I don’t even know what that means, but at least it’s not — you know.

I’m off (or on hold, as they say in show biz) today, so I have a chance to write early, and we’ll see how far I get.

By the by, I’ve had this blog since September (Thank you again to Tom Hansen, who designed it and made it, and has been available constantly to save me when I lose something, or get an “error” screen, or panic over a shattering level of internet ignorance, which has only happened seven or eight dozen times).

The reason I’m saying that again is because I also want to (finally) thank everyone who’s written in with jokes and puns and comments, whether on this, the book, or anything else. In fact, I can’t thank you enough. It’s very gratifying to get your thoughts, and a lot of your puns and plays on words — which are either my strong suit or my downfall — are so good I can’t believe I missed them myself. But as I’ve often said since I first got on a stage to tell jokes — and meant every time — as long as someone’s funny around here, I don’t care who it is.

The two reasons I don’t write back personally are that, as you know, I don’t even get the time to write as much as I’d like to, to begin with, and want to use every minute for that; and, seriously, I barely have the sense necessary to log on and do this writing and publish it. That is no exaggeration. In order to write responses I’d have to call Hansen to have him walk me through it. Each time. After my fallow periods on this blog, I’ve several times needed him to tell me how to log on again, literally, and — I’m not proud of any of this, you understand — five or six times I’ve forgotten my password. (Since it’s vulgar, this is at least a little remarkable. Oddly comical, too, since that means each time he’s had to say it out loud to me over the phone, after which I say in return, “Oh, yeah, right. Sorry.”)

Also, I’ve gotten so many warm and deeply moving responses over the years to the Weekly Standard column I wrote. Long before I knew how to email, Jonathan Last would print them out and mail faxes of them to me, and I very often welled up; not out of vanity, but because folks recalled stories in their lives, or shared moments, or pointed out very valuable things I didn’t know. Writing this now is a shabby way to finally acknowledge it, but it meant far more than I could ever say, even in person.

In any case, to all, thank you very, very much.

So. Avanti.

I’ve always been very conflicted about gambling. I guess, in the end, it’s probably like smoking or drinking, or eating, or shopping, or sex, all of which may be fun, but are difficult to do at the same time.

You know what I mean. They can all be overdone, with horrifying effects on a life.

In the case of gambling, I was always glad even as a kid, on some level, that we had a Vegas. It felt cool and interesting and different, long before I ever went there, and it just felt neat and right that we had a place like that.

One place, though. One place like that. One.

One state, one destination, one adult amusement park, so to say. One place you had to make a pretty big effort to get to.

Then, when Atlantic City “opened” I didn’t think it was right. I thought we should just have Vegas. Then, when Indian reservations started making casinos, I didn’t think that was right, either. I mean, we’re all either Americans or we aren’t. I didn’t know why each state, or reservation, or town council got to “vote” and decide to open these huge vaccum cleaners of money.

Let me be clear on this: I don’t think they’re morally wrong. I have nothing against gambling, per se. I just thought it wan’t as cool to have lots of these places as one. One weird, flashy, gaudy, fun, over-the-top place seemed to be enough, to be about right. Does that make sense? Like saying, “Hey, we have a Grand Canyon, and a Gettysburg, and the Rockies, and a White House, and a Mississippi River… and a Vegas.”

Also, I know they create jobs, and lots of them, and that’s great. It’s fantastic, in fact. And I have worked in these joints, too. I’ve worked a few times in Vegas, and Reno, and Tahoe, and Atlantic City, and on a couple of reservations.

And when I worked in these cities, it wasn’t at the opera house. It was at the casinos. And I not only had no problems with it, I was thrilled. They were good jobs, and I expect it’ll come up again. Plus, as I mentioned yesterday, my wife and I have made a couple of trips on our own to Vegas, and enjoyed it. Plus, as I also mentioned, I went to a couple of the places here on Sunday and gambled. (And lost $120, although I’ve pretty much forgotten all about that. Pretty much.)

The weather’s been gorgeous, and my friend Michael Klastorin, the unit publicist on this thing (and a very funny writer), and I got together and strolled along the river walk, and then went to a casino here for dinner, and to have a beer and watch football on the largest TV in history, or at least the biggest one I’d ever seen. (Have you noticed just about every American city has a River Walk? You know what I mean? No one ever actually goes on the rivers anymore, see, we just like to build concrete walks next to them so we can get some caramel popcorn and a pair of jeans. But as Klastorin pointed out, “At least they have a ‘Hooters.’” And how well put.)

By the way, it really was an unbelievably big TV we watched on, frighteningly big, and they offered us a bucket of beer, but we just had two, since I’ve always felt the word “bucket” should be kept as far away from drinking as possible. You’ve probably seen one of those giant TV’s before, but I hadn’t, and it was impossibly big, like a shrine or a pyramid or something, an altar, a temple to the sun god, Ra. This, of course, also explains the evolution in general of cheering in football: Rah, rah, rah.

Do you believe it took me ten minutes to find a way to get to that one? And I was giggling the whole way, too. Sad, isn’t it?

More to follow.

LARRY “PTOLEMY” MILLER 1/9/07