1975 Interview with John Lennon

via rec.music.beatles The poster notes that he thinks its circa 1975-76. It certainly has a mid-70s feel. Some fascinating stuff here...

"Game" was a magazine concerned with "men's interests" which was published in the 70s. I think it was a Paul Raymond publication. I only bought it for the articles, of course, which is amply proved by the fact that this cutting is all I have of the original mag. Undated, but probably 1975. I don't know if it was ever published anywhere else.

JOHN LENNON - ENJOYING THE BIG APPLE

talks to Penny Grant about the Beatles, Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, Salvador Dali and many others

JOHN LENNON is, without a doubt, one of the most charismatic and interesting people one could wish to meet. He's had more success than even today's pop stars can imagine, enough publicity to gratify the most go-getting publicist, and by no means least has more than a decade of beautiful music to his credit.

Lennon is currently a voluntary prisoner in the U.S.A. still fighting an interminable legal battle with the authorities over his presence. And until he gets a 'green card' or the final thumbs down that's where he'll stay. At present the legal climate seems to be becoming less harsh with a general feeling that a drugs bust shouldn't automatically make you a second class citizen; and at least one influential American columnist has gone on recordas saying that he thinks Lennon's struggle will be successful.

John himself can only watch and wait, and keep making music. 'It's still very much in the melting pot. I'm at some stage of appeal I believe. I have a lawyer who's doing it all and keeps me in touch. He tells me from time to time that this happened or that happened, then we talk about it. It seems to be going on and on. I wish they'd make up their minds.

'I miss England, but I'm not going to walk away from it all now! I've spent so much effort on it... I keep telling myself "When I get the green card" I'll do all sorts of things.'

A happy and relaxed Lennon is talking to me in his office, which looks down on the New York he's made his home. Looking at him, it's hard to believe that this is the so-called rebel with the awe-inspiring reputation for being 'difficult'. He's disarmingly friendly, intelligent and articulate, and above all sometimes painfully honest. He also seems delighted to see someone from 'home' - it would be an exaggeration to say he's homesick but one can detect a certain wistfulness when he talks of his native land.

'I just want to go back to Britain and see it, and have a cup of tea - not to perform or anything, just to be there. I know the English love me, and I love them. I'm one of them, no matter where I'm living.

'I know it's a bit hard if you've never left England and someone's living abroad, you can't really understand it. You think "why are they abroad, why have they left us? Why is so and so living in the South of France?" and wonder why John Osborne got furious at England, left and said such nasty things, and then came back and loved it ?

An Englishman is an Englishman wherever he lives. There are great colonies of English people in Spain and they have their ''real English pubs" and allit. Even if I took out American citizenship it would make no difference. I'd still be English, there ain't nothing going to change that.Even if I became Swahili, I'd be an English Swahili!'

It's been a long time since Lennon has been back to his native land, and thus since his friends and fans here have seen him 'live'. But they've not forgotten him: 'I get letters from England - I don't answer them too much because I'm lazy - saying "Don't forget get us". There's no way I could forget them, even if I tried or wanted to.'

But, of course, John now has many friends in the States too. 'People are so kind : they come up to me and say "Hi, John, how's your immigration ?" If it was up to them, I'm sure I'd be allowed to stay here. They don't really understand what all the fuss is about. There are still some places where they've got this crazy idea that the Beatles are all junkies, but mostly people know what's going on and they seem to be on side. If it was down to them I'd be given a passport if I wanted it.'

In the rock 'n' roll business many people commute between the States and England. This does provide Lennon with an opportunity to see many ex-colleagues and contemporaries. One in particular epitomises the sort of life John would like to lead if he was free to do so : 'Mick (Jagger) lives officially in France, but I see him every couple of months-he's always laughing about me being stuck here! He says "I've just come from Nicaragua, or from Paris, Munich or even London". That's how I'd be living if I was living anywhere: I'd have my base here because that's where all my stuff is now, but I wouldn't live permanently anywhere, I'd be moving around. I'd like a place in London too, if you're allowed to without actually "living" there, that is. There are so many regulations.'

Lennon's home in New York is a beautiful flat off Central Park in which he's lived for some time.

'I guess it's pretty good . . . it's in an old building that's really very European, on the park, and most of the rooms face the park. It's large enough to get a little lost in. Apartments are good: you don't have the
responsibility of the roof and gardens. My garden's Central Park and New York owns and looks after it for me!'

Unlike many of his fellow musicians, Lennon has chosen to make New York his home rather than Los Angeles. And it seems likely that if the US immigration authorities finally decide in his favour he'll retain a home there. Why live in New York rather than on the much warmer West coast where a flourishing colony of musicians already exists?

"It suits me here, and I'm more of a city person anyway. I always think it's easier to go from the city to the country than the other way round. If I went back to England I'd live in the heart of London. The only reason I left the centre of London where I once lived was because of the "Hard Day's Night"-that's what I call the Beatles' days. It got so bad I couldn't step outside the door. So I moved out to Ascot and Weybridge and all those places. I know I could live in town again now'

He tells some stories of events he's attended which confirmed his view that the less public functions he attended the better he liked it. The preview of the 'Sergeant Pepper' film was one.

'I thought to myself "I'm in town so I might as well go". You can get away with some of those things if they don't know you're going. But with that one it was deja vu-they'd built up this idea that I was gonna be there and that's when it happened.

'It was pretty wild. You've got to get out of the car and get clawed-like I said, a "Hard Day's Night". You know, at the Pepper thing most of the audience were watching me. They were even popping off with flashbulbs at me.

'At something like the Grammy Awards it's not quite so bad. There, anyone who's famous will do. It doesn't matter who you are, if you arrive in a big black car you must be somebody.'

'After the Pepper thing I didn't go to the "Tommy" thing although I was invited. I just couldn't face another one.'

This fear, or what one might almost call shyness has stopped Lennon doing many other things, including one he'd dearly like to do. To go and see Elvis Presley.

'I'm too embarrassed to go and see him. I'm scared it might be in Vegas or somewhere and they'd say "and sitting in the audience is ..." I wouldn't know where to put myself.'

The topic of Mr Presley had come up in conversation while we were discussing other musicians that he might like to work with, at times when he's not involved in his own personal musical project - on a production basis for example.

'I have occasionally got involved with other people-mostly Ringo on his albums. I'd love to do Elvis but I'd be too shy, I'd fall apart. I'd just be quivering. "Could you do it again Elvis?*' Can you imagine it? I just couldn't do it.' John laughs loudly at the very thought.

'I wouldn't mind doing Dylan -I wouldn't be scared of him. I think he needs a producer ... if you're reading this, Bob!'

One artist John did produce an album for was Harry Nilsson-a friend.

'I get offers, oh boy do I get offers-but I either have to respect an artist or he has to be a friend. I tend to go for friends. I did Harry because we were both getting drunk, and in the papers- only I was getting in the papers more than he was. So I said "hey, this won't do, let's do something creative. This is no sort of life here, lying on the floor of the Beverley Wilshire with headaches and glasses all around."

'So we did it. But unfortunately the guy had lost his voice. So I had the great Harry Nilsson talking (or more to the point singing) like Frogman Henry or Wolfman Jack!'

Of course, the artists most people would like to see him get involved with are the other ex-Beatles - preferably all at once and on a permanent basis! John has been asked so many times about the possibilities and probabilities of this happening that a smile of resignation comes on to his face at the mention of the others.

'It's strange the way people talk about them, as if we were enemies. You know, they were good blokes-I liked them, and I still do. You have to get on I with the people in your group if you choose to stay with them for all that time!

'When they come to the States I usually see them. Ringo and George are here a lot of the time and Paul sometimes comes via New York on his way to L.A. I've worked with Ringo and George both together and separately, and played with Paul- there were a lot of other people there too but everybody seemed
to be watching us!

'I was going down to New Orleans to help out on Paul's last album "Venus and Mars", but I was too busy being happy at the time. If you're reading this Paul, I'm sorry I couldn't make it ...

'Anyway, George has got his own label-Dark Horse, or whatever it's called-and Ringo's got his label. Do I want a label of my own? Not me. I don't want no more record companies. It's the label idea I like best. I like the idea of having a special little label on my records, but that's just artistic. I don't care who puts them out as long as they do it, sell them, and put their best efforts behind it. I'm just not interested, I wasn't really interested at the beginning, I just went along.

'You see what this business is here?' he queried, waving an expansive arm at the small office. "Just a phone in an office to look after the sheet music. I will not be a corporation -I'm Lennon music and that's it. But I'm pleased for the other two because that's what they wanted.

'As for our getting together again, I doubt it. For one thing we're hardly ever in the same place at the same time, and even if we were I doubt if we'd be in the same state of mind about it. I wouldn't mind though, I'll do anything for the money. Seriously though, folks. I just can't see it happening on any sort of permanent basis: we all lead such different lives now.'

Although each of that once legendary band is still very much on his musical feet, and the musicians themselves seem to have got over any personal animosities, it took a long time to sort out the legal position.

However, early "75 saw a settlement which finally sorted out some of the legal tangle. To musicians like Lennon no business matter is something they relish, so the interminable legal wrangling must have become a source of both inconvenience and frustration. Now much of it's over John has no reservations about discussing it:

'All it did actually was to get us paid directly-the main thing about the settlement was to release the monies to ourselves. It did not break all our ties with each other, because it's a bit more complicated than that and we're pretty well tied up in many ways.

'It was nice having the money come to me at last that I'd actually earned-although a lot of it's locked in England by laws until '77. We'll just have to hope the pound is still around in '77, or the dollar for that matter.

'Apple is now just a bank. It won't take artists-it can't function that way: it was hard enough to make it work while we were together. We certainly can't make it work the way we are now, so far apart. None of us could be in charge of looking after the artists.

'Have you seen the Apple building in Savile Row? I understand it's only a shell now, and they're doing all sorts of things to it. I don't want to see it-it was such a lovely old building. I don't even want to hear about it, it's so sad. Queen Anne, or whoever it was who "slept" there must be turning in her grave.'

Unlike many musicians, Lennon doesn't mind talking about money. He admits that 'as long as I've got enough to let me do what I want to do' it's not his prime concern, and wants to make it quite clear that money wasn't the reason he decided to live in the States.

'I didn't leave for tax reasons. In fact I was an idiot, I just came over here, and after I'd been here about six months decided to stay. If I'd done it properly I should have informed all the right authorities and I would have got one year's drop-out tax-some vast amount of money. I think I got some kind of a bargain later on but I missed the big bargain that everyone else leaves for. I just never thought about it ... goofy here missed it.

'You know, I recently heard a great malapropism 'Time wounds all heels"-very funny.

Anyway, I missed a million pounds or something. What I'm saying is, it'll come some other way, I'm not going to sweat about it.'

The Beatles' legal settlement was just one of the things to happen around that period which confirmed that a lot of the bad times were at an end-for John at least. 1974 had not been a good year.

'To me '74 was hell, and I'm glad to be out of it and still alive. Personally speaking it certainly was rough, and a lot of my friends thought it was pretty bad too.'

Much of that year was spent by John in Los Angeles, waiting for Phil Spector to 'recover' and give him back the tapes of eight tracks they'd recorded together for Lennon's 'Rock 'N' Roll' album.

'We did the first part in '73, then it sort of fell apart. Phil and I ... well, you could say we went barmy. Then Phil had a car accident . . .'

Which left Lennon at a loose end in L.A., getting drunk and hanging out with the rock fraternity-not wanting to leave in the belief that he stood a better chance of getting the tapes back by staying there.

So John waited and waited for the somewhat eccentric genius to emerge from what Lennon calls 'his castle-if you've ever seen his house you'll know what I mean'. It was a musically sterile period, and Lennon's personal life was also in a bad state. For he'd split up with his wife Yoko- a circumstance hardly calculated to enhance his good mental state.

'If I'm having a bad period then I just can't do anything right!'

Happily for all concerned, especially John, everything turned out well in the end. He got the tapes back and the 'Rock 'N' Roll" album was eventually finished-to be released not long after an album of his own work which many consider to be his finest ever. "Walls And Bridges'.

And then, of course, there's Yoko.

'We are back together now. and happier than over before. It's the old, old story-when you get someone back that you've lost its better than ever.'

It was the reconciliation which so involved John that he couldn't tear himself away to work with McCartney in New Orleans. And without wishing to sound starry eyed, Lennon looked like a man in love and at peace with the world when he spoke about Yoko. In fact it's rather like a fairy tale with a happy ending for the couple because Yoko was expecting their first baby (although they both have one child by a previous marriage) when I spoke to John. Although she has had miscarriages before, and 42 isn't the ideal age to have a child, they hope that this time will be the lucky one.

As if to prove that there are no hard feelings on any side, when I last saw her the beautiful May Pang (with whom Lennon was 'seen" during the marital rift) was still working for John as his secretary, although I understand she's not still doing so.

The way Yoko has been treated by many people has been a cause of considerable anger and unhappiness to John.

There was all this "John leaving his nice English wife and taking up with a mad Jap stuff"... the press especially were vicious. Linda had a lot of trouble with them too. but at least she looks a bit more like your traditional English wife, blonde hair, blue eyes and all that. There's definitely a lot of racism in it. Let's face it.

They said things about her in the press that were unbelievable. For one thing they called her an "ugly Jap"-she's not ugly, I don't marry ugly people. I, and as it happens a lot of my friends, think she's a beautiful woman. Secondly, even if she was ugly and I'd decided to marry a very ugly woman the press wouldn't normally say so. The most garbage looking person is usually written up as attractive, so why not Yoko even if she was ugly?

'Naturally I feel bitter about it. And I don't forget it just because they've forgotten it.'

John himself has come in for an awful lot of criticism over the years, so I asked what his attitude is to personal criticism and whether that upsets him as much.

'Let's take Salvador Dali for an example-I take him because he's a big exposed artist too (we won't discuss his work). So he puts his work on display or has an opening, and the reviewer reviews what he's wearing! Or the fact that he fell over drunk, or hit a fellow with a stick. That to me is irrelevant.

'One music paper reviewer whose name I don't know, gets hysterical about me whatever I do. Obviously he loves me-loves me so much he hates me. So whatever he reviews that's anything to do with me he just goes on and on, rambling about anything but the music. Because of that, what he says is invalid. I am a musician.

It's funny, you know, people think I can't take criticism because I sometimes write letters. I might write and say "hey, what do you mean, you dummy" because I like writing letters if I'm in the mood. I do dig
criticism, especially if it's to do with my work. It's helpful to know someone's watching. And if the praise is just praise for being John Lennon then it's just as invalid as non praise just because I'm John Lennon.

'Although it's easier to accept praise than hatred . . .'

In his time John has had to accept a lot of both of those, as well as adulation and bureaucratic victimisation. Recently there's been a spate of a strange type of flattery-the desire to immortalise John and the other Beatles before any of them are even dead. Take for example the stage play 'John, Paul, George, Ringo and Bert':

'Obviously I haven't had a chance to see it, although I sent them a happy opening message on tape. I don't know what it is or how the hell it is, or why it is, I just know it is. It makes me feel dead if you wanna know.
People writing things like that about us gives me the feeling that I've died already, but I haven't.'

Despite his personal trepidation about going, John didn't mind the 'Sergeant Pepper' film:

'1 enjoyed it, because I'd never seen the guy's work before. I think they reproduced the music well, very well in fact. And while we're talking about films, what about "Stardust"? It was written by Ray Connolly-white house indeed, with white bedrooms. Guess where he got that from? Ascot, where he always visited me and Yoko!'

Many artists try to immortalise themselves or their lives in their songs. Lennon may not be striving for any particular niche in posterity (although there's little doubt that he'll have one) but most of his music is personal.

'Yes, all my stuff's personal. It always has been, even "Help" was personal-a cry from the heart you might say. Maybe the lyrics got more refined as I became older, and got to the point more quickly, but they're
still just as personal.'

Thus beautiful if melancholy songs like 'Nobody Loves You When You're Down and Out" speak volumes about Lennon"s state of mind at the time-in this instance in 1974. that dreadful year. But, perhaps surprisingly, none of the Beatles have tried to follow in the footsteps of contemporary Pete Townshend with 'Tommy'.

'We did "Sergeant Pepper" and that'll do! Impressing people with the name "opera" doesn't interest me. To me it is, and probably always will be, the song I find interesting'

So there'll be no Lennon magnum opus, but a great many more brilliant and poignant songs if 'Walls And Bridges' is anything to go by.

1975 was a good year in contrast to its predecessor. Perhaps one of the best yet. Shortly after I saw John he and Yoko retired from public life to stay in a friend's house and await their baby.

By now you should know whether the happy event was indeed just that. A million and more fans hope that it will be, as a confirmation of their happy reunion. And ironically if there is another little Lennon it may do a lot to help John's immigration problems, for the child will be a U.S. citizen . . .

For the New Year John has a message for all, 'I said stay alive in '75-and that goes for '76 too.'

As we go to press we hear that John Lennon has won his appeal and has got his green card. This means he can now stay in America, or more to the point, he can leave America and return. Nice one John.

Jack Kerouac bobblehead doll heading to Hall of Fame

I've been trying to lay my hands on one of these since they were released in 2003, without any luck. The J.K. bobbleheads regularly show up on eBay selling for several hundred dollars each.

With only 1,000 produced and "the Jack Kerouac Estate [requiring] the mold to be broken so that unauthorized copies aren't made..." it's unlikely that my Scotty Nguyen bobblehead will have a shelf-mate soon.

(Thanks, Peggy!)

Jakob Dylan on his father...

"Yes," he said, taking a breath, "he was affectionate. When I was a kid, he was a god to me for all the right reasons. Other people have put that tag on him in some otherworldly sense. I say it as any kid who admired his dad and had a great relationship with him. He never missed a single Little League game I had. He's collected every home run ball I ever hit. And he's still affectionate to me." He paused and smiled. "Maybe he doesn't want people to know that," he said. "But I'll tell you, because it's my interview."

Lot of fascinating things in the article, including:

'When I'm listening to 'Subterranean Homesick Blues,' I'm grooving along just like you. But when I'm listening to 'Blood on the Tracks,' that's about my parents.'

Link to NY Times article which may or may not require a free registration.

Bewitched Statue Watch Day Three

"Witches are to Salem what the Red Sox are to Boston."

Link to "The Salem News" story. Link to another "The Salem News" story that keeps on witchily appearing and disappearing.

Also a link to a NPR story where, if you listen to the full report, you'll be rewarded with a short excerpt of someone (note to self: track this down*) singing the "Bewitched" theme.


*Tracked: Here's a link to an MP3 file of Ms. Peggy Lee singing the theme to "Bewitched."

via Harpies Bizarre where all things witchy can be found

Why the Blogfather is like Public Radio.

I need a new account at another poker site like I need a hole in the head, so I wasn’t happy to find that Iggy had set the new WPBT WSOP Satellite Tournament at a site I had never even heard of, “Noble Poker.”

I’ve been content with playing at Poker Stars and Ultimate Bet. My one attempt outside of those sites at Party Poker caused me to lose my stake within the space of a month; various poker blogger claims that Party was one big fish fry notwithstanding. Of course, the fact that I was trying to beat Party’s progressive tourneys probably had something to do with it. Or, who knows? Maybe I was one of the fish in the Party Poker Ocean. If so, I was happy to go back to the seas where I knew I could make a couple of bucks on a regular basis.

So, my first instinct was to take another pass on this tourney. But I started thinking about an exchange of emails I had with Iggy a month or so back where I thanked him for arranging/flogging the WPBT tournaments and hoped that he was getting some piece of the action from Party or Poker Stars for his efforts. And he replied he wasn’t seeing a dime from them.

“Guinness & Poker” can be an irritating blog to visit, with those flashing banners, unrelenting shilling for bonus codes this and Poker Tracker that, wholesale quoting of stuff, and Iggy’s refusal to follow anything like the normal protocols of blogging such as separate, short, headlined posts that could be easily located again rather than the scrolling screeds he puts up.

But having said all that, I’ll note that I visit G&P on a near-daily basis. It’s a pretty good barometer of the state of poker, and especially the state of on-line poker, plus it saves me the trouble of reading RGP, which has as bad a noise-to-signal ratio as rec.music.dylan.

Iggy’s links to other poker blogs have led me to some excellent writing, at least one of which – Maudie’s – ended up on my permanent reading list. Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, at least two people are going to the WSOP who wouldn't have been if not for Iggy's initial idea and tireless flogging. And Iggy, when he wants to, can come up with some excellent funny, original material, such as his trip to Aruba post and his wonderful post on the infamous “Fast Eddie.” You can find both by searching his site if you're interested.

All reasons, as I said, why I read G&P almost every day. So, I was driving up to Maine yesterday, listening to NPR, which was in one of its cyclic fund-raising campaigns, and the announcers were doing the whole “you pay for your newspaper, you pay for your Starbucks coffee, why do you think you should get a free ride from us?” guilt-trip gig. Answer, of course, is the same as why dogs like to orally clean their genitals, but that’s neither here nor there. They’re right, and every now and then I do make a donation because I use their services regularly, it’s near-impossible to listen to commercial radio, I’d miss them if they were gone, and they should make a buck from me.

They should make a buck from me. As should Iggy, for all he does for the poker blogger community. So, I’m using the little sign-up link that will let Iggy get some street cred and a few bonus dollars at Noble, and may he spend them in good health.

In the Big Scheme of Things, fhb is a very small fish in the poker blogger ocean, but if you’re a poker blogger/reader and you’re dithering about whether you want to go to the hassle of opening another account at yet another site and have somehow stumbled on this, think about what I’ve said.

See you on Wednesday. And thank you, Iggy.

WPBT WSOP Satellite Tournament
Noble Poker
Wednesday, May 11th, 9PM EST
$30 +3
No-Limit
Password: dahammer

A moment of Jack Russell Terrier Zen #2

via Mimi

And guess who just got HBO? Who sez reader comments don't have influence? Jack says, "Thanks!"





(Click on the photo to view a larger version)

Reprieved.

The landscapers were supposed to take down the old crab-apple in our front yard yesterday, but there were so many buds on it that I asked them to take one final look before their getting the new tree; which would make taking the old one inevitable.

They called me while I was on the way to Maine - between York and Wells - and told me that while there were no guarantees, they now thought there was a possibility of saving it. "Trees either die of cold or drought," the arborist's voice crackled over the cell in a piece of inadvertent poetry, and I thought of a similar line in a poem by Jim Harrison. "It was a tough Winter on it. But I'll tell you the truth, Fred, even though I'll be losing money, if it was my tree, I'd try to save it. It must be close to 50 years old."

"Done," I said. "And thank you." I bought some tree fertilizer spikes when I came home late yesterday afternoon, ringed the now heavily pruned tree with them, and put back up the feeders. Our finches almost immediately re-appeared in golden flashes. I went to the garage, cut a piece of cardboard from a box and scrawled "REPRIEVED" on it in big, green Magic Marker letters. I hung the sign on the trunk where Peg would see it when she came home, to make her smile.

I can turn and see it now, old tree, bark peeling, limbs missing, but still here, maybe as old as I am. But still here. Reprieved.

Click on the image for a larger version (and thank you, Jill, for the idea to take a photo!)

American Life in Poetry: Column 006

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Rhyme has a way of lightening the spirit of a poem, and in this instance, the plural, spirits, is the appropriate word choice. Lots of readers can relate to "Sober Song," which originally appeared in North Dakota Quarterly. Barton Sutter is a Minnesota poet, essayist, and fiction writer who has won awards in all three genres.

Sober Song

Farewell to the starlight in whiskey,
So long to the sunshine in beer.
The booze made me cocky and frisky
But worried the man in the mirror.
Goodnight to the moonlight in brandy,
Adieu to the warmth of the wine.
I think I can finally stand me
Without a glass or a stein.
Bye-bye to the balm in the vodka,
Ta-ta to the menthol in gin.
I'm trying to do what I ought to,
Rejecting that snake medicine.
I won't miss the blackouts and vomit,
The accidents and regret.
If I can stay off the rotgut,
There might be a chance for me yet.
So so long to God in a bottle,
To the lies of rum and vermouth.
Let me slake my thirst with water
And the sweet, transparent truth.

Reprinted from "Farewell to the Starlight in Whiskey," Rochester: BOA Editions, 2004, by permission of the author. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. For information on permissions and usage, or to download a PDF version of the column, visit www.americanlifeinpoetry.org.

Bewitched statue watch continued. Rhetorical question of the day:

``Do we need more kitsch?'' resident Meg Twohey said. ``We are giving out public space for a TV group to make money. I don't understand why we're doing it.''

Link to Boston Herald article

A moment of Jack Russell Terrier Zen

Thanks, Mimi!

more JRTZ moments









via Peg

Enduring Love

is one of those quirky, little Brit movies that my sister-in-law, Roberta, loves (the Roberta "quirky Brit movie" genre would include such flicks as "Shirley Valentine" and "Sexy Beast").

Intrigued by a Boston Globe review of the DVD release, I hunted it up, and found the sole copy at our local Blockbuster. To give a moment to digression, I'm not a fan of chains, be it Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, or Blockbuster. But the reality is that most of the small CD/DVD stores around here, whether purchase or rental, stock only the top sellers. Would that more of them would model themselves after the Toadstool Bookshop, which offers an eclectic selection of books far past the NY Times bestseller list. Given a choice, I always buy from the Toadstool, even giving up my B&N or Amazon discount in order to throw an independent bookseller business.

End of advertisement and digression and back to Enduring Love. The Globe reviewer had mentioned that the movie disappeared almost without a trace of public or critical comment after its theatrical release, not that much a surprise, I think, for anyone who sees the movie. With the exception of a haunting opening sequence involving a hot air balloon accident, the movie is long on atmosphere and short on action. An audience raised on the hyperkinetic entertainment of most popular movies was probably fiddling with its collective cell phone 20 minutes into the film. Another issue may be the sound quality, which to my ears is extremely muddy, at least on the DVD release. There are entire sequences, especially those involving two or more people in conversation, where I was struggling to make sense out of what was going on thanks to the low sound levels and the British habit of swallowing most words.

Having said all that, I'll also say that while Enduring Love can be extremely slow-paced, it is also very good, and well worth your time if you're looking for a movie out of the ordinary.

I went to bed last night thinking about love, and whether, as one of the characters maintains, if it is purely biologically-driven, what can it mean when you fall out of love? And if it is solely biologically-driven, where does homosexual love fit in?

I was also thinking about survivor's guilt, and the Prisoner's Dilemma, a variation of which is presented in the movie. If you're in a situation with a group where action on your part will allow you to survive but, if you take that action first, may mean that others will die, what do you do? If no one takes action, you may all survive, or you may all die. But the moment someone else takes action, your chances of survival decrease.

What do you do?

All those questions -- and more -- are asked in Enduring Love, probably another reason that the film failed at the box office. What's the last movie that made you think, that made you question assumptions, that made you ask the hard questions of yourself?

and I didn't even know I worked for them...

A rebate check received from Intuit yesterday. Usually, it's my last name that gets the variant spelling.

Husbands Beware

"Oh, Daddy, don't you see that 'Bewitched' is just another example of the degradation of womanhood? Here's a woman with unimaginable magical power and she uses it entirely to shore up her husband's ego, make him look good, help him keep his job, beat down his enemies. Has she no life of her own?"

Once Fred gets the bit between his teeth, there's no stopping him. A pompous op-ed piece in today's Globe on the Bewitched statue controversy by the incredibly boring Thomas Doherty (Student, rejoice if you don't have Mr. Doherty as an instructor) led me to hunt down Isaac Asimov's 1969 tongue-in-cheek essay on Bewitched that confronts the imponderable question, "exactly why did Sam stay with both versions of that idiot, anyway?"

The Seven Deadly Sins...

illustrated by Gummi Bears. Pictured here: Pride

via (where else?) BoingBoing

bob dylan, les chroniques /vol.1

A compilation being released in France in conjunction with the French release of Dylan's "Chronicles: Volume One" that includes music mentioned in the book.

Can be ordered through Amazon, France, where some inadvertently funny mistranslated track listings can be found, including: "I Walk On the Line," and "When to See the Gypsy."

Meet George Jetson.

Pneumatic Vacuum Elevators

Search added to fhb.

I'm nearing the year mark in blogging fhb (ironically, my first post after a two-year hiatus was a complaint about not writing enough), and it's becoming increasingly difficult for me to find old postings. Since I use fhb as much as an electronic scrapbook for interesting stories/links that I want to keep as I do for essays, it'd be nice to be able to quickly find a story/link that I posted several months ago.

One of the features that I wish Blogger had that say, a Moveable Type and/or TypePad has, is the ability to apply a category tag to postings. That way, all my various theme postings -- such as Poker, Dylan, or lust for fictional characters could be found quickly. But Blogger's main feature/benefit for me is that it's free, as opposed to the other two.

Once I started thinking about it, I'm fairly certain I can come up with different search strings that encompass categories, similar to what I'm doing above, doing a variation on the Wil Wheaton "This entry is from the xxxx department" categorization. That is, if I add the line "This entry is from the Poker department," "This entry is from the Dylan department" to the end of their respective postings, a Google search should detail all postings with that tag. Now if I can figure out a way of automating it.

This entry would obviously be from the Geek department. In any case, a search field is over to your right. So, if you're trying to find my posting on Annette or Hunter Thompson, you now can, albeit with still more effort than I would like. But, we forge ahead.

So, Ollie, armed robbery didn't work. What say we try selling toy helicopters?

Two men suspected of trying to rob World Series of Poker champion Greg Raymer in Las Vegas last year were arrested Sunday at a gun show at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, authorities said.

The San Diego County Sheriff's Department received an anonymous tip Sunday afternoon that Kevin R. Joy, 35, and Deem Cassim, 31, were selling toy helicopters at the show.

Link

Beatles "Break-Up" Letter to be Auctioned.

The letter, which is signed by George Harrison, John Lennon and Richard Starkey ( Ringo ), details how Paul McCartney wanted Lee Eastman to manage the band, while the others chose Allan Klein, who also managed the "Rolling Stones".

Bewitched statue watch.

A ''Bewitched" statue planned for Lappin Park in downtown Salem gained ground last week.

The city's Design Review Board approved minor changes to the park, including removal of a brick wall and new lighting, to accommodate the 9-foot tall bronze statue of Samantha Stephens, the TV witch played by actress Elizabeth Montgomery.

Together, they fight crime.

He's an oversexed shark-wrestling romance novelist on the hunt for the last specimen of a great and near-mythical creature. She's an enchanted mutant Valkyrie living homeless in New York's sewers. Together, they fight crime!

Instant T.V. Series

I'm from the future, and I'd like to attend!

The first (but who knows?) annual time traveler convention will be held at M.I.T. next Saturday, May 7th, 2005.

Write the details down on a piece of acid-free paper, and slip them into obscure books in academic libraries! Carve them into a clay tablet! If you write for a newspaper, insert a few details about the convention! Tell your friends, so that word of the convention will be preserved in our oral history! A note: Time travel is a hard problem, and it may not be invented until long after MIT has faded into oblivion. Thus, we ask that you include the latitude/longitude information when you publicize the convention.

You can also make an absolute commitment to publicize the convention afterwards. In that case, bring a time capsule or whatever it may be to the party, and then bury it afterwards.

via BoingBoing

PostSecret.

PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail-in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.

There are many cards on the site that will make you reflect on what is to be human. I especially like this one, this one, and this one.

via The Morning Improv.

C.M. Goes P.C.

Things have gotten so strange that when I read the first line of this article, I thought it was true. But the real story is almost as bad.

via news from me

Stay-At-Home Moms Deserve High Pay, Analysis Shows.

An informal study conducted by Web site Salary.com shows that stay-at-home moms would earn an average of $131,471 annually, including overtime, if they received a paycheck.

Link

American Life in Poetry: Column 005

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Though many of us were taught that poems have hidden meanings that must be discovered and pried out like the meat from walnuts, a poem is not a puzzle, but an experience. Here David Baker makes a gift to us through his deft description of an ordinary scene. Reading, we accept the experience of a poem and make it a part of our lives, just as we would take in the look of a mountain we passed on a trip. The poet's use of the words "we" and "neighbors" subtly underline the fact that all of us are members of the human community, much alike, facing the changing seasons together.

Neighbors in October

All afternoon his tractor pulls a flat wagon
with bales to the barn, then back to the waiting
chopped field. It trails a feather of smoke.
Down the block we bend with the season:
shoes to polish for a big game,
storm windows to batten or patch.
And how like a field is the whole sky now
that the maples have shed their leaves, too.
It makes us believers -- stationed in groups,
leaning on rakes, looking into space. We rub blisters
over billows of leaf smoke. Or stand alone,
bagging gold for the cold days to come.

David Baker's next book, "Midwest Eclogue," is forthcoming this fall from W. W. Norton.

"Neighbors in October" is reprinted from "The Truth about Small Towns," University of Arkansas Press, 1998.

This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

Well, not that shaggy...

Of course I did (see below) because the idea of not knowing was more than I could bear. I once contacted the chamber of commerce of Young America, MN for no other reason than to find out why it was named Young America. And why do so many fulfillment coupons have a Young America address? Those questions had bothered me for years. But that's another story.

First, I owe Mark an apology, as the traditional two definitions of "shaggy dog story" are, "a long-drawn-out circumstantial story concerning an inconsequential happening that impresses the teller as humorous but the hearer as boring and pointless" or: "a similar humorous story whose humor lies in the pointlessness or irrelevance of the punch line." And Mark's story is neither, of course. Well, maybe long and drawn-out.

[insert smiley here]

In any case, there seems to be an ur-Shaggy Dog story that first gave that style of story its name. This is taken from Michael Quinion's "World Wide Word" site. If you're expecting a big laugh to follow, be prepared to be disappointed...

Eric Partridge wrote a little monograph called The ‘Shaggy Dog’ Story, Its Origin, Development and Nature in 1953. He said that “the best explanation of the term is that it arose in a story very widely circulated only since 1942 or 1943, although it was apparently invented in the 1930’s”...

...A grand householder in Park Lane, London, had the great misfortune to lose a very valuable and rather shaggy dog. He advertised repeatedly in The Times, but without luck, and finally he gave up hope. But an American in New York saw the advertisement, was touched by the man’s devotion, and took great trouble to seek out a dog that matched the specification in the advertisement and which he could bring over to London on his next business trip.

He presented himself in due course at the owner’s impressive house, where he was received in the householder’s absence by an even more impressive butler, who glanced at the dog, bowed, winced almost imperceptibly and exclaimed, in a horror-stricken voice, “But not so shaggy as that, sir!”

If you're still awake, Quinion notes the following as the other most cited ur-Shaggy Dog story

an advertisement [is] placed in The Times to announce a competition to find the shaggiest dog in the world. After a vast amount of effort and investigation (described in detail, after the nature of this type of story), the winning dog was presented to the aristocratic instigator of the competition, who said: “I don’t think he’s so shaggy”.

Aren't you glad you asked?

A shaggy dog story from Mark Evanier.

Note to self: Go look up the origins of "shaggy dog story."

This sounds like it could have had its origins as a gag that Mark Evanier might have written to sell to a comedian, but what the heck, it's funny...

It reminds me of a time about 15 years ago when some guy kept phoning my house and asking for Donna. I did know a Donna then, but she wasn't here and I quickly determined that the caller was passionately in love with, and desperate to talk to some Donna I did not know. Something had gone wrong between them and he was certain that if he could just talk to his Donna, they could straighten it all out and get back together and eventually marry and have kids, etc. At first, he called over and over, refusing to believe that he had the wrong number. He was certain I was lying to him and that his Donna was in the next room, avoiding him. I thought of saying something like, "Yeah, she's here but she's in the pool having sex with a bunch of midgets," but he sounded so serious, I was afraid he'd open his wrists.

I finally convinced him he really and truly had the wrong number, and he read me the number he thought he was dialing. It was one crucial digit different from mine. He apologized and hung up to dial the correct number...and sure enough, he got me again. This happened three or four more times in a row, like he was accidentally dialing not only the wrong number each time but, oddly, the same wrong number. Finally, I told him something was probably wrong with his phone dial. The two was registering as a three. He said, "No, it's this damned faulty redial button. Every time I push it, I get you."

Donna was smart to get out when she did.

Witchy Nookie

One of my guilty secrets is that a large reason behind why I'm a writer is because of a TV series.

Bewitched ran for eight years- 1964 to 1972 - roughly analogous to the period when my hormones were raging at their highest levels. I wanted to be Darrin Stephens, not because the idea of coming up with weird advertising campaigns was attractive (even though it was). And not because the idea of commuting into the city every day and then returning to the 'burbs and a nightly martini sounded cool (even though it did).

No. I wanted witchy nookie. Specific witchy nookie. Samantha Stephens. I wanted a wife who did wonderful mugging faces and double-takes. I wanted a wife who went "Welllll..." when pressed for an answer she didn't want to give. I wanted a wife who looked great in mini skirts, and even better in Capris. I wanted a wife who could wiggle her nose.

Most of all, I wanted to be married to a witch. A specific witch. Hey, Sam, you know what? Darrin's an idiot. Babes, you want to do the nose twitch thing and put us on an island in the Caribbean with hot and cold running money, I'm for it. You want to do lunch in Paris, hang on honey, let me grab my beret. You don't want to do the chores when you know with a sweep of your arms and a zing musical cue everything's done? What, do I look stupid? Do your thing, and come back to bed, baby. There's lots of little Tabithas and Adams to be making.

Give me a witchy theme and I'm a happy camper. My mother refused to allow me to rename one of our cats Pyewacket after the "Bell, Book, and Candle" familiar (the movie and originally play that Bewitched was probably based on), claiming it would confuse her and annoy the cat.

I'm probably one of the few people in the world, including the casts' mothers, who saw every episode of the very bad one-season Bewitched sequel, Tabitha.

I forced the ever-suffering Peg to sit through endless episodes of "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" starring Melissa Joan Hart as the world's longest-in-the-tooth teenager and the Woman Who is Everywhere, Caroline Rhea, because it was as close as anything I could find to Bewitched. Thanks to that show, Salem the cat's wail of "I'm just a cat," was our catch-phrase in answer to any complaint for several months.

I'm awaiting the big screen version of Bewitched with both fear and anticipation. Anticipation: I've read the script and I like the "What would Sam do?" theme. Fear: Nicole Kidman. Need I say more?

And, as I said, I'm the man I am today because of Darrin Stephens' job. I never got into agency work, which may be why I never married a witch, but I worked my way through various advertising and p.r. departments from copywriter, to manager, to creative director... which as far as I could tell, all of which is what Darrin was supposed to be doing in the strange two-man agency that was McMann and Tate. Actually, Darrin was an illustrator, too, but I can't draw.

There was a reason I started this rant. Ah, here it is. The Boston Globe reports that the TV Land cable network plans to honor Elizabeth Montgomery in Salem with a 9-foot bronze statue of her as Sam sitting sidesaddle on a broom.

As is usual with everything, there are both proponents and opponents of the idea. Salem's mayor and witch community is generally for it, figuring it as tourism boosterism. Opponents claim it's just crass commercialism on TV Land's part (well, duh!). The winner of the most geeky argument, one critic who is obviously another Bewitched fan notes that the series was set in Westport, Connecticut, not Salem, Massachusetts.

''The connection to Salem is tenuous at best," said John Carr, a former member of the city's Historical Commission. ''They didn't live in Salem on that show. They came here 40 years ago to film three or four episodes, and now we're going to put up a 'Bewitched' statue at one of our most visible intersections."

The Salem Redevelopment Authority will take a final vote on the plan May 17. If erected, the statue will stand in a downtown park at the corner of Essex and Washington streets.

And I'll be there for the dedication.

Dorothy's dress fetches £140,000.

Apparently not satisfied with just the ruby slippers, my Dottie returns for another purchase.

Second 1st Annual Blogger WSOP Tourney.

My head hasn't even stopped spinning from the last one, but it apparently was such a success that Iggy has already announced the second 1st annual poker blogger-only tournament.

Me, I think I'm going to take a pass on this one, and wait for the WPBT (writers and readers) WSOP version, which Iggy promises will be announced soon, but in the interests of intergalactic poker blogger unity, here's the dope.

WPBT WSOP Satellite Tournament
Poker Stars
May 1st, 7pm EST
$30 + 3 No-limit
One WSOP seat awarded for every 50 players
Password = the same as last time - I [Iggy] can't go thru 70 emails again.

The number of [expletive deleted]s said in any given episode of Deadwood.

Although I heard of HBO's Deadwood by rep, I had never actually viewed an episode until my writing junket down to `Bama this Spring, since Peg and I don't have HBO. Coming into the series mid-plot, semi-asleep, and concerned about Peg, who wasn't answering the phone (she had locked herself out of the house. Long story), the only impression the show made on me at that time was that the Eff Word was used in almost every sentence.

I eventually became a fan of Deadwood - which is much more than unrelenting swearing -- thanks to the god-send of the 1st season DVD release, which is also how I became a fan of 24. I'm now teasing Peg into letting me get HBO solely so I don't have to wait for Season 2 of Deadwood on DVD.

So far the answer has been "No!"

In any case, via Iggy, more proof that everything is on these here internets, including people with way too much time on their hands. Someone has gone to the trouble of counting the total number of f**ks (the word, not the act, although there's probably a site somewhere logging that, too) in each episode of Deadwood. And no, this is not WS or KF.

An Early Night.

Sunday, April 24
Poker Stars
7pm EST
$30 +$3
No Limit
WPBT WSOP Satellite

In a flash of Guinness-fueled inspiration, Iggy conceived the idea of sending at least one poker blogger to the World Series of Poker this June through a Poker Stars satellite. The WSOP $1500 buy-in meant that a minimum of 50 bloggers needed to sign up to our tourney at $30 a head (the extra $3 per is the rake for Poker Stars). 78 players eventually joined, meaning one winner of the $1500 ticket (the second place finisher would take home the cash overage).

That winner was not me. Not even close. Bob Respert, a nice guy who I've played against at a few WPBT virtual tables -- but not last night -- took #1, the $1,500, and will be playing in the WSOP come June. It should be fun to read his reports. Go do the poker blogger community proud, Bob! There was a chopped pot (money split between the players) for 2nd and 3rd, the players taking home a not unrespectable $420 each. [UPDATE: A deal was cut at the final table to chop the pot among 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, a still not unrespectable $280 each]

Okay, enough about you. How about me? As the title implies, I was knocked out early, in fact within the first half-hour, and finished 67th out of 78. The game seemed to be played at hyperkinetic speed, with players dropping by the wayside every minute (I think there were less than 50 left at the 1st hourly break). Maudie and the winner of the last WPBT tournament, GameC, were both at my first (and only) table, and both were knocked out before me.

And me?

The hand breakdown that took me out is below for poker players. For others, here's the brief. After 27 minutes of conservative play, either folding, calling or checking, I raised three times the BB to $100 with a suited QJ in my hand. I was called by one player, EasyCure, who was on the button. The flop showed a Kd Kh 4h, giving me a flush draw at this point.

Although I didn't know it (obviously), I was, in the parlance, near "drawing dead" as EasyCure with a pair of pocket 4s had flopped a full house. I threw another conservative $100 at the pot. EasyCure raised to $290, and I called. At this point I figured EC for a K in his hand, and that he had bet the set.

The worst possible card in the world for me fell at the turn, a 10 of hearts. I now have a flush, with a possible straight flush draw and an even more improbable royal flush draw.

I still haven't made up my mind -- and probably never will -- whether I made a mistake at this point. I had T1015 left in my stack, not that short after a half-hour of play. I could have checked, or made another conservative bet, and let EasyCure's next move decide me. But with a flush in hand, and two-way nuts hand draw (and there was no way I believed he was slow-playing the other two Kings, anyway) the only thing I really feared was the Ace of hearts. If EC was holding that, I didn't want him to get to the river and a possible heart. So I got aggressive, and went all-in.

EC waited, and I thought he was going to back down. In retrospect, I think he was deciding whether he believed I had pulled a better boat than he had, possibly holding a pocket K 10. Eventually, he either guessed right that I had the flush or decided to gamble. In either case, it was the right decision.

A river 9 of hearts would have given me a straight flush, and an Ace of hearts a royal flush, which would have been the baddest of bad beats for EasyCure, and I probably would have become legendary in the poker blogger community for 3 or 4 minutes, but his full house held, and I was gone.

Bad play? Maybe, but I think I would have played out that hand to the river no matter what. I don't think I could have backed away from it.

The ever-supportive Peg had made finger food, including meatballs and bruschetta, that I could nibble on during play, which we ended up eating together at 7:30.

*********** # 1 **************
PokerStars Game #1579711850: Tournament #7037849, Hold'em No Limit - Level II (15/30) - 2005/04/24 - 19:27:36 (ET)

Table '7037849 2' Seat #9 is the button

Seat 1: drmullets (4305 in chips)
Seat 2: ScottMcMilla (1045 in chips)
Seat 3: ricoM (1505 in chips)
Seat 4: skitchorama (1850 in chips)
Seat 5: dnasty13 (1285 in chips)
Seat 6: heL1xx (1455 in chips)
Seat 8: good43 (1065 in chips)
Seat 9: Easycure (2295 in chips)
drmullets: posts small blind 15
ScottMcMilla: posts big blind 30

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to ricoM [Qh Jh]
heL1xx said, "at least for me they are"
ricoM: raises 70 to 100
skitchorama: folds
dnasty13: folds
heL1xx: folds
good43: folds
Easycure: calls 100
drmullets: folds
ScottMcMilla: folds

*** FLOP *** [Kd Kh 4h]
ricoM: bets 100
Easycure: raises 290 to 390
ricoM: calls 290

*** TURN *** [Kd Kh 4h] [Th]
ricoM: bets 1015 and is all-in
Easycure: calls 1015

*** RIVER *** [Kd Kh 4h Th] [8d]

*** SHOW DOWN ***
ricoM: shows [Qh Jh] (a flush, King high)
Easycure: shows [4s 4c] (a full house, Fours full of Kings)
Easycure collected 3055 from pot

*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3055 | Rake 0
Board [Kd Kh 4h Th 8d]
Seat 1: drmullets (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: ScottMcMilla (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: ricoM showed [Qh Jh] and lost with a flush, King high
Seat 4: skitchorama folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: dnasty13 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: heL1xx folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: good43 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: Easycure (button) showed [4s 4c] and won (3055) with a full house, Fours full of Kings

Bob Dylan to visit Taiwan

How many times must the canon [sic] balls fly, before they're forever banned? The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,” said President Chen as he read lyrics from Bob Dylan’s Blowing in the Wind to express his emotions in reaction to China’s enactment of its anti-secession law.

It may just be the translation, but it seems to be a bit problematic about whether Dylan will actually attend the Ho-Hai-Yan Rock Festival. Link.

A Remarkable Life.

On the crest of Friday night turning into Saturday morning, June 3rd, 2005

I'm not really here.

Or maybe I am, it's too hard to tell at this point. My life is getting like the movie "Primer" and I'm no longer sure what time track I'm on. I do know I wrote about winning the blogger satellite and getting my WSOP $1,500 E-ticket back in April. But the fantasy was nothing like this.

Or maybe it was.

I'm in the self-proclaimed "Longest Stretch Limo in Las Vegas." I'm sitting in the rear seat alone. Somewhere about a football field in front of me is a crew of people who I don't know, and I don't think want to get to know. Outside of several women who I greatly fear are soiled doves, I can see a trio of steroid-pumped 20-somethings, one of whom is barfing great chunks of a Harrah's buffet special out the limo window. His head is being held and the stream directed downwind by Marilyn Monroe. We picked up Marilyn and Elvis on the Strip about 20 minutes ago after the dwarf spotted them and demanded they be brought aboard.

I'm paying the freight on the LSLiLV, but the dwarf is running the show. The dwarf frightens me, as he would any rational person who hopes to live a long, quiet life into old age. The dwarf looks like a compressed version of Mick Jagger, maybe a Jagger who's been mangled in a steam press. The dwarf is wearing a top hat, silk scarf and striped low-riding pants a la a Jagger of the "Gimme Shelter" "Get Yer Ya-Yas Out" era. The resemblance ends with the dwarf's t-shirt, which I can't see in the dim limo interior lights, but I already know reads, "I'm not fucking cute."

This is all Iggy's fault. After the debacle of a dwarf no-show at an earlier Vegas live poker blogger tourney, Iggy had gone to extreme measures this year to ensure a little person would be there to "cheer on" the blogger horse.

Cheer on, Jesus. Mini-Iggy was a nightmare. He had shown up ringside 20 minutes after I had sat down at my first table, screaming so loud that play was stopped.

"What's the matter with you fuckers?" he cried. "Get the fuck out of the way, there's a little person trying to see, goddamit. Don't you have any sense of decency! I'm handicapped, you bastards!"

He was also drunk as a skunk, sloshing Guinness over assorted boat shoes and stiletto heels.

"There you are," he yelled when he had finally forced his way to the front of the crowd and spotted my WPBT cap. "God, you're an old fart, aren't you, cotton-top? I thought all you internets people were kids.

"Well, what the hell. Iggy - that's me! - says kick their ass! Floggers forever! Bonus Code: Bite Me! Reload Code: Bite Me Hard! Remember to buy the Poker Fucker Guide and take a leak or something!"

Security arrived at that point and tried to hustle the dwarf away quietly. I should have many pleasurable memories of playing in my first - and quite possibly only - $1500 WSOP tournament. But I'm afraid the image of a 250-lb man rolling on the floor screaming like a little girl as he tried to detach a dwarf biting at his crotch is the one that's going to remain when I'm older and grayer.

It took some time for things to get back to normal, and for awhile it looked like I was going to get bounced out with the dwarf, but I stood my ground, proclaimed my innocence and the Harrah Powers-that-Is finally told everyone to shuffle-up-n-deal.

And they did. And we did play, and here's the short version, `cause I want someone to pay me for the long version. Cut your throat, McManus. There's a new sheriff in town.

Part 1: The Game. I played a lot of hands. Actually, I didn't play a lot of hands. I sat through a lot of hands. The Poker Gods were amused to throw the Hammer at me four - count `em - four times in a row during one session. I didn't play them, nor did I play the Hammer at any time during the game when it showed up. What, do I look stupid? Fun is fun. Money and a shot at the Big Show is something else.

Part 2: Fred's encounter with celebrity. I didn't recognize anybody big at any of my tables, until close to my end, but I was in so much fear, I'm not sure I would have recognized Peg if she had been sitting across from me.

Somewhere in the late hours, one of our open seats is filled by Scotty Nguyen, who is seated directly across from me. Scotty is carrying what looks like a decayed tangerine which he carefully places next to his stack. He glances around the table, measuring each of us in turn, and finally stops at me. Not surprising, since I have the Scotty Nguyen bobblehead that Peg gave me next to my stack.

"Nice," Scotty says. "Bring you luck?"

"So far," I answer.

"Good," he says. Everyone should buy one, then." And the table laughs.

Scotty only stays with us for a half-dozen hands, never playing, before he's moved again. I never see him again.

Part 3: Okay, what happened? I'll tell you about the last hand I played, the hand that ended the tourney for me. As usual, I'm short-stacked. I have about $8k of chips left. We're at Level 11 with $300 antes and $800 $1600 blinds. This means that any hand I play pass the flop I'm probably going to have to bet all or a significant part of my stack to win. I'm on the button and find a pair of 8s, which my mind uselessly tells me are nicknamed "snowmen." One person in front of me calls the BB. Everyone else folds. I raise to $3200. The blinds go away. The original better calls.

Flop is rainbow A 8 7

I've probably lost on sets more than anything else in the world. I can just tell another Ace is going to show at the turn. I check. He checks.

WtF? Does he have a small pair that's already beaten by everything on the board? Does he have a K something? Should I have bet? Why am I here? I can't even play.

Turn is another 8. I've been playing Hold `Em since 2003. This is the first 4 of a kind I have ever had. I've won the hand. My normal instinct is go all-in, but I decide to milk it if I can. He's got at least triple the chips I have. I bet $4,000, leaving me with a little under a grand. He calls, and I've got him figured for an Ace in his hand.

River is an A. Great card for me if I'm right. Maybe he has an A 7 and just pulled the boat. Even better. I go all-in. And as I expect, he calls.

What I'm not expecting is what I see when we flip our cards. He's been slow-playing a pair of Aces. My 4-of-a-kind has just been trounced.

"Bad, bad, beat," someone murmurs, and I stagger away from the table as if I just emerged from the last car of a train wreck. Someone gently guides me to the table where paperwork needs to be filled out.

Part 4 - The End: I finished in 33rd position. Winnings: $4,020. Probably will work out to around $2,500 when you figure in travel, room, expenses like the LSLiLV that I had immediately regretted being talked into hiring by the dwarf and the pack of remoras that somehow had attached themselves to him.

A bodyguard from the blogger community should have been there to protect me, but they had their own problems with the Aladdin management after the dwarf had run rampant naked through the hotel hallways, snapping a wet towel at anyone unfortunate enough to be in his way, as he howled for "Aprils, goddammit! Maudie! I need wimmins and I need them now!"

Oh, the humanity, Iggy. How could you do this to your own?

At an opportune stoplight, I boot the semi-conscious dwarf out the limo door. After a generous tip for both, Marilyn and Elvis help me unload the frat boys and hookers. Marilyn gives me a kiss, and Elvis a high-five, and I'm finally alone.

"You know where Mt. Charleston or Lee Canyon is?" I ask the driver.

"About an hour-and-a-half north," he answers. I toss him the pages I've printed from the Web. "Let's go there, now," I say.

About an hour-and-a-half north later, I'm walking up the Desert Overlook Trail in false dawn light. At the overlook, I gaze out at the Nevada Test Site, looking for Frenchman Flat, just south of Yucca Flats, where the first A-Bombs were tested. I'm here to prove a point to a fictional character.

The true dawn begins its rosy-finger stretching in the East, and I whisper, "He was right, Gnossos. It never was as big as the fucking sun."

I dial the number I know best, and wake Peg up. "Did you win?" she asks sleepily.

"Yes, I did," I say. And morning becomes electric.

American Life in Poetry: Column 004

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

None of us can fix the past. Mistakes we've made can burden us for many years, delivering their pain to the present as if they had happened just yesterday. In the following poem we join with Ruth Stone in revisiting a hurried decision, and we empathize with the intense regret of being unable to take that decision back, or any other decision, for that matter.

Another Feeling

Once you saw a drove of young pigs
crossing the highway. One of them
pulling his body by the front feet,
the hind legs dragging flat.
Without thinking,
you called the Humane Society.
They came with a net and went for him.
They were matter of fact, uniformed;
there were two of them,
their truck ominous, with a cage.
He was hiding in the weeds. It was then
you saw his eyes. He understood.
He was trembling.
After they took him, you began to suffer regret.
Years later, you remember his misfit body
scrambling to reach the others.
Even at this moment, your heart
is going too fast; your hands sweat.

Reprinted from "In the Dark," Copper Canyon Press, 2004, by permission of the author and publisher. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. American Life in Poetry provides newspapers and online publications with a free weekly column featuring contemporary American poems. The sole mission of this project is to promote poetry: America Life in Poetry seeks to create a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. For information on permissions and usage, or to download a PDF version of the column, visit www.americanlifeinpoetry.org.

If you were born between the years of 1949 and 1964...

Sounds like one of those geezer insurance ads, doesn't it? It doesn't matter even if you're dead! For only $55.99 a month you too can purchase up to $5,000 in term life insurance!

pant, pant. Okay. Got that out of my system. If you were born between those years, and if you have as many strange enthusiasms as I have, you may want to hie yourself off to the Superboy Cover Gallery, that yes, has a scan of each cover of each Superboy issue from 1949 to `64, and finally answer the burning question, "What was on the Superboy cover the month I was born?"

Of course, we could get totally geeky here, and discuss that due to vagaries of newstand distribution the say, December 1952 edition of Superboy probably came on the stands in July 1952, but what the hell, let's not go there, and just enjoy, okay?

Naked woman flushes $90,000:

Police say she tore up and sent irreplaceable Peanuts storyboard down the toilet.

Another story with a headline that speaks for itself. Link

via news from me

From Neil Gaiman

It's astonishing how much more cheerful a place the world becomes when you start to finish things.

Link

Secret Member of the Bikini Coalition

There are many reasons to love these here internets, and one of them is the power of the many.

To your left, you'll see what was one of a set of two original photos recently up for an ebay auction (link is here, which you still may be able to see). You may recognize the woman in the background as Joan Baez. If you're a fan of the early `60s folk scene, or of Bob Dylan, or of Thomas Pynchon, you may also recognize the man in the foreground as Richard Fariña, and the woman in the bikini as his wife, and Baez's sister, Mimi. The photos were found in a flea market, and appear to have been taken in Big Sur in 1964. And to answer the first question that everyone asks: that's a capo strategically stuck in Mimi's bikini bottom.

I'm a Fariña fan from way back, his story tangled up in so many of my passions that I've long forgotten where or when I first heard of him. Pynchon? Fariña's friend in college, who contributed a blurb to Fariña's very funny, very sad novel, "Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me" which has weathered well over the years. Dylan? Friend, or at least associate, of Fariña during Dylan's Greenwich Village days. Fariña would later write a biting "farewell" to Dylan, "Morgan the Pirate," which may have been Fariña's version of "Positively 4th Street." Cornell, my favorite East Coast university? Fariña went there (as did Pynchon, and as I did - kind of - one summer). `60s folk music? Fariña issued two beautiful, haunting albums with Mimi and first introduced me to the sound of a mountain dulcimer, which he played with a style all his own.

I belong to an email list, run by Fariña fan/historian Douglas Cooke, who also runs the comprehensive Richard and Mimi Fariña web site. One of the list members found the photos on eBay earlier this week and posted her discovery on the mailing list. Doug took an early run at buying them, as did I, but both of us were outbid past our respective budgets by someone who seemed to have unfathomably deep pockets. Doug then floated the idea that those on the mailing list interested in the photos all contribute to a fund and let him take one more hack at it. If he won the auction, the Fariña web site would keep the original photos in its archives, and contributors would get high-rez scans for themselves... and well as some other Fariña-related goodies.

And the Bikini Coalition was born.

The plan was all pulled together by email with less than an hour left on the bidding. Doug took his shot in the last minutes, and the Bikini Coalition was triumphant with a winning bid of $113.51.

As much I liked the idea of having the original photos, I like even more that they'll be part of Doug's collection and that I helped put them there.

Crazy Jane And Jack The Journeyman

I know, although when looks meet
I tremble to the bone,
The more I leave the door unlatched
The sooner love is gone,
For love is but a skein unwound
Between the dark and dawn.

A lonely ghost the ghost is
That to God shall come;
I - love's skein upon the ground,
My body in the tomb -
Shall leap into the light lost
In my mother's womb.

But were I left to lie alone
In an empty bed,
The skein so bound us ghost to ghost
When he turned his head
passing on the road that night,
Mine must walk when dead.

-- William Butler Yeats, The Winding Stair and Other Poems, 1933

American Life in Poetry: Column 003

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

A poem need not go on at great length to accomplish the work of conveying something meaningful to its readers. In the following poem by the late Marnie Walsh, just a few words, written as if they'd been recorded in exactly the manner in which they'd been spoken, tell us not only about the missing woman in the red high heels, but a little something about the speaker as well.

Bessie Dreaming Bear
Rosebud, So. Dak., 1960

we all went to town one day
went to a store
bought you new shoes
red high heels

ain't seen you since.

Reprinted from "A Taste of the Knife," Ahsahta Press, 1976, by permission of Tom Trusky, literary executor of the Walsh estate. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.

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American Life in Poetry provides newspapers and online publications with a free weekly column featuring contemporary American poems. For information on permissions and usage, or to download a PDF version of the column, visit www.americanlifeinpoetry.org.

The Weird World of Jimmy Olsen.

Lois Lane and Lana Lang had some pretty strange adventures too (especially Lana, who had a tendency to drink and inhale things she shouldn't have), but for pure weirdness, nothing measures up to the Jimmy Olsen stories of the early `60s, which sometimes appeared to have been scripted by writers who were themselves inhaling and eating things they shouldn't.

via Drawn

Comic Book Ads.

If you read comic books during the `50s and `60s, you'll remember these. From Sea Monkeys to X-ray Glasses. I once spent a summer unsuccessfully trying to sell Grit (no, not the Southern food) to my neighbors and parent's friends.

via Drawn

Woman beats off burglar with gnome

A story that speaks for itself. No mention as to whether the burglar enjoyed being beaten off.

Viagra ruled kosher for Passover

Continuing today's Jewish theme...

A leading Israeli rabbi has ruled that the anti-impotency pill Viagra can be taken by Jews on Passover, reversing a previous ban.

Link

via news from me

From "My Seder with Brando"

I will never forget the sight of our table in the synagogue, Marlon Brando was to my left and sitting next to him was his guest. This was during the height of Marlon's involvement with Native American causes and he had brought with him noted Indian activist Dennis Banks of Wounded Knee fame. Banks was dressed in full Indian regalia: buckskin tassles on his clothes and long braids hanging down from a headband, which sported a feather. My childhood friend Bob Dylan sat to my right, joined by his wife, my sister Sharon, and other friends.

At first the seder progressed normally without anyone in the temple noticing anything out of the ordinary. After about forty-five minutes, the rabbi figured out that ours was not your average seder table. "Mr. Brando, would you please do us the honor of reading the next passage from the hagaddah," he said. Marlon said, "It would be my pleasure."

He smiled broadly, stood up and delivered the passage from the hagaddah as if he were reading Shakespeare on Broadway. Mouths fell open and eyes focused on the speaker with an intensity any rabbi would covet. When he was done I think people actually paused, wondering if they should applaud.

Somewhat later the rabbi approached another member of our table.

"Mr. Dylan, would you do us the honor of singing us a song?" The rabbi pulled out an acoustic guitar. I thought he would politely decline. Much to my surprise Bob said yes and performed an impromptu rendition of "Blowin' in the Wind" to the stunned shul of about 300 seder guests. The incongruity of a seder, with Marlon Brando reading the hagaddah followed by a Bob Dylan serenade, would have made for a good Fellini movie. Needless to say, everyone was both shocked and thrilled by this unusual Hollywood-style Passover miracle. The entire shul came by to shake both Marlon and Bob's hands and they actually paused and spent time with everyone.

Link

Willie bringing his picnic and Bob Dylan to Fort Worth on July 4th

Willie Nelson is returning this year to Fort Worth for his Fourth of July picnic, and he's bringing Bob Dylan with him.

Texas rock trio Los Lonely Boys will perform, and about 20 more acts will be announced over the next month. Tickets will go on sale April 25 at all Ticketmaster outlets.

Link

Two from Richard Brautigan.

When I was in high school, my all-time favorite poet was Richard Brautigan who I discovered through his prose novel, Trout Fishing in America, which everyone seemed to be reading at the time.

Brautigan's cynicism, which I suspect later dissolved into full-time despair, appealed mightily to the 17-year-old reader. I can still quote most of "The Rape of Ophelia," as well as "The Horse that had a Flat Tire," even after 35-odd years, and I once ruined a perfectly good intimate moment with my then-girlfriend by reciting the title poem of "The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster" to her at an inopportune time.

When you take your pill
it's like a mine disaster.
I think of all the people
lost inside of you

Like the Michelob Amber Bock commercial's character, the young Fred was literate, but not smooth.

I've mellowed, I guess, or romanticism has taken ascendancy over cynicism as I age, but I like Brautigan's more romantic, erotic poetry much better now than his semi-funny, semi-sad pieces. Two of those poems are reproduced below. I should probably note, probably mostly for the sake of my brother who may not want to explain certain things to Electra yet, that both the poems contain, ah, adult content, and may not be appropriate for younger readers. Having said that, I especially like "The Beautiful Poem," which beautifully summarizes most males' feelings, I think, after making love.

For those interested in reading more by Brautigan, including the poems I mention above, you can still buy most -- if not all -- of his works at Amazon. Selected poems are also available on-line, I guess as bootlegs, here. I tend to agree with the person running that site that it's better to have Brautigan remembered in cyberspace than have his estate's copyright fully protected. But Brautigan might not have agreed.

Richard Brautigan committed suicide at age 49 sometime between mid-September and late October, when his body was finally discovered, 1984. He shot himself with a .44 handgun as he faced the ocean.

*************

I'VE NEVER HAD IT DONE SO GENTLY BEFORE

For M

The sweet juices of your mouth
are like castles bathed in honey.
I've never had it done so gently before.
You have put a circle of castles
around my penis and you swirl them
like sunlight on the wings of birds.


THE BEAUTIFUL POEM

I go to bed in Los Angeles thinking
about you.

Pissing a few moments ago
I looked down at my penis
affectionately.

Knowing it has been inside
you twice today makes me
feel beautiful.

-- 3 A.M.
January 15, 1967

Richard Brautigan, both poems originally published in "The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster"

More Ew, Ew, Ew!

I don't even want to write about this one.

ew, ew, ew.

Bear Bites Vole

Temperatures approaching 70 in the late afternoon yesterday, we took Curl and the Bear outside after spending the morning doing yard work. Fred getting one segment of the front lawn clear of winter debris and last Fall's leaves, Peg cleaning up around her rose bushes in back and the tiger lily patch in front.

Peg and I don't eat lunch during the weekends, preferring to have a light snack around 4 or 5 with our weekend martinis, retro-suburbanite couple that we've evolved into. When the weather gets nice we have the drinks on the back porch with the cats in tow, Curly allowed to wander free as long as he's in eyesight, Bear in a harness meant for a small dog and on a 12-foot leash tied off to the porch. Part of this is because Curl is 14 and semi-mellow, while Bear is 4, and like Winnie-the-Pooh can be a Bear of little brain... if Bear took off after whatever caught his attention -- or was running from something that spooked him -- I have doubts whether he could find his way back. He'd be more likely to hole up and cry until I found him. In any case we've had Bear on the harness almost the moment we brought him back from Pawstuctaway, and he's grown so accustomed to it that he'll wait patiently at the door until it's on.

While Curly had semi-decimated the chipmunk population last year, chalking up a new record of 5 caught (one kill, I was able to rescue the others, one of whom he caught twice on separate occasions), Bear had essentially ignored the various critters in our yard, preferring to chitter at the birds visiting our feeder and limiting his hunting of chipmunks to sticking one of his boondockers down the various holes that speckle our back yard.

This year, however, Bear's been fascinated by the squirrels and occasional early chipmunk, racing from one window to another to follow them. I suspected he'd be after the chipmunks who camp out under the porch and wondered how he was going to deal with being hindered by the leash.

Snack finished (a pate from Angela's, if you must know, says the ever-snooty Fred), I was enjoying a cigar (I know, I know, could I get any snootier?) and Peg had gone inside for a moment when Bear launched himself from the porch steps and pounced on something in the Hosta bed that Peg had been working on earlier. From the shrilling I figured it for a field mouse, but from what I could see of it (in Bear's jaws), it was too large, but also too dark for a chipmunk.

I grabbed Bear, who dropped it, but I dropped Bear as whatever it was scampered over my foot, and Bear grabbed it again. Yelling for Peg, who was in, ah, a compromising position in the bathroom, I gave Bear a couple of good whacks upside his head (Bear is kinda like a Missouri Mule. It takes a bit to get his attention), and finally made him drop the small brown critter, who looked in extremis by this time.

Peg came out, we got Bear inside, and she guarded the critter from Curly, who had been off to the edge of the pukka brush surrounding our property but was wandering back to see what all the commotion was about. I went to get a shovel, which is what I usually use to dispose of critter corpses in Swamp Bals next door, but when I returned, Peg said this critter was still breathing.

I've had to put various hurt creatures out of their misery at one time or another, never an easy task, especially with the soft-hearted Peg around, and I wasn't looking forward to doing it again. Happily, we saw it that it wasn't bleeding, and when I gave it a nudge, it trundled off the grass to the rose bed.

"What is it?" said Peg.

"A mole or a vole," said rhyming Bals, and upon closer examination, decided it was a vole, since it more closely resembled the picture above than it did a mole. The vole disappeared under the porch, and we went to release the Bear and congratulate him on his first catch.

A Western Ballad

by Allen Ginsberg

When I died, love, when I died
my heart was broken in your care;
I never suffered love so fair
as now I suffer and abide
when I died, love, when I died.

When I died, love, when I died
I wearied in an endless maze
that men have walked for centuries,
as endless as the gate was wide
when I died, love, when I died.

When I died, love, when I died
there was a war in the upper air:
all that happens, happens there;
there was an angel by my side
when I died, love, when I died.

Collected Poems 1947-1980

As much as I like it, I sometimes think Howl overshadowed other, better poems by Ginsburg, such as a "A Western Ballad."

Ew, ew, ew.

Unilateral epistaxis after swimming in a stream doesn't sound so bad, right. Wrong.

A 55-year-old Chinese woman had AN EFFING LIVE LEECH up her NOSE, WITH A LARGE PART OF ITS BODY IN HER SINUS.

Ew, ew, ew. Link

American Life in Poetry: Column 002

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Many of us have felt helpless when we've tried to assist friends who are dealing with the deaths of loved ones. Here the Kentucky poet and publisher, Jonathan Greene, conveys that feeling of inadequacy in a single sentence. The brevity of the poem reflects the measured and halting speech of people attempting to offer words of condolence:

At the Grave

As Death often
sidelines us

it is good
to contribute

even if so little
as to shovel

some earth
into earth.

Copyright 2003 by Jonathan Greene. Reprinted by permission of the author. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

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American Life in Poetry provides newspapers and online publications with a free weekly column featuring contemporary American poems. For information on permissions and usage, or to download a PDF version of the column, visit www.americanlifeinpoetry.org.

From "A Year's Changes"

In northern Manitoba
a man saw a great bald eagle --
hanging from its neck,
teeth locked in skin and feathers,
the bleached skull of a weasel. - Jim Harrison