"I Just Wanna Know Where Her Nipples Were"

Last year at this time I did my Halloween Slut Parade post (see here).  The post opened with this paragraph: “If you ever hear that I’m not in Vegas on Halloween, you’ll know I’m dead.”

Since all evidence seems to indicate that I am still breathing, that must mean I was in Vegas for Halloween this year.

“Every day is Halloween in Vegas.” You hear that a lot, especially from the locals.  But actually, Halloween in Vegas is Halloween squared.  Or cubed.

Once again Hakkasan (the club at MGM responsible for The Slut Parade), was having a “Sexiest Costume” contest.  Incentivizing the young ladies who go to the club to show some skin is a bit superfluous.  It would be like paying me to watch the aforementioned slut parade.

So of course my plan was to play some poker at the MGM.  Now, I had been in town for awhile and I knew that the group Phish was performing at MGM the entire Halloween weekend.  What I didn’t know was that Phish was such a big deal.

Halloween was on a Friday and I arrived at MGM at a little after 7PM—long before the club opens.  As soon as I exited my car, which I had parked in the massive MGM parking structure, I noticed a certain aroma.  It was extremely strong.  I believe the technical name for what I was sniffing is “cannabis.”  It was so overwhelming, I expected to have a bad case of the munchies by the time I got to the lobby.  You mean to say that folks are still smoking weed at rock concerts?  Can’t they come up with anything new?  They were doing that when I was a kid.

When I got to the lobby, I was in shock.  I had never seen the place so crowded.  Never.  Not on New Year’s Eve.  Not on a Saturday night when they had a big boxing match there. Never.  And to my amazement, most of the people in the casino were in costume.  Huh?  It was way too early for the Hakkasan costume contest.  It was later explained to me what I was witnessing was all the Phish concert attendees, who had decided to show up in costume since it was indeed Halloween night.

This made it very tricky to make the long walk from the lobby to the poker room.  It wasn’t just the sheer quantity of people—it was the fact that most of them were wearing costumes.  And the costumes were taking up a lot of space themselves.  Let me explain.  The people attending the concert in costume were, by and large, not wearing the skimpy costumes that would later show up for Hakkasan.  There were very few sexy costumes at this hour.  But they were elaborate.  And they took up a lot of space. I wasn’t sure what most of them were—I don’t get a lot of pop culture references these days—but there were a lot of costumes. And it was a real challenge negotiating through that mass of costumed humanity to get to the poker room.

But I made it and was told that there was exactly one seat open at four different tables, and I could have my choice of any one of them.  Ordinarily I might size up the stack sizes or look to see familiar faces—the fewer faces I recognize, the better.  But this time, I had different priorities. I noticed that not only was one of the open seats at one of the tables right up against the rail—ie, closest to the walkway headed to the club—but that the open seat there was seat 1, right next to the dealer, facing said walkway.  In other words, it was the best seat in the house to watch the costume parade.  Of course I picked that seat.

During the first hour, there was a ton of traffic walking by the poker room; apparently it was mostly the folks there for the Phish concert.  Most were in costumes, and most costumes were not particularly titillating.  A few were.  One thing that was interesting though was that this particular crowd was really into interacting with the poker players.  Almost every group that walked by had one person in it who would shout poker-related terms and phrases to us.  “He’s got Aces.”  “Fold.”  “Go all-in.”  “There’s a flush out there.”  “He has the Ace.”  It was rather odd.

It was rather distracting though.  Even though there weren’t many half-naked girls, it was hard to pay attention to the poker.  The crowd eventually thinned out and quieted down, and for about an hour things were calm.  Then the Hakkasan crowd showed up.  And so did the half-naked ladies.  I must say, I was rather enjoying the “show” at the time.  However, I did hear some complaints from some of the veterans of Vegas Halloweens past that it was disappointing.  And you know what?  In preparing to write this post, I reread my post from last year and realized that this year really does have to be considered a bit disappointing.

I mean, there just weren’t very many costumes (or, ahem, bodies) that I remember from it, just a couple of weeks later.  And hardly any really unique (or ultra-sexy) costumes like I described last year.  But that said, I was thoroughly enjoying it at the time.

There were of course your sexy nurses, your girls with cat ears and whiskers, your slutty accident victims.  And Waldos.  There were lots and lots of Waldos.  Really, there was a shitload of Waldos.  I think there was one group of about 15 guys and every damn one of them was a Waldo.  If you couldn’t find Waldo there, you were really hopeless.  A lot of Egyptian and Pharaoh costumes.  A Cleopatra or two.  There was the Pope. There was a guy who was Jack (from the Jack-in-the-Box burger joint) next to a guy who was Colonel Sanders.  I pity the guy playing Jack, having to wear that thing on his head the whole night. 

And there were tons of super-heroes and super-heroines.  Tons.  That was the most dominant theme, I think.  And of all the super-heroines, the most prevalent, by far, was Wonder Woman.  I swear, not five minutes would go by without another Wonder Woman walking past me. I don’t remember anywhere near this many Wonder Women last year.  I dunno why there were so many this year, but there were.

OK, so I have to whisper this next part, so get in close.  But folks, we all know what Wonder Woman is supposed to look like.  They drew Wonder Woman a certain way in the comics, and they did that TV show in the 1970’s and they found Lynda Carter to play Wonder Woman because she was smoking hot and looked like Wonder Woman as drawn in the comics.

And folks….Wonder Woman has big boobs.  Don’t blame me.  I didn’t create her.  I didn’t hire Lynda Carter to play her on TV.  But let’s face it…..Wonder Woman has big boobs.

And almost every single Wonder Woman I saw on Halloween was sadly lacking in the boob department.  Seriously, I saw a whole bunch of….well….under-endowed Woman Women.  If you were looking for flat-chested Wonder Women, you were in the right place.

And honestly, I don’t get it.  I understand that very few women look anywhere close to the way Lynda Carter did when she was filming the show.  I get that.  And I’m not asking any woman to get surgery just to fill out a costume for one night of the year (or ever, for that matter).  But please, please, ladies, if you are going dress up as a character who is known to have big boobs, get yourself some big boobs.  I mean just for the night, just for the costume.  It is my understanding that there are all kinds of things a woman can put in her bra to make her bust look bigger. This is not rocket science.

There’s nothing wrong with small breasts.  But if you have them and want to play Wonder Woman, stuff something in your bra to sell it.  And if you have small breasts and don’t want to put anything else in your bra but what Mother Nature gave you, perhaps you should consider dressing up as Queen Amidala from Star Wars (see here). Just a thought.

Where was I?  Oh yeah, the costumes.  A lot of them were super-heroine type outfits.  That meant that the ladies were wearing essentially bathing suit-type bottoms.  Now, I guess the girls were going with sexy over accuracy because these bottoms were rather high on the butt.  Very high.  Very, very high.  The average costume of this theme showed at least 1/3 of the wearer’s buttocks. Plenty showed at least half, and some showed well over half.  So there was a lot of bare butt-cheek on display. Sure there was plenty of cleavage, sure there were lots of legs, but the night was best for guys who like to watch women walking away from them.

At our table, there was this Asian fellow—I’ll talk more about him when I get to the poker—who had his back to the parade.  He offered the guy in Seat 9 (the other best seat in the house) and/or me $5 to change seats with him.  I said I’d do it for $1,000.  He laughed and did not take me up on my offer.

Another player at the table was a woman I’ll call Sarah.  Sarah is a pal of mine; I’ve played poker with her in various rooms around town.  Recently she started coming into MGM a lot.  Sarah had her back to the walkway but she was constantly turning around to see the costumes.  And of course, whenever she would see us guys react to the sexier girls walking by, she would turn around to see what our jaws were dropping over.

There is no doubt that women are much harder on women than men are.  She obviously felt that some of the girls were not wearing outfits that flattered their figures, shall we say.  She didn’t object to the girls showing too much skin, but it would be fair to say that she had a problem with some of the girls showing too much, well, flesh.

In particular, Sarah seemed to have higher standards for female derrieres that the guys did.  A couple of times, as we were noticing the ladies walking away, she would comment, “Where are their friends?” Or, “Don’t these girls have friends who tell them not to wear that?”  One time the guy next to me said, “That’s a cute butt,” and Sarah disagreed.  “No….that’s not a cute butt.”  Apparently she felt it was a bit too, umm, plump.  But later, when she saw another woman walking away, in a very butt-revealing costume, she said to the guy next to me, “Now that’s a cute butt! That’s a nice butt.”  I was amused that a young guy and a (not quite as young) woman were debating the merits of the various tushes on display.  I do love Vegas.

Then all the guys gasped when this one girl—very tall, as I recall (might have been the costume)—walked by with breasts that make Kim Kardashian’s ass look tiny.  Seriously, the tits on this girl were enormous, and the top she was wearing was cut to expose a good ¾’s of them.  I have no idea what the costume was supposed to be, other than “Girl with humongous ta-tas.”  There was so much boobage exposed and yet so much still covered that it was pretty hard to figure out what they might actually look like. The girl noticed us all staring at her and she waved and shouted something to us, but I couldn’t hear what.

The boobs were obviously fake, but we weren’t sure exactly how they were fake.  Were they just implants—the extra super deluxe plus size model—or were they actually part of the costume?  Were they possibly prosthetic boobs that she was wearing just for Halloween, that would go back in the closet when she got home?  We all debated this important subject at the table. The consensus was that they were real, honest to goodness implants.  But I can’t say for sure.

But after we had all more-or-less agreed they were implants, Sarah chimed in with, “I just wanna know where her nipples were.” This amused all of us.  It was indeed a good question and one we’ll never know the answer to.

Between the costumes walking by and the debates about who had a cute ass and which girls needed their girlfriends to tell them they had fat asses (paraphrasing here), it was tough concentrating on the poker.  I more-or-less abandoned trying to use the Ed Miller strategy (see here) I’ve been trying to learn and just kind of went with my more normal, nitty play.  I considered just cashing out and walking around to get better looks at all the people, but honestly, I was having too much fun at the table with the group we had, reacting to the costumes.  So I just settled in, hoped for a hand here and there, and enjoyed the show and the commentary.

I already mentioned an Asian fellow, who definitely was on Crazian side of things, very aggressive.  There was an older gentleman who was very nice but a really poor player.  Early in the night I had pocket 5’s in the big blind.  The guy to my immediate left (who had a much broader definition of “cute butts” than Sarah) raised to $13, the older gentleman called, another player called, so I came in as well.

The flop was 7-6-2, rainbow.  I checked, the preflop raiser checked, and the older gentleman bet $15.  Into a $50 pot? Not nearly enough.  The next guy folded and I called.  I’m calling more flops these days than I used to, and the Ed Miller strategy is to call most flops, especially when you have any possible part of it.  In this case, in addition to the pocket pair, I had a back-door straight draw.  Not much, but with such a small bet to call, it made sense to me.  The original raiser folded.

The next card was a 3, giving me the gut-shot.  Ed Miller would probably say I should bet there, and bet big, trying to steal.  But I checked.  He bet $20.  Again, too little for me to fold.  I probably should have check-raised, but I just called.

The river was not a 4 but a 5, giving me the set on a board that screamed “Straight!”  I checked, the other guy bet $25.  Worried about the straight—and also distracted by the semi-naked girls that were walking by at the moment—I just called.

He flipped over the dreaded pocket Kings!  Wow. He played that hand horribly to say the least.  Didn’t three-bet preflop with them.  Bet too small to protect his hand on the flop and the turn.  During the evening, I was able to notice that he also stayed with hands that were obviously beat way too long, which would come into play later.

But between the distractions and the cards not cooperating, I had drifted down to about $90 from my $200 buy-in.  I didn’t add on chips. I wasn’t paying enough attention to be willing to risk more money.  I figured if I lost that money, I’d just give up the poker and concentrate on the checking out the costumes.  By this time of the night, the place was packed with club-goers, a huge percentage of them female, and most of those ostensibly trying to compete in the sexiest costume contest.

My pal Brent came to deal, and he dealt me a pair of 10’s in the small blind.  One player had limped. Ordinarily these days, I’m raising with that hand, but not this nite.  I just put in a buck.  The big blind checked and three of us saw the flop, which was K-10-2, rainbow.  I decided to slow play it because the Asian was one of the players and I was assuming he’d bet.  I was right, he bet $6.  I made it $18 and he called.  The turn was a blank and I bet half my stack, $35 or so.  He called.  The river was another brick and I put out the rest of my chips.  He tanked for a long time, but eventually called.  I showed my set, he mucked.  I assume he had a King.  I didn’t write down the hand too carefully (distracted) but there was no flush draw, just a straight draw I wasn’t really worried about.

The very next hand (I was still stacking my chips), Brent sent me pocket 8’s on the button.  There was a limp or two and I made it $10.  Four us saw the flop, including the older gentleman who had poorly played his pocket Kings against me much earlier in the evening.  The flop was King-8-6, two spades.  Neither of my 8’s were spades. Said older gentleman led out with a bet of $15 (I guess that’s his flop bet no matter what the size of the pot is).  It folded to me, I made it $40, and he called.  Everyone else folded.

He checked the turn, which was a blank, and I put out $75.  He snap-called.  The river was again a blank, and he shoved.  I didn’t ask for a count.  The board was pretty dry, and I wasn’t folding my set.  He showed a King and either a Queen or a Jack to go with it.  Just top pair, pretty much what I expected. After the count, he had $3 left.  Brent had quadrupled me up in two hands.  I said to him, “Where have you been all night?”  I thanked him for not only the two good hands back to back, but for the right opponents each time who would pay me off.

Suddenly ahead, I stayed through Brent’s down to see if he had any more magic for me.  No, as it turned out.  I decided to book a nice little win (after being down for most of the night) and explore the costume contestants more closely.

I spent quite awhile (but no more than five, six hours tops) roaming the casino looking at all the costumes.  Now I know my readers want me to try to get pics of the ladies in their sexy outfits.  It’s really awkward to even attempt it.  But I tried.  I would sit by a busy walkway and just kind of hold my cell phone and have it record video (so that no one could see what I was doing).  The hope was that when I’d play it back some interesting costumes would be captured and I could convert them to pictures for the blog.  But no such luck. 

I swear, before and after I would record, there were tons of interesting costumes and hot young ladies walking in front of me.  The moment I hit record, it seemed like nothing but middle aged fat guys walked in front of me.  Unbelievably bad timing.

So the pics I’m including were not pics I took, or costumes I personally saw this night.  I just found these on the web.  But it will give you some idea of what Halloween is Vegas is like.

It’s like every other night in Vegas, In spades.