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Oct. 25-27 Hot Air Balloon Festival at Southern Hills Hospital (LasVegasBalloonFest.com) Oct. 30-Nov. 2 Vegas Valley Book Festival (VegasValleyBookFestival.org)

LOOK WHO’S GLOWINGIt began with a pre-party and ended with an

after-party—meaning there’s a good chance

runners are still reeling from the revelry

that was GlowRun 2013. The second neon

extravaganza attracted 3,000 costumed

crusaders who fist-pumped their way through

the 5k Downtown course. At the post-race

AfterGlow festival near Las Vegas Boulevard

and Fremont Street, S.K.A.M Artists Vice and

DJ Echo blasted beats on the LAVO stage. And

while the race was not timed, every runner

finished a winner, as their strides raised funds

for Aid for AIDS of Nevada (AFAN).

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Costumes welcome, but masks not allowed!

HENDERSONStephanie St. Power Center501 N. Stephanie StreetHenderson, NV 89014(702) 433-2709From 515, take exit 64 (Sunset Rd.). Head West on Sunset Rd., take left on N. Stephanie St. Store will be on your right at the intersection of W. Warm Springs Rd. and Stephanie St.

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SUMMERLINBoca Park730 S. Rampart Blvd.Las Vegas, NV 89145(702) 933-8740Located on S. Rampart Blvd.,Between W. Charleston Blvd. (159) & Alta Drive in Boca Park Shopping Center. Near Cheesecake Factory, next to R.E.I.

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THE CASINO INDUSTRY isn’t known for being introspective; the focus is usually strictly on the bottom line and the here and now. But the annual Global Gaming Expo, held late last month at the Sands Expo Center, is the gambling business’ chance to do some soul-searching. This year, that meant fnally ac-cepting that the status quo is gone.

Online gaming has been part of the mix at the expo—colloquially known as G2E—for a few years now, but with sites actually taking real money in Nevada and the rollout of real-money online play in New Jersey less than two months away, there was more urgency surround-ing it than before.

So if you are a reporter covering the conference, instead of talking to the CEO of a casino company about the potential for expansion into new states, you end up chat-ting about touchscreens, apps and HTML5 with Itai Frieberger, chief operating offcer of 888 Holdings. A leading platform provider, 888 has been in the online gaming world since 1997. And the company demonstrates the rapprochement that the industry has made with online play. 888 withdrew from the U.S. market after the 2006 Unlaw-ful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act made collecting money from U.S. players unambiguously illegal. The departure meant that 888 lost half of its revenue, but it also created an opportunity for the company to refne its strengths as a platform provider in regulated markets, chiefy in Europe.

Now that the U.S. is beginning

to permit legal online play, 888 is back—in a big way. It provides the platform for Caesars Entertain-ment’s WSOP.com, which launched in September, and has inked part-nerships with several other compa-nies, including Wynn/Encore and Treasure Island (888 will provide the technology behind their online poker rooms). Meanwhile, gaming-technology frm Scientifc Games will supply 888 content to casinos nationwide.

The online reversal is consis-tent with the industry’s history. In the 1970s, Nevada casinos railed against “foreign” gambling in other states; but once it was proven that operators here could do quite well in Atlantic City, they embraced amending the state’s regulations to permit “foreign” ownership. In the 1980s, commercial casinos fought te-naciously against the spread of tribal government gambling—until they started to compete for management contracts to run Indian casinos.

The new day was apparent when the American Gaming Associa-tion named Victor Rocha, owner and operator of Pechanga.net—an online news site specializing in In-dian gaming and Native American issues—the 2013 recipient of the award for Lifetime Achievement in

Gaming Communications. In one fell swoop, the AGA reached out to both tribal communities and the new media, something that was once unthinkable.

“Fifteen years ago, we were lock-ing horns with the AGA and Las Vegas over tribal gaming in Califor-nia,” Rocha says. (The tribes won that battle handily.) “The award was a frst step in the right direc-tion toward reconciliation of two powerful industries. We have more in common now than before.”

The conference showed a transi-tion in leadership at the sponsor-ing American Gaming Association; it was the frst for Geoff Freeman, who replaced founding President Frank Fahrenkopf in July. Freeman has been candid about the need to shake up both his group and the industry itself. In a recent speech he promised to “clear a pathway for our members to attract a new generation of gamers, [and] tap into the huge potential offered by digital expansion.”

Freeman is correctly reading the situation; with leveling casino revenues nationwide and few op-portunities for additional expan-sion, the only path for growth is change. That approach is already winning fans.

“This new attitude from Geoff and the AGA is so refreshing,” Rocha says. “He brings a new mindset to the gaming industry without the dogma and old prejudices. I’m very optimis-tic about our collective future.”

David G. Schwartz is the director of UNLV’s Center for Gaming Research.

Forward to the Future at G2EOnline gaming takes center stage at the Global Gaming Expo—and signals

a new era for the casino business

BEST BET IN THE HOUSEI’ve discussed football deals quite a bit in

this space, but I haven’t touched yet on

how well betting football (and other sports)

stacks up against other casino games. For a

gambler, winning is the most important thing.

But while winning over time is possible,

casual gamblers can’t realistically count on

it to happen. Hence, getting a good run (and

some fun) for your money becomes almost

as important. This is where sports betting

outshines all the other gambling options at

your disposal.

The amount a casino wins over a given

period of time on a gambling game is

determined by three factors: the house

edge, the average amount of the wagers

and the speed of play. By considering these

variables, you can put a real number on what

it costs to play any game. The casino would

like you to play where that cost is highest.

You should look for the opposite. Check out

this comparison with the Riviera’s new $1

blackjack promotion:

Since there’s only a single dollar table at

the Riv, it’s always full, which means you

play at a pace of about 40 hands per hour.

The rules on the game set the casino edge

at about 2 percent against optimal play.

You can derive the casino’s earn—which is

the cost for you to play—as 40 x .02 x $1 =

80¢ per hour. That’s some downright cheap

entertainment, but it’s still not as cheap as

making a sports bet. Here’s the breakdown.

The casino has a 4.5 percent edge on a

standard bet-11-to-win-10 sports-betting

proposition that you make on a football or

basketball game. So for an $11 wager, your

expected loss is just 50 cents! Keep in

mind that this is for straight bets on sides

or totals. If you’re betting parlay cards,

teasers and futures, the cost to play rises

dramatically.

That 50-cent expected loss beats the 80

cents for an hour’s play at Riviera blackjack,

but it’s better yet given that a typical

game lasts about three hours. Now you’re

comparing 50 cents against $2.40 for three

hours of blackjack. Or stated differently, the

sports bet costs about 17 cents per hour. Bet

$22 (to win $20) and most sportsbooks will

comp you a cocktail. Now you’re fading an

expected loss of $1 for three hours of action

and a drink.

Don’t try to argue that it’s not the same

buzz. Once that bet is down, you’ll be riveted

to the game as long as you have any chance

of winning it (the only time this doesn’t hold

up is when your team gets blown out from the

start). In fact, sports betting provides a surefire

way for guys to get their girls to buy into their

weekend passion. Make a bet for her, give her

the ticket and watch what happens.

Anthony Curtis is the publisher of the Las Vegas

Advisor and LasVegasAdvisor.com.

Gastro Fare. Nurtured Ales. Jukebox Gold.

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Zen and the Art of Social ClimbingHow society types are ‘friend shui’-ing their way to the top

By Ben Widdicombe The New York Observer

THE STUPIDEST QUESTION I ever asked was at a dinner party at a rambling summerhouse in East Hampton.

We were seated at a long, white-washed barnwood table with matching Louis XV salon chairs—an expen-sive take on “shabby chic” that was underscored by the jacketed household staff who could be glimpsed through

the kitchen door. Surround-ing me was a collection of wealthy guests, accompanied by their youthful second or third wives, who seemed to treat “buy low, sell high” not just as a business mantra, but also marriage advice.

Our hostess was discussing a recent society divorce and how it was a pity that nobody saw the woman anymore, because everyone liked her more than him.

“So why don’t you hang out

with her instead of the hus-band?” I asked, and I swear I saw the butler wince.

“Well,” she replied patiently. “Out here, the friends go with the money.”

It was a stark lesson in “friend shui”—the shameless art of arranging personal relationships for maximum beneft. A more Zen inter-pretation of friend shui is pos-sible. The 2003 book Feng Shui Your Life proposes “cutting the cord” with “energy vampires” who radiate negativity. Even Urban Dictionary defnes “friend shui” as the “prac-tice of clearing your life of any friends who cause extra cludder [sic] or drama.” Those understandings may resonate on the West Coast, where spirituality is as deep as a spray tan. Here in New York, however, social relationships are all about ramping up.

Sure, one might call that social climbing. But in the city, the idea that such friendships are transactional is almost too obvious to men-tion. It would be like asking why billionaires have such attractive girlfriends.

“I don’t know any other place that has the social ambition that exists here in New York,” says David Patrick Columbia, who for 20 years has published New York Social Diary, a kind of Standard & Poor’s index for the Exceptional & Rich.

“It’s all about money, because if you don’t have the money, you can’t do it,” he says. “Everything is an

exchange here, and it’s taken for granted.”

Done blatantly, it can be fun to watch.

Barbara Walters is infamous for moving place cards at fancy events to sit next to the most infuential person. One exasperated gala planner told me she watched helplessly as the ABC personality bumped the guest of honor (and the evening’s major donor) from his seat so she could sit next to Hillary Clinton.

Another fellow I know has done so well that he could teach social climbing to Ra-punzel’s boyfriend. Five years ago, he was a fashion intern and coke buddy to the shiny set. Now he can’t look you in the eye at a party, because, as he explained while gazing distantly over my shoulder in a darkened downtown loft, “I have to watch the door for Dasha.”

That would be Dasha Zhu-kova, the art world impresario, AAA-list international socialite and partner of Russian billion-aire Roman Abramovich.

It’s hard to fnd that kind of naked social ambition likable, but as a New Yorker, you have to respect success. It helps that in this city shame-lessness is regarded as a kind of work ethic.

Scandals that would induce social rigor mortis in a more respectable town are merely résumé items here—for the job of mayor, for example, or city comptroller—because infamy brings with it that other great social commodity: publicity.

“The Paris Hilton syn-drome has taken over,” says Columbia, who remembers photographing Hilton when she was an underage 14-year-old in nightclubs.

“Now, it’s about getting attention. People really want to be photographed all the time. They want their name out there. It’s a little private fantasy they have that they’ll become a big deal.”

Sometimes, it works spec-

tacularly. Kim Kardashian friend-shuied her way into the spotlight as Hilton’s one-time BFF. And gossip columns thrive on stories of jealousy tearing apart social-ite pals once inseparable on the photo pages.

Columbia complains that he is often asked to take down pictures of people who no longer want to be seen to-gether. “A complete, total pain in the ass,” he mutters. “I tell people, ‘If you don’t want your

picture taken, then stay away from the camera!’”

Few people understand the intersection of ambition and media better than R. Couri Hay. A society publicist and columnist, he is available to wealthy clients who feel that their social connections are lagging behind their fnan-cial clout.

“I represent private indi-viduals at my own discre-tion,” says Hay, who has been a social fxer since his days running with the Warhol crowd. “We have packages: Do you want to be in T maga-zine? Do you want the social press? It can go from $5,000 a month to $25,000.”

“I love addicting young peo-ple to PR,” he tells me, as we sit in his comfortable West 81st Street townhouse, moments before an assistant presents him with an afternoon juice cleanse. “But press, at a certain level, is worse than cocaine. There’s never enough; they always want more. It’s a drug.”

Not every story has a Cinder-ella ending. In recent years, as-piring socialite Melissa Berkel-hammer became a cautionary tale about the dangers of being hoisted by your own PR.

A Harvard Law graduate who left a job at a prestigious law frm for the allure of the social circuit, she acquired a reputation for using sharp el-bows to get into party pictures. The invitations and photo-ops dried up, but not before she articulated her own friend shui manifesto in a 2006 inter-

view with this newspaper.“A lot of people [are] involved

in charities, involved in fash-ion companies and do PR for stores, different stores, and then you become friends with them, you know, and then they invite you, and then, like, maybe a friend of a friend sees you and then puts you on their list,” Berkelhammer said about the wonderful mystery of being invited to parties, not mentioning that her father had placed Hay on retainer. She added cheerfully, “Some-times, you’re on people’s lists, and you don’t know why.”

The interview was not well received, and Hay counsels a less aggressive strategy.

“When you are in the social world or the philan-thropic world, it has to be done tastefully,” he says, forming his fingertips into a pyramid behind his desk. “You don’t want to come in like a bulldozer, especially in the social world.”

A more subtle approach is to start buying tables at benefts and work your way up from charity committees to the grand institutional boards. But even the social mountaineers who reach those heights are faced with a problem: The very attainability of such lofty posi-tions makes them hard to keep. In a city where the old dynas-ties have been unseated, social mobility works both ways.

“There really is no old society in New York,” Columbia says. “Money is always what deter-mines who’s who, and now it comes and it goes very quickly.”

“The Astor fortune, which ended with Brooke Astor—that was a six-generation family,” he adds. “The Steve Schwarzman fortune—that’s a one-generation family, and he gave enough money that they changed the name of the New York Public Library to the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. The right way to do it is to give big money.”

But if you haven’t yet made your billions in private equity, you can start the journey by looking pretty in a sun frock.

“For the current genera-tion of thin, very ambitious girls, Tory Burch is the gold standard,” Hay says of the billionaire fashion designer. “She became an icon and a trendsetter, and everyone wants to be like her.”

And for only a few thousand dollars per month, Hay can friend-shui the introductions to start you on your way. V

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EVEN THE SOCIAL MOUNTAINEERS WHO REACH THOSE HEIGHTS ARE FACED WITH A PROBLEM: THE VERY ATTAINABILITY OF

SUCH LOFTY POSITIONS MAKES THEM HARD TO KEEP.

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What makes your site KirillWasHere.com differ-ent from other nightlife party websites?

I think it’s a combination of my personality—not re-ally having a filter and not always playing by the rules—getting girls to do crazy shit, and my relationships with DJs. My site is basically a raw look at nightlife; I don’t treat it seriously like everyone else does. Nightlife has

become so corporate. People are drawn to me because my brand is associated with having a good time and just letting go.

You’ve become known for shooting “champagne facials.” How was that pose conceived?

I was really bored at a party once. These girls were stagnant, not partying the way I needed to make good

photos. So I poured cham-pagne on their faces and showed them how cool the photos looked. You would think the girls would get mad. At first they were like, “Oh my God! The cham-pagne’s in my eyes! I hate you!” I’d say, “See how good the photo looks?” And they’d say “I love it! Can you send it to me?” I started it a year ago, and that took my shit to the next level.

From your perspective be-hind the lens, what are the best and worst parts of Strip parties?

The best part is everyone is ready to go rage and party. The worst part is nightclubs strip that away from people when they walk up to the door. They’re judging you: if you can get in, if you’re dressed right, etc. Now the scene is so heavy with EDM and massive DJs it’s not even

a party, it’s almost a concert. Which I’m not against. But for me, I want to go out ... and rage and party. We’re going to make some crazy-fun memo-ries where people aren’t standing around Instagram-ming DJs. Instead they’re blacking out with me.

How hard do you go when you’re out shooting?

I’ll probably get in trouble for saying this, but I rarely work sober. It’s hard to. It’s easy to work sober when I’m shooting corporate events or concerts, because there’s no pressure to drink and no one is very drunk around you. But at a party you kind of have to be at the level of people you’re shooting so you’re not that creepy, awkward, sober guy with a camera who no-body trusts.

Any other advice for aspir-ing photographers?

You have to have a personal-ity to make a brand. I make jokes, I’m dumb, I’m stupid, and I relate to the general

In Your Face, LadiesInfamous nightlife photographer Kirill opens up about his signature pose,

the art of making the moment and life of-camera

By Sam Glaser

NEW YORK-BASED NIGHTLIFE photographer Kirill’s antics have attracted more than 50,000 Twitter followers and compelled Complex maga-zine to name him the No. 1 nightlife photographer. He’s toured with A-Trak, Steve Aoki and LMFAO, and has shot parties for YSL, Hugo Boss, Red Bull and Hennessy. Today Kirill’s globetrotting career most resembles that of a rising DJ star, now complete with his very own fve-date Tao Group residency, Las Rageous, which pops its cork October 20 at Lavo.

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public. If I have a photo of a girl getting champagne poured on her head, I don’t [write], “That’s a cool photo,” I say something like, “I wanted to dump champagne on her face, then have another girl lick it off.” People are going to interact, like, “Oh my God, me too, bro.” You have to push the envelope a little bit.

Have you ever gone too far? I don’t think I’ve gone too

far. My online personal-ity is a lot different than my in-person personality—I wouldn’t get a response if I were an asshole to people.

One time I did get punched in the face. I gave a girl a cham-pagne facial that she asked for, and her brother told me he wasn’t afraid to go to jail if I didn’t delete that photo. I said I wasn’t going to because his sister wanted it. He waited outside the club for me, jumped out of the bushes, clocked me in the face and ran off. I had to get stitches.

Ever been embarrassed? I have a pretty thick skin.

I dropped out of college to hang out with comedians. I’ve had my ass handed to me so many times by comedians that

there’s nothing that will bring me shame, literally nothing that will embarrass me.

How did hanging around the comedy club scene help hone your craft?

They showed me that there’s humor in everything and to not really think that life is so scary, and that’s played into my personality. I don’t see anything as too offensive—that shows through my photos. I try to portray nightlife in a fun, humorous way. Cham-pagne facials are ridiculous. They’re so funny to me, and I’m able to do that in a club.

You write on your Facebook page, “Success is like being pregnant. Everybody con-gratulates you, but nobody knows how many times you got fucked to get where you are.” Paid your dues, eh?

I’ve been thrown out of nightclubs, I’ve had my mem-ory cards deleted. You just gothrough the shit and then you earn your place in nightlife once you’ve shown them that you’re not going anywhere. I work with nightclub owners now that [previously] wouldn’t even let me into their club, and now they’re begging me to come and take photos.

Is there a deeper Kirill underneath the online persona?

The real me is an insecure artist. I don’t want to give too much away, but take any movie that you see an actor. You don’t assume that’s him—he’s acting. This is a side of me, and I’m honest with all the shit I say, but there is the normal side to me. I talk a lot on Twitter about fat girls. But when I’m out, I’m partying

with the fat girls. I’m not a dick. I don’t think anyone would have gotten this far—or anywhere—being an asshole.

Who is the most important woman in your life?

As cheesy as it sounds, it’s my mom. Both of my parents came from Russia—with no money—with me, my grandma and everyone to have a better life. I kind of went against all the rules. I was the frst not to fnish col-lege in the family and branch out on this weird pseudo-artistic career. I’ve put them through a bunch of shit, and at this point they’re happy and proud of me.

What’s your perfect end-game?

When I stop taking night-life photos, I would love to do flm. Everyone on the Internet is done in fve seconds—the Internet is very dismissive of art sometimes. I would want to do a show or a flm that kind of puts it in your face, where it’s more permanent, not just pictures to laugh at online.

“WE’RE GOING TO MAKE SOME CRAZY-FUN MEMORIES WHERE PEOPLE AREN’T STANDING

AROUND INSTAGRAMMING DJs. INSTEAD THEY’RE BLACKING OUT WITH ME.”

Kirill will kick off his residency with a $3,000 Champagne facial contest

October 20 at Lavo.

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BODY ENGLISHHard Rock Hotel

[ UPCOMING ]

Oct. 18 Bassment Fridays

Oct. 20 Sunday School

Oct. 31 Rock ’n’ Horror ’80s Halloween Party

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[ UPCOMING ]

Oct. 18 Will.i.am spins

Oct. 19 Warren Peace spins

Oct. 20 Sultan and Ned Shepard spin

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[ UPCOMING ]

Oct. 25 DJ Trent Cantrelle spins

Oct. 26 Presto One and Kevin Brown spin

Oct. 29 Sexy Costume Contest

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THE BANKBellagio

[ UPCOMING ]

Oct. 17 Glitz & Glamour Champagne Thursdays

Oct. 18 Omarion performs

Oct. 19 Jayceeoh spins

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LAVOThe Venetian

[ UPCOMING ]

Oct. 18 D-Miles spins

Oct. 19 Stereo Saturdays

Oct. 20 Kirill Was Here

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[ UPCOMING ]

Oct. 18 Shaun O’Neale Fridays

Oct. 19 Reaction Saturdays

Oct. 21 Pro Football Viewing Party

➧ IT REMINDS ME of a college dormitory lounge. People are scattered at tiny tables, carrying on conversations while clicking away at their keyboards. The crinkle in their brows suggests the sort of simultaneous thrill and panic produced by impend-ing deadlines. There’s a subtle scent of fear and an over-whelming sense of excite-ment wafting through the walls of the Life Is Beautiful festival headquarters.

On the morning I stoppedby, chef Donald Link, a member of Life Is Beauti-

ful’s culinary advisory board, had fown in from his native New Orleans to discuss ideas with Jolene Mannina, head of culinary arts. Seated next to her in the closet-size con-ference room, Link pulls a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket, a “half-drunken sketch from the night before,” he says. He points with his cof-fee-stirrer to a series of black hash marks on the page that, as he explains, signify a pork spit his cousin fabricated for him back home. He’d like it to be part of the festival when he represents his Big Easy-based outposts, Herbsaint and Co-chon, in the Culinary Village. “If it can’t be transported,” Mannina says, “we’ll fnd a way to fabricate one here.”

This is Mannina in her ele-ment. As founder of the Back of the House Brawl gourmet food truck battles, she brings culinary expertise and quick thinking to her role in Life Is Beautiful. Helped by Eve Cohen, head of festival opera-tions, Mannina is crafting the climate of an event (really, several experiences including the Culinary Village, Alchemy Gardens, four dinner parties and Chefs on Stage) that has never before been done in Las Vegas. Whatever obstacles arise, they say, “We’ll come up with a solution.” That can-do

attitude is the linchpin of this inaugural undertaking.

At a later date, the plans have progressed from hand-drawn sketches to full-fedged blueprints. With Mannina inside a private dining room at Kumi in Mandalay Bay, Cohen unrolls a map so large it doubles as a tablecloth. Across from her are Akira Back’s colleagues. Back him-self, whose restaurants Kumi and Yellowtail will participate in the festival, is currently in Asia. With every detail Cohen delivers, the two grow visibly distressed. So Cohen smiles,

circles a spot on the map and tells them, “This will be the primal-scream trailer.” Just like that, a burst of laughter puts the whole team at ease.

Then lunch service begins at the restaurant, and suddenly the lights go dim. Without hesitation, Mannina and Co-hen reach for their cellphones to illuminate the blueprint and keep the meeting afoat for another 30 minutes. This kind of troubleshooting could be critical on the actual days of the event. What if trash cans overfow? What if chefs run out of food? At a certain point Cohen says, “I wish I had a better answer than ‘This is a frst-time festival.’”

When Life Is Beautiful swallows up 15 city blocks at the end of the month, no one knows completely what to expect. Led by founder Rehan Choudhry, former entertainment director at the Cosmopolitan, the team’s past experiences are all they have to prepare them for what’s coming. So whether it’s placing orders for disposable bamboo fatware or relay-ing orders from the health department to head chefs, Mannina and Cohen tackle every task with resilience. “Even when I curse,” Mannina says mid-meeting, “I curse with love.” V

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A Slice of Life Is Beautiful Going behind the scenes of October’s big event with Jolene Mannina,

who says the recipe for success is still being written

By Camille Cannon

“THE TEAM’S PAST

EXPERIENCES ARE ALL THEY

HAVE TO PREPARE THEM FOR

WHAT’S COMING.”

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Drinking

“My favorite wine-delivery club shut down! I want a unique wine club, not some crappy bulk-wine club. Please help me fll this void in my life.”

There is no time better than now to join what I call the Rockstar Somm Club Movement, a new trend in wine clubs being steered by a few famous wine experts. And who wouldn’t want to drink what the professionals drink?

Chef Michael Mina and his longtime wine director and som-melier Rajat Parr have started the eclectic Michael Mina Wine Club (MinaWineClub.com). Parr and his crew of sommeliers hand-select each wine, and pair it with a recipe from one of Michael Mina’s restaurants.

What I like the most about Mina’s wine club is that it offers bottles from Mina’s own restaurant wine lists—hard-to-fnd, food-friendly wines from small producers around the world, and at different price points. Membership to the club includes four shipments of six bottles per year, spaced three months apart. The Hidden Gems level costs $120 per shipment ($20 per bottle), while the Wines of Consequence (meant for budding wine geeks) is $300 per ship-ment ($50 per bottle).

Another option: Parr protégé Eric Railsback and master sommelier Brian McClintic (both subjects of the 2012 documentary Somm) have formed the Somm Series Wine Club (SommWineClub.LesMarchandsWine.com). A master sommelier featured in the flm selects rare wines from both established producers and rising stars of the industry. This club features personal hand-written tasting notes and food-pairings. The seasonal pack-age of three wines every three months is $109 per shipment ($36 per bottle), while the annual package of three wines every month for one year is $99 per shipment ($33 per bottle).

Locally, wine experts Gil Lempert-Schwarz (chairman of the Wine Insti-tute of Las Vegas), master sommelier Ron Mumford and Kenny Lee (general manager of Lee’s Discount Liquors) have formed the Knowing Wine Club (KnowingWine.com), which includes special membership perks, such as priority access to exclusive VIP

wine tastings and wine classes, as well as discounts at Lee’s stores. There are six-month and 12-month options, but both have you receiving two highly rated reds from around the world for $50 per month, plus those perks.

****

I want to bring a bottle with me to the restaurant for a special occasion. What is proper BYOB etiquette in Las Vegas?

This is the most ambiguous Las Vegas dining topic. First, always be courteous and call the restaurant to ask if there is a BYOB policy before showing up, bottle in hand. This simple act prevents any awkward-ness when you might be greeted by management with a frm “No.” Don’t be surprised if you get that same “No” when you call, and don’t hold it against these establishments. They are just cautious concerning their liquor license.

If they do allow BYOB, some restau-rants will require you to pay a corkage fee. Why? You are paying for the experience, service, knowledge of the staff and sommelier and the ambience of the restaurant, which must pay its overhead of taxes, insurances, licenses etc., whether the wine is yours or theirs. Corkage fees can run you $30-$50 per 750-mililiter bottle opened (you will not be charged for bottles brought in but not opened) and can vary by restaurant. Some have limits on the number of bottles per party; others request that you not bring in a wine on their list (again: call frst). And my favorite: If, in addition to the wine you bring in, you buy a bottle from the wine list, your corkage fee is waived.

If it sounds like the restaurants are trying to deter you from B-ing YOB, that’s because they kinda are. At the end of the day, restaurants want you to buy their wine, not bring it in.

That said, having a good relation-ship with the restaurant will usually earn you the right to open your bottle yourself. If a restaurant does allow you the pleasure of opening your bottle, it is always suggested to offer the chef, sommelier or GM a taste.

And by “taste” I mean 2 ounces, not the whole bottle.

ASK A SOMMASK A SOMM

The hoTTesT New wiNe Clubs, aNd avoidiNg The

piTfalls of bYobBy Lindsey Whipple,Advanced Sommelier

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The Junkyard) to private back yards (thanks, Dayvid Figler). Damn, they were good—sometimes great—since their founding in 2002, even if every show had to be recon-fgured to a new space.

“It’s why we are profcient at what we do here,” Fackrell says. “Every space taught us something new about how to adapt and be resourceful with what we could bring in, what we needed. Those lessons served us well.”

Ask anyone who saw their 2004 Caligula, at Downtown’s former SEAT venue, with Fackrell’s riveting lead per-formance, interpreting the depraved emperor as both a little boy lost and a monster on the make. Or 2005’s Cloud Tectonics at Studio Open, a time-tripping piece of “magi-cal realism.” Or 2006’s Tattoo

Girl, a surreal meta-phorical stew, at the Aruba.

Fascinating—and risky—fare, pulled off with style and brio.

About 2008, Cockroach scurried from the scene. “We had a tacit deal with Neonopolis to occupy a couple of their empty movie theaters, which was right up to the edge of the [economic]

downturn,” Fackrell explains. “Then everybody had to sit on their tails. We went into hiber-nation and things happened in life—weddings, kids—then we went into Creative Studios LV for a year. As the lease was ending, the opportunity arose down here.”

Since then? Each show in their frst Art Square sea-son drew good houses, in an eclectic fve-show lineup crowned by Arthur Miller’s timeless—and, given America’s economic condition, particu-larly fresh—Death of a Salesman, featuring Curcio’s turn as Willy Loman.

“We had an extraordi-narily successful frst season,” Amblad says. “Because we were able to focus our ener-gies and promotions on this space, it was very easy to go from, ‘Where is Cockroach?’ to, ‘What is Cockroach going to do?’” Noting the troupe’s online “Next Stage” fundrais-ing campaign to recruit new members and corporate spon-sors, Fackrell adds: “Every

show turned a proft but that doesn’t mean we’re proftable, necessarily. A lot of it goes into maintaining this space.”

Proftability, then, is the attainable goal. Dreaming is the hobby—one that masks a community-wide inferiority complex that’s both unde-served and unshakable.

•••••

Consider these lines from Waiting for Guffman, flmmaker

Christopher Guest’s 1996, community-theater-skewer-ing mockumentary:

* “If there’s an empty space, just fll it with a line, that’s what I like to do. Even if it’s from another show.”

* “I think we have to work on the music a little bit more. But I don’t want to make trouble.”

* “I had a … hankerin’ to be an actor when I was a young feller when I got out of the Coast Guard, but … I went to taxidermy school instead.”

Funny to many, accurate to some, outdated to Curcio.

“We’ve got that old, Waiting for Guffman stigma, but that’s not viable anymore,” he says. “We’re above and beyond that.”

True, but unlikely to separate the public from its stubborn bias. Local dance, music and art—all of which function with a core of profes-sionals—will always win the perception war (and media attention) over community

theater. Despite the profes-sional-grade talents of war-riors such as Amblad, Fackrell and Curcio at Cockroach, and others around town, it’s often met with an aww-isn’t-that cute pat on the cheek by the masses. A lengthy tradition of condescension and indif-ference shows no signs of abating.

“If we had more theater venues down here, we’d actu-ally have a theater district,” Curcio says hopefully. Adds Fackrell: “We live in a city that has an infux of national and international tourists. When

they see The Smith Center is there and they can see The Book of Mormon and Les Miz, they might wonder if there are smaller, edgier theaters. That gives them the opening to inquire.”

Yet that’s a vision—even if dialed back from grandiose Chicago, Broadway and Amer-ica analogies—that probably won’t be realized. Art galleries dominate Downtown. Tour-

ists, by and large, don’t catch a fight to Vegas to take in Broadway musicals, which are likely to eventually arrive at or near their hometowns. Given that the Smith/Broadway fan base is largely comprised of locals more drawn to Wicked than Waiting for Godot, patron spillover into more daring—even guerilla—theater in the arts district will be minimal, and unsustainable as an audi-ence demographic.

What’s that leave? True believers, comprising a kind of secret society, sipping this cultural nectar behind the

backs of the uninitiated.And isn’t that kind of cool?

•••••

We’d love to have you. But we’ll live without you.

How’s that for a marketing strategy for the “Next Stage” campaign?

Granted, it’s strategically risky to speak such words to community-theater avoid-ers you’re hoping to nudge toward a local playhouse to discover its treasures, reflect on their decades of missing out and leave slapping their heads, V8-style, exclaim-ing, I coulda had a Tennessee Williams! Or a Yasmina Reza! Or an August Wilson! Or a local playwright with just as much to say and an inventive new way to say it!

Still, it’s an attitude worth adopting.

Sure, do your market-ing, local thespians—invite newcomers for pre-show wine and post-show coffee. Remember, though, that it’s the faithful, the loyalists—the hell-yeah-we’ll-be-there-even-if-it’s-the-12th-Eugene-O’Neill-play-we’ve-seen-for-the-sixth-time die-hards—who will butter your bread.

When young, we’re balls-to-the-wall to impress the world. Once matured, we learn to fnd joy and contentment through friends and family—the ones who’ve always been there and always will—in our own backyard.

That’s here. And that’s us.Now break a leg. P

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They keep crawling back: Cockroach creatives Erik Amblad, Ernie Curcio and Levi Fackrell.THE BIRTHDAY

PARTY BY COCKROACH

THEATRE

8 p.m. Oct. 17-19 and

24-26, 2 p.m. Oct. 20 and

27, Art Square Theatre, $16

and $20, Cockroach-

Theatre.com.

PERHAPS IT’S TIME TO TABLE THE DREAMS AND LIVE THE REALITY AS THIS NEW SEASON GETS UNDER WAY.

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Music

if you ever feel like the upcoming Life Is

Beautiful festival (October 26-27)—crisp

and cool as it certainly looks—is sucking

the musical oxygen from the city, don’t

worry, Soundscrapers. I always have your

dirty rock ’n’ roll nitrous right here.

This week’s huff is especially potent.

First up, veteran Orlando, Florida, metalc-

ore unit Trivium tears the roof off House

of Blues at 7 p.m. October 17. Trivium

toned down their

technical prog-rock

inclinations on just-

released Vengeance

Falls. Some of the

credit goes to the

album’s producer,

nu-metal singer

David Draiman

(Disturbed, Device), who encouraged the

band to hone their vocal hooks and guitar

riffs to a razor’s edge. The first single

off Vengeance is “Strife,” which, despite

its commercial aims, packs a skull-con-

cussing wallop and a ferociously intricate

twin-guitar solo. Shoot, a few tracks here

sound like vintage Black Album-era Metal-

lica. Also on the bill: Royal Bliss, Trapt,

Pistol Day Parade and Stars in Stereo.

Here’s an unusual treat. The Bones are

a Las Vegas rock-covers band (trans-

planted from New England two years

ago) known for taking cheesy pop songs

and giving them the musical roughhouse

treatment. Members of the Bones have

served time in established acts. Drummer

Scot Coogan was in KISS guitarist Ace

Frehley’s band. Singer-guitarist Patrick

Vitagliano collaborated with Nuclear

Assault. Bassist Mike Wilson played in

groups featuring members of Great White

and Bulletboys. And lead guitarist Jeff

Duncan is still in Armored Saint. The

Bones have played the top rock clubs in

town—Vinyl, Hard Rock Café, etc. They’ve

also been busy writing and recording an

album of “feel-good” hard-rock originals

titled What Would Ginger Do? The release

party takes place at 9 p.m. October 18 at

Count’s Vamp’d (6750 W. Sahara Ave.).

Honestly, you’re more likely to catch me

that same night (October 18) at the Surfer

Blood show (10 p.m. at Beauty Bar). The

Florida indie-rock band’s second album,

Pythons, came out on

a major label (Sire/

Warner Bros.) this year,

so maybe a backlash

set in, but I love the

slick production by Gil

Norton (Pixies, Foo

Fighters). Songs such

as “Demon Dance”

sound like a looser, less-uptight Weezer,

and the guitars are big and loud, as they

should be. Brooklyn indie-soul combo Team

Spirit opens.

Back at House of Blues at 8 p.m.

October 19, legendary fret board-pyro-

technician Steve Vai will undoubtedly

blow minds with his jaw-dropping “shred”

technique. In case you’re too young to

recall, Vai’s the guy who helped make ’80s

rock albums such as David Lee Roth’s Eat

’Em and Smile and Whitesnake’s Slip of the

Tongue instant classics. The 53-year-old

wizard returns from overseas jaunts for

another go in the U.S. in support of last

year’s solo disc, The Story of Light, his

most spiritually attuned, blues-based

effort yet. Vai is among the few remaining

titans of virtuoso rock musicianship, so

if you care to experience the very limits

of human six-string performance, here’s

your chance.

Your Vegas band releasing a CD soon?

Email Jarret_Keene@Yahoo.com.

skeleton rock, indie surf, vai-tality

Steve Vai will tear it up at House on Blues on October 19.

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POP CULTURE

the rewrites from George Romero going in, and I could show up on the set and watch Romero work, and I could be a zombie and I could have lunch with him, I would’ve gone out of my mind. That would’ve been worth selling my car.” As it was, he says he hunted down a paper copy of the script he paid $200 for at the time—about $700 in today’s coin.

It’s that kind of fandom that Jillette says drives the enter-prise, and to be sure, he and Rifkin have offered a fanboy’s wet dream of rewards for those obsessed with horror movies, Jillette’s career or both. Rewards run from a dig-ital copy of the script to having Jillette follow you on Twitter for a year to—for $25,000—collecting both Rifkin’s and

Jillette’s severed ponytails. In case you have very specific voodoo needs, I guess.

The crowdfunding machine couldn’t turn as hard as it does if we weren’t so willingly Balkanized into a million little niches. If you want proof, scope out the pre-ponderance of Duck Dynasty merch flooding every aisle of your local Walmart. Convinc-ing people who aren’t genre fiction fans to shell out for a set of towels with Willie Rob-ertson’s face on them is like finding a massive, untapped oil reserve for brand-loyalty profiteers. It gives non-geeks an inroad into the exciting

world of defining themselves almost exclusively by the stuff they like. (Confidential to you newcomers—stay away from off-brand Wikipedia sites devoted strictly to the show/movie/sprawling-yet-de-pressing fantasy series you’re into. That shit will suck days off your life.)

This sort of thing used to be reserved exclusively for children and us sorry nerds who obsessed over trivia, like Grand Moff Tarkin’s first name was “Wilhuff.” (And if you have no idea what I’m talking about, congratula-tions on your respectable dating record in high school.) That part of it works espe-cially well for a horror jam, where fans have been faithful and single-minded longer than most independent city-states of geek.

But there’s a flipside to that kind of militant fandom. It taps into a sense of ownership that buying tickets, DVDs, posters, lunch boxes, key chains and Grand Moff Tarkin

replica cheekbones doesn’t quite confer. It also, though, taps into a slew of delight-ful anxieties: fear of missing out on cool extras; inferior-ity about the quality of one’s fandom compared to those kicking in a couple hundred bucks; dread at not seeing a project come to completion because it fell just short of the finish line.

It’s become a form of cultural tithing, demanding sacrifice and discipline from the faithful for the glory of the greater good.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, mind you. It essential-ly just democratizes the con-cept of patronage. Only now instead of Lorenzo de’ Medici shelling out a mountain of florins from his vast fortune for a nice da Vinci paint-ing or two, it’s thousands of people distributing a little cash from their tiny fortunes to see Jillette kidnap and torture someone on camera. Either way someone’s getting a last supper.

Everybody in the Producer’s Pool

Penn Jillette’s Director’s Cut takes crowdfunding to the logical

extreme by funding a movie about crowdfunding

By J S

PENN JILLETTE WANTS to be bad. It’s a perfectly reasonable re-quest. After all, who among us hasn’t entertained thoughts of Hostel-ing some anonymous tourists/obnoxious celebri-ties/friends and co-workers? (Hah-hah, just kidding friends

and co-workers. Maybe.)And who are we to deny

him?Jillette is teaming up with

director Adam Rifkin (Look,

Detroit Rock City) to do Director’s

Cut, a horror flick-within-a-horror-flick that casts the genial magician as the movie’s big bad. He may have used the words “hulking, evil sas-quatch” to describe himself. Or at least his character.

More to the point: Jil-lette wants you to be the one to make him the bad guy. Through a crowdfunding

campaign at FundAnything.com, Jillette and Rifkin are aiming to secure $1 million to finance the picture. As of October 14, more than 2,700 people have contributed to the tune of $585,000-plus.

It’s enough to actually start the moviemaking process, pushing everything into pre-production. That’s rare, to start a crowdfunded film before the full goal has been met, but Jillette is confident that the campaign will hit the $1 million mark by the November 2 deadline.

Jillette isn’t the first to leverage celebrity to pay for a movie in the Wild Crowd-

fundin’ West—Zach Braff netted more than $3 million on Kickstarter for Wish I Was

Here, and Spike Lee pulled in $1.4 million for The Newest

Hottest Spike Lee Joint (which he insisted is not a Blacula remake, unfortunately). And this isn’t the first notable Vegas-related crowdfund-ing venture, either. The Save the Huntridge campaign on IndieGoGo was worth $200,000, including dona-tions from the Killers and the Pawn Stars cast.

He is, however, the first to use actual crowdfunding to do a movie that’s about crowdfunding a movie. (And also murder, but that’s some-what beside the point.) It’s a metatextual Ouroboros, but with PayPal.

The reasons for that seem

to have as much to do with the confluence of trend and technology that have pushed crowdfunding to the forefront of independent arts proj-ects as they do with timing. (Donate to a horror movie in October when the entirety of my film-watching time is spent watching Texas Chainsaw

Massacre murder supercuts while shoveling Frankenberry into my gaping maw? Sure!)

Jillette’s own personal bois-terous fandom is a factor, too. Of the making of mall-zombie masterwork Dawn of the Dead, Jillette notes, “If you’d have told me I could have a script as they were shooting with

HE IS THE FIRST TO USE ACTUAL CROWDFUNDING TO DO

A MOVIE THAT’S ABOUT CROWDFUNDING A MOVIE. IT’S A

METATEXTUAL OUROBOROS, BUT WITH PAYPAL.

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television

on october 19, Las Vegans will have the chance to get a semi-private lesson in the science and technol-ogy of hoax-debunking, when Ben Hansen and Ben McGee give their Area 51 lecture, “Investigating UFO Videos: The Hoaxes & The Truly Un-explained” at the National Atomic Testing Museum.

Hansen, the host and lead investi-gator of Syfy’s Fact or Faked: Para-normal Files, begins each episode by huddling with his team for a pitch session. They show photos and vid-eos of incidents they’ve gathered, and together choose two to pursue for the show. During this exercise, certain (alleged) ghost, Bigfoot and UFO sightings are dismissed out of hand. The team cites factors that are obvious to them. For example: The “ghost” is a composite made by a video-production company.

To uneducated viewers, the tricks aren’t so obvious, which explains the need for shows such as Fact or Faked and McGee’s National Geo-graphic series, Chasing UFOs. They deter would-be hoaxers, a population whose growth, Hansen says, has been facilitated by the accessibility of videotaping, editing and publishing technology.

Hansen and McGee will share their craft at the Las Vegas event. “Let’s say you get to a site where someone witnessed a crash,” Hansen says. “What are you look-ing for? What are clues to

explain what people have seen?”Although he’s broadened his in-

vestigative toolbox to include a wide range of skills, Hansen’s specialty is detecting deception. His bachelor’s degree in sociology (emphasis on criminology) led him to several law-enforcement posts, including one as a special agent for the FBI. There, he cultivated a keen eye for the cues that someone’s lying—a skill he’s spent years honing with cutting-edge techniques, such as neurolin-guistic programming and layered voice analysis. McGee, meanwhile, is a geoscientist. He brings a healthy dose of skepticism to field analysis, eliminating possibilities by examin-ing the physical evidence.

Does this mean UFO investigators depart from the assumption that every incident is faked? “No, not at all,” Hansen says. “I’ve had at least three sightings myself, and I found it difficult to believe they were all military phenomena, because of the level of sophistication of what

I saw.”On the other hand, he

says, 95 percent of sight-ings are either hoaxed or not what the viewers think. The public benefits from the study of ufology only if proponents such as he and McGee are the harshest critics of what they see, subjecting each claim to the rigors of the discipline before present-ing it to the world as a possibility.

The Debunk-O SquaDTV hosts’ lecture to turn a critical eye on alleged

supernatural phenomena

By Heidi Kyser

UFO or Photoshop? SyFy’s Ben Hansen has the answer.

investigating UFo videos:

the hoaxes & the trUly Unexplained

6 p.m. meet-and-greet, 7 p.m. lecture, Oct. 19, National Atomic Testing Museum, $30 ($20 for mu-seum members),

794-5151.

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movies

[ by tribune media services ]short reviews

Captain phillips is a Tom Hanks movie. It is also a Paul Greengrass movie, and the cinematic tumult director Greengrass adroitly captures and sustains in the service of a narrative has a way of keeping his stars unmoored—in a good way—while trumping conventional Hollywood notions of a star vehicle.

Heroism exists in a Greengrass picture. But the British-born, documentary-trained director, best known for United 93 and the second and third Bourne thrillers, is more interested in messy, lucky-to-be-alive, real-world heroism than in movie-world heroism. Greengrass sees the world as a complicated place; his preferred, jabbing editing rhythms and camera proxim-ity ensure that audiences experience it the same way.

Capt. Richard Phillips is all business. So is Hanks’ portrayal.

In 2009 the Massachusetts-born, Vermont-based U.S. Merchant Marine commander of the cargo ship Maersk Alabama, overseeing three different sets of union crews

and union crew regulations, encountered four pirates who made their way to the U.S.-registered ship in a small craft off the coast of Somalia in the Gulf of Aden. Phillips’ crew of 20 had been undergoing a safety drill; then the radar signifed the approach of an unidentifed intruder. Because the container cargo ship was sailing in notorious pirate-infested waters, Phillips knew how much potential trouble was afoot. Written by Billy Ray, inspired by Phillips’ own ac-count of what happened next, the flm tightens the screws for 134 minutes and relays how Phillips ended up in a lifeboat with his captors, on dwindling rations, waiting for the Navy SEALs to resolve a highly pres-surized situation.

To honorably mixed results, Greengrass and Ray do their best to allow the Somali char-acters and the actors (new to professional acting) playing them some room to establish Phillips’ adversaries as human beings, albeit brutal and desper-ate ones. Barkhad Abdi, hired out of the Somali immigrant

community of Minneapolis, plays the rife-slinging leader, a fsherman by trade, forced into his second and treacherous line of work by economic and politi-cal crises (touched upon briefy in the early scenes).

The world’s instability is connected by human threads, as is made clear in a prologue conversation on the way to the airport between Phillips and his justifably worried wife (Catherine Keener, reduced to a one-scene player in the fnal edit). The pair talk about the uncertain universe their chil-dren, about to enter a diffcult global workforce, are inherit-ing. But as the rest of the movie makes plain, there are diffcult economic straits and then

there are poverty-stricken-Somali-fshermen-turned-pirates economic straits.

We get to know members of the cargo ship crew only in fts and starts (Chris Mulkey, a valuable character actor, plays one). It’s Hanks’ show, though some may be surprised to see how little of the usual emo-tional hooks and beats intrude on the procedural at hand.

Captain Phillips is one of Greengrass’ good flms, if not one of his terrifc ones. Some-times, in screaming close-ups of the Somali actors, you wish he and cinematographer Barry Ackroyd would back off a little. Going for clarity of line and context, the script stints on offhanded details of character.

For better or worse, Greengrass’ preferred method of fact-based storytelling sees the forest frst and the trees second.

When Hanks comes out the other side of his character’s blood-spattered experience, there’s a scene as strong as any Greengrass or Hanks has managed in other sorts of movies. It’s not long (we’re destined to sit through bits of it repeatedly come awards season). It’s just about perfect in its wrenching emotion, expressed by an actor up to acting in a Greengrass docu-drama with as little capital-A Acting as possible.

Captain Phillips (PG-13)

★★★✩✩

Machete Kills (R) ★★✩✩✩The latest grindhouse sequel from director

Robert Rodriguez is, well, a played-up joke.

Danny Trejo returns as the avenging, hacking

and cutting Mexican known as Machete. He’s

got catchphrases galore: “Machete don’t

smoke”; “Machete don’t joke”; etc. He survives

a hanging, battles with a drug lord (Demian

Bichir), and an assassin named “El Cameleón”

played by Cuba Gooding Jr., Antonio Banderas

and Lady Gaga. There are cameos and vio-

lence galore, very little of it truly amusing, as

it’s meant to be. And there are trailers for yet

another film that hopefully does not get made.

Runner Runner (R) ★★✩✩✩In this thrill-free thriller, we meet Richie Furst

(Justin Timberlake), a Wall Street dropout

who’s trying to hustle his way through grad

school at Princeton through online gambling.

Turns out, he gets cheated, and after some

digging, he heads to Costa Rica to confront

the online gaming kingpin, Ivan Block (Ben Af-

fleck). Ivan likes his moxie, and next thing you

know, Richie’s his right-hand man, crunching

numbers, recruiting “affiliates” and making

eyes at the boss’ babe (Gemma Arterton).

This is a bad film, and not what we expect of

its stars.

Gravity (PG-13) ★★★★✩The latest from filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón is

a nerve-wracking visual experience. If your

stomach can take it, it’s something to see.

Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a medical

engineer and newbie astronaut. Matt Kowalski

(George Clooney) is a veteran space walker.

They and their colleagues are wrapping up a

space shuttle mission involving an add-on to

the Hubble telescope when disaster strikes.

The rest of the film finds Stone’s and Kow-

alski’s oxygen levels depleting while Stone

attempts to reach something to hold onto.

Don Jon (R) ★★★✩✩Joseph Gordon-Levitt writes, directs and

stars in this ambitious, crafty feature about

Jon (Gordon-Levitt) who’s somewhat ad-

dicted to sex, both real and online. When he

falls for Barbara (Scarlett Johansson), who

looks like a million sexual daydreams come

true, Jon’s “real” life scuffles up against his

“imagined” one as he becomes more of an

adult. The filmmaking is impressively solid

and the casting is spot-on in this modern-day

lothario tale.

sea tom runHanks brings realism to heroic role in the

tense thriller Captain Phillips

By Michael Phillips Tribune Media Services

No eye patches, no parrots, but the pirates are brutal confronting Tom Hanks in Captain Phillips.

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How did you go about curat-ing Life Is Beautiful?

What I wanted to create in this two-story motel [pic-tured]—using the frst story and a few rooms on top—was an understanding of an art journey. So I’m starting off with a 10-year-old painter who has never really taken an art lesson until recently. Then I’m going to display works from

Las Vegas Academy—I seldom get shocked when it comes to art, [but] I was left with my jaw scraping the pavement when I saw what they’re doing over there. Then I’m going to fea-ture Las Vegas-based artists—early career, mid career. I want the community and I want the festival-goers to get a good idea of what is coming out of the art world in Las Vegas.

How should we approach The Odyssey at Life Is Beautiful?

Come into it free of any earlier baggage, any concerns, trepidation, apprehension, lack of understanding for art—just come on in. Immerse yourself. Look at the journey of how that 10-year-old has been creating art since he was 4. Look all the way around to William T. Wiley, who has international repre-

sentation, and see how far he’s gotten. Visit with the artists and talk to them. That’s how it be-gins. Don’t worry about saying the wrong thing. I say the wrong thing every day. Do not take any offense to any possible snob-bism or elitism that may come your way. Take a look at that work. Do you like it? Do you not like it? Why? Ask the inquiring questions. Validate your feeling through conversation.

Why are people often intimi-dated by art?

Because artists and some-times gallerists come off as these elite snobs. I’ve seen it all over the world. It’s off-putting. … Globally, the art community has not made it friendly. And while our gallerists here are fabulous, they could be better, and I told them that in a panel discussion when I said, “You really suck at selling, but I’m here to show you how to sell because I sold jewelry for 32 years. I could sell a 40-carat diamond just as easily as I could sell a $200 painting.” I’m going to put together a group of artists and gallerists, and teach them how to communi-cate [with] that client.

You hear these gallerists yack about First Friday—“Oh, there’s nothing to do with art.” Really? You mean your kind of art? Your high-academic kind of MFA art. Guess what? It ain’t all MFA art. Those are still people who have something to say, and they’re using canvas or whatever materials to say it. They’re artists.

Any advice for a person who’s interested in collect-ing art but doesn’t know where to start?

First, don’t worry about the money. I used to buy Sol LeWitt paintings with grocery money. ... If you can apportion part of one’s net worth to acquire a piece, do it. If it’s a piece that you saw in a gallery that really moved you, it’s going to move you every day when it’s in your own home. It becomes part of you, and you become part of it. Then you’re stung. Then you start to branch out, and it takes awhile. There’s no road race. You begin to hone your own interests, desires, mediums, and there’s this wonderful research journey that can take place … if one wants to. Collect-ing isn’t a have to; I don’t have to collect, but I want to. It gives me the position to know that I can

help 350 artists’ careers just by acquiring, living with, donating or lending [their art].

As you know being the presi-dent of the Las Vegas Art Museum and on the boards of The Smith Center and The Neon Museum, this isn’t the most art-receptive city. How can we change that?

Gallerists, curators and art people need to listen to the many and not make deci-sions for the few. Find out what our city likes and doesn’t like—[maybe] it’s a senior-citizen water-color group. … If your community wants an art museum, it will tell you. If your community, as I’ve experienced with the Las Vegas Art Museum, doesn’t support it—if you’ve only got one one-hundredth of one percent supporting that museum—you may not have an art community here. However, you do have a performing-arts community. My idea—because Las Vegas is very comfortable with performance and music and dance and great shows—is to try to mix the two together harmoniously.

How do you know when you want a piece of art?

It doesn’t go to the mind, the intellectual or the academic. It has to hit me in the pit of my stomach. If it’s a painting, and I see that luscious brushstroke, and if they know how to really work paint, I’m all about it. Then I can go over to a very, very serene monochromatic work that’s ultramarine blue. Then I can go to a William Wiley sculpture that I have in the liv-ing room, this funky-ass sculp-ture that I have to put together every time I move. It doesn’t matter. It just always makes me feel good when I’m around it.

Who are your favorite Las Vegas-based artists?

My gosh, there are some great ones here. I’m entranced and in love with Tim Bavington, with Shawn Hummel, with RC Wonderly. David Ryan also is an incredible, unique artist. I gotta tell you, many of our—and I can’t remember their names, I’m ashamed to say—UNLV grads are fabulous. And get up off your butts, get over to LVA and look at what they’re doing, because you’re going to be shocked. I’m still shocked over it.

I could go on. I could give you a list that could choke a horse.

Patrick DuffyThe president of the Las Vegas Art Museum on curating

Life Is Beautiful, art world snobbery and the joy of collecting

By Cindi Moon Reed

AS THE CHIEF “experience” offcer for Diamond Resorts International, Patrick Duffy trains the com-pany’s 6,000 employees in the “Meaning of Yes.” The philosophy implies an openness to every-thing, and it’s one that Duffy is apt to embody—particularly when his focus turns to his passion: A prominent Las Vegas art collector, Duffy has more than 350 pieces in his private collection and several more hanging in his offce as “overfow” (his most recent acquisition is a Giacomo Manzù bronze sculpture). These days, the philanthropist and art enthusiast is busy curating The Odyssey: A Visual Art Experience in the Town Lodge Motel for the Life Is Beautiful festival October 26-27.