I think so. You see Thanksgiving is traditionally opening day at Fair Grounds Racecourse. Instead of watching that stupid fuckin parade with the snoopy float everyone gets all dressed up and goes to the track. The men wear suits. The women wear hats. It's like Kentucky Derby day, only instead of classy like people it's populated by bohemian types who don't know shit about horse racing. I enjoy the crowd but.
Yup my first Thanksgiving in New Orleans was quite a time. Annie left town to be with her family, leaving me alone to try to murder myself. Apparently Thanksgiving brings out the worst in me. Being a degenerate gambler is hard enough, but when the symptoms of my sickness are magnified by the holiday fuckin spirit it can be nearly unbearable. You've got to have some David Blaine in you to escape it. You really do. And I do. I've got lots of it. In fact things got so savage back in the Thanksgiving of 2007—which I blame all on Annie—that I had to magic my ass out of that motherfucker. Honestly, I should be dead. Fuckin Annie. Well I guess I can tell you a bit about 2007 while I'm on the subject. But first let's get to the 2011 edition. Here it is. I'm a week late once again. But by the power of my character, and strength of my will, and with a bit of pharmaceutical assistance, I'm back up in this shit again and loving it. Now get ready doubters. The guy is ready, all jacked up on ritalin at the stroke of midnight, ready to start this fuckin blog. Fuck me let's do this.
Variations on a Theme in 2 Parts....
Part I....Thanksgiving 2011
I wake up hungover. I drink way too much. It's just ridiculous really. The doctor's always asking me if I think I'm an alcoholic. I don't think I'm an alcoholic, but I'm an alcoholic. That's what I fuckin tell him.
Kafka's driving with a coffee and a cigarette bitchin about his stomach. I'm in the passenger seat on the phone betting the Packer/Lion game. I love the fucking over. It's my favorite play of the year. I have $700 in the account going into the day. I bet the over first half and game for $200 each. That leaves me with $300 to bet the ponies, which I absolutely can't lose. If I do I'll start borrowing money from friends and bumming beers and eventually call Annie and yell at her. I don't want that to happen today.
I get my bets down and take out The Sheets that I printed out this morning. Eventually these fucking Sheets are everywhere. Fuck I need an IPAD. I need to get my shit together with technology. I mean I'm old school and all but situations like these really make me feel like a loser. I run through the card, which is short since we'll be getting there late. It seems like a pretty straightforward card. Short fields with less parity. I've done a bit of research for this season and one of the barns to watch out for is Albert Stahl. He has horses in just about every race. There's also the local boy Tom Amoss. He always has live horses at this meet. I decide in memory of Steve Jobs that I'm going to go minimalist this time and keep things fucking simple. I'll bet these trainers all day and find a horse of two to box them in exactas. No bullshit pick 3's or 4's. No triples and superfectas. I'm going to enjoy myself today. I'll make my fucking bets early and spend the rest of the time enjoying the beauty of the horses and bohemian broads while I sip on cold beer. Fucking Thanksgiving. This is how it should be.
And fuck, don't you know it actually goes my way! Fucking Stahl takes down the first three races and I hit em' all. I'm up over $500. Two of the three winners were favorites or I'd be up $2000. Kafka is only up $50 because he doesn't know what the hell he's doing, and because he's fuckin sick all the time!
After Stahl takes a break for a race, he comes in once again with the favorite. I have $200 on him and I'm back up over $600. Kafka's ADD kicks in after the 3rd race and he's nowhere to be found. I eventually find him. He forgot all about Stahl and bet someone else. Poor Kafka.
While I'm in the paddock for the next race I run into this tall, angular, YAT weirdo I know from the coffee shop. He's one of the few people I talk horses with in this town and he's all jacked up. He tells me he's hot. Of course he's hot! We're both suckers who bet favorites and it just happens they're all hitting today!
He tells me he's got a tip on a couple horses in the next two races. He gives me the 11 in the upcoming race and the 3 in the feature. He tells me he's friends with the trainer of the 3 horse and then takes off, stumbling and bumbling all awkward and shit. What a weirdo.
I grab Kafka and make him stay with me. We grab a couple sausages and head to the paddock. The 11 is an Amoss horse— one of the few horses of his on the card. I already banged him in an exacta with Stahl. Without a Stahl entry in this race I have no doubt he's a winner. The guy's fucking due.
And fuck I'm right. The eleven wins by a football field. Kafka and I clean up. The sausage goes right through Kafka and he runs off to the bathroom to take another shit. I tell him to meet me at the paddock. We have to bang this 3 and get the fuck out of here!
I check the Packer score. Two losers. Thank god I'm up $800 with these horses. I fucking hate these stupid fucking games in Detroit every year. They're always terrible... just terrible. Thank god I live in New Orleans now and can go gamble at the track instead of having to sit through this NFL garbage. The game is so weak nowadays anyway. Just so fuckin weak. But I parlay the Dolphins with the under for $150 anyway in the next piece of shit game and put the $200 that's left in the account on the fucking 3. Gantry is his name. I have no fucking idea what that word means but I love it.
Kafka meets me in the paddock all pumped up. The kid is up $150. You'd think he was $1500 the way he was clownin about. The thing is Kafka is gambling addict who's habitual illness prevents him from really getting involved with it. When Kafka was in high school he apparently went through a period when he wasn't on the verge of death. During his physiological renaissance, the kid spent most of his time in the poker rooms of New York City. He claims he pushed A-Rod all in once and the guy folded. What a fucking surprise. My point is Kafka really got into the sickness good and lost thousands before he got one of his infections again, sending him back into his feeble cell. Poor Kafka. I hope he lives to see this 3 horse come in.
The 3 is sitting at 5-1 on the board. I decide I'm not going to fuck with any exotic bullshit. Going to keep it simple. Steve fucking Jobs. My new model. I wish I knew years ago he dropped so much acid. I would've really hit it hard. I didn't do nearly enough acid. Not nearly enough. And the Zen Buddhist stuff. I read Kerouac and the rest of them, a couple meditation books by that Suzuki guy, some Krishnamurti and other spiritual weirdos. I did a bit of meditation and had a mantra and all that nonsense. I thought it was all fruity so I gave it up. Shit if I knew the Jobs was down I would have kept rolling with it. Fucking Jobs. I'm gonna start wearing black turtlenecks and round rimless glasses. My glasses are all wrong. All fucking wrong. Fucking Jobs.
I call out to the horse, "Gantry baby you're beautiful," "you got this man," "one time." God the horse looks great on The Sheets. His last race is the top number in the field and there he sits at 5-1. There's a lot of public money pouring in on this horse Mambo Galliano, who won the race the last two years and is the sentimental choice of the bohemians. There's also Joe Hollywood, who looks like the speed in the race and is a slight favorite over Mambo. I'm feeling really fucking good about this. I've got the wise guy horse. I'm on the inside for once. This fucking goon gives me the 3 and it's going to make my fucking day. Lets fucking go with this 3!!!
The race goes off and Kafka and I are 8 beers and three sausages in. He's as excited as I am. Of course he is! He's a degenerate too! I tell Kafka the 3 has to be laying 3rd, right off the pace of Joe Hollywood and this other horse Cash Refund. The race is a six furlong sprint so the idea is the two pace setters will tire themselves out battling for the lead and we'll get the jump on the rest of the field and run by them in the stretch. I honestly don't see anyone else in the race beating us once we get past the pace setters, but we have to be sitting 3rd—WE JUST HAVE TO BE! So after a quarter mile we're sitting fucking third! I start punching Kafka in the shoulder. We're standing to the left of finish line on the fence, so we can't see what's going on as the horses speed down the backstretch. We can only look at the board on the infield displaying the order of the horses and listen for the track announcer to say the word 'Gantry'. As the horses enter the stretch Gantry clicks into second place on the board. Then the board goes blank, as it always does when the horses reach the stretch. Kafka and I are jumping up and down trying to get a glimpse of what the hell is happening. Suddenly we see two horses emerge and the track announcer screams, "and here comes Gantry on the outside!" At this point I've got my hand dug into Kafka's shoulder like it's a nerf football and I'm spilling beer all over this bohemian to my left. The horses come into view and I see the blue saddlecloth of the 3 a neck behind on the outside and closing the gap with every stride. Kafka and I are going absolutely nuts. Nobody else seems to be excited at all. It's like we're the only two people at the track on the 3. As they hit the wire I scream, "Nooooooooooooo! Fuuuuuuuuuuuck!" It looks like we just got nosed. I turn to Kafka. "I think we're beat. Fuck Kafka we had to have this one... had to have it." There's no monitor outside to see the replay. I decide to just wait it out and wait for the board to light up with the official order of finish. After a couple minutes the number 3 flashes up on the board. Gantry! We fucking did it you bastard! I hug Kafka then start shaking the shit out of him. "I thought we were beat. I really thought we were beat Kafka."
We head inside to check out the replay. Gantry got up in the final bob to nip the 6 by a cunt/pussy hair. I'm still screaming "Gantry!" and "Fuck you!" to all the bohemians at the top of my lungs. I fucking love this shit! I am more alive than any of you fucking bohemians. Fuck you! The fucking 3!
Kafka somehow gets me out of The Fairgrounds after I go inside and start betting every other track that's running. He has to go home and take a nap and a couple more shits before he heads to a friend's house for some turkey. I have him drop me at bar to watch the Dolphin game. The Fins are down 4 at half catching 7. I bang em' again second half. I love the fucking Fins. They lose by 1 and the under comes in as well. I'm up $1000 for the day. I'll take it.
The next twelve hours are filled with vague impressions of joy and dread. I'm pretty sure I had a hell of a good time before things eventually got a little dark and weird. It seems I made it home alive and I have $2200 with a $1500 bet on Tulsa (that I don't remember making) pending. Looks like I hit Texas and Baltimore pretty good, but lost some back on UMASS and UC Riverside in college hoops. UCRiverside? Who the fuck? What the fuck?
I go steal a coffee and a half-gallon of milk from Whole Foods. This is the first time I've walked with anything besides a coffee. I'm building myself up to a full grocery bag full of shit. Baby steps baby. I turn on the tube. The Tulsa game has just started. Well, nothing I can do about it now. I crush my coffee and fix myself a gin and tonic. Lets go fucking Tulsa!
Part II....Thanksgiving 2007
I'm in Venice beach California staying at Lisa Loeb's house. My friend is house sitting. They're both Jews and became friends through some Jew thing. I don't know anything about it really. All I know is I'm waking up on Thanksgiving day with this broad's cats all over me.
I take a shower and get dressed. Annie is picking me up and we're going out to her apartment in Pasadena to do Thanksgiving with her friends. I put on a $250 pair of jeans, a $70 V-neck, and a $300 cardigan I bought yesterday from a some clothing boutique on this Venice Beach Boardwalk bullshit. I tried on five pairs of jeans just as an excuse to rap with this blond surfer chick. We drank a little holiday wine (I love these fucking boutique shops!) I'll go back there this week and ask her if she wants to come over and play with these fucking cats. Lisa Loeb is going to get me some pussy. She fucking has to.
Annie and I just started dating. At this point I don't know who the hell this broad is and why the hell I'm dating her. All I know is she's picking me up for Thanksgiving and I have to get my bets in before she does. I call Bookie, which he'll be called for the rest of this fucking blog, and say B4. B4 is my account number with Bookie and the only thing he knows about me at this point. "Go ahead B4." Give me $5000 on Detroit for the game. $5000 on the over. Give me $2000 on Detroit first half. $2000 on the over. Give me a two team teaser Detroit and the over for $3000. Give me a four team parlay Detroit and the over with the Cowboys and the under for $1000. "You want the Dallas game now or should I call after this game?" "Give me everything now." $5000 on Dallas. $5000 on the under. $2000 on Dallas first half. $2000 under. Two team tease Dallas and the under for $3000. Four team parlay Dallas and the under with the Colts and the over for $1000. That'll do me.
About ten minutes later my phone rings. It's Big Yates.
"What are you doing?"
Big Yates really doesn't yell at anyone when he's angry. He just speaks directly, frustrated as hell.
"I'm betting these fucking games."
"Dude I told you to go easy."
"Don't worry about it. It's all good."
"Bookie just called me. He says your boy just called in and dropped bombs on me. $5,000 a game?"
"What's the big deal?"
"What if you lose dude? If you lose it's on me."
"Don't worry about it. I've got over 80k offshore. I'll fucking cashout and pay him. Listen I have to go man. My ride's here."
"You better not fucking lose."
"Later man."
I love fucking with Big Yates. He's so funny when he's upset. I go to the bathroom, throw some water on my face, adjust my cardigan, and push off for Pasadena.
We get to her apartment. I exchange niceties with her friends. They all seem like awful people, especially this one dude from Arkansas they call "The Daddy". He's short and out of shape and sports one of those blond goatees that looks like a thin patch of pussy hair on his chin. He's wearing one of those hats that all those douchebag bartenders wear these days. Annie thinks I'll like this guy, but she also thought I'd like this movie Little Miss Sunshine we watched together the other day. What a piece of shit. I hate this "Daddy" guy already. There's a nice sized TV with the game on but it's not in High Def, so I'm immediately pissed off. I go to the kitchen, mix up a Stoli bloody mary, and sit down in the most isolated chair in the joint.
The game reaches halftime. The first half over is a winner. Favre and the Packers go in late in the half to fuck me. I break even. The game flys over but Packers win handily. I lose my teaser by 2 points and my parlay is dead as well. I'm down $5000 for the day after game one.
At this point I should probably fill you - my loyal readers - in on the circumstances that have allowed me to drop such bombs on Thanksgiving day. See a couple months ago I convinced Big Yates to set me up with his boy out of Boston, Bookie. In these last two months I've hit him for $42,000, most of which is gone, squandered on things such as online poker and $300 cardigans. Big Yates thinks I have $80,000 in various offshore sportsbooks. I kinda lied a bit. I only have $15,000. But I can turn that $15,000 into $80,000 in a week if I have to. In any case, this $80,000 is my collateral to fire scuds at this guy. Now Bookie wants his $42,000 back, but he also doesn't want me to get crushed and not pay because he's got guys above him, bad guys, that he passes off a lot of my action to. That's why Bookie's a bit pissed I'm betting $5,000 a game.
Annie and I have been geographically together for less than a month. We did the long distance, internet bullshit for almost a year (I know sounds fucking ridiculous for a guy like me to get involved with but I was deep into the sickness and spending most of my time on my parents davenport.) Annie became my only connection to the real, grown-up, world. Over the last year she went on to manipulate me and create whatever this shit between us is. Now I'm fucking stuck here.
I try to eat some of this turducken but I'm finding it difficult to eat with $20,000 on the line. I'm playing it cool and am not too worried about coming off as a gambling addict in front of her friends. When it comes to gambling it truly takes one to know one and I'm pretty confident the fuckin Daddy doesn't have 20k tied up in this Cowboy game.
So the Cowboys lock me up. The under hits. Winners across the board. I pick up $19,000. I'm now down $8,000 for the week. I'm still pissed. I haven't had a losing week in a month and I'm not about to start now.
I go upstairs into Annie's room and get on her laptop. I hit the forums to check on college basketball action. There's a few games the degenerates are all over. I call Bookie and put $5000 on four games and put $2000 on the first halves. I've still got a half an hour for the football games so I hang up and go downstairs. The next hour is a period I relive every day of my life, fantasizing of how different my life would be if I did something else, something different than what I decided to do. As much of a badass that I am, this one really hurt. But fuck it here it is.
I'm six bloody marys and two shots of tequila in and I've got a five minutes til gametime. I run upstairs to Annie's room. I call the Bookie...B4...go ahead B4. Give me $5000 on Arizona St. $5000 on the over. Tease both for $5000. Give me $3000 on both first half. Then give me $5000 on the Colts. $5000 on the over. $3000 on both first half. Tease the Colts and the Over for $5000. Then give me a 4 team parlay with all four for $2000....That'll do me.
Arizona St. gets absolutely fucking destroyed. The game goes under. The Colts and the over are a push, but I manage to hit the first halves and the teaser. Then there's the college hoop. I go 0-4.
Losses: $30,800 on hoops. $25,300 on Arizona St. $8,000 going in. That's $64,100.
Winnings: $10,500 on the Colts. $53,500 in the red. How ya doin.
At this point my anxiety disorder is not so pronounced so I don't have any pills of any kind. Luckily Annie has an attack or two every now and then when she makes a mistake in life and has a bottle of Xanax in her medicine cabinet. As soon as the Arizona St. game is over, and I've calculated my fate, I run upstairs and take five of them (I'm a big guy). I turn my phone off and in an hour I'm out cold.
Somehow I get out of bed the next morning. Annie wants to go get brunch. I turn my phone on and see I have 47 new messages. The phone isn't on two minutes before it rings. It's Big Yates. I tell Annie it's my father and go outside. The conversation goes something like this.
"Yo"
"Dude. What the fuck."
"What?"
"What? You're down over $50,000 for the week."
"Whatever. I've still got $30,000 from the Bookie with the $12,000 I loaned you to do your coke thing and the $80,000 I've got offshore. It's all good. The week isn't over yet."
"We'll I told him I'm holding $12,000 for you but you've got to come up with $20,000 is you want to play."
"Alright I'll get it too him Monday. Just let him know I'm good so I can play this weekend."
"Dude. He needs $20,000 from you in his hand until he turns you back on."
"I'm fucking call him. This is bullshit. I give him a chance to win his money back and he won't give me a chance to win mine? Fucking bullshit man."
"Dude, you've got to show him something. And you have to get him something now or he's gonna be all over my ass until you do. What about your offshore accounts? Anyway he can see you have money in them?"
This is where my David Blaine shit kicks in.
"Well the thing is for security reasons you have to either log in from my computer or call directly from my cell phone. I set it up that way after I went on this run."
"You're not fucking with me are you? Tell me you have this money. Tell me you're not fucking with me."
"Big Yeats man I got this shit. Tell him I'll get him $40,000 on Monday. Fuck it I'm calling him right now."
Fucking Big Yeats. Good thing he knows nothing about offshore sportsbooks. This is the first of the many spoonfuls of bullshit I'll feed him and Bookie over the next few months. I ended up calling Bookie and tried to convince him to give me action but he told me to go fuck myself and that he better have $20,000 in his hands on Monday or he sending some guy named Zoltan out to find me. Bookie's a really nice guy actually and we've had a lot of laughs over the last couple months. Under other circumstances I think we could've been friends. I still have the $15,000 offshore so I'm not really worried. I'm confident I can run it up over $20,000 and get turned on again. When I do I will crush him and he'll owe me 50K. Fuck him.
There it is. Thanksgiving 2007. If Annie never came into my life and dragged my ass to that fucking apartment for that fucking turducken I never would've got into this bullshit. I never would have drank eight bloody mary's and bet four random basketball games and bet fucking Arizona St. just because this fucking guy was wearing a jersey. Fucking Annie. I figure she has cost me a quarter of a million dollars. That's what she fucking owes me. A quarter of a million dollars.
And Here....
It's Saturday afternoon. Annie is flying back into town today. I have off from work and no money to bet the games. I went into the weekend after Thanksgiving with $2200 and came out with a bagel. After Tulsa got destroyed by Houston I had a little over $500 in the account. I ran it up to $1500 on Saturday and then up over 2k on Sunday. After being between 3k and a thousand all week I had $1500 in the account last night. I put $500 on Oregon first half and $500 on them for the game. There's 12 seconds left in the first half and Oregon is up 21 laying 19. They have the ball and it's 4th down on the UCLA 44 yard line. I'd say I'm about a %99.3 winner at this point. They get stuffed and UCLA calls timeout with 8 seconds left. The next play UCLA completes a 35 yard pass. They call timeout with one second left and kick a field goal. You can't make this shit up. I'm a loser. They don't cover for the game either and I have $400 left in the account when I wake up this morning. I put it all on Houston, who fucked me last week by winning, and fuck me again this week by losing. I'm broke. What a fucking relief.
I'm on the couch with my stolen coffee and sandwich. I walked with my coffee in one hand and the milk and sandwich in the other. Next time I'll have to bring a bag. I flip around on the tube and land on Hannah and Her Sisters. Nice. I try to watch this one every Thanksgiving. It's Woody Allen's best. A fucking masterpiece. The story centers around these three broads, who happen to be sisters. This isn't a fruity chick flick though. It's a real drama with some funny shit in it too. One storyline is about the older sister Hannah, played by Mia Farrow, and her husband Elliot, played by Michael Caine (who just crushes it.) Elliot wants to bang Hannah's sister, Lee, played by Barbara Hershey (such a hot little number back then). The thing is Hannah's the successful one of the bunch and is kinda a perfect human being. Elliot is kind of a bumbling fool....an idiot really. So I think one of the reasons Elliot wants to bang Lee is because being with Hannah makes him feel like such a fucking loser with nothing to offer. I start to really relate to this storyline and I start thinking about how similar my whole deal with Annie is. Annie is successful at everything she does. She always does the right thing in life. She's sweet...caring - an all around good person. I think to myself, "maybe that's why I want to bang other broads all the time." Shit maybe that's why I bet these fucking games. All because Annie is so perfect and I'm such a fuck up. I'll have to bring this up in therapy this week and see what Mia has to say about it.
In the end Elliot can't leave Hannah. Without her he really has nothing. Maybe that's why I can't leave Annie. She's the only good, wholesome thing I'm involved with in life. Without her it's nothing but evil....evil.
Fucking Woody Allen. You know what? Fuck that. Elliot is a pussy. A fucking coward. I'm nothing like that fucking guy. His glasses are stupid and his cardigans are tired. Fuck him. I can leave Annie anytime I want to. In fact I'm going to. I'm going to fucking do it. As soon as I find the right broad. Someone like Lee, lost....tragic....beautiful. That's my kind of broad. I'm gonna grab her, fuck her all over town, and take her to fucking Berlin with me. That's what I'm gonna do....fucking Berlin!
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