I feel good.

I’m at Pearson airport in the shlepper’s lounge ready to get on my schlepper-class flight, but I feel good. I’ve got my brand new sleek little 12″ screen Hewlett Packard laptop, and my brand new Samsung MP3 player which is beyond cool. My IT man Brian hooked up my computer for me and my man Dane (greatest assistant ever!) helped me hook up my new tunes. On my MP3 player I’ve got my new double CD “The Essential Donnie McClurkin” by my man, The Pastor Donnie McClurkin, one of Gospel’s greats, and I may for the first time listen to music while I’m playing poker. All the OTHER dudes do it. (It’s amazing how having a just little bit of technology at your fingertips suddenly makes you think you have the right to start calling other people “dudes” and “my man”. )

If nothing else I can be CERTAIN that I will be the only Jew and part-time Buddhist listening to Black Evangelical Gospel Music during the tournament. The tournament is televised so I’ll have to be careful not to suddenly jump up and start clapping and gyrating myself and praising the lord Jesus. The pastor Donnie McClurkin can be very inspiring (even to little Yid poker players) making the game a much more spiritual experience than it would be otherwise. (i.e.”Hmmmm, I’m getting 4-1 implied pot odds and my Ace-rag post-flop middle pair flush draw gives me 15 outs against a loose-agressive opponent… now,,,What would Jesus do?”)

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Now I’m on the plane to Frankfurt. I was the last one to board, as usual. I’m flying Lufthansa. It’s weird because I purchased the ticket from Air Canada, but there’s nothing Air Canada about this. The plane, the stewardesses, the ticket agents are all Lufthansans. No doubt why the aforementioned shclepper’s lounge was chock full of sauerkraut-licking Germans. Anyway the reason I was late to board was that I was talking to Ruth on the phone telling her how much I already missed her and love her and all that shit, and I guess I didn’t hear them frantically announcingin German “Could the Hebe please get on the plane, already!”.

On my own accord I casually ambled up to the counter all lah-di-dah, only to be verbally accosted by the she-wolf counter lady (undoubtably named Ilsa) barking “ Vere haff you been!? Weef been callink your name zo many times!” So as I sheepishly paddlefooted onto the plane I couldn’t help but sense all these impatient Aryan eyes staring daggers at me for holding up the whole plane and I could practically see those thought bubbles over their heads saying “Ach Tung! Figures, A Jew!”

So I’m seated between this blond haired blue-eyed Stepford couple and this angry looking woman who is basically a cross between Colonel Klink (from Hogan’s Heroes) and my late Aunt Ada. The safety video is in German and the “Davy And Goliath”-esque animation is truly creeping me out. The pilot’s announcements are given with “Siegfield & Roy “ precision which is also creepy. I politely refuse a refreshing beverage from the Amazonian stewardess and I get interrogated as if I just threatened an Anthrax attack on Berlin. This flight is scary and it’s got nothing to do with being off the ground. And I forgot my sleeping pills in my check-in bag. Although trust me, I’d have been sleeping with one eye open anyway. This could be a loooooong flight. I’ll continue if/when I hit the ground. (Poor choice of words, perhaps?)

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OK, on the ground in Frankfurt now. The rest of the flight was more or less uneventful. The “less” part would be the Nazi sitting beside me who kept ordering a double “Viskey and Cock”. (That’s how he pronounced it, I mean it) Around the fourth one the stewardess politely explained that they were out of whiskey. “OK, bring me Rum and Cock, zen” he says. When she told him they were also out of rum he said “OK just give me an extra Cock zen” ( I swear) . As she delivered the two soft drinks, he swiftly pulled a “mickey” of something out of the magazine pouch in front of him and poured a generous shot into each glass. He spiked his Cock. (Sorry, couldn’t resist)

Oh and there was this bizarro German cartoon they played. I could be wrong but it seemed to incorporate all of the characters from SpongeBob, Finding Nemo, Little Mermaid, Scooby Doo, and Hercules all speaking German. While my kids might have been mildly amused by it, seeing all those divergent characters sharing the same screen and knowing it just wasn’t right (or legal probably) for them to be in the same cartoon and speaking in foreign tongues made me feel… well…. kind of dirty. Anyway I got to Frankfurt zafe und zound. Sank Gott. I have slept not one wink and my back couldn’t hurt more if I impaled myself on a rusty skate blade. I’ll write the last end of this blog from Monte Carlo.

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Beautiful Monte Carlo. They lost my luggage.