14 June 2005, Day Two:

Everybody is My Bro: Today I decided that, since we were all in the game (of poker and of life) together, I was going to call everybody “bro,” you know, as a way to assert my kinship with my fellow man. Also, I thought that it would be cool to be thought of the guy who was cool enough to go around calling complete strangers “bro.” It’s lame, I know, but I’ve never been cool (I’m a poet, after all, which is about as uncool as you can get), and maybe I could be cool when I was playing poker in Las Vegas. Okay, how many times did I use “cool” in this paragraph?

Here are some actual sentences that I uttered over my five days in Las Vegas:

“Can I get some ketchup, bro?” To the guy who gave me my order at McDonald’s, where I must have eaten a total of eight meals.

 “You can’t show him your cards, bro, he’s still got a live hand.” To the nitwit who showed everybody, including players still in the hand, the cards that he was folding.

“Bro, there’s gonna be a free buffet in the back,” To the guy from Illinois who I thought was about twenty-three but who was actually just a little bit younger than I am. I can’t remember how food came up in the conversation.

“You don’t have to be a jerk, bro.” To the guy at the table who said I was covering my cards with my hands, which only showed that he wasn’t paying attention, because what he saw was my looking at my cards when it was my turn to act. See, I’m even down with people who act like belligerent dipshits.

Back in the Day: There’s a precedent for this stupid idea of calling everybody “bro.” Back in 1992, I had, for the most part, given up on people. Somehow, I found most of them to be disappointing. Not that I was so special. I wasn’t that happy about myself, either. I saw that I was becoming/had become too cynical, so I decided to call everybody, even if I was being critical of that person, “brother.” A sentence I remember uttering at the time was, “Brother Perot seems to have lost his mind.” I felt really in touch with humankind, but that shit wore off after a while.

Free Drinks Make Men Act Like Jerks: This was my fourth trip to Las Vegas in the past few years, and each time I’d noticed that everybody called the cocktail waitresses “baby,” “doll,” “honey,” or some other such endearment. It always bothered my feminist tendencies, but I decided that I would try this out myself to see if it would also make me feel suave or hipstery or something. So when I got the coke and the bottle of water that I had asked for (I’m one of those weenies who doesn’t ever drink), I said to the waitress, “Thanks, Sweetie,” and immediately felt like an idiot and sort of ridiculous. It’s just not me.

I’m Dead Inside: Early on in the game, it became pretty obvious that I wasn’t going to get too much action when I bet or raised; all I would get were a bunch of folds and I would come away with a small pot. I figured out that I must somehow have been giving away the quality of my cards through some unintentional action on my part. In the biz, they’re called “tells” because they, well, tell observant players what you're likely to be holding. So, after the deal, I would try to empty myself out and try to not react at all when I quickly looked at my hole cards. I would also say to myself, “I’m dead inside,” which isn’t completely true. I mean, the world kicks your ass so much that it feels like you're dead inside, but it’s not actually true. I repeated my new, little saying for the rest of my time at the poker tables, and it actually worked. Try it.

Also, I'm a Poet: When I lived in Madcity, my writer buddies and I would sometimes go to the Art Institute to look at the pretty pictures. It's lame, and I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but I would always wear this T-shirt I picked up when I lived in Seattle. I figured that it would be an easy way to meet the ladies because it gave me two ins. First, some woman could say to me, "Oh, you're from Seattle?" and I could say, "Why, yes, yes I am. Let us drink some coffee, or another beverage of your choice, and talk about the Emerald City." Or, some other woman could say, "You're into poetry? I love poetry," and I could say, "I, too, love poetry. Perhaps, over coffee, or even a light afternoon snack, I could recite some of my poems for you?" It was all planned out. Too bad it never occurred to me at the time that it would be impossible for anyone to read the front of my T-shirt since I would be facing the various works of art. What I should have done was turn my back on the works of art and adopt a pensive air, as if said works were having a profound effect on me. That way, I would have had three ins. "Are you okay," some concerned woman would have asked, and I would have responded, "It's just that this painting really got to me," to which she would have said, "You're sensitive, aren't you," and I could have sealed the deal by saying, "Why don't we discuss my sensitivity at The Cafe? I will buy you a Pepsi and a chicken sandwich." That line is pure gold.

Why, you're thinking, is he mentioning a T-shirt? Because, inquisitive reader, I wore it for my second day in Las Vegas, the thinking being that I might look like dead money if I wore a poetry T-shirt to play poker, and I had the best day, Las Vegas poker-wise, that I had ever had up to that point. I'm going to start looking for T-shirts that might make me look like an even bigger wuss. Tampa Interpretive Dance Team: if it exists and they sell T-shirts, I want one. New Haven Astronomy Club? Ditto.

Day Two Total: I played for ten hours and ten minutes and won fourteen hands for a total of fifty-seven dollars.