Blood Aces: A Book Review

Could there be a better book for me to review than the new biography of Benny Binion?

The book is called Blood Aces: The Wild Ride of Benny Binion, The Texas Gangster Who Created Vegas Poker.  The writer is Doug J. Swanson.

The title of this blog is “Rob’s Vegas & Poker Blog,” because I love Vegas, I love poker and have stories to tell about both.

Benny Binion was not only one of the most colorful characters in the storied history of Las Vegas, but he actually helped make Vegas what it was and what is, perhaps as much as any one person.  He may not have created what we think of as Vegas, but he had a pretty big hand in its creation.

And then there’s poker.  Chris Moneymaker wouldn’t have been able to have had the influence he had if it wasn’t for Benny Binion getting the idea to host a big poker tournament in Vegas.  It wasn’t much at the beginning, but you know what?  Someone’s gonna win $10,000,000 for playing in that little tournament in a few months.

One other thing.  Pretty much every weekend I’m in Vegas, I head down to a casino named “Binion’s” and play some poker.  Of course, no one from the Binion family is associated with that casino any more, but it does still have that famous (and infamous) name.

So he helped invent Vegas, and he more-or-less invented poker in Vegas.  The only way this book could be more up my alley would be if it was called “Blood Kings” instead of “Blood Aces.” 

But Blood Aces it is and it is a terrific book.  It reads like a novel—a crime novel—and it is hard to put down. 

When I started reading it, I planned to kind of skim over the early part of it, the part that takes place in Texas, before Binion moved to Vegas.  But I couldn’t do that.  The stories of Binion in Texas are all too good, too interesting, too amazing to rush through.  Besides, this is where Binion learned his, um, “trade.”  He took all the lessons he learned in Texas and used them to help make Vegas Vegas, and help make Binion a very rich man.

In fact, Binion was well on his way to making Dallas, TX what we would come to think of as Vegas before the government finally, after years and years of trying (but not that hard) chased him out of town.

In his early years, the uneducated Binion learned how to be a gangster.  Whereas some gangsters are more into drugs, bootlegging, prostitution and other sins, Binion’s specialty was gambling.  In Dallas, he catered to both the very rich and the people who were wagering their paychecks.  And next week’s paychecks.

Binion comes across like a character in a movie more than a real life person.  However, the book is so detailed and so well researched (and resourced), you believe every word.

He was one of those guys who, if he liked and you didn’t get in his way, he was the nicest, sweetest, most generous man you’d ever met.

But if you crossed him, if you pissed him off, if you tried to prevent him from doing what he wanted to do, you were dead to him.

And to everyone else, for that matter.

Yes indeed, Binion killed, or had killed, quite a few people.  The ones he didn’t kill, he scared into leaving town or leaving him alone.  Politicians and cops were bought off.  This was in Dallas and Nevada.

Many of the names of the Nevada politicians mentioned in the book, who did favors for Binion (and vice-versa) sound familiar to me, as someone who’s been going to Vegas for many, many years.  He had arrangements with Mayors, Governors, Senators, etc.  Harry Reid, current Senate Majority Leader in the U.S. Senate, is mentioned doing “favors” for Binion.  No doubt Binion contributed generously to Reid’s congressional campaigns back in the day.  But hey, I’m sure Reid would have gone to bat for Binion anyway, right?

All of this is fascinating stuff.  The characters Binion encounters in the book (and sometimes, you know, killed) are colorful themselves.  There’s a rival of Binion’s nicknamed “the Cat” because of the many times he survived attempts on his life at the hand of Binion.  He had 12 lives, not 9 like a cat though.  The 13^th attempt on his life proved to be very unlucky for him, however.

Somehow, Binion managed to maneuver his way out of jail for most of his career.  He did finally get time for tax evasion at one point.  But they couldn’t touch him for murder or any of the other more violent things he did

There’s a good amount of discussion of poker and the role Binion played in the WSOP of course, although, it being me, I would have liked more.  Swanson has a lot of great material from Doyle Brunson who he must have interviewed at length.  He could probably couldn’t’ talk to many of the other old time poker players (particularly the ones who have died).  Of course, Doyle is a pretty colorful character himself.

Swanson has produced a fascinating, well-written book on the history of Vegas, featuring gangsters, poker, corrupt politicians, and paid-for cops.  I would have to say it’s a must-read for anyone who likes my blog.

"Death Raise" Raises the Stakes

Have you ever had a poker session where you came away feeling you got killed?  Of course you have.  You just had one of those sessions where everything went wrong, you seemed to end up with the second best hand time and time again.  We all know how expensive that can be.  

Or maybe it was just one hand.  You were doing fine, maybe showing a nice profit, and you had the misfortune of having your dreaded pocket Kings run into pocket Aces, held by the only player at the table with a bigger stack than yours.  You could say you got killed.

But getting “killed” at a poker table takes on a whole new meaning in the new novel by Christopher Parks I just read, Death Raise.. 

The book is a thriller with a very prevalent poker theme.  It seems 10 people from around the country have been won an all expenses paid vacation to play in a very exclusive poker tournament being held on a remote island in a beautiful mansion somewhere in the Atlantic.

But the players obviously didn’t read the fine print when they signed up.  After the first round of the tournament, the winner of that first round is handed a gun, and he is given three seconds to kill one of the other nine players.  If he fails to shoot one of his fellow poker players, he himself will be shot to death.

Kind of brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “shootout tournament,” doesn’t it?

It is explained to them that this will happen every day until there is only one survivor.  Yikes!  Of course, there’s no escape from the island, though that doesn’t stop the remaining players from exploring avenues of escape.

So the novel is not really a “who done it?” but more of a “who is going to be done-in next?”  And of course, then, the inevitable question of “why that person?”

Another way to look at would be to say it’s a cross between Agatha Christie’s classic “And Then There Were None” and the TV show Survivor.  Only this is really the ultimate game of Survivor, isn’t it?  You don’t get voted off the island.  You get voted off this mortal coil. 

High Stakes Poker?  Yes, indeed, the highest stakes possible.

The book is a whole lot of fun.  The characters are forced to make (very temporary) alliances and of course, there are double-deals, triple-deals, broken deals, back-biting, double-crosses, etc.  Anything to survive.

All of the ten players had previously won some sort of poker tournament somewhere, so it is, at least on the surface, a fair fight.  Or at least they all conceivable have a chance to win.  None of them appear to be what you would likely call a professional poker player.

In fact, one of them mostly works as a Vegas stripper.  If I may be so bold, I would suggest to the author that there might very well be another novel (a prequel, if you will) in the story of a stripper winning a Vegas poker tournament.  I’m guessing she used the Jennifer Tilly effect to full advantage.

There are two other female players in addition to the stripper.  All of the women are at least tempted to use their feminine wiles to their advantage.  Which means, of course, that in addition to the “fun” of a nightly killing, there’s some sex in the story.  All the players are forced to use all their skills, talents and intellectual abilities to figure out how to survive.

And of course, that means winning each night’s round of poker.  Now, the poker is very much secondary here to the thrilling plot and all the deal-making and the attempts to find a weak spot in their captors’ well-designed prison.  The fun is in the plot, the characters, the twists and turns.  You never know who’s going to win each day, and who they will pick to kill, or why.

There’s also an intriguing sub-plot that takes place away from the island.  How that plot figures into the main one (and trying to figure that out) is another fun element to the whole story.

The poker itself is not really the reason to read this entertaining book.  It could really be any game, any kind of contest that involves both luck and skill.  By using poker though, it is easy to explain how the mysterious powers that be would know that all their contestants had had poker success.  In the book’s universe, the players are all no doubt all listed on Hendon Mob.

But in notes at the end of the book, the author indicates he got the idea for the book when he was the chip leader in a poker tournament in Atlantic City.  Wow, that must have been some poker tournament.  Actually, he said he was the chip leader at the final table but finished 7^th (and no doubt is still pissed about that).  I guess that would explain why he would want to shoot all the other players!

So the poker itself is just background.  You will get no great insights to the game from reading the book.  In fact, a lot of the action as described is rather bizarre and inexplicable.  Some of that turns out to be due to the fact that the players are purposely playing to help other players, as part of their deals (yes, there’s definitely some collusion going on).  Other times it’s harder to justify.

No matter, that’s not the point of the book.  The fun is in the main story, the characters, the alliances, the double-crosses, and the all the action that ensues as a result.  The book definitely works as a thriller.

For a fun, quick read, I do recommend Death Raise, whether you play poker or not.

“Must Kill TV”—A Book Review

Once again I am breaking format, once again I’m doing a book review.

And once again that book is written by Ken Levine.

Levine writes good.

No, I mean he writes well.  He writes good books.  He writes funny books.

Very funny books. 

Levine, the writer/producer/creator/show-runner of great TV Shows, (Cheers, M*A*S*H, Frasier, et al), the baseball announcer, the blogger (he’s either a renaissance man or he can’t keep a job) has written his first novel.  I liked his previous book (see here) so much, I had to buy the new one, just off the presses, especially since the Kindle edition is only $2.99 (a bargain at half the price).

Levine’s novel is a comic thriller.  It is a vicious, very funny satire on the TV biz.  It’s a behind the scenes look at what it’s like to be the President of a struggling TV network.

Charles Muncie is head of ABN, which has declining ratings.  When Stevie Gersh, the star of his one remaining hit threatens to quit his show, Muncie tells him he’ll do anything to get him to re-up for another season.  Muncie knows his own job—and his prestige, his reputation, his identity and of course, his lifestyle—are on the line.  He thinks he means it when he tells Stevie he’ll do anything, until the star comes back and tells him all he has to do get him for another year his commit one little murder.  He wants his ex-girlfriend dead, merely because she turned down his marriage proposal.

Yeah, that’s all—one little murder.  Muncie is presented initially as a decent guy.  He is devoted (and faithful) to his wife (his college sweetheart) and is a loving father to his daughter.  So of course, there’s no way that Muncie would even consider such a heinous request, right?

Well….

There are many twists and turns in the story, and along the way, the TV industry is completely lampooned.  There are fictional characters that are based quite clearly on real people you can identify.  For example, Stevie Gersh appears to be based (loosely, I hope) on Jerry Seinfeld.  I am hoping that Seinfeld isn’t nearly as big an asshole as Stevie Gersh is.  I assume Seinfeld wouldn’t ask to have someone killed.

On the other hand, maybe Seinfeld would have done five more years of his show if the network had just whacked someone for him?

Another minor character is named Tara Durban, a totally obnoxious TV star/writer that is obviously based on Lena Dunham of (HBO’s Girls).  Here, I have every reason to believe the real life version is more offensive than Levine’s caricature.  She provides some hilarious comedy relief.

There’s also plenty of real life Hollywood types mentioned by their real names.  For example, there’s a great running gag about Katherine Heigl.  Another running gag revolves around the fact that Muncie’s all time favorite TV show as (apparently) Alf.  An aside:  I recognized the names of two cops as two of Levine’s writing cohorts from his days on Cheers.  Oh, and there’s a scene that takes place in the real bar in Boston that was the model for Cheers.  

 

Because it takes place in Hollywood, every single person that Muncie meets is pitching an idea for a TV series.  Even hard-core criminals are looking for a development deal.

As the plot races forward at a break-neck pace, there’s jokes in almost every paragraph.  Some of these jokes service the plot, many are just highly amusing throw away gags. 

I found myself laughing out loud a lot.  It was a bit embarrassing when I was reading it on my celphone in the doctor’s waiting room and everyone kept staring at me.  Fortunately I was at home reading it when I came to one incredible plot twist that had me laughing for about three minutes non-stop.

Muncie is a fascinating protagonist, and I found him surprisingly sympathetic.  The rest of the characters are less developed but service the plot well—and are likely based on people Levine’s worked with.

As a service to my blog readers, I will “warn” you that there’s a fair amount of raunchy sex (hey, it’s Hollywood!).  And the phrase “full, natural breasts” is used more than once.  There is of course some violence too.

I have to admit, I’m not much of a fiction reader these days.  I think the last novel I read was The Old Man and the Sea, which I read when it was first published.  Levine’s book is definitely funnier.  It was fun to get engaged in a book for the first time in a long time.

It’s a fast, funny, suspenseful read.  You don’t see the plot twists coming, and you’re pretty much laughing all the way through.

I couldn’t put it down.  In fact, the other night, I skipped my evening of blog-writing to finish it.  So, since I took a night off from blogging to finish it, I decided I had to at least get a blog post out of it. Hence, this post.

I highly recommend the book, obviously.  It’s only $2.99 for the Kindle version (and $8.73 for the paperback, no hard cover is available).  I’d be shocked if you didn’t get your money’s worth out of it.  You can order it here.

To be clear, I get no money at all if you do buy it.  I don’t even know Mr. Levine.  But clearly, our comic sensibilities are quite similar.  And if the book does well, Levine might just decide to write a sequel.  If he does, I’ll pre-order it.

And as Levine says on the book’s webpage, there are no commercials.

Book Review: "The Me Generation.....By Me"

OK, this is gonna be a total departure for me.  A book review.  A book recommendation, really.

And it’s not a poker book.  Not at all.

The book is over a year old, but it is timeless.  Actually, it is not so much timeless as it is time-stamped.  It’s all about growing up in the 1960’s—one man’s history of the 60’s.  It’s a personal memoir, but it captures the era perfectly.  Oh, and it’s hysterically funny. That’s because it’s written by Ken Levine, one of the best television writers ever.  I first recall seeing his name on the writing credits of my then-favorite TV show, the classic M*A*S*H.  Then I noticed he was the writer/consultant/producer of a little show called Cheers, which is actually my favorite TV show of all time, and one of the best sitcoms ever.  He’s also written for Fraiser, Becker, The Simpsons, a whole bunch of other shows, movies, plays, you name it.  He’s won Emmys and other awards for his writing and producing. He is a man of many talents—he’s also been a play-by-play baseball announcer for several Major League Baseball teams (this was long after he made it big as a writer/producer).

So I knew who Levine was before I knew about the book, which I heard him mention a few weeks ago when he was filling in on a local radio talk show one night (yeah, he can do that too—in fact he used to host Dodger Talk on L.A. radio).  He was taking calls about long-gone Los Angeles landmarks, and I couldn’t stop listening, it was fascinatingly nostalgic.  Luckily, I heard him mention his book.  Just based on the show and the topic of the book—growing up in the 60’s—I ordered the Kindle version immediately, and I have been enjoying it ever since.  I actually haven’t finished reading the book yet, but even if I don’t laugh a single time the rest of the way, it’ll still be the funniest book I’ve read.

The book is called The Me Generation…..By Me (Growing up inthe 60’s).  As I said, I knew who Levine was before hearing him on that talk show, but what I didn’t know was that he grew up in Southern California just like me.  He’s only a few years older than me, so I can relate to all the references, all the landmarks, all the history he talks about.  Now, he grew up in “the Valley” and I grew up on the “Westside”—but we both crossed over the hill enough so that I pretty much remember every single person, place or thing he talks about.  Every restaurant, every hang-out, every movie theater that no longer exists that he discusses….I remember.

He captures the 60’s perfectly.  It’s like I’m living through it all over again…except, fortunately, I’m not.  He captures the Los Angeles of that era perfectly too.  He captures what Junior High and High School was like.  As an aside, like me, Levine is Jewish, so I can relate on that level as well.

I just got to the part where he started going to UCLA—just like I did.  When he talks about the parking, he mentions that he was relegated to the infamous “Lot 32,” as wasI!  I hadn’t thought about Lot 32 in years.  You see, UCLA had a huge commuter population and they couldn’t fit all the cars for the staff and the students on the campus.  So there was this huge parking lot—a mile or two away from the actual campus—where those of us who didn’t qualify for on-campus parking would park.  You had to take a shuttle bus to get to the campus. We paid for the parking permit, of course, but I think we paid a little less than the folks who actually parked on campus did.  I recall that one time, during finals, someone slashed the tires of all the shuttle busses and I was late for an important final.  I’m fairly certainly that Lot 32 was only slightly closer to the UCLA campus than it was to rival USC’s campus.

For all the reasons I’ve mentioned, the book has a special appeal to me.  But I really think that even if you didn’t grow up in the 60’s, if you’ve never been to Southern California,  if you’ve never attended a Bar Mitzvah, you will still enjoy this book.  Levine does an excellent job of explaining the L.A. landmarks and institutions in very brief, but very clear, fashion.  Man, do I wish I had his gift for brevity.  But if you never heard of Lloyd Thaxton before, you’ll get him as soon as Ken introduces him.

Besides, if you didn’t grow up in the ‘60’s, your parents probably did.  Or your (gulp) grandparents did.  And the 60’s was such a strange, ridiculous era. Hippies, drugs, The Beatles, the protests, the wars, did I mention drugs?  Oh, and I’m pretty sure that sex was invented in the 60’s.  It’s all in this book, told in the most amusing way possible, because Levine lived through it all. 

By the way, he explains at the beginning that for many of his friends, teachers, and the other real people that are a part of his life, he uses pseudonyms to protect their identities.  Ahem.

Levine talks about the movies, TV shows, and music of the era.  He touches on politics because you can’t talk about the 60’s without that.  The funniest thing I’ve read so far was his comment on the “classic” 60’s show, My Mother the Car. Do younger folks even know about this show?  I mean, around the same time, the show Gilligan’s Island came on, and I’m pretty sure even today’s teenagers know that one.  But My Mother the Car?  Does anyone under 40 know that show?  It was a sitcom where the lead character’s mother was reincarnated as an old car (a 1928 Porter)?  How did they ever sell that?  I mean, if she came back as a cat or a dog or a horse, fine….but an inanimate object?

Anyway, here’s Levine’s reaction to My Mother the Car:  “Has there ever been a more terrifying Oedipal concept for a teenage boy than his mother being his car? Short of My Mother The Dick I can’t think of anything worse.”

And if you’ve never been to Los Angeles, you know enough about it from pop culture to get it anyway.  And you all have funny relatives, just like Ken did.  And you were all teen-agers once, and you will certainly be able to relate on that basis as well.  The dating/relationship/sex stuff is priceless.

It’s just a damn good book.

I should mention that Ken Levine is a prolific blogger, and you can find his blog here.  In fact, I discovered his blog because of probably the only poker post he ever did.  It’s here.  You should read it because he tells about playing poker at a regular home game and not having a clue as to how to play any of the games.  So of course it’s very funny. And besides, by mentioning his lone poker post, I have just justified posting this book review on my Poker and Vegas blog.  I believe one of my poker peeps tweeted out the link to that post, and as a result, I started to read his terrific blog and follow him on Twitter.  And that’s how I found out about the guest-hosting gig he did where I learned about this incredibly funny book. 

Which, as I said, I highly recommend

((Edited to add:  Damn.  As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, I haven't finished reading the book yet.  Now I wish I had waited.  I just came to the part in the book where Ken tells us how he saw Goldie Hawn's vagina!  It was when she was 23 years old and starring in the TV show Laugh-in, which gave her start.  So we have not just a vagina mentioning, but an actual celebrity vagina mentioning--and sighting--at that.  Like all of all Ken's stories, its very funny and you need to read the book to find out how and why Ken saw Goldie's goodies.))