Don't Stop at $40 Million

I beat Super Mario Bros. yesterday. The game is awesome--but the ending isn't really my cup of tea. After not finding the princess in castles 1 through 7, you finally track her down in castle 8--and then she pepper sprays you and says, "Fuck off!" And then it's revealed that you were the bad guy all along--an Italian sociopath on acid. You stalked the princess; instead of fixing pipes, you punched bricks like a nutcase; and of course, a bunch of creatures were just walking around minding their own business--and you took their coins, ate their mushrooms, and jumped on their heads. I'm working on a board game that's like Monopoly--except instead of building homes and hotels, you build gun shops, liquor stores, and Waffle Houses. The more you play the game, the worse the neighborhood gets. If you spend more than a minute at Free Parking, your hubcaps get stolen. There are 25 Go to Jail cards. When you're not in jail, you're on parole. If you roll a 7, you have to attend anger management classes. And when you pass Go, you collect $200 in food stamps that you try to trade for cheap liquor and cigarettes. My favorite game is craps. I play it three times a day when I'm kind of drunk, and six times a day when I'm really drunk. And when I'm not drunk at all, I drink. Here's my guide to craps. First of all, the casino's challenging you, so you have to play a lot. But you also need to know when to stop rolling and walk out of the casino. Here's how to figure that out. Count the number of times you feel your pulse in ten seconds, and then multiply number by six. If the result is higher than zero, that means you should double your scotch and double your bet. And if the number is zero or lower, that means you're dead, and you should stop playing craps. Now, some of you might bring up that guy who went from $40 up to $40 million, and from $40 million down to $0. Should he have stopped rolling? Hell no! I mean, if you earned 100,000,000% on your $40 and turned it into $40 million, at that point you have to bet enough to earn 100,000,000% on your $40 million and turn it into $40 trillion. Why? Because 100,000,000% is a number. That's gambler's math. You have to go with the math. Also, if you have $40 million, that means you don't have all the money in the world, and

you have to gamble in order to win everyone else's money. All of it. Every penny. There are 7 billion people on the planet, and some of them are very interesting characters. Some are so interesting that they deserve to be paid just for being themselves. Most Vietnamese poker players fall into that category. There's one who lives across from me. A fire alarm went off in our building the other day at 4:30 AM, and he walked out in an Asian robe with a beer in one hand and a six pack in the other. "There's a fire, baby. It's not in my apartment. Can you hold my beers for a second? I need to call my bookie." I've known him for eight years--and any time I see him, I still think to myself, "This guy can't actually be real." He's like a Looney Tunes character who says the word "baby" 127 times per hour, and has absolutely no concept of a 100% sober state. He deserves to be paid for being himself--as do most other Vietnamese poker players. They should all be sponsored, like race cars. Companies should place ads on them, and let us know: "Poker pro Scotty Nguyen smokes and drinks nonstop--and he's alive, healthy, and rich, baby. This message was brought to you by Budweiser and Marlboro."

Sports
When the Olympics comes around, billions of people suddenly pay a lot of attention to sports like taekwondo, diving, curling, and the luge. "My goodness. That was some impressive luging. I really love the luge. You know, back in college, I was left flanker on the Yale luging team." Then a month after the Olympics, that same guy says, "What the hell is a luge? It sounds like a toilet part. You got your gasket, your valve, and your luge. The luge is what makes your toilet flush clockwise. Unless you have an Australian luge. I learned that at community college. I was left flanker on their toilet repair team." During the Olympics, some guy watches synchronized swimming, and he calls out to his wife, "Honey! Come watch this. This is athletics at its highest form. ... What?! How come the judges gave Latvia an 8.5, when they clearly deserve an 8.7 for doing that triple lindy?! These judges are idiots! This is the first time I've ever seen synchronized swimming--and I know more than they do. They don't know shit! Honey--are you watching this?!"

But a year later, that guy's flipping through the channels, he comes across synchronized swimming, and he says, "Honey--why are a bunch of homosexuals swimming on TV?" Then he hears the announcer mention that Latvia got an 8.4. And he says, "Latvia? I don't even think that's a real country. It sounds like a toilet part. You got your gasket, your valve, your luge, and your latvia. The latvia is what powers the luge. Unless you have an Australian latvia. Then the luge powers the latvia." After any Olympic event, everyone congratulates the gold medalist and the bronze medalist. But they're a little different around the silver medalist. I saw one being interviewed in 2012, and the interviewer told him, "I don't know if you realize this, but you were supposed to run faster than the Jamaican guy next to you, instead of running slower than the Jamaican guy next to you. You did the exact opposite of you were supposed to do. It was almost like you were running the wrong way. If someone else is breaking his world record, you're supposed to break his new world record, instead of running three hundredths of a second slower than him. That's the whole point, dummy. Maybe you should stare at your silver medal for a while, so you can understand how much we hate you, and how much we love that Jamaican guy. He deserves the $2 million he's getting to endorse shoes, light bulbs, and chicklets. You deserve the $28 you're getting to endorse toilet luges and latvias." In the 2012 Olympics, they tried out a a new scoring system. [Announcer:] "Smith lifted 300 pounds. And here are the judges' scores: a 1.7 for lifting weights, a 9.8 for grunting, a 9.5 for sweating, a 9.8 for blowing his nose without a tissue right before the lift, and a 10.0 for vomiting on some Norwegian guy named Sven right after the lift. Smith can't lift weights for shit-but he vomits like a champion." Sometimes the best sports highlights aren't actual sports highlights. Like that time an umpire made a call against tennis player John McEnroe, and John yelled "You can't be serious, man. You cannot be serious! That ball was on the line! Chalk flew up! It was clearly in! You guys are the absolute pits of the world." Then a few months later, John missed an easy shot in a big match, and his umpire yelled, "Holy shit, bro! How the hell did you miss that shot? You cannot be serious!" And then John parked his car, and some guy yelled, "You parked four inches over that line! You cannot be serious!" And then the next day, John bought a suit, and you guys are thinking, "Are you really continuing with this horseshit joke? You cannot be serious!" And then John proposed to

his girlfriend, and she said, "You call that a ring? That's five days' salary at best. You cannot be serious!" Did you know that big name sports announcers like Al Michaels and Joe Buck only make $5 million a year? That's all they get for spending entire games giving us essential pieces of information like, "Montana drops back to pass." TV networks hire $5 million a year sports geniuses to point out those things, so we'll be able to correctly interpret what we see. One time, I watched a game while the TV was on mute. And when I saw Montana take a few steps back, the whole thing became a mystery to me. The best theory I could come up with was, "It looks like Montana's running to the bathroom on 2nd and 3." But my theory was quickly disproven when Montana threw a pass to the endzone, and he didn't go to the men's room afterwards. Apparently, Montana was dropping back to pass, and not running to go piss. It takes the keen eye of an announcer to tell the difference between one and the other. But the thing is, sports announcers don't give you enough information. Even with them, things can get pretty confusing. They should tell you, "You're watching television, this is a football game, and Montana just dropped back to pass. Oh yeah---don't forget to breathe. Otherwise you'll die. And if you die, you won't be able to watch football." When a quarterback throws an interception with the game on the line, the cameramen keep on showing him sitting on the sidelines. As if to say, "Look at this asshole! He threw an interception. Did you see him? Maybe you didn't see him. We'll show him one more time. Five more times. Ten more times." And when a kicker misses a crucial 33 yard field goal with two minutes left, the commentators pretty much put a target on him and tell us, " We don't have the legal right to tell you to kill this guy. But we will say this: he missed a 33 yard field goal, and bullets only cost 4 cents a piece at Walmart." I like to talk sports with my friends. It's fun for me, and it's a good way to show them I'm one of the guys. One time, a friend of mine said, "Brady is the best quarterback ever when the game's on the line. He freakin' tore apart the Broncos' defense." And then I said, "Totally, bro. And did you see that badminton quarterfinal match in the Allegasy League? I can't believe Chickering commited that birdiejack violation in the third quadrant, right after Coggeshall barnistrated the fourth dofut. I was so flabbergated when I saw that, that I nearly spit out my ginger ale. That was the most dorfestrated shackering in badminton history. You know what I'm saying?" My friends

were so impressed by my extensive badmintinian knolwedge, that they haven't spoken to me since then. The next time we get together, I'll be sure to bring up that excellent jai alai match between Saudi Arabia and Qatar. I think some of the most devoted athletes of all are bodybuilders. Because they take their sport beyond competitions and the gym. When a bodybuilder is at the DMV renewing his driver's license, he tells the person working there, "I'm gonna need a full body photo on the back of my license. Give me a second to oil up for it. And make sure my bodyfat percentage is listed next to my weight. Weight is meaningless without a bodyfat percentage." If bodybuilders had licenses like that, they'd be eager to get pulled over by the police. [Police Officer:] "License and registration, please." [Bodybuilder:] "Just the words I wanted to hear, officer. Take a look at that. That's me. 240 pounds, 3.8% bodyfat. Make sure you put that on my ticket. You know what? I'm gonna get out the car and take off my shirt, to confirm my identity." A few weeks ago, I wanted to join a gym--and I had to sit down with some asshole employee named Tony, and negotiate my membership fees for an hour and a half. The gym does that to help you get in shape. You'll think, "I should do ten more sets of bench presses. 'Cause I want to be really fit when I strangle Tony to death." I like how at every gym, there's always some guy doing exotic exercises that no one's ever heard of. He has a 30 pound kettlebell in one hand, a bucket of pudding in the other hand, a noose around his neck, and a monkey sitting on his left shoulder. "This is how you do Tasmanian filibuster push presses. Don't forget to use the monkey. The monkey is very important." He's basically criticizing everyone else. That's what he's saying with his lunatic workout. "Why the hell are you guys doing bicep curls? The only legitimate bicep exercise is the magenta Swiss Army Mexican Navy Trapper Keeper chin up. With the monkey. Don't forget to use the monkey." I go to the gym to exercise my muscles and my ego. If I see some guy working out with 40 pound dumbbells, I pick up 50 pound ones and start doing the exact same exercise in tandem with him. And I grunt louder. And I yell out, "40 pound dumbbells are for losers." But some people are stronger than I am. Any time I see a big weightlifter bench pressing 500 pounds, I tell him, "Holy shit, bro. Your form is off. You're supposed to lift the barbell at an 88 degree angle--not an 89degree angle."

Then I take five plates off each side, and I show him the correct form. "You see what I'm doing right now? This is how you bench press, you freakin' jackass!" But sometimes I learn from others. The other day, I saw someone who was really fit--and I asked him about his workout. And he told me. "I do two sets of four barbell rows, four sets of eight dumbbell curls, eight sets of sixteen two by fours, and four sets of two sets of sixteen thirty twos. Then I do push ups, pull ups, sit ups, chin ups; dips and flips, fish and chips, squats and flyes, ham on rye, jumping jacks, walking walters, sitting sallies, popping poindexters, fruit loop extensions, corn flake curls, wipe of my sweat, flirt with girls; cartwheels, hot wheels, hand stands, Pac-Mans, spinning, swimming, rin tin tinning. I do tricep extensions with a triceratops, bicep curls on a banana boat, Chinese checker chin ups with a thin black Russian--and I drink a protein shake with a little Robitussin. I connect my kneebone to my shin bone and lower my triglycerides, I do bicentennial bicep busters, and soak my buttocks in formaldehyde. I go uptown and slaughter a yellow goat. I go downtown and row, row, row your boat. Then I ride my unicycle to my bicycle, and my bicycle to my tricycle; I work my quadriceps at the pentagon, do the heptathlon and the decathlon, fight an octopus in the octagon, and trade my Maximus for a Megatron. I deadlift a live cow, lift up a dead moose, sweat to the oldies, and vomit in an Ihop restroom. I chop down a redwood, listen to Green Day, look over a four leaf clover, shave my five o'clock shadow, hit on nine, double down on ten, change the song to 'It's Raining Men.' I stretch my quads, pecs, traps, and hams. I open my inbox and delete my spam. I bench press a truck, strangle a duck, punch a pink papaya, shake it all about, do the hokey pokey, pick a peck of pickled peppers, can a quart of candied carrots, sell some seashells on the seashore, sheer a sheep, and shine my shoes. I do the cha cha, the Charleston, the tango, the mango, papayas, bananas, burritos, bandanas, jambalaya, mumbo jumbo, wango tango, pants on fire, sister, sister, pizza, pizza, Sistine Chapel, Mona Lisa. I do the stairmaster while I watch Mystery Theater, I watch Mr. Magoo while I take off my shoe, I put mustard on my toes and some ketchup on my nose, I do eighteen sets of rows, then I urinate in a hose. With the monkey. You gotta use the monkey. Don't forget to use the monkey." After hearing his workout, I was so tired that I sat down and took a smoking break. And I told him, "That workout sounds pretty good. Maybe I'll squeeze it in to my daily routine, right between going to Dunkin Donuts and taking my mid afternoon nap."