Friday, February 06, 2009
The Crazy "Road" Trip Is On
I dropped an IM on Otis earlier this week when I was realized it's been nearly 4 years since a bunch of degens descended upon quiet Greenville South Cackalacky for his traditional Brad-o-ween party. Everyone who attended has great memories (or semi-memories depending on their alcohol consumption).
The weekend had a something for everyone involved. Two poker games, drinking at the local establishments, monster garage bar stocked with more booze then you would think necessary. He provided the best BBQ in town, coordinated security for the poker tournament, Derek doing the ultimate "puke and rally", someone NOT PASSING OUT in the house, and a brother packing the proper medical equipment should anyone appear with a seemingly incurable hangover. I remember sitting in the grass telling stories but don't remember who I was with or what we discussed. It was the telling and listening that mattered. My "team" lost the Drunk Olympics. Still not over my failure to mount a comeback and save my drunk-rep.
That's not even mentioning the G-Vegas regular jumping from one tree top to the next or having imaginary conversations with the floating head of a child's doll.
The surreal moment for me was walking around the corner and finding the little surprise he set up. I can't imagine what the local printer thought when he placed the order for the banner. Sitting there in the garage was a table advertising everyone's opportunity to try out the AlCantHang Experience.
Photos stolen from April's flickr account
I'm not sure how many of those Soco bottles we went through but I do know I abandoned the plastic cups and started walking around with my own bottle. I'm stunned I can't find one picture on the entire internet of somebody wearing the wing and chugging shots. It was a fantastic weekend with just the right combination of debauchery and time to hang out with friends we don't see very often. It was my one and only Brad-o-ween.
~
I was searching the internet for random photos and came across the Brad-o-ween picture and I decided to write something up about it for old times sake. Then something happened that made it even more relevant to my current situation.
That big move I've been hinting at is finally in motion. I'm out of here and on my way south.
Things have evolved into a crazy trek down the east coast. In a moment of drunken brilliance I realized that a plane ride would have me flying right over a bunch of friends. I decided to do something insane and take the train on a southern trek making stops along the way to spend some time with the good folk. I can't imagine the amount of time I'm going to spend sitting in a train car going from place to place but time is something I have banked up pretty well. Plans are tightening up and I'm ready to get on my way in two weeks.
The first stop will be in DC, not coincidentally scheduled around a time when Daddy will be in town for work. I'm sure I'll meet up with the Garthmeister while I'm around, drinking and getting ourselves in trouble at the local eateries. I'll take a few days to see the sites, maybe I'll swing by TheRock's house and see if he's up for a little game of poker. BigMike is kicking around the idea of joining me on the first leg of my trip which would only make things even better.
After a few days in DC I'll hop back on the train at Union Station and join up with my compatriots in G-Vegas. Otis and Blood are working out details but I'm sure there will be some poker, slight intoxication and I've requested to involve The Procedure at least once. I will try to not blow my entire roll in one session with ye olde strippahs. The Boy Genius will be using a few vacation days and jetting his way down. I'm sure we can convince other Cackalacky residents to waste away a few brain cells with us. This will be a weekend to remember.
I need to make a decision about where to go after that. I'm considering spending some time in Charlotte or Raleigh depending on reader recommendations plus the availability of proper drinking and high probability of trouble making.
I will then jump all the way down to north Florida to spend some time with Gracie and Pablo in the Poker Dome. Plans are a little mushy still for this part of the trek. At some point I'll head to the Tampa / Clearwater area for awhile. My parents spend their winter in that area and I wouldn't mind spending a few afternoons sitting in the sun watching spring training games.
So I'm looking at you Mr. Decker, to find some time in your busy schedule to meet up for a few drinks and maybe hit up one of local poker rooms. I think I would be the first to meet the elusive blogger.
At some point I will hop in a car with Mr. and Mrs. Pablo for the ride to Key West. There I will set up shop and repair myself under the sun. Bars and strippers and big damned fishing boats. Lazy followed by extended lazy with a heavy dose of the do-nothings.
The DC and G-Vegas segments are locked in stone. The weekend of the February 20th with Daddy and Garth in Washington, DC. February 28th the following weekend with the G-Vegas Crew and Boy Genius. I'm pretty much open to anything after that and could be talked into making stops anywhere along the route. I've considered a stop over in Atlanta and several other places but nothing solid.
The floor is now open for questions, suggestions and remarks. I'm looking forward to the entire "road" trip that will provide me with the chance to hang out with my friends as I slowly make my way south and it's pretty cool that some have decided to go out of their way to join the party.
If nothing else it will provide plenty of opportunities for pictures and stories. Maybe I'll even get myself a few stories in Truckin' out of this.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
February Truckin'
Truckin' - February 2009, Vol. 8, Issue 2
1. Kitchen Table by Paul McGuire
That's cool. You're a chick. And chicks are supposed to like sappy shit like Coldplay. I need something that I can play air guitar to. Not 'insert and remove tampons from my ass' kinda music... More
2. A Proper Bow-Tie by Betty Underground
I lay out the pieces of his tuxedo, he finishes the primping process. Gathering the necessary toiletries strewn across the bathroom floor one by one, as he needs them. The hair dryer goes off. I run my fingers through his dried, loose, locks and secure them in the back in a short ponytail while he tones, moisturizes and brushes. In that order... More
3. Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Joe Ely, and the Cotton Club by Johnny Hughes
Elvis bragged about his sexual conquests, using language you didn't hear around women. He said he'd been a truck driver six months earlier. Now he could have a new woman in each town. He told a story about being caught having sex in his back seat. An angry husband grabbed his wife by the ankles and pulled her out from under Elvis. I doubted that... More
4. First Impressions: Buenos Aires by Jonny Vincent
I tell him I'm from the Future, from the 21st century where people are used to paying for goods and services with this futuristic method of payment called credit cards. I apologise yet again and claim full responsibility for my own lack of research into his quaint and backwards and medieval system. I tell him I have no gold, no jewels, no currency and nothing to barter in exchange for the consumed food except these futuristic and useless credit cards... More
5. Pancakes by Paul McGuire
I just have to tell people the pancakes story and it perfectly explained Sabine. I sat through her bizarre routine every day for a year as she slipped into a trance and maniacally prepared her pancakes. She cared more about the pancakes than her own art. More than herself. Heck, more than me... More
Breakfast was all I remembered
Thursday at the Borgata started simply enough. I drank heavily with The Rooster at the B-Bar, we spent time sitting at the bar making conversation with the girls and sitting back in the lounge chairs with low slung tables. We decided it was time to sling some chips at the low limit poker tables with the other drunk monkeys on an early Friday morning. He eventually talked me into leaving the comfort of the bar for some idiotic 3/6 LHE action. There was only one table running the rake-happy game and it was full, but Bob the floor guy informed me that the 2/4 had seats. I took him at his word since I could only see one 2/4 table, there were only 2 players sitting there and the cards were not moving. He assured me that the table was just on a short break and I could get some shit limit action waiting for a shit limit 3/6 table. I agreed to take my seat on two conditions, I get the first seat at the Rooster's table AND he promptly sends the cocktail waitress to the table.
I don't know why I gave him my Borgata card while I went to the cage, I would have to play 24 straight hours at 2/4 or 3/6 to get enough comp dollars to buy a Milky Way bar. Playing the part of MGM Grand Drizztdj when I bought into the micro-game for $300. They wouldn't give me a mountain of white chips to build my pyramid, instead just giving me three rows of redbirds. I had the entire table covered three times over as one girl threw her last 4 white chips in every pot at the river.
I took a seat in the game with the intention of playing every pot, in the dark most times, and see how much drunken chump change I could dust off before they cut off my booze supply. The only way to beat the rake at this table is to win every hand then bail before you wail, and damn if I didn't win the first 5 including a brilliant suckout of the lady to my left.
I felt bad for taking their diaper/formula/crack bankroll so I "bought" a round of drinks for the table, pre-tipping the waitress for her soon to be excellent service. Right on queue she brought every one's drink except my Soco and she was going on break "would I mind waiting for the next girl to bring it along" which of course never happened over the course of my lemur loving time at the tables. But god damn if I didn't have fun at that shit table.
Some idiot takes the 4 seat. Mister "I write for the Atlantic City such and such newspaper" instantly decides he is the master of all things. But he doesn't know he can't play out of his chip rack, doesn't know that his runner runner flush doesn't beat the 9 seat's flopped boat, or that calling the 5am dealer names will ever be amusing to the table. He gets in a dust up with the very drunk 1 seat and I make a quick dash to the empty seat in 3/6.
It was time to sling chips with The Rooster, he's a cagey one says Otis. He was at the opposite end of the table and you wouldn't know he was playing 3/6 limit or 10/20 no-limit. He looks the same either way. Head phones, rooster card capper and staring holes in his opponents. I pre-toked the dealer for the good cards I was about to be receive, praise the lord and pass the ammo.
I couldn't tell you a damned thing that happened from the moment I sat down to when the table finally broke. I was trying to press the action but it's tough for a drunk to get welfare action early on a Friday morning. I hit the cage(y) with Joaquin and found something amazing. After the gross rake and over-tipping I cashed out $301. Up exactly one American dollar. Book the win! It was time to celebrate but he threw me for a loop. No more B-Bar because he was going up to the room to crash. Unheard of but The Rooster is always shifting gears.
The bar was a blur. I met Travis and Katie. I was throwing shots down Tropical Steve's gullet and putting up with a bunch of poker young guns making fools of themselves as per usual. I took it as a good sign that the bartender at 7am remembered me from the last Borgata trip. When a new surly bartender took his spot and made it known he wouldn't put up with any of my drunken shenanigans, it was time to call it a night/morning/life.
I woke up Joaquin and Jeff (on my floor since sunset) when I fell into the room. Breakfast was the greatest idea in the world, I grabbed the phone and started ordering. I didn't finish until I had enough food to feed my entire low-income 2/4 table. Room service guy kept pulling plates from under the rolling tray thinking there had to be more people in the room.
Paraphrased from my muddled brain on the phone, "I'd like two orders of pancakes, two orders of that cinnamon roll french toast. You guys want eggs? I need 6 eggs, over easy. A half loaf of toast. Bacon? Yeah, we need two orders of bacon. And a big pitcher of orange juice!"
Because after ordering all that food, OJ will make it all seem right.
And 12 hours later I woke up in my bed, fully clothed, with a buckwheat pancake glued to my arm with imitation maple syrup.
I run good!
|
I don't know why I gave him my Borgata card while I went to the cage, I would have to play 24 straight hours at 2/4 or 3/6 to get enough comp dollars to buy a Milky Way bar. Playing the part of MGM Grand Drizztdj when I bought into the micro-game for $300. They wouldn't give me a mountain of white chips to build my pyramid, instead just giving me three rows of redbirds. I had the entire table covered three times over as one girl threw her last 4 white chips in every pot at the river.
I took a seat in the game with the intention of playing every pot, in the dark most times, and see how much drunken chump change I could dust off before they cut off my booze supply. The only way to beat the rake at this table is to win every hand then bail before you wail, and damn if I didn't win the first 5 including a brilliant suckout of the lady to my left.
I felt bad for taking their diaper/formula/crack bankroll so I "bought" a round of drinks for the table, pre-tipping the waitress for her soon to be excellent service. Right on queue she brought every one's drink except my Soco and she was going on break "would I mind waiting for the next girl to bring it along" which of course never happened over the course of my lemur loving time at the tables. But god damn if I didn't have fun at that shit table.
Some idiot takes the 4 seat. Mister "I write for the Atlantic City such and such newspaper" instantly decides he is the master of all things. But he doesn't know he can't play out of his chip rack, doesn't know that his runner runner flush doesn't beat the 9 seat's flopped boat, or that calling the 5am dealer names will ever be amusing to the table. He gets in a dust up with the very drunk 1 seat and I make a quick dash to the empty seat in 3/6.
It was time to sling chips with The Rooster, he's a cagey one says Otis. He was at the opposite end of the table and you wouldn't know he was playing 3/6 limit or 10/20 no-limit. He looks the same either way. Head phones, rooster card capper and staring holes in his opponents. I pre-toked the dealer for the good cards I was about to be receive, praise the lord and pass the ammo.
I couldn't tell you a damned thing that happened from the moment I sat down to when the table finally broke. I was trying to press the action but it's tough for a drunk to get welfare action early on a Friday morning. I hit the cage(y) with Joaquin and found something amazing. After the gross rake and over-tipping I cashed out $301. Up exactly one American dollar. Book the win! It was time to celebrate but he threw me for a loop. No more B-Bar because he was going up to the room to crash. Unheard of but The Rooster is always shifting gears.
The bar was a blur. I met Travis and Katie. I was throwing shots down Tropical Steve's gullet and putting up with a bunch of poker young guns making fools of themselves as per usual. I took it as a good sign that the bartender at 7am remembered me from the last Borgata trip. When a new surly bartender took his spot and made it known he wouldn't put up with any of my drunken shenanigans, it was time to call it a night/morning/life.
I woke up Joaquin and Jeff (on my floor since sunset) when I fell into the room. Breakfast was the greatest idea in the world, I grabbed the phone and started ordering. I didn't finish until I had enough food to feed my entire low-income 2/4 table. Room service guy kept pulling plates from under the rolling tray thinking there had to be more people in the room.
Paraphrased from my muddled brain on the phone, "I'd like two orders of pancakes, two orders of that cinnamon roll french toast. You guys want eggs? I need 6 eggs, over easy. A half loaf of toast. Bacon? Yeah, we need two orders of bacon. And a big pitcher of orange juice!"
Because after ordering all that food, OJ will make it all seem right.
And 12 hours later I woke up in my bed, fully clothed, with a buckwheat pancake glued to my arm with imitation maple syrup.
I run good!
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
The Perfect Pour
The perfect pour, one way or another we're all looking for the perfect pour. Fortunately for me this is not a metaphor for anything overly complicated. I'm not trying to say I'm looking for the ultimate life balance or a partner to complete me or any other philoso-crap you might be thinking. The perfect pour for me is when the bartender fills it to the rim, such as seen in the picture above. The bartender who shall remain blameless just kept right on going and it was all my fault. For some reason at that very moment I found I was having problems with the new camera. By the time I was able to snap the picture we were looking at a rocks glass to the tippy top. I'm nothing if not a slick drunkard.
I finally had a chance to attempt a catch up on my bloglines reading, quite a daunting task when you have 1000's of feeds in bloglines. I'm doing a hit and miss job of it but was amused when I saw that I posted sometime last week. A jumble of words that was a combination between sleep deprivation and alcohol withdraw but fueled with the knowledge that I would soon be drowning myself at the B-Bar watching the young and the stupid. My week at the Borgata was ending and I was tired of it already. I do less than 1% of what Dr. Pauly or Otis do in these situations but I find myself ready to jump out the window 10 minutes after walking into the poker room and hear the first idiot tell another idiot "but I put you on AK". That is why I count down to the end when I can drink myself back into my normal state of mind. I could always use poker as my outlet but it's cheaper to buy $12 shots of Soco then chip dump to the lemurs.
So I find myself back in friendly confines. Curled up with a bottle of booze or watching too much TV. I'm making other plans but for now I'm sitting pretty watching the world pass by my barstool. At times it will be a girl who saddles up in the other chair, or a guy with a killer mohawk/skull tattoo combination, or some stranger who annoys the crap out of me. Either way it doesn't matter. They just hit the drinking lottery by finding the guy at the bar willing to bring as many along on the drinking express.
I have managed to go two entire weeks without making a girl puke in the corner. As far as I know.
Life through an amber colored glass
~
I've had the camera for a few weeks now and grabbing pics when I can. I have quite a few that I won't be posting without permission, some of my local friends know of what I speak. Here are a couple of innocent ones I took over the last couple of days to tide you over til I have all proper waivers signed and bystander faces photoshopped out.
Landow's birthday sushi bacchanalia. BigMike just happened to be walking past a bottle of wine as I was taking the pictures.
The bar at Fogo De Chau. Took my sister there for dinner before the suck that was the Borgata. Can't see the really good stuff on the top top shelf.
The Rooster in his natural habitat. We sat around the B-Bar then donked away chips in the poker room then I stayed up drinking. Big Mistake.
Blogger Johnnie Walker, The Rooster, and an ode to Iggy in the foreground. Sitting around the Gypsy Bar drinking free top shelf tequila.
I haven't a clue who this is and maybe I should. She was playing the Borgata Main Event. I think I found her name but not going to post it without being sure. She sat at LJ's table during Day 2 for approximately 30 seconds. Anyone care to shed some light on her name?
