Tao of Pauly

Bash at the Boathouse



My brother woke me up with a phone call saying that he was going to take the train from NYC to Philly so he could attend Al Cant Hang's fifth annual Bash at the Boathouse. I told him we'd pick him up at the 30th Street train station downtown after we met Boy Genius at the airport at noon. I went downstairs and Al Cant Hang was already up doing his horse racing picks. He kindly hooked up the computer and DSL line in the living room for late night amusement just in case I couldn't sleep. Mrs. Hang got up and made breakfast... a homemade recipe for French Toast which kicked ass. Life was looking great when Al flipped on MTV and Katie Holmes: Diary was being aired. Could not have been any happier!

Mrs. Hang was gracious enough to act as the airport & train pick up for out of town guest poker bloggers. Derek missed his first train by just a few minutes and his second was being delayed due to Amtrak mechanical problems. We picked up BG at the airport then drove down a few exits on I-95 towards Delaware to pick up cheaper cigarettes and get a great Philly Cheesesteak at one of Mrs. Hang's favorite places. I split a large cheesesteak with provolone and mushrooms. It was scrumcious. The onion rings melted in your mouth. Derek's train from NYC finally arrived and were on our way to the Boathouse a twenty minute drive from downtown. Big Mike picked up Al Cant Hang at noon and they had been drinking steadily with Lewey when we finally arrived. Al pre-ordered hot buffalo wings for Derek so as soon as he met Al, he had a double Jack and food awaiting him! Lewey bought the first several round of drinks. We all caught up watched a little college football (friggin Virginia Tech killed me!) and we quickly sat down for some poker.

I will be updating that part (the specifics of the infamous Boathouse Game) on the Tao of Poker in the near future. For now, I'll just have some general comments about the game. So there's very little poker content in this entry for you non-pokerheads. Big Mike had dirty cards that he picked up in Greece the week before. It was cool in theory, but in reality, it was hard to see the actual card rankings, since they were shrunk to a small corner, while the majority of the card displayed a kinky sex acts involving gals with huge breasts and guys with cocks the size of small alligators.

Everyone was downing drink after drink during the game. The party started at 6pm and I was ripped by 4pm... and I didn't down any shots at that point! Derek said I had been drinking a lot more than I originally blogged on my last edition of Pieces of Pauly. I low balled those numbers in a conscious effort to tone down the flippant remarks regarding my superfluous drug and alcohol usage. At this point, it's pretty much a given to all of you that I was inebriated at some point of every day, especially at an Al Cant Hang sponsored function. Plus add the fact that I have a somewhat infamous poker blog (read on six continents and forty-three countries daily!) that the word is out that I'm a degenerate gambler and wandering, bohemian, party animal. Do people really want to know that I knocked down at least 7,000 bong hits this year alone? And popped more pills that could easily put 1/3 of all of Romania to sleep for two weeks straight?

Back to the party. During the pre-party poker game on the deck, Lewey got wasted. Very wasted. Landow said he had never seen Lewey that out of control before. Early on, he wasn't doing anything outrageous except that he lost the volume control on his voice and was speaking in that drunken volume where everyone within a two mile radius can hear what he's saying. At one point his exgirlfriend came over to say hello and he ended up telling the table and the entire Boathouse, "Yeah, I used to nail her!" Poor girl was standing ten feet away with her mother and there sat Lewey bleeding away his stack of chips, discussing his sex life at a table full of bloggers. Al Cant Hang had to say something to Lewey to calm him down. He muttered, "When I'm the voice of reason, you know something's wrong."

That was just the beginning of the implosion of Lewey. He was down $210 at one point playing poker and who knows what his bar tab looked like... and the party had only officially started for an hour!! Big Mike and Al Cant Hang were knocking back Irish carbomb every fifteen minutes. It was impressive, kinda like watching Willie Mays play centerfield. You had a feeling you were watching greatness unfold before your very eyes.

I won $110 mostly from Lewey and I was up $200 at one point. The first of five bands came on and we sat in the VIP section and chowed on some Boathouse burgers. They were good and were just warming up before they played a longer set later in the night. The second band was an 80s cover band with a cute lead singer with the largest real watermelons I've seen in some time. She was short and solid. BG made the comment that, "She was chunky enough to have some self esteem issues." She had an OK voice and afterwards we chatted her up at the outside bar. It was her first gig with the band and she was a little nervous. I think she was a Delaware girl but we didn't get too much time to chat.

Carter finally arrived after a day long session of poker at the Borgata. I slowed down a bit waiting for my second wind. That's when Lewey started speaking in drunken tongues. I saw that Al Cant Hang was sitting down with him. He had a stressed out look on his face . Landow decided to drive Lewey back home. I joined him (just in case he needed help and because Landow was going to drop me off to pick up my car at the hotel). Derek tagged along and as we were taking Lewey out to the parking lot, he escaped! He bolted past me and took off down a steep hill adjacent to the boathouse. I saw him sprinting and then he disappeared from my line of sight. Al Cant Hang joined the chase (and bolted as fast as I ever seen Al Cant Hang move) after him. I quickly followed. The hill was more steep than I thought and I had to look down to make sure my footing was OK. That's when I saw Lewey bounce off of the bottom of the hill and onto the pavement, a good twenty yards from where the hill ended and a paved parking lot started. Al Cant Hang was bending over him and Lewey looked like he was knocked out cold. After a quick inspection, Dr. Al diagonsed that Lewey did not have any broken bones, but he had a gash his arm, which was scraped pretty bad. Al picked him up and we threw him into Landow's SUV and we took off. After Lewey was escorted to his front door from Landow, Derek noticed the blood stains on Landow's upholstery. My prediction almost came true... "someone was going to the hospital"... and I was glad it wasn't going to be me!

We reurned to the Boathouse. I threw on the red jacket and was ready to party. It was almost 11pm when we got back when I found Al and Big Mike for a round of SoCo shots. I ended up doing three very quickly. Went back inside and caught the end of the Petey and the Bandcampers set. They played Patience and the Al Cant Hang Song. The Al Cant Hang Experiment was up next and they were dressed up like 80s rockers with bad hair and makeup. That when things got fuzzy and I at some point I drove BG back to the hotel, which was a two minute drive, where we hung out for a little late night partying before I crashed for three hours and got up to drive him to the airport!