shanenickerson.com

2005 Boobie-thon

A while back, I started sporadically posting links to iTunes songs with a pledge to donate any money generated by my linkshare kickback to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. I got my first check for a whopping $1.74. Woohoo!

Okay, granted, I may not be making any huge dents in cancer research with my iTunes affiliates clickthrus, but they do say every little bit helps, right? LUCKILY, there is a more effective way to raise money for the cause. That's right kids, it's time for my favorite annual fundraising drive for breast cancer research:

The 2005 Annual Blogger Boobie-thon!

Bloggers and supporters submit their boobies pictures (anonymously), and visitors to the site donate cash to Komen. Brilliant! I'd submit my pictures, but who wants to see moobs? I'm not even an A cup.

Instead, I'll donate $15 to Komen for each reader daring enough to:

1) Submit a pic to the boobie-thon.
2) Post a comment here saying you've done it.

Oh, and you do *not* have to tell us which picture is yours.

:-)

I'm so in...

If you're a blogger and you like poker, you might want to check out the FREE tournament that PokerStars is sponsoring. This is about as close to an ad as you'll ever see here on my site, and I apologize for the annoying flashing gif. I'd prefer it be static, but what are you going to do? In exchange for free entry into the tournament, PokerStars insists that bloggers post some HTML code into their entry. Not a bad arrangement. If you do register, this is what that code produces:

I have registered to play in the
Online Poker Blogger Championship!

This event is powered by PokerStars.

Registration code: 2444892

free crap over there in Magazine Land

Do you like free loot?

The benevolent Magazine Man is about to give a bunch of cool crap away. All you have to do is ask for it (sort of). It sounds really fun.

You go now.

felled trees

A while back, I wrote an entry called Refuge, which detailed my youthful obsession with building a proper fort in our back woods. A wedding of an old friend brought me back to New England this past weekend, and true to my word (and armed with my Sony T-33), I took a walk in the woods to see what was left.

Remarkably, there were remnants from our young and easy days. In addition to the rotting wood of a sloppy construction job, I found a lone piece of ammo from the "bottle wars" we used to have with the neighborhood enemies and beside a rotting stump, the old snow tire that used to be our tire swing.

The passage of time speeds as I get older, but the longer I'm alive, the less I fear it. Time holds me green and dying, it's true, but wisdom tempers the dread I used to feel about growing up and losing my youth. Even in the midst of the weathered hull of a youthful refuge, new growth pushed through old floorboards and long abandoned walls. I felt a combination of longing and closure; sadness and hope.

The landscape of the woods of my youth has changed. Trees that once took me to the sky lay uprooted by some harsh forgotten storm. Paths and trails that led me to adventure were no more, obscured and shrouded by twenty years of inactivity.

Thomas Wolfe said, "You can't go home again." I suppose it's true that you can't recover the past, but every now and then it feels really good to revisit it.

three days back

I've been to cities around the world.

Not one of them is as good as Boston. It's a special place.

This is why.

At first, I felt guilty about not taking communion. I knew twenty years ago that I was drifting away from the archaic teachings of the Catholic church, but the brainwashing is powerful. Part of me was scared to turn my back on the only religion I had ever known. It is a religion based on threats and fear, and deviating even slightly can send you to eternal misery at the hands of a fiery devil who loves nothing more than to dish out pain to sinners. Surely, not taking communion was akin to calling Jesus a waste of time. Nevermind the fact that there is something very creepy about teaching kids that they are eating the “body and blood” of Christ.

For me, the de-programming was a scary prospect. What if they were right? What if turning my back on church ruined my chances of getting into heaven? As I got older, the very notion of a heaven as described to me in Sunday School began to feel juvenile; like promising a child candy if s/he behaves. It was inevitable, my separation from the flock of the faithfully blind. I couldn't sit through a mass. I was bored by the same old readings. I found stained glass depictions of saints and false prophets a distraction. I was certain that being catholic was not for me. It was just too conservative.

And still, I'd take the communion at weddings or Easter, or any time our family was forced to go to church for fear of alerting my uncle, a devout priest, that we were slacking catholics; that god did not present himself to us through hymnals and collection plates; that a bunch of white folks sheepishly singing old holy songs to creepy organ music was not for us. Still, the brainwashing was strong and I took the "body of Christ." I was hedging my bets. It couldn't hurt, right? Even as an adult, I was afraid to chew the small wafer of unleavened bread, because when I was younger, a priest told me that I may as well be biting Jesus. That stuck with me and terrified me. They have the power to shape young minds with all of their sacred blessings and holy goblets and hellish threats of punishment. My mother tells the story about fearing Satan himself if she so much as glanced at the rival Protestant church on her way to mass. She had it worse. She went to catholic school. The brainwashing can make you irrational.

In spite of what I knew to be true for me; that is, that Catholicism was not for me, not only because I found their teachings arcane, but also because the God they talked about did not match up to any God I wanted to know; in spite of those things, I felt guilty about discontinuing my association with the church. I even felt slightly guilty about not baptizing Lucy, even though in my heart I don't believe for a moment that a baptism means anything. I still wonder about what it will be like for Lucy to grow up without any dominant religion shaping her morals. Actually, I'm excited for her. I loathed Sunday School and the futile catechisms of a time long past; a time best forgotten.

Here is the reading I heard at a wedding this weekend. Catholics will recognize it as one of the four or five that you are allowed to choose from when you get married. It sent titters of disbelief throughout the church.

Happy the husband of a really good wife; the number of his days will be doubled. A perfect wife is the joy of her husband, he will live out the years of his life in peace. A good wife is the best of portions, reserved for those who fear the Lord; rich or poor, they will be glad of heart; cheerful of face, whatever the season. The grace of a wife will charm her husband, her accomplishments will make him stronger.
A silent wife is a gift from the Lord, no price can be put on a well-trained character. A modest wife is a boon twice over, a chaste character cannot be weighed on scales. Like the sun rising over the mountains of the Lord is the beauty of a good wife in a well-kept house.
This is the word of the Lord.

Finally, for maybe the first time ever, I stopped feeling guilty about leaving behind an organization that continues to read this type of outdated tommyrot aloud with a straight face. The Catholics ruined any chance of me taking part in any sort of organized religion again. For that at least, I can thank them. I'm content these days to not know the answers and to simply do my best to help others.

The brainwashing was strong, but my realization that all of the smoke and robes and holy water and blessed trinkets are nothing that matter to me, was stronger.

VLOG 30

You've been so patient.

Art.

Midway

The Midway summoned me.

It wasn't the plates I wanted to break, nor the balloons I'd try to pop, nor the leaden bottles that no one can knock down. It wasn't the crushing smell of popcorn and fryolator smoke, nor the flashy lights, nor the framed mirrored glass prizes advertising Deep Purple or Budweiser. It wasn't the barkers, nor the seething underbelly tucked neatly beneath the false smiles and grubby fingers. It was none of these things in particular. It was all of these things together.

There is an excitement on the midway like none other. It is at once reminiscent of days past and a reminder of the very moment; a quickly passing whiff of fried dough dissolves into a hundred memories of midways before; of evenings lit by a million lights and distant screams of excitement and terror; of endless summers that crashed to an end when the screaming evaporated and the midway moved on.

Of course, the midway always returns.

Each year, I resolve to make the drive out to Pomona to experience a Great American Tradition: The County Fair. Until this year, I have let September slip away into winter, missing the Los Angeles County Fair and lamenting my forgetfulness. Not this year. As a parent, I have become conscious of the importance of establishing traditions for my daughter. Tradition gives kids something to look forward to, something to look back on, and something to pass down. I decided it was time to pass down the tradition of the Midway and the County Fair to Lucy.

I imagined riding rides with her and sharing ice cream and petting goats and pigs in a stinky little stable. I wanted to give her memories like mine of visiting Benson's Wild Animal Farm many years ago or the fleeting summers spent riding the Yankee Cannonball at Canobie Lake Park in New Hampshire. I wanted her to relish the day at the County Fair. We'd ride the carousel and squash pennies in the automatic penny crusher. We'd eat cotton candy and have our soft serve dipped in the chocolate shell. We'd ride the chairlift over the whole place and gaze down on a million lights and the excited laughter of hundreds of eager families of fair-goers. We'd begin a tradition.

I know what I expected. I imagined a rather large field, filled with booths and games and items for sale and rides. I even imagined hay on the ground, as it may appear in a small New England County Fair. Perhaps there would even be a bluegrass band or a barbershop quartet appearing at hourly intervals to a delighted crowd. I was not prepared for the magnitude of the Los Angeles version of a County Fair.

It is massive. Dauntingly, frighteningly massive. Parking is in an area roughly the size of Canada. We parked so far away that we had to hire a Pedi-Cab to bike us over to the entrance. Once there, hundreds of people waited at dozens of ticket lines to begin the entry procedure. From there, we were whisked over to a gate not unlike the gate at a baseball game or major concert venue. Our bags, including the diaper bag for Lucy, were all searched. Finally, we were corralled through the gates into one of the largest midways I've ever seen in my life. Hundreds of games. An unbelievable number of booths offering crappy stuffed animals for assorted rigged games that were as close to being impossible as the law would allow lined both sides of a midway that must have stretched on for a half mile. Rides swirled behind us, and the hydraulic hissing of compressed air echoed throughout the fairgrounds. It was enormous. As a person who generally likes to see everything there is to see in a place, I immediately started panicking. There was no way.

Surprise #2 came when we went to get ride tickets for Lucy. I suppose it should have occured to me, since I worked at an amusement park for several years, that there is a height requirement on most rides. I would even guess that there is an industry standard of 36".

That put the brakes on our plan to take Lucy on a bunch of rides. In fact, it forced us to rethink our entire plan. Stripped of our anchor in the madness of an enormous fair, we decided to start walking. As we walked down the midway, I dumped a bunch of money into the hands of greedy game operators, occasionally scoring a cheap stuffed toy or ugly stuffed monster that scared the crap out of Lucy. We made it to the end after about 40 dollars and little success. Suddenly, I spotted the sign that would change my life:

"Deep Fried Snickers." Holy Jumping Jesus Christ in a moonbounce was it good. It's basically a corndog, but instead of dog inside of a sweet crunchy deep-fried cornmeal shell, it's a snickers bar.

Maybe there is something to be said for new traditions. Next door, we also stopped for a Pink's Hot Dog for Lucy and some fine examples of my favorite food:

Not too far away, this poor chap was roasting:

We visited the animals and decided to skip the petting zoo. Lucy was content to peek over the railing at the animals:

This is what she didn't see:

It wasn't the day I expected, but it ended up being fun. It didn't quite evoke the nostalgia I was hoping for, but in some ways, it was nice to begin new traditions.

Like humping cows.
And spending way more than $40 on midway games.
and Deep Fried Snickers bars.

It's something I can cross off my list of things to do in Los Angeles, although returning to the Midway, no matter where it is or what form it takes is something that needs to be crossed off at least once a year.

More pictures at Flickr

that time we went to Florida...(pt. 10 of 11)

In case you can't remember where we were, Kenny the fugitive and I have just decided to go for a joyride in his truck. We are both hammered out of our minds. My friends are nowhere to be found, so it is just the two of us. Woo to the oot.

At no point did I ever stop to think, "Hey, this might not be such a good idea." Instead, I sprinted with drunken abandon out into the road in front of the house we were all at and waited for Kenny to fire up his Toyota. As he launched in reverse out of the driveway at full speed, the tires squealed and Kenny may as well have been Luke Duke pulling up in the General Lee (if the General Lee was a Toyota with a Rock 101 sticker). I started to run towards the passenger door as Kenny rolled down the window. "Hop in!" he said with eyes from hell. He flicked his head towards the back of the truck and without a second thought, I Bo Duked myself over the rail of the bed and grabbed on to the roll bars. Kenny peeled out and somehow, I stopped myself from tumbling over the back gate and onto the road in a heap of shattered, drunken bones.

Kenny screamed down a relatively abandoned street somewhere in the gut of Ft. Lauderdale. Deciding that holding onto the roll bars was "for pussies," I was now surfing in the back of the Toyota. I was posed like a surfer, trying to maintain my balance as the car tore around town. If my life were a TV show, I was about ten seconds away from a white screen with black letters that read:

Shane Nickerson
1971-1994

Miraculously, my life did not end that night. Yet.

Kenny spun onto a main strip of Ft. Lauderdale where the muffled thumping of a dozen night clubs and modified car stereos filled the neon-lit air. Suddenly, Kenny began banging on the window frantically. I could see that he was yelling something, but I couldn't make out what it was. He was pointing at the seat.

"I can't hear you!" I yelled as loud as I could.

He fumbled with the sliding glass window between us and finally managed to slide it open.

"GET THE FUCK DOWN. FUCKING COPS."

I hit the deck. Kenny sounded desperate. No one wants to get pulled over for driving around drunk with a jackass surfing in the back, but something told me that Kenny had special reasons for not wanting to deal with the police. Rational Shane, who was waking up from the club to the head that Idiot Drunk Shane had given him earlier in the evening spoke up for the first time in hours. "What the hell are you doing?" he asked in my head. ID Shane clubbed him back down. "I'm on Spring Break," he told him with a thunk.

"Ok man, we're cool!" Kenny shouted through the glass. As I peeked my head up, I saw the giant sign for Baja. We were apparently going to a night club. Kenny the fugitive and I were going dancing?

WOOHOO! SPRING BREAK!

He pulled into the parking lot and parked the car. I hopped out of the back. We began walking towards the club.

"I hate this fucking place man," Kenny told me as he packed another round of Copenhagen into his bottom lip, "it's all fucking frat boys and tourists."

"Yeah, but there's gotta be some ladies right?" I asked him as he handed me the Copenhagen. I figured if I went along with it, he wouldn't notice that I was both a frat boy and a tourist. I had even begun imitating his style of speaking apparently, as I could not remember ever referring to women as "ladies." I hesitantly pinched a quarter-sized gob of stinky, wintergreen tobacco between my fingers and imitated Kenny by pushing it into the space between my lower lip and gums. I held back a retch as the taste of the horrible snuff filled my mouth. "Sweet, thanks bro," I said with a brave face as I handed him back the small cannister of shredded tobacco.

"Yeah, I mean there's some bitches here though so it ain't bad. I just fucking hope one of those pretty boys mouths off to me tonight. I'm in the fucking MOOD to wreck somebody's face."

I laughed nervously. Suddenly, I wanted to be drunk enough to think that Kenny was funny again. Sobering Up Shane and Drunk Kenny had zero in common. Only Drunk Shane could find the companionship with the fugitive tolerable.

It was ten or twenty bucks to get in. We waited in line for a few minutes, but it was one of those lines they keep outside of a club to make it seem even hotter to the people driving by. Soon, we were paying the doorman...or rather, *I* was paying the doorman. Kenny had no cash.

Inside, miraculously, was the Spring Break I had always imagined. It was the Candy Store multiplied by hundreds. Someone walked by with free hot dogs and there was alcohol for sale in almost every square foot of the bar. Women praced about in spandex and denim and micro skirts and tank tops. Color me Badd filled the air. Kenny peeled off and told me, "Hey, I'll catch up with you later man." I watched him wedge into the crowd and disappear. I knew I'd never see him again that night, and although I vaguely worried about how I'd get home, I could not believe my luck. I was suddenly free of a fugitive wingman in the mythical place I had been seeking since we left Keene, NH. My Spring Break was going to happen in Baja. I took the opportunity to get rid of the plug of nasty Copenhagen still wedged in my mouth. I almost vomited when the dip broke apart in my hands and fell on my tongue. I spit it out on the floor and raced for the bar.

There were ice-luges and women offering shots out of their navels. There were shooters girls and wet tee-shirts and even no tee-shirts in some corners. It was a giant frat party. It was everything I imagined. At one point, I even ran into one of my actual fraternity brothers.

"Hey Shane!" he shouted at me out of nowhere. I turned to see a familiar face and because it was so out of place in this strange club, it took me a second to make the connection.

"Tippy!" I shouted back at him. It was Tippy the Turtle (so named because he bore a slight resemblance to that turtle in the drawing contests sometimes posted on the back of matchbooks).
"What are you doing here?" I shouted through a drunken curtain of blur. I'm sure he told me, but I can't remember why he was there. I think it had something to do with his parents living there or his sister visiting someplace, but it was hard to make out all of the words. I think that's mostly because I was on the verge of blacking out. We said our goodbyes and I headed back to the ice luge to press my lips on the exact spot where a hundred other people that evening had done the same, and watched the tequila slide down the ice into my mouth...

EMMY

Javier's post about winning an emmy for Lost is worth more than a "Hot Link." Also, in case you've been living in a barrel, the Lost Season Premiere is this WEDNESDAY at 9. Tune in at 8 to see a recap of last season.

Congratulations Javier!

Now if we can only get the Emmy voters to nominate Battlestar Galactica...

catching up

In addition to visiting the Los Angeles Fair at the Pomona Fairplex (pictures and blog entry to come!), I spent today catching up on bills and shit that's been hanging over my head for, no lie, up to two years. I'd like to blame my procrastination on genes, but my parents show no signs of it. Both of them just do whatever needs to get done as it comes up. Me? I prefer to put stuff in drawers. If it's important enough, whoever it is will send a stern warning when I fail to respond.

Tonight, I fired up the shredder and faced the mountain of crap. It feels so good to just plunge into those things that have haunted me for months. YEARS.

One of those things that I'm mailing off is an iPod Settlement Claim. If you bought an iPod before May 2004 and your battery craps out after only a few hours, you may be eligible to get 50 dollars worth of store credit at Apple (or 25 bucks in the mail.) You have until September 30th. Details are at HERE. Don't let all of the legal mumbo-jumbo scare you. It's a simple form to fill out.

Crappy iPod batteries aside, I'm officially a Mac Nerd. I put the little white Apple sticker that came with my Powerbook on my car. Remember the first Macintosh?

As Magazine Man aptly described it, my Ft. Lauderdale piece has gone into freefall. I will never serialize again (unless my story is finished.) Kenny and I have been drunk and on the way to get into trouble for what seems like weeks now. Can't I just write the ending and take you there?

Yes. But not at 2:18am. I must get up early with Lucy in less than 5 hours.

Lastly, for those who are in the dark about "Jumping the Shark," it's a website that keeps track of when shows start to suck. The term comes from the Happy Days episode in which Fonzie jumps a shark with his motorcycle on waterskis. More info here.

shark list

50 Things That Make Me Square

1. I like chain restaurants.
2. Like Chili's.
3. And Waffle House.
4. I buy cheap sunglasses because I lose expensive ones.
5. I still wear Levi's cords.
6. I burn easily.
7. I still own an Enuf Z'Nuff CD.
8. And know all the words to "Fly High Michelle."
9. I love Miatas, in spite of the stigma.
10. I never really played Doom.
11. Because it makes me carsick.
12. One of my favorite old video games was "Pick Axe Pete."
13. For the lame Odyssey system.
14. I rule at Scrabble.
15. I wish I were a song and dance man.
16. Every now and then, I still buy baseball cards.
17. I like Laffy Taffy (although I haven't had it for a while).
18. I'd rather talk to someone in an e-mail than in person.
19. Because I can express myself better.
20. And I have time to compose my thoughts and organize them.
21. This computer is practically attached to my lap.
22. No, not that way.
23. In high school, I was on the Tennis Team.
24. But I quit every year.
25. I suck at Dance, Dance Revolution.
26. But I try anyway.
27. I'm a pretty good bowler.
28. Candlepins AND Ten Pin.
29. I've been listening to talk radio since I was very young.
30. I like Gordon Lightfoot's music somtimes.
31. I like "easy listening" stations sometimes.
32. I can get into country music sometimes.
33. I own a black Resistol hat that I bought in Archer City, TX.
34. I own the George Strait box set.
35. I used to be a huge Garth Brooks fan.
36. I'm afraid of spiders with hair.
36. Actually, I'm not a big fan of most bugs.
37. I owned D&D when I was a kid, but I never learned all of the rules.
38. My friends and I faked it.
39. I'm a sucker for anything that's limited edition.
40. I once owned a pair of Star Wars sneakers.
41. I miss them.
42. I still love Matchbox cars.
43. And Hot Wheels.
44. Fine, most toys.
45. Although I'm not very frugal, I get totally geeked out about coupons at Ralph's.
46. One of my favorite meals is Kraft Dinner.
47. Nostalgia is one of my favorite emotions.
48. My first car was a 1975 Nova.
49. Baby Blue.
50. Sometimes, I still dress like I'm in college.

This is not a meme.
This was the best entry I could come up with this morning.

Shit, Nickerblog just jumped the shark.

Heather (the Band)

I miss the music I grew up with. Don't get me wrong, I like Ben Folds and David Gray and Wilco and Old 97s and a lot of other music from right now that suits my "quickly approaching middle aged" generation.

But I still love old Guns 'n Roses. I still love AC/DC. I still love Skid Row.

And now, I love Heather.

These are the same guys behind Satanicide, the heavy metal parody band that actually put out one of the best albums I own. Their version of Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" is sheer genius.

Heather's music may not be for everyone, but it takes me right back to high school. They look and sound like they belong in the late 70's or early 80's, and that's part of what I love. Check out this video.

Come on, that shit rocks. Seriously.

rote

I have ten minutes. It's 8:49. At 9, I have to get in the shower and then go to work. Lots of my weekday entries are composed with a background of Dora or Oobi or Diego or any of the other assorted morning cartoons for kids. Lucy loves them all. She even loves Oobi, the crazy one with the hands that wear eyes.

I've been very cruel to you by holding the ending of the Ft. Lauderdale story back. Fear not, it is coming. I was desperately looking for pictures from that trip and found none, which is too bad. I'm convinced that pictures exist of that week, but I've yet to find them. Anyway, the downside of a real job is that it leaves me less time to spend 24 hours a day on the couch watching the internet happen. Actually, I suppose that's an upside. If the internet is a teat of information, I prefer to step away and let it refill a bit instead of clamoring for each drop as it comes. Wow, what a strange metaphor.

I'm headed back east in a week or so for a wedding. My friend Brad, who I've known since my days at Canobie Lake Park, is getting married in Boston. I'm looking forward to seeing all of the old faces from my Canobie days. It will be something of a reunion. Of course, the small talk and all of the questions about what I'm doing and how's it going and what are you up to and how's LA etc. etc are inevitable. I sort of dread such questions. There was a time when I wanted desperately to be the guy who left New England for something more exciting, only to come back and gloat about all of my exploits and adventures. As I get older, I'm less interested in hearing myself bleat on and on about my career. I have begun to find that person rather a bore. Maybe all of us do. I suppose we would rather hear about the adventures of others, rather than rehash our own lives. I know I would.

I will, of course, answer all of the questions with my standard, rote replies.

I love it out there.
The weather is amazing.
Ten years.
Yeah, you see them all over the place.
Yeah, I think I saw him at the Beverly Center once.
That's a mall.
Yeah, he's kind of short.
Now? Oh, another reality show.
Not yet, but I have lots of irons in the fire.
Turbo Tax.
Oh, I think that was Bud Light.
Sure, look me up if you ever do.
I do miss New England.
I don't miss the snow though, ha-ha-ha.
Manhattan Beach.
It's south of LA.
Yeah, I can't wait to get back.

And then I will ask similar questions of all of my old friends and receive similar, pre-canned replies. Once we all have that out of the way, we can party our asses off and hang out like the old days.

9:21. It took 21 minutes longer than I thought to write this.

Now, I have to go.

WPBT

Back in June, I played in the World Poker Bloggers Tour Tournament at the Aladdin Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. It was a really fun weekend. My wife and I went to see Zumanity one night and we enjoyed the moistureless heat of Las Vegas. As for the actual tournament, I'm embarrassed to say that I busted out rather anti-climactically within the first hour. I played pretty tight poker...too tight, perhaps. I folded a pair of threes in the first round which would have kept me in the game at least long enough to finish my first beer. CJ actually scared me off of my threes with a modest raise of 150, and of course a three came on the flop. (CJ, revenge will be mine!)

Anyway, Bill Rini posted information about the next WPBT event at the Imperial Palace in Las Vegas. I can't wait. I was so excited about that first tournament in June that it caused me to play scared. That's what killed me. In December, I'm going to play the game I always play. If I bust out early, so be it. I'd rather go down swinging than get slowly bled to the point where I'm incapable of doing any damage.

Oh, and if I get threes, I'm playing them no matter what.

Especially if CJ is in. :-)

pushing

Colleen Wainwright posted a very flattering piece over at Communicatrix a couple of days ago, echoing the sentiment I expressed in my Logjam entry. As a writer, I strive to reach people. The reward of a flood of e-mails or comments or posts inspired by something I've written is always thrilling. It's a check box on the list of "things that work in writing," and another step forward as I work daily to hone this form of communication.

The biggest challenge as a writer/blogger not driven by real deadlines or paychecks is fighting through the passionless periods; pushing through days when nothing presents itself as a topic. I love it when something practically writes itself or nearly falls out of my head onto the screen. Those are the entries that I usually sit back and read later, wondering how I managed to choose the words that worked. It's not usually that easy. Lots of times, I'll start entries that my internal editor kills before they ever make it to the blog. More often than not, those posts get relegated to "Draft" status, and sit unpublished in a long queue of mediocre material. Of course, sometimes they end up here. (Perusing my archives reminded me of that fact.)

Colleen coins the term "blogjam" in her entry. The key, I think, is pushing through it; writing something new or different or better yet, writing something personal that scares you to say out loud.

Those end up being the entries that I love the most.

no he don't

I love this song.

my mornings

Why does Dora the Explorer have to shout everything? I really need to know this. I'm sure she's a nice young girl and everything, but man if I were here Latino parents, I'd tell put her on ritalin immediately. Or horse tranquilizers. Or maybe I'd silence her with cement shoes.

Boots is okay. He wears red Uggs, which immediately lowers his stock, but at least he's always happy playing second fiddle to crazy, big-haired Dora. I can't say that that's a job I could do with such a good attitude. His hands are eerily bony and pink, but I'm trying not let any physical features influence my opinions of these folks. It's not fair. Plus, Boots often has key information like, "We have to find the 7 keys to open the secret temple to find Dora's lost gerbil." That's a good companion to have on missions around the exotic terrain of wherever the hell they live. You want an information man like that with you on quests.

The duo frequently find themselves in the company of a gay blue bull named Benny. I'm assuming he's gay, since the world they inhabit is one of bi-lingual, political correctness. We've not yet been introduced to Benny's love interest in the series, but my hunch is that it might be that silly, masked fox they call "Swiper." I think he swiped Benny's heart. He's totally into S&M too. The mask gives it away. I'm sure he has a ball-gag too. Oh, man! Swiper is something of a nuisance to the exploring duo (or trio if the homosexual bull is with them). He constantly shows up to swipe their stuff at just about the time they've either:

a) Gathered all the planks to put the bridge back together.
b) Located all seven keys to open the temple.
c) Actually, it's just those two. In every episode.

Luckily, he's fairly easy to foil. If a bunch of people say "Swiper, no swiping" in unison three times, he takes off. Not a bad adversary, really. Lots of foxes with masks would tear little monkies to smithereens if they tried to stop them in such a stupid way. Same goes for Dora. The Bull would probably be okay of he just fell on the attacking fox, but it never comes to that.

Oh crap. I have to run. Dora's cousin, Diego, is shouting at me now. He and his baby jaguar have to go rescue a bunch of animals with his magic backpack that can somehow transform into anything the same way the Wonder Twins used to be able to.

Oh THAT'S where I know Boots from. He used to be named "Gleek." His Superfriends gig was way better if you ask me.

today, the horror and sadness still lingers

and know when to...

I play a lot of poker.

Unlike Wil, I'm not playing for PokerStars or blogging about it at any of the fancy card sites, but let it be known that I play ALL. THE. TIME. (Are we still doing that with the periods after each word for effect? I think maybe we're not. Anyway...)

Because I tend to be busy with a full time job and a family and such, most of my poker play is online. I do enjoy playing live games at the Hollywood Park Casino or Commerce every now and then. In fact, I prefer playing actual people instead of screen names. Holding and sweeping winning chips feels better in real life too. At the casinos, no-limit is my preferred game.

Online, however, I've been really getting into SNG's, or in layman's terms, "Sit and Go's." A SNG means a ten player tournament with a set buy-in amount and payouts for the first, second and third place chip holders. For example, if I were to play a $10 SNG, I'd join 9 other players at the table with my 10 dollar + 1 dollar entry fee and then receive $1500 in chips. The chip amount doesn't relate to real money. It is simply a stack of chips exactly equal to everyone else at the beginning of the game. Basically, the last three people with all of the chips win money. 1st=50% 2nd=30% 3rd= 20%. For those of you really unfamiliar with the game and the lingo, fear not. I'm not very good at using the card shark lingo like Pauly or CJ and Otis or Wil so I won't even try. Those guys REALLY know poker, whereas I just happen to love it. And so I PLAY. ALL. THE....right. You get it.

Poker is a game of patience and consistency. It is a game that will punish you for being stubborn, and then reward you for being stupid. It is addictive and poisonous and thrilling and exhilarating. You will promise never to make the same mistake you've made before and will make again. You will swear at yourself and no matter how much of a gentleman or polite woman you are, you will eventually criticize your opponents. Sometimes with cursing. Usually with temporary hate. You will convince yourself that you've "finally got it" when you get on a run and then when you crash and burn you'll vow to never play again. Again. The cards never seem old. The flush never comes unless it's beating your aces. Losing with the nut flush hurts more than almost anything. Flopping quads is like winning a car. Seeing the final message on a SNG is an amazing feeling of triumph.

Like this:

That was a 30 dollar SNG.

Patience. Consistency. Not playing the "lucky hands". Folding when you're beat no matter how much it hurts.

Breaking all of those rules.

The thrill of the beginning of a tournament. The despair of going out early. Making it to the money.

The fever.

Fear not. This is not turning into a poker blog.

Well, maybe once in a while.

Recommend a book to me. It's time I started studying instead of just playing.

one away

This morning I heard Son Volt on KCRW. Wil turned me onto their music a few weeks back and I've really been getting into it. After the song, they offered up five sets of free tickets to see them play at the El Rey next Tuesday to the first five subscribers who called in. I missed it by ONE! Anyway, I'm on the waiting list now in case more tickets become available. Or maybe I'll just break down and buy some tickets.

Fine, I've been stalling. You'll be happy to know that:

The end of the Florida story comes tomorrow.

It's time to go truck surfing with Kenny.

refuge

When I was younger, I wanted my own fortress.

We grew up in a relatively small town in New Hampshire, so our house sat on the front of a lot with a pretty deep back woods. "The Woods" was our playground and the place we escaped from homework and school buses. (In later years, it was where we ran after throwing water balloons at cars.) The woods was our haven. What better place to build a fort?

I started without a plan. I took three old two-by-fours that my dad had sitting in his assorted lumber stash under the porch and dragged them down the well-worn trail that my brother and sister and I had created with countless expeditions and adventures. I scouted as I went, and finally settled upon a group of three trees growing in an almost perfect triangular formation. Each tree was about 8 feet from the other, creating an equilateral triangle. That seemed like the right place. My fortress would start with a triangular platform about six feet off the ground. I nailed the two-by-fours to the outside of the trees, creating a lumber triangle, and returned to my father's stash to find some floorboards.

Unfortunately, my dad's lumber stash was not ideal for fort-building. There were a couple of weathered fence posts and the scraps of plywood from a porch repair, but other than those few things and a couple of more two-by-fours, it was slim pickins. Not the country singer. If he were under there, I would have asked him to write me a sad country song called "Not Enough Lumber to Get the Job Done," and perhaps he would have given it one of those classic country double entendres. Hilarious.

Where was I? Oh right, in the woods with a triangle of wood nailed to three trees.

The problem was, I didn't have enough materials to complete the job. I had big plans for the majestic triangular fortress in the trees of our back woods, but since I had no wood, no real knowledge of how to build things; and since I wanted to build the fort myself without the help of any adults, I decided to set my sights lower.

We lived about a half mile away from a couple of what we affectionately called, "Stump Dumps." The original Stump Dump was actually the further away of the two, and it was just a big empty lot where locals could dump their useless lumber, wood, tree stumps or yard waste. It was a quick BMX ride away, but it was too far for dragging stuff back. Instead, my brother and I opted for the other Stump Dump, which was a short hike through the woods, a jump over a small creek, and a jog down a steep hill away. The dump had transformed from a Stump Dump into more of an industrial dump, and the pond it sat next to was contaminated with leaking motor oil and the paint from half-empty cans thrown into it. Car batteries and broken refrigerators sat carelessly discarded in the shallow water, and larger, harder to dispose of items like broken hot water heaters and forgotten automobiles lined the shores of the tiny pond. It was a disgusting little pond, which transformed into a somewhat perilous hockey spot in the winter. (Just watch out for the rusty hulls of years old mattresses and bed frames.) In other words, it was a magical place to visit as a kid.

Kids don't see garbage the way adults do. I saw the dirty old stump dump by the pond as a land of infinite treasure. It was an ever-changing landscape of discarded junk, which became our playground. We pillaged the area for anything resembling lumber:

-Six rotten floorboards from what looked like a storage shed.
-Misshapen plywood with paint stains and rusty nails.
-Thin brown paneling from a remodeled bedroom.
-The bannister and posts of a hallway railing.

Anything we could salvage, we dragged back up the hill, over the creek, through the woods and back to the site of our newer, less impressive than a triangle fort. It was hard work. In addition to negotiating the tricky terrain of a dangerous dump, we had to take turns hauling the wood back, careful to avoid the oranged, tetanus-covered nails poking out of the wood and careful to ignore the disrupted ants now pouring out of the floorboards.

Eventually, after dragging everything that was even close to useful back to our own woods, we piled our stack of hard-earned building materials and started building.

It was a crude structure. It looked like something out of a post-apocalyptic world; a cobbled together squarish fort with a small doorway and no windows and one wall made out of a hallway railing. There were two "rooms," which we quickly decorated by hanging towels inside as if they were tapestries. I filled the place with toys and magazines. I wanted to put a cooler in there too, with juice-boxes inside for those long stays, when running the 75 yards up to the house seemed too much. I never did.

It was a stinky little fort. The rotting wood was still soggy from it's time at the dump, and on more than one occasion, the nails holding it all together simply ripped through the ruined wood when a strong wind sent a wall crashing down causing a card-house collapse. But, it was an escape from adults and the sometimes seemingly stressful life of a young kid. It lasted about a week before we stopped going (mostly because the carpenter ants took it over), and then it eventually collapsed and slowly decomposed in the spot we left it.

It wasn't a great fort (actually, it was a sloppy hobo-like structure that smelled of mildew and rot), but for a short time, we did have our own little fortress in the woods that we built ourselves with salvaged scraps.

When I go back home, I'll have to take a walk into the woods to see if any of it is left.

I guess it doesn't really matter.

a musical bump

Another shameless plug here. Tonight at 9pm, I'll be performing in the entirely improvised "Opening Night: The Improvised Musical!"

This is a show that I performed in for more than six years at IOWest. Tonight, I'll be joining my old cast on stage again for what should be a really fun show.

Details:

OPENING NIGHT: The Improvised Musical
9pm at Improv Olympic (Hollywood Blvd, just West of Ivar)
Tickets: $10 (I can get you 2 for 1 tickets if you let me know you're coming)
Oh, and there's a full bar and a cocktail server during the shows.

Come watch us make up music and songs and story and funny!

re-lease

I had lots of nice feedback on yesterday's entry, both in the comments and in e-mails. Thanks to all of you who responded. Having virtual allies rules.

I'd like to respond to one particularly interesting and thoughtful comment left by PS:

shane, what, in my humble opinion, sets you apart from a lot of the people who write about themselves in the blogosphere is your emotional self-awareness, and your ability to express your feelings with clarity. that's the reason i periodically click on this URL, anyway--reading your blog is a bit like watching a familiar stranger open himself up to his therapist.

but after reading this entry, i kinda wonder whether your ability to self-dissect in this way, and whether your penchant for doing so, is really a way to pass the time, or whether it has, maybe inadvertently, become a project of such depth and consumption that it is now preventing you from simply getting out of the virtual therapist's chair and actively pursuing your ambitions. if you sink too deeply into what you feel, in other words, you might lose your will/drive to get up and do. is that what's happening? if you're this conflicted about blogging, maybe you're at the stage where you no longer want to reflect on your situation, but, rather, want to change it. and if that's the case, maybe you should gather the strength that this (purifying?) exercise has given you, and, instead of dissecting every feeling, insecurity and hope, put all those emotions aside for a bit and take your chances out in the real world.

I left a comment at another blog recently comparing blogging to therapy. There is a certainly a confessional element to it and an almost constant call to strangers for validation or acceptance or nods of approval or recognition, or even argument. There are risks in revealing too much personal information online. Beyond providing a roadmap to one's own soul and true self, blogging can also strip away the smiles and "don't worry about its" and polite assurances that everything is cool. We do that, don't we? In real life, most of us tend to not want to burden our friends and colleagues with what's really on our mind, so instead we smile and joke and say, "I don't know. I't's just been a crazy day. I'm fine, I'm fine."

But all of us are always thinking about so much more than polite conversation allows. If we cannot confess to ourselves what it is that's causing a general sense of stress or reveal to ourselves that which bothers us the most, then the feelings remain unsaid and vague and they become harder to confront.

I paint half-pictures here sometimes. I'm afraid that blogging is indeed a very self-serving form of media, as it expresses one point of view and often times, it expresses it without paying off all of the author's feelings at once. Each entry is a mood. It's a strain of thought. It's one thread in a quilt.

So although it can seem like I get mired up in my own dissection, I assure you that I'm confronting these fears and imperfections and faults and challenges daily, in "the real world." Because I tend not to use this outlet as a place to boast about all of my successes or victories in life or in Los Angeles, I'm afraid you're getting a fairly constant half-picture.

I'm not nearly as self-deprecating as you may think. I'm proud of my achievements and happy with the things my life has given me. I've actually gotten quite a few punches in on a city that seems to like to punch back. I look back at the 23 year old that moved out here without knowing one thing about life in Los Angeles; without a place to live, without a job, without a savings account; I look back on him in wonder and respect and awe. The things I've done and the places I've seen since then could fill several lifetimes. I've been very fortunate. Choosing a career in entertainment is not an easy road to hoe. More people fail than succeed. The fact that I'm even here ten years later is amazing.

Still, because I am human, that does not mean that I don't strive for more. I keep pushing. I keep wanting and yearning for things that may seem like a dream now...

but only because time doesn't happen all at once.

I appreciate your comments PS. I don't believe this website has consumed me so much that it has stripped me of my ability to actively pursue my ambitions. If anything, this is the runoff. This is where I vent about how the battle is going and look inward to see what's holding me back from achieving all of my goals.

The problem, it seems, with lofty dreams is that getting them all accomplished takes time and emotion and failure and regrouping.

I may have retreated temporarily from the thing that brought me to Los Angeles, but rest assured...

I am merely regrouping.

logjam

I'm jammed up lately.

I mean, I have this obscenely long Florida story (which is now approaching tome length), but my former zeal, when it comes to blogging, seems to have temporarily evaporated. I'm coming to terms with the fact that I'm a very conflicted person. Part of me enjoys accolades and performing onstage and writing and responding in a forum with a modest readership, but the other part of me is chronically shy; to the point where it affects my behavior and mood and there are times when I want nothing less in life than having lots of attention focused on me. It's very odd.

I have friends who are always on. Ask them to do their bits and they'll whip out their best characters or impressions or jokes or voices or whatever they have. Not me. Put me on the spot in a room full of people and I clam up. Unless I get to control the when and where, I'm embarrassed when people find me interesting or talented or worthy of attention when I'm not expecting it (Even if undeserved. Especially if undeserved). I always have. It's actually something I wish I could get over. Part of it is modesty, but it's more than that. It's a fear of failure.

I used to have a theory when I first moved here. My theory was that instead of putting on a confident persona and muscling my way through awkward auditions and cringe-inducing general meetings with casting people, I'd just be myself. If I just acted normally, I thought, someone would spot the talent buried underneath the somewhat bland guy sitting in their even blander office. I've always imagined myself to be one of those people with a ton of hidden ability that will make everyone eventually say, "Where did THIS guy come from? Who knew he could do all of that?" (yes, yes I know some call that "delusions of grandeur") I hoped maybe success boiled down to more than just networking and glad-handing and buzz and heat and the trades.

The hard lesson for me has been, usually not. That's not a criticism of this town or the way it works or the people who are successful here, it's a fact.

I've managed to have a fairly lackluster acting career since moving here in the Summer of '95. Although I've got quite a few commercials under my belt, my TV and Film credits are thin. In fact, if it weren't for theatre, I'd barely be able to call myself an actor. I've performed in various theatres all over town since I moved here, but I still feel like it's all been warm-up for something bigger. That's one problem with LA Theatre: Actors are doing it to get somewhere else. That's not good enough. An actor does not sit around waiting for Hollywood to call. An actor gets his ass onstage. An actor can't not be onstage. An actor lives, breathes and dreams about acting. An actor, in the words of someone who knew efficient sentences, ACTS.

How quickly that simple part of the equation is forgotten here in Los Angeles! How willing we are to accept the fact that most "actors" here in LA act no more than a few weeks a year! How hard it is to accept the fact that when you stay away from something for too long, it might be time to call yourself by your actual profession and not by your fantasy!

So I'm conflicted in so many ways, but for this paragraph, I'm conflicted about my career. I enjoy my new job a lot and I'm looking forward to working on the production side of things again for the next fourteen weeks or so. I enjoy income. I enjoy the people around me in my life. I enjoy the fact that I can wear many hats in this town...

...or shoes, if you're keeping track.

But if you ask me what my secret dream is...

If you ask me what I wish I could be doing more than anything else in the world...

If you ask me what I want so badly that it causes me to fuck up most opportunities in that world because that particular want is palpable in bland little rooms that make me cringe...

I'd tell you that I still want to be a real actor.

I'd tell you that to be part of the cast on a show like Six Feet Under or Battlestar Galactica or Rome or Deadwood or ER or even an upstart untitled improvised sitcom would be such a dream come true that it's almost inconceivable to me.

I'd tell you that at some point along the way, I may have gone back to stalling, hoping that somehow someone sees the buried talent and asks, "Where was this guy?"

He was not calling agents. He was surfing the internet. He was at a bar. He was out to dinner. He was sleeping. He was putting it off. He was coming up with reasons why it was okay not to. He was lamenting the passage of time. He was living his real life. He was jealous of his friends. He was cursing blown chances. He was hoping for an easy way in. He was doing lots of other things. He was stalling. He was afraid, even after touting the fact that he was fearless. He was saving too much of himself. He refused to be seen. He relied too heavily on friends that couldn't help him. He stopped trying.

And so, that's been on my mind. That and some other stuff.

And still this post seems frivolous and self-centered in the wake of Katrina, and still I feel conflicted about blogging. But the answer to why is: It's for me that I write these things. I pour it out and face it and hopefully discover that it was never as scary as it was when it was intangible.

That's reason enough to keep me writing, but it doesn't soften the blow when the tangible is actually harder to deal with than the intangible.

In others' words

I want the country I grew up thinking we were, back.

Randall Robinson

Douglas Rushkoff

Michael Moore

Adam Felber

Dave Greten

*Update. One more from Neil Gaiman's Journal, this article from a 2001 issue of Scientific American

on KNX this AM

This morning, I heard something on KNX 1070 that stayed with me all day. Dr. Kent M. Keith wrote the "Paradoxical Commandments" as part of a booklet for student leaders back in 1968. In the wake of Katrina, which is snowballing into something beyond words, and frightens me not only because of the terrible toll it will continue to take on our country and the people directly affected, but also because I don't know if I have the emotional stamina to properly feel enough pity and grief and sadness, these words hit particularly close to home for me. Forgive me if this reeks of a mass e-mailed chain letter, as I am usually the cynic in the bunch, but his words struck me enough to reprint them here:

The Paradoxical Commandments
by Dr. Kent M. Keith

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.

As I watch the news and listen to them report on all of the looting and killing and shots fired at hospitals and rescue teams, I have to believe that there are countless unreported stories of individual heroism outweighing all of the sensationalized bad things.

I hope so.

back to reality

The long, full summer hiatus is over.

I'm starting another job today. After three months off, I think it's time.

have fun helping out

Wil Wheaton and PokerStars are doing their part to help the people affected by Hurricane Katrina by having several charity online poker tournaments. All of the proceeds go to various charities, and PokerStars is matching the total dollar amount raised by these tournaments. It's a great way to give a little. Details are here and here. Great idea, Wil.