Michael Craig's Journal

Saturday, 10:05 PM - Just woke up. I cancelled out on dinner with Richard Brodie. I needed the sleep but I’m not sure it helped. A company named PokerTek has developed automated poker tables and is demonstrating them - with cocktails - at the Imperial Palace. I am tempted to go back to sleep but nothing interesting happens when you’re sleeping. I rouse myself and decide to walk from Paris to the Imperial Palace.

I bring one of my Moleskine pads and decide to blog the evening, writing it down as it happens.

10:25 PM - Walking to IP. Walking through Bally’s. Ugh. The moving walkway is malfunctioning. The “in” walkway is broken. How stupid is that?

10:29 PM - On the way to the IP, I notice how many people are carrying drinks and decide to count. It would be easier to count the number NOT carrying.

Group of 4 = 5 drinks.

Group of 6 = 6 drinks, including one yard-o-margarita and 1 neck-strap margarita.

Standing on the walkway over Flamingo to take these notes, I notice that I am standing five feet from a freelance Elvis impersonator. He is talking to a guy who is making fun of ME. (”What’s he doing? He’s writing you out a check. Make it out to Elvis!”) The guy had just introduced himself to Elvis. (”You know me. I’m the Beer Man.”)

10:33 PM - As I cross in front of one of several giant pictures of Flamingo entertainer Toni Braxton - I can’t read or say or type her name without calling her “Toni Braxton-Hicks;” women who have given birth will understand why - this walk reminds me so much of my Walk of Penance to the Aladdin last June. What a screwed up trip that was.

10:36 PM - In front of Harrah’s. Drinking a five-foot tall margarita is normal. Taking notes draws stares and ridicule.

Revenge ON the nerds.

Bearded man wearing a balloon hat staggers out of Harrah’s and yells, to no one in particular I think, “That was bad to the bone! I swear. That was bad.”

Nothing is bad to the bone when you’re wearing a hat made out of balloons.

10:39 PM - Imperial Palace. They have an ad by the front door for their “dealertainers.” They are a long, long way from even resembling facsimiles of celebrity impersonators, much less the celebs themselves. It’s a challenge to make out who these people are supposed to be impersonating. (Couldn’t they cheat in the ad and use “actual” celebrity impersonators?) Is that Bette Midler or Marilyn Monroe? Michael Jackson or Marilyn Manson? Lisa Minelli or Malcoln McDowell from Clockwork Orange? Someone in a showgirl outfit - I think that’s supposed to be Cher but it looks like a 16 year-old boy.

This is bad. My head hurts just looking at it.

11:03 PM - In the Royal [illegible] room. Remarkably quiet, like the last dozen people at a wedding. Music over the p.a. A couple of lively tables - people playing on the PokerTek tables. A couple quiet tables - conversation. This has been going on for two hours and is winding down. Lots of tee shirts and hats to steal.

11:15 PM - I’m playing in a game on the PokerPro table. It takes a few hands to get the hang of the conventions, but it ends up being pretty easy and very convenient. With an automated dealer, you don’t have to leave a tip, but that’s not a problem for me because I’m eliminated just as I figure out how the table works.

These tables would be a godsend at the World Series of Poker. Bad dealers? Inefficiency and skullduggery with the chips? It’s like this piece of technology was created by people who write poker blogs. No wonder they want to wine and dine - well, desert - us.

I hear Melanie’s “Brand New Key” on the sound system. I sing along loudly, expecting people will be impressed by my singing, or the range of songs to which I know the lyrics, or at least that there is something about me they don’t know.

No one cares, which is probably fine. I don’t know ALL the words and I’m less than certain of the quality of my vocals.

11:45 PM - I have lost three heads-up matches to Jason Kirk. The heads-up version of the machine is great, except it’s fixed in favor of Jason Kirk.

11:50 PM - I get something to drink and notice a long desert table. Huge chunks of Napoleons. Intricate cream-puff swams. Giant torts (or is it tarts?).

12:45 AM, Sunday - I was hungry so I went by Burger Palace on the second floor and got a cheeseburger and a couple orders of fries. I thought the fries would be community fries for the bloggers at the bar, but no one is touching them. I leaned one on the ashtray, which seemed to do the trick, because they are soon mostly gone.

I eat half the burger and don’t feel so good. I crumple it in the bag and drop the bag on the floor. Maybe when the implosion comes, something nice will grow on this spot.

1:37 AM - I gotta leave. I’m supposed to meet Mike Matusow in the morning and it’s bad news if I’m more out of it than Mikey.

2:25 AM - A whole team of guys in “Bocephus” tee shirts walks by. No one has really mentioned that the rodeo is in town this weekend.

2:45 AM - I think I should be leaving to go to bed. But I feel like if I stay around, I may be able to witness another train wreck. Or cause one.

So many nice, friendly people here. April, Joanne, Kat, Gracie, Dave Rosen, Iggy, Tina, Smokey, a bunch of others whose names I don’t know but, still, won’t soon forget.

2:55 AM - Richard Brodie and I are smoking cigars I brought. Another blogger, Jackie, says, “Those cigars look good. I should have gotten one.” I mention that I brought them but, sorry, I brought only two.

“You BROUGHT them?” she asks.

“Where do you think cigars come from? When a mommy loves a daddy …. No, no, no. When a president loves an intern ….”

2:58 AM - I am standing next to April, thanking her for the great job she has done putting all this together.

April: “I want a chair.”

Richard Brodie gets up to give her his chair. Standing between them, I push the chair to April and say, “In my blog, it will read that I tricked Richard into getting up and stole the chair for you.”

Richard then comes up with the line I can’t seem to adapt for this phenomenon: “The history is written by the bloggers.”

3:17 AM - “I go to parties, sometimes until four. It’s hard to leave when you can’t find the door.” Joe Walsh knew about which he spoke/wrote/sang. I ask what I should write in my blog about this evening. Gracie tells me that she wants to be known not as the Daisy Duke of bloggers but as the Dorothy Parker of bloggers.

3:36 AM - Outside the Imperial Palace. A man leans on a lamp post, drinking from a neck-strap margarita.

3:47 AM - I stop at the Barbary Coast to use the bathroom and buy a pocket watch for $17. Outside the bathroom stall, I hear someone ask, “It’s 4 AM here so it’s, what, 6 AM in Minneapolis?”

3:56 AM - Up the escalator to Bally’s, I am behind a guy carrying a giant Grey Goose bottle, nearly empty. I bet it didn’t start the evening that way.

3:57 AM - Propositioned by a very young prostitute. She asks me what I’m writing. Can’t tell her “propositioned by a very young prostitute.” Where are you staying? Do you want some company tonight?

4:14 AM - I am laying in bed, torn between turning out the light and reading The Odyssey, which I’ve been reading for a few minutes every night.

For some reason, I keep thinking of Richard Dreyfuss yelling, “I want the right to bet Lord Byron!”

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 14th, 2006 at 4:37 am and is filed under My favourites:.