Sunday, July 25, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

MIKE WEATHERFORD: Aladdin protests too much

Aladdin protests too much

The Aladdin hotel does not need publicity like this," Fox News legal analyst Robert Massi said to cable network star Bill O'Reilly on the air Tuesday.

Hoo boy. That was the day the Linda Ronstadt controversy hit full stride, and by then the Aladdin was surely sorry it had been eager to spread the news of hotel president Bill Timmins evicting the singer after her shout-out to Michael Moore.

The result was more national attention for Las Vegas than a whole flattering cover story in Time, complete with the implication that the city cares more about protecting strippers than it does free speech.

The Aladdin denied that the partisan slant of the Moore plug was the issue. But the notion that entertainers should sing, not talk, is damaging enough.

There is plenty of blame to spread here. Let's start with Ronstadt. There's no crime in having a bad attitude, I suppose. No one says you have to like Las Vegas. But she accepted the gig, and it was plain wrong to take issue with the concert's marketing from the stage.

"I didn't know it was `The Greatest Hits Tour,' " she told the crowd. "That is something they cooked up here in Vegas. They are good at that."

Here is the exact wording of a July 1 press release from Susan Blond Inc., the public relations firm Ronstadt paid to promote her tour: "Linda Ronstadt takes the stage with her diverse catalog of music -- singing her greatest rock hits with her band, and American standards with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra."

But it's simply unprecedented to check an entertainer out of a hotel for anything said onstage. Caesars Palace somehow seems to tolerate Elton John's occasional swipes at President Bush. Will Mandalay Bay try to censor Toby Keith next month? I doubt it.

You can imagine Timmins doing a slow burn in the audience when he heard the "greatest hits" slam. But you can't believe he didn't know the Moore plug was coming. She had been doing it at every tour stop, and her intention to do it here was published in this newspaper the day before the show.

And, by the accounts of too many audience members, Timmins' claim that "all bedlam broke loose" simply doesn't hold water. Even if you're willing to believe a torch-carrying mob would storm the casino like the villagers in "Frankenstein," what does it say about a security staff that could fail to keep them from getting backstage, or on the elevator to the singer's suite?

The national media hasn't stressed that Timmins and the casino's ownership are probably a lame-duck administration, as the clock ticks toward a probable sale to a group led by Planet Hollywood Chairman Robert Earl. That might explain a sort of reckless attitude. Everyone knows what rolls downhill.

By Wednesday came the news that the Planet Hollywood folk would welcome Ronstadt as their first concert. Sounds like the kind of publicity the Aladdin will need by then.

Mike Weatherford's entertainment column appears Thursdays and Sundays.