Subject: TAN: Darkfriends in the City that Greed Built
From: wfg1@concentric.net.REMOVE (Bill Garrett)
Date: 03 Aug 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <1999Aug3.144710@130.62.16.132>
Organization: Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers, Local 183
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan

Hawk, Chris Mullins, and I tooled into Las Vegas on Tuesday 7/27 after
spending the previous several days visiting Zion National Park a few
hours away in Utah.  Getting there and back involved driving through
dust storms, racing thunderstorms out of slot canyons, and getting
beaten by towering frozen dairy concoctions, but we arrived little
worse for the wear.

Tuesday evening the three of us gnoshed at the Golden Nugget's dinner
buffet and then headed out for some gambling at the Nugget and other
casinos in the downtown area.  Chris wasn't much into gambling, so he
bailed while Hawk and I stayed out late playing the blackjack tables.

I awoke a bit before the crack of noon on Wednesday, suffering from
the first of several mild hangovers the Vegas trip would bring me.
Wednesday afternoon we went down to the Strip to gamble.  Hawk and I
ended up at Treasure Island while Chris tried a ride-film theater at
Caesar's Forum.

John Novak, John and Annette Dilick, and Kenn Cavness arrived sometime
around dinnertime, so the bunch of us headed to the Nugget's buffet
for a group dinner.  $10.25 for all you can shove into your face.
I waved my player's card, and the seven of us got to use the VIP line
and cut in front of approximately 100 little old ladies waiting to
be seated.

After dinner I invited everyone to witness my blackjack playing
prowess.  Novak was the only one to take me up on it, so he alone
watched me lose $400 in 30 minutes.  Lady Luck is a fickle bitch.

Later in the evening we collected Jim Hill and Tshen and headed out
to the Strip to see the evening displays.  The Mirage has an exploding
volcano.  The Treasure Island has pirates attacking a ship.  The
Venetian has colorful gondolas plying the waters of canals.  What
will be the themed entertainment at the soon-to-open Paris Hotel?
Nightly invasions by Germans?  Of course, we didn't see any of these
displays.  We were too busy tromping through one casino after another,
doing god knows what, although things do become clearer after reading
Jim Hill's description of the pointless promenade being a plot to
prevent me from plopping down money at the blackjack tables.  Alas,
every genius _is_ surrounded by a confederacy of dunces.

Novak took the early lead for highest return on gambling.  He dropped
50 cents into a slot machine and won $2.50.  I tossed in 3 nickels
and lost them all.

Much later in the evening -- about the time good, god-fearing people
have been asleep for several hours and I was just beginning to
contemplate going to bed -- Drew arrived and wanted to hang out
with everyone.  Those of us who were still awake accompanied him to
the coffee house at the Horseshoe, one of the few downtown eateries
open at 3am.  Drew ordered a steak and potato dinner for $3.  Thor
got a fruit fantasy.  I got a hot fudge sundae hidden beneath a gallon
of whipped cream.  Other people ordered other stuff.

Thursday morning reached my consciousness after too few hours of
sleep, bringing with it the second of many mild hangovers for me.
A bunch of us decided to head down to the Treasure Island for round 2
of Let's Not Let Bill Gamble.  Fuck 'em.  We splintered into smaller
groups and went our own directions.  Hawk, Dave Hemming, Thor, and
I ate lunch at the buffet and then headed for the blackjack tables.
Novak and the rest of the "We don't like to gamble, why don't we
hold the next DFS in a city with more bookstores" contingent went
off to do something else.  Like play slots.  Which isn't gambling.
Unless dropping your money in a locked box belonging to someone
else can be called gambling.

Thursday evening was our cocktail party reception.  Most people were
in town by that point, and the bunch of us had fun mingling and drinking
in a room overlooking the pool.  Lots of funny things were said.  I'll
have to defer to the Grand High Geek, Jim "For the First Time" Hill,
to remember them.  He was scribbling them all into his Palm Pilot.

I think we went out to the Horseshoe after the party.  I was having
no luck there.  The dealers couldn't have beat me worse if they'd had
sticks.  Oh, well.  Lady Luck must've been a wonderful gal; she never
was a friend of mine.  At least the only money the 'Shoe got from me
was the Treasure Island's.  At that point I felt like a sneakernet for
exchanging money between casinos.

Friday morning, another mild hangover, crack of noon, etc.
I dragged Chad, Thor, and Nathan down to the Strip to gamble at the
Bellagio.  I won a few hundred bucks and started bragging to the guys
about it.  They came over to watch me play, and I lost it all back.
Fuckin' whore, that Lady Luck.  At least the Bellagio is a beautiful
place with a friendly staff.  It makes losing a few hundred bucks an
almost agreeable proposition.

We came back in time for dinner.  Some of the key events, like Drew
being teased about his waitronly attire and Nathan being offered
several hundred dollars to do a strip dance in front of everybody,
have been chronicled elsewhere already so I won't repeat them.  And
aside from a few things like those, I don't really remember what
happened at the dinner versus what happened at the cocktail party.
The two events were in the same room with nearly the same cast of
characters and have blurred together in my memory, aided no doubt by
the multiplicity of margaritas and Long Island Iced Teas I drank
each night.  Oh, wait, there were the group prank calls to Darkelf's
sister and Judy Ghirardelli.  "Tell your brother he's a lame ass
uncle-fucker!" I shouted when someone was on the phone to the ill-lit
pixie's sibling.  At least, I hope it was her on the phone and not
Judy.  And then there was the posing for pictures with my tongue in
Mark Loy's ear.  Oh, how I look forward to seeing what images appear
on the 'net.

After the dinner I went back to the Bellagio to win back some of my
lost winnings.  Leigh Butler and Sydo Zandstra went with me.  That
gambling session went well, and I left with an extra few hundred
bucks in my pocket.  Just as we were going out the front door to
catch a cab ride home, I reached into my pocket to make sure I still
had my room key and I found another chip.  "Wot's this?" I asked.
Hoo-ah! Another black chip!  It seems I was playing 'possum with
myself.  Oh dear, you know it's a good night when you're feeling
great before noticing that you missed an extra $100 on your first
count.

Saturday, I grabbed that bitch Lady Luck by the scruff of the neck
and tied her up and raped her.  I was up $125 in 10 minutes at the
Four Queens, $500 in 30 minutes at the Horseshoe, and $400 in an hour
at the Venetian.  With that streak I recouped all my losses and then
some.  By the time dinner rolled around (after my rewarding maiden
voyage to the Venetian) I was up several hundred dollars on the whole
trip.  I was floating on cloud 9, what with several stiff drinks in
my stomach (the Big V makes a mean L.I. Tea) and enough money in my
pocket to buy a small third-world nation.

Drew was trying to herd everyone in for dinner at the Cheesecake
Factory at Caesar's Forum.  Oh, yeah, let's try to get a table for 20
on a busy Saturday night with no reservations.  Eight of us defected
to Bertolini's and had an excellent Italian repast with minimal
waiting required.  After an enjoyable and relaxing dinner, we wandered
back to the other side of the Forum to find the others _still_ waiting
for a table at the Cheesecake Factory.  They, at least, had the rousing
hourly entertainment of the King of Atlantis, complete with live actors,
thrones on elevator pedestals, fountains of flame, and a very convincing
animatronic dragon.  Alaric (I think) remarked that kids today are very
spoiled by getting entertainment such as this, compared to what we late
duogenarians enjoyed while growing up.  "Yeah," I said, "kids today have
great stuff like this.  We had Howdy Fuckin' Doody."

After dinner Hawk and I dragged Thor off to a sex toys store to
fulfill his wife's shopping list.  I won't comment on what Thor bought,
but I will reiterate that Hawk and I emerged proud owners of a 3 foot
long stuffed purple penis and a large, pillowy pair of stuffed purple
breasts.  We can now make one *HELL* of a scary Barney costume next
Halloween....

Leaving the profane toys prominently displayed on the back seat of the
car, we headed back to the north end of the Strip to go another round
with Lady Luck.  Circus Circus was crowded as all hell, so we tried
Slots o' Fun, which was also crowded as all hell, and was dumpy enough
to make the CC look like the Bellagio.  We crossed over to the Riviera,
where I found that Lady Luck had escaped the binds I left her in and
was getting back at me with a vengeance.  I pissed away something like
$700 there.  At another table, Hawk won almost as much as I lost.
I could have sworn I heard her dealer say something like, "Another
blackjack for you, madam.  Your third in a row!  Will you be needing
a tray to carry all those black chips?"

Well, it seems Lady Luck and I have a love-hate relationship.  She
got her yayas out by beating me with a stick at the Riviera, and she
was back to being my lovepuppy when we crossed the street to the
Stardust.  She was still with Hawk, too, so I guess you could say
we had a threesome of fortune going.  Hawk and I each withdrew
several hundred dollars from the House of Ziggy.  After that we went
back to the Treasure Island, where I won another $100 and Hawk lost
about $200.  We left at dawn and drove back downtown to see if
Steve Ginter was still at the Horseshoe.  He was.  We made fun of
his gambling habit and whacked him a few times with the 3 foot long
purple shlong.  Then we went to bed.

Sometime Sunday morning an earthquake hit Las Vegas.  I awoke to a
feeling of being shaken, figured it was just the throbbing of my
hangover inchoate, and went back to sleep for another few hours.
When I got up and started loading the car for the drive home, I
bumped into a few DFs in the lobby and said goodbye.  I wish I
could have seen more people one last time before we all bailed out
of town, but alas, it's amazing how screwed up one's schedule gets
when one only gets to bed at 6am.

Before leaving the City That Greed Built, Hawk and I stopped at the
Bellagio for lunch.  Hawk had wanted to make a quickie at McDonald's
instead but I wanted to take advantage of the comped meal for 2 the
Big B had given me.  We went to their cafe expecting it to be a
dinky little coffee shop and were pleasantly surprised to find it
an elegantly decorated restaurant overlooking a sprawling pool area
so perfect it looked like a shot from a James Bond movie set at a
Mediterranean resort.  She ordered a chicken salad and I ordered a
plate of ribs.  Each meal was the best of its kind we've ever eaten,
and would have cost many times the amount of equal sustenance from
McDonald's had we actually had to pay for it.  The tip alone was
about as much as the trip to McDonald's would have cost.  So we had
a James Bond lunch on a George Jefferson budget.  And we got to skip
past the long line of plebeians queued up to get in because we were
VIPs.  God, I love the Bellagio.  Now if only their rooms weren't so
expensive....  Of course, because I'm such a VIP there I can get
them for a mere $100 midweek, $140 weekends.

It was a fun time!  I'm looking forward to the next one.

-- 
Bill Garrett                       Misanthropology, n.: The study of why
wfg1 @ concentric.net               so many people are so damn stupid.