GNR - Red Carpets - and Vegas

The headline is that I spent the weekend working for and partying with former members of Guns and Roses until 8 in the morning. Ed Amorosi (St. David's '90, Deerfield '94, Georgetown '98, Merrill '06) vowed in 1992 that I wouldn't still like GNR in 10 years and he is still wrong 14 years later.....The rest of this entry is the what where why how and what the f*&k??!!

The Palms in Vegas celebrated the opening of their 40 million dollar pool and 2nd Tower - the “Fantasy Tower”) over the weekend of June 30 - July 2. The new tower has NBA suites, Hugh Hefner Suites, and other 14 year old boy fantasy suites. Thus the name of the tower.

“944 is 1” was the name of the weekend. It was 944 Magazine’s 1 year anniversary party – the excuse for the whole weekend. What is 944 Magazine? Why is it given away for free in the pizza parlor above my apartment for free… and why is it sold for 4.95 in the newsstand 11 yards away from that pizza place? More on this later.

So for the big weekend, they did a world IMAX premiere for Superman Returns, broke a world record for longest DJ set ever, had Camp Freddy and Panic Channel play an outdoor poolside concert over the pre-4th of July Weekend.

The Spin Shoppe posse flew in and took over as the publicists for the weekend. Luckily for the BFF’s and BF’s, they were invited to fly in as well. Besides the regulars everyone is sick of, this extended family luckily included Employee of the Month Andrea Oreckinto's boyfriend Mike, and the debut of Don, whose impromptu bartending Saturday afternoon at a gifting suite that had a fully stocked bar, thirsty celebs, but no bartenders is sure to win further kudos on this blog and elsewhere.

So who is 944? Some perspective to help frame the weekend’s host and sponsors appropriately……

My mother rips out photos from the New York Times Sunday Society pages when a Deerfield or Georgetown chum/acquaintance/ makes an appearance….they accumulate on my desk in my childhood bedroom in Longmeadow, Massachusetts until Thanksgiving or some other random time I am home. When I look at them I remember again how happy I am not to live in New York.

A sniff and tax bracket below that on the social registry, there is Ocean Drive and Hamptons Magazines for those who have cocktails at Casa Casuarino and drive their yellow Lamborghini home to their parents house after a night of bottles and models.

And on the other side of the velvet rope craving access, are the readers of 944 magazine, with localized editions for LA, Vegas, Scottsdale, and San Diego. The next time you spend a lazy Saturday afternoon at home in LA feeling like a total loser wondering how to “get all your bros in to a Hollywood cabana after spending the day picking up cuties on the pier at Sharkeez in Hermosa as part of the “Ultimate LA Weekend”, you should definitely subscribe. Think of it as a coed Maxim. For some perspective and flavor, consider these analogies of scale, with 944 being the latter:

Elton John as a Hollywood Party Host and Musician: Paris Hilton as a Hollywood Party Host and Musician

Keira Knightley :Tara Reid

You get the idea, good clean fun that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Ironically, Paris Hilton was supposed to perform at Rain on Saturday night but got caught up in Germany at the last moment. Luckily, party incarnate herself, Tara Reid, WAS there all weekend, as was her American Pie costar – Shannon Elizabeth. But the weekend was all about the music and the bands….and they blew it out.

Camp Freddy is a “freak of Hollywood nature as front man/reality tv star Dave Navarro calls it. It is all these major rockstars that get together to play cover songs, sometimes their own, sometimes classic catalog stuff, and throw one hell of a party (tom cruise rocking out at Oscar Week).

Highlights of the weekend included Dean Cain getting a shot in his tush to recover from a 103 degree fever after Friday night’s Superman premiere to make it to the concert on Saturday….

Michael Rosenbaum (Lex Luger from Smallville) picking up a Gibson guitar to rock out with the house band in the gifting suite

Eliza Dushku sticking out her hand and asking to be proposed to as her enticement for a wearable gift…

Whitestarr frontman and Mischa Barton bf Cisco Adler and his mates running rampant over sex toys and bondage items in the Booty Parlor gifting bedroom...

George Maloof wandering in to the gifting suite mid Saturday afternoon sweaty and disoriented from the sun and asking his publicist “What am I doing here?”

Brian Tee from “Fast and the Furious:Tokyo Drift” being everywhere at all times

ABC’s “The One”’s own Rich Leist going down to the pool and recruiting NFL Pro Bowler Warren Sapp to immediately come up to the gifting suite, where he promptly kissed every girl in sight, rejected an offer of free diamonds with the back of his hand as he blinded me with his watch, and then strapped on an acoustic guitar to strum a few notes…

Scott Weiland taking the stage in loaned out $30,000 Nefarious diamond encrusted sunglasses and keeping them (I think)…

…and rappa and I getting Matt Sorum in to the Fantasy Tower after he lost his room key and got negged by the security guy at the elevator. But the publicity handling doesnt end there as we then of course had to continue to hang with him in a small group until dawn-ish in his totally standard issue hotel room…(surprising)

It had been a long week in Vegas as I had already been there for 3 days doing a Vas o No Vas Casting call on Freemont St., the newest client of the most popular man in Vegas.

By the time Sunday morning dawned, we were ready to get on a plane and get the heck out of 944 and 702 and collapse for the 4^th of July days off (despite Dean Cain slapping me on the leg and encouraging me to party now that “my work was over”)

Big Congrats to the whole Spin Shoppe crew for a very challenging production.