The Most Dangerous Job in Vegas: Writing Gossip

Forbes.com conducted an interview with Las Vegas gossip columnist Norm Clarke, who claims that magician Criss Angel once threatened to put Clarke's other eye out if he ever wrote about him again (Clarke wears a black "pirate" patch on his right eye).

Six days a week Norm Clarke churns out "Vegas Confidential," his gossip column for the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Among some great moments:  Clarke getting slapped in the face by Pete Rose.

"I was having dinner at the Palms' steakhouse with Matt Drudge when Pete Rose came up to our table and slapped me in the face. I said, "What the f*** are you doing?" Rose said that I had ranked him as the worst tipper in town. I tried to tell him he wasn't the worst, just among the top 10 worst, but he wouldn't listen. Rose left, then Drudge turned to me and asked, "Did he just slap you?" I said yes, and Drudge said, "Well I certainly hope you're going to write about it tomorrow." I did."

On the Tiger Woods scandal:

"What probably foreshadowed all this was Tiger hanging out with Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan. The chicks were lined up 10-deep around those guys. That's a lot of temptation to give up. But when you have a wife and two kids, the fact he did this for so long, having unprotected sex with all these skanky women, is incredible even to us hardened gossip columnists."

And finally, on how Twitter has functioned as a worthy tool for gossip columnists:

"There are nights when you feel all this is a throwback to Wild West journalism: Check out the saloons, say hello to a dancing girl to find out who's in town, chase a hot tip and work the phones. You do what it takes. If you don't have an assistant, tough. Twitter helps immensely because it lets us gossip chasers go "live." Those old AP days of running to a telephone and dictating to a middle man are long gone and I don't miss 'em."

Jordan Bach, Gambling911.com