And meet me tonight in Atlantic City

In honor of the resurrection of the World's favorite resurrection act, the missus and I took a brief sojourn to Atlantic City, to celebrate the original Nazz's teachings.

In other words... gambling, intoxication and overindulgence.

Atlantic City will never have the cachet of Las Vegas, the scam that was perpetuated upon the denizens of the Garden State will always be apparent. The casino's promised a rejuvenation of the area, but the only "second coming" A.C. has had is in the immediate area adjacent to the boardwalk. The boardwalk and the ocean of course are lovely. And then two blocks away from the glittering gambling palace is still squalor. However, you can find "crack ho's" really cheap.

We aren't much in the way of gambling, but for visual kicks and cheap booze, it's hard to beat casinos.

We tried roulette, won $35 on the first try (lucky #13!) and I immediately wanted to quit. I was talked into playing a few more times until of course the $35 went bye bye, but at least we broke even.

Same thing happened on the black jack table. Won the first hand, wanted to quit, talked into staying by the missus and gave back the winnings plus another $20.

And the slots took another $40 or so.

All told, we "donated" about $60 to the mob's retirement fund, but considering the room was virtually free, the parking was free, they gave us $10 credit as a welcome gift, we got comped on breakfast ($40), the booze was dirt cheap ($3.50 for Guiness Imperial Pints and $2 Strong Island Ice Tea's) we still spent less down there than we would have on a normal weekend bender.

But those casino's are pretty depressing ... they are for the most part populated by three types of people:

1) The elderly (some of them attached to oxygen tanks!

2) Chain smokers.

3) Morbidly obese "flyover state" types.

The air, due to the smoking (even in the no smoking area's) is not really healthy (and somewhat uncomfortable to breathe for long periods of time).

However, all of the workers are very courteous and helpful (the better to help relieve you of your money, I suppose!).

One nice casino dealer took the time to explain to us how to play roulette and was very patient with us... at the expense of the other gamblers in fact!

And we made sure, the drunker we got, the less we gambled.

So, all in all, a fun trip... nobody got arrested, the hangovers were non-existant and we came back in one piece with most of our money.

Toonage:

The Band - Atlantic City
The Clash - The Card Cheat
The Compulsive Gamblers - Stop And Think It Over
Supersuckers - Gambler
Bob Dylan - Rambler, Gambler (demo version)
Riverboat Gamblers - I Drink Alone