Liquor in the Front, Poker in the Rear

First week in the blogosphere was an eye-opening experience for the Happy Booker. Yeah, yeah, it’s a well known fact that everyone has a blog these days, but most are not as cool as the litbloggre cadre I have stumbled upon—appreciative props and many thanks to shaken & stirred for the warm cyber welcome today! Check out the bloglists on my site and you’ll see what I mean.

Dave Navarro, six-string badass of Jane’s Addiction, has his own blog. How do we know this? Because, as clueless as The Happy Booker is about the lives of ne’er-do-well rock guitarists, she currently holds an advanced degree in Celebrity Poker Showdown, where Navarro proved himself a ballsy player, making it to the championship round and capturing our attention. The man has some serious poker skills.

For those who are scratching their heads about Celebrity Poker, think Jon Favreau’s Dinner for Five, with less smoking. Weekly, on CPS, five “celebrities” (insert: glad-handing “B”-list pop icons and sitcom retirement home flunkees) vie for a piece of the $250,000 action in a game of No Limit Texas Hold’em poker, played for the charity of their choice.

Sound fascinating yet? Tune in next week when Fred Willard opens a can of whupass on Malcolm Jamal Warner and you’ll quickly understand its allure…

For Poker memoirs, the best of breed is Katy Lederer’s Poker Face, a Girlhood Among Gamblers. A poet from the Iowa program, Lederer—who happens to be the little sister of poker champs, Howard Lederer and Annie Duke—renders a bittersweet portrait of the landscape of professional gamblers, capturing the full tilt spectrum of addiction, in all its complexity. From East Coast boarding school to Vegas lowlife, Lederer’s spare and unsentimental approach to her own life among gamblers is worth noting.

A more testosterone-laden approach to life at the poker table, is
Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker, by James McManus.While on assignment for Haper’s, McManus gambles his entire story advance on a long shot chance at the big table, gaining an insider’s edge when covering the World Series of Poker. The gambit pays off in the form of a well-written bestseller about the seedy underworld of the Vegas poker scene. While it runs a bit heavy toward True Crime for my delicate constitution, McManus has written one of the most comprehensive books about poker today.

For those who still can’t get enough, there's always McSweeney's,where you can subscribe to writer Stephen Elliot’s poker report.

And yes, I am feeling much better, thanks for asking. The dreaded catarrh has left the building—huzzah!

Comments

[Dan Wickett]

You can also be sure to catch ESPN's Tilt on Thursdays at nine o'clock and repeated at ten o'clock.

It was developed and produced by Brian Koppelman and David Levien. Brian is the husband of Amy Koppelman, author of Mouthful of Air - a great novel about a woman with post-partum depression.

Enjoy,

[Scott]

Where I'm from (south of Canada, north of Iowa, and west of Wisconsin) that dogs-playing-poker painting adorned many a paneled basement wall. Unironically. Sometimes across the room from the soft-focus head shot of Jesus with the wavy hair.