One year later, we continue to mourn the loss of a legend in his own mind

In 2022 I read stories about an incredible entertainer who had accomplished more in his life than I will accomplish in 10 lifetimes.

I read about Joe Chavira's incredible accomplishments via Vegas 411, a website that provides a wide array of Vegas news and information, and doesn't get the recognition it deserves. Sure, it has some of the more predictable things you'd find on a website vying for Vegas tourists, but it has a lot of unique information and interesting stories you won't get elsewhere.

It's not a tourist publication, and therefore it allows writers like my friend Sam Novak to write a two-part series about a curious, unknown entertainer who was quick to sell you on how talented and accomplished he was. 

Some of us have our doubts. 

I linked to both of Sam's stories in a post I wrote last summer, recounting Joe's rapid ascension to Vegas entertainment royalty and some of the odd, incongruous things I found when looking closer at the career of an entertainment giant. I also noted that Joe died in March 2023, ending his long, allegedly successful career in music as a songwriter, vocalist and multi-faceted instrumentalist. He was also a successful cartoonist, allegedly, as well as a patriot and a standout high school athlete. 

It was such a strange story, and honestly, some of it was inexplicable. I'm not saying it was fabricated, but it was so bizarre that there was no way to logically reason how it could all have come to be true. But yeah, some of it was really, really hard to believe. 

Joe died a year ago today. He was in his early 60s and hadn't been in Vegas long, despite a lifetime of success, when he died, apparently from brain cancer. There's an obit page that contains a couple dozen or so tributes and testimonies to his talent. People seem to think he was talented and was entertaining, or at least they said so in memory of him. I listened to samples of his music and didn't see the same shining star others saw. But some folks really seemed to love the man and/or his music.

While I chronicled a variety of details about Joe's curious past and referenced Sam's reporting in November 2022, I had failed to notice Sam wrote about Joe one last time, at the end of the year, when Sam wrote about the villains of 2022. 

Sam wrote about a few entertainers who left their stain on Vegas in '22. Let me excerpt a portion of Sam's writing for those who don't want to click over to Vegas 411, where Sam explains that Joe had made himself known to several Vegas entertainers. Entertainers who shared a common story with Sam, which Sam recounted at the end of the year: 

...Chavira has the habit of party-crashing their shows, asking to sing a song or two, then listing himself as their guest on his resume. That method has allowed this virtual unknown to create the illusion that he’s in demand while simultaneously falsifying a list of show credits. It’s all part of a plan that Chavira himself has branded "Joe Mania."

A reader shared a similar story about Joe, which Sam also relayed in his villains of 2022 writing. This story occurred at a dueling piano bar at the Paris Hotel Casino on Dec. 23, 2022: 

'All of sudden Joe enters the bar holding a frame (about the size of a gold record that I am sure Joe will never get). He goes right up to the piano player…while the other was taking his turn. He starts talking and shows him the frame. It’s his Las Vegas Walk of Fame star! I guess he just carries it around?

Maybe a song or two later one of the piano players introduces him but doesn’t seem 100% sure who he is. No one in a fairly crowded bar seems to know who he is. He plays his songs and then sits back down. There is what I would describe as polite applause but he kind of killed the vibe. The piano players threw a few good-natured ribs (or maybe not so good-natured) at him after he finished.'

The witness to this Paris piano bar fiasco also contacted me after reading my recounting of Joe's strange days in Vegas, pointed me to Sam's villains of 2022 writing and added a couple of minor details to the story. 

What a stunning display of hubris! 

I would have included this wacky tale from the last months of Joe's life had I known about it when I eulogized Joe last summer. 

I didn't, so it seemed only appropriate that I share it now in memory of Joe a year after Vegas was robbed of his incredible talent. 

If I didn't know better, I'd swear Joe Chavira was really Tony Clifton in disguise.

#VegasHalloween 2023 -- chapter 1

 I'll spare the history and the almosts, I went to Vegas for Halloween. Again. 

It was my ninth time in Vegas on Halloween night since my first visit in 2011. 

Yeah, I love it. 

I don't write a trip report every time I travel to Vegas, but here are memories from this trip, in chronological order, for the most part, spread out over a few chapters. 

I traveled with my life partner, who doesn't have the same affection for Vegas that I do. But she enjoys our trips, and I try to make sure she gets to check a few boxes on her personal wish list. 

We chose Downtown Grand as our hotel of choice for this trip. Fremont Street is a great show on Halloween night, and we don't stay downtown that often. Staying at the Grand meant I could enjoy the show late into the evening, and my life partner could retire to our room when she had seen enough. (I'll write about Downtown Grand separately in the days to come.) 

But before reminiscing about Halloween, here are a few details about the days leading up to Oct. 31. 

We arrived on Sunday evening, Oct. 29. We rent a car. It makes a lot of sense for us. Some people wouldn't consider renting a car while in Vegas. It has made sense for me for more than a decade. 

We drove to Downtown Grand immediately to check in. Then we were back in the car and off to Ellis Island. Some folks love Ellis Island, others find it beneath them. I visit every trip. 

We often have the prime rib dinner at Ellis Island during our trips, and this year was no exception. We've had several cheap prime rib dinners over the years, and Ellis Island does it best. The cheap dinner has jumped in price plenty over the past 10-15 years. It's up to about $27 these days, which isn't the cheapest meal out there, but we always have an American Casino Guide coupon for a free meal, so two plates cost us about $30 total, before tip. 

We had to wait about 30 minutes to eat, so we had cheap drinks at the bar, and I played low rolling keno at the bar while we waited. Such a simple pleasure in life, and yet one I can't enjoy here in Minnesota. Sure, I can gamble. Sure, I can drink craft beer. But enjoying a comped beer while playing 25-cent keno? Not around these parts. 

We had thick cuts of prime rib for dinner. We didn't order thick cuts. We ordered the simple prime rib dinner. But you'd think we had ordered king cuts. Thick and tasty, no complaints at all.

Pictures of prime rib inevitably elicit moronic comments from your friends on Facebook, such as "Is that before they cooked it?"  

After dinner I failed to hit on a $10 match play at roulette. (This would not be the last time.) We sat in the Front Yard and played keno and blackjack at the bar while drinking comped drinks for a while. I managed to hit a small win on keno and pocket a few quarters for my time. Literally. I think I was $1.50 ahead. But the $10-12 I spent on tips for drinks for me and my life partner before and after dinner was the real win of the night. 

It was late October 2023, and a few weeks before a much hyped, and maligned, Formula 1 race takes over Las Vegas. Given I spend little time on the strip, driving to Ellis Island from the freeway was the biggest hassle of my vacation. Lanes were reduced along Flamingo Road as we went east toward Koval Lane. And when you get to the intersection of Flamingo and Koval... wow! 

Given the F1 race goes down the Vegas strip, it has to loop somewhere to bring traffic back to the strip. I haven't paid much attention to the race plans, but I knew the race would bring the action past Ellis Island. My mind was blown when we approached the intersection at Koval and my choices were either veer off to the right awkwardly to turn onto Koval or climb the giant, odd, temporary bridge that flows traffic over the intersection as it moves east and west along Flamingo. I knew temporary bridges were a thing, but I was not mentally prepared for what I saw. I'm not going to copy and paste a picture from the internet to show you, but this link will take you to such a pic if you really want to see one.

As we turned the corner and onto Koval, it was equally bizarre. It was dark and I was driving, so I didn't get a great look, but the giant grandstands and/or other race structures built along both sides of Koval near Ellis Island were mighty impressive. I realize they are building grandstands on the strip for race viewing, but it's easy to forget how much construction is happening in an already busy, heavily-traveled corridor. I wish I would have had a chance to see it during daylight hours, and walk around a bit. It's such a bizarre, incredible, ridiculous spectacle, I wanted to experience the lunacy firsthand. But I must admit, not having to deal with a lot of hassles during my visit to Vegas caused by F1 was a consolation prize worth winning. 

When we left Ellis Island we took the scenic route, which gave my life partner a closer look at Sphere in its illuminated glory. We made it back to Downtown Grand and I spend a couple of hours playing Ultimate Texas Hold 'Em. I never was down much, and I was never up much, either. My life partner, who shouldn't have been as tired as I was, retired before I did. I made it to 2 a.m. Vegas time before I had seen enough, which was 4 a.m. back home. Given I had less than 10 hours sleep combined the past two evenings, I was more ready to sleep off my first night of beers and cocktails in Vegas. And I was a winner. I pocketed $15 for my trouble.

The tantalizing talent that was Joe Chavira

As a kid, I loved the NBC show "Unsolved Mysteries." 

If featured great stories that often left you with plenty of questions and an opportunity to draw your own conclusions about what happened, and how. 

I still love a good mystery, and there's an intriguing one that floated through Vegas this past winter. It's a story that didn't gain a lot of media attention and scrutiny at the time, and will likely be lost in the annals of Vegas history. But damn, it's a spectacular tale that left me with plenty of questions I cannot answer. Where's Robert Stack when I need him?

Last November I was introduced to a bizarre celebrity who had a colorful, and questionable, history. (To be fair, his celebrity status is debatable, as well.) 

He wasn't a longtime Vegas entertainer who toiled in casino lounges and turned up in variety shows up and down the strip during the glory days of Vegas. He was a longtime entertainer, allegedly, but relatively new to the Vegas scene. Yet somehow last December he was scheduled to receive a star on the Vegas version of a walk of fame. It's a thing, I feel like it's not well known, and its history seems to be as sketchy and ridiculous as the well-established version in Hollywood. (The most important criteria for both seems to be somebody's willingness to pay the inclusion fee for the celebrity being honored with a star.) 

I learned about this multi-talented sensation by reading two articles from Vegas 411. I've linked to them before, and I will do so again. Writer Sam Novak did a great job of collecting info about this new Vegas legend who had burst onto the scene and was already lined up to receive a star along the Las Vegas Boulevard sidewalk. 

Read about the legendary Joe Chavira here: Part one

And here: Part two

I won't rehash everything Sam wrote, but I will sum it up for those in a hurry. Joe was a legend in his own mind. 

He could play the guitar and piano. And the drums, too. He has had all kinds of odd success, allegedly, in his life. He was a stand out high school athlete, a military serviceman and allegedly created a cartoon character that was published in the Los Angeles Times newspaper, among others. He was a child prodigy when it came to music, and he somehow befriended Trini Lopez, a singer and actor who was most notable during the 1960s and 1970s.

Joe was a songwriter who performed regularly, or so we were told. He had big plans to promote his brand, whatever that was, upon his arrival in Vegas and he was good at dropping names of prominent people. 

And Joe seemed to be in the good graces of a widow who may have been financing his bizarre ascension to Vegas sidewalk royalty. 

Joe Chavira was a stage name, and it appears he chose a name that has a thin connection to Vegas history. How convenient. 

Sam is well plugged into the Vegas entertainment scene, and  received a lot of feedback in response to his articles about Joe's well-deserved honor. He also received comments suggesting that Joe's history was a little less than honorable, including a suggestion that Joe may have taken financial advantage of his friendship/working relationship with Trini Lopez. It's all in Sam's articles. If you didn't read them, you're missing out on great stuff. 

Joe got his star on Dec. 7, it appears. There was talk of a protest by real Vegas entertainers, but I don't think that happened. Joe has a very public Facebook page, and why shouldn't he? He's beloved and a Vegas treasure. The following photo is courtesy of that page: 

Weeks of toiling in the Las Vegas entertainment industry paid off for "Joe."

Sam stopped chronicling Joe's story prior to that memorable day in Vegas history. As he noted in his second article, ol' Joe had legal muscle that was trying to pressure Sam into removing his reporting from the Vegas 411 site. That legal muscle has failed to this point. It's almost as if facts, the truth and fair comment and criticism are difficult to suppress. 

But I was hooked. Who was this guy who had an odd history and lackluster music on YouTube? Sam embedded YouTube videos featuring Joe's music in his articles, including "Tantalize." I'm not a music critic, and I'm not a musician. In my uneducated opinion, it ain't good. But the video and production of it are on par with the music, that's for sure. 

After a December social media break to accept his prestigious award, Joe started celebrating his hard-earned Vegas star a few weeks after the fact with multiple Facebook posts. And he teased that he'd be appearing on the cover of My Vegas Magazine. He was very proud of this achievement. And why not? 

Joe, never one to shy away from dropping names or boasting about his incredible accomplishments, was not ashamed to tout that he was good friends with the publisher of My Vegas Magazine, and would be on its cover. Just a coincidence, I'm sure. 

And sure enough, he did make the cover of the magazine earlier this year, based upon pictures from the My Vegas Magazine Facebook page. (They do a real lousy job of putting a month, date or issue number on any issue the produce. And by lousy, I mean they don't appear to do it at all.)

My Vegas Magazine strikes me as a promotional vehicle that might produce copies with multiple covers. While it's hard to say definitively, photos on its Facebook page certainly suggest that's the case. They have a website, of course, and you can download PDF copies of the magazine. That's what I did, as I wanted to read the magazine's article celebrating the golden boy of Vegas entertainment. 

I'll get to that article in a moment. What I noticed first was that Joe wasn't on the cover of the PDF version of the magazine I downloaded. That only affirmed my belief that the magazine produces multiple covers for each issue. 

I eventually realized that I wasn't looking at several back issues that were available to download, I was looking at several covers for the same issue. Had I looked at the webpage for downloading the current issue, all confusion would have been cleared up immediately, as the page spells it out nicely: "CHECK OUT ALL OUR AMAZING COVER CLIENTS BELOW!"

"Cover clients," you say. Thank you, My Vegas Magazine, for removing all doubt.

As I looked through the magazine index, I didn't see a reference to Joe's story. Wouldn't a cover client be highlighted in the index? 

As I flipped through my virtual copy of the magazine I noted several things. There were a ton of contributing writers and photographers listed, but only one full-time employee for editorial or advertising, and that was a director of photography. That seemed rather odd. 

No editor, no ad director, no staff writers, no account executives. The only other "employee" I could identify was the publisher, who has a column at the beginning of each undated issue. 

The mag had sections about doctors, real estate agents, fitness, legal resources and restaurants. It was hard to determine what was an ad and what was supposed to be an article. Some pages of text had a writer listed. Others didn't. And the photos looked like publicity shots provided by the subject.

You want to talk about blurring the lines between reporting and advertising, My Vegas Magazine does a great job of it.

I finally got to the entertainment section, and there, on page 154, is our cover boy. The new star of Vegas. 

I read the article, and it read like a poorly written biography that Joe would have put together himself, featuring plenty of stunning accomplishments and incredible twists of fate. Joe was a survivor, fighter and champion who succeeded at everything he did, according to the one-page article with no writer's credit. 

Here is a screen capture of the first paragraph of his story.

Yes, that's the first two sentences of an "article" in a "magazine."

Yeah, it's that poorly written. And lacks editing. And the whole article is that way. It's not professional work, to state the obvious. 

If you haven't figured it out by now, My Vegas Magazine is not a news magazine. It's just a fancy advertising vehicle disguised as a magazine. Is there content in there that's not paid for? Perhaps, but the line between paid advertisement and actual journalistic effort does not exist. I see no evidence that the magazine attempts to denote what is paid content and what isn't. Perhaps there's no denotation necessary. Hard to know, but the articles look like text heavy ads in most instances. At least in the issue I reviewed. I didn't bother to seek journalism in any other edition. 

Are you shocked to find out Joe was profiled by this prestigious magazine? Probably not. 

But damn, Joe was mighty, mighty proud to be on the cover of this magazine. That strikes me as rather sad and pathetic when I realize what this magazine is, and more importantly, what it isn't. 

Hell, I could be on the cover of it, at least for a couple dozen copies, if I want to fork over the dough to have my seldom-used blog site highlighted as the most important voice in Vegas tourism. (I'm trademarking that phrase.) 

Recently I was reading comments on some of Joe's Facebook posts, and some of his acquaintances wanted to know where to find his My Vegas Magazine profile online. As people discussed Joe's big splash in the mag, a few people shared interesting tidbits about the mag. 

I don't need Robert Stack to solve this mystery for me. 

But there is an unsolved mystery in all of this: Who paid for Joe's big splash in My Vegas Magazine? 

I didn't see a lot of Facebook posts by Joe suggesting he was gigging around town, actually getting paid to perform for his many fans and eager tourists. How does a Vegas star make money if he's not performing night after night?

I have no idea how much Joe was earning on a daily basis selling his mediocre music or licensing his talent to film or television, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess he wasn't cashing many checks. (He claimed in an odd video interview that he had written music for one film and intended to do more of that, as well as get into acting.)

Joe's media blitz was likely funded by the same benefactor that funded his well-deserved Vegas star. I've seen no confirmation of that, but I'm at a loss to come up with a better explanation. 

Joe is an enigma. He was welcomed personally to Vegas by none other than the mayor, Carolyn Goodman, in a video Joe is proud to share on his YouTube page. His YouTube page has very few subscribers, but lots of self-promotion mixed in with an occasional song you'll likely never listen to twice. 

And he has plenty of pictures of himself with folks who are important, or at least give off the impression they are, on his Facebook page. 

And then there's his poorly maintained website that offers an outdated fan club package with a 2019 calendar. 

But a lot of people think he's swell. Really.

How do I know? Joe died March 19 at the age of 64. There's a web page dedicated to his memory, although it conveniently says little about him. Yet there are plenty of people who posted testimonies to what a great guy he was. You can find similar comments on the last post to his Facebook page. 

The guy seemed like a character from a low-budget '80s flick that went straight to VHS. Everything about Joe Chavira is so preposterous that you'd swear he is a thing of fiction. Like a good pro wrestler who sells his character both in the ring and everywhere he goes outside the ring, Joe's career seemed to be a work. 

What's real, what's fiction and who did Joe manipulate to achieve all his success and fame? Those are great questions I cannot answer. I wish Robert Stack was here to help me solve the mystery. 

Worth my time: Awakening, 1961 Vegas and Elko and Primm, again

There were a few things I've read/watched the past few weeks that have stuck with me. I won't say all of it is stuff you can't overlook, but it was memorable for me for one reason or another. 

I'll start with a detailed synopsis of “Awakening,” a stage show at Wynn. It comes from Sam Novak at Vegas 411, who consumes a wide array of live entertainment, and was fond of the previous Wynn extravaganza, “Le Rêve – The Dream.” I saw Le Rêve five or six years ago, and it was an outstanding spectacle. I get that few things last forever, and stage entertainment is more difficult than ever, but creating anything that lives up to the reputation Le Rêve earned is an uphill battle. 

Sam may be a bit biased when it comes to his beloved Le Rêve, but he'd be shouting at the mountain tops if Awakening came close to providing the same entertainment value. He paints a vivid picture of what unfolded during his ingestion of Le Rêve, and it ain't pretty. The show has already been retooled because it has had a tepid response, and I'm confident Sam isn't the only one who walked away more than slightly disappointed. 

If you have zero interest in a live stage show where tickets are upwards of $100, you'll still find Sam's critique worth your time. 

Old video footage of Vegas finds its way to the social media outlets periodically. Often it's in the form of an individual's home movie camera, which was centuries behind the audio and video quality of today's cell phones. It's amazing how much great video footage, and far more mediocre video footage, of Vegas is available today. 

I have no idea if this video was a new discovery, or the recycling of something that has floated around Twitter for years. But I enjoyed this simple, 45-second look at Fremont Street from more than 60 years ago. 

1961 Vegas

I will close with a couple of videos I enjoyed. Your mileage may vary. 

As I noted a few weeks ago, content associated with prostitution and brothels usually does well. 

I had watched Bobby G's video touring through the northern Nevada metropolis known as Elko, which has its share of brothels. It was a simple, entertaining tour of Nevada life far away from Las Vegas. 

Bobby G and his wife revisited Elko recently, this time as guests of a brothel. A look inside the brothel surprised me a bit. I've seen brothel video before, so I was far from amazed. But I was impressed. I didn't expect the Desert Rose to have as many amenities as it does. I didn't expect it to be a dump, but it was fancier than I would have guessed. 

Is it the most exciting 22 minutes you'll spend this week? No, but if you are curious to see what life is like inside a brothel that isn't an hour away from Vegas, this video will scratch that itch nicely. That's a metaphor I probably shouldn't use when writing about brothels. 

And finally, here's another look inside Buffalo Bill's Resort and Casino, the Primm casino that reopened earlier this year. 

Vegas Confessions Podcast host Julian Romero cranks out a lot of content, both audio and video, about Vegas. Like most content creators, not all of it speaks to me, but it doesn't have to. I can't watch it all. And perhaps that's the key to a successful YouTube channel, providing a variety of content for those who want to see food reviews and guys like me who don't. 

Some of what I heard and saw in Julian's video is comparable to what I saw from a Miles to Memories video I recommend a few weeks ago. But Julian brings plenty of new information in his modest 8-minute video. If you've ever been curious about those California border casinos, this video is worth your time. 

Worth my time: Las Vegas transplants

I didn't spend a lot of time reading a lot of fascinating Vegas stories this past week. There are a couple of things I have wanted to check out, but never got to them. 

One thing that stood out was this article I stumbled upon via Yahoo. This article isn't really stunning, but it speaks to a common phenomena. People who work in fancy, expensive tourist destinations may have a hard time living where they work. Not exactly shocking, I know. 

It's easy to work in the Beverly Hills service industry and commute to and from your job, although I have it on good authority it's not exactly cheap to live in Burbank. 

If you live in Hawaii, however, it's not so easy to commute to work from a modest suburb, for obvious reasons. This article notes that folks, particularly descendants of Hawaiian natives who don't have extraordinary wealth, flee to the contiguous 48 for its more reasonable cost of living. And the most popular place they choose to congregate? Yep, Las Vegas. 

There is a bit of irony in this phenomena. The wealthiest of tourists tend to flock to Las Vegas Strip properties. Yet the fancy houses and high-end real estate isn't found in the shadows of Caesars Palace. 

From my experience, you can live in modest, and in some cases less than modest, housing a few blocks off the Vegas strip, as there's not a lot of high end real estate, other than maybe high-rise condos, to be found around the strip, not that I know of anyway. 

My buddy lives in a nice apartment complex south of the Tropicana. He can walk to the south Strip casinos, or the Pinball Hall of Fame, without a lot of effort, if it's not 110F when he does it. Yeah, it takes more than five minutes, but it's quite walkable in the evening. I've been to his apartment, and took a picture of the strip from his apartment balcony. It's a quiet area, if you don't mind noise from the nearby airport. I didn't notice airport noise while inside his apartment one November evening. But I imagine he deals with it. 

If I moved to Vegas, I'm not sure where I'd want to live, but you could do a lot worse than my buddy's apartment complex. 

If I lived in Vegas, perhaps I'd live this close to the Luxor, and the abandoned Skyvue wheel poles, as seen on the left side of this photo.

Worth my time: Chris Hansen, Primm, Elvis' private jet

Lots of good stuff out there this week in the world of Vegas reporting and conversation, and I found a few things that have stuck with me. 

Let's start with the Jeff Does Vegas podcast interview with Chris Hansen. 

Hansen is not quite on par with Tom Brokaw, but his name is well known. During his years at NBC, he was part of several undercover investigations dubbed "To Catch a Predator." If you don't know: Adults seeking minors for sexual liaisons are busted in undercover law enforcement stings, which are recorded for broadcast to the masses.

There are clips from these stings all over YouTube. It's crime porn, almost literally. It's hard not to watch, and at times it's amusing because both the perps and Chris Hansen say things that aren't one-liners, but are funny. If you've seen it, ever, you know what I mean.

The point of the investigation, however, is anything but funny. Hansen's career seems to have become dedicated to busting the predators. After NBC cashed in on the concept, both at the mothership and via its cable outlets, Hansen has carried on the crusade, churning out new content for either a cable channel, a streaming app or both. I'm not sure on that part. But he's out there, proving that as the platforms evolve, the predators are still looking for victims nearly two decades after the predator stings began. (Not a surprise.)

All that said, Hansen is cashing in on his work catching predators through a behind-the-scenes presentation. In Vegas. 

It seems odd to me that a showroom that exists primarily for comedy and musical entertainment is going to host ticketed presentations about baiting and trapping online predators, but that's the opportunity South Point Casino is offering you next month. I won't explain how and why my favorite Vegas podcast would up interviewing Hansen, but the host will if you listen to this discussion of both Hansen's career and his encounters with online predators. Great discussion, Jeff. 

Jeff Does Vegas interview with Chris Hansen

As I have noted, I don't follow any Vegas YouTube channels closely. To my surprise, I was unfamiliar with Miles to Memories. YouTube recommended one of their recent videos, showcasing the sadness that is Primm, Nevada. 

I've been to Primm. Once. Probably in 2018. On a weeknight in September, I believe. Not much was happening, as you would expect. 

I get why Laughlin works. It's on the Arizona border and it's 100 miles closer to Arizona residents than Las Vegas. You want a night of casino action, or cocktails served with prune juice instead of orange juice: You go to Laughlin. It saves you at least three hours of travel time, valuable time if you're not making it a weekend getaway. 

If you're coming from California, I can appreciate why Primm made sense for a weekend, at least back in its day. Between the three casinos and the outlet mall, it was a cheaper alternative to Vegas if your primary interest was casino action, and you didn't need all the eye candy a night in Vegas offers.

Whatever the reason, Primm made sense to a lot of folks in decades past. Now it's a sad relic full of testaments to the greatness that once was, and Miles to Memories does a great job of capturing a lot of that in a video that is well edited and narrated. 

Too many "content creators" think they're doing great work by walking around a casino floor for minutes at a time, pointing out the obvious and chatting about some random memory. There's an audience for that, I guess, but I'm not that audience. Miles to Memories, at least for me, produces quality content that's rarely matched in the bowels of YouTube. 

Like the channels I do follow on YouTube, I won't watch every video, but I will be sampling more Miles to Memories content in the weeks to come. They have another recent video from Primm that I have yet to watch, so I'll start with that. Based upon what I've seen in my introduction to their videos, I'll be checking out their content with some frequency. 

The following story was not the most amazing thing I have ever read, but it was an entertaining little story from something called Robb Report. I am not familiar with it, but a wealthy Canadian podcaster certainly is, so I'll assume if he is reading Robb Report, it's a credible source.

The host of the Jeff Does Vegas podcast recommends a lot of great articles I'd never find since I don't scour the internet for Vegas news on a regular basis. This nugget he unearthed is the story about an airplane that Elvis Presley purchased late in his life. (It couldn't have been his first, could it?) So what happened to it after his death? Here's the answer: 

Elvis Presley's private jet

And finally, I'll note two stories from the Vital Vegas blog that were memorable for one reason or another. 

I'm probably not the only person who finds the saga of the long-delayed Fontainebleau casino/resort to be entertaining. I was certain the structure would be torn down rather than completed. Yet here we are, promised the latter. 

A blog post this past week shared photos of construction progress toward completing the tower more than 15 years after it began. The photos do not come from Vital Vegas author Scott Roeben, but they were shared with him for use in his blog, and it was mildly interesting to see what's happening right now.

Exclusive: Photos Inside Fontainebleau Reveal Construction Progress

And finally, in-depth coverage of a "food hall," as the marketers like to say, isn't fascinating, but an overview of the new fast food dining options downtown at the Fremont casino pointed out something that greatly surprised me. 

I can't name every restaurant in every downtown casino, but I have a pretty good idea of what's available, for the most part. With the opening of a food hall at the Fremont, it's Second Street Grill appears to have closed permanently. This grill was essentially the 24-hour cafe of the casino, as best I can tell. I had no clue it existed. I was slightly stunned to learn it was a thing. 

Fremont Food Hall Opens, Second Street Grill Closes Permanently

Worth my time: Showgirls, Joe Chavira and Elko

I don't read any news source exhaustively, and I don't have time to listen to every episode of every podcast. Neither do you. 

I'm not a news aggregator, nor will I be, but I thought it might be worth sharing things I have consumed, and enjoyed, on an occasional basis. 

The Jeff Does Vegas podcast shared this article in late November, and it provided a great inside look at the world of organized busking. (I like to call those folks tipsters. Take your pick.)

Nevada Independent article

I have long wondered why folks who invest in a decent costume, as well as those who don't try very hard, act as if they're owed an exorbitant fee for posing for pictures. They can't set a fee, of course, but there are enough stories about how awful they get when you try to play dumb, or pass off a couple of bucks as a tip. If I knew they'd be happy with $5 for a picture, wouldn't I be inclined to get more pictures with these tipsters during my Vegas trips? Absolutely. But they realize that plenty of people are easily manipulated into paying far more than $5 for a photo, and this story really drives the point home. 

The article provides a great look at other facets of the business, as well. 

I have enjoyed Sam Novak's writing and photos for years. He is currently the deputy editor of Vegas 411, a website with stories and information that is generally of interest to tourists, and a lot of information you won't find elsewhere. He wrote a two-part story in November about a rather odd celebrity named Joe Chavira. It's a very bizarre story about a guy who nobody knows by name, yet was set to be honored in December. Admittedly, it wasn't a significant honor, but nonetheless it's a crazy story about a guy you've never heard of, and a guy I'm not sure has ever actually entertained anyone. (Word is that he was quietly honored in December, in a manor to avoid a lot of public attention. I can't speak to that with any authority.)

Vegas 411 article 1

Vegas 411 article 2

If nothing else, check out 90 seconds of this video for the song "Tantalize" and you'll be as skeptical as I am that this guy has ever entertained anyone. 

Finally, I don't watch many Vegas YouTube vlogs, because I find them to be too long and relatively uninteresting most of the time, at least for me. There's an audience for watching people dump $100 into a slot machine, but I'm not that audience. 

There are a few folks I will sample the work of occasionally, because they will churn out something worthwhile and interesting. There are a few channels I'll never feature content from, most likely. And they don't need me. They're doing way too well without me. That YouTube money flows like oil from a Texas well, it seems. 

I haven't been a regular viewer of Bobby G’s Gambling Times and Adventures, but I saw one of his recent tweets noting, not to my surprise, that a video referencing legal prostitution has performed very well on his YouTube channel. 

So I checked it out, not because I was hoping to see nearly naked women in the window of a brothel. I'm sure I'm far from the only person who is mildly fascinated to see what life is like in areas of Nevada not associated with Las Vegas. 

I've traveled outside Vegas occasionally, but I haven't driven around the state. In the video below, Bobby G goes to Elko, a modest town that has casinos, and prostitution. It's far from the trappings of Reno. It's not exactly Searchlight, it has 20,000 people or more, so it's not a small, desolate town in the middle of nowhere. And Bobby G's video isn't anything extraordinary, but I found it to be an interesting, simple and entertaining look at a city that has to be a regional epicenter for a lot of old, small towns an hour or more in every direction. It's nearly 300 miles from Elko to Reno, but only 230 miles to Salt Lake City, Utah!