Black Jack and Blues

This past Saturday night my girlfriend and I volunteered at a benefit for the Children's Hospital of Buffalo. The event was called "Black Jack and Blues" and was held at the Seneca Niagara Casino in Niagara Falls.
The opportunity to volunteer presented itself at a managers meeting my girlfriend attended with the Buffalo Athletic Club. One of the corporation owners is very active in this charity and was instrumental in setting up this event. Therefore at the meeting, she volunteered both her and I to assist.

In actuality the term "volunteer" should be viewed lightly in this case as the extent of our volunteering consisted of two 15 minute sessions handing out raffle tickets to the winners at the black jack station.

Other than that, we spent the evening enjoying the live music, open bar and Taste of Casino buffet. Unfortunately I didn't take part in any of the raffles or auctions. Although I did save money by doing so, which is a good thing. Most of the items auctioned off were pretty pricey, but all of the money went to the charity, so even if they were expensive the money spent would have still gone to a good cause... and would be tax deductible!

The event finally came to a close around 1:00am at which point we headed down to the Casino to test our luck. My girlfriend has never really gambled before, so I took her to the low stakes black jack table to learn the game.

As our stack of chips both grew and shrunk in size, my girlfriend got increasingly bored with the game. She would tell me what she could buy with the money we were placing for the bet on each hand. Therefore when we actually did win a hand, she wasn't impressed. However when we lost a hand, she seemed to find solace in being able to point out how stupid and pointless gambling away money was.

Ultimately after about 1.5 hours at the table, we walked away dead even. Now there are two ways to look at walking away even, I view it as surviving the first round with the Casino, and being able to live to gamble more, possibly at another table or game where I am sure to find my luck and win some money. Contradictingly though, the opposite view, the view that my girlfriend took was that it was a horrendous waste of 1.5 hours, leaving us with nothing to show for our efforts. (Note: Apparently the free drinks received at the table do not count as an acceptable form of retribution.)

Girls just don't understand gambling.

"Deal me a winner or this girl's gonna get tossed out the window!"

Final Note: Tina Turner?

PROUD MARY KEEP ON BURNIN!!!

The following is directly from the Press relea se on the event we attended:

Black Jack & Blues at the Seneca Niagara Casino Benefits W CHOB

FOR RELEASE: 5/30/2008

Contemporary Blues Artist of the Year and BB King Entertainer of the Year Tab Benoit will perform at the all-new Black Jack & Blues at the Seneca Niagara Casino to b

enefit Women & Children’s Hospital on Saturday, June 21 beginning at 7 p.m.

Black Jack & Blues festivities include great prizes for tournament play in several virtual games and activities, and the Learn to Play Black Jack experience is in the cards.

Guests at Black Jack & Blues will also enjoy cocktails and specialty stations featuring the Taste of the Casino Restaurants and a live auction by Cash Cunningham featuring one-of-a-kind trips and special items for your home.

This Women & Children’s Hospital pre-golf tournament party is sponsored by CGF Anesthesiology Associates and the Seneca Gaming Corporation.

Proceeds from last year’s pre-golf tournament party benefited the Pediatric Neuroscience Center of Western New York at Women & Children’s Hospital, which includes the Reg

ional Epilepsy Monitoring Center, National Pediatric MS Center of the Jacob’s Neurological Institute, Department of Pediatric Neurology and the Division of Pediatric Neurosurgery.

Tickets for Black Jack & Blues are $100 each and available by

calling the Women & Children’s Hospital Foundation at (716) 881-8230. More information is also available by accessing the Women & Children’s Hospital Foundation web site at http://foundation.wchob.org/blackjackblues/.

Thursday's Square Bluegrass

Buffalo has this great summer concert series called "Thursday in the Square" where each Thursday evening, M&T bank sponsors a free outdoor concert at Lafayette Square in downtown Buffalo.

This is one of the most popular things to do in Buffalo during the summer. Each week the square is packed with people hanging out drinking and generally having a good time. They line the square with a border of Labatt beer trucks that supply you with all the merriment you can handle. Tickets for beer are reasonably priced at $3 too so its not a huge ripoff like other outdoor concerts. (I just went to see Dave Matthews play at Darien Lake last Tuesday, a single beer was $7)

Dave Playing at Darien Lake

The bands are generally B level bands. The biggest names I have seen there are Pat Benatar, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Soul Asylum, Violent Femmes and Spin Doctors. Being that this is a free concert, the big name bands do not normally show up. But you get some good eclectic bands that you normally wouldn't ever see... such as all the names I just mentioned.

Last Thursday I went to see the Yonder Mountain String Band. The can best be described as a bluegrass jam band. Pretty interesting and I actually liked them. Although it is generally hard to hear the bands if you are in the back of the crowds. Everyone is talking in the back of the square, that mixed with the trees absorbing most of the music, if you want to really listen to the band you have to wedge your way into the front.

Also, because of the free aspect of these concerts, you get a whole mess of Buffalo's finest wackos to venture out into the crowds. Last week when I was there, there was one guy who was clearly messed up on some sort of drugs just staring off into space and performing his best 'beat box'.

However, he wasn't just beat boxing, he was also rapping and having conversations with himself. Most of the conversations were about how other countries don't beat box, which he concluded was the root of all their problems. My favorite line was "middle east has war cause' they don't got no beat box."

Clearly he was right.

After the square the crowds filter out into the surrounding districts in the city, hitting up the bars. Myself and my group followed suit and ended up at Allen Street Hardware (which is actually a bar).

That night, they had a live band as well. I forgot the name now, but it too was a bluegrass band. Apparently Buffalo had an infestation of banjos on this particular night. We hungout there for a while jamming to the band, drinking Brazilian beer and feasting on appetizers. The band was actually really good too and I just remembered the name... "Down to The Roots." I think I will try to see if I can get them to play at Riley's. They were really good.

We were also hanging out with my cousin's cousin who happens to be a lesbian. Hanging out with lesbians is always a fun time because they generally travel in groups. So where one lesbian is, you'll find more. This was the case on this particular night as well, and who doesn't enjoy hanging out with a group of lesbians?

Can't think of anyone can you? Or maybe you can, but either way, they're fun people.

All in all a good night, and tonight actually will be another Thursday in the Square which I again will be venturing to. David Sanborn in the artist, I know nothing about him, but it will still be a good time regardless, I just hope the rain holds off.

Follow up to Stolen Table

The individual I spoke about last was identified in the videos. His name and the video of him committing the actions previously discussed have been sent to the local police.

We will be pursuing all charges possible against him.

It's annoying because I actually feel guilty doing so, but we have to be tough on these people. If we allow people to walk all over us and do whatever they want then we lose control. There has to be a precedent set on how we handle this type of behavior and these actions.

Unfortunately for this guy, we can't bend on this either. We need the patrons to know that they are expected to behave like civilized human beings when they are at our establishment. And if they act like assholes, we'll have to be assholes to them as well.

I know what is going to happen to, the guy, who was probably in his early 20's is going to come and say that he was drunk and apologizes for his action. He didn't mean to cause and harm and was just goofing around.

But in all actuality, the guy showed a huge amount of disrespect towards us by not only stealing from us, but by blatantly urinating all over our patio furniture. Therefore when he comes back pleading for us to drop the charges, we will have to share with him the same lack of respect and compassion that he showed us.

I'm sorry buddy, but no one likes a jerk.

No word yet as to the whereabouts of the table though, but worst case scenario we will get the money back to pay for it.

Stolen Patio Table

The first item has been stolen from our new outdoor patio. It was only a matter of time, for some reason people feel obligated to take your belongings when you are a bar owner. I'm not sure why, but they feel that they have the right to steal just about everything and anything they can and see no reason why they should not be allowed to do so. Such a frustrating phenomena.

This is how it went down. Saturday night/Sunday Morning... a group of guys came in at 3:50 am.

One of the guys, has been kicked in the past and was not allowed to enter. He promptly makes a fuss and attempts to get both my bartender and the guy we have checking IDs to come fight him in the parking lot. (both employees are in their late 40s, the guy was in his mid 20s)

While he's making this fuss, one guy reaches over the bar to steal a bottle of well vodka. Some of the other patrons at the bar grab his hand and bottle as he does, so he never actually got anything. My bartender missed this because she was tending to the ruckus out front.

After getting caught, the guy then walks out onto our front patio and watches the nonsense for a few minutes then walks to where his friends are sitting.

After the fiasco in the parking lot ends, the bartender and door guy go back inside. At which point the guy who tried to steal the bottle who is now sitting on the front patio with other friends, turns around and pisses on one of our tables out there. (about 4:15am)

Ten minutes later, the door guy comes back out and kicks everyone out, and makes the people leave the patio.

All the guys who came in at 3:50 walk away down the parking lot at 4:25am, and the door man goes inside. Then once reaching the end of the parking lot, the individual who attempted to steal the bottle hides behind a bush and waits for the two remaining employees to stop looking outside at them leaving. At which point, he scurries along the fence line in the edge of the camera view, runs on to the patio, grabs a patio table and carries it out of the parking lot.

Last night I was at the bar until midnight watching two days worth of tapes until i found where the table was stolen. I downloaded the video to CD and it has been delivered to the police department today. The guy was obviously a local guy, being that he was walking around the village that night and the bartender said they have seen them before.

Needless to say, I will be pressing as many charges as possible against this kid.

I'm not a lawyer, but I think we have a few doozies. i.e. Attempted burglary, indecent exposure, public urination, destruction to property and first degree burglary.

Just some of the joys of being a bar owner.

Now I will get a chance to go to court again! Woohoo! We normally don't have to us an attorney for situations such as these though, unless the culprits fight the allegations. But its hard for those individuals to fight the allegations when there is visual evidence of them doing it.

70 year olds can drink!

This past weekend I spent both Friday and Saturday at Riley Street Station. The outdoor patio has been picking up, so we hired a new waitress to help handle the additional crowd. Pretty exciting move when you need to bring on additional staff to accommodate the growing crowds.

Due to the recent buzz about the place, a group of my mother's friends came in to pay a visit. My mother is a retired telephone company employee, so her and a few friends she used to work with meet up at least once a week for drinks and dinner. This weekend however, they made an additional outing to our bar spurred by the article in the paper.

Predictably, we all wound up venturing into the martini bar and proceeded to consume many martinis. I was drinking girly drinks like it was my job! So much so that some of the patrons started to tease me about it, but to be honest with you I didn't really care. They tasted too good to worry about the temporary damage I was inevitably subjecting on my image.

Side Note: Our Espresso Martini is absolutely incredible.

The most shocking situation of the night however was the amount that my mother's friends could drink. For a couple in their late 60's, they could put them down with the best of them. They were well kept individuals too, so you would never have imagined they could hold their own like that.

I was impressed to say the least, and it should be noted that their drink of choice was the Lemon Drop Martini. That is a mixture of citrus Vodka, triple sec and Lemoncello.... it's all alcohol! Each martini has about 7 shots of liquor in it, and they were sipping them down with ease! My mother on the other hand did not impress with her ability to handle her alcohol. Clearly she needs a more regimented conditioning program, and I recommended that she hire her friends to be her personal coach.