Living in Philadelphia, it was only a matter of time before we took a trip to Atlantic City, the ocean-side Las Vegas of the East Coast. Here’s two contemporary poets talking about Atlantic City:
“Everything dies baby, that’s a fact / Maybe everything that dies someday comes back/Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty/ and meet me tonight in Atlantic City” – Bruce Springsteen, “Atlantic
City.”
“What I hope to happen in A.C. is just have a good time, hoping that everybody looks good, everybody has a good time. No drama.” – Mike “The Situation”, “Jersey Shore.”
The above two quotes represent the best and worst of Atlantic City. Believe it or not, Mike (AKA “The Situation:) is actually exemplifying the better attitude. Atlantic City is for chilling out and having a good time. Any hope of something greater, of transcendence, of hitting it rich, or finding some sort of resurrection of love or opportunity, which the poor guy in Bruce’s song has (“I met a guy last night, gonna do a little favor for him” he sings later,) will be crushed by the gaudiness of Atlantic City. (Which, of course, Bruce is fully aware of.) But if you are willing to enjoy Atlantic City with a little bit of ironic detachment, you can enjoy it. Yes, that sounds like a hipster douche bag thing to do, but otherwise Atlantic City can get depressing real quick. And what is ironic detachment but a defense mechanism? It’s fine to use it once in a while, just don’t let it become your way of life. The same is true of gambling.
I tried gambling in a casino in Atlantic City. We only went for the evening, just to check it out on an off-season Thursday in late April. I play poker online sometimes, and watching the people pulling slot machines, I couldn’t help but think they might as well stay home and gamble on their computers since they were just playing alone with a machine anyway. (Hell, online at least Facebook is only ever a click away). I had been in casinos before, once in Vegas, but I was underage so I couldn’t gamble. The
http://ria-institute.com/buy-generic-propecia-with-bonus.html so, like age forever.
other time I went to Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut (it’s a giant Indian Casino) and I did gamble a bit. But I was rusty. So we walked into the new Revel casino at the end of A.C. boardwalk, which is monster of a building. I walked up to the roulette table, and put down my measly twenty bucks. The dealer asked me “in or out?” I said both. Then he reminded me that I had to play ten dollars’ worth of bets if I was going to bet on numbers, which I forgot about. I won a few bucks, then lost some more. I had something like three bucks left and I walked away, hoping to cash in my chips because I didn’t have enough to even bet. Somebody ran me down and told me that I couldn’t take chips away from the table. I apologized and started to walk back to the table, but I was then informed I couldn’t walk in between the tables.Office Visio ativação chave
Jesus. You could’ve stamped “Newbie” on my forehead and people would have looked at me exactly the same as they did.
Later we tried to go to the Borgata to try it’s famous buffet. ($30 for dinner. Remember what I said about ironic detachment?) It turned out it was closed, so we went to the Borgata’s food court and ate fast food. It seemed much more appropriate than eating well.
Next time I think I’ll stay home and have drinks that aren’t watered down if I want to gamble.
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