by john | Dec 28, 2009 | Real Life
Last night I covered the PokerStars Sunday Million in addition to the Sunday Warm-Up for the PokerStars Blog. This is a little unusual as California Jen typically handles the Million so us more easterly bloggers can get a little shut-eye. But I had vacation time left over from last year and needed to fill a hole in my writing revenue stream after getting Shamus to cover my week on the Warm-Up earlier this month when I was busy drinking my bodyweight in Coors Light in Vegas, so when Jen said she’d be out of town and needed some help covering, I volunteered. There were some technical issues (probably on my end) that made the night a little nerve-wracking, and there’s always the inherent jealousy that goes along with watching total strangers parlay a $215 entry fee into a mortgage-wiping score in one night, but the real challenge for me was the waiting.
Tom Petty was right, it really is the hardest part. Waiting for people to bust out so I can write the wrap-up, waiting for everything to load so I can check my work, waiting for more people to bust out so I can cover the next event, etc. etc. So of course instead of using the time in any type of constructive way, I played Dragon Age on Xbox (best Christmas present of the year!) and read a Mercedes Lackey book that I picked up the day after Christmas.
Yeah, I know I issued a moratorium on book purchases until I’d waded through the dozen or so books that I have scattered around the office at home. Yeah, I know I issued a moratorium on frivolous spending as I’m trying to buy my dad’s house. Yeah, I know I could have just asked for the books for Christmas and done a little responsible consumption instead of my normal Cookie Monster on a Tollhouse binge shopping method. But I got a coupon.
Those may be the most evil words in the English language. I knew I was screwed when the header showed up in my inbox. 40% off any one item. I was dead at that moment. I knew Books-A-Million carried the Absolute Sandman series. I knew they’d probably have Volume 2. I didn’t have Volume 2. I knew that Volume 2 went for around $65 on Amazon, and $100 retail. That meant that with my 40% off coupon, I could walk into an honest-to-god real live bookstore and buy something cheaper than on Amazon (the shipping v. sales tax argument doesn’t work with me – I buy enough crap on Amazon in a year to justify the Amazon Prime membership that gets me free shipping. And it really does work out to be a money-saver over the course of a year, which says sad, sad things about how much crap I purchase). So I did.
I went over the BAM at Cotswald and found Volume 2. And after tax I paid $64 and change. And then I bought a bag full of other books off the clearance rack. And one paperback because the third volume of a series I’d already read the first volume of was on the clearance rack, but you can’t read 1 & 3 without reading 2, so I paid full price for the paperback version of the middle book. But I had a $5 off coupon, too, so I had the nice sales cutie ring me up as two separate transactions so I could use both coupons, so I guess I got the paperback cheap, too. And my other bag of books cost me about $33. So I told my wife that I bought the Sandman Volume 2 for full price and got the other bag of books free! Which is mathematically true, if not a completely accurate statement.
I have the willpower of a bulemic on an ipecac bender. Hope you had a Merry Christmas or whatever you celebrated!
by john | Dec 24, 2009 | Music
In lieu of a real post today, I give you the track listing for my end-of-year CD for 2009. There was no CD for 2008 because there wasn’t enough good music released.
Y2J ’09
1. Circles Around Me – Sam Bush
2. The Worst Day Since Yesterday – Flogging Molly
3. For Today – Jessica Lea Mayfield
4. Say it to Me Now – The Frames
5. The Perfect Space – The Avett Brothers
6. Don’t Stop Believin’ – Glee (shut up)
7. Can’t Find My Way Home – Steve Winwood & Eric Clapton live from MSG
8. Backyard – Kevin Costner & Modern West (yeah, Fishtar’s Kevin Costner)
9. I’m Yours – Jason Mraz (live)
10. Johnny and June – Heidi Newfield
11. Gold Heart Locket – Sam Bush
12. Whipping Post – Mountain Heart
13. Steal My Kisses – Ben Harper
14. I and Love and You – The Avett Brothers
15. Always the Love Songs – Eli Young Band
16. You Can’t Always Get What You Want – Glee (I said shut up)
17. Be Somebody – Kings of Leon
18 – Empire State of Mind – Jay-Z
If we’re going to be in the same place in the next few weeks, I’ll probably have a CD or two with me. If you want a copy, let me know and I’ll make it happen.
by john | Dec 23, 2009 | Writing
So I want to quit my job and write for a living. And I want to do creative writing. Poetry, novels, short stories, that kind of thing. But I still have a mortgage (and soon to add another one), car payment, student loan payment (they last longer when you don’t start paying them until age 35) and various other living expenses and bills to deal with.
How do I reconcile these two truths? On the one hand, I want to focus on my writing as a profession. On the other hand, I’m very good at my job and am paid well to do it, which allows me to feed myself and support my family.
In the past, the path to wealth (or subsistence-level salary) for the creative writer has been something like this – toil in obscurity while collecting rejection slips for years until finally someone understands the true level of your genius and offers you more money than you’ve ever dreamed of to publish your first book. Alternately, teach English at a college and publish collections of poetry on the side. I’m having real trouble finding poets without other jobs, and most folks that self-identify as poets seem to be English professors.
But the world should be different today. With the advent of the internet and the ability to connect directly to readers and fans, people are trying to branch out from the normal path. Amanda Fucking Palmer has had some success with doing oddball fundraisers and outright asking for cash online to support her work, but I’m pretty sure there are still months where cash is tight for her. Kevin Kelly wrote a fascinating piece describing the phenomenon of True Fans, and the fact that most artists only need 1,000 of them to get by, and get by pretty well.
So here’s my request to you, my readers, and theoretically my fans. Email someone that you think would like my writing and give them a link to this site. I don’t want you to spam all your friends with links to me, but I’d like to see a little traffic bump, and maybe some of those friends really will like what I do. I’d prefer that you email someone who’s never heard of me, but we all know someone who likes poetry, because we’ve all got that one gay friend, right? So do me this favor, and at the end of next week, whoever has the most referrals to my site will get a signed and matted copy of the poem of their choice mailed to their house, suitable for framing.
Or tell me that’s a stupid idea and that you’d rather see me try to improve my marketing like this – then describe it. I’m a shameless whore, so I’ll try anything to move one step closer to artistic independence.
For the record – I like my job, and as long as I have to have one, this is the one I’d rather have. But I don’t know many people who wouldn’t rather be self-employed.
by john | Dec 23, 2009 | Poems, Poetry, Writing
So I’m trying to write something, anything, every day, and damn if it isn’t hard to get back on that horse. So tonight I locked myself in my hotel room at the lovely Marriott Century Center in Atlanta and cranked out a couple of first drafts. And these are truly hot-off-the-presses drafts, finished just a few minutes ago. So give me a little feedback on them, and then in a little while I’ll probably yank them off here to maintain their “unpublished” status for submissions and tweak them a little bit.
Yeah, I’m travelling right before Christmas, but I get Thursday and Friday off, so it’s okay I guess. I’ll probably blow out of here a little early tomorrow and head north so as not to get trapped in Atlanta’s hellish traffic. I think I’ll download Episode 4 of the Gambling Tales Podcast to listen to on the road. If you haven’t heard it yet, get your ass over to the website or to iTunes and check it out. I think Special K and I are really starting to hit our stride, and we’re working on getting some more great guests for upcoming shows. This episode features poker author, online card room manager and all-around prince of a human being, Lee Jones.
In the meantime, here are a couple of new pieces I’m working on. And if you’re in Charlotte on January 23, I’ll be hosting another Writer’s Showcase at Story Slam on Central Avenue. I haven’t locked in the lineup yet, but it’ll definitely be me and Steve Stoekel of the Spongetones fame. I’ll let you know more details as they become available.
EDIT: Can’t get both of them to post right so I’ll toss the next one up in a separate post. I would enjoy feedback on both.
EDIT: All unpublished poems have been taken down until I get through submitting them to various magazines so they’ll maintain their unpublished status.
by john | Dec 22, 2009 | Real Life
So…I’m trying to buy a house. I have a house, and I have no plans to move, and yes, I am trying to buy another house. My father’s house. The house I grew up in. My father has been having money troubles for the past several years, and hasn’t dug himself out even after declaring bankruptcy last year. He’s currently facing foreclosure because he can’t make his mortgage payments, and even after going through all the loan modification channels at Chase, they actually had the gall to come back with an offer of a interest-only mortgage that actually had a higher interest rate than the note he was trying to get modified! Now if he can’t make the payments on a 9.25% mortgage, why would a company even offer a 9.5% mortgage?
So I’ve started the process to try and buy my dad’s house. It’s not the perfect answer for me, not right now, but with a couple of tweaks to our household spending we can make the nut. Dad leased a portion of the land to the county five years ago to build an emergency communications tower on, and that provides him with $600/month in payments. If I can get a note between and 5-6%, which should be doable, I’ll only have to come up with about $400/month to bridge the gap between what the tower provides and what the mortgage will be each month. And it’s hard to turn down an opportunity to buy a 2200 sq. ft. house on 9 acres for $170K. The tower deal makes the mortgage reachable, and the payment from the county increases incrementally over time, so there will come a time about halfway through the life of the mortgage that the property will actually generate more revenue each month than it costs. So long-term it makes sense. And it lets my dad keep the house he built when he married my mother, so that’s pretty important to me, too. So there might be a few less trips to Vegas in my immediate future, but I’ve got a few things floating out there that make this only a stretch for the first few months of the year, after which I think we’ll be in pretty good shape.
