That $500 Price is Right win in Vegas

Neither Joanne nor I could remember who the
host was when we attended a shooting of The
Price Is Right Live at Bally's way back in July
2007 but after looking at the pictures of all the
countless hosts that have done it, I'm 99% sure
it's this guy - Todd Newton. Something about
him is ringing a bell. Turns out Todd was a real
contender for the TV show when Bob Barker
packed it in. Drew Carey was the eventual host.

According to Beer Bro Glenn, I have never told him the story about how I won $500 on my first trip to Las Vegas way back in July 2007. And the fact is if Glenn, who I've known for 40 years, does not know the story, then likely very few do.

Okay, some back story. From September 2002 to February 2008, there was this TV show called Las Vegas. It starred James Caan (as Big Ed Deline) and Josh Duhamel (as Danny McCoy, Big Ed's right-hand man.) The series revolved around the fictional Montecito Resort and Casino in Vegas. (To this day, Vegas cabbies still report drunken passengers demanding to be taken to the Montecito.)

The show was very flashy, filled with beautiful women and handsome dudes, surrounded by all the bells, whistles, noises, neon and glitz of an actual Vegas casino. Copious amounts of young ladies in bikinis around resort pools, tons of cheating gamblers with sophisticated trickery, the odd peak into the mobster background of the city's creation and, oh yeah, the occasional car chase when deemed necessary to the plot... mostly because Danny owned a sick-ass yellow 1968 Chevy Camaro in mint condition.

It was just a TV show but man, it was a helluva introduction to Las Vegas. The guest stars were a who's-who of back-then or still-now Vegas entertainers - Criss Angel, Paul Anka, Robert Goulet, Wayne Newton, Tony Orlando, Donny Osmond, and, of course, Penn & Teller.

I absolutely loved this TV show, which further sparked a
very real desire to visit Las Vegas. I finally got my wish
in July 2007 when I and then-girlfriend, Joanne, landed
at The Imperial Palace, probably the rowdiest joint on
the strip. The Imperial is gone now... but not forgotten.

So at the time, July 2007, my then-girlfriend Joanne said, yeah, she was down for a Vegas trip and off we flew. We were booked into the now-long-gone and fondly remembered (by me and a healthy handful of others) Imperial Palace (now The LINQ), the rowdiest place on the strip back in those days.

And I loved it!! All of the lights and neon, all of the excessive volume, all of the hooting gamblers (particularly at the craps tables), lots of the slots that blared like fire-sirens to announce a big win was exactly how I pictured it having watched the TV show.

I think at first I was a little dismayed, traveling up and down the famed strip with Joanne, at how quiet the other really famous casinos were. Casinos at places like Paris, Caesar's Palace, The Bellagio and The Venetian were all so hushed by comparison. It took me a while to realize it was the Imperial Palace that was the anomaly, not the reverse.

So as classy and fun as the Montecito was on TV, its human experience vibe owed more to the Imperial Palace than The Bellagio.

The thing I remember most about the Imperial Palace was
those dealertainers. Celebrity impersonators would be your
dealer one minute and then the next minute, be up on this
little stage singing away. Here's "Little Richard" giving us a
round of Tutti-Fruity. It was just wild there way back then.

Many Vegas lovers may disagree with that assessment. And that's okay because I'm perfectly fine with them being completely wrong.

Okay, I've mentioned before that my first five trips to Vegas were with girlfriends - three of them, actually (though at different times. I'm not exactly Hef.) So those five trips were all filled with shows and shopping. The second of which you can do at home, I'd like to emphasize! Granted, I like to drink in Vegas so I suppose they could make the same argument. But as they say, when they're happy, you're happy... or something.

So in those first five trips, I saw a huge amount of shows. After that, when I was flying solo for the next 11 trips, considerably less because I came to the early realization that I could do whatever I wanted... whenever I wanted. So, drinking at casino bars it was! As the Greeks would say in celebration... OPA! (Except mine is spelled with an 'I' not an 'O'.)

Now, here's where it gets tricky. Like I said, I saw a lot of shows in those first five trips and if I say, "So Joanne and I saw this and this and this and this," I run the risk of mentioning a show I saw with a different girlfriend. And within the dictates of 1947's Playing Nice With An Ex Social Manifesto, she has every right to say, "That wasn't me, you asshole. Hope she gave you Herpes." 

So I'm sticking with two of which I am certain. And the first one involves that big $500 win. My biggest Vegas win ever, mostly because I don't really gamble.

The Imperial Palace had this humongous classic car show on
an upper floor so there was always a car or two within the
casino to advertise that. I'm 99% sure I probably wasn't
supposed to lean on this classic auto but I don't know that.

Among the shows we saw (that, again, I'm certain of) was The Price Is Right Live! Yeah, like the Bob Barker TV game show we all loved as kids when we were "sick" and got the day off school.

Now I was convinced we saw this at the Paris Resort and Casino (a place Joanne very much loved) but my London buddy Mark (@pennys4vegas) assures me, no, it was at Bally's Resort and Casino. He knows this because his wife, Liz (@buffetprincess) loves the show. Fair enough. Like I said, I was a newbie and my memory blows. What do I know?

So Joanne and I got our tickets and went to line up so we could register and get our oversized Price Is Right price-tag name-tags. When we got to the table, I happily chatted and joked with the two ladies working. The very second we turned away, Joanne said, "They're gonna pick you!" I thought, "Sure, whatever you say, honey."

Okay, if I'm being honest, while many servers in Vegas do look
like these ladies, the ones at the Imperial Palace did not. They
skewed a little older. Which, frankly, I preferred. I wasn't all
that young even then so I liked them being closer to my age.

But I did get picked and when I knew I was going to write this, I reached out recently to Joanne and asked her why she thought that way back then. Her answer: "I remember thinking that they would choose you because of your outgoing nature and high energy." Huh. Nope. Calling bullshit on this one. Sorry, Jo! I think at the time she saw an exchanged glance or a nod between the ladies or something. If women's intuition extended within the boundaries of Las Vegas, there would be a lot of rich ladies coming home from the place.

So it worked pretty much the same as the TV show. Four people called down to Contestants Row to bid on items. The big difference is on the TV show, the three with the bad bids stay on Contestants Row. In Vegas, four new ones were called each time. Now I never made it to Contestants Row and that is a good thing. Because even as a kid, I sucked bad at guessing prices on items. This is exactly what would have happened.

"What did I do this time, officer?" Oddly, with all my trips to
Vegas, I have never run afoul of Johnny Law, as the mobsters
probably called them. Even going solo, no matter how drunk
I become, I know that there are 87,000 people in Vegas at that
exact same moment who are WAY more hammered. Part of
my thing is counting on the bad behaviour of others and you
know what? Those perfect strangers never ever let me down.

Host Todd Newton: "Don, what do you bid on this GE 8-slice toaster?"
Me: "Wow, Host Todd Newton, that's a pretty sick toaster. I bid $12,000."
Host Todd Newton: "Don, think about it. It's a toaster."
Me: "Damn, you're right, Host Todd Newton. Make it $13,500!"

No, I got called down on the very last segment - to spin "The Big Wheel," seen in the top photo. You all know this but for the three who don't, here goes. The Big Wheel has numbers ranging from 5 to 100. Five represents a nickle, 100 a dollar. The idea to is get as close to a dollar as you can with (I think) up to three spins without going over.

Let me just preface this by saying before the show started, all of us were told to cheer as loudly as possible and should you be picked, tons of enthusiasm, please. Arms flailing in the air, jump up and down, that sort of thing. So when I heard, "Don Redmond, come on down!" (that was actually very cool), Joanne quickly reminded me, "Jump up and down!"

Is this the appropriate amount of air you need when jumping up and
down on The Price Is Right Live at Bally's in Las Vegas? Looks like
she got about a foot of air based on her positioning beside the Big
Wheel. In my case, it was a solid six inches of air. It's not that I didn't
want to appear over-enthusiastic. That's just my max vertical leap... 

So up to the stage, I bounded. Enthusiastically. Lots of jumping, arms flailing, the whole magilla. It was me versus two ladies (I was just one of two guys chosen among the 20-plus contestants.) I was third. First lady spun a not-good-enough number and went a second time. She went over the dollar total. And then there were two. Next lady spun once, got a low number so she spun again for an 85-cent total. Ouch. All on me now! So grabbed that sucker and spun hard. It finally stopped on 90 cents. I was stunned. I looked out at Joanne and she was bobbing her head up and down like, "Jump, you fool!" So I did. Then I did the most Canadian thing ever. I hugged the other lady and said, "I am SO sorry!" You can take the man out of Canada but you can't take the Canada out of the man, eh?

If I didn't believe in hypnosis before seeing Anthony
Cools - and I'm 99% sure I didn't - I sure as hell
did afterwards. His show was, hands-down, the
funniest thing I have ever see in 16 trips to Vegas. 

And with that win, Host Todd Newton placed five $100 bills in my hand, the easiest money anyone could win in Vegas. 

And while that was my biggest windfall ever in Vegas, it's not the most memorable moment. No, that would be when Joanne and I went to the Paris Resort and Casino to see hypnotist Anthony Cools. Geezuz, I still chuckle when I think of that show.

Now I'll be honest. Before seeing the show, I was pretty much skeptical about hypnotism. Even as Cools randomly plucked about 20 people from the audience, I honestly thought, "These are plants. Probably here every show." So he did his hypnotist schtick - the soft, relaxing music, his calm, low voice saying soothing words. I was fine. Looked at Joanne. She was fine. But then it got very interesting. If someone was not falling under up on stage, they got the shoulder tap and off they went. In the end, there were about 10 people left on stage, all of them under. Plus one more. It turns out the guy sitting right in front of us also went under. So Cools' pretty assistant came down, collected him and guided him up onto the stage. Then things got crazy and hilariously raunchy.

This was a hilarious part of the show. Before waking up a
participant, Cools shook their hand and said, "When I
let go of your hand, you will wake up. But until then, you
will believe you are having the most intense orgasm that
you have ever had!" And it was the real shit. His assistant
draped a blanket across everyone's lap and spend more of
her time pulling away hands as they gravitated towards
their own crotches. NOT a show for the Bible Belt folks.

This was NOT "now quack like a duck" hypnotism. No, it's Vegas so it straddled a far more adult line. Participants were told to straddle chairs and pretend they were in a porn movies. And guys, lemme tell you this. The ladies put the men to shame. The men looked dorky AF. The women, not so much. If you had any inhibitions at all, sexual or otherwise, trust me, you did not want to end up on this stage. It was as risque as hell and if you didn't have the right sense of humour, a little bit on the twisted side (Joanne and I were clearly fine with it), trust me, this was not the show for you.

But the most entertaining participant had the least sexual suggestion. One guy was told by Cools that every time the Johnny Cash song, "Burning Ring Of Fire" played, he had to immediately sit on the floor and drag his ass along it to put out the fire. Yeah, his ass was on fire. (Shut up, we've all been there!) But never the same place twice. So as the show went on, this poor bastard would be calmly sitting in his chair, suddenly the song would go off, his eyes would widen like pie-plates and off he'd go, dragging his ass along the stage with a panicked expression, trying not to cover the same floor space twice. It was as entertaining AF!

If you go to Vegas and don't mind a show that's a little more
on the adult side, I highly recommend seeing this hypnotist,
Anthony Cools. I went onto Tripadvisor to pull up some of
the reviews so I could remember more of what I saw. I now
would like to thank the people who took their elderly Moms
to see it and were very disgusted. They jogged my memory. 

But here's how I know this was all real and legit. On the way out, I had a chance meeting with that guy who was sitting in front of us and ended up on the stage. He still seemed a little dazed so I asked him, "How was it?" He looked me dead in the eyes and said, "The last thing I remember was sitting in my chair in the audience." He was telling the truth. You could tell.

And then we saw the young lady whose boyfriend was fuming at her because she had unknowingly stimulated an orgasm on stage. Poor thing - didn't have a clue. Fortunately, this huge linebacker of a man was near them and happily said,  "Hey, we're in Vegas. Let's all relax and have a great time. You did great, miss!" With that, the guy chilled right out and the young lady smiled and thanked him.

So there you go, Glenn. My big $500 win in Vegas on my very first trip. There's been 15 more trips, all with stories. But they can wait for another day. Vegas will always be there. Peace out, homies...