Steven, Mickey and the Jack of Hearts

            Poker has been in my thoughts for the first time in a long time lately. I was part of the poker boom that erupted when the World Poker Tour hit the Travel Channel. The online sites sponsoring WPT and World Series of Poker broadcasts took off as players like me joined in the fun.

            I started playing recreationally, then opened an online account. I never made huge money playing poker online, but I didn’t lose huge money either. I hovered around break-even playing cash games and tournaments and enjoyed it immensely. I even won a satellite tournament at the Orleans, taking a $60 entry, winning a seat in a $500 tournament and making a $440 profit in three hours of fun in Vegas (I credit the massage I got earlier in the day at the Orleans spa. It was awesome, and it led to me sitting in a steam room with Tony Danza, which I’m sure gave me the positive mojo I needed).

Meanwhile, the poker boom continued. The number of entrants to the World Series and its satellite tournaments skyrocketed. In fact, tournament poker as a whole saw an explosion of interest. TV shows sprang up showing cash games and single-table tournaments as well as the usual tournaments. Magazines sprouted up at newsstands and the players became celebrities. Poker had peaked.

            I don’t know if I just burned out on watching too much of it was the cause, but for whatever reason my interest in poker waned. Maybe it was just a fad in my life, something I did for a while and then just stopped, like reading comic books, watching MTV or paying attention to stoplights.

Not long ago the Department of Justice went after the three largest online poker sites, Pokerstars, Full-Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker. The charges are fraud, and the sites are now off-limits to U.S. players. While I don’t play much myself anymore, I find this puzzling.

First and foremost, this entry would be a completely different story if it turned out the sites were stealing money from players, but that’s not what this seems to be about. There are no stories of sites using fake “online” players and corrupt software to steal money from well-meaning players. There are no stories of anyone’s online accounts coming up light. These sites make money by taking a small percentage of each pot played in cash games and a piece of each entry for tournaments. These amounts are shown right on the screen and none have been accused of taking anything more than what they say they do. While there have been instances of some players trying to beat the system (comes with the territory in gambling) they have been dealt with well by the sites.

There is a group called Stop Predatory Gambling. Les Bernal, the executive director, was quoted in Sports Illustrated as saying, “People are still going to play poker, it’s just a question of whether people are going to make billions of dollars off of it.”

Excuse me? His problem is these sites are so popular and have so many users that the owners are making too much money? Has his guy ever heard of capitalism? You make a product people like, people buy or pay to use your product, you make money. That’s how it works. The big three poker sites are the big three for a reason. They have a reputation as having the best service (more types of poker games, more tournaments, the best variety of buy-in and cash game levels for all budgets) and being secure and proactive in fighting cheaters.

Even so, this is not about customers being robbed. It seems to be more about the sites breaking a law passed a few years ago banning U.S. banks and credit card companies from sending money to these online sites.

I had a problem with the law then and I’m still bothered about it now. Gambling is becoming more accepted in society across the board. We’ve had lotteries for a long time to go with our March Madness pools. Pull tab machines and bingo are common. Casinos are spreading throughout the country as well, both on Indian reservations and elsewhere. Racetracks are receiving permission to put in slot machines. On April 12 Washington D.C. itself allowed internet gambling.  

Sports betting is as widespread as ever, and I am still waiting for anyone to give me a real explanation why betting on the price of a stock going up or down is different than betting on a sports team winning or losing. In each case you find a company or team, look at its strengths and weaknesses, compare those to the strengths and weaknesses of the other companies or teams in the same field, then bet on whether the company or team will do better or worse in the future.

 The only difference I can really see is that sports is more transparent. If you bet, the score is the score. That’s it. You can’t buy into a sports team that looks like it scored 100 points only to have an accounting firm go down and find out they only had three points in reality. But you can buy Enron when it looked great only to find that the numbers you based your buy order on were a work of fiction authored by Enron and Arthur Andersen.

It’s a choice. People choose to have an internet connection. They choose to open an account. They choose to place a bet or play some poker. They aren’t victims. They should be allowed to make that choice for themselves.

I say let ‘em shuffle up and deal. Er, okay. Fire up the software and deal! Doesn’t have quite the same ring, does it…?

No S**t, Spurlock

            HOUSEKEEPING: First, thanks to everyone who is reading these posts. I'm really enjoying this format. I’ll be on vacation next week and it’s unlikely I’ll be able to blog a whole lot. When I get back I will definitely be putting together a few reports on the trip. I don't have a laptop so I can't do this from a wi-fi spot, but if I can find access to the net that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, I might update from there. No promises, though. I'll be back with regular posts for sure when I get back.

NO S**T, SPURLOCK:

            Product placement has been on my mind for a couple of reasons lately. First, because I’m mainlining season four of Mad Men on DVD as if it were heroin. Second another documentary is out from Morgan Spurlock, called “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.”

            Spurlock’s film naturally makes the point that product placement is a scourge on the film industry and an assault on your senses (I know, you much be shocked at a documentary being anti-big business and advertising and all but try to pull yourself together and read on). It is, I maintain, another line of complete bullcrap.

            Let’s start with product placement itself. First, I don’t understand why people have a problem with this. Most product placement includes car companies paying the movie to have the characters drive their cars, or soda companies paying to have a can of Coke or Pepsi sitting on a desk. I have not seen a movie in which a character stops and extols the virtues of a product for 30 seconds before going back to the plot. It’s simply a movie character using a real product.

            On “Mad Men,” the agency of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce represents many different products, some real, some not. Fillmore Auto Parts and their three owners are clearly a fictional version of Pep Boys, while Lucky Strikes and Mountain Dew are of course well-known brands. Having these real brands on the show lends authenticity to it for me. The fictional ones are realistic enough I don’t really notice those either.

            Still, I have heard and read people complain that using real products is distracting. Really?  What is distracting to me is when movies use unrealistically generic products instead. When a red aluminum can with “COLA” written across it, that sticks out like sore thumb to me the way someone in a movie giving out a phone number that starts with “555.” To me, that is the moment that takes me out of the story and reminds me it’s all just a movie. Generic products are mostly gone, replaced by store brands, so that to me is distracting.

            Seeing someone drink a Bud Light at a bar doesn’t take me away from the story. Having a character walk up to a bar and say only, “I’ll have a beer” does. A beer? Any beer? The fact that the bartenders in those situations don’t look at the guy like he’s an idiot and ask, “What kind of beer, jackass?” does take away from the movie for me.

            I find using real products makes it more realistic. And so what if those products pay to be there? Major studio movies cost tens of millions of dollars to make, distribute and market. They are also supposed to make money for the studios (which are, after all, for-profit companies). A character getting a UPS delivery or driving a Honda might help a movie you like get financing.

            Morgan Spurlock of course is the man who made “Super Size Me,” a documentary that targeted McDonalds. He also had a series called “30 Days” where he lived the life of a particular demographic for a month to see what it was like, such as living on minimum wage, living on an Indian reservation or spending 30 days in a wheelchair.

            Has anyone ever gotten more mileage out of stating the incredibly obvious without being a sports color commentator?

            Spurlock’s “Super Size Me” informed everyone that – wait for it, prepare to be astounded – if you eat three super-size meals at McDonalds every single day for a month, it’s bad for you.  

Seriously. That was it. That was his whole point. Eating super-size fast food and nothing else for a month is bad for you. No kidding? Thank goodness Spurlock was around to tell us this or we’d never would have known. As for his TV show, he taught us it is difficult to live life in a wheelchair. Again, thanks Morgan. I thought it was a breeze. And Spurlock’s thesis on living on minimum wage? It’s very hard. You don’t have much money to pay your bills. Another brilliant revelation! Whatever did we do without this guy?

What’s next, Morgan? Maybe he’ll astonish us by laying out in the sun without sunblock every day for a month and finding (gasp!) he develops a nasty sunburn. That would be right on the level with the rest of his “findings.”

Chicago Fans Invade Indy, And Are Served A Really Weird Sandwich

            It was all on a whim, really. I didn’t even think there would be any cheap tickets available, but I whether it was the economy or the general pessimism of Pacers fans, I found myself at Game 4 of the NBA playoff series between the Indiana Pacers and my Chicago Bulls.

            I was actually looking for Cubs tickets when they visit Cincinnati to play the Reds. With attendance down so far early in the year due to weather and the economy, I was hoping to find some below-face-value tickets. I found there were plenty, in fact. That made me curious as to whether basketball was going the same way. I browsed over to the Games 3 and 4 of the Pacers-Bulls series and was surprised at what I saw. Not only did stubhub.com have almost 1,000 seats available, they were for terrific prices. I like stubhub mostly because it’s a lot more secure than dealing with craigslist or a lot of other open-markets. You don’t get counterfeiting or people flaking out on you or changing the prices at the last second.

The more reasonably-priced tickets were for the upper deck, sure, but they were only 30 dollars each, even after the stubhub fees. Now we were in business. Seeing that, my first text was to my friend Ryan, a fellow Chicago fan. He was in immediately so I grabbed two seats.

We decided to leave at 10:30 in the morning for the 2:30 p.m. start. It’s a two-hour drive from here to Indy, approximately so we wanted to get up there early. We’re lucky enough to be experiencing monsoon season here in the Ohio Valley, and we were surprised at just how flooded out things were along the I-65 corridor. Farmers’ fields were sitting in several inches of standing water and rivers and streams were bulging.

As I write this, it is supposed to rain several more inches over the next couple of weeks and homes have already been flooded out by the Ohio River. I have no idea where this is water is supposed to go.  

Back to Saturday, where we negotiated the downtown construction to find a parking spot at Circle Center Mall (six bucks, can't beat it). We noticed immediately there were a lot of Bulls fans in the area. That didn’t surprise us as Chicago fans of all sports tend to travel well, and it was a quick and easy interstate drive from Indy to Chicago anyway. Still, on the streets we seemed to have the Pacers fans outnumbered.

Downtown Indianapolis is a wonderful place to see a game. There is plenty of easy parking and the important arenas, stadiums, hotels, shops, restaurants and clubs are all within about a five-block radius. It’s fairly safe there and well-organized. I worked in downtown Indy for eight years and I miss it. This trip reminded me why.

Ryan was unfamiliar with Indy, so he let me pick the restaurant to grab some food before going into the arena. I decided on Claddagh's Irish Pub, just a couple of blocks from Canseco Fieldhouse. It had tables available immediately and both of us were refreshed at being able to order iced tea without being asked “sweet or unsweet?” (sweet tea doesn’t seem to exist north of Columbus).

Claddagh’s has a lot of traditional Irish food but there was a strange sandwich on the menu that caught my eye. Most people that know me are know I’m an adventurous eater, so when I saw the Monte Cristo my radar went on alert. The sandwich contained turkey, ham and cheese, which is nothing too strange. But then, it is dipped in egg and fried, then topped with – wait for it – powdered sugar. It was then served with a cup of jelly on the side. I had to have it.

As it turned out, the crisp outside from the fryer and the powdered sugar made it taste like an elephant ear, only with ham, turkey and cheese inside it. And the grape jelly added a nice compliment to the ham actually. I never would have thought of it myself, but it was a damn fine sandwich.

Now fortified, Ryan and I headed for the arena, where we found ourselves in the security bottleneck. Again, the Bulls fans were a heavy majority. I figured this was because most Bulls fans were from out of town and got there early to be on the safe side, so on the way in we heard chants of “MVP! MVP!” for my personal favorite player, Derrick Rose. They even started a “Scalabrine! (clap, clap, clap-clap-clap) Scalabrine” chant for Brian Scalabrine, the big white redhead that only plays in blowouts.

We headed up to the top level and found our section. There were a total of six Pacers fans in the vicinity. The rest was dominated by red and black. As it turned out, the Bulls 3-0 lead in the series led many Pacers’ fans to throw up their hands and sell their tickets, and Chicago fans evidently swept them up.  A few rows in front of us was a group of Bulls fans who had apparently gotten the festivities underway long before arriving at the Fieldhouse. I can only imagine how drunk they would have been had the game started at 7:30. The most amusing was a hammered guy wearing a No. 5 jersey with Rose on the back. How the hell does that happen (Rose is No. 1, Carlos Boozer is No. 5)? I can only imagine this exchange:

Drunk Guy: Gimme a Boozer jersey, personalized. No, wait! Gimme a Rose jersey.
Clerk: But I already got down the Boozer jersey!
Drunk Guy: Ah, screw it. Just put Derrick's name on the back.

            Anyway, since we had them outnumbered, we Chicago fans went about make it a home-game atmosphere for ourselves.

            The poor Pacemates (the Pacers’dance team), as sweet as can be when handing out rally towels and signing autographs in the main concourse, were now booed roundly as they performed. The Bulls introductions (done with a near-whisper by the P.A. announcer) were cheered wildly while the Pacers’ light and video show was booed. We cheered through the national anthem like we do up at the United Center, and when the mascot began shooting T-shirts into the crowd with his big air gun, Chicago fans threw them right back on the court, Wrigley-style. I do love my people.

We also found Canseco Fieldhouse has a souvenir cup with free refills available for $6.75. It’s a good-looking cup too, so Ryan and I took full advantage of that. Just as importantly, we took advantage of the fact that there was a men’s room directly off the entrance to our seating section. Score!

Those were the good parts. The bad parts started at tip-off. The Bulls played like crap. I’d  love to make excuses here, but they played like crap. Carlos Boozer had a terrible game despite a double-double. It’s one of the ugliest double-doubles I’ve seen. Derrick Rose sprained his ankle toward the end of the first quarter and his shooting woes continued. Joakim Noah almost single-handedly kept the Bulls from being blown out in the third quarter, but with just under six minutes to go in the game, the Pacers led by 16. At that point, I looked over at Ryan and mentioned the Bulls have been down by 11 with three minutes to go in Game 1 and came back to win it, but neither of us felt very confident.

Then something strange happened. The lead began to evaporate. The Pacers suddenly couldn’t hit a shot. They started turning the ball over. The Bulls made a few free throws and actually hit a couple of baskets. The lead was down into single digits, then down to five, then after a Noah drive to the basket for a layup and a foul, the lead was down to just one. But time was running out. The Bulls had to foul. Indiana made two free throws and the Bulls had a last-gasp to tie. Indiana was up to the challenge on that possession and didn’t give Rose, Deng or Korver (the best Bulls shooters from the 3-point arc all season) a single look. Carlos Boozer had to take the last shot, and he’s not the guy you want shooting a 3-pointers. It came up short and the Pacers had their win.

So the series stood at 3-1, and Indiana lived to play another game. Still, it was a great time at the game. The Fieldhouse is a wonderful place to watch basketball, and Indy is a great place to spend a gameday. We headed home a bit tired, but grateful for the chance to see the NBA playoffs in person.

So thank you for welcoming me back home, Indianapolis. We’ll look into Game 6 tickets if the series comes back to Indy, although - no offense - neither of us will mind if the Bulls wrap it up Tuesday. No need to make this too dramatic, now.

Two Quick Recommendations

            A frequent complaint I hear is that with satellite and cable TV, there are hundreds of channels, but nothing good is on. Thankfully, that is not 100% true. There are a few good scripted TV series out there, you just have to know where to look. So if you get tired of fake “reality” shows or lame-duck sitcoms, take heart that there is quality TV out there. I wanted to take a second to throw out endorsements to two series I think are as good as anything on the air today.

            Both of these shows have received a lot of praise, and have loyal audiences. I’m just putting these out here in hopes I can convert a couple new fans.

            My last couple of Netflix discs have been episodes from season four of “Mad Men,” an original series at airs on AMC. Set in the 1960s at a decadent advertising agency, the series revolves around creative whiz Don Draper. This one got me hooked from the beginning. Draper oozes charm, and while the series could have just rode that one gimmick, instead it reveals that not only does Draper and the rest of the agency spin fantasies to sell products, but many of their own lives are elaborate selling jobs as well, hiding pasts they are desperate to leave behind. The show is full of great characters, from John Slattery as Roger Sterling, the schmoozing party man of the office to the hyper-ambitious Peggy Olson and Pete Campbell (Elisabeth Moss and Vincent Kartheiser) using any means necessary to get to the top.

            Oh by the way, for the guys, this show is worth watching just for Christina Hendricks as Joan Harris.

            All four seasons (there will be a fifth but it won’t air for a while) are available on Netflix and on DVD.

The other one I wanted to mention is a tremendously underrated drama on NBC called “Friday Night Lights.” It’s based on one of the best non-fiction sports book ever, was made into a pretty good movie a few years ago, and has been taken to a new level in this series. It centers around a high school football team in Texas, although you don’t have to care about or even like football to enjoy this show. It starts with the highly-recruited QB injured in the first game, and follows the sensitive, almost-forgotten backup QB who must now take the reins, the running back who feels responsible for his friend’s injury, the coach who has to deal with the pressure of winning and keeping his family together and the boosters who are looking for any reason to throw the coach out on his ear should not win big.

The coaches, players and school officials are all complex, well-thought-out characters and the writing is absolutely sublime. It does an amazing job of capturing the pressure exerted on high school football players in Texas (it really is a religion) and develops past that in later seasons to one of the most realistic coming-of-age dramas that’s been on TV. It’s a show that treats its viewers and characters with respect and intelligence.  I recommend strongly starting at the beginning. Watch the pilot episode (which Tom Shales of the Washington Post called the best pilot he’d ever seen, and he reviewed TV for the Post for 30 years) and see if you don’t love it.

            “Friday Night Lights” began its fifth and (sadly) final season last week. It airs on NBC Friday nights (of course) but some older episodes are available on hulu.com and the first four seasons are available for instant viewing on Netflix.   

             Check these out if you get a chance. I know everyone has their favorite shows, and these are by no means the only good shows on these days, but I definitely feel they're worth your time.
             

Buddies, Bulls and Books

            WEEKEND ROUND-UP: The less said about this past weekend the better. I did make a few new friends Friday night, which was very much appreciated. As for the rest of it, I think this will say all that needs to be said:

Take it away, George! 

SPORTS: The best news of the last couple of days came with my cruise to stubhub.com to find there are playoff seats available for the Indianapolis leg of the Bulls-Pacers series. In fact, there were plenty to be had, and I managed to score a couple of upper-deck seats for only 30 bucks a piece, which includes the stubhub fees. Not bad at all, and I’ll get to catch a Bulls playoff game with my friend and fellow Chicago fan, Ryan. So if you watch Saturday, I’ll wave to you. I’ll be the one with the glasses in the upper deck.

I knew the NBA playoffs would be good, I just didn’t think they’d start out that exciting. Eight best-of-7 series started Saturday and Sunday, with six of those games coming down to one possession inside of a minute to go. There were also upsets of the top two seeds in the Western Conference (the Lakers will be fine and the Spurs will be too as long as Ginobli comes back, since San Antonio’s success all depends on being a perimeter team with Duncan getting older). It all made for two exciting days of basketball.

Since then we’ve had a pair of Game 2’s. Miami looked in control and took down the 76ers in a series the Heat should win fairly easily. The Bulls, however, really struggled again but still won game two. Derrick Rose, who is expected to be the league’s MVP, has been scoring a lot, but the offense has been sloppy and there have been defensive breakdowns. I’m hoping these are just a few playoff growing pains, as it seems pretty silly to complain too much. The fact is they’ve played two games and the Bulls have won them both, so you can’t do any better than being up 2-0 after two games. Besides, the Bulls are a lot deeper.

So despite the early upsets and close games, I am still planning on maybe one upset in round one. I think the conference semis will include the Lakers, Spurs, Thunder and Mavericks out West. In the East I’m definitely thinking Boston, Chicago and Miami will move on. The only series in a lurch for me is Orlando against Atlanta. This is a bad matchup for Orlando, and sure enough they dropped the first game. The image of the Hawks folding up in last year’s playoff like a cheap card table is still fresh in my mind, though, so I still believe a Magic win in Atlanta in either game three or four will hurt the Hawks’ psyches. Just my impression.

READING: I finished a terrific book written by Sudhir Venkatesh I’d like to recommend to anyone interested in some good non-fiction. The book is called "Gang Leader for a Day," written about Chicago’s Robert Taylor homes and the people who lived in them.

I first ran across Venkatesh’s research as part of the phenomenal book "Freakonomics." That book is a wonderfully entertaining look into economics in a way I almost promise you had not occurred to you before. Now that I mention it, if you haven’t read “Freakonomics” go do that too. Both of these are enjoyable reads give a perspective not often found. Venkatesh’s contribution to “Freakonomics” comes in a section called “Why do so many drug dealers live with their mothers?” and explored why, when there is so much money in drugs, the people selling drugs seem almost as poor as the people buying them. That chapter focused on the now-destroyed Robert Taylor homes, and “Gang Leader for a Day” goes into that as well as the rest of Venkatesh’s research there.

For those of you who have driven through Chicago, the Robert Taylor homes were a series of high-rise projects that loomed to your left as you drove up the Expressway, not far from Comiskey Park. Of course, most of us know to avoid the South Side if you can help it, but Venkatesh was a sociologist at the University of Chicago, and whatever that little censor is that’s embedded in our brains to warn us of danger seems to have shorted out in Venkatesh. He naively strode right into the heart of gangland Chicago and began asking questions. It went so well he was held hostage for the night, leading to a harrowing experience of the author sitting in a concrete stairwell in the projects listening to the gang members debating the pros and cons of shooting him.

Eventually, he met the gang’s leader (Venkatesh calls him only “JT” to protect his identity a bit), and against all odds the two formed a bond. Over the next several years Venkatesh shadowed JT, who was a former athlete who left a perfectly good “real” job to run the gang. The author became part of the scenery as best he could, and spent day after day in the Robert Taylor homes, learning how this area of spectacular poverty and unemployment (well over 90% on both counts) managed to live day-to-day. Venkatesh did his best to get both sides of the story (gang and normal resident), although his close relationship with JT does cast a shadow over him at times.

What makes this book so interesting is how the author navigates his way through the underground economy that goes on in the projects. He gets to learn the inner workings of a street gang and is surprised at just how ingrained in the community it really is, and how complicated it is to run successfully. He learns how residents deal with emergencies we take for granted, since the police and ambulance services rarely venture into the area (and many that do are dirty, including alleged shakedowns and robberies by police).  There are also the regular people paying rent, the squatters who are not on any lease and occupy the buildings illegally in exchange for a cut of their side businesses of everything from prostitution to handiwork to car repair in the parking lots. Note also the similarities between the gang leader and the woman who is supposed to be looking out for the best interests of the projects’ residents. Sometimes it’s not easy to tell their actions apart.

Venkatesh uses his outsider status well for the most part. Despite his friendship with JT the non-gang affiliated people there still talk to him to a point. His look back in his college days (tie-dyed shirts and a ponytail) and heritage allow him to ask questions that would probably get most people beat up. The gang members and residents of the projects just aren’t as suspicious of him as they would be of most people. At first they talk to him because they find him a bit amusing. Later, they talk to him because they know he’s listening, and you get the distinct idea they are relieved to have their voices heard by someone.

Make 'Em Laugh

          My latest Netflix selection turned out to be Eddie Murphy’s stand-up special “Delirious” from 1983. I was interested to see it again as it had been well over 10 or 15 years since I last saw it and I wanted to see how well it held up. It was a mixed verdict. Some of it did (the classic “You dropped your ice cream!” is still a classic, and Eddie’s rant in his father’s voice about the family reunion wrecking his house is still very funny) and some of it didn’t (his first five minutes of “faggot” material would  only work these days at a Larry the Cable Guy show). I still liked it, and it made me think back to one of my first obsessions: stand-up comedy.

            When I was ten years old I watched TV on Thursday nights like everyone else. The Cosby Show was the biggest thing in popular culture at that time and it was the original “Must-see TV.”  After that came “Family Ties” and then “Cheers.” That was normally followed up by “Night Court” but one week something else came on after “Cheers.” It was the 23^rd anniversary special for “The Tonight Show.” I saw Johnny Carson come out in prime time (usually in a tux) and do a monologue, then play funny clips and special moments from his show. It is not a stretch at all to say my life changed that day. I was transfixed on this, especially since my stepfather Marty used our house’s new toy, a VCR, to tape the show, allowing me to watch it over and over again. And that I sure did. The comedians were my favorite, and I would watch, rewind and watch again as they set up their premises and delivered their punchlines. When I went to school and re-told the jokes, and got laughs, I became even more addicted.

            I asked Marty if he could tape Carson’s show every night for me. He gave me a bit of a funny look at first but he did it, and soon Letterman’s show was on tape every night too. I’d race home from school and watch the previous night’s late-night lineup, studying everything Carson did in particular. Watching him was like taking a master’s class in comedy. He and Ed McMahon were so fundamentally sound as a comedy team it helped teach me how critical rhythm and pacing were when telling jokes. Keep them concise for the most part, choose your words carefully (some words, even if they're synonyms, are funnier than others) and put in strategic pauses to make that punchline hit just right. 

            Those shows also introduced me to a slew of other stand-ups of course, and those late-night showed me there were as many different comedy styles as there were comedians. George Carlin’s nimble use and parody of the English language, a pre-sitcom Jerry Seinfield’s slice of life routines and Garry Shandling’s self-deprecating humor were all completely different and funny. I recall guys like John Caponera, Richard Jeni, Drew Carey, Jake Johannsen, Ellen Degeneres (fantastic as a stand-up), Jay Leno (a legend of the stand-up and one of the most consistently funny guests on Letterman back then) and I absorbed everything I could from them.

            The next step involved our regular trips to the library. One of the greatest gifts my mom gave to me as a regular ride to the library. It gave me my love of reading and also enabled my new comedy obsession as they had a whole section of vinyl records there. I had to develop a strategy when it came to library albums. There were plenty of Bob Newhart and Bill Cosby records there, but there were also George Carlin, Richard Pryor and Robin Williams albums too, and those were R-rated. I figured out I could take two Cosby albums (thank goodness there were a lot of those) and sandwich the R-rated stuff in between them when I checked out. Mom either didn’t notice or let it pass. I spent many evenings in the family room downstairs with a Pryor, Carlin or Sam Kinison album on the record player, sound turned down as low as I could get it and lay on the floor with my ear literally pressed against the speaker giggling until tears were running down my cheeks. 

 I always admired these guys for turning things that bothered them or even severaly traumatized them (Pryor and Kinison in particular turned their emotional pain into routines brilliantly) into bits that hit home to audiences and made them howl.

I firmly believe stand-up comedy is one of the single most difficult forms of performance. I can tell a joke. I’m generally considered a moderately funny person, and it’s been suggested many times I give stand-up comedy a try. I did a couple of things for my high school drama class that came close, but I’ve never gone up on stage and try my luck.

 This past year I went to a comedy club and caught a “showcase” night, which is comedy club-speak for “amateur hour.” Comic after comic came up on that stage…and none of them were funny. They’d tell a joke or two and I could hear their timing being off a tick, or hear a poorly-phrased joke. One by one they tanked, and they knew it. A look of “Oh crap, this isn’t working,” slowly crept across their faces. Some shut down and started muttering more than talking. Others even grew belligerent, with one cursing out the audience and stalking out. It all served as a reminder just how damn hard that job is. There is no one to help you. No director or editor can be blamed for ruining your performance, and no screenwriter to blame for the bad jokes. It’s just the comic versus the audience.

Make no mistake, it’s an adversarial relationship. You can hear that in the vernacular. If a comedian does well, he “killed them,” “slayed them,” or “knocked them dead.” When it doesn’t go well, he “died” or “bombed.” All violent images for something designed to make people happy. If that doesn’t give insight into the damaged comic psyche I don’t know what does.

Carson would deflect jokes that didn’t work with an eyebrow raise or a look at the camera, silently communicating to the audience, “whoops, that didn’t work but stick with me, I’ve got better ones,” and with that he could get the crowd back on his side. Others ignore them and plow ahead ot the next bit, never losing their outward confidence, almost dragging the crowd along as if to say “nothing to see here, folks, let’s just move along and forget that bad one.” It’s all about confidence up there. You have to at least appear to be positive you’re going to be a hit or the people sitting out there in the dark will eat you alive up there.

That’s why I’m so drawn to those who do it well. It’s lonely. It’s tremendously difficult. Then there is this point: when it works and something you came up with makes people laugh, it’s one of the most rewarding feelings there is.

Sidney Lumet

It's late on a Tuesday night and I'm settling in. The Cubs are in the process of being crushed by the Astros while the Bulls are playing the Knicks in a "good-Lord-please-don't-let-Derrick-Rose-get-hurt" game as the regular season winds down. Since that leaves a less-than-scintillating sports menu for this evening, my thoughts drifted.
     On April 9, film director Sidney Lumet passed away. He was 76 years old and his last film "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," was a fairly forgettable crime drama from 2007. Despite this, a look back at his career reveals a man with some impressive credentials and some odd twists in his career.
     He started out about as well as one can. His first feature was the brilliant courtroom drama, "12 Angry Men" starring Henry Fonda. If you haven't seen this one, do yourself a favor and check it out. It is a true test for a filmmaker, especially one making his first big movie. There are no chase scenes, no violence at all actually. The entire movie takes place in a jury room as the title group hash out a verdict in a murder case. At first, it looks like it will be a quick conviction, but Henry Fonda has some questions. As Fonda's doubts are examined and some jurors' opinions begin to change, the pressure builds. Lumet does a tremendous job slowly ratcheting up the tension in the room as suppositions, evidence and even some predjudices clash. It's the subtlety of Lumet's touch that shines through here. As the movie goes on Lumet uses different lenses to make the walls of the room look like they are starting to close in slowly on the men, who have the defendant's life in their hands. It's not an easy movie to make, filming 12 people in one room and making it fascinating, but Lumet keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time.
     The odd part is after making such a strong first feature, he passes the next 16 years making a lot of movies no one remembers. It looked as though he was a one-hit wonder, that is until the 1970's. It was then he directed a young Al Pacino in the title role of "Serpico." This 1973 film seemed to ignite Lumet, as over the next four years he rolled off the following classics, almost consecutively: "Murder on the Orient Express" ( a terrific 1974 Agatha Christie whodunit), "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975 classic) and then simply one of the sharpest social commentary satires ever filmed, "Network."
     In fact, "Network" is so good it not only holds up well after 35 years, it may even be more true today than it was then. Lumet's tale of a trusted network news anchor who goes insane and decides to end his career by publicly announcing he will commit suicide on his last broadcast to boost ratings (while also rallying his viewers  to open their windows and shout the famous line "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" rings eerily true with the onslaught of, and the utter desperation of, the trash reality TV we're subjected to today. It's not that difficult to see something like what happens in "Network" happening in modern times. In some ways, with TMZ-style celebrity stalking meshing with "news," it already has. I won't go into too many details in case you haven't seen it. If you haven't, see "Network." If you have, see it again. I'm telling you, it's an incredible movie.
     So a classic from 1957 and then, a decade and a half later, a hot streak like few directors have ever known. In all, five movies I would call must-see. If there's a rainy weekend coming up or a "sick" day in your near future, I heartily recommend settling in for a Sidney Lumet film festival on your DVD player with the movies I mentioned earlier. You'll be glad you did.

King George and Fancy

            HOUSEKEEPING:  I found that people were unable to post comments unless they were registered users with Google or one of its partner sites. That has been corrected so anyone can comment now.

            NETFLIX: In my futile effort to try to knock my Netflix queue down, I finally saw Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino last night. It was different than what I expected, but I enjoyed the movie. It is difficult to make a guy likeable when saying some of the nastier things Eastwood’s character said, but it’s a testament to his acting that he was able to play that character as a major grump that you could still see was a good guy underneath it all even though he didn’t do any nice things until an hour into the film. Still, I never wondered why people were trying to befriend him (like I did during the first two Twilight movies I had to sit through, trying to figure out why anyone would want to date or be friends with someone as whiny and unpleasant as Bella). There’s also more humor in Gran Torino, albeit subtle humor, than I was anticipating and it worked. The actress who plays the young Hmong girl was particularly good. I recommend this one if you haven’t already seen it.

            WEEKEND ROUNDUP: I spent Saturday evening with my friends Jack and Angie at the KFC Yum! Center (yes, that’s the name of the new arena in Louisville. No, it’s not the best they could come up. The people who brought you KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell paid for the naming rights). The attraction was a major concert headlined by George Strait, with a full set by Reba McEntire and a 30-minute opening set by Lee Ann Womack.

            It was my first time at the new arena, and I have to say they did a pretty good job in building it. The location is ridiculous of course. When the city has the fabulous fairgrounds complex with acres and acres of parking, easy access from both local roads and I-65 with more than enough space for another arena, why not build the new one downtown? After all, it only costs twice as much to park  in scattered lots and you have to go through the idiotically-designed “spaghetti junction,” which exists as a living monument to traffic congestion, but enough about that.

            Inside, the building is quite nice. There are wide concourses with plenty of concession stands and gathering areas. The arena itself is well-designed, featuring excellent sightlines. I kept comparing it to the Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, where I lived for eight years. Conseco is probably the best place in the country to watch basketball and other center-of-the-arena events, and the Yum! Center comes fairly close. It feels larger than Conseco, and consequently is less cozy, but all things considered it was pretty nice.

            The show was terrific. Lee Ann Womack started things off at 7 p.m. sounded and I was surprised when her set ended after only 30 minutes, although that made more sense later. Bonus points also go to her for finishing with her terrific version of Rodney Crowell's "Ashes by Now." Jack, Angie and I Googled all three performers to check their ages. Lee Ann is 44, Reba is 56 and George is 58. The building was mostly full except the upper deck, which had a few empty sections in the areas that would be behind the baskets if the arena were set up for basketball. An announcer said the attendance was 15,000, which seemed about right. I wonder how many other triple-bills of performers over 44 who could draw 15,000 people in a crowd as diverse age-wise as the crowd Saturday. There really were people of all ages there, which was fun to see.

Reba came on to a huge ovation of course. She sounded excellent. It’s remarkable how well her voice has held up. Her set was a good mix of old hits and new songs. Lee Ann Womack came out to sing Linda Davis’ part in “Does He Love You,” which was a highlight. She also had a couple of surprises, including her sitcom co-star, Melissa Peterman, running on stage in character. It’s not easy doing comedy in front of 15,000 people, especially when the crowd isn’t there to see comedy in the first place. Comic timing often doesn’t translate within the echoes of a building that large, but these two were quite funny and scored some huge laughs. I haven’t seen Reba's sitcom but I enjoyed this part. The big finish was an encore performance of “Fancy,” which had the women in the crowd going wild.  

George Strait was the final act, because who could possibly follow him? This was my fifth George Strait show and it’s been fun every time. This one was even more enjoyable as he was a lot looser than usual, probably since it was the final night of the tour. Strait is never as demonstrative as Garth Brooks or some others, but he was clearly having more fun up there Saturday and that translated to the audience. He played several from his new album, but the biggest cheers came for his classics like "Amarillo by Morning" “Oceanfront Property” and “All My Exes Live in Texas.”

By the time it was all over, it was 11:45, wrapping up almost five hours of first-class entertainment. That kind of night was hard to beat.

KWSS

            Perhaps my favorite part of my week involves my quiet time sitting and reading at Barnes & Noble. I grab a couple of magazines (I start with the weeklies The Economist and The New Yorker, then scan the shelves for anything else that looks interesting), get something from the coffee shop and settle in for a few hours. Over the last two weeks, three pieces in The New Yorker caught my attention. All of them involved writing, and for different reasons I related to each of them. Two of them are involved in this post. I'll get to the third in the future.

One of my goals has been to write a novel. I am in the process of writing one, in fact. I am about 19,000 words in (a normal book ranges between 100,000 and 200,000), so it’s off to a decent start, but there is much work to be done. I enjoy it for its long-from storytelling, a chance to create a complex and detailed world of my own, populated with my own characters. It is a totally different type of writing than I did as a reporter, where the joy came from creating quality under the pressure of a nightly deadline.

            When you’re working on a novel, you can take all the time you want. You can make the characters do anything you want. That freedom is exciting. It can also be debilitating in some ways. It seems obvious, but one of the primary challenges of writing in that type of long form is…well…finishing the damn thing. For every novel you see on the shelves of a bookstore, there are dozens sitting half-finished on aspiring writers’ hard drives. It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of time. It also takes a lot of patients with yourself, something I frequently lack.

            You can get stuck on a single scene or subplot, something that no matter what keys you hit, never seems to ring true in your heart. You can have issues in your personal life. You can get too busy to write, and you can allow yourself to get too lazy to write. With so many things that can go wrong it’s remarkable sometimes these things ever get written in the first place. I, for instance, have a huge chunk of a different novel stuck in a drawer in my desk, where it has now sat for years because I got stuck, then had work and personal issues, and by the time I came back to it so much time had passed my perspectives had changed, and I wanted to make so many changes it looked more like a mountain to climb rather than a book to write. Right now I hope to tackle it again after finishing the current one. Will I? That question leads back to those magazine articles.  

            The first New Yorker piece that struck me was about a shrink in L.A. (his name has slipped my mind since I read the story) who caters mostly to screenwriters. Writers are often thought of as a neurotic lot, and anyone associated with this man’s practice would not be dissuaded from that idea. He has a tough-love philosophy to combat self-doubt and writers’ block. He calls is KWSS: Keep Writing Shit, Stupid.

            Just like the most important part of getting in shape is dragging your ass to the gym regularly in the first place, the most important part of writing is to sit down and make yourself write. Even if you know what you’re doing isn’t going to make the final product, sit down and write. You never know when a single line, a phrase or the tiniest germ of a really good idea will jump out of your head. One thing for sure is you’ll never find it if you don’t keep writing shit, stupid. It’s a great system, but it’s not enough all by itself.

            So how else can I motivate myself? There is no single answer. One thing I have tried to do is have friends read what I’ve been writing and ask for their feedback. This accomplishes two things; the feedback helps keep me going in the right direction and also gives me a pseudo deadline, which keeps my in front of the keyboard. I have to write because they asked me when they were going to get more pages, and I feel responsible to come through. So far this has been effective for me, but getting back again to what I was reading, another article was about fantasy author George R. R. Martin, and it showed how that strategy can backfire. Martin is in the process of writing a series, which as anyone who has seen a bookstore line on a “Harry Potter” release day knows can produce a fanatical following. He has a website, a blog, and uncommonly open communication with his fans. This was great for a while, but now it seems to have created a major problem. Why is that?

            He got stuck.

            The first few books rolled off his fingers to the keyboard and onto a printing press with ease, and in rapid succession. Then, he hit a snag. He’s been working on the latest part for over six years now, and what started as a happy gathering of fans on the internet has turned into a more and more belligerent badgering session, a never-ending series of posts and comments asking him when the living hell is he going to finish the next damn book? Martin has not run out of ideas. He knows where he wants his story to go, it’s just that he has to live up to progressively higher fan expectations on how to get there.  This has turned into a vicious circle. Martin writes knowing people have been waiting years and will scrutinize every word, so he second and third-guesses everything, deleting and rewriting chapters and plot points thinking it won’t be to the mob’s liking. This in turn makes them wait even longer, and get even more impatient.

            As for me, for the time being this small-scale outside pressure of letting people read bits at a time, hoping they’ll ask for more is working for me. It keeps me writing in the present and it keeps me scribbling down ideas and improving my outline for future chapters. Of course, I don’t have George R. R. Martin’s problems. I don’t have thousands of fans clamoring for my next piece. To be honest, that’s a problem I would love to experience someday.

            I’ll just have to keep writing and find out.  

Ups and Downs, and Maybe 120 Bucks Down the Drain

   I spent most of last evening watching the Bulls manhandle the Celtics. It was one of those games that leaves a fan with a warm feeling in his heart. My favorite player, Derrick Rose had a huge game (30 points, eight assists and five rebounds) and the win left the Bulls with a magic number of one to clinch home court throughout the Eastern Conference playoffs. The Bulls are having a great season, easily the best since the Michael Jordan era, and it has come during the most exciting NBA regular season I can remember. That's the good news.

   It carried a sharp contrast to my other sports love this time of year, that being baseball. Anyone that knows me is aware that a core part of my identity is my devotion to the Cubs in the face of all logic. This team has caused me heartache, consternation and occasional conniptions for the last 30-plus years. Still, I stay loyal. Over the years I have come to understand being a Cubs fan is like being in a battered relationship. We stand by them despite the hurt, and tell ourselves lies to make it all make sense. "Oh, they've changed. They wouldn't do it to us again. It was a one-time thing. They were drunk when they made those trades. If we stay, it just shows them how much we love them and then they'll love us back." Then by Memorial Day, bang! boom! two black eyes.

   Nothing comes easy, and I'm not even talking about the fact that we're 3-3 after playing two teams that finished dead last in 2010 while losing two starting pitchers to the disabled list. No, I'm talking about trying to even SEE the flippin' games in 2011.

   Let me explain. I got rid of satellite TV last summer. I just decided it was not worth the money when you can see so much on the internet these days. Contrary to most predictions, I have not regretted this decision at all. I bought NBA League Pass and MLB.TV packages so I can see the games in a nice, clear video stream. Each of those is about as much as one month's Directv bill was last year, so I'm coming out well ahead. One small downside is all of these computer packages have blackout restrictions. Fine, I understand that. The deal with MLB's is that the home team for your area is blacked out live. You cannot watch the games as they happen on the computer because they want you to either buy tickets or watch them on local TV.

   Here in New Albany the local team is the Cincinnati Reds. It makes sense. Cinci is the closest major league city. While I like watching the Reds, I could live with the idea of only seeing their games once archived. To double-check, I sent an email to MLB customer service and called a man (whose real name was not Albert) and received two different responses stating the Reds are the only team that should be blacked out.

   After ponying up my 120 bucks for the package, I settled in on Opening Day to watch my Cubs play the Pirates. As I clicked on the game, I was informed, contrary to Apu's Albert's guarantee, the Cubs were blacked out. I groaned and tried again. No go. According to the MLB website, I was in Chicago's home market, 300 miles away. With minutes to go until gametime, I frantically called customer service while throwing on a jacket and racing to my car to make it to Buffalo Wild Wings in time for first pitch. As I sped through town, driving with one hand with the other cupped to my ear arguing with customer service, the agent then told me since my IP Address (for reasons known only to AT&T) is routed through Indianapolis (120 miles up I-65) and their system goes by IP Address, I would not only be blacked out of Cubs games, but also Reds and White Sox games. Suddenly that 120 dollars did not seem like such a good decision.

   He did ask what my IP address was, and said he could, over the phone enter in my IP and unblock me, allowing me to see the game. This would have helped a lot had I been home, and not just entering Buffalo Wild Wings. It was also of limited help since my IP address changes several times a day, meaning I'd have to call Mujibur Fred daily in order to keep my IP unblocked. As much fun as that sounds, it looks like I'll be listening to a lot of Cubs games this season.

   So it's never easy. But as always, I found a way to suck it up as Cubs fans often do. I found a table at Buffalo Wild Wings, ordered some buffalo chips and an iced tea and watched the opener, knowing I was unlikely to be able to see a live game from the comforts of home unless it was on the FOX game of the week.

   As the game went on, my waiter glanced up at the screen, saw who was playing and said, "You a Cubs fan?" Realizing my Cubs jacket and T-shirt may have just been a clever diversionary disguise, I confirmed I was indeed a fan of the team. "Oh well, they're going to lose anyway," he said, walking off.

   He was not tipped.



A Dying Cubs Fan's Last Request - Steven Goodman

-written by the man who wrote "City of New Orleans" and "You Never Even Called Me By My Name."

Dipping the proverbial toe into the water

             On occasion, I show up late to the party when it comes to technology. This is not always true, but it certainly is for blogging. I have not written in this form for years so I’m curious to see where this will go. I have been putting some thoughts together on Facebook, but status updates are short and the notes feature tends to get lost in the din of the FB news feed. I feel like I have a little more space to spread out and think here.

            At first I thought about a theme, but I decided to make this space more for general interest. As a sports nut, movie junkie, voracious reader and genuinely curious person (with a LOT of quirks) I end up sampling from various cultural plates. I hope to bring all of that to this blog, so if you don’t find one post too interesting I’m hoping you’ll find something you like better in the next day or two.

            I do plan to update this fairly regularly (except during vacations). I don’t want to commit to doing daily posts, but several times a week is certainly likely. I do hope you enjoy it and by all means feel free to comment.