BOB STUPAK TRIBUTE, PART 2

AN INDEPENDENCE DAY TRIBUTE TO ONE OF THE MOST INDEPENDENT AND UNIQUE AMERICANS WE EVER BEFRIENDED -- THE LATE, GREAT BOB STUPAK 1942-2009

Editor's Note: In 2000, we abruptly changed careers by our own design. Before relocating from Ohio to Miami, we toured the nation -- interviewing legendary characters. Bob Stupak, the Casino King, stood out more than anyone else.

But he agreed to an interview only on the condition that it be published after he died. Though he was more than 20 years or senior, he had recently beaten the odds by surviving a horrific motorcycle crash. He was always lucky, so he probably figured the story would never see the light of day -- because he would somehow beat the house odds and outlive an interviewer young enough to be his son. He lost this wager, succumbing to leukemia less than a year ago.

So now his cantankerous soul can mutter in his Pittsburghese accent from the great Stratosphere in the sky "dat SOBing reporter got nothin' right about me and now that I can't sue 'eem, he's gonna print the whole #$%@ing story without recourse." The following is the whole bleeping story, frozen in Las Vegas in the year 2000:

PART 2: LUCK BE A LADY TONIGHT

In early 2000, I left 13 years as a newspaper journalist – the only career I’d ever had – to pursue book, magazine and Internet opportunities. On a Friday, I ate my “goodbye” cake in the newsroom and cleared out my desk.

On a Monday, I was on an early morning flight to Las Vegas. Sure, I’d gamble, drink and maybe even drive out into the desert to contemplate my new life under the broiling sun. But the visit to Vegas would be a total loss without a meeting with Mr. Bob Stupak.

I left armed with a phone number and the same audacity I used to talk my wife into supporting a solo trip to Vegas for a husband who just walked away from a very secure job. I was determined to track down Las Vegas’ most flamboyant casino operator.

Encamped in a cheap downtown Las Vegas hotel room, I took out the scrap of paper that I’d scribbled Stupak’s number on.

With Lady Luck on my side, I dialed. That cigarettes and Pittsburgh voice answered on the first ring. A little groggy, he demanded to know why I called so early. Realizing you don’t phone Vegas Guys at 10 a.m., I apologized and said I’d phone after lunch.

Stupak was no more accommodating when I phoned later that day. Gruff and growly, he made fun of my hotel choice, recounted how busy he was and questioned why his precious time should be wasted “on some writer with a wing and a prayer.”

Not wanting to show weakness, I hid my concern and staunchly pressed for a meeting time. “Call back tomorrow, I’ll be around.” Stupak said in his unmistakable sandpapery voice.

That first night, I killed time tracing Stupak’s steps through his adopted home town. I visited plush Caesars Palace, where he’d blown a $12,000 bank roll in less than an hour during his first visit to Vegas as a young man in 1964. I drove past 2000 Las Vegas Boulevard, where Stupak started in the gaming trade with the tiny Million Dollar Historic Gambling Museum & Casino. I walked Fremont Street, the newly spruced-up main drag downtown that was showing its age in the mid-`70s when he opened a hole-in-the-wall casino there called Bob Stupak’s Glitter Gulch.

Next, I went to the Stratosphere. Its grounds were once occupied by Bob Stupak’s Las Vegas World, a tacky, space travel-themed casino that was low on luxury, but high on virtually no limit gambling. Stupak made a fortune, perhaps $100 million a year, hosting high rollers at his dumpy Vegas World. That same corner -- on Las Vegas Boulevard a full block up from the Strip’s northern boundary of Sahara Avenue -- was transformed into the 1,049-foot Stratosphere Tower in 1996.

The casino-hotel, home to the tallest tower west of the Mississippi, is a crashing failure. Not only is it not centrally located, it’s plopped down on the edge of some of the seediest real estate in Sin City. Unpopular with visitors and locals, the Stratosphere can look frighteningly unpopulated on a weeknight at 10 p.m.

I’d seen sparse crowds at the Stratosphere before, but on this balmy early April night, the joint was dead. Unlike thriving casinos, where the half-enchanting, half-annoying sound of whirring slots and clanking coin payouts rings out from every corner, the main gaming floor in the Stratosphere was a calm, but depressing quiet. For a $14 investment, I was handed tickets for (1) a ride to the top of the Stratopshere, (2) a ride on the High Roller roller coaster and (3) a ride on the Big Shot, a thrill ride that sort of slingshots passengers up the top of the Stratosphere’s crowning needle.

I thought about Stupak and the joy he must have felt when he led journalists on an opening day tour and took the first rides in the High Roller coaster that gives a 360-degree view of fabulous Las Vegas below, and the Big Shot, which jolts riders high above the neon-lit Strip. Stupak’s shoot for the moon stamp was all over these higher than heaven rides. Strapped in for a High Roller ride next to some salesman from Duluth, I thought about how I’d con the casino man from Pittsburgh into seeing me the next day.