Frank Sinatra once sung “Your nobody until somebody loves you”. At least, I think it was Sinatra, but I was way to drunk at the time to tell the difference between him and any other 1950’s crooner, and I’m still to drunk to look it up. Though Sinatra was one of Las Vegas’s most hated vicious and notorious [censored] if it really was him who sung those words, at least he got one thing right.

After busting my most recent Bellagio $2500 it came to my realization that I really needed a day off. Or two. Or three. Who cares? I needed some time off, that’s the point. With the stress of the main event coming up, a poker player should be at his best, which apparently in this case means blowing off time with friends drinking, smoking and taking drugs.

That’s how I decide to spend my Tuesday anyway, getting drunk at an inappropriate hour and agreeing to try weed for my first time then going bowling. When I arrive over at the house of such infamous pot smoking legends such as Shaundeeb and Exitonly they take me upstairs where the mighty ‘volcano’ awaits me. The contraption is more or less a humidifier turned into a contraption that fills a bag with marijuana smoke that you then hit in order to get high without having worry about the difficulties of lighters and such nonsense. Upon my first hit of the bag I inhale like a bad man striving for breath after being trapped underwater, only what a man used to smoking cigars would instinctively do, and take in so much smoke that I spend the next 15 minutes wheezing uncontrollably. The rest of the weed smoking crew only laughs at me, “get some water dude, you’ll be fine.” They are right, a bit of water, a bottle of wine, and a cigar later the wheezing has subsided and I am feeling chipper. In fact, everything is quite hilarious. Sitting on the outside porch I tell Wardekar “that’s the most wheezing I’ve done in a long time. Still beats getting tear gased.”
“Um, so you’ve been tear gased I take it?”
”HAaaaaaaaaaahahahahaha!!! Phhhhhhhh HAHAHAHA!!! Yeeea!! I got tear gased once! Let me hahahahahahhahaa, tell you about it. Phhhhhhh hahahahahaha!!”
“Um okay dude, what was it like, how did it happen?”
”Hahahhaha! That’s [censored] hilarious! Alright. Alright. Alright. Hahahahahaha! It was this one Halloween night in Ma….Hahahahaha! This is such a [censored] hilarious story!”
My company snickers at me and gives me a queer look, though Dekar is already way too high to enjoy a condescending moment.
“Hahahahaha. Okay, right. Hahahaha. So I’m in Madison and I’m totally wasted on Halloween. Hahahaha what a [censored] night. Right. So I’m on State Street, this long [censored] street leading up to the capitol. Phhh HAHA!...no wait stop. Okay. Right, this long [censored] street leading up to the capitol. So like every year in Madison there’s a riot on State Street from all the drunks, and I’m just sitting back and watching because I didn’t want to be involved. Then all of a sudden they flick on these like, stadium lights they have on the street and I realize I gotta get the [censored] out of here. So I start booking up towards the Capitol building to dodge the riot, but as I’m running up the street I run into this giant line of cops wearing riot gear spraying [censored] pepper spray in the face of everyone who gets to close. So I start running like hell the other way screaming ‘GET THE [censored] OUT OF HERE! GET THE [censored] OUT OF MY WAY MOTHER [censored]!!!!!’ So as I’m running down the street a massive stampede gets started and I try to hide in a shop entrance but some [censored] pushes me out of my little safe cove. So I float down the crowd into the next shop entrance and hide there with a few girls who are just watching the mayhem unravel. Suddenly I start wheezing uncontrollably and close my eyes. When I reopen them the burning is absolutely [censored] unreal, one of the worst pains I’ve ever felt my whole live. Liquid starts gushing from my eyes and I can’t breathe, and the girls next to me are on their knees praying to god to let them live through this. So I’m trying to [censored] concentrate on breathing while telling these girls they aren’t gonna die. Then some cop grabs me from the back and throws me blind into the street and steps on my heel while he does it, jamming the sharp angle of my shoe into the back of my foot while I run in darkness down the street screaming ‘I’M BLIND I’M [censored] BLIND OH GOD HELP ME I’M [censored] BLIND!!!’. Eventually I got turned off on some side street and grabbed on to people begging them to help me since I couldn’t see, and some guy got me to a friends place. Phhhhh hahahahaha [censored] Madison.”
“Hahaha, that uh, that sounds like fun Bond?”
“Obviously!”

I spend the rest of the night with an endless hankering for candy bars and a need to talk non stop and nonsensically. I also want to call everyone ‘sir’ or ‘gentleman’ and if anyone gets in my way to chastise them in a half English accent screaming something like “Damn it man! Do you know who I am? I’ll not have you stand in my away again by gods!”
I get the feeling my company is annoyed with my constant rambling and attitude, but I am winning so much money in bowling that nobody bothers to register complaint. I manage to talk some of said company into Korean BBQ and pass out around 6am, not bothering to even consider waking up for the next days tournament.

I slowly come to consciousness the next day somewhere in the afternoon. I wince open my eyes, and finding Rich C. on the couch watching TV ask him what time it is.
”About 6pm” he responds.
Excellent, afternoon well spent in my book. I guess I’ll go see how Watts and Stevepa are doing in the Bellagio $5000 event, perhaps drink or smoke cigars in the process and waste my evening away.

I show up to the Bellagio looking the most casual anyone’s ever seen me, in jeans and a nice button up shirt, a perplexing image to those used to a suit and tucked in shirt. I find watts immediately, and upon realizing he has a short stack immediately begin with a barrage of insults:
”Damn it Watts! Good god man, where are your [censored] chips?”
Watts table seems fairly annoyed with my showing up and sputtering profanities for more or less no reason.
“I’m card dead Bond, nothings going on.”
”For [censored] sake, get some [censored] chips.”
Apparently on days off, every phrase requires the use of the F word. I tell Watts I’ll be outside rolling dice and putting TJ Cloutier to shame.

Lo and behold outside is the legendary roller himself, TJ Cloutier. I find the lowest limit table and secretly wish he’ll come over and witness me go on an incredible run so he can call me a ‘natural born shooter.’ Unfortunately TJ stays at the next table over while the shooter at mine rolls ridiculously hot and the young poker players at the table scream at TJ “Hey TJ BABY!!! Wish you were here!!! HAHAHA!!!”

After a hot dice session I stroll back towards the poker room up $250 and numerous free cigars, which upon the cocktail waitress asking which type I’d prefer I respond only with “surprise me woman.” As I’m about to enter the room I run into Watts exiting after having busto’d.
”Watts, you busto I take it? What’s the plan for the evening? It’s 4th of July after all, we have to do something special.”
“Does getting drunk and doing more or less nothing count as special?”
”Obviously.”

We sit at the Bellagio Fontana lounge bar and capitalize on the free drinks video poker affords us, getting increasingly wasted with no real plan for the evening. Eventually Stevepa rolls out on dinner break and we sneak into the Bellagio buffet with him. Steve has amassed a huge amount of chips from destroying a very tilted Roland De Wolfe who makes habitual awful plays pre flop (That’s right Roland, if your reading this, you play awful. Haha!)

Watts and I decide to hit the trip with no real plan other than to drink heavily and waste time. While approaching Margarita Ville on the Strip two girls walk in front of us, turn around and pronounce
”Hey, you two are dressed pretty much the same.”
Hmm, I immediately see an opportunity to help Watts get laid, which would obviously score me ‘living vicariously through friends’ points. I’m not sure what their good for in terms of ability to be redeemed, but they sound important. I look over at Watts, who is dressed barely similar at all.
“What the [censored] are you talking about, we’re barely alike.”
”Well I think so” says one of the girls.
“Well I think your just bringing random things up as an excuse to talk us.”
“Maybe we are.”
”Maybe you are.” Quips Watts.
“What’s your names?” They ask. And now comes the precarious part. I have absolutely zero interest in any woman outside my girlfriend, but If I immediately tell these two girlfriends to ‘[censored] off, I have a girl already’ I absolutely destroy Watts chances. Time to walk the thin line between being a good friend and a good boyfriend.

I spend the time at Margarita ville explaining to the girls how Watts is “easily one of the best poker players in the world. Ranked in the top 25 online. By far one of the best.” I tell them Watts has “lost near $100,000 in one night, and damnit he barely blinked an eye. Watts is 10 times the man I’ll ever be.” In these situations its best to talk up your friend as much as possible while making yourself look worse, so I tell the women I’m just some ‘gay theatre major, who loves the penis’ on repeated occasions and that ‘Watts is the real man of this duo, but not in that way.’ By the end it is abundantly clear that one of them (god knows their names) likes Watts and that the other will require a subbed in wingman for future drunken adventures. I tell Watts when he calls them to tell them I have become horribly sick and bring somebody from 2p2 instead.

We go back to the Bellagio and find Steve just rapping up the action, and decide on a night in the hot tub at Watts place. When I arrive at their condo I inform my girlfriend via instant messenger that I more or less chatted up two girls on my friend’s behalf tonight. She is less than pleased by the situation. On the one hand I think she’s being over protective and paranoid. On the other, her booze swilling, slick talking boyfriend is alone with a bunch of trouble causing guys in Vegas and has been away for 5 weeks, what kind of woman would she be if she wasn’t a little worried? I manage to calm her down and let her know that she’s got nothing to worry about no matter how many women I talk to in bars, that she’s the only I’m interested.

Some friend of mine back in Melbourne once told me “When you’re away from your partner, you really begin to understand how you feel about them.” In his case, it resulted with his hooking up with some random Canadian woman 2 years his elder and leaving his wife of 14 years, but I think he meant the advice to go either way. When I left my girlfriend 5 weeks ago I was somewhat enjoying the thought of a little time away from her protective presence. Five weeks later I am wishing I just had someone to fall asleep next to and tell me I do not in fact suck at poker without secretly suspecting their just trying to be nice. For all the drunken trysts my boyhood idol James Bond had, people forget the movie where George Lazenby got married to the right girl who was therein murdered by a raging Telly Savalas as Blofeld, setting up Bond for a lifetime of revenge and emotionless sex which even he, at a moment of self reflection (say on the beach in Goldeneye) is capable of realizing has its hollowness. Lucky for me Telly Savalas is way dead and I’m not married. Were this a real conversation and not a blog the alcohol would have me quip something like “Being married or being dead, sounds about even huh?” All jager induced quips aside, if I spent a long time settled with the right woman and working hard at the game, without going out and raising hell on booze or without chatting up random women, I think it’d likely be time well spent.

When I wake up at 4pm in the afternoon I dress quickly and stumble out to the Bellagio to watch Stevepa at this final table. More and more 2p2’ers show up through the afternoon and evening, and by the time we go to dinner there’s about twenty of us. We hit the bars hard through the afternoon and dinner, then waltz down the strip towards the Imperial Palace, where a Karaoke dive bar awaits. I somehow get it in my alcohol soaked brain that I absolutely must get Scott (aka Mastr on 2p2) married tonight and somehow wind up In a conversation with two New York girls offering them money to marry Scott that night. After bantering with them a good 20 minutes one turns to me and says
”I have a very serious question for you. What’s my name? I gave it to you before.”
”How the [censored] should I know? I’m not the one trying to marry you here, it’s Scott that should know. Okay, so what’s your name?”
”Tresa.”
”Teresa?” I ask.
“No, its Tresa, like Teresa without the E in the middle.”
“So its Teres then huh? Scott, this is future wife, Teres.”
Scott looks at me discouragingly “Bond, did you even listen to this girl at all?”
”She seems nice right? You should marry her. Totally, you two, I see a future, a beautiful marriage and then immediate annulment which I shall pay for. Come on, [censored] do it.”
”NO. Bond, did you even listen to her?”
“What’s the problem? Her name is Teres. Without the ‘a’ at the end, right?”
She looks at me annoyed. “No, It’s Tresa. Like ‘tree’ then ‘sa’ at the end.”
I stare silently at her a moment allowing this monstrosity of a name to sink in. I look her straight in the eyes and pronounce “Lady, that’s the worst [censored] name I’ve ever heard.”
Scott can’t control his laughter, he nearly falls over. Tresa handles it amazingly well, breaking into laughter and saying “I know, I’ve thought so my whole life.”
”Well good your at least realistic about it.”
The DJ announces ‘Blude Suede Shoes’ for ‘Bond’. Yep, I’ve been drinking enough that I actually wrote ‘Bond’ on the Karaoke request card.
“Hold that thought! I’ve got singing to do!”

I sprint up to the stage and grab the microphone. I am at least two jagerbombs in to do this song competently but that hardly matters when the entire crowd is drunk and you can do a mediocre Elvis impression. I throw myself into the song with the fervor and enthusiasm that only a highly inebriated man is capable of. The DJ jams Elvis glasses and a ridiculous hat onto my face while I throw the microphone stand back and forth while screaming “NOW DON’T YOU!!!! STEEEEEEEEEEP ON MY BLUE SUEDE SHOES!!!!!!!” The entire front row is decked in 2p2’ers laughing at me and taking pictures, which are sure to show up on the forum within 24 hours. Mid way through the song during a guitar break the DJ leans over and asks me to please stop swearing so loudly while on stage. When the song ends I throw him the hat and announce into the microphone “I’m keeping the glasses fcuker” and sprint off the stage towards the bar. I eventually play nice and return them to him.

While awaiting the next song I continue to pressure “Tresa” into marrying Scott but she doesn’t seem interested. Eventually Jurollo comes over and hits it off much better with the two of them, so I inform them at “Jurollo is by far the more charming and rich man, who wouldn’t want to marry him? Come on Tresa, I am offering to pay for the marriage and divorce here, I know Jurrollo is willing.” I demand Tresa gives Jurollo her number so later this week we can get wasted and set up a marriage slash annulment. And that’s just about the time ‘Journey’ comes on from the DJ.

Half of MTTc rushes to the stage to scream out the song, swaying back and forth and more shouting the song than actually singing it. Various people from the crowd join us at random, seeing as they can’t go wrong in a group with so much enthusiasm. To say it was by far the best Karaoke rendition of ‘Journey’ of all time is a gross understatement, you really had to be there to appreciate it (*cough* sucks to be you Clayton *cough*) We’ll only find out who was actually on that stage when the pictures show up, but as far as I can remember, it was a lot.

The night finishes with running hot at Craps and Korean BBQ, and my sitting alone in a hotel room still half drunk, writing a trip report for a poker site with zero content, wishing I had the someone who loved me around to witness my antics over the past few days. Oh well, maybe some good will come of it, and I’ll arrange the first officially 2p2 sanctioned marriage in history.