Sorry I've been so busy this past week. Working on a lot of different things at the same time can do that to you but it's better than not having anyone want to hire you at all. A long-ago-scheduled trip to Las Vegas also came at a bad time. Last September, as recounted here, a friend of mine and I went to see the fine comedian, Jim Jefferies, performing in downtown Los Angeles. It was such a great evening that on the way out, she said, "Please…get tickets to see that man any time he performs near us again." I said I would — for me as much as for her.
Around November, I noticed Mr. Jefferies would be performing at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas at the end of June the following year (i.e., this year) and that terrific seats could then be ordered online. I immediately ordered terrific seats online, not pausing to consider that it might be 115° in Las Vegas at the end of June. It was but, you know, in Vegas it's a dry heat, there are outdoor air coolers and machines that spray cold mist into the air, and you can get around without going outside too much. 115° wasn't as bad as it would have been in Los Angeles.
Thursday afternoon, 6/29, we flew to Vegas and checked into a lovely suite at Bally's. Because of pressing deadlines, I spent a lot of time in that suite at the laptop but we got out and went to some shows and some stores and some buffets. I think I'm giving up buffets. They haven't been cost-effective since I had my gastric bypass since I am physically incapable of eating much food at one sitting and I've lost all interest in desserts. Desserts are at least half the point of any buffet.
For a while, I liked them anyway for two reasons. One was that you can almost always get freshly-sliced roast turkey, which is one of my favorite foods and one that's hard to come by anywhere else. Also, with my food allergies, it's comforting to see what I might eat before I consider putting it in my mouth. Indeed, in one sit-down restaurant we went to this trip, I ordered something that came with rice pilaf and when it arrived, found all sorts of things I shouldn't eat mixed into the rice. They happily exchanged it for plain steamed rice but it took a while.
And this time around, the brunch buffets at Harrah's and at Planet Hollywood didn't seem that much fun. The latter was $39.95 a person and what I ate was darn near the same thing in quantity and quality I could have gotten at a Denny's for around seven bucks. My friend wasn't that impressed, either. I think the heat may have also had something to do with it.
We had one other interesting dining experience. Near Times Square in New York, there's an Italian restaurant I like called Carmine's and they've cloned it in Vegas. It's in the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace and we went there Saturday evening for a dinner that felt like it wasn't served until Sunday morning. They brought the garlic bread immediately and then the entrees arrived — I am not exaggerating — an hour later. I complained to the manager who went off, investigated, then came back and said, "We screwed up" and told us the $100+ meal was on the house with his great apologies. Who says you can't win in Vegas?
Jim Jefferies alone was worth the heat 'n' hassle. He's my current response to the question, "Who's the best stand-up comic working today?" As when we saw him last September in L.A., he had comedian Forrest Shaw opening for him. In Los Angeles, Mr. Shaw had to cope with late arriving audience members and some folks who thought, "Well, he's just the opening act. It's okay to talk to each other while he's on stage." He didn't have that in Vegas but he did have a heckler who somehow managed to be disruptive without being even remotely amusing. Shaw's a good comic and he deserves to be heard.
Later, Jefferies had an audience member who thought the two of them were a team — probably but not definitely the same guy. The comic spent a long and very funny time shaming the guy into silence.
Jefferies was great…really great. If you were sensitive about issues like sex, religion and circumcision (he had a lot to say about circumcision), you might not feel that way but we enjoyed the hell out of him. At the end, he did something that I think was impromptu and unplanned. Muttering that what was supposed to be his closing bit hadn't received quite the laugh he'd expected, he wandered down into the audience and talked with the first few rows, then announced that we were now going to lock the doors, rip our clothes off and engage in massive group sex. This did not happen but I think there were a few audience members who were quite ready to do this…or anything else he said.
Saturday night, we went to see Absinthe. How do I describe Absinthe? Okay: Imagine a Cirque du Soleil show but take away about 80% of the budget, all the weird costumes and sets and bizarre music. Keep the part where human beings go out and do physical feats — aerial stunts, balancing, juggling, lifting, etc. — that seem physically impossible. Then add in the rudest, nastiest host ever in show business history — a man who makes Mr. Rickles look like Mr. Rogers — and his assistant, who has the mouth of a sailor and the I.Q. of a potato chip. Mix well and pour. That's Absinthe.
Some of the vulgarity is funny. Some is too high school. But the physical feats were astounding and I can recommend the show with two cautions. One is that most of the seating is on folding chairs which are not evenly spaced so we wound up in a row where no one over about 5'7" could ever possibly sit. We and a few others had to be re-seated. Second caution: Do not under any circumstances sit in the front row. The host will pick on you, water will be splashed on you and an acrobat just might kick you in the head or fall on you. The kicking or falling did not happen at the performance we saw or one I saw four years ago…but I would have had a hard time enjoying the show for concern that that might happen.
Otherwise: We did no gambling. We saw some of Big Elvis. The flights on Southwest were okay, though the "to" one was delayed an hour. I finished two scripts and didn't melt. We didn't see Wayne Newton. Unless you hit the Megabucks for a couple million, you can't do much better than that.