I just looked at the date of my last post.  It's been not only been a long time since I wrote anything, but years.  COVID-19 may have been indescribable for most of us, creating fear at every turn, but there have been a lot of coronaviruses coming through Las Vegas (a result of 39,000,000 tourists from around the world coming through town) - and I've caught all of them, beginning with the lovely little thing that had me go from feeling terrific to 105 degree fever in 20 minutes and ending with a lovely "stomach bug" that kept me in bed for two months barely able to eat.  Thank goodness for Pedialyte and Lay's Potato Chips.  

But enough excuses, let's get to the changes in Las Vegas in the last few years.  The Riviera is gone - a parking lot.  There's new convention space built on the Paradise Road side of the property - built during the pandemic.  It's not open to the public yet, but it looks great from the outside.

The "Blue Elephant" at the corner of Elvis Presley Way (formerly Riviera Boulevard) and The Strip is still a Blue Elephant.  It went up in a flash and stopped just as quickly.  The furniture that had been ordered is now at the Plaza downtown.  There have been a couple of owners of what was originally called the  Fountainbleu, but nothing is exiting yet.

The SLS, which had been the Sahara since the 1950's, is back to being called the Sahara.  It's considered a good decision by many old time Las Vegans.  The Lucky Dragon west of the Strip on Sahara was only open for a little over a year.  It had the greatest chandelier that hung over the small casino, but when I was there, it only one customer - me.  They filed for bankruptcy in 2018.  It was sold and is now called The Ahern.  

After years of stops and starts, the Resort World hotel/casino on the old Stardust property is about to open.  They requested local mural painters donate their time and talent to a project in the hotel.  That did not sit well with some people.  

This last year has been pretty freaky driving down the Strip and seeing only a car or two and police vehicles parked at the entrances of casinos to keep people from wandering in.  Bally's had a rat problem, which has been resolved, as a result of no one being in the building.  Those nasty critters chewed through some wires and caused a blackout.

The Golden Steer on Sahara a block west of the Strip and Ichobad's on east Flamingo are my two favorite restaurants for great food and wonderful atmosphere, especially for the older crowd.  

Best of all - Las Vegas is back.  It's not exactly the same.  Some companies have cut back on entertainment (a big mistake in my opinion), and Caesar's World thinks paying for parking is a good move  It may be - but no for locals.  But old timers in Las Vegas swore the town would come back bigger and better than ever.  I wasn't as sure.  I'm glad to say I was very wrong.  Fremont Street is shoulder to shoulder.  The casinos are busier than I've seen them in two decades.  The D and the new Circa were taking head counts when people entered and left to make sure they weren't over the limits to capacity.  And today everything is now open at 100%.

White Cross - There's a New Girl in Town

I have been going to the lunch counter at White Cross at The Strip and Oakey since the first time I came to Las Vegas.  It's always been a little dreary, but the food has been fantastic, consistent ... and expensive for the atmosphere.  But it has always been worth the price.  Many big business deals have been made at White Cross over the last forty years.  The customer base has been eclectic.  A well dressed woman on her way to work might be sitting next to a bum who wandered in off the street for a cup of coffee, and he was sitting next to a casino owner.  That has changed.  The power brokers and bums don't hang out there any more, but the food is still good, and it's worth a visit.

Mr. Papas ran the lunch counter for 37 years.  Its had three names over the last decades.  It was the Liberty Cafe for years.  Then it became Tiffany's about six years ago.  Both under Mr. Papas's regime.  And just this month there is a new owner, and it has been renamed Vicky's Diner.  It has also been cleaned up considerably since Vicky step in.  The old dessert case that was decades old is gone.  In its place a clean red wall and a couple of nice paintings.  There are new menu boards and new menus and new energy. When you come to Las Vegas this is the historic place to stop for lunch, dinner or a midnight snack.  They're open 24/7. 

White Cross Drugs and the lunch counter are historic in Las Vegas.  At one time the drug store was the only place in Las Vegas to buy cosmetics.  Showgirls got their false eyelashes and Max Factor there.  It was busy all night long, and it was the only place in the area to buy liquor.  But the drug store closed seven years ago and took with it many memories.  Some of the employees had been there since the 70's.  Two years ago it reopened as the neighborhood grocery store.  The prices are a little high except for the Boar's Head deli, which are standard prices everywhere.  The liquor choice has grown considerably from when it was the pharmacy.  And it is convenient for both the people in the neighborhood and tourists.

So stop in.  Have a hamburger at Vicky's and pick up a bottle of wine at the grocery store and become a little piece of Las Vegas history.

The Riv Does It Right

At last one place in Las Vegas is doing it right.  About a year ago I was walking through the Riviera and remembered how exciting it was the first time I was there.  Like every place in Las Vegas at the time, you could smell the money in the air.  Everyone was dressed.  There was hooting and hollering at the tables.  You could hear the money falling into the trays from the slots.  There were red dollar racks tucked between the machines.  Now, it was barely hanging on.  There were three or four people playing the machines.  The Splash Bar, which had always been busy, was gone.  There were more employees than customers.  But there was something different in the air.  There was a sense that something was happening. 

Coming in through the convention area, I noticed that the lights were on and somebody was home.  The check-in desk had been moved to the back instead of being tucked in an off-the beaten track corner.  It was about 9:30 at night.  People were checking in.  The Pick-a-Pearl kiosk that had been there for years was gone.  So were the other little stores, but that wasn't bad.  There was a sense of hope in the air.  I cornered an employee and asked what was going on.  "We have new management," he said.  "It's like the old days.  She walks through the casino and asks our opinion.  I've been here for twenty years.  For the first time I have hope that things will change."

I have made a tour through the casino about once a month since that day, and it has been interesting to watch the changes.  It's not the floor moves or that the coffee shop, always one of my favorites, is closed (I can't even find where it had been they've done such a good job with their remodeling.)  It's watching the business comes back that is fascinating.  It's amazing what can happen when management knows what's its doing.

A year ago, one of the first things I noticed, besides the lights being on, was the music.  I was too loud.  It was lousy, and the volume wasn't level as you walked the casino.  That has been fixed.  People were still checking in at ten o'clock at night.  The new bar at the Asian restaurant was busy.  So was the bar at Wicked Vicky's.  There were three conventions going on.  The machines were busy.  The tables were busy.  The energy is rising, but you can feel that it's not done yet.  It will only get better.  

There's a facebook group, Las Vegas, The Good Old Days I'm sure will love the changes.  This is the perfect place for them to get together and reminisce.  It's the one place in town that is "Vegas."

What is Las Vegas?

The answer to the question "What is Las Vegas?" is quite simple and hasn't changed in a century.  Las Vegas is a five mile strip of highway that runs through the desert that ends in "downtown" a.k.a. Fremont Street.  Of course there is no downtown any more.  The days when Fremont Street had a movie theater, furniture store, Woolworths, and Coronet, restaurants, a grocery store and more are long gone.  Downtown itself is now nothing more than a handful of barely surviving casinos with kiosks down the middle of the street under what is advertised as the worlds largest neon sign.  Until a year or so ago there were also a small collection of quaint little houses and two or three blocks of by the week motels that had been there forever.

Photo:  The unfinished Fountainbleu

Around the time of the big Real Estate boom it was announced that Zappos was moving its headquarters to downtown.  It was going to bring ten thousand new people downtown.  It sounded great - even after the Real Estate bust.  Tony Hseih of Zappos and another group decided to revitalize downtown.  I am fond of revitalization of neighborhoods.  I'm from Chicago.  Some great old, declining neighborhoods are now the "in" spots to live.  When I was a kid, my mother talked about how the neighborhood she lived in grew, declined and was reborn.  BUT Las Vegas isn't Chicago . . . or New York, or even L.A.  It is a five mile strip of highway through the middle of the desert.  That's what it was, and that's what it will be forever . . . or until the powers that be realize it can no longer survive on gambling, tourism and minimum wage jobs, especially not since you can play the slots within driving distance of any place in the country whether it be bingo parlors or a full blown casino on an Indian reservation or a river boat on the Mississippi.  Oscar Goodman, a self-admitted drinker's, dream for downtown while he was Mayor was a block of one bar after another.  Little happened except a new neon sign heralding "Fremont Street East" while he was Mayor, but Tony Hseih has stepped in and in the last year all the old souvenir shops and vacant buildings are now bars. Viva Las Vegas!

The rest of Las Vegas - what most people think of as Las Vegas at least - is the Strip.  I think there are twenty casinos now.  Huge buildings that pay tribute to destinations around the world - rather than Las Vegas itself.  Most of the Strip is torn up most of the time which means the Strip is actually about two and a half miles.  Recently, in an attempt to get people to know where they lived and why they should get a business license specific to the business's location, a county official explained it by saying, "Elvis never played Las Vegas and the song should be called Viva Clark County."   People who live here don't get it so why try to explain it to those who visit.  It makes no difference.  They are coming to see the five miles of road through the middle of the desert that ends at Fremont Street and the world's largest neon sign.  

Truth is - there ain't much here.  On the other hand, you don't have to shovel your car out from a mile high drift of sunshine either.

  

Minimum Wage in Las Vegas

The Trickle Up Theory

When the Real Estate boom was at its height, a distraught young woman, working a four day convention services job for nine dollars an hour lamented that there were no good jobs in Las Vegas.  She didn't know what she was going to do.  She had moved here, and now she couldn't find work that would allow her keep up with her bills.

Duh!  Why would anyone move without checking out the employment possibilities?  But they do and this woman did.  This is what I told her.  

All work in Las Vegas is minimum wage.  We don't have industry.  Office jobs, if you can find one, don't pay much over minimum wage.  Unless you want to work in the cleaners, the 7/11, or retail, don't come here. Casino jobs are minimum wage - or darned close to it.  People live on tips, and even that has dried up because of debit cards and ticket in-ticket out.  If we don't work for tips, we work at the bottom of the pay scale.  Can you teach?  If so, you'll make a little more.  Grocery stores have a union.  They do a little better in pay and benefits, but it's still retail.  I've known construction workers (illegal) who were working for twelve dollars an hour - less than half union scale.

Entertainers, if they can find work, are being offered less than they earned thirty years ago.  The Entertainment Capital and Gambling Capital of the World is no longer a place to live - at least if you want to make a living.  Now, if you're here for the weather, you've come to the right place.  I've never once, in twenty years, had to dig my car out of snow drift or worry about sliding on the ice.  It gets hot, but the day after it cools off you forget how hot it was and start saying to people on the street, "Isn't it a beautiful day?"

But what prompted me to write about the sad state of earning capability in Las Vegas was the fast food workers - I think it's McDonald's workers - picketing for higher wages.  They think having no education, and in many cases barely being able to speak English, entitles them to fifteen dollars an hour.  If they can get it, good for them.  But there is a "trickle up" problem with that.

I have a friend who has managed a Starbucks for years.  She feels the few people who work for her deserve to be paid a "living wage" as do all fast food workers.  She believes all CEO's make too much money.  That profit should be passed down to the people who make those profits possible.  I can't say I disagree with that sentiment.  Fifty years ago my father, a union carpenter who always worked for over scale, believed the same thing about the CEO's of GM, Ma Bell and the other major corporations,  BUT . . 

This is how "trickle up" works.  Fast food workers, most with little education, get their salary doubled.  Then the bottom of the rung college educated substitute teachers who are working for fourteen dollars an hour say, "I have a college education.  If fast food workers had their salaries doubled, mine should be doubled."  So that is done.  Now the regular teaching staff that is making twenty-five dollars an hour is ticked off because they've spent years in school getting master's degrees and probably still have school loans hanging over their heard.  They want their salary doubled, and it is.  Soon everyone's salary is doubled and what has happened?  Fast food workers are still at the bottom of the pay scale.  Everyone has gotten their salaries doubled.  The cost of everything we buy has risen in order to pay those new salaries, and the CEO's are still making obscene salaries with stock options.  

I like the dollar menu at fast food places. I like the ninety-nine cent stores.  It like the sound of "It's only a dollar."  I supposed I could get used to the dollar ninety-nine menu or the everything a dollar ninety-nine store, but why, when in the end, it's all the same.  Fast food workers won't move up the food chain with a living wage, they'll simply be paid more to stay in the same place they've always been. And in a few more years they'll want to double their salary again and everything will Trickle Up again.  

Equal Pay for Equal work

President Obama signed an executive order recently declaring that women should receive equal pay for equal work.  There's nothing wrong with that.

However, my question is . . . does this order also mean that women who are now paid more than men for doing the same job get a pay cut?!

In 2014, when men have been so emasculated by women's lib and by the laws already on the books, I sincerely doubt what they are paid has anything to do with what's in their pants.  

In regard to what women are paid - pay is about negotiation skills.  You get what you ask for - or demand.  If a woman doesn't ask, she doesn't get. Perhaps Obama's Executive Order should have been that ALL women be required to take a class in negotiation before applying for a job. 

Jubilee - Revisisted

Jubliee at Bally's

On Thursday night we went to see the revamped Jubilee show at Ballys.  Jubilee is the last surviving Showgirl show in Las Vegas. Beautiful, topless girls.  Extravagant costumes with feathers and  jewels.  The girls and Jubilee are Las Vegas history and a large part of why the city was called the entertainment Capital of the World.  The millennial version of showgirls in Las Vegas are the acrobats in the Circ shows.  Extravagant costumes but circus acts.

In Friday's issue of Neon, the entertainment section of the Las Vegas Review Journal, Mike Weatherford reviewed the show.  It's always nice to find someone, especially  a venerable entertainment reporter like Weatherford, who agrees with all of your opinions. 

Frank Gaston, Jr., hired to revamp the show, may be a good choreographer and know the current version of a rock and roll show (he worked for Beyonce), but he does not understand putting on a major production show like Jubilee.

Only the last ten or fifteen minutes and a couple of numbers during the show were reminiscent of spectacular cabaret show glory.   

Both Weatherford and the friend I saw the show with, himself a choreographer of the highest standing, objected to the opening of the show when the star slides down a pole.  They both saw it as her sliding down a Stripper pole.  I did not.  I saw it as pure circus!  The stage is dark.  The spotlight snaps on and there is the star.  She does not slide down the pole like a fireman nor does she work it like a stripper.  She comes down like a well trained "bally broad" (a circus term for the girls who work above the ring, performing a ballet on the ropes). It was, in fact, one of my favorite parts of the show.  However, it all went into the toilet almost immediately.

The opening number was beautiful, although, I do not understand topless dancers in 2014, when you can see your favorite reality start or rock and roll performer naked or near naked anywhere on the internet, in their shows or on television.  I found the topless girls shocking when I first saw the show thirty years ago.  I find them distracting today.  The show is (or should be) spectacular enough not to need such nonsense.  I'd much rather be wondering where I could a fancy, jeweled bra than wondering if the dancer had breast implants or thinking she needs them.  

The narration throughout the beginning of the show makes little sense.  While the narrator is adequate, she sounds bored or bewildered by the whole thing.  In the beginning it seems that she it talking about the show Jubilee being revamped. In the second half of the narration you begin to realize she is talking about the star and finally, way too late in the story, the star is given a name - Katherine Jubilee.  Then, suddenly, the whole narration ends, and we finally get a show.

At one point the stage is completely vacant.  The action takes place overhead where half of the people in the audience can't see it.  I watched the people in front of me stare at the stage and begin to get antsy because nothing was happening in front of them for such a long period of time.  

The lighting for many of the numbers was horrible.  You can't enjoy something you can't see.  There was a raincoat and umbrella number with three male dancers that was good - except the lighting was so poor you had to struggle to see it . . . and it was completely out of place with the rest of the show. However, the dancers were excellent as was the choreography.

There was a long number that reminded me of an average "Platters/Coasters/Marvellettes" show, a little 50's walk down memory lane that has been on the Strip for close to twenty years. It was a boring, average few minutes that had no place in show like Jubilee.  It might have worked if the performers had Broadway stage presence.  They didn't.

All in all, the revamp of Jubilee was disappointing and needs a second re-do ASAP.  I went from wondering what the disconnected narration was about to looking at a blank stage to being bored with the 50's "stuff," to the lack of energy in the revamped Titanic number except for the last dance sequence, to wondering why the umbrella number was in the show and why I couldn't see it without straining, to - at last - the excitement and costumes of the showgirls in the finale.  Spectacular, spectacular costumes.  Thankfully, Gaston left that part of the show intact because the finale alone is worth the price of the ticket.

Segregation - Prejudice - Racism

When I was growing up, we only had segregation, which was good because everyone likes to live with their own, and prejudice, which was bad (at least in our house) because no one should be judged by the color of their skin or their nationality.  I wouldn't like it if someone called me a honky or a cracker, therefore, I didn't call other people names they wouldn't like.  I was about three when my mother taught me "Enny, meeny, miney mo."  It was followed by catch a colored man by the toe . . . because it was not polite to call black people niggers.  They preferred to be called colored, and we were to show respect to everyone.  

When we moved into our house in the hoioty-toity Chicago suburb, there were no colored people in town, but then there were only 14,000 people and a lot of vacant lots.  Sometime when I was in junior high, I remember one of the kids telling me there were still Jim Crow laws on the books in town.  He told me "that means black people have to be off the street by sundown."  That was stupid, and if there was such a law, no one paid any attention to it.  Of course, we rarely saw a colored person in town.

Colored people were the people who got on the el at Ridgeland.  That was the street of demarcation in Oak Park.  Colored people lived east.  White people lived west.  There was no "back of the bus" on the el that I can remember.  We were all grateful to get a seat.  The most important thing my mother taught me about colored people then was that colored women were beginning to bleach their hair.  That was not good. The texture of their hair and the bleach didn't do well together.  Their hair tended to turn orange rather than blonde, and it usually looked bad with their skin tone.  They should let their hair be the way God made it grow.  (She believed that until she went gray and began a personal love affair with Nice 'n Easy).  I remember sitting at the counter at Walgreens on State Street having a nickel coke when a colored woman with bleached hair came and sat a few stools down from us (hmmm, I just thought about that.  Walgreens. Lunch counter.  Pre-Rosa Parks.)  Anyway, my mother leaned over to me and whispered, "See what I mean about colored women bleaching their hair.  Look how funny it makes her skin look."  I looked.  She was right.

I knew about segregation.  I learned about prejudice when I was about five.  My aunt and I were waiting for the bus in Chicago and a warm spring day.  It took forever for the bus to come, and she finally had to do her magic trick of lighting a cigarette and poof, the bus would appear within a minute.  But while we were waiting, a colored mother and daughter were standing off to one side.  The daughter was a year or so younger than I, and I remember thinking she was cute but had on a hat with a wide brim that put her face in a shadow.  So I walked over to her, bent the brim of her straw hat back (and probably broke it), and said, "There.  Now everyone can see your pretty face."  

My aunt called me back to her side and told me I shouldn't have done that.  I wanted to know why.  She answered, "Because we're not supposed to mix with colored people."  That was a stupid rule.  My new friend and her mother got on the bus before my aunt and I.  They went to the back of the bus, and I followed them.  My aunt called me to come sit beside her at the front of the bus.  "But I want to sit with my friend." "You can't.  You have to stay up here."  That was another stupid rule, telling me where I had to sit on the bus.   There were a lot of stupid rules, but ones about where you could sit on a bus and who you could talk to were really, really stupid.

I don't think I had any other interaction with a colored person until I went away to college when I was seventeen.  While I was filling out the application for the dorm room, there was a question about having prejudice against colored people.  It was so dumb, I had to ask my mother what they meant.  She said they were making sure there were no problems in the dorm (whoops - pre-Rosa Parks again) by putting people with a roommate they would fight with or feelings would get hurt.  She didn't imagine there would be many colored people at school.  I asked her how I should answer the question.  She said, "Why should you care?  Somebody else has nothing to do with who you are."

Interestingly, when we moved into the dorm, the only person who had said they would have trouble with a colored roommate was the person who got the only colored girl on the floor.  I remember her telling me, "I learned a lesson today.  When I complained about being in a room with a colored, they told me it was done on purpose so so I would get over my prejudice.  They're right because she's nice."

There were a bunch of us who went everywhere together that first few weeks of school, including Marcia, our new colored friend, - until the night I learned about intra-racial prejudice.   About six of us were walking into a sock hop.  We stopped right inside the door to check out the guys (what else do eighteen year old girls do at a dance).  Marcia saw a fellow from her neighborhood she didn't know was at school.  "Ah.  I like him.  But he never looked at me at home.  Now that he knows I'm smart and at college, maybe he'll talk to me."  At that same moment the guy spotted Marcia.  His voice was so hateful.  "Hey, Marcia.  What are you doing with those white people?  What did you do, some up here and become a white lover?  Get over here."  We were all shocked.  Marcia was devastated.  She looked at him and him demanding tone.  She looked at us.  In a split second the bright, happy girl we had walked in the door with shriveled before our eyes.  "I guess I'd better go over with them."  "No," we protested.  "I have to," she said and never went anywhere with us again.  She became a recluse at first, sitting in her room studying, and then started staying out until just before curfew every night.  She had been such a happy girl.  She became so unhappy, and that one incident broke up our little group and had everyone walking on tenterhooks around each other.

I'd known what segregation was since I was a kid.  In one fleeting moment I learned what prejudice was.  I didn't like it.  

But then, later that summer, came racism.  Did things got better after Martin Luther King's March on Washington?  I've been told they did.  What I know from experience is they got very different - overnight. And racism is a far dirtier word in my vocabulary than segregation or prejudice.

Killing Las Vegas

Back in the good, old days - when the Mob ran Las Vegas and there was no crime (except for a few bodies in the desert of people who wanted to be criminals) - the casino owners owned everything on their property. There were no vending machines.  No cigarette machines.  No franchise restaurants.  The entire casino operation was ONE business.  No single department had to be profitable.  The entire business had to be profitable, therefore, the restaurants could offer a ninety-nine cent breakfast or a four ninety-five prime rib.  Food promotions and give-a-ways were all part of getting people through the door to make money from gambling.  At some of the casinos you could get six dollars in nickels for four dollars in cash.  Las Vegas was different from the rest of the world, and it ran more efficiently, but sometime in the mid-eighties that began to change.  

The first casino to bring in a franchise restaurant was the Riviera when they put in a Burger King.  Burger King, of course, paid rent and that company, separate from the casino, had to be profitable on its own.  With that single change Las Vegas began a downhill slide with little possibility of recovery.  Casinos are no longer businesses with a bottom line of their own.  They are miniature cities which house dozens of different business under one roof - all of which must be profitable individually.

In a meeting a few days ago regarding why live entertainment has died in Las Vegas, someone said, "Casinos are catering to the under thirty-five crowd.  They charge a hundred dollars to get in the door and three hundred dollars for a bottle of liquor and play nothing but canned music."  We all nodded our heads in agreement and went on to discuss how to overcome the situation and bring live entertainment back.

It wasn't until the meeting had broken up, and I was home in the quiet of my little office that I thought, "Wait! The casinos aren't catering to the under thirty-five crowd.  Their lessees are."  The business of casinos is no longer entertainment and gambling.  They are landlords.  Today most restaurants in casinos are franchises.  Perhaps buffets are the exception.  Entertainment is four-walled, meaning the entertainers lease the rooms to put on their own show.  Shop space is leased.  Every individual entity within the casino has to meet their own bottom line, and casinos no longer do that with gaming.  They do it by leasing space, charging exorbitant prices for rooms, and keeping their labor costs down with ticket in-ticket out slots and automated bill breakers.

Not long ago I walked through two of the mega-resorts on the Strip at eight in the morning.  There was a total of six people playing the machines and three people at the blackjack tables at one casino.  There was a total of twelve at my next stop.  If the little five thousand square foot neighborhood casino down the street from me only had that many customers at four in the morning, they would close!  But it was worse at the mega-resorts I visited that evening.  About eight o'clock the same day, when dinner should be over and the four-walled shows hadn't yet started and people should be gambling, I did another reconnaissance mission and counted a total of one hundred and twenty-five people at machines and the live gaming tables in a casino with more than a thousand machines.  The taxes on the machines alone has to be budget-breaking.  No wonder casinos can no longer afford to pay entertainers and loss leaders on food.

Live Entertainment in Las Vegas - Taxed to Death

Taxed to Death

Las Vegas is the Entertainment Capital of the World.  Huh?!  It used to be, but the Nevada Gaming/Entertainment tax has killed live music in the casinos.  In the glory days of Las Vegas there was entertainment everywhere.  Seven days a week -twenty-four hours a day there was something going on somewhere.  I remember (centuries ago) seeing Kenny Rogers and the First Edition at the lounge at the Sands. There was no one in the lounge, but they played their heart out, and everyone in the casino listened and knew they were there.  Ten years ago there were bands that played the lounge circuit.  Monday nights at the Maxim talent night filled the entire casino.  The "showroom" at the Four Queens was actually a lounge.  The Platters played there sixteen weeks a year for ten years to a full room with people standing outside four and five deep to watch.  I was a "railbird" going from casino to casino hanging over the railing (most casinos had brass railings around the lounges) to watch amazing live performers. 

About ten years ago all of that came to an end.  I missed the music, but I didn't think much about why it had happened.  I simply assumed that the casinos had become too cheap to pay the entertainers.   Then a few months ago we called a downtown casino about doing an event in their meeting room.  The answer - not if you have live entertainment.  Why?  Because of the Live Entertainment Tax.  Live Entertainment Tax? What's that.  We found another venue.  They said . . . we'd love to have you, but NO live entertainment. We won't pay the taxes.  So we started looking into it.  It turns out the "new" gaming-entertainment tax isn't new. It was put in place ten years ago - when live entertainment disappeared in the lounges.  But it didn't just disappear, it was murdered by the State of Nevada.  For Las Vegas, a city where the economy has gone to hell in a handbasket in the last decade, this may be the dumbest tax ever.  In the good old days of Las Vegas when it was the Entertainment Capital of the World, people went to a show, and an 18%  tax was added to your bill.  That was fine.  But now . . . .

The Stratosphere charges a ticket fee to take the elevator to the top of the tower.  If they have live entertainment at the top, the elevator ticket has a live entertainment tax added.  Then there is live entertainment tax added to the food and drinks and any merchandise sold.  So how do you avoid the tax? Kill the entertainment . . . and the careers of all the entertainers in town who were here when Las Vegas was the Entertainment Capital of the World.

It's not simply that the State of Nevada shot themselves in the foot when it comes to one of the major draws for its cities that sit in the middle of nowhere, they have shot entertainers in the heart!  

Why should tourists come to Las Vegas if it's nothing more than a collection of two and a half miles of tall buildings with slot machines?  You can see tall buildings in any big city in the world - most with more architectural integrity than anything in Las Vegas!  If you want to drop your money in a slot machine, there's an Indian Reservation or River Boat within driving distance of anyplace in the country.  

People who live in Las Vegas talk about the good old days when the Mob ran the town - and ran it right. The corporate mentality of "it's about the bottom line" has killed a city where you used to be able to smell the money!   The dealers all knew your name at your favorite casino.  It was exciting.  Now it's ticket in-ticket out.  Nobody knows your name - or cares to.  Change people don't exist.  Cocktail waitresses can't make a living because no one has cash.  And the president of the country has told conventions not to come to Las Vegas driving a stake through the pocketbooks of cab drivers, hairdressers and bellmen who can no long make a decent living.

Nothing can be done about ticket in-ticket out or no one carrying cash, but there is one thing that can bring back some of the excitement and glory of Las Vegas . . . LIVE entertainment.  Get rid of the idiotic tax! Bring back the music.  Do something to make Las Vegas special, because not only is it no longer the Entertainment Capital of the World, it is no longer the Gaming Capital of the World.  That title goes to Macao - a half a world away.

The Learning Village - Las Vegas

At last something new in Las Vegas to be excited about - the Learning Village on Fremont Street, a collection of portable classrooms with a nice little wrought iron gate at the entrance.

First let me say that Las Vegas has the BEST library system anywhere. I grew up in a small town that had a fantastic library. It was in an old colonial mansion with huge white columns, a wide staircase entrance and creaky wooden floors that made you tiptoe. It sat in the middle of a lush green, city block square, park with an ice rink, a flagstone fish pond, a lapidary museum and a botanical conservatory. In Las Vegas, when people ask if I've seen the conservatory at the Bellagio at Christmas, I roll my eyes and say - so what are bunch of zinnias or chrysanthemums. In a town of 40,000 we actually did beautiful, but that's another story.

Las Vegas, despite the local mentality that says everything - including the movie theaters - has to be in a casino, has an amazing library system. While the libraries, and there are more than a dozen, may not be in the middle of a perfectly landscaped park, the buildings are architecturally interesting with theaters, an art museum at one, a children's museum at another, atriums, computer labs, meeting rooms in every size for whatever the group might be, and great staffs. There is always something going on.  However, despite the great libraries, this town, with a population of two million, has been missing a community based "learning center." We finally have one.

It's not in some old dilapidated building like Chicago or a run down, former motel like the San Fernando Valley - buildings with character even if it is on the questionable side. It's in portable classrooms, plopped on Fremont Street next to Tin Can City. - (They seriously need to do something about the exterior of that place.)

Yesterday I went to a class at the Learning Village for the first time. I assumed, by the address, that it was at Tin Can City. I wandered around and finally found someone to ask. They pointed to a collection of what appeared to be construction trailers next door. It was exciting to see that there is finally something to bring the community together, but disappointing to see that they had torn down a perfectly good, usable motel, which would have served better, in order to install shipping containers as a "mall" and trailers as the learning village. But there's no accounting for common sense. When they expanded the library in my home town, they slapped an extremely modern, glass addition onto the beautiful old colonial mansion.

But no matter how unappealing the buildings are, Las Vegas finally has the Learning Village, something I have been whining about needing for two decades. So it's common, and boring, and ugly and lacks character. At least it's here.

Truth in Music - Chapter 3

In today . . . The 9th Circuit Court has overturned the Nevada District Court ruling in Herb Reed's Manager's suit against long time concert promoter Larry Marshak's use of The Platters name. Their decision is based on a Supreme Court decision. The manager, who never had anything to do with the success of The Platters, has been trying to get rights to the trademark since Reed passed away a year ago. It's interesting, but odd, to watch the court cases continue - for more than 60 years now - after everyone involved with the structuring and success of the group has passed on with the exception of 90 year old, retired publicist/manager Jean Bennett. We'll be keeping an eye out here at the Snare to see what happens next since there are still at least two cases in court at this writing. We're still waiting for the truth in Truth in Music. So far there has been none.

Doing Downtown

There has been so much talk about what is going on in downtown Las Vegas I had to take a tour.  The Grand, where the old Lady Luck stood, is now open as is the Downtown Container Park a.k.a. Tin Can City.  There are now many bar open or opening on East Fremont.  There was little, if any, business in any of them. 

We started the tour at the Downtown Container Park.  This is a complex of shipping containers that, from the outside, put a ghetto to shame.  It is really tacky!  However, once inside, there is an very energetic parklike setting with a stage and a couple of dozen businesses in 10' x 20' containers - all that have interesting decor.  The places I stopped in weren't selling much of anything except odds and ends, but more power to the entrepreneur.  There several of bars that were rather busy, but the complex had only been open four days when we were there so they could have been curiosity seekers like us.  I was fascinated that there was a guard at the exit making sure no one took alcohol out of the park.  Most of the casinos on Fremont now have outdoor bars.  People have been walking around with drinks since I first came through town.  But what's in the Downtown Container Park stays in the Downtown Container Park.  Most curious of all were the fast food restaurants.  I can't imagine any of them staying in business for long.  Why would anyone stand in line to get a plate of ribs and beans for $14.95 when they can go down the street to Main Street Station of The Fremont for a fabulous, all you can eat buffet for less.  Time will tell.

We walked across the street to the El Cortez.  While Jackie Gaughan is still the spokesman, we've been told that the casino is under new ownership.  They haven't made many changes but they have upgraded the washrooms.  I always judge anyplace by their washrooms.  I love the ones at the El Cortez.  They have a warm feel.  The mirrors are fantastic and I would love the lighting fixtures in my living room. 

We went across the street and walked through the Medical Arts Building.  It is meant to be a hangout for the artsy crowd, but it is disgusting.  You could feel the dirt hanging in the air.  There was a little coffee bar that I believe had food.  I would not eat there. 

We moved on to the Grand.  I was looking forward to seeing it.  There has been great publicity about this new casino.  Coming up to the parking lot was a delight.  The old, huge, ugly white geodisic dome of the Lady Luck days was gone replaced by a new classy entrance.  But that's where the class ended. 

As we stepped through the doors, I looked down expecting to see some type of grand flooring.    My first thought was "I've seen this somewhere before.  It looks like it's salvage from another hotel" . . . but it was nice.  Not great but nice.  I was sure I had seen the carpeting in another casino.  It too, although it was in good shape, looked like salvage.  A casino is a casino is a casino.  They are big barns with slot machines, bars and gaming tables.  The only thing that sets one apart from another is what's on the floor and hanging from the ceiling.  What was on the floor was not impressive.  The casino was brightly lit.  There were a few people at the bar in the center of the room.  I don't remember seeing anyone playing the machines.   There was a "yuppie bar" - haven't used that word in years - down a hall at the back.  There were several people there.  We went up the escalator and I was wowed by the chandeliers.  But that is because I was wowed by them when I saw them in the convention area of the Venetian.  I don't know if these were salvaged from the Venetian or new but they are beautiful - and much to big for the low ceilings at the Grand.  The Grand reminded me of the failed remodel of the Gold Spike.  Only time will tell how it does.  It's not a place I would go back to, especially when the coffee shop steak is $31.  Come on people.  This is Las Vegas.  If I we're going to pay $31 for a steak, we want atmosphere and service not a short step up from Denny's.

It was on to the D.  I like this place more every time I go in.  The first thing the new owner did - before any remodel - was clean it.  I didn't know you could make old stuff shine and smell so good!  After cleaning, they began with a carpet change.  I love this carpet.  The Stratosphere did new carpet a couple of years ago.  I love it.  I would like a piece in my living room.  Which I like better is a toss-up between the Stratosphere and the D.  I think, when it comes to casino, the D is the winner.  But I wouldn't want it in my house.  And the new restrooms are well-done.  If you like modern, the red and black of these rooms is "cool."  There is one problem at the D - the volume of the piped in music.  The D has has a second floor, and they have done something fun.  The second floor is Vintage Vegas with old machines - coin in and coin out on some of them.  The music there is for the older crowd, but the volume is too high.  Instead of making your sit, listen and play a machine it makes you want to get up an dance.  Downstairs - heaven help them - they have chased business away with the loud, banging, distracting "music."  It's not a nightclub.  It's a casino!  I've been going to this property since the mob owned it decades ago.  I have never seen empty tables no matter the time of day or year.  However, on our tour, there were only about three people at the tables.  I realize that the rap crap is now Golden Oldies, but keep it down!  People don't even know why they're getting up and leaving, they just do.  And the bimbo Go Go girls.  Stop!  I have no problem with Go Go Girls.  I was one.  Actually I was one of the first ones, but there is a place for them, and it is not distracting gamblers.  They have expanded their showroom, but time will tell how that goes.

The Fremont is still the Fremont.  Not elegant.  Not classy.  A casino where people can go and enjoy themselves while losing their money without distraction.  And they have a good buffet. 

The Four Queens.  Same as the Fremont - except they don't have a buffet. 

The Golden Nugget - semi-upscale gambling hall.  It's THE place for entertainment downtown!

The Bayou and the Golden Goose - thank goodness they haven't changed.  'Nough said.

Then there is the Golden Gate.  If you can do it wrong, these new owners have succeeded.  The Golden Gate is the oldest property downtown, and they invented the Las Vegas Shrimp Cocktail.  There was always at least a twenty minute wait in line for the shrimp cocktail or hotdog.  That area is gone and has been replaced with slot machines no one was playing.  The tables, which were once busy 24/7, were sparse.  Again there was the loud, banging drum beat that drives people out.  And the restaurant . . . it breaks my heart.  This was my favorite place in town!  They had a great menu.  Wonderful specials.  Good food.  And elegant atmosphere.  A couple of years ago they screwed up the ceilings.  Some of that has been repaired.  But it is no longer a Las Vegas Casino restaurant.  It's DuPar's.  It I want to go to an inner city coffee shop, I don't need to come to Las Vegas.  AND, they have been closed down by the health department at least twice in recent months.  This is the restaurant I used to recommend to everyone coming to town.  Never again.

The Plaza has to be the biggest loser of all.  Once a typical casino and money maker it was beginning to become the downtown hangout when Barrack had it.  But there are new owners, and you can always tell when a casino is not doing well.  The highly taxed slot machines begin to come out and gaming tables go in to take up floor space . . . and then lounge areas are added to take up more space.  I don't know that the Plaza ever had many slot players, but the tables were always busy.  Again, like the D and Golden Gate there were no more than a half dozen people at the tables. 

It's not even worth talking about the Las Vegas Club.  Once a hangout where old time Las Vegas blackjack and craps players had been going for years it is now virtually a ghost town.  There were few players.  It was dark, dirty - but not nearly anything like the Medical Arts Building - and the Ogden Street side is completely closed. 

Binions - Can't figure out what is going on there.  The hotel is closed.  The casino had some business, but not like the days of the World Series of Poker.  It's Ogden Street side is also closed to gambling with a t-shirt shop displaying its wares in the entrance and a small, cramped Elvis Museum taking up some floor space.

The California Club caters to a clientele from Hawaii.  They always seem to be busy.  No entertainment.  A couple of bars, restaurants and fast food places.

Last and certainly not least is Main Street Station - the jewel of downtown.  I thought The Grand was going to give Main Street Station a run for it's money.  But the Grand barely compares to the older casinos.  On the other hand Main Street Station has the best food, best priced and most elegant decor of any buffet in town.  We usually hold business lunches at the Triple 7 Brewery.  The atmosphere and menu are terrific.  When it  comes to what is on the floor and ceilings of a casino, Main Street Station is the winner - not just downtown but in Las Vegas. 

So there was our tour.  The new.  The disappointing.  The odd.  The dirty and the prefectly beautiful.

Gay Marriage

Someone asked me the other day what I thought about gay marriage.  I laughed.  "Better you ask me what I think about marriage in general," I said and launched into the following lecture.

Marriage is a legal and binding contract regarding property rights.  It has nothing to do with love or sex or children.  Well, the children part is wrong.  It has everything to do with children inheriting property.  That's why, if you're not married, the kid is a bastard and isn't entitled to anything - which has created a huge market for attorneys in this post-women's lib, drop your drawers society we now live in.

If a person writes a will, he/she can leave their property to anyone they want.  They can set up whatever trust they like for whoever they want.  But if you don't have a will, marriage a.k.a. property laws prevail.      

So when you're signing on the dotted line for a marriage license, forget about love and sex and cheating and a family and happy home and all the other mushy stuff people get married for today, and think about what that contract really means which is - who gets the house and the cars and the kids and who gets to visit in the hospital and who gets to make decisions for you when you're sick.

Personally, I don't care if Fido and Bowzer get married to insure their dog houses are inherited by the right partner.  So if two guys or two gals want a legal and binding marriage contract to protect property rights, more power to them.  But, please . . . please . . . please . . . if you're a woman don't introduce me to your partner as your wife or your husband.  That's screwed up!!

Wife is a woman.  Husband is a man.  Those titles are achieved when a man and woman get married.  Fido and Bowzer, Susie and Sally, Ben and Burt have PARTNERS!  But that's my opinion, and I'm old - thank goodness - and I still believe in waiters and waitresses, chairmen and chairwomen and mailmen and mail-ladies.

Marva Whitney - Soul Sister #1



Have you ever had a "phone buddie"?  Someone you've never met in person, but, through happenstance, met on the telephone and became friends.   That was Marva Whitney and me.  We never met, but we spent hours on the phone.  Marva had called Jean Bennett hoping Personality Productions could help her get some bookings.  Personality had already been sold, but Jean had Marva call me anyway.  I told her there was nothing Jean or I could do to help, but we started to talk about "Playboy After Dark."  I had worked for the agency that booked the atmosphere people.  Marva had been a guest performer.  Those had been good days.  We were young, full of energy and still full of hope, despite that fact showbiz had already kicked us a couple of times.  Now were weren't so young anymore, but we were certainly not ready to quit.  Marva would call me early a couple of times a week around seven in the morning.  I'd always be asleep and groan about the early hour.  She always sounded like she had a horrible cold.  Her voice would be thick and scratchy.  My first words were always, "Are you all right?"  Gramps usually answered the phone at the hour, and after I'd hung up, he'd want to know if she was all right.  I told him that after we talked a bit, her voice sounded better - but never great.  Marva and I talked about her bookings, her band in Japan, and about seeing if we could get her booked in Las Vegas.  She sent me copies of her new CD, and she gave me the highlights of James Brown's funeral.  We talked about the reception she received in Europe, and we planned for the future.  All the time I protested there was nothing I could do, but at the same time I thought just maybe I could.  Every conversation had a "when are you coming to Kansas City.  I don't know.  Can you come to Las Vegas" moment.  The last time I talked to her was a little more than a year ago.  She sounded amazing!  Her voice was clear as a bell.  I kept saying, "You sound great."  She told me about being on stage in Australia.  One minute she was singing.  The next thing she remembered was waking up on a gurney.  They said she'd had a stroke on stage.  She didn't sound like it.  She didn't think the diagnosis was right.  She said her doctors here couldn't find anything wrong.  She thought she'd had a reaction to the chemicals in the smoke machine used in the show.  Her apartment had flooded.  She was moving - into a senior's complex.  Seniors!  Old people.  But it would be fine.  It was a nice place.  She was working with someone new and was excited about the future.  I kept telling her how good she sounded and said that in 2013 I was going to concentrate on writing and publishing.  If I didn't do it now, it would  never get it done.    January 1, 2013, I sat down and uploaded the first of five books to Nook and Kindle.  January 3, 2013, Marva was laid to rest.  I didn't know she had passed away until a couple of months ago.  I had emailed her, and when it came back I thought I had the wrong address.  She had changed it at least three times.  I wouldn't have been on her "people to call list."  We were only phone buddies.  And I've been sitting in this chair ten and twelve hours a day writing, typing, editing, posting and re-posting to the exclusion of everything else.  A couple of times Gramps had asked if I'd heard from Marva.  I said no, but she was probably on the road.  She'd call when she was back.  Because she had sounded so good, it never entered my mind that anything could have happened that wasn't fabulous.  Maybe I was right, because now she's singing with the angels.  And what could be more fabulous than that!  RIP my friend.

Sixty Years of HIts: Straight From the Horse's Mouth

This is interesting.  Press releases, letters and photos exactly as written over a 50 year period.  Seems there was never a press release about The Platters that went out of the Personality office that did not mention Buck Ram.  Not one in 50 years!  It's pretty amazing that this whole who's the owner, who started the group thing has been going on that long, but here's the truth without opinion, dreams, wannabes and do-gooders personal opinions.  The Platters were the #1 group of the 50s.  I doubt there are many people under fifty who give a rats behind about the group or the behind the scenes goings on, but it's interesting that so much of the court's time is being spent on the matter in 2013.  Perhaps Judges Navarro, Pro, Segal-Ikuta, McKeown, Wallace, and Magistrates Foley, Johnson and others and their office staffs should take a look at the truth as written at the time it was happening and stop wasting the taxpayers money on something that means nothing to the public.  But I won't hold my breath.  In following this, I have learned that the courts have nothing to do with the truth.  The only thing that matters is if one attorney can put their lie over with no regard for the truth over the other guy who may or may not be telling the truth.  I've started watching some of these Forty-eight Hour Mysteries on television with a whole new attitude.  Just how much of what these prosecutors and defense attorney make-up do the judges and juries believe.  That makes me think about OJ and Sam Shepard again.  What a pile of horse manure those two trials were!!

No Truth in Truth in Music - Chapter 2

And the saga continues . . . It has been flying around the last few days that Jon Bauman has submitted his personal statement, or perhaps a statement on behalf of Truth in Music or the Vocal Group Hall of Fame, in a court case brought by Herb Reed Enterprises (Herb is dead) against Monroe Powell stating that Buck Ram began a new company in 1970 to promote a group called The Buck Ram Platters. I can tell you for a fact that is not true. This case is yet another battle over the ownership of the name The Platters. If you count the little skirmishes that lasted a day or two, there have been at least a hundred cases over the last sixty years. The correct information is that Personality Productions managed The Platters from 1953 until 2006. Buck Ram SOLD Personality, a management company representing thirty-three acts at the time, to Jean Bennett in 1966. Buck stayed on as Music Consultant. That's it. He washed his hands of the whole Platters mess on 1966 - except for music. On that score he had the final say. Buck had been a successful songwriter when Herb Reed and the other "original" singers were in diapers. The guys who started the group before Reed and Tony Williams joined were younger and weren't even born when Buck was hanging round the Apollo with Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington and Chick Webb and writing songs with them. It is true that The Platters began to be referred to as The Buck Ram Platters about the time Bennett bought the company because of all the counterfit groups springing up around the world. But it was not Jean - or Buck - who began referring to the group as The Buck Ram Platters. It was the bookers. They wanted to make sure they were getting the group whose music and performance came directly from the master. Although Buck threw in finacial support if needed, Jean, not Buck, fought the battle for the group and the name from 1966 until she'd had enough. With Buck and all the singers passed on, I'm still trying to figure out what these people bringing lawsuits today - and there are at least two and maybe more in courts at this moment - have to do with The Platters or the success of the group. Herb Reed did not start the group. He was reportedly in the Army when they began. They were originally a bunch of high school kids. Cornell Gunter was 16. Herb Reed and Tony Williams were 25 or 26 years old when they got involved. And what has Bauman or Reed's manager, who is apparently now claiming rights to the name, got to do with The Platters?

Politics

I started to write something about my opinion of politics the other day, and the computer froze up. I guess even an inanimate object has an opinion about the direction the world is taking. Seriously, I don't understand politics. Everyone I've known personally who was involved in running the government has either been a drunk or nuts. There are some exceptions but those have been raked over the coals and had their careers destroyed. It's my experience that it does not pay to be honest in politics. The bad guys will always get you. There are lots of labels in politics I don't understand. I know being a Democrat or Republican or Liberatarian is a club of people you like that you can join and vote with. It's like picking a church or joining Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts or a fraternity or soroity. I was a communist for awhile. When I first came to Las Vegas I thought it was cool that you could register as an Independant. American Independant to be exact. I later found out that American Independant in Nevada is the communist party. Hmmm. Wonder if Obama could have run on that ticket in Illinois too? I guess the New Party he ran on doesn't exist anywhere but Wisconsin now. But that's what confuses me. All the names and labels and parties no one has heard of. I understand the TEA Parties. Taxed Enough Already makes sense to me. I don't understand why there are so many "groups" of TEA Party people. From the days when I had cable I know that the people involved are older, washed and combed, carry guns - big guns - shout down politicians and don't leave a mess behind them. I don't get the 99 Percenters. They are apparently ticked off because there are some smart, rich, ruthless guys out there who have more - lots more - than they do and think those people should give them some of what they have earned. Why? And I don't understand why they think it's all right to destroy public and private property and cost taxpayers millions of dollars. Seems to me there are some snapped synapses there. Then there are liberals and conservatives, righter wingers and left wingers, progressives and the "extreme," John Birchers and who knows what else. It's nothing but a bunch of name calling that accomplishes nothing. I know that during the last election I thought if I heard Harry Reid say "extreme" one more time I was going to scream. Oh, that's right. I did scream. Several times. In the privacy of my own home. If I'd gone to one of his rallies, I'm sure I would have been screaming "Shut up, Harry" at the top of my lungs. I also don't know why Harry has to keep going on television and saying idiotic things. Is anyone so stupid that they don't know Harry is President? Nothing goes to Barry without going through Harry first. If Harry doesn't like it, it sits and mellows on this desk. Gee, to think, we have a Mormon President without the election process. How's that for a joke on all the people who think religion matters in politics. Actually, the only thing in politics I like is the Constitution. It is amazing how brilliant the founders of this government were. I find George Washinton interesting for someone with wodden teether. I don't care that Jefferson slept with a slave. I don't think Lincoln was a great or brilliant president. He was a guy who failed in business sixteen times until he discovered politics, and, like Obama, he was a great speech maker. I think FDR was the worst president in the history of the country. I liked Jerry Ford until I learned that all the "diversity" crap started under him. I was sure Carter would take the country down the toilet the first time I saw him on television, and I was right. Reagan was the ultimate great speaker who increased the national debt by a bizillion dollars, and I don't understand the adoration. I'm not sure what I think about Nixon. I don't think "opening up" China was a good thing. One the other hand, I know that Watergate was a SEX scandal that got blown out of proportion because a bunch of guys broke into an office looking for info on SEX. They broke into Hank Greenspun's office, the newspaper publisher in Las Vegas, too because he was the one feeding Jack Anderson info about politicians coming to Las Vegas for hookers. NOTE: In Las Vegas they are not hookers. They simply have a job. Girls who work in outcall servies and strip bars make the BIG bucks. My opinion of George H. W. Bush, Clinton and Obama is the same. They are - as many before them - proof that the country is run by congress.

Global Warming. . . Cooling . . . Warming . . .

It has been a hot one in Las Vegas this summer. We broke the temperature record set in 1902! It makes me wonder about Global Warming. When did the Global Cooling begin that has kept us so far below the 117 degree for a century? And how soon is another of those cooling periods going to begin. It's hot!!

It's Called Neighborhood WATCH!

I was about eight or nine when the Sam Shepard murder trial was in all the newspapers.  It fascinated me.  I would get up every morning and hurry to get dressed for school.  Then I would spread the Chicago Tribune out on the living room floor and on my hands and knees read every word of the story in the right hand column of the front page.  I remember my mother, on more than one occasion, having to tell me,  repeatedly, that I had better leave for school or I'd be late, and I could finish the article when I came home.  If I didn't have time to finish the long articles that were continued somewhere in the first section of the newspaper, all I would think about at school was getting home to finish reading.

I was fascinated, not because of the bushy-haired man Shepard said was in his house, but because I could not believe anyone could make up stories the way they were and print them in the newspaper as fact.  It fascinated me then.  What has happened in the Travon Martin case disgusts me now.

When I cancelled the cable, it was because there is nothing worth watching on television.  I couldn't see paying to watch informercials, reruns and screaming housewives.  I didn't realize until this morning that the straw that broke the camels back was FOX's Bill O'Reilly and his "reporting" on the Martin case.  Granted, O'Reilly is not a journalist.  Like Sean Hannity he is simply stating his opinion.  Well, here's mine.

Georege Zimmerman just got away with murder.  Unlike O. J. Simpson or Robert Blake or any of the thousands of people whose names we'll never know who are acquitted of a crime there was no expression of relief on Zimmerman's face.  He wasn't even cocky.  He had a self-righteous smile.

In one of snippets of "news" I get from the newspaper, on the internet and YouTube I heard one of the jurors say she "felt sorry" for George.  What?  Why?  Zimmerman was a guy who got out of his car, tracked down the seventeen year old and, when Martin Stood His Ground, shot the kid dead just feet from his own back door.  What is there to feel sorry for about Zimmerman?  Why would you have sympathy for a guy because he got his head cracked open for approaching someone and pointing a gun at him?  If I were fighting for my own life, I hope I'd be able to crack the guy's head wide open too.  People like Zimmerman terrify me, but Gramps disagreed with me.  

Gramps is eighty.  He thought the verdict was right until I personalized it for him.

Gramps had a good life and made a good living selling Rolls Royces and Mercedes to rich people.  The other day we went through his closet to give his old  clothes, many things with the tags still on, them to the Salvation Army.  What is left is about twenty pair of shoes, still in the boxes either unworn or that will never be worn again.  He has about twenty new shirts left, and he kept one sports jacket and a three piece suit.  He needs none of it because he won't wear any of it.

Gamps days are now spent sitting on the patio, smoking and watching sports.  He seldom goes anywhere, but he also does not sleep at night.  He naps during the day.  At three in the morning he is a familiar sight in the neighborhood, walking in circles, sometimes in the middle of the street, smoking.  He's a one man neighborhood watch.  He knows everything that goes on after midnight.  All of that would be fine, except that he doen't wear his good duds.  He was worn the same dirty, torn levis for a least a month.  His Hawaiian shirt is stiff with sweat from the hot Las Vegas days.  The soles of his twenty dollar, discount store running shoes are taped to the tops with duct tape, and his fingernails are long, dirty and jagged.  Don't misunderstand.  He is not senile.  He's as sharp as any forty year old.  He walks like he's forty and looks twenty years younger than he is.  When the palm fronds fly in a wind storm, he can't wait to climb on the roof and work in the yard cleaning them up.  So how could I personalize the not guilty verdict to him?  It was easy.  He looks like he's homeless.  His big excursion of the day - or middle of the night - is to walk to the 7-11 to get cigarettes and a coke.

Our neighborhood has Neighborhood Watch.  We're two blocks from the Strip and strange people, frequently drunk, wander through the streets at all hours.  But no one from the neighborhood patrols the streets carrying a gun.  We do exactly what the name says.  We watch, and when necessary, we call the cops.

Had there been a George Zimmerman in our neighborhood Gramps could have been the one murdered. 

I told Gramps to imagine this.  It's two in the morning.  He decides to walk the four blocks to the 7-11.  While on his way home, Zimmerman is doing his armed patrol of the neighborhood.  Unlike our immediate neighbors, Zimmerman does not know who Gramps is and decides he looks suspicious.  He calls the cops.  The cops tell him to stay in his car.  They're on their way.  But Zimmerman doesn't heed the authority of the police.  He decides he knows more than they do and tracks Gramps. 

When Gramps ducks behind a bush to get out of the wind to light his cigarette and try to get a look at the suscicious guy in the truck casing the neighborhood, Zimmerman disobeys his instructions from the police, gets out of his vehicle and confronts Gramps. 

I know Gramps.  He's not taking any crap from anyone.  When Zimmerman demands to know what Gramps is doing.  Gramps demands to know what Zimmerman wants.  If Zimmerman had taken one step toward him, Gramps would have swung.  And Gramps, at eighty, would have died at the hands of a wannabe cop packing a gun. 

Gramps didn't say anything when I got through putting him in Trayvon Martin's shoes.  He quiety lit a cigarette and banged at the computer keyboard griping, "I can't watch my games on this thing.  All I can get is the scores."  But I noticed that when he went to the 7-11 the next time, he changed his clothes and put on his khakis and a clean shirt.  He looked nice, except for the duct taped running shoes.