[h=1]The Closing of Binion’s Horseshoe (Conclusion)[/h]
Photo by Ulvis Alberts (2002 WSOP)
Note: This is the final segment in my trilogy on the closing of Binion’s Horseshoe, which happened ten years ago last week (January 9th, to be exact). Read PART 1 here and PART 2 here.
I needed a band.
Not just any band, but a country-western band. And I didn’t know shit about country music. Didn’t know where to go. Didn’t know where to turn.
Just three days removed from the start of the 2003 National Finals Rodeo and 85,000 cowboys trucking into town, the transformation of Binion’s Horseshoe was nearly complete. Slot machines and gaming tables had been wheeled out. A dance floor the size of a full-length basketball court was in place. A brightly-lit elevated stage had been especially constructed for the occasion and made the Horseshoe suddenly appear as inviting as any real nightclub in the city with live music. Sixty-two cocktail tables were positioned around the dance floor’s perimeter. Candles were even found in the warehouse and were placed upon the tabletops, so smokers could light up easily (this was before many casinos instituted non-smoking policies). Giant metal tubs were set up about to be stacked with ice-cold longnecks. We smoked enough bar-be-cue to feed half of Las Vegas. The party was about to begin.
Only, we needed a band.
A day-shift floorman who worked in the pit heard about my band problem. Apparently, he had a cousin who knew a pawnbroker whose barber cut the hair of the second cousin of the wife of someone who was in a country band. He asked if I might be interested in speaking with his contact.
Desperate and nearly drawing dead, I was prepared to hire this person on the spot, sight unseen.
“Hell yes! Send him down here,” I barked. ”Will he work for $500 a night?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll ask.”
An hour later, a clean cut man of about 40 showed up at the Horseshoe. The guy looked picture perfect. Right out of central casting. Imagine Josh Brolin dressed in western shirt, the kind with all the snaps, and a cowboy hat. Well, he sure looked the part. [SEE FOOTNOTE]
We talked on the dance floor that was about to be packed full of cowboys demanding their own brand of music — about 55 hours from now. And the clock was ticking. The man assured me he could round up at least three more band members and make it just in time for the gig, which would run for ten consecutive nights.
Wait.
What did he say? Run that by me again. He didn’t even have the band together yet?
“You mean, you don’t even have your band together?” I asked. ”I thought you said you’re in a band?”
“I am in a band, but they all took other gigs the next two weeks,” he said. ”Hey, I know lots of musicians here. I’ve even got guys who can drive in from Utah to play.”
So, I was hiring the one band member who couldn’t find a job? What was this – American Idol?
But at this point, I didn’t have a choice. I’d run out of options.
The next topic was money. I asked if he’d work for $500 a night, plus drinks and all the barbecue the band members could eat. He agreed.
The fact he agreed so quickly to the terms actually worried me. Hell, he didn’t even try to negotiate the money.
What did I get myself into, I wondered.
The landing came at 9 pm on a Sunday night. Would we fly or crash?
Everybody working at the Horseshoe turned out to see what was happening. Some people even came in on their night off to check things out. This worried me at first, because the area where cowboys should have been sitting was instead packed with black and white, the standard dress issue for all Horseshoe dealers. At first glance, it looked like an employee Christmas party. Not good.
But the cowboys trickled in slowly. They started pulling beer from the troughs and guzzling down the brew like babies to milk. Wolfing down tasty barbecue. Smoking. I’d forgotten chewing tobacco is a big deal, so we even set out old plastic cups used for slot coins. They made wonderful impromptu spittoons for the tobacco chewers. God damn, it’s all starting to come together, I thought.
Then, the band took to the stage.
I held my breath.
“I’ve Never Been to Heaven, but I’ve Been to Oklahoma” was the name of the song that began the first set of the first night.
In a moment of sheer relief, the cowboys streamed out onto the dance floor like cattle being led to corn feed. Fuck, it was beautiful.
Over the next few hours, I overheard cell phone conversations all over the casino that went something like this: “They’ve got live music here at the Horseshoe all week long! Get down here, now! And the beer is just a buck a bottle!”
The fuse was lit. Over the next several nights, the place would light up and explode with cowboys and cowgirls. It was huge success. I was even coaxed up to the stage to sing at one point. I performed “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys,” the old Willie Nelson tune from The Electric Horseman.
Appropriate for the occasion, I thought.
After the fifth big night and just before the sixth was to begin, about an hour before showtime the Josh Brolin-look alike lead singer approached me.
“We need to get paid,” he insisted. ”At least half now.”
He was talking about the terms of our agreement and the money we agreed to pay. At $500 per night multiplied by five nights, that meant the Horseshoe owed the band members $2,500.
Oh shit.
I’d forgotten about the invoice freeze that was in place. No invoices were getting paid. None whatsoever. We were stiffing everyone at this point. A country band was pretty low priority when we owed money to everyone from the City of Las Vegas to the employee’s health insurance fund. My face must have revealed concern.
Josh Brolin was starting to get annoyed.
I put in an emergency phone call to Nick, who was the only person who could override the order, other than Becky. The night accountant was sympathetic, but explained he’d lose his job if he went along and issued an unauthorized check.
We were just 20 minutes from the start of the show, and of course, the place was absolutely wall-to-wall packed. It was Friday, which would be our busiest night, by far. Talk about horrible timing.
I tried to make a little joke out of the awkward spot I was in, which I think only pissed him off more.
“Can’t you guys just eat some more barbecue? Hell, eat all you guys want,” I insisted, hoping for a smile. ”Go ahead, eat $2,500 worth of barbecue!”
Josh Brolin wasn’t amused. ”What am I going to pay my rent with, fucking barbecue?”
I don’t remember how the crisis was resolved exactly. I think Warren Schaffer somehow stepped in and reached Nick and got payment approved. Ten minutes past the starting time, with the cowboys stomping their feet and waiting for the band to play, we paid the band in cash.
And with that, “I’ve Never Been to Heaven, but I’ve Been to Oklahoma” suddenly filled the Horseshoe’s smoky air and the cowboys rushed onto the stage. Another crisis averted.
Later, I found out this wasn’t even a country-western song. It was written and performed by the rock band Three Dog Night in the early 1970′s. That didn’t matter. This was fast becoming my favorite song.
The entire campaign had been a smashing success. Gaming revenue went up, despite a smaller amount of floor space. All the bars were packed with overflow crowds. The poker room, already caught up in the boom of the post-Moneymaker phase, was filled to full capacity every night. Even the barbecue especially-cooked for the occasion generated a profit. No one, not even the food and beverage manager, expected that. Hell, the band even got paid the other half of their money and the check didn’t bounce.
No one knew it at the time, but this would be the Horseshoe’s last hurrah. This was the last rodeo.
With the cowboys now a fading memory, the last two week’s of December became a deathwatch atmosphere once again, only this time things were even worse than before.
The belt tightening policies returned. Good local press turned bad again. Except for the bustling poker room going 24/7 and the always popular deli, the place looked like a graveyard.
Christmas Day came. I took that day off — probably the first full day I’d not been at the casino in at least six months.
Then, it was back to work. The day after Christmas, Becky called me to talk about some contracts we were working on. Towards the end of the discussion, I was abruptly given some shocking news.
I was fired.
Totally blindsided.
The reason given was for “negotiating unauthorized contracts.” Of course, Nick had always encouraged me to do whatever it took to bring money in the door. So, I worked out a few lucrative deals for the casino with sponsors for the next year’s World Series of Poker. That was apparently a problem while the owners were trying desperately to sell the place. Call it getting signals crossed, and I paid the price for that.
My tenure as the Director of Public Relations for Binion’s Horseshoe officially ended on December 26, 2003.
Exactly two weeks later, Federal Marshals and agents from the Nevada Gaming Control Board entered the building. That was the last shuffle and the final deal.
The gamble that had begun more than half a century over when Benny first moved to Las Vegas and opened Binion’s Horseshoe was over.
FOOTNOTE: Unfortunately, I don’t remember his name, nor do I recall the name of the band.
WRITER’S NOTE: Kudos to the current owners of Binion’s, which is not affiliated with the family of that same name in any way. Current ownership and management have tried, with some success, to maintain the traditions established by the late Benny Binion, while writing the next new chapter in what will be the history of the building at 128 E. Fremont Street.
Photo by Ulvis Alberts (2002 WSOP)Note: This is the final segment in my trilogy on the closing of Binion’s Horseshoe, which happened ten years ago last week (January 9th, to be exact). Read PART 1 here and PART 2 here.
I needed a band.
Not just any band, but a country-western band. And I didn’t know shit about country music. Didn’t know where to go. Didn’t know where to turn.
Just three days removed from the start of the 2003 National Finals Rodeo and 85,000 cowboys trucking into town, the transformation of Binion’s Horseshoe was nearly complete. Slot machines and gaming tables had been wheeled out. A dance floor the size of a full-length basketball court was in place. A brightly-lit elevated stage had been especially constructed for the occasion and made the Horseshoe suddenly appear as inviting as any real nightclub in the city with live music. Sixty-two cocktail tables were positioned around the dance floor’s perimeter. Candles were even found in the warehouse and were placed upon the tabletops, so smokers could light up easily (this was before many casinos instituted non-smoking policies). Giant metal tubs were set up about to be stacked with ice-cold longnecks. We smoked enough bar-be-cue to feed half of Las Vegas. The party was about to begin.
Only, we needed a band.
………….
My cell phone rang.A day-shift floorman who worked in the pit heard about my band problem. Apparently, he had a cousin who knew a pawnbroker whose barber cut the hair of the second cousin of the wife of someone who was in a country band. He asked if I might be interested in speaking with his contact.
Desperate and nearly drawing dead, I was prepared to hire this person on the spot, sight unseen.
“Hell yes! Send him down here,” I barked. ”Will he work for $500 a night?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll ask.”
An hour later, a clean cut man of about 40 showed up at the Horseshoe. The guy looked picture perfect. Right out of central casting. Imagine Josh Brolin dressed in western shirt, the kind with all the snaps, and a cowboy hat. Well, he sure looked the part. [SEE FOOTNOTE]
We talked on the dance floor that was about to be packed full of cowboys demanding their own brand of music — about 55 hours from now. And the clock was ticking. The man assured me he could round up at least three more band members and make it just in time for the gig, which would run for ten consecutive nights.
Wait.
What did he say? Run that by me again. He didn’t even have the band together yet?
“You mean, you don’t even have your band together?” I asked. ”I thought you said you’re in a band?”
“I am in a band, but they all took other gigs the next two weeks,” he said. ”Hey, I know lots of musicians here. I’ve even got guys who can drive in from Utah to play.”
So, I was hiring the one band member who couldn’t find a job? What was this – American Idol?
But at this point, I didn’t have a choice. I’d run out of options.
The next topic was money. I asked if he’d work for $500 a night, plus drinks and all the barbecue the band members could eat. He agreed.
The fact he agreed so quickly to the terms actually worried me. Hell, he didn’t even try to negotiate the money.
What did I get myself into, I wondered.
……………
Sometimes, you gotta’ have faith. Things will work out, if you just let it all happen. All you can do is set the wheels into motion and hope they hit the payment when it’s time to land.The landing came at 9 pm on a Sunday night. Would we fly or crash?
Everybody working at the Horseshoe turned out to see what was happening. Some people even came in on their night off to check things out. This worried me at first, because the area where cowboys should have been sitting was instead packed with black and white, the standard dress issue for all Horseshoe dealers. At first glance, it looked like an employee Christmas party. Not good.
But the cowboys trickled in slowly. They started pulling beer from the troughs and guzzling down the brew like babies to milk. Wolfing down tasty barbecue. Smoking. I’d forgotten chewing tobacco is a big deal, so we even set out old plastic cups used for slot coins. They made wonderful impromptu spittoons for the tobacco chewers. God damn, it’s all starting to come together, I thought.
Then, the band took to the stage.
I held my breath.
……………
You remember exactly where you were and what you were doing at key moments in life. And you remember details. As for me, I recall the chills, the tickling pleasure tingling down my neck when this makeshift country band that had apparently never played together before, strummed their guitars in perfect unison and launched into a song I vaguely remembered as a minor hit from perhaps two decades earlier.“I’ve Never Been to Heaven, but I’ve Been to Oklahoma” was the name of the song that began the first set of the first night.
In a moment of sheer relief, the cowboys streamed out onto the dance floor like cattle being led to corn feed. Fuck, it was beautiful.
Over the next few hours, I overheard cell phone conversations all over the casino that went something like this: “They’ve got live music here at the Horseshoe all week long! Get down here, now! And the beer is just a buck a bottle!”
The fuse was lit. Over the next several nights, the place would light up and explode with cowboys and cowgirls. It was huge success. I was even coaxed up to the stage to sing at one point. I performed “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys,” the old Willie Nelson tune from The Electric Horseman.
Appropriate for the occasion, I thought.
……………
The sun doesn’t shine forever. Storm clouds are always gathering somewhere.After the fifth big night and just before the sixth was to begin, about an hour before showtime the Josh Brolin-look alike lead singer approached me.
“We need to get paid,” he insisted. ”At least half now.”
He was talking about the terms of our agreement and the money we agreed to pay. At $500 per night multiplied by five nights, that meant the Horseshoe owed the band members $2,500.
Oh shit.
I’d forgotten about the invoice freeze that was in place. No invoices were getting paid. None whatsoever. We were stiffing everyone at this point. A country band was pretty low priority when we owed money to everyone from the City of Las Vegas to the employee’s health insurance fund. My face must have revealed concern.
Josh Brolin was starting to get annoyed.
I put in an emergency phone call to Nick, who was the only person who could override the order, other than Becky. The night accountant was sympathetic, but explained he’d lose his job if he went along and issued an unauthorized check.
We were just 20 minutes from the start of the show, and of course, the place was absolutely wall-to-wall packed. It was Friday, which would be our busiest night, by far. Talk about horrible timing.
I tried to make a little joke out of the awkward spot I was in, which I think only pissed him off more.
“Can’t you guys just eat some more barbecue? Hell, eat all you guys want,” I insisted, hoping for a smile. ”Go ahead, eat $2,500 worth of barbecue!”
Josh Brolin wasn’t amused. ”What am I going to pay my rent with, fucking barbecue?”
I don’t remember how the crisis was resolved exactly. I think Warren Schaffer somehow stepped in and reached Nick and got payment approved. Ten minutes past the starting time, with the cowboys stomping their feet and waiting for the band to play, we paid the band in cash.
And with that, “I’ve Never Been to Heaven, but I’ve Been to Oklahoma” suddenly filled the Horseshoe’s smoky air and the cowboys rushed onto the stage. Another crisis averted.
Later, I found out this wasn’t even a country-western song. It was written and performed by the rock band Three Dog Night in the early 1970′s. That didn’t matter. This was fast becoming my favorite song.
……………
By the time the rodeo left town, Binion’s Horseshoe seemed to be making a minor comeback. But this too, turned out to be fantasy.The entire campaign had been a smashing success. Gaming revenue went up, despite a smaller amount of floor space. All the bars were packed with overflow crowds. The poker room, already caught up in the boom of the post-Moneymaker phase, was filled to full capacity every night. Even the barbecue especially-cooked for the occasion generated a profit. No one, not even the food and beverage manager, expected that. Hell, the band even got paid the other half of their money and the check didn’t bounce.
No one knew it at the time, but this would be the Horseshoe’s last hurrah. This was the last rodeo.
With the cowboys now a fading memory, the last two week’s of December became a deathwatch atmosphere once again, only this time things were even worse than before.
The belt tightening policies returned. Good local press turned bad again. Except for the bustling poker room going 24/7 and the always popular deli, the place looked like a graveyard.
Christmas Day came. I took that day off — probably the first full day I’d not been at the casino in at least six months.
Then, it was back to work. The day after Christmas, Becky called me to talk about some contracts we were working on. Towards the end of the discussion, I was abruptly given some shocking news.
I was fired.
Totally blindsided.
The reason given was for “negotiating unauthorized contracts.” Of course, Nick had always encouraged me to do whatever it took to bring money in the door. So, I worked out a few lucrative deals for the casino with sponsors for the next year’s World Series of Poker. That was apparently a problem while the owners were trying desperately to sell the place. Call it getting signals crossed, and I paid the price for that.
My tenure as the Director of Public Relations for Binion’s Horseshoe officially ended on December 26, 2003.
Exactly two weeks later, Federal Marshals and agents from the Nevada Gaming Control Board entered the building. That was the last shuffle and the final deal.
The gamble that had begun more than half a century over when Benny first moved to Las Vegas and opened Binion’s Horseshoe was over.
FOOTNOTE: Unfortunately, I don’t remember his name, nor do I recall the name of the band.
WRITER’S NOTE: Kudos to the current owners of Binion’s, which is not affiliated with the family of that same name in any way. Current ownership and management have tried, with some success, to maintain the traditions established by the late Benny Binion, while writing the next new chapter in what will be the history of the building at 128 E. Fremont Street.
