What Awful People

This scene, from Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits, came to me inexplicably when I woke up this morning. (Shouldn't have eaten so much salsa for dinner). It shows what a great comic actor (Cleese) can do with even a minor part. Apparently Cleese drew inspiration for the role from watching minor British Royals press the flesh at soccer matches. (Excuse me: Football matches!) The last line is really really funny--not for the words so much as the delivery. Probably that's what makes great comic actors great; they can turn lines that, for most people, would be throwaways into something approaching high art. Enjoy.

For Your Enjoyment

-An insightful, if somewhat gloomy look at the current English-language literary scene in the New Criterion....

-Pinback, my favorite band of the last few years, has a new album out....

-A site my brother will appreciate: a brave young critic sets out to view and review every single movie in the Criterion Collection. To judge by his review of Andrei Rublev (tops, probably, on my "All-Times Favorites" list), he's a smart and articulate critic.

Spotted: D-List Celebs!

The wife and I had a funny little LA moment on Friday. We went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner--a dive-y neighborhood place--and found a cameraman and producer set up in the main dining area. Turns out one of the couples (Heidi and...some guy?) from "The Hills" was eating there. The crew had come to record. Diners seated in the main room were being asked to sign release forms.

We ended up sitting directly across them (no camera though: they'd gone by then). Both looked supremely bored to be in each other's presence. At different points in the conversation they each talked or texted other people on their cell phone.

And she is REALLY thin. Unpleasantly so. Her arms look like pieces of balsa. Yech.

It was 6:30, too. Seems early for glamorous young Hollywood-ites to eat. But probably they were going to some big party that night. Or something.

Poker IV

I haven't written about poker in a long time. A long, long time. Mostly because I haven't played much in the last few months. That, and the goiter.

But, I'm just returned from Las Vegas ("The Big Easy") where I DID play poker (and won). So, to pacify my legion of enthusiastic readers (Legion!) I will describe two of the more significant hands I played this week. One of them, I played well. Another, not so well.


Setting: The Venetian 550$ Buy-in Friday Hold 'Em


Hand One

Blinds: 500/1000
Ante: 50

Midway through the tournament. We are down from four to two tables. I have the biggest chip stack at the table. To my left sits the other big stack at the table ("Cigarette"). He has an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth, orange aviator glasses, and a variety of mustache generally associated with 1970s porn stars. So far he has played a loose aggressive game; my read on him is that he's not afraid to move chips around.

I am in the SB with 9/4 offsuit. Everyone folds. I call the blind (500) figuring that since we are the two big stacks and I outchip him (barely) we will play a small, unexciting pot.

Cigarette sees it differently. He doesn't check; he raises: 4000 more.

Most of the time, I would fold. After all, I have a terrible hand and very little invested in the pot. But something here feels wrong. My Spidey-sense, as it were, is tingling. I don't think he has NOTHING; but neither do I think he's especially strong. Most of all, I think he wants to take the hand down right now; he probably has a hand like AQ.

At this point, my table reputation is fairly tight. I've played only a few hand in the last hour. Almost every time, I've showed good cards. I should--SHOULD--be able to push him around. Or so I think. So, I raise 6000 more, for a total bet of 10,000. He considers long and hard. I try to study him; unfortunately the dealer sits directly between us. I sense, though, that he's not happy about my reraise. I'm not sure he completely believes me--he knows I know he seemed weak on his first bet--but he's definitely thinking.

He calls.

The flop comes: 3 7 8 rainbow. This is a great flop. If, as I suspect, he had high cards, it missed him altogether. So far my bets have represented a large pocket pair. This is the kind of flop that I should like. I lead out and bet 7000. He folds.

I show my cards to the table. I don't want to come off as a jerk; at the same time, I don't want to have to play big pots against him in the future. If he sees I'm slightly unpredictable he might be inclined, in the future, to let me see flops for cheap. He'll also be less likely to bluff at me; he knows I might play back.

As it happens, Cigarette man busts out about thirty minutes later; my attempts to 'set him up' for the endgame go for naught.


Hand Two

Blinds: 1500/3000
Ante: 100

The final table. We are down to eight. The top five are paid. I am second in chips to the player on my left (Pony-tail). Pony-tail is a solid player; he's mostly folded since he sat down. Twenty minutes earlier he won a very large pot off of me when he backdoored a flush on the river and I paid him off with two pair. It was that hand that lost me the chip lead.

My cards: A9.

Everyone folds to me on the button: I raise to 8000. (Blinds are 1500/3000). Pony-tail thinks and then calls. I'm not happy. He has shown no interest in defending his blinds before this hand. If he calls, he has a hand. Unless I hit the flop HARD I am done with this hand.

The Flop: As Ac 6s

Hard to hit it much harder than that. Except, to my consternation, Pony-tail now leads out and bets into me for 12,000. ??? Puzzlement. Confusion. Hello?! McFly? Doens't he know that I'm the one with Trips?

Does he have a six? Does he have a middle pair (8/8)? Is he using his tight reputation to try and steal? Surely if he had an Ace he would check here--wouldn't he?

I'm not sure. I'm either way ahead or way behind. If the former, he'll only fold when I bet. If the latter, I don't want to put any more money into this pot. I call.

Turn: 8d

He checks. I check. Same reasoning as on the flop.

River: Ks.

He now bets 20,000. !!!! What the hell is going on here? I go into the tank. The river has completed a spade flush. Is it possible he was betting the flop on a flush draw? Or did he have AK, and just make Aces Full? Or has he read my calls for weakness and decided his middle pair is actually good? Or maybe he had KQ and is now making some kind of value bet?

I have to be beat. There is no hand I can beat that would lead into me on the flop and river. I have 60,000 in chips. 20,000 is a significant amount. Could he be on a stone-cold steal? Does Pony-tail have that kind of guts? He is almost guaranteed to make the money already; would he really risk so many chips on a bluff? No. He must have a hand.

Or so I think. But then, I call. I have to see it. I know I am beat, but I have to see it. Because I am a donkey.

He shows: AK. He was ahead the whole time. He checked the turn because he was worried that I had paired my kicker (he knew I had an ace, too) and had filled up. When the King hit the river, he knew he was good (obviously).

The king killed me. Any other river and we probably check it down. But, I also killed myself. On the river, I should have folded. I could have folded. I couldn't beat any hand that could bet there. But it's hard, hard, hard to fold three Aces, especially heads-up. It's hard, but not impossible. I should have done it. But I didn't.


Epilogue: Once we got down to six players we chopped the prize money. Pony-tail had 40% of the chips at that point; the rest of us each had about the same amount. He got 5gs, the rest of us got 2400. Not a bad tourny. But if only I had folded that river....

This and That

I'm sorry I've neglected the blog this last week. I've been working madly on a teleplay, and when I get in my manic writing phases (MUST FINISH MUST FINISH MUST FINISH) I resent being involved in any other literary endeavor. And blogging, as I've learned in the last few months, is hard. It amazes me that John and Kate (plug plug!) manage to put out such elegant and thought-provoking posts with such consistency. Amazes and depresses me. Everyone writes so damn well!

So anyway, here's what's been going on in my life:

-I'm reading a book of short stories by David Gates called The Wonders of The Invisible World. Gates wrote the introduction to my copy of Little Dorrit, through which I slogged, as a knife might through a particularly tedious and deeply-frozen chunk of butter, this spring. I love Dickens, but Little Dorrit? I don't think so. The stories typically center around embittered intellectuals living in and around New York. But the writing is good, and there's enough wit and insight to lift it above the usual generic short story mush.

-The wife and I just finished the second season of The Wire. Wow. It's hard to praise the series as deeply as it deserves. The most significant thing I can think to say is that on three consecutive nights last week I had dreams that featured characters from the show. The only other TV that's done that to me was The Sopranos. If you walk through the garden, you better watch your back. (MAN I love Bunk! And Omar, of course. Has there even been a more stylish and charismatic criminal?)

-This weekend I'm going to Vegas. On Saturday, I'm playing a Celebrity Hold'Em Tournament at the Hard Rock Casino. You never know for sure--some celebrities take poker very seriously--but the poker skill of your average actor/rock singer/rap star is about equal to the field goal-kicking skill of your average 6 year old. Let's hope I catch some cards. Reports will follow, unless I bust out early on a runner-runner suckout. Then, they probably won't.

Distance From Loved Ones

I've been thinking about this poem recently, for reasons I'm not sure I understand. The poet responsible, James Tate, taught at the University of Massachusetts when I as at Amherst. Once or twice, I saw him wandering around town. He typically had a dazed, self-absorbed, fragile kind of aura about him--very much like a poet is supposed to. A holy innocent, he seemed, although I don't know how much of that was contrivance and how much was truth. Regardless, I love this poem.

Distance from Loved Ones
by James Tate

After her husband died, Zita decided to get the face-lift
she had always wanted. Half-way through the operation
her blood pressure started to drop, and they had to stop.
When Zita tried to fasten her seat-belt for her sad drive
home, she threw-out her shoulder. Back at the hospital
the doctor examined her and found cancer run rampant
throughout her shoulder and arm and elsewhere. Radiation
followed. And, now, Zita just sits there in her beauty parlor,
bald, crying and crying.

My mother tells me all this on the phone, and I say:
Mother, who is Zita?

And my mother says, I am Zita. All my life I have been
Zita, bald and crying. And you, my son, who should have known
me best, thought I was nothing but your mother.

But, Mother, I say, I am dying. . .

Caffeine

As anyone who has been made to listen to the stories of my on-again, off-again love affair with caffeine will know, I regard the drug with a wary combination of fear and admiration.

Right now I am back "on."

Caffeine is to the human mind as the moon's gravity is to the tide. We drink caffeine in the hope that by increasing the force of the moon's gravitation, we will increase the power and the frequency with which we are blessed with waves (human thoughts). However, if the power and force of the moon's gravity grows too strong, then the waves break up--are torn apart, dissolve before they ever reach land. This is what it feels like to have too much caffeine. You have a million thoughts, each of last two seconds. You can't follow through on anything. The mind becomes a vortex, consuming without producing.

At the moment, luckily, I seem to have some waves coming to shore. On which I place surfers (words?) in the hope that their peripatetic and awkward stabs at beauty may, occasionally, succeed.

The Onion is still funny

"Unconventional Director Sets Shakespeare Play In Time, Place Shakespeare Intended"
My favorite part:

Hiles said he became drawn to the prospect of setting the play [The Merchant of Venice] in such an unorthodox locale while casually rereading the play early last year. He noticed that Venice was mentioned several times in the text, not only in character dialogue, but also in italics just before the first character speaks.

"A Certain Alienated Majesty"

Emerson is insane. I love him. This is from "Self-Reliance." I believe it was recorded in '77, just after Live From Budokan.

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,--that is genius. Speak your latent conviction and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time become the outmost,--and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton is, that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men but what they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to use with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impressions with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else, tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.

I Also Would Like My Own Rocket Sled

I have never in my entire life had any desire to jump out of an airplane. Several friends have done so; they all report it as being a glorious and life-affirming experience--one that I "have to try." Well, no: I don't. I'm perfectly comfortable here on the ground. I like not having to worry about plummeting thousands of feet to my death.

Strangely, though, I've always been fascinated by people who do jump out of airplanes. I'm especially interested in high-altitude drops--people jumping out of planes so high above the earth that they have to wear pressure suits and oxygen tanks to keep from dying. Part of my interest comes from my experience on airplanes. I sit there: I'm afraid; I look out the window and I always imagine what it would be like to fall from that height. ("Unpleasant" is my best guess). The fact that people actually jump from those heights--and much much higher--amazes me. And baffles me. (There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt in my philosophy). Why do they do it? I guess it's the same mindset that causes people to climb high mountains, or live in trees. They want to prove to themselves it's possible.

Or, they're completely mad.

Such, I think, would be a fair assessment of John Paul Stapp, an Air Force physician who is among the various pioneers of super-high-alitutude skydiving profiled in "Falling", a fantastic article appearing in this week's New Yorker. (Unfortunately, the article in question is not available online: you'll have to get the print edition. For further information, go here.) To really get a sense of the true courage--and insanity--of the kinds of people who jump out of balloons suspended nineteen miles above the surface of the earth, you need to read the whole article. (It's well worth your time). Here, though, is a brief excerpt. The passage I'm quoting describes early tests conducted by John Paul Stapp to determine, basically, how much misery the human body could endure. Among his goals were to figure out if it were possible to parachute out of a jet, flying 70,000 feet above the earth at near the speed of sound, and live.

Stapp wanted to know the true limits of human tolerance. He used cats, chimpanzees, and human subjects for his research, but reserved the most dangerous tests for himself. Beginning in 1946, he made repeated flights to forty-seven thousand feet in an unpressurized plane, racking his body with the bends. (By breathing pure oxygen before a flight, he discovered, he could rid his blood of the nitrogen that would bubble up as the pressure dropped.) Later, he had a rocket sled built on a track in southern New Mexico and fired himself across the desert at up to six hundred miles per hour. By December of 1954, Craig Ryan writes in his 1995 book "The Pre-Astronauts," Stapp had broken his ribs and wrists, suffered concussions, hernias, retinal hemorrhages, and "searing headaches that lingered for days." His final sled run subjected his body to forty-six times the force of gravity and left him temporarily blind. But he survived.

The Porcupine-Lay

I first learned about Patrick O'Brian through David Mamet, of all people. He claimed--I think it was in an interview--that the best novelists then writing (this was 15 years ago) weren't the so-called "literary" ones (Auster, DeLillo, Roth, etc): they were genre writers. As examples he listed John LeCarre and Patrick O'Brian. I read LeCarre almost immediately. (He's excellent, by the way). O'Brian, for some reason, I put off. Maybe I wasn't ready for twenty straight 300-page novels. I think I knew that once I started, I wouldn't stop. It was a big commitment.

Five years ago, I finally picked up Master and Commander, the first book in the series. I read it, then I read the series. A year later, I read the series again. In the process, I bought eight of the novels. Perhaps unfortunately, they now reside six inches from my reading chair. The result is that I reread them over and over--generally to the neglect of whatever book (usually 'literary') I'm supposed to be reading. At this point, I've probably read each of them at least ten times. I know them better than anything else in my shelves.

I don't have the time or ability to attempt a full-length appreciation of O'Brian. Briefly: he is amazing, and I would encourage you all to read him. As far as it's possible to know what it would be like to live in a different era, O'Brian, I think, knew. (By which I mean: imagined.) To read him is to have, at least in flashes, hints of that same knowledge. He's a writer of phenomenal intellect and great wisdom, of course; but more than that, he is a writer, like Shakespeare, able to depict fully-realized portraits of society on every level. Dukes and princes, admirals and captains, sailors and whores: they're all there. None of them are sentimentalized, and all of them are somehow real.

Big claims, I know, and ones that I can't illustrate in a single passage. Here, though, is one of my (current) favorites. The ship is about to leave port. "Jack" is Jack Aubrey, the captain and one of the book's heroes. The other character, Heaven, is insignificant to the plot:

...and now they had been together long enough, with a good deal of foul weather and some very hard fighting, to have formed a distinct community with a great sense of their ship and a great pride in her.

A somewhat anomalous community however in a ship that looked so very like a man-of-war, for not only did it contain no Marines, no uniformed officers and no midshipmen, but people walked about at ease, even with their hands in their pockets; there was a certain amount of laughter in the forecastle in spite of the parting; and the quartermaster at the con, wiping a tear from his cheek and shaking his grey head, did not scruple to address Jack directly: "I shall never see her like again, sir. The loveliest young woman in Shelmerston."

"A lovely young woman indeed, Heaven," said Jack. "Mrs. Heaven, if I do not mistake?"

"Why, sir, in a manner of speaking: but some might say more on the porcupine-lay, the roving-line, if you understand me."

"There is a good deal to be said for porcupines, Heaven: Solomon had a thousand, and Solomon knew what o'clock it was, I believe. You will certainly see her again."