I need to apologize. In the past two February issues of this magazine, I repeated the same joke. I should be shot. (Or at least half shot.)
Let me explain.
I was meandering around my estate, out near the servants’ quarters, when I realized it was time to do another installment of that much-awaited monthly ritual we call “Frankly Speaking.” (The title of the column is funny, because my name’s Frank, get it?
I also realized I was at someone else’s house, but that’s not the point. The point is, I was tasked once again with viewing the world of gaming through the prism of goofiness you’ve come to enjoy.
But what to write about?
After pondering this question for way too long (a full day, I think), I decided to see what I wrote about in last year’s February issue, and the February before that. Each article was different. In 2009, I wrote about the hazards of my occupation (you know, paper cuts and the like); and last year, I wrote about casino smells. (The kind they pump in to control our minds.) However, in both columns, I mentioned news items I had pulled “off the wire,” and made the same wisecrack about having an old-timey news wire in my office. Sorry.
As it turns out, it was even funnier the second time. But anyway, let’s see what’s on the old wire this month. (Cue ticking sound.)
Tick-tick-tick… Flash! Angelina Pivarnick, who apparently is a “reality TV star” from that moron-fest Jersey Shore, is getting sued along with Trump Taj Mahal, by a woman who got in a fight with her at the Taj. The woman says she was attacked by Pivarnick, who in turn says she was lured into the fight, while she was on her way to another fight, which she had scheduled with another “reality TV star” at that very casino.
Let me see if I have this straight. The Jersey Shore knucklehead had a running feud with Kerry Schwartz, who had won a contest in a VH1 reality show called Frank the Entertainer in a Basement Affair. That show involves women who compete for the attentions of Frank “The Entertainer” Maresca, yet another “reality TV star.” As far as I can tell, that show involved women living in the basement of a house owned by Maresca and his parents. But let’s not delve further into that. Nothing good would come out of it.
Schwartz, who won the right to be Frank’s girlfriend but got dumped by him three seconds after the show was done, did some celebrity boxing—you know, like reality TV stars do—and was subsequently “dissed” by Pivarnick in comments about that event, and the two got in a real fistfight in a bar somewhere. (You know, like reality TV stars do.)
The “Official Rematch” was scheduled as an entertainment event at the Taj, apparently appealing to the same level of spectator that frequents cockfights. But Pivarnick never made it, because she got in a fight on the way to the fight, and got kicked to the street by Taj security.
Sadly, I’ve never watched Jersey Shore or Frank the Entertainer in a Basement Affair. But if this story tells us anything, it is that Trump Taj Mahal security guards are to be commended.
After reading about this, I do have some personal advice for casino entertainment directors: If you are going to schedule any more celebrity fights between reality TV stars, please make them to the death.
OK, what else is in the news this month? Tick-tick-tick… Flash! The Maryland legislature is considering a new bill to add enticements to potential licensees for the casino authorized at Rocky Gap state park. The license comes with a requirement to buy a run-down lodge at the park, and along with the state’s 67 percent revenue tax, the prospect of running slots at Rocky Gap has been about as popular as a license to run a slot casino in a cave in Afganistan. Or a South Bronx crack house. Or San Quentin.
Maryland lawmakers are again considering measures to make Rocky Gap more appealing. They’re the same measures I told you about last August—stuff like applying the lodge purchase price to the licensing fee, or lowering the tax rate to the bargain-basement level of 65.5 percent, or giving away a free hot plate with the license. (OK, I made the last one up.)
They’ve gone with the title for the legislation I suggested in my August column. It will be known as the “For The Love Of God Take This Casino Act of 2011.”
Hey, that joke was funnier the second time, too!
