I'm not.

Not at all. Not even going to come close.

I don't even think that I want to make a million.

I think that I thought that I wanted to make a million dollars. I think that I thought that I could do it playing poker. I figured out this morning, playing Hearthstone, that I ****ing hate games. All games. I hate video games, card games, board games, etc...

I don't want a million dollars. I just don't want to be confused anymore.

That's what I want. I want clarity.

I think I know how to get it.

Total degen ass morning. I fell asleep around 1a and woke up at 2:30a. I had scrounged all the spare change in the house and had $14. I went to Smith's and hit coin star, bought a pack of smokes, and hit Red Rock to get my free play. Busto! I had a Stella and a Jager and tipped my bartender $5. He seemed embarrassed for both of us and gave me a water for the road.

I had a couple of pounders in the fridge and I'm half way through those with a full pack of smokes. I responded to a couple of threads here and now I'm just writing to pass the time.

It's been a few good days though. I know that seems difficult to believe after how this thread is going but I really only show the worst of myself here. I'm only writing when I'm drunk or have nothing else to do. Like right now at 4:30a on a Friday morning.

I figured out that I am done with thinking of poker as a source of income. It hurts existentially but not financially. I've been break even for the last four years or so. From now on I'll be playing for fun and trying to bink some live MTTs.

It feels good (but empty) to let that dream go. Now, I'm just a dude who has his bases covered but nothing else going on. I'll have to be content waiting for some inspiration.

****ing inspiration. What did Nietzsche say? “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” Holy ****ing A.

My wife and parents don't get that side of my personality. They, somehow, have the why built in. Like magic. Like ****ing magic. It just isn't there for me. I always have to find it. That's probably my biggest problem, always seeking the external. Yeah, not probably. That is my biggest problem.

I think I'm done doing that. I'm starting my work week tonight and my goals are to get all my tip money home, not play the machines, and scratch together a little for some NFL action.

Now I'm going to drink this beer and listen to some ****ing music.

'

hang in there man. it is true, at least now and then, that it is darkest just before the dawn....

Wow, sincerest thank you for the support.

No worries though, seriously. Everything is fine. I'm just coming to grips with the facts that:

+ Poker isn't going to happen for me (outside of some huge bink).

and

+ Unless I get something else going on I'm going to be working hourly jobs until I drop over.

Writing feels good though. And music. Maybe I should be a professional sports bettor

or a writer? with amazon singles you might have a viable/cheap platform.

a hundred years ago i lived your life, things can change.

can you make money with amazon singles?

Agree, op's writing is interesting... i like the writings of down and out people (no offense) bukowski comes to mind

check out mishka shubaly, a bukowski-esk sort that apparently has made real coin writing singles.

Charles Mother ****ing Bukowski. I guess it was my second year tending bar that I was introduced to him. Really, my first year tending bar because I had to barback for a year before I moved up. Anyway, I had been behind the bar for two years or so. This was 1999? We had a spot in Virginia Beach that all the service industry people went to for last call. The in crowd got to hang out after closing and drink late night, trying to figure out where the after party was. CP Shuckers, used to be The Peppermint Beach Club. They're both gone now. I think they built condos there.

So, I'm drinking with this cat, this ****ing stellar cat, J-How. He was the drummer for Jesuit, killer old school hardcore band. Pretty sure they released something on Hydra Head? Anyway, good stuff. I'm drinking with this guy and bitching about life. He says to me, "You know who you remind me of?"

I read "Post Office" and I was hooked. I own all of the Black Sparrow stuff now. What a terrible influence. What a horrible thing to find. What a thing though. One in a million. One in ten million. I started playing horses.

Getting drunk. Winning money at the track. Eating steaks and going home to drink more and **** your woman. The life of a king. The life of a king and it's like poetry. Getting drunk and ****ing somebody who wants to get drunk and ****. I don't understand what everybody else is after.

Buk said, "I see more in a half empty cup of coffee than most people see when they look at the Grand Canyon." I think that was true,too. I really do. I've read him enough to know when he was full of ****. He back doored into some kind of drunk ass blue collar enlightenment.

His writing was a hustle. He figured out that everything was a hustle.

Mother ****er could write though.

Three beers left now. And two smokes. Three beers and two smokes and I'm just going to tee off. I'm just going to pound these three beers and blast. Let it ride. Let it ride. You ****ing ******s sit at my bar and you wonder what to do. You wonder. Life just racing by and you sit there. Pondering.

Trying to pick a pose. Trying to find a way to make this girl like you. She doesn't like you. I don't like you. I don't like you because I think you are weak. I think you are looking for something. You're looking for something to give you a purpose. And there is no purpose. There is no purpose. There is no meaning to this thing. There is no meaning.

This ****ing hot sun keeps trying to steer me off of my point.

My man if you simply don't decide to devour this thing then it will consume you. It will consume you. All you will have left is a ghost looking down on a corpse. With no second chances. No second chances.

**** man. I think I'm just going to write.

Has a good flow to it, painted imagery, good observations... Like buk said, write if you have to, not just if you want to... if you have no other choice...

you in va? i'm in va

Always in Va. My parents were born and raised in Buchanan, Virginia. My whole family is from there. I grew up in Reston. My dad was a controller at National for years. I spent my highschool ditching class and riding the orange line downtown to hang out in Georgetown. I used to sneak out and smoke love boat all night. Going to gogo shows at the Black Hole. Three bands for three bucks at the old 9:30 club.

Man, that's where I'm from. Minor Threat. Bad Brains. I used to play chess for money with the bums at Dupont Circle. Junk Yard Band and E.U. at the Adams Morgan Festival.

Showing my age here.

No. Not in Va.

I currently reside In Las Vegas, Nevada.

Man, I am digging at something. I can feel it. ****, what is it. It's like as soon as I touch on it, it goes away.

I think it is the understanding that this moment is all there is. This ray of sun shine. This drag off of a cigarette. It's all that you will get and all you will ever get. The ****ing world goes quiet and it's just this breath.

My hands. I've been looking at these hands for over forty years.

I'm not going to waste any more time.

Holy **** I'm on my patio pounding beers and listening to Led Zeppelin while these two dudes are wearing uniforms and cleaning up the pool deck at 8:36a on a monday morning. Holy **** they are emptying garbage cans. Dear god, the boys are just blasting through the bridge while these cats stand down there talking.

I lost sight of them for a moment. A crow hopped along the pool edge eating bugs. Carrying around trash bags with a rag in your pocket.

Dear,god... Who deserves that.

Only the ones who accept it.

Hopefully, I have put all my existential bull**** behind me. I'm relatively sober (I stepped out to play my free play this AM, had a shot and a beer, played my free play and dipped). I'm calm and I'm ready to develop a plan to move forward. I've thought a lot, read a lot, and wrote a lot about my current life situation. I've learned a lot.

I've learned that poker, as a career, probably isn't going to happen for me. There was some promise, as recently as five years ago, but nothing has come of it. Giving up that ghost ****ed me up, big time. It was my identity. When I was in jr. high school I was a "skater". I was a wrestler in high school. I was a photographer/party animal in college. Then I was in the Navy. Then I was a surfer, a musician, and a bartender. Eventually, I became a poker player and it took over my whole life.

That bubble seems to have burst and all the while I was becoming a drunk, gambling addicted, 43 year old loser who works part time. I could deal with that if I "had a dream" (sooner or later poker is going to work out for me) but I can't afford to hump that dream any longer.

I've learned that I really don't want $1,000,000. Of course, I want 1m. What I meant was, I don't NEED 1m to be happy. To be happy I want/need (in no particular order):

+ Mental Clarity
+ Physical Health
+ An insured and improving quality of life
+ Positive social relationships
+ I want to be happy and brave (make fun out of everything and show courage in the face of adversity [fighting the good fight and how I want my kids to live])
+ To be solvent (more assets than debts)

Side note: ****ing life in Las Vegas... I started out writing this AM and it's in the sixties. I was wearing a hoody, stocking hat, long pants, socks, and slippers. Two hours later and I'm being burnt by the sun. Stripped down to shorts and a tee sweating my ass off. Meanwhile a ****ing bird wizzes by my head and crashes into my slider. He's flopping around like a lunatic. I go inside to get something to scoop him up with. He's gone. Either he flew away or he's hiding in the junk on my porch. Anyway, I'm back to writing. Eight beers and six smokes. Not a lot to work with but it can be done.

THE PLAN

$1,000,000 (or retired w/ **** You Money)

+ Win FU$ from MTT wins
+ Win FU$ from stock market
+ Win FU$ from book
+ Win FU$ from screenplay
+ Win FU$ from venture capital

Working with $ to invest

+ Generate investment $ from bartending
+ Generate investment $ from business
+ Generate investment $ from banquets
+ Generate investment $ from cash games
+ Generate investment $ from sports betting
+ Generate investment $ from (this is when the bird hit) blogging

Working with no $ to invest

+ QUIT PLAYING ****ING VIDEO POKER/KENO MACHINES
+ Quit smoking
+ Quit drinking liquor
+ Start working out
+ Start meditating
+ Start taking pictures/writing
+ Repair relationships w/ friends and family
+ ~Get out of debt

I remember 9:30 club. Going to RTC to pick up chicks as a teenager... lol that never worked out. VA is a great state. I've lived a bunch of of other places... VA is one of the best

I miss it so much. Love it so much. My whole family is from the Blue Ridge mountains. I mean my (dead) granddaddy was born and raised in the mountains. We have a family cemetery (grandmothers side) that's a ****ing landmark on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Appalachian trail runs right by it. There's a bridge on the parkway that crosses the site where the house used to be. There's three little graves there with unmarked headstones. Somebody in the family had triplets that all died from measles (?). My grandfather caught them too the same year. He lost all of his hearing in one ear and most of it in the other.

So, crazy. I've stood there looking at those graves. Three small squares of stone (6"x6") with no markings. Traffic just cruising by and people taking a rest from driving. Nobody knows that story. Yah, anyway, Boblett's Gap.

Seventies across the valley. Sunny. Like a ****ing dream. Like a day off from school. Feels so good to be a little too buzzed and just dazed and confused. No clue as to what's going on. Yeah. That ****ing beer buzz man. Laid back and light. Still hungry. Still awake. The kind of buzz that makes me think about ****ing pussy. Man, sunshine and pussy. Wow. So good to be alive. So good to be writing these words.

Really feel like this is what we're missing. We need to assemble the Sweedish Bikini Team and just bomb all these fools with big titty women and kegs of cold beer. Give NFL feeds away. Just bomb them with the backyard barbecue. No ****. You give a man enough pussy and beer and the last thing on his mind will be killing somebody. I guess. Maybe some men. Maybe they're so crazy...

****, all I need is a cold case of beer, a pack of smokes, and some red blooded country girl who wants to catch a buzz and **** on the beach.

I think that is the key to world peace.

Big tits will calm everybody down. When those big titties hit the pool deck everybody falls in line. Order is established. No one is confused. There's them titties. Yah, anyway that's the problem with those terrorists ****s. Too many dudes. You don't see any big titty bitches cutting peoples heads off. They're too busy being big titty bitches. Nobody bombs a strip club. Dear God, please.

Man, those ****s don't love their mother.

There are three palm trees. I spend my time with them. They roll with the wind at night. They take on sun during the day. They tower over me and ask, "What are you doing with your time?" Drinking, I say. Drinking and listening to music. Smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, and listening to the blues. They are disappointed.

I finish my smoke and go to the fridge for another beer.

It's great to take financial accountability. First off, you can make money off poker. But....., don't just dump several grand and hope for the best. Start with 25 or 50 dollars, and beat the microstates. This will teach you poker and raise your funding. Once you reach 2-3 hundred off micro, work up the ranks. You won't make millions any other way.

Lol

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