VACATIONS FROM HOME: LAS VEGAS 1991 / 2024

BABY STILL NEEDS A NEW PAIR OF SHOES
Vegas Vic yesterday

I worked in Las Vegas from 1986-1991 with Frank Sinatra. We started out at the Golden Nugget downtown on Fremont Street before moving over to the Bally’s Casino (formerly the MGM Grand) on the Strip in 1987. We would come in for a week of shows and then tour elsewhere.

I was his teleprompter operator, probably one of the first performers to use a prompter for lyrics. Now, acts like Springsteen, U2 and the Stones use prompters. Whatever, it was a great gig, I traveled the world with FAS… twice.

Since that gig ended in 1991, I had not been back to Las Vegas.

Back then Las Vegas was already changing. There was a time when gentlemen would always wear suits hitting the casinos and women would always dress to the nines, but near the end of my stretch in “Sin City” there was a t-shirt movement, and the glamor of Las Vegas was becoming “tainted”.

We recently traveled to Las Vegas for a wedding. No, it was not officiated by a midget Elvis impersonator, besides he’s called a “mini”-Elvis. It was a traditional wedding, but for the first time in 33 years I got to visit Las Vegas again. It was Janet’s first trip to Vegas.

LITTLE ELVIS WEDDING

Both she and I vowed never to return.

Back then I would look out my window and see on one side nothing but desert. The Flamingo, which opened in 1947, was on the other side of Bally’s, across the street. Caesar’s Palace was across the strip. I felt like we were on the “edge” of the strip then. I remember going for a run to the UNLV outdoor track a mile or so away and passing block after block of empty lots.

That’s all changed. There are so many new casinos like the Bellagio, Paris Las Vegas and the Venetian, to name a few, that seemingly cater as much to tourism as they do high rollers. These mega casinos are sprawling and offer a lot of eye candy on the outside. The Bellagio has their prancing waters that enthrall crowds every 15 minutes or so. The Venetian has gondola rides. There’s an elevator to the top of the faux Eiffel Tower at the Paris Las Vegas casino.

There’s also a sleaze factor on the strip that I had never seen before. Break dancers spin and aggressively hawk passerby for money. There are Elmos and Spider-Man characters and neon-lighted people posing for pictures, with a majority of the crowd seemingly disinterested in the casinos, but only here for the “experience “of being in the Times Square of Nevada.

For us, the craziness of Las Vegas was unappealing. It’s too much of EVERYTHING.

We decided one night to venture onto the Las Vegas strip to see how much it had changed. We first visited the Venetian to see the gondolas for ourselves.

We walked around aimlessly in the massive casino for a bit, watching conventioneers all on the prowl for that a “what happens in Vegas” adventure, their eyes narrowed searching for a glint of opportunity. We then went to the equally cavernous Paris Las Vegas for dinner at Mon Ami Gabi. We sat inside near the front window with a landscape view of the Bellagio across the strip and watched the fountains course through their ballet as we had a very nice (and expensive) meal. At our seats we also had a view of the hot air balloon evoking French history and one foot of the Eiffel Tower nearly in our laps.

MON AMI GABI, LAS VEGAS

After dinner we dodged obnoxious break dancers and weaved around doe-eyed tourists and crossed the strip to watch the Bellagio fountains. We then used the pedestrian overpass that was non-existent when I was last in Vegas and crossed over to Caesar’s Palace to hail a ride back to our hotel. Once was enough.

A short walk from our hotel (not a casino) was the old Circus Circus Casino that has a lot of interesting things for your kids to see and arcade games to play when you decide to throw away the mortgage on Black 28. “Old” is a good word, moldering is better. We waded through a lot of tank-tops and toddlers on shoulders to see a few acts on the midway. Surprisingly nothing fell from the ceiling, but the dust was a few inches thick in places.

CIRCUS CIRCUS

VEGAS VIC ON FREMONT STREET

The next day we went down to Fremont Street. When I first came to the Golden Nugget, I was 29 years old and had never experienced any of the glitz or glamour that Vegas offered. Fremont Street was open then to vehicular traffic and the Nugget was across from the 4 Queens and Bill Binion’s Horseshoe and I the neon sign of Vegas Vic, and his “Howdy Pardner” beckoning arm was still moving.

Vegas Vic today

Mind you, I was working freelance in NYC at the time, and I had already traveled extensively, hitchhiking my way around France. I had worked on the Sarajevo Olympics in 1984 for ABC and flitted around a couple of Greek islands afterwards. For some reason though seeing Vegas Vic for the first time I felt like I hit the jackpot of experiences.

The return was not so glamorous.

They call it the Fremont Street experience and the 4-block stretch is now a canopied pedestrian walkway. Videos are projected onto the canopy. There are zip line rides so you can soar above this stretch. Vegas Vic is still there, but the Pioneer Club he would beckon patrons to enter is now a souvenir shop. Street performers are everywhere including a man in a gorilla outfit and very scantily clad ladies, and yes there were more breakdancer performers. Everything felt like there was a greasy film on it. I had to walk into the Golden Nugget to see the old digs, and it was unrecognizable, which is to be expected I guess, but I remember it being a very classy joint. Across from the Nugget was the old Bill Binion’s Horseshoe, a down and dirty place that still offers cheap steaks and yes, the line to get into the eatery was still long. It is now called Binion’s Gambling Hall… the Horseshoe is now brand name of the Bally’s Casino… Are you keeping notes?

FREMONT STREET EXPERIENCE

BILL BINION'S GAMBLING HALL

THE MOB MUSEUM

A block off Fremont is the Mob Museum. Take a trip down mayhem memory lane and learn about the history of Las Vegas and how the mob made it even greater. Don't forget to count the bullet holes in the actual wall from the Valentine's Day Massacre. It was educational, if you can get past all the morbid history.

THE MOB MUSEUM, LAS VEGAS

ESTHER'S KITCHEN

We ate out a couple of times while during our visit and I had already mentioned Mon Ami Gabi at the Paris Las Vegas. It was a nice experience with the view of the prancing waters of the Bellagio across the way. We sat inside at the window not wanting to brave the heat.

We also went to Esther’s Kitchen about halfway from our hotel to Fremont Street. We sat at the bar of this elegant Italian comfort food restaurant. I had pizza which was enough for two. Janet’s order of goat polenta came out with lamb (they had run out of the goat) and when the mistake was realized they bought us glasses of wine and were very apologetic and fawned over us throughout the rest of our meal. If anything, with competition in Las Vegas as it is, service is always at a premium. I would eat at Esther’s again, but we warned, they do not make good martinis.

ESTHER'S KITCHEN

NO WHERE

Across from our hotel is a new mega casino, the Fontainebleau. It opened in 2023, and we decided to watch the first game of the NFL season at the hotel. Their sports book takes reservations, but there is a much quieter bar next door that had all the afternoon games on several big screen televisions, and I got to watch my NYG get dismantled by the Minnesota Vikings. Ugh

What made our visit to the Fontainebleau was the jazz club "No Where" up stairs. It was actually a classy quiet place with a quartet and singer and best of all, they made some very good, if very expensive, martinis.

RAT PACK REDUX

Just down from the strip on Flamingo Road and just past the Battle Bots arena is the Tuscany Suites Hotel. At this joint is a small theater that was hosting a Rat Pack experience. Janet saw a flyer and wanted to go. Having worked for all three at one point on the short-lived “Together Again” tour in the 80s I figured what the heck. With a live band and three guys mimicking Frank, Dean and Sammy, it was a fun one-hour show. Lots of songs and reenactments of the antics of the Rat Pack’s performances at the Sands Hotel. The Rat Pack you may recall would do their act and then past midnight go off to film scenes for the original Ocean’s Eleven.