Latest / Hey BigHead: The Vegas Local Podcast / The Neon Museum: Where Vegas Lives On | 361

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The Neon Museum: Where Vegas Lives On | 361 · Hey BigHead: The Vegas Local Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_02: Well, Julie, because tod there's something special I want to talk about.
0:04
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
0:04
SPEAKER_02: The Hey Big Head Show, we are self-proclaimed the number one Vegas local podcast in Vegas.
0:10
SPEAKER_02: How do you feel about that?
0:11
SPEAKER_01: I I mean it's double self-proclaimed.
0:13
SPEAKER_01: I'm in on that too.
0:14
SPEAKER_02: Okay, good.
0:15
SPEAKER_02: We usually have episodes that talk about either the history of Vegas or things that are coming up in Vegas.
0:21
SPEAKER_02: But today we're doing something a little different.
0:23
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna talk about both in the same episode.
0:25
SPEAKER_02: How do you feel about that?
0:25
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
0:26
SPEAKER_01: The whole timeline.
0:27
SPEAKER_02: The whole the whole shebang right here.
0:29
SPEAKER_02: Well, today I'm very excited.
0:30
SPEAKER_02: We have Aaron Berger, the executive director and CEO of the Neon Museum, here with us on the couch.
0:35
SPEAKER_02: Aaron, welcome to the show.
0:37
SPEAKER_05: I'll go anywhere where there's applause.
0:39
SPEAKER_02: So this is awesome.
0:40
SPEAKER_02: What a great way to read.
0:41
SPEAKER_01: Only two of us are here.
0:43
SPEAKER_03: I'll take standards.
0:44
SPEAKER_02: We have four people in this room.
0:46
SPEAKER_02: Nobody else applaudes.
0:47
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
0:48
SPEAKER_02: And we got the snore.
0:49
SPEAKER_03: And we got the snore.
0:50
SPEAKER_02: That's the story.
0:51
SPEAKER_03: Within the first 15 seconds.
0:53
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I'm going to go.
0:55
SPEAKER_03: My mission accomplished.
0:56
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
0:57
SPEAKER_02: I think the record's 13 in one episode.
0:59
SPEAKER_02: So all right.
1:00
SPEAKER_02: Keep working on it.
1:01
SPEAKER_02: We're working on it.
1:01
SPEAKER_02: I'll see what I can do.
1:02
SPEAKER_02: Before we get started, this is going to be something a little weird to start out the show.
1:06
SPEAKER_02: And I'm I guarantee you've never heard this before in any other podcast.
1:09
SPEAKER_02: It's Vegas.
1:10
SPEAKER_02: Julie, do you mind showing Aaron the pillow?
1:13
SPEAKER_01: Do I have?
1:13
SPEAKER_02: It's to your right.
1:16
SPEAKER_01: We have.
1:17
SPEAKER_01: Shut up.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: The pillow.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: Shut up.
1:20
SPEAKER_01: It usually sits on the couch where you are.
1:22
SPEAKER_01: But we have it.
1:23
SPEAKER_05: I'm tearing up.
1:24
SPEAKER_05: So this pillow is made by a woman named Felicia French.
1:29
SPEAKER_05: Felicia French created this pillow from the Flamingo as we did the restoration up, which was a massive six-figure restoration.
1:40
SPEAKER_05: And she was one of the contributors, but she owns an amazing textile company.
1:45
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
1:45
SPEAKER_05: And so she created these.
1:48
SPEAKER_05: I will admit to the fact that these, in addition to my Star Wars poster, these adorn my home and also my office.
1:56
SPEAKER_05: So this this is really this is awesome that you guys have this.
2:00
SPEAKER_02: You're super cool.
2:01
SPEAKER_02: Listen, that's that's that's what we do here at the Hey Big Head show.
2:04
SPEAKER_02: We we go the extra mile for our guests.
2:06
SPEAKER_02: But no, that actually it is usually sitting on the couch.
2:08
SPEAKER_02: Oh we just hit it strategically for you.
2:10
SPEAKER_02: Tears, tears to the eye.
2:12
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
2:12
SPEAKER_05: You bonus points.
2:13
SPEAKER_02: Jeff's kiss for that.
2:14
SPEAKER_02: Love it.
2:15
SPEAKER_02: That was uh that was I I got that.
2:17
SPEAKER_02: That was my first time when I went to the Neon Museum for that event.
2:20
SPEAKER_02: And that was that was a great experience.
2:21
SPEAKER_05: I think you had um gosh, you had the wife of a Vegas uh we had Emily Connor Cooper, yes, and she was Pat Cooper's Yes, uh well she Pat Cooper's past, but she was Pat Cooper's wife, and uh she did this because Pat Cooper's uh career really got kicked off at the Flamingo.
2:41
SPEAKER_05: So it's just it's yeah, it's amazing.
2:43
SPEAKER_05: Good.
2:44
SPEAKER_05: This town is great, awesome.
2:45
SPEAKER_05: Thank you for that.
2:45
SPEAKER_05: Of course.
2:46
SPEAKER_05: That's a great that's a great welcome.
2:47
SPEAKER_02: Leave that here though.
2:48
SPEAKER_02: It's not for you.
2:49
SPEAKER_02: No, no, no, no.
2:49
SPEAKER_02: Okay, good.
2:50
SPEAKER_06: I have others, but thank you.
2:51
SPEAKER_06: That's very kind.
2:54
SPEAKER_06: That's good.
2:54
SPEAKER_06: Let's go.
2:55
SPEAKER_02: Aaron just leaves with it under his arm.
2:57
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
2:58
SPEAKER_06: I'm like, tucks it into his shirt.
2:59
SPEAKER_06: My little swag tucks it into his shirt.
3:03
SPEAKER_03: Again, young and thin.
3:05
SPEAKER_03: Young and thin, but I'm not tucking it into my shirt apart from it happening.
3:09
SPEAKER_02: So that was my first time at the Dion Museum, but you actually have an interesting story about your first time in Vegas.
3:15
SPEAKER_02: Uh can you share that?
3:16
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, sure.
3:17
SPEAKER_05: So I came to Vegas for my 18th birthday.
3:21
SPEAKER_05: It was a father-son trip.
3:22
SPEAKER_05: Um, so this is '89 that we came here.
3:26
SPEAKER_05: Um we stayed at the Tropicana, and the rooms were nine dollars a night.
3:32
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine?
3:33
SPEAKER_05: I know, right?
3:34
SPEAKER_01: Actually, you might.
3:35
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
3:37
SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
3:38
SPEAKER_05: Um, nine dollars a night, but that also spoke to you know the the room.
3:42
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, let's let's be honest.
3:44
SPEAKER_05: This was this was yeah, yeah.
3:46
SPEAKER_05: So anyway, but it was, you know, Tropicana always had a very special place in my heart.
3:50
SPEAKER_05: But the first day we're standing out on Las Vegas Boulevard and we're looking at the Luxor.
3:56
SPEAKER_05: And my dad says to me, Tell me why that building has the only diagonally moving elevators in the world.
4:04
SPEAKER_05: And I have to this day have no idea.
4:08
SPEAKER_05: And his uh his response was, it's to delight you.
4:12
SPEAKER_05: And this is what I want you to understand out of this whole trip is that this entire city is here to delight, excite, and surprise you.
4:20
SPEAKER_05: And so we're gonna go do a bunch of things, and very little of it actually included gambling.
4:28
SPEAKER_05: We we saw shows, we ate incredible food, we walked for I think three or four thousand miles, and it of course was you know July, so it was a cool 108 degrees, and so but we did all of these things, and um that started my love affair with the city.
4:48
SPEAKER_05: And I remember we didn't have in the drop, we didn't have clocks, sure.
4:53
SPEAKER_05: And my I had a fight with my dad, which was not unusual.
4:58
SPEAKER_05: Um, we could fight about anything, but I fought with him about the fact that we didn't have a clock, and he was like, Why do you need a clock?
5:04
SPEAKER_05: And I was like, I don't know when to eat.
5:06
SPEAKER_05: And he was like, You eat when you're hungry, and that would like blew my little 18-year-old brain.
5:12
SPEAKER_05: I just was like, Oh, but I don't eat at noon, and he was like, No, you eat when you're hungry, that's the whole point.
5:19
SPEAKER_05: Or in his case, he ate all the time.
5:21
SPEAKER_05: Good for him, good for him, yeah.
5:23
SPEAKER_05: Leaning into the buffet.
5:24
SPEAKER_02: I like I like the line delight, surprise, and excite.
5:28
SPEAKER_02: Do you feel like Vegas still lives up to delight, surprise, and excite today?
5:33
SPEAKER_05: I do.
5:34
SPEAKER_05: I think that there are times that it really needs an interpreter.
5:37
SPEAKER_05: Um, I think you need someone who either as a native has lived here for decades, or um, or someone like from the Neon Museum to walk you through and let you look past because there's so much to see that your eye just can't uh just can't absorb all of it.
6:00
SPEAKER_05: So to have someone stop and take you to the aria fine art desk or the aria check-in desk, rather, and look at the fine art piece that's above it that was created by Maya Lynn.
6:13
SPEAKER_05: Maya Lynn made the uh the Vietnam War Memorial in DC.
6:19
SPEAKER_05: And here she has recreated the Colorado River River in nickel and the silver, sorry, silver, um, and because the silver state.
6:29
SPEAKER_05: And she's recreated this piece that you would just check in.
6:33
SPEAKER_05: I mean, normally you would just check into the aria, but if you have someone who's pointing this out to you, it just makes all the difference and lets you appreciate the city that much more.
6:42
SPEAKER_02: I love your attention to detail, and we're we're definitely gonna dive into that a little bit more than I make most of it up, but that's cool.
6:48
SPEAKER_02: That's sounds good.
6:49
SPEAKER_05: Again, keep your standards low and I'll meet those standards.
6:52
SPEAKER_01: We go to the aria and that piece isn't even there.
6:54
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
6:55
SPEAKER_05: No, I swear, it really is.
6:56
SPEAKER_02: No, it really is.
6:57
SPEAKER_02: I promise.
6:58
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
7:01
SPEAKER_02: So you came to Vegas for the first time when you're 18.
7:03
SPEAKER_02: You're 28 now.
7:04
SPEAKER_02: At what time at what time did you decide to stop making Vegas a place to visit?
7:12
SPEAKER_02: Number two.
7:13
SPEAKER_06: I love that my that maybe 28 got a snort.
7:17
SPEAKER_06: She's like, 28, 208.
7:21
SPEAKER_06: Can I swear on this?
7:23
SPEAKER_06: Absolutely.
7:23
SPEAKER_06: Okay, good.
7:24
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
7:25
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't him saying maybe 28, it was your reaction to it.
7:29
SPEAKER_07: Is that okay?
7:30
SPEAKER_07: Is that what it was?
7:31
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, good save.
7:32
SPEAKER_07: Um good save, she girl.
7:34
SPEAKER_07: Got it.
7:34
SPEAKER_07: All right, that's fine.
7:35
SPEAKER_07: Nice one, Julie.
7:36
SPEAKER_07: You're off to a great start here.
7:39
SPEAKER_07: Okay.
7:39
SPEAKER_02: Sorry, continue.
7:41
SPEAKER_02: At what point did you decide to stop making Vegas a place you just visit and actually make a life here?
7:47
SPEAKER_02: Well, after this podcast, that will have ruined it, but um, thank you for that.
7:52
SPEAKER_05: Um, I I did um I we visited here, I visited, we visited, my husband and I visited here quite often, and we love it.
8:02
SPEAKER_05: We love the town.
8:03
SPEAKER_05: Um, my mom actually moved here and lived in Henderson, so that's when we got a chance to explore like off strip, and we would go play there.
8:12
SPEAKER_05: And um, I remember very vividly we're at the Sunset Casino, and um we're I I'm I'm not a good gambler.
8:22
SPEAKER_03: Like, don't tell people that.
8:23
SPEAKER_03: Like, especially people I'm gambling with, right?
8:25
SPEAKER_03: It's probably a good thing.
8:27
SPEAKER_03: Like, let me make that you know public knowledge.
8:29
SPEAKER_03: I'm not a good gambler, but um, so bet me anything.
8:33
SPEAKER_05: Anyway, the point is that we're sitting at the table, and this I swear to you, these two people are they witnessed the birth of Christ.
8:42
SPEAKER_05: They were so old, they were just and like the husband had the walker, the wife was in the oxygen tubes, and they both were wearing the matching white visors that came out three and a half feet from the head.
8:55
SPEAKER_05: Right.
8:56
SPEAKER_05: And they were like, honey, honey, honey, let me show you what you're doing wrong.
8:59
SPEAKER_05: You're doing this all wrong.
9:00
SPEAKER_05: We're gonna sit with you, we're gonna show you how to do it.
9:03
SPEAKER_05: You're gonna play blackjack and we're gonna win.
9:05
SPEAKER_05: And I was like, bring it.
9:07
SPEAKER_05: So we sat down and they were like, We're we're not competing against each other, we're competing against the dealer.
9:14
SPEAKER_05: So let's tag team her.
9:15
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, which where I come from means something very different.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: Totally.
9:18
SPEAKER_03: So I was like, okay, let's see what happens.
9:21
SPEAKER_05: So we sit down and we start playing.
9:24
SPEAKER_05: And after we left, my my husband is watching from a distance because he's too cheap to pay the five dollar tables.
9:30
SPEAKER_05: Uh-huh.
9:30
SPEAKER_05: So he is sitting back watching from a distance, and he goes, That's our future.
9:35
SPEAKER_05: That is who we are gonna be when we get older.
9:38
SPEAKER_05: We are gonna be old people who just walk around and teach people how to play table games.
9:42
SPEAKER_05: And I was like, that sounds like a pretty good retirement plan.
9:45
SPEAKER_05: I love it.
9:46
SPEAKER_05: And then this job opportunity came up, and we walked through the museum together.
9:52
SPEAKER_05: I fell in love with the collection.
9:54
SPEAKER_05: I fell in love with the stories of Las Vegas, the stories I never knew.
9:58
SPEAKER_05: Um, the first sign we saw was the Moulin Rouge sign.
10:02
SPEAKER_05: And to learn of the civil rights movement in Las Vegas coming from Atlanta, I had never thought about the integration movement.
10:12
SPEAKER_05: In my mind, the only color that mattered in Las Vegas was green.
10:16
SPEAKER_05: Sure, right?
10:17
SPEAKER_05: So this whole concept was just blowing.
10:20
SPEAKER_05: So there was so much meat here as a museum professional.
10:23
SPEAKER_05: I got really excited, and um, I remember sort of like turning to my husband and being like, you know, what if you moved up that retirement a little bit?
10:34
SPEAKER_05: And we start coming in and like doing this now, and you can go enjoy yourself at Sunset Station and just have a great time playing the games and teaching people all day long.
10:43
SPEAKER_05: I love that.
10:44
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna do this.
10:45
SPEAKER_02: So I've been there before at the at the Neon Museum before.
10:48
SPEAKER_02: Julie hasn't.
10:50
SPEAKER_02: Julie watched you give her a personal tour.
10:54
SPEAKER_02: What's the first thing you're taking her to check out?
10:57
SPEAKER_05: So depends on what blows your skirt up.
11:00
SPEAKER_05: So if you want the stories of again, integration, like Moulin Rouge, which is gorgeous.
11:06
SPEAKER_05: It is also designed by Betty Willis.
11:09
SPEAKER_05: Do we know who Betty Willis is?
11:10
SPEAKER_05: Pop quiz, everybody.
11:11
SPEAKER_05: Julie.
11:12
SPEAKER_05: No, I don't know either.
11:14
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
11:15
SPEAKER_05: I'm with a very educated group for those listeners at home.
11:19
SPEAKER_05: Okay, so Betty Willis designed the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign.
11:24
SPEAKER_05: Oh, so in 1955, it's very local of us to know.
11:27
SPEAKER_05: I was gonna say, oh gee, whoa.
11:29
SPEAKER_05: Okay, so the if you're in 1955 and you're a woman, you can be a school teacher, you can be a nurse, you can be a wife and mother, and she's like, nah, I'm gonna go be a sign maker.
11:41
SPEAKER_05: Okay, right?
11:42
SPEAKER_05: So she breaks all boundaries, and not only that, she has the audacity to be really good at it.
11:48
SPEAKER_05: So this sign is actually the Moulin Rouge is actually made in her handwriting.
11:53
SPEAKER_05: Oh, really?
11:54
SPEAKER_05: And so it's gorgeous, and it's a 17-foot-tall M, right?
11:59
SPEAKER_05: So it's it's amazing.
12:00
SPEAKER_05: So we can talk about that.
12:02
SPEAKER_05: We can talk about the restoration process of the fact that when you fill a neon tube full of neon gas and you put electricity into it, that'll go on forever.
12:14
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, as long as the electricity and the tubes are sealed, you're fine.
12:17
SPEAKER_05: So we can talk about all those things.
12:20
SPEAKER_05: So whatever excites you, I got it.
12:23
SPEAKER_05: That's crazy.
12:24
SPEAKER_05: Come on, Dan.
12:24
SPEAKER_05: Love that.
12:25
SPEAKER_02: Has there ever been somebody?
12:27
SPEAKER_02: Obviously, you're very well educated about the art and the history of everything you have in there.
12:32
SPEAKER_02: Has there ever been anybody that comes in and teaches you something about a piece that you didn't know about?
12:37
SPEAKER_05: Uh so yeah, that's an embarrassing story.
12:40
SPEAKER_03: So um we love embarrassing stories.
12:42
SPEAKER_05: No, no, good, no, thank you.
12:43
SPEAKER_05: That's great, feels really good.
12:45
SPEAKER_03: Um, so okay, got another one.
12:48
SPEAKER_05: Um, so someone keeping count on this, Brandon?
12:51
SPEAKER_05: Put it on the board.
12:52
SPEAKER_06: There you go.
12:52
SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
12:52
SPEAKER_05: Here we go.
12:53
SPEAKER_05: Um, so we uh I have been here maybe three or four months, and Senator Jackie Rosen comes to visit.
13:01
SPEAKER_05: And I sort of very authoritatively grab her by the arm and say, Let me walk you through Las Vegas history.
13:10
SPEAKER_05: And she looked at me as if I was absolutely insane.
13:13
SPEAKER_05: And she was like, Sweetheart, let me walk you through Las Vegas history.
13:18
SPEAKER_05: I have a little more history than the newbie from you know.
13:21
SPEAKER_05: Did you know who she was when you came to the city?
13:22
SPEAKER_05: I knew, of course, that yeah, we had a senator visiting and things like that, but I just this was her first visit to the Neon Museum, and we had changed some things, and I and we were post-COVID and all these things.
13:33
SPEAKER_05: So I I was trying to be a good Southern boy and be hospitable, and she was like, no.
13:38
SPEAKER_05: So what we have started as a result of that is we have started something called Vegas Voices, and it all really is Senator Rosen's sort of that moment of realizing that she has stories, and it's not, and I have you've you've pulled my story out of me.
13:52
SPEAKER_05: You have stories, you have stories.
13:54
SPEAKER_05: Everyone has a Vegas story.
13:56
SPEAKER_05: Whether you live here, you visited here, whether you live in Argentina or Australia, you've got a Vegas story.
14:03
SPEAKER_05: So we started this thing called Vegas Voices.
14:06
SPEAKER_05: We have a telephone booth.
14:08
SPEAKER_05: Her name is Rachel.
14:10
SPEAKER_05: Her name is Rachel.
14:12
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
14:12
SPEAKER_05: Um, Rachel stands for Record and Collect Historical Experiences in Las Vegas.
14:19
SPEAKER_05: R-A-C-E-H-E.
14:20
SPEAKER_05: Nice.
14:21
SPEAKER_05: Now I have gotten in trouble and I've had to cause like caution myself because I'll say things like once you go on Rachel, it's just all I so like I gotta watch that.
14:29
SPEAKER_05: But the point is Julie, get out of Rachel, please.
14:32
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, exactly.
14:33
SPEAKER_01: Never where thank you.
14:35
SPEAKER_05: Thank you for endorsing Rachel's ability.
14:38
SPEAKER_05: So once you go inside this telephone booth, Rachel will ask you three questions, and it is a chance for you to record two minutes of what's your favorite memory of Las Vegas, or what was your first visit and why, or how is Vegas different from any other city in the world?
14:58
SPEAKER_05: So it's a really cool way of capturing this, and these go into our archives.
15:02
SPEAKER_05: Um, but we get people from all over the world that have a chance to just capture their little story.
15:09
SPEAKER_05: So, so it is your story is just as important as my story, which I love my story, but but you've got a cool Vegas story.
15:16
SPEAKER_05: I'm sure you've got a cool Vegas.
15:18
SPEAKER_05: Well, maybe not.
15:18
SPEAKER_05: Um, but maybe not yet, but not yet.
15:21
SPEAKER_05: But but we'll, you know, these stories are really essential, so I love them.
15:25
SPEAKER_05: I I just interviewed a gentleman who is a leader in the Mormon church, okay, who from 1964 to 79, I'm probably getting those dates wrong, mid-60s to mid-70s, was the assistant GM of the Sahara.
15:42
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
15:43
SPEAKER_05: His boss went missing and was later found murdered in his home.
15:52
SPEAKER_05: The gentleman that I talked to, McLean Bibe, talks about being a Mormon church leader and helping to establish and grow the Mormon presence in Las Vegas while also working in the casino industry and knowing full well what was happening around him.
16:12
SPEAKER_05: So these interviews, so I get to sit down and do like your job.
16:16
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I get to sit and interview people and chat with them and hear their stories of Las Vegas.
16:22
SPEAKER_05: So now if you go to VegasVoces.com.org, go to Vegas Voices.
16:28
SPEAKER_05: We'll find it.
16:28
SPEAKER_05: You'll find it.
16:29
SPEAKER_05: It is um it is full of everything from people like uh uh McLean.
16:37
SPEAKER_05: You've also got Tim Burton, you've got Katy Perry, I've sat down with all of these folks, uh Roger Thomas, individuals from across the board to hear their stories and figure out how each person perceives Las Vegas.
16:53
SPEAKER_05: I love it.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: It sounds like you're building out like a greater community tied to the Neon Museum versus just what is here locally in Vegas.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: However, y'all are very involved in our local community, whether it is how you were sharing earlier, your your nonprofit whatever you call that side.
17:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, nonprofit side, or what y'all do for the veterans or other community involvement.
17:15
SPEAKER_01: Can you elaborate a little bit more on that side of the Neon Museum?
17:18
SPEAKER_05: Sure.
17:19
SPEAKER_05: So we um two things on that.
17:22
SPEAKER_05: So one is that in in 2024, my board made a really significant change to the museum.
17:29
SPEAKER_05: So we have been a sign museum, and um, we will always be a sign museum.
17:34
SPEAKER_05: That's not going anywhere, the name's not going anywhere.
17:37
SPEAKER_05: However, we are expanding our mission so that we can become the museum of Las Vegas.
17:44
SPEAKER_05: So it is important that we get these stories, as you've said.
17:47
SPEAKER_05: So, regardless of your background, your age, your ethnicity, your hometown, all those stories, we want them because it tells that tapestry of this circus tent of a town that we live in.
17:59
SPEAKER_05: The nonprofit side is super groovy, fun, and weird, but awesome and deeply moving for the community.
18:06
SPEAKER_05: We have programs, so we do K through 12 school tours.
18:11
SPEAKER_05: Um we uh provide about 6,500 kids free uh admission.
18:18
SPEAKER_05: We pay for your bus, we pay for your bus driver to come and get into the museum and explore.
18:25
SPEAKER_05: Um, so we really focus on Title I schools, which are the poorest schools, so that they get a chance to have this education.
18:32
SPEAKER_05: We also have launching, I am super jazzed about this.
18:36
SPEAKER_05: This has been truly a dream come true, launching in just uh God, 10 days.
18:42
SPEAKER_05: Um we will have the first mobile neon bending studio in the the at least country, but probably the world.
18:51
SPEAKER_05: We bought a 40-foot city transit bus.
18:55
SPEAKER_05: Okay, and we have converted into a mobile neon bending studio.
18:59
SPEAKER_05: So it's called Glow on the Go.
19:01
SPEAKER_05: Um, this baby is beautiful.
19:03
SPEAKER_05: Well, right now she ain't beautiful, but she's working on it.
19:06
SPEAKER_05: She's we gotta gussy her up a little bit.
19:08
SPEAKER_05: She's working on her comeback stuff.
19:09
SPEAKER_05: She's she's she's she's been rode hard and put up wet right now, but we'll get there.
19:12
SPEAKER_05: We'll we'll we need to like Rachel.
19:15
SPEAKER_05: Like Rachel, Rachel's, no, she's pristine.
19:18
SPEAKER_05: No.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: How dare you talk about Rachel like Rachel's my girl?
19:22
SPEAKER_01: I'm never leaving Rachel.
19:23
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
19:24
SPEAKER_03: Once you've once you've done Rachel, let me just say.
19:28
SPEAKER_03: So anyway, y'all, I'm gonna so lose my child.
19:32
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so ooh, got one more.
19:33
SPEAKER_03: Put it up um thank you.
19:35
SPEAKER_05: So the um, so we have we have a mobile studio.
19:39
SPEAKER_05: This studio is intended um to go to two schools a week.
19:44
SPEAKER_05: What's cool about that is yes, we're doing kind uh fourth grade primarily or the field trips, but the bus is focused on high school students.
19:54
SPEAKER_05: So not only are they learning about science and chemistry and things that I can't spell or understand, but they are also looking at what are they doing next?
20:03
SPEAKER_05: Are they going college route?
20:04
SPEAKER_05: Are they going more of a traditional uh tech route and vocation?
20:10
SPEAKER_05: So this is an opportunity for them to look at workforce placement, so it's super cool for that.
20:16
SPEAKER_05: And you get to see a neon sign made in front of you, so it's really groovy.
20:22
SPEAKER_02: I I like that you have so many programs and so many events that is going on uh at the Neon Museum.
20:27
SPEAKER_02: And we're gonna dive more into Duck Duck Shed uh a little bit later, but is that really like the idea behind Duck Duck Shed?
20:34
SPEAKER_02: It is like helping people understand all these different stories behind Duck She's.
20:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
20:38
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, we Duck Duck Shed was created in 21.
20:43
SPEAKER_05: Um, so this is our fourth year of doing it.
20:46
SPEAKER_05: Um 22, sorry, it was in 22.
20:49
SPEAKER_05: The fourth year of doing it, and the whole idea was to okay, I'll be honest.
20:57
SPEAKER_05: Selfishly, I I needed to learn as much as I could, and I got really jazzed when I would meet someone else who would tell me this psychotically crazy Las Vegas story.
21:08
SPEAKER_05: So we have done through Duck Duck Shed, we have toured the home of Siegfried and Roy and Jungle Palace.
21:15
SPEAKER_05: And until you've been at a dining room that's actually a hot tub for eight, you have to talk about that.
21:22
SPEAKER_05: That's that's what I'm talking about.
21:26
SPEAKER_05: Um Yeah, I have a story about that, but I'm not gonna tell that story on the air.
21:30
SPEAKER_05: Um, but we um, you know, until we've done that, we have taken people to hear Elaine Wynne and Roger Thomas, who is the chief design officer uh under Stephen Elaine Wynne, talk about why they put plants inside the Mirage.
21:50
SPEAKER_05: And this is completely the opposite of my experience at the Tropicana, which had, you know, basically a prisoner's window, right?
21:58
SPEAKER_05: Size window.
21:58
SPEAKER_05: So something for The incarcerated, and you because they don't want you to see daylight.
22:03
SPEAKER_05: They don't want you to know how long you've been sitting at the tables.
22:06
SPEAKER_05: They don't have clocks because they don't want you to know how long you've been doing whatever you are doing.
22:12
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, sure.
22:13
SPEAKER_05: Um, so so this is the opposite of this.
22:17
SPEAKER_05: And so Elaine and Roger talking about this.
22:20
SPEAKER_05: This year we have um my just I'm super excited about having seven show girls ranging in age from 47 to 94 talking about their experiences on the stage of the Leto, the Jubilee, and Folly's Bergair and how this part of history is what's great about the city is we're so young, so many of the people that actually changed the direction of this history or have their big fat thumbprint on this city are still alive, still active, and can still tell their stories.
22:56
SPEAKER_05: And so Duck Duck Shed was developed for that purpose to hear, to allow people to hear it.
23:02
SPEAKER_05: Last year we had 5,000 people that came in from four countries and 30 states.
23:08
SPEAKER_05: So it's not locals, even though I know locals podcast, and we love our locals and we love our natives and we love it all.
23:15
SPEAKER_05: But this is these are people coming in from the UK and Canada and all different parts of the world who just love this city and want to learn more about its weirdness.
23:24
SPEAKER_02: Who get would so with all these stories that you learn, who gets to decide what story does get told and what doesn't get told?
23:33
SPEAKER_05: So we have a curatorial team that is focused on the Vegas voices aspect.
23:38
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
23:38
SPEAKER_05: If it were up to me, everyone, every single person would be captured.
23:42
SPEAKER_05: Um, and so we we tend to prioritize by age and focus on those that we want to make sure their stories are are alive and well.
23:52
SPEAKER_05: So um we have captured uh some really meaningful and insightful stories.
23:58
SPEAKER_05: Again, I can tell you a really great story about um the fact that behind the Lido stage, so Leto was one of the first and probably the most prominent stage that showed topless showgirls.
24:15
SPEAKER_05: And I can tell you the fact that there was a seamstress in the back who would, in the waistband of the G strings, would sew a little pocket in there.
24:24
SPEAKER_05: And that was so that the women who were married could take their rings off and put the rings inside the pocket and not have to leave them in a locker, could stay there, but they had to appear single on stage.
24:36
SPEAKER_05: Well, that's a groovy story for me.
24:38
SPEAKER_05: It's way groovier when you find out that that person is Katy Perry's aunt and Katie is telling you that story, and that's what Vegas Voiceless is all about.
24:47
SPEAKER_05: That face that you're making right now, that's what Vegas Voices is about.
24:51
SPEAKER_02: This is why you are where you are today because you're an excellent storyteller.
24:54
SPEAKER_05: Oh, it's shutting me up, that's the problem.
24:57
SPEAKER_05: This will be a 17-hour podcast.
25:00
SPEAKER_05: Great.
25:00
SPEAKER_05: We're going to see if she can actually inhale her own lungs in this process through snorkeling.
25:05
SPEAKER_01: That's what we like to hear.
25:06
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
25:07
SPEAKER_02: Challenge accepted.
25:07
SPEAKER_02: There you go.
25:08
SPEAKER_01: You know, and something about Vegas is it is known for its ability to reinvent itself, but I feel like so much of our identity is in the history of the people and the places and the shows and whatever.
25:20
SPEAKER_01: So, how do we continue on this path of reinvention without erasing the past?
25:27
SPEAKER_01: Or where does that line fall between the two?
25:30
SPEAKER_05: So I don't think it goes away, right?
25:33
SPEAKER_05: I think it you're right, we are a city of reinvention, and we should absolutely absolutely lean into that.
25:40
SPEAKER_05: If we don't, um then our our fate is sealed.
25:44
SPEAKER_05: But everything builds on itself, right?
25:48
SPEAKER_05: So gambling in casinos, then we add entertainment, right?
25:52
SPEAKER_05: Then we go from there into the age of cuisine.
25:56
SPEAKER_05: We were the 99 cent shrimp cocktail, and then we became Michelin star restaurants.
26:02
SPEAKER_05: Right now we're in this sort of age of athletics that are definitely that's driving everything here.
26:09
SPEAKER_05: Um, so so what's next is sort of the question is what what is the next flag we want to plant?
26:15
SPEAKER_05: And if it's up to me, it's gonna be arts and culture.
26:18
SPEAKER_01: Right.
26:18
SPEAKER_05: The important part of that reinvention is that none of these things took away from the thing before.
26:26
SPEAKER_05: So if you are coming here because you want to watch your home team, you want to watch the um Falcons play the Raiders at Allegiant.
26:37
SPEAKER_05: That was me making sports references.
26:39
SPEAKER_05: Someone writing that down.
26:41
SPEAKER_03: I don't even know if that was accurate, but I don't even know if those are football teams.
26:44
SPEAKER_01: Can those two teams play each other?
26:46
SPEAKER_01: Of course.
26:46
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
26:47
SPEAKER_01: I don't know that.
26:48
SPEAKER_03: I I've seen it happen.
26:50
SPEAKER_03: Um I've witnessed it.
26:52
SPEAKER_03: Um and he was with Katie Perry's and when do we have a lot of people?
26:55
SPEAKER_03: Well, I mean sewing a cheese night.
26:58
SPEAKER_03: Um, God, never get a moment off.
27:00
SPEAKER_05: Anyway, the point is that we um but you can come here and watch these games take place, watch the Golden Knights, do go to the Aces game, but you're then gonna go to dinner and you're gonna enjoy that restaurant.
27:15
SPEAKER_05: You're gonna go on strip, off-strip.
27:18
SPEAKER_05: You're gonna go for street tacos or you're gonna go for dim sum like you've never had.
27:23
SPEAKER_05: Whatever excites you, we have that here.
27:25
SPEAKER_05: And if you want to hit a gaming floor, go for it, right?
27:29
SPEAKER_05: So each one builds on itself.
27:31
SPEAKER_05: So if we move into this arts and culture aspect, these are just more reasons to come to Las Vegas.
27:38
SPEAKER_05: It's just better.
27:39
SPEAKER_02: You mentioned the Mirage uh a little while ago, which is famously no longer around.
27:44
SPEAKER_02: It's replaced by the Hard Rock Hotel, which is coming long.
27:48
SPEAKER_02: It's almost done.
27:49
SPEAKER_02: I think it's almost done.
27:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're getting it.
27:50
SPEAKER_02: It's uh slated to open, I think, late 27.
27:53
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
27:54
SPEAKER_02: Take me through the conversation of the the first conversation with them to getting an actual piece of the Mirage in your museum.
28:03
SPEAKER_05: Okay, so we we affectionately refer to this as Aaron's orange dots.
28:08
SPEAKER_05: So um anytime a pro uh a property announces that they're going to rebrand or a closure is is eminent, um, I will go in with team and we walk around and I'm like, I want this and I want that and I want this.
28:23
SPEAKER_05: And in the Mirage, what I really wanted, and I'm still a little bitter, I really wanted the aquarium behind the front desk.
28:34
SPEAKER_05: Now, this is a 90-foot aquarium with 300 fish in it.
28:37
SPEAKER_05: It was beautiful, gorgeous, but it was also genius because Steve Wynne developed something that if you're standing in an hour and a half line waiting to check in or check out, how incredibly peaceful you can watch and or identify your favorite fish.
28:54
SPEAKER_05: You can just engage in this moment and that time passes by.
28:58
SPEAKER_05: And it's just it's so I really wanted it very, very badly.
29:04
SPEAKER_05: We it's gone.
29:05
SPEAKER_05: Oh, yeah.
29:06
SPEAKER_05: We don't talk about the aquarium anymore.
29:07
SPEAKER_05: We don't talk about it.
29:08
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's a so I did get so there was an online campaign for the Neon Museum to save the volcano, and um, I had to be like, you do know it's not real, like I'm not like a national park that we're like losing, right?
29:24
SPEAKER_01: It is to Vegas, it is to Vegas, you're right.
29:26
SPEAKER_05: It is our it is our national park.
29:28
SPEAKER_05: Would you have space for it?
29:29
SPEAKER_05: So, no, is the short answer.
29:31
SPEAKER_05: It's three acres, is that lagoon, right?
29:34
SPEAKER_05: And then we're only an acre.
29:36
SPEAKER_05: So no, yeah, um, unless we have signs anyway.
29:40
SPEAKER_05: The point um we did actually get one of the igniters.
29:44
SPEAKER_05: So this is the thing that would rise up 90 feet out of the water and then shoot 30-foot flames.
29:49
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
29:50
SPEAKER_05: Um, we also have the sign from the lagoon itself that says the mirage, and we have several other things.
29:57
SPEAKER_05: We have the Siegfried and Roy, um, the the statue that was out on Las Vegas Boulevard.
30:03
SPEAKER_05: So um that one, yeah.
30:05
SPEAKER_05: I have a photo of me in front of that when I was like 22 and rubbing the nose of the tiger for good luck, which everybody did.
30:13
SPEAKER_05: Um, yeah, we we fixed that.
30:15
SPEAKER_05: So um, so now you can't touch it.
30:17
SPEAKER_05: Museum's got hard.
30:19
SPEAKER_02: I know over there.
30:20
SPEAKER_02: I know.
30:21
SPEAKER_02: How do you distinguish what's actually historically important compared to what you're just nostalgic about?
30:27
SPEAKER_02: Like, is it you that decides I need to put my personal history with this piece to the side, or is it this is good for Vegas to keep around?
30:36
SPEAKER_05: You know, so that's a really fascinating question.
30:38
SPEAKER_05: And we have a collections committee of the board that um is made up of people that are both natives, people who have transplanted, people who are completely sort of out of the Las Vegas loop, and they provide a really um objective look at objects that we're bringing in.
30:59
SPEAKER_05: So one of the more uh I wouldn't say it's controversial, but one that we got into a really big discussion about is um nothing bunt cakes.
31:09
SPEAKER_05: Okay, so we have a sign from one of their first locations.
31:14
SPEAKER_01: And they started in Vegas.
31:17
SPEAKER_05: There you go.
31:18
SPEAKER_05: So they not only two women who started uh this in their kitchen and then built it to a$2.2 billion empire, right?
31:31
SPEAKER_05: Right?
31:31
SPEAKER_05: That started here in Vegas, and so the sign, while you know, is sort of Times New Romani, right not really exciting, and doesn't have the pizzazz of like the stardust, it's an incredible story.
31:45
SPEAKER_05: You can tell the story of women, we can tell the story of small business in Las Vegas, we can tell the story of um I can find new donors because they just sold that for 2.2 billion.
31:56
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, um, but the all of these things are factors that we look at when we're when we're exploring the the potential for a sign.
32:03
SPEAKER_02: So is it a vote and just the majority wins, or is it everybody has to come to the street?
32:07
SPEAKER_05: This one took about an hour of discussion, of really, you know, of of how you know, we the the challenge is I have the joy of paying twenty-three thousand dollars a month in storage.
32:20
SPEAKER_05: And so when we look at uh collecting a new object and typically a sign, if we're looking at that, we have to think about do we have the storage space for it?
32:30
SPEAKER_05: And so that's really what they're wrestling with is okay, but are you going to use it or is it just going to be sit there exactly?
32:38
SPEAKER_05: So um our argument was yes, there will be a time that we want to tell the stories of small businesses in Las Vegas, and I think there's also this natural um proclivity to saying that something that is really common, like a nothing butt cakes, and that we see every day when we drive to work, that one day will be history.
33:05
SPEAKER_01: Right.
33:06
SPEAKER_05: And so we have to look at things now and say, but I want this.
33:10
SPEAKER_05: So I'm working very closely with the A's to get the designs of their architectural renderings, because even though they're focused really hard at trying to get this building completed, yeah, I'm trying to capture the stories of what is happening right now.
33:26
SPEAKER_01: Right.
33:27
SPEAKER_05: And so that's part of our job.
33:29
SPEAKER_05: It's tough.
33:30
SPEAKER_05: It's hard to be everywhere, but it's fun.
33:32
SPEAKER_05: When do you decide to let something go?
33:35
SPEAKER_05: Oh, so that's actually because we are a nationally accredited museum, so just to tout our successes for a second, in the museum world, 33,000 museums in the US, of which 3% achieve accreditation, and we are one of them.
33:52
SPEAKER_05: So there are very specific rules that we have to follow in order to let go of an object.
33:59
SPEAKER_05: Um, it doesn't happen very often.
34:03
SPEAKER_05: It is usually something that is so beyond damaged, uh so beyond repair that we we to bring it back to life, it would be all new parts and all new components, and there's nothing historic left.
34:19
SPEAKER_05: Something like that would be a reason for it.
34:21
SPEAKER_01: So do you guys just keep making room on the property for new pieces when you bring them in, or do you have to kind of cycle them in and out?
34:28
SPEAKER_05: Well, so um so if you come like if you're not getting rid of things, right?
34:33
SPEAKER_05: So if you ever decide to not be lazy and come visiting.
34:37
SPEAKER_01: I'm not lazy.
34:38
SPEAKER_05: Julie.
34:39
SPEAKER_01: Lazy is a strong word.
34:40
SPEAKER_05: Rachel is calling you right now.
34:42
SPEAKER_05: Right now, she's sitting back waiting.
34:44
SPEAKER_01: Thin and young.
34:44
SPEAKER_01: Thin and young.
34:45
SPEAKER_05: There you go.
34:46
SPEAKER_07: That's it.
34:46
SPEAKER_05: That's all we asked for.
34:47
SPEAKER_05: So um, so no, if you come to the Neon Museum, you'll see an enormous collection of signs smashed into this relatively small area.
34:59
SPEAKER_05: But that's actually only 35% of the signed collection.
35:02
SPEAKER_08: Wow.
35:03
SPEAKER_05: In addition to that, I have about 12,000 objects that are not on display in any way because I have no indoor space.
35:11
SPEAKER_05: Right.
35:12
SPEAKER_05: So um, on the horizon is in fact an expansion and a relocation that we are very excited about.
35:20
SPEAKER_05: But it's early in those days.
35:22
SPEAKER_02: Vegas is becoming more screens.
35:27
SPEAKER_02: You you you go up and down the strip, it's it's LED screens left and right.
35:30
SPEAKER_02: And to the modern Vegas goer, the new Vegas goers who don't necessarily understand or really care about the history of Vegas, they care about you know what they're experiencing for the first time now.
35:40
SPEAKER_02: To them, they they may love it.
35:41
SPEAKER_02: But obviously, to the people that have been here in Vegas, those screens show us that you know that we're not going to get those architecturally beautiful buildings anymore or signs anymore.
35:53
SPEAKER_02: Are you familiar with the Instagram account, Battleborn Pins?
35:56
SPEAKER_02: Oh, sure.
35:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
35:57
SPEAKER_05: In fact, I just so I just bought for Duck Duck Shed.
36:01
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
36:02
SPEAKER_05: Um I just ordered uh there are two dice that have a little chain between the two of them.
36:08
SPEAKER_05: Yes.
36:08
SPEAKER_05: Um, because I thought, yeah, I'm gonna be sassy and wear that for one of my sessions.
36:13
SPEAKER_05: So I should be.
36:14
SPEAKER_05: Every every session I have an appropriate, there's some sort of appropriate attire that is tied to the to the session.
36:23
SPEAKER_05: So whether it's a magic, I have no idea what I'm wearing because we're we have a former madam and uh escort.
36:30
SPEAKER_05: Um so I have no idea what I'm wearing for that, but it'll it'll I have an idea.
36:34
SPEAKER_01: A G string with a pocket with your ring in it.
36:38
SPEAKER_02: Young and thin, young and thin.
36:39
SPEAKER_02: Take it in.
36:40
SPEAKER_02: That's it.
36:40
SPEAKER_01: We'll see how we'll see how it looks.
36:42
SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
36:42
SPEAKER_02: We had Holly on the show uh about a year ago, maybe a little bit over.
36:46
SPEAKER_01: Holly's the owner of Battleborne Pins.
36:48
SPEAKER_02: The owner of Battleboard Pins.
36:49
SPEAKER_02: She's just she's just she's just uh obsessed and has a passion for the nostalgic Vegas and and really shows that in the pins that she puts out and the the stuff that she creates.
36:58
SPEAKER_02: I want to play this clip that she said that kind of sold me on Circus Circus, which everybody can kind of Orange Dots.
37:06
SPEAKER_02: Orange dots because it's for sale.
37:08
SPEAKER_02: The property's for sale.
37:09
SPEAKER_02: So orange dots.
37:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
37:11
SPEAKER_02: Let me let me let me hear your opinion on this.
37:13
SPEAKER_02: Here we go.
37:15
unknown: My architecture design of the circus circus.
37:17
SPEAKER_00: Architecture design of the circus circus.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: You will never see another building made like this in our lifetime, maybe ever again.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: The absolute detail in the the way that everything is carved out, the color scheme of the pink and white, like these are just things you will literally never see again because they take so much manpower to create these facades that are so highly textured, highly decorated.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: Everything is now just steel and glass and flat and LED.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: What do you think about that?
37:44
SPEAKER_05: Okay, so um for Duck Duck Shed, we have a gentleman named Sean Adams, who is one of the leading authorities on design.
37:53
SPEAKER_05: Um, he's written an amazing book that's one of my favorites, that's called How Design Makes You Think, Feel, Emote.
38:02
SPEAKER_05: It's a great book.
38:03
SPEAKER_05: Awesome.
38:03
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
38:04
SPEAKER_05: Um anyway, Sean Adams is coming for to Las Vegas, and he actually has as the name of his session is called How Design Makes You Think, Colonel Las Vegas.
38:14
SPEAKER_05: So it's really centric on our city.
38:17
SPEAKER_05: And his comment is almost exactly that, which is in most cities, you're looking at stone buildings or steel facades or uh glass and and metal.
38:29
SPEAKER_05: And in Las Vegas, there is this um overload of color and and curve and texture.
38:37
SPEAKER_05: All of that is into it almost like a painting.
38:41
SPEAKER_05: And so it is where does your eye move as you're going through this city?
38:46
SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
38:48
SPEAKER_02: So let's let's let's talk about Duck Dug Shed.
38:50
SPEAKER_02: It has it's a very unique name.
38:51
SPEAKER_02: Do you mind kind of sharing where that name came from?
38:54
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
38:54
SPEAKER_05: So there's a fantastic book called Learning from Las Vegas.
38:58
SPEAKER_05: It was written by three Yale professors, and they uh this will now be the 54th anniversary of the book.
39:07
SPEAKER_05: The book, strangely enough, um, even after all this time, is still taught in intro to architecture classes.
39:14
SPEAKER_05: So it has this very amazing longevity to it and um and relevance.
39:22
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
39:22
SPEAKER_05: So we in the book they discuss there are two types of of architecture.
39:28
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, one is a duck.
39:30
SPEAKER_05: Okay, and a duck is a building that doesn't need a sign out front to tell you what it is.
39:36
SPEAKER_05: So an example of that would be sphere.
39:39
SPEAKER_01: Right.
39:40
unknown: Yeah.
39:41
SPEAKER_05: So New York, New York, another good example of a duck.
39:44
SPEAKER_01: Excalibur.
39:45
SPEAKER_05: Excalibur, yes, very much.
39:48
SPEAKER_05: So this sort of this lending into the architecture leading into you, you don't need to know.
39:55
SPEAKER_05: If you are conversely at the base of Fremont Street and you are looking down that street, you need signs to tell you which one is the golden gate, which one is the golden nugget, which is four queens.
40:07
SPEAKER_05: Those are decorated sheds.
40:10
SPEAKER_05: So what we did was we decided we'd have a little fun with this and call it Duck Duck Shed.
40:15
SPEAKER_05: Um, since then, I have been asked 174 times where does that name come from?
40:21
SPEAKER_05: I am hoping that the day comes where we become like South by Southwest or Coachella or Burning Man, where people uh are just like, it's just a name.
40:30
SPEAKER_05: I don't know if they're crazy.
40:32
SPEAKER_05: But yeah, it is it is rooted in architecture, and the whole idea was that Duck Duck Shed originally started with the tagline of four days celebrating Las Vegas architecture, design, and culture.
40:44
SPEAKER_05: Um, we are um we are evolving that so that architecture is definitely in there, design is definitely going to be in there, culture is again going back to Siegfried and Roy and and Jungle Palace, that's part of our culture.
40:59
SPEAKER_05: Um, but it is uh it's not celebrating because not everything we do is great.
41:05
SPEAKER_05: So one of the more popular sessions that we do is um we've welcomed him back for our second time, is Steve Krupi, who's talking about the um the history of implosion here in Las Vegas.
41:19
SPEAKER_05: We're the implosion capital of the world.
41:21
SPEAKER_05: So we don't just blow up our history, and I'm sitting on your couch as a preservationist.
41:27
SPEAKER_05: We don't just blow up our history, we have a party around it, right?
41:31
SPEAKER_05: We don't just sit back and say we're going to implode the Tropicana.
41:35
SPEAKER_05: We call it the drop the drop party, right?
41:39
SPEAKER_05: And so, as again, a museum guy who's running around going, Can I save this?
41:43
SPEAKER_05: Can I save that?
41:44
SPEAKER_05: Um, we we we had to find a way to come to terms with that's part of the culture of this city.
41:50
SPEAKER_05: But you know, we can have a debate about whether or not we should celebrate that.
41:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, from you guys having duck duck shed in the past, what is one moment that sticks out to you of of something y'all offered, whether it was, you know, a tour or a TED talk style speech, whatever that you realized this information is actually changing how people look at Las Vegas?
42:14
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so we've had we've had a couple of them that um that have really resonated in ways that we didn't expect.
42:22
SPEAKER_05: Um and one, again, we had Elaine Wynn and and Roger Thomas on stage and they were talking about botanicals at the Mirage, and and um we had students from UNLV there, and one of the students stood up and said, It's great that you've spent 45 minutes talking about how beautiful this building is, but what about the back of house?
42:45
SPEAKER_05: How did you treat your employees?
42:47
SPEAKER_05: And watching Elaine Wynne and Roger Thomas sit up a little straighter in their chair because they got called on it, sure, and they they responded very quickly with we really thought a lot about back of house.
43:01
SPEAKER_05: We really wanted to make sure that our employees they couldn't give A plus service if they were in a cinder block building back of a house.
43:11
SPEAKER_05: Right.
43:12
SPEAKER_05: So they had to experience the food, they had to experience the charm, they had to feel it when they were walking on the floor.
43:19
SPEAKER_05: So they got to talk about it.
43:20
SPEAKER_05: And the outcome of it is that that student ended up writing his dissertation on casinos back of house, houses of back of casinos.
43:29
SPEAKER_05: You don't know how to say that.
43:30
SPEAKER_05: So, but he wrote his entire thing and he ended up talking to Elaine, he talked to several other property owners, and was able to create his entire thesis around that.
43:40
SPEAKER_08: Wow, cool.
43:42
SPEAKER_02: On the 24th, you're doing uh a focus on uh Ka, the the show.
43:48
SPEAKER_02: Have you seen that?
43:49
SPEAKER_05: Oh, yeah, it's phenomenal, it's amazing, yeah.
43:51
SPEAKER_05: And um, yeah, uh it's it's amazing because the it's it's a lot like Los Vegas.
44:00
SPEAKER_05: Vegas in that you don't really know where your eyes should rest because everything is in motion at all times.
44:06
SPEAKER_05: The stage is in motion, the the performers, the athletes, the artists, they're all in motion.
44:12
SPEAKER_02: To the point where you have to see it multiple times and you'll you'll find new things.
44:16
SPEAKER_02: So you're having a discussion with the people involved in the production and the technical demonstrations of it.
44:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
44:22
SPEAKER_02: What's something that with give me a little tidbit, a little preview of something that they'll see at this event, but they would never catch from a normal seat seeing the show.
44:32
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so I love I love that question.
44:34
SPEAKER_05: The um the the best part about this is that we're gonna have the technical director, we're going to have one of the performers, which what Cirque de Soleil refers to as artists, um, we're gonna have a costumer, um, and we're gonna have a stage manager on on that stage talking about how this is all choreographed and put together.
44:59
SPEAKER_05: The thing that I think people, now I haven't I haven't done this yet, so so I'm waiting to see it.
45:04
SPEAKER_05: Um, but the thing that I expect is actually I'm gonna be most interested in the costumer because these small details that they're putting into these costumes have to be seen what 80 rows back.
45:21
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, sure.
45:21
SPEAKER_05: Right?
45:22
SPEAKER_05: So, and so you have to be able to see these details and these these incredible things.
45:28
SPEAKER_05: So um, yeah, I'm I'm psyched about it.
45:31
SPEAKER_05: And we did this program with another Cirque show a couple of years ago.
45:35
SPEAKER_05: We did it with O.
45:37
SPEAKER_05: And at the beginning of O, there's a moment where uh uh an acrobat comes from the ceiling and there's this plume of fog, for lack of a better word, and and she comes down in the circle and she twirls around a bit and then she ascends back into the ceiling.
45:58
SPEAKER_05: Well, what we learned through this program is that actually they have to they have to dehumidify the room to equal out the air conditioning and the pool water.
46:12
SPEAKER_05: And so to do that, they have to release this this plume of fog to do that, but they did it in a beautiful way, and so they did it with an acrobat, and you're watching this, and you have no idea that there's actually a thought process behind it.
46:26
SPEAKER_05: So now every time I go see O, which when friends come in town and things like that, I immediately am pointing out, like, I'm the worst person at a cocktail party.
46:35
SPEAKER_05: Nobody wants to invite me anywhere because I'm like, listen, did you know?
46:38
SPEAKER_05: And so I like exactly shut up.
46:41
SPEAKER_01: I want you to just walk around the city with me.
46:43
SPEAKER_05: Oh, I do it a lot.
46:45
SPEAKER_05: So again, stopping me talking is the hard part.
46:48
SPEAKER_05: So until you have gone into the men's room at which I'll get you in, men's room at Main Street Station and seen the Berlin wall that's in there.
47:00
SPEAKER_05: The reason is, and it's behind the urinals, the reason is is because in when the wall was built between East Berlin and West Berlin, the uh West Berliners, the the men, their act of defiance would be to urinate on the wall.
47:18
SPEAKER_05: So the owner of Main Street Station, Bob Snow at the time, went out and got a piece of the Berlin Wall and put it behind the urinals to keep that tradition alive, right?
47:29
SPEAKER_05: You there's no signage anywhere.
47:32
SPEAKER_05: Nobody is talking about that.
47:34
SPEAKER_05: Right?
47:34
SPEAKER_05: Never know that.
47:35
SPEAKER_05: No one would know this.
47:36
SPEAKER_05: So you just need me basically all the time, um, just call me and be like, Aaron, I'm on my way to the palms, and I will sit back and tell you about the incredibly important work of art that's in what we call shark bar, but is I love oh, so I oh Damien Hurst, it's a fabulous piece.
47:55
SPEAKER_01: I don't know the information behind it, but it is one of my favorite things to look at.
48:00
SPEAKER_05: So the whole piece is about life and death, and so um, and and that is a very consistent theme in Damien Hurst's work.
48:10
SPEAKER_05: But what I love about that piece, my little surprise, delight, and and uh excitement, is that this is um in Las Vegas, a shark is like considered an expert at gambling, right?
48:24
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but in this piece, he's the shark is cut up into three pieces.
48:29
SPEAKER_05: So I think there's like this little subliminal message that we're saying to you that you can be a shark in Vegas.
48:35
SPEAKER_02: We still got you.
48:36
SPEAKER_02: This may be controversial, but do we need an Aaron AI app that just follow that everywhere we go in the city, it just he just blurts out random information that you definitely didn't know about?
48:45
SPEAKER_01: You could, or we could just call him Aaron here.
48:48
SPEAKER_02: He'd be he'd be annoyed by us.
48:50
SPEAKER_01: I need you to follow me around the city.
48:51
SPEAKER_01: We Aaron is Julie again.
48:53
SPEAKER_02: We exactly in the bathroom at the time I'm in the bathroom.
48:57
SPEAKER_01: Tell me about this.
48:58
SPEAKER_01: You're telling me about this stall that I'm gonna be.
48:59
SPEAKER_01: Tell me why someone drew this with Sharpie on the wall.
49:03
SPEAKER_03: Well, first of all, if it's my phone number, let me tell you how it got there.
49:08
SPEAKER_05: Um so no, I I think there's opportunity.
49:11
SPEAKER_05: There, there is definitely an opportunity, and it's definitely part of the Neon Museum's future, is working outside our walls.
49:18
SPEAKER_05: Right.
49:18
SPEAKER_05: So being able to give that walking tour of downtown Vegas, of being able to give people the fine art tour of Vegas.
49:27
SPEAKER_05: These are ways that people don't think of this town.
49:31
SPEAKER_05: And yet, I I did a TEDx talk about um, I I made an argument, I asked the question, let's put it that way.
49:38
SPEAKER_05: Sure.
49:38
SPEAKER_05: I put the question out there of is a casino an art museum?
49:42
SPEAKER_05: Because of the fine art collections that are in there.
49:45
SPEAKER_05: And so um in this, so many people just walk by these amazing pieces.
49:55
SPEAKER_05: They don't necessarily know that it's it's uh it's an incredible work of art by Jeff Koons or Damian Hurst or a Renoir on the walls.
50:05
SPEAKER_05: They just sort of are on their way to their hotel room, and so they do need an interpreter, they do need someone to go, whoa, whoa, whoa, look at this over here.
50:13
SPEAKER_05: And that's that's sort of that that's where I nerd out.
50:16
SPEAKER_05: And so, yes, there is a future for that.
50:18
SPEAKER_05: It won't be me, because nobody wants more of me.
50:22
SPEAKER_05: Oh, please.
50:23
SPEAKER_05: Nobody wants more of me.
50:24
SPEAKER_05: We do, yeah.
50:25
SPEAKER_05: So to say I beg to differ.
50:27
SPEAKER_05: You keep your standards low, I'll meet those standards.
50:30
SPEAKER_02: But so we're we're about an hour in so far.
50:32
SPEAKER_02: Is this podcast is this a duck or is this a shed, in your opinion?
50:35
SPEAKER_02: I don't know how I don't know how it would relate to it.
50:37
SPEAKER_05: One is not better than the other.
50:39
SPEAKER_05: I need to because I've I've had casino owners go, Great, I work at a decorated shed.
50:43
SPEAKER_05: I'm like, no, no, no, no, it's not a bad thing, it's just a different definition.
50:47
SPEAKER_02: So I think I'd rather be a duck, though, but are we a duck?
50:50
SPEAKER_05: You you can't you you you can define yourself any way you'd like.
50:54
SPEAKER_05: I will tell you that when I am writing it on my phone, um, there are times that autocorrect has changed the words duck to different words.
51:04
SPEAKER_01: I'm curious to I think both apply to the show.
51:07
SPEAKER_05: I'm not saying a word about it, but yeah, that's it.
51:09
SPEAKER_01: I think the podcast itself is identifiable, it has personality.
51:15
SPEAKER_01: I think the show itself is a duck.
51:17
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
51:17
SPEAKER_01: Our studio is a should.
51:19
SPEAKER_01: From the outside, you would not know unless you saw this thing.
51:23
SPEAKER_05: So here's the thing that the podcast is called Big Head.
51:26
SPEAKER_05: Hey Big Head, yep.
51:27
SPEAKER_05: Hey Big Head.
51:28
SPEAKER_05: So um, first of all, let me just say that when my co-working Big Head the Dick Show.
51:36
SPEAKER_06: When my call workers asked, if they were like, would you are you gonna be on a show called Hey Big Head?
51:42
SPEAKER_06: That's right.
51:43
SPEAKER_06: I was like, yeah.
51:45
SPEAKER_05: So so for that, I mean, and I've seen the people who are on this show, right?
51:50
SPEAKER_05: You've got some big head people.
51:52
SPEAKER_05: We have.
51:53
SPEAKER_05: That's a duck.
51:54
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
51:54
SPEAKER_02: You're living a duck dream.
51:56
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
51:56
SPEAKER_02: That that that's what we're aiming for, is we're living that duck dream.
51:59
SPEAKER_02: The duck dream.
51:59
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
52:00
SPEAKER_07: I love that.
52:01
SPEAKER_02: Um do you have a story?
52:04
SPEAKER_02: And we're we'll play play a little game.
52:06
SPEAKER_02: I'm I want to give him a random place in Vegas and see if he has a story about it.
52:10
SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna give one.
52:11
SPEAKER_02: You have a few minutes to think about it.
52:12
SPEAKER_01: Oh, God, okay.
52:13
SPEAKER_02: What about the Coke bottle that's on the strip, the giant Coke bottle on the strip?
52:18
SPEAKER_05: Do you have any sort of so I do have a story about that?
52:21
SPEAKER_05: Um I have a story about anything.
52:23
SPEAKER_05: Again.
52:24
SPEAKER_05: Let's see what you got.
52:25
SPEAKER_05: Uh yeah.
52:26
SPEAKER_05: So interestingly, there was this time where this was the museum of Coca-Cola.
52:33
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
52:33
SPEAKER_05: Um, same is true in Atlanta, which is the headquarters for Coke.
52:37
SPEAKER_05: Um, and uh they they got in a little trouble for referring to it as a museum because yes, there are artifacts there, but we're not telling objective stories.
52:49
SPEAKER_05: So that's when it changed to world of coke and it really expanded into it.
52:54
SPEAKER_05: And again, by all reality, we all go there because we just want to taste the Coca-Cola from Dubai, right?
52:59
SPEAKER_05: I mean, that's the whole thing is what's Japanese diet coke taste like?
53:03
SPEAKER_05: So, um, so the whole world of Coke makes great sense.
53:06
SPEAKER_05: Museum of Coke does not.
53:08
SPEAKER_05: So, museum, I'm very protective of.
53:11
SPEAKER_05: Love that.
53:11
SPEAKER_05: Julie, you're up.
53:12
SPEAKER_05: What do you got?
53:12
SPEAKER_01: Do you have a story about the Ojos Locos casino?
53:18
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
53:19
SPEAKER_03: I don't know what you just said to me, but I I feel like it's offensive and it might be anti-Semitic.
53:25
SPEAKER_03: First of all, how dare you, Julie?
53:27
SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
53:27
SPEAKER_03: I was trying to think of something of it.
53:30
SPEAKER_03: Who do you think you are?
53:32
SPEAKER_01: Who do you think you are, and why did you say that to me?
53:34
SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
53:35
SPEAKER_06: I I don't know, but I shouldn't be wearing two pairs of underwear.
53:38
SPEAKER_06: I just I think we just stumped Aaron.
53:40
SPEAKER_06: I don't know.
53:42
SPEAKER_01: You need to go to the Ohos Locos casino.
53:44
SPEAKER_01: What did I just call it?
53:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm in.
53:47
SPEAKER_01: It's on the 215.
53:48
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
53:48
SPEAKER_01: It's headed towards Nellis.
53:50
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
53:51
SPEAKER_04: Oh, I know.
53:51
SPEAKER_04: Okay, so I'm all in on the I first of all, no, I know I know.
53:56
SPEAKER_04: I'm offended by that.
53:58
SPEAKER_04: I'm sorry.
53:58
SPEAKER_04: Yep.
54:00
SPEAKER_01: It's like a restaurant nationally, and they have a casino here.
54:03
SPEAKER_05: I'm all in.
54:03
SPEAKER_05: I'm totally in.
54:04
SPEAKER_05: I um I what's the one from South Park?
54:08
SPEAKER_01: Um Oh my gosh.
54:09
SPEAKER_05: The uh what's the sh oh shit.
54:12
SPEAKER_01: Um my whole family's gone there.
54:14
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, exactly.
54:15
SPEAKER_05: The um look it up, Jimmy.
54:17
SPEAKER_05: Okay, so anyway, yeah, because when they open a casino, then I'm gonna I'm gonna lose my mind.
54:22
SPEAKER_05: But um my IQ will drop 10 minutes, but I'll deal with it.
54:25
SPEAKER_05: The um no, so Casa Bonita.
54:28
SPEAKER_05: La casa bonita, la casa bonita.
54:31
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, if they have a if they did you expect that we were gonna talk about La Casa Bonita in the Did you call Ojos Locos?
54:40
SPEAKER_01: Did you say that it was offensive?
54:43
SPEAKER_03: I don't just that's my first of all, whenever I don't know the answer to something, I immediately assume it's an anti-Semitic statement.
54:51
SPEAKER_03: I'm like, okay, that's it.
54:52
SPEAKER_03: That's I'm totally being it's a hate crime.
54:55
SPEAKER_03: I'm in it happening right now.
54:56
SPEAKER_03: That's just my go-to.
54:57
SPEAKER_03: That's just how it's going to be.
54:58
SPEAKER_01: I need you to go to Ojos Locos and make sure to preserve something from there in case they shut down.
55:03
SPEAKER_05: I'm all in.
55:04
SPEAKER_05: I I love that.
55:06
SPEAKER_05: I um I I I will say that in this town so far, when anybody says to me, Will you, my answer is immediately yes.
55:16
SPEAKER_05: And um, that is how I ended up being dressed as a showboy.
55:21
SPEAKER_05: What?
55:22
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, okay.
55:23
SPEAKER_05: Yep.
55:23
SPEAKER_05: Um, that is how I have ended up backstage at Katy Perry's show.
55:28
SPEAKER_05: I have ended up um having really great conversations with Carrot Top.
55:34
SPEAKER_05: I have had incredibly uh incredibly moving conversations with Penn and Teller, um, and uh and had let's just say less of a conversation with Barry Manilo, but I've had a conversation with him.
55:47
SPEAKER_03: Um I asked him if he would let me if he if we could go out on stage and I could sit on his lap and he could sing Mandy but change it to Aaron, and he just looked at me and went, no.
56:00
SPEAKER_03: And that was end of conversation.
56:03
SPEAKER_03: No, no, and so I got a no from Barry Manilo.
56:05
SPEAKER_01: But you know again more than what most people get.
56:08
SPEAKER_03: I got I got it.
56:09
SPEAKER_03: He anyway, you got a story out of it.
56:11
SPEAKER_05: I got a story out of it, so yeah, still still one day.
56:14
SPEAKER_02: You started this episode talking about when talking about how your dad helped see Vegas uh through an 18-year-old's eyes.
56:23
SPEAKER_02: Now that you're in in the position that you are, what would you show an 18-year-old visiting Vegas for the first time to give them that same feeling of excite, delight, surprise?
56:36
SPEAKER_05: I think I got I think you got the order wrong, but that's I did get the order wrong.
56:38
SPEAKER_05: It it it it they're interchangeable, there's no doubt about that.
56:41
SPEAKER_05: Um I think that honestly, you can go to almost truly almost any place in this city.
56:50
SPEAKER_05: I can take you downtown, I can take you on the strip, I can even take you to wherever the hell you said, and I will take you to a place, and there will be a moment of surprise.
57:01
SPEAKER_05: There will be a speakeasy, you know, a old 1950s coke machine that you is actually leads you into a speakeasy.
57:09
SPEAKER_05: There are all these wonderful things that if you have that right person, you'll you'll have you'll have that moment of just like what?
57:19
SPEAKER_05: And it is it's a playground, it is an absolute playground.
57:23
SPEAKER_05: If you want, on the other hand, um, I do probably two articles a year for Vegas for people who hate Vegas.
57:33
SPEAKER_05: And so if you want to go out and see um Red Rock and you want to go see Death Valley, if you want to go explore um the Guardian Angel Cathedral, which is one of my favorite.
57:48
SPEAKER_05: I again, as as someone who's Jewish, it's one of my favorite places to go.
57:51
SPEAKER_05: You've got stained glass on one side, which is the Old Testament, stained glass on the other side, which is the New Testament, and then typically stained glass behind the altar is Jesus.
58:04
SPEAKER_05: Right.
58:05
SPEAKER_05: Not here, it's the strip, right?
58:07
SPEAKER_05: In stained glass, it's the strip.
58:09
SPEAKER_05: You've got the dunes and the frontier in stained glass, and as they pass the collection plate, you can throw your chips in.
58:18
SPEAKER_05: That's cool.
58:19
SPEAKER_05: Awesome! Really awesome.
58:22
SPEAKER_05: So even there are places here.
58:24
SPEAKER_05: One of my absolute favorite things to do is Papillon has this amazing trip where you can board a helicopter and fly out over the Hoover Dam, land on the Colorado River in Grand Canyon, have some champagne and some snacks, and then fly back in over the strip at sunset.
58:45
SPEAKER_05: And it is the best.
58:47
SPEAKER_05: I mean, like, so there's a ton of things to do that are outside the sort of the usual stops.
58:54
SPEAKER_05: I've actually done that helicopter thing.
58:55
SPEAKER_05: It's isn't that fun?
58:56
SPEAKER_05: It's so much, it's so much fun.
58:58
SPEAKER_05: It's one of my go-to's for my friends when they come in town.
59:00
SPEAKER_05: As it should be.
59:00
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
59:01
SPEAKER_01: And uh as we get ready to wrap up, when it comes to Duck Duck Shed, what do you hope people start noticing just in their everyday life once they leave this experience that y'all are offering?
59:14
SPEAKER_05: It is my goal is that there are a lot of people that may see Las Vegas as sort of this unrefined town.
59:23
SPEAKER_05: And and realistically, there is so much thought.
59:27
SPEAKER_05: Um we have the skull from Treasure Island at the museum, and uh I had the designer as part of our Vegas Voices, and he talked about having three weeks of design meetings to discuss the colors in the scarf, three weeks to get to a place where they could actually decide the order and the amount of color in the scarf.
59:51
SPEAKER_05: And so if they come through Duck Duck Shed, the idea is to leave with a new perspective of Las Vegas and see it in a way that um shows the intentionality of everything that's done.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_05: So the Battleborne pins, the the circus circus, the design that's put into the Xcaliber, as much as we can kind of talk about the disnification of Las Vegas.
1:00:15
SPEAKER_05: We're now in a new era with sphere, and and sphere is changing the way that we talk about performing arts.
1:00:24
SPEAKER_05: So, you know, I think you could put me on that stage, and and I could belt out a tune, and people would be like, he's pretty amazing, right?
1:00:32
SPEAKER_02: He's hot.
1:00:33
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what it is, but he's got it.
1:00:35
SPEAKER_05: He has got it, right?
1:00:36
SPEAKER_05: Right?
1:00:36
SPEAKER_05: You hear me in the shower and you're like, shut the fuck up.
1:00:40
SPEAKER_05: So um, so this is really it is changing the way we're doing it.
1:00:44
SPEAKER_05: And I think that's the other part that I I have learned about Las Vegas, and I would hope other people kind of get a little taste of.
1:00:50
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, this is the beta testing ground for everything else.
1:00:55
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so when we were doing celebrity chefs, we didn't just get their names.
1:01:00
SPEAKER_05: The chefs came here and actually lived here and cooked the meals and they were working the lines.
1:01:06
SPEAKER_05: That was happening because that was the new idea behind a celebrity chef.
1:01:13
SPEAKER_05: We defined it here.
1:01:14
SPEAKER_05: Again, going back to Sphere, Sphere wouldn't work in any other city.
1:01:19
SPEAKER_05: That's not gonna work in Chicago or LA.
1:01:21
SPEAKER_05: It's gonna work here.
1:01:24
SPEAKER_05: If it works here, then it'll take off in other cities around the globe.
1:01:27
SPEAKER_02: So, what's the next phase for the Neon Museum then?
1:01:30
SPEAKER_02: You talk about Vegas going through its phases and where we hope it goes to next.
1:01:34
SPEAKER_02: What about the Neon Museum itself?
1:01:36
SPEAKER_02: With all the events you have coming up, you have a tremendous amount of events coming to wrap up the year.
1:01:40
SPEAKER_02: But next year and the year beyond, what do you feel like is the next phase for the Neon Museum?
1:01:44
SPEAKER_05: So I think that our focus is really going to be on this relocation and expansion.
1:01:49
SPEAKER_05: Um, and in doing that, um, we are really listening to people.
1:01:55
SPEAKER_05: So um I have had the joy of living in Vegas for five years, but this is not my story to tell.
1:02:02
SPEAKER_05: It's my coworkers, it's not their story to tell.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_05: So we're actively going out into communities and saying, okay, how do you want your story told?
1:02:11
SPEAKER_05: One of my dreams, I hope this comes to reality.
1:02:14
SPEAKER_05: One of my dreams is when we build this new museum, we will have a little gallery that's called Growing Up Vegas.
1:02:21
SPEAKER_05: Because the people who grew up here have a life that they have no idea how different it is than anywhere else.
1:02:30
SPEAKER_05: So I I I've got a friend of mine, Eric Bean, who his mother had to petition Clark County to send the first yellow bus down the strip because they owned a because they owned a travel lodge on the strip.
1:02:45
SPEAKER_05: And so he had to be picked up for kindergarten, right?
1:02:48
SPEAKER_05: So he grew up on literally on the strip.
1:02:53
SPEAKER_05: And his mother, at the time of about eight years old, and I maybe get this this date wrong, but somewhere around eight years old, he started to own the pool and started to throw guests out of the pool and be like, This is my time and you need to go.
1:03:06
SPEAKER_05: And his mother was like, Okay, it's time for us to move off the trip.
1:03:09
SPEAKER_05: Like, it's it's we've done our time, we've got to go.
1:03:11
SPEAKER_05: Like, that's such a great Vegas story.
1:03:14
SPEAKER_05: It's amazing.
1:03:15
SPEAKER_05: I I've got friends of that that went to prom at the landmark, and they would talk about that, you know, a bad song would come on with the band.
1:03:24
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:03:24
SPEAKER_05: And, you know, usually you just go hang out with your friends.
1:03:27
SPEAKER_05: Well, they would all go hit the tables, and the dealers were like, eh, these are good local kids, they're fine.
1:03:33
SPEAKER_05: And so, you know, they're 16, 17, 18 years old, and they're shooting craps, they're playing game.
1:03:38
SPEAKER_05: But it's amazing to me.
1:03:39
SPEAKER_05: I love that.
1:03:40
SPEAKER_05: Doesn't happen anywhere else in the world.
1:03:43
SPEAKER_05: So we need to lean into what makes this city as special as it is.
1:03:47
SPEAKER_05: So we're really focused on how to narrate, curate, present that story.
1:03:53
SPEAKER_05: That's that's if we're gonna be the museum of Las Vegas, what the hell does that mean, right?
1:04:00
SPEAKER_05: So we got to figure that out, and we need everybody's help, and we'll be talking to people a lot.
1:04:06
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
1:04:07
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:04:07
SPEAKER_02: Duck Duck Shed, October 23rd to the 26th.
1:04:11
SPEAKER_02: You have to get tickets for this, right?
1:04:12
SPEAKER_05: Oh, yeah.
1:04:13
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
1:04:13
SPEAKER_02: Where do you where do you get tickets at?
1:04:15
SPEAKER_05: So go to duckduck shed.com.
1:04:16
SPEAKER_05: What's great about this, we are the only museum that actually has its own conference.
1:04:22
SPEAKER_05: So we take this deep dive into Las Vegas.
1:04:25
SPEAKER_05: This is a chance for people to come through.
1:04:27
SPEAKER_05: And if one thing excites you, go for it.
1:04:29
SPEAKER_05: If all of it excites you, pick them all and join us.
1:04:32
SPEAKER_05: The October 22nd, the Steve Wynn presentation.
1:04:34
SPEAKER_05: That's separate, right?
1:04:35
SPEAKER_05: That's it is the precursor leading into Duck Duck Shed.
1:04:39
SPEAKER_05: So Steve Wynn uh will be joining us on the 22nd.
1:04:42
SPEAKER_05: Um, that is a sold-out program that sold out in uh six days.
1:04:47
SPEAKER_05: I believe it.
1:04:47
SPEAKER_02: I believe I definitely believe.
1:04:48
SPEAKER_02: I'm actually surprised it took six days.
1:04:49
SPEAKER_02: I thought it'd be like a day or two.
1:04:51
SPEAKER_05: It was it was yes, and um, yes, so it has been really exciting, and that is going to be uh really focused on the Mirage and why the Mirage really changed the trajectory of the strip.
1:05:04
SPEAKER_05: So I'm excited to hear from him.
1:05:06
SPEAKER_05: I'm excited to hear this presentation.
1:05:08
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and uh we'll have our 600 of our closest friends in the audience at the golden nugget.
1:05:13
SPEAKER_05: So it'll be good time.
1:05:14
SPEAKER_02: Aaron, you're a rock star, man.
1:05:15
SPEAKER_02: I I'm so thankful for you coming on and you, you and your team setting this up.
1:05:19
SPEAKER_02: Having you on is, you know, we we we we love having Vegas locals on, regardless if they're decision makers or if they're local influencers, it doesn't matter.
1:05:28
SPEAKER_02: But somebody of your stature and somebody that's that's making their imprint on this city, I'm so thankful and so blessed to have you on.
1:05:34
SPEAKER_01: And someone we can learn so much from.
1:05:36
SPEAKER_02: For sure.
1:05:37
SPEAKER_05: I only regret about 30% of what I said, so I think this is really good.
1:05:41
SPEAKER_05: So far, so good.
1:05:42
SPEAKER_02: I was gonna say that's above average for me, so that's pretty good.
1:05:44
SPEAKER_02: Next time, I thought we'll have you on.
1:05:46
SPEAKER_02: We'll work on that 30%.
1:05:47
SPEAKER_02: Maybe maybe bump it up a little bit more.
1:05:48
SPEAKER_01: Come on, you'll regret 90%.
1:05:50
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
1:05:51
SPEAKER_02: That that's what we want.
1:05:52
SPEAKER_02: That's what we'll get in that we want.
1:05:53
SPEAKER_02: We'll get into the showboy story.
1:05:54
unknown: Okay.
1:05:56
SPEAKER_02: Catch new episodes each week on heybighead.com.
1:05:59
SPEAKER_02: Julie, you know what to do.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_01: Bye.