More Vegas Buffoonery From Mikey & Dougie

Alright alright alright...

We're having a great time here in Sin City, although we have been chastened and humbled by the gambling gods over the past 24 hours.

Lets just say that Vegas giveth and Vegas taketh away. And sometimes more of the second one...

Anyhow, we had a helluva day yesterday. After breakfast/lunch at the Peppermill (I took another run at the Chicken Fried Steak & Eggs, which beat me again, while Dougie had a spinach salad and a gyro...), we did a quick run back downtown so that Dougie could change his shirt, then it was back to the Strip for a little bit of poker. We decided to class up the Wynn (Peaceful Rooms For More) with our exclusive presence, so we joined the masses pouring into the place.

We'd been playing poker at Binions the night before, and I can say with full confidence that the Wynn is a nicer joint. All kidding aside, they run a great poker room there. It's pretty big, with at least 30 tables and plenty of wide-screen tv's around. And they only seat nine per table, so you get a little more elbow room (and one less jackass calling you to the river, too!) Also, their waiting list is computerized and put on several large-screen monitors in the area, so you can see how long your wait is for a table.

Of course, Steve-O picked up the better dealers in town, so the games were well managed, and the players were a little better dressed than say, the crowd at Sams Town in Tunica... A very positive experience, except our table opened up right before the shift change for the cocktail waitresses, so we went thirsty for awhile, which led to the inevitable comments about the place being so upscale that the free cocktails were only available to the $30-$60 players...

Still no damn Michelob Lite available. Damn Steve, get it together, dude!

Anyhow we had fun, Dougie had more fun than I, having made a hundy while I lost a hundy when trip queens lost three times in an hour and a half. Of course before that, I was up about eighty bucks!

We had to roll out of there around 7pm to make our engagement at the Greek Isles for the Rat Pack tribute. Let me tell ya--if you don't know this already--but making the jump from the Wynn to the 'Lower GI' is quite the drastic change in a fifteen minute span. For those of you who haven't visited yet, I'd call it a dump, but that would be an insult to all the proper landfills out there.

Anyhow, we got there, exchanged the tickets in the box office and stood in line for the showroom where we noticed we were the youngest folks there by at least 15 years. Bad sign. Then the eighty year old Maitre D took our tickets and directed us to some fine seats in the front of the General Admission section, not more than 30 feet from the stage. Of course we were tempted to do the ol' Clark Griswold and drop all the change in our pockets on him, but we refrained, barely...

Up to that point, we were not impressed at all...and they had the freakiest wierdo as the photographer trying to take pictures and telling the worst jokes ever--I mean pathetically bad. He was like the clown you hire for a kid's birthday party that goes horribly wrong...

It really started to sound bad when the couple across the table from us told us they got their tickets free for attending a time-share presentation that day. Uh oh. All signs were pointing toward disappointment, because Dougie *really* wanted to go see George Wallace but his show was dark on Mondays. So we "settled" on the Rat Pack Tribute (I've kinda wanted to see it for awhile, so I was willing to take the chance with the half-price tickets).

Well, the room started filling up, and I was beginning to feel better about it because instead of a bar set up outside the showroom, they offered cocktail service. The lights were dimmed, and they started making the old-school announcements over the PA system--

Attention ladies and gentleman, attention please--Would the person who lost the roll of hundred dollar bills wrapped in a rubber band please report to the security desk...They've found your rubber band...

Then the show kicked off! It featured Frank, Sammy, Dino, and Joey Bishop. And the guy who played Joey just stole the show from the beginning with his opening monologue. The whole room was in stitches and Dougie even began having a good time. Dean Martin came on next, and the guy had a dead-ringer of a voice. But it just kept getting better. The guy who did Sammy Davis Jr was incredible, and they saved Frank for last. And there was a 'special guest appearance' by Marylin Monroe, who as far as I can tell is the Godmother of the Lapdance. Good Lord! She picked an old feller out of the audience for some special attention and we thought we might have lost him. Luckily his pacemaker was still under warranty and he survived the ordeal.

Besides all of the great music they sang, there were generous amounts of comedy and sight gags, plus the orchestra was not only fantastic, but also in on a lot of comedy bits.

I love my 'Rat Pack Live at the Sands' cd--it's one of my favorites--but this was even better. During the songs, I found myself wanting to close my eyes and drift back to Vegas circa 1961, but I didn't want to miss a bit of the visual entertainment, either. When Frank was singing My Way to a completely darkened theatre and all you could see was the cigarette smoke wafting up through the beam of the spotlight, it was like being in a time machine. Unbelievably cool.

I could go on and on about how great this show was, but I don't want to give away too much. All I can say is that whatever you do, you've got to get tickets and see it next time you're out here. It is incredible. We got half-price tickets, but even if I would've paid three times the face value, I would still say it was worth it.

And after the show, the entire cast went out to the lobby and met with audience for pictures and chit-chat. So we met them all and told them how much we enjoyed the show. And one other thing, if Marilyn isn't all natural, she's got Michelangelo as a plastic surgeon. Truly a masterpiece.

In keeping with the old-skool theme, after the show it was off to Ellis Island for dinner. Dougie got the steak special, but I just had a hamburger and fries, which of course I couldn't finish. And I was a little miffed that my burger cost a buck more than Dougie's steak. That ain't right. But it was a great meal, and of course we had their big shrimp cocktails and tall glasses of their homemade rootbeer.

After dinner, I had to go get my car from the Peppermill where we'd eaten earlier that day. We split up and said we'd meet back at the poker room at the Nugget later on. Dougie drove back downtown, but the Sled was on fumes so I stopped to get gas and run it through the car wash.

I then drove back downtown and parked the car at the Lady Luck, and made my way back to Fremont Street. About halfway there, I *really* had to pee, but didn't want to use the facilities at the Fremont or Binions, having been there before... I figured I could make it to the classy marble and gold fixtures available at the Nugget, so I just kept on walking--it's maybe a quarter mile from the Lady Luck valet to the dumpers at the Nugget, but I figured if I didn't make it, I wouldn't be the first person to drop trou there on Fremont Street or one of it's alleys...

Anyhow, I got to the Nugget, made my way thru the casino back to the lounge, and just as I'm stepping into the facilities, somebody coming the other way--who I'd never seen before--breaks out with Hey, are you Hurricane Mikey?



Turns out that Fate had put fellow T2Ver TylerSA in the can at the same time I needed to get there! And he recognized me... So, I managed to hold it and we sat down at the nearest bank of slot machines and talked for about 15 minutes. I finally managed to make my pit stop, then went to find Dougie. He was not in the poker room, but we called him and he was playing some 2-4 over at the Horseshoe , so we wandered over there to say hello.

After that, Tyler and I went to the dice tables and spent about an hour losing a hundred bucks. The bad thing was I had a great roll and made three passes, but we just couldn't get around all the other cold shooters at the table. We then went looking for a $5 blackjack table, but there were none to be found at the Shoe at 1am on a Tuesday morning. Apparently, MTR gaming thinks that Binions is some kind of upscale joint worthy of a bunch of dead $10 games, so we moseyed on down to the Vegas Club instead.

Before you could say Dealer has 21! we were seated at a $5 table and enjoying complimentary Coronas. We played for another hour and a half or so, drinking, laughing, telling stories, and cutting up with the other players at the table. The problem was that I could never get beyond $25 up, and I actually left $30 down sometime in the early AM.

Tyler and I parted ways at the Starbucks entrance to the Nugget, and I started that long walk back to the Lady Luck. No less than three people asked me for money on my way back, but the most creative was a gal who told me that she 'was just a working girl trying to get her rent paid by tomorrow morning...' The thing was, when I saw her coming toward me, I pretended to be talking on my cell phone, but she followed me for about half a block, then caught up to me from behind. Unfortunately, there was no webcam in the area, and I didn't want to wake Doc Al anyways, so I had to decline her offer of temporary companionship by pretending to look at my watch and throwing down the Def Leppard on her....

Yeah it's too late,
too late,
too late for love...

I made it back to the room around 3 am, kicked off the shoes, and Dougie came stumbling back about twenty minutes later, remarking that the last time we shared a room in Vegas, we had a much better view (Fiji wing at Mandalay Bay, 15th floor, looking north on the strip, for those of you who may be interested...). This room just faced the other tower and a bunch of red neon.

The alarm went off at 8:30 this morning, and I spent eight hours dealing dice at the Golden Gate. On the plus side, the one guy that everyone hated left today and either quit or got fired, not quite sure, but it made the day more enjoyable.

After work Dougie and I went on a quest for dinner (which I'll write about at length in the restaurants and buffets forum), and right now he's playing more poker and I'm here keeping you fine folks informed and aware of all of our activities here in everyone's favorite city.

Tomorrow we can goof off for a bit, but then I have to work out at the Sunset from 8pm till 4am. Then he leaves for home Thursday morning.

We'll try and have some more fun...

Mikey

[ May 11, 2005, 12:08 AM: Message edited by: HurricaneMikey ]

 

Sounds like another great night in the life of Mikey

I gotta ask, what kind of games do they deal in the Wynn poker room? I really want to check the place out (and that waitress you mentioned in your other post ) but will I need a major bank roll to get a seat in there?

 

I'll be out in Vegas mid July for a week and would like to see this Rat Pack show now that Mikey has put his stamp of approval on it. I was wondering where do you get half-price tickets? We'll be staying at the Rio.

 

Thanks for keeping us informed of your exploits--that Rat Pack tribute does sound GREAT! How much were the 1/2 price tickets??

 

Wizard--go to the Entertainment forum and look at the Half-Price ticket thread near the top--all the locations are mentioned.

 

Opps! Nevermind. I just the other thread. Sorry. Thanks HH.

 

Just another day in the life of Mikey . Thanks again for the updates. Looks like Rat Pack has been officially added to the "to do" list.

 

Mikey,
We would all feel lost without a daily dose of "Mikey in Vegas"

 

I think we paid $24.95 apiece for tickets to the Tribute to the Rat Pack show. Again, knowing what I know now, I woulda paid a hundy.

It was that good. They should be headlining at a Strip resort.

Mikey

 

Throwing down a Def Leppard Classic!

 

Peaceful rooms for more - beautiful.

Sign me up for the Rat Pack as well, sounds like a swell time.

 

Cool to hear a more personal review of the Rat Packtribute at the GI. I thought about catching it the last time but opted for an extra 3 hours of drinken absurdity. It definitely looks like a show to catch.

Glad to hear it was excellent.