Hannah at the Casino

November 29, 2007.  Arrived at Port Authority on Sunday afternoon after a fairly uneventful bus trip.  Most people on the bus respected the notion that we are all on this little boat called Planet Earth and kept the racket to a minimum with the exception of the extremely hip young man sitting next to me who plugged his I-phone into his ears and played his annoying music at such a level that I could hear every tedious beat.  I just buried myself in work and tried to count my blessings.

Cieran met me and we headed to his office where we met his charming co-worker Mical and minutes later met his boss, Chuck Armstrong who pulled up along the curb in his beat up Porsche which we were then instructed to drive up to the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut.  The Mohegan Sun is apparently quite well known and is a casino on the Indian reservation of same name.  Just for the record, a Porsche doesn’t really have a back seat.  It has two depressions into which a pair of 3 year olds might wedge themselves so your author planted one part of her body in one depression and hooked her legs around in a stunning display of yoga technique.  One never knows when lifelong habits will actually be helpful.  Twisted like a pretzel for 3.5 hours and living through the experience is such a life lesson.

So once at the casino, we were ushered into the VIP lounge and served champagne and sent up to our ridiculously opulent rooms.  Cieran had the pleasure of sharing his room with his mother which kept his opportunity for mischief to a minimum.  The casino might be described as extravagant in its décor but that would be asking a great deal of the word extravagant. Imagine if the biological product of Celine Dion and Cher were to manifest itself as a building.  Yeah, that’s what it looked like.  Then throw a little Native American décor (animatronic wolves, clear acrylic bears lit up like Christmas ornaments, etc.) and casino names like Casino of the Earth and Casino of the Sky and you begin to get the idea. 

Cieran and I being old hands at Vegas were right at home. However we lost Mical after dinner and that just left the two of us to go get ourselves some heap big wampum at the casino (incidentally, you will be pleased to know that despite the multiple opportunities to make tasteless Indian jokes, we did not – that will be the first and last).  Having been thrashed at the slot machines in Vegas last time (I lost $.50, yes the decimal point is in the right place), I was determined to right a wrong.  So with Cieran’s help, I hunted down the three penny slots had had been the seat of my spiritual depantsing – The Munster Family, Larry the Lobster, and Sally the Shrimp.  To make my glorious exploits short, I won $.90 at the Munster slot and flushed with success, headed over to Larry the Lobster where I won another $.04.  Giddy, I took on Sally the Shrimp  and lost $.30.  Despite the wounding, I cashed out (Cieran could not believe that I would actually cash out $.64…) and held my winnings aloft.  It stung the casino, I could tell.

Cieran on the other hand actually played some Blackjack and came away with $45.  Decimal point in the correct place.  He’s pretty good and as has happened in past, the ladies sitting next to him think he’s such a lovely boy that they constantly give him advice.  And good advice it is.

We headed off to bed and the next morning, we went to the Caberet theatre in the Casino where we set up the show, Community Auditions.  A quick background.  This is a regional, New England show along the lines of American Idol which aired in the 50s through the 80s.  Chuck Armstrong is trying to revitalize the show and syndicate it.  So this is the first season of the new show.  We were taping three shows and the final championship show (winner gets a record deal and $15K).  I was there simply to be a stagehand, move stuff around, etc.  Cieran was wrangling the talent and the judges, getting all their paper work pulled together, calming nerves, etc.  Mical was actual doing production with the house team of camera men and the house band (which was pretty spectacular – these guys were real pros and funny to boot). 

Due to circumstance I will never understand, I was tapped to be the tiebreaker judge.  I sat in the audience and took notes and voted on all the contestants, and then Cieran took my votes and tallied them with the celebrity judges on stage and in two cases, I actually broke the tie.  By the end of the show, I became quite attached to the three finalists and it was really tough to make a call.  In some cases, we had junior high school talent show types and in one case we had a flute and guitar duo which recalled MY junior high school talent show..old hippies never die…But in other cases, we had some real talent.

But the finalists were a black man in his mid-30s with a very Luther Van Dross vibe, a young lady of the Katherine MacPhee (American Idol) sultry, fab voice genre, and an unbelievably talented young guitarist with the greatest real name for a rock star yet (Holden Truelove), who played a smokin’ version of Voodoo Chile (your author’s fave Jimi Hendrix tune) and just brought the place down.  Ninja Slap WISHES they had Holden.  This kid had all of it goin’ on, including Tiger Beat looks (I date myself, I know) and hip attitude.  I honestly believe that all of these guys will be heard from again.

So unfortunately my tie breaking vote (for Jen Hirsch the vocalist) was overruled by the “celebrity” tie vote from the head of the Mohegan Indian tribe, Bruce "Two Dogs" Bosum (no joke), so Bryan Whitcom (the soul singer) won.  Not the end of the world but he wasn’t my fave.

Another fascinating aspect of our time at the Mohegan was that we had employee passes so we ate in the canteen and ran around “underground” the casino.  I now know how a Morlock feels.  There is this entire world, or at least a very good sized village, of people who run the upper, glittery, fantasy place.  There must be thousands of employees, most of them Asian, who are the croupiers, bartenders, clean up crew, cashiers, etc.  My guess is that there are probably 15 languages spoken at any given time.  It was a grim reminder of what it takes to make America happy, and it takes a whole lot of people you will never really see…go see the movie “Dirty Pretty Things..”

Anyway, the show ended about 6:30, we cleaned up the place, headed back in the Porsche (me in the back seat again), got a little turned around in New Rochelle looking for gas, and I got to my Pod Hotel in Manhattan  by 10:30. 

A good time was had by all