Art Vargas returns to Las Vegas in August

Attention! Art Vargas is returning to Las Vegas.

Showroom bookers, television producers, entertainment critics and gossip column kingmakers, prepare for your chance to return Vegas to its once singular show business glory with an entertainer who is ready to step up and assume the title once given to names like Sinatra, Prima, Newton and Gans.

Alas, Las Vegas is a city in which the local media not only considered its last genius and ambassador of entertainment to something less hip than Montreal-based acrobatic shows, but viewed his untimely death to be unworthy of investigation. And the brilliant entertainer Art Vargas is not beginning a Las Vegas Strip showroom run in August, but a three-night stand at the Rampart Casino in Howard Hughes' Summerlin community-- about a dozen miles from Caesars.


But that's how Vegas rolls these days. Even Jerry Lewis' telethon broadcasts from the South Point. But whether Art Vargas playing the Strip or North Boulder Highway, the vibes will resonate far beyond. And the Vegas establishment is now on notice to take notice.

Be there for Art Vargas' return and see what we mean. Get this man to a showroom!

Art Vargas performs-- with showgirls!-- at the Rampart Casino in Summerlin, Nevada, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, August 20, 21 and 22. Call 702 507 5900 for ticket information.

Cal Neva casino closes

They've closed the casino at the legendary, notorious Cal Neva Lodge, the Lake Tahoe resort on the California-Nevada border once owned by Frank Sinatra, visited on her final weekend by Marilyn Monroe and a key location of Rat Pack history. Sinatra owned the Cal Neva in its heyday, from 1960 to 1963. He renovated the joint, added the celebrity showroom and a helicopter pad on the roof and used the old bootlegging tunnels to shuffle mobsters and celebrities underground so they wouldn't be seen.

The Cal Neva's owner hopes to reopen the casino under a new outside contractor by the end of year, though some analysts say it's not gonna happen, as Tahoe casinos are taking a big hit from Vegas and the Indian casinos.

The rest of the property, including the restaurants and showroom named for Sinatra, are still in business.

Marc Christian was exposed to AIDS by Rock Hudson, but killed by Frank Sinatra

After months of rumours and unverified reports, Elaine Woo of the LA Times has confirmed the death of Marc Christian, who gained tabloid fame as the lover of Hollywood icon and AIDS victim Rock Hudson. Christian was Hudson's boytoy at the end of his closeted life, and after Hudson died of AIDS in 1985, sued Hudson's estate, claiming that the star put him at risk of contracting the disease by concealing his illness and continuing to have sex with him. He got five and a half million dollars for his trouble.

Christian later defended Hudson's irresponsible behaviour (Hudson had claimed he was losing weight through dieting, later anorexia) and eventually tested negative for AIDS.

The word now is that Christian died in June at 56, and that he was killed by Frank Sinatra:

The Times quotes his sister, Susan Dahl:

"Christian's death was the result of his heavy smoking, which began in 1998, 'the day he found out Frank Sinatra died,' Dahl said. 'He loved Frank Sinatra.'"

Hate radio gives way to Sinatra & company

For about a year now, the sixth radio button in our car was set to KGIL 1260 AM in Los Angeles. That's where, while punching among Randi Rhodes, Sean Hannity, Michael Medved, Ron Reagan Jr. and Stephanie Miller, we'd get our doses of hate from Glenn Beck and Lars Larson and settle in for old school jazzman hilarity from Michael Savage, the crackpot hipster who offers the most inspired, personal, nuttiest radio since the passing of the late Howard Stern.

On weekends, when the other stations were selling nutritional aids, KGIL would switch to standards-- songs of people like Frank Sinatra, Louis Prima, Rosemary Clooney, Diana Krall and Mel Torme.

Now, suddenly, the hate is gone and only the songs remain. For the past week or so, the station's been switched to an all-standards format, and while much has been written about the all-news station KFWB switching this month to all-talk and Dr. Laura, we haven't seen any word of this revolution, which should have made big news amid the Savage British ban and Glenn Beck boycott alone.


In any case, it's brilliant, and with our AM radio buttons bookended by Radio Disney and Radio Dino, the only real downside is that it doesn't come with FM audio. On a ride to the store tonight, we heard Sammy Davis Jr., Lou Rawls & Dianne Reeves and Sinatra singing That's Life, while a couple of nights ago we heard a great guitar tune and used Shazam to identify it as Off Key, the English language version of Antonio Carlos Jobim's Desifinado performed by John Pizzarelli. We bought it on iTunes.

It turns out the official changeover takes place tomorrow.

(Wikipedia says: "KGIL (1260 AM) is a radio station licensed to Beverly Hills, California... On August 27, 2009, the station switched to a mix of oldies and adult standards as "Retro 1260." As of August 31, Mike Sakellarides, heard for 25 years on KOST-FM, is the new morning man, followed in middays by former KKGO DJ Nick Tyler. Jeff Serr, formerly of KMGG, KBIG, and KODJ, does afternoons. Retro 1260 emphasizes vocals and plays Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke, the Beatles, and the Beach Boys, as well as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Steve Tyrell, and Michael Feinstein. As of September 4, 2009, KGIL streams online at http://1260.am/.")

Read All About It! Sidney Zion is dead

Sidney Zion was an old school Runyanesque New York City newspaperman who wrote for dailies and weeklies, started up a magazine, told a lot of good stories and back in the early Eighties ran a restaurant called Broadway Joe's on 46th Street that was a good place to meet other journos and criminals and listen to Frank Sinatra's music.

Sid Zion was a Sinatra authority and pal along with everything else. After his daughter Libby died at New York Hospital in 1984 when doctors gave her the wrong drugs, Sid crusaded for hospital reform. He also wrote a great, influential book called Read All About It!, a collection of that every Tabloid Baby should find and read. He was 75. Cancer.

From the book's dust cover: