(bright music) - Will you consider this?

You can't keep the good guys outta Peoria.

I mean, you move away, you come back, you move away, you come back, and you're back now for good.

This is S. LaMont Waithe.

Now, the S stands for Sidney, I know that, but you're the artist, you're an artist, and so you can name yourself whatever you want.

- Well, the reason I go by S. LaMont Waithe is because I don't know how it happened, but I was signing autographs at a early age, at shows, and I just wrote S. LaMont.

- Okay.

- And ironically, when I first moved to Peoria in 1972, it was in the pretty, pretty, pretty neighborhood in south end of Peoria, and the address was 800 North Sanford.

On a Friday, I go over to my aunt's house, "Sanford and Son" was on.

- [Christine] All right.

- His son's name was Lamont.

My son's name was Lamont.

- [Christine] Okay.

- It was eight o'clock.

I caught the train from Centralia at eight o'clock.

My wife's name is Elizabeth.

She has passed.

Everything was so identical to that sitcom that I just say, "Well, I'm just gonna be LaMont."

- Oh, there you go, I like that story.

So you have quite a history in Peoria of everything that you've done.

Now, I thought that when we worked at Channel 25 together, I thought that was when you started your sports art, or Spart, is what you called it, but really, it started beforehand, these beautiful, beautiful wood.

He's got one that he's showing right there on his necklace there.

- Yes.

- So tell me- - But you are right, Christine, I named it sport art.

- Okay.

- But what you're referring to is correct, what has became Spart, but I made it a non-profit, because all the subjects I did was sport related.

- [Christine] Okay, in the day, back in the day?

- That's in the day when we was working at Channel 25, 45 years ago.

- A long time ago, yeah.

- Oh man.

(both chuckling) And when I started doing, like, the skyline of Peoria, that meant something special to me, because at 19 years old, I had twin daughters.

You know, I needed to work, so I wanted to go to Bradley, so I ended up working at the School of Medicine and taking care of my family, but the ironic thing about the business is that when you sell artwork, people think paintings.

They don't think sculptures.

- No.

- And believe me, at that time, I thought I was the bomb.

I thought couldn't anybody outdo me, but I realized after returning back here some 45 years later, my work was like a grandpa working out the garage.

That's how I looked at it.

- Okay.

- You know, and I was determined to make a change, and I was teaching classes in Houston, and one of my students brought his homework in the next day, Christine, it looked better than mine.

- Oh?

- Yeah, it looked like, "Wow, this is nice, he's a good student," but what he had did, he had sanded it once, twice, wet sanded, hand-sanded.

The finish was more complete than what I was doing.

I was creating images like Michael Jordan, or you say, the skyline of Peoria, and that was it.

I didn't even sand them, I didn't finish them.

- [Christine] So you just left them plain wood?

- I just like, putting a puzzle together.

- All right.

- Without no treatment, no shellac, no sanding, 'cause I was depending on the actual art subject- - [Christine] To show itself.

- And sell itself.

- But then when you sanded it, and then you varnished it, then it even brought that more to life.

- Just like life.

You gotta clothe with some dignity.

You gotta look at stuff and say, "Oh, I see that."

If I can see it, somebody else can see it, so it's about perfection.

- Mm-hmm, so you've done all different kinds of things, but you started, kinda started in Peoria, and then where did you go from here?

- Well, after I left Peoria, see, when I was working at EEK, I had a chance to go to New York for the '80 Olympics.

Ed Tolioni in New York had asked me what would be my turnaround time to create an art piece?

And I say, "Two to three days."

He said, "Oh, we need a turnaround time in two to three hours."

- Mm.

- I said, "But it takes a glue two hours just to dry, so I couldn't do it in no two or three hours."

Honey, I can, now.

I can actually do a piece in less than 30 minutes.

- [Christine] Really, well, 'cause of different kind of glues?

- Not the glue, it's just time.

- All right.

- I got smarter.

- Okay.

- And the way I created it when I first created, I would draw a sketch, dissect the sketch, each piece will be traced on wood and put together like a puzzle once it's cut out.

My process now is get the image, trace it on, like, a big piece of wood, and then take the image and break it down.

- [Christine] But you use different kinds of wood.

- Oh yeah, yeah.

- So you have to draw it on several different types of wood, all right.

- Yes, yeah, and that's a good question.

The reason I'm doing special wood, 'cause Chris, I've been so many years of sanding cheap wood, Lowe's and Home Depot wood, to make it look like ebony, mahogany, whatever, but it took a lot of work.

And when I actually was able to afford, 'cause mahogany, ebony, and wenge, and purple, that's expensive.

And I did one piece, which all hardwood, just like furniture, and had to do no work.

Just sand it, buff it, let it speak for itself.

- Okay, yeah.

Well, so you did get smarter.

- I did.

- It's nice to know.

- From mistakes.

(chuckles) - It can still happen.

Well, if we don't learn from our mistakes, we're gonna make some more anyway.

So you have pieces on display everywhere.

There's one that was damaged in Houston that you showed me.

It was from flooding, or is it post-hurricane?

- We had Hurricane Harvey.

- Right.

- And where I was living at, I was living in, like, a duplex, and the pipes busted in the garage.

- Mm.

- And I had buckets of artwork in there, and you know, Richard Pryor was the one I think you said, and this is a strange story, but it's true.

So I go to move the buckets around in the garage, and they were heavy.

I said, "Man, that artwork wasn't that heavy."

I opened the top up, it was full of water.

- Full of water.

- And guess what's floating at the top, Richard.

- Oh no.

- Yeah.

And I thought to myself, "If he can talk, what would he say?"

He said, "Man, get me outta this water."

(both chuckling) - He'd say, "I floated to the top."

(laughs) - Yeah, and I got insurance claim on it, but I didn't want to destroy those images.

Well, you saw the picture, they looked pretty rough, and that's when I sent you some notes about if it could communicate.

Boy, what'd I start that for?

He was talking more smack and everything, and I said, "Richard, I thought you was dead."

You know what he told me?

- Oh?

- Mentally, I don't hear no audible word, but he said mentally, "But you ain't."

- [Christine] There you go.

- And another incident, I was doing a show, and he used the N-word on me.

- Oh no.

- And I say, "Richard, what's up with that?"

He say, "What's everything your thoughts and pattern, I can bring it out."

I said, "Oh, this is like Whoopi Goldberg stuff going on here."

- Yeah, in "Ghost."

Yeah, exactly.

(laughs) - Well, yeah.

- So you did do some more creating as a result, and his spirit inspired you somehow.

- You know what he told me, he said, you know, we get a lot of sun in Houston.

He said, "Put all this artwork in the driveway," and two days later, it dried up.

- [Christine] And it looked?

- No, I had to redo it.

- Oh, okay.

- I had to do replacement pictures.

And Richard's mental communication with me was saying, "Don't redo this picture, this sculpture.

Make me some new ones."

I got the pictures of Richard, I'm in Las Vegas, and after I did the sculpture of Richard, his mental connection with me said, "I need a lady."

I said, "Man, you sure getting kinda greedy here."

(Christine laughing) I said, "I'm working on you."

He said, "Get me a lady."

So I did a picture of Halle Berry, and they've been dating ever since.

- [Christine] How about it?

- And the conversations they had, I have to really tune them out.

- [Christine] I don't wanna know.

I don't wanna know.

- I don't either.

(chuckles) ♪ La-La-La-La-la ♪ (LaMont laughing) So you have different shows, you've had several shows in Las Vegas, 'cause you lived there - Oh yeah, oh yeah.

- For quite some time.

- Yeah, I've been in Las Vegas, the first, from 2002 to 2013, I lived in Las Vegas, and it was kind of like a learning type session.

That was kind of a rebel.

You know, I had situations going on, like we have a street festival, and the street festival had to be in my neighborhood, so all the vendors had to pay $1,200, $1,500 for a vendorship.

Not me.

I just brought out my food, brought out my...

I gave free beer away and free chicken wings, (both chuckling) and they come in one day to try to shut me down.

They said, "Mr. Waithe, you can't give away food without it being inspected, and you can't, you know, give away liquor without a license."

And one of my lawyer friends came out say, "This is a private party, this is private property," and you know what?

- [Christine] They looked the other way?

- Well, they relented, (Christine laughing) but they gave me a little problem.

You know, they told me to back away from the chicken.

Christine, they went for their guns and their tasers.

- Oh gosh.

- Now, I'm thinking myself, "I'm gonna die over some chicken wings?

I'm an artist."

(Christine chuckling) Long story short, they relented, and I had a crowd of people out there, because First Friday was four o'clock in the afternoon to 10:00 at night, then it ends.

Everybody packs some and go home.

Not my party, it started at 10:00, it ended at 4:00.

- [Christine] It was your private party, all right.

(Christine laughing) - And we had a good time entertaining people.

- All right, good for you, but so you had some theme shows out there, as well.

- Oh yeah.

- And that's mostly what you're doing now is themes?

Are you doing special- - Yeah, I think when I moved to Vegas the second time, I've been there four years now, so I've totaled 15 years living in Vegas, this big race, the Formula 1 race car, it makes a billion dollars a day in Las Vegas.

And I'm thinking, "Man, it's here for seven days, they got a 10-year contract," so I said, "Let me start doing some race cars."

And I went to this center called the MLK Senior Citizen, about 200 people, you know, it's multiracial, and that's another thing I wanna talk about, racial harmony.

That's the mission of my artwork.

And they asked me, would I be willing to teach classes?

Now, these people are 60 years old, they're ambulatory, and it's like a daytime nightclub, but they eat good and it's free, and they got entertainment, they play cards, they got movies, they can bowl, and I'm the art teacher.

So the 23 students I had was complaining to me, "I can't even draw a straight line.

How you gonna teach me how to do what you do?"

And I listened to them, but guess what?

They did it.

The 16 students, seven women, seven men, and 19 women.

- Okay.

- The women were off the chain.

The men were cool, because all the women want some individual attention.

(Christine chuckling) I survived it, and- - [Christine] We're needy.

we're needy.

- Well, I mean, in a good way, you know?

- Okay.

- If you needy, who you asking (Christine laughing) to provide some needs?

A man.

- Right.

- And we did this 20-foot car, weighs over 1,000 pounds.

I got somewhat probably 25 different sponsors all over it, and it's one of my biggest accomplishments.

I mean, I'm even shocked by it.

- [Christine] Now, you did it out of wood?

- All wood.

- Okay.

And it's pretty long, 'cause we have a picture of it.

- Yes, yes.

- Yeah.

- Matter of fact, it's long, but it weighs over 1,000 pounds.

- That's crazy.

- And something happened to where I had to come back to Peoria and start production.

So while I was gone, in Las Vegas, there was a big Dr. King parade January 20th.

I wasn't able to go back to finish it, because the one side is complete, the other side is blank.

- Okay.

- So I wanted to go back and do the other side, but I mean, going back and forth to Peoria, and that's gonna be on hold until next year.

- All right.

So that's teaching classes there, have you taught classes here in Peoria then?

- Oh yeah, yeah.

- Okay.

- I just taught a class recently at the Romain center.

- All right.

- And I do stuff with, of course, Preston, that's my mentor, and I've done stuff at the Carver Center, I got a life-sized sculpture of Michael Jordan at the Proctor Center, the Boys and Girls Club, before Quest High School closed, I did some stuff there.

So my thing now, Chris, is trying to get people to do something with the young kids, but don't forget about the seniors.

- [Christine] Exactly.

- You know, they're very creative, you know, and I hear my good friend, Rita Ali, the mayor, they had the thing about these kids need something to do.

Well, here I am.

I'm gonna do free classes, supplies on me.

I want to do something called Family for Four Artwork.

- All right.

- I want four members of a family, mom, dad, two kids, grandpa, whatever.

I want couples and foursomes who don't get along, because once you sit in my class, you gonna be best buddies when you through, because of what I'm gonna teach 'em how to make.

- Because you have to work together.

So you're gonna teach 'em wooden art?

- I'm gonna teach 'em anything they want to learn.

They wanna know how to sketch, they want how to do watercolor, they want to know how to do the pottery wheel.

I've been blessed, but over the years, Christine, I've gotten better at things I do.

Okay, being retired, I got a lot of time on my hands, and I'm not dating right now, I have no significant other, so I got all my time is committed to my artwork and my career.

- And then you have, so artwork is you have themed shows.

- Yes.

- So tell me about what some of those themes are.

So the one was race cars.

- Yeah, but you know what?

The last time we talked, it was Siegfried and Roy.

- Okay, yeah.

- Remember we was doing?

- I do remember that.

- I got the Siegfried and Roy sculpture, Siegfried and Roy Center, where they was doing the show at The Mirage is getting ready to be torn down.

- [Christine] The Mirage is, yeah.

- So when I was in the negotiation, the story we did, they was all ready for me to do the show, and put the sculpture together, and take it apart, and display it.

They had, I'm not sure, but I know it had to be a $100,000 bronze statue of Siegfried and Roy in Monte Carlo.

It's been destroyed.

- Oh gosh, melted down probably, or?

- Well, they got a thing called the Boneyard, where everything in Vegas is in this one area, and you can reminisce, you can walk through it, but it just showed you how Vegas is so cruel to artwork and buildings.

I mean, they're tearing down $100 million building to put up a $3 billion building.

The stadium's a good example.

They're building a brand new stadium where Tropicana was at.

- Okay.

- It's gone.

- And Tropicana, that was Old Vegas, right?

- Oh yeah, yeah, Old Vegas, but it was on the strip.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And this is one of the premier places.

- Right, right.

- But The Mirage, - Stardust, yeah.

- Everything, oh man.

Everything is going, you know.

It's becoming more money-oriented.

- Okay.

- You know, but artwork still reigns supreme, and I'm lucky to have what's making me successful in Las Vegas.

I'm trying to be no singer, no dancer, or everybody come to Vegas to get discovered, but I'm doing something unique, and people taking notice.

- [Christine] And that's lasting.

- Yeah, and I'm good at this.

- They can go home with something.

- Exactly, so with the Formula 1 race committee, they gonna meet with me next year.

What I want to do, I wanna do a car here in Peoria, Houston, and Sacramento, all these cities where I've done a lot of major art shows at, 'cause the cars I'm making, even though they're 20 feet long, they're portable.

You can take 'em apart, throw it up the frame, and ship it anywhere in the world.

So my dream is to have all four cars on display in Las Vegas next year, and it's very doable.

- So where would that be?

- Anywhere.

- Okay.

- Because the cars are portable.

- Okay.

- And what I did, I clicked in with the car dealerships.

Every car dealership I talked about it say, "Well, can you bring it here on display on the week of this other race?"

Well, I've had several car dealerships ask me, so that sound like a bargaining thing, I mean, a bidding war.

Who's going to pay the most money?

Because what I'm going to do is take the car down on a Friday, do a premiere on Saturday, and they can have it on Sunday.

And the race is seven days, so whoever, it could be from Peoria.

The car from Houston can be downtown.

The car from Phoenix can be somewhere else, because the way I got it set up, I want the recognition to be put on the fans.

- So are you gonna have, you know, the advertising on the cars, too?

- Oh, that's gonna cost.

- Okay.

- That's gonna cost, because every advertisement (Christine laughing) I got, I do business with.

Circle K, I do business with Southwest Airline, everybody's on there, you know the casinos, the Wynn, I did them a favor advertising.

My bank, US Bank, heard about it and they donated.

- They wanna be involved.

- They already donated some money, because it's my personal bank.

They said, "Can I take a picture of this car you got?

We want to contribute."

So the one side I said is blank, that's gonna be the money side.

- Okay.

(laughs) So explain about, now, I know we talked about this last time, but explain about your artwork there.

- Okay.

Once you do something for so many years, I've been doing this 57 years, and I'm 72 in May.

- That's really nuts.

- And I was telling you about IICC, If It Could Communicate, and that's when I let her start talking, because when I first did her, she kept flopping on this side.

- [Christine] And that's Venus Williams?

- This is Venus.

- Yeah.

- There wouldn't be no Serena without Venus.

- Okay, that's right, okay.

- And they kept flopping around.

And when I go to the store, little kids try to grab on it and stuff, and I say, "Truth," and this side is blank, and I say, "If she can talk, what would she say?"

Well, she told me, she say, "If you going to make sure I don't flop, put some fishnet stockings on me," and I thought she was talking about the front part.

This is good wood, I ain't gonna put no burns on this good wood.

- No.

(chuckles) - I did the bad side, look what happened.

- [Christine] There she is.

- And it quit flopping.

- [Christine] How about it?

(LaMont chuckling) She knew what she was talking about.

- Mm-hmm.

- You really- - Then hold up, hold up.

(Christine laughing) If I lean too far here, she told me she could stand on her own.

- Okay.

(laughs) She can.

- She's alive.

- She is.

- That's why I said that Whoopi Goldberg moment.

(both chuckling) So I don't want to, even with Richard.

Chris, I can write with my left hand, do stuff with my...

I've never been able to do that.

And to I what I call Richard Pritchard, 'cause if he could communicate, he said, "Don't use my name, 'cause they might start suing you when you get, you know, a kind of notoriety."

- Right.

- I said, "Okay," he said, "Just say Pritchard," but it'd be a sculpture of him.

That's what I'm gonna do, you know?

Being in Vegas, I caught that VEG, that Vegas Entertainment Bug.

- Aha.

- I got it bad.

(chuckles) - [Christine] Yeah, well, you were doing live shows.

- Oh yeah, yeah.

- And live sculptures, and you could do that in just a couple of hours after you learned- - Minutes.

- Okay.

- The show is called "59:59."

59 minutes and 59 seconds, I could do a sculpture of anybody in the audience.

Hey, you wanna see me do it?

But at the end of the 59 minutes, I come to you, so I say, "Miss Zak, could you stand up?"

Well, you know me, I can't do you.

(Christine chuckling) And you say, "Yeah, I never seen this guy, what's going on?"

So once you stand up, one of my assistants reach under the chair you're sitting, and show you a picture of yourself in wood.

- Wow.

- It's almost like you looking in the mirror, and everything, your hair, your necklace, everything is wooden there, and it's completely done, and it's framed.

I have the individual come on stage, 'cause it's only about 10 seconds before the show's over with, and I say, "Okay, ma'am, you got a sculpture, I will autograph you on one condition.

If you can out-dance me for the next 10 seconds."

Well, you know, I'll let 'em win the dance contest.

- Right.

- I still can bust a move.

(Christine laughing) So she does her little thing and everything, and she's kind of happy, you know, she win.

I signs it.

I say, "Wait a minute, something ain't right here."

She goes, "Well, what can I do Mr.

Waithe?"

My assistant go to the corner to get this box, she gives the box to the lady, guess what's in there?

Another sculpture of her.

I make her sign it, down comes the curtain.

- Really?

- The crowd loves it.

- So what do you plan to do?

What are your goals now?

I mean, you've done just about everything you've wanted to do.

What's out there yet that you think you haven't conquered?

- Actually, no, you're a brave reporter.

You ask the best questions.

I'm starting back in Peoria.

I'm gonna come back home, well, I'm home, and Vegas gonna just to be a trip, because I got it so well in Vegas.

Anytime I go, if I let somebody know I'm coming in town, they take care of the flights and all, like at the Center for one, the MLK Center.

And I need to be here, because I'd rather be a little fish in a little pond than a little fish in a big pond, and somebody say, "What do you wanna be, a big fish in little pond?"

I say, "No, because you are a big fish in a little pond, everybody want the big fish."

- Right.

- So I want to come back to Peoria, reclaim my identity as a colorful artist, and do shows, free shows with families.

Four people in the family, I don't care if y'all are fussing and fighting.

When you get through with me, it's only a four-hour class.

- Well, I do like that you're getting the family focus.

- Yes.

- And that's really important.

And what inspired you to think about that?

- The trouble that we have within our families.

You know, I used to teach at Manual High School, summer school, and one of the students would come in smelling kind of, you know, bad, and they would tease him about it.

So I did my research, and I called the parent up.

They said, "Well, his clothes are laid out every morning.

All he gotta do is put 'em on."

So when he came to class, when I told him, I said, "I just talked to your mother, and I know you shouldn't be coming dressed like this."

And you know, they teased him about smell, and I solved that problem, because I talked to him.

You know, the other kid was just laughing.

- You cared.

- Yeah.

You know?

- You cared.

- And I thought about, you know, it's not just black and white.

Everybody's getting, I'm an artist, everything ain't black and white with me.

I'm sorry, but I ain't gotta apologize, because I love racial harmony.

My family's got Asian in it, I got a Latino in my family, I'm the United Nations of Grandparenting.

- [Christine] We like that.

(laughs) - I think it's cool.

- It is.

- I have no problem with it, but the nuclear family's kind of breaking down, and the man's not there, which should be no problem, but a woman is wearing two hats.

If I get a chance to do my classes, I guarantee you it's gonna make a change, and it'll be a positive change, because if you could do something with your hands, and make something, they look at it, it'll give you self confidence.

- And again, you're going back to vaudeville play in Peoria.

You want this to catch on.

- Yeah.

- And there's the potential for it.

- And it's weird, because I know the mayor of Peoria, Arizona real good.

- Okay.

- Peoria, Illinois, Peoria, Arizona, 'cause my daughter has a lot of things going on in Phoenix.

But the aspect of me teaching classes, like the students at the MLK Center said they can't draw a straight line.

I said, "I'm not teaching drawing straight lines.

I'm gonna teach you (Christine laughing) something else."

- We're zigzagging.

(laughs) - Well, they liked it, and I know I can do it here, but I want to start at the ground roots of Peoria, not just Black kids or white kids, all kids.

I want everybody to reach on this RH factor, Racial Harmony.

That's what I'm about.

- Mm-hmm.

Well, I really like that, you're inspirational.

So what's the next sculpture you're gonna do?

Or this is just something that's gonna evolve?

It hasn't even come to you yet?

- It's been on my mind for years.

I'm gonna do the Peoria skyline, I left the pieces over there, - Okay.

- But I'm gonna do it differently.

I've never done it this way.

I'm gonna take the skyline and bend it.

- Oh.

- It'll be round on both sides, and it'll connect like a circle, so you can actually have a sculpture.

I'm gonna do a Caterpillar tractor, D10.

I went to the School of Medicine, I'm gonna do their logo, the Bradley logo.

Every place I've worked at, I'm gonna connect to one big sculpture and auction it off to raise money to pay for the classes.

It is gonna be all purely related.

And if anybody got ideas of something you want me to do, Christine, I'm good at what I do.

Send me an image, give me a picture, and I'm unlike a lot of...

I don't need your money, because once I create something, you gonna want to reward me financially, or invest in my shows, whatever, because the problem with most artists, they need money to get started.

- [Christine] Well, poor starving artists, that came from somewhere.

- Hey.

If you looked in the dictionary, it was a picture of me, but now, it's gone.

(Christine chuckling) I'm not poor, I'm not starving, but I got this ingenuity.

I know how to make stuff.

when I go to Home Depot in Las Vegas, they gave me 70% off on all the wood I get, because they know what I'm doing, and they support me.

- Well, that's good.

You need to put them on one of your cars.

- Well, you know.

(chuckles) (Christine laughing) Well, they are.

- Okay.

- They are, but guess what my first big sponsor?

- I have no idea.

- Richard Carver.

- Oh, okay.

- He had a lumber yard, remember?

- Yeah.

- I used to stay over there.

(Christine chuckling) He told me one day, he said, "LaMont, can you get some other people to donate some artwork wood?"

I said, "Yeah, but they ain't the mayor."

- There you go.

- He let it go.

(both chuckling) - Well, so these classes, let's get back to that.

So how many people can you have in your classes, like- - Four.

- Only four per lesson?

- Four.

Session.

- Okay, per session, okay.

- I give you an example, you got a family.

- I do.

- You can bring three members and you, and I'm gonna teach you how to sketch.

I'm gonna teach you how to draw, I'm gonna show you how to do what I do, but I would do the cutting, but you gotta do the sanding.

You gotta do the arrangement.

When you fit, you're gonna say, "Man, I can't believe I did this."

- Right.

- So it's gonna look like I did it, but I'm gonna teach you and your three people you can do it too, and it makes great Christmas gifts, birthday gifts.

- [Christine] Does it matter how old the people are?

- The older the better.

- Okay, so, - (chuckles) To 80.

- But younger kids probably is not a very good idea?

- I thought that, too.

- Okay, but?

- I actually do a class at the Y, and the receptionist girl, she said, "Well, my son likes drawing, he's only nine years old," and I had put a age limit, you gotta be 12 or under.

I let him come to the class.

He became my student teacher and my best student.

Him and the 89-year-old woman bonded.

Age doesn't matter.

- Well, and that's lovely, too, because then you're bringing generations together, and there's so much that they can learn from one another.

- It started here in Peoria.

Most everything I do started in Peoria.

I came here when I was 19, and I moved to San Bernardino, California in '82 when I was 30.

So all my formative years, and learned about life- - Were here.

- Peoria.

- Okay.

Well, and you're here to stay, now?

- I'm here to stay, because I got a purpose now.

You know, like I say, Allegiant flies to Vegas nonstop for less than 90 bucks, but I got it set up.

If somebody want me to come home to Vegas, it's gonna cost you.

(Christine laughing) I'm gonna stay three to five days, 'cause I wanna stay focused in Peoria and do some things, 'cause I wanna to go to Chicago, my hometown, Centralia, Carbondale, East Hill.

I'm gonna make a mark in Illinois that I left, I think, unfinished.

- Okay, well, that's why you're here.

You have unfinished business to tend to.

- And looking forward to doing it.

- So where can people find you if they have some ideas or questions for you?

You have a... - I'm gonna be doing a lot of stuff for Garry Moore.

- Okay.

- He's one of my contact points.

I might be doing some things down there, the Romain Center, I'll be doing stuff with Preston.

- [Christine] And ART Inc. with Preston.

- Yeah, and Connie Andrews.

You familiar with Connie Andrews?

- No.

- Man, she's a phenomenal artist here in Peoria, too.

I'm gonna be hooking up with people, because when I do my show in Vegas, I'm inviting Peoria artists to come.

- [Christine] Good idea.

- Because I learned something in Vegas.

When you do a show in Vegas, you gotta pay union dues, and you gotta pay more money than what the people's work going to get you.

I'm gonna have local artists, they get their rooms and everything paid by the casino, 'cause they want you to gamble, that's the trick.

- Okay.

(chuckles) - They say, "Well, how many is coming, LaMont?"

I say, "20."

They say, "Good, and you gonna get a players card," but what people don't realize, you don't have to gamble.

You can shop, you can go places.

Every dollar you spend is recorded.

- [Christine] Okay.

- And they know that, they call you.

I had one friend of mine, and he was a high roller.

They gave his wife a brand new Lincoln.

- Oh.

- And the second day he was there, the casino said, "Hey, you know, I ain't see no action on the tables yet."

He said, "Oh, we gonna do something tonight."

This man end up spending six figures in three days.

- Yep, yeah, you got it.

Well, thanks for being here, sharing your story.

- Thanks for having me.

- Well, and we'll find you, and we'll still be in touch, and maybe I'll have to take one of your classes?

(Christine laughing) - Well, I tell you what.

What you need to do is, believe me, like we always say for 45 years, but I'm gonna make a change in Peoria in the art world.

- And I think- - And I'm feeling it, and I get strength from people like yourself, and Garry, and the mayor.

Peoria, I'm back.

Get ready for me, and let me do my Howard Cosell and Muhammad Ali.

Good, this man is so bad, I don't know.

Howard Cosell here today, talking about LaMont Waithe (Christine chuckling) back home in Peoria.

- Need I say more?

- Vegas bug.

- Thanks for sharing your story.

(LaMont chuckling) Thanks for joining us.

Be well.

(laughs) (bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues)