New Kindle User? Buy Lost Vegas and Jack Tripper Stole My Dog

By Pauly
New York City

Merry Day-After Christmas everyone!

Were you a good boy/girl this year? We're you naughty, dirty, and got into tons of trouble? Did Santa Claus hook you up with a new Kindle Fire? If so, you're in luck because the e-book version of Lost Vegas is only a few clicks away.

Click here to buy Lost Vegas for Kindle and iPads.

Click here to buy Lost Vegas for the Nook.

Click here to buy a print copy of Lost Vegas on Amazon.com.

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And if you're totally bored and looking for a trashy novel, then indulge yourself with an e-book Kindle version of Jack Tripper Stole My Dog.

I recorded a podcast with Nicky six or seven months ago. She asked me questions about the origins of Jack Tripper Stole My Dog. If you haven't heard it yet, well, here it is via SoundCloud...

JTSMD - Episode 1: The 10-Day Novel by taopauly

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And if you like opera music, then here's the trailer...


Thanks for all of your support, kindness, tolerance, patience, understanding, and gratitude. Oh, and thanks for the cashola. Every book you buy indirectly supports my drug habit, which in turn fuels my passion to write dark, crazy smut like e-book Kindle version of Jack Tripper Stole My Dog. Keep supporting the arts and I'll keep churning out cheese-slathered tripe.

Advice to Chip Bitch and Recent College Graduates

By Pauly
San Francisco, CA

It's a little strange what happened in the poker world the last few years, especially after the Poker Shrink retired, because I became the resident head shrinker at the WSOP. I was the on-site psychiatrist in the press box. It happened because I was one of the veterans in the industry with the most experience (and if I wasn't going through what they went through, I knew someone who was faced with a similar situation) and more importantly -- because I had access to a cornucopia of pills.

On a typical day at the WSOP in Vegas, I usually spent at least an hour talking to different friends and colleagues about a variety of topics. I mostly listened because most of the time, people don't want actually answers -- they just want someone to listen to them work things out in their head. More often than not, I dispatched words of encouragement telling them to focus on the light at the end of the tunnel. Unlike life, when you never knew it would end, the seven-week long WSOP had a finish point. So as long as I could get everyone focused on something positive, I felt as though I did my civic duty.

Part of me felt compelled to help friends and colleagues because deep down I wish I had someone to give me words of advice, especially when I was stuck in a rough spot. I had a few mentors along the way like John Caldwell and Flipchip, but never had a consistent go-to guy (or girl) that I could chat about my woes and fears.

Anyway, over the last few years, I found myself mentoring a couple of the younger writers/reporters that came through the biz. One of them, Chip Bitch, just graduated college. Our little side kick is all grown up now. He's come a long way from the days when he worked for peanuts (literally: zero dollars) and snorted crushed up candy for peanuts (literally: zero dollars). Chip Bitch posted something where he reflected on what it's like to be a college graduate and taking his first steps in the real world. He thanked a small group of my colleagues for keeping him on the right track over the last few years. Check out his post... Thanks.

I wanted to give him some words of encouragement in a comment, but realized I was getting a little too verbose, so I decided to post my thoughts here. Anyway, in honor of Chip Bitch, here's a list of 10 Things I Wish I Was Told When I Graduated College....

1. There is no permanent record...unless you count the Echelon project that has downloaded every single email, DM, text message, and whatever update you posted on Facebook.

2. No matter how much you've drank and no matter what you've ingested, smoked, or snorted... you CANNOT fly.


3. Contrary to what she said, she actually faked 98% of the orgasms.

4. You're professors drank as much, if not more, than you. Many of them we're popping pills... just before class.

5. Dick Cheney shot JFK. Courtney killed Kurt. The "Moon" landings were real.

6. Always wipe and stay off the (crack) pipe.

7. Avoid the shrimp and seafood in any buffet that cost less than minimum wage.

8. Read every day. Just because you're done with school doesn't mean you have to end your education. Your mind is a terrible thing to waste on The Jersey Shore.

9. As Polonious said in Hamlet, "Neither a borrower nor a lender be." Don't loan friends money. More importantly, credit cards are evil. If you can't afford it, then don't buy it. If you really want it, I suggest that you steal it. Whatever you do, don't charge it. Banks/credit card companies are more ruthless than the mafia. Don't become a debt slave.

10. People generally suck and will always let you down. Don't sweat the small stuff. Don't worry... just be yourself.

I hope some of this helps. But no matter what you do, never forget rule #2. Oh, and the ubiquitous Golden Rule of Las Vegas.... don't get rolled by a hooker.

Four Haikus: Lost Vegas

By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV


Photo by Flipchip

Four Haikus - Lost Vegas

Stale cigarette smoke
Boulevard of broken dreams
Cowboys shooting dice

Wafting puke odor
Bright lights of white trash city
Cheap liquor cheap thrills

Porn slappers on post
Hustling cocaine-eyed strippers
Hooker or a ho?

Cougars and hipsters
Desperate degradation
Vast cesspool of filth

Divisidero Dog Fight

By Pauly
San Francisco, CA


Several friends asked me when I was going to write lengthy diatribes about living in San Francisco. I appreciate the interest but I'm in "L-I-V-I-N" mode right now when I soak up as much experience as possible before I sit down, patch my bones, and write about the previous few months.

Soon come. The SF stories will be coming soon. But for now, here's a random tidbit that I acquired wile wandering around the dirty streets of San Francisco...

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I was almost attacked by a cougar carrying a wicker reindeer. I had been holed up writing all morning and afternoon and needed a break. I went outside to grab a cup of hot chocolate from the corner cafe. On my way, I nearly collided with a peeved scion that almost gorged me with a wicker reindeer.

What the hell is wicker anyway? All I know is that you can't smoke it. I gleaned this intel NOT by personal experience, rather from someone I know who once attempted to smoke wicker. Or maybe it was marijuana soaked in PCP? I forget. Either way, wicker will not get you stoned.

Cougars, on the other hand, are detrimental to your health in Lo Pac, which is my nick name to Lower Pacific Heights. It's San Francisco's equivalent to Beverly Hills Adjacent or the Slums of Beverly Hills.

The coug bolted out of one of the many antique stores situated around the corner from my apartment. She was carry a big, white wicker reindeer with a nifty red bow tied around its neck. She screamed into her mobile phone and was too self-involved to see me as she stormed out of the store.

Sometimes, I'm just an invisible peasant.

Cougars abound in my hood. In New York terminology, it's sort of like the Upper West Side meets Park Slope. Plenty of nannies pushing double strollers. Lots of tiny purse dogs shitting all over the streets with owners too lazy to clean it up. The filthy sidewalks are congested with 20-somethings in tight black yoga pants with pastel-colored yoga mats rolled up under their arm. Street parking is non-existent in the LoPac and Nicky is constantly fighting Lexus SUVs and Minicoopers for the last available spot.

I walk everywhere, but had a few close calls -- I was almost hit by a vehicle at least four times. Near misses. One scared the bejesus outta me. I lived in LA for four years and only had once close call in the parking lot at The Grove. But three months into San Francisco, and I've almost got nailed by four different SUVs driven my myopic morons on their phones.

That's nothing compared to the mauling I escaped on Divisidero when two yapping dogs wanted to go at each other. The female owners of the hellions were distracted multi-taskers -- a pair of hipsters: one a member of the brown boot mafia in skinny black jeans and the other was your typical neo-eco-crunchy trophy wife in the ubiquitous tight black yoga pants. Their purse dogs looked like over-sized rats. What have such tiny animals? Why not get a cat?

The women stood on the same corner, backs turned and about five feet apart from each other. The both talked on their iPhones while their respective dogs anxiously clocked each other. The tension thickened as I approached. I wanted to avoid the potential clusterfuck as the dogs snarled and growled at each other. A dogfight was nigh. Blood would be shed on Divisidero. Iconsidered whipping out my CrackBerry to record the fight -- but then I'd get hate mail from PETA for supporting cruelty to animals.

Instead, I foolishly tried to walk in between the distracted women at the same moment their dogs lunged at each other. The brown-booted hipster yanked on her leash and her dog yelped. The woman in yoga pants dropped her cell phone to grab her dog when it attacked the cuff of my jeans. That little fucker almost chewed up my Achilles.

Small dogs in Lo Pac. What's the fucking point?

Our downstairs neighbor has a big-ass dog. BIG. DOG. How big? It bangs up against the front door whenever someone is outside. The big dog scares the shit out of the mailman. Some of them are afraid to deliver mail. I'm convinced my packages are always late because of the monstrous, fear-instilling dog.

Jack Tripper Stole My Dog - The Podcast and Trailer

By Pauly
San Francisco, CA

Six months ago I recorded a podcast with my girlfriend and she asked me questions about Jack Tripper Stole My Dog. I recently re-uploaded it to Sound Cloud. If you haven't heard it yet, well, here it is...

Jack Tripper Stole My Dog - Podcast Episode 1: The 10-Day Novel by taopauly

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If you haven't seen the epic trailer, here it is...



Jack Tripper Stole My Dog would be a great stocking stuffer! The novel and Kindle version are both available on Amazon.com.

Risky Bizness

By Pauly
San Francisco, CA

A lesbian flirted with me.

It's happened before, but never in a grocery store. It had been a while and was so taken aback by the situation that I forgot to smile. Hey, everyone likes to be wanted, right? Especially by lesbians. I assumed this would happen frequently in San Francisco, a city that has become a haven for lesbian activity, but, I was unprepared for any sort of banter over chocolate milk of all things, especially with short-haired lesbians that usually want to beat me up for having a cock swinging between my legs, and not flirt with me.

I blame the special atomic brownie I had ingested a couple of hours earlier. I probably should not have been out roaming around the streets of San Francisco and interacting with the public during those highest levels of toxicity. I probably should've just stayed home and zoned out in front of the TV flipping back and forth between college football and the baseball playoffs. Alas, my sweet tooth got the best of me. I craved two things that we didn't have in the apartment: Joe-Joe's and chocolate milk.


If you have never been to Trader Joe's, they sell cookie product that is crack-like. It's a knock-off version of an Oreo called Joe-Joe's. They taste delicious and are slightly more healthy than the typical Oreo. Sure, if you eat 20 in a sitting, that's bad for you, but one or two Joe-Joe's ain't gonna kill anyone. They also make a second kind of Joe-Joe's with special chocolate covered filling. Yeah, now you know why I'm addicted to boxes of Joe-Joe's. Chocolate plus chocolate. Yeah, those delectable cookies are packaged in boxes which has a cute little toucan on the front. I assume his name is Joe and those are his fucking cookies. I really don't care for semantics when it comes to stoner food stuffs, so I never spent more than two seconds inspecting the box before I tore it open.

An open box of Joe-Joe's gets eaten within a few hours in my apartment. I could blame my roomies Halli and Nicky for devouring the cookies while I'm not looking. Sometimes I have to hide the boxes or they will get devoured by folks when they stop over on Monday nights to play poker.

Or maybe there's an invisible ghost that floats around, or a grey alien colony behind our house that sneaks in while I'm sleeping to polish off the rest of the cookies.

Anyway, with a Yankees game (or moreso the continuation of a rain delay from game 1 which lasted 23 hours) on the agenda, I had to make sure I had a proper snack to keep up my inflated energy levels during the baseball game. Hence, why I actually snuck out and wandered around Trader Joes during a worst possible time -- when it was super crowded, like it always is. Some reason, Saturday afternoons are hell at Trader Joes because hipsters, hippies and parents with strollers converge on the local grocery store in my neighborhood.

Busy super markets were not designed for fucked up people. Yes, those 24-hour mega-stores are perfect for stoners and drug fiends during late night "I got the munchies" runs at 2am when the store is practically empty and you can roam the brightly-lit aisles without fear of bugging out other customers because you reek like weed and eyeballs are bright fucking red.

The Trader Joes in my hood is not designed for intoxicated freaks at 2pm, right around the time the brownie kicked in and minor hallucinations bombarded me as I walked down the street. Whoever made the atomic brownie, specifically designed for medicinal marijuana cancer patients, was right to advise me to only eat half.

I took one step into Trader Joes and was already miserable because I got stuck walking behind a very rotund lady. I was a little slow to "hit the hole" whenever a small gap of space opened up. The New Yorker in me often feels like a running back in a crowded situation, ready to be pounced up by blood-thirsty defensive linemen, so I quickly hit a tiny gap in the crowd to avoid the crush. My quick feet became stumps caught in sand. I hesitated and failed to rush ahead, so instead I kinda slowly waddled through the flower section before I got up the nerve to hit the hole when the next gap presented itself in front of a fruit stand. Instead of a smooth transition, I banged into the lady and she almost fell over into the oranges.

"So sorry ma'am," I half-assed apologized, "I'm here to get Joe-Joe's."

I quickly disappeared into the crowd and remembered to get the only thing that Nicky asked for -- a small carton of half and half for her coffee. While in the milk/dairy section I found the mother load of chocolate milk. But not just any chocolate milk, but Trader Joe's super, smooth special organic chocolate milk, that tastes like silk-flavored chocolate cascading down your windpipe.

I'm not much of a milk guy and I'm very paranoid that any Fukushima radioactive fallout with manifest itself in the US by disrupting milk production, but I put my fears aside and pulled the carton of chocolate milk into my basket. I had to have the chocolate milk. So silky...

I rounded up a couple of total stoner items like graham crackers, Joe-Joe's, and chocolate covered raisins. I got freaked out by a hippie girl arguing with someone over the "free trade" cocoa label and quickly abandoned the aisle. I found myself at the front of the store and assessed the line situation. I had fewer than six items, but usually the "12 items or less" was longer than the regular lanes due to angle-shooting hispters. I stood in what I thought was the shortest line and patiently waited for my turn, hoping that everyone around me didn't notice how wasted I was. That's when it was time for me to get my good scanned and the lesbian hit on me.

"Oh my god," said the lesbian, who looked like Tom Cruise circa Risky Business, "I looooove this chocolate milk. It takes so silky and smoooooth, like I'm drinking a chocolate shake."

She said this while caressing the carton before slowly putting it in a paper bag. She then gave me the gaga eyes. I did a doubletake. Did she really say that? Did she really look at me that way? Seriously, I know I was fucked up, but was a lesbian actually hitting on me?

The only thing I could muster up was... "Thanks. This is the best chocolate milk in the solar system. My kids love it."

Yes, I know what you're thinking... I don't have kids (at least that I'm aware of). And no, I have no clue why I blurted that out. I blamed the brownie and the lesbian really knocked me off my game, so much so that I started talking about my imaginary kids. Lesbians have that strange mystical power, and the ones I've encountered love organic chocolate milk. I better get used to that fact, because lesbians are a dime a dozen in San Francisco.