vegas_maser
Greetings. [Font deliberately not sized down ;) ]
Richard Pryor once said something to the affect of wanting to strip naked, run through a casino, jump on a table, and yell "Blackjack!" I couldn't agree more.
I just returned to the hell of living from a sin-free three-day trip to Sin City. I sweated out a 3 hour plane flight to get there (I'm edgy when cooped up in a barely subsonic tin can) and was rewarded with a mere 2 hour plane flight back due to favorable winds.
For those who have never been, I recommend the trip if albeit a longer one so as to experience more of the libertine atmosphere. It's "a place where the beer flows like wine." I would have much preferred to ride into town half-twisted on acid like my hero Raul Duke (a.k.a. Hunter S. Thompson) did so many years ago. Unfortunately, I had to settle for riding a screaming, winged torpedo, half-twisted from cabin fever and high anxiety.
Of course, I did not come, as the sportive sorts do, to dip my, er, big toe into the debauchery of legalized prostitution. I came, as the betting sorts do, to gamble away my plane ticket home if necessary. I'd love to say it had to happen and, in so doing, indulge my delusion that I can be totally depraved when I want to be, but I didn't lose my ticket home. :(
When I think about it, a good story is worth more than what my conservative poker habits failed to successfully defend from the other dissolute persons. Maybe I should have gone for the ace and thrown caution to the wind. Afterall, I didn't win anything after some 24 cumulative hours of poker, and I could only manage to lose $150. That's lukewarm drama. On the other hand, if I had lost my ass with some style, that would have been a grand tale.
My worst beat at the hold 'em tables involved me handing over about $120 dollars to a guy on one hand that went terribly wrong. I had pocket aces. He had pocket kings. Going all in didn't scare him away, and in the melee of cards that insued, he got another king. And lucky for him that he did too, considering that the 2 remaining kings were his only legitimate outs in the entire deck. In the meantime, I played it right and still lost. :p
A buddy of mine, Carmine (not his real name, btw), was the only companion on the trip and against the wishes of his girlfriend at that. Oops! She wanted to go and suddenly couldn't. He still could go, and I was the next best thing. The one caveat was the lack of, ahem... perks and how demanding I am (i.e. demanding my own bed for the duration of our stay).
We can't say he didn't try to rationalize it with her, but the ol' "it's a different kinda trip, honey" approach didn't quite cut it. By that I mean, if he and I go, it's a gambling trip; if she and he go, it's a sight-seeing / romantic get-away. To no avail. Apparently there are just too many distractions in that mecca of misbehavior to trust a couple of guys like us -- meaning two socially-inept poker nerds.
He actually was up about five hundred dollars at one point. However, free scotch can be a bitch.
While I was there, I actually had the opportunity to go to dinner with my uncle and aunt, the Alaskans. They're a fun-lovin' bunch, full of beans, slots players. I hung out with them for a while in Caesar's Palace while Carmine continued to swill scotch and watch his poker fortunes nose-dive. Benecio del Toro's rapid-fire gambling montage in Snatch comes to mind, if anyone were in need of an appropriate visual.
Other pop-references that might make light of our ham-handed antics in Vegas include (but are not limited to) Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn's short-lived stint disguised as highrollers at the beginning of Swingers and Mike Myers' shabby attempt to be an inconspicuous blackjack player on the hunt for Robert Wagner's Virtucon executive in the original and hands-down the best Austin Powers incarnation.
And in Fantasia-fashion, we'll end our version of A Night on Bald Mountain with a sublime segue into Ave Maria -- that age-old struggle between the profane and the sacred as it was brilliantly illustrated by the triumph of light over darkness and transitioning from the demons and ghouls of midnight, the worship service of Baal, to the sober procession of the faithful set to the strains of a heavenly choir. If you look closely, we're in that procession. No, really! I'm third from the right! Hey... I'm serious. :p
A 2 hour plane flight is a very short time to transform from the dashing, dangerous ruby_maser to mild-mannered stooge for the architecture racket. Anyway, I managed :(
And, ladies, pink hardhats are so very possible. You may be surprised in the near future. ;)
Richard Pryor once said something to the affect of wanting to strip naked, run through a casino, jump on a table, and yell "Blackjack!" I couldn't agree more.
I just returned to the hell of living from a sin-free three-day trip to Sin City. I sweated out a 3 hour plane flight to get there (I'm edgy when cooped up in a barely subsonic tin can) and was rewarded with a mere 2 hour plane flight back due to favorable winds.
For those who have never been, I recommend the trip if albeit a longer one so as to experience more of the libertine atmosphere. It's "a place where the beer flows like wine." I would have much preferred to ride into town half-twisted on acid like my hero Raul Duke (a.k.a. Hunter S. Thompson) did so many years ago. Unfortunately, I had to settle for riding a screaming, winged torpedo, half-twisted from cabin fever and high anxiety.
Of course, I did not come, as the sportive sorts do, to dip my, er, big toe into the debauchery of legalized prostitution. I came, as the betting sorts do, to gamble away my plane ticket home if necessary. I'd love to say it had to happen and, in so doing, indulge my delusion that I can be totally depraved when I want to be, but I didn't lose my ticket home. :(
When I think about it, a good story is worth more than what my conservative poker habits failed to successfully defend from the other dissolute persons. Maybe I should have gone for the ace and thrown caution to the wind. Afterall, I didn't win anything after some 24 cumulative hours of poker, and I could only manage to lose $150. That's lukewarm drama. On the other hand, if I had lost my ass with some style, that would have been a grand tale.
My worst beat at the hold 'em tables involved me handing over about $120 dollars to a guy on one hand that went terribly wrong. I had pocket aces. He had pocket kings. Going all in didn't scare him away, and in the melee of cards that insued, he got another king. And lucky for him that he did too, considering that the 2 remaining kings were his only legitimate outs in the entire deck. In the meantime, I played it right and still lost. :p
A buddy of mine, Carmine (not his real name, btw), was the only companion on the trip and against the wishes of his girlfriend at that. Oops! She wanted to go and suddenly couldn't. He still could go, and I was the next best thing. The one caveat was the lack of, ahem... perks and how demanding I am (i.e. demanding my own bed for the duration of our stay).
We can't say he didn't try to rationalize it with her, but the ol' "it's a different kinda trip, honey" approach didn't quite cut it. By that I mean, if he and I go, it's a gambling trip; if she and he go, it's a sight-seeing / romantic get-away. To no avail. Apparently there are just too many distractions in that mecca of misbehavior to trust a couple of guys like us -- meaning two socially-inept poker nerds.
He actually was up about five hundred dollars at one point. However, free scotch can be a bitch.
While I was there, I actually had the opportunity to go to dinner with my uncle and aunt, the Alaskans. They're a fun-lovin' bunch, full of beans, slots players. I hung out with them for a while in Caesar's Palace while Carmine continued to swill scotch and watch his poker fortunes nose-dive. Benecio del Toro's rapid-fire gambling montage in Snatch comes to mind, if anyone were in need of an appropriate visual.
Other pop-references that might make light of our ham-handed antics in Vegas include (but are not limited to) Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn's short-lived stint disguised as highrollers at the beginning of Swingers and Mike Myers' shabby attempt to be an inconspicuous blackjack player on the hunt for Robert Wagner's Virtucon executive in the original and hands-down the best Austin Powers incarnation.
And in Fantasia-fashion, we'll end our version of A Night on Bald Mountain with a sublime segue into Ave Maria -- that age-old struggle between the profane and the sacred as it was brilliantly illustrated by the triumph of light over darkness and transitioning from the demons and ghouls of midnight, the worship service of Baal, to the sober procession of the faithful set to the strains of a heavenly choir. If you look closely, we're in that procession. No, really! I'm third from the right! Hey... I'm serious. :p
A 2 hour plane flight is a very short time to transform from the dashing, dangerous ruby_maser to mild-mannered stooge for the architecture racket. Anyway, I managed :(
And, ladies, pink hardhats are so very possible. You may be surprised in the near future. ;)
posted by ruby maser at 2/28/2006 12:26:00 PM
6 comments
