The Kats Report Bureau has been a proud contributor to, and supporter of, a couple of ticketed events over the past several days.
In a curious happenstance, both involved instruments to be played by an exhaling musician (bagpipes for Martin Short and a trumpet for Lon Bronson).
Read on about those shows in a moment, but first some Bernie Yuman/Matt Goss action …
• One of the city’s pre-eminent entertainment managers over the past several decades, Yuman is now in partnership with Goss in a consortium titled MBM. A true force of nature and personality, Yuman has over the years been involved in the management of Muhammad Ali, Siegfried & Roy, Gloria and Emilio Estefan and Gordie Brown, among others.
Formerly under the management of Pussycat Dolls founder Robin Antin, Goss has been a headliner at Caesars for five years, holding court at the moated hotspot known as The Gossy Room (formerly Cleopatra’s Barge) at Caesars.
Goss also has been the international spokesman for the Susan B. Komen Foundation, with his song “Strong” serving as that foundation’s anthem. Goss, who is approaching the first anniversary of the death of his mother, Carol, to cancer, gives back whenever possible.
• No stranger to philanthropy himself, Brad Garrett returns to Las Vegas this week having just released his memoir, “When the Balls Drop: How I Learned to Get Real and Embrace Life’s Second Half.”
He’s hosting a book signing Saturday from 12 to 2 p.m. at the Grand & Co. store just inside the hotel’s main lobby. Buy a book (his book, mind you), and Garrett will sign the flap and pose for a photograph.
Garrett wrote the book with no assistance from a ghostwriter. It was a grueling assignment for someone as busy as Garrett, who performs nearly every month at his club and also is a cast member on FX’s “Fargo.”
“I wrote it like I rant. It’s edgy, honest; it’s an account of how I got to where I am and why I feel this way,” the 55-year-old Garrett said back in March. “It’s a memoir talking about how I started in Las Vegas and what I was like and what my standup was like before I broke.”
Garrett is performing at his club at MGM Grand through Sunday. No books for sale at the club, though, as he says, “I couldn’t totally sell out.”
• Friday was a reunion with Martin Short in his return to the Mirage “Aces of Comedy” series. Short revised his familiar and inspired characters from his days on “SCTV” and “Saturday Night Live,” Nathan Thurm, Ed Grimley and Jiminy Glick among them. Terry Fator made an appearance, appropriate as the theater is named for him, to be interviewed by Short as Glick. A great exchange:
Glick: “You perform here in Vegas. Did you ever meet Elvis?”
Fator: “No, but I performed in his theater when I was at the Las Vegas Hilton. I actually used the same dressing room he did when he performed there.”
Glick: “Really? … Who cares? That’s like saying, ‘Abraham Lincoln went to New York, and I went to New York … Or ‘John F. Kennedy wore shoes, and I am wearing shoes.’ ”
Fator laughed it off and brought out the puppet Maynard Tompkins, who (or which) is an Elvis impressionist. Glick just loved that.
After that bit, Short reprised the act in which he and an “actor” — hello — don kilts and tams and march to the center of the stage to piano accompaniment. We bow to each other, then to the audience, and I play him like a set of bagpipes as he bleats “Amazing Grace.”
It was a hasty routine, as Short scrambled to get into costume and laughed as he marched to the stage, saying, “This is insane.” It was, but the crowd laughed. In that audience were Clint Holmes and Kelly Clinton-Holmes, Jerry Jones, Carrot Top and Jeff Molitz. Friends, all, and we had a groovy little hang with Short afterward. We need more of him on the Strip. He’s among the greats.
• Lon Bronson’s All-Star Band celebrated another packed performance at Cabaret Jazz in the Smith Center, where I served to read his “Top 6 Reasons Lon Bronson’s All-Star Band Should Not Retire” list, as he could not think of 10 reasons. The best of the half-dozen: “We still have not been invited on Tony Sacca’s Christmas show.”
Bronson is amid his 25th year in Las Vegas, still churning it out at Sunset Station’s Club Madrid on Fridays. Bronson also is the music director for “The Rat Pack Is Back,” opening July 6 at T Spot in Tuscany Suites. And Bronson is always good for a great Mike Nesmith story. He really likes Mike Nesmith.
Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.
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