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#115 – Fool in Paradise, Part IV – Red Carpet Blues
“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” Groucho Marx
On Friday, I participated in the Jennifer Harman charity poker tournament to benefit the Nevada SPCA. These were my notes, prettied up a bit and better organized.
Walking over from the Bellagio to Caesars, it is an uncharacteristically cold, gray day. It being only 10:30 AM, I wonder if maybe every day in Las Vegas is like this in the morning. Who could I even ask to find out?
I’m looking at the giant image of Toni Braxton superimposed on the west façade of the Flamingo. You know, you could get a room on maybe the eighth floor where you can stare out at Las Vegas Boulevard from her crotch.
A lady in a blue costume-like uniform is handing out literature for the Las Vegas Monorail. If the color wasn’t so bright, I’d think she was with the Salvation Army; the get-up may have been modeled after Homer Simpson’s monorail-conductor’s uniform.
Is the Las Vegas Monorail even still in business? If big corporations pushed the mob out of the Las Vegas casinos, I think I know where the wiseguys ended up. If the Las Vegas Monorail doesn’t look like a mobbed-up operation, then what does? It cost gigantic amounts of money. I think it was years late. It hardly ever runs. And even though it operates NEAR one of the most congested streets – foot traffic and cars – in the world, it has managed to remain invisible. On the two occasions I used it, it was so sparkling clean that I suspect more people work on it than ride it annually.
11 AM. I go past PURE to register for the tournament. They have a red carpet in place. Who is going to walk on a red carpet at 11 AM? And who is going to watch them? But the adage, “If you build it, they will come” once again proves accurate. There are loads of photographers and people writing on note pads – oops, including me. And when the high-intensity lights go up, people around the casino flock to see the commotion and stay to watch.
I talked to Erik Seidel by the red carpet. “I saw the cover of the book,” he told me, “and there was an error. It should have said, ‘by Erik Seidel.’” I told him I’d send him a pre-release copy, and I was pleased with the final product. “Well, I hope it isn’t too good.”
Annie Duke is here but just for a little while. She’s working with the Ultimate Blackjack Tour and has a book project, a horror movie project, and a couple TV projects in the works, and those are just the new ones I heard about in a couple minutes. She groaned about one of the projects. “I should put a gun to my head. It’s a reality show pitched for me and Shannon Elizabeth.” At first, I thought “I should put a gun to my head” was the title, though it maybe should be “Joe Reitman should put a gun to HIS head,” as Annie’s boyfriend and Shannon’s ex-husband.
