Happy Report of the day - Liberace's Las Vegas Home is being restored!

Someone had the good sense to buy Liberace's decrepit Las Vegas home and is restoring it to all it's tacky glory.  Leave it to the Brits.  Martyn Ravenhill from Surrey knows glamour and snatched Lee's Vegas digs for $523,000

Source:  Curbed and The Daily Mail

Now if only one of the HUGE CASINOS on the strip would donate a fucking ballroom, just one, to display Liberace's legendary collection of costumes (the one's that haven't been picked over and sold yet), pianos and gems.

The World's Largest Rhinestone.

Who else would own it?

"Do you love it?  You should.  You paid for it."

Liberace was a star.  He helped put Vegas on the map.  He deserves it.

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New Addition to the Dearly Departed Tours' Museum DJ AM

Donated by the lovely Amanda Rosenblatt who just left the shop with Brad.  

This vinyl record  is from the personal collection of 

Adam Goldstein aka DJ AM

Adam is buried in Hillside Memorial Park

January 5, 2015 the 17th Deathaversary of Sonny Bono

Sonny Bono was a successful business person, talented producer and politician.

Sonny Bono died on January 5, 1998 - 17 years ago today.  

He was snow skiing in the Heavenly Ski Resort in South Lake Tahoe. 

He was on a "well-groomed intermediate run" and was navigating through a narrow grove.  He smashed face-first into a lodgepole pine.

He was found at the base of this very set of trees.

Sonny's widow, the wife who isn't Cher, said that Sonny would be alive today if he'd been wearing a ski helmet with a face guard.  I didn't know helmets were optional, but there you go.

Sonny now rests forever at the base of THIS tree in a Palm Springs Cemetery.

A few years ago someone was selling what they claimed were Sonny's skis on Craigslist.  

What a great addition to our Museum that would have been, but some fussy news agency blasted on about it and the owner got spooked.  Hey, if you are reading this, get in touch okay?

and the beat goes on.

Cher was in the studio when Be My Baby by the Ronettes was being recorded.  One of the backup singers didn't show up.  According to Cher, "'Be My Baby' was the first record I ever sang on".

New Addition to the Dearly Departed Tours Museum

Another sad addition to the Museum in Dearly Departed Tours

The Detroit Packard Plant - What I did on my Christmas Vacation

While visiting family in Detroit for Christmas I had the opportunity to tour the long abandoned Packard Plant.  While snapping away, my brother and I were approached by a kind man who offered us the tour - a tour that most sane people would have refused and could have gone so terribly, terribly wrong. 

"Ever notice how 'What the hell' is always the right answer?"
- Marilyn Monroe

The Packard Plant opened in 1903.  Packard stopped production in the 50's and the building had hosted several businesses (mostly storage) since then.  It's been mostly abandoned since the 90's.

I've had a couple of associations with the Packard car in my life.  My close friend Kathleen owns a 1949 that I've had the opportunity to drive a couple of times.  It's a behemoth, built like a brick house and is just as classy.

(note the DEATH HAG sticker)

A few years back I had the opportunity to slip my fat ass into Jean Harlow's 1937 Packard.

I learned on this trip that my dad worked at the Packard Plant in 1947 as a body pusher.  He would guide the body of these majestic creations to the assembly line, across the iconic bridge over E. Grand Blvd.  My godmother was also an employee for decades.

Human termites known as "scrappers" have been brazenly munching away at the Packard Plant and selling the metal, so much so that the structure is unstable and dangerous.  However, it's also dramatic and fascinating... beautiful in a weird way.  And I'm weird.

Standing mostly empty for so many years, the place has been slowly destroyed by the elements, vandals, the occasional discovery of a corpse and other various crimes.

The great news:  Detroit is coming back.  I never thought it would happen in my lifetime.  There are terrific things are going on in Motown.  I love that, I really do.  But I love the ruins of my childhood home just as much.  I'm from Detroit, my family mostly lives in Detroit, and I visit it a few times a year, but back in 1985?  I couldn't get out fast enough.

The Packard Plant has been purchased by a developer and work has started on destroying some of it and saving some of it.  I've heard he's actually living on the property though I don't believe it.  But it is hopeful.

  Note the sign.

Here are more of my photographs.

Wood bricks were originally soaked in creosote.

heh.

Thanks, Rick!