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 6: LIFE IS A POKER GAME
“Life is a poker game, never forget that,” Stupak said.
He’s always looking for an edge, an angle.
“How tall are you?” Stupak asked with that torched-out voice of his.
“Five-9, maybe 5-9 and a half,” I answered.
Stupak pounced on that, asking me if I wanted to bet 20 bucks that I was within a half inch of the 5-9 figure I first answered with. I said sure and rose to my feet. When he could see I was a good inch taller than his 5-8 frame, he lost interest in the wager.
Later, he explained that the height bet was almost always a winner for him, because men inflate their true height by an inch or more.
When it came time for photographs, Stupak was very fidgety. He joked, but seemed uncharacteristically nervous. Stock seriously, he explained that he’s a movie star – he’s had some speaking bit parts in films and once enjoyed a juicy role on the 1980s television hit Crime Story – and that he needed time to primp and could be photographed only in the proper light.
Very quickly, he waved off my notion of snapping more portraits, barking “you’re done, you got your dash.”
I looked puzzled.
“You know what your dash is, don’t you?,” he said with a churlish smile.
The man with a junior high education had stumped the college graduate who depended on words to make his living.
“On your tombstone, they put when you were born and when you died, with a dash in between,” a fully-grinning Stupak explained. “That’s what you’re doing now. That’s the dash.”
More casino floor philosophy from Mr. Las Vegas – an actual title bestowed on Stupak by the mayor of Las Vegas several years ago.
I asked Stupak whether he is motivated by the glory of success or the fear of failure. He paused long, and reflected.
“Probably fear of failure,” he said.
“Lots of times I’ve thought, `oh, what have I done,’ but you don’t count your failures, you don’t agonize over them, you don’t look back,’’ Stupak continued. “Losses are a learning experience. I’ve made thousands of mistakes -- the key is to not repeat them.”
“Sometimes you lose, but that’s what the rules are. You forget about it and move on. You don’t have to hit a home run every time, you just to be satisfied with your own output,” the Zen master-Vegas Guy concluded.
The Polish boy from Pittsburgh was raised Catholic, but he doesn’t practice Catholicism any more. He doesn’t go to church, but he’s deeply religious.
Stupak has said he pays more attention to the Man Upstairs since he was given a second chance at life, after he was spared a gruesome death at the wheels of his own motorcycle in ’95. The drinking, cussing, smoking Vegas guy softened when he explained his private relationship with the creator.
“It’s all between you and your god, it’s all a personal thing. You don’t get judged by other men.”
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