An escort leads me to my seat in the tiny showroom. The Riviera describes the venue as "intimate," but if that showroom is intimate, then "fear of intimacy" is simply another term for claustrophobia. As the crowd waits for the performance to begin, two large screens display a series of news clips highlighting the show's colorful history.
Finally, the emcee takes to the stage, whetting our appetites for some dirty fun by opening with a dirty joke (your garden-variety, voice-activated-dildo yarn). Then the show begins. With star-spangled lighting, the girls strut into view, lip-syncing to a version of the war ballad "Over There."
By the second chorus of "Over here, over there, Crazy Girls are everywhere," there's no doubt about it: This is pure Vegas cheese. The next few numbers alternate between slow, sultry dances atop the revolving portion of the stage and standard, energetic stripper fare. Just as I'm beginning to grapple with the horrifying notion that even gratuitous nudity can get boring, the girls take five, and juggler Nino Frediani appears.
Wow. Now this guy's amazing.
"He's actually legally blind," I'm told by the woman beside me.
He works with women who take off their clothes nightly, and he can't see. That's irony.
His routine is both hypnotic and hilarious, and I'm actually somewhat saddened to see the dancers return to the stage—especially when one returns straddling a man-sized stuffed penis. Is this the part that's for the ladies? "This is so over-the-top," a nearby woman complains.
It doesn't seem to be working for them.
As the song ends, the massive phallus rotates to face the audience and suddenly ejaculates streamers all over the crowd. I'm not sure what got the thing so turned on.