Vegas Trends, part 4

First show I ever saw in Las Vegas, I'm not kidding, was the "Legends" show at the Imperial Palace. You know the show I'm talking about? The show with all the impersonators?

There were I dunno how many impersonators in this show, there was a Frank Sinatra, a Madonna, a Roy Orbison, a Neil Diamond… What else? Was there a Liza Minelli? Or am I thinking of the drag show at the Riviera?

Anyway, lots of impersonators, maybe ten or twelve of them. And here's a funny story. My two friends, Lisa and Jennifer and I, this was our first ever trip to Vegas, for all three of us. We just kind of drove down on the spur of the moment, and to keep ourselves awake as we barrelled across the Mojave, we'd been listening to all sorts of Vegas-road-trip-appropriate music, including the "Golden Throats" collections from Rhino Records.

Now, far and away our favorite cut on "Golden Throats" was William Shatner's cover of "Mr. Tambourine Man." In fact, it became kind of our little Vegas inside joke.

See, at the very end of "Mr. Tambourine Man," William Shatner screams out "Mr. Tambourine Ma-aaaaaan!!!!!" in his Captain-Kirk-on-a-bummer voice. You know the voice I'm talking about? Like when the femme fatale with the lavender beehive hairdo and the glitter eye shadow makes Captain Kirk some kind of fancy outer space blender drink. Except it's not really a blender drink! It's some kind of mind control potion that makes Captain Kirk fall on his knees, tear at his hair and cry out for mercy in the name of ALL THAT IS HOLY!!!

That voice.

OK, this is the point where you're probably wondering "Big Daddy, what in the Good Lord's All-Powerful Tarnation does this have to do with Vegas Trends and, more specifically, The Imperial Palace Hotel and Casino."

Well, plenty.

See, in the "Legends" Show every single impersonator, and I mean every single one, from the Connie Francis to the Paul McCartney and Wings, did that thing where they say "How is everybody feeling tonight? Are you feeling alright?"

And the crowd would say "mrmrmrmrrrd."

And then the Roy Orbison or the Connie Francis or whoever would put hand to ear and say "I can't hear you-uuuuuuu!"

And, I'm not kidding, we went through this twelve, fourteen times.

Now it was pretty early into the show, I think it was during Neil Diamond, Lisa said "when he says 'I can't hear you-uuuuu!' say "MR. TAMBOURINE MA-AAAAAAN!!!!"

So that's what we did. The whole show! We were crazy Vegas people. Crazy! I felt like Peter Lawford or something.

Now, what can we learn from the Imperial Palace Hotel and Casino's precedent-shattering innovations in the area of mass celebrity impersonation?

Let me nutshell it for you. Impersonators work cheap!

Hell yeah. You can hire a whole platoon of 'em for a lot less than what you would pay for even the lowest budget headliner. And if your Don Ho gets a little difficult when his contract runs out, you just tell him "Aloha!" and teach some other guy the words to "Tiny Bubbles."

Naturally, when you're looking at that kind of cost-effectiveness, it's kind of a no-brainer to start exploring some new and exciting roles for the celebrity impersonator.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Dealertainer.

Yes, at the Imperial Palace. I walked past the blackjack tables there, I couldn't believe my eyes, there was a faux Marilyn Monroe, a faux Elvis, a faux Garth Brooks, a faux Little Richard.

OK, well, given his problems with the IRS, maybe that really was Little Richard.

But the point is, the Dealertainer is an exciting new trend that's really going to change the face of casino gaming as we know it. My prediction: In coming years, we're going to see bellhop-tainers, valet-tainers, waitress-tainers, security-guard-tainers and keno-runner-tainers.

Me, I'm planning on getting in front of this thing in a big, big way. In another kurttrue.com first, I plan to transform myself into the West Coast's leading pundit-tainer. Yeah, I'm gonna open with "Poke Salad Annie" then we go right into the PowerPoint.

Are you feeling ALL RIGHT?!

Kurt "big daddy" True
31 january 2006