Sex doctor, Las Vegas Sun, July 15, 1998

Finding Sex-cess Lisa Ferguson Wednesday, July 15, 1998 | 10:19 a.m. There's not much you can say to shock Dr. Carole Altman. The retired Las Vegas sex therapist has heard it all -- from bizarre sexual fetishes and routines to peculiar psychological hang-ups. "I always say if you're not hurting yourself or your partner, it's fine," Altman says in the living room of her northwest valley home. Viewers of KVBC Channel 3's midday newscasts will recognize her as the "Love Doctor." She hosts the show's weekly sex-related news segment on Fridays. Her topics have ranged from the romantic lure of the late Frank Sinatra to the wonders of the impotence drug Viagra. "I talk a lot about how sexuality is a very healthy, fabulous, wonderful level of energy," she says, "and ... not to have that sexual zest for life gives you a lack of energy, a lack of color." Response to the sexy segment has been favorable according to the show's producer, Joyce Kotnik. Altman has received a handful of letters from viewers, which she's answered on the air and through private correspondence. "We're (slotted) against the soap operas, so it kind of helps" boost ratings to broach such romance-laden subjects, Kotnik says. "Especially being against soap operas like 'The Bold and the Beautiful,' you have to get a little bit risque. "I think some people are afraid to talk about sex in a sense, so when (Altman) comes out and just tells the truth about it, we seem to get a good reaction." Late last year, Altman, a New York native, purged the files of about 300 of her former patients in search of titillating tales to include in her recently published book, aptly titled "From the Files of a Sex Therapist" (Lifetime Books, Inc., $14.95). While the book offers a "voyeuristic look" into her patients' bedrooms, "my feeling, positively, is that it helps you to become much less judgmental" about people's sexual eccentricities, she says. "You realize people love in very different ways and it's O.K. for them and you don't have to judge them." Still a few of the anecdotes will likely leave you shaking your head in disbelief -- or perplexed curiosity. Altman counseled one couple whose lovemaking included the use of a chicken egg, culminating with the man crowing like a rooster. The couple, admitting that even they found the act a bit ridiculous, sought Altman's advice. "I looked at her very intently and said, 'Is it O.K. with you?' and she said, 'Yeah ... I don't mind,' and I said, 'Then it's fine.' She said she just wanted to know if she was crazy or not." But at least the pair was concerned enough to question their sexual relationship rather that wait until it went awry. "If the sex is not good, it's a very, very big deal," Altman says. With most couples, "it's interesting because the undertone is there: The woman or the man doesn't say, 'I'm sexually frustrated and that's why this is all going on,' but they are. "There's a lack of flow in your life ... when you're with somebody and you're not being catered to sexually," she says. "If you were lying in bed next to somebody and they're not interested in you, that's hurtful ... so you have this pain that's not conscious, it's not expressed ... it's just an emptiness, it's something that's not being fulfilled and it's sadness." In another chapter, Altman writes of a client who suffered an obsessive-compulsive disorder -- he was severely preoccupied with cleanliness -- which prevented him from having intimate relationships with women. "I rolled him in the mud; I did all kinds of stuff. I took him out on his boat and I wouldn't let him take a shower. It just didn't work," she says. While Altman considers the case one of her failures, "he's kind of happy with his life; this is how he has to be." "From the Files of a Sex Therapist" is Altman's second book. Her first, 1977's "You Can Be Your Own Sex Therapist" (Casper Publishing, revised in 1997), is "a step-by-step program to cure sexual dysfunction." It was recognized by the American Medical Writer's Association as the best medical book penned by a non-medical writer. The grandmother of four began writing about sex three decades ago and has published articles in Cosmopolitan, Harpers Bazarr, Nevada Women and Penthouse Forum magazines. She has also appeared on "Good Morning America" and "Sally Jesse Raphael." Though she's no longer in private practice, she continues to write and hosts lectures and workshops for groups throughout the country. Quick to debunk myths about sex, one of Altman's favorites to quash is that sex must be spontaneous in order to be exciting and enjoyable. "When you're married and you have children, there is nothing spontaneous about it," she contends. "Maybe once in a while in the shower, but even that is planned: You go into the shower with your husband and something could happen, but if you don't go in, nothing's going to happen. "I say this a lot: 'People spend more time planning the menu for dinner than the menu for love, and I don't only mean sex -- I mean love." She urges couples to leave kids with the grandparents, light a couple of candles and get down to business on a regular basis. "Plan it and you'd be surprised -- that moment can keep you going for another week or two, and then you do it again." But the key to a sex-cessful relationship, Altman assures, rests in a formula she devised, called "The Three R's: respect, recognition and reward. "Do you really respect your partner in every way? Do you treat your partner better than you would treat any stranger?" she asks. "Do you tell them 'Thank you for this' and 'Thank you for that'? Do you tell them how good they look ... and do you reward them?" Altman discourages peck-type kisses between partners. "I tell people, 'Kiss for 30 seconds, really involve yourself with the other person.' "People don't make eye contact," she says. "You have to look at each other, you have to share everything that you feel about each other. If you don't share the dark side (of the relationship), then the light side can never really be light. "I try to stress those Three R's, and if you have them in your life, you're going to have the best sex," she contends, "because if you're rewarded, recognized and respected, you're going to ... want to share yourself and that's what sex is all about." Take Altman's relationship with her new husband, Rick Cobb, for example. The pair met while playing poker at the Mirage hotel-casino and married 2-and- a-half years ago. "I don't think I've ever given that man a cup of coffee that he didn't say thank you for," she says. "We're very happy with each other, which, when you're happy, sex is happy; life is happy." archive

Dorothy Hamill, Las Vegas Sun, July 1, 1998

Dorothy Hamill skates into LV to ‘Enter the Night’ Lisa Ferguson Wednesday, July 1, 1998 | 10:18 a.m. It's hard to believe, but even Dorothy Hamill has bad hair days. And they've been more frequent than not in recent years, according to the 1976 U.S. Olympic gold medal figure skater, whose famous "wedge" hairstyle started a fashion craze. These days, her simple brown bob is sprinkled with strands of gray. "It's completely different than it used to be," Hamill says. She began a nearly two-month stint starring/skating in "Enter the Night" at the Stardust hotel-casino this week. "I used to take my hair for granted," the 42-year-old mother of a preteen daughter says. "Now I'm just grateful that I have any, I guess." She's also grateful for an opportunity to perform the pair of skating scenes in "Enter the Night." Summer, Hamill says, is notoriously a tough time of year for figure skaters to find steady work. "I just thought, not only was it a good opportunity, it would be something that I have not done," she says, explaining that in the 22 years since winning the Olympic medal, she has starred in large and small skating shows. "But never in a dance ... show that has skating in it, so it's kind of fun." But not without its challenges, namely the show's compact ice surface (15 ft. by 30 ft.). It's the smallest surface Hamill has ever skated on, and has presented some choreography obstacles. During the first few days of rehearsals, she and her choreographer "got absolutely nothing done. We were going around in circles trying to figure out how we would do this," she says. While she is able to perform her trademark "Hamill Camel" spin in the show, "jumping is next to impossible," she says. "Obviously, the choreography has to be more intricate ... because you really can't glide (that short length) and, of course, that's what skating's all about," she says. "So trying to make the skating still look as though it's flowing and interesting" has been tough. Hamill is just glad to be skating and not calling the production's shots, as was the case when she and her former husband purchased the famed "Ice Capades" touring show in the early 1990s, after it had gone into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. "We didn't want to see a great trademark in ice skating disappear," she explains. Though she starred in the company's productions of "Cinderella" and "Hansel and Gretel," Hamill also had a large hand in managing its operations, a task she describes as "difficult. "And with the partners, they wanted me to do all of it and as a human being, you can't," she says. The creative end of things suffered greatly. "They didn't want to spend money on anything. "When they started not wanting to pay for good skaters, that's when I said, 'Guys, I think you've got the wrong partner here.' I couldn't be involved with something that wasn't going to treat the skaters right." Hamill sold Ice Capades three years ago, and the company ceased operating more than a year ago. For the past few years, Hamill, a resident of Baltimore, has done some figure skating commentating for the Fox network. She continues to tour and plans to be on the road with a pair of traveling shows next winter. "I really try ... to choose projects that are the most fun, (require) the least time away from home and are the most creative," she says. But then, Hamill knows she can't be too choosy. "At my age, I know that the time will come when they don't ask," she says, "so I'm thankful that anybody asks anymore." archive

Actress Elena Ferrante, Las Vegas Sun, July 7, 1998

Give her regards to Vegas Lisa Ferguson Tuesday, July 7, 1998 | 10:01 a.m. It was love for a man that brought Elena Ferrante to Las Vegas. She followed him -- and her heart -- here in 1992. But it was another love -- that of musical theater -- which took her away earlier this year. During the more than five years that Ferrante -- a singer/dancer/actress who has performed on Broadway -- resided in Southern Nevada, she directed and starred in several productions for the local Actors Repertory Theatre, including "Brigadoon" and "Fiddler on the Roof." She also played Gen. Matilda Cartwright, and understudied veteran actress Maureen McGovern's role of Adelaide, in the musical "Guys & Dolls," opposite Frank Gorshin, when it played the Sheraton Desert Inn in 1995. All the while, the New Jersey native divided her time between acting stints here and on the East Coast. "It was a juggling act," she says, "but it was a challenge and I rise to those challenges." But when another big name musical -- the Tony Award-winning "Ragtime" -- came calling late last year, Ferrante packed up and headed for New York (which is now her home base) where she lives during performance breaks of the production's first national tour, which kicked off in April at Washington, D.C.'s National Centre. Next month "Ragtime" moves to the Denver Center for a six-week run before heading to Minneapolis, Seattle and Boston later this year to play a series of extensive dates. The overhead costs of owning homes in both Las Vegas and New York was "too much. So you can see why I had to consolidate my life," Ferrante says. "I'm living out of suitcase and a trunk for the next year. "It's a little crazy, but it is actually kind of freeing in a way because you just live with what you have." The rest of her belongings are in deep storage, she says. "I have my computer; I have my car; I have my dog; I have my clothes; and the other stuff you kind of pick up as you go along." And what about the man? "He's a great guy whom I still love," Ferrante, 33, says coyly. Did their relationship endure the move? "Kind of." What has endured -- thrived, even -- is Ferrante's career. Last year, she starred in the dual roles of Aurora and the Spider Woman in a San Francisco production of "Kiss of the Spider Woman." She spent last summer in Europe tackling the role of Anita in a German production of "West Side Story." "I had to speak the lines in German with a Puerto Rican flair and sing in English," she says. "I love (playing) these strong women that really have to make a difference to the story," Ferrante says. She previously portrayed Eva Peron in a Florida production of "Evita," and "Funny Girl's" Fanny Brice in New Jersey. On Broadway, she played Bess Truman in "Senator Joe," and, in a Las Vegas A.R.T. production of "Mrs. Warren's Profession," she starred as Vivie Warren. Up to that point, Ferrante had enjoyed lighter roles with A.R.T., according to its founder and artistic director, Georgia Neu. After working through a few obstacles with the Vivie Warren character, "she came back and she read (for the part) the second day and she was it," Neu says, calling Ferrante "very professional. She absolutely demands the best of people (and is) an absolutely wonderful performer. "If she gets staging and music (directions) one day, she doesn't come back with it the next day in her hand, she comes back with it memorized, ready to go," Neu says. "She's a Broadway performer; we were just incredibly fortunate to be able to have her here for a while." In "Ragtime," Ferrante wears the hats of two characters -- Mrs. Houdini and Brigit, the latter serving as the family's maid, the Baron's assistant and stenographer -- and understudies the role of Emma Goldman. As Mrs. Houdini, "I play this Hungarian, proud mama," she explains, "and then, a little later (in the show, as Brigit), I play this feisty Irish maid," so her characters' brogues change during the performance. "It's a fun challenge; you put on a costume and you change your character. "I like the challenge of playing different characters," she says, "and it's a compliment to my work because (the directors and producers) trust that I can do different things." Working behind the scenes is one of them. "I really enjoy directing and producing and did a lot of that when I was in Las Vegas, and it was very exciting," she says. "Whatever you have to do to get theater across to the people, it really excites me." Ferrante hopes to see more large-scale theatrical works presented to Las Vegas audiences in the future. "I think the theater companies there really believe in theater and they want the people who live there to have theater in their lives," she says. "I really, really hope that all of the theater companies that are working so hard there to make their mark will get that in return." What about her return to Las Vegas someday? "I have no problem coming back and doing a show or directing a show there because I believe in the city." archive

Sammy Hagar, Las Vegas Sun, Aug. 22, 1997

Sammy Hagar goes solo Lisa Ferguson Friday, Aug. 22, 1997 | 9:22 a.m. Sammy Hagar is convinced there's only one way to rock: Alone. Especially since his much-publicized departure from the rock band Van Halen last year. Hagar, 49, who had replaced former frontman David Lee Roth in 1985, spent more than a decade composing and crooning the band's multiple hit songs ("Right Now," "Feels So Good," "Dreams") with legendary guitarist Eddie Van Halen, his brother, drummer Alex Van Halen, and bassist Michael Anthony. "The songwriting team of Eddie Van Halen and Sammy Hagar was pretty sophisticated," he says. "We just became so versatile." But plans for a greatest hits album last summer sparked feuding among the guys. When Roth was, at least temporarily, brought back on board, Hagar hit the road. (Or was he booted out? Hagar recently told the Toledo Blade that he received a phone call from Eddie Van Halen telling him " '... we got David Lee Roth back. We're going to go on tour. You can go back to being a solo artist.' ") While Van Halen's camp contends the divorce was all Hagar's idea, he cites irreconcilable differences. "Eddie and I just wanted to go different directions and that's all there was to it," he says. "Eddie wanted to be more of an instrumentalist and I wanted to be more of a singer-songwriter." Within two months of the split, Hagar -- formerly a member of the band Montrose who had enjoyed moderate success as a solo artist in the late '70s and early '80s (remember "I Can't Drive 55?") -- headed back into the recording studio on his own again. "Being in a band is a constant compromise. Everyone has to be pleased with each other," Hagar says, calling from Portland, Ore. between stops on his "Marching to Mars" tour, which plays the Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts on Sunday. "After you've recorded a song and rewrote it and recorded it again and then threw it out and started over again," the concept "would become a different thing when four people finished with it. After 11 years of that, I was real anxious to do everything my way." It didn't take him long to round up a few musician friends -- Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart, Huey Lewis, former Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash among them -- and the nearly $500,000 he needed to produce the record of his dreams. "I didn't care about having a record company give me the money first. I knew what I wanted to do and I just started doing it." It's the gist of the funky tune, "Would You Do It For Free?" You're in love with what you do/ Are you satisfied?/ Is your heart straight and true/Or did money make you tell that cold-faced lie?" "I don't do things for money," Hagar says. "You do this because you think this is right and because this is what you want to do. I ain't saying I want to do it for free, but I would. That's the difference." One that comes through in the disc's 11 tracks, of which the acoustic-tinged "Little White Lie," the first release, was No. 37 on Billboard's rock track chart this week. "With a little help from friends old and new, Hagar made sure that 'Marching to Mars' resonates with positive vibes and rays of enlightenment," wrote Sandy Masuo of Launch Online Magazine. "The synergy that Hagar's cast of players generate is anchored to songwriting that's equally strong, and clinching it are some of Hagar's best vocals to date." "Every album I've ever done comes from the heart," Hagar explains. "This one has a lot more energy and enthusiasm. The freedom of being able to write and (record) any song I wanted to was so exciting that everything just came pouring out of me." The process was reminiscent of Van Halen's earlier days, when "spontaneity" was key, he says. Pointing to their '86 offering, "5150,' Hagar explains: "We didn't beat that album to death. We went into the studio fresh ... we wrote the songs, recorded them" and released the CD. "All we cared about was getting out on tour." For "Marching to Mars," Hagar says, "The best way to put it is that I left the goose bumps on my album. I didn't polish then off. I didn't rehash it. I wrote the songs and I did it. I don't know if that's good or bad, but for me, it's more pleasurable and more fulfilling." As for his former bandmates, Hagar harbors, well, at least not much ill will. "How can you hate someone that you loved for 10 years? You can't." Still, he adds with a chuckle: "I hope they have a few damn problems without me." Otherwise, he says, "that would make me feel like (expletive). That's what happened to (Roth)." The latter's post-Van Halen career careened down the rock 'n' roll toilet. "I don't want that to happen to me." But even if it did, Hagar has something to fall back on: He's also the proprietor of the Cabo Wabo Cantina in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, where he's known to stop in and play unannounced gigs free-of-charge. "It's my vacation spot, it's my jam spot, it's my release. It takes care of a whole other element of my life," Hagar says of the hotspot that shares the block with trendy Planet Hollywood and Hard Rock Cafe outlets. "I have the cheapest beers, the cheapest drinks, the cheapest food in town." And the 'Waborita," Hagar's personal spin on a traditional margarita. Its ingredients include a splash of a Mexican aphrodisiac. "I'm telling you right now, it is the finest drink you'll ever taste," he assures. A few lucky concertgoers seated in the front row Sunday night will get a swig, as Hagar mixes one up and passes it around during the show. "I beg people not to (horde) it, just sip it. I want 10 people (to share) per cup. Don't worry, there's enough alcohol to kill all the germs." archive

Alex Van Halen, Las Vegas Sun, Oct. 2, 1998

Wailin’ with Van Halen Lisa Ferguson Friday, Oct. 2, 1998 | 9:21 a.m. Imagine there are people around the world -- eyebrows raised, arms arrogantly folded -- just waiting for you to disappoint them. Now, take a seat behind a drum kit set up in a room full of them. Welcome to Alex Van Halen's world. The drummer shares this scrutiny with three others -- his guitar-god brother, Eddie Van Halen, bassist Michael Anthony and singer Gary Cherone -- who comprise the rock band Van Halen. Together the foursome, which plays The Joint at the Hard Rock tonight and Saturday, has spent the better part of this year trying to prove that it still has the musical stamina to weather its third, highly-publicized incarnation with the addition of Cherone, the group's third frontman in two decades. It comes as no surprise to Alex Van Halen that some fans and critics are still wavering about the change. "I think it's obvious that some people are kind of sitting on the fence waiting to see what happens," he says. "First of all, it's human nature to want to see things stay the same. Maybe we're all victims of that in some way, because it certainly was not our choice," he says, to have either of the band's previous singers -- the unforgettably egocentric David Lee Roth and, most recently, Sammy Hagar, formerly of the band Montrose -- leave its lineup. Roth, who provided the vocals for most of Van Halen's signature tunes -- "Jump," "Panama," "Hot for Teacher" -- split from the band in 1985 and pursued a short-lived, laughable (i.e. his covers of -- and music videos for -- "California Girls" and "Just a Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody") solo career. Hagar, the voice behind some of Van Halen's biggest hits including "Why Can't This Be Love," "Dreams," "Right Now" and "Finish What You Started," replaced Roth shortly afterward. He, however, parted ways with the band in 1996, amid much finger-pointing from both sides. In some media reports, Hagar, who has since released a marginally successful solo album, claimed to have been booted out by the band. But he explained to the Sun last year that "Eddie and I just wanted to go (in) different directions." Meanwhile, Van Halen's camp continues to contend that he left on his own accord. "Whatever it is he said, he never said it to us," Alex Van Halen says, explaining that the band learned of Hagar's gripes while watching MTV. "If he didn't want to leave, why did he? "I understand where Hagar is going with all this: He needs press. He made a mistake, I think, by leaving and he found out very quickly. ... I guess in any relationship things change and, I hate to say it, but the bottom line is he was extremely jealous of Ed. ... He didn't want to have people yelling 'Ed-die!' when he walked on stage." Egos inflated even more at a reunion with Roth last year. The band had contemplated bringing him back into the mix for its "Van Halen -- Best of -- Volume 1" disc. Backstage at a televised MTV awards program on which they appeared, Van Halen says,, "it was 'The Dave Hour.' If anybody asked Ed a question about a song or this, that or the other, Roth just freaked out." The scene effectively squelched the reunion plans. "You know, the reality of it is, I think people remember the past. They remember the band with Roth, when Roth was at his peak. I think that people would better live with the memory than the reality. Trust me, we were in the studio (with Roth) and it ain't a pretty site." Now it's Cherone's turn at the mike. Formerly of the pop-metal band Extreme ("More Than Words"), he hooked up with Van Halen through a mutual friend. "Gary was basically ... a singer without a band and we were a band without a singer," Van Halen explains. "It's not like he was a big fan, I don't think, of Van Halen. He knew of our music and vice versa. More than his musical talents, the main criteria for bringing Cherone aboard was whether or not he and the bandmates got along. After a week spent hanging out at the recording studio with them, Van Halen recalls, the deal was set. According to Eddie Van Halen, he couldn't have asked for better collaboration than what he has with Cherone, who penned most of the lyrics for the group's latest offering, "Van Halen III." He told the Boston Globe that "his lyrics are not all about female body parts. And there's a sense of humor. ... Everything's not blatantly in your face, so there's room for your imagination. "A lot of people, because of our past, will think some of these lyrics are pretentious. But they're not. Every damn thing on this record is for real and from the heart. There's not a contrived note or lyric on it. It's based on personal experiences, or other people's experiences." But so far, reviews on Cherone and the CD have been mixed. Steve Morse of the Boston Globe wroter earlier this year that the disc "will surprise many fans who view the group as 'America's premier party band,' to quote Eddie. ... But there's now more meaning to the songs, courtesy of Cherone." But Chris Riemenschneider of Cox News Service wrote that the disc is evidence that "the new Van Halen is simply no fun," laying some of the blame on Cherone's writing. "Would-be singles 'Without You' and 'One I Want' are good enough, but probably won't be around two or three tours from now." Even Alex Van Halen had initial reservations about the disc, which he says was the result of "basically Ed cleansing his soul of a lot of frustrated years of music that he wanted to do, but nobody was really interested. "I think as a cohesive record, that may not have been the smartest thing to do but, you know, having said that, rock 'n' roll is about taking a chance and Ed really wanted to do this record, so we were in on it 100 percent. "I think there were a number of people scrutinizing this record too much, expecting that this was going to be the definitive record of where (the band) was headed into the new millennium," Alex Van Halen adds. "Well, that's not the way we operate; that's not the way we think. "I personally think that 10 years from now, people are going to look back and see this record the same way that (1981's) 'Fair Warning' was first received," which was lukewarm, he says, "because it was more musically-oriented and it was not your 'hit'-type record. This record demands a little bit more listening ... It's not something you can really understand completely upon first listening." Following a tour of Japan later this month, Van Halen will head back into the recording studio in early 1999 to record its 11th album -- with all of the same band members in place. At least, that's the plan. "I think we all have enough experience under our belts that (losing another singer) is not going to happen," Van Halen says. "Creatively, without question, it's gonna work." archive

Duncan Sheik, Las Vegas Sun, April 11, 1997

Rock spotlight a bit hot for mellow Sheik Lisa Ferguson Friday, April 11, 1997 | 11:59 a.m. It would come as no surprise if Duncan Sheik was gasping for air these days. The singer-songwriter has hardly had a chance to catch his breath since his first single, "Barely Breathing," hit the modern rock and pop airwaves and soared up the music charts. It recently reached No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 100. If only he could have seen it coming. "It's too much, isn't it," said Sheik, reflecting upon his newfound stardom during a recent tour stop in St. Louis. He'll play The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel April 17. "I was a record buyer and not a radio listener as I grew up," he explains, "so I never thought radio was going to embrace (the song), and I'm thrilled it has." Problem is, the soft-spoken Sheik, 27, feels "a bit odd" about being thrust into the spotlight after spending the last eight months opening for Jewel, Primitive Radio Gods and former Bangles singer Susanna Hoffs. During his days as a semiotics major at Brown University, he played in a band behind songstress Lisa Loeb for a year before going solo. "I'm not very comfortable with the limelight in terms of my personality," he says. "I'm not very comfortable with the whole cult-of-personality thing. (The focus) should be on the music." Especially since none of the other songs on the New Yorker's self-titled debut -- recorded in a 150-year-old French chateau -- sound anything like the popish "Breathing." Admittedly, he's much prouder of the CD's "super-mellow" offerings, such as "Days Go By" and "November," which is "in some ways closest to who I am" musically. "I'm not this depressed person, but I know that there's a certain sameness to a lot of the music I made and for me, that's the beauty. "'Barely Breathing' is fine. It's a good introduction," Sheik says, "but in some ways it has less personality. 'She Runs Away' (the next single) is much more original. It'll be a much more reactive song." The second tune on the disc, "In the Absence of Sun," is also featured on the soundtrack of the Val Kilmer flick "The Saint." "I'm the reaction against what alternative (music) has become -- this monolithic, heavy-rock kind of thing. It just became so ubiquitous," he says. "You need another aesthetic point of view for there to be more subtle music out there in the alternative-pop context. I don't think I fit in all that well, but that's why people are enjoying it." Chances are, Sheik's next record will be "in a very similar vein sonically and aesthetically." As a pet project, he'd like to produce a "more esoteric" electronic album heavy on the synthesizers. "I have this very modern side to me, as well," he says. "There are other ways to approach making music. It's just a fun thing to do."

The Verve Pipe, Las Vegas Sun, July 11, 1997

Verve plus nerve shoot band up rock Pipe-line Lisa Ferguson Friday, July 11, 1997 | 9:37 a.m. When interviewing celebrities -- especially rock stars -- you can count on playing "The Waiting Game" now and then. Without getting too technical, it goes like this: You schedule a telephone chat and wait for them to call. If it's up-and-coming modern rock band The Verve Pipe, you wait six days. Then, keyboard player Doug Corella, still groggy after a night spent in the band's cramped tour bus, calls from the only pay phone he can find -- in the women's restroom of an Austin, Tex. nightclub. The only apologies offered go to an unsuspecting female who wanders in. "Sorry, I didn't know where the phone was," he says. See, the lads from East Lansing, Mich. are still relatively new to this game, and it seems someone forgot to give them a copy of the rules. Luckily their hit tune, "The Freshmen," contains an artfully-crafted disclaimer: I won't be held responsible .../ We were merely freshman." Well, kind of. With two independent CDs and a European tour (opening for rock legends Kiss last year) under its belt, The Verve Pipe isn't exactly green to the rock 'n' roll scene. Still, it's only been with the recent success of their latest disc, "Villains" on the RCA Records label, that the five-year-old quintet has come into its own. "The Freshman," which describes two men's lamenting over the suicide of a woman both dated in college, exploded onto Top 40 radio, peaking at No. 5 on the Billboard charts. Its video is in regular rotation on MTV. On Saturday, the band -- also including the brothers Vander Ark, Brian (lead vocals) and Brad (bass), guitarist A.J. Dunning and drummer Donny Brown -- will play The Joint at the Hard Rock hotel-casino. "We kind of knew ('The Freshman') had a lot of potential," Corella says from the ladies room, "but you never really know what's gonna take off with people. I thought it would sell some records for us." It had to. "Photograph," the debut single from the year-old album, landed in the Top 10. It was followed by a tune called "Cup of Tea," which received a poor reception from radio. "I appreciate that people are digging 'The Freshman.' I think it just pulls on some heartstrings with people," 29-year-old Corella continues. "Certainly at one point, we're all freshmen. I guess it's one of those reflection pieces where you think at one point, I had that." Overall, "Villains" and The Verve Pipe have both gotten an upturned thumb from critics. "What makes The Verve Pipe more relevant than other grunge-lite artists," wrote John Weiderhorn in the June issue of Guitar World magazine, "is the way they blend strong British Invasion-style (guitar) hooks with Seattle-spawned rhythms." (But where they'd get the name? The Verve Pipe "means nothing," Corella says, explaining how they didn't want to seem "too philosophical or trite" but urge people to ask "'What the hell does it mean?' It must be working.") A graduate of Central Michigan University, Corella cites the Beatles, Elton John and English rockers XTC as the band's biggest influences. He pooh-poohs those who contend the band is merely riding on the coattails of grunge grandfathers Pearl Jam, or modern rock's most recent sensation, Live. "I think that's a person's cheap way of not really listening to the album," Corella says. "We're fans of pop music, we're fans of bands who write good songs. The fact is, I guess sometimes we're gonna cross over to those sounds. "To have an album with that much dynamics is important to us. An album is gonna have mood swings and you want your audience to be right along with you." The band will head back into the studio in October to record a fourth album, slated for release next spring. Not bad for a bunch of guys who started off playing Michigan college frat parties. "It kind of worked out for us," Corella reflects. "All you can do is move on, which is (to) the women's bathroom right here." archive

Sun Lite, Las Vegas Sun, Oct, 25, 2005

Columnist Lisa Ferguson: Sun Lite for October 25, 2004 Lisa Ferguson Monday, Oct. 25, 2004 | 8:14 a.m. Every sip counts With just about a week to go before the presidential election, get-out-and-vote messages are seemingly everywhere - even in places you'd least expect to find them. On your coffee cup, for example - assuming you buy brew at 7-Eleven. Earlier this month the convenience-store giant unveiled its line of 20-ounce hot-beverage cups emblazoned with names of George W. Bush and John Kerry. It's inviting customers nationwide, through Nov. 1, to dispense java into the container bearing his or her presidential candidate of choice (don't fret - plain cups for undecided types and third-party backers are also available). Each Bush/Kerry cup sold counts as a vote in 7-Eleven's completely unscientific, though aptly titled, Presidential Coffee Cup Poll. As of last week, the Bush cups held an ever-so-slight national lead over the Kerry cups (17.66 percent vs. 16.85 percent), though the plain cups were far ahead with 65.49 percent of the votes. In Las Vegas, the margin was even tighter: 22.65 percent for Bush, 22.48 percent for Kerry, while plain garnered 54.87 percent of the votes. Updated results are available at www.7-eleven.com. Interestingly enough, the company reports that when it held the poll in 2000, the final results mimicked those of the actual presidential election, with Bush and then-Vice President Al Gore separated by only a few percentage points in most states. Among the findings of a related survey conducted in September: Bush is the candidate of choice among 48 percent of people who prefer their coffee black, versus 42 percent for Kerry. But, among the cream-and-sugar camp, the senator has one Big Gulp of a lead (50 percent) over the president (36 percent). Got your number Another unlikely election hot spot: the screen of your cell phone. Enter SmartServ, a "mobile virtual network operator" headquartered in Plymouth Meeting, Pa., which sells its products and services at www.Uphonia.com. That's also where visitors can log on and download a free Bush/Cheney or Kerry/ Edwards cell-phone screensaver or mobile bumper sticker. Similar to the 7-Eleven setup, each download counts as a nod in Uphonia's "Vote By Phone" mobile presidential election, the results of which will be announced on Nov. 1 on the Web site. Scent of a winner Tired of politics as usual? Bored by all the health care-reform and flagrant-spending babble? The people at PartyLite hear you. In the spirit of the election season, the Plymouth, Mass.-based candle-marketing company is asking folks to forget about the real issues for a moment and instead head over to its polling place, at www.partylite.com/usa, to mark a ballot in favor of his/her favorite candle fragrance as part of the Get Out the Votives sweepstakes. Log onto the Web site by Nov. 2 and click on a box beside one of the company's three best-selling - and, presumably, best-smelling - nonpartisan candle candidates: orange cranberry, described as "a shining blend of classic American tradition"; vanilla (a "great ambassador of classic good taste"); and strawberry rhubarb (a beacon of "good old-fashioned family values"). Each vote counts as entry for the sweepstakes; one grand-prize winner - to be selected at random on Nov. 15 - will be awarded a trip for two to Hawaii, while 75 first-placers will take home a PartyLite candle package.

Comedian Tom Dreesen, Las Vegas Sun, Oct. 15, 2004

Columnist Lisa Ferguson: ‘Joy of Stand-Up’ not lost on Dreesen Lisa Ferguson Friday, Oct. 15, 2004 | 9:06 a.m. After 35 years in the business, you might assume Tom Dreesen has already experienced all of the firsts a comedy career can offer, including the first of dozens of appearances on "The Tonight Show"; his first of a slew of television and movie roles; and the first of countless shows he opened for Frank Sinatra. But you'd be wrong. Earlier today, Dreesen was poised to scratch another first from his list when he led a seminar, titled "The Joy of Stand-Up Comedy," as part of the Las Vegas Comedy Festival, running through Sunday at Golden Nugget. It is, he claims, the first comedy festival in which he has ever participated. "I've been invited to them at different times," Dreesen explained last week from his home in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley. "They've invited me around the country to come, and I simply do not have the time." Not that this week has been any less hectic than usual for the comedian: On Wednesday, Dreesen guest-hosted CBS' "The Late Late Show" -- one of a laundry list of celebs to do so while filling in for host Craig Kilborn, who left the post in September. Unlike most of the others, whose stints have also served as on-air auditions in an effort to permanently fill the vacated seat, Dreesen contends his service was all in good fun. "They're looking for a young, hot David Letterman (-type); they're not looking for me," he says, calling that criteria "goofy, because their assumption is that at 1 o'clock in the morning, when it's on, that young, hot people are watching. I think old insomniacs are watching." Dreesen knows a bit about the talk-show business: He's ridden "The Tonight Show" couch a remarkable 61 times -- 50 beside Johnny Carson; 11 with Jay Leno. He reportedly appeared more than four dozen times each on the legendary gabfests of Dinah Shore, Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas; and has chatted dozens of times on as well as guest-hosted "The Late Show With David Letterman." Years ago, Dreesen says, he nearly landed his own late-night show in his hometown of Chicago. Still, he insists, the desire to take over "The Late Late Show" is not his: "Truthfully, I don't want the job, I really don't." If, however, he was assigned to do the hiring, "I would get a guy like Tom Dreesen; I'd get somebody who people could identify with from that era and do that kind of stand-up comedy." Today's Comedy Festival appearance was not the first time, though, that Dreesen has presented "The Joy of Stand-Up Comedy." He's previously lectured before groups of aspiring comics at comedy clubs and universities in L.A., New York and Chicago, among others. "I talk to comedians about ... this wonderful, wonderful business that we're in," he says, and introduces them to "the five P's: preparation, punctuality, performance, passion and pride." "There's so much negativity in our business," he contends. "Eighty-five percent of all stand-up comedians, in my opinion, are insecure, neurotic, love-starved, sometimes-psychotic wrecks. The other 15 percent are gifted, confident people who say, 'This is what I do, and I don't know how to do anything else. I know how to write a joke, turn a phrase, tell a story and make people laugh.' " Meanwhile, citing statistics and medical-research data, Dreesen explains the vital role comedians play in helping maintain the health and well-being of others: "The point is that if that if laughter is psychologically uplifting, and it is; if it's physiologically therapeutic, and we now know that it is, then aren't comedians physicians of the soul? ... That's what I'm there for, to tell them how important they are." Conveying that sentiment is something Dreesen says he witnessed firsthand during his 14 years spent as Sinatra's opening act. The two developed a close bond, playing in upwards of 45 cities a year, and often traveling to and from gigs in the Chairman of the Board's private jet. "He was as loyal to his friends as anybody I've ever known," Dreesen recalls. "I miss him every single day of my life. Not a day goes by that I don't think about him and that I don't miss him." Or, that he doesn't reminisce about him. "It's come to pass that no matter what I do, no matter what I'm talking about -- hosting David Letterman or the Craig Kilborn show -- they'll say, 'Before we go, can you tell me something about Frank,' and I don't mind that at all." Dreesen (who declines to reveal his age) remembers a conversation the two men once had following a road trip, while he and Sinatra were jetting to Palm Springs, Calif. The crooner invited the comic to spend some time the in the desert resort town, but Dreesen was headed to L.A. for yet another "Tonight Show" appearance. Ol' Blue Eyes inquired whether his funny friend held a record for being the show's most repeated guest. "I said, 'No, there's Rodney (Dangerfield), Robert Klein, David Brenner -- they've all done more than me,' " Dreesen recalls. "But I said, 'It doesn't make any difference, Frank. I could find the cure to cancer and my obituary is still gonna say, "The comedian who toured with Frank Sinatra." '(Sinatra) said, 'Well, maybe my obituary is gonna say, "The singer who toured with Tom Dreesen." And we both started laughing so hard at how silly that was. It became a moment I never forgot." A mention will likely also be made in Dreesen's obit about how, in the late '70s, he helped lead the charge and salary talks on behalf of up-and-coming comics -- including Leno and Letterman -- who picketed in front of The Comedy Store in Los Angeles. Dreesen, whose career was well-established and thriving by then, says he dropped what he was doing to lend his assistance. "For eight weeks I walked the picket lines with these kids, because in principle what they were asking for was right," he explains. "They weren't getting some money -- they were getting zero money and the place was making two or three million (dollars) a year. They wanted to get something: not a lot, a few bucks a set." Given his career status and some previous experience he possessed in "negotiating and arbitration and stuff like that," Dreesen says he "ended up being thrown into the forefront of that by the request of these kids, and it turned out to be a nightmare in one respect. In another respect, it was something I'm very proud of." And in the end, it all comes down to pride. In his seminars, Dreesen tells audiences, "I've never met a comedian that I didn't like onstage. Offstage, you may have personality conflicts, but I always found some redeeming value about another comedian onstage -- first of all, just that he or she had the courage to get up there and try." "You never hear a doctor say about another doctor, 'That butcher? I wouldn't send my dog to that guy.' They don't do that; they have too much respect for their profession, and you should do the same." Out for laughs A slight alteration has been made to tickets for The Comedy Stop at The Trop: The price of admission remains $19.95 however, effective Oct. 1, that fee includes one drink instead of two. The season finale of NBC's "Last Comic Standing," in which the reality series' winner is crowned, will air at 8 p.m. Saturday on Comedy Central (Cox cable channel 56). Controversy has swirled around the episode since it was reported earlier this month that the peacock network had allegedly canceled the series prior to airing the finale. Still, NBC was slated to announce the show's winner this week during its Tuesday-night programming. In case you miss it, the episode will repeat at 11 a.m. Sunday on Comedy Central. archive

Comedian John Pinette, Las Vegas Sun, May 22, 1998

John Pinette: Keeping His Plate Full Lisa Ferguson Friday, May 22, 1998 | 10:29 a.m. If John Pinette goes down in television history as "the fat guy" from "Seinfeld," that's OK by him. In case you happened to miss the recent finale of the NBC sitcom, the portly Pinette played a carjacking victim whom Jerry Seinfeld and his buddies mocked. They were subsequently arrested under a "good Samaritan" law when they did not rescue him from the crime. The improvised role was quite a coup for Pinette, who by day -- but mostly by night -- is a stand-up comic. He performs at the Sahara hotel-casino through May 31. The "Seinfeld" finale was one in a line of sitcoms and films he has appeared in, including "Parker Lewis Can't Lose" and the Arnold Schwarzenegger-Danny DeVito flick "Junior." It's estimated that more than 70 million viewers tuned into the "Seinfeld" send-off featuring Pinette's scene. "That's when I go, 'Say whatever you want; I'll be the fat guy,' " he says. His weight, which he cleverly pinpoints as being "somewhere between (that of comic) Louie Anderson and (film star/killer whale) Free Willy," has been the subject of his schtick -- and the butt of his jokes -- for the dozen years he's been performing, much to the dismay of some audience members. "That's my only nightmare; you get women who go, 'Please don't do that to yourself. Please don't say that to yourself,' " Pinette says. "All I'm really doing is talking about going on diets and ... just about being a big guy. "Why should that be any different from a comic that says, 'I was an alcoholic,' or, 'I was in a bad relationship'? I want to talk about being a big guy ... it's not a fat joke. It's a joke about living the way you live." Truth be told, he's not a fan of upsetting or offending his audiences. "That's why I make me (the subject of) a lot of the jokes," he says. "I don't offend me; I forgive me." Pinette's latest comedy CD, "Show Me the Buffet," features the 34-year-old's commentary about the phenomenon of this self-serve food fixture. Fear not: The buffet capital of the world, Las Vegas, where Pinette recently purchased a home, was not spared from scrutiny. In fact, he jokes about his visit to -- and over-indulgence at -- the Sahara's buffet the last time he performed there: "They haven't had me back, surprisingly enough." (Until now, that is.) By far his favorite smorgasbord, he tells listeners, is the "Wizard of Oz"-themed buffet (which is currently closed for renovation) at the MGM Grand. "My favorite movie and they made it a buffet," he says on the disc, before breaking into an altered version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow": "Somewhere over the buffet, food piled high; there's a meal I must get to, stop me and you will die." What would be on the plate if Pinette could build his own buffet? A little bit of everything -- and not a lot of food. "There's a lot of life out there," he says, and much like a buffet line, "you can grab and move." Tickets for Pinette's 8:30 p.m. performances are $21.95 and can be purchased by calling the Sahara box office at 737-2515. archive

Sun Lite, Las Vegas Sun, July 19, 2004

Columnist Lisa Ferguson: Sun Lite for July 19, 2004 Lisa Ferguson Monday, July 19, 2004 | 8:09 a.m. The gross-out season The sun is shining. The weather is warm. Who's thinking about germs at a time like this? Why, Dr. Charles Gerba, of course. The University of Arizona professor is a germ expert who was called on earlier this year by GOJO Industries, the Akron, Ohio, producers of Purell hand sanitizer and other skin-care products, to assist in a survey sponsored by the company. Gerba set out swabbing all sorts of surfaces at "outdoor places" frequented during the summer months - including playgrounds, publics restrooms and picnic areas - in search of germs. Meanwhile GOJO's telephone survey of 1,000 adults revealed that a good many are clueless about where germs live. Despite what 64 percent of those polled may think, the buttons on ATM machines are actually home to more germs than doorknobs in public restrooms. Likewise, Gerba found that picnic tables and the handles on shopping carts and escalators are more germ infested than the average outdoor Porta Potti (trademark). The dirtiest of the lot tested - named by only 9 percent of respondents - was playground equipment. (No info was provided about how the remaining 27 percent of those queried answered.) On the home front, it turns out that most kitchen sinks fester with germs, even more so than the average household toilet bowl and garbage can. Go figure: Commodes in the employee washrooms at office buildings, Gerba discovered, are generally less germ-ridden than the bulk of workplace desks, computer keyboards and elevator buttons. All washed up If those disgusting findings don't give you an overwhelming urge to pick up a mop and get busy cleaning, maybe this will: Quickie Manufacturing Corporation, the maker of Quickie-brand mops, brushes and other cleaning tools, is celebrating the launch of its new Web site, www.quickie.com. It features information about the Cinnaminson, N.J.-based company's line of products and instructions on how to use them; the "Ask Mary" question-and-answer section; and even a link for completing applications for employment with the company. Quickie is also sponsoring its "Around the Home" sweepstakes. From Aug. 1 through Oct. 31, visitors to the site who complete a brief survey are entered into the contest. A pair of grand-prize winners will receive $1,000 and a cache of cleaning tools for tidying up their kitchens, living rooms and bathrooms. Those winners (along with five first-prize, 10 second-prize and 20 third-prize winners) will be selected at random Dec. 1. Bar none The party animals at Proctor & Gamble are getting down with their bad selves, too, throwing a 125th birthday bash for Ivory soap. The first bar of the snow-white stuff was sold in July of 1879. Of course, you may already have known that if you've visited the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History Web site (www.americanhistory.si.edu/ archives/ivory), which recently made available online "The Ivory Project: Advertising Soap in America 1838-1998," highlighting a slew of Ivory ads and other artifacts. A bit of trivia: Proctor & Gamble claims just five months after television was launched in this country, the soap famous for its floating abilities made its small-screen advertising debut during a 1939 baseball game between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Of course, after 1 1/4 centuries, who wouldn't be in serious need of a makeover? This month the Ivory aloe bar was unveiled, marking "the first major formula change" in the soap's sudsy history.

Neil Diamond impersonator, Las Vegas Sun, Dec. 20, 1996

Imitation Diamond Lisa Ferguson Friday, Dec. 20, 1996 | 3:43 a.m. Sure, he looks like Diamond, sounds like Diamond and even acts like Diamond. But he's not ... he said. "There are people who say, 'You really are Neil Diamond, aren't you?"' says Jay White, who's been impersonating the crooner in "Legends in Concert" at the Imperial Palace since 1990. Neil Zirconia -- now that's more like it. Except, "I don't try to pretend that I am him, because I don't think that's fair. I'm Jay White," he says. (That doesn't stop the double-takes, though. "Out of the corner of my eye, I always see people looking at me.") On the other hand, "When I step on stage, I try not to even think about who Jay White is, because it's my job to convince that audience ... that they in some way saw Neil Diamond." It's a skill White, 40, has been perfecting for 15 years, since he began impersonating Neil back home in Detroit. By day, he worked in a hospital's supply department. At night, he was the frontman for a Top 40 cover band playing the local club scene by night. "I was a fan (of his) at first ... so that's why I always encouraged that we do three or four Neil Diamond songs a night. I identified with his music so strongly," White recalls, perched at the piano in his Lakes-area home. "People would come up to me between sets and say, 'You sound a lot like Neil Diamond when you sing.'" Initially, I brushed it off. But as more people said it, I thought maybe they were hearing more in my voice than I recognized." Because back then, it certainly wasn't in his appearance. Oh, there's a definite Diamond resemblance in White's eyes, and in the way his brow wrinkles when he hits those famous, raspy notes in songs like "Cherry, Cherry" and "Love on the Rocks." "There's about a 15-year age difference between us," White reminds. "I was in my mid-20s and he was already 40 years old at this time." Also, "I had a moustache and short hair." So he ditched the facial hair, grew his 'do and landed a part in an impersonation show in '82. "I didn't know if I could do it at first. I'd never tried to impersonate someone," he says. "I had to pick up a lot of the body language," so he studied Diamond's 1980 flick "The Jazz Singer." "One of the things that most fans have commented to me on is the similar way in which I walk and move and gesture on stage." Like Brenda Lowe, an Alabaster, Ala., middle-school teacher and Diamond fanatic. Next week's shows at the MGM Grand Garden will mark her 101st Neil Diamond concert. She's also caught White's act four times. His moves "are great," she says. "I think that Jay tries very hard to give Neil the honor that he thinks he deserves. "He's very conscious of what the fans like about Neil and he admires Neil a lot, his talents and his legendary character." Even the Diamond family has given him a thumb's up. White chitchatted with Neil's mother and his son, Jesse, when they caught the show. "I asked him, 'What does your dad think about me doing this?' and he said, 'You're keeping his music alive and you're doing a good job, so he really appreciates it.'" But White would like to hear it from the source. That's why the publicity wheels are turning to get a meeting between the two scheduled while Diamond's in Las Vegas. "I think it'd be nice to meet him in a casual situation for lunch, or maybe while he's rehearsing," White says. "I guess if nothing else, I just want to thank him for writing such beautiful music that's appreciated by me as much as it is by so many other people." Hello, my friends, hello White performs an "'80s-era" version of Diamond -- red-beaded shirt and all -- singing a four-song set twice nightly. "I try to perform the image of him that people remember, recognize the most and basically that ... really started with 'The Jazz Singer,'" he says. His repertoire usually features the tunes "America," "I Am ... I Said" and "Forever in Blue Jeans," and he recently paired up with "Legends'" Barbra Streisand impersonator for a "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" duet. And just like the "Diamondheads," as the throngs of Neil zealots call themselves, "Jay Fans" (yes, he has his own fan club) are a dedicated bunch, a few hundred strong. "I've had people come up and say, 'I was never a Neil Diamond fan before, but after watching you, I thought, 'Neil Diamond had some really good stuff. I'm going out to buy an album tomorrow.'" Solitary Man White often takes his solo act on the road, performing two hour-long, faux-Diamond concerts at state fairs and such. He recently returned from an engagement at a U.S. Air Force base in Japan. "When I first started doing this, I thought it would be a nice way to make a little extra money. I never thought it would turn into a full-time job," he says. "This is as much a part of my life as doctoring is in a doctor's life." But it's time to shift gears. Next up: Bringing the "theatrical musical" he wrote three years ago to stage by next year. Reluctant to disclose any plot details, White says it's "... along the lines of an Andrew Lloyd Webber production, from the standpoint that it will be very big and very emotional. We're hoping that it could eventually end up on Broadway." Does this mean the death of Diamond? Hardly. "I don't think I could ever perform as any other artist," White says. "I haven't tired of it at this point, I think because I was a fan first and I really love the music. That's what keeps me going." archive

Meyer Lansky's grandson, Las Vegas Sun, Feb. 26, 1999

Meyer Department Lisa Ferguson Friday, Feb. 26, 1999 | 10:45 a.m. A blessing or a curse? It would be a tough call for Meyer Lansky II to make. After all, not many people are saddled with such an infamous name or, for that matter, the family tree that goes with it. But that's also what makes this Lansky -- a Northern Nevada resident who is the grandson of Meyer Lansky, late financial mastermind of the Syndicate, a k a the Mob -- wonder why Hollywood has not sought him out. The 41-year old card dealer can only speculate why he hasn't been asked to consult on films that have featured portrayals -- thinly veiled or otherwise -- of his grandfather, including "The Godfather Part II" and "Bugsy." The latest omission: "Lansky," the two-hour drama starring Richard Dreyfuss in the title role, which debuts at 8 p.m. Saturday on HBO (Cox Cable Channel 54) and will repeat throughout March. The film touches on Lansky's ties to Las Vegas gambling. Although he claims to have "pursued" HBO about the project, he says he received no response from the pay cable channel. "We don't have any specific recollection of hearing from the grandson," an HBO spokesperson said, "although we did hear from other family members at a point when the script was about to go into production, so by that point, the process was well underway." Lansky says he would like to have been a part of the production. "I don't know what (HBO's) reasons are, unless (the movie industry is) just a real cliquish type of thing." He was, however, included among the interviews featured in "Meyer Lansky: Mob Tycoon," a 1996 installment of A&E's popular "Biography" series. Ted Schillinger, who produced and wrote the special for Towers Productions, says Lansky II provided the documentary team with stories, photos and Lansky family artifacts "that would have been impossible to find anywhere else. "He gave our team a close look into the family's life that really added a special dimension and depth to our portrait of the old man," Schillinger says. All the more reason Lansky, who deals 21 at the Peppermill hotel-casino in Reno, says: "It's frustrating. I'll be sitting in the break room and here's (a commercial on TV for) the HBO premiere ... and people are going, 'Meyer, look, it's 'Lansky.' Are you going to meet Richard Dreyfuss?' I just go, 'Nah.' I push it away; I won't think about it. "Then, I walk out of work, and some nights I'll be frustrated. Here I am, just an average dude ... and I've got a chance to meet a movie star, to be maybe part of a movie." But Lansky II's life has been anything but average, beginning with the name that his father, Paul -- a West Point graduate and former engineer who is Lansky's youngest son -- bestowed upon him. Traditionally, Jewish parents do not name their children after people who are still living. So, according to Lansky II, Paul's decision to name his son after Lansky did not sit well with the reputed mobster. "He called his father, and (the elder Lansky) said, 'No,' " Lansky II says. "Then he called him back and he insisted. Then he was proud that my dad had named me that." Living with the legacy Lansky II says he realized, even as a youngster, the weight the name carried with it. "That's one of the reasons (the elder Lansky) didn't want me named that: He thought it would be hard, and some parts of it have been." While in grammar school, not long after his grandfather's estimated wealth of about $300 million had been publicly disclosed, Lansky II narrowly averted being kidnapped while walking to school. Two men, whom the boy mistook as utility workers painting traffic lines on the street, approached him. He ran the rest of the way to school. Soon after, FBI agents -- who were already watching the family -- were posted on the playground. The suspects were never caught. In 1973, following his parent's divorce, Lansky's mother changed the 15-year-old's name to Bryan Mason. During those days, the elder Lansky was a feature on the nightly news, as he had fled the United States to avoid indictment on tax evasion charges. After being exiled from Israel, he embarked on an unsuccessful search for a country that would grant him amnesty. He was eventually extradited back to the U.S. and charges against him were dropped. Given his grandfather's high profile, "there were some problems and things going on" that led to the name change, Lansky II says. Otherwise, he believes the move was an attempt by his mother -- who also changed her and her daughter's last name to Mason -- "to kind of exile herself from the family." Having "never really felt comfortable" with it, though, he returned to using his birth name in his early 20s. These days, his experiences being recognized are generally less harrowing. Often, when he's dealing cards, gamblers will approach him. "They'll see my name tag ... and they'll say, 'Oh, like Meyer Lansky,' and I'll go, 'Yeah, as a matter of fact, you're right,' and I'll just keep on dealing." Meyer memories Although they lived across the country from each other -- with grandfather tending to his pair of profitable hotel-casino ventures in Miami Beach, Fla., and grandson growing up in the state of Washington -- Lansky II says he did manage to visit with his namesake often. "We went to dinner together a lot; we went to lunch together a lot. He always wanted to buy me clothes when he came out to visit," he says. "We'd go to a lot of soccer games, and football games and baseball. ... "He wasn't a cold grandfather, but he was more of a real business- like-type of guy. I always felt very powerful when I was around him." During the winter holidays, Lansky II would visit his grandfather in Florida, usually staying with his Great Uncle Buddy, Lansky's older brother who suffered from cerebral palsy and ran the hotel's switchboards. "(Lansky would) come over and take me to dinner. ... Then he'd be gone again, and he'd pick me up for breakfast. He'd stash about $300 in my pocket ... in case I wanted to do something. It was quite interesting." As were the characters with whom Lansky surrounded himself -- people his grandson had read about and ended up mingling with in Florida. "I'd already known a lot about them, and I'd never ask, but I'd say, 'Oh, yeah, that's 'Lefty,' that's 'Shorty' (and) 'Ice Pick' George. ... These were little bitty guys, nothing like you see in the media." Though he never met one of Lanksy's closest confidantes, fellow mobster and Flamingo hotel founder Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, Lansky II says, "I can't imagine them being together. "My grandpa was a banker-type of guy, very serious, and Ben had this side that was very flashy, a very stereotypical gangster, more personality. (His grandfather) wasn't anything like Ben Siegel." Lansky and Siegel were among the partners who invested in El Cortez casino, in downtown Las Vegas, in the mid-'40s. Profits from the casino's sale later that decade went toward constructing the Flamingo. "Ben actually handled the money right on that one. They made like one-hundred thousand bucks on that," Lansky II says of the El Cortez deal. The Flamingo's debt-plagued beginnings, however, eventually led to Siegel's mob-ordered death. "My grandfather never really had a big interest in Las Vegas early on. He was more interested in Miami Beach," he says. "Vegas was out to the west, and that was Ben's deal." For the most part, though, Lansky II didn't inquire about his grandfather's business affairs. "He died when I was 26 (in 1983 from lung cancer). Even up until then, I never asked him anything" he says. "I wouldn't have anyway, even if he had been an easygoing guy. ... With his type of attitude, you knew not to really pry too much. "I think I asked him one time, 'I hear you know Frank Sinatra.' ... He said, 'No, no I don't,' and he got off the subject real quick. In fact, my dad and I never really talked about it until 10 years ago, and then he started telling me everything about it." (The two, however, are now estranged.) 'He had the insight' Still, he shies away from calling Lansky -- who was never convicted of a major crime -- a gangster. "He had the insight," he says. "He developed (Cuba) and gaming (in) Cuba. He was an entrepreneur at a time when nobody else was doing it." Schillinger says: "Meyer II is aware that his grandfather was a criminal, and that is not lost on him. "I don't think he's interested in promoting the old man as a role model, but he's aware that Meyer Lansky the gangster has become something of a cultural icon in his own way, and it's OK that he wants to preserve his grandfather's story." Lansky II's collection of photos and memorabilia about his grandfather includes a photocopy of his 1929 license to marry Lansky II's grandmother, Anna Citron. Siegel's signature appears on the document as a witness to the nuptials. He had hoped to display the stuff in a "Roaring '20s" -themed microbrewery that he wanted to build a couple of years ago in Carson City. Meyer Lansky's, as it would have been called, was to be patterned after a small chain of pubs of the same name in Germany. But the venture "just kind of fizzled," he says. "It would have been more of a microbrew out of the Northwest style, with different beers on tap and a lot of real memorabilia ... just taking off on the theme of flapper girls serving drinks and that kind of thing." Lansky II, the father of a 6-year-old daughter, also works as a bartender and manages an up-and-coming rock band, The Joey Vegas Band. He's also considering penning his autobiography. "I've got 11 years (living) in Nevada, in closing out the 20th century with his name. I think I've got enough material," he says. Film critiques While previewing the HBO movie recently, Lansky II said: "This messes with my head. Here I am watching this stuff; these people are my ancestors." The film follows Lansky, his family and his cohorts from his early childhood in Poland to his teen years spent gambling in the streets of New York's Lower East Side to his violent heyday with the Syndicate, troubles with the government and the years preceding his death. Lansky II commented on the authenticity of several of the movie's scenes, including one in which a teenage Lansky (played by Ryan Merriman) looses the bread money given to him by his mother in a street corner dice game. In actuality, because the family did not have an oven, Lansky was to have used the money to have their meal of stew warmed at a business that did so for a fee. "He came back with cold stew and he was so ashamed," Lansky II says. "He swore he would never lose a game again." He also critiqued Dreyfuss' portrayal of his grandfather. "The glasses and ... the shirt he wears, yeah, I can see it." But the slight limp he walks with is a mystery. He does, however, wonder how Dreyfuss was able to nail some of Lansky's other mannerisms -- for example, how he leaned in when he spoke. "How is Richard Dreyfuss gonna know how to do that? He must have really had to search to find that. That's one of those gestures that he probably would have done. That looks very familiar to me." In any case, he's more pleased with this performance than previous portrayals, especially that of Lee Strasberg's "Godfather: Part II" character Hyman Roth, which was based on Lansky. "The storyline was great, but Lee Strasberg was nothing like my grandfather at all," he says. "(Strasberg) represents a weak man dying of cancer, with a little bow tie and real frail. My grandfather was in hard shape up to the end, even with his cancer. ... He was just too little to be playing him. My grandfather was more husky and had more of a perseverance than that man did." Ben Kingsley played Lansky in 1991's "Bugsy." "He did alright," he says. How would the real Lansky feel about the past and present portrayals? "He'd be embarrassed by it. I think he'd just shut it off," his grandson says. "He, obviously, wasn't anything for publicity -- he didn't like it at all. He just didn't need that for himself." archive

Halloween roundup. Las Vegas Sun, Oct. 29, 1999

A Boo!-tiful Weekend Lisa Ferguson Friday, Oct. 29, 1999 | 9:11 a.m. Sure, you could stay home again this Halloween and wait for the doorbell to ring. You could spend the evening dumping tons of tiny candy bars into the bags of greedy little Darth Maul and Austin Powers look-alikes (after they have tramped willy-nilly across your front lawn, mind you, and then didn't even bother to say thank you for the treats) and call it a night. Or you could actually try to have some fun. Luckily, there is plenty of it waiting to be had this Halloween -- some spooky, most not-so-menacing -- throughout the Las Vegas Valley for both children and adults. From parties and costume contests to carnivals and even a seance, here's a list of some of the Halloween festivities scheduled for this weekend. So pull that old "standby" costume out of the closet (hey, you don't see many Ghostbusters walking around these days) and prepare to do some treating -- no tricks, please -- of your own. Haunted Houses "The Dungeon" -- 6 p.m.-midnight today and Saturday, 6-11 p.m. Sunday, UA Rainbow Promenade parking lot, 2321 N. Rainbow Blvd. Admission: $7 (children under 5 not admitted; children 5-12 must be accompanied by an adult). Call 362-FEAR. "The Black Box" -- 6 p.m.-midnight today and Saturday, 6-11 p.m. Sunday, Sunset Station parking lot, 1301 W. Sunset Road, Henderson. Admission: $7 (children under 5 not admitted; children 5-12 must be accompanied by an adult). Call 362-FEAR. "Screamfest Massacre Mansion" -- 6 p.m.-midnight today and Saturday, 6-11 p.m. Sunday, in the parking lot of the Las Vegas Mini Gran Prix Family Fun Center, 1401 N. Rainbow Blvd. Visit a pair of creepy places, Massacre Mansion and the Castle of Carnage. Admission: $8 for one house, $14 for both. Call 259-7000. Cinema 8 Haunted House -- 6 p.m. today through Sunday, 3025 E. Desert Inn Road. A haunted house is coupled with showings of such horror movies as "Night of the Living Dead" and "Frankenstein." Admission: $6. Call 734-8189. Paradise Cinema 6 -- 12:30 a.m. Saturday and Sunday, 3330 E. Tropicana Ave. A costume contest precedes a showing of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." Tickets: $5. Call 434-8101. "Scarefaire '99" -- 7 p.m.-1 a.m. today and Saturday, 7-11 p.m. Sunday, Nevada Power parking lot, 6226 W. Sahara Ave. Featuring the Nightmare Castle and Haunted Theater, an original live-action play. Admission: $13.99 (under age 12 not admitted without parent). Call 636-9515. "Haunted Halls" -- 6-8:30 p.m. today, Lorna J. Kesterson Valley View Recreation Center, 500 Harris St., Henderson. For ages 8-15. Admission: a donation of two cans of food. Call 565-2121. Haunted CAT Bus -- 10:30-11:30 a.m. Saturday, North Las Vegas Library, 2300 Civic Center Drive, North Las Vegas. Children can tour the bus and hear stories. Admission: Free. Call 633-1070. Trick or treating Trails Village Center -- 1900 Village Center Circle, in Summerlin. As part of the "Spooktacular Halloweekend" festivities, children ages 12 and under can trick or treat at participating merchants from 1-4 p.m. Sunday. Shops will be decorated and costume and face-painting contest will be held. Call 791-4500. Caesars Magical Empire -- 11 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Saturday, Caesars Palace. Children 14 and younger, accompanied by an adult, can tour the catacombs and receive candy in the dining chambers. Wandering magicians will entertain. Free coffee and punch will be served. Call 731-7110. Safe Street -- 4-8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Opportunity Village, 6300 W. Oakey Blvd. KSNE 106.5-FM and Opportunity Village team up for this annual event in which children can trick or treat in the "Haunted Forest" and take a ride on a miniature railroad. Admission and parking: $1 each. Call 796-4040. Wal-Mart -- 5-8 p.m. Sunday, 1807 W. Craig Road. The store and the North Las Vegas Police department sponsor an event in the parking lot featuring trick or treating, free candy, a DJ and a "bounce house." Admission: Free. Call 633-6521. Boulevard mall -- 4-6 p.m. Sunday, 3528 Maryland Parkway. Call 735-8268. Meadows mall -- 4:30-6 p.m. Sunday, 4300 Meadows Lane. Call 878-4849. Fashion Show mall -- 3-5 p.m. Sunday, 3200 Las Vegas Blvd. South. Call 369-8382. Galleria at Sunset -- 3-6 p.m. Sunday, 1300 Sunset Road, Henderson. Storytelling and a costume contest will be among the activities for children. Call 434-0202. Belz Factory Outlet World -- 12-3 p.m. Sunday, 7400 Las Vegas Blvd. South. Goodies bags will be given to children. Call 869-5599. Border Books Music and Cafe -- 5-7 p.m. Saturday, 1445 W, Sunset Road, Henderson. Indoor trick or treating, costume contests, stories games and a "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" haunted house. Admission: Free. Call 433-2810. Parties Halloween Sin Night -- 11 p.m. Sunday, Mandalay Bay's House of Blues, 3950. Las Vegas Blvd. South. A late-night dance for ages 21 and over. Tickets: $21. Call 632-7600. Luxor's Ra nightclub -- 10 p.m. Saturday through 6 a.m. Sunday, 3900 Las Vegas Blvd. South. A costume contest for cash prizes; ages 21 and older. Admission: $10. Call 262-4822. The Bitchin' Bewitchin' Blues Halloween Ball -- 10 p.m. Saturday, Pounders Sports Lounge, 332 W. Sahara Ave. John Earl & the Boogey Man Band perform; a costume contest for prizes is also scheduled. Admission: $5. Call 385-2121. The Pimp 'n Ho Costume Ball -- 10 p.m. Saturday through 8 a.m. Sunday, Venetian hotel-casino's Club C2K, 3355 Las Vegas Blvd. South. This gathering for adults (ages 21 and over) will feature DJs and appearances by adult video stars; costumes are mandatory. Tickets: $40. Call 948-2000. Nightmare on 54th Street -- Halloween Masquerade Dance Party -- 10 p.m. Saturday, MGM Grand's Studio 54, 3799 Las Vegas Blvd. South. Ghouls take over the dance floor for a "Thriller" show; and a parody of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." A costume contest (grand prize is $5,400) will be held at midnight and 2 a.m. Sunday. Tickets: $20 for men, women admitted free. Call 891-7777. Caesars Palace -- 11 p.m. Saturday, Caesars Magical Empire, ages 21 and over. The catacombs will be haunted; a disc jockey will spin tunes for dancing in the Sanctum Secorum area; 2:30 a.m. costume contest. Admission: $5 with a costume, $10 without. Call 731-7110. United Social and Ski Club of Las Vegas -- 8:45 p.m. Sunday, Pierce Street Annex, 1030 E. Flamingo Road. This costumes-optional party, open to club members and the public, will feature a disc jockey, food and a cash bar. Tickets: members, $1 for women, $3 for men; nonmembers, $6 for women, $8 for men. Call 392-SNOW. Henderson Allied Community Advocates -- 145 Panama St. Henderson. The group throws a party for at-risk families and the public, featuring demonstrations regarding the services of 75 social service organizations. Admission: Free. Call 486-6770, ext. 246. "Halloweird Creepy Crawlin Ball" -- 9 p.m.-midnight today, Rafael Rivera Community Center, 2900 E. Stewart Ave. Teens, ages 12-16, can dance the night away. Tickets: $2 per couple. Call 229-4600. Boo-rific Bash" -- 7 p.m. today, Baker Park Community School, 1020 E. St. Louis Ave. Children, ages 10 and under, can play games and enter a costume contest for prizes. Admission is free. Call 733-6599. Clark Community School -- 6 p.m. today, 4291 Pennwood Ave. A Halloween party for children ages 12 and under will feature food, music, games and a haunted house. Admission: Free. Call 365-9272. Borders Books Music and Cafe -- 12:30 p.m. Saturday, 2190 N. Rainbow Blvd. Party will include treats and costume contests for children and adults. Admission: Free. Call 638-7866. Other events "Houdini Lives Again" -- 8 p.m. Sunday, Plaza hotel-casino, 1 Main St. Las Vegas magician Dixie Dooley performs a tribute show to the late magician Harry Houdini, including his 14th annual seance. Tickets: $15.95. Call 386-2444. Enterprise Library -- 10:30 a.m. Saturday, 25 E. Shelbourne Ave. Come in costume to make Halloween crafts, hear spooky stories and eat treats. Admission: Free. Call 269-3000. Whitney Library -- 1 p.m. Saturday, 5175 E. Tropicana Ave. Wear a costume, make a trick-or-treat bag and march in a parade. Admission: Free. Call 454-4575. Las Vegas Library -- 2 p.m. Saturday, 833 Las Vegas Blvd. North. Wear a costume to hear -- and share -- spooky stories and treats. Admission: Free. Call 382-3493. "Haunted Halloween Halls" -- 7 p.m. today, Charleston Heights Community School, 300 S. Torrey Pines Drive. Trick or treating, carnival games and a costume contest. Admission: Free. Call 878-8644. Doolittle Community Center -- 6-10 p.m. today, 1940 N. J St. A halloween carnival and haunted house. Admission: Free for carnival, 50 cents for haunted house. Call 229-6374. Barnes & Noble -- 6-8 p.m. Sunday, 2191 N. Rainbow Blvd. Storytelling, games and a parade are among the children's activities. Admission: Free. Call 631-1775. "Spooktacular Sleepover" -- 8 p.m. today through 8 a.m. Saturday, YMCA Northeast Extension, Judith Villas, 711 E. Nelson Ave. Activities, for children ages 6-10, include movies, spooky storytelling, Halloween cookie baking and contests. Admission: $2. Call 387-9622 to register. "Halloween Happenings '99" -- 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, Green Valley Town Center Fountain Courtyard, 4500 E. Sunset Road, Henderson. The fifth annual event for families will feature games, prizes, candy and music. Admission: Free. Call 458-8855. archive

Madonna concert review, Las Vegas Sun, Sept. 4, 2001

Review: It’s effects alive for Madonna at the MGM Lisa Ferguson Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2001 | 8:28 a.m. "Music makes the people come together." And that they did Sunday night for the second half of pop queen Madonna's sold-out, two-night stand at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. Thousands of them, in fact, donning a rainbow-colored array of shiny cowboy hats, feather boas, fishnet pants, obscenity-laced T-shirts ( just whose mother are they referring to, anyhow?) and enough rhinestone-studded tank tops to make Liberace jealous. Hope those getups were comfortable, seeing as how the crowd was kept waiting 47 minutes for the Material Mom and her small army of dancers and musicians to materialize onstage. When they did finally appear, fans who paid dearly for the privilege to attend -- prices for the nearly impossible-to-get tickets hovered in the hundreds to thousands of dollars range -- were treated to a 90-plus minute production show (it resembled a pop concert only slightly) that moved seamlessly from one "act" to another. In the industrial-hued, punk-rocker segment of the show (the first of four themed sections), dancers rose to the smoky stage from platforms below. Madonna, donning a black-and-white kilt and a slashed black shirt, grabbed a guitar and strummed some relatively easy chords on "Candy Perfume Girl," striking rock-star poses and looking every bit like Hole frontwoman (and Madonna rival) Courtney Love in Love's early grunge days. A video appearance by Mike Myers as Austin Powers followed with "Beautiful Stranger," Madonna's contribution to "The Spy Who Shagged Me" soundtrack. There were some onstage antics between a shill of a stagehand and Madonna's backup singers that served no real purpose. "Ray of Light," complete with some old-fashioned writhing around on the floor (there's the Madonna we know and love), closed the first act. More video -- of Madonna in a geisha-like getup singing "Paradise Not For Me" followed, with nearly naked dancers descending from the ceiling and contorting to the floor -- set up the second segment. For "Frozen," she again rose from beneath the stage sporting a black wig and a kimono with massive sleeves supported by poles. Then came the martial arts portion of the evening, a obvious ode to "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," complete with a sword fighter, surreal flying stunts and tons of karate kicks (wouldn't be surprised to learn that Jackie Chan had choreographer credits here). After pulling off the wig, Madonna whipped out a shotgun and blew away an annoying interpretational dancer who had been circling the stage, providing a bit of comic relief (a nod to the works of her filmmaker-husband Guy Ritchie, perhaps?). Next was a perplexing Japanese cartoon, riddled with violence and what appeared at first to be a rape scene, but wrapped with a wink to the porn-movie industry. Hmm? The cowboy couture came out for the third segment, which began with Madonna -- decked out in rhinestoned bell bottoms and jacket -- again strumming the guitar (one gets the sense that she can't play but a few chords, especially since she's backed by another guitarist throughout the show) on "I Deserve It." "Wake the (expletive) up!" she commanded the audience shortly after finishing the tune. And she was right: The crowd seemed unusually sedate in the presence of the pop-music legend. The hit "Don't Tell Me" did the trick, bringing the audience to its feet to boogie as she and her dancers mimicked moves straight out of the song's video. That was followed by her brief ride on a mechanical bull -- another crowd pleaser -- during "Human Nature." Breaking into an exaggerated Southern twang, she sang a redneck ditty called "The Funny Song" (which wasn't too terribly funny), and couldn't figure out why laughter was minimal. "If you're having a good time, you better tell it to your face ... I thought people were crazy in Vegas." It was a Latin-flavored Madonna (in a black pantsuit) and crew for the fourth segment, which featured a short "instrumental interlude" of "Don't Cry For Me" from "Evita"; a Spanish rendition of her recent single, "What It Feels Like for a Girl"; and another guitar turn on a version of "La Isla Bonita" that felt truer to its tropical-island inspiration, complete with flamenco dancing. The pimp gear -- a large purple hat, oversized white-fur coat and a sparkling "Mother (expletive)" T-shirt -- was paraded for the favorite "Holiday." Just in case we didn't get the get-up, Madonna called out "Pimp" and the audience hollered back "Ho." Thanks for the help. The show closed on a energetic note with the hit single "Music," when the stage turned into a giant dance party for Madonna and her players, and fans went wild. A video montage of Madonna images, then and now, played behind the performers, and a shower of gold confetti rained on the audience. All of the theatrics were great -- if you're a fan of Madonna's acting abilities (1986's "Shanghai Surprise," anyone? How about '93's "Body of Evidence"?). But if it was music you wanted -- particularly her golden '80s oldies -- you were, for the most part, out of luck. "Like a Virgin" and "Borderline" were not on the menu. And that was unfortunate, since the handful of favorites that she did appease the audience with were extremely well received. So take a hint, Breathless Mahoney, for the next time around -- assuming there will be a next time. (Madonna seemed just miffed enough by the audience's bridled enthusiasm that it wouldn't be a surprise if she dropped Vegas from her list of future tour stops.) And our apologies if we "crazy" Las Vegans didn't live up to your expectations. But maybe it's that we were hoping for a little bit of "Papa Don't Preach" and "Like a Prayer" when we misdirected our mortgage payments to see you.

"The Real World's" Elka, Las Vegas Sun, June 25, 2001

They’re For Real:Las Vegans featured on MTV’s reality series Lisa Ferguson Monday, June 25, 2001 | 8:38 a.m. There's a lot to be said for living in the real word and on "The Real World." But until recently 23-year-old Elka Walker hasn't spoken much about the latter. The Brownsville, Texas,-native-turned-Las Vegas resident was one of seven cast members featured on the hip MTV series when it set up shop in Boston in 1997. Walker spent five months rooming with six other twentysomethings in a renovated firehouse in Beantown's Beacon Hill area. During that time most aspects of their real lives were captured on tape and later aired on the cable-network show. It's a scenario that's been played out on the series in other cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Miami, Seattle, Honolulu and, most recently, New Orleans. The purpose, as the show's weekly introduction explains, is to follow the "true story of seven strangers picked to live in a house and have their lives taped to find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real." "The Real World" is largely credited with having birthed the current white-hot genre of "reality television." For its 10th season, premiering at 10 p.m. July 3 (Cox cable channel 30), "The Real World" heads back to where it began in 1992 -- New York City. As in past seasons the show will follow another group of roommates living in a fancy pad who, this time around, will also collectively work as a marketing team for a major record label. The season previews at 10 p.m. Tuesday with a casting special that combines "The Real World" with MTV's other reality show, "Road Rules," which premieres its season on July 9. The special will introduce the 23 finalists for both shows and demonstrate the selection process. At the end of the special, 13 finalists will be named for "Road Rules" and seven will be tapped for "The Real World" (both shows were taped earlier this year). Walker, a recent UNLV graduate who majored in communications, will be watching. So will Walter O'Douling, her Irish-rocker fiancee who also appeared on a couple episodes of "The Real World" when he visited Walker while she lived at the Boston house. O'Douling, who lives with Walker, leads the Wild Celts, the house band at Regent Las Vegas' J.C. Wooloughan Irish Pub. "It's really an intrusive but brilliant look into your own life. It really is very scrutinizing. It's really a mirror," Walker says of her experience on "The Real World," from mid-January through June of 1997. Reality sets in Walker was 18 when the show was taped -- the youngest member of the household. Her roommates included 25-year-old ladies man Syrus; Wisconsin lumberjack Sean (25); Genesis, 20-year-old lesbian from Mississippi; poet/spoken word artist Jason (24); 19-year-old Stanford University student Kameelah; and 21-year-old aspiring paleontologist Montana. (The last names of "The Real World" roommates are not revealed on the show.) Besides living in the firehouse, the Boston roommates were also assigned to assist children at a community center and took a group vacation to Puerto Rico. Back in 1996 Walker, who was attending college in Texas, saw an ad on MTV looking for potential "Real World" participants and submitted an audition tape. It was the beginning of an application process that lasted four months before she learned she'd made the cut for the Boston cast. She'd been a "big fan" of previous "Real World" seasons. But she didn't mention that to the show's producers, Bunim-Murray Productions. "I had a feeling that might effect whether they would choose me -- maybe I was too savvy. But nothing can prepare you for" being on the show, she says, "even if you kept up with every single season. It's something that's very unique and remarkable." Still mourning her mother's death from cancer months earlier, Walker made the painful decision to join the show and leave her widowed father and younger brother behind in Texas. She says she thinks that inner turmoil played a role in her landing on the show, as it became a focal point of her story, along with her religious upbringing, moral fortitude (she gained notoriety for being the house's virgin) and her ongoing long-distance relationship with O'Douling, who was living in London. "I really think that's why they ended up choosing me, and that's OK, I understand," Walker says. "If I was a producer I would probably say, 'Hey, let's get her because she's probably totally (emotionally) shattered and it will be so interesting to see how she evolves.' "I don't think I gave them necessarily what they were looking for because I kind of kept to myself most of the time." Indeed. Walker says her friends in Brownsville were surprised how low-key their outgoing buddy appeared on the show. "It's so funny because all of my friends were like, 'What happened to you? You were so quiet,' " she recalls. "It's intimidating. I had never moved away from home ... I didn't know anything about (Boston). I didn't even know to ride a subway." And cameras were there to capture her naivete on tape. Candid cameras Being followed by a camera crew is "kind of weird," Walker says. They taped her and the other roommates for about 10 hours each day. Meanwhile only about 11 hours of footage is shown during the show's entire season. "You never really forget they're there," she says of the cameras. "You're always aware of it ... but you get used to it. That's the best way to describe it." The filming did not, however, take place around the clock. "If you go down the street to buy a CD, they're not gonna follow you to do that ... But if you're having a conversation with somebody that pertains to some storyline, or there's some drama that could prevail, well of course they do." Also caught on film: Walker's then-blossoming romance with O'Douling, whom she had met the previous summer. Their phone conversations were aired, as well as footage of the two stealing PG-13-rated intimate moments at the house. One of Walker's most embarrassing moments on the show, she says, was when she and O'Douling were caught by the cameras (and the other roommates) making out on the house's pool table. "The only thing that I regret," the 27-year-old O'Douling says, "is that our children and grandchildren (can say), 'Hey, you guys were doing what we're trying to do. Now leave us alone.' And they can play back the tape and see the two of us trying to have a personal moment. They have evidence." Walker says she'll tell their offspring, "Well,we didn't do what you thought we did." Nevertheless, Walker's virtues made her a favorite on the show. She received fan mail from young girls who would "usually bring up the religion (issue) and the virginity and they say, 'After I saw you, that makes me want to wait (to have sex).' And, of course, my mom's death -- a lot of people will share their stories with me about that ... That makes it worthwhile to me just to hear that I've touched someone's life." She knows she served as a role model for some viewers, "just because I'm so normal. People that watch that show know that we're not larger-than-life movie stars and celebrities. We are average people that were plucked out of their environments to be in this wonderful house and be on the show." In the now It's been more than four years since Walker left the firehouse. She and O'Douling have been living in their own real world ever since. The couple moved to Las Vegas about four years ago, and O'Douling's band landed its gig at the Regent Las Vegas more than a year ago. The group is preparing to release "Ten Tall Tales from the Island,"a compilation of original and Irish tunes, in late July. Walker, who is looking for work in the public relations field, is also pondering another on-camera stint for MTV, as a participant in an upcoming installment of "The Real World/Road Rules Extreme Challenge." The series pits former "Real World" roommates against former cast members from "Road Rules" in largely physical challenges for prizes. Meanwhile the couple continue to be recognized by viewers of "The Real World" and the two cast-reunion shows in which Walker has participated. "They really recognize Elka wherever she goes," O'Douling says. "But when it's the two of us together, it's even worse ... because they place the two of us together." "Most people are really happy for us that we're still together (as a couple)," Walker says. "If I'm not with him and somebody recognizes me, they'll always ask, 'Are you still with that rock star from England?' They always mix it up. I say, 'He's not from England, he's Irish, and yes, we're still together.' "They get so excited because they just feel like they know us, and that's fine. I feel like I know (cast members) from ... all the other seasons I watched before mine, so that's fair to say." But who fans really know, Walker insists, is the shy small-town teen who was overwhelmed by life in the big city, and not the woman she is today. "It's been four years. I've changed so much since then. So much has gone on between (she and O'Douling) ... that they don't really know us anymore. "Even if they know me for that span of five months (that she was on the show), I say, 'Sure, you know me. You know what I was up to for those five months, but you don't know me as a person.' " archive

Pearl Harbor Survivors, Las Vegas Sun, May 24, 2001

Home front: Pearl Harbor’ stokes residents’ memories of attack Lisa Ferguson Thursday, May 24, 2001 | 9:04 a.m. They can still see billows of black smoke smothering the sky. They still hear the "tat-tat-tat" of bullets blasting in the distance. They still feel the fear of the day that would live in infamy. But they weren't aboard the ships that made tragic world history on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, in Hawaii's Pearl Harbor. They were in their homes. Some were headed to church. Others cowered in fields as Japanese fighter planes screamed across the heavens during the invasion of the harbor on the island of Oahu. That was nearly six decades ago. But the memories remain, and have been stirred by the opening of the big-budget blockbuster "Pearl Harbor" this Memorial Day weekend. The movie tells the story of the attack, which thrust the United States into World War II, in the same fictionalized romance-meets-disaster vein as 1997's "Titanic." It stars Ben Affleck and Kate Beckinsale. The Sun asked former Hawaii residents who now call Southern Nevada home, as well as a pair of authors of books on the subject, to recall the attack that killed more than 2,400 American servicemen and women, and 68 civilians. Their vantage point away from the fiery harbor and on the streets where they lived is one not often taught in classrooms or featured prominently in history books. They were children at the time none older than 12. They remember toting government-issued gas masks made for adults to school when classes resumed months after the invasion; and how an islandwide blackout forced them into darkness. Supplies, they recall, were short and demand was high, and their parents had to pay for items with U.S. dollars stamped "Hawaii." Most disturbing of all, they say, was how fear and discrimination against Hawaiians of Japanese descent ran rampant. Island perspectives Although she was only 4 years old at the time, Malia Razalan Blume remembers well that Sunday morning in the Palama District, just a few miles from Pearl Harbor. She was headed to church with her mother. "But then we heard all of these noises -- airplanes and stuff ... We never made it to mass," says the 63-year-old Blume, who lives in east Las Vegas with her husband, Joseph, a retired Air Force technical sergeant. "We heard sirens all over the place and I was wondering what it was, and my mother said, 'Oh, Pearl Harbor is being attacked. We have to go home and stay in our house.' So we turned around and we went to the house and we stayed in the house. "We heard all of this bombing. I never actually saw the attack, but we heard the news on the radio and we knew what was going on at the time. I was so little, I didn't know what was happening," Blume says. "And it was kind of miserable there for a while ... Through the years I know that we had to stay indoors, we always had to put the (window) shades down in the house ... And we (couldn't) go outside." She remembers adults would tell her, " 'Pull the shade down, turn the light off -- it's blackout time,' and the block warden would come around and if they saw the lights, they'd be knocking on the door and telling us to turn off the lights. There was nothing else to do in the dark." Blume grew up on Oahu, and the mother of four spent 15 years working in the accounting department for a wholesale merchandise company before moving to Las Vegas in 1979. A member of the Las Vegas Hawaiian Civic Club, she also participates in monthly Wahine (women's) luncheons separate from the club. She had a business selling Hawaiian clothing, but closed it in the early '90s. She's now a part-time soft-count clerk at the Western. The war years, she recalls, weren't all bad -- at least not for her family. Blume's parents -- her mother was a dressmaker; her father was a tailor who, during the war, worked for the U.S. Engineering Department at Red Hill overlooking Pearl Harbor -- worked overtime at their jobs throughout the war, and the money provided financial stability for the family. "Everybody had jobs and they all worked overtime ... By 1946 I knew (my mother) had enough money that we could buy our own house and have a car. And my father was making good money, too." Storied romance "I looked out the window and I could see the brown (Japanese) bomber with the red dot on the fuselage -- the red circle -- and I saw little puffs of smoke, like anti-aircraft shells bursting around it." That was the view that then-7-year-old Clifford Lee had from his family's Honolulu home. The Las Vegas doctor (an allergist) says he lived on a busy street that led to Pearl Harbor, which was five or six miles away. "You could hear the sirens, all the ambulances, fire trucks and police cars all heading towards Pearl Harbor direction." He remembers his aunt, who also lived on his family's property, telling him to "stay at home, not to go outside ... When you're a kid, you really don't know what's going on." He remembers his gas mask "was just like part of your clothing. Everyday you carried your gas mask on a strap around your shoulder." At school he participated in gas mask and air raid practices. Meanwhile, two islands away on Maui, the young girl who would years later become Lee's wife was experiencing the war largely through news reports and rumors. Rozita Villanueva (now Lee) was also 7 years old and lived with her family on a sugar-cane plantation. She recalls (mostly through tales from her parents and others) that the people of Maui had been on alert. "There was apparently some talk about what was going to be happening," she says, "and we (were told) to save all of our aluminum pots and our toothpaste tubes and put it all together, and when the bombing came we were scared stiff." Rozita Lee, who created, owns and emcees the twice-weekly "Hawaiian Hot Luau" show at the Imperial Palace, says her family lived very near the ocean, and for a while there were plans to evacuate the area. "I think a few days after the bombing, we were told that there were (Japanese) submarines (stationed) right off the beach, so we all got scared and I think that's when we mobilized and moved, but luckily nothing happened." She attended a school that was situated "right on the beach. The teachers were very wary, in case of landings, so they watched very closely." Rozita Lee and her family and other workers/residents of the plantation -- most of whom were from the Philippines -- gathered in a meeting hall. The plantation also had residents (who lived in "camps") from Portugal, Hawaii and Japan. "And so a lot of the people became suspect of the Japanese who were living in our camps. Of course, we know now that was not good, but when you're in that situation and you know that your enemies are the Japanese, of course you have big question marks and suspicions and what have you." She remembers how children were mean to the Japanese residents, "because we only heard from our elders, (about) their hate. Hate is not from within you, it's learned, so the adults were very angry." The Lees, who became childhood friends, married in 1979, the same year they moved to Las Vegas. The 66-year-olds are charter members of the Hawaiian Civic Club. Rozita Lee says she's not certain why filmmakers have brought Pearl Harbor to the big screen. She's also not sure whether she'll see the movie. "Why are they trying to revive all of those feelings that so many people experienced? Yes, it's part of our memory, but why bring it up in such a big way? I'm just wondering whether they have the true story ... The trailers don't tell you anything, they just show the hype." Back at the beach It was just about breakfast time at the exclusive Kamehameha School in Honolulu where 12-year-old Bill Wright was a boarding student with other children of Hawaiian ancestry. "That's when all of the shebang started going," he recalls. "The black smoke, we didn't know what it was, but we discovered later, of course, that it was anti-aircraft fire." An unexploded shell fell near the school grounds, he says. "That's when we were told to come indoors. Still, we didn't know what was going on until three planes went over our school as we were sitting on the rooftop watching all of these planes and all the carnage that was going on." He had a view of Pearl Harbor and Hickam Field from the school, and still has visions of the destroyer USS Helm "zigzagging and bombs dropping nearby." Throughout the night, "even though the Japanese had not attacked and were not attacking, gunfire was going on like crazy. Everybody was trigger-happy, and you could see the tracer bullets. They were shooting at anything and everybody, even though the attack was finished by nine o'clock. But everybody was scared." Wright recalls that "rumors were running rampant about paratroopers poisoning the water supply, which was not true." Wright's parents lived on Waikiki Beach. Soon after the attack, he remembers, the Army laid barbed wire in the sand of what are today's popular beach spots. Also, a small channel ran in front of his family's home, and steel pilings were erected there to keep boats from coming ashore. In Wright's front yard, the Army had set up a machine gun and stationed two servicemen to man it on 12-hour shifts. "I remember we used to invite the guys over to come in and have breakfast with us. To them it was easy duty because they were with a family." During the war years there was hoarding of products, especially rice, says Wright, who worked at a service station that sold another precious commodity -- gasoline. "There were things we would do just to get extra gasoline. Some people would actually run their cars on kerosene. They smoked like crazy, but they ran." Wright, also a member of the Las Vegas Hawaiian Civic Club, is a retired technical writer who moved to Las Vegas near UNLV a dozen years ago. He says that for the most part, Oahu residents were "on pins and needles. It's hard to describe. You can tell it, but it's hard unless you were there to know what to feel." Uncharted waters Lawrence R. Rodriggs, of Newark, Calif., authored and self-published the 1991 book "We Remember Pearl Harbor: The Civilian Side of the Pearl Harbor Story" (Communications Concepts). A third-generation Hawaiian, he was 9 years old and living with his family in the Malulani Heights area of Oahu when Pearl Harbor was bombed. "It didn't dawn on me until many years later that there was a civilian side to the Pearl Harbor story that I felt hadn't been written," Rodriggs says. That, coupled with his memories and his civilian father's involvement in the attack (he worked as an ambulance driver), prompted him to pen the book. "A lot of people don't know that we all had to become registered; we all had to have our currency turned in." All U.S. dollars were burned and residents were reissued "occupation dollars" stamped "Hawaii," he explains, so that if the island were to become occupied, enemy soldiers would not have U.S. currency. All mail was censored to eliminate references to climate and geographic locations, and radio stations were silenced so the Japanese couldn't home in on the frequencies. "So we would listen to the police calls on the radio and heard every rumor about paratroopers landing ... so we were sure we were being invaded," Rodriggs says. He also recalls an "accident of war" that claimed the life of a 60-year-old civilian volunteer who guarding a water tower one dark night. "He and another volunteer -- a civil-defense person -- crossed signals, I guess, and one killed the other," Rodriggs explains. "They found out later (the men) were neighbors." A former public relations/advertising man, Rodriggs talks to grade school students about the attack. He tells them "that we had to get up at two o'clock in the morning and run into our bomb shelter underground in the side yard and wait for the all-clear, sometimes waiting all night, and how spooky it was." The 68-year-old Rodriggs will spend Memorial Day signing copies of his book at the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor. He doesn't take issue with Hollywood putting the attack on the big screen. "You know, so many of our young people today ... right or wrong, they learn history through the movies, and if somebody next year is going to say, 'I remember what December 7, 1941, is all about because I saw a Disney movie in which Ben Affleck was the hero,' to me, that's fine." Ground zero You couldn't get much closer to the fighting than where Dorinda Makanaonaliani Stagner Nicholson and her family were on Dec. 7 -- on the Pearl City Peninsula in the middle of Pearl Harbor. In 1993 the Kansas City psychotherapist authored "Pearl Harbor Child: A Child's View of Pearl Harbor from Attack to Peace" (Woodson House Publishing). Only 6 years old during the attack, Nicholson says, "I don't remember at what point I understood the seriousness of what was going on, but we did watch (the Japanese planes); they were barely above our house because the harbor was just a few blocks away." Bullets gashed the civilian family's home, recalls the 65-year-old Nicholson, but most of the damage was in the nearby harbor. Following a second attack that day, Nicholson's parents -- her mother was a hula teacher who also worked for Pan American Airways; her father was a postal worker -- ushered her and her younger brother into nearby sugar-cane fields where the family hid with others. After the war ended, the military forced the family out of its home. "They came in and condemned it and said, 'You civilians can't live in the middle of the largest military base in the world, and you need to get out of here.' So they took our houses away," and charged the family rent while it looked for another place to live. Nicholson, who will speak at this year's 60th anniversary events at Pearl Harbor, is pleased that the story of the attack is coming to theaters. "I think we need to be reminded of our history," she says. "It certainly takes an anniversary, and then many times it takes Hollywood to help us with that." archive