Danny Gans death house sold

The mansion in which Danny Gans died has been sold, cutting another tie between the family of the late Las Vegas superstar and the city with which he'd been identified for more than a decade.

Coldwell Bankers announced that the lavish estate owned by Gans and his wife Julie was sold quietly this week to a couple from California. Reports say they paid about $9 million for the 9,400-square-foot French-chateau styled main residence on 2.57 acres in Roma Hills in neighboring Henderson, Nevada.

Gans designed the estate, which includes a guest house house, built atop of basement garage in which Gans kept his collection of 20 cars.


Coldwell coordinated the estate sale in conjunction with the auction of a dozen of Gans’ cars and bikes by the Barrett-Jackson auctioneers (the lot fetched about half a million dollars).

Gans' wife and three kids pulled up stakes and moved to the Los Angeles area shortly after Julie Gans called 911 to report she'd found the superstar musical impressionist was found dead in his bedroom in the early hours of May 1, 2009. The charitable, athletic Born Again Christian and family man overdosed on hydromorphone, a powerful opiate sold as Dilaudid and known on the streets as "drug store heroin."

Steve Friess pulls boners in LA Weekly transgender sportswriter story

Las Vegas blogger, New York Times stringer, Gay Vegas author, concert promoter and comp queen Steve Friess apparently made some embarrassing errors when he brought his opinionated work to Los Angeles in the form of a reheated LA Weekly cover story on the tragedy of LA Times sportswriter Mike Penner, who committed suicide after coming out publicly as a transgender, then changing his mind.

A correction in the LA Weekly print editions and website today reads:

"A story published August 20 about the life and death of former L.A. Times sportswriter Mike Penner incorrectly spelled Amy LaCoe's last name as LeCoe. In addition, the story should have said that Penner's father died 12 years ago, not when Penner was 12 years old; that Penner met his future wife, Lisa Dillman, when she worked at the Detroit News, not at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune; and that the couple wed in 1986, not 1987."

We'd criticized the article after it was published in August as a riff on past coverage, including details from a comprehensive Los Angeles Times article, and spanked Freiss for his lazy and kneejerk degrading descriptions of Los Angeles architecture.

Friess came to our attention in May 2009 when he attacked us publicly for asking questions about the mysterious death of Las Vegas superstar Danny Gans. He later helped in an active campaign to mislead reporters on the case-- and made a move to have this site closed down.

Steve Friess rips off our Pete Rose story

Las Vegas blogger, New York Times stringer, Gay Vegas author, concert promoter and comp queen Steve Friess, always hustling for an article idea, has found his latest inspiration here at TabloidBaby.com.

Yes, the media figure who attacked us publicly and attempted to have this site shut down because we asked for answers about the mysterious and untimely death of local superstar Danny Gans (and later joined with local media friends to misdirect the investigation), has ripped off one of our exclusive stories for his latest space-filler in the Las Vegas Weekly.

The (self-proclaimed) Friesster has a story in this week's Weekly about baseball legend Pete Rose earning money by signing autographs in the Forum Shops mall at Caesars Palace. The article, apparently jammed out so he'd have something in the can while he was on a vacation road trip, echoes our exclusive July 18th post, Pete Rose in Hell, which revealed that the disgraced baseball great, banned from the game for his gambling, was earning bucks signing autographs in a Las Vegas casino mall.

Friess, who often accuses us of "stealing" when we run his photo (and who this week filched a TMZ shot of Paris Hilton's arrest for his blogsite), didn't even offer us a tip of the hat!

Naughty, naughty!

Las Vegas Weekly celebrates Danny Gans' special friend Alicia Jacobs-- but doesn't get into that 4 a.m. phone call or all those texts he'd sent her

The Las Vegas Weekly and its editor Scott Dickensheets have rolled out another cover story on a major figure in the Danny Gans case. Following up on last week's confessions from Las Vegas blogger, New York Times stringer, Gay Vegas author, concert promoter and comp queen Steve Friess, comes a laudatory profile of controversial beauty queen-turned-television entertainment reporter Alicia Jacobs.

Jacobs was a close personal friend of Gans, and on May 1, 2009, the the first member of the media to learn of Gans' death, getting a 4 a.m. phone call from Gans' manager Chip Lightman. The article touches upon the incident without exploring the details of the morning or her relationship with the musical impressionist:

"Jacobs defends her reporting of Gans’ death last year. The two were genuinely close. They dined together and, sharing an interest in physical fitness, worked out together. Jacobs was the first journalist contacted by Gans’ manager, Chip Lightman, after he learned of Gans’ death.

"Danny Gans and Alicia Jacobs became close friends during her career in Vegas. Jacobs sobbed through her segment announcing Gans had died and spoke emotionally of their friendship. It was a unique moment in broadcast news for the emotion displayed on-air by the reporter. Local media critics pounced.

“'I have thought about that and re-lived it many, many times in my head. Honest to God, I would not have done anything differently,' says Jacobs. 'I thought I could get through the story. But I remember seeing b-roll of Danny on one of the monitors, singing and dancing, and losing it. To this day I don’t believe he is gone … So, yes, I got a little emotional on the air. You know what? It was real. We are real. Sometimes it’s okay to be real on the air. People cry, hurt and feel pain. I wouldn’t change it.'”

"But what about--?" No, there is no follow-up.

The profile, From Beauty Queen to Extra: The Journey of LV's Top Celebrity Broadcaster, is written by Las Vegas Sun columnist John Katsilometes, a journalist who touched on Gans' rumoured drug use in his initial story about Gans' sudden passing at 52 (the powerful opiate Dilaudid would be named as a cause), but who backed off immediately along with the rest of the Las Vegas media pack. Perhaps that's why it celebrates Jacobs' role as a correspondent on the syndicated television infotainment show, Extra, and is full of sympathetic, humanizing notes about her adoption, disfiguring car crash and career-threatening love of animals, while not pressing her on the issue for which she's gained the most notoriety.


An accompanying photo of Jacobs as "Mrs. United States," however, does reveal that she is not a natural blonde.

Those texts? Click here to read all about them.

And click here to read Kat's fascinating article. Even with his hands tied, he's a great entertainment writer.

Meanwhile, we look forward to next week's cover story on Chip Lightman.

The Friesster goes nuts again!

Oh, that silly goose Steve Friess. Tabloid Baby's 2009 Journalist of The Year is having a hissy fit and throwing around words like "slander" once again because we reported on his very controversial Las Vegas Weekly cover story, A Snitch in the Family, in which he explains why he crossed journalistic and familial lines to help US Marshals snare his uncle, who'd fled from a plea bargain and sentencing on Internet kiddie porn charges.

In response, Steve Friess, stringer reporter for The New York Times and other national periodicals (as well as Las Vegas blogger, Gay Vegas author, concert promoter and comp queen), calls us:

"Pro-child porn"... "Sad"... "Treacherous"... "Sick"... and "Desperate for attention"... while even more disturbingly, refers to himself as "The Friesster."

As we reported earlier this afternoon, this arrest escapade was only Friess's latest ethical quandary of the past year, and only the latest that he made public by using the Las Vegas Weekly to explain himself. We did not pass judgment on Steve's pickle. In fact, we posted a link to the story and suggested to our readers: "You be the judge."

Within minutes, however, the hysterical "Friesster" posted an anonymous comment on our site, in which he congratulated himself for his action.

Then he wrote a second comment, which he deleted.

And then he sent an email to our office:

"So you're pro-child porn now! How thrilling for you!

"Also, I own the copyright on the image you've used. Please remove immediately. Then you can lie about being threatened to be shut down again when, of course, I'm simply suggesting that you not steal. If anything you said was of consequence, I'd rebut your lies, but in a full year of attacks, not a single person in any serious manner has ever noticed or cared what you say. God, you're so sad.

"-sf

"P.S. Yes I deleted my own comment from your blog. I did it because I have had a long-standing policy of not reading or commenting on your treacherous site of slander. I just couldn't believe anyone would attack for something like this, so I had to click. Then I realized: I don't need to react to show how sick and desperate for attention this "person" is. Everyone already knows. Frown face!"

This is The Friesster's deleted comment (which he'd posted inadvertently under the name of his blog):

"So you're pro-child porn? Kinda undermines ur bitching at tmz but oh well! Bravo to the friesster! Cross what line? Journalists aren't above the law. Are you saying you would harbor a porn pusher?"

Frown face? Now really, was there anything we'd written that would warrant such an attack? Remember, this is a reporter for The New York Times, a man who's made himself a public figure by airing his laundry across the Internet while toeing the line that "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas."

Would a trusted, objective reporter suggest someone is "pro-child porn" for reporting a story that he himself promoted on his blog (in a post that begins with the line, "I lied to you people a couple of weeks ago...")? Oh, right. He called us much worse for daring to ask questions about the death of Danny Gans.

Steve Friess snitches and turns in his uncle

LAS VEGAS WEEKLY SCREENGRAB

Remember Steve Friess?

He's the Las Vegas blogger, New York Times stringer, Gay Vegas author, concert promoter and comp queen whom we first encountered a little over a year ago when we emailed him to ask why his colleagues were not investigating the recent, mysterious death of local superstar Danny Gans and he responded by going on line and attacking us in a public obscene rant. In the months to follow, he led a campaign to stop our investigation, helped spread disinformation about Gans' death, called us "homophobes" for criticizing him (all the while running a photo on his blogsite showing him lifting former Hefner girl Holly Madison in an over-the-threshold pose while in his second unofficial marriage to a man-- a producer at the local NBC affiliate), attempted to have our site shut down after we posted his photo (we were forced to use approximations), wrote that Michael Jackson's death was the best thing to happen to his music and then, while covering the investigation into Jacko's death for the New York Times, capitalized on the demise by promoting a "tribute" concert to his music-- all the while acting as a mouthpiece for casino mogul and Danny Gans employer Steve Wynn and reviewing musical acts despite a severe hearing impairment-- a morass of conflicts of interest that led him to represent all that was wrong with the lazy, corrupt media of Sin City and led us to name him Tabloid Baby's 2009 Journalist of The Year.


Now, the go-to guy for national media looking for Vegas stories who decides what Vegas events are national news and what are not (see Danny Gans) and uses his column in the Las Vegas Weekly to explain away his transgressions and conflicts, writes this week that he crossed the line again when he helped US Marshals arrest a family member "who could easily pass as my 25-years-older twin brother" and who was on the run to avoid a court plea and sentencing in an Internet kiddie porn case.

Read all about it. You be the judge.

UPDATE!!!


4 pm: Steve Friess reads Tabloid Baby! It appears that he posted a comment on our story-- then changed his mind and deleted it. Please, Steve, have your say! We know you're not shy. Your fellow Tabloid Baby fans want to hear from you!

(And we're not editorializing in referring to Friess as a "snitch." That's the word they use on the Las Vegas Weekly cover.)

RadarOnline steals our Farrah Fawcett hair story-- without giving us credit-- and now the whole world is running our story-- with credit to Radar!

Anyone who doubts the wisdom of our extensive against-the-grain coverage of the untimely death of Las Vegas superstar Danny Gans and its aftermath, take note: the biggest names in the gossip and entertainment industry keep a close eye on Tabloid Baby, and are not shy about following our lead.

Case in point: our report yesterday that a collectors' website is selling what it purports to be a lock of Farrah Fawcett's hair. We got the tip from one of our readers. We posted it yesterday at 5:26 pm.


This morning, as our report caused a new fury among Farrahphiles, our pals at RadarOnline.com stole the story, labelled it "exclusive" and ran it without attribution (meaning they didn't credit us) at 10:55 am Pacific time.

The Radar writer even came perilously close to plagiarizing our report!

We wrote:

"An online celebrity sales site is offering what is purported to be a lock of Farrah Fawcett's hair...for one thousand dollars."

Radar ripped:

"Online celebrity sales site www.hunkwithjunk.com is offering what it purports to be a lock of Farrah’s famous golden hair -- for one thousand dollars."

Radar's steal was followed by our furry friend Perez Hilton, who unapologetically ran his own version of the purloined story at 12:30 pm-- with a link to Radar!

And the world followed suit. Just click here to see that lots of "mainstream" outlets-- including the LA Times phony alternative "Brand X" site-- are running the story, credited to Radar.

Coincidence? First off, the word "purported" gives it away. Second, that hair's been on sale since June 28th, 2009-- three days after Farrah's death. It's not like it popped up online yesterday. Someone happened to point it out to us and we followed up.


Now we don't mind if the big financed organizations lift our copy. We do think a tip of the hat would be in order. Perez? He oughta know better. And Radar, as part of the National Enquirer family should know what it's like to carry the water for the mainstream media, doing their dirty work so they can get the credit. That's what we'd expect from a corporate porn-pushing gossip site.

Better yet, go after the Danny Gans story.

The Review-Journal's #6 local story of 2009

"Throughout the paper today you'll find our annual Top 10 lists --
top news, top sports, top business and entertainment.
It is that time of year. Time to reflect on the past
and contemplate its lessons for the coming New Year."

--Thomas Mitchell, Las Vegas Review-Journal editor

Around a week before the end of every year, newspapers fill space left vacant by vacationing reporters with the year's Top 10 lists, ranging from notable deaths to top stories-- lists almost always written even farther in advance of the end of the year, and always missing some major passing or event that takes place in the weeks after the space-filler was written.

The Las Vegas-Review Journal is no exception. This morning's Sunday edition would have gone directly into the fireplace, if not for a bizarre anomaly among its list of the Top 10 Local Stories of 2009: The #6 story is one they barely covered and never investigated!

Yes,

6. DANNY GANS DIES

"Impressionist Danny Gans had been a fixture on Las Vegas marquees for more than a decade when his wife found him unconscious and not breathing in their bed in the early morning hours of May 1.

"Despite the efforts of his wife and paramedics to revive him, the 52-year-old never regained consciousness.

"Entertainers and fans mourned Gans, who had just begun a run at Encore after eight years at The Mirage, while medical examiners tried to determine what killed the star.

"Five weeks later, the coroner's office blamed the accidental death on a combination of heart and blood diseases along with a powerful prescription painkiller used to treat chronic pain, hydromorphone. Gans had battled a painful chronic shoulder injury that required surgery five months earlier."

Odd that editor and McCloud impersonator Thomas Mitchell, (who doffed his Stetson in respect to the holidays and womenfolk for this edition) would choose for the Top 10 a story that his rootin' tootin' team avoided covering or investigating in such a deliberate and embarrassing manner. The paper's obvious complicity in a coverup was even made public when the Review-Journal's publisher, Stephens Media, made a deal with Gans' family within a week of the local superstar's death to publish his autobiography!


Odd as well that "The King of Pop"-- the death of Michael Jackson --would rank two slots above Gans' death on the list. Not only was Jacko's passing an international story, but the initial coverage in the hours and days after he died showed how good, hardworking journos can investigate and answer questions about a celebrity's (and in Gans' case, business and religious leader) unexplained death without having to wait for a coroner to sort out the official story-- in direct contrast to the lax coverage of Gans' death led by Mitchell and his crew.

In the Las Vegas media, the Danny Gans story was the great unexplored story of 2009, and for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, whose publisher Stephens Media made a deal with Gans' family days after the tragedy to publish his autobiography, the great conflict of interest and missed opportunity.


From the morning Gans' death was announced by his manager Chip Lightman and boss Steve Wynn, the Review-Journal (and other local media outlets) remained at a distance from the story, as if the unexplained death of a seemingly healthy, athletic, prominent Born Again Christian family man who was a decade-long major economic force and most unique Vegas showman was somehow a private matter that did not even warrant a chat with the responding paramedics.

Just click here and peruse the past seven months of Tabloid Baby coverage to get an idea of the Review-Journal and cowboy editor Thomas Mitchell's crimes of omission.

So why would it make the Top 10?

And then we get to that problem of compiling Top 10 lists while there are still weeks left in the year, because the Review-Journal's neat encapsulation of the story misses the latest, explosive chapter: Lightman's recent interview, in the "competing" Las Vegas Sun, in which he contradicts the official timeline of what occurred on the morning of May 1st and opens the door to the possibility of a new inquest and investigation.

It was a timeline that the Review-Journal took at face value. It will be interesting to see whether the journalists at the paper will follow this latest lead, or if the Review-Journal is even in business to compile next yar's Top 10 list.

Report: Pharmacy co-owned by Danny Gans invented and sold sex pill that promised to help young male Vegas visitors "F like a porn star"

Another wrinkle has been added to the complicated image of late Las Vegas entertainer Danny Gans with the report this morning that the pharmacy he co-owned marketed a male erection pill and advertised it in “crude terms… promising men in obscene terms on a Web site that they could perform ("F") “like a porn star.”

The Las Vegas Sun reports that Scott Silber, Gans’ partner in Green Valley Drugs of Henderson, Nevada, combined Valium and Valium and Viagra into a single pill and called it Vegas Mixx. The pill was advertised on a website in 2007 with “with the promise that the combination would mellow the mind, relax the muscle that causes ejaculation and provide a lasting erection.

“The Vegas Mixx Web site — aimed at guys who come to Vegas for a fling — used crude terms: ‘Vegas Mixx... makes you rock hard, and keeps you that way. Enjoy the ride.’”

The article by Marshall Allen mentions the Danny Gans connection in the fourth paragraph:

“Silber owned the pharmacy with entertainer Danny Gans, who was known for his squeaky-clean Christian image and died May 1 of a prescription narcotics overdose.

“Gans was not aware of Vegas Mixx, Silber said. ‘As you could probably guess, he would not have approved,’ he said.”

LEILA NAVIDI

According to the Sun article, Vegas Mixx idea was a failure and the website was taken down a month ago. Green Valley Drugs, however, could be haunted by the scheme.

“…Silber could face bigger troubles. Green Valley Drugs is a compounding pharmacy — meaning it can combine unique mixes of drugs, based on a doctor’s prescription — but may have been operating outside the bounds of its license. That could lead to investigations by the Nevada State Pharmacy Board and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.”

Danny Gans was 52, with a reputation as an athletic, clean-living evangelical Christian when he died unexpectedly on May 1st of an overdose of hydromorphone, a drug known commercially as Dilaudid and on the streets as “drugstore heroin.”

In the days following Gans’ death, his friends and family expressed amazement that he had been involved with drugs in any way. His ownership in the Green Valley Drugs was revealed in August. Gans’ partners insisted the musical impressionist did not use the place as his own dispensary.

This latest story comes amid a publicity push for Gans’ posthumous inspirational autobiography, The Voices In My Head, that included a television interview with his children.

Steve Friess emails; calls us a "silly goose"

Ever wonder what an email from a New York Times writer looks like?

There's one example above. Las Vegas writer, Gay Vegas author, “Michael Jackson’s untimely death was the best thing that could ever have happened to Michael Jackson’s music show” producer, Danny Gans coverup operative and New York Times' Las Vegas stringer Steve Friess (right) has blocked our access to his email account (we've asked him too many times for an interview to explain his various conflicts of interest, but he occasionally sends us taunting emails like this one, which apparently refers to our report on yesterday's pharmacy raid in Las Vegas.

We apologize to you, readers, for the obscenity, but publish it in the interest of accuracy:

"A loyal reader just sent me the screenshot of your post linking the two pharmacies. I guess you fucked up that, too. Not surprised! Can't wait for the next big-ass correction!

"I've been told you've been especially sensitive to Gans' lawyer's letter, are a total suck-up now. See? I don't spend my time discrediting you. You do it quite well on your own. Of course, you never had any credibility in the first place, so I guess there wasn't much too lose.

" :-( "

We responded through the censored comments page on Friess's blogsite that we were quite sensitive to a letter from Danny Gans family attorney, and more than happy to correct or retract a story in the name of accuracy.

INSTANT UPDATE: While we were preparing this post, one of our staffers sent us a rejoinder from Mr. Friess, who's flown off the handle again:

"You go "overboard" to get it right???? Really??? That's why you didn't even call the Alabama facility? Oh, I know. Such stodgy old-world journalism tactics. What "overboard" could you possibly have gone to get that wrong in the first place and then, as I understand it, change your headline rather than make a public correction? I guess you didn't have a lawyer forcing ya this time, huh? Man, that had to HURT. I'm just sorry my blog post alerted you to your mistakes. If I had known, I might've let you twist a while longer until someone else forced you to publicly apologize again. Rats!

"Hey! Here's a new tagline for you! Tabloid Baby: Discredited Every Day But Keeps Makin' It Up!

"P.S. You know you can email me, you silly goose! All you have to do is send from another email address, and you've done so several times, so I guess that whine was a lie, too, as usual. I just hit delete before I open them and take a great deal of pleasure in knowing I've wasted your time. I do the same on the blog, except that just now, knowing you'd been defeated, I thought it would be fun to read one of your notes and see what stupidity you would muster up. How marvelous to hear you defend your reporting practices!!! You have no sense of shame OR irony, do you?"

Silly goose?

It seems we've gotten Steve's goose. Anyway, translations please. Discredited? What is this guy talking about?

And unlike Steve, we'll post your comments!

Conflict of Interest: Steve Friess is covering the Michael Jackson criminal case for The New York Times

Remember this next time you consider The New York Times to be "the newspaper of record":

The Times' coverage of the Michael Jackson criminal investigation in Las Vegas is being handled by Steve Freiss, the Las Vegas writer and comp queen who led the campaign to stop news coverage of the secret life and overdose death of local headliner Danny Gans, who later wrote that Michael Jackson's death was "the best thing that could ever have happened to Michael Jackson's music," and is now producing and promoting a Michael Jackson "tribute" show (with ticket packages at $504) at the Palms casino.


If ever a reporter would recuse himself from a story-- or an editor would take a second look at whom he assigns-- this would seem to be the case.

But it is not.


Times readers: Caveat emptor.

(Well aware that he has been the subject of Tabloid Baby investigation since he [but not because he] made an attempt to shut down our site early in the Gans case, Friess, mentions his Times assignment in his blog today. Unfortunately, he also reveals the closeknit, corrupt Las Vegas news culture when he writes from the scene of a raid at a medical office:

"Happily, I have some connections. The fine folks at Miles' TV station, KVBC, let me chill inside their news van." ("Miles" is Miles Smith, executive producer at KVBC TV News, the local NBC affiliate, and Friess' unofficial second husband.)

Developing...

Las Vegas keeping an eye on Tabloid Baby

"Hello Tabloid Baby!"

They're not talking, but they're watching.

The group of Las Vegas journalists who tried their darndest to keep the secret life of superstar Danny Gans from being investigated or revealed in the weeks before the coroner confirmed his death by Dilaudid overdose is keeping close tabs on Tabloid Baby's coverage of their unusual Michael Jackson tribute show.

Beauty queen turned TV entertainment reporter Alicia Jacobs, who literally took out a Bible during a news report to demonstrate the clean-living spirituality of her longtime close personal friend, referenced Tabloid Baby in a Twitter message early this morning.


Jacobs was bragging that she had been a guest at a roast for Harrah's Las Vegas president Don Marrandino over the weekend, seated with New York Times stringer, Guy Vegas author, comp queen (as exemplified in this case) and Jackson show producer Steve Friess (who led the campaign to quell Gans coverage) and Norm Clarke, the ubiquitous Las Vegas Review-Journalist gossip columnist who went to print with whatever Jacobs and Friess gave him-- and who revealed that the Marrandino was attended by "500 high rollers" along with the Gans trio.


Listing Friess, Norm as among the "fav pals" she "hung" with, she added somewhat defensively: "Hello Tabloid Baby!"

Hello, Ms. Jacobs.

(As of now, no Las Vegas journalist has written or broadcast a definitive, no-holds barred examination of the circumstances of Danny Gans' life and death.)

One month, two days:The only Las Vegas blogger to investigate the Danny Gans overdose death goes mysteriously silent after explosive report

The only journalist in Las Vegas to publish uncompromising reports on the overdose death of local superstar Danny Gans has gone silent, and apparently missing, since his last controversial post on the subject, which looked at the complicity of the Las vegas news media in the coverup-- as well as the possibility of foul play.

The posting, which hit almost all of the topics that the rest of the mainstream Las Vegas news media deliberately shooed away from because of pressure from casino powers and other conflicts of interest, has been the last posting on the site since.

That's one month, two days without a posting, on a site that was posting several items a week.

Down Charleston Blvd. had been ostensibly an entertainment site, reviewing Las Vegas shows as well as new music an performance. But after Gans' mysterious, untimely death on May 1st, the blogger behind the site found himself as the sole hometown source of information, as local newspapers and television media alike apparently conspired to keep a wall of silence around the tragedy, ignoring whispers of foul play and in some cases, deliberately covering up the rampant talk about the musical impressionist's use of prescription painkillers and steroids.

While the Tabloid Baby newsteam kept up an unrelenting barrage of exclusive reports and criticism of the news media and those most responsible for the Danny Gans news blackout-- (including New York Times stringer, Gay Vegas writer, Michael Jackson concert promoter and comp queen Steve Friess (far left) and Tom Mitchell, the mustachioed, duster-wearing McCloud wannabe and editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal (left)-- our praise was unqualified for the anonymous journo behind Down Charleston Blvd:

"No one in Las Vegas is tackling the biggest story to hit Sin City in this young century...

"No one, that is, but a man with a blog called Down Charleston Blvd.

"His recent posting, dated on the one-month anniversary of Gans' untimely death, is the type of story we'd expect to see in a newspaper or alt-weekly-- if today's crop of "alt-weaklies" lived up to the name.

"Pretty simple, really. A local journalist serves his readers, engages them in a dialogue and responds to their questions, chases down rumours that have swept through the Ls Vegas area like bad luck.

"Bravo, Down Charleston Blvd."

Shortly after the Clark County Coroner delivered a carefully-parsed verdict on Gan's death by the powerful opiate hydromorphone, Down Charleston Blvd. posted a story titled: "More on Danny Gans' overdose"-- perhaps the only local journo to call the death an "overdose" rather than "toxic reaction."


Among the lethal points:

"First and foremost, lets call it for what it really is – an overdose";

"A source had told us Gans did not have a prescription for hydromorphone";

"A reliable source tells us that Gans became addicted";

"Our source says that Gans’ did dabble with steroids on and off – which started way back in his baseball playing days";

"He also used and tried various pain meds, typically in the synthetic opiate family";

"Another source close to Gans told us on the topic of Chip Lightman – 'Chip’s comments in the RJ since Danny died are phony";

"The chances of Gans’ family giving consent (to releasing the toxicology report) are extremely slim. The chances would be higher if there was a doctor involved in prescribing the meds because the family would likely want justice for the doctor’s malpractice..."

"A... Review Journal Employee has informed me that the RJ has been extremely reluctant to talk about Gans. They want to story to be gone as soon as possible... This is not the first time the Review Journal has buried stories or reported as little as possible..."

That was June 16th. Down Charleston Blvd. has not posted anything since.

Has the site been shut down? Have its owners run out of town for breaking the "stays in Vegas" code?

Our emails to the site and its editor have not been returned.

Down Charleston Blvd., what happened?

Vegas writer Steve Friess pays tribute to Tabloid Baby while disclosing his connection to Danny Gans coverup TV gal

Our dedicated coverage of the overdose death of Danny Gans and the Las Vegas news media's failure to investigate it like a truly responsible, curious, resourceful and independent entity has begun to pay off.

The writer who attacked us publicly for investigating the mysterious passing of the musical impressionist, is not only disclosing his connections to the heart of the Danny Gans death coverup-- he's paying-- perhaps unconsciously-- tribute to Tabloid Baby, by copying our style!

Steve Friess, a local stringer for The New York Times and other national publications, best known as author of the Gay Vegas tourist guide, went on the attack against Tabloid Baby the week after Gans' untimely death, calling us "beneath contempt, vermin and a Perez Hilton wannabe"-- all for trying to get a few answers about why a clean-living, athletic, Christian family man who billed himself as the antithesis of Vegas sin would die in his sleep at 52!


And that was only the start of our troubles with Steve Friess continued. After we ran his photo, he contacted our web host in an attempt to have our site shut down and harassed us to the point that we were forced to use fascimiles!

It didn't take long for tipsters to clue us in as to why he was on the Gans coverup campaign: Steve Friess is in an unofficial marriage with Miles Smith, executive producer of KVBC News, where Danny Gans close friend Alicia Jacobs is employed as an entertainment reporter. While the local media waited for an official toxicology report to confirm hat they knew about Danny Gans' drug use, the former beauty queen was working tirelessly with Gans' manager to cloud the truth, claiming they knew Gans was clean as a whistle.


Steve Friess later wrote a mind-boggling defense of the local news media's failures in the Gans case, yet apparently, or his freelance editors, have decided full disclosure would be most healthy for his future. In one of his latest postings on his Vegas-promoting blogsite, Friess fesses up to his Alicia Jacobs bond:

"Finally, it must be said that my pal (and Miles' KVBC colleague) Alicia Jacobs provided some really cool coverage via Twitter. Say what you want about her as a journalist-- it seems to me she occupies a unique netherland between being a reporter and being a celebrity who uses her connections to take the public into worlds we don't usually get to go..."

Anyone notice the wording of Friess' condemnation of his pal's journalistic credibility?

Here's another clue:

"Another tip of the hat is due to the Review-Journal's Jason Bracelin and Mike Blasky..."

Our readers know that the word "pal"-- as in "Tabloid Baby pal"-- has been part of the Tabloid Baby lexicon for years.

And the phrase "A tip of the Tabloid Baby hat" has become world-renown (click here for the proof!)

Steve Friess might shout that our coverage has had no influence in Las Vegas, but it's evident we've had a major influence on him! And for that, we offer our troubled pal a tip of the Tabloid Baby hat!

Corporate interest trumped public interest in media coverup of Danny Gans overdose death

Michael Jackson's memorial at the Staples Center tomorrow offers another lesson to the Las Vegas media after its shameful lack of coverage or investigation of the drug overdose death of local superstar Danny Gans. With thousands of free tickets being distributed to Jacko fans, notice that none among of the world's journalists covering the event has expressed amazement that the public has been invited to the service, as some Las Vegas columnists did (dismissing them as "seat fillers") when local fans were invited to Gans' memorial at the Encore Theatre.

The overwhelming expression of admiration and sympathy for Jacko-- and the ability of the public to compartmentalize or dismiss the overwhelming possibility that he was a paedophile who destroyed the life of more than one young boy-- shows that the reporting of his drug habits and faults did not diminish, but in fact, burnished his legend.


The legend of Danny Gans, however, has been permanently dimmed by the actions of the Fourth Estate of Las Vegas-- small timers in a city with a larger cultural shadow than they could possibly understand, trembling in the shadows of the casino magnates and corporate high rollers-- who kept a very suspicious lid on the circumstances of his death, and what is now generally agreed to be, secret life.

One reason appears to be corporate pressure to maintain Gans' previously untarnished image, as evidenced by an article in the Las Vegas Sun this weekend. "New isn't all bad for Las Vegas companies" noted as the leading "positive" example among "layoffs, corporate bankruptcies, lawsuits and commercial loan defaults":

"Cox Communications stepped up and committed to a five-year sponsorship of the 'Danny Gans' Partee Fore Kids!'

"The First Tee of Southern Nevada announced that the 15th Annual Danny Gans’ Partee Fore Kids! will continue in honor of the late entertainer and will be held on Monday, Nov. 2. Cox is sponsoring the tournament to ensure the event will continue in Gans’ name and continue to raise funds to support children in Southern Nevada.

"The tournament draws entertainers and athletes to raise money for The First Tee of Southern Nevada and its Danny Gans Junior Golf Academy. The 2009 Celebrity Pro-Am Memorial Event will honor Gans and will be hosted by Strip headliner Rita Rudner. It will be held at DragonRidge Country Club in Henderson.

"Several years ago, Gans joined The First Tee of Southern Nevada to create the Danny Gans Junior Golf Academy (DGJGA) where all kids are given the opportunity to affordably learn the game of golf and the positive core values that it instills. The DGJGA is operated by The First Tee of Southern Nevada, an organization that positively impacts, through the game of golf, the lives of thousands of youth in Southern Nevada.


"'Our family looks forward to the ongoing outpouring of support for this wonderful community program, which enables young people a chance to learn the great game of golf, which Danny loved so much,' said Gans' widow, Julie. 'It is a sport that helps develop sportsmanship, character and discipline while building potential, encouraging confidence and individuality. We, as did Danny, value the opportunities this program offers the children of the community, their families and what it will mean to their future, whatever path they take.'

"'Danny was an incredible entertainer who was also very dedicated to helping our community, especially children,' said Steve Schorr, vice president of public and government affairs for Cox Las Vegas. 'We wanted to make sure his legacy continued and that children would be able to benefit from the shining example Danny set for years to come.'"


The First Tee is not a religious organization, but relies on corporate partnership and sponsorship, just as the corporations rely on The First Tee to provide them with goodwill publicity.

More valuable dead than alive? Danny Gans is turning out to be like Michael Jackson in more ways than one.

The First Tee's corporate friends (click image to enlarge)