throughout my life, memorable as it has been, (at least to me) there are only a few years or events that i remember distinctly. where i was on Nov. 23 of '63, same for 9-11-01, the Chicago riots of 68 all come to mind and if i were to live another 66 years i would always remember 2008. this has been the year that certain illusions were shattered, that someone of color would never be elected to the presidency and that capitalism was king. Obama is going to be the president and wall street has been shown to be the charlatan that it has always been. what a surprise that greedy bankers and greedy stockbrockers acted as greedy bastards with no thought, WHATSOEVER, of possible failure. they believed their own bullshit; that the markets were king and that they, masters of the universe, could ever make horrible mistakes.

"what is good for GM is good for america" is what was preached by the idiots who ran our largest car maker. but what did they make? good cars? no. they did make good trucks but in the overall scheme of things not many people really need a truck. farmers do and construction people do but stockbrokers, insurance salesmen, clerks, etc do not but they bought them anyway. what we need and what they did not make is small, fuel efficient, dependable, long lasting, driver friendly cars. and now they need a bailout. and because so many jobs are dependent on them, we (that's you and i) have to give them not only our money but our children's money and our children's childrens money. so will they make a car that is as good as a honda or a toyota? probably not.

2008 will also be remembered as the year that the ERA OF STUFF came to an end. go to the mall and take a good hard look at all the STUFF (dare i call it, SHIT?) that people are supposed to buy. it is just stuff. not really useful stuff or necessary stuff or even pretty stuff, just fucking stuff. this is what we were encouraged to buy. stuff. shit. crap. pick a word. shitty, crappy stuff. buy some now. two shitty things for the price of three. buy this stuff and stuff it up your ass.

i think, hope and pray, that when we finally come out the economic doldrums the american people will rethink their attraction to stuff and QUIT BUYING IT. hell, none of it is made here anyway.

i hope we start building factories here that make the things that people need; furniture, television sets, GOOD cars, air conditioning units, washers, dryers, clothes, shoes, etc. (look at what you are wearing right now and see where it was made...are you wearing anything at all that was made in america? chances are you are not. oh it is slightly cheaper to buy a shoe made in a sweat shop in some third world country where people are paid pennies per day and the corporations make millions than to buy an american shoe made by american workers who then spend their money HERE but that, in my opinion, is penny wise and pound foolish. i buy NEW BALANCE shoes because they are made here. converse is made here. some of the dress shoes are made here. ( i don't mind buying 'things' that are made in other first world countries such as bally shoes because their workers recieve living wages). i would buy an american car if they made one. i did have a gmc truck (a Z71) that was a tremendous vehicle but i lived on a farm at the crossroads of two dirt roads at the time.

anyway.

STUFF

r.i.p.

(buy american)

peace to us all.

happy new year.

poker

i didn't get in my christmas poker game because rhonda was ill and i stayed home with her. played again though today and winning streak continues but today was small...39 dollars but, hey, a win is a win and a hellava lot better than a loss. just no cards today, won one medium pot and a couple of small ones but mostly sit and threw away cards for several hours.

i really don't know how many of you who read this are poker players and of those who are, i don't know what skill level you have accomplished but most of my hints, thoughts, ideas, recommendations, etc are directed at people who are playing low limit no limit and are fairly new at it. with that in mind, here is my advice on hand selection.

in early position DON'T PLAY ANYTHING that you are not willing to either raise with or call a raise with. this especially applies to weak aces, ace ten or lower. don't play ace 6-9 suited in early position, don't play kj or jt or jq in early position unless two things are there, a. they are suited and b. there is not much raising at your table.

don't call raises with aj, at, or even aq off in early position. you are too vulnerable to ak or big pairs.

you can call with small to medium pairs in early but be willing to fold to big raise but you can call small raises with them if there are enough callers. (sets are wonderful things) ((the odds of you hitting your pair on the flop is 7.5 to 1....know that)

when i am playing my best poker i hardly ever call a raise with ANYTHING less than AK. i would rather be the leader of betting not the the caller of betting. i would rather wait until i am fairly sure i have the best hand before i call any raise. why gamble? i am not there to gamble. i am there to win money. hmmmm

oh well, i am rambling and i am tired. so good night.

merry christmas

merry christmas to all.

peace on earth.

INTERNATIONAL NEEDS AND POSITIONS

i think that obama's most pressing needs in the international field are fourfold:

1. stop, once and for all, the vendetta against cuba. drop all the sanctions, open the door all the way for not only american citizens to go to cuba but american companies to do business there and at the same time let the cuban people and companies come here. this little country, which should be our natural ally never did anything to us that was not predated by us doing something to them. (their only "crime" was to let the soviets put missiles on their land but that was in response to our quasi invasion at the bay of pigs) castro overthrew a mob connected fascist dictator and raised the living standards of his people. what is the crime in that?

2. get us out of iraq. for the umpteenth time i repeat, iraq did nothing to us. they were not involved in any shape, form or fashion in 9-11. hussian was the arch enemy of osama bin laden. they had no weapons of mass destruction. we murdered tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of iraqis and if there are any "terrorists" in iraq we created them.

3. for once, have an even handed approach to the Palestine problem. we cannot continue being the unequivocal supporter of isreal regardless of their positions. without a solution to the palestine problem, there will never be safety in the middle east for the usa or our citizens.

4. in Afghanistan, we must wage more a war of ideas and progress than just a war of violence and bombing. the taliban would not win any elections in Afghanistan, they were unpopular when they were in power but by using the same tactics that the soviets did in the 80's we are driving the population back to talibanism.

the list of empires and powerful countries who have fallen into the ash heap of history because of their meddling in foreign affairs while draining their national treasuries is very long; greece, rome, persia, babylonia, russia, england, france, spain etc etc etc etc. do we wish do add our name to the list? our founding fathers were totally against us getting involved in foriegn wars and disputes. "trade with all, ally with none." was their motto. (or j. adams' anyway)

what do i think about obama's choices? so far i would give him a B+. some are very good to excellent but some i question, especially emanual. but i do believe we must give him and them time. there are very tough times in front of us and hardly any of us will get through it unscathed so i do truly hope everyone in his circle is up to the task because the future of the nation now depends on these men and women.

oh well, off to play some poker and then tonight UNLV basketball game. go rebels!

peace to us all.

back home and glad to be here

the shows in san francisco went very well, especially the one that hudson, molly, sharon et all came to, which was SECOND SHOW FRIDAY, the one show that is always iffy. this time, however, it was the best show of the week. cool. a good time was had by all and afterwards the 7 of us went out to eat at a place named GLOBE which is right down the street from the punch line. i bring up the name of the place because your humble eater had the best fucking lamb ever there! check it out when you go to s.f.

saw on news today that president bush has a bad shoulder....probably from patting himself on the back during his LET'S REWRITE HISTORY TOUR. you know the one where he has been telling us just what a great president he has been and how all his decisions were right. (oh he was sorry about that "bad intelligence" that led us to war......but neglected to point out that intelligence had many caveats about how the information was suspect.....no, he just got bad intelligence....or was it he had bad intelligence?)

laura, the stepford wife, and dick cheney, merchant of death, both have come out and told us just how great george has been. unfuckingbelievable.

i hope that all of you have been following the last days of the bush regime where he is doing all he can to get around enviromental protections and give his buddies the last of the treasury. the list is too long to go into here and those of you who care already know and the ones of you who don't care...why bother with you?

UNLV finally played a good game of basketball and showed the team that i thought they were going to be by beating a very good arizona team which had just beat gonzaga. now i am back to thinking the rebels could be a team to be feared come tournament time. we play very, very good defense and when we hit out 3's we are a load.

anyway, glad to be home and off for a while to watch bowl games and play poker.

peace to us all

dis and dat and off to san francisco

it is sleeting here in vegas right now with snow predicted for later today and an accumulation of 1 to 4 inches in some parts of the city. how bad is your luck running if you freeze to death in the mojave desert?

brought my winnings for this week up to 700 dollars so the change to mgm is working out quite well.

off to san francisco tomorrow and so this is last post for this week because i am not taking computer with me but am taking camera and will film all the shows there in the hopes of putting enough together for a new video.

thanks to the 185,000 people who visited my web site last year. (or to the ten of you who visted it 18,500 times each)

my son, hudson and his wife, molly along with one of my ex-wives, sharon (hudson's mother) are coming up to san francisco for the shows. rhonda will be coming up for the week-end and all of us are going out. i know it surprises some people (that's you liz) that i get along with my ex wives but i do. they were outstanding women when i married them and they are outstanding women now. i have lived with or married 6 women, four of which are still alive and i would put them up against any six women in the world for all the qualities that make for outstanding; including intelligence, wit, compassion for their fellow humans and success in all their endeavors. each of them added immensely to my life and each made me a better person.

anyway, off to san francisco.

peace to us all

why i moved from mandalay bay poker room

the reasons i moved from mandalay bay to the mgm grand has nothing to do with something negative about mandalay bay, matter of fact, i really enjoy playing there more than anywhere else. having said that; the reason i play is not for enjoyment but to win and supplement my income. the enjoyment of m.b. actually has turned to be a negative for me. i know too many people there and as a result i spend too much time talking and joking instead of paying close attention to the other players. yesterday, for instance, at mgm where i won just a shade under 200, i bet i didn't say 5 sentences all day long to another player. my concentration is much better when i don't talk.

another reason is that mandalay bay has bonus hands: any 4 of a kind or better pays extra money, from 20 to 500 dollars for four of kinds and straight flushes and uncapped for royals. over the years i have made thousands upon thousands of dollars with high hands but most of them were at limit. in no limit, i found myself calling medium raises with small pairs looking not only for the set but for the high hand. also i found myself calling with small suited connectors for the same reason but the fact of the matter is that i (you) are a 7.5 to 1 underdog to hit a set and straight flushes are in the thousands to 1 category. i would call with 4-5 suited and the 2-6 of the suit would hit with say a king of opposite color. i found myself making a call of 20 dollars hoping to hit that straight or flush and sometimes would indeed hit flush but not the straight flush and would lose to a bigger flush which costs a lot of money.

i was not managing my money correctly and so i moved. now, i never call with small suited connectors unless am at rear of betting and there are no raises. see, the problem with suited connectors is that you often flop four fifths of a hand and now are in drawing mode. well, i hate to draw; the draw is always an underdog.

i am back to playing nothing but big cards and preferably big pairs and am willing to sit and wait and wait and wait for the RIGHT cards in the RIGHT position.

the old saying: "those who play for straights and flushes soon leave this town on greyhound buses" is an old saying because it is TRUE. draws are the death of bankrolls. look for sets and top pairs with good kickers.

since i changed i have had for the last three weeks of play; 880, 710, 514 winnings. not bad. i can live with that.

once i have my total game back i will probably hit m.b. a couple of times per week but maybe not, hate to leave winning grounds.

one hand from yesterday: i raise from middle position to 20 dollars with aces and am called in one place. flop comes Q,Q,6 rainbow. i bet 45 dollars and my callers goes all in for his last 75 dollars. (and he does it quickly) i think about it and call. here is my reasoning: a. he is an idiot anyway. b. he pushed all in so quickly (showing strength often means weakness) and c. he is short stacked and short stacked people have tendency to bluff (especially if they are idiots) because they are getting desperate. he turned over 3-6 suited LOL so he had two pair. i also thought that if he had the queen he would have waited for turn to push. anyway, i was right and there you go.

more poker thoughts..perfect table...looking to fold

there is a real good poker writer, mike caro, with whom i do not always agree but recently i have been thinking about a couple of his theories and how they have helped me. he has a column in one of the poker publications and his most recent one was about 'what is the right kind of table to look for' and it confirmed something i have always thought and it is something that a lot of players would disagree with:

to wit:

some players will tell you that they look for a table with lots of big pots and lots of action. i say, look for the table where there are lots of callers but hardly any raising. this, to me, (and to caro) is the ideal setup. these are what he calls, loose/timid tables which is as good a label as any. many times these players will come in with hands they are "hoping" to hit but will then fold when you raise putting a fair amount of "dead" money in the pot just to start. and, even better, they will come in at (in 1-2 game) for the two dollars with 7-8 off suit and then will call your pocket kings raise of 18 dollars and then have to fold on the flop when the law of numbers shows it's ugly head.

i have never understood how someone can call a 2 dollar bet and then call 18 more. if you have a 20 dollar hand why didn't you lead the raising? if you don't have a good hand why are you in the pot in early position anyway?

one of his other theories is that bad players look for reasons to call and good, money making players are looking for reasons to fold. i mean why get involved in a pot that you might win instead of getting involved in pots that you are going to win. unless you have a very, very good reason to believe that you have the best of it, why risk a large amount of your money? and the key word in that sentence is RISK. i am not looking to risk anything, i am looking to invest in a pot in which that i believe i have the best hand.

right now i am playing the best poker of the past two years that i have been playing no limit. i am tighter than ever and looking for reasons to lay 'em down. i am particular in what games i sit in and if the table is not "right", get a table change. my room change from mandalay bay to the mgm grand has been a major factor in my win ratio and i will go into that in another post.

anyway, all for now;

peace to us all.

parleys, bridges, troops in the streets, poker

florida giving the points over alabama
florida/ala. under
okla. giving points against missouri
okla/mo over
ucla plus points against usc.

there is nothing sweeter in las vegas than hitting a multi team parley and the above was my 5 teamer saturday. how sweet. and nerve racking.

actually i had 3 bets. a single bet on florida.
a two teamer with floriday and oklahoma
then the 5 teamer above

that may have been the only 5 teamer i have ever hit. but it was a good christmas present for the shock family and put me ahead of the sports books for the year. (not by much but ahead)

the hilton book opened this morning with florida a 3 point favorite over oklahoma and i am going to take oklahoma straight up.

on to other things:

back in 1986 when ellen and i were first together we were in el paso and decided to go over the bridge into juarez, mexico. as we were crossing over i asked ellen if she could run fast. when she said yes, i told her that if the shit hit the fan i would meet her on the american side.

no superhero, me.

laid off workers have taken over closed factory. we will see much more of this in the coming months. that is why the government is transferring 20,000 troops to american soil.

i have heard from recently retired military men that there are plans afoot to ward off riots and public protests by using american military against american citizens and that the military, mainly the army, have been practicing for this for several years now. originally it was to quell anti-war protests but now it is to keep the unemployed masses at bay. can't have them ransacking wall street. (that could be why the bankers got all that money from paulson, you know, a get out of town fund) how obama handles this could shape our democracy for decades to come.

"four dead in ohio"

the belief here in vegas is that the casinos are going to drop their opposition to online poker so that they can operate their own sites. if we could have some kind of regulation authority and some safeguards against cheating then online poker will be legalized and taxed. the government needs as many revenue options as they can get and there are billions of dollars being bet on the net right now anyway so why not get some of that? my concern is that cheating will still go on and there really isn't anyway to stop it. that is why i don't play anymore on the net. i find it odd that i can beat the live tables for 18 straight years and cannot bet the net. it could be because i can't pick up the visual tells or that i don't pay enough attention but i can't beat it. it doesn't seem to me that i play a high enough game for there to be cheating but still.......

cheating is too easy on the net. you, me and one other guy could go on a site and get in the same game and just by telling each other what our cards are would give us an insurmountable edge. hell, you could have 4 computers, 4 accounts, 4 phone lines and play that game all by yourself.

oh well, happy holidays.

sick as the proverbial dog

steve martin in his book, BORN STANDING UP, tells a story about how he did an important gig and afterwards got deathly ill and went on to wonder just how many times that happens to performers; getting sick after an important gig when their body defenses which had been on high alert come down. it just happened to me: i headlined the trop here and had quite a few family and friends in to see me and though i felt like i might be coming down with something i had some just great shows. monday night through this evening i have been sicker than i have been in years. just fucking horrible. it broke about an hour ago. goodness.

i also have had times when i was sick as the proverbial dog before a show and performed myself well. i have had other comics tell me of similar experiences. my own opinion of that is: when we are on stage we are our fullest self and that self is a healthy self and that overcomes whatever illness we may have brought with us onto the stage. that may sound weird but i think that is what happens.

but anyway, i was sick but am not now.

bookings for this coming year are coming right along; i now have gigs through june. during basketball season i am not working all that much so i can follow the rebels and watch the mountain west conference tournament which is held here in las vegas. so far i have bookings for two weeks in houston, 4 casinos in california, indy crackers, sarasota, mrytle beach, hilton head, dallas, fort worth, arlington and of course, vegas and atlantic city. i will post them in the next week or so.

i may have over rated the unlv basketball team....we shall see.

becoming a comic, writing jokes. (part III)

the way i learned to put together not only jokes but an act was to concentrate on writing 5 minutes of material. not ten nor twenty but only 5. once i had 5 golden minutes, i broke it in two and put 2.5 minutes up front and 2.5 minutes to close and in the middle of that i put a new 5 minutes. that way, i opened well and closed well and was able to concentrate on that middle 5 minutes. eventually, i had ten minutes and then did the same; put 5 golden in front, 5 golden to close with and another 5 minutes in the middle. i continued with this until i had a 20 minute act which is what you needed to open. once i passed that level, the writing became much easier and especially when i got to the newspaper stories which basically write themselves.

jerry seinfield once said that if a joke does not get a "house laugh" 98% of the time then that joke does not belong in your routine. comics who say "that joke was just for me" are kidding themselves and shortchanging the audience. the jokes are for THE AUDIENCE. i have always used this criteria for whether a joke stays in the rotation.

i then learned the wonderful world of "tags." jay leno said that any good joke should be tagged if possible, why get just one laugh out of a good joke when two or three or possibly four can be squeezed out? my first killer routine was about houston traffic, a pedistrian subject i will admit but, hey i was new. it became a routine of a few good lines and some killer tags.

the first joke was "four way stops are lessons in psychological warfare." tag. "guy with biggest balls has the right of way." tag. "if you have little bitty balls you could spend all day at certain intersections." tag. "best bring your lunch with you when you drive." tag. "like a friend of mine once said, if you are wondering whose turn it is....ain't yours." tag. "the women in the room understand that i am using the term "balls", metaphorically. i have known women with more and bigger balls than any man will ever hope to have." tag. "i know because i have married a couple of them." tag. "i like women with balls. ... it is when they put on the dildo that i drew the line." tag. "i don't mind you having balls, baby, but that dick has to go!" tag. "but i was younger then. get me drunk...pinch my nipples, spank my ass, tell me i am a little whore; see what i will do."

that way i turned one good line into a couple of minutes of good lines. each laugh gets bigger because of the flow. (this is on DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS and you can hear how it builds and builds)

i did the same with freeway driving; starting with one line, "at the speed limit you are a traffic hazzard." tag. "people are dodging your ass. ((demostrate)) eaaakkkk, sumabitch was parked there!" and so on and so forth. this also can be found on DITHOT c.d.

van seats was written on the way to a church gig. i know, that is hard to believe. they had called the COMEDY WORKSHOP office and i just happened to be there and had answered the phone. they said they needed a comic who could do 30 clean minutes and i said i had just the guy, ron shock. they said can he work clean? and i, of course, answered, "no fucking problem." i saw the guy with the van seats and the routine came to me right then and over the years it has changed very little if at all. it killed at the church group and killed last night at the trop.

the 14 minute long ORAL ROBERTS AND HIS 900 FOOT TALL, FLOATING UP IN THE AIR, JESUS took me almost two years to perfect. same with WORLD'S GREATEST DOPE STORY. the long ones are difficult because there is no way to bail if it starts going sideways on you. oral started with one idea; that he, oral, had to be the hardest man in the world to impress if jesus the christ had to grow to 900 feet tall to get his attention. one day i was driving down the road and the four possibilities came to me and for the first and only time I WROTE SOMETHING DOWN, i pulled off the road, went into a denny's, got a napkin and wrote. "CRAZY. LSD. LIED. TRUE. " (i still have that napkin)

being around such funny people it became easier to "think funny" and that is a great asset to have if one plans on being a comedian. our lunches and dinners were funnier than any movie ever made. the conversation would jump from one to another and pretty soon laughter would be booming. it was great. the TEXAS OUTLAW COMICS came out of a mexican meal at 3 in the morning.

oh, and incidently there were SEVEN PEOPLE IN THE TEXAS OUTLAW COMICS. (now i hear of dozens of people who claim to be one of us but there were only 7.) BILL HICKS, STEVE EPSTEIN, RILEY BARBER, ANDY HUGGINS, JOHN FARNETTI, JIMMY PINEAPPLE AND ME. if you see or hear any other comic claim that title...call them on it. you can tell them that you got it from one of the founders of the group.

well, there you go for what it is worth. that is how i wrote material. if i think of anything else i will put it in another post.

peace be to us all.