Interview with Poker.Org

Denver, CO

I sat down (digitally speaking) for a long-form interview with an old friend, Brad Willis, from the poker world. Poker.Org has a new series, Inside the Boom, covering the glorious online poker boom of the early 2000s from different angles and perspectives. I offered a unique lens as the mastermind behind Tao of Poker blog while covering the WSOP in Las Vegas and the international poker circuit.

I "retired" from poker in 2012 and pivoted to sports betting, but the legend an legacy lives on. Those gravy days in Las Vegas -- which I detailed in LOST VEGAS -- feel like eight lifetimes ago. I had not thought the poker boom in 15-plus years, so Brad and I took a fun and nostalgic trip down memory lane.

Check out the interview titled: Inside the Boom: The Gonzo Deadhead Blogger Who Showed Us What ESPN Didn't.

Don't worry, this is a long-form written interview and not a podcast or video if you're truly an old-school blogger or blog reader. I got to plug my two most recent novels, which was cool.

Some of the topics we touch on:

• Behind-the-scenes vibes at the WSOP
• Covering the most prestigious poker tournament in the world
• Making up my coverage style as I went along
• Finding stories on the fringes that ESPN never covered
• Unfiltered Gonzo poker blogging
• Fond memories and hjinks 
• Shady mofos on the edges of the WSOP
• Why modern poker is missing wild characters from boom era
• Shifting vibes in the WSOP after the UIGEA and Black Friday
• Living in Vegas, working in gambling industry to inspire my fiction 
• How the poker boom influenced PARANOID ANDROID
• My "disappearance" from poker explained
• Tao of Poker is a time capsule for post-9/11 America and before the rise of social media and smartphones 

Thanks to Brad and Poker.Org for a fun interview and a walk along memory lane underneath the bright lights of the Las Vegas Strip.

Interview Link: The Gonzo Deadhead Blogger Who Showed Us What ESPN Didn't.

WRITING TIPS I WISH THEY TOLD ME: New Book

 Denver, CO

How about a non-fiction, self-help book about writing?

WRITING TIPS I WISH THEY TOLD ME is now available in paperback and ebook (Kindle). Get your copy here.

I wanted to give back to the writing community by sharing advice I dispatched to friends, family, readers, and strangers over the years. 

I also wanted to make this self-help book accessible to as many aspiring writers as possible, which is why the ebook is only $4.99. 

Here's the book description:

WRITING TIPS I WISH THEY TOLD ME is for aspiring writers from age 13 to 113. It is a self-help book for new writers... teenagers, 20-somethings, and adults returning to a long-delayed creative goal... who want honest, practical guidance without cliches, gatekeeping, or false promises.

Most people who want to write quit because no one explains what writing actually looks like at the beginning.

This writing advice book focuses on what actually matters early on. So new writers can avoid confusion, self-doubt, and wasted time.

Included are 50 short writing exercises to help generate ideas, overcome writer's block, and help you start writing right away.

****

BACKSTORY

This book would not be possible without Jen Leo. I have a vivid memory of the first time she told me I should write an ebook sharing writing advice. We were playing blackjack with my brother at the Plaza Casino in downtown Las Vegas when she pitched me this idea. Over the years, she's often brought up the concept. "When are you going to write that writing advice book?"

Well, here it is! Better late than never.

WRITING TIPS I WISH THEY TOLD ME is advice I would tell my younger self. I suffered pletny of bad beats and made poor decisions along my journey, so I hope this book can help you avoid the same pitfalls and heartache.

No cheesy affirmations. Just the straight dope and clarity about what matters early on, and how to approach writing as a learnable skill rather than a mysterious calling.

The goal is not to promise success, but to help readers start on the right track and to help them avoid the mistakes that cause most beginners to stall or quit.

****

TARGET AUDIENCE
• First-time writers unsure how to begin
• Aspiring writers seeking realistic, no-hype guidance
• Adults returning to writing later in life
• Readers tired of inspirational but impractical advice

WHY THIS BOOK STANDS OUT
• Focuses on the beginning, where most writing advice fails
• Drawn from real-world writing experience, not theory
• Calm, practical, and non-romanticized
• Relevant across age groups and genres

Get your copy today! WRITING TIPS I WISH THEY TOLD ME is now available in Paperback and Kindle.

****

P.S. If you're waiting for a new novel... there's one on the way. Stay tuned.

I'm excited to publish a third new novel in three years since I moved to Colorado, or my fifth book in the last six years. To put that in perspective, it took five years to finish LOST VEGAS and another five to finish FRIED PEACHES. Yup, only two books in ten years. This year will feature two books in 2026 with one non-fiction self-help and one fiction.

In the meantime, catch up on my last four novels:

THE KICKER (2025)
FADED (2024)
GUARD THIS (2021)
FRIED PEACHES (2018)

Head Shit

Los Angeles, CA

My uncle was a plumber. He said it was dirty work, hard manual labor, but decent pay in an industry that will never disappear because "people's shit always gets backed up."

You know what type of work you're getting yourself into if you chose the plumbing profession. I spent a summer as a plumber's assistant and I learned first hand that it wasn't pretty. I also learned that pothead plumbers were very resourceful and could turn many parts into smoking devices... pipes, bongs, whatever.

I tried to learn basic plumbing a couple of years ago. I figured I needed a trade to fall back on. The future was grim. If survived a post-apocalypse scenario, then I needed a skill that was necessary to help rebuild. And if the world never blew up, then I still needed to fade technology because the creators of the written word are dinosaurs.

I'm waiting for the day of reckoning when writers are replaced by the machines. Or if the dumbification of American continues (we're in the middle of a controlled demolition of intellect and common fucking sense), then our society will become so fucking illiterate and incapable of original thought that they'll seek out non-cerebral forms of entertainment. Or if the wealth distribution gap continues to grow, that even the few who can read will be so broke that they rather spend what little money they have on something else like food.

**

Think about a lavish meal in one of those snooty eight star eateries or think about your favorite high-end steak joint. So many of us covet that meal, yet a tiny percentage are willing to put in the work or have the necessary skill to make that happen. Everyone wants to take the shortcut, which is why we're now a nation of entitled angleshooters and self-absorbed trolls.

You can't just show up at the restaurant, sit down and have the meal waiting for you. It's not as simple as going to the grocery store or Whole Foods and buying everything there. It doesn't work like that. It takes time. Time to cultivate the ingredients.

And I'm not talking about prepping the meal and cooking it. I'm talking about starting from square one... going out to the slaughterhouse and killing the fucking cow yourself, then butchering it down to find the exact cut of beef you're looking for. Or how about getting on a boat and hauling a fresh catch out of the ocean? Same thing goes every ingredient in the recipe. Grow the damn veggies, harvest them, and bring them into the kitchen. Acquire every spice from the farthest corners of the globe. Milk the cows. Crush the grapes. Wring the chicken's neck with your own hands.

That magnificent meal you dream about? It took years to come together. Do you know how long it takes to fatten up calf? Ever grow your own veggies? Did they last? Or did the critters and bugs destroy your veggies or local wildlife gobble them up for breakfast?

That fancy meal took years to make... and then it's gone in a matter of minutes, and eventually shat out a few hours later.

We've lost sight of how that process really works. Everyone wants the meal, but very few do their own dirty work. But in the end, your culinary pleasure was really the work of hundreds of invisible people who get up at sunrise every day and get their jobs done. Patient toil. Under appreciated. Never thanked.

Enjoy your scallops.

**

I once asked a neuroscientist if he would let his kids play tackle football. He said a quick no, followed up by "I don't even let them ride rollercoasters."

That statement solidified my assertion that being a writer is like riding a rollercoaster. The arduous daily grind seems like harmless fun, yet it is akin to getting knocked in the noggin' one too many times.

Rollercoasters are the core of theme parks and rooted in childhood nostalgia. Fear and adrenaline. A perfect rollercoaster ride is an exhilarating thrill that begins with an anxiety-ridden, creaky, slow ride up to the top before the first terrifying drop, followed by a blur of ups and downs and upside-down swirls. Eventually all that head banging comes at a cost, according to the men and women of science.

Staying on the ride too long will lead to brain damage. I keep telling myself that Bill Hicks mantra about life is really just an amusement park ride, but even something fun can be detrimental to your health if you keep banging on your own coconuts.

Morning Pollution

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

Shower running.
Wake up.
Snort the coffee.

Eardrum piercing screeching baby.
Listless daddy, exhausted mommy.
Pebbles of poo.

Cavalcade of homeless dumpster divers.
Mexican Santa Claus and Fred Sanford doppelganger.
Aluminum cans crunching; plastic bottles smushing.

Empty green craft beer bottles.
Passive-aggro donation fund.
Trickle down hipster-economics.

Green-cardless gardeners.
Blowers strapped to their backs.
Spraying power-vacuum-sized packets of earaches.

Another illegal raking the scraps.
Metal scraping against concrete.
Another ear-jolting mess; bad vibrations.

The fat Berbers refurbishing the slum.
Power saws whirling and swirling.
Annoying buckets of noise.

Another cherry stargazer arrives.
While another dream withered up and dies.
Millions of shattered dreams for sale at the 99 cent store.

Dejections, rejections, no more callbacks.
Jilted dreamers.
Pilot title is: Dunzo.

A hairdryer moaning.
If they all go on at the same time, will it cause a black out?
Perfect hair is God's work.

A honking horn.
From a pissed-off mom whose turn it is to carpool.
Those two jewish kids are always late.

Helicopters circling above.
Aerial cacophony.
Ghetto birds, paparazzi, and traffic copters.

Garbage truck coughing.
Garbage man in greasy overalls casually rolling the dumpster bin.
Smashing over potholes.

A hungry cat meowing for food.
A dog barking for attention.
A Facebook addict frowning about the low number of "likes".

A mechanical juicer liquifying fruit.
Bacon sizzling.
Ivory Coast blend percolating.

Alarm clock buzzing and buzzing.
Lost in slumber.
Deaf in real life, but attentive in the slumber world.

Car door slamming.
Engines starting.
iPod cranking.

Shower running.
Wake up.
Snort the coffee.

52 Books from 2013

By Pauly
New York City

Senor was looking for a book recommendation. I recommended Wolf of Wall Street last month and he quickly finished it. He wanted a couple new suggestions. I told him to pick up American Desperado (written by Evan Wright) about a former mob hitman who became one of the notorious cocaine cowboys in Miami in the 1980s.

I had a few other ideas but asked the Twitterverse what they were reading. My bud Jesse send me a an amazing list of books that Matt Matros read in 2013. Matros, a writer/poker pro from New York, wanted to read one book a week, an ambitious yet inspiring pursuit.

That list got me thinking about generating a similar list. Several books crossed my path in 2013. Most of those books come in two categories: finished or start-stop. I also re-read a few books for different reasons. Both work and pleasure.

When I tallied it up, it came out to be... 52.

Wow... one a week. Benefits of an insomniac.

I started the year on a biography kick after I considered ghost-writing a book for a poker pro, so I brushed up on autobiographies and memoirs. In the last half of the year, I went on a music bender while researching a new project (screenplay that turned into a NaNo novel). In the process, I acquired several memoirs and a few books on music criticism from the 33 1/3 series.

With the exception of two e-books, which I read on my girlfriend's Kindle, everything on this list was a old-school book. Real books. I'm such an annoying Luddite, but I'll gladly accept Kindle royalties. Yes, in 2013 Kindle sales of Lost Vegas and Jack Tripper Stole My Dog crushed actual book sales.

This list of fiction and non-fiction is in chronological order. If I didn't finish a book, I made a notation...

2013 Book Consumption

The Last Shot: City Streets, Basketball Dreams by Darcy Frey -- My editor, Lance, suggested this book about four budding stars from Lincoln High School in Coney Island who desperately wanted to get out of the Brooklyn projects by earning scholarships to play basketball. One of them was Stephon Marbury.

Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace by David Lipsky -- Author gets commissioned by Rolling Stone to interview DFW and follow him around while he does a press junket for Infinite Jest. Due to bad weather, the two rent a car to attend a few stops on the tour. DFW reveals some very candid moments in the author's presence. Lipsky never finished the article. DFW killed himself. Lipsky decided to assemble the majority of the interview's audio clips into book form.

Shoplifting from American Apparel by Tao Lin -- Novella by postmodern minimalist and uber-hipster Tao Lin. Shortest book I read all year. Finished it in under an hour. Couldn't tell if this was pure genius for the economy of words or utter laziness. I dig Lin's overall sparse style.

Like Life: Stories by Lorrie Moore -- Short story collection. DFW thought Lorrie Moore was one of the greatest American short story writers. I read an interview with Tao Lin, who also sung Moore's praises. I was familiar with her style, but never read this collection.

The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace -- Re-read. I first picked it up in the late 90s. Decided to check it out since it was DFW's debut novel.

Seven Seconds or Less: My Season on the Bench with the Runnin' and Gunnin' Phoenix Suns by Jack McCallum -- I got this used for a penny. Funny that the Lakers would end up firing their head coach and hiring Mike D'Antoni, the offensive guru who helped transform the landscape of the NBA with his spread offense philosophy.Legendary sportswriter Jack McCallum hung out in coaches meetings, and logged time with the team during down time, at practices, and on the road.

The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot -- Some scientists believe that reality is just a hologram and that the entire universe is nothing more than a hologram. Heavy stuff. Does not require mushrooms or other psychedelics to read, but it is heavy on the science stuff. I never finished it, but skimmed the second half.

Pain Killers: A Novel by Jerry Stahl -- Everyone knows Stahl as a former-junkie-TV writer from his memoir Permanent Midnight (in the film version he was played by Ben Stiller). One of his most recent novels is about trying to find a notorious Nazi criminal, Josef Mengele, inside of a California prison. I never finished it. I went on a trip and by time I returned I had a new pile of books to read.

A Tiny Space to Move and Breathe: Notes from the Fall, 1997 by Walter G. Holland -- Also known in music circles as Wax Banks, the author shared his thoughts about Phish's entire Fall 1997 tour when the band delved into serious funk jamming.

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain -- I reread this. Almost reads like a junkie-drunken novel. I originally read it in Barnes and Nobles spread out over a couple of weeks in the early 00s. I picked it up again because I wanted to refresh myself before I read his newer book.

Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain -- His first book read more like a novel, this read more like a collection of unrelated blog posts. Didn't dig it as much as K.C.

Damascus by Joshua Mohr -- Hipster lit. Takes place in San Francisco's Mission neighborhood. Not the best story, but I like Mohr's style.

Criminal Enterprise (A Stevens and Windermere Novel) by Owen Laukkanen -- This is the second novel by Owen. We used to work together so I'm biased. But this is a great page-turner thriller.

11/22/63 -- Via KINDLE. Stephen King's novel about a guy who stumbles upon a time warp to try to stop the JFK assassination.

Open: An Autobiography by Andre Aggasi - My colleague Brian Balsbaugh said this was one of the best books he's ever read. I concur. One of the best memoirs I've come across. I'm not into tennis at all and always thought Aggasi was a bit of a jerkoff until I read his story. Raw and honest. I hate those celeb bios that whitewash everything. But Aggasi did not pull any punches.

The Other Glass Teat by Harlan Ellison -- Surly sci-fi writer Harlan Ellison wrote about TV for a local LA newspaper in the 1960s-70s. This is a collection of some of those columns.

Nothing in This Book Is True, But It's Exactly How Things Are by Bob Frissell -- If you have never taken psychedelics, then just skip this book. If you believe in interdimensions and other hokey superstitions, then this is right up your alley.

Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles (1974-2001) by Don Felder -- Felder wrote one of the most popular songs in the history of rock n roll -- Hotel California. Felder was probably the best musician in the Eagles, he was eventually booted from the band because Glen Frey is a straight-up asshole. If you enjoyed the Eagles documentary, well this book is Don Felder's account of the events. Many music writers think that this book actually inspired Frey/Henley to commission a documentary so they can tell their side of the story. Even if you hate the Eagles, this is a crazy fucking ride. Just skim the first few chapters about Felder's life growing up in Florida (although he mentions how he gave a skinny little kid named Tom Petty his first guitar lesson) and cut to the best parts about cocaine and groupies and Frey douchebaggery

Sports Guy: In Search of Corkball, Warroad Hockey, Hooters Golf, Tiger Woods, and the Big, Big Game by Charles P. Pierce -- Pierce is one of America's best sports writers and he's probably the most underrated political writers. Both industries need more journalists like Pierce.

Hello, He Lied -- and Other Tales from the Hollywood Trenches by Lynda Obst -- Nicky has had this on her shelf for years. I finally picked it up. Hollywood producer dishes on how to properly survive working in Hollywood. I wish I read this before I got into the poker industry.

The Revolution Was Televised: The Cops, Crooks, Slingers, and Slayers Who Changed TV Drama Forever by Alan Sepinwall -- Via KINDLE. This guy writes some of the best recaps of TV shows. Loved his take on The Wire, Sopranos, and even Breaking Bad.

Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography by Rob Lowe --  Your typical whitewashed Hollywood auto-bio. But you get some great and funny stories about the making of The Outsiders along with The West Wing.

Born to Lose: Memoirs of a Compulsive Gambler by Bill Lee -- Another gambling memoir. Bill Lee grew up in the mean streets of Chinatown and was a degen gambler from an early age before he lost his fortune several times over. Amazing rollercoaster story. He also wrote a book about the gangs of SF's Chinatown and one of the mob bosses put a contract out on his life. Crazy shit, eh?

Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis -- Autobiography by lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It ended up being a good primer on the LA punk scene in the late70s and early 80s. Kiedis is an admitted junkie and he had plenty of low moments during the peak of his addiction.

You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier -- Tech guru dishes on how digital society is altering our future, whether we like it or not.

Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock-and-Roll's Legendary Neighborhood by Michael Walker -- Well-written, but made me want to read more stories about some of the bands and musicians he mentioned. This book only touched the surface. Trippy as fuck cover art.

Ball Four by Jim Bouton -- I re-read this. Reads like a daily blog and going back in time to the late 60s. Former NY Yankee pitcher Jim Bouton got traded to an expansion team Seattle Mariners. This is essentially his daily diary from that season. This book got Bouton in trouble with MLB suits because he mentions rampant use of greenies (speed).

I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling with Villains (Real and Imagined) by Chuck Klosterman -- The newly anticipated book by Klosterman who delves into our fascination with bad guys.

Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free by Charles P. Pierce -- Great read about the dumbification of America.

You Don't Know Me but You Don't Like Me: Phish, Insane Clown Posse, and My Misadventures with Two of Music's Most Maligned Tribes by Nathan Rabin -- The author decides to immerse himself in two diverse (yet somewhat similar) music communities -- Phisheads and Juggalos. The Phish stuff was meh, but the Juggalo stuff was fascinating.

Dynomite!: Good Times, Bad Times, Our Times--A Memoir by Jimmie Walker -- You all know comedian Jimmie Walker, most known as JJ from Good Times. He pulls no punches in this memoir about breaking into the entertainment industry and has crazy stories about coming up through LA's comedy circuit.

Taipei by Tao Lin -- Minimalist hipster writer penned a long-form novel. Hit a little too close to home as the Adderall-chomping author eats mushrooms in Vegas.

Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke -- Javier and Josh told me that this was one of their all-time favorite books. I know it had inspired other sci-fi films (like V) but I had never read it before. Arthur C. Clarke is most known as the guy who wrote the book 2001, that inspired the controversial Stanley Kubrick films.

Hotel California: The True-Life Adventures of Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, Mitchell, Taylor, Browne, Ronstadt, Geffen, the Eagles, and Their Many Friends by Barney Hoskyns -- Long ass title. I originally had this a few years ago but never finished it. I'm a time of my life when I appreciate that era much more so it was a fun read on that account.

The True Adventures of the "Rolling Stones" by Stanley Booth -- Took almost two decades to write, but this is one of the best books ever written about the Stones and one of the best "on tour with the band" books ever published.

Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan -- Always a great re-read. Dylan gives you the straight dope on some of the earliest parts of his career. Reminded me of Llewlyn Davis.

Eminent Hipsters by Donald Fagen -- Anticipated memoir by co-founder of Steely Dan. Half of the book is a collection of essays on art/music and the other half is a tour journal (but not in Steely Dan, but a side project with Micheal McDonald and Boz Skaggs). Fagen is an exquisite writer with a knack for storytelling. Short book. Wanted to hear more road stories and hijinks.

Candy by Luke Davies -- Johnnie W sent me this book from an Aussie writer. More junkie lit. This one is a love story.

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto by Chuck Klosterman -- I re-read this because I wanted to get familiar with Klosterman's original book before I participated in a Klosterman email exchange about his new book with my friend Jess (that we still have yet to do!).

Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon -- One of my favorite authors with a new book that takes place around 9/11. My brother gave me this book for my birthday.

The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St. (33 1/3) by Bill Janovitz -- This was one of the first books from the 33 1/3 series that I read. Basically authors write about their favorite albums. Janovitz gave a little background behind the Stones double album Exile on Main Street.

They Live! (Deep Focus) by Jonathan Lethem -- Brooklyn novelist Lethem sheds some insight into the cult film They Live! by John Carpenter.

Drinking With Strangers by Butch Walker -- I re-read this one. Former musician turned producer turned songwriter shared this fun memoir about the music industry. He tried to make it big in the 80s with hair metal bands, reinvented himself as a pop-punk band, then eventually became a bona fide hitmaker as a song writer.

The Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique (33 1/3) by Dan LeRoy -- Great tales about the making of the Beastie Boys second album, which they produced in LA. One of my favorites from the 33 1/3 series.

Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from the Bottom of the Pile by Nate Jackson -- Former journeyman NFL player gives you a hard-hitting behind the scenes look into the modern game. And painkillers. Lots of painkillers, that he often had to get on the street because team doctors would only dispatch enough pain meds for one day.

Attempting Normal by Marc Maron -- Comedia and podcaster Marc Maron lets you inside his twisted mind in this cantankerous memoir of sorts.

Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields by Charles Bowden -- Haunting book on rampant violence in Mexican border town Juarez. Long-time journalist Chuck Bowden digs deep into the rash of murders that plague the city across the border from El Paso, TX. This book inspired part of a screenplay I'm developing with Joe Dubs.

Nirvana's in Utero (33 1/3) by Gillian G. Gaar -- Nirvana's last album was recorded in seclusion in Minnesota in order to keep away the parasites and Courtney Love. Some Nirvana fans will say this is their best album (of three). I'm indifferent about the album but fascinated to hear the stories behind its production.

The Wolf of Wall Street by Jordan Belfort -- Hookers and blow. Better than the movie (in which he's played by Leo). The crimes admitted in this book occurred just before I headed to Wall Street. Crazy shit. Lots of cocaine and high-priced hookers. Did  I mention hookers and blow?

Killing Yourself to Live: 85% A True Story by Chuck Klosterman -- I re-read this over Christmas when I couldn't sleep. I didn't like it at the time because it was more about Klosterman's previous relationships than about the death of rock stars.

The Tools: 5 Tools to Help You Find Courage, Creativity, and Willpower--and Inspire You to Live Life in Forward Motion by Phil Stutz -- Christmas gift. I'm not one to read self-help books, but this one had some interesting advice on breaking out of creative ruts.

AJA (33 1/3) by Don Breithaupt -- One of the more complex books in the 33 1/3 series, mainly because the music of Steely Dan is rather complex. Read this twice because it was short but very challenging because I'm not a musician.

That's it for now. I read a bunch of fun books in 2013. Already began a new pile thus far.

DOA Blogs

By Pauly
New York City

Kottke wrote an obit for blogs. Check out R.I.P. The Blog, 1997-2013.

I first saw the link on Tony Pierce's post The End of Blogging.

To quickly sum up... blogging is no longer kitschy and like Tony said, it lost its buzz. But, there's some hope.... long-form writers will always stick with the format because it caters to lengthy, rambling content. Plus blogs are best suited to provide coverage of breaking news stories. So it won't go away completely, but there's been a significant shift away from long-form content over the last few years. Trends and short attention spans are a bitch.

I admired Tony's dedication to his old-school blog. When I first started out, I found inspiration in several of his posts, especially on How to Leave a Comment. That was just before online trolling became a national pasttime. To this day, it's one of the best blog posts I've read.

Timing is everything. I started a blog at the right time too. My college roommate Skippy, who wrote for a major newspaper at the time, told me about Blogger in 2002 and I signed up. The rest is history. I guess I was one of those early adopters. The blog was an amazing resume to attract potential clients. That was the perfect storm too because I had spent the previous decade struggling to break into the writing biz in any capacity. Funny how I snuck in the backdoor through blogs, particularly poker blogs. I nearly parlayed a rinky dink deen gambling poker blog into a book deal. That deal fell apart but most of the Vegas-centric content of the blog became the bulk of the first draft of Lost Vegas.

There was a time in the middle 00s when everyone and their grandmother had a blog and blogs became the new tattoos. That's when I knew it was time to migrate elsewhere (even though by then I had started at least 20-30 different blogs either for myself or for work). But other social media platforms became a lot more appealing becase let's face it... blogs are word centric and we're an image-based culture that hates to read. Facebook and Twitter were much more appealing to a broader audience.

And then Tumblr came along and was mobile-format friendly which appealed to many folks in the middle of the road between old-school blogs and micro-blogging (FB/Twitter). I guess Tumblr is like medium-blogging. Then again, if you're on Tumblr, it's because you're a teenage girl, or you're addicted to oodles of free (and virus-free) porn. There's a huge crossover in the middle there. I'll let you draw your own naughty conclusions.

And yes, I'm on Tumblr. I'm an early adopter and I dig porn. I liked using it as a middle-of-road platform when 140 characters on Twitter was not enough. But these days, Medium is overtaking Tumblr in that department, which is why it's doomed to be a site for teenage emo girls and porn addicts. I won't dabble much in Tumblr this year. I had two Tumblrs that I tried to maintain, but made a decision to consolidate shit. Tumblr got left out of the mix when I sketched out 2014 Projects. Alas, I migrated 'Writing Music' to this blog and I moved Daily Sports Betting Picks from Ocelot's Tumblr over to its main website.

Iggy once told me that this corner of the web was going to be the biggest blog of mine someday. I thought he was smoking PCP because it's impossible to trump the traffic that Tao of Poker had reached at the height of its popularity every summer, nor could it come close to a post on Coventry smack in the middle of Phish tour. I hope Iggy is right someday. Until that happens... I'll keep plugging away. But consolidating stuff is a wise plan. It's putting more eyeballs back here... the source and launching pad for everything else.

Social media becomes a reflection of my current interests and ever-changing philosophy. I'm in the middle of a consolidation phase. I got stretched thin and want to focus on fewer of those projects. I'm going for a less is more approach, but hoping the less means much stronger or more focused content... whatever that is.

Management of social media is a pain-in-the-ass task and sucks up chunks of time sifting through the static. It's much easier to water a couple of house plants then have to service multiple greenhouses. I got too ambitious and bit off more than I could chew. With other creative things on my plate, I learned the hard way that if I shovel too much shit into my mouth, then I'm going to puke everything up an potentially choke on my own vomit.

Happy 2014 and Back to Driving the Bus

By Pauly
New York City

Illustration by Mattias Adolfsson

Last year at this time, I didn't really have a gameplan. I penciled a loose sketch about what I wanted to do but tackled the year with a flexible attitude. I had fun, like always, but I ran into some rough patches because of the lack of a specific gameplan. As the year came to a close, I had a more detailed outline about the future, specifically 2014. I have a general idea what I'm doing and what I want to work on.

I have three or four new things ready to roll in the upcoming months. Those newer projects coincide with a consolidation of websites/blogs/tumblrs, etc. I guess there's far worse things in life than being over-ambitious, but I often bite off more than I can chew and then I get in a weird spot because I've overextended myself and have too much pride to either 1) ask for help, or 2) cut my losses and walk away. Until I can clone myself and put them to work on various projects, I had to be honest with time limitations and make some sacrifices. There's only so much I can do without blowing a gasket. The worst stress is the stress you unfairly create for yourself.

I enjoy creating things because I want to create them. Most of the time, I have no choice... I'm drawn to something. I guess that's the universe taking over, or me feeding the curiosity beast. Nothing can be more impure than being forced to do something for the sole (unpaid) entertainment of others. Whenever someone says "When are you going to write this..." that's a surefire indication that I shouldn't be doing that and you can bet your ass I won't do it. It's that eternal battle between keeping yourself happy and trying to keep others happy. It's a constant struggle -- doing things you enjoy versus doing things you're supposed to do. Conflict arises when you have less time to do the things you're itching to do, and stuck trying to keep others happy doing what they want you to do. It nearly killed me once in Vegas, and I'm not keen on letting that happen again. Took me nearly two years to bounce back from the accident, but even then I held myself back too many times to count because I felt obligated to do other things. Then a bitter resentment builds up because I'm making tremendous sacrifices to make other people happy... only to find out most of them will never be satisfied.

I've never been someone who did things that was expected of me, so why the hell did I get myself into a creative rut? All it did was rot my insides. I lost control of my own creative controls which were hijacked by different parties -- commercial interests and mob mentality. The sad part is that I let that happen. I wallowed in my own misery for a bit before I said 'Fuck it!' I launched a counter-coup and now I regained the controls. Again. I foolishly let the inmates run the asylum. Yeah, I'm back to driving the bus and running the loony bin.

I know where I want to go and not afraid to make that journey. Let's have some fun with it before I lose control because the herd always catches up eventually.

By the way... in the sports betting department, we got some kick-ass content over at Ocelot Sports. Our pal, Buffalo66, is creating daily handicapping videos to give a glimpse into his system and how he makes picks based on several different models. With the NFL playoffs coming up, he's going to share a ton of free advice. Don't miss out. Follow @OcelotSports on Twitter and visit the website (OcelotSports.com) for daily picks and handicapping videos.

Happy 2014. I hope it's a productive one for the both of us.

New Kindle or iPad? Buy One of My Books

By Pauly
New York City

Congrats. You survived. Merry Day-After Christmas.

Did you get a new iPad, or how about a Kindle? If so, then here's your chance to buy digital copies of my books.

The e-book version of Lost Vegas is only a few clicks away. It's a memoir (of sorts) spanning four years as a poker reporter in Las Vegas.

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.

* * * *


Do you like fiction? Many moons ago, I penned a trashy novel. Feel free to indulge yourself with an e-book Kindle version of Jack Tripper Stole My Dog.

This young lady had some kind words to say about JTSMD...


I recorded a podcast with Nicky over 30 months ago! She asked me questions about the origins of Jack Tripper Stole My Dog. Listen below via SoundCloud...

JTSMD - Episode 1: The 10-Day Novel by taopauly  * * * *
Thanks for the support. Hopefully, I'll have a new novel to pimp sometime in 2014.

Late Lament

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be freelancers.

I sent that as a text to my pal Shamus, an English professor and fellow freelancer. He understands the vexatious financial ebbs and flows of being a writer for hire. It's important to love what you do, but no one likes it when you don't get paid on time. It's ironic that writers are anchored to deadlines, yet the mega-media corporations they write for often have zero regard for paying their creatives in a timely manner. If they're late, there's zero recourse.

Hypothetically, in Norman Rockwell's Americana, the average citizen supposedly works for 11 months with 1 month off. Using that formula, I tried to game the system. I figured out how to squeeze 11 months of (freelance) work inside 8 months so I can get four months off to travel and write on my own projects. I'm struggling to maintain that balance, but I'm seeking a life of enjoyment without being a slave to it. My rough sketch is this: 5 months on (Feb-March-April-May-June), 2 months off (July-Aug), 3 months on (Sept-Oct-Nov), 2 months off (Dec-Jan). But those 8 months "on" are hectic, but it's worth the sacrifice. I'm fortunate that Nicky works on a TV show and she has time off when it's not in production, so some of our time off coincides with each other.

The key to freelancing is to do enough of it and spread out evenly so a steady flow of income is coming in. Steady gigs are essential, even if they're small because any consistent checks are a godsend during the lean months. I have a few stretches every year when there's limited funds coming in, so things get ugly whenever there's any delayed payments from other clients, especially with bigger projects.

I'm used to getting paid several months after I finish something. Heck, I went a decade writing without getting paid. That was miserable and I had to hump shitty jobs to keep a roof over my head and the Man off my back. But it often defies logic to do work (instantly published) with a deferred payment, but that's the system that's in place originally created in the print media paradigm.

Delayed payments are good because it forces you to stay within your budget because you constantly have a strained cash flow. You have "promises" of money coming in, but you cannot 100% guarantee to get paid, so you really have to live with what you got. If you get stiffed, then you have to hire a thug (aka lawyer) to get it back.

Most of the time you gamble as a freelancer, which you can afford to do with reliable and established clients. I know XYZ will pay me eventually, so I can spend this money now.

Sometimes it's a coinflip on whether you get paid on time. Chasing down outstanding clients is almost a full-time job. You have to be firm, but most of the time I feel less like a creative person and more like a bill collector. If you let them string you along, then you set precedent and you'll never be paid on time. If you bitch and moan too much, they won't hire you back. I had a few instances when I was threatened and essentially blackmailed for wanting to be paid. I don't write for those fuckers anymore.

In an era when it's getting harder and harder to get compensation for content creation, it's increasingly more difficult to get paid on time. It's easy to write, compared to the painful process trying to get paid. I rarely stress out about what I'm going to write, but I can't sleep when I'm wondering when the hell the money is coming in. I would never blow a deadline by 90 or 120 days, but you'd be surprised how long it takes to get paid in some instances.

Corporations and bill collectors don't give a rat's ass about what's owed to you. All they care about is what you owe them.

Most freelancers my age are paycheck-to-paycheck kind of people with car loans, credit card bills, and alimony/child support. I'm lucky because I don't own a car or have ex-wives/kids to support. But my friends with that burden have a hellacious life. No wonder writers are often heavy drinkers. Sweet liquor eases the pain of not getting paid.

Sure, I could use a credit card as a temporary loanshark until I get paid, but I'm already using credit to cover business related travel and expenses. If I don't pay that at the end of the month, then I incur interest. It might take several months to get paid, so many freelancers get screwed by credit card companies charging them juice. Good luck convincing any media outlet (especially if they are on the verge of extinction, or struggling to stay relevant in an over-saturated market) to pay for all your incured expenses, let alone credit card interest. So if you're like me and don't want the big banks to get free cash due to the bizarre "work now, get paid later" freelancer payment system, then you have to pay expenses out of pocket. In full. I want to stick it to the banks, but that kills my cash flow. Of course if I got paid on time, this would not be a problem.

One of the worst experience I had encountered happened while covering an event in London. I paid for the trip out of pocket with the intentions of acquiring several stories and selling them to multiple outlets. But that trip was a disaster and I had lost money on that gig due to ridiculous escalating expenses (hotels and shitty exchange rate of the British Pound at the peak of the financial crisis). It didn't help that I got paid significantly less from one client (they wanted more work for less pay), another client sold their site overnight (and the new corporate overlord didn't want to retain services), and another magazine rejected my work because I got undercut by a sleazy cut-throat hack who stole my column because she said she'd do it for 1/3 of my rate. Shit happens. That's the risk you take working for yourself. At least I got to take a side trip to Amsterdam with my girlfriend, which salvaged the journey.

Most of the time, expenses come out of the freelancer's pocket, so it's sort of an investment or necessary cost of doing business. It takes money to make money, right? If you must travel to get the story, you better earn back enough to cover expenses and make it worth your time. That's the biggest problem facing journalists today... there's not enough outlets willing to pay expenses for them to get a detailed story, whether it's the front lines of a civil war in Western Africa or an extensive investigation into the financial crisis.

I dunno about you, but I lose all ambition to sit down and crank out new freelance work when I'm not paid on time. It's difficult to motivate yourself when you haven't been paid. As a freelancer, you can never have a bad day at work because you have to be "on" all the time. In the 9-5 world,you can slack off and still get paid. You can never get away with that in the freelance realm. Then again, in the 9-5 world, it would be absurd to work more than a pay cycle or two without getting paid. I've had some clients in which I worked for free for almost a year before finally getting compensated. Either I had blind faith, or I was a fucking moron for doing that. That's why prompt payment is the supreme motivator.

It's not worth the aggravation to deal with perpetually late clients, yet I still lose sleep over it. Given the choice of writing for pay, or writing for myself, I've been consistently picking myself the last two years. So I better finish off Fried Peaches and get that new novel out to generate another revenue stream because it's been a pain in the ass relying on multiple corporations to pay me on time.

I burned out on poker and Vegas several years ago, because I was sick of the rampant unprofessionalism and tired of chasing down delinquent clients. The scumbag, lying asstards at Higher Roller Magazine still owe me several grand for content I generated in 2006-07! I'll never see that money. If you count of all the money that immoral "clients" like High Roller and other deplorable stiffed me on, that number would be somewhere between a WSOP Main Event buy-in and a new Toyota Corolla. Closer to the Corolla.

Imagine the frustration and anger seething through my veins knowing that I generated enough original content to buy a car... but there's no fucking car.

Tough shit. That's life. Lawless and ruthless. Re-read the opening line: Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be freelancers.

Don't get me started about how much bookies owe me. Of course, I gotta keep my yapper shut about that bad beat because I don't want to piss off the wiseguys and wake up next to a severed horse's head.

So, it's the end of the year and I've been banging my head against the wall trying to get paid from multiple clients. They will all pay eventually (with the exception of one outfit which I have no fucking clue is up with those shady mofos), but it would have been nice to get paid before Christmas.We'll see. Eight days away.

I'm not going to be exploited today. Fuck that. I'm gonna go work on Fried Peaches edits and write about how horrible it is to be a Jets fan.

Support independent writers and buy a book today.

10,000 Monkey Hours

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

I don't buy the 10,000 Hours theory.

Malcom Gladwell came up with that number to quantify how long it will take someone to achieve mastery level of a specific activity, like playing the violin. I've watched 20,000 hours of pro football and I'll never figure it out. Just when I think I have a grasp on it... something happens.

Insert "moving goal posts" cliche here ____.

But the spirit of 10,000 Hours is something I can get behind. It's all about dedicating yourself to something and having the fortitude to follow through. Even if it's a monkey banging away at a laptop.

I'm that monkey.

I banged on a half a dozen laptops in the last decade and even persuaded enough people who would pay me to do something I was doing for free anyway. It's been a great hustle... content creation... while it lasted.

I doubt I can get paid as a writer twenty years from now, let alone two years from now, so I need a new racket. I'm developing a bot that can mimic my writing style and I'll just let that bot run amok in the upcoming years when I finally re-boot Tao of Poker. But in the meantime, it's time to lock myself in my office and rededicate myself to another pursuit. What can I accomplish by blocking out 10,000 hours?

Everyone has ideas but very few actually follow through. Hence, why New Year's Resolutions are bullshit. It's part of that quote attributed to Woody Allen about "90% of success is showing up." It's easy to talk shit and say you're going to do something. But you really can separate the movers and shakers from the shit talkers by seeing who actually follows through on their game plan.

Stephen King once said that if you write one page a day, you will have a novel by the end of the year. It was that simple. One page a day. One page fits into schedules for everyone. Students. Suits. Moms. Dads. Prisoners. Spinsters. Whatever. One page a day is not difficult, but it's the discipline and inability to follow through is what prevents more people from writing more novels.

I'm like Stephen King though because I could never spread out a novel over 365 days. It would drive me insane. That's why NaNoWriMo is more my speed. Only takes a month. Oh and for the record, I did not do any cocaine or Adderall during the completion of Fried Peaches. I was kicking it old school. Just toking a little medicinal weed. Since I wrote most of it early in the morning, I actually smoked very little. Just a quick wake-n-bake and I was off running.

There was a huge period of time in King's career when he was hopelessly addicted to cocaine and he'd write furiously while jacked up to the tits on blow and he'd only stop typing to do another line, or to shove cotton into his nose to stop the bleeding so his typewriter wouldn't get flooded by a bloody nasal drip, due to the horrendous damage he had done to his destroyed nasal cavities.

King even claimed that he had no memory of writing complete novels, like Cujo, because he was so high and fried to the tits.

Anyway, sorry for that tangent.... but if you listen to King and write one page every day, then by Halloween you will have a 300-page novel. You can spend the last two months of the year re-writing and editing, and within a full calendar year you will have produced a legit 300-word novel. And not one of those rushed, over-wordy NaNoWriMo novellas. Sure, I wrote a bunch of those 50K adjective-heavy manuscripts, but I have a short-attention span and don't think I could have enough discipline to write one page every day. Once I get an idea, I want to run with it as fast as possible before self-doubt catches up to me. It's a sprint to the finish line. Luckily, I was almost done with Fried Peaches when I finally got bum-rushed by doubt.

There's several major industries of the "self-help" variety that profit off of laziness. Just take a peek at the billion dollar weight loss industry, yet everyone is drastically overweight in America.

Everyone might have sincere intentions on shedding a few pounds, but how many people own gym memberships and actually go? It's a great hustle. Even one of the most popular TV shows is about people competing on a game show to see who loses the most weight. That's something that 1950s sci-fi writers could only dream up as the most absurd bit of entertainment, yet  a half a century later, The Biggest Loser is one of the top TV shows in America.

Weight loss is a coin flip. You're either going to do it, or not. Simple as that. Any diet will work if you stick to it. So any of those diets can actually claim they work... because it will, so long as you follow through. All of these fancy work out routines and diets are ways for slick hustlers to rake in millions of lazy people looking for shortcuts.

Same goes for religion and spiritual direction. Most of our consumer-crazed society has abandoned organized religion, which has left a huge gap in the spirituality department. People are left to find that out for themselves, but that makes them prey to a vast industry of self-help gurus. There's thousands and thousands of videos and books, yet everyone is still fucked up.

I just look around and think... sweet Jesus... we're totally fucked. Western civilization is being held together by duct tape and credit cards.

If you're someone on a true spiritual mission, you'll eventually find something... you'll find the right road, or the right path to what you think is your spiritual calling. In order to reach that destination, you really have to find our who you really are. It's that "know thyself" mantra.

The ones that can confront the truth, are the truly enlightened ones. But everyone who gets lost in the shuffle constantly trying to "find themselves" yet come up short? Well, they're full of shit because they fail to confront their true reality, so it's no wonder they'll never find what they're looking for because they refuse to acknowledge their own truth.

If you're blind to your own reflection, you're totally fucked and you'll live the rest of your life spiritually bankrupt.

I keep going back and forth deciding if I want to be one of those snake oil salesmen who profits off of the failures of others. It's good money to crank out one of those self-help books for wanna-be writers  that recycles basic (and so blatantly obvious) writing tips and fluffed up by witty quotes from philosophers. I'd feel guilty trying to sell a book that is the equivalent of feeding someone a cold buffet of fluff and tripe, but don't forget the yummy omelet station!

But it's all bullshit.

Because nothing I can tell people will help them if they are not going to put in the time. I also thought about writing a self-help book for wanna-be writers that was 20 chapters, but the title of each chapter is "WRITE EVERY DAY."

Chapter 1: WRITE EVERY DAY
Chapter 2: WRITE EVERY DAY
Chapter 3: WRITE EVERY DAY
Chapter 4: WRITE EVERY DAY

Etc, etc, etc. And if someone follows my advice and finally breaks through as a writer, then viola! It works. Who would have thought that I came up with a revolutionary method! So simple that any monkey with a laptop can do it.

I should release Pauly's Half-Baked 420 Writing Tips next October, just before NaNoWriMo so I can take advantage of all of those ambitious novelists. The number of participants is staggering. And then put it on sale around New Years, so people will buy it as a part of a resolution to write a book. Stephen King said it wasn't hard. Just write one page a day.

Seriously, if you put in time and write every day, then you won't need any self-help book. Sure, read On Writing by Stephen King, but that's all you really need and it's not really a self-help book as much as a guide.

The basic winning formula is just putting in the time, following through, traveling, and trying to life as much life as you can.

Success-driven people will forge on ahead no matter what obstacles are in their way. Doesn't matter if it's an Olympic bobsledder or a musician or an aspiring screenwriter. But there's tons of money out there by people with disposable income who are seeking shortcuts.

"Brain dead and made of money, no future at all" is a lyric from one of my favorite songs. Reminds me of all of the sheep who buy self-help books. But I have serious reservations about fleecing angleshooters and lazy fuckers who never saw a shortcut they didn't like. I dunno how all of these so-called religious leaders can live with themselves. I guess when you spend every day trying to brainwash people, it's pretty easy to get brainwashed yourself?

It's easier to con greedy people because their judgement is blinded by their own greed. It's why politicians easily manipulate the populous because there's no shortage of angry citizens who find comfort in blaming someone else for their problems. Today's politicians don't offer up solutions, they help point fingers.

If there's one thing I learned the most from working in the gambling industry for almost a decade, it's that I see so many people, year after year, who think they're hustlers yet they get into something only to find out that they got hustled. Best example are people who read HOW TO BEAT BLACKJACK books, then they go to Vegas and get cleaned out.

Hustle the hustlers.

That's how Tommy Vu made millions with his real estate infomercials in the 1980s. You saw this eclectic Asian guy on a yacht surrounded by beautiful women and thought "I can attain the same success and all I have to do is call this toll-free number and find out how!"

Don't get hustled. Just put your head down and get the job done.

Writing to Live and Feeding F. Scott's Vampire Monkey

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

This article hit a little too close to home: Writing to Live in Hollywood.

I saw a few haunting parallels between Fitzgerald washing up in Hollywood and myself and Las Vegas. I sold out and ditched my original artistic prime directive in order to make a quick buck and earn easy money shilling online poker to essentially keep the party going.

Fitzgerald ended a long chapter in his life as a novelist in New York City and headed West to sunny California. One of America's premier fiction writers sold his soul to the suits running the big studios during the golden era of Hollywood. Fitzgerald wasn't stupid; he was a washed-up writer and following the money. They were printing so much money in Hollywood that even a neophyte screenwriter with zero experience like him had a crack at a few bucks, so he signed a contract with MGM and cranked out a bunch of crappy, passion-less screenplays. I think I read somewhere that Fitzgerland was making the equivalent of $1,000/week (in 2013 dollars).

Every week, Hollywood fat cats raked in millions and millions and millions of dollars from box offices all over America and flowing freely right back to the bank accounts of the major studios. Fitzgerald was not the only novelist who supplemented their income by writing (or ghost-writing) for the studios. William Faulkner was so far gone at that point in the twilight of his career that he was perpetually shitfaced so his assistant handed in his pages.

Fitzgerald was stalked by demons the majority of his adult life. Large mutherfucking demons with claws and roving band of starved, blood-sucking monkeys. He could only slay those beasts with the bottle. He wrestled with those fierce alkie demons and always lost. Night after night. The vampire monkeys jeered and shat in their hands and threw it in his general direction. It was an expensive war and cost Fitzgerald his health and dragged him deep into debt.

Fitzgerald died at the age of 44 of a heart attack, but he drank himself to death. Fitzgerald got caught up in a nasty cycle of abuse and self-doubt and could not escape. Quicksand. Instead of sand, it was booze. He headed to Hollywood because it was the only place that could pay for his rampant alcoholism (in addition to medical treatment for his bat-shit crazy wife Zelda), but being stuck in Los Angeles and struggling to write shitty dialogue for pathetic third-rate B-films drove him even more insane. He got stuck in a rut, which sent him into a deeper depression, so he drank even more. And more. And more. Poor fucker never had a chance.

I sort of turned to poker and Vegas to cover the tab for my addictions -- mostly travel and music. I felt as though I had to go through hell for 2 months every year so I could have a groovy 10 months. That was the sacrifice I made... but I was also selling out. I flocked to Vegas every summer to follow the money. It was the only place I knew where I could get paid rather well to write (and be myself) and I was stuck in that cycle because of lifestyle maintenance. It took me seven years, but I finally realized it wasn't worth it.

I got into poker by accident. I thought I had a once-in-a-lifetime experience covering the 2005 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. The plan was have one crazy summer and that was it then return to NYC and the dream would be over. It turns out I never went home. The dream continued... and continued. I headed out West and stuck around Vegas, like so many other innocent people who got seduced by the gambling scene, or sucked into the Vegas' black hole of depravity and immorality.

I bailed from Vegas before I became a full blown junkie or lost all my money betting on sports, and washed up in Hollywood of all places. I considered myself one of the lucky ones. I actually left Vegas with some money in my pocket. Most of the people I know who moved to Vegas chasing the Dream Americana either went broke, or went crazy, or got totally ambushed by a nasty addiction and fell prey to "The Sickness" which is full-blown immersion into a vice that totally sucks your soul dry. Pick one... a) drugs, b) alcohol, c) gambling, and d) sex. The Sickness comes in multiple choice form.

Fitzgerald passed away unable to fade depression  and demoralization and the lingering effects of hardcore alkie abuse. He arrived in Hollywood mostly forgotten as a novelist and dismissed as a "one-hit wonder." Even when he died, the critics were not extolling Fitzgerald's virtues like many college professors do today.

Check out Writing to Live in Hollywood.

Salinger

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

I caught Salinger, a documentary on America's most famous reclusive author J.D. Salinger. Still processing it all. The images. The story. The sadness of solitude. The idiocy of a self-adsorbed twat. Screenwriter Shane Salerno (Armageddon) directed this film so it was slightly different than your regular documentary structure. It took nine years to complete the doc and he conducted hundreds of interviews in search of the story about Salinger. What was Salinger doing for decades while hiding out in a small town in New Hampshire and raising a family, or at least trying to before his maniacal devotion to writing fractured his relationship with his wife and daughter?

I read Catcher in the Rye when I was in the 8th grade. Salinger's Holden Caufield did not impact me as much as he probably should. I read it the same year I saw Ferris Bueller's Day Off fourteen times. I found Ferris far more heroic than the whiny Holden Caufield and his ducks. But by then, I was already a jaded kid and knew that adults were mostly full of shit hypocrites. I first heard about John Lennon getting killed on 72nd Street through the TV. It was huge news everywhere. for days and days. A barrage of media coverage. Outrage and mourning. During the weeks after the murder, I heard more details about Lennon's crazed assassin, a fan who was fond of Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. When President Reagen got shot, his would-be assassin took a shot at ole Dutch Reagan because he was inspired by Catcher in the Rye. I simply associated Catcher in the Rye with bad vibes and insane murders. When the Pope got shot, I immediately wondered if the shooter read Salinger's book too?

It might surprise you, but I enjoyed Franny and Zooey more than Catcher. Nicky had a copy and I re-read most of it in one sitting. Salinger's best shit? His short stories. Mostly from New Yorker circa the late 40s/early 50s. I highly recommended Salinger's Nine Stories, which includes A Perfect Day for Bananafish. That fiction absolutely blew the minds of New Yorker readers. Then there's For Esmé -- With Love and Squalor, which deals with the unspoken affliction of PTSD (called shell-shock during that era) that GIs struggled with while assimilating back into society post-WWII. 

Salinger's writing with inspired and driven by his PTSD. His experiences -- from landing at D-Day all the way to hunting Nazis -- deeply embedded itself into Saligner's writing. His demons were exorcised by his characters. He spent decades in seclusion while marinating in the carefully constructed worlds in which his intricate characters lived. He could control that (fantasy) world... the world of the Glass and Caufield families. The real world, ruled of phonies, was beyond his control, which is why he detached himself for long periods of time. 

Hiding out. Salinger grew up on Park Avenue and after the financial success of Catcher in the Rye, he could have lived anywhere in the world, but exiled himself his bunker deep in the woods of New Hampshire. Salinger donned a peculiar uniform when he wrote, like a jumpsuit, or something a house painter or telephone repairman would wear. He had a smaller cottage behind his house and he hung out in his office. Hiding from the world. Hiding from his family. Ducking the fog of war which followed him from the Belgium forest to small town America.

Salinger eventually stopped publishing in the mid-60s. He couldn't handle the slings and arrows from critics. He couldn't handle the backlash from the public and the biting jealousy from his peers. He couldn't handle the pressure knowing that whatever he wrote would not satisfy the critics, his contemporaries, the readers, and the publishers. He decided to keep it simple and withdraw from the machine, but write for himself. He supposedly wrote every day until his health interceded, but he was writing into his late 80s. Sure, it's easy to drop out of the publishing world when you're financial secure and 60 years after its first publication, the novel still sells 250K books a year and you can live off of those royalties. I'd love to go off the grid. I have fantasies about walking away from the virtual world and ditching social media. Alas, I don't have a choice. I need to keep my foot in the door because I need to sell more books down the road. This is the only way I can make a few bucks to keep a roof over my head, yet I often dream about unplugging and not worrying about chasing the shadow of the ghost of my former self.

A couple of parts of the Salinger documentary disturbed me particularly the concentration camp scenes. Salinger, an army intelligence officer, supposedly was among the first wave of American troops to walk into a concentration camp. Those horrors stuck with him the rest of his life.

Then there's Salinger's questionable fascination and infatuation with young girls. Like around 16 years old. Sure, when he was 21 and he dated Eugene O'Neill's 16-year old daughter and that was sort of acceptable. But the older he got, his penchant for young girls grew increasingly uncomfortable. Sure, he was fond of writing letters to young women, but he was an episode of To Catch a Predator waiting to happen. Supposedly all of those relationships were platonic and he simply enjoyed the attention of young girls. He's flirting a dangerous line. There's laws set up in place to keep leering old men away from precocious teenage girls. But when you can dangle Holden Caufield in front of impressionable young women... well, it's pretty easy for them to fall under his spell.

There was always an urban lit legend that Thomas Pynchon was actually J.D Salinger and he created "Pynchon" as a pseudonym so he could publish anonymously after he removed himself from the literati in NYC. Of course, that isn't true. Pynchon is alive and well on the West Coast and published not one but two books in the twilight of his career.

And then there's the stories that keep the tin foil hat crowd whipped up in a frenzy. You know, the one about Salinger being in the CIA? It's easy to link him with WWII spooks who formed the agency post-war. Salinger was a counter intelligence officer during the war and hunted Nazis after Germany's surrender. But this is where it gets sketchy...Salinger married a known Nazi and got away with it. He claimed he and his German wife had telekinetic ability and could communicate with each other without speaking. German vixen seduces American army officer with a literal mind fuck? That's something out of a Philip K. Dick speed-induced short story. But seriously... how the hell was Salinger able to pull off nuptials to an ex-Nazi without getting court martialed (marriages to German nationals were illegal for a couple years after the war)? That brief marriage really screwed him up. Emotionally destroyed him. First he got shunned by Eugene O'Neill's daughter who dumped him for Charlie Chaplin, and then he got his heart shattered by an ex-Nazi temptress. I always suspected she duped him in order to avoid execution by bloodthirsty Cossacks seeking retribution. Then again, maybe Salinger was really a spy? And the marriage was a sham in order to extract more vital information about where Nazis hid their loot (specifically gold and classic paintings), along with the concealed locations of top Nazi aerospace scientists/engineers -- otherwise known as Operation Paperclip in which the Yanks were race against the Russians to find and scoop up as many Nazi scientists and academics in order to gain a quick edge in the first wave of the Cold War -- bigger nukes and faster planes and rockets that went farther.

You don't even have to follow the conspiracy forums on Reddit to know that there's always been a rumor that Salinger was contracted by the CIA to write Catcher in the Rye as a manual to determine potential assassins. Or rather, the government used Salinger's work as a litmus test to determine if the recruit is primed to smoke out any phonies if they gave him a sniper rifle and pointed the out to the biggest phony?

Then again, if I wrote a book that was associated with one murder, let along two (or three as the doc film alleged about Catcher in the Rye), the last thing I'd want to do is write another book.

At the end of the documentary, they revealed that the Estate of J.D. Salinger authorized the release of two novels in 2015 and 2020, with other pieces to be published at a later date. Also part of the deal, is that the Estate will NEVER authorize film version of Catcher in the Rye. I read an article somewhere that said he had something on the shelf that would not be published until 70 years after his death. Man, 2080? I wonder if America is still a country then? And will people still be reading books? I'll be 100+ years old. I doubt I lie another decade or two, but will we become a nation of illiterate zombies crocked on Big Pharma's sedatives?

Don't forget to check out Salinger's Nine Stories.

Trailer for Salinger documentary is here:

Sneeze Drizzle and Beating Dead Horses

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

You never want to sneeze when you pee. I guess that was the proper way to start the day. Ahhhhhhhchoo! Followed by a drizzle. Splash.

It could have been worse.

What could be worse than urine on immaculate tile? How about the Vice President of Warner Brothers walking into the rest room and witnessing the sneeze-drizzle combo. Or how about even worse than that? The VP could have been at the urinal next to me, and I accidentally sneeze-drizzled on his sparkly shined shoes and new suit.

For fuck's sake. Those are Italian imports.

A wise soul once said (could have been Ari Gold's flunkies on Entourage), "You're not the only writer who pissed on the floor at Warner Brothers. You won't be the last."

That's the one demoralizing thing about Hollywood. When you think you did something original, some has already beaten you to it.

Then again, I look around and marvel at the fancy houses tucked away in the hills, and sneer at all those gaudy homes infesting the shores of Malibu, and I suddenly realize there's moolah to be made in recycling old themes. Recycling old shit. Repeats of old schtick.

"Beat the fuck out of that dead horse until that last goddamned penny squeezed out of its bloody ass."

I'm clearly doing it wrong.

All this time I thought the key to artistic success was originality. Creating new things. Blazing new trails. I was trying to strike gold by moving froward. It's always foolish to chase down today's fad. But instead of worrying about tomorrow's new thing, seems like there's significant amount of money to be made by going backwards.

Repeat. Reuse. Recycle. Repeat. Reuse. Recycle.

Hey, we're not saving the fucking whales here. I'm just trying to keep up this hustle while there's still a way to hustle. You might dig the written word, but it's getting harder and harder to get paid to do it. Long-form writers for hire will become an endangered species. In 18 months the network news will just be a hologram reading tweets of famous people to you. Oh wait, that's already happening... except the holograms. As soon as mega-news-corps figure out how deliver the news without humans... they'll fucking do it. Robots and holograms never whine about a raise.

I thought I was going nuts. Chasing my own shadow. Losing sleep. Lost in thought trying to create a new website next year. Trying to write a reality TV show. Trying to write a new book. I'm doing it all wrong. Instead of going forward, I need to reverse my caravan. I'll sit out the poker game for a couple more years, then reboot Tao of Poker. Old brand, but new formula! Or more like old formula, new fonts! Whatever. You get the drift. I was ready to stay away forever, but I got a change of heart.

Funny how one sneeze-drizzle can make you change your entire outlook on the world.

I got sick of writing about soulless degenerates, jaded hookers, and old people so addicted to slot machines that they're sitting in their own body fluids. But in a few years, there'll be a huge demand for those tales of desperation and depravity. Again.

Hey, I'm not proud of it... but how else am I going to make a buck? How can I write the great American novel and make up stories about the death of the American dream when all you have to do is turn on the TV and you get a healthy dose of the downfall of civilization. That futuristic dystopia is now. Welcome to the Surveillance States of America. With our friendly skies patrolled by drones that may or may not be run by rogue AI that will someday stop listening to human commands. Even my twisted mind can't compete with all the weird shit that's happening. My fiction is trite compared to what's going in the world. That's why I need to wise up and start beating up dead horses. If it's good enough for the fat cat Berbers running Hollyweird, then its good enough for me.

It comes down to timing. I need to sit out with Tao Poker another year or three. Then wait for a perfect time to go retro. It's like squatting on a fashion trend and waiting until it gets hip again.

That reminds me of a work friend from Seattle. He was into the Swing Revival that swept America in the late 90s (I blame Swingers... fucking Favreau). A couple of my housemates were curious about this Swing craze and they took dancing lessons. So did my co-worker. He and his wife signed up and became so good so fast that they were tapped to teach a beginner's class because the original class got so popular that they had to add more classes. Swing was blowing up in post-grunge Seattle. He got a brand new wardrobe including three, very expensive, vintage zoot suits he had custom made. He even created artwork (mostly concert posters) for a local "swing" big band that was a third-rate knock off of the Big Squirrel Testicle Zipperheads Voodoo Daddy, or whatever they were fucking called. Of course, this swing fad was short-lived and died around the turn of the millennium. The Revival became a faint memory. No one was interested in classes. The swing band broke up. He got divorced when his wife ran off with some dude in an "electronica" band. Worst of all, none of the clothes he wore were hip anymore. Even the first wave of hipsters that blew through Seattle post-Tech Boom wouldn't dare putting on a zoot suit. He had two choices... send his zoots to Goodwill, or hope that another Swing Revival returns and his zoots are in style once again. I hope he has a lot of mothballs.

So yeah, Tao of Poker is my zoot suit. I'm not gonna bust my ass and create a new site. I'll reboot an old one instead. Ain't broke, don't fix it. Einstein said that. Or Yogi Berra. Or neither. Maybe it was a fortune cookie or a Psalm?

Much easier to recycle an old idea. I have dozens of sites too that are boarded up relics of the past that only need a fresh coat of paint and its ready to roll. All I have to do is inject a few updated pop culture references and then deceive the readers into thinking they're getting new stories that are really formulaic bits of tripe I had already churned out a decade earlier.

Shut up and play the hits! Have I told you the last 5 pros I pissed next to? Have I told you about playing Pai Gow with (myself) until 4am and leaving after (I) went on mega-monkey-tilt and screamed at a dealer from Hong Kong?

Hopefully no one will even notice. Most of my readers are alkies and drug addicts, so many they'll be to wasted to know? By then Obama Care will kick in and everyone will be taking their government-issued Happy Pill. You'll have to wait until 2017 before Big(Pharma)Brother issue chewable Xanax in cherry and grape flavors for children (you can sill catch a decent Xannie-buzz on the kids' chewables, but only if you crush them up and snort it... obvious downside is purple boogers).

And the one or two Tao Poker purists who bitch about the recycled retro content? Well, I'll applaud them for their keen attention to detail and being able to differentiate new stuff from derivatives of derivatives. They know a hack when they see one but at that point, I won't give a shit because I'll be crocked on Government-issued Happy Pills.

Besides, I'm returning to the fray with the specific intentions of trying to be as redonklous as possible and see how far I can get away repackaging old schtick.

Like whipping a dead horse. It ain't going to be more dead than it is. You don't need an emo Scandi philosopher to tell you that. But when those whip marks dig in deep, well, that's entertainment son! Give the people what they want. Beating horses to death is how Hollywood studios rake in billions every year. If you can't beat them... join them.

MORE. BEAT. MORE. DEAD. HORSES.

Goosebumps. I get goosebumps when I think about the money truck with the Monopoly Man logo on the side that is rumbling down my street past the swaying palm trees to dump off a couple of bags of cheddar cheese Benjamins.

Oh, and I'll be introducing a new site in 2014. Just to you know... keep it real, so I can get street cred with my friends who are hardcore anarchists, and anti-Establishment militants, And those are my Wall Street friends. I haven't even talked about those Occupy-crazed hippies. But I'm sure they'll appreciate my new website...

Tao of Beating Horses to Death.

Seriously. It's called Tao of Beating Horses to Death. For brevity and Twitter, it will be @TaoDeadHorses.

I can't wait to start answering hate mail from ornery PETA furry fanatics. Those bellicose pet activists are my type of pugnacious folks. They absolutely love all animals unconditionally, but can't fucking stand people. Maybe I should join PETA? But I'm allergic to cats, so I might not pass the initiation test.