TALES OF THE WILD, WILD WORST: Billy Carter

Another Wednesday episode from days gone by.   

Welcome back pal. 

I had dinner with the prestigious Editor-In-Chief the other night, which brings to my mind that it's turkey season.  I do have some memories that are treasured because there are fewer and fewer people in this mad, mad, mad world who will ever have them.  Such as, how people many have ever plucked a turkey?  We'd all gather around the kitchen table and grab a handful of feathers and pluck to our heart's delight, while the smell of fresh-baked mince pie wafted through the house.  These days, of course, the yuppie thing to do is to boil the turkey in peanut oil. 

Have you ever noticed how, when you're in a really good and creative writing mood, one train of thought just railroads directly into another?  Put "turkey" and "peanut" together and, SHAZAM!  You have a great lead right into… "Billy Carter," as I promised in my last column. 

Now, this is actually the story of several turkeys.  In the fall of 1977, as I recall, the Teamsters Union was having a convention at the Aladdin in Vegas.  For obvious security reasons, it wasn't well publicized in advance that the guest speaker was to be Billy Carter.  Well, the day of his speech arrived, and I was sitting in my office in back of the cashier’s cage when Turkey Number One came running into my office.  She was a white cashier...  that is to say, all of the color had drained from her face. 

"What's wrong?" I ventured to ask.  It always makes me queasy to ask an obviously distraught woman what's wrong.  You never know what kind of an answer you're going to get.  She managed to stutter out that Billy Carter was at her window wanting to set up a line of credit. 

"So, where's Pat?" I inquired as to the whereabouts of Turkey Number Two.  Pat was the Credit Manager and he was an expert at shucking, ducking and loafing.  So, when she told me that Pat had just now left to go to the men's room, I wasn't the least bit surprised.  Well, I was the Collection Manager in those days and, besides collecting gambling debts, I also often had the privilege of doing Pat’s job.  "So, have him fill out a credit ap, get a copy of his driver's license, and clear his name through Central Credit," I instructed her.  "You know the drill."

"I can't." 

"Why not?"

"I'm scared."  Damned woman was 33 years old and she was being scared out of her wits by a gas station owner!  So, I told her to follow me and we galloped out into the cage and her window.  There, of course, stood Turkey Number Three. 

I knew he was Billy Carter the minute I set eyes on him; he wearing Levi's and the three goons standing behind him were in silk, pin-striped suits, obviously Secret Service types.  Those dudes all use the same barber, you know.  "Good afternoon, Mr. Carter.  I understand you need a line of credit?"  He just grinned, like a schoolboy about to have his first sexual encounter.  So, I asked him "How much credit would you like?

"Oh, maybe $2,500," he almost squeaked.  Sweat was starting to bead up on his eyebrows. 

"Okay, sir.  Please fill out this brief application and sign it and, while you're doing that, I need to make a copy of your driver's license."  The three goons were gazing back at me in obvious disbelief that I was asking Billy Carter for I.D.   

Billy himself was somewhat stunned.  "No one ever asks me for my driver's license," he responded. 

"Well, I am," I looked him square in the eyeballs.  So, he reached into his jeans and extracted a brown leather wallet that was so flat and thin that even a flea couldn’t get in.  From the wallet, he produced a Georgia driver's license, which reflected his address as being in Plains, Georgia.  There was virtually nothing else in his wallet; no cash, no credit cards, no dirty pictures.  He reluctantly slid the license across the counter and started to fill out the application form. 

After I copied the license and cleared his name with Central Credit, I went back to the counter and told him that his "line" was approved.  "But, I wouldn't take it all right now," I suggested.  "From what I can see, one of those jackasses standing behind you will probably roll you before you can move three feet.’  At this point, the three gumballs edged closer up to him and sneered at me.  Billy certainly seemed to enjoy the moment. 

A few minutes after Billy and his entourage vanished into the crowded casino, good old Pat, (Turkey Number Two), walked in and tried to put his magic charm on me.  "So, you gave him $2,500 and you didn't ask him how he was going to pay it?" he challenged. 

"Naw, I'm not worried about it," I shot back.  "If he doesn't pay it, I figure Jimmy's good for it."  Just for the record, Billy did pay it.  I don't know that he ever put a nickle in a slot machine; I think he just wanted some "flash" money. 

Several years later, one of my good friends from Los Angeles was gambling at the Sahara and he lost $10,000 in about an hour at the dice table.  I offered to send him and his wife to dinner in the gourmet room, the House of Lords.  After I made the reservation and wrote the comp slip, the Casino Manager asked me why I was buying the guy dinner. 

"He just lost $10,000" I replied. 

"That's the point.  He already LOST the $10,000.  You don't have to buy him dinner." 

And now, for my last turkey story.  Accountants have a habit of getting in the way of good business sense.  The bean counter at the Sahara had penciled it all out, how he was going to save the joint $75,000 a year.  In his brilliance, he had discovered that it cost 12 cents less to serve a draft beer than a bottle of beer and that we gave away so many thousands of beers a year to gamblers.  Hence the rule that, from then on, gamblers could only be comped to draft beer. 

One of my players, Jerry from Fort Worth, was in town gambling at Binion's.  He decided to drop by to see me at the Sahara.  Of course, he ended up on the dice table and promptly blew almost $15,000.  I'm sure his mouth and throat were very dry at that point; mine would have been.  So, he asked for a bottle of Bud.  The cocktail waitress politely told him he couldn't have a bottle, but he could have a draft. 

Jerry went bonkers.  He screamed at the Casino Manager that he wanted a BOTTLE of Bud, and the Casino Manager rebuffed him by saying he couldn't have a bottle, but he could have a draft.  One rule of the gambling business is that you never want to tick off a really good player when he still has money in his pocket.  Jerry still had about $500 from his $15,000 credit line and he fired up the dice; it  only took him about thirty minutes to pay off his markers and get $50,000 ahead.  It’s as if the story was written in the wind.  He then backed away from the tables and walked  straight toward the cashier's cage to cash out. 

"Hey, where are you going?" the Casino Manager yelled after him. 

"Back to Binion's to get a bottle of Bud."  They canceled the draft beer rule about two minutes later. 

So much for the turkey season.  What’s next?  Let's see…. Maybe you'd like to hear about a guy who used to come into town and risk millions of dollars at a time.  I'll tell you about him next week.  Until then, remember that the livers are yours and I get the tail. 

THEY'RE ALL MOUTH AND NO ASS

Those guys in Washington run around saying how we have to fix health care.  They scurry from room to room, vowing  to straighten out the immigration problem.  They posture on the Capitol steps and tell the world how they need to fix the economy.  Tuesday, the President is going to tell us for the 49th time how we have to get more jobs for our people.  

Yet, these are the things they've been talking about for months, years... perhaps decades.  And just what has happened?  Nothing.  

It's time to quit talking and to do something besides intruding the government nose further into my life.  All they do is talk and posture, talk and posture, all of the time growing government and extracting more from my wallet.  Sometimes I get so sick and tired of hearing the needle stuck on the record, over and over again the same old song and dance routine... I could just scream, but they have a government noise ordinance, you know. 

How did we ever let ourselves get into this mess? 

THE DEMOCRATS AND HEALTHCARE

It seems to me that, if the Senate Democrats are digging in their heels and saying there is no way they will allow the repeal of ObamaCare,  they are saying in the same breath that they DARE you to vote them out in 2012. 

TALES OF THE WILD, WILD WORST: HOWARD HUGHES AND ME

Every Wednesday, we continue to bring you past articles by the Unknown Scribbler that were previously published in the FLAT RABBIT PRESS in northern Nevada.

Welcome back pal.

Vegas has lost its magic. What a way to start a column! But, believe it or not, there WAS once upon a time a real and very vibrant place in the desert where movie stars hung out and dreams came true. Over recent decades, it's been changed from a center of mystery and intrigue into a rather simple and blasé Disneyland for adults. Today, Vegas is just a big pile of concrete, asphalt, and money grubbing corporations whose stockholders would shoot and kill "lady luck" in a heartbeat, if they could get past their pedigreed Harvard business degrees to find her. And all of that is a fact.

I promised to tell you about my experience with Howard Hughes. Let's face it; in those days, Howard Hughes WAS Las Vegas. I'm not going to lay a story on you about how I bumped into Mr. Hughes on the Desert Inn Golf Course at 2:00 AM where we compared tennis shoes, and I'm not going to cajole you with a tale about meeting Mr. Hughes on a Nevada desert road in the middle of the night, either. Nor, will I tell you that he named me in his last will and testament. But, he did leave me with a very interesting tale.

When I started to work for the Desert Inn the first time, in 1972, Mr. Hughes had long since departed from his penthouse suite. I’ve been in that suite, but that's a story for another day. Anyway, I think he had in fact also departed the Bahamas and was ensconced in a fancy resort in Nicaragua, as I recall. I'd been working for the Flamingo and had been hired for a special project by Summa Corporation, (Summa meaning "The Great One"). Mr. Hughes, of course, was Summa. I don't even want to tell you about the background investigation they ran on me for this gig. Those guys in those days were extremely security conscious and had half of the nation’s former FBI agents on their payroll. Hell, they even looked up my third grade teacher! Thank God she didn't remember the day I whacked her fat fanny with a spit wad!

The job was a pilot project to see if it was feasible to try and collect old gambling debts. Yeah, it's amazing, but some guys didn't pay up on their markers, regardless of the potential ramifications, if you get the gist. Well, I was handed a cardboard box full of "written off" gambling debts and told to have at it. Wow, have I got a whole lot of stories to tell out of that box! Some would curl your toenails all of the way back to the quick.

One account was a $1,500 tab due from a guy who, at the time, was a top security guy for Hughes Tool Company in Culver City. The bill was due from around April of 1967, when Mr. Hughes bought the Desert Inn and moved into that penthouse suite. So, the debt was five years old when I picked up the phone and called the guy. (Scribbler’s note: I need to interject a funny side note. One night, Howard’s toilet seat broke. They called in a maintenance guy and the only color toilet seat available in town at that hour of night was pink. So, Howard ended up with a pink toilet seat on his white throne. He was not a happy camper,).

Now, catch this response from the Hughes Toolco security guy. He had the unmitigated gall to tell me that the bill was owed by Howard Hughes himself! My first reaction was, “horse manure.” His line was that he had been in the group that took over the Desert Inn premises, and that he was in charge of the security details. He went on to suggest that Mr. Hughes had asked him, in the middle of the night and just after the sale was consummated, to go down to the dice table and make some bets for him. Mr. Hughes had supposedly called down to the cashier cage and arranged a line of credit for this joker to use.

Well, what was I to do? The fellow was still employed by Hughes Tool. He had everything to lose and nothing to gain by trying to BS me. So, I sashayed on up to the General Manager's office and laid the story on Fred Gee. A few minutes after I told Fred the story, he managed to quit rolling around on the floor in laughter and said that he'd put in a call to Los Angeles. Hughes had maintained an office on Romaine Street in Los Angeles for decades, wherever he went. Nadine Henley was his personal and corporate secretary and had her office in that location.

A few days later, Fred asked me to come up and see him. He handed me a check for $1,500. It was drawn on "The Romaine Street Account," and signed by one Nadine Henley. "Mr. Hughes wants to know who the son-of-a-bitch is who's going around collecting gambling debts that are five years old," he said.

Over the years, I've read a lot about Howard Hughes. You should, too. From those readings, I have no doubt that he used those exact words. And, I discovered that Nadine Henley had been Mr. Hughes' right-hand financial person for many, many years, and that the Romaine Street Account was his personal piggy bank.

The death of Mr. Hughes shook the gambling community. There was a lot of concern in the ranks about what was going to happen to his gaming empire, and to the rest of his holdings, for that matter. Within hours after the announcement of his death, all offices of the Desert Inn and other Nevada holdings were searched by security agents trying to find any evidence of a Last Will. My office was searched as well. You have to believe that, because he wasn't my family member, I had already elected to toss his will that named me as his sole heir into the shredder. I'm really that kind of a guy. Really. Honest.

Yeah, I've got a whole ton of stories to tell. I can go on and on and on. Here's one that's not a gambling story.

I was in the Air Force, stationed at Beale AFB near Yuba City, California. I was in the Civil Engineering Squadron and had a variety of duties during my time there. The Civil Engineers do everything from routine maintenance to laying out airfields to building houses…you name it. Well, the base got a new Wing Commander, and he was fussy. He didn't like flies in his office, and he had a few. So, he called on the Civil Engineering Squadron to come out and spray his office.

The next day, he walked in and found some flies in his office. So, he called Civil Engineers and raised a ruckus. Next day, same thing. This went on for about a week. Finally, his secretary called the Civil Engineering Squadron Commander and politely suggested that the Wing Commander was about ready to put someone on a barbeque spit. Well, the boys in the pesticides department got out to his office and gave it full throttle.

The next morning, the Wing Commander opened the door to his office to discover that the pesky flies were indeed gone and… that the Formica top of his desk had sprung up off the wood and curled into a very tight ball.

Catch me in the next issue and maybe we'll talk about me and Billy Carter. You remember him, don't you? Wish I had a can of Billy Beer to stick on E-Bay right now!

FOGGY THOUGHTS

It's been foggy in Burney lately.  I kind of like it that way, because you can't see the politicians ducking through the trees. 

Throughout recent history, maybe the last 25 years or so, the left-wing radicals have practiced the art of shouting down anyone who disagrees with their agendas.  Certainly in the last two decades, that art has gravitated throughout the Democratic Party, so that all Democrats have been shouting down those who challenge them on any subject.  And, when the shout-downs have been ineffective, they have resorted to name-calling and downright wicked allegations.  

Don't get me wrong; I'm not backing Sarah Palin at this point.  I really want to see who the strong candidates a year from now.  But, when you look at the way they demonize her, that is a classic example of how they conduct themselves.  She's been called everything from a whore, to insane, to brainless, to an animal killer and to one of those responsible for the Tucson tragedy.  Nancy Pelosi, by the way, terms the Tucson tragedy as being "accidental murder."  

Frankly, their conduct is mean-spirited and their dialogue inspires violent reactions.  The Republicans and others have tried to ignore them, but their evil rhetoric has grown so far out of proportion to reality that Americans from all walks of life are now getting back in their faces.  In an ages-old tactic, their response is, "Why don't you guys calm down and have civil discourse?"  Past experience leads me to believe that is just a ploy to shut us up.  If they really wanted civil discourse, they would come to the table in Washington with open minds, ready for compromise and ready to lead the nation in a responsible and responsive way. 

I think Americans are fed up.  I think Americans are ready to take the Senate and the Presidency back from the Democrats in 2012.  You noticed that I did not use the word "Republicans,"  I used "Americans."  There are many, many main-stream Democrats who are just as tired of the yelling, screaming  and name calling as the rest of us are.  

Maybe the radical, left-wing liberals are about to have their comeuppance. 

TALES OF THE WILD, WILD WORST: BUGSEY SIEGEL

The New Year continues with its Wednesday columns of my illustrious past and the FLAT RABBIT PRESS.

Welcome back, pal.

I previously tantalized you with a promise to talk about Bugsy Siegel and Howard Hughes. Due to space and time constraints, I'll have to limit it to Bugsy for this column and to talk about Howard in the next. Don't worry about Howard…. He's way, way up there in the belly of a Spruce Goose someplace, pacing back and forth in his tennis shoes and without a dime in his pocket.

For now, let's just discuss bugs. There are some desert bugs that don't crawl out every season. It's a fact that some varieties require an absolutely perfect environment to hatch. One species of gnat lays its eggs in the summer sands and disappears, sometimes for decades, until things are "just right."

Back in the mid-'80's, 1984 if memory serves me correctly, it was a particularly wet winter in the desert, followed by some of the prettiest desert blooms I've ever seen. It was also the year of the desert gnat. One night, all hell broke loose in Vegas; the town was totally packed with fight fans. I think Hearns and Leonard might have been going toe-to-toe at Caesar's Palace.

Well, the damned gnats hatched. Attracted by the lights, they headed straight for Vegas and got sucked into all of the major strip hotel and casino air conditioning systems in the middle of the night. Billions of them, and I do mean billions, made their way into hotel rooms, luxury suites and "eye-in-the-sky" crawl spaces. The next day, floating gnat carcasses were literally two inches deep in ice buckets and there was one helluva lot of ticked off customers.

Vegas also has what they call water bugs. I think that they're a cross between a cockroach and a beetle. They're black, and squatty, and big, and they just love to munch on gnat carcasses. Sure enough, water bug herds exploded in population. They seemed to be most at-home in the security crawl spaces above casino floors. In fact, the Chief of Security at the Landmark opened up the crawl space there and shined his flashlight in; the bugs were so thick that it reminded me of a giant, black carpet waving in a breeze. Yuck!

Casino ceilings have many places where such bugs can crawl out, such as light fixtures and air conditioning vents. One night, there was a blonde bombshell playing roulette. I mean, she was a 38-26-36, 5'10" movie star stuffed into a size 5 dress. Yeah, things were poking out everywhere. Well, just like half of the casino execs in the joint were doing, I was watching her gamble when a black bug fell out of the ceiling and onto the roulette wheel. The dealer, in one sweeping and poetic motion, snatched a tissue from a nearby box, reached into the wheel and extracted the bug. I think we were the only ones who caught that action, that dealer was so cool.

The next bug, however, landed in a slightly different and more provocative spot. The blonde was leaning over the table and placing her bets when all of the sudden…. Kerplunk! Straight down the bodice of her dress and deep into her cleavage it went. Ooooo, baby! I haven't seen a body twist and turn like that since Earl Campbell played on Super Bowl Sunday! Oooo! She made a whole new meaning for the words, "Fox Trot!" Even Fred Astaire couldn't have kept up with her.

Which, of course, brings me to Bugsy.

Vegas has always been like a big carny game for adults. You've got the hucksters, the shucksters, and the barkers, all with their big come-ons. It's one publicity stunt after another in that town and one particular night at the Flamingo was no different. There they were, Flamingo President Burton Cohen and supreme huckster Geraldo Rivera, about to open up what was being touted as Bugsy Siegel's secret floor safe. Was there really a million bucks stashed in there?  And, I was watching that malarkey on national TV. Oh, mercy me!

A friend of mine, Fran Sunblade, had been the Food and Beverage Auditor at the Flamingo when I worked there way back in my tender youth. One day, he'd invited me into his office, which was one of several cubicles stretched down a hallway near the executive offices. "Get down on the floor and pull that carpet back," Fran told me. And there it was... what would one day become the central point of a national television circus... Bugsy Siegel's floor safe. The area where Fran had his office used to be Bugsy's office suite.

"Who in Hell was Bugsy Siegel?" I'd asked Fran. I really wasn't kidding, but I guess he THOUGHT that I was kidding, because he almost fell off of his chair and doubled over in laughter.

The lid was unlocked and, upon further inspection, I discovered that it was empty. Well, if you've been reading my columns to any extent, you know by now what my next move was. I had Fran hand me a blank piece of paper, upon which I wrote, "What in the hell are you looking in here for?" I signed it, "Bugsy," dropped it into the safe, and put the lid back on.

Several years later, Burton and Geraldo both hyped and re-hyped the night they would open Bugsy's safe at the Flamingo. You certainly must know that I was salivating over that. I could just picture Geraldo reaching deep, deep into the safe and extracting my note on national television. Well, dammit, you know that the real joke was on me because, there was nothing in there. They really didn’t have to crack the safe open, either; the combination was broken and there was no way you could lock the cover. So, maybe they'd already read my note before the show. Or, maybe, Fran had played a joke on someone and forgotten to put the note back in. Who knows? Only The Shadow knows. What a disappointment that night was to me; I’ve never been the same since.

As for Howard Hughes? Yeah, I collected $1,500 from him, back in 1974 when I was collecting "written off" gambling debts. If you really want to hear that story, my friend, yer gonna have to read the next issue, 'cause I'm out of space this time.

As I sit here and polish off this column, my eyes settle on the picture hanging there on the wall. You know the picture; it's the one of me with Mike Tyson. Yeah, the one with his arm around my shoulders. The one taken in the Crown Room at the Las Vegas Hilton the night before Tyson won his first major fight. I didn't tell you about that story? Well, pal, it's coming your way in a FLAT RABBIT PRESS, soon. And yes, I still have both of my ear lobes. See ya! I'll bet you thought Mike got one ear lobe and my ex-wife got the other one, didn't you?  


See ya next week pal. 

CORPORATE AMERICA IS JUST AS BAD AS GOVERNMENT

I live in a nice, small town in northern California.  You would think, living out in the sticks like this, that we would be immune to the crap going on in our government and the economy, but we're not.  The jobless rate here is well over 25% and several small shops have gone out of business.  But, that's not all.  

We have discovered that corporate America is just as bad as our government has been as far as being responsive to consumers and citizens.  Just like their cousins in Washington, they are doing things to us and against us and not telling us.  Imagine my surprise to wake up one day and discover that Northern Tissue is half an inch more narrow than it was the day before.  Where on the package does it say that? 

Scott Tissue, still with 1,000 sheets, now has 9.4 square feet less total tissue than it did before.  That means they either also made it more narrow or they made the individual sheets shorter.  Where on the package does it say that?  

The list of consumer goods that has downsized is almost endless.  Orange juice has fewer ounces per container.  Cheese packages have fewer slices.  Dish soap has fewer ounces but the same sized container.  Everything from hot dogs to body lotion has been affected.  But, where on the packages does it say that?  

Well, one thing is the same... the price.  Yes, you still get to pay $1.25 for the dish soap, it's just that the soap container now has 30 ounces instead of 32.  Well, yes, that does mean that the price per ounce went up, but where on the price label does it say that?  They are flat out hiding the fact that they are charging you more; for example, if you use 100 rolls of toilet tissue per year and the size is now 9% less, next year you will need 109 rolls to do the same job or you're going to lose a lot of friends.  

The companies that have been challenged about this practice virtually all say the same thing: if they packaged the same amount in the package, they would have to raise the price of the merchandise because your friendly government has kicked off inflation.  By reducing the amount of contents, they say with tongues in cheek, they don't have to raise prices.  You'd think they were selling Obamacare. 

Check out the sizes and the price per unit the next time you go to the store.  This is deceptive advertising and packaging, pure and simple, and corporate America needs to hear our displeasure load and clear.  Give them a call, but be prepared to go through the electronic answering machines and to be on hold for half-an-hour before you get to speak with the Indonesian customer service rep. 

ANOTHER GREAT TALE OF THE WILD, WILD WORST

Another Wednesday, another breathtaking tale from my past, a la Flat Rabbit Press:

Welcome back, pal.

When I left you at the end of my last column, I was face-to-face with the business end of a loaded 45. That's the main reason this column will be a tad bit more serious than most. But, and make no mistake about it, every tale told in this column is true.

I ended up in that predicament while trying to collect a gambling debt for the Desert Inn in Vegas. The guy owed the joint $15,000 and he'd made no bones about the fact that he had no intentions to pay it. As customary, I'd not bothered to tell him that I was coming; I didn't want to give him any advantages in the showdown.

Due to bad weather, the plane was diverted to the other side of the Bible-belt state and I had to rent a car and head east. I have to admit that I was more than a little surprised when I reached his place of business. It was an old, three-story brick high school building, surrounded by two chain link fences, (each neatly trimmed with razor wire), and sporting a couple of not-so-friendly German shepherds rambling around between the fences. I had to drive around the whole block to find a spot where the fences ran up against the building to allow for deliveries.

There was a roll-up metal door and loading area with a dutch-door to the right and a sign that specified deliveries were to be made between 9:00AM and 1:00PM only. It was 3:30. I rang the buzzer anyway. I had to ring it several times before the top half of the door opened. I was in the remnants of a hurricane, mind you, and soaked to the gills.

Wouldn't you know it? The guy was all dressed up in a dark and pin-striped suit, just like in one of those "Godfather" movies. I felt conspicuously awkward and out-of-place as I stood there in my orange sharkskin, genuine polyester, wet sport coat. "Whaddya want?" he growled.

"I want to see Freddie," I said, as I slipped my business card to him. His eyes squinted when he read the card.

"Wait here!" He slammed the door shut in my face and I waited for a another very long time before the door opened again. He directed me around to the front of the building and told me to go through two gates after I heard the buzzers, then to go up the steps and to ring a bell by the door. I inquired as to what the dogs had in mind, and he told me they'd already had lunch.

There was another bimbo waiting for me after I rang the bell. I tracked after him into an old classroom; the floor had been painted navy gray. At the other end of the room, there was a beaten-up old desk with a gray-haired and bespectacled geezer sitting behind it. He was plunking away at an equally old adding machine, one of those fancy pull-the-handle styles. Mr. Muscleman with the bulge in his suit jacket pointed to the only other furniture in the room, a folding metal chair, and directed me to sit.

I sat. In fact, I sat there for a very long time, watching that old buzzard at the other end of the room plunking away at his damned adding machine. My clothes even dried out. I tried several times to engage him in conversation, but the plunking was incessant and he never even acknowledged that I had spoken. Eventually, Mr. Muscleman returned and ordered me to follow him. Out in the hallway, another suited twit started following behind me.

"You packin'?" he demanded, when we reached the top landing on the third floor. I told him that I wasn't, but he patted me down anyway. Then, Muscleman led me to a big, solid oak door and buzzed away at an intercom on the wall. "He's here," he announced into the microphone. A third greaseball opened the door and I was almost pushed inside.

It was another old classroom, but poles apart. This room had cherry wood, plush red carpet, red velvet drapes, and a huge mahogany desk at the opposite end. The guy behind the desk, also wearing the traditional pin-striped suit, was smoking a big fat cigar and fingering my business card. I was escorted to a chair across from him and shoved into it. "Whaddya want?" he growled. Well, at least they all spoke the same language.

"You know why I'm here," I stoically replied. To which he slowly opened a desk drawer and, suddenly… I was eyeball to eyeball with that loaded 45 I've been telling you about. It was an automatic. I knew it was automatic because it didn't have the little round thing that holds the bullets. I knew it was loaded because I saw the guy slip the clip in and pull the slide back. Needless to say, I watched with some interest as he laid it down on the top of the desk.

Do you know," he growled, "you're in the middle of one of the biggest porno distribution centers in the world.  I own the sheriff, the police chief, and the judges in this town.  All I have to do is just reach for the gun and blow your ***** head off and no one, I mean no one, will ever know what happened to you."

I think that may have been an implied threat, I’m not sure. I leaned across the desk and stuck my face directly into his. "The boys at the Desert Inn won't think too nicely of you if I don't show up back there tomorrow morning, alive and with the 15 grand.  So, now what, Freddie?"

After a seemingly interminable time of total silence, he told the three bimbos to wait outside. "You got guts, kid," he told me as he turned around in his chair, opened a wall safe behind him, and removed three bands of C-notes. He shoved them across the desk at me, and continued, "You've got exactly 60 seconds to get your ass off my property.´

Well, exactly 48.36 seconds later, I had left his office, elbowed my way past the three suits, flown down three flights of stairs, bolted out a locked and guarded door, squeezed through two fence gates while smiling at the dogs, flashed around to the side of the building, thrown myself into my rented car, and driven, (with some haste), two blocks down the street…. I did all of that in the midst of the residue of one of the biggest hurricanes ever to hit the East Coast. Even now, years later, the mere thought of those moments causes me to gather skid marks in my shorts.

A week or so later, I was paid a visit by the Secret Service. They told me the bills were all counterfeit.

I was going to tell you about Bugsy Siegel and Howard Hughes, but I've run out of space. My next column will be a real dilly, my friend; don't miss it. Oh, by the way, I found the answer to the question I raised in the last issue. 'Twas Major Hoople in "OUR BOARDING HOUSE." Egads, congrats and a complimentary spit-wad to Edgar Frump.

Oh, and yes… I did go back and get the $15,000… in real money. They all thought it was hilarious; I didn’t. 

THE HERMIT'S 2011 PREDICTIONS

THE HERMIT’S 2010 PREDICTIONS

1. Harry Reid will not win Nevada's Democratic nomination to be reelected to the Senate
2. Nancy Pelosi will win reelection in November, getting a paltry 51% of the vote.
3. More than 50% of the Congressional seats up for reelection will have new people sitting in them after November.
4. Republicans will make only marginal gains in November.
5. Obama’s approval rating will drop below 30%
6. The stock market will plummet again in the first quarter of 2010.
7. Unemployment will surge in the 1st quarter of 2010.
8. Sarah Palin will run for and win a Congressional seat.
9. There will be a major terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
10. Obama will not produce his birth certificate in 2010. 


With my stellar record for 2010, how about 2011?  

1. The Seattle Mariners will not win the World Series.   
2. Obama's approval rating wall fall below 45%.  
3. The Health Care Bill will not be repealed.  
4. Joe the Plumber will not run for President.  
5. Harry Reid will not switch to the Republican Party. 
6. Nancy Pelosi will say something utterly stupid.  
7. Barack Obama will say that it's time he turned his attention to the national economy.  
8. Charlie Rangel will whine about being mistreated.  
9. North Korea will attack South Korea. 
10. Ahmadinejad will thumb his nose at Obama.  


Something tells me I'm going to have more correct predictions than last year.  What do you think? 

ACT ONE IS OVER

From way up here on the mountain, thank you America, for standing up for our country in November and starting to take back control of our government.  You did good.  And now..... Act II. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU AND YOURS! 

MORE TALES OF THE WILD, WILD WORST

Another Wednesday chronicle from my days with the Flat Rabbit Press.  One thing I've noticed is that, like sales of the now defunct newspaper, readership of the blog is soaring.  Thanks; I'm glad you're enjoying the ride. 

Welcome back, pal.

Houston, we have a problem. I suggested in my last column that I might tell same tales from my days of collecting gambling debts, and I'll surely get started on that before long, but something else has been nagging at me. Unfortunately, when we get into the "something," I just know what it's gonna do to the esteemed editor and publisher of this gazette. I figure he'll no longer be esteemed, but just "steamed."

You see, when I save these columns to my computer, I use a file name like FRP20050731. FRP, of course, is the acronym for "FLAT RABBIT PRESS." The 2005 is for the year, 07 for the month, and 31 for the date. This methodology makes it so much easier to find files, because they line up in your index by date. That's my free computer tip for the day.

Now, back to the "FRP." It seems to me, tucked way back there in the cobwebs of my cavernous mind, that there was once-upon-a-time a comic strip where the main character, a fat old guy with a stovepipe hat, used to utter things like, "Fapppp" and "Frrrp" and such sayings in response to being caught doing or saying something wrong, or having someone go one-up on him. And, frankly, that's what's naggin' at me.

I don't think it was "MOON MULLINS," but it might have been. I know for certain that it wasn't "MICKEY FINN," or "NANCY," or "DICK TRACY," or "ALLEY OOP!" It's really bugging me. I mean, I've been sipping on grasshoppers for an hour now, and it still doesn't come to mind. By the way and as another free tip, it's so much easier to sip on grasshoppers if you spread their wings first.

So it is, my pal, that I need your help. I really need to know the answer to this most perplexing question before I venture into straight brandy, because brandy gives me the gout. If you know the answer, could you PLEASE… Oh, PLEASE LORD…. Cometh on down from your mount and layeth the answer upon my soul! CLEANSETH ME from my wicked ways and…. No, strike that last thought. I do so much admire my wicked ways.

If you know the answer, please send me an email at bullitts@frontiernet.net or drop me a postal card at PO Box 238, Burney, CA 96013 and I'll be most grateful. Or, is it "greatful?" Who cares? I'm into the brandy already. FRPPPPP! Who so evereth shall provideth me with the answerth, shalt be enterdeth into a drawingeth for a free sippeth of my brandyeth. Uh oh, dang thing's emptyeth! FAAPP!

There are sooo many stories that I can relate about collecting gambling debts. Many of them are fascinating because of the people involved. Most of them have a humorous overtone. A lot of them I can't tell, for obvious reasons.

In my day, I was the single best "phone man" in the business. Ask anyone. I collected more money on the phone than the Pope at Sunday Mass. My success was generally due to my injection of humor. My favorite line in the latter '70's was, "You ever watch ‘THE GODFATHER?'” Of course, everyone in the world had been to see that movie. "Well, unless you pay up, you're gonna' end up in bed with the OTHER end of the horse!" That single line probably collected well over a million greenbacks.

A cab driver owed the Aladdin $600 for a bad check. I had a guy working for me by the name of John. John would call the customer and meanly ask when in the hell the guy was going to pay up. The guy would consistently answer that he came in to pay last week, but that he couldn't make it past the dice tables and he'd lost the $600. John would go totally ballistic. Problem was, the dice tables were just outside the main cage where our offices were located and John couldn't understand why the guy just would not step on over and pay up.

One day, just for the heck of it, I gandered through the pit records and tallied up the customer's craps losses for the previous year. I told John, "God forbid the day that you collect that $600. It'll cost the joint $30,000 in revenue a year on the dice tables."

There was a another guy from southern California who owed the Desert Inn a lot of money for a long time. But, he'd always been a loyal customer and he and his wife had been on the splits. One day, he called me to announce that they had gotten back together and that things were going great with their business and, "Bob, thanks for bearing with me, how much do I owe?" He sent the money the very next day.

Well, we reestablished his credit line and he and his lovely wife came to see me and they gave me a very expensive knife set in gratitude. A few weeks and trips later, George called me to say that he'd like to come up as a "non-registered guest." That usually meant that the customer was playing hanky panky and didn't want anyone to know he was staying at the hotel. Of course, I accommodated his wishes.

On the day of his arrival at the Desert Inn, I received an unexpected call from his wife. "Have you seen George?" No. And, I did NOT lie! I had not seen him, yet. "Good. I'm staying across the street at the Frontier and I have, well, he's a gentleman friend of mine, and we'd like to see Frank Sinatra Jr. I've seen Wayne Newton's show so many times! Can you fix us up with that and, if you should hear from George, please don't mention I'm in town? I mean, he's in Omaha working his tail off on business and I just know he'd be angry if he knew I was in Vegas without him!"

Sure, sure, sure. And, yep! My next call was to George's room, no answer. I left a message. "Urgent you return my call." He didn't get it.

What are the odds? George and girlfriend end up in the Desert Inn's foyer on the way to see Wayne Newton at exactly the precise moment Sharron and boyfriend enter the foyer on their way to see Frankie Jr. Like I said, please pass the gray poop on! Yeah, the cops ended up on the bloody scene. But, at least, I had a good set of kitchen knives. Still have ‘em, too.

Holy Cleveland! Now the stories are zapping through the infinite resources of my mind like speeding bullets! I could fill this gazette with stories for the rest of the year! Next!

There I was, eyeball to eyeball with the business end of a loaded 45. It was an automatic. I knew it was automatic because it didn't have the little round thing that holds the bullets. I knew it was loaded because I saw the guy slip the clip in. Needless to say, I watched intently as he laid it down on the top of his massive and well-polished mahogany desk.

"Do you know," he growled, "I own the sheriff, the police chief, and the judges in this town? All I have to do is just reach for the gun and blow your ***** head off and no one, I mean no one, will ever know what happened to you." Succinctly said.

Of course, you're salivating. This is a classic movie scene. Where’s good old Marlon when you need him? But, what's in the cards, my friend, is that I will tell you that whole story in the next issue. And then, we'll talk about Bugsy Siegel or Howard Hughes, I haven't decided yet. But, I continue to have stories to tell.

THIS IS THE TIME OF THE YEAR...

TO HAVE A BEER.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, MY FRIENDS

AND TO ALL, GREAT CHEER!

TALES OF THE WILD, WILD WORST

Well, it’s Wednesday again and time for more of my incredulous stories, wit and wisdom from my days with the FLAT RABBIT PRESS. Here’s another rehash of a column past….

Welcome back, pal.

As promised, this is my take of my three different encounters with flying saucers. But, I need to carefully lay out my case to you, so that you don't gather up a posse and throw me into the nut house. I’ve been in there three times already this year…

I have been a pilot and a topographical surveyor. It follows that you might say my abilities at observation of things and distances are honed a tad above those of normal folks. Okay, so I'm abnormal. So, just zip it. And, I have, in at least two separate incidents, been in a situation that others might glom onto as "proof" of UFO's; one was fairly recent.

In the summer of 2002, I was firmly planted in a soft lawn chair in the back yard of my Wingfield Springs home, (Sparks, Nevada). My friend Ernest, an ex-Marine, pointed to the sky and exclaimed, "Do you see that?" We saw two dots of light in the northeast heavens moving in what can only be described as aerodynamically impossible maneuvers. One dot was chasing the other at high speeds and radically abrupt turns. The natural conclusion would be that we were watching two highly sophisticated and advanced objects that should be classified as UFO's. Well, pal, now that I'm down the road a few years and somewhat more sober, I have to rationalize that no two UFO's are going to travel billions of miles across the universe to play tag in the atmosphere above a relatively primitive planet. Remember now, YOU'RE primitive and I'm just abnormal. Anyway, my guess is that we saw some government "Star Wars" technology being tested.

The point here is that I don’t automatically rule every strange object I see to be a UFO, unless of course, it’s being driven by a politician.

In 1994, I was chased down a desert road in the middle of the dark night and in Nevada's southern desert by extremely bright flashing lights; the multi-colored lights were so bright that I became unable to see to drive and had absolutely no choice but to pull off to the side of the road. My friend, I was scared beyond belief.  I so sincerely hoped and prayed that the savage aliens who were chasing me would not haul me off in their saucer to some foreign world where gray beings might probe my belly button and discover lint. Well, the damned cop gave me a speeding ticket. Nevertheless, I will forever insist that he was alien, and he was gray.

Now for the real stuff. Back in 1964, I was given a TDY assignment, (temporary duty for you gringos), to Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho. My mission was to train a couple of guys to be surveyors. As part of the training course that I laid out, we took off in the middle of a dark summer night to "shoot the stars." That is, in plain English, we traveled away from the base and nearby town lights to use theodolites, (surveying instruments), to determine differences in angles between known stars. With that information, and a relative chart of the stars and the application of some geometry, algebra and logarithms, we could determine our precise position on planet Earth. These days, it's all GIS and GPS.

We were about two hours into this exercise when one of my trainees, (I'll call him Larry), hollered, "Jeeeeezus! Look at that light!" There was a moderate hill near us and we could see very bright and white light from the other side of it. The light had not been there when we arrived; otherwise I would have chosen another location where bright lights would not interfere with "shooting the stars." And, when Larry insisted that he had seen the light come in from the sky and land there, curiosity grabbed us.

When we reached the top of the hill, we looked down and saw several very bright lights coming from a circular object that was on sandy ground surrounded by sagebrush. The object itself, as I remember it, was made of a very shiny aluminum-type material. It had a domed center, which is the classic description of a flying saucer. What's more is that there were two "beings" outside. They were in shiny uniforms with some type of helmet and they were doing something to the ground while using long sticks.

Looking back on it now, I would have to say that they were gathering soil samples and I would surmise that their biological makeup was not compatible with ours or they would not have needed to be wearing "space suits." But, at the time, none of us looked back. In fact, we exited the hillside like bats out of D.C., threw our gear into the pickup truck, and vamoosed back to the base. Seconds after we started down the road, the bright light took off and flew directly over us and disappeared into the horizon, almost instantly. Yes, please pass the gray poop on.

We agreed never to report the incident or to talk about it. We all were aware of the endless scrutiny we could face if we tried to file a report. Although we never told anyone, there were soon widespread reports of UFO's floating around the base and the town of Mountain Home itself.

It was in 1976 that I had my second real encounter. This one was flat-dab in the middle of Las Vegas. I was working part-time for good friends, Bernie and Peg. They operated a small convenience store, called Stop N Go, in the northeast Las Vegas valley. I worked weekends, and it was nearing 11:00 PM on a Sunday night, almost closing time.

I was outside in the parking lot and hosing it down. Two kids who lived in the mobile home park nearby, were walking onto the parking area from the street when one of them jumped up and down and hollered, "Holy SHIT! Look at that!"

I looked straight up to where they were pointing. I can say that I could not see any stars in the night due to the bright lights from the city and from the store. What I did see was a circular object with both white and slightly orange lights at the perimeter that were flashing in such a sequence as to make it appear that there was an organized rotating light around the circumference. There was absolutely no noise or indication of motive power.

From my position directly below, there was no way that I could see whether or not there was a dome on top of the object. It appeared to me that the circle interior was dark. It was traveling from west to east about 3,000 feet above the ground and at a speed of approximately 75 mph. I watched it go over the store and then I walked to the side of the store so I could see it continue.   It abruptly stopped, reversed itself and flew to the west and directly over us at an extremely high rate of speed.

A police officer showed up in the parking lot seconds later. He yelled out of his cruiser window and wanted to know if I had just seen a really strange object in the sky, which I confirmed. Two days later, the local newspaper carried an article tucked into one of the obscure areas of section C or D. It was a one or two paragraph story of "a few" local citizens seeing strange lights in the sky. Nearby Nellis Air Force Base was stating that the sighting was not on radar and there were no scheduled flights in the area at the time.

Another time I saw a flying saucer was in Las Vegas in 1979. I had just offered some congratulatory remarks to my then wife about having made a terrific dinner and, "Was that frozen, or did you make it from scratch?" This particular flying saucer came at me at astronomically high speed and from nowhere. I know for certain that it was a UFO from outer space because I never saw her throw it.

Anyway, I did give you something to think about. Wanna hear some tales about my days collecting gambling debts? Grab the next issue.

(Next Wednesday).

SCREW THE RICH?

I've been going through one of those rare lucid moments in my life when I can attack issues with some degree of intelligence. 

The liberal left wants to take from the rich and keep it for themselves.  Oh, they'll tell you they want to give it to the poor, but when is the last time your saw a rich liberal give even a dime to the Salvation Army?  Those on the right will tell you that wealthy people and businesses contribute to the economy by hiring more people, so if you tax them, unemployment will stay high.  

So, there's the crux of that argument.  But, there's really more.  It's the wealthy individual and business that has invested so heavily in research and development, and I'm talking hundreds of billions of dollars.  It galls me that Bill Gates started his business in a garage with $1,000 and here he is in 2010 with billions and billions of dollars employing a helluva lot of people and the liberal left wants to take his money from him.  To top it all off, think about what the guy gives to charitable organizations and educational institutions.  Yet, without Bill Gates taking that initial risk, you wouldn't be reading this on a computer and I'd be typing it on an old, beat up Smith Corona.  

In fact, without Bill Gates' software research and development, your bank would still be hand-canceling checks and taking several weeks to print your statements.  Cell phones would not work, you couldn't pay for gas at the pump, carbon paper would still be in style... I can go on, and on.  

Howard Hughes impacted, and still is impacting the country in the same way.  What about the Waltons and... well, I can create a very long list here, and that's just of the super-rich.  There's a huge, huge list of people and organizations in the $10 million to $1 billion range who have contributed in so many ways to our culture, our way of life, our economy, ad infinitum.  The fact is, if it wasn't for the rich we'd still be washing clothes on a washboard and sending astronauts to outer space on a bicycle. 

How about this thought?  If you took all of the billions of dollars that billionaires in this country currently own and you used their money to pay down the national debt, you could not cover even one year's worth of government spending.  

That pretty much tells the whole story, doesn't it?

MORE TALES OF THE WILD, WILD WORST

More rehashed and reworked stories from my days as a writer with THE FLAT RABBIT PRESS.

Welcome back, pal.

In my lifetime, I've had more than my share of experiences that really boggle the mind. I'll relate them all to you in due time, but I'll have to settle for just one in this issue. After which, space permitting, maybe we'll talk about hookers.

I was Senior Loan Officer for a major San Francisco financial institution and my then wife and I were also co-managing an apartment and motel complex in Marin County. One day, my wife informed me that a tenant by the name of Susan had bounced her rent check, so I hot-footed my then suave, masculine body up to her apartment and knocked on the door. Undoubtedly, you know what happened next.

The door opened about a quarter of the way and there was Susan, about 5 feet six, young, luscious, blonde, well-stacked, and seductively posed in a completely see-through baby-doll negli-golly-whiz-gee outfit. "Hi," she purred, just as smoothly as an idling 1958 supercharged Olds with Hollywood mufflers. I explained who I was and that I was there about her bad rent check. She tugged invitingly at her silk shoulder strap and cooed, "Why don't you come in? I'm sure we can work something out."

It goes without saying that, being the loyal husband that I was, I exercised my very best judgment and passed on the offer.  Besides, I could see my wife's reflection in Susan's front window; she was standing on the stoop in front of the office and watching all of the action. Susan did make that check good, but she bounced the next month's rent and split the scene. She left behind a lot of interesting adult gadgets, and I'm not talking about can openers, either.

Anyway, the wife was very pregnant with our first son, and we eventually decided to move to Seattle to be closer to her parents and to get me into managing a finance company. We also co-managed a housing complex and…. Yeah, how'd you guess? Susan was a tenant there and yes, she bounced a rent check. You know, that blew my mind away. It also blew Susan's mind when I knocked on her door. "You came all of the way up here from California to collect a rent check?" she asked. I gave her 48 hours to cover the current check.

Well, I was sitting at my manager's office desk at the finance company the very next day when I heard Susan explaining to my loan officer that her mean, bully landlord was dogging her for the rent. I pulled the loan officer aside and explained the situation. I told him to use his own judgment and to leave me out of the decision-making process. To make a long story longer, he decided to go ahead and make her the loan and to use the title to her car as security. When she sat down to sign the papers and obtain her rent money, I walked out into the lobby and spilled the beans. "You'd better never, ever bounce a check on this loan," I warned her, "because I WILL come to get you, and it won't be pleasant.”

Six months later, Susan bounced a loan payment and a rent payment and she disappeared into the night. This time and to my complete and utter dismay, she didn't leave behind any toys. I made it a point to skip-trace her myself and I located her in Surrey, British Columbia. One Saturday, my loan officer and I took a Saturday drive and knocked on Susan's door. The landlord of the place told me that we had barely missed her; she had moved out the day before. “But, I think the RCMP might be able to help you," he winked. The Mounties were good enough to pin her down for me and she was working in a hotel in Edmonton, Alberta as the “house organ player.” I won't go into details about what organ she was playing.

That's the last I heard of Susan for a very long time. As far as I knew, she never missed another payment on the loan, but I would eventually find out differently. You see, I ended up working at the Landmark Hotel in Las Vegas as the Executive Casino Host. I had developed quite a reputation in the gaming industry for collecting gambling debts, and the credit manager there asked me if I could teach some of the tricks of the trade to his new collector.

Yeah, you guessed it again. I ran across a $200 bad check written by Susan and she was working as a blackjack dealer at the Royal across the street. I told Mike that I'd soon have the money he'd been trying to collect for the last six months. You should have seen the look on her face when I sat down at her table the next day. "My God," she said, white as a pillow case, "you DID chase me down." Needless to say, I collected the money.

Pretty darned phenomenal, huh? What a story! But, it ain't over yet. About ten years later, I got a job offer at the Peppermill in Reno and put my Vegas house up for sale. The real estate market was in a slump at the time, and the agent suggested I should consider taking in a renter. Just like a jack-in-the-box and out of nowhere, up popped Susan as a potential tenant. She eventually did buy the place. Of course, I gave her an excellent credit recommendation. Well, what the bank doesn't know won't hurt them. They wouldn't have believed the real story, anyway. But, finally, that was the end of that story, I hope.

Now, let's talk about hookers.

While I was working at the Landmark, we hired a Director of Security by the name of Francis Lynch. The guy used to be a New York City Chief of Detectives I thought, but my friend Gary now tells me that Francis was a former FBI agent. Anyway, the guy dressed in $25 genuine gray polyester suits.

Mitch the Bell Captain came to me one day with a complaint that Francis had run all of the hookers out of the place. "I'm having trouble making my house payment," he lamented. I sized up the situation and decided to take Francis to lunch. That is worth mentioning because, in those days, I was tighter than a jock strap on an elephant. Okay, so some things never change; you do win that point.

"Francis," I confided, "it is a sign of good business to have a couple of hookers hanging around the bar."

"Why's that?"

"Well, hookers like money and gamblers have money and gamblers with money like hookers. If you have a couple of hookers hanging around, gamblers figure that this is a good house to play in."

The very next night, my girlfriend Debi collared me on the casino floor, (I was divorced by then, but Susan had nothing to do with it,). "What kind of a place are you guys turning this casino in to?" she demanded to know. I asked her what she was talking about, and she directed me to the lounge. I peeked inside the plush velvet curtains and, lo and behold, there were about 40 hookers in there.

"Francis," I said, after I chased him down. If I remember correctly, he was getting his tennis shoes shined at the time. "Francis, we've got to talk."

Next Wednesday, we'll discuss my three experiences with flying saucers.

CONGRESS: A CESSPOOL OF ADDICTION

Like most children, I learned at an early age: when mom says "Don't touch!" well then, don't touch.  Sometimes we simply had to ignore her; that's how we ended up burning our fingers on the stove top. 

We just had a national election.  We, the people, said loud and clear that we are sick and tired of "business as usual" in Washington.  We made it plain as day that we don't want any more of this "earmarking" crapola. Right after the election, legislation was introduced to ban future earmarks.  There was a lot of ballyhooing on the part of some Congressional circles to the effect that, every now and then, earmarks were essential and that all parties concerned were making a solemn pledge to the American public to minimize the practice.  On November 30th, the Senate stopped the anti-earmark proposal by a vote of 56-39 along party lines. 

Here's the first major piece of legislation since that vote, the Bush Tax Cut - Unemployment package, and guess what?  Buried in the bill is a whole humongous pile of earmark dung, none of which is even remotely connected to the Bill at hand.  Like drug addicts, they obviously cannot quit; they're looking mom straight in the eye and putting their grubby fingers on the stove top anyway.  

They need to get burned, real bad.  Third degree burns would suit me just fine. 

TALES OF THE WILD, WILD WORST

Welcome back, pal. If you remember, last Wednesday I announced something new for this blog. You can check back and take a look, if you want. Here’s some more great wit and truth from my past FLAT RABBIT PRESS days.

I was perusing one of this esteemed publication's would-be competitors a few weeks ago when something caught my attention. It was an article about how the casinos are embedding radio-frequency microchips into their gambling tokens so that they can keep better track of their customers. I have to admit that a wry grin crossed my handsome, rugged face.

You see, it was yours truly who convinced the management of the Flamingo back in 1970 that they should start asking for credit cards for room deposits. God forbid that they should offend a player in those days; these days, the casinos don't seem to care who they offend. And yes, it was me who was the first casino host in the business to buy a computer and to design a database that would allow me to keep a rudimentary track of customers, what they played, how much they bet, and what amenities they liked in their rooms. A good friend of mine, John Tihista, came along shortly after and he, I and another mutual friend, Ed Joyce, put together an extravagant piece of software that became the foundation of most of the good casino marketing systems in existence today.

Another good friend by the name of Steve ended up in Taos, New Mexico. One night, I called him on his cell phone and managed to convince him that I was trying out new computer software that would allow me to precisely locate anyone's geographical location at any given time. I capped the ploy by pointing out that he was in a bar in downtown Taos.

"Where'd you get that software?" he bit the hook. "How much does it cost?" I never did tell him that I could hear the jukebox and the clinking of the bar glasses in the background, accompanied by a patron's voice pleading, "Give me another one, Dolly!"

Have you ever stopped to think about how much data there really is out there in the ethernet? Just for starters, virtually every government entity has made its records available on-line. That's not just recent stuff, either. Some states have ongoing projects whereby data-entry specialists are busily converting tidbits into bytes, and they're going back in time to cover more and more history about you and me, among other things. Take the innocent record of a committee meeting in some old mining county, for example. If you were there, chances are a simple internet search for your name, coupled with Nevada, will turn up a hit. Try my name, and you'll see what I mean.

Do you, by any remote possibility, have electricity at your place? The power company has computers. Do you have running water there? Perchance, how about an old-fashioned landline telly? Those companies all have computers and the computers talk with each other. Now, let's add Sears, eBay, U-Haul, and the cathouse down the road.

Think you have to be a privileged, authorized muckety-muck to get your hands on this stuff? Give me your name and the state and county you live in, and I guarantee you I'll get back some info that'll pique your curiosity. I can do that for free; give me a couple of black chips, and I'll hand you your date of birth, social security number, military record, and stats about your neighbors! Give me three more black chips and I can tell you when you last had sex, at what time, where, and with whom. Yeah, for $500 I can get it all, my friend.

Did you realize that there are marketing companies that gather data on everyone, their relatives, their surroundings, their health, their insurance, their employers, their wages, their savings, and EVERYTHING? Did you know that there are companies that telemarket and that they have in front of them computerized information about you, your spouse, your kids, and the car you drive? When they go into a spiel about having you refinance your home at a low interest rate, they already know down to the last cent how much you owe on the house, who you owe it to, and how much the shack is worth.

I'm sure there's more than one company, but I know of one where I can purchase a few dozen CD's along with the software that will allow me to pre-sort every person in the United States who earns more than $50,000 a year, who plays golf, whose wife knits, who works as an electrician, who owns his own house outright, who drives a Buick Regal, and who does most of his shopping at a major discount shopping store. I can narrow that down by state, county, city, and street.

Do you prefer Miracle Whip or Best Mayo? Do you buy gas at Union or ARCO? How much did you spend in medical bills last year? How many pairs of Haines panty briefs did you buy last year? When you're shopping for Haines panty briefs, do you predominantly shop at Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Penny's or Mervyn's? What percentage of your family income did you spend last year on sweet dill pickles?

These days, you get a Social Security Number within seconds after you're born. Tomorrow, there may be a government agent there at the time to sample your DNA , (all in the interest of public safety, I'm sure), take your fingerprints and tie it all into to your Social Security Number. Then, your eternal computer record will begin, my friend.

Several years ago, the Smart Card was market-tested in Europe. The idea was to put your basic identification, all of your credit card and bank information, health problems and medical insurance, all on a microchip in a plastic card. That test was successful and the Smart Card is now in growing use in the USA. The pitch? You don't have to carry an Exxon Card, five bank cards, a driver license, your health plan card, and your belly-button size. It's all contained in ONE card. Isn't that great? Yes, when you're paying for your panty briefs, you have your choice of accounts from your Smart Card; charge MasterCard, American Express, your checking account, whatever. And now, the cashier clerk can smile at you and say, "I notice you didn't purchase any Depends today. You normally purchase three packages of Depends during your visit to our store. We have a sale today on Depends. Wouldn't you like to buy some Depends?" Nice, cheeeeezy smile, lady.

Wiley was playing blackjack and he was beating the house unmercifully. Each hour, the pit boss would wander through the casino and take notes as to how each table stood, (winning or losing), and about any particular players of note. Every hour, the boss would sidle up to Wiley's table and proceed to neatly stack the growing, but disorganized pile of chips in front of Wiley so that they could be properly counted. And, every hour, just as the boss finished stacking up the chips to begin his count, Wiley would swipe has hand across the piles and mess them all up again. Yes, each and every hour, the boss would holler at Wiley and tell him not to do that again.

Eventually, the boss approached Wiley and told him that he was about to do his "count." He admonished Wiley to keep his hands off of the damned chips until the count was finished. Wiley didn't respond, as he was cunningly busy winning his next hand. The pit boss completed stacking the chips and, sure enough, Wiley knocked them down again. This time, the pit boss was really livid. "I oughta throw you out of this place!"

"Man," Wiley smiled, "I won these here chips. They're mine. If you want to throw me out, I’ll cash them out and go home and keep the damned money and you’ll get your ass fired for being a dumb shit.”

Ponder all of that until the next issue, and maybe then we'll talk about hookers.


Aren't Wednesdays going to be great? 

SHOOT OUT AT THE CONGRESSIONAL CORRAL?

If you remember correctly, the former Democratic incumbents and staffers of the White House trashed it before they left at the end of the Clinton Administration. They erased emails and emptied the computer system, glued wrong keys onto keyboards, and performed a whole host of other deeds designed to let the incoming Bush Administration know that they were pissed off.

Childish? If I had been Bush, I would have rounded them all up and sent them off to prison for a week weeks for destroying government property, and the fact the Bush did not do just that was one of the first clues that he was not going to be a “no non-sense” President which we desperately needed after eight years of Lewinsky, et al.

Now that we have voted half of Congress out of office, we’re getting another payback, this in the form of sabotaging legislation that is essential to carrying on the business of the nation. I’m talking about the Bush tax cuts, the government budget, immigration… good God, man, the list is endless. And we elected these people to lead our country?

The best thing we could do to end this mess is to arm every damned one of them with an AK-47 and then lock the doors until the bullets quit flying.

THE HERMIT TAKES A NEW DIRECTION

Around six years ago, give a day or two, I was living in northern Nevada managing the Yerington Paiute Tribe in Yerington. Along came a dude from Smith Valley who was starting up a fun newspaper known as “THE FLAT RABBIT PRESS.” Since he was familiar with my journalistic prowess, he asked me to write a weekly column. I jumped right to it.

When I started the BURNEY MOUNTAIN HERMIT, my intention was to do a daily bit of humor and insight, but my vocation got in the way of things and I had to give up the daily gig and start writing as time permitted. That’s a shame, because my audience was growing rapidly and I really enjoyed what I was doing.

The other day, I was moving things around in my office and ran across some old copies of “THE FLAT RABBIT PRESS” and I thought to myself that I had enough material here to post as a blog on a weekly basis for a few months with just a little rewriting and I know people would enjoy reading it. The reason I know that is people were writing the editor, calling him in the middle of the night and chasing him down the streets of Virginia City screaming at the top of their lungs, “I just love the Unknown Scribbler!” That’s how I know.

So, every Wednesday I’ll rehash one of those old columns and stick it…. on this blog. What follows is what was my opening column; I chopped off the first paragraph or two, inasmuch as they are purely irrelevant here:

In the natural course of journalistic events, of course, you must sense that this column has been started and restarted countless times, as have the other columns that appear upon these illustrious pages, I'm sure. At this very instant and as you read, all of us whose writings appear in this publication are as nervous as a feline on a hot asbestos roof. For example, I fully understand that those other guys whose columns are appearing here are anxious to know what the "new kid on the block" is going to churn out. For that matter, we're all anxious to know what kind of publication that the owner, editor, and publisher is going to put to print, particularly after he chose the name for this journal.

We also surmise that His Royal Highness, His Majesty, (the guy with the money), is wondering what in God's name his star columnists are going to open with. I should begin with few biographical lines about my background and why I'm doing this gig. The plain, simple fact of the matter is that there's not enough room on the page to do that. Well, darn it, from my standpoint I am a man with a very deep and rich history. I have many interesting and intriguing stories to relate, as would anyone who grew up on an Indian reservation, who had a dad with his Doctorate's Degree from Columbia, whose mom had a very rich sense of humor, whose step-mom is Chocktaw, who spent 30 plus years in the gambling business, who manages a northern Nevada Indian Tribe, who has seen his share of UFO's, and ad infinitum.

Back to the "FLAT RABBIT" name for this journal. How does it relate to me, and where's it going to point this first story? Let’s roll!

Once upon a time, I was the Executive Casino Host at the Landmark in Vegas. We were having a "New Orleans" themed party for high rollers and it was to be a costumed event. I chose to wear a pink bunny outfit. There's a long, and much more interesting background that leads up to this story, but His Highness, the Editor, has limited my space. Pftt!

The party was held in the main show room of the Landmark. There were steps leading up from one end of the casino pit directly into the showroom. The showroom, as most were in those days, had ostentatious and heavy wooden doors at the top of the steps. For this event, the open bar and the welcome table were draped in plush velvet and located directly inside the doors.

When I arrived, the room was rapidly filling with participants. Most of them were players who I had met over the years and there was no doubt in anyone's mind that this was going to be "the party of all parties." Now, my friend, play along with me and picture a big, pink bunny who doesn't want his valued guests to discover who he really is until the official unmasking and judging. Picture a very big and round pink bunny head. Picture the inhabitant of the costume as being very, very, very warm in the furry outfit. Picture the bartender asking the bunny what he wanted to drink. Picture the bunny, most confidential and soft-spoken, choosing something cool, such as a gin and tonic. Now, and most urgently, picture the issue of getting the liquid from the glass through the big round head and into the salivating mouth of the occupant. Here's how the conversation went:

"Whad'dya want?

"Gin and tonic."

"Anything else?"

"Straw." The bartender, thinking I had said "Strong," poured a triple shot. I fended for myself and managed to get three straws stuck together to fit through the rabbit mouth. Damned, that drink went down the pipes lickety, rickety split!

"One more!" I gasped.

The bartender whispered, "Scribbler? Is that you?"

"Shut the hell up, you idiot!" I groaned. "I don't want everyone to know who I am!  Just make me another one."

Halfway into the second drink, the heat of the moment and the gin of my choice joined forces to cause the room to spin counter-clock-wise to the Earth's orbit around the sun and…. I backed up myself up against the wall of the showroom to steady myself against the onslaught of sensory perception. Problem was, the wall that I was backing myself up against was the double-door entry into the showroom and yes, things were about to get exciting.

The doors flew open behind me. I hit the carpet like a ton of adobe bricks as my "head" popped off and went rolling down the showroom stairs and into the gambling pit. There, it eventually stopped rolling, resting, of course, snugly up against the patent leather shoes affixed to the feet of the General Manager of the joint. Yours truly was stretched out helplessly and like a wet dishrag at the showroom doors, surrounded by peacocks and elephants and a giraffe or two. Wow, what a moment! Truly, what a moment!

A few years later, I landed in Reno as Executive Casino Host at the Peppermill. That was in January of 1989 and the GM there was in a firing mood on my third day at the job. He had unceremoniously fired most of the sales department and a good chunk of the management staff when his secretary, Harrah, (truly her name), called me in to his office.

Phil Bryan’s reputation had preceded him and I was literally shaking in my cowboy boots as I slithered in. "Shut the door," he growled. "Sit down." My shorts were by now giving me a most severe wedgie. "Closer. Lean across the desk so I can see you better." Well, there I was, literally nose to nose, leaning across the desk and staring the steel-blue eyes of the General Manager of THE Reno Peppermill eyeball to eyeball.

"Scribbler," he whispered as he moved his lips up against my right ear. Oh, dear God, what a predicament I was in! I was stuck in a new house with big payments and in a new town and I instinctively knew that I was about to get fired. You know how it is; you can always sense awful and portentous things; those foreboding moments just chill your bones to the marrow. It my case, even my liver quivered.

"Scribbler! Pay attention!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Scribbler," he whispered so softly that I could barely make out the words. "Tell me the story about the pink bunny outfit."

Everything that you read on these Wednesday blogs will be the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and I have some great stories to tell. In between Wednesdays, I’ll try and throw in some other posts as time and reason permit. I hope you enjoyed the start up.  Regards, The Scribbler.