A Letter From Oklahoma:

I am currently in Oklahoma visiting my family for the holidays, a far cry from my home in NYC.

The following is an exact quote directed towards me from one of my darling twin nieces, eleven years old:

"The land you live on may be worth ten million dollars, but the land I live on is worth as many bullets as I can put in the air."

Cheers, little girl. You win.

Happy Holidays

"Twas the week before Christmas when all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse."

... because I smashed that bitch with my shoe right on the counter top and put it straight through the garbage disposal just to send a message to all his other mouse buddies who might have the gall to sit right in front of my face and eat out of the grease trap of my George Foreman Grill while there's a salmon steak cooking on it and I'm trying to finely chop garlic two inches away on that same counter top.

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night."

"Ice-T" & Me? We have an understanding.

Several years ago I was sharing a shoebox two-bedroom apartment with three friends on the upper-west-side of Manhattan. Two roommates had to sleep on an air mattress in the living room. They were allowed cheaper rent as they were responsible for moving furniture and inflating and deflating their mattress every night and morning. The apartment was right behind Lincoln Center at 63rd & West End Ave., NYC.

There is an ultra-luxury building right across the street from the far-less-than-luxury building I was living in at the time. The property across the street had huge windows that were always freshly Windex’ed. The people that came in and out of the building were always dressed impeccably, like senior level HR women, or investment bankers, or high priced prostitutes. There were always taxi cabs waiting outside of the building. The drivers knew that these people were loaded.

I know all this because I love to skateboard. The luxury building across the street had these amazing curbs with angle iron attached to them. For those of you that don’t speak “skateboard”, just believe me when I say that it was awesome.

On the weekends during spring and summer, I loved nothing more than to skateboard on the curbs of the luxury building across the street. The best parts of the curbs were right by the exit of the building’s parking garage. As such, I would often have to stop, pick up my skateboard and step aside as the garage door would raise and a resident would pull their car out of the garage.

There was one Saturday when I was skateboarding early in the afternoon and I heard the ‘click’ that I had come to know as the sound of the garage door beginning to open. I picked up my skateboard and stepped aside.

The garage door slowly rose to reveal a cherry red Ferrari, its engine purring in idle. I dreweled for a hot minute and then wanted the car to move so I could Skate-or-Die.

The car just sat there so I looked through the windshield to the driver’s side.

It was Ice-T.

Ice-Fucking-T.

Cop Killa.

He had his left hand on the wheel, and his right hand between the legs of a ho (literally a ho in every sense of the word, you’ll just have to trust me) that was sitting in the passenger seat. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. As he idled his Ferrari in the driveway of the garage, he seemed much more focused on his right hand than his left.

Ice looked up and seemed startled when he realized that the garage door was already open. His eyes immediately fixed on me standing there with my skateboard. I did the stoic-chin-raising-head-tilting-back gesture while I looked at him with my eyeballs as if to say, “I didn’t see nothin’ man. I can keep shit on the DL, for realz.” Ice nodded at me with stern eyes and he drove away with his ho.

I took a deep breath.

I spent the next hour nervously shifting my eyes in preparation for men in black ski masks carrying silenced oozies to come and silence me. They never came. I continued to skateboard.

Over the next year this became a regular occurrence. The only difference was that Ice had a new ho and a new car every week.

I think this is what they call “The American Dream.” A new ho and a new car every week.

So basically, here’s how I figure:

Ice-T is cool with me skateboarding on his curb as long as I’m willing to keep my mouth shut about his hoes and his cars.

Well, Mr. Ice:

I don’t live across the street from you anymore and I’m busting the lid off of this story. I’m not scared of your silenced-oozie-toting ski-mask-wearing goons anymore because I live in Washington Heights now and I just downloaded a freeware security suite for my computer so there’s no way you can find me. Not even on my myspace account.

Take that, Cop Killa!

No, assholes. NOW it's personal!

Another tale from Washington Heights, NYC (the land of no-speak-y-english):

My neighborhood in NYC is populated about 99% by varying degrees of immigrants from The Dominican Republic. I love my neighborhood, but I would be lying if I said that the folks in my neighborhood didn’t occasionally make me want to pull my hair out.

As I jumped in the shower this morning I realized I was running dangerously low on soap, shampoo, conditioner, and whatnot. I made due with what little I had left. Meaning, I popped the tops off of all the bottles and filled them part way with water as to dilute each substance to get a little extra mileage, you know the drill.

After my shower, I decided to head over to Rite-Aid and restock on shower supplies. I like going to Rite-Aid in my neighborhood because they are a national chain and therefore usually manage to hire employees who are not complete retards. (I know this sounds counterintuitive but trust me, in my neighborhood, when compared to their privately owned contemporaries, Rite-Aid employees come off like NASA engineers).

I ran around the store for about half an hour collecting all my items in my little basket. As I was laying everything on the checkout counter I noticed an Adidas box-set way up high behind the counter. It had body wash, deodorant, aftershave, and a little bottle of Adidas cologne. I had just collected nearly all Adidas products one-by-one around the store. I figured I could just get the box-set and save a little money. I ask the woman at the check-out counter, “How much is that Adidas Sports Package?”

The woman turns her back and looks up at the display case. I don’t think I ever saw her look directly at the product I wanted, but regardless, she turns around and says, “nine-nine-nine”.

Not, “nine-ninety-nine”, mind you. No. Just, “nine-nine-nine”.

I figure she means “$9.99” because all the products separately would come to around “$16.00” and that would be a reasonable savings.

“Cool! I’m going to go put all this stuff back and just get that box-set instead. I’ll be right back.”

I ran around the store and put all the items back on the shelves exactly where I got them. I got in the back of the line and waited to check-out again. I figured someone would have taken the time while I was putting everything back to get my Adidas Sports Package down from the top shelf behind the check-out counter, and it would be waiting there for me. Of course not. That would have been far too logical.

Instead, when I got back to the register the cashier looked at me like she’d never seen me before. This is particularly ridiculous because aside from the fact that I shop there all the time, there isn’t another long-haired-white-dude besides myself within fucking miles of this place. Anyway, I decided to hold back my rage because I was certain that someone would give me better reason to unload, shortly.

The cashier continued to stand there with this confused “Can I help you?” look on her face.

A special note to readers: I hate when people have confused looks on their faces when they should be crystal clear as to what is going on. Seriously, it makes me want to start throwing things just so they’ll change their expression from confused to terrified, at least. Call me petty.

I looked back at her with a look of utter disbelief and said,

“Uh, yeah. Didn’t we just go over this two minutes ago?”
>
She still looked confused. I hate that.

I then gestured wildly up to the top shelf behind the check-out counter and said uber-curtly, “Can you get than down for me so I can buy it, please?!” The woman then looked over to her male co-worker who then walked over and asked me what he could help me with.

I grit my teeth and tell the man what I want. He nods knowingly and quickly runs to the back of the store. I assume he’s retrieving a ladder or something.

So I wait, and wait.

Finally he comes back with a step ladder and asks, “Ok, what do you need again, boss?”

Please tell me he didn’t just ask me again.

Oh. My. God.

Through my blinding rage, instead of smashing him, I somehow managed to make a joke that went directly over his head, of course.

“No man, not BOSS, ADIDAS!!!”

He gets up on his ladder and takes down an Axe Body Spray box-set and hands it down to the cashier, and she rings it up. I am now in complete and utter fucking disbelief. Fuse now burning dangerously short.

“No man! ADIDAS! ADIDAS! It’s right there! That big ass box that has “ADIDAS” written all the fuck over it! ADIDAS! Jesus!”

He looks back up at the display case still standing on his ladder and grabbed a really girly-like bath oil package. They oils were in a straw basket filled with hay or some shit.I gave him the benefit of the doubt and thought maybe he was moving the girly-like package so he could reach my package… although this didn’t really make sense because it wasn’t in the way.

But no. He handed the cashier the girly-like package and she rang it up.

I totally lost it.

“DUDE, JUST LOOK AT YOUR FUCKING SHOES, MAN!"

The idiot on the ladder looks down at his shoes, reads the emblem embroidered on the tongue and says,

“Oh! Adidas!”

I wanted to kick that ladder right out from under him.

Come the fuck on, people.


*After "OK", "Coke" and "Marlboro", surely "Adidas" is pretty high up on the list of most internationally recongnized words. Fuckin' seriously, man. Damn.

Adventure: North Brother Island

I have a new adventure planned.

I am going to sail my ass on a makeshift raft to North Brother Island.

What is North Brother Island? Good question.

I was playing around with Google Earth and was checking out Riker’s Island Penitentiary in detail. You can see the recreation yards and guard towers and all kinds of cool shit. In my mind I always pictured Riker’s to be one massive fortress. This is not the case. It’s a huge multi-facility compound. I didn’t know that.

Anyway, as I swung my aerial view back towards the city I came across a full blown island that I had never heard of. North Brother Island.

North Brother Island is between Riker’s Island and The Bronx sitting in the East River, NYC. It’s a thirteen acre island in the middle of the East River, and lots of New Yorkers don’t even know it exists. There is a reason for that.

North Brother Island is abandoned and off-limits to the public. As such, one might imagine that it has a fascinating history. One would be right. From around 1880 until 1960 the island was home to several hospitals which warranted the quarantining of its patients. Epidemic diseases, mental patients, drug addicts. In 1960 the island was home to what was supposed to be a cutting edge treatment facility for teenage drug addicts. However, widespread staff corruption caused withdrawal of funding and the program closed, as did the island. Aside from the occasional Riker’s Island escapee who uses the island as a temporary haven after a long swim, North Brother Island has been completely abandoned ever since.

I am going to fucking go there.

I’ve done a little research(see: I've become completely obsessed) and apparently there are all kinds of cool remnants lying around the ruins of the hospital units. Beds, old medical instruments, solitary cells, padded rooms, all kinds of awesome shit.

I am so fucking jazzed about this.

Rafts will be built. Intel will be gathered. Risks will be taken.

Being that this adventure is absurdly dangerous, I will be recruiting a few more adventurers to come along. The usual adventure crew will be invited--Warren, Sam & Mat. I also invited Tynan of BetterThanYourBoyfriend to jet out from Austin if he’s interested, as I appreciate his taste for adventure.

It’s getting cold, so this may have to wait until spring. We’ll see.

Other interesting things about North Brother Island:

• A major nautical disaster occured in the East River in 1904 when a ship of daytrippers burned. Over 1,000 of the 1,300 passengers on board were killed. Their bodies washed up on the shore of North Brother Island, as did the ship. Photos and accounts of this are easily accessible with a google search.

• "Typhoid Mary" spent her last years quarantined in a private cottage on North Brother Island.

• Since it's abandonment over 45 years ago, the island and ruins are overgrown with vegetation/vines/ivy and it has become a sanctuary for rare birds.

I am going to North Brother Island.
Fuck, I just might spend the night.

Seriously, how nuts would it be to spend the night in "Typhoid Mary's" old private cottage?

You Just Never Know

After the badass medieval festival at Fort Tryon last weekend, my roommate brought one of his friends over to hang out at the apartment.

My roommate is awesome, so I look forward to any of his company.

I am told that the friend is a doctor, an M.D. More specifically, he is a practicing substance abuse therapist and pain management expert.

Huh, okay.

Anyone who knows me knows that having an addiction specialist tooling around my apartment could quite possibly put a little cramp in my lifestyle.

I guess I won’t be sitting in the living room drinking beer and smoking bowls tonight.

Wrong.

Out of the blue, my roommate’s doctor friend whipped out a doctor's bag full of various substances.

Huh, okay.

Long story short:

Wait, hold on. Before I tell you this, I think I should preface by saying that I very rarely do drugs. Well, since high school anyways. But, man. This guy had some serious holdings. I'm not going to go into specifics, but this situation warranted an exception to anyone's convictions.

The good doctor, the roommate and I spent the whole night partying hard out of the doctor's magic bag, drinking, and…

…wait for it…

…watching several back-to-back episodes of “Intervention” while The Good Doctor, high as a fucking kite, diagnosed and treated all the patients from my living room couch.

Fucking priceless.

Rain, Rain, Go Away. Don't Come Back.

Three things I would rather deal with than rain on a Friday in NYC:


















Anyway, I'm headed down to "On The C" to have a few beers and shoot a couple games of pool if anyone wants to join me. It's at Ave. C and 8th Street... basically.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Four Brothers

Ok, here’s another “we’re wasted and leaving the bar at 4am story.”

(the crowd cheers)

Three friends and I closed down the Raccoon Lodge on the upper west side last summer, and as usual we were twelve sheets to the wind.

It was myself, a friend named Trevor (tattoo artist), a guy named Jason (pasty/dessert chef at Serendipity) and Mat. You may remember Mat from the swimming the lake in Central Park story. He was the tough guy in the bikini briefs.

We’re weaving down the sidewalk going home when Mat starts with his usual tough guy thing. He starts telling us about the time he was in on a remote Indian reservation hunting coyotes with his bare hands when he ran into a buffalo stampede. He says he puffed out his chest and stood fast like a brick wall while hundreds of buffalo traveling at full speed bounced off him like rubber balls. Then a tribe of wild Indians in full attack mode came galloping in on horses and swinging hatchets and shooting arrows. Mat wiped out the whole tribe with nothing more than a cold stare. The Indian chief was spared and recognized Mat’s warrior instinct. The chief took Mat to the top of a sacred mesa and performed a secret ritual that inducted Mat into the tribe as a true blood warrior.

Well, not really, but you get the point.

In the middle of the story Mat stops himself, turns to Trevor and I and says,

“Hey, I bet I could take both of you at the same time in a wrestling match.”

Trevor and I share a glance. We both look back at Mat.

“You’re on. Twenty bucks a man.”, I reply.

Considering how you look at it, this is probably a bad bet for me and Trevor. If Mat wins, he’ll win forty bucks, twenty from me and twenty from Trevor. If Trevor and I win, we’ll only receive ten bucks each as we would split Mat’s twenty. Whether or not this is a good or bad bet depends on how you calculate the odds that either party will win.

For it to be a good bet, I have to be certain that Trevor and I are at least twice as likely to beat Mat as he is to beat us. Do the math.

I could get into more details about the odds, but I’ll spare you.

So we find a side street that doesn’t have a lot of traffic and we discuss the rules.

Very simple, if we can pin Mat’s shoulders for three seconds, we win. If Mat can pin either one of us for three seconds, he wins. Period.

We assign Jason, who’s looking a little green in the face, to be the referee. Jason sits down on the curb and leans back against the fire hydrant.

Mat, Trevor and I all walk out into the middle of the street.

In case I haven’t mentioned this, Mat is huge. Like, 6’4”, 220 pounds, and athletic.

Trevor and I are about the same size, 5’11”, 145 pounds.

This is not going to be easy, to say the absolute least.

Mat takes his shirt off and starts pumping himself up.

Trevor and I look at each other with an eyebrow-raising head-tilting “here goes nothin’” kind of look.

Jason, our referee mumbles “Go.”

Trevor and I start circling Mat. Mat has his arms straight out to the sides turning around slowly as we circle, trying to keep us both in sight.

I shoot in and wrap up Mat’s legs and yell at Trevor to push him over from the top. Mat kicked me off like a small dog trying to hump his leg.

Ah crap, this is gonna suck.

A few more attempts at the same strategy and Trevor and I get our timing perfect and get Mat down on the street.

Trevor and I both jump on top of Mat and try to get him pinned.

Ain’t happenin’.

We were all rolling around in the middle of the street like one of those dust balls from the cartoons. You know, where an arm or leg can occasionally be seen emerging. We are all getting very tired.

Finally, I think I have Mat pinned and I yell for Jason to start the three-count.

I look down and I definitely have Mat pinned. The problem is that Mat has Trevor pinned at the same time.

We all struggle for a couple more minutes, but it’s not doing any good.

We agree to call a truce and let it go to a judge’s decision.

We slowly get to our feet while examining our bloody knees and elbows and foreheads and god knows what else. Mat’s shoulder blades looked like he’d been dragged by a car. I proudly take credit for that.

We take a moment to catch our breath.

Almost simultaneously we all look over to Jason to ask him who won.

Sure enough, Jason is passed out cold leaning up against the fire hydrant with his mouth hanging open and his eyes rolled back in his head.

Needless to say, as the three combatants, we were fairly pissed about this.

We made a deal and came to a reasonable agreement. We decided to call it a tie.

As such, Mat gave us each half of what he owed, and we each gave Mat half of what we owed. In the end, Mat was ten bucks richer. Funny thing is that ten bucks wasn’t going to come close to what he was going to have to spend to fix himself up.

Trevor and I didn’t look too pretty either. I had to wear long sleeves to work for a week in the middle of summer to cover my cuts and bruises.

Anyway, we slapped Jason in the face until he woke up and limped and hobbled home.

Wanna hang out with my friends and me this weekend?



*Aside: A rarity for me, I got through this whole post withough cursing once.

Corky-1, Ryan-0

I'm walking down Third Ave. on my lunch break, heading to the bank, when I see a big guy walking towards me who is swinging one arm rather enthusiastically with each step. With the sidewalk crowded, it becomes obvious that I'm going to have to walk right by this guy, building on one side, him on the other. I don't think anything of it as we see weirder shit than this everyday in New York, enough to where a guy swinging his arm doesn't qualify in the least as weird.

The guy gets closer and I just naturally assume when we pass each other he will curtail the over-the-top arm gymnastics.

But no.

POW! Right in the face! My $80 Puma sunglasses (which I got for $25 at Century 21)break and fall to the ground and I immediately respond quite reasonably with,

"Dude, what are you fucking retarded?!"

I take my eyes off my broken sunglasses on the ground to look the guy in the face, when my question is quickly answered.

Yes. He is very much retarded.

My bad, son.

Existence Justified

I got an invitation to sit at the cool kids table.

My new blog buddy Kate invited me to a bar crawl later this month with all the cool kids of the highly incestuous NYC blogger scene. Yeah, wicked incestuous and bordering on cultish.

When I first started this site I wanted absolutely nothing to do with that scene. It was such a turn off for me to read these people's blog posts about their own blog and stupid shit like that. All the name dropping/linking of their blog friends in every pointless post irritated the shit out of me.

I still feel this way.

But, I'm actually looking forward to this get together.

I look forward to meeting the people I read everyday, like Larry and Chris and Payj and several others.

I also look forward to meeting some people whose blogs I don't read but probably should.

Larry is one of the reasons I started a blog in the first place. Thanks to his blogroll, my third post ever was picked up by Gawker.

Speaking of Gawker, Heather seems like a doll.

Even though Chris totally blew it on Cash Cab, I'm sure he's a decent human being that I won't hate. His blog is really fun. Of course if MySpace is any indicator, we're already 'friends'.

Last but certainly not least, I am so totally excited about giving Alice a hard time in person. Pulling her pigtails over the internet has lost its charm.

I'll let everyone know how it went and who I slept with.

Parents: Sidewalks Are Not Toilets For Children

I’ve seen something happen twice in the past month that I don’t ever want to see again--

Parents allowing their children to urinate on public sidewalks in broad fucking daylight.



Has this been happening for a long time and I just haven’t noticed?

Last weekend I was on my way to Riverside Skatepark when I very nearly walked right through a stream of urine being expelled from a toddler. I was walking down the sidewalk staring up at the trees when I saw something out of the bottom corner of my eye(toddler). Luckily I looked down just in time to jump out of the way of this pissing little pissant’s piss. The kid was standing in the grass while pissing onto the sidewalk! And his CPS-case-in-the-making of a father was standing right there beside him. I don't mean that I almost stepped in a puddle of pee, I mean that had I not jumped out of the way, this kid would have pissed directly on me.

I mean, what the hell?

Would it really be that hard to take your kid twenty feet off the beaten path and find a tree or something? If that’s too hard, turn around 180 degrees and stand on the sidewalk and piss into the grass. I mean, what the hell is wrong with you?

Then yesterday I leave the office to head home. I’m walking down Third Ave. at 50th St. during rush hour when I see it again. There is a toddler pissing right in the middle of the goddamn sidewalk on Third Ave. At rush hour! His mother was standing right there behind him.

You can’t be fucking serious!

Maybe this kid is a reincarnation of Moses or something because he parted the traffic on a busy Manhattan sidewalk like it was nothing. People were scrambling to not only avoid trampling the kid, but more importantly to not be pissed on.

This shit has to stop, New York.

Let me be very clear--

Study the picture of my face at the top of this blog. If you see me on the street walking in your direction while your kid is pissing on the sidewalk, you’d better fucking run, motherfucker! I will drop kick your kid into the middle of the street and then grind your nose in their mess.

CLEAR?

Another New York Moment

A few friends of mine and I shut down our local bar around 4AM on a Friday night last October. As tradition dictated, we walked a few blocks over to Central Park to find our favorite spot to cause trouble. The rocks by the lake always paid dividends in this respect. It’s somewhere in the area of 72nd St. on the west side of the park.

The path we usually take to get to our spot leads to a rock cliff with about a nine foot drop to a sand bar below. One has the option of jumping down to the level below or walking around and down to get to our little spot. Since I’m a really smart guy, I know that the shortest distance between two places is a straight line. I’m in for the jump. I turn to my friend Sam, who will rarely back down from a challenge, and say,

“Hey, if you do it, I’ll do it,” and I motioned towards the cliff. Sam must have known immediately from the look in my eye what I was going to say because before I could finish an eight word sentence, literally, Sam had hurled himself off the cliff without even looking over the edge first. Wow, balls.

Okay. I had jumped off this particular cliff a few times, and I know it’s something you have to prepare for. It’s dark, it’s a long way down and there is all kinds of nasty debris on the landing.

Sam is a reasonably fit guy, able bodied and strong willed. Even so, I was pretty sure that anyone who did what Sam just did would more than likely not be okay. They would be hurt. My notion was supported by the grunting and moaning coming from the bottom of the cliff.

I crouched on the edge of the cliff, found where I wanted to land and took flight. I landed a few feet away from Sam just as he was getting to his feet. He actually seemed to be okay with only a couple complaints about an aching foot. Good for Sam. Sam is man.

Sam and I got to our spot on the rocks by the lake before the other three guys did. Pat, Warren and Matt showed up a couple minutes later because they took the dress shoe route, around and down.

At our spot we all sat or stood on rocks, talking about whatever, when Warren turns to Mat and says,

“Mat, I’ll pay you $100 to swim across this lake right now. All the way across.”

Mat’s eyes got really big and he immediately starting taking his clothes off and got down to his bikini briefs. This is particularly funny because Mat is a really big tough guy. He’s got be at least 6’4”, 220 pounds, and not fat. Yep, big scary guy standing at the edge of the lake in Central Park at four in the morning wearing bikini briefs. This may not be as uncommon as I thought, as later in life I heard that this is a very popular “cruising spot”. I don’t wanna know.

I’m sure Mat’s enthusiasm in regards to the proposition had a lot to do with the fact that he was newly unemployed. In addition, he had managed to completely botch his state unemployment claim and now receives a total of $38/week income. By comparison, it would be like someone offering me around $3,000 to swim the lake. I don’t blame him for being excited. (See: Einstein's Theory of Relativity)

Remember, this is October in New York City. It was about 43 degrees fahrenheit outside. Warren argued it was in the low-50’s, at least.

Mat took a couple deep breaths. Even though he doesn’t believe in god Matt said a quick prayer where I overheard something about dirty needles in his feet. I don’t know.

Mat literally set one foot in the water, spun right around and said there was no way in hell he was going to do it. It was way too cold. Of course everyone started goading him but he wouldn’t budge. He said it was just too cold.

At that point I immediately offered to take the bet myself. Warren, who had originally offered the bet looked at me and said,

“No. I know you’ll do it. That’s not the point.”

I had a feeling that’s what he would say. But everybody in attendance was already worked up and wanted to see someone swim the lake.

Warren’s a very bright guy and proceeded to make everyone the following offer:

Warren, Pat, Mat & Sam would each pay me $25 to swim the lake. Someone would have to cover Matt’s portion as we already know he’s broke.

Warren has a gift for working a great deal for himself in any situation. He was ready to bet Mat $100 out of his pocket to swim the lake, and all the other guys would have gotten to enjoy the spectacle on Warren’s dime. Now Warren has worked a new deal to make everyone else pay to bet someone whom they already know will swim the lake. Nice work.

Of course, I take the deal. I strip down to my boxers and approach the water. The film on the top of the water containing algae and god know what else made it impossible to see the bottom. Great. I don’t believe in god either but I think I said the same prayer Mat did. I added broken glass to the prayer.

Mat was right. It was really cold, but probably manageable. I mean, we’re not talking about immmediate hypothermia or anything. I waded slowly into the water, being extremely careful with every step. My focus was so intensely concentrated on the nerves in my feet that I think I could have read a newspaper with my toes, no brail. I could have identified Coke over Pepsi with the soles of my goddamn feet right then, I swear.

Once the water got up to mid-thigh or so, I started swimming because I couldn’t fucking wait to get my feet off the bottom of this death trap. The bottom of the lake slowly dropped out from under me and the cold began to set in much faster than I thought it would.

I swam faster.

I got to the middle of the lake and was getting kind of tired. I stopped and treaded water for a few seconds to get my wind back. Apparently it worried my friends when they stopped seeing the splashes because they all starting screaming words of encouragement,

“You’re half way there man!”

“You can do it!”

“Keep going!”

I have pretty smart friends, but to this day I’m surprised at how scripted their encouragements seemed.

“Shut up dicks! I’m just resting!” I yelled back.

They shut up.

I started swimming again.

I was wearing a really old pair of boxer shorts in which the elastic in the waist was completely worn out and stretched. While I was swimming, the drag of the water kept pulling my boxers down. Accordingly, I had to stop swimming to pull up my stupid underwear several times. This began to take up a lot of precious energy and was completely killing my momentum.

I had to let the boxer shorts go.

I hated this idea for several incredibly obvious reasons, but the job had to be done. As hard as this decision was initially, I have to admit that it was a rather liberating experience when I finally roundhouse-kicked the boxer shorts off my left ankle with an aquatic propulsion force matched only by the finest U.S. made nuclear submarine.

I gargled through the last third of my swim across the lake at Central Park completely naked. The other side started getting closer and closer and finally I felt the bottom again. Oh god. Not again. Being the genius that I am, I didn’t think about having to deal with the bottom while getting out of the lake also. To make things worse, I am now naked. (See also: Completely Exhausted)

I stay in the lake, laying motionless in the shallow water with only my head sticking out. I look around for my friends, moving only my eyes.

I feel like a naked Navy Seal.

Fuck its cold.

I started shivering pretty badly and decided I had to get out of the water. I floated up as close as I could to the bank, where the water was only a few inches deep. I stood up and made a hot-coal'esque scramble through the shallow water to the shore where I found a sadly small tree for cover.

There I was standing two feet from the main walking path, shivering violently and completely naked. More than the sole embarrassment of being naked in public, I was really concerned that a gaggle of hot twenty something chicks would walk by and think that my penis was really that small.

“No, no! It’s the cold, I swear!”

It's amazing how priorities change in extreme circumstances.

Thankfully there were no hot girls around as far as I could tell, and I could see my friends coming around the path carrying my clothes. They were still pretty far away.

I screamed at the top of my lungs,

“I WANT MY PANTS WITH MY FUCKING MONEY IN THE POCKET!”

I see my friends chuckle from a distance and continue to take their sweet ass time walking up the path. Sam seems to be limping.

Another sudden priority shift.

Let me try to explain something about being naked, cold, and alone in the middle of the night in a location where record numbers of murders and all kinds of mind-blowing violent crimes occur:

Every second seems like a fucking year. I cannot stress this enough, as the proper words do not exist in the English language.

The guys obviously didn’t understand the urgency of the matter.

“HURRY THE FUCK UP! I’M NAKED AND I AM GOING TO GET KILLED!”

This got their attention.

Speaking of getting attention, I realized that the exact words that I screamed should have been chosen more carefully. I mean, if some sicko really was lurking in the shadows of Central Park waiting for the right victim on which to pull off some crazy sex-murder, which guy would they target? Probably the one standing there screaming about being naked with money in his pants, right?

All my friends started laughing hysterically from a couple hundred feet away. I was not laughing. Warren, great guy that he is, starting jogging up the path with my clothes but he was laughing so hard that I wasn’t sure he was going to make it. It was the first time I'd seen someone almost fall down from running and laughing at the same time.

Finally he arrived to find me, sure enough, shivering and naked. He was laughing so hard he couldn’t even hand me my clothes. I had to snatch them from him and get them on as fast as possible, which isn’t easy when you’re wet.

Pat, Mat and Sam all found us a minute or so later. Sam was definitely limping.

We headed back up the path to leave the park and go home. I used the time to collect my winnings from everyone.

Warren was still laughing.

Sam wouldn't stop bitching about his stupid foot.

Pat complained that the whole thing wasn't worth his $25.
That’s Pat in a nutshell, but you gotta love Pat.

Mat had a silent defeat about him.

The sun was starting to come up.

Alas, the punchline:

We were all walking down Broadway, tired, drunk and just blocks from home. I was also getting a little queasy, and I wasn't sure why. We were passing by a group of tourists who were standing in front of thier hotel waiting for a cab with their luggage. At the exact moment that we walked by the tourists I vomited, while walking, never missing a beat. The tourists all gasped and looked shocked and a little scared.

Immediately, the tourists' shock turned to absolute confusion when I turned to them and quipped ever so matter-of-factly,

“What? It’s just lake water.”


***Later that morning, we all woke up to Sam's voice on the answering machine. He was in the hospital with a broken heel.

Read the original New York Moment.

The Ties That Bind

For some reason I woke up wicked early this morning and couldn't go back to sleep.

It's Saturday and I woke up bright eyed at 7:30am.


Unacceptable.

I went into the kitchen to retrieve my lighter that I had left on the stove the night before so I could smoke my good morning cigarette.

I heard the TV on in the living room and realized my roommate(whom I have had a couple problems with) was already awake too.

I poked my head in and the following conversation commenced.

Me: "Hey man, what are you doing up this early?"

Roommate: "I don't know. I just woke up and I couldn't go back to sleep."

Me: "Weird, me too. Hey, I'm going downstairs to grab a sixer. You want anything?"

Roommate:(laughing) "So, you're just going to drink yourself back to sleep?"

Me: "Exactly. Why, is that weird?"

Roommate: "I'll take Corona."

Put Me In, Coach

For those of you that don't know, I am a part-time poker dealer in NYC. I run all kinds of games ranging from your company Christmas party -- to underground high stakes Wall Street games -- to your run of the mill casino themed bar mizvah.

My agent(yeah, some part-time poker dealers have agents) called me yesterday and told me that a client is looking for a poker dealer for a photo shoot. She asked if I was interested.

Hell yeah. What a stupid question.

Normally, as a poker dealer I am contracted to be paid "x" amount of dollars per hour based solely on my poker dealing skills (combined with the likelihood that I will actually show up to the job). It seems reasonable to me that I could demand that my standard going rate be multiplied several times for the use of my "image and likeness" in this commercial publication.

My agent asked that I e-mail her a couple of appropriate photos that she could forward to the client for consideration. I told her that that wouldn't be a problem and that the photos where on their way.

I began looking through the depths of hell on my computer for appropriate photos. I soon realized that I didn't have one single picture of myself that accurately represents what I look like now.

Problem?

Solution.

I enlisted my girlfriend who has an amazing amateur eye for what looks good on film.

I sat down in a chair in my apartment with a deck of cards and a couple stacks of chips, and told her to start snapping while I fooled around with my tools.

Thanks to the mirror (and Caroline’s spooky-good photography skills), this picture catches me tracking the Ace of Spades to the middle of the deck and cutting it directly to the bottom with one hand.

(Click to enlarge, seriously.)


I have always been very hesitant to post clear pictures of my face on this blog, or anywhere online for that matter, but I couldn’t resist this one.

I Always Miss the Good Stuff

How does this happen? I don’t get it.

I spent the first 19 years of my life in a part of the Midwest called Tornado Alley. Tornadoes are a dime a fucking dozen down there. I never actually saw one though. Several tornadoes a year for nearly twenty years and I never ever got to see one, as they never came within fifty miles of my house, which I guess is a good thing, but still… When I left that region of the country to come to NY, I also left my hopes of ever seeing a tornado in person.

I turned on the news today and saw that there was a fucking waterspout (tornado over water) in the Hudson River! I basically live on the bank of the Hudson River, and I didn’t see it. Are you telling me that I could have just walked outside and seen a fucking tornado on the Hudson River? You have to be fucking kidding me. How do I always miss this shit?

When the big head-butt of the World Cup final game went down, I was in the bathroom.

New York City Blackout

Yes, I realize this happened a long time ago.

When the big NYC Blackout occurred, I remember that the first thing I thought was, “If I don’t come out of this with a great story, I’m pathetic.”

Well, not only did I get a story, I got some pictures too.

I was working for a pair of Oscar-winning movie-making-mogul brothers at the time. My office in Tribeca shut down around the time of the blackout, maybe two or three in the afternoon, I don’t remember. The local bar was unloading all of its beer for half price so I stayed there drowning myself in half-price love until around six o’clock. Knowing that I would never see this good of a deal again, I drank as many bottles of Budweiser as I possibly could, as fast as I possibly could. I got totally seriously hammered and decided I should probably start walking back to my apartment in Queens.

Yep, I had to walk from Tribeca to Astoria(for the non-New Yorkers, that’s really fucking far). I think it was pretty hot that day, too. Again, my memory of this day isn’t so sharp. Good times.

I stopped by a deli which was selling its cooler goods for basically nothing. I grabbed a 6-pack of Coors tall-boys to throw in my bag for the walk home to Queens.

After a couple hours of walking and rubbernecking, I finally got to the Queensboro Bridge.

This is the sea of people at the foot of the bridge, Manhattan side going to Queens.


I stood there for a while looking around and taking in the scene when I saw a lot of black smoke and what looked to be an apartment fire.

I’m really awesome when I’m drunk so I made a bee-line straight for the fire.

I saw the huge red brick wall that is at least four or five stories tall. It supports an overpass that runs right by the apartment building(pictured below). So what should I do? Climb the wall of course.

Drunk people should climb walls to get very close to fire.



I scaled the wall with my bag over my shoulder. I still had two beers left. No way in hell I was leaving those behind. I got scared a couple times on the way up because the finger-holds between the bricks got really small, and it was a long way down by that point. People were cheering for me. People tend to do that a lot.

Public Service Announcement: Never begin to climb anything which you are not certain that you can summit. Getting stuck sucks.

After a pretty shaky climb I finally threw my leg over the top of the wall and sat on the overpass to catch my breath. I repeatedly flexed and relaxed my fingers, as my fingers were very angry with me.

That’s when I saw where the fire was.

(Click to enlarge)


Oh fucking sweet!

I challenge anyone to tell me the last time they were completely alone in a pitch black NYC with a burning car twenty feet away. You can't. I am the only person this has ever happened to.

This is a real life car on real life fire and I was the only one there to see it… for about two minutes.

Then the NYPD and the FDNY ruined my party.

They had the sense to stay a block away from the burning car while they repeatedly instructed me over the PA on the fire engine to “leave immediately”. I was a little too busy messing with the settings on my crappy camera to take them seriously.

I realized they were serious when I looked up and saw a fleet of New York's Finest sprinting towards me with black steel batons shouting things that I would rather not repeat on record.

I got the fuck out of dodge and started to climb back down the wall, but not before I got this picture of New York’s Bravest putting out the fire.

(Click to enlarge)


I guaran-fucking-tee you that there is no way I would have made it down that wall without the adrenaline that came from running from the cops. I slipped off the wall with about 10 feet to go and somehow landed solid on my feet. A lot of people below were watching me come down the wall, and it drew a lot of attention. They were cheering again, I'm used to it. There were several gasps when I slipped, and several relieved sighs when I landed.

I immediately blended into the crowd and made my way home.

Several people went to great lengths to follow me into the crowd crossing the bridge. I guess there's really nothing better to do during a blackout. A few people who were trailing behind me while I was trying to make myself lost in the crowd congratulated me or asked me questions about what I was doing on the wall.

I only responded with, "I got lost."

How To Lose $400 in Five Minutes Playing Poker.

The first step is to find an underground poker club in NYC and talk your way in past the extremely skeptical club owner who inevitably thinks you are a cop.

You did it? Great!

Once you’re inside, buy $300 in chips and take them to an available seat at a $1/$2 No-Limit table. Sit down in the seat.

You’re doing well. The hard part is now behind you.

You will be sitting at the table in late-middle position and you will be dealt J-J on your very first hand. Nice. For anyone interested in learning the best methods of losing all your money as quickly as possible, remember this hand. J-J works perfectly almost every time.

Someone before you will raise to $15 and you will then re-raise to $50. Everyone else at the table will fold, and the original raiser will call your re-raise. Aren’t you excited?

The flop will come: Q 10 10

Your opponent will check to you and you should bet out for $100 to try to take it down right there. If you’re lucky, your opponent will then check-raise all-in for your remaining $150. At this point you will have to fold because you know that you’re beat. Nice. You’re off to a great start losing money! Isn’t this fun?

Don’t worry about the fact that you didn’t lose all of your money on that one hand because you will get another chance on the very next deal. Life is awesome.

You know, at this point you should just go ahead and buy another $100 in chips, so that you have more to lose on the next hand. Good idea, right? Hell yeah. Let’s have some fun.

On the next hand, you will be dealt A-Q. I love this hand because its almost as good if not better than JJ for losing all your money, and I fucking love losing all my money. Keep a lookout for A-Q and when you have it you should play in hard all the way. I guarantee you will lose thousands eventually.

When it’s your turn to act, raise to $15. You’ll get two callers.

The flop will come. Q 6 8, two spades.

Since you’re first to act, lead at the pot with a $40 bet. One opponent will fold and the other will raise you to $120 total. Take time to relish in this moment, as you are very close to losing all your money. Re-raise your opponent all in for your last $200 or so. They will call your raise and will turn over 5-7 suited in spades. Your opponent will hit a 9 on the very next card, cinching a straight and taking away any chance you have of winning the pot.

Congratulations champ! You did it!

You just lost $400 in five minutes playing cards. That wasn’t so hard, was it?

The long train ride home will be the best part of this experience as it will give you nothing but time to relive every awesome second of what just happened to you.

Poker Tournament: Part II

--If you haven't read Part I, read it first.
--If you don't care about poker, skip this post and the next one. You'll find something you like.

By the look of the competition I’d already decided that being a bully would give me the best chance of winning this thing. So I went in full steam ahead. Blinds start at 25-50.

I raised the first three hands from middle/late position with garbage and got a couple callers as could be expected. The flop came out, it was checked to me, I fired with nothing and everyone folded. Three hands in a row. Too easy.

The next hand I was dealt 7-5 off-suit and raised to $200 from early-middle position. Don’t tell me this a bad play because I know that it usually is. However, in this case I had already established control over the table and was willing to toss away $200 chips to keep that control. I needed them to think that anytime they get involved with me in a pot, that I would make them play for their entire stack on any given hand. That doesn’t work against solid competition, but I thought this was an exception. Anyway, the small blind called and I’m now going to play a pot out of position with a 7-5. Am I worried? Hell no.

The flop came: Q 6 8 rainbow. Not bad at all. Open ended.

The small blind checks to me and I bet $400 on a semi-bluff. He calls. Ah shit, now I’m a little worried.

Turn card comes a J. Small blind checks to me, I check as well.

River comes with a 2. Small blind checks to me again, I stop to think for sec. I have the feeling he wants to show this down without having to call a big bet, so I figure taking one more shot with a big bluff would earn me the pot. Alternatively, I consider that this guy doesn’t know enough about poker to be able to lay down his hand to a big bet, meaning he might call having paired only his 2 on the river. My instinct tells me to fire another shell. I bet $800 and he folds. I show him my bluff with 7 high and he looks sick. I think he folded a deuce. A-2 maybe.

Next hand. I’m in even earlier position and look down at a suited Jd-8d and I smooth call. Normally I would never play these hands this way, but I figure I can navigate the hand well enough to make these plays profitable against these opponents. I’m pretty sure I can get in the pot and see a flop without having to call a raise. I was right. Four players saw the flop.

The flop came out: 7 9 10 with two hearts. I flopped the nuts. Life is good.

I was first to act and I checked. It was checked all the way around to the button whom I had just bluffed with a 7-5 the previous hand. He bet out $100 and all folded around to me. I moved all in and the button starting sighing and moaning and shit. This guy had already lost a lot of chips to me and was visibly upset that I bluffed him out of the previous hand. He called my all-in bet for all of his chips and he turned over 2-2! I couldn’t help but laugh out loud as I turned over my cards. I thought in was hilarious. I showed him one bluff 2 minutes ago and the very next hand he calls off his whole stack with an under-pair to the board. Too classic. Wow. Anyway, he got no help on the turn of the turn or river and he was gone.

I have now taken down the first four hands of the tournament, including busting one player. Not bad for 15 minutes work.

Blinds are going up to $50-$100.

With me in the cutoff seat there was one limper to my right. I looked down at a suited Ad-10d. I raised to $300. All folded around to the limper on my right who called the raise.

The flop came: 8d Ac 7s.

My opponent checked to me and I bet $450. He called.

The turn card came Qd giving me top pair and the nut flush draw.

He checked to me again and I lead out for $500. I wanted to keep him around but I didn’t want to make a small bet as to make him suspicious. Much to my surprise, the guy check-raised me to $1000. Uh-oh. Now I am worried. An argument could be made for me re-raising all-in at this point, but that’s not what I did, so shut up.

I call the raise and the turn card comes out a 6. No diamond. All of sudden my opponent comes alive and goes all in for his remaining $850 or so. I sighed out loud and said, “Well, looks like I got myself into trouble, oh whatever, I call.” He turns over A-9. I flip over my A-10 and clap once with thunderous enthusiasm. Another player busted.

I had amounted a huge chip lead at this point and was throwing it around like the chips would expire if I didn’t get them all into the pot every hand. Okay, not really but you get the point.

I was moved to a new table. At my new table I limped with 2-3 and paired my deuce on the flop against one other player.

The flop was: 10 2 7
I bet $200. He calls.

Turn: A
I bet $500. He called.

River: A
I bet $800. He folds.

On the river I fired for a third time having not improved my pair of deuces. My opponent mucked his cards face up to show everyone his pocket 3’s. I also turned my cards face up as I was collecting the pot to show him my paired deuce on the board. He was livid. I could tell that this guy was going to gun for me the whole night now.

Blinds moving to $100-$200.

This was already too expensive for almost every player at the table because at this point I think I had nearly a third of the chips in play in the entire tournament sitting in front of me. Put it this way, the average stack on my table at this point was $1,000-$3,000 and I had over $22,000. Yeah, it was ridiculous. We hadn’t even gotten through the first hour of the tournament.

A couple hands later the guy that I bluffed with the deuce limped in before me and I raised to $600 with 9-9. The button called and so did the limper.

Flop came: 6 7 8.

The original limper, the guy I just bluffed, bet out first for $600. I moved all-in with my 9-9 and the button folded. The limper/bettor thought for about 2 seconds and called for all his chips. I was sure I had him beat and I said so out loud as I flipped over my nines. He looked completely shocked and turned over Q-J. He got not help on the turn or river. Another player down. He later told me how he was positive that I was bluffing on this hand after I showed him the deuce a few minutes before. He said it himself and still didn't seem to realize that that's exactly what I wanted to happen. Even after he told me himself, he didn't realize he'd been played.

Someone on the rail asked me in a tone that suggested I was stupid, “How did you think you had him beat with just a pair of nines?”

Yeah, that’s the type of player I was dealing with here. Hence my mammoth ass stack of chips. I explained to him why I was sure I had him beat.

“What’s he gonna have? 7-8? 9-10? An overpair to my 9’s? I don’t think so.” The guy still looked confused. Whatever, that’s why he’s on the rail.

Ok, at this point I have so many chips that I can literally afford to put the whole table all-in every hand and I won’t even be wounded if I lose. I look down at AsQs and push all-in, why the hell not? The player to my left immediately calls. Everyone else folded and he flips over KK. Okay, that’s fair. Ya know what’s not really fair though? I caught my fifth spade on the river to make the nuts. Nice. Another player busted.

There was another player at my table that capitalized on a few chances to grab some chips when I couldn’t justify it. He ended up building a pretty good stack fairly quickly, and I was pretty sure he was growing tired of my bullying. It seemed that I was infringing on his territory.

Blinds are now $200-$400.

I open raise to $2000 from early position with 7-7. Everyone folds around to the other big stack who re-raises to $6000. Hmmm, interesting. I have a feeling that this guy is putting a move on me. I think he has something like AJ, KQ, or maybe even AK. He’s seen me rob so many people blind that he figures I’m full of shit and wants to prove it to everyone. The best I give him credit for is AK, in which case I’m still slightly favored. So I say, “Well, let’s just put the rest of in then, I’ll all-in.” He thinks for about half a second and calls flipping over J-J. Oops. No help from the board for me.

I lost about half my stack on that hand. Not to worry, I still had a ton of chips.

Break time.

After the break we drew seats for the final table and I was happy to see that the guy that invited me to the tournament was still in, especially since he’s my boss of sorts. The tournament director skipped the next two blind levels and we went straight to $500-$1000 with $200 antes. What the hell? That’s bullshit! Oh well, it is not my club and I am winning so what the fuck do I care? It actually works out better for me that way. Obviously from this point on it was very rare for anyone to take a flop because of the outrageous blinds. Some players didn’t even have enough chips to cover the blind when it came to them. I continued to play a very aggressive preflop game and took down pot after pot preflop.

I moved all-in preflop with 8-8 and got called by a medium stack holding KdQd. The flop came out and the first card I saw was a K. Thankfully, the second card I saw on the flop was as an 8. Nice, it held up through the river and we’re down to five players.

Blinds up to $2000-$4000 with $500 antes.

Next hand I was on the small blind and everyone folded to me. I looked over and the big blind only had $600 backing up his blind, which is less than pennies at this point. I did not look at my cards because I didn’t need to. I had to put him all in with any two cards in this spot, so I didn’t even bother to look. So, from the small blind I say to the big blind,

“I’ll put you all-in”, as this was a no-brainer.

He confused me when said, “If you’re going to raise, then raise.”

I responded with, “I said I’m putting you all in, that’s all you need to know. I know what I’m doing.”

He said, “There is another player in the hand, if you’re going to raise, then raise.”

Sure enough, he was right. The other big stack at the table had limped in under the gun and somehow I didn’t notice. Shame on me. I’m not sure how that happened, but it was very embarrassing none the less. I sucked up my pride and said, “Well, maybe I don’t know what I'm doing after all.” I still have not looked at my cards but I’m positive that if I make a move on the big stack limper that he will not call without a premium hand, and if he had a premium hand he would have raised from the start, right? I’m sure of this because I’m been pushing him around all day with trash cards. The problem is, the guy had just gone on a wicked run and now has me slightly outchipped. Regardless, I immediately push all-in blind positive that he will fold. Wrong. He called and flipped over KQ. Oh shit, I’m in trouble now. I tell the table that I haven’t looked at my cards because I didn’t realize there was another player in the hand. I say this right as I flip over AQ. Wow, how lucky it that? The guy on the big blind turned over J-3. No one believed me that I didn’t look at my cards because they didn’t understand that I had no reason to, even after I realized the other big stack had limped and was still in the hand. Anyway, I won the pot and put some serious hurt on the big stack and eliminated the player on the big blind. I actually had to dodge a lot of cards on the river, but it worked out.

My buddy from work was still at the table and had less than two blinds worth of chips. On the next hand I knocked out a player, and on the hand after that I knocked out two more players and my friend flew in under the radar and cruised right into 2nd place without enough chips to even cover the blind on the next hand. How sweet is that? We dealt the next hand face-up and I won the pot and won the tournament.

As my friend and I left and were walking down the street to go home we were laughing about how they’re probably never going to let us set foot in that place again.

Poker Tournament: Part I

Poker will be a reoccurring topic in this blog. If you don’t care about poker, you should skip this entry and move on to the next one of my posts about the stupid religious meathead kid or the next one about the huge-hearted junkie. You will like them both. I promise.

Moving on.

I started a new freelance job a couple weeks ago and one of the higher ups in the company invited me to a poker game. It was a No-Limit Hold’Em tournament at a social club, $40 buy-in and optional $25 add-on at the break after the first hour. $2000 starting chips, $1600 add-on. Yeah, a little weird but whatever, maybe they didn’t have enough chips in house. They expected 30-40 players. Does this sound like a soft game to anyone else but me?

I showed up to the game on time after a long commute to find that the tourney would be starting an hour late. No problem. This place had a pool table, ping-pong table, Budweisers for $2.50 and smoking was allowed. Plus, looking at the players waiting for the tourney to start, it was obvious that this was going to be like shooting fish in a barrel. I couldn’t wait.

I killed some time over a couple beers and a couple games of pool with the guy that invited me. Great guy by the way. We split the pool games 1/1. I wanted a rubber match but the poker tourney was starting and we had to sign up and pay entry.

The players were assigned their tables and I was the first at my table to sit down. The chip values were strange and I made a mental note to make sure not to throw out a black chip for an intended $100 bet when in this tourney the blacks were worth $500. All the chip values were ass backwards. Whatever, this only supported the notion I had prior that these guys have no idea what they’re doing on a card table. They are in serious fucking trouble. I’m going to be like the hurricane they never saw coming, no shit. They will all be standing on the rail trying to figure out how they got there, with only one thought in common—Ryan did it.

At this point I think I should qualify myself to the readers by saying that I have played thousands of hours of poker against some of the best young minds in the game. I have won or cashed in several tournaments of all shapes and sizes, live or online. I have taken several thousands of dollars out of circulation from the NYC underground poker scene—before the law stuck a corkscrew in its neck.

I believe that the following will ring a bell with a few readers. There was a poker club that sat on the corner of 72nd and Broadway that was a literal goldmine. On any given night of the week, there would be fifteen tables packed full of Columbia University students playing cards on daddy’s credit card just waiting to give their money away. It was a dream come true. All that a good poker had to do was stay awake at the table to make money. I have no idea how much money I took out of that place before it got shut down. How ever much money it was it obviously wasn’t enough, because somehow I’m writing about a $40 tournament right now. Don't ask.

Back to the tourney at hand, all players are seated.

The cards go in the air.

I feel good about this!

…to be continued.

Part II will discuss the overall outcome and key hands in detail.

New York Moment

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The 4 Train.

I had just gotten off work and was walking up Broadway to catch the subway home when I realized I didn’t have any cigarettes. I stopped at a newsstand to see if they had any rolling papers. I roll my own cigarettes now because, here in NYC, cigarettes cost damn near $8.00 a pack, and you can’t even smoke them in bars but that’s another story entirely.

As I’m standing at the newsstand trying to determine if they sell what I’m looking for, a rock star looking guy walks up beside me and asks the nice Indian man behind the counter,

“Hey bro, you got any magazines that tell me where I can find a good rock’n’roll show tonight?”

The nice Indian man looks at the rock star blankly as if to say, “Uh, just look at the magazines and figure it out yourself, tattoo boy.” The rock star picks up the latest copy of “Time Out New York” which is when I turn to rock star guy and say,

“Yeah, that’s the one you want. That will tell you what you want to know.”

He thanked me and began looking through the magazine. I turned to the nice Indian man behind the counter of the newsstand and asked him if he had any rolling papers. He said yes and the rock star that was still there flipping through the magazine turns to me and asks,

“Hey bro, you need some papers? I got some. You can have some if you want.”

“Uh, sure thanks.” I replied. “I really only need one though.”

The guy reached in his pocket and pulled out a pack of those EZ Double Wide monsters. You know, the papers that you never have enough of whatever you’re smoking to require such a mammoth ass rolling paper. Anyway, I gladly took a paper and pulled out my little pouch of tobacco to twist one up when the rock star says,

“Bro, do you just want a cigarette, bro?” And then he extends his open pack in my direction with one cigarette sticking out more than the rest as to make it even more convenient for me.

This guy obviously isn’t from around here.

I graciously accept the cigarette and light it. It was a shitty Parliament Light 100, but whatever.

As we both were about to go our separate ways, the rock star turns to me and asks,

“Bro, do you like beer?”

Ok, any readers that know me know for damn sure that I fucking love beer. I fucking love the shit.

Accordingly, I looked at the guy, hesitated and said,

“Yes.”

“Bro, you wanna grab a brew, bro? Brew-bro. Haha, you’re my brew-bro.” he chuckles.

Again, this guy obviously isn’t from around here. Coincidentally, earlier that day I was thinking of simple things I could do to break up my rhythm a little. Ya know, something besides wake up, go to work, come home, drink beer, go to sleep. I suppose throwing in a little “hang out with a complete stranger” would mix things up a bit. Why the hell not?

We started walking and he mentioned something about needing to stop by his mom’s hotel room and that he hopes she doesn’t have a customer in the room. Huh? Oh well, whatever. This guy was very chatty and seemed to have a few pieces missing from his noodle, like he would ask the same question twice in a row, weird things like that. So we walked into the Dream Hotel on 55th just off Broadway. If you’ve never been to this place, it’s awesome. A very beautiful place indeed.

We walk up the stairs to the third floor of the hotel and stop in front of room 309. He knocks on the door.

“Hey, it’s Derek!” This is the first time I have heard his name. He hadn’t asked for mine, and I didn’t ask for his.

The shockingly sexy young voice on the other side of the door replies, “I’ve got someone in here right now.”

“I just need to grab something real quick,” Derek says. The door opens and Derek slips into the room as I wait outside. Usually this is the point when I would wonder just what the hell is going on. Why does this guy’s mom have a “customer” in her hotel room and why does this guy’s mom sound like she’s a hot 25-year-old chick? What the fuck am I doing here when I could be home drinking beer and watching reruns of King of Queens? Yeah, fairly reasonable questions in my opinion. The truth of the matter is that I was too concerned about the fact that I did not yet have a beer in my face to seriously ponder the aforementioned concerns.

The door to room 309 opened again and out came my weird new buddy Derek with two frosty twenty-two ounce bottles of Corona and two wedges of lime, one of each in each hand. This is not quite what I had in mind when I agreed to grab a brew with rock star man. On the other hand, this was getting more interesting by the second and appeared to have all the ingredients of a true New York moment. The kettle was just waiting to be put on the fire.

Derek hands me my awesome cold beer and wedge of lime and we head down the stairs to the lobby of this immaculate hotel. At this point, I have no idea what the hell is going on and I have dropped the reigns. Derek is running this show now. We get to lobby and Derek asks one the doormen,

“Hey bro, how do I get to that one spot again, bro?”

The doorman tells him how to get to that “one spot” and I don’t really pay attention because I just want to drink my goddamn beer. I follow Derek to the elevator bank where we wait for an elevator. I have been living in NYC for several years and have worked in many of the tallest buildings in the world, and I have never had to wait longer for an elevator than I did on this day at this hotel with Derek. It took fucking ages. I guess this was okay as it gave Derek and I chance to talk. By the way, Derek still does not know my name and seems to be content with calling me “bro”. Sure, whatever. He gave me an awesome cold beer so he can call me Sally for all I care.

So there we are, waiting in the lobby of an elegant upscale hotel in midtown Manhattan surrounded by businessmen in incredibly nice suits waiting for the same elevator, twenty-two and lime wedge in hand. As we wait for this asshole elevator Derek begins to tell me his story. Derek is an ex-addict, a junkie. As in, he says he’s been clean for a month right as he pops two OxyContins and washes them down with a swig of Gatorade from his back pocket. The irony was not lost on him because he chuckled and said unprovoked,

“No, no. I don’t really do these anymore. They’re just for the pain. I had to have a tooth pulled a couple days ago. Those opiates really fuck up your teeth, see?” And he opens his mouth as wide as he can so I can take a good long look at his teeth. Aside from Derek’s teeth you could see the business men getting nervous, which in some weird way calmed me down. The elevator finally arrived and I watched Derek push the button to take us to the twelfth floor. When we reach our destination we get out of the elevator and Derek begins to look around in somewhat of a confused fashion, and of course I follow blindly down the hall, unopened Corona and lime wedge still in hand. We finally find a stairwell and I follow Derek up the stairs and out an exit door where we end up outside. Yes, outside on some sort of balcony on the thirteenth floor of the Dream Hotel. This, however, is no normal balcony. This is quite obviously a place in the building where they never intended any human being to set foot. How do I know? Easy. There are absolutely no measures in place to keep you from falling right off the goddamn roof. Seriously, you could just walk right off the edge.

So here I am standing on a roof in Manhattan with a junkie that I don’t know, and no one knows I’m here. Then it hits me. Oh shit. I am about five seconds away from getting robbed or thrown off this fucking roof, or both. Of course. I was a mark from the very beginning when this guy was supposedly looking for a magazine thirteen stories below me about 30 minutes ago. The rolling papers, the cigarette, the beer. It was all just a ploy to get me on this fucking roof so he could steal all my shit and throw me off! That explains the $250 Diesel jeans he’s wearing in contrast to the fact that he didn’t want to pay $3 for a magazine that contained the exact information he was looking for. Those jeans came from some idiot just like me whom he robbed and then fired their sorry ass right off the thirteenth floor.

Fuck me I am an idiot and now I am going to die.

Fuck.

I snap back into reality when Derek starts coming towards me with a bottle opener and says, “Lemme get that for you, bro.” This is where my life flashed before my eyes as I simultaneously shat myself. Derek reached over and popped the top off my beer and did the little snap thing with the cap and we watched it sail all the way down to the street below, which took a really long time by the way. Derek turns to me and looks me square in the eyes and says,

“Bro, that’s a really long way down!”

No fucking shit asshole and I have a feeling I’m about to find out first hand just how far down it is!

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Derek walks around the tiny balcony checking it out and whatnot, or making sure there are no witnesses. I stand there frozen with my back glued to a wall drinking my Corona as Derek continues to tell me his story. In my mind, I am positive that he is waiting for me to finish my beer so that my faculties will be impaired when he stomps me and shows me what it’s like to skydive without a parachute. I actually appreciated that he was letting me finish my beer before he killed me. Seems like being launched off a skyscraper would be less terrifying if I had a little buzz going, you know? Nice guy that Derek.

Over the awesome cold beer and a few cigarettes, which Derek bummed to me, I listened to his story. As we know, Derek is a junkie. Er, ex-junkie who’s been clean for a month and is popping OxyContin as a painkiller for his tooth. Derek is from LA/Hollywood and loves to talk about the wicked smack they have out there and the base heads and all kinds of nice things. Apparently Derek got into a little trouble in LA and got busted with a whole bottle full of OxyContins that he was not supposed to have. Derek told me about the arrest and all the details and shit and about how the five days he spent in jail weren’t that bad because he didn’t get fucked. Nice. It comes up that the woman from room 309 is not his mom, that’s just what he calls her. She is an ex-porn star from Hollywood that got hooked on meth and is now a hooker in NYC. That explains “mom’s customer”. Derek and MethHooker are old friends from LA so when MethHooker heard about Derek’s legal troubles she flew him out to NYC and is letting him stay with her for a while until his problems blow over.

With a proud smile Derek showed me some of the things that MethHooker bought for him like one of those wicked new Motorola phones, you know, the thin black ones, a really sweet Gucci watch, and the really badass jeans he was wearing. And don’t forget room 309. It’s his room for the week as long as MethHooker is allowed to use it to service her customers on occasion.

Dude, hookers make bank!

Obviously it became clear to me that Derek didn’t get all those nice things from pushing people off of roofs. All of this confusion could have been avoided had I not forgotten to factor in the MethHooker part of the equation from the beginning. I will never make that mistake again.

I wish there was a powerful ending to this story, but there really isn’t.

After I realized that Derek had no interest in stealing my jeans and launching me off the roof, I really got to like the guy. We hung out for a while on that roof. He is a really nice guy with a huge heart who just wanted a friend for a little while. Derek went out of his way to make a friend from a total stranger and give them whatever he could give to make them happy. In this case, an awesome cold beer, a couple cigarettes and a breathtaking view of the most beautiful city in the world was perfect.

Cheers, Derek. I sincerely wish you well.

Best regards,
Your "Brew-Bro"