Friends and a Casino Trip

            Sometimes you just have to reflect. Not on anything in particular, just life in general. It’s hard to believe it’s only been six years since I got my license, four years since I’ve graduated, and not even two years since I’ve legally been allowed to drink. I think about baseball and having played it for more than half my life. All-star tournaments. Cooperstown, New York. I think about all the friends I’ve had, ones that moved, and ones that aren’t my friends anymore. I remember skateboarding everyday, everywhere. Not being allowed to get into R-rated movies. I remember everything that I don’t think about enough.

            Now, I’m almost done with my fourth year of college and I’m potentially a year away from graduating. I’ve got a twin sister who is graduating and friends that are all making moves. Within this past year, within the past months I have met and become friends/close to some of the greatest people. Individuals that most people don’t think exist in a place like Youngstown. Passionate, creative, involved people. I’ve had the pleasure to see and talk to people like Dead Fingers (Taylor Hollingsworth and Kate Taylor) and the wonderful Heather Maloney. I’ve talked movies with people, books, music, politics, beers, and weather. I have had so many opportunities to grow. I look back to even a year ago and am in disbelief how much different everything is, with school, an internship course, being proud of something and everything else that has happened.

            What led me to think about all this was Friday April 13, 2012 and the night that ensued. It was Matt’s twenty-first birthday, so we decided Mountaineer Casino would be an appropriate decision. It was without a doubt going to be a fun trip, especially with the crowd that went: Matt, Jake, Wang, Katz, Rocky, and myself. To ensure the night started right Jake and I went out and bought a bottle of Absinthe (not to mention the great hunt for sugar cubes), Katz and Wang were both in charge of cases of beer.

            We had booked a hotel room with the intent of getting completely obliterated (and we polished off a lot of alcohol.) After eating pizza, scoping out the room and balcony, we started doing shots of Absinthe and playing kings. We must have been on a good pace because Rocky hit a point where he was pouring shots out and trying to slip it past us and avoid drinking them. Since I’m a great negative influence, and Wang is a bad liar I caught on to Rocky’s bathroom activity and figured out his plan to avoid our last shot. After we downed the last shot of Absinthe and almost the whole bottle, we gallantly strolled down to the casino (If gallantly was a synonym for wobbly.) The true men didn’t walk straight to a table or machine, we walked to the bar and got a drink, which is everyone, excluding Jake and Wang (pussies.)

            Matt went to slots and somehow did well. I played $6 and left with $18 and went to check out blackjack. The tables were still full, so I decided to try my luck on roulette. Little did I know roulette was feeling me, I went up and down but hovered around +$75-100 all night. When I was up $90 towards the end of the night I cashed out and said, “That’s good enough.”

            Jake and Rocky were not so lucky, they lost *undisclosed amount*. I felt bad, but that is the risk of gambling. Wang lost a little and Katz ended up breaking even.

            We popped into Mahogany around 2am where I enjoyed and destroyed a Bloody Mary. They make a good, spicy one. The way they should be made. Jake tried one and said he enjoyed it. Matt got a Blue Moon and couldn’t finish it; I was disappointed at our lack of drunk for a twenty-first. I expected everyone to be a dozen beers deep, but I can’t always get my way. Maybe it’s a good decision to stay conservative at somewhere with as much security as a casino.

            Katz, Wang, and myself made it the longest (surprisingly Wang was up later than me.) The birthday boy and Jake tapped out early, at least for casino time. 5am at a casino is basically 2:30 anywhere else. I did all I could to keep them awake and continuing to drink, but it didn’t work. Realistically I went to sleep only to get the last bed spot. I crawled into bed around 4:45 and tried to sleep with the air conditioner blowing right in my face. But, that was better than the chair or floor.

            We woke up looking groggy. It was a long day/night, but we had to check out, eat, and get home. And of course, try our luck one more time. Katz, Jake and Matt hit the buffet. Wang and me bought a burger. We all polished off our food, emptied our bladders and headed home.

            It was a fun night and it wasn’t even as crazy as I thought it would get, but it’s one of those times you just realize was great. It was inevitable. That group of people, the celebrating, and closeness of one band of friends, how could it not be good? We all met through different people and we all have an immense amount of care and love for each other. Despite losing money or winning money, not being able to take that extra shot, passing out early or staying up late, being ignorant to table rules of blackjack, or being completely unlucky, we were all together and sometimes you have to slow down and realize how important things like that are. So, maybe nothing completely crazy happened. Nobody won a grand. Nobody passed out in a corner. Nobody got intimately involved with an escort. We didn’t end up at a strip club or running down the street. But, that stuff isn’t necessary. That whole trip boiled down to me once again thinking, “You ain’t got friends like I got friends.” (a Garret G. lyric.) It always rings true. Anyone I’m friends with is my friend because they have the ability to have fun with anything. It’s a comforting feeling to know I have a list of people that will be interested in something, anything and everything. Cheers homies.

"You ain't got friends like I got friends."

“There’s never anything to do around here.”

“I can’t wait to just get the hell out of here.”

“This place plain sucks.”

Those are all the typical starting points for the all too common conversation discussing the place I’m currently living in. The same start to a conversation that the same type of person begins. The pessimistic local that goes with the stereotype that Youngstown is a shit-hole. “What’s there to do in a place like this?”, is what they’ll ask me and I’ll just answer with something like, “You’re just either not looking in the right places or not looking at all.” I’d love to elaborate on the times I have and the people I meet as I stand there with them. As I stand there trying not to literally slap some sense in to them.

I’m in Downtown Youngstown at least twice a week. Whether it’s going to play and listen to local artists at open mic nights on Tuesdays at the Lemon Grove, catching a show, or stopping in to play pool at the Draught House and get some good, cheap beers. And usually I walk into a bar downtown and I’ll see someone I know. Someone I want to talk to. Someone I like interacting with, who has similar interests and usually shares some sort of passion for this city.

It’s two in the morning on a weekend and I’m leaving a show. I’ve had a few Crown Royals, a few Captain and Cokes (diet if I’m feeling disgusting) and definitely a couple choice beers. It’s time to walk into a downtown secret, the Downtown Circle. People ignorant to Youngstown will ask, “Why are you going into a convenient store? You can’t buy beer this late.”

Sometimes they follow me in and sometimes they stand outside smoking their Marbolo Reds or Camel Crushes depending on how long their smoking addiction has been going. Then, I walk out with a cylinder of tin foil. A warm cylinder of tin foil that smells better than anything you can get at Denny’s, Taco Bell, or any late night food joint (those can be called shit holes.) Unwrapped—it’s a gyro. Lamb meat cooked on a shawarma, covered in whatever homemade topping you want. Toasted in its tin foil sarcophagus. Breathe it in. Let the cucumber sauce run it’s path down your chin as the amount of lamb you’re fitting into your mouth is unorthodox to any normal eating standard. The homemade hot sauce continues your intoxicating feeling in a different manner than the drinking. Something so simple, that makes home so good.

            Coming down the sidewalk one way are kids in thick-rimmed glasses, form fitting clothes, scarves, and some simple flat-bottomed shoes. The girls wear colorful and elaborate outfits that you’d see in a Forever 21 catalogue. Look the other way and here comes a group of gentlemen in polo shirts and pea coats, accompanied with stain washed, handmade holes in their jeans and some loosely tied high top Nikes. Behind them girls are walking at a steady pace trying to cover their legs that are peaking out from their short, sequined, shimmering dresses. Their faces coated with makeup and their shoes adding at least three inches to their height. Around the corner comes a group of kids that are underage and most likely pounding shots of 151 and having some light beers. YSU hoodies with the hoods up, yelling and stumbling down the brick sidewalks. West Federal Street -- A stereotype melting pot.

            People with wristbands, people with X’d hands. People hammered doing more shots of whiskey, people enjoying coffee or tea. Chill and have a martini. Let loose and hear a band, hear a DJ, do something. Neighboring bars cover the whole spectrum when you’re down on West Federal Street.

            Want to feel like the spotlights on you for a moment? Venture Downtown on a Wednesday and Karaoke. Make a fool of yourself and simply say, “Fuck it.”

Drink one too many and dance like you’ve never danced before. Get dressed up and go eat. Dress down, watch a sporting event, and eat. Go eat locally produced food. Or you can continue to sit in your house forever playing video games and doing the same thing every night. Stay at home and catch the premiere of some television show (or get DVR.) Or Go meet all the people that I have met. Join us in drum circles. Discussions about movies. Arguments about politics. Talk about inappropriate subject matter over eight pitchers of beer. Continue drinking at three in the morning while people are playing instruments and yelling out lyrics to songs. Feel whatever it is floating through the atmosphere and join in. This past year has been the most unlikely year ever, in the best possible way. The experiences and people I’ve met in this area are enough for me to say, I love this place. No matter where I go, Youngstown is my home. My stomping grounds. The people I know and love, we can look at other people and say, “You ain’t got friends like I got friends.”

“Youngstown sucks.”

I still don’t know how I’d respond to that statement in a short conversation. Maybe, “A lot of places suck.”

or, “You boring, fun sucking fuck you just need to let go a little and see everything you’re not taking time to enjoy.”

or something inappropriate, “If you mean Youngstown sucks the dick of it’s citizens to keep them happy, then yes, you’re right.”

or simply, “No, you suck.”