Withering Glance: Cher in Vegas: Close to heaven

Rick Nelson and Claude Peck dispense unasked-for advice about clothing, etiquette, culture, relationships, grooming and more.

CP: So. Cher.

RN: There are no words. Well, maybe "Bow down." That's how I felt after her Vegas show. Her rendition of "Half Breed," wearing only a floor-length feather headdress and a few strategically placed beaded cotton balls, managed to sum up the entire 1970s in 45 seconds. There wasn't a dry seat in the house.

CP: After the bomb that was "Burlesque," I suppose Cher needs to keep earning somehow. That cosmetic surgery isn't going to pay for itself.

RN: A few years of medley-izing "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves" and "Believe" at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace can't hurt. Bob Mackie can probably retire on the costume tab. Ditto the wigmakers.

CP: In my mind, you and Las Vegas don't crop up in the same sentence. Or even the same book. Your idea of a gamble is buying an oxford shirt that isn't light blue. You barely drink, and you rarely carouse.

RN: Right? My Lutheran heritage has never reared up so fast as when I found myself walking through the casino at 7:30 a.m., breakfast-bound, because in Vegas you have to navigate the casino to get anywhere. "Shouldn't these people be at work, or reading to the blind?" is what I found myself tsk-tsk-ing.

RN: Tell me about it. My room -- sorry, my uber-fabulous, 50th-floor, suite-sized getaway at the brand-new Cosmopolitan -- overlooked the waterworks at the Bellagio, which seemed to boom all night long. In the Twin Towns, they would be shut down at 7:30 p.m., sharp.

CP: In Vegas, they work hard to sculpt an environment where night and day bleed into each other like well-washed madras shorts. Do they still permit smoking?

RN: You're kidding, right?

CP: My last visit, which was featured in an AA book of cautionary tales, was also the last time I had a cigarette, more than 15 years ago. I recall smoking roughly a pack an hour on that fateful long weekend.

RN: In Vegas, you can probably light up in the cancer-treatment centers. By the time I left, I was fidgeting for an unfiltered Camel.

RN: How about, post-Cher, strolling through the tacky splendor of the Flamingo Hotel and stumbling across Donny and Marie, signing autographs. If I had seen Charo, I would have had a pop-culture hat trick.

CP: Or Bette Midler, rolling a carry-on bag through the lobby of the Golden Nugget. You would have had to phone me about it from heaven.