08-08-08

August 8th, 2008, or "08-08-08" for the fervent throngs coming to Vegas to get married on this "lucky" day. What-EVER! Maybe they'll schedule their subsequent E-Z drive-thru Vegas divorces for 09-09-09. LOL! Is this a great country or what? Jesus in the pizza, Virgin Mary in the billboard, 08-08-08?
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UPDATE: recall my recent post "What Happens In Vegas..."? (BTW, do I owe someone a royalty payment for using that phrase? Hold your breath.) More Strip woes. This article is in the bidness section of today's dead-tree R-J:

Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Deutsche Bank AG will foreclose on the $3.5 billion Cosmopolitan Resort & Casino in Las Vegas after developer Ian Bruce Eichner defaulted on a $760 million loan, two people briefed on the situation said.

Germany's biggest bank weighed selling the complex after Eichner's January default, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. Deutsche Bank will take over the Cosmopolitan and is talking with companies including MGM Mirage and Hilton Hotels Corp. to help run its 80,000-square-foot casino, the people said.

Sagging commercial real estate prices, weighed down by record subprime defaults, forced banks to hold projects until prices rise or sell at a loss. The Frankfurt-based bank would oversee an 8.5-acre development with two high-rise towers, three wedding chapels, a sandy beach overlooking the Las Vegas Strip and a deck featuring "European-style bathing.''

"Deutsche Bank wants to be engaged in banking, not running a casino,'' said Matthew Clark, a London-based analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods...

LOL! "Deutsche Bank wants to be engaged in banking, not running a casino."?

Like, uh, there's a difference any more?

Another one bites the dust. In the polite parlance, they're "looking for partners." OK, can you spell D-U-B-A-I?

PS- love the "European-style bathing" allusion. I'm sure that'll go over swell with the Arab cats who now have essentially all of our money.
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NEW PODCAST IN THE OVEN TODAY

Twelve tunes. Jeff Ray (our guest guitarist last Monday night), Bill Champlin (new stuff), Tommy Alvarado, Matt Baldoni, Gypsy Fire, Abe LaMarca, MOSAIC, and my Pac NW bro Kurt Kolstad. Workin' on it right now. Looks like it's gonna run about 64 minutes. Tracks are all laid in, just gotta shut off the HVAC, turn off my cell phone and take the land line off the hook, put the doggie door barrier in to keep Lucie and Jaco from pacing in and out flap-flap-flap-flap-flap... and figure out what to say.

THIS JUST IN

Gerry Francis of St. Paul, Minnesota shot this Monday night while here:

Come With Me


More on the way.

PODCAST UPDATE

Well, [bleep!]. I've just sat here and did my V/O in an intense, concerted hour or so, proud of myself for getting each announcer rap between tunes in one or two takes (no script), saving the file incrementally along the way. Then, when I burned it to the mp3 file, the voiceover was missing! Bleep it; I'm in no headspace to go back and start all over tonight. No clue as to what happened.

Tomorrow's another day...