Goodbye, Elton John. Though I never interviewed you at all, I saw the Red Piano that sold out while the shows around you did not.

And, it seems to me that you worked the Colosseum like a beacon amidst the neon, always knowing which hits to play to make the crowds applaud. 

And, I would have liked to interview you, but I am just a blogger, and so you packed your shows in Vegas without the Movable Buffet.

Recently, Elton John suggested in an interview he might want to do a rap disc one day; he may be spending his spare time in Vegas starting to make good on that threat. Word is that the Caesars headliner has been hooking up with rap producer Timbaland at the Palms studio. For those interested in more traditional Elton John music (whatever that means) I highly recommend picking up John's latest, The Captain & The Kid. It is a truly deep and wonderful disc that puts John in that tiny league of veterans like Bob Dylan and Neil Young who are continuing to make vital work after decades in the business. I hear only one song form the new disc, "The Bridge," is being added to John's The Red Piano show. That is understandable. John gets that Vegas is a hits town and unlike his usual concerts, The Red Piano, is a paired down 90 minute performance that already doesn't last long enough to include many of his signature hits. But last week Elton John did use The Red Piano stage at Caesars to perform songs from the new disc; it was for a broadcast on the cable channel QVC. John managed to move thousands of discs during the appearance. Maybe, radio should take the hint: The Captain & The Kid has songs worth spinning. I have been trying, by the way, to arrange to interview Elton John for Movable Buffet and Las Vegas Weekly ever since I heard The Captain & The Kid. But so far no luck.  I've interviewed Elton John once, years ago, back before The Red Piano opened. It was at the Grammy Awards and the interview was very brief: John was playing good cop to Billy Joel's bad cop.

photo by Matt Sayles/AP

Up on Forbes's web site is a ranking of the "Celebrity 100" calculating the earnings of the creative, athletic, beautiful and famous. After an absence from this list, the bitch is back, as Caesars headliner Elton John is the only Vegas local in the top ten (sitting pretty at #9) below Madonna but above Tom Cruise.

John's estimated pay last year: $44 Million. That may seem like all your dreams come true, but  $44 million is really just change between the couch cushions if you are a billionaire and Nevada has four of those, according to the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans. Three will come as no surprise to locals. Number 235 is William Samuel Boyd whose Boyd Gaming last year swallowed Coast Casinos. Number 164 is Steve Wynn whose monstrously large vision is fairly credited with creating contemporary Las Vegas. And, at number 15, Wynn's rival Sheldon Adelson, the son of a cab driver, who owns the Venetian. The final Nevada billionaire may be less familiar to locals as he has managed to keep a remarkably low profile considering how good this town is at flushing out the ultra rich to come play with us. Pierre M Omidyar is number 18 (and, at 38, decades younger than every other billionaire here), and is the founder of E-Bay. Omidyar and I both live in Henderson; so, I'll keep a look out for him at the grocery store.

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