In the End, Officer John McClane Really Didn’t SAY Much
It IS true.
Without QUESTION, we have the greatest job in the world.
I tell that to anyone that’ll listen, and, after seeing the top los angeles casino rental company in the industry at work, 99.99 people wholeheartedly agree. (My wife’s the lone dissenter, but there’s a story for another blog….Grin)
Because of the industry we toil in, we here at Aces Casino get the chance on many occasions to mingle with the hoi-polloi of Hollywood, at one of the gazillion fund raising opportunities that the SoCal movie studios, actors, and directors put together every year. Great fun for a great cause, and NO ONE does it like Tinseltown.
So, when we do our thing at one of the many Vegas Night casino events each year, invariably, one of our attendees at the party always seems to ask the same question, when it comes to our many brushes with stardom: “Hey, Aces Casino, what’s your favorite celebrity-driven story?” And my answer is always the same — Hands down, it’s the story of “The Wrap Party at the Queen.”
Back in the mid-90′s, we were contracted by Cinergi Pictures to put on a casino night on the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California, to celebrate the wrapping up of the soon-to-be-released flick, “Die Hard With A Vengeance,” the third film of a series of pictures starring Bruce Willis as tough-guy-cop John McClane. Wow…Bruce WILLIS? Heck, it’s a good thing that Cinergi Pics didn’t know how big a fan I was of the “Die Hard” series: I would have done the event for nothing. Just let us know the date, I said, and we’re there.
And, when you’re the number one los angeles casino rental company in the biz, the studios know that sometimes, these events get, shall we say, “a little kooky.” Hey, the more, the merrier. That’s what we live for. Bring it on, and sure enough, Cinergi did.
Beautiful night, we’ve got about 30 tables on the ship for the event, some inside, some outside on the North deck of the ship. I’m the Pit Boss for the event (Gawd, I hate that title. I much rather prefer ‘glorified chip caddy.’) so I oversee all that is necessary to make the event run as smooth as our los angeles casino rental company can make it.
With events as big as this there are actually more than one “pit” for the evening, and i’m working the inside setup for Cinergi. Suddenly, in my communications headset, I hear the following request: “Uhh, Aces, you’d best come out to Pit Two.”
No prob, it’s only about 30 yards away, on the outside deck. Out the door I go, and as I near “Pit Two,” I notice something that I didn’t remember being there when the event began.
Or, should I say something NOT being there.
For, as I walk up to one of our dealers in our outside BJ team (I’ll have to clear it with her to make sure she’s cool with the re-telling of the tale), I notice that she’s holding her chip tray in both hands. She HAS to do this, because the Blackjack table that she was assigned to work at ISN’T THERE ANY LONGER.
“Uhh, excuse me, “I ask her, calmly. “Umm, girl, what happened to your table?”
And, with a tear in her eye, she said those immortal words that made history at Aces Casino. “Bruce Willis threw it overboard!”
She points to an area over the side of the ship, as when I look over, yep, there it is. One of our gorgeous black gaming cloth beauties, floating to the bottom of Long Beach harbor. Well now, I say to myself….There’s something you don’t see every day.
My mind races with numerous thoughts, most dealing with what has to be the first question i’d dare to ask, like, “How did it happen.” But, before I could turn and ask our table-less dealer about the flying BJ table, I receive a tap on the shoulder.
I turn around, and “Voila.” I’m face to face with Officer John McClane himself, Bruce Willis. Unfortunately, this story doesn’t need to elaborate much from this point, because, when I DID turn around from his tap, all he did was slowly slide what turned out to be seven 0 bills into my front shirt pocket, pat me on the shoulder with a grin on his face, turn around, and walk off.
Turns out, Willis had been having a horrible streak of luck at the table he was playing at (A.K.A. the “flying table”), and had warned our dealer that if she drew to 21 on him one more hand, he was going to take the blackjack table, and throw it overboard. She did, so HE did. Sploooosh.
Well, needless to say, Mr. Willis turned out to be a gracious loser (especially because the chips are fake), but, as luck would have it, I never got to ask HIM the one question that i’ve had for all these years.
“How did you get talked into making that AWFUL ‘Hudson Hawk’?”
Well, now that it’s all said and done, i’m actually pretty happy that I DIDN’T get my fifteen seconds of fame with Bruce Willis. He might have thrown ME overboard as well. Oh, and we actually DID try to to retrieve the most famous Blackjack table in Hollywood the next day, but the QM security team informed us that retrieval of our table would be impossible, because of the “Moat Monsters.”
I kid you not. True story, but when it comes to the Moat Monsters, we’ll have to tell THAT part another time. Suddenly, I have a hankering for a “Die Hard DVD Marathon.” So says the owner of the wettest BJ table in the los angeles casino rental industry.
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