I glanced at my watch; it had been fifty minutes. Even though we had been warned that it would take a long time before we felt anything, I was still starting to get worried. Maybe they were actually just crap. Was it possible that Sarah's guy had tried to screw her over? I doubted it, although I was starting to get anxious about it anyway.
I looked into the glass of what would be my first of many vodka redbulls for the night and saw that it was nearly empty. With one hand forward, I wormed my way through the crowds of people by slightly pushing them aside as I went. As I got closer I noticed Sarah was off to the outside corner of the bar, laughing hysterically, and I veered her way. The guy she was talking to looked like a complete bogan, backcountry tool, and I was surprised he had even been let inside. I was pretty sure that Sarah's laughs were being directed at him, and certainly not with him, but he didn't seem to notice. His lack of comprehension of the situation was most likely making her laughter even more uncontrollable.
"You doin' alright there Sarah?" I yelled. Stretching your vocal cords to their absolute limits is the only way you could possibly be heard when inside a club that pumped house music to a decibel level that could shatter glass.
"Oh, there you are, love!!" she screamed back before she threw herself onto me and jammed her tongue down my throat, "So good to find you again, I was looking everywhere."
Obviously, I was her excuse to leave, but I wasn't going to let her off that easy, "Who's this you've found here?" I asked, a level of secretive scheming behind my eyes.
"Him, oh he's such a gentleman, he's gone and bought me a drink, but we've got to get going…um…Jacob—?"
"Jason here, mate. How you goin'?" His voice was vivaciously deep and quite hoarse; he barely had to raise it to be heard. I didn't believe it could possibly be his natural tone. It was as though he was trying desperately to seem like a no-fear, croc-fighting, true-blue Aussie bloke. I assumed that if I handed him an ekkie there wouldn't be too many neurons to do damage to his hardly-functioning mind. "You've got quite a girl here, you do. Mighty pretty, she is."
"That's very true," I replied, "I'll tell you what Jason. Since you were so kind to go and buy my girl Sarah a drink, I'm gonna have to go ahead and let you take her for spin on the dance floor, what'd'ya say?"
"Well, alright—," he started.
"Oh! No, really," Sarah had begun to catch onto my game, "Really, I shouldn't."
"Why not, baby?!? Jason seems like a great—," I cut myself off as I saw the bartender come close, "TWO VODKA REDBULL, PLEASE!"
I looked back at Sarah just in time to see her eyes light up with a mischievous glint, "Well OK, I guess your right, Monty," Sarah screamed back to Jason and I, much to Jason's delight. I knew better. She must have been up to something in order to ever agree to actually dancing with a bulky dimwit, "But Monty, honey, do you really think he'd be good enough for our threesome later tonight?" Ahhh, there it was. "I mean don't you usually like to screw smaller men? I think it'd be weird to add to our collection of videos with someone as muscular as him." She punctuated the word him with a seductive squeeze of his tree-trunk bicep.
Jason's face had began to alter into an unattractive jumble of confusion and horror. Sarah had definitely won; she had set the stage for a more fun moment than I and I couldn't deny her the victory. "Well I guess you're right, he is big," I replied as I watched him through a make-believe camera viewer made with my finger, "but I want to branch out, baby," my voice had acquired the stereotypical gay twinge, "I think his muscles could be fun!" And with this last comment I curled up next to him, nestling my head into his brick wall of a chest.
Jason was not very pleased by this. He flinged me back into the bar and I was caught by Sarah as he wailed, quite scared, "Aghhh! Don't touch me, faggot! My mates warned me this was a freckin' puff bar! Screw you two!!" With that, Jason pushed his way to the crowd and towards the stairs to exit.
We immediately burst into laughter.
"The swine they let in here these days!" Sarah commented in her best pompish British, accent. Then switching back to regular old Sarah, "Nice try, Monty, but I'm just more creative then you are!"
"I had to give you that one, it was too good!" I replied, with a bow of defeat. Just then I realized the bartender was impatiently trying to get my attention, "Sorry!" I screamed, "How much?"
"Seventeen-Fifty!…Still!" It seemed I must have been keeping her waiting for one second. Much too long in the time frame of a busy drink server.
I passed her the plastic orange bill and gave her a thumbs up to let her know she could keep the change. Tipping is practically unprecedented in Australia, so if you want to be on a bartender's good side it only takes a couple of bucks.
I decided it was time to let Sarah know why I had decided to come over. "It's now been—," I looked at my watch, "—an entire fucking hour!!! I'm starting to get worried 'bout these, girl. I'm not feeling a thing!"
"Yeah man, I know…listen my guy told me that they might take a long time so just chill out a bit, alright?"
"You know, I hear what you're saying but I just—well screw that—let's just down another one, yeah?" When I get impatient, I always want to take another so that I can guarantee that it is going to hit hard.
"Alright man," she replied, "but I am warning you. He did say they were wicked creepers… You sure you wanna take that risk?"
"Wait, I'm sorry?" I replied sarcastically, "Who am I talking to. I guess you've been gone for so long; — I forgot you were such a little bitch!"
She looked at me with a smile that I knew meant I better not ever under-judge her. This was one of the reasons I liked her so damn much. She was always going to stay right with me when it came to drugs. We had the same level of tolerance (and endurance), so we were always going to be hand for hand, drug for drug. "You have the baggy I gave you, yeah?"
I threw back the same smile that she had just given me a moment ago, and she busted out in laughter, "I've got three left," I said.
"Well than thanks for the drink, are you ready? Bottles—"
"What the fuck, guys? I'm still not feelin' nothing!" Perry had just come over.
"We were just dealin' with that," I yelled back, "We're gonna have another one. You in?"
"Well I might as well," he hollered back with disappointment echoing through his voice, "You just talked 'em up so much, Monty. I was expecting a bit more."
"Chill out man. I have faith in Sarah's boy; he won't be trying to mess with her, he's upfront, ya' know?" Even thought I was so close to Perry, I didn't mind telling a bit of a white lie if it meant him chilling out a bit. Even if the drugs weren’t working I still didn't want an entire party of people freaking out on me. Hopefully they would kick in the way they were advertised, "But come on are you in for another one or what? Let it hit us hard right?"
"Alright mate, I just snorted a half in the bathroom but… fuck it, right?"
What a good group of friends I had. Always ready for a bit more. It made an addict like me feel as though I wasn't being an addict when I couldn't help but drop one more… which would turn into two more, and three more, and again, again, 'til five a.m. two mornings later and someone passes out. Only then does everyone feel like you they can finally end their night. Until then, the drug binge will never end. Sick, huh?
As I reached into my pocket, fingering a nondescript plastic baggie of a size used almost explicitly for illegal drugs, I saw a slight Indian girl on the other end of the bar. I recognized her at once. She was gorgeous. Her light brown skin and non-stop smile made me feel as though I was watching an ancient Persian princess. Her petite frame was sending wild images through my head. My mouth was practically watering just thinking of the amazing things I could do to such a tiny rendering of the female form.
"Oi! Monty!" Perry jolted me out of my trance-like state of clandestine sexual desires, "You still with us, mate?"
"Last Night in Brizzy, Ecstasy Anyone" will be finished soon in Part5… hopefully.
-strongmonty
Disclaimer: Ecstasy is a serious drug. Ingestion of MDMA can cause extreme side effects. Get more information at: http://www.intheknowzone.com/ecstasy/chemistry.htm
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
A.C. Shit Holes of All Shit Holes
I came to Atlantic City expecting something. Looking back I'm not sure exactly just what that was... Action? Class? Cleanliness? Where did these expectations come from? I assume from my trips to Vegas and other casinos around the world. AC is a sad, sad world of dank, dark, broken lives. It is so depressing that these extravagant casinos, who are pulling in hundreds of millions in profits every year, cannot get together and put some money toward revitalizing the city. There is so much potential for this to be an amazing destination. It's Vegas on the beach, dammit! How do you screw that up?!? It feels as though they don't even try! Instead of a glamorous Vegas on the beach, it's as though the surgeons sliced off Vegas's lifeless conjoined fetus twin and proclaimed, "Hey dushebags! Come gamble!!!" I'm sorry to go to such horrifying lengths in my description, but it was necessary to convey my absolute disgust for a place that I was deeply looking forward to being able to experience first hand.
What of the unsuspecting international tourists? You hear a lot of French, German, and Russian. I feel so bad for these people, that they have taken their summer holiday and visited the U.S. only to end up in the armpit of America. Not only do I feel bad for their ruined vacation, but also embarrassed for my self as a U.S. citizen. This is a country that I hold a passport to. When they go home to their friends and family they will tell of a dirty city of greed, poverty and filthy beaches. It's all so much, you want to scream, "Wait! There is so much more to this country! Don't just use this as your example, keep traveling, see it all!"
It is not only the city's health and appearance that has been neglected by the casinos. The sad fact is that poker is not very well liked by casino management in Atlantic City, as they still hold the archaic attitude of poker being a "no-win" for the house. The general feeling from the people who frequent these rooms is that casino management couldn't care less about the poker player. Yet it seems as though this all might be about to change. With poker growing in popularity, one casino in AC is leading the pact in poker player appreciation. With the help of Bruce Dixon the Borgata has opened an 82-table room with plenty of action. The dealers keep their own tips are, for the most part, all quite fun, and accurate and very quick. When looking at the recent numbers at the other rooms across the city it is apparent that the Borgata has killed poker for the other casinos. With a little luck the others will now see there error of their ways and positive competition will create a better scene for both parties.
Unfortunately, as a poker player I'm ashamed by A.C.. I love this game. It is hard enough for people to get to like this game. I can't imagine trying to use AC as a platform to introduce poker to new players. Poker is an amazing game with so much to love and something for everyone. To make this city a "destination" for poker players, gives poker an overall bad name. We can only hope that as this city grows it begins to move in a more positive direction; a direction which poker players, U.S. citizens and the human race as a whole can be proud of.
-strongmonty
What of the unsuspecting international tourists? You hear a lot of French, German, and Russian. I feel so bad for these people, that they have taken their summer holiday and visited the U.S. only to end up in the armpit of America. Not only do I feel bad for their ruined vacation, but also embarrassed for my self as a U.S. citizen. This is a country that I hold a passport to. When they go home to their friends and family they will tell of a dirty city of greed, poverty and filthy beaches. It's all so much, you want to scream, "Wait! There is so much more to this country! Don't just use this as your example, keep traveling, see it all!"
It is not only the city's health and appearance that has been neglected by the casinos. The sad fact is that poker is not very well liked by casino management in Atlantic City, as they still hold the archaic attitude of poker being a "no-win" for the house. The general feeling from the people who frequent these rooms is that casino management couldn't care less about the poker player. Yet it seems as though this all might be about to change. With poker growing in popularity, one casino in AC is leading the pact in poker player appreciation. With the help of Bruce Dixon the Borgata has opened an 82-table room with plenty of action. The dealers keep their own tips are, for the most part, all quite fun, and accurate and very quick. When looking at the recent numbers at the other rooms across the city it is apparent that the Borgata has killed poker for the other casinos. With a little luck the others will now see there error of their ways and positive competition will create a better scene for both parties.
Unfortunately, as a poker player I'm ashamed by A.C.. I love this game. It is hard enough for people to get to like this game. I can't imagine trying to use AC as a platform to introduce poker to new players. Poker is an amazing game with so much to love and something for everyone. To make this city a "destination" for poker players, gives poker an overall bad name. We can only hope that as this city grows it begins to move in a more positive direction; a direction which poker players, U.S. citizens and the human race as a whole can be proud of.
-strongmonty
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Incoherent Late Night Acid/Drunken Induced Babble
Late last night I got quite inebriated. Sadly my laptop was opened and I began to write. It was all bullshit. Every word of it. Then again perhaps my sub conscience was trying to break out, another personality maybe. A person inside of me, a slice of my brain trying desperately to claw its way out. My last memory was opening the laptop; my next was waking up passed out on the floor.
That's enough of an intro. I hope you enjoy what I was mortified to find in the morning.
I have a child. Small. Very small. I look at it. I feel sorry. This little "ball of joy", Ha. ha, ha. How can this be my little ball of joy, this little freak. this thing... its not like me, not strong. this thing,, this being, this peice of life, this amorphous blog of life; it is not me.
it throws up on me. ughh... if that did not seem dipresed enough, i apoligize, it makes me feel such hatred for everything...perhaps i was not meant ot be a father. HA HA, of course i wasnt meant to be much. Not meant to be anything thaty could holld resonsiblity to anything that might hapen to live on this planet.
I owned a hampter once. After mal-nutieritoment and death i decided to own a snake instead. If the hampster could not live the snake – the stronger of the animal kingdom -- would out do it, and take its place. But instead my 13 yr old mind made it just as bad as the porr snke. when will parents intervien? When little sarah kills her goldfish time and time again (it wanted a walk) the rentals buy another. Sic Sic Sic.
I say not that i love animals, or that they diserve the same rights as humans; mearly that they too are animals. We are animals. We are animals. Let me say again... we are animals... We have been created by motyher earth to exist on her. But as a creation of mother earth we must understnad that we are a part of her. If we are a part of her, then we must except that we are then a part of nature. Do you agree? Fuck, No. Seriously. Do you agree? Are humans a part of nature? (think for a second; have we been created by nature?)
We are created ny nature. Nthing more nothing less. The dinosaurs may have killed them selves out with over eating. Does that mean we blame the dins for the lak of them. Nl. somethimes limet cjange can ge for the cod. I am not avitrctiang, just spreding afacts.
That's enough of an intro. I hope you enjoy what I was mortified to find in the morning.
I have a child. Small. Very small. I look at it. I feel sorry. This little "ball of joy", Ha. ha, ha. How can this be my little ball of joy, this little freak. this thing... its not like me, not strong. this thing,, this being, this peice of life, this amorphous blog of life; it is not me.
it throws up on me. ughh... if that did not seem dipresed enough, i apoligize, it makes me feel such hatred for everything...perhaps i was not meant ot be a father. HA HA, of course i wasnt meant to be much. Not meant to be anything thaty could holld resonsiblity to anything that might hapen to live on this planet.
I owned a hampter once. After mal-nutieritoment and death i decided to own a snake instead. If the hampster could not live the snake – the stronger of the animal kingdom -- would out do it, and take its place. But instead my 13 yr old mind made it just as bad as the porr snke. when will parents intervien? When little sarah kills her goldfish time and time again (it wanted a walk) the rentals buy another. Sic Sic Sic.
I say not that i love animals, or that they diserve the same rights as humans; mearly that they too are animals. We are animals. We are animals. Let me say again... we are animals... We have been created by motyher earth to exist on her. But as a creation of mother earth we must understnad that we are a part of her. If we are a part of her, then we must except that we are then a part of nature. Do you agree? Fuck, No. Seriously. Do you agree? Are humans a part of nature? (think for a second; have we been created by nature?)
We are created ny nature. Nthing more nothing less. The dinosaurs may have killed them selves out with over eating. Does that mean we blame the dins for the lak of them. Nl. somethimes limet cjange can ge for the cod. I am not avitrctiang, just spreding afacts.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Last Night in Brizzy. Ecstasy Anyone? (part3)
"Alright youze druggies!" The crowd around Sarah had dispersed; I have to admit that it was quite a sight watching her unload so many pills in such a short time, "Anyone else? I'm 'bout to go downstairs and I've still got six left!" No one spoke up. "Alright then fuck yaz!" She started to shuffle her way to the door. "Have fun, and thanks for my – er – our party, it's much appreciated."
As Sarah closed the door behind her I felt as though I had a duty, while everyone was still relatively quiet, to make people aware of how intense the drugs were meant to be. Dealers always talk up there drugs so it was probably all bullshit, but as I hadn't tried one of these white lightnings before, I figured I'd better be on the safe side. "Alright guys, one more quick thing. Before you all go swallowing all the tablets you want, I noticed there are some newbies in the audience. Fair warnin' to you – Oi! Shut it!" (a couple of the lumpys in the doorway to the balcony thought their conversation was more important), "That's better. As I was sayin': a fair warnin' to everyone in this room, these won't be kickin' in for at least an hour. They're slow acting but when they do hit, from what I've heard, they should hit hard. I wouldn't eat more than a half if it's your first time, and everyone else, well, you know where you're at, just don't be stupid." I hated talking to groups. My telling anyone to be careful with their drugs was pretty hypocritical. I felt awkward, "Well… anyway, it's getting close to midnight, so let's move this party outside! Family anyone?"
The Family was my favorite Australian nightspot. It had been the undisputed number-one place to go when looking for something crazy on the late-night streets of Brisbane. Named appropriately, it's the kind of club where everybody you meet is a friend, whether you know them on the outside or not. This is due largely to the fact that ecstasy is so popular within the Family's irregular walls, and the main reason that I myself had become such a regular. Every weekend you were guaranteed a live show from one of the best in the techno industry. Management wasn't stupid either. They knew which crowd was their target audience, and you could tell by the price of a bottle of water. When ecstasy is coursing through your veins, it tends to dehydrate, so water is a necessity. Alcohol is barely needed at all, and to some, it seems like a waste of money. "My mindzz so fucked up, what's th' point of alcohol?" Ingeniously, there is not one water bubbler inside, and the water from the tap in the bathroom is set to only come out at the temperature of a hot bath. Your only option for water is to either buy a five-dollar bottle of water from the bar, or pass out on the dance floor from lack of fluids while the lights and lasers flash rhythmically on your soon-to-be limp corpse. It's not in the bag that you will die, but if not quickly attended to by a medical professional, anyone will die of extreme dehydration... people tend to pay the five bucks. As I said, the management at Family knows their clientele and they know how to get your money, but Jesus, they do put on a good show.
We walked the pristine streets of the inner city towards Fortitude Valley, the place to go in late night Brizzy. In the Valley you could find any kind of club you wanted: top forty, house, rock, cover bands, karaoke, trance, indie, grunge, jazz, strip, gay… I must be forgetting something, but you get my point; it was a melting pot of young culture.
Of course I wasn't headed to the Val by myself. Along with Sarah, our gang included Eliot and some not-so-cute female lumpy he'd been tooling for a while. Jewels, I think her name was. Also Freddy, a pit boss from the casino who was much too old to go out but couldn't help playing make-believe that he could still party with the adolescents. I never could have had the heart to say it to his face but… come on. Just 'cause someone spends their youth waxing the balls of their superiors in order to climb the cooperate ladder instead of enjoying their youth like they should have does not give them an excuse to have a midlife crisis while dressed like a twenty-something on the red-light streets.
Of course there were also a few other non-descripts. The people who you know are there, but honestly, deep down, you know you don't care that they are there. They just fill the space. Make the party seem full. They're fun, they really are or else you wouldn't be hanging around them in the first place, but really, are you going to miss them when you move away?
This was true about everybody else there except for one, so I saved him for last. That was Perry. Perry was pretty much one of the only true male friends that I had grown in Brisbane. Then again, he was gay, so I don't really even know if that counts. To me, a person has always been a person, nothing more and nothing less. Something as trivial as sexual orientation should not be what is used to judge someone's true character. Perry was easily my best mate. We didn't get to talk about hot chicks in short skirts but we still got to have a helluva lot of fun. We hit up nightclub after nightclub, and party after party. We downed drink after drink, and drug after drug. We didn't share a taste in genitalia but we shared a major taste for exhilaration. It went deeper then that though. I trusted him, and I had no problem pushing that trust as far as it could go – we both already had on a number of occasions.
The closer we got to the Valley, the dirtier the streets became. Australia's cities are some of the cleanest in the world, but I don't care what country you're in or which city, when you get to the "over-indulging" part of a city, the part where people spend their nights doing everything in excess, if you take your poodle for a walk around the block you will be dodging vomit along the way.
As we got closer to the club I could feel myself getting tense, my jaw tighter. I had to check in with myself. Was I just fervently anticipating our arrival or had the drugs already started to take effect? I looked down at my watch, not even a half hour had gone by. These were definitely going to be creepers.
We passed the Monastery, a club that, in my book, was rated as shit when compared to the Family. I knew when we got around the corner we'd have a clear view of the dimly-lit, off-the-beaten-track entrance. There was never any reason to come to this scrap of sidewalk unless you were about to enter this holy shrine of nightclubs. I glanced down at my watch; it'd been thirty-five minutes. As I rounded the corner my heart was thumping like a preteen's touching his first slightly-developed breast. I stared down the street and saw a line that nearly stretched down the entire block. A wave of disappointment washed over my slightly drunken and soon to be detached-from-body soul, for I knew how slow this line would move. The pain of this anticlimax escaped audibly through my lips in a slight, out-of-character whimper, and physically through my legs coming to an almost full stop.
"Come on now Monty, don’t slow down mate!" Perry piped up, "We've got a club to get to, and a certain master DJ called Paul Van Dyke to listen to."
"I know man, but that line…can't you see it?" I stuttered.
He didn't answer, he just pushed me forward. Grudgingly, I continued my hike forward, past a couple smokers lining the brick wall. I could hear the soft thud of music pumping away inside. Boom, Boom, Boom. This sucked. It was going to be at least an hour in this line. I started to pass the heavily guarded entry so I could walk past the start of the mile long line and join at the end when I was grabbed by the arm.
"Damn it, Monty, you don't think we'd'uv let a little thing like a line stop us on your last night do ya?"
"What… w'd'ya mean?"
"I got us a booth man! Sarah and you are partying right tonight, mate!" This was excellent, pretty much the best way to do it. We'd have our own place in the club, which we could seclude using drapes. We'd have drink service all night. But most importantly, the thing that really mattered was that we wouldn't have any line, "It's under Treasury my friend, Mr. Security Guard, first name Conrad, thank you."
"Last Night in Brizzy, Ecstasy Anyone" will be finished soon in Part4… probably.
-strongmonty
Disclaimer: Ecstasy is a serious drug. Ingestion of MDMA can cause serious side effects. Get more information at: http://www.intheknowzone.com/ecstasy/chemistry.htm
As Sarah closed the door behind her I felt as though I had a duty, while everyone was still relatively quiet, to make people aware of how intense the drugs were meant to be. Dealers always talk up there drugs so it was probably all bullshit, but as I hadn't tried one of these white lightnings before, I figured I'd better be on the safe side. "Alright guys, one more quick thing. Before you all go swallowing all the tablets you want, I noticed there are some newbies in the audience. Fair warnin' to you – Oi! Shut it!" (a couple of the lumpys in the doorway to the balcony thought their conversation was more important), "That's better. As I was sayin': a fair warnin' to everyone in this room, these won't be kickin' in for at least an hour. They're slow acting but when they do hit, from what I've heard, they should hit hard. I wouldn't eat more than a half if it's your first time, and everyone else, well, you know where you're at, just don't be stupid." I hated talking to groups. My telling anyone to be careful with their drugs was pretty hypocritical. I felt awkward, "Well… anyway, it's getting close to midnight, so let's move this party outside! Family anyone?"
The Family was my favorite Australian nightspot. It had been the undisputed number-one place to go when looking for something crazy on the late-night streets of Brisbane. Named appropriately, it's the kind of club where everybody you meet is a friend, whether you know them on the outside or not. This is due largely to the fact that ecstasy is so popular within the Family's irregular walls, and the main reason that I myself had become such a regular. Every weekend you were guaranteed a live show from one of the best in the techno industry. Management wasn't stupid either. They knew which crowd was their target audience, and you could tell by the price of a bottle of water. When ecstasy is coursing through your veins, it tends to dehydrate, so water is a necessity. Alcohol is barely needed at all, and to some, it seems like a waste of money. "My mindzz so fucked up, what's th' point of alcohol?" Ingeniously, there is not one water bubbler inside, and the water from the tap in the bathroom is set to only come out at the temperature of a hot bath. Your only option for water is to either buy a five-dollar bottle of water from the bar, or pass out on the dance floor from lack of fluids while the lights and lasers flash rhythmically on your soon-to-be limp corpse. It's not in the bag that you will die, but if not quickly attended to by a medical professional, anyone will die of extreme dehydration... people tend to pay the five bucks. As I said, the management at Family knows their clientele and they know how to get your money, but Jesus, they do put on a good show.
We walked the pristine streets of the inner city towards Fortitude Valley, the place to go in late night Brizzy. In the Valley you could find any kind of club you wanted: top forty, house, rock, cover bands, karaoke, trance, indie, grunge, jazz, strip, gay… I must be forgetting something, but you get my point; it was a melting pot of young culture.
Of course I wasn't headed to the Val by myself. Along with Sarah, our gang included Eliot and some not-so-cute female lumpy he'd been tooling for a while. Jewels, I think her name was. Also Freddy, a pit boss from the casino who was much too old to go out but couldn't help playing make-believe that he could still party with the adolescents. I never could have had the heart to say it to his face but… come on. Just 'cause someone spends their youth waxing the balls of their superiors in order to climb the cooperate ladder instead of enjoying their youth like they should have does not give them an excuse to have a midlife crisis while dressed like a twenty-something on the red-light streets.
Of course there were also a few other non-descripts. The people who you know are there, but honestly, deep down, you know you don't care that they are there. They just fill the space. Make the party seem full. They're fun, they really are or else you wouldn't be hanging around them in the first place, but really, are you going to miss them when you move away?
This was true about everybody else there except for one, so I saved him for last. That was Perry. Perry was pretty much one of the only true male friends that I had grown in Brisbane. Then again, he was gay, so I don't really even know if that counts. To me, a person has always been a person, nothing more and nothing less. Something as trivial as sexual orientation should not be what is used to judge someone's true character. Perry was easily my best mate. We didn't get to talk about hot chicks in short skirts but we still got to have a helluva lot of fun. We hit up nightclub after nightclub, and party after party. We downed drink after drink, and drug after drug. We didn't share a taste in genitalia but we shared a major taste for exhilaration. It went deeper then that though. I trusted him, and I had no problem pushing that trust as far as it could go – we both already had on a number of occasions.
The closer we got to the Valley, the dirtier the streets became. Australia's cities are some of the cleanest in the world, but I don't care what country you're in or which city, when you get to the "over-indulging" part of a city, the part where people spend their nights doing everything in excess, if you take your poodle for a walk around the block you will be dodging vomit along the way.
As we got closer to the club I could feel myself getting tense, my jaw tighter. I had to check in with myself. Was I just fervently anticipating our arrival or had the drugs already started to take effect? I looked down at my watch, not even a half hour had gone by. These were definitely going to be creepers.
We passed the Monastery, a club that, in my book, was rated as shit when compared to the Family. I knew when we got around the corner we'd have a clear view of the dimly-lit, off-the-beaten-track entrance. There was never any reason to come to this scrap of sidewalk unless you were about to enter this holy shrine of nightclubs. I glanced down at my watch; it'd been thirty-five minutes. As I rounded the corner my heart was thumping like a preteen's touching his first slightly-developed breast. I stared down the street and saw a line that nearly stretched down the entire block. A wave of disappointment washed over my slightly drunken and soon to be detached-from-body soul, for I knew how slow this line would move. The pain of this anticlimax escaped audibly through my lips in a slight, out-of-character whimper, and physically through my legs coming to an almost full stop.
"Come on now Monty, don’t slow down mate!" Perry piped up, "We've got a club to get to, and a certain master DJ called Paul Van Dyke to listen to."
"I know man, but that line…can't you see it?" I stuttered.
He didn't answer, he just pushed me forward. Grudgingly, I continued my hike forward, past a couple smokers lining the brick wall. I could hear the soft thud of music pumping away inside. Boom, Boom, Boom. This sucked. It was going to be at least an hour in this line. I started to pass the heavily guarded entry so I could walk past the start of the mile long line and join at the end when I was grabbed by the arm.
"Damn it, Monty, you don't think we'd'uv let a little thing like a line stop us on your last night do ya?"
"What… w'd'ya mean?"
"I got us a booth man! Sarah and you are partying right tonight, mate!" This was excellent, pretty much the best way to do it. We'd have our own place in the club, which we could seclude using drapes. We'd have drink service all night. But most importantly, the thing that really mattered was that we wouldn't have any line, "It's under Treasury my friend, Mr. Security Guard, first name Conrad, thank you."
"Last Night in Brizzy, Ecstasy Anyone" will be finished soon in Part4… probably.
-strongmonty
Disclaimer: Ecstasy is a serious drug. Ingestion of MDMA can cause serious side effects. Get more information at: http://www.intheknowzone.com/ecstasy/chemistry.htm
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Angle Shooters; Despicable Poker Scum
I'd like to talk about an incident on a limit table from Saturday, in hopes that some of you can take some good from it. A young girl, no older than twenty-two, sits in seat ten next to the dealer and struggles to understand the rules of the game. She is not unlike other new players; timid, confused, smiley, but most of all just wanting to know what the hell is going on in this game that is taking her money. Everything about this scene is good for poker. She is learning the game and, yes, besides her occasional suck-out, the rest of the table gets to reap the benefits of her mistakes. That’s poker; we all have to start somewhere. With a little luck she might like the game and the next time we see her at the table she will have brought a couple friends; Lord knows we could all use a few more women at the table.
Her struggles are not at all alleviated by the grossly inept dealer. This women shooting cards at us from clumsy, slow and uncooperative hands quickly kills any notion I may have had that all women can do two things at once. This is a person who has somehow managed to elude natural selection, performing a near scientific impossibility by merely surviving to her forties. If you're a dealer, and you think you may fall under this description, it might be time to look for new work. But, Jesus... I'm sorry. A different rant for a different time.
Now enter characters two and three, seated respectfully to the dealers left. Both loose and aggressive players, they are involved in a lot of pots, and both have recently pulled yet out another bill from an over-worn wallet. One man, clean cut and in his early forties, wears Yankees gear as he grumbles about his bad luck. The other is dressed in a motley array of dirty clothes. He's well passed his sixties and quite unpleasant. The entire table has no problem hearing as he blames all the young guys on the table for his crappy cards. Apparently when the twenty-seven year-old on the end of the table wins with J4 suited, the "kid" is being aggressive and stupid, but when the old man does it, it's OK 'cause he had a “feeling" from under-the-gun that his J4 was going to come through for a boat, and thus it is justified.
On the turn, only these three players are still left in the hand together. Old Man bets, the Girl calls, Yankee raises to two bets, Old Man calls, and Girl says, "I wanna raise, what do I do?" This is where the sky fell. When Girl goes to raise, she only puts out the two bets and then asks what she can put out for a raise. Everyone on our side of the table has heard her raise except the dealer who starts to burn and turn, but luckily we are able to stop her. Girl explains she wanted to raise and that she had said so clearly; the whole table had heard it. But the two men in the hand, realizing they are beat, will not stand for it. Floor gets called over because, again, the dealer can't handle it, and the floor, seeing no other option, decides to go with his dealer. Rarely do I ever try to argue for someone on the table, but with this I had to speak up. Angle shooting to take advantage of a new player does not help you in the long run. The two men had clearly heard the raise, but in seeing a way that they may be able to save themselves one big bet each, they end up making a young poker player feel alienated from the game. After another hand she stands up (with the pot she had just won) and leaves the table, probably never to return to a poker table again; not only a loss for our table, but also a loss for poker culture as a whole.
My hope is that something can be learned here. We have all seen seasoned players try to screw a new guy on a technicality. Usually this is done by losing players who can't figure out any other way to win. A poker table is intimidating for a new player and, unfortunately, we cannot always rely on the dealer to help out. When you're at the table and this situation next arises, how will you deal with it? Hopefully you will not be too intimidated to stand up for the little guy (or girl), and put the angle shooter in his place.
-strongmonty
Her struggles are not at all alleviated by the grossly inept dealer. This women shooting cards at us from clumsy, slow and uncooperative hands quickly kills any notion I may have had that all women can do two things at once. This is a person who has somehow managed to elude natural selection, performing a near scientific impossibility by merely surviving to her forties. If you're a dealer, and you think you may fall under this description, it might be time to look for new work. But, Jesus... I'm sorry. A different rant for a different time.
Now enter characters two and three, seated respectfully to the dealers left. Both loose and aggressive players, they are involved in a lot of pots, and both have recently pulled yet out another bill from an over-worn wallet. One man, clean cut and in his early forties, wears Yankees gear as he grumbles about his bad luck. The other is dressed in a motley array of dirty clothes. He's well passed his sixties and quite unpleasant. The entire table has no problem hearing as he blames all the young guys on the table for his crappy cards. Apparently when the twenty-seven year-old on the end of the table wins with J4 suited, the "kid" is being aggressive and stupid, but when the old man does it, it's OK 'cause he had a “feeling" from under-the-gun that his J4 was going to come through for a boat, and thus it is justified.
On the turn, only these three players are still left in the hand together. Old Man bets, the Girl calls, Yankee raises to two bets, Old Man calls, and Girl says, "I wanna raise, what do I do?" This is where the sky fell. When Girl goes to raise, she only puts out the two bets and then asks what she can put out for a raise. Everyone on our side of the table has heard her raise except the dealer who starts to burn and turn, but luckily we are able to stop her. Girl explains she wanted to raise and that she had said so clearly; the whole table had heard it. But the two men in the hand, realizing they are beat, will not stand for it. Floor gets called over because, again, the dealer can't handle it, and the floor, seeing no other option, decides to go with his dealer. Rarely do I ever try to argue for someone on the table, but with this I had to speak up. Angle shooting to take advantage of a new player does not help you in the long run. The two men had clearly heard the raise, but in seeing a way that they may be able to save themselves one big bet each, they end up making a young poker player feel alienated from the game. After another hand she stands up (with the pot she had just won) and leaves the table, probably never to return to a poker table again; not only a loss for our table, but also a loss for poker culture as a whole.
My hope is that something can be learned here. We have all seen seasoned players try to screw a new guy on a technicality. Usually this is done by losing players who can't figure out any other way to win. A poker table is intimidating for a new player and, unfortunately, we cannot always rely on the dealer to help out. When you're at the table and this situation next arises, how will you deal with it? Hopefully you will not be too intimidated to stand up for the little guy (or girl), and put the angle shooter in his place.
-strongmonty
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