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07.29.06
Every Bad Idea Deserves Fudge (Vol. II)
posted by Absinthe | 12:09 AM
Wheaton is of the opinion that the Tilted Kilt contains an entrance to a wormhole. Enter that much-frequented establishment, order a beer, and suddenly it’s 8 in the morning and you’re standing outside your hotel with a growing sense that you have neither slept nor done anything remotely beneficial to your well-being in the time that’s passed. For a guy who grew up on Star Trek his grasp of physics is either extremely tenuous or cunningly warped; still, anecdotal evidence provides quite a bit of support to this theory. Case in point:
The decision has been made. Once four people have all accepted that cabbing it downtown and playing in a night-owl tournament at Binion’s - granted, more or less the birthplace of tournament poker, but less a paean to the greatness of the idea than a testament to an ungrateful child’s thirst for parricide - well, the inevitability of such a decision renders a discussion of means irrelevant. We. Are. Going. To. Binion’s.
Hailing a cab turns out the be the least of our problems. Had any of us the foresight of, say, General Custer, we would have hung around a few minutes and let someone else take the cab that conveyed us downtown. Instead we got fish stories. Lots of fish stories. Extra super bonus fish stories, because Wheaton, in the process of the objectively simple act of putting his backpack into his car, has decided that the best thing to do in the meantime is move his car to a safer, more convenient location, which upon our return will save him eighteen seconds of walking across the dark parking lot. This would be an eminently reasonable act if it weren’t for the fact that we are clearly not going to return before sunup, if at all.
So Wheaton moves his car and the rest of us learn the proper way to measure a catfish, which is to say, apocryphally.
The ride to Binion’s is no better, since the cabbie - mistaking Otis’ natural bonhomie for something resembling actual interest - is eager to share yet more fish tales and recommendations for strip clubs that are also bona fide five-star steakhouses. We find these claims less dubious than those of a piscine nature, but only just.
I have never been downtown before, and - judging from the age and disposition of the meagre crowds we find at Binion’s - neither has anyone that wasn’t either born before 1950 and/or used as a prime example in the annals of the DSM-IV. The artificial sky-tent over Fremont Street only serves to throw into harsh relief the reality that there isn’t anyone there. Nobody appears to be buying anything, and the number of Binion’s shops and bars we pass that are closed “temporarily” suggests that the local merchants have just up and left.
By the time we register for the Binion’s 2AM tourney (a $50 affair that will naturally end up costing each of us $110, plus tips, plus three of us a last-longer, plus cab fare, plus whatever pieces of our souls that were trimmed away in the wee hours) it is roughly 1:48AM. T-minus twelve minutes may seem an overly precise estimate to be termed “roughly”, but time is suddenly of the essence. Otis needs another drink. (I could add that sentence to every paragraph I write for the rest of my life and it would be no less true each time.) I need to find a bathroom. Spaceman needs to find the saddest bad-beat story in the place. And Wheaton - Wheaton is hungry. He is hungry and he is convinced that unless he finds adequate sustenance he will play badly, as if this is not as much a certainty anyway (for all of us) as is the fact that the sun will rise in roughly four hours. Which it will, despite our fervent wishes to the contrary.
Finding sustenance at Binion’s is nearly impossible. Cafe? Closed. Gift shop? Closed. “Temporarily.” The ostensible gift shop is ostensibly behind a door that looks suspiciously like a janitor’s closet and we suspect that the staff is maybe, just maybe, having us on. Snack bar? Closed, despite being very near the greatest concentration of people in the whole damn building (a dozen, give or take us). The bar from which Otis obtains a greyhound? Closed immediately thereafter, even though Otis has already slipped a twenty into the bartop video poker machine. The bar having been closed, he promptly cashes out his ticket, puts it into his wallet, and it remains there to this day. I believe he would probably sell it at a substantial discount.
There is no food and precious little liquor to be had, and Wheaton is hungry. This is one of the most important things I’ve learned about him: he gets hungry.
We wander out into canopy-covered Fremont Street and realize that the place is utterly deserted. The only way we’d get any calories from Glitter Gulch is by licking things that ought not be licked, and nobody’s eager to try. With a scant five minutes left to us before the commencement of festivities, a deal is brokered: searching as a pack is inefficient and so Otis will go and somehow - somehow! - find acceptable foodstuffs and return with them as soon as possible. The rest of us will go and take our seats and prepare to play what might well be the worst poker of our lives.
Wheaton has a pile of Snickers in front of him within ten minutes.
As for the rest of the story, time and circumstance dictate that it wait until a later date. Tomorrow’s the big dance and I have an appointment with my pillow.
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Topics: Poker |
December 31, 1969 at 4:00 PM
July 29, 2006 at 2:18 PM
Fantastic post.
Good luck today.
August 4, 2006 at 9:11 PM
[…] All in all, Mike was a great fluffer, cranking us up for the arrival of rest of the bloggers. And sure enough, with the bait of a looser-than-loose low limit mixed game, they came. CJ and Otis (also blogging for PokerStars), Wil Wheaton, Bad Blood, and Ryan (also taking a day off before the WSOP Day Three) came pouring in. Coincidently, the raises, noise level, laughter, and bad beats seemed to increase exponentially with their participation. […]
August 5, 2006 at 12:20 AM