Ramblings from a writer, traveler, and insomniac

 
The Final Stretch

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

The routine.

Wake early as possible. If it's dark, that's a good thing. The darker... the better. I hate burning daylight. Since I've been avoiding the distractions of the phone, email, Twitter, TV... I jump into the process right away. No attachments equals less distractions. I usually start reading. For a while, I read a bit of the Phish biography every morning. My brother gave it to me for Christmas. I had to write a review on Coventry at some point, so I was killing a few birds with one stone. Plus, reading about some of my favorite musicians inspired me to get my ass in gear. I moved onto the Rolling Stone Magazine anthology, and then embarked on a daily re-read of a collection of conversations from Woody Allen.

Food is a must. If I'm not feeding myself with cereal or Clif Bars, then I'm walking to the coffeeshop the moment that it opens up. I print up pages that I had written the night before and edit them while I wait for my breakfast clutching a red pen. Cops sit behind me. Sometimes an actress sits nearby with script. I eat as much food as possible. Fuel. I never know when I might eat next.

After the food, I think about what I'm going to write on my walk back to the apartment. Sometimes I stay outside until I have a clear and concise idea. Then it's time to crank up the music. Jazz music. Always in the morning. G-Money was kind enough to give me a portion of his jazz CD collection a while back. I created a G-Money Jazz Mix featuring tracks from John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and Charlie Mingus. I also have a morning SoCal jazz mix that I play from time to time. Not really any California musicians, but stuff I like to listen to when I write in the mornings -- Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk, Sonny Rollins, and Sidney Bechet.

Nicky was kind enough to hide out in the bedroom/her office for the mornings and afternoons which gave me free reign of the apartment. The light is better in the dining room/living room and I prefer to write at the dining room table. Sometimes I start out with a free write. Kinda of like light jogging. Nothing special. Just getting the fingers loose and the mind wandering. Once I'm warmed up it's back to the grind.

We were in heavy editing mode, so I was doing lots of reading and redlining. I compare my edits to the German Butcher and proceed with cleaning up the chapters. Some parts are smooth. Others are still choppy. Instead of pounding out the blemishes, I scrapped entire sections and started from scratch. Re-writes. That's my favorite part of the editing process mainly because it's writing. It's a chore to read and edit and trim. But I'm slowly getting more and more used to that process. It's essential and growing on me. When I'm done with the edits on a chapter, I snatch up my laptop and rush into my office to print up pages. I inspect the printed pages for edits. My eyes catch them better on paper than on the screen. I dunno what that is... it just is. I redline any errors, then return to the laptop to fix them. The process repeats itself until I'm satisfied. Then I can finally move onto the next chapter. Some chapters take hours to edit, other chapters take days.

Then the next thing I know... it's late afternoon. Nicky is having a smoke break and inquiring about dinner. I'm usually too zoned in to think about food. I mutter "Whatever" and she whips up something a couple of hours later. While she's cooking, I migrate to my office for the rest of the evening. Nicky reclaims the living room and the rest of the apartment until she crashes.

I woof down food and shut the door in my office. Time continues to fly and it's 10pm. At that point, I passed the 12 hour mark a few hours earlier. I make the decision to call it a night or keep going. I usually take a break until Midnight and see what my body and mind is telling me. If I'm feeling up for it, I return to the grind. If not, I play a little online poker, listen to music, or read. Sometimes I still want to write -- but not the book -- so I open up a blank Word document and write about whatever has been waiting to come out. Otherwise, I try to sleep for a few hours and wake up in the darkness to repeat the process.

These sessions are long. Double digit hours. Intense. Focused. I haven't worked like this in a very long time. I finally unplugged and was able to walk away from the rest of the world and retreat into the words. The pages. No distractions. It's so twisted that I control the ability to connect and unconnect from the virtual world, yet spend most of my time unable to connect. Addictions. I have lots of them, and that's one of them. It took me a couple of days to overcome that fear of missing out on something and become more intoxicated in floating around in my own universe.

My lifeforce is like a sponge and I soak up whatever is around me. It's hard to block it all out the negativity. That's why I had to shut down completely. No cell phone. No email. No Twitter. No TV. No internet (except for research). That was the only way I knew how to control what filter into my senses. Everything on the TV is trying to brainwash me into buying something I don't need or think a certain way because that's what the powers to be want... mindless consumer sheep. It's a chore to create when all of that propaganda is floating around. That's why I have to block it all out.

Any down time is spent listening to music, thinking, and looking at certain photos to trigger dormant memories. Sometimes that works. I enjoy that exercise trying to use photos or music to conjure up memories, then using words to re-create them. I enjoyed having the time to think freely about the subject matter in front of me at that given time instead of constantly worrying about other petty matters that would rile me up on a daily basis.

I've been haunted and paralyzed by this project for almost five years and it's so close to getting done. There hasn't been a day when I did NOT think about it in some capacity. Some days, that's all I thought about and pulled out what little hair I had left on my head. I struggled on how to tell the story, and when I finally got the story out, there was too much of it and I had to spend the last six months lopping off days, months, weeks, years of previous work. Painful.

I vowed that I would never take more than a year on any more future projects. Life is way too short. I can't get myself bogged down in losing another half of a decade of my life trying to complete one piece of work. I have six new ideas/concepts and would love to get all of those out before 2020... that is if I/we/the world is still around by that time.
posted by Pauly at 2/09/2010 04:40:00 AM | Permalink |

 
Reclusive Coke Fiends, Manhattan, and Cherry Pie

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

Whenever I'm holed up during a writing binge, I spend a significant amount of time reading. Although I read every day, I have been limiting myself to a diet of high quality copy. None of that propaganda, hype, sports pages, gossip rags, and fodder in blog form. I dabble and read pages and chapters from selected material from authors I admire. It's a stark reminder, when I read their sentences aloud, that I might be able to fool the masses in poker but I need a full out assault if I expect to come close to the masters of the universe. I know that I have moments... and flashes... but I lack the consistency to be that precise and flawless with every page that I write. Maybe that's why it's taken me five years and why I finally said enough is enough. Now or never.

You are what you eat. You are what your mind reads and sees.

Some of the fun stuff I came across were classic essays in Rolling Stone from a book that Benjo gave me. Compelling journalism via articles and photographs from the 60s through the mid-80s. Couple of gems from Tom Wolfe, P.J. O' Rourke, and of course Hunter. I loved the article about Sly and the Family Stone. Crazy shit. Reclusive coke fiends.

I knocked out reading one book during on an off day. I wish I cold write books as fast as I can read them. I got the Adderall Diaries by Stephen Elliot as a gift from my friend Molly. Elliot is sort of a mix between the two Chucks... Chuck Palahniuk and Chuck Klosterman.

Bathroom books are essential. Woody Allen has been filling the void every morning when I take a dump. Conversations with Woody Allen is a book based on a series of interviews he had given to Eric Lax over the years. Woody discusses his process in detail... from directing, to casting, to writing, to producing. Fascinating behind the scenes stories about some of my favorite films. I'm always interested in how other writers approach their craft and intricately create something out of thin air. Nothing to something. Woody says he stares off and thinks for hours on end before he even sits down to write.

I wish I had those time luxuries. Sit. Think. Do nothing. Think. I go stale sometimes because I'm so busy with life, jobs, and working for others that I rarely take the time to think for hours and hours on end. I guess that's why I like long distance driving on freeways and highways because I can zone out and let my mind wander to figure out solutions to all those haunting problems. The real reason why crying babies on planes piss me off is that I prefer to use my time on airplanes to think and relax. I'm not connected to the interwebs or a slave to my phone for those hours in the air and I want to use that time to let the mind amble, wander, get lost, and find itself. I want the time to think and not have a crying baby disrupt that process.

I watched Manhattan. Woody shot the film in black and white, which reminded me of the Gotham of my youth. Ironic that Woody's protagonist in Manhattan is a writer who can't finish his book. He made a Percodan and angel dust joke. Even thirty years ago, people were popping pills and wandering around in a pharmie daze. These days Percodan is not as popular as Percosett. The last time I did Percodan was overseas when I scored it at an ER in Australia when I dislocated my pinky finger when it got into a collision with the taxi door in Sydney. How this for health care in OZ? They treated me for free. The doctor even showed me how to properly pop my finger back in so I'd save future trips to the ER. Heh. It's popped out a few times since then (once in Costa Rica and Miami) and I managed to pop that fucker back into place. Hurts like you wouldn't believe, but self-surgery is much cheaper.

My new guilty pleasure is eating Hostess cherry pies. 1,800 calories of pure sugar. Who needs speed when you have those fuckers drenched in sugar and cherries soaked in high fructose corn syrup for 12 months before stuffed into a sugar-infused apple crust dipped in glaze topping? Silk. Heaven. I got pissed when 7/11 around the corner ran out of them last week. I think the ones I had been consuming were from 2002. Who cares. I'm still buzzed after eating one yesterday. Haven't slept. Oh, the mighty sugar rush.

I prefer to sit and write at the dining room table with the window to the alley illuminating my work space. I see the different alley people come and go at all hours. I hear all. The sounds. The birds. The dogs barking. Children playing. Bums rattling through the dumpsters. The guy across the way laying pipe as he bangs his maid in the pool house adjacent to our alley. Most of the time, the barking dogs go nuts when they smell homeless guys sifting through the trash. The worst are the dogs who bark and whine when their owners go to work. Sure, guess who gets stuck listening to their barrage of howls? It sucks. One of the bad benefits of working from home.

I miss the singing actress in the building next door. Her angelic voice. She used to belt out songs from the shower or during random voice rehearsals. I guess we don't hear her because she's taken on more shifts at the restaurant or sleeping with some dude who has a cooler apartment.

I took out a week's worth of empty seltzer bottles, a bonanza for the lucky fucker who stumbled across the booty. The guys upstairs donated three full boxes of Bud Light cans. That's just a daily tally. In this town you're either working or not-working. When you don't have an assignment, you do things to fill your times. The guys upstairs are in the entertainment industry. Camera man. Graphics stuff. When they don't have work, they sit around, drink cans of cheap beer, and play videos games until 5am. The bums love the guys upstairs and their empty beer cans.

One morning, I was astonished at a pissed off homeless guy who slammed down the bins. What the fuck? Almost all of the dumpster divers try to be as quiet as possible during their alley missions. If they wake up anyone in the building, then they know that someone will call the cops and they'll get hauled off. But this asshole was pissed because he found nothing. I'm sure we were the tenth unit on the block that had nothing. And why? Because he was not an early bird, and early birds get the worms and all the good pieces of returnable bottles and cans. That late adopter showed up fifth or sixth on the long list of dumpster divers who sorted through our trash and recycling bins. In this shitty economy, you can't afford to be late.

Outside of the coffeeshop, my only external human interaction has been the clerks at 7/11 and Jack in the Box. The plight at Jack in the Box is a daily reminder of the decline in the overall human condition. I would never dare eating the e coli tacos, but I dig their iced tea. BIG ASS ICED TEA. I crave it. The nectar of my soul. One big ass container of that tea is all I need along with the sugar rush from the Hostess Cherry Pie is enough to keep me up for 25 hours. Shit that rush of sugar is enough to jolt the most depressed Kierkegaard disciples in Scandinavia.
posted by Pauly at 2/07/2010 08:30:00 AM | Permalink |

 
February Truckin'

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

The next issue of the least-read literary blogzine on the internet has been published. Despite the tardiness of Truckin' over the last two months, we're back on schedule this month. And yes, this issue marks the return of Tenzin McGrupp. Remember that hack?

February 2010, Vol. 9, Issue 2

1. Lymie Malibu by Paul McGuire
She was too whacked out to remember any lines and flubbed more and more auditions that we were both surprised when her commercial agent keeps sending her out. Kaya was the quintessential cocaine tragedy, yet somehow, she kept getting callbacks... More

2. From Beatniks to Hippies. The Early Sixties. A Memoir. by Johnny Hughes
There was a tremendous amount of hustling other folk's dates, and it would rage all night. Eddie drank this syrupy Richard's Wild Irish wine. Yuck. The linoleum floor in his kitchen looked like a crime scene from the wine stains... More

3. Fangs by Milton T. Burton
Halfway through her second glass of wine, he was there beside her, a small snifter of brandy in his hand. Startled, she blurted out the first thing that popped into her mind. "You can drink?"... More

4. Thinking Out Loud by Michael Friedman
Eventually my need to ask eternal questions led me to the conclusion that the only way to get out of purgatory was to flow with life instead of trying to isolate my many momentary lapses of reason on a regular basis... More

5. China Rider by Tenzin McGrupp
I told my nephew that his teachers and parents were lying to him and trying to turn him into a soulless zombie. He believes me. He's a good kid. He knows what's up. He knows the system is full of shit... More

Thanks for your support. Shoot me a line if you're interested in contributing something to a future issue.
posted by Pauly at 2/06/2010 12:17:00 PM | Permalink |

 
Walrus on Rye

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA


I read an interview that John Lennon did with Rolling Stone in 1971. Jann Wenner (the luminous editor who was rumored to have canceled Hunter Thompson's travel insurance when he went to Vietnam to cover the war) asked Lennon in depth questions about his LSD usage. Lennon revealed a funny, yet chilling story about his first acid trip. Apparently, his dentist of all people dosed him an a few other Beatles at a dinner party, when he slipped it in their tea. The dentist was a renown London swinger, so Lennon was initially freaked out because he had never done acid before and was worried that the dentist was luring him and his wife into a bizarre orgy against their will.

Somehow, Lennon got everyone at the party to leave the apartment (thereby avoiding an unwanted potential ass pounding) and they hit up a few clubs and bars in London with their minds fried to the tits. Lennon mentioned being so crocked that they were laughing their asses off in the middle of the street, which reminded me of my first experimentation with similar substances.

Laughing. Uncontrollably. At the stupidest shit.

That's my favorite part of psychedelics... the re-entry from the other side into the normal atmosphere. You have a semblance of sobriety while you withstand the last remnants of the mind-bending effects as it hits you in cycles. One second you're fine, having an astute conversation about the influences of jazz music on the beat generation of poets -- and then BLAM! You're pudding and can't stop laughing at the back of your hand.

Lennon had a lot to say about his acid days. Once, he and his crew were tripping balls inside a lift and they thought it was on fire. Lennon also admitted to having a couple of bad trips (out of the thousand times he dropped acid). Down the rabbit hole. Crazy shit that acid. Even Lennon got dragged into the darkness by the powerful nature of the drug.

Lennon also admitted that during the Hamburg club days early on in his career, he and the boys were popping pills and boozing. Hard. Speed freaks. Hard Day's Night. And they've been working like a dog. They needed pills to stay up and play for hours on end. They favored pharmaceutical enhancements. Prellies. I think the hip cats in the day called those pep pills Prellies. The actual drug is Preludin and of course it was an amphetamine created by (no shocker here) the Germans, who marketed the drug as a diet pill. Heh. I love picturing the early Beatles in their nice suits and those mop flop haircuts all jacked up on high-grade German speed playing old blues songs. Supposedly, Paul was a pussy and only took low dosages. Lennon? He's a fuckin' monster and would boldly eat four or five times what Paul popped.

After they band was introduced to marijuana by Bob Dylan in his hotel room in 1964, they stopped the boozing and smoked heavy. Potheads. Speed freaks. Acid junkies. Of course, I had no idea about this when I was a little kid. I heard tons of Beatles songs, but was clueless to the chemicals they ingested. I Wanna Hold Your Hand takes on a whole new meaning.

I was eight when Lennon was killed 150 or so blocks south of where I grew up. I remember it being a big fuckin' deal at the time. The news was splashed all over the papers. We had only four or five TV stations at the time and all the local newscasts were shooting live from in front of the Dakota where Lennon lived with Yoko and their son. When there was no more room on 72nd street for production vehicles, news crews had to shoot in Central Park where Beatles fans from all over the world converged on (what is now Strawberry Fields) and held candle lit vigils and sang their favorite Beatles tunes. I would show up at the same area the day that Jerry Garcia died about 15 years later. Deadheads in mourning, just like Beatles fans.

Lennon has been on my mind a lot this past week because that's what I immediately thought when I heard the news about the death of J.D. Salinger. Heck, I wasn't even going to write anything on the blogs until I finish Lost Vegas, but I felt compelled to open up a blank page and start writing about Lennon and Salinger. A copy of A Catcher in the Rye was found in the possession of Mark David Chapman when NY city cops picked him up after murdering Lennon with hollow point bullets in front of the Dakota. Chapman signed the book "This is my statement.... Holden Caufield."

I wonder what sort of misery Salinger had to live with knowing that a misinterpretation of his work killed one of the most influential musicians of all time? Who knows what sort of music Lennon would have made if he didn't die. Would he continue to make noise disguised as art with Yoko? Would Lennon hook up with other great musicians and form an All Star Band? Would the Beatles have ever come back? Would Lennon and only George play a bunch of shows as a duet? Would Lennon become a cliche, get hooked on junk, and end up another rock and roll suicide? Or maybe Lennon would have turned to politics full time and spoken out about the numerous injustices in the world over the last three decades?

Some of those tin-foil-hat-wearing-freaks think that Lennon was whacked because he was going to speak out about America's stockpiling of nuclear weapons. Don't forget that in 1980, we were under the Ronald Reagan Regime with W's poppa as the second-in-command. By the way, let's call a spade a spade - Reagan was the puppet with perfect hair and Bush's cronies at the CIA were the ones really pulling the strings. So in 1980, America is at the height of the Cold War with the Ruskies. Lennon was against the build up of weapons on both sides. The establishment feared his powerful voice. He would rally the hippies and America's disaffected youth who spent the majority of the 1970s stoned to the gourd. The suits, bankers, and politicians didn't want another counter-revolution on their hands so they cut off the dragon's head... using a schizo-patsy carrying around a copy of A Catcher in the Rye.

It's not Salinger's fault Lennon died, or that the guy who tried to shoot Reagan was also a fan of the book (although the real reason he wanted to shoot the Gipper was to impress Jodie Foster - but we all know it was party of the plan to get rid of the puppet). Well, depending on who you talk to, Salinger's book plays a tremendous role in triggering some sort of mind control. Those conspiracy freakazoids believe that Salinger was an active CIA agent (he was a former intelligence officer in the OSS - a precursor to the CIA) and wrote A Catcher in the Rye as a way to profile potential government assassins. Who knows. It was a great fuckin' book. Rich characters. Complex themes. Simple story.

But that's a tremendous weight to hold on your shoulders... knowing that some piece of art you created was indirectly involved in the death of another human. No wonder Salinger went into hiding in his small New Hampshire town. He didn't want to talk to reporters or share his words. Who knows, he could have had an anonymous blog somewhere on the intertubes and been writing for years and no one would have known.

I read A Catcher in the Rye when I was in 6th grade. Holden Caufield, the anti-hero, became my hero. I spent most of my teenage years identifying the phonies and knew that the entire system was rigged. I read the book again in college while we were tripping. A bunch of us did that knowing that the book was used as means of mind control from the government. I dunno if we were being wise asses or flirting with disaster or trying to find out which one of us were a sleeper cell. It seemed like the craziest thing we could do at the time -- walking the razor's edge.

I for one hope that there's a manuscript somewhere, the last words of J.D. Salinger, that is currently being fondled by a publisher. Salinger never wanted to share his words again with an audience. But maybe that he's no longer with us, he will throw everyone a literary bone.

But any real writer will tell you that the best words they wrote were the ones they never showed a soul. It's the words that you write for yourself that are the most powerful.
posted by Pauly at 2/01/2010 12:15:00 PM | Permalink |

 
The Return of the Sun King, Porn Star in Pink Pajamas, and Stoned Grits

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

After a week of dark dismal skies, the usual Southern California sun returned as the denizens of SoCal rejoiced at the Sun King. God? Obama? CAA? None of those are worshiped more than the solar star at the center of our universe.

As much as part of me welcomed the warmth of that shiny object in the sky, another part of me was sad to see it re-appear. I miss the pitter-pater and hypnotic sound pounding the pavement putting me in a better mood to write. OK, there's no scientific proof. Who knows, but I think it gives me an extra boost in confidence.

When I first moved to Seattle, it wasn't until the rainy season began before I hunkered down and began to write. The reason my buddy Singer and I started writing a screenplay together in the first place was partly to keep our sanity during the winter months.

But the rain is gone and I ripped through the first section of Lost Vegas -- which was one son-of-a-bitch. Four work assignments landed on my desk last week including a deadline of only ten days (instead of three weeks) for a magazine piece. Well, shit. Not the best timing considering I was deep into the Lost Vegas edits and re-write and had finally found a groove. But I guess that's par for the course... throughout the entire process of writing the book I was peppered by freelance work which interrupted the flow.

I originally wanted to play poker down at Commerce Casino on Friday, but I took two days off (Thursday and Friday) to brainstorm about the assignments. I banged out three by noon Friday and completed roughly 90% of the last article. I can now focus on Lost Vegas for the next two weeks.

The German Butcher is pleased with the recent round of edits. We're finally flushing out all of the shit and I finally have something remotely resembling a book, yeah it is beginning to get whipped into mousse. It looks like chocolate, but still tastes like shit.

* * * * *
Nicky and I watched Conan every night last week. I ignored him before all this mess, so I was one of the people who attributed to his 50% boost in ratings. I don't feel too bad about Conan's gajillion dollar severance pay and still think Leno is a putz, but in the end, this was not a battle of Leno vs. Conan as the media machine led you to believe. Nope. This is just another skirmish in the good-old fashioned war of the have vs. the have nots.

Commerce vs. Art.

Suits vs. Talent.

Egotistical suits made poor decisions blinded by greed and failed to allow creative people to make art through comedy. They ruined one of the rare and lifelong institutions in entertainment. They tarnished the careers of two hard-working individuals (who scarified many of their our morals to grease the massive gears of the Hollywood machine). In the end, the jagoffs at NBC are paying out more money and look like total jackasses. I think Kevin Smith's character "Jay" said that the best... "Fuck fuckin' Hollywood, man."

* * * * *
The plight gathers at Jack in the Box. I should take black and white photos of the characters I come across at that fast food den of local insanity for a photo essay. During the halftime of the Jets game, I ran over to grab a Big Ass iced tea. I have a scam where I chug about half on the spot and then top off my drink. I like sipping tea throughout the day when I write, or in that case, to keep me sane while I sweat the football games.

Sunday afternoon. Jack in the Box. Family of six chowed down and crowded into one booth with a two year old pantsless kid Just a hoody and diapers. No sneakers. Looked like they were kicked off. Saw one solo sneaker on the floor. The kid ran around in purplish socks with little fish or dolphins designs on them.

An old guy in a Nike hat caused a ruckus in line and argued with the kid behind the counter, who was 15 or 16 at rhe most and wore a hairnet. I hope kid had got stoned behind the dumpster on his break because the old guy was demanding that "those illegals in the back" grill the onions "just like they do at In-N-Out Burger." The kid and the old man bickered back and forth until the manager stepped in and took over.

I stood behind a woman in pink pajama pants tucked into a pair of Uggs. She had porn-star looks (fake melons, orange-spray tan, collapsed nostril) and wore a black puffy jacket. She just rolled out of bed and I wonder how many bumps she took before she finally drove over to Jack in the Box for her breakfast biscuit? I watched her walk back outside and slip into her silver Mercedes.


On Sunday morning, the growling in my stomach woke me up. After a quick writing session, I walked into the kitchen about to make my own breakfast when I realized that it was Sunday and I always eat breakfast at the coffeeshop on Sunday so didn't want to jinx the Jets.... not that I'm superstitious at all.

I marveled at the lovely morning. Not a hint of smog or pollution in the air. Brisk. Crisp. Breathable. I could easily see the Hollywood Hills and Nakatomi Plaza from my walk. On the worst of smog days, both landmarks are barely visible underneath a thick veil of carbon emissions and other gunk that got trapped hovering over the city of Angels.

I sat down at the counter, because there is never any space in the booths or tables on the weekends. Sunday is the busiest day at the coffeeshop; hung over hipsters, the pre & post church crowd, all of the fathers who take their kids to eat out so mommy can catch a few extra winks, and everyone else in the neighborhood. I sat at the end of the counter by three empty seats. Two Beverly Hills cops quickly took the other two seats. When I saw a woman walk to the bathroom wearing a Brett Favre NY Jets jersey, one of the cops and I made a crack (and at the same time), "Wrong jersey today."

I spent the next few minutes chatting with the cops about the Jets chances. One of them was a USC fan and of course was pulling for the golden boy Mark Sanchez. I don't think the cops knew I was stoned to the bejesus. Then again, Beverly Hills cops could care less. The highest paid officers in the country spend most of their time responding to hysterical calls from racist rich people who drop a dime every time they see a person of color walking down the street.

Sun brightly shining. Talking about football with cops. Stoned to the tits. Eating grits. It must be a Sunday in LA.
posted by Pauly at 1/25/2010 02:22:00 AM | Permalink |

 
Fireman Ed Says...

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

J-E-T-S... Jets! Jets! Jets!


The Jets are just one win away from the Super Bowl. That cracker Peyton Manning and company are standing in the way. They want to avenge their only loss of the season. The goombas in Vegas think the Jets are going to lose by more than a touchdown.

One thing is for sure.... in a couple of hours, my football season will come to a close... or... I'll be on JetBlue's website booking a flight back to NYC so I can watch the Super Bowl with my brother.

Time to start nervously pacing...
posted by Pauly at 1/24/2010 11:52:00 AM | Permalink |

 
Leno v. Conan

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

The gang at Current make me laugh.


posted by Pauly at 1/23/2010 03:38:00 AM | Permalink |

 
Karmic Refunds

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

The Seattle-like rain that swept through SoCal the last week has been affecting my brain. Positively. I'm writing better, well at least the words are flowing. The usual non-stop sunshine previously warped my brain and sometimes I struggled with trying to play the notes inside my head. But the rain makes me focus.

That explains why everyone in L.A. is a dumb as shit. Too much sun.

The rain comes and goes, but mostly comes. I'm waiting for the frogs to start falling from the sky. When the rain momentarily stops, little bits of sunshine poke through the light grey sky. I sneak outside to run errands and apparently so does everyone in the neighborhood with a dog. I rarely see people wandering around the streets of the slums of Beverly Hills... but as soon as the downpour stops and the rain pauses, people sneak outside to let their dogs urinate, before the skies open up again and everyone scurries inside to watch TMZ and the Jersey Shore.

I had to make a run to 7/11 and waited and waited for a break in the rain. I also needed to stretch my legs and clear my mind with a column (well, three actually) coming up. I don't have much in the way of ideas or topics so I needed to brainstorm. Walking helps. Rattles the brain I didn't get much as far as inspiration, but I saw lots of puddles and people walking their dogs.

The guy behind the counter at 7/11 gave me the wrong change... in my favor. So fuckin' rare. My stuff (club soda and stoner food like Sun Chips and a Hostess cherry pie) cost $7.02. I handed him a $10 and scooped two pennies out of the cup. I unintentionally said "Here's $20.02." I wasn't angle shooting but should try that again in the future because it fooled him.

He automatically assumed it was a $20 bill without looking. He handed me back a ten and three ones. I didn't notice it at first. I shoved the bills into my pocket and rushed out the store. It wasn't until I got home and realized that I finally came out on the good end of a fuck up. Usually it's the other way around.

I can't tell if that's a karmic refund or something bad is around the corner?


* * * * *
I was waiting for a phone call with good news. Actually, it never happened. News is currently in purgatory. So, now I'm sitting here, waiting for my man. Dunno what will happen. Might have to walk the line with a lot less fire power.

Parts of the wall are smooth, other rough, lots of chiseled plaster. Looks like someone got bored and carved different symbols, words, markings at random intervals. The head popped up through the toilet bowl. Had no idea if it crawled through the pipes or fell in backwards. The eyes were not where they should have been. Instead, rearranged like a Picasso painting of one of his former lovers. Disjointed and fragmented eyes. That's the subtle way of telling you that the world is never what you see and sometimes if you peer through shifted eyes, you might see it the way it was meant to be... whatever that is.

Jesus extends his hand from the ceiling with a choir of archangels tooting their horns. You can't really tel it's Jesus because just his arm is extended from the heavens through the roof of the cell. The time off was the empty hole in his hand. Not a bloody stigmata, just a hole about the size of a silver dollar.

The Devil did not want to be out done and sprung up from the ground flipping off the stuck up crew from heaven. He was slogging it out with all of the masses while Jesus and the angels were kickin' it in heaven watching movies on Jesus' new BluRay and eating deep fried Fig Newtons dipped in chocolate and wrapped in bacon sprinkled with cheese and Marachino cherries.

Oh, and they apparently have good coffee in heaven. None of that Starbucks shit. Heaven is anti-corporate. Self-serve coffee. The never ending cup. Ice cream is not free. You have to pay extra.

* * * * *
Lots of jazz playing non-stop when I'm writing (Monk and Coltrane, Miles, Sonny Rollins, et al). A little live Velvet Underground and Bob Dylan (with and without The Band) in spurts and when sitting around playing a bit of poker. I've been good and avoiding the boob tune and sports this week, and holding off for the Jets on Sunday. TV rots the brain. Just like the California sun. Maybe I'm beginning to see the light?

A few nights ago... I woke up in the middle of the night screaming because of a Charlie Horse. That fucker hurt, like someone stabbing you, the metal piercing your flesh. I was in agony for about thirty-seven seconds until I was able to attempt to walk it off. Seems as though I was dehydrated but that fucker still hurts. I wonder if horses can have charlie horses?
posted by Pauly at 1/22/2010 08:12:00 AM | Permalink |

 
Arks, Arcs, and Noah's Sunspot Dome

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

Noah continued to build his ark three doors down.

The Kabbalahists around the corner thought Noah was crazy, but he didn't need their approval. He knew it was coming, so he continued to follow what he knew. The storm was coming. He had to prepare and gathered all the necessary supplies, and more importantly, a cache of weapons to ward off looters, loosely formed criminal gangs, roving cannibals and rapists, and other miscreants who happen to survive the Big One.

Noah was building his ark not because of the recent rain that dumped on Southern California... rather he built the ark for when the earthquake of all earthquakes wipes out all of humanity in California. If he survives (and whatever family members and pets do as well), he'll need his ark because he expects most of the city and Southern California to collapse into the ocean forming several tiny islands. The new California Islands, one of which, he hopes to safely dock and claim as his own.

Noah always wanted his own secluded island.

Next up will be the dome. Over his house. To help deflect the sunspots. Those are coming too, probably sooner than the big quakes.

"And when the sunspots do," he said, "you don't want to be on a cellphone. Your brain will fry. That's why the aliens stay underground. The sun. It's too powerful. They used to look like us, but they had some sort of gene defect that made their skin shrivel up like a raisin. That's why the aliens are grey."

He wondered if I thought he was crazy. I told him, mostly no. Noah is a visionary. His view of the world is bleak. Probably has his own 2012 channel on YouTube. I don't mean to judge people, but some folks have wandered too far off the reservation, while others are firmly planted -- yet can't see or comprehend anything outside of three mile radius of their home.

Noah is a crackpot. Or genius. Depends on who you talk to, on how you view the world. Noah is my most prepared neighbor on the block, or the "crazy guy" that we tell stories about to KTLA reporters.

You just never know. About anything. If I could accurately predict the future, I would make substantially more money as a sports gambler and securities/commodities trader.

* * * * *
The writing sessions this week have been long. 12 hours. 13 hours. 10 hours. Stamina is strong. My concentration is better. My editing skills are sharper. I'm locked in. Focused. Blocking out all the chatter and distractions. Zoned in on the task. Fine tuning the bigger picture.

I'm more aware of my most common errors and those have been jumping right off the pages. Over the last two days I re-wrote a chapter entirely. It seems as though I'm cutting more and more poker scenes that slow the pacing down.

Less is more, right?

I used to hear stories about writers or painters or musicians who supposedly work three, five, eight, ten years on a single piece of art... a film, a painting, an album, a novel, a screenplay, whatever. I always thought how absurd it was that someone would be toiling on one thing for so long. They would go crazy. Want to die. Get addicted to something. Pills. God. Taco Bell.

And then... it happened to me.

Jesus, I'm hoping to finally publish Lost Vegas a few months shy of five years from the day when I was first approached to write a book about my experiences in Las Vegas. Half of a decade. I've been chasing a fucking ghost. Five years? One of my buddies is on his third of three wives in that he met in the same time span. He had three weddings and two divorces. And I can't finish this fucking book.

As the original story goes, one publishers expressed interest and I cranked out a quick 75,000 words... the original draft... but that book deal fell through and thank God. I was not ready. The material wasn't ready. I had yet to get a firm grasp on Las Vegas and needed more time. The draft sat idle. Life intervened. It was more lucrative to write on Tao of Poker and for other people. Books are becoming extinct like dinosaurs and New Wave bands.

No one reads anyway. What's the point? The hippies will only get pissed because I'm killing trees buy printing actual books with pages filled with endless off-color remarks about homosexuals, Jews, and retards. The zealots on the right will scorn me for denouncing organized religion and glorifying internet gaming, illicit drug use, and sexual deviancy.

I can't win.

Thank God for the French. They're the only ones bold enough to offer me a book deal. And that was before the book was done... in English. They haven't even read it in English yet, let alone the French translation. That's faith. I couldn't be more inspired. It's a sincere honor because Europeans actually read books. Real books too. None of this teenage vampires or Oprah book of the month shit. Real books.

Over the last few years, I always seemed to burn out around the same time every year. I get in one of those "fuck the world" modes when I feel the urge to just lock myself in a room and creative something. On all but one occasion, I tinkered with the Las Vegas book. I kept re-writing the beginning parts. As years passed, I had more material to draw upon and it seemed as though at every pass I spent 50% of my time toiling on the original section and the other half of the time penning new material.

I had stories. Plenty of them. What I never had was an ending. Life ends when you die. Everything else is just continues. Without some sort of conclusion or story arc, I really didn't have anything concrete. But then a couple of things happened in the last part of 2008. I mustered up the courage to move forward with the book and hoping that I'd figure out the end as I went along. But then I got a bit of luck, on a drive leaving Las Vegas and heading towards LA of all places... I found an ending. Right around the state line of Nevada and California. A symbol. An epiphany. The elusive ending fused together in my head.

Now all I had to do was write the story.

And I did. But I had too much material but unable to cut. I invested too much, energy and money into that monster manuscript. I was that character from Wonder Boys. I set out to write a 200 page book and ended up with 2,000 pages. OK, maybe not that much, but a good 1,000 pages.

I essentially became one of those head cases on the show Hoarders. Instead of packing my house with garbage, empty boxes, and stuffed giraffes... I was cluttering my manuscript with unnecessary shit. Like those old ladies who can't bare to throw away a stainless steel soup ladle, I found it difficult trying to slash words, sentences, paragraphs, sections, chapters. Thousands of words needed to go. More than I ever imagined.

That was a good thing. It's easier to edit down then fall short of the mark and not have enough. The hard thing was that I had no idea what to cut. Everything seemed important to me. That's when the German Butcher stepped in and whacked it up and pointed out areas where I needed to rewrite and other spots where I needed to expand.

I guess that's the golden rule of show business... leave the audience with them wanting more.

As I'm writing this, it makes me want to go back and cut even more. Shit, I might just do that. The German Butcher would love that. And since we're self-publishing that's a few cents per book that we save on printing fees.

Less is more. Time to channel my inner Hemingway. I'd love to eat a fistful of Adderall and finish this book by the end of the month. Sounds like a lovely idea.

By the way, you can follow Lost Vegas on Twitter. It's @LostVegasBook.
posted by Pauly at 1/21/2010 06:38:00 AM | Permalink |

 
Blue Green

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

First it was dark blue, then light blue, then green. Now it's completely faded.

Sounds like one of Daddy's bowel movements and/or masturbation sessions.

I'm talking about my printer ink. I have one of those cheap Lexmark printers, which I purchased specifically before I started the recent incarnation of Lost Vegas (late 2008). I know that once the book is done, I can finally buy a new printer because the shelf life on those plastic fuckers made in China by 4-year olds, is like 5,000 printed pages, maybe even less. God knows I'm coming close to that mark with the latest batch of re-writes. Cranking them out. I edit better on paper than on the screen. My eyes hurt too after 10-12-14 hour sessions.

The printer prints in color and black. Wow. I love technology. I was operating on the original color cartridge, mainly because I don't use the printer to print anything except what I'm editing. The black ink? Shit, I must have gone through $400-500 worth in the last 18 months. Maybe more. My aunt gave me a Staples gift card for Christmas last year and I used up the bulk of that gift on cheap copy machine paper and printer ink.

That's one of my biggest expenses. Printer ink.

My drug of choice is writing. The fuckers know this. I read somewhere that mentioned printer ink was more expenses per milliliter than oil. Bastards. Fuckin' racket. Damn printer ink cartels. I should find some Jihadists who want to blow up the great Alaskan Ink Pipeline. Then again, that's the sort of disruption that will drive prices up. Then all of a sudden printer ink will be $125 a pop.

Wish I was in on this price fixing scam. I always want to be betting (or working on) the right side of the fix.

And don't pester me with those lame products and ink re-fillers that you see British people with bad Botox jobs hawking on infomercials at 3am. Look, ink is not like buying gas. I have to get a specific ink with a special number. So when I ran out of black ink on Friday, I got irked. It started to fade on Thursday but I pushed it as far as I could hoping to last the entire weekend. Didn't happen.

I got too lazy to change the cartridge. I have three sitting on my shelf sealed away in some sort of plastic that utlizes space age technology. But, I decided to do use up the color one and then replace both at the same time. Hence the shades of blue, then green, before those started to fade.

I just realized that I don't have a backup color cartridge. Fuuuuuuuuck. Yikes. Now I gotta go to Staples and roam their brightly lit aisles, cluttered with tons of shit and junk, trying to find an obscure ink. And if... big if... if I get lucky and find the ink, then I have to stand in line to pay with the rest of the home-office peasants, parents buying kids their school supplies, and disheveled writers working on their screenplay.

The hardest thing is trying to avoid all the impulse buys and candy near the cashier -- seriously, who the fuck came up with the genius idea to sell chocolate inside Staples? Do the suits who run Corporate America really think their citizens are that stupid?

Um..... scratch that last sentence. Speaking of which... I gotta get back to work.
posted by Pauly at 1/20/2010 10:28:00 AM | Permalink |

 
Step Into the Breezer

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

The unexpected rain in LA put a damper on the wankfest of the Golden Globe Awards. That did not deter Nicky and I from getting shitfaced, poking fun, snarking it up on Twitter, and shouting random things at the TV. The Jets game ended just at the exact time that the Golden Globes came on -- so it was a seamless transition. This was the first year that NBC aired the event live on the Left Coast instead of delaying the broadcast until 8pm. With that annoying Twitter thing and the intertubes, NBC finally wised up and decided to go live with the broadcast of their faux awards ceremony.

Makes you wonder if those tin-foiled hat conspiracy theories about Stanely Kubrick and Hollywood helping to record the film landing in a sound stage down by the airport. There's websites and books devoted to that theory. I shit you not.

Of course, I'll never get invited... so the closest I come is sitting on my couch, clutching the bong, and heartily laughing at Rickey Gervais' penis jokes and shameless self-shilling. Man, if I ever went to the Golden Globes, I would never leave the bathroom. I'd be staying in there the entire time ripping lines with Mickey Rourke. Otherwise, I'd be outside getting stoned with Han Solo and Sir Paul McCartney.

* * * * *
The Jets won. Wow. I bet against them. Two weeks in a row. Ha! And they won both times. I bet against them again this week hoping that won't break the jinx. But shit... one win away from the Super Bowl. Peyton better do his homework and do something that other QBs have yet to figure out... don't throw anywhere in Revis' direction.

* * * * *
I found out my next two work assignments... Uruguay and Chile. I get to work with Nicky for one of the events which will be fun. I can't complain about visiting two South American countries that I had never visited before (ironically Nicky has been to both).

When I told Benjo that I get to work with my girlfriend, he said, "The last time I worked with mine, all we did was yell at each other." To which I responded.... we yell at each other all the time, might as well get paid for it.

But seriously... I just realized that Nicky will be my superior for the assignment. Hilarity ensues.

* * * * *
Speaking of Benjo, he's an eager beaver and wants to get to work on the French translation of Lost Vegas. That's admirable, but it's not ready yet. Yikes. We worked out a schedule because let's face it -- I want to get that fuckin' monkey off my back, so I'm contemplating eating a fistful of Adderall and staying up for two weeks straight finishing it off.

The good news is that my editor (aka the German Butcher) and I also figured out an exit strategy. We're on track. After stepping away from the project, I realized how vital his precision edits were. During this round of edits -- the process is less hectic and mind-numbing as the last round. Maybe that's a good sign that the book is actually coming along and there are not gaping holes where I look at in bewilderment and think, "What the fuck am I talking about?"

Nicky and I re-worked the first three chapters the last few days. The structure was all out of whack and she helped me re-arrange sections -- like a jigsaw or a game of Tetris. Once we shuffled everything around, the beginning read much smoother. Even though I kept working and re-working the beginning over the last six months -- I always came up with a clumsy and cumbersome start of the book. That was Nicky's biggest problem with the book ... a choppy beginning. After the editing session this weekend, we're all feeling much more confident about the beginning. It's smoother. Flows better.

Every day, I'm feeling better and better about taking time off from the project and taking another pass at it. Confidence is everything. We're all feeling positive about the recent changes -- so I'm doing what I can to build and feed off of that energy.
posted by Pauly at 1/19/2010 09:43:00 AM | Permalink |

 
Pour

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

I fought back the torrential downpour hoping to avoid the stream of gushing water and abandoned shopping carts hurtling down the street. LA was under siege with raindrops the size of serving platters yet I dodged as many as I could and safely arrived at my destination... a fast food depot.

I discovered where all of the homeless denizens of LA retreat on the seven or eight days a year the skies rapidly turn from baby blue to menacing grey before dumping rainfall onto the city. They end up at the Jack in the Box on Pico Blvd. I wandered into the joint during halftime of the Jets/Chargers game seeking to quench my thirst. Iced tea. It's my latest addiction that I swapped for pain killers. I needed a batch to drink during the stressful second half of the playoff game.

Jack in the Box reeked just like when a homeless person passes you on the subway. Stale urine. Fresh feces. You rarely smell that in LA. Too much pollution. Besides, the daily plight is usually hidden. The sun shines too bright to see the unwashed masses hiding underneath cardboard shanty towns in alleys parallel to the east-west thoroughfares of the city.

I braved the storm and returned home. Safely. The iced tea calmed my nerves as the Jets held onto a victory. Never expected my hometown Jets to be a Final Four team in the NFL this year. Sweet Jesus, they are one win away from the Super Bowl... something I thought would never happen in my lifetime. I'm either a realist or a jaded fan. Maybe both.

Even the hypnotic rain could not sour my upbeat mood. The only downside to the Jets advancing is that I lose another day to football next weekend when I desperately need as many free days as possible for work. Even though I try to work around the football game... it's never a productive day... and I end up very distracted. At this point I accept that nothing will get accomplished so I sit back, relax, and enjoy it for what it is.A huge distraction.

Nicky saw ugly storm festering on the horizon when we stepped outside on Sunday morning. We embraced the last moments of sunshine and prepped for the week-long monsoon. LA would never be the same again, but we ate our breakfast at the crowded coffeeshop filled with hungover hipsters and pious churchgoers. The last meal? Who knows. We sat at the counter which was fine because the TV in the corner aired the first football game. I didn't miss a play while I waited for chocolate chip pancakes and drowned out the incessant chatter of the hipsters.

* * * * *
The stories come and go. Most of the same are the same, and I'm just plugging in different names. The sun rises. The sun sets. People find love, they lose it. People die. Babies are born. Some get lucky. Other newborns catch the bad end of the stick and spend the rest of their lives trying to climb out of a hole wondering where it all want wrong. Maybe there's something to be said about karma. Maybe not. Life can be totally random, cruel, chaotic, and Godless. Just ask some of the citizens of Haiti.

The night was restless. Disjointed dreams. Lots of staring into the blackness of night, thinking about mellow things to help me sleep. I tried to avoid thinking about the seven or eight topics that I constantly worry about, yet two or three somehow seep into there.

Been listening non-stop to Miles Davis' epic electric soundtrack to a documentary film about a boxer named Jack Johnson. It was released in 1971, yet Miles cut that in 1970 over two different recording sessions with two different lineups. Herbie Hancock sat in for parts of both tracks. Yes, just two tracks on the album about 25 minutes each. Electric Miles on the cusp of rock and roll. Influenced by Sly and James Brown. Gotta love that he was pulling inspiration from those musicians as he sought to make a batch of jazz music for black people (since at the time, Jazz had a high percentage white fans even though the majority of musicians were black).

Depending on who you talk to, Jack Johnson was a huge bust compared to Mile's previous gem Bitches Brew... or it was a piece of utter genius and sheer brilliance on the fusion of rock and jazz. It's hard to top Bitches Brew, but for me at this moment in my life... I want the smash mouth aggressive soloing from Miles to carry me home for the last stretch of Lost Vegas. Sort of glad that it's raining... it will set me in the mood to want to write. How can I go wrong with Miles and the rain? Time to lock myself in for three days and see what I can come up with.

* * * * *
I can see the linear path of my life ahead of me from scheduled trips (both work and pleasure) along with books I want to read (both for work and for pleasure) not to mention those monstrous projects (both work and pleasure) that I think will only take a few weeks or months but end up taking years to complete. Let's put it bluntly... Gumbo was the last major literary project I completed. That was 2004. Before I got into poker. I've been working on Lost Vegas since 2005. I used to focus on one major writing project per year and bang it out, but somehow I got lost along the way with the Vegas book and got stuck or lost on a different path without any roadmaps or GPS to guide me. Poker stunted my creativity and the business stifled my growth, but I managed to do what I could the last couple of years to keep myself sharp with constantly forcing myself to write about other topics.

I see the path back to the main road. It's a shortcut to my sanity -- but I've gotten lost taking shortcuts before.
posted by Pauly at 1/18/2010 07:48:00 AM | Permalink |

 
Gang Green

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA


When I was a kid, Richard Todd was the Jets quarterback. He took the reigns in the post-Joe Namath era for the late 1970s and early 1980s. I never got to see Namath play football in a NY Jets uniform. I only knew him from his Noxema commercials with Farah Fawcett and the drunken incident on the sidelines a few years ago when he tried to smother Suzy Kolber with his tongue.

Richard Todd was the man before Ken O'Brien finished out the 1980s as the leader of Gang Green. A bust named Browning Nagle took the snaps for 13 games before Boomer Esaison stepped in for three seasons at the start of the 1990s.

The mid-90s were a clusterfuck. Glen Foley? That pussy Neil O'Donnell (who hurt himself in warmups) and journeyman back up Frank Reich.

Then we were treated with the glorious Vinny Testaverde era peppered with one season when Ray Lucas and Rick Mirer competed for ineptness as the QB. Vinny was an anomaly considering he played his college ball in Miami, because he could play in any form of weather, especially the bitter cold, freezing ice, and blustery snow. Vinny had a gun and a monster arm, but his huge liability was that he was color blind and threw too many perfect and crisp passes to the opposing players. Testaverde is Latin for "lacking color in sight"... if you didn't know. The Jesuits taught me well.

The turn of the century were the Chad "paper mache" Pennington years. You couldn't help but root for the "awww sucks" kid with his Southern drawl. However, Pennington was constantly hurt which led to so many frustrating years compounded with the fact that there was always that rumor hovering above Jets HQ that Randy Moss would someday sign with the Jets since he and Pennington played ball together at Marshall. Of course, that never happened. Pennington was plagued with injuries during his career with the Jets and Moss ended up catching 346 TDs from golden boy Tom Brady and the evil New England Patriots.

Then there was the abortion of a season led by that redneck Brett Favre. Yeah, he was hurt last year, but everyone is hurt in the NFL. My scorn for Favre bubbled up this season and not last season due his drama-ladened move over to the Minnesota Vikings coupled with some of the shit he said about the Jets staff. And now, he has a monster season with his new team, who are a few steps away from a Super Bowl berth provided they can smoke the Cowboys (highly possible - so much so I bet on Minnesota today) and then head down to the Big Easy and beat New Orleans on their own turf.

Sorry for the tangent. Favre left a salty taste in my mouth, so I welcomed rookie Mark Sanchez when the Jets drafted him. Normally, I'm not thrilled with USC QBs, but this kid was different. Unlike most USC students, he was a kid from a working class family... his father's trade was a fireman who saved lives. And now the fate of the NY Jets franchise rests on Mark Sanchez's arm.

Like Testaverde, Sanchez has a gun, yet prone to turnovers. But the kid is not colorblind... he just forces the action too much and is not afraid to take chances. You know who else used to play like that? Brett Favre in his early days with the Green Bay Packers.

Will the Jets win today? I hope so but it's going to be a tough game to beat San Diego at home. I went with an emotional hedge and bet against the Jets (just like last weekend when I took the Bengals) in the hopes that if they lose... then I'll at least be compensated for the seasoning coming to an abrupt halt. This is not the Jets year, but they have a solid infrastructure and a few (healthy) players away from having a legit chance at going to the Big Game in the next two years.

Then again, anything can happen.

Sanchez is playing as close to home as possible (since LA does not have a pro football team -- then again they do, it's called the USC Trojans) with his friends and family in the crowd. Who knows if that sort of motivation can carry over into his performance. All teams need a leader and the Jets fate today rests in the hands and arm of a rookie... Mark Sanchez... as he ushers Gang Green into the 2010s.
posted by Pauly at 1/17/2010 02:04:00 PM | Permalink |

 
Save Haiti Saturday

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA


Utter destruction is a word to describe the events in Haiti after an earthquake ripped apart and destroyed the country that's roughly the size of the state of Maryland. With the majority of the governmental infrastructure destroyed in Port Au Prince and the country has plunged into complete anarchy coupled with a humanitarian crisis. Where are all those displaced citizens going to get food and water?

Hospitals are leveled, schools wiped out, and the main prison ripped apart allowing whatever inmates who survived the quake to escape. I sincerely doubt there will be a nation to rebuild. Gangs of machete wielding thugs have taken control of the streets. Opportunists are already hatching plans to seize what little resources the country has to offer. If anything, Haiti as been and always will be a main port for drug smugglers. I fear that situation will only get wore.

I'm most concerned with the events that happen a year or two years from now when all of the media attention has disappeared and another tragedy that captured our fickle attention. Donating money today might make your conscience feel better, but much like the undocumented plight of New Orleans after Katrina, what you do to help in months and years after the fact is even more important than being part of the initial wave of help.

Don't get me wrong, sending money to Doctors Without Borders (aka MSF) is a worthy deed... today... but let's not forget that the fallout from the earthquake is a long-term crisis that cannot be solved so easily by throwing money at it, then forgetting and ignoring it tomorrow. Haiti, much like New Orleans, will need your help and support in the future.

Check out an organization that a friend works for... Save Haiti Saturday. Here's their mission statement...

What started out as a grassroots effort by a group of friends from Miami and Haiti has now turned into a collaboration of hundreds of people around the country from all walks of life, all working together for one cause: to save as many lives as humanly possible in earthquake ravaged Haiti.

The morning after the earthquake hit, Dr. Barth Green, co-founder of Project Medishare, was en route to Haiti on a charter plane (made possible through the generosity of Hank Asher) filled with a team of trauma surgeons. Upon their arrival in Haiti, Project Medishare began working closely with Haitian President René Préval to organize all medical teams on the ground to implement a plan to set up field hospitals and triage centers around the capital city of Port au Prince.

The group of friends, with the help of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine Neurosurgery staff, has been dispatching medical relief and rescue teams from Miami to Haiti. With the help of Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc., their WQAM radio station, and The Miami HEAT, they have set up drop points where people can go to donate medical supplies, water, food, generators, and other necessities. Upon discussing ideas on how best to set up a fundraiser at a local Miami venue, some of the friends noted that with the huge national outpour of support, a national event would attract more attention, and in turn create more donations to send aid to Haiti. Over the next forty-eight hours the group came up with a concept, devised a plan, and have since launched the website www.SaveHaitiSaturday.com to implement it.

Restaurants, clubs, bars, etc. from across the United States have offered to generously donate a percentage of their revenue for "Save Haiti Saturday" which will be taking place this Saturday, January 16th, 2010. "Save Haiti Saturday" is a nationwide fundraising initiative to benefit Project Medishare for Haiti’s massive medical earthquake relief effort. Each participating business has committed to donating either its door cover charges, a percentage of the food and/or beverage revenue, or a fixed dollar amount. The final decision as to how much each individual venue chooses to donate is completely at their own discretion. The more money we can raise, the more support we can provide to our teams of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers who are working tirelessly and selflessly around the clock, performing surgeries and taking care of the sick and wounded during this most critical time in Haiti. People from all over the Nation, from all walks of life are banding together for "Save Haiti Saturday" to help the earthquake victims during their most desperate time of need.

Do what you can to help out. Spread the word. But don't simply give then forget. The people of Haiti will be needing your help for many years to come.

posted by Pauly at 1/16/2010 01:29:00 PM | Permalink |

 
January Truckin'

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

Here's the first issue of your favorite literary blogzine. Truckin' was super late in December and only moderately late in January. I'll be back on track next month!

January 2010, Vol. 9, Issue 1

1. Tubes Under Sand by Paul McGuire
The massive and elaborate tunnel system was cluttered with insane Vietnam vets eating black widow spiders, heroin addicts shooting up in the darkness, and methheads cooking up a new batch of Nazi crank... More

2. No Era Mi Intención (I Meant No Harm) by Sean T. Kelly
We weren't the only local wildlife in that town, population 237. Hawks circled overhead hunting for prey. Iguanas scurried aimlessly across the sidewalks heading for the security of the underbrush... More

3. Unpublished by Anonymous
He could look away from the noose he's woven. He could find something else into which he can comfortably slip. He has the power and he's done it before... More

4. Down the Upward Staircase by George Tate
Bebop was one of those guys kind of handicapped in the girl department. He had been shy all his life and never a ladies man. He wasn't strange or picky. He always looked at the girls and when he couldn't go anymore would find his pick in a massage parlor or on his running board... More

5. Dispatches from Miami: The Lot by Paul McGuire
Deviant derelicts crawl out of the shadows and invading the parade of freaks. That's when the inmates eventually take over the asylum... More

Thanks for your support! Shoot me a line if you're interested in contributing something to a future issue.
posted by Pauly at 1/16/2010 12:44:00 PM | Permalink |