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#18. The Substandard Doubles Down
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Dudes Chatting — Bill Paxton tribute and gambling movies: The episode opens mourning Bill Paxton (died age 61 after heart surgery). The group ranks his roles: consensus that his True Lies car salesman is his funniest part, with Aliens (Hudson's "game over, man"), A Simple Plan, Frailty (his best performance, which he also directed), Near Dark, and Apollo 13 all cited. Tombstone and Twister are ranked lower. The main segment covers gambling movies and real-life casino experiences, triggered by a scouting trip to the new MGM Grand at National Harbor (minimum $25 tables at 2 p.m. on a Friday, deemed outrageous). Extended anecdotes about craps wins on Weekly Standard cruises. Movie rankings: Vic's list runs from Ocean's Eleven at the bottom up through The Cooler, Casino, and Rounders; Sonny's top three are Casino Royale, Rounders, and Casino; JVL's favorite is Maverick (Mel Gibson, written by William Goldman). Discussion also covers Russian syndicates hacking slot machine RNG algorithms (JVL links the Wired piece in show notes) and the scratch-off lottery system. Corrections included. Spirit of the Week: Fonseca Bin No. 27 ruby port.
Full transcript
Vic00:00:00Hey guys, how does it feel to know that Donald Trump is getting better reviews for his speech than you're getting for your podcast? Hello, and welcome back to The Substandard. I'm Victor Manis. I'm with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. I'd like to remind you that The Substandard is available on iTunes and Google Play. Just look at our podcast and search for Substandard. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, and leave a review. In addition, we'd also like to remind you that The Substandard show notes, posted by Jonathan Last, are available every Friday at 11 a.m. at 1 p.m. at weeklystandard.com. We just received a very kind review from listener Paul Thompson, who says, quote, listening to The Substandard podcast is now part of my Friday wind-down. He goes on, but ends with this note. Only half-joking, The Substandard crew should float the idea of an informal Epcot 11 gathering. Now, why 11? Is that because 11 countries? Is that the reference to 11 countries?
JVL00:01:25You go down there, you drink a drinky drink in every country at Epcot, this is a gift to us, this whole idea of our buddy Mike Fregoso, and I am so into it. When we finally have enough of a community around this show, we're doing that as our first meet-up.
Sonny00:01:41Yeah, okay.
Vic00:01:42I can't wait for the world of motion.
Sonny00:01:44Instead of doing that, can we just have a meet-up in Shirlington, which is basically like Epcot Center?
JVL00:01:48You've got a restaurant from every continent.
Sonny00:01:50Just like up in there, you've got a Mexican place, a Japanese, there's a Hawaiian restaurant now. It's really fantastic. Absolutely.
Vic00:01:57Shirlington, Virginia, where dreams happen. That reminds me of a bar crawl that we once did. Yes, the last. Yes, it surely did. The last bar crawl. And the complaint was that it's too small of a place, because it's only two blocks, but of course, there's a bar right next to each other, so it was bam, bam, bam, bam.
Sonny00:02:16No, no, the problem was there was no gap between, so for readers, long-time listeners and readers of The Weekly Standard, several of us would go on these basically benders.
JVL00:02:27Not me.
Sonny00:02:29John, you wouldn't get past that. Past the first stop, it was hard. But the problem with Shirlington was that there was no break in between drinks. It was just you would go bar to bar, and after about three hours of this, it was bad.
Vic00:02:40I think the only break might have been Johnny Rockets, but otherwise, you're just going from place to place. Okay, how are we doing this week? JVL, how are you? How are you feeling? Great. Great.
?00:02:52Good.
Sonny00:02:53Sonny? I'm wonderful.
Vic00:02:55Okay, wonderful.
JVL00:02:57Hey, Vic, did you mention? In last week's show, did you mention Bill Paxton?
Vic00:03:03No, amazingly, I did not. Wait, let me think about this. No. So I think the curse is broken, but yes, as JVL is hinting, we do start off our show on very sad news. As many of our listeners might already know, over the weekend, we lost a substandard favorite actor, the great Bill Paxton, who died at the age of 61 after suffering a stroke following complications of heart surgery. And we were going to just talk about him and why he is a substandard favorite actor. JVL, did you have any initial thoughts?
JVL00:03:38Well, he's one of these guys who's an accidental actor almost, right? Doesn't he come up through the Roger Corman studio, right? Absolutely.
Sonny00:03:45What was he, like an art director? Set dresser.
JVL00:03:47Set dresser in the Corman world. And then had this really great screen presence. And he could do all sorts of stuff in a simple plan. He's really scary. He's really, really scary in a simple plan. In Edge of Tomorrow. He's funny in Apollo 13.
Sonny00:04:01Christopher McQuarrie's Edge of Tomorrow.
JVL00:04:02Christopher McQuarrie's Edge of Tomorrow. You know, and boy, we can get to, if we're going to rank the Bill Paxton roles, I don't want to spoil number one, but we all know what number one is. Yeah, yeah. Game over. Game over. No, no. Game over, no. It's true lies.
Sonny00:04:18Oh, well, that's in my... Oh, I thought you were saying figuratively. Yeah.
Vic00:04:22I think you were saying figuratively game over. I didn't realize that he did a movie called Game Over. No, no. No.
Sonny00:04:26Game over, man. Game over, man.
?00:04:29Game over, man.
Sonny00:04:30From Aliens. Have you seen Aliens? Yeah, of course. Hudson, yeah. It's a movie directed by James Cameron. Thank you, thank you. It was a sequel to Alien.
JVL00:04:35In fact, he steals, he has all the lines, he's a scene stealer in Aliens. You know, speaking of Alien, we just lost John Hurt. Now we lose Aliens. That's right.
Sonny00:04:43Bill Paxton. All I'm saying is that somebody please keep an eye on Charles Dance, who was in Alien 3. And Tom Skerritt. Well, no, but that's, I'm moving ahead. Oh, moving up. Charles S. Dutton. Charles S. Dutton. Somebody keep an eye on Rock. No, but his best role is... The True Lies car salesman is pretty fantastic. I agree.
JVL00:05:05That is a movie full of great lines and full of funny, and in all of that, he has the single funniest bit where he says of Jamie Lee Curtis, oh my gosh, she has an ass like a 10-year-old boy, which makes almost no sense in any conceivable level, and he sells it so well. I laugh every time I see it.
Sonny00:05:26Well, you know, his kind of arc as an actor is very interesting because... He starts off as this kind of almost goofy, goofy and a little bit scary, so he's Chet in Weird Science, where he's playing the psychopathic military school brother. I mean, even the first early scene in Terminator, where he's the punk who threatens to stab the Terminator and pays very dearly for it. Says, give me your clothes, right? And also, and you get a lot of that in Near Dark. The kind of, the noir-ish vampire movie directed by Catherine Bigelow, where he's kind of a, he's like this really scary, but also like kind of crazy and funny type of character. And then he is, he like kind of evolves into almost like an America's Dad, but with some problems. So like Frailty, which is by far and away his, I think, greatest cinematic achievement. Not necessarily his most memorable. Not necessarily his most memorable role, but his finest performance, and also like he directed that movie. I mean, it's very, it's really great, and you should check it out if you have not seen it. And also Big Love, where he's playing the head of the Mormon bigamist household in Utah, where he's like, again, just, he's kind of dad, but with some issues. No judgment. No judgment. It's just a lifestyle choice.
Vic00:06:57It's fine. I mean, it's called Living the Dream, right? Is that what it's called, Living the Dream? Well, the funny thing about Bill Paxton is, yes, he was like that set dresser for Roger Corman, and of course, that's the whole James Cameron connection, right? And James Cameron had done ridiculous Roger Corman movies, and then as a result, I mean, it worked out well, because he does three movies with James Cameron. He does Terminator, True Lies, and Titanic. And Aliens. And Aliens, yeah. Oh, True Lies, yeah, oh my gosh, yeah, there you go. And as you were mentioning his early roles, I mean, you know, so he sort of plays that caricature of a man. And I sort of love Weird Science, and sort of like, when Chet ends up going into the Marines, he becomes Hudson from Aliens, you know? You're a dog meat, pal, which is a great, I mean, again, versus Paul Reiser. If you remember, Paul Reiser was the real villain of Aliens, because again, the villain is corporate. Corporations. Corporate Earth, corporate America, whatever. But then, of course, then he moves on, and he takes on serious roles as well. You were talking about True Lies, definitely, I would say. I can't think of a sleazier car salesman character in a movie than that. I mean, he was fantastic. He says a lot of different things about- The greatest car salesman on film ever. About why the chicks dig the car, and he gets really graphic about that. And then Tombstone, of course. Great, White Earp's younger brother. Yeah, Morgan. And what I was going to say, I really liked him in Apollo 13, as afraid of Fred Hayes. And you were talking about his line in True Lies. He has another ridiculous line in Apollo 13. Remember, he- Throws up once they get into space, and he's embarrassed by that. And the other guys are trying to downplay and say, hey, it happens to the best of us. And then they start eating, and they just assume that he doesn't want to eat because he's sick, which in fact he was. And they say, oh, I didn't think you were hungry. And he says, are you kidding? I could eat the ass out of a rhinoceros. The look on Tom Hanks' face when he says that in Apollo 13 is priceless. So I really enjoyed Bill Paxton, Sonny Givany, other Bill Paxton thoughts. I see you there.
Sonny00:09:00No, I just, you know, I was looking at my notes of top five Bill Paxton performances, and we've already named them all. So we're missing one. What are we missing? I don't know. Predator 2?
Vic00:09:13Oh, we left it. Twister, and we mentioned briefly Titanic. I kind of put them in the same ranking, but they're tied at the bottom. They just didn't do anything. And I understand. It was a lead role. It was a big deal for Twister. Technically a big role in Titanic. He's great. I thought he was great in Twister. He's fine. You know what? It is, he was great considering what he had to work with.
JVL00:09:32What kind of a movie this was.
Vic00:09:34It was a movie that wanted to show off great special effects, which it did at the time.
JVL00:09:37That's an awfully fun movie. I'm sorry. Twister's a pretty fun movie. Twister's fine. Yeah, it's a good ride.
Sonny00:09:42It's not Jurassic Park, but it's a good ride. I mean, it's another one of these movies that has a lot of really great supporting performances in it. It's got Carrie Elwes, Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Vic00:09:52Who directed Twister? Was that, oh, was it one of the, was it like Roland Emmerich or? No, no, no. It was. It wasn't John DeBond, was it?
Sonny00:10:01Yeah, maybe it was. I was going to say maybe it was. But it was written by Michael Crichton, right? Wasn't he? Wow.
JVL00:10:07No.
Sonny00:10:07No? Am I wrong? Is there any Michael Crichton?
JVL00:10:10No, I'm sorry. John DeBond, written by Michael Crichton. And Anne-Marie Martin. So I got them both then.
Sonny00:10:18Boom, boom. Ding, ding. Yeah. All right. Once again, everyone should just listen to Sonny when it comes to. Did you guys ever do the Twister ride at Universal Studios? I said John DeBond, thank you. No.
Vic00:10:27I did. Do you remember that? Yeah, I do. It was pretty great. It was, yeah, because I think one of the things that happens is there's an unexpected. Transformer blows behind you. Yes, exactly. So that surprises you. Although I get kind of confused, because I was pretty sure there was also a backdraft ride or a backdraft show at Universal. The backdraft, what I think, was where you just had to stand and watch. And they did a thing where they actually had the flame come out as a skinny little lick, and they did a little document. And then you feel all this heat. It's like a feeling right now. But anyway, yes. So Twister was.
JVL00:11:04Wait, my sister saw some stage show with Fireman in Vegas, but I don't think it was.
Vic00:11:09The Thunder from Down Under. Something like that. Probably not backdraft. You know, my son loved watching Twister, which he's seen when he was like six. And I always told him, you know, the sad opening of the movie. You know, it's the flashback to Helen Hunt as a child, and they go into that shelter. The father gets sucked away by the tornado. And I said, if only the mother had blocked the door with her body. If you remember, the mother was a. She was a big girl. Yeah, she was a big girl. As Buffalo Bill says, besides the lamb. Where's she at? Great big. She's a great big fat person. Okay. Are we ready to move on?
Sonny00:11:46Is that. Thank you, Bill Paxton, for the memories. I will always treasure his turn in Aliens. Game over, man. Okay. Game over. Great.
Vic00:11:58All right. Last week, Sonny and I and a few other colleagues of ours at The Beacon decided to go on a fact finding mission to MGM Grand at National Harbor. And Sonny, I don't know if you wanted to just off the bat share your thoughts on what we discovered there. Sure.
Sonny00:12:21Well, as someone who enjoys a good trip to a casino, I was pretty excited to go to the closest casino to the Washington, D.C. area and check it out. And I was kind of blown away by it because I guess, you know, I don't know what I was expecting exactly. I was expecting a slightly nicer establishment, but the tables were all so expensive. It was ridiculous.
JVL00:12:48The tables were extreme. Can I ask? Yeah. What day of the week, what time were you there, and what were the minimums? It was a Friday.
Sonny00:12:55It was a Friday afternoon at like two, two in the afternoon, something like that. And the minimums for a table were $25, and every table was packed. Every table was packed to the gills. There were $100 craps tables packed to the gills at two on a Friday. The poker room was one of the bigger poker rooms I've seen, actually, including trips out to Vegas. I mean, it was a big, big poker room, and it was packed, and it was expensive. I mean, we're talking about like, I want to say it was like, there was a three, five, no limit game that they were trying to get seated for with a $1,000 maximum buy-in or something like that, which is outrageously expensive. I mean, it's just like, I've never, I've never- Max or min? Max. Max. So, on a no limit table, you do a max buy-in, so somebody can't just throw down like $10,000. But like, a $1,000 buy-in on the lowest level game is pretty high, is a pretty big ask. And it was totally full. It was just, there were probably, I wouldn't want to venture a guess as to how many tables there were, but everyone was full. So, we took a look at this. We kind of did a loop around and went to a bar. We went to the sports bar.
JVL00:14:14Sports bar. So, you know, it was- Can I get an estimate on the percentage of floor space devoted to slots?
Vic00:14:20I'd say it's a decent amount. I don't know, maybe 50%?
Sonny00:14:24At least 50%. I mean, that's probably just standard now, right? 60 years.
Vic00:14:28I mean, that's- Here's what's interesting, JVL, is that there are slots, there are reasonable slots, right? 25-cent slots. I mentioned this to my mother, and she said, what about the nickel slots? Were there any nickel slots? I said, don't know. Or penny slots. But there were 25-cent slots, and there were dollar machines, and that's always encouraging. Okay, good. You know, common people can play this. You don't have to be a whale to go to MGM Grand. But they weren't that crowded, the machines, I thought, at the time. No, not at all. Number two, unlike other casinos where you have- I didn't hear a lot of dings and pings, if that makes any sense. In other words, the dinging and the pinging comes out of the machines will usually attract other people to want to play the machines, because they'll think to themselves, oh, hey, you know, somebody's winning big. Somebody just hit a jackpot, progressive or otherwise, or triple bars, triple sevens, whatever. Why can't that be me? I want to play a machine. This place must be hot. And then they end up not playing, but the fact is they go to play because they're hearing it. It's coming from somewhere. I didn't hear a lot of that walking through, which tells me that the machines at two o'clock on a Friday afternoon were not paying out. They just must have been cold.
JVL00:15:37Yeah, that's right. Yeah, the machines. Yeah, that's how it works. That's how it works. They've got cycles. Did you guys see the Wired article last week about the Russians hacking the slot machines?
Sonny00:15:47Yes.
JVL00:15:48Oh. So this is for, did I send this to you, Victorino?
Vic00:15:52I didn't see this, but I have it.
JVL00:15:52So when Vladimir Putin made gambling illegal in Russia, a whole bunch of casinos had to very quickly sell all of their gaming equipment, because they were basically put out of business and these are cash flow. And a bunch of slot machines wound up on the black market and disappearing, and they were bought up by syndicates who took them apart, went into the circuitry, and found weaknesses
Sonny00:16:20in them.
JVL00:16:21And there is now at least one, possibly more than one, Russian syndicate out there who have figured out how to crack the slot machines. And so they send crews to wherever in the world these machines are in service. And hit it. And they go and hit it. And they're very sophisticated about hitting it for not too much money at one time, moving on from one casino to another quickly.
Sonny00:16:42How does it work exactly? Can you explain to the listeners how the hacking of these machines works?
JVL00:16:47Yes. So there is no true randomness except in nature. So whenever you're doing something that has to do with gambling and math, what you have is sophisticated algorithms. You're trying to simulate randomness, but it's never actually randomness. And so the weakness comes in finding how the algorithm is cheating to get at randomness. And with some of these machines, I believe what they're doing is they were looking at patterns for how they hit and then timing of when you press stop. And so you can get a machine to pay out more than it's had. And so they would literally have a camera in their lapel showing the machine that was connected by wireless backup. Somebody in Russia who is running their computer algorithm and saying, all right, now play that machine, now hit stop. And they were winding up making a pretty good look. I'm going to put all of this in show notes. This week's show notes is going to be pretty great because there's a whole literature of hacking gambling, which I find utterly fascinating. The best of which is another Wired piece from like five years ago about people who hacked scratch-off games. Because again, so scratchers look random, but they're not. And like everything else, you're a whale. If you're playing scratchers. There are people out who do this for a living, who go to the convenience stores, leaf through the books looking for the games that they know are going to pay off and buying them by the thousands. And so whatever's left for you to buy when you go to the 7-Eleven, your chances of winning are actually much diluted even from the ridiculous chances you're given.
Vic00:18:18Growing up in New Jersey, JVL, did you take a lot of trips at all to Atlantic City before you were 21 or not until after or at all?
JVL00:18:28Every once in a while. And after I was 21, every once in a while. Truth is, I've probably gambled in Vegas as much as I've gambled in Atlantic City, which is not very much. I'm not a big gambler. I've gambled more at sea with you than I have any place else.
Vic00:18:44We're going to get to that in a second. I love gambling, which is why I try not to gamble a lot, because I can imagine just getting
JVL00:18:53swept away by the action, the excitement.
Sonny00:18:55And you particularly love craps. I really do. I really do. I love working with the people. It's a very social game. Yes. You're a very social person.
Vic00:19:03Other people, as you know, are not. Other people are slot machine aficionados. No names, but they prefer that just because they find it mind-numbing and they don't want to be bothered. And with blackjack, but especially with craps, you're dealing with people, and it's all of us versus the house. It's much different, as you know, Sonny, with poker, where everybody is against.
Sonny00:19:29Well, this is one of the reasons I play poker, as opposed to- Because you hate people. Because I hate people, and I want to see them suffer and lose, and I want their stuff. Not just the house, but the guy next to you, the old lady on the other side. I actually like playing poker because you pay the house for a space. You're basically, the rake is just something that you give the house to give you a safe space to play, so you can take stuff from other people. It's fantastic.
JVL00:19:52So where do you play? When you play poker, Sonny, do you go to play at casinos, or do you do it online?
Sonny00:19:57So I don't really play as much. I play almost none at all anymore. When I was in college, I played online. It was like right at the beginning of the poker boom, the Chris Moneymaker winning the World Series of Poker. I played Poker Stars. I loved it.
JVL00:20:10All of which started by an article in Harper's. Really? Believe it or not. Yeah. The entire poker boom can be traced to, again, I'll put it in the show notes, this fantastic article called Fortune Smile Betting Big at the World Series of Poker, which is the first time anybody had ever heard of Chris Jesus Ferguson or any of those guys.
Sonny00:20:26Yeah, yeah. Well, there was also a really good book called, I think, Positively Fifth Street or something like that. We can put that in show notes, too. It's also about this kind of the rise of binions and the horseshoe and the World Series of Poker. Anyway, so I played online a lot, and I played for very low stakes. I played like $5, $10 sit-and-goes, which are basically one-table tournaments where the top three positions play out. If you come in third, you basically get your money back and a little more. If you come in second, you double your money. And coming in first is the big win. You take half the pot. And I was good enough at those to pay for my first two trips. So, like, for a hotel and flight and that sort of thing.
Vic00:21:02Was the movie Rounders based on you?
Sonny00:21:04No, but see, this is like, Rounders is another great, like, but, like, again, those are very high-stakes games. I'm neither good enough nor do I have a large enough bankroll to, like, go and sit down at, say, a 10-20 game and throw down $5,000, you know?
JVL00:21:20So, here's a question for you. How did you have confidence when you sat at a table that you weren't the whale? Right, I mean, the idea is that, you know, in any game, if you can't spot the sucker in the first five minutes, then you're the sucker. And my sense has always been that in poker, everybody is always playing down a level as to where they should be, all the professionals are. And so, if you sit down with a group of people who you think should be your same skill level, you're almost certainly not. You're actually going to be, like, dwarfed by those people and they're going to take all your money real fast.
Sonny00:21:52Well, once again, this is why I always played in the lowest stakes possible. So, I'm, again, when I was playing on PokerStars, I was playing. I was playing $5, $10 sit-and-goes, which were, at the time, the lowest that you could do. I don't think they had $1 sit-and-go tables there. And then, when I go out to Vegas, I would play the 2-4 limit hold'em game, which is a very, it's, frankly, you can't really get yourself into too much trouble playing limit hold'em, even against players who are much better than you, because the betting is capped, it's structured, and you can, like, in a worst-case scenario on a 2-4 game, you can lose something like, I want to say you can lose maybe $50 or $60, maybe $70 or $80, whatever. But, like, the point is, not a ton of money on a single hand. As opposed to a no-limit game, you know, a 1-3 game will usually have a buy-in of $300 to $400. How did you do against Johnny Chan? I took him for everything. I bluffed him, right?
JVL00:22:50I was like, meet this $4 bet, boom, and he folded right in front of me. It was great.
Sonny00:22:57But, no, but, again, this is... So, I understand my limitations.
JVL00:23:00Pay that man his money.
Sonny00:23:01I know my limitations. I've read enough literature to have a very basic understanding of skills and strategy, and I know exactly how good I am, which is not very, which means that I very rarely lose a significant amount of money. I almost, I, in all of my in-person sessions in Vegas, I think I've had one losing session, which I consider pretty good. But, I mean, I've also only, like, won $50, $100. You know, $200 at a time. I'm not playing enough big, I'm not playing big money. I'm not trying to, you know, pay my way through college.
JVL00:23:36How much money did you guys win at the MGM Grand this weekend? Did not play a single thing. Oh, come on. No, we didn't even win.
Vic00:23:42Minimum of $25. What, are we going to have eight chips? I mean, it was crazy. It was too crazy. I literally.
Sonny00:23:46I was insulted. I was offended. I literally had $20 in my pocket. I, like, I didn't have enough money to buy chips to play one game.
JVL00:23:53Don't they have those little telephones where you could call to get credit? No? You don't have them?
Sonny00:23:57I would send down the $10,000. $10 marker, please.
Vic00:24:00I was ready to play. And, in fact, oftentimes, even if it's a $10 minimum table, when you're doing well in craps, you might start betting $25 a roll. And, obviously, you get completely strung out. But, it was really the principle that the minimum was $25. I just hated that that was the case at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. And, the reason for that is because there's no other casino nearby. There's no competition. There are no market forces. Very basic.
JVL00:24:29101. My fondest poker memory, my fondest gambling memory ever, is being at the craps table with you, I think, in the middle of the Caribbean. Yes. And, you possibly having had a cocktail or two, in the middle of a hot streak, turning
Vic00:24:41to me and saying, this game is so easy. Oh, you know what? They just give you money. You remember who was, I was actually mimicking our good friend, Chief Steve Hayes, because he was saying, this game is so easy. And, do you remember? He likes the heartache.
JVL00:24:59This is- Boy, he likes the heartache.
Vic00:25:00I am not even going to comment about that, because that's just ridiculous. And, I would tell him that. I said, Steve, you can't bet on heartaches or heart sixes, because it never happens. And then, all of a sudden, the roll comes out, heartache! You know, and he won. But, this was, I think, the first Weekly Standard cruise. So, this goes back to 2005, and I went on a hot streak that one night. And, you were there, JBL. I was there. And, I was there, and Steve Hayes was there. Hayes would take forever to take the dice.
JVL00:25:29You and I, back in our cabin, it was like Indecent Proposal.
Vic00:25:33You win. But, I came out richer for the experience. The thing was, there was also a crazy guy on the cruise ship, who was not, in fact, on the part of the Weekly Standard cruise, but he was a guy who was on the cruise, and he was drunk every night, and he worked for NASCAR. I remember him. His name, I think, was Fast Eddie. Blonde, curly hair. Blonde, curly. People called him Fast Eddie. He had, like, a blonde perm. And, this is funny. It was 2005, not 1975. Very 70s look. He looked very 70s, kind of a ruddy, ruddy complexion, and his nickname was Fast Eddie. And, he, at some point, ends up on the other side of me at this table, and I might have gone rolling for about 20 minutes until I crapped out. And, for those people who aren't familiar with the game, you want to keep on rolling and, you know, whatever the number is, and say, oh. Don't try to teach crap. Just keep going. The object of the game is to hit a six or whatever, and just don't hit a seven. Once you're rolling. And, I probably did not hit a seven for about 20 minutes. And, I kept on hitting sixes and eights. And, I remember people throwing down lots of money because they, it's like people get a feeling, okay, he's going to hit it again, and he's going to hit it again. And, by the end, Fast Eddie was, he flipped me like a green chip, which was like 25 bucks, and it was pointing at me like you were the man, you know. And, it's such a great feeling. And then, I think he went on.
Sonny00:26:55That was the happiest Vic has ever been.
Vic00:26:57Ever. Happier than my wedding. It was, he won $3,000. From you. From me. From that run. 3,000 bucks. And then, we went on another great run, JVL, several years later, and it was because I heard a bunch of the guys from The Standard had gone to play craps the night before, and I did not. And, they did terrible. I think everybody was wiped out and crapped out within five minutes. We come back, and it was you and me, and I said, okay, I'll walk you through it, and we'll start playing. And, then you, JVL, went on a roll. You were the one who was on a roll. You were the one who was rolling, and you were on fire, and you were hitting hard numbers, like 10, 4. Those are hard numbers to hit. I'll never forget that night. And, in fact, later that night, I'm back in my cabin with my wife, Kate, and she sees me smiling. She goes, oh, you're thinking about the lovely time we're having on the cruise? I said, no, I was just actually thinking of the craps game, and how great it was. It was such a great run. Sorry. That's true. I was smiling. It brought a smile to my face. But, anyway. I grew up going to Atlantic City a lot. My parents loved to play the slots, and we would just hang out in the game room, and have a great sort of buffet at the Golden Nugget and Bally's. And then, after that, when I became old enough, I sort of evolved. I started with slots, and then moved on to video blackjack, then to blackjack. And, I really tried to take that seriously, about when to hit, not to hit, 16s versus 12s, and splitting, and doubling down, the whole deal. But, I still found that a very, very important thing. It's a very hard game to win. It's a grind, just to break even, I think. Don't you think so, Sonny?
Sonny00:28:37Well, I mean, it's like any other table game. The odds are in the house's favor. I mean, this is, again, why I prefer to play poker to craps, or to blackjack, or mahjong, or war, or all these other games. Keto. How about Keto? I mean, that roulette, for God's sake, roulette, the odds are, it's literally a game that is designed to win money for the house, and you can't, in the long run, beat it. In the long run is key. You can't, in the long run, beat it, and that is just not the same with poker, which is a game of skill, to a certain extent. I mean, it's a game where you play against other people, and bad beats happen, people get lucky, people get unlucky, but if you are good at it, and you are playing within your means, and you're playing at a skill level that is appropriate for you, and you're not playing against the AI bots that exist now, that, you know, this was a big story last week, or the week before, that finally, there is an AI out there that can beat the world's best players in major competition, which means that anybody who plays online poker at this point is just a sucker. I'll forget about it. I mean, if you're, anyway. You know, I, it's a, it is a, not a sure loser, as opposed to the other ones. Right.
JVL00:29:53Right. Here's a free transition, Vic. So, why shouldn't you bet? Why don't you bet the hard eight? Oh. Oh. Take us to the actual movies we're supposed to talk about.
Vic00:30:05Speaking of hard eight, JVL, there are some great movies like Paul Thomas Anderson's Hard Eight, which he did before Boogie Nights, and maybe- Should have been named Sidney. Well, it was originally named Sidney. He named it Sidney, and the studio changed it. Why don't we talk about some of our favorite films about gambling? Sure. Yeah, for the five people who are left after we talked for a half hour about gambling.
JVL00:30:26Sure, let's do that. I can talk about Crash Rover. Go ahead.
Vic00:30:28JVL. No, don't throw it to me. Okay, okay, okay.
JVL00:30:31Basically, the greatest gambling movie ever made, Octopussy.
Vic00:30:36Okay. Thank you. Thank you. That was one of the great star tunes of Vijay Armitrage. I remember that. Vijay Armitrage. The Indian tennis player. That's right. You asked us to give a sort of Sagarine ranking. Did you nod about gambling movies? Did you guys actually do that this time? I tried really hard.
Sonny00:30:53I have a top three.
Vic00:30:54I have a top three. That's great. That's all I need. That's all I need. You want me to go first, then, or no? Please. Please. Okay. At the bottom, I'll say Ocean's Eleven, which sends the message of, hey, gambling is fun, but of course, it's a heist movie and not actually about the art of gambling, right? I mean, is that really even a gambling movie? That's a casino movie. It's a casino movie, and that's why it's at the bottom. Is casino a gambling movie? Well, that's the thing. Well, we're going to get to that. Yes. Okay. So, Ocean's Eleven shows the fun side of sort of Vegas, but obviously, Ocean's Eleven does not take place on a riverboat in the Mississippi, and I've been there. I've been there in New Orleans and in Iowa and Missouri. Not that I have a gambling problem, and I go to all these places, like the president. I remember the stories about you and Peter Lowe. My mentor, Peter Lowe, he just told me one day, we were at the Four Queens, which is a casino, and he said- The Four Queens dungeon and salad bar. Yes. Yes. And it's across from Fitzgerald's and Binion's. It's in the old part of Vegas. And he just, I didn't know how to play craps, and he just said, just follow what I do. Do what I do. Did he yell at you? Did he yell at the people there? Or was that only blackjack? No, we were doing well. That was a little bit of blackjack. Peter doesn't listen to this, does he? No, but his good friend Stephen Hagedorn does, and he reports back to Peter. But I just followed, and suddenly it becomes clear. Because otherwise, it's very intimidating to just, if you don't know how to play, or you're even reading. If you say, oh, I'm going to read about how to play, it's still intimidating to walk up to a table and just like, when do I begin, right? And this happened to you, JVL, where you tried and didn't. What happened? Threw the money, my chips, back at me.
JVL00:32:31The first time I tried to play craps. Run away! Wait, what happened? I went up, I literally had read a book about this, trying to figure it out. I was in Vegas. I went to put my chips down on the table, and the croupier, is that the word? Croupier? Croupier, yeah. Literally threw the chips back at me.
Sonny00:32:47Because you had tried to bet in the middle of a roll? Probably.
JVL00:32:50I couldn't even tell you what it was.
Sonny00:32:52I didn't know enough to know what I did wrong. Did you just leave and not come back after that?
JVL00:32:56Did you just walk out of the casino? I'm sorry, what else are you speaking of?
Sonny00:32:58What else do you have to do? Yeah, run quick to the game room.
JVL00:33:01The shame is so strong. I went and I had a drink. There's nothing else to be done.
Sonny00:33:05That's fair. No, that's exactly what I would have done. I would never have played craps again.
Vic00:33:10I almost wait for the next shuffle, like until a new person comes in and said, okay, I'm going to go in and play. But we were talking about Ocean's Eleven and sort of the fun side of this is what Vegas is, and everybody's having a great time. I've seen the worst of the worst I've ever seen. It reminded me of the worst gambling thing I've ever seen was, going to Lady Luck, which is a casino on the Mississippi River. I think it's outside the Quad Cities in Iowa. Our longtime listener friend Adam White will be able to confirm that. But on the Lady Luck Casino, I was talking to the blackjack dealer, and he says, oh, yeah, it's a great crowd here, a lot of locals, which is, by the way, a terrible thing for riverboats to try to attract tourists. Instead, it's just taking people from the town with their social security checks. And he says, yeah, oh, this old lady over there, he says, God, bless her, you know, she is very old, and she can't use her arms, but she loves playing the slots, so she sits there with a straw, poking the hit button.
Sonny00:34:09God, that's the most depressing. That is literally the most depressing image I've ever had.
JVL00:34:13Gaming is an engine of economic prosperity for local communities.
Sonny00:34:17Gaming, not gambling. It's crazy. Just one, if I can interrupt just very briefly. The saddest thing I've ever seen was on, I don't think it was technically a riverboat casino, because we were at the Outer Banks. I was at the Outer Banks for a friend's bachelor party, and we went to a boat that I think took us offshore.
Vic00:34:35In order to do that, yeah.
Sonny00:34:36And we start gambling, and I start looking around, and it's all locals, and it reeks of cigarettes, and people are just, and they're trapped indoors, like in a boat, in like a floating prison fortress, and I just, I had to leave. I had to like go and sit out on the, because you can't leave. You can't escape, because you're on the boat. So I just went, and I sat on like the balcony of a boat, I don't know, the plow, and I just like looked into the water and contemplated the decisions in my life that had led me to this point. Fortunately, well, the rest of the trip was better, but. All right.
Vic00:35:10Another great gambling movie, I would say, fourth on my list is The Sting, but that's sort of the art of the long con. That's also poker with Robert Redford. I count it. And Neil Neiman and Rob Shaw.
JVL00:35:18I count it, yeah.
Vic00:35:21And then Casino, Martin Scorsese's Casino, which is less about the game, but rather how gaming built this great city. In the desert, and I'll turn to you for more on that. And then in second place, I'll put The Cooler up there with William H. Macy and Alec Baldwin, who plays his boss. And Alec Baldwin is, as he is in almost every role, he's just fantastic. And again, coolers are supposedly not real, but if they were actually hiring coolers, I would suggest my wife. She is a genuine cooler at the gambling table. If she walks near you, people start losing. If coolers aren't real? That's what they say.
Sonny00:36:03Sonny, what about dragon ladies? What about what? What about dragon ladies? You know when you go and you got a hot streak at the blackjack table, and they send in the certain-faced Asian female dealer? They don't take any crappy... Oh, man. Every time that happens to me, I just get up. I'm like, nope, nope. I know what you're here for. You're the demon.
Vic00:36:26My advice is this. Whenever you have old ladies at a craps table, beware. I've seen this. I've seen people go, okay, let's help grandma roll the dice. People's lives are at stake here at this craps table, and she can barely get out of her wheelchair, and then she just chucks the thing. Half the time, it doesn't go towards the end of the table. Get out. It's not going to be a good roll. Another situation was I was on another ship for a friend's wedding, at the casino, and we were doing okay. We were just doing okay. And this other big fella's there, and he says, oh, let me get my wife to roll the dice. This tiny little girl, right? And she's, oh, no, no, no. She says, I don't want to do it. No, come on, do it. I don't want to do it. And he forces her, and she says, no, no, no, and just chucks it. She rolls a two. Every wood craps out. Rolls a three. And then she rolls, the dice fall out of the table, and you have to get the same dice, bring it back, and then she craps. If you don't want to roll, get out, okay? Bad juju. Bad juju. Don't force people to roll. Yeah. If they don't want to, that's it, okay? And then last but not least, I'll put rounders up there, because, and I love the cast, as Jonathan was saying, John Malkovich, way over the top, and fantastic.
JVL00:37:42Oh, crap.
Vic00:37:42So fantastic. I love the sweatsuit.
JVL00:37:45My favorite John Malkovich scene in that is when he says, I am still up 20 grand from this last time. I stick it in you. He picks up the camera, pans, and he is thrusting his hips at a television, which is airing a soccer match. Wearing that red tracksuit. Teddy KGB is one of the greatest gambling characters ever in cinema. So over the top, it's so wonderful.
Sonny00:38:11A criminal in a hood, but also a man of honor. Paid the man his money.
JVL00:38:15Paid the man his money. His money.
Sonny00:38:17Yeah, so anyway, rounders. Are we, are we, are you done?
Vic00:38:22Yeah, John Torturo is great as Kanish, by the way. The grinder, he's got to grind it out. I love him. And also just what you learn from that movie is don't gamble with police. It's terrible.
JVL00:38:35Fomka Jansen, also, if I could say. That was a movie that I realized that Fomka Jansen should have been a huge star. She's great. I don't know why. She's great in everything she does. Like the Bond girl thing was the worst thing she ever did. And she's been in the X-Men movies. She's wonderful. I want more Fomka Jansen everywhere. She's great. Agreed. Okay. Sonny, top three?
Sonny00:38:56Top three. Casino Royale, which I think is actually... I thought about that. I would say is actually a gambling movie, certainly in part. Agreed. It has the best non-rounders poker scenes.
JVL00:39:10That's not true. Cincinnati Kid is the best non-rounders poker scenes. I don't know. Cincinnati Kid is fantastic.
Sonny00:39:17Casino Royale also has the most absurd poker scenes where it's like four of a kind losing to a straight flush or something. Something really absurd. I mean, it's one of these things that just doesn't really happen that often, or at least often enough to happen in the dramatic manner in which it does in that film. The best poker scenes, I think, would be my number two movie, which is Rounders. And it really is... It is a movie that gets at the culture of dirtbag gambling about as effectively as anything else I've ever seen. I mean, it like... Meaning the world of Edward Norton. Right, right. No, I mean, these people are like... It's actually... It's not glamorous at all. It's kind of pathetic. It's like they're always looking for a hustle. They're always looking for a scam. And they are vaguely miserable while doing it for the most part. And finally, Casino, which I do consider a gambling movie. The first 40 minutes or so of Casino, where you're just kind of going through how the casino works, how it brings in the money, how you watch it go to the back room where it's counted. It's beautiful. I mean, it just... I could watch that scene once every month or so. It's so fantastic. And it also, of course, is by the greatest filmmaker of all time, Martin Scorsese.
Vic00:40:42Sonny, the money room scene is the most ridiculous thing in the olden days, where you had people pocketing things on the side. Everyone's skimming the skim. I mean, the way Vegas was run was ridiculous.
Sonny00:40:54It was ridiculous. But Casino is also one of my favorite gambling movies because it kind of gets at the etiquette. My favorite thing about Casino are the gambling scenes where the guy who's working for Pesci throws his boots on the table, and De Niro's like, you've got to get your feet off the table. All the things you don't do in a casino are very, very ably highlighted by Joe Pesci's terrible, terrible behavior. That's right. Throwing... Throwing the cards at the dealer, you know. Why don't you stick this up?
Vic00:41:28Yeah, exactly. And they replace... That guy, by the way, the original blackjack dealer, he, you know, not the original, I think he replaces a woman in that scene. The woman is feeling sort of threatened, and she's trying her best to deal with a very cantankerous Joe Pesci. And she gets replaced by the other dealer. The guy who replaces her, he is also the same dealer from Rain Man. Oh, nice. And my understanding is that he's an actual professional. Yeah, blackjack. Very nice. And he looks the part. He looks the part. So, JVL.
JVL00:41:59Yeah, so, when it comes to gambling, I forget who was that wrote this. This is not my fault. I'm stealing from somebody else, and I would tell you who it was if I can remember it. Your movie can't have any of the dramatic tension tied up in the result of the gambling, because that's the chance part, and we know it's not real chance, because the screenwriter is just going to make the result be whatever the screenwriter needs to do for the story. So, because of that, the cards are going to come out how they're going to come out, and we have to be invested as viewers in something else, other than just the thing of it. And so, would the Hustler and the Color of Money, would we consider them a gambling movie? Sure, that is a question. Definitely. Definitely pool games. Pool games, which is glamour and really interesting. This is not a gambling movie, but something that I really love, and we should push people to it anyway. Ricky Jay and his 52 Assistants, the original show set, which is on YouTube, done by, who directed it for us? Mamet. Yeah, David Mamet directed it. It's really great.
Sonny00:43:03And I would say my favorite gambling movie,
JVL00:43:06Maverick. Oh, yeah, of course. The Mel Gibson, written by the great William Goldman, directed by Richard Donner. It is Mel Gibson at his absolute most charming best. James Garner just kills it. Alfred Molina plays the heavy, which is hysterical in its own way. And it has the exact, the exact right number of reversals, the exact right emphasis on gambling. Everything about that movie is perfectly charming.
Vic00:43:32There is a great Danny Glover cameo, too.
JVL00:43:36Yes, I'm getting too old for this shit, as he's robbing the bank. That's great, that's great. Yeah, everything. Graham Greene. Yes. So you don't like Maverick?
Sonny00:43:44And Jodie Foster. I mean, it's fine. It's just a bit, a little mainstream, for my tastes, frankly. Says the guy whose favorite poker movie is Rounders.
JVL00:43:54Which is only the favorite poker movie of everybody in America. But that's cool.
Sonny00:43:58That's because it's literally the best. I mean, there's no other poker movie that is as good as that. Cincinnati Kid is not as good. Maverick is not as good. You're just, I mean, look, it's not my fault that your taste is bad.
JVL00:44:10Lockstock and two smoking barrels?
Sonny00:44:12Not as good.
Vic00:44:14Oh, how about, you know what's a great scene? Don't attack me for saying, I'm not saying the whole movie is. Honeymoon in Vegas with Nicolas Cage. Oh, yeah. That's a funny scene. And he loses his shirt against James Caan. Yeah, yeah. And you know why I think it works? Because it's the kind of movie where it actually makes sense for Nic Cage to be that kind of Nic Cage.
Sonny00:44:36Yeah. Sort of wacky. Snatch is a better gambling movie than Lockstock and two smoking barrels.
JVL00:44:41It's a hustling movie, not a gambling movie. It's a movie about, they're betting on boxing. It's a movie about. Have you guys seen
Sonny00:44:47the Mark Wahlberg remake of The Gambler? No. Because I've never seen it.
JVL00:44:51I have not. But the John Goodman scenes that exist out there are so amazing. The trailer, shirtless John Goodman, is terrifying and awesome. So he's like shirtless erudite John Goodman, and I can't get enough of it. And I think it's on Netflix or something. This is like in my queue for Treadmill watching movies.
Sonny00:45:11Goodman is an underrated heavy. He is an under, like watching the trailers for Kong Skull Island, I keep thinking, oh man, that looks really good because he looks kind of scary and terrible. And also in 10 Cloverfield Lane. 10 Cloverfield Lane, of course, is like a pseudo sequel, a spiritual sequel, whatever, to the surprise hit. Actually, it wasn't really a hit, but the surprise cult classic, maybe Cloverfield. He is a just, he's this guy who lives underground and he is convinced that the world has ended and he can't get the other people who are there with him to believe this. And he's terrifying the whole time. Just scary and prone to violence. It's really, I don't know. Now I'm rambling. Okay.
Vic00:46:05Well, on that note then, we can move on to Spirit of the Week. And we've got an interesting one that made everybody happy today. Everybody was happy with this week's Spirit of the Week. It's not really a spirit per se. It's more like a fortified wine. It was a port. I brought in a port that I had opened about a week or two ago. And as port drinkers know, once you open, that cork, the clock is ticking, I would say, at best three, four weeks at most, I should say. So the port we're drinking today is a Fonseca Portobin No. 27. It's your basic ruby port. It's a blend, not a vintage. But sweet, delicious, ready to drink, no decanting necessary. Jonathan, you mentioned you had a 40-year-old port. Did you decant or you just opened port? No, I opened port and it was the greatest thing I've ever tasted. Do you remember the name? No. Okay. Sorry. All right. Let us know for next week. I'm really curious, actually. Corrections? Yep. Go for it.
JVL00:47:03JVL. Sonny, you were perfect, obviously, right?
Sonny00:47:06Yeah, sure. What do you have? What do you have on me?
JVL00:47:09No, I have two on me. The first is from listener Chris Anderson, who says that I am wrong about Laura Dern telling Jon Hammond people are dying. And in fact, she and Muldoon discovered the lawyer's body. And so she does know. Uh, but Chris says there's one giant continuity error and it actually comes in the T-Rex attack. And I'm not going to explain that. I'm just going to put it on show notes. So, uh, you'll get Chris's
Vic00:47:35The first T-Rex attack with the kids in the car. Yes. Wow.
JVL00:47:38Uh, the other slight correction, you'll recall that I said that any movie that gets to this part of the, uh, Oscar voting win, any musical gets, yeah. Uh, not true at all. Not, not true at all.
Sonny00:47:53Well.
JVL00:47:54Well, we've had 11, uh, I'm sorry, 10 musicals winning best picture of the 39, which have been nominated over the years. So really, it's closer to one in four. It's a one in four chance. Not a one in one. Yeah.
Vic00:48:10Very good. Um, for me, some clarifications and some enlightening things. Uh, listener S. Christopher Day asks, uh, in terms of outrages of best pictures and, uh, and such, he mentioned in terms of endearment beating All the Right Stuff in 1983. And I think that's, uh... All the Right Stuff? All the Right Moves?
JVL00:48:32All the Right Stuff. All the Right... Which of those three movies?
Vic00:48:35In my notes. All the Right Stuff. Oh, my gosh. Can we correct this correction? Yeah, correct the correction of The Right Stuff. And I thought about it. I think I must have been thinking of Lea Thompson. That was, uh, who I was thinking about. All the Right Moves. Thank you. Um, so it beat, uh, The Right Stuff. Sorry about that. Uh, here's another interesting thing, listeners. Including, uh, uh, Just Carl, Robert Little, and Ben Kay on Twitter point out the strange coincidence of my mentioning the time travel movie Time After Time. And now there's an ABC show with the same name, same characters coming out, uh, this month. Really, it's bizarre that this has happened. I do this. It's happened. I don't like it. You were a precog. I... I'm about to predict other things.
JVL00:49:18Could you want to talk about Bashar al-Assad in this episode? I wish.
Vic00:49:22I'm sorry. Bring him up. Right now, I'm drawn to blank. Uh, and finally, listener Sean Dunbar says, Danny Nucci's Italian stereotype uh, in Titanic was not Fabio, but rather Fabrizio. Fabrizio. But hey, I make a mistake. It's a nickname.
JVL00:49:37I'll tell you something interesting about Sean Dunbar. I, uh, I was having dinner with that guy the other night. Uh-huh. We were just having some pizza and flipped on a movie. You'll never guess what was on.
Sonny00:49:47Uh, something involving, uh, gymnastics. Stick it. Did you just turn it on, or did you have to go looking for it? It was right there. Did you have to go
JVL00:49:57in ultra-high-def 4K? Right there on Sean's 70-inch ultra-high-def 4K. It was an unbelievable coincidence. Mm.
Vic00:50:06Did you, uh, pull all Hogan's Heroes there? Right then and there? With, uh, with Bob Crane style? With, uh, what's his name? Carpenter. John Carpenter. Hey, John, you mind if I just relax? Okay, okay. Hey, sure, go ahead and relax. All right, guys. Great movie. I'm not even watching the movie. Jesus Christ. That's how it always starts. You mind it, because, you know, we're both into the movie. What movie? Oh, sorry. Um, okay. Hey, it was a clean episode until now.
JVL00:50:30This is why we get four stars.
Vic00:50:32Sorry. Um, okay. That's all the time we are going to give you for this episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments, tweet us, add Victorino Matus at Sonny Bunch.
Sonny00:50:45Again. Uh, make sure to send all of your complaints to at JV Last. He loves to hear from listeners, and he is on Twitter literally 24-7. That's so true. I want to hear what you have to say. He gets notifications every time you tweet at him, so please, please tweet at JV Last.
JVL00:51:00His phone is buzzing every minute. Go to show notes on Friday, though, because the, just trust me, it's worth the price of admission
Vic00:51:07for all these gambling pieces. Lots of great reads. Lots of great reads. Um, again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play. Just type in Substandard or the podcast. We're there. Leave a review. Tell your friends. And again, don't forget show notes Friday at 11 a.m. at WeeklyStandard.com. Until next time, we'll see you next time.
JVL00:51:33$25 minimums? Yes. In Maryland? In Maryland. In that garbage state? Yeah, in PG County.
Vic00:51:40In PG County.
JVL00:51:41Packed.
Vic00:51:41$100. Full. No, I'm just saying, it's a lot of money to just, you know, suck from one county. Full. That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. It's a terrible thing. $100 table.
JVL00:51:53That's a terrible thing. That's really... I was shocked. So when's the last time you guys were in a casino prior to this? How many years has it been?
Sonny00:52:00It hasn't been that long. I was in Reno just in Thanksgiving.
JVL00:52:04And what were the minimums there?
Sonny00:52:06Oh, there were $10 tables. Everywhere.
Vic00:52:09Oh. Well, there it is. I remember playing at Casino Royale on the Strip in Vegas. Oh, yeah. Oh, boy, that place.
Sonny00:52:17Oh, man, that is the dirtbag.
JVL00:52:19That is the dirtiest casino on the Strip. $0.25 minimum for roulette. Yeah, that's hot. And so you could go to roulette feeling like you are a multimillionaire throwing chips down everywhere on the table.
Vic00:52:31I think I threw $20 down for a dollar hand blackjack and must have been there for three or four hours. I'm like, oh, my God, push again? I love Casino Royale.
Sonny00:52:40I remember that's where I... That's one of the casinos I hit up the first time I went to Vegas and we loved it so much we kept going back to the point where we saw the same dealer three nights in a row and she started getting very anxious because none of us understood tipping. Like, we were all 21. Nobody knows. Yeah, we're 21. We don't understand that you're, like, you tipped the... And, like, on the third night final she was like, you know, if you're not going to tip me could you at least leave a note in the comments box? They have, like, a literal, like, questions, complaints, you know, praise. Fill out a note card and leave it in this box. So we all dutifully, I swear to God, we all dutifully lined up at the card and we're just like, Daisy is the best. Give her a raise. Give her a raise. As opposed to actually giving her a tip.
JVL00:53:26Well, we did give her a tip finally because we were, like, but, I mean,
Sonny00:53:29we're playing at the $5 table in Casino Royale. It's not like there were a lot of high rollers there throwing tips down.
JVL00:53:35I think that's high limit at Casino Royale. That may be the high, was that in the special back room? Yeah, yeah. The $5 table at Casino Royale?
Sonny00:53:42There was actually a woman going around giving massages while we were playing. That's the high roller. You can live like a king at Casino Royale.
JVL00:53:50So my worst gambling experience took place, not worst gambling experience, the worst thing I've ever seen pertained to gambling. I was standing outside Casino Royale in the corner. It was like 3 o'clock in the morning and a couple employees carry this woman out of the casino and simply lie her down on the sidewalk there. She looks like she's about 25 years old and she proceeds to then throw up everywhere. And just lie like she was passed out already. And I thought to myself, at first I was like, boy, that's cruel. And I thought, wow, what the hell else are they supposed to do with her?
Vic00:54:22Right, right. I was going to ask you you, non-gambling related JVL, did you get any strong reactions about your talking about Oliver, the musical, being an outrage? Anybody on Twitter perhaps saying, hey, wait a minute, Oliver shouldn't have won? Did you see anything? Oh, I thought a certain Jake Tapper was outraged, but was that a coincidence?
JVL00:54:41No, no, no. Jake Tapper agrees with us. Oh, okay. It must be a listener of the show, the great Jake Tapper, who I love.
Vic00:54:47You think he listens to The Substandard? Well, I think he knows
JVL00:54:49that I listen to his show constantly because I'm such a huge fan. And I'm sure he returns the
Vic00:54:53favor and listens to The Substandard. That'd be so great. I hope he tells everybody else that he listens and enjoys The Substandard.
JVL00:54:57Did you guys see the live-action Contra?
Sonny00:55:01I saw it because you sent it to us. But did you watch it? I watched it, yeah.
JVL00:55:06Explain what's happening here. So you guys remember, everybody out there who's above a certain age remembers the Nintendo Entertainment System Contra game, the Contra code, right, left, right, left, right, B-A, B-A, start. Well, somebody who has so much time on his hands, that even my layabout brother was horrified by this, made a live-action Contra. Wow. And it's like him running through, like, actual the world, but with CGI things super... I can't... Again, I'll show note it. I'll show note. It defies... If you were wondering if America has entered its late decadent stage where nothing but rot is inevitable from here on out, this might be the clincher for the argument. Are we sure that that was produced in America? I think so. I'm not.
Sonny00:56:01Anyway, it was horrifying. You're right. You're right. Any other thoughts, JVL?
JVL00:56:08Uh, yeah. I'm sure it's fine.
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