BORED WALK Billionaire Investor Carl Icahn is now the sole owner of the Trump Taj Mahal Resort. This move was necessary in order to exit bankruptcy, filed by parent company Trump Entertainment Resorts, Inc. Icahn, by the way, also owns A.C.’s Tropicana. Though it’s hardly surprising, Revel owner Glenn Straub has confirmed that the casino […]

BORED WALK BEAT The lights are back on at Glenn Straub’s Revel Hotel and Casino, for two weeks, anyway. It’s a miracle that this guy, who has been mistreated by all involved since he first bid on the property, is still hanging in there. The electric/water issue was and is as surreal as everything else […]

“BACKSTAGE WITH BRUCE KLAUBER”: April, 2015 Edition BORED WALK BEAT The situation at the shuttered Revel Hotel and Casino has gone from absurd to even more absurd. Even the judge involved in this mess has called the situation “tortured.” For unknown reasons, though Florida developer Glenn Straub has his $82 million bid for the place […]

BORED WALK BEAT The on again/off again sale of the Atlantic City white elephant known as Revel to Florida developer Glenn Straub is on again, and this time, it may really happen. It appears Straub got everything he wanted: an $82 million dollar price tag instead of his previously offered $95.4 million, no concessions to […]

“BACKSTAGE WITH BRUCE KLAUBER” February, 2015 Edition There have been several films, both features and documentaries, about Francis Albert Sinatra. The vast majority have not been not much more than just okay. But filmmakers Alex Gibney and Frank Marshall, behind the upcoming multi-part HBO docu on Mr. S., “Sinatra: All or Nothing at All,” promise […]

Happy 2015 to the readers of “Backstage with Bruce Klauber,” celebrating 30 years of continuous publication. Here’s to 30 more. Happy reading! BOARDWALK BEAT Things are changing at Atlantic City’s troubled Taj Mahal Hotel/Casino seemingly by the minute. The last “big news” to be reported was this: Though a deal between the Taj investor Carl […]

“BACKSTAGE WITH BRUCE KLAUBER” December, 2014 Edition The Big Casino In that I’ve been on the newspaper and magazine casino beat since gaming was legalized in Atlantic City on May 26, 1978, it seems fitting and proper to comment on the brouhaha surrounding the granting of a second casino license within the city limits. While […]

A BARGAIN AT ANY PRICE It’s bargain basement time in Atlantic City and for good reason. With the closing of Revel, Showboat, Atlantic Club, and Trump Plaza hotel/casinos, properties are being sold for less than five cents on a dollar. The Toronto-based Brookfield Associates, which owns a casino in Vegas and in the Bahamas, has […]

“BACKSTAGE” with Bruce Klauber: October, 2014 Edition “Backstage” is a continuation of a column that has been published regionally, and syndicated nationally, since 1978. The column is intended to be a quirky and personal take—someone I once knew described it as “snarky,” whatever that means—on popular culture, books, news of our area’s arts scene, what […]

Take note: My long-running “Backstage” column, published regionally and syndicated nationally on and off since 1978, will now appear on or about the first of each month on the jazzlegends.com Facebook page and the jazzlegends.com web site. “Backstage” is a rather personal take on local and national pop culture via everything from Elvis sightings to […]