As ‘Casino’ defined Las Vegas, so ‘The Third Man’–75 years old today–depicted Vienna

Posted on by December 1, 2024
2

Mostly shot on location, the movie is full of shady characters depicting a fading era in a famously corrupt city trying to cope with change amid moral decay. Mysterious forces abound. Folks get murdered. There is a love interest. Law enforcement is everywhere. The chief villain is almost sympathetic. The soundtrack is striking. So is the acting. Memorable scenes and dialogue abound. After all the carnage, you don’t know watching the ending whether to cry or cheer, but you know you’ve seen something profound

Since I am New To Las Vegas, you might think I’m writing about “Casino.” That’s the 1995 Martin Scorsese-directed movie starting Robert De Niro and Sharon Stone about the rise–and fall–of corrupt mob control over the casinos that help build up Las Vegas.

But I’m not. Instead, I’m describing “The Third Man.” The film noir, starring Joseph Cotton, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard and Alida Valli, is about corruption in post-World War II Vienna, Austria. The flick had its world premiere in London exactly 75 years ago today, in 1949. Continue reading →

In Las Vegas, careful parsing from the Nevada Republican Party

Posted on by August 26, 2024
Reply

Nevada Republican PartyAt the New to Las Vegas world headquarters I received in the mail today a flyer from the Nevada Republican Party (headed, it should be noted, by a fake elector) listing “Trump’s Real Common Sense Agenda.” The last point, which you can see nearby: “Keep violent criminals off the streets” (circle added by me).

In my view, the clear implication seems to be that it’s okay for non-violent criminals–like say, anyone declared guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records–to stay on the streets. Personally, I find it hard to pick and choose among felons.

I’m wondering if that printed agenda point was carefully hedged–not “criminals” or “all criminals” but just “violent criminals.” Otherwise, it might appear that Silver State Republicans were calling for the jailing of their ultimate leader.

Follow William P. Barrett’s work on X by clicking here.

Follow William P. Barrett’s work on Threads by clicking here.

Follow William P. Barrett’s work on BlueSky by clicking here.

Far from Las Vegas: the strange Austrian tale of Joseph Haydn’s head

Posted on by August 14, 2025
Reply
Joseph Haydn's head

Joseph Haydn

Near the front of Wiener Zentralfriedhof, the grand cemetery of Vienna, Austria, sit the final resting spots for a murderer’s row of history’s most celebrated classical composers. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), Franz Schubert (1797-1828), Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951), to name but a few. There’s even a monument to Wolfgang Mozart (1756-1791), although he’s actually buried in an unmarked grave in another Vienna cemetery.

But missing is perhaps the greatest composer of all: Joseph Haydn (1732-1809). Besides writing a lot of great music, he’s considered the father of symphonies and string quartets. Haydn is now entombed 40 miles away in Eisenstadt, capital of the rural Austrian state of Burgenland, where he composed and debuted so many of his famous works.

However, herein lies a tale full of deception, chicanery and just plain un-believability. Four days after Haydn’s death in Vienna in 1809, associates severed his skull, supposedly for scientific research. Initially buried in Vienna, the rest of Haydn’s body made it back to Eisenstadt in 1820 while the head remained in Vienna, first hidden but later bequeathed by will, passed around and sometimes put on public display!

It wasn’t until 1954–a full 145 years after Haydn’s death at age 77–that his real skull and body came together again where they are now. That’s in a marble mausoleum attached to the Bergkirche (Hill Church), an ornate 18th Century Catholic church built by Haydn’s musical patrons, the noble Esterházy family, and informally known as Haydn’s Church. It’s largely pay-per-view. The church today charged me, a tourist far from the New To Las Vegas world headquarters, three euros ($3.30 at current exchange rate) to open the thick mausoleum door on the side of the main sanctuary. Revealed was the sarcophagus, protected by bars, containing all of the great man–and, as it turns out, a little extra. Stay with me on this.
Continue reading →

Like Las Vegas and the mob, Vienna still profits from the Cold War

Posted on by August 17, 2024
Reply
Las Vegas and Vienna

Vienna skyline

With a monument devoted to a mobster, eateries named for their luminaries and even a museum to their m.o., Las Vegas brings in good coin from the legacy of its organized crime past. It’s a topic of continuing interest. I regularly get asked about this heritage, both by visitors to Sin City and by folks I encounter elsewhere once they realize I am New to Las Vegas.

So I’ve had a sense of déjà vu recently spending a little time around Vienna, the capital of Austria. This is a town still  profiting from its geography literally just a few miles from the old Iron Curtain separating the democratic West from the vassal states of the former Soviet Union. Continue reading →

Is ex-Las Vegas sheriff–now Governor–Joe Lombardo “Donor A” in alleged fallen-cop fundraising scam?

Posted on by April 24, 2025
Reply
alleged fallen-cop fundraising scam

Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo

SEE UPDATES AT END OF STORY

A federal criminal indictment released today in Las Vegas concerns a pet peeve of mine–dodgy fundraising for law enforcement causes. Ex-Las Vegas councilwoman Michele Fiore, 53, stands accused of siphoning off more than $70,000 ostensibly raised to build a fallen-officer memorial, for, among purposes, personal rent and her daughter’s wedding.

From the New To Las Vegas world headquarters I’ve been writing for years documenting such fundraising abuses. Substantially all the money raised from ignorant donors goes nowhere near the stated cause.

But this case, which dates back to activities a half-decade ago, has an interesting twist. If I am reading correctly the indictment and public online campaign contribution records, one of the marks, who coughed up $5,000, was the then-sitting Clark County Sheriff, Joe Lombardo.

He’s now the governor, having gotten elected in 2022 on a platform including law and order.

No criminal activity is alleged on his part, but maybe a little embarrassing if true?  I emailed the governor’s press office hours ago asking for comment, and will update this post if I hear back. Meanwhile, let me lay out how I see this now.
Continue reading →

How extreme heat made Las Vegas, again

Posted on by July 21, 2024
Reply

LAS VEGAS SHATTERS ALL-TIME HEAT RECORD!

See update at end of post

This material is drawn from a post during a similar Las Vegas hot spell in the summer of 2023.

On this 248th birthday of American independence the apprehension is palpable. Will Las Vegas soon break its all-time any-day-of-the year high temperature of 117 degrees Fahrenheit? That’s the prediction by early next week from the National Weather Service. This mark has been touched five times in recorded history, twice since I became New To Las Vegas in 2016. Yesterday’s official high at Harry Reid International Airport was 113.

Accompanying this is lots of moaning and groaning and swearing by locals about how unbearable it is to be hereabouts during the day and even at night, when the lows still hover around 90. All this is absolutely true. But there are plenty of other places around the country–like Death Valley barely two hours away by car (if it doesn’t overheat on the ride) and even the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles–and throughout the world that are frequently hotter.

However, for some reason Las Vegas during the summer seems to have become a national proxy for hot weather. Perhaps it’s the phenomenon I previously have described in which bad stuff that happens in Las Vegas gets insane publicity even though the same things happen elsewhere. In the case of hot weather maybe it has something to do with the satisfying notion to some of Sin City burning in hell. I even confess to playing that game a bit with a running box at the top of this blog listing the current temperature, automatically updated hourly. (My data comes from private OpenWeatherMap.com and sometimes varies a bit from the National Weather Service, the official record-keeper.)

Now I don’t want to make light of genuine suffering and deaths caused by heat, which certainly happen around Las Vegas, a place that has been called the country’s fastest-warming city. But having lived in a few other toasty climates–Houston, Albuquerque, the hot Santa Clarita Valley near Los Angeles and even Cairo, Egypt–me thinks many of the locals here doth protest a little too much.

Indeed, as I see it, it is the extreme heat–getting all the more extreme thanks to global warming–that helped give Las Vegas a viable economy in the first place. Hear me out on this. Continue reading →