Sobah Comic

Thank you and God bless you, Jerry B.

2011-04-26T09:12:00.000-07:00

It has been forever since my last post, but I felt the need to write about this and the thought of reporting this as a blurb as facebook made my stomach hurt. I couldn't mixing this in amongst reports of the latest shoe purchase, or what was good on tv (not much) or what I had for breakfast.

Last night, AA lost a wonderful guy and a man who carried the message of hope and recovery, literally, until he died.

Jerry B traveled from Wilmington, North Carolina to speak at an the first anniversary meeting for an AA group in Concord, NH. He had not been feeling well, but he didn't let that stop him- maybe he should have, I don't know. But what I do know is all the things Jerry said in years past that stayed with me. How he had the humility to talk about being 10 yrs sober, free from alcohol, but without a solution and suicidal.

People with the humility to share the stark reality of dry time without recovery saved my life. I was never tough enough to handle that kind of emotional pain without a drink, or some substitute, none of which worked all that well. I would hear Jerry, and be horrified initially, then steeped in gratitude when he shared how he had done the work known as the 12 steps and "recovered" from that seemingly hopeless condition of alcoholism.

Jerry had such humor, and such a genuine, down-to-earth way of putting things that made you know he was sharing actual experience and giving it to you straight, blended with a self-effacing humor that made it less painful for you to absorb.

I will never forget how Jerry described writing the names on his resentment list, described throwing his notebook across the room hundreds of times while writing that 4th step, and how he had exhausted all the names, and in telling his sponsor this, was asked. "what are the last two names on the list?"

Jerry replied, "Madonna and Jim Plunkett."

His sponsor replied, "You're done."

It was a hilarious, but poignant example of being thorough without getting too silly.

I will never forget the bleak picture Jerry painted of his suicidal depression, because it matched mine. I can't put into words how hope was born when I identified with the suffering, but saw that the man was now on a different plane, living a different life, and enjoying it, to boot.

It wasn't that exhaustive 4th step that had set Jerry free, he said, it was working with others. he talked about how he stayed depressed and enveloped in self, until "some poor bastard" asked him for help.

Upon working with the man, his depression lifted.

I never forgot that. Though prior to this week I hadn't seen Jerry since he moved to North Carolina about 10 years ago, I never forgot his shared experience, his self-effacing humor or his dedication to carrying the message of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Return of The Charms

2010-07-08T16:08:00.000-07:00

What a great surprise I got the other day when I opened up my email to find a heads up from a friend alerting me to the reunion show taking place tomorrow night at The Middle East upstairs.

My all time favorite band, The Charms, is playing together for the first time in at least 3 years. Not only are they a great band, but the people are dedicated, hard-working, extremely talented musicians.

What I always loved best about The Charms was the energy they brought to each and every show. The crowd looked like they were having the time of their lives, and The Charms always looked like they were having twice as much fun as the crowd.

Describing The Charms: I don't like using other bands to describe a band, but if I had a gun to my head, I would say it's like Green Day stopped by to play behind the Gogos. They listened to ACDC on the way, and Ray Manzarek dropped in just as they were about to start with a Farfisa organ. They are garage-y rock, blended with driving pop/rock riffs and terrifically written lyrics.

I can't wait to see these guys, though they owe me nothing. I never had more fun with music than I had chasing these guys around the northeast. Every show was something special, and I am just grateful for the chance to see them one more time. I know it's going to be great.

The Charms play tomorrow night, July 9th at The Middle East upstairs in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I am driving down from Maine for this show, wouldn't miss it for the world.

"Into the Wild" or "Lost and Found"

2010-06-30T08:13:00.001-07:00

Haven't written in am embarrassingly long time. Oh well, let's move on. Just finished watching "Into the Wild" and all I can say "wow...ouch...wow...ouch...wow...ouch"

I closed out the viewing with a sob-fest.

For those who don't know, "Into the Wild" is movie Sean Penn directed based on the life of Chris McCandless, a guy who graduated near the top of his class at Emery University, was accepted to an Ivy League Law school, then gave all his savings away to charity, burned his identification and dropped out of society to engulf himself in nature.

He was turned off my dishonesty in his family, his father's illegitimate marriage to his mother (his father was still married to another woman, still had another son with her and denied him after Chris was born. There was violence in his home, control, and to call it dysfunctional would be an understatement, plus, I loathe that term now, it is so hackneyed.

He meets a lot of good people on his travels, and lives through some amazing adventures before eventually dying at the age of 24 from starvation in Alaska. Chris misidentified some roots as edible that were poisonous, weakened himself, and became unable to hunt for food. He was found dead in the bus he fashioned into his home by moose hunters two weeks after he passed away.

Chris, who until nearing death, forsook his birth name, re-naming himself "Alexander Supertramp", left behind journals of his thoughts and adventures. Before he died, he wrote and left for whoever might find him:

"I have had a happy life
and thank the Lord.
May God bless all!!"

This movie hit me in the gut, doubled me over, more than it might hit some because I know what it is like to be a lost young man. He couldn't reconcile life. The kid was a genius, but he could not grasp man's inhumanity to man, man's obsession with "things". I'm sure there was a good measure of self-loathing woven in based on his upbringing, and he did everything he could to distance himself from who he was and where he came from. He basically disowned his family, though he always loved his sister.

The main difference between me and Chris McCandless is my family. There were many times when it was so dark in my soul that death called out to me promising rest, and quietness of mind. It sounded better and better to me...except for my family and friends. Chris created a family of travelers and people he met on the road, but he never let them get too close. His fear of relationships, initiated years earlier when his family turned out to be a lie, spawned an insulation against letting anyone get too close, too deep.

Shortly before he died, Chris reflected on his short, though full life, and wrote in between the lines of what I believe was a Tolstoy novel, "HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED".

Chris was lost, but not really. I think he found all the Truth he was capable of finding in this life in his quiet moments near the end of his life. In living the way he did, he impacted millions of people, through the book about his life, and this film. I've always thought that life is very short, whether it is 20 years or 100, it is a grain of sand in the endless flow of time. It's really more important to live boldly, to live well, to love all you can than it is to merely exist for what is really a pittance of time anyway., but seems "long" to us here on this plane.

Chris lived a day at a time, sapped everything he could out his short life, but he made me think of all the other lost souls out there, struggling through life, often dying a day at a time, an hour at a time, a minute at a time. What a sad way to spend the greatest gift of all- life.

Lost.

The brutal combination of excruciating misery woven together with a bleak outlook that things could ever possibly change.

Lost.

Hopeless.

Keeping it together on the outside because that's all you think there is- keeping it together... the notion that things could ever actually BE okay is a fantasy. This was my mindset for years.

But I have a great family. I have great friends. They loved me enough to keep me afloat long enough to be found. Even though I was uncomfortable with being loved and still am to a degree, they, like God, just kept the faucet running, flowing so my own little pond didn't get totally stagnated and kill me.

Then one day, I awoke from a 30 year slumber. Slowly at first, wiping the sleepy-sandy things from my eyes, stumbling awkwardly out of an insulated life-coma. I staggered, but I staggered with purpose, tottering toward a still, small voice, and one day, not only was I not lost, but I was loaded with experience on how to find others.

"All who wander" may not be lost, but a helluva lot of us are.

Now it just looks like I am wandering to the untrained eye, but believe it or not... I know exactly what I am doing and where I am going.

I think a lot of us are afraid of what we'd find out if we ever got home. Wouldn't God, or whatever you understand to be god, be pissed that we were away for so long, and doing only God knows what? Isn't it just safer and sensible to stay lost at some point?

This makes me think of the parable of the Merciful Father from Luke. Whether or not you are feeling the Jesus, this is a beautiful story about the nature of God. Long story short, son gets half inheritance, takes off, blows said inheritance, and is destitute. He returns home, hoping his father will let him sleep in the barn with the servants and eat scraps, but all he does is turn onto the road home, and his father, who had been watching and waiting, praying and hping for the return of his son, RUNS down the road to meet him. the son walks shamefaced, a prepared apology in the wings to be recited, but he is muffled and his pleas for forgiveness muffled by the father literally mauling him, hugging and kissing him, throwing robes on the kid, new sandals on him, ordering servants around to throw a party.

This is the nature of God. He isn't interested in retribution, payment, score-keeping, or inflicting more shame via wagging fingers and furrowed brows. he simply loves the heck out of us. he is simply glad we are home.

I prepare my apologia for my life and failures, and God is too busy arranging decorations for my celebration to listen to it.

Geez, God, I really let ya down, I didn't do this, I missed that, I I I I I...

Meanwhile, He/She is pumped up that I showed up at all, that I remembered Him at all. he is riveted by the good I did do, which usually far outweighs the stuff I screwed up. More than that, he is celebrating me for exactly who I am at that very instant. the party is NOW, not tomorrow or in 10 years when I get to some arbitrary point of self-assumed, man made "success".

Today is the success. I am alive, well, healthy, happy, participating in life.

I imagine I can say one of two things when I die and meet my Maker, if that actually happens.

"I'm sorry."

or

"Thank You."

It is my hope that I say the latter. I don't want to bring down God's enthusiasm with any neg-head downer nonsense.

I think Chris McCandless got all that, but I think he got the part about "happiness only being real when shared" just a little too late. Because of him, maybe a few people will get it in this lifetime.

The best part about being lost is that when you find your way, you can others find theirs.

A New Century, Buick, that is

2009-12-20T19:28:00.000-08:00

Yesterday turned out far more promising than I expected. I picked up dad to go to the car lot where I bought my Camry. The guy there, Mike, is a guy I know and trust, a real decent character. dad had set aside the time on Saturday, so we went. It was a bit of a bad plan on my part as I knew they didn't have exactly what he was really looking for in stock.

Pop is only going to be driving locally for the most part, so he just needs an older model in decent shape to get around in. The cars there were all too knew- and expensive for dad's real needs in this case.

Dad insisted on wearing his freakin' slippers, in spite of an impending snow storm.

"J&^#$ Ch&@#$, we're not gonna be out all day, is it gonna snow this hour?"

I don't really have an argument prepared for a guy who wants to wear slippers in New England in December, so I stood there dumbfounded. It was about 25 degrees out, and I was pretty sure, the fall coat and slippers were going to be inadequate, but much like when dad used to berate me for not dressing properly as a kid, my pleas for winterizing his gear usually meet with strong opposition and turn any event into a row.

"Okay," I replied cheerily.

"I mean, I'm going to be in the car, for ^&%#$'s sake."

"Good point, dad," I agreed, demonstrating to myself that I am finally learning to wave the white flag when facing many cannon."

We arrived at the lot and strolled around a bit. dad hadn't foreseen the ice patches, puddles and icy downgrades when he opted for the slipper approach, so this led us to several circuitous routes top look at vehicles I knew he wouldn't be interested in.

He did get a kick out of a PT Cruiser (to Debbie's dismay and my delight) but it was a newer model, and even the 2005 was way too pricey for dad's purposes. My friend promised the best possible deal, but when we sat with the owner, a young kid named Edwin, I knew based on experience that it would be a circle jerk with a higher price than the best price, then we'd have to leave, the price would be lowered, we'd still leave, then there would be phone calls.

Sigh. I hate car lots.

Mike called me after we left, irritated with Edwin and apologetic. He said he knew the price was too high. It didn't matter, that wasn't the right fit for dad anyway, I assured him.

I dropped dad off and picked up a sub from Harry's Pizza. My sister Deb called me en route to Pine St. and told me they had a Buick dad might like at a local dealer. When she showed up, we took off to see it, but never made it there. Deb suggested we stop by J&S Motors- dad's usual mechanic. They had put all the cars inside for the storm except two, one of which was a Buick Century exactly like dad's car, sans dents and miscellaneous paint scrapes.

It was immaculate inside. It was a 1998, with 123,000 or so on it- perfect for dad! It was also only 3,200 buckaroos, which was even better. I got the keys and drove it to Pine St top "surprise" dad. I am hoping to learn someday that dad isn't really all that fond of surprises. he was down the driveway, delivering candy to a neighbor. I waited for him to come up.

"What do you think, dad?" I said, expecting praise and perhaps even genuflection.

"It's fine," the old man mumbled, as if inspecting dish water to see if there was enough detergent mixed in.

"Get in dad!"

"No no no, I'm walking home," said the slippered one, as he navigated the ice up toward home.

"You like it?"

"Yeah yeah, I'll write him a check," he said as if stating the obvious.

Debbie made the mistake of asking dad if he liked the car again at home, which avalanched into what for me and Timmy would have been an hilarious tirade, but for Deb probably initiated trauma.

"Jes&%^ Ch@#$%, I love it, Debbie, it's perfect, it's gorgeous, it's the best f#$%@%# car I've ever seen."

I puzzled dad again today when I asked if he would perhaps like to drive it tomorrow before actually purchasing it.

"What the &$%# for?" he asked as if responding to the query- Would you like to dance around in a thong and dip your hat in pudding?

I hadn't really heard of someone buying a car without sitting in it when the car was, ya know, in front of them at some point.

"I 'm only going down town, I need to get around, CVS...&^#%$, I can COAST down there for &^$%^%$ sake. You drove it didn't you?"

"Yes, I did," I wisely played it straight, saving my smirky comments for the reproduction.

"All right then," he said, hoping I would some day have the intelligence of a lawn chair.

"Ok, dad," I said, editing the rest of it.

Dad's Car Finally Craps Out

2009-12-16T21:27:00.000-08:00

Well, the beast served him well, in spite of my old man's fast, erratic, oblivious and somewhat generally dangerous driving, but dad's car is shot. The brakes went on him the other day on the way to a CVS run. Fortunately, it didn't happen on the way home, as the weight of the Whitman's samplers, excess toiletries (stockpiled for the grandchildren by all appearances) and stationery would like have had a similar on the Buick Century as the reaction to the payload of a trailer truck's cargo.

So yesterday I got a call from dad to help him take his car to the garage. After informing me that the brakes were gone, and he had stopped the vehicle by way of furious "pumping" of the brake pedal, he let me in on the plan to transport the auto.

"You can drive in front of me, and I'll go slow."

Okay... the man is 86, doesn't wear a seat belt, has no brakes, and a working definition of "slow" which roughly translates to: a rate of speed which allows pedestrians to dive to safety before impact.

"Geez, dad... what could possibly go wrong?" I wondered. The notion that he would be behind me, so I would likely be the car he collided with gave me zero comfort.

En route to dad's house for the old car transfer mission, I decided to sneak into the house, snag the keys and take the car in myself. I knew there would be repercussions, and I felt a little badly about leaving my step-mother Louise to handle my father's inevitable tantrum when I altered the plan, but I felt assured that even the fallout from this would be far lass traumatic than seeing dad's photo on FOX news as the latest nut to plow through a crowd of people, though the audio portion of the telecast probably would have provided some of the best Reality TV in history. I can only imagine dad's rendition of the story, complete with a description of an elderly woman he mowed down as a "moron doddling around with a walker in the road" whilst demanding she finance his car's repairs after being arrested for public stupidity.

It was a nice day, so I strolled back to Pine St., ready to face the fire. You had to see him to appreciate it, but here dad sits...on the couch, still wearing his hat and coat. The look on his face was priceless, I had seen it ten thousand times if I had seen it once. it said, quite unmistakenly, "why do I have to deal with morons?" Of course, the look was framed with the slightest hint of a smile.

"I have an explanation, dad."

The look didn't change, except the smile slowly disappeared. I explained I was worried about him cracking his ribs if the car wouldn't stop, or God forbid, if the airbag went off, it might kill him. he seemed to take it pretty well.

I said something like, "you look a little worried dad, you all right?"

Without missing a beat, and genuine concern he says, "Yeah, I was worried because some moron was driving my car around with no brakes."

To that I conceded that if anyone were qualified to drive that car without brakes, it was him. he hadn't threatened using the brakes in years.

To that we all had a pretty good laugh.

Today he got the word that it would cost more to fix than the car was worth. I looked for a suitable replacement, which dad would like in place by last Thursday, if possible.

Slow Going on re: the writing.

2009-11-13T14:35:00.000-08:00

Well, I hit almost 19,000 words, but man is it slow-going lately. Something is going on. When I sit down to write, I become incredibly exhausted and can barely stay awake. I also have the constant droning that this isn't important, or won't be good.

Jenn Dlugos, who teaches the screen writing class I decided to take with my friend Dot, said this week that there is no such thing as writer's block, it is just "fear of writing something down because it won't be good enough."

I agree.

She also mentioned something I've heard many times, (but sometimes it is the 10,000th time I hear something that I "get it."

Jenn said, "all first drafts aren't good, but you can't edit a blank page."

Point taken. So I am telling myself that while I think all the stuff I am writing now is trash, I can always back and delete it or change things around. It is 5:40pm and I swear, I am passing out. I forced myself to write about 600 words yesterday and 700 or 800 today. Not much, but better than nothing. I am going to lay down, maybe snooze and see if I can write a wee bit more later.

I also went to a job fair today and liked a couple of the companies, but was appalled at some of the salaries. I am hoping to find something I love so I am not worried about the horrendous salary.

I Heart New York

2009-11-05T14:05:00.000-08:00

I Heart New York

So I headed to NYC today to see my pal MYQ Kaplan perform stand up for a comedy central taping. In the past, I have had success parking at a Metro Station in Connecticut and taking the train in from there, about an hour ride. I have been to NYC before, so I came prepared.

I was somewhat dreading having to be in New York at this particular point in time, marinating with obnoxious, gloating Yankee fans on the verge of another world title.

Remove all Red Sox paraphernalia from sight in vehicle- check

Scatter trash in backseat to reduce likelihood anyone would expect to find anything of value in vehicle- check.

Remove cash (except three bucks to make it look good) and credit cards (except expired BJ's card and an old library card) from wallet- check

Tape credit card to inner thigh- check

Put money in sock- check

Slip shiv inside right shirt sleeve- check

Hand sanitizer- check

Ready to rock- check.

The train ride was pretty mellow, but as we got closer to New York City and Grand Central Station, I could feel it- the presence of NYC. I would have to be on guard. I wisely had left any Red Sox and/or Patriots gear in Massachusetts, so I thought as long as I kept my head and didn't pronounce anything with an “r” in it, I cold pull this trip off safely.

Arriving at Grand Central, I walk with brisk purpose even though I had no idea where I was going. After covering several city blocks only to wind up back at that same spot, I approached the information booth carefully. Speaking to the clerk in broken english, I managed, “What freakin' train do ya take to 10th and 59th? The head gasket on my freakin' Camaro is pissing oil and my old lady tells me to take the freakin' train, if you can believe it.”

The clerk eyed me, but bought the act hook, line and sinker.

“Take the shuttle to Times Square, yeah, heh? Then the one train to 59th and 8th and ya can walk the two blocks.”

I grabbed my package and half grimaced like I had bad sausage earlier in the day- so far so good.

I hopped on the shuttle, but being unaware that it was one stop, back and forth, I ping ponged a couple times before I whispered to an elderly woman, “Is this Times Square?”

I proceeded to get on the one train, but again didn't realize it was only an express train and 59th street was the first stop. I went to 66th, then reversed direction and made it back to 59th in no time. Exiting the building, I noticed there was a 58th street running parallel to 60th street, but no 59th. Was it a trap? I wasn't sure, but it didn't look good. I asked a kid with a skateboard for directions to 59th street.

He fumbled around and brought up Columbus Avenue, so I figured he was from out of town or had sustained brain damage riding the skate board. He apologized and sat on a stone bench. I read the bottom of his skateboard which had his phone number and “if found please call.” I now saw my mistake. This kid was obviously from pout of town. No New Yorker would be fool enough to think a skateboard would actually returned if lost. Secondly, if you somehow misplace a skateboard, I might side with the Big Applers and refuse to reward such stupidity with a skateboard.

I found a policeman who informed me that 59th street ended before the station. He pointed me in the right direction. I am almost there, I am early, and as yet, no major mishaps or trouble. Walking toward 59th, I spotted a Philadelphia Phillies fan coming the other direction, brazenly wearing a Phillies hat. You had to admire those Phillies cats- absolutely fearless.

He had chewing tobacco in his lip and a bulge under is jacket that said AK47. I think it was a tad big for a saw off shotgun and too small to be an uzi or some sort of bazooka. He met my eyes as I gave the slightest nod from behind my cornea, visible only to another navigating through enemy territory. He returned the nod, but it was visible. I was filled with admiration as I thought, “you crazy bastard, you'll give me away.

I maintained my cover as I made my way toward Gerald Lynch Auditorium at John Jay College, where the taping was being held. I stopped for hot nuts on the way. I hate hot nuts and have actually never eaten hot nuts, but they help you blend in. The mistake I made last time was failure to discard the nuts
when they grew cold. No "real" New Yorker would ever let his/her nuts cool.

I had time to kill before the show. making my way up to a Starbucks. As I entered the establishment, I held the door for an elderly woman behind me.

Without thinking, I had blown my cover. The old broad read I was from out of town, but from the look of fear in my eyes and her years of savvy and experience, she rightly guessed Boston. She clicked her heel, and reflective of a James Bond flick, a sharp dagger protruded from the front of her right shoe. I got my foot up for the block and she swung it toward my knee, the poisonous tip inches from breaking the skin and injecting me with instant death.

I thrust downward at the crest of her ankle, relishing the crack which preceded her groan of agony. Feigning a downward swoon, she swung upward with the tip of her cane, also seemingly tipped with some sort of of poisonous substance. I barely evaded the cane assault, gripping the shaft and twisting it around, ending her attack by thrusting the javelin-like cane into her ribcage.

There were about forty people in the Starbucks, but luckily no one noticed as they were either retrieving or ordering lattes or focused on cell phone conversations.

I left the hag's now limp body on the floor and got in live for a beverage, trying to act natural. the next few patrons casually stepped over the cadaver and stood in line. I had maintained. I ordered small mocca with one pump of chocolate. When I went to pick up my order, I absently said, "thanks". You guessed it- cover blown. the barista dropped a pumpkin spice latte and hurdled the counter. I loosened the cover of my steaming latte, hurling toward the face of the charging coffeeman. buying myself a few seconds, I fled toward the door, hoping the old lady's body on the floor had not yet garnered attention.

As I wheeled around the corner, I reduced my pace to a steady gait, blending in with the foot traffic east on 59th street. I had escaped a fatal situation with ease. Perhaps a little too easy, I thought. Easing toward the theater, content to wait in the lobby at this point, I began to relax a bit the farther I got from the donnybrook in Starbucks.

With about a block to go, a heard a strange sound coming from a side street not much bigger than a narrow alley. It stopped me in my tracks. "Was that a baby crying?" I wondered. Curiosity and concern got the better of me and I headed down the slim side street to investigate. The sound seemed to be coming from behind a discarded cardboard box. I rounded the box and was stunned to see an abandoned baby carriage. The cries were consitent. As I closed on the carriage, a fluffy pink blanket appeared to cover the baby. As I peeled it back, I realized a moment too late that I had been set up.

A small tape recorder played the soft cries of a baby over and over. I did a double take as the baby sprang to its feet, not a baby at all, but rather a midget wielding a home made weapon. The angry dwarf lunged at me with the home-fashioned shank. The device appeared to be comprised of the handle of a pacifier attached to a bic pen welded to a toothbrush handle. The toothbrush had been melted down, then honed into a spike to form the business end of the weapon. I snapped to a bit late, as the thrust winged my cheek.

"I'm gonna send you back to beantown in a bawdy bag, punk."

I thrust forward a palm-heel to the forehead of the fake baby, rendering him unconscious. Using my latte napkin to pad the blood from my cheek, I quickly exited the alleyway and headed toward the theater.

The show came off without a hitch. At some point during the warm, I recalled George Constanza's strategy of looking annoyed to appear busy. I wondered if I could use the same strategy to blend in as a native New Yorker. As I walked to the train, I remembered all the incoveniences of the trip: not being able to park at the first train station I went to and having to find a second, not being allowed to sit in the library at John Jay Colege because I wasn't a student or police officer, the internet connection not working, no seats at Starbucks. I genuinely grew irritated as I thought about, adopting a tightness around my lips and stiffened brow. As I walked through Grand Central Station, I noticed the locals warming up to me, giving occasional nod.

I made it home in one piece, end of story.

MYQ in NYC

2009-11-04T06:49:00.000-08:00

Well today is a special day. My friend MYQ Kaplan is taping his first special for Comedy Central. His name is MYQ now because he is smart, and realized 6 or 7 years ago when he was starting in comedy that Mike Kaplan was a common name, but there's something about the power of the Q, maybe a concept he stole from the people who name radio stations.

A zillion people with talent come along, but I always knew MYQ would "make it", whatever that means, because he is what would be known in poker circles as a "grinder", a worker bee churning out small gains everywhere he plays. In comedy, we refer to this affectionately as being a "stage whore", which is no way intended to be a derogatory term.

MYQ would hit the stage as many times a night as he could, right from the beginning. He'd do five minutes at one joint, then hop on a train or drive across Boston, Saugus, Dorchester, New Hampshire to get another five minutes.

Don't get me wrong, this s.o.b. is funny as hell, and is a true comedian in the best sense of the word. MYQ is a craftsman, and I hate to use a hackneyed comparison, but his workmanlike approach to comedy reminds me of Jerry Seinfeld. Not his style, his professionalism. If you've ever seen the fantastic documentary, "Comedian", you'd know what I meant by that.

The end product is a crisp, clean, perfectly timed joke, but often the recipe for the end product involved rap sessions with other comics, and relentless perfecting of a joke, trimming, scaling down, economizing until you have the best joke you can possibly have. Of course without the natural talent of being funny, this is all mute, but combined with humor, this ethic produces fantastic comedy routines, and Kaplan is the perfect example of this.

He can tell a short story, riddled with punch lines. He can shoot one liners all day. And his sets are bam bam bam, he keeps coming at you the entire time, joke joke joke joke joke, and the true gift of the master is how natural and relaxed it all looks, like this guy has all day, is in no rush and is running the show.

Beyond the talent and the work ethic, MYQ is one of the genuinely nicest people I've met in comedy. He is smart, humble and simply a guy you just want to root for. I will be rooting for him today at the Gerald Lynch Theater on the corner of 10th and West 59th in New York City.

The only part of this trip I am not excited about is having to marinate in NYC with all those obnoxious, gloating Yankee fans.

The plan is to drive to Westport, Ct. and take the train from there, a strategy I have used when traveling to the big city a few times. I am bringing my laptop so I can write on the train ride in which takes 69 minutes, according to the Metro North schedule. I like the train, it is very relaxing, especially in comparison to navigating through Manhattan in a car- no thanks.

Nanowrimo 2009

2009-11-03T15:11:00.000-08:00

Well, it's that time again- National Novel Month. The object is to write a novel of 50,000 words in one month. Last year, I was totally focused on word count, just to prove to myself I could write that much in a month. Consistency and discipline have always been my greatest obstacles to productivity. While I can't say I came up with anything one could consider a novel, or even one linear or non-linear story, I DID crank out the word count. For me, this was a major achievement.

This year, I have a few friends who are tackling the mammoth task again. I am going to plug away and try to be as consistent as I can be. While I am not writing a novel, but more of an autobiographical piece of what they call "creative non-fiction" nowadays, I am still going to log into nanowrimo and use the word count charts for motivation sake.

I cranked out about 3,500 words today, which is an incredibly productive day for me. I also caught myself doing a little editing, which is a big no-no, it slows you down, and first drafts are first drafts for a reason. If I keep going in an editing, I never go forward. The mission now is to CRANK out volume and fix it later.

Good luck to my friends also writing. I know at least Tom, Claudia and jesse (who successfully wrote her first novel last year) are doing it this year.

Drunk Dream

2009-11-02T23:31:00.000-08:00

I had a drunk dream last night. For those who don't know what that is, it's just what it sounds like- you dream about being drunk. This can be unsettling for sober alcoholics. I have the same dream, but have only had it, oh- 10 or 15 times in the last 10 years. It is really more of a nightmare than a dream.

It's a nightmare on the lines of watching Grady Little walk away from the pitcher's mound in Yankee stadium in 2003 after deciding to leave Pedro in with his arm falling off and Matsui coming to the plate.

You would think if you were going to dream about drinking, it would be a fun dream, a 2004, come from down 3-0 dream. A dream of when booze "worked", but I always have the same shitty dream, rare as it is, it is horrifying. In my dream, I already drank, or I drink maybe one beer, and it is a crappy beer like Bud Light. It's too late to change my mind, and I have flushed double digit years of sobriety down the drain. I get absolutely nothing out of it, kinda like the last three years or so I kept trying to get that old effect.

My reputation as Mr. Sobah is obviously in ruins, and I have no identity, because virtually everyone knows me as a sober guy, and most people know me from sobriety. There are still a number of folks, I'm sure, who know me from the "old days". I really don't even think about it, to tell ya the truth, it was another life, but this dream, argh, it is a tough one.

The worst part is that I always wake up in the dream to find that I really DID drink, and my life is crumbling around me. When I finally wake in reality, I am not sure I am awake, then I have to remember, "What did I do? Wait- I didn't drink, right?"

I am grateful that I rarely if ever even think about drinking, and I haven't "wanted" a drink this century. I am one of the fortunate ones with my particular demon. But am I hoping the next time I have a drunk dream it is a wet one, with cute chicks and parties and everyone having a good time, like the way it was with alcohol when it still worked... in like, oh say, the late 1980s. I am exhausted and really looking forward to sleep. My room gets pretty bright in the morning with daylight savings kicking in, or is it over now? Anyway, I am hoping to get some solid shuteye. It's almost 3 a.m., a late night.

short update

2009-10-28T05:34:00.000-07:00

Well, I am off to what may be the last Foxwoods tourney of the series. I have also been thinking about starting a poker blog for this type of nonsense so people who are more interested in hearing tales of watching paint dry than my blow-by-blow description of hand histories and poker details won't have to come in here and see this nonsense.

For the poker nerd, this is all highly interesting stuff, for everyone else it is like going to see what you expect is going to be a pretty good movie only find an empty theater and a dentist waiting for you.

And oh- he forgot to bring the Novocaine, this is going to hurt- a lot.

Bad Beat at F***woods

2009-10-26T20:36:00.000-07:00

Yeah, nothing new, that's why I call it F***woods.

Poker can be fun, interesting, exhilarating, and above all, frustrating. Today was a perfect example of the latter.

Beau and I entered the $500 NL. They like to do this goofy thing with starting chips counts at Foxwoods, where they give you progressively more chips as the buy ins get larger. The idea is not a bad one, but they overdo it, get too fancy. For the $300 shootout, they gave you 5,000 chips (we didn't play it) For the $400 NL, they gave you 5,000, the $500 6,000 chips, and and the $600 Nl they start you out with 7,000 chips.

What I don't like about this is the lack of uniformity. there is less of an advantage to playing more tourneys, because they pace differently do they varying chip stacks. It is also a pain in the ass to calculate the avg stack size in your head when it is 6,000 or 7,000 at the outset, which is why I really dislike the goofy amounts.

Just make it 5,000 or 10,000 for Pete's sake.

Today, I was determined to play much tighter after the flop for the first two rounds (50 minutes each). I bled too many chips early last time on drawing hands, which you have to be careful of when you start with 5,000 or 6,000 chips. 10,000 gives more freedom to speculate early.

Right out of the gate, I flopped top set, which turned into a full house, and got paid off through the turn (6th street). Shortly after, I had pocket aces and was able to get the same guy I victimized with my full house to pay me a small amount, grudgingly. He folded with irritation, so I showed the aces to show the table I was playing big hands.

I didn't want to mix it up early. I showed big hands and made some excellent reads. A guy to my right was raising light (weaker hands like KQ or AJ AT) which really aren't raising hands in early to middle position, especially early in a tournament.

He raised the 50-100 BB to 300. I called in late position with 55. The flop was something ugly like 2 7 9. He bets 300 into a pot of 850- weak. he missed. The turn brought an 8 or something, and he stabs out 500 into a pot of almost 1500- very weak indeed. At this point, I put him on AQ, little did I know he was playing even weaker hands and had, I believe, A-10. The river card is another 9. I know this misses him because he would have bet top pair stronger. He must be putting me on a small pair, over cards, or perhaps he isn't a player who thinks a lot and isn't "putting me" on any hand in particular, but just tossing out small bets hoping I'd go away.

He fingers his chips, doesn't even look at me, and throws 1,200 into the 2500 chip pot. I am not excited about calling, as dropping another 1200 chips would cut my stack to around 5,000 chips, but I have to trust my original read- two high cards. I did think about it, then called and as he threw hand away said, "AQ"?

He said later, "if that your six came on the river, I would have had you, and you would have had to call with a straight, right?" So I know he had a 10, if he was telling the truth, and I am pretty sure it didn't make sense for him to lie about that, as it made him look goofier. So he was probably betting A-10 there.

He said, "Wow, good call. How can make that call." So I told him what I thought he had. I like players to think I know what they are holding. It makes them nervous and cautious and easier to steal pots from later. Another player later told me I was "making some sick reads", but that is really a fairly obvious read on a pretty bad player.

First of all, the biggest mistake people make when they bluff is making a bluff that doesn't make sense. The second biggest mistake is bluffing a player who isn't good enough to understand why he should fold, or trying to bluff a "calling station." Don't waste time or chips bluffing someone who has shown they will call down with weak or mediocre hands.

The guys bluff didn't make sense. There wasn't a hand I could put him on, other than maybe A-8, and that would have been a seriously weak hand to raise with in his position, that made sense.

I made my one blunder of the day shortly afterward when I raised a guy all-in on the river after he had already committed most of his chips. I mistakenly thought he had a lot more chips and could afford to fold, but he called me down with second pair and hurt my stack.

It was a rookie mistake I thought I had put behind me, similar to a blunder I made by overplaying AK after a missed flop last Friday. I was steaming, very pissed at myself for such a boneheaded play, so I took a short walk. Upon returning, I saw that I had croaked my stack from a little over 10K to about 6,200.

It could be worse, I had more than I started with, but I had handed over chips to a very loose player- the exact kind of player you don't want to have an abundance of chips to play around with.

Keeping my head, I stabbed here and there, picked my spots and chipped back up over 11K. I continued to bob and weave, avoid big pots and chip up. Finally, my chance came to attack the guy who had called me down and hurt my stack. I wasn't looking for revenge- that is moronic and gets you busted out of tournaments trying to be a hero or "teach someone a lesson". What lesson would I be teaching? "Hey, don't accept chips from me when I make a stupid play? Fold anyway?"

He raised in early position. I put him on AQ. I had 99. he had about 8 or 9K, I had about 17K. I figured I could get him to fold that hand with an all in. I had two shorter stacks behind me, and the guy to my immediate left was very tight. He wouldn't play unless he had a monster. The initial raiser hopefully would fold to my push with his tournament life on the line. AQ is one of the most over-rated hands in poker, especially to call with. I would much rather be the raiser than the call with AQ, because most people who re-raised you have either a big pair or AK, which has a 70-30 edge over AQ.

I shoved my stack. As He thought about it longer, I felt better about my hand. He was trying to talk himself into calling me, but his heart wasn't really in it. I thought more and more AQ, he has AQ. he said, "This hand has been good to me all day," and AQ was the hand he made his biggest hand with- against me earlier.

He finally calls and the news is even better than I had hoped, he has pocket 88, a 4:1 underdog to my 99. My 99 holds up, and I picked up a nice pot. I was surprised he called me with that hand, as I had been showing a lot of big hands, but sometimes, the chips seduce you into making a call, dreaming, you will win that big pot, forgetting that your opponent likely has your ass crushed.

I had also started throwing chips around a little bit, so maybe he thought I was starting to bet light.

As the tourney wore on, I picked up a few hands and played them very strong. A guy raised my BB when I had AQ. He had about 9K, I had 20K, so I shoved my stack. I had 10 10 in the BB, one limper, plus the Small blind- I shove my stack. I don't like to flip coins, but if I feel I have the best hand in a situation like that, I am going to put the other guy to the test.

Both hands resulted in folds, which is fine. I don't really want to see flops with those hands anyway, I am happy to take down the pot. As the tourney went on, I chipped up to about 43,000 or so, then hit a dry spell. I didn't win, or really play a pot for over an hour. I wasn't wasting chips, so I still had 35,000 or so when they broke my table up. It is an advantage to stay at the same table, as you know the players, but I was almost happy to be going, with the rags I had been seeing.

This would be my demise, however. We were down to 99 players or so when I was moved. 55 made the money. I wanted to make the money, but the day had been going so well that I was aiming much higher. I had played very well, with one exception, and had redeemed myself. I had also avoided bad beats- hands where I had far the best hand, but got some asinine beat.

My first couple hands at the new table told me this was going to be a challenge. I wasn't going to float into the money or run this table. The guy to my left was a chip mover, and so was the guy to his left. They had huge stacks and liked to throw chips around left and right. I called his raise from my BB with 22. the flop of 3 7 9 was ugly, but I check folded, after missing my shot at trips. It would not have been smart to start splashing around with a guy who likes to make moves with 22 in my hands.

The next hand, I am in the small blind with QJ off suit, not my favorite hand by any means, but not bad from the small blind. A guy with about 20K raises it to 3,000 from middle-late position. I call the extra 2,400 chips knowing the guy next to me would call with any two cards. I thought the raiser had an ace or a middle pair like 77 or 88 by the way he bet.

The flop comes A K 10, with 2 spades. I have just flopped the nuts. I have the best hand possible at this point in time. Some players might check here, to induce betting, but I bet out 4,500. I don't want this clown next to me getting a free shot at a spade, knowing he is the kind of guy who could have called the pre-flop raise with 5-8 of spades or something. He folds, and the initial raiser goes all-in.

This I expected, as if he had an Ace, he would have to play it here. the fact that I bet out also makes me look weaker, because it looks like I am trying to discourage action, which is exactly what I had hoped.

I call instantly- I mean, I have the nuts, right? I doubt he has spades, which I fear more than anything as another spade would crush my straight with a flush. I am guessing he has an ace, maybe AQ or AJ.

He flips over A 10 for two pair. I am way ahead with my straight, but I would rather have seen AQ or AJ, as he would need running cards to beat me, or a gut shot straight for a split pot. As it stands, I am about a 6:1 favorite. He has four "outs". He needs an ace or 10. the turn comes and 10 hits the turn, crushing my hopes. I take like a man, and dole out another 17,000 chips as everyone shakes their head is disbelief. I am not in disbelief, I am at Foxwoods, where these things tend to happen to me with regularity.

It is disheartening to play so well, make all the right reads and plays, and catch a bad beat. people whine about bad beats all the time, but a 6+:1 favorite after the flop falling is a bad beat. I still had 10,000 chips, I wasn't dead yet, although the uphill climb just got steeper- as Lenny sits down to my right. Lenny is possibly the most respected regular player at Foxwoods, and made the final table of the $10,000 main even last year at the Foxwoods WPT.

I catch KQ, not my favorite hand, but not bad for a short stack. A shorter stack pushes in front of me, I shove my 10K. Lady Luck has turned out to be a psycho-chick with herpes who is stalking me at work and telling the police I tried to force myself on her. the guy to my left calls with AK and my day is over.

All things considered, I feel great about my play, except the one mistake. My reads were very good, and I seemed to make all the right moves, but that's poker. I am going to have to downplay reporting the tournaments to my father, as he said, "this is costing you money, right?" and he does worry about that. he knows I won a small tourney last week, and I told him that covered me for a while.

I do feel like I am playing well, and geez, I don't even want breaks, just a lack of screw-jobs, and I feel something good will happen. We play at Foxwoods Wednesday in our next tourney, and I am targeting Mohegan Friday.

Callings

2009-10-25T07:47:00.000-07:00

I broke out a new book this morning to blend into the pile I use for morning meditation. I let up this week, skipped a few days, and only sat and read for a fragment of the time I was spending on the days I did sit down.

By "new" book, I mean new to the pile. The book is "Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life", by Gregg Levoy. It was first published in 1997, so it isn't new new, and I have had the thing for probably ten years. As I may have mentioned previously, nice folks are frequently giving me "spiritual" books. This one was a gift from a professor I had in an introductory writing course I took at BCAE about ten years ago. We became friends. She was a poet, and greatly enjoyed and benefited from this book.

I am sure I glanced at it a number of times over the years, as I moved from apartment to house to apartment, packing it up and thinking, "hmmm... I should read this sometime."

So today, in an effort to jump start my waning meditations, I grabbed "Callings" and a couple other books, adding them to the small stack. I have a very simple morning practice, part of which is reading a paragraph or two, or pages, from a book, and pondering. It is often referred to as contemplative meditation. I don't do well sitting in complete silence for extended periods of time. My mind is still very undisciplined and thoughts are rampant.

Much like Brennan Manning "got me" as early as the introduction in "The Ragamuffin Gospel", Levoy called my number in his introduction. I always read with a highlighter, these types of books, and I found myself reaching for it half way down the first page of the intro.

Levoy described a calling as a "centrifugal force". Rather than something coming from the cosmos, it is something inside trying to get out.

"We often tune out the longings we feel...rather than confront and act on them... we do not forget our calls, but what we fear what they might demand of us in pursuing them... Anticipating the conniption of change blocks us from acknowledging that we do know, and always have known, what our calls are... we also fear the hope that such a call evokes in us, and the Power that we know is dammed up behind the resistance."

Awareness of a call puts me in an ambivalent position. Ambivalence is sometimes seen as meaning wishy-washy, not caring which direction we float in, but in reality, it means torn between two options, almost the same as dilemma. A dilemma isn't just a problem, it's a problem with two unsatisfactory options.

When I think of people "called", many things come to mind. Most often, a calling is associated with the religious, so it tends to take on an ominous tone. If I answer a call, I have to do something BIG. Anything less than changing the world is failure. At one point, after having a spiritual awakening that saved me from an ugly death, I thought I ought to become a minister. I wasn't that far off... but all things considered, that is probably not my path. I had many ideas swirling around.

The thing is, I don't think you have to work that hard to know your calling. In your heart of hearts, there has always been something you were drawn to. Motherhood? Painting? Bowling? You felt at peace and in joy when the little stick turned blue, or you set foot in an art store, or when you picked up a tough split and filled a spare with a strike.

One has to wonder why we put so much effort into busying ourselves, distracting ourselves, launching ourselves into consumerism, obsession with things unimportant and rise and fall with the success or failure of the Red Sox, Bruins, Yankees, Patriots etc.

Many people come to mind when I think of answering a call.

The first who popped into my head is my sister Barbara. Barbara knew at a young age that she wanted to live in Europe and that she loved singing. She sang in high school and college. A few years down the road, she learned to speak French and moved to France. Not too crazy about the friendliness factor, she moved around, settling in Germany. She worked a job at a bank that was less than thrilling, but always worked toward her dream. She sang and sang and sang. Glee clubs, choruses, voice lessons. Eventually, Barb got a "job" singing in the chorus of an opera company.

Now my sister is not a religious person in the sense most of us consider religiosity, but if you kick around the classic sense of the word "religious" is a re-learning of what we've always known to be true.

Barb was born a singer, and through a series of small steps, arrived where she was always intended to be.

My niece Nat is another example of someone who responded to an inner call to sing. A mother with small children, Natalie decided to teach herself guitar, write some songs and sing them in public. When she mentioned this to me, I had had no idea she ever even thought of singing, or writing or playing guitar. In spite of intense fear of performing in public, not only did she pull it of, but she brought the house down and tears to the eyes of those who knew her. Anyone who knew her, (and even some of those who don't) could see that the songs were written on the lining of her stomach. No one else could have written them and sang them the way she had, beautiful, painful, liberating, true.

If she hadn't picked up the phone and answered in spite of her misgivings, the still small voice never would have been heard.

That's what it ussualy is, a still, small voice. Rod Serling concurred, "Thunder doesn't rent the sky and a bony finger... point at you and a great voice boom, 'YOU! You're anointed!"

Levoy continues, "most of the calls we receive and ignore are... daily calls to pay attention, to be authentic, to live by our own codes of honor. Great breakthroughs are often the ...accumulation of innumerable small steps."

So, as Levoy stated earlier, I do know, and have always known what I long to do. "We approach our deepest callings with both exhilaration and terror."

When I acknowledge that I have always lived to make people laugh, and loved to write. I like to perform in front of crowds and make them laugh. Combining these things with a deep self awareness acquired by recovering from alcoholism, and the subsequent spiritual awakening which kept me alive and opened my eyes, it would seem there was a reasonably clear direction, of not path, suggested.

It never ceases to amaze me, no matter how many times I hear differently, how persistent that voice of fear seems to be. Without fail, I will hear things like "who do you think you are to write? Do you really think anyone cares what you have to say? Rent a video. Play a game on the internet. Have a snack. This is too big a task. You probably won't finish. This has to be the best (fill in the blank) book, screenplay, article ever written, or you shouldn't bother writing anything at all.

It is sometimes very difficult to hear the still small voice among those voices, thought is always there. the voices of fear seem to dissipate as I take action- like I am now.

Even writing a blog helps me. It is not the flow of kind words and compliments from friends after I have written something. Oddly, I feel... "right" while writing and afterward. It is the before part that always kicks my ass. I find myself doing anything possible to "kill time", so that I don't have to write, or think about it, when time is the primary nonrenewable resource in the human experience.

So what can I do today? Well, it is unlikely I can write an entire book. But what I can do is bring my laptop to my dad's and write part of a chapter while we watch the Patriot's game.

10/22

2009-10-22T14:35:00.000-07:00

Well yesterday's poker exploits didn't go quite as well as I'd hoped. First off, I was exhausted and if I hadn't already signed up in advance, would have skipped playing. Secondly, I didn't play my best. I was a little too loose and aggressive way too early.

This particular tournament started you off with 5,000 chips, not a big stack. While the antes and blinds go up rather slowly (every 50 minutes) which gives you plenty of time to wait, I tend to try to mix it up too much early, and when you miss, you deplete the chip stack further.

I got low on chips pretty early and rallied a bit, but got bounced fairly soon. At the start of the day I thought, "the worst thing today would be if I got bounced early, and my partner busted out on the bubble just before the pay spots, which is of course, exactly what happened.

Finally got a little sleep today and had dad over for a movie.

We watched "Taken" and dad loved it. For an action thriller type flick is was actually not bad.

The Slippers Deliver

2009-10-20T19:46:00.000-07:00

As if bringing Ren (the dad) with me, I wore slippers to the poker tourney today. I would have left my pants at home and gone with long johns to complete the Rennish wardrobe if I thought they'd let me in the door.

As for the day's success- I give half credit to the slippers and half to this clay turtle given to me by my cousin Bill for my birthday which I use at a card cap. It reminds me to slow down and take my time.

Turn out was a bit of a disappointment, as only 19 people showed up for this thing. Mohegan Sun is annoying in that they must have the worst P.R. strategy going. "Hey guys, tell people about this, we're doing it every Tuesday and Thursday now!"

You can build a high rise, yet you can't let people know you're having a poker series? It's really up to me? Gosh, you're in trouble then guys.

Beau and I opted to stay and play anyway, since we were there, though we are definitely skipping Thursday. Today felt longer than it was, and we have a long one tomorrow (hopefully) at Foxwoods in the $400. It should be a pretty size field, maybe 900 or so if history dictates, though it is a tough economy. They lowered some of the buy ins, the lowest used to be $600, now they have tomorrow's $400 and next Monday's $500.

I wonder if Foxwoods will ask me to tell my friends about the tourney so someone shows up- probably not.

Today's tourney was looking pretty bleak. I was short stacked pretty late and didn't much in the way of cards all day, but I did lucky on a couple of all-ins. Anywho, long story short, when we got down to 4 players, we decided to split the prize money, then we renegotiated again at 3 players, then at two. It wound up being me and this other dude. The prize money was already chopped up, so we were playing for seat they added to another tourney because of the meager turnout.

We wound up splitting that, too.

So in effect, I won the thing, but it really was a small victory moneywise, but at least covers my tourneys this week and some of next week. And hey, it beats the hell out of losing.

Tomorrow we kicvk off at 11am at Foxwoods.

Weeeeeeeeeeee.

Back to the Poker Tables

2009-10-19T15:09:00.000-07:00

Well, my friend and former poker partner Beau is back in town for six weeks. There are two poker series at Mohegan Sun (Blowhegan Dung) and one series at Foxwoods (F**kwoods) over the next month.

We are joining forces yet again in hopes of duplicating our 2007 success. It really helps to have a number of tournaments, and also a partner (providing the guy can play) as it doubles your chances, obviously.

The goal is not simply to make the money in a tournament, but to finish right near the top 5 if possible. Obviously, you'd like to win the thing, but the way they structure tournament payouts, if you finish IN the money toward the bottom 1 out of every 2 tournaments, you would actually LOSE money. One key is to be aggressive as you approach the money "bubble" (the line between players who cash and those who do not cash) and try accumulate chips.

I need to remember to bring that most important tool, the ipod. I like to pay attention to the players, not immerse myself in music, but in the event there is a goon at my table, I prefer to just shut the noise out. Six or eight or ten hours with a goofball is a bit much.

We play our first tourney tomorrow at Blowhegan at 11am.

Weeeeeeeeeee!!!

I Don't shut the Door on the Past

2009-10-17T11:52:00.000-07:00

There's a spiritual promise in a book I studied that was a great part of saving my life.

"We will neither regret, nor wish to shut the door on the past."

This is referred to as a "promise".

There are a number of promises, all of which have come to fruition in my life over the past 12 or 13 years. All, that is,. except this one. Is it possible for me, sure, I believe so, it just hasn't happened yet.

I can stand on the "nor wish to shut the door on" portion of the promise. That much is true. I can honestly say there is not one single thing I have ever done, had done to me, or thought that I have not already shared with another human being, and of course, God, Who (I had a sneaking suspicion,) may have already known.

The purpose is not simply to share horror stories, or lowlights, but to share insight on a tragedy from the perspective of someone in whom the difficulty has now been solved.

Sometimes, the entriety of the problem has not been relieved, but I am compelled to share whatever perspective it si that I have.

The freedom to share my worst moments, humiliating defeats and darkest nights of the soul comes not from pride at having survived them, because let's face it, most people don't need to go where I've gone and experience what I've experienced to smarten up and do things differently. I never changed out of virtue, but rather out of necessity. And honestly, I never really changed me, I merely became unwilling to continue living the old way, and willing to let God do whatever the heck it is that He does with characters like me.

So it occasionally comes to me- my greatest regret of many regrets, the lone regret I can't seem to completely forgive myself for. I can share with depth the hows and whys, the ways God has changed me, and the things I need to continue to work on, but to say I no longer regret my greatest failing... well I just can't do that, not yet.

Humility is sometimes granted to the lucky in sublime moments when you know God is there, patting your head, whispering that it's all going to be okay. I often fluctuate from "I'm better than you" to "I'm worse than everyone", when in reality the truth is "as good as any, better than none", and God has a gentle way of showing this to me, taking my darkest moments, and using them to shine light into someone else's personal hell cave.

Today I met with a young man I am helping with his sobriety. We were talking about life, and we like to go to a certain place to get hot dogs when we have our chats. This week, they started deducting child support from his already meager check, leaving him with very little money left over. he said with not a little shame that he couldn't afford to go for hot dogs today, as he was broke. I good-naturedly and happily I might add ('cuz that's just the kind of guy I am!) offered to treat. he accepted, probably wishing he didn't have to.

As we sat and scarfed our dogs, he hung his head a bit, feeling bad about being broke while living in a half-way huse, which was bad enough. Without any effort, I thought myself somewhat magnanimous inmy generosity at helping out a down-on-his luck chap.

Before I completed the first pat on my own back, an awareness came to, sharply.

This kid was paying child support, that's why he was broke. I had money, perhaps because I had no child support to pay. Why is it that I don't have to pay child support?

Because my child was never born.

The opportunity was presented to me once to take on the responsibility of caring for another human being, but I was too scared, too sick to even dream of such an undertaking. It was many years ago when was in my mid 20's, a chronic alcoholic, daily drinker, bookie and degenerate gambler. What kind of father could I possibly be?

My own parents were marvels of parnethood. Dad had a truckload of kids. Mom (2nd marriage for both as her husband had died very young) waited until the wedding night, althought she was 39 when they married. I wasn't raised to be this selfish, this irresponsible, yet here I was. What happened to me? Where did everything go so far astray? How did I become this person I now loathed?

I couldn't face the responsibility, and was overwhelmed by the fear of how terrible a father I would be. I gave the poor woman zero emotional support, and pretty much, through lack of help, left her only one choice.

In the aftermath, I became more self-hating and ventually, suicidal, though no one close to me would know that. I pasted on the persona of a comedic chronic inebriate and tried to dull the pain as best I could. It would still be years before I would finally crumble and get sober.

As the kid sat there, feeling bad about how he had failed as a young father, as well as me having to pay for his hot dog, I realized I had to share this with him, though my ego would rather let me sit there and play the hero with a ten dollar bill to burn.

So I told him the reason I had money to pay for his dog might be because I lacked the courage he had displayed when he got his girlfriend pregnant to help her see it through. I instead thought only of self-preservation, and how poor a father I would make. I hadn't even dared to try, and because of that, there was one less person walking the earth.

"You might not be able to pay for your hot dog, but your son is alive."

I felt tears coming to my eyes, and fought them back. This kid, who had probably seen me as some sort of half-assed guru could now see the truth- I am just like him, he is just like me.

Either one of us trying to forge through life without God guiding us is going to leave a wake of wreckage.

I told him I was proud of him.

He countered with the admission that the money was deducted by the state, he had no choice, a truth he may not have been willing to pony up, but now was. God was showing him through me that it was okay to tell the truth, to fail and admit it, get up and keep plugging.

The only thing I have of value is the truth of my experience,nothing more. The truth is that when I am on the right Path, I am a pretty amazing guy, because that's how I was put together, and when I am off track, I am a wrecking ball, destroying everything in my path, because that's how I am put together. I was designed be with One with the Master, and when I stray, I pay as do those around me.

We talked for a long time about the inevitability of crashing and burning as the result of the alcoholic mind as marshalled by the will. I could see for this kid, it simply was not going to be any other way.

There was no great job,no winning streak, no new car, girlfriend or combination of them all that was going to change the fact the he was and is, a chronic alcoholic. As we talked about the mind of the alcoholic, his and mine, a small still voice whispered to me... if this is true for him, isn't it true for you?

"Yes," I thought, "Yes, it must be true for me as well."

This is how God shows me my own humanity, fallibility and ultimately, forgiveness, by teaching me through compassion for others andblessing me with forgiveness for others.

So today I was willing to open the door to the past so that someone in need may get relief from shame, guilt and remorse. That's a good step for me. Some day, I may look deep within myself, and notice that something is missing- regret and remorse with regard to this painful memory. As for now, it is still there in some degree, but lessening, and the pain has never stopped me from sharing the truth when I honestly believed it could help someone, so there's that. Right now, I'm pretty sure it's the very best I can do.

I still feel a little sad today, but I think that's a normal reaction. It's okay to be sad, sometimes "sad" is the exact right way to feel. The difference today is that I can be a little sad without trying to alter the way I feel with something outside of myself, but can go within, share the sadness with God, and move out into life, where I am supposed to be, as opposed to in my head full or regret for something I simply can not change.

Some things can't be undone.

You know, I generally like to write or talk from the perspective of a man who knows the solution, has the answers, is on top of things, but sometimes it is refreshing to simply write "I don't know", or "I have faith...but I don't have the answer yet."

I don't know.

I have faith, but I don't have the annswer yet.

There, I did it.

The Slipper Boys Volume XXVII

2009-10-16T11:06:00.000-07:00

Actually, this is the first installment of The Slipper Boys, but I thought making it seem like one adventure in a long series, which it is, really, would make me seem a more prolific author.

I met pop for a flick today, "Law Abiding Citizen". A vigilante-revenge flick, dad's favorite genre. he loves to see some killing gettin' done, provided all the people (except the hapless victims who generally get murdered at the outset of things, barring the buddy/cop partner who often go down 3/4 of the way through the formulaic yarns) who get killed are "bad".

Dad used to adore the Charles Bronson "Death Wish" films, and got giddy before watching Clint Eastwood's "Dirty Harry" wipe out the punks who somehow managed to evade "justice", dealing out his own brand of Magnum 45 scale-balancing.

When I meet the old man for a movie, or anything, really, I try to remember to wear my slippers. It is dad's great pleasure to wear his slippers anywhere he goes now, not because he is senile, but because (I think but can only guess, really) he says, F*&% it... I can do what I want now."

It may be only as the reality of losing certain pleasures and freedoms approach, that we are able to grasp the true privilege and joy of doing as we please.

Many people feel bad for people in their 70s and 80s, and think, "Gee, it must be tough to get old."

Which is, of course, true, but "beats the hell out of the alternative" as my cousin Fran used to say when she was still alive and kicking, and she sure did kick.

While there are the obvious physical limitations to aging, I happen to covet the freedom that seems to come with age and the right attitude. There comes a time when you seem to stop giving a shit about things that matter only to those of us trapped by the illusion of immortality. A friend told me once that none of really at our core believe we are going to die until we do. If I am immortal, I am going to need people to see me in a certain way, like me, approve of me. But when I genuinely realize that none of us is getting out of this alive" (thanks Don P.) it frees me up to be silly, to not care about anything but being free. Free from boredom (When is my last day on this earth? 2043, as it claimed on a questionnaire I filled out recently? Or sooner? 2025? Tomorrow?) Not out of morbidity, but out of a respect for those who can't go to a movie, I go. I hit Red Sox games, even though they are expensive and often break your heart and it is a pain in the ass to park, ride the train, or arrive by way of air drop.

I say a prayer of thanks (when I remember) when I pee sans aid from Avodart, or without passing a kidney stone. When I drink a delicious cup of coffee,because I can, or poop because all the parts of my body still function absolutely perfectly (well...for the most part.) Coffee, chocolate, popcorn, steak- all things dad forfeited his right to when he let them put a tube in his side to keep him alive when he could no longer take nourishment by mouth.

I'm 43, not 90, but someday my body and my faculties will not serve me as they do now. I know a few folks who would argue that my faculties don't serve me all that well in the present, by the way. Why wait until I'm forced by way of an enema to appreciate the freedom and glory I once had of taking a simple dump on my own time? I assure you, if you lose the ability to do such a thing (as I did for a brief period that felt like a lifetime), you would feel covered in glory after the simple execution a dookie.

Perhaps the greatest freedom afforded the aged is a return a gift God gives us as children, only to see us toss it aside; the freedom from fear of people's opinions. Until it is instilled in him/her by the world, children don't know you're not suppose to put jelly on a hot dog, or wear your jammies to the park, pick your nose or tell the truth about how momy and daddy really act when they're alone, or arguing. Nonexistent one day. the ruler of all thought and action the next, we abandon the freedom to be ourselves voluntarily, and pick up the company guideline. The beauty is that there's a company line for non-conformists, as long as they refuse to conform in an orderly fashion, like the goth kids who often dress exactly alike and listen to the same music. They conform by rejecting everything in sight.

But sometimes something happens when you get close to the finish line. You stop worrying about death, which is of course, inevitable, and start focusing on living, if you're one of the lucky ones, like my dad. A cantankerous old goat, I think he mostly uses ranting and complaining as a means of camaraderie, I doubt he really all that concerned about anything.

He lives like he's on death row, but they're not gonna juice him until Sunday, and they're serving prime rib on Saturday night. He is in the now 24/7. He wears those fucking slippers whether or not they forecast rain, snow or a hurricane. If it is raining now, he'll grudgingly put on shoes, but otherwise, "%^&$ it... I may be dead by then."

The thing is, he says it with a smile. Something about dad's near death and brutal run last winter was transforming. He is basically the same guy, but more so, if that makes any sense. I soak up every moment I can, knowing that while we've sure had a helluva run, it isn't going to last forever.

But mostly, we laugh a lot. While to say I tend toward the reflective would be a gross understatement, my role in the family it to make dad laugh, and it's a role I cherish, and might be the most important job I've had in my life.

So I wear slippers to the movies now, barring the intervention of inclement weather, anywhere I meet pop.

I showed off my slippers to him as he entered the theater, noting that I "was on time for a change." As I paid for the tickets (with his $20) I asked the clerk why it was full price, I thought it was "free if you were wearing your slippers", The clerk looked confused, so I reported to dad, "no deal, dad. Wednesday is the slipper discount day."

When he starts laughing, dad often has this look that says he simply no explanation as what a knucklehead I am or how I came to be that way.

I guess dad's laughter is fertilizer for my creative gene, I guess, as it always gets me on a roll. On the other hand, some of my family members feel my creative gene produces fertilizer.

Seeing dad was having a good time, I said aloud, "I can't wait until I'm a hundred and five, like you. You just don't give a damn about anything do you? Man that must be liberating. When you have both feet in the grave, and are keeping the casket ajar as your fingers get crushed, what can you possibly be afraid of?"

I know it sounds nuts- but he loves this stuff.

"Dad, I'd kill for your level of freedom. F*&^ it, I'm wearing slippers from now on."

He is laughing so hard he is beginning to tear up.

Doing my best dad impression, I said, "What's that sonny- oh you're writing me a ticket? Good luck collecting that, I'll be dead in 6 months, jackass."

I stop before the clerks have time to realize it might be a good idea to deny us entry to the movie ans throw my arm around dad.

"Let's go to the right theater this time, Helen Keller, I don't want to see Rainy with a Chance of Meatballs again because you get lost."

Law Abiding Citizen was everything dad loves in an action flick. As we walked out to our respective cars, dad thanked me.

"Shit dad, I palmed your five bucks change."

"You always do that," he deadpanned.

Laughing, I handed over the wadded up singles, and dad squeezed my hand, looked me in the eye and thanked me. It made me a little uneasy, to tell you the truth, like maybe he knew something I didn't.

I told myself it was just his way of showing appreciation, his equivalent of a grateful audience at the end of a good comedy show, a nodding his approval for the entertainment. But a part of me I tried to ignore used it as a reminder to cease every opportunity I have, as all things fade in time.

Football and movies.with dad

2009-10-13T13:14:00.000-07:00

I went to my nephew Mike's football game Saturday afternoon. It was a matchup of 4-0 teams, though Northbridge was a decided underdog, even playing at home. They fought 'em close, but lost in the end 16-7. The Auburn players were giants. Mike is about 5'6", 165 lbs- and plays ceneter, yes center.

He came just below the shoulder of the opposing nose tackle when standing up, but I have to say, the kid dug in and held his own. The best part of the game was that my dad agreed to come to it. He hasn't been getting out nearly as much as he used to. I asked dad if felt like going, and he said "sure," which surprised me. The game started at 2pm, and did hits the sack for his afternoon nap at 3pm- no exceptions. he also gets some medication at 3pm.

We hopped in my car, and began to head to the game when I noticed dad was wearing his slippers (which he likes to do in public.) I insisted on getting his shoes and bringing them along, suggesting the ground may be wet.

I drove to the gate and dropped dad off, at which point he quickly skipped out of the car and said, "I'm not taking my shoes," before bolting like a kid who had just gotten away with some sort of mischief.

We cheered, stood, sat and yelled for the Rams. It was an amazing experience for me. Seven months ago, this man was in the hospital and was so weak he couldn't walk. Walk? He couldn't sit up. My father couldn't put on a t-shirt. I had to hold him up with on arm, and wriggle the t-shirt over his head with the other.

Yet, here he was, up and out and rooting for the home team.

The previous Wednesday, dad and I hit a flick, "The Invention of Lying", the week before we saw "Surrogates" against his better judgment. While I got popcorn, dad went into the theater. When I showed up, he wasn't there, so I went to check the bathroom and see if he was in there, and just to make sure he was fine. As I went down the hall, I see dad coming out of another theater (which was also showing the same film). Dad yells at me from 60 feet away, "Where the hell are ya?"

We wound up in the right theater, and the flick was better than we expected, but any movie I see, any game I see, any time I get to spend with this little 85 year old kook, is the best spent time in my life.

Twenty years, or ten years, or five years from now, it's unlikely I'll wish I had spent more time playing poker tournaments, or playing video games, or driving around in circles. I have long appreciated time spent with my father, maybe moreso because my mother died when I was so young, but after seeing dad in the condition he was in last winter, after the 4th and 5th trip to the hopsital, we weren't sure he'd ever make it out of the hospital, the out of rehab, then up a staircase again, let alone be out rooting and viewing and getting haircuts and hitting CVS to buy shit he doesn't need again.

He is getting around quite well, very well, actually, and is planning on coming up to my place tomorrow for "Benjamin Button" (or an action flick if I can find one I think he'll like.)

I feel very blessed to know that these truly are the best days of my life. I am grateful that I can enjoy pop and let him be himself and just get a kick out of the nut. I would say, though it be a cliche, don't let days turn into weeks turn into months turn into years before you realize who is really important in your life, and what the most valuable commodity in the human experience is... time.

Tom Dustin is my Hero

2009-09-24T09:07:00.000-07:00

Well, Boston comic, former used car salesman and all-around funny sunuvagun Tom Dustin has done it- he has realized one of my dreams.

While on a series of mid-west road gigs, he performed at Des Moines, Iowa last night. After the show, actress Amy Smart approached Tom and apparently told him she loved his set, understandable because is one of the funniest muthaf-----s going.

You have to understand- I dig Amy Smart, and not just because she was the winner of the 2004 MTV Award for "Best Kiss" (shared with Owen Wilson and Carmen Electra for "Starsky and Hutch") I always thought she was just one of those women who had "something", ya know?

She is firmly planted in my all-time hottest babes eva list.

1) Halle Berry
2) Tina Fey
3) Teresa of Avila (There is something hot about spiritually powerful dames.)
4) Amy Smart
5) Sarah Vowell (Smart is sexxy)

It dawned on me that the "something" she has is that precious space between her front teeth. There seems to me to be something genuine about a movie star who says "go take a dump fer yerself" to perfecting every aspect of her appearance so that she can look as much like everyone else as possible.

Maybe what I like is that this character trait of Amy's, and her embracing of herself as she is allows me to delude myself into thinking I would actually have a shot at her if she happened to stumble into a show I performed at and killed. Or at least, I could garner a nice compliment from her... thanks Tom... dream stealer.

So kudos to Any for not only being ultra-hot, but recognizing great comedy and talent when it's standing in front of her cracking wise.

Kudos also to Uma Thurman for never fixing her nose... or getting a foot-reduction (have ya seen those kicks- they've gotta be a size 14)... and to Jennifer Love Hewitt for telling the Enquirer to go screw ("I like my body") when they asked her about her cellulite. Here's an absolutely beautiful woman ridiculed for refusing to starve herself, revolve through lines at the liposuction clinic and pander to tabloid celebrity idiocy.

Call me crazy, but it is these flaws that make people beautiful to me. It makes them seem human, instead of part of some production scam designed to get me to buy something, or believe I need to be somehow something "more" than me to be happy, healthy and whole, that all I need is the next product, fad or wave to fix the part of me that's still fallibly human, then and only then, will I be whatever it is they are trying to tell me is "okay".

So thanks Amy- keep that space, Uma- you go girl, and you can probably punch out anyone who doesn't like your nose anyway. Thanks Jodi Foster for publicly stating you didn't think plastic surgery was for you, I mean that sincerely even though I am vaguely aware that you play for the other team, I respect you, but I was never really all that attracted to you. I know it seems insensitive to tell you this for the first time in such a public forum, where 3, perhaps even 4 people will read it as well.

What was the point of this blog again? Oh yeah, Tom Dustin=hero, Amy Smart is hot. I guess we've covered that.

Good Things Happen to Funny People

2009-09-22T08:05:00.000-07:00

I got some terrific news this morning when I opened my "Comedy Studio News" email. Two Boston regulars, now performing across the country, but Boston Comics all the way, recently got signed to their own "Comedy Central Presents" specials.

Myq Kaplan and Shane Mauss are two outrageously talented, funny and skilled comedians. From the first days I met Myq on the Boston Comedy scene, he was a gentleman, a genuine sort of chap. He also was a stage-whore. This guy would perform anywhere there were five minutes available, often cranking out brand new material night after night, throwing stuff at a wall and seeing what sticks. He would work out jokes others might have tossed until they became something. This kid has a lot of something. He is just one of those guys you knew had the rare combination of talent and drive to make something very special happen.

In case you don't know, Boston is full of great comics you will never hear of, guys and ladies who can throw together a set that will bust your gut, night after night. Myq is a guy who does that, and combines it with the work ethic Jerry Seinfeld demonstrated in his fantastic documentary, "Comedian."

I couldn't be prouder of this guy if he was my own son, conceived after a wild night of dropping rofies into some chick's manischevitz at the annual Matza Ball.

Shane Mauss is outrageous. A lights-out entertainer who can follow anyone. He has the kind of confidence you want to see in a comedian. He isn't waiting for the audience response to tell him he's dead-on hilarious, he already knows it. He's there to crack himself up, and if you want to join, that's okay too.

I remember seeing this kid at a dump in Dorchester called the Emerald Isle. When I say dump, I mean it affectionately. Ed Regal and Richie Gustus held this open mic for years. The thing ran for 3 or 4 hours sometimes until every single comic had a chance to perform. Shane was one of those comics. he began working out new material here, and Rich, a veteran of more than 20 years in comedy, had the sense to see this guy was something out of the ordinary, and had a chance to be really special.

Gustus was right.

I am so happy for these guys. I am feeling inspired to get back out there again for the only reason there is for doing stand up- LOVE OF COMEDY.

Thanks guys, best wishes and good luck.

If anyone would like to go to the taping of these shows in NYC, I will be going. There's nothing quite like a comedy road trip. Myq's show is Nov. 4th or 5th, Shanes Nov. 6th.

Butterfly Effect... III???

2009-09-21T20:11:00.000-07:00

Who knew? I sat through the entirety of Butterfly Effect I, thinking... that was horrible. I heard a rumor that there was in fact a Butterfly Effect II. I was curious as to why there would exist a sequel to a film no one saw, and of those who did see, about which none seemed to be all that enthused.

Generally, when a movie blows and no one sees it, the rea$on for making a sequel is squashed. Now I can see the impetus behind Basic Instinct II. Basic Instinct was a pretty decent thriller, erotic, and Paul Verhoeven did con Sharon Stone Stone into the now infamous crotch shot with the old "panties-will-reflect-off-the-camera we'll-edit-out-your-hooha" scam. A promise he now famously reneged. So, one might think, maybe in spite of horrid reviews, Basic II is worth seeing. I mean, it wasn't, it was a cashing-in of the worst kind, a total piece of non-creative bile spewed out like a frat boy's late night ill-advised chili dog- and less attractive a production at that. But what I'm saying is, at least I understand the notion behind such a venture. Whereas, Butterfly Effect II leaves me puzzled and ButterflyIII leaves me stunned and wondering if New Line Cinemas was in desperate need of a tax loss to balance some books.

Does anyone recall "Ishtar II"? How about "Showgirls: The Next Skank Wave" or "The Postman II: Special Delivery." Incidentally, I defy you to come up with a movie title involving a colon that is even watchable. Case in point, "Ballistic: Ecks versus Sever."

The colon in a title is almost like a red flag, a warning. The only more obvious warning to a potential movie watcher would be if the usher blocked the door to theater on his hand and knees, pleading with the popcorn-holding attendee, "Don't do it, I beg you. It's shit...it's absolute shit. It's John Travolta in platform shoes and bad makeup, it's a talking duck, it's the low point of Eddie Murphy's career."

Okay, that one could be a variety of films, but I was talking about Pluto Nash.

Not to blame the victim, but anyone who saw Butterfly Effect III got what they asked for. That's right, I said, they asked for it and I don't care if it's politically incorrect to say so. You walk in to Mission Impossible 3 or Gigli, you get what you deserve.

So anyway, Butterfly Effect III.. un frickinbelievable, eh?

John Cryer Takes Emmy

2009-09-20T20:13:00.000-07:00

This saddens me so much so that I decided to blog for the first time since January. John Cryer... John bleeping Cryer????

This guy's best work was as ducky, in Pretty in Pink. He wasn't bad as a 27 year old guy hiding out from hit men in a high school while waiting for the mob trial to start, except he was pawing some 16 year old chick, so it was epically creepy in some respects. Thus,k I was pretty stunned when he took the Emmy for best supporting actor in a comedy.

it isn't so much that I dislike John Cryer, he's harmless enough, but that this sort of show is why network television is dying an unceremonial, slow and extremely painful death. I have only seen this show about 4 or 5 times over the years, and none on purpose, but I can honestly say that I do not recall one moment, one instant or original comedy.

John Cryer plays the lame-o foil for Charlie Sheen, who of course, plays himself. They find new ways for Charlie to same the same fucking thing week after week after week about doggin girls and generally acting like a twit as he refuses to become an adult.

Super painful.

I am almost ashamed...no strike "almost" to be considered part of the American viewing audience. When shows like Arrested Development get canceled and shite like 2 1/2 Men win awards, it might be time to sell the LCD flat screen and spend more time reading.

Reflections of Great Gigs, Volume I

2009-01-23T08:30:00.000-08:00

It must have been 4 or 5 years ago at least.

I popped into 3G's in Worcester, slightly concerned that I had forgotten to wear a flak jacket that evening. The host of the show, Andy Paquette, was there along with someone or two I can't recall and Vince Golden.

If you don't know Vince, he started comedy years ago, opening for George Burns in the 1850s and later taking Charlie Chaplin under his wing, and is still around today. He is known for a bit where he hurls himself over a railing or some other object, flipping himself onto the floor.

The 3G's bar area was about 1/2 full, most of the patrons watching TV. The other side of the place had a small stage. Vince was on before me, and always sets an example, leaving it all out there, holding nothing back. This man gives the same gusto each performance, regardless of crowd size.

Four people were watching the show, which did not stop Vince from the full performance, hurling himself over a bar stool onto his back with his usual full vigor.

While waiting to do my set, the unfortunate need to take a dump struck. There was no stall for the toilet, and the door didn't quite shut all the way. (Andy informed today this is still the case.) I roamed a block or so down the street to Stoney's Pub and was able to use the facilities there.

Upon returning, I was up there riffing on the place, unsure whether I was bombing in front of 3 people, or 4. One of the patrons had passed. Since he was technically unconscious before I hit the stage, I wasn't sure whether or not he counted? After sharing that thought, I made an off the cuff comment about the vibrant fishing industry in Worcester keeping Gazo's bait shop afloat, the only business I recognized in the decimated city from when I was a youth.) I then asked if anyone knew exactly how many bodies were buried in the back of Gazo's, finally getting attention of the bar folks, who uttered a shocked, "oooooh", which I took as confirmation of the presence of the aforementioned bodies.

The only guy in the entire joint laughing was Andy, the host. he was losing it and really cracking up. I would have had more fun myself were I not concerned with being stabbed en route to my car after this set.

Were it not for places like this and guys like Andy who open rooms so new comics can get stage time, I never would have had the success I did manage to have. I don;t remember that many of the highlights... a few maybe, but shows like this always stick out in my mind.

There is some sort of open mic still running there, and I may drop in to remind myself why I love comedy, and why I hate comedy.

A Surreal Day

2009-01-20T18:49:00.000-08:00

The inauguration was almost surreal. I wasn't sure it was really happening. I almost felt like i was in the Matrix, and was going to wake up to find none of it really happened. We didn't really have a black president. We hadn't really rejected the status quo and thrown our hats into the ring and taken a real chance.

All day long I heard on the radio how people thought the speech was okay, but not one of his better speeches.

I wholeheartedly disagree.

He said everything that needed to be said, and nothing that didn't. I listened in disbelief as one talk show host said there were no great one liners like JFK's now famous "Ask not what your country can do for you" quote.

That's what I liked best about the speech. It wasn't designed or written for sound bites, but for a message outlining the mission ahead of us. It wasn't in a tone of a self-congratulation, of mission accomplished or of arrival, but a call to muster stations.

And if you needed a soundbite, I am fond of the invitation to hostile/difficult nations, nations with perhaps despotic leadership that "we will extend a hand, if you unclench your fist."

Democrat or Republican, black, white or purple, married or single, we must get together or perish. That much seems pretty clear.

Tool Academy

2009-01-19T10:17:00.000-08:00

I got an email from my brother-in-law, whose first language is German, or perhaps it was my sister, I'm not really sure, asking me "Korte, what is a tool?"

A tool, basically, is a guy who is cool- in his own mind. The world can see that he is a self-absorbed clown with delusions of grandeur, but to him, the fantasy he has of himself is real. He likes to hear himself talk, generally about nothing, or if about something, with a cluelessness of the topic or of reality in general that boggles the mind.

"Tool" is also slang for a particular male body part, which is probably not a coincidence.

Take the new reality show "Tool Academy" as a frame of reference. There is an assemblage of various "kinds" of tools. Jason- the skinny tool. Tommy- the "slacker tool" lives with his girlfriend off her child welfare checks, There is "power tool" who is always showing off physical strength by whipping his girlfriend around in the air, the "loudmouth tool" and so on, Matsu-something-or-other who can't keep his clothes on, hence the "naked tool" moniker.

Generally, I loathe reality TV, and well, yeah, I kinda loathe Tool Academy. But after watching the first two episodes, I am reeled in like I'm witnessing a car crash from which I simply can not turn away.

After recommending the show to a female friend, I was informed that it was "too painful" for her to watch, as she sees so many hapless , clueless girls (like the women on the show) who continue to put themselves in league with imbeciles like the tools on the show.

She said to me, "it is kind of funny at first, until you want to jump through the screen and yell at the girls, "What are you DOING with this ASSHOLE? Start worrying about why you want to be with this loser, and stop putting all your energy into changing him."

I see her point, it is painful to watch unfold. While I agree wholeheartedly with her assessment of the situation, I doubt there's going to be any encouragement of introspection for the ladies. The total focus seems to be on the guys and what colossal idiots they are.

The premise is somewhat evil genius. Nine guys arrive via bus to this mansion where electronic signs abound, shining "MR AWESOME!" into the night. Yes, the guys think they are competing for the title of "Mr. Awesome", America's number one alpha male.

Perhaps the coup de gras of each episode is the end, when the "Tool Badges" are handed out. Of course, one of the tools is going to get a badge, and is instead going to be bounced from the show, not without ceremony. The girls will be focused on with closeups, as they hope against hope it isn't their tool who is given the gate, the slim hope for their flagging relationship is on the line here.

The real hidden gem here is that the host of the show is perhaps the biggest tool of all. He smugly condescends to these por shmucks throughout the show, and at the crescendo of each episode, declares the soon-to-be-exiting contestant to be "just a tool".

Of course, the host is the least repentant style of tool, the "I am better than you" type.

In episode one, the lads, (most of whom look like they spend a great deal of time staying in shape,) are led to a runway styled stage and dance down the runway to the cheers of screaming women. These clowns really ham it up, from obnoxious pelvic-thrust style dancing to talking smack into a microphone. My favorite moment is when "Tommy", the "slacker tool" comes out spinning a basketball on his finger and says, "I get it done ON the court, and OFF the court" then proceeds to take one dribble, which goes awry and biffs one of the cheering girls off the head.

I immediately thought, "now there's a tool for ya- he can spin a basketball, but he can't even dribble."

To put that in perspective, I played four or five hours of basketball most days of my life between the ages of 13 and 17, then played constantly for another 6 or 7 years, and I could never spin a basketball. It takes time, effort and skill to spin a basketball. Since there is no real practical use for it in the game of basketball, I never learned to do it. Dribbling, however, comes naturally. You learn it instinctively just by walking around with a ball, by playing.

This goofball had to have spent countless hours learning to spin a ball for show, but he can't dribble one dribble without beaning some unsuspecting bystander off the noggin? That's a tool for ya- all show, no game.

I got into a bit of trouble with Tina last night after sticking up for Sean. "I can't believe your sticking up for him," she said, retiring after 10 minutes of the show.

Sean has had two girlfriends for the last three years or so, which we just discovered (and they discovered) in last night's episode.

To me, this guy is a classic example of the difference between selfishness and evil. Some of the other guys strategically cheat on their partners. This guy is just so self-absorbed, and obsessed with the delusion that getting his way all the time and getting what he wants is the key to happiness. Last week, he matter-of-factly stated that he "seems to feel better when he has multiple girls" hanging around to date than just one.

He is oblivious to why that is, of course, assuming it is the natural order of things- more makes you feel better, right?

In our culture, it is almost impossible not to believe that. It is shoved down our throats every minute of every day. He has no clue as to why he feels this way, no idea what his gluttony is covering up.

What I like about this guy is that I think it is possible that he could see that he is missing the point entirely. When confronted with the two women, there was a moment of clarity, when he just threw in the towel and stopped lying. He bluntly stated how he got himself (and the women) into this situation and seemed to have a genuine moment of anguish and pain when he saw how much suffering he caused the girls. I thought he was having a fleeting moment of clarity, after which he bluntly stated with what seemed to me to be genuine regret, "I hope I don;t get kicked off the show. I need to stay here. I am obviously the biggest tool here."

Tina thought he was just feeling guilty, and maybe that's true. But I recalled a similar situation in my own, one which I consider a very powerful spiritual experience.

I was a few months sober, and writing some personal, "spiritual inventory" when I realized that women were nothing more to me than emotional, mental, and spiritual Tylenol.. pain killers for alcoholism and how I felt inside my heart and mind. Ego boosters and pain masks without which I may had skipped in front of a fast moving vehicle a thousand times over.

That moment triggered a shift in awareness and thinking for me. I would go forward from there and write a thorough inventory and discovered that I was as much of a tool as any of these goons on this show.

This morning I awoke and recalled a similar situation to the one that Sean experienced on the show, and it was horrific. At that point in time, all I was capable of was resenting one of the women for "making me look bad", but in reality, the entire thing was self-inflicted.

Today.

Today I set the coffee up for Tina before I go to bed so she can flick a switch at 5 am and get hot coffee.

Today I go shovel out her car at 4:30am so she doesn't have to.

Fifteen or twenty years ago I was terrified of being too good to a partner for fear she would feel too good about herself and figure out she was too good for me. (Of course, I was unaware of this.)

Today, I thank God for Tina, and I pray that God give me empathy, compassion, loyalty, appreciation, and show me the way to be the best man I can be. I need to pray daily for unselfishness, honesty. I thank God for the privilege, and ask to be a mirror for her, that God show her how wonderful, beautiful and special she is through me. I can somehow see how special she is, when she can't- that's a gift of the Spirit.

Ironically, when I align myself with spiritual principles, I don't have anything I need to medicate emotionally or mentally or spiritually.

As I sit here, I realize that "Tool Academy" isn't an opportunity for me to sit here and feel superior by observing degenerates ruining their lives, and the lives of the women around them, it is an opportunity for me see myself in these hapless men.

The difference between me and these guys isn't intellect or instinctual decency, or any sort of virtue. It is God.

Without a vital spiritual experience and awakening, I would be exactly where these guys are today. Sometimes I forget that, and maybe I even forgot until I started writing this blog. The only difference between the guy who makes the coffee, cleans off cars in the middle of the night and tries to be a mirror to a special lady each and every day, and the guy who possessed only the capacity to think of himself is God and spiritual principles.

I had intended this to be a funny blog, poking fun at these jerks and the women who hang on to the delusion that they can change them into someone else... but it turned out much differently, as it so often does when I open my heart an just start typing. The truth has a way of finding its way onto the page.

A Visit with My Cousin

2009-01-11T13:13:00.000-08:00

Well, we got back in one piece. The flight home was slightly adventurous, leaving late for some unknown reason, and hitting a little turbulence en route to Boston.

The cruise was good- very relaxing, especially for Tina, who stuck with her early-to-bed style and stayed up a bit late twice, but got plenty of extra rest. I read two books, and started two others. I polished off yet another Andrew Vachss "Burke" novel, "Down Here". I read my first John D McDonald book, The Lonely Silver Rain, which is one of a large series of books revolving around a sort of semi-retired investigator named Travis Magee. It was pretty good, for what it is.

We landed Friday, and didn't fly home until Saturday morning. I realized my cousin Bill had moved a few months back, and thought he might be on the close side to where we were, which was just outside of Miami. I called my sister, and she confirmed that Bill was, in fact, less than thirty miles away.

I rented a car, and Tina and I headed east to Dania Beach, and Bilmar Gardens, his current residence. It was a little complex of twelve apartments or so, not like the last place I visited him at, which was a huge complex with many residents. At first, I thought it might be an improvement. I fondly reflected when Bill lived at Manor House or Arlington House when it was owned by an old guy named Jack, and run by his daughters Penny and Barbara. They loved Bill to death, or really, to life. They gave Bill a chance to earn a few bucks and feel useful, helping some of the elderly men, shaving them, etc.

But mostly, they just loved Bill. When he moved to Michigan with his girlfriend, Bill had a good couple of years, but with mentally ill adults, twpo good years is like forty, it was a terrific success. Unfortunately, after helping each other stay well, one slipped a bit, got out of sorts, or maybe the meds stopped working for a while, and the wheels came off. I remember talking to Barbara, and how happy she was that Bill was coming back to Florida.

"Could he come back? Of course! Bill is always welcome here."

Unfortunately, when they retired, things changed drastically. The Manor and Arlington Houses, as well as other mentally ill or disabled adult facilities were purchased by a man named Andy. Since this happened, Bill just hasn't been the same. He has had a few good stretches, but mostly has been in and out of the hospital, and occasionally, incarcerated. The violence at these facilities seems to be constant, if not always severe. There also has developed a disturbing trend of Bill's meager monthly allowance being skimmed, or palmed altogether. (He has about $30 left from Social Security ater paying his monthly rent.)

Because of Bill's condition, it is hard to tell exactly what is real, and what's in his head, so I sometimes have to take some of his reports with a grain of salt, though often there is some validity to it.

Saturday, when we pulled in, Bill came running out, jumping up and down and high fiving me hard to break a wrist. I had never seen him so excited. It wasn't long after I saw him that I noticed he had been beaten up pretty badly. There was dried blood on the porch near the door to his room, his nose was still a little bloody, and his lip was still bleeding, though the incident happened that morning.

I could barely look at him.

I tried to play it cool and went into his bathroom where I began to sob immediately. I wondered what my mother would think, knowing her nephew lives like this, and I have gotten too comfortable to help him get out of there.

The bathroom was gross, the shower creepy, and he had no toilet paper. Bill claimed they wouldn't give him any, but that is another of those things... what is real, what is in his head. Is he afraid to ask, fearing they'll say no or yell at him, or is he imagining part of it? You never really know. I can tell one thing- Bill was lucid, he wasn't kilter, or not making sense. Apparently, he objected when he didn't get his money. He probably more than objected. The result was four or five staff and clients pummeling Bill. I'll spare the details, but they involve a metal chair, and it is disturbing to say the least.

I developed a stiff upper lip as quickly as possible, and pulled my sunglasses over my eyes, heading back out and acting as cheery as I could. I knew my job for that afternoon was to give Bill a good time, cheer him up, get him some basic things he needed and some decent food.

The thing that hurts the most is the firm belief that if the situations were reversed, I don't believe Bill would allow me to stay in a place like that. We are very much alike, Bill and I. Our mother were sisters who died a year apart at the age of fifty, from breast cancer. I was ten, Billy was fifteen.

The difference was that my father was a decent guy who took care of his family, and whole bunch of brothers and sisters who cared about me. My sister Debbie had always been like a secondmother to me, and my sister Barb stayed home and took care of the cooking and cleaning around the house after my mother died. There were always people who let me know I was important and would be taken care of. As terrified as I was, I had a pretty good set up, all things considered.

Bill's is a different story. His dad was a much older man when he was born who always kind of resented his existence. He was an alcoholic and extremely abusive, though to this day, Billy focuses on all the things his father did well, the times he took him fishing, taught him things, how interesting a life his father had lived as a young man, how he fought in World War II, how he was a fantastic chef, and amazing physical specimen as a young man.

He skims over the beatings, and how he was abandoned shortly after his mother died, sent to Boy's Town, or the streets of Miami to fend for himself before he turned sixteen years old. One day, when he was around seventeen, something inside him just snapped. He had a nervous breakdown/psychotic break which triggered paranoid schizophrenia, and he has never been the same since. When thinmgs are going well, when his medication is right, he is a wonderfully gentle, generous person. In spite of having very little, he is always trying to do something for someone else, praying for others, speaking well of others, trying to contribute any way he can.

I don't believe anyone really deserves to be victimized by unscrupulous scumbags, especially people who are mentally ill or handi-capped. I've got to believe there's more money in ripping off wealthy widows or land barons or something than robbing people who already live in poverty, but I guess any time there is an easy victim, a dirtbag will appear to scab whatever they can from whomever they can.

The first order of busniess was getting in touch with a place Bill stayed at a while back which was safe. It wasn't really the best fit for him, too many old people, and it was more of a rest home than anything else. Bill didn't like it, in spite of the caring staff, good food and clean conditions, because his freedom was somewhat limited. There were curfues and stuff, and he couldn;t just walk out and smoke a cigarete any time he wanted.

I called those folks, at least hoping to get him somewhere safe while I started doing my homework to get him into a better place. They will be in tomorrow, and I will call and see what we can do.

Selfishness is sneaky. I believe it is at the core of all evil, all character defects, all things that rot a person's character and, well, soul, if you will. It masquerades as harmless things, things that are perfectly acceptable, and before you know it, you;ve become someone you aren;t too crazy about. It can always be traced to selfishness.

Selfishness itself isn't evil, it's just selfish, about self, self-centered. It puts me at the center instead of God, or you, or someone else. It makes everything about me, about what I can get, instead of what I can contribute.

One of the subtly self-destructive things I do is isolate. I get lazy, I make my world smaller, and the first to go are the people who require effort on my part. Okay, not always. I am a good son, and generally, a pretty good friend. I am not a bad person, but I am, historically, lazy.

Bill is an easy person to slowly cut out. Oh, I always send him a few bucks, now and then, or try to call occasionally, but emotionally, he is not in my head or my heart much of the time. It is painful. His life is so difficult, mine so easy. It is easier to become busy with things that aren't really important, if not downright time-wasters by nature and design, than it is to become more involved in someone's life.

Especially when that life revolves around so much suffering.

Standing on a filthy floor, staring into Bill's dirty bathroom mirror, tears streaming down my face, I asked my mother and my aunt to forgive me for letting Bill live like this. I asked God to help me be family, to be his advocate.

My ego has a strategy for dealing with moments like this. It is called guilt, or shame, which is more severe. My mind gets me focused on feeling bad, blaming myself, blaming it all on myself, and so you see, selfishness has a new root, a new game. As long as I can dwell on me, my ego is happy, even if all the dwelling is of a negative variety. My ego mind wants me to focus on where I screwed up, wants me to feel bad as though the "feeling bad" part is the action. As long as I feel terrible, I don't have to take any actual action.

Realization that a good percentage of people who may stumble across this blog willhave little idea what the hell I am talking about, but this is really the natire of alcoholism, of what my "illness" is- selfishness of a zillion varieties, of a kajillion forms, and if I don;t stay on it, I get sick, in the head, in the heart, in the soul.

Awareness is my opportunity to change things. I don't feel bad about seeing Bill Saturday, about feeling like shit about it. Who would see someone in those straits and feel good about it? I do feel grateful that I am aware of what I've been doing...shutting myself off, coasting, cruising, sliding, and I am enthused that I made the effort to rent a car and drive to see my cousin. I am glad Tina and I spent the day cheering Bill up, making him feel loved, liked and cared about.

He was actually in good form, too.

The more I think about Bill, the more heroic he becomes to me, enduring, surviving, plugging onward. Always believing in the good in people in spite of what befalls him, always hoping for the best in spite of witnessing much of the worst.

If you are the praying type, pray for my cousin Bill tonight, and tomorrow and the next day, if you would be so kind.

Anchors Away

2009-01-03T12:32:00.000-08:00

We leave tomorrow!

Woo Hoo!!!

Tina is very excited, as it is going to be her first cruise. I have been on several, but I am excited myself, and really looking forward to relaxing, reading and chilling out with my sweetie. We fly out early tomorrow afternoon, land in Miami. We'll be staying over night in Miami, and sailing Monday afternoon.

We thought it would be not only more relaxing to get there the day before so we wouldn't have to rush from the airport to the ship, but would be smart, given the potential for weather issues this time of year. It looks like it is going to be a beautiful day here tomorrow, but I am still glad we'll be getting down there early.

We will be hitting Key West and Cozumel along the way on our four night cruise. I am betting it will at a minimum be a tad warmer in the Caribbean than it will be in Worcester.

I've stocked up on books, and am now narrowing down the selections for the trip. I hardly read all year, then I binge-read on cruises.

I'm a Saint (witness provided)

2009-01-02T21:21:00.000-08:00

I am leaving on a cruise with my sweetie Sunday- her first, so you'd think I'd blog about that, but I am not a get-excited-before-the-big-day kind of person. I usually don't get excited for a rock show until the day of the show when I am on the way there.

Maybe I am just tired, a bit slappy, but my thoughts are drifting to a night I spent hanging out with my charge Jack he of the autism, a couple of weeks ago.

It was one of those great nights, where I am felt a tinge of guilt that I get paid at all for such a great "job". Jack was awesome. He started out a little sluggish, not really responsive, a tad out of it. When he is like this, I usually stay closer to home and don;t do anything too dramatic, out of experience. But, one of my favorite bands was playing a rare local gig, so I said "to hell with it, I'll gamble." Jack likes the band, so I had hopes he would be into it, but you never know with this dude.

As we walked into the joint, Jack loosened up a bit. It was at a place in Natick called "The Chicken Bone". The admission is free, and they send a bucket around (I believe they called it the chicken bucket or something to that affect). The idea being, if youlike the band, you throw in some cash.

Pete, lead singer and guitarist of "The Peasants", started the show with a welcome to all and several thank yous, as well as "this is a Christmas song" before blasting right into it with "Frat Boy". Frat Boy is a riotous, angry, accusative finger, pointing at collegiate imbeciles and their behavior.

It has an infectious riff and great choruses, pauses, grunts and guitar licks... everything you'd want in a great rock 'n roll song. It didn't take Jack five seconds to get into it, and he "danced for the entire 90 minute set. When I got him home, his T-shirt was soaking through and so was the sweatshirt he wore over it. He loved every second of the show.

Jack has a sort of lurching, lunge, a violent back-and-forth juke that is all energy, and looks fun as hell. I keep waiting for Denise Austin or some other fitness guru to steal it and put it into a workout tape.

When Jack is like this, he is a pure delight. My job is super easy, and actually really fun. I love seeing him happy, and I am even more ecstatic about him behaving himself and not causing any nonsense. I simply tucked my forefinger loosely into his sweatshirt pouch so I could keep a bit of a line on him. It was very crowded, and he jerks back and forth so quickly that I was afraid he would knock a tray of drinks out of a waitress' hands.

Three quarters of the way through the show, this older lady, about three margaritas past making sense, says to me, "iire vfsah sfdh" amid a driving rock tune.

Naturally, I responded with, "what???"

"You're a SAINT," she croaked, giving me a slight buzz with her breath.

I shook my head and nodded a smile, turning back to the show. After the show, on our way out to the car, she added, "You're a SAINT, but you don't KNOW IT!"

I smiled and picked up the pace back to the Suburu, but in truth, it was what I always wanted- credit I don't deserve for something I haven't done... and for a while, I thought it had been to much to ask for.

Years ago, when I started with Jack, I probably wouldn't have admitted it, because it would have been news to me, but some part of me always thought young single women would see me taking care of Jack, and admire my patience, tolerance, and kindness toward a handicapped person.

In my head, they would say something like, "Oh look at how WONDERFUL he is with that disabled gentleman... I can only imagine how fantastic he'd be with our children! And golly, if he's that patient with this character, he must be unreal in bed!"

I'm not sure how I came to that connection in my thought process... I guess that was always an erroneous assumption I prayed women would make with regard some random, unrelated character issue. Something like this, "Oh good heavens, he can change a tire, bake brownies, tie a shoe (fill in the blank, really_______), I guess I should maul him immediately, that's a sure sign of good lovin'!"

In retrospect, I believe many women do have visions when they see you caring for a handicapped person, but instead of white picket fences, they envision a third floor walk up apartment, and the used Ford Escort they'll be using to get to the 2nd and 3rd jobs they'll have to take to make ends meet.

But my dreams came true that Thursday evening at The Chicken Bone when an intoxicated woman who could easily have given birth to me years ago, and bench-press me today gave me credit for being an angel. I knew it. That made the last seven and a half years totally worth it.

2009-01-01T10:47:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, folks.

After completing my 50,000 word goal in November, I have done exactly nil, zero, zilch. A couple of days ago, the same writing group member who suggested the Nanowrimo thing sent me this link.

http://wriye.co.nr/

The idea here is to set a word count goal for the year, and chip away at it.

I have just never been good at sitting myself down and working on anything without a deadline. Even as a kid in Jr. High School and earlier, I always waited until the night before something was due to get to work on it. That continued throughout high school, and college.

Since I got past the deadlines of November, I haven't done a thing. I signed up for this annual word count thing yesterday. I got the feeling that 90% of the participants are 22 or younger, so that will likely be no camaraderie, except that within my own little group, but still, I hope it helps me at least sit down more consistently and write.

When I finish this post, I think I will sit down and try to jot down a short story, just for the heck of it. I have no idea of what I will write, but it doesn't matter. Then there is the unfinished "Allergic to Life" which has been half in my head, and half on paper for almost 10 years. I am still not sure what that is, what form it should really take. I guess the scary thing is that if I sat down, it would be something, then I would have to judge it. There is a certain safety in never finishing anything. If it isn;t finished, it can;t have failed, it can't have come up short, or missed the mark.

Every time I watch one of my favorite shows or movies, I am grateful that its author followed through, took a risk, poured in the effort and dedication it took to get it written, produced, finished, and at the same time, I feel a slight pang of guilt at having given myself a pass so often and for so long.

It is a bizarre phenomenon, this combination of ego and fear, morphing into laziness and lack of inertia for fear of actually arriving at an unsatisfactory destination.

Who can forget; "Porky's", “The Last American Virgin”, "Sixteen Candles", “The Karate Kid”, "The Breakfast Club", “Back To The Future”, "Pretty In Pink", "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", "Can't Buy Me Love" and “Say Anything”. Boy, do I miss those days.

For every "This is Spinal Tap", "Napolean Dynamite", "Mean Girls" or "Office Space", there are twenty like Babylon A.D. or the latest Mike Myers or Vince Vaughn vehicles. The most baffling thing is films wtih a good premise, like this year's "Four Christmases" wind up saddled with hackneyed jokes you've seen a hundred times before, or a script so inexplicably bad you leave the theater shaking your head, wondering why, in a town of literally thousands of screen writers, the travesty you've just witnessed was allowed to happen.

All I need to see of Jim Carrey's "new" flick, "The Yes Man" is the trailer to realize it is merely a reworking of "Liar, Liar". He even reproduces old stunts like the tape on his face, and various physical gags we've seen before.

When I see something like "The Big Lebowski" or lately, "The Wrestler", or when I see something that sucks, like most of the one-joke crap coming out of Hollywood (take "The Guru", for example.) I sense irritation, followed by a tinge of guilt, for not at least trying to do anything about it. Even when I listen to a great cd or see a kickass band live, for example, a rocker I have known for about a decade who fronts a band called "The Peasants", I sometimes feel lazy, like a non-producer.

The Peasants never made a million dollars. They never became famous and got plastered all over magazine covers and teen TV specials. All they've done for the last nearly twenty years is play kick ass music for the love of rock and roll. These guys are one of my 4 or 5 favorite bands of all time. Pete loves rock and roll, he respects it. He's mastered the craft, and that's all he ever really wanted to do. He still plays in bars and n Harvard Square because he loves it, and I am grateful that he does.

When I reap the benefit of someone's else's creative effort, I feel grateful, lucky even, and at the same time, I feel like a taker. I believe we all have innate, God-given talents, and it is a shame not to use them. Where we be if Tom Brady had given up asa skinny high school kid who had no college offers? What if Dustin Pedroia agreed with 99% of those who scouted him and rfegarded him as too small to play ball at a higher level. What kind of loss would it be if Barack said, "shit, I'm black, I'm never going to get elected" or if Bill Wilson (founder of Alcoholics Anonymous) said, "I'm better now, screw the next guy. I'm going on vacation."

This kind of thinking brings me to a point of self-centerednessand ego for which there is no good line of thought. All thoughts seemed to circle a drain of negativity, and wind up there somehow.

My head says something like, "Who do you think you are? Einstein? The chick who wrote "Slapshot"? (yes, a woman wrote that guy classic, based on her brother's experienced playing minor league hockey.) My ego, so afraid that whatever it is I perform, write or produce won't be good enough, tells me I am a tool for thinking I have some special talent with which to work.

On the other hand, believing one has no talent, is to make oneself special in another way.

I guess the key is the self-centeredness. as long as I let it call the shots and draw the attention, the results will always be the same, and contentment around this stuff will continue to elude me. As long as I think it is about me, I will likely fail to produce anything of which I can be proud.

Bill Wilson, Pete from the Peasants, Bogie, Jimi Hendrix, Harper Lee and the rest of those who have given so much to this world, they were all merely vehicles. They showed up and let the creative Power flow through them into the world. It came in the form of punk rock, movies and books. It came in the form of paintings, symphonies and humanitarian efforts, but the key was likely that people were doing what they loved, and through hard work, enthusiasm and..., well love, masterpieces were created.

I always think too much, and create a catch-22. Either my head says I am a slug for not using my own talents to create, or my head says I am an egomaniac for thinking I have any talent from which the world would benefit. As you can see, that is a dilemma, there is no good option there.

Perhaps the key is to stop listening to my head and take simple, constructive action. That formula worked pretty well for me once upon a time.

The Wrestler

2008-12-30T22:25:00.001-08:00

I'm not going to put any spoilers in, so feel free to read even if you want to see "The Wrestler".

All I wanna say is that this is the best movie I can remember seeing in a long time. I say "remember seeing" because I forget a lot of shit these days, and I may have seen something last month that I liked better.

This movie, about a once-great-but-now-broken-down wrestler, is full of heart. Mickey Roarke plays this thing straight, and he is terrific, probably the best thing I've ever seen him do, with the possible exception of his partially computer generated role in "Sin City", which was (I say with massive guilt) a fantastically fun movie that I consider a favorite. You either love that one, or hate it, but I have yet to hear of anyone who plops down somewhere in the middle. The lines are so cheesy, you simply have to love it, in my book.

But I digress... so back to "The Wrestler". Roarke plays a real character, in fact, all the characters are genuine. They are beautifully flawed. Marisa Tomei blew me away as an aging stripper. This is the grittiest work I've seen her do since "In the Bedroom". Evan Rachel Wood is the soot-of estranged daughter, and she is excellent as well. But it all flows through Roarke, who seemed to own this role from the get-go.

Just see this thing when you can, eh?

Holiday Violence at the Homestead

2008-12-30T06:20:00.000-08:00

The night before Christmas, I was just relaxing, looking rather scholarly in my nice sweater with maroon turtleneck, when an ugly side of Tina came out. I had never seen this before, and was certainly shocked that it surfaced on Christmas eve, of all nights.

Thankfully, a camera man happened to be present, and caught the whole thing on digital photo, ironically, on my camera.

At first, I felt foolish,like, "how did I not see this coming? How did I believe she was as shmoopy, smurfy and sweet as she seemed?"

I mean, come on, NO ONE is that sweet.

Initially, I was a bit shocked, it seemed like some kind of crazy, random attack. When I came to, it was explained to me that clean dishes needed to be put back in the cupboard, and silverware in the drawer, and that it was okay to take your boots off in the "mud room", but they didn't "belong" there permanently, and needed to be returned to their proper place.

Now that these things have been explained in very clear fashion
to me, I am sure we are all going to be much happier and more
content.

One Happy Little Elf

2008-12-25T19:28:00.000-08:00

Well, I had a nice week this Christmas. Headed over to my sister Debbie's for dinner, and stopped by dad's on the way home. Also saw dad Christmas eve for a bit. He was getting a bit of cabin fever, as he hasn't been able to go out at all due to the pneumonia. He seems to be getting a little better, but is still tired much of the time and sleeping quite a lot.

As long as he feels okay, I am happy.

Dad was very enthusiastic about some thermal socks he got as a gift from either Lauren or Thelma, anyway, it was one of his Friendly's breakfast buddies. He said, "it was the first time in ten years his feet weren't cold" and he was "never taking them off... I don't care of they rot on my feet- I love these things."

Ah... he still cracks us up.

He was also quite fond of some elf slippers Tina picked up for him. Apparently, they fit well over the socks. I didn't think dad would be willing to wear them, now he won't take them off.

Gene and Patty were kind enough to battle their way through the snow to dad's cottage in Maine and rescue his "Health Alert" box and mail it to him. I set it up the other day, but I still need to call them and get the emergency numbers adjusted. I am waiting to get the next door neighbor's number, so I can do it all at once. It is good to have it installed before Louise goes to Florida, just in case.

This is dad on Christmas eve in his new elf slippers.

Good Deed for the Day

2008-12-23T06:26:00.000-08:00

Boston's Animal Rescue League is sponsored by a number of advertisers. Those advertisers make donations based on the amount of traffic the Animal Rescue Site gets, and the amount of people who go to the site and click the "free donation" button.

It costs you and me nothing, but keeps the Animal Rescue League going, saving animals which would otherwise be destroyed. It takes only a few seconds and costs nothing.

Stevie- put that gym sock back in the drawer, pull up your pants, go to the site and... "CLICK DONATE".

Mikey- set the bong aside... just set it aside, don't get worked up, I didn't say "put it away", just set it aside for a moments or two, go to the site and "CLICK".

Donna- never mind, you have probably already clicked it, saved it, and sent it to more people than I have.

Dawty- click

Burnsy- click

Tom- You got your democrat in, stop perusing CNN online, The Onion, and The New York Times, and..., you got it, CLICK.

Tina- stop clicking donate, and get back to work. Someone has to earn a living around here, and it isn't likely to be me.

Shelley- stop letting your cat wake you up at 3 am and click.

PLEASE DO THIS 'FREE' GOOD DEED - Animal Rescue

http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/

Thanks everyone- click.

The rest of yiz- CLICK, CLICK, AND CLICK.

Snow Bath

2008-12-22T09:39:00.000-08:00

If you're a tad loony, it really pays to have a chick willing to laugh along with you, as opposed to file restraining orders or have you committed.

After a foot of snow Friday, we in the Worcester area were treated to another blast of 13-17" yesterday, leaving about 2 1/2 feet of powder is our front yard. I forgot how much more snow we generally get here than in the Boston area. The last decade or so, living in and around Boston, I convinced myself it just snowed less than when I was a kid, but now I recall noticing on the newscasts as a boy how we in central Massachusetts always seemed to get more snow than everyone else.

I enjoyed a very lazy day yesterday, not leaving the house until I went out to snow blow and shovel at about 8 pm. Tina had done some shoveling during the day, and had cleaned the cars off, which was immensely helpful. The snow blower stalled after about ten feet, and though I got it started, it choked out rather quickly. I realized it was probably running out of gas, astonished that using it once had depleted an entire tank, but after all, it is a pretty small tank.

I jumped in my car and went down to the corner buy a gas can and get some gas. After fueling it up, I was able to get it started, but the thing just had zero punch and wouldn't move even a small amount of snow. I could hear choruses in my head, chanting "that's what ya get for buying a snow blower the day before a storm on "Craig's List"... but hey, we had to do something, and they jacked up the prices around here through the roof on new snow blowers.

Anywho... we wound up shoveling, and it wasn't all that bad.

When I said "I think I'll warm up for my New Year's Day "L Street Brownie" swim with a snow dive in my swim trunks", I was well aware that many women would have said, "what re ya, some kind of an a-hole?" or signed out a restraining order, or perhaps had me committed, but all Tina said was "really?" before getting the camera and going outside.

I realize all you can see in the bottom photo is a cloud of snow...uh, that's would be me.

It was oddly, not all that bad, compared to the actual January 1st swim, which is an awesome rush, especially afterward. The snow was light and fluffy and it was cold enough that it didn;t really stick to me and came right off when I got up and brushed myself off. I was a little concerned that our neighbors (who recently replaced the "McCain/Palin" sign with "Romney for President") might be a little concerned, but no cops showed up. I guess that's why we wear the swim trunks in the first place. No point in adding "public nudity" or "indecent exposure"to the competency hearings.

Precious Moments with Dad, Volume II

2008-12-12T23:06:00.000-08:00

"The Day the Earth Stood Still" came last Friday, and we couldn't wait to see it. My brother Tim recently got laid, so we were celebrating with the movie.. wait... he got laid off, laid OFF... BIG difference, apparently- so he came along to momentarily forget his lack of employment.

It is always entertaining to have a cohort along on my movie runs with dad, especially Tim, as he is one of the few individuals who enjoys tormenting dad, I mean enjoys dad as much as I do.

Saturday, dad had chest pains for about ten hours, which I believe are completely unrelated to Keanu Reeve's oaken performance. I found out about them Sunday morning, and drove to see him when I got out of work. The chest pains were gone, but dad was stuck with shortness of breath and a lack of willingness to go to the hospital. Can't say that I blamed him on a Saturday night. The emergency room on a weekend is a nightmare, not that it is a picnic the other five days of the week, either.

Dad decided to go to his primary care doctor Monday. upon arrival, where after being chastised for yet another goofy self-diagnosis, he was tossed into an ambulance, his doctor thinking he had had a heart attack Saturday. As it turned out, he in fact, had not had a heart attack, which was good news.

Upon hearing this, pop pumped his fist, saying with great satisfaction, "I KNEW I didn;t have any heart attack. I know my body better than these a**holes! Haha!"

I hated to break up the party, but I felt compelled to point out that laying in bed for ten hours and skipping a day's worth of meals as a solution for chest pains was probably not that ingenius, adding that dieing of heart failure is no way superior to dieing from a heart attack, though I am sure en route to the great beyond dad would be filled with personal satisfaction at being "right".

Being right, after all, is far more important than anything else. Dad is a guy who would defiantly stand in a crosswalk, pointing at it to denote he had the right of way even as a truck ran him over.

Even though my poor father had to spend the entire day and night in a room at the e.r., it wasn't all bad. When the attending nurse came in, we asked what the different numbers stood for on the monitor. The top one was heart rate. The middle showed wjhat percentage of oxygen was actually getting through, and the bottom one was respiration.

"So the bottom one would read zero if for example, someone held a pillow over the patient's face?"

Without missing a beat., the nurse said straightfaced, "yes, that's correct" and left.

A short while later, dad commented that his derriere, if I am spelling ass corectly, hurt from not moving. I lifted him higher in the bed, then slipped on a plastic glove, saying, "turn on your side, dad... I wanna check something."

This getting old is serious business, but I have to commend my father and mother for never losing their sense of humor. After they determined that pneumonia was the culprit, they gave dad some antibiotics and made a few suggestions for him to ignore.

I said aloud from the hall where I stodd with my step-mother, "no Louise, I don't see anything here in the instructions about administering a rolling pin or frying pan... oh, that's to make YOU feel better."

Blather

2008-12-11T13:09:00.000-08:00

Well, here it is almost two weeks past the National Novel Writing Month challenge, and since completing the 50,000 words of drivel I committed to, I haven't done squat...or wait, since squat means nothing, would it be, "I've done exactly squat".

Irregardless, what I am saying is... GOTCHA! You thought I was actually using irregardless, didn't you? Admit it! Admit it! Hahahahahahaa!!!

Well, my next task is to figure out how to buy a ladder for the house without having a truck to transport it. I can't see asking my friend Boudy to come all the way out here from Billerica so I can buy a ladder. You wouldn't think there'd be a sense of urgency around a ladder purchase, but I got these cool snowflake lights to hang up, and the date is coming when it'll be too late.

Now that I think of it, I did invite Boudy and his son CJ (big Ball State Cardinal fan that kid is) out to have brunch and watch some Sunday football this week. Maybe if I haven't figured it out by then we can figure something out.

The place is shaping up pretty good. I've got some subtle blue lights on the little pine tree out front, and I put those light-up candy canes alng the walk (I've always loved those things.) The coup de gras will be the hanging snowflakes. If I can pull this off without burning the house down, I am going to snap a photo for the blog- woo hooooo!

It is 4:30 pm, and I go in early on Thursdays now. Even though it is a cold, drab, rainy day, I am pretty upbeat. I took a nice little errand run with Manny (80 lb English bulldog) and am just in a good mood for some reason. Maybe because I'm happy, who knows?

My brother Tim has agreed to come along to tomorrow's movie with dad. I think we are going to see "The Day The Earth Stood Still". Sure, Keanu Reeves is oaken, but I think that quality might play well in this role.

Mice/comedy

2008-12-05T14:33:00.000-08:00

Got a text today from Tina. Apparently, one of the mice got bagged in a snap trap. He couldn't possibly be the last one, or be the ring leader. I suspect he is another stooge. Those little punks have been cleaning out those snap traps for two or three weeks, unscathed, so the mouse who tripped it must be a flippin' dunce.

Edison, he is not.

Still, one less rodentia is a good thing. There are a couple of blogs I'd like to recommend. One is Nick Zaino's Comedy Blog. Nick has been covering Boston Comedy for ages for the Boston Globe and Boston Herald. Due to budget cuts, that is no longer happening. Nick, driven by love of comedy rather than a paycheck, continues to write about Boston Comedy in a time when it is just beginning to explode all over again.

The energence of terrific new young comics like Shane Mauss, Dan Bouler and a host of other- Renata Tutko and Ken Reid, the list goes on and on, it is a privilege to have an experienced writer like Nick Zaino covering this stuff.

Dan Sally and Andy Ofiesh have a show at a new comedy club in Fanieul Hall called Mottley's. It is run by local comics Tim McIntire and Jon Lincoln. From past work with these guys, I know this club is going to clutch onto all the things that make a comedy club great.

I Just Want it to End

2008-12-04T18:54:00.000-08:00

Two snap traps, baited with fudge, surrounded by ten glue traps. I sprinkled sugar over the glue traps, tossed bits of cheese throughout the drawer, and strolled into the living room with renewed hopes of a mouse-free existence.

A couple noiseless hours later, I visited the "mouse drawer", as it has come to be known. The fudge was gone... the cheese, gone, most other assorted goodies... gonzo. What was still there were the snap traps, picked clean, but not set off. The glue traps were scattered around the drawer. I didn't even separate them, thinking they'd be harder to avoid or shake loose if still connected. I put glue traps under both rear corners where they seem to enter the drawer, which they avoided.

I was downtrodden, as I realized the one mouse we caught with the glue trap was a fluke- they weren't going to work. These mice are somehow smart enough to push or drag the glue traps away from the snap traps and return to them to clean out the eternally replaced free chow.

Sigh... I feel like Mr. Potter after the townspeople bail out George Bailey. Is there no end to these annoying mice and their Building and Loan??? What is it going to take? If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears.

Two ideas that aren't going to work for us are 1) A cat- Tina is extremely allergic and 2) poisons- I don't want a mouse croaking in the wall or the insulation and wreaking up the joint.

ARGH!!!

On an interesting side note, I locked myself out of the house today for the first time. As I took out the trash, I realized the locked on the door was set and thought, "I've got to be careful not to let the vacuum effect from the mud room door pull this thing closed," then I did exactly that less than three seconds later.

A short while later, I bent the screen back and pushed open a basement window, crawling in through the basement. Wincing as paint chips floated into my eye, I reflected that it would have been a terrific idea to have placed one of our extra keys into the lock box by the door.

Buffet of Death

2008-12-02T20:35:00.000-08:00

Okay, it's GO-time. We've played nicey-nice for too long here at 4 Ivy Street.

I knew Edison had pushed things a bit too far when, after surveying the "mouse drawer", (as it is now known) even Tina, perhaps the sweetest, the downright smurfiest munchkin in the land called Edison a "bleeping punk", except she didn't exactly say "bleeping".

While I admit, it is rather fun to hear Tina use profanity, especially when it is not directed at me, enough is enough. The gloves are coming off.

What awaits Edison (and his pals as I am no longer a proponent of the "Lone Mouse Theory") is what I would like to call "The Buffet of Death". Sounds positively dastardly, doesn't it? Sounds like something Dr. Evil would conjure up for Austin Powers, or maybe Simon Barsinister for Underdog.

It seems that these rodentia are at least brushing past the (miserable and disgusting) "glue" traps, sometimes even leaving a hair or two behind, and the glue trap did work once, (on Ed's double.) So... long story made painfully LONGER, I am going to create a mouse buffet that would shame the noon time special over at Han Dynasty.

It will be a repast Caligula would have been proud of- except there won't be naked chicks or be-headings. I am going to toss jam (to compensate for the shortage of slutty, naked mice) in there, perhaps a delightful piece of home made fudge, cheese, lunch meat- the freakin' drawer will look like a Smörgåsbord when I'm through with it- a Smörgåsbord of DEATH!

Muahahahahahaaaa!!!! Muahahahahahhahaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

I'll toss in a few crumbs of home made bread, a smidgen of left over apple pie, and sprinkle it all with a light dusting of confectioner's sugar... which ironically looks like anthrax, from what I'm told.

It will be a culinary masterpiece on contact paper, the only catch, Edison and pals, is that you will not have to merely avoid a couple of lame-o snap traps and a glue trap... the drawer will be absolutely peppered with glue traps, peppered with them, I say.

What's that Eddie, a glue trap, oh you must be careful, my verminian pal, you'll want to wander over to the peanut butter bisque...oh what is that by the peanut butter bisque? TWO glue traps? What is surrounding the cookie? Is it two... no THREE glue traps? Weasle out of one glue trap, and BOOM, you'll find yourself in yet another? What a pity, Edison... what a bloody shame, Eddie-boy!

I must sound like one of those hopeless villains in a Bond movie who knows the script, knows Bond always gets out alive to wreak more havoc, yet blindly believes that this time, this time, he surely must fall into the electrified, acid-filled shark tank.

You've won this round, Eddie... but I'll be back... with nuclear weapons! (or, more likely, additional glue traps that don't seem to work all that well.)

"The Double" or "yougottabef&^$%#kiddingme"

2008-12-02T10:55:00.000-08:00

Saddam had a double, had many of them actually. Most world leaders, from Fidel Castro to Simon Barsinister have had a double. Hollywood's leading men and ladies have stunt double- folks who come in and fall down a flight of stairs or take a punch in the face just in the nick of time... then the hero steps back in for the frontal camra shot and gets all the credit.

Apparently, the mouse we thought was Edison was nothing more than a lackey, double. To his credit, once captured, the mouse did everything in his power to convince me that he was in fact, Edison, and said nothing to betray his superior.

How could I have been such a fool? How could I have believed the genius mouse who pooped on top of the trap, who flipped a trap over and cleaned it out, who removed a piece of cheese wedged onto the trigger release of a trap, and walked away unscathed, could be so foolish as to get bagged on a glue trap?

To say it is embarrassing to be so easily duped into thinking we had captured Edison, would be an understatement of this like- "Babe Ruth was a pretty good ball player", "Paris Hilton might be easy", "Carlos Mencia is unfunny", GW Bush is not too bright. Buying this story is the modern day equivalent of catching a 12 year old 1800's native boy stealing an apple and believe his confession that he, in fact, was Geronimo.

This time, Ed... maybe that's too familiar, Edison, actually cleaned out the snap traps, then took the glue trap, and pushed it INTO the snap trap, setting it off.

I would be less humiliated if he pooped on my head while I was writing this blog entry.

Well played, sir... well played.

National Novel Writing Month... TGIO

2008-11-30T10:49:00.000-08:00

That's right kids, I did it!

I couldn't wait to be done the thing, and now that I finally am, I am happy as hell. It is not readable, would read more like a scrapped David Lynch notepad tan anything terribly coherent, but I managed to sit my bitt down and force myself to write 50,000words in one month.

Wooo hoooo!!!

Thank God it's over...but still... WOOO HOOOOO!!!

Edison, 2007- Nov. 25, 2008

2008-11-26T09:01:00.000-08:00

Well... the mockery continued, but Ed is laughing no longer. The crazy mice went overkill, actually tipping the snap-trap upside down, for Pete's sake, as well as taking about five dumps IN the glue trap I set in there. The little guy appeared to have gotten stuck in it, as they were a bunch of gray hairs, but he somehow escaped.

Last night, Tina opened the drawer where the little kook liked to frequent, and saw him struggling mightily, stuck in the glue trap and dragging it toward the back of the drawer. She quickly shut the drawer and said something like, "I can't watch this."

I got an old coffee can and tossed Edison and his giant snow-shoe like glue trap inside. I think I hurt him pretty badly trying to stuff the trap, which was slightly larger than the opening to the can, inside it.

Placing the can in the mud room, I went into the living room to find Tina with eyes of red, sniffling.

"I'm so sad he had to get caught in the glue. It's just too bad they have to poop everywhere."

Talk about a sweetie... she was absolutely busted up about this little rodent, granted, he was kinda cute, but still, this little punk has been taunting us for weeks. I checked on him, the little guy was terrified and hurt badly. I have never been much for killing stuff, so I said a little prayer for forgiveness for killing the tiny creature and put him out of his misery as quickly as possible.

I hope he was working alone, I'm calling it "The Lone Rodent Theory"... but there's something about the angle at which the cheese was removed from the snap trap that suggests there may have been a second mouse involved in the plot.

Edison

2008-11-24T10:00:00.000-08:00

Reluctantly, Tina agreed that the "nice" traps were "nice" because they don't work, and allow mice to have a good time. We decided we had to go for the kill traps. After a grocery shopping trip, we popped into Ace Hardware and asked for some advice.

We got a terrific guy who seemed quite knowledgeable on the topic of extermination. Our new pal, a mid-fifties character with delightful stories of a fishing club, infested with mice. He and his pals laid a bunch of these little clip traps (which packed quite a snappy little punch to his pencil) around the fishing shack, and said they caught twenty-eight mice one night, actually turning it into a drinking game.

Feeling confident, in spite of being aided by an apparent serial killer, we headed home with our new sure-to-work traps. "Plum jam," our blood-thirsty friend recommended.

We opted for blueberry jam, putting one trap behind the refrigerator and the other in an empty drawer the little punk(s) like to visit. I put the trap in the drawer on a slight bulge in the contact paper in the drawer. Upon awakening this morning, I was quite annoyed when I opened the drawer to find the mouse had flipped the trap onto its side and looted the thing, cleaning out all the blueberry jam, and taking a dump next to the trap for good measure.

Today, I went old school. I took a small slice of cheddar cheese and wedged it onto the lever. This time, I put the trap on flat ground- no bumps underneath to diminish the snap reflex. On top of that- the little vermin might b able to lick jam away, but if he wants the cheese, he's going to have to nibble on it at the very least.

Tina called me into the kitchen a short while ago. The mouse ate the entire block of cheese, somehow without tripping the trap. To make it all the more insulting, there were about ten tiny little pops around the trap- he must have been there chomping away for half an hour, minimum.

This afternoon, I threw another trap in there, reloaded. He/they cleaned them both out again, and actually took a dump on TOP of one of the traps. It isn't enough that we feed this little twerp every day, but he hangs around and mocks us openly.

I may loathe the little bastard, but I have to respect him. Let's face it, this mouse is a genius. I think I'm going to call him Edison, then I'm going to put his lights out...for good.

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!

35,559

2008-11-23T20:23:00.000-08:00

A quick update on word count. I was hoping to get to 36,000 today, then all I need to do is average 2,000 words per day through next Sunday and I'll make it to 50,000.

I got close, but truthfully, this thing is incredibly dull. At this point, it is about 110% about word count and nothing else. There is a usable story line, and old one I've wanted to work out, but I feel I've lost the story and the writing is actually fairly bad and pretty dull and matter-of-fact. I can see I need to work on how to get out a lot of exposition with regard to certain important points.

Thanks for following along. I can;t wait until the damn thing is done so I can write something I want to work on. The good thing is that doing this has proven to me I can make time to write, and I can pump out words if I just sit myself down and go to it.

The writing group I have been in off and on for eight or nine years looks like it is getting a bit rejuvenated as well, which is nice. A couple members are really cranking out the words.

If only the mice were this dumb...

2008-11-17T13:58:00.000-08:00

I moved into a new house with the lovely Tina a couple of weeks ago, and much to our dismay, we discovered we have a mouse, or mice. I've seen one of the little devils twice. Per Tina's sweetness, we opted to go with the "friendly" traps, or as I like to call them "traps that don't work".

One mouse figured out it was safer to actually chew through the side of the trap to get at the peanut butter than it was to enter the traditional way. I was irritated, but duly impressed- "these little pains-in-the-ass are pretty smart," I thought out loud.

After two weeks of finding little mouse surprises, Tina has been converted from "let's catch them and set them free somewhere" to "we've got to get rid of these bastards".

I foolishly thought that the 80 pound bull dog sleeping in the kitchen would be at least a minor deterrent, but this dog sleeps like Rip Van Winkle. You literally open the front door and walk by him without waking him up. I often have to shake him awake for his end of the night bathroom run, so I guess it is delusional to expect that he is going to hear mice and scare them off.

I went to a movie today with my dad. When we leave the house, we leave Manny (the aforementioned bull dog) in the kitchen, which is a pretty good size). The house is a bit old, so you have to make sure you pull the doors tight until you hear a "click", telling you that the door is, in fact, shut tight.

I learned by not doing this that Manny likes to nose the door open and sit on the couch or my chair. He also likes to break into the bedroom and toss a certain bag of toiletries around, decorating the room with toilet paper like a jr high kid out on the town Halloween night.

Arriving home after the movie, I immediately noticed there was no manny in the kitchen...not in his bed, not anywhere. The second thing I noticed was the bedroom door slightly ajar. I walked in, already irritated at myself for not being more careful and making sure the door was shut tight. I walked in expecting to find him on the bed, and ready to give him a good stink eye and grimace along with a stern word (not that I recommend abusing animals, but you seriously hit this oaf with a frying pan and he wouldn't notice.) I asure you, the stink-eye inflicts mroe punishment than anything corporal.

But where is he? He isn't on the bed... the other door, leading around to the living room is still closed, and no Manny. I sat on the bed, confused for a moment before I heard a low growl. Not an angry growl, but one of frustration... the kind of growl I often emit when I find Manny on the couch after several hundred episodes of pulling him off the couch and banishing him to the kitchen.

The sound was coming from the closet.

I opened the closet to find Manny amid his favorite bag of toiletries, with several pairs of my pants on the floor, providing a make-shift bed. The poor little pooch, no bed in the closet? If he had guessed it would have been so inhospitable, he probably would'ne have broken in in the first place, the humanity!

Manny usually sports a very guilty look and puts his head as close to the ground as possible, sheepishly asking for leniency when caught in the act. Since I had been gone for 2 1/2 hours, he must've figured being locked in a closet all that time should work as "time served", and he simply paraded out of the closet and strolled directly to his bed as if to say, "it's about time you got home, jackass... do you know how long I've been in there?"

He hadn't counted on not being able to nose the door back open after he closed it by resting his giant butt against it.

The thing with this mutt is, he has such personality and such a lump, that you can't possibly stay made at him for longer than two minutes. It took him all of five minutes to pass out after he got so tired, resting in the closet on my bed of pants.

I amnot sure if we need a smarter dog, or dumber mice.

Precious Moments with Dad, volume I

2008-11-17T13:22:00.001-08:00

I went to see the new James Bond flick today with pop, which made me happy because we had quite a blowout last Friday. I called Saturday to see if he wanted to see Boind Monday, and true to form, the blowout never came up, and I think dad was happy to move on.

It is so easy for me dispense advice on avoiding conflict with parental units, much easier than it is to follow my own advice. I usually do a much better matador job, sliding by confrontation like a turn style, moving with the flow of silliness, but I stumbled last Friday. After 10 or 15 minutes of sitting quietly during idle ranting about gays or blacks or the world problem of the day, I stupidly responded when asked repeatedly about the target of the day.

One blunder I make over and over is just that- responding. I foolishly get amnesia and think there is some sensible answer that will change the way dad sees something, and once I utter even a word, I realize I have done it again, and it is too late. There is no escape once the man is engaged. I sometimes get a little concerned that he gets too worked up and excited, and constantly spend everything after my first reply trying to end said conversation amicably, or at least, to end it without further carnage.

These attempts always fail.

This time my stupidity began with, "dad, you have a particular view..." which was the last thing I said for about five minutes.

Pop's reply came in the form of a pterodactyl-like scream, "my view is WONDERFUL!" followed by a defense consisting mostly of expletives.

I figured it was a good time to say aloha.

The beauty of dad is that he realizes what's important, and has an amazing ability to move beyond even the ugliest implosions... inside, he knows the important thing is enjoying each other and that we aren't both going to live forever.

I screwed and up and dropped a can of coke I was planning on smuggling into the theater to drink with my popcorn, puncturing the can and spraying it all over the inside of my windshield, as a result of this blunder, I was a little late for the movie. We would have missed the first couple of minutes, and I hate that, so we waited for the next shopwing, thirty minutes later.

One of the most annoying things about movie theaters today is the moronic idea that people paying ten bucks a ticket should be subjected to commercials...and not even fun, creative commercials, but the same ads television at home is inundated with.

After about ten minutes of commercials, dad yells, "C'mon!" to which I got a chuckle. I leaned over and said something like, "This is my fault, buddy. If I was five minutes earlier, we could have gone to the last show.

Still feeling a little dicey about the verbal assault from last week, dad was doing everything he could to cut me slack, and shrugged it off.

A few minutes later, commercials still flowing like a river in spring, Frank Caliendo had a commercial. There were only about five other people in the theater, but two of them were sitting in the row behind us.

Perhaps the most entertaining moment of the entire day for any of us came when after the Frank TV commercial my father said rather loudly during an unanticipated silence, "This guy is a fucking idiot."

Which is today's special moment with dad.

The guys behind us concurred, corroborating dad's viewpoint with laughter and nodding approval.

I have to say while I think Frank Caliendo is a talented comedian, I have had about enough of the commercials myself. They are practically running non-stop for pete's sake...now they've gotta get you at the movies, too?

The move started shortly thereafter and we both enjoyed it.

As they ran the opening credits, dad said, only half-kidding, "I can't believe I'm still awake."

It has been a while since we have seen a movie, as pop just hasn't felt rested and well enough to attend, so I was very conscious of the blessing that is getting to go see a movie with dad, and soaked it up... every bit of it, from his lambasting of Frank Caliendo, to tossing pocorn at him from two seats away, receiving a wave and a scowl, to his one word reviews of whatever we've just seen... short and sweet.

Stay tuned for Precious Moments with dad, volume II to be published shortly after I see him next.

Nano Struggles

2008-11-14T09:44:00.000-08:00

Hey kids.

Am a bit stagnated on the old Nano Novel. Stuck at about 18,700 or so. I am getting (what I am told are common) temptations to abort and start something fresh and new. I am going to dig in later this afternoon and just try to plow through.

I appreciate the emails of support and enthusiasm, and stuff that sounds like, "can't wait to read etc etc" but I just wanna say... the reason I emailed a buncha folks and told them I was writing was so I would be, well, shamed into following through, as I often jump ship and failt to stick with creative enterprises. This exercise is really about following through.

Even if this thing turned out to be tolerable, it would be a first draft and I wouldn't let a cat read it, unless he only couldn;t read in some foreign language.

On a side note, a friend of mine asked me if I would consider writing romance stories/novels. This is now known as "chick lit". The title itself is sort of disrespectful of the genre. The general implication is that the stories are sort of vapid and substance free, formulaic and shallow.

Well heck ya and write a story like that!

But seriously...I have contemplated pumping out one of these babies to see if I could make some easy cash. I would love it if anyone wanted to suggest some awful and/or thin plot lines.

Onward with the Nano for now!

17,000 words

2008-11-11T20:57:00.000-08:00

Well, I crested 17,000 words today, and am almost back on pace. More importantly, I am hating the story slightly less. I might have been a little hard on it (and me) when I started referring to it as "soft porn". Yeah, there was one moderately graphic slice, but it is not a theme.

I am headed, I think, in the right direction, as the poor bastard's life is getting ready to spiral...haven't quite yet decided the exact straw for the proverbial camel's back... hey, as an aside- who knew it was spelled proverbial? I had to spell check incorrect versions of that words three times... anywho, I do feel like the exercise is going fairly well in that it is teaching me to write without editing as I go... that's what second drafts are for.

The point being, if you are in constant editing mode, you never finish a FIRST DRAFT.

Oh, and I (cleverly) named the thing "Boomerang"... cuz everything is gonna back on the protagonist...get it?... get it?

The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus

2008-11-09T13:00:00.000-08:00

On the plane this weekend, I read "The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus". Author Peter Gomes has been a professor of religion at Harvard for over 30 years. The guy is not only hilarious, but I think really gets it.

The big "scandal" he writes of is the comfortable, socially and politically powerful church state we now live in, something he says was never meant to be, and how the bulk of the church has settled into secular pride and acceptance and has not followed the teachings of the man they claim as their God and leader.

It is so easy to forget that Jesus came to rock the boat, and yes, comfort the agitated, but also, and perhaps more importantly, to agitate the comfortable.

It is interesting, and his observations are telling. Often instead of following the examples of Jesus, we hold him up as Lord, then do what we think is the right thing, seek power, secular influence, use fear sort of a Christian version of Machiavellian methods, assuming He would approve because we believe our intentions to be good.

I thought it intriguing that he points out that Jesus had no real statement on homosexuality, but did have clear opinions about divorce, and how odd he found it that gay marriage is promoted as the real threat to heterosexual marriage, and even society at large, as opposed to divorce. In the wake of the recent ban on gay marriage in California, I found it riveting that Gomes talked about this years ago when writing the book.

He wondered how those who support the bans on gay marriage would react if divorce, clearly the greater threat, were included in the legislation.

At one point, he likens the fear-mongering around gay marriage to McCarthyism and the supposed threat Communism once was to our well-being, observing that in our culture, we always seem to need something to be afraid of, and to the fear around desegregation years before.

Gomes theorizes that the opposite of fear is not courage, but compassion, and when you are in fear, it is impossible to share compassion... but that was the living example Jesus set for us... compassion to those who murdered him, compassion for those on the cross next to him, compassion for the sick and poor, and even compassion for the rich.

Compassion is scary, it requires shifting of thought from me to you, and heaven knows we think to think about ourselves and how everything applies to us. It requires dropping fear-based self-preservation and appealing to the best part of me, the part which is willing to sacrifice something for the good of someone else.

Compassion was the Way out of fear, then...and now.

I am reluctant to write anything political. I am a fairly a-political dude... but I take Obama's election, whether you are Republican or Democrat, as a sign that fear is being shifted to the back-burner temporarily, and hope is being given a chance once again.

Fear Not the Word Count

2008-11-08T13:30:00.000-08:00

It's Saturday, November 8th. If I were on pace for 50,000 in the Write-a-novel in-a-month deal, I would be at 13,600 words after today. I am still sitting at about 9,400, but oddly, am not concerned. I read on the Nanowrimo website that week two is often the toughest week for many participants.

I am honestly pretty excited about it. I can't wait to find out what direction this thing is going to go in, it is like it is writing itself and I am just watching the story develop, jotting it down as it tells what is happening.

Nothing happened to deter me after my fast start, I simply haven't been able to write due to work and some travel. I wish I could have broken out the laptop on my flights, but my laptop has one of the lamest batteries of all time and is good for about 10-15 minutes, tops. I do have a 90 minute layover tomorrow, so maybe I can get 45 minutes or so in there, but I doubt it. I would almost rather wait until I get home and can just focus for a couple of hours.

Normally, I would get bummed out at falling behind, or would see it as a sign that I wasn't going to see it through, but even though it is early, I have a great vibe about finishing, and more importantly, I feel like this little project is really going to rejuvenate my old writer's group which had become a writer's group in name only... correct-none of us writes much anymore.

I am in Oklahoma City, OK today. I took a ride by the new Federal bldg which replaced the building McVeigh blew up. It is an ominous sight, with many statues, benches, headstones and such set about in remembrance of those killed in the bombing.

Oklahoma City is a pretty neat city. Right outside of downtown (This the "old"part of town) it looks nothing like city living, with very suburban style homes. Although they are very close to one another, they are large, beautiful homes which look like they should be set somewhere in the countryside rather than 1/2 mile from a city center.

The weather here today is my favorite 65 degrees and sunny.

I am pumped to get back at the novel.

Better than Expected

2008-11-05T11:51:00.000-08:00

Well, it is going much better than I thought. I took yesterday (Tuesday) off as I worked and by the time I got home, it was pretty late and I was watching the election results. I went to an abbreviated version of my writer's group, where we were basically checking in about our Nano novels.

Today I was scooting around the NaNo site and checked out a few of the Nanos of past years that have actually been published. Just reading the synopses of a few of these helped my creative mind percolate a bit. I thought of characters I've always wanted to do something with, and combined a little of them with a little of this guy and a little of me and added one to the story.

From ancient history... well, twenty years or so, that's pretty ancient to me, I remembered a couple of unsavory but compelling characters I knew little of, but all I knew was pretty dark. I actually have to tone down the characters I know from real life to make them more believable. It always amuses me how many of the "real" things that have happened to me, or that I know about are too extreme for fiction, or are not believable.

I got on a decent roll today and cranked out a couple thousand words, but more importantly, started to get a shape of some semblance of a developing story.

9,000+ words...I'd say it was about time.

Mostly, I am just excited that I am actually DOING IT. I am also pumped because my stagnant writer's group is really flowing. I mean EVERYONE is back at it, it is really inspiring. Another local comic jumped in, Mandy Donovan. I don't know her that well, but I have net her a few times. She has the distinction of being the only Quaker I know who is also a comic.

I am taking a bit of a break this afternoon, and will probably jump back in and write some more at some point today.

Day 2

2008-11-02T18:51:00.000-08:00

Pretty productive day, I must say. I cranked up a tad over 4500 words, so I'm a little ahead of pace for 50,000. Still no plot to speak of and no idea when one might show up, but it seems to be flowing pretty smoothly.

2100 words

2008-11-01T17:56:00.000-07:00

Woo hoo!!! The night didn't start out as I had hoped, but it went better than I expected as I found some way top crank out 2100+ words in about 90 minutes.I decided to meet a few other worcester NaNos for a write in at a place called The Q- a cafe on Chandler St. in Worcester.

The place was pretty cool, but small, and they had someone playing music. Someone told the NaNo rep that there was no music tonight, alas, there was music, so I bolted. I ordered a slice of key lime pie that I cancelled, but I took the cofee to go. At $2.36, it seemed a tad pricey until I took a sip- it was nirvana.

If I was going to pat over two bucks for a cup of java again, I hope it tasted that good. It was almost worth the 15 minute trip just to get that coffee. I knew if I went home I wouldn;t get anything done. My girlfriend would be there studying, but I would probably log on and goof off online or something, so I searched my brain for a place I could hang for a while and at least get some writing in.

I passed Wholly Canolli, and it wa still open. It was around 7pm, and I was pleasantly surprised to find they were open until 9pm. I ordered another coffee I didn't need and an Apple Crumb Square that I definitely did not need.

At first, I was the only one in the place and all was perfect. Forty-five minutes later I got another half cup of coffe, and altough the place had filled up a bit and got a bit noisier, it was still terrific. Ater taking a quick word count and finding I had surpassed 2100 words, I logged off after starting a new thought.

Someone from my writing group mentioned that Stephen King always left a piece after jotting down the very beginning to the next idea. It added continuity and gave you somewhere to start from so you didn;t have to go from a dead stop next time youpicked up the pen...er keyboard.

Here's hoping tomorrow is even more successful word count-wise as today.

Woo hoo!

Kick off... Time to PANIC

2008-11-01T14:05:00.000-07:00

Well, it is November 1st. Day one

Publish Post

of the November writing and I have absolutely NO idea what I am going to write. I am meeting a group or NaNos at a cafe in Worcester and I have not a cl;ue what I am going to do.

I think I am going to ask for a "prompt" and just take off and see what happens.

Man, I wish I had somehow better prepared for this...but hey, I did look at a number of plot ideas, etc and nothing grabbed me, so I decided to just ask for a prompt, pray and hope something flows out of my head.

The Photo

2008-10-28T18:54:00.001-07:00

Okay, so you might've noticed I finally broke down and added a photo. I couldn't resist.

I like to call this picture "(White) Morpheus with a Leather Jacket and No Shirt". It was one of a zillion my friend Claudia's husband Andrew took of me when I had my head shots (for comedy) done a few years ago. he did a great job, and this is my favorite photo of all of them.

He had me doing some really ridiculous things, and confessed after the fact (I hope jokingly) that a few were for blackmail purposes if I ever became famous. I purposely did NOT become famous for just that reason... well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it, anyway.

I fired this pose up mimicking a pose by the great character "Morpheus" from The Matrix, which is of course my favorite movie of al time, with Morpheus being one of my favorite characters of all time. I feel like I'm on the spot to name any I prefer, but all thta's coming to mind is George Bailey and Bogie's version of Sam Spade, though there certainly could be others... I'm also awfully fond of The Dude and Walter Sobchak from The Big Lebowski. Agent Smith from The Matrix is also pretty swe... wait, this is never going to end.

Anyway, I just wanted to explain the recent addition of the photo, not drone on about character after character from miscellaneous flicks.

National Novel Writing Month

2008-10-27T09:47:00.000-07:00

Well, after spending more often than not stagnated with regard to writing...writing anything, blogs, short stories, comedy, I have decided to do the stupid, the futile, the practically impossible- I have signed up for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) at http://www.nanowrimo.org/

What could make less sense than agreeing to write a 50,000 word novel (about 175 pages) in one month when you haven't been able to write 500 words once a month for years?

Nothing... nothing makes less sense, except NOT doing it.

To quote the great Eric "Otter" Stratton from Animal House, "This calls for a futile and stupid gesture... "

"...and we're just the guys to do it," was added by John "Bluto" Blutarski, if I recall correctly.

National Novel Writing Month was started by a complete lunatic by the name of Chris Baty 10 years ago, and last year 100,000 people agreed to surrender their Novembers to their NaNo novels. 15,000 of those actually "won", or completed their 50,000 word goals, 20,000 or so were self-committed to various insane asylums/rehabs/other professionally maintained facilities. The other 15,000 have not been heard from since.

Just kidding, but seriously... one suggestion was to inform everyone you know that you are doing this, with the hope that the humiliation of saying you are going to do something and failing will further motivate you to finish.

The goal is getting to 50,000 words, period. If anything you write is actually printable or usable, that is a huge bonus.

Most of us, myself definitely included, suffer mightily inder the hand of a nit-picky taskmaster, a tyrant who criticizes everything I do, and edits edits edits constantly. I can't complete a setnece, let alone a story, because it is never good enough, never makes enough sense, doesn't sound this way or that way.

Unfortunately, that critic, that taskmaster resides in my head, and thus far refused to leave in spite of several labotomes, and one small drill incision near the base of my skull (an ill-advised attempt to get him to slip out the back way.)

My hope is that I will flood him with so much bad writing, so many incomplete ideas, notions and plotlines, that he/it/whatever will have little choice but to be drummed out by excessive drivel. Each time my censor pipes in and claims something doesn't make sense/sound right/work, I am going to look at the number 50,000 in big bold black and move on. Hell, I may even write the same chapter two or three times just to fill space.

The rules are pretty basic. You can't start until Novemeber 1st, and must finish by midnight on Novemeber 30th in your time zone.

Editing is for December (that was just a reminder for me.)

So, I do need a little help. I have it narrowed down to two ideas from five.

Keep in mind, that I have (if I am lucky) an EXTREMELY LOOSE plot, and no outline at all.

"Under My Nose"- Girl dates many jerks. Girl sees random man commiting act of kindness. Girl follows, er... stalks random man. Does she find what she was always looking for? Something better? nothing at all? Who the heck is this guy? I don't even know yet, so how could you? Stop guessing already!

"It's All About Mac"- A self-absorbed alcoholic learns life lessons by caring for an autistic man.

Please let me know which story sounds less painful... I mean more riveting (I'm trying to be positive here!) to you

Other (pretty much dismissed) candidates were- "The Peasants"- A bunch of aging drunks and drug addicts in early recovery form a band. (The name The Peasants is taken from an actual punk rock band that I love.)

"The Mayor of Watsonville"- A small town man's simple kindnesses and wisdom affect his community for generations.

Okay- I know I have hardly been vigilant with the blog, but here's to hoping this ignites a fire under my rump.

If you go to http://www.nanowrimo.org/ and look up authors, you will find me if you search under "Korte".

This will take you to my homepage and you will be able to see my word count, and excerpts from my novel throughout November. I will also be updating this blog with my progress or lack there of.

Best Cab Ride Ever

2008-06-19T06:52:00.001-07:00

I hopped in a cab outside the Golden Nugget the other day and enjoyed the best R-rated show in Vegas.

"Hey, can you take a left up here? This guy took me the shortest way to Caesar's yesterday, and it really worked out well."

The cab driver was a disheveled guy in his late fifties, "You don't wanna take the highway? Fine, but don't blame me if we hit traffic."

It was a straight shot for a mile or so after turning, but the cabbie immediately asked me "where now, where now, what do you want me to do, you're in charge, buddy."

"Hey, you know where you're going," I said.

"I feel like a proctologist, with all the a**holes like you I take care of every day. What are ya, a poker player? You look like a bum... where you from?"

"Kentucky."

He shoots me a look, "that why ya got one tooth?"

"Massachusetts."

"Oh great, an east coast a**hole, I won't get a dime for a tip out of you, will I?"

"No, and I might short you a dime."

"I'll shoot ya."

"I gues that's fair enough."

I already liked the guy, now I was starting to love him. I couldn;t figure out how he was keeping a straight face, "I really appreciate a sense of humor."

"Sense of humor nothing, I can't wait to get you the f*** outta my cab."

My phone rang, and he says, "ring ring ring, answer that for f***'s sake."

It was my oldest brother, Jon.

"What's the plate number for this cab?"

"None of your business."

"Jonny, call the cops, I'm in a cab with a lunatic in Vegas."

As my brother chuckled, the cabbie yells, "he's a LOSER, Jonny... a LOSER!"

After a minute or so on the phone, "blah blah blah, like I need to hear your life f***ing story, J**** C*****."

"What do you do for a living," he asks.

"I'm a giver, by nature, so I take care of an autistic guy."

"THAT's bullshit... how long you done that?"

"About seven year's, same time you've been out of jail."

He tried to contain the fact that was impressed by this.

At this point, a street has been closed, and we hit a detour.

"Nice going, genius, what's your plan now? THIS is why I hate driving through town, jackass."

The guy in front of us, takes a right on red, "look at this moron, running a red light in broad daylight."

"Isn't that just a right on red?"

"So what?"

"Why don't you take it, too."

"Because I don't care how long this takes. Are you gay?"

"No. I tried to get in, but they said I didn't dress well enough."

"My girlfriend beeped in when I was on the line with my brother. I was afraid to answer it."

"Get her on the phone, I wanna talk to her."

"Are you nuts? You just ran a red light, sat at a green light, you think I'm going to give you a PHONE? You can't handle the road as it is, I'll be lucky if I'm only mamed on the ride."

So I rang her up and handed the phone over to him.

"Hey Smurf, what re you DOIN' with this guy... talk about a loser... is he giving you drugs?... is he blackmailing you? Get out while you can."

Before saying good-bye, I told Tina she was right, I probably should have borrowed her rape whistle before I headed to Las Vegas, this snarky comment solicited an audible laugh from the guy.

You autistic too?"

"No, I'm just an alcoholic." We drove by a row of adult video/peep show joints and I chimed in, "Hey, would you believe that...a strip joint in Vegas!"

"Ever thought about giving it up?"

"Drinking? I did, in 1996."

"You want me to stop for some booze?"

"No. If you think I'm an a**hole now, try pouring a couple drinks down my throat and see what happens."

"So, why don't you marry this girl, if she's so terrific."

"I'd marry her yesterday, but she has too much sense."

Now the guy is laughing out loud.

This guy was the asolute bright spot of my week. I forgot 75% of the conversation we had during the ride, but we never stopped laughing on the inside and keeping a straight face on the outside, like a couple of great actors determined not to be the one to crack a smile so the whole scene had to be re-shot. It is rare that someone goes toe-to-toe with me, line for line, and I got the impression that the cab driver had the same feeling.

When I got out, the parting was sweet sorrow. I knew I'd never see him again, but I was glad I'd met him. We shared an understated good-bye like a couple of samurai who acknowledged the skill of their opponent with the slightest of bows.

June 12th In Vegas

2008-06-12T09:43:00.000-07:00

... so I arrived last night in Las Vegas.

It is a strange feeling, I feel kind of out of place, and wonder what I am doing here. I had a good couple of months of internet poker in April and May, and decided to come out and play an event or two here at the world Series of Poker.

Because of the incompetence of the web site, I never got the checks they were sending in time, but I had booked the trip. Dad fronted me some coin until those damn checks show up... the first of which is already 8 days past the 15-20 day window they give you.

After my strong run, I lost a bit of interest in playing. I also noticed that I was really stagnated spiritually, which isn't new, by any means, but I was acutely aware that I had been coasting (as I have been many, many times in the past.

I flicked by channels Sunday and saw Joel Osteen. I like him, because he usually very positive, yet can still indite you, kind of like Charles Stanley. Joel was talking about "Destination
Syndrome", getting somewhere in your life where you are comfortable, satisfied for the most part, or have met some goal: graduated college, got that job, or got married or retired. Again, it wasn't really news, but boy does that describe me.

I looked around my comfy apartment. It really is adorable, and all MINE. I remember growing up, a belief that I would never really be able to "pay the bills" handle life came very strongly in me. Partly due to my father's ability to do exactly that, and seemingly with great confidence, even when he might have had fear or doubt himself.

I would sit terrified when I was 12, 14, 22 thinking, "how am I ever gonna pull THIS off, knowing in my heart that I never would. Upon graduating college, I settled in with roommates and found I could manage by splitting costs, although I was a degenerate gambler, and quite poor at handling money. At least I had a roof over my head, and a decent place to live. The dream of some day having my own pad seemed a pipe dream.

After getting sober in 1996, I got better at handling life and finances, to a good degree, but certain things seemed out of reach, even with my newfound sobriety and spiritual way of life which seemed to provide whatever it was I needed, and sometimes through interesting and unique paths. One of those out-of-reach things was finding the right person, another was one day having my own apartment, which may seem small or even probable to most, but at 40, and just breaking "even" after a lifetime of debt, it still seemed like shooting for the moon for me.

2007 was a good year all around, especially in poker, and I was able to pay off everything I ever owed, and start saving through an IRA. I decided I would do it, I would find my own pad.

This gorgeous little apartment on a lake was the very first one I looked at, and I said, "I'll take it," and though over 10 years in sobriety and along the spiritual path, I still wondered if I could really do it.

In the morning, when I drink my fresh perked coffee, just out of an old-school, steaming percolator, and gaze around my little spot, I wonder if it'sreal. It is the absolute perfect place for me, right here, right now. I can't wait to get home, and my landlord and his wife are the nicest people and really appreciate me as a tenant.

I even met that girl, and can't wait to throw my arms around her every time I see her, someone I have come to understand as the girl of God's dreams, simply because she surpasses mine. I can only imagine that the girl of my dreams probably wouldn't have been good enough for me, in God's estimation.

...but something is missing. The passion, the drive, the energy of spiritual growth and service. The coursing energy that makes me feel part of the universe, part of world history, and a channel of God's peace and power. I occasionally pick up new books and read them, hoping to find a nugget that will propel me forward spiritually.

This morning, I read a meditation from Emmett Fox. It stated that a great misunderstanding of men is chasing spiritual knowledge, acquiring information as a path to enlightenment (paraphrasing). And, that the simplest way to grow spiritually is to practice what we already know, reread a book we have already read, and apply its principles more diligently. Hilariously, I have read this a few times before, including in that book.

So it is a few good years down the road from a miraculous recovery from impending doom, and inevitable death, that I still need reminders to get off my ass and participate in the world around me... to stop coasting and start pedaling, because there just might be a hill ahead that I will need new strength to climb.

It is great that I actually appreciate my girl and my apartment... but there is mre, much more ahead, if I keep working and growing.

So my current destination is a poker tournament in Las Vegas, Nevada. Probably the $2000 No Limit, which starts in a little less than two hours, if I can enjoy breakfast and still get there in time. But it isn't really a destination, just another stop on the road.

I felt so clueless as to what to do this morning, which tourney to play, and I used to feel more guided, more directed, but I guess when I continued to neglect morning quiet time and meditation, my connection got a little sketchy, so I am going back to what I already know how to do- pause every second of the day I am doubtful, and ask for direction. My purpose isn't really any of my business.

Maybe there is a newly sober guy at some tournament table I will play at, maybe I will get to see my brother (who lives here) today, or my old friend Penny, also a Vegas townie now. Maybe the purpose of my coming here was so I could feel UNcomfortable for a while.

One thing is certain, if I stay awake, I will have an experience.

Scrambled Eggs for a Stranger

2008-05-26T10:24:00.001-07:00

Well, May is almost over. It has been a weird month weather-wise, more like fall than spring... kind of like a bad October, sort of cold and rainy.

I always think of my old friend Bill "Hicky" Healy in May. He passed away in May a number of year's ago. I posted about Hick's life in March a couple of years back. Hicky was a classic small town character. The kind of guy who really adds flavor to a small town.

Hick was quick with a pun and a smile and was always long on genuine kindness and short on gripes. He was one of a variety of regulars at Whtinisville's local diner, once called Barbara's Place, and known as "Peg's" for the last 15 or 20 years.

I'm not sure if he started it, but Hick was a great practicer of a tradition of buying breakfast for fellow diners at "The Ulcer Factory" as he liked to call it. Billy would pay for his breakfast and quietly pick up the tab for someone else, and simply leave.

I can say without exaggeration that I think of him just about every time I pay my check at a diner or breakfast joint. To this day, customers occasionally do this at Peg's. One of the waitresses told me she'd never seen anything like it, and that it happened all the time. It made her think fondly about the town, its residents, and the small, simple kindness you often find in small towns, where everybody seems to know everybody else.

It made me think of Hicky, who in his own way made Whitinsville a very special place for a lot of people, myself included. His kindness lives on, long after he has left for greener pastures, perhaps pulling up a seat in the ulcer factory in the sky.

For myself, I have adopted his practice. For the small price of a breakfast, I can out a smile on someone's face, brighten their day just a bit, and possibly encourage them to do a kindness for a stranger themselves. It's a nice, simple way of passing along good vibes and feeling good myself.

Give it a try sometime.

A Few Words about Peanut Butter

2008-04-27T08:03:00.000-07:00

I shockingly noticed I haven't written on Sobah Comic since August of 2007- wowzy, talk about a stretch of laziness. I have been meaning to write again, but after such an extended hiatus, I felt it would take a momentous occasion, or a real serious issue to get me scribbling again.

I almost logged on for the purpose of a verbal political assault, then I remembered all the stress-free days I have enjoyed being A-political, and opted not to stir up that hornet's nest.

Finally, this morning, I received an email from a friend which reminded me of an important issue which seems to have gone untouched- the abuse of peanut butter.

Now, don't get me wrong, I like peanut butter, I really, really do- but in it's proper place. Peanut butter is wonderful on toast or an English Muffin. It is fabuloso in a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, yes, yes it is indeed.

And while I certainly don't want to come off like some sort of peanut butter Nazi, with all the nonsense of late, a line needs to be drawn in the sand.

This is a list of places peanut butter simply does NOT belong:

Ice cream- absolutely, unequivocally NOT.

Corn bread- are you kidding me? This is an idea that must've come out of a bong.

Brownies- Now this one offends me. Brownies are wonderful all by their onesies, why bastardize one of God's greatest gifts to desserts? This is like reinventing the wheel, except you make it square.

Cookies - Ya ya...I know how popular peanut butter cookies are. Let me remind you of how popular were the pet rock, bell bottoms and the Phil Collins. Just cuz it's popular doesn't mean it doesn't suck.

Celery and peanut butter- Some knucklehead thought this was a delicious healthy snack...except that processed peanut butter has more fat in it than fat has fat in it... enjoy peanut butter, but don't delude yourself into thinking it is wheat germ.

My girlfriend told me that as a child she much enjoyed peanut butter-and-Frit0 sandwiches at the beach.

This is the closest I have evr been to leaving this woman.

Dusting off the Blog, Emerging from Sloth

2007-08-27T09:32:00.000-07:00

Okay okay- I have been EXTRAORDINARILY lazy this year. Truthfully... I have very little to write about (I claim) because I have been doing zero, zilch, nada. I am like Seinfeld after his showed went off the air 9minus the $250 million.) I have become the guy in "Office Space".

My modest success with poker this year allowed me to cut my work hours to 24 per week (one 24 hour shift) and I have used all the extra time to do, well nothing.

My spiritual condition, once suspect, has at last been convicted. I am guilty.

If the charges are:

taking gifts for granted- guilty as charged.
coasting- guilty.
slothfulness, laziness, self-centered veg-ing, then find me guilty, guilty, and guilty.

I have a sweet apartment on a lake in Shrewsbury now (or "the Shrew", as I like to call it.) It is super easy to just sit and veg out here. My girlfriend Tina is an absolute doll who is happy with me the way I am, and is just glad I am a good guy and treat her well. She doesn't care if I ever get on The Tonight show or win a World Series of Poker event, or make a million dollars

For some reason, my reaction to prosperity is to shift into neutral and coast. Somebody said to me that coasting is only possibly if you are going downhill, however slight the slope.

It is this, along with other reasons, that has prompted me to thrust myself into a position of service this winter. I will be volunteering at the Covenant House in NYC (I think, although they could feasibly send me somewhere else.).

The Covenant House is a homeless shelter for teens, most of whom have serious drug and alcohol issues. I have long wanted to volunteer there, but never could afford it. I am not a millionaire by any means, but fortune has come my way to the degree that I can at least give a few months of my time to these kids.

Lest I try to to sound too saintly, I want to help these kids, I really do, but I am doing it for myself more than anything. My meditation life has been at best spotty and at worst, non-existent, and when it comes to discipline, I am seriously lacking.

I can hear the flurry of great friends I have typing emails already, telling me to put down the club (that I like to use on my head). Hey- I know I am a really decent guy and a pretty good person. I like me, I do... but I know who and what I am.

I am a person afflicted with mental illness, emotional illness, in the form of alcoholism. The antidote for this condition for me has been a relationship with God, a relationship I have seriously neglected. That connection brought about a change in my thinking and actions that can't really be explained, but certainly has been witnessed by plenty.

I don't mean to imply in any way that God is pissed off at me and punishing me or anything kooky like that...all I am saying is that the connection is like any other relationship. It needs to be fed to thrive. In my experience, the Power just pours out love and wellness... it is me who turns off the spigot.

My path has been one of experiential learning. I rarely learn from someone else's mistakes, and generally my the same mistake several times myself before cluing in. I don't seem to self-apply spiritual instructions I give to others seeking help. This is one reason why I think the structured environment of Covenant House will help me get "back on the beam".

One thing I am good at is following directions and honoring commitments. When I sign in to Covenant, I am going to follow directions and do what I am told. For me, listening to others is about the highest form of obedience of which I am capable.

Hmmm... if you think I am being a tad rough on myself ( or maybe you think not tough enough, hahahaaaa) I will quote an old friend, "there is no waste in God's economy."

Every single experience I have will be used by me or someone else, if I just stay in the game, if I just keep plugging.

So I have been lazy, so what? Most people as alcoholic as me are dead or dying, or living lives which make them wish they were dead. I am luckyluckylucky, and I;ve done a fair bit to help others out of the abyss I crawled from.

As of now, I am referring to my current status as "resting for future spiritual endeavors" instead of "slugging it up".

Off to San Antonio/Las Vegas

2007-02-08T21:25:00.000-08:00

Well, I depart tomorrow morning, and in a long tradition, I stay up too late and pack at the last minute. I am excited about the trip and it seems to pass more quickly if I go to bed with only two or three hours until I get up. It also gets me right to sleep. I often toss and turn half the night when I get to bed at a reasonable time the night before a big trip.

Tomorrow, I land in San Antonio to speak at a conference of really wonderful folks who changed the schedule around a bit to help me out.
Saturday morning, I fly to Las Vegas to compete in The Poker Dome. Apparently, I am shooting interviews as soon as I land, then there are things they run us through during the day before we tape the show live at about 5:30 or 6pm. Amazingly, the only edit IN a few things like snipits from interviews, and they somehow do it all in one day, airing the episode on Sunday night.

That's right folks, yours truly will be playing crazy speed poker on national television Sunday night, 11pm EST on FSN, also known as Fox Sports Network. It should be pretty exciting.

The game of speed poker is crazy. You only get 15 seconds to make a decision. That shouldn't be too tough for me,m as I play online quite a bit where you get a very limited amount of time to make decisions. The difficulties for me will probably be around the pre-flop "pot" limit wagering (as opposed to No-Limit) and the escalating blind structure.

They all also attach a heart monitor to you, and broadcast heart rates to the studio audience, which is outside the sealed dome. They known the cards you are holding and your heart rate, they know your chip counts, all registered by tiny micro chips inside the chips and cards, and you just know that things are moving very quickly and that your head is spinning.

My brother Jay, who lives in Las Vegas, will be there, as well as my brother Geoff, who is driving out from California to watch the match. I have been on such a roll of late, I can't expect great luck. Buit I will sure need it. Skill plays a smaller role in a tourney such as this, with speed a factor and the blinds escalating rapidly. I am going to try to stay cool, remind myself that it doesn't really matter in the whole scheme of things, whether I win or lose, and just make good decision. Above all, I need to be unafraid of losing so I can take necessary risks.

Wish me luck!

A Big Stah

2007-01-31T12:22:00.000-08:00

Well, I haven't been writing, because much of late has been poker-related, but I felt like updating a bit.

Upon returning from Melbourne, I discovered that I apparently had been Poker.com's first money winner in a main event. Admittedly, I was the first winner because I busted out 20 minutes before scott Allen (Texas), who actually became the site's BIGGEST money winner as he claimed 5 grand more than me.

I am "Bertiewooster", which is my handle on several sites... the sites I haven't been kicked off yet due to my statius as a U.S.A. player. I am, of course, on the left and Scott is on the right with Jimmy Fricke, a 19 year old kid who eventually came in 2nd to tourney champ and seasoned pro Gus Hansen.

Here is a link worth a chuckle (to me anyway) as the Poker.com staff sings my praises after I won their Winter Championship Sunday.

http://www.poker.com/blog/

Here is an admiring blogger, my head is getting HUGE

http://imjusthere4thebeer.blogspot.com/

That's right- I get to play in another main event this year. I haven't chosen which one yet, as I need to wait to find out if I advance in the Poker Dome in about 10 days. In case I have failed to mention it, I will be playing on the FSN TV show "The Poker Dome". We tape Feb. 10th and my brother Bill and Jay will be there in the studipo audience cheering me on. Of course, I won't actuall HEAR them cheering me on, as I will be in a sealed dome, afixed to a heart monitor- yeah, it's kind of a crazy show.

I must give at least half the credit to my poker partner Beau. He has layed really well and has found most of the tournament opportunities online that we've won. My pal Boudy told me not to worry about assigning credit to Beau, as he will most likely claim it anyway... true dat.

This week was a little frustrating, as I got kicked off another great poker site, ripe with specials and tournaments with amazing "overlays" (value beyond the actual buy in). Being American is increasingly difficult in the world of online poker.

Because of the U.S. Government's Gestapo-like tactics of "detaining" representatives of foreign companies, some who are connected to gaming websites, but the last batch of whom only worked for a foreign bank (Neteller) who services American citizens who SOUGHT THEM OUT, many of these organizations are succumbing to the pressure levied by the U.S. Gov.

Ironically, these companies have yet to break any laws, and are regulated within their own nations (like England and Australia, who are allegedly U.S. trade partners.)

In harrassing the Netellers folks, the U.S. cited the 1961 Wire Act.
In other recent news, the WTO found AGAINST the U.S. Gov, affirming an earlier decision in favor of anti-trust suits by Barbuda and Antigua.

The U.S. opted to interpret the ruling more broadly..um, basically ignoring the ruling.

I am about as A-political as they come, but I must wonder why I am claiming winnings on my taxes that the governemtn doesn't want to have, doesn't know I have, in order that they may continue to pass laws without a vote that opress my individual freedoms.

I have voted for a variety of parties and candidates and in the past have voted for Republicans, including Bush Sr the first time he ran and wonder what happened to "the less government" banner and am also wondering when democracy will return to my country.

I sincerely hope it is before I am forced to move to Canada.

Homesville/The Guradian

2007-01-21T09:02:00.000-08:00

Even though it is cold as hell, I am happy to be home. I am so glad to be back that I am referring to the 14 degree ice-blast as "invigorating".

I was shocked to see that about my blog got over 1500 views last week- WOW!

I got about 2 hours of sleep in the 36 hours preceding my arrival and hitting my own bed last night wa sheavenly, even though I was only able to really fall asleep around 4 am. Seeing Jack this morning was great, except that he totally blew me off in favor of the pecan roll I brought him.

I was wide awake, and opted to endure "The Guardian" on the flight home. I was able to avoid watching this piece of crap on the flight down, but was wide awake coming back and gave in for about an hour. To call this flick trash would be an afront to trash acorss the globe.

It was a blatant ripoff of Officer and a Gentleman except in that it really sucked. i imagine Louis Gossett Jr. developing severe stomach cramps watching Kevin Costner lame up the role he mastered for an Oscar opposite Richard Gere. Ashton played a vapid cadet, and his attempts to add depth were at best, a pathetic and extremely brief vaneer to him playing himself. Strangely, I found myself less annoyed with Tom Cruise for all those times he played himself, as this was not even watchable in my exhausted/bored-to-tears state of mind.

First off- who in their right mind makes a film about THE COAST GUARD??? Surely you jest.

The one edge this trite waste of time had over Officer and a Gentleman" was that the pointless love interest, a story line which and nil to film or to Kutcher's character depth, was WAY hotter than Debra Winger, although the actress was given little to do, aside from an opportunity to betray herself as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

The film's big moment (as indicated by the driving 80s guitar riffs and ultra-lae montage) came when Ashton Kutcher started to smash all the records set by Costner in days past. But really... do you care if he pushes a brick across the bottom of a pool a few seconds faster than Costner's character did in the late 70s? I sure didn't. They blasted a variation of the Navy Recruitment theme, complete with the aforementioned bad 80s guitar riffs over the yawnfest in an effort to dramatize the super-lame montage, but it made me yearn for trailer to Jag, a show I can turn off with the click of a remote.

The joy came when reason cracked my exhaustion-based droned viewing when I realized- "Wait- I can turn this off too!" and I did.

Final Event, then home tomorrow

2007-01-18T16:10:00.000-08:00

This event went about how I expected it to when I saw the structure and set up.

I am not a big fan of quickly elevating blinds, and that was how this one was set up. 30 minutes blinds with 11 players per table is closer to a lottery than a poker tournament. I started out like a house afire, but lost to all ins to short stacks. I battled back but eventually had to make a move with a sub-standard hand due to escalating blinds and got by a bigger stack with JJ.

Oh well.

One neat thing was running into a few stars. I saw Roger Federer in the levator as well as Andy Roddick earlier in the week. I actually chatted up Maria Sharapova in the lobby after sharing an elevator ride. Very pleasant girl, that Maria. I didn't notice, but apparently some people find her to be mildly attractive.

I have no idea why she is here, but I saw Michelle Wie walking with her parents in the Crown down by the stores.

I am not going to mention all the poker stars here, but most of them were here.

I am glad to be heading back home tomorrow and am really looking forward to seeing Nadia, Jack, and even good old Tom. It was also really weird not seeing my dad for a movie two weeks in a row and not being able to field neurotic calls from my sister Debbie asking me if I was okay for no apparent reason. I really missed Tom's goofy ass this week and saw only a few people here wearing socks and sandals, though they did make me homesick. I am also way overdue for a cup of java with my pal Mark (who owns the label of the sunglasses I wore during the tourney) and Debcat, whom I haven't seen in ages.

Bounced Like a Bad Check

2007-01-16T22:27:00.000-08:00

So the main event is over, ending cermeoniously with the groans of horror of the gallery as the river card turned.

Honestly, this might sound obnoxious, but I had no idea I was this good. I could not have created a WORSE scenario than the one I was faced with yesterday, yet I somehow made the money.

I was pretty happy with my initial table assignement, as there were no monster stacks. I had 62,800, the ked on my left had 90,000 and one other guy (whoi started today at my table with 516,000)had about 70K or so. I raiseed right out of the gate, and was immediately staared down and re-raised by the 90,000 kid. Had to fold. Next hand I raised again and was re-raised, same story. It was obvious I was going to steal or bully anyone here. They broke the table up and I was 9K poorer after 3 hands.

At my new table, I raised with top pair ace kicker and had to fold to another re-raise with 3 diamonds on the board, respecting the flush.

Then I was moved to the tourney chip leader's table with 46,000 or so. The leader had about 415,000 by then.

I tried to play a couple of hands, but every time I was in a pot, there would be a raise, and usually, a re-raise. It was obvious I couldn't play any hand I wasn't willing to go all the way with, even that early.

I realized the money was 7 levels and 10.5 hours away, and things looked pretty bleak. I told myself to sit back and wait for a hand. I powered through with pocket 99 and stole the blinds. A long while passed with nary a playable hand and I woke up with pocket tens under the gun (first position). I had to either play them stronger, like I had a bigger pair, or just fold. Any flat calls were an outrigth waste of chips, as you could guarantee a raise, and likely a re-raise on general principle.

I stalled, counted chips, stalled, and raised about 5 or 6 times the blind. I needed to take something down. The small blind called and the big stack (last year's winner, Lee Nelson, author of the noted book on No Limit Hold Em tournament poker "Kill Phil" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Nelson) folded.

The flop came J rag rag, not a great flop for me, but not bad. I put is a solid preflop raise and doubted the small blind would call with out an A or maybe something like KQ with Lee playing behind him. He bet out 10,000 chips. I stalled and stalled, counted and recounted my chips. I knew I had to make a stand and had to get some chips, more importantly. I thought about what I had represented to the table, decided I had probably carried it off and pushed all in. The guy (Peter Scutaris) thought a while before folding.

It worked!

I forced him to folded J9, he had me beaten. He told me later he had put me on queens. Nice to know someone is paying attention. I have to give the guy credit. A lot of players are so weak today or clueless that you can't bluff them because they can't read the board or other players. Ironically, I had semi-misread Peter's hand and put him on two overcards, or an under pair with an ace kicker.

A short while later I caught AK clubs in the big blind. One guy limped in with a flat call and ironically, everyone else folded. The big blind was 1000, and I raised 5,000 to 6,000, the guy called. I believe he was a euro-pro, but there are so many of these guys I don;t have a clue who they even are.

The flop came 256 or something with two clubs.

I immediately pushed all-in with my AK nut flush draw. Plus, I really think I had the best hand anyway. If he had a pair of some kind, I still had 15 outs, and though behind, still would have been the favorite to win the hand. He folded, and I stayed alive. That would be the last pot I would sniff for about 6 hours.

The noted Finn Patrik Antonius http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrik_Antonius or Lee Nelson raised every hand and I honestly saw the absolute worste cards f my life for the next 7 or 8 hours. I didn;t win a hand in that span and hoarded my chips.

In the course of the day, I never saw AA or KK, and had QQ once and Ak maybe twice, a ridiculously horrible display of crap-ola. Antonius raised my big blind literally, for hours on end. I was nearing the point where I needed to hit something to say alive (it comes earlier than you think) and I called his customary raise with QJ hearts. I decided preflop if I flopped top pair I was throwing all in.

The flop came 678 with two hearts. I decided to check raise him all in. I could have just led, but I knew he would call anyway, and I wanted to make a statement, however small it may be. He bet out 15K or something and I imediately pushed all in. He had to call given the pot odds no matter what he had.

He flipped over 28c, and had the lead with top pair. I had 15 outs, with all the hearts, plus the 3 remaining queens and jacks, so I was actually the favorite. The turn card was a 2 hearts, giving him two pair, but giving me a flush. The river was a brick and I doulbed up.

I didn't play a hand for another decade or so.

In the late going, I threw all in once with KQ in the smal blind, clearing out the limpers. I thought Lee Nelson might cal from the button, but honestly didn't care if he did. I knew he had to be weak to just flat call and I could use the double up. If I hit it, I would certainly finish in the money. The very nexy hand I had QQ on the button and tossed all in over Peter Scutaris' raise. All folded and I could coast and wait for a big hand.

None came.

The stats on the other chip stack sizes were not very available, although I had a guy from poker.com really helping me out doing his best. They try to limit their access, but he found out what he could. I would onluyplay one more hand that night.

I woke up with AK. I could easily fold the hand and probably make it into the money. Antonius had put in a raise and Peter Scutaris had called. I counted my chips about 3 or 4 times, appearing as though I were contemplaying an allin. I hadn't played ANY hands in forever, so it was easy to represent a big hand. I thought and thought and mumbled "raise". I counted out two stacks of my chips and raised 20,000. I was trying to send the message that I had aces and wanted someone to call, and that the rest of my chips would be going in on the flop. 20,000 is one thing, but 60,000 is another.

It worked.

Everyone folded quickly (even Antonius had some temporary moment of sanity and laid down his J3 or whatever he was playing) and two players said, "nice aces". I smiled and mucked my hand. I didn;t want them to know I had the AK, it was better if they thought I was only playing AA or KK.

I glided into the money, finishing the day in 67th position. I folded a round and threw all in with A7 under the gun with about 40,000 chips. To my surprise, they all folded and I raked in the blinds.

I folded my blinds and was back around 40,000, with the blinds being 3000-6000. It was an all-in fest. There were at least 2 or 3 allins every minute, with the tournament announcer calling out the hands over the sound system.

I had to move soon and was delighted to look down and find KK.

I pushed my chips as though I was miserable but had to and got called by the big blind. he actually had a big hand, too. AK. I really didn't want to see an ace of any kind, but what can ya do. I was still about a 3:1 favorite to win the hand.

Unfortantely, my opponent flopped an ace and picked up another ace on the turn, freezing me out. the worst part was that I hit the case king on the river for a losing full house.

All in all, it was a great tournament, well run, and the structure is terrific. I feel great about being placed in just about the worst of all circumstances and suriviving.

Thank You All Very Much

2007-01-16T21:30:00.000-08:00

I just want to say thanks a ton for all you cats who followed along, checked pokernews for updates and sent emails etc.

Many of the players here are either local or wildy popular pros. I spent about 10 hours on the feature table, and these guys generally had 20-40 people around, so it was really helpful to know that my friends and family were home watching the action for updates and pulling for me.

I am taking the rest of today off to lay low, but I will update and write up what happened later.

I am playing a smaller tourney tomorrow, I imagine many of the pros hanging around will jump in as well, so it should be fun.

Thanks again, kids, we did it together.

If his health is on par, my big brother Jon has agreed to come with me out to Las Vegas in a few weeks when I tape the Poker Dome show. It will be terrific to have him, Jay, Maritza (you don't have to force yourself to watch poker if you don't want to!!!) and anyone else who happens to amble by there.

Super Quick Update

2007-01-16T15:51:00.000-08:00

Actually slept...a little.

Gotta run out and get some pancakes before the tournament starts.

Juist checked chipc counts. I have 53,000, waaay below avg, BUT am in 67th. There are a zillion "short stacks". One double up to 100,000 or so and I would appear to be in the middle of the pack position-wise, although still well below the avg stack size. If I can double-up, there is a good chance I can stick around for a little while. If I can double up twice early, who knows?

Patrik Antonius, while insane, showed me the value on not caring on every given hand whether or not you get bounced out. The guy stole millions, millions of chips yesterday, it was truly a sick spectacle, but has definitely changed the way I am going to think about the these tourneys, and how I play.

I'm off!

In the Money

2007-01-16T08:21:00.000-08:00

I suqeezed into the money.

Passing out, must try to sleep, details later, thanks for following along:)

Still alive, but shortstacked.

Day 2, Aussie Millions

2007-01-15T13:31:00.000-08:00

I need to remember the main reason I have a decent stack going into today's action. It isn't because I had big hands (which helped). It wasn't lucky suckouts after questionable calls. It wasn't with big all-ins and flashy moved.

It was primarily laying down big losing hands. I made a few moves that fortunately worked when I was behind in the hand at times, challenged players I thought were weak, but primarily folding big hand was the order of the day.

I keep remembering something Steve Dannemann said (finished 2nd in the 2005 WSOP main event as an amateur.

"A bad fold is a small mistake... a bad call is a big mistake."

So I tried to avoid bad calls.

I think I folded top pair at least three times in the same hour, two to the previously mentioned Mandy. She slowplayed a flopped full house from the big blind. I raised minimum under the gun with a suited king during a time when I was raising constantly and getting a lot of folds. The flop came 3 2 3 and Mandy checked to me. I checked. There was no way I was bluffing into that flop, as it was obvioous I missed it and she would check-raise me even if she missed it.

The turn brought a king and I had top pair. She made a beautiful bet that looked like she was stabbing at the pot, I think it was 1000 chips. I made it something like 2500 to go and she immediately reraised to 7,000.

I knew I had been had. I tried to figure out what the hell she could possibly have. She wouldn't call an under-the-gun raise with a 3 in her hand, would she? Myabe if it was suited, but still fairly unlikely. Any hand with a king I was sure I could beat, with the possible exception of K-J. or maybe K-Q. There was no way she would have flat-called my raise with K-K or A-K.

I mulled it over and gave it up. She wound up having 2-2, and had flopped a full house. I lost a few chips, but avoided losing a lot more with a bad call.

Similar situation against Mandy a few hands later. She had a tendency to raise small, maybe 2.5 times the blind from early position, even with a pretty big hand. She raised from 800 to 2000 in early position. I had AT off suit, and a lot of chips, so I called. The flop came T- rag rag, maybe T-2-6. Mandy bet out 2500. Right there I could have tested her hand with a raise, but I smooth called and figured I would re-think things on the turn card. The turn was an 8, another great card for me.

The problem is that Mandy rifled 8,500 chips into the pot like she had been directed to bet by a vision from the spirit world. Immediately two things come to mind- overpair and trips. I decide that trips are inlikely. if she had pocket tens and had flopped top set, she would most likely have slowplayed it and bet very small or even checked to let me get myself into trouble. She didn;t seem the type to raise from such early position with a tiny pair like 2-2 or 6-6, so I started thinking JJ. If she had QQ or KK she certainly would have raised more than to 2000. But 2000 with Jacks was just enough toi get rid of the deadwood without commiting too many chips.

It pained me, but I had to let go of the 3300 chips I had already invested in the pot. I asked her what she had at the end of the day and she told me J-J= good fold. In exchange, she requested what I had on a hand I rre-raised her from my big blind. She raised from the small blind and I reraised. The flop came A-K-5 or something. She checked and I hammered the pot. Mandy folded. I had 7-7, but when she asked about the hand at the end of the day, for some unknown reason lied and told her I couldn't exactly remember, but it was either 8-8 or 9-9. Not a big difference from just telling the truth about the pocket sevens, bt for some reason, I didn;t want to tell the entire truth.

I made a point of showing the big hands I laid down for the most part so people knew I was stealing. Of courese, I had been stealing on a number of pots I took down, but I kept that to myself.

I only slept for about 3 1/2 or 4 hours again last night and am totally exhausted. I am really hoping the don't try to play 7 levels again today, but maybe 4 or 5 tops. I am not sure if they have a number of levels in mind, or a general idea of how many players they'd like to et down to by the end of the day.

Oh yeah, and "GO PATS!!!" I got to see the game winning kick in the poker rooom. I missed a few hands trying to watch the tale end of the game, but it was worth it.

Survival

2007-01-15T07:25:00.000-08:00

Well it was an eventful day and I am beat. I need to catch a few hours of sleep, if possible, before tomorrow. I planned to lay low for the first 30 minutes or so to get a feel for the table. But, I got AK about 3 hands in in the Big Blind. There were about 4 "flat" callers, so I raised it from 100 to 600, satisfied to take down the call bets. The players under the gun (first position) called me. The flop was K 4 6, with two diamonds. I hammered the flop, hammered the turn and a diamond came on the river.

I checked, the guy bet and showed QTd for a flush, costing me about 9,000 of my 20,000 stack very early. I got up and forfeited my small blind as I contemplated how the guy could call with that hand from that position. "Terry" would call with a lot worse throughout the day. I had a feeling I would get those chips back about an hour later, and I did abuse Terry throughout the day after the second level or so.

Two hands later I found pocket AA. One raise in front of me, I reraised. The kid (who turned out to be a table nemesis and very solid player) had AK and hit a K on the flop. He tossed all in. I called and dodged a bullet, doubling my stack back up to about 23,000.

About an hour later, I became a card rack, hitting big hand after big hand. In the course of the day, I had AA three times, QQ three times and lied about having QQ and KK several times. At my table was Joe Hachem's brother. After a couple of people got knocked out, Clonie Gowan (Women's 2007 WSOP champion) got seated at my table. I looked down and found QQ. I think it was her second hand there. Hachem's brother had said something to her privately. I was really running the table at this point, by the way. As I raised my QQ, the guy says "MR. Aggressive". Clonie fingered her ships, counting them out. I usually stare at the table, but I sensed her eyeing me to see if I had anything or was stealing. I would never steal from that early a position, but I briefly glanced at her, then looked away to feign weakness. Clonie puched all-in with JJ and I wuickly called her after the rest of the table folded. I hit a Q on the flop and another Q for quads.

On a kind of humorous note, pokernews, one website I am representing, reported the hand live and referenced me as "her opponent" several times without mentioning my name. Thanks for the press, PN!

I got up to about 67,000 or so and hit a dry spell. They moved my nemesis John from the table and put a 19y.o. Korean kid from Ohio named Adam Junglan in his spot a few hands later. This kid was brutal. He raised my big blind EVERY hand for two hours except once. I forfeited my role as table bully to a very quiet girl who raised every hand named Mandy, who is apparently the girlfriend of a pro I am not familiar with. Mandy got hot hands, and I took a few beatings from her, beating her only once in the 3 or 4 times we locked horns.

They draw for new tables tomorrow and while I am (like everyone else) hoping aganst hope I don't get seated next to the dude with 300,000 chips, I will not be sorry to see Mandy at another tale, or Adam for that matter. Pro Mark Vos made an appearance at our table for about an hour before getting bounced by Mandy.

All in all, it was a really good day with some great cards and some dry spells. I am going to have to throw out today's play book and start fresh tomorrow, depending upon who and what size chip stacks ares at my table and where I am sitting.

I ended the day with 62,800 chips. The avg for the tourney is between 48,000 and 49,000, so while I can't coast by any means, I am in decent shape heading to day two.

Tourney Day 1, Flight 2

2007-01-14T14:40:00.000-08:00

This is a view from my hotel room at night... the photo doesn't really do it justice, but it is beautiful.

I spent last night relaxing, laying low and trying to get a good night's sleep. I strolled down the riverwalk a bit and got some spaghetti for dinner. No sense in gambling with sushi or something exotic that could screw me up for today, so I played it safe with good old pasta.

I got home about 10pm, filled up the jacuzzi tub and watched "The Matrix" on my lap top computer in the hot tub. Life... it is very very difficult.

I hit the sack (nodding on and off) officially at about midnight. I still can't seem to sleep in at all, and woke up about 5:45 am. I have to admit, I am pretty nervous as the ratio of superstars and pros to amateurs here is ridiculously high. As usual, (and as my friend Joe says) "I would rather die than look bad". I just don't want to get schooled by someone and have to see it on ESPN.

It's about two hours until they shuffle up and deal, I have to be there 30 minutes early, so I heading out to grab some breakfast.

Updates may be available at http://www.pokernews.com/live-reporting/aussie-millions-2007/event-9-aussie-millions-main-event/blog/

Feddish in Melbourne

2007-01-13T13:26:00.000-08:00

So last night Tina and Chris (poker site's representatives) took all the poker players to a nice dinner at a restaurant called Fetish. She asked us to "dress up, as this place is fancy."

Poker players... ya can't take us anywhere. We are like high school kids forced to wear a tie to church, especially online players. On a positive note, I was the only one who wore a jacket and about 3 or 4 of us out of 17 looked half way presentable. I always say, "I'd rather look good than be a good player."

Okay, I've never said that, but I'm thinking of coining a phrase. I am a little irritated that I woke up about 7:30am here. I stayed up late hoping to sleep in a bit and adjust my schedule so I will be prepared to stay up late and be alert tomorrow night.

I must say, it is a pretty nice crew of guys, not a bad bunch of ragamuffins, as my mom used to say when I was little.

I further realized what a pansy I am, as I miss my chick and the autistic goof I take care of. I am not sure how I am going to pas the time this week without tackling my little buddy and pretending I am beating him up (he loves it, really he does.) I miss terribly his smile and laugh and his deliberate efforts to ignore me and do what he wants.

After getting tagged for $25 bucks for breakfast yesterday, I am going to be more careful where I eat and venture out into the city to find an eatery. Mango juice is a nice change of pace, but I'm not sure it is worth a twennyspot.

The tourney starts today and I will likely venture down and get a feel for the room, although I don't start until tomorrow at 11:30am, which is 7:30pm Sunday night for east coasters.

Aussie Millions Recon.

2007-01-12T13:20:00.000-08:00

Upon arriving, I scanned the poker room yesterday. They had the 100,000 buy-in event going on. No, it's not a misprint, the buy-in was $100,000. 18 players started and 9 were left when I got there. Phil Ivey and Eric Lindgren were at one table and Eric Seidel was at another.

I am not sure what the scoop is, but a lot of the biggest names in poker are here to play in the main event. There must've been some heavy promotion going down to get these players to take two weeks out of their lives to come here when they could be fleecing tourists in Las Vegas.

I am trying to keep it in perspective, but I am getting pretty nervous. It is a mix of internet players and sharks, with some of the very best pros in the world showing up.

They have a unique format for the main event which starts tomorrow. (I play Monday). You start with 20,000 in chips, which double the usual and the blinds last f0r 90 minutes, instead of an hour, although they do start at 50-100 instead of the customary 25-50.

This format hugely favors the better players and reduces the luck factor greatly. I mean, no one wins anything without getting lucky a couple times, but this structure favors superior players. That may have something to do with some of these pros traveling here for this event.

I am trying not to get to nervous about looking foolish and am trying to forget the schooling Joe Hachem gave me in Copenhagen and remember how well I played at the WSOP.

I have a small freeroll (free tournament) today sponsored by the website I am representing and a fancy shmancy dinner tonight at some chi chi restaurant.

Yawn

2007-01-12T01:53:00.000-08:00

Well, I have kind of had a policy of not writing about poker on the blog, hence very little writing of late on the blog, BUT... since I have faily and friends who wish to keep pace with my goofy exploits down under, I will report here this week.

For those completely in the dark as to what the hell I am talking about, Iwon an entry into the Aussie Millions Poker Tournament in Melbourne, Australia. I kinda targeted this tourney as the one I most wanted to win an entry to, as I have long wanted to see Australia.

I am reasonably exhausted. It wasn't a bad flight, 25 or 26 hours en route to anywhere will take the wind out of your sails. I caught a huge break on the flight from L.A. to Sydney when my chair wouldn't recline, so I got moved to a vacant aisle seat...SCORE!

The Australian airport security is as vigilant as our security, but twice as silly. They run you through x-ray machines repeatedly as you transfer from one plane to another and have already been cleared, doing the laptop-out-shoes-off shuffle.

Everything here is super expensive here, obliterating the short-lived glee I got from what I thought was a favorable exchange rate. $3.50 for a cuppa coffee, $12 to get a jacket drycleaned, and $15 for a vagrant to give me the same hand gallop I can get in any park in Boston for five bucks... highway robbery if you ask me.

I went down to register for the tourney and saw that the field for the tourney will be between 650-750 players. Many of the top pros in the world are here, which is kinda fun, but nerve-wracking to say the least.

There will be two day ones, because of the size of the field. I will be playing on Monday, Jan 15th at 11:30am, which is about 7:30pm EST. I get to play in a little free tourney for Poker.com players tomorrow.

That is all... losing consciousness.

Maybe I'm Not Too Bright...

2007-01-05T08:13:00.000-08:00

...but I AM a Brownie.

This year's plunge into the Atlantic on New Year's Day was a tad warmer than my pal Boudy and I usually like, but it was raining- which kept the yahoos away to a degree. It seems every time the thermometer creeps over 40 degrees, every one and their brother shows up in Southie for the annual L Street Brownie New Year's Day swim.

I used to think my friend Steve "Boudy" Boudrot was crazy when he would be excited upon hearing a "bad" weather report, one including temperatures below freezing or even in the teens, or better yet- involving snow. Something about snow and bare feet doesn't seem to mesh.

After a few years of taking the plunge myself, I began to see his genius.

When it gets warm, or they have some sort of anniversary (which seems ot be almost every year nowadays) throngs of people show up, wantng to be part of all the madness. One problem is, that even on "warm" days, days in the 50s.. the water is usually between 37-40 degrees. When the rookies hit that water, they tend to panic and freeze (pun intended) because they have never felt anyything so shockingly cold in all their lives.

One thing about 37 degree water- you don't tip -toe into it. Ya gotta LEAP baby, ya gotta dive right in.

The crowds were trimmed by the rain this year, and there wasn't much fear of getting trapped behind a line of toe-dippers. I got about up to my waist on a dead run before getting blocked by some guy slipping into hypothermia. Fortunately, he buckled a bit at the knees and I was able to dive over him.

The most common question is... WHY???

Why do you do it, Korte? What are you thinking? You can't even blame this inane activity on drunkeness anymore.

There are a few reasons. For one, it's on of the few times set aside to hang with my best friend in the world. There is a camaraderie there that seems to blossom when we engage in mutually foolish escapades.

Secondly, and I can't explain this, it just feels good. The initial shock of the water is just that, but coming out feels amazing to me. I think it is different for different people. I remember the first year I did it it was very cold and I didn't much like it. The second time I recall feeling a wave of euphoria washing over me about 30 minutes after the swim. I have had that a numbers of times, but not every year, it is sort of a surprise.

The most common result is a feeling of deep relaxation which seems to last throughout the day, acompanied by sleepiness (unrelated to staying up half the night, that's not my gig.) One of the affects I don't quite understand, as it appears to be unique to me, is the seeming bubble of warmth around after getting out of the water.

I look around and people are shivering, freezing cold and shaking, but I feel great and can't feel any cold whatsoever. Someone suggested it is psychosomatic, that they perhaps haven't done the swim as many times, or at all before and "think" they are cold. I would guess that they "are" cold, but I always get a kick out this nonetheless.

This year was strange, as they were remodeling the men's locker room and half the showers were gone and replaced by a construction site. Boudy, myself and rookie L Streeter and old college chum Barry set up camp on some bags of cement. Generally, there is always some woman who has gotten lost and ambles through the men's locker room, but this year it was an epidemic. The worst was some guy bringing a 4 year old daughter through there. I can't imagine anything that would scar a little kid more than seeing some 60 year old guy in the buff immediately after diving into the Atlantic in January.

Horrific.

The kid seemed unscathed, but I may never get over it.

The bonus this year was that we just happened to be the primary photograph displayed on Boston.com and were splayed across og. B4 of the Boston Globe.

Never figured the Brownies would be my avenue to fame.

(Barry far right, then me, then Boudy.)

The Charms are Back...BIG

2006-12-30T23:14:00.000-08:00

My old favorite band The Charms played TT the Bears Place tonight. They write great songs, have a terrific guitarist, a lead singer that lights up the joint, and their old/new drummer is kicking ass like he's playing to avoid the electric chair- the guy (Prince Frederick) seems more excited to be playing, and somehow seems to get better with every show.

I saw a show last March, and commented about the band looked beat up from the road, and had kind of mailed in a performance, and whined about how bummed I was that the keyboard which had made them sound so unique was now missing from the band. I felt like I lost a friend, like the band would never be the same again.

Well, I am happy to report that The Charms are alive and well- and have never appeared more energized, healthier, or sounded better. The old enthusiasm is even back, the energy that seemed to pulse from the band out into the room was full throttle.

They mixed in old and new songs with nary a dud, with several gems from the soon-to-be-released (now in Best Buy only) "Strange Magic" CD. The new keyboard player (nice kid, but didn't catch his name) kicked ass and shared Frederick's enthusiasm throughout the gig.

I have to tell you, it made me smile to see them having so much damn fun again. I can now see that the missing element a year ago wasn't just the organ, it was the fun. Now I reflect back on my attitude at the gig, feeling sorry for myself that this band, my band, wasn't giving me what I wanted, wasn't pumping out energy like Enron immediately following a manufactured blackout. I quickly discarded memories of nights where I had been at a comedy gig I wasn't emotionally into and had mailed it in myself. They simply weren't giving me what I wanted (probably for the first time) and I pouted like a five year old who'd finally had his binkie taken away. I forgot that bands are often comprised of human beings, and maybe they weren't having the best night of their lives- something I frequently expected them to provide me with the feeling of for forty minutes while they were on stage.

But bands... they're made of people.

I made the worst of it, letting that night rob me of all the great memories I had of great shows. They played a show at Kenny's Castaways in Greenwich Village where Ellie took the mic into the men's room while singiong "Boy's Room". There were great shows at dive bars like Kitty O'Shea's in Beverly (the stage is so small that Ellie can't play her guitar, and I believe there was a power outage once) or Dodge Street Saloon in Salem. There was a show in Quincy where five people showed up, but The Charms played like they were in Madison Square Garden in front of 50,000 screaming fans, leaving it all out on the stage.

All the great times these guys had given me by sharing the music of their souls, and I was ready to write them off. This kicker is that it wasn't cirumstances that made The Charms upbeat tonight, it was their love of playing rock n roll. They were so pumped, that it shocked me to find out that they had had a pretty rough day of traveling and that their van had broken down in New Jersey and much of the equipment they were using was borrowed. Frederick's drum kit was still under the watchful eye of some dude who owns a farm and calls himself "MacGuyver". They had had been pushed to their hotel by a police cruiser and were unable to find a replacement for the van, and now are now making do "with a bucket of bolts."

I went to tonight's show with a state of mind that I would call cautiously optimistic. I hoped for the best, heard the new keyboardist was good etc etc and tried to keep an open mind.

I didn't just enjoy tonight's show, it was so good, it restored my memory of why I love this band so much in the first place. I left feeling like Bogie in Casablanca when he realizes he always have Paris.

Mea culpa mea culpa, mea maxima culpa... may the rock n rolls gods (and The Charms) forgive me for my lack of gratitude, loyalty, and weakness of faith.

The Charms are back.

Bands are made of people... sometimes pretty amazing people.

The Santa Clause 3

2006-11-22T14:23:00.000-08:00

Okay, don't ask me how I came to see this flick in the first place... I was taking the autistic lad I care for to a flick and it happened to be what was playing when we got there. I expected it to be kinda lame. What I didn't expect was blasphemy.

Santa Clause knocks up a chick? In the worst blaspheming since "The Last Temptation of Christ" (which may have been blasphemy, but was also a helluva film), Tim Allen plays the ancient (looks every bit of 70) fat dude, this time replete with hottie-wife, who has a bun in the oven. Aging and adding girth by the second, old St. Nick's wife looks all of 30, and the feel of the flick is...well to say "creepy" would be the understatement of the year.

I kept waiting for Raphael Palmeiro to make a cameo and toss Santa a viagra.

Maybe the arc of the story was ruined for me by skipping the first two movies.

And the lazy bastards... why are all the "elves" just little kids with funny ears? What kind of shit is that? Talk about slovenly... they could have actually employed Hollywood's "little people" or used CGI to shrink adults the way did with Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. I kept thinking throughout the debacle... that's a kid...this is a kid, that's a kid...

Please oh please, SOMEONE write a half decent Christmas story.

This thing was unendurable. If that's not actually a word, I predict it will become one after a few more people see this piece of shit.

Just write, dammit

2006-11-02T07:24:00.000-08:00

Today I committed to writing, or rather "arranging" one man show I started in my head years ago. Originally I was going to call it "Allergic to Life", but now I am leaning toward "Sobah", though I worry that Sobah might drive away potential attendees.

Of course, if I continue to sit on my hands, there will be no show for people to be driven from. The annoying thing is that this thing is really already written, I just need to put a few stand up bits together with my actual experience with alcoholism (which is probably funnier than my stand up), arrange it, work out the sense of what goes where, and VOILA! a one man piece.

The irksome thing about my sloithfulness around this is that I already know it would be damn good if I just did it. The individual stand up bits are all winners, tried and tested numerous times on varied audiences. The experiential pieces if my history- also verbalized to the delight of whack-jobs such as myself across the nation.

All that is missing is a little faith.

I saw an old friend of mine performing at his CD release party. I love this man's music. His perfomance inspired me to get rolling with my own art.

In the recesses of my mind there are dark whispers, foretelling of the premiere no one attends, except a few critics who (naturally) HATE the show, and of course, loathe me more than the show for writing and performing it. The same voices mumble about judgements and my ultimate failure and how many people will line up to tell me how lousy my show is.

Truthfully... I don't think people care enough to invest their time telling me I stink.

I have been ducking finishing this forever. Earlier in the week, I called my friend Dot to tell her I was planning on writing this baby today, and that I should have a full report on Friday. While I have a difficult time holding myself accountable, most of my good friends do not have this same problem. I know Dot will ask me how I made out Thursday, and if I start talking about poker tournament, instead of "Sobah", it will be a very short chat.

So, I plugged in the coffeemaker, whapped on my computer this morning and tried to start the day off right. I went to this cool website run by these sort of renegade Irish Jesuits called sacredspace.ie

They walk you through mroning thoughts and meditation & prayer. My meditation has been vacant, so I knew I needed some help today if I was going to stand a chance of actually doing what I said I would do.

Irinically, the opening thoughts utilized a poker analogy. God got my attention right away, the sneaky little nut. I'm telling you, this cat will go to any lengths... the rest of the thoughts to ponder involved utilizing the talents you have, checking with how close you are to God, and remembering times when you were closest, and about a zillion other things that hit me between the eyes.

So I am off to pour my first cuppa java and start to piece thits puppy together. I expect you guys to hold me accountable!

A Brush With lameness

2006-10-22T14:00:00.000-07:00

So I'm sitting Coney Island Hot Dogs yesterday in Worcester having lunch with a friend.

Some sort of nonsense is going on in the front of the joint and there is a smattering of applause. I look and see a few Deval Patrick signs. I figure it is Deval Patrick, but there are no black people so I assume it is Tim Murray the Lt. Gov candidate, and Mayor of Worcester.

Nope... it turns out to be Kerry Healey, the walking anti-dote for Viagra. She is the only attractive middle aged blonde chick over whom I would choose a punctured cornea than a sexual interlude. I debated whether or not to force down the last of my hot dog, unsure as to whether or not it would come back up.

So as Berlin Betty made the rounds, I filled my unwitting friend in on the wonderfully informative commercials she has run this campaign season. Patrolling the battered restaurant for lost bluebloods like a Commandant's girlfriend scanning missing Hitler Youth, she made it to my table just I wondered if the other public defender's in Deavl Patrick's district were all busy representing errant jaywalkers and litterbugs while he was busy hogging all the ever-so-fun violent crime pro bono cases... greedy bastard.

She gave her hand and my friend shook it.

I debated telling her that i would share a cell with her and Herman Goehring in hell before I would vote for her sick ass, but upon figuring out that it wouldn't be the first time she heard it, I took a pass. I briefly grabbed her hand and retruned her plastic smile with a scowl. I'm sure she hasn;t slept a wink since.

She turned on her heel and moved on to the next table.

By the way, I am sticking with my Berlin Betty reference, even though she is a rather forgettable character from Hogan's Heroes. It's too perfect to pass up. BB was the radio propagandist for the Nazis that all the GIs in Hogans outfit wanted to bang once they met her. She was intelligent, attractive, well spoken...and oh yeah... a Nazi.

I'd Never Approach You NOW

2006-10-03T12:14:00.000-07:00

I ran into a friend of mine at a wedding this week and was subjected to yet another idiot-guy phrase that never ceases to annoy me.

My friend is someone who had spent a good chunk of her life overweight, and over the last several years has lost a lot of weight and spent an inordinate amount of time working out and getting into terrific shape.

She reflected how the idea that she would lose weight, and find the perfect guy... well, it just hasn't happened yet. She is another of the zillion attractive, has-it-together-but-is-single crowd that no one can figure out.

My friend seems happy single. I can relate. What I don't get is the following phrase that guys say to attractive women: Yeah... "I would never walk up to you on the street now."

I understand the inference is an attempt at a compliment, meaning, "Gee whiz... you are so pretty I would be intimidated!"

What the hell does this even mean?

This is perhaps the most over used and pointless of all the inane things guys say to women to avoid having to simply say they are attracted to them.

What the hell does this even mean? And is there some problem of which I am unaware where men randomly approach unattractive women in droves? I have yet to hear one woman say, "Boy, am I ever glad I lost weight, men used to just flock around me, but now that I'm hot they seem to keep their distance, which has always been my dream... isolation, that's where it's at for me.

If you think about it, it's reasonably insulting to say such a thing. This is someone you are friendly with, so at some point you DID feel comfortable approaching her for a conversation, does that mean she was unattractive because she didn't look the way she does now?

The most annoying thing to me is that this person represents one of the most amazing transformations I've seen, and it goes a lot further than dropping a few pounds and hitting the stairmaster. What's really interesting about her is her confidence and ability to accept herself and enjoy life as the result of a dramatic spiritual experience. She was so secure with herself that I was able to relax and be myself. I don't think I yield to it too often, but at gatherings with sober folks, I sometimes feel pressure to be a spiritual giant, which I am not. I was able to be honest about my spiritual condition, which is seriously in a lapse, and not feel judged, which isn't always the case.

I just hope no women come up to me a few years from now (when I am HOPEFULLY on "the beam spiritually") and say, "Wow... I would never approach you NOW, if only you were still spiritually bankrupt, I'd be so much more comfortable."

Hypocritical Frist Shanks American Poker players

2006-10-02T12:52:00.000-07:00

In a midnight deal on the cusp of recess, Bill Frist and his sleazy brigade of back-handed dirtbags piggy-backed their anti-gaming legislation onto, of all things, a Port Security anti-terrorism bill designed to protect American harbors from a similar incident to the Dubai snafu earlier this year.

It takes a real piece of work to trivialize the importance of protecting ports from terrorism and use such an opportunity to push across one's personal agenda. This is politicizing of the worst kind, wreaking of hypocrisy and personal agenda.

Frist talks about "protecting Americans from an addictive disease", presumably he means gambling addiction. This line of thought doesn't bother me, gambling addiction IS a massive problem in America. The problem is that the biggest tax perpetrated against poor American's in our nation's history is lotteries, which (along with horse racing for some reason- a sport very big in Frist's home state of Tennessee) are untouched by the bill.

The thing that chaps me is the hypocrisy of leaving online state lotteries untouched, as well as online wagering on horse racing.

Too many Americans are running up huge credit card bills, defaulting due to gambling. This is true... but isn't it the responsibility of the credit card companies to determine who gets a credit limit and how much it is? I have always thought that no credit card should allow gaming charges, and now many of them don't. If you want to register online to play poker, you should use cash.

Our nation has millions of alcoholics... I wonder why Frist doesn't abolish whiskey? (Oh wait- they tried that didn't they... maybe it has something to do with his Tennesseean constituency). Sure- we should protect EVERYONE from alcohol, even those who use it responsibly, even those who enjoy it without ill effects.

As an alcoholic, I thank God they DON'T do this. It is my responsibility to maintain sobriety, not Bill Frist's. Why should my buddy Tom, who likes a nice hoppy ale once in a while, be denied his right to enjoy it because I can't drink the same beverage without winding up with a black eye and a pregnancy scare?

Online gaming should be regulated and taxed, not abolished. One must think the lobbyists for live casinos, racetracks and slot-machine operators must be ecstatic today. Ironically, the people Frist wants to "protect" get the most reasonable fees from- TA-DA! online casinos. You have to pay at least 4 or 5 times as much for the privilege of sitting at a table in Foxwoods casino as you pay to sit in your living room and play. Add in driving 200 miles round trip and you;d got a crappy deal... I hate Foxwoods by the way, but who exactly is this clown protecting again? Is it me, or the owners and operators of casinos, racetracks and state lotteries?

Chew on this project I did in 8th grade: State lotteries take 40%, that's FORTY PERCENT of what they collect and pocket it. This would be the equivalent of flipping a coin with someone, and when you lose, you lose a quarter, but when you win, you win fifteen cents. This is a slow drain on those addicted to playing the lottery, those "regular" players, can never, ever possibly come out anything close to even.

Worse is the mega-jackpot lotteries. These bastards don't even return the lousy sixty percent. The funds are collected and held (interest free) while the pottery is being held. Say they collect 100 million. Sixty million is the reported jackpot. But they don't distribute the 60 million. They buy an annuity, paying you slowly over twenty years. You can take the cash immediately, but it is discounted to the vaue of the annuity, not the actual jackpot. To add insult to injury, you must then pay taxes on the winnings, and for kicks, you are now in the top tax bracket.

All told, the government redistributes about FIFTEEN PERCENT of what they collect. Any bookie pulling a stunt like this would find himself floating in the bay. Yet, lotteries are kosher, lotteries are bueno. Horse racing is also on the "do not touch" list. Let me just say this, it is INFINITELY easier to fix a gorse race than a poker game online.

Even when I gambled compulsively, I refused to play lotteries. Even when I was an active degenerate gambler, I prayed for the abolition of the state lottery and an end to victimizing people that can't see how badly they are being taken advantage of.

If this assault against online gaming were anything more than an attempt to get a piece of the pie for someone, or to protect bad investments, like previously cherry casinos, I would have less to say.

The funny thing is that online poker provides a free market, something America supposedly supports. Because of the variety of sites available, it is practically impossible to give bad service or bad deals to customers, because they will just go somewhere they are treated well. Unlike the monopoly at Foxwoods, online sites have little choice but to be fair, reputable and efficient, lest they perish.

The bill was in danger of not passing, largely because it is tragically flawed in basic logic and riddled with hypocrisy and favorite-playing, so Frist and his cronies attached it to an anti-terrorism bill, which passed 409-2 in the congress and passed via voice vote in the senate. It is on President Bush's desk. These guys KNEW they didn't have the votes, so they attached it to am anti-terrorism bill (yeah, I said it again) knowing that no one politician in this day and age could afford to vote against any anti-terrorism legislation, especially on the grounds of defending gaming. Though it more a defense of personal freedom than of gaming itself.

How about taking a few pornographers abusing kids down? How about tracking American businessmen abusing children in Malaysia, the Philippines and abroad, how about working to stop the purchasing of human beings by Americans for the purposes of sexual slavery?

Surely, these self-agrandizing goons have GOT to have something better to do than protect casinos and lotteries under the guise of protecting Americans from using their freedom the way they choose.

This isn't about protecting gambling addicts, it's about making sure the addicts buy only from you. I've gotta tell you, if I can't play online poker, I am STILL not going to live rip-off casinos. I STILL will NEVER play a lottery as long as I live, and I will wait...because in this country, this kind of b.s. usually has a backlash and things tend to even out. I have faith that this is so ludicrous and uneven that it will work out.

Big Funny Sunday

2006-09-18T06:42:00.000-07:00

Hmmm... I found myself strangely motivated for no apparent reason this week. During the BCF final, I realized, "damn... I could really do it." I could totally see myself there in the final. It's a strange thing, comedy, but for me, it is a great feeling when I m just starving, dying to mount a stage, and believe me, it isn't always like that.

The crowd was so terrific for the final, I was drooling. After the show, I was hit with an awareness that I need to get better, mostly get more consistent. Another Achilles heel of mine seems to be letting the audience dictate my energy level and commitment to the set. This certainly is not unique to me, but it's a problem for a lot of comics and I am no exception.

As I watched the tape of my BCF preliminary set, I could clearly see where I threw in the towel. About 4 minutes into it, I knew it was over, there was nothing I was going to do to resurrect this crowd. They started flat, were flat for the first comic, flat when I started and would stay that way. This is often something you have no control over. I felt I executed my jokes just as effectively as the previous two nights when I killed, but I should have known the status quo wasn't going to cut it in that situation. I need to come up with something that fits within my stage persona that I can use to ignite a lethargic audience. I can't bank on having a good opener or on being in a showcase with a sparkplug like Dan Hirshon or someone playing right in front of me.

I felt renewed yesterday, however. Ideas were flowing. I even picked p and started laying out my old one-man show "Allergic to Life". This damn thing will basically write itself if I can get off my ass. I have performed most of it in one form or another over the years, I just need to glue it together.

When I got out of work, I headed down to the Comedy Studio to see if I could get a set in. As it turned out, I had forgotten that they were having auditions for Comedy Central, the final showcase of this year's Boston Comedy Festival, so it would be impossible to get on. As I looked at the lineup, I saw a lot of good comics on there, but had to wonder why I wasn't in the lineup.

Is it laziness? My four months off? Am I not pro-active enough and I wait to be invited instead of letting people know I am ready and really want it? I don't know, but I am going to ask the people that have the experience and do know. The funny thing was how virtually every comic was surprised when I wished them luck and headed out the door to catch a set at another club. To a man, they assumed I was on the roster, which kinda made me feel good.

For a moment, I toyed with the idea f going home and playing an internet poker tournament, shutting my brain off, but I hinched myself up and headed south to Dorchester, The Emerald Isle. A couple of local comics have a show down there called "Big Funny Sunday", Chris and Corey, both good guys. Since the Isle is often ONLY comics, and no real audience, I never go there unless I am buffing up an ancient bit that they haven;t heard, or trying brandy-new stuff that I wrote like, that day. I had three new bits, so I thought it was worth a shot.

I got there and there were about six patrons, 4 black women and two white chicks, and of course, the comics strewn about the place. The cool thing was that for a minute audience, they were really into the show, except for "Joyce", one of the white women. She was making her first (and last) appearance at Big Funny Sunday. Poor Joyce was one of these people I can never figure. Why would you go to a comedy show with the determination to remain miserable, cross your arms in the front row and grimace for two hours?

Chris and Corey were kind enough to work me in fairly early. It's hard to explain, but the greatest feeling I ever had on stage was during this set I did at a dump in Somerville. Nobody was listening before I got up, the place was a nut bin, people playing keno and yelling numbers, a real horror-show. I absolutely blew the roof off, I just winged it, took some chances and used the bassist material I had, roughed it up and ran with it. Killing that crowd was more satisfying than killing in front of 600 willing patrons.

It was kind of like that last night. I always figure, if I can make comics laugh, anyone will laugh at this stuff, and all my new crap worked to perfection. I was so glad I went down there, and shocker... some guy from Providence that books shows was there and asked for my card.

Earlier in the evening, I was chatting with a veteran comic, a guy I not only think is hilarious, but for whom I have respect. I said, "Ya know... I've got to either stop doing comedy, or start doing comedy."

He said, "I know what you mean, brotha."

Here's hoping I can at last abandon singing the "half-assed blues" and start kicking some ass.

Boulger Rocks BCF FInal, is denied re-entry to Theater

2006-09-16T20:26:00.000-07:00

In what has to perceived as an homage to honor the 2nd anniversary of Rodney Dangerfield's death, Dan Boulger was denied re-entry into the very theater in which he won 2006's Boston Comedy Festival Final.

The show was dynamite. Ryan Hamilton came out of the shoot firing darts, it was jokejokejokejoke, and they were all damn good. This guy is terrific. He won the 2005 Sierra Mist "Next Great Comic" and was tearing up this year's BCF, and tonight was no different. Shane Mauss was second, and had a solid set. I have performed with and watched Shane for a couple of years now, and this guy is one of my favorite performers. With his boy-next-door looks, you never expect the next things that comes out his mouth, the guy is a riot. Early BCF favorite Daryl Lenox was third, and had a great set with more serious topics than his earlier counterparts. Great stuff, but to this point, it looked like Hamilton's night. I sat there thinking it was going to take a Herculean...well, Hercules wasn't really that funny... a Carlinian effort to take this away from Hamilton.

Boulger shuffled onto the stage wearing a red hoodie and sneakers, just being Dan Boulger. For a second, I felt like my father as I wondered why the kid couldn't dress up for the biggest night of his life... "dress up and what? be someone else, maybe?" the other voice in my head replied.

I laughed and said, "^&#$% Boulger, a red hoodie" and my friend Dot, who actually predicted he would win said, "that's how he dresses" and all of a sudden I realized that a 20 year old kid, doing comedy for 2 years, had captured what I had mumbled a million times and never grasped... be yourself.

Dan was up there just being himself... and he f***ing destroyed. He looked like he hadn't a care in the world, almost like he had something better to do, but he was supposed to be here for now, so he'd take care of this and go do whatever later.

Boulger mixed brilliant observations and some of the best-written jokes in town with periodic profanity, seemingly always timed just right. The kid looks so innocent, it's hard to imagine what he could say that would be offensive, nothing comes to mind. His pacing was fantastic, he was never in a rush, he could wait until the crowd was ready to get blindsided all over again.

Comedy legend Norm Crosby took the stage to announce the winner. When Dan Boulger emerged to take the crown, BCF grandmaster Jim McCue asked him if he would like to say a few words. In a moment of humility and right in step with Dan's character, he used his time to thank the people that have given him stage time by name. This kid is a peach.

After the contest final, "Lewis Black and Friends" had another show, the final piece of the BCF puzzle for 2006. Dan milled around Remington's (sight of the after party, which would really kick into gear when the Lewis Black show ended) for a while and decided to go back to the Theater to catch the end of the Lewis Black show. He asked him if I felt like going. I said sure, and fellow BCF contestant Rob O'Reilly came along.

We entered the back stage door and were greeted by a cute Asian chick working the door behind a glass booth. Rob confidently signed in, but I think Dan and I looked like we didn;t know what we were doing. She asked, "Um... are you guys supposed to be here?"

Rob was full of confidence, "This is Dan Boulger, he just WON the festival, this is the guy."

Girl: Oh the earlier show... yeah, are you supposed to be here now though?

Rob: No, you don;t understand, this is the guy, he's a superstar, he won the festival, he won the thing.

At this point, Dan is getting a tad uncomfortable, though I must admit, I was enjoying watching O'Reilly's astonishment and attempts to work this chick into letting us in.

Dan: No, no it's okay, let's go.

Moments later, one of those guys came up with brilliant idea of trying the front door.

"Of course!" I thought, "why didn't I think of that in the first place. Why talk to some intern at a desk when you go right in, these folks are sure to recognize the guy who just blew the roof off the place 30 minutes earlier."

Door guy: Can I help you?

Rob: Yeah, this is Dan Boulger, he just won the comedy festival, and we'd like to come in.

Door guy: Yes, congratulations, very funny... didn't actually see your set, but I heard it was quite good...

Dan: Yeah, I mean, we could stand in the back upstairs, that would be fine.

Door guy: I'll check for you, sir.

(Door guy confers with a couple of women that look like they are in charge.)

Door guy: I'm sorry sir, the ticket office is closed.

Dan: We could stand in the back?

Door guy: Sorry sir, it's a bar code issue.

We all said "no problem" and took off, but I have to wonder...what the fuck is a "bar code issue"???

The guy was really nice and I don't think anyone is to blame, but you have to admit, that's irony bordering on idiocy. I have to imagine Jim McCue's head would explode were he aware of this situation. I know people have to do their jobs, but sometimes, you have to use common sense, no?

A kid is jazzed up after the night if his life. He doesn't know what to do with himself, so he goes where he's comfortable, the nearest comedy show. He figures he can get in, because 30 minutes ago, he WAS the show, tragically, he hadn't counted encountering the ever-difficult "bar code issue".

All in all, the BCF was great this year, the best I've seen. I thought the final lineup was a powerhouse, 1-8, and I actually agreed with most of the judges decisions.

I was much impressed that they had the gumption to give the title to an unknown 20 year-old kid from Dorchester. It would have been so easy to call Ryan Hamilton's name. After all, he was fantastic, he was clean, and he took the bullet (came out first), but they somehow looked past all that and saw fit to recognize a twelve-year-old lookin', hoodie-wearing genius.

Congrats, Dan. You deserve it.

BCF

2006-09-13T22:27:00.000-07:00

Well, I got booted tonight, but there was no injustice in it.

I drew the 2nd slot. The crowd was kinda lame and didn't get cranked up in any capacity until around the 5th comic. I thought I hit my jokes, but I just didn't get the reaction I'd hoped for.

The guys who won- Dan Boulger, a terrific young Boston comic and Vargas Mason, a black guy from Denver were really deserving. I thought the judges nailed it. Boulger really turned the room around and the other guy capitalized on the crowd, riding the wave. He was different, sort of theatrical in a way, but damn funny.

Dan Hirshon really should get some credit for waking up an otherwise lethargic audience. His performance, in part, made Boulger's masterpiece of a set possible.

The best comment I heard all week was from a female friend of mine, and 15+ year Boston comedy veteran. Summing up Boulger's confidence and command of the stage, she said, "He may look about 12, but on that stage he's six foot seven with a giant cock... and he knows it."

As brilliant as Boulger is, I'm not sure he's ever written anything that good.

In the late preliminary, local cat and buddy MYQ Kaplan won, along with Al Jackson. I was confused about where he is from. He mentioned he was "from" here and commented on exit signs for Dorchester, then said something about moving to NYC from L.A... but he was very good, and I had him picked along with MYQ.

Boston Comedy Festival, Prelim 7

2006-09-13T10:17:00.000-07:00

Tonight's my night, kids. I think it's a pretty strong lineup, but I feel good about going out and knocking 'em dead. That's all I can do. I have no expectations except that I am going to destroy.

Lest I sound too cocky, I am my most brutal critic, so it refreshing that I feel this good about my comedy.

After taking what seems like forever off from comedy, I have really enjoyed coming back. My first time back was a ten minute spot with buddy Tim McIntire as Tingle's theater, which was great because I love McIntire and I love that theater. Monday's audition for the Carnival Comedy Challenge went waaaay better than I could have hoped as I free-wheeled, threw some off-the-cuff stuff out there adding jokes I wrote moments before the set and it all came off without a hitch. I even made the judges crack up, which is a little like eliciting a modicum of sympathy out of Donald Rumsfeld.

Last night, I took third in the Carnival Comedy Challenge Finals, which is ironic, because I REALLY REALLY wanted third. First prize was a gig in the next year on a Carnival Cruise, but I have already done private gigs on board, and was better compensated (by far), plus the restrictions on material are aplenty, and they ask a lot of you, while flying you in one day and out the next. Second prize was two weeks of gigs at a huge comedy club- in Birmingham, Alabama.

Third place however, gets you 8 dates on a tour with Heffron, a big booker with about 60 clubs called the Comedy Zone (I believe) across the country. They most likely make you part of a showcase that is touring, which is perfect for me. I love the idea of being part of a comedy group, much less pressure than when I am closing a show. I feel like it's all up to me. My best sets have been as part of a showcase or featuring (25 minute set) before a headliner I know is damn good and is going to kill.

So tonight, I am relaxed, ready to rock. I haven't even decided on a set yet, but I am leaning toward adding this little bit I just wrote (and tested out last night to a surprisingly good reaction.) I'm going to play it a bit by ear, but have a general idea of what I'm going to do.

Wish me luck, and maybe I'll see some of you there.

Comedy Connection, Fanieul Hall, 7 PM.

Telltale Signs

2006-09-03T21:21:00.000-07:00

You know you've been dating/with someone for waaaay toooo long when the smallest things they habitually do begin to drive you insane. I haven't "dated" anyone since Member's Only jackets were in style, but I have been experiencing this very same sensation with my roommate.

Instead of writing a nice essay about flying down to Greeneville, NC to surprise my old high school buddy for his 40th birthday, I sit here with my head about to explode.

Maybe I am just too old to have a roommate, maybe it is time for me to find a way to keep the job I love which pays modestly and get my own place somehow. Maybe the answer is suburbs, or additional jobs, or selling crack. I dunno, but anything has got to be better than this.

When things get to a point where you can't even discuss the simplest of issues without wanting to punch a guy in the neck, maybe parting ways is the best choice for all concerned.

I think I started writing this blog tonight so I could rant about Tom's antics tonight, lay it out and character assassinate, make myself feel better for nine seconds, but I have somehow calmed down just enough to realize how pointless and silly that is and what a colossal waste of time that would be.

Perhaps I should put that angst and energy into finding a place to live that won't lead me to serving 15-to-life in the state pen.

In closing... if you hear of a cheap one bedroom apartment in the area, in the name of all that's holy, let me know about it.

Help Nazanin

2006-09-01T09:53:00.000-07:00

As any of you who read this, um, EVER, know- I am not real preachy and have resisted promoting any causes via the blog. However, one came to my attention recently that I feel would be reprehensive not to mention.

I recall as a little kid watching beauty pageants and even as a young kid thinking, "wow, these girls bring absolutely zilch to the table, it's a good thing they're real pretty."

As I got older, virtually every comedy sketch I ever saw about beauty pageants mocked the contestants as petty, selfish, brain-dead twits, each of them finishing a vapid speech with a pledge to use their new position of power to promote "World Peace". I'm sure none of us can forget the significance of Anita Bryant's participation during the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.

Today, I eat crow: I sat drinking a cappucino (that is so pretentious, I really wish it had just been a coffee, alas, I must tell the truth) and I read the front page of the Epoch Times. Some guy had been cruising the internet looking for Miss Canada 2003 Nazanin Afshin-Jam's homepage and stumbled instead on the story of a young Iranian girl named Nazanin who had been convicted of murder and sentenced to death.

Instead of brushing off the coincidence, Afshin-Jam, an Iranian-born Canadian, investigated the situation. No stranger to political persecution herself, Afshin-Jam's father was detained and tortured prior to the family's escape from Iran during revolution. The beauty queen had made a personal crusade out of trying to save this girl. Her efforts secured a World-recognized humanitarian award, but more importantly, because of the public outcry and attention afforded this girl, much of which came directly from Afshin-Jam's efforts, she received a new trial.

The trial took place yesterday and was continued to a later date.

The then 17 year-old girl had been out walking with her fifteen year old niece when three men attempted to assault and rape them. Nazanin stabbed one of the men in the hand, but the attackers didn't give up so easily. The teenager was forced to defend herself and her young cousin, and stabbed one of the men fatally. When the police arrived, she ran to them, surrendering the knife and admitting fully to what she had done.

Unfortunately, Nazanin was immediately convicted and murder and given the maximum sentence- death by hanging in a speedy trial.

Along with a new trial, the girl now has one of the best attorneys in Iran with regard to defending and promoting women's rights. In yesterday's trial, the courageous teen, now 18 years old answered every question asked, then looked the judge directly in the eye and said, "We were yelling, yelling for help, but no one came. I had to protect my honor, what would you do?"

What the judge did not respond and elected to continue the trial to a later date.

I don't pretend to be worldly or grasp worldwide cultures, but one thing that confuses me about this particular culture is the contradiction between the admirable moral code surrounding sexual practices accompanied with a complete disregard for women, castigated even when trying to protect their own chastity, let alone their very lives.

If you would like to know more about this case as it progresses, or sign a petition to the U.N. Secretary General, or donate $$ to this cause, you can find what you're looking for at:

http://www.helpnazanin.com/

My Official Prune Juice Glass

2006-08-29T08:54:00.000-07:00

Well, it's official. I have moved on from youth. Being that I recently turned 40, it may have happened a while back, but as they say, you are always the last to know.

This morning I was about to pour myself a glass of prune juice, an act in and of itself indicative of a changing of the guard, when I realized I didn't have my favorite glass out.

My brother-in-law's brother gave me these nice cider glasses when I visited Germany earlier in the year. The glasses are nice, but I had yet to find a practical use for them. They are just a tad small for a cold coke, and I am a guy that likes a glass of orange juice in a 16 oz. beer stein (probably revenge for all those insulting shot-glass sized OJs I had as a kid.)

About a month or so back, I concluded that a jolt of prune juice a few times per week would be beneficial to my... system. At first, I resisted, feeling that prune juice is strictly for the elderly. When my body chattered back to me, I relented.

What I didn't expect was to find myself glaring at a glass at 8am on a Tuesday morning thinking, "Hey, THAT isn't my prune juice glass!"

So, whatever delusions of youth I may have clung to shattered with that moment. It isn't so bad ater all. I still have my hair, all my teeth, and you know, this stuff isn't half bad. And let's face it- it really moves the mail.

Good Old Logan

2006-08-18T08:05:00.000-07:00

For years I have been the designated "airport" guy in my family and with friends. I took great pride in the old days in my ability to navigate in and out of Logan Airport in Boston with ease while most people had conniptions, if I am spelling conniptions correctly, negotiating one of the worlds most difficult airports.

Things got markedly easier when the added the direct-access tunnel to Logan off of the Mass Pike. Sometimes I would go down through Cambridge (for going through Cambridge out of anything but neccesity read: silly) just to jump on the Pike and get the easy in and out now offfered.

All this has changed...dramatically. With the tragic accident that killed a Boston woman and caused the shutdown of the new tunnel into Logan, things have switched back to the nightmarish, exit-from-the-pike-take-expressway-to-the-Callahan-tunnel technique of getting to Logan from all points west.

I am seemingly unaffected by this, as I can simply jet down rte 93 (expressay) and take the still-open airport exit.

Last night, I was baptised into the "new" difficulties arising from the tunnel closing.

I got to the airport exactly on time, three minutes early actually, to pick up my pal Tommy, whop was flying in from Denver via Cleveland. You can't wait for arriving passengers anymore and there is no short term parking, so you have to do drive-bys until you see the guy waiting out there. I glanced at the clock in my car, noticing that his plane would not land for three mintes, and it would take him another 5-10 to get out there, and thought I would make a lopp around the airport and come back- big mistake.

As I started my loop, I accidentally took the "airport exit" ramp instead of "parking" (which loops you around). Thus began an odyssey through which no man should be forced to journey. I made this dough-headed blunder once before, but the results were nowhere near as nightmarish.

I mumbled *&$% as I exited the airport and scraped through my change for the $3 it was going to cost me to leave, and come back. As I emerged in South Boston (Southie) I realized that all the re-entries to the airport had been changed. I followed signs "to airport" most of which were not lit and were dull. Eventually, I was re-routed through Southie, still eyeing signs "to airport" and was led to some beat up access road with about a million cars on it. Once the sitting period ended, we were whisked through red lights, traffic cops with flashlights wavingwavingwaving...let's go let's GO! the flashlights said.

"Where the &^$% are the airport signs?" I wondered.

There weren't any...nothing, nada. Are they leading us ALL to the airport? Why would anyone be on this access road if not for that purpose?" I glanced at the clock, my friend landed ten minutes ago, he would be on the curb by now.

Whsikwhiskwhisk... we whipped through red lights in a long line.

Rte 92 South appeared on the first sign I have seen since Junior High.

"SOUTH??? That can't be good, why south?"

As I entered the highway, I knew I was $%^&ed. Now to put this into perspective for you, to show you what Massachusetts signage and highways systems do to people, I began to scream at the top of my lungs at the moon (who was completely innocent in al of this), MUTHA&#$@# This from a man that had his vehicle struck and didn't blink, didn't swear, wasn't angry. I have a weird pseudo-zen guru-like reaction to catastrophe. I don't get rattled, as a rule. Cancer calls, accidents, Red Sox implosions... nothing gets to me... except Massachusetts roadways and the ludicrous joke that is our siganage (or lach thereof) system. Call it my spiritual achille's heel.

I get off at the next exot, on the edge od Dorchester, and notice there is no re-entry to rte 93 North, which is a nice surprise, as now I get to tour Dorchester while my friend waits at the airport wondering where the hell I am.

Speeding along the streets, listening closely for gunfire, I finally see some stuff I recognize. I figure I am cloise to Andrew Square. I amble over to Southie and find Broadway, eventually getting back on Rte 93 North. Amusingly, there is no exit directly to the airport on 93 North anymore (chuckle chuckle)

I think to myself, "Hey, self... if you get off at Government Center, the airport is RIGHT THERE. There used to be an exit to shoot right into the airport, this isn't THAT bad after all. A quick glance at the clock tells me my friend has been waiting for about twenty minutes. As I approach Government center, exit 23, there are THREE SIGNS, three, and two of them lit AND blinking which state "Government Center ONLY" and Government, NO EXIT.

I think to myself, "Damn... they really need that open, especially with the Pike exit closed... why would it be closed now?" As I pass the third sign warning me of the situation, I wonder how the hell you get to the airport.

Forty feet after I go by exit 23, a flashing signs informs me: Exit 23 or 27 to airport.

Again I cry out, this time to the ceiling of the South Boston tunnel instead of the moon, 'MUTHA&^%@#!!! thinking, geez...that would have been great to know about 60 feet ago.

I wonder why exit 27... thinking, "doesn't exit 27 take you to the Tobin Bridge, which runs your around through, Chelsea Everett and Revere?"

BINGO...that's exactly what it does. As I travel over the Tobin, gazing at the airport I know I won't get to for another fifteen minutes, I signal and steer into the middle lane to avoid a work truck with it's flashers on. Some jackass in a speeding SUV beeps at me from about a hundred yards back, forseeing that if he doesn't click off his cruise control, set at about 70 in a 40 mph zone, he will eventually collide with my vehicle.

This time, there is no shouting at the moon, or the bridge. I coolly, calmly, extend my fist through my moon roof, gently extending my middle finger to its full glory. As the guy passes, I look straight ahead, utilizing my left hand in much the same way, filling my driver's side window my a message of disapproval. I don't know if I need to tell you, but flipping the bird to SUV's in Revere isn't the brightest idea in the world.

I see the signs for AIRPORT, and in spite of the final sign for the airport being unlit, in drak green and having the arronw colored-in by some wiseacre, I make the turn.

Again, I haven't behaved this way in traffic in about ten years. Long story made painfully longer... I arrive at the airport a scant 47 minutes after I made "the loop". The hysterical thing is that I only LIVE 15 minutes from the airport.

Thanks Logan!

Bust Out!

2006-08-01T19:11:00.000-07:00

Well kids, the dream is over... for 2006.

I busted out at about 3 am last night after 14 hours (11 1/2 of actualy playing time.) It was a tough day, but I represented myself well. I was on the short stack (low on chips relative to the other chips stacks and the blinds) most of the day.

I had remarkable cards dealt to me in the first level of play (the first two hours), but took some rough beats and ran into some big hands. I had pocket kings THREE times in the first session, but lost two of those hands. Once running to AA (luckily, that guy had a shorter stack than I did) and the other time running into a guy that called my big pre-flop raise with 55, and hit a thrid 5 on the flop. I also had 10 10 three times in the first several hours and AK twice... but lost most of those hands.

My saving grace was my FOURTH, yes, FOURTH pocket KK hand. I went all-in and got called by... a guy with AA. The odds of running into AA with KK is roughly 6000:1, and I did it twice in three hours. Luckily, I hit a King on the turn and stayed alive, crippling my opponent in the process. He was a good sport about it, and his pain was probably eased by the terrible ass-beatings I had taken from lady luck.

So, from about the end of the first hour of play, I was on the short stack, and I managed to ride it out for another 11 hours, battling back from chip counts as low as 3,200 and 2,7oo to get back around sea level at 10,000.

The table I started on was in a section they chose to dismantle, and my table got broken up just before the fifth (of six) level. I was greeted with a couple of kidney punches as I tried to play hands. I raised in late position, only to be bet all-in (and forced to fold) by the designated table-bully (big stack and using chips to threaten other players.) I limped in (just called) with 77 in late position, hoping to catch a 7 on the flop for cheap. The flop was 10 10 9, a pretty good flop for me, but the chip leader bet heavily and took the pot away from me. I contemplated a call, but didn't want to gamble my entire tournament on that hand, believing there would better opportunities later.

There were.

My stack dwindled, but I took down a few pots with strategic all-ins, helped by my tight play, my bets seemed to have an impact greater than what my stack-size should have allowed. I battled, and found myself with 7,200 chips with 40 minutes to play in round one.

As the hour grew late, I was determined to double my stack, or go down punching trying to double-up. I didn't see the point of changing flights, staying extra days and re-arrangng my life, then limping into Day 2 with 4,000 or 5,000 chips- I needed ammunition.

A new bully joined the table. This guy was scary-looking, with a mountain-man beard, hair everywhere and a purple sun-hat with little shite flowers on it. The silly hat contrasted his manacing glare and ogre-like appearance. This guy and the other bully seemed to neutralize each other to an extent, but he certainly wasn;t afraid to bet. He and the other kid controlled the table, and it was implied that if you wanted to see a flop, you should be ready to surrender all your chips.

I waited and waited, throwing all-in twice, taking down the blinds and come over the top of a raise (with 99 and 88 respectively) to stay afloat. The all-in reraise resulted in an amusing chat between the most colorful player at the table and myself. He was a tall thin black kid with enough jewelry to open his own store. His sense of humor was the only relief in this nest of vipers. He looks at me and says, "now I want you to answer this question, and if you don't answer, I'm gonna read something into that anyway... DO you want the action? (Do you want me to call?)"

I told him the truth, "I really don't care, but I can;t get to where I need to be stealing blinds once every three rounds. I need to double."

The table seemed to get a kick out of this response, a couple of players sounded surprised, saying, "good answer."

He folded, showing Ace-Jack and said, "I feel like I just got stuck up."

To rub it in, I didn't show him my hand (99). Eventually, I told him I had nines, and he seemed satisfied. The next hand I caught 88 in the small blind. The table folded to me and I threw all-in. It was a high percentage move. The guy next to me had a short stack than I and was still chell-shocked from losing with (after misplaying) pocket aces. I showed the 88, lest the table get the idea I was randomly throwing chips around and stealing.

As the session drew to a close, I knew I just needed to hit one all-in double-up to have a shot during Day 2. I had 7,200- not enough to begin Day 2. One double up, with the blinds and antes would get me to around 18,000 or 19,000.

The mountain-man raised the 300-600 blinds to 1500. I was in late position, three players down from him. I looked at my hole cards and saw AK. I knew this hand was my tournament, and moved all-in. There was no doubt in my mind that it was the right move.

He leaned into the tabe and glared at me, as if to say, "are you kidding? Do you have any idea who I am?"

I knew he would call, given the size of his stack and his already substantial investment in the pot. He counted out my 5,700 chip raise and called, none too happy with my move. I showed AK and he flipped AQ off-suit, making me about a 70-30 favorite to double-up and stay alive in the tournament.

The flop saw three rags fall (two spades) with little help for my opponent, he needed a queen or a backdoor flush. The turn showed us a spade, and my tournament life flashed before my eyes. A spade or a quen on the river and I was done for. I have had a number of tournaments ended by running spades (running cards describe your opponent needing- and catching- two consecutive cards to beat a hand in superior position)

The entire table was pulling for me, partially because I had faught a valiant fight, playing the role of the short stack with extreme effectiveness, and partially because they didn't want to see this monstar accumulate any more chips (and power) than he already had.

The river showed a spade and I congratulated my opponent, my World Series was over.

It took a few minutes to hit me. As I walked back to my hotel, I felt good about my effort and the way I played and handled myself. I haven't seen many people play a short stack as effectively as I had, though I wished the results were different. I reminded myself that I outlasted poker greats such as Phil Hellmuth, Joe Hachem, Doyle Brunson and Amarillo Slim.

As I walked the long hallway out of the convention center, I felt the weight of al the work I had done to get there. Sure, it was poker, and it was fun most of the time, but the massive effort I had put on for two months landed on me like an anvil... the multiple qualifiers, the point-building to get into the qualifiers, the efforts to improve my game including reading a number of books, and mostly playing playing playing, working out different scenarios, strategies and gameplans.

The reality of how hard I would have work to get back here agin next year hit me, and as good as I had played- how much I needed to improve to get where I want to be- the final table.

WSOP...this is it, gang

2006-07-31T07:41:00.000-07:00

Well, here it is- the morning of Day 1D, the fourth and final day 1 for this year's WSOP. Many of poker's legends have exited already. Phil Hellmuth and Mike "the mouth" Matusow got bounced, to the joy of players around the world and the dismay of television executives. One of my favorite players, Dan Harrington, also got booted in his first round of play, a bummer.

As I mentioned, my friend Scott "Beau" Beauregard was ousted Friday. Our fellow traveler Kort Woeller played very well for 5 1/2 hours Saturday, but made one mental error and was out. I think he played admirably, considering this year's WSOP with it's world record 9,000 players, was his first live tournament ever.

I played another tune-up tourney last night and didn't fare as well as Friday night. This guy next to me pulled these bush-league cheap moves three times. The first of which was on me, and really had me upset.

I hit a set of eights (three of a kind) on the turn and checked it, probably greedily, and the remaining two players checked. The river saw third diamond come out, but I felt safe that there were no flushes out there. This guy checks out of turn. I say, "it's my bet" and bet out 500 chips. This clown throws all in over the top of my bet. In case you don't know, this is extremely unethical and dishonest. There is nothing at all wrong with a re-raise, but I felt he deliberately checked out of turn, and if it is deliberate, it is basically cheating.

The third player folded, and after some grousing and a quiz period, I folded and showed my third eight. I really wish I called now, and if he had the flush, I would have called the poker room manager over, as inducing a bet by deliberately acting out of turn calls for his hand to be dead,

Later, he pulled similar shenanigans when he raised under the gun (first position) but raise less than the minimum bet, indicating a weak hand. This calls attention to the entire table that he has raised, but not put in enough money. This is an extremely obvious way to feign a weak hand and get free advertisement, as the delaer is going to to tell him he hasn't put in a big enough raise.

I should have kept my mouth shut, but I said, "I'm folding unless I have rockets (aces)." Basically calling this guy out for the move, and announcing that I knew he had a huge hand and had made the "mistake" deliberately.

The hand progressed, and in the end, he showed down pocket aces.I couldn't keep it to myself, as I sarcastically said, "boy... I misread that. I put him on kings." To which the table got a good chuckle.

The best part was that he slow-played the hand and then got shaft on the river...sweet justice. Then again, I always say, if you're looking for justice at a poker table, you're playing the wrong game.

So, I have been sleeping like crap, or not sleeping, I should say. I just had my 4th consecutaive night of 3-4 hours. I had really hoped I would get a good night's rest before the big day, but it didn't pan out. I am totally exhausted, so I have no idea why I can't sleep, but it is brutal. I hope against hope that when I survive today's round, I can get some shuteye tonight.

Wish me luck.