There's no question that when it comes to high finance (make that highest finance), zillionaire Carl Icahn has few, if any peers. But is he really the guy the Tropicana needs at this critical juncture in its almost-29-year history?

I  had the privilege of spending some time on several occasions with Icahn when he owned the Sands, and I enjoyed our time together. He is an interesting--not to mention brilliant--person with an impressive amount of street smarts. And I have absolutely no doubt that one day in the next few years, he will turn the $200 million worth of debt reduction that got him the Trop into yet another major payday (remember, he bought the Sands for $135 million--including the $70 mil he paid Harrah's Entertainment for the Traymore Hotel site fronting the Boardwalk--and sold it to Pinnacle Entertainment for twice that). 

But I'm not sure the Tropicana will benefit from his ownership.

Having been through the hell that was the regime of Columbia-Sussex (the Kentucky-based company run by the obviously clueless William Yung III), what the Trop needs more than anything else right now is some TLC provided by an owner who reallly cares about the property,  which could easily be on the Borgata's level with the proper infusion of cash and guidance.

Icahn is a lot of things, but, despite his previous ownership of gaming properties here and in Las Vegas, he's not a casino operator. And what the Trop should have is leadership that wants to create a premiere resort, not just another buy-low, sell-high commodity.

On the plus side, Icahn is known for hiring solid gaming industry executives to run his casinos. And, at the very least, he'll probably bring some much-needed stability to the Trop and its employees, who have suffered greatly during the uncertainty of the recent past.

But it's hard to imagine he'll put in the capital (certainly in nine figures) needed to offset the damage done to the Trop the past few years. Which is why maybe he isn't the right man for this particular job.

It was Sheldon Adelson, Chairman and CEO of Sands Las Vegas Corp., who best summed up the point of his company opening a $743 million slot parlor in on the site of the old Bethlehem Steel works in Bethlehem, Pa.

Addressing an invited audience of politicians, media types and local VIPs at today's official grand opening of the Sands Casino Resort, the 75-year-old gambling tycoon noted that in Hebrew, "'Bethlehem' means 'house of bread.' What do you need to make bread? Dough. That's what we hope to make here."

And judging by the activity in the casino, just yards away from the ballroom where the opening festivities were held, it looks like the dough will be produced in the same kind of volume steel was created in the facility's former life. As hundreds courted Lady Luck on the casino floor, those assembled in the ballroom were treated to a brief, percussive performance by the three-man Blue Man Group (headliners at Las Vegas Sands' Venetian resort on the Vegas strip) and a series of typically self-congratulatory remarks by casino execs, local politicians and Gov. Ed Rendell.

Rendell used his time to brag about how much property tax relief revenue has already been generated by Pennsylvania's slot machine industry. He put the figure at "almost $2 billion in less than three years," and said that already, 120,000 of the commonealth's seniors are no longer paying any school taxes, while another 200,000 have had their bills halved since the inception of legal casinos. 

Before the ceremony began, I asked the Guv if he had any words for the folks toiling in Atlantic City's gaming industry, which is suffereing at the hands of Pennsylavania's casinos.Rendell didn't specifically acknowledge the damage his state has caused to bottom lines in Atlantic City, nor did he seem particularly sympathetic. Instead, he offered a "just doing my job" kind of spin.

"I always said I wanted to...keep our gamblers in Pennsylvania spending their money here, and to create jobs here. We're not after (New Jerseyans who gamble). I just wanted to keep Pennsylvanians who gamble here."

Rendell had to leave the event early. That casued Adelson to assume the blame for the governor's departure, saying he guessed Rendell left because "I've been slipping him notes about how nice it would be to get some blackjack and craps tables here."

A little later, Gregory C. Fajt (pronounced "Fight"), the recently installed chairman of the state gaming control board, said he expected the state to have a handle on the table games issue by the end of the current legislative session. The introduction of "live" games will be yet another shot across AyCee's bow in the ongoing battle for the region's gambling bucks.

While inside the facility--a brand new and elegant (for a slot house) building designed to celebrate the complex's industrial past--it was all smiles and good cheer, outside, about a dozen protesters demonstrated against the casino. According to a leader of the protest, The Rev. William J. Kunze of the Bethlehem-based New Bethany Ministries, nothing could be worse for the community than the Sands.

"They could have developed (the steel works) into something else that could have better served the community," said Kunze, who called the Sands a "menace" that will bring gambling addiction and other social ills to the Lehigh Valley. "It seems it's intentionally designed to be the biggest menace it could be."

A colleague of Kunze, W. Sanford Ostman, pastor of Bethlehem's Epworth United Methodist Church, added it was ironic that a casino is being touted as the savior of a town founded 270 years ago by members of the Moravian Church.

"Think about it," said Ostman, "on Christmas Eve this year, while slots are open, we'll be singing 'O Little Town of Bethlehem.' This is so contrary to (why) this town was founded." 

Don't know how I didn't learn it earlier, but thanks to an e-mail from my old pal, author-drummer Bruce Klauber, I just found out the great saxophonist Sam Butera died Wednesday in Las Vegas at age 81.

I won't bother with the autobiographical details, as they are readily available elsewhere online. But I do have a few thoughts about  Sam (I can't imagine him asking anyone to call him "Mr. Butera").
 

Sam and his insanely tight "show band," The Wildest, were mainstays in Atlantic City from the dawn of legal gambling in 1978 well into the 1990s. The act was one of the last two or three of the great Las Vegas lounge acts of the "Rat Pack" era, and everytime they played AyCee,  Sam and his boys brought a little bit of that old-time magic with them. It was extremely cool to see them in long-gone bars like those that used to be at Trump Plaza and what was then known as Resorts International.

Offstage, Sam was a trip-and-a-half. Speaking in hep-cat lingo delivered via a rich drawl redolent of his native Nawlins, La., he was a font of great show biz stories and all around good cheer. In his later years, Sam, who according to reports had suffered from Alzheimer's, could always be counted upon to rant against rocker David Lee Roth who, Sam charged, virtually cloned--sans compensation--his arrangement of "Just A Gigolo"/"I Ain't Got Nobody," which he conceived for his long-time friend, mentor and boss, Louis Prima.

I have no idea if Sam ever received any satisfaction of the issue before the onset of the insidious illness that ultimately killed him. I at least hope his grievances didn't keep him from enjoying what time he had left.

I'll close with the final paragraph of the obituary Klauber, who gigged with Sam at Resorts at the dawn of the legal casino era, wrote. It sums up the man's life better than I could ever do it:

Now that we won't be wasting away in Margaritaville, what does the future hold for Trump Marina?

Last Sunday, Trump Entertainment Resorts officially pulled the plug on the deal that would have had New York-based Coastal Marina LLC buying the Marina and applying singer Jimmy Buffett's fun-in-the-sun-themed Margaritaville brand/philosophy.

The move could have been a needed shot in the arm for Atlantic City which has been--ahem--buffeted by the twin storms of casinos in Pennsylvania and a still-sour economy.

But things fell apart as the Trump group accused Coastal Marina of failing to hold up its end of the bargain by not having  either the needed financing or licensing in place to close the deal.

But that's all water under the marina, as it were. The bigger question concerns the fate of the Marina, which, even in better days, always underperformed.

There has been no official word on the property's fate, although it's hard to imagine Trump Entertainment wants to keep it. The physical plant needs a lot of work, and there is nothing in the way of dining, entertainment, nightlife or other amenities that puts it anywhere near the level of its two Marina-district neighbors, Borgata Hotel, Casino & Spa and Harrah's Resort Atlantic City, which pretty much are the town's standard bearers these days.

The prospect of the "nuclear option" of closing the Marina is too grim to contemplate, and the dried-up credit markets suggests there will be no other suitors for some time to come. Which leaves the Marina in a very difficult position--and Atlantic City without the prospect of a casino-hotel complex that might have been an effective weapon in the battle for casino customers and their money.