The Education Issue | Vegas Seven Magazine | Aug. 13-19, 2015

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Now, we in Las Vegas may think of illegal gambling as someone else’s problem. After all, how many people who live or visit here regularly are going to play illegally when there’s a legal gambling emporium seemingly on every other block? But Albanese insists that online cheats could indeed threaten the prosperity of Las Vegas. “The actions of illegal gambling providers who cheat both customers and the U.S. government are used to smear the reputation of the legal gaming industry,” he says. “Too often, the public and policymakers use instances of convictions and forfeitures from illegal gambling enterprises as a source for speaking [negatively] about the legal gaming industry.”

Remember that Kennedy, in addition to chasing bookmakers, wanted to cripple the mob by raiding many of the Las Vegas Strip’s largest casinos. In this light, the American Gaming Association’s “Stop Illegal Gambling—Play It Safe” campaign, launched in June, makes perfect sense. Because of the potential for blowback against legal gaming, casino operators and law enforcement fnd themselves natural allies in the fght against the bad guys. And with illegal gambling having survived the era of the riverboats, grown powerful with organized crime and transitioned to cyberspace, it’s clear the fght isn’t ending anytime soon.

So next time you read a headline about an illegal gambling bust, read the story, too. Because it’s not a small problem, and not one that’s inconsequential to Las Vegas.

A trip to Laughlin can be an interesting (and inexpensive) diversion, but getting there is a bit of a drag. It’s a long 90 miles of not much, except for the obligatory stop in Searchlight, which is at about the halfway point of the trip—a natural respite for gas or grub. The Searchlight Nugget has long been famous for 10-cent coffee, which it still serves. But that’s not the only deal in Harry Reid’s tiny hometown.

The Nugget's bar has 16-ounce draft Budweiser for a buck and other specials, such as $2 Long Island iced teas. These drinking deals match up pretty well with Vegas’ best, and there’s a diner with some decent specials, including an $11.99 prime rib. But as it turns out, the Nugget actually isn’t the best bargain in town.

A mile down the road is Searchlight’s other casino, Terrible’s. It’s a cool little joint with a mini two-lane bowling alley in the bar ($1 per game), a fortune-telling machine (think Tom Hanks in Big) and an animatronic cowboy that says “Welcome to Terrible’s” when you walk in. It also trumps the Nugget at the bar, serving ice-cold 16-ounce pints of Rolling Rock for 50 cents or pitchers for $1.50. It’s been a long time since I’ve come across a $1.50 pitcher— plus popcorn is free!

They also sell a shrimp cocktail at the bar for $2. An advertisement for the special that's posted on the wall depicts prawns that might have been more credibly priced at $2 apiece. You don’t get those, but what you do get isn’t far off. Certainly, Terrible’s shrimp are bigger than what shows up in Las Vegas’ best bargain shrimp cocktails at the Skyline and Golden Gate, and they come a dozen to an order. Later that night, I saw an $18 shrimp cocktail on the menu at the Range in Laughlin and couldn’t order it, even with a comp, knowing I could get 108 of ’em in Searchlight for the same price.

For years there were two blackjack tables at the Nugget, but they were taken out last month, relegating all of Searchlight to slotsonly status. The best video poker game I saw was 7/5 Bonus Poker with a wheel spin for quad 5s-10s at the Terrible’s bar. That’s also a step up from the standard Las Vegas bar game, with a return in the 99 percent range.

But it’s tough to advocate playing for comped drinks with $1.50 pitchers and $2 shot specials available.

I’m not suggesting that you drive 60 miles just to get the “Searchlight Experience,” but if you’re heading to Laughlin, budgeting a couple of hours and about 10 bucks is a pretty good move. A buddy and I took a break from the drive and picked up two shrimp cocktails and a pitcher of Rolling Rock for a grand total of $5.50. That’s what I call a deal!

David G. Schwartz is the director of UNLV’s Center for Gaming Research.

Anthony Curtis is the publisher of the Las Vegas Advisor and LasVegasAdvisor.com.

Image Is (Still) Everything Why Las Vegas should keep a close eye on the nation’s illegal gambling problem

August 13–19, 2015

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WITH THE PROLIFERATION OF LEGAL CA-

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sino gaming throughout the country, it’s tempting to think of illegal play as something from a bygone time. But if you’ve been keeping up with the news lately, you know that illegal gambling is alive, well and far more pernicious—and just as persistent—than the three-card Monte dealers who still pop up on Strip pedestrian overpasses.

Before you brush off these reports of illegal gambling crackdowns as insignifcant to Las Vegas and little more than harmless, victimless crimes, it’s important to revisit history—not to mention the old idiom about those who don’t learn from history. After all, it wasn’t all that long ago when illegal gambling was one of the biggest moneymakers for organized crime. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy himself believed that, to take down the mob, prosecutors had to frst target illegal gambling—which was why he championed the passage of the Interstate Wire Act in 1961.

Kennedy believed that the Justice Department could roll prosecutions against bookies up the mob chain of command. It didn’t work that way in practice—bookies were much more afraid of crossing mob bosses than doing a stint in the federal pen—but the Wire Act defned the Justice Department’s anti-gambling efforts.

These days, federal and state prosecutors are frequently targeting operators of illegal sports betting rings—some tied to online operations, some not—and Internet sweepstakes cafés.

Jay Albanese, a professor and criminologist in the Wilder School of Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University, is one of the

nation’s foremost experts on illegal gambling. The author of Organized Crime: From the Mob to Transnational Organized Crime, he makes it plain that while individuals placing bets don’t pose a dire threat, the business of illegal gambling presents serious problems.

“There have been numerous documented cases,” Albanese says, “in which providers of illegal sports betting, black market machines, Internet sweepstakes cafés and illegal online betting have cheated customers on payouts and cheated the United States government by not paying taxes on profts. Furthermore, these profts have been found to support organized crime activity, such as money laundering and loan-sharking. In this way, illegal gambling operations support organized crime and victimize others, rather than beneft patrons.”

Translation: More than a half century later, we have not come all that far from the days of Kennedy, as illegal gambling still fuels further criminal activity, which extends far beyond the gambling itself. Unfortunately, nobody knows exactly how big the problem is nationally.

Albanese says the last estimate—as much as $250 billion per year bet on sports alone—was back in 1999, long before the proliferation of technology that aids illegal gambling efforts today.

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BARGAIN HUNTING IN SEARCHLIGHT

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A Test of Patience Teacher Martin Vece desperately wants to return to his classroom.

But frst he needs a new heart.

IT’S A FRIDAY IN NOVEMBER. Having just laid out lesson plans for his substitute teacher, Martin Vece closes the door to his English classroom at Canyon Springs High School, hops in his car and drives to his home in Summerlin. Once there, he fnishes packing, then kisses his wife and three young daughters goodbye.

He’ll be gone for just a week. But it’s a big week: Vece, who is suffering from a congenital heart condition, is headed to Los Angeles for a round of tests that will determine if he’s fnally ready for a new heart.

Days later, lying in a bed at UCLA Medical Center, Vece calls his wife, Lizzy. Tells her there’s been a change in plans: Doctors won’t let him leave. He needs a new heart. Immediately. Except tests show his lungs can’t take it after years of compensating for his bad heart. So frst he needs surgery to implant a mechanical pump that will take pressure off his lungs.

He’ll have to stay in the hospital for a while, then remain in the area for six months so specialists can treat him. This means Lizzy needs to quit her job, pack up the house and pull their daughters out of school. She’ll have to fnd a home in the City of Angels that will allow a short-term lease. And she’ll have to do it quickly, by herself.

“My wife is like Superwoman,” Vece, 45, says.

“When I think about it—and I always will—I don’t know how she pulled it off.”

This is not how an actor typically lands in L.A.

August 13–19, 2015

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vece grew up in chicago, where he did professional theater for a decade. But by 2001, he was ready to trade the stage and Chicago winters for a career and setting more conducive to starting a family with Lizzy, then his girlfriend.

Vece was always intrigued by Las Vegas, which he’d visited several times. When his father retired here, it became a “no-brainer” that he and Lizzy would follow.

He quickly launched a six-year run in the dinnertheater show Tony n' Tina’s Wedding. “Which I said I wasn’t going to do,” he acknowledges with a laugh.

“But you need money. And I absolutely loved it.”

Still, Vece was set on forging a new path, and he kept going back to teaching. “Being onstage and performing and being in a classroom and teaching, there are a lot of similarities. That’s why I was drawn to it.”

Vece enrolled at UNLV, taking classes during the day and acting at night until he earned his teaching license and master’s degree in education in 2006. He’s taught English at Canyon Springs High ever since, fnding feedback from students even more rewarding than the applause from an audience.

The same year he started teaching, Vece was

diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, where a thickened heart muscle can lead to lifethreatening arrhythmia. His brother, who is 12 years older, had just had a heart transplant for the same problem. “It completely changed my life as it progressed,” he says of his heart condition. By last summer, he couldn’t walk up stairs without taking a break. “That’s when I knew something was really, really up.”

With only kidney transplants performed in Nevada, Vece’s cardiologist sent him to UCLA. He checked in November 3. Doctors said if he hadn’t shown up when he did, he would have been dead in six months.

Doctors frst predicted Vece would have a heart within 30 days—that is, until they discovered the problem with his lungs. Instead of a new heart, doctors told Vece he’d be getting a left ventricular assist device, or LVAD, by Christmas. The next day, he had a 20-pound machine attached to a tube that ran through his stomach up to his heart, where it pumped 50 percent of his blood.

He was hospitalized in L.A. for fve weeks and remained in the city for seven months, with his wife, daughters and sister-in-law (who few from Mississippi to help) all crammed in a twobedroom apartment. “It’s been like a reality TV show,” he says. “We have said a million times, the people in Hollywood are missing out. Because if they had a camera on us since last summer, they would have a killer show on their hands.”

The family recently moved back to Vegas, where Vece has been improving, the LVAD having relieved the pressure on his lungs. Yet he has days with zero energy. He has to fy to L.A. for monthly clinics. And he’s still on leave from teaching, with the fnancial burden perhaps the scariest part.

“Without family and friends and fundraising,” he says, “I really don’t know where we’d be.”

As much as the LVAD helped, it’s also been a Catch-22: Because Vece is more stable, he dropped from the top of the transplant list; he's now fuctuating between No. 17 and No. 45. So he waits for that phone call saying the perfect heart is ready. A heart that will let him jump in a swimming pool without damaging his LVAD. A heart that will let him follow his passion back into the classroom. A heart that will let him get back to what he’s been missing most. “My girls, they like to roughhouse or go out and kick the soccer ball.

I can’t do physical activity with them, and that’s been a bummer,” he says, his Chicago accent softening for the frst time.

“My 7-year-old, Lucia, she’s not crazy about cuddling anymore because the batteries and the LVAD, they lean into her and they hurt. So I’m like, come on man, I need this new heart so I can cuddle with my babies.”

To support Martin Vece, visit HelpHopeLive.org.

PHOTO BY KRYSTAL RAMIREZ

By Brooke Edwards Staggs

VegasSeven.com

| August 13–19, 2015

Canyon Springs High School teacher Martin Vece relaxes at home while hooked up to a pump that aids his lungs and failing heart.

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“Some people might want to come in and make a quick buck,” Hewitt says. “We have to protect the system and ESAs as a whole from fraud.” than 300 percent of the federal poverty level. However, the program is capped at $5 million this year and $5.5 million in 2016. A quick calculation shows that only 650 kids will be able to receive the Opportunity Scholarship this year and 700 next year—this in a state with more than 450,000 public school students.

“The proponents of this [ESA] bill advocated that the poor and disadvantaged who have been recipients of poor education in public schools will now have the opportunity to go to the private sector and get a better education,” says John Vellardita, executive director of the Clark County Education Association. “The fve grand won’t be enough to get that education. But the [students] who will access it … will be those who are already in a position to afford it; this is just additional money they get from the public trough.”

Of course, even those who can afford to cover the gap between the voucher amount and the actual cost of a private education may fnd themselves stymied by a basic rule of economics: When the market is fooded with more consumers and all of those consumers have more money to spend, prices rise. More providers will naturally enter the market, but schools aren’t built overnight.

Those students receiving state funds will be required to take a norm-referenced test at the end of the school year, but that exam can be chosen from a set of approved assessments. “The point of choice,” says Chartier of the Friedman Foundation, “is to offer parents different options that are best for their kids.”

However, being able to choose the test can affect attempts to accurately judge a student’s progress. For instance, ESA parents can research which assessment best suits their child; conversely, public school students are required to take the same test (well, these days, tests). “It’s not going to be apples-to-apples by any stretch of the imagination,” Vellardita says.

Still another unknown is how the voucher program will affect students who remain in public school——whether by choice or not. “The fnancial impact concerns everybody,” Vellardita explains.

“If you’re giving $5,000 per pupil and let’s say 6,000 students statewide participate, that’s a $30 million hit” to the bottom line of Nevada’s school districts.

Grant says the plan is for the Treasury to give schools advance warning about departing students. “There will be a 30-day notice on who’s leaving,” he says.

“We’re trying to set up a system where

we can talk to the school districts and say ‘Be advised this is what’s happening.’

It’s not like they show up on Monday and bodies are not in the classroom.”

Districts will also receive partial compensation for students who attend public schools for a portion of the year then opt to go the ESA route. However, teachers have yearlong contracts; computers and textbooks cannot be un-bought; and facilities cannot be un-built when the students using them leave.

And there’s yet another potential hurdle to clear: legal challenges, which might stall any rollout of the program.

Florida recently survived a lawsuit, but in June, the Colorado Supreme Court overturned that state’s voucher program, declaring it a violation of the separation of church and state. Nevada’s Constitution declares that “No public funds of any kind or character, whether state, county or municipal, shall be used for sectarian purpose”—language that is similar to the section of the Colorado Constitution that resulted in their voucher law being overturned. However, Chartier is confdent that there will not be a similar outcome in Nevada: “The beauty of this legislation is that it’s diffcult to say that money will be used for sectarian purposes—the money is clearly [earmarked] for educational purposes.”

That may be true, but it’s worth nothing that ESA money can be used to enroll in schools whose stated goal is “to graduate Christian leaders” who “will transform the world for Jesus Christ,” or schools that require church attendance by students’ family members as a condition of enrollment. For parents who aren’t religiously affliated, only Washoe and Clark counties offer secular K-12 brick-and-mortar private school options. “There’s going to be a legal challenge,” Vellardita says. “And it’s going to be precisely around that crossover.”

Should the ESA survive such a court battle, Vellardita says he believes the program will eventually prove less than successful. “As we see the experience and the outcome, I think the narrative that’s going to hit home is ‘Boy, what we were told this is supposed to do isn’t happening … especially for the poor and disadvantaged,’” he says.

Not surprisingly, Chartier is more optimistic. “Just because there’s a lack of options for one family doesn’t mean the program itself is bad,” he says. “But it needs time to grow and offer more options.”

Right now, it’s unclear which side will prove to be correct. But this much we do know: Our current educational system inspires more concern than confdence, and Nevada needs to climb out of the cellar of those national rankings. So the primary goal of those charged with leading the way should be working together to fgure out the quickest path to the surface—for the sake of every student.

Because of computer glitches, the Clark County School District had trouble administering mandatory assessment tests last year. Have they fixed the problem? Find out at VegasSeven.com/CCSDTesting.

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It’s also important to note that ESA funds aren’t just designated for private school tuition. The legislation states that the money can also go toward “books, fees to enroll in a virtual school, curriculum materials, specialized services or therapies for a student with a disability, transportation and tutoring.” Parents of students who are home-schooled also will have access to the $5,100. “We’re working to put in place means to check expenses that are being paid out,” says Hewitt, who notes that all entities must be accredited and approved. “Some people might want to come in and make a quick buck. … We have to fnd ways to protect the system and ESAs as a whole from fraud.”

That may be easier said than done.

“This is like a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean: The light goes on, everyone will see that $5,000 and it’ll be like a magnet [for] that sector of proftmaking,” Vellardita says, offering up the health care industry as an example where not every penny of every dollar goes to services provided.

Another reason parents may choose to go the ESA route: Their privateschool or home-school kids won’t be subject to the barrage of standardized tests inficted on public school students.

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How far does that fve grand go? Well, there are a handful of Las Vegas-area private schools whose tuition is close to what parents can get through an ESA, but the vast majority cost from $8,000 to $12,000 a year. “We’re not really seeing the benefts—even just the price structure as it relates to the private schools here in Nevada,” Corbett says. “For the most part, low-income students are not being included in this type of opportunity.”

Chartier acknowledges that the vouchers won’t be enough to give every child a direct path to private school, but he adds that there are opportunities to make up the difference. “[The schools] themselves have aid they can give out,” he says. “For the most part, those schools will either pay full rides for the most destitute students [or] they will pay for a portion.”

Even if such aid through a specifc private school isn’t available, there are other means. The Opportunity Scholarship program is another of the education bills passed by the most recent Legislature. It offers tax credits to businesses that contribute to scholarship programs that help Nevada students attend private schools; these scholarships are need-based and supply $7,500 a year to students from families making less

August 13–19, 2015

the state of public education in Nevada has long been the subject of fiery speeches, fervent debate and contentious legislation.

It’s also the subject of less public but equally impassioned conversations in homes across Southern Nevada.

At some point, it seems every parent looks at their growing child, then looks at our public schools and starts to worry.

They worry about overcrowding and underfunding. About their child being lost in the shuffe of the ffth-largest school district in the nation. About the ongoing messes that are the Common Core and standardized testing. About our muchpublicized dismal ranking when it comes to graduation rates and test scores.

As they worry, they wonder: What other options do I have?

Cognizant of this ongoing parental angst, the 2015 Legislature made a variety of bold (and many would say long overdue) moves: It passed a tax increase targeted for education, expanded kindergarten and English Language Learner initiatives, and adopted the Education Savings Accounts (ESA) program. As much as the right and left have bickered about the merits of the tax increase, the real battle that’s brewing involves the latter program, with some questioning whether it might compound the state’s education problem rather than solve it.

The savings accounts will allow parents to take the “statewide average basic support per pupil” monies allocated to their child—about $5,000 annually—and apply them to other forms of schooling. While a number of other states have instituted voucher programs—that’s essentially what the ESA program is—none have gone as far as what is being attempted here, where every single student is eligible, regardless of their family income or what school they currently attend. “It’s a big unknown, because nowhere else in the country can you look at it and say ‘How did it work there?’ because there’s no other [ESA] program in America as expansive as Nevada’s,” says Grant Hewitt of the Nevada State Treasurer’s Offce, which will administer the program.

Some, like Michael Chartier from the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, view ESAs as “the frst step in truly creating an educational system that works for every individual child.”

Stavan Corbett, director of outreach for Educate Nevada Now, sees it differently. “How is it going to impact an already malnourished system?” he asks.

“Our state ranked 49th in the nation for educational funding, and now you have a mechanism that exacerbates that.”

Here’s how the Education Savings Accounts will work: After the program’s launch in January, there will be four enrollment periods annually. Most families will receive $5,100 each year, but low-income students and those with disabilities may get as much as $5,700.

Students can only qualify for funds after being enrolled in a Nevada public school for 100 days, although the Treasurer’s Offce is still hammering out exactly how those days will be counted.

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Hey, You …

Wanna Be a Teacher?

Despite signing bonuses and zipline stunts, the school district remains in dire need of instructors B Y B R O O K E E D WA R D S S TA G G S

August 13–19, 2015

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➜ While her former colleagues were

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getting their classrooms ready for the start of the school year, veteran teacher Samantha Jones was getting ready for graduation—from nursing school.

After teaching for a decade (including eight years with the Clark County School District), Jones quit at the end of the 2013-14 school year, enrolling at Nevada State College in pursuit of a new career. The shift had been brewing through years of pink slips and pay freezes, “teacher blaming” and a growing sense of disrespect for the profession. The fnal straw came when Jones, who’d always taught early elementary, was pushed to teach ffth grade. “I had ffth-graders who had to count to seven on their fngers,” Jones says. She tried to reach them without falling behind on the Common Core standards, but there just wasn’t time. “I just got so frustrated.

I said, ‘I gotta get out of here.’”

Not only are such conditions compelling teachers to try new professions, but they’re also sending Las Vegas-area baby boomers into early retirement (speeding the “silver tsunami” of retirements hitting various industries nationwide). Making matters worse, the next generation of potential educators appear to be well aware of the problems, with colleges reporting record-low enrollment in teachertraining programs. “There’s a crisis in the teacher population,” says John Vellardita, executive director of the Clark County Education Association. “This is a serious issue that requires a much more global approach.”

For the upcoming school year, the CCSD needed 2,600 new teachers to account for retirements, resignations and population growth. Despite a massive recruitment campaign, signing bonuses and an attempt to lure back retirees, it had flled only about 1,550 of those openings by early August, says Staci Vesneske, chief human resources offcer for the district. That leaves more than 1,050 classrooms with no teachers.

The situation was only a bit better a year ago, when 1,800 teachers were needed and only 1,200 were hired, Vellardita says. That forced the district to start and end the 2014-15 school year with hundreds of classrooms staffed by full-time substitutes.

Subs will have to fll the gap again this school year, Vesneske says. So Clark County held a recruitment fair in early August and launched a substitute-teacher boot camp to offer advice on classroom management and lesson planning before students return to campuses August 24.

Clark County is hardly the only district in need of teachers, as evidenced by these headlines: “Indiana lawmakers call for study on teacher shortage,” “Teacher shortage being felt across Arizona” and “Teacher shortage in California getting worse.” But the problem appears particularly acute in Southern Nevada, where student populations are rising, salaries are below national averages and funding hasn’t rebounded from the recession as much as it did in former teacher-feeder states such as California. “It is diffcult for us in Nevada to compete,” Vesneske says. “We needed to do something that is going to set us apart.”

So the district created the Calling All Heroes campaign. First, CCSD staff brainstormed ideas, then they met with casino marketers to hone a teachers-assuperheroes theme aimed at tapping that intrinsic educator motivation.

In January, CCSD Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky soared down the zipline on Fremont Street to generate

buzz for the campaign. The district posted ads in airline magazines and sent recruiters to college campuses.

It called some 2,000 retirees, offering to let them keep drawing their pensions while also earning a salary if they returned to the classroom. It offered $110 referral fees and emailed people on publicized layoffs lists, letting them know about programs that can get them quickly certifed to teach.

One such program was the frst Rebel Academy at UNLV, which attracted nearly 20 people who earned provisional licenses this summer, says Emily Lin, chairwoman of the Department of Teaching and Learning. Those participants—whose career backgrounds ranged from engineering to military—spent four weeks taking classes and working with at-risk seventh- and eighth-graders. Having completed the program, they can teach this fall, enrolling concurrently to fnish coursework for a full license within three years.

Recruitment efforts got another bump in June, when the Legislature approved funding that allowed for a $5,000 signing bonus aimed at enticing new teachers to agree to work in highneed schools. Vesneske says about 80 percent of the 1,550 teachers the CCSD has hired qualifed for the bonus.

However, it’s becoming apparent that this incentive came along too late to make a dent in this year’s numbers. Also, that signing bonus coupled with a decision to balance the district’s budget by freezing pay has sparked an online petition from returning teachers who feel

they’re being taken for granted. Jones says principals here seem to expect a steady turnover of teachers, in keeping with Vegas’ transient population.

For all its efforts, the CCSD has only hired about 170 more teachers than it had at this time last year—a fgure that’s been eclipsed by the number of teachers who have retired or resigned, making it a net loss. Then again, Vesneske says, “Had we not done the campaign, I can’t even imagine where we’d be.”

The recruiting campaign caught the eye of Ruben Rodriguez’s son. Rodriguez was living in El Paso, Texas, where he’d taught middle school for 20 years.

His son, who’d moved to Las Vegas to work as a nurse, heard about the need for teachers and started pushing his dad to bring his mom and younger sister to the desert.

On August 24, Rodriguez will welcome students to his ffth-grade elementary school class. Except for higher gas prices, Rodriguez says Las Vegas is similar to El Paso when it comes to cost of living, teacher pay and climate. “It feels like home,” he says.

Despite the challenges teachers face nationwide, Rodriguez says he still loves his job and has faith in the profession. And that faith appears to be contagious: His daughter, Natalie, enrolled at UNLV for the fall. Her career goal? To become an elementary school teacher.

If the CCSD and other teacherstarved districts across the country had their way, there would be thousands of college-bound kids following in Natalie’s footsteps.

NIGHTLIFE 26

They want to focus on the dance aspect. Music-wise we’ll probably drop some new remixes. This is [our] big gig to close out the summer, so it would be the right place to debut some new songs and remixes. We just did a remix of that Justin Bieber and Jack Ü song [“Where Are Ü Now”], so we’ll most likely play that. We’re really excited about the event. It’s awesome how they raised $133,000 last year, and this year around, it might be more. It’s always fun doing good.

We’ve done a lot of parties where all the money goes into the promoter’s pocket. But this is a party that’s helping out the community.

The Perry Twins have spun at Las Vegas gay hot spots Share, Krave and Piranha.

When you’re not behind the decks, what spots do you hit up?

I love Vegas! I love it for all the DJs— even the local ones. We look up to people like Laidback Luke, Calvin Harris, Steve Aoki and Above & Beyond, and they’re all there. It’s like one big party! I was just there for Memorial

“More straight people are going to gay clubs, and more gay people are going to straight clubs.

It’s just all about the music.” – DOUG PERRY Day weekend and I came with a long list of DJs to see, and I got to knock out a couple of them. I just love seeing the Stratosphere, and the High Roller, even if I haven’t been on it. I wish I lived there full time!

Is there a difference between spinning at a gay club and a mainstream club?

Now that dance music is popular and in the mainstream, it’s all becoming sort of unifed. There’s more equality, and clubs are becoming similar. [But] we’ve seen it change since we started in the ’90s. More straight people are going to gay clubs, and more gay people are going to straight clubs. It’s just all about the music. Now everybody is just there to party and have a good time.

You’re known to bless fans with a podcast mix every so often. When can we expect another installment?

We’ll defnitely do another podcast.

In fact, we’ll probably do one for the event and release it within the next couple of weeks. It’ll probably be called the Black & White podcast or something [laughs].

What have you guys been listening to lately?

We’re into everything! You know how it is with people sending you new music and searching online for the hottest tracks. There’s just so much; I defnitely have a new favorite song everyday.

Lately I’ve been digging some Middle Eastern/Persian kind of hip-hop stuff.

That’s the kind of stuff I vibe out, relax and chill to. But at the same time, I’m

into the total mainstream stuff, such as Calvin Harris, David Guetta, Skrillex and Diplo.

Who are your biggest influences?

When we frst started, it was a lot of the gay ones—Junior Vasquez, Hex Hector and Thunderpuss and Richard Vission. But now that’s evolved. We just take inspiration from all these dance music artists, styles and genres.

What’s next for the Perry Twins?

We’ve got a couple of original songs we’re working on, one with Rhona Bennett. We became fans of hers when we saw her on The All-New Mickey Mouse Club with Britney [Spears] and Justin [Timberlake]. Stay tuned for that. We’re working with [singer] Jania again. We released a song for her years ago [“Activate My Body”] that reached No. 3 on Billboard’s Club Play charts. Other than that, we’ve been playing gigs in West Hollywood, and a few of my friends are playing Burning Man, and I’ve always wanted to bring my brother to that, so maybe we’ll be able to work something out to be able to play.

PHOTO BY VALENTIN

August 13–19, 2015

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What can we expect at AFAN’s Black & White Party?

NIGHTLIFE

By Ian Caramanzana

Ruby Rose.

ftting for this appearance.

(In the Cromwell, 10:30 p.m., DraisNightlife.com.)

SUN 16 The speakers of Hakkasan’s intimate Ling Ling Club will pump out a potpourri of tunes from genres including hip-hop, funk, soul and rock, thanks to SKAM Artist Sean Perry. The open-format DJ is known to play a wide variety of tunes, so you’re bound to fnd a new favorite song.

Make sure you’ve got the Shazam app installed on your smartphone so you can keep tabs on all the new music you discover throughout the evening. Who cares about party photos when you can make a new party playlist for yourself? (In MGM Grand, 10:30 p.m., HakkasanLV.com.)

MON 17

August 13–19, 2015

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THU 13

30

Sean Perry.

Take a break from bingewatching episodes of Community to catch Matt and Kim perform at Foxtail Pool as part of the Road to Life Is Beautiful concert series. The pair is responsible for creating “Daylight” and “Good Ol’ Fashion Nightmare”—two infectiously catchy piano pop anthems that were featured on the show. Since then, the pair has released four additional albums of tuneful indie pop.

Those piano riffs have been stuck in your head for years.

Do yourself a favor and hear them live. (At SLS, 7 p.m., FoxtailLasVegas.com.)

FRI 14 This week’s edition of Ditch Fridays at the Palms Pool is one for the books. Not

only is Dutch singer Natalie La Rose slated to perform, but SK AM Artist Big Ben will spin with 104.3 NOW FM’s DJ Supa James. Not enough for ya? Swimwear brand Kate Swim hosts a poolside pop-up shop of its sophisticated handmade swimwear. You can watch, dance and buy in any order you please! (At the Palms, 10 a.m., Palms.com.) Head to Marquee to witness Texas DJ/producer duo Tritonal record the 100th edition of their podcast, Tritonia.

Journey with the pair as they cruise through a blend of progressive house and electro. Given this momentous occasion, we can’t help but think they will have some surprises up their sleeves. Read more about the pair at VegsaSeven.com/Tritonal.

(In the Cosmopolitan, 10 p.m., MarqueeLasVegas.com.)

SAT 15 Let’s take it back a couple of months: Were you at Stage 7 when Hook N Sling was joined by “Like A G6” hitmakers Far East Movement during Day 2 of EDC Las Vegas? The progressive house DJ brought out the Los Angeles hiphop group to perform their collaboration, “Break Yourself” and amp up the crowd.

Tonight, he’s hitting Light.

He hasn’t mentioned whether he’ll bring the group with him, but he’s coming all the way from Australia, so show him some love! (In Mandalay Bay, 10 p.m., TheLightVegas.com.) Want to take it back even further?

Head to Drai’s to catch a set by Shaggy. He’s sure to perform his bodacious early 2000s hits “It Wasn’t Me” and “Angel.” Oh yeah, UNLV alumni Flo Rida will be in the building as well.

The title of his 2012 single, “Let It Roll,” couldn’t be more

Have you checked out the Hideout at Golden Nugget?

It’s arguably one of the city’s best-kept secrets. The club boasts a third-story, adultsonly, infnity-edge pool with a stunning view of DTLV. New York native DJ KoKo provides your poolside soundtrack. His twerk-friendly remix of Ariana Grande and Iggy Azalea’s “Problem” is the best reason to get wet. (At Golden Nugget, 10 p.m., GoldenNugget.com.)

TUE 18 We’re approaching the end of summer, and yet, DJs are still dropping heat. Have

Matt and Kim.

you heard Tiësto and the Chainsmokers’ collaboration, “Only You?” Tiësto premiered the hard-hitting, festivalready house tune during his set at the Ultra Europe festival. We can only hope the Chainsmokers play the boisterous banger when the two man the decks at Omnia.

And if you want to keep the party exclusive, DJ Irie will keep it irie at Heart of Omnia.

(In Caesars Palace, 10:30 p.m., OmniaNightclub.com.)

WED 19 Australia’s very own Ruby Rose has a handful of titles: She’s a model, actress, television host and recording artist. Tonight, the Orange Is the New Black star will take on the role of DJ when she works the ones and twos at Surrender.

We really hope her “stone cold” demeanor doesn’t transfer to the turntables.

(In Encore, 10:30 p.m., SurrenderNightclub.com.)

NIGHTLIFE

PARTIES

MARQUEE DAYCLUB The Cosmopolitan [ UPCOMING ]

August 13–19, 2015

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Aug. 14 Savi spins Aug. 15 Lema spins Aug. 16 Cash Cash spins

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See more photos from this gallery at SPYONvegas.com

You may not have noticed, but the Sand Dollar Lounge (3355 Spring Mountain Rd., 702485-4501, TheSandDollarLV. com) has quietly made a comeback. The music venue on Spring Mountain Road and Polaris opened in 1976, and according to local music lore, legends like Mick Jagger, B.B. King and Muddy Waters occasionally dropped in to jam with the local acts performing there. But it was sold in 2005, going by several names including Bar 702 and Bar 702 at the Sand Dollar.

The new owners Benito Martinez, Nathan Grates and Anthony Jamison met through their work with the Mina Group. The trio says they’re dedicated to bringing in live bands Tuesday through Saturday, and offering craft beers and “proper cocktails.” Martinez explains that while cocktail culture has improved dramatically over the past decade or so, most small bars close to the Strip offer cocktails that “aren’t up to the standards of what a restaurant professional would want after work.”

“Of course, you can still get a shot and a beer here,” he says. “But if you want an Old Fashioned or a wellmade drink, that wasn’t gonna happen until [we opened].”

Food will be provided in the parking lot by various food trucks. (Fukuburger was there on one recent evening).

While the initial launch was a quiet “soft opening,” official grand opening festivities are planned for August 18-22. So far, they’ve announced performances by BFD Power Trio on August 19 and Stoney Curtis on August 22, with more shows set to be announced.

Then on August 25, Southern Wine & Spirits mixologists J.R. Starkus and Max Solano will launch a series of guest bartender nights.

Other upcoming shows include Lou Lou White every Thursday and blues by Chris Tofield every Friday.

- Al Mancini

PHOTOS BY JOE FURY

FROM OBLIVION, SAND DOLLAR LOUNGE RETURNS

NIGHTLIFE

PARTIES

DRAI’S NIGHTCLUB The Cromwell [ UPCOMING ]

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See more photos from this gallery at SPYONvegas.com

PHOTOS BY THOMAS TRAN

August 13–19, 2015

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Aug. 14 Big Sean performs Aug. 15 Flo Rida and Shaggy perform Aug. 16 Future performs

NIGHTLIFE

PARTIES

HYDE Bellagio

[ UPCOMING ]

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PHOTOS BY THOMAS TRAN

August 13–19, 2015

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Aug. 14 DJ Spider spins Aug. 15 DJ Jessica Who spins Aug. 18 Travis Barker spins

DINING

“One might be tempted to think that the space’s confguration was the inspiration for its name—as in, it’s smashed between its two neighbors.” {PAGE 52}

Restaurant reviews, news and announcing the Desert Hops International Beer Festival VIP-hour brews

Arawan Thai Bistro ofers good food with minimal kick

By Al Mancini

them extremely lacking in heat.

Ignoring the spice factor, Arawan is actually a very nice little restaurant—which it would have to be, being located in the same Commercial Center as the almost legendary Lotus of Siam and the popular Komol. The space itself is apparently a former Japanese restaurant, as evidenced by the sunken zashiki tables in an unused secondary dining room you pass on the way to the restroom. But the sushi bar has been nicely converted into a small wooden dining bar. And soothing wood carvings with a Southeast Asian feel line the walls. It’s a family business, and the servers clearly care.

The menu has plenty of Thai

VegasSeven.com

offer a sliding scale of heat from one to 10, Arawan offers you a choice of mild, medium or spicy. I usually opt for a three or four out of 10, which generally provides a nice kick but doesn’t overpower my palate to the point I can’t make out the other favors. On my frst visit to Arawan, I asked for my meal mild, while my guest asked for it spicy, going so far as to say “Thai spicy,” which can mean a fre in your mouth at many places. My dish had absolutely no kick to it. His would have qualifed as the top echelon of my admittedly timid taste buds, and wasn’t nearly up to his expectations. On a return visit, my wife and I ordered all of our dishes medium and I again found

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Turn Up the Heat (Please)

THAI FOOD IS SUPPOSED TO BE SPICY, RIGHT?

I mean really spicy. Well, yes and no. When I was in Thailand, not much of what I ate overwhelmed me with heat, and I have a low tolerance for spicy. Of course, even Thai street vendors know when they’re cooking for tourists.

(And unlike Americans, they don’t seem to see high spice level as a challenge diners should endure for bragging rights.) Here in the U.S., most Thai restaurants allow you to choose your level of heat. But let’s face it, everyone expects a little kick in their Thai food. At Arawan Thai Bistro & Dessert, however, a little is about all you’re going to get.

Unlike most Thai restaurants that

August 13–19, 2015

PHOTO BY JIRAMATH JONGLUXMANEE

Thai-spiced sea bass.

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DINING

Fremont Street Prepares to Pig Out Here’s what Hachi’s husband-and-wife chef team has planned for their Downtown gastropub

August 13–19, 2015

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THE LAST TIME WE HEARD FROM LINDA

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Rodriguez and her husband, Martin Swift, they were overseeing the kitchen and sushi bar at Red Rock Resort’s now-shuttered Hachi. After also having logged time at Nobu locations worldwide, they are now stepping away from the cuisine of the rising sun, as well as casino culture. Currently under construction, the Smashed Pig will be an English-inspired restaurant next door to the Griffn on Fremont Street, and is tentatively set to open in September or October.

Rodriguez uses the term “gastropub” to describe it, but notes that this is only a jumping-off point for the concept.

The décor, for example, will be “mod-

ern and eclectic” with “different kinds of chairs and wooden tables.”

As for the food, she says it will be “the kind of food we like to cook at home … not so pretentious, just simple, good food that everyone can enjoy.” And like the décor, it won’t necessarily fall into the British gastropub model. While the lunch and dinner menus are still in the conceptual stages, Rodriguez points to such dishes as assorted curries, a rotating Butcher Block Special consisting of a protein, starch and vegetable, and various Mediterranean items. And, given the couple's background, expect some raw seafood plates, depending on what’s fresh on any given day.

But have no fear, Anglophiles: The

TV screens will most defnitely be tuned to football (meaning soccer).

In fact, Rodriguez says they’re toying with the idea of opening up at odd hours so that the most important matches played across the pond can be viewed live.

The restaurant will be long and thin at about 15 feet wide and 110 feet deep.

It will seat about 50 people, with a seven-seat bar in the front and an open kitchen in the rear, with four or fve seats at an adjoining bar where patrons will be able to watch the chefs in action. Lunch will be offered as counter service in a more quick-casual model for local workers who want to get in and out on their lunch break. But din-

ner will be waiter/waitress service for a “more normal, relaxed dinner.”

One might be tempted to think that the space’s confguration was the inspiration for its name—as in, it’s smashed between its two neighbors. Not so, Rodriguez says. “Smashed” is actually a reference to being intoxicated. So while the place does plan to be familyfriendly, this will defnitely be a place for drinkers to gather. Along those lines, the beer selection will include six taps and will feature American ales, stouts, lagers, artisan ales, IPAs and European ales. There will also be a collection of signature cocktails.

All in all, it sounds smashing—sorry, I couldn’t help myself.

PHOTO BY KRYSTAL RAMIREZ

By Al Mancini

CONCERTS

A&E

ALBUMS WE'RE BUYING 1 Lamb of God, VII: Sturm und Drang

2 Fear Factory, Genexus

3 Led Zeppelin, Presence (Deluxe Edition)

4 Led Zeppelin, Coda (Deluxe Edition)

Dawes Serenades Their Lovers and Friends

was reminiscent of a young Bob Dylan, complete with a worn down Fender Telecaster, wrinkled collared shirt and unkempt hair. During an extended jam session in “Don’t Send Me Away,” he rocked back and forth and leapt.

His brother, Griffin, viciously attacked the drums, fighting through the

The Sayers Club in SLS, Aug. 8

noise, and bassist Wylie Gelber held down the low end while looking like

The quartet from Los Angeles appeared as a five-piece and delivered a set

a character straight out of That ’70s Show. Oddly enough, the hightlight

so large and so full, the Sayers Club’s tiny stage could barely contain it.

of the night was at the beginning with a sing-along of “Things Happen.”

Dawes played 18 cuts of its warm, Americana-soaked folk rock (and they

Sometimes we’re lovers / Sometimes we’re friends, he sang. That night, we

threw in two covers, for good measure). Singer/guitarist Taylor Goldsmith

became a little bit of both. ★★★★✩ – Ian Caramanzana

Stephen Marley Shares the ‘Fruit of Life’

5 Mac DeMarco, Another One

6 Led Zeppelin, In Through the Out Door

7 Cattle Decapitation, The Anthropocene Extinction

8 Buddy Guy, Born to Play Guitar

House of Blues, Aug. 4

“Responsibility goes a long way from generation to generation,” said

9 Chelsea Wolfe, Abyss

six-time Grammy-winning reggae artist Stephen Marley. “Ragga” dom rally speech—the audience shouted back the lyrics and nearly drowned out the bass-heavy jam. The hip hop-tinged “Hey Baby” provided a different but welcome energy that made you wish song partner Mos Def shared the stage for the performance. The highlights, however, were the tributes to Marley’s legendary father, Bob. Preaching the importance of family, Stephen’s own son, musician Jo

10 Tame Impala, Currents

According to sales at Zia Record Exchange at 4503 W. Sahara Ave., Aug. 3-Aug. 9.

August 13–19, 2015

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Mersa, joined him. Marley poignantly channeled the sound and spirit

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of his father’s “Three Little Birds.” ★★★★✩ – Brjden Crewe

MONSTER HITS Icelandic folk rockers Of Monsters and Men scored a big hit with “Little Talks” in 2011. Their second studio album, Beneath the Skin, dropped in June and you can sing along to “Crystals” and “Organs” when they play the Cosmopolitan’s Boulevard Pool on Aug. 13 ($35).

NEVER BREAK THE CHAIN Jim and William Reid’s relationship has never been “Just Like Honey,” but the brothers patched up their differences in plenty of time for the 30th anniversary of Psychocandy. The Jesus and Mary Chain hits Brooklyn Bowl on Aug. 16 ($30-$35).

ON SALE NOW The Tragically Hip sure knows how to celebrate. In addition to a tour honoring their 1992 masterpiece Fully Completely, the band is reissuing the album on CD, vinyl and a deluxe CD package. The Tragically Hip plays House of Blues on Oct. 3 ($43-$53).

DAWES BY TONY TRAN; STEPHEN MARLEY BY GLENN BROGAN

promoted a message of love while “Rock Stone” played like a free-

The

HIT LIST TARGETING THIS WEEK'S MOST-WANTED EVENTS

By Ian Caramanzana

[ STAGE ]

Kabuki Spectacle Lights Up the Bellagio Fountains

The ancient Japanese art form

Kabuki transforms the Fountains at Bellagio into an epic battle scene August 14-16. Old world meets new tech when actor Ichikawa Somegoro performs in “Fight With a Carp,” a death-defying spectacle that pits his character against his ex-lover, a

[ HEAR NOW ]

Almost Normal Covers Bon Iver’s 'Skinny Love' Named the Best Live Music Act in our 2015 Best of the City issue, the multitalented Andrew Zakher and Ashley Lampman of Almost Normal debuted their cover of folk hero Bon Iver’s “Skinny Love” in June at Triple B. The airy synth-pop makeover and Lampman’s chilling vocals instantly mesmerized the crowd. Like their cover of Eiffel 65's “Blue,” their take on “Skinny Love” is not an imitation but an almost unrecognizable re-imagining.

– Zoneil Maharaj

Black Camaro’s Sophomore Album Gets a Facelift To completely understand Hang Glider 2025, you need some context: According to the veteran local band’s Bandcamp page, it’s a “remixed and actually mastered” version of its 2005 sophomore effort, Hang Glider. The band celebrates the album’s 10th anniversary “sans the lazy mistakes and gratuitous secret tracks recorded when they were young and naive.”

Essentially, it’s the same album delivered in a shiny new package. And it sounds great. The re-master adds a new depth to the album—the triumphant trumpets in “Apple Core” sound big and bright, and the playful xylophones in “RE: The Sun” ring crisply in the song’s multilayered instrumental madness. Singer/guitarist Brian Garth’s vocals are more pronounced—especially in the Modest Mouse-esque ballad, “Where the Glider Flies.” And the charging riff of “Shit and Champagne” hits

K ABUKI COURTESY OF BELL AGIO

harder than ever. ¶ Unfortunately, though, the album chronicles a time when the band was still struggling to find its sound, and it lacks cohesion as a result. The punk fury of “Black Jenny” does not meld well with the indie sing-along of “Put That Bottle Down.” Neither does the neo-pyschedelia of “Karaoke Killed the Colonel” mesh with the folk flair of “Rendezvous.” But this is where the amusement of nostalgia kicks in; listeners are transported to a time when Black Camaro was in its infancy. It’s like revisiting the demo tapes of a band destined for greatness. (Self-released) ★★★✩✩ – Ian Caramanzana

ON AIR The Aug. 13 edition of the Downtown Podcast talk show features Sailor Jerry brand ambassador Paul Monahan and a live performance by local neo-psychedelic band fishBOL. Join the audience at 9 p.m. at Fremont East Studios—because if we know anything, it’s that booze and music is an ideal pairing. DowntownPodcast.tv.

NOT DESSERT Thanks to rare photography website LimitedRuns.com, you can see one of America’s iconic beauties in all her bodacious glory Aug. 13-15 at Caesars Palace. Marilyn Monroe: Red Velvet Collection features 21 large-format color separations of the American icon. It’s the closest we’ll get to seeing her in the flesh.

LimitedRuns.com.

THE ROCK PACK What if Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin created their hits today? That question is answered in An Evening with Reckless in Vegas, 8 p.m. on Aug. 14 at The Smith Center. The power trio performs rockin’ versions of hits by 1960s Vegas acts including the Rat Pack and Elvis.

TheSmithCenter.com.

GABBA GABBA, HEY! Rock ’n’ Roll High School screens at 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 14 at Huntridge Circle Park. Head Downtown and enjoy the 1979 film about a group of high school rockers in their quest to combat a tyrannical administration. The film features punk rock legends the Ramones, so beware of “pinheads” in the audience. Facebook.com/ CinemaIntheCircle.

VegasSeven.com

[ ALBUM REVIEW ]

Rock 'n' Roll High School.

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stage constructed on the lake. Bellagio, Fri., 9:15 and 11:30 p.m. Sat.-Sun., Bellagio.com. – Kayla Dean

August 13–19, 2015

woman who is really a carp. The free 30-minute shows, featuring giant projections by Panasonic, take place on a 165-foot

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MOVIES

A&E

AN UNWRAPPED PAST The Gif is a surprisingly good stalker fick

By Michael Phillips Tribune Media Services

A DELAYED-SECRET SUSPENSE THRILLER OF

unusual stealth, The Gift comes from actor and screenwriter Joel Edgerton, here making his feature directorial debut. Among this summer’s worthwhile movies, this one faces a particular challenge, since its marketing campaign makes it look like a slasher outing.

It’s not. Check the MPAA rating for a clue: The Gift received an R for language and language alone; no violence. So, some will see The Gift expecting one sort of thing, but they’ll be getting another.

All three leading performers are scarily convincing on the flm’s own tight, clammy terms. Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall play Simon and Robyn, recently moved from Chicago back to Simon’s native Los Angeles.

Simon’s a security system salesman up for a promotion; Robyn, a graphic designer, is struggling with the emotional aftermath of a miscarriage.

Shopping one day, they chance upon Simon’s old high school classmate, a quiet, tense fellow named Gordo.

He’s brought to life by Edgerton with a calm, quiet authority pointing to trouble around the bend. At frst, Gordo’s attempts to ingratiate are touching: A bottle of wine appears on the couple’s doorstep, followed by fsh for the koi pond. Gordo, who does not talk much about his own life, invites the couple over for dinner at his unexpectedly plush digs.

Simon, a controlling sort of fellow, is creeped out by his old acquaintance’s pushy, needy impulses. Something’s going on under the surface of the social encounters, indicated by Gordo’s early promise that he’s willing to forget what happened when he and Simon were teenagers and to “let bygones be bygones.” Gradually The Gift unwraps the story of what happened back then, while playing a clever shell game with the characters and our sympathies in the present day.

Bateman has a unique screen quality, and he’s giving his most intriguing performance to date here. Best known for being the sly voice of relative reason in raunchy comedies (Horrible Bosses, Identity Thief), his timing is practically unerring, and he doesn’t bother with fnding ways to make the audience like his characters. There’s a steely edge to his technique, and it’s extremely well suited to The Gift.

(Can’t say more; spoilers.) Hall, one of the most honest and expressive of all contemporary movie actors, is superb at realizing her character’s innate sadness and what she’s doing to shove it aside in a marriage built less on trust than on moving forward at any cost.

Edgerton wrote and acted in The Square, released in 2010 in the U.S. The flm played around with genre conventions (flm noir, in that instance) to similarly gratifying results. In The Gift, Edgerton and cinematographer Edu-

Eerie ensemble: Rebecca Hall, Jason Bateman and Joel Edgerton.

ard Grau nudge the camera forward very subtly, using slow creep-in-closer shots to focus our unease. Elements of the script are certainly familiar; Michael Haneke’s psychological thriller Cache is one possible reference point, and there’s a sinister fnal plot development that goes all the way back to Elizabethan and Jacobean theater (as well as Bruce Norris’ play “Purple

August 13–19, 2015

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SHORT REVIEWS

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Mission Impossible–Rogue Nation (PG-13) ★★★★✩ The super-secret espionage agency known as the Impossible Mission Force becomes defunded in Rogue Nation.

This leaves Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and the gang without the leeway they need to capture the vicious head of an international terrorist syndicate known, expediently, as The Syndicate. Cruise clearly has a death wish, judging from how he throws himself into Mission: Improbable stunts every time out.

Vacation (R) ✩✩✩✩✩

A grim reboot of the franchise begun in 1983. Ed Helms plays Rusty, the nowgrown Griswold, a regional jet pilot based in Chicago. Stuck in a rut, Rusty tells wife Debbie (Christina Applegate) that they’re going to re-create his childhood road trip to Walley World. Meantime he’s conveniently blind to the toxic behavior of his younger son (Steele Stebbins), who nearly asphyxiates his sensitive, wimpy sibling (Skyler Gisondo) using a plastic bag. It’s a comedy unafraid of death; it dies a thousand of ‘em.

Paper Towns (PG-13) ★★★✩✩

There’s something incredibly satisfying about a well-executed high school film that hits all the right John Hughes-inspired sweet spots. Paper Towns, adapted from a novel by writer John Green, does just that, with a twist. Concerned with the miracles, myths and mysteries that come with the end of high school, the film selfconsciously engages with genre tropes, while also updating and evolving the formula, this time by inserting mystery into its central storyline.

Heart”). Some of the scare bits in The Gift feel secondhand. But even with various supporting players doing their part, at heart this is a three-character chamber piece. And Bateman, Hall and Edgerton are three very interesting actors showcased in a confdent directorial debut.

The Gift (R) ★★★✩✩

By Tribune Media Services

Southpaw (R) ★★★✩✩

Southpaw starts not at the bottom of a fighter’s career, but the tippy-top. Billy “The Great” Hope (Jake Gyllenhaal) survived a bruising childhood in a Hell’s Kitchen orphanage alongside his childhood sweetheart, Maureen (Rachel McAdams). Life is good for the two, now married, with a bespectacled moppet of a daughter (Oona Laurence).

Billy’s the light heavyweight champ, with 43 straight ring victories. But when shots ring out after Billy’s charity event argument with an up-and-coming, trash-talking boxer (Miguel Gomez), the world cracks open.

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SEVEN QUESTIONS

Len Jessup UNLV’s president on why Tier One status isn’t enough, the medical school’s impact and how the Rebels are gaining respect

By Camille Cannon

We defnitely want to be thought of as a Tier One university by the Carnegie Foundation, but we want to do a lot more. The foundation uses about fve or six specifc measures of grant-funded research expenditures that mostly affect one part of campus. We could achieve that and [still] not be the university that this community and this state needs. We need to [improve] all of the creative activity on campus: teaching and learning and student success, the successful launch and growth of the medical school, community partnerships and infrastructure. Our buildings need to get better. Our business practices have to get better.

You mentioned the medical school, which is scheduled to open in fall 2017. What still needs to be done?

There was a lot of hard work in the legislative session to make sure we got the funding that we needed. We’ve already got our planning dean, Barbara Atkinson, and she’s got a small team working on the accreditation process. Then they’ll turn their attention to hiring faculty and staff.

They’re going to be the ones to do the recruiting, admissions and on-boarding of students.

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What impact will the medical school have on our community?

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Before I got here, [market research frm] Tripp Umbach did an economic impact study on medical schools at public universities like ours. Their analysis shows the direct economic impact is $1.2 billion for the medical school that we’re about to launch. That doesn’t include things that might happen in similar industries that would grow because of a medical school being here.

[But] the big impact is not the economic one—although

that’s important—it’s addressing the shortage of doctors in the community and building out the specialties: cancer, cardiology, mental health and other areas where there will be highend graduates staying in those specialties. Research shows nationally that when you’ve got a medical school in town and students actually do four years of medical school and a residency, 80 percent of them tend to stay in the same place afterward.

The current hotel administration building is supposed to give way to a $56 million hospitality hall in 2017. How will that affect the program and the university at-large?

It’s a great program, but it would have been diffcult for it to continue being a great program without a new facility. The new classrooms [will be] built around a collaborative model. They’ve built in some great facilities for hands-on learning, so there’ll be neat opportunities for experiential learning that don’t exist now. They also wanted to design a building so that when you got to the upper foors, you’d be able to see the Strip, which will be inspiring for everyone who’s going to be studying in the building and see where you’re quite likely to work or get your internship. [Governor Brian Sandoval] said he really wants [UNLV] to be the intellectual capital, if you will, for the Entertainment Capital globally.

Our program is a key part of that innovation and excellence for the industry.

There’s recently been renewed talk about an on-campus stadium.

Is that important to the health and growth of the university?

It is. We decided that we needed to focus in this legislative session on the funding for the medical school, the hotel building and now the fundraising around those

two projects, but the stadium is something we’re still thinking about. The campus needs it. It would not only be better for the teams that need it, but it enriches the experience for the students, because you can walk to the athletic facilities and watch the events. It will be nicer for the community as well.

great opportunity for me and for my family. It was why my grandparents left Italy to come here, so that their grandchildren could take advantage of what America was promising.

I got to beneft from that.

You were the first in your family to graduate college. How has that impacted your approach to higher education?

Defnitely. Downbeat magazine said that our Latin Jazz ensemble was the best program in the country. A relatively new program in robotics that we built around a scientist, Paul Oh, was chosen by the Defense Department to compete in a global robotics challenge and took eighth place among 24 teams. The accounting students won a

It is a privilege to be in this job or any job on the campus of a public university in this country. I take it very seriously. It causes me to think differently than most people would about the opportunity for the students here. It was a

Have you seen any tangible evidence that shows that UNLV is gaining respect as an institution of higher learning?

national case competition.

On top of that, Switch put in a dedicated research network, a telecommunications pipe that enables us to have a lot more bandwidth. Rob Roy [Switch’s CEO] personally paid for the upgrades to [UNLV’s] supercomputer that took it from about the 25th top supercomputer to the top fve, enabling us to do research that we just couldn’t physically do before. Now we can apply for grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health that we couldn’t before because we just didn’t have the computing frepower.

We’re getting requests from other universities that want to do work with us. It just puts us in a whole other league.

PHOTO BY JON ESTRADA

You’ve said that UNLV needs to be not just a “Tier One” school but a “top-tier” school. What’s the difference?