And we're coming to you live via iPad from the More Buffet at the Luxor Hotel in the glittery, glamoury city of Las Vegas, Nevada. I have several hours to kill/fill before it'll be time to cab it to the airport. How better to spend them but writing, eating and blogging in a tomb that serves good all-u-can eat roast turkey?
Of the three, I'll surely be doing the least in the eating department. Not ten yards from me, one can grab unlimited desserts but I gave up desserts a few years ago. There's also a self-serve beverage bar with six (I counted) kinds of cola, six other carbonated offerings, two flavors of iced tea and a wide array of juices, plus there's hot tea, coffee, hot chocolate, beer and wine. I, of course, drink none of these. I won't even be gobbling down a lot of the roast turkey. Buffets in Vegas are now making back a lot of what they lost on me before I had Gastric Bypass Surgery.
Last night, my friend Mickey Paraskevas and I went to see Penn & Teller at the Rio Hotel. Mickey loved it and I suppose I would have too, had I not seen so many of those routines so many times. I admire the stars' ingenuity, their willingness to offend and their superhuman work ethics. I just wish they had more tricks I haven't seen twelve times on TV. I think they know this is a problem. Penn opened the proceedings by explaining they'd be offering a mix of material from their Broadway run, their off-Broadway run, TV appearances, etc. He even said he'd be identifying the new bits for us…and sure enough, there were two or three I hadn't seen before. It reminded me of the last (ever) time I paid money to see Dennis Miller and he opened by saying he'd be doing some of his "most requested" monologues…and then proceeded to recite, without a lot of enthusiasm, the same rants that had comprised a Showtime or HBO special that was recent enough to still be running several times a week. Translation: "I have no new material."
I still like you, Penn & Teller…but you're kind of forfeiting the moral right to fault other magicians who rely on the same old tricks. You know the bit you did last night where Teller demonstrates the seven basic techniques of magic? I have that on a tape of your first special for PBS and it's on Beta.
What brought me to Las Vegas was the Licensing Show where a lot of folks unveil and/or promote properties that are available for licensing and exploitation. All the classics from The Mouse to The Wabbit are represented but the new ones are the most intriguing. Some will doubtlessly be biggies but a lot will not be, as their presenters insist, "The next [Teenage Mutant Ninja] Turtles!". There are several that have loads of promotional moola behind them but I haven't seen them anywhere besides the last few Licensing Shows.
The oddest booth this year (and for obvious reasons, one of the most crowded) promoted a concept called The Margarita Girls. This is a team of young women aged approximately 18-25 who wear string bikinis and who stage wrestling exhibitions in a large wading pool filled with Margarita mix. I understand the appeal of seeing wet, nearly-naked young women putting choke holds on one another. What I don't get is the Margarita part. As a lifelong non-drinker, I admit to no familiarity with the liquid in question…but is there something about it that makes wrassling in it more exciting than going hand-to-hand in, say, water?
And by the way, I checked and they did not put salt around the rim of the pool. That at least would have been kinda funny.
Okay, I'd better get outta here before they clear me away along with the dirty dishes. I'll continue this later…maybe from the airport depending on how much time I have and what kind of Internet connection I can leech onto there.