#122 CaZinos

Back before blogs, frustrated writers self-published things called fanzines. Fanzines were publications devoted to a given theme or celebrity and featured articles about the various minutiae and trivia of said institution or personage.
So there would be various fanzines that a person could order about say, the group Styx, or reams of “Trivial Pursuit” research about the inspirational precursors for Austin Powers, like the esoteric information that Dr Evil’s female lieutenant, Frau Farbissina, was based on Colonel Rosa Klebb of From Russia with Love and that Colonel Klebb was played by an actress named Lotta Lenye who was married to Kurt Weill, who wrote the song Mac the Knife that Bobby Darin brought to fame. And that the song Mac the Knife was about a gruesome mass murderer and was living proof that lyrics are completely disconnected for music in the popular mind and that Tipper Gore shouldn’t have been all that concerned about Prince and little Nicky and her daughter, because years later none other than McDonalds used the Mac the Knife song as a theme for one of its promotions and as far as I know, except for cows, no mass murder was committed as a result. Unless you count multiple cardiac infarctions from fast food cholesterol. Mac Attack indeed.
Anyhow, I’m surprised there isn’t a fanzine devoted to casinos. Kind of a CaZino publication. Casinos have certainly penetrated popular culture, and have certainly developed a trivial pool of knowledge of their own.
Like, did you know, that all casino slot machine and payout bells are tuned to middle C or at least a note that is always harmonious with C. Truth or fiction? I don’t know, but like most folk wisdom or urban legend it rings positive. If you owned a casino and had all those bells and whistles going, you’d understand real quick that discord would drive people out. Even a musical ninny can detect a bad note in a high school symphony. The casino experience is meant to lull one into spending money. The shortest route to the buffet is across the casino floor, why not stop and put in a few quarters on the way? You could win the price of lunch. Want a drink? They’re cheap when you’re gambling. Cocktails have always had an incredible profit margin, why not sacrifice some of it to deaden your patron’s gambling inhibitions?
And casinos have become the go-to place for aging stars to once again shake their respective bootys across the stage. And the venues are paying more and the shows are getting better. Again, the point is to get you in the vicinity of the casino. There to crumble under the psychological pressure of the excitement of flashing lights, dinging bells and pre-recorded unsourceable hoots and hollers of winning.
And I must say, I particularly enjoy it when a guy is re-selling last minute tickets at a casino rock show. The name scalper is just too ironic. Go get em. My Indian blood warhoops with joy. Fleece em, scalp em, and give em a roaring hangover headache when they wake up in their nice little house built on the land their ancestors stole from my people so long ago. Can I interest you in a firecracker?
America, ya gotta love it.