Jenna Morton: Looking for love in Las Vegas? Here is where you’ll find it
Editor’s Note: After a glorious nearly month-long family vacation in the Italian and Sicilian countryside, Robin Leach is back and resuming his new daily columns today with a report of the mental health wellness clinic that singer Demi Lovato is hosting at MGM Grand Garden Arena before her Saturday night concert with Nick Jonas. We’ll continue guest columnists in August while Robin works from the cooler climes of La Jolla near San Diego in advance of our newly designed website launching soon.
On Friday in his debut Friday Neon column, Robin has a preview of the Magic Live! Convention here next week for 1,600 worldwide illusionists, conjurors, magicians and wizards. Today, one of the guest columns is by Las Vegas VIP socialite, philanthropist and restaurant czarina Jenna Morton, owner and co-founder of The Morton Group that runs Crush at MGM Grand, La Cave at Wynn Las Vegas and La Comida downtown. The other is by Branden Powers, who owns the “shrunken head” trademark The Golden Tiki in Chinatown. Here’s Jenna … looking for love?
By Jenna Morton
Love is real. Love is not endangered or scarce, and it’s self-generating. Las Vegas has a surplus. That’s why this is the greatest place on the planet. I could tell when I first came here. This is a place where you can skip or twirl, and it’s encouraged.
Heck, people will cheer or join in! But having stayed in Las Vegas to work and raise a family, the depth of that spirit is sustenance for the psyche. Looking for love in Las Vegas? Here is where you’ll find it:
Electric Daisy Carnival last month was one big lovefest. It will be back, but that kind of energy lingers, so you might still be able to feel it. The knife sliding into a tender filet so that the flavor fills the nose before the first bite, that’s love.
The laugh tumbling out of the mouth of The Gazillionaire at ABSINTHE is love. Lurking around the edges, in and through all of the Cirque du Soleil shows, especially LOVE, is love. When Teller rolls his eyes at Penn, that is a special kind of love.
When Britney Spears or J.Lo, Celine, Rod Stewart or every rock star who performs in Las Vegas points to the sky, look up. It’s love. Why do you think Carlos Santana chooses to live here? That one long note that draws you right into his guitar that won’t let you go? That is love.
Nevada Ballet — the arabesque. In Red Rock Canyon at the top of Turtlehead Peak, when there is exactly one cloud in the sky, above the breathtaking view, it’s there. In Basin and Range, Nevada’s newest national monument, it’s there, as free as the air that goes on forever out there, past Michael Heizer’s City.
Ugo Rondinone’s Seven Magic Mountains, bursting out of nowhere on Las Vegas Boulevard south of town, is love all stacked up. In Gold Butte, the art created by millennia naturally is love in essence. The imagined memories in the old neon signs lining Fremont Street downtown, love.
The Center, where people held hands in solidarity with the victims of the tragedy in Orlando. The After School All Stars Showcase at Springs Preserve, where ASAS children let it all hang out onstage and cheered for one another with abandon.
The Teaching Garden at the Springs Preserve. Social Cirkish giving the joy of Circus Arts to children. The plate of food that Three Square provides to a hungry girl. The siblings who stay together because of St. Jude’s Ranch.
Veteran’s Village in the home they create. The job that For an Independent Tomorrow will find for the woman on her last dollar. Validation from The Human Rights Campaign. An Opportunity Village scarf.
Make-a-Wish, of course. It’s not a wish — it’s love. Humans thrive where there is love. Las Vegas has a lot, and we are happy to share, so if you find some, take it with you and pass it on.
Be sure to check out our other guest columnist today, The Golden Tiki owner Branden Powers, who reflects on the good old days of Las Vegas when The Mob ran the Strip. Robin also has the celebrity spotlight in focus on the mental wellness clinic pop princess Demi Lovato will host before going onstage at MGM Grand Garden Arena with Nick Jonas on Saturday night.
