Paul's blog

Triggered by an earlier post (link) I ordered a DVD of Martin Scorsese’s movie ‘Woodstock’. Last Friday I watched the opening song of that festival by Ritchie Havens. And just like when I saw that movie when I was 17 years old, in an old small obscure theatre in my home town of The Hague in the Netherlands, for some odd reason, it struck me how incredibly mishandled and tortured his guitar looked. Well, true, Ritchie’s technique differs remarkably from Andrés Segovia’s, but still. He himself must have realized too, that his guitar had reached its end of life, because after the Woodstock concert he gave it to his chauffeur.

Last Saturday afternoon, while walking around, contemplating to get a beer, I suddenly stood eye in eye … with that very same guitar!

It hung on a wall.

I could have touched it.

I stared at it for a while, not knowing what to think of this coincidence: one night seeing back that guitar I first wondered about some 37 years ago on a DVD, and then the next day, actually seeing that very same guitar.

Hanging on a wall.

On Indian tribal land.

The very same, relatively small, patch of Indian tribal land, where last month, the day before my birthday, the combination of a punctured abscess, the flu, Chloral Hydrate, Diphenhydramin, Clonazepam, Diazepam, Nordiazepam, Temazepam, Oxazepam, Lorazepam, Atropine, Topiramate, Ciprofloxacin and Acetaminophen, killed Anna Nicole Smith.

Update: as one of the commenters pointed out, this is incorrect. Mrs. Smith died on Indian Tribal land in the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Broward county, Florida, near Miami, not the one in Tampa.

But neither of these events is the topic of this post.

Yes, indeed, we were at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Tampa.

Please have a look at their website at this link: link.

Did you see the slot machines in that picture?

My wife played those slot machines there for, oh, probably two hours or so.

Or at least, that’s what I thought.

And this is what my post actually is about!

No, you DIDN’T see those slot machines on that website I just mentioned. Nor did my wife play any slot machines there.

In fact, check out that website again! The word ‘slot machine’ is nowhere to be found!

Most of the people in that casino may have THOUGHT they were playing slot machines, but they weren’t.

It’s all an illusion.

I already had made the observation that, while they had a nice and BIG poker room besides these ‘slot machines’, this casino, strangely enough, didn’t have any ‘table’ games. No black jack, no roulette, no you-name-it.

Then, on the way home, my wife asked me if I knew what the word ‘DAUB’ meant. I admitted that my knowledge of the Seminole language was inadequate to explain the meaning of that word. She said the ‘slot’ machines had a button with the word ‘DAUB’ on it, which mystified her. There was also, at the top of the machine’s screen, a grid with numbers, that almost looked like …. and yes… at home, some googling confirmed her suspicion: those machines were NOT slot machines. Slot machines are illegal on tribal land. These were bingo machines! The similarity with well known slot machines? Well: “The lower screen is just there for entertainment,” Gail said. “The cards are on top”.  See: link

Do a google on ‘daub slot machines’!

How come they can get away with such obvious fraud (I know… ‘loophole’ is the word), but a game of skill, like online poker, is firmly and effectively banned? (Well, I KNOW why, but I had to mention it!).

WHAT a …   (help me find a word here…)

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