Party Tricks

I enjoy going out with friends and having interesting, provocative, or even shocking things to relate over dinner. In fact, I'm not at all extroverted or talkative unless I'm saying something funny, or that I would at least find intriguing if someone else were speaking. I'm always pleased when I can amuse, inform, charm, and elucidate a captive group of people with something that did all those things for me.

That said, I present my next idea for delightful party favor. I am taking up the challenge of explaining the most important issue in any society to whatever group I happen to be hanging out with, in a way that is neither boring nor, at least apparently, didactic.

I'd like to use the poker game analogy, expanded considerably, a device I may very well have borrowed (in rudimentary form) from the late great Ayn Rand.


I like using poker because: it involves money and value, incredible risk, emotional tension, and considerable mental skill. Even though it is ultimately gambling, unlike most gambling, it involves risk and resource management, like life.

So friends, let's say we've agreed to a Saturday night game of Texas Hold'em. I'm not really a gamer, so I don't know exactly how many people would need to be involved, so let's just say that all present company is invited. We're a fantastically affluent bunch of fuckers, and we've set the pot at a $1million, a measly $200,000 per person. (5 people are playing now)

Now, I'm a classy, pretentious mother fucker, with aspirations to become moreso everyday, so I suggest ordering very fine poker chips from a pricey website I heard about on the ESPN World Poker Tour. There's some protest, but I charm you into giving me the money for the chips up front, because "everyone will benefit from it in the end." I buy the chips and I pool the bank in a new account for our purposes. (let's pretend you could put all that in just one bank)

It just so happens a $200,000 bank role is simply too rich for the blood of perhaps one or two individuals aiming to join our little party. (They're friends too.) I, the organizer of the game, and now the banker as well, am aware of this. Caring and magnanimous fucker that I am, I suggest to the rest of the players that they all offer a small cut of their bank role to the two disadvantaged individuals, merely decreasing the bank roles everyone has to work with while increasing the amount of fun we'll have with all friends present. Some are ok with the idea, and others object, because they don't want extra competition without extra potential winnings, and because they don't want to finance their own competitors, it defeats the Purpose of the Game. I make every argument I can, that it's everyone's right to enjoy a game of poker with their friends, free from the anxiety of having too little money. We should make an effort to extend our privelege to others as often as possible, because that's the human thing to do. We are, after all, tribal animals--hunter gatherers--and nothing we have was truly earned solely on our own merits.



Oh no he didn't.
The discussion gets real hot when I go there.

"A poker game's not a right, and certainly having the cash for one isn't either," someone says.
"Who the hell are you to tell me what I ought to give to people, and how much to boot?" someone else interjects, with the mock indignity that is so typical of selfish, oppressive right-wingers.

I realize now that I've hit a nerve with my wealthy companions, and should probably withdraw the suggestion all together.
It's really not my fault at all, i had an awesome idea, there's just no grassroots willingness to participate in my big weekend poker-game-turned-charity-project, it's just the rotten bastard nature of American culture, no love at all. Shit, this would never have happened in Canada.

So I'm all out of ammunition now, I couldn't guilt them into giving in to me erumm charity, (they must not have consciences, or something) I can't force them at gunpoint because it's just a poker game and that'd be silly, (although not entirely unappealing) but I really want my less advantaged friends to play, and on a level playing field.

Eureka.

I'll just give them chips anyway, and let them sit on down and have a good time.
Now, the original pot is $1million, and that's all I've been given money to buy.
But I need more chips so that everyone can have $200,000 worth to start.

I can break out some old chips from years back, and toss them into the pot, and, even better, I'll make some of my own to fill out the rest of what's lacking.

Damn, there's still only $1million actually available to bank. I've ordered and made chips for $1.4million. Well then, the new bank is $1.4million. ($1mil plus 200 grand for each less-than-priveleged buddy) That's settled. I am a brilliant planner, this is sure.

Saturday night comes, and everyone shows up ready to party. There is no shortage of surprised facial expressions: at the newly jacked up bank, the arrival of some unexpected players, and the freshly minted paper and used chips mingling with the brand new ESPN-WPT edition set.

Dammit, I've done it. This night could not be more perfect--I got what I wanted, and everyone got what they deserved.
How dooooo I do it?



I'll give you a sec to come up with your own answer to that question, (which I'm sure will not take more than a second) and mine will be in the very next post.

Till then, ciao fuckers!