Desert companion - November 2016

HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE 11 NOVEMBER

16

BILLY WALTERS’ BIGGEST GAMBLE How local favorite Nora’s got its groove back

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HEROES AND VILLAINS AN ILLUSTRATED LOOK AT NEVADA’S SAINTS AND SINNERS

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DOWNTOWN SUMMERLIN ® headlines the holiday season with must-attend events including the second annual holiday parade, return of Rock Rink, Chanukah festivities and the arrival of Old Saint Nick. Browse and shop at signature retailers including Fabletics, West Elm, Banana Republic, Apple, Macy’s, Nordstrom Rack and Dillard’s. Come to the parade and stay for dinner with delicious fare from popular Downtown Summerlin eateries including Grape Street Café & Wine Bar, Dave & Buster’s and Casa Del Matador – to name just a few. Read on for all the merry details you won’t want to miss.

SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN Downtown Summerlin boasts a Santa set sure to please.

With a new location in The Macy’s Promenade, sponsored by Summerlin Hospital Medical Center, the Winter Wonderlandthemed set is back for another year of magical photos and meet-and-greets with the Big Man himself. Packages start at just $22.00 and are available Nov. 18 through Dec. 24.

Downtown Summerlin is a pet-friendly destination and will offer photos with your furry friends from Nov. 22 – Dec. 20 from 7 p.m. – 9 p.m.

THE RETURN OF THE CELEBRATED HOLIDAY PARADE Downtown Summerlin is pleased to announce the return of the Holiday Parade. Don’t miss the parade on Nov. 18 at 6 p.m. followed by the tree lighting ceremony with special guests including the Nevada Ballet Theatre and the debut of Santa.

The parade takes place at 6 p.m. for 17 nights: Nov. 18, 19, 25, 26. Dec. 2, 3, 9, 10 and nightly Dec. 16 – 24.

This must-attend holiday event occurs in the streets on Park Centre Drive and offers a magical family-friendly spectacle of floats, toy soldiers, snowflake princesses, nutcrackers, dancers, and holiday music. Also parading through the streets are characters such as penguins, polar bears and reindeer. All shows are free and open to the general public.

“The holiday parade is back and better than ever,” says Andrew Ciarrocchi, senior general manager of Downtown Summerlin. “In a city where entertainment reigns, we are thrilled to provide this high quality, festive experience for all to enjoy.”

O nce yo u r s h o p p i ng is co mp lete, st ay a nd d i n e at a b evy o f e ate r i e s an d re sta ura nt s ava ila b le fo r a p al ate p l e a si n g fe a st .

ROCK RINK Downtown Summerlin’s premier ice skating rink – Rock Rink - located near the Pavilion on The Lawn, returns for another year of family fun. Sponsored by Jaguar Land Rover Las Vegas, highlights include multi-colored light shows with music every hour from 4 p.m. – 10 p.m. nightly, and a bird’s eye view of an impressive 30-foot holiday tree that overlooks the rink.

Skate nightly starting Nov. 11 through mid-January from 4 p.m. – 9 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays; 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays; 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturdays and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sundays. All ages are welcome. Skate rentals start at $15.00. *Rock Rink will open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily during school holidays.

CHANUKAH, THE DOWNTOWN SUMMERLIN WAY To celebrate Chanukah in style, Downtown Summerlin will host four nights of different activities starting with the lighting of the Menorah on Dec. 26 at 5:30pm. The destination has once again partnered with the Jewish Community Center which will host evening festivities Dec. 26 – Dec. 29, including a Chabad Chanukah lighting, family skate night and the Ultimate Challenge for adults.

“Downtown Summerlin has pioneered the concept of off-Strip Chanukah celebrations,” said Ciarrocchi. “This year’s festivities, in partnership with the Jewish Community Center, will once again provide strong, celebratory offerings to the Jewish community in Las Vegas.”

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My name is Matt, and my job at the Southern Nevada Water Authority is to make sure water delivered to your home meets or surpasses all state and federal drinking-water standards.

At home, my job is to make sure my family drinks plenty of clean, healthy water.

At the SNWA, we keep a very close eye on water quality, conducting hundreds of thousands of analyses every year to verify the quality of our drinking water. And that makes both of my jobs a lot easier.

We know that some customers use additional home water treatment devices and want to help you make informed decisions. If you have questions or would like objective information about supplemental water treatment systems, visit snwa.com or call 702-258-3930.

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Edgar Degas, At the Races in the Countryside, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 1931 Purchase Fund, 26.790. Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

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EDiTOR’S Note

58

Give it good

I

t’s hard enough to launch yourself into rosy-cheeked, six-cylinder holiday spirit in default-mode Las Vegas, a city without handy seasons to give your wintertime sensibilities a helpful nudge. (Plus, it’s like we leave the Christmas lights up year-round anyway.) Add to that our collective hangover from an election campaign whose rancor had settled into a toxic borealis, a resident poison fog, and I was starting to wonder whether we’d all just silently agree to forget about Thanksgiving and Christmas out of totalizing, apocalyptic exhaustion.

Like, Never mind, bring on the horsemen, we’d say, waving languidly from the couch, bathed in the obliviating light of Netflix.

But then I remembered that the best antidote for such pessimism-flavored self-pity is shutting up and looking beyond the backyard fence of our own provincial minds.

Nothing cures doldrums better than inflicting kindness on others!!! That’s the thrust of our annual Holiday Guide (p.

95), where you’ll find fun seasonal events, donation and volunteer opportunities at local organizations in need, and cool gifts that, to be sure, will reliably light up all your beloved recipient’s consumerist-delight receptors as all gifts should, yes, but that also boast some socially conscious dimension that makes the cosmic needle quiver just a tad more in the direction of the good and the right. But the gift of time is most precious of all: Whether it’s stalwarts such as Aid for AIDS of Nevada or lesser-known organizations such as Helping Hands of Vegas Valley, there are countless Southern Nevada nonprofits that could use your help this season.

This month marks another tradition as well. It’s the fourth edition of our Illustrated History feature, in which we consider Nevada’s past through the decidedly nonboring lens of, yay, drawings. This year, the theme is “Heroes and Villains.” We only chose that simplistic title, though, because “SoNext ciopaths, Killers, Well-meaning Killers, MOnth Demagogues, Terrorists, Trailblazers, Feast on our 20th annual Restaurant Awards

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Inspiring Orators and Activists, and also Politicians Who Did Some Good Things, Plus Some Other People Worthy of Purgatory” was too long. Which is to say that the noteworthy personages of Nevada’s past — and very recent past — are most accurately rendered not in black or white but, rather, shades of gray. On p. 81, you’ll meet legendary labor leader Al Bramlet, whose aggressive methods of unionizing Las Vegas might have cost him his life; Sarah Winnemucca, the Paiute activist who spoke truth to a government heedless of its treatment of native Americans in its conquest of the West; and Craig Titus and Kelly Ryan, a bodybuilding duo whose obsessions culminated in the bizarre, shocking death of their live-in assistant.

But the historic headliners of Nevada aren’t consigned only to archived news links and old textbooks. Some of them walk among us, making history as we speak. On p.

50, veteran Nevada journalist John L. Smith profiles Billy Walters, high-stakes sports bettor, golf course developer and philanthropist who was indicted on insider trading charges in May. Walters has been in the crosshairs before, but he’s never been convicted of anything more serious than a misdemeanor — thanks to his well-honed gambler’s instincts for self-preservation and, perhaps, a little luck. Smith considers Walters’ previous brushes with the law, his interesting circle of associates, and the stakes of the game this time around. Whether the multifaceted Walters is a hero or a villain?

Andrew Kiraly editor That’ll be for history to decide.

Follow Desert Companion www.facebook.com/DesertCompanion www.twitter.com/DesertCompanion

November 2016

letters@desertcompanion.vegas

Vo lU m e 1 4 I s s u e 1 1

1

Thanks to the timebending effect of magazine lead time, we’re writing this stadium-story update precisely as the hastily assembled Legislature in Carson City pretends to debate the merits of public financing for the Sheldome.

But you’re reading it after lawmakers have gently applied the preordained rubber stamp. You know a grim finality we have yet to experience. Envy us! Envy our not-yetentirely-crushed hope that reason will triumph! Our hope that the project will be kicked back to Vegas for the scrutiny it should get. Because, as noted by folks we’ll call “experts,” quoted in Alan Snel’s deft analysis of the stadium-approval process in our October issue, this has unfolded on an extraordinarily speedy timeline — almost as if Nevada officials had to meet a deadline for deliverables. *Adelson glances at watch.* Snel’s piece was an attempt to wedge some useful perspective into what’s been a fairly closed, echo-chamberish “process.”

Some readers appreciated Snel’s effort, and their frustration percolated on social media: “With all these Casino Moguls, I don’t understand why the public needs to pay a dime, so annoying!” “Wonder if the Raiders will stay for more than 5 years ... what will we do with that stadium?”

Good question! Maybe the Property Brothers could renovate and flip it?

Reader Craig A. Ruark posted on desertcompanion.vegas: “If the Raiders want to play football in Vegas, and if Adelson and Majestic want to pay for the stadium, then let them pay for it. ...

If it makes money, good for them and their investment. If it loses money like most stadiums, then, OH WELL, it was their money to lose.

“Don’t put this elephant on the backs of the public.”

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Oh, such magical thinking! The willful conflation of a mogul’s personal desire with “the public good” — that, Mr. Ruark, is Nevada politics at its most Nevada.

Anyway, it’s too late. The Legislature just voted. Here comes the elephant!

2

Also in the October issue, Heidi Kyser looked at efforts to prevent child sextrafficking, from nonprofits that teach kids to recognize predators to police empowered by new law-enforcement procedures. It’s a topic that is both urgently of the moment and sadly timeless. “Really powerful piece,” Christa Eagleton wrote on Facebook. “The Wish List” — a sidebar on child-protection measures experts say are needed immediately — “was painful to read. I never knew that some of the teachers took on that responsibility. Wow.” “Good story!” Corbet Campbell wrote. “A problem that is too complex to ‘solve’ by arresting the woman.”

3

Department of Aw-Shucks Self-Congratulation: In September, at the annual gathering of the Nevada Press Association, Desert Companion was recognized with a first-place award for Explanatory Journalism in the Magazine category, for Hugh Jackson’s forward-looking essay examining Nevada’s economic outlook, “About those exciting jobs of tomorrow.” (His conclusion: not good.) Editor Andrew Kiraly took third-place honors in the same category for his look at the ramifications of Sheldon Adelson buying the Review-Journal.

(His conclusion: not good.) And the moving report by contributor Kimberly McGee, titled “I’m a real boy,” about raising a transgender child, won second place in the “Best Nonstaff Story” and was singled out for praise by judges. Congratulations to all three! You can sit in our stadium skybox anytime.

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Vo lU m e 1 4 I s s u e 1 1

Features

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www.desertcompanion.vegas

81 ILLUSTRATED

95 HOLIDAY

Nevada history has its share of heroes and villains. In our fourth edition of Illustrated History, we consider crucial Silver State figures who made headlines for good works or bad deeds — or both.

This year, the spirit of giving never felt so good — for the giver, the receiver, the community and the planet. We feature gifts that give back through sustainability and by supporting good causes.

Get giving!

HISTORY

GIFT GUIDE

g i f t g u i d e p h ot o i l lu s t r at i o n : c h r i s t o p h e r s m i t h

November 2016

November 2016

www.desertcompanion.vegas

Vo lU m e 1 4 I s s u e 1 1

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23

76

departments All Things to All People 23 COMMUNITY A

proposed luxury suburb near Red Rock gets rocked 26 wildlife A new

book about the clever and, yes, wily coyote 28 profile Ed Fuentes, art instigator and investigator 30 zeit bites A

changing Fremont East 32 Streetwise A day admiring the Sunset

38 BUSINESS

71 Dining

113 The Guide

It’s game on for casinos hoping to cash in on e-sports

By Jason Scavone

72 The Dish Nora’s

Arts, music, theater, dance, repeat!

42 culture

These sausages sent Scott into a happy, manic state, so you might call them “hyperlinks”

Art and activism merge for Left of Center’s Vicki Richardson

By Kristen Peterson 50 profile The latest chapter in the life of sports bettor Billy Walters has the highest stakes yet

By John L. Smith

34 Open topic Private eyes, watching you

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starts a flavorful new chapter 75 Eat this now

120 End note WTFgiving?!

By Jason Scavone

76 at first Bite

You won’t want to share Standard and Pour’s shareable plates

on the cover Holiday Gift Guide Photo Illustration Christopher Smith

i lGlu utstterra tCREDIT i o n , L eL fe t fo t f c e n t e r g a l l e r y : b r e n t h o l m e s ; k i m c h i t a c o s : c h r i s t o p h e r s m i t h ; b i l ly w a lt e r s : a s s o c i a t e d p r e s s r

42

‘TIS THE SEASON

© Joan Marcus, 2014.

Drumline Live January 26 & 27

Finding Neverland February 14 – 19

© Carol Rosegg

The Little Prince March 1

Motown The Musical January 17 – 22

Shaolin Warriors February 20

Matilda The Musical March 14 – 19

Photo by Joan Marcus

Burt Bacharach February 10

Photo by Joan Marcus

Fun Home the Musical January 3 – 8

Photo by Eric Ray Davidson

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p u b l i s h e D B y n e va d a p u b l i c r a d i o

Mission Statement Desert Companion is the premier city magazine that celebrates the pursuits, passions and aspirations of Southern Nevadans. With awardwinning lifestyle journalism and design, Desert Companion does more than inform and entertain.

We spark dialogue, engage people and define the spirit of the Las Vegas Valley.

Publisher Flo Rogers corporate support manager Favian Perez Editor Andrew Kiraly Art Director Christopher Smith deputy editor Scott Dickensheets senior designer Scott Lien staff writer Heidi Kyser Graphic Designer Brent Holmes Account executives Sharon Clifton, Farrow J. Smith, Kim Trevino, Markus Van’t Hul sales assistant Ashley Smith NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE Couture Marketing 145 E 17th Street, Suite B4 New York, NY 10003 (917) 821-4429 advertising@couturemarketing Marketing manager Lisa Kelly print traffic manager Karen Wong Subscription manager Tammy Willis Web administrator Danielle Branton Contributing writers Cybele, Elisabeth Daniels, Mélanie Hope, Christie Moeller, Kristen Peterson, Jason Scavone, Geoff Schumacher, John L. Smith, Kristy Totten, Mitchell Wilburn, Stacy J. Willis Contributing artists Celia Krampen, Anthony Mair, Chris Morris, Sabin Orr, Matt Rota Editorial: Andrew Kiraly, (702) 259-7856; andrew@desertcompanion.vegas Fax: (702) 258-5646 Advertising: Favian Perez (702) 259-7826; favian@desertcompanion.vegas Subscriptions: (702) 258-9895; subscriptions@desertcompanion.vegas Website: www.desertcompanion.vegas Desert Companion is published 12 times a year by Nevada Public Radio, 1289 S. Torrey Pines Dr., Las Vegas, NV 89146. It is available by subscription at desertcompanion.vegas, or as part of Nevada Public Radio membership. It is also distributed free at select locations in the Las Vegas Valley. All photos, artwork and ad designs printed are the sole property of Desert Companion and may not be duplicated or reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. The views of Desert Companion contributing writers are not necessarily the views of Desert Companion or Nevada Public Radio. Contact Tammy Willis for back issues, which are available for purchase for $7.95.

ISSN 2157-8389 (print) ISSN 2157-8397 (online)

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Sept. 18 - Jan. 8 Free for members or with general admission

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Eatin’ good in the Henderson neighborhood page 32

home s on the range c ausing r age

Community

Red Rock reboot A company linked to developer Jim Rhodes has revived his dream of building houses atop Blue Diamond Hill. Is this plan invincible? B y H e i d i K ys e r

A

s cameras jump from one Clark County planning commissioner’s face to the next, their sympathy with the community members who’ve just testified at the September 20 meeting becomes increasingly apparent.

“Her presentation was concise and brought up some incredibly valid points … that I hadn’t even thought of,” Commissioner Donna Tagliaferri says, apparently referring to UNLV civil engineering professor Barbara Luke, one of a dozen people to lodge complaints against a proposal to develop 5,000 homes on 2,000 acres atop Blue Diamond Hill in Red Rock.

After listening to his fellow commissioners hash out their concerns, J. Dapper, who represents Red Rock, interrogates Ron Krater, who represents the developer, about whether potentially affected community members had been involved in the plan’s formulation, and if not, why. “I can tell you right now that you don’t have my vote,” Dapper says, despite Krater’s assertion that the plan was publicly vetted. “This is my area, and what I’m saying is, I’d like to

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ALL Things

community

Hear more Hear about

see you hold this and ... continue working on it.” He suggests a 90-day delay before voting on the application.

Just then, a large man standing near Krater at a podium facing the commission interrupts. We’ve been going for an hour and half, he says. How about a break?

This man is attorney Jay Brown, a political heavyweight tied to the likes of Harry Reid. As the video continues running during the break, Brown can be seen conferring with various commissioners and county staff.

When the meeting reconvenes, the tone has changed. Some commissioners now suggest approving Krater’s application and letting the community give feedback as the plan unfolds.

“You could require, as part of the specific plan process, that they get the input that you would be satisfied with,” Tagliaferri tells Dapper.

But he holds out, and a compromise is reached.

Krater gets a month to meet with Blue Diamond, Mountain’s Edge, Red Rock and Rhodes Ranch communities and give notice that the application will be heard on October 18.

The results of that October meeting are below, but first, a little history. In the early 2000s, developer Jim Rhodes bought a 2,400-acre, 90-year-old gypsum mine on Blue Diamond Hill, across State Highway 159 from the small town of Blue Diamond. (Krater says the current developer, Gypsum Resources, is owned and controlled by a family trust and that Jim Rhodes is one of many stakeholders.)

The area is on federal land west of town known as Red Rock that’s managed by the BLM. Owners kept the private property — not just Blue Diamond, but also Calico Basin, Bonnie Springs and the Spring Mountain Ranch — that they owned before the 196,000-acre Red Rock National Conservation Area was designated in 1990. Clark County is in

“I sympathize with people who would like to see just nature, open space,” Krater says. “But it was never going to be that. … Every square inch of that property could be developed.

This proposal suggests an alternative to that.”

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Red Rock’s charge of zoning and construchearing, dozens of well-prepared history as tion on the private property in opponents lined up to testify to a protected Red Rock. multitude of negative impacts they land on Rhodes proposed building expect the project to have — from “KNPR’s State of 7,000 houses atop Blue Diamond a drop in recreational tourism to Nevada” Hill, on land that sits on the a spike in traffic in the area. After at desert outside edge of the conservaminimal deliberation, commiscompanion. com/hear tion area. It is surrounded by sion chair Dan Shaw moved to more undeveloped and/or heavily recommend denial, and a vote on mined land. Residents of nearby the motion passed unanimously. communities joined forces with thouThe next step is the County Commissands of environmentalists and outdoor sion meeting on December 7. The comenthusiasts to fight the plan. In 2005, Blue mission will consider Gypsum Resources’ Diamond resident Heather Fisher, who application and concept plan, taking into co-owns Las Vegas Cyclery and Escape account the planning commission’s and Adventures (which profit from Red Rock Red Rock Community Advisory Council’s tours) helped found Save Red Rock, a nonadvice to deny. profit represented pro bono by attorney But in a town built on gambling and and former State Senator Justin Jones. construction, odds favor developers.

“Blue Diamond Hill is the barrier that “I sympathize with people who blocks the noise, traffic and haze from would like to see just nature, open Las Vegas. It keeps Red Rock dark, quiet, space,” Krater says. “But it was never peaceful — all the things that thousands of going to be that. … Every square inch of visitors come out here every weekend to that property could be developed. This enjoy,” Fisher says. “If you build a city on proposal suggests an alternative to that.” top of it, you’re breaching that barrier.”

Indeed, the new concept, scaled back For his part, Rhodes sued the state and from Rhodes’ original proposal, incorpocounty, saying passage of a 2003 state law rates the conditions the county previforbidding high-density development in ously demanded. Commissioner Susan Red Rock violated his property-owner Brager, whose district includes Red Rock rights. The county settled, but the state and who was Save Red Rock’s biggest ally took it to court. In 2013, the Nevada last time around, is serving her final term, Supreme Court agreed with Rhodes that so voters have lost reelection leverage the state had overstepped its bounds. with her. And, perhaps most daunting, By then, the county and Rhodes had Gypsum now has Jay Brown on its side. settled. In 2011, they agreed on a concept “Over the last few days, I’ve had with more than a dozen conditions: no conversations with people asking, ‘How connector road from the 159 up the hill, do you beat Jay Brown?’ and people just low-density housing, natural colors, shake their heads,” attorney Jones says. dark-sky lighting and so on. Due to the But as the October 18 meeting showed, fierce local opposition to the project, Jones has a few tricks up his sleeve, Rhodes also agreed to try and swap some such as pointing out Gypsum’s lack of of his land on Blue Diamond Hill for BLM contiguous parcels for a coherent design, property in a less objectionable area. In a county requirement. And the project’s 2014, that effort stalled when the BLM enormous unpopularity could have said its policy was to not take over land as political ramifications beyond the district ravaged as the former mining area. and term in question.

Then, to hear opponents tell it, things Fisher was energized following Save went quiet. That is, until September 20.

Red Rock’s October 18 win: “We will now After winning their postponement from take the fight to the Clark County Comthe planning commission, the opposition mission, where we hope that they will got busy. Save Red Rock started a petition show the same courage in standing up for against the rezoning that it says garnered the people and for Red Rock Canyon that 19,000 signatures. At the October 18 the Planning Commission showed.”

“they who dance find infinite golden floors beneath their feet.”

– Marjorie Allen Seiffert

Barrick is proud to be the presenting sponsor for Nevada Ballet Theatre’s presentation of The Nutcracker at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts.

ALL Things

books

wildlife

The coyote is us Misunderstood and ruthlessly hunted, the wily coyote has nonetheless thrived in tandem with mankind

By John L. Smith

H

e crosses the green with the confidence of a scratch golfer, but he’s not there to putt. With a foursome of duffers oblivious to the drama taking place an 8-iron away, the coyote veers across the seventh hole and into the rough, slices through the tall grass and emerges seconds later with a cottontail rabbit before slipping into a nearby arroyo.

The manmade oasis draws nature into the edge of the city and generates an endless bunny buffet for coyotes. Listen closely to their delighted howls at sunset, and you can imagine them thanking us for making life a little easier for a change.

For many Las Vegans, the occasional golf course sighting may be the only time they glimpse a coyote. But the remarkable and misunderstood canis latrans has danced on the edge of humankind for thousands of years. Celebrated in Native American culture, they were scorned in ours. Coyotes survived more than a century of concerted extermination efforts, and somehow managed to increase their range, from the isolation of Death Valley to the bustle of New York City.

Their amazing journey across time and terrain is captured in Dan Flores’ Coyote America: A Natural & Supernatural History (Basic Books, $27.50) If ever a beleaguered creature needed an informed advocate in its corner, it’s the coyote. It has found a kindred spirit in Flores, an environmental historian and author who this year also published American Serengeti: The Last Big Animals of the Great Plains (Universtiy of Kansas, $24.95). He captures not only the coyote’s biology and biography, but its place in our own tale, as well.

“The modern coyote story has not just been about coyotes in states where no one

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would have imagined them a century ago,” Flores writes. “As we all realize now, coyotes were coming to live with us. ... Their colonization of our cities, from small burgs like my hometown in Louisiana to the biggest, loudest, most frenetic of our metropolises, has become the wildlife story of our time. It deserves some explanation.”

Coyotes were celebrated in ancient Mexico City and gained religious and folk-hero status in Native American culture. But when Europeans began moving west, their wild dog reference was based on experiences with the wolf — and they weren’t interested in nuances.

Called the “archpredator of our time” and “the Original Bolsheviks” (by Scientific American in 1920) and subjected to decades of attempts to kill them with guns, traps and poisons, coyotes could have used good defamation lawyer. Even the beloved Mark Twain, in Roughing It, couldn’t find a place in his heart for the “cayotes” he saw from the stagecoach he took to the Nevada Territory. He called them “spiritless and cowardly ... so scrawny, and ribby, and coarse-haired, and pitiful.”

In the ensuing years, American ranchers, in partnership with local and federal governments, promoted extermination over understanding and killed endless thousands of them. With the wolf driven to the edge of extinction, the coyote started being blamed for slaughtering livestock.

Although it was capable of taking down a sheep, Flores notes, there aren’t many candid cattle ranchers who can say they’ve watched a coyote kill a full-grown cow.

Coyotes are still classified as vermin to be shot on sight, and group hunts go on

in Nevada and elsewhere. But they have also managed to increase their breeding behavior, produce hybrids when necessary, and have migrated east, colonizing the nation and outrunning their critics.

In Native American culture, of course, Coyote has always had a grand old time. “When one reads American Coyote stories,” Flores writes, “it does not take much time or analytic effort to conclude who Coyote really is, and it is that realization that makes him so intriguing as a god.

Coyote is us in avatar form, or perhaps something more like The God Within.”

With the rise of environmental science, the coyote’s role in nature has been better understood. And its press has improved, thanks in part to the embrace of Walt Disney in a series of early 1960s features that told “the coyote’s side of the story.”

As Flores sees it, appreciating the coyote means setting aside some of the fears and prejudices Europeans carried in their journey west. “The coyote is an American original whose evolutionary history has taken place on this continent, not in the Old World,” he writes. “We see it not from the traditional vantage but from a sideways one, and from that perspective everything looks different.”

But only if you’re willing to look.

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ALL Things

people

profile

Ed Fuentes

Writer, photographer, designer, “conceptual storyteller”

W

hat’s real anymore? Or, more profoundly, who’s real anymore?

Tesla brainiac Elon Musk thinks we’re probably characters in a vast computer simulation (there’s “a billion to one chance we’re living in base reality”). Meanwhile, nearly everyone tied to the election — parties, PACs, media — continually spams a dazed America with distorted representations of one candidate or another. The existence of a “base reality” seems more debatable every day.

Into this topsy-truthy era comes Bunko, a forgotten underground street artist. He’s known only through materials discovered at a North Las Vegas garage sale by Ed Fuentes, a local arts writer. “I found four boxes,” Fuentes told us. “The person who had them said, ‘My wife buys a lot of crap.’” The first exhibit of Bunko materials, curated by Fuentes and spanning the mid-Reagan years to the advent of George W. Bush, just closed at UNLV. What makes Bunko ideal for our reality-warping moment is that he and his work are also entirely fictional — tailored to be ideal for our moment by Ed Fuentes, UNLV MFA candidate. Bunko is his “midway” program: the fake artist as real art.

Ed Fuentes himself is more or less real, explainer for the movement in Las Vegas. or at least he was when we saw him the (He had a natural fluency with the forms other day: 55, bearded, fleshy, garrulous, after a barrio childhood in Riverside, Calexpansive of personality, approximately 3 ifornia, where Chicano-heritage murals percent larger than life. Arriving here from were “part of your DNA.”) He’s a bit of a Los Angeles in 2012, Fuentes quickly beSwiss Army knife: writer, graphic designer came a key chronicler and evangelizer of (for Variety and NBC), photographer, the arts scene. Someone hangs a painting quote machine, idea-generator (it was he in this joint, Ed’s there, writing it up on who nudged Clark County to create its his blog, Paint This Desert, pushing it out successful poet laureate program). Now on social media. “His blog is really quite he’s girding all that with a midlife master’s wonderful,” says Patrick Gaffey, a cultural degree. supervisor with Clark County. “Someone “I don’t look at it as, This will help me coming from L.A. might assume there’s get a job later,” he said. “It’s just a good nothing worth writing about here. But way to take all the work that I’ve done there is, and he sniffed it out.” for 15 years, find a new context Fuentes launched his site with for it and make it mean something a big Warhol Foundation grant more for me, and maybe lead to Hear in 2013, and received a state arts something else.” more council grant last year. “He’s a Hear Ed So, about Bunko. “The guy’s great cheerleader,” Gaffey says.

Fuentes discuss his pretty good!” his creator said, in Fuentes’ time here has project on mirthful repose on a couch in the coincided with the boom in “KNPR’s lobby of UNLV’s Barrick Museum, Downtown murals and street State of where he was killing time that day. art, genres he’d covered in Los Nevada” Bunko’s work is sly and political, Angeles, making him the go-to at desert

tinctured with Chicano advocacy. One wry bit of type art, “CHiCANO” — with the middle of the highlighted as a Latino empowerment message — was, according to Bunko’s “story,” thwarted when Apple debuted its own lowercase-I logo, for the iPod, before Bunko could get his up on a wall. “Mac beat me to the street,” Bunko told his notebook. Other pieces mix media criticism, Reagan mythology and art history; Fuentes worked hard to make them look like products of 1990s technology.

Bunko — the artist, the idea, the exhibit — are high-concept simulacra, carefully scripted counterfeit realities designed to elicit a specific response ... just like so much of Las Vegas and, here comes the bitter joke, our politics, too. Both have, shall we say, a loose tether on base reality.

“It’s a Las Vegas show because you’re talking about a false environment,” he says, meaning the UNLV gallery brimming with themed falsehoods. And it’s a political show, because, well: “As you can see by this election, and by this show, you can make facts an abstract idea — which is the whole point of this show,” Fuentes says. “You have to know your facts. That’s the burden we all have.”

Angling for a quotable takeaway, we press Fuentes on a final point: Given the ominous crescendos of the election and what will surely be its contentious aftermath, what is the point of art amid the high-stakes craziness?

He paused a moment, perhaps considering the lessons of an exhibit about the permeable membrane between fact and fiction, an ambiguity many are content to ignore and others are determined to monetize. “I think art can help you define the questions,” he said at last. “That’s its role. Then you can start finding answers.” Finding answers: That may be the real billion-to-one shot.

Scott Dickensheets

companion. com/hear more

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p h oto g r a p h y A n t h o n y Ma i r

ALL Things

zeit bites

the city observed

Things have changed Photographer Richard Brian chronicles the evolving face of Fremont East

BEFORE AND AFTER Along with hungover tourists and Goodmans in the mayor’s office, change is the one of the few constants in Las Vegas, especially in Downtown, most especially on East Fremont. You’ve seen the trailer for Dr. Strange, right? The way an entire cityscape is folded and remade through the awesome power of mystical hogwash? Sorta the same on East Fremont, only here it’s accomplished through the decidedly less mystical, but not entirely hogwash-free process of development. Las Vegas photographer Richard Brian has been documenting this unceasing change. Having snapped elements of the East Fremont streetscape nearly a decade ago, he ‘s been going back to shoot from the same vantage points. “I was living Downtown before all that happened,” he says. “My stomping grounds were changing so rapidly, I felt I had to preserve that.” His pictures pose an implied question: How fast can a neighborhood change and still have a genuine civic character? Since he intends to keep shooting, perhaps the next round of images will provide an answer.

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town recluse

Five things you didn’t know about Howard Hughes’ Vegas years Fifty years ago this month, Howard Hughes

spent most of his time raising awareness about

and a community college system in Nevada.

moved to Las Vegas, parked himself in a pent-

the health dangers of nuclear testing. Hughes

Without those cash infusions, it’s unlikely either

house at the Desert Inn and didn’t leave it for

tried, unsuccessfully, to stop the radiation-spew-

institution would have gotten off the ground

four years. From 1966-70, he invested more than

ing tests 60 miles north of Las Vegas.

until years later.

$200 million in Nevada casinos, real estate, air-

3. In 1968, Hughes announced plans for a massive

5. He wasn’t able to buy

ports and a television station. Here are five things

addition to his recently acquired Sands hotel. The

everything he coveted.

you didn’t know about that period:

resort, Hughes proclaimed, would have a long

The owner of the Re-

1. When Hughes purchased the Desert Inn for

list of amenities. He was prescient in planning

view-Journal turned him

$13.2 million in 1967, he didn’t acquire the land or

for a bowling alley and a movie theater, which

down. The U.S. attorney

buildings. He simply bought the rights to operate

have become de rigueur in Las Vegas resorts.

general, citing antitrust

the hotel-casino and leased the property from

But he was downright bizarre when he boasted

concerns, derailed his bid

Moe Dalitz and his partners for $1.1 million a year.

of separate rooms for chess, bridge, table tennis

to buy the Stardust. And he

Pretty sweet deal for the Cleveland racketeers.

and — no joke — skee ball.

failed to stop Kirk Kerkorian

2. Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder, the celebrity

4. Although not much of a philanthropist,

from building the Inter-

sports bettor and TV commentator, worked as

Hughes did make financial commitments that

national Hotel.

a public-relations consultant for Hughes. Snyder

jump-started development of a medical school

Geoff Schumacher

A

... My style is to go positive. If taking the higher road does not bring fame and fortune, I’m perfectly fine with that.

s this historically raucous, farcical, apocalyptic, choose-your-ownadjective election shambles to its end, there’s only one place the art-minded will want to be when the polls close: at the Victor Xiu Gallery in Art Square for Diane Bush’s exhibit/ event The Final Tally. They’ll find satirical artwork, plenty of Mexican food, screens on which to watch the returns and nearby bars in which to celebrate or mourn the results.

The Final Tally completes Bush’s ambitious 10-month series of exhibits and performances presented under the title Dishing It Out. Dishing It Out featured such components as Mug Shots (mugs decorated with satirical images by local and national artists), Vanity Plates (ditto with plates), Make America Break Again (which involved viewers smashing dishware) and voter registration.

asked & answered

It’s over!

Artist Diane Bush marks the end of the campaign — and her political-satire project — with an election bash

Was there one event or thought that made you undertake such a big project?

Every eight years I turn my attention to the presidential election because folks get too wound up and need a bit of humor and stress-relieving activity. Hence the smashing of plates. There are two reasons that I built this project to span the election season. First was the intricate and complex scope of the project.

Second was the fact that as a female artist over 60, I felt like the invisible “old shoe” of the arts community. Without a monthly reminder that I exist, and that I still have some usefulness, I don’t think anyone would know I am an artist.

Clearly you view art as a vehicle for political expression. How do you maintain the line between art and propaganda?

Was “Guernica” by Picasso propaganda? I think of propaganda as a lie that the powerful repeat. Are artists powerful? Some are, like Ai WeiWei, who has the pleasure of being locked up for making powerful art. One of the project’s goals was to celebrate free speech, and we did that. One of the candidates wants to change the libel laws ... so we shall see how much freedom artists will have in the future.

Now that the end is in sight for both election and project, how are you feeling?

I think it was a success. Folks laughed and had fun, others were inspired, we sold a few pieces and I learned about the dye-sublimation process, all while registering new voters, celebrating free speech, raising some money for art education and retaining my marriage!

Artists who had never dabbled in political satire gave it their all, and The Huffington Post published work from eight of our artists.

My goal was a flattering national story about art in Las Vegas. In January, Afterimage Magazine is publishing a feature about my work and this project. To quote George W. Bush, “Mission accomplished!”

Scott Dickensheets

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ALL Things

leisure

streetwise

There if you look

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block of Sunset Road between Mountain Vista Street and Green

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Sorry, Bangkok Orchid! Sorry, Ross J’s Aloha Grill! Next time, promise!

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A Cat Hospital

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When they’re not racking up millions of views with their

adorable videos, cats can have

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It’s got the usual library stuff —

injuries related to excessive

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time I ate at Weiss. It sure mighta

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open topic

Eyes, eyes, baby Am I paranoid, or is Big Data watching and analyzing my every move? Yes. B y S ta c y J. W i l l i s

I

was in another city, which shall remain nameless, visiting a 70-year-old woman who may or may not have given birth to me many years ago, when I saw clearly how the threat of surveillance controls behavior. We’d had dinner at a Mexican restaurant. We walked to her car. A truck was parked a little too close, over the line, possibly door-dinging hers and definitely making it difficult for her to squeeze in.

“Asshole,” said the woman who, purely for the sake of storytelling, I’ll call “Mom.” And then: a screeching noise, a horrendous, scratching, definitely criminal noise. This woman, who for more than 40 years I’ve known to be basically kind and non-felonious, was keying the side of a pickup truck.

“Oh, my God! Mom! Stop! What are you doing!?” I yelled, and then, in a swift, courageous move, I ushered her into the car and we got the hell out of there. A brief discussion followed, wherein I fumbled with high-minded words like “right” and “wrong,” and she explained the eye-for-an-eye state of parking etiquette in her retirement town. I said things like “property damage” and “crime,” but these words seemed to miss the mark. It wasn’t until I noted, almost as an afterthought, that there are surveillance cameras in many parking lots, that she agreed

SOCIET Y

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it was time to quit pursuing vehicular vendettas. Besides, she assured me, it was a temporary loss of judgment.

“But did you really see a surveillance camera?” she asked worriedly.

I should’ve felt satisfied. But instead, I suddenly resented the omnipotence of surveillance. I already spend a lot of time and energy trying to ignore the many creepy-smart technologies that watch our every move in 2016, but now I was using the threat of it to control mothers. I mean others. Flashbacks to social concepts I learned in college filled my head: philosopher Michel Foucault’s take on philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s “panopticon” prison building, where everyone could be watched by a single watcher but could not know if they actually were. Basically, the theory is that the mere threat of surveillance, whether it’s actually happening or not, has the power to normalize people.

It’s a disturbing phrase, “the power to normalize people,” fraught with images of mad scientists tinkering with lobotomies to achieve thought control. Back when I stared at books that didn’t stare back at me, I pored over Foucault’s 1975 Discipline and Punish, which addressed the forthcoming panopticonish design of everyday institutions like schools and offices, which would control and normalize behavior. Long before we knew about the deep dives into surveillance that technology would allow, Foucault wrote, “Visibility is a trap.”

But I was young.

I was surveillance-free and naked when I wanted to be, and I thought those ideas seemed mostly applicable to sci-fi flicks. Flash forward 20 years and, oh my panopticon, we live in there, in here, under the

ILLUSTRATION b r e n t h o l m e s

watchful eyes of “the power to normalize.”

*** I’ll come right out with it: I’m paranoid. I like(d) my privacy. I liked my freedom to navigate a world that wasn’t busy navigating me. There was autonomy in not being followed by GPS. There was joy and challenge and self-reliance in getting lost. There was intrigue in perusing ads that were made for a larger swath of consumers than just those who shared my algorithm space, based on my patterns of online consumerism, my patterns of Google searches, details drawn from my social-media profiles, my uses of words in emails or texts that trigger ads in my Google results or Facebook feed. I text my spouse, “Don’t forget to pick up Advil, please.” Moments later, a headline on my Facebook feed says, “Studies show ibuprofen destroys your intestines. Click for (agonizingly slow, ad-laden) slideshow.”

Plenty of people love these conveniences, this bending of the world to match their interests, the ease with which they’re fed articles that match their worldview. But I can’t help but think about what I’m missing, what I would see if I had different patterns, what I might learn and understand about others if I weren’t reading information tailored to me.

I also enjoyed the autonomy of not letting a social-media app — which, if I want to stay connected to society in these times, I need — strong-arm me into giving it access to my photos, my contacts, my GPS location, my texts, my camera, my mic. I enjoyed not having an app urge me to post my location at all times. Checking in at CVS! I don’t need the behavioral nudge of Facebook saying, Don’t you want to post these pics that you recently snapped? If I did, I would have.

Archaically, I suppose, I often wonder: Why is it okay for the manipulators of high tech and big data to slowly take over my decision-making? I’m not sure we’ll have to wait for artificially

intelligent beings to conquer the world; we’re handing over control of our lives one click at a time.

*** Here, then, is where I always seem to come off as a whackadoodle. I guess I can’t genuinely say that my leave-thegrid, Luddite fantasies are based entirely on my concerns about the social harms of silo-ization and a disappointment in the upkeep of privacy laws. There’s a fine line between wanting your freedom and just being thoroughly creeped-out by surveillance, aka the aforementioned paranoia. Years — years! — before the world noticed in a photo that Mark Zuckerberg covers his laptop cam with tape, I had taped that sucker shut on mine. It was about 2009, and an IT guy laughed at me, saying, “No one can see you,” while he took control of my cursor from another office and changed all my settings. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you.

But, really, who cares who sees you?

Who cares if there are, horrifyingly, drone cameras disguised as flies buzzing around the world, recording everyone’s everything and adding it to Big Data, to be used to make society safer and your life more convenient? If you’re not doing anything wrong, what’s the problem?

The obvious problem is who gets to decide what’s “wrong.” The larger problem is that it’s dehumanizing. It chips away at the boundaries of personhood, of each person’s identity being defined in part by the ability to make choices about which thoughts and actions are shared and manipulated and used to control behavior, and which are not. Moreover, it’s creepy as hell, and I’m not ready to completely give in to a techno-lobotomy. And, finally — just get off my lawn! — I don’t want to check into the panopticon prison, where the threat of surveillance embeds in my deepest psychological impulses.

So, will that mom lady and I show up on a Google Maps image keying a truck?

Unlikely. Has the idea of this changed my mom’s behavior? Yes. Do the ends justify the means? I would say, emphatically, no.

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Virtual slam dunk As demographics and entertainment demands shift, Las Vegas is primed to rule the booming e-sports future B y Ja s o n S c av o n e

T

he NHL is coming, and that’s all well and good. The NFL might be coming, too, and all of a sudden it’s starting to look like Las Vegas might join the rarefied air of Charlotte, Nashville and Buffalo as bona fide two-sport cities.

Civic leaders love to point to these things as proof that Las Vegas is on the rise, taking its rightful place on the national stage among major metropolitan areas that matter to people. People like ESPN talking heads and Fox’s collection of roughly 93 analysts on its football pregame show. But it’s possible that these are moves for the past and present, and that the future is shaping up elsewhere.

After all, youth-football participation has fallen by nearly a third since 2010; even industry insiders openly question whether the sport will be the same, as science more convincingly links trauma-induced brain disease and football,

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making insuring programs at the high school and college level a nightmare. And ask the Phoenix Coyotes if hockey in the desert is a slam dunk.

What if the future of sports is just sports-adjacent?

Recently, while other casino-resorts pumped celebrity-chef restaurants and bigger, throbbier nightclubs to employ the horde of international DJs waiting for Ibiza season to roll around again, Downtown Grand started exploring a calculated zig to that zag. In November 2015, the resort introduced a new e-sports initiative and put in a lounge to host regular competitions. It might have been on to something.

Las Vegas wasn’t exactly a stranger to e-sports — Evo, or Evolution Championship Series, a fighting-game competition — has been held here since 2005. But when the League of Legends North American League Championship Series came to Mandalay Bay in April, it signaled a major

shift toward Las Vegas becoming a prime destination for e-sports tournaments.

League of Legends is one of e-sports’ prime-time games, along with the likes of Dota 2, Counter-strike: Global Offensive, Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch. Having a major LoL tournament here was like getting the NBA All-Star Game — something that put the city in play for other events. The Staples Center in L.A. might have hosted major tournaments so far, but e-sports cognoscenti think Vegas could rise as the e-sports capital of the United States.

“Vegas is going to be the hotbed for e-sports, and it’s not going to slow down.

It’s going to get bigger and bigger,” John Bukosky says. Bukosky heads up Ultimate Media Ventures, which kicked off its monthly Battle on the Strip in October at SLS. The series works with e-sports leagues to create events based around tournaments that include opportunities for amateurs to compete, plus retail and

p h oto i l lu st r at i o n B r e n t H o l m e s

cosplay. “I think Vegas is very interesting for all the publishers because of the international airport, because of the hotel situation. I think you’ll start to see entities come into town and build dedicated arenas. A campus to train, to play.”

E-sports has flirted with television before, as early as 2005, but it was still a niche curiosity in America, despite the fact that in the rest of the world, e-sports was shaping up to be a major player.

South Korea was mad for Starcraft competitions, with two dedicated e-sports cable channels by that same year.

It took 10 years, but e-sports finally started bleeding into mainstream sports coverage. Last year, ESPN2 aired Heroes of the Dorm, a collegiate Heroes of the Storm tournament. E-sports highlights crept into SportsCenter. This summer, TBS launched ELeague, a live-broadcast series every Friday night in conjunction with WME-IMG, the mega-agency that just plunked down $4 billion for a stake in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and which acquired an agency specializing in e-sports competitors in 2015.

Two years ago, Amazon bought gaming live-stream platform Twitch for nearly a billion dollars. Twitch partnered with TBS for ELeague. Major game publisher Activision paid $46 million for Major League Gaming in January. That was around the same time ESPN.com launched an e-sports vertical, and when research firm Newzoo anticipated the global audience for e-sports would top 145 million in 2017, and hit $1.1 billion in revenues by 2019. Oh, and the Philadelphia 76ers just bought into two e-sports teams, Apex and Team Dignitas. Which is almost like having an affiliation with an actual pro sports team. Meanwhile, Team Liquid was acquired by a group that includes Magic Johnson, Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis and Golden State Warriors co-owner Peter Guber.

So it’s a bit of a thing.

“The thing is, we’ve been building our audience and fan base and player base for the last 16 years,” says e-sports competitor Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel, a Las Vegan. He moved here in 2008 to help DirecTV’s massive, ill-fated move into the e-sports space, Championship Gaming Series. Wendel was recently summoned to meet Gov. Brian Sandoval to talk about

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Leveling up: Downtown Grand Chairman Seth Schorr is betting big on e-sports.

Gen-Xers and six million baby boomers.

It’s a reasonable assumption that the millennial preference for skill-based gaming over chance gaming carries into those older generations, as well.

That’s what Blaine Graboyes, CEO of the New York-based GameCo, is counting on. Schorr also sits on the board of the skill-based gaming company, which plans to open a Vegas office soon. Skilled gaming represents a new frontier on the casino floor. At their simplest, they’re video games that you play for a payout.

The better you do, the more money you get back. The machines are expected to roll out when the state gives its final approval, potentially as soon as the next few months. Skill-based games just debuted at Caesars properties in Atlantic City, where Garden State regulators somehow beat Nevada to the punch. Graboyes not only sees a crucial link between skillbased gaming and e-sports, but he’s so bold as to suggest e-sports will eventually eclipse traditional sports.

“It will begin to eclipse traditional sports year over year,” Graboyes says.

“In many ways it already has, depending on what the metric is. Viewership for the League of Legends finals beat everything except for Super Bowl and Women’s World Cup. Prize pool for the Dota 2 international beat Wimbledon and PGA. Fandom is the same size as most traditional sports.” And as the audience continues to age, those trends will carry

e-sports deeper into the mainstream. “I absolutely think it will eclipse the majority, if not all, traditional sports over the next decade.”

He’s not worried that far more e-sports viewers are watching on Twitch and other online streaming sites as opposed to traditional television. (Twitch is widely seen as being instrumental in fueling e-sports’ rocketing viewership numbers.)

Graboyes is a member of the Producers Guild of America, and he openly questions the value of televised content.

“All of our contracts on the gambling side also include us working with the casinos around e-sports activations. That’s going to continue to be a big component.

In the next few years you’re going to see new kinds of events. Right now we’re talking about two, four or eight teams competing in professional competitions, but I think more and more we’re going to see consumer-style events where it’s walk-on, open tournaments. Once we see more and more of that, there’s going to be a big home for that at casinos. Skill gaming and e-sports have an opportunity to grow to the size of the ($45 billion) slot industry over time. They support each other so organically. E-sports need venues, casinos need entertainment.

There is a pretty natural and organic link between the activities.” And if Vegas can take the lead in hosting, promoting and developing virtual sports, the payoff will be very real indeed.

Schorr: Christopher Smith

the life of an e-sports competitor. “At the beginning of baseball, people thought it was crazy to make a living playing baseball. I don’t see much difference in what we’ve been doing in e-sports, kind of barnstorming around the world spreading the gospel of this. This is the sport of the 21st century. The player base is growing drastically every day.”

If the multiple arenas, huge inventory of hotel rooms and international airport don’t make Las Vegas attractive enough to tournament organizers — and those are huge assets to tout — then there are three other forces that keep Vegas in play.

The first is that the Nevada Gaming Control Board is exploring allowing sports books to take wagers on e-sports.

Younger fans may have no interest in gambling on a big fight or a horse race, but let them bet on games they actually play, being contested at the highest levels? That could be a different story.

Which is the next part of the equation: Casinos are desperate to get millennials gambling. There’s a strong incentive to modernize the gaming business in a way that appeals to future generations of gamblers. “I don’t believe it’s any exaggeration that the millennial doesn’t play slot machines,” says Seth Schorr, Downtown Grand chairman. “There’s been some argument that the psychographic of any age group will be mixed between those who find comfort in chance-based gaming versus skill-based gaming. My observation is that millennials are generally not attracted to chance-based wagering, where their skill has no relevance to the outcome.

Quite frankly, they seem to think it’s not very wise to put money in a machine, cross your fingers and hope for a good result.”

Millennials are, of course, an attractive demographic for any business, seeing as how there are a lot of them, and many haven’t formed their lifelong brand loyalties yet. More than half of the e-sports community is north of 25 years old, just in time for casinos to be facing declining slot play from the 21- to 35-year-old demographic.

“It’s not going to be a unicorn that solves it on its own, but it’s going to be an important piece of the solution,” Schorr says.

But it’s more than just the millennial segment. Gamers represent about 23 million players across three generations — nine million millennials, eight million

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Culture

‘What you do there really matters’ The iconic Left of Center Gallery is only the latest of Vicki Richardson’s efforts to uplift people and create community

By Kristen Peterson

A

s the civil rights movement took hold in America — sit-ins, marches, the reverberating words of Dr. King — Vicki Richardson, a young African-American college student from Wilmington, Delaware, arrived at Nashville’s Fisk University, known as a hotbed of civil-rights activity. Richardson was alert to her times; she’d seen the two Americas, understood the role skin color played in the world around her, had even seen it up close, even within her own family. Her lightskinned uncles chose to pass as white, returning home only in middle-of-the-night visits so as not to be detected.

She arrived in Nashville after attending high school in an experimental desegregation program in the ’50s. In the wake of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling by the Supreme Court, school officials in Wilmington cherry-picked the highest-achieving black students to send to white schools. Richardson was one of 12 selected. “I thought it was

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a privilege because that’s the way they made it seem,” she says. “But when they came in, they siphoned off the best students. The black teachers resented them for taking the best students, but because it would be good, they didn’t want them to fail. It would open the doors.”

Doors needed to be opened. Segregation was a barrier that allowed only an occasional few to climb over. Entire communities were on economic lockdown. Richardson took three buses to get from her black neighborhood to her white school. She excelled there, participating on the yearbook staff, singing in choir and working on activities committees. Her editorials about segregation were published in local papers.

Her mother didn’t want her to go south for college. Her father, a well-traveled merchant marine, suggested she study in Paris. But this was 1962, change was afoot, and Richardson wanted to attend Fisk, founded in 1866 for freed slaves; it focused heavily on intellectual pursuits and was famous for its politically active student body. The school’s notable alums included W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. She was involved in march-

P h oto g r a p h y b r e n t h o l m e s

es and learned nonresponse tactics in the event someone should spit on her face, pour beverages on her or scream racial epithets into her ear.

A life in arts education wasn’t her plan; Richardson came to Fisk to major in theology and philosophy. But while researching a paper that touched on religious art, she wandered into the school’s art department, where she met Aaron Douglas, a painter and graphic artist who’d made a name for himself during the Harlem Renaissance. “He was so interesting, and here I was studying medieval art and artifacts,” she recalls. “His reason for doing art was for documenting the African-American experience.” He saw illustrations Vicki had made for her student paper and, after talking, she says, told her, “This is where you belong.”

He was right. All these years later, Richardson tells this story while sitting in her office at Left of Center, the nonprofit art gallery, educational center and community hub she’s run in North Las Vegas for more than 25 years.

After Fisk, a Ford Foundation Fellowship landed her at the University of Chicago to study inner-city education and curriculum development. During that time she taught at a school in Chicago, crossing from one gang territory into the next, she says. But Richardson was committed to teaching minority students.

“If you treat them like they’re worth something and have high expectations, they’ll come up,” says the former Clark County School District teacher. “A lot of them got ignored and got lost in the system. I’ve seen it all. People have lower expectations for minority kids than for white kids.”

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t’s a Tuesday evening, and Richardson is sitting at her desk in Left of Center Gallery, on Gowan Road, located in her husband’s construction building, which the galleries, teaching spaces and offices have nearly overtaken. Outside her office on the second floor is a three-room collection of African art, ceremonial masks, statues and musical instruments, which she began gathering on her teacher’s salary and which was combined with collections owned by late artist Calvin B. Jones and Joseph Walker. Richardson says she

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reached out to the American Alliance of Museums last year to move toward accreditation.

When she opened Left of Center in the ’90s, originally as a for-profit, its mission was education and inclusion through the arts. This meant building a community of artists and getting their work into the larger cultural scene through exhibits and public art projects. The gallery’s name came from song lyrics by Suzanne Vega: “If you want me/ You can find me/ Left of center/ Off of the strip” — a perfect fit, geographically, socially and politically.

That’s particularly evident in the first-floor galleries, where contemporary narratives play out in exhibits that address social justice in such topics as women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, racism, immigration and politics. Reaching further into the art community, the gallery is showing the work of UNLV’s BFA and MFA students for the first time. A recent exhibit, Seeking Justice Through Art, included a panel on equality.

“We have a strong commitment to social justice, marrying activism, education and art,” says Left of Center’s development director, artist Denise Duarte. “I think it’s something that sets Left of Center apart. Art as a vehicle for social change is something Vicki and I are very committed to. A lot of our programming is focused on that. What you do there really matters for something. It’s very fulfilling.”

As her husband, Louis, takes care of business elsewhere in the building, Richardson recounts arriving in Las Vegas in 1978 with two young daughters, a master’s degree and concerns about the heat: “I thought nothing was meant to live here but lizards and snakes. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, and I remember that feeling.” She was hired by the Clark

When Richardson opened Left of Center in the ’90s, its mission was education and inclusion through the arts. This meant building a community of artists and developing exhibits.

Social media: Left of Center’s art addresses issues.

County School District, only to reject the first two schools she was assigned to, she says. Her training was for inner-city education, black schools, and even though she was told that schools in Las Vegas were integrated, the activist in her was adamant. She wanted a school where students were

disadvantaged. Eventually the call came: We think we have the school for you.

Rancho High was a diverse school known for its high teacher turnover and racial tension — it had endured riots in the late ’60s and early ’70s. Richardson was hired as an art teacher, assigned to a portable behind the school, as she recalls, previously used as a storage shed for football equipment. No phone. No intercom. She was shut off from the rest of the faculty and student body. And it was perfect. She had full control of the air conditioner and placed potted plants on the metal steps leading into her classroom. The adjacent football field was a great place for her students to study gesture drawing. When the school elimi-

nated its drafting program, her students got the tables.

“They took bets on me that I wouldn’t last longer than six months,” she says.

“I thought I was in heaven, and they thought they were giving me the worst place in the whole school.”

She got her students to enter art competitions. “We won them left and right, local, state, federal. Anything I could get them in, I did. I just wanted their work to be seen. It gave them confidence in themselves. They were proud of their work, and they were doing good work.

And we developed an advancement program so they could get college credit.”

After nine years at Rancho, she transferred to Cheyenne, but some of her

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Culture

Rancho students still recall her time there. “She was more than just a teacher,” says Randy Proby, one of those Rancho kids, who later attended UNLV on a track scholarship while majoring in art.

He now has a studio at Left of Center.

“She took us out of the school and into the community. She got our work into the banks and libraries around town.

She really cared about us. Most art teachers would teach a class and that’s it. She found our strengths and helped us use our strengths. She was our mentor, our friend.

“Her husband took me under his wing and treated me like a son. I babysat her kids. She was a mentor in raising my own kids. She did all that stuff, activism over racial divide. Here, everyone’s the same.

Everybody is equal.”

D

*****

uarte met Richardson in the early 2000s when she was helping her longtime partner Marlene Adrian film a documentary about Nevada women artists. Richardson ended up being featured in the documentary, Voices of Nevada Women Artists. Shortly afterward, Richardson, who was on the Las Vegas Arts Commission, was the facilitator of a public art project in West Las Vegas titled Ancestral Gateway, which was designed to reflect the West Las Vegas community and installed in 2008 outside Doolittle Senior Center. Duarte and artists Dayo Ad-

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Play and display: The gallery is also a community studio.

elaja, Sylvester Collier and Adolfo R. Gonzalez collaborated on the steel sculpture, which incorporates African symbols and is surrounded by a small meditation path.

“She guided us through that entire process,” Duarte says. “It was a really beautiful experience. It was just so effortless how we worked together and took the design to another level. It was a comfort that we can all rely on each other. I really got Left of Center during that project.”

The project came out of a call from area activists who lobbied for public art in West Las Vegas, a long-marginalized community in the valley.

“For me, that was really important to the project, because people wanted it,” Duarte says. “It was coming from the people up, not government down. It was very important to me that we get it right. Vicki was with us every step of the way.” These days, Richardson serves on Clark County’s Art Committee for its Percent for Arts Program as an artist and gallery owner.

“She’s one of those heroes of the arts community,” says Patrick Gaffey, Clark County’s cultural program supervisor and longtime arts advocate. “The first time I ever saw her gallery there, it was on the edge of the desert in an industrial building. It was really an odd place for a gallery. But then I went upstairs, and it was a beautiful gallery with a teaching space and workshop. I admire her dedication over the long term. She knew what

TRUCK CENTER

Culture she wanted to do and stuck with it. She’s helped so many artists and provided resources, which is so valuable.”

She’s never without her activist side, however. Left of Center is, predictably, the gallery that gets called when someone needs art for African-American History Month, much to Richardson’s chagrin.

She doesn’t want to see black art stereotyped as one style worthy of one month.

“Sometimes we don’t give them what they want,” she says with a small smile.

What they want, of course, is realistic art depicting black life or issues. “It’s the rebel in me. They think black art is only representational; we’ll send abstract.”

I

*****

f the Fisk-bound Richardson hadn’t imagined herself as an arts educator, she probably wouldn’t have pictured herself as something else she has become: a successful businesswoman. She owns

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three Auntie Anne’s pretzel shops — a venture that, not surprisingly, helps financially support Left of Center. It began after she’d retired from teaching, when she was awarded the contract to open an Illy Coffee shop in the D Gates at McCarran International Airport. Also not surprisingly, she threw herself into the venture with characteristic zeal, sleeping on a lawn chair in the airport from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. in order to greet the milkman, the muffin man — and sometimes make coffee for her morning employees. They were her team, and when the store would open, she’d shout, “Curtains up!”

“You’re ambassadors to Las Vegas,” she’d remind them. “You’re not just someone pouring coffee. You’re a barista. That’s science.”

Skeptics told her nobody would buy Italian coffee, but she knew better, having done her research. She designed the space herself, designed the employee handbook,

hired and taught employees, took inventory and learned about airport culture. She pushed her employees, encouraged them, sent them to barista competitions.

Sound familiar?

“It was exciting,” she says. “Building teams of people, it was like school again.”

She eventually sold her Illy store to Starbucks and bought a few Auntie Anne’s shops (founded by a woman whose Amish roots and altruistic vision appealed to Richardson). She also has a joint venture with Starbucks and other shops at the airport. “My team looks like a little United Nations,” she says. “When we have a tsunami across the world, we give. When there’s a disaster here, we give. We give to Doctors without Borders, flooding in Michigan. We support teachers’ projects in the school district and give to other local efforts.”

Somewhere along the way, she stopped sleeping in the lawn chair.

T

*****

he sun has gone down and the gallery has closed. Louis is finishing his business for the night; he pops in and out. Like Richardson, he’s quiet. As we talk, she opens her desk drawer and pulls out a black-and-white photo of late West Las Vegas artist Benny Cassel and sets it on her desk with great reverence. Cassel was showing work by African-Americans in a house on what is now Martin Luther King Boulevard, which included a bookstore. When he and his wife went to live in Africa with their children, she took over management of the space, while still teaching at Rancho and bringing her own children with her to the house gallery. At the time there was an effort to rally black artists and give them an educational space to feel welcome, even going doorto-door seeking those in the community making art.

“He was one who really showed me

that I had an obligation to share some of the things I learned,” Richardson said.

“He made it bigger than just teaching art. He made it about what arts can be to a community. He wanted to have a place where people connect, not just a gallery.

Wanted to teach art, but also how to teach the whole person.” Left of Center became the realization of that idea.

She’s sure her old mentor Aaron Douglas would approve, too. “I think he would be very proud of what I’ve accomplished, proud that I’m doing something to encourage and nurture artists in the same way as he did in his classroom and while still maintaining a stewardship to my culture.”

She’s an artist, too, by the way. Her work has a modernist feel, with landscapes evoking Georgia O’Keeffe, and richly colored representational paintings speaking to the African-American spirit. That and her contemporary ab-

stract work fit in with the bold aesthetic of artists who work in LoC’s open studios on Saturdays.

Artist Harold Bradford has been with Left of Center since its early years. “It is one of the single most important things that has happened in my life as far as art is concerned,” he says. “It opened up different avenues to show my work. I met her the first year I was here, in 1985. I didn’t know anyone in town. They came over to my home to see the work, and then we started meeting for breakfast almost every Saturday.”

Richardson, whose childhood was entrenched in segregation, has made her life all about multiculturalism and inclusion. Though she’s 71, she’s not about to stop.

“He’s never going to retire,” she says of her husband, who’s standing in the doorway. “I’m never going to retire.

We’re just too involved.”

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The white whale The law has pursued millionaire sports bettor Billy Walters for more than 25 years — but he’s almost always walked away a victor.

Is the gambler’s uncanny luck about to run out? b y J o h n L . S m i t h

I

n his dark slacks and a red golf shirt, Billy Walters looked like he might have just finished a round at his flashy Bali Hai course on the south Strip. But he wasn’t strolling toward the clubhouse on May 19. He was seated, under arrest, amid a row of less impeccably dressed defendants, all

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waiting their turn to hear their charges read in U.S. Magistrate Judge George Foley Jr.’s packed courtroom. The confidence and color drained from his face, his white hair disheveled, Walters appeared to have taken a punch in the stomach. It was a pain in the gut he’d felt before.

Walters appeared almost lost as his friend and longtime defense attorney Richard Wright stood nearby. Walters couldn’t be blamed for feeling a sense of déjà vu, as he had faced plenty of previous charges in his life. But those had all stemmed from his uncanny success as a professional sports bettor, and he had beaten every one of them while gleefully embarrassing his enemies in the process.

This time, it’s different. Walters is accused of cheating in America’s biggest league of gambling — Wall Street.

In a case brought by Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Walters is charged with insider trading violations in connection with the alleged manipulation of stock in Dallas-based Dean Foods, the parent company of the Olive Garden restaurant chain. Also charged is Dean Foods board member Thomas C. Davis, who pleaded guilty to 12 felonies and has agreed to cooperate with federal authorities.

Charges against Walters include securities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and wire fraud. He faces the prospect of millions in forfeiture and seized assets, and has also been hit with civil sanctions by the Securities and Exchange Commission. In June, Walters pleaded not guilty to the 10 felony counts against him. Golfer Phil Mickelson, a high-profile inside player in the alleged scheme, escaped indictment in the criminal case, but was fined more than $1 million by the SEC based on ill-gotten profits he made trading on stock after receiving insider tips from Walters. One of the world’s greatest golfers, Mickelson became heavily indebted to Walters in the scheme, according to authorities.

Wright, who walked into the Lloyd D. George U.S. Courthouse that spring 2016 afternoon with a $100,000 check to free Walters from custody, listened as Magistrate Foley explained the process. In a matter of legal formality, Walters gained an expedited release from custody and left the courthouse through a side gate — away from public scrutiny — within a few hours.

“Those who know me best know that it is preposterous to think that I would involve myself in insider trading,” Walters told the press the previous year when the criminal allegations first surfaced. But those who have followed his career know

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he has made millions of dollars with incredibly accurate information while rising in stature as an uncommonly prescient political insider. Local professional gamblers speak with affection and admiration about Walters’ relentless pursuit of the “best of it” — that is, the smart bettor’s inside edge that comes from information, insight and experience. But when it comes to Wall Street, an inside edge can come dangerously close to insider trading.

Local and federal law enforcement agents were also in court that day. Some were merely curious, while others had been examining Walters’ proximity to lucrative business deals with local government officials. Some had participated in his arrest at the fusion-fare Cili restaurant he owns at Bail Hai, known for its power lunches and “discreet wait staff.” In their world, Walters’ uncanny success in gambling and business was similar to the story arc of now-fallen powerhouse lobbyist Harvey Whittemore, who was convicted in 2014 on federal campaign contribution violations, but was suspected of facilitating much deeper corruption.

To police and federal agents, Walters has been a white whale for more than 25 years. They’ve pursued him from the sprawling Computer Group case of the early 1990s that ended without convictions, through multiple raids of his sports betting network that resulted in money laundering indictments later dismissed, and even through ethically questionable golf course development deals with local governments that made elected officials and taxpayers look like carnival suckers.

Each time, he swam away.

What they believed in their souls about Billy Walters, and what they were able to prove, were two different things. Will this insider trading case be any different?

Given how the consummately savvy Walter has employed his renowned gambler’s instincts to save his skin as often as he’s used them to win big, it’s a question as complex as the man himself.

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Win some, lose some, drink some

W

illiam Thurman Walters learned about life and long odds as a boy in Munfordville, Kentucky. Set in the south central part of the state on the Green River, Munfordville is the hometown of

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Profile Civil War generals from the Union and the Confederacy. In the 70 years since Walters’ birth in 1946, its population doubled to 1,640 souls. These days, Walters is the town’s best-known native son.

It was a long road from poverty to legend for Walters. In Munfordville, he was just another toddler from a broken home. His father was a gambler who died when “Billy” was 18 months old. His mother was a hard drinker who shuffled her son off to his grandmother’s house, a place without indoor plumbing. Poor but proud, Miss Lucy Queensburry kept a roof over their heads by cooking and cleaning for others. Walters found sanctuary and education at his uncle’s pool hall, where he hung out while his grandmother worked. He shot his first game of nine-ball standing on a Coca-Cola crate.

He racked balls for change, learned to tell the sharps from the suckers and became fluent in the ruthless math and

foreign language of gambling. The pool hall is where he learned to win and lose, pay and take, weigh the odds and get the best of it. He won some, lost some and drank some.

“More skullduggery goes on in a pool room than anywhere,” he once told interviewer Richard Munchkin. “It’s the greatest place in the world to learn what life is all about.”

With his winnings, he started betting on ballgames. It would be the Brooklyn Dodgers — and a local grocer named Woody Branstedder — who first broke his heart. Walters was a diehard New York Yankees fan in 1955, when names like Mantle, Berra and Whitey Ford were synonymous with victory. He bet his bankroll on the Yankees when they squared off with the underdog Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1955 World Series, and lost it all when the Dodgers won in seven games.

“I remember it like it was yester-

day; that sick empty feeling I had the first time I got broke,” Walters said in Munchkin’s 2002 book, Gambling Wizards. “Whether you’ve got $75 or $75 million, if you lose all you’ve got, it’s pretty traumatic,” he later told The Wall Street Journal.

Despite his loss, he kept on playing.

When his girlfriend became pregnant at 16, they married and had a medically fragile infant son. Walters worked in a bakery in the morning and a service station at night. He gambled every chance he got, and the local bookmakers who drove the nicest cars in town caught his eye.

By his late teens, Walters was hustling sales at a used-car lot and duffers at local golf courses. Both required the same skill: the ability to discern people’s desires, capacities and price points. While his rivals were reading greens, he was reading his opponents. A guy who shot par golf for a $100 Nassau bet might have a much tighter

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collar at $1,000. As Walters’ marriage disintegrated, his golf game improved.

All the while, his circle of friends and associates grew more intriguing.

He built an early and abiding friendship with legendary Kentucky bookmaker Luther James, whom law enforcement authorities considered a “non-member associate of organized crime.” James and his friend Paul Hornung, of Green Bay Packers fame, later partnered in a Las Vegas casino junket office.

If Walters had stuck with car sales and avoided bookmaking, he might not be facing criminal charges today.

“If I had stayed focused on cars, and hadn’t gambled, I would probably own three hundred automobile dealerships today,” he told Munchkin. “But I didn’t.

My love, my heart, my mind were always on gambling.”

Since his arrest, in the few interviews he’s granted (he declined through an attorney to speak for this article), his narrative with the media has evolved.

In the past, he insulted the intelligence of prosecutors and federal investigators. Now he downplays his six decades of gambling and inflates his automobile sales success. “Walters: Done gambling, still dealing,” was the headline on a recent article in Automotive News. In it, the legendary sports gambler muses about auto sales being his saving grace, a claim that writer Jamie LaReau notes without irony.

“Whatever success I’ve had in my life I owe to the automobile business,” Walters said. “It was my MBA. It was my college.

You strictly reap what you sow. ... You take a guy who comes from where I came from — if it wasn’t for the automobile business, I don’t know where I’d be today.” He is reportedly a partner in 18 auto dealerships in California, Kentucky and Georgia. He also owns two Las Vegas golf courses, a Budget Car Rental franchise at the San Diego airport, restaurants, a casino in Latin America and commercial and residential real estate. Still, he seems to find time to place bets.

A love of the action

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uring the 1960s, Walters was a regular in Louisville gambling circles, and a love of the action led him to Las Vegas, where he gravitated toward

the big cash games at Binion’s Horseshoe and elsewhere. In the early days, Walters boozed almost as hard as he played. As real gamblers know, alcohol and games of skill only mix well in the movies, and he gained a reputation as a sharp but undisciplined player with a tendency to chase his losses, go for broke — and get there.

An older Walters looked back at the younger man he was and called that guy “an idiot” who would “flip a nickel for all the money I had. I wasn’t stupid,” he told Munchkin. “I looked for the best of it, but if I couldn’t get the best of it, I’d take the worst of it to get in action.”

Walters came to Las Vegas often, won big money in the casino and on the golf course at the Las Vegas Country Club, and sometimes returned home stone broke and in borrowed clothes. He once won $400,000 on a single hole and $1 million on a game, only to lose that bundle at a blackjack table before the night ended. He’s credited his success to quitting drinking, a better appreciation of the business and, especially, his marriage to wife Susan, whom he says has been his compass for four decades.

Once sober and settled, he experienced steady success at the highest levels. It was then he learned another lesson: The casinos that welcomed his action when he rode the roller coaster weren’t as welcoming when he began beating them. With the exception of his friend Jack Binion at the Horseshoe Club, Walters considered most casino bosses as rivals. “If you threaten to become a consistent winner,” he once said, “the casinos not only didn’t want your business, but they would go to great lengths to create problems for you.”

Back home in Kentucky, he had also created some problems for himself.

He dodged stickups and threats from heisters and loan sharks, but when he was busted in the 1980s for illegal bookmaking, his livelihood and freedom were threatened. Decades later, Walters remains highly sensitive about his only conviction. Calling himself “a bookmaker without a license,” he is quick to remind skeptics that his conviction was for possession of gambling records, a misdemeanor, for which he paid a $1,000 fine and received six months probation.

Still, it spurred him to abandon Ken-

tucky for Las Vegas at the auspicious moment when the sports betting world was about to explode.

Driven to win with data

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n the sports betting world, Walters’ name is synonymous with the Computer Group betting case, but, actually, Michael Kent was the brain behind the system. A mathematician who helped develop the nation’s nuclear submarine technology, Kent was also a self-described “computer nerd” and softball player. His use of computer programs to determine the abilities of the teams in his softball league wound up turning sports betting on its head by creating a data-driven handicapping system that rated teams with greater depth and accuracy than the pros.

No winner goes unnoticed in Las Vegas for long, so Kent soon found himself meeting Dr. Ivan Mindlin, an orthopedic surgeon who had been a physician to celebrities but was better known around casinos as a heavy gambler. Kent partnered with Mindlin for the 1980 college and professional football seasons, and battered local and illegal bookies so successfully they needed help finding enough bookmakers to take their bets.

Walters’ contacts came in handy.

In Las Vegas, they used organized crime associates Eddie DeLeo and Dominic Spinale, a reliable layoff gambler with his hometown mob family in Boston, the Angiulos. So when Mindlin used Spinale to open an account at the Stardust, according to case Special Agent Thomas Noble, it attracted FBI attention. The Computer Group was about to go public.

From Las Vegas to Tulsa, El Paso to Baltimore, Knoxville to Salt Lake City, the Computer Group had a network of agents and a gambling operation that was second to none. Early in the group’s existence, the nation’s network of street bookies seemed oblivious to the magnitude of their enterprise. The group netted $24 million in 1984. In a one-month period, the group wagered $12.6 million and netted $1.6 million.

By December 3, 1984, in response to a 45-page affidavit by the FBI, U.S. District Judge Lloyd D. George approved a wiretap in what authorities believed to

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Profile be a massive bookmaking operation with ties to organized crime. But the affidavit described more evidence of sports betting than illegal bookmaking. Even though “Doc” Mindlin was considered the manager of the Computer Group, its indicted members were more Walters’ ilk, such as old-school street bookmakers William “Lefty” Neumeyer of Baltimore and James Proctor Hawkins of Las Vegas. Then there were the poker and sports hustlers such as Korean War bronze star-winner Dale Wheeler Conway of Salt Lake City. And Glen Walker, a former NBC Sports publicity man who followed the action to Las Vegas and became Walters’ trusted agent. Although Walters was a physical presence around local sports books in the group’s early days, by 1985 he’d become a phantom.

Often felt, seldom seen.

And yet, even after conducting a 23city raid and serving 45 search warrants in January 1985, in an investigation that eventually launched felony charges against 19 co-conspirators, the FBI’s rhetoric was confusing. Court documents referred to illegal bookmakers, but the actions described were essentially sports betting — which was not against the law. The group’s members were making bets, not taking them.

Soon, the press reported that the Mindlin-Walters concern also included as bettors some influential members of the Las Vegas community, including longtime real estate developer and Mindlin associate Irwin Molasky. Molasky was not indicted, but testified before a federal grand jury under a grant of immunity. Molasky wouldn’t be called to testify at trial, but as Sun columnist Jeff German wrote, “At the very least, the Gucci set should be buzzing at the (Las Vegas) Country Club for a while.”

Walters, meanwhile, was working all sides to his advantage. The most important legal turn came prior to trial when Walters met in private with federal Judge George — without the knowledge or presence of his attorney, self-described mob lawyer and future Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman. There was a reason for Walters’ insistence on secrecy: He’d previously met clandestinely with the FBI and shared information he believed might help ensure that nei-

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ther he nor his wife, Susan, would be indicted. In fact, Walters had engaged in back-channel talks with the FBI since early 1986, a year after nationwide search warrants were served and illegal bookmakers were thoroughly exposed.

Characteristically, Walters tried to put himself and his wife in the best position possible — and to get a read on his opponent. Walters signed an agreement to speak, on condition that his attorney would not be notified, according to his FBI debriefing memo.

As Walters later described it in an interview, he was trying to keep from being indicted and was willing to provide the feds with names and anecdotes — most of which were already common knowledge in the street bookmaking fraternity, and which he did not consider particularly damaging. It would seem he was hustling the FBI agent.

On his way to prying a recusal from Judge George, Walters’ estranged attorney Goodman filed a Notice of Outrage with the court on February 14, 1990. “A sordid history is being created in this case,” Goodman wrote, adding that, “No wonder, with a storm trooper mind set such as this, the ‘war on drugs’ is being lost, Shame – Shame – Shame.”

His entreaties had the desired effect, and Walters’ gambit turned the case in his favor. On July 26, 1991, Judge George wrote that although he believed the defense had presented “absolutely no evidence of bias, prejudice or impropriety,” he would recuse himself. His replacement, U.S. District Judge Clarence Newcomer of Pennsylvania, made it clear from the outset that he wasn’t excited about the government throwing the book at a bunch of sports bettors, no matter how high their profile or the size of their bankrolls.

After a two-week trial, jurors were hung on several conspiracy and illegal transmission of wagering-information charges, and voted to acquit on the rest.

Only the handful who had taken a plea deal were convicted. Walters and his co-defendants walked away free from the nearly decade-long investigation.

Lost in the media postmortem on the trial was the fact that the FBI’s investigation was continuing, and was turning up the heat on Boston’s Angiulo mob

family using evidence gathered during the Computer Group investigation.

“Nobody had ever seen anything like this before,” now-retired FBI agent Noble says. “This was not a gambling case. It was never about a gambling case. It was an organized-crime case. This started with Dominic Spinale, a Boston LCN associate, and from there reached out to organized crime bookmakers. That was the genesis of the thing. It wasn’t a gambling case at all. The Computer part of the case was spun off.”

Courting controversy, creating enemies

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he Computer Group investigation aside, Walters had gained a reputation as a formidable high-stakes gambler in several areas. His success on the golf course in big-money private games was curious. In 1986, he won Amarillo Slim’s Super Bowl of Poker, then the game’s second-largest tournament. He courted controversy and created a powerful enemy when he won a reported $3.8 million in one day at roulette at the Atlantic City Golden Nugget. He was suspected of cheating, and casino owner Steve Wynn reportedly hired NASA-trained engineers in an unsuccessful attempt to find the flaw in the wheel. Walters maintained that he merely found a mathematical edge and exploited it.

He also played pool, his childhood favorite, for enough money to buy a mansion, occasionally beating mob-connected players and risking being roughed up as a consequence. He remained tough to beat at any game.

But law enforcement was never far behind. By 1996, Walters was making the wrong kind of headlines again. Nevada state authorities and Las Vegas Metro detectives raided Walters’ Sierra Sports Consulting and seized $2.8 million. Indictments alleged money laundering.

Walters called it an old-fashioned shakedown, claiming he had been offered a chance to buy his way out of the legal entanglement if he gave up $500,000.

He said he refused out of principle. His improbable success gambling on games that seemed to bust out just about everyone else enhanced his reputation.

The New York Times fueled the magic in a 1998 story, noting how Walters had

risen from humble Kentucky roots as a “small-time gambler and used-car salesman.” As long as the Horatio Alger story sparkled in the national profiles, he welcomed the exposure. Thanks in part to prosecutorial fumbling and sloppy investigative work, he’d eventually win dismissals of the 1996 indictments at the local and state levels.

Still, the case revealed much, both about the inner workings of Sierra Sports Consulting and of Walters’ mind.

When messenger betting — that is, having a proxy place bets for you — was outlawed, Walters showed his ingenuity by creating a corporation, Sierra Sports Consulting, and bringing in his associates as partners.

“Everyone owned 1 percent of the company,” a former Walters runner explains.

Like several interviewed for this article, he speaks with affection and admiration for Walters, but still requested anonymity. “When you first meet him, you sign a partnership form and you are brought on as a stock shareholder” in a corporation.

A runner’s job was to “fill orders,” the former employee says. “You were told what to do and where you were to go to handle it.” When, inevitably, a runner’s bankroll grew into the high six figures, to avoid a potential robbery, the cash and chips were placed in a casino safety deposit box. “Instead of walking around with over a million dollars, you turned it in. The rules were put in place for good reason, obviously.” The runners were essential to the process, but they weren’t necessarily in on the betting strategy.

Sometimes they were decoys sent to move opinions and betting lines. Other times, they were the hitters who collected major wins.

“What I experienced was a sense of loyalty,” the former runner says. “With Billy, it was all about loyalty. As long as you’re loyal to him, he’ll always be loyal to you.” The last time they spoke on the phone, the former employee says, Walters started the conversation by asking about the runner’s son, now a young man. The former boss clearly understood what was most important in his ex-employee’s life. “That is the kind of person he is. He brings himself down to our level, so we feel comfortable talking

to him. ... I can’t call him a father figure, but I always look at Billy as someone to turn to, someone I trust for advice.”

Michael Konik may have been the least likely runner under Walters’ employ.

The author, journalist and screenwriter played the role of the high-rolling sports bettor for a couple years in the organization. He made a bundle with the group

while gathering material for a nonfiction book, The Smart Money: How the World’s Best Sports Bettors Beat the Bookmakers out of Millions. Walters’ name is changed in the book to Rick “Big Daddy” Mathews, and The Computer Group is called The Brain Trust. But the anecdotes are straight out of a day in the life of one of the most successful sports betting con-

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Profile cerns in the world. Perhaps reflecting the sense of loyalty Walters inspired, Konik is reluctant to pull back the curtain on Walters’ world.

“To call him a living legend is no exaggeration,” Konik says in a statement.

“Any serious sports bettor knows who he is — and they’d like to know which teams he’s backing.”

‘He’s a formidable opponent’

S

ome local sports book operators welcomed Walters’ business in order to get early access to his plays — a strategy with decidedly mixed results.

Walters’ appearance on 60 Minutes with a fawning M Resort executive, Lee Amaitis, in a puff piece reported by CBS correspondent Lara Logan, motivated Nevada gaming regulators, as well as FBI and IRS agents, to open a criminal investigation of the man who disarmingly calls himself a “Kentucky hillbilly.” Soon after the episode aired in early 2011, the M sports book was engulfed in a scandal linked to Walters’ old Computer Group associate, Stanley Tomchin.

Walters’ Kentucky drawl and country boy charisma didn’t work on Art Manteris; he doesn’t buy the line that linking arms with Walters is good for a bookmaker’s business. Manteris, a 40-year sports book veteran, stopped taking Walters’ bets early in their acquaintanceship.

Manteris and several other Vegas bookmakers privately refer to Walters as “Satan” or “The Great White.”

Some bookmakers look like geniuses when they let Walters bet, but his bets can also kill the bottom line. Associating too closely with him has cost many people their jobs, and concerns about Walters in the sports book world have bordered on paranoia. “Billy Walters is in the house!” shouted one sports book supervisor when a suspected Walters messenger entered the establishment.

Manteris, now an executive at Red Rock Resorts, hasn’t spoken to Walters for many years. In a recent interview, he was circumspect and judicious in his remarks about the man whom others have dubbed the Keyser Söze of Las Vegas.

“From what I know, he really was the most successful and toughest sports gambler in American history,” Manteris says.

“I think that he combined great gambling

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instincts and gambling intelligence with technical capabilities. By introducing sports data analysis to sports handicapping, it put him so far ahead of the curve that it was just ridiculous. I don’t think there’s any doubt that he’s a very smart fellow and a very smart gambler.” But Manteris remains uninterested in taking big bets from a Walters concern. “He’s a formidable opponent,” Manteris says.

“I’m very respectful of his abilities. I’m envious, I firmly acknowledge that. Does that make him a good customer in my book? No. Not at all.”

Walters has engendered affection, and even awe, from some sports book industry analysts and handicappers, for whom a winning bottom line equals respect and admiration. That Walters’ choreographed use of “beards” to mask his placing of large bets — and then making sizable misdirection wagers to move the line to a more favorable number before dropping an even larger bet — apparently doesn’t faze them. “He is the most respected sports bettor in the world,” enthused popular sports tout R.J. Bell to The Wall Street Journal.

In past interviews, Walters and his associates have described the practice in benign terms, or in the language of Wall Street, but his success motivated the gaming industry to push through legislation outlawing messenger betting. That legislative action complicated Walters’ betting strategy, but it didn’t slow his success. A 2008 controversy drew attention to him when he teamed with professional Fredrik Jacobson to win a pro-am golf tournament at Pebble Beach. Then again in 2010, when he admitted having approximately $2 million on the line every Sunday during the NFL season, and then $3.5 million on that year’s Super Bowl alone.

A patron saint moved to tears

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ith his millions in winnings have come the familiar trappings: an expensive jet, multiple mansions and foreign business interests. But, like many high-profile wealthy characters, Walters’ philanthropic gestures are laudable. He may have bedeviled law enforcement, rocked to sleep members of the Las Vegas City Council and Clark County Commission in golf course land deals

and been a satanic phantom in Las Vegas sports books, but he is an indefatigable patron saint of the Opportunity Village, which aids mentally challenged adults and their families. Walters’ connection to the charity is personal as well as monetary. His 47-year-old son, Scott, who survived brain cancer and surgery but was left with severe cognitive challenges, has been a presence at the site for many years.

Opportunity Village executives are generous in their defense and support of Walters following his indictment. “God bless Billy Walters and his family,” says Executive Director Bob Brown, the former Las Vegas Review- Journal publisher. “I think the world of them. I don’t understand what he’s going through, but I can tell you he’s been an incredibly generous friend to this organization.”

More than two decades ago, the organization’s founder placed a cold call to Walters without knowing of his son’s challenges. In that single conversation, Walters was moved to tears by the charity’s mission and its alignment with his own life.

His contribution of $10 million to the charity has also served to soften his reputation as a controversial gambler and well-connected developer. Most members of the Las Vegas City Council and Clark County Commission have been deferential toward him, even though his golf course deals — such as Royal Links, which he purchased for a relative pittance — generate large profits while returning little to the public coffers, and have exposed at least one top city official in an alleged ethics violation. When Walters in 1999 paid just $894,000 to lease a large swath of public land located near a sewer treatment plant for future use as a golf course, the city signed off. After all, what else could be built near such a malodorous spot?

The Royal Links Golf Course was handsome, if not exactly fragrant. But by 2005, Walters was back, pressing to have the lease opened and the zoning restrictions removed in exchange for $7.2 million. Administrative staff balked. Costs to improve the air quality alone might cost as much as $100 million. Walters prevailed in a score that overshadowed his biggest sports bets. Land appraised

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Profile at $5,600 per acre in 1999 was suddenly worth $400,000 per acre.

When Attorney General George Chanos found Walters was on the receiving end of a “consistent pattern of political and financial” patronage, which compelled the city to blush and rescind, he was widely criticized. A Metro investigation later determined then Las Vegas Public Works Director Richard Goecke had likely committed a criminal act as part of that patronage, but no one was ever charged. Walters denied wrongdoing, was lauded by city leaders as “smart” and a “good negotiator” and kept moving.

He may be a mythological figure in the sports book and halls of local government, but in the realm of local golf course development, his feet have been all clay.

Despite getting all the best of it from public officials and financial set-asides galore, in addition to the mess at Royal Links, his Stallion Mountain fell into decay that generated lawsuits, Desert Pines was dumped during the recession and Bali Hai has underperformed badly on paper. Walters’ legal representatives have blamed the recession, but longtime observers of the gambler suspect the highly confident Vegas insider failed to spot a troubled economy. As his attorney Dennis Kennedy recalled in the Stallion Mountain litigation, “In 2006, and this is no secret to anybody, the economy starts to go downhill. The good times are starting to come to an end.”

Where some see the shadows of public corruption and slippery ethics, others consider Walters simply an expert at playing politics in Nevada, where checkbook generosity and in-kind contributions have often led to a high winning percentage for developers in front of local government. In that realm, as in betting, Walters has been all but unbeatable.

For every critic, there’s a current or former elected official singing Walters’ praises. Former Mayor Oscar Goodman had apparently recovered from whatever bitterness he felt during the Computer Group days, and gladly accepted his political contributions. One notable fundraiser for Goodman held at Cili raised six figures for his candidacy. “He’s a sly fox, but I’d rather have him in my hen house than anybody else,” Goodman says. “His word

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is good. If he tells you he’s going to do something, he does it. He’s always been 100 percent with me. He’s been as honorable as any guy I’ve ever dealt with.”

Where repeated controversy has made others radioactive, Walters continues to enjoy access to the city’s elite social and business circles. When he was honored as the Opportunity Village Philanthropist of the Year in 1997, such dignitaries as U.S. Senator Harry Reid and Governor Bob Miller were on hand. His rise from Southern poverty is undeniable, his successful operation of multiple companies impressive. And his multimillion-dollar embrace of Opportunity Village transcends a public relations ploy.

Changing stakes, changing game

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ut that’s not what brings the FBI to your door. The 40-page criminal indictment against Walters alleges that from 2008 to 2014, he received confidential “material, nonpublic information” about the finances of Dean Foods from company executive Davis, who was not only his friend and business partner, but also indebted to Walters in the amount of $1 million. With the insider information Davis provided him, according to the allegations in the indictment, Walters made a killing: approximately $32 million in profits while avoiding $11 million in losses.

The charges, which will be decided by a federal jury in New York, include the allegation that Walters issued Davis a prepaid cell phone for exclusive use to communicate the insider information.

Like the illegal bookmakers of days past, he instructed Davis to use code words to mask the content of their conversations. “Dallas Cowboys” was the alias for “Dean Foods.”

Mickelson, the three-time Masters winner, shared something in common with Davis, according to the indictment.

He also found himself in debt to Walters, who’s alleged to have passed along insider information to Mickelson that enabled the legendary golfer to make a million-dollar score.

In New York, Walters’ bond was set at an iceberg-cool $25 million. With a net worth publicly estimated at $100 million, and friends worth many times

that, he covered that number, too. Barry Berke, Walters’ New York attorney, called his client “a true American success story” whose sports gambling career was “lawful” and made him “widely recognized and lauded.” Berke claimed the charges were based on “erroneous assumptions, speculative theories and false finger-pointing.” In contrast, Davis’s attorney seemed eager to have his client cooperate fully in the investigation. Mickelson’s lawyers, too, were sanguine at the prospect of their clients’ status. “Phil was an innocent bystander to alleged wrongdoing by others that he was unaware of. Phil is innocent of any wrongdoing.”

Such rhetoric raises the question: If Davis is repentant and Mickelson is innocent, what does that make Walters? A man who tried to hustle Wall Street, the most rigged game in America? If Walters has outfoxed legal and illegal sports books across the nation for decades, causing sleepless nights for a handful of casino bosses, is that really such a crime? How has a fellow with a poor boy’s education finagled deal after deal from government institutions armed with lawyers, accountants and experts of every stripe?

Maybe the answer can be found in remarks made by FBI agent Noble about Walters’ extraordinary ability to “smooth over” issues and “move people where he needs them to be. ... He’s good at working people.” Walters’ understanding of human nature, and the useful moral relativism that is an integral part of the Las Vegas psyche, may be the strongest parts of his game.

While others were learning to read books, that poolroom waif from Munfordville was reading green felt and his fellow man. Perhaps after all these years, only the stakes have changed. Maybe this time, the government finally has its man. Maybe this time, Walters will be willing to trade something truly valuable in exchange for his freedom. But even the best sports book experts won’t handicap the outcome of this case.

A longtime Las Vegas journalist, John L. Smith is the author of more than a dozen books. He was inducted into the Nevada Press Association Hall of Fame in September.

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The Dish 72

11

16

Eat this now 75 cocktail of the month 75

Our c i ty's be st spots to eat & drink

At FirST BITE 76

Borders crossing: Standard and Pour's kimchi tacos

P hoto g ra p h y By christopher smith

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Dining out

Trio with brio: Clockwise from left, Nora's grilled octopus, veal marsala and chicken carciofi

The DISH

A moving tribute Continuing to balance tradition and innovation, local mainstay Nora’s Italian Cuisine begins a new chapter B y K r i s t y T o t t e n

W

hen Nora’s Italian Cuisine opened in 1991, it was a modest operation: 12 tables, a handful of classic Sicilian dishes and a bring-your-own-wine policy.

But the small space would put its name on the map with something the valley had not yet seen.

“My mom was one of the first people in town to do a pizza without pizza sauce,” Marcello Mauro, the general manager, recalls. “It was groundbreaking. It was such a hit.” From there, the family-owned operation would lead in other off-Strip firsts: first mixology cocktail program, first to pour wine at the correct temperature (and in correct stemware), first to serve octopus.

“This was done by the big boys on the Strip,” Nora’s eldest son Giovanni Mauro says, “but locally it was unheard of.” Treating local diners with a touch of Strip sophistication paid off. Building a loyal clientele largely by word-of-mouth recommendations, Nora’s steadily grew from a one-room restaurant into three rooms, with a dining room and full bar. And its reputation grew, too. Nora’s genuine hospitality and timeless dishes — its bright, fragrant veal and chicken marsalas, its beloved grilled branzino, its

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crazy alfredo loaded with chicken, sausage, shrimp and mushrooms — earned the Italian eatery honorary “Old Vegas” status. In September, 25 years since it opened, Nora’s moved into its own freestanding building, blocks from the original location. It’s metaphorically fitting: The move into a new space allows for new cooking methods and menu items, but the Nora’s family is remaining close to its roots.

“It feels like Nora’s, but cleaner and newer and fresher,” says Marcello. “Everyone seems to love it.” Or, as one employee put it: “It’s a new stadium, same team.”

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A large, temperature-controlled glass wine storage is another significant upgrade, showcasing hundreds of bottles.

And the bar now carries six beers on tap instead of one, and a handful of batch cocktails ($12) on tap ensure a consistent flavor. “I like to look at it like a chef coming and doing the mother sauce for the kitchen,” Marcello says.

Uva, a vodka and white wine cocktail, tastes something like an herbal margarita, tangy and refreshing but also complex. The Witch Craft draws inspiration from the mojito, with Cruzan rum, tangerines, tarragon and ginger. And the Eastern Creek whiskey sour packs a dizzying herbal punch, with Knob Creek whiskey, yuzu, chai tea and fennel, garnished with a basil leaf.

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New traditions

T

hat fine-tuned beverage program is also something of a Nora’s tradition. icilian traditions are at the heart of Nora’s Wine Bar, which had a brief but spectacular run in Summerlin, boasted an the Mauros’ cuisine, but the family has always been known for infusing Enomatic wine-dispensing system, aptly tradition with trend. Nora’s has proven described as the “Gameworks of wine” its elevated standards over the years by because it allowed guests to load up a honoring the old while incorporating the card with cash and self-serve wines by new — but more importantly, the new and the ounce. Nora’s Wine Bar closed during worthwhile. the recession, but it’s what set Nora’s exThe relocated Nora’s still offers its pansion in motion.

“It inspired me to try to own a place. fan-favorite classics, but broadens its appeal with new, grilled items, cooked on That’s what set this into place,” Marcello a custom Josper charcoal oven imported says, sitting in a private dining room at from Spain. The oven grills and smokes the new location.

The new building is two stories tall and in less time than an open grill and with Mediterranean in style. The ground levmore precision. It’s one of two in town, and is the pride of the new kitchen, warel nods to the old space, with the dining ranting its own menu. The six-item grill area to the left and bar to the right, but menu offers bone-in veal chop, mixed now it seats 40 more and has a patio with bocce ball that accommodates another 30. vegetables, provolone-stuffed sausage, chicken thighs, pork belly, and octopus.

Upstairs, a banquet hall and private paThe octopus — Marcello’s personal fatio are still under construction. Marcello vorite, and a nod to the groundbreaking envisions an occasional jazz attic, a condish that Nora’s Wine Bar once served tinuation of Nora’s live music tradition.

Diners who miss the old location won’t — is tender and charred at the edges, sliced in rounds and laid atop a lemony exactly have to say goodbye. A new life bed of pureed chickpea, is planned for the spot, where Giovanni is working topped with slices of delNora’s icate young celery, green on a fast-casual pizza conItalian onion and parsley. It’s new cept called Pizzeria Monzú.

Cu isine territory for Nora’s customMonzú, Giovanni points out, 5780 W. Flamingo Road ary menu, but feels as if it’s is a Sicilian term from the 1800s that means chef. been there all along.

702-873-8990

Raising the standards

S

norascuisine.com

Tivoli Village | 702.433.1233 | BrioItalian.com

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Dining out “I’m following in my mother’s footsteps in the sense of culinary principles,” Giovanni says, but adds that the food will be his own. At the heart of the menu is all-natural leavened dough that takes five days to prepare and uses no commercial yeast. “This is how people used to make dough before the 1920s,” he says. “It’s going to be all about the dough.”

The Mauros’ businesses are also all about family. Nora and Gino moved to Las Vegas with their three sons from Sicily by way of Los Angeles and have continued to grow their “family” along the way. It’s apparent in Nora’s staff.

Chef Misael Macias has cooked there for 15 years. Manager Joemar Grey has worked there for 14 years, filling a number of roles, and a few servers have worked there a decade or more.

“I used to be just a customer eating carbonara and foccacia at the bar,” Grey

The pig is up: Nora's grilled pork belly is prepared in a Josper oven.

says. But now he leads the staff, strengthening their bonds with Sunday Fundays, where they might rock-climb, paddleboard or picnic. And Marcello earned a psychology degree from UNLV, but knew food and beverage were his passion, and ended up managing the restaurant.

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“It’s the space we all grew up in,” Giovanni says. “We grew up there, I met my wife there, we all got married there.”

The old Nora’s may be gone, but one suspects the new space will be the site of many future traditions — culinary and otherwise — all its own.

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h ot l i n k s : b r e n t h o l m e s ; m e z c a l c o z y : C h r i s t o p h e r S m i t h

Because hot links aren’t upscale; they’re not haute; they lack Instagrammable architecture or presentation. Because they’re simple, handmade on-site from quality pork, and are best eaten in a reverie of unrepentant gluttony. Because for $12.50 you get a vast ladling of sliced links, along with two sides, cornbread and a soda and your choice of sauce, sweet or spicy. (I go for sweet because I also order beans, and beans + spicy might lead to an extinction-level event) — $12.50. That’s some cost-effective eating right there. Because although they’re called “hot” links, they’re not so spicy that their robust flavor is masked behind excessive mouth-scorch. Because when I want to eat like a pig, this is the pig I want to eat. Scott Dickensheets

Mezcal Cozy at Casa Del Matador There’s a bit of a happy misnomer going on in this seasonal drink. “Cozy” signals that you might be getting some cutesily bedazzled concoction that masks the flame and burr of mezcal with immoderate jiggles of fruit juice, soda, suntan lotion, baby tears, or whatever it is mixologists are using nowadays. Instead, the Mezcal Cozy is a glass of smoky sophistication and surprising restraint. With its base of Montelobos mezcal and Ancho Reyes chile liqueur, the smoldering Mezcal Cozy ($10, available through November) is decidedly crafted for sipping instead of slamming. You’ll also want to take your time to appreciate its rich, striking color — that of fall leaves flashing red, right in your glass. Andrew Kiraly Casa Del Matador Downtown Summerlin 702-228-2766 matadorrestaurants.com

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Dining out at first bite

Small plates, big flavor Whimsy and surprise elevate the shareable dishes at Standard and Pour — and enliven a growing Hendo food district B y M i t c h e l l W i l b u r n

A

fter the grand success of Carson Quality-wise, the Kitchen, quite possibly the most dishes range from popular restaurant Downtown, “about what you’d the heads behind Simon Hospitalexpect” to “delightity Group began writing the next f ully surprising.”

Standard surprising. A kimchi taco is chapter. Their restaurants are popping up They’re split into categories: bearers: Kimchi across the continent and abroad, but Vegas made of a spicy scallion panvegetable-centric dishes (some tacos, Fruit remains the center of their operations. cake (a Korean staple), devegan, almost all vegetarian), Loops panna The group’s newest offering is in Henseafood and land animals. Eight lectable marinated short rib cotta, and sliders derson, on Eastern Avenue just south of items each — not a sprawling list and Asian pear, topped with of everything the chef could think of. This a bit of togarashi thread. There’s a spicy Saint Rose Parkway, in a neighborhood is a selection of real winners. shrimp in red Thai curry and sambal, but that is slowly gaining prominence. This might be the place that brings the solid and done with a ton of butter and a roux, alInspiration abounds in each category. I interesting food of the Simon Hospitality tried to determine what would be the most most like a rich, Louisiana-style etouffée.

Group to a whole new market — and might boring item on the menu, but everything Standard and Pour emphasizes cockeven kick-start a Henderson restaurant has some kind of flourish. Even the slidtails. Most restaurants need a good list revolution, the way Carson Kitchen did in ers have a tomato jam, fontina and a crispy now — to exclude one would be like not Downtown. It’s called Standard and Pour. criss-cut potato slice. A dish that at first having a dessert menu. Here they have Standard and Pour is a hip spot, glance seems simple, “three beans” with some quite lovely offerings, chief among wrapped in patios and fenestrated lounge house XO sauce, fish sauce and garlic, ends them the Gin City: Hendricks gin, fennel areas, perched atop a windowless sports up being one of the most addictive items on honey syrup and orange blossom water, bar. The dining room is very chic, very the menu. Seriously, if you need to eat more three especially floral and aromatic ingrethan a pound of three mixed-heritage long dients mixed in a balanced but refreshing refined, a far cry from the industrial beans, this is the way to do it. way. Similarly refreshing is the mixture of strength of Carson Kitchen, but no less modern. Nothing about it seems hastily Some items get downright whimsical, Hennessy cognac, Bouchant herbal liquor done or grabbed as an afterthought from such as the Gravlax, which takes the cured and house-made vanilla-bean syrup comthe Restaurant Depot shelves. The overall fish and pairs a dill gel, boursin “farmer’s prising the Song Bird. Something that sets feel is very bespoke. cheese” (in lieu of cream cheese) and pumthis cocktail menu apart is its large-forpernickel bread. Also mind-expanding is mat cocktails. Sixty-nine dollars gets you The menu is all more or less shareable plates — not to say they are the venison tartare: a rich, deep enough for six full drinks — plenty to flavor compared to beef, conshare. Among these, the Netflix and Chill small, mind you — done in Standard trasted well with the sweet and —citrus Belvedere, cranberry cocktail and a family-style, easy-to-split & Pou r way. Depending on what you tangy cherry mostarda, some blueberry purée — is particularly fun, and 11261 S. Eastern get, three or four items can not just for the name. finely grated white-chocolate Ave #200, Henderson, NV satisfy two reasonably hungry The desserts are possibly the best “snow” and a quail egg, along 89052 people without them getting with grilled bread. things on Standard and Pour’s menu.

702-629-5523 too stuffed for dessert (more The dishes that have a disThere are only a few, but they're fun, reHOURS tinctive Asian flair are also fined, and well-constructed. The Fruit on that later).

Daily 5p-12a standardand pourlv.com

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Loops panna cotta — lime zest, orange sorbet, raspberry gummy, and a bit of hazelnut — is perfectly Instagrammable.

Another is the wine and cheese sundae. It’s a cheesecake blondie on the bottom, topped with a merlot ice cream and brandied cherries — a sweet ending, but with more interesting flavors than the average. Perhaps the best dessert is a recipe from Chef John Courtney’s travels, the saffron rice pudding. His wife and her family are Persian, and this is a refined version of a traditional dessert, sholeh zard. Creamy basmati rice is cooked with Iranian saffron, rose water, dates and pistachio. Simple but oh so addictive, it offers both a sense of place and an understanding of a dish that’s been popular for centuries.

Standard and Pour occupies what used to be a restaurant desert. Now there is finally a restaurant that can not only become a regular spot for Henderson foodies, but one that the rest of us must visit, sooner rather than later.

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BEST DOCTORS and

TOP

DENTISTS

On August 18, medical professionals, their guests, and readers of Desert Companion gathered at Roseman University Campus in Summerlin to celebrate our 2016 Best Doctors + Top Dentists. It was a delightful affair featuring hors d’oeuvres, cocktails, and live music throughout the evening. Check out all the photos on

HEROES VILLAINS &

A DRAWN-OUT LOOK AT NEVADA’S SAINTS AND SINNERS

ILLUSTRATIONS BY

STORIES BY

CELIA KRAMPIEN, CHRIS MORRIS & MATT ROTA

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SARAH WINNEMUCCA The voice of the Paiutes — and the conscience of America I L L U S T R AT I O N

CELIA KRAMPIEN

In America, the 19th century was an era of gold rushes, westward expansion and Manifest Destiny.

A time of optimism and opportunity.

That is, if you were a white man.

Native Americans didn’t have it so good. In a time when Western tribes were continually displaced by white civilization, Nevada-born Sarah Winnemucca, Paiute activist, served as America’s conscience.

... And overseen by indifferent (or cruel) bureaucrats.

Like many natives, Winnemucca had been angered by treatment of Western tribes that had been exiled to reservations ...

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But Winnemucca had a gift: She was an eloquent, forceful speaker.

In 1879, she toured California and Nevada, speaking out against the mistreatment of native tribes.

In 1880, she landed an audience

The president’s written promise

with President Rutherford B.

in hand, Winnemucca made an

Hayes and Secretary of the

epic ride back to Washington

Interior Carl Schurz.

territory to deliver the news.

But the president never honored his pledge, and her tribe languished, thanks to …

She persuaded them To relocate her tribe to a better place from

... “promises which,

its current home in

like the wind, were

far-flung Washington territory.

heard no more.”

Undeterred, Winnemucca continued to travel and speak about the plight of Native Americans.

Her autobiography, Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims, was a powerful indictment of the government’s treatment of tribes — a work still in print today.

Her significance is perhaps summed up best by herself: “I have not contended for Democrat, Republican, Protestant or Baptist for an agent. I have worked for freedom, I have laboured to give my race a voice in the affairs of the nation.”

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SEN. PAT MCCARRAN Nevada’s very own xenophobic demagogue

I L L U S T R AT I O N

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M AT T R O TA

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March 1977. Near Mount Potosi, two

AL BRAMLET

hikers discover the body of a man, naked and buried beneath a pile of rocks.

The legendary labor leader made Vegas a union town — but did he go too far?

I L L U S T R AT I O N

CELIA KRAMPIEN

He'd been shot six

It was Al Bramlet, the

times, including

pugnacious labor leader

once in each ear.

who, over two decades, had turned Las Vegas into a powerhouse union town.

It was a shocking end to the life of a man who was a hero to thousands of housekeepers, food servers and dishwashers who’d built comfortable lives in Las Vegas thanks to union membership.

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Bramlet was not subtle. In 1958, he sauntered in to the Alpine Village restaurant, telling the owner to let his workers unionize or else.

The owner balked — and the Culinary When Bramlet took charge of the

picketed his

Culinary Union in 1954, it had 1,500

place for

members. Under his leadership, it

20 years.

grew to 22,000.

In the 1970s, bombs exploded at nonunion restaurants such as Alpine Village and David’s Place. The Village Pub and Starboard Tack were targeted, too, but the bombs failed to explode.

In 1976, a Culinary walkout at 15 resorts went on for 15 days, paralyzing the Strip before an agreement was reached.

Had Bramlet gone too far? Perhaps.

The father and son convicted of his murder, Thomas and Gramby Hanley, testified that Bramlet hired them to plant the explosives to terrorize those defying the Culinary. But, they said, Bramlet refused to pay for the bombs that didn’t ignite.

Though, one morning in 1977, in the desert outside Las Vegas, Bramlet ultimately paid.

End.

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It was a lurid case that bred easy tabloid headlines: “Muscles & Murder” screeched one checkout-counter account of the notorious Craig Titus-Kelly Ryan affair from 2005. This one had it all: a glamorous couple (the two were wellknown in the bodybuilding and fitness worlds), their dead assistant, a flaming Jaguar in the desert, gruesome autopsy details, conflicting narratives, drug use, claims of rough sex and nine days on the lam - all set against the anything-goes backdrop of modern Vegas. As one writer put it, “Two very successful people flamed out in America’s Sin City.”

On December 14, 2005, Ryan’s red Jaguar was discovered in flames on a lonely road outside the city. In the trunk: the burned body of Melissa James, personal assistant to Titus, a bodybuilding champ, and Ryan, winner of multiple fitness competitions. Wire was wrapped around James’ throat, and her head was encased in duct tape. Despite insisting they had no idea what had happened, the pair fled Las Vegas, only to be captured in Boston as Ryan got her nails done.

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Muscles and murder then. Or was it?

During the investigation, which was said to include some 500 pages of statements the husband and wife gave police, several contradictory streams of possibility emerged. That James died of an overdose, and the couple - worried about a PR hit to their careers - freaked out and burned her in the car. (“I didn’t want to see her face,” Titus reportedly said, explaining the duct tape.) That James died during rough sex with Titus - apparently unbeknownst to Ryan, the two had an affair. There was talk of rampant drug use in the Titus-Ryan house: Oxycontin, morphine, meth and cocaine were all mentioned. Steroids, too, and the implication of ’roid rage. Complicating the issue: The coroner couldn’t provide an exact cause of death.

But prosecutors insisted James was beaten, zapped with a stun gun, drugged and asphyxiated - by Titus, with Ryan and a friend, Anthony Gross, helping dispose of the body.

That view prevailed. In 2008, Ryan entered an Alford plea, which means she didn’t admit guilt but acknowledged there was enough evidence to convict. Titus pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. Actual headline: “Bodybuilders plead guilty in gruesome slay.” Both remain in prison.

Last year, a book, Swift Injustice, attempted to portray Titus as a victim of prosecutorial misconduct, but that argument hasn’t gained traction.

CRAIG TITUS & KELLY RYAN A pumped-up couple, a burning car and fevered narratives in a shocking 2005 death I L L U S T R AT I O N

M AT T R O TA

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SARANN KNIGHTPREDDY She broke boundaries for black women — and the rest of us

I L L U S T R AT I O N

CELIA KRAMPIEN

Text based on materials from UNLV library, Las Vegas Sun and Las Vegas Review-Journal

Then I got started in the clubs, like the cotton Club on Jackson Street. I started as a Keno writer, then went to 21.

I’ve done everything.

I worked there seven years.

I was born in Oklahoma. I got married at a young age, and we moved to Las Vegas in 1942.

I went to Los Angeles and took a business course but When I Got back to Las Vegas, what can I do? There were no opportunities for blacks.

The NAACP was trying to get integration in casinos. This was 1956.

Jerry’s Nugget said they would hire someone with experience. So the NAACP begged me to take the job just for six months.

I remember during the war when they was bringing the Japanese through here. They had trucks for days coming through. They stopped off in Las Vegas. Most of the drivers was black, They had to come to the westside.

But the “enemies” got to stay downtown.

There was a lot of prejudice in Las Vegas, but it’s hard to explain because all the kids went to school and church together. People Mingled.

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in in Hawthrone, Hawthrone, I opened I opened upup the the Tonga Club.

I was the first Tonga Club.

I was the first African-American African-American female female toto receive receive a nonrestricted a nonrestricted gaming gaming license. license.

in in 1955 1955 they they built built the the moulin rouge. moulin rouge.

I stayed a whole month during I stayed a whole month during the the opening. opening.

ItIt was was so so exciting exciting see all the people,I had I had toto see all the people, met all the entertainers who met all the entertainers who came Las Vegas.

They could came toto Las Vegas.

They could not stay on the Strip, so not stay on the Strip, so when they finished working there, when they finished working there, they came the Cotton Club. they came toto the Cotton Club.

We We used used toto make make barbecue, barbecue, and and all all the the people people around aroundtown, town, white white and and black, black, would would come come for for the the barbeCue. barbeCue.

i ran for city council 1979.

I was i ran for city council in in 1979.

I was the the first first black black person person that that won won a primary, and a woman. in in a primary, and a woman. the general, the man in in the general, the man i was running against i was running against started campaigning started campaigning against me the against me in in the commmunity - in the commmunity - in the white community. white community. hehe won won byby seventy-two seventy-two votes. votes.

some asked me a couple days ago, “when some asked me a couple ofof days ago, “when are are you you going going toto run run again?” again?”

I said, I said, “Never.”

“Never.”

My husband and My husband and I I leased leased the the moulin moulin rouge, rouge, with with anan option toto buy, in in option buy, 1985.

Took until 1985.

Took until 1990 1990 toto get get a a gaming license.

We gaming license.

We opened it it asas a bar opened a bar with gaming. with gaming.

i received anan i received honorary honorary doctorate from doctorate from UNLV in in 2010.

UNLV 2010.

Second black Second black woman toto get woman get one, after Diana one, after Diana Ross.

Dr. Sarann Ross.

Dr. Sarann Knight-Preddy!

Knight-Preddy!

We could never get We could never get enough money enough money together toto redo together redo the place.

Banks the place.

Banks reneged on us.

But reneged on us.

But we did get it it on the we did get on the Register ofof Historic Register Historic Places in in 1992.

Places 1992.

Sometimes I think, How Sometimes I think, How did i do all ofof those did i do all those things?

Then I think, things?

Then I think, I’m 90 years old.

I had I’m 90 years old.

I had toto do something. do something.

My life has been really great.

I never My life has been really great.

I never worry about the past.

I’m always worry about the past.

I’m always looking toward the next thing. looking toward the next thing.

End. End.

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Anne Martin Won the right for women to vote in 1914

Elvis He’s the King

Flora Dungan Bob Bailey made sure vegas got its fair Pillar of civil share from carson city rights

Mike O’Callaghan Legendary state leader

...and Teller ... ambassadors of Vegas

James Nye First governor; progressive for his era

Penn ... brainy magicians ...

Dipak Desai Friend of hepatitis!

Cliven Bundy Bumbling insurrectionist!

Sheldon Adelson He owns the place

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Andre Agassi champion of giving back

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

Hank Greenspun Gutsy newsman stood up to McCarthy, Nixon

Or an express elevator to (gulp!) you know where ... or perhaps a long wait in Purgatory.

Where will Nevada’s heroes and villains spend eternity?

I L L U S T R AT I O N

CHRIS MORRIS

Moe Dalitz Philanthropist ... also mobster

Howard Hughes visionary ... but a little weird

Tony Hsieh Downtown savior ... or gentrifier?

Pat Mulroy Kept water flowing ... enabling heedless growth Frank Sinatra Classed up the joint ... but had some questionable associations

John Ensign Moral hypocrite, but nice hair!

William Sharon early senator, lazy even by standards of senators!

Floyd Mayweather Can’t confine punches to ring!

Oscar Goodman Boisterous mayor ... with a bit of a mixed legacy

Chaz Higgs Administered lethal injection to wife, earned life

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NOW OPEN TivoliVillageLV.com 440 S. Rampart Blvd Las Vegas

This year, your giving will not only make people happy, it will make a difference by

CHRISTIE MOELLER

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KEY CONCEPT The Giving Keys classic black matte key. The Giving Keys employs the recently homeless to make jewelry from repurposed keys stamped with inspirational words. They’re meant to be passed along to those who need the message more than you, $42, thegivingkeys.com

SUSTAINABLE ART SUPPLIES Eco-Dough is made with all-natural plant, fruit and vegetable extracts, $14.99 for a 3-pack, The Container Store in Town Square

HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE

THINKING GLOBALLY

WELL DRINK Hydro-Flask’s doublewall insulation and stainless steel construction is the responsible way to hydrate, $39.99, The Container Store in Town Square

Gifts for friends, family — and the planet

GOLD BRUSH Artis Elite limitededition Gold Series makeup brushes — the original animal-free, cruelty-free brushes get bathed in 24-karat gold, $495, artisbrish.com

NATURAL BEAUTY Ditch the harsh chemicals of conventional beauty products; the Alba Botanica Fast Fix Collection uses natural ingredients, $5.99 each, Whole Foods and Target

A WHIFF OF GOOD PHLUR Fragrances pays attention to the environmental impact of its ingredients, and all packaging is recyclable; $5 from every full-size purchase goes to protect endangered plants and animals. $10 for sample set of 2 trial vials, $85 for each full size scent (50ml), phlur.com

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SEA SKATING Made from recycled marine debris, each Bureo Minnow skateboard stops more than 30 square feet of plastic fishnet from entering our oceans, while supporting Chilean fishing communities, $149, bureo.com

GOOD MOISTURE Hailing from her organic farm in Vermont, the ingredients in Tata Harper’s illuminating moisturizer are all sustainably sourced, $85, Nordstrom in the Fashion Show

MOISTEN FOR A CAUSE When you give Anthony’s Moisture on the Go Kit — hair and body wash, facial moisturizer and hand cream — some of the proceeds go to prostate cancer research, $49, Nordstrom in the Fashion Show

SOUNDS GOOD LSTN Sound Co.’s wireless matte black Troubadour limited-edition headphones.

For every LSTN product sold, proceeds are donated to provide hearing aids to people in need, $179.99, lstnsound.com

HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE

FEEL-GOOD GOODS Gift-giving that helps others

ESPECIALLY FINE WINE Each case of ONEHOPE 2014 Estate 8 Fume Blanc wine sold provides one local Napa farmworker with on-site medical care and health education. Other ONEHOPE wines support other charities, $44.99, onehopewine.com

BAUBLE PETS Ornaments inspired by famous Instagram pets. For each purchase, $1 goes to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, $10-$15, West Elm Downtown Summerlin

LIGHTING UP Ten percent of the cost of a Sidney Hale Co. small-batch, hand-poured candle — say, blue spruce spearmint — are donated to dog rescue, $30, Paper and Home

NOW SEE HERE Warby Parker works with nonprofits so that for every pair of sunglasses sold — like the Grady, pictured here — a pair is distributed to someone in need, $145, warbyparker.com

LENDING A GLOBAL HAND When you give a Sseko Safari Leather Bucket Bag, you’re giving women in East Africa a chance to attend a university. Sseko employs women in Uganda to handcraft their products while earning an income and enjoying comprehensive benefits, $159.99, ssekodesigns.com

INSIDE THE BOX The Tory Burch Foundation Seed Box is a selection of seven products from women entrepreneurs. Purchases of the Seed Box benefit the Tory Burch Foundation, which empowers women entrepreneurs, $98, Tory Burch in the Forum Shops at Caesars

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HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE

HEALTHY HOLIDAYS Get your creatures stirring with exercise and wellness gifts

I LIKE BIG BAGS Black big bag from Adidas by Stella McCartney, $170, Nieman Marcus in the Fashion Show

PEDAL PIX Paul Smith cycling scrapbook, $50, Paul Smith in Crystals at City Center

SKINTASTIC Clarasonic’s Alpha Fit limited-edition Holiday Kit is engineered specifically to clean men’s tougher skin, $189, Nordstrom in the Fashion Show, clarasonic.com

GOOD DOWNWARD DOG Tory Sport’s nonslip, eco-friendly travel yoga mat, $69, torysport.com SECRET STYLE Knockout by Victoria’s Secret capri, $66.50, and strappy double-V sports bra, Victoria’s Secret in the Fashion Show, Grand Canal Shoppes, Downtown Summerlin

STATS, STAT! The Apple Watch Nike+ has a built-in GPS to track pace, distance, and route — even if you don’t have your iPhone with you, 38mm case $369; 42mm case $399, Apple Store in Town Square, Downtown Summerlin, Fashion Show and Forum Shops

BREATHE DEEP HoMetics Gather Ultrasonic Diffuser lifts the scent of essential oils into the air, $109.99, hometics.com

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ZOOM, ZOOM Nike Air Zoom Structure 20, $120, Nike in the Forum shops

NEED A FAUX FUR THROW? Faux fur throw, $129, West Elm in Downtown Summerlin

NOM! Ethel M’s 32-piece Holiday Classic tin, $44.99, Ethel M in Henderson

EAT THIS BOOK Tommy Bahama Flavors of the Southern Coast Cookbook, $40, Tommy Bahama in Town Square, Fashion Show, Forum Shops, Miracle Mile Shops A GOOD POUR Good Spirits Decanter, $39.95, Paper Source at Town Square HOLIDAY TEQUILA Avion Reserva 44 tequila in crystal decanter, $190 with custom etching, reservebar.com

CIVILIZED SIPS Emilio Pucci Illy collection, illustrations of classic cities in three cup sizes: espresso ($55 for two, $150 for six), cappuccino ($55 for two, $175 for six), and mug ($55 for two). illyusa.com

HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE

HO-HO-HOME

AMUSE YOUR BOUCHE Draper James ceramic appetizer plate set, $75, draperjames.com

Gifts to deck any hall (or table)

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SKY’S THE LIMIT GoPro Karma Drone, $799.99 without GoPro camera, $1099.99 with Hero5 Black, Best Buy

CHIC COMMUNICATION Paul Smith Artist Stripe iPhone case, $125, Paul Smith in Crystals at City Center

HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE

JINGLE BELLS AND WHISTLES Give the gift of gadgetry

VIRTUAL GIFTING Samsung Gear VR for Samsung phones.

No wires, no complicated setup.

Just snap your smartphone into the Gear VR and dive right in, $99.99, samsung.com

GET CONNECTED Canon’s EOS 5D Mark IV digital single-lens-reflex camera has built-in connectivity for easy sharing with smart devices and social media sites, $3,499 (body only), $4,599.00 (w/24-105mm f/4L II lens), B&C Camera, bandccamera.com

KEEP UP WITH THE TIMES Apple Watch Series 2 Hermes double buckle cuff, $1,499, Apple Store in Town Square, Downtown Summerlin, Fashion Show and Forum Shops

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CARRY ALL Longchamp satchel, $660, Longchamp in the Forum Shops

HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE

SAVVY SANTA

PICK THIS! Thomas Pink guitar-print pocket square, $89, Thomas Pink in the Forum Shops

Be Smarty Claus with these gifts under $100

CUTTING IT CLOSE The Art of Shaving sandalwood gift set, $60, The Art of Shaving in Downtown Summerlin and Fashion Show

HEAD AND SHOULDERS H&M mens hat ($22.50) and scarf ($11.25), H&M in Downtown Summerlin

FLASK ME ANYTHING Tommy Bahama leather flask case, $92, Tommy Bahama in Town Square, Fashion Show, Forum Shops, Miracle Mile Shops

FOR BATH AND BODY Philosophy Land of Sweets holiday gift set, $27, Ulta, Macy’s and Nordstrom

LOVELY LIPS Marc Jacobs Up All Night five-piece Petites Le Marc Lip Crème Collection, $49, Sephora in Town Square, Downtown Summerlin, Fashion Show, Miracle Mile and Forum Shops

FOR THOSE MANIC MONDAYS Swarovski Crystaldust bangles, $89, Swarovski in the Miracle Mile and Forum Shops

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BARK AND PURR Untamed gifts for your own wild life

LIKE A DOG WITH A BONE Henri Bendel dog bowl, $58, Henri Bendel in the Fashion Show

SHOW YOUR PET SOME LOVE Love pet food tin, $17.99, The Container Store in Town Square

SNUGGLE UP Majestic Pet Products burrow bed, $49.98, evine.com

PERFECT PLAY Pet Life eight-piece dog toy set with Duffle Bag, $24, evine.com

KEEP IT CLEAN Kiehl’s “Cuddly Coat” dog grooming shampoo and conditioner, $17 each, Nordstrom in the Fashion Show

TRAVEL IN STYLE Louis Vuitton monogram dog carrier 50, $2,940, Louis Vuitton in Crystals at City Center

FETCH! Draper James Harry Barker striped play ball set, $19, DraperJames.com PACK IT UP Graphic Image leather dog waste bag holder, $48, Saks Fifth Avenue in the Fashion Show

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SAY IT WITHOUT WORDS Bow & Drape “Poop Emoji” dog bandana, $18, Nordstrom in the Fashion Show

MERRY & BRIGHT

Banish those bah-humbugs with our hall-decking, jingle-belling, holly-jollying roundup of the season’s best events

by E L I S A B E T H D A N I E L S

NOVEMBER 11

SANTA’S ARRIVAL PARADE Starting at the west valet near Yard House in Town Square, this annual parade winds to Santa’s house in Town Square Park. After Santa lights the 45foot Christmas tree, enjoy the Snow in the Square show and photos with Santa. 7 p.m. Town Square, 702-269-5001 NOVEMBER 11-DECEMBER 23

SNOW IN THE SQUARE

day spirit. Well, this long list of seasonal events —

This 10-minute show enchants guests with falling snowflakes choreographed to classic holiday music. 7 p.m. Mon.-Sun., with 8 p.m. shows Fri.-Sun., free. Town Square, 702-269-5001

from light shows to musicals to trotting Santas and

NOVEMBER 11 THROUGH MID-JANUARY

By the time the holiday season sleighs into view, the election will be over, and 2016 will be winding down — that alone ought to get anyone’s lords a-leaping.

But perhaps you need a nudge to get into the holi-

more — should do the trick. So grab the kids, pull

ROCK RINK

grandma from in front of those reindeer and have some

Skaters will glide by a 30-foot holiday tree, which overlooks the rink, while multicolored light shows run every hour from 4-10 p.m. Open 4-9 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 4-10 p.m. Fridays, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Saturdays and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Sundays. The rink will be open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. during school holidays. $15 skate rental. downtownsummerlin.com

well-earned fun. Stay Frosty, my friends.

NOVEMBER 1-25

CONSERVATORY & BOTANICAL GARDENS HARVEST SHOW 24 hours daily, seven days a week, free. Bellagio, 702-693-7111

western states. 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Fri.-Sat., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun., $2-$8 (one admission fee is good all weekend), kids 10 and under free, $5 parking. Cashman Center, stevepowers.com

NOVEMBER 4-6

CHRISTMAS BAZAAR The St. Viator Women’s Guild hosts the 37th Annual Christmas Bazaar. Shop for fine arts and crafts, photography, clothing, jewelry, essential oils and sports items, as well as antiques and collectibles at this indoor/ outdoor bazaar. 8 a.m.-6 p.m.

Fri.-Sat., 8 a.m.-2 p.m. Sun., free. St. Viator Parish, 2461 E. Flamingo Road, 702-733-8323 NOVEMBER 4-6

THE CRAFT FESTIVAL An art and craft show featuring 150 booths with handmade items from 200 independent crafts workers from seven

Snow in the Square

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NOVEMBER 11-JANUARY 17

GLITTERING LIGHTS LAS VEGAS Nevada’s largest drive-through light show, this annual event showcases one million LEDs and more than 400 animated displays over 2.5 miles. Open every night at dusk. $20 per vehicle.

Las Vegas Motor Speedway, glitteringlightslasvegas.com NOVEMBER 12

BREWS BEST HANDCRAFTED BEER FESTIVAL The beer festival, held at Sunset Park, features more than 30 local and regional breweries offering samples, plus live entertainment, activities and food to benefit local charity New Vista Community. 3-7 p.m., $30 includes a beer mug and tasting guide; purchase tickets at brewsbestlv.com, Sunset Park, 2601 E. Sunset Road, 702-269-5001 NOVEMBER 12-13

WINTER ART FEST The annual indoor Winter Art Fest hosts fine artists and crafters from around the Southwest, offering unique gifts and holiday fun for the entire family. Boulder City Parks and Recreation Gym, 900 Arizona St. 9 a.m.-4 p.m., free admission. bouldercityartguild.com NOVEMBER 12-DECEMBER 24

PHOTOS WITH SANTA CLAUS

which features more than 300 plant species. Tickets are required for the Cactus Lighting Opening Ceremony, TBA. Holiday Cactus Garden, daily, free admittance, TBA. Santa visits and photos, TBA. Ethel M Chocolate Factory and Botanical Garden, 2 Cactus Garden Drive, Henderson, 702-435-2655, ethelm.com MID-NOVEMBER — EARLY JANUARY

MYSTIC FALLS HOLIDAY SHOWS

Sam’s Town’s famous indoor laser light and water show transforms into a holiday dreamland filled with snow-covered trees, wreaths, poinsettias and more.

The renovated park will feature a festive new light display running for 15 minutes every hour. Sam’s Town Hotel & Gambling Hall, 702-456-7777, samstownlv.com NOVEMBER 16-DECEMBER 21

CLAUS & PAWS PET PHOTOS

Every Wednesday, come down to Santa’s house with your dogs and cats so they can pose for a holiday photo and sample pet treats. 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Town Square, 702-269-5001 NOVEMBER 17-DECEMBER 22

HOLIDAY NIGHTS AND LIGHTS COMMUNITY CONCERTS

Bring the children to take photos with Santa in his Norman Rockwell-inspired house from 1-1:30 p.m. and 5-6 p.m.

Mon.-Sat., 2-3 p.m. Sun. Photo schedule is available at mytownsquarelasvegas.com. Town Square, 702-269-5001

Students from elementary through high school charm crowds with performances that include choirs and holiday musicals. Every Thursday prior to the Snow in the Square show, which starts at 7 p.m., free, Town Square, 702-269-5001, mytownsquarelasvegas.com

MID-NOVEMBER TO EARLY JANUARY

NOVEMBER 17-DECEMBER 24

Over half-a-million lights are strung throughout the 3-acre garden at Ethel M Chocolates,

Head to the North Pole for an interactive escapade with Santa.

All new this season, join Po and friends for a magical adventure

HOLIDAY CACTUS GARDEN

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ADVENTURE TO SANTA

Mystic Falls Holiday Show at Sam’s Town

to the North Pole to explore Santa’s workshop. Afterward, enjoy a photo op with Kris Kringle.

Reserve your spot online to cut down on wait times. The Great Hall at Fashion Show, 3200 Las Vegas Blvd. S., dreamplaceexperience.com NOVEMBER 18

ORNAMENT WORKSHOP In this ornament-making workshop participants will create two mini-wreath ornaments. The program is free, and materials will be provided.

Registration is required. 11 a.m., Centennial Hills Library, 6711 N. Buffalo Dr. 702-507-6107 NOVEMBER 18-DECEMBER 24

KIDS AND PETS VISIT WITH SANTA The whole family can visit with Santa and frolic in a winter wonderland-themed igloo. Photo packages available. Pet photos with Santa begin November 22.

Macy’s Promenade. Hours, details at downtownsummerlin.com NOVEMBER 18-26, DECEMBER 2-24

DOWNTOWN SUMMERLIN HOLIDAY PARADE With floats, toy soldiers, snowflake princes and princesses, nutcrackers, dancers, drummers and joyful music, this nondenominational parade is fun for the whole family. 6 p.m. along Park Center Drive. Hours, details at downtownsummerlin.com NOVEMBER 19

PILGRIMS AND INDIANS FEAST Share your gratitude and celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday with food, drinks, entertainment and more. 2 p.m., $2, all ages. Silver Mesa Recreation Center, 4025 Allen Lane, North Las Vegas, 702-633-2550, cityofnorthlasvegas.com

NOVEMBER 30-DECEMBER 4 Irving Berlin’s White Christmas

STEVE SOLOMON: MY MOTHER’S ITALIAN, MY FATHER’S JEWISH & I’M HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS Steve attends a crazy holiday dinner at Grandma’s in this award-winning one-man comedy. Chaos arises throughout the meal as Steve deals with his wacky family. Nov. 30-Dec. 2, 7 p.m.; Dec. 3, 3 p.m. and 7 p.m.; Dec. 4., 3 p.m. $35-$40, ages 5 and up. The Smith Center, 702982-7805, thesmithcenter.com

ers every 30 minutes. Sit by fire pits while enjoying s’mores and warm cocktails. Children 17 and younger must be accompanied by an adult. 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Sat., 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sun., free. November 25-December 18: Fri.-Sun., 7-11 p.m. December 19-January 2: Tue.-Sun., 7-11 p.m. The Cosmopolitan Las Vegas, 702-698-7000, cosmopolitanlasvegas.com NOVEMBER 25-JANUARY 2 The Rink at the Boulevard Pool

NOVEMBER 19-20

HOLIDAY CRAFT AND GIFT FESTIVAL Check out the vintage Christmas train display while Santa and his elves greet you. Choose from an array of handcrafted items for sale. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sat., 10 a.m.4 p.m. Sun., $5 for adults, 12 and under free. South Point, 702656-2337, lvcraftfestival.com NOVEMBER 19-JANUARY 1

MAGICAL FOREST Opportunity Village’s Magical Forest is a cherished Southern Nevada tradition for good reason.

It’s a winter wonderland with millions of sparkling lights, nightly entertainment, the Forest Express passenger train, Boris the Elf’s 3-D Experience, an Avalanche Slide, food and more. Park

opens at 5:30 p.m. nightly. Free parking is available in the CSN parking lot. Opportunity Village, 6300 W. Oakey Blvd., 702-2593741, opportunityvillage.org NOVEMBER 22-27

IRVING BERLIN’S WHITE CHRISTMAS Adapted from the classic movie, White Christmas tells the story of a song-and-dance team putting on a show in a magical Vermont inn and falling for a stunning sister act in the process. The Smith Center, 702982-7805, thesmithcenter.com NOVEMBER 25-JANUARY 2

THE RINK AT THE BOULEVARD POOL Skate on a real-ice rink, high above the Strip, with snow show-

FOUNTAINS OF BELLAGIO

The internationally renowned Bellagio fountains presents Christmas performances choreographed to holiday classics.

Bellagio, 702-693-7111 NOVEMBER 26

HOLIDAY TREE LIGHTING Bring the family. 6-9 p.m., free.

The District at Green Valley Ranch, 702-564-8595 NOVEMBER 27

THANKSGIVING CRAFT AND GIFT SHOPPING EVENT Features handcrafted fabric arts and handmade wood items, as well as jewelry, candles, cosmetics, accessories and more. 10:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m., free admission. The Cannery, North Las Vegas, 702-507-5700

DECEMBER

WINTER PARQ Once again, the LINQ Promenade will transport visitors to a wintery fairyland, decked out with holiday adornments, carolers and seasonal music.

Dates, times and prices to be announced. 702-322-0560 DECEMBER 1-JANUARY 2

CONSERVATORY & BOTANICAL GARDENS HOLIDAY SHOW 24 hours daily, seven days a week, free. Bellagio, 702-693-7111 DECEMBER 1-10

COWBOY CHRISTMAS GIFT SHOW Cowboy Christmas is the long-running gift show of the annual National Finals Rodeo.

It boasts more than 400 vendors selling custom jewelry, western wear, boots and spurs, furniture, handmade crafts and pottery. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily, free admission. Las Vegas Convention Center, 3150 Paradise Road, nfrexperience.com DECEMBER 1-10

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goods to western wear. Entertainment includes live music.

9 a.m.-5 p.m., free admission.

Mandalay Bay, 702-632-7777; cowboymarketplace.net DECEMBER 1-11

STETSON COUNTRY CHRISTMAS DOWNTOWN Celebrating its 23rd year in Las Vegas, Stetson Country Christmas combines fan-favorite events and with newly introduced large interactions. Shopping and more than 350 exhibits to make it easy to check items off your Christmas list. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily, free admission. The Pavilions at World Market Center, 475 S. Grand Central Parkway; 817-5997664, countrychristmas.vegas

DECEMBER 3

DOODLEBUG BAZAAR Sponsored by the Boulder City Community Club, the Doodlebug Bazaar offers one-stop Christmas shopping with items like handmade jewelry, clothing, holiday decorations, ornaments and toys. 9 a.m.-4 p.m., Boulder City Recreation Center, 900 Arizona St., 702-293-9256 DECEMBER 3

SANTA’S PICTURE PARTY Bring the kids to take pictures with Santa and meet Santa’s helper and the city’s Christmas mascot, Jingle Cat. 10 a.m.-1 p.m., Boulder City Recreation Center, 900 Arizona St., 702-293-9256

CHRISTMAS TREE LIGHTING This annual small-town holiday event includes entertainment by local school choirs and visits

by Santa and Boulder City’s Christmas mascot, Jingle Cat. 6-7 p.m., free. Frank Crowe Park, 640 Nevada Highway, Boulder City, 702-293-2034

DECEMBER 2-3

HYMNS OF HAWAI’I

DESERTCOMPANION.VEGAS

DECEMBER 3

Bring the family for a classic car show, hay rides, petting zoo, jump

Presented by Rainbow Company, this is a musical extravaganza with favorite Dr. Seuss characters. Be transported from the Jungle of Nool to the invisible world of the Whos.

7-8:30 p.m. Charleston Heights Arts Center, 800 S. Brush St., lasvegasnevada.gov

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A holiday tradition for thousands of locals and visitors who dress up like Santa Claus, the Great Santa Run is one of Opportunity Village’s most important fundraisers. 8 a.m. registration, 10 a.m. 5K run, 10:30 a.m. 1-mile walk, $30-$65.

Registration includes five-piece Santa suit. Downtown Las Vegas, lasvegassantarun.org

Boulder City presents its annual Christmas parade with floats

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LAS VEGAS GREAT SANTA RUN

SANTA’S ELECTRIC PARADE

DECEMBER 2-11

Three Hawaiian Music Masters share Hawaiian hymn traditions for the holidays, mixing Hawaiian music favorites with songs rooted in familiar church melodies. 7 p.m., $35-$55. The Smith Center, 702-982-7805, thesmithcenter.com

DECEMBER 3

WARD 6 COWBOY CHRISTMAS AND CAR SHOW

DECEMBER 3 DECEMBER 2

decked out in Christmas lights.

Parade starts shortly after dark, free. Historic Nevada Way, beginning at Colorado St., 702293-2034

Winterfest

house, local entertainment/choirs and a visit from Old Saint Nick. 10 a.m.-2 p.m., free. Floyd Lamb Park at Tule Springs, 702-229-8100 DECEMBER 3-4

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS WITH RITA MORENO Celebrate this festive time of year with Rita Moreno, award-winning actress, singer and dancer, as she narrates Sergei Prokofiev’s timeless classic, Peter and the Wolf. This family-friendly concert is an audience singalong of holiday favorites.

December 3, 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.; December 4, 2 p.m. $30$109 The Smith Center, 702982-7805, thesmithcenter.com DECEMBER 8

SOUNDS OF THE SEASON The Henderson Symphony Orchestra performs favorite holiday

classics as part of the WinterFest Parade and Festival. 7 p.m., free.

Henderson Convention Center, 200 S. Water St., Henderson, cityofhenderson.com DECEMBER 8-10

WINTERFEST It’s a Fairy Tale Christmas includes a tree-lighting ceremony with Santa Claus, live performances, entertainers, gingerbread houses, family-friendly activities, crafts fair and food. On Saturday evening, enjoy a light parade beginning at 5 p.m. 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Thurs., 6-9 p.m. Fri. and noon-8 p.m.

Sat., free. Henderson Convention Center & Events Plaza, 200 S. Water St., Henderson, cityofhenderson.com DECEMBER 10

JINGLE BELL RUN Benefiting the Arthritis Foundation, the Jingle Bell Run welcomes runners and walkers on a 10K- or 5K-course. Wear a costume or holiday accessories, and bring the children for the 1k Kids Fun Run/Walk. All fitness levels welcome. 8 a.m. $25-$60. Tivoli Village, 440 S. Rampart Blvd., 702-888-3266

DECEMBER 10-11, 18, 21-24

THE NUTCRACKER Presented by Nevada Ballet Theatre, this joyous holiday tradition tells the story of Clara and her nutcracker prince, set to Tchaikovsky’s beloved score.

7:30 p.m. Fri. and Sat. with additional 2 p.m. shows on Saturdays (no 7:30 p.m. show on December 24) and 1 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. shows on Sundays, $29-$179, no children under 3. The Smith Center, nevadaballet.org DECEMBER 14

CIRQUE MUSICA HOLIDAY SPECTACULAR Featuring the cast of Cirque Musica and favorite holiday songs performed by the Las Vegas Philharmonic, the show blends the spellbinding grace and daredevil athleticism of circus performers with the sensory majesty of great holiday music. 7 p.m., tickets start at $29. The Orleans, 702-284-7777 DECEMBER 16-17

DEANA MARTIN: HOLIDAY CHEER Blend the hip vibe of the Rat Pack with the stirring vocals of Deana Martin, and you have The Deana Martin Christmas Show,

an electrifying musical revue. 7 p.m., $35-$59. The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com DECEMBER 17

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE — A LIVE RADIO PLAY A nostalgic favorite bursts with vintage radio-era charm in this production by the award-winning Poor Richard’s Players, featuring foley sound effects, jingles and more. 7-8:30 p.m., Charleston Heights Arts Center, 800 S. Brush St., 702-229-6383, artslasvegas.org DECEMBER 17

BREAKFAST WITH SANTA Dine on pancakes with Santa and his elves. Amuse the kids with face painting and arts and crafts while you enjoy Christmas carols and more. 10 a.m., $2, all ages. Silver Mesa Recreation Center, 4025 Allen Lane, North Las Vegas, 702-633-2550, cityofnorthlasvegas.com DECEMBER 24

GRAND MENORAH LIGHTING CEREMONY Each year Rabbi Shea Harlig participates in the Grand

Menorah Lighting Ceremony.

The ceremony will include festive-themed entertainment.

Time TBA. Fremont Street Experience, 702-678-5600, vegasexperience.com DECEMBER 26

MENORAH LIGHTING. Details TBA. The District at Green Valley Ranch, 702-5648595 DECEMBER 26-29

MENORAH LIGHTING Downtown Summerlin will host four nights of Chanukah activities starting with the lighting of the Menorah on December 26 at 5:30 p.m., in partnership with the Jewish Community Center.

Hours, details at downtownsummerlin.com DECEMBER 31

RESOLUTION RUN Get an early start to your New Year’s resolutions with a 10K, 5K or 1M Resolution Run. Finishers of this flat course, which traverses Kellogg-Zaher Park, the Bonanza Trail and Bill Briare Park, receive a shirt and a finishers’ medal. 4 p.m., $25$45, Kellogg-Zaher Park, 7901 W. Washington Ave. DECEMBER 31

The Nutcracker

NEW YEAR’S EVE 2017 DOWNTOWN COUNTDOWN This Downtown New Year’s Eve celebration will feature three stages of live entertainment with canopy light shows.

Dates, times and prices to be announced. Fremont Street Experience, 702-678-5600, vegasexperience.com/nye/

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THE

GIFT OF GIVING

By donating goods and volunteering your time, you can help make this the most wonderful time of the year for those in need

by E L I S A B E T H D A N I E L S A Christmas morning living-room tableau of giftwrapped goodies crowding the tree is sure to bring a smile to your face (or, if you’re the one paying for it all, the clenched rictus of a silent scream). We’re totally down with living in a material world! But celebrating the spirit of the season by helping others may be the best gift of all: It makes our community a better place, makes you feel good and probably does some big favors to your credit score. Ready to help? Here’s how.

ADULT DAY CARE CENTERS OF LAS VEGAS AND HENDERSON This organization helps families avoid or postpone nursing home admission, bridging the gap between home and nursing home with compassionate, professional care.

NEEDS: Visit and assist clients; provide entertainment, event planning, fundraising, construction, facilities or other support services; lead a class or serve on a committee VOLUNTEER: 702-648-3425, adultdaycarelv.org

AID FOR AIDS OF NEVADA Provides medical case management, medical transportation, education and prevention, hous-

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ing and nutritional services for adults and children living with and affected by HIV/AIDS. NEEDS: Donations of new, unwrapped toys and games for children up to age 15 for annual toy drive; assist with gift-wrapping and annual Kids’ Holiday Party benefitting children infected or affected by HIV/AIDS VOLUNTEER: 702-382-2326, afanlv.org

BABY’S BOUNTY Provides new and gently used infant clothing and gear to babies born to victims of domestic abuse, teen mothers and low-income families.

NEEDS: Help with collecting, sorting, cleaning and preparing clothing donations; fill diaper bags with receiving blankets, bottles, toiletries and other vital equipment

VOLUNTEER: 702-485-2229, babysbounty.org/volunteers-lv

BEST BUDDIES NEVADA Creates opportunities for friendships through socialization programs; job coaching; and tools in leadership development for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

NEEDS: Individuals in corporate and civic communities, colleges, high schools and middle schools willing to befriend a Best Buddies participant or become an email pen pal to a Best Buddies participant VOLUNTEER: 702-822-2268, bestbuddiesnevada.org

BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS OF SOUTHERN NEVADA

BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF LAS VEGAS

A mentoring network that provides children facing adversity with professionally supported positive relationships.

NEEDS: Volunteers interested in enjoying fun activities together, such as playing sports, hiking, reading, etc.

VOLUNTEER: 702-731-2227, bbbsn.org

Helps boost a child’s self-esteem.

NEEDS: Creating food baskets; wrapping toys; decorating for holiday celebrations; hanging with the kids as they make holiday crafts to take home VOLUNTEER: 702-253-2801, bgclv.org/volunteer

BLIND CENTER OF NEVADA

CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF SOUTHERN NEVADA

Assists the blind and visually impaired by focusing on personal development, social interaction and meaningful employment.

NEEDS: Helping to greet members, serve lunch, shop, assist with various daily programs and activities such as ceramics, music, keyboarding and more; help make edible goodies for holiday gift baskets sold to raise funds to support center’s programs and services; prep and wrap baskets for shipping VOLUNTEER: 702-642-6000, blindcenter.org

Regardless of faith, provides counseling services, services to pregnant women, immigration legal assistance, transitional housing, aid to low-income families and more.

NEEDS: Preparing Thanksgiving baskets, stocking pantry shelves and assisting pantry shoppers VOLUNTEER: 702-385-2662, catholiccharities.com

CHILD HAVEN A safe child-care center for abused and neglected children with a goal of empowering families to break the cycle of abuse

NEEDS: Adopt a family for the holidays to provide toy donations or donations of turkey and food/nonperishables for them VOLUNTEER: 702-369-4357, helpsonv.org

JEWISH FAMILY SERVICE AGENCY

AFAN toy drive

and neglect and create lifelong loving relationships.

NEEDS: Classroom volunteers; participants for group projects, such as Brighter Birthday and Giving Tree programs; event volunteers; spreading awareness VOLUNTEER: 702-455-6536, childhaven.org

CLARK COUNTY READS An initiative of the Public Education Foundation, Clark County READS offers literacy programs to children and families.

NEEDS: Tutor struggling students in reading; help with general clerical work; pick up and deliver books VOLUNTEER: 702-799-1042, thepef.org

GOODIE TWO SHOES FOUNDATION Provides disadvantaged children and children in crisis with new shoes and socks, as well as other essential items.

NEEDS: Assist with events during the school year; help participating children select a properly

fitted pair of shoes; complete distribution process; assist with filling of backpacks, lunch, etc.

VOLUNTEER: 702-617-4027, goodietwoshoes.org

HELPING HANDS OF VEGAS VALLEY Develops, coordinates and delivers home-based supportive and assistive services to frail elderly residents.

NEEDS: Basic administrative help, making phone calls to seniors, driving, food pantry assistance, food delivery, packing goodie and grocery bags, pet food distribution; intake coordinator assistance VOLUNTEER: 702-633-7264, hhovv.org

HELP OF SOUTHERN NEVADA Assists more than 1,200 families to receive a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, and more than 19,000 children in need to receive holiday gifts through its three signature programs: Adopt-A-Family, Turkey-A-Thon and Toy Drive/ Holiday Assistance.

Supports people of all backgrounds by providing professional social services, including counseling, senior services, adoptions and emergency assistance.

NEEDS: Daily administrative tasks, food pantry help, driving seniors, assistance with events and fundraisers held throughout the year VOLUNTEER: 702-732-0304, jfsalv.org/volunteer

LAS VEGAS HUMANE SOCIETY Dedicated to improving the welfare of animals in the Las Vegas Valley, particularly stray and abandoned animals.

NEEDS: Foster an animal, walk dogs, help rescue animals, fundraise, assist with bake sales, make or provide blankets, donate food or toys and more VOLUNTEER: 702-434-2009, lvhumane.org

LAS VEGAS RESCUE MISSION Provides children with Christmas gifts, as well as food and other essentials.

NEEDS: Aid with special events; serve meals; seek donations and collect items to distribute to those in need; drive residents to church; assist with chapel service; sort nonperishable items; gift-wrapping VOLUNTEER: 702-382-1766, vegasrescue.org

LUTHERAN SOCIAL SERVICES OF NEVADA Provides professional social

services to people of all backgrounds, including counseling, senior services, adoptions and emergency assistance.

NEEDS: Help assemble and distribute Thanksgiving dinners; Christmas Adopt-A-Family program; purchasing gift items from a supplied wish list; organizing and distributing the gifts; emergency services food pantry; office tasks; maintenance at housing units; assembling and delivering baskets for holiday food drives; fundraising VOLUNTEER: 702-639-1730, lssnv.org

MARINE TOYS 4 TOTS Collects new, unwrapped toys and distributes them as Christmas gifts to needy children.

NEEDS: Toy donations; help with the transportation and storage of donated toys; warehouse assistance; help with meals; and more VOLUNTEER: 702-632-1507, las-vegas-nv.toysfortots.org

NEVADA PARTNERSHIP FOR HOMELESS YOUTH Provides youth services, including street outreach, 24-hour crisis intervention, full-time drop-in center and independent-living program.

NEEDS: Provide food, clothing, hygiene items, school supplies and other needed items in atrisk neighborhoods; bring supplies and assemble sack lunches for distribution; host a barbecue for homeless youth; participate in monthly baking contest; creating hygiene kits; answering phones and other clerical tasks; food pantry help; restocking of clothing closet; and more VOLUNTEER: 702-383-1332, nphy.org

OPPORTUNITY VILLAGE Helps people with severe intellectual and related disabilities

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seek independence by providing vocational training, community employment, day services, advocacy, arts and social recreation.

NEEDS: Work with men and women with intellectual disabilities; assist with various events, including Magical Forest, which requires 70-90 nightly volunteers; and more VOLUNTEER: 702-259-3741, opportunityvillage.org

THE RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE OF GREATER LAS VEGAS Provide lodging, transportation and support to families while their children receive medical treatment.

NEEDS: Help clean and organize house; family transportation; office work; building and grounds maintenance; hospital lunch program; weekend breakfast program and cleanup; special events; driving of shuttle van; lunch program delivery VOLUNTEER: 702-252-4663, rmhlv.com/volunteer

THE SALVATION ARMY Offers adult rehabilitation, emergency disaster, family, homeless, human-trafficking victims and veteran services, as well as prayer requests, vocational, summer camp and youth club programs.

NEEDS: Assistance sorting and wrapping donated Christmas gifts; unpacking, storing food pantry donations; organizing donated items; building shelving and other fixtures; visiting senior care centers; serving food; cleaning up at community homeless meals VOLUNTEER: 702-870-4430, salvationarmysouthernnevada.org/ volunteer

THE SHADE TREE Provides a safe shelter for

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Opportunity Village

homeless and abused women and children in crisis, and offers services promoting stability, dignity and self-reliance.

NEEDS: Help prepare and serve daily meals; organize pantry; assist in clinic; tutor; teach life skills classes; organize arts and craft projects; sort donated items; provide transportation; cleaning, painting and yard work; assist with special events VOLUNTEER: 702-385-0072, theshadetree.org

SPREAD THE WORD NEVADA Advances early childhood literacy by giving books to children in at-risk, low-income communities.

NEEDS: Cleaning books; Books and Buddies mentors; reading companion; help with Breakfast with Books event; assist with storytelling; lending a hand at community events VOLUNTEER: 702-564-7809, spreadthewordnevada.org

ST. JUDE’S RANCH FOR CHILDREN Works with abused, neglected and at-risk children, young adults and families through residential foster care; pregnant and parenting teens; transitional living, housing and services for homeless 18-25 year-olds; child-focused sibling preservation; emergency placement; and

Salvation Army

child-nutrition programs.

NEEDS: Donations of holiday decorations; volunteers to hang lights and decorate for Christmas VOLUNTEER: 702-294-7168, stjudesranch.org

THREE SQUARE The Backpack for Kids program provides Clark County schoolchildren in need with bags of nourishing food for after school, weekends, holidays and school breaks.

NEEDS: Sort and repackage food; fill backpacks with food; package meals for school programs; help out at special events; box meals for the Senior Share Program; and more VOLUNTEER: 702-644-3663, threesquare.org

VA SOUTHERN NEVADA HEALTHCARE SYSTEM Helps provide for the comfort

and well-being of veteran patients and makes their hospital stays more enjoyable.

NEEDS: Help transport patients to medical appointments; information desk; filing, answering phones, greeting and directing patients; making calls; donating new clothes and hygiene items VOLUNTEER: 702-791-9134, lasvegas.va.gov/giving

YMCA Provides personal and social change through Christian principles and opportunities to learn, grow and thrive side-byside, regardless of age, income or background.

NEEDS: Assistance sorting and wrapping toy donations; setting up facility for annual Reindeer Rock event and distributing toys at the event; raising funds; coaching sports teams and teaching classes VOLUNTEER: lasvegasymca.org

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your Arts+Entertainment calendar for november

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Hiromi

The Writer in the World: 10 12 Years of the Black Postcard Mountain From Institute Morocco

Ham Hall, UNLV

Take our advice: YouTube some clips of dynamic jazz pianist Hiromi Uehara’s Trio Project. From dazzling technical virtuosity to cascades of pure musical feeling, a few minutes and you’ll know why this show is a mustgo. 8p, $20-$55, unlv. pac.edu

7 Seven Magic Mountains talk Barrick Museum

If all you know of the bright and compelling land-art piece “Seven Magic Mountains” is its notorious “Hella spiders” graffiti, join writer William L. Fox — director of the Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art — and photographer Gianfranco Gorgoni for a talk about land art in general and this piece in particular. 7:30p, sevenmagicmountains.com

Student Union Ballroom, UNLV

Lotta literary horsepower lined up to fete the valley’s big bookish org: Nobelist Wole Soyinka, Cheryl Strayed, LV’s own Charles Bock, Tom Bissell, Vu Tran and Olivia Clare. 4p, free, but RSVP at blackmountaininstitute.org

Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival Clark County Library

Winchester Center

Sin City Opera brings the avant and the garde with this 1971 existentialist piece. Compressed summary: A mysterious puppet master in a train station tries to coerce passengers to act as his marionettes while they wait for a train and guard their luggage.

Beckettian! 2p and 7p, $15, sincityopera.com

Nerd out with a raft of comics creators, including Eisner Award-winners James Robinson and J.H. Williams III, as well as Scott Koblish, Amy Chu and more.

Copious merch vendors, too, and lots of panels, discussion and schmooze ops.

9:30a-4:30p, vegasvalleycomicbookfestival.org

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THE GUIDE ers. $20–$25. Cabaret Jazz at The

ROBIN STARK

ENTERTAIN BY CAT CHIU PHILLIPS

THROUGH NOV. 10

THROUGH JAN. 13

Stark will share a portfolio of recent

This space at city hall, known as

ceramic work dedicated to ceremo-

Windows on First, is part of the First

SOUL TRAIN MUSIC FESTIVAL

nial and memorial sculptural vessels.

Street Art Trail. Phillips’ artwork is

NOV. 4, 8P

Free. Clark County Government

created entirely from discarded VHS

Featuring Jill Scott, Tyrese and

Center Rotunda Gallery, clarkcoun-

tapes, cassette tapes, 35mm photo

Anthony Hamilton with special guest

tynv.gov

negatives and slides, many of which

Tish Hyman coming together for an

have references to Las Vegas. Free.

unforgettable night of soul. $49–

TREASURED LANDS EXHIBIT

Las Vegas City Hall Windows, 495 S.

$125. Mandalay Bay Events Center,

THROUGH NOV. 22

Main St. at First Street, artslasvegas.

mandalaybay.com

QT Luong is the only photographer

org

ART

Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

known to have made large-format photographs in all 59 national parks.

INFRARED

The project is his life’s work, span-

NOV. 22–FEB. 12

RUMER WILLIS: OVER THE LOVE TOUR

ning the past 20 years. Free. Histor-

Artist Sean Russell’s infrared pho-

NOV. 4–5, 7P

ic Fifth Street School, 401 S. Fourth

to-transfer juxtapositions of Big

The daughter of Bruce and Demi has

St., artslasvegas.org

Lake, Minnesota and Nevada’s Red

become a renowned performer in her

Rock National Conservation Area

own right, starring as Roxie Hart in

NATIVE AMERICAN VISIONS

merge nature and technology. Free.

the Broadway revival of Chicago and

THROUGH DEC. 1

Spring Valley Library, seandavidrus-

appearing in the film version of the

Artists in this exhibit explore their

sell.com

musical Hello Again. For this show, she will be performing adult-con-

unique and diverse heritage through

temporary songs and jazz standards.

artworks explore identity and loss of

HAVANA — IN THE TIMES OF FIDEL

identity while others explore pattern

NOV. 29–JAN. 14

Center, thesmithcenter.com

and shape through traditional medi-

Armand Thomas’ timely photography

ums such as weaving and painting

exhibit features the exquisite and

in silhouette, much the same as how

distressed Cuban capital and its re-

some petroglyphs were created. Free.

silient people in a historic era that is

Las Vegas City Hall Chamber Gallery,

transforming before our eyes. Havana

NOV. 5, 7:30P; PRE-CONCERT DISCUSSION, 6:30P

495 S. Main St., second floor, artsl-

has been largely off-limits (and rela-

The Las Vegas Philharmonic will

asvegas.org

tively unaltered) since the Castro-led

perform Mozart’s Symphony No. 1

revolution of 1959, but with political

(composed when he was only 8),

PATRIMONIO EXHIBITION

thaw comes change — euphoric for

Haydn’s Symphony No. 104 and

THROUGH DEC. 15

its hope of progress and daunting

Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D

Artist Justin Favela’s aerial exhibit

for its ramifications on this unique

Major, featuring violin soloist Tobias

highlights the papel picado, which

island nation. Summerlin Library Art

Feldmann. $30–$109. Reynolds Hall

translates to English as “chopped

Gallery, armandthomas.com

dramatic and colorful work. Some

paper” and is a traditional folk art from Mexico that involves cutting out intricate patterns on colorful tissue paper. The tissue paper is then glued

114

$39–$59. Cabaret Jazz at The Smith

CABRERA CONDUCTS THE CLASSICS

at The Smith Center, thesmith center.com

MUSIC

TRUNK SONGS NOV. 6, 2P

to a string in a line to form banners

THE COMPOSERS SHOWCASE OF LAS VEGAS

which are used as decorations for

NOV. 2, 10:30P

Joseph and Karalyn Clark, is filled

important festivities throughout the

Jersey Boys conductor Keith Thomp-

with songs that were cut from

year. Free. Las Vegas City Hall Grand

son hosts this monthly musical

shows during tryouts on their way to

Gallery, 495 S. Main St., first floor,

showcase that features original music

Broadway or cabaret productions.

artslasvegas.org

from local composers and perform-

The songs are written by three

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The production, directed by Jay

NOW ON STAGE! critically acclaimed composers: Gerald (Jerry) Sternbach, Faye Greenberg and John Kroner. $20.

Starbright Theatre at Sun City Summerlin, scscai.com

MARINA V: LIVE IN CONCERT NOV. 6, 3:30P V will beautifully perform some of her most well-known English and Russian songs. She will also share her story about living in the Soviet Union and the time after its collapse.

THE WORLD’S FIRST MAGIC SUPERGROUP

Free. Whitney Library Concert Hall, lvccld.org

CELTIC THUNDER: LEGACY NOV. 7, 7:30P The Irish vocal group performs Irish and Celtic standards along with a selection of more modern tunes. $24–$79. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

LOCALS 2-FOR-1 TICKETS USE CODE: BOMLOC6 7PM NIGHTLY

FOR TICKETS VISIT THE TROPICANA BOX OFFICE OR CALL 800.829.9034 | TROPLV.COM/MAGIC * VALID ON THE $59, $79 & $99 TICKETS. MUST HAVE NV ID. VOID IF DUPLICATED. CANNOT BE COMBINED WITH ANY OTHER OFFER. MANAGEMENT RESERVES ALL RIGHTS. EXPIRES 1/31/17. CODE BOMLOC6

UNLV LATIN JAZZ ENSEMBLE NOV. 9, 7P The best student musicians from UNLV’s School of Music will perform a special infusion of Latin and jazz.

Free. Main Theater at Clark County Library, lvccld.org

THE GREAT AMERICAN SOUL BOOK — THE LON BRONSON BAND WITH SPECIAL GUEST STAR LARRY BRAGGS NOV. 9, 8P Braggs is the former lead singer for

Oct. 28 – Nov. 20

Tower of Power and currently tours as a member of The Temptations.

He and Bronson’s band will perform soul classics of the 1960s and 1970s. $15–$25, Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

ANA GASTEYER NOV. 11–12, 7P The former Saturday Night Live star and current Broadway performer leads her jazz band through a set

Experience a safari of fun with Safari Jeff’s The Great Green Adventure Tour at DISCOVERY Children’s Museum This wild interactive show takes visitors through a fun filled adventure with snakes, lizards and more! Wildly popular in Canada and now performing in Las Vegas, visitors are treated to memorable moments, offering “hands-on” opportunities with amazing reptiles as well as lessons about the ecosystem, balances in nature, and ancient DiscoveryKidsLV.org dinosaur history all in one show.

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THE GUIDE including songs from her recent

rett, who has been performing his

DEE DEE BRIDGEWATER

album, I’m Hip. $39–$59. Cabaret

award-winning show for 21 years,

NOV. 25–26, 7P

Jazz at The Smith Center,

celebrates his birthday on the 12th.

The jazz singer celebrates four de-

thesmithcenter.com

$20. Starbright Theatre at Sun City

cades in the business with songs span-

Summerlin, scscai.com

ning her career, including selections

BRE LAWRENCE STARS IN THE STAGE BIOGRAPHY OF DIANA ROSS

from her recent album Eleanora Fagan

NOV. 13, 2P A celebration of the Motown singer’s

NOV. 18, 12P

life and career narrated by Frank

The flute, percussion and harp come

MOTOWN LEGACY

LaSpina and featuring rare photos

together to present music from around

NOV. 27, 3P

and film clips. Lawrence will perform

the globe that celebrates autumn.

Enjoy one of the most amazing

more than a dozen of Ross’ Su-

Free. Lloyd D. George Federal Court-

tributes to Motown Records since the

premes and solo hits. $25. Cabaret

house, 333 Las Vegas Blvd. S., Jury

original acts. Performing the music

Jazz at The Smith Center, thesmith

Assembly Room, artslasvegas.org

of the Four Tops, The Temptations,

Dee Dee. $45–$75. Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

Smokey Robinson, Jackie Wilson,

center.com

JIM BRICKMAN PURE PIANO: THE GREATEST HITS

James Brown, Marvin Gaye and Stevie

NOV. 18–19, 7P

to a time when the music moved the

NOV. 13, 7:30P

Popular pianist Brickman performs his

world! $20. Starbright Theatre at Sun

The legendary drummer’s latest

best-known songs from his extensive

City Summerlin, scscai.com

incarnation of the All-Starr Band

catalog. $37–$59. Cabaret Jazz at The

includes Todd Rundgren, Steve Lu-

Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

RINGO STARR AND HIS ALL-STARR BAND

kather (Toto), Gregg Rolie (Santana

Wonder, these acts will take you back

THEATER

and Journey), Richard Page (Mr.

A CELTIC THANKSGIVING

THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL

Mister), Gregg Bissonette (David

NOV. 19, 3:30P

Lee Roth) and multi-instrumentalist

The Las Vegas Pipe Band will play

NOV. 1–19, THU–SAT 7:30P, SAT 2P

Warren Ham. This show will feature

along with Irish and Scottish danc-

As French aristocrats are being sent to

well-known songs from all of these

ing, folk music, fiddling and partic-

the guillotine for the merest infraction,

artists as well as a healthy number

ipants dressed in traditional attire.

there is only one man who is able to

of Ringo’s solo and Beatles hits.

Free. Main Theater at Clark County

save them. He alters his personality to

$39–$154. Reynolds Hall at The

Library, lvccld.org

become a vain, self-absorbed socialite

Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

116

(1915-1959): To Billie With Love From

ALFREDO ALVARENGA, FLAVIO AND MARIANO GONZALES CONCERT

interested only in fashion and no one suspects him as the dashing hero who

DANIEL EMMET AND PHILIP FORTENBERRY

THE BRUCE HARPER BIG BAND STARRING ELISA FIORILLO

NOV. 14, 7P

NOV. 19, 7P

$20–$30. Summerlin Library and Per-

Pianist Fortenberry and vocalist

Harper has backed stars such as

forming Arts Center, 1771 Inner Circle

Emmet perform songs across multiple

Chuck Berry, Joan Rivers and Don

Drive, signatureproductions.net

genres. $25–$45. Cabaret Jazz at The

Rickles, to name a few, and toured for

Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

10 years with Sin Sity Suitz and 10th

THE NANCE

Ave Jazz Band. This 19-piece band of

NEIL DIAMOND — THE TRIBUTE, STARRING ROB GARRETT & THE K.O.D. BAND

live heaven is not afraid to strike it up

NOV. 3–6, THU–SAT 8P, SUN 2P

with songs like “Fascinating Rhythm,”

In the 1930s, a headliner called “the

“Cheek to Cheek” and “Too Close for

nance” — usually played by a straight

NOV. 15, 7P

Comfort.” The jewel of this show is the

man — was a stereotypically camp ho-

This will be a double birthday

1985 winner of Star Search, Fiorillo.

mosexual and master of comic double

celebration since Diamond himself

$20. Starbright Theatre at Sun City

entendre. This play tells the backstage

turned 75 this past year and Gar-

Summerlin, scscai.com

story of Chauncey Miles and his fellow

N ov e m b e r 2 0 1 6

DesertCompanion.vegas

rescues the unjustly convicted. Don’t miss this classic musical comedy.

Channel 10

performers during a time when it was easy to play gay and dangerous to be gay. 18+ only. $21–$24. Las Vegas Little Theatre, lvlt.org

WHEN THE RAIN STOPS FALLING NOV. 3–6, THU–SAT 8P, SAT–SUN 2P A Public Fit’s Ann Marie Pereth and Joseph Kucan co-direct this drama in a found space that fits the philosophical subject matter: an 8,000-square-foot empty warehouse in the developing Fremont East District. The play delves into the prophecy and aftermath of a fish falling from the sky during a dayslong deluge, with a story that spans

Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs Friday, November 18 at 9 p.m.

four generations and two continents. $25. 100 Fremont St., apublicfit.org

OUTSIDE MULLINGAR NOV. 4–20, THU-SAT 8P, SUN 2P Anthony and Rosemary are lovelorn farmers who haven’t got a clue when it comes to love. These hopeless singletons will need to overcome a bitter land feud, familial rivalries and their own romantic fears to find happiness.

Full of dark humor and poetic prose, John Patrick Shanley’s tenderhearted portrait reminds us it’s never too late to take a chance on love. $10–$15. Las Vegas Little Theatre, lvlt.org

Nature: The Story of Cats

NOVA: Treasures of the Earth

Wednesdays, November 2 and 9 at 8 p.m.

Wednesdays, November 2, 9 and 16 at 9 p.m.

STEEL MAGNOLIAS NOV. 18–19, 7P; NOV. 19, 2P; NOV. 20, 3P Broadway in the Hood presents the classic story of six strong southern women who congregate in Truvy’s Beauty Shop and talk about love, life and laughter. $34. Troesh Studio Theater at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

LAS VEGAS IMPROVISATIONAL PLAYERS NOV. 19, 7P The only clean-burning improv show

Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise Tuesdays, November 15 and 22 at 8 p.m.

Soundbreaking Weekdays, November 14 – 23 at 10 p.m.

VegasPBS.org | 3050 E. Flamingo Road, Las Vegas, NV 89121 | 702.799.1010 N ov e m b e r 2 0 1 6

DesertCompanion.vegas

117

THE GUIDE in Vegas! Bring the kids for a fam-

Festival in 2014 and set to the score

ily-friendly fun time. The audience

of Vaughan Williams. $24–$79.

A NIGHT OF DIVERSE CULTURAL BELLY DANCE

joins in to create this unique program

Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center,

NOV 19, 7P

including on-the-spot musicals. $10.

thesmithcenter.com

Local belly dancers from many

Fern Adair Conservatory for the Arts, 3265 E. Patrick Lane, lvimprov.com

different cultures and ethnicities

THE 9TH ANNUAL CHOREOGRAPHERS’ SHOWCASE

share the same love of dance and

IRVING BERLIN’S WHITE CHRISTMAS

NOV. 13 & NOV. 19–20, 1P

These performers will enlighten and

Featuring more than 11 original

broaden your knowledge of belly

NOV. 22–27, 7:30P; NOV. 26–27, 2P

works choreographed by the artists

dance as it has been infused around

of Cirque du Soleil and the Nevada

the world. Free. West Charleston

The beloved holiday film has now

Ballet Theatre, this unique collabora-

Library, lvccld.org

been adapted into a stage produc-

tion brings more than 50 world-class

tion. This is the story of a song-

artists together for a completely

and-dance team putting on a show

original performing-arts experience

in a Vermont inn and falling for a

that’s perfect for the holidays. Pro-

stunning sister act, in the process.

ceeds benefit NBT’s future pro-

LAS VEGAS STORIES: ASPHALT MEMORIES

$29–$127. Reynolds Hall at The

grams. $25–$45. Mystère Theater at

NOV. 3, 7P

Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

Treasure Island, treasureisland.com

What’s in a street name? It may be

will be performing a variety of styles.

LECTURES, SPEAKERS AND PANELS

more than you think. Mark Hall-Patton, museum administrator for the

NOV. 26, 6P

GLOBAL FEST — A CELEBRATION OF FOLK DANCE

Stage production for men by men

NOV. 19, 12P

cusses the practical jokes, love sto-

presented by Sharonda Manor-Fos-

Celebrate equality, unity and di-

ries, friendships, family dedications

ter. Ages 14+. $30–$35. West Las

versity at this family-friendly event

and memorials that are behind the

Vegas Library Theatre, lvccld.org

that features a variety of cultural

street names in Clark County. Free.

dancers, musicians and culinary

Jewel Box Theater at Clark County

MY MOTHER’S ITALIAN, MY FATHER’S JEWISH & I’M HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

arts. Lawn seating; bring low-back

Library, lvccld.org

NOV. 30–DEC. 3, 7P; DEC. 3–4, 3P

available for purchase. Free. Sammy

Meet uncle Willie, stuttering cousin

Park, 720 Twin Lakes Drive, artsl-

CONVERSATIONS WITH NORM WITH SPECIAL GUESTS GREG MADDUX AND JACK SHEEHAN

Bob, demented cousin Kenny, Steve’s

asvegas.org

NOV. 6, 2P

TELL HIM

Clark County Museum System, dis-

lawn chairs or blankets to be more comfortable. Refreshments will be Davis Jr. Festival Plaza in Lorenzi

new therapist cousin Sal (and Sal’s

Longtime Review-Journal columnist

parole officer) and many other char-

—in3s—

Norm Clarke interviews Hall of Fame

acters in this show by Steve Solomon.

NOV. 19, 2P

pitcher Greg Maddux and author Jack

$35-$40. Troesh Studio Theater at

Chuthis, a non-profit dance com-

Sheehan. $25. Cabaret Jazz at The

The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

pany, presents a triple bill that will

Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

expose the audience to unforgiving truths behind physical misunder-

TELLABRATION

standings and the inability to control

NOV. 19, 1P

LAS VEGAS CONTEMPORARY DANCE THEATER CELEBRATING 10 YEARS OF EXCELLENCE

behavioral patterns during times

Tellers from Nevada Storytelling

of uncertainty. All three works play

Guild will share their storytelling

with the rise and fall of a body

talents with the community in a

influenced by the pull of tempo (i.e.,

celebration of the many types and

NOV. 11, 7:30P

gravity) and share an innate wisdom

styles of story—cultural, folktale, and

This evening of dances will show-

of the body and mind connection

personal, to name a few. Free. West

case the world premiere of Lotus,

during movement. Free. West Las

Charleston Library Lecture Hall,

commissioned by the Laguna Arts

Vegas Library Theatre, chuthis.net

lvccld.org

DANCE

118

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AN EVENING WITH BOB NEWHART

parade will start at the west valet

by Cirque Du Soleil, Lance Burton,

near Yard House and end at Santa’s

the Australian Bee Gees and others.

NOV. 19, 7:30P

house in Town Square Park, my-

Spike TV’s Jon Taffer will emcee,

One of the top-selling comedy

townsquarelasvegas.com

and incredible silent and live auction items will be available. $150 individ-

artists of all time and the star of two legendary TV shows, Newhart

HENDERSON STROLL ’N ROLL

ual or buy per table. The grand ball-

returns to his first love of stand-up

NOV. 12, 10A–2P

room at Green Valley Ranch Hotel

comedy. He will be performing clas-

Bike, walk, skate and play along Paseo

and Casino, stjudesranch.org

sic routines as well as new material.

Verde Parkway in the community’s

$29–$99. Reynolds Hall at The

largest car-free street festival that

MILES FOR MELANOMA

Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

includes games, music, children’s ac-

NOV. 5, 7A

tivities and fitness classes. Free. Valle

A 5K run/walk that will allow partic-

Verde Drive to the Henderson Multi-

ipants to help raise funds to support

generational Center, #BikeHenderson

research, education and advocacy

FAMILY & FESTIVALS

for melanoma. $30, competitive

LIFE IN DEATH FESTIVAL VALLEY OF FIRE 7TH ANNUAL CAR SHOW

(timed) runners; Free, non-compet-

This is the 16th year of honoring the dead and mocking death with the

NOV. 19, 9:30A–1:30P

Park, join.melanoma.org

festival’s patron, Elizadeath, in the

This year’s car show is open to all

guise of a Las Vegas showgirl. Come

vehicles 20 years and older. Prizes will

TODAY FOR TOMORROW

for the ofrendas, calaveras, perfor-

be awarded to the top three vehicles

NOV. 5, 6P

mances, art and children’s crafts.

in categories such as “people’s choice”

This is the Communities in Schools

Traditional food will be available for

and “participant’s choice.” This event

of Nevada’s signature event cele-

purchase. Free. Winchester Cultural

is included with your park entrance

brating the tremendous support its

Center, 3130 McLeod Drive, clark-

fee of $10 per vehicle. Nevada resi-

donors, sponsors and partners pro-

countynv.gov

dents receive a $2 discount. Valley of

vide. Cocktails and culinary offerings

Fire State Park, parks.nv.gov

will be created by the award-win-

NOV. 1–2, 5–9P

itive runners and walkers. Sunset

ning chefs and mixologists from the

DÍA DE MUERTOS NOV. 4–6, 4–9P

CIVIL WAR EXPERIENCE

venue. Proceeds benefit the nation’s

The 3,000-year-old Hispanic cele-

NOV. 26, 10A–12P

leading dropout prevention and in-

bration honoring loved ones is full of

Try on civil-war uniforms, learn to

tervention program. 18+ only. $350-

joy and tradition. This family-friendly

march and drill in formation, and

$550. The Belmont Ballroom in The

event blends rich customs with excit-

participate in a skirmish with other

Cosmopolitan, cisnevada.org

ing activities such as live theater and

visitors in this hands-on event. Learn

dance performances, altars, mariachis,

from knowledgeable reenactors

face painting, sugar-skull decorating

and see historic weapons, including

and an art exhibition. In advance:

the arms carried by soldiers and a

$8 adults, $5 children. Day of: $10

light cannon, at this family-friendly

21ST ANNUAL SERENADES OF LIFE — DOCTORS IN CONCERT FEATURING LEE ANN WOMACK

adults, $6 children. Members 50%

event. $7 per vehicle for those with

NOV. 12, 7P

off. Ages 2 and under free. Springs

Nevada driver’s licenses, $9 without.

This annual event features the

Preserve, springspreserve.org

Spring Mountain Ranch State Park,

musical talents of physicians from

parks.nv.gov

the Las Vegas area and benefits the Nathan Adelson Hospice’s Bonnie

SANTA’S ARRIVAL PARADE NOV. 11, 7P Join in on the summoning of winter

FUNDRAISERS

Schreck Memorial Complementary Therapies Program. Womack is the headlining performer, and the

be real snow! Following the snow-

ST. JUDE’S RANCH FOR CHILDREN GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY GALA

fall, children can take photos with

NOV. 4, 6P

Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

Santa inside his house. Free. The

There will be special performances

when Santa arrives and lights the 45-foot Christmas tree. There will

benefit is hosted by Brad Garrett. $34–$134. Reynolds Hall at The

N ov e m b e r 2 0 1 6

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119

END NOTE

‘I have that gluten thing’ A family plans its Thanksgiving meal

B y Ja s o n S c av o n e

Bri. How about if we don’t do the desserts or the starches, but we have all the vegetables?

That way everyone can be healthy and feel like they have a space at the table. Kaleb, you’re awfully quiet. What are you bringing?

<HTGK413b@gmail.com> To: Mom, Dad, Bri, Uncle Frank, Aunt Debbie, Grandma Rose, Grandpa Steve

Rachel Fackenhopf <rfackenhopf@gmail.com> To: Mom, Dad, Gary, Uncle Frank, Aunt Debbie, Brianna, Kaleb Hey everyone, I want to thank you all for letting me and Gary host Thanksgiving for the

Brianna, Kaleb

I told alla you that aint my name anymore. My

Oh, you’re right. I forgot you had to stay off

names Hashtag that’s how i identify now

sweets, Uncle Frank. I hope it’s not too much trouble, Mom, but maybe we should try to make everyone feel comfortable and not do pies this year?

Brianna Fackenhopf

brining technique. (And I promise not to burn

<Patrianarchist@gmail.com>

it like dad’s birthday cake, lol!)

To: Aunt Debbie, Mom, Dad, Grandma Rose,

I thought it would be fun if everybody brought a

Grandpa Steve, Uncle Frank, #Kaleb

dish. What can I put you down for?

You want to make everyone comfortable and we’re having two kinds of meat? Why don’t we

Rosemary Fackenhopf <Rosie_bakes@aol.com> To: Rachel, Steve, Gary, Frank, Debbie, Brianna, Kaleb Oh, you know me. I’ll be bringing pies. I’m even thinking about trying making a cheesecake. I learned the recipe from Judy next door.

just raise a veal cow in the kitchen? I’m going to bring maize, to honor the indigenous peoples whose generosity we’re unjustly appropriating for this holiday. I’ll even make zucchini bread.

Gary Fackenhopf <thegoodthebadandthegary@aol.com> To: Brianna, Rachel, Mom, Dad, Aunt Debbie,

Debbie Fackenhopf <Debbiedoesyoga@yahoo.com>

Uncle Frank, Kaleb No bread. I have that gluten thing.

To: Rose, Frank, Rachel, Gary, Steve, Brianna, Kaleb Rose, you know that normally that would be

To: Kaleb, Brianna, Rachel, Mom, Dad, Aunt Debbie, Uncle Frank

first time. We can’t wait! Obviously, Grandma Kathy will be teaching me her famous turkey

Gary Fackenhopf <thegoodthebadandthegary@aol.com>

Shut up, Kaleb.

Steve Fackenhopf <sfackenhopf52@outlook.com> To: Kaleb, Rachel, Gary, Frank, Debbie, Rose I didn’t leave half my intestines on the Korean peninsula so my grandson could name himself after punctuation, and I damn well didn’t do it to not eat turkey on Thanksgiving.

Rachel Fackenhopf <rfackenhopf@gmail.com> To: Dad, Kaleb, Brianna, Gary, Uncle Frank, Aunt Debbie, Mom, All right, Dad. I’ll make a turkey. Maybe Bri can have her dinner on the porch so she doesn’t have to smell it cooking?

Brianna Fackenhopf <Patrianarchist@gmail.com>

great, but I’m doing paleo this year and the

To: Dad, Aunt Debbie, Mom, Grandma Rose,

cavemen certainly never had dairy, let alone

Grandpa Steve, Uncle Frank, #Kaleb

cheesecake! In fact, I thought it might be fun this

Dad, you don’t have celiac. You just had a moldy

year if we had a ham AND a turkey. It would be

piece of rye from the loaf that had been on the

like Easter and Thanksgiving all in one!

counter for two weeks.

Brianna Fackenhopf <Patrianarchist@gmail.com> To: Mom, Dad, Aunt Debbie, Grandma Rose, Grandpa Steve, Uncle Frank, #Kaleb Mom, I can’t believe you’re going to carry water for this kind of cruel, systemic oppression.

You know who supports eating all these poor,

Frank Fackenhopf

Gary Fackenhopf

abused, hormone-fed, GMO turkeys. It’s just

<FrankieDoodleDandy@hotmail.com>

<thegoodthebadandthegary@aol.com>

another way old, cisgender, hetero, able, white

To: Deb, Rose, Steve, Rachel, Gary, Brianna, Kaleb

To: Brianna, Rachel, Mom, Dad, Aunt Debbie,

men control what we put in our bodies and I’m

I hate to ask, but ever since the doc said I had the

Uncle Frank, Kaleb

not gonna take it anymore. Hashtag, we can

diabetes back in May, it’s been rough. I know it’s

I don’t really feel comfortable with you making

go over to my boyfriend’s place, where he’s

not very Thanksgiving-like, but would it be possi-

me relive painful episodes from my past. You

doing Organic Beetsgiving.

ble to skip desserts altogether? Besides, even if it

need to warn me before you talk about rye.

didn’t raise my sugar too much, I’d hate to eat all those pies and get cankles like you-know-who.

Rachel Fackenhopf <rfackenhopf@gmail.com> To: Uncle Frank, Aunt Debbie, Mom, Dad, Gary,

120 N ov e m b e r 2 0 1 6

DesertCompanion.vegas

<HTGK413b@gmail.com> Rachel Fackenhopf

To: Mom, Dad, Bri, Uncle Frank,

<rfackenhopf@gmail.com>

Aunt Debbie, Grandma Rose, Grandpa Steve

To: Briana, Gary, Uncle Frank, Aunt Debbie, Mom,

uhhhh ma, if you teach me how to make mashed

Dad, Brianna, Kaleb

potatoes ill bring those and you can call me

Let’s not go round and round about that again,

kaleb again

Being a patient shouldn’t test your patience.

Health care facilities exist for one reason: to care for people. At Dignity Health Medical Group, we vow to never forget that. That’s why we focus on the little details that make being a patient a lot easier: more-comfortable waiting rooms, shorter wait times–and, of course, great internal medicine, family medicine, and pediatric medicine doctors.

Appointments are available at these locations: Green Valley Henderson 1701 Green Valley Pkwy.

10001 S. Eastern Ave. Suite 10A Suite 101 Henderson, NV 89074 Henderson, NV 89052

Peccole Plaza 8689 W. Charleston Blvd.

Suite 105 Las Vegas, NV 89117

Rose de Lima 106 E. Lake Mead Pkwy.

Suite 104 Henderson, NV 89015

Tivoli Village 400 S. Rampart Blvd.

Suite 240 (Capella Building) Las Vegas, NV 89145

Southwest 8205 W. Warm Springs Rd. Suite 210 Las Vegas, NV 89113

Welcoming new and established patients. For appointments, call 702.616.5801, or learn more about our physicians at dhmgnv.org.

GO ON A MAGICAL INTERACTIVE ADVENTURE TO FIND SANTA Explore Santa’s home Take a thrilling, cinematic sleigh ride Meet Santa & pose for a photo Bring home a holiday memory you’ll never forget

www.AdventureToSanta.com

FASHION SHOW On The Strip at Spring Mountain Road, across from The Venetian, Wynn and TI | thefashionshow.com | ( 702 ) 369-8382