TEDDY VEGAS BACK FROM VEGAS.

TEDDY VEGAS BACK FROM VEGAS.

Every year for the last six, a bunch of guys who became friends during the course of a long-running Wednesday night basketball game in NYC (and many of whom have since moved to other parts of the country), gets together in Las Vegas for the second weekend of the NCAA basketball tournament for a bachanalia of basketball, blackjack and beer. We call ourselves the Vegas Pigs and I just returned from my 6th Annual Vegas Pigs reunion.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Like, say, my money. And part of my liver. Yes, Lady Luck bitch slapped me pretty good. And Jack Daniels and Johnny Walker treated me to some very tough love. Actually what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas unless it's something that you want to brag about. Like the basketball shots I made during our games. Somehow, the combination of sleep deprivation and drink conspired to elevate my game to unfamiliar altitudes (although my vertical leap remained fixed at the precise width of a Sunday circular.) Scantilly clad women be damned: What I thought about with a big smile on my face as I drifted off for my 3 hours of beauty rest each night, was the little highlight reel of my driving layups and outside shots. (Instead of the usual lowlight reel of clanged rims, bad passes and shots blocked by my defender's armpit).

ATTN: MIRRIAM-WEBSTER. ( NEW WORD OF THE TRIP.)

Rhino-Plastery noun. Rhino-plastered adj. The glazed, congealed, look of a man who has spent the night drinking Red Bulls and vodka and getting lap dances at the Spearmint Rhino and has now emerged--his body a toxic waste dump, his pockets turned out, his hand shielding his eyes from the harsh glare of the morning light. Usage. Rhino-Plastered. As in "B-Money was totally and completely rhino-plastered, but not as badly as last year when he actually sprouted sub-ocular scroti." Rhino-plastery as in: "I am pleased to report that the Vegas Pigs reunion was not an adventure in collective rhino-plastery."

POETIC FRAGMENT:

Truths hard and unbidden flash in his mind as the bells ding for another imaginary winner.

Vegas: The dream of action without consequence. The ancient mythology of escape.

Unplaced bets jangle in the pocket of possibility.

EPIPHANY OF THE TRIP:

There are only 2 possible responses to a follow up call about a delivery order.

1) It's on its way.
2) What order?

Really, when you think about it, there are no other alternatives. Which is why "It's on its way" is not always as reassuring a piece of information as it might initially seem.

RUNNING GAG OF THE TRIP:

There is a lounge performer in Vegas named Danny Gans--whose name and image are virtually ubiquitous on the strip and, I suppose, entirely unknown outside of it. We have, by the contribution (ok, collective hallucination) of a single consonant turned him into Danny Glans, Patron Saint of Priapic Prowess and Vitamin Vegas. I delight in watching him loom over the city on his billboards like Dr. TJ Eckleburg in the Great Gatsby--an unwitting prop in a private comedy, elevated by the addition of a single "L" from a campy Vegas act to the venerable icon of all things libidinous. I cannot look at his name without laughing. Danny F-cking Glans.

QUESTION OF THE TRIP:

As I passed by the New York, New York, I saw the simulacrum Empire State Building and the simulacrum Statue of Liberty. I couldn’t remember if there had ever been a model version of the World Trade Towers and, upon, inquiring, I learned that there had not. But it raised the question: If they had built facsimile twin towers in Vegas as part of NY NY, would they have had to take them down??? Would they have reflected too much mortal reality for Vegas to handle? The answer, I suppose, is yes.

CELEBRITY SIGHTING OF THE TRIP:

I'm at the roulette table at the Hard Rock and I see a bundle of bank bills fly through the air and hit the dealer in the chest. "Hey, Dennis" says the dealer. I turn and see that it's been thrown by Dennis Rodman. "How do you want the chips?" Dennis mumbles something incoherent and pushes his semi-hot girlfriend (Electra-lite) towards my seat. The dealer interprets the non verbal gesture for me. "He is wondering if she can sit there?" The trophy girl says to me, "Slide over, we can share the seat." I say, "No, I don't want your boyfriend to get all jealous and start a fight with me cause I hate beating guys up." She laughs and I give her my seat. Meanwhile Dennis continues to prowl and mumble, drawing attention to himself and then deflecting it. Then he leans over from behind the group to address his girlfriend and, in so doing, leans all of his weight on my shoulder. I say "Hey, I'm a big fan. But I think you're a bit too big for me to guard in the post here." He looks at me blankly, eyes totally unfocused, clearly drugged out of his mind. I try again. "Big fan. But uh...that's a lot of weight." He seems to vaguely get the point. He mumbles something else and returns to the side of the roulette table to pout and pose. He's a giant freak in the giant freak show that is Vegas and the dealers and Hard Rock personnel are treating him with kid gloves, like a Bull in a china shop. Part of me thinks he's Ferdinand the Bull. Gentle. Weird. Misunderstood. But his huge size and erratic behavior make me cautious. I really don't know is he's about to swing a punch and kill someone. I think how cool it would be to take a photo of the two of us and make up some crazy story about our night on the town together, but I think the better of it.

REFLECTION OF THE DAY:

To say “have a great day” instead of “have a nice day” is an upgrade that costs the offerer nothing and offers the recipient even less. An aggressively cheerful absurdity. An obstreperous inanity. A vaguely insulting nullity. And nothing more.

OBSERVATION:

He was struck by how one friend still spoke of his long-deceased father in the present tense whereas another tended to speak of his still living father in the past.

THE ARTLESSNESS OF THE DEAL:

Watching this new show "Deal or No deal?" on the flight out to Vegas (Jetblue). The riveting spectacle of people’s friends and family repeatedly selling them up the river by insisting they not settle for a deal and instead keep swinging for the increasingly distant probabilistic fences. Counsel which, in my limited viewing, led to them ending up with next to nothing time and again.

META-AWARENESS OF THE TRIP:

The way your group becomes the frame of reference (the prism of physiological types) through which all others get interpreted. Indeed, after I left my gang, I kept seeing doubles of my fellow Vegas ballers all over the airport. Everywhere I’d turn, there’s be a tall lanky guy with an understache (BMoney), or an athletic looking 6 foot mesomorph (Powerlock) or a stylishly-attired follicularly-challenged guy (D. Ballgame) or a very tall blonde guy with glasses (Chief). Upon closer examination, I could see that the people bore only the remotest resemblance to the friend I had mistaken them for. But it was interesting to see how the mind unconsciously organizes the world of infinite differences according to the primary reference points of the familiar.

TRIBUTE OF THE WEEKEND:

He left it all out there on the tables. He fought valiantly. He may have come back without his money, but he still had his dignity. Actually, no. I just remembered, he didn’t have that either. Ok, well he came back without his money or his dignity, but he still had his soul. That's right, he still had his…oh., no wait..I just remembered that little deal that transpired in the VIP room at Cheetah's. Ok, well, no soul. OK, well he lost his money, his dignity and his soul, but he still had…um…Liver. Yes, he still had his liver. Oh,wait...I forgot about all the bourbon and that business of waking up in a bathtub packed with ice and the mysterious incision. Ok, so, he didn;t come back with his liver. Ok, well, he lost his money, his dignity, his soul, a good chunk of his liver, but he still came back with his...um...what DO we have for our Vegas traveler Vanna, behind door number 3??? His appendix! Good! That's right Vanna. Thank you. Yes, he lost his money, his dignity, his soul, and a good chunk of his liver, but he came back with his appendix in tact. All in all, another triumphant trip to Vegas.

UNFUNNY TRUTH OF THE TRIP:

Vegas is a bad place to go if you're melancholy and contemplative. Nothing there reflects the human soul. Only the human appetites.

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Posted on 3/30/2006 ( Permanent Link )
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