I See Stories

I'm off the writing wagon and back on the street. In the muck, actually, but that's a story for later...(author smoothly changes topic before reader bats an eyelash.)

These past few nights, reading a lot of poker-related blogs and threads--researching, I like to think of it--I've come across stories unlike what you ordinarily see in the literary gamut.

The Good:

Scouring twoplusto, I found a fascinating, honest, and insightful thread: Ask Layzie about Heroin Addiction/Doing Time In Prison If you know anyone who has drug issues, I really urge you to pass this along to them. It's just a dude who's talking openly about his experiences-- getting addicted to heroin, going to prison, getting clean. He will answer any question. Paul Philips' blog also yieleded some worthwhile stuff--a pretty good mix of humor, politics, and poker content.

The Bad:

Overwhelmingly, most of what I found online did not amount to a satisfying, thought-provoking, or even funny read. A lot of stories lacked nuance or any form of redemption.

I'm thinking specifically of three posts I read on Boy of Destiny. I don't even know whose blog this is; I found a link to it on twoplustwo. Two of the posts detail failed dating experiences in which asshole guys try to hook up with girls because of the "challenge" or the promise of large tits. A third story recounts a man's experience in Korea where a prank leads to a man's suicide.

All three stories fail badly, leave a bitter taste in the mouth of the reader.

But these stories interest me because 1) they are real 2) they are of obvious significance to the teller 3) that they are related in this fashion is a unique product of the internet and modern conventions of personal documentary.

I was thinking about these stories in the context of the values they represent. They seem typical, the romance predicaments fairly standard. They carry the assumption that most men desire sex, that this, as the sole driving force in a relationship, tends to workout badly, which I tend to agree with.

So why do the stories fail so badly? Is it merely a case of the author not doing the work to lull us into the fictive dream, to assume the correct position relative to the material to allow us to see the tragedy or the genuine emotion involved? Probably. I think there is a pattern in that the stories seem not to show the narrator/protagonist having complex emotions, or even

Meta-moment: I wanted to invoke the issue of "architecture," to question whether these stories fundamentally have enough conflict to make them succesful, even if they were realized perfectly. But, thinking about it, they clearly do; several of mine don't. Fuck.

Meta-moment 2: this is awesome. I'm workshopping strangers' blogs!

What can I gain from these stories?

I want to read these personal narratives and gain some new intuitive feel for the set of issues confronting man in our time, particularly the poker playing subpopulation (the topic of the story I will write in entirety between now and Tuesday, minus two paragraphs previously posted), but having insight's into the human soul isn't as easy as it sounds.

Or more likely, I could steal them, see if I can tell them with any better luck.

If I can get myself to write, maybe I will.

update and a paradox

Nearly reinstalled Party today. I opened up partypoker.com, and browsed the silky, lime green webpage with all the mouth-watering anticipation of a starving man.

I basically had myself convinced that I should be allowed to play x hours of poker/week, since I'm finding all kinds of new ways to waste the same amount of time. Not to mention, there are drawbacks to renouncing one's profession and only source of income. (But on the positive side, I can now make a gravity water pipe with a 2liter bottle, a knife, and a can. With my hans tied behind my back, in an oversize freezer. Like MacGiver.)

Being a man of principle, I decided I should give it a least a week before making any needed amendments.

I'll keep the updates coming. And, with any luck, stories will follow soon...

---
The Writer's Paradox:

Most of the value of a story originates from insights in the writing.
You don't know what writing is necessary until you have the finished story.

I'm not sure if this is as troubling to other writers as it is to me, but it describes a really annoying dilemma. Do you spend 20 minutes envisioning a space, picking out that perfect detail in the room, only to have your efforts amount to nothing when you trash the entire scene? Or do you write the thing, and try to improve the details later on, only to realize you're far more commited to the crap on the page than you could have possibly intended and that your finished draft lacks originality or even a soul?

More philosophizing and pontificating later...now, it's time to write some masterpieces.

Progress Never Guessed

A solid 26 hours in, and I'm living up to most of the terms of my self-imposed 35-day trial reformation.

I say 'most' because bright and early yesterday I received a phone call from one R. Jahna at 5am, enticing me to go the Buffet for shuffle board and breakfast brews. What resulted, instead--a couple beers at his place, some laughs, some heated debate of economic theory--was certainly worth a small sidestep of the rules in its value to my documentary (in progress), tentatively titled Flamingo Fellow.

Later, watching the travesty that is NCAA officiating, I was forced to down another beer and a half. Washington (and my boy, Appleby) got abused...and Jensen is a bitch!

I did however return home, where I attempted to write and found other enterprising distractions instead of the ones outlawed in my previous post. To the haters (ie Justin) I wrote a whole page and a half in the last 5 hours. Yeah, that page was good! I'll do it again, punk!

I also rekindled my love affair with international currents and read various articles on the art of 'cigarette' rolling, which I then employed to roll my own 'cigarettes.'

Okay, time to catch a few zzz's!

I give up the life...

It's beginning to dawn on me--I really, really don't have time to fuck around anymore. As of 3:26 am on March 24, I am giving up poker, online chess, espn.com, nba.com, twoplustwo.com, and (new:) drinking in the daytime until the day I graduate.

Bang!

Things I should give up: writing responses, attending wokrshop, watching NCAA basketball, drinking altogether. (A man has to draw the line.)

But, oh, the irony! The first thing I do? Compose a log-winded email to my thesis advisor. The second? Get online to spread the word on this blog. (And I'm guessing the word ain't spreading too far; no offense to the loyal few. And, no, couldn't get statracker to work--you remain unknown to me.) And in all fairness, I really owe it to the posters to respond to the thread I started earlier this evening while purportedly writing at the Black Rose, but I guess they'll have to wait.

Oddsmakers, take a look at the follwing shcedule I've constructed and estimate my chances of living up to it.

Timetable:

3/24- 3/27 complete Italy story + minor revision: snowboard story
3/27- 4/4 Poker story
4/4- 4/19 30 pgs. of screenplay + revision: father story
4/19- 4/31 revisions: CA Summer, Origins, In the Skin

According to the above, I'm going to write 30+ pages of fiction in the next week and a half. Hah.

After that I'll have another two weeks to write 30 screenplay pages and complete a thorough revision. Hah.

And then there's the final week and a half where I miraculously revise 3 more stories.

Yeah, man...if I did that, I would be pretty rocking. Not rocking like a dude with a 'stache and a bike, but rocking all the same. But the reason I lay all this out (beyond the surface function of procrastination), is to ensure a forum for my future embarassment. If I go back on any of this, you will hear about it.

-Ari

Update:

30 seconds after posting this, I started a chess game (not realizing what I was doing!)...I had to forfeit, which sucked, but I didn't make a move, so I think I'm still clean. I uninstalled partypoker. Man, now I'm beginning to feel the promise of new possibilities, the way you do upon moving to a new city...

So far (30 minutes in), so good.

What, what, what?

After several weeks of dread-filled agonizing and gnashing of terrible teeth, I believe I may have finally located a new story I want to tell. Here's how it begins:

Those were the nights when the thwirp of the propeller from the CIA’s unmanned, RQ-1 Predator could be heard, ever so faintly, over the buzz of the underground generator and the incessant bickering from the monkey cages. Scanning the wooded countryside for any trace of our lair--the silver finger of a broadband antenna, human, or even animal excrement--that metal bird cut a perfect line above the treetops. Some evenings, sensing its proximity as if by a premonition, I put on camos and face paint and slipped outside to wait for it in secret, the wingtips white against a blood orange sunset.

It was me, my wife Ursula, and George. We had our generator, fifteen laptop computers, and a team of eleven capuchin spider monkeys, George’s charge. Supplies were dropped to us by helicopter at four-month intervals: pounds of bananas, powdered milk boxes, rice, canned meats, protein shakes. My wife, a gifted programmer and mathematician, was perfecting an algorithm that would triple our winrate, earn us millions. I was eight-tabling the big $20,000 no limit hold ‘em game on Ultimate Bet, taking in $15,000/hr. for as many hours each day as I could possibly stand. They wanted us dead.

---

Set in a time of American opulence and rampant gambling addiction, the story is about leftist activisits who want to train monkeys to play poker for developing nations...I think infidelity will factor in as well as new world monkeys' tendency to pairbond.

(Even if it's crap, at leat I'm writing!)

Back in Black

...in the Cadillac

After 12K hands of breakeven poker...no, allow me to clarify--after losing $5K in a downswing of 10 buyins, the worst of my "career"--I finally made it into positive territoy for '06.

If all goes as planned (and I continue to dish out sickening bad beats as a 12:1 dog, mixed, of course, with my usual solid play) I will soon be picking up tabs when we go out to bars, and throwing down, as the old man likes to call them, extra "cuteness" tips.


Reading: "The Bear" by William Faulkner 

Two Stories Away

I graduate in a month and a half. Highlights of my tenure in the MFA program include:
1) missing a record number of "craft" classes ( as many as 1/3 one painful semester...but trust me when I tell you I wasn't missing that much)
2) abandonning an intensive regiment of independent reading (as much as a book/week) to study poker theory (I needed to make some scratch!)
3) nearly quitting the program after year 1
4) writing 4 new stories (all still in progress)
5) beginning and abandonning countless others
6) eating lots of breakfast burritos (bacon, eggs, cheeze, grease!)

I can own up to the fact that what I have acheived here, if not the minimum possible, was something close to the minimum for me. But next to all the negatives, is my conviction that I have improved as a writer. Yes, in spite of everything, it's true. All this talk about fiction and the obligation to meet deadlines has had a positive impact on my understanding and skill level. That much is plain.

The beauty of fiction is that the distance to bridge is not so great; not, at least, in terms of sheer pages. I'm two great stories away from winning a Stegner. I'm two amazing stories away from an agent and a book deal. As is every serious aspiring writer. Tell me it's not possible for me to complete two great stories between now and December, and I will tell you you're full of shit. Unlikely? of course. Possible? only if I write my ass off, decide I want it bad enough. (And if it takes years, not months, so be it.)

I have long believed, at a philosophical level, that it would be worth it to give up a hell of a lot to write great fiction. It's the reason I came to Tucson--effectively ending a serious relationship, giving up the chance to live with friends. That I have already lost so many battles of the will bodes poorly for my chances...(all afternoon I watched NCAA basketball...in a towel, like a true prodigy), but it's been a struggle all of my life. I'm a fundamentally lazy person, capable of awe inspiring feats of recreation. But back in college and high school, there were some years when--impelled by some great aspiration--I dug in, gathered myself, and got down to serious work.

Will I turn the corner these next few months? Will I ever turn the corner, devote myself in an act of faith--working, as Toby Wolff put it, toward a result you won't see for years, and can't be sure you'll ever see?

What does the future hold for us?
And he thought: we shall live, and we shall see.

My Tucson Gun Story

The day began like any other in that I woke up at 5pm. Instead of falling asleep early after an all-nighter, as I’d hoped, I lay in bed in a zombie like state then slept for at least 11 hours…Still, I made the most of the remaining day. I wrote from 6:30 to 9:30 at Raging Sage, then switched over to Ike’s where I worked until 11. Tired, I fired up some poker tables, quickly stacking a dude with set over set, pocket aces versus jacks. After closing, I fired up more poker tables at home, losing back most of my earlier winnings on some bullshit.

The night’s antics began when R. and J. showed up at my house around 1am, already drunk. I met R while playing chess the year before. Thinking he was higher rated than me, he became angry when I beat him. R, a talented expert, plays an attacking brand of chess, marked by rook lifts and (often unnecessary) sacrifices, a style reflective of his personality. One of the first times we hung out, he tried to fight the bouncer at Maloney’s, when they wouldn’t let us in on account of being too drunk. But R is also outgoing, charismatic, intelligent, and if a bit postured, overall a cool dude.

So after dropping by unannounced, forties in tow, R proceeded to tell me about his recent stint in jail, on account of not having a license or registration. He was vague on exact details…

He also informed me of his new plan to enroll at Pima college, and his aspiration to eventually earn his PhD in Biomathematics, a field I’m unfamiliar with. “Man, you were right,” he told me, “I wanted to be a rebel, but I don’t want to miss the college experience.”

We set out to look for a house party that R promised me was just up the street off Mountain. You had to enter J’s car from the passenger side, the result, J told me, of a minor accident. The dent in the fairly new model Honda overlapped both the front and back driver-side doors, as though the car had been sideswiped. I quickly took the keys from him.

After stopping to pick up another forty and a twelve pack, we drove around the 9 square mile area between Mountain and Campbell, Grant and Ft Lowell. R borrowed my phone to make countless calls, referring to his 2 deactivated phones for the numbers. More specific directions never made it to us. Easily defeated, we returned to my house so they could both piss. R borrowed my phone for more calls, and we blasted hip hop and attempted to flow.

I got much better once I finished my forty. The highlight was my freestyle of the following: “I’m like a snake when I battle, before I strike, I rattle.” Or something close to that. As a side note, my epic high school flow (which a couple of you may remember) used to go like this: My rhymes are radical/ smooth and grammatical./ You know my flow/ I run lyrics systematical./ Some say I got an affliction./ You don’t like it? Suck my diction. (What was I thinking, not pursuing that rap career?…shiiit.)

By 4:30am, friends of R. began to call us back. Wasted on booze and Ecstasy, they hoped to get “hooked up” with rides. “We got a DD,” R said, referring to me. I’m not sure if he saw me glaring at him. By five, it was all coming together. The plan was to meet up with some guy who knew a dealer, and then to meet up with the other dude to score some yay. R: “This dude is bad ass. He was like, hey, is it cool if I bring these girls?” (Always, ALWAYS, the promise of girls!)

Not wanting to be part of sketchy coke deals at 5am, I tried to bow out gracefully. “I think I’m gonna call it a night,” etc. But it wasn’t that easy. R no longer had a license and J had drunk 2 forties already. After much persuasion, I agreed to take them to pick up the hook-up (who lived only a couple minutes away) and drive them back to my house, so the hook-up dude, Brian, could drive J’s car.

The streets were empty; the sun had not yet risen. I drove the four of us back to my house at a lawful speed, wanting to get this over with.

Brain: “Are you guys cops”
R: “Are we cops? No, we’re against the cops!”
Brian: “I know my shit, you gotta ask that…Do you guys work for cops?”

Know your shit? Come on, son, that’s been standard knowledge since Taxi Driver.

Brian (to me): “Hey, watch the speed limit, okay? I got a strap on me. I don’t know you guys.”
R: “You got a strap? Shit, I’m glad you got that!”
R: “Yeah, I just got out of jail. It’s fucked up they got TUSD police and Justice. I got pulled over on the way to court. I fucked up these to guys,” he lied.
Brian: “I got a court date coming up. Two counts of manslaughter. Two counts of attempted murder.”

I got a good look at him when we got back to my house. Brian wore a gold chain. His cell phone ring tone featured a woman’s voice, and though I didn’t catch the entire phrase, I picked out the word pimp. He was white, young looking. Studying him outside my house I could not tell the difference between him and the suburban kids I knew in high school who pretended to be him. Probably the difference was not great.

He seemed to take a lot offense when R asked him if he was under 18. (R told me later that he said he was exactly 18.) I did not ask to see the piece, which he assured us was loaded.

Lesson 6: The Draw OOP

So I've finally got a poker hand for all you NL players...

NL $600 (6max)

I get dealt AJd in the bb. A decent agressive player makes it 22 on the button. SB (looseish player) calls. I call in the bb.

Flop: Ac Td 5d

SB checks. In the past, my standard line here has been to ch/call versus a bet from the button. And lead any turn if it gets checked through. The trouble with this line is that out of position, it's a lot harder to get paid off when I make my flush. And if the turn blanks, calling a pot sized turn bet becomes -EV if he holds AK.

I bet 35 into 66 pot. My plan is to get raised and 3-bet. If I win the pot here that's good, and if the button slowplays a monster (incorrectly), I'm getting to draw to the nuts for a cheap price.

Button raises quickly to 133. SB folds.

Now here's where you have to know a little about equity. If the button holds TT, my equity is 30%. AA also has me screwed, but it's less likely since I have the case A. What's more interesting is my equity vs the rest of his range that's ahead of me right now: AK, AQ, A5s. I used to think that my equity vs this range wasn't that great. But actually I'm 52% vs A5, and I'm 47% vs. AK and 48% vs. AQ. When you factor in 1) the dead money in the pot 2) my tight image, giving me good fold equity versus a hand like AQ 3) how hard it is to get paid off OOP if i call, this becomes an easy push (unless I read him for TT). He insta called with A5, and I won my 52.5-45 flip.

story list

I'm interested in developing a list of the best short stories. I see this as like a public service. Because so few people know good stories. Also, because it's so rare that an entire collection is great all the way through. A novel can be boring in stretches and yet great overall. I think we're harder on collections in a way, because any time there's an ending the quality of the entire work is judged.

So, if any stories come to mind, let me know. I think I'd like to formulate like a top 25, with maybe no more than 2 stories per author. Here are a few candidates I thought of:

The Dead (Joyce)
Cathedral (Carver)
Helping (Robert Stone)
After the Quake (Murakami)
Fiesta, 1980 (Junot Diaz)
The Beggar Maid (Alice Munro)
Soldier's Home (Hemingway) [Hemingway is by far the toughest to limit at 2...and none of you will agree with me on Soldier's Home, either]
The Lame Shall Enter First (Flannery O'Connor)
Teen Sniper (Adam Johnson)
The Things they Carried (Tim O'Brien)

If you think you can crack my top ten, come back strong.

another KICK to the dome

Just a quick note, as I have no time to be blogging right now. I just capped off one of the most miserable weeks of writing all time. I killed myself trying to revise a story that I was almost happy with. But, believing some (probably correct) bullshit about raising the stakes, I decided to make story-fucking-altering changes to this near satisfactory (i.e. perfect) story. The results were not pretty. The day of the deadline, I was contemplating whether to kill or merely maim one of my three main characters. Then it was whether to jump ahead to deliver my ending five years removed from the events of the story or in nebulous would or dream time. No. No. No. Even to my sleep-deprived brain, that sounded like garbage. Instead, I tacked on the old ending, then inexplicably deleted some of the useful, possibly crucial, exposition. The encore to this was my attempt to pen a 30-page screenplay in under 5 hours. Suffice to say, I came up a bit short. About 22 pages short…Yeah, I’m that asshole.

But back to the story—this is the second time of late, I have been really, really, really unhappy trying to complete a story for a workshop deadline. It’s an ominous sign when someone about to complete his creative writing degree is grinding his teeth at his inability to produce something, anything good for workshop. One would think such a writer would have progressed in skill, or at the very least have accumulated a pool of written work, which could be substitute workshopped in such emergencies. No. No. No. And let us say we know of the vices that tempt those such as your humble narrator. Do no make the calculations (30hrs x $60 = 1.8 much, much, much more enjoyable Ks!); do not contemplate what ifs…Become nocturnal, blow off what friends you have. Rise at midnight to a breakfast of Jack-in-the-Box and begin another story.