Truckin'

Pauly has come out of the desert with another edition of Truckin'. Go check out my latest entry, as well as some of my other favorites writers!

Updates

Thanks for the kind words, folks. Mom's okay (as okay as you can be at 73 with a broken wrist). She broke it in 3 places, and was thoroughly unimpressed with the level of care shown by the doctors.

She's very proud of her blue cast, which continues a streak of multi-colored appendages in the family, since Suzy just had her hot pink cast cut off of her foot a couple weeks ago. She had a serious case of plantar fasciaitis that has required seven weeks of casts and boots. I was very glad when she graduated to the velcro boot, since it's removable for sleeping, which cuts down on the bruising along my shins. Not kicking from anything fun, she just kicks the shit out of me when I snore.

Talked with my hot bald chick friend last night, her long-term prognosis is good, she's doing chemo every three weeks, but it's not kicking her ass too badly. I was really relieved that she's got such a good outlook on things and that it looks so good longterm. Interesting note for women (not that I think that I have that many female readers) - small-breasted women or women that are more muscular can develop tumors that are almost invisible to a mammogram. Even after my friend's tumor was located and biopsied, it still didn't show up on the mammogram. Since tumors and muscle have similar density, it doesn't show up as well. So self-exams are even more important. Hell, call a friend, have a boobie party! But please make sure you get that shit checked out regularly.

Karmic Junk-Kick

That karma is a true motherfucker. So the other day the nominations are announced for Charlotte’s annual Theatre Awards, and God’s Country, the show I directed and designed back in October, got several nominations. My leading guys both got nominated for best Actor, Uncle Phil got nominated for best supporting actor, Jeff got nominated for best technical effect for his projections, Tony got nominated for best cameo for his work as the creepy little Aryan Child of the Corn, and I got nominated for directing and design. I don’t expect to win any of my awards, but it was nice that a group of my peers thought that my work was worthy of some notice. I hope that some of my guys can pick up awards, though, because they busted their ever-loving balls on that show. I also got a couple of nominations for my design work on Crazyface, a comedy that I designed right after God’s Country. It would be nice to pick up another little Lucite statue for my office, and I think the work I did on Crazyface was actually better than my design for God’s Country, so we’ll see.

So in the midst of being pleased at that, and feeling like I was actually being productive at work for a change (although the flipside of productivity is when you finish half of your week’s To-Do list on Tuesday and need to figure out how you’re going to justify your existence for the rest of the week), my sister calls.

You guys kinda know where this is going, right? Phone calls from my family almost never go well. So five minutes later I’m on the interstate headed down to SC (and NOT for reasons as cool as my reasons for going to SC this weekend) to meet my mom at the Emergency Room. She had been trying to kill a snake with a hoe in the backyard (these are things that you don’t even really question in Bullock Creek, it’s kinda just a fact of life), tripped on the sidewalk and broke her wrist. So we’re waiting, because that’s what you do at emergency rooms, you wait. And I again notice the height of health-care irony, iron-clad proof that the folks that run the hospital in Rock Hill are, in the words of the great philosopher One Hung Lo, unadulterated douchebags. On the wall of the exam rooms is a sign that tells you that you’ll get a customer satisfaction survey in a few days in the mail. Now they go on to tell you that they only count surveys where all the answers are that they met or exceeded your standards of satisfaction in every way, so if they aren’t please tell them right away.

Lemme get this straight, I’m going to get a survey to tell you if you rock or you suck. If I say you rock, my survey gets counted and my opinion matters, but if I say you suck, then my survey gets round-filed and you DO ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOTHING TO IMPROVE THE (ON THE VERY BEST OF FUCKING DAYS) MEDIOCRE LEVEL OF SERVICE YOU PROVIDE?!?!?!?!?

Seems a little skull-fucked to me. So does the fact that the douchebag PA that sees my mom won’t call in the on-call orthopedist to look at the X-rays, but rather only splints her arm and sends her home so that she can follow up with her orthopedist on her own. I appreciate the fact that ER docs are busy, and work hard, and have to deal with a lot of shit. But this is Rock Motherfucking Hill, SC, not Chicago, Manhattan, or the car-theft capital of the world, St. Louis (sorry, Chilly, that sucks). It’s not like there’s a bunch of triage going on. And exactly what is the fucking point of being “on call” if nobody calls your ass? It was too late for golf and too early for dinner, so it’s not like the fucker had a whole lot critical going on. He wasn’t in surgery, because we were AT THE ONLY HOSPITAL IN THE COUNTY.

I was less than thrilled and may or may not have performed an act that we in the rural South refer to as “showing my ass.” I’m pretty sure that Dr. Douchebag knew that I was not exactly amazed with the quality of service going on. And by the way, when a woman cares enough to bring her own fucking bucket to the emergency room, you know she’s got issues. Get her out of sight as fast as you can, don’t just leave her in the waiting room while my whole family troops in and out. She was kinda creepy and I wanted to make sure there was no splatter going on.

And then I find out when I get home that another good friend of mine has breast cancer. That’s kind of a big “goddammit” around the Hartness household, since Suzy’s aunt and mom both died from the disease. Hopefully our friend can beat this goddamn thing. We can stick a bomb down a chimney…but that thinking verges on the pointless. Just do what you can do for the folks you can do for. There’s a bunch of folks that have fundraisers going on, go find them and give them cash.

Interesting thought from the road home – car haulers: a whole lotta handles, not much margin for error. Discuss.

Anybody for a road trip?

So there's no legal gambling in North Carolina. Which sucks. But I have recently realized that I'm pretty much equi-distant from Atlantic City, Tunica and New Orleans. That's cool. All of these places are almost exactly a 10-hour drive away. Which sucks, but I'm up for it.

So me and my trusty sidekick Emily are going on a roadtrip in October, weekend of the 14th. Who's with us?

And do you have any real preferences as to where we go? I'll take suggestions for which place sucks less gladly.

A Long Walk

Dawn and I walked from the MGM to the Imperial Palace at the WPBT get-together. Here's how I remember the long-ass walk back.

There’s something simultaneously magical and sad about walking down the strip in the wee hours of the morning. The neon that looks so festive and happy at midnight looks forced and frenetic at 4AM.

The party girl in her tank top and flip flops that looked so cute and bouncy on their way out to Rain or Ice at 10PM is bouncing from parking meter to casino front, struggling to make it to the next trashcan so Mitzi can hold her hair back for the 3:30 AM puke and rally.

The porn slappers are the only constant, they look the same no matter the hour, peeling off their cardboard invitations to debauchery and handing them out with an almost forced inability to meet anyone’s eyes. No words, no eye contact, just the unceasing rhythm of the cardboard photos of plastic boobs slap, slap slapping against their hands.

The homeless guy doesn’t really even push it at this point, just muttering “Dollar? Dollar?” as folks walk or stumble by from point A to point Z, and wherever in between they may end up.

Every once in a while in this bizarre ménage of humanity you’ll see folks wandering and watching. That was me. Just taking a walk back from one fish farm to another, leaving the bass-thumping glitz and chrome of the MGM for the unadorned chintz of the Imperial Palace, and walking down the Strip mainly because I didn’t see a convenient cab. The walk was long, but entertaining, with an astonishing number of staggering jigglies and stumbling fratboys mixed in with the dejected losers who put their cab fare on red for that one last wheel spin.

Traffic on the Strip even at this hour is ridiculous, one last opportunity to be seen, or heard, or both. The Escalade with the booming bass draws a chuckle when we notice the 19-year old cracker behind the wheel, bouncing like the baby kangaroo from those Winnie the Pooh cartoons, jouncing around in the car his grammy left him the money for, thumping out Busta Rhymes when the closest thing he’s even seen to the street was one NYPD blue rerun and a whole lotta Yo! MTV Raps when he’d finish up his grade school milk and cookies.

There was the mid-life crisis in the red Viper, complete with sunglasses at oh-fuck-thirty in the AM, a trophy slut in the passenger seat and a combover to match his burgeoning ear hair and untamed chest jungle. No manscaping for you, you’re a real man. And in that car, I’m guessing 3” fully engorged. And that’s with Pfizer’s little helper giving you that feeling like you’re 22 again.

So we walk, checking out the detritus of humanity as we meander, limping a touch now and starting to realize that even though it’s cooler now, it’s still floating somewhere close to 90. And as we take yet another escalator and pass yet another faux recreation of a world that really never existed, I realize that I love Vegas for one simple reason. No matter how fucked up you are, you’re not as weird as that guy.

On Balls

This was a conversation between myself and my triathlete project manager this afternoon.

Fatass: You gotta race this weekend?

Swim/Bike/Run Freak of Nature: Yeah, tomorrow

FA: Where?

SBRFON: Lake Norman

FA: You gonna swim in Lake Norman?

SBRFON: Yep

FA: You know there's a nuclear plant attached to that lake, right?

SBRFON: Yeah, I do.

FA: You didn't want any more kids, anyway, did you?

SBRFON: NOOOooooooo

FA: Then that's alright then, swim in the radioactive water and let your nuts fall off. No worries.

SBRFON: Nuts are a bad design, anyway.

Work stuff

No real poker content here, and if you'd watched me play the past few days, you'd know why. I'm currently in the black purely on the backs of my sponsors here at the bloggity-blog, because without them, I'd be seriously stuck for the month. Ok, no seriously stuck, but down a little. As it is, I need to finish the month out with some solid, non-retardo play for a week or so to feel good at all about my play this month.

Yesterday was a final walk- through with the theatrical consultant on the largest project I've ever worked on, and I was sweating it a little. For the uninitiated, I design lighting and rigging systems and install them in theatres, tv studios and churches for a living. So any of the rock n' roll type churches that you see on TV, that's kinda what I do. This project is the Westover Church is Greensboro, and it's a monster. Only about 2800 seats (only!), it is the most technologically advanced performance venue in the two Carolinas. By a long friggin' shot. These guys have dropped almost a million bucks into the lighting system for this facility, and I've been concentrating on this project for a couple of years now. So yesterday the consultant was coming in to tell us everything that we had fucked up and now had to fix. The list of these fuck-ups is called the punch list, and it usually holds up the final 10% of your money for months on end.

My punch list had one item on it. And we already knew that we were having issues with that piece of equipment and had a tech on site working on it. This is almost unheard of, especially with this consultant, so I was thrilled, our client was thrilled, and the consultant was thrilled. That was a huge monkey off my back, and now I can concentrate on selling more shit and finish out my billing for this puppy.

I'm looking forward to cruising down to BadBlood's Labor Day weekend for two days of debauching and pokery goodness. Okay, probably not so much with the debauchery, since we're all married and all that shit, but plenty of pokery goodness. C'mon, make the trip, it'll give you a good warm-up for the Bash!

My Bash plans have gotten kinda funky thanks to some work stuff. I've been volunteered for some management training in NYC on Monday and Tuesday of that week, and since I had always planned to fly to Philly on Thursday anyway for the degenerate's AC roadtrip, I figured, WTF, why not just be gone the whole week and get the company to cover my airfare?

So I fly into Philly Sunday around 11, hop an Amtrak to Penn Station. Hang out with old college friends Sunday night, do the work thing Monday and Tuesday. Hang around the city Tuesday night, then Amtrak back to Philly Wednesday. Spend Wednesday fucking around Philly, since I've never been there, you know, see the Liberty Bell, shit like that. Then commence Bash activities whenever the rest of the drunks land. So now I've gotta cram a shitload more clothes in the bag for the trip, since the office-type people expect me to wear shit like collared shirts and long pants, which are both pretty much verboted for good drunken party-wear. AND the fine fucks at UselessAirways killed my big bag on the flight back from Vegas, so off to Chez Target (pronounce Tahr-Zhay) for more luggage. Somehow I think I'll live. But the upshot is, I'll have a night to kill in NYC in a couple of weeks, you fuckers better call a brother.

More Travel

So I’m in a hotel room again, this time on the beach in Wilmington, NC. Not a bad gig. I can in fact see water from my room, but it’s a canal, not the ocean. I’m on the wrong side of the hotel for that view. I’ll live. I’m here for the NC Theatre Conference Professional Theatre Gathering, which is interesting since I no longer run a professional theatre.

Yeah, our hiatus is now pretty permanent. I still want to produce the occasional thing, direct and design the occasional show, but I no longer have the energy to beat myself bloody trying to produce a full season, keep a venue running and all the assorted stuff. We’ve got a few checks left to write, one grant check to receive, and then it will be pretty much retired. We’ll end up the run owing money to no one except me, and only a few bucks there, so that’s a pretty good five year run. We did some good work, had a positive impact on some people, and had some fun. So I’ll look back on it with more fondness than bitterness, and I guess that’s all I can take from it right now.

But I step in as president of the North Carolina Theatre Conference in a month, so it’s not like I’m done with theatre by any stretch. As such, I’m also on a 3-year term as the NC representative to the Southeastern Theatre Conference, so I have responsibilities on a little larger scope, just not directly producing shows. Should be an interesting little ride.

Oh yeah, I played a little poker and won back a little of what I lost on Wednesday. Now the roofers are putting a $400 dent in my bankroll to fix a leak in the roof. Oh well, I’m still in the game. Mostly. Long as nothing else in the house blows up. At least I have a bankroll to take care of these little emergencies, otherwise it would be a real pain on our household finances.

I love the HORSE

It doesn’t love me so much, though. Playing the $1/2 ring games I dropped about 25BB last night. Yeah, I know I said I wasn’t going to play. Piss off. I still love the HORSE.

Next time can I get a reach-around?

What do you say when you drop 20% of your bankroll in one spiraling downward session?

Fuck fuck fuckety fuck. Fucking shit fuck motherfucking fuck.

That’s what I said. Fortunately I am still in the black for the month, I’ve had a good enough run the past two weeks to absorb this hit, but holy fucking ratfuck that sucked monstrous camel ass. Just to be perfectly clear, I’m less than thrilled with my play tonight.

I won’t even try to foist my losses off on bad beats. Sure I ran Queens into Kings, and Jacks into Aces, but I did almost every single thing wrong in the poker world. I played while I was distracted. I played while I was surfing the interweb. I played above my bankroll. I jumped up in levels chasing losses. I played games that I’m not good at when I’m already tilted. You name a poker sin, I committed it tonight. The only thing I think I didn’t do was wipe my ass with a picture of Doyle Brunson and masturbate onto a glossy headshot of Clonie Gowen.

Hmmm. I’ll be right back.

The only thing I didn’t do was wipe my ass with a picture of Doyle Brunson.

So what does losing $600 in one night of stupidity mean in the real world? Nothing. It means that I’m a little nauseous right now, but it doesn’t mean that the power bill won’t get paid or that the mortgage isn’t going to get paid. It doesn’t mean we won’t eat this week. It means that my idea of taking out profits from my poker play for fun toys like a new digital camera will have to wait, but that’s about it. I don’t even really have to take a step down in limits. I’m sitting around $2500, which is pretty sufficient to play 2/4 and 3/6, as long as I don’t go nutso and try to do a whole bunch of 3/6 tables. I was thinking that being sufficiently bankrolled for 5/10 was within my grasp a whole lot sooner than the end of the year, which had been my goal. But now it’s a little further away. No great loss there, either.

I’m still fairly confident in my abilities as a poker player, but sometimes I do stupid shit. Tonight was a very painful sometimes. But I’m not broke, my real life money is not affected, and I can still get in the game tomorrow if I choose. I think not so much, but who knows? I’ll probably step away from the keyboard for a day or so, play live on Friday and Saturday, then start anew next week. And I’d like to thanks the kindness of my blog sponsors for giving me money to throw away to other people so that I can still think of it as “found money” and not strangle my cat when I have nights like this. My cat thanks you as well.