The Perils of Satire

The Charlie Hebdo tragedy made me reflect on the perils of parody and satire and also appreciate how much freedom of speech we enjoy in this country. My columns are usually character-driven satires and in three decades, I’ve certainly come up with my share of jibs and jabs. So I’m grateful to Card Player for giving me such wide latitude. In all these years, only once was a column axed. That was for a yarn about a “Bust-Out Indian” tribe of degenerate gamblers which the original publisher, June Field, tossed lest it annoy any Indian casino advertisers.

Incidentally, a substantial measure of credit for the extreme freedom the American press enjoys goes to Larry Flynt. In 1983, he did a parody in Hustler magazine, suggesting that the first time the Reverend Jerry Falwell had sex was with his mother in an outhouse. Falwell sued and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in Flynt’s favor, a decision which gave protection to satire and greatly widened the gates for the media. The case was later made into a movie, The People vs. Larry Flynt.

Most of the people I’ve teased in print have been willing victims. Big Denny is based on someone with whom I once played in home games at Ralph the Rattler’s place. “Big” would be an understatement. He weighed – no joke – about 600 pounds and was a frightening presence at the table, splashing chips and getting into beefs with players. But he enjoyed the stories he inspired, and would sometimes call me at home, asking, “Get me out of Barstow.” Sadly, his weight eventually caught up to him. He had a stroke and passed away, though he will continue to live on in my columns.

The Rattler (more moves than a snake), likewise didn’t mind my parodies. Ditto for Dirty Wally, Action Al, Doomday Don and the late, legendary John Bonetti. I often cracked wise about John’s Brooklyn-Italian accent, his “coise woid” penalties, and his ongoing war with dealers, even writing that they once drew straws to see who got the honor of killing him. John said I made him “piss in his pants” laughing. And I’m lucky that Mike Paulle didn’t mind my naming him “Bigfoot” because, at eight or nine feet tall, he’s not someone you want stalking you.

But others I wrote about were hardly as easy-going, notably a fearsome player I dubbed “Ham Gristle.” The real-life the player he was based on had punched out at least three people, including Phil Hellmuth, and his tongue was as punishing as his fists. He called Annie Duke “Annie Puke” (not as bad what Daniel Negreanu called her), and I once heard him describe players at his table as monkeys and donkeys, saying they couldn’t play dead in a graveyard. A floorman told me they had instructions to do anything they wanted to Gristle, so long as it wasn’t a felony.

All this inspired me to come up with a story about Gristle being voted the meanest man in poker and honored with an induction ceremony at the Barstow Card Casino. What I wrote had him seated behind a glass wall, and when I asked Big Denny if that was so the audience couldn’t throw tomatoes at him, Denny explained it was to prevent Gristle from spitting on the audience. The real-life Gristle wasn’t too pleased with the story and hassled me several times after that. Once, when I was doing the write-ups for tournaments in Tunica, Mississippi, he invited me to go outside and “go jogging” with him. Later, he made a final table and the players in the room applauded when he was knocked out. Well, Gristle might have mellowed some since then, so perhaps he won’t come after me again if he reads this.

Another of my “fictional” characters is “Windy Waggy,” with thanks to Paulle for inventing the name for me (Go get him, Windy). The lady is based on someone who is a businesswoman, consultant, poker player, and poker writer. I’d known her for years and never knew what to make of her. She seemed to be everywhere at once, seemingly knowing everybody in poker and in the world. Indeed, if you check her out on the Internet, you’ll find photos of her with everyone from Hillary Clinton to the Prince of Monaco, and her references include having been an advisor to both the mayor and the governor of New York.

She began morphing into Windy Waggy following a seminar for women at Binion’s. She was a speaker and did such a weak job that several women complained. The next day, a fellow writer told me about her habit of camping out at people’s homes, entrenching herself for as long as a month. This led to a story about her descending upon the Barstow Card Casino, bossing Big Denny around and making him dig a moat around the casino so he could rename it the Bayside Inn.

A couple of days after I sent the column in, Windy called me at home, accused me of soiling her reputation, and for nearly two hours, cursed me like a drunken sailor. I panicked. How could she know about the story? Did she have spies at Card Player? It wasn’t until she told me to tell Mike Sexton to go f*#@k himself that I realized what she was talking about. Some weeks earlier she had been a speaker at a roast for Lyle Berman. She put everyone to sleep, humorlessly droning on and on, mostly about herself (“and then I set up a meeting with Donald Trump…”). As standard at roasts, the other participants took shots at her. Berman asked anyone who Windy didn’t claim to know to stand up (nobody did). Sexton, the emcee, asked in disbelief, “You came all the way from New York for that?” All I did was write a factual and accurate report about what was said (as Berman later confirmed when I contacted him), and here she was blaming me for what went down. I finally had enough, cursed back at her, and hung up. This reminded me of the time when I was a writer/photographer for Women’s Wear Daily and took fashion photographs at a wedding anniversary party that Frank Sinatra gave for actress Rosalind Russell at the Sands Hotel. Some smart-ass editor labeled the hotel “Mafia Mesa,” and I ended up getting blamed and warned to stay out of Vegas.

I refused to talk to the real WW after her undeserved tongue lashing. Then, a couple of years later, the Women in Poker Hall of Fame was launched. Windy was furious at being “snubbed” as an initial inductee, called nominating committee members and insisted she be brought aboard the following year (she never was). Her behavior inspired a column having her erect billboards asking for votes for the Poker Hall of Fame and spray-painting messages on homes. When she read the story, she threatened to sue me, “if I had any assets,” and this time she wouldn’t talk to me, at least until recently.

Well, let me add my support for freedom of speech and offer my thanks to Larry Flynt. I’m glad he didn’t attack me the time he had a roast and I did the write-up. ♠