>> The Switch
>> Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
>> The Other Guys
>> Salt
>> Inception
>> Cyrus
>> The Last Airbender
>> Grown Ups
>> Toy Story 3
>> The Human Centipede

Opening 9.10.10
>> Resident Evil: Afterlife (R) [trailer]
>> Bran Nue Dae (Limited) (Not Rated) [trailer]
>> Heartbreaker (Limited) (Not Rated) [trailer]
>> I'm Still Here (Limited) (Not Rated) [trailer]
>> Legendary (Limited) (PG-13) [trailer]
>> Lovely, Still (Limited) (PG) [trailer]
>> The Romantics (Limited) (PG-13)
>> The Virginity Hit (Limited) (R) [trailer]

Coming To DVD/Blu-Ray 9.7.10
>> Supernatural: The Complete Fifth Season [buy]
>> The Office: Season Six [buy]
>> Smallville: The Complete Ninth Season [buy]
>> Jillian Michaels: Shred-It With Weights [buy]
>> Criminal Minds: Fifth Season [buy]

Las Vegas: Satan Vacations Here
by Victoria Alexander
May 15, 2006

Charlie Sheen’s LV “girlfriend,” IRVA Conference, Skip Barber’s Racing School, Sapporo Restaurant, Polly Peluso and Hugh Hefner, Kokomo at The Mirage, David Blaine & The Convulsionaires. Scientology’s Super Powers Program, Umbanda, Galaxy Theatres, Utah’s Most Wanted Young Girl Pimp, and more...

Charlie Sheen’s Las Vegas “Girlfriend?” The Daily News’ Rush & Molloy column had an item about Charlie Sheen linking him to a Las Vegas transvestite. They reported:

“Nobody ever said Charlie Sheen isn't open-minded. His well-endowed curiosity about all things sexual - he admitted to spending $50,000 with Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss for escorts - led him to hang out with drag queens, some of them now claim.

“According to one private investigator, the "Two and a Half Men" star has spent quality time with transvestite Kayla Coxx in Las Vegas [pictured]. Coxx told us: "I don't want to comment on that. But I will say, I'm so sick of buying cheerleader outfits it's not even funny." Coxx was undoubtedly referring to Fleiss' claim that Sheen liked it when her girls dressed up as cheerleaders.

“The freakishly handsome actor, who starred in the "Scary Movie" and "Hot Shots" movies, may be lonely these days. His wife, Denise Richards, the mother of two of his children, served him with divorce papers two weeks ago. The documents contained allegations of drug use, repeated infidelity and sex-for-pay. Meanwhile, just days after filing, Richards was photographed consorting with Richie Sambora [her former best friend’s soon-to-be ex-husband] on a terrace in what looked like a classic paparazzo setup just to hurt Sheen back.”

Just in case you need this information for “a friend,” Kayla’s Las Vegas home and cell phone numbers are on her website www.kaylacoxx.com and her email address is kaylacoxx@gmail.com.

Skip Barber Racing School. On Tuesday we had the very rare opportunity – yes, it was a special once in a lifetime invitation – to take part in a heart-pounding day of racing excitement at the Skip Barber Racing School held at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Do you want to give your father or the father of your children a fantastic testosterone-fueled day? This is it! We – I mean my sacrificial victim stand–in, my husband John (pictured), and I as chronicler - participated in Skip Barber’s One Day High Performance Diving School course. The One Day Course uses a stable of powerful sports cars such as the Porsche 911 and Boxster, BMW M3 and 330i sports cars.

There were 4 events in different “high-octane” environments. John rode alongside a professional driver for a riveting, hair-on-fire Hot Lap session. (One hour after her Hot-Lap ride-along, one woman said she was still shaking. She exited the car screaming. She said she begged the driver to stop. Needless-to-say, it was the greatest experience of her life! Later, I saw her back on line.)

The one-day experience also covered vehicle dynamics & behavior, experiencing slides & recoveries, learning at the limit, experiencing lane-toss exercises and accident avoidance. Four premium sports cars were available for maneuvers.

John said nothing matched the experience of driving a Formula Dodger race car several times around the 2.4 mile track.

There are prerequisites: You must have the ability to drive a manual transmission. Participants are required to sign a Release and Waiver of Liability, Assumption of Risk and Indemnity Agreement prior to participation.

Two upcoming course dates for the Skip Barber One Day High Performance Driving School at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway are May 27th and June 4th. If you go on the website, www.skipbarber.com, you will notice that many upcoming Skip Barber courses, held around the country, are already filled up for the full day $1,495 experience!

The Skip Barber Racing School began a two-month presence in Las Vegas on May 5th. The School is offering a full range of programs for professional drivers and avid fans. There are many courses offered: the One-Day and Two-Day Driving School programs, One-Day Combo program, New Driver program, and One-Day and Two-Day High Performance Driving School programs. For the seriously afflicted speed junkies, there is a Three-Day Racing School program that promises to be an intense experience.

Polly Peluso and Hugh Hefner. My dear friend Polly Peluso, Las Vegas’ High Priestess of Entertainment Reporting, writes a very entertaining column for Las Vegas Now Magazine. A member of the Las Vegas Film Critics Society, Polly also writes about upcoming movies for www.theflickchicks.com.

Polly’s career in show business is legendary and many of us have been hoping Polly would finally reveal all her secrets in an autobiography. Polly continues to be one of the most recognizable faces in Las Vegas. Polly recently sent me a photo of her and Hugh Hefner “back in the day” when she was a Playmate Scout for Playboy.

Kokomo Steak & Seafood Restaurant. On Wednesday we went to Kokomo at The Mirage. Kokomo is a Steak and Seafood restaurant set in a tropical rainforest, surrounded by waterfalls and a sparkling interior lagoon (with birds flying around). The food is divine! There was nothing on the menu that missed the mark. All the food was elegantly presented and we sampled, among the many items offered, the Ahi Tuna Tartar, Lobster Bisque, Oysters On The Half Shell, Coconut Shrimp (with Mango Chutney & Jalapeno Coulis) and Filet Mignon. For seafood mavens, Kokomo’s is a big catch.

Kokomo is open daily from 5:00 to 10:30 PM, You can make reservations by phone at 866.339.4566 or reserve a table online at www.mirage.com.

GalaxyTheatres. On Thursday, Jeff Howard, President of the Las Vegas Film Critics Society (LVFCS), and I took a tour of the new Galaxy Theatres at the Cannery Casino & Hotel in North Las Vegas. There are 14 digital projectors, seven more than originally planned, making it the theater with the most digital projectors west of the Mississippi.

The $10 million project connects to the west side of the casino via a pedestrian bridge over Curry Street, and, at 41,000 square feet, features a digital projector along with all digital sound, wall-to-wall screens and "rocker" seats. You do not have to walk through the casino to get to the theatres. The LVFCS and Galaxy Theatres will be working together to bring special events, film festivals and premieres to North Las Vegas.

Galaxy Theatres Cannery, located at 2121 East Craig Road, North Las Vegas inside the Cannery Casino & Hotel, features a 14-screens multiplex, with seven high-end projector systems with DLP Cinema® technology. For more information, visit galaxytheatres.com.

Sapporo Restaurant. Thursday, before we hosted the IRVA Board of Directors meeting at our home, we went to Sapporo, a Sushi and Teppan Yaki paradise located at 9719 West Flamingo Road, Las Vegas, NV 89147 The sushi is perfection; however, I had two caramel apple martinis, and after that there was no turning back. Some of the appetizers we sampled were beef carpacciio, bbq chicken eggrolls , golden scallops, stuffed shrimp and lobster summer rolls. The sushi rolls included tekka maki, sapporo, spicy yellowtail, and toratora, among many others. The menu is quite extensive! The huge, beautifully designed Sapporo anchors a cluster of restaurants on the very upscale Fort Apache-West Flamingo corridor. Sapporo is open daily at 4PM. Call 702.216.3080.

IRVA. The International Remote Viewer Association’s Board of Directors meeting was held at our home. The speaker program this year is quite impressive with Jeff Mishlove (http://jeff.zaadz.com/blog/2006/3), Elias Merhige, and Dean Radin among the speakers presenting on Saturday. The “Father of Remote Viewing,” my dear friend Ingo Swann, is Saturday’s evening featured speaker. The entire program can be found on the IRVA.org website. http://www.rvconference.org/ConferenceProgram.html.

My new passion is for Umbanda and Candomblé. During our last visit to Brazil we visited famed healer John of God (pictured). João provides free treatment from his small hospital-style sanctuary in the town of Abadiania, Goias, Brazil - 130km from the capital Brasilia. The centre, known as Casa de Dom Inacio, is open three days each week: Wednesday, Thursday & Friday. All healings are free and a free soup lunch is provided to all. The medium João loses consciousness when he incorporates elevated spirit entities who then use his body to perform operations, treatments and cures of the physical and spiritual bodies. All who visit the centre may observe and participate in the proceedings.

I told my friend Angelo, our Brazilian chaperone who had previously arranged a private Santo Daime ceremony for me in the exotic little town of Visconde de Mauá (surrounded by forests with rushing mountain streams and waterfalls, Mauá is one of the most attractive places in the Serra da Mantiqueira) that next time I visited Brazil I wanted to experience Umbanda and Candomblé.

It is therefore auspicious that I will be returning to Brazil very soon in July. I intend to see John of God again and, hopefully, Angelo will want to return with me since John does not have the burning interest to spend time with João’s Spirit Doctors. And, through a synchronistic meeting with GP, I will have the opportunity to experience the Brazilian spiritualism of Umbanda and Candomblé. GP has offered to make the proper introductions for me. I will be able to attend an Umbanda ceremony and, who knows?, perhaps I will become an initiate! What is Umbanda? Well, here is a very brief summary I have extracted from their website, www.umbanda.org.

“The Initiatic Order of the Divine Cross is a High Initiation Umbanda Temple established on 28th July 1970 by the medium F. Rivas Neto, Master of Initiation of 7th Grade in 3rd Cycle. Headquartered in São Paulo, Umbanda sessions are open to the public without profit. Thousands of people have participated and experienced the medium power of its Initiation Master and his disciple.

“Under the view strictly internal the Initiation Order of the Divine Cross has, functionally structured, the Three Paths Order exclusively dedicated to the initiation of mediums in their various degrees. The Three Paths Order is orientated by astralized spirits from the Golden Star, Blue Star and Rose Star Brotherhoods directed by Masters Arashamanan, Yoshanan and Curumitan, respectively.

“The direct contact with the Embodied Entities predisposes the consultants to the reflection about their own lives and favors the adoption of a more responsible attitude regarding their own existence as the Spirits introduce a closest view of Reality both material and spiritual.

“At the same time there are advanced methods for internal and secret rites, exclusive to the Followers and Initiated that already have a personality more solidly based and wider spiritual range, fruit of their own experience. Between the two extremes described there is a huge number of people with varied understanding levels that benefit from the existing literature and theoretical and practical courses besides the ritual open to public.

“The Initiatic Order of the Divine Cross is called for people in Brazil and from all over the world. Today it’s considered the Temple capable of presenting and representing the inner aspects of the Umbanda Doctrine to all independent of the conscience degree aiming at giving adequate help to everybody.” (Photo: Main Sanctuary of the Initiation Order of the Divine Cross with its medium in rite open to the public.)

In next week’s TDH column (May 22nd) I will briefly discuss Candomblé.

Scientology’s Super Power Program Launched. Now that Tom Cruises’ career is over after a disappointing $47.5 million domestic opening of “Mission: Impossible 3”, he can float in the bliss of the super powers he now has (or will have), thanks to Scientology’s – decades in the creating, formerly closely guarded - spiritual training program that will soon be unveiled in Clearwater, Florida. The mammoth center is the only place worldwide where the program, much anticipated by Scientologists, will be offered. According to an article in the Clearwater Times:

“A key aim of Super Power is to enhance one's perceptions - and not just the five senses we all know - hearing, sight, touch, taste and smell. Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard taught that people have 57 "perceptics." They include an ability to discern relative sizes, blood circulation, balance, compass direction, temperature, gravity and an "awareness of importance, unimportance."

“Super Power uses machines, apparatus and specially designed rooms to exercise and enhance a person's so-called perceptics. Those machines include an antigravity simulator and a gyroscope-like apparatus that spins a person around while blindfolded to improve perception of compass direction. Hubbard promised Super Power would improve perceptions and "put the person into a new realm of ability." He believed it would unlock abilities needed to spread Scientology across the planet.

“Super Power is ready and 300 staff members are being trained to deliver it.”

By the way, Tom’s supposedly “Stepford Future Wife” is a pretty tough negotiator. She is nobody’s fool. “Enslaved” Katie Holmes is reported to have signed a $50 million deal whether she marries Tom or not. According to internet reports – where all facts are rumors - Tom has signed a $41 million pre-nuptial agreement with Katie. The deal also includes a $10 million trust fund for Katie and their newborn daughter Suri, regardless if the couple should marry or not.

“Contractual Soon To Be Wife” Katie Holmes stands to receive another $18 million if the couple should marry and divorce. The $67 million prenuptial agreement has been a large sticking point on the road to the TomKat marriage. Katie Holmes' father, Martin Holmes, is a divorce lawyer and has been in a pitched battle with Cruise's lawyers over the agreement. The deal over the prenuptial agreement has gone on for some time, and many people have speculated that is the reason the couple did not marry before the birth of daughter Suri.

David Blaine Survives! Again. According to www.Wikipedia.org, here is - slimmed down by me – an accounting of Blaine’s unique brand of street magic.

1999: “Premature Burial.” Blaine spent seven days buried inside a glass coffin at the bottom of an open pit in front of an office building in New York City where passersby could view him, 24 hours a day.

2000: “Frozen in Time.” Blaine spent time in a closet of ice located in Times Square, New York. He was encased in ice for 61 hours, 40 minutes, and 15 seconds.

2002: “Vertigo.” He was lifted by crane onto a 90 foot high pillar in Bryant Park, New York City. He remained on the pillar, which was 22 inches wide, for nearly 35 hours without food or water or anything to lean on.

2003: “Above the Below.” Blaine’s 44 day endurance stunt. He was sealed inside a transparent Plexiglas case suspended 30 feet in the air on the south bank of the River Thames in London. During this period the magician reportedly received no food but only water.

On May 1, 2006, Blaine began “Drowned Alive.” He was submerged in an 8 foot diameter, water-filled sphere (isotonic saline, 0.9% salt) in front of the Lincoln Center in New York for seven days and seven nights, using tubes for air and nutrition. He concluded this event by attempting to hold his breath underwater to break the world record of 8 minutes, 58 seconds.

Critics such as Mark Harris of the British Free Diving Association have been reported before the stunt as saying that Blaine would have had an unfair advantage. In any case, Blaine's feat could not have been officially recognized, as judges from the International Association for the Development of Apnea (AIDA) were not present to verify that Blaine breathed no pure oxygen for at least two hours prior to beginning his attempt. For reference, the world record for holding one's breath after having breathed pure oxygen is closer to fifteen minutes.

Hunger Artists, The Historical Overview. I highly recommend “From Fasting Saints to Anorexic Girls: The History of Self-Starvation” by Walter Vandereychen and Ron van Deth.

In Chapter 5, the authors detail the popular performances of hunger artists and living skeletons. There was “great popularity” at the end of the previous century for people who earned their living through fasting on stage. David Blaine is entertaining the public in a similar manner, but without the same results, as the “Convulsionaires.”

Blaine should do some research on the “Convulsionaires.” After Jansenism’s more prominent members, Francois de Paris, died on May 1, 1727 people started visiting his tomb.

The mourners began to experience strange involuntary spasms or convulsions and began to display the ability to endure without harm and an almost unimaginable variety of physical tortures.

These events lasted years and were witnessed by thousands. The tortures were asked for by the convulsionaires.

One of the female convulsionaires bent backwards over the sharp point of a peg. A fifty pound stone was lifted high above her stomach and allowed to fall, again and again. Normally, just the stone falling onto a person's stomach will crush the torso, lungs, internal organs and even the backbone. She walked away from this incredible situation without a mark on her.

The convulsionaires could not be harmed by extremely vicious 'attacks' with metal rods, chains, timbers, hammers, knives, swords and hatchets! Some were even able to levitate while witnesses tried to hold them to the ground. These events happened hundreds of times over a period of many years with thousands of witnesses.

One convulsionaire, having an iron drill hammered into his stomach while he "maintained an 'expression of perfect rapture,' cried, 'Oh, that does me good! Courage, brother; strike twice as hard, if you can!'"

Big, Nasty Love! As I already mentioned, Sunday nights belong to HBO’s “The Sopranos” and the polygamist drama “Big Love” (just renewed for a second season). Nicki, Bill’s 2nd wife, revealed that she is $58,000 in debt. Apparently, she brought a lot of junk since polygamist wives do not shop at Neiman Marcus. They shop at WalMart. Not only did Bill forgive her, his 1st wife – The Blessed Barb – is not angry and will help pay off the debt for her sister-wife!

Last week the FBI placed “Prophet” Warren Jeffs on their 10 Most Wanted list. Not only is Jeffs the head of the FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) Church, the biggest polygamist church in the U.S. with over 10,000 members, he now has a $100,000 bounty on his head! Creepy Warren succeeded his father, Rulon Jeffs, who led the FLDS Church until his death in 2002 at age 92. Rulon Jeffs was rumored to have as many as 75 wives and dozens of children.

Your Porn Name is your first childhood pet’s name paired with the street you grew up on.

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