The $100,000 Presidential Power Parlay: Homeland

The 29th (and greatest) U.S. President, Warren Gamaliel Harding, was a renowned gambler, golfer and lover of life. As such, his sage wagering advice and stories of criminal bravado are brought here through the medieval art of necromancy. Seeing as President Harding ushered us into economic success unheard of in human history (before being tragically assassinated by his jealous wife — thus tanking the economy), his words might as well be chiseled into stone tablets. (All views and opinions presented should only be considered those of President Warren G. Harding.) 

WARNING: The content of the $100,000 Presidential Power Parlay is intended for mature audiences. Viewer discretion is highly advised. Seriously.

LAST WEEK: (2-1 overall) Missouri (+3.5), Stanford (-6), Indiana (+9)
SEASON RECORD: (13-15)
THE HONEYPOT: $-440,000

I clutched my sea turtle-skinned bag against the cold Macau night. The American government had frozen my assets, those ungrateful sonsuvbitches. Of the Gypsy King's mass fortunes, I had roughly $120,000 left. 

I don't speak Mandarin, but the English-speaking Chinaman told me to keep heading down this dimly-lit street, and I would know the saloon I was searching for when I saw it. That man ended up not being a liar.

It was a massive estate, cut out of wood and stone and infused with stained-glass windows. It looked like an 18th century church, but there would be no Men of God inside this steeple; I knew that much.

I kicked open the saloon doors and sauntered in. There were more chaps drinking at the bar than I'd expected to find on a Tuesday morning at 8 AM. (China really does do it better than America these days.) 

President Harding hustling sorry ass Babe Ruth.

I sat down at the bar. "Bartender, I'll take an Old Fashion,." I said. The small man went about his task before returning with two tall glasses: one of pure whiskey and the other with ice. Turned out, I only needed one, as I chugged the whiskey in one swoop.

"Would you like another?" The bartender asked.

"No," I said waiving him off. "I'm in search of a man... a man with what is said to be mystical powers."

The bartender had a good poker face, but not good enough.

"I am in search of Pao Zhi," I said.

"I do not know who this is."

I reached into my bag and placed a banded $20,000 onto the table. 

The man looked at me, at the bands, and back at me. He took the money and disappeared behind a curtain against the back wall.

He emerged a few minutes later and motioned for me to follow him.

Behind the curtain, I found an ancient, bearded man who appeared to be meditating in the middle of a barren, wooden room.

"Sit," the bartender said.

I sat cross-legged across from the ancient man, who still had not acknowledged my presence. The bartender brought a bowl of boiling brown goop and laid it down between us. 

A few more minutes passed, and I thought about leaving. The boiling concoction smelled absolutely putrid. But just when the idea of leaving crossed my mind, the ancient Pao Zhi reached out and grabbed my hand. Without opening his eyes, he ran his fingers over my palm.

I thought I was about to be out $20,000 in what amounted to an age-old gypsy fortune-telling ruse, but with the alacrity of scorpion striking with its barb, Pao Zhi grabbed the knife in his robes and drove it through the palm of my hand.

I screamed in agony, and tried to pull my hand back, but Pao Zhi held my hand in a vice. When I realized writhing was futile, my blood dripped off the exposed tip of the knife and into the boiling bowl of goop between us.

With that, Pao Zhi released my hand and opened his eyes, which were fixed on the bowl between us.

"Drink," he rasped, "and see the path to fortune."

I woke up in the gutter next to the Macau Venetian. I wasn't wearing a shirt, as it had been used to bandage the wound on my hand. Shit got real when I realized my sea turtle-skinned bag was nowhere to be seen. I searched my pockets for any sort of clue, and there I found a simple $100,000 parlay ticket.

It was then I remembered the vision.

Bill Cosby and I had strolled through an Ohio cornfield on a cool fall day. The air was crisp and biting, unlike the suffocating smog found in China. 

"You have abandoned your people, President Harding," Bill Cosby scolded me. "You hide from your enemies in Chinese gutters and gambling dens. Is that the way of the lion?"

WGH's mourning the death of his last hater, circa 1919

"No," I said. There was no other course. Bill Cosby was right.

"Look at this mighty corn... it is capable of feeding the country. Look at this crisp autumn skies... have you ever thing anything as majestic?"

Bill answered his own question by squatting down and scooping up a handful of soil. "This here is the cradle of civilization, Mr. President. But you already knew this. Why ride with ponies that aren't from here? That don't understand what it's like to be a denizen of the Gods' country?"

After a moment's reflection, Cosby asked, "Do you know what must be done?" 

I nodded, and that's when I woke up shirtless in the gutter outside the Venetian.

Friends, my $100,000 Presidential Power Parlay is a straight Ohio ticket this week, and it's a righteous banger ready to feed these streets and erase my deficits. 

Ohio (-25) vs. Miami. Fuck Miami, and their pastels. You might look at the abomination that is the Miami football program and think it to be the Gods' judgment on their program for enabling rapist Ben Roethlisberger, and you'd be right. Those people are no brethren of mine.

Ohio State (-14) vs. Penn State. Speaking of enabling rapists, this brings us to Penn State. While Bill O'Brien is certainly more honorable than duplicitous husk of fake morality that shit himself on the visitor's sideline of the Horseshoe, it's about god damn time Ohio State puts their boot up somebody's ass, and whose better than Penn State's? So what they're coming off a bye? They acted like they won the Super Bowl when they beat a mediocre Michigan team because Brady Hoke let their fat kicker get drunk before the game. I hate these people, and I hope Urban Meyer uses their ground up corpses as fertilizer for the Buckeye Grove.

Kent State (+2.5) vs. Buffalo. God damn, could this end up being a stupid wager. But you know what? It's Ohio, BITCH!  

Let's stack some coins this week, hounds.

The Gingerbread Man, 

Read more of President Harding's legendary exploits in The Most Hated On, also available on Kindle.