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Writin' or not

[Content Disclosure: a bit of poker, a hunk of life, a twitter of a notion, a ponder of a potential, adrift in an ocean of verbs ]

A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. -- Thomas Mann

There was a time when I was in my mid-twenties when I was determined to be a writer. From that experience I can honestly say that determination has nothing to do with be a writer. I suppose that is not a unique observation. Many endeavours require skill before commitment and at least for me, writing was one of them. If you can't you can't and banging your head against a wall you have no chance of climbing or painting is just crazy. You know the old watching the movie over and over waiting for a different ending.

When writing finally came to me, it was completely unexpected and not something I was seeking. But there it was one day, my voice at the tips of my keyboard and I just started to write.

Which brings me to the last week or so. I have been banging on two screenplays, nibbling around the edges of my sci-fi book and churning out gobs on internet SEO material and even getting a head start on my summer WSOP obligations. But nearly every day I have turned to this blog and come up empty, blank, move on. What is that about?

I know I ran into an old friend who started a blog and has managed four posts in just under a year. And I joined Twitter and found lots of folks have 140 character voices.

I think I will speculate myself out of my blog malaise. Blogging is a different form of writing, just google it. You will find cyber-reams of thoughts and even "rules" about what blogging is and is not. But from a personal level, there is an aspect of blogging that you either consider or you just accept and that is: Just how comfortable are you with putting your insides out there into the webosphere? Where is your privacy line? What won't you disclose? What is truly private and off-limits? Once you think you know this, try to blog every third day. Eventually, I guarantee, your "third day" will be an off day for you. Something is not quite right with your world and, of course, that is what is up for you and "should" be blog fodder. But you hesitate.

There really are rules of blogging. The ones that are important reside inside of you, in your heart, in your soul, in some deep dark recessed places. Until you come to grips with them, you will either show up only on the surface of your writing or you will post pictures of baked goods and sunsets. Nothing wrong with that, we just are more interested in hearing from your inner writer.
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Someday This Will Be Over . . .


[100% that damn book; 12% whining; 34% more whining]


My wonderful co-author Amy Calistri has said most of what follows better than I could; perhaps, that is because men don't get to use an "afterbirth" metaphor quite as easily as do the ladies. As I write this, a printing press is turning out copies of Check-Raising the Devil. I can't change the last line of the first paragraph, no matter how much I want to. I can't tweak the chapter on tweaking. It's all locked down, done finished, over.

Am I glad not to be spending so much time inside of Mike Matusow's head; hell yes! Even Mike should spend less time there.

I also know I am experiencing what ever first-time (every time?) author feels when the book is out of their hands. But I am glad that poker fans will finally get the opportunity to hear Mike's side of the story. I can only promise that some of the tales will seem like Mike is covering up his guilt or blame, others will surely seem like way more of a confession than you ever would have expected but finally, there are stories in the book that no one has ever heard before and Mike was honest enough to tell them like they happened and never once asked us to tone them down or clean them up.

Amy promised on her blog that she would post the original first chapter. The one that didn't make the book. We will coordinate that day and post on both of our blogs.
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Where's Waldo?


[Content Disclosure: Travels, Mt. Shasta and Some Poker]


I should be drifting back down to Sonoma in the next couple of days after a week in Weed. Actually I am getting close to my homeless date, my friend will be back to reclaim her cottage in Sebastopol in early May. With the WSOP starting at the end of May, I guess I should start looking for a summer rental in Las Vegas.

We now know the Matusow book will officially hit the stores on May 12th. I wish I could be enthused about that, but the final editing process ground a lot of the joy of accomplishment out of the whole process. But over a month to recover should help a bit.

The ever so slow scramble for WSOP media positions is in full crawl. The Shrink will be there for the entire Series again this year; stay tuned for assignment disclosure. I would like to predict that the planned twitter projects are overkill. Too much information for too small an audience. But then again, I didn't buy Google stock.

Finally, in the "All Good Things" category filed under 'Kittens I Have Known." Smokey has gotten very old since I last visited and I expect she will not be here next time I venture up to the Mt. Shasta area. We shared the bed as always and she remains in fine if subdued spirits. It has been over a decade of visits that I have shared with Smokey and she will be missed and warmly remembered.





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Who Wrote That Song and Why?


[Content Disclosure: No Poker, Some Music, Serendipity]

I was digging around in my bag o'discs and found an old one from David. While I drove around Mt. Shasta today, I heard Jerry Jeff Walker make a reference in a live concert track to "being inspired to write this song, in the First Precinct jail." Hence this story:

After being arrested Fourth of July weekend 1965 in New Orleans for drunkenness, Jerry Jeff Walker found himself sharing a holding cell with dozens of street people, who had been rounded up in conjunction with a murder investigation. "Round up the usual suspects (and all the homeless)."

Among those those into the First Precinct cells was a street performer who used the alias of "Mr. Bojangles" clearly after the great negro performer Bill Robinson. As Walker tells it, the man told story after story but the mood darkened after he told about his dog being run over. To bring the mood (in the cell), someone suggested a tap dance and Mr. Bojangles obliged.

Walker always makes the point that the object of his song is not Bill Robinson but indeed this street performer, who Walker notes was white. Had to be, even the jails in New Orleans were segregated in 1965.

I wander around the InnerTube a bit to find some covers of Mr. Bojangles:
Video:
Sammy Davis Jr. (for Bea)
Audio:

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Lessons Learned and Relearned

[Content Disclosure: The Book and therefore Poker; Publishing; New Ground & Old Lessons]

I don't know why but blue brains seem to be in pain or confusion. -- me


There are hundreds of classic interpersonal struggles inherent in the process of creation or perhaps better said production. Our post-modern, not yet post-industrial age gives us: manager versus worker and artist vs. producer or maybe commercial interface (the salesman). These conflicts give rise to those pithy sayings: "Those that cannot do teach, those that cannot teach manage, those that cannot manage own."

When we hear stories of such fracturous interactions we tend to either dismiss them because we really don't care about which hedge fund associate warned who about which mortgage backed security or we hear the beginning of the tale and instantly have the "been there, suffered that" reaction.

So if you are a published author or should you have engaged in any endeavor that allows you to use the term "editor" as a pejorative, you may want to skip this post. Sometime in the last few hours the Mike Matusow auto/biography was sent off to the printer. That means it is now in the form which hopefully large numbers of people will read. No more commas will change, no more sentences will be tweaked, no more discussions will be had over the direction, focus, message, intention or meaning.

I have heard war stories about authors and editors. Quite frankly, I (Amy & I) do not have a story worthy of "war." What we do have is our first major experience with being artists and having a major work bent to the will of the consumer world. Unfortunately, that consumptive mass of Visa card holders out there can only be interpreted by those "in the business." That means there are no fast rules and no absolutes. Our ongoing experience with having our articles and posts edited, did not prepare us for eighteen months of work coming under the microscope, the blue pencil and in particular the rewrite.

So we struggled over keeping the book in Mike's voice. We put in scenes, took them out and recast them. Grammar tried to win the day against the elements of truth in self told story. Chapters came and went and combined and got renamed. We even changed the title of the book at the eleventh hour. No one liked the old title, but equally no one had a new one. Does "The Damn Thing's Done" strike you as too self indulgent?

Sometime in April, I am going to lock and load on my next book length project. But right now I am wondering if a 8-5 cubicle does not have some inherent sanity protections not afforded to creations out of whole cloth.
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Sonoma Cats


[Content Disclosure: 100% Cats and nothing but Cats]


It has been pointed out to me that my promised exposures of the Cats of Sonoma is overdue. So here is installment #1.

That golden lovely up top is Tigr, one of Matthew's three domesticated kitties. Tigr is the oldest and pretty much runs the household.

This is Coco in one of her many roof perches. Coco is fond of trees, particularly at petting heights. She is the youngest of the clan, which includes Matisse, who has not stood for a photo yet and at least three semi-feral kittens who may yet be captured in a telephoto shot.


The roley poley pussy is JoJo who lives in the other cottage and is aware that just inside my cottage door is a bag of kitty treats. Two males come by often to serenade JoJo but as yet they have not allowed any pictures or pets.

This is the landlady's kitty, who only visits on weekends but always stops by for pets and treats which are technically not allowed. Below one more photo of the lovely Tigr.

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Olde Friends

[Content Disclosure: Relationships, Love, Marriage, Life and General Human-like Goofiness]


I'll wait for you
And should I fall behind
Wait for me
Springstein

I have these two friends. I met them in 1971 when they were a new couple. They did typical 20 year old kid stuff, like arguing about nothing and fighting about air. He slept on my couch half a dozen times when he couldn't or wouldn't go home. I was at their wedding in 1975 but turned down any official position in the wedding party. I thought I might be needed to referee.

They moved. I moved. Diana visited me in Hermosa Beach in 1985, a couple of years after their divorce. She was older, wiser and still had no clue why she and Paul were either at each others throats or genitals with nothing in between. She had always been the stable one in those early years, at least that was my perspective, but then again, she never got booted to my divan.

I saw Paul several times in the 90s, he had a new wife and then he didn't. But in both cases he talked about Diana. I heard they made an abbreviated attempt at round two or round seven right around the millennium and apparently had a major shouting drama at a fund raiser for the Cleveland Art Museum, complete with thrown champagne.

My point?

I got an invitation to their re-marriage coming this June. Fortunately, I have other commitments that month and this year and for the next decade but I am considering a new sofa. I think it is only fair for aging friends to have a more comfortable place for olde love warriors to fall.
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