This song uses your face like a speed bag for relentless optimism. This song is scientifcally proven to cause 50 percent of people to buy random strangers a drink. “Dominick the Donkey” by Lou Monte. Hailing from an era when WASPs still talked about the Eyetalians, there is no way this song, if it came out now, wouldn’t inspire a hundred insipid self-fagellating think pieces about the nature of anti-Italian prejudice endemic to Christmas music. We’re the absolute worst.
ILLUSTRATION BY CIERRA PEDRO
December 11–17, 2014
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“Christmas Party” by Brendan Hanlon & the Bat-Men. The late ’60s might be a stretch here, but this rocker would be the title track if Quentin Tarantino ever made a Christmas movie. Also, why has Quentin Tarantino never made a Christmas movie? What, is Samuel L. Jackson too good to play a foulmouthed elf leading a bloody revolution against Santa? Of course he’s not. He was in The Spirit, for God’s sake.
STAGE
DUMMY AND DUMMY-ER Ventriloquist Jef Dunham is the King of Jokers FINALLY, ACHMED THE DEAD TERRORIST
has a Vegas residency. Graciously, he’s invited Jeff Dunham along. Wait … Dunham’s the headliner? That’s the artistry of a ventriloquist who creates puppets that seem like they can stand (and in one case, run) on their own without a hand up their splinter-y asses. That makes Not Playing With a Full Deck,, Dunham’s new Planet Hollywood show, a master class of sometimes profane, often scabrously funny dummy shtick that middle-fingers political correctness with both digits. With due respect to talented Terry Fator, it’s hard to imagine another ventriloquist turning this retro, mostly marginalized comic form into something more hip and flip. Opening the production is a taped takeoff on TV’s 24 starring Dunham and his cast of knee jockeys: cranky old Walter; purplefaced Peanut; mini-doppelgänger Little Jeff; and Achmed. Spoofng—with a slight squirm factor—the notion of a terrorist plot against Vegas, it casts Walter as the president, and Achmed, losing his thirst to “keeeel you” when handed an escort-forhire fier and ogling the poolside parade of female pulchritude. (“The burqas here in Las Vegas are very short.”) Then Dunham warms up his own show with a standup routine built around a funny slide show of his upbringing, family and nerdy passion for voicing puppets. Once the puppets—or, as Little Jeff says, “Wooden Americans”—arrive, Dunham is a runaway comedy train barreling through jokes that hit the expected topics (marriage, relationships, social media) but also needle President Obama, gays, Mexicans, blacks, Jews, Arabs—even hotel coheadliner Britney Spears, to whom he compares himself by quipping: “In both shows, the lip-synching will be slightly off.” When introducing smart-ass Little Jeff, Dunham yanks off its head and exposes its hollow back to demonstrate how it’s operated. Yes, it’s a puppet, but seeing its guts
Achmed and Dunham.
can take us out of the mood—and in fact, after it’s reassembled, the audience is slower to rev back up to full-laugh speed. Yet, in a display of his deftness at character creation, Dunham animates L.J. with snippy, hilarious sarcasm, and the laughs immediately bounce back long and loud. Then, in a fabulous sight gag, Dunham chases Little Jeff across the stage and tackles it. In fact, poking fun at his craft— and our willingness to accept the absurdity of a grown man making dolls talk—is a running thread, as when he jokes about the strain of the show: “I have to talk through at least half the show.” Or, when Big Jeff feigns a hitch in his throat, Little Jeff says: “E-nun-ciate, asshole.” Though one segment that briefly incorporates his puppet on a stick, Jose Jalapeño, is fairly weak, the show ends on an Achmed high as the angry/cuddly little terrorist and Dunham answer written audience questions. Whether they’re planned or ad-libbed is secondary. Primary is the laugh: Question: “If someone touches or smells your hair, is it sexual harassment?” Achmed: “No. Unless it’s a midget.” To use a comic’s slang for rockin’ the house: Dunham kills. Achmed keeeels. Got an entertainment tip? Email Steve.Bornfeld@VegasSeven.com.
A&E
MOVIES
MEMORABLE MEMOIR Reese Witherspoon takes you on the hike of your life By Michael Phillips Tribune Media Services
CHERYL STRAYED’S 2012 MEMOIR WILD HAS
become a swift, solidly built movie capturing most of its author’s most interesting baggage stuff—the weedy tangle of regrets, the reckless bumper-car behavior borne of grief—while offering a rather different experience of what Strayed called “radical aloneness.” I can’t unread the book, which I love. Therefore I can only offer my feelings about director Jean-Marc Vallée’s flm, a showcase for a pared-down and very fne performance from Reese Witherspoon, in relation to its source. In 1995, Strayed left behind her life in Minneapolis, along with her soon-tobe-ex-husband, to embark on a 1,100mile trek up the Pacifc Crest Trail, from the Mojave Desert to the Columbia River at the Oregon-Washington border. Earlier that year, Strayed adopted her poetic last name over the one she came in with, Nyland. In the summer of ’95—alone, with a massive backpack and too-small hiking boots—she started walking, toward a truer sense of herself. Her demons joined her on the path. Memories of Strayed’s recently deceased mother (dead of cancer at 45) dogged her. So did her wasted months as a heroin user. Raised with a series
Witherspoon embodies author and intrepid hiker Cheryl Strayed.
of mostly terrible father fgures in and out of her family’s life, by her 20s Strayed had gotten used to obliterating that life as she was living it. The Pacifc Crest Trail required of her a kind of spiritual cleansing, if only because its extreme variances in climate (deep snow; hot, hot desert) daunted more experienced hikers than Strayed. She encountered snakes, wild bulls, detours and surprises. Like the book, the flm, photographed with lightweight digital cameras, captures what it’s like to have lingering memories fooding your perception of the present. As a writer, Strayed did not let herself off the hook. Her account, clear-eyed but with a luminous pull, never fell into drippy Eat, Pray, Love territory of privileged self-actualization. Strayed did what she did, and she learned from it. The flm begins the same way the book does.
Six weeks into her hike, Strayed accidentally knocks one of her boots down a mountainside, and then—enraged—she throws the other one after it. From there, screenwriter Nick Hornby (About a Boy, An Education) fashbacks to Strayed’s childhood in Minnesota, her dropout heroin phase in Portland, Oregon, her limited circumstances in Minneapolis. Losing her mother (played truly and yearningly by Laura Dern) in her early 20s, Strayed embarks on a series of relational car crashes. Husband Paul (Thomas Sadoski) still loves her, and she loves him, but presented with forks in the road representing the familiar and the unknown, Strayed chooses the latter. After the marital split, on her perilous hike up the trail, she meets stray hikers and occasional rides to the next town, some gregarious, many threatening. The signposts of her travels are clearly marked onscreen: Day 58 and so on.
December 11–17, 2014
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SHORT REVIEWS
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Panic 5 Bravo (R) ★★✩✩✩
This tin-can thriller is set almost entirely inside a paramedic ambulance under siege, just below the U.S.-Mexican divide south of Arizona. Writer-director-star Kuno Becker plays an Arizona paramedic whose crew includes a retirement-bound chief (John Henry Richardson,); the hazed newbie (Dan Rovzar); and the racist (Aurora Papile), who will eventually strip down to her bra. Parked on the U.S. side, the paramedics receive word of a code 5 Bravo, a shooting, and as luck would have it, they are yards from the gunshot victim on the other side.
Horrible Bosses 2 (R) ★✩✩✩✩
This incredibly tasteless sequel is an excuse to bring back Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis for another round of amateur-criminal high jinks and semi-improvised vulgarity. After finding a wealthy investor (Christoph Waltz) to help them manufacture and distribute their new invention, our heroes find themselves double-crossed when the investor reneges on their deal. With no legal recourse, the three friends kidnap the investor’s handsome, preening son (Chris Pine), and demand a ransom.
Penguins of Madagascar (PG) ★★✩✩✩
Charming in small doses, the Penguins of Madagascar are less irresistible in their feature-length starring debut. The intent is to explore the backstory of the penguin quartet from the previous Madagascar films. Dr. Octavius Brine (voiced by John Malkovich) is an octopus disguised as an eccentric human scientist who hates penguins. Brine commands an octopus army with the plan of turning penguins a into mutants. The jokes may be plentiful, but they’re rarely inspired.
When a new, larger pair of boots arrives in the mail, picked up at a ranger station, it’s like Christmas times 20. Witherspoon is such an innate sparkler, you wonder if she’s able to disappear into a character underneath so many protective emotional layers. Calmly yet restlessly, she brings to life Strayed’s longings, her states of grief and desire and her wary optimism. Screenwriter Hornby respects Strayed’s darting fashback approach. But Hornby’s a quippy sort of fellow, and his wit is a lot snappier, for better or worse, than Strayed’s. Like the Danny Boyle flm version of 127 Hours, Wild is extremely nervous about boring its audience with its protagonist’s aloneness. Still, Witherspoon and Dern are reason enough to see it. The star optioned the material and digs deeply. Wild (R) ★★★✩✩
By Tribune Media Services
Foxcatcher (R) ★★★✩✩
Director Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher is a truecrime drama hailed as a modern classic since it debuted at the Cannes Film Festival. The facts are rich. In 1996, on his Foxcatcher Farm estate, wrestling enthusiast and chemical company heir John du Pont killed Olympic gold medalist Dave Schultz. When we first see Channing Tatum’s Mark, he’s speaking before students. Steve Carell portrays du Pont, and it’s a canny performance. Mark Ruffalo as Dave Schultz plays the script’s one truly happy man. Foxcatcher grapples with the subjects of class and money.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 (PG-13) ★★★✩✩
This is a worthy third movie in the Suzanne Collins franchise—destined to satisfy the legions of filmgoers willing to swing with a lot of scheming and skulking in an underground bunker in order to get to the revolution. The third book in Collins’ dystopian-lit juggernaut has been halved. And it works. Not everything in Mockingjay is dynamic; director Francis Lawrence occasionally mistakes somnambulance for solemnity. The series wraps up with the release of Mockingjay 2 in November 2015.
The Theory of Everything (PG-13) ★★★✩✩
You can’t entirely trust this romanticized portrait of astrophysicist Stephen Hawking and his first wife, Jane. The film is a story of a marriage that survives in the face of crushing disease, and within the framework of a caretaker scenario that led to Jane’s depression in the midst of Stephen’s global fame. As Hawking, Eddie Redmayne has the most interesting role of his career, and he’s up to it. In a more recessive role, Felicity Jones is hints at Jane’s internal struggles even when the film chooses a more decorous route.
Rosewater (R) ★★★✩✩
The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart makes his first-feature film, and it works. Stewart has serious talent behind the camera, as well as a sense of humor. He’s telling his fictionalized version of the story of Maziar Bahari, a journalist covering the 2009 elections in Iran for Newsweek. Shortly after appearing in a Daily Show segment, the reporter was arrested and tossed in a Tehran prison. The excellent prison scenes with Bahari (Gael Garcia Bernal) and the interrogator/torturer known to Bahari as Rosewater (Kim Bodnia), after the cologne he wears, anchor the film.
The Homesman (R) ★★★✩✩
Director, co-writer and star Tommy Lee Jones’ The Homesman is a film out of time. It takes place in 1855, the year after the creation of the Nebraska Territory. Frustratingly uneven, rarely dull, it comes from Glendon Swarthout’s 1988 novel and deals with isolated characters living in the margins of history far away from the historic gunfights or the Colorado Rockies. We first see the virtuous single farm woman Mary Bee Cuddy behind a two-horse plow, and when you have Hilary Swank playing this sort of role, that’s a ton of virtue straight off.
Beyond The Lights (PG-13) ★★★✩✩
Beyond the Lights is another pain-behindthe-music romance. But it’s so well written, cast and played that we lose ourselves in it all. This hip-hop-era Bodyguard has heart and soul, thanks to stars Gugu MbathaRaw, Minnie Driver and Nate Parker. Rising hip-hop phenom Noni (Mbatha-Raw) is dating a star rapper, doesn’t drink and never loses track of the album that’s about to drop. Her driven stage mother/manager (Driver) keeps Noni focused. But Noni is in misery. Can the cop assigned to guard her door (Parker) save her?
Dumb and Dumber To (PG-13) ★★★✩✩
Twenty years after they lowered the bar on dumb character comedies, Lloyd and Harry are back. Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels energetically reprise their popular roles. Harry needs a kidney donor, so the two head off in search of the dopey bombshell (Rachel Melvin) who might be his daughter and a potential donor match. Comedy left the Farrelly brothers behind more than 10 years ago, and even their best efforts at reviving their PG-13 Three Stooges style feel old-fashioned and tired.
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BETTING
THE LOST CAUSES What to do when certain NFL teams clearly quit on the season? Bet against them! THIS IS THE SEASON OF TIMEWORN
traditions—you know, like giving to the less fortunate, It’s a Wonderful Life, the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center, Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye … hip checking old ladies out of the iPad line … human-resources visits after company holiday parties … airing grievances with family members (Happy Festivus!). Not to be outdone, the sports betting community also celebrates a ritual at this time every year: padding the ol’ bankroll by wagering against NFL teams that have thrown in the towel. Let’s take a look at the 2014 class of white-fag wavers: Jets (2-11): Let me start by addressing the fact that three of the fve 2-11 teams—the Raiders, Jaguars and Buccaneers—didn’t make this dubious list. Why? Because they’ve actually shown some spunk in recent weeks. It’s the reason I almost didn’t include the Jets, who in their last two games nearly knocked off the Dolphins at home before taking the Vikings to overtime in Minnesota. Then again, when you leave it all on the feld in consecutive late-season games in an otherwise lost season, yet fail in excruciating fashion both times, well … it’s like the prisoner who twice gets one leg over the 20-foot wall, only to be smacked down both times. The good news for the Jets? Their next opponent is … Titans (2-11): When we look back on the 2014 NFL season, the biggest shocker—aside from Roger Goodell keeping his job—will be Tennessee’s season-opening 26-10 victory over the Chiefs in Kansas City! Since then, the Titans have tasted victory just once—they beat Jacksonville 16-14 at home—and have rewarded bettors just twice. Want proof that Tennessee has mailed it in? Look at the last three games: 43-24 loss to the Eagles, 45-21 loss to the Texans, 36-7 loss to the Giants. The French have never folded like this. Redskins (3-10): Washington’s three victims this year: Jacksonville, Tennessee and Dallas. Talk about one of these things not being like the others. Before you consider putting a single red cent on a team that benched a former No. 2-overall pick for Colt McCoy, note that seven of the Redskins’ 10 losses have been by double digits, and going back to Week 4, they’re 2-8 against the spread. Bears (5-8): It’s the equivalent of the chicken-and-egg debate: Did Jay Cutler quit on his team or did
MATT JACOB
LUCKY SEVEN
Seahawks -10 vs. 49ers (Best Bet) Giants -6.5 vs. Redskins Dolphins +7.5 at Patriots Bills +5 vs. Packers Broncos -4 at Chargers Steelers-Falcons OVER 54 Raiders-Chiefs UNDER 41.5
his team quit on Cutler? No matter, Chicago is a mess, having dropped seven of its last 10 games straight-up and ATS—the last two losses being to the Cowboys and Lions by a combined tally of 75-45. Here’s all you need to know about the state of ’Da Bears: They’re a home underdog this week against an opponent (New Orleans) that has the exact same 5-8 record and is coming off a 31-point loss at home! 49ers (7-6): How does a 7-6 team end up on this list? By producing just 248 yards in a 24-13 loss to the Raiders—despite having 10 days to prepare, after an embarrassing 19-3 Thanksgiving night home loss to the hated Seahawks! San Francisco has now scored 17 points or fewer in six of its last seven games, going 2-5 ATS. (Hmm, how’s that Colin Kaepernick contract looking now?) I knew Jim Harbaugh’s act would wear thin eventually, but this thin? Clearly, Las Vegas is aware that the Niners have quit on Harbaugh. Even though San Francisco is traditionally one of the betting public’s favorite teams, oddsmakers opened the Seahawks (6-1 in their last seven) as a 9½-point favorite in the rematch in Seattle this week. That number quickly jumped to 10—and it’s only going higher. Memo to Seattle authorities: When the power goes out late in the third quarter Sunday at CenturyLink Field—nullifying all betting action on this contest—consider launching your investigation in Vegas … Last Week: 2-5 (1-2 NFL; 1-3 college; 1-0 Best Bet). Season Record: 48-50 (24-27 NFL; 24-23 college; 5-9 Best Bets). Matt Jacob appears at 10 a.m. Thursdays on Pregame.com’s First Preview on ESPN Radio 1100-AM and 100.9-FM.
Could you have refused it?
It’s very diffcult for a judge not to take an assignment, because you want the randomness. You don’t want judges turning down work; that sets a bad precedent. When there are conficts, you need to be able to articulate why you can’t be able to take a particular case. So, no, I’m not sure I could have turned it down, and I’m not the kind of person who would have turned it down. What did you learn from Simpson’s double-murder trial in California in 1995?
Not losing control of my courtroom to the lawyers was the biggest lesson—making sure I was in charge. The lawyers, when they appealed Simpson’s guilty verdict in Clark County, sent video of me to the Nevada Supreme Court, because [they said] I was just so mean to them. I wasn’t mean; I was in control. … They knew I was that way from the frst time I got assigned that case. I would have the lawyers in to do regular status checks, so that I could keep them on the schedule. I had to continue it once, but I wanted to hold frm to that trial date. So they got to know my personality long before the trial.
December 11–17, 2014
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You were a television journalist before you went to law school. How did that experience help you deal with the Saturday Night Live parodies and jokes in Jay Leno’s monologue?
86
Jackie Glass
The retired district court judge on the O.J. Simpson trial, the challenge of celebrity and why the timing of her term on Swif Justice was fortuitous. By Paul Szydelko What was your reaction when you were assigned the O.J. Simpson armed robbery and kidnapping case in 2008?
I wasn’t intimidated by it. I wasn’t scared about it. My goal was to treat it as much like any other case as I
could. I was very hands-on with the preparation of everything. I had regular meetings with security, court-
I laughed. When you’re involved in a high-profle case, you’re going to be subject to a lot of things like that, a lot of criticism. You have to put yourself in a bubble and not pay attention and not look at anything anybody is saying about you. So the funny stuff was fne, but I never read the paper, I didn’t read the blogs— I just put myself in my little bubble and kept pressing on. Was there a point in the trial when you knew how the jury was going to go?
Absolutely not. But the evidence was overwhelming. People with whom O.J. surrounded himself audiotaped the preparation of this caper; the casino had video of them walking in; the casino had video of them walking
out; there was someone who audiotaped the events in the room; there was audiotape of the postmortem (I call it) of the event. The jury’s going to do whatever the jury’s going to do. I can’t and I don’t predict what they’re going to do. In my time as a judge I saw juries do things that I did not expect. That’s just the nature of the system. At the sentencing, you memorably asked whether Simpson was “arrogant, ignorant or both. … I got the answer, and it was both.” Did you plan to say that?
As a reporter, I was always challenged to come up with a sound bite, and it used to aggravate me when judges or public offcials would just go on and on. So I always tried to come up with a sound bite. I think it was organic. I thought about some things, and it just happened naturally—but it was perfect! It captured him perfectly. It kinda exploded after that. … I got crazy letters. I got people who hated me, people who loved me. I still have people who hug me, and who want to shake my hand and thank me. It’s still going on. What was your takeaway from working for one season on Swift Justice?
Because I was off the bench, when the position of district attorney became available, my husband [former Las Vegas Councilman Steve Wolfson] was able to apply. If I had been on the bench, it would have been a lot more diffcult [for him] because I did so much criminal work, particularly in the specialty courts. I don’t know if it would have been able to happen. It was very fortuitous. Life has a very interesting way of working out. What was the best excuse you heard to get out of jury duty?
Oh, my God! That was one of my biggest pet peeves. … I didn’t tolerate excuses very well, but there was a man who said he was psychic. He told us he knew he was going to get off [the jury], and I think I had to leave the bench because I was going to laugh out loud. The whole place erupted, and it was during a serious murder trial. His prediction came true. When does Glass think O.J. Simpson will get out of prison? Read the full interview at VegasSeven.com/Glass.
PHOTO BY JON ESTRADA
SEVEN QUESTIONS
house staff, the clerk’s offce and the jail. We tried to plan out everything, and I worked closely with the Court TV folks who were there.