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City Cast Las Vegas

We ask local movers and shakers the essential questions.

Author and UNLV journalism professor Michael Easter is 

. His first book, 2021’s “The Comfort Crisis,” showed how to unlock the power of discomfort to upgrade your life. His new book, published today, is “

Scarcity Brain: Fix Your Craving Mindset & Rewire Your Habits to Thrive with Enough

Everyone knows everything is fine in moderation. But why are we so bad at it? Why don't we ever feel like we have enough? Most behaviors we do in excess now helped our ancient ancestors survive. But we still have our ancient brains that push us into more food, stuff, status-seeking, information binging, etc.

One big revelation from the book is that I discovered what I call the scarcity loop. It's a three-part behavior loop that evolved to help us obsessively repeat behaviors that kept us alive, like finding food. But it's now being applied to technologies that can hurt us. It was actually revived right here in Las Vegas, in the 1980s, in slot machines. But it's now what powers social media, dating apps, online gaming, sports betting, online streaming, and even our food system.

Humans evolved in a world where what we needed to survive was scarce. So we're built to crave. But we now have an abundance of everything we're built to crave. And we still keep accumulating. Anthropologists call this an "evolutionary mismatch."

For example, even a couple hundred years ago, the average American owned a handful of clothes and tools. Now the average home has 10,000-plus items and most homes are in some form of debt. Food used to be scarce — now we throw out about one-third of our food, and 40% of Americans are obese. A person in one day today takes in more information than a person 700 years ago took in during their entire life.

That has changed us, oftentimes not for the better.

In “Scarcity Brain” I identify three key ways to get out of the scarcity loop. It's the only scientific way to stop any bad habit. And this is very important. As a person who's studied physical and mental health my entire life, I've noticed that people want to develop good new habits. But the problem is that it's our bad habits that hold us back most. Fix your worst habits and your life improves instantly.

How do our primitive cravings shape our modern lives?

Las Vegas Author Talks About Impact of Ancient 'Scarcity Brain'

Author Michael Easter on How Your Ancient Drives Shape Your Life

3 Questions With

No actual dogs are exploded in the staging of “Dog Explosion” — that has already happened, moments before the play opens on the McCall family in rural Missouri: three siblings and a terminally ill mother who’s just died. While the play has its share of laughs, says Las Vegas playwright Sean Clark, who directs this production, it doesn’t have the bleakly irreverent tenor of a black comedy. It 

 have lots of donuts and beer. A couple of questions for Clark:

Did I read that this play dates back to 2013?

“It’s a lot older than that. I kind of had it in a drawer. I was working (as a screenwriter) in Hollywood, and this stage play got me more work than any screenplay I’d written. They read this play and hired me for ‘Northern Exposure.’ As the great Ray Wylie Hubbard said, if you write something you think is good, be prepared to live with it for 40 years.”

How did you come to write this particular story?

“There’s a lot of incidents right out of my own life. My main character was a woman,and her frustrations mirrored my frustrations at the time: student debt, not knowing what your future was, feeling a little trapped. And then I was at a bar one night, and this total stranger tells this story of a guy who decided to kill his dog with some dynamite because it had cancer. All of a sudden I went, ‘That’s the catalyst I need to really make this play pop.’”

Did you have to update this production at all?

“It’s set in 1984, and I thought, ‘It’s going to be a period piece.’ That way you don’t have to explain why there are no cell phones. But as I watched it unfold, oddly enough, on the metaphoric levels, it’s more topical now than ever. Part of the clash is between somebody who is extremely cynical and sarcastic and burned out, and her sister, who is the opposite of those things because she’s found strength and happiness in her religion. And you have a guy in the middle who’s trying to do the right thing but finds the world around him a little judgmental if he happens to blow up a house or something. (Laughs.) A lot of it’s about the divides — that the country is in, between siblings. And those divides seem sharper now than in 1984.”

 at Winchester Dondero Cultural Center ($15).

 While they're not exploding dogs, do Vegas 

 when it comes to other areas of public life? [City Cast Las Vegas 🎧]

Though the title, 'Dog Explosion,' is less autobiographical.

Las Vegas Playwright Turns Life Into Theater

'Dog Explosion' Playwright Turns Life Into Theater

With Nevada’s attorney general soliciting public opinion on the massive proposed grocery-store merger between Kroger and Albertsons, City Cast Las Vegas asked Nevada Current journalist April Corbin Girnus and food writer Kim Foster for their perspectives. Some highlights:

🛒 What’s the argument in favor of a merger?

 “Kroger, aka Smith’s, is the largest dedicated grocery store chain in the country. But they are far below Walmart. Kroger is saying that they need to be able to better compete with Walmart, and they can do that by buying all of the Albertsons, Vons, and Safeways. To put it into perspective, Walmart is about 20% of dollars spent on groceries in the United States. Even combined, Albertsons and Kroger are 16%.”

🛒 What are the implications of a merger?

 “So when corporations come together, what happens is, it takes a lot of choice for the consumer out of any equation. Also they become less creative about ways to keep prices lower, because they don't have to. A lot of people buy generic brands, for instance, and those can be really price-competitive. When there's no competition, they can mark up as they please. And consumers end up losing.”

🛒 What might this mean for grocery store employees?

 “One of the things that's important to keep in mind is that Kroger is consistently at the top of the list of employers in Nevada that have the most employees eligible and enrolled in Medicaid. So we're not talking about a group of workers that are highly paid, right?”

I was talking to someone who has worked at Smith’s in various supermarkets for 17 years. And she was talking about how she had to borrow money to pay her rent. And this is not a person with a big lifestyle. She tells me about being relegated to part-time, not being able to have enough hours — she wants to work 40 hours. But what Kroger does is, they reduce your hours. So a lot of this isn't just about more money per hour.”

Hear the Full Episode

What happens to consumers and workers when giants merge?

Las Vegas Perspectives on the Kroger-Albertsons Merger

Las Vegas Perspectives on the Grocery Merger

, a UNLV English professor and book editor, has written poetry collections, a bio of The Killers — and now a futuristic adventure yarn titled “Hammer of the Dogs” (University of Nevada Press). He launches the novel next Tuesday, Sept. 12, with 

How did you come to write a youthful dystopian romp instead of something the starchy world of academia might take more seriously?

Youthful dystopian romps are what my students love reading. I wanted to write for them a fun, fast-paced adventure novel starring an imperfect hero. The starchy world of academia has plenty of boring books that no one wants to read. Look at dwindling enrollment in the humanities and fewer declared English majors in the last 20 years. The STEM onslaught continues. We in the humanities must rethink our approach to luring students to our side of the intellectual competition. One way to do that? By writing fun, intriguing books that make students want to take our classes, to join the humanities, and to contribute their own ideas.

Music is a major feature of the book. Give us a top five “Hammer of the Dogs” playlist.

In writing “Hammer of the Dogs” and its protagonist, Lash, a drone assassin in the Ellen Ripley/Sarah Connor mode, I needed a rowdy soundtrack. Lash didn’t care for my moody music, and she urged me to play boisterous tunes that reminded her of her missing father. While writing, I found myself blasting ’80s hard rock and metal, the last wave of great analog music.

Here are five songs to help you understand the “bright-darkness” vibe of “HoTD”: “

How much fun was it to reimagine Las Vegas in postapocalyptic terms?

Entropy is always fun. But it was helpful to have toiled, for years, deep within the bowels of Luxor and CityCenter in the role of a corporate propagandist. I had the opportunity to see the way things really work “back of house,” where hidden structures would make it easy for rival gangs to set up operations, using drone technology to kill one another. Also, the drone-tech conventions that I crashed as a hotel employee were eye-opening, jaw-dropping. The relationship among the tech sector, military contractors, higher education, foreign powers, and the Nevada desert is startling and something that people don’t yet understand. Hopefully, Lash and “Hammer of the Dogs” change that while at the same time taking readers on a thrill ride.

It's what the next generation wants to read.

Why Write a Postapocalyptic Las Vegas Romp?

Why Write a Postapocalyptic Vegas Romp?

, who chairs UNLV’s department of interdisciplinary, gender, and ethnic studies, and who wrote the book “

,” recently joined co-host Vogue Robinson on our podcast to discuss the state of sex shops in Sin City. Three excerpts:

How would you describe a standard Vegas sex shop?

Las Vegas doesn't necessarily have the range of sex shops you might find in other cities of comparable size. We aren't really known for our feminist or LGBT sex shops. We have more of the standard sex shops that have morphed over the years to do a little bit more to cater to women, to cater to a more inclusive customer base. But they still follow a pretty standard formula. (Elsewhere in the interview she praises The Love Store.)

I find that so interesting, especially in Vegas, which sells us all of our vices.

The kind of commercialized adult fun that Vegas sells is carefully curated for those tourists from the Midwest — primarily straight men who want to have fun, but not be so scandalized that they can't go home and share their fun with their friends. Vegas has to walk a fine line between embracing that reputation as an adult playground but not being so anything-goes that it scares people off. A colleague once described the type of sex and sexuality that Vegas sells as NASCAR sexuality. That was really interesting.

What is the role a sex shop plays in a city?

One of the things I found in my research is sex shops are a malleable cultural form. They can be a site of consumption, where you go in, you get your product, and leave. But if you have the right staff, if they're well trained, sex stores can be places where adults can get an answer to a question they've never felt comfortable asking. And (sex shops) can help bring sexual pleasure out of the closet.

A conversation with UNLV scholar Lynn Comella

How Inclusive Are Las Vegas Sex Toy Shops?

How Inclusive Are Vegas Sex Toy Shops?

Never mind Nevada's rural counties — why aren’t there brothels 

? Recently, podcast co-host Dayvid Figler talked about this with UNLV sociology professor Barb Brents, a leading expert on sexual commerce. Some excerpts:

Las Vegas had prostitution since the beginning. Was it legal or did law enforcement just turn a blind eye to it?

(There was) prostitution along with saloons and entertainment for folks working in a rough environment. Police did what they thought they should to handle law and order at that time. Las Vegas closed its brothel district — reluctantly, I might add — in 1942. It was mostly pressure from the growing gaming interests, who were themselves receiving pressure from the federal government to look legitimate.

Pimps and sex traffickers and other third parties — is that a concern with decriminalized sex work?

What most people don't realize is the majority of third parties these days include, like, taxi drivers or web designers, the technical people we need to protect our privacy or get noticed on the algorithms. They also need lawyers, hairdressers, nail techs. Right now, the way the laws are, just about anybody who helps a sex worker do their job can be charged with advancing prostitution.

There certainly seems to be a clear demand for prostitutes here. So, should Clark County get its own brothels?

Yeah, sure — as long as we also dramatically (change) the way we treat sex workers outside the brothels. Here's the problem with just having brothels and nothing else. You create a two-tiered system, where the vast majority of sex workers may be doing it because they have few other options, as well as those who don't have the money to pay for licensing fees, or don't have the particular looks a brothel might need — there are a lot of people immediately priced out of working in a brothel. So a lot of people are still going to be working illegally.

Listen to the Full Episode

The answer is more complicated than yes or no.

Should Clark County and Las Vegas Have Brothels?

Should Clark County Establish Brothels?

From our recent (🎧) podcast interview with Andrew Bennett, director of the Clark County Office of Traffic Safety:

Is there an end to that roadwork that's always happening in Las Vegas?

I don't know if there will ever be an end, because there's always the opportunity to improve the infrastructure — right-sizing our roads and making sure that they are accessible to everyone. We are in a climate where we have 24/7, 365 road construction, unlike in some states that don't do road construction during the winter months. And so there is a unique frustration here that it is consistently ongoing.

Our hope is that, by coordinating our communication, working with our regional partners, and working with the utilities, we can get to a point where it is better planned, so you don't have parallel roads under construction, which is where some of the frustration is. But I think the orange cones are here to stay.

How much of that road construction is improvement versus repair?

Currently I'm tracking 86 projects. (And that's not including a lot of the utility projects.) When we talk about that 86, one third is going to be development-related, going further to the west or to the north or to the south. I would say another third is going to be specifically safety-related infrastructure: detached sidewalks, adding signals, roundabouts, etc. And then the other third is going to be repair, whether that's just resurfacing a damaged or a cracked road, or filling in a pothole. So it is pretty evenly spread out between those thirds.

Do we have more repairs here because of the heat?

I believe we have more maintenance than necessarily repairs. You might've noticed our crosswalk paint doesn't last as long. And that's just due to the sun baking it. And so those continued maintenance projects definitely increase with the heat and the sun.

Andrew Bennett on the reality of traffic construction in Las Vegas.

Talking About Las Vegas Roadwork With Clark County's Traffic Guru

'I Think the Orange Cones Are Here to Stay'

number of nonpartisan voters in Nevada eclipse

 the number of people registered for either of the major parties. We asked longtime political analyst Steve Sebelius about the implications.

Some see the rise of nonpartisan voters as a chance to reduce the political tribalism that’s invaded our public life. What’s your take?

Two things: One, a good portion of the rise in nonpartisan voters is due to automatic registration at the DMV; if the customer decides not to choose a party, the default is nonpartisan. Two, most people who register nonpartisan still lean toward one of the two parties. They may be disaffected by their party’s current ideologies or standard-bearers, but they still lean left or right. True nonpartisans — those who honestly have no preference for either party — are generally disengaged voters who can’t be counted on to vote regularly or with any degree of loyalty.

How challenging will it be for parties to continuing to appeal to their ideological bases while moderating their messages to draw in more selective nonpartisans?

Parties are going to have to moderate their messaging in order to reach people who have become disaffected enough to reregister with no party in particular. A message that might excite base voters is not likely to resonate with people who have left their respective parties. It may herald a return to more basic messaging: We can be trusted to run the economy, or we won’t bankrupt the country while still trying to make sure everybody can go to the doctor when they’re sick.

In your view, are there enough true nonpartisans to provide a foothold for an effective third party?

I often compare politics to the soda aisle at the grocery store: There are so many flavors. People think they may try something new, but most end up buying a Coke or a Pepsi. There are people who are brand-loyal to something else, but as you can see from the most recent election, minor party candidates (Libertarian and Independent American Party) got a collective 2.43% of the vote in the governor’s race. In the Senate race, it was worse: Minor party candidates didn’t reach 2 percent. There will be people who look for something new, but most people are going to stick with the brand names.

Nonpartisan voter registration in Nevada is eclipsing traditional party numbers. What does this mean?

Steve Sebelius Discusses the Rise of Nonpartisans in Nevada

Steve Sebelius on the Rise of Nonpartisan Voters

In addition to recalling her life before politics — including a college-era stint as a cocktail server at Caesars — Nevada’s first-term senator Jacky Rosen (🎧) 

 to City Cast Las Vegas podcast co-host Dayvid Figler about the ups and downs of bipartisanship:

“Bipartisan” is a word we see a lot coming out of your office.

“Nevada sent me to the Senate to get things done. My motto is, agree where you can, and fight where you must. We can talk about tourism, healthcare, broadband — those things aren't inherently partisan. So you try to find all the places you can to get together. I have to tell you about two lists I'm on. I'm one of the 10 most bipartisan senators overall. And I'm in the top 10 most effective Democratic senators overall.”

What would be an example of bipartisanship that directly benefited us here in Las Vegas?

“We had a lot of roundtables at Nellis and Creech (Air Force bases), and those young men and women get what's called a base housing allowance. When they transfer into the community, it is oftentimes really expensive, and they have to put out the money first and get (it) back later. It was causing them to take out loans, use credit cards, go into debt.

“We ended up writing to the secretary of defense, bringing it up in committee, and they agreed with us. They sent us a letter back, 

Well of course this makes sense, we will get their money to them right away

. So that really impacted the servicemen and women.”

I want to talk about the downside of bipartisanship, which is that sometimes you do stuff that's maybe too incremental. With DACA and the Dreamers, it just doesn't seem like permanent residency can ever happen through these smaller measures.

“We have the slimmest of majorities, with 51 (Democrats in the Senate). We need comprehensive, bipartisan immigration reform. We have to protect our borders. Nobody wants criminals. But we have Dreamers here. We have TPS recipients. But … when you don't have 60 votes, you have to figure out what you can do. Instead of doing nothing, we try to do something, help every way that we can going forward, until we get the votes or get public opinion to force the other side.”

'My motto is, agree where you can, and fight where you must.'

Nevada Sen. Jacky Rosen Talks About Bipartisanship

Sen. Jacky Rosen on Bipartisanship

Las Vegas-based competitive eater Derek Hendrickson guested last week on the City Cast Las Vegas podcast. In case you missed it, here are a few excerpts.

🫔 What’s the eating title you’re most proud of?

“I've only won one contest because I have to go against Joey Chestnut, who is the greatest eater of all time. I mean, the guy lives it and breathes it. I have a wife and a day job. So it’d be the world tamale-eating champion, which I currently still am. I go back to Lewisville, Texas, 

. It's 10 minutes in 105-degree, humid Texas heat. You just eat tamales. There's no better time.” (Note: To win he ate 

🌯 So what’s an easy food challenge in Las Vegas?

“At La Salsa Cantina in the Miracle Mile. It's like a 32-ounce burrito. And you have to finish the rice and beans and the margarita. But that's very doable. Burritos, as long as they're not dry, they're fairly easy to eat. I've eaten a 5-pound burrito in four minutes ’cause it was nice and saucy. That's just an enjoyable eating experience. That's (something we hear) all the time: 

 Well, we taste it. And if it's bad food, it's a long day at the office.”

“No. 1 would probably be Stacks & Yolks, and its Get Stacked, Get Yolked challenge. Again, people think it's the easiest challenge ever. Ten pancakes, 10 (scrambled) eggs. What they don't realize is that they are about eight pounds of pancakes. (See photo.) Imagine that amount of dough going in there, and you're drinking water to help you swallow, you take tons of syrup and whatnot. It's a monster.”

From an easy 2-pound burrito to giant pancakes, Las Vegas competitive eater Derek Hendrickson has eaten it all.