Broccoli Report

An insider's guide to an inside joke.

I’m someone who resists clichés, but respects traditions. So when my buddies suggested they throw me a bachelor party in Las Vegas, being the traditionally minded guy I am, I agreed.

For about two decades running, the same tight knit group made an annual trip to Sin City, but this time, in honor of my pending nuptials, we expanded the guest list.

It was a dicey move, and I wasn’t sure how it would affect the group dynamics, as our crew had developed a tried and true formula for doing Vegas.

Few things waste more time—or breed more resentment—than trying to find consensus among a large group of guys. To avoid this, you have two choices—plan everything out to the last details, or, plan nothing.

So when we went to Vegas, the plan was simple—there was no plan.

The only thing on the books was dinner and cigars at Del Frisco’s on Saturday night, but that was optional. The rest of the weekend was allowed to unfold organically, most often taking the form of a core group sticking together with individuals continuously peeling off and rejoining the fold.

Some hit the pool or the poker table, while others hunkered down at the sportsbook or in a strip club. Everyone had something they gravitated to—in my case, church of course—and that dynamic even extended to food.

Amongst our crew, the buffets were popular. So was room service. Some guys—the hardcore gamblers—would just hold out as long as they could, then throw a slice of pizza down their throat, and go back to the felt without missing a bet.

And of course, others just stuck to a liquid diet, proclaiming, “there’s a sandwich in every beer.”

I hoped that this same attitude would prevail on my bachelor weekend, but there was one problem.

Ron.

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I met Ron in my sophomore year of high school and we became fast friends. And the first time I went to Vegas it was with Ron, who at that time had a lot more gambling experience than I did.

“Just do what I do,” he said as we sidled up to the craps table.

And with that, he started barking out bets like a pro.

“Give me the yo-eleven,” he shouted, tossing a $5 chip towards the stickman.

“Yeah, I’ll take the ‘yalenven’ too,” I said, throwing out a 50¢ chip

Then he turned to the boxman and yelled, I want the ‘hard four and eight’ and ‘four on the field.’”

“Yeah, ‘the field,’” I echoed.

Ron looked so experienced, so worldly, and I was having a great time parroting everything he said.

Fast forward a few years, and his act was wearing thin.

Why?

The best explanation I can give is that I, or we, my other friends and I, had outgrown him.

For example, by this time, Ron was making decent money, but he always wanted to stay at the dollar craps table, where he could still pretend he was a god of gambling.

And he’d do annoying things, like dragging us across town to use his ‘50% off’ coupon at the all you can eat shrimp buffet.

Frankly, he was too much work—and worse, a buzzkill. Never more so than on our last trip.

Things started great, as our whole group ended up at the same craps table—a rare occurrence.

Chips were flying, booze was flowing, the dice were hot, and we were all making money. The table had that vibe—palpable, electric, the kind that makes you feel like you’re levitating just above the cigarette-stained carpet.

And for once in my life, I was at that table. The table everyone envied. The table where everyone wanted to be.

Then it all went bad. Real bad. Ronnie bad.

Getting left behind in the betting, and desperate to salvage his wounded ego, he grabbed two $10 chips and gave them a sideways toss towards the felt as if throwing the keys of a Maybach to a valet.

Then he uttered those fatal words, “Twenty dollars on ‘skinny-red.’”

The box man looked puzzled for a moment, then said, “what do you want this on?”

Ron, trying to look aloof, repeated, “skinny-red.”

“I’ve never heard of skinny-red,” the boxman replied.

“What, you’ve never heard of skinny-red,” asked Ron, with a smarmy air.

At this point, the boxman looked at the stickman and asked incredulously, “Dave, have you ever heard the term ‘skinny-red’ before,” knowing the answer before he asked it.

“No, Dan. Can’t say that I have,” came the reply.

The table was humming. Players had their bets down, eager to keep the hot streak alive. Even as a relative newbie, I knew Ron was teetering on the edge of social execution.

I gave him the “why don’t you just tell them the goddamn number you want” glance, but he looked right through me.

“I can’t believe you’ve never heard of ‘skinny-red’ before,” he said while taking a sip from his drink and pretending he still looked cool.

The stickman now motioned to the pit boss who’d been observing this slow-motion train wreck from the periphery.

“Hey Max, have you ever heard the term ‘skinny-red’ before?”

“You know, I have been in the business for twenty-five years, and I’ve never heard that term before,” the pit boss replied.

I gave Ron a look, designed to paralyze, or perhaps cause him to pass out. But apparently, I had no such superpower.

“What?” he continued with a bluster. “Everybody knows that’s what they call ‘twelve’ in Hawaii.”

Have you ever heard that screeching sound tires make when a driver hits the brakes unexpectedly, bringing their vehicle a dead stop? At that moment I swear this was the sound I heard.

What had been a buzzing table was now a morgue, with a dozen dead-eyed players glaring at Ron—and by extension, us.

“Really? I didn’t know they had gambling in Hawaii?” said Max, looking straight at us, with not a trace of amusement on his face.

When things finally got sorted, and the shooter threw the dice, you guessed it, he sevened out.

By the time I made out my bachelor party list, I hadn’t been to Vegas with Ron in over ten years. But he was a groomsman, so against my better judgment, I invited him.

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I’m a man. This is neither a boast nor an apology, just a fact.

And as a multi-dimensional human being, I’m able to empower my daughter, support women’s rights, call out the dipshits and douchebags of my gender, while still encouraging, even cherishing an exclusively male type of relationship with my buddies.

It’s not one designed to exclude or offend anybody, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that when a stranger is present, we change our dynamic.

For example, I don’t curse in the presence of women, children, the elderly, or even other guys who don’t share a common history and context with me. I have to know my audience so well—so intimately—that I’m completely comfortable before that happens. Which is why you’ll see the occasional f-bomb in these stories.

And one of my favorite things about the relationships I have with my close male friends is the verbal shorthand we’ve developed over the years. Those words and phrases we’ve distilled from shared experiences, to which nobody else can relate.

Our group vernacular is often so nuanced, obscure, or event-specific that to even attempt to explain their meanings to an “outsider” is pointless. But allow me to try.

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On Netscape

Back before everybody was a tech savant, there was a time when some people understood technology and some people didn’t. Those who didn’t were usually older, and in many cases, your parents.

So out of the goodness of your heart, you’d get them set up on their computer, fix the paper jam in their printer, or teach them how to get online. And then you were screwed. Because from that moment on, you were now in-house tech support.

Then when the slightest problem arose, they’d hit speed dial, and you’d be stuck trying to teach them how to do something simple, like formatting a floppy disk—which would take an hour to do by phone.

Scenarios like this frequently happened between my buddy Chris and his elderly father. And one day his dad called him up for help on getting to a particular website.

Chris tried everything he could to direct his dad to the site he wanted—from using search to typing in the URL directly—but for some reason, his father couldn’t figure it out, and Chris could tell he was losing patience.

This was the mid-90s, when, up until recently, the only way to access the World Wide Web was through online services like America Online, CompuServe, or Prodigy—“walled gardens” that didn’t integrate with each other—and most people didn’t yet understand that web browsers such as Internet Explorer and Netscape didn’t have such limitations.

At one point, Chris told his father to hit the refresh button on “Internet Explorer,” upon which hearing this his father, frustrated and looking for any way to end the ordeal with a modicum of respect, stated, “Oh, that’s the problem. I’m on Netscape.”

This phrase and variations of it are now used to shiv a pal when they are having trouble figuring something out, mainly, but not exclusively tech-related.

If you send a link to your friend three times and he still says he can’t open it, an appropriate response would be, “Are you on Netscape?”

Or if a group of you are at a buddies’ house to watch the fights, and he’s fumbling with the remote, trying to figure out how to order pay-per-view. That would be the time to say, “Maybe it’s on Netscape?”

It even works if someone’s trying to pump gas and is having trouble getting the nozzle to hook into the gas tank. That’s when you say, “It’s probably on Netscape.”

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From the Rail

In a poker room, the tables are usually arraigned around a central sunken area, and around the perimeter is a raised wooden rail where spectators can watch.

But it’s also where alcoholics and degenerate gamblers congregate after they go bust.

Good players are never on the rail. They’re still playing. Or have gone back to work to raise another stake.

The rail is where all the bad beat stories are told. The “whoa is me” stories. It’s where the “railbirds” stand and give those still playing their sage, unsolicited advice.

It’s also where you’ll find the brother of one of our group. He’s a good guy but suffers from the delusion that he’s an excellent poker player who, if it weren’t for bad luck – about 20 years’ worth now—would be killing it.

And despite his unlucky streak, he’s always willing to tell you how to play a hand—from the rail.

This has spawned the practice of giving tongue-in-cheek advice or suggestions, offered in the second-person point of view, which that person either can’t or won’t take themselves—and always punctuated with the separate, but self-referencing tagline.

You’re at a concert, and there are three massive, football player types standing in front of your buddy, blocking his view. So you say to him, “If I were you, I’d tell them to sit down, or you’ll kick their ass…. from the rail.”

Or while your friend is trying to decide what to do on a crucial hand, you text him, “I’d go over the top of him and shove all-in…. from the rail.”

Sometimes the phrase even turns ironic when it’s to the benefit of the imaginary second person, as in, “I’m a little short today, but if you’re going to the store, pick up a 12-pack…from the rail.”

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Helloooo? (Did You Already Make Your Money?)

When we were all in our mid-20s, a member of our group, Tom, worked for Virgin Atlantic. His job was to meet the morning flight from Heathrow at LAX, which was packed with Brits who’d purchased a package vacation.

Tom would greet the guests, arrange transport to their hotels, and try to upsell them with add-ons, like tickets to Disneyland or a Dodgers game. He was usually finished by 10:45 am, and as he was commission-based, could then decide what he wanted to do for the rest of the day.

One option was to call on other package vacation guests at their respective hotels to see if he could interest them in shows, excursions, or side-trips—all of which would earn him more money.

The other option was to go home for the day and sleep, which, more often than not was what he chose to do. So if you had a break at work during the day and called to leave him a message about going out that night, he’d usually pick up.

“Helloooo?” you’d hear him answer, in a genuinely groggy voice that sounded like Ferriss Bueller pretending to be sick.

Shocked that he was home—and sleeping—at noon, on a Wednesday, you’d say, “Hey, Tom. What are you doing home?”

To which he’d respond like clockwork, “I already made my money for the day.”

To this day, if I answer a call from one of my friends in mid-drink, without clearing my throat, or in any way that minutely delays the greeting or causes my voice to sound hoarse, I’ll instantly get, “Hellooooo? Did you make your money already?”

But in an ironic twist, that same phrase initially used to ridicule a twenty-five-year-old, who, during the middle of the day should be out busting his ass to make something of himself, is now turning into a badge of honor for us 50-somethings who have already put in decades of hard work and earned the occasional midday respite.

“Hey, buddy, what’s going on.”

“Nothing, I’m just watching some Netflix. I already made my money.”

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Broccoli Report

If you try to overanalyze the origin and meaning of this one, it will never make sense. That’s because it doesn’t make sense, instead, relying on a verbal cadence and absurd mental imagery to make its impact.

It was coined by an acquaintance named Shep, who is peripheral to, but not a part of, our core group. However, his instinctual ability to create a term that fit the situation so perfectly will always make him an honorary member in my book.

Shep had come into town for a conference, and a few of us met up with him for lunch. After finishing, we sat around catching each other up on things and people—one of which was my friend’s brother, and Shep’s cousin, Matt.

Matt had bounced from one part-time job to another, and didn’t seem to have any plan for his life, nor was he motivated to develop one. And when I’d occasionally ask my buddy what the latest was with his brother, he’d always say, “Nothing, just the same old thing.”

So when Shep inquired about Matt, my buddy gave the same answer, “Nothing, just the same old thing,” to which he instantly replied, “Yeah, Broccoli Report.”

We were all stone-cold sober, but for some reason we broke out in laughter at the term, like we knew what it meant without knowing what it meant.

“Broccoli Report?” somebody said through their tears.

“Yeah, broccoli,” Shep laughed. “You know, it just sits there on the counter and doesn’t do anything.”

Forevermore, the term now refers to someone stuck in neutral, with no desire to move forward or change the circumstances of their life.

“Hey, I saw Bill last night at the club.”

“Really? What’s he up to?”

“Eh, you know Bill, Broccoli Report.”

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Hiiiiiii….

Though we write it without them, this term should really have a few “e’s” on the end, as in Hiiiiiiieeeee…

This is my favorite term. I probably say it at least once every day, even if it’s just to myself.

I don’t know where it came from, and it’s almost impossible to explain the meaning.

It has some characteristics of Ed McMahon’s “Hiyoooo!” (sound up) in its DNA, but it’s a fully formed term of its own.

The best that I can do is say that it’s about understanding the irony or stupidity of situations you find yourself or somebody else in and dismissing them with a cathartic verbal tick. For example;

“So guess who just bought two new Sea-Doos?”

“Who?”

“My brother.”

“The one who is like $100K in debt.”

“Yep.”

“Hiiiiiiii………”

Or better still, say you get a phone call from your friend.

“Hey Bill, where are you?”

“Grabbing a drink at the bar.”

“How is it?”

“Well, I was just sitting here, and a group of models sat down next to me. They said they were going out partying and asked if I wanted to come with them?”

“But didn’t you just get back together with Cindy last week?”

“Yep, that’s why I’m still sitting here. Hiiiiiiiiii…….”

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A “Ronnie”

Ron came to my bachelor party. And as I feared, he unknowingly rubbed everyone the wrong way.

He started off on the wrong foot by telling everyone he was staying at a different hotel because he got a deal. And he didn’t do himself any favors by suggesting we all go see a show.

But what really sealed Ron’s fate was his relentless need to inquire—like a man allergic to spontaneity—about “the plan.”

“What’s the plan,” he’d say as everyone crowded around the blackjack table.

“We’re gambling Ron, that’s the plan.”

“What’s the plan,” he’d say as we were kicking back in the pool, downing beers.

“To drink beer in the pool, Ron, that’s the plan.”

What’s the plan,” he’d say as we had scotch and cigars at Del Frisco’s.

“The plan is never to invite you anywhere again Ron,” that’s the plan.

I haven’t seen or heard from Ron for a good twenty year, and I don’t anticipate that I ever will again.

Still, he’s a regular part of my life as his name gets brought up all the time by my friends.

“How was your vacation with the in-laws?

“A disaster.”

“Really, why? I thought you got along good with them?

“I do. But I’ve never traveled with them before.”

“Ah, a lot of work?”

“Yeah. On our first day on the island, my father-in-law sits us all down at breakfast and pulls ‘a Ronnie.’”

“No way?”

“Yep. He wanted to know what the plan was?”

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The average person can read 250 words per minute.

If you made it this far, you took a ten minute break from an increasingly chaotic and unhinged world.

Come back here next week and we’ll do it again—or stay on break and check out The Best of ‘The Anecdote.’