This week: They say it’s my birthday! (And they was right); a new guy fits in by not trying too hard to fit in; our good friend Dave puts the feed in Freed; World Cup fever grips the table for up to 73 seconds; and a cookie delivery goes terribly wrong.
Dig it.
(Game Day: June 29, 2026)
THERE’S DEFINITELY AN “I” IN BIRTHDAY!
Every year it’s the same thing: What do you want for your birthday? You’re so hard to shop for! What do you get the man who, by all indications, has everything? Good questions. And here’s your answer…
That’s right. Six of my best friends pitched in to buy me a coke.
But we also played poker!
Which was nice.
Eddie Brill, Joe Mulligan, Dave Freed, Adam Abramowitz, Hank Gallo, and Matt… somethingorother. Most of them I’ve known for close to or more than 30 years. I’d say that’s nearly half my life, but it depends on when you believe life begins and that feels like a debate for another time.
Bottom line is, with all due respect to my family, there’s not a better present I can think of than to hang out and play cards with these mugs. As I told them, it’s the funnest thing I ever do every time I do it. What a gift.
We’ve actually had several games since the last Hammadown. I’ve just been lazy about it. The highlights have been…
- Apparently having so much fun that I could barely remember any details about the fun we had.
- The return of Dave Freed as a dependable regular at the game.
- None of us died.
And the best thing of all…
On one occasion, we were joined by my son, Parker, for his maiden introduction to the EBPG.
He lost 60 bucks and got out of the business.
(And yes, the 60 bucks was from my own well. And yes, I’ve since made him work it off. Builds character!)
Freed was the first to show up doing his usual impression of a grub hub delivery person by lugging along 2 bags full of delicious foodstuffs from Tony’s DiNapoli. We ate off of real plates and everything! As opposed to the way our old friend Vic Henley used to prefer eating his meals—”leaning over the sink like a bachelor.”
The usual crowd shuffled in, plus one: a newbie named J… just J. I allowed it. He was Dave’s friend. According to Dave, they met in his men’s group, which is apparently something you can say out loud these days. “J”—if that is his real name—was a very solid fit. Like a baby bear’s bed, he was “just right.” Not too loud, not too quiet; caught on to the games right away, fixed my toilet (don’t ask), and made few if any mistakes, with the possible exception of believing he might win some money. C’est la vie!
(Photo credit for the group shot goes to J. Maybe he’ll be in the next one.)
We got started around 7 and wrapped up by 11, but it felt like much longer than that in the best possible way. We took multiple breaks for eating, smoking, and telling stories that went on too long. Our favorite way of letting someone know they need to wrap it up is to close your eyes and suddenly start snoring. Trust me when I tell you it’s very difficult to finish a story after that. We even watched some World Cup soccer, or what the rest of the world calls football. We get shit about calling American football “football” because you mainly use your hands. But the Spanish spell it “futbol” which makes no sense since “bol” means “bowl” (not “ball”) and “fut” just means “fut,” which is not a thing. So, who’s got the crazy language now, smarty pantalones?
We told old jokes to a new audience, namely J. We made up new jokes for an old audience, namely the rest of us. We bet when we shouldn’t have, ate more than we should have, smoked more than we needed to, and laughed like we’d smoked more than we needed to.
Around 9 o’clock, Freed decided to order cookies from Insomniac, which is a block away from my place. The call itself took nearly a half an hour. Nobody was quite sure what was going on, but we all knew it wasn’t going well. A half hour after that, I decided to speak for everybody when I said…
“Where the fuck are those cookies!”
Ten minutes later, we were all stuffing our pieholes with cookies. Which, I guess, makes them our cookieholes.
Semantics, semuntics.
Football, futbowl.
THE SHOWDOWNS
(Small: 5 cards, all up. Big: 7 cards, all up)
SMALL: Cockman won it with an ace-high flush… that he dealt to himself… in a 5-card game. You be the judge.
BIG: Matt Somethingorother won it by pulling an ace-high flush on the 7th card. Pure skill.
Happy 25oth anniversary of our nation, everyone!
Our wealthy, white, slave-owning forefathers would be proud.
Until next time.
Peace!
