Tao of Pauly

Tales of Jury Duty and Other Useless Things

I'm finally healthy after a week and a half of gutting out an upper respiratory infection. I lost my voice for a few days. Everyone that I spoke to quickly told me I sounded awful. One adorable sex kitten (name withheld for legal reasons) offered to make me chicken soup. Ah, I love groupies. It's not everyday a beautiful woman offers to make you soup. OK, let's not destroy this fantasy here... I know she probably bought it from a deli or warmed up some Campbell's, which would have been better since she actually had to exert physical effort into opening up the can and pouring the contents into a pot.

I take my health for granted. Don't we all? I should pay more attention. I don't. I used to not care. These days, I am aware of the rapid deterioration of my body and my physical abilities due to the strain of living every second of my life in the moment and all the intense partying I've put myself through especially in the last half of decade. I always seem to get sick when I stop and slow down my frenetic lifestyle. Can you say withdrawal? Keep on moving forward and you won't get sick, is what my body is now telling me. After 32 years on this planet, I only know how to do one thing... live fast. I write fast. I drive fast. I walk fast. I talk fast. I love fast girls. I eat fast. I think fast. Even my dreams whiz by me at ridiculous speeds.

I had a subpar weekend on the gambling front. Sure I picked winners in five out of six horse races, but that's not going to pay my rent. My college football picks were mediocre at best, and I got whooped yesterday in pro football. As far as Senor and my fantasy football team, Uncle Jodd's Band, we're just 8 points away from a victory with one player left... Donald Driver on Green Bay... to play this evening. If he scores a TD we'll win our third game and improve to 3-2. I never thought we'd be this close with both our starting running backs out; Priest Holmes had a bye week and Kevin Jones is injured... and our third stringer Charlie Garner is out for the entire season! Marc Bulger hooked us up yesterday with that amazing come from behind win against the Seachickens. At least the Jets won and improved to 4-0.

I can't wait to collect all those prop bets I made with idiots who were willing to bet me ridiculous sums of money that Kerry was going to win the election. After seeing both debates, I can tell you this...Bush has it locked up. Everytime Kerry opens his mouth I cringe, because the World gets to see what a waffler and bullshitter he really is. The saddest thing in America this weekend was not hearing about Rodney Dangerfield's death... instead it was the realization of this: that out of a nation of 260 Million people, John Kerry was the best person out there to run against Bush. Awful. Makes me wanna just shoot myself int he fuckin' head or worse, move to Paris. No wonder only 50% of Americans vote. Coke or Pepsi? Both suck and will rot your teeth. Oh well. The only bonus of a second Bush Junta term is this... I do a better W impression than John Kerry... not as good as Bubba Clinton, but I have fun with it. Kerry is too boring. Too dry. A crank call under Kerry's voice is nowhere nearly as funny as getting a call from W or Bubba. Bring back Bubba, I say! He was a blast. Plus, I never got laid more under any President than during those eight years of erotic delights.

On the poker front, I'm well enough to play and sit on my ass for hours on end. Some folks might gloat about finishing 7th out of 70 and making the final table in a poker tournament. Not me. I was pissed I didn't win that one on Saturday morning. And last night... I'm still irked at my play at a shot to win a trip to Australia. I hate losing and falling short of my goals. I made only one poker goal for the remaining of 2003... and that was to win a seat in the Australian Poker Championships at the Crown Casino in Melbourne and winning the all expenses paid prize package on Party Poker. I played in two satellites (a $300 one and a $600 one) and failed. I'm on a quest to win my way into a third sometime soon.

I'm excited doing some traveling and touring with Galactic next week... which will be a mellow tour for me.... heading up to Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Boston and spending some time out of the city and in the dense foliage of New England. I'll bring the video camera along to get a few shots. Of course we got the best rivalry in sports to entertain me the next few days. Yankees. Red Sox. October. It's like fuckin' heroin, man.

Then I got severe blogger burn out a few weeks ago. Blogger.com was the last site I fuckin' wanted to see. Everyone warned me that I'm not Superman (who croaked yesterday). Indeed, I overextended myself.The quality of my Internet writing has seriously diminished the last few weeks. Sure the hijinks are as crazy as they've ever been, but coming from my gut... I'm not writing as well as I know I can. I've been lazy and sloppy and not putting any thought into my words... all in order to save myself some time. That has to end. I cannot allow myself to put crap out here in cyberland anymore. I work my ass off on my novels which are only read by a small handful of people. Yet, my blogs are read frequently, with readers sprinkled all over the world. Time to hunker down... which means I'm going to be slowing down on the blogging front until the next project is complete. Afterwards, I will be pushing myself to write at a higher level that which I know I am capable of doing.

For now, I need to reserve my abundant energy and stay healthy for a new project I'm undertaking next month, just three weeks from today. I'm expecting to rage and let loose again in December, especially for the infamous Vegas trip... which is now 60 days away? Hopefully I'll have something special to celebrate in December after bogging down and devoting a serious amount of time to the first epic writing project since February... and November of last year. I need to be physically healthy as well as mentally prepared to block out the external world for a major project.

I'm thinking about writing all the time. More than sports, poker, politics, and women combined. I thought more about the next issue of Truckin' yesterday than worrying about the big poker tournament I was going to play in. I've begun my training for sure. That's the first step. Next, I started reading books from my favorite authors and rereading some of my favorite novels. Jury Duty gave me the opportunity to read a few books that I've bee unable to finish this past summer... The Comedy Writer, Just a Geek, and Generation SLUT. Nothing is better than shutting off the TV. That shit kills more brain cells than a Sunday afternoon drinking binge from Al Cant Hang. My eyes are starting to hurt from reading. I'm devouring as many novels from the heavy hitters as I can... those dudes who have been inspiring me recently; Dostoevsky, Beckett, Nersesian, Murakami, and Shakespeare have all been speaking to me in my dreams the last few days. I even picked up The Blind Kangaroo last week. I haven't read it cover to cover once this year. And you even though some parts make me cringe... other parts blow me away. I hope you get to experience the feeling one day... the actually enjoyment of appreciating the originality and quality of your creative output. The secret to my inner happiness is being able to honestly say I'm making a contribution with my life. Part of the reason I've written so little the last year (compare to previous years) has been the fact that I really wasn't dying to say much... novel wise... after writing three in a short spurt (August to November of 2003) I was burnt out and eagerly awaiting a break. I wanted to have a as much fun as I could in 2004 and celebrate life after reaching a milestone in my writing career. I hit Vegas several times. I hit the road. I hit the bars. I hit on adorable Phishy chicks. I lived more life than I wrote about life. That was fine, until now.

I guess what I'm saying is that I have a story to tell, and in three weeks, I'm going to start writing it.

Oooops. Out of time. I was going to tell you about Jury Duty, but I have to go talk to a man about a horse. Tomorrow I'll wrote about my stint at the Bronx County courthouse and the hot girl who looked like Jessica Alba. Alas, I added two hours of reading time a day in addition to two hours of a free writing session. 1/6 of my day is devoted to improving myself as a writer. I gotta squeeze everything else into the rest of my day. Thank God I'm an insomniac. How the fuck would I get all this shit done?

By the way, Happy Thanksgiving Day to all my Canadian friends and readers. I always wondered, do you eat turkey today?