Monday, March 29, 2010

How can you not be a fan of Bob Dylan?

@puravida26 has just put me on a Bob Dylan kick.

Visions Of Johanna








Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin' to be so quiet?

We sit here stranded, though we’re all doin’ our best to deny it

And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin’ you to defy it

Lights flicker from the opposite loft

In this room the heat pipes just cough

The country music station plays soft

But there’s nothing, really nothing to turn off

Just Louise and her lover so entwined

And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind


In the empty lot where the ladies play blindman’s bluff with the key chain

And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the “D” train

We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight

Ask himself if it’s him or them that’s really insane

Louise, she’s all right, she’s just near

She’s delicate and seems like the mirror

But she just makes it all too concise and too clear

That Johanna’s not here

The ghost of ’lectricity howls in the bones of her face

Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place


Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously

He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously

And when bringing her name up

He speaks of a farewell kiss to me

He’s sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all

Muttering small talk at the wall while I’m in the hall

How can I explain?

Oh, it’s so hard to get on

And these visions of Johanna, they kept me up past the dawn


Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial

Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while

But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues

You can tell by the way she smiles

See the primitive wallflower freeze

When the jelly-faced women all sneeze

Hear the one with the mustache say, “Jeeze

I can’t find my knees”

Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule

But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel


The peddler now speaks to the countess who’s pretending to care for him

Sayin’, “Name me someone that’s not a parasite and I’ll go out and say a prayer for him”

But like Louise always says

“Ya can’t look at much, can ya man?”

As she, herself, prepares for him

And Madonna, she still has not showed

We see this empty cage now corrode

Where her cape of the stage once had flowed

The fiddler, he now steps to the road

He writes ev’rything’s been returned which was owed

On the back of the fish truck that loads

While my conscience explodes

The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain

And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain

Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands








With your mercury mouth in the missionary times,

And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes,

And your silver cross, and your voice like chimes,

Oh, who among them do they think could bury you?

With your pockets well protected at last,

And your streetcar visions which you place on the grass,

And your flesh like silk, and your face like glass,

Who among them do they think could carry you?

Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,

Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,

My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,

Should I leave them by your gate,

Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?


With your sheets like metal and your belt like lace,

And your deck of cards missing the jack and the ace,

And your basement clothes and your hollow face,

Who among them can think he could outguess you?

With your silhouette when the sunlight dims

Into your eyes where the moonlight swims,

And your matchbook songs and your gypsy hymns,

Who among them would try to impress you?

Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,

Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,

My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,

Should I leave them by your gate,

Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?


The kings of Tyrus with their convict list

Are waiting in line for their geranium kiss,

And you wouldn’t know it would happen like this,

But who among them really wants just to kiss you?

With your childhood flames on your midnight rug,

And your Spanish manners and your mother’s drugs,

And your cowboy mouth and your curfew plugs,

Who among them do you think could resist you?

Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,

Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,

My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,

Should I leave them by your gate,

Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?


Oh, the farmers and the businessmen, they all did decide

To show you the dead angels that they used to hide.

But why did they pick you to sympathize with their side?

Oh, how could they ever mistake you?

They wished you’d accepted the blame for the farm,

But with the sea at your feet and the phony false alarm,

And with the child of a hoodlum wrapped up in your arms,

How could they ever, ever persuade you?

Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,

Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,

My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,

Should I leave them by your gate,

Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?


With your sheet-metal memory of Cannery Row,

And your magazine-husband who one day just had to go,

And your gentleness now, which you just can’t help but show,

Who among them do you think would employ you?

Now you stand with your thief, you’re on his parole

With your holy medallion which your fingertips fold,

And your saintlike face and your ghostlike soul,

Oh, who among them do you think could destroy you?

Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,

Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,

My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,

Should I leave them by your gate,

Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?



Friday, March 26, 2010

Two Random Thoughts About Poker

Both thoughts occurred to me when I was driving to get dinner.  Not sure why.

1) I have played 2/5/10 PLO on more than one occasion.  The stakes do not particularly scare me.  And yet for some reason 5/10 NLHE really scares me a lot.  2/5/10 is a much bigger game than 5/10 NLHE, so why the incongruity?  I think know I have more confidence in my PLO game.  Need to think about this more and think of how I can improve my NLHE game and my confidence.  I am NOT SCARED when I sit at a PLO table.  Depending on the table makeup, sometimes I am a little nervous at NLHE.

2) I feel decidedly anti-feminist for saying so, but I've been thinking a lot about women in poker recently, and most of it is not good.  I'm too tired to write a coherent essay on this topic right now (a la CK), but I do have some additional thoughts on this that I'd like to share.  Let's just say that most of my thoughts on this topic make me feel like a bad person, and certainly a bad woman. 



Tuesday, March 16, 2010

It's March?

It seems like just yesterday when I was wondering what 2010 would bring.  I've been sadly neglecting my blog for a long time.  I have had lots of interesting adventures in the past three months, but I've had various reasons for not wanting to post about them here from 1) my parents read this to 2) lazy.  

January was mostly spent at the Borgata for the Winter Poker open where I drank a lot with @alcanthang, @scsuhockey10, and @spidurman.  I also bubble +1'd the Borgata Winter Poker open PLO $400 tourney.  Yes, that's right.  I played for 12.5 hours, and outlasted 86 people to bust in 11th place when 9 paid.  Frustrating to say the least. (Yeah, that's me in my red UMD sweatshirt at the final two tables about 45 minutes before busting). I suppose I should be happy though because I played my absolute best and was pretty much card dead throughout the entire 12 hours of the tourney.  If I had just had one big hand in the last 9 hours of the tourney, I definitely would have moneyed.

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The first weekend of March @alcanthang and I went down to Greenville, SC for Mastodon Weekend.  I met some great new people, reconnected with old friends, finally met some people I have been talking to on twitter for awhile, did a lot of hijinking which probably should not be shared in a public forum (here's a clue, if you want the dirt, follow me on twitter), and popped my Wafflehouse cherry.

From South Carolina, I went to NJ for my 5th annual ATLarge, which was similiar to Mastodon Weekend in a lot of ways. Met some new people, chilled with old friends, and lots of hijinking.

And now, here I am for Spring Break in CT.  I've been trying to figure out what to do with my life over the past few months, but it's definitely time to get serious about that.  I plan to rejoin the working world in the near future...assuming I can find a job.  My poker bankroll is in bad shape, and though I love many things about this lifestyle, sweating money and not having health insurance are not very enjoyable.  I've decided that it's not too feasible to do this without living closer to legalized poker.  At the limits I'm playing, I need to put in too many hours.  Since I'm not moving to NJ or NV anytime soon, time to get a job in the meantime, get my bankroll back in good shape, and see what I want to do from there.  Additionally, I really feel an urge to make the world a better place, and grinding out a living on the felt is certainly not contributing to that. Nor is it contributing to my overall intellectual satisfaction.  As a matter of fact, I feel like poker has made me a rather boring conversationalist.  I have certainly not spent any significant time with people outside the poker world in a long, long time.

At any rate, thanks for continuing to read, and I promise I will try to do better about posting more to my blog. I can't promise to be a @realdawnsummers or anything, but I will try.