A new car? He thinks he might be out of the woods...

"A Chevrolet HHR... wtf is an HHR?" Vegas Baby thought to himself. "Oh, that's what it is... yuck!"




It ain't no



and it sure ain't no



but beggars can't be choosers and he was very grateful that he was driving instead of walking and taking the gorram bus.... AND it has COLD air conditioning, is zippy enough for a 4 banger, has a decent sound system and it's NEW! That's an odd feeling, a brand new car, maybe he'll make it after all, he thought to himself....

Vegas Baby had consigned himself to the state of carlessness in his heart of hearts. Then a mailer came from Fletcher Jones Chevrolet claiming he could get funded for a car note and to call and submit this secret code and he would be told how much. "Yeah, right," Vegas Baby thought to himself. BUT he did just get approved for a couple teeny credit cards and maybe....

The dealership called him the very next day and after mulling it over for a few days, he thought he might as well go in and see what could happen. He was only on the new job for 3 months and just before that he got turned down four times by other car dealerships on a $12,000 car and had no money for a down payment, so Vegas Baby thought his chances for getting approved for a car were about the same as his chances of finding a good woman- wait- he did find a good woman! Hmmmm....




So, he went in and Fletch himself


asked him, "What about a new car?" after looking at an 05 Nissan Sentra with 26,000 miles on it and he said, "Sure...." And the rest is history.

As Vegas Baby was writing this blog post, Fletch just called him and told him the loan was approved and his payments would be lower than predicted and to come in tomorrow to sign the documents. "Wow," the future millionaire thought to himself, "a good woman, generous friends, healthy kids, a new career, and now, a new car... all this and heaven, too!"

Confessions of Vegas Baby and Can One Really Love One's Job? And Dangerous Thugs

.

.
10 at night and no ride- Dealer Buddy got off an hour before Vegas Baby- so it's a $2 ride on the behemoth bus home.

Vegas Baby raised an old friend on AIM in West Virginia, a college student genius. That helped to pass the boring bus ride time.

His international lover told him the day before that she'll be largely unavailable that day so he didn't try to hard to sms her. He forgot that they frequently posted their daily doings on twitter.com. There is even a way they can send their sms's to each other to avoid international text charges, but he couldn't figure out how to do that.

Vegas Baby remarked to his self about how much he loved the casino industry. He always liked to play 21 and discovered during his pit clerk job that he loved to serve people. Pit clerking was only the 2nd job in 31 years of working that he loved. And he felt the same about dealing.

During his first couple weeks, when he was just learning the huge amounts of little details of pit clerking, he despaired that he would be terminally bored at it. But after mastering the basics he found he loved meeting the needs of the players, dealers, floormen and pit bosses.

His greatest delight was meeting a need discerned by his intuition and observation before anyone asked him to do anything. Sorta like Radar O'Riley on MASH.


He thought for years that his was a sales-oriented personality, since he spent years selling on the phone in different capacities. First as a hardcore telemarketer then as a customer service rep in a credit card call center then as a collections agent for the same bank.

But this pit clerking job taught him that he had a deep need to meet other people's needs. At the same time that he discovered this, geniusbabe, his second fave friend on Second Life, told him after he showed her this line he composed at his pit clerk job one night, "I am your ally, I am your servant. Together we will vanquish every foe," that he may really enjoy exploring the BDSM role of a "sub." to which he replied, "bullshit, I'm too independent for that." her patient explanation of such role-playing made him think twice.

He never took it up, though, realizing that he didn't really fit that mold. There were very few molds he did fit....



On the bus he chatted up 1 of 3 girls he mistook as Italians but were actually from the Czech Republic. She expressed surprise at his age and that he didn't look European at all.

After the girls got off, Vegas Baby made the mistake of cocking his head to the side and glancing back at some noise coming from some punk's music player, loud and distorted which repeated over and over. Two black teens then got up from the back of the bus and sat next to him and the one closest to him started dancing in his seat, singing snatches of rap and staring straight at Vegas Baby. After a couple minutes Vegas Baby looked at the dancing boy and the black kid stared back at him and gyrated, rolling his head back and forth.




Before he could think, Vegas Baby said in a loud voice, "Are you fucking with me?" The negro youth simply stared at him and gyrated.

His cohort spoke up, "Nigger just enjoying his music."

Vegas Baby, knowing his mood would not allow him to stay silent and that there were several more black youths behind them, stood up and walked down the stairs of the doubledecker. While the Negroes said a few more words.

The Deuce turned in to the DTC and he got off, carefully monitoring their movements behind him. He heard one of the Negro teens say, "Are you fucking with me?"

He wished he had a gun once again. And he was relieved they walked to the opposite end of the depot.

He decided not to wait at the depot for the 35 mins before the next 215 E left. He walked the 100 yards to Fremont Street.

On then way he saw a production crew working on a commercial for IHOP.

Once ensconced at the Four Queens he counted his change and bought the football full of beer, 40 ounces for $9, including tip, and stayed in the air conditioned casino free of Negro youths.

Questions in the dark

.
As he strode through the streets on a hot, sweaty night seeking his home, Vegas Baby asked himself, "Do future millionaires actually walk the dark streets of ghetto Vegas cuz they're too poor to drive?"

Taking the Strip bus home

Crap! Vegas Baby thought to himself, his ride home fell through. His dealing buddy got called to get home to his baby fast.
He took another pull on his Bud Light as he sat at the bar at O'Sheas, the casino next to his. They had this midget dressed as a leprechaun who got up on the bar blasting this whistle and giving willing gamblers a free shot of some green concoction. He waved the little guy away as he stood over him in bright green shorts and a green bowler.
He didn't like waiting for a bus when it was 100` after dark. Dealer Buddy was a tamed hellion, who's hard drinking and gambling ways were brought to heel by the birth of his baby boy. Vegas Baby had never seen a soul so turned around so deeply. He could tell Dealer Buddy was totally committed to his new family.
He drained the last of his cold beer and left the leprechaun to his act. He had a bus to catch. He swam through the crowded sidewalk and made his way to the Deuce stop in front of the Flamingo. He almost argued with the bored bus driver over the cost of a transfer fare being $5 almost 2 1/2 times the normal fare. Instead he looked the bus driver in the eyes and paid the one way fare.
Dealer Buddy and he formed an instant friendship the first day they met during Orientation. He was half Vegas Baby's age yet there was a strong equanimity between them. He offered him a place to stay at a decent price. He even found a used car for sale. Except it was an old Bronco and if he was gonna pay $1200 ( and where the hell was he gonna fine that money?) on a car he wanted something Asian due to their durability.
Tomorrow was payday and he wanted to delay any money decisions until he saw the dough in his Acct. He often had to do things in simplified and segmented ways to better sort through the dizzying minutiae of detail which easily boggled his ADD brain.
He was driving his international lover to despair with his convoluted ways. She would go back and forth between romantic delight in his poetic ways and utter agony over his idiosyncracies. Weeks before meeting her a dear friend in Second Life once asked why he was lonely, given his looks and what she saw of his character, he was at a loss for words at the time but after witnessing Loverbabe's reactions he was once again reminded of the maddening reasons. One of his favorite ex's, Singerbabe, told him at the end of their love affair, "I love you but I can't live with you."
He leaned against the glass resting his forehead on his arm and looked at the wedding chapels pass by and listening to a tourist telling another about that chapel where Brittany Spears got married for a whole 23 hours. He looked at the cars on the darkened street and thought about how he was gonna have his one splurge once he made over $60,000 a year: a brand new red Corvette. And how he would install a very loud foghorn in it for the idiots on the road as well as a powerful loudspeaker also for the ever-present fool.
Almost the entire bus emptied at the Fremont Street stop. The tourists were on their way to more of the rougher glories of Vegas. He was left alone in the upper deck of the Deuce.






He looked at his watch and thought he might make the bus that goes closest to the Compound without running 6 miles out of the way first. He had 7 minutes.
He looked at all the different people at the DTC at 10 30 PM on a Wednesday night and wondered how many stories they had to tell.


How did the old man get crippled?



What was the drunk Indian's father like?

Life can be humuliating

.
Vegas baby wakes up to realize he has no money for the bus.................

He calls a friend for a ride to work and she initially agrees then berates him for his lifestyle and retracts her offer.

He calls his daughter who hasn't the time.

He finally calls one of his sons who is on the way.

Vegas Baby knows one must suffer in this life, especially if one is trying to achieve a big win. Especially if one has bipolar and the deep impulsitivity of ADD.

Sometimes, when it is darkest, he wonders how much he can take.

He turned the car rental in last night. He got a message from the mechanic who charged him $2000 for overheating the past 6 weeks that he was incurring storage charges on the car that died of overheating problems.

He listened to his friend berate him for dropping the intense prayer lifestyle he led for the past couple years. "This is God telling you to get back right with him." Ugh.

He has to call the sods at Enterprise to tell them the car is still on the Stolen Vehicle list. And that it needs to be recovered by the police or the next driver can get stopped at gunpoint with them thinking he's the car thief.

He has good friends and he thanks God for them. But he sure has his dark moments....

Things will get better, he thought to himself, they have to, right?

This is Vegas, baby!

.

.
I went to my old haunts tonight with my lovely 18 year old daughter and her beau for my birthday dinner. She mentioned she was low on money and I was dead broke so I decided to go to my old casino where I worked closely with the floormen and pit bosses as a lowly pit clerk.

I was a bit anxious at exposing myself and mooching for dinner and wondered if it would take me an embarrassingly long time. But at my first stop in pit 10 I saw Nancy, the dual floorman and pit boss. She had always been excellent in her customer service to me as a boss and the day she discovered I got hired to deal at the Imperial Princess she confronted me and told me to see her after I dealt for a year and she would get me a job at one of a couple of Strip casinos (my guess is the tips at them average around $60k/yr) which honored me to no end.

Well, I told her it was my birthday and she asked me if I was hungry and then wrote a comp for the 3 of us and 2 rounds of drinks. What a fine boss!



So, we went to the casino coffee shop, which, folks, is quite a thing at a posh Strip casino, one of the largest in Las Vegas. Well, you can see from the pictures that it was a great meal. Steak and lobster (filet, that is), Rib Eye steak, chicken fajitas and 3, count em, 3 appetizers. The waiter kept trying to give us more and more food, all for a better tip, of course. Huge Scampi, chicken wings and the best Brushceta I've had in years.... The check was over $200. This joint knows how to treat you nice.

My daughter kept expressing guilt over the extravagance, and asked me how I knew the bosses here and all. I just explained to her that this how Vegas worked. We take care of each other.

I told her it's like we are building covens of followers whom we help along the way in the casino industry. I told her about Milo (true name since this is post-humous), the man I never met but who benefited my family economically for 20 years. Mom would always talk about how Milo did this for her and did that. As he prospered and went from a better casino to another better casino he always took my mom with him. And she made more and more money. One day she told us that Milo died. Our juice who had prospered our family for 2 decades was gone.

But by then she had widened her juice network and eventually landed jobs at the top casinos in town, earning almost six figures. Yes, folks, I said six figures. In fact, it was a six-figure amount she showed me that fateful day last summer when she took me out for lunch to compare our incomes and illustrate my need to jump on the Vegas money train.



Now, she has juice waiting for me when my dealing skills get to par, especially my roulette. But, she wisely suggested to take the pit clerk job at the famous casino I mentioned where I have generated my own juice.

You see, folks, if you have a commitment to excellent customer service and you work hard at it, which wasn't hard for me cuz I got joy out of giving it, and you learn the basic dealing skills casino bosses are going to go way out of their way to further your career.

So, Johnny Lee, the young chinese pit boss who earned my favor by deliberately learning the names of all his lowly pit clerks and just establishing a warm human connection with everybody, told me on my last day there that he would juice me in as a dealer. I was floored. I thought he was joking but he made it clear that he was dead serious.

Sometimes it floors me to think how easy it is to get a job earning $70,000 a year at merely 40 hours a week. It feels surreal, folks, like I'm cheating somehow.

In many circles such talk would be quickly labeled pipe dreams and boyish fantasy. "You think you're just gonna waltz in there and in a year be earning over $60 grand a year as a dealer? HA!”

But, my mom is doing it, my step-dad did it, and I see hundreds of dealers doing it every day here! I mean, you gotta be stupid to shun the job opportunities in Vegas! If you like people and can add to 21, are willing to give excellent customer service and give up holidays, it's a cinch.

Today's Vegas Baby's Birthday...

.



He just turned 26 all over again.

The guys at PC Mechanic set up for Vegas Baby a hearty Happy Birthday thread.



His international lover sent him a QuickCam for international video messaging.




Because of his casino shift he's gonna miss his family's big birthday dinner at an Italian restaurant they have each year cuz several members of his family have birthdays in July. This is common for Vegas families, casino workers often don't celebrate Christmas and such on the proper day due to their inflexible work requirements.



But Vegas Mom called him this morning and wished him a happy birthday and said she'd take him out for sushi next week.

So even though Vegas Baby's still terribly broke, he's rather happy today.


.....................Happy Birthday, Mr. Dealer Extraordinaire..................