Hammadown (Chapter 9)

No more five month layoffs for the EBPG! The gang is back at the table and eager to purge themselves of immeasurable stores of silliness. We eat a stupid amount of food (minus the usual box of cookies), listen to a completely unpredictable variety of music, tell hilarious barely-ever-before-heard stories and jokes, and almost everybody gets in on the feel-good feeling of big-pot sweeping.
Big Pot Sweeping: It’s big-pot sweeping the nation!
Dig it!

(Game Day: May 17, 2021)

“RETURN TO REGULARITY!”

It brings me great poker playin’ pleasure to formally announce that the Eddie Brill Poker Game is once again regular. Although, I’m just now seeing how this wording might be targeted for sophomoric ridicule.

So be it!
We’re back, baby!
A game in April, a game in May, and now a game scheduled for early June? It’s almost like nothing terrible actually ever happened in the entire world over the past year and a half.

Thanks, whichever Jonas you are. Your support means a lot to me.

Now then… the game.
The man of the early hour was our schlep de cuisine, Dave Freed. This time out, Diamond Dave dashed to my door with between what seemed like 30 and 40 pounds of goodies from Dallas BBQ. Ribs, salmon, shrimp, mac ‘n cheese, cheese ‘n mac, meese ‘n chac – a little bit of everything. By which I mean a shit-ton of everything.

It’s like if Pepsid AC sponsored a poker game.

But the evening began out on the terrace with the usual festivitizing and funstory telling.
I believe it was Dave and Eddie who shared a couple of lesser-known gems from #TheRealRodneyDangerfield

Story 1: Many moons ago, the hilarious Dom Irrera was working in Las Vegas for the first time. Rodney was there too and they were hanging out. In between shows they were walking from one hotel to another when nature called. So they ducked into an alley and while they were pissing behind a dumpster Rodney looked over at Dom and said, “Welcome to the big time!”
(We all howl with laughter.)

Story 2: Rodney had been M.I.A. for a while, which given his regularly irregular heart condition had a lot of people very concerned including his good friend, Norm McDonald. Then one night, Rodney comes strolling into the now unfortunately defunct Dangerfield’s Comedy Club with two ladies of the evening and a huge smile on his face. Norm runs up to Rodney and says, “Rodney! How are you doing?” And Rodney hops around in his usual, hoppy, Rodney way, and blurts out for all to hear, “How’m I doin’?! I got two hookers and a pocket full’a blow! How you doin’?!”
(More laugh-howling.)

UH-TEN-DANCE!
Clockwise from left: Fletcher, Mulligan, Freed, Gallo, Brill, Karantz, and behind the camera, Havlan.
“The Perhaps-Slightly-Above-Average Seven.”

Eddie got the first ace again and the Memorial round of Dollar Bob began.
EB and JRH (that’s me!) split the first pot and it was a doozy! There were a lot of chips in it and each of those chips represented a given amount of money – as in “our friends had given us a bunch of their money.”
It was super fun!
… for me and Eddie.

Freed and Hank backed that up by sweeping pots, each of them pulling Ace high flushes and perfect lows in successive games of  Eddie Brill (high-low).
It’s quite the feeling when you “go both” and you end up with the best high and the best low and you have to raise your ass a bit off your seat as you lean forward to sweep every last chip into your very own well while The Supremes “Back in My Arms Again” plays on a loop in your head.
For instance…

Quite the feeling indeed.

My optometrist would be proud.

And now it’s time for this week’s episode of…

Jokes We Love From Other Comedians

Eddie is a regular contributor to this long-running program and this time he shared a tickler from Rocky LaPorte:

“A kid comes home from school and says, ‘Look, Dad! I got a B in English!” His dad says, “That’s a D.”

Joe made a playlist.
It’s sort of like a mixed tape except it’s even more rare that it actually gets you laid.
Good tunes though, ranging from Otis Redfield to ZZ Top. It definitely put the “E” in “clectic.”

My “Kid’s School Dad Friend,” Kosta, made a second appearance at the game but the long layoff since his last appearance made it hard for him to remember the wildly enormous hands you often have to have to win our often ridiculous wild-card games. Not a winning formula.
Kosta did, however, manage to steal a big one from “yours sadly” when he and I were heads-up in a game of Eddie Brill (high-low) and I decided to get greedy and go both ways. I won the high hand but barely lost to his barely better low hand. Kosta therefore enjoyed “that sweeping feeling.”
As Maxwell Smart would say…

At one point, probably soon after one of several rounds of Yes-I-Cannabis, Clayton blurts out…

“What happened to the guy who brings the cookies?”

He was talking about Cockman, who always brings a box full of Insomnia Cookies to the game. But on this night, Cockman wasn’t there and Clayton had clearly forgotten his name, which, to be fair, is not actually “Cockman.”
It’s “Adam Abramowitz.”
Either way, he will now be known exclusively as “The Guy Who Brings The Cookies.”
And let’s be honest: it’s probably a more accurate nickname than “Cockman.”

#AbramowitzBurn!

At some point during the night, I scribbled something on two separate lines in my notebook. And though I’ve since forgotten what the hell it was possibly referring to, I willingly submit it anyway for your enjoyment…

Line 1: Beastiality
Line 2: Money is my Donkey

As Beck says in “Hollywood Freaks” on the brilliant Midnight Vultures album… “You fill in the blanks.”

Dave deals “Good, Bad and the Ugly.” Clayton seemingly disapproves.

My favorite thing about the above photo is that Eddie and I are clearly sharing a laugh, as you can tell by his smile and my crow’s feet.

In the long-held EBPG tradition of inventing ridiculous names for sitcom characters, somebody came up with what you assume is a marginal character by the name of Aunt Silarry.
Get it?
(Got it.)
Good!

Joe dealt the last hand.
Everybody folded and Freed ended up sweeping the ante.
Aunt E. Climactic.

***

THE SHOWDOWNS
(Small: 5 cards all up. Big: 7 cards all up)

SMALL: Freed wins with a very plain looking pair of 10’s, which means everybody else had a very plain looking pair of 9’s at best.
#GoodEnough

BIG: Brill wins! Things got a bit more exciting as Eddie pulled out a late “Broadway” (straight to the ace) that eked out Joe’s straight to the King, or what will from now on be known as “Off Broadway.”

‘Til next time, which will be joy-bringingly soon.
Peace.