This lady sums up my last couple of days pretty succinctly:  donka fucking do balls.  Allergies, insomnia, $15k drop in the ole trading account and Gristedes is out of funyuns.  Donka fucking do balls.  I think mentioning the iPad giveaway ruined my karma – that concept is on hold until there is a karma reversal.  At least it’s Cinco de Mayo, so I’ll be able to legitimately start drinking at noon.

I can’t recall whether I’ve told my quatro de mayo story on here, could swear I have but on quatro de mayo last year I wrote the Haunting Poetry of Lady Gaga post.  So if I’m repeating myself, forgive me, I’m having a shitty week.  In 2000 my boy Jobu came to visit me when I lived in the anus/armpit of California, Fresno.  My SOATT (Significant Other At That Time, for those of you who suck at figuring out clever acronyms) was out of town, so we planned to light up the town.  The only problem was, I’d literally never been out in anus/armpit; all I really did in my twelve months there was sling pharma and watch movies.  So we headed off to a place that we knew would be crackalackin: Chevy’s restaurant (they make their own tortillas, right before your eyes!).

Holy shit, writing this shit must be good karma or something, my account has bounced $3,500 to the good.  Guess I’ll keep going with this….Anyhoo, after having some fajitas or whatnot, we retired to the bar area, where we encountered an extremely generous Viet Nam vet/tequila enthusiast.  This guy had some fairly outrageous conspiracy theories and was possibly smoking agent orange or similar on the side, but he was gregarious in his shot-sharing.  We hung there for a couple of hours until we began fearing for our lives a little bit, then – in a gambit rare for that era of impaired driving foolhardiness – snuck off to a taxi and asked to be delivered to the hottest club in town.

All I remember of that club was that it had some funky-assed neon blue lighting and a pre-Affliction clientele that would’ve made even today’s jersey shore-goers blanch.  We ordered a couple of long island teas, threw the ice on the floor, and slammed them like shots, in a METHOD that was popular in the day.  That’s where my recollection of the night ended for me.

I woke up in the comfort of my bed the next day at around 1:00 PM (it was a Friday so, ostensibly, I should’ve been working, but since I was a pharma rep I rarely worked on Mondays or Fridays) and had 37 voice mails on my cell and about 16 on my home phone (so quaint that we used to have both.)  The cell phone messages were pretty evenly split between SOATT and my man Jobu, who was nowhere to be found in my general apartment area.  So I started going through the vmails to figure out what happened – the first several were of the annoying “where are you” type.  Then it got more interesting.

The next one was an incoherent Jobu, slurring out “hey man, I lost my pants and they won’t let me back in the bar.”  At that point I had to step back from the message reconciliation process and try to figure out a couple of things.  Like, how can you lose your pants?  And, having lost your pants, how do you still have your phone?  It seems like your options are pretty limited when staggering around a strange town with no pants.  (My friends generally have a bad history with pants and puncture wounds, and they are generally all related to efforts to climb fences while hammered.  Bat Rastard used to live in constant fear of his mom finding out he’d immediately shredded some new article of clothing she bought him, but he still insisted on climbing fences.  Myself, I’m more of a gate person.)

It turns out some Fresno State coed found Jobu and, in a moment of compassion, gave him some pajama bottoms and allowed him to sleep on her couch.  (Don’t for a moment think there were any other “benefits” accrued in this situation – Jobu may be many things, but suave closer-of-deals he is/was not.)  Eventually I found out where he was and went and picked up his duck pajama clad ass.  (Seriously, there were little ducks on the pajamas.)  He didn’t recall how he lost his pants, but did have his cell phone and wallet; how exactly he lost em will remain a mystery, but my money is on fence-climbing.  Moral of the story: if you find yourself drinking tequila with a borderline insane Viet Nam vet in a Chevy’s in Fresno, remember to pick up a spare pair of pants before hitting the next bar.

Donka do balls: If you watch The Soup, you’ve certainly seen this lady 100x, but if you are just sitting around twiddling your fucking thumbs, I highly recommend this clip.  Certainly seems like she should’ve blown more like a .3 BAC here.

Long Version:

All you really need to know:

Later,

Chilly17

I haven’t been quite as active this week as I’d hoped…had buddies randomly show up in NYC the last two nights and unfortunately didn’t break my recent string of acting like an idiot.  The one good thing is that I think I’ll be pretty calm for Vegas tomorrow, since I feel like absolute dogshit right now….although that will prob change for the worse on Saturday when xmashangover shows up…

Anyhoo, even though I’m working on another “Matters of Grave Concern” piece, I figured since I will arrive in Vegas at noon thirty Friday I should relate my first ever Vegas story.  I made my first ever trip to LV back in 1997, in the nascent stages of my gambling love (also referred to as the Chilly Seventeen Endowment for Underprivileged Suquamish Millionares).  I was making the trip with some college buddies: Totalgreen, Majalah, and Longback.  It was MLK weekend and I for some unknown reason had a rare patch of time off, so I got in on Thursday night, a day before my buddies, and even optimistically brought my golf clubs (not a huge pain in the ass or anything).

Given my love of drinking and gaming, one might think that me arriving a day early was a decision fraught with danger.  Not so, my friends, not so.  See, I had a system.  I had $1,000 to gamble for the entire trip, so what I was gonna do was just chill at a low limit blackjack table that Thursday night, have a few beers and then get some shut eye so that I’d be ready to rock when everyone else showed early Friday evening.  Foolproof.

I got to the MGM Grand at like 9:00 PM and was down at the tables shortly thereafter.  This is important, because I had zero cash while traveling and pulled out $500 when I got there (please note that that is later than midnight eastern and that $500 was my max amount for daily ATM withdrawal).  What a wonderful place!I was astonished that you could order specific brands of beer in bottles, all complimentary.  I sat down at a $10 blackjack table and immediately went on a soul-crushing downward spiral where I lost like 73 hands in a row.  Cut losses and retreat?  Never.

A thinking man plans for negative contingencies, and so I had packed my checkbook.  I raced through that first $500 in approximately 32 minutes – but I had five Bud Lights in that time frame, so it wasn’t all bad.  The kind proprietors in Vegas are very cool about cashing checks, even for complete strangers.  Up to a limit of course, that limit at the time being $500 for newasses such as myself.  No problem, all I needed to do was quickly double up and then I’m back to even and can get some fucking chicken fingers and call it a night.

Lady Luck was not my friend on that Thursday night – I continued to get spanked like Maggie Gyllenhaal in Secretary.  I amped up the drinking to ease the pain, mixing in some of the hard stuff on an empty stomach.  By 10:45 I was down $1k, which was my limit for the weekend.  Fuck it, limits are made to be temporarily exceeded, right?  Unfortunately, I had maxed out my bank account and my check cashing privileges at the MGM Grand.  No problem, there are like 45 casinos, I’ll just go across to New York, New York and cash another five hundy.  Except those cagey casino fuckers are all interconnected; the word was out: Chilly was maxed out as far as LV was concerned.  Fuck.  Time to angrily stumble to bed.

I woke up on Friday at 11:00 AM rocking a horrific hangover and the slow realization that my cash flow problems weren’t going away soon.  I couldn’t hit the ATM until 9:00 PM and my reinforcements didn’t arrive until that evening.  I was starving and had only $5 to my name.  Somehow I couldn’t even order room service until Longback showed up with his credit card (there were some “hiccups” with my credit back in the day).  Fuck.  Being a resourceful degenerate, I did what any rational thinker would do in that situation.  I decided to find a check cashing establishment.

A great place to hear some interesting stories

These places are great; sure, they charge usurious rates and trap poor people into a vicious cycle, but they also represent a precious commodity to those in dire straits.  That commodity?  Hope.  I figured there were tons of these places in Vegas, so I just set off on foot, procuring a cheeseburger at the Shell station with my last remaining $5 (not a good choice, by the way).  Even in January, Vegas can get kind of warm.  I walked past a college campus (UNLV?), numerous construction sites, and all manner of seedy storefronts.  No check cashing joints to be seen.  At about two hours in, I was sweating approximately as much as Shaq in a bikram spin class.  At two and a half hours, I passed a casino that I swear was exactly the same as the off-strip place Chevy Chase goes to in Vegas Vacation.  At three hours, I started seeing literal mirages, not the hotel/casino kind of mirages.

And then, through the shimmering haze, in a strip mall so similar to all the other strip malls, I saw it.  CHECKS CASHED.  Thank God – I was very near to going fetal right on the griddle-temperature sidewalk.  The kind gentleman only charged me $75 to cash a $500 check (after doing a background investigation that took roughly the same amount of time as your average senate confirmation hearing).  Covered in sweat, exhausted and possibly suffering from E. Coli poisoning, I have never been happier to pay a 15% fee for a check that he was 100% positive would not bounce since he spoke to my bank for like an hour.

So happy to have some cash, I decided that I’d swing back by that Vacation casino, win $200 and then take a cab back to MGM where I’d eat a gourmet meal featuring the finest fried offerings.  The plan was foolproof.  Inside, the casino was as bizarre as its exterior suggested: War and I think Uno were prominent table games.  Minimum bets were $0.25.  I sidled up to a $1 high roller blackjack table and pulled out $200, determined to double up and then leave.

And, shockingly, I could not lose at that fucked up Vacation casino.  After about an hour, I was up $1300.  At the first sign of a setback, I got my ass into a cab and went back to MGM, up $300 for the trip.  Honestly, I’m not sure it even really existed as given my state of dehyrdation, exhaustion and desperation, hallucinations were definitely not out of the question.  Whatever, I was suddenly flush, hallucinations or no.  My buddies arrived later to see a possible crime scene (an extended family of chicken fingers and mozzarella sticks had met their unfortunate and grisly demise).  I finally did make it to the fetal position, and I slept like a newborn baby.  Everything worked out just as planned; I was fully funded heading into the group portion of the weekend.  Sweet – things were about to get interesting.

More later,

Chilly17, optimistically planning to finish this on the plane but glad I’m not dragging fucking golf clubs

I had high hopes for this week, what with the drinking hiatus (save for 36 hours last weekend – it was a holiday), the working out, the reading.  My newly clear head certainly seemed destined to write some hard-hitting pieces on healthcare, the economy or the seemingly tenuous state of Brad and Angie’s relationship.  Instead, I just started sleeping another five hours per day (now up to 16!).  So nothing hard-hitting, thought-provoking or tumescent.

Anyway, I was watching The Office wedding last week, which I enjoyed immensely – despite the fact that much of the plot was eerily similar to Marshall and Lily’s wedding two years ago on How I Met Your Mother.  I’m generally okay with repetition (as anyone who’s read the same thing six times on this site is well aware of.)  But one aspect of the show reminded me of a lunchtime day at the Naval Academy some 15 years ago or so…

I’m relating this story second-hand, but I have it on good authority that it is factually correct.  The photo above is from King Hall, the Naval Academy’s massive cafeteria – allegedly the world’s largest – where thousands of people are served a delicious (lunch) or horrendous (breakfast, dinner) meal almost simultaneously.  The machinelike precision of the cafeteria workforce is a pleasure to watch in action, and visitors come to marvel at the spectacle.  For the mids, King Hall is an important place, beyond just getting some food.  Back in the good old days, plebes used to get f*cking screamed at non-stop throughout every meal (when no visitors were present, of course) for not knowing arcane facts about some upperclassmen’s favorite team/current event/cartoon.  Good times.  Now, I’m pretty sure there are mani/pedi stations at every table, and the pitchers of water have ice and cucumbers in them.

There are something like 600 tables in King Hall, and they are arranged mostly by company – you sit with the people that you live with, basically, for the structured lunches.  Members of athletic teams ate together at “team tables.”  This story is about the golf team table.  I won’t go into unnecessary detail about Academy food, it was not that great, except for some of the lunches.  That’s were I found out I love gyros; that was easily the most polarizing lunch offered – people either loved or loathed it, and there was always a ton of gyro meat for the plundering.  If, for example, you hated the lunch that was offered, you might just make yourself a pb&j.  Complete with USNA-branded peanut butter (there used to be an academy-owned dairy or something, the milk and juice was branded as well – trivia).

Anyway, on one Friday afternoon, one anonymous midshipmen golfer was enjoying a pb&j in lieu of what was on offer.  He had chosen chunky peanut butter, a reasonable choice.  I’m a smooth man, myself, but I can understand the appeal of chunky.  He was laughing, shooting the shit, imagining the good things to come over the weekend, when he bit down upon a particularly difficult peanut.  Giving it his best effort, he could not grind the thing down into a familiar comestible chunk.  A startled look grew upon his face, catching the attention of others at his table, causing a stir as they mulled what could be causing the struggle.  Ultimately the midshipmen golfer realized that he was going to have to pull out the offending peanut particle.  Upon removing the gnawed item from his mouth, he gave it a look and found….

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

a yellow toenail.

Like you wouldn't totally eat that

This development caused midshipmen golfer to vomit in projectile fashion, leading many of his comrades in long irons to do the same.  It was like Stand By Me up in that mother fucker!  The Office’s cold opening had some group hurling, and jogged the old memory.  I apologize.

Have a sweet weekend,

Chilly17

Bad News

I had my first losing session, lost $2k at the dice tables at about 4:30 AM today.

Good News

Like Lenny Dykstra, I ran my record prior to that losing session to 9-0.  I was losing a few hundred bucks early last night, had to go upstairs and take some dough out of the safe.  Came back in the middle of a gentleman’s roll.  Bought in for $500.  He rolled for one hour.  Cashed out for $7750 after his roll.

Went to dinner, we couldn’t stop talking about this guy’s roll.  ”Probably never see something like it again.”  And then after dinner, a kid from Oklahoma or somewhere made me $13k on one roll.  Let’s just say this has been a good trip.  I love the Monte Carlo, shit brown craps tables and all.

Will get back to regularly scheduled bizness next week,

Chilly17

What it feels like is a different, painful story that takes 2-3 days of sleep for an old man to recover from.

Back with the usual nonsense tomorrow,

Chilly17

As you may recall from my first ever real post, I have a bit of a history with the Atlantis.  Due to my idiotic performance last June, I have been asked back to the ATL quite frequently, as apparently their casino appreciates the presence of morons.  This time they stepped up their game and offered to pay for our flights as well – the mark of a truly atrocious previous gambling performance.  Given the shitty weather in NYC, was a no-brainer to head for the ATL on their dime.  A quick Sun-Wed trip (we layabouts have pretty flexible schedules).

I know the question that everyone’s dying to know the answer to up front: did I maintain my streak of seven consecutive vacations started with both a) casino personnel at least casually mentioning contacting Security, and b) getting close to fisticuffs with someone thirty or more years older than me (all this mixed martial arts business prevents me from also going after much smaller people, you never know who can break your elbow these days)?  Rest easy – the answer is, predictably, “yes” on both counts.

It’s always a tough choice on the flights: do you go for the 6:40 AM out of JFK and get there by 10:00 AM, but tired as shit?  Or go for a little later flight?  We always opt for the 6:40 under the assumption that you’re just going to be laying by the pool anyway.  And that you can sleep on the flight.  But that sleep is actually only worth about 15 cents on the dollar, so it’s a risk.  To make sure that we would be super sleepy, we decided to stay up drinking wine until 2:00 AM.  Smart start.

4:10 AM  Alarm goes off.  Fuck showering.  Fuck.

4:25 AM  In cab.  Fuck.

4:55 AM  Arrive at JFK.  Ugh.

5:07 AM  Through security.  An hour before boarding.  Played it way too safe.  Starving.  

5:15 AM  First gamble of the day – go with a philly cheesesteak for breakfast.

5:20 AM  Stomach on shaky ground.

5:30 AM  Stomach cloud passes.  Philly cheesesteak was the right call.

5:45 AM  Proof that SO does not read this website: she asks if I want anything.  ”Get me a Whatchamacallit.”  She comes back with a fucking Clark bar.  Where was a Clark bar on this list?

Okay, no more minute-by-minute, there were zero problems getting there.  I specified that we must be picked up by a dark green limousine, preferably a shade of “well-ripened avocado.”

Notice how there's no booze on the limo? Not baller.

We were checked in to our room at The Cove by 10:45.  It’s so friggin easy to get to the Bahamas.  Room on sixth floor might lead to floor inferiority complex, but less time wasted on the elevator.  Let’s hit the friggin pool.  

Afternoon included one beer, two loops on the lazy rivs, and a nap.  The Cove is the more expensive, adults-only part of the Atlantis (but sadly no one rocks the toplessness).  The pool there is pretty awesome, with decent music looping (except for one dreadful Enya-esque series).  You see lots of vaguely familiar looking people.  I’m pretty sure I saw a fairly famous music producer, just not famous enough that I know his name (Timbaface Dash, or somebody).  We decided to take a legitimate nap before eating so that we wouldn’t crash too early, then hit up some Nobu.

Atlantis Nobu had been pretty disappointing before compared to the NYC original.  The ATL Nobu has one key advantage though – it’s in the friggin casino!  And you can eat at the bar area with no wait.  Done – rock shrimp (with straight creamy, spicy sauce – fuck that ponzi scheme sauce), edamame, yellowtail (sadly not the wine, the fish) jalapeno, some sushi.  Total time elapsed/wasted eating: 40 minutes.

Momentary moment of horror as we proceeded to the craps tables – they were gone.  What???  They had actually just moved to the front of the casino, and now had a total of seven tables.  Sweet.  If you have never played craps, you are missing out.  In my esteemed opinion, it is the best game to play in the casino, by far.  Community game – unlike blackjack, where it’s very likely there will be 1-2 winners and multiple losers at every table, most craps players play in a manner where they all benefit from positive rolls. Everyone roots for each other and there’s generally lots of screaming, yelling, fistbumping and (my signature move) biceps kissing.  It’s interactive, you actually get to roll the dice.  It’s fun for couples as it’s well known that ladies are better dice rollers.  And the community of players sticks together; you’ll chat with all kinds of random folks the next day about good rolls, etc (you probably won’t recall ever having seen half of these people, depending on how many drinks you’d had the night before).

An important decision for me was what would be the cocktail of choice.  I have banned myself from Red Bull & vodka – the deleterious effects of Red Bull actually cause me more physical damage (and calf cramps) than the vodka.  This drink needed to be able to stand up to a lot of repetition since it wasn’t 10:00 PM and the casino stays open til 4:00 AM.  Much to Bat Rastard’s dismay, I went with the cranberrytini – it’s tasty, helps keep you hydrated during long sessions, and wards off urinary tract infections.  Win, win, win.

Getting our gamble on

I started with a couple hundred dollars and got up about a grand.  By 1:00 AM was feeling the effects of dozens of ‘tinis and marginal amounts of sleep.  Super drunk old guy comes up to the table stands next to me and starts playing the Don’ts.  If you don’t know craps, this just meant he was hoping that people would lose.  It’s perfectly fine to bet the Don’ts, but you have to keep quiet about it as generally everyone else loses when you win.  Yelling for a Seven (which will cause the table to lose) is strictly forbidden.  This guy was fucked up and had like $45 on him.  I told him he better be quiet if he’s playing the Don’ts and he said he’d just follow our lead.  He also kept trying to give me money even though I had 20x his stack.  Whatever.  Eventually he forgot what he was doing and went back to the Don’ts and even yelled “Seven!” in my ear when I was rolling.  Then I told him I was going to beat the shit out of him, which got the pit bosses involved and a lot of shit talking.  I should’ve taken it a bit easier as he was drunk as shit, but we had the following exchange.

Me:  Fuck you, fucker, hopefully you win that $15 so that you can double your life savings.

Him:  I’ve got more than that, I’ve got $103,000 saved.

Me:  Ha-ha!  I’ve got that much in my checking account you broke-ass bastard!

This is funnier to me now because it was a complete (but completely hilarious) lie.  But it was a sweet burn and we decided to call it a night at that point.  No need for Security.  I ended up $500 and SO ended up about the same.

On Monday, it rained.  This was pretty good, actually, as we were hung over as shit and got to the pool late.  One extremely excellent thing about The Cove is its outdoor blackjack and craps tables.  As it was intermittently raining, I decided to check the dice action.  There was a 25 year old kid playing for larger stakes than I’d ever seen – $2k on the Hard Eight (a bet with a huge house advantage, but pays 9x the original wager if it hits) and thousands more on basically every other possible bet on the table.  He looked like he was on at least a 36 hour bender and it was only 1:00 PM.  He was betting $500 for the dealers AND the cocktail waitress.  He dropped $35k in thirty minutes, then took off.  Apparently he just got married and both he and his wife had been winning almost every bet imaginable (she put $200 on 7 in roulette, which hit for $6k; he won $55k the night before playing the same insane style of craps).  Cool, I feel a little better about my gambling problem.  Win $1,000 at this session, up $1,500.

Monday might is a repeat of Sunday night, except no fighting.  Nobu, craps, vodka cranberries.  I had a roll of the dice that earned a standing ovation.  SO rolled well all night.  I made an ill-advised move to another table after a downswing.  Took out a marker.  Bigger downswing.  Headed back to first table.  Won it all back.  Barely standing after like four dozen v/c’s (but my urinary tract is awesome!), closed down the casino.  Hooked up the chicken nuggets from room service for the second straight night.  I’m up $2k, SO is up $1,500 (pretty incredible – she started with $100).

Tuesday was a very nice day and we got back down to the pool by 11:00, which was strong since we went to sleep at like 6:00 AM.  I was repulsed at the thought of alcohol.  I spent some time in the pool, but the water was something like 99 degrees, it felt like swimming in lukewarm olive oil.  Had to go up to check the markets – grabbed some dough from safe just in case.  I’m enticed by the outdoor craps game – the newlywed stops by again to drop about $10k in five minutes.  I go on a heater just before closing the table at 6:00 PM.  Up $3,000 total now for trip.  SO is sick – I think she has alcohol poisoning or congenital lameness; she thinks the bacon cheeseburger did it. 

This is where I faced a crucial decision point – go back to the casino for the third night?  Or pack it in and enjoy a nice night at the hotel?  Shockingly, I decided on the latter (mainly because the thought of another ounce of alcohol made me wretch mentally).  I think since starting this blog a month ago I’ve really grown both as a person and as a person who enjoys gambling and drinking.  I’m turning into a real moderator.

We got up early on Wednesday and enjoyed a couple of lazy river laps and some pool time before the avocado limo returned.  Three days is far too short, next time we will go for five with a timeout day on day three.   I left out some of the good stuff like Murray’s Deli (seriously, the best bacon I’ve ever had), the super-non-fun-sounding “shallow water dolphin interaction” (translation: photo op where they try to sell you some $32 pictures with Macai the dolphin) and our laughable decision to buy goggles so we could swim some laps every day.  Anybody want to buy two pairs of googles?  New in box?

Verdict?  It ruled. Free mini-vacation and we came back with extra $4,500.  

#3.  Advice from a Naval Officer 1-900 Number

This thankfully never got off the ground, therefore it only merits the bottom spot here.  The mid-90s were the heyday of the 1-900 number: if all these morons were going to send $2.99/minute to Miss Cleo and other psychics, what would they pay to speak to a sentient, responsible adult that might be able to offer some actual thoughtful advice?  I went as far through the motions as going to AT&T and getting the information on the 1-900 numbers and asking some colleagues if they were in for 1 hour shifts.

Then somebody pointed out that there are likely liability considerations (if not the obvious moral considerations).  Getting sued seemed like a pain in the ass, and then there was the likelihood that I’d throw in the towel early and be forced to change it to something more lucrative, like a chat line for beastiality enthusiasts.  This brilliant idea faded fast as i realized i would be gone for half the year and this kind of operation couldn’t run itself.

#2.  How to Win at Blackjack Pamphlet

I have kept this pretty quiet for over a decade, I’m not sure anyone ever knew about this.  First off, there was no pamphlet.  I put an advertisement in the National Enquirer offering said pamphlet for $5.  I wanted to get a sense for how many morons were out there.  It turns out there were an equivalent number of moronic buyers as sellers: 1 (a disabled kid from Iowa with a ratty $5 bill).

This was stupid on several levels.  One, I am without question one of the worst gamblers in the history of the casino industry.  I get phone calls from casinos I have NEVER BEEN TO begging me to come play there.  I was the one writing the pamphlet??  I did have a sweet Zenith desktop computer from 1990 (running what must have been Wordperfect 1.0 Beta) and I assumed I could just crank out the pamphlet (complete with winning “strategy”) if there was a lot of demand.  I think I paid about $150 to place the 2 line ad in the “marketplace” section.  My overwhelming assumption was that only stupid people read that magazine (full disclosure: it was in my house every week when growing up).  I failed to also consider that the people who religiously read that rag are almost always flat-ass broke.

If you are busy following everyone else's problems, you probably have little time for a surefire blackjack program

So i ended up with $5.  I sent it back to the poor bastard.  I should have kept it to teach him a lesson about life: just think how much more it would have cost him had I actually sent him my secret method to convert $500 into -$2500?  

#1.  Sing & Snore Ernie Speculator

You are probably not destined to be a great entrepreneur if you concoct the same make-a-quick-buck idea as Dwight Schrute.  All these great ideas came to me in around 1997; this one thankfully worked it out of my system for good.  Tickle Me Elmo was a phenomenon in 1996; people were paying like $1,500 for that furry bastard.  Despite not having a high-powered MBA at that time, it was still apparent to me that that was a nice margin on an item that retailed for $28.99.  So no problem, right?  Just figure out the hot item in 1997 and, boom, 5000% profit.

So Tyco (Tyco Toys, not to be confused with Kozlowski’s amalgam of non-complementary businesses) was putting out another talking plush doll, but featuring beloved Sesame Steet character Ernie!  Of fucking Bert and Ernie fame!  That was a complete no-brainer, even for someone like me who was, uh, a little removed from the whole little kid scene.  So I went to Toys-R-Us and bought every fucking one they had (I think 20-25) about a month before Thanksgiving.  First (and importantly), I confirmed their return policy, in case there were any (unlikely) complications.  Ironclad – you can return for any reason as long as they’re in the box.

You screwed me you sleepy little bastard!

This plan was beyond fullproof.  I remember playing golf with a buddy on Black Friday, watching CNN just before we teed off.  Sure enough: S&S Ernie was the hit toy sensation of the holiday season.  Flying off the shelves.  Fist fights breaking out in stores.  I was so filled with smugness that when I sprayed my tee shot into a house off the first tee, I had little concern for potential broken windows.  I was about to have a sweet $20k+ windfall!    

My roommate (a nervous nellie who’s all growed up now!) was concerned about people coming to our house to make the pickups.  Apparently he had toy dolls confused with the Baltimore narcotics trade; generally people buying Sing & Snore Ernies aren’t strapped when they go to complete the transaction.  I went to another friend’s apartment to check out this new computer auction thingee called “eBay.”  Market looked a bit soft – people listing for only $300-$400 and didn’t look like many were selling.  Hmmm, since I didn’t have this new “internet” technology at home (pron addicts typically were earliest adopters) eBay was out of the question.  I would have to go the classified ad route.

By nature, I am not a greedy person.  This is evident in the many stock trades where I sell the moment I’m up $3 (after commissions, of course.  Losers I will hold until my dying breath).  So I decided to price these bad boys to sell: $100. The classified ad cost, I believe, $90.  It was early December, time to move some Ernies.   And the calls started flooding in.  Well, I got one call (might’ve been the same fucker who bought the Blackjack pamphlet).  He wondered if the price was negotiable.  Hell, no.  Hold your ground.

By mid-December I started getting a smidge nervous, as there were more ads for Sing & Snore Ernies than for Automobiles in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.  It never occured to me that all that initial demand may have been driven purely by greedy, children’s-Christmas-wishlist-depriving morons like myself.  Instead, i thought that maybe the market would turn.  Hold.  Hold.  Hold.

(I used this exact strategy in 2000 with net stocks, sometimes with the added twist of “averaging down.”  I ended up with a margin call greater than my “equities” (CMGI, ICG, PUMA, etc) were worth.  That’s always fun – please send us $3,000 to bring your balance up to zero.  I need to sell an investing pamphlet as well)

I have learned many lessons in life – some academic, some school of hard knocks, some wisdom passed down from the old sage characters in action movies.  But probably the greatest lesson I have learned is this: if you’re returning two dozen toys you couldn’t sell to Toys-R-Us late on Christmas Eve, then you are a dickhead.  The absolutely venomous looks of contempt/hatred you will earn from everyone who witnesses the despicable act will have you showering fully clothed in your bathroom like a rape victim on Lifetime.  

I have been kicked out of bars, restaurants, hotels and casinos in many different countries (although rarely through fault of my own).  I have woken up outside my apartment or hotel room for no apparent reason multiple times.  I have done many stupid, irresponsible things with my head held high (unless I was fighting a taxi driver, then you generally want to keep your head down).   But I don’t think I’ve ever been as humiliated as when I returned those Ernies.  I learned a valuable lesson that I hold close to this day.

Fuck you, Ernie.

What’s that old axiom? “those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.”  Teaching seems like a lot of work and a decent chance that you’ll end up dealing with some stupid asses.  I prefer “those who can’t, criticize.”  That seems more leisurely.

For historical perspective, I’ve decided to recount some of my ill-advised antics on this sweet blog.  These indelible recordings will allow for an accurate estimation of my place in history when all is said and done.  You may notice a simple formula in my stories that roughly breaks down as ”alcohol+gambling-shirt=screaming+requests to leave”.  

Apologies in advance for the long read, but the upside is if we ever meet in person you can cut me off when i start in with the stories. 

ATLANTIS – TRIP #1, JUNE 2008

the lazy river at Atlantis is pretty friggin awesome

This was actually a work mandated outing for our entire group (this seemed like a bad idea in like august 2007 – by 2008 the idea of 50 people going to the caribbean for 3 days of drinking/eating/tanning was clearly idiotic).   First off, I love the Bahamas, ever since me and my boys won like $30 playing craps at Paradise Island in the summer of 1991 (preferred strategy at the time: field bets when there had been 3 non-field rolls in a row).  But given the prevailing work environment at the time – probably like a military unit that was pinned deep in enemy territory, knowing there would be severe casualties –  it didn’t really feel like a good time for people to be getting hammered together.  we all knew a ton of people would get canned within 2 weeks (which did happen).  Also it is almost never a great idea to hang out with coworkers in bathing suits – can lead to some awkwardness later (“ladies, it seems weird not seeing you in bikinis!” actual quote from a guy who i’m pretty sure was on To Catch a Predator).

Anyway, prior to this trip i got stuck going to london.  for a 2 hour meeting.  at which, at most, i said 10 words.  So i left NYC on the latest flight on Tuesday night, got to london, showered, went to meeting, and went right back to airport.  The customs guy asked me how long i was going to be in London.  

Me: 6 hours.

Him: You must be very important.

Me: Quite the contrary, i am the most junior guy on the team who can reasonably demonstrate our “commitment/interest” for this garbage project that has exactly a zero percent chance of ever happening.  the sole reason i am qualifed to be our emissary is that i have some gray hair.  seriously.  so i’m pretty unimportant.

Boarding the flight to London i saw a familiar looking chubby black dude on his laptop; i told my SO “i think that’s Cee-lo of Gnarls Barkley.”  This was confirmed when i later saw he and Danger Mouse (dressed as Superman) on the moving sidewalk.  Got to tell them i really enjoy their music – i’m sure they were excited that they have made headway into the highly desirably middle-aged white guy demographic.

they seem like cool guys based on our 7 word conversation

Anyway i got back to NYC late on Wednesday and we had a 6:30 AM flight on Thursday.  Although 6:00 AM is about 7 hours too early for me, i did witness one of the funniest/saddest things ever that morning at the airport.  One of our analysts (who had traveled to the caribbean before) didn’t have a passport and thought you could still travel to the bahamas  rocking just a drivers license.  He was arguing with the counter people and when i went to see what was up he assured me it was all good.  Because his dad was going to email him a picture of his birth certificate.  which he would then show to the counter people on his cell phone.  Hmmm….seemed unlikely given that our flight was leaving in like 20 mins….i believe he’s still at the counter negotiating.

So we get to the hotel and folks head to the pool.  I am cursed with a “due diligence” call with a very loquacious client…so i stay in my room to get ready for this call and finish up some other stuff- i’m nervous because our booze cruise starts at like 5:30 pm or something and the diligence call started at 3:00.  If i miss the boat launch i’m fucked.  So we have the call and it predictably lasts til 5:45 as the goober CFO wants to wax philosophical about yes/no questions – i had to haul ass but caught up with the group.

Investment bankers are an odd lot – we are on a boat in the bahamas in June, it’s like 115 degrees.  I get there and i’m one of 2 guys wearing shorts!  long pants and button down shirts?  seriously?  WTF?  Anyway, the food on this booze cruise leaves a bit to be desired as it’s been sitting around for what appeared to be 3 or 4 days – given the heat and the flies, it seemed like botulism was a best case scenario.  So i skipped eating and kept with the drinking.  I think rum punch with extra rum was the choice bev for the first hour or two.

poor decisions in a bottle

Then i had a brilliant idea – why not have an Everclear drinking competition?  If you’ve never had Everclear, next time you are pumping some gas just have a little sip and you’ll get the idea…anyway, i’d fared pretty well in drinking competitions in my day (including making a girly canadian puke at the bar in a goldschlager war) so i was comfortable that i would dominate this one…but people were manning up like crazy, so i probably had 5-6 sips (let me not exaggerate here – they were teeny, tiny microsips – but the Clear will fuck you up really bad) and this german guy was also right with me…starts to get somewhat hazy from there, but i’ve heard enough from various sources to be able to fill you in….

it was a case of two destinies.  mine.  and the german guy’s.  German guy spewed just after exiting the boat – some of my colleagues basically walked him back to his room, tucked him in and probably gave him some warm milk or a massage or something.

it was off a pier, but you get the idea

Me?  They let me run around like a fucking lunatic in the Atlantis Casino for like 6 hours (especially bitter because my SO was there and stood idly by while i nearly died and/or became insolvent).  I do enjoy gaming quite a bit, it goes hand in hand with my passion for drinking.  That night, in my completely addled state, i was determined to be The Big Man.   I crushed a credit card cash advance for $5k right away and was splashing that shit around like crazy – we were playing craps, talking shit, yelling.  And then i don’t really know what happened – i vaguely recall getting another cash advance and seeing some familiar people at various points.

Some conversations that i had the next few days:

“Dude, i saw you win $6k playing blackjack in like 3 minutes! How much did you win?”

“I saw you lose $8k in 5 minutes and start crying – are you okay?”

“Did you know that everyone was only pretending to drink the Everclear but you and (german guy)?”

I woke up outside on a patch of grass (there isn’t much grass at atlantis, i think i must’ve jumped/fell over a little hedge in the path between hotel towers).  I had no wallet.  i didn’t feel well.  and i had a sneaking suspicion that i’d lost a little dough.  Most of the rest of the weekend was spent on the lazy river – which actually isn’t all that lazy at atlantis, you can definitely get toes busted and knees scraped…ability to drink further was impaired by the fact that i’m pretty sure i almost expired and my body summarily rejected all further efforts to “loosen up.”

Total damage was ~$19k (a number that i can only begrudgingly come to terms with now – but if id had that cash in equities i would have lost a large amount as well so what the fuck…).  I did get some pretty stellar comps though (covered a big portion of a $1500 tab for a large nobu dinner) and constantly get invited back…in fact i did go back in september 2008….more on that later…

Takeaways from this trip: don’t enter Everclear drinking competitions on an empty stomache, always carb up beforehand.