Subject: MARGE/NEW ORLEANS TRIP REPORT From: Art Santella Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2001 20:24:25 GMT I have to say that this was my first time attending MARGE and I was to say the least somewhat skeptical as to how I would enjoy myself. OK, First my roomie Bill Alan managed to break a leg a short time before we were to leave for MARGE. Now I must explain that at this point all he had on was a walking cast. On arrival at JFK, he suddenly became a total paraplegic. "Arty, I need a wheel chair, Arty you have to push me, Arty, buy me my breakfast, get me a knife and spoon, Arty you forgot the salt and pepper, etc, etc." At one point while I was pushing him in JFK along with all our luggage, I started down a long inclined walkway and as the wheelchair picked up momentum, I almost lost it. Bill still has no idea how close he came to crashing through the plate glass window and ending up on the Runway. Uneventful flight to New Orleans, and ride to Biloxi. We arrive at the Grand and the first MARGE'ers we meet is Randy and Grant. I start complaining on how Bill is taking advantage of his injury to keep me as his personal servant, little does he know that I am looking for an empty elevator shaft where there could be a slight mishap while I am pushing him in the wheelchair. The next thing is that Bill rents an electric cart to get around the casino on. Great idea, first he gets jammed between the bed and the TV in the room and cannot get off and I cannot get by, I climb over the bed and drag the thing around. Then as I am leaving the room I notice he has snagged my mattress and is trying to drag it out the door into the hall. He had the cart only one day as we kept stealing the key from him so he could no go anywhere, and the best was when Rick Charles and I were walking through the casino with Bill running point, and we both grabbed the seat of the cart and started to slow down the cart, Bill did know why the cart was slowing down so he kept turning up the speed control. Finally in desperation and still not realizing we were holding him back, he hit full speed and the cart immediately did a wheelie standing straight up on its back wheels. Needless to say that Rick and I were almost rolling on the floor laughing. It was then that he decided it was safer to walk. My first view of the Grand Poker room was impressive. It was full, and to my surprise I could hear no loud voices arguing or any profanity. Tony and his staff run it as a zero tolerance room when it comes to rude behavior of any kind. I am not going to get into any BB stories, but the O8 games were great. I met many new friends and I have to tell you that the phrase "Southern Hospitality", is not a myth. The room offers liberal comps to it's players, and the thing that I was impressed with is the 24 hour offering of free assorted soda, cappuccino/coffee, hot dogs, chilli, donuts and cookies, fresh fruit and vegetable bar, and all the fixens. On several occasions I even ventured to have a couple of chilli dogs with mustard and onions, and 2 cups of cappuccino, at around 2 or 3 AM and never even had to take a antacid. The food was that fresh. Tony Collins and the entire staff treated us like royalty. In fact the local players treated us like long time friends. Played the Omaha high tourney which was a game I rarely play and ended up placing somewhere in the last 20. My experience in the TOC was a bit more labor intensive. I am not sure what positions I busted out in but there were two tables left and they were both short. I was going to be blinded out next hand and went all in with 5/6 suited in hearts. I was called by Steve "Ice" Eisenstein who had A/K but to my chagrin it was also in hearts. To make a short story even shorter, no one improved and Ice won with his A/K. I hit the sheets Friday or lets say Saturday morning at about 2 am as I want to be up for the NLH tournament at 11 am the next morning. I am sound asleep when I hear banging and yelling in the room. It is Peter "Foldem" Secor the grand Pu-bah of the ADB'er and ADB'er Bill Alan. Then we started to tell war stories until about 6 AM during that time a full bottle of Wild Turkey Bourbon and at least a Half a bottle of Vodka was consumed. I myself managed to control myself. When I awoke at 1:30 PM the next afternoon I realized I had just slightly missed the start of the 11AM tournament. The Grand put on a pizza buffet during the breaks in the first two tournaments and during the main NLH tournament they spread a nice lunch for the players, which was donated by the staff and dealers. I had not eaten for about 12 hours and I managed to get there just in time to scarf up some leftovers, I was so hungry that I almost bit off a finger while trying to bite into a grinder. One of the fun games was the C-HORSE game that took place Saturday and Sunday night. I didn't make a lot of money but had a great time. One hand that sticks out in my mind was in the Omaha 8 portion of the C-HORSE game I had trip 7s on the turn and started hammering Randy who unknown to me trip aces. He kept returning the favor by re-raising me at every chance. It finally dawned on me that he was free rolling me and I just called. Well! The river managed to float me my 4th 7 for quads. Randy looked and his jaw dropped, and while he shook his head he said, "you hit your 1 outer", to which I responded "Yes I did." I don't remember but I must have had an ear to ear grin as I raked in a huge pot. Randy being a the complete gentleman said "Nice hand Arty", which I replied "Your only saying that because you don't have a gun." Saturday night a Banquet room with bar was arranged for an awards presentation. Speaker: Barry Shulman, Card Player Magazine, gave an excellent speech with a Q & A session after. The awards were given out, and I took some great pictures that I will post ASAP. The ADB'ers inducted another member into their force when Rick "The Voice" Charles was voted into the gang. I believe the clincher was when we all went to the Beau Rivage Brew Pub for a get together/smoker/drinking party. At the ADB table was Fitch, Bill, Myself, Rick, Timmy, Pain, and others I have a blurry memory of. We all ordered food and of course beer. Bill ordered a sampler that consisted of glasses of their 5 different beers. He immediately spilled the first one on his shirt, he said because Rich hit his arm, I am skeptical of that. Finally we Rich took a vote to see if instead of sampler glasses we order sampler pitchers of the 5 brands. For some strange reason there was a mind set that we must not let any go to waste, I was on my second picture when I started to slow down, helping us to use up the overstock were other MARGE'ers who stopped by to get a few tastes of our beer. At one point we were yelling for strangers to come over to the table to have free beer, and for some reason got no takers. I will say with great pride that the ADB table was not only the loudest, consumed the most amount of alcohol, but ran up the biggest tab of the night. I mentioned to someone that at all these RGE events and especially this one, It seemed like I just arrived and it was time to leave. The old sayings "Times flies when you're having fun", is absolutely true. Peter "Foldem" Secor was kind enough to offer Bill and me a ride back to New Orleans when he was going to pick up his wife. Well! Someone in my room heard the wake up call (not me) and thought it would be OK to take a short snooze. Something woke me up and I looked at the clock, which said 11am, we were supposed to leave with Peter at 10 AM. It took us about 5 minutes to pack check out and run down to the lobby to start apologizing to Peter for screwing him up. We were an ugly sight to behold after only 10 minutes before being sound asleep. Peter took us to our hotel which was right on Canal St and only blocks away from Harrah's Casino and Bourbon St. The only problem was that it was on the wrong end, and caused one not to venture out into the night unless your taxi was waiting in front of the door. It was fine for 2 guys to stay there but I would not want to be there with my wife. The two days we stayed in New Orleans with Peter and his wonderful wife Stephanie were the best I have ever spent in a tourist town. Bill and I hit just about every bar on Bourbon St the first night we arrived. Consuming mass quantities of beer, Gumbo, Po Boys, and Jumbolaya, and yes various Gator specialties such as Grilled Alligator sausage, bread, Fried Gator steaks and last but not least Gator balls, (use your imagination.) Sunday afternoon Bill and I first headed to Harrah's casino to check out the poker room. The game of choice there is half Omaha High and half hold 'em. The players called everything and raised little. In about 20 minutes I had more than doubled my buy in. Bill kept saying lets go see New Orleans, we can play poker any where, finally jogged me back into reality. We hit Bourbon St and were like kids in a toy shop, bars, music, wild life every 10 feet. As night fell Bourbon street took on the appearance of on giant neon party with people jamming the streets and there to have nothing but fun. After dinner, we again started to walk to see the sights both brick and mortar and human. I wanted to see what Peter and his wife were doing as we just briefly met them at the poker room in the afternoon. I called Pete on my cell phone and all I could hear was loud music. I knew he was on the street, and it turned out they were walking towards us and we met a few minutes later. That was the start of one of the greatest evenings of fun I had ever had. We stopped at the "Old Cajun Cabin" to wait for "Fitch." We all were drinking when he showed up and now we had 5 of us. After sampling several of the local drinks, the band started playing. I think they were called the "Cajun Cowboys" or something to that effect. When they started playing Cajun music and singing in french, I began to feel my old Cajun background stir up inside me. I think must be some Cajuns in Sicily. The place was packed and I heard someone in our gang say I didn't have the "nerve" (not exactly the word) to get up there and do some 2 step dancing. I went up told the band I wanted to join them and they recommend the wash board. You must see this contraption. It is stainless steel with a front that drops well below your waist with the board on it, and large shoulder hangers that you put over your shoulders to hold it. It would not fit over my gut so it kind of stuck out like a suit of armor plate that had a pillow under it. The band started a fast Cajun song and I was off, I was playing the washboard like a pro, and doing my Cajun dance steps that I had just invented. I looked around and who do I see trying to snatch some of my glory, Bill Alan on the Triangle and Stephanie on the spoons, which I might mention they both thought was cute to play an occasional note on my head. I am not kidding when I say we bought the house down. The crowd wanted an anchor but I was just to winded. While at the bar as patrons were leaving I had at least half a dozen people shake my hand and tell me I did a good job. Laughs that is what it is all about. Later that evening we all went to dinner at some "Cajun Italian" restaurant that Fitch suggested as a regular Bourbon street expert. I did not want dinner as Bill and I had eaten only a couple of hours before. I decided to have a cup of coffee with a Hurricane chaser. If you are not familur with a Hurricane it is a traditional New Orleans drink. It consists of a 10 inch high glass filled with Rum a little ice and some red food coloring. When I finished this I noticed I had regained my apatite and noticed that Stephanie had not finished her meal at which point I devoured it and started to look longingly at Fitch's leftovers. We left there a continued on down Bourbon St. As you know it is a tradition for onlookers during Mardi Gras to throw beads down from the balconies in return for antics from the people on the street. Well! don't we just wander into a section where there are about 2 dozen people on the balcony above the street throwing down bead necklaces for anyone who gave them a laugh or thrill. I am standing there when a young lady lifts her sweater to expose her charms almost poking my eye out. Not feeling any pain and with our gang standing to the side I venture out into the street, where I start yelling up "Hey Ladies, brace yourselves", and I lift up my shirt over my head. I was bombarded with at least 6 necklaces. Peter said that when I lifted up my shirt I covered my head and face, and they were so thankful for that, that is the reason they threw the beads. Several minutes later I got another bunch of beads thrown down to me, but I won't mention here what it was for. My next stop was at both the Voodoo shops of Queen Marie Laveau the legendary New Orleans Voodoo master, and the Reverend Zombie's, amongst other things I purchased several Voodoo dolls and plenty of mojo pins, so beware of giving me any bad beats in the future. The next morning which was Monday, we all met at the Cafe du Monde (1862) for several orders of their famous beignets and coffee. We the took the buggy tour about town and then I went off by myself to do some shopping, while Bill, Stephanie and Peter went antiquing. Bill and I finished the day by going on the lunch cruise aboard the Natchez, a 286 foot steam operated paddle wheeler. On our last evening in New Orleans we met with Peter and Stephanie at "Antoine's" if not one of the best restaurants in New Orleans, it is close. Bill had made reservations about a month in advance to get us seating for 8:30. The evening came to a close after several bottles of wine and a wonderful meal, with us saying goodbye to Peter and his wife. We walked on Bourbon street for a few more minutes then reluctantly called a cab to take us back to the hotel. One of the greatest weeks of fun I have ever had. Arty "If You Ain't The Lead Dog, The Scenery Never Changes"