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his week: Sting’s Symphonicity concert at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, True Blood Returns!, Bob Bigelow on UFOs, Peter Gersten Will Leap off Bell Rock in 2012, and more…
An Evening With Sting! On Friday, June 18, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, rock star Sting presented Sting’s Symphonicity. Thanks to MGM’s Scott Ghertner and Nicole VanGiesen of KSM, Inc. for the terrific seat.
The multi-country tour has Sting performing his most celebrated songs re-imagined for symphonic arrangement. The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra (RPCO) is conducted by Maestro Steven Mercurio. Go to www.sting.com for future tour dates.
"What a pleasure to be back in Las Vegas!” Sting said as he opened Symphonicity Tour 2010 at MGM Grand Garden Arena.
Sting was back at his favorite venue from two years ago with The Police, and his backup then was only Andy Summers (guitar) and Steward Copeland (drums).
Now with RPCO, Sting exclaims “I’m with the biggest band I’ve ever had.”
Sting and the RPCO have “re-imagined for symphonic arrangement” his work with The Police and his solo hits.
Sting loves Las Vegas: Since, as he said (to the extreme pleasure of the audience) that all the people look like they’ve just had sex, or about to have sex!
Right at the beginning Sting introduces many of his new band-mates, and it is better to do that up front than the tedious way bands wait until the concert is almost over.
Another thing that separates Sting from his middle-aged contemporaries is his unlimited vocal range, and by that I mean that his voice has not suffered through age (a fit 58)—yet actually has gotten better. Sting attributes this to all the Yoga he does! Conversely, many rock stars with age ‘tune down’ the pitch of the songs in concert, but Sting keeps the pitch of his songs the same (trust me, he sounds just like he does on the record!)
This concept of rockers playing their tunes backed by an orchestra (Aerosmith, Metallica, Kiss, Scorpions) is nothing new, but this musical venture for Sting works perfectly well with his style of Pop, Rock, Punk, Jazz and (yes) Country. It’s a wonder he hadn’t thought of doing this before.
With an intermission between two sets and 26 songs, Sting introduced almost every song (it was better than a VH-1 Storytellers!). You can tell he was comfortable with the crowd and liked to talk about a multitude of topics from transsexual prostitutes (“Tomorrow We’ll See”), the Bible (“Mad About You”), and the second type of love song - “I love you, you love somebody else” (“When We Dance”), the ‘new’ fascination for Vampires (“Moon Over Bourbon Street”), his seafaring ancestors and milkman dad (“Why Should I Cry For You?”), his struggle to write the perfect Country song (“I Hung My Head”), and once being a musician on a cruise ship. “Fuckin’ hated it,” Sting says.
Truly an amazing, unforgettable show from such an iconic performer. Thank you MGM (walking through MGM Grand is like traveling by foot through a small country) for bringing Sting to Las Vegas.
Sting’s first set began with “If I Ever Lose My Faith In You.” Then “Englishman In New York,” “Every Little Thing She Is Does Is Magic,” “Roxanne,” “Straight To My Heart,” “When We Dance,” “Russians,” “I Hung My Head,” “Shape Of My Heart,” “Why Should I Cry For You?,” “Whenever I Say Your Name,” “Fields Of Gold,” and “Next To You.” After the Intermission, Sting began the second set with “A Thousand Years,” “Tomorrow We’ll See,” “Moon Over Bourbon Street,” “The End Of The Game,” “You Will Be My True Love,” “All Would Envy,” “Mad About You,” “King Of Pain,” “Every Breath You Take,” “Desert Rose,” “She’s Too Good For Me” and the finale, “Fragile.”
The cost of the tickets were $201, $86, & $51 inclusive of LET (Plus $6.00 Handling Fee). For upcoming events at the acoustically brilliant MGM Grand, go to: www.mgmgrand.com.
Space Race & Bob Bigelow. Our friend Bob Bigelow, who brought us to Las Vegas, was interviewed by The New York Times. The article titled “In New Space Race, Enter the Entrepreneurs” was published June 7, 2010 and written by Kenneth Chang. Here is the wrap-up of the article and some highly controversial comments by Bob that have gone viral within the UFO Community:
At the Bigelow Aerospace factory here, the full-size space station mockups sitting on the warehouse floor look somewhat like puffy white watermelons. The interiors offer a hint of what spacious living in space might look like.
Four years from now, the company plans for real modules to be launched and assembled into the solar system’s first private space station. Paying customers…would arrive a year later.
In 2016, a second, larger station would follow. The two Bigelow stations would then be home to 36 people at a time—six times as many as currently live on the International Space Station.
“Nobody,” Mr. Bigelow said of competition he sees on the horizon.
Thus, the promises of the president’s plan rest on this enigmatic, 100-employee company located on 50 acres of desert not far from the casinos and strip clubs and the ability of Mr. Bigelow, an iconoclast who made his fortune in real estate including the Budget Suites of America hotel chain, to get his dreams off the ground.
He has spent about $180 million of his own money so far and has said he is willing to spend up to $320 million more.
Mr. Bigelow, 66, only occasionally gives interviews, and except for Michael N. Gold, the director of Bigelow’s Washington office, the employees almost never speak publicly. A company document titled “Some Important Bigelow Aerospace Cultural Values” implores employees, “Keep your work and the work of your co-workers very private from people outside the company.”
The Las Vegas site is hemmed by barbed wire and patrolled by armed guards.
A stay on a Bigelow station, including transportation, is currently priced at just under $25 million a person for 30 days. That is less than half the more than $50 million a seat that NASA is paying for rides alone on Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station. Doubling the stay to 60 days adds just $3.75 million more.
The Bigelow prices are good through 2018, and Mr. Bigelow said the prices would drop by then if, as he expects, rocket prices drop.
The controversial statements:
His space stations are not his only interest in space. “I’ve been a researcher and student of U.F.O.’s for many, many years,” Mr. Bigelow said. “Anybody that does research, if people bother to do quality research, come away absolutely convinced. You don’t have to have personal encounters.”
He added: “People have been killed. People have been hurt. It’s more than observational kind of data.”
Other views that run counter to mainstream science include a belief in the power of prayer and a disbelief in the Big Bang theory.
Mr. Bigelow established Bigelow Aerospace in 1999 and bought an exclusive license to the NASA patents.
Mimicking the $10 million X Prize that spurred the development of the suborbital spaceplane SpaceShipOne, Mr. Bigelow offered $50 million to anyone who could build an orbital spacecraft. No one tried to claim the prize before it expired in January.
HBO’s TRUE BLOOD Returns! They promised lots of sex and nudity this season and delivered! Now if only they could get rid of gap-toothed Anna Paquin! There was a very hot scene featuring Eric (Alex Skarsgaard) having hours-long sex with a tied up dancer from his vampire club. Sookie Stackhouse (Paquin) went to confront Eric Northman at Fangtasia over Bill’s (Stephen Moyer) kidnapping and ended up with an eyeful of Eric, who pranced and walked around naked in front of her.
Creator Alan Ball is bringing out the gay in Southern vampires!
Then there was a homoerotic dream sequence between Sam Merlotte (Sam Trammell) and Bill. Bill, usually so sedate (after all, he is a Civil War veteran), is amped up this season—he was all about being dangerously sexy!
This is what happens when Skarsgaard gets a “Team Eric” following. The fans love Eric.
Sam was having the dream about Bill, which could be explained by all of Bill’s blood he ingested when trying to recover from the wounds he suffered from maenad Maryann (Michelle Forbes). Bill asks to use Sam’s shower and suggests Sam join him! Sam says yes! Then Bill says something about Tennessee water being “hard.” They almost kiss.
AGCWebPages.com has a blind item from GOSSIP BOY 05/03 #1**: “Which actor is into being blindfolded and letting numerous men use him? This past weekend he held a very secretive gathering of 20 men that entered his house to find him face down, tied to a bed and open for business. Before you ask, I was NOT there! Not Robert Pattinson.”
And the published strong guess is that it is someone from True Blood.
Peter Gersten Will Leap off Bell Rock in 2012. I knew Peter Gersten, Esq. quite well in the late 1980s when I lived in New York. Peter worked as a criminal defense attorney in the Bronx (photo of Peter—back in the day—at my apartment in New York.
In 1977 Peter brought suit in a U.S. District Court on behalf of Ground Saucer Watch against the Central Intelligence Agency. Pursuant to the FOIA lawsuit, the CIA in 1979 released over 900 pages of documents relating to the UFO phenomenon. They refused to release 57 documents, claiming national security considerations. On June 24th, 1980 Peter brought suit against the National Security Agency on behalf of his own recently formed organization, Citizens Against UFO Secrecy (CAUS), for 135 UFO related documents. On November 18, 1980, based upon a NSA top secret affidavit, the Court dismissed the lawsuit stating that “the continued need for secrecy far outweighed the public’s right to know.”
We would go UFO hunting with a group of friends that swelled in numbers due to the UFO Hotline that Peter ran. Peter would get a call about a sighting of a UFO, everyone had someone to call, and off we would go.
Now there are IMs, texting, and Twitter. And still only a handful of people in an Arkansas swamp ever see a UFO up close.
Peter now lives in Sedona, Arizona. Peter has caused a sensation by announcing that at 11:11 on December 21st 2012, he will leap off Bell Rock in Arizona. He explains why he has decided to do this on his Web page. (www.pagenews.info)
Here is Peter’s explanation: “Most of you will think that I am delusional and that my insane act will certainly result in my death. Death is inevitable—at least nowadays—and 100 years from now it won’t matter whether I died in 2012 or 2013 or even 2020. But I believe that some type of cosmic portal will be opening at that time and place and that an opportunity will present itself. I fully expect that it will either lead to the next level of this cosmic program; freedom from an imprisoning time-loop; a magical Martian-like bubble; or something equally as exotic.”
“In March 2012 I will reach 70 years of age and nine months later we arrive at the cosmic coordinate. I think it will then be time for me to move on—in one form or another. I’d like to see what else our Cosmic Computer has to offer.”
See this site for links to a blog about the gathering at Bell Rock in 2012: www.bellrock2012.com.
Yes, indeed it is, as Peter writes, a big “Leap of Faith.” But didn’t Carlos Castaneda do it already? Didn’t Castaneda jump into the abyss? In The Eagle’s Gift, Castaneda describes how don Juan and his party, left this world—“the warriors of don Juan’s party had caught me for an eternal instant, before they vanished into the total light, before the Eagle let them go through”—and how he, himself, upon witnessing such a sight, jumped into the abyss.”
However, as a mutual friend of mine and Peter’s said to me: “It’s illegal to commit suicide. The police will stop him.” Since Peter has gone public with his intended plan, there will be a large gathering. The police will stop it.
If you go to Bell Rock and wait for Peter to do the “Moses hike up the mountain,” and he gets arrested, will you feel cheated if, as everyone says, 11:11 p.m. on December 21, 2012 is just another night for star-gazing?
Peter explains further: “On the Winter Solstice of 2012 at exactly 11:11 UT a cosmic portal will open in Sedona Arizona and a leap of faith—from the top of Bell Rock—will propel me through its opening. But let me start at the beginning.
“My two principal beliefs are: 1) that our reality is an intelligently designed cosmic holographic program and 2) that on the Winter Solstice of 2012 at exactly 11:11 UT—a Trans-Dimensional Event (T-DE) will occur.
“In support of these beliefs I rely upon direct and circumstantial evidence, an 11:11 experience, and genetically programmed intuition.”
A skeptic might wonder if Peter has a terminal, inoperable illness (Peter says he is in good health). Credit card companies might want to keep an eye on Peter’s future purchases...just saying.
Gordon Kunhe comments: “The devil is in the details. What is Gersten has on a parachute or jumps off with a hang glider?” Technically, he delivered on his promise to jump off Bell Rock. However, Gordon did mention death benefits but Peter’s family does not need to worry. Most private insurance policies have a 2-year suicide exclusion period. After that, the policy must pay the benefit regardless of manner of death.
