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Las Vegas Sun
Tim Arnold, a man amid the machines.
Published Thursday, Aug. 5, 2010 | 8:48 a.m.
Updated Thursday, Aug. 5, 2010 | 9:12 a.m.
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- Pinball Hall of Fame's Tim Arnold
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A Pinball Player Paradise
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diggTim Arnold owns and operates the Pinball Hall of Fame, a museum of over 200 pinball games that patrons can still actually play. Arnold plans to double the hall's size and selection by moving closer to UNLV.
People are like pinball machines. Sometimes they go "Tilt," and that happened recently when Pinball Hall of Fame owner Tim Arnold had to be re-set.
"I had a little incident with my ticker, I'm OK now. I had a patch put in, and I'm feeling great. Back to normal," the 54-year-old Arnold said a couple of weeks ago during an interview for "Our Metropolis." "I was sleeping, I woke up with chest pains and went to the hospital. They probed me and took pictures of me decided I was broken and fixed me."
Sounds a lot like the way Arnold fixes the hundreds of machines in his pinball fortress.
"Yeah, I know that routine," he said.
However minor, the health scare was a reminder that the art of maintaining Arnold's ample collection of vintage pinball machines might not survive another generation. The long-term future of the Hall of Fame is uncertain primarily because Arnold is unique in so many ways: He's retired, having earned a small fortune as an arcade owner in Michigan before moving to Las Vegas in 1990. His operation is a 501c3 non-profit organization that donates primarily (and heavily) to The Salvation Army.
There is no payroll. Arnold works only for personal passion and for charity, and no one in line to run his ringing, flashing empire.
"At some point, something might happen to me or something might happen to being able to get parts for these games," said Arnold, who in November moved his operations from the corner of Tropicana and Pecos to a facility twice that size on Trop across from the (haunted) Liberace Museum. "You can't just put an ad in the paper that says, 'Pinball Machine Mechanic Wanted.' There is nobody in line who wants to work for free, no. That's a real limiting factor."
Arnold says he could sell the entire collection "tomorrow" to interests in Australia and Europe. But nobody in this country, let alone Las Vegas, seems interested in maintaining the hall, long-term.
"It's just one more piece of America that's being conglomerate-ized and sent overseas, but we don't appreciate because we're too busy playing our Nintendo!" Arnold said, his ire rising (hence the exclamation mark). "I advise that you get up off your couch, put down the Gameboy, get on your bicycle and pedal over to the Pinball Hall of Fame!"
Later in the interview, we resurrected a dispute between Arnold and Elton John, or as, "that punk," as Arnold derisively refers to the rock legend. Arnold's annoyance at Sir Elton dates to the months before John's "Red Piano" show opened at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace, when a production crew showed up at the Hall of Fame's former location and offered Arnold $500 and "Red Piano" concert tickets in exchange for access to shoot some scenes to be played on the theater's vast video panels.
The six-man crew focused on the 1976 Capt. Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy pinball machine that bears Elton's image. The resulting footage accompanied the performance of "Pinball Wizard."
That was in 2004. Arnold says he never got the money, or the tickets, and the show closed in April 2009.
"Sir Elton broke my heart," said Arnold, who had planned to use the money to maintain his machines. "I kept calling and calling. Finally a PR guy made a $300 donation to The Salvation Army, but I don't know why a Knight of the British Empire would stiff a bunch of charity guys."
But didn't the $300 donation help allay some of those hard feelings?
"That doesn't absolve Elton John of his obligations to me!" Arnold said. "The $300 was just to get me to shut up so I'd quit calling them!" And he never got the tickets, either.
A fan of professional wrestling, Arnold re-issued his challenge to John to settle this dispute in hand-to-hand combat.
"I've offered to settle this in the wrestling ring," Arnold said. "I'll meet him anytime, anywhere, in the circled square (sic) and settle this like men! But the punk ducked me!"
As always, Arnold is his own uniquely qualified marketing agent. Like all those coin-operated machines, he's a true classic.
More mob activity
During Monday's unveiling of the Las Vegas Mob Experience Preview Center at Tropicana, Sun photographer Steve Marcus asked me if there was any sort of dual pass or ticketing promotion linking the project at the Trop with the Mob Museum downtown at the site of the venerable former federal courthouse and U.S. Post Office building on 300 Stewart Ave.
Good question. They are different attractions, yes. But they share in the general theme of organized crime and its history. It might make sense that the two would investigate a cross-promotion where a pass or ticket could be used for entry to both venues and they share the profits. Those of us in the Las Vegas Sun/Las Vegas Review-Journal are familiar with such an arrangement: Separate and competing operations, but a split in profits (the Sun is also involved in a business relationship with the Mob Experience, having provided archived photos and video interviews for use by the attraction).
But such cross-pollination is not going to happen with these organized-crime projects. Mob Experience Managing Partner Jay Bloom approached Mob Museum officials in the spring and summer of 2008 to explore how the sides might work together. The Mob Museum folks contend that there were general discussions about the two attractions, but no specific talk of ticketing. Word from Mayor Oscar Goodman's office is there will be no cross-marketing between the two entertainment projects, even as the Mob Experience people seem to toy with the concept still.
As this idea was discussed Monday at the Preview Center, Bloom said he'd welcome further discussion with Goodman. Meyer Lansky II, grandson of Meyer Lansky, added, "We'll make them an offer they can't refuse."
Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at twitter.com/JohnnyKats.
That pinball place is good fun.
I love that place.
Bring your quarters!!!
Everytime I am in Vegas I go to the Pinball Mueseum and use up a roll of quarters. That place is the best place to go of any attraction in Vegas. It is so fun to play machines that you have not seen in over thirty years. Thank you Mr. Arnold for allowing many of us to have a trip back to our past!