Reality TV star ready for newest spotlight

The reality of Jake Pavelka's life? He's a working actor and comedian without officially being either.

The celebrity known from unscripted TV contests such as "The Bachelor" and "Dancing with the Stars" says he's not worried about hosting "Chippendales: The Show" at the Rio today through March 18.

"What a lot of people don't know about me is that I have some audience-warming experience. I've done it for some big conventions in Las Vegas," he says of introducing keynote speakers and the like.

"I'm not a professionally trained comedian. I think I'm pretty funny but nobody else does," says the 34-year-old who still finds time to be an airline pilot somewhere in the mix.

Pavelka also is pretty good at something reality TV critics and viewers alike share a fondness for: ripping Jake Pavelka.

"That's where the (comedic) greats get all their material. They usually get onstage and they're making fun of themselves," he says. "If you can't laugh at yourself, life's too short. You just can't take everything too serious. If people want to laugh at me, at least they're laughing and being entertained."

He ran into a female sitcom star on an airplane (and later asked to keep her name off the record for fear of being a name-dropper). She told him she learns by watching shows such as "Bachelor Pad," studying "what is it about what happened that made you react that way. It's like an acting class."

Pavelka says his season of "The Bachelor" in early 2010 was "very much unproduced" compared to some unscripted shows.

"It is absolutely raw emotion people are seeing," he says. "It is like your favorite character right there being themselves. Every move they make is so believable and so relatable to the audience."

As for the Chippendales, Pavelka is coy about whether he will follow the lead of previous celebrity host Jeff Timmons and shed his shirt for the trademark collar and cuffs.

"I stay in shape," he says, but "I'm going to leave the dancing and performing up to the guys who truly know what they're doing."

The show marks its 10th anniversary this weekend, though it started in the Rio's main showroom before moving into its current custom theater. ...

It's a start. Local comedy legend Ron Shock is fighting an aggressive urethra cancer and posted to Facebook friends that bills for treatment already have arrived to the tune of $70,000, just the beginning for four hospital stays.

On Saturday, John Padon's Sin City Comedy at the V Theater will host a benefit to help Shock with expenses Medicare won't cover. Padon says the 11 p.m. benefit with a $20 donation will draw Las Vegas headliners who can't be advertised because of their contracts at other properties, as well as stand-up comedians driving in from Los Angeles.

"He's the old Houston outlaw," Padon says of Shock, who sprang from the same scene as late legends Bill Hicks and Sam Kinison, and a favorite of fellow stand-ups such as Ron White for his long-form storytelling.

Shock's immunity level is so low he is not likely to be able to attend but Padon says there may be a video presence. Ever the raconteur, Shock has been chronicling his fight in a series of YouTube videos. ...

The drag divas of "La Cage" are finally making it back home to the Riviera, even if they will be rooming with the "Crazy Girls" instead of returning to their old zebra-striped showroom.

"La Cage" will reopen Wednesday in a 7:30 p.m. time slot, followed by the "Crazy Girls" at 9:30 and Pat DiNizio's "Confessions of a Rock Star" moving to 11 p.m. The old "La Cage" room will be busy with magician Jan Rouven starting March 1, followed by impressionist Jonathan Clark and comedy headliners.

"La Cage" ran an amazing 23 years at the Riviera before producer Norbert Aleman threw in the towel to the recession in early 2009. Longtime star Frank Marino reassembled much of the cast and improved the product with "Divas Las Vegas" at the Imperial Palace.

Jimmy Emerson, who covered Marino's vacations and did comic segments in "La Cage," relaunched the show at the Four Queens last summer with help from Aleman. Emerson still stars, but this time Aleman is the producer of record. Local bon vivant Monti Rock III will lend a hand as greeter. ...

Comedian Geechy Guy was on national television last summer as an "America's Got Talent" contestant. But his pet project for two years has been "The Dirty Joke Show," in which he imbeds his one-liners in a theatrical format, trading said dirty jokes with two other comedians in a post-show framework.

The show closed amid financial uncertainties at Hooters Hotel, and reopens Friday inside the Swinger's Club at the Plaza. It will run at 8 p.m. before the dueling pianos take over. Guy says there is room for his back-alley set, where the comedians end up for the bulk of the show after performing about five minutes of stand-up each.

But what about that "Talent" exposure? Guy says he is prepared to work Fremont Street with people dressed as the giant Whoopee Cushions who framed him on TV.

"All of downtown is my oyster," he says. "I started out as a street juggler." ...

Veteran show folks said goodbye recently to one of the last remaining performers to have been hired by Bugsy Siegel. Rene de Haven, veteran dancer and choreographer, was a Creek Indian born Joseph McIntosh, who reinvented himself in Hollywood and Las Vegas.

He still danced in Golden Rainbow benefits well into his 80s before waltzing into the sunset at 89.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com
or 702-383-0288.