Why I didn’t pre-order the iPad
· CommentsUnlike a lot of you who might have bounded out of bed this morning to pre-order the iPad, I slept comfortably until 8am and then began my workday without so much as a thought about Apple’s latest toy. Why? Well, I have a laptop computer. And I have a Kindle. And I have an iPod.
And I like the fact they are all in different pieces.
See, when it comes to mobile computing, I like having a computer with a lot of memory, a lot of power, a real keyboard, and the ability to do anything a home PC can. I carry a giant laptop with me on my world travels. It’s now in its fourth (!) year of service and still getting the job done. I wouldn’t want anything less powerful.
My iPod (a 160gb Classic) is my baby. It’s been everywhere with me. It literally has more storage space than my laptop. It’s tough. I can watch movies on it if I want. My entire music collection fits in my pocket.
And then there is the Kindle, the beautiful, beautiful Kindle. Who knew one device would change my life so much? I am a devotee of the Kindle. I love it as much as I love ECCO shoes, Degree Clinical for Men, and soft cotton t-shirts.
Some people don’t get it. E-book? Why? Here’s my list:
(yes, that’s a brief commercial). But, my wife continues to call it the best $20 I’ve spent. The little LED light works very well, and even if you don’t have a Kindle, it’s worth trying out. And while I’m on the subject of reading in bed, it’s pretty nice to be able to prop the Kindle on a pillow and only touch it when I have to turn the page.Indeed, I love the Kindle so much, when my wife finished reading her hard copy of Game Change, I nearly bought it for Kindle just so I didn’t have to hold the big book in my hands while I read (I ended up making the reasonable decision, but I’m not all that happy about it).
Sure, there are some things about the Kindle that I don’t like. I am annoyed I can’t share books with my friends. It’s frustrating when a book on Amazon is not Kindle-ready. Finally, there are a few occasions in which the Kindle is a little wonky (footnotes make for some fiddly navigation–but I guess that’s the case with real books too, sometimes).
No matter, though, because I love my Kindle, I love my iPod, and I respect my dinosaur laptop for its ability to survive what I do to it. I like that when I want to listen to music, I don’t have to lug out an iPad. I like that when I want to use a computer, I have a full keyboard and powerful machine. I like that when I want to read, I have something that serves the purpose in a technologically advanced way without forcing me to buy an $800 mini-computer with less than half the memory of my iPod and an additional 3G data plan cost.
It’s rare for me to see a new piece of technology and not covet it. Today I feel pretty good about not caring about the iPad pre-orders, because I have everything I need (except for a 17″ MacBook Pro…).
Mastodon Weekend deconstructed
· Comments“He probably has a whole generation of writers getting drunk and wondering why they can’t write like that.” –Roger Ebert on Charles Bukowski.
In sitcoms the sound of a screeching phonograph needle has taken on an iconic responsibility. It signifies the point at which a person who simply doesn’t belong walks through the front door of an establishment. It’s that funny moment when everyone in the joint stops, looks, and pulls the switch on an innate xenophobia.
“This person isn’t from here,” the hive mind mumbles. “He doesn’t belong here.”
And, so cue the moment when 20 people stumble into a fancy steakhouse in Greenville, South Carolina. They stink of booze and jalapeños. They are muttering things about people with names like “Otis” and “BadBlood” and “Iggy.” A few of them have hair past their shoulders. One man is wearing a long trench coat. There is no doubt the blue-haired lady at Table 2 is afraid she is about to be flashed.
Worse than any of it for the people in the $500 shirts and $800 shoes? That loathsome lot at the front door has a reservation for the best table in the restaurant, courtesy of some guy named Mark who people keep referring to as The Mark. It’s off-putting and there are a lot of nonplussed people who are forced to watch that group through a little zoo-like window into the wine room.
Four servers, a sommelier, and the executive chef tend to the miscreants. The tab—which is buttressed by a tip to end all tips—is nothing that is discussed in too much detail. In a wash of sorbet, 18 year-old scotch, and bloody red meat, the group disappears out the front door.
It probably wasn’t real, except for the fact that it was.
You shouldn’t mistake these people for losers, although at first blush you could be forgiven. Most of these cretins live and work in polite society. They are the people who make your computers pop. They make your banks run, the legal system survive, and your body operate the way it should. They are hedonists, many of whom prefer to spend their cash now than on a gold casket when they die. We don’t talk about each other’s rolls, but if there isn’t a millionaire in the group yet, there probably will be in a few years.
Money doesn’t matter though, because the reason they all came in town has nothing to do with cash. While poker might have been the reason the core group started massaging each other’s egos, the game is now more an afterthought than raison d’être. Moreover, many of us are actually competitors in the same market. We have been competing for the same dollar for the past five or six years. The money that one of us makes can make the other have to work harder.
None of that will explain why two unknown girls started kissing in an Irish bar Saturday night at BG’s mere unspoken and mental suggestion, but it’s a start, and as much as I’m going to tell you for now.
“I’m not going to fawn over you this trip,” I said to one friend.
“I don’t want you to,” he said.
The problem is that this is a mutual admiration society. Where in other realms this group of people might be ignored—or, worse—shunned—in this little microcosm, they are celebrated. By the time we get done telling each other how much we love what the other is doing, we’ve killed an hour of time we could be plotting to conquer the world, or, better yet, take over a small island. And it’s no real exaggeration to suggest that there are some people capable of just that.
If there is one flaw this ragtag group shares is that, often, the traits for which they are best known, are often not what they really represent. The collective warmth, talent, foresight, courage, and ability is something that is not just hidden—it’s usually consciously, strategically hidden. Or, put another way, the dwarf really isn’t a dwarf.
“We should be better friends,” the friend said three days later after we lapsed into half an hour of inevitable fawning.
“Yes, we should be,” I said.
Then I admitted to him that there was a period of time I suspected him of murder.
Somewhere in St. Louis there are about 20 homeless folks walking around in baseball shirts with the word “mastodon” misspelled on the front. This is not my fault, but I bear some responsibility, because I know Chilly.
Chilly is an instigator by reputation. He likes to start debates and will be known to steal the occasional shot of alcohol from in front of a thirsty person. He is a teddy bear at heart. He had souvenir shirts made for everyone who came to visit last weekend. The first time through, the screen printer spelled “mastodon” with an “a.”
I don’t feel so bad about the homeless man who will be wearing the #4 “Otis” shirt, but the poor dude walking around in the #420 “Dr. Pauly” shirt is going to spend a lot of time getting hassled by the heat.
Why do it?
I don’t know, really.
I guess I just like the idea that–even if they have to come in from two countries and a dozen different states–it’s nice to know there a really good people in the world. It’s nice to know that if I needed something or someone, I have folks all over the place who would stop everything and help me take care of it.
That is, you can’t have enough good people in your life. We have scant few years to breathe and I want to spend that time with people who bring me joy.
* * *
I could count recount last weekend’s events moment by moment, but others do it better than me. Just search around the blogs, Twitter, and Facebook for “mastodon weekend” and you’ll see more than I’d ever hoped you would. I would still be remiss if I didn’t thank Mark (yes, The Mark) and all of his associates for their time and efforts to make the weekend so good. Also, many thanks to Bustout Poker Apparel for sponsoring our little event and making sure we were well fed, clothed, and paid. To the owners and staff of Azia, Rick Erwins, and every bar in the downtown area (except that one that has never been any good), thanks for putting up with us and treating us like the kings we pretend we are. A big thanks to my co-hosts BadBlood, The Mark, and G-Rob (who helped in a lot of the planning despite being sick in bed the whole weekend) for all your efforts.
Devolved again
· CommentsPart of taking a few days to spend with a couple dozen of you closest friends is that you need a few days to rest and and catch up on real life after it’s over. However, I couldn’t let Monday go by without thanking everyone who came into town for your continued friendship, debauchery, and ridiculous level of talent. Some sort of report will follow. Until then, you’re all champions in my book (despite Pauly being the actual champion and winner of the trophy).
Honesty
· CommentsI’ve known my friend T for a long time. We’re honest with each other as much as we can be. Sometimes it doesn’t work because we’re both idiots in our own way. With that understood, no matter how far either of us travel down our own ridiculous roads, our eyes rarely blink. I can usually spot his stumbles, and he can usually spot mine.
I’ve had countless people take my picture. No one has ever managed to capture me as well as T does. It’s largely because he’s an exceptionally talented photographer. He’s trained in it and he did it for a living for more than a decade.
It’s also because he knows me so well. Every picture of me I consider my favorite came from T’s camera. It’s because he captures me as I truly am. There are no fake smiles. There are no posed shots. There is no manufactured still life. It’s just me. He shoots me.
Usually when I repost T’s photos, it’s out of vanity, because how he shoots me is how I want to see myself. The photo on the top of this blog is his (although badly photoshopped by me). Sometimes, though, T captures the essence of how I feel and what I am in a given moment. It’s something I don’t recognize until I see his processed image. And it’s not always flattering.
I’ve been running hard for the past 72 hours. During that time I’ve had at least half a dozen people ask me if I’m okay or if something was bothering me. It confused me and I didn’t understand until T posted a picture tonight. It’s both horrible and perfect at the same time. I hate the photo, but I also love it, because someday I will want to remember how I feel right now and this photo will remind me.
Thanks, T.
2010 Mastodon Weekend
· CommentsThis morning I awoke to a text from Al.
“Bad beat,” he wrote. “Room won’t be ready until 3pm.”
He’d been on the road all night and hadn’t slept. The hotel at which he had a reservation wasn’t ready for him. He had nowhere to crash.
I rallied out of bed and started exploring options. By the time I had a solution figured out, Al was overlooking the Reedy River falls from one of the nicest hotel suites in Greenville.
“Any price for comfort,” he said.
To look at Al or any of the other 25 people with whom I’ll be associating over the next few days, you wouldn’t guess that we have a room block at Greenville, SC’s best hotel. You wouldn’t guess we’re world travelers or enjoy the finer things in life. We are collectively long-hairs, wild-eyed maniacs, professional drinkers, and other things that can’t be written about in this forum. In our private lives, we are lawyers, writers, entrepreneurs, medical professionals, and executives. If you were to see us this weekend, you might wonder if the circus is in town or there was a jailbreak.
G-Rob named it “Mastodon Weekend” last year, an homage to the mastodon’s inability to evolve. It was simply an excuse for a few buddies to get together and cause some trouble. This year, it’s grown. Now somewhere between two and three dozen people are coming in from out of town for no other reason than it seems sort of fun. We are people who are either unable or loathe to evolve.
Out of town means more than “Big Pirate is driving up from Columbia” (which he is, by the way). By early Friday, we will have people on the ground from L.A., San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Detroit, Cincinnati, Washington D.C., St. Louis, Charlotte, Greensboro, and Asheville. That does not include the two people who are driving down from north of Toronto.
Yes, Canada.
I know, none of it makes any sense. Hell, we ended up with a benefactor for part of this year’s events. Thanks to Bustout Poker Apparel (website launching this weekend) for its support.
Last year, we had no plan and ended up seeing Motley Crue for no other reason than they were playing down the street.
We found ourselves racing rickshaws (for money) around downtown Greenville. After an accident, Shep had to be told, “If it still hurts in a week, get an x-ray.”
We went to a dive bar in which my brother remarked (after returning two shots of Grand Mar with dead bugs floating in them), “I’m pretty sure the smell of Pine Sol is being used to cover up the smell of murder.”
And then a bunch of stuff happened that will never be written about.
Now, Mastodon Weekend 2010 is about to kick off. If you happen to be the type to frequent downtown Greenville, you might want to make other plans for the next few days.
Or, better yet, join us.
The juice connoisseur
· Comments“So what comes with the quesadilla?” he asked the waitress.
It was after midnight and the dude was getting his food comped by the poker room.
“Vegetables and cheese,” the server. She was patient.
“Can you have them put extra vegetables in it?” he asked and received a nod. “And light on the cheese?”
I sat sipping on a cheap beer and didn’t say, “Sir, if you take the cheese out of a quesadilla and add more vegetables, what you have is a vegetable sandwich, and one that’s not going to stick together very well.”
He ate what the server brought, and did so like a dog enjoys its food. He lowered his nose to the plate and scooped huge chunks of guacamole and vegetables into his face. It probably helped him that he was good looking, sort of rugged, and had the chiseled jaw of a guy that always went light on the cheese. Still, he looked like an animal, and I had a hard time liking him.
Later, he ordered a cranberry juice and then chastised himself. “I should’ve ordered pomegranate juice,” he said ruefully.
I was annoyed that he was drinking juice at all.
When his drink came, he took one sip and screwed up his face.
“This is not cranberry juice,” he said “It’s sweet. It’s like fruit punch.”
“Probably cranapple or something like that,” I suggested.
“It’s not cranapple,” he said, like I’d suggested that maybe his bottle of Mad Dog was a fine wine. “I know cranapple. This is like fruit punch.”
“Then maybe it’s fruit punch,” I said and drank my beer.
The guy literally stood up from the table, held the glass between his thumb and forefinger, and carried it to a table ten feet away. He came back. It was as if he was physically offended by the drink’s presence.
“That was not real cranberry juice,” he said. And then he spoke passionately about how he always receives real cranberry juice, how he couldn’t believe they would bring him something that tasted like fruit punch. If this sounds repetitive, it’s because it was.
The server reappeared and looked as if she wanted to show him what real cranberry juice tasted like. “Could I have a pomegranate juice?” he asked. When she said yes, he stopped, her, “What was that you brought me before?”
“Cranberry juice,” she said.
“That was not cranberry juice,” he said. “It tasted like fruit punch.”
This went on for some time, long enough for me to think the guy probably had a childhood issue in which his mom brought him fake cranberry juice just before she left to run off with that guy she met at Weight Watchers.
I know other people like this. They are people who go to a restaurant and order the house white because they have no idea how to choose a wine, and then–invariably–send the wine back because “it’s terrible.” They are people who angle to find one thing wrong with their meal–baked potato undercooked, vegetables overcooked, fingerprint on a fork–so they have an excuse to call the manager and get the meal for free.
There are few places in the world where you should expect everything to be perfect, and if you are dining at a place that has commercials on during reruns of the Amazing Race, you are not at one of those perfect places. That is, you are somewhere where you should expect the cranberry juice to suck.
See, me, I like the finer things in life. I love a five-star meal, a 25-year-old scotch, an international business class flight. I am fortunate that I get to enjoy these things from time to time. And perhaps it’s because I do have access to the occasional luxury that I don’t expect much from the normal things in life, the goods and services I receive the other 98% of the time. If the cranberry juice is from concentrate, I probably expected it, and if it’s real juice, then I’m happy to be getting better than I expected.
That’s what life is about, if you don’t mind me using an idiot I sat next to at a poker table as a soapbox. We have to manage our expectations. Most things–really, most things–suck. We live in a country where–even if they are thankful for the work–no one is really happy to be working the job they are working. We live in a country where two or three major corporations control what kind of food we put in our bodies. We are part of a generation that grew up believing homogeneity was a virtue, and hence we expect–no–demand a sameness in our life that, when denied, leaves us feeling slighted.
Not me. I expect things to suck, and when they don’t, I am happy about it. I expect things to be boring and the same and I celebrate when they are not. It takes just one trip to K-Mart to know Target is a much better store. It takes just one bite of an Olive Garden meal to know it will never compare to Tito’s Ziti Bolognese. Happiness, I think, comes in knowing we can’t expect everything to be good, and better, and perfect. Moreover, when we expect things to be routinely the same, we are bound to be disappointed.
Maybe that’s a defeatist attitude. Maybe my attitude perpetuates mediocrity and makes those people with high expectations suffer. Maybe it’s my fault. But, damned if I didn’t smile when the server brought the guy his pomegranate juice.
“I can’t believe they watered this down,” he said. “I just can’t believe it.”
The omnivore and the vegan
· CommentsI was tired when my friend Feldman asked me to do him a favor. “All you have to do is ask Daniel Negreanu a question,” he said. “It can be anything you want.”
If you don’t follow poker, Negreanu is one of poker’s most successful players. He plays for the team I follow all over the place and is a frequent subject of my writing. He is also a die hard vegan. So, sometime much too late in the evening last week, Feldman stuck a mic in my hand and said, “ask Daniel a question.”
I probably should have declined. Instead, I went all foodie on him. My brief cameo in this show comes at 17:30 or so. And here I thought my first appearance on ESPN.com would be something I wrote for them…
February minutiae
· CommentsThis 28-day month thing really needs to change. If I were February, I would insist the short-month responsibility work on some rotational basis in which the short month got passed around. June gets awfully high and mighty with its “I have the longest day” crap. Somebody needs to tell June, it’s not how long your day is, but how you use it.
In any case, I nearly forgot–again, because February does the short thing–to list the minutiae of my month as I promised to do every month this year.
With that in mind, here’s how my February shaped up. It’s not pretty.
All things exercise: I started strong, I really did. Ran about eight miles before getting sick and then going on the road. Still a massive failure.
Freelance pieces submitted: 3
Freelance pieces sold: 1
Travel days: 8
Best meal(s): Gumbo I made for the Super Bowl
Books read: Eating the Dinosaur; Killing Yourself to Live; Then We Came to the End
Movies watched: The Hangover; 13 Days
Documentaries watched: Waco: The Rules of Engagement; The Kid Stays in the Picture; A Certain Kind of Death; Loose Change: An American Coup
February live poker hours: 41 (profitable for the year, but down for the month thanks to the last hand I played in Vegas Friday morning)
That’s two months of 2010 down and two months I have ended with a sense of dissatisfaction that borders on manic. We’ll try again this month.
How Otis got his T-Pain back
· CommentsThe weird part isn’t that I have a friend named F-Train. The weird part is that he and I were both sober and having a semi-intelligent conversation about the vagaries of home ownership, professional aspirations, and the world economy. F-Train sipped on a cup of coffee and engaged me as if we were sitting in an Italian cafe instead of an Italian themed casino that boasted a row of slot machines with Bo and Luke Duke on them. It was actually a good conversation and had lasted about five minutes when my phone rang.
I looked at the called ID. It read, “Unknown.”
“I don’t know who this is,” I said, “so, I have to take it.”
The sentence seemed so incongruous, but F-Train got it. He nodded and wandered in the direction of the red carpet. He didn’t steal a peek at Christian Slater, Tito Ortiz, Orel Hershiser, or Slash, despite the fact they were all ten feet away from us and sitting at the same table.
“Brad,” said the silky British voice on the other end of the ethereal line, “I’ve just gotten off the phone with T-Pain.”
There was more, but I couldn’t hear it over the slot machines. I’d heard all I needed to hear anyway. It was my job, it was the duty for which I was actually being paid at that moment, to drop everything I was doing and run the direction of some metal-toothed creature they called “T-Pain.”
The paparazzi were camped out in a dogrun along the red carpet. They looked simultaneously bored and energized by what was about to happen. I was lost. I hadn’t slept in a very long time and was fighting a cold. I stood there feeling inadequate (read: normal) for a few minutes before wandering outside for a breath of fresh air.
That’s when I saw the entourage coming. It was lead by a dandy in a red scarf, and caboosed by a skinny light-skinned black man in whiteface. Nothing made sense, but it didn’t matter, because it all signaled the arrival of–
“T-Pain! Over here! Give us a pose! Let’s see your eyes. Just like that. Right. T-Pain!”
“You wanna see these eyes,” said the man with the grill. He leaned over and looked deep into the telephoto. There was a skunk in the air and T-Pain’s peepers told the story.
This, I thought, is what I do. Five years ago I was interviewing leaders, noblemen, and newsmakers. Now I was stalking a man whose greatest claim to fame was either that he’s “in a boat” or “in luv wit a stripper.” I looked at the ink hitting my notepad and wondered why I was writing, “My favorite thing to do in Vegas is get naked in my room and open up all the windows. Nothing to be ashamed of.”
But that’s what T-Pain was saying, and that’s what I was writing. When I put a period on it, I walked out of the dogrun and looked into F-Train’s face. “T-Pain likes to get naked and stand in his hotel window.”
F-Train nodded, because he knew it wasn’t odd that I have a friend named F-Train. And he knew it wasn’t even exceptionally odd that I dropped everything I was doing because someone called me and told me that T-Pain was coming. And he knew it wasn’t odd that I honestly couldn’t have picked T-Pain out of a police line-up. It was, simply, what is was. It was T-Pain.
Later F-Train and I walked into a club and came face to face with two tall women dressed as angels.
“Want some candy?” they asked and Price Is Right-gestured in the direction of a table covered in Milky Way Bars, licorice, and Pixie Stix. I wrote later “it’s like a 1970s Studio 54 that’s been taken over by Willy Wonka.” An hour or two later, two girls walked in wearing bath robes, disrobed, climbed into a big tub together, and washed themselves in rose petals.
All of this happened within a three-hour period. During that time, the man I came to recognize as T-Pain stood in front of a crowd and announced, “I have an averaged size penis. First impressions are everything.”
Despite the fact it’s been a week since it happened, it seemed to speak to everything that followed, everything that I have come to represent, and everything that John Prine sang about the great compromise….average penis and all.
Racing the flight attendants
· CommentsYou remember the movie “Outbreak.” And surely you remember Patrick Dempsey’s role as the hapless slacker who jacks a monkey from some port warehouse. And you certainly cannot forget his performance as “sick dude on a plane.” That’s me right now. Sleepless and bordering on ill as we fly over Flagstaff, Arizona. My in-flight map tells me we’re landing in 41 minutes. If I don’t die before then, I’ll probably be okay.
After pretending I was dying for a couple of hours of flying, I gave up on both the sleeping and the dying, watched Tiger audition for “The Young and the Restless” (I think he’ll get the part), and then took care of some business (do you know it’s possible to do domain transfers at 30,000 feet?). And now I’ve got just a couple of minutes before the over-nice flight attendants come in and tell me to shut down the machine.
If you’ve read this far, you have probably guessed that I’m on a plane. You’d be right. I’m enjoying an upgrade, bouncing my head to the last Phish show I saw, and on my way back to Las Vegas. This is a week-long work trip that carries with it some pretty heavy responsibility and a lot of hours on the job. No complaints, though, as I have a good crew joining me, the flight is only four hours, and I don’t have to do any currency exchanges.
There are only so many ways you can tell your family goodbye before they start to look like they are watching a re-run of Law & Order. They’re just waiting for the bum-bum noise and for Lennie to crack wise about the corpse. This time my wife just nodded and slipped into what she calls “Solo Mode.” The older kid pretended to be sad and then asked me to bring him a toy. The baby threw up a little.
That’s a long way of saying, I’m back on the road after a short break. It’s not a story anymore. It just is. I’m counting on something interesting happening while I’m gone (and counting on that something interesting not being something that will make me insane–again).
With the Grand Canyon on my right and a world of possibilities ahead, it’s time to turn off all electric devices. So, as they are screaming in my headphones…”Let’s get down to the nitty gritty. Let’s get this show on the road.”
