It was like this, but different

(Editor’s Note: Man, I am apparently quite a chatty f*ck…this should’ve been a quickie, and yet I have once again turned it into something Tolkienesque…it has taken me some time to get in the right frame of mind to finish the saga, but I think I finally stumbled upon the right combination: >1 bottle of Apothic Red in my system, Hall & Oates all up in my Grooveshark queueueueueuue and the 49ers having selected someone I’ve never heard of in the first round, despite the (literally) hundreds of hours I’ve spent reading about the NFL draft.)

Alcohol affects everyone differently: some people get mad, some sad, some strangely racist.  My problem with alcohol has long been that it lifts the non-rose-colored veil from my eyes and allows me to realize what an incredible person I am.  Sure, I might become an angry drunk one out of eight hundred times, but mostly I like to get drunk and just soak in my own ambience.  This was true back in 1993 as well.  I was inebriated during the majority of this portion of the story, but I stand by its accuracy.  (Unless someone gives me a really hard time, then I’ll fold like a Brooks Brothers non-iron handkerchief.)

I still remember her name: Jill Banezkkdiaodhfadiuhadhgekeiwzcy.  I believe she went to Oswego State or some other SUNY institute of higher learning.  She was part of a contingent of lovely (or semi-lovely) ladies that ended up at the same half-empty bar as me and Pos on a fateful Monday night.  (Foreshadowing)  And (as I remember it), she was smoking hot – blond, tan and surprisingly nice for someone with the aforementioned qualities…quite an attractive combination.  We talked for a bit – maybe she was a little on the boring side, but let Chilly do some of his patented magic and who knows- then, wham, the whole group of them bailed.  They were going to Miami or Key West the next day and wanted to get an early start.  I blamed Pos, who clearly couldn’t entertain the other seven girls enough for me to get some quality time with Jill.  Just for the record: she was the hottest one, and if Pos ever claims otherwise, it’s just sour grapes for this story finally hitting the historical record.  The Fort wasn’t actually hopping that much, so we called it a night shortly after the ladies from Oswego left.

The next day we just decided to sleep in, chill with some Mcdonald’s (I have no recollection whatsoever of where we stayed in Ft. Lauderdale – nothing as visually striking as the Copa) and kind of ease into the day.  Rested and feeling like native warriors, we returned to the previous night’s sports bar, where we each came oh-so-close to have having at least a fivesome.  At this point I was enjoying life – we were out of the stifling Academy atmosphere, I was sporting some attire that in hindsight probably looked like I was joking, and we were sipping a couple of dollar beers, flush with at least $100 cash money between us left.

And then, like an apparition, she appeared.  Jill Banekskaldfjaduhfaduhaduhadksky – and friends – marched right up to us (we were sitting outside like cool-assed motherf*ckers.)  Playing it super-cool, I was like “I thought ya’ll was leaving?” and she was all “we decided to stay – there was something we liked about this place.”  And internally, I processed that as “they f*cking love really clean streets as much as I do, these girls are all right.”

As I further pondered the mysteries of street cleanliness, sh*t got really, really real.  She leaned in and said “I’ll buy you any shot and any beer you want.”  Wait just a f*cking second!  Hot chick, loves clean streets and she’s buying drinks?  If there were Little White Chapels all over the place in Fort Lauderdale, I would have tried to convince her to head to one, posthaste.   I could not believe my good fortune – the best-looking girl in the place (granted, the pickings were fairly slim on a Tuesday night but whatever) was going to pay me to drink with her.  Finally, the good karma from having a hot almost-girlfriend up in Maryland had wafted down to South Florida.  I really wish that Youtube existed back in those days, because my intimations to Pos about what was happening could potentially have forever-altered the scales for arrogance, smugness and talking-sh*t-to-your-buddy-who-wasn’t-with-the-hottest-chick-in-the-group.

Having made sure to give Pos a major amount of sh*t for my good fortune and his (relative) lack of same, I sauntered to the bar, my non-ironic plaid shorts shimmering in the faint light of dusk and Jill B. in-hand.  A romantic at heart, we exchanged the following playful banter on the way to order the drinks THAT, BY THE WAY, SHE WAS PAYING FOR (which was a good thing since bars rarely accepted Texaco cards back in 1993).

Me (smugly): “How does tequila sound?  With an Icehouse chaser?”

She (innocently): “Oh, I can’t do tequila.  That is the worst thing ever.  Anything but tequila.”

Me (idioticly): “No, that’s not true – there are a bunch of things stronger than tequila.  Just because you had one bad experience -”

She (coyly): “Tequila’s just not a good call for me right now.  I’m down with anything else.”

Me (in-hindsight-I-can’t-believe-itly): “Have you ever had a 252?  Some places call it a Gorilla Fart?*”

She (I-can’t-wait-to-do-bad-things-on-spring-breakly): “Sounds delicious.”

Me (scientifically): “Okay, but just so you know, it’s made of Wild Turkey 101 and Bacardi 151, it’s really strong.”

She (I-should’ve-picked-up-on-how-bad-of-an-idea-this-wasly): “As long as it’s not tequila.”

So, we did a 252 shot.  And started to enjoy our very-chilled Icehouses.  I probably should’ve heard some ominous internal music playing when one of her friends came up to me and said “Wow, Jill must really like you, she doesn’t usually drink.”  (Note: for some people this would have been foreshadowing, for Chilly it was f*ckimawesomeshadowing.)  We proceeded to head over to Pos and her other friends – they seemed to be getting along similar to a few old buffalos and a lioness begrudgingly sharing a field – where I went into full-on f*ckhead mode, because I had f*cking won.  The hot chick convinced her friends to stay in lame Fort Lauderdale – maybe I do look like Kurt Russel? – and I’m f*cking ruling this sh*tty bar.

Things only got better: “you want to go for a walk on the beach?”  Looking back (the theme of this post), this was the precise moment in my life where I started the movement from a youthful lack-of-self-awareness-I-have-all-the-answers-f*ck-you perspective to a more adult worldview.  I did, indeed, want to go for a walk on the beach.  And she even did the move from movies where she takes her shoes off – perhaps to enjoy the beach (although, sand sucks) or maybe to subtly suggest that there was more disrobing where that innocent first step came from.  There was a brilliant full moon – hell, I think Venus was maybe in view back then, too – it was a perfect night for a closer such as myself.

Except she needed to sit down for a second.  On a rock.  And then commenced projectile vomiting.  I held her hair.  The vomiting continued.  I felt like I was at a blackjack table where Sue Ng had just stepped in as dealer – no way to stem the tide.  I started to feel weird just sitting on a rock while she was barfing and I was making sure her hair was barf-free.  This was quickly descending into debacle territory.  I decided to carry her back to her room – first opting for that “Ryan carrying Marissa out of the car wreck on The OC” style while dealing with innumerable insults and slurs hurled from folks that suspected I was on the forefront of the Rohypnol craze.  I eventually just had to sling her over my shoulder for the last couple of blocks.

Innovation: having head inside the toilet bowl eliminates need for a hair holder

We ultimately made it to her room, where I monitored her vital signs for a few hours to make sure I didn’t have a death on my hands before even starting military service.  She survived.  Meanwhile, Pos was in the other room getting some hand love from one of her friends.  One of the earliest examples of FML.

Silver lining: spring of 1993 was the Storm of the Century, a major blizzard.  We realized it was coming and cut our trip short (also, we were out of money, at one point frustratingly trying to get $19 out of an ATM that only dispensed $20s.  (Really, back in the day ATMs dispensed $5s – hell, in Arkansas today there are some ATMs that dispense $1s – and you had the curse of looking for the Plus Network – not every ATM would do.))  We made it back to Maryland barely ahead of the storm.  The storm effectively extended spring break another week – during which I got to hang out with my not-girlfriend and accomplish some of the goals that spring break would not allow me.  All was not lost.

* One crazy thing about 252s/Gorilla Farts: they were popular at the Academy at that time because there was a former State Trooper who was almost killed by a drunk driver – he became a motivational speaker because he survived – who would buy anyone who talked to him (and he was at the bars constantly) a 252/GF.  Even though alcohol almost killed him – there was some meaning behind it, if you asked him to discuss it, but I was generally really f*cked up by that point and never fully understood why he did that.  True story. 

Later,

Chilly17

The place wasn't quite as popular in 1993, divide the number of people at the pool by 37 and you'll get a better idea of the situation we were dealing with

I believe I left off at the point where we had reached Daytona and made the adult contemporary decision to stay at the illustrious Copacabana in search of potential Lolas-of-the-moment.  The above image is apparently the Copa in its heyday, which was 1-2 generations removed from our visit – is that Don Draper in the background?  I can only remember a few noteworthy items about the Copacabana:

• Our room had a screen door
• We got MTV, and Beavis and Butt-Head had just hit the airwaves (I ironically found it sophomoric at the time, despite being recently removed from sophomore status myself)
• There was a Texaco nearby, so we could counter the $24/day motel rate with a couple cases of Icehouse from the Star, which presumably my parents would eventually pay for (but most likely they would just say “f*ck it” and not pay the bill anyway; their love of usurious interest rates and late/reconnect fees is legendary)
• There was indeed a pool, but it did not look much like the one above.  If memory serves, it was a bring your own chair setup.

We were f*cking pumped to be in Florida, ready to rock the sh*t out of the place.  Also, though, we were pretty sleepy.  That’s a long drive in a Ford Ranger.  So if my memory is correct – and almost certainly it’s tainted by inaccuracy and a bloated sense of self-esteem – we ended up sleeping til like 8:00 PM and then going to some f*cking ridiculous dance club with glow sticks and test tube shooters and stuff.  At the time, I certainly needed a little bit of verbal communication to have a shot with the ladies – I hadn’t perfected the “get up in their face and krump your ass off” technique that I have going today.  Pos was essentially in the same boat.  And we paid a f*cking cover to get in there – I think $10 each.  That was a decent chunk of our $400 straight cash homie.  We still bailed – it was a sh*tshow in there and not really our scene.

The next day we decided we were gonna let the party come to us – we loaded up the bathtub with a couple cases of sh*tty beer, did some preemptive pushups (gameday pushups always trump months of working out in advance of spring break) and hit the Copacabana pool.  Don’t let that postcard image above fool you – we were the only people there.  But it was all good, we could see the beach – and, seriously, f*ck sand.  Couple of cool guys like us, it was only a matter of time.

Our luck turned better after about the fifth Milwaukee’s Best.  Three chicks showed up and pulled up towels (or ottomans or whatever sh*t the Copa had to prevent your skin from coming into direct contact with the pavement) in our general vicinity.  I, seasoned from a year of “regular college” might as well have spotted a scarlet letter on their cover-ups – they were Delta Delta Deltas from Southeast Missouri State.  (From memory, I came up with SW Missouri State, but my quest for precision led me to do some fact-checking.)  As I explained to Pos, Tri-Delts were generally known for being hot of appearance and loose of morals, ie the perfect spring break combination.  And there were three of them!  We were running a fast break up in the Copa!  All we had to do was come up with some clever banter (being from Missouri, we had to make sure that the majority of said banter was monosyllabic, so as not to hurt any feelings or cause headaches) and we had a very great chance of hooking some sh*t up.

Now, I don’t want to brag, but somehow they ended up in our room.  It was either our doughy-even-though-at-a-military-academy physiques, our suave demeanors, or the fact that they were at the same sh*tty motel and pretty much nobody else was just hanging out at the sh*tty motel – most other spring breakers preferring loud, redundant thumping and girls in bikinis walking around selling trays of test tube shots.  The problem was, neither one of us was particularly suited to “culling the herd” if you will.  If memory serves, they were all pleasant enough, in an unenthusiastic way, but there were too many of them – suddenly the numbers were working against us.

At a critical juncture – I think we were trying to get them to go swimming in the ocean with us (not a bad approach to figuring out who was the most interested – unless they were are all tied for least) and I said “f*ck it” and went and called my not-girlfriend on the payphone, just to check into whether she was not-boning someone at the not-moment.  It apparently got kind of awkward when I was gone, the girls were like “is he calling his girlfriend?” and Pos – quick thinker that he was* – was like “no, he just had to call his mom”…like being a weird mama’s boy isn’t just as bad as being a not-philanderer.  Turns out they could not help ya.  Fail.

Not the actual coeds in question, but one of three kazillion results for "tri delt spring break" on google image search. So effectively like 3/5 of the above.

(*Anecdote within an anecdote (aneception?): Guys at military academies – despite the strict honor code that forbids it – are frequently forced to omit or stretch information when asked questions like “where do you go to school?” by girls who go to colleges that don’t require uniforms.  When I was a sophomore, my go-to white lie was that I was a student at Georgetown Law School.  This was not a stretch since at the time I was totally planning on going to law school in the future, so it wasn’t really a lie so much as just pro-forma truth.  One time in New Orleans, with Pos, we were well into a promising conversation with some Australian nursing students (actually, maybe they were nannies?), who were no doubt impressed by our Georgetown Law pedigree.  We were unfortunate to be overheard by an actual Georgetown student, a fine fellow who was also a c*ck-blocking enthusiast.  Sensing weakness, he lobbed a grenade toward Pos – who’d never gone to “real school” – by asking what fraternity were in.  He responded something like “Frito Pigmy Abacus” and the house of cards began to crumble in embarrassing fashion.  We’ll always have Outback Steakhouse, though.)

We woke up and decided that maybe Daytona sucked.  Maybe we were old school guys, who needed to rock it really old school, like Fort Lauderdale style.  Also, we were baseball fans, and it was spring training time.  What better way to conserve money and still have a good time than to catch my team – the successful-at-the-time-but-cursed-in-the-Series Atlanta Braves?  We decided to catch a game in West Palm and got to see my boy Tom Glavine warming up (just throwing on the side unfortunately), that was a solid time, cost like $3 and we had progressed very close to Ft. Lauderdale.

And it was only Monday.  Since we had been alternating between McDonald’s value meals (Pos preferred the Jordan Meal; I went Double Quarter Pounder), Taco Bell takedowns and loading up on gross food at Texaco when we needed beer or gas, we weren’t wasting too much precious cash on food.  This would come back to haunt me though, as Pos hucked the unspeakably disgusting remains of a microwave hamburger in the back of the Ranger.  This would lead to me eventually getting pulled over on suspicion of hauling dead bodies around.

We made it to Fort Lauderdale in the late evening, and the first thing that struck me was how clean the place was.  There was a street cleaner running like 24/7 and the place looked pristine.  And, the only really meaningful stuff that happened on the trip happened in Ft. Lauderdale, so I probably could’ve just started writing at that point, instead of writing a 2,500 word preamble.

Later and Happy Easter,

Chilly17

(Question: Is the font on here really hard to read?  Seems like this is user-unfriendly for dense text.  Maybe my computer is trying to tell me something?)

I'm fatter now, but have better taste in pastels

1993 was a good year for the Chillster.  It started off with a smart, solitary New Year’s resolution: listen to more Billy Idol.  I acquired a Vital Idol cassette and my quality of life immediately improved.  I guess I should probably set the stage for you a little bit – as a junior at a military academy, we were just starting to get a little taste of freedom.  Finally, all the (turns out, largely apocryphal) hot locals on the prowl for clean-cut squares midshipmen were at our disposal, since we could more frequently go drinking at the multitude of local bars less-encumbered by Draconian curfews.  Beyond just freedom, I had another weapon at my disposal, something that looked like….this…

Actual vehicle not pictured, but throw a faux-personalized license plate on the front and you get the picture. Not exactly what the kids today would call a "P*ssy Wagon" but it could almost always get you from Point A to Point B

It’s difficult to explain military academy dynamics to folks who didn’t struggle through a similar environment.  Having a sh*tty Ford Ranger to driver, pretty much just on Saturday and Sunday – and only then thanks to the largesse of my (former – I will explain when I get to the Why Chilly Is A Huge Piece of Sh*t category of the site) friend R’s dad who let me park in his Annapolis driveway since non-Seniors couldn’t have cares on campus – was probably the equivalent of having a brand new Corvette at a university that played in meaningful basketball games.  Now Baltimore’s Inner Harbor (before Chris and Snoop got there), DC – hell even University of Delaware were all in play for us.  

The first thing my group of friends decided to do in 1993 was have a competition to see who could bang the most chicks in January.  (Ladies in the audience, of which there are at least two, I apologize for my candor, but it is important for the narrative. Well, not really important, but I’ve already typed a bunch of sh*t, so it’s important to me.)  At the time, I was unencumbered.  (Full disclosure: due to my journalistic integrity and fervor for accuracy, I was forced to fact-check my own memory.  And my own internal timeline must be f*cking wrong, because I know for sure I broke up with a girl named *Tanya after watching the 1993 NFC Championship Game at her f*cking apartment caused the 49ers to lose.  That had to be January of 1993 (and you can still f*ck off, Alvin Harper!).  But this whole story is less tidy then, because Billy Idol almost certainly gets less credit.  Although maybe “White Wedding” somehow caused Steve Young to suck? Anyway, that Tanya chick had a snake and a bird, too.  That was f*cking weird.  I remember going to her apartment for the first time, hearing some rustling in the other room and thinking “A KID! SHE’S GOT A FUCKING KID!” – but it turns out that it was just a ten foot python eating a mouse – no worries.  Based on my hard-hitting research I apparently dumped pseudnymous *Tanya on the 17th and then met the chick I will later discuss in a couple of weeks, but I like my cleaner, unresearched timeline more.  Also, *Tanya bought me a watch – which for some reason my friends gave me endless amounts of sh*t for.)

The competition to see who could have relations with the most consenting females had the potential to be lopsided.  See, despite the fact that this is my forum, I’m not going to sit here and overstate my abilities in this area.  I was more like the scrappy white guy who makes it to the majors more with grit and intangibles than estimable tools; scratching out a giggle here, a chuckle there the way David Eckstein worked the count down a run in the late innings.  My roommate – to protect his identity, I will call him *Brad – was apparently quite the handsome fellow, so all the lady-meeting stuff came easy to him.  I found him to be somewhat disgusting, but maybe because I saw him in his indigenous state, which somehow included bloody underwear after running five miles (relax – it was (allegedly) from chafing, nothing more sinister).

Since this is supposed to be about Spring Break, not some stupid contest that wasn’t really a contest since only about two of that crew ever really hooked up in bars anyway, I will cut to the chase.  My roommate, as expected, won in a walkover – sure he could land some pretty hot women when the opportunity was there, but his huge advantage was an uncanny ability to completely disregard his standards in certain situations – he would f*ck a 57 year-old Day’s Inn maid given the right “anything else you need?” glance.  How did Chilly fare?  As “Serial Relationship Guy”, I did what I normally did, stumbled upon a girlfriend.  Well, a kind of girlfriend.  A sort-of girlfriend.  Through the magic of Billy Idol, most likely, I met a very nice girl in one of the previously discussed local bars (RIP, Griffins). As I believe Jerry Seinfeld once said, she had many attributes desirable to men, including tallness, blondeness, curviness and prettiness. And she was (unfortunately) well-aware of her impact on her surroundings.  She once caused an accident on campus (no joke) from wearing her ridiculously tight jean shorts around.  (I know, jean shorts don’t rule, but these leaned more toward Daisy Dukes than midwestern jorts.)  It was just a small fender bender, but still impressive.  (Last humblebag on this topic (well, it’s probably mostly a brag) – she somehow sent me the same risque Valentine’s card that my Don juan roommate sent to his lady of the moment, now THAT was funny.)

Despite the fact that we were essentially in a relationship, she – let’s call her *Kandi -could not commit to calling it that (if I recall correctly, due to having fairly recently ended a BIG RELATIONSHIP).  With Spring Break fast approaching, I had some decisions to make.  My buddy, *Position (I know that name makes no sense to you, the reader – let’s just go with Pos for the sake of this post – no, not short for HIV+ or Piece of Sh*t) had just quit the *tennis (name of sport changed to protect identity) team and was ready to f*cking blow it out spring-break style.  Or at least to drink some Colt Ice and try to pick up girls from other academic institutions.  (Editor’s Note: F*ck, this might have to be a two-parter, we aren’t really even to Spring Break yet and we are at a thousand words almost).  I considered the merits of going on spring break with Pos vs. just staying around Maryland and having a lot of “friendly time” with my really-hot girlfriend-in-everything-but-title:

CONS:

• No guaranteed nakedity with hot ladies
• 1,000 mile drive to warmth
• Only had $150 and Texaco card

Turns out since I didn’t have military stickers, we couldn’t crash at the Navy base in Georgia, so we powered on down to Daytona, stayed at the Copacabana (I kid you not) and wandered down to the MTV beach party thing, where the only thing I can remember is “Gangsta Bitch” being played at roughly the same volume as a Blue Angels flyby.  (RIP, Apache.  Also, RIP Patrice O’Neal – NSFW language but hilarious and highly recommended, while I’m thinking about it.)
 

* means names were changed because I wanted to.

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.