Red Carpet Report: Tough Mudder, Andre Agassi, Carlos Santana, Golden Tiki, Michael Jackson
The Venetian and The Palazzo PR executive Claudine Grant met the Tough Mudder challenge over the weekend, taking some 3 hours to complete the brutal race at Lake Las Vegas. It was her seventh Tough Mudder success for which she won a new pink headband and can of cold beer.
“I’m very sore, and the bruises are starting to appear. I can’t walk properly, but I can’t stop smiling,” Claudine told me 24 hours after her conquest of the 10-mile course with 23 mind-numbing obstacles. “I didn’t think it was possible for the Arctic Enema challenge to get any colder, but it did!
“We went down a slide that plunged us into ice water where a fencing-type cage over our head forced us low into the freezing water. They kept adding ice that hit our heads. We then had to swim underneath a barrier with more ice added as we popped up. My face is still thawing a day later.
“It’s the coldest I have ever experienced in my life. The Pyramid Scheme was super-challenging. Our team of four — me, Chris Cigna and newcomers Alan Sanders and John Kujundzich — was not enough to get to the top. We partnered with two other teams to build a human pyramid to get up the very slippery incline. It took a lot of planning and negotiating, but we made it to the top.”
When we reported Claudine’s efforts in our Tough Mudder story in Friday Neon of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, I erred in describing it as a world challenge. It’s a Las Vegas challenge. The World’s Toughest Mudder is at Lake Las Vegas from Nov. 12-13.
The two events were linked under World’s Toughest Mudder on the official paperwork, with the Las Vegas event mentioned briefly three pages later. My apologies, but it is confusing.
More than 1,300 competitors will take on the 5-mile loop course with 25 grueling obstacles. The teams vying for $100,000 will be timed for 24 hours as they take on the lake, mud pits, desert terrain and steel hills and 12 miles of obstacles.
Congratulations to Claudine and her teammates for succeeding in overcoming the toughest of challenges. She had the last word: “We can’t move, and more bruises are turning up by the hour, but it was an amazing day. We are already planning the next one.”
EDUCATIONAL ENTERTAINMENT
When you ask for a drumroll and you’re Andre Agassi, you get an entire drumline. That is how Tuesday afternoon began for the tennis champion, who is a leading supporter of education, when he joined House of Blues at Mandalay Bay headliner Carlos Santana and his wife, Cindy Blackman Santana.
They announced a partnership and research project with Square Panda and Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy. Square Panda is an educational product that turns a tablet into a comprehensive, multisensory phonics system to measure students’ progress and challenges through game-play patterns, allowing educators to get a more complete view of their education.
The study starts this month.
SHRUNKEN HEAD
It took four weeks by artists to convert my headshot photos into a shrunken head presented to me by Golden Tiki owner Branden Powers and musician Tony Felicetta of The Sharps. However, I had only a few moments to hold and inspect the gruesome image because it’s now hanging on a wall at Golden Tiki alongside Carrot Top and “Divas” star Frank Marino’s.
It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen, but they got the hair right! There’s very little in the back. I consider it an honor. Golden Tiki in the heart of Chinatown is a unique lounge, and I’ll be back for the pupu platters and to check if my head is still hanging.
“I like to have my favorite people be a part of the bar,” said Branden. “I’m glad that Robin is included in this tradition with his shrunken head.” I’m the third in a series of the shrunken heads, and more are to come. Golden Tiki also has an animatronic skeleton and haunted private dining room.
ETERNAL MUSICAL GENIUS
It was 25 years ago this month that Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous” was released, his fourth studio album as a solo performer. Also this month a quarter of a century ago, The King of Pop’s show-stopping short film “Black or White” was shown simultaneously in 27 countries.
It was to a record-breaking global audience of 500 million that marked the start of his world tour culminating in his Super Bowl Halftime Show. Michael died on June 25, 2009, but his musical genius remains eternal.
BACK HOME
For more than 40 years, Santa Fe & The Fat City Horns has been one of our city’s most popular bands since Jerry Lopez founded it. Now the group is returning to the Station Casinos family with a run of weekly shows every Monday starting Nov. 14 at The Palms. The six-piece horn section, six-piece rhythm section and five lead singers blend funk, Latin, rock and jazz.