So many of my childhood memories of my dad and grandfather involve them incessantly arguing about politics. It was exactly like watching Andrew Dice Clay taking on Yoda.
Monday, Sept. 5, 2011
As long as I can remember, I’ve always been fascinated by politics.
Las Vegas, alas, is master of the tease, the wink, the faux—the city’s only goal is to aggressively separate visitors from their money in appealing, candy-coated ways. We’re nothing short of a Disney
Monday, Aug. 29, 2011
I was told—over and over again—that it was “indescribable,” “a place touched by the hand of God” and “nothing short of paradise.”
Yes, Las Vegas is an easy place to criticize and our long list of flaws seems to keep getting longer and longer. Because of that, I'm glad to be an optimist. I really am.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Yes, Las Vegas is an easy place to criticize and our long list of flaws seems to keep getting longer and longer. Because of that, I'm glad to be an optimist. I really am.
How could I be receiving an award for being a role model as an openly gay editor when my own mother never heard the words “I’m gay” from me? I had to tell her. Now.
Monday, July 18, 2011
How could I be receiving an award for being a role model as an openly gay editor when my own mother never heard the words “I’m gay” from me? I had to tell her. Now.
The pool police strike me as our version of 'Footloose,' you know where the old fuddy-duddies banned dancing in their town. I say, relax. It’s just a pool party.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
The pool police strike me as our version of "Footloose," you know where the old fuddy-duddies banned dancing in their town. I say, relax. It’s just a pool party.
I have to deem possible that the fundamental moral (and business-first) principle of educating our children has to fit in with this state’s core belief system. Doesn’t it?
Monday, June 27, 2011
I have to deem possible that the fundamental moral (and business-first) principle of educating our children has to fit in with this state’s core belief system. Doesn’t it?
If we’re being completely honest, the new resort’s national advertising campaign should go something like this: The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas: We’re Not Vegas, Baby.
Monday, June 13, 2011
If we’re being completely honest, the new resort’s national advertising campaign should go something like this: The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas: We’re Not Vegas, Baby.
In what matters most, Las Vegas and Phoenix are eons apart. Phoenix is livable, comfortable, safe; Las Vegas is something altogether different: challenging, infuriating, memorable.
I remember everything—everything—as vividly as if it was happening to me right now. In those first horrific hours on that most horrific day when the mighty Twin Towers fell in lower Manhattan and our country was forever changed, New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was presiding over yet another news conference. And I was listening.
Kim Kardashian doesn’t sing, doesn’t act, doesn’t have traditional artistic aspirations and still made more money than anyone you know—by a lot.
Monday, May 16, 2011
One of my closest friends in the world is a guy named Andy Cohan. Andy, a longtime Bay Area resident, is one of my favorite people for a lot of reasons, not the least of which he happens to be a marketing genius.
I’m writing this a few hours after landing from an Easter weekend jaunt to Miami Beach, and boy are my arms (and legs and eyes) tired. In less than 96 hours, I experienced one of the most exhilarating, exciting and, yes, exhausting trips ever; you know, fabulous. And yes it was.
In mid-December 1999, smack in the middle of the ridiculous premillennial hysteria surrounding Y2K, my longtime business partner, George W. Slowik Jr., and I sat in a very somber financial meeting high atop one of Manhattan’s glittering structures with all of our company’s investors and other assorted Wall Street looking dudes.
My hope is that Las Vegas school kids can someday look back at their own high school years and proudly proclaim what I’m doing today: High school mattered to me. It made me, me.
Monday, April 25, 2011
With very few exceptions, everyone I know has mixed or negative memories of their high school years. My incredibly successful friends tell me that their high school memories are littered with socially awkward situations because of their perceived physical or intellectual shortcomings or worse, they recount sad, terrifying stories of being bullied, threatened and psychologically tortured. As much as I feel for my scarred friends, I can’t relate. I loved high school—every second of it.
Like Elizabeth Taylor, Vegas is a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon. There’ll never be another star like Taylor just as there’ll never be another place like Vegas.
Monday, April 11, 2011
I’ve been thinking a lot about Elizabeth Taylor lately. In a surprising way, I relate to her as I now relate to Las Vegas. Some explanation is required.