Stern considers returning to LV

Attention hotel execs: Howard Stern is on the market to come back to Las Vegas -- to record a week's worth of national radio shows on the grounds of your fancy digs.

In the past, Howard always went to the Hard Rock Hotel. But the hotel changed ownership. Now Howard is a "free agent," Gary "Baba Booey" Dell'Abate told me.

"We have no plans to come out," Baba Booey said when I asked. "We just have to find the right reason to come out, the right place to go, the right sort of event to do around it."

In other words, he said, the show likes to do Vegas when there are a lot of celebrities and/or tourists in town (so stars are readily available to go on the show).

Baba Booey and Palms owner George Maloof talked five or six years ago, about moving Howard from the Hard Rock to the Palms.

"It just didn't work out logistically," Baba Booey said. But, "the Hard Rock is a whole new group of owners now. So if we came out, we're in play."

Maloof is game.

"Yeah, we'd definitely look at it," Maloof told me Monday night. "My opinion is he's got some die-hard fans that would love to see him come back to Vegas to do a show."

As one of those hard-core Howard fans, with a lifetime subscription to Sirius, I'm saying Vegas could use a week of Howard. So make it happen, Baba Booey Baba Booey. Please bring Gilbert Gottfried.

OSCAR'S MOB MUSEUM

Since we're talking about divisive figures, I have some words of wisdom for Mayor Oscar Goodman. I've always liked Oscar, because I'm mostly from New Orleans so I appreciate colorful characters, even though he hasn't given me a key to the city yet.

Oscar wants the federal government to throw a big chunk of our federal tax dollars to help pay for a $50 million Las Vegas mob museum.

On Sunday, ABC Lilliputian George Stephanopoulos asked President-elect Barack Obama whether the feds should pay for such a thing. Obama hedged his Vegas bet.

I don't care about weighing in on the merits. I would like to give Oscar some sneaky, Louisiana-inspired advice.

During the Depression, Gov. Huey Long wanted to expand Louisiana State University Tiger Stadium into a huge thing. But he couldn't get government cash for the expansion of something football-related, because the economy sucked. So, he restructured his request by shaping the stadium into a ... stadium-shaped dorm for poor students.

That's right. To this day, LSU students live in Tiger Stadium, in halls that girdle around the huge thing.

So Oscar: Restructure the mob museum as a twofer. It can be a museum by day and a homeless shelter at night. Oh wait, you don't like to have homeless people in the city. Hmm. Well, if you readers have suggestions, e-mail me at delfman@reviewjournal.com, and I'll blog it.

$3,000 IN ONE DOLLAR BILLS

If you went to the Adult Video News porn awards at Mandalay Bay on Saturday night, you watched rapper Flo Rida throw what looked like money at the crowd in the front row, while he was performing his hit "Low."

Well, guess what. That was real money. I confirmed Monday he threw $3,000 in one dollar bills into the air.

Here's the funny thing. Porn women sitting in the front rows wanted nothing to do with those solo bills. But men were a different story. Dudes dived for bills, grabbed at them, all kinds of insanity.

The song "Low," as you may know, goes, "One stack (come on); Two stacks (come on); ... What you think I'm playin' baby girl; I'm the man, I'll bend the rubber bands."

T-Pain joined him onstage about halfway through.

FLAVOR FLAV ACTS WEIRD, GIVES AWAY HORNS HAT

Flavor Flav also performed with Flo Rida.

Flav was nutcakes on the red carpet.

I asked Flav how he liked all the porn women around him.

"Love it. Love 'em all, man. We can't live without 'em," Flav said.

The thing is, he was looking at me the paranoid way I imagine Hunter S. Thompson looked at bats and iguana melting in front of his eyes.

I was surprised Flav wasn't wearing his Viking helmet. Sure enough, I found a random tourist standing in the nearby hallway wearing it. Matthew Winters, a 21-year-old chef in New York (I literally carded Winters to verify his name and age), had lost $2,500 to gambling, but got a massive souvenir when he approached Flav.

"I said, 'Flava Flav!' He said, 'Yeah, boyyy!' " according to Winters.

Then Flav gave Winters the Viking hat.

"How sick is that?" Winters said.

"Sick?" Flav? Nahhh.

ME TIME

It's a recession, so I'll be hosting a pub quiz about 8 p.m. Thursday night at PT's, on Sunset Road east of Paradise Road. Winners of some individual rounds get free pitchers of beer, and the overall winner gets a hundred-buck bar tab. Yep, times are hard all over.

Bring it.

Doug Elfman's column appears on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Contact him at 702-383-0391 or e-mail him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He also blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.