Writing

My break from unhealthy amounts of poker has officially ended.

I've been testing the waters for over a month now, never really playing consistently. Over the past few days I've decided to take advantage of the jaw-dropping, horrendus regulars playing heads up on the Cake Poker Network. Never in my life have I seen such consistently terrible play. Come join in on the fun.

One of the players that I model my style of play after overdosed on antidepressants. He wasn't famous or filthy rich and no one's ever heard of him. I never met him, just watched his digital avatar collect more money than most.

Writing about almost anything causes me to reflect and realize certain characteristics of my own in such a raw and honest way. I'm able to understand myself on such a scary and limitless level. I find it therapeutic, but it certainly doesn't make me any happier. I've been working on a short story about my relationship with a man that I met during my time spent in underground poker clubs. The idea of reading to my new writing group has had it's ups and downs. Probably not going through with it.

My worst quality is my ability to hide and bury my true feelings so deep that my facade becomes a part of me.

Yankee

While drinking at Vesuvio's, a Columbus Street bar once frequented by the likes of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, I met a friend by the name of Yankee. Luckily, his name is in no way related to the baseball franchise, therefore allowing us to become homies.

As we drank whiskey and wrote haikus about the events happening around us, my train of thought was suddenly shattered by a knocking on the window. Yankee, someone I believe to be either homeless or doing a fantastic job at creating the false image that he's homeless, knocks consistently until he has my undivided attention. He holds up a piece of cardboard. On the piece of cardboard it says, "Will draw your entire group for any donation." In my current enebriated state, I nod approvingly and give him the thumbs-up.


He takes a moment to study our facial features and retreats back to the sidewalk to begin his work. I decide that it would be fitting for me to join him outside and ask him for a quick run-through of his process, in case I ever feel the need to draw group portraits of my own some day. Very little was learned about his technique other than the fact that he really likes the way orange chalk looks on cardboard. And he's right. I never really took the time to think about it, but it ends up looking wonderful. As he touched up the portrait by adding fire-red colors to the lips of the women, he told me that his wife, who lives alone in Louisiana, is pregnant and that he needs as much money as I can possibly string together for him...



After the exchange of twenty dollars for a fantastic piece now sitting atop my living room mantle, Yankee and I are no longer able to control our cheerfulness. We hug and rejoice, as seen above.

Beds

Whenever I sleep on a friend's couch or on a hotel mattress, I revert to thinking about beds that I have normally slept in and how they compare.  I do this as I gradually sink into a relaxing breathing pattern and doze off into an often quirky dreamscape.  Usually involving the ability to jump great distances.  Don't ask me why.  Don't tell me why, either, because I don't believe in those ridiculous dream dictionaries.  

Tonight I'm sleeping on a futon in a spacious three bedroom home located in the northeast section of Portland, Oregon.  This futon reminds me of the way that a dorm-style bed feels like, in my experience.

I recall working long hours in one of Boston's many illegal poker clubs and walking down to South Station after my shift.  There I would catch a bus that would bring me to Manchester, New Hampshire, where my then girlfriend was attending art school.  It would take the duration of Bedhead's "Transaction de Novo" album and few tracks off of Andrew Bird's "Andrew Bird and the Mysterious Production of Eggs" for me to arrive at the Manchester YMCA, where she rented a closet sized dorm room with a surprisingly spotless shared bathroom and a filthy communal kitchen.  I remember the Hello Kitty sheets wrapped around the twin mattress placed snugly in the far right corner of the room.  There were regularly stray art supplies sprinkled across the floor.  Paints, pencils, paper, glitter, charcoal. 

Most days, the room was either uncomfortably cold or absurdly warm.  I didn't mind.  I didn't mind sharing a bed hardly large enough for one person.  I actually enjoyed it more than any other sized bed.  The idea of being tightly wrapped up in the arms and legs of someone you love is a wonderfully safe and unnerving feeling.  Knowing that, for those silent hours, our worlds would remain completely still and safe from any guilty thought or petty argument or room to grow apart was the most selfishly satisfying feeling I have ever experienced.

But, I regret to inform that waking up is inevitable.

I'm in Oregon

Wildly chill.  

Radically rad.  

Rainy.

Tired.

Excerpt

I stepped directly onto the bus. No one was there to kiss me or hug me or simply wave goodbye with a smile, and it was new to me. Regardless of where I was or what I had done, there was always someone there to bid me adieu from the sidelines, whether they were important to me or not. A true sense of loneliness never hit me as suddenly as it did here in this moment. It paralyzed any excitement I had built for the foreseeable future, and rightfully so. Rather than linger around the bus terminal, I quickly hopped onto the bus long before it's departure time in order to shake off the distinctly depressing state of mind that I created from nothing.

I sat in the back of the bus and watched the couples, business acquaintances, friends, and families fill the seats in front of me. Children began to cry as their parents would quietly hush them to sleep. Loud conversations among friends and family soon followed. The aisles were covered in a layer of garbage from patrons past consisting of empty bottles and plastic bags, making crinkling sounds every so often. It was far more comfortable than a sleek, spotless, and silent bus ride, for sure. Those tend to go by a lot more slowly, in my experience. Being fixed on my surroundings so intensely postponed any truly depressing feelings of my own.

The bus departed and the soft rumbling of the interstate pavement tried to lull me to sleep. A bump or pothole would wake me just as I would get perfectly comfortable enough for some much needed rest. Giving up on the idea of a beginning-to-end bus ride of uninterrupted sleep, I decided to write a letter to someone whom I hadn't seen in many years.

"Please excuse the sloppy handwriting to follow. I am currently riding on a bouncy bus heading toward Seattle, Washington, and my hand is being jerked all over the paper. You will be reluctant to hear that I have not developed Terret's Syndrome or any spastic disorder of the like. Just simply cruising down the highway..." It was a letter to a girl from home. She was the first woman that I had ever loved and she still owned a fair portion of my heart, whether she was aware of not I am not sure. I would write to her time and time again, never recieving a response, and I will constantly make up reasons to justify it. "Maybe my letters aren't reaching her. Maybe she moved away. Maybe she's become illiterate." I would think to myself. I still very much enjoyed writing to her because on the off chance that she actually was reading the letters, it made it worth my while.

Runny Nose

Have you ever felt as if your brain had suddenly melted into a liquid form and started to seep out of your eyes, ears, nose and throat but there was nothing you could do about it because as you would plug one hole, the others would leak more quickly and right as you asked a friend for a helping hand in plugging all of your holes, the bottoms of your feet began to crack because of the pressure build up inside you and as you crawled to the nearest hospital you wonder if there will be any brain left by the time you make it and right as you finish that thought the hospital flips the "OPEN FOR BUSINESS!" sign to a "CLOSED! HOPE TO SEE YOU SOON!" sign at the main entrance so you sneak around to the back of the hospital and break a window and right as you carefully step through the broken glass you realize that it was merely a sinus infection?

No?

Me neither.

Even Everything Bagels Have Hearts!

Every major city seems to have a bar with second rate Boston-sports memorabilia (i.e. a signed Wade Boggs jersey, a giant signed photograph of Tim Nearing, a Larry Izzo signed poster, etc.) that New Englander's feel comfortable at and frequently visit. In San Francisco, that bar is called The Connecticut Yankee. I was skeptical of the name at first, too, and almost thought that it was a joke. "Hey let's tell the die hard Red Sox fan to check out The Connecticut Yankee, a Yankee bar filled with their fans armed with their Blackberrys and iPhones, occasionally looking up from their mobile devices to check the score. That will be a funny joke, right?" As it turns out, it actually is a Red Sox bar with a comforting New England feel. If a shot of Maker's Mark were affordable (and I'm usually flexible), I would be a frequent patron. Unfortunately, seven dollars is pushing it, if you ask me.

A friend of mine happens to be a close friend of the owner, Fritz, and we had the chance to talk briefly. He's been in San Francisco since 1980 and is originally from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. I hear a lot of objective opinions on how native New Englander's tend to have a "hard and rough" look, generally speaking. The same with Californians and their California glow. I've never been able to pick up on anything like that, having always lived in Boston. Now that I'm a San Franciscan, it's a lot more noticeable when you're able take a few steps back and view it differently. He had a native New-England-like aura about him and talked about his passion for Phish, The String Cheese Incident, and bands of the like. The rest of the time was spent talking about how he just got back from Tahoe and before that he was camping in Humboldt, and from there he went to Seattle to see a band, and from there he hung out in Portland, and blah blah. The tone in which he talked about his role as "professional traveler/camper/band see-er," it sounded like he thought of it as a chore. "Oh I had to go all the way up to Seattle to see some friend. Sigh. Poor me." Tough life, man.

Part 2 of 52132 tomorrow.

Clean Out of Partially Clever Titles

Last night consisted of, but certainly was not limited to:

• Going to two shows; The Tallest Man on Earth and Mi Ami/Double Dagger.
• Getting into a fist fight in front of a bar called The Knockout Room. Irony. Discuss.
• Not winning the fight, but not losing. Considered a win when all body parts are still fully functioning.
• Telling a girl from Boston that I was from Ireland in order to measure the believability of my new Irish accent/alter ego.
• The consumption of three beef empanadas.
• Breaking into a coffee shop after hours to watch an indie film about Werner Herzog eating his own shoe.
• Realizing that I settled for some p-r-e-t-t-y lame parrot-like friends/other-types-of-relationships-that-aren't-defined-as-friends in Boston.
• Evading the early morning bagel man by laying completely still.

I want to write about this day. Beginning to end. When I wake up from my nap, hopefully I'll attain enough knowledge to depict the reasons for my actions in a clear manner. What I truly mean is this; I hope that I don't rise with the moon accompanied by a brain-splitting hangover.

Wish me luck.

The Most Uneventful Blog Post on Earth

I am eagerly awaiting tonight's show. As long as I've been a San Franciscan, I haven't been able to check out any shows. Tonight, The Tallest Man on Earth, one of my favorite artists at the moment, is playing at The Independent.

I plan to write a review and submit it to an indie webzine that I've been talking back and forth with. Well, I haven't been talking to the actual webzine someone that works for them. We'll see how it goes. For some reason, they seem to be interested in offering me a review column.

Cheers. People love to use the word cheers in San Francisco. Whenever a bartender brings me a drink, which is often, they say, "Cheers!" I like that.

Part 1 of 52132

I once knew a man that I resented for more reasons than I could count on a handful of hands. He was born into piles and piles of money and didn't need to do a thing for it. Opportunities consistently fell onto his lap for many reasons:

1. He was lonely and in dire need of friends for a simple reason. He would frequently alienate acquaintances for an assortment of reasons, usually related to a mixture of his greed, immaturity, and ego. If this disgrace of a human being were remotely intelligent, money would never become an issue for him. That happens when you inherit millions.

2. Typical social environments that young twenty somethings are involved with (college, a job, a group of people with similar interests) did not appeal to him. This would create an artificially strong bond between he and whoever he would relate to on the street or in a casino, etc. Altering his perception of friendship messed with his ability to create healthy relationships.

3. His stubbornness showed through his disorder. He was a compulsive gambler and saw that gambling was something that I went about in a careful and calculated way. With his already warped perception of money, he tried what I made look easy. He considered himself a "professional poker player" without ever making a dollar profit.

Two million dollars later, he is now broke and it can be easily viewed as my doing. Only in part, of course, but my fault to a certain extent. I was a loose acquaintance of his for the better part of two years. Looking back on it, I was completely unconscious of it at the time, but he was a figure in my life for selfish reasons on both ends.

1. I perceived his friendship as a way to advance my then inconsistent financial situation.

2. I put up with his bratty bullshit because of it.

At this time in my life, I was hustling in illegal poker rooms in order to stay afloat financially. At 18, I moved out of the home that I grew up in to escape a family dynamic changing for the worst. Around this time, I was introduced to forms of poker that I picked up on fairly quickly, and steadily made money applying basic gaming theory to the felt (of a poker table). Having little experience in the art of the hustle, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

Being 18 and unable to deal with complex social situations (especially involving those that I loved and continue to love with my entire heart), I jumped into the first apartment that I could find to give myself some space from my tense family. It was in Roxbury, a section of Boston that was the most crime ridden and the most affordable. Granted, I did live in a rapidly gentrifying part of Roxbury, but my guileless actions pointed me toward an intuitive and suboptimal direction.

Living on my own appealed to me. I was out of sight from any authoritative figures and could do whatever my heart desired. Suddenly having to pay for food, laundry, bills, rent and entertainment, the money that I needed to reach on a monthly basis was much higher than I had originally thought.

In the underground poker clubs of Boston, work comes in heavy streaks. I think of it as one of those machines on game shows. You're placed into a transparent box where wind is blowing around a pile of money. In a set amount of time, you grab as much as you physically can. Some weeks, the machine was out of order. Other weeks, there would be so much money blowing around in there that it was impossible to pull out less than two thousand dollars. The inconsistency of the business always left me with this feeling of unease. Knowing that there were people in the city around the same age as me with exorbitant amounts of money left me with a sour taste in my mouth. This feeling was deeply rooted in jealousy, of course, but I wanted to work diligently on hitching my beat up 1990 Ford Taurus to their space craft heading straight for the moon. Not necessarily the moon, maybe Saturn or some other planet. You get the point. I wanted to position myself in a ready stance for success at someone else's expense. I was willing to do whatever it'd take.

To be continued...