Casino Super Villains

I wrote a guest piece for the Asian American culture blog "You Offend Me You Offend My Family." Modified and reposted here.

4 Super-Villains Who Really Exist Inside of California Casinos

If you ever need a reality check on human nature and its propensity towards evil, go to a Los Angeles casino.  I mean, in these complicated times there is good and bad in everyone and there are grey areas and moral ambiguities and blah blah blah, but chronic gamblers are just some villainous motherflowers.  It's because their pursuit of money, and constantly losing it, has replaced any human feeling in their hearts with pure black tar.  

(Explanatory side note:  California casinos are specially-regulated dens of gambling which originated as cardrooms for poker and expanded to include the so-called "Asian" games:  modified versions of blackjack, pai gow poker, baccarat.  They tend to be in the verdantly-named cities of Los Angeles like Bell Gardens, Hawaiian Gardens, Gardena.  Never heard of those places?  Maybe because there are no actual gardens there.  There are, however, casinos:  the Bicycle Club, Commerce, Hustler, Normandie, and the eponymous Hawaiian Gardens.  The main differences between Cali casinos and Vegas or Indian casinos is a) you have to pay a service charge for placing a bet, because usually you're not playing against the house, you're playing against the corporation banker [that was my job....more on that later], and b) unlike Vegas, which only has Tons of Asians, Cali casinos have a 24/7 Gigantic Horde of Tons of Asians.)

Since it's very tricky to get actual photos of these major threats to humanity (they tend to shun photos, or destroy the lens with their laser eye-beams, and never mind it's also inside a casino...) I'm drawing from my considerable and arcane knowledge of comics and pop culture to present to you 4 Super-Villains Who Really Exist Inside of California Casinos:

1.  Storm Shadow

I don't really get why all the ninjas in hollywood are played by Korean actors lately, but that's a separate issue.  In the casino, Storm Shadow leads a whole clan of white-clad muscley Korean males who fight for the side of gambling evil, albeit with a kind of ragged honor.  That is, they come in, bet big, get real macho, give you a big headache, lose tens of thousands of dollars, and eventually inebriate themselves into shameful submission.  Of course, Casino Storm Shadow's ivory garb is usually from A&F or Armani Exchange (or reasonable fascimiles thereof), but he does favor the bright white that allows him to blend into the shadows of, uh, nothing.  Fortunately, Casino Storm Shadow does not as a rule come with sword and shuriken accessories, but he may be that guy who still has a chain attached to his wallet, so watch out.  

2.  Cheshire/Cat

Whether it is the original Cheshire Cat or the somewhat obscure DC Teen Titans foe, both have their doppelgangers within the casino.  Casino Cheshire is probably an Asian woman with a radiant lingering smile, a ridiculous booby outfit from Bebe or Juicy Couture or whathaveyou, and catlike reflexes that enable her to snatch up any casino chip that comes within her 15-foot radius, even if it's, like, in your pants.  Her smile is the secret weapon here: Do Not Look At The Smile. If you know what is good for you, Watch Her Hands.  Basically, a superficially awesome-looking femme fatale who exists to give you a headache.  

3.  Fat Karma

Fans of the original New Mutants series (an 80's Marvel classic) may remember the storyline in which Karma (the Vietnamese member of the New Mutants) was somehow possessed by the telepathic crimelord Amahl Farouk, who ate and indulged and sat around thinking evil thoughts until Karma's petite frame ballooned into gigantic Kingpin-esque massiveness.  (I'm serious, that really happened, I told you it was a classic.)  Eventually her teammates rescue Karma's mind, but she is still saddled with the fat evil body, and has to go to Asgard or something to sweat off the pounds.  Then they fight Loki, and...

ANYWAY, this character EXACTLY exists inside California casinos.  That is, an extremely hefty Asian woman who was once a waify young thing and whose mind is that of an evil madman.  5 gets you 10 she is Vietnamese, like Karma.  Also, Karma's mutant power was the telepathic control of other people.  Casino Fat Karma is similarly able to control minds and exert her will over others, through some paranormal combination of feminine wiles, her perceived harmlessness, and sheer force of personality.  It is the only way to explain why certain casino staff supervisors allow Mama/Fat Karma to keep coming into the casino despite the fact that the only things she contributes are a) stealing money, b) battling people, and c) hating the sight of innocent life.  And what more can you ask from a supervillain, really?

4.  The Gambler

There was one specific guy at the casino whom we nicknamed “Kenny Rogers” because of his full head of salt-and-pepper hair and bushy beard, and also 'cause, of course, Kenny Rogers was The Gambler.  The one who knew when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.

But while Kenny Rogers' Gambler character was a mythic hero of song, California Casino Kenny Rogers was the most evil human I have ever known.  Seriously.  Not like someone who'd kill you, but the most obnoxious, mean, loud, petty, rude, lying scheming cheating slimy sack of dickbag that ever lived.  The kind of guy who thinks he owns you, lives off hurting others' feelings, screams at you FOR ANY STUPID REASON WITH NO WARNING WHATSOEVER CONTINUOUSLY FOR AN HOUR, then complains to the supervisor about your behavior, and ten minutes later tries to give you a hug and a too-friendly kiss to apologize, because he was having a diabetic blood-sugar-related issue and didn't mean it.  One time Kenny Rogers verbally harangued  one of my co-workers to the point of the co-worker having heart palpitations and passing out.  He was always going on about his endless supply of money and did in fact seem to have a fortune from doing some Rich Dickbag Activity.  Because he was a high roller, he was allowed to behave like this, and liked to lord it over the underlings and casino staff, e.g. harassing all the women and ordering all the men to get stuff for him.  One of his favorite games was to pick on a rotating dealer (or prop player) and follow them from table to table, ordering them to leave.  His typical routine would be something like this;

“You again...?  You kill me last time.  I never bet with you.  Never in my life.”

(Bets. Loses.)

“Get up, go.  You're done.  Go. “

(Bets more.)

“WHY WON'T YOU GO?  SHE DOESN'T WANT TO GO!!!  WHY YOU KILL ME EVERY TIME!  I'M A NICE PERSON.  I NEVER TALK BAD TO ANYBODY.  GO. LEAVE.”

(At this point the harassed employee might make some mention of the fact that they have no option to leave, but would very much like to....which everyone knows.)

“WHAT DID YOU SAY?  CALL YOUR SUPERVISOR!  CALL HIM RIGHT NOW!  CALL YOUR SUPERVISOR.  YOU LOSE YOUR JOB.  DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?  NEVER IN MY LIFE.  GOOOOOOO!!!!  WHY DON'T YOU GO!!!!!  KISS MY ASS.  I SEE YOU IN THE PARKING LOT!”    

(Starts throwing things.)

(Then waits for dealer to rotate to another table, follows them to that table, repeat.)

NOTE:  “See you in the parking lot.” = casino expression meaning, “I'll find you later in the area with no camera surveillance so I can steal your money and maybe beat you to death.”

I mean, it was just nonsense.  He was a true villain, that Kenny Rogers, and although no hero myself, in my limited capacity as prop player in a shady East LA casino, I swore to stop him, and thwart his evil games once and for all.  No matter the cost.  

10 kinds of casino smiles

The foremost benefit of the casino job was that it allowed you to observe certain kinds of human behavior that you just can't find anywhere else in the world. For example, the smiles. The whole casino is run on the basis of artificial civility, and everyone smiles all the time. However, there are many types and functions of smiles, and after a while you start to notice the small variations which differentiate them:

1. DEALER SMILE - All dealers have in their skill set at least one type of sly, lazy smile that only card dealers can do. This smile is used in response to positive comments/requests from players along the lines of, "Please let me win / You're beautiful / You are the best dealer in the whole world." It is friendly without being inviting, and it never means "Yes" or "Thank you." When they mean "Thank you" they say "Thank you." The Dealer smile means something like, "It is too much trouble to actually speak with you, and seeing how you'll probably be screaming for my death within the next fifteen minutes, there's no sense engaging your delusion that we have some special connection, so I will smile at you instead to acknowledge that you are speaking."

2. LOSER SMILE - This is one of my favorites. This smile happens when someone loses a big hand and wants to give off the impression that it doesn't matter that much to him, usually in response to some laughing comment by the hand's winner. See, unlike the civilized world wherein it's generally uncool to gloat in victory or kick a dog when he's down (unless of course you're the Bush administration), in the casino it's pretty standard that after you take a guy's money you can give him a "good-natured" ribbing about it, because....well, because these people are sick. But the really special thing about this type of exchange is the loser's face; should he decide to play the game of "it doesn't matter that you just took six thousand dollars of my money" when in fact it does matter to him, he'll offer up a kind of sickened fragile smile and laugh that, as soon as the ribbing is done, collapses so quickly it actually sucks away whatever appearance of good humor the loser was trying to convey.

3. NOTHING I CAN DO SMILE - This is the smile that the floorman or pit boss gives you when they're telling you that despite all your screaming, the request or complaint you have registered is just not going to go your way tonight. It's an embarassingly fake smile, which can trigger-quick switch to a scowl when they decide to start using the Bark of Intimidation on you. Once you see the Nothing I Can Do smile, even if you have a valid complaint, you can be sure they've already decided you're not important enough to satisfy.

4. NOT UNDERSTANDING YOU SMILE - The default dim-wattage smile, usually accompanied by some head-nodding, used when you want to appear engaged in whatever the hell this person is blathering at you about. Unfortunately, a popular staple of corporation bankers.

5. GOING HOME SOON SMILE - Another dealer smile, this is one of the only really genuine smiles on the list, and usually comes near the end of the shift. After being harassed, screamed at and spit on for the past eight hours, they're giddily unable to hide pleasure at the thought of going home. Different from the other dealer smiles because it's the one that sneaks out even when something grotesque or violent is happening at the table to which he/she ordinarily should act dispassionately.

6. STUPID SHOESHINER SMILE - The dumb, forced grin worn by the shoeshiners who are trying, with difficulty, to assess the best way to turn incidents on the table to their financial advantage. Different from the Not Understanding You smile because while the NUY smile is merely lazy and apathetic, the shoeshiners are really too unintelligent to understand what is going on around them, as revealed in their twitching, slightly slack-jawed smile.

7. WINNER SMILE - Another genuine smile that needs no explanation, the one that they get models to fake for all those Casino Morongo ads.

8. BOTOX SUPPORTIVE WIFE & KIDS SMILE - There was this extremely drunk insane Korean guy who brought his family along to watch him gamble. It became clear after a little while of watching his wife and daughter that they seemed incapable of frowning due to some kind of surgical work on their mouths and foreheads. Despite the guy's humiliating losses and embarassing tirades over the course of the evening, his female companions always had on the same bright rubbery smiles.

9. CORPORATION CHANGING THE SUBJECT SMILE - This is the most difficult smile to master, and I've only gotten off a few really good ones in my brief career, although some of my co-workers are experts at it. A typical need for it comes when the corporation banker (us) has just won a big hand, pulled an insanely lucky card, or otherwise caused affront to the other seated players (them) which results in them screaming and bitching at us and at God's general injustice. At this point one can either ignore the haranguing, or, if you are really skilled, with a confident smile, perhaps a careful joke and an innocent tilt of the head, you can make everyone forget what just happened. It's a slight variation of the Nothing I Can Do smile, and as I understand it happens a lot on poker tables where the skilled players have to keep the suckers interested in the game. The trick is, instead of acknowledging that you just took away someone's liquor store and feel kind of bad about it, you try to smile at them in a way that both assauges their disappointment and asserts with authority that it's okay, this is the way it's supposed to be, it's only a game and, hey, that loss you just suffered? You really kind of liked it because it means you can hang out here a little longer.

10. STAY AWAY FROM ME I'M FEMALE SMILE - This is one smile that also exists outside the casino, and OK, it's a bit sexist to say so, but there are certain kinds of superficially warm and wonderful smiles displayed by certain women who hang around the table that should, to any halfway perceptive and rational person, translate directly into "Get, and stay, far the hell away from me if self-preservation is something you practice."

last night at the Bicycle Club

At 11:55 I walked past our Dragon Room one last time and out onto the Pavilion floor and I saw between the Pai Gow tables three of the other corporation bankers each carrying three big racks of chips and walking towards where I just was. You going in, I asked? Yeah, one of them said. I said good luck and walked back towards the Freedom Court.

heard in the casino today:

"I bet, doh ma. I found some free rope and I'm going to hang myself with it, because, hey, free rope!"

how this guy rolls

Today, while walking from the parking lot into the casino, I was stopped and asked directions by a guy who was in driving in his car while clearly holding an an open 16 oz Budweiser in a crumpled brown paper bag. It didn't look like it was taking the edge off, either.

although the poker craze is fading....

....I think, given a little effort, I would be good at poker. I think the whole "tells" thing is totally overrated, and I believe that I could fool everyone. I believe this because in my experience, no one ever knows what the hell I am talking about, much less thinking.

dick's man

Today I played cards with an Armenian guy, maybe 60, wearing a Halliburton baseball cap. Who the hell does that?

favorite dialogue heard today:

1: "Want some coffee?"

2: "No thanks I just had a colonoscopy."

1: "You sure?"

this week's funniest casino dialogue that will not make sense to normal people...

SCENE: A California casino. The pan-9 table.


Mama loses a hand.

MAMA (screams): Change Dealer!

The dealer is stoic. Mama loses another hand.

MAMA: CHANGE DEALER!

And again.

MAMA: DEALER CHANGE!!! CHANGE DEALER!!!!

FLOORMAN: Why don't you just bring your OWN dealer...?


.....ROTFLMAO, OMG.

new year's epiphany

On any given day I am among the last people in the world to go to sleep, insomniac Hawaiians notwithstanding.

i saw....

...the most amazing-looking woman in the casino today, not as in amazingly beautiful, just dressed and groomed in a noir-ish style that seemed impossibly elegant and dramatic. She was Korean of course. She wore a white leather trenchcoat, black scarf, blue-striped dress shirt over a white sweater, and a grey fedora, all of them expensively detailed, tastefully patterned, and immaculately fit to her body. I've never been in the presence of clothes used to such maximum effect, whispering both of new money and old mystery. She had short platinum-dyed hair and a face with so many surgical modifications it actually appeared to be a mask - the Phantom of the Opera mask, with eyes slightly receded behind a bloodless surface. She looked like Blade Runner and the Lupin III anime rolled up in Switch from the Matrix and Brigitte Lin in Chungking Express. She totally had a hidden gun, or a husband that she needs you to kill, or a bionic forked tentacle-tongue, or something. I am sure that her chewing gum cost more than I make in a week. I do not have a picture.

ho ho ho

The minimum bet on our baccarat table is $200. But we always get people who want to bet $100 or less and we have to remind them. The other day, some back-line papa placed a single $100 chip on the betting circle next to me. For some reason I didn't say the simple reminder. Instead I turned to J-, the player sitting next to me, and said "J-, bet a thousand there." This was a bit irregular because as a practical matter we never advise players when, where, or how much to bet, although many of them are superstitiously convinced that we know which spots will win because we are, after all, professionals. So for no real good reason I violated this policy. I didn't really expect her to listen to me, anyway. I just wanted someone to bet more on top of the $100.
....So she does it; she places $1000 in chips on top of the $100 chip, making it a legal bet. Now I'm in the soup; this is a player that I sort of like, she winked at me once, and has a generally good nature. And, if there's one superstition I've gained from working in the casino, it is this: The Players I Like Always Lose. The only way I can ASSURE that someone will lose, it seems, is when I hope in my heart that they will win. So, as the cards come out, I'm really ill about this, because I don't want her to lose the bet on my silly advice. Not because I'll get yelled at, but because she is the kind of player nice enough to not yell about it.
....And she's more a $300-400 bettor typically, so a $1000 bet is kind of a big event in her day. She wouldn't make it unless she had a Very Strong Feeling, or otherwise felt it ordained by someone with Professional Gambling Superpowers, i.e. me.
....But she won! The bank overhit, player bets won, and I looked like a genius. I both couldn't believe it, and was completely relieved. At last someone I was rooting for had won a hand! I felt like Santa Claus. I quickly told her that would be my only advice for the day (lest she hound me for further groundless predictions) and went back to work, that is, back to being professionally indifferent towards every single outcome.

heard in the casino today....

...from shoeshiner master Don:

"This game, dommah, (the Vietnamese cuss word, not me. -ed.) crazy, huh? Evil and ghost, evil and ghost.
They want to come evil is evil.
They want to come ghost is ghost, dommah."

....OK, maybe he was saying "good" in his strong ESL brogue, but it seems like much more mysterious wisdom this way.

Graveshift

And then there is nothing
but at work and asleep
loud and quiet
here and home.

There is no tomorrow
on which to worry
because it is tomorrow.

No one judges you
they already are sentenced.

At this hour when no one lives
it is not what you make,
what you lack, or what you should be doing.
You could not be doing anything else.
This is the brilliance of grave shift;
it kills the imagination.

4 AM is my favorite hour:
it always feels like
a strong possibility.

ay!

Today, in the casino, was the first time I have ever heard someone say the word "Goomba" in real life. (As an actual form of address, too, not just describing the name of his clever new search engine startup) Marvelously, this man also says "youse" and "fuhgeddaboutit" and talks about the old days in Atlantic City.

Off at the adjacent table, the theme from "The Godfather" played as some Chinese punk gambler's ringtone.

gee whiz

....this kinda cute player winked at me from across the table the other night. Not an earth-shattering social development, but I don't get too many winks, so it was sort of encouraging. She's one of the regulars, a smiley Vietnamese woman who, being Asian, could be anywhere in age from 28 to 55.

heard in the casino today....

....from this older Persian lady:

"How come you get in the middle of a problem that has nothing to do with you? It's between the two of them! Why do you get involved when it's not your problem? Why don't you just let them work it out themselves? I don't understand why you have to open your mouth for something that doesn't concern you...."

Yes, the lady was scolding the floorman for intervening in a dispute between two players that had absolutely nothing to do with her. She went on and on about this, how ridiculous it was for people to get involved in other people's problems that are none of their business, for what seemed like forever.

new game

Baccarat has a nice rhythm to it, and so far is much calmer and more comfortable to play than our other game. There's no brass dice cup, so it's also a lot easier on the ears. Whereas pan-9 feels like a linear game (one dealer hand vs. seven player hands) baccarat is has one dealer hand side by side with one player hand, and the betting is also set up in this lateral (if I'm using that word correctly) fashion. So it took a while to adjust the thinking to this spatial arrangement, but now that i'm getting the hang of it, it's fairly fun. The corporation player is involved in every hand so time goes by much quicker. We do the payouts as well, and I gotta say it's more rewarding to hand players their winnings rather than just watch the chips be taken away by the dealer. Also, it is the only game in the casino that has a video monitor tracking the hand results on a chart with lots of little blue, green and red dots. Call me easily amused.

"do you play baccarat, Mr. Bond?"

We're going to start playing this new baccarat game at work this week. It's sort of exciting in the sense that baccarat is a real game they they play in Vegas, unlike pan-9, so playing it feels less arcane and more approaching an actual job skill. Plus, of course, it's James Bond's game. A high-roller secret-agent serious-money kind of game. And we get to sit in the floorman's box (that is, seat 4 on a regular blackjack table) and do the payouts on every hand, so in theory it will be harder to get bored.

It's not exciting in the sense that, well, it's something else to do, and we're already understaffed and overworked as it is. So we're trying to provide a new service with fewer and less-satisfied people. But, having asked around among my friends, including my lawyer cousin who specializes in workplace issues, it seems that this is the case with most actual jobs. Which makes me feel a little better, if not wiser, and most definitely older.

lucky

A co-worker friend got in a pretty bad accident last week. Thankfully she survived, but she was seriously injured. I'm writing this not to gossip, just to say that it's the kind of thing that puts it all into perspective. All my complaining about moodswings, career, bills, the X-Men movie franchise, and bad grammar really doesn't mean shit. Having food to eat and a basically healthy body are indulgences of the very lucky. Because bad things are always happening to good people.