Motivation

[Content Disclosure: 50% Poker, 50% Life, 25% Yikes!]

My brother called it "having a goal".

Someone else referred to it as a "deadline".

Amy, my writing partner simply said:
"Oh Crap! They really expect us to finish this book?"

In any case, now on Amazon.com:

Mike Matusow: Check-Raising the Devil (Hardcover)

by Mike Matusow (Author), Amy Calistri (Author), Dr Tim Lavalli (Author)

List Price: $24.95 Price: $16.47 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details You Save: $8.48 (34%) Special Offers Available Pre-order Price Guarantee. Learn more.

This title has not yet been released. You may pre-order it now and we will deliver it to you when it arrives.

LINK to active Amazon page: There is actually very nice "Product Description" and an "About the Authors" taken directly from the book proposal we wrote last year.

Talking to the Enemy

[Content Disclosure: 0% Poker, 86% Politics, 34% Evil Empire, 3% Stem Cells, 4% Abortion, 5% Taxes, 6% Iraq and/or Afghanistan, 7% Economy, 19% etc.]

It seems the Republican Party is writing itself a platform and it also seems they have decided to take open comments from the public. I know they may not listen but what the heck it is really an amazing release to express yourself to the enemy. Now if the Democrats would only do the same I could be doubley satisfied. Anyways, you have to register and I am sure you will get some email solicitations from the RNC but what the heck you get those internet jokes from your relatives anyway, so why not get a laugh care of the Republicans.

You sign-up here. And after they send you a password, they also prompt you with all of the issues you really want to yell at them about, it's so handy that way. I got to tell them about stem cell research and abortion... Oh and gay marriage, the war, immigration and faith-based programs. It really was an interesting release, sorta like yelling into a cyclone. And some poor young staffer is going to have to read those and think the devil incarnate has internet access.

100 Things About Me (2008)

[Content: poker 8%, me 100%]

As some but not all of my readers know, bloggers often "out" themselves with a list: "100 Things About Me". I recommend this exercise to everyone, even if you only share the results with your cat. This is actually my updated 100 things about me, revisited from just over a year ago. Further tweaking is in progress.

1. I do not have a tattoo or any piercings.

2. I was All-League in football in high school, so were all three of my brothers.

3. I was born in Detroit but only lived there a year and a half.

4. I grew up in a rural village of 1200 in Michigan near Ann Arbor (Dexter for those who care).

5. I have lived with four women in my life; this total does not include lesbians, my mother or my sister.

6. Only one relationship ever got anywhere near the conversation that begins: “4½ yellow gold with….”

7. I got my undergraduate degree in political science from Kalamazoo College in 1969.

8. I received a Ph.D. in East-West Psychology in 1999 from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco.

9. I have been quoted in Business Week.

10. I will be a published co-author before this time next year.

11. I was Jane Fonda’s bodyguard for a day.

12. I once grew my hair for two years, it never reached my collar.

13. My beard used to be dark red, now it would be dark red and white-grey.

14. The title of my novel in process is: “All My Friends are Nearly Normal.”

15. That has been the title for over twelve years.

16. I went to a Catholic grade school. The school, church, rectory and convent were all on the same block as our house.

17. I skipped from the 4th to the 5th grade in the middle of the year.

18. I rang the “Angelus Bells” at the church three times a day for five years, got paid $20 a month.

19. I don’t wear jewelry, cologne or chartreuse.

20. I volunteer at the SPCA shelter in the cat wing.

21. 99.4% of my clothes are cotton.

22. A google search for me will find a lot of papers presented to the Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness.

23. My academic friends think that same google search finds a lot of strange poker references.

24. The most important feature of a car is head room.

25. I have really great hands.

26. I taught real estate in LA in the late 70’s.

25. I once sat next to a perfect Madonna wannabe at a dance performance, this was during the underwear-on–the-outside phase; she had the costume down perfect. Later, I noticed the guy she was with was Sean Penn.

26. I was mesmerized twice during an Easter weekend in Paris in 1968.

27. There were seventeen academic awards for boys given out my senior year in high school. I won them all.

28. I write under several pseudonyms.

29. I won $4800 in my first ever major poker tournament. That remains my second biggest win ever.

30. The first hand I was ever dealt in a live poker tournament was pocket Aces, the game was later busted by the Ohio State Police.

31. When working for a major Japanese corporation the president of the division laid off 25% of the employees one morning, called everyone else into a meeting and gave a 90 minute lecture on our new austerity plan. When he finished he said: “I will take questions now.” Then he looked at me and said: “If you ask a question, you’re fired.”

32. I once received a job evaluation that read: “I have no idea what Tim does; we prefer not to ask. Overall rating: Excellent, perhaps.”

33. I have run several political campaigns in the 70's, none of my candidates won but none of them ever served time in prison either.

34. I have voted in every presidential election I was eligible for. I have never voted for a winning presidential candidate and I won't in 2008.

35. I have only voted for one democrat and no republicans for president; McGovern of course.

36. In the 1972 election, I voted for ten different parties.

37. I have a lengthy rant/tirade on third party voting, which no one is required to hear more than once; on all future renditions you may leave the room or shout me down.

38. The last presidential speech I heard was Richard Nixon’s resignation. I enjoyed it way too much.

39. I don’t believe in the Cartesian mind/body split.

40. I do believe in Karma and Reincarnation, well at least this time around.

41. From the age of twelve to twenty-six, I had the key to a pharmacy in my pocket.

42. My father was a small business owner, pharmacist, village councilman and volunteer fire chief.

40. I got my first passport to study in Germany in 1968.

41. I used my second passport to go to Antarctica in 1980.

42. Third passport took me to Singapore & Bali in 1997.

43. I was using my fourth passport in Australia in January 2007, when I wrote the first draft of this list.

44. The have an deeply repressed attraction to redheads.

45. I have about six dozen favorite quotes. Among them: "An ass is but an ass, even though laden with gold."

46. I think that The Simpsons is a brilliant commentary on American culture.

47. When anyone says their family is dysfunctional, I ask if they have ever seen The Osbournes.

48. I have many qualities that resemble a hibernating bear.

49. I love my friends more than my family, except for one wonderful brother.

50. I have never been arrested. Once a young, eager officer considered it (1971 anti-war demonstration) until his more seasoned partner said: “…that guy outweighs you by fifty pounds and I'm not helping you if he resists.”

51. I have only three addictions: chocolate, oxygen and that other one.

52. Apocalypse Now is my favorite movie but not the director’s cut.

53. Catch-22 was once my favorite book.

54. Annie Lennox is my favorite female singer.

55. I really love cats and I am fond of manatees.

56. Microsoft Word is sheer brilliance; its creator is a chauvanistic ass.

57. Three of the most remarkable women I have ever met, all live in Texas.

58. The other three I met in San Francisco.

59. I have lived in Michigan, Massachusetts, Germany, LA, San Francisco and Las Vegas.

60. I am the middle child of five; I am typical of a middle child.

61. I am an Aquarius, double Capricorn.

62. I read Tarot.

63. I have some limited shamanic abilities.

64. The best vacation of my life was in Bali.

65. The second best was Key West.

66. Favorite Band: Genesis before Peter Gabriel left.

67. Favorite Music: Nessa Dorma from Turandot.

68. Susan Sarandon, Steve Buschemi, Val Kilmer, William Hurt

69. I discovered I was buddhist in Singapore.

70. I write about poker better than I play poker.

71. The most important part of a movie is the dialogue.

72. After the writing comes the music, except Koyaanisquatsi.

73. I am fascinated by images from the Hubble Space Telescope.

74. I prefer Charlie Rose to Bill Moyers, most of the time.

75. “It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all” is empirically true.

76. I do not watch nor follow team sports.

77. I do watch the Super Bowl commercials.

78. I eat the M&Ms by color, dark to light.

79. I can’t skate or ski.

80. I don’t believe in sports where your legs often go in opposite directions.

81. I was employed for several years as a demi-god in several virtual reality worlds. It was type-casting.

82. No matter what some relatives say, I am paternally Italian.

83. My mother’s maiden name was Gillespie, which has got to make me part Irish.

84. Is my favorite number but not my lucky number.

85. Grey is my favorite color.

86. I have made love in hell.

87. Until I was 35 everyone thought I was older than I was.

88. After I was 35 everyone thinks I am younger than I am

89. I lived in Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach but I never, ever lay on the beach.

90. 1984 was the first book I ever stayed up all night to read.

91. I owned a mortgage company in Manhattan Beach, CA.

92. I lived with a woman named Faith.

93. I got hit by a car driven by a woman named Hope.

94. I was asked to have coffee with a hooker named Charity and she really did want to have coffee.

95. I do not eat fast food of any kind.

96. I will eat a hot dog, no matter how many snouts and lips are in it.

97. I will eat chocolate anything and will do most anything to acquire it.

98. I once camped for a weekend with 7 gay men, 6 lesbians, and 4 newborn kittens.

99. I have only one prejudice; I abhor voluntary stupidity.

100. I will listen to almost any thoughtful position, unless it violates the limits referenced in ninety-nine.

A Rooting Interest

[Content Disclosure: 96% Poker; 17% Being a Fan; 15% The Book; 47% Life]

For the poker fans in the reading audience, I am going to be a lot more detailed, explanatory and even simplistic in this post because some of the readers of this blog are not hard core about our game, in fact, some of them can't tell a straight flush from a post oak bluff.

For the last six days I have been watching Mike Matusow play poker. This means standing at the rail (the rope that keeps the fans back) or grabbing a seat in the crowd when Mike was playing at the feature table or worming my way into back areas that my media badge did not exactly give me access to. Watching poker live means seeing only some of the hands, a few of the cards and less than a satisfying amount of the action and table talk. I assume everyone who comes anywhere near this blog knows that I am working on Mike's biography along with my Austin writing partner Amy Calistri. So you see my interest in what has played out the last two weeks.

To be fair "watching poker for the last six days" is actually a temporal anomaly. The Main Event of the World Series of Poker is playing over two weeks and for the uninitiated this is how it goes. There are four first days, the huge field (6,844 this year) is divided into four flights because there simply is not facility able to deal poker to more than about 2,000 players at a time. In fact, only the World Series has fields that go over 1,000; just consider the math of space, tables, dealers, chips, even playing cards and you have some idea of the scale of such an event. So I did see Mike play on his "day one" but there was really no need to watch him all the time or as it is called in the parlance: "sweating a player."

After the first flights the field was down to something under 3500 but still there were two Day Twos and as with the first day, I watched Mike on and off during the 12 hours of play each day and did some other work and yes, I went home to bed earlier than the players who begin play at noon and end around 1 AM. Finally, on Day Three all of the remaining players 1300+ players are all in one room playing at the same time. Still thirteen hundred players is a huge tournament, I got more time with Mike beginning on this day, I spent more time at this table getting updates and comments from him. Earlier in the tournament a single phone call or quick conversation before the following day's start was sufficient but now the details of the poker and Mike's mental and physical state are becoming more significant.

Beginning on Day Four (474 players), I was at the table all day every day with Mike. We took breaks together in the VIP players lounge and he would come over to the rail to discuss the other players at the table and his state of mind. By Day Five (189 players) the noise in the media was higher, Mike was still in. All of the name professionals, about 20, still in the field were getting a lot of notice. On Day Six, yesterday, with 79 players left in the field; the media attention was reaching a low roar. Again, for the non-poker readers, this is a special year at the World Series. The final table of nine players, that would in past years be played out later this week, has this year been moved to November. The reason, of course, is publicity. The World Series is attempting to break through into more of a mainstream "sports" interest to the general public and this November event is the current linchpin in that move. Everyone in the poker orbit was pulling for just one well known player to make the "November Nine". By late last night, Mike was the only surviving big name professional in the field.

Two really nasty bad beats (your opponent comes back from long odds to win the hand) ended Mike's run in 30th place. And while 30th out of 6,844 seems like one hell of a good run, even the non-sports drenched among us know what non-winning is all about. Of course, the pressure of the November media event was also a huge factor this year.

So for Mike and for me the 2008 World Series of Poker is over. A quorum of my poker buddies are in town this week, so I am going to hang out with them and actually play some poker and then I have a newly minted final chapter of a book to write. Amy and I will be back to the editing process in a few days and those who have been promised chapters to read will be sated soon.

115 degrees

[Content Disclosure: 24% Poker; 37% Life; 45% Change; 3% Smother Brothers reference]

Its warm in Las Vegas, hmmmm... No! Its damn hot in Las Vegas and I am moving residences. Not the best timing but survivable. Bill and Kathy are finally actually retiring, well at least Bill is; so their retirement home where I have been living the past 20 months will soon be full. I have signed a seven month lease on a furnished condo a bit closer to the Las Vegas Strip. The Canal Walk house where I have been living is about 10 miles from the south end of the Strip here in Henderson, I am in the process of moving a couple of miles closer. For those who know the greater Las Vegas area, I am now on Silverado Ranch Blvd., which is the I-15 exit at South Point casino.

Fortunately, other than clothes and books, I don't own a lot anymore, so I just fill up the car each day when I go over to the condo to meet: the rental agent or the cable guy or the refrigerator repairman (My Old Man's a Refrigerator Repairman Whaddaya Think About That?) or the Maytag Repairman or ... well you get the idea. So by the time all the electronic gizmos work, I should be moved in and have strategically avoided heat stroke.

It really was 115 today, only 112 yesterday, and maybe 116 for the 4th of July, but of course its a dry heat.

Tomorrow is also Day 1A of the World Series of Poker Main Event, for the non-poker readers the Main Event has four Day Ones to accommodate all the players. So I will be at the Rio each of the next four days to catch up with some of the poker professionals I have missed over the last five weeks. There are a couple of writing projects I am working on and I need to have a bit of face-to-face time with some of the poker players I want to join me in those ventures.

That's it, stay cool and for those in the Midwest, stay dry!

My New Best Friend

[Content Disclosure: 0% Poker; 78% Medical System; 22% My Childhood and Thereafter; 3% Holiday Wishes]

My encounters with the medical profession began very early in my life. No, I was not a sick kid but I did grow up in a pharmacy. From the time I was ten, I filled the prescription bottle drawers, swept the store and took out the trash. I remember my dad showing me how to make change for a $5 just a year later and when I did it perfectly for the next customer, I was allowed to help out on Saturdays. Once I was in high school, I when to the store a couple of nights a week after whatever sports practice was in season and worked Saturday mornings and every summer.

After college I ran the pharmacy for five years while my dad took some much needed time off, well not off really but he slowed down a bit. So from that upbringing, I knew a lot of doctors and read a fair number of pharmacy and medical books; I just wanted to know what we were doing and how the lords of medicine thought they knew what they were doing. I learned, from an early age, how the other side of medicine worked.

Now for the first time in my life, I am having extended personal interaction with the current medical system from the patient side of the equation. The system, as most of us know, is fairly broken; so I have become my own patient advocate and have gone beyond being the perfect symptom reporter and internet researcher to actually suggesting courses of treatment to the various physicians I am dealing with. But again, as I hope you do not know from personal experience, the system is cracked, if not broken. So I am also having to manipulate it to get the care on need on the allopathic side of the process.

What do you do when the doctor says: "I want to see you in two weeks," and the front desk is booking five weeks out? Well, you prod, you inquire and, in my case, you find that the phone appointments staff will pass you on to the triage nurse, if you push them. The triage nurse happens to have had the lingering flu symptoms for two and a half months. I have had mine for three plus months, so we talk and share our tales of pathology, both of our illnesses and of the system. She works for the Ear, Nose & Throat consortium and still she has not recovered. But my new best friend and I talk and commiserate and..Oh yes, find that there are indeed appointment slots where and when I need them. Today when I showed up, the doctor was surprised but I think relieved to not be diagnosing in a vacuum and he and I compromised on the next phase of my treatment. Hmm, maybe not compromised; we mutually decided on the next course of treatment.

So when the booking staff didn't call me with my new test appointments, I knew who to ring up to circumvent the probably overworked phone staff on a TGIF afternoon. When this is all over, I am going to meet this woman and we are going to share something tall and cool that is not being used to wash down another pill or tablet.

And .... Happy Solstice everyone!

Those Bastards!

[Content Disclosure: 0% Poker, 31% Rant, 47% Commentary on the State of Life with no mention of Barack or Hillary]

Sure there are problems in the world. There are room fresheners sold to odor fearful householders that use electricity to spew chemicals into your home to mask the smells of life and probably (2012 data prediction) give you spinal cancer, if you use them and eat turkey bacon with a soy binder agent. But that is not my issue today. Neigh, the evil forces of capitalism and consumerism have gone too far, too far I say.

I didn't mind that in my cannabis days, when we would take long weekends to Palm Springs, there was an all-night delivery place called: Midnight Munchies. They had pizza and all sorts of treats but they also had a specialty menu with, among other items: peanut butter on toasted english muffins! cold Reese's pieces and cold M&Ms. In fact, all of their candy has kept in the frig. And, of course, they had every flavor of Ben & Jerry's, some of you may see where I am going here.

Midnight Munchies served a select clientele and knew their market, they were not exploitive and did not seek world dominance. But that was then, this is now. This new promotion, reeks of pharmacuetical company involvement, indeed I feel strongly that both cholesterol and weight-control manufacturers are involved.

What the hell am I talking about?

What evil conjunction of krass kommericalism has me in this loquacious lather?

I leave you with this, without comment; if only to say: is this not the evil axis that precedes Armegeddon...

Plans, Times, Changes

[Content Disclosure: 23% Poker, 35% Schedule, 64% Pseudo Holiday Newsletter]

In the next two months, I will:

Go the the Rio Hotel an Casino for the World Series of Poker about 40 times.

Write more than 50 WSOP posts on pokerblog.com and half a dozen meanderings right here.

Move. My friends whose retirement home I have been living in the past 18 months are actually retiring, so it is time for me to relocate. For you locals, I am going for a condo on South Las Vegas Blvd. somewhere near the South Point Casino.

Cats! Once I move I will happily have cats residing with me again. My visits to the SPCA of late have involved a lot more inquiries about who wants to live with me. A couple of contenders have made application with fur and saliva samples.

Travel? Late Summer/early Fall extended trip to San Francisco is probably.

The Book: new fall deadline for the final manuscript. Autographed copies less than a year away.

Sagarmatha

[Content Disclosure: 0% Poker Content; 0% Fun, Wit, Humor etc.; 67% Overall Crankiness; 22% Reflections on a Stupid Species]

I am going to guess that some of you have read Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer and more of you have seen the several climbing specials from Mt. Everest on PBS. I have not read the book, which by the way, is fully titled: Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster. I do watch the Discovery Channel programs and I am nearly entranced not by the mountain, nor the individuals but by the huge number of people who find Mr. Krakauer and others who climb Mt. Everest to be adventurers or heroes. The particular "the" Mt. Everest Disaster that Kraukauer writes of took place in 1996. In that year, 98 individuals summitted and 15 died. But each and every year the same story plays out. Each and every summer hundreds of adventurers travel to Sagarmatha (Nepalese) and spend roughly $65,000 for the privilege of killing themselves and leaving mounds of equipment and garbage on the mountain.

Notice I said "killing themselves" not dying because these people are, in fact, committing suicide. Where these people give away their lives is in an area above 8,000 meters; an area known as "The Death Zone", let me repeat: "The Death Zone". There have been 210 verified deaths on the mountain, where conditions are so difficult that most corpses have been left where they fell; some are visible from standard climbing routes. So on the way up, you get to see others who have died attempting to go where you are going. Frost bite has claimed limbs, digits and assorted body parts of over 1,000 climbers on Everest. At least three are permanently snow blind, which means blind from exposing your eyes to the unfiltered sunlight at the top of the mountain.

What troubles me is not that fools risk their lives, to each his or her own and certainly your life is yours to do with as you will. But the fascination of others, particularly PBS and the Discovery Channel seems horribly misplaced. You probably vaguely remember the guide who stayed on the mountain with his client on Chomolungma (Tibetan) and was able to get a cell phone call patched through to his wife back in England to say goodbye. Why is this sad? Why are we affected by this in any sort of sorrowful way? He chose to die. He chose to let his client keep climbing, even after warning him to turn around. Somehow this man is a hero?

He was, they all are, fools. Unworthy of respect or honor of any kind. They decided that climbing a mountain where one in eleven climbers die, was....what exactly? They chose to risk their lives for..... what?

....and it begins.

[Content Disclosure: 64% Poker, 19% Life, 4% other]

The World Series of Poker is about a week away and for the following seven weeks my life will once again be all about poker. Fortunately for me, this summer I have several gigs that I am looking forward to and not a single boss or 'higher up' with an agenda.

Already I have two of my informational blogs written well into July. I don't want to have the quality of my year round jobs diminish while I am at the Rio everyday covering the Series. So I have spent most of the last six weeks getting about 85 posts written and post-dated for the summer.

There is also the matter of the "book" and some long awaited announcement, which at this point continues to be long awaited.

From the infirmity desk, I had an appointment with a specialist last week and will report on his findings as soon as those are relevant. Not trying to be mysterious nor alarmist nor casual; although something in a nice gabardine with cuffs and light darts would be nice.

Most of my early WSOP coverage this summer will be found on PokerBlog. For the non-poker initiated readers, who have actually read this far; here is what the summer holds for work and play.