Being John Curtas

(The dude who hired Susan Stapleton)

Eater Las Vegas has gone from bad to worse. Leaving us to believe that Susan Stapleton —  the absentee hack who runs it — must have some magical powers over her bosses at Vox Media to keep her position. Stapleton literally phones in her “coverage” of the Las Vegas restaurant scene, as you’ll read below.

Our theories are many as to how SS keeps her job, but they’ve centered on several distinct possibilities:

> Stapleton works cheap.

> Stapleton has pictures of Vox Media Editorial Director Lockhart Steele ( pictured above) fondling her. (A revolting proposition admittedly, but hey, it could happen.)

> Stapleton has pictures of the  Vox Media CEO having sex with a goat.

> Stapleton is drinking buddies with the person who pays her $14.11 a week to post her worthless tripe about Las Vegas restaurants.

Stapleton has convinced her editors that the Las Vegas food scene is so paltry, so unsophisticated, and so bereft of talent (both in the kitchen and at the keyboard) that even an out-of-town, know-nothing, booze-hound can report on it.

(Did Susan catch them in flagrante goat-lecto?)

The only way Eater Vegas would get better would be if there was a concerted effort by chefs, diners, foodies, p.r. types and other assorted interested parties (i.e. people who actually live here) to write to Vox and complain about the terrible job their absentee writer is doing, and what a disservice to our community she is.

(The complaints would start and end with the fact that Stapleton lives in fucking Iowa fer chrissakes and “blogs” about Las Vegas by just re-printing press releases and calling it “content”. They might also include the fact that “Bradley Martin” does not exist, and was invented by Stapleton to make it appear as if she had a staff. How insanely fraudulent and childish is that?)

She wrangled the job 8 years ago and they seem content to pay her a nickel a word and keep the world’s shittiest restaurant blog alive….while thumbing their fat, stupid noses at our community.

These complaints will never happen, of course, because all the big hotels LOVE whatever publicity even a crap website like Eater Vegas provides….and the little, local joints need the exposure. So even if Stapleton is worthless, they’re all afraid of her famous vindictiveness (She loves to write whiny/bitchy letters to anyone who criticizes her or the web site, or threaten them, or block people, or worse.)

Under these circumstances, the very existence of Eater in Las Vegas is a slap in the face to our entire food scene. A number of people have tried to get the gig (remember: Stapleton announced her “retirement” a few years ago), but Vox let her keep the job even after she left town.

It’s all quite pathetic….and a testament to how the internet has pretty much ruined food writing, and how little Vox thinks of food writing.

Don’t believe me? Try this piece of word-smithing  on for size:

The steakhouses of Las Vegas have a new rival with the opening of Bavette’s Steakhouse & Bar at the Monte Carlo. Chicago restaurant group Hogsalt dances onto the scene with this classic with a French flair take on a traditional steakhouse.

Customers can find chilled seafood towers, a peppered duck and goat cheese terrine, and crab cakes to start. The restaurant serves a double-bone Berkshire pork chop, lamb chops and spiced fried chicken.

But the real stars of the show? The steaks. Bavette’s uses USDA Prime with its Chicago cut classic rib-eye steak and dry-aged bone-in New York strip steak aged for 42 days. Vegetarians can order from their own special menu.

One must usually go to a children’s menu (or a ninth grade writing class) to find prose so scintillating.

For the record, yours truly has nothing against Eater National, and even enjoys reading the Eater blogs in other communities. But what is going on here (that has been going on for years now) is beyond the pale. (For those of you who don’t understand our outrage, look at it this way: Imagine a political columnist covering your city who lives four states away, or a sports writer with a nationally-sponsored Dallas Cowboys blog who never sets foot in Texas.)

The solution is simple: hire someone local who knows and cares about the Vegas restaurant scene — not a washed up cow who’s milking the gig. But until that happens….

The very existence of Eater Las Vegas is a continuing insult to our food community.

A pox on you, Vox.

And shame on you, Susan Stapleton. You don’t live here. You don’t work here. You don’t eat here. And you know nothing about what’s really going on in our restaurants. All you do is read this blog, press releases, my social media feeds, and few other outlets, and then aggregate/plagiarize articles into something that feeds your corporate master. You are a sorry excuse for a writer and you know it. You’ve embarrassed my city long enough.

And while I’m at it: Fuck you, Lockhart Steele. Payback’s a bitch, and her stripper name is Karma.