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Monday, October 14, 2013

The Heighth of Pathetic

Sometimes, things happen that render you speechless. Literally, speechless. I mean, for a guy like me, who has little difficulty finding something to say about almost anything, to be left in a state of utter, dumbfounded silence is shocking to even myself.  Yeah, well..it happened last night.

I get a text message sometime around the 8th inning of the Red Sox game...after they had just hit an improbable grand slam...after being no-hit into the sixth inning for the 2nd night in a row...to tie the game at 5, a game they later won, thanks to Prince Fielder being a lousy infielder.

The text message read:  "It's pretty lame when Scotty wants to blast u in his blog and he has to go back in time and use some other asshole to try and do it."

Well, I hadn't read whatever 'God' had posted about me. See, I have other things I consider more important in my life than keeping tabs on what Scott Clark's up to in his 'ruining my life' mission of his. Things like...oh, breathing. Eating. And sleeping. But out of curiosity, I decided to take a look to see what depths his royal lowness had sunk to now.

I had kind of a feeling what I was about to read. Much to my surprise, I was totally wrong. I guess that the 'one' I was thinking of, he has decided to keep in his 'bag' to use at a later time. He actually threatened me with 'that one' a month or so ago. And when he did it, all I could do was laugh at what a joke he had turned his little self-created war against me into. 

There is a guy named Tim Vance. I guess he is from 'God's' (as he likes to refer to himself) neck of the woods...that being the St. Louis area. I don't have exact dates...but we will call it five years ago, I was in New Orleans...and was having a pretty good year in poker. It was May. It was late one night in SNG-land. This mouthy little guy was bragging about how great he was..and since I'd had a few cocktails, I fell into the trap of engaging him. At some point, I made a bet with him that would lead to a long, drawn out dispute with this guy. I bet him $5k that I would finish the year with more P.O.Y. points than him.  Later that night I discovered he had luck-boxed his way to a win in the Main Event in Copenhagen, Denmark...in an EPT event...which gave him a ton of points. But regardless, I elected not to back out of the bet...feeling confident enough about how my year was going. ( I think I was trailing him like 2400 to 1800 at that point)

With all the people running around out there who owe me money for side bets made with me...that for one reason or another, have decided to welch out on their obligation, I can honestly say I've never welched out on a bet in my life. I also don't owe anyone money. Granted, it's become a full time job trying to collect from those who owe ME money, for one thing or another. My little poker club closed down three months ago...and I am STILL trying to collect almost $1000 from various people who KNOW they owe me money. Some of these are people I THOUGHT were pretty good friends, who have just torched me with one lame excuse after another. There is something about someone owing you money...that after a certain time...I think they just assume you will either forget about it, or get tired of asking them for it. And also, once you get to about the 5th or 6th time of asking them for it...you almost start to feel guilty asking. At some point, you almost feel like YOU OWE THEM the money. I've become convinced there are some people who have mastered the fine art of not paying people back the money they owe them. 

If anyone has a secret to getting people to pay you money...that doesn't involve bodily harm or destruction of someone's reputation (to an extent), I'm all ears.

So back to this bet with Tim Vance. Like I said, I was fully on board with trying to win this bet with this guy. And then I get ambushed. Yeah this must have been 2008, because it was the year I won the All Around at Venetian that summer. I had just won an event there, and had all that bullshit happen at Caesar's, because of that schmuck from Austin, Texas...who went running like a little bitch for since-fired Jim Pedulla, when he stirred up shit with me then freaked out when I invited him to go 'off property' after we'd bagged up our chips for the night and I had one foot out the door to settle whatever 'issues' he had with me. A pre-existing 'situation' with Jim Pedulla, where he loathed me because of my bashing of his event (structures, scheduled time of events, etc) in my blog led to him using this as an excuse to disqualify me from the event with 18 players remaining and me 3rd in chips coming back. 

To make it worse, he called over to Jeffrey Pollack at WSOP and painted a picture of this raving maniac Will Souther, who needed to be banned from all WSOP events until further notice. They took the bait. And my summer of chasing big scores ended. That also cut me off from all circuit events after the summer as well. No need to rehash that nightmare. It's just another in the long line of horseshit I've experienced at the hands of those wonderful folks who never investigate both sides of anything.

I see Tim Vance somewhere in the future, can't for a second remember where it was. But he mentions the bet. And I just tell him, point blank. "Tim, I was booted from WSOP for some bullshit, and am 86'd from all their properties. I'm also not permitted to play at the Beau Rivage...so my available venues to compete and try to beat you in POY points has been reduced to nearly nothing. So, I'm not going to be able to continue with this bet. Sorry." This is where most people/players I know would react like I would.

"Monkey...that sucks man. What a bunch of pricks. Yeah...no big deal on the bet...I pretty much thought it was in good fun anyway. But even if you were totally serious about it...I can't possibly hold you to it now. Hope that shit gets cleared up...good luck."  And that would have been the end of it.

Oh no. It wasn't. He flips out. Then tells me I should pay him like $1000 to back out of the bet. What? I tell him he's being ridiculous. We argue some more about it. And finally I basically tell him to go fuck himself. 

He goes on to talk shit about me for I don't know how long. I get a call from a friend a year or two ago that there is some 'little fucker who looks like he could be the mascot for Notre Dame talking shit about' me at Borgata. He asks me the story. I tell him verbatim. And he goes back and tells Vance if he says another cross word about me at the table he's going to pull him off the table and beat the shit out of him. I guess he stopped. 

So when Scotty 'God' Clark opines several weeks ago that he was going to 'introduce Tim Vance to the club members' all I could do was chuckle. And when I got this text message from my friend last night, who had seen idiot's blog...I just assumed he had unleashed 'The Mighty Vance' on the world to further sully my pristine reputation. (yes I am saying this with dripping sarcasm, for those stupid enough to think I THINK I have a pristine reputation)

Shockingly, I was wrong. What I saw...instead, resulted in me being...as I mentioned at the start of this blog post...SPEECHLESS. You know that look you get on your face? Where you squint your eyes, the skin wrinkles a little on your forehead...your eyes dart back and forth a little bit...maybe you scratch your chin? That was me. 

This is where Scott dipped down to for his latest 'attack on Will Souther.' I don't have an exact date. Scotty obviously does, since he had to scroll back through all 700+ of my blog posts to find it...which in and of itself, I find pretty disturbing that ANYONE has that kind of time on their hands...but just to ball park it we will say this occurred 3 or 4 years ago. 

It all involved a guy named Gary Bolden. Gary and I really got off on the wrong foot. For a good while, I hated the guy. And I'm pretty sure he hated me. It was a mutual dislike we had for each other. I wrote a post about the guy. I actually said complimentary things about his poker game. But also suggested he was a racist. He's black. I was probably wrong. As I've gotten to know Gary, I've learned that he dated and had a child with a white waitress I know quite well at the Venetian. Something else occurred a couple years ago, at the height of my disdain for Gary. I was suffering from a kidney stone, and at one point, I had to get up from the table and find a place to lay down on the floor, writhing in pain. Gary came over to check on me. That said a lot about the guy. Later, we would have some of those moments that poker players can only understand...those non-verbal 'conversations' you have with each other at the table that usually result from there being something funny or stupid at the table that you both find amusing.

Bottom line? I wouldn't say Gary and I would ever go on a camping adventure together...but were push to come to shove, I think we would likely have each other's back. A lot of people I am friends with in the poker world, I started out thinking they were a piece of shit. That's just life. Sometimes, there are people who we are more alike then we would like to think we are.Gary is one of those guys.  So whatever...what Scott's purpose was/is for dredging this up, I can't even begin to comprehend. Scott does and says a lot of things that defy any semblance of logic. This would be one of those examples. 

My problems with Scott have for the most part been resolved. There are things that have transpired in the past two weeks that I am not at liberty to share or discuss with the public, but lets just say, anything Scott does to endanger me or my family, whether it be in writing, or in actual acts of aggression, will end badly for him, from a legal standpoint. Pretty much everything he is doing now is under observation. But knowing him like I've come to know him...and thinking he exists on a level that is WAY above the rest of us mortals...he will do or say something stupid, that will end up blowing up in his face. I sure hope so...I'm counting on it. Nothing would make me sleep better at night knowing that lunatic is sitting in an 8x6 cell eating three horrible meals a day while dodging a guy named Bubba's sexual advances.

More about the Phoenix trip in my next post. Me and Squirrel have decided we can't sleep another night on this horrible mattress. Sick and tired of waking up with an aching back. For a week in Arizona I woke up with NO back pain whatsoever...and as soon as I get home...BOOM! It's back again. And since its Columbus Day (I just found out!) maybe we will luck into a sale of some kind!

MONKEY

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