NOBODY WANTS TO BE SINATRA ANYMORE

Las Vegas – April 13, 2014

I left LA, Kat and Loo Loo with a tearful goodbye, which is ridiculous because I am headed back in two weeks but sentimentality runs deep in the Thomas DNA.  My father used to say he’d tear up at a shopping center opening.  Military flyovers at Super Bowls, graduations, sappy movies (Bambi, Steel Magnolias and just forget It’s A Wonderful Life – I’m chocking up just thinking about it).  Even Budweiser Christmas commercials send all of us into hysterics.  But nothing tops goodbyes.  So Kat and I stand in the middle of the Dockweiler’s RV Park crying like little babies.  People might think it is the gash on my finger I got somehow trying to hook up the dreaded hitch but its not.  She is just such a nice kid and I love her so.  In lieu of my current situation I keep thinking I am due for some sort of emotional eruption but it hasn’t happened yet.  Just a nice little cry before I hit the road.

Happy Birthday to Kat!

We celebrated Kat’s 31^st birthday with an Airstream Beach Party the night before with her friends, my   Jon caught and cooked halibut straight from the Pacific Ocean and it stole the show.  A splendid time was had by all.  My niece, Emily brought her boyfriend, Chris who is a very nice guy.

My goal now is to make it to Vegas.  When you tell people you are going to Las Vegas they are always apt to give you advise. 

“Don’t miss The Bellagio Fountains.  It’s great.”

“Cirque du Soleil is expensive but man it’ll blow your mind.”

“The Roller Coaster at New York, New York.”

“The best breakfast in Las Vegas is at the Wynn.”

I came to Las Vegas for this?

No, my brother tells me I gotta find The Count.  Who is The Count you might ask?  Well, if you have to ask, you are a stranger to the disturbingly unreal world of reality television.  Danny “The Count” Koker is the star of Counting Cars a “reality series" on The History Channel.  Danny and his crew customize cars.  The Count's big break came when he made cameo appearances on Pawn Stars another History Channel program originating from Las Vegas.  The Count is a dark character, a big guy. With a black goatee.  His head is always covered with a black bandanna.  He wears sunglasses and black shirts with the sleeves cut off to show off Danny’s heavily tattooed arms, which I bet he thinks are pretty buff but the guy is 50 - Not a pretty sight.  The Count addresses everyone as, “My Brotha.” As in "my brother" pronounced in some urban dialect, street lingo I will never master.  In other words, The Count is a character. Yes, this guy's on The History Channel. Confused?  Allow me to explain.

I’ll tell you what customizing cars or pawnshops have to do with history.  Absolutely nothing, except ratings.  Cable television networks in the last decade have been racing to capture television viewers.  The History Channel, Rick’s Restorations, the third member of History’s Las Vegas troika, is the clear leader among cable networks in high rated, mindless television entertainment. 

Maybe it is due to the fact that I worked at the Discovery Channel, but I hold Discovery responsible for the dumbing down of cable television.  People love The Discovery Channel.  Just ask them.  We used to ask them all the time; in focus groups.  Focus groups are when you pay people to come after work sit in a little room and have a facilitator ask them questions while you sit behind a one way mirror, stare at them and hope like hell they tell you what you want to hear.  My buddy, Steve Jobs will tell you this is a complete waste of time.  He’s right.  It’s great for insecure marketing people to convince themselves and their bosses that they are doing something.  Having worked for an extremely insecure marketing person at Discovery, I sat through a lot of focus groups; wasting a lot of time.  What would happen at these focus groups is these people would be asked about what they liked on television.  Eventually, the facilitator would ask specifically, “What do you think of The Discovery Channel?” 

People would say, “Oh, I love the Discovery Channel.  It’s great.”

The follow-up was the killer.  “Which programs on The Discovery Channel are your favorite?”  No one could name a single program.  Now, I used to work for CBS.  If you asked that same question people would say 60 Minutes or Sunday Morning or Murder She Wrote.  They would have no trouble naming a list of programs.  What was the problem?  The insecure marketing mavens at The Discovery Channel never even thought about it.  They would just go back to their bosses and say, “People love The Discovery Channel!”  But the fact was, the ratings were always dismal.  Whether Discovery spent $1 million on a program or ran the test pattern, the ratings were .02 or .03.  You don’t need to know about the details of the Nielsen ratings to recognize that those are pretty small numbers. 

Discovery struggled with this for years until they stumbled on the answer – The Crocodile Hunter.  I’m sure you remember The Crocodile Hunter.  The guy was named Steve Irwin who, I’m also sure you will remember, was killed in a tragic accident with a stingray.  With Steve Irwin, for the first time in Discovery’s history, they scored a ratings success.  Why?  They had a personality on television.  Television is about people.  People watch people on TV.  Ask anyone their favorite news program and they will answer “Diane Sawyer” or “Brian Williams.”  Look at late night.  All about people.  Or the morning news shows.  About people.  The Crocodile Hunter wasn’t about crocodiles.  It was about this crazy guy, Steve.  For the first time the cable industry had themselves a star.

Once the cable industry figured this out they started to look for characters that could leap off the television screen.   The Crocodile Hunter was quickly followed by an array of characters like the Orange County Motorcycle guys on Discovery, Honey Boo Boo on TLC – (which used to stand for The Learning Channel) and the ultimate in brainless, bullshit television programming, Duck Dynasty on A&E – (which used to stand for Arts & Entertainment Channel).  The ratings soared and in the process cable television abandoned their original charters which was discovery, history and learning for junk TV.  The key is no one seemed to have noticed or cared.

Which beings me back to The Count.  So the idea here was for me as long as I am in Las Vegas to meet The Count and talk him into customizing Uncle Scott’s “station car” – a 1985 Dodge mini-van.  I’m supposed to track down The Count and talk him in to doing a do over of Uncle Scott’s mini-van, which the two of us envision as a great episode for his show.  

Pimp my ride

So, on Sunday evening, I arrive at Circus Circus, a resort casino on The Strip that times has passed by.  When it opened in 1968 Circus Circus was a huge deal. The premise was that as you gambled circus acts would be

Circus Circus

performing.  The man on the flying trapeze would fly high above the gambling tables.  (They used a net.)  It was an exciting yet unsustainable concept.   The old place is still there, however and I suppose still making money.  They have the only RV Park on The Strip, which also speaks volumes of the place.  So that is where me and the Airstream head.

Where The Count hangs out.

I find, thanks to my iPhone, of course, that Danny’s establishment is only 1.5 miles from the RV Park.  I drive over at seven o’clock on Sunday to check it out.  Count’s Kustoms (don’t ask me why the K in Kustoms) is in an industrial area right near the strip.  I drive over, check it out and take a picture.  It’s very accessible.   I am thinking I will cruise over at about 10 AM tomorrow, which is Monday.  It’ll give The Count the time to get to work and have a cup of coffee before I roll in.  Now, I am no dummy.  I know The Count has gotten his share of exposure on the tube.   I gotta jump the line in the morning.  So, last Thursday I wrote him the following email.

Count & Team,

 "My Brotha" - and I mean really "My" Brotha, Scott, lives in Chicago.  He owns a 1984 Dodge Caravan family mini-van.  It was the family van for years, taking his two kids to school and soccer games.  Once the kids went off to college it became a “Station Car”, hauling him the two miles to the Chicago & Northwestern commuter train station and back.  Scott is a huge fan of The Count.   I am headed to Las Vegas next week pulling my Airstream on a round trip from Dallas, (my home) to Venice Beach (my daughter’s home) thru Denver and back to Pilot Point (my real home, north of DFW.)  I am staying at the RV Park and noticed it was just a couple of miles from your place.  I wanted to drop by Monday to discuss what you can do with the van.   Let me know what time you are around Monday so I can drop by.

The human touch.  Understand, the last thing I want to do is to meet The Count.  I only watch the program when I am with my brother.  I enjoy it then, because I enjoy watching my brother enjoy watching the show.   But The Count?  The dude looks like a talentless thug to me; a low life, in your face, no account Count ,who I wouldn’t cross the street to see.  But I figure, what I hell?  I don’t like Cirque du Soleil that much anyway and I love my brother so I figure The Count will find my down home approach irresistible. I feel we are already in.

With all this organized I return to the RV Park and decide to go to dinner on The Strip.  I drive down to New York, New York, park and walk across the street to the MGM Grand, which I understand, has the best assortment of restaurants.  I find the entire experience overwhelming.  It’s not the lights, the buildings or the imitation extravaganza.  I expect all that.  It’s the people.   I am stunned by the people on the street.  First, is the mere quantity.  Sunday evening at 7:30 and the streets are as jammed as the outside of a football stadium on game day.  I can hardly walk down the street it is so crowded.   Second, and not surprising but disappointing is what those people look like.  T-shirts and shorts, sandals and football jerseys and cut off jeans.   It looks more like an afternoon at the mall than a night on the town.  Aren't you supposed to get just a little dressed up when you are going out to dinner and a show?  

This isn’t a surprise but I always thought of Las Vegas as “going out on the town.” - The place where Frank Sinatra and The Rat Pack taught everyone how to be cool and sophisticated.  “He was the spark that changed Vegas from a dusty Western town into something glamorous.” says former Lieutenant Governor and 50-year Nevada resident, Lorraine Hunt-Bono, who remembers Sinatra from his early performances.  “Frank wouldn’t go out after dark without a sport jacket on, let alone perform out of a tuxedo.”  To my mind, Frank was the epitome of cool and Vegas was his town, baby.  It was all about swinging broads. smoking cigarettes, sipping Jack Daniels and stretch limos.  Vegas was the place where you put on the dog - dressed up - went to some swinging show - ordered buckets of champagne that were brought to the table in those stands that held the bucket.  It was the place where you tipped the waiter for a better table, wore a pin stripped suit and a white starched shirt with gold cuff links. 

Well, no more.  The tattoo has replaced the cufflink as the foremost fashion accessory.  The dress code is anything goes.  There is no difference between the people who stroll the Las Vegas strip and the ones who saunter down “Main Street” at Disney World.  It’s the same bunch and they are complete slobs.  Frank must be doing pinwheels in his grave.  The entire scene just overwhelms me.  What the hell am I doing here?  By the time I get to the MGM all I want to do is leave.  I find Emeril Lagasse’s restaurant where I can grab a quick bite of New Orleans seafood at the bar and retreat to the safety of the Airstream. 

The next morning I make another stab at going to The Strip.  I drive down to The Wynn to do, what else? The famous brunch that they serve.  I drive down, park, walk through the lobby and, as a should have expected, am greeted by a mob scene at the buffet –which is $22.50 per person.  Judging from the line you would think that they are giving food away.  I can't stand it.  I am not going to wait in line twenty minutes for some scrambled eggs.  Besides, it took so long to drive down the strip, park my car and find the buffet that I noticed it is already 9:45.  I gotta go see The Count. 

I jump in my truck and drive to the industrial area where I went last night.  As I turn the corner I am surprised to see that there are cars lined up in front of me.  Limos and SUV’s.  And people walking on the sidewalk.  All headed apparently headed to Count’s Kustoms!  I see that there is a guy at the entrance of the parking lot that I drove into last night turning people away.  I drive up, full of confidence. The young fellow, I’d say 25 years old, is dressed totally in black – black jeans, black tshirt, straight billed baseball cap that says, “Count Kustoms” on it.  He is obviously a weight lifter with bulging biceps that The Count can only wish he had.   The kids most striking feature however is he is, except for his face, literally covered in tattoos.  I mean every inch of his body.  Both arms on covered and on his neck as he leans forward to speak to me, I notice the word Colorado tattooed across his throat.  I try to be nonchalant but have to stare when I realize that not only does it say Colorado across his throat but behind the words is a backdrop of the Rocky Mountains stretching from ear to ear, complete with snow capped peaks and clouds.  I am deeply impressed.  

The guy stops me and asks, “Are you here for the tour?”

“No, no,” I reply with my best, gray haired, I know what I am doing, act like I own the joint approach.  “You see. My name is Bruce Thomas and I am hear to follow-up on an email that I sent to Danny about a project I need to discuss with him.”

“Did they answer your email?”

“No,” I reply, “But I told them I was passing through town and would drop by.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but it’s Monday morning and everyone is tied up in meetings,” he responds politely letting me know I am not going to get anywhere.  Meanwhile people keep streaming by me on foot and in cars.  It’s 10 am Monday morning.   Who in the world is up and around in Las Vegas at 10 on a Monday morning?

“Maybe I’d better check it out,” I try one more time.

“Sure, you can try, but these guys are all tied up like I said,” Trying in a nice way to tell me that there was no way I could bluff my way into see anybody, if there really was anybody to see.  “There’s no parking in there,” the tattoo dude says pointing to the parking area that I had scouted out the night before.  “But you can park over there if you want.”

Pouring in to see The Count

I back the truck out of the driveway and notice two more cars headed to The Count.  I swing around and park in an alley of what looks like some warehouse surrounded by a chain link fence.  As I get out of the car and start walking back to The Count’s place of business I hear someone yell, “Hey, white truck.” I glance over my shoulder and see that I am being waved at by some guy who looks he could have been Nicholas Cage’s stunt double in Leaving Las Vegas.  “Hey, it’s five bucks to park there.”  I turn and keep on walking.  “Hey, Hey You.  White truck!  You hear me.  It’s five bucks.”

As I pass my friend, the tattoo boy I say, “Some guy is trying to shake me down for five bucks to park on the street.”  The kid shrugs as if to say, “You know, everybody wants to get in on the act.”  But he just shrugs. 

“Is it always like this?” I ask the kid.

“Everyday.  It’ll really get bad in another hour or two.”

“How long you been with The Count,” I asked trying to strike up a conversation. 

“Almost from almost the start,” he says.

“You always direct traffic?”

“No, I’m interested in customizing cars, but I gotta help out here and it’s all good.  But no, I don’t care about all this publicity.  I just want to work on cars.”

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” I said realizing there is no way I am going to get in to see The Count.

“Mind if I walk in and take a picture?” I ask

“Sure,” the kid says. “Go ahead.”

“Say, who do I really talk to if I want to get a car worked on?” I ask

“You should contact Kyle.”

“What’s his last name?”

“I think its Harder.  Kyle Harder.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Good luck.”

I walk in and take a couple of pictures of the building along with about a dozen other people.  I notice the obvious lack on Dodge mini-vans being worked on.  Could be an opportunity overlooked by The Count?  The Count's crew seems to be working on a truck of some sort but it seems a little more than Scott and I have envisioned.

but can fit in the garage?

As I leave, suddenly I come to a stark realization.  An epiphany.  Everything I have witnessed for the last 18 hours makes sense.  It all comes down to this.   
Nobody wants to be Sinatra anymore.  They want to be The Count!  People want to dress up in head scarfs and say, “My brotha" to everyone they meet and have tattoos and wear cut off shirts.   They don’t want to sing, “Ding-a-ding ding” and have to make certain that two inches of shirt cuff is always visible under their tuxedo sleeves.  My brother is a prophet.  
He understands that The Count is the new idol of Las Vegas not Frank and The Rat Pack.

It makes me kind of sad as I drive off.  I return to the tired Circus Circus, pack the Airstream and head off to Utah feeling a little empty, not just because I haven’t had breakfast but because a swinging era has ended.  The t-shirt has triumphed over the tuxedo and I can’t help thinking that a lot of the pizazz has been lost as well.   

 

The Count or The Chairman of the Board
Who deserves to run the joint?