Connecting the dots

Brief update. Not dead.

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 06:10:41 GMT

Still alive. I post stupid random thoughts on facebook now instead of saving them all up and posting them here. I must just get drunk in the AM and ramble on here when I get home from work. In the meantime, money is good and I haven't been superinspired for poetry so I haven't been going. Being sick hasn't helped and I've been pretty engrossed in poker for the last few weeks. Doing well, pulling 500 dollar paychecks out for the last two months. Happy. More later.

Watchin' movies...

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:09:42 GMT

So it's 2am and I'm poking around Hulu looking for something to entertain myself. The horror movie section is dry and boring so I scan down through the latest added/suggested titles/whatever sidebar and come across a little ditty from 1994 called Jailbait.

From Hulu: "When a cop crosses the line and gets involved with a beautiful teen-aged murder witness he discovers an international sex slave network kidnapping runaway American girls and exporting them overseas."

I know what you're thinking "hurr hurr hurr there is some hot teenaged--" No. It's not even about that. It's on THE INTERNET. If you want to see hot teenaged whatever, type that shit into google image search. Yes, the movie has tits in it but again, it's on THE INTERNET. Go elsewhere for better. This thing is all about the schlock. Regular late-night cable channel USA Up-all-night B-movie fare, right? I figured it would be laughably bad and I didn't have anything better to do so I put it on. Wow. This film isn't just bad, it's a mindbending fever dream of awful. It probably came out as a Showgirls clone back in its day as it features some of the same elements (new girl right off the bus--only substitute LA for Vegas--wants to be a dancer) but when you clone a bad movie what do you get? If Michael Keaton taught us nothing in Multiplicity it is that when you make a copy of a copy it doesn't come out as sharp, right? It's got a kungfu cop (why?), not quite buddy-partner death (what? when was this part of the plot given time to develop?), brain breaking plot contrivances (frequent and gratuitous), and plot holes that make you go "wha?" In fact, about 2/3 of the movie made me go "wha?" It has a scene where some random street urchin on rollerskates steals from some store owner, the guy chases her outside where she runs into the movie's heroine. The shopkeeper comes out, complains about damn punk kids then says, "they think they're fast? I'll show them fast!" and proceeds to do a tapdance routine. Wha? How about these gems of screenwriting: "You cops always think you can push people around! Especially women!" as the heroine of this tale changes her sodden shirt in a police station utility closet with a conveniently placed opaque window and equally conveniently placed backlight. When our heroine is confronted with the fact that her sister is a hooker she retorts boldly "My sister is a Hollywood singer!" This thing is glorious in its awfulness. It makes skin-emax look like masterpiece theater. It makes Showgirls look like Citizen Kane. It's got C.-motherfucking-THOMAS HOWELL! King of the late '80s and early '90s B-movies! While I haven't seen The Room (yet) I'd argue that, based on reputation alone the two are at least comparable. Definitely check this beastie out while it's still on Hulu. All this thing needs is an MST3k commentary to make it complete.

Bullet points

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:36:37 GMT

1. I appear to have been stricken with the Doomcold this week. I feel all kinds of bad. I was hacking and coughing at The Job today and one of my coworkers asked me if I was sick. I responded "No, I'm coughing because I'm happy. And this snot running out of my head? That's happy snot. And the headache? That's from smiling because I'm so happy!" Me, sarcastic? Noooooo!

2. Michael Chabon is out hawking his latest book on the NPR circuit. He had some interesting things to say about discipline as a writer that meshed well with what I have learned over the summer playing poker. I plan to incorporate these ideas once I finish feeling like shit.

3. Portland Slam Family Meeting went well. Big plans, stuff that should make this town respectable. I'm definitely down to heft some weight for the team. Definitely looking forward to see what we can do.

4. Even though the skin was described as "spongy" the work done last week seems to be healing well. Not too much fading

5. ???

6. Profit

7. Give it up for joethecabdriver's new gif! Who doesn't enjoy some good scissor-lovin'

8. Bob Dole is watching you, Death. Don't you make any sudden moves now!

I think a good median life expectancy on this guy would probably be 5 years. *shudder*

Holy god, so much to do...

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:17:10 GMT

Kim left this week, bringing the number of friends I can call up and hang out with physically to...oh yeah 0. Just typing that is a bit depressing were it not for the fact that I have the Slam scene again and I'm in talks with Jack to drag his pasty white ass out to Portland to make money and provide for his daughter back in Toledo. While it would be good to have a familiar face around in Geek Zion I don't want to go breaking up anyone's family. Speaking of Jack, checked out the Soulfly show Tuesday night. It was quite awesome tinged with some BS. Me and the roomate got drunk. He got his first taste of a mosh pit. No name metal band, Cattle Decapitation, Prong, then Soulfly. I got a Soulfly shirt and a Prong knit cap while I was there. Talked with the guys from Cattle Decaptiation and they were quite cool and admitted vegetarians, which was a bit of awesome irony (and the source of their band name). The faint taint of BS came from the part where CD was up onstage and two youngish, hottish girls were rocking out next to us doing the tried-and-true metal hairwhip and the equally tried and true Bruce Dickinson inspired "so metal because I thrust my arm out and let the rock go, then bring it back in" move. One girl was performing this combo of maneuvers, then adjusting her top to keep her ladyparts in. I mimed something (which I THOUGHT) was to the effect of "less adjusting, more letting it all hang out and RAWK" and said "c'mon, save the Maiden for Maiden, or at least the headliner". She replied with "Me and my friend aren't big fans of Soulfly". This offended my metal sensiblities, but whatevs. Ten minutes later as Prong is getting ready to go up, one of the bouncers motions me over and tells me that one of the patron complained that a man fitting my exact description harassed her and tried to get her to show her breasts and if i persisted in doing this I would be thrown out, needless to say I was like "wha?!?!?" The bouncer shrugged his shoulders. Once again my intentions were misunderstood by women. FML. Later on in the concert I found the offended young lady and apologized for the misunderstanding but seriously, I'm fucking tired of this shit. Yes, I'm a big clumsy slobbery dog who frequently pisses on the rug when it comes to women. You know what, though? Dogs are awesome and there is a reason that they're man's (and woman's) best friend.

Anyway...

Next day was my appointment to get the Crux Terminatus finished. I was not apprised that if you get stinking drunk the night before your tattoo appointment, your skin becomes spongey and unworkable to a tattoo artist. Jason from Studio 2 spent an hour drilling on me before declaring just that and saying that I should come back in two weeks. Guy didn't charge me for the time, though, which is cool and the reason I'm probably going to keep going back to them for all of my other inking needs.

In terms of poker I recently finished a big twoplustwo.com post. It was a combination of brag at my success this summer in making $8000 at poker and my observations at how my fellow small stakes grinders can make more money playing what they play, how I play. This was met with some positive feedback and, of all things, a haiku contest in my honor (the forum goes know about my slam background). I've got some requests for a followup posts with actual poker content because apparently I know something about the game now. o_O

I want to get an article on blind defense in limit holdem done TODAY just so I can get it off my mind. Once again, so much work.

Finally, I signed up for Facebook. search for Swinkey if you want to add me. Maybe sign up for my Mafia Wars crew if you feel so inclined. I punch button on that game when I'm not playing on Pokerstars.

Filling your pods

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 04:55:17 GMT

OMGOMGOMG NPR is now offering a free Cartalk podcast on itunes. Also just found the Real Time with Bill Maher Podcast. Hell yes. Ears=happy.

Watched the premiere of Stargate: Universe this morning on Hulu. It's not bad, it's not great either. I'd say it's better than Atlantis but just about on par with SG-1. The franchise has the ability to suck hard, though, so we'll see how things go. I'd have to say that my love of xenoarchaeology is what draws me into a Stargate show. Trapped on what is effectively an ancient alien worldship on a one way trip away from Earth. Hehe, cool. I'm sure the writers will pull some deus ex machina like they always do with the Stargate shows, but in the meantime Universe is entertaining, if overacted in places. What is going to really set my teeth on edge is the inevitable flood of drooling morons that populate the Stargate fanbase as I try to navigate some of the message boards to get some reaction to the various episodes. Ugh.

Fox TV Rant Engage!

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 17:22:41 GMT

Just caught the second ep of season 2 of Dollhouse and goddamnit Fox, why do you have to make such braindead shows? There are such logical inconsistencies to this show that it just leaves me with the feeling that Dollhouse is utterly, irrevocably flawed. I'll watch it because it's better than most crap on TV but it really sets my teeth on edge. It's the same problem with Fringe. That show has really good twists and turns to it but the 30 out of every 43 minutes just grates the hell out of my nerves. It's hamfisted exposition followed up with scenery chewing acting and mindless american TV plot devices. They were in Iraq this week. Peter Bishop speaks Arabic. Have the fucker speak arabic through those scenes where he needs to because he's a badass genius. I don't care if I have to read subtitles! But oh no "your partner does not speak arabic, therefore we speak in english" NO. Fuck you! This is a dimension spanning mad scientist fringe science extravaganza conceived by JJ Abrams but...scripted by the guys who wrote Transformers. FML.

Game over.

Stoopid body...

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:23:26 GMT

I hate my sleep cycle. A couple days I'll get home in the morning tired, sleep until 4pm and everything is peachy keen. Other days I'll get home and only be able to sleep until noon. Ok, go about life till 7 or so and get a nap before job. These last three days I haven't been able to sleep before 11am. I've had three glasses of bourbon and I feel more awake and focused an hour after drinking them then I did when I got home. FUCK. I HAVE THINGS TO DO WITH MY LIFE, BODY. WORK WITH ME HERE.

Wednesday into Thursday

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 09:05:28 GMT

Sunday's show at the Hawthorne Theater was ok. Good crowd, good energy once things got warmed up. I was not privy to any of the warming up as I went first. No sacrificial poet. Just me, first. Ugh. As we say on the felt "LOL variance". Lowest score of the night. Amongst the poets there were some issues with how things are run and organization/consistency and I'm going to talk to the girl who runs it to sort things out. Portland is in the middle of a serious stretch of artistic road and it would be a shame to lose this show due to something as easily fixable as changing how we operate the slam here to the national . Phone number and facebook info in hand from the Portland slammaster. Contact info in hand from a lot of people actually. Sunday made for good networking. Things will be dealt with. This fits in nicely with the fact that I'm finally thinking about putting together a Facebook account to keep in touch with folks in Michigan and talk with poetry people. Saturday marks the start of the Eugene slam season. I'll be shipping down there to see whats up.

Remarkable amount of rungood today at the tables put me +300 dollars for an hour and a half of work. Puzzling over one hand and how the hell my opponent decided to call a river bet.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/35/micro-stakes-limit/alright-kids-heres-something-bake-your-noodle-597310/

I'm nerdking btw.

roomate gone I was gonna be all "woohoo alone in the house" but tonight it's utterly quiet outside from the fall cold and I'm kinda freaked out by the silence. I have knives, sticks, and loaded handguns. Death will be dealt where necessary

Many moons ago Taneka had a friend from the east coast who needed a place to stay. His name was Jonathan and he crashed on our couch for a couple months before going back to North Carolina and leaving all of his stuff. He ended up moving BACK out here 9 months later and staying with us AGAIN before flaking and moving back to North Carolina AGAIN. It is now approximately 18 months later and boxes of his stuff are spread between my room and the trunk of my car because he contacted me and asked me to get his stuff from the old apartment when Taneka was moving out. I did so because I'm a nice guy but he and I went back and forth in May or June over how he was going to get it. I told him that I would mail it to him so long as he sent me some money for postage. He said that he would be moving back here in late September and not to bother as he would just get it once he was out here. I told him that his stuff was going to Goodwill after September if he was not out here as I am not a self storage lot. I am a living embodiment of the Holy Spirit and will be canonized upon my death but it is now October. The hammer is falling. Anyone need clothes from a 6' 1" 260 lb man?

PS: Goddamn the MC5 still amaze me. These guys were the shit for a couple years back in the early 70s back in Michigan and it's a sad sad tale that mismanagement and just bad luck led to their dissolution. Crunchy, bouncy proto-punk all around. Definitely the missing musical link between bands like The Who and The Stooges.

This is only funny because I'm 60% drunk...

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:02:35 GMT

and Indian Bollywood Starlets are hot. So there.

Oh, and because I'm a completist who believes in equal time

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 15:01:10 GMT

not as good as the Rebels one.

this one makes me giggle and the fact that the Macguyver themed one used a crappy MIDI version of the theme song and seriously, fuck a bunch of that.

Actual Post

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 14:52:13 GMT

wow, it's amazing what booze does to an already beaten up brain. Maker's Mark bourbon takes a lot of sting out of bad luck at cards. You know that poker downswing? That $1200 worth of downswing. Considering I took $2300 out in the last couple of weeks to pay for life AND I still have several thousand more in the account, I really can't be arsed by a bit of bad luck, though. Variance can't kill me. The multitude of good players that infest the level can't kill me. I'm motherfuckin' Jason Vorhees up in this piece, bitches.

Got the beginnings of a new tattoo on Thursday. Note the symbol on the left shoulder of this beastie:

That is the Crux Terminatus aka Terminator Honours, Command edition. It's the insignia that the Adeptus Astartes wear that shows that they are qualified to don the Tactical Dreadnought "Terminator" powered armor. Added bonus is the fact that it looks fucking badass. Tatt is now emblazoned on the left side of my chest. The outline is done but the inside bits on the cross have yet to be finished. Crossbones are done, the cross part will be black outline with beveled inside to give it a 3D-effect. That's going down October 7.

Watched season premiers of Sons of Anarchy, Dollhouse, Flashforward, and powered through the 2 seasons of The Wire in the last couple of weeks. SoA is good. The last scene of of the premier was brutal but I'd expect nothing less from a show where a guy had his MC back tatt blowtorched off his skin. Dollhouse left me very WTF this week. Why is Ballard a client in the season premier? Don't they have paying customers waiting for Echo's services? The Topher/Whiskey stuff was fantastic. I wish Amy Acker would stick around more for the rest of the season, though. Disappointed that the show's ratings sucked but so long as DVD sales/online viewings/ratings are solid I think Fox may keep this show around. Flashforward was ok. The first ep reminded me quite a bit of the first ep of Lost what with all the fire and screaming and explosions. I'll be interested to see where they take this, although it's got Brannon Braga attached to it and the Star Trek nerd in me screams HERETIC! whenever I see his name. Believe the hype on The Wire. All the goodness of The Sopranos and Homicide: Life on the Streets (also created by David Simon) combined with great acting, great stories. Rich, complex. Easily the greatest show on TV, bar none.

Got all of my important files backed up and putting serious thought into reformatting this piece of shit computer to clean out all the accrued garbage from 12 months of porn sites and popup ads.

As for the show tonight, the girl that runs the Portland slam is a bit...eccentric. Not Toledo performance poetry eccentric, but still a bit off nonetheless. I was told I'm on the performer list but I figure at least a 10% chance I might not perform tonight due to "issues". We'll see. I'm going to take a nap, get all coffee'd up and get ready this afternoon. $500 for first place but whatev. I'm just happy to get up onstage and perform again. =)

Somewhere, Ernie Cline's head just imploded...

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 06:09:41 GMT

no, this isn't fucking awesome, not at all...

A Stick in the Ground

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 06:00:47 GMT

show tomorrow. Like any other show I'm doing absolutely nothing to prepare for it. Get up and read. Whatever happens after that is what happens after that. Currently in the middle of a downswing in terms of poker combined with a soul sapping bit of depression. At least I can identify and work around it. It will be good to get back onstage tomorrow and act all goofy for people's entertainment. I look forward to it.

Decloaking

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 06:16:46 GMT

couple of Halo-related vids to share that have totally been enthralling me:

We are ODST. Death comes to us all-

Neil Blomkamp's original Halo short film "Landfall"-

Ozzie lyrics...

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Like any good American male I find mental solace in dealing with things that are bigger than me. I'm gonna lose myself in work (which is different from my Job. safeway can burn for all i care) for the next couple of days. if anything comes up i'll post it. see you on the other side.

Alive, but going to ground for a couple days...

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 23:25:56 GMT

last two days have been hella busy. found out just how into baking hilaryann really is (perhaps TOO into baking). bought season one of The Wire finally. Got some questionable Thai food from a place over on belmont that hasn't been agreeing with me. hiked my ass off yesterday. cashed out another 500 from Pokerstars. getting aggressively annoyed with the job. spent maybe a total of 3 or 4 hours both days at the tables, so I'm avoiding social contact and grinding as much as I can today. Because having money is fun. Been mulling over retrofitting some pieces. We'll see how it goes. slam on the 27th.

Megaleg stomps Tokyo

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:23:23 GMT

so after all the chatting Saturday night I get a bunch of comments from one hilaryann.

Me: hey
Her: Hi
Me: so i looked at your myspace. you are in fact one of the greatest women alive on the planet
Her: I'm trying to remember my friends in kzoo who were poets...
Me: lessee here todd bannon, sarah versau, Steve O (i continue to rattle off names) i miss kraftbrau...
Her: Me too, but I do not miss Club Soda. That place was awful..
Me: heh. I think the only other place i went to that wasn't off a highway exit ramp was Shakespeare's Pub
Her: Did you know Rei Robinson in GR? He does slam I think.
Me: nope. Joe the Cabdriver? Joe is insane. Like, probably literally insane but still, interesting guy.
Her: Aha I know of him via friends and the burlesque troop thing
Me: yeah, he started out doing that just as I was moving out of Michigan
Her: That's how I realized you had a gr connection actually, was joethecabdriver.
Me: ooooooh
Me: (I notice her AIM is mobile and has a character restriction) so are you surfing the web tonight from a blackberry/iphone/tricorder or whatev?
Her: Blackberry. No net here yet. Why?
Me: ooo. the modern age confuses me. i am but a simple caveman lawyer. And not really a lawyer.
Her: LOL phil hartman ref ftw.
Me: LOL getting the phil hartman ref for the double win. So whatup with you. What's a hawtasballs slightly nerdy girl like you doing in a town like this, what with your pop culture understanding and your douglas adams love...
Her: Aahhhhh my face is going to blush off. Hahahaha. Having my own snnlc (Saturday Night No Life Club for the uninitiated) at home because I'm broke and work at 6am.
Me: sucks. guy like me sees girl like you and immediately spazzes out. "omgomgomg cute. nerdy. smart. omgomgomg. play it cool...play it cool... *voice cracks* hello!"
Her: Unfair advantage, you can look on myspace etc. But I'm @ home on my bberry with just aim and lj
Me: why sit at home? I'm bored. you're bored. I have money. you have a nearby bar.
I'm buying. we're talking. I'm going home alone.
Her: Hahahaha omg I'm cracking up and flattered. Ok, deal.
Me: HOLY SHIT! That's the first time that's ever worked! "oh hey cool person, let's go get a drink" usually ends in flake. Hence my amazment.
Her: You make it sound like nobody wants to play with you at recess or something haha
Me: Ok, listen Miss David Tennant. Stop going back in time and looking at my childhood
Her: Fiiiine. But I'm keeping the tardis
Me: ...*faints*

So we meet up downtown by the Matador. She immediately declares it a douchebag bar and we walk right on by it. We pass PGE Park and I recognize the fact that we're by The Kingston, a quiet little sports bar. I suggest that we get drinks in there, she agrees. Over the next hour we quaff our alcohol and have our conversation at lightspeed. I swear to god it's like Neo fighting in bullet time as we're trading nerd references, punk references, talking about Michigan and we're each totally getting what each other is saying.

I hear my phone ringing. I pick it up and tell Kim that I'm fine and enjoying my conversation time then hand the phone over to Hilary so that the two can talk briefly. When I get the phone back, the first words out of Kim's mouth are "she sounds cute (wink wink)". I respond with "you have no idea..."

At one point Kim texts me with "so if you want to ditch me to go see Patton Oswalt tomorrow night I'd be totally cool with that". I start cracking the hell up, further interupting the conversation with Hilary asking me to explain why I'm laughing and can't seem to look her in the eye. I tell her "you ever have a friend who says something and you just want to tell them 'GET OUT OF MY BRAIN!'". I then offer to take her out to dinner the next night and then to the show. She sounds really interested but says that she might have plans. She offers to do her darndest to get a raincheck.

It starts to get towards 1am and she has to be to work in the morning so we cut out and start walking. We keep talking, arguing about purity in punk music, our favorite groups, major influences, guilty musical pleasures, it's fantastic. We're not even heading toward her house, we're just talking and rambling. She realizes this about three blocks down and we turn around only to run into the police barricade on Burnside where there was a driveby shooting. We detour and eventually make it back to her place. She offers me a handshake and I pull her into a hug and we declare each other friend. I then practically skip off to my car, her phone number in my phone and soul quite happy.

Sunday I wake up to see that Hilary ran into some difficulties with the bus and getting to work and the whole shebang. Bummer. She texts me around 11am saying that she can't go with me to the show. I ask if she's up to anything else in the next couple of days. She says she'll get back to me and goes offline for the remainder of the day.

I punch in and do my two sessions of poker. 4 hours is spent gaining and then losing 250 bucks. El oh el variance, as we grinders say. I cash out 500 bucks because having money is fun.

Kim is shipping off for the Navy in early October, so her and her boyfriend had a going away lunch to which her boyfriend invited many people. None of her friends showed up through no fault of either Kim or her caring boyfriend. I pick her up, say hi to her man and one friend who DID go out to lunch with them and whisk Kim off for hahas and dick jokes. She was quite upset at the night's events but laughed heartily at the Patton Oswalt show. It was great sitting there and watching the man's routine from the perspective of someone who studies the craft--hearing Bill Hicks, Dave Attell, Sam Kinison all coming through, seeing him throw an idea out and expand upon it, watch him make horrible shit funny. It was realy great. So we laugh heartily and head back to the car. On the way I text Hilary to tell her that I she missed a great show.

Kim wants to head out to Lake Trillium out in Zigzag. It'll be a fucking haul but she's depressed from her friends being assholes and she needs to recharge out in the wilderness (this, I suspect, is due to her in fact being part Elf). The ride out consists of lots of talking about her expectations and hopes for her life with her boyfriend and what a bunch of dickbag friends she has. I spend the time describing Saturday night's activities trying not to exclusively use the letters o, m, and g over and over again. My allergies are bugging me so I'm sniffling a bit. I hear her sniffling too and in my clueless Mike way thing "oh wow, i guess allergies are bad for everyone. hmmm." I finally look over and Kim is crying. I do my best to hug her and comfort her while also driving at 60 mph around twisty wilderness roads.

I told her that if a hockey masked revenant comes storming up out of the water, I'm shoving her towards it and running the other way. This is something we have beguan to refer to as "The Mist" rule. "The Mist" rule began when we were hiking Angel's Rest Trail one incedibly foggy morning and I mentioned that if an extradimensional rift opened up and spewed forth mutant mosquito hell-werewolves, she would be first shoved toward their waiting jaws. No offense but I'm all about the self-preservation. Brave Brave Sir Robin am I.

We drove down the path to the lake and stared off into the dim darkness. No moon. Heavy cloudcover. We stood outside and I hugged her and she snuffled into my chest. I make a good teddy bear sometimes. Kim wanted to get home to her man so we turned around and headed out of there. I got home and passed out for a bit only to have work call around 2am and accuse me of missing my shift. I told them that I wasn't working Sunday morning and they looked a little closer at the schedule. Oops. They asked if I wanted to come in anyway and I told them no. A disappointed ok and *click* went the phone on the other end. Not long after that my roomate got home from his weekend camping trip. I jawed with him for a bit, poured myself a scotch and grabbed a cigar before going outside to mope about not hearing anything back from Hilary all day and muse about the state of being a writer/performer and the toll it takes on a person trying to make deeply depressing shit funny.

Because I know you're thinking it: yeah. Sad clown. Fuck you.

My next few days will be spent...

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 03:18:00 GMT

the last few days have been satifsying at the tables. action comes around to me and I make decisions quickly, so quick and smooth it's like a basketball swooshing through the net. These neural pathways have been through this hundreds of thousands of times over many more hundreds of thousands of hands. Don't think about life, don't think about now. Don't think about the money especially. Just let the table wash over you. Think about the 50k hand mark down the road. Think about villain's hand range as he reraises in the cutoff. Is he isolating a bad player or does he just have a good hand? Think about board texture and history with the players. Can I bluff here? What better hand folds to a bet and what worse hand calls? Don't think about the money don't think about the time don't think about the results. just play and play and play for two hours.

So after all that, you know what success tastes like?

16 year old Lagavulin. **** your Johnny Walker Blues, Blacks, Greens, Purples, and Fuschias. Single malt islay, bitch. Burnt oak on first taste, fading to a smooth sweet honey finish and a lingering essence of malty peat. Mmm.

I'd just like to give a hearty shoutout to all the small stakes grinders on Pokerstars. Thank you $2/$4 FR regs for buying my scotch with all of your stolen blinds. Also, I'd like to thank you all for buying my tickets to see Patton Oswalt on Sunday.

Safeway tried to screw me out of my second night off last week so tonight I've called off work and plan on playing lots of poker and doing some writing. And the part of the duck will be played by the oboe. And filling in for the vacationing Glenn Beck will be Bill Maher. Aren't you all in for a surprise...

Got into a conversation on OKCupid with a remarkably cool young woman who puts on a local sketch comedy show here in Portland. A little slice of me is scared about how random goofy sarcastic me comes off to a professional funny-person. Whether it seems like an act while I pepper my conversation with humorous pop culture references and witty anecdotes or whether it comes across as my genuine personality. One of the many other parts of me says "hey Mike, you're funny. It would be pretty cool to get in on something like that. Maybe she might see weird you and think THAT GUY IS PERFECT FOR MY NEXT PRODUCTION!!!" Granted, this woman's other job is as a KJ downtown. Somehow I don't think my agent and her casting director are going to need to get in touch. Not that I have an agent. She might have a casting director. I dunno. As Matt Drudge likes to say: developing...

Plinking away with a .22

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 23:28:08 GMT

Just woke up from a dream where Richard Hatch (BSG's Apollo/Tom Zarek) was doing an Easter program for my Catholic Highschool and somehow he had a leanto with a blue tarp over it in the parking lot. I'mnotcrazyyou'recrazy. Look over there.

This thing has been in the making for 3 days and by this time I think I'm finishing it more out of spite than anything but anyway: Slam in Bend!

I will start with a syllogism:

The trek between Monroe and Dayton : Halo on Normal mode :: The trek between Portland and Bend : Halo on Legendary

The road south of Mt. Hood is gorgeous. Evergreens tower 30 feet high and grow so closely that it's almost like this darkened corridor of forest. I kept expecting to run over bigfoot. Next came the twisty mountain road. I looked across the valley at the other side, which was a 45 degree slope covered in trees. My eyeballs were just as speechless as my gaping mouth.

Got past the pass and the terrain opened up. Deforested stumps gave way to deserty scrubland. A few hills broke up the monotony. Off in the distance to the south I saw Mt Jefferson and my mind went full on Jim Brewer: "Dude! Dude!!! *whispers* You get past the one mountain and there's another mountain!" I'm such a goober.

Next came Warm Springs. Rocky cliffs followed the highway to my left while the Crooked River ran off to my right. I also saw Kahneeta resort and casino. Just looked it up online and while their poker room looks excellent it doesn't seem big enough to warrant a trip down there.

Finally got to the show 45 minutes after start time due to highway 26 being fully closed with flaggers in some spots for an overnight repaving project. The Silver Moon Brewery is like the Kraftbrau if Kraftbrau was set up in a well lit VFW hall. The room was decently full, although the slammaster Chris Vance said that the audience was the second smallest they've had in months. Chris was exceptionally accomodating. He put me on the list even though they had
already started. I ran down the street to another bar so that I could use their ATM and get some money for cover. Bought a shot of Jack Daniels on the way through so I didn't felt like a mooch.

Vance is a nice guy, talented MC. Keeps his show going at a good clip despite drunken heckling.

Started off the night with "Back to School" which I had been frantically editing up until departure time. "BtS" ran over time to the point where I need to knock 40 seconds or so out of it. (ed note: Link emailed me some edits and suggestions. Megathanks to him.) Got something like a 23 and change after the 2 point time penalty which in comparison with the other low scores got me into the second round.

Did a way way way chopped down version of "Evil Overlords in Love" in the second round. That one ran over time as well. Oregonians are a bunch of nerds.

Even after going 3:40 or so I got a 24.

Finished the competition off with "Nerd Uprising" (or Revolution, if you're Link Schreiber). Audience loved me. No time penalty (because even when I run long with it, it's 2:45) and I get a 27.

4th place went to this girl named Kara, second and third had to haiku deathmatch for position everyone was quite drunk and so I'm sure many Japanese everywhere would be offended by what the stupid gaijin vomited forth. I won 1st and peeled 20 bucks off to give to Kara because she was cute and talented and didn't suck. She was stunned to say the least. I tipped out the bar staff 2 bucks each even though I only got a 3 dollar glass of beer and climbed unsteadily back into my car.

The drive home was full of delerium and hallucinations as various phantasms and spectres danced across the darkened highway and I tried to keep caffeinated and awake, alternately rolling down my window and punching myself in the thigh. The Rick Emerson show kept me good company for the 2 hours it was on my ipod. The drive was rough, but obviously I made it. Thursday was spent in a zombie-stupor and I think I only recently got my mind back on track.

Briefly...

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 18:33:46 GMT

-Got the first of my matching set of $500 dollar checks from Pokerstars this morning. Just about to skip off to the bank to go deposit it. :D :D :D

-is there something fundamentally abrasive and off-putting about my personality? Are people naturally repelled when I attempt to formulate a statement or question within my head and then loose it upon the world in either written or spoken format? I ask this because every time I read someone's profile on OkCupid and think "hey there cute girl, your interests and my interests coincide, I think we should start up a conversation" and send a message winging off into the ether I get a look at my profile if I'm lucky and no response beyond that. These are not complex questions. I'm not asking "whaderu wearing twixt them nethers right now *heavy breathing*?" or anything like that. It usually consists of "oh, your profile states that you are into x. I too am into x (and not the late 70s LA punk group X. X as in the algebraic variable x. I've listened to some X and to be quite frank I'm not swayed either way by them) I would like to know your thoughts on the subject. Btw, I found (insert portion of their profile here) both witty and amusing and would like to commend you on your writing abilities. And you're cute." or some shit like that. Nothing. Not even tumbleweeds. Not even dial tone. Even the cricket packed up and went home. Is my OkCupid profile's messaging system broken or something? Am I that milquetoast bland that people just pass right by me? WTF?

Wrote this on Monday. Still need to peel 20-30 seconds out of it

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:56:29 GMT

Back to School
--------------

Mid september 1995,
8:17 in the morning.
I'm sitting in 1st period
Freshman World History Class
and Sister Andrea looms over me
looking like Chris Farley decided to join the convent.
she is about to utter the single stupidest statement
that my 14 year old brain has ever heard.

her: "Class, can anyone tell me why neaderthal man had such low hanging arms?"

me: "was it because he hadn't evolved all that much from his primate ancestors and so..."

her: "wrong!. Neaderthal man had such big arms because was forced to carry around heavy rocks
so that he could build things..."

This was going to be highschool
and this was where I learned that my teachers were 80% full of BULLSHIT

4th period French class.
Mme. Thompson is old.
She grew up in Quebec so long ago
that her first job was trapping furs
for Napolean's war effort in Prussia.
and now she's explaining the difference between French regional dialects

her: "Le francais a Paris est
different comme le francais a montreal
est diffrent comme le francais acadian...
You know, class, Cajun is just bad french"

me: "Mme thompson Can you really have a bad dialect?
I mean, if we look at things from an ancient Roman perspective,
wouldn't that just make French bad Latin?"

her:"Mr. Swinkey, can I see you after class?"

7th period Language Arts
Mr. Strickland
looks like Doc from "Back to the Future" and Mr. Wizard
jumped into the matter transmitter from David Cronenberg's "The Fly"
combined bodies and then said fuck it, science sucks
I'm gonna go teach English.
he pulls me aside to ask
"Mike, why are you so angry? You seem so smart
and yet you make all these snide commments to the other students"
I tell him
I'm tired of being the only one who talks.
I'm tired of being the solo lead to all the discussions,
My raised hand standing alone in the classroom
like the last surviving sapling in a clearcut forest.
Last week, Joe--who sits behind me-- asked me to explain the dominant theme in "Romeo and Juliet".
Romeo.
and.
Juliet.
going to highschool made me hate stupid people
the way growing up Catholic turned me into an atheist
the way spending 4 years in a Catholic Highschool
made me decide early on to
kill all my teachers.
because the Buddhists have a belief that the only way to prove true knowledge is to best your masters
while at the same time I learned from
the Clash
Black Flag
and the philosopher Socrates
that the unexamined life was not worth living
that the fastest way to detention was to mention the fact
that Ghandi used to beat his wife.
that any language is a living thing
that grows and shifts to fit its environment.
that Mark Twain was right:
every time I read "Wuthering Heights"
I want to dig Jane Austen out of the ground
and beat her over the head with her own femur!
kill your teachers and you will be free from the shackles of school.
10 years later
My Uncle Pat
calls me up on a Sunday.
He teaches 4 classes of highschool Spanish in Rochester NY.
His school district is the 70th largest in the nation
and 13th highest in poverty.
He tells me that last week the 20 year old senior in the back of the class
out and out told him to
"shut the fuck up" in the middle of a lecture
and my uncle replied
"you know, thank you! compared to some of the other stuff you've done in here
that's the nicest thing you've ever told me."
He tells me this is the hardest work he's ever done
and god knows, the least pay he's ever received
but he does it for the adventure.
He says
"You got your BA in English, Mike.
When are you going to add a teaching certificate?"
"Probably never," I say
"I've got too many dead bodies on my conscience."

Ahhhhhhh whadda rush!

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 22:35:26 GMT

The Road Warrior is hitting the highway again tonight. Bend poetry slam at 8pm. 3 hours driving in the shadow of Mount Hood on a fairly clear September day. I so wish I was me right now. Oh wait, I am! The downside of all this is that I'm currently waiting for 2 $500 dollar checks from Pokerstars to reach my mailbox so that I may: 1.) pay off this damnable computer bill from last year when I used my credit to buy Taneka a PC. 2.) send my mom some money to help with the cell phone plan she has our family on 3.) live comfortably for a few weeks, which is to say buy a good bottle of 15 year old Scotch and some nice cigars and pretend I'm a rich Republican for a while. The other downside to being me today is the fact that all of this nervous pre-show anticipation has wound me up to the point where I'm ready to run through my neighborhood looking for my mailman, tackle him to the ground, scream into his face like a tweaked out R. Lee Ermy ("WHERE'S MY CHECK! WHERE'S MY CHECK!! WHERE'S MY CHECK YOU FEDERALI SON OF A BITCH!!!") then jog the 159 miles to Bend. This selfsame energy has caused me to get all of 2.5 hours of sleep after getting home from work this morning. At 11 I was up editing pieces for tonight and I'm getting on the road around 4:30 this afternoon. FML I couldn't sleep if I tried. Driving home is going to be a beast tonight. At least I'll have my iPod with me.

Speaking of which:

get thee to http://www.escapepod.org and listen to eugie Foster's "Sinner, Baker, Fablist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast". You will be quite thoroughly stunned in your brainhole. I certainly was after listening to it. With the amount of genre crossing literary talent radiating off of this woman, I propose that we form a cortege to follow her around sprinkling $100 bills at her feet. Who's with me! You get to bring the $100 dollar bills...

Seperated at birth...

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 02:35:21 GMT

Tom Colicchio from Top Chef and

pornstar/producer Rocco Siffredi (at least in Animal Trainer 26)

although Rocco Siffredi looks more like Hugh Laurie in "House" mode only with less thyroid dysfunction.

Do the math, people!

Sons of Anarchy season premier tonight. Crack a beer, wipe off the road dust and engine grease and watch SAMCRO kick the asses of Henry Rollins and Alan Arkin.

Bend show on Wednesday

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 22:54:15 GMT

Link, if I could get those audio files from you I would be most appreciative. You know my email.

May God bless East Plincadora

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 04:15:23 GMT

Heathen West Plincadoran scum. Nothing but communist nazi fascist Quaker Methodists they are...

6 hours of poker today. 250 dollars profit. Half of me felt guilty about not sitting down and seriously writing but if my mind is taking me in a more focused analytical direction where I can make money I really shouldn't second guess it or feel guilty about it. It's like my dad said when I told him I was getting back on the dating market: if it's fun, keep doing it. When it stops being fun, stop doing it. I need to remind myself not to feel guilty when my subconsciousness is taking me in a direction it wants to go.

At least I'm thinking verbally. Idle thought time is used to come up with phrases for poems, ideas for poker forum strategy posts, and general verbal cleverness. I'm at least thinking about writing, then doing it either here, in my notebook, or on Twoplustwo. It's those steps that keep me going and keep me writing. It doesn't matter if anyone reads it so long as it's done.

BTW, I've developed a taste for white noise when I'm sleeping or playing. It does dick all for creativity but it seriously helps me zone out when I just need the accountant part of my brain to be working.

http://www.simplynoise.com It's the vanilla ice cream of sound.

Also, care of Buzz-cp from the microstakes limit forums on 2p2: