By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Jul 4, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Initial Reaction to Blue Lights Behind You (Phases over our lifetime):
16-35 : Panic because you immediately think of three things from your past that you could be pulled over for.
36-50: Irritation because you can think of four things it could be for and you don’t have time to get ticketed for any of them.
51-69: Indifference because you know you probably did something wrong (you just don’t know what) and ypu don’t have anything to do until Wednesday’s dentist appointment appointment anyway.
70 and up: A sense of enchantment at the pretty blue whirling lights and a feeling of affirmation that you still matter– and hope that the officer is someone’s son or daughter you know and will feel like talking for a while.
As you may have read yesterday, our otherwise amazing men’s fashion expert took me to task for dressing like a “dork” at previous World Series of Poker events. Her words:
I don’t mean to be harsh, but the words that come to mind are Fashion Train Wreck.
Jonathan, I suspect your reasoning was to dress like an amateur so the pros would think you were easy prey, but did you also want them (and everyone watching on TV) to think you were a dork? Now of course I know you are NOT a dork, but please make a note for future reference, wearing sports jerseys in general, much less on multiple days in a row, is not a good look.
So let’s put the past behind us. This year, I urge you to know when to hold ‘em, when to fold ‘em, and when to step away from the sports jerseys. Try a Hawaiian shirt instead. It has a lower dork-factor but still sends the message that you’re a casual player.
So I listened. And I found a beautiful Hawaiian shirt in my casino’s galleria, and sent Julie a photo for approval. And I entered “The Little One for One Drop No-Limit Hold’em, the second largest competition of the World Series, behind the Main Event of course.
(This is really a special event. 10% of all proceeds are sent to One Drop—a non-profit organization established in 2007 by Guy Laliberté, Founder of Cirque du Soleil. One Drop strives to ensure that water is accessible to all, today and forever by developing integrated water-access and management projects around the world. In the U.S., One Drop is a public charity that undertakes innovative activities in which water plays a central role as a creative force to generate positive, sustainable change worldwide.)
And I played really great. 30 minutes into the event, I ran into some horrible luck. I flopped a set of 9s; and there was an Ace on the board, meaning that I probably could extract a lot of money from an unsuspecting opponent with a good hand, like an Ace/King or an Ace/Queen. However, when I went all in, I was called by a set of 10s. Oops. My chip count went down to a pitiful 800 or so.
But I didn’t lose my composure. Over the next 8 hours, I slowly and methodically built up my stack, employing some ridiculous bluffs when I had good reads on my opponents, and eight hours later, I had a decent sized stack, around 8000 chips.
I was dealt an Ace/King, and when the first four cards were turned up, I had an ace high flush. Sirens! I went all in and was called by someone with a Queen high flush. Only one card could beat me — if a 9 of diamonds appeared on the river (final card) — my opponent would defy all odds and defeat me with the best hand of all, a straight flush. (He had roughly a one in 30 chance.)
And guess what? Straight flush. I was busted.
My lucky outfit
The good news, is that the One Drop tournament offers a second chance — a mulligan, in golf terms. I will rebuy in a few hours and start from scratch. And the One Drop charity gets a little more of my money.
Of course, I blame the bad luck entirely on Julie. So I will return to being a dork, and wear my luck Cincinnati Reds Joe Morgan jersey, with No Labels ball cap, the same outfit that I wore on my luckiest Day 2 from last year.
I’m also headed to the gym, to take on my third day of weight training under the long distance training of the world’s great poker physical fitness expert, Josh Bowen.
Check it out below, and I will keep you updated regularly as always on my progress at my Facebook Page and on Twitter.
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Jul 3, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Travel tips for visiting NYC.
If you are meeting three male friends who are highly educated and they ask you to meet at MOMA at 5:30pm, you may have troubles if you assume too much.
I assumed that since it was 5:30 they wanted to eat dinner, albeit a bit early.
I further assumed, rather excitedly, that my friends had suggested an Italian restaurant. Pronounced MO-MA. Like Italian, I assumed, for MAMA.
I imagined big homemade meatballs from an Italian family recipe.
Then there is the problem of asking cab drivers to take you, please, to “Moma’s restaurant.” The first taxi driver pulled away without letting me in. I assumed he thought it was only a few blocks away and wanted a bigger fare.
Finally, when my exasperated taxi driver gave up on finding a Moma’s restaurant, he dropped me off at The 21 Club. I asked the kind doorman if there was a “Moma’s restaurant” nearby and apologized for not going to 21 Club. He politely told me one block over. Finally!!
And there I saw my three friends…although running a little late and by this time quite hungry. We were outside MOMA’s–which seemed to be more than just a restaurant (in fact it was big and long and seemed to include works of art as well). “Nice!” I thought to myself.
I asked someone working beside the entrance where the restaurant was. He laughed and said, “Restaurant?! This is the Museum of Modern Art! There’s no restaurant!!” And laughed again.
I alerted my friends they had mistakenly chosen an art museum that lacked a restaurant.
The friend who suggested MOMA’s said, “Oh, I’m not hungry.”
And it was about this time that I put two and two—really more like one and one–together.
We weren’t going to an Italian restaurant with homemade meatballs like I told my wife. We were going to the Museum of Modern Art. Which didn’t even have a concession stand.
When you first told me you were in the World Series of Poker last year (8th place, you stud!) and that you would be returning to Vegas to compete again this week, I was ecstatic for you. I really was. Then you spoiled it by sending me a link that showed what you wore last time.
I don’t mean to be harsh, but the words that come to mind are Fashion Train Wreck.
Jonathan, I suspect your reasoning was to dress like an amateur so the pros would think you were easy prey, but did you also want them (and everyone watching on TV) to think you were a dork? Now of course I know you are NOT a dork, but please make a note for future reference, wearing sports jerseys in general, much less on multiple days in a row, is not a good look.
So let’s put the past behind us. This year, I urge you to know when to hold ’em, when to fold ’em, and when to step away from the sports jerseys. Try a Hawaiian shirt instead. It has a lower dork-factor but still sends the message that you’re a casual player.
By Jonathan Miller, on Tue Jul 2, 2013 at 3:34 PM ET
I realize that this is supposed to be an attack video; but the tune is so catchy that if I were the Grimes campaign, I might appropriate it for a positive ad campaign.
Since I committed to writing and posting a song at the beginning of every week about current events, it’s been an interesting experiment in creativity and inspiration. There are hundreds of books, courses, websites and experts who purport to know the secret to writing, but it seems like the advice usually boils down to two things: Write about what you care about, and write regularly whether or not you feel inspired. Which all sounds great, until you’re staring at a blank screen (or blank piece of paper, in the pre-computer days) and thinking, “What now?”
By Friday or Saturday, I’m usually poking around various political websites (particularly this one!) and watching Daily Show monologues to see what topic has caught people’s attention. This was really easy during the election, with a surfeit of fabulous memes like killing Big Bird, ‘Binders of Women,’ or ’47 Percent.’ But current events don’t always skew so colorfully, and frequently I feel like I’m scrambling to find anything to write – anyone who’s ever coped with a deadline knows that feeling of, Oh well, even Dorothy Parker wasn’t brilliant every time. (Or Ellen DeGeneres, or Weird Al Yankovic, or Michele Bachmann, or whoever your favorite humorist is . . . )
However, this past week was chock full of big news stories, so much so that I had a hard time deciding. Scalia’s dissent in the DOMA case was tempting – his rant about the rationale being “legalistic argle-bargle” sounded like a temper tantrum in a Dr. Seuss book. And living in the San Francisco area, I loved the fun, colorful way the city celebrated – literally so, with City Hall bathed in rainbow lighting. (My suburban girlfriend met her GBF – gay best friend, just in case – in the Castro the night after the decision. She couldn’t figure out why there were so many Ikea signs and flags around, til someone pointed out that the blue & yellow signs were actually Equal Rights emblems, not Ikea logos.)
But there was something so irresistable about the news from the Texas Legislature last week, which had all the elements of a great story: Noisy crowds, valiant efforts by an outnumbered heroine, iconic pink sneakers, and even a few idiotic rape comments thrown in for good measure. (See Texas Rep. Jodie Laubenberg’s curious explanation that a rape exception to her abortion ban wasn’t necessary because rape kits ‘clean everything out.) Plus I love Wendy Davis’ backstory, a teenage single mom from a trailer park, working her way up to Harvard Law School and a state Senate seat, while still maintaining the proud Texas tradition of big hair.
Since Rick Perry immediately convened another emergency session, the ultimate outcome is up in the air, but last week’s filibuster is one moment in Texas politics the whole country won’t forget very soon – so to commemorate it, here’s The Ballad Of Wendy (‘She Shut That Whole Thing Down’)
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Jul 1, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
You never know when you are getting a history or literature lesson ….so it’s always good to keep an open mind. Especially if an 11 year old is involved.
When I was 10 years old, my neighbor Kyle Hibbs, had me over to spend the night. Kyle was 11 and clearly more sophisticated than I was. I ran the Lemonade stand in our neighborhood with Kyle as my CFO and Kyle ceded basketball and a few board games to me. But when it came to culture and coolness, Kyle had an edge over me I knew I might never be able to challenge.
So when he excitedly asked me over to spend the night and watch the movie “The Odyssey” which was in channel 41 at 12:30am, I had no socially acceptable response but to pretend that sounded like an awesome idea even though it sounded suspiciously like something one of my boring school teacher aunts might recommend when I spent the night with them.
Everybody was asleep except Kyle and me and we loaded up on soft drinks and candy as our big movie was about to start.
I pretended from the start to be really into it. Even though I wasn’t. I focused mostly on the soda pop and candy and my wondered on to other more interesting topics.
And then something happened.
The story pulled me in just a little bit even though it seemed like a grown-up story. I didn’t realize that they weren’t playing fair and I was watching a classic, a timeless and age-agnostic tale. And then pulled me in a little more and a little more until I was entranced.
To this day, many years after finally reading—and loving– the full literary masterpiece The Odyssey (including the Cliff Notes), whenever the famous Homer Epic comes up, it’s the images from the famous movie starting Kirk Douglas that I see.
And also how I learned to ingeniously fend off an angry Cyclops and to escape by clinging the underbelly of scampering sheep.
I’m glad I played it cool and pretended like I wanted to watch The Odyssey —until I actually did want to watch it. And led to a life-long interest in Homer.
And having cool and sophisticated 11 year old friends who encourage us along the way to try new things that aren’t obvious or “popular” is absolutely essential.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Jun 28, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Parenting Pride and Paradoxes
You know those extraordinary moments as a parent where you see your child behave in a particularly challenging situation that lets you know, “They are going to just fine as an adult”?
Those “moments” when your child acts adult-like provide a sense of satisfaction to a parent, a sense of relief and security and great pride.
And we never forget them.
And they become more frequent with time.
And begin to correspond inversely with those extraordinary moments our children experience when they see a parent behave in a particularly challenging situation that makes them wonder, “I can’t believe my parent is acting like such a child.”
Those “moments” when the child’s parent acts child-like also provide a sense of relief, security and great pride–in the children —that they can be a successful adult.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Jun 28, 2013 at 9:15 AM ET
Sometimes, Sigmund Freud, was quoted as saying, “A cigar is just a cigar.”
And if Siggie were alive today he’d probably offer a corollary that “Sometimes same sex marriage is just same sex marriage.”
I don’t want to get all controversial about this….but this DOMA decision by the SCt has me worried.
No, not worried so much about the threat to the institution of marriage between a man and a woman caused by same-sex couples wanting to marry. We heteros have already done a fine job of that ourselves and can’t–with a straight face, so to speak–even try to blame same sex couples for piling on.
Frankly, I don’t think same sex couples care a great deal about what we heterosexuals do in our personal lives. It’s not all that interesting, I admit. But I kind of like knowing that gays are analyzing our sex life every chance they get. And lucky them! That allows gay people time to think about other things—like decorating and dressing nice. They sure got us on those two fronts.
I’d even go so far as to say we heteros could probably learn a thing or two about not always talking and thinking about gay sex and gays marrying. Maybe it does scare some of us. But I suspect anybody who talks all the time about how bad gay sex is, is talking about gay sex because, well, he just likes talking about the topic…. and it gives him a sort of cheap thrill he doesn’t get by talking about heterosexual sex.
And that’s fine. I’m not judging them. I’m really not.
Heck, when I was in elementary school I acted that way myself. At recess I’d chase girls pretending they were gross and I didn’t want to have anything to do with them. But even though I swore I was trying to avoid gettin’ the cooties, there I’d go chasing after these very girls who we thought had cooties and trying to touch, pinch or push them anyway I could. And it wasn’t a coincidence that I’d always chase and push the ones I wanted the most to like me back.
It didn’t really work out well for me. And wont for politicians talking about animal marriage this time. But on that playground I did get a little thrill out of it all and suspect these older fellers talking about gay-this and gay-that get some kinky thrill in their own way, too, when they are chasing and pushing around gay people in the political playground. I could be wrong. But I know what it looks like when someone says they don’t want girl cooties and then can’t stop chasing and talking about girls.
Read the rest of… John Y. Brown, III: The DOMA Decision
51-69: Indifference because you know you probably did something wrong (you just don’t know what) and ypu don’t have anything to do until Wednesday’s dentist appointment appointment anyway.
