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About The upper left edge. (Cannon Beach, Or.) 1992-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 1, 2001)
“ UPPER LEFT g EDGL V O L U B L Y number ■ I »S £004 UPPER LEFT COAST PROPUCT^NS A P O BOX >(222 CAMON BEACH 0 « IW O A 503 «3i> Z U 5 * F R E E ! U W OJ. Upper ieV fe A y . com Something’s happening here, what it is, ain’t exactly clear. Dev. Hults The Poker Game or 4 Hours With 7 Jokers Editorial By Evangeline Alburas I was raised here in Clatsop County, so finding an unfamiliar setting was difficult. I considered going to Annie’s, the stnp bar. That would be shockingly unfamiliar, I have never been to a strip bar. I even planned on the night and had invited some guys from work thinking that would make the experience more bearable. Thankfully, one of the invitees talked some sense into me; it was a bad idea to go to a strip bar. However, every week a group of men get together and play poker, so Darrin, one of my coworkers, suggested this as a possibility for a strange and unfamiliar setting. Women rarely hang out to watch a game, much less sit in on a game. And I love playing games, but poker was a bit of a mystery. Does a four o f a kind beat a full house, or the other way around? They are a rather organized bunch of guys; Darrin, “the Curmudgeon,” and “Uncle George” had started the weekly games and had been playing poker every Tuesday night (give or take) for five years. After much trial and error they had found the-magic seven who could stand each other enough to play every week. They call themselves the Thanatopsis Literary and inside Straight Club, “the Western Chapter.” One of the Marx brothers played poker with a group by this name, which is where the TL1SC came from. Damn told me that at one time they even had business cards printed up bearing the club's name. The location of the game rotates among the players' houses. That week it was unceremoniously, yet appropriately, in a garage. I entered through a side door in the garage, which was unconnected from the main house. The compound was nestled back in the woods east of Cannon Beach and north of the R V Park. Some boys were playing darts when I waltzed in. The garage was large and airy with a concrete floor and a big, oil heater mounted on the ceiling which blew out hot air. The walls were lined with shelves and the building housed three big trucks. A table stood surrounded by three benches, which had come from the old Bill's Tavern, and a couple o f chairs; a centralized music system fed us The Bad Livers, Steve Earle, Billy Bragg, and other acoustic tunes. A modest guesthouse with a large loft adjoined the garage. The host’s house was not your usual bachelor’s pad, and because all the players smoked, and occasionally spilled a beer, they were relegated to the garage. I was worried that I’d be the only woman, but was rescued by the appearance of Vicki. I noticed a few things about the group as a whole: four of the men wore glasses, those in glasses were all over fifty, the other three being under forty; four men wore plaid, flannel shirts, and all seven smoked. “Sasquatch” sat to my left; he had his white hair pulled back into a ponytail, he wore red rimmed reading glasses, overalls with a plaid shirt, and spent much o f his time rolling cigarettes. He drank Hamms’ Golden Draft, a new and exciting edition to the Hamms line. “Uncle George” wore a vest, small round glasses, had a closely shaven head and a five o ’clock shadow. He was amiable and smiled a lot; he was also the only man who had a female sidekick. Viclri, my female comrade, had come with “Uncle George” The two of them had traveled two and a half hours to join in the game; “Uncle George” commutes the farthest to attend the weekly soirees. “U.G.” split his time between smoking, playing the game and being the whine sponge o f his neighbor. Sitting next to him was the “Curmudgeon”; he bitched, moaned and looked to “U.G.” for sympathy and empathy. The “Curmudgeon” coughed, smoked, spat profanities and hit those he could reach, all between gulps o f Budweiser. He wasn’t a good winner, and he was losing. He had an answer for everything, whether it was true or not. His appearance was similar to the others: small round glasses and plaid shirt but with jeans and Converses. The “Professor” was the oldest participant, he had heavy square glasses, a red nose and a Redskins sweatshirt that had been washed many times. “Professor” was known for his jokes about quantum physics that no one but “Uncle George” understood. Next to the “Professor” was “Joey”; “Joey” was the youngest, full of gas and youthful vigor. He wore a fleece vest, sweatpants with rubber boots, had short hair and a jarring boyish laugh. Then there was our “Host”, he was dressed in a dinner jacket and comfortable loafers; he was affluent and clean cut. Our “Host” had just bought a new truck, a big, white beautiful International to add to his collection. Last in the rotation was Darrin, my coworker, dressed in his usual shorts with Tevas and a plaid shirt. Each player ponied up ten dollars, the chips were distributed evenly and the cash stuffed into the empty card box. The “Host” stashed the card box out of sight and started by dealing a game called seven card stud, high-low. The dealer antes a blue chip worth fifty cents, basically an ante for all the players; this is done every deal so the other players don’t have to worry about anteing every game. It seemed like some of the players didn’t like me being there at first, but with the aid of beer (C on tin u ed on page 2) Now & Then Hey, Robe!!! ______ ____ WASHINGTON AND OREGON COASTS______________ 2 0 0 1 Corrected for PACIFIC BEACHES HIÔHjÀNÜÀRŸ T LÒWJÀNUÀRY Ever been to a ‘cam y’, not a carnival, but a ‘cam y’? It’s a traveling show, much like the Gypsy caravans in the old days. They com e into town and they have games o f chance and fortune tellers and all sorts o f strange stuff, and everybody knows that it is rigged, dishonest, and a rip-off, but they still go. There is a fam ous story about W ilson Mizner confronting his brother Addison at a saloon in Alaska where Addison is playing roulette, and W ilson asks why he is playing when he knows the wheel is rigged? “Yeah, but it’s the only game in town,” was A ddison's answer. C am y’s are the only game in town because they travel from small town to small town, one step ahead o f the law. They are a tight knit group o f folks w ho are running a scam, or providing entertainment, depending on how much you lost. Like m ost small groups they form their own vocabularies. K ey words, codes, like, “Hey Rube!” This is a shout that cam y’s use to call for help, because things are getting out o f control. I learned this term w hile working as a day laborer tearing down a cam y in Baker, Oregon in 1968. A cam y troupe is usually no more than fifty people, with maybe ten trucks and trailers with the equipment and all. They hire locals in each town to help them set up and tear down, usually different people for each operation because they tend to try to not pay folks. Oh, they’ll give you a check when you are done working, but if you get to the bank late the next day the odds are it w on ’t be good. “Hey Rube” also happens to be the name o f Hunter S. Thom pson’s new column at ESPN.com every Monday. Y es the old doctor is back in print, or at least cyber space, on a regular basis and as rude as ever. His latest book is also on the shelves, titled Fear and Loathing in A m erica: a collection o f his often nasty letters to editors, writers, politicians and other unsavory folks. “ So, the point is?” I hear readers asking. The point is that I have watched my beloved country sold to the highest bidder. Again. I’ve watched a coup, or more like a dope deal going down, a scam. The fix was in, the m uscle was in place, the right folks had been paid, the dogs had been drugged, and the deal was going down. Just like watching the mob take over Vegas in the old days. But, the problem with the mob was the guys w ho figured out the plan, eventually died. M eyer Lansky, the man who bought Cuba and owned J. Edgar Hoover lock stock and barrel, wrote, more or less, A m erica’s foreign policy toward Cuba from 1950, when Castro busted the deal, until Lansky’s death. Bush and his OTTI 0«« 1 2 3 4 5 6 DOTS’ cun Mon Tues Wed Thui Fn Sal • • . • • • ■■TVI TM 456 538 623 711 800 8 49 9 38” ■ ■ rrw PM n TM 77 4:18 79 5:31 82 6:55 85 8:16 89 9:26 93 10:28 n TM 7.1 1050 6.6 1154 6.3 6.4 034 6.7 135 7.1 237 PM n n TM 34 10:49 1.5 31 11:38 2.0 1:04 2.6 25 2:11 19 29 3:12 1.0 32 4:07 0.1 7 SUN • 8 M o n # 1028 9 Tues • 016 10 Wed • 105 lllh u r ® 1.52 12 Fn • 2 38 13 Sal • 323 9.7 11:24 7.5 101 78 1119 103 81 12:10 10.3 84 1 02 102 86 1:55 9.8 87 2:50 9.1 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 SUN • Mon • lues • Wed • Thur • Fn • Sal • 88 3 49 88 4:55 89 6:09 89 7:26 89 8:40 89 9:45 9 0 10:41 8.4 1005 7.6 1109 6.9 65 005 6.5 102 6.8 202 7.1 302 23 10:24 0.3 21 11:12 1.1 12:17 1.9 19 1:27 1.6 26 2:35 1.1 3.1 3:34 0.6 33 4:26 0.1 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 SUN Mon lues Wed Thur Fn Sat • 953 • 1036 ■ 012 • 051 • 126 • 159 • 230 90 90 76 77 78 78 79 11:29 7.3 34 34 34 33 32 31 29 28 29 30 31 SUN Mon lues Wed • • • • 80 81 82 83 2:23 3:06 3:57 5:02 8.2 846 7.7 926 7.1 1011 65 1107 28 8:59 0.6 26 9:29 1.0 25 10:04 1.6 22 10:47 2.2 AM T ides LITE TYPE 4 09 4 56 545 637 729 820 908 2 59 327 358 4 34 3 37 4 34 530 624 717 8,1 907 356 4 46 11.16 89 532 1154 89 614 12:31 8.8 654 1:08 8.7 7 31 1:45 8 5 j 808 ’ bigger T he dot 33 34 3.2 31 28 26 24 better the fishing " STANDARD TIME 4:59 -0.6 5:48 -1.2 6:36 -1.5 7:23 -1.6 8:09 -1.4 8:54 -1.0 9:38 -0.4 5:11 -01 5:52 -0.3 6:29 -0.3 7:03 -0.3 7:35 -0.1 8:04 0.0 8:31 0.3 P M TIDES BOLD TYPE Oh, no, no, no, how could they do it? Amazing Grace is going to the Arizona rattlesnakes or some team that never leaves their Spring Training Field. That’s like trading Lou Geirig to the Washington Spiders or something. Can Sosa be far behind? Oh, w ell, that's the Baseball Business. A hundred m illion here, a quarter billion there, its just money and it’s just a gam e. Teams, a thing of the past, now it’s corporations, fans, gone too, now there are consumers in the bleachers. W hat’s next Extreme Baseball?? Oh, Cubbies. (C on tin u ed on page 2) In 1555, Nostradamus wrote: “Come the millennium, month 12 In the home of greatest power, The village idiot will come forth To be acclaimed the leader. UPPER LEFT Eb6E JftWUftM 2.004
