A person can spend a lifetime of savings seeing shows in Vegas. Or, a person can do what the locals do and check around for some good shows at a reasonable price. Such a show, and such a price, is the Las Vegas Comedy Show featuring Joe Lowers, which plays at the Alexis Park Hotel on Harmon Avenue five nights a week. I actually had some trouble finding anything about it using Google, but the link to Joe Lower’s web site, provided above, will get you there.

The ticket says it all. $29.95 for 90 minutes of fun!

Joe Lowers makes some crude jokes, so if that sort of thing offends you, I’d recommend you avoid this show. But, if you’re like most people you’ll enjoy an hour and a half of stand-up in an intimate setting. Lowers interacts with his audience (even me) during the show in a frenetic and good-humored way. As I watched his show, I wondered how he managed to keep bouncing around all of the time. Lowers’ performance combines high energy and wit in a nonstop patter, with a number of really satisfying jokes. The performance we saw was a study in politically incorrect humor, and almost always funny and on-target. Our two twenty-something guests were laughing themselves sore during most of the performance.

The Alexis Park Hotel at 375 East Harmon Avenue

The Alexis Park Hotel, which I had never even noticed there at 375 East Harmon Avenue, more or less just across from the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, is a non-gaming hotel with very reasonable rates. I can’t speak to the food or other accommodations, but it seemed on our visit to be a very nice and well appointed hotel that I’d probably recommend to out of town visitors who didn’t want the hassles of staying directly on the strip.

On our way to the show we stopped for dinner at Mr. Lucky’s 24-7 at the Hard Rock. It’s a subject for an entirely different review, but I will mention that I’ve always liked the food at Mr. Lucky’s, and I also have enjoyed playing at the Hard Rock’s casino, where the sound system is one of the best I’ve ever heard.

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If I wasn’t such a lazy sot I’d have done the research to turn this into an actual article. As it is, it makes a decent blog post. Tami and I went to see “Footloose” at the Tuacahn outdoor amphitheater over the weekend. Tuacahn is in Ivins, Utah, which is saying it’s just outside of St. George. It takes a couple of hours to get there.

The production was chock full of singing and dancing, which was all good. It wasn’t as professionally done as the ones at the Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City, but it was still pretty good. The male lead was a very good dancer indeed, and the entire cast was pretty decent at worst. I noticed three former hit songs, which is pretty good for what was just a movie.

We started with a buffet dinner at 6:30, bought a new lamp for a mid-century manse in the gift shop, enjoyed pre-show entertainment on the lawn and were in our reserved seats when the show started promptly at 8:30. There is no curtain. The setting is spectacular, in a box canyon with red sandstone cliffs. Being outside, the production was able to do things like use real tractors for the dueling tractor scene (I’m assuming most of you know the movie so this shouldn’t spoil anything.) There was a nice surprise at the end as well that wouldn’t work in an indoor venue.

St. George is teeming with hotels if you’d rather drive home in the morning. In fact, we had a room but didn’t use it because we just sleep better in our own bed. But either way, it’s worth the easy drive up to St. George to see some good live theater. You really oughta check it out.

Steve

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Yesterday Tami took the afternoon off and we ended up going to an incredibly early dinner and a movie at Town Square. The movie was “The Proposal” which I won’t review as it’s been out so long, but we both liked it. I will say something about Rave Theaters.

Rave Theaters, which I’d never heard of until Town Square opened, features about a zillion theaters under one roof (I think maybe it’s eighteen, really.) They’re upstairs, so it’s climb, escalate, or elevate to get to the lobby. (Or you could levitate if that’s your thing.) I can’t give a full review, because we were fresh out of dinner and didn’t get the popcorn. No movie theater can be good unless the popcorn is good, of course. The auditorium has seats wide enough for business class to Europe on an airplane. There’s a small table between two seats, with cupholders between the alternate two seats. Very cushy. The sound was good, not deafening, and if the popcorn is good, this has to rate as a good place to see a movie. ‘Course it’s clear down next to Fry’s, but what the heck, if it’s good . . .

After the movie we went to Luvit Frozen Custard on Oakey just east of Main. If you are from the East Coast and think that Dairy Queen sells custard, you’re wrong. Frozen Custard has a lot of egg yolks in it, is denser than ice cream, and must never get solid. It was invented for the St. Louis World’s Fair (the one Judy Garland sang about.) It’s better than ice cream, although some ice creams do aspire in custard’s direction. It’s a custard stand from the 1970s that’s still going strong. They were doing a brisk business on a Thursday evening, and no wonder. Drive on up any time for a wonderful treat that will show you just how wrong New Yorkers are about Dairy Queen and custard!

Steve

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I can’t prove it in writing, but in the mid eighties (nineteen-eighties, I’m not that old) I wrote down a potential title for an article. It was “The Ultimate Failure of Suburbia.” I didn’t mean that everybody would crowd back into the inner city when I wrote that. (By the way, the title is as far as I got.) What I meant was that the mid-century suburban model was unsustainable over the long term. That is, living and working in different counties (most places would have six or seven counties in a space the size of Clark) simply uses too many resources, especially fuel and most importantly time, for people to be able to do it indefinitely. Also, the giving over of entire subdivisions to automobiles pretty much leaves no room for simple human pursuits such as walking the dog. I have witnessed people parking illegally next to the door of an execise class, and wondered if it occurred to any of them that walking to the door is, what do you know, exercise.

Today of course one can read about the problems happening on the fringes of the metro area, where the slums of the twenty-first century were being built during the last years of the twentieth. Ten-year residents complain of gangs, graffiti, declining property values, neighborhood blight. It’s the inner city right after urban renewal, only out in the burbs. Jack Levine of VeryVintageVegas writes that there is little housing inventory in the inner city area (of vintage homes) but that out in the suburbs there are hundreds, maybe more, of houses being withheld from the market simply to keep the price from tanking any more.

It seems my prediction is proving to have some validity after all.

I don’t necessarily think it’s a great thing that the mid-century suburban model has hit its limits. In fact, freeways and suburbs worked wonders in most American cities, allowing people to live a lifestyle that few could have imagined prior to World War Two. What I was concerned about way back then, and what in fact happened, is when the model was taken way beyond what it could support, and people followed the suburban Utopian ideal even when it obviously was no longer working. Two hours per day commuting to a job that is still in the city is, frankly, foolish at best and a damned shame most of the time.

On the other hand, there are two vacant lots across the street from me. Anyone really wanting a new house can have one right in an old Vegas neighborhood. Just have it built any way you like. And things, of course, will come around all right because things always do, sooner or later. But I’ll bet the paradigm will have changed a bit. Those suddenly terribly cheap box houses out on the fringe might make a nice landfill someday for all I know. Then somebody can figure out a better way to build a living town out yonder. We have only to wait and see.

Steve

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Some may recall my article about training for the Las Vegas Marathon see it here from a while back. Well, there were a few pictures with it. Now, the training organizer has posted a whole slew (that’s midwestern for “a lot”) of photos of the training group along the wash. They are available at this fine address. I don’t even know if I’m in any of them but they look pretty comprehensive. Dew click over.

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This post is a plea for help. I’ve been teaching in public school for the past two years. Two years ago as a long-term substitute, which I liked so much I got into the Alternative Routes to Licensure program. This year I was under an ARL license. Unfortunately, my supervisor didn’t like me enough to recommend renewal, so that’s over. To say the least, I’m upset about things right now. But, I’m not out to bore people with my feelings. Rather, I’m asking for help in making up about forty grand per year in take-home pay (more would be swell — teaching is a nine-month job after all.) I’m being paid through August, but by Labor Day I’m in deep doo doo if I don’t find some gainful employment.

I’m smart, generally play well with others and I write well. Also I have a PhD. I’ve taught at community college level and at proprietary schools in addition to public high school. I’ve been a trainer and training manager in a corporate setting. I was a career counselor for a few years. I was a systems guy, Microsoft certified, for about a decade. I really can’t do graveyard any more, but any other hours are fine with me. I might student teach, which will mean taking at least one additional course that isn’t offered until fall quarter, so even if I go back to CCSD, which I’d like to do if possible, I’ll still need a job until at least the middle of January, quite possibly for over a year. And if I find something I can succeed at, I’m willing to forgo teaching altogether.

Can you help an old coot to support himself? If you can, please send me an email. There’s a link on this page, I believe. Thank you!

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Responding to Jack Levine’s request to register support for the Domestic Partnership Act, I did that very thing on the Assembly’s web site. Yes, they do have one. I expected that to be it, but my assemblyman, who I never had the chance to vote for, actually wrote me back. So Kudos to the man signing himself as Mark Manendo Assemblyman District 18 Las Vegas, Nv 89122. It was an encouragement to stay active, in response to which I can only point out this bit from a recent post of mine on stevefey.com: “For those younger than me but older than Obama’s base, your failure to participate is largely responsible for the sorry state of our government. So screw you, okay?” Sorry, but that’s how I feel. Older boomers vote. The rising generation votes. The people in between, they mostly let the government go to hell in a hand basket. Oh, well, huh?

So, again, thanks to Assemblyman Manedo, who voted for the bill, by the way, and while I’m at it, to the other representatives who did the same in both houses. It seems we get better laws by lobbying the legislature than through the initiative process. Hmmmm.

Steve

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I blog sometimes on a space where the theme is a bit different than at LLV. Nevertheless, sometimes I think somebody from here may be interested in what I’ve said, anyway. If so, try going to for a glimpse into the makeup of the senior class of 2009.

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