Con Chapman's Open Salon Blog

Stung by Critics, World Series of Poker Increases Charity

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:11:46 -0500

LAS VEGAS. As the World Series of Poker has grown from a small-scale event to a nationwide phenomenon with a top prize of $12 million, it has attracted critics in the non-profit sector who say it does much less than other major sports to assist their work.

"Where is the WSOP at Christmas or Thanksgiving?" asked Ted Synnar of the Dream Come True Foundation. "In the past, we never saw them."

But tournament organizers say they're determined to change that, and are encouraging the big players in the no-limit Texas Hold 'Em tournament to give back to those who are less fortunate through a program called "WSOP Kinda Kares for Kids".

Raymer: "Beat it kid."

Greg "Fossilman" Raymer, the 2004 champ, appears to have taken the WSOP's mandate to heart as he sits down for some high-stakes poker with five terminally-ill children referred to him by the Dream Come True Foundation.

"Lot of these kids, they can barely pull the arm on a slot macine," says Raymer. "Poker's a job for me, but for them, it's all they think about once they get bored with Old Maid."

Across the room Cyndy Violette, who busted out of this year's tournament early, is playing a hand of Texas Hold 'Em with a group of testicular cancer survivors. "Guys," she says as she deals two cards face down to each of them from the "button" chair. "I'm living proof that you don't need balls to be good at poker."

Meanwhile, Johnny Chan allows little Tiffany Germond, who is confined to a wheelchair, to try on one of his ten diamond-encrusted WSOP championship bracelets. "Mommy, look what the nice man gave me!" she squeals as she wheels off towards the blackjack tables. "Hey--come back here!" Chan yells as Tiffany finds a hole and breaks through the crowd of fans that surrounds a table of nine top-notch players. "Aw, let her go," says Phil Hellmuth, Jr., but Chan calls for security and Tiffany is escorted off the premises. She will be banned from Harrah's Casinos world-wide for her impulsive act.

Back at Raymer's table, the Fossilman is trying to steal a hand by brow-beating his younger opponents. He is sitting on an ace and a jack, and the flop produces two jacks and a five. Raymer raises. "Daddy, that man's glasses are scaring me," says Billy Nobles, Jr., and the boy's father asks Raymer to drop his trademark protection. "No way," says Raymer, "the eyes are the number one poker 'tell'," or physical sign that reveals the strength or weakness of a player's hand.

"Please, Mr. Raymer--he just wants to win one hand," Nobles Sr. pleads.

"No can do," Raymer replies. "I've got an endorsement deal with David Steele Sunglasses, Newport Beach, CA 10937 to wear the Greg Raymer Cat Eye Sunglasses throughout the tournament." Billy Jr. folds, and Raymer rakes in a pot of 3,500 chips.

As the charity event breaks up, a little boy on a respirator approaches Johnny Chan with a special request. "Mr. Chan," he begins weakly.

"Yes?"

"Could you--could you hit a home run for me."

Chan considers the request for a moment. "You mean go all in before the flop holding a pair of aces?"

"Y-yes," the little boy says with difficulty.

"And have somebody beat me with a 7-9 off suit when they hit their straight on the river?" Chan asks incredulously. "I don't think so kid."

Walter Bujkowski, Father of Shovel Pass, Dead at 97

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:11:32 -0500

DULUTH, Minnesota, AP. Walter "Bug" Bujkowski, a football innovator credited with the invention of the shovel pass and the tackle-eligible play, died in his sleep last night of congestive heart failure. He was 97.

Proper shovel pass technique

One of the game's early visionaries, Bujkowski developed the shovel pass in a 1927 game against the Pottsville Maroons.

"Bug was at tailback for the Duluth Eskimoes," recalled Jim "Popcorn" Brandt, a Maroons' lineman, "and he took a direct snap. Bug sorta flipped the ball to the wingback, Johnny 'Horse' Hampton, and hit him right in his nickname. I pounced on it but Bug started yelling 'shovel pass, shovel pass' and convinced the referee it wasn't a lateral."

Pottsville Maroons

Bujkowski's quick thinking saved the day as Duluth went on to beat Pottsville, 12-3, the only bright spot in a 1-8-0 season for the Eskimoes. He had developed his shoveling skills as a youth working in the hard-scrabble, rough-and-tumble Owl Creek Mountains of Wyoming, where life-threatening avalanches of hyphens are an unfortunate fact of life.

Earl "Milk Train" Poindexter

Bujkowski would later improvise another pigskin innovation, the tackle eligible play, when he coached the Providence Steam Rollers. "We had an end that year who was real lazy," recalled Earl "Milk Train" Poindexter, the Steam Rollers' wing back. "He'd lean on the defensive lineman and grunt--just go through the motions."

Bukj--I mean Bujkowski, with Duluth Eskimos

"Bug finally had enough one day and pulled the guy out of the game. One of the assistants asked who they should send in to replace him. Bug said, 'We're better off with nobody at that position than somebody who's going to dog it.'"

Mike Varbel, I mean Vrabel

Two plays later Bujkowski forgot that he had removed the end and called for a pass play. Providence quarterback Ed "Thunderbolt" Thompson threw it to the tackle at the end of the offensive line, paving the way for modern-day uses of the formation such as Mike Vrabel's touchdown for the New England Patriots in the 2005 Super Bowl against the Eagles.

Bujkowski was a self-effacing man who wanted no credit for his pioneering inventions. When asked by a reporter at his 1993 Pro Football Hall of Fame induction how history would view his contributions to the game, Bujkowksi replied "Who gives a rat's ass--where's the buffet?"

Tige

His eyesight failing, Bujkowski lived out his declining years in a double-wide trailer with his chihuahua "Tige". When interviewed by this reporter shortly before his death, Bujkowski said "I have no regrets. I've lived a full life, and I--JESUS, GET THIS DAMN SQUIRREL OFF MY--oh wait. That's Tige."

In lieu of flowers, the family asked that contributions be made to the Bemidji Institute for the Study of Sports Head Trauma.

Ask a Mime

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:11:41 -0500

Recently, a sort of cultural arms' race has broken out between the two grocery stores that are equidistant to our house.

To the west, a formerly sleepy supermarket underwent a total makeover that included an expanded liquor department. As every schoolboy knows, in order to celebrate an upgrade from Bud Light in suitcase packages to snooty microbrews and wine prices that start at $12 a bottle, it is essential that one hire a harpist.

Little Walter Jacobs: Not that kind of harp player.

I'm not talking about a blues harpist, like Little Walter Jacobs. I mean a classical harpist like--well, actually, I can't name one.

What's-her-name.

With the delicate pluckings of a classical harpist in the background, it is possible to charge a $3 per bottle premium over prices your customers could find a mile or so down the road, at the liquor store where they display the stuff in the original cardboard boxes. It's so much more--civilized--with Pachelbel's Canon playing while you shop.

"Granola? I haven't a clue."

At the other end of town, the natural food store decided to add a mime to--well, to add whatever touch of high culture it is that having a mime around supplies. An element of whimsy? A note of Francophilia? A sense of life's absurdity? I can honestly say that, after extensive consideration of the question, I just don't know.

"I'm sorry--we cannot accept your Orangina bottle."

The natural food store is noteworthy for the bratty, undisciplined kids who walk its aisles, the apparent products of permissive parenting, and its counter-intuitive hyper-restrictive policy on accepting recyclable bottles and cans. You would think that a natural food store would be at the forefront--nay the barricades--of the battle to save the earth by paying customers a nickel to turn in their soft drink containers.

Saving the earth, and lowering your total drinking bill.

You would be wrong. From the automated machines outside that say "Non-participating container" when you try to feed them a raspberry-seltzer bottle you bought inside the store, to the manual redemption option inside, which requires interaction with a human being who would rather be writing the Great American Novel or at least a chapbook of sestinas, the place appears to take the position that recycling is a plot masterminded by a vast, right-wing conspiracy, which they are resisting on moral grounds. Like Lillian Hellman refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Lillian Hellman: "I cannot in good conscience accept your Ballantine Ale cans."

Which brings me to the mime. He was standing there, going through his routines--trapped in a box, fighting a gale-force hurricane, etc.--as I rounded the corner looking for the granola. There was no one else around to help me. I don't shop there that often, but my wife insisted that I get Sunday night dinner there, instead of at the pathetically unenlightened, nitrate/nitrite-laden place where I like to shop, because of the lack of harpists and mimes in their aisles.

So I asked the guy--"Can you tell me where the granola is?" He gave me that startled fawn look that mimes adopt when they hear an imaginary sound.

Startled fawn look.

"Cereal?" I asked, going for the generic term if I couldn't get through to him with the specific.

If it had been me beneath that whiteface, I would have just said "Aisle 3". But would that have been as aesthetically pleasing as pretending to eat imaginary cereal from an imaginary bowl? You're right--not as good.

Anyway, I suffered through the whole routine, including imaginary milk and imaginary spoon. Bottom line, after he was done, he pointed to his left and held up three fingers. Thanks, I just missed kickoff, you dingbat.

And so, if you want to end your weekend on a low note, I have a suggestion. Go shopping at some place that's trying to position itself as the shopping option of choice for upscale folks who prefer their chicken free-range, and their coffee free-trade.

And ask a mime.

Pro Donkey Basketball League to Tip Off in 2010

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:11:51 -0500

KNOB NOSTER, Missouri. Pro basketball scouts and agents have been flocking to this small town in central Missouri for months now, making for crowded conditions at the Motel 6 on State Highway 50. “I’ve had to put two guys into the same room with a rollaway bed,” says owner Gene Ray Hampton. “They complain they don’t have any privacy.”

Clell “World” Furnell

What the scouts come to see is the man who is expected to make donkey basketball, a variation of the American indoor game played on the backs of Equus asinus, the domestic ass , as popular as the NCAA’s Final Four tournament.

Driving to the hoop.

“Donkey basketball is the next major sport, and Clell ‘World’ Furnell is going to be its George Mikan and Michael Jordan rolled into one,” says David Nurvine, a one-man promotional whirlwind. Nurvine has bankrolled the Missouri Mules, who will begin play in January of next year as part of the National Donkey Basketball League.

Mikan: He changed the way the game is played, without using a donkey.

For smaller cities across America who clamor for the glamour and excitement of major league sports but don’t have a local billionaire who can front the money for a baseball, football or NBA franchise, donkey basketball is seen as the next best thing.

Twenty-second manure time-out.

“We’ll have eight teams to start,” says NDBA President Horace Schuster, ”Chicopee, Mass., Troy, New York, Birmingham, Alabama, Paducah, Kentucky, Hot Springs, Arkansas, Scranton, Pennsylvania, Cairo, Illinois” and the Missouri entry. “We hope to go global by 2012,” he adds. “There’s a lot of donkeys in Mexico.”

Kevin McHale

What has the scouts salivating is Furnell, who has a low center of gravity combined with an extraordinary reach that is drawing comparisons to Kevin McHale, the Celtics forward of the ’80’s who could tie his shoes without bending at the waist. “Clell has the perfect body for donkey basketball, and he’s going to revolutionize the game,” says Schuster.

“The Mules are on the clock with the sixth pick.”

With the league’s first draft approaching fast, there are rumors of teams trading a bundle of picks to get at Furnell, who says he is looking to buy his mother her first double-wide house trailer with a signing bonus that is expected to be in the high four figures.

Home Sweet Home–at last.

“We been livin’ in rented trailers as long as I can remember,” says Furnell. “If I have anything left over, I’m goin’ out to the QuikPik and get a Big Gulp Slurpee.”

Hooters Effect Brings Profits to Struggling Businesses

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:11:12 -0500

TERRE HAUTE, Indiana. In this most typical of Midwestern cities, Bob Elmore faces a dilemma as November 30th approaches every year. "It's time to renew my insurance," he says, "and believe me it's never easy."

Ernie . . .

Bob plays golf with Ernie Thompson, who brokers his current coverage, but he's getting pressure from Sue Ellen Spinorkle, a 43-year-old mother of two who took over her husband's agency when he was killed in a hunting accident last year.

. . . or Sue Ellen?

"The rates are pretty much the same," says Elmore, "and the promotional gifts"--a coffee mug from Thompson Insurance and a mouse pad with the slogan "Don't be a dorkle--insure with Spinorkle!"--"sorta cancel each other out." When the time comes to put pen to the premium check, however, one factor stands out. "Sue Ellen was willing to come over here personally wearing a low-cut blouse and a push-up bra and lean over seductively while she explained the advantage of higher deductibles," Elmore says. "That attention to service is something that's very important to a small business owner."

Price insensitivity plotted against cup size

That small victory is part of a growing trend referred to by business school professors as the "Hooters Effect", so-named after "Hooters", the "delightfully tacky yet unrefined" restaurant chain that features scantily-clad women serving mediocre food at premium prices.

The wings are lousy--try the breasts.

"Generally speaking, you will find that a male purchaser's price sensitivity is inversely related to the cup size of the female goods and service vendor," notes Anthony Pavlick of Purdue University's Lipshutz School of Business. "For reasons that we don't fully understand, in both wholesale and retail sectors a man will focus on non-price related variables when he is faced with a ginormous set of bozangas."

"You are not allowed to handle product samples freely . . . that comes extra."

In small to medium-density markets where personal relations are key to sales, business owners say it's worth the expense to scrap existing marketing campaigns to focus on mammary glands in tough economic times. "We were really struggling," says Mary Kate McKelvey, owner of McKelvey's Funeral Home in Newburgh, Indiana. "We turned to exploitive use of female morticians' bodies on the recommendation of the fellow from SCORE," the Service Corps of Retired Executives, a federal agency that puts former business owners to work helping small companies.

Drop-dead cute!

The outcome of a "business makeover" was total re-branding of the business that had been in the family for four generations. "'Funeral' has a very stuffy connotation," notes Bob Dorthcutt, a former tool-and-die manufacturer. "We re-branded the company as 'Mary Kate's Death-Mates!'"