BBQ Dinner by the Pool with TBC: The Alysia Chang Gathering

 

 

Alysia Chang recently hosted a barbecue for a few bloggers with some notoriety (Tony Bigcharles and Rob of Rob's Vegas and Poker Blog) and international friend, Koala. Alysia had written some comments for my blog, but instead I made a post of them as a public service.

 

 

I just could NOT do the whole BBQ dinner by the pool with TBC in 140 characters. So my take on it, apart from me going out to the Korean supermarket on Spring Mountain road and spending a small fortune on meat and then using a marinate/dry rub on the ribs and making a huge batch of garlic/parmesan mashed potatoes and then picking up a chicken fried steak specifically for Hero is this: I hate the MGM and I gave Rob a shot at stealing a pot from me so now we're even. Oh wait, this was about TBC. Anyhow, I did not know until LATE that Vince would not be joining us so the amount of food I prepared was actually too much (I still had an entire bowl of mashed potatoes in my fridge that I didn't bring out). I told Koala to ride the monorail to my place because Hooters is across the street from the MGM monorail station and Rob was going to drive himself. I gave everyone's name to the guard at the gate and heated things up around 4:30 (people were going to arrive at 5).

 

We talked about Tony's bans. He felt it unfair that just because Caesars/MGM/whoever bought a series of properties that he hadn't done anything wrong at except for one or two, his ban was unjust. He was framed by women. Poker room managers hated him. He didn't hurt anyone by throwing that glass. I mentioned that NONE of us sitting at the table had ever been banned from a casino and that it was really hard to get banned. He insisted that it was easy. I'm sorry but I just don't have that level of talent in me. Looking in machines for loose change and conducting financial transactions with hookers are not in my array of activities. Then he mentioned that because he now has money, he doesn't really have anger issues. Then we discussed "white privilege" which was very funny to me. Apparently a whole slew of things set Tony off. People watching him on machines. People talking about their new cars. People showing off. People asking him for money. Fascinating.

 

Tony is not a bad guy. I think he's one of those people who are always nervous if there is what they perceive to be awkward silence. Rob could not get a word in edgewise. Nor could Koala with his vocal cords. True to what I suspect is his mental state, he doesn't want something like reality to interfere with his perception of reality. To believe that he could rent at a luxury condo, get a driver's license, make $3000 per month steadily...these are things that he currently thinks he can do or at least until confronted with the reality of background checks, taking a driver's test and dealing with VBJ variance. Then the meltdowns will come.

We established certain facts with TBC because he kept talking about getting his driver's license. "Tony," I gently said, "when people give you good advice, you don't follow it." Tony replied, "Well I tend to do my own thing?" I was tempted to ask "how's that working out for you?" But instead let him know that "you know that in driving, you don't really get to do your own thing. Do you really believe you can follow directions?" He insisted that if he had a "patient instructor", he could learn. Honestly if the late Mother Teresa was teaching Tony to drive, she'd end up giving up on him. Learning depends as much if not more on the student's ability to learn than the teacher's ability to teach. We will see if any of this comes to fruition. We finished up dinner, with everyone pretty full and went for a tour of the grounds.