PART 1: All, Here it is, the long awaited Bustoutathon expose`, the unexpurgated version: Wednesday, September 22. I arrive in Chicago and head immediately for the Kit Kat Klub. Gabes is waiting, beer in hand. I'm disappointed. I thought he'd have a couple of double rums under his belt by now. But it's early. Fox arrives minutes later. He's not sure if he got in late on an early flight or early on a later flight. No matter. Fox starts pounding more beers, Gabes switches to the aforementioned rum delight and I start whacking the Jack Daniels. There's enough bleep and bleep slinging booze to make us decide to screw the dining room, we'll eat in the bar. It's gonna be a long week. Dinner finished, we decide we need to get some exercise and sprint from the bar to our gate. The bar is in Southeast Chicago, the gate is in Northwest Wisconsin. Gabes is showing the classic form that made him the 1970 St. Joe high hurdles champion, I'm thinking about my cholesterol, and Fox decides to start swearing at old ladies and escalators. Luckily we evade security. Hans is arriving at the gate about the same time with presents in hand, two neatly packaged PGA logo golf balls that won't make it out of the desert alive. Bless their balata hides. I fill up my cell phone with the sweat pouring out of my head and download 87 messages from my voice mail leaving football picks. One of the picks is from Willo. He hasn't a clue of what he is talking about as usual. We board the plane and are immediately met by the stewardesses of Kay-Ton-Da-Moose Airlines. Gabes starts really pounding the double rums sitting next to an ex-defensive end from Augustana College and his wife. Luckily he doesn't offend him too badly. Fox gives me Davis Love's golf book to read. It sucks, but now I know all about this game. I give Fox my blackjack book to read. It doesn't suck as much, but Fox already knows all about blackjack and he's too busy checking out the Kay-Ton-Da-Moose talent. They show some movie about monkeys and guys in prison. I don't know why, but I'm thinking about Agosta. I think one of the guys in the prison was a psychologist. We hit Vegas. From the sky it looks like Christmas. The ground is wet from recent rain. This is an omen, but I don't get it just yet. In the baggage area, the Augustana football player and his wife drop a quarter in a slot machine and lose. That's another omen, but I don't believe it. We hit the streets of Vegas on the way to "the strip". It looks like Disney Land at Christmas time. Right about now, we should have turned south and headed for Mabel's down in Nye County, but nobody was getting the signals just yet so we checked into the Mirage. At the front desk Fox gets hit on by a hooker. It turns out to be Al's wife, Florence. I was only fantasizing about the hooker part, but, hey, this is Vegas. Nothing is real here. The gang is all arrived, the fish swim behind the front desk, and we decide to feed ourselves to the sharks in the casino. Sobo gets drunk and antagonizes every dealer in the blackjack pit, while making himself unwelcome at the craps table simultaneously. I win $280 at the blackjack table, wishing my buddy Dave could be there to enjoy my triumph. It's the last sight of positive fluctuation I will see for the rest of the trip. Oh, Mabel, I should have been true to you. I have now been up for more than 24 consecutive hours and am beginning to get a feel for the love embrace that Las Vegas squeezes into you. Or maybe it's just the flu coming on. Thursday, September 23. I wake up. I haven't a clue of when I wake up and it really doesn't matter. Time was deposited back by that fish tank yesterday. Or was that this morning? Time to hit the tables before meeting at the Whodo Vodoo Lounge where the eternal duo play all the fabulous hits of your life through eternity. And they don't spare the booze on the JD and splashes either. Perhaps three things compare to the optimism of the day's first approach to a blackjack table: The first ten minutes of a new diet, the cart drive up to the first tee at Sun Mountain, and the start of a ND football season. Bob Davie dealt me twenties and filled in twenty-ones for about an hour straight. I was now in the land of negative fluctuation and was about to learn a little something more about standard deviation from a very polite dealer from Lincoln, Nebraska who sympathized with every pounding hand I received. I should have thrown my Jack in her face, but like I said, I still didn't get it. Sobo is found wandering around in desperate need of caffeine under the knowing eyes of the all still present graveyard shift looking for a golf match, a clue, or more booze. Luckily he finds the golf match. Gabes, Fox, Mags and Andy decide to tour "the strip" and head out past the fake White Tiger to Ceasar's Forum. ********************************************************************** PART 2: Thursday (cont'd). Siegfried and Roy are staying at our hotel along with their tigers. I think I saw Siegfried (or was it Roy?) dealing blackjack one night. None of us goes to their stupid show anyway. We won't even pay the $10 to see their secret garden. Bleep them. Ok, back to the Vegas Chronicles: We approach Ceasar's via the moving sidewalk that sucks you off the street and deposits you into the casino. This is Gabes' favorite part of Vegas. Quick thinking and a driving desire to see the Race to Atlantis lets us escape the casino from the moving sidewalk people eater and we enter the world of Ceasar's Forum. The Mall meets Disney Land. Stores with more expensive shit than you've ever seen are laced with fountains and statues that rival anything Hadrian the IV could have dreamed. They have a statue in Ceasar's of Michelangelo's David that is better than the original. The original David has a wimpy look on his face like he was doing some sheep and doesn't want to admit it. This David looks like he just doubled down on a nine vs. a three and pulled an ace. Him a man. We find the place selling tickets for the Race to Atlantis only we don't know it's the wrong Race. For twenty bucks we get our tickets and a choice of t-shirts. One says something with blue letters, the other says something about foreplay. We all take the blue lettered one. We race through the mall looking for The Race only to find now that we have purchased tickets for the fake Race. The toga clad young lady taking the real Race tickets tells us the Race we bought tickets for sucks. We know she's not lying because she says she can lose her job for giving us this highly classified information. We're pissed so we decide to go back and demand our money from the fake Race ticket seller. Whom do they think they're dealing with, some rubes from the sticks? We race back to the fake Race ticket stand and .... we get our money back with no problem. That's the thing about Vegas. All the time they're taking your money, they're so damn nice about it. The fake Race ticket seller does want her t-shirts back, though. We find that agreeable and move off to find the real Race again. The real Race is one of those virtual reality rides that you might find at Disney Land. Imagine that. Fox, Andy and McGee scream and hoot and holler while Gabes nearly pukes. It takes about four hours for him to get back to center on the tilt meter. There's only so much un-reality you can take. We decide Gabes needs a little fresh air and head to the hotel/casino next door. After walking past Ceasars for about an hour, we arrive at Bellagio. Bellagio is one of Vegas' newer, grander, high-roller extravaganzas. They have a beautiful flower conservatory and a wonderful collection of fine art that you can view for $10. Bleep them and the tigers. We've got better things to do with our money. We check out of Bellagio and head off to Vegas' absolutely newest casino, Paris. It sucks as much as the real Paris and the elevator to the top of the Eiffel tower isn't working. Not for us, anyway. Gabes and Mags decide they have had enough of "the strip" tour and want to head back to the pool. Gabes is looking a little better, but not much. Fox and Andy decide to stop at the Barbary Coast for some double deck blackjack where the odds are much more favorable and Andy loses his money at twice the normal rate. To be continued...... (And it's only Thursday afternoon). ************************************************************************* PART 3: All, Where was I? Oh yes,...... Fox is cleaning up at the double deck blackjack joint on Thursday afternoon and I'm getting clobbered every time I put a black chip out. I decide I've had enough and head back for the hotel, leaving Fox in the clip joint surrounded by young women. It's hot in Las Vegas and so is the walk back to the hotel. Back at the Mirage, I decide that the pounding I took at the tables that morning can't possibly continue so I get pounded again. The only thing to do now is to find the boys out by the pool. As I approach, Gabes notices the glazed look in my eyes and the tightly held lip. He comments that I must have just taken a beating. There are three things that all men will lie about: sex, gas mileage, and gambling wins/losses. I lie and tell him I'm "breaking even". The pool waitress comes and the Vegas Bustoutathon drink of choice becomes the poolside frozen daiquiri. Excellent stuff. Sobo and Hans are skeptical at first, but they come around quickly. That night, Thursday still, we head over to the steakhouse at Harrah's across the street from our hotel. The meal is good, but the whole gang is there, so the company is better. We have a very enjoyable evening with Mags supplying the wine selections and everyone showing their ignorance of MLB umpire's union grievances and procedures. Time to go back and gamble some more. Funny thing: I start to feel rundown. Must be all the go, go, go. we've been doing. I go lightly on the gambling and hit the sack early. This is the part where I definitely should have taken a cab down to Mabel's. Next: The Golf Torture in the Desert.