The proposed Barstow casino is one of the casino projects touched upon in a new article from the LA Times this week:
Rich tribes also oppose two other deals the governor struck with poor tribes, which would allow off-reservation casinos. Those pacts involve the Los Coyotes band and the Big Lagoon Rancheria.
No tribe has less than Francine Kupsch’s Los Coyotes. About 70 of the 380 members live on the 25,000-acre reservation in homes built with federal aid. Many collect welfare. They receive federal commodity cheese and charity turkeys at Thanksgiving.
Casino developers have concluded that the land, in the northern San Diego County mountains, is too remote to support a casino. The nearest settlement is Warner Springs, down a narrow road. The closest city is Temecula, 40 miles away.
Now, Los Coyotes hopes to open a casino in Barstow, off Interstate 15 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. That proposal is controversial — the desert town is two counties and more than 100 miles from the reservation. The group would need permission from the U.S. Interior Department for an off-site casino, but Congress is considering banning off-reservation gambling.
Schwarzenegger suggested that the 21 Indians who make up the Big Lagoon Rancheria join Los Coyotes in the Barstow project. The lagoon that gave the tribe its name is 700 miles from Barstow, in Humboldt County in far Northern California, and Schwarzenegger was hoping to preserve their stretch of largely undisturbed coast.
Each band could have 2,250 slot machines in the Barstow deal. But the compacts announced last year to allow the deal have languished in the Legislature.
You have to register to read the article, unless you use BugMeNot.com or, better yet, the BugMeNot plug-in for Firefox, which should be your browser of choice anyway.
If you’re one of the folks wanting to know what casinos are coming where — and have discovered that I can’t answer that question when you call the Hesperia Star (because I can’t, other than to give you an unsatisfactory update to the Hesperia casino situation) — check out Casino Stalker, which merges Google Maps with a growing database of information about casino projects around the country.
(Oh, and there will be a new Hesperia casino story in next week’s Star.)
Joel’s posted some selected camera phone photos to Flickr, including this one of me wearing a Pirates of the Caribbean baseball cap at Disneyland with Kate.
Kate had been very good and eaten only fruit, veggies and a few pieces of elbow macaroni with garlic cream sauce all day. But Jenn is a nut for churros and when Kate got her hands on the sugar, cinammon and deep-fried pastry within, she loved it, not surprisingly.
There’s also a picture of Kate with my fish tank (which she went berserk over) and a shot of her with my parents in Oakland.
I need to get around to posting all my camera phone shots before Kate’s old enough to drive. I’ll do so this weekend, for sure. Really.
I’m daring the spam gods by linking to a Vegas odds maker here, but here’s the current line on Rock Star: Supernova:
Dilana Robichaux 1/1
Lukas Rossi 10/11
Magni Asgeirsson 3/1
Patrice Pike 21/1
Ryan Star 5/1
Storm Large 7/1
Toby Rand 5/7
I don’t bet — I just don’t have the gene that gets a thrill from the risk — but I guess that means Vegas has them ranked Toby, Lukas and Dilana as 1st, 2nd and 3rd choices, with Magni, Ryan, Storm and Patrice bringing up the rear.
I find Ryan exasperating at best — the guitar-throwing stunt last night reeked of trying to desperately please Supernova — but with the possible exception of Toby being so highly ranked, that certainly sounds like what I hear a lot of other people saying.
Storm Large, from Rock Star: Supernova, has a write-up in Sunday’s Portland Oregonian:
On the show, each contestant earns $1,000 a week. Handlers hold it for each performer, doling out cash as needed. The cast has their meals catered. They have no housework or chores in the mansion to speak of, other than doing their own dishes.
If Storm wins, she will earn $5,000 a week, plus possible bonuses. The recording of the album would begin almost immediately, and the first gig of the Supernova world tour is scheduled for New Year’s Eve at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
Last season’s “Rock Star” winner, J.D. Fortune, fronted a revived INXS. The Australian band’s new album has sold 370,000 copies. The band performed last January at the Chinook Winds Casino in Lincoln City.
Even with touring and recording, Storm says she’ll stay based in Portland. She likes the “roots” she has. And she hopes to pay off the $98,000 on the house she shares with boyfriend Davey Nipples (Portland native David A. Loprinzi II), who is the bassist for the Balls.
Interesting. Given that INXS’ new album, Switch, hasn’t even gone gold, $260,000 isn’t a bad salary.
Twelve minutes to airtime in the dressing room, the cast is subdued. Contestant Toby Rand of Australia listens to an iPod. Ryan Star from New York breathes in clouds of pure air from a portable steamer. Iceland’s Magni Asgeirsson looks through digital photos of his wife and child who had been allowed to visit him two weeks earlier. “I don’t think I would have survived another week without them,” Asgeirsson says.
What about the “Rock Star” family?
“(Storm) is the anchor in the house, you know. Storm is the mommy, and I’m the daddy. She’s the queen,” he says smiling. “And I honestly think she should win this.”
Storm doesn’t sing one of the two sing-your-own-originals slots tonight, but instead sings (highlight it to read) “Cryin'” by Aerosmith. It could be interesting, but having heard a lot of her originals, it’s probably time to stop letting the Zayras, Patrices and Ryans have that shot instead.
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