In The Cage - Entry 516 - 'Save Me From Myself'
"It's no surprise I won't be here tomorrow,
I can't believe that I stayed 'til today..
Yeah, you and I will be a tough act to follow,
but I know in time, we'll find this was no surprise."
These lyrics have been haunting me since I learned them.. the new Chris Daughtry song.
I connect with these lyrics on a major league level. The thing is, I don't quite know why. I swear these lyrics are about Cora, or about Las Vegas.
It can't be both.
I feel both Cora and Las Vegas have brought the absolute best and worst out of me.
If divorce is a certainty, I can't see ever regretting my marriage.
If moving away from Vegas is in the cards, the fact that I was a poker dealer in the middle of the Las Vegas strip is one of the coolest fucking things I have ever done.
Did one have to cost me the other in either direction? That wasn't what I signed up for.
Cora moved out of our drop dead gorgeous condo 9 months ago. We both went to our 'corners', as she moved closer to her job, as did I. Well where are we now?
Today, after I finished up at the catering gig, I met her at the grocery store that was convenient for both of us since we now live 12 miles apart.
We used the same carriage, shopped for almost an hour, got to the check out counter, separated our purchases, went out to our 2 cars, divided it up and left. She went south, I went north.
I gave her a new CD that I made with the new music I just downloaded, and she texted me a few times on my way home asking who the artists were on a couple tracks, as we drove in opposite directions, meaning we were separating at well over a mile a minute on our way home to separate apartments that combined cost us $300 a month more than the palace we had when we moved here.
And NOW we are paying our bills. And I make a FRACTION of what I made as a poker room supervisor.
The most common question when someone learns I had that job, and 'lost' it, is whether or not I am going back into that industry.
That job drove me to the brink of insanity. I COULD be a poker dealer again and be happy. But to be a supervisor? It's not the rock star glorious job it might sound like. I think it's a LOT sexier to say I DEALT poker in Vegas, than to say I was the boss.
I did very little 40 hours a week. Most of that time was spent being bored to tears. Especially working 6PM-2AM. Who am I dealing with? Drunks and idiots. I know, don't say it.. it's harder to deal with people like that when I like drinking, but I am dead sober.
That's why I can't have a desk job either.. I need action. I need to MOVE. To interact.
Oh and after 2 years of being a poker room supervisor? It made me want to punch 'bad beat' storytellers in the yap.
People would walk up and say, 'I raised with pocket fives..' and in my head, I was like.. NOOOOOOO
Wow I just realized anyone reading this who doesn't do poker is gonna skip this entry.. can't even blame them, I would too.
Anyway, I had a lot of topics I WANTED to cover a few days ago.. but even though I write them down and recorded what I wanted to discuss, they are still there.
'Work fights' -- I was having problems at both jobs, but we cleared them up.
'Mom fights' -- Called her late on Mother's Day.. TOO late. These are the times I get reminded about how great I turned out, and how it's her fault.
'Dads place' -- Burned down. Struck by lightning and fried it. The dogs were with them, so it was only personal stuff that got fried. And although he and I haven't discussed it, knowing what is most important to me as far as physical items go.. his backstage pass and pic colletion... just no good.
'I Can't Improve Any Broads Life' -- Cora dates, she meets people, goes out and enjoys this town the way it should be.. I don't. I am on a ghetto budget. I use that term only because I don't make TONS of money, but I do make enough to pay for a LOT of cable, DVR, high speed internet, unlimited cell phone everything etc.. that is MY idea of what I want right now.
So what does fatty 37 year old have to offer? If I can't improve your life, why would you want me?
'Crushes' -- No idea where I was going when I wrote that last week.
'Hockey' -- I miss it. I was good at it, I was NEVER the best on my team, but I was SMART. When I was younger, lighter, quicker.. I idolized Brett Hull's style of play.. shoot the lights out. As I got older and heavier, I changed my style and became more like Ron Francis.. just be a smart captain and contribute using your head. I would play tomorrow if there was a way.
'Buddy Pal Bullshit' -- My whole life I have 'ranked' friends as if we were in the military.. my BEST friend, my 2nd best friend.. it's shit. My 'best friend' knows 20% of what some of my other friends know. And that's okay. I have been blessed with having a lot of lifelong friends, and like anything else in life, they all have buddy pal 'role positions' in my head. Oddly enough, the only person who knows every single thing there is to know, is my mother.
'Facebook friends' -- Again, living here in Vegas, I'm not 'home'. Thing is, even if I lived in Lowell or anywhere near, how would that change my life? I'm still broke, I have no girlfriend, no real prospects.. other than the obvious one friend I have that would hang out with me every night for the rest of my life, what changes? I hear on a daily basis.. 'Come home! Come home!' It's sweet to hear, but when I get there, then what? I see people every few months? I have friends here I see more often that that. I go home to no job and bakrupt.
The reason I titled the paragraph 'Facebook', is because yeah.. I DO live in Las Vegas, and Facebook at this point is my social life.. and I'm fine with that. Very recently, as my friends list has grown to over 250, I realize that yeah, I COULD keep very busy back home, and my old friends want to see me.. and most of my Facebook friends seem more interested in spending time with me than my close friends. I dunno.
This entry took me days to write too.. not sure why, I hope I'm not getting bored of writing again..
Saw Carlos Santana last Sunday.. got a free ticket from Berryman. I call Brian Berryman by his last name because when the old crew worked together at Imperial Palace, there were 2 Brians.. Woolard and Berryman.. plus Berryman (10 years younger than me) is a veteran. He's Berryman.
So we went, free show (GREAT show too, stayed for the whole thing), won some money playing GOLDFISH, had some 'Fat Tires', and headed over to the Rio at midnight to check out the World Series of Poker.
Heading into Monday morning, it's midnight.. I look at him and say, 'Okay over/under how many people we recognize in here tonight..' Brian says, '12.' I laughed.. I was said, 'NO WAY Berryman. I go WAY under.'
It's WAY early in the WSOP, it's late as shit.. easy pickins.
We walk down the hallway, I say 'Okay Brian.. ONE.' As Chris Ferguson walks down the hall. (Sorry Melinda, if I hadn't had 8 beers by then, I would have had him record a video message -- I beat myself later.)
Then we saw people we worked with previously, we saw fuckface Jake (the asshole that costed BOTH of us our jobs) so he counted, we saw Katie (Cora's friend), and Berryman tried several time to count people named, 'She plays 2/5 No Limit at the Venetian.', where I would remind him, THATSNOTHERNAMEASS
Then, at a single table, Hachem, Brunson, Harrington. Next table over, Hellmuth.
At MIDNIGHT?
The night wound up being a PUSH.. we agreed on exactly 12 people that counted. And we went to the players tent, which we had no business in, but hey.. seriously Harrah's owes us. And ate some Capriotti's at 2AM.
The entire night cost me $17 skins. Concert, booze, food, gambling over the course of 8 hours. THAT is why I love this town. Oh and because Brian smokes, he picked me up.. door to door service. (He won a LOT more than I did, so don't think I'm a total leech.)
If this entry is all over, like I said, I wrote it over like 5 days. No idea why I couldn't finish it.
I reopened the mp3 section of inthecage.com
If you want some new music, go to:
inthecage.com/mp3s
username: mp3
password: steal
All I ask in return is if you download some of that music, tell me what you like if anything.
Right click on the files, hit 'Save Target As'.
Right now it contains the newest music available, the songs I consider the soundtrack to my life, and soon I am going to add the songs that remind me of all the women I have failed with.. if I can't learn a fucking thing from them, maybe someone else can get a clue.
Jesus the song randomly playing on my winamp at this exact moment is 'Save Yourself' by Stabbing Westward.
I guess I am asking a lot today.
'If I must be lonely, I think I'd rather be alone.'
I can't believe that I stayed 'til today..
Yeah, you and I will be a tough act to follow,
but I know in time, we'll find this was no surprise."
These lyrics have been haunting me since I learned them.. the new Chris Daughtry song.
I connect with these lyrics on a major league level. The thing is, I don't quite know why. I swear these lyrics are about Cora, or about Las Vegas.
It can't be both.
I feel both Cora and Las Vegas have brought the absolute best and worst out of me.
If divorce is a certainty, I can't see ever regretting my marriage.
If moving away from Vegas is in the cards, the fact that I was a poker dealer in the middle of the Las Vegas strip is one of the coolest fucking things I have ever done.
Did one have to cost me the other in either direction? That wasn't what I signed up for.
Cora moved out of our drop dead gorgeous condo 9 months ago. We both went to our 'corners', as she moved closer to her job, as did I. Well where are we now?
Today, after I finished up at the catering gig, I met her at the grocery store that was convenient for both of us since we now live 12 miles apart.
We used the same carriage, shopped for almost an hour, got to the check out counter, separated our purchases, went out to our 2 cars, divided it up and left. She went south, I went north.
I gave her a new CD that I made with the new music I just downloaded, and she texted me a few times on my way home asking who the artists were on a couple tracks, as we drove in opposite directions, meaning we were separating at well over a mile a minute on our way home to separate apartments that combined cost us $300 a month more than the palace we had when we moved here.
And NOW we are paying our bills. And I make a FRACTION of what I made as a poker room supervisor.
The most common question when someone learns I had that job, and 'lost' it, is whether or not I am going back into that industry.
That job drove me to the brink of insanity. I COULD be a poker dealer again and be happy. But to be a supervisor? It's not the rock star glorious job it might sound like. I think it's a LOT sexier to say I DEALT poker in Vegas, than to say I was the boss.
I did very little 40 hours a week. Most of that time was spent being bored to tears. Especially working 6PM-2AM. Who am I dealing with? Drunks and idiots. I know, don't say it.. it's harder to deal with people like that when I like drinking, but I am dead sober.
That's why I can't have a desk job either.. I need action. I need to MOVE. To interact.
Oh and after 2 years of being a poker room supervisor? It made me want to punch 'bad beat' storytellers in the yap.
People would walk up and say, 'I raised with pocket fives..' and in my head, I was like.. NOOOOOOO
Wow I just realized anyone reading this who doesn't do poker is gonna skip this entry.. can't even blame them, I would too.
Anyway, I had a lot of topics I WANTED to cover a few days ago.. but even though I write them down and recorded what I wanted to discuss, they are still there.
'Work fights' -- I was having problems at both jobs, but we cleared them up.
'Mom fights' -- Called her late on Mother's Day.. TOO late. These are the times I get reminded about how great I turned out, and how it's her fault.
'Dads place' -- Burned down. Struck by lightning and fried it. The dogs were with them, so it was only personal stuff that got fried. And although he and I haven't discussed it, knowing what is most important to me as far as physical items go.. his backstage pass and pic colletion... just no good.
'I Can't Improve Any Broads Life' -- Cora dates, she meets people, goes out and enjoys this town the way it should be.. I don't. I am on a ghetto budget. I use that term only because I don't make TONS of money, but I do make enough to pay for a LOT of cable, DVR, high speed internet, unlimited cell phone everything etc.. that is MY idea of what I want right now.
So what does fatty 37 year old have to offer? If I can't improve your life, why would you want me?
'Crushes' -- No idea where I was going when I wrote that last week.
'Hockey' -- I miss it. I was good at it, I was NEVER the best on my team, but I was SMART. When I was younger, lighter, quicker.. I idolized Brett Hull's style of play.. shoot the lights out. As I got older and heavier, I changed my style and became more like Ron Francis.. just be a smart captain and contribute using your head. I would play tomorrow if there was a way.
'Buddy Pal Bullshit' -- My whole life I have 'ranked' friends as if we were in the military.. my BEST friend, my 2nd best friend.. it's shit. My 'best friend' knows 20% of what some of my other friends know. And that's okay. I have been blessed with having a lot of lifelong friends, and like anything else in life, they all have buddy pal 'role positions' in my head. Oddly enough, the only person who knows every single thing there is to know, is my mother.
'Facebook friends' -- Again, living here in Vegas, I'm not 'home'. Thing is, even if I lived in Lowell or anywhere near, how would that change my life? I'm still broke, I have no girlfriend, no real prospects.. other than the obvious one friend I have that would hang out with me every night for the rest of my life, what changes? I hear on a daily basis.. 'Come home! Come home!' It's sweet to hear, but when I get there, then what? I see people every few months? I have friends here I see more often that that. I go home to no job and bakrupt.
The reason I titled the paragraph 'Facebook', is because yeah.. I DO live in Las Vegas, and Facebook at this point is my social life.. and I'm fine with that. Very recently, as my friends list has grown to over 250, I realize that yeah, I COULD keep very busy back home, and my old friends want to see me.. and most of my Facebook friends seem more interested in spending time with me than my close friends. I dunno.
This entry took me days to write too.. not sure why, I hope I'm not getting bored of writing again..
Saw Carlos Santana last Sunday.. got a free ticket from Berryman. I call Brian Berryman by his last name because when the old crew worked together at Imperial Palace, there were 2 Brians.. Woolard and Berryman.. plus Berryman (10 years younger than me) is a veteran. He's Berryman.
So we went, free show (GREAT show too, stayed for the whole thing), won some money playing GOLDFISH, had some 'Fat Tires', and headed over to the Rio at midnight to check out the World Series of Poker.
Heading into Monday morning, it's midnight.. I look at him and say, 'Okay over/under how many people we recognize in here tonight..' Brian says, '12.' I laughed.. I was said, 'NO WAY Berryman. I go WAY under.'
It's WAY early in the WSOP, it's late as shit.. easy pickins.
We walk down the hallway, I say 'Okay Brian.. ONE.' As Chris Ferguson walks down the hall. (Sorry Melinda, if I hadn't had 8 beers by then, I would have had him record a video message -- I beat myself later.)
Then we saw people we worked with previously, we saw fuckface Jake (the asshole that costed BOTH of us our jobs) so he counted, we saw Katie (Cora's friend), and Berryman tried several time to count people named, 'She plays 2/5 No Limit at the Venetian.', where I would remind him, THATSNOTHERNAMEASS
Then, at a single table, Hachem, Brunson, Harrington. Next table over, Hellmuth.
At MIDNIGHT?
The night wound up being a PUSH.. we agreed on exactly 12 people that counted. And we went to the players tent, which we had no business in, but hey.. seriously Harrah's owes us. And ate some Capriotti's at 2AM.
The entire night cost me $17 skins. Concert, booze, food, gambling over the course of 8 hours. THAT is why I love this town. Oh and because Brian smokes, he picked me up.. door to door service. (He won a LOT more than I did, so don't think I'm a total leech.)
If this entry is all over, like I said, I wrote it over like 5 days. No idea why I couldn't finish it.
I reopened the mp3 section of inthecage.com
If you want some new music, go to:
inthecage.com/mp3s
username: mp3
password: steal
All I ask in return is if you download some of that music, tell me what you like if anything.
Right click on the files, hit 'Save Target As'.
Right now it contains the newest music available, the songs I consider the soundtrack to my life, and soon I am going to add the songs that remind me of all the women I have failed with.. if I can't learn a fucking thing from them, maybe someone else can get a clue.
Jesus the song randomly playing on my winamp at this exact moment is 'Save Yourself' by Stabbing Westward.
I guess I am asking a lot today.
'If I must be lonely, I think I'd rather be alone.'