The Movable Buffet

Dispatches from Las Vegas
by Richard Abowitz

Category: Vegas Attractions

Two man-marks: the volcano and the sign

September 11, 2008 | 10:58 am

When you live in a desolate desert, then landmarks really mean man-marks. But unlike man-marks in other places where such things are seen as monuments to permanence; in Las Vegas, even the icons are expected to move or change shape with the times.

Two of the most famous man-marks of Las Vegas are the volcano in front of the Mirage and the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" neon sign that greets those driving north on Las Vegas Boulevard upon reaching the Strip. One is changing and the other, well, for now, it is staying put.

As reported in March on the Buffet, the Mirage is redoing its iconic volcano in front of the casino. Back then the refreshed volcano was set for a fall opening with a press conference expected soon to announce the details. But that press conference did not take place until Wednesday. Now the opening is going to be scheduled for early December.

The big headline is that in addition to ramping up the explosion and adding a fire dance in the lagoon, part of the $25 million renovation will include a new soundtrack, lasting seven minutes, to the Volcano eruption written by former Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart and his co-composer, Indian tabla player Zakir Hussain. The press conference was held at the Love theater at Mirage because there Hart's music could be carefully and loudly presented with a custom Meyer speaker system, the same company working on the volcano's score sound presentation.

As people who follow contemporary music know, Hart doesn't just keep time in rock bands but is a world-class expert on percussion of all kinds. So as strange as the mating of the stoner laid-back Dead mentality with the glitz of the Mirage's volcano may seem, the fit is actually perfect. Of course, the press conference was another matter as the press seemed uncomfortable with the volume of the performance. During the Q&A afterwards there were a few questions that involved how loud the law allowed the sound and how the volume would feel for passers-by.

The energetic Hart showed no awareness of Vegas codes of behavior for press conferences. The Vegas press core members are not exactly Deadheads. And these affairs are usually efficient with everyone running off to file. Hart derailed that train (Casey Jones, you better watch your speed!) with lengthy introductory comments that were followed not only by his playing the entire score, but immediately after that Hart announced he wanted to play the composition again and walk the press through each individual movement and section.

Fellow blogger Robin Leach, sitting next to me, groaned, "This would be a great press conference for radio." By this time, stuck on stage with Hart, Scott Sibella, the president of Mirage, deprived of a cellphone or text messages longer than science has proven casino executives can exist without communication devices, was shifting in his seat looking like he was about to start crying tears of boredom.

Suddenly from a podium a publicist did the unthinkable: interrupt Micky Hart's plans to discuss his music. This was rude or heroic. She instead opened the floor to the traditional questions and answers. I was curious actually who at the Mirage was music geek enough to know about Hart's percussion and Rhythm Devil work. It turned out that the people who knew to call Hart were from WET, the design firm behind the Volcano and the dancing fountains at the Bellagio.

By the time the press conference (and, by ritual, the individual interviews begin) was finally over I had to rush to get back to the office. So I never wound up getting a one-on-one interview with Hart. When I do, I will let him talk about his music all day. As for the music for the volcano, anyone who has heard the drum/space part of a Grateful Dead show will know what to expect, except with an added acid trip bummer's worth of exploding percussion at the point the volcano fully erupts. I have included a rendering provided by Mirage of what the revamped volcano eruption is supposed to look like. This is the second time, at least, the volcano is being renovated since the Mirage opened.

Driving home I saw another press conference taking place in front of the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign. Police cars were all around. It is not an easy place to hold a press conference: a sliver-of-land traffic median. Usually when I drive past the sign tourists are there to pose for photos in front of it; the problem is that to get that photo in front of the Vegas sign people take alarming traffic risks and leave their cars in dangerous and odd places. The major complication of this most prized Vegas man-mark is that no one knew that sign would become such a symbol of Vegas when they put it there almost 50 years ago. Well, they did not really put it there, because also no one knew how Vegas would grow. So over the years, the sign has had to be moved south to stay south of the constantly expanding Strip.

But no one is talking about needing to move the sign south to accommodate more growth now. When I got home, I checked, and the press conference was for the groundbreaking of a parking lot that will finally be built near the sign.(Rendering Courtesy Mirage)

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Erotic Heritage Museum

August 13, 2008 | 10:54 am

It seemed only a matter of time before Las Vegas got a sex museum. The only surprise: it beat the mob museum by opening first. Still, there is a big difference between marketing sex and being interested in erotica and sexuality. Male tourists coming to the area of town where they can buy lap dances are not necessarily the crowd that wants to debate the ideas of Camille Paglia.

But the opportunity now exists.

Harry Mohney's Erotic Heritage Museum turns out to be by far the classiest place in the neighborhood. That is because the Erotic Heritage Museum is on Industrial, the road behind the Strip known for offering clubs where "strip" is a verb.

In fact, the club shares a parking lot with Deja Vu, part of a chain of clubs founded by Harry Mohney. Name sound familiar? Mohney declined to be interviewed for this story. In the literature for the Erotic Heritage Museum, Mohney is referred to as a "Grand Patron" and as "America's leading Erotoligist."

I could not find that word in a regular dictionary but a slang dictionary claims an "Erotoligist" is an expert in pornography.

Actually, I am surprised and pleased to report, there is nothing cheesy about Harry Mohney's Erotic Heritage Museum. Not withstanding skin club mogul Mohney's involvement, the museum is run by a nonprofit, The Exodus Trust, which controls warehouses full of erotic artifacts, according to Laura Henkel, who runs the museum on a daily basis.

Sex as portrayed at the museum has a glorious history of graphic artistic expressions. There is also a history of functional erotica that required great imagination. The subjects examined, no matter how cringe-worthy to some, are treated with utmost seriousness by the Erotic Heritage Museum. The creators of the Erotic Heritage Museum believe strongly this topic deserves to be treated as having great cultural significance. The museum attempts to cover all views of sexuality from around the world and, as a result, seems to posit that a society can be understood through its porn. And most societies at root have developed some form of adult entertainment, according to Henkel.

One example: The museum has a carriage with poles to be carried by bearers to construction sites in the ancient Muslim world. Once there the construction workers would gather around and pay to look in the carriage holes at scantily clad or naked women placed in the plush material. In short: another culture's peepshow.

Henkel says there has so far been virtually no overlap between the museum crowd and the strip club crowd across the parking lot. A short tour of the 24,000-square-foot museum makes the reason obvious: the exhibits are not meant for cheap thrills. There is high-end erotic art, displays of fetish equipment complete with strapped-in mannequins, gay expression, historical artifacts like porn films from the silent era, and such oddities as plaster casts of body parts of well-known performers in adult movies. There is even a camera used to shoot early adult movies.

The overall impact is thoughtful to the point of being academic. Henkel does not dispute that: "This museum is artistic and sexy but there is primarily an educational and academic component. This museum in particular is about educating people to the erotic arts and embracing them as our heritage. This is a celebration of that heritage. We are set for lectures and film festivals. The whole purpose of this establishment is to educate."

The museum aims high but its messages sometimes lack subtlety. There are walls of heroes and villains and advocacy against legislating sexuality. That there are good guys and bad guys seems to be a message running through the exhibit, sometimes implicitly but often explicitly, as with a timeline of important dates focused on court obscenity trials that presents these cases as the good guys against the prudes.

Actually, given the controversial topic and graphic displays, Henkel was a little surprised if not a tad disappointed that the museum had drawn no protesters. There had been initial worries, and other cities with such museums have had protests. But Las Vegas isn't like other cities. Nothing gets protested here for being too graphic; things get ignored. John Stagliano's Fashionistas is the classic example; the erotic show was a critics' darling and he worried at first that the show would be too envelope-pushing; in the end, he lost millions trying to sell seats to something too aesthetically demanding for a Vegas audience. It isn't that Vegas audiences are not sophisticated. It is that, without fail, a Vegas audience is already experiencing sensory overload and may have spent the day gambling, traveling, shopping, eating a fine meal with drinks and after all that go to your show while still planning, after the show, to head to a nightclub. This is not an environment that encourages contemplation, even about sex.

At Deja Vu, across the parking lot, it is business as normal, and that involves a lot more customers than are at the Erotic Heritage Museum. While I was at the museum, the staff outnumbered the customers. When Buffet photographer Sarah Gerke returned to photograph the museum a couple days later she reported seeing only two or three customers.

And, that, I predict will be the biggest challenge this museum has: getting customers to come be educated and think about sex when they can spend $30 for a lap dance next door, no thought required.

I asked Henkel if she worries at all that the Erotic Heritage Museum has overshot the market and that her sophisticated presentation of sexuality may be more than tourists in Sin City are ready to spend learning about erotica beyond the experience of a lap dance? "Maybe. Yes, that is a worry. Las Vegas has turned out to be a very primitive place in some ways regarding sexuality. But I think over time people will understand what we are offering is very different (from a lap dance) and valuable." (photo by Sarah Gerke).

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'Essence of rock': Mick Rock's Vegas debut

May 5, 2008 | 9:57 am

I never expected to attend an opening in Vegas of the work of photographer Mick Rock. I am a huge fan. Rock is famous for his classic shots of David Bowie, Lou Reed, Debbie Harry and too many others to list. Rock's show wasn't exactly on the Strip; Symbolic Galleries is located behind the Strip facing the under-construction parking garage of MGM's CityCenter. This is an industrial area not too far from where the topless bars are zoned. But it does have the colorful name of Dean Martin Drive.

Still, once inside, the gallery is all one would expect from high-end art with wine being served to the invitation-only guests and a violin and viola gently setting the mood albeit performing arrangements of songs by Queen, Blondie and Bowie. This was the sort of place that while waiting for Rock to arrive and admiring a print of Iggy Pop, back in the Raw Power days, a man working the crowd made his way to me with a business card in case I was interested in shopping at his Lamborghini dealership. I probably should not have been surprised -- the print of Iggy Stooge was $2,200 for one of an edition of 90. There was even a suitably grandiose curator for the exhibit, Warwick Stone, who told me: "I am single-handedly trying to raise rock photography up a rung on the ladder from entertainment to a pure art."

Rock arrived like one of the characters from his photographs, frilly hair, shades; think Ian Hunter. And Rock was a total rock star. My favorite was that Rock had a small black bag. But for some reason he did not like carrying the bag, and so the publicist for Symbolic Gallery wound up following Rock with the black bag. "I don't know what is in it; I don't want to know," the publicist said. This was just after Rock had asked for the bag and then returned it to the publicist without a glance or a word. Rock was talking to another person and just reached his hand out and let go of the black bag fully expecting flunkies to take it like a roadie being handed off a guitar.

A couple of hours into the opening, an actual rock star showed up, Slash. Interestingly, Slash has not yet been photographed by Rock; the guitarist is just an actual fan of the man's photos. I asked Slash what he liked so much about Rock's shots, and he offered earnest expletive-laden praise. I told him I could not use that quote for the L.A. Times. So Slash shrugged and pragmatically offered: "OK, then his photos capture something about the essence of rock 'n' roll."

Finally on the photo above: No disrespect to Warwick Stone's pioneering efforts in discovering rock photography as art, but I have had this as my proudest possession for years. This Mick Rock photo is much smaller than the ones for sale at the show, and also this is not a numbered limited edition. But it is signed by the artist and mine, and I love looking at it every day.

Anyway, since Buffet photographer Sarah Gerke could not make the opening on Friday night to shoot Mick Rock, I had her photograph this morning the entire contents of Abowitz Gallery to go with this item. (Photo by Sarah Gerke)

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Teller tells of Zero Gravity

April 26, 2007 | 6:37 am

Yesterday on the front page of the Review-Journal was a photo of Teller (of Penn & Teller) floating in a space suit. Even in Las Vegas, flying headliners are not normally in the headlines. But Teller had just taken the Zero Gravity flight, the latest attempt to package and bring to Las Vegas tourists (who can afford it) the most extraordinary of experiences. I called over to Penn & Teller's office to talk to Teller about his trip and bellow is his account of being in a 727 that is maneuvering so as to defeat gravity and create, briefly, for its passengers the feeling of simulated space travel. So, here are the words of Teller, who onstage does not speak, but in reality is one of the two most articulate headliners in Las Vegas (the other being his partner Penn), describing the experience:

"I've been acquainted for several years with the guys who are putting this project together. Some of the guys originally came out of NASA. In fact, when they were at the very beginning of experimenting with this, they took Penn up on a trip with Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top). What I heard is that Penn stripped totally naked and vomited into his own hair. That seems like the natural thing to do. That is no longer part of their program. It is actually a very clean cut program right now with everyone in cool official looking space jump suits and a very official briefing. Also, there is a light breakfast; so that you will have the right amount in your stomach and not be inclined to throw up in your own hair. And, indeed, while I was up there no one did.

You hop on a bus and they take you out there and they have an aircraft that looks like the aircraft you could dream of. The plane is like a tubular gymnasium. It is padded all around. There are a couple of windows, but those are very small. There are airplane seats at one end. The entire time I was thinking this is such a wonderful good time, how did they ever get this by the FAA? Of course, they have been working on this for 10 years. But what they got from the FAA is a 100 mile long and ten mile wide corridor to run the plane. I am in awe of their ability to navigate government bureaucracy. But you still go through a TSA screening on your way on. It killed me to see TSA people wanding down heads of casinos and newspaper owners like somehow a terrorist could slip onto such a flight. This is really for people with the money and the enthusiasm, who want to float around like they dreamed of when they were kids.

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Guggenheim Out at Guggenheim Vegas

February 27, 2007 | 8:03 am

When the Guggenheim came to the Venetian in 2001 there was great care taken to preserve the integrity of the venerable art institution in order to protect the museum's reputation from accusations of "Going Vegas." But things have not gone as planned with the Guggenheim's fortunes here. The first sign of failure was that the huge exhibit space designed by architect Rem Koolhaas closed after one exhibit. That space is now the theatre for the vastly more middlebrow Phantom of the Opera.

Of course, that still left the boutique Guggenheim Hermitage (a partnership between the Guggenheim and the State Hermitage Museum in Russia) at the Venetian. Yet, there have been sporadically persistent rumors, always denied, that the Venetian was thinking of closing even the Guggenheim Hermitage. Certainly the museum has had a hard time finding a niche here; for example, a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit was the most recent attempt to connect with Vegas tourists. I doubt it worked.

Now, Kristen Peterson reports in the Las Vegas Sun that the Guggenheim, while somehow still involved in programing the exhibits, has laid off many of its Vegas employees. Instead, The Venetian is stepping in to start running the Guggenheim Hermitage. According to Peterson's story "Both Guggenheim and Venetian officials are being tight lipped about what that will mean for the five year old museum." Still, unless you are an art lover, the one quote she gets from a Venetian spokesperson on the topic is priceless. The Venetian's Ron Reese says on the issue of the future operation of the casino's Guggenheim Hermitage: "It will be similar to how we would run our retail and food and beverage operations." Hamburgers or Picasso: it is all the same in Vegas.

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"The Drive" Closed

February 20, 2007 | 8:56 am

In January, 2006 I blogged about the dubious chances of the "autotainment" center, "The Drive," being built behind the Sahara by GM with hopes of somehow boosting the adjacent monorail. As I put it back then: "The floundering monorail, a struggling car manufacturer and an aging casino have combined for a Vegas adventure." The adventure let you pay to test drive GM cars in an effort to make you interested in buying one. A little too close to sales to call fun. How this benefited the monorail was more ambiguous despite the track being near the Sahara's monorail station. Still, the head of the monorail blithely predicted: "We know this is going to be the beginning of a long and fruitful partnership with General Motors." This knowledge proved as accurate as most every other statement issued in connection to the Las Vegas monorail; The Review-Journal reports today that "The Drive" closed back in November.

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Come See The Corpses and Organs

June 1, 2006 | 11:58 am

Some press releases read like a joke, even in Las Vegas:

"Tropicana Resort and Casino today announced that it will bring the blockbuster 'BODIES…The Exhibition,' featuring real human bodies, to Las Vegas."

However, this is for real: "The Exhibition showcases 21 whole-body specimens and more than 260 organs and partial body specimens. These real human bodies have been meticulously dissected, preserved through an innovative process and respectfully presented, giving visitors the opportunity to view the beauty and complexity of their own organs and systems."

The process of creating the displays is described as follows:

"The human body specimens in the Exhibition are preserved through a revolutionary technique called polymer preservation. In this process, human tissue is permanently preserved using liquid silicone rubber that is treated and hardened. The end result is a rubberized specimen."

Tickets are $24. My guess is they won't have sold that many of them come the June 21 opening. Even if this wasn't so creepy, educational exhibits don't do well as casino attractions.

(Photo: AP)

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Autotainment Comes to Vegas

January 25, 2006 | 6:41 am

The floundering monorail, a struggling car manufacturer and an aging casino have combined for a Vegas adventure. GM is building a test track behind the Sahara Casino and in the process is buying branding and sponsorship for it from the Las Vegas monorail's Sahara station stop. "The Drive" is to offer what GM has dubbed in its press release "autotainment." Essentially, two tracks will be built on 11 acres behind the Sahara at the monorail stop where folks can test drive GM product from high performance cars like the Corvette to the infamous gas guzzling Hummers and the expensive dream cars like Cadillacs. Of course, there are rules:

Drivers must be age 18 or over, and present a valid driver's license. Professional drivers (as passengers) will accompany each driver to help them get the most out of their driving experience. For the safety of all guests, on-site breathalyzer tests will be part of the mandatory registration process before guests can enjoy The Drive experience.

Actually with the NASCAR Cafe already there this makes perfect sense for the Sahara. The monorail will get some cash from GM that it needs as its ridership numbers continue to disappoint. As for GM, at the end of the day, the success of "The Drive" will probably be based on how well they keep to their plan not to make this experience an admission ticket to a sales pitch. Though no specific date has been given, The Drive is expected to open in the spring.

(photo by Eric Jamison/AP)

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Dispatches from Las Vegas by Richard Abowitz

Dispatches from Las Vegas
by Richard Abowitz