Muse -- "Uprising" (2009)

They will stop degrading us

They will not control us

We will be victorious

You know what Florence Jean "Flo" Castleberry would say if she heard those lines?  She would say "WHEN DONKEYS FLY!"

Mel Sharples would reply "STOW IT!" of course.

You remember Flo and Mel from the old "Alice" TV series, don't you?  The brassy, man-eating Flo was played by Polly Holladay, while the grumpy diner owner Mel was played by Vic Tayback.

"Alice" ran for nine seasons on CBS – can you believe it?  It was far inferior to the movie it was based on, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, which was directed by Martin Scorsese and starred Ellen Burstyn as a quasi-neo-protofeminist widowed mom who struggles to make a living until she meets Kris Kristofferson, who sweeps her off her feet.  (Kristofferson had a real knack for sweeping women off their feet despite having one of the most lackadaisical personalities in history.)

[NOTE: I must not have been feeling very victorious when I wrote the above lines about two weeks ago.  Otherwise why would I have led off a post featuring Muse's bold, in-your-face anthem with Flo's sarcastic "When donkeys fly"?  But I have to admit that I have no idea what I was planning to say next – I have absolutely no clue where I was going when I wrote that stuff about "Alice."  This is rather disturbing, so rather than dwelling on it any more, I'm simply going to move on.]

One of the highlights of my recent Las Vegas trip was attending a show called Absinthe, which opened at Caesar's Palace in 2011.

Absinthe was originally created for the Fontainebleau Las Vegas, a 68-story hotel/casino located on the north end of the Las Vegas "Strip."  The Fontainebleau tower was topped out in November 2008.   But the project's owner filed for bankruptcy in June 2009, and the building was never finished.

Absinthe performers

Over $2 billion has been spent on the Fontainebleau, but the highest bid the bankruptcy court received for the property was $156 million.  It's not clear what will happen to the Fontainebleau, but it seems likely that it will simply be torn down by its new owner so something else can be built on the site.  (How does something like this happen?)

Absinthe has been described as "an uneasy cross between terrific variety acts and a stag party" – sort of like a Cirque du Soleil show, but much sleazier.  The show is presented in a Spiegeltent – "mirror tent" in Dutch -- which is a kind of traveling tent originally constructed in the Flemish part of Belgium as mobile dance halls.

The Absinthe tent holds about 600 patrons, and all the acts perform on a stage that is only nine feet in diameter.

I'm featuring Muse's 2009 hit, "Uprising," in this post because it was the song that accompanied the most remarkable act in the Absinthe – an acrobatic roller-skating act by two German performers who call themselves Sven and Roma.

The whole act is pretty crazy, but the last minute or so is simply mind-blowing: 

Here's a promotional video containing snippets from all the Absinthe acts:

Here's the official music video for "Uprising," which held down the #1 spot of the Billboard "Alternative Songs" chart for a total of 17 weeks.  (There have been over 62 million views of this video, boys and girls.)

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Bob Seger -- "Travelin' Man" (1976)

Travelin' man

Love when I can
Turn loose my hand 'cause I'm goin'

I've done a lot of traveling this year.  In the words of another practitioner of 100%-pure American music, John Fogerty, my September has consisted mostly of

Seven-thirty-seven
Comin' out of the sky
Won't you take me down to . . . 

Well, not Memphis, actually – but Las Vegas, Kansas City, Baltimore, and Providence.  

All those flights were on Southwest Airlines, which flies only 737s.  I wonder if Fogerty's reference to a 737 in "Travelin' Band" means that he, too, is a loyal Southwest customer.

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The Wynn Las Vegas

Sin City – in particular, the Wynn Las Vegas hotel – was the first place my September wanderings took me.  

The CEO of Wynn Resorts is Steve Wynn, who Forbes magazine says is the 428th richest man in the world.

Wynn is also a lover of fine art, albeit a rather clumsy one.  

The centerpiece of his art collection is Picasso's Le Rêve ("The Dream").  In 2006, Wynn cut a deal to sell the painting to hedge-fund manager Steven A. Cohen (the 106th richest man in the world) for $139 million, which would have been the highest price ever paid for a work of art.

"Le Rêve" at auction

But while showing the painting off at a party – the guests included Barbara Walters, author Nora Ephron (who wrote the screenplays for When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle), and famed litigator David Boies – Wynn accidentally put his elbow through the painting.

It seems that Wynn is in the habit of gesticulating dramatically when he speaks.  He also has retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease that has limited his vision.

Steve Wynn

An art restorer repaired the six-inch gash for $90,000.  But the estimated value of the repaired painting was only $85 million.  Wynn sued his insurance company when they wouldn't cough up the $54 million difference.  In 2012, he sold the painting to Cohen for $155 million.  (Don't cry for Steve Wynn, Argentina.)

Wynn used some of that money to buy a Jeff Koons sculpture titled Tulips for a mere $33.6 million.  (Plenty more where that came from, boys and girls.)

"Tulips"

I loved Tulips when I saw it on a previous stay at the Wynn, but had no clue that is was worth $33.6 million.  

This year, I saw another Jeff Koons sculpture on display at the Wynn.  Earlier this year, Steve Wynn dropped $28 million at a Sotheby's auction to obtain Popeye:

"Popeye"

When I was looking Popeye over, I noted a small sign next to it that stated it was for sale.  I asked a salesclerk at the Wynn's gift shop what the price tag for Popeye was, and she told me $60 million.

I guess Mr. Wynn is not what you would call a motivated seller.

I saw one other rather extraordinary work of art at Wynn last month – this floral merry-go-round:

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"Travelin' Man" was originally released on Bob Seger's eighth studio album, Beautiful Loser.  But I don't think I ever heard the studio version of that song until today.

The version I'm familiar with is a live version that appears on 'Live' Bullet, which was recorded over the course of a two-night show in Detroit in 1975 and released in 1976.  Rock critic Dave Marsh called it "one of the best live albums ever made."

Click here to listen to the live version of "Travelin' Man."  (Be prepared for a rather abrupt ending.  On the album, the song goes right into "Beautiful Loser" without a break.)

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Box Tops -- "Neon Rainbow" (1967)

But in the daytime, everything changes

Nothing remains the same

Along with one-armed bandits, neon lights are probably the most iconic symbols of Las Vegas.

There's even a Neon Museum, which possesses more than 150 old Las Vegas neon signs, including this famous Hacienda Hotel sign:

I'm not sure how many of the newer casinos and hotels in Las Vegas use neon lights -- they may have been replaced by LEDs or some other new technology.  (By the way, neon lights often don't contain neon.  Many neon lights are filled with argon -- another inert gas which is much cheaper to produce than neon -- and mercury.)

I hardly ever go outside at night on my annual trips to Vegas.  But I always go out in the daytime and take long walks.  

If you stay in a big Las Vegas Strip hotel like I always do, there's not much nature to be found -- there are no leafy parks or creekside trails.  You have to walk along the busy and noisy Strip or adjacent streets that are almost as busy and noisy.

This year, I stayed at the Encore, which is the northernmost of the newer Strip megahotels.  There are a couple of older hotels that are further north.

One of them is Circus Circus, which was built in 1968.  It's been renovated several times since then, but it still looks pretty dated from the outside.

Here's the famous "Lucky the Clown" marquee at the entrance to the hotel.  It dates back to 1976:

The Riviera, which was the Strip's first high-rise hotel, opened in 1955.  It has had various owners over the years, and those owners have filed for bankruptcy three times.

Here's a picture of the Riviera that I'm rather fond of -- pretty artsy, n'est-ce pas?

The Riviera looks like a very low-budget operation.  It offers $1 blackjack, which is an endangered species these days:

"Crazy Girls," a topless show, has been running at the Riviera since 1997.  Here's a bronze sculpture that promotes that show: 

In case you can't make out the words above the sculpture, it reads No "IFs" "ANDs" or . . . . -- you can fill in the blank, right?

The butts of the seven thong-clad female performers depicted in the sculpture are shiny because they have been rubbed by thousands of luck-hungry gamblers as they entered the Riviera casino.

A little west of the Strip is the Trump Hotel Las Vegas, a 64-story luxury hotel and condominium that opened in 2008:

I stayed there a few years ago, and it was fabulous.  There's no casino, which is fine with me.  The rooms -- which were built as condos or timeshare units -- are spacious one-bedroom apartments, with full kitchens and enormous bathrooms.  (The shower in mine -- which had shower heads on each end wall -- was large enough to have held a basketball team.)

There's a sleazy little strip of businesses between the Riviera and the Encore.  For example, there's a reflexology practitioner:

I was very curious about this business -- just not curious enough to actually go indoor skydiving:

This church, which stands just off the Strip, appears to be fighting a losing battle against the many vices that are taking place 24/7 all around it.  But maybe it will prevail someday:

Directly across the Strip from the Encore is the Fashion Show Mall, one of the largest enclosed malls in the country.  It has a Macy's, a Neiman Marcus, a Nordstrom's, and a Saks Fifth Avenue, plus some 250 other stores.  

And it has a huge oval-shaped structure named "The Cloud," which seems to float above the mall:

Diesel is building a store at the Fashion Show Mall.  The outer walls of the unfinished Diesel store are covered with these very odd billboard-type signs:

What does all that mean?  You've got me.

Just to the south of the Encore and its sister hotel, the Wynn, is the Palazzo -- which is the sister hotel of the Venetian.

You see all kinds of people walking up and down the Strip.  For example, this young man was promoting some sort of money-making opportunity.  (The odds are that business was, is, or will be a client of mine someday.)

Here's what that shirt says: "Are you going to be able to retire within 5 years?  I am . . . To learn how to QUIT that 9 to 5 contact me at" -- followed by a website URL and 800 number.

When donkeys fly!  This guy may be out of work, on welfare, or in jail in five years.  He may possibly be dead, although he's young enough that the odds against that are pretty high.  But it's more likely that he'll be six feet under than he'll have made enough money from whatever business opportunity it is that he's flogging to other suckers to be comfortably retired.

I thought about buying this T-shirt for my older son, who was scheduled to be married a week or so after I departed from Las Vegas:

But he knew it, I knew it -- the whole world knew it.  What would have been the point of rubbing it in?

"Neon Rainbow" was released by the Box Tops in the fall of 1967.  It was a moderate hit, but didn't do nearly as well as the group's previous and subsequent singles -- "The Letter" (which made it all the way to #1) and "Cry Like a Baby (a #2 hit), respectively.

Lead singer Alex Chilton was only 16 when this song was recorded.  (Think about that, boys and girls.  You're the singer of a band with a #1 single, and you're 16 years old.  My, oh my!)  A few years later, the Box Tops broke up and Chilton co-founded Big Star, one of the very best power-pop groups ever.

On March 17, 2010, Chilton had a heat attack and died.  He was 59.  (I had a very mild heart attack exactly four weeks later.)

All three of the Box Tops hits mentioned above were penned by Wayne Carson Thompson, whose parents were professional musicians who worked for KWTO-AM in Springfield, Missouri.  Thompson also wrote a number of country songs -- including the classic Gary Stewart hit, "She's Actin' Single (I'm Drinkin' Doubles)." 

Here's "Neon Rainbow":



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Blood, Sweat & Tears -- "Go Down Gamblin'" (1971)

Down in a crap game

I've been losing at roulette 

Cards are bound to break me

But I ain't busted yet 

If you read the previous 2 or 3 lines, you know about my annual business trips to Las Vegas.  (If you didn't read the previous 2 or 3 lines, click here and you can remedy that.)

I do better than 99% of the gamblers who go in search of Lady Luck at Vegas casinos.  That's because I don't gamble when I go to Las Vegas -- I don't bet a penny.

Years ago, when I lived in San Francisco, my friend Rick and I used to hop on a cheap bus and head to Reno to pay blackjack every so often.

We were disciples of Professor Edward O. Thorp, whose groundbreaking book, Beat the Dealer (which was published in 1962), proved that it might be possible to overcome the house's advantage in blackjack by counting cards.

Viva Edward O. Thorp!

Thorp's strategy worked better in Reno casinos than in casinos in Las Vegas or most other cities because there were a number of casinos in Reno that used only one deck for blackjack.  (The more decks the dealer shuffles together to deal blackjack, the less significant is a card counter's edge -- also, the harder it is to count accurately.)

Rick and I had only one rule when choosing a blackjack table: always choose a table with a female dealer.  You're no more likely to win or lose with a female dealer, but we liked women better than men.  (And we still do.)

After we had played for half an hour or so, Rick would admit something to the dealer.

"You've probably figured this out by now, so I might as well be honest," he would say in a solemn voice.  "We are" -- dramatic pause -- "professional gamblers."

This never failed to get a laugh from our dealer.  I seriously doubt that it caused the casino management to monitor our play more closely -- if anything, the casinos probably dismissed us as clueless rubes.

Which I sort of was.  But Rick was pretty good.  He rarely climbed back on the homeward-bound Greyhound with less money than he came with.  Often he would go home up $100 or $200.

That may not sound like a lot of money, but we were playing mostly to amuse ourselves.  Also, to take advantage of the 99-cent "steak"-and-egg breakfasts the casinos offered during the wee hours of the night.

Viva cheap steak-and-eggs breakfasts!

The last time I bet in Las Vegas was in 1998.  The 49ers (led by Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young) were playing the Redskins on Monday Night Football, and were giving only seven points.  I was sure the Niners would PONE the Redskins, so I bet $10 on the favorites.

The 'Skins took a quick 7-0 lead, and I was kicking myself.  But the Niners ended up winning 45-10, proving what a smart guy I was.

Viva Steve Young!

So the next day, I go to the sports book to collect.  In the line next to me is a young guy who is basically a gopher for a client of mine.  (I'm guessing he made maybe twenty grand a year.)

We're congratulating each other on being such smart football guys.  I pick up my $10 in winnings, and he picks up his $500 in winnings.

That's right -- he had bet $500.  And yes, even though I had won, I did feel like a huge loser with my stupid $10 bet.

"Go Down Gamblin'" is on Blood, Sweat & Tears 4, the group's fourth studio album.

Blood, Sweat & Tears was founded by musical genius Al Kooper in 1967.  The group's first album, Child Is Father to the Man, is simply fabulous -- one of the most distinctive albums of its era, and still a delight to listen to today.

But some of the members of BS&T didn't think Kooper was the right guy to be the band's frontman, and he was forced out of the group after that album was released.

BS&T considered Laura Nyro, Stephen Stills, and Alex Chilton as replacements for Kooper.  I don't see Stills being a good fit for the group, but Nyro and Chilton (he was post-Box Tops but pre-Big Star at the time) would have been very interesting choices.

Judy Collins reportedly recommended David Clayton-Thomas, and he was given the job.  The group's eponymous second album -- the first to feature Clayton-Thomas -- made it to number one on the album charts thanks to its three hit singles ("You've Made Me So Very Happy," "And When I Die," and "Spinning Wheel," all of which reached either #2 or #1 on the singles charts).

That album, which was produced by James William Guercio (who had previously produced the Buckinghams and would eventually produce nine albums for Chicago), beat out Abbey Road for the "Album of the Year" Grammy.

David Clayton-Thomas (third from left)
and the rest of Blood, Sweat & Tears

If David Clayton-Thomas were an actor, you would say he was a "scene chewer" -- which is a term applied to a thespian who overacts.

Clayton-Thomas growls, he yells, he sings falsetto, he interjects "Lord, Lord!" and he generally goes way over the top in his BS&T recordings.

If you don't believe me, I offer "Go Down Gamblin'" as Exhibit A.

But despite Clayton-Thomas's chewing the scenery, it's not a bad song -- to the contrary.

Clayton-Thomas's 2010 autobiography

BS&T's brass and rhythm sections are technically very accomplished and they really cut loose on this recording.  The horns are used very effectively to fill in the gaps in the first two verses and choruses when Clayton-Thomas isn't singing.  But all that is merely a warmup for the eight-bar bridge that begins at 3:08 and leads into the final chorus.

It's barely 15 seconds long, but it's the most powerful 15 seconds of horn playing I've ever heard on a rock record.

It should come as no surprise that Clayton-Thomas wrote "Go Down Gamblin'" -- the lyrics of the song are just as over the top as the singing.  If you don't believe me, I offer as Exhibit B the lines that follow the lines quoted as the beginning of this post:

'Cause I've been called a natural lover
By that lady over there
Honey, I'm just a natural gambler
But I try to do my share

Here's "Go Down Gamblin'" -- play it LOUD!



Here's a link you can use to order the song from Amazon: