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Posted by on Aug 21, 2015 in Blog, Personal, Travel | 4 comments

A Mouthful of Ants and a Fast Boat to Nowhere

 

nolan-dalla

With poker commentator Dave Tuchman on our fast boat to nowhere, out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

 

My morning began with a mouthful of ants.

By mid-afternoon, on a fast boat to nowhere out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, I rescued a dead fish.

Ten hours, one bottle of cheap wine, and a dozen overpriced cocktails later, by 2 am, I was pacing the sidewalk out in front of a downtown art gallery like a vagrant, screaming profanities through a plate-glass window at shitty paintings being sold at mind-numbing prices.

 

My hotel kinda’ sucks.

Wait.

It does suck.  Mastiff balls.  I tried scrimping and saving on the price since I’m here for an entire week and don’t spend much time inside the room anyway, other than sleeping and showering, which you pretty much need to do about six times a day if you’re insane enough to spend a whole week in South Florida in the middle of August.  Seventy-five buckaroos a night — just three blocks away from the beach….what could possibly go wrong?  I requested a single occupancy, but as it turned out, ended up with plenty of unwanted company.  Lots of deadbeats.  I’m actually paying the freight of about 30,000 tiny freeloaders who crawl around and share my cramped 150-square foot ground-floor “studio” rental, here in sticky and sweltering Fort Lauderdale.

I hate insects.  I know they’re really important to the ecosystem, so birds can eat, and all.  I mean, I totally get it, that we need insects to survive.  I just don’t want them anywhere within, oh let’s say, about twenty-five miles of me.  Not a cricket.  Not a caterpillar.  Insects creep me out.  Not bees, though.  I like bees.  But I have a serious grasshopper phobia.  I’m horrified by grasshoppers, especially giant grasshoppers.  And spiders make me scream and run away.  I just totally lose it when I see a spider.  I guess you could say I’m somewhat neutral on ants.  I don’t really get the point of ants.  Christian SkyJesus needs to explain sometimes why his earth needs ants.  I just don’t get the point of having ants in the world.  They are useless.  Unless of course, you’re an anteater.  Then ants are really important.  But I sure as shit would get sick and tired of eating ants all the time.

So, as I said, I’m on the ground floor of some sun-baked hellhole motel three blocks off the beach which might as well be in the middle of Haiti.  As advertised, the hotel’s got a pool, and I’d jump in it, provided someone can explain to me why the water’s green.  I guess by the sign, “Emerald Isles,” they were talking about the color of the pool water.  The thing about ground floor units and particularly those built back in the 1950s is, that makes the guests more prone to an “ant invasion.”  Not the cutesy ants like in the cartoon.  Stinging, biting motherfuckers that could lick clean a dead cow on a couple of days.  Those kinds of ants.

Prepping for the trip, I’d read the mixed reviews on TripAdvisor that the motel was decent for the price, but ants were occasionally a problem.  “Occasionally” a problem?  What’s that mean, like a morgue would be a great place to hang out, except for the occasional dead body?  Like an occasional fried mouse gets plopped into the bucket for drumsticks at KFC?  Well, I wasn’t going to be inside the hotel room very much, so why did it matter?  The ants can smoke dope and throw parties while I’m gone for all I care.  I just insist they stay out of the bed and don’t bite my privates.  Other than that, I’ve got no issue with them.  They don’t bother me, I don’t mess with them.  Peace.  Like in the Middle East.

Until today, they’d been very cooperative, cordial even.  Ants don’t make a sound, a habit I wish could be instilled upon the neighbors next door with two kids.  I wish kids were more like ants.

So the ants weren’t an issue really, except for in the bathroom, which has become a problem area.  On the first morning, I instantly noticed an ant trail coming from a crack in the wall, leading to a banana peel I’d tossed in the trash can.  Ants identify a food source instantly and then attack it like it’s crack cocaine.  Who would have guessed that toothpaste is a food source for ants?

The night before, I’d brushed my teeth.  I must not have rinsed it out very well.  When I woke up this morning, the ants had apparently converted my toothbrush into their dining room table.  Unfortunately, I didn’t notice the ants feasting away, and after slathering the bristles with toothpaste — brush, gel, and ants all took a collective ride inside my mouth cave.  Well, I guess the ants pretty much died instantly.  But not before stinging me and breaking me out of slumber as I noticed ants crawling to the spot where my toothbrush had been.

I must say, I’d never woke up and brushed my teeth with ants before.  Not until I came to Florida.

Only in Florida.

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David Tuchman enjoys the view

I don’t like either hunting or fishing.  In fact, I’m totally against it.  I just don’t see the point in fishing, when you can get it at a restaurant.  Why would anyone work their ass off to catch something, bake out in the hot sun, and get your hands dirty with smelly bait, when you can get the exact same thing at Red Lobster for $12.95 on the lunch special?

There’s no point to it.

Besides, it’s cruel.

Against my wishes and much to my horror, Todd Anderson announced the cast and crew of “Poker Night in America” were scheduled to go out on a fishing boat.  Worse, we were all going to take these menacing-looking fishing tools with dangerous hooks on them and try to maim and kill as many innocent fish as we could.  I guess the clubbing baby seals tour was already sold out.

I don’t like, nor do I approve of fishing, that is unless I’m stuck on a life raft out in the middle of the ocean and starving, and the fish can be broiled in a blanc de blanc sauce.  As for paying someone (!) to take you out to the ocean, where you have to do all the work with the fishing stuff, that just seems like madness to me.  Shouldn’t the boat captain be paying me to go out and spend four hours getting my hands all messy and turning the knobs on those fishing rods that make the string come towards the boat?  Fishing has to be the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever seen, and when I hear the whole trip for everyone ended up costing something like $1,600, I did some quick math in my head and realized that would have covered dinner for four, four times at McCormick and Schmick’s.  With wine.  Oh, and the boat captain demanded a 15 percent toke.  What a rip-off.  What a joke.

Fuck the captain.  Fuck his 15 percent toke.

Fuck fishing.

It sucks.

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Matt Glantz (left) with the catch of the day.

I don’t like boats much either.  I’ve never even taken a cruise before.  This was the first time I’ve ever ridden on a boat in the middle of the ocean.  The one thing worse than taking a boat is taking a boat and finding out it’s full of grasshoppers.

My boat mates included some people you might know, and others you don’t.  Most notable among the guests were Todd Anderson (the show’s creator), David Tuchman (the poker commentator, who also does the European version of NFL broadcasts during the fall), Matt Glantz (famed Parx Casino ambassador and now one of the most influential player advocates in the game), Josh Beckley (in this year’s WSOP November Nine), plus the crew.  Phil Hellmuth and Sorel Mizzi were both invited but were much smarter than I chickened out.

Before we started fishing, one of the most amazing sites I’ve experienced was cruising right up next to a giant cargo ship.  You can see the vessel in the photo below, which doesn’t do justice to the mammoth size of the structure.  Take a look at this angle.  I guess you could say this is the view that the fishes get when they see our boat coming.  It must be terrifying to them.

Imagine what it’s like to be a fish, with a giant boat coming right in your face, then having hooks with all kinds of tasty food as temptation.

 

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We pulled up alongside this ship, which was from Hanoi, Vietnam

 

I’ve written many times before about our amazing television crew at “Poker Night in America.”  They aren’t just great to work with.  They’re also really fun to hang out with.  They’re all remarkably accomplished, as well aside from what they do in television and poker.  One guy has a Ph.D. in philosophy.  Another ran as a Libertarian for a statewide political office.  Some are musicians.  They’re usually pretty smart.  Yet, for some reason, they were all wearing black shirts out on the water, when it was like 145 degrees and humid as a greenhouse.

Idiots.

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Jason Gronwold, from the television crew, who is usually really smart, but wore all blackout on a boat on the ocean in August.

 

On the latest “Poker Night in America” production, we had a highly unusual occurrence, managing to corral three of this year’s “November Nine” to play in our high-stakes cash games, hosted at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino, in Hollywood, FL.

Massive chip leader Joe McKeehen played on the show for the second time, after his debut a few weeks ago at Turning Stone (New York).  We also had Thomas Cannuli and Josh Beckley.  This would certainly be the first (and only) time you would ever see three WSOP Main Event finalists playing together on the same table, before the world championship.  Pretty amazing.

Here’s a quick shot of me with Josh Beckley, who was cool to hang out with here in Florida.

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With Josh Beckley, one of this year’s WSOP “November Nine” — soon to be playing for $8 million and poker’s world championship

 

So, the chartered boat basically takes us out a little more than a mile offshore, and then we sit there and bake in the sun and drink beer, pretending to catch fish.  You’ll hopefully see some of the highlights of what happened on a show to air sometime in early 2016.

 

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For me, the highlight of the afternoon was, I thought, saving a life.  As things turned out, they just fucked me over and left me mad and disappointed.  Here’s the story.

The captain was guiding us on how to hold the fishing rods and reel in the catch.  I wanted no part of the massacre of innocent sea life.  So, I rejected any involvement in these crimes against the earth.  Whenever it became my turn to reel in the line or do something that might endanger a fish or other creature, I purposely was so slow and useless, the crew basically wanted to kick me off to the side.  Or, toss me overboard.

Anyway, the murderers managed to catch a gorgeous mackerel.  It was a real beauty.  Black tiger stripes.  At least two four feet long.  It looked slimy to the touch and smelled like something filthy plucked out of the ocean, so I wanted nothing to do with it.  The captain removed the poor animal from the hook, and then tossed it into a large onboard ice chest like it was a football.

I was horrified.

So, the next thing that happens is, the poor fish is there inside the box floundering for its life.  It bucks the door of the ice chest a few times, banging the shit out of the boat.  Good for him.  Go for it!  Holy mackerel!

I’m aghast at this killing frenzy not to mention the torture and after the fish has somehow bucked the insides of the chest a few more times, I can’t take it anymore.  While the captain is distracted, I run over to the bow of the boat, reach into the ice chest, pull out the slimy creature, and toss him back into the ocean, thus setting him free and saving his life.  Or her life.  I don’t know what sex it was.

Naturally, the captain is kinda’ pissed off about this and the crew can’t believe what just happened.  I fist pump my victory for saving the fish’s life.  Man, that felt good to do that.

As I’m boasting and padding myself on the back and feeling all giddy for this small victory, inexplicably David Tuchman crushes my world.

“You know the fish was dead already, don’t you?” he says.

“What!”

“The fish was dead already.  The captain slit his throat.  You tossed a dead fish back in the water.”

Why did Tuchman have to say that to me?  I was feeling so good about my rescue.  One of the few courageous genuinely heroic acts of my life — rescuing a dead fish.

Murderers.

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With Tucker Lucas, one of the show’s directors, who also was crazy enough to wear a black shirt on a brutally hot summer day. Peace. Out.

_____

Needing to drown my sorrows, I abandoned the killing party and decided to enjoy an excellent dinner at Lola’s that evening, an upscale restaurant on Hollywood Blvd thoroughly researched and pretested by Charlie Ciresi.

To say this meal was exceptional would be an understatement.

Joining the table were Jason Neuman (Poker Manager at the Hard Rock, and my pal from Horseshoe in Chicago), Kurt Dau (longtime WSOP supervisor from Mississippi), and Charlie Ciresi (Lead Shift Supervisor from the WSOP, from Cincinnati).  What a meal.  What a night.

My grouper was absolutely delicious.

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Left to Right — Jason Neuman, Kurt Dau, Charlie Ciresi, and me — at Lola’s in Hollywood, FL.

 

After our incredible meal at Lola’s ($310 for a party of four, with appetizers, main courses, drinks, desserts, coffee, and a bottle of wine), we hit two more bars.  Then, they closed up and threw us out.  On the way back to the car, I stumbled by the front door of an art gallery.

You can read my “art review” in the profanity-laden previous post.

That’s it.  No more fishing for me.  Ever.  I already killed enough lives today when I brushed my teeth.

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Back on the set today, filming another episode for “Poker Night in America”

4 Comments

  1. “Not bees, though. I like bees. ”

    Sorry to hear about you toothbrush.

  2. So you’re one of those? You’ll happily eat it but gasp at the thought of catching it or killing it and then eating it? You just want others to do your dirty work while you complain of the horror but then gladly pay 20 bucks for it to be served to you on a plate in a fancy restaurant? That sir, is call hypocrisy!

    • Nolan Replies: Yes. I am “one of those” ….who opposes hunting (and fishing) for sport.

      — ND

  3. Well Nolan, where do you think that delicious grouper actually came from !?!? What about all those “trouts” you eat at The Rio?

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