Las Vegas - Part I

 What can you say about Vegas? It's glitz, it's glamour, it's gambling. It's also pretty damn hot which isn't helped by the mass of humanity that crowds the streets every day. And I'm not the most fashionable guy, but sometimes with the women it's hard to tell the difference between fashion and hooker.
  Where to start? We've gambled some, but I don't do very well at the tables so I mostly watch Melanie wind her way through the casinos working the slots. I don't think gambling is what attracts people so much these days as is the ability to smoke inside. And the casinos are where gamblers will probably come to die. Much like the little old ladies I see at the slots; cigarette in mouth, drink in one hand and the onset of carpal-tunnel syndrome from grasping the handle for hours at a time.
 When Melanie and I got married here eight years ago we were more concentrated on that event than on seeing shows so we're making up for time we lost. We also stayed at the Hilton last time, which is about five miles off the strip, but it might as well be a million miles with the difference between staying there and at Ballys in the heart of the action.

Shows
  If you want to enjoy the shows, it helps if you don't have body issues, at least not for the ones we've seen. For me, the shows begin and end with Cirque du Soleil. We saw them in Tokyo Disneyland and thought they were incredible so we naturally were attracted to them paying homage to Elvis Presley with Viva Elvis. Out of all the shows in Vegas, Cirque must employ the most athletic performers, best dancers and the greatest musicians. I don't think that's an overstatement, but it is impressive seeing as how they have no less than three shows running on the strip right now, not to mention how many other shows they have going around the world. They take you on an hour and a half journey through the life of The King with video clips of Elvis as a backdrop to live singing and dancing while seamlessly mixing in acrobatics. It would take way to long to describe everything, but I recommend seeing Cirque if at all possible. The only complaint I have, and it mainly is aimed at Aria where the show is, is that our seats had some blind spots. We didn't get the most expensive seats, but we certainly didn't get the cheapest either and I expected a little better than that.

  Timing is everything, and in this case it counts for Jubilee!, which we saw two days before Viva, right there in Ballys. Melanie and I enjoyed it, but maybe we wouldn't have enjoyed it as much if we hadn't seen it first. Billed as a standard Las Vegas show, Jubilee has hundreds of showgirls-topless from the get-go. I'm not opposed to topless showgirls, but it was a little distracting as my head was on a swivel trying to take it all in. Oh, there were also guys in the show. There was nothing sexual in nature with it; the girls, who were in phenomenal shape, just happened to have their breasts exposed. As the show progressed,  however, they seemed to put more clothes on each time they switched sets, but they were back to near-naked by the end. Whew! Not all shows are for those over 18, Sunday afternoon they featured a PG-13 version. One of the acts apart from the dancing were two guys performing acts of strength, mainly featuring balancing acts that required amazingly strong abs. These guys were awesome, but I have a feeling they are going to pale in comparison when we head to the Mr. and Mrs. Olympia show later in the week. More on that to come.

 The Price is Right Live - Also at Ballys in the Jubilee Theater, it takes the best of the heralded television show and makes it into an entertaining afternoon with the chance to win fabulous prizes. With Melanie involved at her conference, I took the afternoon to see if I could win something. It cost $40, or about 15 minutes at a blackjack table for me, and even though I never got the call to be a contestant, it was still entertaining. The host was none other than Joey Fatone. Long gone from his boy-band days, Fatone was a great host, funny and able to interact-and ad-lib-with those called to the stage.
 Another great feature of Ballys is they play host to a television survey company called Hollywood Previews. After TPIRL, I was able to go and watch a TV show called "Harry's Law," created by David E. Kelley. I did one of these things years before with Mike and Marie Winterson and I believe the comment about the show we watched was 'I would rather have my eyes gouged out with red-hot pokers than watch this again.' So, unfortunately, I felt I couldn't use that comment again, though I really wanted to. If it does make it to network television, I might watch the first show to see if they've changed it from its original concept, but that would probably be it. It's a shame it sucked so bad because it had some major talent in it, namely Kathy Bates as the lead character. The best thing about it was I got $20 to participate.

- More to Follow -