This just may have been the worst year in the history of television.
Entertainment Columns
How, someone occasionally will ask, can I give an “A” rating to both a gourmet room and a diner? Easy: It means that they both are excellent at doing what they do. The most successful restaurants are those whose managers and staff are focused, pay attention to the details and are intent on doing the best they can each and every day.
I know, I know. But I don’t make the rules, I just follow ’em.
Raise a glass to the twisted visionaries. It may be a long time before we see the likes of them again.
The holidays are traditionally one of the worst periods of the TV year, landing somewhere between the “American Idol” audition rounds and Oprah’s Vajayjay Week.
Paddlewheel cruise boats plying Lake Mead and the Colorado River recall the days before dams controlled the river and created lakes. Sturdy little steamboats served as workhorses on the untamed river of yesteryear. A vital link for remote communities, the boats carried passengers, supplies, draft animals, equipment and the production from area mines and mills. In bygone days, the challenging passage on the river always included elements of danger from shifting sand bars, driftwood, boulders and white-water rapids through narrow canyons.
It could be time for the “showroom shuffle,” a game of musical chairs that might see “Stomp Out Loud” replace the lamentable “Fuego Raw Talent” at the Sahara.
You can almost count theater gigs in dog years. “In our business, the average length of a run is six weeks,” says Derrick Trumbly.
You don’t expect a Fox reality show to help the needy.
An excellent guidebook on Southern Nevada, “Geologic Tours in the Las Vegas Area,” is now available with updated content and GPS coordinates. If you hurry, you can still obtain the newly released edition in time for holiday gift-giving. Sure to please desert lovers and Nevada buffs, the guide will be a welcome addition to collections of reference materials on the state.
Can Madonna fight Oscar De La Hoya? Why not? She’s cut, he’s cut up, and MGM Mirage shareholders would love to see these two MGM Grand Garden arena draws again in 2009.
While striving to meet the growing demand for wine in this country, the wine industry expands into unlikely areas for viticulture, places once considered too extreme for grapes to flourish. Located in the Mojave Desert just a mountain range away from Death Valley, the driest place in North America, Pahrump Valley ranks among the most unlikely locations for a winery. But there sits the Pahrump Valley Winery, a winebibber’s oasis just an hour’s drive from Las Vegas on Highway 160.
It’s no secret that this Christmas will be one of the toughest in years — you probably realized that the first time you wrapped a present in your Lehman Brothers stock certificates — but TV is here to help.
When Las Vegas comedians get together for lunch, they must talk about really funny stuff, right? Must be like the Algonquin Round Table, or at least the Friars Club when Uncle Miltie still was around.
