Still out of Joint: Goodman seeks summit with Obama to ‘set the record straight’

By John Katsilometes

Tuesday, April 14, 2009 | 10:09 p.m.

Like the luckless, battered peasant in “Monty Python’s Spamalot,” JunketGate is not yet dead.

Applying a defibrillator to an issue that seemed to have just a thread of a pulse, Mayor Oscar Goodman today again asked President Obama for a make-good on comments Obama made in February that corporate executives should not be spending taxpayer-provided stimulus money on trips to the Super Bowl or junkets to Vegas. Obama is scheduled to visit Vegas in May to attend a fundraiser for Sen. Harry Reid. Gov. Jim Gibbons has also asked for an audience with Obama, which is a curious proposition. How do you kick-start that summit?

Obama: “So, Jim, how are the wife and kids?”

Gibbons: (Abject silence).

The setting in which the mayor was asked about Obama was, naturally, quite unnatural anywhere but in Vegas: The mayor and guitar god Carlos Santana had just used a pair of jumbo scissors to cut an equally oversize purple ribbon to officially open the new Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel (The Killers christen the venue Friday and Paul McCartney performs Sunday). Joining the legendary axe man and our rapid-response mayor at concert hall’s entrance were AEG Live/Concerts West executive John Meglen, Morgans Hotel Group Las Vegas and Hard Rock Hotel President Randy Kwasniewski and Sceno Plus (the company that designed the new Joint) President Patrick Berge. Impressive group, yes, but only one of those on hand had called out the leader of the free world for a what was little more than a seemingly offhanded and rather obvious contention.

Several minutes after executing the most famous Vegas clip job since Wayne Newton shaved his trademark mustache, Goodman soldiered over to where I was standing with URL (Ubiquitous Robin Leach), who asked about a possible meeting with Obama. “I say I would greet him if he would rectify the record. I think he owes it to us, and I say that respectfully, to say Las Vegas is a great place to come and do business.” I asked if any such meeting had been planned; the mayor said he would be open to such a confab with Obama to “set the record straight” and that it would be a session of substance and not a social meeting. One way to read that precondition: No showgirls.

More from The Joint

Cosmic as always, Santana said, “The flow of the economy is because of a lot of fear, and people need trust and faith. Everybody needs the opposite of fear.” He also rattled off a list of artists he admires, including Bob Marley, Jerry Garcia, Marvin Gaye, Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan and Prince. “We’ll channel all of them, some at the same time,” so I expect a medley of “Buffalo Soldier,” “Truckin’,” “What’s Goin’ On?” “All Along the Watchtower,” “Raspberry Beret” and “Luck Be a Lady Tonight.” Or, maybe I’m smokin’ something, too. … When I asked Kwasniewski how he expected Santana to fill all those shows in his two-year residence, 72 dates in all, he countered that in the five days after Santana was announced as The Joint’s resident artist, room rates jumped to their highest level in five years. This, with no huge national marketing push. “It’s all been very organic,” he said. … The latest “wow” fact put out by the Hard Rock folks is that the stage at the new Joint is actually wider than the width of the entire old Joint. So, it’s quite big. … Meglen remembers seeing Santana for the first time, in 1970, in an outdoor festival in Colorado. “We hopped a train to Colorado Springs to see him,” Meglen said, minutes after standing with Santana to celebrate the opening of The Joint. … The $60 million concert hall (with a $3.2 million sound system) is pretty much ready for action, now, having been completed ahead of schedule and under budget. But having been in there twice, the temperature seems off-kilter -- warm in some spots, chilly in others. But I quibble; fans who saw Santana at Woodstock in 1969 weathered a downpour, crummy sandwiches, an absence of proper plumbing and an appearance by Sha Na Na. … Goodman says he can feel the vibe of economic recovery as he moves throughout the city. “There is a buzz out there,” he says, noting that traffic in the casinos, and traffic in general, is bustling.