Yes indeed, there I am, danaimmanuel, inside the twitter box.

Henceforth as random things occur to me during the day, they will be reported in the little Twitter thingy below instead of being left to fester inside my mind. Please go ahead and follow me, in the parlance, if you'd like to receive messages of vast importance, find out what I really think of various professional poker players, witness my occasional total meltdowns, etc.

Just to clarify to those folks on my mailing list who received an email from me claiming a gig "This Tuesday! In Soho!" - this was purely because I'm too stupid to change the title on my mailouts, and the whole 'this Tuesday' bit should be disregarded. The correct date for the show is indeed November 9th, making, "Monday After Next! In Soho!" a more appropriate sort of title.

So, to clarify:

Monday November 9th, 2009
Curious Generation @ The Source Below
11 Lower John Street, London W1F 9TY
Tickets £6 or £5 in advance from http://www.curiousgeneration.com

...So following directly on from my last blog instalment, upon returning to the UK with a sad broken banjo and zero compensation from the fucking Easyjet customer relations idiots, I took my banjo in to one Mr Michael Cameron, apparently resident of the basement at the Hobgoblin music store in central London.

I give you, before:




And for the sake of completeness, I give you after:




The job that my new friend Mr Cameron has done is, as I'm sure you can see, nothing short of masterful. It's almost invisible, and it plays like a dream. He even restrung it for me. And all this for a mere £60, not even enough to make it worth my while claiming on my travel insurance.

So please, for all your banjo repair needs, go see Mr Cameron. He said it was worth it for the smile on my face.

I am playing a show tomorrow night at De Heeren Van Aemstel just off Rembrandtplein. This is good, and you should all come along.

However, Easyjet has murdered my banjo. It is dead. It is in several distinct pieces. I want to cry. No-one can fix it until Wednesday, and the one guy who could rent me a banjo has a note on his door saying that he's away until Tuesday.

So...

If you or anyone you know has access to a banjo, could I borrow it for the night? I can pay in CDs and drinks and possible snacks back at my brother's place afterwards. This is an emergency, and my gratitude if you can help me out will be eternal and immeasurable. Otherwise I'm going to have to butcher my own banjo songs trying to play them on a guitar.

Thanking you in advance,

Dana.

A conversation between me (currently at the Warsaw EPT) and my dad (probably reading the papers and muttering):


Dad:

Dear Dana,
Sitting at the edge of the kitchen table, chatting over clementinas with
Mum, I wondered how you are? How's it going in Poland? Are the cards being
shuffled properly? I understand that can make a big difference. Is there
stuffed cabbage on the menu? Is it tasty? Are they treating you well?
Weather OK? Nice room?
Love & kisses from a dark & cold London
Dad
ps Mum sends her love through the cyberspace


Me:

Hello hello, I'm meant to be working but there are only 5 minutes left of the level and it doesn't really seem worth going the 3 floors down to the underground casino now.

Everything is good here, my hotel is very pleasant and I am very excited about the novelty of having my own room. Although the rest of the press are staying at the poncy hotel which houses the casino, which I'm a bit jealous about. Never mind, my hotel is perfectly pleasant, and much improved since I asked them for a kettle and bought a jar of instant coffee.

Have not yet eaten any Polish food to speak of. At least, I'm not very sure what I've eaten. I stole a plate of duck in some kind of berry sauce with a variety of interesting salads from someone else's buffet this morning, very tasty, but mainly we have been eating the endless sandwiches, coleslaw and cherry cupcakes that magically appear from time to time in the press room.

Let me know if you'd like anything from Poland -- odd sausages, cherry cupcakes, etc.

x


Dad:

Dear Dana,
No sausages thanks. What do they make in Poland apart from flat pack
furniture for IKEA. Bring me a postcard of the Warsaw ghetto
When are you getting back? Mum wants to offer you a lift (except Wednesday)
xxx Dad
ps We are going to hear Leonard Cohen at the Albert Hall on Monday. I
can't believe I paid £100 a ticket


Me:

Not sure what they make here. Unusual salads, by the looks of it. And vodka. Polish people are weird. There are a few A-list-in-Poland celebrities playing the tournament, all extremely odd people. Weirdest one is a Polish pop star called Michal Wisniewski. I understand he's sold 20 million records in Poland, which is impressive as I didn't think there were 20 million people in Poland. In spite of having rather good hair, he seems like a bit of a twat. I'm certain that if you search for him on Youtube you'll find something hilarious.

I'll do my best on ghetto photos, but I have to say it's a bit unlikely unless one can be found on the walk from my hotel to the casino. Will try. Kristin expressed some initial surprise at how not old the buildings were, until she remembered that the whole thing got bombed in WW2. Oops. I'm coming back Thursday morning, arriving at Luton maybe 9am? Something like that. Please tell mum I will be very grateful for a lift of any kind, Luton or West Hampstead or similar would be fantastic.

Have fun at Leonard Cohen! You might run into my friend Tom there. Tell him hi if you do. He tried to get me to shell out £100 and I refused, and I laughed at him. He looked a bit crestfallen. I suspect he may be going on his own. Tell him that Snoopy's forking out a similar sum to go to a wrestling convention on his own. That might make him feel better. Or it might not.

Further ramblings to my degenerate flatmate:

"Congratulations on the big wad of cash; I am certain you will have a good time with it. Definitely you will have a better time than we will be having next week. Sigh.

In the meantime, we have had a most delightful day. I hurt myself with the Rio buffet this morning, and then we strolled around the strip, where I discovered a shop called Bettie Page selling retro 50s girly clothes, and I blew $150 on a silly dress and some ludicrous shoes that I can't walk in. Yay! I walked around our room at the Rio in them for a bit, but decided my feet couldn't deal with the walk across to the Gold Coast in them so I took them off and boringly wore flat shoes all night.

Bit disappointed by the Gold Coast, I thought it would be like the Orleans, and it is in many ways, but I think that the Orleans, being all on its own at the end of a road apparently notorious for crack dealers and drive-by shootings, seems to be content with what it is. The Gold Coast, however, sandwiched as it is between the Rio and the Palms, seems to be suffering from some sort of complex. Also, it's full of really old people, and people who seem to be injured in some way, and loads of Chinese people playing pai gow. Nevertheless, they served me a rather good hamburger, and their pina coladas are absolutely lethal. Well worth the $5 I lost accidentally playing a slots game with Snoopy's money. Also they have a liquor store not quite as extensively stocked as the one at the Orleans but among the selection is 100 proof Old Grand Dad for $15, and they're open til 2am and all night Friday and Saturday. This is truly the land of the free.

If you're awake at all I'll be on msn until I pas out in maybe half an hour. Come say hi!"

Emails exchanged between me and my degenerate flatmate in the last couple of days.


Degenerate flatmate:

"With your departure, the last string tying me to any sort of routine snapped with a pinging noise. Today, as in right now, I got up at 3:30am. Oh dear. I may not make it to the Gutshot after all. Played 'Dream Chronicles 2: the eternal maze' yesterday - I recommend it! I bought the damn thing so if you want my login details to get it free (don't know if it's Mac-compatible) let me know...

I am just about to have a little root around for another one...you're right, it's much harder with just one pair of tired eyes looking for tiny tiny little items. Oh, the items!

My mum called from the States, and emailed me TWICE to make sure I was coming to pick her up on Friday. It's like she doesn't trust me or something.

Please try one of those enormous drinks which come in yard-sized luminous pink plastic flasks with enormous straws sticking out of them. I think they are only $5 or so and they look ridiculous. Tell me what it tastes like. Oh, and if you don't get a chance, we have to go on the Big Shot on the top of the Stratosphere when I get there. Sick sick sick. Do it even though Snoopy probably won't. I have booked the Wynn (naughty me) for the first five days of my stay in Vegas so do come sample the room service etc. etc. You guys can stay in my enormous bed if you need to.
The shower is something I dream of.

Right, I have some mindless pointing and clicking to do.


Me:

Oh dear. Have you considered forcing yourself out of bed during daylight hours? That's what I usually do. It's painful at the time, but it means you feel a bit less dirty for the rest of the day...

Nevertheless I commend you on your pointy-clicky prowess. That game sounds most awesome, but I fear I won't have much time to piss about from tomorrow on, sigh. Plus I've really got into Darkmans (good for my soul) and video blackjack (less good for my soul, but I've totally got the hang of it and I'm only down about $5 - Snoopy has been experimenting with a Betting System and is consequently down about $50). The weather here is currently Awesome - a slightly sweaty but not actually prohibitive 24 degrees or so meant that we could actually walk around. We went on the big rollercoaster at NY NY, and then stumbled around the following establishments: Hooters Casino (believe), the Tropicana, MGM Grand, Excalibur, Luxor, Mandalay Bay, assorted parking lots and dangerous main roads, In N Out Burger, the Adult Superstore (where they sell a Chest Pillow - a pillow shaped like a man's chest with one arm sticking out so that you can pretend you're being tenderly embraced by a dead man - also a device called Ben-Wa Balls, which in light of the Chris Benoit tragedy tickled Snoopy most horribly, metaphorically), a gas station grocery store with slots, and back to the Orleans, all on foot in glorious daylight. Also we saw Forbidden Kingdom - much better than I thought it would be. Involves Jackie Chan and Jet Li, and concerns immortal Taoist monk silliness. Very enjoyable.

The Wynn sounds awesome. We deliberately avoided it today thinking that we'd come hang out with you there when you arrive. When are you arriving, by the way? I'm not sure that Snoops and I are going to have the same days off, so I'm going to have to hang around with someone otherwise I'm going to piss away all my money on the video blackjack.

Come soon!


Degenerate flatmate:

The wonderful wizard of my mum at the airport. Got up 4:30am today, so gradually, oh so gradually, easing into a more userfriendly cycle. I set my alarm for 8am but didn't need it as it turns out. At least I'm nice and awake and coffeed up and sober for the Heathrow drive.

Soooo I saw the countdown timer on PokerNews counting down to your Time of Work (I sort of half thought you might have already started, but no. Booring). Everyone will be hanging on your every preferred-media-partnery word! Surely that's kind of cool, in an unfair look-at-me sort of way!

I played another of the bigfishgames: Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery Of the Persian Carpet or some such. It's very very taxing. Kids would feel hard done by if they chose that one by accident. How's the bourbon holding up? I am hungry. I really hope Ben has sort of cleaned the kitchen. My mum just off a plane is a whole new level of martyry whinging.

If I'm still awake in 12 hours or so I will check out the start of your coverage. Let me know if it's not as hard work as you thought and I'll nip on Skype too. But for now, it's multiple coffee (but not so much the drive is a loo-wishing torture experience), some snacks and off to the airport, which I feel is my second home. I hope my mum has brought candy. Mmm candy.

See you later, hope you partied muchly (been reading the Homer Odyssey)

Jen


Me:

Have to say the partying has thus far been fairly minimal in terms of ludicrous drunkenness, outlandish behaviour etc. We're the only Pokernews people staying at the Rio so I don't think we have the same kind of camaraderie going on as Pokerlistings, although Pokernews did treat us to a vast slap-up Southern barbecue buffet in the suburbs today. Leftovers in fridge for when we can handle them.

Meetings were incredibly loooong and boooring and put the fear of Gooooooddd in me, but one awesome thing is that we're down on the schedule to have the next three days off. Hurrah! Another good thing is that they've got me and Snoops working as a team for at least the first week, so I have someone to share my days off with. Less good is that on Monday we're doing the PLHE for 3 days (fine) and then immediately with no day off we're doing the Omaha 8/Stud 8 for 3 days (not fine at all). I am mortally afeared. I don't even really know how to play that. We may well end up working 9 days solid...

So am determined to enjoy my days off right now. Current plan is to treat ourselves to the Rio buffet tomorrow and then go get drunk somewhere. We might just end up back at the Orleans, where I must confess we went tonight - attempted to get food at the Rio but everything seemed to be shut so we took the bus to Caesar's Palace where everything was shut except for one really expensive-looking cafe with a queue outside it, so we took a cab to the Orleans, ate $3.95 steak and eggs, won small on the video blackjack with bonus free daiquiris and took a cab back to the Rio for what amounted to a more or less free night out. I miss the Orleans. It's way nicer than here.

Anyway, I've still got half a bottle of bourbon so I'm going to have a private party on the sofa while Snoopy's watching the Sopranos.

Btw in hi-lo does a straight count as low?

Fuck, I am so out of my depth. Three days off! Tra la la.

Man. I have done a very foolish thing, namely, sign up for a month in Vegas covering the World Series Of Poker for pokernews.com. I fell into poker journalism by accident (desperation for money (playing the banjo doesn't always pay the bills, and will likely give you RSI); nepotism; an ability to channel misanthropic rage into entertaining prose), and after a couple of years of cheerful freelancing for a variety of companies that really don't seem to check up on what I'm writing at all, I now find myself Official Partner Media at the WSOP. Crap.

I've worked for Pokernews before. Cushioned by many months of semi-relaxed opinionating and agressive photoshopping for blondepoker, imagine my horror when my day covering the Premier League Poker final for Pokernews involved 13 hours of more or less non-stop hand-for-hand reporting. This is hardcore...

By the way, for anyone in Europe planning a trip to Vegas, or in fact anywhere in the US, I can wholeheartedly recommend the following:

1) Book yourself a direct flight, even if it means adjusting your dates/budget

2) Make sure that your flight leaves some time in the morning

3) Stay up all night before your flight playing rubbish games on the internet and watching TV

4) Somehow talk your saintly best friend into driving you to the airport

5) Once onboard, immediately cocoon yourself in a soothing wrapper of airline blanket, in-ear headphones, eye-mask and sleeping pills

6) Awake only slightly groggy as you are arriving at your destination.

Oh my god it beats listening to weird ranty old ladies and screaming babies for 10 painful hours.

As I hinted at, we had to adjust our dates a bit to get a reasonable price on the flights, so we have a couple of days to acclimatise/piss about. Pokernews are only covering our room at the Rio from the day after tomorrow so we're at the cheap and cheerful Orleans for two nights. The theming here is pleasingly half-arsed, and for a big Vegas casino resort type jobbie, it's actually rather nice. The soothing ambience was only slightly marred by me accidentally checking us into a non-smoking room - Snoopy had crawled into bed and I'd abused the coffee facilities by the time I realised my mistake and we had to shift all our proverbial and actual baggage back down to reception and then up the 17th floor to more smoker-friendly accommodation. Apparently I owe Snoopy some brownie points now.

Anyway, we largely spent the day wandering dazedly and gawking at things. We ate some Chinese food. Snoopy ended up 75c up on the video blackjack at the bar, mostly owing to him accidentally pressing the Bet Max button at an auspicious moment. We saw a movie at the 18-screen cinemonster they somehow manage to fit into the Tardicious first floor. We arrived a little too late for the 99c margaritas - booo - but the Orleans has its own liquor store, with rock-bottom prices that make this hardened embittered London girl weep. I am well into my $12 bottle of Old Grand-Dad, and having a most wonderful time. Hope it stays this way through the month of endless poker coverage that is to follow. At least I brought my guitar...

Thanking you kindly for your votes, support etc - the Indy Awards shortlist was announced today, and I’m on it, like so:

So very muchas gracias from me, dear friends, it has warmed my heart and cheered my day. The winners will be chosen by some kind of expert panel arrangement, and will be announced at a Gala Ceremony at the Forum in Kentish Town on April 25th, when, um, I’m going to be in Chicago on holiday. Oops. But thanking you! I appreciate it more than you know, and will keep everyone updated on whether I win it from holiday...

Love,

Dana.

Hello my pretties -

I’d like to invite you all down to the Perseverance in Marylebone tomrrow night March 14th to hear me play some good old acousticky let’s-round-it-up-and-call-it-country music. Tunes from 8, beer all day because it’s that sort of place...

Then on March 27th I would urge you to bring yourselves and, if you got ’em, your dogs, to the Mucky Pup in Islington - it is London’s most dog-friendly pub, and also one of its simultaneously strangest and pleasantest. Food is available and the stage is a part-time converted pool table in the back; also there is a "smoking section" ("yard") and some interesting wildlife - last time I was there I was (through no fault of the pub, I should add - I think I smelled of wet dog or something) bitten on the leg by an unidentified bug I swear looked like a plague doctor... Anyway, should be a hilariously good night.

And last but most definitely not least, please be aware of the new photo album I have made, full of flyers for upcoming stuff! The first one (for the 100 Club) I would urge you to look at posthaste - the promoter assures me that not only is it cheaper for you buy tickets in advance (£8/advance, on the door £10/flyer £12/without) but that it will also probably sell out. The extraordinary Thomas Truax (master of the Sister Spinster and other homemade, unlikely musical instruments, all the way from New York City) and the awesome Flipron (weird weird weird psychedelic pseudo-country strangeness, used to selling out all sorts of venues) are topping the bill, plus I will have a most unusual band in tow (mandolins and church organ and three part harmonies!) - it really is going to be unmissable, and you wouldn’t want to go and miss something like that, would you? Check out the headliners at http://www.myspace.com/flipron and at http://www.myspace.com/thomastruax .

So yes. I’ve got plans to be in the studio this weekend with some of my favourite people to play with, so news on that as soon as it’s ready. In the meantime, please don’t forget to vote for me in the Indy Awards if you haven’t already had a chance to do so - I will vastly appreciate it as every vote counts and all that malarkey, so go ahead and click the banner a little way down on my page. I have had massive support thus far from all you fine people who live inside Myspace, and also the poker community of Great Britain. Wooo, go poker community! Will obviously let everyone know/have a big party if I win it...

Until tomorrow, dear friends.

Dana.