Flaky flakes make covering clubs a challenge

Let's talk about rude for a minute.

Mark Wahlberg (the erstwhile Marky Mark, noted boxer-briefs-wearer from Boston) was supposed to give me an interview Saturday night at Palms Place.

I got there on time. He was there. But he whisked past me at the appointed hour and told his people to tell me he was leaving and he would return later.

That turned out not to be true. I waited five hours for Marky Warky, in vain.

I once met the woman in Boston who says she gave Wahlberg his "Marky Mark" rap moniker when they dated as kids. I won't go into that personal Marky Warky story here. That would be rude.

Let's talk about gracious for a minute.

George Maloof, as nice a hotel-casino operator as you can imagine, tried to make up for Marky Warky's unexpected absence by hanging out with me at his penthouse party.

This spread of George and Phil Maloof's was lavish on the 59th floor or so, on a balcony overlooking our beautiful, twinkly city of yes. Models. Open bars. People magazine. A TV crew. Sexiness.

Three women walked up to my group wearing black dresses. They had just arrived in Vegas from the East Coast. They plan to live here, I think. They smiled.

But to my suspicious eyes, they looked like potential climbers who make you feel like your middle name is Third Rung On The Ladder. I've known one or two of those, recently even. I wish them great success, cheers and adieu.

Around midnight, after the big boxing match concluded on the TVs in the penthouse, several of us media types exited and made our way to the Palms restaurants at Nove then N9NE.

At N9NE, we found Diddy. He was entertaining an entourage of considerable size. At first, the count seemed to add up to 50 Diddy friends.

Then Diddy left to go to Rain nightclub next door -- with not just 50 people in tow, but an extra 40 on top of that.

So: 90 Diddy partyers in all? When was the last time you took 90 people to dinner? Have you even known 90 people in your whole life that you would want to go clubbing with -- at the same time?

Diddy was unaware of my waiting to interview him, so it never happened, and he didn't have the chance to act rude or gracious to me.

However, the last time I interviewed Diddy at a Vegas restaurant, he repeatedly offered the food off of his plate for my dining pleasure, making him the only celebrity to ever try to convince me to share his meal.

What a lovely man, that Diddy. I'm sure you didn't expect to read that today.

Anyway, the Palms fizzled out professionally for the night, but it was a great personal success, which (let's face it) is just as important in Vegas, because down the line this will translate into professional success. That's how Vegas works: The personal is the professional.

Even so, I still needed something entertaining or newsy regarding nightclubs and celebrities to fill this very column space.

So on Monday, I accepted an invitation to interview a nightclub executive for this column, because his club has a big event coming up.

Alas, when our appointed interview times arrived on Monday night -- first at 6 p.m., then at a rescheduled 7:30 p.m. -- the exec never called. He didn't call at 8 or 9 or any of that.

I am writing this column at 10 p.m. Monday on deadline with no Marky Warky and no nightclub executive.

Congratulations, dear reader. You now know the cold hard truth of very important people who don't want you to read what comes out of their mouths.

Doug Elfman's column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Contact him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.