Caesars show recalls other weird events

     I keep track of weird moments in Las Vegas showrooms and after several years and hundreds of visits, the list is growing more impressive. Or depressive.
      There was the night that pinhead comic Gallagher hauled his little boy onstage at the Sands and began to harass him with stupid props and flashing lights in a quest for some cheap laughs. The poor kid freaked out, responding with tears and screams that summed up his dad's oh-so-nurturing performance.
      Tears also flowed the night the late Dean Martin broke down onstage recalling the death of his son, Dino, and a sizable portion of the audience at Bally's cried along with him.
      Watching Frank Sinatra struggle to remember lyrics always provoked sweaty palms, just as anyone who survived Sherman Hemsley's amazingly off-key crooning would have wished that amnesia was an exchangeable item.
      Unfortunately, I'll never forget a drugged-out David Ruffin wandering about like a zombie and stumbling through the immortal "My Girl" just a few weeks before his overdose death. A zoned-out Jerry Lee Lewis sleepwalked through most of a 30-minute show and seemed downright shocked when he "woke up" and realized where he was.
      Hearing Buddy Hackett's obscenity-laced tirade against a hapless front-row fan is another regrettably memorable moment. Spacey comic Richard Lewis showed up for a gig with a pile of notes that he proceeded to read verbatim in what almost passed for an act.
      Talent-free drag queen RuPaul always generated some serious strangeness; an uncaring Chuck Berry showed he's willing to play guitar with just two unbroken strings; and Roseanne screeched her way through an awkward, alleged satire of Las Vegas showroom regulars.
      Watching casino execs in slick suits pumping their fists as the Rolling Stones ripped through a rendition of "Sympathy for the Devil" had me rolling my eyes in wonder, and the recent visit to Caesars Palace by veteran rockers Crosby, Stills and Nash lamentably has prompted a fresh addition to my list of showroom oddities.
      No, this slightly mellowing rocker and University of California, Berkeley grad wasn't offended by the concept of old-school hippies fetching 50 bucks a pop to perform in a cash-fueled corporate casino. A venue is a venue, and not having a hit in more than two decades actually made the trio a perfect candidate for nostalgia-based showroom work.
      It was good to see David Crosby breathing, having survived a liver transplant caused by years of using his body as a chemical dumpsite. Graham Nash, something of a poor man's George Harrison, performed barefoot while sipping red wine and Steven Stills now sports a bald spot that's almost as big as mine.
      Thanks to solid backup support that included Las Vegan Gerald Johnson on bass, the classic rock actually sounded pretty good. But vocally, there were more strains than the first day of spring training.
      The trio's inability to harmonize like the old days wasn't unbearable, but a strange encounter between Nash and Crosby showed that the "Love Generation" era has surely faded. An embarrassed and angered Crosby responded with a one-fingered salute after Nash loudly rebuked him for making a bad-vibes grab for his vino.
      Then things got truly weird.
      The band decided to borrow a song from one-time member Neil Young, the only one of the bunch who's still musically viable. The selection: "Ohio," a dark-hearted song that recalls the day in 1970 when National Guardsmen opened fire on anti-war demonstrators at Kent State University, killing four students and wounding another nine.
      It remains a powerful piece of music; however, the trio inexplicably treated the tune as if it were a celebration, coaxing the crowd to chant along to the chorus: "Four dead in Ohio, four dead in Ohio."
      It was absolutely appalling, and I don't think I was the only one who was deeply offended by hearing a deadly serious song turned into a disposable pop ditty.
      So I quickly headed for the exit sign, shaking my head in dismay and thinking that this might be the most unsettling showroom moment that I've ever suffered through -- at least for now.
     
      Michael Paskevich's entertainment column appears Fridays and Sundays.