Monthly Archives: December 2008

LV Marathon thoughts

December 10, 2008 11:20 am

Now that my quads have pretty much stopped hurting, I can offer a few thoughts about the Las Vegas Marathon 2008 and where it should go from here.

These photos of the official race t-shirt and finisher’s medal give you an idea of how minimalistic the race was this year. Just look at that shirt–no date, no snappy slogan, just the generic marathon logo. The medal, too, is a big step down from previous years.


There was no prize money offered this year, which might be why the winner’s time was 15 minutes slower than last year’s, no on-course entertainment, nothing besides water and gatorade at the water stops, and no mylar blankets at the finish. The last one is a big deal–if you’ve been running for about 4 hours then stop, you’re bound to have your temperature drop. So while they had the Elvi and the wedding chapel stuff, many of the basics just weren’t there.

The news stories made it sound like it was business as usual for the marathon this year, but actually there were many problems with the race’s management. Luckily, the company has sold the Las Vegas Marathon to the Competitor Group, which puts on Rock and Roll Marathons across the country. So in 2009 we’ll have the Rock and Roll Las Vegas Marathon. I’ve run in RnR events before, and they’re great, so this is a very good thing for those who want to run in Vegas.

That said, let me humbly offer a few tips to make next year’s race better.

1. No “celebrity” emcees at the race start. Inexplicably, we had Robin Leach welcoming us to the race and sending us on our way. I don’t think it contributed anything to the race at all. No offense to Mr. Leach, but he’s about the last person I need to hear talking about how hard it is to run a marathon. I don’t think you should even have a legit local sports legend like Andre Agassi, who would be able to tell us something valuable about training and competition. It’s just not the time or the place–we’re cold and we’re ready to run, and anything at the start is really just a distraction. I’d be fine if the race director just welcomed us and sent us on our way.

2. If you are absolutely bent on getting a celebrity for the race, make sure they have something to say about distance running or even just fitness in general and have them do a meet-and-greet at the race expo.

3. You don’t need any entertainment for the first six miles–you’ve already got the Las Vegas Strip for the first four, and then you’ve got downtown. Runners need the excitement most on that Carey/Smoke Ranch and Torrey Pines stretch, which is about 10 miles of a moderate incline. It would be great for the casinos to sponsor an act or two as we run down Frank Sinatra towards the end–great advertisement for the shows, too.

4. I think that the marathon will work as a serious run in a party town: don’t try to make the race itself too gimmicky. So no shrimp cocktails at the water stops or anything like that.

5. With the miscues of the past few years, the town may be short on goodwill to the marathon. But it’s a great race and an attraction that the city really needs. It’s crucial to keep residents engaged as participants, hosts, and volunteers. A little TLC for the local community will go a long, long way.

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Strip run

December 9, 2008 6:28 am

I had a pretty good marathon run on Sunday, and now that I’ve had a little time to think about it, here are some thoughts on running down the Strip. The headline is an allusion to the venerable “Strip Walk” feature over at Two Way Hard Three. Even though we ran only about 4 of the 26.2 miles on the Strip, I figure that you guys don’t really care too much about the view going past the North Las Vegas Airport and Texas Station, so there you go.

Just so you know, the marathon started at Mandalay Bay, headed up the Boulevard to downtown, then hit Bonanza and MLK before heading west on Carey/Smoke Ranch. We ran down to Torrey Pines, then south to Twain, made a right on Frank Sinatra Drive, and ended up back at Mandalay Bay.

– Mandalay Bay is huge…I’m always struck by how long it takes to get from self-park to the convention center, on the morning of a marathon everything seems a little more arduous. I think that we may be on the verge of “diseconomies of scale” with casinos. Of course, I had to park at the Trop, so after the race I had a whole new appreciation for the “Mandalay Mile.”

– City Center’s coming along nicely. I had a great view of the front and back as we started and finished. It looks monochromatic, but from the back you can see that they’re hiding something very bright and orange, which is a welcome relief. I tend to like being saturated with colors, so the CC exterior, as impressive as it is, is something that’s going to have to grow on me. Whatever this orange thing is (Aria convention space? Part of the Crystals?), it looks cool, though.

– No Bellagio fountain show this year, though P-Ho had a customized marathon graphic running on their big sign, including a “Run Eddie Run” screen meant, I’m told, for KLAS’s Edward Lawrence.

–Caesars construction is also coming along quite nicely. In addition to the tower, there looks to be a lot more convention space in the back.

–The Fontainbleau’s also looking very good. It really towers above the Strip, and with the condo across the street you almost, but not quite, get that “Manhattan urban canyon” feeling for about 10 feet. And you can see it from Torrey Pines and Edna. It’s going to be a real landmark. At street level, there are some interesting angles taking shape.

–That new McDonald’s north of Echelon looks quite ambitious for a fast food restaurant.

– Running down Frank Sinatra you get an even better appreciation for the size of City Center.

–Thanks to the construction on Echelon and the Plaza halting, there is a huge empty lot/abandoned construction site on the west side of the Strip stretching from DI to Circus Circus. It gives you a sense of true imbalance, with Wynn, Encore, and Fontainebleau on the other side of the street. For the time being, I don’t think Strip-view rooms will be at a premium.

–On a related note, the Circus Circus RV park has the best street names ever:

View Larger Map
Wouldn’t it be great to list your street address as “123 Dumbo Street, Las Vegas, NV 89109?”

– I think the skyline is taking the shape it’s going to have for the next few years. Everything that’s going to be finished in the next 2 years is topped out, and everything else (like the Palazzo condos, Echelon, and Plaza) is just sitting there.

That’s about all that comes to mind. It’s definitely a different perspective from the usual one, and it’s a view that you’ll only get once a year, unless you want to dodge traffic.

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Risky business

December 8, 2008 9:55 am

Are “tough economic times” making us less willing to risk? And is that a bad thing? The LV Sun looks at it:

Risk and risk-takers have been celebrated, fetishized, apotheosized in the American economy and culture for two decades. George Gilder, bard of ’80s-era supply side economics, summed it up: “A successful economy depends on the proliferation of the rich, on creating a large class of risk-taking men who are willing to shun the easy channels of a comfortable life in order to create new enterprise, win huge profits, and invest them again.”

Gordon Gekko of Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street” was a fictional hero to a generation. Our real heroes include Everest climbers and strivers such as Bill Gates, who left Harvard and the promise of an easy corporate career to start a software company.

All of this benefited Las Vegas.

“Our whole history is about risk,” said Michael Green, a College of Southern Nevada historian.

Farewell to risk, for now – Las Vegas Sun.

Further down in the story, I’m quoted as saying that we need risk: “Indeed, investors took a chance on Apple and Google, and we’re all better off for it.” It is much more basic than that: if we didn’t take risks we’d still be in the trees, and maybe even sloshing around the oceans. Without risk there’s no progress, just stagnation.

Of course, as I say in the coda with my characteristic scholarly rigor, “There’s risk-taking, and there’s risky risk-taking.”

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UNLV Gaming podcasts are imminent!

December 5, 2008 5:15 pm

I’m doing a ton of work on the gaming.unlv.edu pages in preparation for even bigger changes early next year, which you can see on the main page. While I don’t have an iTunes channel yet, I’ve uploaded the audio of Cristina Turdean’s Colloquium talk. You can download it here: UNLV Center for Gaming Research: Podcasts.

I know that the quality isn’t the best–I’m investing in some new equipment and look forward to making this a very helpful feature.

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Darth Vader is real

December 4, 2008 11:14 am

That headline will be funny to a very small number of people privy to a private joke of someone else’s making, but trust me, it’s kind of funny. So is the story, from Dvice:

Life in Japan really is a sweet little slice of science fiction. Currently, Japanese televisions and giant video billboards are running slickly produced video commercials depicting an army of Darth Vaders attacking Japan. Some of the amazing footage includes: Vader-head bomber planes descending en masse on Japan, Vader heads rolling off a robotic assembly line, a massive Vader army standing at attention, and a live action sequence in which Vader enters a room full of Stormtroopers and proceeds to literally stab a holographic projection of the country of Japan with his light saber.

Of course such scenes wouldn't be complete without classic sci-fi cut away shots of Japanese citizens gasping in horror (old school Godzilla style) as Vader takes over the televisions of the entire country. If this was hype for a new Star Wars movie it might be acceptable, but the fact that this is all promotion for Sankyo's new Fever Star Wars pachinko gambling machine (Japan's pinball-machine-meets-slot-machine gambling addiction) is just kind of sad.

DVICE: Darth Vader army invades Japan with old school gambling machines.

This gives you an idea of why many US-based companies are so eager to see Japan opened to casinos: Japanese people are really into gambling.

This might be a red herring, but is there a Wynn connection here? Wynn partner Kazuo Okada owns Aruze, a major pachinko maker. Rumors have surfaced of a possible Bee Gees musical at Encore. The machine title got me thinking–what if they combined the disco idea with Star Wars? You’ve already got Star Wars slots. It might look (and sound) something like this:

Will we see “Saturday Night Star Wars Fever” anytime soon at Encore? I doubt it, but you must admit that it’s an amusing image, and it would bring a whole new fanbase to the property, though I doubt that this is the crowd that Steve Wynn envisions for his new “signature resort.” It could work at a half-dozen other places, though.

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Book Review: The Travel Book

December 3, 2008 11:31 am

The Travel Book: A Journey through Every Country in the World. Melbourne: Lonely Planet, 2008. 887 pages.

This is a neat book, and an ambitious one. Is it possible to write a travel book that includes entries on every country (and many territories and sub-regions) in the world? Why, yes, it, say the Lonely Planet folks, and they are right.

I can’t see anyone using The Travel Book to plan their next vacation: there are just two pages on each country, with less than 500 words to describe the sights and attractions. So this isn’t a literal guide to traveling–it’s a celebration of the wonder and diversity that awaits the world trekker. Does that sound sarcastic? I don’t mean it to be.

Each entry has some vital statistics of the country in question (capital, population, area, official language), a brief (50 or so word) description of the country, and telegraphic notes on several categories: Best Time to Visit, Essential Experiences, Getting under the Skin (books, movies, and music about the place), In a word (one key phrase you’ll need), Trademarks, and Surprises. There’s also a map of the country.

The entries tend to stress the positive and have little in the way of practical advice for avoiding trouble spots. Given that every country has an entry here, there are several places that wouldn’t be welcoming to tourists, particularly Westerners. Yet Iraq’s entry extols the “dramatic scenery” and pleasures of “exploring a lively bazaar.”

Sometimes, this is funny. The “Trademarks” section of each entry usually give you a sense of what to really expect. Fiji’s, for example, reads: “Surfers seeking the big break; honeymooners’ paradise; grass skirts; hammocks; woven baskets; white sand beaches.” Moving down a step, you’ve got Laos: “Longtail boats; rice; Buddha-filled pagodas and wats; cafe culture; rural bandits; unexploded ordnance.” Then you’ve got the Central African Republic: “Forest elephants; lowland gorillas; dictators; political chaos.” North Korea’s takes the cake though: it includes “kidnapping, nuclear tests, rapprochement, border tension.” Let’s get packed!

One cutesy thing that doesn’t wear so well is the tendency for goofiness in the “Best Time to Visit” section. Usually, it’s just “June through September” or something like that, but too many entries have irreverent time-traveling quips thrown in: you should visit Guinea between November or “between the 13th and 14th centuries when Guinea was part of the empire of Mali. Hey, if I had access to the TARDIS and could travel anywhere in time and space, I wouldn’t be wasting my time reading a travel book. I can see where it’s well-intentioned, but it gets old fast, though it’s good to know, I guess, that you’d have a better time visiting Scotland before 1707 and the Act of Union.

The photographs are the real reason to buy this book: they are often breath-taking, and they never fail to capture something of the essence of the country in question. Even the countries whose political and sectarian violence make them non-starters as vacation destinations look gorgeous.

There are plenty of interesting facts in here, and when you add in the pictures, you’ve got a winner. It’s the kind of book that you thumb through saying, “Oh yeah, I’ve been there…I’d like to go there…I can’t wait to go to that place.”

All in all, it’s a fun, compact tour around the world with 500 words and five photos per stop. For what it is, it works well.

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Book Review: Legal Tender

December 2, 2008 5:02 pm

Laraine Russo Harper. Legal Tender: True Tales of a Brothel Madam. Las Vegas: Stephens Press, 2008.250 pages.

Legal brothel prostitution is a small, enigmatic part of the Nevada experience. “Direct to your room” escorts get all the advertising and notoriety, but prostitution remains illegal in Clark County and therefore Las Vegas. But the legal brothels, the closest of which to Vegas are in tiny Pahrump, tend to fly under the radar.

In Legal Tender, former madam Laraine Russo Harper recounts the six years she spent running an unnamed Pahrump brothel. It’s an often-amusing collection of anecdotes about her time in the sex business.

Harper was recruited to run the brothel by a friend who had been impressed by her tact and commitment as a casino host. After visiting the dingy trailers that comprised the sex palace, Harper accepted and began a thorough renovation, transforming the brothel into a full-service resort.

Most of Legal Tender revolves around Harper’s struggle to bring class to the tacky brothel scene. One chapter recounts the eccentricities of various “ladies” employed in the brothel, while another discusses the foibles of the customers. It’s told in a humorous vein that tends toward the sophomoric side. Take, for example, this extract:

I laughed as I compared my new endeavor with the gaming business. I remembered in the casino industry that “BJ” stood for “blackjack.” Not anymore! It had a whole new meaning now. Many things would take on new meanings from that point forward. (p. 24)

There’s a great deal of that in the pages to follow. Also, much of the humor is at the expense of the customers, or at least their personal hygiene and fashion sense–not exactly a selling point to the potential patron.

The details of how the brothel works are interesting from many perspectives, but Harper isn’t content to just tell us about life as a madam. Instead, she wants us to believe that brothels are beautiful, egalitarian oases of fulfillment: “The ladies,” she writes, ” did not judge a person based on their looks as we, as a society, tend to do. It was a business and everyone was a potential customer.” Harper goes on about how it doesn’t matter what kind of car you drive or what you do for a living: the brothel ladies are there to make you happy. Couldn’t you say that about any business? I’m sure the folks at Trader Joe’s don’t ring up my order because they like the cut of my jib. They’ve got stuff to sell, and I’ve got money. If I didn’t give them money, they wouldn’t let me walk out of the store with my groceries. There’s nothing noble about it, unless you want to wrap it into the bigger story of capitalism liberating Europe from its feudal slumber. But that happened several hundred years ago, and I don’t think that a Pahrump brothel can take credit for it.

The book’s worst conceit is that the brothel is about more than exchanging sex for cash:

The ladies who worked in the brothel were indeed dream makers. They weren’t giving fifty-dollar blow jobs in someone’s back seat or giving twenty-dollar hand-jobs in an alley. They fulfilled fantasies. They took you to heights you’ve always dreamed about experiencing. They role-played and pampered and catered. (p. 210)

There’s certainly an argument to be made in favor of legal prostitution. I’m not saying it’s a good one, but there merit to the idea that two consenting adults should be allowed to do what they want. But it’s still selling sex for money, as opposed to sex between people who feel a shared intimacy (or shared whatever). I can understand not being judgmental about it, but there’s no reason to glorify it as something that it isn’t. Similarly, Harper spends a great deal of time talking about what smart businesswomen the “ladies” are, and how they earn more than professionals in more traditional areas like real estate, finance, or retail. But she shoots herself in the foot by discussing the large number of brothel workers who have brutal pimps and are addicted to drugs. There’s a real disconnect, it seems, between the marketing material and the reality here.

There are certainly some interesting stories in here, but the writing style tends to drag the narrative down. Reading the book, you’ll find out that brothels are businesses just like any other, with all the petty bickering and dickering that you’d see anywhere else. That may be Harper’s most significant contribution to the debate about legalized prostitution.

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Las Vegas Marathon news

December 1, 2008 4:48 pm

It’s apparently official: Devine Racing will be out of the Las Vegas Marathon after this Sunday’s run. From the LV Sun:

Devine will not manage the race after this year. A company that operates successful marathons across the country is taking over. San Diego-based Competitor Group Inc. thinks it can eventually draw as many as 30,000 runners to the course, with its starting line on the Strip.

The 2009 race will be renamed the Rock ’n’ Roll Las Vegas Marathon, joining a lineup of nine marathons the Competitor Group will hold next year across the country.

In those races, the company features unique courses — near the Alamo in San Antonio, through Music Row in Nashville and along the ocean in Virginia Beach — coupled with rock bands lining the roads and big concerts at the end.

Peter Englehart, chief executive officer of the Competitor Group, acknowledged the formula will need some tinkering in the next year for it to work in Las Vegas.

“We usually do a big headliner rock concert,” Englehart said. “But in Las Vegas there’s concerts every night.”

Not to mention the Cirque shows, the comedians, the magicians and the ever-present allure of the casinos.

Competitor Group’s record gives the Las Vegas running community good reason for hope.

Las Vegas Marathon on a new course – Las Vegas Sun.

It’ll be great to have some new leadership at the event. I’m going to be running in the race this year, and with all of the uncertainty about the event it seems almost anti-climactic. I’m sure it’ll be fun, but it sounds like it will be a bare-bones race this year.

I’ve got no doubts that a marathon can work in Las Vegas, but running a marathon has got to be the most anti-Vegas thing in the world. It’s not about decadence or instant gratification–quite the opposite, in fact.

In more good news, the rodeo is in town! Which means the scent of animal dung swirling around campus. Of course it also means lots of thrilling roping and riding and millions of dollars in consumer spending, but I’m just giving you my perspective.

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