Playing the Worst Game in the Best Casino

or how to learn basic math from a card dealer. Plus recs for Anna Deveare Smith on hope, The Onion on parody takeovers, and Google Street View under the water

I’m going to keep it very short this week because I had a cross-country flight to do a comedy show and now my brain is fried.

So let me just tell you a quick story that I don’t think I’ve written about in Bright Spots before. It’s about the first (and only) time I went to Las Vegas.

Vegas was never on my list of places I wanted to visit. Honestly, it seemed like it combined all of my least favorite things into one location. I do not have any interest in strip clubs, I don’t drink, and I don’t particularly like spending money. Vegas seemed like a nightmare.

But my friend Tom was moving from Austin to SF and invited a bunch of us to help him drive his car and have a fun little cross-country adventure. That sounded great! And on the route we were driving, we basically had no choice other than Vegas for where to stay.

I was bracing myself for the worst, but I have to say, I had a great time! I love swimming and there were ridiculously nice and over-the-top hotel pools. I love buffets and nobody does a buffet like Vegas.

But the most memorable part, by far, was the gambling. Here’s why: Of the four of us on the roadtrip, two were highly trained statistics experts. One is literally a professor and the other works in tech. Tom’s an engineer. And then there’s me. So these three dudes walked into the casino understanding probability and algorithms and all sorts of number stuff that I don’t even know enough to write about here. They immediately went to find a craps table because it “has the highest expected value” or something like that. I don’t know, I wasn’t fully paying attention.

I decided to go in the exact opposite direction. I found a table where you could bet on a game of War. That’s right, the children’s card game where you win if your card has a higher number. I may not be a math genius but even I can understand what it means if the dealer pulls a seven and I flip an eight. That’s sweet, sweet victory, baby.

There were no other players at the War table and it did not seem as though there had been any other players for quite some time. The dealer looked so bored and unhappy that I can only imagine he had been assigned to this game as punishment for some poker-based transgression. His complete lack of enthusiasm was met by my extreme joy at having discovered this table. I sat down with my twenty dollars and played for the entire time we were at the casino. Over and over, the dealer would announce the card numbers, clearly regretting every life choice that had brought him to this moment. “You have a three, I have a five. Five is higher than three, so I win.” “You have a nine. I have a four. Nine is higher than four, so you win.”

By the time my pals were done with the craps table, I had turned $20 into $5.50 and a memory that I would have paid $700 for.

My projects and upcoming events:

TED TALK: How to find laughter anywhere - My TED talk is online and on YouTube. Please watch and share! You can find it here

LIVE IN LA: Wrong Answers Only (LabX) - Wednesday, December 11th at 7:30 p.m. at Dynasty Typewriter. Come see me, Lauren Lapkus, Karen Chee make jokes and play games about garbage, while we interview a chemist who turns trash into treasure. Tickets for the in-person show (or the livestream, which you can watch for free from anywhere!)

LIVE IN SF: Wrong Answers Only at SF Sketchfest - Sunday, January 26th at 7:00 p.m. at the Gateway Theater. Sketchfest is my favorite comedy festival and I’m so excited we’re bringing the show back to Bay Area for it. Come see me, Samm Levine, Aparna Nancherla, and more! Tickets go on sale Sunday at this link

PODCAST: How to Be a Better Human (TED/PRX) - Zeynep Ton has spent her career studying what makes a “good job” and fighting for everyone to have their work be meaningful, respectful, and fair. She’s one of those people whose optimism is contagious and I’m so glad we got to interview here. You can listen to Zeynep’s episode here (or wherever you get podcasts).

This week’s list

GREAT:

Anna Deveare Smith is one of my favorite artists of all time. If anyone ever asks me for advice about creativity or building a career in entertainment, I always give them a copy of her book Letters to a Young Artist. I’ve also read and re-read her play, Fires in the Mirror, about the Crown Heights riots, which only seems to get more relevant each year. This week, I noticed that a clip from a PBS interview with her was going viral. It’s about the importance of having hope.

FUNNY:

This is one of the best and funniest real news stories I’ve ever seen: The Onion Wins Bid to Buy Infowars, Alex Jones’s Site, Out of Bankruptcy. “The satirical news site intends to turn Infowars into a parody of itself.” I cannot think of a more perfect bit than to turn one of the worst cesspools on the internet into a parody of itself. It’s so funny. As is the announcement that The Onion published. Here’s Why I Decided To Buy ‘InfoWars’ By Bryce P. Tetraeder, Global Tetrahedron CEO

The fact that this is not just funny but also supported by the Sandy Hook families who have been victimized and hounded by Alex Jones only adds to the beauty of the joke.

INTERESTING:

Google Street View is a fun way to see what everyday places all over the world look like. But apparently, it’s also a way to discover that there are random hardware stores located in the middle of the ocean? I can’t decided if this is a funny little bit of nonsense, a slightly creepy story about tech corporations, or a harbinger of a future internet where everything is so manipulated by bots that all the information is worthless. Maybe it’s all three! “Google Street View Is Showing Strange ‘Businesses’ in the Middle of the Ocean”. Bed, Bath, and Beyond

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That's it for this week. Thanks for reading! Please share Bright Spots with anyone you think might enjoy it.

Four is higher than three, you win.

Chris Duffy

This has been Bright Spots, a newsletter.

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…wait, who are you?

I'm Chris Duffy, a comedian, TV writer, podcast host, and both a former fifth grade teacher and a former fifth grade student. I’m currently writing a nonfiction book about humor for Doubleday.