Flew down to Long Beach today.

Caught a little puddle jumper up to Seattle, milled about for a couple hours in the airport battling delays and got down to Long Beach around 7pm that night.

Rose picked me up and so my Long Beach adventure began.

We headed straight for the Bicycle Casino, a crusty poker hall off a rough stretch of the 710 freeway.

The dregs of society, my friends, the dregs. Rumpled, frumpy middle-aged men, with glazed eyes and rotting teeth…emotionless Asians with counterfeit HIlfiger hats…boisterous Don Henley types who have every hand figured out and need to announce every move play-by-play…little men with pockmarked chins and dandruff snowfields….mexican bandits with little mustaches and big snakeskin belts…oh, and Evan and I. We fit right in, sorta.

I quickly learned the game, kinda, and we played for some time. Three dollar hands, which, when people started raising and getting wild, could generate a pot quickly teetering over the 100 dollar mark. Nice. I won a couple of these gigantic pots, and, contributed to countless others.

There were fights around us. Matters of respect, matters of disrespect, matters of etiquette. The hoards police themselves with a cold ferocity.

Some mexican character, visibly shitfaced, was arguing with a pit boss just a couple feet from our table. Apparently the dealer at his table kicked him out of the game. He was disrupting our table’s flow. Irate, yelling, threatening. Evan cleared his throat and blurted out a, “Trying to play a game here.”

The guy, even though hammered, heard this, turned around, evil-eyed Evan and offered up a wet, “Put my prick into yer game!”

Awesome.

Having great time down here. Lots of fun. Lots of laughs.