Looking for Mr. Rodman

It started with a phone call from Floyd.

Dennis was hosting a blowout bash in Vegas; could the paper come?

Rodman, Rodzilla, the Worm. Basketball’s flamboyant rebounder and infamous party hound, the nose-pierced cross-dresser who thinks sleep’s a waste.

Floyd Raglin, his sidekick.

Yes, the paper would cover it--and deploy a photographer. Who better to highlight a What’s Cool--What’s Lame column describing Sin City’s dance club scene, a raging phenom drawing thousands of revelers from Encino to San Diego, week in, week out?

The Rodman party would take place at the nightclub at Peter Morton’s Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, an ideal springboard for a weekend’s worth of clubbing. Who better than Rodman, who summers in Newport Beach and haunts Vegas regularly, to rate the town’s most populous, multimillion-dollar danceterias?

There was one problem: traffic.

Police activity on the I-15, said the radio, as my date and I sat unmoving on the road Friday night. When we arrived at the Hard Rock, Rodman and his entourage had left.

So we moved on:

Club Rio, at the Rio Resort. The club other hotel-casino clubs have copied. Packed. But no Rodman.

Ra, at Luxor Las Vegas, the futuristic pyramid. Out-of-control crowded. But no Rodman.

The Drink, the Beach, Utopia, the oversized pools at two hotels, numerous casinos, and Olympic Gardens, the topless club of choice.

No Rodman.

But everybody, everywhere had a story about the badest former and possibly future Chicago Bull.

Christy, the hostess at the Hard Rock’s restaurant that never closes, said she saw the Worm at the casino’s craps tables at 7 a.m. on Saturday, only a few hours after the party he hosted ended.

Dave Trout, a Huntington Beach carwash owner who was sunning at the hotel’s pool, said Rodman got up on the stage at the party, removed his shirt, and “showed off his tattoos and his skinny body.”

And Rodzilla served drinks at Utopia, far and away the Strip’s most musically progressive nightspot, said bartender Mike Vizzi.

“I pulled him behind the bar,” said Vizzi, who, at 8 a.m. Sunday was just closing up, only to move the party, deejay, speakers, still-sweaty dancers and all, to nearby Sunset Park for Saturday Night, the Sequel.

“Go to Sunset Park,” Vizzi said. “You’ll have a great time.”

Well, maybe. If Rodman might be there.