We saw The Beatles LOVE by Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas. It was a fun show. My only quibble is that there’s about the right amount of buffoonery for, say, a Marx Brothers tribute, but a little too much for a Beatles show. A friend tells me his favorite Beatle is John, followed by George, which I’d say are not bad choices. I’ve always thought George was underrated as a singer-songwriter compared to Paul. One thing that always bothered me about John is that he was telling people that all they need is love, while he himself had a fondness for fashion, drove a Rolls Royce and lived in the most expensive building in New York. I’m not aware that anyone ever asked him about the apparent contradiction but it would have been a good question: “You’re telling people who may be living on the street or can’t afford… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Las Vegas
See You in Hell, Henry Ruggs III
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] Greetings mortals — A (now former) Las Vegas Raiders football player named Henry Ruggs III was driving around town at over 150 mph with a blood alcohol content twice the legal limit when — 150 mph?! God damn that’s a fast car! Where was I? Oh yes — when he smashed the car into another car, killing a woman and her dog. It’s my observation that Ruggs is not getting one percent of the nationwide vilification that another former member of the Raiders organization, Jon Gruden, has gotten. Gruden didn’t kill anyone but he did write some emails 10 years ago in which he used provocative language about homosexuals and people with big lips. To paraphrase Dave Chappelle, “You can kill a woman and nobody cares but you better not hurt the feelings of a gay… Read more →
The Family Nut Tree
A brother of Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock was arrested in Los Angeles on child pornography charges. Their father was a bank robber once on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. The nuts didn’t fall far from the nut tree in the Paddock family . . . Read more →
See You in Hell
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] I thought what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas? Hugh Hefner says hi. See you in Hell . . . Read more →
No One Seems to Understand Point Spreads
I lost track of the number of headlines I saw this week regarding how USC (3-3) could possibly be a 3.5-point favorite over undefeated and third-ranked Utah (6-0). It’s weird that no one in sports journalism seems to understand what a point spread really is. It’s not a prediction. It’s not a scientific analysis. It’s a gambling mechanism. The only purpose of a point spread is to distribute the betting equally on both teams so the bookmaker can pay the winners with the losers’ money. USC is a 3.5-point favorite for one reason and one reason only and that is because there are more people willing to bet on USC than there are people willing to bet on Utah, so a carrot is offered in the form of 3.5 points to induce more bettors to put their money on the Utes. Substitute any other team . . . Team X… Read more →
Jerry Tarkanian, 1930 – 2015
I enjoyed watching his teams because unlike 99 percent of college basketball coaches, he didn’t spend the entire game yelling and calling timeouts every minute. He let the kids play and it was fun to watch . . . RIP Jerry Tarkanian RIP, Coach #Tark. pic.twitter.com/agvXuO1TYw — UNLV Athletics (@UNLVathletics) February 11, 2015 Read more →
Le Rêve
Futility
We saw BODIES: The Exhibition at the Luxor in Las Vegas. You’ve probably heard about this . . . dissected bodies are preserved and displayed for educational purposes. Most of the bodies are displayed in athletic poses with props: baseball, basketball, tennis racket, etc. One of the bodies is aiming a dart with his right hand while holding a second dart in his left hand. Of course he’s never going to need that second dart because he’s never going to throw the first dart. Because he’s dead. It creates a sad effect in my opinion . . . plans, unbeknownst to the planner, that will never come to fruition. Futility doesn’t always end with death. Meanwhile . . . I overheard a young woman telling her girlfriend that one of the cadavers had “a nice butt.” Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse. Read more →
I Think We Can Speed Up the Drive to Vegas
The I-15 to Las Vegas is mostly two lanes of traffic in either direction. This could work out okay if slower drivers stayed in the right lane but they don’t. You’ve got people driving at or below the speed limit in the left lane, which creates a blockade and jacks up the travel time. In Paul Epps’s America, the area between Barstow and Vegas would be patrolled by military-style helicopters and any vehicle being passed on the right would be taken out by a well-placed missile. “Wouldn’t that make things even slower?” my son asks. “Initially, it might. But think about the deterrent effect. I think you’d find that in a very short time, slower drivers would stay in the right-hand lane where they belong. Good question though. You ask a lot of great questions.” Read more →
What Happened in Vegas: Hollywood Theater
We spent a few days in Las Vegas over the holidays. Of course what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas but I will go so far as to say that we saw a magic show at the MGM Grand Hollywood Theater featuring a performer whose name — I will say this much — is the same as a Charles Dickens character. I expected him to be self-absorbed and boring but he was actually unassuming and funny. Good show. The Hollywood Theater will sell you a tropical drink, like a daiquiri or a pina colada, in one of these silver chalices for $19 and you can take it home with you. Non-alcoholic drinks are also available and with the non-alcoholic drinks, they throw in a package of M&Ms or a bag of kettle chips. Alcohol or M&Ms, take your pick. I love my chalice. I have it at home with me… Read more →
What Happens in Vegas
An alleged fight between two female blackjack dealers at the Bellagio hotel-casino in Las Vegas sent one of the women to the hospital and the other to jail. It was the second violent incident inside a Las Vegas Strip casino in recent days. Last week, an Illinois man shot and killed his ex-girlfriend and then himself in the lobby of the Excalibur resort. The woman was an employee of the resort. — Report: Female Las Vegas blackjack dealer stabs another – NBCNews.com Hasn’t NBC News heard of the “What happens in Vegas . . .” code? Read more →
Christmas in Las Vegas
My son makes the observation that there are no balconies in Las Vegas hotels. We’ve got a room on the 24th floor of Bellagio, overlooking the fountains, which allows me to visually scan other hotels up and down the strip, and by god I think the boy is right. Am I the only person who didn’t know that? Of course it makes perfect sense once someone points it out. The Vegas mindset requires that a disproportionate amount of attention be directed to winners . . . lights flashing, bells ringing, people screaming with glee . . . meanwhile, 99 other people are silently losing their ass. Clearly it’s going to put a damper on things to have the losers flinging themselves off the balconies of high-rise hotels. Read more →
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of
Anyone who REALLY likes one or more of the following: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Tom Clancy Golf The Big Lebowski Beer (bonus points if you call it “brew”) Las Vegas Boating KISS Skiing Frank Zappa (bonus points if you just say “Zappa”) Their own abs When Harry Met Sally… Mitch Albom Maya Angelou Read more →
50 Years Ago Today
According to the Los Angeles Times: Red Sanders decided to stay on as football coach at UCLA instead of pursuing the football coach/athletic director job at Texas A&M, a job recently vacated by Paul (Bear) Bryant. (Sanders would have a heart attack and die before the start of the 1958 football season anyway.) A father of three killed himself in front of his wife after losing his job on Christmas Eve. Silent-screen star Norma Talmadge died in Las Vegas. The Times gave her age as 60; according to IMDB, she was actually 62. Read more →
Evel Knievel, 1938-2007
On New Year’s Eve Day, 1967, Evel Knievel, some crazy son of a bitch from Butte, Montana, jumped his motorcycle 151 feet over the fountains at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. — EvelKnievel.com And that’s why, when I was a kid, every boy in my neighborhood grew up with a endless progression of scabs on knees and elbows from trying to jump Schwinn Sting-Ray bikes over every natural and man-made obstacle we could find. Farewell to an iconic figure . . . Read more →
Advice for the Feng Shui Entrepreneur
During a recent trip to Las Vegas, we visited a junk shop, a.k.a. a Feng Shui emporium. My wife sketched out the floor plan of our house, after which the proprietor predicted — correctly — that the orientation of our son’s bed was making him stubborn. See, I thought it was the fact that he’s 13 years old that was making him stubborn. Probably a good tip for the up-and-coming Feng Shui professional would be to always predict that the client’s teenage children are stubborn. You’re not going to be wrong very often. And always predict that the client has frequent disagreements with his or her spouse. Read more →
Nobody Likes Us
The educated coastal public thinks that evangelical Christianity is America’s number one religion. They are wrong. It is the Worship of Unearned Riches, and Las Vegas is its holy city. The belief that it is possible to get something for nothing is more potent in our land than the belief that the Son of God will return to rescue mankind. The Religion of Unearned Riches was established here in the desert by organized crime. It has turned us into a nation of slobs, clowns, patsies, and cravens. Las Vegas is what we have become. Is it any wonder that the rest of the world despises us? — James Howard Kuntsler I live a few hours’ drive from Las Vegas. I share the author’s contempt for the place, right up until the last sentence where he suggests that there’s something uniquely American about irrational greed. Other countries don’t have casinos and… Read more →