Post by Von Vagabond on Aug 30, 2020 21:39:42 GMT -5
DISCLAIMER: The following series of events actually happened. The names have been REDACTED, not to protect those involved, but because of a court order to seal the files per a plea deal. The anecdote persists based on a recanting by a source with intimate knowledge of the events.
Inside a glass encased office sits one of those fancy board room tables, flanked on either side by two parties: first, the party of REDACTED, well-known in the public-eye for his athletic prowess, and his attorney, hereforth known as REDACTED ATTY. Second, the three lead executives of a Fortune 500 companies world-leading charity, known as REDACTED EXEC 1, REDACTED EXEC 2, and REDACTED EXEC FEM.
What brings this group together today is a somber ordeal. In an unfortunate sequence of transgressions, REDACTED was arrested for Battery Domestic Violence for striking a woman he’s acquainted with in February 2019. Why REDACTED struck her is irrelevant. In Nevada, first time offenses for BDV are a misdemeanor, carrying a sentence of 2 to sixty days in jail, fines, and counseling. REDACTED’s attorney, prescient as he is, quickly and quietly secured a deal with the District Attorney’s office that saw a no contest plea in exchange for 100 hours of community service, all to be completed by August 30th, 2020, and the charges would be completely dropped and wiped away.
It is now the week of the deadline, yet REDACTED has completed no hours of his community service. REDACTED’S ATTORNEY is worried about the case being publicized, not because he cares about REDACTED, but because REDACTED is up for a lucrative endorsement contract with the sports apparel company REDACTED.
REDACTED EXEC 1: Our offer is for you to play in our tournament this weekend. All expenses paid, a stay at the REDACTED, beautiful course at REDACTED. You won’t have to worry about a thing.
REDACTED: A charity golf tournament? I ain’t no fuckin’ circus clown here to entertain people! I’m not workin’ that shit!
REDACTED EXEC 2: You wouldn’t work it, Mr. REDACTED! You’d just play in a group!
REDACTED ATTY: And every hole will be billed as an hour for your community service sentence.
REDACTED: That’s only like…[counts fingers]…not enough hours!
REDACTED EXEC 2: Eighteen hours, Mr. REDACTED. Big fan, by the way.
REDACTED: I need a hundo! Can’t you just ask for an extension or some shit?
REDACTED ATTY: No. The DA lawyer who brokered this deal caught some shit when the new DA was elected. The new DA wants you to fail so he can bring this to light. Wants his popcorn fart headline for the papers.
REDACTED: [Eye rolls] I’m always being persecuted, man! Always!
REDACTED EXEC FEM: REDACTED, let me just say, I’m a big fan. Both professionally, and personally. When you [events REDACTED because they’d give away who he is], I was never more inspired. This saga, this…misunderstanding…it’s not indicative of who you are as a person.
REDACTED: Damn straight! Bitch lied about it anyways! I know she didn’t empty the litter box like I told her to!
REDACTED EXEC FEM: But maybe this is a good thing. Our foundation provides substantial networking oopprtunities with some of the nation’s wealthiest and connected. And for a man of your stature, well, there’s no doubt you’d be the most celebrated participant. The exposure you’d bring is worth twenty hours alone, right?
The REDACTED EXECUTIVES all nod in agreement.
REDACTED: Twenty-five hours!
The REDACTED EXECUTIVES shrug.
REDACTED EXEC 1: And your willingness to come to these planning sessions—with the travel, and the time it takes to plan this out—is worth, say, twenty hours already?
REDACTED LAWYER: This is a great deal, REDACTED. If you don’t take it, your face is name is going to be breaking news on all the sites come Monday morning. You can forget about REDACTED, you can forget about REDACTED, and you can damn sure forget about REDACTED.
REDACTED: Not REDACTED!
REDACTED EXEC F: With the pre-tournament meet and greets, the tournament on Saturday and Sunday, the post tournament cocktails, I personally guarantee you’ll have double the hours you need.
REDACTED EXEC 2: You’ll have enough to put in the bank towards your next felony!
REDACTED: I guess this ain’t too bad of a deal, huh.
REDACTED EXEC F: REDACTED, my father taught me that you need to take the viewpoint that every situation is an opportunity. This isn’t a punishment. It’s an opportunity.
*************************************************************************
“Opportunity is bad, okay? It’s a bad word. I don’t want to hear about opportunity. Opportunity is a sexual predator. When opportunity knocks, I not only leave the door closed, I burn the fucking house down. Don’t let anyone fool you and trick you by saying that opportunity is a good thing. It’s bad.”
Von Vagabond is in Fatburger on the Las Vegas strip. It’s two in the morning, the place is poppin’ with drunk people, and it’s taking an exceptionally long time to fill the orders. Von is sitting at a table with a 4o ounce of King Cobra malt liquor, evangelizing to the drunk kids next at the table next to him.
“Opportunity creates expectations, alright? And you shouldn’t have expectations. Only sad people have expectations. Let go of expectations, alright? Expectations are just disappointment. You expect something and don’t get it, it sucks, you know? You ever had that happen? Like at Christmas? Like you want a puppy but you get socks?”
“No man, I’m Jewish,” one of the kids says. His friends smirk.
Von drinks the malt liquor.
“What’d you guys come here for?”
“A Fatburger.”
“You came to Las Vegas for a Fatburger?”
“No, we came to Fatburger for a Fatburger.”
“You guys like wrestling?”
“Nope.”
“Me either.”
Von is back at the Jockey Club, a hotel on the strip just behind the Cosmopolitan. His 40 of King Cobra is empty. He is laying on a velvet red couch in the lobby.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say here. Am I supposed to be impressed? Am I supposed to shrink in the moment? That my second week on the job and I’m already going for a strap? I don’t care about titles, or opportunities, or ascending the ranks and winning. If I wanted that, I would’ve gone to college and got a corporate job. I care about the feeling I get when fist meets flesh—whether it’s my fist or someone else’s.”
An older lady manning the counter peaks her head out.
“You need to leave! You’re not a guest of this hotel! I will call the cops!”
*********************************************************************88
At the REDACTED Golf Course, REDACTED tees up a Titleist Pro V1 ball. He begins to loosen up with his new Callaway Mavrik Driver.
“Forearms over, smooth takeaway, turn the hips…finish,” he thinks to himself as he prepares to tee off. And as soon as the sound of carbon zirconia hits the polyutherane, a BING is heard. But an even louder “Shit!” is heard by the gallery of spectators.
“Why does it keep hooking?”
REDACTED smashes his driver on the ground and begins walking the cart path to the woods where his ball won’t be found.
A kid comes up to him.
KID: REDACTED, you’re the man! Can I get an autograph?!
REDACTED: Fuck outta my way.
The crowd continues to walk as the kid gets left behind. He’s alone. A man puts his hand on the kids shoulder.
MAN: They say don’t meet your heroes. Come on, son.
Inside a glass encased office sits one of those fancy board room tables, flanked on either side by two parties: first, the party of REDACTED, well-known in the public-eye for his athletic prowess, and his attorney, hereforth known as REDACTED ATTY. Second, the three lead executives of a Fortune 500 companies world-leading charity, known as REDACTED EXEC 1, REDACTED EXEC 2, and REDACTED EXEC FEM.
What brings this group together today is a somber ordeal. In an unfortunate sequence of transgressions, REDACTED was arrested for Battery Domestic Violence for striking a woman he’s acquainted with in February 2019. Why REDACTED struck her is irrelevant. In Nevada, first time offenses for BDV are a misdemeanor, carrying a sentence of 2 to sixty days in jail, fines, and counseling. REDACTED’s attorney, prescient as he is, quickly and quietly secured a deal with the District Attorney’s office that saw a no contest plea in exchange for 100 hours of community service, all to be completed by August 30th, 2020, and the charges would be completely dropped and wiped away.
It is now the week of the deadline, yet REDACTED has completed no hours of his community service. REDACTED’S ATTORNEY is worried about the case being publicized, not because he cares about REDACTED, but because REDACTED is up for a lucrative endorsement contract with the sports apparel company REDACTED.
REDACTED EXEC 1: Our offer is for you to play in our tournament this weekend. All expenses paid, a stay at the REDACTED, beautiful course at REDACTED. You won’t have to worry about a thing.
REDACTED: A charity golf tournament? I ain’t no fuckin’ circus clown here to entertain people! I’m not workin’ that shit!
REDACTED EXEC 2: You wouldn’t work it, Mr. REDACTED! You’d just play in a group!
REDACTED ATTY: And every hole will be billed as an hour for your community service sentence.
REDACTED: That’s only like…[counts fingers]…not enough hours!
REDACTED EXEC 2: Eighteen hours, Mr. REDACTED. Big fan, by the way.
REDACTED: I need a hundo! Can’t you just ask for an extension or some shit?
REDACTED ATTY: No. The DA lawyer who brokered this deal caught some shit when the new DA was elected. The new DA wants you to fail so he can bring this to light. Wants his popcorn fart headline for the papers.
REDACTED: [Eye rolls] I’m always being persecuted, man! Always!
REDACTED EXEC FEM: REDACTED, let me just say, I’m a big fan. Both professionally, and personally. When you [events REDACTED because they’d give away who he is], I was never more inspired. This saga, this…misunderstanding…it’s not indicative of who you are as a person.
REDACTED: Damn straight! Bitch lied about it anyways! I know she didn’t empty the litter box like I told her to!
REDACTED EXEC FEM: But maybe this is a good thing. Our foundation provides substantial networking oopprtunities with some of the nation’s wealthiest and connected. And for a man of your stature, well, there’s no doubt you’d be the most celebrated participant. The exposure you’d bring is worth twenty hours alone, right?
The REDACTED EXECUTIVES all nod in agreement.
REDACTED: Twenty-five hours!
The REDACTED EXECUTIVES shrug.
REDACTED EXEC 1: And your willingness to come to these planning sessions—with the travel, and the time it takes to plan this out—is worth, say, twenty hours already?
REDACTED LAWYER: This is a great deal, REDACTED. If you don’t take it, your face is name is going to be breaking news on all the sites come Monday morning. You can forget about REDACTED, you can forget about REDACTED, and you can damn sure forget about REDACTED.
REDACTED: Not REDACTED!
REDACTED EXEC F: With the pre-tournament meet and greets, the tournament on Saturday and Sunday, the post tournament cocktails, I personally guarantee you’ll have double the hours you need.
REDACTED EXEC 2: You’ll have enough to put in the bank towards your next felony!
REDACTED: I guess this ain’t too bad of a deal, huh.
REDACTED EXEC F: REDACTED, my father taught me that you need to take the viewpoint that every situation is an opportunity. This isn’t a punishment. It’s an opportunity.
*************************************************************************
“Opportunity is bad, okay? It’s a bad word. I don’t want to hear about opportunity. Opportunity is a sexual predator. When opportunity knocks, I not only leave the door closed, I burn the fucking house down. Don’t let anyone fool you and trick you by saying that opportunity is a good thing. It’s bad.”
Von Vagabond is in Fatburger on the Las Vegas strip. It’s two in the morning, the place is poppin’ with drunk people, and it’s taking an exceptionally long time to fill the orders. Von is sitting at a table with a 4o ounce of King Cobra malt liquor, evangelizing to the drunk kids next at the table next to him.
“Opportunity creates expectations, alright? And you shouldn’t have expectations. Only sad people have expectations. Let go of expectations, alright? Expectations are just disappointment. You expect something and don’t get it, it sucks, you know? You ever had that happen? Like at Christmas? Like you want a puppy but you get socks?”
“No man, I’m Jewish,” one of the kids says. His friends smirk.
Von drinks the malt liquor.
“What’d you guys come here for?”
“A Fatburger.”
“You came to Las Vegas for a Fatburger?”
“No, we came to Fatburger for a Fatburger.”
“You guys like wrestling?”
“Nope.”
“Me either.”
Von is back at the Jockey Club, a hotel on the strip just behind the Cosmopolitan. His 40 of King Cobra is empty. He is laying on a velvet red couch in the lobby.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say here. Am I supposed to be impressed? Am I supposed to shrink in the moment? That my second week on the job and I’m already going for a strap? I don’t care about titles, or opportunities, or ascending the ranks and winning. If I wanted that, I would’ve gone to college and got a corporate job. I care about the feeling I get when fist meets flesh—whether it’s my fist or someone else’s.”
An older lady manning the counter peaks her head out.
“You need to leave! You’re not a guest of this hotel! I will call the cops!”
*********************************************************************88
At the REDACTED Golf Course, REDACTED tees up a Titleist Pro V1 ball. He begins to loosen up with his new Callaway Mavrik Driver.
“Forearms over, smooth takeaway, turn the hips…finish,” he thinks to himself as he prepares to tee off. And as soon as the sound of carbon zirconia hits the polyutherane, a BING is heard. But an even louder “Shit!” is heard by the gallery of spectators.
“Why does it keep hooking?”
REDACTED smashes his driver on the ground and begins walking the cart path to the woods where his ball won’t be found.
A kid comes up to him.
KID: REDACTED, you’re the man! Can I get an autograph?!
REDACTED: Fuck outta my way.
The crowd continues to walk as the kid gets left behind. He’s alone. A man puts his hand on the kids shoulder.
MAN: They say don’t meet your heroes. Come on, son.
