Sinatra at 100 | Vegas Seven Magazine | Dec. 3-Dec. 9, 2015

20

12 | THE LATEST

“What’s in a Mascot?” by Emmily Bristol.

UNLV’s Hey Reb! survives another round of debate, but what about other mascots?

16 | Green Felt Journal

“A Billionaire’s Change,” by David G. Schwartz.

Reflecting on the arrival and impact of Howard Hughes on Las Vegas.

18 | Style

“Uncommon Goods,” by Melinda Sheckells Meet the creative force behind Wynn Resorts’ ready-to-wear-quality uniforms.

20 | COVER

“The Very Good Years,” by Rob Miech.

Frank Sinatra’s swingin’ blend of talent, chutzpah and charisma forged an exceptional era that continues to define the Strip.

Plus, how Sinatra bridged the racial divide, a timeline of key Vegas dates and a quiz to see if you’re a pally or deserve a firecracker in each shoe.

25 | NIGHTLIFE

“Creating Momentum,” by Ian Caramanzana.

Now is the moment for DJ duo MIICS to start a movement.

Plus, a Q&A with Manufactured Superstars.

41 | DINING

“Arigato, Amigos!” by Al Mancini.

When the Far East meets South of the Border.

Plus, Al Mancini on Sean Patrick’s, Dishing With Grace and The Beer Nut.

47 | A&E

“The Stuff Jreamz Are Made Of,” by Jessi C. Acuña.

Five years into their Vegas domination, Jabbawockeez continues to “go to battle.”

Plus, the debut of pop culture column The Most Fabulous Thing, a look at Sinatra on the tube, Seven’s 14 and a review of Public Image Ltd. in concert.

52 | Movies

Geoff Carter on The Good Dinosaur.

62 | Seven Questions

Opportunity Village’s Linda Smith on her personal connection to the cause, effective fundraising and the simplest way to give back.

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Dialogue Seven Days Ask a Native The Deal Seven Nights

Frank Sinatra starred in Pal Joey in 1957.

ON THE COVER Photo from the Granamour Weems Collection

December 3–9, 2015

PHOTO BY CINECL ASSICO

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VegasSeven.com

DEPARTMENTS

9

L AS VEGAS’ WEEKLY CITY MAGAZINE

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FOUNDED FEBRUARY 2010

PUBLISHER Michael Skenandore

EDITORIAL Nicole Ely Genevie Durano SENIOR EDITORS Paul Szydelko, Xania Woodman SENIOR EDITOR, A&E Geoff Carter ASSOCIATE EDITOR Camille Cannon SENIOR WRITER Lissa Townsend Rodgers STAFF WRITER Emmily Bristol CALENDAR COORDINATOR Ian Caramanzana EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

MANAGING EDITOR

SENIOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Melinda Sheckells (style)

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Michael Green (politics), Al Mancini (dining), David G. Schwartz (gaming/hospitality)

ART Ryan Olbrysh Cierra Pedro Anthony Mair, Krystal Ramirez

CREATIVE DIRECTOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS

VEGASSEVEN.COM Herbert Akinyele Zoneil Maharaj SENIOR WRITER, RUNREBS.COM Mike Grimala ASSISTANT WEB PRODUCER Amber Sampson TECHNICAL DIRECTOR

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SALES Christy Corda Nicole Scherer ACCOUNT MANAGER Brittany Quintana ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Robyn Weiss

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR DIGITAL SALES MANAGER

INTERNS Kayla Dean, Troy Fosgate, Tia Keys, Sierra Lomprey, Jonmaesha Shadrick, Mitchell Weiss

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Michael Skenandore VICE PRESIDENT, MARKETING AND EVENTS Keith White DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS Michael Uriarte CREATIVE DIRECTOR Sherwin Yumul CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Sim Salzman CONTROLLER Jane Weigel PRESIDENT

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PUBLISHED IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE OBSERVER MEDIA GROUP Vegas Seven, 702-798-7000, 302 E. Carson Avenue, Las Vegas, NV 89101 Vegas Seven is distributed each Thursday throughout Southern Nevada c 2015 Vegas Seven, LLC. Reproduction in whole or in part without the permission of Vegas Seven, LLC is prohibited.

DIALOGUE

Reader Comments

DTLV’S RETAIL SCENE

No one knows about [Container Park’s] third foor, to be honest (“DTLV’s Thriving Retail Scene,” Nov. 24).

—Chris Alpaca Ashley on Facebook We quit coming Downtown when they charged to park. —Calvin Mahlum on Facebook All the price gougers will leave at the frst sign of trouble, leaving Downtown worse off than before.

—Joe Wightman on Facebook

EBAY’S EXPANSION

Hopefully this will be the “second wave” after the frst wave of the Zappos/Downtown Project (“Big Tech Comes to Town,” Nov. 26). While the aspirations of the DTP were high, there were signifcant missteps. There always are, in a project of that much ambition.

The problem is the money ran out.

—billcarsonbill on VegasSeven.com TALKING DOWNTOWN

FIREFIGHTER TRAINING

Very well put (“Stop Saying Las Vegas Doesn’t Have Any Culture,” published online). Las Vegas is growing up. It’s an exciting time to be here, warts and all.

Saying Las Vegas has no culture is so 2005. —Steven Franklin on Facebook

NEVADA TEST SITE

They might want to look up the defnition of culture then. Art is only one small part of culture. And even then, we have plenty of art.

—David Jace on Facebook

The place hasn’t looked that good in decades (“A Second Life for the Riv,” Nov. 19). … At least the smoke smell overpowered the other smell.

—Carl Pritchard on Facebook It would not matter how problem-free anyone could claim Yucca Mountain might be for its purpose as a permanent repository for waste that will be

OUR

CONTAINER PARK BY CIERRA PEDRO; BUS COURTESY OF NOMAD MOBILITY

dangerous to life for 200,000 years (“Highway to Hell,” Nov. 19). As long as the U.S. is composed of states, the State of Nevada can and will refuse to allow waste to be buried at Yucca Mountain, and so will any other state in the nation. Even if the technical problems could all be solved (they can’t), the political problem would continue to exist.

—Vivienne Perkins on VegasSeven.com

SITES TO

SEE

SEX ED Many consider the Clark County School District, the nation’s fifth largest, to be ground zero for either holding the line or advancing muchneeded change, depending on which side of the divide you fall. Test your knowledge of sex-ed curriculum in Las Vegas and beyond at VegasSeven.com/SexEd.

A HOME FOR NOMADS What if you could program a route, fall asleep and wake up on a beach in Southern California? Enter Nomad Mobility, a self-driving “smart” compact mobile home that could make that a reality as soon as 2020. DTLV.com/NomadMobility.

TALKING DOWNTOWN We’ve reported on our concerns when it comes to Downtown. Now, it’s the neighborhood’s movers and shakers’ turn. In our new guest column series, Talking Downtown, bar owners, entrepreneurs and other stakeholders vent their frustrations, champion successes and muse on improvements. This week, one Downtowner talks about patience and progress. DTLV.com/TalkingDowntown.

FACEBOOK: /VegasSeven TWITTER: /7Vegas INSTAGRAM: /VegasSeven

THE LATEST News, gaming, deals and our favorite “Sinatra in Vegas” moment

What’s in a Mascot?

UNLV’s Hey Reb! survives another round of debate, but what about other mascots?

By Emmily Bristol

December 3–9, 2015

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VegasSeven.com

➜

12

THERE’S BEEN A LOT OF CONTROVERSY ABOUT

UNLV’s Hey Reb! mascot this year.

In June, retiring Senator Harry Reid said the Nevada Board of Regents should take a look at the Rebels’ nickname.

Less than six months after Reid’s comments, the issue of UNLV’s mascot erupted once again following a UNLV student rally in solidarity with students at the University of Missouri. After receiving student input as well as threats from alumni and donors, via a website called KeepHeyReb.com, that they would pull funding from the school if the mascot is changed, UNLV President Len Jessup announced on November 30 that he would not change the school’s mascot or nickname.

Founded in 1957, UNLV originally relied heavily on an identity as being the southern university, with the student government calling itself the Confederate Students of the University of Nevada and the Confederate fag placed prominently on football helmets. The nickname “Rebels” came directly from that identity. It was only when the school hired Jerry Tarkanian in 1973 and he

pushed for a change, saying it would be hard to recruit black athletes, that the nickname was changed to “Runnin’ Rebels” and the original mascot, Confederate Gen. Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, was changed to the Minutemen-themed Hey Reb! The controversy over Hey Reb! in recent months got us thinking about other school mascots that might be due for a change:

Blobs: Perhaps it’s time for Xavier University to update Blue Blob, a mascot that looks more like something Doctor Manhattan would leave in a toilet than something to rally behind. See also: the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers’ mascot Big Red, also a blob.

Fighting Plants: For some reason, a surprising number of schools have vegetables or fruit as their mascot, including the famous Louisiana pepper known as Ragin’ Cajun and Syracuse’s Otto the Orange as well as the lesser known Fighting Okra (Delta State), Fighting Artichoke (Scottsdale Community College), Fighting Pickles (North Carolina School of the Arts).

Grains: The source of high-fructose corn syrup is also the mascot of a surprising number of schools, including Concordia’s Cobbers. Meanwhile, Wichita State’s WuShock (also known as the Shockers) is a bundle of wheat.

Imaginary Friends: If you’re going to pick a mascot, you should probably start by knowing what the heck it is.

Even fans don’t always know what the Biliken (Saint Louis University) is. And is a Hokie (Virginia Tech) a mutated turkey or does it just look like one?

Hey Reb! The Weak: When we think of school mascots, we think of something that will represent the power of our team— the Wolf Pack (UNR), the Sun Devils (Arizona State), the Trojans (USC). We do not think of Banana Slugs (UC Santa Cruz) or Super Frogs (TCU). And nobody is shaking in fear of a seed, a.k.a. Brutus Buckeye (Ohio State).

Dumb Mascot Stand-ins: For all the things you can pick to be a school’s mascot—from vegetables to mythical gods—why on earth would you pick something that is not possible to physically represent? There’s Alabama’s Crimson Tide, represented

by Big Al the elephant. Because of all the elephants in the South? Then there is the absolutely most ridiculous mascot, Stanford Cardinal, a color. How can a color be a mascot? Don’t worry, they worked around it by translating Cardinal into … a Tree.

Art School Projects: You might ask, do art schools even have sports teams? In fact, some do. And their students have a sense of spirit that is … unusual. Take the Evergreen State Geoduck, which is a large, edible sea clam that looks surprisingly like male genitalia. Speaking of male genitalia … meet Rhode Island School of Design’s unoffcial (but offcial) Scrotie the Nads—which is exactly what it sounds like.

[Hughes] heralded an influx of “legitimate” capital that would diminish the influence of organized crime in Las Vegas casinos.

GREEN FELT JOURNAL

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PAGE 16

★ A CURATED GUIDE TO THIS WEEK IN YOUR CITY ★

By Bob Whitby

Th DECEMBER 3

Want to hear NASCAR drivers talk smack? Then be at the Palms’ Pearl Theater at 5 p.m. for NASCAR After the Lap, a tell-all featuring 16 drivers competing for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. AfterTheLap.NASCAR.com.

DECEMBER 4 The ghost of Christmas future scared the crap out of us as kids. As adults, it still gives us the willies, but now we understand the deeper meaning. The Nevada Conservatory Theatre’s staging of A Christmas Carol has solid ghosts, past, present and future, and excellent all-around production values. 8 p.m. at UNLV’s Judy Bayley Theatre, with shows through Dec. 12. UNLV.edu.

F

Sa DECEMBER 5

What do you call a few thousand Santas running around Downtown? The Las Vegas Great Santa Run. Joining the jolly jogging fellas and gals will be members of Jersey Boys, Chippendales and the Jabbawockeez. It’s a fundraiser for Opportunity Village, if you need more encouragement. 10 a.m. at the Fremont Street Experience. LasVegasSantaRun.org.

Su DECEMBER 6

If you haven’t seen The Snowman, you’re missing something special.

This wordless, animated, British tale of a boy and his frozen buddy captures the essence of childhood wonder. It’s even better when the Las Vegas Philharmonic performs the score. 2 p.m. at The Smith Center. TheSmithCenter.com.

M DECEMBER 7

Yee-freakin’ haw! The World Series of Team Roping is coming to the Orleans Saturday through Tuesday, and that means cowboys and girls, buckin’ broncos and fancy rope handling. It’s a qualifier, so you’ll see amateurs alongside practiced cowhands. WSTRoping.com.

Tu DECEMBER 8

There’s a whole lotta country in the air of late. It’s thanks to National Finals Rodeo, which is great and all, but we live for the Country Christmas and Cowboy Marketplace gift shows. The former is at the Sands Expo Convention Center through Dec. 13, (CountryChristmas.com), while the latter is at Mandalay Bay through Dec. 12.

CowboyMarketplace.net.

W DECEMBER 9

Those talented kids from Reno are showing off their chops at UNLV’s Beam Fine Art Gallery through Jan. 29. The show is called Seven on the Road, and it features paintings, photography and installations by MFA students at the University of Nevada, Reno. UNLV.edu.

Have an event you want considered for Seven Days?

Email VegasSevenDays@Gmail.com.

THE LATEST

Adults for a Day

Junior Achievement’s Finance Park puts kids in charge By Camille Cannon

What is your favorite “Sinatra in Vegas” moment?

➜ THE GAME OF LIFE WORKS

in such a way that a spinning wheel determines your future. It indicates how much money you will earn, who you will marry and how many children you will have.

But when you fnish playing the game and fold up the board, what do you have to show for yourself?

Junior Achievement of Southern Nevada hopes that Finance Park—a collaboration with Capital One—and its fun-and-games approach to developing money skills will help Clark County’s middle and high school students build a solid fnancial future.

Since October 12, students

from 16 schools around the Valley have participated in this year’s program. Through 12 in-class lessons, the students are taught the principles of saving, investing and budgeting. The program curriculum encourages students to research career interests and their respective incomes, too.

It all leads up to December 18, when the students visit the Las Vegas Library (the literal “park” part of the program). They will each be assigned life scenarios such as “administrative assistant, 29 years old, married, $34,000 salary” and tasked with creating and adhering to a workable

December 3–9, 2015

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VegasSeven.com

Transportation App Helps Taxis Gain Curb Appeal

14

J A M E S P. R E Z A

➜ Facing stiff competition from ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Lyft, some local taxis are now dabbling in the app market, thanks to Curb.

Curb is a free iOS and Android app that’s working with Las Vegas transportation service giant Frias Transportation. Available in 60 cities and partnering with 90 cab companies, Curb uses regulated taxis rather than a driver’s personal vehicle the way Uber or Lyft does.

“With Curb, you’re always guaranteed a licensed and insured taxi cab with a driver who’s highly trained,” says Lee Haney, spokeswoman for Frias. “All of our drivers are FBI-background checked, which is not necessarily the case for transportation network companies.”

Leading up to Uber’s relaunch this fall, passenger safety was a key issue addressed by the company’s competitors.

The Taxicab, Limousine & Paratransit Association, which launched a public awareness campaign at WhosDriving You.com, has tracked more than 40 news reports of

family budget through a series of games and activities.

“One may be single with a high income, and another might have three kids but a lower income with credit card debt.

They will instantly see how these scenarios greatly affect their ability to spend money,” Junior Achievement of Southern Nevada President Michelle Jackson said in a statement.

And if it works as Junior Achievement hopes, the students walk out of the park with stronger fnancial management skills for their eventual adulthood. Let’s see a spinning wheel do that.

alleged sexual and nonsexual assaults by Uber and Lyft drivers around the world in 2015. According to their websites, Uber and Lyft drivers in the U.S. are screened on county and national databases.

One way that Curb differentiates itself from Uber and Lyft is it does not employ surge pricing, in which a passenger pays more during busy times. “It doesn’t matter on the supplies of cabs out there, the time of day, what’s going on that night or at that moment in the community, [whether] there’s a big convention or a big fight in town,” Haney says. “You’re still guaranteed the same prices with Curb.”

Curb connects passengers to 600 Frias cabs with trained professional drivers. Frias is donating $1 for every Curb ride through January 3 to STOP DUI, a local nonprofit organization. – Troy Fosgate

In 1951, Frank Sinatra arrived in Las Vegas and launched a tradition in a city reputed to lack them, using a Strip stage to reinvigorate a faltering career. By 1960 Sinatra was again a superstar, and his turn as Danny Ocean in Ocean’s 11 cemented the Rat Pack’s eternal Vegas connection. The film and the extracurricular activities that surrounded it became the source of many Sinatra legends: the “whiskey all night, work all day” stories, the saunas to sweat out the booze, the punching of card dealers, the Sinatra swagger.

But Ocean’s 11 is an ensemble work, all the Rats shining brightly. For my money, Sinatra’s best Vegas moment happened just after his 50th birthday, when he recorded Sinatra at the Sands in the Copa Room with the Count Basie Orchestra conducted by Quincy Jones. This trifecta of performing arts legends accomplished definitive versions of two dozen Sinatra songs, fueled by the kind of off-color stage banter that modern artists either shy away from or poorly imitate.

I’m lucky enough to have scored a nearperfect example of the original vinyl from 11th Street Records. It will be spinning repeatedly on December 12 (Sinatra’s birthday), accompanied by a Jack and Coke and more than a little wistful recollection of Old Vegas. Cheers, Frank.

Another note on Vegas shopping Following up last week’s overview of local retail, here’s another significant change worth noting: the slow disappearance of 24-hour grocery stores. Recently, two supermarkets closest to my home switched to 6 a.m.midnight hours. One is a Smith’s, open 24 hours for nearly four decades.

As our city’s population has grown and the city has morphed its tourist corridor to accommodate new kinds of travelers, the city itself is clearly changing. Gone are the days of walking into that very Smith’s at any hour and seeing cocktail waitresses and card dealers in full “costume,” heading to work or home. Today, the cast of Vegas characters is considerably less colorful, while 24-hour supermarkets exist in probably every major city.

The more Las Vegas becomes like other places and the more other places become like Las Vegas, the harder it is to craft a unique selling point for the 40 million who visit us every year. I’m sure the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority has a handle on this stuff, but for this native, it’s a little disconcerting.

Questions? AskaNative@VegasSeven.com.

Reflecting on the arrival and impact of Howard Hughes on Las Vegas

➜

AS WE RECOVER FROM

Thanksgiving, it is worthwhile to look back on a Turkey Day weekend in 1966 that changed Las Vegas profoundly.

At that time, 360,000 U.S. servicemen and women celebrated the holiday in Vietnam, while newspapers reported protests in the United States against the war— protests that would grow as the decade turned more tumultuous.

That unrest was echoed in Las Vegas, too. The Justice Department was calling for a grand jury investigation into skimming in Las Vegas casinos, which could potentially bring federal intervention into the industry that was the state’s primary economic mover. Although Governor Grant Sawyer had promised to fully aid the feds in the investigation, this could have had detrimental consequences on the state.

For the weekend, though, it was business as usual. That Friday, 5,000 doctors arrived for an American Medical Association convention. Don Rickles could be seen at the Sahara’s Casbar lounge.

And a young stand-up comedian named Woody Allen made his Las Vegas debut at Caesars Palace’s Circus Maximus showroom.

Down the boulevard at the Desert Inn, a guest who would change Las Vegas forever checked in—Howard Hughes.

Hughes had been to Las Vegas before. More than a decade earlier, he had begun leasing the “Green House” adjacent to television station KLAS. But this time, he was coming to the city on a more permanent basis. Fed up with Hollywood and seeking a new home, Hughes requested to rent an entire foor of the Dunes—and was turned down. Las Vegas Sun publisher Hank Greenspun persuaded Moe Dalitz to let Hughes rent the entire eighth and ninth foors of the Desert Inn’s new St. Andrews tower.

Early on that post-Thanksgiving Sunday, the reclusive billionaire was taken from his train in North Las Vegas, ferried via ambulance to the Desert Inn and whisked to his top-foor suite. Hughes would reportedly stay in that suite for the next four years (before an equally clandestine exit), buying several Nevada enterprises, including six Las Vegas casinos.

The eccentric Hughes would, in a way, mitigate the problem that was bedeviling his contemporary Las Vegas casino moguls. His purchases

COOL DECEMBER DEALS

Howard Hughes.

heralded an infux of “legitimate” capital that would diminish the infuence of organized crime in Las Vegas casinos. By the time of his departure in 1970, Hughes had on his payroll more than 80,000 Nevadans, making him the state’s largest employer. Governor Robert Laxalt declared that Hughes’ investments had given the state “a Good Housekeeping stamp of approval,” encouraging the infux of corporate capital and management. The rest, as they say, is history.

But what if Greenspun hadn’t convinced Dalitz to take in Hughes?

Even though the town was entering a slack season, blocking off a chunk of your best accommodations for a guest who wouldn’t be gambling

wasn’t the most intuitive casinomanagement decision. What if Hughes couldn’t fnd rooms in Las Vegas, and he ended up in, say, Palm Springs, instead?

Much of Hughes’ impact on Las Vegas has remained: The land that is now Summerlin was originally purchased by Hughes in the early 1950s. And the move toward mainstream capital—and corporate owners—was already under way by the time Hughes arrived. He probably accelerated that change; putting the Desert Inn, Sands, Frontier, Silver Slipper, Castaways and Landmark under his banner undoubtedly made it easier for others to invest in Las Vegas. But that investment had already started with Del Webb and was surely going to continue.

So, in the big picture, we might have ended up roughly where we are today if Hughes hadn’t landed here on that fateful Thanksgiving weekend, though Las Vegas would have lost one of its most colorful characters.

➜ Holiday deals dominate this month. The Cosmopolitan rink operates from 3 p.m. to midnight on weekdays and noon to midnight on Saturdays and Sundays through January 4, and this year there’ll be “real” snow flurries on the half hour from 6 to 10 p.m. Wed.-Sun. All-day access is available for $10 for Nevada residents.

Bring your own skates or rent them for $5. The Downtown Summerlin rink is open from 4 to 9 p.m. on weekdays, with earlier and later hours on weekends, depending on the day. The fee is $15 for unlimited skating and includes skate rental.

Every year at this time, a good premium for gift buying shows up. There’s a short window of opportunity at the Linq Promenade on December 12-13: Buy a $50 Total Rewards gift card from the Promenade box office, concierge or Sky Shop and get a free ticket for the wheel. The TR cards make good gifts as they can be used anywhere in Caesars Entertainment casinos, and since no premium is charged to buy them, the ticket is 100 percent value-added and worth the price of the wheel ride, likely somewhere in the $25 range.

Every gambler likes a comp, and there’s a good one available through the end of this month for two of the city’s best buffets. Earn 50 points in one day ($500 coin-in on most video poker or $250 on slots) and get a free buffet at Planet Hollywood or the Rio. The expected loss on this play (about $10-$15 for most video poker players) is well below the price of these excellent buffets.

With the rodeo in town, there are plenty of drinking specials 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.

The recently opened Golden Tiki on Spring Mountain Road (formerly Little Macau) runs daily happy hours from 2 to 6 p.m. and 4 to 8 a.m. with a free buffet. The food is catered by the nearby Fat Dumpling restaurant, which puts out some darn good grub, like chicken wings, pot stickers and eggrolls, complete with appropriate dipping sauces. Not your standard free-food spread, but free it is, and they cart it in freshly cooked as needed. Drinks are a dollar off, or just pay for your cocktails. In addition to the good deal, the bar has some character. Check it out!

With this being the Sinatra issue, I thought it would be appropriate to close with a Sinatra-esque deal. Both the Sinatra-centric issue you’re reading now and the TV special shot at the Wynn that airs this Sunday at 9 p.m. on CBS are free.

Sorry folks; that’s all I’ve got.

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

HUGHES COURTESY OF UNLV SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

THE LATEST VegasSeven.com

| December 3–9, 2015

16

A Billionaire’s Change

THE LATEST

STYLE

Uncommon Goods Meet the creative force behind Wynn Resorts’ ready-to-wear-quality uniforms By Melinda Sheckells

December 3–9, 2015

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VegasSeven.com

➜ HEDY WOODROW POSSESSES THE

18

type of style, confdence and poise that can captivate a room. These are also the qualities that the senior vice president of retail for Wynn Resorts hopes to pass on to the 12,000 employees whose uniforms her team envisions from sketch to casino foor.

While Woodrow’s primary role is to curate the great treasures that can be found in the Esplanades at Wynn and Encore as well as manage their day-to-day operations, the uniform design and presentation process is one facet of her job of which she has grown quite fond, making use of her 26-year career in fashion, design, retail and manufacturing.

Wynn Resorts, as a hospitality company, is known for its extraordinary approach to just about everything, and that includes the meticulous detail that is put forth in designing its uniforms. When it recently came time for a company-wide refresh, Woodrow hit the ground to create functional work fashions that rival the runways.

“The overall goal is that our uniforms are very consistent from property to property. So what you’re going to see at Wazuzu in Wynn Palace in Macau is the same as here, and the same with our Boston property.”

The starting point is the design of the space where the employee will be working. Woodrow then collaborates with

Roger Thomas, executive vice president of design for Wynn Design & Development, on color palettes. Inspiration comes in all forms, including her own clothing or the closet of Andrea Wynn, who is deeply involved in this process.

“I will meet with Andrea and sit down with her. [Sometimes] she will actually bring one of her suits out of the closet for inspiration, and then it evolves.”

Once the concept is formed, Woodrow will have the design sketched.

From there, adjustments are made until the fnal rendering is exactly how the uniform will look. Woodrow then sends it off to Gaebriella Wilkins and her team in Macau at Wynn’s uniform sample room, where they will begin to develop pieces for review. “She can really take whatever [we] produce and turn it into a uniform,” Woodrow says.

To make sure everyone is on the same page, every Thursday night the team collaborates over video conference. “They will show me on a mannequin exactly what the uniforms look like,” Woodrow says. “I’ll have a nip and tuck. We put it on a live model as well, so I can see what the proportions are. And then we’ll go through the process of ftting.” And while the players don’t have to, the uniforms frequently travel back and forth from China during the design phase so Woodrow can check on the fabrication.

During the part of the process

called “the showing,” the uniforms are presented to company executives including Thomas and Wynn President Maurice Wooden, and Andrea and Steve Wynn. Woodrow uses employees as models and sets up a backdrop that refects the design of the space where the uniform will live so everyone can see the pieces in action.

“I’ll bring in a makeup artist and we have their hair professionally done, so they feel beautiful before they even get their uniform on,” Woodrow says. “I’ll usually have two stylists assisting so everything is [perfect], just like a fashion show. So you’ll have the hostess fanked by the server and the busser.

At the very end, Mr. Wynn always asks questions: ‘How do you feel?’ ‘Do you like it?’ Would you wear this?’”

It’s this focus on the employee that aligns with Woodrow’s own business philosophy and career path. After getting her start in management at Casual Corner, she took on roles at Victoria’s Secret and Sunglass Hut. But it was her time at St. John Knits that has had the most impact on her career. With no prior experience in luxury ready-to-wear, Woodrow rose to the position of vice president of retail within 18 months— then later senior VP of retail—because of her keen eye and operational forte. She then went on to design and manufacture her own line of luxury pet products sold by Neiman Marcus Direct and other specialty retailers. In 2010, she arrived in Las Vegas to take care of her ailing father and accepted the position of executive director of merchandise for Wynn.

“As Mr. Wynn always says, we can have a beautiful building, we can have great fabrics and marble and all of that, but it really boils down to having great people,” she says.

PHOTOS BY KRYSTAL RAMIREZ

Clockwise from top: Hedy Woodrow reviews a rack of uniform samples before showing them to Wynn executives; the new uniform designs for Las Vegas; each employee gets three uniforms when they are hired.

The Very Good Years Frank Sinatra’s swingin’ blend of talent, chutzpah and charisma forged an exceptional era that continues to define the Strip B Y R O B M I E C H

“I have had at least fve lifetimes.”

–FRANK SINATRA

his television and radio shows had been canceled, he had vanished from the Billboard charts, and his recording company, movie studio and highpowered talent agency had all dumped him. He was booking his own engagements, but the phone was not ringa-ding-dinging. He owed the government $100,000 in back taxes. To add to the indignity of Sinatra’s super spiral, he was reduced to barking when he sang “Mama Will Bark” with the pleasant, buxom Southern belle Dagmar.

When he couldn’t even bark, when

“Even 200 years from now, Sinatra won’t sound dated. He’ll live forever.” –TONY BENNETT, SINGER

Sinatra won an Oscar for From Here to Eternity.

ner all lipstick and cleavage. He beamed about taking her on Lake Mead, to sail and fsh, in his new 24-foot cabin cruiser.

He did not beam when the fourth estate, always keen to report on his reckless infdelity, badgered him about Gardner upon his visit to the courtroom of District Judge A.S. Henderson on November 1. “This has nothing to do with my public life,” Sinatra told journalists, as recounted in long-time Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter/columnist Mike Weatherford’s book Cult Vegas. “I ought to give a cocktail party for the press and put a mickey in every glass.”

He soon exited, divorce settled and mood buoyant. “Everything’s all right now.” Six days later, he married Gardner outside Philadelphia.

He believed he was happy. ★★★★★

when sinatra made his sands debut in October 1953, his satellite was soaring yet he was about to dredge new depths. Such an enigmatic existence would defne him and his music.

His psychological neuroses had been documented, but they were not included in medical paperwork that had rejected him from World War II service with a 4-F exemption, because of a punctured eardrum at birth. (That fueled press criticism, which included the Army’s Stars and Stripes. A dust-up with New York Daily Mirror scribe Lee Mortimer led to an out-of-court settlement of $9,000 and a written apology from Sinatra, who would allegedly execute ultimate vengeance

by urinating on Mortimer’s grave.)

A 13 1/2-pound baby, Sinatra had also sustained forceps scars on his left ear, face and neck—his badges—from a diffcult breech delivery. Other scars were not so evident. Sinatra called himself “an 18-karat manic-depressive. I have an over-acute capacity for sadness as well as elation.”

For creativity, too, even at his nadir.

He perused James Jones’ novel From Here to Eternity and saw himself in Angelo Maggio, a scrawny, mouthy buck private from Brooklyn. He begged Columbia studio boss Harry Cohn for the movie gig, as if he knew that his once-adoring public needed to see him repent—even expire, albeit on the silver screen—for his transgressions, and that the movie would be a box-offce smash. Cohn hired him, over Eli Wallach, and the 38-year-old Sinatra won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, part of the movie’s overall haul of eight Oscars.

Exactly a year after a tepid stay at the Riviera, Sinatra had renewed stature.

A euphonious union with the 32-yearold arranger Nelson Riddle was about to meld into a medley of strings and woodwinds and brass and sass and impromptu fnger snaps by the king of contradiction that Capitol Records (In the Wee Small Hours, Songs for Swingin’ Lovers, A Swingin’ Affair and Come Fly With Me, 1955-1957) would capture elegantly.

That’s what Sinatra brought to the Sands. He imbibed prodigiously and bedded a statuesque showgirl in his ground-foor (he was afraid of heights) Presidential Suite. He called Ava pronto in Palm Springs to inform her that he

VegasSeven.com

★★★★★

he lost his voice at the famous Copacabana in New York, doctors instructed him to not utter a word for 40 days. Sinatra called this forlorn stretch his “year of Mondays,” but it lasted more like two years.

All of which had precipitated his frst singing gig in Las Vegas, on September 4, 1951. The city’s population was 25,000. In its infancy, in the 1940s and months into the new decade, he had visited to gamble and cavort.

This time, however, there was work to perform, confdence to restore and an image to rebuild. That last objective might have been the most arduous since Sinatra—separated from wife Nancy and three kids—had also been gallivanting around the world with sultry actress Ava Gardner. Establishing a six-week residency to qualify for a quickie divorce topped his Las Vegas agenda.

So Wilbur Clark’s offer qualifed as magnanimity. The former San Diego bellhop and Reno craps dealer ran the D.I., the city’s ffth hotel-casino when it opened the previous year. The place in the sun was fnished with fnancial assistance from Moe Dalitz, a prominent Mafa fgure in Cleveland and Detroit.

Such sordid connections were not strangers to Sinatra; such innuendo in the papers always incensed him.

Cattle ranchers, wildcatters and their wives flled some of the 450 seats in the D.I.’s Painted Desert Room, but Sinatra pal Sonny King called the place empty.

A reporter accused Sinatra of being feisty, “ready to punch anyone in the nose who spoke the truth about him … the fact that he had slipped badly.”

On the next day’s cover of the Las Vegas Morning Journal, Sinatra was all smiles, Gard-

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On December 12, he would have celebrated his own centennial. He has been gone more than 17 years and he last sang here more than 21 years ago, but his legacy endures. Chef Theo Schoenegger, at the Encore restaurant Sinatra, prepares the same spaghetti and clams he once made for the legend. Impersonators always seem to be crooning somewhere.

The alt-rock trio Reckless in Vegas, a Vegas regular, includes rollicking versions of Sinatra standards such as “Luck Be a Lady” and “This Town” in its sets.

And Jack Daniel’s, nectar to the pillar, appropriately frst made its high-end Sinatra Select available three years ago at the duty-free shop in McCarran International Airport.

Sinatra had an impact on Las Vegas every bit as indelible as an ol’ blueeyed meteorite.

The very beginning, however, was inauspicious. It would have been a thorny proposition to envision the tumbleweed-strewn town out on Arrowhead Highway one day honoring the boulevardier from Hoboken, New Jersey, with his own boulevard.

December 3–9, 2015

OPPOSITE PAGE PHOTO COURTESY UNLV SPECIAL COLLECTIONS; TONY BENNET T BY PAUL SMITH/FEATUREFL ASH

➜ the soviet launching of Sputnik, the frst man-made satellite to orbit the planet, sparked alarm all over the United States in October 1957. Not in Las Vegas. Three months later at the Sands, a fearless Frank Sinatra goofed on the Cold War enemy in a Sands-nik skit in which he donned a plastic-sphere space helmet.

Take that, Khrushchev baby! As if Sinatra knew that astronauts, not cosmonauts, would be the frst to fy—and with his “Fly Me to the Moon” playing aboard Apollo 11, no less—to the moon for a lunar stroll. ¶ He owned that Copa Room stage. Salud! Cin cin!

May you live to be 100 and may the last voice you hear be mine! Sinatra would fatter his Las Vegas crowds and affrm his ego in one fell aphorism. He would address some of the city’s racial issues (see “A Bridge Builder, Page 23). When his pallies joined in the shenanigans, the toasts multiplied and the city’s aura skyrocketed.

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The Frank Sinatra Quiz 1 ) Favorite color. a. blue b. green c. orange d. violet 2 ) Favorite fedora manufacturer. a. Cavanagh b. Savile Row c. Hickey-Freeman d. Borsalino 3 ) Attendance for his concert at the Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro on January 26, 1980. a. 100,000 b. 125,000 c. 150,000 d. 175,000 4 ) He told people he was 5-foot-9, but he actually stood … a. 5-6½ b. 5-7 c. 5-7 ½ d. 5-8

★★★★★

a syndicate of racketeers, led by Joseph “Doc” Stacher of New Jersey, had built the Sands across the main drag from the D.I. Jack Entratter, who had run the Copacabana, was lured west to handle entertainment at the new property. The showroom wasn’t called the Copa Room by accident.

Stacher, in author James Kaplan’s Frank: The Voice, said the object was to get the ascendant Sinatra inside that room, “because there’s no bigger draw in Las Vegas. When Frankie was performing, the hotel really flled up.” As did its—and the city’s—coffers. In a very real way, Kaplan wrote, Sinatra built Vegas. “Not only was he present at the

5 ) The first feature-length film in which he appeared. a. Ship Ahoy b. Las Vegas Nights c. Hellcats d. Higher and Higher 6) A petite, gray-haired beautician made $400 a week tending to his tonsorial needs while towing how many toupees? a. 60 b. 50 c. 40 d. 30

| December 3–9, 2015

22

Six or seven correct = A pally.

Four or five = In the band.

Two or three = In a Copa booth.

One = Three rocks in the Jack Daniel’s, Jack.

None = A firecracker in each shoe.

the Sands would be bumped eventually to nine percent. He’d earn $100,000 a week working the Copa. His annual income doubled to $2 million in 1956, and again in ’57—when actress Lauren Bacall accompanied him to the Las Vegas premier of Pal Joey—to $4 million, a record at the time for an entertainer. He was a pioneer performer in the world’s spectacular new capital of live entertainment, wrote adoring daughter Nancy Sinatra in her comprehensive Frank Sinatra: An American Legend. “He … transformed [Las Vegas] into a giant sandbox for grown-ups—and invited everybody in the world to come and play.”

Daily Variety called it the most astonishing comeback in show-biz history.

On “Oh! Look at Me Now” Sinatra revels in his own magnifcence. Singer Keely Smith marveled about the celebrity tsunami from Hollywood, which included Tony Curtis. As Sinatra descended the Copa backstage after a show, Curtis, as he told The New Yorker, could detect a fghter’s scowl. “When he got up onstage, he seemed to say, ‘Fuck you, motherfuckers. Sit quiet. I’ll show you something.’ That was part of the kick.” ★★★★★

the crescendo arrived in january and February of 1960, when Sinatra and pals played the Copa at night, caroused till dawn, catnapped, convened in the frst Strip steam room—Sands chiefs had it installed for Sinatra—and flmed Ocean’s 11 around town.

The vehicle served as a valentine for the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, the global invitation to come gambol and gamble. The 200-room Sands would receive 18,000 reservation requests during this stretch. Arranger-composer Neal Hefti likened attending those Copa shows to hitting “fve jackpots in a row.”

Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop ruled that stage. In the movie, they and six other old Army buddies gather to knock off the Sands, Sahara, Flamingo, Riviera and Desert Inn, simultaneously, at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve. Sinatra was the undisputed leader.

They pull off the caper, but … no spoiler here, not even after 55 years.

On February 7 and 8, 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy, whom Sinatra called “Chicky Baby,” visited the merry troupe.

Sinatra would make the grand introduction on the Copa stage, JFK would stand and bow, and Martin would say, “What’d you say his name was?” There is no evidence that a certain moon tune infuenced Chicky Baby’s space-race ideas, but Stolichnaya did help ease Sinatra’s volatility toward the USSR.

ANSWERS : 1) c. 2) a. 3) d. 4) c. 5) b. 6) a. 7) d.

VegasSeven.com

7 ) To induce Sinatra’s first breath, maternal grandmother Rosa Garavante … a. screamed at him b. slapped a cheek c. spanked his behind d. held him under cold water

creation, but he was responsible for it.”

He gave Las Vegas panache, courtesy of his mother. In his early teens, she had opened an account for her only child at a Hoboken department store and Sinatra pushed its limit, soon owning 13 sports coats and so many pairs of natty slacks that his friends called him “Slacksey O’Brien.”

He wore his fedoras just right. He’d approach a beautiful woman and futter his silk tie … out of view of a husband or boyfriend. He so despised brown shoes he’d alight frecrackers and slip them into the pairs that buddies dared to possess. His mohair tuxedos and sharkskin suits and shiny British black shoes so dazzled Lorraine Hunt she nearly believed the soles had been polished. The future entertainer and lieutenant governor of Nevada watched the Copa shows beside Entratter’s daughter Carol. In Cult Vegas, Hunt said, “We came from this cowboy town to ultra sophistication.”

Sinatra henchmen Jilly Rizzo, Ed Pucci, Henri Giné and Frankie Shore were always near, quick to dole out $100 tips, the C-notes folded in triplicate inside the palm to avoid gauche detection.

“Duke ’im” is how Sinatra triggered such remuneration.

He was reciprocated handsomely. An initial inducement of two percent of

Which Frank Are You?

Find out by taking our personality quiz at VegasSeven.com/Sinatra

“That Sinatra— no one can touch him.”

Sinatra and Ava Gardner on their wedding day in 1951.

–JIM MORRISON, SINGER

SINATRA AND GARDNER BY AUSTRAL/ZUMAPRESS.COM; MORRISON COURTESY ELEKTRA RECORDS

Seven Questions

was not alone, that if she continued to accuse him of messing around—when he was innocent—he might as well reap the pleasures of being guilty. That begat his second divorce, which required four turbulent years to complete.

Sinatra had mined a volatile mix of fury and passion and loneliness, generating profound authenticity that convinced his many Vegas audiences that he was serenading each and every one of them, alone. It was Ava who did that, said Riddle.

★★★★★

sinatra had the world on a string, all right, with 20 Billboard Top Ten albums from 1958 through ’66. Count Basie and his orchestra spent the frst month of 1966 in Las Vegas working with him, and the double album they produced—Sinatra at the Sands, on the Chairman’s Reprise label—was the frst live Sinatra performance ever released and garnered critical acclaim.

But Howard Hughes signaled a corporate sea change at the Sands, and the rest of the sandbox, when he bought the property in 1967. Soon, Sinatra ran up marker debts of several hundred thousand dollars. When his request for more was denied, he ran a baggage cart through a plate-glass window but failed to burn down the joint; the butane in his gold lighter was empty. Denied credit the next day too, a row incited manager Carl Cohen to pop Sinatra in the mouth, ridding him of caps on his two front teeth. Pleased locals posted pictures of Sinatra, front teeth blacked out, around town in a failed effort to inspire Cohen to run for mayor.

Those episodes that Sinatra viewed as chintzy made him run to Jay Sarno’s Caesars Palace. He always detested parsimony. Even at his lowest, he picked

up the check. His grand gestures of generosity to friends were known as la bella fgura in his Sicilian lineage, and his acts of charity were epic.

He participated in concerts that raised more than $5 million for the UNLV athletic department. He congratulated coach Jerry Tarkanian with a phone call in his Denver hotel room the night the Rebels won the NCAA basketball championship in 1990. He performed in Las Vegas until May 1994. He might have half blushed when locals unveiled Frank Sinatra Drive in 2004.

Today, the uncouth flocks of untucked, uncuffed dress shirts in casinos and clubs would make the welltailored Sinatra cringe. But every Panama hat or fedora is a nod to him.

For nine-figure residency deals and six-figure one-offs, Celine Dion and Britney Spears and Elton John can thank the man who ignited it all so

“He never gave up. Even when his singing career seemed to be in trouble, he never faltered … a complete performer—as brilliant an actor as he was a singer, and an unbeatable humanitarian.” –JACK LEMMON, ACTOR

JACK LEMMON BY PAUL SMITH/FEATUREFL ASH

A ‘BRIDGE BUILDER’ IN AN ERA OF DEEP RACIAL SEGREGATION ➜ When Frank Sinatra began visiting Las Vegas, it was the Mississippi of the West, a fully segregated Jim Crow town. Black entertainers entered and exited through back doors of the main hotels. They could only stay in Westside—dubbed “the side”— where a 1939 city ordinance limited blacks to residing, and whose shacks often lacked electricity and plumbing.

Having felt the pervasive sting of anti-Italian prejudice in his youth, Sinatra was keen to injustice. He donated often to the NAACP. He met Sammy Davis Jr. in 1941, when white artists rarely mingled with black peers. He would befriend and sing with Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong, too. He toted his troops to the short-lived Moulin Rouge, the city’s first integrated casino and hotel in 1955. The Sands, influenced by Sinatra’s ire, became a relative paragon in advancement. By 1957, Nat King Cole played the Copa Room, slept in the hotel and, like anyone else, enjoyed all of its amenities. The Moulin Rouge Agreement, opening every major property to black customers, was inked in March 1960.

“Long before it was politically correct, Sinatra treated blacks with

dignity and respect,” wrote Laura S. Washington, a black writer for the Chicago Tribune who was raised on her parents’ Sinatra LPs. In 1944, Sinatra altered the first word—a racial epithet—of the verse of Oscar Hammerstein and Jerome Kern’s original 1927 lyrics of “Ol’ Man River” to “here we work …” “A brilliant correction,” wrote Frank: The Voice author James Kaplan. Sinatra detested the epithet. He never pried into daughter Nancy’s dating habits, but he threatened to break her back if he ever discovered her associating with a bigot.

Some Copa Room antics of the crooner and his pals were tasteless. He played before a mixed audience in a supposedly independent republic of apartheid-era South Africa, and had subsequent dates in Europe protested and canceled. For all of Sinatra’s flaws, however, Washington recalled his 1958 feature for Ebony in which he wrote that a friend, to him, has no race, no class and belongs to no minority, that affection, mutual respect and a feeling of having something in common fuels his friendships.

For his time and place, Washington called Sinatra “a bridge builder,” as timeless as they are necessary. –Rob Miech

Sept. 4, 1951 First Las Vegas performance, at the Desert Inn’s Painted Desert Room.

Oct. 7, 1953 Makes his Sands debut at the Copa Room.

Jan. 20, 1960 Official shooting begins for Ocean’s 11.

July 19, 1966 Sinatra, 50, weds 21-year-old waif Mia Farrow at the Sands; the marriage would last two years.

Sept. 11, 1967 Sands casino manager Carl Cohen pops Ol’ Blue Eyes in the mouth, dislodging the caps from his two front teeth.

Sept. 6, 1970 Caesars Palace executive Sanford Waterman flashes a .38-caliber pearlhandled revolver at Sinatra when a dispute escalates.

Jan. 25, 1974 Ends a threeyear retirement with a comeback concert at Caesars Palace.

May 23, 1976 UNLV honors him with an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters. “Ma, I graduated today,” he told Dolly Sinatra on the phone.

Nov. 9, 1978 Performs at a Caesars Palace tribute for boxing great Joe Louis, at whose 1981 funeral Sinatra would deliver the eulogy and serve as a pallbearer.

Feb. 19, 1981 Almost 20 years after being forced to yield it, he won unanimous commission approval for a Nevada gaming license, critical for (Caesars Palace) casino ownership.

November 1989 Musicians’ strike, supported by Sinatra, fails, allowing hotels to replace house bands with taped music and synthesizers.

May 29, 1994 Final Las Vegas performance, with Frank Jr. conducting the orchestra, in the MGM Grand’s Hollywood Theater.

February 1995 The Frank Sinatra Neckwear Collection, his own artwork incorporated into silk jacquard ties, is unveiled at an apparel show.

May 15, 1998 Strip marquees are dimmed to honor the Chairman of the Board, who died the previous day in Los Angeles.

VegasSeven.com

Peter Lawford, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Sinatra in Ocean’s 11.

at the sonny liston-floyd patterson heavyweight prizefght in July 1963, at the Las Vegas Convention Center, longtime New York sportswriter and Sinatra chum Jimmy Cannon introduced the man to Pete Hamill, another writer from New York. They not only had the banks of the Hudson River in common, but all three were high school dropouts, too. To Sinatra, who spent 47 days in high school, that was not insignifcant.

He viewed scraping, scrapping and striving to overcome big odds as vital and estimable qualities. In Las Vegas, he went from pauper and pawn to poet and king. The city helped him pick himself up and get back in the game, and he shepherded the city—rolling the bones, or olives, come what may—into uptown.

An affnity developed between the balladeer and the scribe, which afforded Hamill license for his splendid ode to the icon, Why Sinatra Matters. The master once relayed to Hamill what he told Harry James when the bandleader suggested that the boy singer alter his vowel-ending surname, to Satin.

“No way, baby. The name is Sinatra.

Frank fucking Sinatra.”

He knew it would be one for eternity.

(Times two because, well, it’s the Chairman!)

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★★★★★

Seven Dates

December 3–9, 2015

long ago on Arrowhead Highway.

Maybe he did stay too long. He forgot lyrics, stumbled on teleprompter lines and fell on a Virginia stage. He was a two-fsted guy and he lived a tough life, said comedian and longtime friend Don Rickles. “It takes its toll.” But Sinatra certainly had earned the right to hang around as long as he damn well pleased.

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NIGHTLIFE Your city after dark, photos from the week's hottest parties and Manufactured Superstars

Now is the moment for DJ duo MIICS to start a movement By Ian Caramanzana

| December 3–9, 2015

Creating Momentum

MIICS ISN’T YOUR typical DJ duo that trades on twisting knobs. The Las Vegas-based team consisting of Mikey Cross and Mike Uriarte (hence, MIICS) met in second grade. Capitalizing on their shared love for incorporating instruments in live and studio settings, they have moved on to performing at Electric Daisy Carnival Las Vegas and Life Is Beautiful. Uriarte is also poised to launch his own event-producing and talent management company, Momentus Entertainment. But frst, catch the boys at Hyde’s The Nightmare Before XIV-Mas party on December 13.

➜

VegasSeven.com

Mike Uriarte and Mikey Cross.

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NIGHTLIFE

MIICS plays the Troubadour stage at Life is Beautiful.

EDC was the frst major festival I have ever played, and it was a dream come true. I have been attending as a fan for many years and I’m a big fan of Insomniac in general, so that made it a very special weekend.

Life Is Beautiful absolutely blew me away; seeing the Troubadour stage left me speechless. I remember walking out of the artist tunnel at EDC and said, “Next year, we’ll try to get Circuit Grounds.” This was damn near close enough! To have both our families, so many of our friends who traveled from all over the country and all those people there supporting our show was unbelievable. I am not going to lie, I was worried about how many people would turn up that early in the day at 102 degrees, but they did and I will never forget that set for the rest of my life and am forever grateful for everyone who came out.

CROSS: Both shows were fucking amazing! I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to tour and play a lot of big festivals around the world in my old band Taking Dawn, and I gotta say— EDC and Life Is Beautiful are two of my favorite live experiences, Life Is Beautiful especially so because it was the frst real gig that we got to do our thing by incorporating musicality and the “live feel.” It was also a big icebreaker in my musical journey, because I ended my band to pursue

December 3–9, 2015

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VegasSeven.com

URI A RTE:

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MIICS three years ago, and had to start something new from the bottom.

The Life Is Beautiful gig made me realize how real MIICS is becoming and that all the hard work and grinding we have been putting in is paying off.

Las Vegas is littered with DJ/producers.

How does MIICS stand apart?

Everyone who DJs today and has some beat-making software on their computer calls themselves “producers.” That term is used very loosely.

I’m from the world where the producers are writing real songs—the vocal melody, the lyrics, playing the instruments. Today, you can just string a couple sample packs together, have no idea about anything musically, and call yourself a “producer.” All you have to do is put it on your Instagram bio, and it becomes real. [But] talent and hard work will always rise to the top. We’ve never been concerned with other “DJs” because we aren’t in a competition with anyone but ourselves … as long as we are constantly progressing we are happy.

URI A RTE: We are always thinking what can we do, but at the very core, it’s the music. Mikey has been working on this EP for months, and it’s been one of the most inspiring processes I have ever witnessed. We always try to do something that the crowd will remember. Most of the time we have no idea what that will be, so if you see us colluding on stage, CROSS:

that’s when shit is about to go down.

We want our shows to be fun, engaging, memorable and entertaining.

What’s next for MIICS?

Taking all the necessary time and paying attention to every detail to make sure it’s an original sound that sounds like MIICS. URI A RTE: From there, we want to fnd management that aligns with our vision and goals, and understands what we are trying to bring to the scene.

CROSS:

What direction are you moving toward, sound-wise?

MIICS just wants to release music that is unique and musical to listen to—music with feeling that doesn’t sound like everything else with groove and soul—some real instruments. We aren’t trying to ft into any trends or make songs specifcally for the club or for other DJs to play; just good songs that people will want to listen and sing along to. Songs that could have full production for the electronic track, but would also sound just as cool stripped down with just an acoustic guitar or played with a band.

CROSS:

Mike, you’re about to launch a new concept, Momentus. What is it?

Momentus is the next step in my life, one I have wanted to take for a few years now but felt I wasn’t ready.

Over the course of the past 10 years, working in the event, nightlife, media, URI A RTE:

marketing, concert and music industries has given me the experience, knowledge, network and confdence to fnally be ready to make the move and start my own company. In legal terms, we are an event/concert/festival producer, as well as artist management and development company. We’re combining our favorite parts of life together and sharing it with the world.

Our mission is to produce the most innovative and comprehensive events, layered with unique content to pique the human senses. [We're] focused on exceptional visual experiences, special effects, atmosphere and a healthy diversity among artists. We will partner with many local brands from music, art, lifestyle, nonproft and retail to really bring out the good our city has to offer. We all need to rise together.

What’s on the radar for the company?

The main focus right now is to successfully launch our frst brand, “US” at Brooklyn Bowl on February 4. “US” signifes you and me; it’s what our company is all about, and the premise behind the event reinforces [the notion of] bringing people together, creating memories and all around good vibes. The world needs it now more than ever.

URI A RTE:

Full disclosure: Mike Uriarte formerly worked in marketing for Vegas Seven parent company WENDOH Media, which also owns Life Is Beautiful.

PHOTO BY AMIT DADL ANEY

What was it like to play both Electric Daisy Carnival and Life Is Beautiful this year?

NIGHTLIFE

By Ian Caramanzana

18 big screens, so you can keep tabs on the score as the Panthers take on the Saints while enjoying breakfast mac and cheese. It might be the most luxurious way to watch football. (In the Palazzo, 9 a.m., LavoLV.com) With the holidays just around the corner, many clubs are shutting their doors for the season. One of them is Drai’s. Good thing you can party with acoustic guitar cover/YouTube sensation Niykee Heaton before the club shutters for two weeks.

She turns 21 tonight, so you know it’s bound to get buck wild. Don’t worry—the club will reopen for the New Year’s Eve turn up.

(In the Cromwell, 10:30 p.m., DraisNightlife.com.)

MON 7

Rebecca & Fiona.

THU 3 Say happy birthday to DJ Shift! The open-format Las Vegas native celebrates his natal day with a grand celebration at Hakkasan.

He celebrated his birthday in the same venue last year, so perhaps he’s setting a new trend. Honor the tradition by showing up, and don’t be surprised if you happen to brush shoulders with some celebrities. (In MGM Grand, 10:30 p.m., HakkasanLV.com.)

December 3–9, 2015

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VegasSeven.com

FRI 4

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Swedish DJ/producer duo Rebecca & Fiona bring their catchy brand of electro house to Foxtail. The two recently dropped a music video for “Sayonara,” and it’s available to watch everywhere else in the world, except in the United States. We’re not sure why that is, but we’re curious to see the visuals for what sounds like the duo’s pop-iest tune yet. Tell them to explain themselves, then experience

one of their famous turntable team-ups. (At SLS, 10:30 p.m., FoxtailLasVegas.com.) Rick Ross’ Las Vegas connect, Yowda, a.k.a. King Yowda performs at Beauty Bar. The local rapper signed with Ross’ Maybach Music Group in 2014, and immediately after, dropped two singles with Compton cohort YG—”Shut Up” and “That’s How it Goes.” The latter is a proper West Coast banger that’s perfect for house parties and small, rowdy functions. Experience it in DTLV tonight. (517 Fremont St., 9 p.m., TheBeautyBar.com.)

SAT 5 GBDC saddles up with a rodeo-themed party to coincide with National Finals Rodeo. Dust off your boots, button up your fannel shirt and make sure your hat is secure, because DeeJay Silver is on the ones and twos. He’s worked for big names in country music including Brad Paisley, Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan and Rascal Flatts, so

his palate is well seasoned.

Guests with NFR passes enjoy complimentary admission.

Giddy up for a wild weekend!

(In the Palms, 1 p.m., Palms.com.)

Have you been keeping tabs on the impressively prolifc Chuckie? At one point last month, he released two singles and two episodes of Dirty Dutch Radio in the same week. In that same month, he played at EDC Orlando, spun at Create Nightclub in Hollywood, hung out with Menace II Society actor Larenz Tate and somehow found some time to sleep.

You might be busy, but you’re defnitely not as busy as this guy. Grab some Red Bull, see him man the decks at Omnia and ask him how he does it. If he’s just too much for you, Turbulence has your back at Heart of Omnia.

(In Caesars Palace, 10:30 p.m., OmniaNightclub.com.)

SUN 6 Lavo Casino Club keeps the party going with a Sunday football party. The club boasts

Movement Mondays at XS heats up with Los Angeles trap heavyweight Salva.

He recently released a soundkit via SOUNDPVCKS that includes more than 100 of the producer’s signature sounds. If you’re an aspiring producer, we encourage you to put a few in some of your tunes, drop ’em on a flash drive and hand them to the producer.

Your track could appear in one of his latest mixes. And if you aren’t a producer, get rowdy to his latest single, “Salvation,” or his bouncy collaborative remix of Travi$ Scott’s “Skyfall” with RL Grime. They’re bangin’ enough to have the whole club praying for salvation. (In Encore, 10 p.m., XSLasVegas.com.)

Niykee Heaton.

Salva.

TUE 8 Commonwealth’s Latin night Martes keeps things hot even though the temperatures are dropping. DJ Low, our featured Tastemaker has got the bachata, salsa, merengue, hip-hop and reggaeton to get you moving to stay warm. Speaking of, we’re already thinking of all the delicious hot cocktails we’ll be drinking on the patio. (525 Fremont St., 9 p.m., CommonwealthLV.com.)

WED 9 If you want to hear fresh tunes cranked out by fresh faces, hit up Boomers Bar for Hype Wednesdays. The openmic night hosted by rapper Mista Krimzon promises performances by some of the city’s hottest hip-hop, R&B, and spoken-word performers.

What’s a midweek slump?

(3200 W. Sirius Ave., 10 p.m., BoomersLV.com.)

F R I

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TICKETS

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R E S E R VAT I O N S

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OMNIANIGHTCLUB.COM

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702.785.6200

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NIGHTLIFE

Made With Care

ENTREPRE-NAUTS

Shawn Sabo and Bradley Roulier.

Manufactured Superstars is about to interrupt the music production game with Irrupt.com By Kat Boehrer ➜ BRADLEY ROULIER AND SHAWN SABO make

up Manufactured Superstars, the duo who sport spacesuits onstage at each show. Roulier co-founded Beatport in 2004, a sort of iTunes for DJs; Sabo was a Day One Beatport employee. Together, Roulier and Sabo have spent the last two years putting together their latest album, Party All the Time, which debuts on December 4 and features collaborations with a diverse cast of characters. Riding the high of that momentous occasion, the two talk about the making of their frst full-length LP and Roulier’s new online endeavor. Catch them at XS on December 18.

Tell me about some of the collaborations on the album.

ROULIER: One of our biggest tracks is with Danny

Rogue and Scarlet Quinn. Scarlet—we’ve never even met her in person—she lives in the U.K. It’s crazy that the world has gotten so small that we can produce a track with a super talented singer, and never even meet them in person. That just boggles my mind. One of my favorite tracks on the album is “Party All the Time,” which is with Megan Perry. She’s part of the Party Rock crew. It’s one of my favorite beats we’ve ever made.

Why is that?

We probably tried 10 different singersongwriters for that song to get it to where it is. It was just such a process. We did that beat more than two years ago. She did an original vocal about a year and a half ago. And all the other demos that we got, nobody did it quite as right.

SA BO: The vocal evolved. She sent us different versions, and we actually wound up taking different parts of the verse and different parts of the chorus to make the new hook that happened today.

Sometimes, when we get vocals from people, we’ll chop them up in the studio and do things that they would never do with them, and then go back to the singer and be like, “So what if you actually did this?” That’s one of the cool things about dance music, too: You can really get manipulative with the vocals and the way things are arranged.

ROULIER:

What can we expect from the corresponding tour?

A lot of what we do as Manufactured Superstars has been evolving for fve or six years now.

We’re a little bit more on the house-music vibe [now] than we’ve ever been. Hopefully you’ll hear songs that you’ve heard before, or a lot of songs from the past with a little Manufactured Superstars retake or edit to it, and then a lot of our new songs. Just the same as it’s always been; it’s just that we’re evolving as artists and trying to keep it fun and interesting.

December 3–9, 2015

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VegasSeven.com

ROULIER:

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What’s your favorite part about touring?

We’ve been in this industry for a long time. I’ve been since 1997, 1998. With Beatport and touring and everything, we’ve met so many cool, wonderful, interesting people.

SA BO: [It’s nice] seeing all of our friends in the industry and being able to stay in contact and have dinner with them once or twice a year. Also, meeting all the people who are super excited, the people ROULIER:

who are just getting into the scene, whether they’re the young promoters selling tables in Vegas or the fier kids. [It’s fun] to see that new energy.

the best producers in the world to create this concept.

Besides the album and tour, what’s else is new in your worlds?

ROULIER:

I’m launching a business in early December called Irrupt that’s kind of the producer version of Beatport. Hopefully we’re going to change the game a little bit on the producer side.

ROULIER:

So Irrupt.com will sell samples?

ROULIER:

Yes, royalty-free sample packs. We got 25 of

Are you concerned that producers will reuse those same sounds too often?

Each pack has more than 250 sounds. A techno DJ could use the sounds, as well as progressive DJ, as well as a dubstep artist. [Artists] will use them all differently. You would never even know that it’s the same. We use the same kick drum on the majority of our songs, and people would never know that. It’s for producers to make high-quality content, but it’s really high-quality content, so they won’t sound the same, I promise.

NIGHTLIFE

PARTIES

XS

Encore [ UPCOMING ]

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See more photos from this gallery at SPYONvegas.com

PHOTOS BY K ARL L ARSON

December 3–9, 2015

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VegasSeven.com

Dec. 4 RL Grime spins Dec. 5 Alesso spins Dec. 6 Justin Credible spins

DINING

PT’s has a secret weapon in corporate vice president of food and beverage Joe Romano.

Restaurant reviews, news and a Repeal Day party guide

SEAN PATRICK’S | PAGE 44

Arigato, Amigos!

When the Far East meets South of the Border

By Al Mancini ➜ WHAT DO JAPANESE AND MEXICAN

food have in common? No, it’s not a joke.

It’s more of a riddle. And it’s one I’ve yet to answer—at least not well enough to explain why the latest trend in Las Vegas seems to be combining the two. All the same, plenty of people seem to think the ingredient-based simplicity of the former blends well with the palatal bombast for which the latter is best known. Here are a few of the top spots trying to bridge the 5,500 miles of Pacifc Ocean that separate Tijuana and Tokyo.

PHOTO BY JON ESTRADA

The best of both worlds at Jaburrito.

Bocho is revered by a large segment of the Downtown community (and neighborhood visitors) for one reason: bringing non-casino sushi to the ’hood. It was a frequently noted void in the Downtown restaurant scene, and nobody can argue that flling it wasn’t a major community service. So it’s no surprise that owner Dan Coughlin,

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BOCHO DOWNTOWN SUSHI

December 3–9, 2015

John Chien Lee, a veteran of Social House in Crystals, isn’t the frst chef in America to notice and capitalize on the similarity between a sushi hand roll and a burrito.

Hell, he’s not even the frst in Las Vegas to intermingle Japanese and Mexican food.

But in its short time on the market, his tiny strip-mall spot across Sahara Avenue from Palace Station has drawn enough attention to create long lines and sparse parking.

Basically, Jaburrito is what you’d get if a Chipotle decided to buy out the corner sushi shop. Its “burritos” are made assembly-line style in front of you, with each customer choosing his or her own ingredients. Proteins include such sushi staples as tempura shrimp, fried soft-shell crab and raw tuna (spicy and not), salmon and yellowtail. But you can also opt for typical burrito fllings, including grilled chicken, steak or salmon. These, along with both Japanese and Mexican condiments, can be wrapped in four or wheat tortillas, nori and sushi rice, or soy paper and brown rice. You can go all-in Japanese or fat-out Mexican with your creation, or mix and match. 2600 W. Sahara Ave., 702778-2525, Jaburritos.com.

VegasSeven.com

JABURRITO

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WHOLE HOG (AND WHISKEY), SINATRA’S SEAT AND YOUR NEXT UNDERGROUND DINNER

LUCKY FOO’S RESTAURANT & BAR

In the one year since it opened, Henderson’s Lucky Foo’s has built a loyal following through its innovative small plates, yakitori grill and quality sushi bar. Yes, most people come here expecting Japanese cuisine.

That’s not the case, however, on Taco & Tequila Tuesdays, when the robata offerings— specifcally, yakitori chicken, pork belly and beef—are used as fllings for the Mexican classic. Tacos come on fresh tortillas prepared in house (hence, the decision to only offer them one day a week). They’re lightly dressed with cilantro and onions as well as the chef’s own salsa.

If you want to go with a Mexican-inspired sushi dish, you can get an order of Stellar Nachos seven nights a week. Named for DJ/ partner Stellar, they consist of fried wonton chips seasoned with pickled ginger salt piled high with spicy tuna, wasabi-avocado crema, pico de gallo and spicy pico mayo.

These also come with the house salsa. 8955 S. Eastern Ave., 702-650-0069, LuckyFoos.com.

The assembly line at Jaburritos, and Lucky Foo’s yakitori tacos.

[ JUST A SIP ]

REPEAL THIS!

December 3–9, 2015

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VegasSeven.com

➜ The 21st Amendment ended America’s Prohibition of

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alcohol on December 5, 1933, giving us a great reason to knock back some legal hooch in celebration of Repeal Day! Atomic Liquors will embrace Repeal Day early by shutting off the lights and creating a speakeasy environment for its fourth annual Prohibition Party on December 3. This year’s theme is an ode to Mexico for giving us a place to drink during the times of the Volstead Act. Hence, Spanish brandy, tequila and sotol are some of the featured spirits that will be poured by candlelight by guest bartender Adam O’Donnell from Herbs & Rye. Get dressed up in your best period garb, and don’t forget the secret password “revocar” or you won’t get in. 7 p.m., no cover, 917 Fremont St., AtomicVegas.com.

Don’t be a ragamuffin. Roll down those stockings, rouge your knees and head to the recently opened SkyFall

Lounge in the Delano as the bar celebrates Repeal Day on December 5 with Prohibition-era cocktails, a punch fountain, food specials and a live jazz band. 9 p.m.-1 a.m. no cover, DelanoLasVegas.com/SkyFall.

The Mob Museum hosts its fourth annual Repeal Day celebration on December 5, complete with a Roaring ’20s costume contest. At the Boss of the Bars cocktail competition, Downtown bars will create cocktails for bragging rights and possession of the Repeal Day Cup. There will also be a toast by former Mayor Oscar Goodman, plus food, cigars, cabaret dancers and a swing band. 7 to 10 p.m., $66 VIP includes early entry and open bar 6-10 p.m., $46 GA includes two drink tickets, 300 Stewart Ave, TheMobMuseum.org.

Dapper daddies and dolls can take advantage of an open Aviation Gin bar from 10-11 p.m. at Commonwealth on December 5. Enjoy contemporary music blended with ’30s jazz sounds by the Shaun DeGraff Band from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.

525 E. Fremont St., CommonwealthLV.com.

– Jessie O’Brien

Get the latest news 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.

➜ Whether you’re celebrating during National Finals Rodeo or Repeal Day, you’re going to want to do it at Delmonico (the Venetian, 702-4143737) on December 4 and 5. Chef Ronnie Rainwater goes whole hog with nose-to-tail specials, while lead mixologist Juyoung Kang supplies the whiskey cocktails. Off the menu is where it’s at, with starters such as spicy braised pork belly with toasted polenta and mole, or a boudin blanc salad with wild mushrooms, savoy spinach, black truffles and poached egg with sherry vinaigrette. Entrée-wise, you can’t go wrong with a Southern-inspired pan-fried pork chop with sweet potato spaetzle and collard greens, or hearty confit of pork shoulder with charred Brussels sprouts and fingerling potatoes. Of course, swine also makes an appearance at dessert, as a spiced bacon waffle with brown sugar bacon ice cream and bourbon maple syrup.

From a celebration of swine to one of our most iconic steakhouses. Golden Steer (308 W. Sahara Ave., 702-384-4470) honors Frank Sinatra through December in honor of Ol’ Blue Eyes’ 100th birthday on the 12th. The restaurant will welcome guests to visit where he held court in the ’60s, at a sexy, round, black leather booth known as Table 22. Frank’s Menu is a three-course tour of what the man himself used to eat: Clams Casino, New York Strip steak (served medium rare with diced tomatoes, garlic and white wine) and Bananas Foster, flambéed tableside, old-school style. Of course, he also did it “his way” when drinking whiskey (three fingers of Jack Daniel’s, two ice cubes and a splash of water). And you can enjoy all that—as well as red wine, an engraved Zippo lighter and one ticket for admission into the Mob Museum— for $100. Should you want to pay homage to the Chairman of the Board on December 12 proper, there are three seatings at Table 22 that evening, with a $1,000 minimum spend for four. Round up your own Rat Pack and pay your respects.

In case your dance card isn’t full of meals between the holidays, we have one more to add to your schedule. Pop-up masters Collective Gourmands (LaCenaDeSanAndres.Tumblr.com) has announced its next installment, a winterthemed dinner, on December 6 ($80, 6 p.m., reserve via CollectiveGourmands@gmail.com).

Helmed by Joël Robuchon sous chef Juventino Magana, it’s as intimate and underground as dining can get: limited to only 20 guests, and Magana usually doesn’t announce the location or menu until the week before. What we do know is that the Collective loves to showcase regional ingredients using avant-garde techniques. In the past, we’ve been treated to dishes inspired by travels to Oaxaca, as well as brunch dishes from the throes of fall. We can’t wait for their next culinary surprise.

Grace Bascos eats, sleeps, raves and repeats.

Read more from Grace at VegasSeven.com/ DishingWithGrace, as well as on her dining-andmusic blog, FoodPlusTechno.com.

JABURRITO PHOTOS BY JON ESTRADA; TACOS COURTESY OF LUCKY FOO’S

DINING

whose culinary experience is widespread, sticks to sushi and other straightforward cuisine in this restaurant. But scan the menu carefully, and you’ll note that even he and Bocho’s new head chef, Joon-Yong Cho (formerly of Sushi Samba), are dabbling in the latest culinary crossover trend.

Subtly hidden in the “Bocho Bites” section of the menu you’ll fnd the combo tostada, the sushi chef’s choice of four types of raw fsh served on crispy tortillas with housemade guacamole. The fsh selections tend to stick to the more popular sushi choices, but on a recent visit, I was given some escolar alongside my raw salmon, tuna and yellowtail. Each species gets its own preparation on a fried mini-tortilla. The quartet is quite flling and usually enjoyable. But the spiciness of the guac, however, can vary, and, on some preparations, the more delicate fsh can seem just a touch overpowered. If you like a bit of kick, this is a steal at just $14. 124 S. Sixth St., 702-7500707, BochoSushi.com.

DINING

Bangers and champ, and the interior of Sean Patrick’s at 11930 Southern Highlands Pkwy.

Al’s

Menu Picks

December 3–9, 2015

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VegasSeven.com

When Irish Eyes Are … Hungry

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that conjures up images of the dollop of ketchup Mom used to bake into her meatloaf. Almost as good are the fsh and chips: faky cod in a crispy, light golden-brown batter served with an extra citrusy tartar sauce.

Other good choices include both the steak and shepherd’s pies. The former has more of a Guinness bite than any of the other dishes featuring the obligatory Irish stout, and comes with some exceptional light and faky puffed pastry. The latter is a fairly straightforward rendition of the classic that is done quite well. Unfortunately, I have yet to try the corned beef other than that found on an order of cheesy potato chips, when it was little more than driedout jerky. But that won’t stop me from returning to see what it’s like in a more traditional recipe.

I’ve only been to one of the Valley’s four Sean Patrick’s locations, but the menu is the same all around. So I can only assume that the atmosphere (a typical neighborhood bar with a bit of a nod to Ireland), the friendly neighborhood vibe and service are similar as well. They’re not threatening to take a spot among the city’s elite Irish drinking and dining establishments anytime soon, but Romano is providing a place for those who live nearby to at least momentarily quench their Irish cravings as well as their thirst.

SEAN PATRICK’S IRISH PUB & GRILL

Multiple locations, PTEGLV.com.

Open 24 hours.

Dinner for two, $20-$40.

PHOTOS BY JON ESTRADA

ness pouring competition at a Sean Patrick’s in March, Romano assured me he was updating the menu to include some Irish dishes. I gave him the beneft of the doubt that he had a few good tricks up his sleeve, and so I waited and waited … until receiving word several weeks ago of a menu change.

Before I get into the additions, don’t get too excited. Sean Patrick’s is still primarily a gaming bar, and the menu leans heavily on PT’s favorites such as wings, sliders and burgers. But you can now have your potato skins loaded with Guinnessbraised corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and horseradish cream, and your wings coated in Jameson Irish Whiskey sauce. The Bangers and champ ($13), entrée secMonaghan’s Meatloaf ($13) tion also now and fish & chips ($13). features such dishes as chicken breast with peas, cabbage, potatoes and soda bread; a corned beef hoagie; and, of course, good ol’ corned beef and cabbage alongside other nods to the Emerald Isle.

A favorite among the new dishes is the bangers and champ: sausages in gravy Joe Romano puts a bit more Irish on the Sean Patrick’s menu served with mashed potatoes, peas and soda bread.

By Al Mancini The subtly spiced imported British pork banger is delicious, as is the thick and rich surface. As anyone who seriously follows the lobrown onion gravy. And the ➜ EXCEPTIONAL IRISH PUBS ARE FEW AND FAR between here. Sure, we have some very good cal food scene knows, however, PT’s has a secret soda bread, which accompaexamples, such as Rí Rá and McMullan’s Irish weapon in corporate vice president of food and nies most of the Irish dishes, Pub. But I’m hungry for any spot that will even beverage Joe Romano. is just a touch moist and has pay lip service to the concept. I was optimistic Romano, whom I profled in Vegas Seven a light sweetness. once about the Sean Patrick’s chain of video (“From Foie Gras to Chicken Wings,” July 3, Another clear winner poker bars, but it offered little that was Irish 2014), isn’t your typical bar-food chef. On the among the newcomers to other than its name and a devotion to Guinness. contrary, he’s a classically trained chef who spent the menu is the Monaghan’s And when it was purchased by Golden Enter10 years in the Charlie Palmer organization and Meatloaf. It’s a loaf of tainment—best known for its chicken wings at opened that celebrity chef’s perennial Las Vegas blended beef, lamb and PT’s—there didn’t appear to be much reason favorite, Aureole. When I embarrassed myself pork with a Guinness glaze to expect signifcant change—at least on the with an abysmal performance at a charity Guinand a rich, semisweet sauce

THE BEER NUT [ SCENE STIRS ]

BREWER MOVES: DAVE OTTO HELMS THE NEW PT’S BREWING CO., DAVE PASCUAL MOVES OVER TO BIG DOG’S ➜ The announcement that Tenaya Creek Brewery was selling its Tenaya Way location to move to Bonanza Road (now open!) set off a chain reaction in the local brewing scene that appears to have had a positive effect all around. Tenaya Creek sold the Summerlin brewery to Golden Entertainment. The new owners have renamed it PT’s Brewing Co., and tapped 19-year Big Dog’s Brewing Co. veteran Dave Otto to run the show. The venue will open in early 2016, bringing back the dining and gaming that Tenaya shed over the years, and introducing a new patio. Stepping into the sizeable Big Dog’s operation is Chicago Brewing Co.’s head brewer for the last decade, David Pascual. I asked both how the transition was going thus far.

DAVE OTTO , brewmaster, PT’s Brewing Co.

By Xania Woodman

JEFF GRINDLEY BY KRYSTAL RAMIREZ

➜ ATOMIC LIQUORS BARMAN

Jeffrey Bennington Grindley wants to slip something into your next beer. But don’t panic—this addition is tradition.

About a year ago, a keg shipment of Berliner Weisse— a deliciously tart, low-ABV German wheat beer—arrived with a bottle of woodruff syrup and the explanation that this sweet, herbal syrup was included so patrons could doctor their sour beer to taste.

Grindley, a former Downtown Cocktail Room bartender and now in charge of the venue’s cocktail program, was immediately fascinated with this detail that landed squarely at the intersection of beer culture and mixology, and wished to re-create the syrup from scratch.

But frst, what is woodruff, and why on earth might you wish to add it to your beer?

Woodruff—a.k.a. wild baby’s breath or waldmeister (“master of the woods”)—is a plant prized for its fowers and sweet-smelling foliage. Simple

syrup made from the plant has a nose of fresh hay or mown grass, and tastes like vanilla or marshmallows. While Berliner Weisse by itself is a refreshing, sessionable summer brew, with the addition of woodruff syrup, it takes on a tea-like favor, and a fuller mouthfeel that can be appreciated year round.

With beer program manager Rose Signor’s blessing, Grindley dove into his research, and emerged with a recipe that pairs dried woodruff from Eastern Europe with some coriander for a citrusy note. Unlike simple syrup, where the desired favoring is typically boiled in a 1:1 mixture of water and sugar, Grindley steeps the herbs in very hot water like a tea, strains out the solids, then blends the tea with sugar for a consistent balance of favor and sweetness every time.

“I’d like to bring more history to the program,” Grindley says. He’s toying with the idea of adopting the other traditional German beer-syrup flavors—raspberry and black-

berry—and even of incorporating the woodruff syrup into his drink recipes. He’s also simultaneously working on Atomic’s barrel-aged cocktail series as well as a house-made liqueur similar to an amaro.

For now, the woodruff syrup is an off-menu treat, but that could soon change; Grindley has already converted some regulars to whom it’s served right alongside their Berliner Weisse in a tulip-shaped Dutch kopstoot glass. “It’s gotten a really good reception,” he says.

And it’s so simple: You just sip your beer, pour in a little syrup, sip again to evaluate the result, maybe pour in a little more syrup …

But don’t go slinging the stuff into every brew you order at Atomic. Just as your New Belgium Snapshot Wheat will not be served with a slice of orange unless you request it (damn you, Blue Moon!), “We want the beers to stand on their own,” Grindley says. Woodruff syrup, however, belongs to history, and therefore gets a pass.

What advice do you have for Dave Pascual?

He’s inheriting a really nice brewery. He certainly has room to breathe now. Dave is gonna have to brew all the Big Dog’s brands and then of course he’s gonna bring in his own Belgian specialty beers. He’ll figure it out. He’s a great brewer.

DAVE PASCUAL , head brewer/director of brewing operations, Big Dog’s Brewing Co.

How did you know it was time to make a move? The market is getting a lot more attention than it did 10 years ago. I remember someone dumping an IPA out in front of me, saying, “This is disgusting. Why is it so bitter?” Things have changed, palates have changed. It was perfect timing for me to take my next step.

What do you hope to accomplish in your new role?

I’m not trying to change anything, because Dave Otto has done a phenomenal job, I love his beers. I’m just trying to add what I can—different styles of beer, bringing new ideas. I hope to do some Belgian-style beers and some things that we weren’t able to do at Chicago fully: barrel aging, possibly some sours.

What advice do you have for your successor?

Be very detail oriented. I hope they can keep the tradition of really nice and clean beers ... and hopefully they can get the brewery to realize that there’s more to it than just the brewpub and expand the brewing operations. –X.W.

VegasSeven.com

Just a spoonful of sugar helps the Berliner Weisse go down

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Sweets for Your Sour

What is your vision for the PT’s Brewing Co. lineup?

We’re not gonna do anything super fancy; we’re gonna make beers that are popular and that sell to the local clientele: a lighter version of a European Pilsner, an Irish red, an Irish stout on nitrogen, an Americanstyle IPA, American pale ale, some kind of a wheat beer—German style or Belgian wit style—and as many seasonals and specialty beers as we can.

December 3–9, 2015

Pinkies up when the woodruff goes into the Berliner Weisse.

How did you know it was time to make a move? It was time for me to move on, to try something new. I saw an opportunity to get into a growing company with a captured market: 46 pubs and six more opening. It’s [Golden Entertainment’s] next natural step to get into the brewing business and have its own brand. We really want to make our own beer to give people another reason to come to PT’s, Sierra Gold and Sean Patrick’s.

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Five years into their Vegas domination, Jabbawockeez continue to “go to battle” By Jessi C. Acuña

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The Stuff Jreamz Are Made Of

➜ IT’S BEEN NEARLY eight years since the Jabbawockeez hiphop dance troupe began their b-boy reign with a win on MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew. Since then, the troupe’s original six members have toured the world, shared the stage with Pharrell Williams at Coachella, developed a show for a theme park (as part of Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights event), and have appeared in countless commercials and music videos. ¶ Their Las Vegas show, however, remains their fagship.

Following in the steps of their MÜS.I.C and PRiSM shows, Jabbawockeez’ third Strip show, Jreamz: Journey Within, brings the crew back to the MGM Grand, where they made their Vegas debut in 2010. Phi Nguyen, one of Jabbawockeez’ co-founders and original masked men, spoke with Vegas Seven about the new show, refning his skills and the troupe’s continuing evolution.

VegasSeven.com

Music, books and the world’s nerdiest showgirl

December 3–9, 2015

PHOTO COURTESY OF MGM GRAND

A&E

PAGE 49

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JREAMZ COME TRUE

A&E

Jabbawockeez’ new show employs creative lighting and videomapping techniques.

It’s a smaller venue than it was with PRiSM at Luxor, so we’re limited on space, and we didn’t want to come with big, clunky set pieces. We catered to the room. We were able to use a lot of video mapping and new lighting and technology that not a lot of the shows on the Strip have right now. To incorporate the video mapping with the dancing is how we bring you into our world. Watching parts of the show, it feels like you’re in space. And obviously, there are new routines, too.

December 3–9, 2015

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VegasSeven.com

A member of Jabbawockeez was recently featured in rapper Riff Raff’s new music video, “Brick Off the Balcony.” How did that come about?

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It wasn’t planned. A couple of months ago we were in this studio shooting promo stuff for MGM, and after we fnished, in rolls Riff Raff—or Jody HiGHROLLER, I don’t know what name he wants to go by—he sees us, and we’re out of our masks and gloves but we’re still in our Dickies, and he kind of recognizes us. He was like, “Yo, man, I’m a total fan. Yo, I’m shooting my video.” He had booked the studio space after us, and was like “Yo, who’s down to get down in my video?” So one of the guys stayed back and did it. It

“There are students we’ve taught along the way that we’re able to implement into our show while we travel. ...

We’re blessed with people that believe in our movement.” was an organic, accidental video shoot.

[Riff Raff is] actually a super cool dude.

Jabbawockeez has a distinctive look.

Have you seen any imitators?

Recently I was in a venue rehearsing, and when you’re in a venue for 14 hours a day sometimes you need to check out, so I stepped outside. I didn’t realize it was Halloween, and these dudes walk by all in Jabbawockeez masks. I’m standing right in front of them. Everyone is crowding around them and taking pictures.

These guys are acting like us, minus the dance moves. It was cool to be a part of that—I was taking pictures, too. One guy shook my hand and [nodded] “what’s up” as he was miming. People aren’t supposed to know who we are. It defeats the whole purpose of the mask.

How has the group evolved over the years?

We’re a growing brand, so when we’re

presented with, say, a Universal show and also at the same time opening up a new show at the MGM, we have to expand. There are six original members, and we’re still the same guys. We do the interviews, we do the commercials—whatever is on television is the original Jabbawockeez. But when we expand we hold auditions or bring in people that we’ve already been [considering].

A lot of us are choreographers and dance teachers, and have been in this dance game for a long time. There are a lot of students we’ve taught along the way that we’re able to implement into our show while we travel and do other things. We’re blessed with people who believe in our movement.

No pun intended.

Jabbawockeez won the first season of America’s Best Dance Crew in 2008.

Do you guys still compete?

We haven’t had the opportunity to

compete [as a group]. A lot of times dance competitions ask us just to exhibit as Jabbawockeez. Individually, though, every one of us still competes to keep our tools sharp. We’re all hiphop heads at the end of the day. We still even go to battle with each other.

What’s been the most rewarding part of being in the group?

Not a lot of people get to do their dream job, but sometimes if you do, you don’t get to work with your dream people.

The most rewarding thing is being able to work with my best friends. It’s a cliché, but it’s so true. I have 20 years of history with these guys. I’ve seen them go from sleeping on couches to having wives and children. It’s beautiful to watch everyone grow into entrepreneurs and businessmen.

Also, teaching younger generations.

At one point we were those kids. We never thought we’d have a show on the Las Vegas Strip. We were just dancing in the garage, because music was free and you didn’t have to pay for it—unless you bought your cassette tape, which was probably the only thing we paid for. Now our vision is to give aspiring dancers an opportunity to perform and express themselves through movement and dance.

PHOTO COURTESY OF MGM GRAND

How does Jreamz differ from your previous shows?

The Fun Awakens [ THE MOST FABULOUS THING ]

Meet Seven’s new pop culture columnist: the world’s nerdiest showgirl By Charlie Starling

➜ I READ ON THE INTERNET

Burlesque Hall of Fame in Downtown.

She’s the genius behind the bubble act, and it won her the title of Miss Exotic World in 2006. We worked together in London, and she recommended me to the producers of Absinthe. The day I stop saying thanks for that is the day I don’t deserve to be here, so thanks, Julie.

My column, aside from being my new motivation to clean everything, will be a biweekly record of my day-to-day, my attendance of local events and conventions and generally doing the most fabulous thing. Crafts!

Costumes! Comedy! If you want a pop culture perspective from the girl

who dressed as “Huntress Thompson” to attend the book signing of Troy Little’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas graphic novel—completing the ensemble with a typewriter purse— then I’m your girl.

Do come again. I’ll be here, trying to fgure out the best way to meld the words ‘nerd’ and ‘fabulous’. Nerdulous.

Fabnerdous. Fabunerd. A little help?

See Charlie Starling in Absinthe, twice nightly in the Spiegeltent at Caesars Palace, 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. Visit AbsintheVegas.com for tickets and information.

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I’m an English transplant. I grew up in Newcastle upon Tyne. Yes, the Newcastle with the beer—although they moved the brewery from its original home, just over the road from Newcastle United’s home stadium, to the Heineken brewery in North Yorkshire. (Bastards.) Where was I? Oh yeah, London! I moved to London at age 18 with the rest of the wide-eyed stage school kids and lived there, on and off, until I crossed the Atlantic last summer.

I landed the bubble job through the legendary Julie Atlas Muz, who you can learn about by visiting the

VegasSeven.com

"Huntress Thompson" with Troy Little.

December 3–9, 2015

recently “the best thing about writing is cleaning your whole apartment.” On a related note, I’d like to welcome you to my column from my spotlessly clean apartment. My name is Charlie Starling, and this is The Most Fabulous Thing.

Shall we begin with a disclaimer?

To my mind, “fabulous” covers more than your run-of-the-mill sparkle and fuff. Please don’t misunderstand: I love me some sparkle and fuff. I’m a burlesque artist: our currency is Swarovski.

That’s my day job, however; I’m also an endlessly enthused citizen of the Nerdverse with the habit of throwing myself headfrst into my life with the utmost commitment to fun, geekery, and costuming.

For me, “fabulous” is going to the movies dressed as your favorite character, or in a Disney Boundesque nod to what you’re watching.

(If you’ve never heard of Disney Bound, fear not. I’ll explain it in future columns.) Fabulous is cultivating your own Star Wars cast by adopting a Wookiee-like dog and naming him Chewbacca. (He keeps company with my kitty, Mara Jade Skywalker.) Fabulous is decorating your home almost exclusively in Doctor Who and Lego decor, while still managing to make it look like an adult lives there. Fabulous is making a hat out of the bird you named yourself for and wearing it to the theater, along with a formal dress and faux fur, for a Sunday matinee.

And, sure, it’s also about sticking rhinestones on just about everything you own.

I guess if I were younger (or an asshole), I’d say YOLO. Or if I were the kind of lass to stand on desks in classrooms full of rich white boys, “Carpe Diem.” But I’m not one of those things. I’m a pop-culture vulture who likes getting naked and living fabulously, and I’ll write my own damn catchphrase, thank you.

Who am I, then? I’m your humble Bubble Girl. You can see me in Absinthe at Caesars Palace fve nights a week, standing on my toes and shaking my parts in and around a giant balloon.

I’m also a model, a burgeoning member of Vegas’ burlesque community and a writer for Barchick. com. I love booze. Bars are my favorite places. I won’t, however, be waxing liquor-ical for Seven. (That said, allow me to get something off my chest before we continue: Golden Tiki, Golden Tiki, Golden Tiki.)

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CONCERT

Public Image Ltd. Parties and Provokes Brooklyn Bowl, Nov. 25

A&E

No matter how many years pass, John Lydon remains ready to provoke. The Public Image Ltd. singer took the stage clad in baggy prison stripes, his head half-shaved and half-spiked, quickly admonishing an aspiring heckler before launching into a “Double Trouble,” one of the more propulsive tracks off their new album What the World Needs Now. The band kept the dub-touched bass lines and razor-edged guitars tight, while Lydon bellowed, roared, growled and ululated. The back-stabber’s anthem “Disappointed” especially showed off his vocal contortionism.

The distinctly over-35 crowd was enthusiastic, but needed a little warming up. Lydon gestured at himself on the monitors hanging over the adjacent bowling alley: “Look, I’m a goldfish!” And then he chortled, “Keep flinging your balls at my image. It’s what every strapping young boy wants to do.” He reached back to their debut, Public Image: First Issue for the explosive guitars and pogo beat of “Public Image” and turned the contemptuous “Religion” into a 10-minute demonstration of what punk rock is and stands for, while the funky bass of “This Is Not a Love Song” turned the concert into a club.

By the time PiL closed with “Rise,” the crowd was on its feet and bopping like it was the last days of Ronald Reagan. Even the guy in the Bernie Sanders cap, who had spent most of the show sitting on one of those little folding chairs grandparents bring to parades, was on his feet and shaking it. ★★★★✩ —Lissa Townsend Rodgers

December 3–9, 2015

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VegasSeven.com

Guy Walks Into a Bookstore …

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➜ KLIPH NESTEROFF’S The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy (Grove Press, $28) is a terrifc book, but don’t let that grand subtitle fool you. Rather than attempt an all-encompassing history of American comedy, Nesteroff wisely focuses his gaze on the evolution of stand-up, from the early days of vaudeville right up through Marc Maron’s popular WTF podcast.

There are lengthy chapters on radio, television, and nightclub performers, along with the rise, fall and reemergence of comedy clubs. Of particular interest to local readers is a chapter on the importance of Las Vegas and how Senator Estes Kefauver’s investigation of organized crime in the early 1950s prompted mob bosses to move their operations to Nevada and start building hotels and casinos.

Nesteroff, a former stand-up comedian who performed under the name “Shecky Grey” (an obvious nod to veteran Vegas funnyman Shecky Greene) is a genuine authority on comedy and show business history. For years, he’s been interviewing comedy veterans such as Jack Carter, Will Jordan, and Woody Woodbury, and sharing classic stories on WFMU’s Beware of the Blog and his own Classic Television Showbiz website. Nesteroff interviewed more than 200 people for his book, which means every chapter is loaded with personal anecdotes and juicy, behind-the-scenes stories. Nesteroff also relied heavily on Variety, the entertainment trade journal, to fll in any holes in his research.

Readers will learn how Frank Fay created the role of emcee and turned it into an art, and how the growing popularity of radio effectively killed vaudeville. The chapter on nightclubs explains how the mob owned and operated clubs across the country and also coined the term, “stand-up comic.”

When it comes to television, Nesteroff shares stories about Milton Berle’s off-camera tirades (and several

paragraphs on his legendary penis), the lasting appeal of Phil Silvers’ Ernie Bilko and Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows, and how Ed Sullivan’s weekly variety show—along with the creation of late-night talk shows—gave muchneeded exposure to rising comics.

Nesteroff does a fne job identifying the joke thieves from the true originals. He also heralds Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl and Jonathan Winters as the comedians who truly revolutionized stand-up, not only by pushing boundaries and infuencing others but also by creating acts that were essentially “theft-proof.” Many of the biggest stars that followed (George Carlin, Woody Allen, Richard Pryor, Robin Williams, etc.) owe a debt to these men for laying the groundwork that eventually elevated the medium.

Nesteroff steers readers through the rapidly changing political climate in the 1960s, the impact of weed and cocaine on comics and comic audiences, and how University of Toronto graduate Lorne Michaels ended up creating Saturday Night Live. That he manages to cram everything in less

than 400 pages seems nothing short of miraculous. As far as I’m concerned, the only thing this book lacks is the occasional rimshot. ★★★★✩ —M. Scott Krause

PUBLIC IMAGE LTD. BY ERIK K ABIK/ERIKK ABIK.COM

[ BOOK REVIEW ]

Sinatra: A Man and His Music.

Seven’s 14

This week’s must-see A&E events

By I A N C A R A M A N Z A N A

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6

Cocktail Noir Scott Deitche reads and signs copies of his book about the connection between classic cocktails, writers, mobsters and booze. Free, the Writer’s Block, 7 p.m. 702-5506399; TheWritersBlock.org.

Parkway Drive Metalcore from Australia, served well-done and early in the day. $25, House of Blues, 4:30 p.m., 702-6327600; HouseOfBlues.com/ LasVegas.

Muse and Phantogram You’ll be able to hear “Supermassive Black Hole” and “Fall in Love” mere minutes apart! $23, Mandalay Bay Events Center, 7:30 p.m., 702-632-7777; MandalayBay.com.

When the Night Comes Mikayla Whitmore uses photos (not Instagrams) to demonstrate how memories fade over time.

Free, P3Studio at the Cosmopolitan, 6-11 p.m., 702-698-7000; CosmopolitanLasVegas.com.

MUSE BY GAVIN BOND

➜ FRANK SINATRA is renowned for his contributions to music and flm, but his television output usually evokes a shrug. Yet Frank worked extensively on the tube, starring in concerts, movies, talk shows and even his own television series.

Sinatra’s frst big-name TV appearance was in a 1955 version of Our Town, starring Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint as the young lovers.

Sinatra plays the stage manager, who may seem an incongruously urbane narrator for small-town New Hampshire, but his presence adds weight to the sentimental story. Of course, his rendition of songs such as “Love and Marriage” is peerless and strong performances from Newman and Saint make this a piece of kinescope worth watching today.

While Sinatra hosted the Bulova Watch Time variety show from 195052, The Frank Sinatra Show was his offcial series, the one that granted him creative control—for better or worse. It ran on ABC for one season (1957-58) and featured top-fight guests such as Bing Crosby, Sammy Davis Jr., Dinah Shore and Ethel Merman.

Unfortunately, Frank’s notorious loathing of rehearsals hampered the effort. Highly rated counterprogramming, including a show hosted by right-wing Bishop Fulton Sheen, further doomed the program. Given a choice between listening to Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee duet Gershwin tunes or listening to a 60-year-old virgin rant against“Commies,” America chose the latter.

Sinatra returned to television in 1959-60 with a series of specials sponsored by Timex. “Here’s to the Ladies,” featured a series of legendary women such as Lena Horne and Eleanor Roosevelt—but the most memorable show starred a fresh-outof-the-Army Elvis Presley, with the King taking on “Witchcraft,” as the Chairman crooned “Love Me Tender.”

MONDAY, DECEMBER 7 Kamelot and DragonForce Fantasy-themed power metal.

Noble steed not required. $30, House of Blues, 7:30 p.m., 702-632-7600; HouseOfBlues. com/LasVegas.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8

Rockapella’s Holiday Concert Five charming fellows give familiar holiday classics jazz, rock, R&B and doo-wop facelifts—sans instruments. $20, Ham Hall at UNLV, 8 p.m., 702895-2787; UNLV.edu.

The Christmas Miracle Good News Productions weaves biblical stories with modern ones. $20, Clark County Library, 4 p.m., 702-252-0050; LVCCLD.org.

A Year With Frog and Toad The cute characters from the popular children’s book come alive onstage. $5, Charleston Heights Arts Center, 2 and 7 p.m., 702-229-6383; ArtsLasVegas.org.

Rodney Carrington Country’s renaissance man gives us laughs, tunes and Morning Wood. $65, David Copperfield Theater in MGM Grand, 10 p.m., 702-8911111; MGMGrand.com.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9 A Christmas Carol Scrooge gets irie in one of the world’s most beloved holiday tales. $27, Judy Bayley Theatre at UNLV, 8 p.m., 702-895-2787; UNLV.edu.

VegasSeven.com

Sinatra on the Tube

The “special” format lent itself better to Sinatra’s sprawling talent and low tolerance for boredom. Perhaps his greatest television outing was his 1965 special, Sinatra: A Man and His Music. A celebration of his 50th birthday and storied career, it was a selection of his fnest tunes, rendered at what may have been the peak of his power.

He came back the next year with A Man and His Music Part II and again in 1967 with Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music + Ella + Jobim, which featured Ella Fitzgerald and guitarist Antonio Carlos Jobim. Sinatra and Jobim continue their lyrical bossa nova collaborations, while Frank and Ella knock out a “The Lady Is a Tramp” for the ages.

The 1970s saw Sinatra appearing more on the small screen, but not as a vocalist. In 1977, he guest-hosted The Tonight Show, which was basically an excuse for him to sit back and let Don Rickles do the heavy lifting. That same year, he starred in his last dramatic role, in the cop vs. the mob thriller Contract on Cherry Street—a standard, gritty 1970s action fick, although watching the 60-plus-year-old Sinatra smack around thugs half his age and twice his size is, well …

In 1978 he was the guest of honor on The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast, that staple of vintage television and contemporary infomercial, where soused semi-celebs make feeble jabs at each other. Sinatra’s visit brought out the actual A-list, including a heavily rouged Ronald Reagan and a so-drunk-I-can’t-see Orson Welles.

LaWanda Page inspires some solid laughs, even if one wishes they were several shades bluer.

In 1992, several years before his demise, Frank put his offcial stamp of approval on Sinatra, a miniseries that offered up an (expectedly) whitewashed version of his life. A better way to wallow in several hours of Ol’ Blue Eyes, HBO released a four-part documentary earlier this year. All or Nothing at All is packed with rare clips, interviews and plenty of Sinatra doing what he does better than anyone else: Singing.

— Lissa Townsend Rodgers

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[ VIDEOGRAPHY ]

Yowda Rick Ross’ Vegas connect brings his “Problems” Downtown. Free, Beauty Bar, 9 p.m., 702-598-3757, BeautyBarLV.com.

Reverend Horton Heat Psychobilly hits Hard Rock Hotel’s scrappier venue. $25, Vinyl in Hard Rock Hotel, 8 p.m., 702693-5000; HardRockHotel.com.

Sam Hunt Country music’s young darling shows us why he’s had the privilege of writing songs for Kenny Chesney and Keith Urban. $30, The Chelsea in the Cosmopolitan, 8 p.m., 702-698-7000 First Friday Art! Live music!

Food! Fun! Free, Downtown Las Vegas, FFLV.net.

This Week: Muse, Phantogram and Sam Hunt.

December 3–9, 2015

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 4

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MOVIES

The Good Dinosaur’s Arlo and Spot, on the road.

DOG-AND-BOY STORY Disney/Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur is just plain huggable ➜ SOMETIMES, PIXAR CAN BE ITS

own worst enemy. The pioneering animation studio has been around long enough for the least visually inventive of its recent flms—like, say, 2013’s Monsters University, nice-looking but nothing you haven’t already seen—to have a look wholly superior to its frst feature flm, 1995’s Toy Story. They’re just too good at what they do; every flm looks that much better than the previous, and their story department is without peer.

It’s because of this that some people might try to tell you that The Good Dinosaur, Pixar’s 16th feature flm, is one of the studio’s lesser offerings—“it’s good, but not great.” They’re wrong, but you can’t blame them: They’re still under the spell of the last Pixar release, summer’s Inside Out—a flm that was (rightfully) accorded instant classic standing. Any Pixar flm that followed Inside Out was bound to suffer in comparison, and The Good Dinosaur comes less than six months after Inside—the frst time Pixar has released two flms in the same year. The effect of that frst, intoxicating taste hasn’t fully worn off.

Comparisons notwithstanding, The Good Dinosaur is great Pixar—it is sumptuously beautiful, its storytelling is rock-solid and its heart is equal measures of The Lion King, Old Yeller and Bambi. You just have to get around the fact that this dinosaur movie, which has the word “dinosaur” right there in its title, isn’t really about dinosaurs at all.

In The Good Dinosaur, Pixar has given us the best boy-and-his-dog-movie since E.T., and the frst dinosaur-Western mashup that’s actually worth watching.

Set in a world where dinosaurs never faced an extinction-level event (the fateful meteor comically streaks past Earth, nearly unnoticed by dinos more interested in eating dinner), The Good Dinosaur reimagines the denizens of the post-Jurassic period as farmers, ranchers and rustlers, using simple tools they can manipulate with their mouths or tails.

The flm doesn’t delve too deeply into the ramifcations of this—are there dinosaur towns? Dinosaur gov-

ernments?—and instead introduces us to Arlo, a young, knobby-kneed Apatosaurus (voiced by Raymond Ochoa) determined to prove his worth to his parents, Ida (Frances McDormand) and Henry (Jeffrey Wright). Circumstances force Arlo out into the wild, where he meets a feral human boy he names “Spot.”

The two journey home through a landscape that looks like the early American frontier, with all its wonders and perils.

That’s really it. There are no hidden layers or dimensions to the story, like the way Ratatouille turns out to be a story about art and Inside Out a story about learning to embrace sadness. Yet The Good Dinosaur‘s simple themes—courage, family—are made more potent by the innate weirdness of the flm’s world. We’re accustomed to seeing humans taming animals, not the other way around. That cleverly executed switcheroo enables The Good Dinosaur to really get its hooks into you, because you’re too busy giggling at the boy fetching sticks to notice that you’re also crying buckets at the poignancy and humanity of it all.

Plus, it looks great. Peter Sohn, a 12-year veteran of Pixar’s story department directing his frst feature for the studio, opts for photorealistic environments that nicely compliment the rounded, mildly cartoony look of the flm’s characters. (In one scene, the characters are silhouetted against the setting sun; it’s easily one of the most gorgeous moments of any Pixar flm.) And the lyrical score, by Mychael and Jeff Danna, brings a rosy glow to every moment.

The Good Dinosaur is a grower, pure and simple. Given a few years, audiences will give it its proper due. They might even do so sooner than that, when—in a moment of Inside Out-like melancholia—they’ll remember that story of a dinosaur boy and his caveman pup, and the journey they took together. Their adventure sticks with you as if you were there. It’s that kind of movie.

The Good Dinosaur (PG) ★★★★✩

PHOTO COURTESY OF DISNEY/PIX AR

By Geoff Carter

“TRIUMPHANT” “HAUNTING” “A PORTRAIT OF REAL COURAGE” —JOANNA BROOKS, AUTHOR OF THE BOOK OF MORMON GIRL

—APRIL CHRISTOFFERSON, AUTHOR OF TRAPPED

—KELLY CORRIGAN, AUTHOR OF THE MIDDLE PLACE

“COMPASSIONATE, COMPELLING, AND

PROFOUND” —CLAIRE BIDWELL SMITH, AUTHOR OF THE RULES OF INHERITANCE

The riveting, true story of one girl’s coming-of-age in a polygamist family

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SEVEN QUESTIONS

LAS VEGAS GREAT SANTA RUN

Dec. 5, Downtown, 8 a.m. registration, 10 a.m. 5K run.

MAGICAL FOREST

Through Jan. 3, 6300 W. Oakey Blvd., $12 adults, $10 children 3-12, 5:30-9 p.m. Sun-Thu, 5:30-10 p.m. Fri-Sat. OpportunityVillage.org.

bers and I] briefy discussed asking the Engelstadt Family Foundation for $21 million. But as I sat in the offce, I got this feeling that the foundation board members and trustees were very touched by what we were striving to do. On an impulse, I asked for $25 million and got it. That sort of goes down in the annals of fundraising—don’t change direction on an encounter of that magnitude. But I could just sense this kindness and this wanting to make a difference. It was a magical moment in my life.

Opportunity Village runs two recurring holiday fundraisers, the Magical Forest and the Las Vegas Great Santa Run. What’s the history there?

The senior executive vice president of Opportunity Village on her personal connection to the cause, effective fundraising and the simplest way to give back By Camille Cannon

December 3–9, 2015

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What would surprise locals about Opportunity Village, an organization that helps people with intellectual disabilities?

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Most organizations serving this population are heavily dependent on the government for support. We are the reverse of that model. We are 80 percent self-funded. We reach out, and we have a wide swath of support from people in the community. We try to engage everybody. Also, we work hard. You go into the employment training center, you see people working throughout the Valley. The Henderson campus is the home of our document-destruction and document-imaging [facility, Paper Pros.]

We’re working for the community.

How did you become involved with Opportunity Village?

It started in Canada when my son

Christopher was born with Down syndrome. At the time, I was an entertainer, and I was married to an entertainer. We were traveling around the United States. We found out that [Chris] needed a special visa. I wouldn’t take Chris out of the U.S. for fear that I couldn’t get him back in. So we ended up living in Las Vegas. That’s when I became aware of Opportunity Village … I volunteered as a fundraiser [for fve years], and they asked me if I would do it as a profession. That was 30 years ago. I haven’t looked back since.

What has given you the most pride about your work?

I’m proud that I’ve raised more than $200 million. For an old dancer, for someone who wasn’t destined for success, I feel good about what I’ve been

able to accomplish. I’ve built all the campuses, raised all the money for them.

Any memorable moments from all that fundraising?

When Chris was 4 years old, I was a volunteer at Opportunity Village and managed to get an appointment with [philanthropist Ralph Engelstadt, who owned Imperial Palace]. Chris was with me and when we got on the elevator, there was a man with a broom in his hand and I asked him, “How do I get to Ralph Engelstadt’s offce?” He said, “Oh, you just get on the elevator and go up to the top foor. Here, I’ll take you.”

So he pushed the top foor [button] and when the elevator opened, he said, “It’s right in there.” Then he followed me, and that was Mr. Engelstadt …

[Opportunity Village board mem-

If someone were to give Opportunity Village $50 million today, what would top the priority list?

That would be really wonderful. That would secure the future for the next 60 years and beyond. We need to secure this most amazing organization that’s remarkable and life changing for people around the world, and it cannot unravel. It’s too important for our community, what it’s doing for the people and the families that we serve. For the volunteers. For the companies that feel good when they participate. Fifty million dollars, to me, would endow the future forever. Not just for Opportunity Village, but for this entire movement.

What are the easiest ways to support Opportunity Village?

Everyone has something to give. If it’s not a cash contribution, it’s time, volunteering. You can form a team in the Santa Run, and you can get pledges.

You can donate to our thrift store. If you’re a company, you can provide work for people with disabilities.

More than anything, everyone can participate in looking at the people we serve as human beings who deserve a smile. Kindness is gold.

PHOTO BY KRYSTAL RAMIREZ

Linda Smith

Magical Forest started 25 years ago. [It was just] a straw bale and a few lights that blew over every time a slight breeze came. I remember calling my mother and saying, “Can you make cookies? I think I can sell them.” I made hot chocolate. We raised $3,000 that frst year. It was just this little thing. Then last year it made more than $2 million. From that small idea.

With the Santa Run [started in 2005], I had this idea that in Las Vegas, people would dress up as Santa Claus, not Elvis. [Laughs.] Then it would evolve into a real challenge and we would win it.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11 CONTAINS ADULT CONTENT

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