Michael Craig's Journal

[I am posting this Friday evening but it was written just after I woke up on Friday.]

It’s eleven minutes to ten in the morning. I am looking at myself in the bathroom mirror. It is not a pretty sight. I am freezing cold from half a shower. Soapy water runs from my head in rivulets down my body. My eyes are so red they look like they’ve been bleeding.

Shocked out of just four hours of sleep, it takes me a moment to remember the three culprits of my condition:

Paris, Richard Brodie, and The Poker Bloggers.

It’s all coming back to me now, like a bad hangover, which is ironic because most of the people responsible should be waking up about now, all with bad hangovers. It’s true that misery loves company.

I’m as miserable as I can be in the Charlemagne Suite of Paris, Las Vegas, the morning after the first of three nights basking in the adulation of people I love and respect.

Richard Brodie pulled some strings to get me this room at Paris, which is bigger than all the apartments in which I have ever lived - combined. I don’t know how he did it with the town packed for the rodeo - it was this or the Manor Motor Lodge for me - but the Prince of Points is going to exact some revenge for this; finding his True Love may no longer be enough.

I can kiss that Golden Monkey Paw good-bye.

How nice is this room?

A. They brought a welcome basket of fruits, cheeses, and crackers. The cheeses had names I can’t pronounce, and aromas I can’t discern. I felt embarrassed having a box of Cheez-Its on the same counter.

B. The basket included some cookies on a plate. The plate was edible.

C. The room has more bathrooms than I have asses, and more sinks than I have hands. The dining room table is larger than what my wife and I have acquired in 25 years of marraige.

So how can I be miserable, living like The Sun King?

I forgot that Ballys owns this property. I hate Ballys. Every time I get near the place, something bad happens. Ballys has the worst coffee shop in Las Vegas, the worst layout (though, in fairness, the football-field type layout of the casino itself at Ballys is the best in Vegas), and the rudest guests. I had $2,800 stolen from me the last time I was there and I’m pretty sure it was an employee who took it.

I just don’t mix well with the place, and it is connected to my Versailles.

Apparently, Ballys hasn’t forgotten it either. When I checked in, they told me there would be renovations, leading to no hot water between 10 AM and 5 PM. Knowing I would be keeping late hours with the bloggers, I asked for a 9:40 AM wake-up call to get in a shower.

I needn’t have bothered, on two counts. First, the pounding started at 9:15 AM. I tried, in vain, to ignore it until I received the 9:40 call. Second, the 10 AM shut-off of the hot water was merely an estimate. At 9:49 AM, with a head full of lather, the water slowed to a trickle, then stopped entirely.

The red eyes staring at me in the mirror are the result of getting together with the bloggers for “cocktail hour” at the Geisha Bar at the Imperial Palace, a place that can’t see the wrecking ball soon enough for my taste.

I arrived at 11:30 PM and felt like a wimp for leaving at 4 AM. The amount of liquor consumed by the 25 or so in attendance was Herculean. When I left, nobody could walk upright or pronounce the last syllables of words.

But it’s such a cool gathering. Most of these people see each other only a couple times a year. The feeling of friendship and cameraderie, however, is instant and contageous.

A lot of the bloggers maintain close e-mail relationships and we all read each other’s writing. (For me, this is a drawback. In most groups, the way I handle my social awkwardness is by telling stories. But this group reads all my “A” material as soon as I dream it up.)

It is a group of gifted misfits - smart, bitter, cynical, funny, throwing back drinks with both hands. Like the Algonquin Round Table, with no feeling of exclusively, worse card playing, lots of Dorothy Parkers, and occasional crayon-eating (unless Harpo Marx did that back in the day).

I am gradually becoming part of this gathering. At the first convention I attended, last December, I spoke and enjoyed the response the bloggers gave to Suicide King. I spoke again in July, but that time it was about my then-new journal (the one you’re reading now). I read them my first entry, Oh, the Things I’ve Stolen. I felt more connected - not so much like a guy selling something.

I will never be “one of the guys.” I will forever be the square uncle, and I am terrible with names, which is uncool because every blogger has three - given name, blogger nickname (e.g., Falstaff, Iggy), and the name of their blog. I never remember who I met before, though with the amount of drinking going on, my colleagues never remember either.

But now, we are colleagues. We talk about each others’ work and gossip about whoever made the mistake of not being present at that moment. We plough the fields of onlines sites, legal changes, tournament poker, and the state of our own games.

These people are my friends, and my inspiration. I will never find a more demanding, yet more appreciative, audience. I want huge numbers of adoring readers, but I NEED these guys to like what I’m doing. I simply can’t let down in front of so many smart, talented people who pay such close attention. It’s the BEST kind of peer pressure.

So when I meet my red-eyed gaze in the mirror, thinking about what I’m going to put my body through for the next three days - and what I’m challenging myself to do in this space - I think, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

This entry was posted on Friday, December 8th, 2006 at 10:32 pm and is filed under My favourites:.