GAME OVER
By
Gary Isaacson
Smashwords Edition
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved, including the rights to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, contact: Gary Isaacson at P.O. Box 279, Tumacacori, AZ 85640 USA.
Front Cover Art by Gary Isaacson
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
For DeDe,
my wife to whom I owe my life.
Chapter 1-
Typical cacophony. The casino bar is my front row seat for this nightly theater of the absurd. A football rerun is blaring on the overhead screen; no one is watching. A couple of Vegas first timers are well on their way to morning prayers at the porcelain alter and making sure everyone hears about it. Me, I am thinking about whether or not to drink tonight, maybe just a beer or two. This casino here at Paris is one of my favorites but tonight I’m bored. Most of the guys I know from NAB, the National Association of Broadcasters convention, are married and retired in spirit but still working. They hit the rack hours ago. Who comes to Vegas and calls it a night at nine? At least bored is better than dead.
A Mega-Jackpot alarm goes off and everyone in the casino stops mid-button push and stares in disbelief. Then they all become accountants. How much is it? Thirteen million! There is no love in the room. Some fucking old lady from Hicksville hits and everyone feels their chance of winning tonight has been diminished. Some weirdoes try to rub up against the bewildered hausfrau whose life has been changed forever by a thunderbolt of dumb luck.
I’ve seen it a few times; I practically live in these places. Well, I don’t play golf so casinos are like my clubhouse and the players are a hell of a lot more fun to hang around than a bunch of Republican Dan Quayle types. These people know they are fucked up.
“Hey Doll,” I signal the far too perky for the hour barkeep. “Isn’t this a school night?”
“I’m legal,” she says smiling.
“Yeah, but I’m not sure my thoughts are even in Nevada.”
She plays along. “OK, you just gonna flirt or do something about it?”
Got me...I was just keeping in practice and figured she was working me for tips, but this flirtation is a pleasant fiction. “Give me the worst cognac you got.” She shoots me a quizzical look. “Keeps me from drinking too much.”
Her casino badge reads “Brandy”; not a real name unless the girl was born in a small town in the Midwest where they name kids after bad pop rock from the seventies. Still, better than one of those poor black kids whose name sounds like an adjective. “Odious”, how does a mother name a kid “Odious”?
“Brandy?” as she levels the snifter of antifreeze on the bar, “what’s your real name?”
“Florence,” she says sheepishly.
“That’s a pretty name, ever been there?” I’m making small talk.
“It‘s near where I was born, Florence, Kentucky.”
“Yeah, I heard of it.”
She was my kinda lady these days…pretty small town girls with big dreams who end up as bar girls in Vegas or LA, if they’re lucky, or as strippers and prostitutes if they hook up with the wrong crowd. Florence, Brandy, whatever, seems like a hell of a nice girl; smart, funny, probably a former high school cheerleader and maybe even a homecoming queen. This is not exactly the fantasy she had in mind, but it’s still a better deal than had her world remained the ten miles around small town Kentucky.
“You look Greek, but sound American,” showing off her cosmopolitan acumen.
“Well, I have heard that before. On Santorini a young bartender told me I look exactly like his uncle. I guess the mustache and Mediterranean skin. Actually, my family was last in Russia before running away to America to escape the pogroms and the czar’s army.”
“So you’re Russian?” She affects a pretty fair Russian accent.
“We were Jews from Odessa on the Black Sea, Russians when the army needed conscripts.”
“Brandy?” yells the head bartender. “You doing anything?”
“Yeah, I’m busy,” she yells back in mock anger. The bar was light, so we had some more time to gab.
“So what was your name before you changed it?” She’s looking me right in the eyes, close up.
“Tomkinov,” I admit with a smile, delighted with her cleverness. “Four generation later, I am Alexander Timken, Alec to my friends.” I extend my hand and she takes it. “So we‘re both name frauds,” I teased, touching her long blonde hair.
“I guess so.” She changes her grip from shaking hands to holding hands.
OK, time to look like a schmuck. “Look, are you busy tonight after work?” Expecting a playful rebuke I get to my feet.
“I get off at one. Leave me a key and your room number and I’ll see you then.” She bats her eyes, a deliberately over the top mini-vamp.
“Room twenty-five ten,” handing her the plastic card and trying not to look surprised.
“O-o-o, a suite; see you later Tomkinov.”
I gulp the last of the cogn-yuck and leave her a twenty. A wave and I’m off to kill a couple of hours in the casino.
I play all the games, but I like the new ‘carnival’ table games best. A classic like Blackjack has better odds, but it requires all my attention. Baccarat is a fair game, but demands none of my attention. It was introduced to the Court of Charles VIII to entertain the dumbest king to ever sit on the throne of France. It looks sexy and smart in the Bond films, but that’s European Chemin de fer, a slightly different game that requires a modicum of skill and is not played in Vegas. So I play “Let it Ride” and “Three Card Poker” which are easy games with low stakes, but one good hand can pay for a trip. I also own a nice hunk of ShuffleMaster stock; they own the rights to these games and a few more the purists sneer at playing.
I spot a dealer I liked earlier dealing a five-dollar table. Maria is a Hispanic young lady, smartly dressed in a dealer tux shirt, bow tie and vest. She looks like good luck. With a big smile and a penchant for dealing winners, she was cleaning up on tips when I played with her a few hours ago. “Hi Maria,” as I sit down to play. Her eyes get wide and her smile broader, but she doesn’t miss a beat in the timing of her deal.
Some guys pick dealers they think they can beat, rev their motor mouths and play like a dragster on fire until they get shut down. Besides being no fun, these guys are bad luck. Aggression is an expensive personality trait at the tables. I pick a table where the players are smiling and having a good time, like Maria’s table.
Maria changes my hundred and says, “Hello again, Mr. Alec.” I told her to call me by my first name after I asked for hers. She’s decided “Mr. Alec” is friendly without being too familiar. I kinda like it….in the casino; on the street it would sound ridiculously gay.
First base was open, my position of preference on the “Let it Ride” table.
In blackjack, third base is the power position with the best look at the sequence of cards and the final say on those tough calls like holding twelve when the dealer has a two up. I know what the book says, but I have always had this autonomic computer in my head that tells me when to vary from the calculated odds. Or maybe I’m just dumb lucky, at least in cards.
Anyway, first base gets the first hand dealt in this game; no one can sit in half way through the shoe and get the hand I was supposed to get. Yeah, stupid superstition, but the first hand is my hand or I won’t play the table.
A couple other guys are at table dressed in the garish leisure threads sold only in Vegas hotel men’s stores; obviously in town for the convention. I give a nod to both. They are juiced, playing dumb, but only betting nickels. “Mr. Alec, jou here for the convention too?” Maria asks in her accented but agreeable English.
“Uh huh, looking at my first hand of two tens and a queen. “Guess I’ll stay.” I place my cards under my three ten dollar bets. The other guys take back their first bets and she turns up the first dealer card, which is a ten. Now I’m happy. I had a sure winner with the tens, but this could be a big hand right out of the gate. The other guys decide to stick, no need for a poker face in this game; we all play against the house. I need one more ten for four of a kind or a queen for a full house.
“Ready?” Maria turns over a ten! High fives all around; her tens make everyone a winner. The guy closest to me asks, “What you got man?”
“Two pair,” still catching my breath. “Tens and tens!”
“Oh man,” says the third baseman with that “Why was it you and not me, fucker?” sound in his voice.
“Thanks Maria,” I said without moving as the pit bosses come over to confirm the hand and watch the pay out.
“Mr. Alec, I am very happy for jou,” I think I hear Maria say, but now I’m watching the pay out. Five hundred on each bet plus the bonus four hundred made it a nineteen hundred dollar hit. Crazy luck; this really is my night. I put a black chip on the table for Maria. “You have been a lovely, lovely dealer.”
“Thank you. Good night, Mr. Alec.” She clicks the hundred-dollar chip on the table for the cameras and drops it in with the dealer tips. It hardly seems fair that the other dealers get the same share of total tips as Maria, but that’s the system. It’s the only exception to the unbridled dog-eat-dog capitalism everywhere else in Vegas.
“Have a good show, guys, and good luck with Maria,” I say as I walk away from a sweet moment to savor it. I might see those guys tomorrow, but not at the show. A hundred thousand attendees is a blur of humanity, all walking, talking and sweating to excess in those airplane hangers they call the Las Vegas Convention Center.
NAB has every network, broadcast group and old media “suit” in the business on hand to look at and sometimes buy the latest hardware from the Japanese. At the same show are the legions of techno-geeks who are wrecking the oligopoly the big boys had for so long. Video uploading has been drawing more and more eyeballs, especially the young ones, away from traditional media. The old guard is losing their small minds trying to stop the erosion.
High-speed connections and cheap digital camcorders have rocked the television world. This is war and both armies are decked out in full dress uniform at NAB, the broadcasting brontosaurs in their new Bernini suits and the Internet insurgents in their short pants and torn t-shirts. It must kill the corporate grunts that they have to dress to depress, wearing coat and tie in hundred degree heat for fuck’s sake, while a techno-nerd wearing maybe ten dollars worth of clothes on his back has enough equity in stock to buy the jockhead’s entire neighborhood. The whole thing makes me laugh.
I have a foot in each camp and both hands in some others. I’ve chosen freedom at the price of security, the bargain every maverick makes. Or maybe I just never grew up or gave up.
I design and install the high-end equipment broadcasters buy, but unlike their chief engineers who have been keeping their ancient BetaSP machines going with electrical tape and hot spit, I take them where no broadcaster has wanted to go, into the brave semi-new world of HD and digital storage. Behind the gee-whiz news sets at most local broadcast stations there is an archaic technology discontinued by all the Japanese manufacturers a decade ago, a shiny wrapper over analog equipment as out of date as the cars on the streets of Havana.
I’m wandering around the casino still jazzed about winning. Do I want a drink? No. How about checking out the new slots to kill some time before I retire to my suite for the inevitable disappointment of Brandy’s no-show. Although with tonight’s streak, my getting lucky in love might be more like an even money bet.
Chapter 2-
Since everyone knows slots are a sucker bet, why are they so popular? Well, it’s fun in a hamster hitting a feed bar kind of way and because they’re not as dumb a bet as a lot of smart guys think. The best odds in the casino are not to be found at the craps table or at baccarat; the best chance to win, and I mean earn a win with skillful play, is at video poker. That’s right; those frail old ladies in their robo-chairs, chain smoking while taking oxygen know more about winning in the casino than those rich today, broke tomorrow rap idiots at the craps table throwing away millions of their ill-gotten gain. A good player, over time, can consistently beat video poker, at the right casino offering the right machine settings and pay out rates.
But winning isn’t why I play the slots. I play them because they intrigue and amuse me. Slot machines are a marriage of mechanism and magic. They are an art form.
I’m old enough to remember playing with silver dollars, real Morgan, eighteen nineties silver dollars. They were so heavy and beautiful; walking liberty as a dreamy, idealized woman. The silver had a feel and smell about it and before they went back on the floor, the wise guys had them polished so when they came spilling out of a winning machine, they refracted rainbows of casino light.
Not all new technology can be called an improvement.
Now the sound of dollars filling a slot bin is a digitally recorded facsimile. All the new slot machines spit out paper receipts with the fanfare of a self-service gas pump. It saves the casinos a fortune in coin counting and floor labor, but at a real cost of the total experience.
My sister’s ex-father in law, who looked like Mr. Clean, the bald guy on the detergent bottles, was the luckiest S.O.B. (and was he ever a real S.O.B.) I ever met. I once saw him carry his jackpot winnings across the casino to the cashier cage in his stocking feet, balancing two buckets and both of his shoes brimming full of silver dollars. That was fun to watch. Tell me a guy with a slip of paper is having as much fun or is as good a show. The accountants are fucking up the gaming business just like everything else they touch. They have no soul or, more accurately, no functioning neurons in the right side hemispheres of their brains.
I’m thinking about this as I navigate the slot aisles looking for the right machine. I’m a silver surfer passing on the lesser waves looking for the right sit. The choice of a machine is important. It’s like forming a relationship with any intelligent calculating device like a computer or a woman. There’s a pleasant courtship before it takes your money and breaks your heart.
An important feature of the old mechanical slots back in the day was, like any mechanism, they had a pattern of operation. This made them beatable by anyone observant enough to recognize that certain alignments preceded predictable outcomes. The same knack that helps me win in blackjack used to help me win at slots. Just as the casino owners figured out about card counting after a team from M.I.T. beat them and they then changed over to six deck shoes and continual shuffling machines, the slot guys finally got wise that their machines had tells.
The slots of today may look the same, wheels spinning with red, white and blue gum sticks and sevens tumbling around, but they operate without the biases every mechanical device has. They’re all computers just beneath the skin. The heart of the device is called a random number generator (RNG), which eliminates any mechanical aspect of the slots, except the fake spinning wheels. You can rub the glass, pray to Jesus or suck the chrome off the pull handle while those wheels are rolling, but it’s all a show. The outcome was determined a fraction of a second after you pushed the button.
Is it still fair? Well yeah. The machine payoffs are set to a certain percentage of total revenue, which many casinos post. If a group of machines has a sign over them saying ninety-eight percent return, by law, the casino must live up to that promise. Trouble is, most of those machines are tied to progressives that pay out a few huge jackpots at the expense of giving a decent rate of pay out to the player not willing to invest a house payment and forty-eight hours of play waiting to get even. Avoid progressives.
Yeah, the spinning wheels are a fake and the handles no longer launch a mechanical device; they’re just funny looking push buttons. So why are they there? After the slot makers went to RNGs and total electronics, they also tried video screen tumblers and push buttons only. The older players hated them. So the game makers slapped the handles back on and brought back the spinning wheels; the illusion of the old days.
Gaming is all about theater and a slot machine is either a good show with lots of satisfied players, or it’s a bad show and nobody plays it. A new game launch is as risky and expensive as movie making.
I usually play video poker, deuces wild being the most fun.
Sometimes I try the Australian pokies that have invaded the US and the rest of the world’s gaming countries. As is their wont, the Aussies took the word “poker”, made it friendly sounding like “barby” for barbecue and applied the term to the five wheel slot machines developed over there, mechanical dealers of five card stud poker hands really. A few of the casinos down under may still have some of the old beauties, especially the small Queensland casinos in Cairns and Townsville. They did when I was there a few years ago, the trip when I first saw the electronic pokies. Wow, were they different.
Instead of trying to imitate an old style mechanical slot, these machines embraced video and added something new, humor. Instead of just sirens going off for a jackpot, these machines were making sounds all the time. They had growling lions and snorting rhinos, jumping monkeys and some very silly humans. What a hoot. And the other innovation was that one could play for a penny. Or one could play twenty lines for a penny each or a nickel or a dime. Bottom line, these “penny machines” could have a bettor spending two dollars a pull. American makers were quick to copy.
I’m walking the aisles filled with hundreds of slots and as I skinny my way past a couple of boozy Paris patrons it caught my eye. What kinda of pokey is that? It has gold plating instead of chrome and the graphics look amazing. Like many of the new machines meant to crossover to Asia’s exploding Macao market, the machine has Chinese icons and the animals of the Chinese Zodiac. I take seat.
Like most guys, when I get a new toy I plug it in and start banging around ‘til I get it to work, only checking the manual as a last resort. Not so with pokies. I read the rules, which can take ten pages of videotext. I like that the Dragon is wild since I was born under that sign. I put in a twenty and play twenty lines for a penny each. Diamond Jim. I never play for big stakes; it turns my fun into work. I play for even less than nothing on the slots.
After spending about ten minutes, I’ve seen the bonus game and gotten a few fair size payoffs. The wild dragon is a fun feature, but the trend is like saw teeth turned about fifteen degrees south of parallel. I just can’t get ahead, even for one pull, which is rare for these games. When I get down to ten dollars in credits I cash in. Now what to do with this silly receipt?
A cute Asian cocktail waitress asks me if I would like a drink. “Just leaving, but thanks.” She smiles anyway and says, “Maybe later?”
“Sure. Hey. OK, bring me a B&B. I’ll be over at that game right there,” pointing at the “I Dream of Jeannie” machine. I love that game. It reminds me of my youth and dreaming about Jeannie a lot. Barbara Eden in that harem outfit was by far the hottest thing on television in the sixties. My entire generation first got hard watching her. Bless you, Barbara. The game is a typical pokey with a bonus wheel, but after each win, the voice of the real Ms. Eden can be heard offering encouragement and congratulations. “You’re the best master who ever lived!” I can’t help but mutter quietly, “Thank you Jeannie.”
The game is hysterically funny ego masturbation. And here is my drink.
“Thanks...” I’m looking for her name tag, “...Fumiko.” I hand her a dollar. In the old
days it was easier to just fish a dollar out of the bin. Every single employee but the accountants must just hate these damn paper receipts.
”You welcome.” And I get a small bow as well. Las Vegas is not of this planet. On the same planet could there exist Fumiko and women like my ex-wife’s attorney who whispered into my ear she was going to cut off my balls and stuff them down my face? The female gender definitely has range.
It’s time for my date with Brandy or Spectravision.
Chapter 3-
Opening the door to my junior suite, I call, “Hello, Daddy’s home,” in self-mockery, to the deluxe, immaculate and empty room…an audience of one. I flip on the TV to the hotel channel, a loop I’ve seen ten times that tells me more than I’d ever want to know about the Paris Las Vegas. I’ve only had two drinks in six hours, both of them brandies for some reason, so I open the mini-bar and look for inspiration.
One-fifteen a.m., guess she’s not coming. No matter, there’s a split of California champagne that looks pretty tasty and a small round of Brie. I change the channel to ESPN…so much for its beer and pretzels stereotype.
It’s springtime and April is full of hope, the beginning of a new baseball season and anything seems possible. When I was a kid, my dad took me to Crosley Field to see the Reds. I saw the best of the best play there; Mays, Clemente and Aaron for the opposition and for the Reds, Frank Robinson; the closest thing I ever had to a sports hero. That team was so good, three twenty game winning pitchers plus great hitting. Unfortunately, the year they peaked was also the year they ran into a Yankees team that had Whitey Ford, plus Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris in a battle of home run hitting unseen in the game since Ruth. Maris hit sixty-one and the Reds lost the World’s Series in five. All the wrong results, but that’s baseball. Tonight there’s no game on, just some ex-players in loud suits talking about Barry Bonds. Steroids or not, he’s the best player ever, period.
I open the split, pour a glass and bite right into the cheese. No need for daintiness; the guy in the mirror isn’t offended. If the bubbles make me burp, I may go for extra volume. It may be better to squelch the belch and bear the pain than deliver the belch and bear the shame ...unless you’re alone.
Click, and the door cracks open. “Alec?”
Bounding into the room, right at home at once, she plops down next to me on the couch in a sprawl of legs and a half lotus. Having changed from her bar uniform to t-shirt and torn jeans, hair down and artfully mussed, she seems more like a kid looking for some fun than a femme fatal. Thank fucking God! I’m too old for that kind of pressure.
“Hi,” a quick peck on my cheek. “What ya drinking?”
“A nice Mumm’s Napa.” I smile and pour her a glass taking in all the details of her fresh, young persona.
“That’ll work.” She touches her glass with mine, making a click rather than the clang of crystal but I’m not picky. There are wine snobs, who, having tasted a Bollinger Grande Annee Brut from a Marie Antoinette goblet would turn up their noses at this simple wine we’re enjoying so much. They think they’re sophisticated, but their insecurities and fragile egos make their world a very small place; a tiny gated community of people exactly like them.
“This is good; it has a lot of nose, like you,” Brandy says, mocking all oenophiles and me at once. She kisses me on the nose, then bites it lightly and laughs. I‘ve always been so turned on by this kind of playfulness.
No more thinking, no more banter. I move her bite to my lips and she kisses me warmly and deeply. I stretch out to get comfortable and she’s now astride me, sitting full weight on my less than ripped abs. She pulls her t-shirt over her head and her long hair cascades down. It partially veils her beautiful young body. The neon lights from the Strip below paint sweet Brandy in vivid colors as she moves. She looks every bit a gift from the gods, the best part of a miraculous run of luck.
Chapter 4
“You snore!” Brandy bounces across the bed in the all together, not the least bit self conscious in the white light of a Vegas morning streaming through the window.
“Good morning. Yes, I know. My wife used to hate that.” I’m still wiping the sleep out of my eyes. Man, I slept well.
“I’m going to hop in the shower then I’m out of here,” she says giving me a quick peck before trampolining off the bed to a perfect landing. If I tried that I’d end up in traction. Not that I wasn’t a hell of an athlete in my younger years but I’m more than OK that’s in the past. I’ve come to terms with the limitations aging imposes and it would appear from the spring in Brandy’s step, my best was still good enough.
“How ‘bout some room service?” I’m still playing the dutiful lover though it’s becoming obvious Brandy has a much better grip on what had and had not happened last night.
“No time,” she says over the background of shower water. Seduced and abandoned, I say to myself, just another hunk of man meat to her. I’m making myself laugh. I’m in pretty good shape for my age, but even looking ten years younger than I am still makes me a fossil. Except in Florida.
“Where you going?” I ask, sounding a little possessive and ridiculous.
“Got another date!” she teases. She hunts for and throws on clothes at the same time.
“You what?” I sub-verbalize but it’s clearly on my face.
“My son. I gotta pick him up from my mom’s house.”
“What’s his name?” This child has a child?
“Raymond. He’s three,” she says with a smile of pride holding up three fingers.
“Raymond...name seems a little grown up for a three year old. Is that his real name Florence?” Teasing her for fun.
“Yes Tomkinov,” jumping on me again. God, this kid is bruising me from head to toe. I sit up in bed.
“There’s no Mr. Brandy, I assume.”
“Nope. He’s a total loser; meth junkie. How do you think I ended up in Vegas? He wanted to mooch off my parents.” She’s semiserious for a moment.
“Not here following your dreams, huh?”
“Nope.” She puts her head on my shoulder, kisses it and then grabs my face in both her hands. She then sucks my teeth loose with an amazing kiss and abruptly stands to leave.
“Goodbye, Alec. You were great, Alexander the Great. You’re kind and funny and you were just what I needed.”
I reach across the bed to the inside pocket of my sports coat for a business card and put it in her hand. “If I’m ever just what you need again sometime, or for anything anytime, just call me.”
“Thanks, Alec.” She takes the card, is out the door and slam it’s over. Damn, what the hell just hit me?
What am I even doing today? Oh yeah. I’m going over to prostrate myself on the convention floor and grovel for a gig. Alexander the Great last night; today, just one more freelance schmuck. How great was Alexander anyway? Sure, he conquered the world, but by the time he was my age he’d been dead for twenty-two years.
What time is it? Eight. No rush; the first day is salesmen in hell, a zoo of yammering suits, caged in their cramped exhibit boxes. Monkeys behind bars have it better.
Picking up the phone and turning on CNBC, I say, “Hello, this is Mr. Timken in twenty-five ten. Please send up a pot of coffee, a Spanish omelet and a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice. Yeah, that’s got it. Thank you.” I’m going to enjoy my morning. My afternoon is going to be easily the worst part of being me.
Chapter 5
Look at them all down there. A gridlock of yellow cabs on the Strip, all headed north to the Convention Center. And the show doors opened three hours ago! Fortunately, I like the monorail and most visitors don’t. It’s just as fast during big shows, I like the views and there is actually more privacy than a cab. Fellow riders smile, but leave you alone.
Las Vegas cabbies have a comedy routine they are trying out, or a screenplay they want you to see or some very political views to share about their oppressed homeland, usually Palestine. I end up having to make sympathetic noises instead of thinking about my meetings. And I always end up tipping service people absurd sums, mainly out of guilt because I’m so glad not to be doing their jobs.
Funny thing, I’ve been mistaken for every Mediterranean and Latin national, but Habib the cab driver knows the minute I stepped into his rig that I’m a Jew. I don’t get the Mel Gibson version of his politics, but he tells me he works hard and he is not Hamas. “I hear ya, pal,” I offer, thinking about Mel Gibson and for some reason doing Mel Gibson. I don’t understand why free trade and prosperity through peace hasn’t been tried over there. I do know that as a Jew, a lot of work in certain countries has always been unavailable to me. Thanks to Bush, now all Americans get treated like Jews in these places. Thank you, great uniter.
The convention stop is coming up. Nice ant farm down there. It’s time to put on my jacket and dive in. It’s a very good sports coat; a herringbone cashmere Georgio Armani classic. No tie. It’s my subtle advertising. Corporate legionnaires in their identical wool blend Brooks Brothers uniforms think I’m slumming, but top management can tell I’m a well-heeled maverick, just the type they need to come in, turn a station upside down and leave. Psychographics is efficient and it does pay to advertise. That’s why I’m here.
NAB is so big all of the aisles can’t be walked in three, eight-hour days of trying. You’ve got to have a plan. The easy stuff to ignore is all the broadcast towers and transmitters. The only reason these companies have any business is the must-carry rules. Most everyone gets his or her local stations by cable or satellite feed, not over the air. Try finding rabbit ears, even at Radio Shack. Among an astonishingly long list of stupid shit the FCC does, is the requirement that regional cable operators must carry all local broadcast stations, regardless how non-secular. And because transmitters continue to wear out and are replaced, these guys have a business. The real action in their business is for cell phones; at least until they all go satellite. Wi-Max has some promise, but I wouldn’t be out snapping up the stocks of these companies.
Next I ignore the news helicopters. They’re actually my direct competition. Top station group titles, who are the even more hopelessly lost level of management above figurehead station management, makes the decision between investing in these flying white elephants or upgrading their Neanderthal production gear. Mostly, they had been choosing the former, but now that the FCC has given them a date certain to convert from analog to digital video, news chopper sales, just like, too frequently, the choppers themselves, will be crashing.
Radio is here; as a side show. Lots of widget makers try to start rumors of a hostile takeover. There are also demonstrations and seminars going on all the time and a few speeches by CEO’s that are pure vanity. When Steve Jobs talks at MacWorld, it’s news. When Larry King interviews former FCC chairman “Baby Doc” Michael Powell at NAB, it’s a snooze.
There are two centers of gravity at NAB. One is the Apple exhibit in the bottom floor of the South building. The other is the production equipment makers in the Center building. Canon, Panasonic, JVC, Ikegami, Hitachi, the entire Japanese yellow pages (yes, they have Yellow Pages) are here ...except for SONY. They moved to the South building, maybe to be closer to Apple. The two do seem to have a special relationship. Also in the same area are the other editing application companies such as Avid and Adobe, but Apple is the sun and the others are merely in its orbit. One can wait an hour for a seat to watch the amusing presenters and new product demos on the Apple wide screens. It’s the best place in Vegas, not a steam room, to sweat buckets.
I’m going to Apple later, maybe tomorrow or the next day if I stick around. Today is a beat-the-bushes for work day. Had I not married so badly I probably wouldn’t need to work at all, at least not for money. With some mistakes you just keep paying interest and can never work off the principle. At least with my fucking bar investment, there was an end to it. Why is it that at some point every entrepreneur makes a dumb investment in a bar or restaurant? Anyway, I have otherwise lived modestly, invested well and a few big jobs a year keep me in plenty of chips. And I like the travel. What would I do without work? Play golf? I would think about painting or writing but there’s too much temptation to drink before noon.
I’m almost at my destination. ProSystems is primarily a professional broadcast equipment retailer, but they are the class of the field for several reasons. One, they represent all the major lines of hardware and software so the buyer gets the best of what each company does best. A SONY camera with a Zeiss lens may be the best quality for the money for a given use and Apple Final Cut may be the best editing software unless the whole station is running Windows, in which case Adobe Premiere may be the way to go.
Stuff like this makes a station engineer’s head explode; they’re too busy playing fireman while their old equipment goes down in smoke to keep up with the trade journals and none I’ve met are what you would call strong readers anyway.
Storage of video content is also a big issue with HD clips taking up so much memory. Anything is better than the way stations store video now, as ceiling high stacks of news stories on tape stock so scratched up it plays as if it were attacked by a pack of cats. And here’s my favorite part, the content is filed by date not subject matter. Need to find some stock video of a busy intersection during a rainstorm? Think you can find someone who remembers the exact date a story aired with that kind of footage? Good luck!
I like the station techs. Most are old union guys who were lucky enough to choose television instead of making refrigerators and therefore still have a job. Once they retire, one guy will be doing the work of ten of them. Some of those systems will be my designs.
Entering the busy ProSystems booth, I spot my contact. “Hey Roberto.” He’s not Hispanic and I have no idea why he calls himself that. I give him that awkward California sideways hug in the close quarters of the exhibit. We are in that “more than business, less than social” area of friendship. We think the same shit is funny, but I’ve never met his wife.
“Alec!” he greets me, as always, a couple clicks above normal volume. The guy’s a salesman. “How’s it hanging?”
“Like the rest of me, trying to stay useful.” I’m feeling a little residual glow about last night’s activities. Roberto’s the second reason ProSystems is so successful. Hell of a salesman.
The third reason ProSystems is the class of the field is they hire me to do their designs and oversee their installations. “How’s business looking, Rob? “ I cut to the chase, my typical curt style.
“This is our year, man.” Roberto does that one hand shoulder grab which is a little too touchy-feely for me, but again, he’s a salesman. “All the medium and small markets are in our sweet spot. They can’t afford the high-end turnkey stuff from the big boys, so they’re all coming to us to buy components.” Rob’s on a roll. “I got Palm Springs, Dayton, Palm Beach and Tucson lined up already; which do you want?”
“Dayton...just kidding, but I do know the stations there.”
“You do?” Rob’s incredulous.
“Yeah. I grew up there. My first job in TV was at WHIO. It was the most fun a young guy could have with his clothes on.” Rob laughs. I’m not too proud to be a humor thief and since my job at WHIO was writing slide-booth ad copy for live announcers it felt right to steal a joke from Jerry Della Famina, the great advertising guru. He’s the guy who wrote “And Now From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor...” Best book about advertising ever written.
“How ‘bout if I take Tucson first; then it would be a kick to see Dayton again.” I’m figuring Tucson would take me into early summer, high season in Dayton.
“You got it, amigo. I’ll e-mail the budgets to you. Hey, let’s go to the Pink Panther Lounge tonight; what do you say?”
I’d planned to buy Roberto a civilized meal and catch up a bit. The guy’s been married forever and lives in a “wife gets your left ball state”, but if that’s his pleasure I guess we’re going to the Pink Panther.
“I’ll call you at eight after I shower and take a shit,” Roberto says, lowering his voice to a dull roar. He’s a salesman. I’m wincing.
“What’s there to eat at the Panther?”
He snorts. “Everything, if you have enough cash. See you tonight.” A quick wave and seconds later Roberto has a potential customer in his Kung Fu grip.
ProSystems has its booth in the Central building, so I do a little browsing of the new high-end equipment on my way out. God, the money behind these Japanese companies is staggering and most of their new stuff falls flat in the market. For smart folks, the Japanese sure picked one shitty business to dominate. And how long will it be before the Chinese steal their markets and their proprietary technology? Well, the Japanese stole from us and the Vietnamese will steal from the Chinese someday. In the technology world, Robin Hood rules. The poor always steal from the rich.
The first thing you have to understand about broadcasting is that the industry is run by salesmen.
Once in a blue moon a manager comes up from news, but never from engineering and less often than that from production. There was a time when local production was valued. Phil Donahue started off as a local show in Dayton. Jerry Springer started in Cincinnati, before he discovered white trash equals ratings and moved to Chicago. Mike Douglas started in Cleveland. Oprah was a local show in Chicago. And the next local show to hit it big will be...? Don’t hold your breath. No one does local production, except the news anymore. Why? Salesmen.
Besides being completely ignorant of the most basic aspects of how television works, salesmen are, as a whole, the C students who majored in Phys Ed or business from the lesser state schools. They have good hair and used to be local jocks. They’re smiling, lying dunces, but man do they have confidence. George W. Bush would have been a great TV time salesman, instead of the worst president in my lifetime. Missed his true calling.
Small wonder that once the most vicious of these dogs become station managers, the real power at Group management does not give him any actual authority. The sole job of a station manager these days is to threaten the other salesmen. Programming and news decisions for most locals are controlled at Group level.
And who are these Group managers? They’re the smart guys, the ones who went to Wharton, the ones who believed that television stations were cash cows with large annual depreciation that would make them good capital investments. They’re mostly the sons and daughters of privilege, you know...it’s all play money to them, somebody else’s play money.
Over a decade ago, these smart money guys grossly overpaid for individual stations and put these broadcasting groups together. The result is a bunch of twenty to thirty million dollar properties on Group books for three hundred million a piece. That’s why there’s never any money for new equipment and each station staffer does the work of two. Those smart guys could have made a better return on investment buying US Treasuries. They are, by far, the most expensive part of the same problem. They wear better suits and have better pedigrees, but they’re not really investment analysts; they are salesmen. Like the local station managers, like individual time salesmen and like George W. Bush, they all believe their own bullshit. Now they have no choice; the FCC is forcing them to go digital and I have all the work I can handle.
I stop by the Panasonic booth; Panasonic is to SONY what Avis is to Hertz. They do try harder to please, but gamble less. That’s why they’re usually second in technology, but have a better balance sheet. Canon is a comer, especially in glass (slang for lenses) and low-end HD. It’s become hip for name movie directors to shoot handheld using Canon HD cameras and transferring to film. I think it looks like pure shit. Video has a look (a hard realism which I prefer) and film has a look (dreamy or distorted depending upon one’s point of view). I see no reason to try to make one look like the other. OK, cost. Video, even HD, is cheap and thirty-five mm film is not.
Like everyone else at NAB, I had already decided pretty much what I liked before I came. The ads were all in the trades last month. The real reason to be here is to press the flesh, shaking hands or kissing ass as the case may be.
Chapter 6
It‘s easy for some people to be depressed in Las Vegas, but not bored. Great food is expensive, but good food is plentiful and cheap; some places it’s free. It’s the same with hotels. High rollers and cheapskates stay virtually free. The middle-class pays top dollar to stay in theme hotels. Yeah, Paris is one of them, but I joined Harrah’s player’s club and now they send me free stay coupons all the time. So I stay here even when I have to pay during NAB; I still get a good deal. What Woody Allen said about his family is certainly true in Vegas; the biggest sin is to pay retail.
Every vice is available and relatively safe, but short-stay flatlanders fall prey to their own inexperience. And it can be lonely, but it doesn’t have to be. Go to any sports book in town and instantly you have lots of friends. Baseball bettors are the most fun and the least drunk.
People come to Las Vegas to try to make a good time into a great time and a bad time a little better. Success varies. It’s the suicide Mecca of the country.
I got eyes. I see couples arguing about money and those guys for whom too much is never enough. Idiot play at the gaming tables is bad luck; pisses off everyone. Want to clear a blackjack table? Try splitting five's. And all drunks are a drag. I‘ve been one myself more than a few occasions.
Las Vegas is congregated humanity in its most liberated state, freed from the artifice of corporate, religious and community sanctions and unfulfilled expectations not even one’s own. It’s an unnaturally free habitat. It’s how elephants must feel about living at the San Diego Zoo. It’s freer than being free.
Not as gregarious as the rest of the species, for me there’s no substitute for the frontier. That’s where I live, a small ranch with a huge mountain view in southern Arizona. When I get bored there I come here.
I could be down in the casino playing. Late afternoon is a time of day I like to play, but after the crowds at NAB I think I just want some peace and quiet. The Paris swimming pool in April fills the bill. It’s nearly deserted, too cold to swim in the main pool, but the hot tubs invite a pleasant soak.
“Mom, Mom, watch me, Mom, watch me!” Some eight year old is screaming at the top of his lungs. So dive in already kid. “Watch me, watch me, watch me, Mom!” Mom, watch your fucking kid! Who brings a kid to Vegas? Come to think of it, my parents did and I sure liked it. OK, kids should be allowed to take over the pool, if parents enforce the hundred decibels or less per child rules.
Why am I so grouchy? I got the work. I got lucky in cards and beyond lucky with Brandy. Is this loneliness? I usually don’t have time for it. Hell with this lounging; it isn’t working for me. I think I’ll go play. The pool’s all yours, kid.
After a shower and a shave I’m ready for my evening out with Roberto, but it’s still only six p.m. so I figure I’ll put my fat wallet on a diet. I usually carry around about five hundred dollars, but now I’ve got an extra two grand in there. Since I carry it in my front pants pocket it looks like I’m walking around with a hard on. Twenty-five hundred in cash can do that. Maybe I’ll play some baccarat. It has higher stakes than I like to play, but I’m flush and feeling lucky.