Reno Gazette-Journal from Reno, Nevada • Page 39

4F RENO TUESDAY, MARCH 1 8, 2003 MUSIC REVIEW Clean, sober lead singer brings Ministry to show in Sparks By Jason Ketlner RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL It seems fitting that Ministry chose to open its North American tour on a Sunday. Even better for us that the band chose the New Oasis in Sparks. The band's new album and tour is supposedly Ministry's comeback after several dark years when lead singer and songwriter Al Jourgensen was mired in heroin addiction. But now, a new clean and sober Jourgensen is back, and the band sounds fresh again, evidenced by the show Sunday in Sparks. Ministry is known for its speaker-shredding industrial metal, with loud guitars and mechanized noise not often heard outside of a steel mill.

I knew we were in for an aural assault when I spotted 1 1 guitars lined up on the side of the stage during opening act Lollipop Lustkill's set. Still, pain never sounded so good. Ignoring most of the songs from the aforementioned dark years, Ministry opened the 100-minute show with "Animosity" from the new album "Animositisomina." From his wicked pulpit a bizarre, shiny twist of antler-like posts with a lighted red strip in the center Jourgensen sang his rediscovered rage while images of George W. Bush and stock footage of carnage and concentration camps played behind him. Jourgensen and company, with longtime collaborator Paul Barker on bass (credited as Hermes Pan), ripped through a few more new songs and a few more eardrums before heading into the band's history, including 1996's "Filth Pig," among others.

But it took a long time for Ministry to get to the favorites from the band's 1988-1992 period. Finally, about nine songs and a fierce mosh pit opened up in front of the stage. All the favorites followed, including "Just One Fix," "Thieves" and an excellent cover of Magazine's "The Light Pours Out of Me." Ministry's music includes a lot of programmed material, like sound Dites and drum tracks. But that material seemed to trip up the live musicians (two drummers, bass, two guitars and keyboards) by the time the encore came up. Ministry sounded a little unrehearsed going through other favorites "Breathe," "So What" and "Stigmata," not quite keeping up with the sequenced tracks.

But the band should have time to iron out those glitches in the coming days, and maybe that's why it chose to start in Sparks in the first place. Nobody in the 600-member audience seemed to care anyway. The second encore was Ministry's biggest hit, "Jesus Built My Hotrod." What makes Ministry so much more palatable than other angry rock bands is that the band doesn't take itself too seriously. Ministry might scare your mother, but Jourgensen is just a guy having fun and chugging cheap wine. p-j A.KO-J10.9e76.S4'32.A ENJOYING Hip-hop show coming to UPN next month VideoBooks use forms of strategy nTfTfl (llllliM I I ylvLy 1 'For every five-card hand, there is one play that's better.

It's a puzzle to learn what that is. People who are good at puzzles, good at games and who like to study learn Bob Dancer Author white rapper Eminem and wide appeal aren't enough for major networks, said Ridley, a screenwriter and novelist whose credits include the critically acclaimed film "Three Kings." "Hip-hop is very multicultural and we want to make the show multicultural, but it's still ingrained in black culture and there's just not a lot of venues serving people of color," he said. "It's a struggle. A lot of networks are just ignoring a segment of the population." Nelson George, author of the book "Hip Hop America" and the upcoming novel "Night Work," agrees. "Hip-hop as a dramatic force on TV falls under the banner of black, and black is a problematic issue for network TV," George said.

That attitude means network executives are ignoring how fluid the issue of ethnicity has become, especially among the younger Americans who are TV advertisers' most coveted demographic. "There's been such a tremendous paradigm shift," said "Platinum" star Lalanya Masters. "We're now in a society where the No. 1 golfer is African-American and the No. 1 rapper is country.

As a writer, the game makers give him access to information on the games before they're introduced so he can write about them and get the information out to players. Although he's paid by the publications and by the manufacturers to learn new games and write about them, Dancer said he seldom plays new games when they come out after he's written about them. That's the period when casinos are trying to figure out pay schedules and public reception. "Later I will play, but by then the public will nave the correct strategy so I'm not taking advantage of information," he said. "It's out there in the player domain.

Although the heart of "Million Dollar Video Poker" is not about specifics for drawing the best hand possible on a poker machine, it's every bit as much about winning the game as "Enjoying Video Poker" is about player strategy. It covers the wins and losses that not only helped him learn the peculiarities of various video poker games, but also led up to a tremendous run of skill and luck. "The book is about the process involved in getting ready to play, not playing itself," said Dancer, who usually plays $5 and $25 machines. "It's about how to choose casinos, how to learn the game, practice, negotiating with players and casino employees, how I look for and exploit casino mistakes. "It explains more of the secrets and thought processes of a very successful player than other books," he said.

Again, there's no sure-fire win solution here, but the book explains: How Dancer decides where to play. Good games. How to incorporate layer's club and promotion enefits with the money played to determine if a particular machine's pay out is worthwhile. How to deal with losing as well as winning. Handling distractions from cigarette smoke.

Air conditioning noise to nosy casino patrons; how to get in on invitational slot tournaments. "The most important factor in a video poker machine is the pay schedule," Dancer said. "How much you get for a full house, a flush, a four of a kind. In every category of games there are a number of pay schedules, some looser than others." A 96 Jacks of Better game, for example, will pay nine coins for each one bet on a full house and six coins for each coin bet on a flush. That's a decent gamble, Dancer said.

It pays to check these things out. "Once you decide on which game and machine, you need to learn strategy," he said. Use strategy cards, computer programs, reports, books, whatever you can find to hone your game and improve your chances of intelligent play, Dancer said. "For every five-card hand, Stewart, 24, had never played video poker until last week's trip to Reno. He was learning as ne went along and had totaled up a tidy but not spectacular number of credits.

Stewart found it a little like live poker, but faster. "And there's no dealer or interaction with other players," he said. airAfS-i ffl 1 v. I i VIDEO POKER 10 3 8 2 JuK.OJ.10.9-876.5.4.3.2,A Provided by the publishers there is one play that's better," he said. "It's a puzzle to learn what that is.

People who are good at puzzles, good at games and who like to study, learn faster." Hendricks looks at things a little differently. He suggests players look carefully at their nands and decide what option which combination of cards has the best chance for the best payoff. Even doing that, even with the charts in his book, if the cards aren't falling right, you still lose money, he said, but you'll minimize your losses with good strategy. "Don't look down your nose at a low pair," he said. "And when it stops being fun, go do something else.

If you can cut your losses and get to a point where you can enjoy the game without it costing a lot, that's winning." It' I I 7 ASSOCIATED PRESS LOS ANGELES "Platinum," a UPN series billed as the first network hip-hop drama, is poised to make its debut next month. Hip-hop already is embraced by movies, fashion and any number of other industries try counting the commercials with a rap beat eager to reach young consumers entranced by the music or the lifestyle.But risk-averse networks typically drag their heels at innovation. They certainly try to avoid the sharp edges of cutting-edge culture, and hip-hop has been dogged by its share of social controversy and violence. In the brave new TV world of antiheroes on cable's "The Sopranos" and "The Shield" and broadcast's "Kingpin," however, that issue would seem to be a nonstarter. There's another reason for the lag, suggests "Platinum" co-creator John Ridley: Any genuine hip-hop series has to feature black characters, and networks have shied away from black-oriented dramas, which they see as a tough sell to general audiences.

Even hip-hop's ethnic diversity a current star is (as, UQD8ffl From IF out there who need the information and do not know it's available," Hendricks said. "My other thought is I know darn well a lot of people should never go near a casino and I don't want to be guilty of luring those in who should not go. But I want to give the public the information they need to level the playing field." On a visit to Las Vegas, one surprise was bookstores devoted solely to gambling, including video poker. Still, he thought there was room on the market for his system. Publication took time and effort.

Eventually, Hendricks went with a print-on-demand publisher after tightening up the manuscript and adding chapters on games such as Deuces Wild. His method isn't foolproof, Hendricks said. "There's no way you can guarantee a winner every time," he said. "But over the long run, you can just about break even." Dancer came to Las Vegas in 1993 with $6,000 to stake out a gambling career. "I've always been good at games," he said.

Just before becoming a professional gambler, Dancer taught country-western dancing. That's the basis for the name "Dancer," which he concedes is not the name on his driver's license. Before that, he worked in data processing and has a bachelor's degree in economics. "Economics is applied logic," he said. "So is computer programming, so is gambling." He started reading up on video poker, talking to other players.

He decided he could go a better job writing about and analyzing the game than others who were being published in various periodicals. His columns and analyses of new games now run in Casino Player, Strictly Slots and the Las Vegas Review Journal. Dancer also has written Video Poker Strategy Cards, Winners Guides, videos and software on how to win at video poker. He teaches classes at casinos all over the Fans have By Susan Skorupa RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL Regardless of the books, videos and flash cards touting the ways to win at video poker, people who play the game have their own methods and systems. They might not include a drop of science or relate to any comparative studies, but for the players that use them, personal systems are comfortable and sometimes they work.

"I try for the end machine on a row," said Jessica Vaughn, 23, a Sacramento resident playing video poker in Harrah's Reno last week. "I find they hit more, but that's my 'luck thing, not necessarily how they're made." Vaughn depends as much on sense as luck. She checks the game pay tables and prefers Bonus Poker games that give different payouts for one-pair and two-pair outcomes instead of paying the same number of credits for both outcomes. She dislikes Deuces Wild games because the payouts aren't usually as good as in straight poker, she said. "I do pretty well," she said.

"My grandmother taught me. It's common sense." Mary Hale, 50, called her strategy "more like superstition than strategy." She picks machines second from the end, and prefers a game called Pick 'Em Poker, 1 their own ways to win although she's been playing interactive games recently, instead of video poker. But when she plays, she has a few rules she follows, including always holding the ace pairs, even if it means giving up a possible flush, because if you nit four aces, that hand pays well in Bonus Poker. Vaughn's friend Benjamin -s- Gayle Pieratt 775-829-3422 6580 South McCarran Blvd. 1 inn AUNION PLANTERS MORTGAGE The right loan.

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