CONTENTS
JANUARY 21–27, 2016 T H E LAT EST
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“Siren’s Call, Fiore’s Gall” A breakdown of the state Assemblywoman’s D-grade potboiler. By LISSA TOWNSEND RODGERS
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“Lost Vegas”
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“The Keys to the Kingdom”
Don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone. By EMMILY BRISTOL AND STAFF
Check out this new way to check in. Green Felt Journal by DAVID G. SCHWARTZ
Plus … Seven Days, The Deal, Ask a Native and Style.
NIGH T LIF E
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“Of Beats and Blunts” Recording artist Wiz Khalifa is riding high as DJ Daddy Kat. By CAMILLE CANNON
Plus … Seven Nights, a Q&A with Tigerlilly and photos from the week’s hottest parties.
DINING
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“Pig(alle) Out” Having it all at Downtown’s new fondue hot spot. By AL MANCINI
Plus … Twist provides insight into the relationship between celebrity chef and chef de cuisine, Dishing With Grace and the return of Speed Rack.
“Playing Dolls” A writer returns to her theatrical roots— and faces down an emotional shoot-out. By LISSA TOWNSEND RODGERS
FE AT URE
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“Selling Intimacy Online”
“The Magical Glittery Tour” In which our nerdy showgirl takes a road trip. The Most Fabulous Thing by CHARLIE STARLING
Inside the world of a Las Vegas webcam studio.
VegasSeven.com
Plus… Seven’s 14, Geoff Carter on Galavant and a review of Erykah Badu in concert.
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Jeze Bell in her webcam room at Sin City Studio.
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By LYNN COMELLA
Plus … Our picks for the best sex toy shops, strip clubs and swinger’s joints in Sin City, and a quiz on what our kids are being taught about sex in school.
SEVEN Q U EST IONS
62 Cover photo illustration by Ryan Olbrysh.
UNLV interim men’s basketball coach Todd Simon on his new role, the team’s response to turmoil and the most important stat the rest of the way.
January 21–27, 2016
PHOTO BY KRYSTAL RAMIREZ
A &E
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L AS VEGAS’ WEEKLY CITY MAGAZINE
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FOUNDED FEBRUARY 2010
PUBLISHER Michael Skenandore
EDITORIAL Nicole Ely Genevie Durano SENIOR EDITORS Paul Szydelko, Xania Woodman SENIOR EDITOR, A&E Geoff Carter SENIOR WRITER Lissa Townsend Rodgers STAFF WRITER Emmily Bristol CALENDAR COORDINATOR Ian Caramanzana EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
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THE LATEST
News, deals and the latest endangered freebie on the Strip.
Seven Days This week in your city By B O B W H I T B Y
THU 21
The Las Vegas Jewish Film Festival is coming to a close. Have you made it out yet? The 15th installment runs through Sunday at the Adelson Educational Campus and various theaters. Tonight’s offering, Dough, is at the Cinemark in South Point, 7 p.m. LVJFF.org.
FRI 22
Collectors of antique guns, knives, curios and relics, your weekend has arrived. The Antiques Arms Show, through Sunday at the Westgate, is one of the largest collections of old unique arms you’ll find. Buy, sell or just browse. AntiqueArmsShow.com.
SAT 23
Siren’s Call, Michele Fiore’s Gall A breakdown of the state Assemblywoman’s D-grade potboiler By Lissa Townsend Rodgers ASSEMBLYWOMAN MICHELE FIORE has demonstrated more fair for notoriety than policy. If she’s not mass-releasing Christmas cards of her entire family heavily armed and apparently ready to work a shift at Target, she’s trying to sell, donate or plain ol’ give away pinup calendars of herself clutching an assortment of Berettas and Glocks. But a decade ago, Fiore approached showbiz through more conventional means. She cowrote, produced and starred in Siren, a D-grade version of one of those Lifetime movie channel potboilers about Tori Spelling fghting the odds or Valerie Bertinelli fnding true love. Fiore plays Storm Fagan, a stay-at-home mom with a kid at college, a husband working long hours and a dream. After a successful karaoke night at the Bootlegger, Storm decides to return to her long-abandoned singing career—before being confronted with the reality that she is plus-sized and pushing 40. Cue unsuccessful audition montage! Cue workout montage! Cue montage of Storm checking out various “scenes” clad in thematic attire, including banana-clipped braids for a hip-hop show—although the silly outfts are preferable to the lingerie bits. (Close-up in a thong: You’ve been warned.) Storm starts her own band: nerdy keyboardist, cowboy bass player, guitarist whose black wig and press-on neck tattoos came from the Savers Halloween collection. Storm is made over with a corona of uncombed bleached hair, a slash of fuchsia lip gloss and a penchant for purple Lycra. She’s also corseted within an inch of her life—any
January 21–27, 2016
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➜ STATE
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dramatic tension in Siren comes from waiting for the boning to give way with a resounding WHAANG!, possibly taking out a crew member’s eye. The idea that women can be creative, successful and alluring past a certain age and a certain size is compelling, but in Siren, it’s an issue voided by the application of Clairol and Spanx. The whole movie is disconnected from reality: Kids go off to college by hopping into a friend’s car with a single suitcase, bands get gigs by taking out newspaper ads, Storm gets a manager by bursting into offces and limos. Said manager is played by Erin Gray, once of the white spandex jumpsuit in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, now given to utterances such as, “The rockin’ pneumonia and the boogie-woogie fu: You’ve got it bad.” As Storm’s star ascends to a tour of the Southwest— “We’re playing Reno!”—hubby gets hot under his polo collar and announces that music “is something you do in your spare time, like Amway!” His wife’s slutty best friend immediately gloms on to him. Storm herself goes from zero to Janis Joplin in one night, staggering around “drunk” onstage before nearly succumbing to the come-on of a “hardcore lesbo”—and no, our heroine doesn’t whip out a .38 to defend her virtue from the horrors of pussy and pot. Like most vanity projects, Siren isn’t good or even so bad it’s good. But Fiore does have a fne singing voice: If she really wanted to make the world a better place, she’d probably do better crooning Pat Benatar in a lounge than playing Annie Oakley in the Legislature.
It’s like Bring it On!, but real. Jamz Youth National Championship features dance and cheer teams from around the country, Friday through Sunday at the Orleans. If that doesn’t lift your spirits, nothing will. Jamz.Graphtek.com.
SUN 24
The people of ancient China believed their culture was a gift from heaven, and they celebrated it through music and dance. Shen Yun is a modern staging of 5,000 years of Chinese culture featuring 100 performers, hundreds of costumes and an orchestra unlike any you’ll hear again. Today at 1 p.m. is the last show. TheSmithCenter.com.
MON 25
Sharon K. Schafer’s photography exhibit, Becoming Animal: Standing Witness for the Sentient Wild, is on display at the Nevada State Museum in Springs Preserve until August, and it’s a must-see. Schafer explores our disconnect with nature, a topic that is becoming increasingly urgent. Museums.NevadaCulture.org.
TUE 26
The Las Vegas News Bureau is celebrating Ol’ Blue Eyes’ centennial with an exhibit of photos documenting Frank Sinatra’s life and times here in Las Vegas, through March 15 at the Windmill Library, 7060 W. Windmill Lane. LVCCLD.org.
WED 27
Those of you who have been around awhile might remember the popular TV show Outdoor Nevada, which ran on Vegas PBS from 1995-99. Well, it’s back, with actor John Burke as the host. PBS is developing 26 new half-hour episodes of the show, which highlights the state’s natural history and outdoor happenings. The first one airs at 7:30 p.m. VegasPBS.org.
VegasSeven.com
| January 21–27, 2016
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Jeze Bell in her cam room at Sin City Studio.
Selling Intimacy Online fcation, others just want to hang out and chat. Sometimes Jeze Bell will do naked yoga on cam, other times she’ll strip while hula hooping. When she frst started camming, she still had braces. “They loved me for that,” she says. “A guy would pay me just to put my hand in my mouth. His screen name was ‘tin grin.’” Unlike traditional porn content, a webcam client is both a user and a director, someone who, for a price, can tailor their interactions with a performer to fulfll a specifc fantasy or desire, such as foot worship, smallpenis humiliation or fnancial domination. For the model, the exchange— which might be chatting, stripping, role-playing or something more—is a temporary intimacy. “It’s real, but not real,” Jeze Bell says. Unlike working at a strip club or a legal brothel, it’s a job that requires no direct contact. The client—analytics suggest that more than 80 to 90 percent of paying customers on cam sites are men— could be sitting in front of a computer anywhere in the world. They can see the model but they can’t touch her, and she doesn’t have to touch, or even see, them. “You only do what you want to do [on cam],” Jeze Bell says. “You have control over your shows and control over your schedule. I don’t know any other job that would grant me that freedom, fexibility and money.”
••••• the webcam industry, with its ability to provide personalized interactions and lucrative returns, has become the dominant force in adult entertainment, according to Stephen Yagielowicz, a senior editor at adult media outlet XBiz. Although exact fgures are diffcult to tabulate with accuracy—adult companies keep their numbers notoriously close to the vest—it’s estimated that today’s webcam market is a multibillion dollar business that accounts for one third of all adult entertainment revenue globally. In an era where profts from porn have slumped—the result of pirated content, free tube sites and the lingering effects of the economic downturn—the success of live webcam shows, where customers actually “pay to play,” is a game changer. “From the consumer standpoint,” Yagielowicz says in an email, “live cams provide a high level of interactivity and personalization that simply cannot be matched by prerecorded photo or video content, and home Internet connections have gotten speedy enough to where the quality of this experience is worth the expense. … Suddenly, the unattainable girl, guy, couple or other of your dreams is attainable 24/7.” Ron Lee, an affliate marketer with a background in dating sites, and the key organizer of the inaugural Adult Webcam Super Conference and Expo taking place in Las Vegas this month, has watched webcamming become a massive industry. Lee argues that this development has less to do with shifts in the porn industry and more to do with the fact that online dating has fatlined and online relationships—and investor money—have migrated to cam sites. Men are hip to the fact that many online dating sites are full of bots and fake profles and have moved their business to cam sites, where they actually get what they pay for.
To Yagielowicz, Lee’s theory has traction. “The world of ‘casual adult dating’ is a bot-fueled fantasy preying on the loneliness of its customers, where the girl in the ad really does not live fve miles away from me and is not waiting for me to call right now … With cams, what you see is what you get. There are no bots or baitand-switch; there’s a performer you can see and hear live and in real time hoping to please you for proft.” Adult webcamming, he says, is “reality TV at its best.”
••••• it’s saturday at noon, and sage Montana, the 33-year-old manager of Sin City Studio and cam performer with a loyal following, walks through the facility. Her hair is pulled back and she’s dressed casually in a gray sweatshirt with an image of Marilyn Monroe on the front. Montana, who just had a baby, says that she cammed all the way through her pregnancy. She wasn’t sure how her fan base would react, but according to her, “they ate it up.” Montana goes down a hallway and past the Wall of Fame, where more than a dozen framed copies of models’ weekly checks in amounts ranging from $1,257 to $3,948 hang on the wall as a testament to their hard work, serving as inspiration for new performers. She passes a locker room with showers—it’s spotless, with nary a stray hair in a drain—and a large break room with fltered water and a fancy coffee maker. She turns down another hallway and on each side, doors open to small rooms—“pods,” Montana calls them—that are brightly painted with a bed, desk, chair and computer. The setup resembles a college dormitory, a communal space that, once you close your door, becomes intensely private. Although many webcam models work from the privacy of their own homes, others opt to work out of studios where they don’t have to worry about a slow Internet connection, the sound of the television in the next room or their diploma hanging on their bedroom wall. Sin City Studio is one of three webcam businesses in Las Vegas.
VegasSeven.com
“Hey, girl, looking good.” “Show me your feet, baby,” types another. “Newbie here. Never done a show,” one visitor chimes in. There’s enough of a critical mass in her chat room that Jeze Bell decides to offer a Gold Show, where anyone who’s interested can watch with a minimum buyin of $3, a real bargain, she says. With a Gold Show, Jeze Bell sets the terms, including how long it will last, what she will do on cam and for how much. In this case, once she reaches the goal of $85, she will strip, tease, twerk and play exclusively for her paying customers during a show that will last seven minutes. And, of course, she happily accepts tips. “It’s my frst show of the day,” she says to incentivize her viewers, “which means that you’ll get to see my frst orgasm today.” Jeze Bell was 18 years old and struggling fnancially—working two minimum wage jobs, one at Applebee’s and another at a coffee shop—when she asked a friend who always seemed fush with cash what she did for a living. The friend was evasive at frst, but eventually told her that she was earning upward of $800 a week working as a webcam model. “My ears perked up,” says Jeze Bell, a full-time student at UNLV who pays her tuition with money she earns by camming. Although many of the guys who fnd her online are looking for sexual grati-
For Jeze Bell, who earns an average of $95 an hour and works 9 to 12 hours a week according to her rate analysis, webcamming is a mutually benefcial arrangement. “I get to go to school, and they get their rocks off.”
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PHOTO BY KRYSTAL RAMIREZ
➜ twenty-two-year old webcam model jeze bell (her screen name) leans toward the camera, smiles and runs a hand through her slightly tousled, bob-length red hair. She’s sitting in front of a computer in a room that’s big enough for a twin bed, nightstand, desk and chair. There are clothes casually strewn on the bed, giving it the appearance of your average dorm room. In actuality, it’s one of 73 rooms at Sin City Studio in Las Vegas, a webcamming company located in a nondescript offce building at an industrial park just west of the Strip. ¶ Jeze Bell is wearing a white leotard that’s cut high on the hip. Exuding a girl-next-door appeal that’s reminiscent of a model in an American Apparel ad—a kind of naughty innocence— she stands up, turns around and starts to dance, firting and bantering with the men who are starting to fll her free chat and whose instant messages scroll down the right side of the screen.
By L Y N N C O M E L L A
January 21–27, 2016
Inside the world of a Las Vegas webcam studio
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The studio makes its money on weekly booking fees, which start in fve-hour sessions, although models aren’t required to work the entire time slot. For those such as Jeze Bell, the separation of home and work is worth the money, which for her can be anywhere from $100-$125 depending on how much she works. “I like that I don’t have to worry about Internet issues,” she says. “I pay the studio to do that.” She also likes that she has access to a community of female co-workers whose doors she can knock on if she has any questions. The hiring process at Sin City Studio starts with a headshot. It’s the frst thing a prospective model—who legally must be at least 18 years old—sends to Montana, who oversees the hiring and training of all new talent. She avoids hiring “yes girls,” women who send nude photos when she hasn’t asked for them. To her, these applicants are likely not cut out for the business side of the industry, which requires the ability to follow directions and to negotiate what you are and are not willing to do. Cam models are independent contractors who are their own makeup artists, lighting directors, stage managers and business administrators. Being a success-
“In our industry,” she says, “there’s an ability to make money at any age and any size. It’s the media that makes us think that older women or bigger women aren’t sexy, but there are women in their 60s [at the studio] pulling in $1,000 to $1,500 a week for working 15 to 20 hours.” Although webcam models like Jeze Bell work for Sin City Studio—the company cuts their checks each week minus their booking fees—they work on Streamate, a network of live adult chat sites with more than 10 million members. It’s Streamate that drives Internet traffc to Jeze Bell’s chat room and, on the back end, takes care of all the processing. It also owns all the content and the rights to use a model’s image or clips on its affliate sites. Jeze Bell gets 35 cents of every dollar she earns, with the rest going to Streamate. So, if her take home pay is $2,000 a week, she’s actually generating more than $5,700 from paying customers while she’s on cam. While this split may seem lopsided, it comes down to Streamate’s business model. “The value of [Internet] traffc is worth more than the value of models,” says Lee, who hopes to make this point during the professional development and business seminars at the
From top: Sage Montana; Code of Conduct signage; one of Sin City Studio’s cam rooms.
“[Adult webcamming] is reality TV at its best.”
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ful webcam model, in Montana’s opinion, is less about looks—although those are certainly a bonus—and more about personality and the “ability to be intrigued by other people.” The best cam performers are open-minded and nonjudgmental; they are people who are willing to roll with sexual and nonsexual requests that, in other contexts, might sound weird. “What we do isn’t scripted,” Montana says, “so every time we get on camera, we are doing something new. Some of these guys are lonely, and they are just looking for someone to talk to. [In chat] they can talk to a pretty girl that they might never approach in a bar.” All of this sounds very familiar to Barb Brents, a professor of sociology at UNLV who has conducted research on Nevada’s legal brothel industry. “It’s what sex workers have been telling researchers for years,” she says, “that much of what they sell is not just sexual gratifcation, but connection and intimacy.”
••••• anywhere from 60 to 100 models work out of Sin City Studio each week. Montana prides herself on being a 31-favors-type of studio that has a little bit of everything.
Adult Webcam Conference, January 20-21 at Alexis Park Resort. “I think it’s important at the end of the day to share the value—the true value—of the users with the cam models and to get the models to be more active in the business side of the industry.” There are things models can do to increase their cut of the business, including using social media to build their fan base. Every time a model at Sin City Studio tweets her affliate link and brings new members to Streamate, she gets 70 percent of what those users spend in her chat forever, compared to the standard 35 percent. She also gets 20 percent of what those users spend on other models. According to Lee, “I don’t think models realize how important their affliate link actually is.” The world of adult webcamming is big business, but for someone like Jeze Bell, it’s much more than that: It’s a job that’s given her the fnancial independence to make her life what she wants it to be. She can go to school full-time, help out her family fnancially and even have time left over to do volunteer work, which she does on a regular basis. “Having [that fnancial stability] has changed my life forever,” she says. “It’s mobility, man.”
PHOTOS BY KRYSTAL RAMIREZ
January 21–27, 2016
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–Stephen Yagielowicz
NIGHTLIFE
Recording artist Wiz Khalifa is riding high as DJ Daddy Kat By Camille Cannon
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following: dropping bars on 2015’s biggest pop smash, “See You Again”; his former marriage with model Amber Rose and the birth of their child; and, as always, a diehard weed habit. Khalifa released his Cabin Fever 3 mix tape in December, and plans to release the album Khalifa on January 22 as well as the highly anticipated Rolling Papers 2 (“the perfect stoner album”) later this year. He’s also been moonlighting as DJ Daddy Kat, using Tao as his Las Vegas scratching post, with eight dates already on the books. Following a Halloween gig and early January stop, Daddy Kat will return on February 6 and March 18, bringing some of that new Khalifa music—and a few new business ideas—along with him.
January 21–27, 2016
Of Beats and Blunts
➜ AS OF LATE, RAPPER WIZ KHALIFA has become best known for the
VegasSeven.com
Your city after dark, photos from the week’s hottest parties and the woman turning the tables on turntables
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NIGHTLIFE
“I just landed on Daddy Kat as something that sounded fun, interesting and mysterious, but still felt like me. ... This is a real passion of mine, rocking crowds and doing the DJ thing.” chill. But it’s defnitely going to attract some attention. And if we’re talking just regular daytime, I wanna be comfortable, so it’s either sweats and a tee or some baggy, ripped-up jeans and a T-shirt, just to keep it moving. You’re something of a weed aficionado and have your own strain called Khalifa Kush. What entrepreneurial ventures do you have in the pipeline, weed-related or otherwise?
Defnitely in the weed game: to expand as more and more medical spots open up. It’s become more of a thing for me to put my strain in there and make it available for people. On top of that, [I want to] get more into fashion. I signed with IMG recently, the modeling agency. I’ve been doing a lot of different spreads and things in the fashion world that I haven’t otherwise been able to do. I’m doing voiceovers for cartoons. A lot of them are newer ones that haven’t come out yet or things that may or may not be used. Some of them are for kid stuff. You know, now that I’ve got my kid, I’m doing a lot of different things involving children. I’m trying to fip it up and keep it relevant to my life. On top of acting, I just really want to get my personality out there as much as possible.
January 21–27, 2016
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Recently you tweeted, “I watch mad documentaries. More than regular movies.” What are some of your favorites?
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Where did the name DJ Daddy Kat come from?
I started doing blends and putting it on Soundcloud. I wanted to try to fgure out a name I could use where people could search but it wouldn’t really come up. I just landed on Daddy Kat as something that sounded fun, interesting and mysterious, but still felt like me. Eventually, I just kept messing with it—kept practicing, kept DJing, started booking gigs—then realized, “OK, this isn’t just an Internet
thing. This is a real passion of mine, rocking crowds and doing the DJ thing.” I ran with the name, and I feel like it gives me just a little bit different edge to perform under that name, rather than have people just look at it as a Wiz project. Do you play Wiz Khalifa music when you spin as Daddy Kat?
Yeah, I usually do my newer songs, the stuff people don’t normally hear in the clubs. I feel like it would get a good
reaction out of people, so I play it. In addition to your music, you get a lot of attention for your personal style. How do you decide what to wear?
I usually base it off of the event. If it’s a dinner or something like that, I wanna wear a nice shirt, nothing too loud, just something really nice so I can blend in and look clean. If I’m going out to the club, I don’t mind wearing something more loud and aggressive. Still me, kinda laid-back and
There are some Jimi Hendrix documentaries on Netfix. Those are awesome. There’s one about background singers that I really dig. It’s super important for people to know about the harmonies and the vocalists who help people enjoy music. I watch a lot of crime documentaries about old gangsters from different countries and people from around here that people might or might not know about. There are fnancial documentaries about bank crises and things in America that people don’t even know [about]. If I feel like it’s relevant to me or my life or what I’m interested in learning about, I just throw it on and make it a part of what I’m doin’. You also tweeted recently, “I wanna get stoned and go see Star Wars, but I’m afraid I’ll get stuck on the gettin’ stoned part.” Did you ever see the film?
[Laughs.] Nope. I got stuck.
NIGHTLIFE
Seven Nights Your week in parties By I A N C A R A M A N Z A N A
Madeon.
THU 21 We’re huge fans of numbers here at Vegas Seven. Today is January 21— the magic number in blackjack, so we think you should try your hand at the tables and add more to the sum of tonight’s parts by seeing DJ Five. According to an Instagram post, the openformat SKAM Artist “collected new friends, ate a lot of good food, DJ’d a lot and gained 20 pounds” in 2015. Let’s hope this jolly fellow brings the same into 2016, only five times better. Catch one of his first sets of the year at Tao as part of Worship Thursdays, and give him five when he mans the decks. (In the Venetian, 10 p.m., TaoLasVegas.com.) LAX throws it back with a performance by Robert Matthew Van Winkle (a.k.a. Vanilla Ice). See if he comes back with a brand-new invention, or just show up to see if he’s got any chill left. (In Luxor, 10:30 p.m., Luxor.com/LAX.)
banger doesn’t fit in anywhere in Ingrosso’s catalog. Either way, we’re excited to see what’s in store for him this year. Considering Steve Angello is an Omnia resident as well, we hope they’ll bring Axwell for a holy house trinity reunion. As DJ Khaled says, “Bless up!” (In Caesars Palace, 10:30 p.m., OmniaNightclub.com.) Paris Blohm is actually from Los Angeles, but tonight, he’s in Las Vegas. We know it’s confusing, but at least you can hit the dance floor when he drops the progressive house banger “Left Behinds.” Catch him at DLVEC. (At Downtown Las Vegas Events Center, 8 p.m., DLVEC.com.)
SAT 23 Get kinky at GBDC with a party hosted by eccentric social media personality and photographer @KirillWasHere. He’s known for his wild bashes that include Champagne spraying, flashing and lots of photos, so make sure your “assets” aren’t exposed to the world. Or don’t. Who are we kidding? It’s Saturday! (In the Palms, 1 p.m., Palms.com.) Grab some buddies and suit up in your “Grillz” and “Air Force Ones” because St. Louis rapper Nelly performs tonight at Drai’s. The Grammy Awardwinning rapper has a few reasons to celebrate: The drug charges he accrued in April were dropped last month, and classes at his media business/entertainment college— Ex’treme Institute—kicked off last week. So “Drop down and get your
January 21–27, 2016
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FRI 22
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Ex-Swedish House Mafia member Sebastian Ingrosso spins at Omnia. According to an article on Billboard.com, the spinner was accidentally credited for making contributions to Britney Spears’ “Work Bitch," which also featured Will.i.am and Otto Knows. While he dismissed the rumors in the article, he made sure to note that he did help R&B sensation Usher write two songs in 2012. We’re not sure how that mix-up happened, considering Spears’ rambunctious
Vanilla Ice.
Nelly.
eagle on” at Drai’s, because there’s always a reason to celebrate. Don’t believe us? Check out his infectious grin when he plays his throwback bangers such as “Hot in Herre” and “Dilemma.” Oh! (In the Cromwell, 10:30 p.m., DraisNightlife.com.)
SUN 24 He was born in Miami, lived in Los Angeles for a while and now he calls Las Vegas home. Progressive house producer and DJ Borgeous spins at Hakkasan. He recently dropped a collaborative track
with Indian producer Zaeden. “Yesterday” is a melodic, progressive house tune that’s got enough reach to be a worldwide hit. Where will Borgeous end up next? We’re thinkin’ Ibiza to spin at some of the most extravagant, over-the-top EDM-based parties in the world, but we wouldn’t mind him staying another few years so we can enjoy his boomin’ sets on a regular basis. If you’re reading this, Borgeous, remember this: There’s no place like home! (In MGM Grand, 10:30 p.m., HakkasanLV.com.)
MON 25 In 2011, French producer Madeon (a.k.a. Hugo Pierre Leclercq) released a video of himself performing his incredible mashup hit “Pop Culture.” The tune fuses 39 of his favorite pop songs, and the video shows the 21-year-old fusing samples using a MIDI-controller. The video went viral overnight, and captured the interest of several labels, jump-starting his music career. Two EPS, and dozens of remixes later, the Frenchie released a full-length album. Adventure is a collection of melodic, dance-y pop numbers that are prime for the dance
floor and stage. Experience a few of them—such as the jarring “Imperium” or R&Binspired “You’re On (featuring Kyan)”—firsthand at Brooklyn Bowl. (At the Linq, 7 p.m., Vegas. BrooklynBowl.com.)
TUE 26 Tuesday means cheap beer and DJs Downtown. Beauty Bar’s infamous Nickel F—n’ Beer Night heats up with DJ Zo's residency kickoff, and enough beer to flood Fremont Street. Well, maybe not that much, but bartenders will be servin’ up brews for cheap until the kegs run dry. Who says you can’t have fun on a Tuesday? (517 Fremont St., 9 p.m., TheBeautyBar.com.)
WED 27 Light hosts a Blueprint Sound Takeover featuring sets by DJs Direct, Earwaxxx and Sincere. If you’ve ever wanted to see local boys do what they do best, head down and see what our city has to offer. They’ve supported some of the biggest names in music, so naturally, you should support them. It’s a system, ya know? (In Mandalay Bay, 10:30 p.m., TheLightVegas.com.)
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D I M I T R I VE GA S & L I K E M I K E TUE
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NIGHTLIFE
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The Venetian [ UPCOMING ]
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PHOTOS BY AMIT DADL ANEY
January 21–27, 2016
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Jan. 21 Worship Thursday with DJ Five Jan. 22 DJ M!ke Attack spins Jan. 23 Eric D-Lux spins
NIGHTLIFE
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HAKKASAN MGM Grand
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PHOTOS BY TOBY ACUNA
January 21–27, 2016
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Jan. 21 DJ Ruckus spins Jan. 22 Steve Aoki spins Jan. 23 The Chainsmokers spin
NIGHTLIFE
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XS
Encore [ UPCOMING ]
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PHOTOS BY DANNY MAHONEY
January 21–27, 2016
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Jan. 22 Dillon Francis spins Jan. 23 Diplo spins Jan. 24 SKAM Sundays with DJ Crooked
DRINKING
PHOTO BY KRYSTAL RAMIREZ
➜ FOR IVY MIX AND LYNNETTE Mar-
rero, every month is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The New Yorkbased bartenders founded Speed Rack, an intense women’s bartending competition, in 2011 to promote and leverage females in the beverage industry, and to raise money for breast cancer prevention and research. Season 5 of Speed Rack returns to Las Vegas on March 6 (watch Speed-Rack. com for location), to crown a winner who will compete in May’s national fnals in New York. “I don’t know anyone who has not been affected by cancer in some way,” Mix says. “If it’s not your mother, sister or aunt, it’s your best friend’s mother, sister or aunt.” Already, more than 600 women have competed, raising more than $300,000 for the cause in cities across the U.S. as well as the U.K. and Canada. This year, Mix and Marrero will bring New Zealand into the fold. Receiving the charitable funds, “We have carefully curated different organizations that echo our sentiments and feelings,”
Mix says. “From support systems to dedicated scientifc research, we donate to about eight charities.” As an event series, Speed Rack is well respected in the industry for its aggressively charitable stance. But for all its seriousness—there will literally be blood, sweat and tears—there is also levity when the male barbacks don pretty pink headbands and logo-emblazoned tank tops. “We’re all here to raise as much money as we can. No one’s getting paid; everyone is a volunteer,” says Raul Faria, Las Vegas brand ambassador for Absolut Vodka, which sponsors Speed Rack Las Vegas along with Bacardi and Beam Suntory. “The culture of Speed Rack is ‘#FuckCancer,’ and building a community of badass female bartenders.” To that end, Faria has created a Speed Rack bootcamp, which will convene four times to prepare ladies for the gauntlet. Throughout the competition, challengers will be timed as they accurately prepare four classic cocktails drawn from a list of
The third time will almost certainly be a charm for For the Love of Cocktails, Las Vegas’ burgeoning cocktail week, which though it began as a one-night affair, will now be celebrated citywide over three days and nights, February 10-12 (ForTheLoveOfCocktails.com). The Back Bar USA event wastes no time, diving in Wednesday night with Meet the Masters of Mixology, a cocktail reception at Bound bar in the Cromwell hosted by Salvatore Calabrese, Tony Abou-Ganim and Francesco Lafranconi (6-9 p.m.). The beverages continue to flow at Meet the Masters of Wine, a fivecourse pairing affair at Giada, also in the Cromwell (8-10 p.m., $250 for both events). On Thursday, keep your charitable efforts local with a Downtown Bar Crawl that will take you to up to 17 spots for cocktails and bites beginning at 5 p.m. at Park on Fremont. Then, at 9 p.m., witness the debut of the Food Truck Cocktail War at Gold Spike. Six competing bartenders have been paired with chefs and assigned a food truck home base. Each team will serve samples of its cocktail and paired dish, both made from produce by sponsor Get Fresh; guests vote on the best truck for the $500 People’s Choice Award, and judges will select the $1,500 Grand Prize winner. To keep you warm while you wait for the results to be tallied, Tony Abou-Ganim will be on hand, preparing his cousin Helen’s famous hot Tom & Jerry cocktail. Tickets are $50 for both events. Friday’s third annual For the Love of Cocktail Gala at SkyFall Lounge will be one for the record books. The evening begins with a preparty at the Franklin cocktail lounge in the Delano. Then, head up to the 64th floor, where you can sample 25 original cocktails—representing everything from sweet, savory and spicy to smoky, bitter and bubbly— prepared by bartenders from all over the city as well as bites from the kitchen at Rivea by Alain Ducasse (7 p.m., $250 VIP; 8 p.m., $150 general admission). Proceeds from the entire event benefit the Helen David Relief Fund for bartenders affected by cancer. But, adds co-founder Abou-Ganim, “above and beyond everything, it’s about celebrating the cocktail craft here in Las Vegas.” – X.W.
VegasSeven.com
Female bartenders prepare for the return of Speed Rack Las Vegas By Xania Woodman
FOR THE LOVE OF COCKTAILS, FOR THE LOVE OF BARTENDERS AFFECTED BY CANCER
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Breast in the West
[ SCENE STIRS ]
January 21–27, 2016
In it to win it: Jessica Westergom.
more than 30, ranging from the well known (Manhattan, Mojito, Martini, Cosmopolitan) to the obscure (Tipperary No. 1, Volstead Cocktail, Mexican Firing Squad, Hotel Nacional). Going head to head in elimination rounds, 16 contenders quickly become eight, who move on to the Las Vegas fnals on March 6, when they will be additionally judged for the overall quality of the cocktails. The fnal pair will grind out a Dealer’s Choice round to determine the winner, although attendees can also vote via social media to send a wild card competitor to the national fnals. Meanwhile, tensions as well as spirits are already high for the Las Vegas hopefuls, who include bartenders Sarah Rith (Oak & Ivy and the Cosmopolitan) Katie Cruz (Oak & Ivy), Nikki Afable (Back Bar USA and the Venetian) and Jessica Westergom (the Sand Dollar Lounge). “Every shift is practice,” Rith says. “From now on, I’ll be looking at everything I do and how I can consolidate steps. I’m building a Speed Rack rail in my house and at work. Then I’ll run drills, building muscle memory.” If she could have her druthers, the judges would ask her for a Last Word (“because everything’s in equal proportions”), a Margarita (“I can do those in my sleep”), a Negroni (“again, equal proportions”) and a Hemingway Daiquiri (“just because I love those”). Combining speed, agility, accuracy and bar smarts, Speed Rack delivers a frm slap to the notion that bartending is solely a man’s world. “There’s no worrying about your shake looking pretty or making a performance out of it,” Cruz says. She’s focusing on memorizing the recipes, “like how one prepares for starting at a new bar. And working on my pour count, saving bottles to practice with water and get different bottle shapes in my hands. Once I feel comfortable with that I’m going to step up my speed.” Lucky for the bootcamp attendees, there have already been plenty of mentors on hand to dole out wisdom, including mixologist/ consultant/bar designer Tobin Ellis and United States Bartenders’ Guild Las Vegas chapter president Kristen Schaefer. Paraphrasing Schaefer, Westergrom says: “It’s you versus yourself. You have to put out quality cocktails and be fast about it. You can’t really worry about the other person. Even if they beat you on time, you can still beat them with quality cocktails.” Wise women. Speaking from the road on Speed Rack’s eight-city nationwide tour already under way, Mix says that contrary to the event’s name, “Being fast won’t win this competition; being calm and calculated will.”
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more rounds of freezing in backless white chiffon on a Manhattan rooftop in February, or chasing a guy across a Brooklyn street waving a plastic .45. Twenty years later and 2,000 miles away from New York, I saw a Facebook posting about auditions for an allfemale version of Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs at Onyx Theatre. And I said to myself, “Fuck, I should be in that show.” It’s twisted, bloody and full of flthy language; also, I resemble the love child of Frankenstein and Jayne Mansfeld, which isn’t a bad look for a criminal. It probably would have ended right there, except I made the mistake of saying this aloud to a friend who would not allow me to back out. So I went to the Reservoir Dolls audition—down a long, dark hallway, the better to fantasize about turning and running—and managed to get the director to laugh out loud at my monologue about a decapitation. I made it to callbacks, where the fnalists take a crack at the actual script. All the other women seemed to know each other, had been in plays sometime since the Clinton administration, and were real actors. I fgured I did OK, but I was sure everyone else was much better. Thus, I was kind of shocked to be offered the part of Ms. Blonde—you know, the psycho that cuts off the cop’s ear.
“Some nights I walk out of rehearsal feeling like Robert Fucking De Niro, but there are nights I’m Tara Fucking Reid.” (All of my friends say the same thing: “You couldn’t be anyone else.” Hmm.) Within a few days, the cycle of rehearsals began and I was trying to remember how to ride the bike. Actually, it’s more like juggling: Remember the lines, when I say them and where I have to be when I do. Then think about who my character is, where does she come from, what does she want and why. I may think about something that happened to me personally to goose up the emotional level. Finally, I’m thinking about handling the props and setting off the effects at the right time. Some nights I walk out of rehearsal feeling like Robert Fucking De Niro, but there are nights I’m Tara Fucking Reid—and not even Sharknado Tara Reid: Van Wilder Tara Reid. The rest of the ladies were delightful: I quickly realized that no one cared about my aggressively amateur status. And we did embody a gang of female hoodlums pretty well—even the
most innocently light-blue statement twisted into flthy banter. More than once Troy Heard, the director, had to pause a scene because we wouldn’t stop cracking jokes. We got used to the uniform of black suits and ties. Everyone else looks like a ferce businesswoman or badass gangster; I look like the keyboardist in Just Can’t Get Enough: Playing the Hits of the ’80s, Fridays and Saturdays in the Lounge. The rehearsals seemed to drag on forever … and then, suddenly, it was the fnal run-through before opening night, during which I righteously botched my big scene. I whiffed the slap. I put my foot up to pull out my knife and lost my balance. The fake blood didn’t come out of the fake ear. I forgot to take the lighter out of my coat pocket. The blood pack when I got shot didn’t go off. I fell too close to where someone else had to get shot. The only thing I managed to not fuck up was breathing—actually, if you
count my shitty job of playing ”dead,” I screwed that up, too. All of this sent me into opening night in a fne frame of mind. I could see it: “Ms. White? Great actress. Ms. Pink? Hilarious. Ms. Brown? Pissyourself funny. Nice Gal Edie? Solid. Ms. Blonde? Why the fuck did they cast that bitch?” I sat in the dressing room, twitchily making a disaster of my eye makeup, Sweet’s “Ballroom Blitz” blaring through my earbuds in an attempt to conjure up some bravado, and wishing for a shot of whiskey. But we made it through opening— and the two sold-out performances after it. The audience laughs, cheers and seems to genuinely enjoy themselves. People tell me I’m good often enough that I fgure I at least don’t suck. And it has tempered my nihilism: Rather than lamenting how everything interesting in my life is behind me, something new and weird is ahead every time the curtain goes up.
RESERVOIR DOLLS Various showtimes, Thu-Sun, through Jan. 31. Onyx Theatre, $20, 702-732-7225; OnyxTheatre.com.
PHOTO BY RICHARD BRUSKY
January 21–27, 2016
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VegasSeven.com
Nice Gal Edie (Deven Ceriotti) and Ms. Blonde shoot the shit.
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