Dec. 25, 2008
In The Margins
All the stuff from my interview with Steve Wynn
you didn’t get to read about
By STEVE FRIESS
A few weeks ago, I was staring at Steve Wynn while he went
on about his theories as to why the economy was in the shitter
when I noticed something far more interesting to me.
“Your eyes are sparkling,” I interrupted, stammering and trying
not to make this sound like a romantic come-on. I wouldn’t be
asking other than it is startling, I’d never noticed it before
and I wondered it maybe there was some news regarding his degenerative
eye disease, retinitis pigmentosa.
“That’s because when I was younger, I had cataract surgery
so I had the artificial lens, so if the light is above me and
I turn at a certain angle,” Wynn answered a little startled
himself. “You know who the last guy to say that to me was? Michael
Jackson. I was having dinner once years ago. There was a candle
on the table and I went like that and he said, ‘Oh my God –
your eye just flashed!’ ”
See, these are the sorts of things – say, being told I have
something in common with The Gloved One – that just doesn’t
fit anywhere in a mainstream media profile of Wynn that ran
last week on the occasion of the opening of Encore. I did manage
to mention in that piece that Wynn jumped up and down to show
off his knee replacements, but I didn’t get to say that before
that, he forced me to put my hand on his knees to feel that
they’re made of tin. Or that he did a squat before he jumped
up.
I’m often asked why I spend so much time blogging, podcasting,
Twittering and writing columns when the bulk of my income comes
simply from writing articles for the national press.
Usually I answer that by jammering about the importance of
multimedia and about how each endeavor helps my core business
in some intangible way. I’m trying to create a cacophony of
my own voice, I say.
But here’s the simplest answer: I’m a gossip. Before my podcast,
my blog and this column, I’d get a few lines of detail into
a newspaper story and tell the rest of the good stuff to friends.
Fun, but not nearly as fun as this.
Indeed, nobody provides more excess fodder than Steve Wynn.
How, for instance, can weave into a normal piece of journalism
the way Wynn mercilessly teases me every time we’re together
about the fact that I noted in a Chicago Tribune piece in 2005
that Wynn Las Vegas and Bellagio use the same fonts on their
signage. “I want to prepare you, Steve,” he mocked earlier this
month. “I did it again. I just want you to be prepared.”
Never mind that the point was a small one in a broader essay
on the similarities between the Wynn and Bellagio, an exercise
every travel writer was doing at that time. That Wynn – the
man who gets off an elevator at Encore and stares at a piece
of art until he realizes it’s a quarter-inch too far off the
wall – would needle me for being picky on details is an odd
point of pride.
I do argue with Wynn in our interviews, but ordinarily it’s
best with him to let him speak. Utter a word – “Charles Barkley,”
say – and he’s off and running. In that case, he gives his side
of the incident where the NBA great was taken to court for not
paying his marker. “That was a self-explanatory issue. Charles
could afford it and decided to forget about it for a year or
so. And I’m sorry that he did. We were required to report it,
as much as we regretted it. And we warned him. ‘You’ve taken
the decision power away from us,’ we said. ‘We have to take
these steps. Please.’ And the minute we did, he paid it and
said he was sorry.’ ”
I’m not sure how to organize the rest of this, so I’m taking
the easy way out here. Here are a few more bits that didn’t
make their way into my other work:
• One of three times Wynn got cross with me during our Nov.
16 tour of Encore came when I quizzed him about having a soft
opening of Encore after he’d criticizing Sheldon Adelson for
soft openings of several Las Vegas Sands properties. Not wanting
my story to become a pissing match between the two – even though
he would rip on Adelson to several other reporters the following
week – Wynn scolded: “Now look, I’m working very hard. I’m busy
here. I’m doing this because you’re a nice guy but I don’t want
to have a confrontational interview. I don’t have the patience
for it.” As usual, I kept my mouth shut until the storm blew
over.
• I just love how Wynn describes what was innovative about
the Mirage: “The Mirage was the Flamingo masquerading as Caesars
Palace public areas and the size of MGM and the Hilton. And
the greatest thing we did? Siegfried and Roy. The most wonderful
show. Tremendous.”
• For all the hype about mobile gaming devices, they won’t
have a place at Wynn any time soon. “It’s not interesting to
me,” he said.
• Wynn spoke to Phil Ruffin the day Ruffin announced he was
buying Treasure Island. “I said, what’s the matter, you miss
the neighborhood? He says, ‘Yes, I was bored. I didn’t know
what to do with the cash.’ He’s a riot. Funny guy.”
• I asked Wynn why all the bars and shops were so simply named.
That is, there’s an East Side Bar, Southside Bar and Lobby Bar,
and a sundries shop called Sundries. It “cuts through the noise.
The customers are hit with so much information in this town.
It’s one thing to being cute, it’s another thing to let them
know what’s going on.”
• Wynn went on about the décor of, of all things, the taxi
waiting tunnels. “It’s all pretty pictures for the guys to look
at,” he said, describing photos of women in bikinis. He said
he did similarly elaborate staging areas at Wynn Las Vegas,
Bellagio and Mirage. “Cabdrivers know I’m on their side,” he
said.
• A ladder was still standing outside the In Step shoe store
during our tour. “No ladders today,” he muttered loudly. “We’re
not supposed to have any ladders out anymore.” Jennifer Dunne,
the resort publicist, was on the phone in seconds telling someone
to get rid of it.
• The Beethoven I meeting room has glass windows that overlook
the main Encore pool. Or, at least, that’s what they say. Wynn
was aggravated when we poked our head in that the drapes were
drawn. He called out to see if anyone knew were the switch was
to open them. A group of workers just stood around barely reacting.
This wasn’t the only time. Wynn nearly got stuck in the wedge
of a very heavy glass door from the XS dance floor out to the
pool. Again, several employees just stared at him struggling
with it.
• A boy was scooting along in heelies, those sneakers with
wheels at the heel, when Wynn spotted him. “Is that kid on rollerskates?
How is he gliding? Can it hurt the mosaic?” He stopped the kid,
felt up the heel and decided it was OK. The kid’s father, more
stunned than angered, said, “Who are you?” Wynn’s reply: “I
work here.”
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