The over it issue

Las Vegas Weekly Staff

Thursday, July 24, 2008 | midnight

Things happening here staying here

We’re all sick of hearing “What happens here, stays here” and its myriad variations. We’d like it retired as a hack-y catchall shorthand for journalists and commentators who can’t bother saying anything substantive about Vegas. We’d feel better if no one mentioned the Cameron Diaz/Ashton Kutcher movie it spawned ever again. But more than that, we’d like to somehow counter the attitude it engenders, that things going on in Las Vegas don’t matter. The more people hear “What happens here, stays here,” the more they think that things that happen here don’t happen elsewhere, or don’t actually affect real people.

There’s no reason to once again list all the difficulties we face in Vegas, but they’re real and warrant being taken seriously. Likewise, the high-quality amenities (accommodations, shopping, restaurants, shows) we offer to tourists should be valued intrinsically, not just as “Vegas experiences.” Our local culture deserves not to be sneered at and dismissed as provincial. We deserve a national image that doesn’t depend on making our city a joke. What happens here needs to be free to go everywhere. –Josh Bell

The “mature” Panic at the Disco

Yes, Pretty. Odd. is a whole lot more listenable than A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out. Yes, Brendon Urie and Ryan Ross are rocking much cooler threads these days. But pretty please, stop telling us how much the boys have grown up musically. So they stumbled onto Daddy’s Beatles collection. Ooooh. We’ve all been there, done that. Except that for most of us, it happened way before we turned 20. –Spencer Patterson

Mixed media messages about the real-estate market

Let’s just put an end to this once and for all: We’re screwed. It’s a sucking black hole of a real-estate disaster. The cloying headlines—“How Vegas could weather a recession” —that try to woo the gods of denial are simply, sadly wrong. Look around your neighborhood and see the endless array of for-sale signs. Maybe even a few sofas and lounge chairs piled in a weed-infested lawn, abandoned by a foreclosed-upon friend. Just as you have stopped looking at your 401(k) statement for fear of throwing yourself off the balcony, stop scouring for headlines in hopes of being misled—“The inventory has been whittled down”—and hunker down. We’re in it. –Stacy J. Willis.

Michael Jackson sightings

I’m inaugurating a new acronym for the long-since dethroned King of Pop: WTFC. Translation: Who the f--k cares? As in WTFC about him showing up at a UFC fight dressed like Darth Vader? Or being pajama-garbed and wheelchaired around Borders? Or the Summerlin mansion he and his family damaged (well, I guess the owner cares)? Or that he bunked at the Palms for two months (guess George Maloof cares, too; reportedly he was glad to see Jackson go)?

Maybe I’d give a rip if it were 1983, when Thriller came out. Musically and culturally irrelevant since the Reagan administration, MJ lost his blackness during the Clinton years (I’m convinced he helped the vitiligo process along) and hasn’t been normal since he had an afro and sang with his brothers back when Carter was in office. Perhaps it’s our fault. Maybe he should point the (gloved) finger at us.

Before he dangled his child over a balcony, married Elvis’ daughter and let strange children sleep in his bed, he clued us into his psyche. MJ befriended a monkey. And named him Bubbles. How could we be so blind? –Damon Hodge

Minor-league sports

Las Vegas is a major-league town in pretty much every way but one—the one that technically defines whether a town is major-league or not. Dollar beers and midnight start times are nifty, but we’d trade them all in a heartbeat for a professional franchise whose results actually matter. Enough with the arena haggling and gnashing of teeth over sports betting already. Figure out what it’ll take for us to join the great pantheon of major-league cities—you know, like Charlotte, Jacksonville, Memphis and Oklahoma City—and make it happen. –Spencer Patterson

Taxes

At some level, just so you know, I don’t care. I like that my taxes are low, because I’m just a regular Joe like the rest of you. Also, I don’t have kids, so I don’t spend a lot of time pondering how committedly average our educational system is. And there you go ... just another out-for-himself resident who’s indifferent to the fate of the community, who feels he has nothing at stake here.

Yet, I’m pretty sure that kind of thinking is a dead end. The libertarian roots of Nevada should make us cautious about how easily our tax dollars can be ineptly spent, but they’ve blinded us to the fact that our tax system, which leans too heavily on gaming and too lightly on the rest of us, doesn’t work. It’s turned our governor into a preening madman, and as we speak it’s wrecking the services that more of us depend on. If we want to be a “grown-up” city in a “grown-up” state, we need to have a diversified tax structure that helps support the services that bind us together. –T.R. Witcher

VIP

No longer an actual barometer of importance, the term “VIP” now gets slapped on everything that will stand still. VIP sections, while they imply that a club is giving more influential patrons a little extra elbow room, have become holding pens for the only slightly cooler folks, while guests of any actual importance are spirited away to even more private environs. At the door, the VIP list reads like a doctrine of papal indulgences, naming only those who pay heavily for the privilege. A word to would-be VIPs before they sell a kidney to be so labeled: A real VIP need never be on a list. Focus on building relationships with VIP hosts, thereby actually being very important. –Xania Woodman

Celebrity chefs

Emeril. Trotter. Puck. Simon. Savoy. To all the celebrity chefs who don’t live here, whose meals cost hundreds of dollars, and to all those who lavish such praise on them, I’d like to say, enough. We’re glad you’re here, but if most of you left, it would be no great loss. The best food towns are built from the ground up—local food, ethnic specialties, neighborhood taverns, the places you unwind after the work week, the place you take your real friends when they come to town, the place you take the people you love. Those are the restaurants we should celebrate. –T.R. Witcher

Homeowners associations

Yes, we’ll admit they have their pros and cons. Yes, we’ll admit they can be a necessary evil, doing the dirty work that no one else wants to do. And yes, we’ll concede that communities with HOAs usually look far more kickass than ones that without them.

But with the housing crisis making those HOA-run communities look like ghost towns, maybe it’s time to cut people a little frigging slack. Really? You’re going to cite someone because their “for sale” sign doesn’t meet the standards set forth by the Architectural Review Committee? And really? In some communities, you can’t even post “for sale” signs? Someone needs to get a life—or at least a clue. –Ken Miller

Failed music venues

We used to get excited about the prospect of experiencing live music somewhere other than in casinos. CBGB in Las Vegas? We can’t wait! A revamped Huntridge? We’re so there! University Theatre? The all-ages solution at last! But years of quick closures, shelved blueprints and vanishing acts have hardened our hearts. Was The Alley even reopened for a whole month when they shut it down again? We’ve reported so often about economic woes, mismanagement and antiquated “teen dance hall” laws that our last ounce of enthusiasm is fading fast. So that now when we hear about financial difficulties at would-be Downtown hangout The Hive, we shrug and say, “Figures. Place never had much of a chance.” –Spencer Patterson

iPod DJs

There’s something cool about the DJ. The flash of vinyl in the booth, the sound of organic scratching and the art of spinning a record right—it’s like being in musical heaven. But with the advent of everyone’s favorite personal music player, a new generation of DJs who plug in their ’pods and spin their own hits is the new trend. Call me a retro-fetishist, but there’s something resoundingly cool about plastic cases full of breakbeat tracks and dirty remixes spinning on the decks and something resoundingly lame about some guy tweaking his dual iPods in the back of the bar. Put those things away, pod people, and get down with your retro selves! –Aaron Thompson

Endless debates about the viability of Vegas’ arts scene

“The art scene sucks!”

“There are a lot of people trying to make it better.”

“We have no culture!”

“We have Downtown.”

“Downtown is turning into more of a party scene than an arts scene.”

“But there are plenty of art enthusiasts all over the Valley.”

“They keep their art in private collections.”

“But LVAM has their private collections on display right now!”

“But those aren’t local artists.”

“Local artists just can’t find the support they need.”

“Because the art scene sucks!”

“Because nobody here is educated, and art appeals to the educated.”

“That’s not always true. Vegas is eclectic! Vegas is a giant candy bowl of art, anywhere you turn.”

“But that’s commercially driven art, not real art.”

“International artists and architects want to commit art here!”

“For the shtick factor, not because it’s a viable art scene.”

“Whatever! There’s good stuff all over the city.”

“But look at the Guggenheim, it closed.”

“That’s because it was on the Strip; should’ve been Downtown.”

“But Downtown is full of craft shows and partiers.”

“Because the art scene sucks!”

Enough. Just get on with it. –Stacy J. Willis

Criss Angel

Criss Angel’s Cirque du Soleil-bolstered show, Believe, doesn’t even open at the Luxor until October, but we’ve already been over the guy for years. When his TV show, Mindfreak, debuted on A&E in 2005, it briefly seemed like his David-Blaine-meets-Nikki-Sixx shtick might be entertaining, but the minor success quickly went to Angel’s head. Since then, his self-importance has grown exponentially.

Like Blaine, he treats his acts of illusion like mystical occurrences that bend the rules of the universe and refuses to allow any level of humor or self-awareness to enter into the picture. His Vegas antics have included dating a series of vapid hotties, threatening the Review-Journal’s Norm Clarke and making a scene when his girlfriend didn’t win the Miss USA pageant. The classy folks at Cirque can only be tainted by their association with this guy. All we can do is hope they’ll get over him as quickly as everyone else has. –Josh Bell

Bad cocktails

In a town the United States Bartenders Guild calls home, there’s just no excuse for a bad cocktail. A driver’s license requires both a written and a practical exam—so why is it that at least once a weekend I am short-poured or handed a glass of gasoline? Hot girls in corsets look mighty nice behind the bar, but if not a one of them can execute a simple martini (and is it too much to ask for a little finesse?), then she isn’t worth her salt. No, if septuagenarian barman Smitty can whip up a Hemingway Daiquiri that will have your grandfather crying from beyond the grave, I’ll take Smitty over titty any day. –Xania Woodman

Models hosting parties

We have sunk to new levels of desperation when, out of a perceived need to have every night on the calendar be a special event, we hire a model (or Playmate, cybergirl, calendar girl, D-level actress or reality-show remnant) to “host” a party at a nightclub or lounge. But hey, if watching a minor character from The Hills sit placidly in a VIP booth in a section you can’t get to, get tanked off a bottle you can’t drink from and then leave early with her entourage and handlers is your idea of entertainment, who are we to stop you from getting that grainy cell-phone pic of her back? –Xania Woodman

The Ron Paul revolution

Conservative congressman Ron Paul seems to be a pretty decent guy. His fans and volunteers, though, aren’t so cool. They took that whole “revolution” thing a little too far. From harassing journalists to refusing to explain Paul’s current connections to the white supremacist movement and screwing up the Nevada GOP convention, the “revolution” turns out to be just more tired political backbiting. Also, they backed a guy who had no chance of winning. What kind of revolution is that? –Aaron Thompson

Nosy out-of-towners...

Travel Channel specials

In 2002 a Travel Channel spokesperson told the Las Vegas Sun that 10 percent of the network’s schedule was devoted to shows about Las Vegas. That number has certainly dwindled, but there are still multiple specials aired each week about Vegas hotel rooms, table games, shows, adult entertainment and more. The endless coverage has so overexplained everything in our city that there’s almost nothing left to discover. By the time the Travel Channel got around to exploring our best bathrooms, it was clearly time to stop. –Josh Bell

Foreign journalists who parachute in, diss us

Why do visiting journalists think a few days on the Strip qualifies them to make overarching pronouncements about our city?

While you’re at it, answer this, too: Why are so many of their stories filled with clichéd tripe about Elvis impersonators, quickie weddings and lap-dancing when those industries contribute far less to this town’s vibrancy than gambling, dining, shopping and big-ticket entertainment?

Guy Adams’ July 5 article in London’s Independent newspaper correctly connects our lagging gaming revenues and visitation to a national economic slowdown.

Unable to leave well enough alone, Adams muses, “The slump now runs so deep it’s starting to hurt even the town’s Elvis impersonators, wedding chapels and sex industry. When money’s tight, the prospect of stuffing another $20 bill into a lap-dancer’s gyrating stocking-top somehow doesn’t seem quite so enticing.”

He’s not finished.

“Right now, far too little happens in Vegas, because not enough people are actually staying there.”

Jeez Louise.

Adams also fails to contextualize self-promoting strip-club maven Dolores Eliades’ assertion that the economy forced the Crazy Horse Too strip club to close. Methinks losing its liquor license—the federal government assumed control of the club after former owner Rick Rizzolo was indicted on tax-evasion and racketeering charges—might have played a larger role. But perhaps that’s too fine a distinction for a visiting Brit to bother with. –Damon Hodge

Leaderless leaders...

Gov. Jim Gibbons

Where do we start? Citing media “buffoonery” during one of the state’s—and the nation’s—worst health crises. An all-too-public divorce. Alleged extramarital activity. Using a state-owned cell phone to send no fewer than 800 text messages to said alleged “other woman.”

This would all be forgivable if Gibbons were minding the store, but he’s not even doing that. In addition to refusing to deal with the state’s budget crisis in any realistic way (including a staunch refusal to even consider raising taxes), Gibbons now stands accused, in a recent ethics complaint, of using his office to get himself a nice property-tax break. So we’re left with $1 billion in cuts to important state programs, and a governor with a little extra cash in his pocket.

Who knows how many other wild and wacky ways our esteemed leader will find to disgrace the Silver State over the remaining two years of his term? There is a way to make sure that number is zero: Recall his ass. It’s been done before; California recalled Gov. Gray Davis in 2003, and now they have an action hero leading the charge. (Okay, so maybe that’s not the best example.)

But Gibbons has gone far beyond being a joke; he’s now downright dangerous. –Ken Miller

The biennial Legislature

Listen, we’re one of six states whose legislatures don’t find it necessary to meet annually to make sure the state runs well, and one of those six is Arkansas. On and on, we rake up our lawmakers and plunk them in Carson every other year, except when something reeeally bad happens, like a gubernatorial divorce, and we have to hold an expensive special session. If we went annual, some advantages might be: not being in another category with Arkansas. It also might give the Legislature a better ability to respond to budgetary needs in a more timely fashion, particularly in periods of economic upheaval. Ahem. It should be noted, however, that since 1940, 23 states have switched from biennial to annual budgeting, but two have switched back, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. That means the jury is still out on biennial versus annual. Another advantage of the annual Legislature is that lawmakers can more quickly address the errors they made in the previous session, which is a backward but not unreasonable way of saying that the harm done lasts a shorter amount of time before it’s replaced by other harm. In theory. Arguments in favor of an annual Legislature have come up in our state several times, but as of yet, the notion hasn’t caught on. –Stacy J. Willis