Author: Kurt

Just received this in my email inbox:

This is intolerable….When you can’t speak your mind in America, And is treated so badly by your management,Then even the illusion of Free speech is dead. I will NEVER stay at your hotel,and am in fact canceling our trip to Vegas.

That’s it, nothing else. From the headers it looks to be a normal email (though not, ahem, the most grammatically sound piece of English I’ve ever read), not some circuitous piece of spam. Don’t recognize the sender either. Hmmn….I must say, I dying to know what happened, and especially at which hotel.

Oh okay, Google News is my friend. It must have been this story about Linda Ronstadt getting booted out of the Alladin Hotel in Vegas last weekend (for dedicating a song to “a great American patriot” Michael Moore).

I actually have stayed at the Alladin before, but should I find myself in Vegas again (and undoubtedly I’ll be back there, love that town!), I think I can echo my email friend that I won’t set foot in there again (too bad, their dinner buffet ain’t too bad, and cheaper than Bellagio’s). Still wondering what button was mis-pushed for me to get this though.

(And as an aside, here’s laying 1,000 yen on the fact that this will soon, if it hasn’t already, be picked up by Japan TV’s “wide shows” (news magazine shows) and Naoko will be breathlessly coming to me saying “Kurt, did you know that some singer was kicked out of the Alladin for praising Michael Moore?” For reasons I haven’t fully delved into, it seems many Japanese, including Naoko, are head over heels for Moore. For the record, based on seeing only Bowling for Columbine, though I find his views mainly in accord with mine, the man himself is quite insufferable.)