Day 2....Midget leprechauns and Courtney Love......

This is part two of " Vegas 6/ 8-11 1st TR, be gentle...light on Poker content"

Lunch and the Hangover from hell
After regaling the Mrs with my ridiculous phone story, she laughs a bit and is ready for lunch so the Mrs., Myself, and P decide on the Caribe' Cafe as made famous in the Tiltboys stories and several hundred other poker players trip reports. The food was as good as they say I guess, but I'm in no shape to eat, drink Coke, or apparently walk. So, as I stumble out of the cafe, it was good that I met up with some guy friends. Not that the ladies aren't great, but testosterone was needed in the room or I was going to be wearing a skirt within the next 10 minutes(and we don't want that....NO one wants that).

K and D
K and D are old bandmates and still friends from the last few years. K is my degenerate poker friend, since we are not able to visit a casino or card room without calling each other with chip counts, great hands, and beat stories. D is always fun to hang out with and can always be the brunt of jokes if need be (good to have someone else other than me in this role). These boys are in town for a bachelor party and apparently have a suite at the Aladdin/Planet Hollywood. Suite?.....Sweet, we'll be relaxing there and taking a break from the casino soon enough. Of course we haven't informed K&D, but they'll be game. Not a problem..... we're gold, Jerry.

We meet with them at the entrance to the Cafe and what do you know.....beers are in hand. I flinch at seeing a beer and opt for the Gatorade instead. Hydration is key. We have time to kill before we assemble the entire group of about 25 together for widescale domination and we decide to walk the strip towards the Aladdin to meet with K&D's friends and late arrivals into town.

O'Shea's - Midget leprechauns and Courteney Love
The five of us (Diablo, Mrs, P, K & D) roll up the strip heading towards the Aladdin where the boys say they have THE kick ass suite, and we're hijacked at the sight of O'Sheas. I don't know what it is about this place but out of the 50 trips to LV I've made, I've staggered in to this little white trash oasis at least once every trip. This time as we walk through to get out of the sun, we get phone calls wondering where to meet us. We decide that there is no place better than here to just hang, watch the World Cup and kill a bit of time til D, her friend Pam, and T and his girl can catch up.

We wander through the casino and I guess no one wants to feel the love of the dollar craps, dollar roulette or any one of the ten year old slots that they have inside, so we saunter up to the bar and we all get a drink. I didn't want to but after all, this is vegas and I'm not a pussy. Drinks are acquired and we hang just to the side of the bar near the doorway where we are about 10 feet from the street corner and just across from Caesars.

Now I personally don't notice it at first, but there is a MIDGET DRESSED AS A LEPRECHAUN in front of the casino passing out flyers and rockin the Mr. Microphone. Now usually this is a cute novelty to most people, but to myself and our group of degenerates, it's an absolute Home Run. All eyes are on "ML" now and I realize that in the state of this kind of hangover this is a scene straight from Twin Peaks. I don't mean to stare, but are you kidding me?? You can't be a midget in a leprechaun outfit with a Mr. Microphone and expect me not to stare, laugh a bit, and whatever else finds its way to my twisted mind. I didn't do this blatantly as it would be rude, but after a bit everyone else seems to move on from watching ML and all of a sudden I'm in a Midget Leprechaun trance.

It was amazing. He stood passing out flyers for God knows what in the 115 degree heat, and the evil blank stare could have cut through you like a knife. It was like watching a 80 year old carny on the goldfish booth at the midway. The amount of hatred in his eyes was unmeasurable, but as soon as someone asked to take a picture, he popped up with a huge smile (in which you could still see the hate, but huge nevertheless). It occurred to me that he was a lot like a poker player with his game face on and gettin the job done. Beautiful girls getting pictures with his head between their breasts and like a stud he just did his job. Props to you, Midget Leprechaun shill....(sing along to the tune of the"real men of genius" Bud Lite commercial) pass out the propaganda, and don't forget to smile for the pretty girls. Respect to the ML....gettin the job done through the hatred of people in general and pain. I needed to show the brother some love, so I walked up to the guy as we walked away and gave him the fist bump and the mandatory "respect" on the down low of course, didn't want to embarass him (like I could?).

Courteney Love Meets the gang
D finally meets up with us towards the end of the O'Sheas experience, and introduces her friend "Pam" to us. Again, I didn't see this coming but P gave me the elbow and said "oh crap, what's up with D's friend?? See that make up??"

I am always the first one who gets this nudge. Not that I'm slow, I'm just the only one that when someone does something stupid or looks silly is willing to call it out and most times it's quite entertaining to watch. So before D can introduce Pam around I notice that she's completely and utterly shit faced. I don't mean "I'm a bit drunk, I have to go to bed" drunk. I mean "rettihd bwanna getto pusshshhh brrratt!" drunk. Keep in mind that she's been in town for about 2 hours, and part of that was at breakfast, and it's about 2pm at this point. I make sure to introduce myself before D can. I extend my hand which she takes expecting "Hi, I'm Diablo", but instead she gets "Wow....you're really fucking drunk!". Her jaw drops as she laughs heartily, and you can basically hear a pin drop in the group...finally chuckles start flowing as I give her a hug and introduce myself and tell her I'll keep an eye on her (big mistake). She gets introduced around and after a bit of talking and getting comfortable in the group and trying to cut up on me for noticing her being drunk (another big mistake) I bust out the next volley...."what the fuck Pam, did you go to the Courtney Love school of makeup???" Howls everywhere, but She had no idea....it's a womans worst nightmare. Bad lipstick...a curse. It was smeared to the right like something had just come out of her mouth in a rubbing fashion. I call for the Mrs. compact, and she quickly remedies the situation...thank god, I wouldn't have been able to stop myself. I give her a hug and make sure she knows I'm just giving her a hard time and I'll keep a watchful eye on her for the next 15-20 minutes as we walk down to the Aladdin. We arrive safely, and then it happens....she's gone. WTF???? It was like losing a little kid in the mall, flash....she's gone. Crap.

The inquisition begins....we look around for about 20 minutes to no avail and finally D gets a call. "D, I'm going back to my hotel. Which hotel is it again???" She is informed that in fact she's staying at the IP. "ohhhh....I'm there already, but can you come and get me?" This goes back and forth for several minutes while the rest of us decide that she in fact is D's friend and we're not spending the next two hours looking for a drunken Courtney Love(she is after all 35, and a big girl). D has a look of sheer frustration on her face, and we ask "what's up?" and the conversation goes a little like this.

D--"P is back at the IP".....
Me--"Good"
D--"No, not good"
Me--"why not?"
D--"well, she IS in her own hotel but she stopped at a bar."
Me--"good for her, hopefully they'll pick up on her being wasted and escort her to her room"
D--"No, that didn't happen"
Me--"What DID happen....there's more????"
D--"Yep. She had a drink and apparently didn't want to ride the elevator because last time it was packed and she has claustrophobia"
Me--"oh shit, and........" (I have a bad feeling where this is going)
D--I don't know....."the phone just cut out and she won't answer"
Me--Dammit....."Do we need to go find her ass???"
D--"no, I'll do it. I brought her in and I'll take care of it."
Me--"that sucks....we can help you find her if you want"
D--"nope, I wouldn't do that to you guys. I should have met with her later and should have known better"
Me--"you sure...I'll look for her ass if you need.....I'm like fucking Matlock, I can find anything."
D--"no, it's cool. You're more like Magellan, you will look for 10 years and not find shit."
Me--"ok, you got me there but at least I'm offering"
D--"nah, you're good."

As we're in the middle of this, everyone else has spread out to the nickel slots and D's phone rings again. We find out that P is in fact safe, but now in a stairway sitting on a step on an unknown floor and unable to get up or out. I can't help but laugh my way into a chair and double up...I mean...A stairway....she can't get up off a stair??? BWWWHAHAHAHA.

I can now see the end of my participation at the end of the tunnel. D chats with her for a while and is confounded. No idea what to do, so she tells us she's going over to find her. "No you're not....we're not losing you for the day because your dumbass friend can't handle her liquor." I have a moment of clarity just then. "Call the IP, tell them what's up. They have cameras in those stairways. They'll find Courtney Foster Brooks and she's home free." Meanwhile P calls her husband in Phoenix as well, completely tilting him and he calls the police. She ends up falling asleep in the stairwell for just over an hour and a half as they all look for her, and finally they escort her to her room unharmed.

Aladdin Slots and the wait

===Tip of the day===
When playing nickel slots with women, if the women fill all the spots in a row of machines and you get stuck with a lame machine I.E.: "magic wand", "Ponies and Kitties", "Cupcakes in the Meadow" "Princess Daisy's dream" (you know what I'm saying....) DON'T DO IT....EVER. This is -EV every time.

As I learn this lesson on the slots, we are waiting for our buddies JG and PR to arrive via '32 coupe through the hot desert sun. They are about an hour away so the ladies start up the nickels...I don't know why, but I'm a sucker for these things. Cartoons that explode, Fish that talk, Monty Python, Austin Powers...I am under the spell.

Finally the boys arrive and we set out to start really drinking.....

Stay tuned for the next installment....Diablo meets the Planet of the Apes suite.....