I just took an early morning trip to Planet Fitness-- my first visit to the gym since early March-- and it wasn't much fun . . . working out in a mask is uncomfortable (even my fake flappy mask) and all the joys of the gym are gone-- I like to circuit train: move from machine to machine, station to station in a fast and chaotic fashion-- if I wipe the equipment down it's in a perfunctory manner . . . but if I'm on something for one set, then I usually don't wipe it down at all-- but now it seems like you are expected to wipe stuff down (or at least pretend to) and I also love when the gym is a bit crowded, there are people to look at-- cute women, fat people, ripped people, people doing weird exercises that you might want to emulate-- but it was fairly desolate this morning . . . so I froze my membership until December; judging by the rising case counts in New Jersey, gyms will probably be closed by then, making this decision much simpler (for a better-written version of this, head to Medium).
Dave Builds a Standing Desk
I built a standing desk in my post-apocalyptic hybrid classroom but I didn't really think about how it looked from an outside perspective . . . there's so few students coming in that I'm hardly concerned with appearances . . . in fact, I played tennis in between periods yesterday and though I was all sweaty and gross, I threw my slacks and work shirt back on-- there were only three kids in the room and I told them to keep their distance and while Microsoft Teams is CPU intensive, it still doesn't deliver quality smells to the audience-- so there's a general lack of concern for how things look in the building-- but then a fellow English teacher (who is home now in quarantine because she came in contact with a student who came in contact with a person with Covid) got a look at this disaster of a desk and she asked me if I had "built it out of objects I found in a landfill."
My Son Needs Barbarian Therapy
My son Alex said the strangest thing yesterday:
"I wish I were a little worse at ping-pong so I could have more fun playing with my friends"
and I'm not sure if this is the kind of thing that warrants therapy, but obviously-- in my family-- I don't tolerate poor table-tennis play . . . if you're not going to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and to hear the lamentation of the women then why would you play?
Yup . . . Had to Happen
When the aliens sift through the wreckage of our civilization and find my son Ian's battery-powered skateboard, this will be their analysis: "This object looks like a lot of fun, but if the battery runs out while you are zooming up a hill and the skateboard stops suddenly, the laws of physics will cause the rider to wipe-out" and the aliens will be exactly right . . . luckily, Ian was wearing a helmet and so he only suffered road rash to his knees, elbows and hands . . . but I think he should only use this contraption on flat ground (with grass nearby).
Has Anyone Seen the Old iPad Charger?
When the aliens sift through the wreckage of our civilization, they will certainly be impressed (and bewildered) by our vast variety of electronic charging cables . . . after stumbling upon a tangled trove of these wires, an especially perplexed insectoid from Andromeda will turn and click to his friend, "They obviously understood electricity, but why did they make it so hard to harness it? Why? Why?"
Pandemic School: Lesson #1
At school yesterday, I got quite close to this fox that was hanging out on the softball field . . . then someone informed me that maybe I shouldn't be approaching wild animals that don't exhibit fear . . . they might be rabid; I told my class about this encounter with a possibly rabid animal and showed them the photo and one of my students said, "That's not a rabbit, it's a fox" because I was wearing a mask and when you are wearing a mask, the words "rabid" and "rabbit" sound identical, so I had to say the word "rabies" and talk about foaming at the mouth and Old Yeller and a bunch of shots in the stomach and all that . . . and the takeaway is that teaching with a mask on is absurd (I'm recording stories that I usually tell in class beforehand, without a mask, and then playing them for the class . . . so then I'm watching myself tell a story with the students, it's surreal).
Two Teachers; One Household
One of the teachers in our household was complimented doubly today-- the district tech team saw this person's virtual teaching set-up and they were astounded (they called this person McGyver) and then when they were leaving the building the district tech people commented on the beautiful landscaping around the school and they were informed that the very same teacher runs the gardening club and did all the landscaping-- so this teacher is killing it both indoors and out; the other teacher in our house received an admonitory note from the principal today because this person missed the digital faculty meeting on Monday (this person may have slept through the start of the meeting, totally forgotten about the meeting and then drove his son to the orthodontist . . . so that when he received a text that the meeting was happening, it was too late to attend) and I'm sure you can guess who did what (especially since I just planted some lovely bamboo clusters all along our fence line).
It Took a Global Pandemic . . .
There's a new hashtag of ideas that begin "it took a global pandemic" and I've collected a few of them here . . . thanks to all the contributors-- if anyone has any ideas, throw them in the comments . . . I might make this a post for Medium;
1) it took a global pandemic for us to learn how fun it is to drink with far-flung friends on Zoom;
2) it took a global pandemic for us to realize there's still some systemic racism in America;
3) it took a global pandemic to learn how fast you can traverse distances in central New Jersey when there is no traffic;
4) it took a global pandemic to truly value quality home appliances, especially the dishwasher;
5) it took a global pandemic for me to plant more bamboo along our fence line;
6) it took a global pandemic to motivate me to do mosquito control in my backyard;
7) it took a global pandemic to realize how unsanitary and disgusting schools are;
8) it took a global pandemic to get me to subscribe to the NYT and start doing the daily crossword;
9) it took a global pandemic for me to learn the joy of online poker;
10) it took a global pandemic to cross the street and avoid everyone and not be judged as a total douchebag;
11) it took a global pandemic for me to fix the crazy-ass chip in my front tooth because I kept seeing myself on Zoom;
12) it took a global pandemic to get alcohol to go;
13) it took a global pandemic to discover just how misanthropic and introverted you could be;
14) it took a global pandemic to recognize what a pain-in-the-ass timesuck club soccer is;
15) it took a global pandemic for people to start doing jigsaw puzzles . . . yuck;
16) it took a global pandemic to get people to wash their hands after going to the bathroom . . . yuck;
17) it took a global pandemic for New Brunswick to realize it's fun to close down George Street to traffic, put a bunch of bands out there, and let everyone eat and drink in the road;
18) it took a global pandemic to find out who believes in the scientific method and randomized gold-standard double-blind trials;
19) it took a global pandemic to truly understand how incompetent Donald Trump is . . . or maybe not, maybe he's been exactly the same level of incompetence the whole time;
20) it took a global pandemic to realize it's more fun to wait in the parking lot with your dog, rather than in the vet's waiting room . . . which is always a disaster;
21) to be continued.
Two Reasons Why I Will Never Get a Vasectomy
My rationale is based on two very solid reasons. They’re not the two reasons you are thinking, although I do value those two things as well.
I acquired one reason from a TV show and the other from a movie.
That’s where you learn stuff, right?
Reason #1 is obvious.
I don’t want anyone — advanced medical degree or not — going near my testicles with a pair of surgical shears. Michael Scott expresses this better than I ever could during “The Dinner Party.” If you haven’t seen it, you need to (especially if you are thinking about getting a vasectomy).
This is what he tells his girlfriend/condo-mate/ex-boss Jan Levinson (in front of an audience of co-workers).
When I said that I wanted to have kids, and you said that you wanted me to have a vasectomy, what did I do? And then when you said that you might want to have kids and I wasn’t so sure, who had the vasectomy reversed? And then when you said you definitely didn’t want to have kids, who had it reversed back? Snip snap! Snip snap! Snip snap! I did. You have no idea the physical toll, that three vasectomies have on a person.
My second reason for refusing to get a vasectomy is much more profound.
I should point out that I’m certainly a vasectomy candidate. I’m fifty. I’m happily married with two children. My wife and I are done procreating. Once in a while, when I see a cute little infant I turn to my wife and say, “We should have a baby!”
My wife wisely says back to me: “That store is closed.”
She’s right. We’re done with that stage in our life.
Or she is . . .
My wife uses some kind of hormonal IUD that I should know more about. I do know that birth control is often left up to women, and it’s often a pain in the neck (a pain in the vagina?) There are plenty of side-effects. Headaches, weight gain, nausea, pelvic pain, irregular bleeding, acne, breast tenderness, etc.
The United States is not particularly good at subsidizing sex education and birth control, which is ironic, because a huge swath of our country is violently opposed to abortions. Male sterilization should be another tool in the box to prevent unwanted pregnancies. A better understanding of birth control of all types will decrease abortions, allow more women to finish school, and prevent infants from entering the world in a state of poverty. Men should understand this. Birth control should not be solely left up to women.
So I get it. Undergoing a vasectomy is not a big deal. I don’t want an old man poking around in my mouth with a drill, but I still go to the dentist. One in ten American males has been voluntarily sterilized. 500,000 men a year. I have friends that have done it. It’s not supposed to be that bad. I’m all for vasectomies. In fact, I urge YOU to get one.
If I really wanted to, I could get over Reason #1.
The MAIN reason I’m not getting a vasectomy is inspired by the ending of the classic Kubrick film Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb.
Reason #2
I might be called upon to repopulate the planet.
My friend Ann finds this portion of my argument silly, and it’s not. It’s deadly serious. So let me explain.
Dr. Strangelove was made in the 1960s. The world was worried about the madness of MAD. Gigantic nuclear arsenals were supposed to deter nuclear war, but in the film, an Air Force high alert mission goes awry — with the help of the homicidal General Ripper — and his breach of authority sets off a cascading chain of events that results in an impending nuclear disaster.
If you haven’t seen this movie, you need to.
Dr. Stranglelove — an ex-Nazi in charge of U.S. military weapons R&D — suggests that the survivors of the initial nuclear blast could hide out in “some of our deeper mineshafts.” Radioactivity wouldn’t penetrate down there and in a matter of weeks, sufficient improvements in the dwelling space could be provided.
In the plan that he proposes to President Merkin Muffley, several hundred thousand citizens would need to remain in the mineshafts until the radiation subsides: one hundred years.
Peter Sellers plays both roles.
PRESIDENT MUFFLEY: You mean, people could actually stay down there for a hundred years?
DR. STRANGELOVE: It would not be difficult Mein Fuhrer! Nuclear reactors could, heh… I’m sorry. Mr. President. Nuclear reactors could provide power almost indefinitely. Greenhouses could maintain plant life. Animals could be bred and slaughtered.
The plan then takes a more eugenic slant.
Dr. Strangelove suggests a computer program should be used to determine who gets selected go down into the mine shaft (besides present company in the War Room . . . they get a free pass, of course).
And then we get to the real mission. The population in the mineshafts would have a “ratio of ten females to each male” and the women would be selected for “highly stimulating sexual characteristics,” Dr. Strangelove estimates that within twenty years the U.S. will be back to its present gross national product.
Even the highly distractible General Buck Turgidson finds this plan interesting. As does the Russian liaison.
GENERAL TURGIDSON Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn’t that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?
DR. STRANGELOVE Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious service along these lines . . .
Since the Cold War ended, we haven’t been as concerned about all-out nuclear war. But COVID-19 has given us a sneak preview of another kind of apocalypse. And this one kills men at a higher rate than women (though it’s negligible).
But what if it wasn’t negligible?
What if there were a highly contagious virus that targets the Y chromosome and kills all the men? Or nearly all of them. This COULD happen. I read about it in a comic book.
What if this hypothetical virus kills all the men except me?
Or me and a couple of guys who have had their tubes snipped?
Then it will be up to me to repopulate the planet!
Regrettably, this will “necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship.”
I’m willing to make that sacrifice and do “prodigious service” for the human race.
Here’s how I envision it. I’m lounging on a beautiful white sand beach of some lush tropical island, being tended to by a cadre of incredibly beautiful women from around the globe. Occasionally — perhaps once a week or so — a boat sails into the harbor.
A number of bikini-clad attendants lower one especially beautiful specimen into the water. Then they all stride through the surf, beads of saltwater on their bronze or brown or black or white skin.
I beckon them to come forward.
They present some delicacy from wherever they hail: Iceland, France, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Goa, the Sudan. I taste the food. I admire the women. The queen bee smiles coyly at me. She rubs my tan feet. Then we head into my candlelit bamboo hut and get to down to business.
Perhaps — if I’m feeling up to it — I bonus impregnate a few of the attendants as well. Why not? This is my job. I embrace it. Then they sail off, my future progeny lodged in their uteruses.
Though my friend Ann found my description of this scenario ludicrous, she was still willing to play along. “If you’re pretending this could happen, couldn’t you pretend that you were fertile? Even if you had a vasectomy?”
For a little while. But in nine months, the gig would be up. That’s too soon for such a sweet post.
Plus, who would be a better Adam for the planet than me? I want to do this. It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. So though it’s highly unlikely, I’m playing this lottery. Not having a vasectomy is the golden ticket.
I haven’t run this by my wife yet, but I’m sure she’ll be on board. If she trusted me to be the father of her offspring — if need be — why shouldn’t I father of the entire human race?
Horror Recommendations for Both the Patient and the Restive
If you're looking for a gothic novel in the vein of Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" and Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw," then give Sarah Waters's The Little Stranger a shot . . . she wrote it in 2009, but you'd never know it-- it's set in the 1940s and impeccably researched and pitch-perfect in tone-- the disintegration of Hundreds Hall and the family that lives in it mirrors the slow and crumbling decay of the noble class in England . . . the proletariat is assuming more political and economic power, at the cost of old and ancient ways, but the dead aren't going to cede power to the working-class quietly; the book is a slow-burn and often frustrating-- especially the budding yet doomed romance-- but I loved it . . . if you don't have the patience for historically accurate neo-Gothicism, then you can check out the Overlord-- it's streaming on Amazon right now-- the film begins as a harrowing WWII action-flick, but soon devolves into a Tarantino-esque Nazi-zombie genre mash-up . . . it's totally entertaining, gross, and fun . . . my son Ian and I both loved it.
Hybrid School: The First Week
Here a few thoughts about teaching my first week of hybrid-model school:
1) hybrid doesn't work very well . . . you can either pay attention to the kids in the room-- and we are tending to have two or three kids in the room-- or you can pay attention to the kids on the little screen, but it's difficult to pay attention to both groups . . . what tends to happen is that the kids in the room become "virtual" kids and they just participate on the screen, and then there's no reason to have them there in the first place;
2) it's hard to hear the virtual kids unless they have a nice microphone . . . one virtual girl told us she learned to sew during the pandemic and that she sewed a "flag" and I told her that a flag seemed pretty easy to sew, because it's a rectangle and she said, "let me go get it" and she retrieved a "frog" not a flag-- which looked much more difficult to sew;
3) it's hard to understand the in-person kids because they are wearing masks, so I'm constantly asking them to repeat things;
4) got two drama kids to do an impromptu scene on the Microsoft teams;
5) a number of us have insanely large classes, I have 31 kids in a college credit writing course-- so this is going to be difficult to manage virtually and grading-wise, and it also ensures that we are never going back to school because-- pandemic or not-- there's no way to stuff 31 seniors into my classroom
6) I'm still teaching elective classes: Philosophy and Creative Writing . . . I'm not sure why if the actual English courses are packed . . . didn't anyone think of this?
7) I'm taking a lot of walks with my in-person kids-- I put the virtual kids to work and then we go outside and discuss the reading like normal humans;
8) my son Ian-- who is a sophomore and is all remote-- was on a virtual "scavenger hunt" and he got his beloved weighted blanket and put it on his head-- as instructed-- and it fell off his head and landed on the laptop-- MY good laptop-- and ripped the screen from the body of the computer . . . Ian was crying and totally regretful and I felt really bad for him . . . but at this rate he's going to go through 90 laptops this virtual school year . . . I did manage to duct tape the screen to the computer, so it works . . . sort of;
9) I've now sent several rambling emails to administration, about class size of the senior English courses courses and about opening doors, courtyards and windows because we are in a global pandemic;
10) Genesis, Microsoft Teams, and Canvas are impressively dysfunctional and unsynchronized; we are doing all our own tech support and trying to get things to clean up and work, but everything is fragmented, disorganized and incomprehensible;
11) in an attempt to organize things, I deleted all the channels where various teachers are supposed to meet on Microsoft Teams . . . who knew I had this power?
12) I was running late for work this morning because I was filming a video of myself for work;
13) it's fun to break up pretend fights off-camera-- you just get up quickly, bang a bunch of stuff, and then come back and tell the kids you broke up a fight;
14) we need an all virtual day to catch-up . . . this isn't sustainable;
15) people are already getting laryngitis from teaching with a mask on . . . once coachign starts back up again, my throat is going to be raw every day;
16) my eyes are so tired that I feel like I'm going blind;
17) at first I thought the four rotations of in-person kids would give up and go virtual because there are so many 1-3 person classes, which are awkward . . . but the kids I talked to kind of like it because they only go to school every eight days-- so it's like a weird little masked adventure-- but the teachers are masked and teaching EVERY day, for extra long periods . . . it can't last;
18) my own children are enjoying virtual school -- they can sleep until 8:55 and then school is from 9 AM to 1 PM . . . my high school is still making kids get up to attend class at 7:26 AM . . . it's cruel and unusual punishment for a teenager;
19) Stacey almost cried twice today: once because she forgot her laptop charger-- which is now a vital piece of equipment-- and then later in the day when she taught twenty minutes on mute and then had to repeat the entire lesson;
20) I have a girl with a one-on-one aid that accompanies her to my room and I teach this girl in two different classes, but she only comes to school once every eight days-- like all the in-person students-- but her aid comes to my room every day, though the aid doesn't have a laptop yet . . . so the aid mainly just watches me say weird stuff into a computer;
21) East Brunswick Vo-Tech shut down yesterday, so I think we are the only school building with kids in it in the county . . . and so far it has been quite an adventure.
Dreams Are Dumb?
I've always been a proponent of the Anti-Freudian "dreams are dumb and indicate nothing" school-of-thought (and may COVID-19 kill me dead if this blog becomes a dream journal) but I woke up at 2 AM this morning-- possibly because of an earthquake-- in the midst of a particularly vivid and possibly symbolic somnolent vision; here's what happened:
I was trekking through the jungle at sunset and came to a spot where I could see through the dense foliage and I spotted a hippo in the tall grass, and the hippo's wet skin was reflecting beautiful streaks of red, purple, and orange from the waning daylight and then a jaguar walked out of the jungle and he hopped up on top of the hippo and just stood there, posing (and there was also a random llama in the background) and so I grabbed my phone and took a picture of a JAGUAR ON TOP OF A HIPPO (with a llama in the background) and all three animals were magnificent, iridescent from the setting sun in this wild tableau and then I raced back to camp to show Catherine the miracle I had witnessed and when I tried to find the pictures on my phone, they were gone-- total technical failure-- and it was my fault, I had pressed something and lost them all, the greatest nature photos ever snapped . . . and that's pretty much how school feels so far this year.
Trump = Toxins = No One Cares
The El Presidente Trump Train-wreck throws up such a cloud of dust that important things just slip under the radar . . . lest we forget, the E.P.A. is run by a former industrial coal lobbyist-- a Trump appointee, of course-- and the agency recently relaxed standards "for how coal-fired power plants dispose of wastewater laced with dangerous pollutants like lead, selenium and arsenic, a move environmental groups said would leave rivers and streams vulnerable to toxic contamination," which would be big news in any normal political situation . . . it might even be the kind of news-- putting toxins in our potable water sources-- that a normal president (liberal or conservative) wouldn't want to touch with a ten foot pole . . . but when you live inside a dust-storm, nothing is clear enough to warrant scrutiny (might be too many metaphors in here, but who cares-- this is the new normal: a train-wreck inside a tornado of tweets and gaffes and absolute stupidity).
Some Impressions of Reopening School During a Pandemic
I'm sure things will shape up, but some of the first impressions of school reopening during a pandemic:
1) the filthy carpet in my room was NOT removed (though this was promised)
2) there was no inspirational speech from the administrators about how we are essential employees risking our lives in a hot, poorly-ventilated building . . . in fact, there was very little acknowledgment that there's an airborne global pandemic going on
3) the courtyard doors and hallway windows were NOT open . . . so we're not even pretending that fresh air is a good idea . . . weird
4) we are just recognizing that our "classes" are going to consist of 0-3 students . . . the rest will be virtual, so I think most kids who do come to school are going to opt-out when they realize they are getting the same experience as the virtual kids (aside from having to sit in a poorly ventilated room while wearing a mask, in close proximity to a sweaty teacher also wearing a mask)
5) we were not really trained on how to teach virtually
6) we were not really trained on Microsoft Teams (which we were instructed to use instead of Zoom) so a couple of savvy teachers tried to show everyone the ropes (thanks Liz and Cunningham!)
7) we weren't really trained in how to set up all the tech to teach virtually-- I think you've got to cast your laptop to the projector and use your learning platform on the desktop (but I just figured this out at the 11th hour . . . thanks Eric!)
8) school is about to start and our classes aren't populated in Canvas, we don't know how to take attendance, and we don't understand the basic expectations for virtual classes
9) we might be required to clean the classroom between classes-- this was mentioned at a board meeting but no administrator said it directly to the teachers
10) we are supposed to wear masks all the time-- unless we are alone in a room . . . but that ain't happening
11) we're not sure where or when we should eat
12) we are not being tested for COVID, nor are the students
13) several teachers cried
14) I wear a really porous homemade reversible mask which I like to flip over when it gets damp and Cunningham did an amazing impression of me turning it inside out in front a pretend student and then touching the wet side and discussing it . . .
15) we haven't gotten are headsets yet, but we are getting headsets
16) we met the new director of ILA, she said something about "Jamboard" and then the principal came over the intercom and drowned her out
17) there was lots of feedback in the virtual meetings
18) it's quite a workout to stack all the desks in the back of the class
19) we received some 11th-hour training on Microsoft Teams on Friday, but the classes aren't merged and I still don't know how to take attendance . . .
20) most of the answers to questions are "we'll see" "or "that might synch eventually"
21) all the stress was worth it because I got to go sit outside with all my lady friends at The Grove and enjoy a Friday Happy Hour . . . despite the long hiatus, Cunningham was in full-on appetizer-ordering form!
Pandemic Education = Dave in the Corner (with the creepy handprints)
Your Worst Nightmare (in the form of a song)
Nothing is worse than knowing people have been talking behind your back . . . aside, perhaps, from actually hearing what they said . . . here's a new tune I just finished exploring that theme-- my buddy John says it has some "menace" to it, so be prepared.
Dave Preens His Beak
I just tweezed that one weird hair that grows on my nose-- not in my nose, on my nose-- so I am officially ready to go back to work (first day tomorrow).
Teach Your Teenager to Think Poker
So I took up online gambling.
To many of you, I’m sure this sounds like a terrible decision, but I wasn’t alone. Online poker is legal in New Jersey, and the poker sites experienced a lot of extra traffic during the pandemic. This was great for the regulars, the grinders. Easy money. Online poker is tough. There are quite a few seasoned veterans out there, so you’ve got to know what you’re doing. I was lucky not to lose my entire (albeit tiny) bankroll in the first few weeks.
At the start, I thought this was something relaxing and fun I could do in the evening while drinking a few beers, something to pass the time.
If you’re serious about learning to play poker, that’s not how it goes. Instead of cracking an IPA, you’re better off brewing a pot of coffee. This is NOT passive entertainment.
I also found that I enjoyed reading books about poker just as much (or possibly more) than I enjoyed playing poker. These books taught me to think poker. How to assess risk and reward. Compute pot odds. Analyze your position. Bet for value. Read hand combinations. How to control your emotions, and avoid tilting into madness.
And while I might sound like a reprobate, I also learned that you should encourage your kids to gamble. Placing an intelligent wager involves so many necessary skills that children need to hone — especially teenage children — that you’ve got to let them try, even if the populace calls you a corrupt degenerate.
That’s what the populace called Socrates.
If you are going to teach your kids to gamble, teach them poker. I’m sure there are valuable administrative lessons to be learned from managing a fantasy football team and rolling the bones can school you in basic probability (Roland “Prez” Pryzbylewski taught us this in The Wire). Still, none of these games require the philosophical and strategic thinking you need while playing poker, Texas Hold’em in particular.
If my son had utilized some poker logic on his epic adventure, maybe he wouldn’t have ended up cleaning all the bathrooms in our house. It’s not like I hadn’t taught him.
If Woody had gone straight to the police . . .
Before my online poker experience, I thought I was a decent poker player. I’m good at math, I like probability and statistics, and I’ve always done well when I’ve played with friends. But playing countless hands online and reading a slew of classic poker books has shown me the many, many holes in my game. Flaws in my logic and thinking. Spontaneously stupid reactions.
I get overly competitive. I make rash decisions. I’m too curious. I’m either too passive or I’m too aggressive. I play too many hands. My bet-sizing is often imprecise. I bet too much. I check too much. I call too much. I don’t bet the river enough. I could go on and on. The best way to improve at poker is through brutal self-reflection. If you don’t analyze your mistakes and play better, you will lose your money. The scoreboard is your ever-fluctuating bankroll.
Some people learn to play poker through repetition, playing countless hands for decades. This works, but it’s arduous and expensive. Some people use videos. There’s a plenitude of resources on YouTube if you’re willing to wade through them. Some people pay serious money to get coached. But I’m a high school English teacher, and so I turned to my old standby: books. I read quite a few. Due to COVID-19, there was nothing but time.
Some poker books are mathematical and tactical . . . works by David Sklansky, Dan Harrington, and Ed Miller. Some are more evocative. British poet Al Alvarez’s The Biggest Game in Town is regarded as the best book about poker ever written. It’s stylish and authentic. But it won’t help your game. Tommy Angelo and Phil Gordon are more philosophical and meditative. Gus Hansen’s bestseller Every Hand Revealed is candid and fun, in a goofy sort of way. Lots of exclamation points. In The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death, Colson Whitehead comes across as an existential grumbler. If you want ambiguity, read the essays in Full Tilt Poker. Every author has a different methodology.
The takeaway from the literature is this: poker is an entire branch of knowledge. It incorporates psychology, game theory, statistics, probability, economics, risk assessment, and character analysis. It can get really deep. If you want to hear how deep, listen to an episode of the podcast Just Hands. Jackson Laskey and James Bilderbeck dissect one hand per episode. Thirty minutes to an hour of “nebulous thoughts” on poker strategy and decision-making. They slow downtime, which is the basis of philosophical thinking.
In the moment, whether we are playing poker or living our life, we use heuristics — rules of thumb — to make our choices. We don’t have enough time to deeply analyze every decision. But if we had the time, any moment can get sticky. My point is — whether in cards or life — there’s no formula. It’s more than simply looking at your hand and throwing down a bet.
Like many of you, I was doing a lot of parenting during the pandemic. Certainly more parenting than poker. We all learned that when schools and sports and trampoline gyms are shut down, you’ve got to up your parenting game. There’s no formula on how to do that either.
I tried to encourage my two high school boys to stay active, in mind and body. To finish their remote school work. To read something other than memes and texts on their phones.
My younger son — a shy and reticent freshman who hadn’t hit puberty yet — was unfazed by the pandemic. He got his school work done, played video games and Magic and Dungeons & Dragons online with his friends, and enjoyed sleeping in. Though he was annoyed that tennis season was canceled, he was happy enough to play with me. We found some courts that didn’t close and played nearly every day. Sometimes he wandered around town with his nerdy friend Martin, but he was happy enough watching shows like Big Shrimpin’ and Silicon Valley with the family
He wasn’t worried about missing keg parties or flirting with girls.
My older son, a sophomore, was a different story. He was so angry about losing tennis season that he didn’t want to play with us. It reminded him of all the good times he was missing with his friends on the team. He recently grew seven inches (shooting past my wife and me) and he had something of a social life before the pandemic: he had a girlfriend for most of winter track season, he went to a house party and drank too much alcoholic punch (and consequently spent the night puking) and he was president of the Rocket Propulsion Club.
He was a real teenager.
While he tolerated us (we played a lot of Bananagrams) this wasn’t enough action for a sixteen-year-old man-child. And where there is action — trouble and risk — poker logic is crucial. Right?
This is always the question with an analogy. Does it hold water?
Is poker just a game, or does it have some bearing on reality?
Do pinochle and Parcheesi teach you essential life skills or are they simply ways to idle away the time? How about chess? Is football similar to modern warfare? Is hockey similar to anything?
In The Catcher in the Rye, Mr. Spencer — Holden Caulfield’s history teacher — tells Holden that “life is a game” that one plays “according to the rules.”
Holden disagrees.
“Game my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it’s a game, all right — I’ll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren’t any hot-shots, what’s a game about it? Nothing. No game.”
I empathize with Holden. Not all analogies hold up. But I’d like to make the case that poker does. Especially Texas Hold’em.
Here’s a quick primer, in case you need convincing.
Old-time poker champion Doyle Brunson called no limit “the Cadillac of poker” for a reason. There’s more on the line, more ways to play, more variation in style, and — because of the “no limit” element — it hasn’t been solved by computers. It’s a miracle of limited, but significant information.
Just like life.
Here’s how it goes. First off, everyone gets two cards, face down. These are your “hole” cards. You see them, no one else does. If you like these cards, you have the option to bet on your hand: invest in it right off the bat. You also have the option to “check” to someone else’s bet — essentially match the bet so you can continue playing. You could also brazenly raise the bet. Or you could do the opposite. You could fold. Quit the hand, before anything wild happens. This decision is yours alone.
That’s the miracle of poker. You can quit before the game even starts. Opt-out. The best poker players are the best quitters. It’s the biggest part of the game. This may sound odd, to those of you who frown upon quitting, but getting out when the getting out is good is a real skill.
We often tell children “quitters never win,” but there are many advantages to quitting that are often not promoted. The Freakonomics episode “The Upside of Quitting” explores this theme.
Now, if you’re sitting at the table, you can’t completely avoid betting. Twice per round, you are forced to bet a little bit. These are the antes. The small blind and the big blind. Otherwise, there would be no risk at all to play and you could wait forever for a pair of aces. The blinds ensure that if you don’t eventually play, you will lose all your money. You’ll be blinded out. So if you are at the table, there’s always some risk. But you can leave if you like. This isn’t Russian roulette with Robert Deniro and Christopher Walken in a Vietcong prison camp. You can always walk away from the table.
After the initial round of betting on your two hole cards, then the dealer “flops” out three shared cards. Everyone can see these. So you’ve got shared information and private information. You weigh this and decide if you want to bet, check, raise, or fold. The way the other people bet, check, raise and fold reveals information about their hands. This could be accurate information or they could be bluffing, representing cards they don’t have. You have to decide. Be careful of peer pressure, you don’t want to bet just because everyone does. You need to like your hand, at least a little bit.
Another card is turned. This card is called “the turn” because it can turn the tide of the hand. There is more betting. You can still quit! Although, mentally it gets harder to quit once you’ve come this far because you’ve put some of your hard-earned money into the pot. You want that money back, but it’s not yours any longer. It’s up for grabs. It’s hard to accept. We’ll get more into this logical fallacy later. But remember, the best poker players are the best quitters.
At any time during this process, in “no limit” Texas Hold’em, a player can bet all their money. The nuclear option. Most poker does not operate like this. There is a limit to how much you can bet. It makes it easier to compute the odds of winning the hand, versus the percentage of the money you need to bet. This “all-in” option in Texas Hold’em is what makes the game so indeterminate.
You may be able to figure out the percentages of drawing a flush, but can you figure out the percentages of the human mind? You may be able to imagine what a rational being would bet, but what about the lunatic on your right? How about the genius on your left? Is that a regular guy with a good hand, a super-genius utilizing combinatorial game theory, or a spoiled dilettante with a giant trust fund?
There’s no way to know for sure.
After the turn, one more card is revealed, for a total of five shared cards. This card is called “the river” or “fifth street.” This is the card that can make your hand. Or you can fall off the cliff, into the river and be swept away. Sold down the river. It’s an apt metaphor for this essay.
Now there are five community cards and two private cards. You choose the best five of the seven to make your hand.
The best hand wins the pot. I won’t get into what beats what . . . if you don’t know that a full house beats a straight, then I’d like to invite you to a Tuesday night Zoom poker game.
Now let’s extend the analogy in a general way. For many people, life during the pandemic was similar to playing poker.
Most of us were making calculated bets all the time. Getting together with friends in the backyard? A small bet. Outdoor seating at a restaurant? Maybe a little bigger. Playing tennis? Marching in a protest? Visiting a crowded beach? Reopening school? Who knows? All different amounts of risk and reward. Different amounts of pleasure, different amounts of action and excitement and different risks of contracting COVID.
Of course, there were old people and immune-compromised people who had to sit the game out. Some essential workers were forced to put their immune systems on the line for eight hours every day. For these people, the pandemic was not a game.
But for many of us, it was. Getting plastered in a crowded Miami bar turned out to be an all-in bet. The nuclear option. Big fun, but it’s also the highest risk to get the virus.
You could always fold your hand. If the party got too crowded, you could leave. Opt-out. If there were hordes of people inside Costco, you could come back some other time. Play another day.
My kids were playing some pandemic poker.
My younger son was playing it pretty close to the vest. Lots of online stuff. Sometimes he’d go out walking or play some tennis. Small bets.
My older son was running every day with a couple of friends. He was going over to Rutgers with his buddies and doing Rocket Propulsion stuff. He was playing video games in his friend’s backyard. Also smallish bets.
But like I said, my older son Alex was a real teenager. Half man, half child. He needed more action than that.
On a hot day in June, he went over to a friend’s house, ostensibly to play Spikeball. Thunderstorms were in the forecast. The lockdown had been going forever. No school, no organized sports, no graduation parties, no hanging out in an air-conditioned house with friends.
Around noon, Alex called and told me the two older boys — seniors — had decided to bike to Princeton. Alex was going as well. They were going to take the towpath (a.k.a. D & R Canal State Park) from New Brunswick to Rocky Hill and then bike into Princeton proper and eat lunch. It’s a long way there. Twenty-five miles. And then you’ve got to get back . . .
I told him this wasn’t a great idea and listed the reasons:It was too late in the day.
It was hot.
The forecast called for thunderstorms.
He wasn’t wearing spandex bike shorts . . . he would chafe.
He was using his younger brother’s bike, which was too small for him.
Essentially, I was explaining that this was not a great hand. Sometimes, you’ve got to be patient and wait for another.
Pete Townsend explains this in the song “It’s Hard.”
Anyone can do anything if they hold the right card.
So, I’m thinking about my life now . . .
I’m thinking very hard.
Deal me another hand, Lord, this one’s very hard.
I didn’t tell him he couldn’t go. I just clearly laid out the problems. I assumed he was bluffing. This is one of the holes in my poker game. I often think people are bluffing, pretending that their awful hand is good. I assume they will come to their senses soon enough. I want to see what happens because I think I know more than they do.
This kind of curiosity is costly.
Most of the time, people are sincere about their bets. Bluffing is counter-intuitive and feels wrong. People generally believe their hand is good enough, even if their hand is bad. They just think it’s better than it is.
My wife asked, “Did you tell him he could go?”
“I’m not sure. I think he’s going. I just told him it wasn’t a great idea.”
My wife shook her head. She hates my wishy-washy parenting. But there’s no rule book for these situations.
I should point out: this is a kid who never bikes anywhere. God knows why, but he’s opposed to biking. He likes to ride his skateboard. He borrowed his younger brother’s mountain bike for this adventure, which was too small for him. So I assumed he’d be turning back sooner rather than later.
I should have considered his company. Alex was a sophomore, and he was going on this adventure with two athletic seniors. Guys about to graduate, guys ready to leave home and go to college. Guys with a bigger bankroll than my son. There might be some peer pressure to not fold.
When Kenny Rogers sang “You got to know when to hold’em, know when to fold’em” he skipped all the psychology. You’re not playing in a vacuum. There’s pressure not to fold them! Your friends never want you to fold them. They want to see some action. Especially some action with your money. Vicarious action.
I told Alex he could turn around at any time. He was NOT all in. I would put the bike rack on the van and pick him up anywhere along the route. No problem. I would give his friends a lift as well, if they wanted to bail. I could fit all three bikes on the rack.
I figured at some point on this ride — or perhaps even before they set off — he would fold his hand. It was a bad hand, for the reasons I listed above. But I wanted him to figure that out.
Alex told me that they packed some food and plenty of water and some rain gear.
Helmet?
No helmet.
The Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park Trail is a flat path that lies between the Raritan River and the canal. It is all called the tow road because mules used to tow barges and canal boats up and down it. The canal is just a foot or two below the level of the path, but there are often cliffs down to the river. It’s not dangerous in the daytime — the path is well kept. There are occasional ruts and roots, and plenty of poison ivy on the sides of the path, but no terrain that warrants a helmet.
The no-helmet-bet is one worth making on this kind of trail. The chance you’re going to fall and crack your skull is minuscule. The pleasure of the wind in your hair is definite. And it was hot.
When’s the last time you fell while riding a bike on a straight path?
At the start of their trip, luck was on their side. They got a good flop. They made the long haul to Princeton without mishap, and the storms didn’t hit until they got into town. They grabbed some lunch, waited out the rain under an awning, and then decided to take the bus home.
They were giving up on the turn, and that was fine. Typical of so many poker hands. You open with a big bet, continue to bet on the flop, and then take stock of the situation and decide to fold. Quit before things get too intense. They could do the entire fifty-mile there-and-back-trip some other time.
My wife and I were happy with this decision, it was getting late and we figured we were going to have to drive to Princeton to give Alex a ride home. The bus was a great call. Saved us a trip in the car. The bus was supposed to leave at 6:15 PM.
I texted Alex at 6:20 PM to see if he had caught the bus. No answer. Twenty minutes later, I got a text. They missed the bus. They had decided to bike home. I called him and told him he wasn’t going to make it before dark. He insisted they would make it. If not, he said, they would get off the towpath and ride on the road. He said that his friends had flashlights. Alex did not have a flashlight, nor did he have a light on his bike.
He also wasn’t wearing a helmet, so we didn’t want him to ride on the road in the dark. We told him once it got dark, that we wanted him to stop riding the tow road — regardless of what his older friends were doing. He agreed to this. A couple of hours later, it got dark. We got in touch with him. Alex said they were near Manville — about ten miles from home — and we instructed him to get off the tow road at the nearest exit. There was a D&R Canal Trail parking lot right in Manville. We hoped to find him there. We headed west in the minivan, traveling parallel to the canal.
This where poker becomes a psychological game. Logically, he should have backed out. Folded. He had put a lot of time and effort in, it was a lot of fun, but it was over. Pitch black and he was riding along a river. But many people — including myself — often have trouble leaving an interesting hand. You’ve invested so much. People throw good money after bad. Alex decided to go all-in on the river. This was a bet we didn’t want him to make, but circumstances pressured him into it. This happens sometimes. You should know when to fold’em, but when no one else is folding their hand, sometimes your last card doesn’t matter. You blindly bet the last card because you are married to the bet. You can’t back out . . . even though you can. How could he leave these two senior boys? They were pot-committed into biking from Highland Park to Princeton and back, and they were going all-in. Alex told us they discussed the risks and rewards of this play. He knew he was going to get grounded, but wanted to make the entire trip. This is what separates the best players from the good players. They can back out of a hand even when they’ve invested a great deal of time and energy into it. Alex knew the right thing to do but still couldn’t bring himself to do it.
So my wife drove the van, while I navigated a route as close to the river as possible. I texted Alex. No answer. And he didn’t have his phone location on. We lost touch with him. He wasn’t at the Manville parking lot, so we started driving around, finding places where the canal path intersected with the road. I could see the path through the trees, and occasionally make out the silhouettes of fishermen or hikers. No group of kids on bikes, though. It was getting darker and darker.
We were hoping to stumble on him at one of the bridges or park entrances, but no such luck.
My wife and I both certainly had some grim thoughts running through our heads. While the path was easy enough to navigate in the daytime, at night it was a different story. There were roots and occasional potholes and it was surrounded on both sides by water. There were steep drops to the river, which was rocky. The canal is deep. And our son wasn’t wearing a helmet. If he fell, hit his head, and slid into the river or the canal, that would be an ugly situation.
My wife decided if we didn’t get in touch with him by 10 PM, we were calling the police. I agreed.
We finally heard from him at 9:30. The nick of time. He told us they had screwed up the location and were closer than they thought, well past Manville. We found him and the other boys in Johnson Park, which is a mile from our house.
Alex was grounded for the week. He had a list of chores longer than his arm (sometimes it’s nice when the kids get in trouble).
It’s too bad because he almost didn’t get into any trouble at all. He would have had a great story and been on an epic adventure, and suffered no consequences. He just needed to use his poker logic.
I told him this was a situation where he “stayed married to the bet” and “threw good money after bad.” One of the most important things in Texas Hold’em is to be aggressive — to go for it — and then if you know you are beaten, get out of the hand. Fold. He did the reverse, he went all-in with a questionable hand.
Alex understood this. He made a sequence of bad decisions, starting with taking off towards Princeton at noon. But if he quit the sequence at any point . . . if they all turned around earlier, if they took the bus, if he got off the path and called us with his location before the sun went down, if he did any of those things, he would have been a hero. When you make a really difficult fold, they call it a “hero fold” because it’s so difficult to back out of a situation like this. Understanding this and actually making the fold are two very different things.
This is what he needed to do . . . he needed to recognize he was with two eighteen-year-olds that were headed to college and didn’t have to live with their parents for the foreseeable future. They could go all-in with fewer consequences. They had a bigger bankroll. The peer pressure got to him, and that’s fine. It happens. I did plenty of stupid stuff like that as well when I was young. There were plenty of times when I should have folded them, but I didn’t.
So Alex paid off his bet, cleaning cabinets in the kitchen, weed-whacking, etc. Maybe he learned a lesson? I also didn’t mention that his buddy Liam — the younger brother of the senior wrestler — wisely decided to stay home. He didn’t even play that hand. When you’re dealt a lousy hand, sometimes you fold immediately — you don’t get on a bike on a hot humid stormy day and head to Princeton without a helmet. But then, of course, you’re not gambling. And what fun is that?
Running to the Border (Without the Runs)
Last night my son Alex took over the cooking duties-- and while it's hard to watch . . . he's lefty, he doesn't know how to safely use a knife, and he made an extraordinary mess-- he did whip up some amazing Crunch War Supremes . . . a homemade version of the Taco Bell stoner treat; he started with a big tortilla, put some lettuce and homemade salsa on it, lay a hard tostada over the crunchy stuff, spread some black beans on the tostada, then taco meat and cheese, wrapped the tostada inside the big tortilla in a hexagonal shape, then flipped it and grilled it-- so the cheese melts into the meat, but the salsa and lettuce stay cool and crunchy and everything is safe inside the tortilla casing . . . delicious!
Robert Heinlein Probably Thought of It First
I thought I had a great idea for a sci-fi novel: several generations into an incredibly long interstellar voyage, the younger denizens of the self-sustaining starship rebel against the futility of their role in the mission-- they feel a deep ennui about their rather pragmatic purpose to live, propagate, and die in space . . . allowing some future kin to inhabit a distant world; they recognize that the ship is their entire universe and that their life is simply a part of a much longer trip . . . it's symbolic or metaphorical or something, but then I didn't a little internet research and found out that this book has already been written and it's far better than anything I could imagine; Robert Heinlein's novel Orphans of the Sky skips the symbolism and feelings . . . the mutiny on the interstellar generational ship happened long ago, and now there is a superstitious pre-technological civilization living within the ship-- there are oligarchical "captains" and "scientists," but they don't do much of either-- as they believe the ship IS the entire universe and can't really understand the ancient texts, most of which are labeled heretical, and then there are the mutants and the illiterates and they all come into conflict and create a new order . . . the book is fast-moving and short and I highly recommend it (it's cheap for the Kindle).