Posted by Al Pastor


Your Gambling Poet is pissed off, the kind of pissed off I usually reserve for cyclists who ride on the sidewalk and people who are assholes to the waitstaff. Now, normally, I try not to think too much about politics, and the administration and what have you, cause that can lead to a permanent state of pissed off like this, and frankly, the life of a Gambling Poet is a little too short to walk around scowling all the time and punching holes in the sheetrock like C Box Daddy on the Clear.

But, where is the Paris Hilton style outrage after the president commutes his buddy's sentence? I realize that Scooter is not a mentally-challenged skank like Paris, and therefore is less deserving of our wrath, and he wasn't driving on a suspended license, so maybe I should lighten up on him.

Isn't this, what Libby did, like, treason? I am not a lawyer or anything, but it seems inconsistent (here is my problem, I still look for logical consistency from the administration) that I am undermining the troops' mission when I question the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Iran and whether torture and coercion are viable tactics but the vice president (I wish Dick Cheney and I belonged to the same boxing gym, because I want to hit that sonofabitch), through his buddy Scooter, can disclose the identity of an American undercover operative. I will point out that this not only endangered her life, but got who knows how many of her associates in these countries into suspicious accidents or secret prisons.

I am, in fact, a little surprised by the pardon, er, commutation. Not that it is below these boys to pull shitty, unethical maneuvers like this, but because they seem like the kind of guys who who try to skip out on the back end money, the kind of guys you want to get paid up front with.

P.S. For a "limited time" the Bi-Rite Market has a Reuben on their sandwich menu. It is RIGHTEOUS.

Labels: gambling poet

Posted by Al Pastor


METHODOLOGY: I am a bachelor. I eat a lot of sandwiches.

PARAMETERS OF JUDGING: Tacos, hot dogs, burgers, shawarma, &c, while technically sandwiches and unquestionably delicious, are disqualified from consideration, constituting as they do their own discreet categories in which to be arrayed. Likewise, items which call themselves sandwiches, but which, while indisputably delicious, are not really "something on 2 pieces of bread meant to be eaten with the hands", like the 2-piece fried chicken/catfish sandwich available at most soul food purveyors and the potentially transcendent open-faced hot turkey or roast beef sandwich, have been removed from consideration for this list.

5. Parisian-style Ham and Cheese. Half a baguette, slit open and neatly layered with ham, cheese, and sweet butter. On the panini press for a minute, to melt the cheese and soften the bread, and you are on, Jack! Bi-Rite Market used to make a really nice version of this, but they changed their sandwich menu recently. It is better in France anyway.

4. Lucca Bros. Oven Roasted Pork, Mozzarella, & Pesto On Soft Sour. Uh huh.

3. Peanut Butter & Maduro Banana On Whole Wheat Toast. I had forgotten about peanut butter for most of my adult life, only to rediscover it the oily, superchunky versions on the fruit store shelves. The banana should be soft enough to spread on a separate piece of toast, and then you port-manteau the two sides into breakfast.

2. Bakesale Betty's Fried Chicken Sandwich. I always want to call "Bakesale Betty" "Backseat Betty". Discovering this sandwich was like discovering Pynchon, or The Museum Of Jurassic Technology. It was like I had been waiting for it. A crispy, juicy, fried chicken breast over vinegary, jalapeño cole slaw on a fresh, crusty torta roll. Go early. There is a line out the door at lunch, and they run out by about 2.

1. Fried Shrimp Po' Boy. Once there was a city called New Orleans, where for three dollars, in any tavern or corner liquor store, you could get a fifteen to eighteen locally farmed shrimps breaded lightly and fried up fresh to order, arranged along a skinny, soft, airy loaf. You would be asked if you wanted that "dressed up", to which you would reply "all the way" if you wanted shredded lettuce, tomato, dill pickle and mayonnaise. The dill pickle is essential, the rest can be taken as you like. I mostly went all the way. I am a dressed up all the way kind of guy. You would further be asked "Ketchup and hot sauce?" I always found it troubling that "all the way" did not go "all the way" to ketchup and hot sauce. But, I believe that fried seafood is elevated by hot sauce, and that not a lot is elevated by ketchup. Oysters work, too.

Honorable Mentions: Pat's Cheese Steak (quantifiably better than Geno's) and Sarcone's Special Italian in Philly. Central Grocery's Muffaletta; unlike the po'boy, which is nearly impossible to fuck up and is served in sublime incarnations almost everywhere, Central Grocery's muffaletta is much better than anybody else's. The Roast Pork bahn mi at Saigon Sandwich, which is disconcertingly cheap and ungodly delicious. And, of course, the steak sammy au jus at PFSH, although I mostly go for the $10 steak these days.

Labels: gambling poet

Posted by Al Pastor


Is the Jenny Lewis album, Rabbit Fur Coat, the last album I am ever going to love? I read something interesting from "Miami""Little Steven""Silvio" Van Zandt (no relation). He says we are back in this sort of pre-Beatles (pre-Dylan/Stones is more accurate, but your Gambling Poet takes the point) pop environment, as opposed to the "rock" environment that prevailed during the so-called album era. That right there is a lot of parentheses and quotation marks.

Here is another question: could Sinatra have God whacked? And who has more Jersey juice, today, post-Sopranos "Miami" Steve or reborn lefty/folkie Bruce Springsteen?

Labels: gambling poet

Posted by Al Pastor


Staying away from the Oaks Club lately. Owning a car has been sucking up most of my gambling money. It's a sucker play I won't be making for much longer. I have been playing online some. A lot to be said for it. It is cheap and the potential payouts are sweet; I can do it in Ritual or at home not wearing pants; I can play HORSE (google it or email me for extrapolation); and it is illegal, which just makes it better. Not that I won't be back at the Oaks Club as soon as I have some bankroll.

And while I haven't been doing as much gambling, I have been doing a little bit of poeting (and prosing for that matter). Here is one.

Send me Preakness picks, and send them fast. I know Street Smarts, but I need exacta picks that are going to pay something. Your Gambling Poet Don't know shit about the ponies, except they sure are pretty.


JARMUSCH, this is not a haiku

Dead Man is his
Citizen Kane
but Stranger Than
Paradise is his
Touch Of Evil.

Labels: gambling poet

Posted by Trott

The Autobiography of Malcolm X describes how Malcolm X won a large pot in a game of stud poker:

A hustler, broke, needs a stake. Some nights when Shorty was playing, I would take whatever Sophia had been able to get for me, and I'd try to run it up into something, playing stud poker at John Hughes' [sic] gambling house.

[...]

John, one night, was playing in a game I was in. After the first two cards were dealt around the table, I had an ace showing. I looked beneath it at my hole card; another ace--a pair, back-to-back.

My ace showing made it my turn to bet.

But I didn't rush. I sat there and studied.

Finally, I knocked my knuckles on the table, passing, leaving the betting to the next man. My action implied that beneath my ace was some "nothing" card that I didn't care to risk my money on.

The player sitting next to me took the bait. He bet pretty heavily. And the next man raised him. Possibly each of them had small pairs. Maybe they just wanted to scare me out before I drew another ace. Finally, the bet reached John, who had a queen showing; he raised everybody.

Now there was no telling what John had. John truly was a clever gambler. He could gamble as well as anybody I had gambled with in New York.

So the bet came back to me. It was going to cost me a lot of money to call all the raises. Some of them obviously had good cards but I knew I had every one of them beat. But again I studied, and studied; I pretended perplexity. And finally I put in my money, calling the bets.

The same betting pattern went on, with each new card, right around to the last card. And when that last card went around, I hit another ace in sight. Three aces. And John hit another queen in sight.

He bet a pile. Now, everyone else studied a long time--and, one by one, all folded their hands. Except me. All I could do was put what I had left on the table.

If I'd had the money, I could have raised five hundred dollars or more, and he'd have had to call me. John couldn't have gone the rest of his life wondering if I had bluffed him out of a pot that big.

I showed my hole card ace; John had three queens. As I hauled in the pot, something over five hundred dollars--my first real stake in Boston--John got up from the table. He'd quit. He told his house man, "Anytime Red comes in here and wants anything, let him have it." He said, "I've never seen a young man play his hole card like he played."

We asked occasional PalaceFamilySteakHouse.Com contributor The Gambling Poet to comment. He did not disappoint! Quoth the Gambling Poet:

Sounds to me like Malcolm got lucky. Set of aces vs. set of queens. His check was correct but not neccessarily brilliant. Any bet with an ace showing like that where any other player is not paired is going to fold if he bets. He is out of position, first to act so he doesn't know that the other players had strong hands, so his check is good and not really imaginative. One could argue that a bet would have looked like a bluff and might get called or raised with the strong hands, so a bet might even be a better, more imaginative play. It might have encouraged even more action. Malcolm's brilliance was in his opponent having a strong, but not strong enough, hand.

If I ever find The Gambling Poet waxing eloquent about the Black Revolution, I'll be sure to run his words by an NAACP official for comment.

Labels: gambling poet