Word: harpo
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...What money?" Long John can tell Harpo is getting a little frantic when he hears that question...
There's this friend of mine, let's call him Harpo, who's on a streak of bad luck Jimmy the Greek wouldn't believe. Not much is going right for him. He is in debt. He doesn't know what he's doing. He enters contests, he never wins. Cars break down on him during first dates and across from 125th Street. And he tells me he just took a beating in the weekly poker game last night. Everyone folded on his best hands...
This grim streak started with the NCAA basketball playoffs this winter. Harpo just wouldn't give up when he was ahead. That's the thing about betting, no one ever knows when to give up. How would bookies stay in business otherwise? Well, in the quarter finals Harpo went out and bet a bundle on North Carolina, UNC-Charlotte, and for good measure, Nevada-Las Vegas. He had this strange feeling it would be a Carolina spring. The weekend came and went, his teams all won, and Harpo was a rich man. So did he quit? Do lemmings stop drowning...
...when one of Harpo's friends, we'll call him Long John, opens up People Magazine this week and finds a hype for the Great White Hope, Duane Bobick, he knows someone who'll be very interested. Long John remembers the Olympics a couple of years ago, he remembers a Cuban heavyweight who provided Bobick with a closeup view of the canvas. Now he sees Bobick posing with his Italian girlfriend, with his dog, running on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Like Rocky. This is all because Mr. Duane Bobick is going to fight Mr. Ken Norton...
Long John gets on the telephone and calls Harpo. He tells Harpo about Bobick and Frazier and Wepner and Rocky. Then he tells him about Norton. Long John is cautious. He knows some of Harpo's friends call him up to find out who Harpo thinks is a sure bet. Then they bet the other way. That's called the Harpo System. (In the back of his mind, Long John's hoping Harpo will scare some people into betting for Bobick.) Because Harpo smells a sure winner...