VegasBeat — Timothy McDarrah: Bellagio is rolling in Monet

Friday, Oct. 24, 2003 | 5:22 a.m.

VegasBeat appears Sunday through Friday in the Las Vegas Sun. Timothy McDarrah can be reached at tim@lasvegassun.com or at (702) 259-4096.

WEEKEND EDITION Oct. 24 - 25, 2003

Claude Monet is leaving Boston and coming to Las Vegas.

The next show at the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art will feature 21 masterpieces by the French impressionist taken from the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Beantown.

Taken, but not for free. The Bellagio is paying an undisclosed fee to the museum to show its wares.

Malcolm Rogers, the Boston museum director, said the exposure was great for his facility, saying, "Las Vegas reaches a national and international audience."

The current Bellagio exhibition, "Treasures from Chatsworth," remains up until Jan. 18. The Monet show is expected to run from Jan. 30 to Sept. 13.

Any Elton John fans out there? The Antiquities store at Forum Shops at Caesars just received the actual Cross & Cutler rectangle purple-tinted sunglasses that John wore in his Citibank commercials.

The specs are mounted in a frame along with a photo of John wearing them, as well as his signature on the lenses and the glasses case.

Price is a lot more than a song -- $8,500.

Fans watching Game 5 of the World Series at the ESPNZone at New York-New York on Thursday night were surprised to find themselves sitting with baseball's highest-paid player, Alex Rodriguez.

The $252 million Texas Rangers shortstop munched on chicken wings and spinach and artichoke dip as he watched pal Derek Jeter and his Yankees fall, 6-4.

Elvis impressionist Trent Carlini was looking a little less like the King and more like Rocky during the last few nights of his "Dream King" run at Las Vegas Hilton, which ends tonight.

Last Friday during a session with his karate instructor, the brown-belt-wearing performer took a hard shot in the nose, smashing his schnoz.

He said that he pushed it back into place himself (it had been knocked stage left) and then had his producer, Jerry Peluso, make a doctor's appointment for this week.

"Trent has proven himself to be the world's toughest Elvis -- he didn't miss a single performance," Peluso said.

Las Vegas resident and Motley Crue frontman Vince Neil lived up to his rock 'n' roll image last week during a series of fund-raising events in honor of his daughter Skylar, who was 4 when she died of stomach cancer in 1995.

At a concert at The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel on Wednesday night, witnesses say Neil toppled from the stage into the audience.

On Thursday night he never made it to the Hard Rock dinner and auction he sponsored. Colleagues of his told VegasBeat he was partying hard earlier in the day at the Tuscany Golf Club and stayed in his hotel room, leaving auctioneer Jenna Jameson all by her lonesome.

Perhaps the most outrageous Halloween-related stunt taking place in Las Vegas this year will transpire at the AJ Hackett bungee jump facility next to Circus-Circus.

At 2 p.m. on Friday, a gentleman named Andrew Stanton, who bills himself as "The Human Carcass," will be raised 172 feet in the air, where he will attempt to remain for three hours. He will hang by six slaughterhouse meat hooks sunk into his chest, thighs and ankles.

"This will be the most dangerous stunt I have ever attempted," Stanton told VegasBeat. "The meat hooks are strong, but there's always the possibility of the hooks ripping through my flesh." The event is open to the public and free of charge.

Stanton performs regularly as "Masochisto" in the Bourbon Street show "Shock!" alongside a similarly disturbed cast of piercing characters.