BPM Smith Blog Archive: Rants from a DJ... Author... Journalist

Not my idea of ‘broken beats!’

Last Sunday while driving to the weekly No Limit Hold ‘Em tournament at Artichoke Joes the Drum & Bass rumbled so loud I couldn’t even hear my crew buddy Dave calling on the cell phone. The bass rippled up and down my back. That’s nothing unusual, just the way I’m living. But then on Wednesday night I am trying to drive out of gridlock traffic in San Francisco to the smooth tunes of Klute and realize, wait a minute, there’s no bass. WTF! Just drums and background layers but no separation. No punch to the bass lines. Maybe I blew one of the amps, maybe a wire is out, who knows? The B in BPM stands for break, not fix, and so after this Vegas trip it’s hitting the shop. Meanwhile my Pioneer stereo is slumming it like a crackhead at a Minor Threat show.

So yeah, Vegas is drawing close now. After escaping these media salt mines it’s the Word ‘N’ Bass Show on Friday night starting at 10 pm, a dinner party with The Fam (happy birthday Mom and Nick!), and then we are outta here like last year. A coworker recently joked that one day I’ll hit a poker tournament and never return. Hmm. That’s right baby! After the World Series of Poker Main Event I’m buying a beach house in Thailand, rounding up all the smoking hot Thai chicks, hiring a midget butler and building the phattest D&B studio ever. And oh yes, finishing that novel Bistro de Mars. PS: Just bought some production software to drop newly cooked up bass bombs - anyone know how to use this shit?
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Broke attention whore OJ leaks ‘If I Did It’ -- coming soon on eBay!

Remember last year when that old geyser Rupert Murdock "developed a conscience," canned OJ Simpson’s proposed book ‘If I Did It’ and then threw Judith Regan into the fire? Strange the written word can actually still shock folks in this post-post modern era but hey, there is a limit to bad taste. A copy of OJ’s manuscript about killing his wife Nicole Brown Simpson got leaked to TMZ, and by leaked I mean OJ Fed Exed it to them. The worst part?

"Now I was standing in Nicole’s courtyard, in the dark, listening to the loud, rhythmic accelerated breathing of my own heart… The whole front of me was covered in blood, but it didn’t compute. Is this really blood?" If this is fiction it's blah, but since we all know OJ did do it, it is flat out creepy. In related news, Paul "Eskimo" Clark keeled over at the World Series of Poker for the second time this week while playing a hand. Odds are 2/1 he had a stroke. Or a heart attack. Or both. But when paramedics arrived Eskimo declared he’s good to go and resumed playing. "All in, baby!"
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Internet poker is a mob of drunken bums!

The 2007 World Series of Poker has begun and I'm gearing up for my first appearance, at the No Limit Hold ‘Em event Phil Helmuth won last year. That’s not ‘til July 2, so meantime I discovered America Online is hosting free satellites for a seat in the Main Event. Keep in mind this is a general interest website, so you’re playing against thousands of people who have no coherent strategy. Yes, they are easy fish to fry individually, but in massive numbers that’s like crashing a shopping cart through a mob of drunken bums. It took four satellites before I made the top 100 (16th out of 5,000 players) and no, I didn’t win their Main Event. In all, this Internet poker thing is cool in principal but I’d rather play at a real casino where you can interact with people and the suck-outs aren’t so absurdly common. In fact, I’ve decided that Internet poker can damage your game because you start analyzing the play of dunce caps instead of good players. And that makes as much sense as playing blackjack while Lindsay Lohan swallows your sword.
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The old lion stakes his turf - Goldie drops bass on China!

Somewhere on this blog last year I predicted that 2007 would be the year Drum & Bass broke into China. It’s big in places you wouldn’t really expect like Japan and Russia, but never took off in South Korea. I hear some DJs played there and the club kids didn’t know what to make of the faster BPMs and heavy lows. But this DNB thing is truly global and almost on cue, Goldie and MC Lowqui just played Shanghai. New frontiers baby! If anyone was gonna do it why not the man who composed the all-time classic and uberinfluential album Timeless.
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How’d I get into this swanky joint!

Well, well, well. Here I miss the WORD’N’BASS Show one week due to a Montreal trip and they pull a surprise and clean out the 104.1 FM studio. Friday night it was back to the biznis of mixing heavy bass and not only does the studio have a new plush couch and speakers -- we can now bounce in total surround sound with bass flowing from each wall -- we’ve got new recording equipment that’ll make it easier to deliver more audio here at the WNB HQ.

Since my studio sidekick Abdul is even more technically incompetent than me, a fellow DJ Danell actually sat in during the entire show and demonstrated how to record my Downtempo and Drum & Bass sets on this new software. Danell is a techie wizzard with a faux mohawk and a love of all music. He's also one of those bass-heads who closely listens to your mixing and says things like, "That was a sweet transition. That shows talent." We also had a half dozen 19-year-old raver types show up "to check out the studio" but by then I was turning over the decks to Danell, who mixes "philosophical Hip Hop." Which I don’t really get but it sure sounded phat. If this means the equipment elves will show up everytime I go MIA I should hit the road more often.
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The highs and lows of Montreal!

After a week of madness in Montreal I am back in the SF Bay. This is what I get for not leaving y’all a heads-up before bailing to the airport: average hits at poor little WORD’N’BASS last week dropped from 2,500 per day to half that, and yes I got the message. Back to work bitch!

Lots of excitement happened during my absence. Allison Winn Scotch launched her debut novel and Andrea Portes hit the road on her own book tour. She’s in the SFC on Monday so give her a holla at Bazaar Café! Meanwhile one of my very favorite Drum & Bass producers Klute has a brand spankin’ new album which I’ll get to this week, and there’s an up and coming UK D&B crew that sent an announcement they’re going global. Enough hints to get you kids back at the site this week?

On the DJ... Author... Journalist front, I was so absurdly busy breaking news last week I didn’t write a single word of the new novel, was too tired and loaded to spin DNB on Friday, and I ran into so many scoops I barely had time enough to pummel the mental midgets who think they’re hot shit because the meetings ran back to back. Here’s how it ended: BPM Smith wheeling a big ass suitcase and laptop through the halls of SFO in a Loro Piana suit and Dolce & Gabbana shades at midnight, ears ringing and forgetting where the parking garage went.

Highlights from Montreal: Dinner on the patio of some French restaurant whose waitresses wore short black dresses and could’ve been on the cover of Vogue; bacon wrapped scallops and cocktails at The Keg Steakhouse & Bar with an investment banker homeboy; a seven course dinner at another French restaurant and knowing half the guests, many of whom are secret contacts who dish me news "on deep background"; closing down two different cocktail parties and realizing I'm always the last one standing with a gin & tonic in hand; scoring a diamond Movado watch and some D&G shades for Sunday’s poker tournament.

Lowlights from Montreal: getting stuck overnight in Chicago and staggering down the street with a bag of McDonald’s crap instead of lobster bisque at the Ritz-Carlton; total exhaustion from working 9 am ‘til midnight daily, sleeping through the alarm and hitting a press conference 10 minutes late; inhaling a Marlboro Light backwards with the filter in flames at O'Hare Airport and thinking WTF is wrong with this cigarette?; the old geyser returning from Italy who snored in the next seat on a flight from Philly to SF. It’s sure great to be back in Oakland.
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Poker is not a fad because winning never gets old!

So much for the assumption that the poker craze is slowing down. TV ratings for poker continue to skyrocket, it’s now on networks like NBC, tournaments are sprouting up across America, Poker Yodas are quoted in newspapers, and I am getting ready to beat a bitch's ass at the 2007 WSOP. I want to play more hands and added online poker to the regular live casino tournament routine. More hands = more practice. As mentioned earlier, the online fools are nothing but punching bags and here’s the message from the web after a win Monday night:

Congratulations! You finished the tournament in 1st place. The tournament has ended. Congratulations to BPM Smith!

Cool. I also recently made my first final table of 2007 at a real casino, Artichoke Joes here in the SF Bay, and they seem to have added an extra couple tables to handle all the excess demand. The wait list every week was like 40 people and the natives started getting pissed. It took seven tournaments before cashing so that keeps me at exactly last year’s pace in which I cash at 15% of the tournaments entered. I want 20% or more. But it’s not gonna happen with my Golden State Warriors in the NBA Playoffs and finally getting respect from the national media. Because as long as they're in it, Sunday nights are reserved for brews, screaming drunks and overflowing sports bars. Let's not talk about the dude who started drinking at 10 am for a 7 pm tip-off, or that other guy smoking a blunt on the sidewalk outside a certain bar.

There is a solution to everything in life, including conflicts between the Warriors and poker. Example, you ask? This past Sunday I dragged my ass out of bed at 7 am to try playing a tournament at Casino San Pablo. This after five espressos and swerving around meth-head truck drivers and exploding bridges. I actually played well; bluffed at the right times and called the bluff of the Big Chip Bully with just a pair of fives to take down a big pot. But those chips disappeared after flopping two pair and going ‘all in,’only to get bounced by some Internet geek who had flopped a straight. On the flop! Long story short, playing poker early does not work. I'll have a better solution next week, when I predict (hope) the Warriors will face off against the Denver Nuggets and my homeboy Marcus Camby.
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Juggling the Warriors, brews and organic non-roids raging cows!

"I'll smoke a cigar, drink scotch and form my game plan. The more scotch I drink, the better the game plan gets." -- Warriors’ head coach Don Nelson, on how he's prepared for the Mavericks.

It’s Spring once again here in the SF Bay and the big difference between today and the past 13 years is the Warriors are in the playoffs. Yeehaw! Even though they won Game 1 by doing a fine job attacking Dirk Nowitzki, the Mavs have yet to see real Warriors basketball. How many fast break points did the Warriors score on Sunday? How many steals? And since when do the Warriors win without even breaking 100 points? Or by playing half court basketball? Rarely! So here’s my two predictions for Wednesday night: Dallas goes back to their big lineup, starts center Erick Dampier and moves Nowitzki back to strong forward, but Golden State returns to playing frenetic b-ball and beats down the Mavericks like a crackhead gangsta on a PT Cruiser.

All this excitement has disrupted my exercise routine ‘cause there’s no way I’m hitting the gym when there are pitchers of Sierra Nevada and a big game waiting. Since March Madness also scuttled a few workouts, I’m guessing many of you probably hit the same fitness doldrums recently. So I am here to help with advice. Schedule workouts around the NBA Playoffs. Example: I’d like to watch the Suns and the Nuggets win their respective series (bigups Marcus Camby!) but will instead workout like a madman on days when the Warriors do not play. So on Tuesday instead of a pitcher of beer I drank a smoothie, lifted weights to the rippling beats of Klute and ran wind sprints at Lake Merritt. The reward? Beer on Wednesday and a shotgun lounge seat with the Warriors on tap at George and Walt’s! Want more than fitness advice? Here’s my regular smoothie recipe, which provides a fantastic energy burst before working out:

BPM Smith’s Non-Roids Raging Smoothie

1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
1 banana
½ cup chopped mellon
12 blueberries
6 ice cubes
4 oz organic yogurt, made from non-roids raging cows
2 tablespoons organic flax seeds

Directions: puree 1 minute in blender. Drink while rambling on your blog about stuff totally unrelated to Drum & Bass, literature, poker or the adorable Bijou Phillips, then hit the weights motherfucker! PS: I hope y'all enjoy my latest mix! After rolling the DNB phatties 'til 3 am and then staying up til 5 am the following night I woke up a couple days later realizing that 'Saturday morning' actually means 'Monday night'.
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420 means the Drum & Bass will go boom!

Happy 420 my friends! Friday is an especially fine day for the calendar to signal the 20th of April because nobody has to worry about vaporizing into that cloud of Phillies Blunts and ending up a mental midget Saturday morning. Just enjoy the weekend free of your gawking bosses and professors. It’s also great because the weekly Word ‘N’ Bass Show on 104.1 FM is tonight at 10 pm and there’s no better way to celebrate 420 than while mixing Drum & Bass. I am rummaging through the record stack right now and tossing only the tracks with booming bass into my shiny silver case. That means y’all can feel, not just hear the bass. So bump up the lows on your stereo, slip into your most comfy track suit and chill on the couch with your favorite Purple Urkle. It is time to take off like a rocket! And if you're not in the SF/Oakland/Berkeley area to catch the show live, no worries! Check us out on Saturday when I'll post tonight's mix and you can enjoy the beats with your hippie speed ball. Hopefully this set doesn't turn into a train wreck. PS: Happy birthday Michelle!
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Fear mongers make getting passports a crap bucket from hell!

In a couple weeks I will travel on biznis to Montreal, one of the greatest cities on Earth. That means I get to drag my expense account to the Ritz-Carlton, one of my favorite hotels anywhere along with the old Plaza in NYC. Then I’ll hit a few press conferences, more than a few cocktail parties, sneak away to private meetings with rich people in various bars, bistros and restaurants, and then bang out tons of news and behind-the-scenes buzz.

However, the fear mongers passed this bill that says "ALL persons, including U.S. citizens, traveling by air between the United States and Canada and a bunch of other places will be required to present a valid passport," to make our borders safer or some utter bullshit. That means you gotta call the US State Dept of Hell because you MUST set up an appointment to get your passport. They play the same Bach song over and over and a voice says, "You will be on hold longer than 5 minutes." After sitting there for 60 minutes I finally hung up and bailed, since there’s more important things to do than sit after hours at my damn desk listening to Bach and cursing these pencil pushing government sloths.

This stupid bill is another racket to get all Americans locked into a channel of government and tortured until we’re jabbering idiots. So that you recognize that they will whup your ass whenever they want. Which reminds me that today was Tax Day, when millions of Americans stress out and remember that yes, the government will make you weep in your Cheerios. And in my case they succeeded. I got so mad at these passport morons the only solution was to blast John Digweed crazy loud while hauling ass across the Bay Bridge and away from The City as fast as possible. PS: What’s an important thing to do? Settle in with some ice cold Bass while watching the Golden State Warriors beat the Dallas Mavericks. Playoffs baby!
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On Oscar De La Hoya's training camp, and the sex tape you’ll never see!

Those of you who’ve been living under a rock this year might be interested to hear that the biggest boxing match since Mike Tyson crash and burned against Lennox Lewis happens May 5, when the "Golden Boy" Oscar De La Hoya fights "Pretty Boy" Floyd Mayweather. Naturally, I am rummaging around the news sites and message boards searching for "word on the street." Their current weights: Oscar is at 164.5 lbs and Floyd at 152 lbs. Floyd’s sucking down Popeye’s Fried Chicken like a maniac since this bout is scheduled at junior middleweight, or 154 lbs., while Oscar’s got some flunkie cooking up organic grains and shit. There’s also a rumor that "Sugar" Shane Mosley is whupping on Oscar in sparring sessions down in Puerto Rico, where he decided to have training camp at home rather than his custom-made gym in the mountains of Big Bear, Calif. Two bad signs if you're leering at those 2/1 odds. Since it's clear Oscar is pussy whipped, let’s get on with the perverted stuff.

Black Sports Online has a weird story where a reporter stayed at Oscar's camp for eight days. His routine includes chasing chickens for a half hour, and his new trainer Freddie Roach doing "the full nude body greasedown massage technique on Oscar De La Hoya while fight strategy is discussed." Sounds gay yet old school. I dunno what the hell that's about. Roach also says Oscar can have sex with Millie Corretjer but not ejaculate because "this increases his aggression and ferocity in the ring. This is why... Floyd Mayweather’s getting knocked out on Cinco de Mayo." WTF? Too much information! I just want to know how his sparring is going so far and I run into this? Oscar and a smoking hot Puerto Rican pop singer having tantric sex for one hour per day? That’s a celebrity sex tape you kids won’t find on the Internet anytime soon. I am sorry to say.
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Two minutes is totally worth free beats!

Since a handful of mega corporations like Clear Channel monopolized the radio airwaves and took ownership of most stations across America, radio has gone into the shit can. Flip around the dial and you get nothing but formulaic radio stations that all play the exact same songs. Since nobody listens to traditional radio anymore, the government is trying to fuck the Internet in exactly the same way it did your radio dial. If these political pencil pushers get their way, royalty fees will get so expensive that the alternative Internet broadcasters -- who make up nearly all the sites that play Drum & Bass and other electronic music genres -- will have to shut down.

Digitally Imported recently anchored an effort to spread the word and have these senators and congressmen and women think twice about bumping up these fees to impossible levels. Because if these political morons don’t back the fuck off we’ll be left with nothing but AOL Music and other mainstream big money Internet broadcasters, since they’re the only ones who could afford $1 million or more per year getting siphoned to the Copyright Royalty Board. Yes, it’s true that nobody writes their senators because politics is boring. I know. But hitup this link and sign the petition, which will take you just two minutes. Time’s running out and this is one little thing you can do to keep the beats going on.
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JC Tran wins World Poker Challenge as BPM Smith takes a bad beat!

Well, the World Poker Challenge is over and as you’ve probably guessed by now another flameout happened for little old Team WORD’N’BASS. After arriving at the Grand Sierra Resort at 4 pm on the dot – and no, you will not learn my average speed during the manic drive but let’s just say a few slow drivers shit their pants when I blew by them in the V-8 Thunderbird – I settled into a five-hour No Limit Hold ‘Em session. About 200 players including various pros and World Series bracelet winners battled it out during my satellite for a top eight finish and a Main Event seat.

Playing against pros is actually more fun than against amateurs because they have the sense to fold when they’re behind, so there are fewer absurd suck-outs. I played with lots of guys like T.J. Cloutier (who got smoked like a Blunt before I had a chance to warm up), David Williams, JC Tran and Edward Pelligrini. That’s right, the same guy I bagged on for folding pocket aces at Bay 101 had position on me to my immediate left. Knowing he’s a tight player I ran him into the ground a couple times on stone cold bluffs. But I feel bad for capping on him now. Ed is one of the nicest pros you’ll ever meet and I learned quite a lot observing his play. He's also got a nice tribal tattoo on his forearm with diamonds, spades, hearts and clubs. The man knows how to survive long tournaments and fact is, he’s cashed at many WPT tournaments so I’ll STFU now.

Other pros like to bluff. Some Asian guy Tony, whom everyone but me seemed to know, stole one of my hands and I told him, "Nice raise... Or I should say ‘nice bluff.’" When he tried that a second time and went all-in on a King river I flat out knew he had jack shit and called with just a pair of 9s. Slam bam thank you ma’am! Five hours later we got down to the final 15 players and it was bubble time. Ed Pelligrini would’ve waited it out but y’all know I don’t play that way. After an hour of unbelievably shitty cards and lots of folding, I bagged pocket Queens and went all-in on the blinds. The small and big blinds, who were both pros I recognized from TV, both called. I was a 90% favorite to triple up and make an easy run into my first televised Main Event. Then madness happened. A guy with suited 3-5 hit a straight on the river, bouncing my ass out in 15th place, seven short of victory.

Now that I’m back in The City by the Bay, I see that JC Tran won the main event to bag over $650K. He’s playing great poker and has already made three final tables at WPT events this year. Funny thing is I barely noticed JC when he was at my table since he’s so quiet. Meanwhile, I was the loudmouth in an Adidas Superstar sweatsuit and Prada shades whom both dealers and pros asked to stop talking so much during hands. Here’s an amusing side note -- after returning to my Silver Legacy room I turned on the TV only to recognize one of the pros who’d called during my bust-out. He was playing in the 2006 WSOP Main Event. Maybe we’ll meet again in June, if I can get lucky for once. PS: I am back in the studio so tune in to the WORD ’N’ Bass Show on 104.1 FM tonight (Friday, March 30) from 10 pm to 1 am for drum & bass bombs like this!
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Here we go again!

It is time to put on my gayface, I mean game face and hit the latest World Poker Tour event for a chance at phat cash and glory. What do I mean by glory? Well, poker pro Gavin Smith dumping clam chowder all over this half-naked smoking hot model. That's what happens if you win a WPT event. That Bay 101 debacle is ancient history and now it’s time to hit the World Poker Challenge in Reno baby! Since it’s now 11 am, the car's parked in a red zone and I’ve gotta shower and be in Reno by 3 pm to sign up for my satellite, I am outta here like last year!

Needless to say, there’s no WORD & BASS Show tonight on 104.1 FM, but tune in next week for Drum & Bass and the regular fun and games. Also, when I return to the Bay Area we’ll have an interview with debut author Matthew Klein, whose got a banging new novel out. And oh yes, if I survive the satellite y’all can catch me beginning Sunday, March 25 bringing the heat at Pokerwire. They do a fantastic job covering WPT events in real time as the hands unfold. Ciao!     

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So this is why Electrosoul System's blowing up!

Since hearing that Grid Recordings launched a new imprint Allsorts, I’ve been rummaging at Grid’s website and bumping tons of tracks. Homeboys have some phat producers like DJ Marky & Bungle, Heist and one producer whose vinyl releases have found their way into my shiny silver box more than any other in the past year -- the immaculate A Sides! Some of A Sides' tracks are fast and fluid with rumbling bass, which is right down my alley as those of you who bump the WORD’N’BASS Show on Friday nights on 104.1 FM know. Others, like Mister Muscle that he did with MC Fats for Liq-Weed Ganja Recordings are kinda weird. You know they smoked huge Blunts while laying down that track!

Then there’s Electrosoul System's March 2007 mix for Allsorts. Now, I like these two vinyl tracks Falling and Sing that he’s got coming to a record store near you. Hopefully they’ll arrive here in SFC stores very soon and we won't have to wait like a year before they arrive as imports, which unfortunately tends to happen with lots of vinyl from the UK. That, or they'll give me a holla and send the shit straight to my HQ! But listening to this mix, it’s no surprise LTJ Bukem has been putting Electrosoul System's records on his decks in recent years. He actually nabbed a few of them for his label Good Looking Records before Electrosoul signed with Allsort. Going off memory, it sounds like homeboy opens his mix with a jazzy LTJ track. BTW, those are some banging transitions. Check it out!
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These Irish eyes are smiling!

Around the world, folks are decked out in green and celebrating everything Irish today. Since Dad’s side of the family immigrated from Galway, Ireland, four generations ago, we’ve had a traditional corned beef and cabbage dinner. Although The Fam is now spread across California and doesn’t always meet up, I’ve continued the tradition every year except for one. That was during my boxing days when I had to crash diet to make weight, donned a plastic suit and skipped rope on the roof of our hotel. Still four pounds overweight, I then ran two miles of roadwork in Arizona at midnight. It sucked ass when a club full of green-clad partygoers blared horns and whistles at me, pints of Guinness in hand. I sure missed out on the fun that year.

Not tonight. My man Dave South has his girlfriend cooking corned beef and cabage, and we’ll enjoy the Marco Antonio Barrera fight with some brew dogs. In case you didn’t hear, NYC had an all-Irish boxing card at Madison Square Garden last night, where John Duddy beat the shit out of that "Worlds #1 Daddy" dork from the Contender TV show. Duddy’s an up and coming contender, but the real deal out of Ireland is one Andy Lee, who in just his eighth pro bout brutally knocked out former world champion Carl Daniels, a 60-fight veteran. I gotta admit I was worried that the young Olympian was in over his head. Not only is he just a baby in the pro fight game, but he had to wolf down an early St. Patrick's Day meal just to get near Daniels' weight. Sixty fights vs. seven, a weight advantage of 11 pounds? Bad sign, I thought. No worries, Lee put Daniels to sleep for five minutes with a big left hook. This kid will take over the middleweight division in a couple years.

While thousands of New York City's Irish have been partying since last night's sold-out MSG fight card, here in San Francisco the annual parade is now rolling down Market Street and lots of bars will serve corned beef. Don‘t settle for guzzling pint after pint -- any drunken craphole can do that -- hit up one of these bars that serves up the grub! Don’t have plans yet? Check this out for a full listing of dozens of green events across the San Francisco Bay Area. Happy St. Patrick’s Day, kids!
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Bijou Phillips is perky, Edward Pelligrini is a wimp!

Since I did not qualify for the main event of the 2007 World Poker Tour’s Bay 101 Shooting Star tournament down in San Jose (whatup San HO!), it’s fun watching the action unfold here from home against the backdrop of a bloody iguana battle and the tunes of Portishead. They’re now at the final table with six players left. Ted Forrest is beating ass like a roids-raging Mike Tyson on coke. One clown named Edward Pelligrini folded pocket aces twice yesterday pre-flop while on the cash bubble because he’s a motherfucking wimp! C’mon, fold pocket aces not once but twice? Before the flop? How’d that asshole get in?

Give me pocket aces twice in one day -- hell, pocket 10s was the best I got dealt in my satellite trying to get into the Bay 101 main event -- and that’s like the adorable Bijou Phillips showing up topless when I’m about to enjoy a Saphire martini in my red silk smokers jacket. It doesn’t get any better than that! But you know this Pelligrini would say, "Well miss, I believe you forgot your shirt. I will be back tomorrow, bye." Anyhow, check out how the Bay 101 concludes in real time starting at 5 pm PST Friday at Pokerwire. And check out this (not safe for work) pic of a beheaded Bijou Phillips that producer Quentin Tarantino is running as a promo for his new flick Hostel Part II. PS: In the iguana battle, Lois beat Choriza by TKO, as always!
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Let the Madness begin with a Tale of Two Cities!

One day the formerly smoking hot actress Brooke Burke goes to a park in Santa Monica, brings Burger King grub to a homeless dude, and it ends up a photo-op for the paparazzi. Meanwhile, my sister Lis cooks an entire organic, vegan meal and feeds dozens of homeless at People’s Park in Berkeley every Sunday for the past 10 freaking years, and it ends up finally getting a drive-by mention here on WORD’N’BASS.com.

Speaking of People’s Park, occasionally I used to play basketball there but really preferred that one on MLK where Gary Payton and Jason Kidd grew up on, before moving on to the Cal Bears and Oregon Ducks, respectively. Better pick-up action at the MLK court since the young bucks would happily exchange one of their highlight dunks for three of your finger rolls, reverse layups and fade away jumpers. That’s right, fuck the homeless, it is time for March Madness!
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Sasha & Digweed together again!

One of the best Trance shows I ever enjoyed was the San Francisco stop of Sasha & Digweed’s Delta Heavy Tour. By ‘best show’ I mean these two DJs -- already well-known for fluid and seamless live mixing -- brought their A games, and their video and visual effects guys had it going on crazy style. Intercutting a mad light show with weird Asian tribal guys dancing and aerial shots of San Francisco made it pretty dreamy. Those hombres know how to tag team great records better than anyone, and their fantastic set drove us in this kind of escalating journey upwards.

Flipside is too many people had jumped on the Sasha & Digweed bandwagon. They’d become so popular the show had to be in a big arena to accommodate everyone. Then the kings of Trance broke up and that was the end of longtime ravers bitching that they'd gotten "too big." Well, if you’re hitting the Winter Music Conference out in Miami you’re in luck. Because Sasha & Digweed are back bitches! PS: if you’re a working stiff like me and cannot bail to Miami, click here to enjoy a video Podcast of this recent Sasha gig. Bigups Womb in Tokyo for releasing this!
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Fat geyser wears Depends diaper as hat, gets KOed in Bay 101 parking lot!

"I played that hand perfect!" -- Forty-something Asian woman at a Shooting Stars World Poker Tour satellite, oblivious that when you flop a full house it’s impossible to blow it.

You gotta love the characters who show up at most any World Poker Tour satellite event. There’s the semi-hot, gracefully aging woman in a low-cut shirt that showcases her breast implants. The prematurely graying skateboarder you recognize from other tournaments who shouts, "I’m gonna take all your chips today!" and then flames out in one hour flat. The twenty-something chicks rolling with poker veterans three decades older, who make you wonder, what’s up with that? Are they daughters, groupies, or are they collecting cash to smoke geyser pipes? Then there’s me, in Prada shades and an Adidas Superstar sweat jacket stuffed with Balance energy bars.

My first stop at a major poker tournament in 2007 was at Bay 101, and someone must have pissed in the dealer’s Cheerios. After four and a half hours of play, my best starting hand was pocket 10s and my best hand overall was three-of-a-kind. No straights, flushes or full houses. But my opponents sure bagged some phat hands. This woman took down a huge pot during my day’s best hand because she lucked into flopping a freaking full house. Knowing the odds of this happening is around 250/1, I ran an old man off the table and kept raising into the woman. Chip stack was toast. I realized this is one of those tournaments where my cards would simply suck all day, and so I bluffed my chip stack back to 10x the big blinds, got caught bluffing once at an apparent straight draw with nothing at all, then bluffed some more.

Before I knew it, the tournament was down to three tables and I got moved to Table 1 -- a good sign because I could gather information on my new opponents without getting moved repeatedly into new tables. After folding five hands to gauge the tables’ characters, I identified two loose and three tight players. Those are the guys I would attack at the first opportunity: raise hard at the loose guys if I caught good cards and pummel the tight players with bluffs. Then, while folding unsuited 8-3, I showed the table my hand in an effort to convince them I don’t play junk. Some old fat guy to my left threw a fucking fit and called over the tournament director. He called a penalty because I hadn’t noticed a quiet player had silently raised, keeping the hand live.

They made me sit out 10 hands! With blinds at $3,000! I wanted to curse out the mental midget but that could result in a 20 hand penalty. So I shoved a banana down my throat and glowered at the table as they stole my chips. The old hag who’d called the penalty ended up flaming out before 10 hands and I refused to move when he tried excusing himself to exit the casino. Sure, that was rude but not as bad as making someone’s tournament end on a technicality that any gentleman would forgive. The blinds were so huge I was crippled by the time I got back in the game and ended up finishing 24th place; only the top 10 advanced so unfortunately I'll have to wait on getting on TV. Better luck next time.
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The Prodigy is not Drum & Bass!

In the old days of 2000 I would sometimes scuttle the rules of DJing and mix Breakbeats into my Drum & Bass sets. Folks at parties seemed to like it, but back then you could drop the pitch down to 140-150 BPM and not raise an eyebrow. Since then, D&B has continued to push the envelope and nowadays you’re nearly always rolling fast at 160-170 BPM. The IDMAs have finally caught up and gave D&B its own category.

This is important. First, because D&B remains a niche or "underground" genre in electronic music with its own style, fans and scene that’s entirely different from other, more popular disciplines like House or Trance. Second, my D&B brothers and sisters don’t have to compete with mainstream stars like The Prodigy as they have in past years. Is this a sign that we’re getting just a bit of motherfucking respect? Maybe. But if you check out the full nominees list here, you’ll find that D&B artists didn’t break into any of the categories that are open to all genres. We’ve got a ways to go still.
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Mansion poker is for mental midgets!

After watching Mansion Poker Dome on TV, I figured why not try to get on the show, and played online poker for the first time ever. After a month (five final tables), I’ve realized bad beats happen so often on that site that it’s gotta be rigged. Example: twice this morning I had the field dominated, went all in and got pummeled both times. Sure, bad beats happen occasionally in real life tournaments but the bullshit flows like a volcano there.

When you’ve got pocket aces, go all in and some numb nut calls with suited 2-3 only to flop a 2-3 you can rightly get pissed one time. Or you're holding 10-King, flop a 10-King and a mental midget goes all in with just a gutshot straight draw, only to hit a 6 on the river, you get skeptical. Occasionally this happens in real life and when it does, you fume over it for 30 minutes and move on. When these type of scenarios play themselves out over and over again -- far more often than at casinos -- the deck is not straight. Why would they do this? Two reasons.

First, if unskilled players got repeatedly beat down for making stupid calls they’d get demoralized and quit. Since 90% of online poker players suck, traffic on the site would plummet, and nobody in dot-com land wants that. Second, when you run hourly tournaments with 300 to 2,000 players you gotta thin the field. Otherwise tournaments would go on for six-plus hours, as they do in real life. Online Mansion Poker tournaments average four hours despite the high number of players. This is not a coincidence. More players = longer tournaments, not shorter tournaments. So hitting Sunday’s No Limit Hold ‘Em tournament at Artichoke Joe’s will be a true relief. Yae for non-rigged, square decks!

Update Monday, Feb. 26: I didn't read opponents very well but played aggressively anyhow. Went all in after flopping top pair and with ace kicker. A Mexican dude who probably washes dishes flopped two pair and I was toast, in 36th place. However, one of my poker crew buddies Dave Cresson made his second final table in three tournaments so far in 2007. Bigups, Dave! Next, we roll down to San Jose for the Shooting Star WPT Tournament.
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This is what I’m listening to -- ignore it!

Why is it every single literary blogger in America includes a "What I’m Listening To" footnote whenever they post something? Because it lets readers know something new? Like the fact that most authors have shitalicious and/or cheesy taste in music? Is it because they want to totally date themselves as a burned out old hippie by stating Grateful Dead – Best Of? Or showcase their stale rotation that hasn’t changed since Bryan Adams was king, back in the very bestest year ever of 1985? Nobody gives a damn about the audio diarrhea that’s running through your iPod!

But since I’m a DJ/Author/Bassaddict I have an um, excuse. So in case you're wondering, on the drive to work this morning I bumped a fantastic compilation Sambass 2, switched to Digitally Imported’s Chillout station at the office plus this Downtempo set that I mixed live on 104.1 FM, and after lunch hit up Bass Drive for some good old Drum & Bass. Then I relaxed in the evening with The Gentle Side of John Coltrane and Cookin' with the Miles Davis Quintet at home while gobbling down spinach raviolis with tomato cream sauce and meatballs, and playing online poker. All of these are worth buying in CD or hearing for free online. Check ‘em out kids! PS: In related news, that wanna be rapper Kfool thinks he's gonna steal Britney Spears' dollar bills, I mean bratty kids, but you know he'd end up feeding them bong water for breakfast while screetching "Papazao!"
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So what are you gonna do, teach?!

Back in college I started out as a film major, and for two years banged out flicks that were like David Lynch on a bad acid trip in a slaughterhouse. Then I moved to Nevada, where there’s no film schools but top name boxers are the state’s only major sports franchises. So it was totally annoying when, after crashing and burning out of the school of hard knocks, I became an English Lit major. Those of you who got similar degrees know exactly what I’m talking about. Your classmates ask WTF is that degree gonna do for you? The conversation always goes like this:

Classmate: What’s your major?
You: English Lit.
Classmate: So what are you going to do, teach?
You: No, I’m going to whore my ass to the highest bidder, probably end up in journalism or PR.
Classmate: Why didn’t you major in journalism?
You: Because they’re a bunch of elitist assholes. They don't know shit about journalism.
Classmate: I’m late for class.

The above conversation happens over and over, because everyone thinks your only option with an English degree is teaching. Those who can’t do, teach, so they say. So it’s nice to see you can do something with a little old English Lit degree. Such as write books that publishers snap up like hotcakes at Sunday brunch! Speaking of Sunday, I wanna wish a belated Happy Birthday to Toni Morrison, who turned 76 on February 18. You're a true legend in the game, girl!
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Planes grounded...cars grinding to a halt... it's only hell!

"It's a plague that will cause the death of millions.... A plague that will destroy countries.... A plague that will plunge the world into a new dark age."

Given the hellish weather battering the American Midwest into submission, that sure sounds like a teaser to what Marcus Sakey has in store, now that he’s piled into a Honda Civic and is driving through mad and crazy blizzards. Why? To make a bunch of bookstore appearances during the road show for his novel The Blade Itself.

But no. It’s an ad Simon & Schuster is running this week for Black Monday, a novel by one R. Scott Reiss. Never heard of him. And I dunno, ever since driving a Honda over the Donner Summit on my latest poker Blitzkrieg to Reno, dark ages and destruction sounds like typical winter driving for those of you who live in cold, wretched states. PS: It is sunny and beautiful here in California, Marcus fucked up!
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Happy Valentine’s Day, kids!

Today’s Valentine’s Day and just so you know, here’s how my super romantic day went: wake at 6 am, hit the Palace Hotel for a working breakfast with the CFO of a huge company who’s way smarter than me. Throw out 30 phone calls to break two stories that will impact the stock market, crash and burn and return home to find a Valentine awaiting. No, not from the girlfriend. From my five-year old nephew. The girlfriend is "in meetings late" and so instead of diner and merlot I am playing online poker and gawking at half naked models strutting down the Heatherette fashion show runway in New York City. Party on, kids!
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Rupert Murdoch is a liar!

When the namesake of HarperCollins cash cow ReganBooks got canned it was another example of how big biznis will do anything to save face. Rupert Murdoch, the old geyser helming HarperCollins' parent company News Corp., personally green-lighted OJ Simpson’s book If I Did It. He then put Judith Regan’s head on the chopping block when public opinion went into the toilet.

Damage control continued last week when Murdoch took swipes at Regan over at McGraw Hill’s HQ, saying she’s "not a team player, and that’s putting it mildly. ... She wasn't for us." Hmm, she sure was for "us" when her authors like Jose Canseco were bagging millions of bucks for train wreck memoirs like Juiced. I am still waiting for Regan to pop up at a new publishing house. Or better yet, she should get some VC and start her own house. Hey Judith, I’ll send over Bistro de Mars to help fire it up, baby. Holla!
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Elie Wiesel is inspiring, Eric Hunt is an asshole!

"I had planned to bring Wiesel to my hotel room, where he would truthfully answer my questions regarding the fact that I must wear Depends diapers day and night. My anus is burning!" -- Nazi stalker Eric Hunt.

Coming out of high school there were a few authors whose work inspired me to become a writer. The first two probably aren’t a surprise, since many youngins relate to outsiders. J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and The Stranger by Albert Camus were more than good reads. They made me think, "Hey, I’d like to write something that other folks could relate to on such a gut level."

The third book was Elie Wiesel’s Night. What a heart-breaking story of survival. I read Night in one sitting, staying up ‘til 4 am on a school night instead of studying for some stupid History midterm. So it was sad this morning reading that in San Francisco -- the last place in America you’d expect a rampage of Nazi freaks -- some holocaust-denying stalker attacked Weisel in an Argent Hotel elevator. Hey, if nobody will listen to your absurd rants there’s nothing like attacking a 78-year-old man to get some attention, right? Next time this attention whore wants folks to notice him, he can march down Market Street in a Depends diaper and Bozo the Clown wig.
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Gavin Newsom says counseling is the new black!

What do PR executives recommend anytime a public figure fucks up so bad there’s no way to spin it? Go to counseling, bitch! San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom "is seeking counseling for alcohol abuse" less than a week after admitting he banged his campaign manager’s wife. Even more? The campaign manager Alex Tourk was also his best friend for a decade. That’s called brutal.

An important thing to remember here is the public forgives everything after a few weeks of laying low and "getting help." Just ask Isaiah Washington ("fag!"), Mike Tyson (cokehead going to jail!) and Lindsay Lohan (junkie terror of movie sets!). Counseling is the bomb, kids. Everyone is doing it. PS: Claiming you’re a drunk sure sounds better -- and more temporary -- than being a snake in the grass back stabber!
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It’s a Super Sunday!

It’s Super Bowl Sunday, the annual ritual in which Americans eat meat and get drunk while watching giant men smash each other to bits. I don’t like football and didn’t even know it is the Colts vs. the Bears until this week. Still, it will be a super day because I’ve finally beat this flu, the worst illness in years. So while Prince struts around during the halftime show, I will set my house on fire and then hit up the regular Sunday poker tournament to exploit the fact that half the players will be drunk. Take advantage of every weakness kids! Also, I’m interested to see if all this practice avoiding bad beats in online tournaments will help my game.

Exhibit A on why online poker players suck: in one week I made three final tables, placing 2nd, 4th and 7th. The second place finish was really stupid and there’s no excuse for me not winning the tournament outright. Going into heads-up play, my opponent led 1.4 million chips to 400,000. I fought my way to the lead and then got frazzled due to not eating for six hours and the girlfriend griping that "you need to put a limit on how much you play poker." So I went all in with pocket 4s and got beat when he lucked into pairing 9s on the table. Unlike these oblivious players who always seem to have luck on their side, I am never allowed even one break each tournament. Update: Just got off the phone with Artichoke Joe's Hold 'Em desk and tonight's tournament is canceled due to the Super Bowl. Boo.
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Say goodnight to the nice guy!

Still sick as a dog here at the WORD’N’BASS.com HQ. Today’s adventure was driving to Safeway to pick up a new batch of Theraflu and orange juice. My boss in the media salt mines says I should just rest and watch NBA basketball. But since I don’t watch TV there is no cable, and so I hardly know how the new and improved Warriors are doing. Early word is they’re not much improved since trading my man Troy Murphy to the Pacers. Another frustrating thing is no poker tournaments and no writing the novel. Since the last five pages are so bad they’re not even salvageable in edits, I’m not bothering ‘til this demented fog leaves my brain.

What I have discovered is online poker. It doesn’t matter if I bring my B game or C game, most of these online poker warriors are such awful players they take beatdowns like a retarded ugly stepchild. The online tournaments have anywhere from 400 to 2,000 players and I've already made two final tables since Friday, when I was too sick to spin D&B at the weekly WORD'N'BASS Show. The times I did not make a final table were due to bad beats, ie. morons who were dominated on the blinds or flop went 'all in' and sucked out of an ass whupping.

Tonight the carnage got so bad they were calling themselves "chickens" and making "bok bok" noises as BPM the fox ripped off their little chicken heads in the hen house. I actually felt bad for a couple of them -- they were nice, had female screen names and you know I love all women, green, yellow, blue, and yo moma -- and would warn them when to get out of a pot cuz I didn’t want to bounce them out of the tournament. That is so not the real BPM. I am not a nice guy at the poker table. Can’t wait ‘til this tropical disease goes away. When that happens, say goodnight to the nice guy.
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The next big thing at middleweight is Kelly "The Ghost" Pavlik!

Back I the mid 1990s I told everyone who would listen the best welterweight boxer on Earth was the great Felix "Tito" Trinidad. After a decade spent knocking opponents silly, the public finally agreed when Tito was already beyond his prime. My only mistake was failing to bet on Tito to win every single fight. Since his retirement I’ve been out looking for a new fighter in that mold -- big, strong, skilled and with a devastating punch -- to lay down cash on his fights, roll over all the winnings and bet it on his next bout, rinse and repeat. There’s a phrase in sports betting called something-or-other on this technique, which results in ever-bigger paydays.

Saturday night Kelly "The Ghost" Pavlik showed a national TV audience what I’ve been saying since watching his 10th pro bout in Indiana: he is the next big thing in boxing’s history-rich middleweight division. He kicked off what's gonna be his breakout year by knocking out Jose Luis Zertuche, a guy who’d never before been knocked down, let alone out. And if you saw the fight you know he nearly decapitated this hombre! The win brought Pavlik’s undefeated record to 30 wins, 27 knockouts and makes him the No. 1 mandatory challenger to Jermaine Taylor, most famous for taking the world championship from the best middleweight in a generation Bernard "Executioner" Hopkins. Bring on the title fights so I can start collecting cash!
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Housekeeping notes and a random list!

My friends, I will not spin drum & bass on 104.1 FM tonight (Friday, January 26) ‘cause I am sick as hell. It's bloody murder! The worst flu ever has decimated the San Francisco bureau of my day job in the media, resulting in me sleeping 12 hours a day and gagging like a crack head smoking Lysol.

Anyhow, if you’re new to this here website and wondering what kinda stuff aside from books, authors, DJs and electronic music you might find, I’ve prepared a list.

What bloggers talk about that you will find here: poker, especially No Limit Hold ‘Em tournament action whenever I make a final table (2007 stats so far: one final table missed when a fool’s pocket sixes beat my suited Ace-King leaving me in 11th place, and one final table at an online tournament where I placed 7th -- do online tournaments count?). Lindsay Lohan’s cocaine rampages and rehab stints. Bijou Phillips, the cutest actress in Hollywood who hardly gets any mention at the gossip blogs. Good for her, since she’s above the trashtastic, but bad for me because I can’t monitor her comings and goings. Well not quite. For example, I know she's at the Sundance Film Festival in Colorado this week, where she played a celeb poker tournament hosted by the legendary Doyle Brunson. Holla girl, it’s time to step up to this! An occasional ass whupping of James Frey. But then again he writes memoirs, or something.

What bloggers talk about that you will not find here: television shows of any sort. Because TV eats ass and nothing makes my vision blur worse than when someone talks about TV. Why do bloggers waste their time on shitcoms, dramas, ‘reality’ shows and make-overs? All you gotta do is stand on your kitchen table while telling a joke, threaten to breakup with your girlfriend for no reason at all, challenge a friend to a fried chicken eating contest and buy a new pair of Prada sunglasses and you'll cover all those bases in real life. That’s why I didn’t fall for the ‘American Idol’ spin that all the mainstream press talked up when Simon & Schuster announced their new literary contest. No TV. Ever. Except when a big pro boxing match happens.
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Midgets party on Market Street as BPM Smith explodes bicep!

When WORD’N’BASS.com launched nearly two years ago I decided we’d cover stuff that we wished other places wrote about. Hot authors and DJs. The 411 on literary agents. And of course, Drum & Bass, baby. After reviewing some of the site’s statistics that my homegirl Candi sent over, it’s cool to see our readers are kinda sophisticated. Imagine that! Judging by our Top 10 search engine key phrases that led to hits, it is a fact.

From December 2006’s Top 10 search phrases that brought you here: lullabies for little criminals (note to self: show Heather O’neill some love); will beall; armin van buuren; dunow carlson & lerner; the friedrich agency; dj fresh bass invaders (big ups, Fresh!).

From the other 506 search phrases: james frey man arrested on market street with sign reading cocaine for sale; lindsay lohan snorts lines off toilet floor (not anymore); man s bicep explodes; upscale sweatsuit etiquette; midgets partying (yae!)

The top 10 includes some really good people, dontcha think? The others? Folks looking for some eccentric shit arrived at this website. And that guy who searched for a literary agent cocaine hot ass junkie probably ended up here simply because we’re result No. 5 out of 16,500. They say a high Google ranking is always good. Or bad.
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Vote Drum & Bass, bitches!

It’s that time of year when we the public gets to vote on our favorite DJs, producers, parties -- you name it, there’s a category at the International Dance Music Awards. It seems to me each year Drum & Bass hardly gets any of the awards and that’s bullshit! Let’s get over these baton hand-offs from Armin Van Buuren, Paul Oakenfold, Paul van Dyk and Tiesto. Sure I’ve got love for Van Buuren and bump his albums plenty but my fellow DNB-heads, we gotta represent Team DNB! Cast your ballot here and remember DJ Fresh had a hot album out in ‘06 that included one of the best DNB tracks ever 'All Strung Out.' PS: If you enjoy my DNB and Electro sets live on 104.1 FM or just catch ‘em archived please consider voting for little old BPM Smith under the Best Radio Mix Show DJ category. Love ya, kids!
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I love Great Britain, Bass (beer) and boxing!

Great Britain is not only the birthplace of Drum & Bass, beautiful sex tape-recording models and soccer hooligans. Pro boxing is so popular in the UK they can fill a soccer stadium full of drunk, singing fans whenever they have a legit world champion. Ricky Hatton is already a star across the Atlantic, but tonight (Saturday, Jan. 20) he joins a growing list of foreign fighters who are now invading America for the big dollars.

They say 3,000 British fans have flown into Vegas for Hatton’s fight against Juan Urango, and since San Francisco-based boxing journalist Pedro Fernandez is always ranting about how Ricky’s is the No. 2 sports bar in the USA according to Sports Illustrated, that’s where we’re heading tonight. First I must get a workout in and write, then it’s all about boxing, brew dogs and steak. And you know I’m flossing my Great Britain Kappa jacket while guzzling Bass Ale!

Meanwhile, there’s only one American heavyweight champ, Shannon Briggs from Brooklyn. The rest are from the former Soviet Union. I sure didn’t expect Jameel "Wig Time" McCline to pull an upset against the 7’, 320 lb freak Nicolay Valuev but WTF. This website just showed the stream live from Switzerland and McCline quit like a biaaaaaaaatch! And no, don’t tell me he injured his knee. He shit his pants after realizing this giant ogre was about to squash him like a gnat!
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J. Smooth gets an assist!

So yes, I am on a new exercise kick and as you know, all New Years Resolutions suck after two weeks. After downing a smoothie of orange juice, raspberries, banana, apple and organic non-roids-raging yogurt, tonight was all about grinding through a workout. Even though I felt weak and uninspired and would rather be eating fried chicken. The only music suitable for exercise is drum & bass. No hip hop like the old days, not even trance. The BPMs must fly and the bass must boom, otherwise you get lethargic.

What got me through was this bad ass promotional CD from J. Smooth that somebody (him? I can’t remember due to being drunk or disoriented or both) gave me a few years ago. Damn, homeboy knows how to scratch! That’s some of the best scratching in D&B I’ve heard in some time. Represent Philly, bruda! For his fluid scratching and beat matching, J. Smooth gets a behind-the-back assist. PS: What the fuck are the Warriors doing trading Troy Murphy!
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Starbucks trades in ‘roids raging cows for amped-out readers!

Good news, kids. When you get a Starbucks latte the milk won’t come from roids raging cows anymore. Now that my office has a brand new Caffe Trieste and two Peet's branches nearby, the only time I roll with Starbucks is on Sunday nights, 10 minutes before cruising properly amped into the regular poker tournament at Artichoke Joe’s. And it’ll feel good knowing that I can smoke Marlboro Lights and not worry about 'roids raging cow milk, which "has been associated with increased cancer rates."

Lots of folks in San Francisco call 'em Starfucks because they run independently owned cafes into the ground. Not me. Before they came along, every time I traveled outside the S.F. Bay hell would spray flames and rednecks would look at me quizzically as I asked, "Where’s the real coffee?" while pounding the side of my bleary-eyed head with a shaking fist. And y’all know that San Bruno wouldn’t supply the caffeine needed to play savage and focused poker without Starbucks. Supply and demand means we need more cafes. On every block across America!

Thanks to Starbucks, I got so loaded on double lattes in my first No Limit Hold ‘Em tournament of 2007 that I took down five pots in the first 40 minutes and multiplied my starting chips by 18 times. The opponents couldn’t see caffeine in my eyes thanks to Prada, but I only placed 11th, one spot off the final table because a moron's pocket sixes beat out my suited Ace-King after going "all in."

Someone recently said I should be finishing the novel instead of playing poker. Um. Oh yes, books: Starbucks is selling a helluvalot of novels like those 100,000 copies of Mitch Albom's For One More Day at its coffee houses nationwide. Perhaps realizing a rich assed author like Albom doesn‘t need that kinda cash, they pulled a surprise this week and announced they‘re gonna sell a debut author in their second effort at making amped-out office sloths into literary devotees. Cue up sound of cash register! They chose A Long Way Gone by Sierra Leone native Ishmael Beah. Sieera Leone by the way was a jazz singer in the 1950s who was one notch below the great Billie Holiday. Big ups, Ishmael!
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Promises barely kept in the name of bass!

"I'm like a fiend. I went to the guy and asked, 'Aren't you having a tournament?'" -- heard in the parking lot of Artichoke Joe's Casino.

Wow, it’s been a whole two months since I posted a mix here. That doesn’t mean the Word ‘N’ Bass Show was on hiatus. Aside from the occasional crash-and-burn due to journalism overload or sudden poker rampage to Vegas or Reno, we roll every Friday night after 10 pm on 104.1 FM here in the S.F. Bay Area. Problem is, for a technophobe like me it is a baffling, long effort flailing around with mp3s to get a mix live on WORD’N’BASS.com.

This three-day weekend meant Friday night the bass was booming, random people cooked vegan concoctions as I left the studio at 1:30 am, I can't remember any of Saturday, Sunday we kicked it drinking cappuccinos in Palo Alto -- and got pissed when they canceled the regular No Limit Hold 'Em tournament due to the holiday. Then on Monday I learned that someone named Keeley Hazell is the hottest woman on Earth.

Long story short, I procrastinated. Posting mixes freaks me out, since at any moment I’m liable to hit the wrong button and blow the whole site to shrapnel. Nevertheless, as promised here’s my latest Drum & Bass mix, posted a whole two hours before Martin Luther King Day ends. Hope you like it, kids!
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John Grisham is losing his mind!

Best-selling author John Grisham is paranoid. He accused one Katharine Almy of sending him anonymous letters. Like all people who are afraid they’re being stalked, he then stalked hell out of this chick by snagging materials from a baseball league where her daughter played, plus confidential records from her children’s files at a school. Why? So he could then get hand writing experts to compare ‘em to the letters he received anonymously. Then Grisham sent a cop over to Almy’s pad to "confront" her.

Y’all know how that went. The cop didn’t have a warrant, Almy refused him entry, and he threw a tantrum on her doorstep while breaking a 40 oz bottle of St. Ides malt liquor over his head. Creepy. I guess paranoia is what happens to multi-million dollar authors. On a similar note, last night in the 104.1 FM studio I "confronted" my sidekick Abdul for leaving a cup of coffee next to the mixer. He said it wasn’t his coffee but we all know better. So I got out my fingerprint kit and performed some forensic shit on the mug. Hear what happened afterwards on my audio page, later during this Martin Luther King weekend. PS: Here’s a hint -- it starts with D & includes B.
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A night when BPM Smith soars to prolific literary heights!

Tonight I worked on this WIP novel Bistro de Mars, about a boxer chasing Olympic dreams who gets caught in a trainwreck romance that leads to San Francisco’s underbelly, risking everything. Here’s the last paragraph on p. 666:

Every time I saw Pete he was committing some kind of crime. Either picking up a drug shipment, or dropping one off, or hiding guns in his car. He did all of this with an aloof charm, as if none of it risked him a year or two or ten in the jug. But his eyes always moved. His eyes would scan the block, observing foot traffic across the street, a passing car, or meter maid, all while smirking and telling a joke. His aloofness wasn't an act either, that's just how he went about his business. Casual alertness. He grabbed a cigarette that had been resting on his ear, flicked out a Zippo and lit up.

Then Lois the Iguana began knocking down bottles from the wine rack. After entering the living room to investigate, she took a big fat dump on my 1999 Morgan (French, not Californian) right in front of me! That is a problem. Lois never used to crap outside her cage. The only way to train her is when you catch her in the act, so I snatched her with a towel, scolded "Bad Lois!" and gave her a bath since she needs to clean her act up. Sorting through her carnage, I realized ants had overtaken the six-foot cactus. During inspection I knocked the thing to the floor, tearing off one of its huge limbs. Then I had to shampoo the shit-stained floor. After settling this bit of domestic chaos, I made the mistake of checking e-mail instead of resuming Bistro.

A few press releases, a shout-out from Marcus Sakey, two requests for this guest list thingy, an invitation to Lady Sovereign’s official afterparty, and a reader asking advice about pitching agents. Um, seeing as I’ve yet to sell a novel I am no expert about getting them published, kids. But hey, I've been through the pitch-and-send routine and happily pretended I knew WTF I was saying. Then I got back to the invite. And realized that as I sat here writing I could be at a club in Hollywood partying with Lady Sovereign. Instead, after banging out news during a 10-hour day in the media salt mines I am trying to write pages of prose. This is the life of an ‘author.’ Writing like a motherfucker. After three hours, I had re-written:

Whenever I saw Pete he was committing some kind of crime. Either picking up a drug shipment, dropping one off, or hiding guns in his Lexus.

Sometimes, you just can’t get it done. Better luck tomorrow.
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No, I don’t need an iPhone but send over Lady Sovereign!

So the Apple dudes took over Moscone Center to announce yet another breakthrough technology. Two blocks from my office, which means all the good lunch places were packed. Even the crap bucket from hell Chevy’s had 20 guys in cheap suits waiting. Cuz techies don’t wear Gucci ya know. The last time they took over it was Oracle’s weeklong event that made it difficult for me and my boys to get a table at Fourth Street Sports Bar during the World Series. Don’t mess with a man pursuing beer and baseball, bitches!

Meanwhile, the adorable Lady Sovereign was here in San Francisco and I didn’t even know it ‘til Tuesday. She hit up Mezzanine and had a pretty surreal run-in with an MC dressed like a giant donut. Yep, a donut. You know this rapper wasn’t from Oakland, he probably is from the Lower Haight where he sucks down ecstasy and Special K for lunch. Well, she brought the heat anyhow and the onetime Grime MC from the UK is blowing up large here in the USA. Evidence? Lady Sovereign has signed with Def Jam Records and is about to step up to BPM Smith. She’s about bagged the American Dream, I say!
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Literary turds overflow Manhattan sewers in yearly ritual!

What was that putrid smell emanating from New York City on Monday morning? The stench of 50,000 terrible novels sent to literary agents in the world’s book publishing capital. It happens every January. Word on the street is authors can forget about their 'dream agent' reading new submissions in December -- they’re too busy closing the year’s last deals, schmoozing with editors and guzzling vodka and Red Bull at a dozen holiday parties. Now that 2007 is underway, writers are catapulting turds at Manhattan from across the USA, clogging up the city’s sewers as agents flush ‘em down the toilet.
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Off with Jim Lampley's hands!

My fitness went to shit in ‘06, so one of my resolutions this year is to get in damn good shape, which will in turn result in better endurance, mental clarity and bulging biceps. So far, so good. Here’s how it works: leave the media salt mines no later than 6 pm, go straight home, guzzle Hyper Growth Formula, plug in some drum & bass and classic James "Lights Out" Toney fights (on mute), then workout like a madman while watching the master issue beatdowns. You’d be surprised at how many push-ups, sit-ups, curls and squats you can do in 90 minutes!

Speaking of my main man, Toney is fighting on Saturday night and I can’t wait. Nobody brings sublime boxing skills to the game like Toney, and he’s fighting a rematch vs. KO artist Samuel Peter after getting robbed of a victory in their first bout. The winner gets a title shot. Yehaw! Luckily Showtime is televising it and not HBO, because it turns out announcer Jim Lampley got busted for beating the crap out of his girlfriend Candice Sanders while drunk and smoking a Blunt. Allegedly.

This wife-beating stuff really pisses me off and so I propose that jerks convicted of domestic abuse get harsher punishment than the slap on the wrists courts typically issue. For example, cut off their hand. Say he punches his girl with a left hook, chop off the left hand. Two convictions, cut off the second hand. Then the next time he wants to beat his girlfriend’s ass he’ll have to punch her with a stump. Plus, unsuspecting women would easily identify the wife beaters and stay away.

One other thing. Am I the only one who thinks it’s bloody crazy that a 57-year-old drunken geyser like Lampley dates a gorgeous 28-year-old former Miss California? No joke, check out her photos she is smoking hot. WTF! Guess when you’re rich and semi-famous and oh yes, happen to own a Hollywood production company, the beauty pageant winners come running. I’m just saying.
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On the literary and DJ front -- predictions for 2007!

Here we are, New Years Eve and I cannot believe 2006 flew by so fast. Tonight is a time when you reflect on how the year went and what you hope is going to happen in ‘07. Since I already laid out my plans in a .45 column I won’t bore you with more. Instead, let’s think about others on the scene. Okay, so 2007 isn’t gonna be the hottest year for Judith Regan, who is spending the New Year battling it out with HarperCollins instead of trolling the back alleys of bookland searching for the next trashtastic memoir. It is going to be a fun New Year for Walter Satterthwait, who not only had a hot new novel Perfection flame the literary horizon in ‘06 but just released another novel Dead Horse. And oh yes, he has a book of short stories forthcoming in ‘07. More on that when the time's right.

On the music front, 2007 will be a very fun year for House music DJ/producer Roger Sanchez, who adds another hyphen to his talents when he makes his big screen acting debut in Universal Studio’s upcoming "dark romantic comedy" Johnny Postal. It’ll be another sweet year for our longtime favorite House spinmeister DJ Dan, who opens the year playing shows from here in California to Vegas to Colombia and Brazil and Australia. Check out his Myspace for a show near you. The year’s also gonna soar for Drum & Bass. My favorite genre blew up in Japan years ago and more recently turned heads in places like South Korea and Russia. Next up -- China. Who’s gonna be the first to represent D&B proper? They’re opening those borders wider every year and I predict in 2007 the Chinese eat up D&B like Peking Duck.

The year ain’t looking so good for Great Whites. They’ll continue scaring folks silly, keeping me off the beach and researching the all-important question of who wins a fight between an octopus and a shark? The best defense is a good offense, and my man Dave says he’s bringing back wake boarding full force in ‘07 just to make sure nobody gets any lunatic ocean-faring ideas. So we’ll  work on our tans in fresh water just as soon as the cold winter is ovah! What will be the latest hot trend in literature in 2007, you ask? Midgets, Vampires and Elvis. All in one novel. Riding a drop-top ‘72 Cadillac Coup de Ville across the good ol’ U.S.A. After finishing Bistro de Mars in 1Q of 2007, this is my new project. Speaking of Americana, it is time to start toasting dry Martinis and find a lamp shade to wear as a hat. Happy New Years, kids!
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No, we don’t publish fiction... unless you’re a hot Latina bombshell!

About once a month someone sends in a short story "for your consideration" and I don’t really know how to respond. When it comes to literature we do news and reviews and that’s about it. No, we’re not gonna broaden the scope of content since frankly I don’t have time to read fiction. I’m too busy writing fiction. And our poor book reviewer Michelle is so backlogged with novels folks submitted there’s no way in hell I’m asking her to read some more. That hasn’t stopped the occasional submission, like this morning’s story from a reader. It opens:

He was discreet enough to know that he must proceed with caution. The Mrs. could not reply for a minute, for she was putting a new mud that is mud today and dust tomorrow, but the genuine, original bandage on Jimmy MacCaulay’s finger, and she had the needle and thread…

Critique? I don’t get it. But I do like the mud today, dust tomorrow thing. I also like that judging by her name, the girl who submitted it is Latina. Because they say Latina Lit is a pretty hot genre and of course Latinas are smoking hot in general, especially when wearing bikinis at the beach and working on tan lines, which bumps up their hotness factor even higher and causes poor saps like me to punch our own faces in. Um. Anyhow, what was I saying? No, WORD'N'BASS.com does not publish short stories.
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Critters run screaming when Danielle Steele shows up with a hatchet!

Now that Christmas is over and the rain has ceased, it is a beautiful sight as nature’s critters emerge from their hiding places. After sleeping in very late Wednesday morning/afternoon and enjoying an Americano in the sun, a squirrel kept hassling Sam, my neighbor’s Himalayan, who in turn wouldn’t stop meowing at me for a pet. Lois the Iguana broke into the kitchen and tried eating an empty bottle of Chateau du Margaux. She got carrots and squash instead. It’s so cute watching these little animals forage about!

Meanwhile, San Francisco’s queen of romantic "prose" Danielle Steele made an appearance somewhere and judging by that fur coat, animals are not cute unless they’re skinned and riding your back. Oh well, disdain for cute little minks is one of the privileges you earn by regurgitating the same tired novel over and over and over as millions of bored housewives masturbate to tales of sensitive yet mysterious hunks, right?

Since I’m spending tonight writing Bistro de Mars, I’ll be sure to include a scene where a drug dealer flosses his faux fur coat while dragging a pet baboon, specially imported from Colombia, to all of San Francisco's hottest hot spots. His secret concubine, rumored to be a Princess but probably just a cokehead trustfunder with a taste for Dior and a bad case of an unknown STD, has no idea how he makes his living. Is he a diamond thief? A smuggler of human slaves from war-torn nations? Keep us dialed to find out sometime in 2007, after I make an appearance at Simon & Schuster‘s headquarters flossing a mink coat made by Third World orphans and demanding that mid-six-figure advance. Ciao!
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Merry Christmas, kids!

All the presents are finally wrapped and it’s time to bail on this earthquake-ridden city to join all the elves, Santas and Christmas robot monkeys who are now driving out of the S.F. Bay Area. Wow, time flew by despite fueling up with a double espresso and then a pot of Peet’s Holiday Blend. And the presents are a hot mess! Here’s how you disguise the fact your rush-wrapped presents look like garbage compacted cars: wrap 'em in the prettiest paper you can find like red and white stripes or shiny gold, top 'em with a bow and voila! The car is loaded with some of my recent drum & bass mixes, trance and hip hop and it is a four hour drive into the country so I am outta here. Merry Christmas kids, and have a safe trip wherever your holiday takes you!
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Judith Regan is hot!

Apparently when you keep reporting on Judith Regan and her flamboyant picks in the marketplace of books, people become aware that you're a friendly part of the media. The folks on her legal team sent out a press release today that is the PR equivalent to brass knuckles. Don’t you just love it when a powerful woman exec takes off the kid gloves and issues an ass whupping? You go girl, represent!

All these news wire stories are lies, lies nothing but lies! but some of them include photos where she's kinda hot. This makes me wistfully think it’s too bad Judith wasn’t born 30 years later. Picture how cute she was as a twentysomething! And if she was closer to my age, we’d be inseparable miscreants issuing beatdowns in the backroads of bookland by day and spanking each other at night! Cuz you know Judith wouldn’t take a good spanking without a reply.
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No little earthquake is gonna stop Santa!

Folks from the East Coast always trip on California because we’ve got earthquakes. Yeah, big deal. Just now I’m chilling here reading about The Technology Secrets of Cocaine Inc. when the walls start shaking and then bam! They shake a bit harder so I wonder if this thing is gonna keep growing like it did in 1989.

Nope, it tapered off like they always do. I’ll take a good earthquake over these miserable blizzards y’all Midwesterners have. Or the tornados that send a dude in a wheelchair flying through his trailer wall and into an office building 100 yards away in Florida.

Anyhow, what’s this morbid talk about? It’s almost Christmas! Have you shopped yet? I have not. Attend any good holiday parties? I’ve hit four so far. Two more to go. And most importantly, is Santa Claus bringing you some loot? Cue up bell sound effects with Dimitri From Paris as I sing:

Here he comes
on his sleigh
and no earthquakes, tornados or blizzards can stop good ol’ St. Nick today.

Meh. If my little Christmas carol didn’t put you in the proper mood, here’s the real juice on Santa. Happy holidays, kids! Update: The earthquake was only a 3.7. A bunch of dorks called the fire department. You know they're not native Californians! When my cell rang one minute after the quake I answered hollering, "We're all gonna die!" instead of "hello."
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The holiday party season is here!

We did our regular Christmas cigar dinner on Saturday night and as always, it was an epic celebration of gluttony, good friends and cocktails. And oh yes, Chaunuka and Christmas and Kwanzaa. Our sometimes-reviewer Michelle Simon worked her salad magic and Deb baked one of her incredible cakes, which we enjoyed with a 1987 Morgado port. Meanwhile, Auguste Escoffier helped me cook a Cassoulet of sausage and duck paired with an amazing bottle of 1992 Cherryblock Cabernet.

Big thanks to Don Sebastiani, who supported me during an earlier publishing project while still a young punk in college and sent over that majestic wine! Also props to Lis, whose friend just returned from Cuba and provided cigars made at a small rural plantation. We had a jolly night socializing, bumping Elvis Presley's Christmas carols and drinking until 4 am. That's why it took awhile to mention the fun and games cuz let’s put it this way: It's harder sleeping off those eight hour drinking sessions than it was in college.
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Friday night blues!

It is Friday and that means it is time for heavy bass. What’s that? You’re pummeled bloody from failing all of your final exams and/or working like an indentured servant and need to rest up for Saturday? No worries. Click here to watch Future Prophecies play live at the World of Drum and Bass in Russia instead. Who knew Russia had such an incredibly vibrant D&B scene? I think it’s time to jet over there with the shiny silver record case and Mack on those hot Russian runway models.

Or not. Since it’s easier to drive just a few miles from mi casa to the studio, y’all can listen to me spin D&B and Electro on 104.1 FM during the Word 'N' Bass Show from 10:30 pm to 1 am from the leisure of your own homes. That is, if you live in the Berkeley/Oakland/S.F area. Just be sure to eat lots of brownies while staring at the disco ball reflections of those eight lines of multi-colored Christmas lights that you just hung up. Ho ho ho!
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Human hunters eat poker sharks in the S.F. Bay!
"Too many MCs not enough mics." -- The Foogies

This so-called poker craze has a downside that’s pretty damn annoying. At every tournament here in the S.F. Bay Area there are too many poker sharks and not enough tables. The result is a scenario like on Sunday. Writing prose about guns, love and money a bit too long, I end up leaving late for the 5 pm signup for a no limit hold ‘em tournament at Artichoke Joe’s. The traffic on Hwy. 101 is log jammed because the 49ers got their asses kicked yet again at Candlestick Park (no, not Monster.com park), delaying my arrival.

A line of 40 men and two women stand there and I hit the back of the line. A Turk in a phony leather jacket asks if I’m the kid he saw at the final table weeks ago (yep), and an old, bald guy tells me, "Poker is bad -- you end up at casinos seven hours a day and have no life." Soon the tournament organizers say they’re all booked, so we must sign up for the alternate list and return at 7 pm. The list runs 25 deep and naturally, only three players make it in the tournament.

This is bad for poker. Wake the hell up, people. Ever hear of supply and demand? In the commodities biznis that I cover in the day job, excess demand always results in the suppliers providing more of said commodity, for a price. If these casinos would simply open up two or three more tables per tournament everyone could play, there’d be additional revenues going into the pot and the winners would bag bigger paydays. It is simple.

Problem is, when I suggest this they always say they cannot expand because the regular cash game players need tables and dealers. Well, that shit doesn’t fly. Hire more dealers and throw a few more tables in there. If not, then guys like me who’ve played over 30 tournaments in 2006 will go elsewhere. Why would I burn my Sundays barreling down the highway and waiting around, only to find three hours later that I can’t even play? It’s like when a great white shark can’t find a seal to eat, he’ll cruise inland and start gobbling up humans. Supply and demand, bitches!
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Holiday films to catch and what the fuck is wrong with Beyonce’s lip!

I once saw Beyonce ringside at a Vegas fight and she is so damn hot I can’t remember the action in the ring. Now my girlfriend is trying make me see Dreamgirls, but it ain’t happening. Why? It’s a musical. Plus, it’s a showcase flick involving a pop star playing a singer, which is a real stretch for the acting skills. More importantly, I have questions: Why is this beautiful black woman wearing granny white girl wigs and what the fuck happened to Beyonce’s lip? Check out the extreme closeup. Is it a herpes explosion? Carnage from Jay Z misplacing a punching bag? Either way it is disturbing. And not in a good way.

On the good, fun disturbing front, David Lynch has a new flick Inland Empire that sounds like the bomb. It just launched in NYC and is in West Coast theaters this Friday. David is one of the few directors who can release any damn film and I am there like a glare from a square.

And what’s up with this new trend of horror films getting released during the Christmas holiday season? The other day I’m watching my homeboy Marcus Camby and the Denver Nuggets when an ad for some Christmas slasher film came on. Three times in two quarters. Well, I am not down with murder for murder's sake by inbred Hollywood studios who are churning through the recyle bin. Instead, if you want to watch a scary horror film that's got much more going for it, catch Altered from Ed Sanchez. He's the guy behind The Blair Witch Project, which is another way of saying he's got top notch horror street cred in my book.
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Love and a .45 at Lois the Pie Queen!

Picture this: you’re about to divorce your socialite wife but she’s is found dead with a bullet wound in her lower left side and a gun in her right hand. Investigators call it a suicide but I am willing to bet the last time you tried blowing out your left brain you gave up because your right handed ass just found it too awkward. Besides, even though logical thinking, analysis, and accuracy is for jerks, it’s better to OD. Not as messy and the high is the bomb. What happened to the rich babe’s cash? You inherited everything. You’ll need the cash to pay off the cops. Then you marry a totally hot young mama just one week after cashing in on the will.

Put this all together and you’ve got a hint about what happens in the novel Dead Horse, which just got published in time for the Christmas shopping season and is an ideal present for your gun toting uncle or anyone who gets drunk during the holidays and wishes they could've downed some pernod with the Lost Generation. In related news, I cannot wait to eat some fried chicken at one of my favorite Oakland haunts Lois the Pie Queen. I will ignore the fact that Oakland’s one-time cocaine kingpin Rudy Henderson got shot dead Saturday while sitting in a parked car outside the well-known North Oakland restaurant. I mean WTF, a man who dealt up to 100 pounds of cocaine a day has a right to some biscuits and gravy, right?
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Dave Eggers is a liar!

Little, Brown is publishing a 10-year anniversary edition of David Foster Wallace's novel Infinite Jest and to mark this re-release they've got Bay Area author Dave Eggers, who for some reason is considered the book scene's broker of higher literary taste, to pen a foreward. Good enough. But Eggers probably threw up as he wrote about the sumo-sized novel:

The book is 1,067 pages long and there is not one lazy sentence. The book is drum-tight and relentlessly smart and, though it does not wear its heart on its sleeve, it’s deeply felt and incredibly moving.

Who knew such a sublime entry would provoke a minor pissing contest among literary types, and why you might ask, did he projectile vomit against the wall? Well, it turns out Eggers reviewed Infinite Jest during its original 1996 release and called it a "brilliant, fat and frustrating second novel." Even worse:

Besides frequently losing itself in superfluous and wildly tangential flights of lexical diarrhea, the book suffers under the sheer burden of its incredible length (1,000 pages).
 
So which is it? Diarrhea or smart? Long winded or drum-tight? That all depends on when and where you’re talking. Take Gwyneth Paltrow for example, the scrawny wanna-be Brit whom I once ignored as she pranced into my day job’s office. When she says, "The British are much more intelligent and civilized than the Americans," does she mean we’re a bunch of dumb asses? Or did she really mean to say -- please ignore the mob of American Hollywood studio execs urinating on her film contracts -- "I definitely did not say that I think the British are more intelligent and civilized than Americans."
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Another final table, another flameout!

My man Dave said I was ‘smart’ for playing defensive poker while making a final table and bagging decent cash this fall in a no limit hold ‘em tournament. Smart, because after spending hours using these card fumbling dogs as punching bags I had the discipline to ease back once I'd obtained the chip lead. You can’t lose if you don’t play hands and therefore you can't get thrown out the door head first while screaming "You got no game, you got lucky, biiiaaatch!" Anyhow, what? Playing defense late in a tournament is good strategy. Usually. I ignored this principle while spending much of Thanksgiving weekend playing poker in Reno, determined to bag my first tournament win and not settle for second or fifth place. Just win, baby.

And so when I made a move at John Ascuaga’s Nugget the carnage was bloody. After bagging pocket 6s, 8s and unsuited Ace-Jack, a ton of players staggered off to the valet mumbling until I became chip leader going to the final table. Not that anyone except me is counting, but that’s five final table appearances in six months, kids. Cashing when you’re the chip leader at a final table is easy, all you’ve gotta do is chill out and watch the players beat each other down. But forget about cashing, when you’re playing strong enough that the old guys show grudging respect by calling you "deceptive," it is time to get that elusive first win outright. You can always tell which players are in it to not lose and who's there to win. The guys who want to place take no risks. And they are assholes.

After getting pocket 9s I raised $1,000 in chips figuring to take the pot down right away. A frat boy called but only had $600, then a redneck in a Chevy baseball cap went ‘all in’ with $2,600. That’s enough dough to guarantee victory. I’d caught him bluffing earlier, knew he had a borderline hand, and I had over $4,000 in chips to play with. After calling, I felt pretty damn good when both of these players showed unsuited King-10. That reduces the chances that either would pair the board, and this pot’s chip yield would put me so far ahead Johnny Chan couldn’t catch me. Then, in a twist so absurd I couldn’t even get mad, the dealer flopped us 10-8-King. Two morons split the pot. Listen to Phil Hellmuth, who once said that if not for luck, he’d win every tournament. That comment is jokingly referred to whenever folks talk about the arrogance of poker players but if you’re playing well and end up the victim of ridiculous luck you start to feel what Phil’s saying.
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Time to get Thankful, and outta town!

Another Thanksgiving is here and so are the excuses to toss your diet in the garbage disposal with the leftover cranberry sauce nobody ate. Be thankful that here in the USA our resources are plentiful and you can gorge on enough turkey to feed a family of 12 in the Third World. Appreciate that you’ve got a family willing to bear a horrid drive or flight with 38 million roaming apes just to see your hipster ass. If you’re in good health and not disfigured be thankful, because some people are tore up and nobody gives a damn about them. Also, be thankful that in this consumerccentric country everything is available, for a price.

You can waddle to San Francisco’s Market Street on Black Friday and score dozens of drum & bass 12" vinyls like Klute’s amazing Don’t Wanna Be Alone, a football field length of Christmas lights, Prada sunglasses and the brazilliant Walter Satterthwait’s brand spankin’ new novel Dead Horse -- in 30 minutes flat without walking more than 50 yards. Sure this is consumerism, that’s America baby. We’re also an A-type society that never has enough and rarely slows down to appreciate the simple things. I am guilty of that. In fact, I never used to think about the meaning of Thanksgiving. Pilgrims and Indians and yes, the Indians wuz robbed but not by you or me.

Then a few years ago my ex-girlfriend Jenny said that each Thanksgiving she writes a list of all the things she’s grateful for. Now that’s an idea. This year I am thankful for my good health, that my uncle made it through heart surgery last week, that I can balance financial journalism, DJing and writing novels without totally burning out, for my girlfriend Michelle’s loyalty, and I’m thankful for the sunset above Grandma’s olive trees. I am on the road to visit The Fam and then to Reno for three No Limit Hold ‘Em tournaments in three days, so y’all keep us dialed early next week for a new mix by my homeboy Lantz, details about Walter's latest novel (buy it now, bitches!) and other fun stuff. Meanwhile, if you've got an announcement for the book or music biznis send it via the "contact us" bar. Happy Thanksgiving, kids!
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DJ Sandra Collins pulls a first -- wish we were there!

Did anyone else have problems watching last night’s breakthrough DJ program with the beatalicious Sandra Collins? Getting in late after a night of French food with The Fam at Bistro Liason -- click here for pics -- I was looking forward to bumping Collins’ phat trance set with Vello Virkhaus handling visuals as they performed the first ever live broadcast on Myspace. Some say that Sandra is a diva but I say bitch is the bomb!

Well, anytime you try something nobody’s ever done before, you can expect a few glitches. After trying to download their audio/visual program over and over I finally gave up an hour later and was so bummed. Boo. Maybe next time I’ll tune in early and not three hours after the show begins. Cuz you know a million Internet sloths probably beat me there and maxed the shit out the broadband. Congrats on continuing to push the boundaries, Sandra. Keep it up!
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Dropping birthday beats!

Today is my birthday and like many Drum & Bass-heads I feel the best way to celebrate November 17 is surrounding yourself in heavy bass. The Fam wanted to do our ritual French dinner tonight but I told them to hold off ‘til Saturday. A more appropriate way to mark when the great Martin Scorsese and your not-so-humble hyphenated entertainer landed on Earth comes through mixing phat beats on 104.1 FM. If you’re in the S.F. Bay Area, tune in Friday night from 10 pm to 1 am for the regular fun and games. Holla!
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James Nae is a wimp!

For those interested in drunks who wish they were junkies, Miss Manners recently kidnapped James Nae, beat him over the head with a million little umbrellas and then shot him from a canon into New York club Employees Only. The former "bad boy" author and current brain-scrambled, washed-up hack was called out by a martini swilling hipster and forgot to read his tattoo. Either Nae is afraid someone will report about him drunk and breaking a glass over his own head or he’s a wimp.

Which is it? Anyone who tattoos "shut the fuck up it’s time to throw down" on his arm punches like a gay fashionista in heels, so I’ll let you guess the answer to that question. If you detect a bit of sarcasm here it’s not that I’m mad about Nae lying through his teeth and causing that old hag Oprah to lose her credibility. It’s cuz my precious Lindsay Lohan bought into his act, attended the launch party of his last pile of shit and told my favorite tabloid she’s a big fan. No, no, no, Lindsay. You should buy into my act because it's time to step up to this! PS: Speaking of tats, Lindsay got a new one. Hot!
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Spreading the Drum & Bass gospel to bums across America!

I just had a conversation with a homeless dude. I rarely talk with hoboes. Mainly because they always want "spare change" or a cigarette. Naturally, a crack head looking for stogues and money stood on the sidewalk next to the only parking spot in town tonight. But my windows were down and one of my recent Drum & Bass sets rumbled loud enough to blow an elephant’s eardrum. That’s how I roll, but you knew that. As soon as I shifted into park, crackhead stuck his head through the passenger window and shouted, "That isn’t House music, is it?"

I told him, "No, it’s Drum & Bass." He asked, "What’s that?" and I said it’s electronic music like House but since it’s from the UK it’s harder and faster. And the bass is heavier. He suddenly had a confused look. "What’s the UK?" ... Uh, yeah. After saying the United Kingdom he asked "where’s that?" and thinking he’s fucking with me at this point, I just pointed to my Kappa jacket that says GREAT BRITAIN in big red letters. After all this, he finally asked for spare change to which I said "no" and then he tried bumming a cigarette. You know what, I actually wanted to give him one but had burned the last Marlboro Light while chugging a Starfucks Americano on the Bay Bridge and fueling up for an evening of writing. "That’s cool music," he said before taking off. And so I spread the D&B gospel to one more American who had never heard it before.

Is this a long winded way of introducing my latest D&B mix to you? No. Because even though that set had some phat remixing and booming bass, a white label record started skipping right before I transitioned into a DJ Fresh track and that totally burst my bubble. Instead, you get a Downtempo/electro set that’s good for chilling out with a double cappuccino while surfing the net for random gossip and buzz. Downtempo is also good for writing, and music that fuels prose is something I've gotta hear right now. Banging out news articles to D&B is easy but writing fiction to it is impossible. And so this set goes live because Bistro de Mars ain’t writing itself and because I’m selfish. Just ask any homeless guy who’s scraping up coins for a 40.
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Who says literary fiction doesn’t pay!

I don’t wanna hear anyone say you’ve gotta churn out genre fiction if you want to make a living writing novels. Yeah, crime novels are hot, sure there’s more thriller writers on the best seller lists than you can hit with a Louisville Slugger. But when author Sara Gruen can write up a little old novel about joining the circus and then bag a gazillion buck deal then all rules are thrown in the trash.

This is a great sign for us authors who refuse to join the genre bandwagon. And you can bet that if Bistro de Mars lit up any publisher’s check book like that, my first moves would involve buying a robot butler, entering every televised No Limit Hold ‘Em tournament on Earth, and partying weeks on end with Brittny Gastineau (happy 24th birthday, baby girl!) and a bucket of coke. Um, I mean I’d sit here in the study churning out fresh new literary gold nuggets that expand the parameters of fiction.

Having corresponded with Sara for awhile now, it’s a safe bet that she is too sweet and grounded to go crazy now that she’s on top of the world. But how is this for a post-deal image? Sara gets a foot massage while towel whipping a buffed out pool boy on the ass and guzzling Saphire gin and tonics in Hawaii. PS: You know every circus freak in America is now begging the brazilliant Emma Sweeney to rep their novel about bearded ladies and sword swallowers!
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Television is for mental midgets!

Since today was Vote Day I bailed work at an unusually early 6 pm, navigated my way through not one but two car wrecks on the Bay Bridge and, after getting lost two or six times, finally found the polling station. Decent turnout but no electricity like the last go-around, when The Terminator beat out Gray Davis in a "special election" aka coup.

I enjoy this voting thing, so it was an effort to skip two election night parties -- for Todd Chretien and Amy Allison who ran for U.S. Senate and Oakland District 2 City Council, respectively. Why skip ‘em? Cuz it’s NaNoWriMo, in case you haven’t guessed yet, which means banging out tons of prose under a tight deadline and shelving real life events.

Still, everyone’s gotta eat dinner. So while heating up a quick ham sandwich I turned on the TV in hopes of finding election results. CBS had some graphics that said Arnuld is terminating his Calif. governor opponent Phil Angelides, then abruptly cut off to some weird ass show that TV-heads probably watch in a Thorazine stupor. "It’s the election night Dancing With The Stars!" some old guy in a suit shouted. What is this crap? This would have been funny except they weren't kidding. This is why I don't watch TV.

Don’t anyone bitch about low voter turnout. When the TV stations brush off elections in favor of busted up has-beens prancing around to, as the announcer says, "chase their dreams!" you know we are fucked. Or not. The Democrats now control the House, so it looks like George W.’s weird shenanigans finally helped the Republicans get the shit kicked out of them. Update: Voters in both San Francisco and Bekeley passed resolutions to impeach Bush, making this the cities' official stance on belligerent morons.
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Get out and vote, kids!

It’s that time of year when each and every one of us has clout. When your will can lead to politicians getting escorted off the premises and kicked to the curb. Now’s your chance whether you want to send a big F.U. to the powers that be or simply support your favorite candidate, so make sure to vote today, kids! Tonight have your say in dozens of races and think of it like this: You’re like the crowd witnessing gladiator games in ancient Rome. Thumbs up or thumbs down, baby. That’s kinda fun. Plus, if you’re in California did you know it’s your legal right to bail out of work one hour early to vote? Yep, so tell your boss to eat a big one!
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Sundays are made for writing!

It is a beautiful and warm Sunday afternoon here in the S.F. Bay, weather that normally prompts me to run in the Oakland hills or lift weights before heading to Artichoke Joe's for their Sunday night No Limit Hold 'Em tournament. Not today! Instead, I am loaded on six cups of coffee after enjoying brunch at Saul’s with my newly married pals Deb and Brad, plus Michelle, who’s got an interesting book review on tap later. Now with a double cappuccino in hand, I am spending the rest of the day writing Bistro de Mars. This NaNoWriMo thing means it is time to lay down serious pages and let’s just say the jet fuel running through my veins is enough to help the novel take off like a rocket.
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Our studio guest tonight is a naked girl!

We’ve had some interesting studio guests since launching the weekly Word & Bass Show on 104.1 FM back in 2002. There’s the rap crew who often hung out until that time they got on the mic and made a bunch of shout-outs to gangs in Oakland. There’s local DJs like Denise who are as kind as they are talented. Then there’s the party heads who pass through on a Friday night determined to get their weekend groove on early.

Last night the 104.1 FM studio area was quite a scene. Lots of folks partying. It’s times like this when I close the studio door to better concentrate on mixing some phat Downtempo and Drum & Bass. Midway through my Downtempo set there’s a knock at the door. After transitioning from Boards of Canada to Dead Prez, I open up to find two sorta cute girls wanting to come in. Sure, I like company, especially before the Drum & Bass set where I am all about focusing on the mix and less about socializing.

One of the girls is wearing a long coat. She takes a seat. Turns out she’s from Humboldt and is here in the S.F. Bay producing a rap video. She just finished a long day shooting in The City and is now blowing off steam. She freestyles some rap to an Andrea Parker track I’ve now got banging, and suddenly her coat opens. It turns out the girl is buck naked under her coat! Not even a g-string to cover herself downstairs. For the rest of her visit I’m trying not to, um, look down. Only in Berkeley, kids, only in Berkeley.
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The Day After is Day 1 of NaNoWriMo!

"Drinking coffee just makes you feel even more toxic." -- Lis, on efforts to revive yourself with coffee the day after a drinking binge.

I am absolutely ruined today. Getting little sleep, a Tuesday night partying, and Pumpkin beer tends to do that. Signs were clearly pointing in this direction when we arrived at The Purple House at 8 pm and there was already a big crowd on the porch and black & white horror films projected off a big white bus that someone had parked out front. Our Halloween had a fantastic variety of music: polka/punk band Sound Wicked Warriors plus three DJs working off turntables and computers. Everyone happily danced in their mad costumes with fairies, vampires, zombies and butterflies all over the place. What a fun night hanging with old and new friends. I played two sets of Drum & Bass and Electro/Hip Hop, my man Chongo got the floor crazy with Hip Hop/Trance/Electro, and the crowd was rolling all night as you'll see in these photos.

Unfortunately, today’s six cups of coffee didn’t do a damn thing to buoy my depleted energy reserves. So after switching to green tea in the midafternoon, I am now onto Gatorade and furtively banging away at Bistro De Mars. This after taking most of the past three months off from writing the novel. Why start the big push to complete this on the Day After, when your creative capacity is dim at best? I joined National Novel Writing Month and it is time to watch the word count take off like a rocket. You know their program: Start and finish a 50,000-word novel in 30 days flat, quantity takes precedent over quality and get the damn thing done.

Well, since Bistro is already 75% completed I am 1.) blatantly cheating and 2.) will not comprise quality to buoy the word count and 3.) doing it strictly cuz this is the only time I can say screw working 10-12 hour days in the media salt mines, exercise is for the fitness obsessed, and poker is for liars. PS: How are we supposed to move fast when the NaNoWriMo website crawls like a slug? I can flip through a dozen pictures of my precious Lindsay Lohan dressed in a "hoochified" Halloween costume in the time it takes to download their homepage. Which y'all know is how I roll.
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Happy Halloween!

Tonight it is time to bust out your worst costume ideas ever, grab some liquor, zombie friends and go all night haunting the streets. While in downtown San Francisco there were princesses, Gis, Draculas and a bunch of unidentifiable characters. Now it is time to hit The Purple House in Oakland for a night of decadence and if you’ve partied there before you know a freakshow is imminent! I’ll be there not as BPM Smith -- my name is Mr. Blue! -- DJing with my homeboy Chongo who says he’s spinning Electro, Hip Hop and Trance. And you know I’m rolling with the Drum & Bass! Have fun wherever the night brings you, kids, and be safe! But not too safe.
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Snoop Dogg, literary whore!

Back in my original San Francisco days -- which were a lot more difficult, crazy, and broke than today -- Snoop Dogg’s work with Dr. Dre could well have been the soundtrack to the stories I’m now writing. That’s because music forms an instant bridge to time and place that helps jog your memory. But that doesn’t mean I’m about to run out and buy this freaking novel Love Don’t Eat Ass No More that Snoop "wrote" with a co-author aka sellout. Why? Cuz we all know Snoop can’t talk his way out of a drive-by shooting, let alone write a novel.

Simon & Schuster imprint Atria gobbled up this literary turd that’s the first part of a series because, well, names sell books. S&S knows how to keep it real and got Snoop Dog to write a series, y’all! Which is kind of like when you’re bombed out drunk and have to kiss porcelain over and over again until you flush the toilet enough times to get it all out of your system. PS: It’s good to see even sistas like Rhonda aren’t falling for this crap!
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Bijou Phillips is a star and Sean Lennon is a has-been!

A whole generation has no idea who the hell Sean Lennon is because we’ve only heard about his dad John Lennon from our parents. We do, however, know all about Bijou Phillips because she is today’s most adorable actress. And so when I hear that Yoko Ono’s son has a new album called Friendly Fire that supposedly chronicles the breakdown of Lennon’s relationship with my precious Bijou "after she cheated on him with his best friend," I’ll take that as an opportunity to tell this has-been to get over it!

Also, it’s another excuse to show you a photo of the hottest woman in Hollywood. And those of you who only know Bijou as that crazy girl who chopped some guy’s finger with a cigar clipper at one party and beat down Nicole Marie Lenz  at another, check out the UK press for way more insight on this highly underrated actress who’s about to blow up large. PS: Holla girl, it’s time to step up to this!
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Remixing dialogue is funky!

Ever hear about an NYC producer and DJ named RevoLucian? Me neither. That is, until the New York tabloids had a field day earlier this month when Barbara Streisand ruined her own tour by getting all political onstage and then telling the jeering audience: "Shut the fuck up! Shut up if you can't take a joke!" Anyhow, back to RevoLucian. He remixed Bab’s tirade to beats and it’s not only hilarious, it actually is pretty funky.

Which reminds me of the time my college roommate got hold of a bunch of my voicemails and made Techno tracks out of such quotes as my man Ben saying, "Yo dude, those bitches are tripping, call me back" and my ex Nichole screaming, "Fuck youuuu!" Maybe one day I’ll download those tracks here at WNB.com for y’all to dance to. Or not. While I ponder the pros and cons, you can check out RevoLucian's myspace to hear his funky STFU track.
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Better cock that .45 next time you play poker online!

"Their mission is to kill the funding of online poker, and that's what this law does." -- Mike Sexton, host of the World Poker Tour.

President George W. Bush has signed the "Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act" that tries to ban most online gambling. This is W's response to today's explosion in online gambling, fueled by the Texas Hold 'em craze and most everyone knows the Prez is really just targeting online poker sites. And I would like to tell George W. Bush to fuck off! But I won’t, since the cops will probably pull me over the next time I'm driving to Safeway for some organic non-roids raging milk and then tazer me for no reason. While none of the 30-plus Hold ‘em tournaments I’ve played this year were online, it’s really fueled the popularity of this game that I love and I don’t see why the government is wasting its efforts on something like this. Well, aside from they just couldn't figure out how to tax, regulate, and profit off online poker. And that's what really pisses off the government. Player haters.
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Mike Tyson wants your money!

"Hell yeah, I’ll be your number one stud." -- Mike Tyson, to Heidi Fleiss regarding her new house of prostitution outside Vegas.

Mike Tyson squared off in a four round exhibition match on Friday and, oh, how the mighty have fallen. His "fight" was against Corey "T-Rex" Sanders, a 292-lb. former contender with a detached retina. They might call him a T-Rex but I've investigated him and found that when he’s not in a boxing ring the dude is actually a zombie. Iron Mike started this world tour of exhibition fights for several reasons. First, he is too shot from the years of roids, cocaine, liquor and hoes for a real fight. Second, he owes gazillions of dollars to the IRS. Three, if he doesn’t bag enough cash real soon his next venture will be as a hooker. Meanwhile, housewives across America are now fearing that their husbands will get so wasted drunk on their next trip to Vegas that they’ll suddenly decide, "Hey, let’s get the wife knocked up (or out) by Mike Tyson."
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Rapper Fabolous gets blasted, lifts street cred before new album!

It is a damn shame what a rapper’s gotta do for attention nowadays. Fabolous, who rode a wave of buzz a few years ago for his smooth delivery, was pretty much forgotten by the mainstream press until Tuesday when his ass got blasted, hospitalized (stable condition) and put under arrest. Some random asshole with a gun approached him and three others at a Manhattan parking garage and opened fire, nailing Fab in the thigh. The four fled in a pimped out ride and ran a red light, leading cops to arrest them for packing guns meant to protect themselves from blazing lunatics like the clown they’d just escaped.

Def Jam probably expects this whole mess will buoy interest in Fabolous’ upcoming album that’s due out in December, according to his MySpace. Meanwhile, nobody asked why the pigs couldn’t arrest a psychopath staggering through Manhattan with a smoking gun and drugged out eyeballs, or how they felt arresting a guy for having the nerve to bleed on a city sidewalk. PS: Last week while rolling through Oakland and bumping his album Street Dreams en route to the World & Bass Show I was wondering, "Hmm, I wonder what happened to Fabolous." Guess this pretty much answers it.
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Drum & Bass, poker and Peet’s Coffee -- it’s great to be home!

After rolling in the U.S. South it sure is nice returning to the S.F Bay Area. We’ve got more electronic music happening than you’d ever want to catch, a weekly Drum & Bass blowout on the radio air waves, and -- unlike anywhere in the gambling-averse state of Tennessee -- lots of poker tournaments. So it’s back to the weekend routine and I am loving it. Hit up Popeyes in Oakland for some fried chicken and beer on Friday and then played D&B and Electro in the studio until 2 am. Slept in late Saturday, and woke to study those guys at the Professional Poker Tour while guzzling a whole pot of Peet’s Coffee. Peet’s is one thing y’all just don’t have in the South! Wouldn’t wanna be ya!

The only disappointment is the Oakland A’s. WTF? Who would've guessed that my hometown team would get their asses fisted by the Detroit Tiger’s brutal pitching staff. They just got swept like dust bunnies on the kitchen floor. Lose and that’s fine, I mean it’s better to lose than never try to win, but do not go out like chumps. And local sports reporters like Bruce Jenkins need to stop sucking the balls off players and recognize they choked like a bad porn star! You are supposed to be journalists, not cheer leaders. Speaking of flameouts, I forgot to mention before leaving town that for once, I accrued a giant pile of chips at a poker tournament and did not burn them all. That’s right, I am playing good poker once again and made my fourth final table in less than four months.

The way to break out of a slump is do not trip on your game. Play your style and read your opponents’ bird brain process for tells. Get a good read, and raising on the river when all you’ve got is a pair of Jacks is not reckless. Not when you know the other guy only has a pair of 8’s. After bumping your stack from an opening $1,000 in chips to $30,000, you can just sit back, wait for possible nut draws and watch others beat each other bloody. We decided to split the pot once we got down to the top seven and now I’m sitting on a stack of $100 bills. See you Sunday at Artichoke Joe's, bitches!
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Just wait ‘til the smash-and-grab criminals bum rush Mitch Albom!

"Professional smash and grab criminals infest this neighborhood." -- sign posted in San Francisco’s SOMA District.

The Book Standard folks just e-mailed me a hot tidbit: Mitch Albom’s latest novel, For One More Day, has sold 115,300 copies in its debut week and they’re trying to figure out if Starbucks had an impact. See, they’re hawking Albom’s novel at stores across the country like a pimp on hoes. Let me figure it out for them: One More Day is about a man’s last chance to spend time with his already-dead mother. Get it? So yes, Starbucks hit a home run because everyone who gets wired on coffee starts ruminating on dead relatives, the errand list that runs 20 items deep, Saturday’s five-cappuccino-and-waffle breakfast, and dead childhood dogs.

Since Mitch is probably blinging with hundred dollar bills, a white fur coat and Prada sunglasses this week, he’ll want to avoid the Starbucks in San Francisco’s SOMA District. Because while cruising down Folsom Street for my double latte -- medium or tall or whatever man, just gimme the 12 oz. one -- I saw a sign posted on a telephone pole warning that the animals in this town will tear your shit up if you’re packing cash. That was a true welcome-back-to-SF moment. And a reminder to lock the good stuff in your car’s trunk, including yourself.
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Going back to Cali!

"C’mon, we’re in Tennessee, you can’t drink vodka all night. Let me buy you a whiskey." -- heard at a bar in Knoxville, after drinking wine, beer, champagne and vodka.
 
Tennessee is beautiful. Green mountains and trees, friendly people and some of the best damn barbecue ever. My pals Deb and Brad are now honeymooning in Hawaii and if they’re like me, still nursing a hangover days after their wedding. After a touching ceremony and reception at a country club overlooking the same lake where they met in college, they hosted a raucous night of entertainment as a bus trolled 25 of us ‘after partiers’ to various bars and clubs.

I broke my two-drink rule. And that rule doesn’t mean limit yourself to two cocktails. It means unlimited supply of say, gin and wine, or beer and tequila, or vodka and gin. You get the picture. That doesn’t work when you’re rolling with kids from California (what up Mario!), Philly (shout-out April!), Chicago, Madrid, Spain, Denmark... Last thing I remember, 10 of us were in someone’s hotel suite with a jerk banging on the wall and Brad’s best man answering the phone with a rebuttal: "Actually, I’d like to complain about my neighbor. They’re being too loud. That’s right, they keep banging on the walls." We then slept until 3 pm.

The following day, everyone had flown back to their home states while I hit a bar in Old Town Knoxville to drink water and enjoy a fantastic BBQ pork sandwich that, unlike every BBQ joint in California, was not drowned in sauce. Then I chilled in a café. Then I watched re-runs of this year's WSOP, studying real sharp players and not that moron Jamie Gold, until 3 am. See, when you have a 7 am flight in Nashville it means that instead of going to bed early, you pull an all-nighter and start driving at 3 am.

Cue up LL Cool J, because returning to Cali is a long freaking haul. I started driving in the dark and immediately started seeing double. Then my vision blurred, a three-hour drive turned into four, and let me tell you that figuring out which freeway line is the real one and which one is a hallucination is kinda tough at 4 am on unfamiliar roads. Then I got lost in Nashville which is a shit hole.

Naturally, the Southwest line extended out the door and I had to curse out some jerk who tried saying that I cut in line. Vicodin was popping on the descents into Kansas City and Oakland, in part cuz an obese woman nearly pushed me out of the aisle seat every time she inhaled. By the time we reached the Oakland Intl Airport, I’d have looked like a zombie with blood shooting out of my ears if not for narcotics and my trusty Gucci sunglasses. There's no place like home.
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Are you ready, Tennessee?

The weekend’s here and I am flying to the Dirty South. Well, my great friends Deb and Brad are getting married in Tennessee and the wedding takes place in Deb’s birthplace, so it’s safe to say there’s nothing dirty about this. Decadent, yes, since many of us California kids roll that way. Deb is such a thoughtful and sweet girl, she arranged for a bus to shuttle us around so that we don’t drunkenly drive our rented cars through her hometown!

Anyhow, since it’s a Saturday wedding I’m spending Friday flying to Nashville and then driving the rest of the way in a journey that will hopefully not evoke images of Deliverance. It’s 9:50 and I’ve got an 11 am flight, so it’s time to grab the Loro Piana suit, Gucci shades and Vicodin and deal with airport murder. Ciao, kids! PS: Congratulations my friends, you guys are made for each other! There is a phat bottle of champagne waiting for you after the honeymoon. French, of course!
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You gotta love Gerard Jones!

He he. I just got a "press release" from Gerard Jones, who many of you literary types know as the guy who compiled a huge list of agents and editors while posting their rejection letters for his novel verbatim on his website. Well, now that he got an agent who sold his novel, he’s focusing on compiling media lists and apparently WNB.com is on it. And by "press release" he means it's sent to "media and entertainment boys and girls who constitute the modern-day equivalent of the Reich Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment." I loves it! His press release includes the following -- this isn't the whole thing, just the funny parts:

"I just got my 'royalty' statement from the publisher. Ginny Good sold 24 copies worldwide in the last six months and I bought four of the copies, myself... so that's what? Less than one a week? Yes! I get a dollar for every copy sold, though, so in six months I made enough to pay for almost two of the four of my own books I bought. Yippee! Oh, but wait, I didn't actually get the twenty-four bucks 'cause I still owe $1,800 on the $2,000 "advance." Rats. At that rate the advance won't be paid off 'til I'm a hundred and eighteen years old."

"When you write a great work of timeless literature and get it published the way you want it published, whether it makes money or not is superfluous. What's even more superfluous is the sickeningly synthetic, book-doctored schlock and pretentious claptrap that wins awards and gets itself on "bestseller" lists. Keeping people stupid slaves can't be a very rewarding way to make a living. Can it? Nah. The geniuses who run the media and entertainment industries will understand that one of these days."

You gotta love Gerard, the old guy's never gonna stop bushwhacking. He’s kinda like that self-loathing class clown in college who relentlessly tried dating the football cheerleaders, despite getting constant rebuffs. Or my homeboy who approached a group of girls at a party with the opening line, "Yo girls, wanna smoke some bud?" The lines don't usually work, but every once in a while they catch the big fish.
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Here come the sharks!

Don’t ask why, but tonight I am freaking myself out reading shark news. Yes, now that it’s fall there are lots of Great White Sharks cruising around the West Coast because seals are migrating and they make nice snacks. So do humans. They report two sightings at my hangouts -- Ocean Beach in the SFC and the Santa Cruz pier -- in the last two weeks.

At Ocean Beach some surfer just saw a shark big enough to swallow your head like a martini olive: "I saw a large dorsal fin (at least 24 inches visible above the water) between myself and the other surfers. The dorsal fin was… moving directly towards me at a very fast speed. I caught a wave within 30 seconds and rode it to the sand."

Yes, that’s the same Ocean Beach my homeboy Rick once dove into at 2 am after losing a game of pool at some bar whose name is a blur, the same beach where I once saw a few people drown, and where I used to swim on sunny days. Not anymore! And they also report 40-foot Great Whites have invaded Santa Cruz so my man Jon, you better not body surf anymore brudda, and in Santa Monica, "We were looking at some large sharks, maybe Great Whites" so Kelly, don’t even think about swimming after a hard day in the salt mines, baby girl. PS: They say of the 111 reported shark attacks from California in the last 55 years, the Great White Shark was implicated in 99. Run for your lives!
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How to make friends and launch a bang-up book tour!

They say that an author’s worst fear is the book tour. Why? Cuz there’s a gazillion stories about these poor saps trawling from store to store where nobody shows up. That’s gotta feel demoralizing for an author, and lots of talk on literary message boards nowadays diverges to marketing, book tours and stuff that’s really not literary at all. So after grinding through another week in the media salt mines, I rolled with my sometimes-book reviewer Michelle to the Mission District for some Friday night enchiladas and Bohemia beer at La Rondalla and then to New College, where Justin Akers Chacon made his San Francisco stop in support of his new non-fiction book No One is Illegal.

First, we entered a small room to find a dozen people sat watching Chacon talk on a TV monitor. I think, uh-oh, here’s another book launch event that’s poorly attended and WTF, the author doesn’t even show up in person? Wrong. It turns out this was the overflow room, so we walked down a hall into an auditorium jam packed to standing room only and had to stand against a wall. Chacon and a couple other panelists talked about immigration issues, one of this year’s hot button political topics, especially here in California where they've got a lot of legistlation on tap. It’s kinda shocking that some 300 people would attend what amounts to a book signing on a Friday night. Icing on the cake? This shit wasn’t even free, most of these folks paid $5 to check it out.

So not only did Chacon have a slam dunk book launch, the organizers bagged phat cash. For a book tour! And here’s where budding authors can take a lesson from Chacon. Before you embark on a road show to promote your latest book, align yourself with people who support whatever the hell your stuff’s about. Chacon got the ISO behind him along with a prominent independent bookstore, the venue itself, and the uberliberal radio station KPFA. See, he had a vision of the various local groups that would totally back his book’s premise, got them involved and presto: hyped up literary event! Now we novelists just gotta figure out how to garner that kinda public support for made-up characters in a made-up world. You guys who’ve already published novels can shed some light on that one, it’s not something that a yet-to-debut novelist like me has any juice on. Other than leaking a bunch of dirt and then tossing a top hat-wearing midget, free liquor, and a sideshow of DJs into the mix.
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Another book done, another novelist takes it in the ass!

Today I finished my eighth business non-fiction book and it’s on the fast track to getting published. Yehaw! Actually, I should clarify: I finished a 12,000 word chapter that’s part of the eighth biz NF book in which I was a contributing editor. Whateva, that’s 12,000 punches to the face I endured and so Wednesday, September 27 felt like a huge burden got lifted. I’m still a lucky bastard. See, here in the USA we authors take our ass whuppings by working like jerks in various writerly professions until our eyes bleed and we cannot endure another two hours per night of writing our novels.

In Turkey, they beat your ass by drumming up bogus charges of "insulting Turkishness." Just ask Elif Shafak, who was accused of this "crime" because of remarks made by a character in her novel The Bastard of Istanbul. Let’s see, Turkey wants its citizens to not hate the government, judiciary, military and security services and yet they’ll jail your ass for writing stories that happen to mention them. Brilliant! In related logic, I once dated a girl from Turkey and it turns out they’re supposed to be virgins when married. So what many young women from Turkey do is get fucked in the ass instead. That’s kinda like when the government arrests you and then the prosecutor requests an acquittal, saying no crime had been committed.
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I’m back, with an excuse!

You might’ve noticed our lovely site was down from September 18-19. Did you think that we were gone for good? Worry that the Feds had barreled through the door and confiscated a bunch of drugs, hundred dollar bills, drum & bass records and computers at the WNB.com headquarters? Well, it’s not that exciting. The guys who ran our server were bought out by a bigger company that pulled the plug without even offering an excuse. I mean, c’mon people, you could've at least made up something.

Example: gangsta rapper DMX impregnated some random chick and told his wife that he did not Mack. No, no, this woman raped the big, tough DMX, I tell ya! Cuz after all, whenever we men fall asleep in the dark, our members always end up in the vaginas of random groupies. Not convinced? Hey, at least DMX exerted the effort to lie. Unlike these money-grubbing techie sharks who acquire smaller companies and then shut them down. When Candi my web designer got them on the phone they just said, "We’re out of business." Meh. Excuses are more entertaining.
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James Elroy goes Hollywood!

Contemporary authors know that you cannot write a novel set in L.A. without first reading James Ellroy. That’s because the author of L.A. Confidential captures the city’s essence in taut detail. In other words, homeboy owns that town like it’s his bitch! So all you La La Land budding authors gotta show him the love and buy his books, not only cuz he’s a damn good writer but because he has essentially defined the city and, as Wesley Strick said, "You want to retain your own voice and not be like James Elroy. You’re revisiting a period that’s been done by some real giants."

Tonight (Friday, September 15) those of you who are too lazy to read novels can catch the nationwide film debut of Ellroy’s The Black Dahlia. Did I mention it's directed by the guy who helmed Scarface? Hells yes! And of course, since dot-com land has led to a lot of authors telling me their own horror stories about getting their novels optioned -- only to have some mental midget back out of a green-lighted film -- it’s nice to see a true literary master bagging phat cash in Hollywood. In related news, my precious Lindsay Lohan has left Italy for Fashion Week NYC and looks smoking hot. My only question is why’d the photographer have to ruin this picture with that Mexican fast food clown? Beat it, jerk!

PS: Catch me spinning Drum & Bass from 10:30 pm to 1:30 am tonight on 104.1 FM, kids!
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‘The Kid’ returns after shark feeding frenzy!

It turns out some women in the office building have taken to calling me "The Kid." As in, one fortysomething woman sees The Legends of Poker on TV Sunday night and hollers to her friend, whose freshly painted toe nails are drying on cotton balls: "Jenny, look in the crowd and see if you can find The Kid!" The ladies know I am a wanna-be poker shark and had flown to L.A. for this tournament, only to get tag teamed by a couple of bluffing bastards.

Poker is psychological war just like any sport. Back when I ran track, teammates could never cross the finish line ahead of me in practice; in cycling, I'd out-climb other riders without standing up to pedal; in boxing, an opponent said he was creeped out after noticing that I smiled while issuing a beating. He never fought again. These are messages meant to demoralize your opponents, and occasionally it can happen to you. The Legends of Poker did just that.

I have played like shit ever since flaming out of that tournament. Doing stupid things like only calling the blinds when I had suited Ace-Queen. Finally, this week the real BPM Smith showed up. Analyzing probability, observing the behavior of players (in eyes, jaws, lips, hands) and running them off the table when sensing weakness, watching everyone's chip counts and -- most importantly -- playing moderately tight while remaining prepared to gamble all the way at any moment. After sending several players out to the street mumbling as if in a drunken stupor, the table started folding every time I raised. My chip count surpassed $7,000 when they moved us to three tables left and fewer than 30 players. Chill out a half hour and a final table appearance was guaranteed.

Playing that tight isn’t my style. At table three, the suckers were one hunchback who often bluffed, one Internet player who gawked and smiled everytime I stared him down after a raise, and one mad beautiful girl who dreadfully feared the big blinds. She had the biggest stack of chips somehow, yet flamed out in five minutes flat. This was a moderate bummer cuz I always root on girl players, especially cute girls who deserve any opportunity they can get.

After pocketing suited Queen-Jack I raised $3,000, to which everyone folded but the hunchback. Perfect heads-up opportunity. The flop was Jack of hearts, 8 of spades, 4 of clubs. No flush or straight possibilities, and I hit the top pair. Hunchback goes all-in and I immediately call. Hunchback’s face darkened since he had unsuited ace-six. No straight, no pair, no shit! The dumb ass goes all in with survival a roughly 5% chance at pairing the ace, which made no sense. In the end, I didn’t make the final table due to random luck but it sure feels good to be playing strong poker again.
             __________________________

Before we called it 9-11

"I was late for a 9 am meeting but they made me exit the subway. I asked some guy which way to the World Trade Center and he just said, 'Follow the smoke.'" -- commodity trader I quoted in a story on Sept. 11, 2001.

Exactly five years ago I was awoken by my friend Ally, who said my then-girlfriend Jody was on the cell. Jody demanded I not ride BART to work -- that’s like the subway to you New Yorkers -- because the tunnel would get bombed. "What the hell are you talking about?" Turn on the TV, she said. You all remember exactly where you were on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. You probably stayed home with loved ones and pondered what kind of madness had taken hold of America. Being a workaholic financial journalist, I rode in to the City as the wave of commuters moved the opposite direction of usual. As I exited BART, hundreds of suit-clad folks walked into the tunnel to return home. At the office it was the same, a good 120 of my coworkers bailed yet I fired up the computer and began making phone calls.

I called several traders who are the lifeblood of this work and hit nothing but voicemail from Montreal to Chicago to New York City. Everyone had bailed. I tried calling the guys at CIBC World Markets and Salomon Smith Barney and Deutsche Bank, all of which had headquarters at or near the World Trade Center. Nada. Some of their assistants in other offices said they’re getting evacuated. Soon, a morbid sense hit me. I wasn’t chasing commodities because prices don’t move when there’s nobody to buy or sell. By the end of the day, I realized this wasn’t a news story, it was a potential body count, and none of us knew the end result other than bad fucking news. This is the lead from the story I wrote:

U.S. terrorist attacks halt markets; dollar tumbles as investment bank analysts evacuated

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 11, 2001 - Two airplanes crashed into the twin World Trade Center buildings in New York City Tuesday morning, demolishing both monuments of the U.S. economy and shutting down most U.S. stock exchanges and many businesses across the country. Various financial markets including the New York Stock Exchange will remain closed at least through Wednesday as both traders and analysts were evacuated from nearby buildings in Manhattan.

Within a few days I’d accounted for all the traders and analysts I knew on a personal/professional level and thankfully not one of them died. One guy, who saw the second plane barrel into the building just eight stories directly above him, escaped less than an hour before it collapsed. He said it was a long, slow walk down a darkened stairwell. He’s out of the business now, as are a lot of folks I knew back then. We have all made changes in our day-to-day lives after that horrible day. Author Kelly Lange told me that 9-11 prompted her to ditch her million-buck-a-year gig as a TV news anchor in favor of becoming a full time novelist. She made the right call.

I didn’t go that far. But after working a 70 hour week cataloguing the downfall of America’s financial markets, I realized two things. First, I was a reporter and writing about how 9-11 would impact the markets is simply what you do. And so I was the first to report that recession was here, the dollar’s slide wouldn’t help exports, and demand for the commodities on my beat would tumble. Second -- and this realization took awhile to sink in -- there’s more important things than becoming the best biznis reporter on Earth.

So 9-11 is when I shifted more energy into the arts. Experimenting in The Lab with Drum & Bass, something I’d dabbled with here and there, became a way to blow off steam for eight hours straight. With one novel done, I began working on four new projects and eventually settled on Bistro de Mars. My agent at the time wanted a different novel that she believed was "an easy sale" but I went with Bistro because it’s the story that had to get told before I am dead. And 9-11 is why the 70 hour work weeks will never happen again. Life’s pretty damn short.
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Authors are masochists!

We novelists are a masochistic lot. How else do you explain why we sit quarantined in our houses, our apartments, our Hovels of Hell for months or years on end, grinding away at manuscripts that quite possibly will never see the light of day? Our eyes bleed and our wrists go numb as we type type type like motherfuckers while our friends get lobotomized drunk at cocktail hour and our girlfriends attend parties with other men. Need further proof that writers crave self-mutilation? Check out one of my favorite bloggers, Miss Snark!

Over one hundred novelists have submitted query letters and one page of prose to this NYC literary agent. Most are gawd-awful, so these novelists should’ve known they had a Snarkalicious beatdown due. But I’ve gotta think this agent’s also a bit of a masochist. Either that, or she enjoys murdering her own soul. The only thing that hurts more than reading shitty prose is having Mike Tyson bite off your ear and mating with Star Jones, so let me pause to send a personal big ups to Miss Snark. Sure, all agents read tons of submissions. But how many agents post ‘em on the Internet? Shit or diamonds, she is tossing them out to dot-com land and issuing praise or ass whuppings as warranted:

"You're awash in description. ACTION. No plot, too much description, concept is pretty run of the mill. Form rejection."

"Tresses? tresses? You seriously expect me to read a YA novel from someone using the word tresses? Where are my smelling salts, I feel an attack of the vapors coming on."

I loves it! First, because who the hell has ever given us writers such a clear view of the publishing game’s yae-or-nae thought process? Second -- and this is selfish and vain -- the huge volume of garbage Miss Snark posted means that my novel is 100x better than the vomit my fellow novelists are chumming the sea of publishing with. It is a bear market for crappy novels, bitches!
                      __________________________

Hot fish tacos, on special for just $3.5 billion!

Summer vacation is so long gone. While I was in Los Angeles flaming out of the Legends of Poker, gobbling down Tito’s Tacos and narrowly missing a date with Lindsay Lohan, my deep background contacts in the media day job were busy leaving voicemails confirming that a $3.5 billion merger was about to get announced. The deal had to happen while I’m on vacation, right? This is an M&A story that I’d spent countless hours working on over the past four months, and it would’ve dwarfed the 11 similar deals I’ve broken before announcement. The Wall Street Journal eats my dust!

Now I am back in the media salt mines of San Francisco while Lindsay flashes her taco at a Venice Film Festival press event. We are worlds apart *sigh*. It’s also being reported that she’s got some boyfriend whose severed head I am about to FedEx to whatever publisher in NYC most recently declined to buy my debut novel South of a Daydream Wish. After some research, I have discovered (um, Googled) that this Harry Morton clown with pervert hands is a GM, or heir, or marketing flunkie of some Mexican restaurant chain called Pink Taco. Also, he takes beef super burritos hard up the ass until it resembles a bowl of refried beans!
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They shoot politicians while writers take a machete to the neck!

When my sister said her labor union had a phat BBQ on tap for Labor Day, all she had to mention was, "We’re having tons of meat, beer and a poker tournament." I am there, baby. Little did I know that any union-organized event is sure to end up all about politics. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides was joined by every freaking Democrat on this fall’s statewide ticket at the BBQ, which attracted more than 1,000 union members to Martin Luther King Jr. Shoreline Park in Oaktown, CA biaaaaaaaaaaaatch!

Sure enough, after I bounced out of the event's No Limit Hold 'Em tournament while going all-in on the blinds -- my suited Ace-King got beat by some 16-year-old brat’s unsuited Queen-4 and no, your eyes are not about to glaze over as I rant for the next 15 minutes about the stupidity of calling an all-in raise when all you have is a fucking Queen-4 in your pocket -- I hit a line that went 100 people deep, all of us patiently waiting for a plate of ribeye steak, chili and potato salad. Some guy in a suit planted a John Garamendi sticker on my chest. Apparently this guy is running for lieutenant governor, judging by his rant that immediately preceded Angelides’ speech. My neighbor Kevin later said that "Angelides is a billionaire," so I don’t know how these union folks relate to him. Must be the potshots he likes delivering to the Terminator’s perverted jaw.

This was one of three BBQs we attended over the weekend and my homeboy Lantz, who has a new mix coming soon here at WORD'N'BASS.com, told of flying to Miami with DJ Q-Bert. I also heard, from a friend whose brother is a script writer for Deadwood, that series creator David Milch has twice eluded a killer who likes hiding under his desk at the studio. Now there’s nothing wrong with stalking someone, especially if you’re a cute actress like Bijou Phillips, who can stalk me anytime she wants. However, if you’re an actress whose character got ‘killed off’ and you show up brandishing a machete you’ve just reinvented the definition of femme fatale. Who says being a politician is tough? Everyone knows that writing is tougher than fishing for salmon in Alaska, digging for coal, or swimming with sharks.
                       __________________________

James Toney wins despite daily bucket of KFC!

Walking me to the BART station after practice, Frank once made a confession. "One day, they’ll catch me," he said. The shooting had done something to his equilibrium, just slightly offsetting his balance so that he always boxed flat-footed. Because he was a puncher, he got away with it but, eventually, a slick boxer who could also punch would beat him. At the time, they had Frank scheduled on a James "Lights Out" Toney undercard, where he planned to let his fight go ten rounds so that he could claim the equilibrium problem resulted from the fight. This way, insurance would pay for a battery of tests and treatments. -- Excerpt from Bistro de Mars, an in-progress novel by BPM Smith.

It's Labor Day weekend and no, I am not spending it writing when my friends have boxing/poker/BBQs on tap. The sun is shining here in the S.F. Bay and on Monday there are two BBQs to hit. Despite the fun and games, I am bumming that one of my very favorite boxers wuz robbed last night. Michael Katz, the dean of boxing writers, once told me that "James Toney can get injured during pre-fight introductions." Homeboy has torn tendons in his Achilles heel while sparring and his bicep during a fight. Some expected him to blow shrapnel. Others said he's just too fat. I watched this press conference and knew he was bringing heat on Saturday, yet questioned whether his 38-year-old body could hold up against a younger, stronger KO artist. He outboxed and broke the nose of a young Sam Peter, yet you can expect folks are gonna write off this old lion after supposedly losing.

Doesn’t matter if he’s old, fat and drugged to the gills, I stick to my favorites ‘til the end. Plus, there’s a local angle with James. Back when I had dreams of million dollar paydays, entourages and driving a chromed out Range Rover as a pro boxer, my trainer was the same guy who handled James in the amateurs out at the Kronk Gym in Detroit. He tried teaching me some of those tricks and unfortunately, I was too much of a white boy to implement them right. They say authors write about stuff they wish they could do. Fair enough. Sportsbettors lay down cash on the athletes they’ll never be. Musicians compose music about sunsets they cannot describe in words. But champion boxers do more in one night than most civilians risk in a lifetime. You did well, James.
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Beyonce’s boobs star at book launch party, setting new precedent!

Why do all the juicy bookland events happen in NYC? Sure, 85% of the publishers are there but c’mon, we left coasters deserve to attend a book party like the Simon Spotlight Entertainment launch of June Ambrose's Effortless Style, which featured pop tart Beyonce flashing her boobs. Here we are a month before the book’s in stores and SSE is sure to bag plenty of pre-release buzz on the veteran stylist’s book. Naturally, this all gives me marketing ideas.

All St. Martin's Press has to do is drop $500,000 into my bank account for the following buzzalicious scenario: "Bad boy lit" fan Lindsay Lohan sweeps into San Francisco’s Tosca Cafe in a cocktail dress five hours late for BPM Smith’s launch of Bistro de Mars. BPM’s jaw and pants drop upon seeing the adorable Lindsay, and he stops breaking a martini glasse on JT Leroy’s head. He then realizes Leroy is actually a girl and -- never one to abuse the finer sex -- summons Francis Ford Coppola from across Columbus Street for an ice pack.

Lindsay, in a panic because all film directors want her to show up on time, escapes to a restroom, where she snorts five rails of coke with DJ Rap. The dress falls into a toilet and she returns naked, just as an S.F. Chronicle photographer arrives with her wanna-be talkshow host mother. Bistro de Mars gets global news coverage and the debate on Lindsay’s boobs ends once and for all. Best of all worlds. Don’t think it’ll happen? If Lindsay liked that crackpot phony whatshisname then she’ll love my writing. Love it, I tell ya! Holla, girl.
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You asked for celeb sightings and I sent back a shitty double latte!

Okay, okay, it’s true that no trip to L.A. is complete without a few celebrity sightings. My oblivious ass would’ve missed these if not for Michelle, who scans rooms with hawk eyes. So here we go: Actor/director Mario Van Peeples, at Pan’s with an entourage of 10 that included two nappy headed kids who nearly ran into our table... Kirsten Dunst, who stars in this Fall’s Marie-Antoinette from brilliant director Sofia Coppola, wearing a crazy-bright flower shirt at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf on Sunset Blvd. She nabbed a quadruple espresso before zipping off in a black electric Prius, probably pissed as hell after getting called back to the Spiderman III set for reshoots, since test audiences say that the formulaic bile is boring as fuck... Gossip gangsta Perez Hilton, who says I missed meeting my precious little train wreck Lindsay Lohan by just hours. Damnit, that is what I call a bad beat!... Speaking of B-list bloggers and D-listers in the big picture, BPM Smith repeatedly answering cell phone calls during dinner at Bistro de l' Hermitage’s patio, 1. to instruct homeboy Dave on how to cook a proper red sauce and 2. to say what up to literary gangsta Walter Satterthwait.
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Bringing a lighter wallet, darker complexion back from SoCal!

I have a tanned face and new wardrobe from Los Angeles but, unfortunately, a suitcase full of hundred dollar bills is missing. It seems that half of America’s poker players headed to the City of Angels in hopes of bagging riches last week. Two hours after flying into LAX, I’m smoking outside the Bicycle Casino. Some lawyer from Nevada tells me he just arrived from Vegas, where he’d bombed out of the World Series of Poker. No worries, he brings in $800k annually and does this for fun. Ten minutes before The Legends of Poker begins, a couple Asian dudes roll up to valet parking in a white Cadillac Escalade bumping heavy bass, as Johnny Chan holds court with his entourage next to a palm tree.

Since he’s just a competitor, I ignore The Master, flick a Marlboro Light to the curb, walk into the Bicycle’s plush tournament room and sit at table 13, seat 5 to play tighter-than-usual No Limit Hold ‘Em. A young Internet player goes all-in on the very first hand and is shelled by a middle aged Asian who slams his fist on the table after catching a three of a kind. I avoid confrontations and, after testing a few hands and seeing my stack rise and then fall from $1,000 to just $400 in chips, raise only when holding potential nuts. After three hours -- and drawing an aggressive young Korean to bet when I got a straight, bouncing a Turkish guy who had "exploded" several times during scuffles, and landing a four of a kind with 3s -- my pile grows to $4,000 and the table is now spooked. Every freaking time I raise the table folds.

This is when a good poker player abruptly changes his style and starts bluffing. A twenty something in a crew cut who joins our table after the second break and an old fat man with one arm like a Tyrannosaurus Rex are among those who fold every single time I raise. But they raise whenever I check. They are friends, loose playing sharks from L.A. whose strategy is to target tight players to steal from. The old guy’s hard to read but when the young buck raises $500 on a flop of King, 8, 3, he gets shifty eyes when I stare at him for 20 seconds straight. Bluffing. Yet my unsuited 8, 10 is too weak for a call and he shows just a paired 3 when I fold. Right read, wrong play. Then, after pairing a pocket Queen-Jack, I call the T. Rex’s all-in on the river. He shows a flush. Young buck chortles and I tell him: "We’ll see. You’re game’s not as tight as you think so watch it."

Ten minutes later he raises $300 on the flop that I call, then checks when the turn brings an ace. I’d paired the ace but check, hoping to set a trap for his eventual bluff. River is a 3, which I figure helps nobody and sure enough the buck goes all-in. He returns my gaze during a 20 second stare down. Bad sign. Yet I want to send that clown to the parking lot so badly I call anyhow. And end up at the valet just in time to watch the Escalade meekly drive off playing soft jazz.
              __________________________

Los Angeles here we come!

Well, after spending a week in the writing trenches banging out the novel, I am happy to say that Phase 1 of summer vacation is ovah! Enough of churning out ½ a page per hour while bumping Chus & Ceballos and Jody Wisternoff and then hitting Digitally Imported to buoy the creative juices. The fun part of vacation started Friday with a Drum & Bass set on 104.1 FM, which I do not have time to post. That’s cuz the suitcase is empty, there’s a party tonight in San Francisco and I’ve gotta wake up crazy early on Sunday for a flight to La-La Land.

Wanna party together? Help fight the Right by supporting local political activists at an event on Saturday, August 19 from 7 pm to midnight that includes music, drinks, food, a poker tournament, and silent auction at the ISO headquarters located at 110 Capp Street (near 16th and Mission BART) in The City. Naturally, I’m interested in the charity poker tournament, which has a $20 buy-in with one winner taking 25% of the pot. Donations for the shindig are set at $5 to $25 sliding scale, with proceeds going towards expenses the group racked up from Socialism 2006.

In theory I will not drink too much beer - easy to say here at 5 pm yet harder to observe at 10 pm - cuz Sunday afternoon The Legends of Poker kicks off at the Bicycle Casino in L.A. and I’m in it to win it! Now that the World Series of Poker is ending in Vegas the sharks are migrating west for their No-Limit Hold ‘Em tournament play, and if my game’s on they will be swimming with the fish! If I get whacked, then I’ll bring my Gucci shades to the Cabana Club and drink myself silly for the rest of the week. See you in Hollywood, bitches! Update: Sunday, 6:58 am is sleep deprivation. Jacked up despite 1 shower, 2 cups Peet's New Guinea and 1 Marlboro Light. Must catch plane. Airport horror. Ciao.
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After one dream fails it’s time to hit the Bistro!

I am on a two-week vacation for the first time in six bloody years, kids! Instead of my regular hot springs road trip, I decided getting down to biznis is key right now and Bistro De Mars is the door to open. We’re going on two years of grinding away and as of today, I’m on page 167 with a good 50 pages to go before finishing. The second novel is on it’s last legs but this is a much slower ride than expected. On Wednesday I wrote eight bloody hours straight and completed just four new pages - about half the pace I roll when I’m on point.

The reason it’s slow is I’ve had to go back, way back, a decade ago when life’s big dream was chasing glory as a boxer amid murky, scheming goons and scandalicious party babes. That’s the polar opposite of my current day-to-day life as a financial journalist/DJ/author because one thing I’ve avoided in recent years is drama. And Bistro De Mars is nothing but drama, y’all! My getting a beatdown (in more ways than one) will one day be your entertainment. Another thing this novel’s about is doggedly pursuing your dream. Never give up, whatever your aspirations are.

Today I read that about a heavyweight boxer Kelvin Davis whom one of my old best friends knocked out in the amateurs. My friend, who’s not getting named here, was the best prospect I ever knew. A year after I quit boxing, I’m at a casino parking lot hanging with my girls Jody and Carol and watching homeboy knock Kelvin silly in two rounds. Afterwards we partied with Grand Marnier and cigars at my pad, one of those great nights where you think, damn, homeboy’s going to make the big time. And even after my own boxing dream blew shrapnel it didn’t matter: one of us was gonna make it. Well, he quit the game and I can’t help but think had he stuck to it he’d be the one fighting for world titles today.
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Boy George singing the Monday Morning Blues!

Mondays suck. Especially when you’re picking up trash in the streets of NYC and are greeted by 50 paparazzo while trying to do community service. In case you forgot, last year we reported that the NYPD interrupted Boy George’s comeback as a House music DJ by arresting him in Manhattan for cocaine possession and falsely reporting a burglary. Oh well, I guess public humiliation is the price you gotta pay for coke-fueled nights of gay hooker sex. Say what you want about how the paps are outta control. My question has to do with Boy's nice shades; where can we get ‘em?

Seperately, all you bloggers who constantly ID this guy as the "former Culture Club singer" need to wake up. He's well into a second career as a club DJ, has toured Europe and North America several times, and released three studio albums since the Millennium: U Can Never Be 2 Straight (Virgin/EMI), A Night Out With Boy George (Moonshine Music) and Essential Mix (Rhino). In case you wanna update your biolerplates ahead of his next drug meltdown story, which will break in about 12 days, 11 days, 10 days...
                __________________________

Running of the bullshitters!

Call me a player hater if you want, but had I won that satellite at Harrah’s and bagged a $10,000 seat in this World Series of Poker Main Event, I would not play like an idiot and go all-in every single time I wanted to force opponents into folding. You could just as soon raise 10 times the big blinds and accomplish the same thing, while giving yourself a second, third and fourth chance if you blow the hand. This is called the subtleties of poker, which requires you not crumble under the pressure. There's no stress after you go all-in because your destiny is already sealed. Raising when you've got a borderline hand and no idea what card the river brings, that's stressful. So naturally, these morons panic and go all-in, resulting in mad carnage as the final table begins in Vegas on Thursday (Aug. 10) at 2 pm PST with these chip counts.

You want examples of why these clowns don’t know what they fuck they’re doing? Ok. Fred Goldberg moves all-in on the blinds for $2.8 million. Ooh, scary! But Richard Lee calls and shows pocket Kings. What’s Goldberg have? Off suited Queen-3! Goldberg is toast like cinnamon! Kevin Aaronson meanwhile pushes in all his money pre-flop with the all-powerful 10-4 offsuit. Erik Friberg doesn’t hesitate to throw down with his Ace-Queen offsuit. And hits two Queens on the flop and another on the river, giving Erik four of a kind and sending Kevin out of the Rio to China Town where he’ll probably pay $100 for a "full body" massage. Now we're down to nine players who will likely play some real shiznit, so check out Cardplayer.com for real-time chip counts and Gutshot.com for descriptions like this humdinger: "Rob Roseman, who has an odd chiseled face that would make him perfect as an extra in a Mad Max film, moves all in." Classic! PS: I predict Allen Cunningham wins, not Hollywood talent agent Jamie Gold, who's had the media sucking his balls all week! Update: Gold is gold.
                       __________________________

Tale of two 13-year-old music lovers!

File this under I-wanna-be-a-famous-globe-trotting-DJ. New York’s Roger Sanchez spent this past spring "playing all over the UK... before that, I was in Portugal and Italy." How's summer going? Well, he's spinning records "all over Europe and Ibiza, Spain, then I tour. I’ll do Hungary, Russia, Italy, Greece" which sounds like a pretty epic summer. Judging by this clip, homeboy knows how to work a break or two. Work it, bruda! Also note the hot club mamas bouncing to phat House beats. And did I mention he’s becoming a freaking actor this fall? Maybe this is what happens when you start your DJ career at age 13.

In a related note, yesterday I drank seven shots of espresso and nearly poked my eyeball out while inserting contact lenses in a Starfucks restroom. Because sight and caffeine are required to play poker tournaments. I did not win but, with shit cards, fought my way to 24th place out of 120 players. Yes, 24th. Again. Oh, and when I was 13 years old, my friends and I would blare Suicidal Tendencies on ‘boom boxes’ while riding skateboards home from track practice. When the creative urge hit, we'd throw eggs and homemade dummies at passing cars. In case you wanted a neat little compare and contrast.
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B.F. Skinner puts a stop to lazy Sundays!

Ah, there is nothing like Sundays. Slept in ‘til 11 am, then enjoyed a brie cheese and salami omelette with two double cappuccinos. Now that I’m somewhat resigned to missing this year’s WSOP, I am implementing the Behavior Modification theory of poker. Reward good behavior - such as writing the novel - with something that’s fun, like entering a poker tournament. Punish bad behavior like procrastination by denying entry to whatever No Limit Hold ‘Em tournament is happening.

Following the B.F. Skinner method will force me to lay out as many strong pages of the novel as possible in August, and hopefully complete a clean first draft by September. Maybe next year I’ll make this WSOP and get to spank Anna Benson with a pair of 2s. Watching her completely freak out is the ultimate reward for finishing something murderously difficult like a novel cuz when the bitch goes on tilt it’s the funniest thing since Dave Chappelle. But tough shit, I am not in Vegas. So, I spent this afternoon writing Chapter Eighteen of Bistro de Mars and, with the work now done, am now off to casino land. Ciao, kids!
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F.X. Toole plugs up sniper victims!

Ask around, and you’ll find that everyone has one Great American Novel in them. About half of the journalists I’ve known will tell you they’ve got a book on tap. And they’ll finish it just as soon as they get over the burnout of chasing stories 12 hours a day. It's one thing for journalists to write novels, but nowadays we’re seeing an exodus of non-writers break into the scene. This summer we’ve reported on rock star authors. Earlier it was actors like Macaulay Culkin and Nicole Richie.

You can now add dead cutmen to the list. For those not in the know, a cutman mops up the bloody faces of pro boxers and has all kinds of tricks to stop wounds from bleeding like a geyser. Very crucial guy to any fighter. Being part of a boxer’s entourage, a cutman also sees just about every human emotion possible. He smells fear in the locker room; greed among managers dealing in human meat; and sometimes, he observes the sketchy characters who surround this beautiful yet grimy sport. So give it up for F.X. Toole, he juggled blood clots with writers' block.

Before getting into financial journalism, yours truly used to cover pro boxing and was a ringside photographer during bouts including today’s Pound For Pound No. 1 boxer Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao, Marco Antonio Barrera and others. Sketchy characters, huh? Little did I know that a killa killa killa! was in our midst. Sure, the mainstream press called "Serial Sniper" Dale Hausner an airport janitor, but those in the game remember him as a ringside photographer for Fightnews.com. Now I get what that modeling agency director meant when she called all of us photographers "shooters."
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Here’s your chance to beat down BPM Smith and give to charity!

Our in-house book reviewer Michelle is a busy political activist -- presentations at conferences, MCing anti-death penalty events, flailing about at demonstrations all over the Bay Area. This explains why the number of publicist-sent novels dwarf the number of actual reviews going on WNB.com (hint hint!). I am more interested in midget boxing than politics and rarely hit political parties but this morning she says The East Bay ISO, Oakland and Berkeley respectively, is having a haus party and she's going on a beer run. And she’s organizing a little poker tournament to benefit various local activists. Hmm, liquor and poker? Now you’re talking!

So those of you who’ve called me out in tough guy e-mails but never showed up at the poker tournaments, now’s your chance to step up to this! I’ll even handicap you cuz I’m gonna play while chugging beer instead of tripple lattes. Sitting duck for a beatdown! Catch us at 3422 Alexander Court in Oakland tonight (Saturday, July 29) from 8 pm until late. This isn’t a high stakes game, just a night of No Limit Hold ‘Em with a $20 buy-in, one winner doubles their money and gets a copy of Suzanne Palmer’s new album Keep The Faith, fresh from Star 69 records. The rest of the dinero goes to charity! Update: That's why they call it Hangover Sunday!
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Overheated is the new crack!

DJ Fresh has released a new album to mixed reviews but in my opinion $18.99 is worth it just to get your hands on his fabulous track All Strung Out -- which many of you have enjoyed as the opening to one of my mixes. Think I’m late announcing this? Well, I’ve been preoccupied trying to get my adorable Lindsay Lohan to return those two or 135 voicemails. Plus, this heat wave here in California is exhausting, kids! We're all getting overheated, the new catchphrase for long, liquor-fueled night when you don't sleep, roll to work and chop a few rails. And I’ll tell ya, Colombia has a huge supply of heat.

Speaking of bringing the heat, today Phil Hellmuth won his 10th World Series of Poker bracelet, tying Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan for the most wins ever. Way to represent the SF Bay, Phil! Some think he’s poised to win his first Main Event but if Gus Hansen can keep his aggression in check early he’s a ubertalent. Click this interview and then the play button cuz it looks like he’s talking about chip management and laying off the all-night cash games, for once. That is a good sign. I can’t say the same about Lindsay, who needs to dump those Hollywood clowns and step up to this!
                      __________________________

Back in the novel-writing trenches!

"I know you! You were the chip leader at Artichoke Joe's on Sunday." -- a guy in a suit in downtown San Francisco, accosting me in front of Lee's Deli.

Some call it the death instinct. Maybe. Perhaps subconsciously I didn’t wanna don Gucci shades and fly into Vegas to bum rush guys like Phil Hellmuth and Mike "The Mouth" Matusow at this year’s WSOP. In case you haven’t guessed, I did not win Sunday’s tournament. In fact, I played totally out of character. Normally aggressive -- some would say recklessly aggressive -- I slow-played a freaking pair of Queens! Despite knowing that whenever you don't raise a strong pocket pair you will get clobbered by a weak handed guy who never should’ve seen the flop to begin with. And if you're dumb enough to slow-play pocket Queens at a tight table, then audacious enough to go all-in after flopping 2, 2, 8, then you deserve that ass whupping you got from the Filipino dwarf’s unsuited 10, 2.

So yes, I committed No Limit Hold ‘Em suicide and my WSOP pipe dream is over. Now I’ll channel that energy, time and thought to finishing Bistro de Mars by end of summer. Cuz that’s been the goal all along, it just played out a bit slower than expected. Now that a priority shift is underway, during these late nights I’ll daydream plotlines and remember the old days: being broke as hell in Lower Haight, daily fights in the boxing gym, old girlfriends whom I’ll never name, the crazy scheming hooligans who were once my friends… That’s more fun than laboring over why my trap didn't work. Like figuring out why the white trash guy at seat 9 didn’t raise $500 like he did the prior three out of five hands, why didn’t the gold chain wearing fool holding Ace, King raise like you’re always supposed to do when holding Ace fucking King, since obviously whenever I only call on the blinds it means my cards are jack shit!
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How to burn $50,000 per hour!

The World Series of Poker Main Event starts this Friday, July 28 and here I am, in a mad last-minute scramble to hit Vegas. No writing and no music this weekend, instead it’s all about bringing the A game and the motherfucking heat, y’all! Skipped the regular WORD & BASS Show Friday night to wake up early Saturday and enter two No Limit Hold ‘Em tournaments in two days. This morning I’m up at 6-something watching Floyd Landis bag his first Tour de France and drinking Peet’s French Roast.

Then its Casino San Pablo, where I gotta wait 30 minutes on the alternate list before landing at table 4. The old sharks immediately try taking this young buck down on the first pot. The chip leader counters my $300 raise by doubling it on the turn. Holding an open ended straight draw, I call needing a 9 or 4. The river brings a 4, I’m all-in and it continues like this a good three hours. Me raking chips and their asses getting bounced onto the I-80 freeway.

Soon I’ve got $50,000 in chips and everyone’s peering nervously at this giant pile. I can’t even stack ‘em all. At this moment all I’ve gotta do is chill -- don’t play a single hand -- and it’s an easy final table appearance. Hell, my chip lead was so outerspaceotherworldlyhuge it’s a guaranteed top 3. But you know I don’t play like that! Like pigeons on bread crumbs, these opponents tried stealing my blinds. That shit pisses me off and before you know it I’m re-raising their raises in this perpetual attack mode that I always go into when the big chip bully.

You’re not a bully unless you win every damn fight and nobody steps up for a beatdown. Sure I make the final table. But end up placing fifth. In the money but not a victory. Poker’s not going badly when reviewing the inventory of the past seven weeks: 12 tournaments entered, three final tables, chip leader in six or seven of them. Bad, when you’re still looking for that first tournament win. I’ve now placed fifth, sixth, and seventh in three final table appearances. If I get the W at Sunday’s Artichoke Joe’s tournament I am rolling to Vegas for the WSOP, if not then it’s back to writing Bistro de Mars. Because somebody once said that I’m a novelist. Or something.
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A night in (the studio with) Paris!

You’ve gotta love the readers who send out drive-by emails. Sometimes they’re plain weird and other times they’re gold nuggets. And sometimes they actually appeal to my tastes, which are trashtastic as a stiletto heel-wearing model washing cars and chomping Whoppers! Attached only with the comment, "Shes a no talent whore!" (whores don’t need apostrophes) was the following tidbit:

"The debut single from Paris Hilton, Stars Are Blind, is released in the UK on August 7th featuring remixes by Tom Stephan, Scumfrog and Chus & Ceballos. Available on double CD, 12" and then it cuts off. I don’t know what 12 means. Her debut album mined 12 of the best producers money can buy? Her voice gets processed through 12 filters until it sounds like honey firing out of a foghorn? Paris took on a dozen guys named Paris in one night? Do not tell me they're issuing it as a 12 inch aka vinyl!

I also hear that Techno DJ/producer Paul Oakenfold produces one of Paris’ tracks. That’s not surprising given that the cute but shopworn heiress wants to hear her shit in dance clubs. And given that Oakenfold is… Paul Oakenfold. The big surprise is that Chus & Ceballos, a Tribal House duo from Spain who tear up decks bigtime, got involved in this. Homeboys are some bad ass DJs judging by the review copy of their new album Back 2 Back we’re bumping. Paris proves one thing in her upcoming debut: dump enough money into a project and you’ll get so many talented people involved there’s no way it’ll bomb. PS: Keep us dialed for a full review of Chus & Ceballos’ banging new album soon.
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Wonder what kinda beats homeboy had in his iPod!

Electronic music accompanies me everywhere in life. After recovering from the horror of waking up, I drive to the office each morning, bass’ing out my carpool passengers with downtempo and electro. While plotting out interviews and analyzing supply/demand fundamentals it’s progressive house, and you know drum & bass is in the house when I bang out a news article. Evenings are spent lifting weights and bumping more D&B, the faster BPMs a requirement for workouts. Then its time to slowly churn out pages of Bistro de Mars accompanied by the gorgeous sounds of trance and tribal house DJs like John Digweed and Oscar G. To evoke primal rhythm, baby. So you’d think that trend would follow me to poker tournaments, right?

Hells no! At this week’s No Limit Hold ’Em tournament a bunch of players sat there guzzling Red Bulls and bumping iPods with a speedfreak-like focus on the table. They really wanna focus. So they play their music, deliberately blocking out one of the key senses: sound. They hear none of the table talk that invariably gives hints about your opponents’ strategy. Doesn’t make sense. Example: I’m at table 1, seat 11 with a head-bobbing dude at seat 10 who is totally deaf. When I raise $3,000 on a straight draw with a paired 6, he folds and I bag my eighth pot of the night. He then misses the chatter between me and a brother in seat 2 who asks why I raised that much with just one pair.

"A middle pair with a straight draw? That’s plenty of options; I’m all good having those kind of outs." What Mr. iPod missed is this homeboy will run you into the ground even when he’s got a borderline hand. Not surprisingly, Mr. iPod got blasted out of the tournament without a word to anybody. Ten minutes later I raise $2,000 on the blinds and everyone folds except a Korean dude at seat 9. He’d been listening, observed my aggressive style and figured I’m a bluffer. He counter-raised to $6,000 and I immediately went all in. I took the pot with pocket aces. And had pleasant daydreams of the hottest girl ever. Come to think of it, maybe you don’t want to hear table chatter. Because all poker players are full of shit.
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Hemingway’s legacy: bulls and drunks!

Ernest Hemingway is the man and The Sun Also Rises is probably the finest novel by an American in the past 80 years. It turns out his legacy goes way beyond writing concise, efficient sentences about a jet-setting life you'll never know. Yes, Hem single handedly prompted giant packs of drunk Americans to hit up Spain every July and sprint like Ben Johnson through the streets reeling and gagging from an all night drinking bout. Don’t fukc with the bulls of Pamplona or you’ll get busted! Bulls are surprisingly fast animals, and when many of the runners have been up all night drinking they make good mops.

Come to think of it, we authors are much like the drunks of Pamplona. Every time we finish a novel we sprint down Avenue of the Americas, hundreds at a time wheezing in hopes of getting close to one of those publishers and most of us get gored like inebriated apes. After a proper beatdown you know we’ll do the same senseless thing a year or two later with still a better novel -- what’s your poison, gin or sherry? Death in the Afternoon is what I’m all about. That, and the weird brother in a red cowboy hat I saw en route to last night's Word 'N' Bass Show. Cuz even if you never cut a record deal, write a best-selling novel or win the WSOP you can at least look demented while trying.
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Something good happens when bass meets literature!

As promised, I put in some effort to get an mp3 of this week’s Drum & Bass mix posted. And nearly had a panic attack due to technophobia. Still, this is probably my favorite set of ’06 so far with some fluid transitions and remixes, so click this to have it play automatically or go here for all my latest D&B goodies. Also spent the long weekend writing, lifting weights, playing a poker tournament (20th place, out of the money) and chowing down too much barbecued chicken. If only each and every weekend extended four days, this novel Bistro de Mars would be done already. They’re not and it ain’t!

There’s some ubertalented music folks who've done a far better job combining bass with literature than I’ll ever pull off. Does anyone remember back in the 90s when author Jim Carrol wowed musicland with a phat album? Now Primus frontman/bassist Les Claypool is pulling the opposite switch and debuting a novel that you’ve gotta check out. I remember getting blown away by Primus when -- as an underage kid in the early 90s with no fake I.D. -- I peered past a burly bouncer at a small Upper Haight club to catch Primus performing a smashup set. PS: Big ups to Boots Riley of The Coup, which is touring with Claypool's band as we speak. Represent Oaktown, CA my man!
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Girl power in the house, bitches!

Whoa, this is big news in poker land, kids: Recent Yale graduate Vanessa Selbst is trying to become the first woman ever to bag a World Series of Poker bracelet. Right now she’s got $900,000 in chips, good for second place at the final table of a $2,000 buy-in No Limit Hold ’Em event. She is bouncing fellas out left and right and yes, I am rooting her on to smoke everyone like a blunt! You go, girl! Check out Vanessa’s progress in real-time here.

Speaking of divas, happy birthday to my girl Lindsay Lohan, who yesterday (July 2) turned the big 2-0. Cutie pie forgot to call me on the cell phone for some reason. Hey, I'd have broken last week's promise to never again answer the cell while playing in a poker tournament for you, Lindsay! Had I spotted the 310 on caller I.D. while going "all in" on the blinds holding pocket 5's I'd have picked up. While bagging a full house at Casino San Pablo. Holla, mama!

Update July 4: When the community cards continually fall in your favor your luck is bound to run out eventually. Vanessa pressed the issue, got busted on a silly bluff and was 86'ed last night. Mark Vos won the event, a gold bracelet and $803,274. Still, Vanessa bagged $100 Gs and will probably enter the Main Event, unlike someone we know. Congrats on making the final table, Vanessa!
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Here’s a bass sampler to start your Fourth of July weekend!

Anyone who thinks San Francisco’s Drum & Bass scene isn’t a Godzilla monster must click on this clip and check out the D&B masses. And in case you’re wondering who’s bringing the girl power it’s Audio Angel... with DJ Genome and MC Child. I am not kidding, after bumping this clip a dozen times I still get chills when Angel busts out! If you want more D&B bombs tune in to 104.1 FM tonight (Friday, June 30) beginning at 10 pm-ish as I roll the bass dice during the WORD & BASS Show -- if you're in the 510 (Berkeley/Oakland). The traffic numbers say we get a lot of readers from NYC but this show is for the locals only. However, I've got much love for Manhattan and promose -- yes, promise this time! -- to post a mix from the show on Saturday.

Want the Four B’s this weekend? Beach, BBQ, Babes and Bass are happening an hour outside San Francisco at an all-night beach party Saturday with mental electro breaks, techno/psytrance and a downtempo area. They say directions will get posted here so check it and have a great Fourth of July weekend, kids! PS: Do not litter the beach or the 400 lb. WORD'N'BASS.com goon will show up at your house in a dump truck full of lard. Respect nature, y'all.
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Bloodshot eyes and Drum & Bass pair like steak and cabernet!

This is what they call a train wreck. Last time you might've noticed I had this cocky attitude that getting hypercaffeinated can streeeeetch the endurance. Thinking it's no big deal droping a Drum & Bass set late Friday night after rolling 12-hour days in the media salt mine, I hit a poker tournament Saturday morning with bloodshot eyes hidden behind Rayban aviators. Sleep deprived and groggy despite a pot of Peet's.

Here's the action, or should I say non-action... Dealer repeatedly throws me shit cards and I start getting frustrated as the other players bag hefty pots and I fold. I forget to turn off the cell phone and go 'all in' after flopping a middle pair while fumbling with a call. And get beatdown like Vonda Ward. Did the walk of shame in less than 30 minutes. Lessons learned inlclude 1. Always turn off the cell when entering a poker tournament and 2. Never play when you're All Strung Out. Oh well, I've got a phattie D&B set cooking up for ya kids that'll get posted soon. The rest of the weekend is an overnight retreat with The Fam. Big meals with big wines from nearby Napa Valley. Happy birthday to my Mama and brother in law Nick!
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Paris Hilton to play strip poker for charity!

I’m all about charity fund raisers, especially when that involves heavy bass, hot literary mamas, poker, or hot illiterate mamas. There’s an outside chance we’ll get two out of four, now that pro poker player Clonnie Gowen has challenged Paris Hilton -- who’s hit several celebrity poker tournaments in the past year -- to a Battle Royale. A heads-up match with one winner bagging $100k for the charity of her choice.

That’s all good, but how about spicing this thing up a bit? Say, Clonnie and Paris play strip poker in BPM Smith’s un-air conditioned apartment during this week’s heat wave while he sprays them with cold water. They can televise it, live on pay-per-view! Earning even more money to the charity of her choice. And it would be down right charitable for the winner to buy me a Baja beach house. Sweet!

Paris refuses to return my leer, I mean, gaze.

Ok, we are alone in this brutal, selfish world and there is no beach house. Plan B: I’m rolling into the 104.1 FM studio tonight (Friday, June 23) at 10 pm committed to leaving at 1 am, sharp. Why? Cuz I’m rolling to a casino early Saturday morning, loaded on Jeremiah’s Pick and bringing the heat to another Texas Hold ‘Em tournament. PS: The World Series events start this week, I want a motherfucking bracelet, and that guy who beat me at Harrah’s satellite final table can kiss my ass!
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If this won’t kick your fever for heavy bass nothing will!

"I was fairly disorientated and had very sore knees and feet. My hearing was fairly impaired and all of these things have resumed their normal functions now with no prolonged damage." -- DJ Promo, on how he feels after spinning records for 87 hours straight.

About 87 hours have passed since I hit the 104.1 FM studio for the WORD’N’BASS Show and had one of those surreal chats with Abdul where he says of this girl: "Sure, she’ll wash my dirty drawers but I don’t have time for that shit." That was Friday night. Before the regular three- or four-hour Electro and Drum & Bass sets.

Since then, I have watched the USA tie Italy in the World Cup, found a new café in Oakland that serves great cappuccinos, cruised all over Oakland and Berkeley in 80-degree heat with the windows down dropping bass bombs on civilians, skipped a party in the SFC that I should’ve caught, had a fantastic Father’s Day brunch with Dad and The Fam, hit a barbeque to celebrate Todd’s run for the U.S. Senate under the Green Party ticket, been buzzed on beer a couple times, amped on espresso and/or organic French Roast four times, scooped news on a bunch of commodity price hikes in the U.S., Europe and Asia, ranted during two editorial meetings, and on Tuesday left the office at 5 pm for the first time in memory.

It’s now Tuesday night and I’m about to catch the Dallas-Miami game. And I cannot imagine the Herculean effort it would take to stand at the turntables mixing beats non-stop for those 87 hours. DJ Promo did exactly that. Big ups on setting the new world record, Matt! You’ve clearly got bass fever, so here’s to many more years at the turntables. And yes, I am stoked that a real DJ who mixes in a rich Electronic music genre pulled off this record. And not some DJ AM Top 40 Will Smith record playing fool. PS: Nicole Richie it’s time to kick that clown to the curb and step up to this. Holla!
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We should’ve bagged that robot!

Feeling grouchy, I once burned a thousand bucks on a Movado watch as retail therapy, nudging aside a robot that would cruise around the house firing off photos of anything that moved to my cell phone. Home security with a flourish y’all! All for the bargain basement price of $1,500. This little guy would also call the fire department should mi casa burn to the ground. This flip-flop happened cuz the Cingular folks couldn’t answer my question, "Will your satellites allow a Korean robot to send digital photos to my cell?"

Simple question. They put me on hold, asked a "supervisor" who had no answer, and now I’m flossing bling on the left hand and a sweatband on the right. But now that a second home on Mars is on tap the need for a home security robot is serious. I can just imagine the customer service rep’s answer to the question, "Will your satellites let my Korean robot that's based in California send photos to my house on Mars?" She'll say, "Hold one moment, sir," and five minutes later *click.*
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Smart money got it right, proving only suckers bet the underdog!

Some are surprised that Zadie Smith bagged her first Orange Prize cuz after all, the odds-on favorite never wins. Out in the UK they love their literature and even more, British punters love betting on any random event. You can actually bet pounds or dollars on who’s gonna win the Orange Prize and an official told us last week that "bookmakers William Hill have Zadie Smith as odds-on favourite" and had tabbed her third book, the eventual winner On Beauty, at 9-4. Other odds? Ali Smith, author of The Accidental, was posted at 5/2, and way down the line you could get Nicole Krauss’s The History of Love at 15/2. Bet $1,000 to bag 7G’s plus! No action from me on this one. I also missed out on phat underdog cash when Bernard "Executioner" Hopkins finished out his Hall of Fame career with a spectacular victory over Antonio Tarver. That’s 3/1 cashola, kids! Nope. I bet neither because I dislike gambling.

Instead of doing fight night with the fellas on Saturday, I woke up early Sunday morning for a No Limit Texas Hold ‘Em tournament at Casino San Pablo and came thisclose to winning it all. Drew everyone into a big pot and landed a flush, then took advantage of their fear by forcing ‘em to fold on aggressively raises, and before you know it I was once again the Big Chip Bully. Then I’ve got King, 8 both spades and after flopping two more spades called a woman who went "all in." One more spade and I’ve got a flush with the turn and river still to come. We're talking a 50% chance at a flush. This brother in a track suit raises $1,000 and I chuckle to myself (face stoic behind Gucci shades) thinking this is gonna be a phat pot and go "all in." He’s not folding period and it’s time to gamble, bitch! Well, I caught the flush, y'all! But am not bathing in hundred dollar bills. The bastard hit a full house with 2s and 4s.

Anyhow, each and every life experience yields lessons and new ideas. So I’ve got a proposal. The Pulitzer Prize folks must post a betting line so I can stop this trend of accumulating a giant stack of poker chips and then crashing and burning like James Nae’s career. PS: Look beyond those weird rags she puts on her head and you'll find that Zadie Smith is hot! Holla girl.
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Welcome to Hollywood, bitch!

Shout-outs to my cousin Kevin Harding who just graduated from L.A. State’s film production school. Here’s wishing you a long and fun career in Hollywood my man! And no, my cuz is not one of those naïve class of ‘06 grads who expects everything to go like rocket science. Hell, even rockets crash ya know. Take this week’s example. Sony Pictures decided that rather than make a freaking hilarious film about a marauding standup comic they’re more into churning out "summer blockbuster" fare like the notorious flop Bewitched. And don’t bother telling me their latest release The Da Vinci Code raked in phat dollars because I’d rather watch a dog vomit than that pile of shit. Anyhow, a Hollywood career is what they call roller coaster, so I’ve no doubt Seth Greenland’s gonna ride those tracks back up real soon and Kevin, you’re gonna blow up large. But prolly not before collecting welfare.
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This ‘all in’ moment brought to you by Ass Whup, Inc.!

"Somebody got lucky." -- Old poker player at Harrah's World Series of Poker qualification tournament, after seeing that BPM Smith is the chip leader.

Tell your friends that you made two final tables in back-to-back poker tournaments and they say things like "you’re playing good." Tell ‘em you were so close to making the World Series of Poker Main Event that the 50-year-old who bagged your seat actually apologized for bouncing you out, and they say, "Just think how you’ll do when you’re his age." It’s cool to feel the love my friends, but I’m here to tell you that I am still fuming over Saturday's bad beat -- scratch that, it was a beatdown!

Sure, I played the best poker of my life last week in Reno. Five tournaments in four days. Chip leader in three of ‘em and so damn cocky I gave away chips to a less fortunate college kid who was short-stacked. At the WSOP qualifier I aggressively raised on weak ass cards to steal pots. Slow-played high pairs to coax opponents into dumping gigantic piles of chips onto my lap. Ran low card holders into the ground by quadrupling the blinds. Players crashed and burned. I forced an opponent to go all in on a flop and lucked into a straight on the turn. We moved to the final table and nine crusty veterans looked on with surprise after realizing that my chip stack dwarfed theirs.

Problem is, I am not accustomed to managing a $30,000 stack of chips. Instead of choosing my battles carefully and protecting the lead, I engaged in war whenever somebody made a move. The Big Chip Bully. Soon I fell to the middle of the pack and decided to plot my next attack meticulously. A flop brought a straight draw and I raised $2,000. Four players called. Hit the freaking straight on the turn and went "all in" with $10,000 in chips.

Everyone folded except one idiot who called. He had maybe $12,000 in chips and just a 25% chance at landing a spades flush on the river. I grinned thinking that yes, the chip lead is mine again and now these clowns will knock each other off like a bank in Hunter’s Point. Then everyone screams. The dealer had dropped a spade of something. Flush. Your. Toilet. My only words are, "What the fuck." My Gucci aviator shades steamed up and a fountain of lava shot out of my head. An old guy in the next seat says, "That’s poker." Yep, that’s poker. And this poker lesson is brought to you by Ass Whup, Inc.

Sure, you gotta play a straight when you’re at a final table that yields just one seat to the Worlds Series. You play to win that seat, not place in the money. But my downfall happened before that bad beat and this is the real lesson: do not call an aggressive raise. Instead, re-raise them. Example one: I am holding suited ace, 8 and raise $1,000 on the blinds. Flop brings 6, 6, 3 and I raise $2,000 to test if anyone has the 6. A nervous twentysomething office sloth counter-raises $4,000 and everyone folds but me. Behind Gucci shades, I stare at him for 15 seconds straight. He looks away. He does not have the 6. I smell blood and call. He beats me with an ace, 10 kicker. I correctly did not back down after his aggressive raise but he was just begging to fold. Had I gone all in he'd have folded like a chair and I'd collect another phat pot.

Example two: I’m at the final table at a Circus Circus tournament where a bleached blonde German dude raises $5,000 on the blinds. I’ve got pocket jacks and call. Flop brings 9, 2, 2 and I go all in. German dude had ace, 2 and I finish in sixth place. A poker gentleman in a tracksuit named Anwar exclaims, "Why didn’t you go all in?" Later on I tell him I’d considered going all in on the blinds but because I was short stacked, knew the German would call anyhow. "No, you re-raise him on the blind to let him know you’ve got serious cards. Don’t call. Put the pressure on him." I thanked Anwar for sharing his knowledge. Next time I’ll use it.

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Reno here I come; Vegas you’re next!

I am all about casinos, collecting $300 on the Phoenix Suns and you got it: vacation! Here we didn’t even catch up on the backlog of stories, new music and books that’s lurking on the WORD’N’BASS.com stovetop and once again I am on a five-day road show for the second time in May. Only instead of Canada, this week is all about Nevada. There’s more to Reno than casinos, of course. We’re talking natural hot springs where you can soak Bay Area life right out of your system, the Truckee River where my homeboy Eric is going on a fly fishing trip, and chowing down eggs benedict while overlooking Lake Tahoe.

Meh, who am I kidding? Harrah’s Reno is holding a tournament that qualifies you into the 2006 World Series of Poker and I am in it to win it! Place in the top 5 in Thursday’s preliminary round and the finals will bring a Battle Royale on Saturday. This requires focus and the proper gear: new Gucci aviator shades, two books on hold ‘em strategy, and the plastic suit for ballistic runs that leave your mind sharp and clear. The focus part involves having the discipline to avoid guzzling Bombay and tonics at the roulette tables ‘til 2 am. None of that! Since the website won’t get new stuff until Sunday, I decided to leave y’all a goodie to tide you over: a brand spanking new Drum & Bass set fresh from Friday’s show. PS: Vegas, get ready for a beatdown cuz you’re next!
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Oprah’s secrets to obesity include Big Macs and roids!

The big news out of this year’s "gloomy" Book Expo America is Oprah Winfrey beating some $12 million out of Simon & Schuster to "write" a book about yo-yo’ing your weight from fat to flabby. The publishing beat reporters are so mesmerized by the money involved that none of ’em caught the irony here. Oprah, famous for gaining 150 lbs of lard after dinner and then dropping 140 lbs. while running in an air-tight plastic suit for three weeks straight, is going to advise us on how to "manage weight." Sure thing, toots! And we can’t wait ‘til Kate Moss pens a book on how to not snort cocaine!

These comedians aren’t done yet, though. Oprah’s co-author is also her personal trainer, some dude who "has signed a deal with McDonald's to promote its healthy meal campaign." McDonald's + Oprah = Marketing. That equation does not equal healthy living. It equals gluttony and disgusting food. Picture this: Oprah banging down six Big Macs, five Super Sized fries and a 20 oz. Coke, then freaking out and stomping on the tread mill while watching muted repeats of her TV show with Bobby Brown’s My Prerogative blaring at full volume. But everyone knows that marketing creates lies until the truth is absurd and outrageous untruths seem reasonable. Like fatsos and Big Mac buffoons telling you how to lose weight.
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The memoir that never happened: ‘Naked Guy’ dies!

In the old days (like, 10 years ago) you had to be somebody to write a memoir. Nowadays, every schmuck on Earth writes a memoir and 99.5% of ‘em are boring! Two characters I'd always thought would do interesting memoirs were the Naked Guy, who last I’d heard was writing one back in the mid ‘90s, and Tommy "The Duke" Morrison, a heavyweight boxer who retired after testing positive for HIV. Andrew Martinez, best known for attending class at Cal Berkeley naked and prompting the city pass an anti-nudity ordinance, died on Saturday.

My jaw dropped when I heard about this. He was one of those guys I’d randomly see while chilling in a Southside café or at student co-op parties. One time at a Le Chateau party back when that co-op had the best ragers in town, I’m getting my groove on with this fine ass Indian girl when he passes through the living room dragging a five-foot crucifix. This kinda weirded me out, cuz he'd always seemed laid back, tanning himself on a little towel on Telegraph Avenue. This was around the time he reportedly started having mental health issues, so in retrospect maybe we shoulda realized the crucifixion thing was a call for help? Well, it’s too bad we’ll never read that book and even sadder that his end came in a Bay Area jail cell.

Another madcap character who’s talked of writing a memoir for many years is Tommy Morrison, best known for his crushing left hook, starring in a Rocky film and winning a heavyweight title from George Foreman. Today, he’s most famous for his belligerent party lifestyle, womanizing and getting forced into retirement due to HIV. The guy’s training camps included hanging up a city map and plotting all his concubines’ locations with colored tacks. In between camps, he partied like a rock star and beat up people in restaurants, gas stations and, eventually, jail.

Unlike the Naked Guy, this story doesn’t have to end badly. Since exiting the jug he says he’s turned his life around: no drugs, write a memoir, establish a boxing club, and maybe even try a boxing comeback in Japan or Africa or somewhere they let AIDS victims fight. Meh. One of his two wives named Dawn says "he started hanging out with the town trash" and she is so Audi 5000. Hey Tommy: write that memoir and include all the scandals, madness, orgies and town trash ruckuses. We'll eat it up!
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Highlights from Canada and ode to Floyd Patterson!

"You’re setting the media world on fire. Everyone’s asking who’s feeding you information." -- a biznis contact in Vancouver, after I broke a story that was not supposed to go public.

Well, Vancouver was beautiful as always, with Robson Avenue hosting even more fantastic restaurants than my last visit two years ago. After a ballistic week of 14-hour days spent at press conferences, behind-the-scenes meetings at the The Sutter Place Hotel and banging out an absurd number of news articles, I burned $500 on Gucci's new aviators and a Kappa jacket in 15 minutes flat, then jumped in a cab for the airport. Nearly missed the flight back to San Francisco because the cabbie wouldn’t let me smoke a Du Marier during the ride. Customs for once didn’t send their dogs sniffing through my shit and before you know it I’m thinking, yeah, there’s no better site than the Golden Gate Bridge and Marin headlands from 10,000 feet: it means you’re almost home.

Highlight: dinner with some traders at Zin, where they make a mean duck breast and bump Kruder & Dorfmeister. Avoid this: roll through meetings nine hours straight without food and when your hands go numb tell yourself "do not pass out" at a cocktail party. Props: to the many good folks who feed me ‘confidential’ information. Lowlight: the tragedy on everyone’s mind that I can’t mention. Lowlight Part II: Former heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson died, rest in peace my man. Surreal moment: staggering down Robson Ave. and getting stopped by a Paramount Studios crew member. A director shouts "action!" and a bunch of extras walk by as actors speak their lines then bolt into a trailer. They’re shooting some film called Stargate which will probably be crap like those in the know say 95% of all Hollywood films are.

Despite lacking time to even think, last week’s two lowlights kept returning at night. Usually while gazing out the window of my Pacific Palisades suite, hours after most of the city slept. These things remind you that life flies by like wild horses down a prairie. Sad to hear Floyd passed, he was an honorable fighter who was surprisingly gentle outside the ring. Met him at a boxing gym in Reno where I trained back in the day. He brought in his son Tracy Patterson, who was preparing for a title shot against Eddie Hopson that he later won via KO. Being a cocky young punk at the time, I asked him, "Floyd! When are you gonna let me spar against Tracy?" He laughed that off rather than put me in check by saying the obvious: kid, he's way out of your league.
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Hunters pursue fresh meat while a tribe circles the fire!

The bags are not packed. But the schizophrenia that is day-to-day life takes a formal turn as I hit SFO and fly to Vancouver, B.C., on biznis. It’ll be a lot different than recently, when I’m spinning Drum & Bass on 104.1 FM and spot the shadows of party-heads outside the window. A big ass bonfire rages and the kids are dancing circles like a clan of Bushmen, hooting as heavy bass blares. They have gone tribal. Only the innocent, unblemished by corporate ladder climbing, can return to this type of pre-civilization state. I lost my innocence sometime during college but sometimes, during a long D&B set when the beats flow and I’m conscious only of sound and rhythm, I get a sort of vicarious draw back to perfect simplicity. It’s a good place.

It’s where tribesmen rattled drums at night and hunted meals by day. Modern day hunters have replaced war paint with Gucci suits, and arrows with newly shined Florsheims. That’s the tribe I’m running with this week. We’ll meet at five-star restaurants, file neatly into press conferences, drink Bombay Sapphire at cocktail parties without getting drunk, and collapse from exhaustion in our hotel suites to do it all over again. Finally, the weekend arrives and we’re at an airport loaded on Vicodin glancing at our Movado watches while security interrogates us for looking very sketchy in a $2,000 suit with hangover aviator shades and uncombed hair.

I’ll be back on May 13 kids, so have a great week and hit us up for new mp3s of the above tribal session, plus catch-up on a week’s worth of author and DJ happenings that’ll have backed up. PS: Thanks for the awesome goods, Mike! I’m hitting Reno in late May to qualify for the World Series of Poker so we’ve gotta hang while I’m in town my man!
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Harvard plagiarist even more of a bitch than we thought!

Publisher Little, Brown canceled the second installment of Kaavya Viswanathan’s two-book deal and won’t release a revised version of How Opal Mehta Got Laid, Got Mental and Got a Kick in the Ass, after learning she stole all her good lines from real authors. But you know she’s gonna try and keep her advance. Sure it's proven that she "accidentally" stole prose from at least two authors and prolly 50 others. No way in hell is she giving up a half million bucks cuz that buys a lot of blow!

I tried calling the little tart but she's not picking up. C'mon Kaavya, holla back girl... No? Ok, we'll let your comments one year ago to the NY Sun speak the truth. "I had only vaguely thought of becoming a writer." Boy, that must've been a real smarty pants who decided to give a non-writer a $500k advance to write a freaking novel! "It's a little tough to do this writing and also juggle classes and the homework."

Don't fret babe, soon you won't have to worry about homework cuz you'll be too busy selling your ass in Crack USA to raise drug money after dropping out of Harvard and running down that cool half mil to zero. Which is appropriate considering that’s exactly what your career is. PS: Train wreck aficionados will be pleased to know her book -- which was pulled from all US bookstores -- is now selling at Amazon. Guess the price!
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Here’s how you can stop plunging the literary toilet bowl!

I am sick of the book industry plunging toilets for the next big thing. James Nae tattoos FTBSITTTD on his arm when he shoulda had STFUITTBO done in pink. Shut The Fuck Up It’s Time To Bend Over. Now we’ve got the weasel Kaavya Viswanathan pretending to be an author when she can’t write a grocery list. Trend alert: the industry continues chasing gimmicks like "street cred" and the "cult of youth" in ever more desperate attempts to land readers. This biznis isn't as hard as folks think. Getting people to read your books is simple: buy manuscripts that tell unique stories with interesting characters.

Well, I am here to help you kids solve these publishing doldrums. Consider this advance notice and have your checkbooks ready, cuz my new novel Bistro De Mars is inching toward completion sometime this summer. But you’ll have to stew in the same old, same old until then. And yes, next month we’ll hear yet another sad tale about Ronald McDonald getting busted for wearing a Burger King crown without permission.

If not robberies then the pubs just recycle cow manure to grow tulips. Someone decided that Jenny McCarthy, who was washed up a decade ago after MTV canceled the show Singled Out, warrants a second version of her book Life Laughs. Ha. Ha. Ugh. Last week she held court in NYC hawking pages of gibberish but if she really wants to buoy sales she should submit to public spankings. That’ll hype it up big time! Those of you on in Philly, if you wanna catch a real author check out Lisa Tucker today (Monday, May 1) at the University of Pennsylvania Barnes & Noble at 7 pm. Her novel Once Upon A Day proves she’s the real deal, and she’s rolling throughout Pennsylvania all this week.
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Dan Brown ‘polishing’ his nose with blow!

"People... have read a book besides The Da Vinci Code. It’s horrible." -- Bijou Phillips, on why NYC is better than LA.

Millions of dunce caps who can’t think of a better author to read than Dan Brown-nose will have to weep in their Cheerios because his long awaited new novel is way past due and won’t get released ‘til 2007 at best. Why the delay? Oh, maybe it’s got something to do with him trying to beat down yet another plagiarism lawsuit. You know it’s tough when you’ve got gazillions in the bank and have to burn countless days in court instead of doing something fun like driving a corpse across the country.

Brown testified last month that he won’t let anyone read his "work" until it’s "polished." That’s right, don’t let anyone read your boring drivel until you‘ve dumped a bunch of random authors' prose in there! In what’s hardly a surprise, Brown titled his latest turd The Solomon Key, and it has the same boring half-wit protagonist he used in The Da Vinci Code. That’s like boiling down coke into crack! The kicker? This book’s based on the Masons. Yawn.

In more interesting fare, everyone must see my precious Bijou in Bully. She brings the heat to what amounts to some serious filmmaking! And catch her in the upcoming Zodiac from the director of Fight Club. And catch her with me, riding in a drop top 1972 Cadillac to our Baja beach house. I will apply sunscreen generously, over and over. Holla.
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Poker and literature is money!

"There is a God!" -- heard at Artichoke Joe’s no limit hold ‘em tournament on Easter Sunday.

If I lived in NYC I’d be so all over this benefit tournament, which combines literature with big time poker talent and throws ‘em in a room to see how it plays out. Instead, I’m here in sunny-for-the-moment California trying to play my way into the World Series of Poker. Last weekend was a travesty. Played two tournaments on Easter Sunday with a quick family visit and Deb’s fantastic brunch nudged in between. Mimosas, eggs Benedict, and an ass whupping ensued. Lesson learned: after holding pocket kings and raising on the blinds and flop you’d better run the bastards into the ground and go "all in" or else the big chip bully is gonna luck out with a flush on the river. Motherfucker!

Despite last weekend’s train wreck, I will not get discouraged. Tonight my homegirl Michelle, who’s also our in-house book reviewer, is having a party and I’ll try and initiate some poker action. If I don’t get too wasted on Saphire gin it’s back to Casino San Pablo for another tournament Sunday morning. One month until Harrah’s qualifying tournament for the WSOP and I'm in it to win it! Everything ‘til then is practice.

Update: For the second week in a row I went head on against my table's chip leader. After he raised $500 on the blinds I sensed weakness and re-raised him all in to $900 holding suited ace-two (hearts). I had three 'outs' with a straight, flush or ace high. The moron should've folded because all he had was pocket fives. I caught two hearts on the flop. And nothing thereafter. The moron's pair bounced me right onto the street. Lesson: do not attack the Big Chip Bully.
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Don’t make fun of the "Mental Mohawk" and I’ll dish more audio!
                      
"I’m not going to ask about that." -- A woman neighbor, commenting on the bald Barbie doll sitting on my car’s back seat.

Happy 420, kids! The recent slow pace of new mp3s here at WORD’N’BASS.com might lead you to think I’ve eased back on the music front. Wrong! Thing is, all BPM Smith sets are unedited raw recordings from the weekly radio show on 104.1 FM and there always seems to be one minor flaw -- the levels are off, a record skips, a train wreck happens in the last 10 minutes of a mix, I leave the mic on and listeners eavesdrop on a typical rant between me and Abdul -- any number of gaffes can make a set bunk.

Not today. I’ve been torturing the casual car poolers that I pick up everyday bumping last week’s drum & bass set. After those poor souls, who are used to KPFA gibberish and soft jazz in the mornings, topple out of the T-bird I bump up the volume even louder to make sure this shit passes the car stereo test. Basslines rolled like waves down my back, y’all! Now you can hear the latest.

PS: Someone commented on my back seat inventory of random crap... Four bottles of Crystal Geyser mineral water, one Plastikman CD, one Louisville Slugger, five empty packs of Marlboro Lights, one wedding invitation, two unpaid parking tickets and one naked "Mental Mohawk" Barbie doll. And Barbie's claimed that seat for the past two months. C’mon, don’t look at me that way, she’s my co-pilot!
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Rain of bass pouring out my woofers!

"My feet feel like they’re webbed but I am not a duck." -- studio sidekick Abdul, on California’s ongoing rain from hell.

After a disco nap last Friday I rolled into the 104.1 FM studio to find my bruda Abdul wearing plastic. This is a byproduct of nonstop California rain since early March. The levies will break and we will all drown. That didn’t stop the party heads from hanging out. After my set a dozen kids mulled around as usual, with someone I’d never met calling out my name and Steve announcing that he was driving to Portland in the morning. Naturally, by the time I left I damn near plowed into a gigantic Chevy Suburban in the early morning rain. This set is coming online soon but meantime catch a prior show.

Speaking of shit storms, DJ Paul Oakenfold just remixed a Paris Hilton song called Turn It Up and threw any street cred he once had into the toilet. This is roughly equivalent to an Oscar-winning director like Francis Ford Coppola directing Friends or whatever shitcom TV-heads watch nowadays. Oakenfold’s take: "I think a lot of people were expecting it to be a lot worse than it is." Strong endorsement, big guy!

Meanwhile, the International Dance Music Awards happened. Big ups Paul van Dyk and Armin Van Buuren! Big downs IDMA voters -- that’s everyone, cuz this vote is open to the public -- for not getting my fellow drum & bass brothers and sisters a trophy! Oh well, does anyone wanna take my bet at 10/1 odds that one ‘star’ DJ who will not bag an IDMA next year is named Oakenfold?
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First pass on NYC means no schmoozing with Zadie Smith!

For the past five years, April meant another trip to New York City and another long flight from SFO where I’m flossing aviator shades, loaded on Vicodin and drawing the curiosity of airport security. Wearing dark sunglasses at 9 pm makes cops sociable. In a creepy way. This is a work gig that us financial reporters gotta do as routine biznis but I bowed out since there’s already ’06 trips to Vancouver, Boston, Chicago and elsewhere lined up. My bad, cuz I coulda hanged with the brazilliant Toni Morrison and Zadie Smith. And BTW am I the only one who thinks Zadie is smoking hot? And would be the perfect woman to "schmooze" with at the obligatory coctail party?

Sure, I'll miss this month's literary excitement out in NYC but I did learn something: PEN is the bomb! They advocate a lot of under-represented folks and are all about freedom of speech. Even for the incarcerated, which reminds me about Stan "Tookie" Williams, who penned a bunch of books after learning to write in the jug. BTW, California's governor is a plastic-faced perverted tit-grabber Terminator who is still in the outhouse for icing my homeboy. Ahnuld will get flushed down the toilet soon!
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Bonds wields brass knuckles, Frank Weimann swings a bat!

I’m not a baseball fan until the playoffs. Then we’re talking bratwurst, beer and leisurely evenings enjoying the art of pitching. Homeruns are for assholes, pitching is for connoisseurs! So it was with mild amusement when today’s e-mailbox included a note from Dave Zirin, author of What’s My Name Fool: Sports and Resistance in the United States, saying:

"Matt Lawton, who unlike Bonds has tested positive for steroids, said, "If (Bonds) were white, he'd be a poster boy in baseball, not an outcast." None of this means that any critique of Bonds is inherently racist or that there doesn't need to be some way to deal with performance enhancers. It means that the overheated rhetoric needs to cease."

You know I’m all about overheated rhetoric! If you Bonds apologists wanna bring up this he-never-tested-positive argument you also gotta acknowledge that Major League Baseball didn't have a real drug testing program until recently and since the BALCO roids couldn't be detected there was no way a juiced up ogre like Bonds would test positive for a drug they didn't even know existed.

Anyhow, I’m more into Mafia thugs and dirty cops. Now that’s some juicy dirt! Who would’ve thought that two NYPD goons blasting people would end up an NY Supreme Courtroom battle between authors and agents? That’s right, Newsday reporters Rocco Parascandola and Sean Gardiner are suing Frank Weimann of The Literary Group for ganking their book proposal that he’d sold for $100K and flipping it to one of his other clients for a cool million. Then Frank pummeled ‘em with a Louisville Slugger!
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La La Land brings the heat!

The Bruins are gonna smoke Florida U like a phat blunt Compton-style, y’all! None of the East Coast biased media hacks predicted a Pac-10 team would go to the finals let alone UCLA. Since I’ve got big love for the Bruins it’s time to nod my Porn Star trucker’s hat to all my favorite SoCal homeboys and home girls: at Muse where they cook sizzling Drum & Bass, the Cabana Club where you can gobble down tasty treats while bumping Downtempo Electronica, the Roosevelt Hotel where the adorable Lindsay Lohan is waiting for me accost her in my Prada shades, and my favorite Gossip Gangsta, who just got a phat book deal. I'm off to catch the tip-off, see yaaaaaaaaaa! Update: Lame!
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Barry Bonds takes it up the ass!

So it’s been just four days since Game of Shadows hit bookstores and already Barry Bonds is whining about how his life is in shambles. Ok. If your life goes falls into ‘shambles’ just cuz of some book you’ve gotta wonder how Barry’s life felt when he was taking it up the ass with gigantic loads of Winstrol, human growth hormone, insulin and the famous ‘clear’ and ‘cream’ concoctions from BALCO.

Flashback: Barry’s eyes bulge in a mad roids rage as he head-butts his concubine with a balding head, his bicep explodes and then he throws a diesel truck over the Bay Bridge, all the while ranting, "Those damn Chronicle reporters are trying to shamble my shrunken testicals bwaaaoghghgh!" Bonds starts the baseball season next Monday with 708 home runs, less than a dozen short of Babe Ruth’s mark and 48 from Hank Aaron’s all-time record of 755. With luck, Bonds will bash his own brains in with a Louisville Slugger sometime before ‘beating’ either of these legendary ballplayers’ records. Go Oakland A’s!

PS: Hypothetical question for the Pulitzer Prize judges. What’s the biggest news story? A New Jersey governor uses a butt plug, a retired Oregon governor is a pervert, or several of sports biggest stars are busted for cheating, leading to Congressional hearings, a revamp of baseball’s drug policy and raising serious credibility issues about the sport’s record books? When the Pulitzer prizes came out the SF Chronicle guys were too nice to say it so I will: Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams wuz robbed!

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Another indie record store closes shop!

A few years ago we were disheartened to find our favorite Drum & Bass record source Compound Records close its Lower Haight store. Compound was the only place where you could pick up exclusively D&B vinyl, and we spent many a Sunday afternoon loaded on double cappuccinos rummaging through stacks of records. Two blocks down Haight Street, Future Primitive Sound is now closing shop. Boo! FPS is where I picked up some quirky records like Hip Hop From The Moon for the Electro sets that open up the weekly WORD‘N‘BASS Show on 104.1 FM.

Why are the indie record shops closing? It’s more post- dot-com blues, and the indie spots gotta rake in the dollars in pricey real estate markets like SF to get by. It was with mixed feelings that I loaded up dozens of D&B records at Compound’s close-it-out sale, so if you’re looking for Electro, clothes and other urban culture goodies you can join the vultures stripping down the FPS carcass this week. See ya FPS, it was good while it lasted.
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Do the writing but don’t fuck up the reward!

This new trick to get writing done is working! The rule from now: each week that five new quality pages of Bistro De Mars get written, I can enter a poker tournament as a reward to that hard work. At this pace, the WIP will get finished in 22 weeks, around mid-summer. Unfortunately, other shit happened this weekend like rioting punk rockers, the beatdown of Jeff "Left Hook" Lacy and all the beer and liquor you’d expect during fight night with the fellas.

Four hours of sleep and I show up at Sunday’s tournament hung over, tired and wired on a pot of Mr. Espresso. If you’re in the San Francisco Bay, Casino San Pablo is the place for poker cuz it’s the only nearby casino I know of that does No Limit Hold ‘Em tournaments without rebuys. They host the San Francisco Open with a $250,000 purse plus tournaments every weekend. Did I mention no rebuying more chips? This the only place I’m rolling outside Reno and Vegas, y’all!

Still, I didn't capitalize on this due to a sluggish brain. Lesson learned: sleep deprivation and liquor do not a good poker player make. But hey, on the bright side it coulda been another Caesars Palace train wreck, only this time heads-up against an elite field of 64 and televised on NBC. That’s right, the freaking networks are now televising poker tournaments, sign No. 2323 that the world is demented. And another reason I’m sticking to this World Series of Poker or bust regiment.
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Bring us your tired, your weary, your hot babe authors I’ll never read!

"I am bothered by knowing about Jessica Simpson and Angelina Jolie... I don’t care about them. This stuff is in the air and seems to permeate my consciousness." -- Author James Lasdun, on pop culture.

Let me ask you this. Why do celebs like the adorable Nicole Richie, Paris Hilton and most recently -- you will not believe this one cuz I still don’t -- Jessica Simpson wanna be writers? First, picture these totally hot babes who probably haven't read a good novel since high school. Then envision them awake at 2 am, alone, on the computer. Mashing their delicate brains on how to describe a door slam, the emotional surge when your lover bails forever, the anxiety after a drive-by shooter missed your head by one foot. That's hard to imagine.

So what is it about being an ‘author’ that appeals to these folks? Well, after chatting with Wesley Strick I realized it’s cuz the entertainment industry never gives you full control over your message. Even my cute little tamale Nicole probably gets frustrated that others are repping what she’s all about in the Simple Life, which just began shooting season No. 69 in my bedroom. So you write a book instead. Unless the editor decides to roast you like a fillet you’ve finally got autonomy. And that, my friends, is rare nowadays.
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Revenge of the non-breeders!

If you’re like me you, too, have stewed in a rage during a six-hour flight to Montreal as some brat cries and wimpers nonstop like a baboon. Meanwhile, his inconsiderate parents refuse to make their screaming monkey STFU. You’ve also endured dinners at a perfectly respectable restaurant -- not Chevy’s or McDonald’s or whatever "family friendly" shit hole people eat at -- where the rambunctious little monsters toss their shoes, or dinner plate, or themselves across the floor. Then howls at the top of their lungs until the restaurant’s in-house pit bull eats them for dinner.

Regardless, everything’s dandy to the breeders because they’re the ones who’ve gotta deal with these brats everyday and they’re happy to impose this brand of misery on the public. Well, today I discovered that Adrianne Frost feels my pain. And then some. Prolly five times overboard, since sure, the breeders and brats are annoying but is anyone pissed enough to write a book called I Hate Other People's Kids (Simon Spotlight)? Big ups Adrianne, and do you want a dinner date? At McDonald’s?
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Party’s in the street, writing’s on the wall!

"You are a fly on a bull’s ass and the motherfucking bull will squash you whenever he wants." -- Studio sidekick Abdul, ranting about the government before the WORD’N’BASS show.

Friday was one of those never-ending nights where you combine books, bass and good people that’s a perfect start to the weekend. First was cocktails with two ubertalented writers, Walter Satterthwait and Kelly Lange at Thirsty Bear in downtown SF. Talk about eye-opening. Not only are they totally unpretentious veterans at this game, but they were damn generous giving this rookie advice. Among other things, a key lesson learned is I gotta finish this bloody novel, something I’ve known forever but now that I’m feeling extra motivated, will have an immediate impact.

Result: Today is the start of a new system that’ll bring speed, efficiency, focus! Reward/punishment based on progress. If I get three new quality pages of Bistro De Mars written by 7 pm tonight the reward is entering a No Limit Texas Hold ‘Em tournament at Casino San Pablo Sunday morning. Three pages, I get to bring the heat! Three pages of shit or, worse yet, falling short of three = no poker, period! We’re talking B.F. Skinner’s Behaviorist methodology applied to daily life, yall! This way, the dual Spring goals of finishing the WIP and qualifying for the World Series of Poker will not cannibalize each other, they will instead become yin and yang compliments.

Next up was the Word & Bass Show, where the Downtempo and Drum & Bass flowed all night and Abdul and I went into our typical Friday night rants, followed by yet another blowout party at The Purple House. You know it’s a rager when you arrive at 2 am and the crowd’s spilling out the porch, stairs and all over the street. Punk bands, liquor and was that a transvestite on stilts staggering into the night? Big ups to Lis who kindly saved me some beer by swatting away the drunks like hungry flies!
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Buying your way out of an ass whupping!

"I cannot go out without something for my eyes, because someone might throw chemicals in my face." - Fashion icon Karl Lagerfeld, on wearing sunglasses day and night.

I’m going to the World Series of Poker y’all! Well, not yet. But the Rayban aviators are getting overtime work as I hit Texas Hold ‘Em tournaments and try to work over these veterans like a speed bag. They’ve got small tournaments happening near San Francisco, 100 or so entrants, and this week I entered one at Artichoke Joe's with my two ‘crew‘ buddies Dave and Lisa. As usual, I came out hard and was the big chip bully after the first hour. Then what happens? The stack dwindles as these clowns keep ‘rebuying’ chips. WTF is that!

A problem, that's what. These Bay Area casinos let losers who’ve got no game buy unlimited chips once their asses get kicked. Think about this for one sec. Why not call every single ‘raise’ if they’ll let you buy more chips after your inevitable massacre? It takes the strategy out of poker and without strategy, poker’s no better than a Bombay gin-swilling game of roulette. Naturally, these punching bags screw up the game’s flow by calling on every flop, turn and river like monkeys.

This week was so bad my man Dave got bounced early and griped, "Some jackass next to me re-bought five times." An old fat dude who lucked into four-of-a-kind throttled me after going 'all in' on a suited King-Ten. And no, I didn't 'rebuy' because like Limt Hold 'Em, rebuying is for assholes. End of rant, here’s a few things to buoy your skills: A book called Machiavellian Poker Strategy by David Apostolico, some DVDs to study the games of killas like The Unabomber and a tournament schedule that includes Harrah’s this spring, where the winner goes to Vegas bitches!
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Gangstas circle like vultures packing .45s!

This shooting at 1015 is a rare and sad event for the local electronic music community that’s got me thinking about the mid 1990s when the DJ arts first blew up. Back in ‘92, raves mostly happened at warehouse parties organized by a happy and insular group of twentysomethings and teens who bounced to their favorite DJs. Then promoters started making money, pushing events to bigger clubs.

Whenever something good happens it seems that outsiders creep into the scene. Before you knew it, gangstas began showing up and eventually a guy got blasted at The Sound Factory, one of the larger hubs that emerged with the scene’s growing popularity. Gangstas? Shootings? That is so not a rave thing.

Eventually I bailed outta San Francisco with dreams of world titles, a chromed out Range Rover and altogether forgetting about the ‘old days.’ Well, I guess the old days are just like the current days and like my homeboys Jon and Dave diagramed with pen and paper during one of those all-night brainstorms, when you look closely life sure moves in an endless circle.
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Notes from the boxing underground!

As advertised last week, I’m banging out Bisto De Mars again and while it’s much more than a boxing novel -- let’s call it a coming-of-age love story set against a backdrop of San Francisco hoodlums, dealers and ravers -- I just can’t help checking on the fighters who were a hell of a lot better than me. First, one of my former stablemates Joey Gilbert advanced his pro career Saturday, knocking out Jimmy Lange in a rematch of their encounter on the TV show ‘Contender.’ Homeboy’s on his way to six-figure paydays and a Cadillac Escalade!

Flip the script and you’ve got a disturbing underbelly to the fight game in Dale Crowe, a heavyweight who looks eerily similar to a certain "Thug" we know and love. Unlike our old school friend, this madman killed a guy and threw him in the trash! This creates a parrallel that isn't cool. Cuz there's an unpublished novel floating around whose protagonist Jesse Kellogg ices a few people. But never anyone who didn't have it coming. And Dale Crowe lacks the charm of a true psychopath. So don't let him tarnish Jesse's rep, kids.
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Paris struts her stuff while Nicole's agent bails!

Paris Hilton strutted down the catwalk at London Fashion Week on Wednesday and I don’t care if she wrote two godawful books, the girl is smoking hot! Hot enough to turn me into a whupped zombie who’d gladly recite Confessions of an Heiress in a Word & Bass rendition timed to Boards of Canada, Kruder & Dorfmeister and Andrea Parker. Do those beats sound phat? Check my latest mp3, it’s a live mix from the weekly radio show and represents our site’s first ever Dowtempo audio.

If we’re talking Paris we’ve also gotta mention her one-time sidekick Nicole Richie. There’s a bit of compare/contrast going on this week. While Paris modeled Julien MacDonald dresses flossing $3.5 million in ice, cutie pie Nicole pawned Dr. Pepper in Manhattan as her literary agent Michael Broussard at Dupree/Miller & Associates reportedly left the firm for a job at Regan Books. Two execs at Dupree/Miller had no comment but according to me, he’s about to become Judith Regan’s bitch!

Hypothetical question: Now that Nicole has no reality TV show, no film roles upcoming, and no fashion mavens chasing her down, when is she gonna write another terrible novel? Also, when is she gonna step up to this and accept my offer of a dinner date? Well, ok, when’s she down with a working lunch date? I’ll help her make a literary turd into something readable... Um, how ‘bout brunch?
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Still doing meth and bass!

It seems like 1997 was about one month ago. Junior year in college, a crackhead roommate, and me running a startup magazine to avoid student loan bankruptcy. And oh yes, dwelling in The Lab with bruda Ben. 1997 is also when The Crystal Method blew up large with Vegas, a shockingly good debut that seemed like the soundtrack to every bass lover’s daily life. Producers who capture that perfect vibe once usually end up doing it again, so I’ve bagged follow-up albums like Legion of Boom and Tweekend.

This week I’m stoked to hear the homeboys are back with another album, only this time it’s the soundtrack for the new film London. The beats prolly out-do the flick, which is about a sprung loverboy whining and snorting blow in a bathroom cuz his girlfriend’s a powder puffing hooker. London just started playing in San Francsico and Los Angeles so if it’s a bit more entertaining than that let me know what you think at bpmsmith@wordnbass.com and maybe we'll check it out.
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Bring on the beats and butts!

Now that our mp3 software is on point again we’ve got phat Breaks from Lantz, my own recent Drum & Bass mix and, yes, lots more audio coming your way. Surrounding yourself with bass 24/7 is like soaking in a hot springs, it’s therapeutic y’all! Now that we’ve got sound covered, all we need is sight. Well, at tonight’s Grammy Awards the eye candy flowed so I may as well lay down my prediction right now: The adorable Donni Rai is the next big thing in hip hop. Why? Because her song The Pimp Got Popped represents pay back time to misogynist male rappers? No, cuz baby’s got back!
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The lifecycle churns out Barbie doll nostalgia!

Friday was both a sad and uplifting day when The Fam held a funeral for my uncle Paul, who passed away this week. Paul was an eccentric guy whom my sister and I had lots of great times with as youngsters. Who else but Paul would let you throw a dead tiger shark in the trunk of his car and tie Barbie dolls to the bumper while driving to a family dinner to make a grand entrance? Even on gloomy days you can’t beat a family reunion to catch up with the clan. Latest news is cuz Kevin is about to graduate from film school in SoCal and is putting the final touches on his latest film. And you heard it here first, homeboy’s gonna blow up large! Just keep chasing the big dream, cuz.

Folks also reminded me that Paul and everyone else in the Smith clan was born in San Francisco, which means this is our city. And that goes back generations, since our grandfathers on both sides of The Fam were born and raised here. Your birthplace is one way to lay claim to a city, the other is developing a proper ode to it. Well, Jack Kerouac was an out-of-towner who wrote braziliant novels like Subterraneans and On The Road, both set in the SFC. Exhibit A on art claiming land: What city do you associate The Beats with?

Jack = nostalgia. I’ve resumed work on Bistro De Mars so naturally, wistfulness for San Francisco circa 1994 has once again set in. This city will never again mirror those days -- walking through Lower Haight packing a roll of nickels amid reasonably priced flats where students, artists, crack heads and hoodlums scurried together --  but Bistro is my last chance at framing SF as America’s greatest city. The city that was, before a million apes from Kansas and Wisconsin turned it into a banana-chasing zoo.
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Bass withdrawal no longer endangers ‘the pact!’

It’s going on two years since Jon and I made the pact. You’ve probably done one yourself: Swear that you’re gonna bust out with three new books or albums in three years, flat -- Balls out baby! -- and if you fail, uproot yourself and move to some Asian beach house. Thailand maybe. No distractions like a career or girlfriends or family impeding on the big goal of writing like a madman. Bang out two novels a year until serving up the next Great American Novel.

When you do these pacts it makes perfect sense because first, three years is far away and second, white beaches, silence and a laptop sound like every writer’s dream. Then you get dubious as the cut-off date approaches and you realize WTF, you can’t bail on The Fam, The Career, The Casa.

I also couldn’t go months on end without spinning Drum & Bass. It’s medicine, and a fellow DJ years ago said there’s no D&B in Asia. That was backed up by ex girlfriend Sylvia, who was from Kuala Lumpur and said Asia’s all about Trance. Can you say withdrawal? No way in hell am I trolling through unknown cities in hopes of spinning Techno. Well, restless minds find what they’re looking for and I hear Goldie’s recent Japan tour was off the fukcing hook. Gigantic crowds, every room going insane and calling for rewinds. Goldie says in short, Japan is the bomb and Japanese people love D&B. Hmm... Ok, see ya in ‘07, kids!
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Lindsay, forget about drunk James Nae and step up to this!

This just in: Nobody dumped a bucket of pig’s blood on wanna-be criminal James Nae. Sure, Oprah flogged him on TV but that’s just cuz her core viewership of bored fortysomething housewives ran out of dirty diapers to change. Boring. I’m waiting for one of these duped readers to beat Nae’s ass on a city street. With PR execs guiding Nae, Oprah and publisher Doubleday through the ‘crisis management’ spin cycle, I rolled into the office last week and even CNBC covered Oprah’s teary-eyed whining. Meanwhile, Nae’s novel Million Little Asses continues as a best seller.

The funny thing is these publishers apparently want a true literary Bad Boy, yet they come up with 1. A soft assed clown who extended a three-hour stay in a drunk tank into a three-month prison sentence. 2. A middle classs woman pretending to be a teenage male prostitute. Lightbulb! I’m gonna get FTBSITTTD  tattooed to my bicep and flex it at the radio Program Director upstairs, then we’ll take Bad Boy Lit worldwide, y’all! Fuck The Bullshit It’s Time To Throw Down.

Anyhow, I’m not hating on Nae cuz he lied. You readers who’ve been checking this blog since last summer know I blew my top over the adorable Lindsay Lohan. When my little precious gave him a shout-out and attended the launch party for his second novel My Friend Feces. Jerk ain't a junke! Baby girl, you need to Fed Ex that fool a case of Mickey’s Malt Liquor and step up to this! I’ll read pages from my WIP Bistro De Mars while feeding you blueberries and a spanking! Side benefit: No chopped up legs cuz around me you’ll ditch the tea for tripple espressos. Holla.
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Don’t call it a comeback, I never left!

A few folks shared the love this week after I posted a Drum & Bass mix for the first time in months and to them I say big ups! A couple cool cats asked for track listings and um, lemme get back to you on that. Interestingly, there’s this impression that I’d tapered off on D&B since the last mix was dated May 2005. No freaking way. Since Fall 2002, mixing sets every Friday night til 2 am is how I’ve blown off steam from this media pressure cooker.

The only difference is I've figured out how to post MP3s without having Candi or Joe coming to the rescue so once again I can share these sets beyond those three hours on the air. Expect more mixes in our Audio section in 2006 than last year, in fact my brudda Lantz is on deck soon with some phat Breakbeats. Also on deck: me strolling through San Francisco record stores wired on double cappuccinos and flossing bedhead and Prada sunglasses. These weekend rituals keep a young buck from burning like Bernstein, kids.
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‘Hollywood’ crashes into the wall!

"It breaks your heart when you lose holding pocket aces." -- A 70-year-old grandfather, as BPM Smith flames out of a poker tournament.

This week KPFA radio reported that California has the highest sludge pollution in America, meaning we’re all gonna die! Of either lung cancer or heart attacks. Waking up to this cheery news isn’t my idea of ‘good morning.’ So eat organic tofu sushi rolls or smoke a thousand Marlboro Lights cuz either way, your ass is grass. There's lesson in this: sometimes it doesn’t matter how well you play the cards of life, you will absorb a beatdown anyhow.

This week I took a cue from the adorable Paris Hilton and entered another poker tournament. Enough with these Reno and Vegas trips, if you want practice you’ve gotta do a tournament per month. At least. My thing is play tight as hell early, get the table’s respect and then come out hard. Well, people jumpy when you attack. One clown turned all catty and called me ‘Hollywood’ cuz I ran his ass into the ground with some hyper-aggressive raises. If you can’t afford it there’s always the option to fold, but these veterans bloody hate folding when a young buck calls ‘em out.

After an hour I had doubled everyone’s chip count. A tournament service girl brought a drink. An old man offered some pointers, which was very kind considering he had 40 years of experience. Soon they dealt me pocket aces. I did not smile. Instead, I raised on the blinds. And on the flop. Eventually, a Chinese man to the left, who earlier had turned over a good $1,000 of his chips my way, started raising. I counter-raised on the river, which yielded my hand two pairs: aces and queens. Damned if the bastard didn’t have a full house. I thought about that hand’s $2,000-plus chip loss while falling sleep. And upon waking in the morning. And there’s no way in hell I’ll ever fold with pocket aces.
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Big ups to the true literary masters!

Give it up for Charles Bukowski y’all! Of all my original masters -- in no special order they’re Buk, Ernest Hemingway, Louis-Ferdinand Celine and J.D. Salinger -- there’s more Bukowski books on my shelf than anybody. Why? Cuz he’s entertaining, and that my friends is what great novels should accomplish. Too much literary fiction amounts to stylistically well-written cures for insomnia!

So go get in some back alley fights, throw beer bottles through your kitchen window, jump on a freight train and ride across America (not you, Lis, you did enough of that in the old days), and most of all make a damn fool out of yourself. Add a fictional enhancer or two and then write it up. That’ll separate you from 99% of the soft assed writers this country’s universities churn out like Mrs. Fields does cookies. Just don't go on a 20-year bender like Buk, or else you'll be condemned to sharing a bed with a coked up old hag prostitute like somebody we know.
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Keeping it real in a ’67 Ford Mustang!

"What am I gonna do with $13 an hour? Smoke, drink, have a good time and make sure things are kosher." -- Punker at an Oaktown party, 2:30 am Friday/Saturday.

Back in the day I ignored fellow writers. Fallout from reading too much Jean-Paul Sartre, who said authors miss authentic life experience because they’re always taking notes instead. So during those impoverished times in the Lower Haight we only had one writer in our crew, a guy who found our adventures great ‘material.’ Authenticity happens when you let the night’s path take its own direction. You can’t experience events -- the parties, seductions, street brawls, even that mugging in front of the Fillmore projects -- when you’re cataloguing events as they happen. So aside from this one guy, I preferred the hoodlum from Brooklyn, the actress headed to Hollywood, the Hip Hop clothing designer, the skate punks.

Well, Saturday night we had a damn fun time hanging with a bunch of, OMG, writers! All of ‘em seemed to hold phDs or were on the fast track to landing one in five years. A five year blood bath! Did somebody gripe about murdering themselves for two short years to bang out a novel? Get over it! One Sharada Balachandran-Orihuela just entered a phD program in English Lit and kidded that somebody had misspelled her name in a story. No worries, that’s why BPM Smith is in da house! With a story:

I held Sharada’s gin and tonic to my forehead, wanting to absorb its coolness. Suddenly, out of silence erupted the crack, crack, crack of gunfire. It sounded close, real close, like in the Bistro for a second, so we all ducked. Then, we heard tires screeching out front as a ’67 Ford Mustang sped off. It was the brothers making their last statement of the night. They hadn’t shot at the Bistro but rather, into the air, a sound check reminder that they, like the abrasive chill that hits you every night in San Francisco, would be back.
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Party or write, that is the question!

We’re onto a three-day weekend thanks to Martin Luther King and that means a party every night. Friday not only are the hot tubs and bass bombs summoning us but now Lis and those rascally kids on Genoa Street are partying all night. And y’all know they party crazy style! Last time they rolled with bands and liquor ‘til 4 am on what, a Wednesday? Wait a minute. Fridays I’m all booked up with the Word & Bass Show on 104.1 FM starting at 10 pm, right when those Purple Penguins are just starting to warm up.

Saturday night Mahmud Rahman is throwing a house party to celebrate the murderously difficult completion of his book. That’s right, he just finished a short story collection Killing the Winter that’s about to go on submission so you publishers had better catch him while you can! Before he’s a celebrity with a butler and shit! As for the festivities, our in-house book reviewer Michelle just said, "No, they’re not having a keg. It’s wine."

Then Sunday some revolutionaries are having a dinner party. Eh. True I forget everything including calendars, birthdays and ex-girlfriends but a couple days ago I might have mentioned it’s time to stay on the task at hand. And wail on the keyboard ‘til this novel Bistro is completed. Decisions, decisions… Oh well, I’ll let you know after huddling up with MLK. He advises me on these trivial little issues that always sprout up. He's my advisor ya know.
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Time to ignore those wet raver girls’ butts in the hot tub!

Man, I am so tempted to catch this Psychedelic party but ya know Friday nights are all about the Word & Bass Show from 10 pm until 2am. I’m the last DJ hitting the 104.1 FM studio Friday nights so the beats don't stop 'til I run out of gas. No hot tubs and girls in bikinis getting wet so you want to spank them and no phat Breakbeats. Drum & Bass late also means no Saturday morning poker tournaments. Why does everyone want to start at 9 am, anyhow? Only shut-ins wake at 8 am on weekends so you’d think they could start at 2 pm, after the rest of us have had breakfast and one or five cups of coffee.

This is 2006 and I’m sticking to the plan: The studio every single Friday, poker tournaments every month, workouts as much as possible, partying with midgets and writing Bistro De Mars ‘til completion. Cuz everyone knows the U.S. market for gritty and wild literature is undersupplied now that Crackhead Frey and JT Leroy have fizzled out like Fifth of July fireworks.

Y’all need new voices. I know this guy who's been around Mafia goons, drug smugglers, Crips gangstas and has survived a drive-by shooting. But he’s not writing about that shit because you don’t pawn it off as a factual memoir unless you want everyone in prison. And despite what professors would like to think, those people aren't at home polishing their prose style and scribbling notes from the underground. But there’s a different novel on tap about City life and dreams and debauchery that’s now 75% completed so watch out kids, it’s on tap by mid ‘06!
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Cure for middle class neurosis: getting your teeth punched out!

Okay everybody, yes I did hear about this JT Leroy thing. It’s such a San Francisco story: Sexual identity, media trickery, yada yada. You probably thought I was going to hate on this 40-year-old woman who pretended to be a teenage male hooker and author of the heart wrenching Sarah. Nah. It’s just a novel. This isn’t some drunk pawning lies as fact, it’s fiction. And if you feel cheated then you took it all a bit too seriously.

Authors think they need an unusual life story because manuscripts are bought based on platforms, hooks and gimmicks. Do you think a no-name author is getting a six-figure deal just because they can write like hell? Does anyone think that celebrities, authors and rich mentors woulda chased this middle aged, middle class chick whatshername with offers to "help" back when she was a nobody? If she was not a mega talented yet distraught teenager?

No, the cult of youth is why JT blew up. Well, Arthur Rimbaud arrives once per century, there are no young literary heroes and I’ve got nothing bad to say about JT Leroy. S/he writes better than most. Plus, when I rolled by his house this morning a 300 lb. pre-op transexual threatened to punch out my teeth if I talked shit.
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Street cred is like cocaine, everyone’s got it!

Sure I can get all concerned about local issues, like when Oakland homicides touched an all-time record in 2005 the cops didn’t investigate cuz they were too busy being perverts. Or I can whine about Starfucks’ ongoing invasion that is driving out local San Francisco cafes and then bomb the hell out of ‘em. But it’s more fun to wallow in the newly disclosed fact that James Frey is a bold faced liar!

That’s right. America’s favorite crackhead zombie wasn’t even a junky, he’s just a drunk assed loser. Check out today’s front page of the NY Times and you’ll see the author slouching on a curb. Ooh, that’s so edgy, this dude’s from the street y’all! Probably not. Turns out nobody at Doubleday imprint Nan A. Talese bothered confirming his police record before publishing A Million Little Pieces of Shit, a "memoir" about drugs, rehab and the criminal life. He says he spent three months in the jug when it was actually a night in the drunk tank. But I don’t know, maybe it’s all just a misunderstanding so let’s break out the Bullshit Detector and ask Manny the Midget.

Manny the Midget: "Frey knew his novel would get lost in a sea of mediocre novels unless he came up with a racket. Narrative non-fiction is today’s hottest genre so he figured why not pawn his long-winded drivel as real life experience? It’s probably more an indictment of this fickle and neurotic publishing industry than it is Frey. He’s just another desperate author trying to make a buck."

But wait a minute. The bastard lied! The publisher lied, too. Motherfucking Oprah even hawked this guy to millions of bored housewives. Isn’t that misleading the public?

Manny the Midget: "Doesn’t matter. He’s already sold tons of copies and Doubleday made a handsome profit. This scandal will unload another million bucks into his bank account. Besides, folks should’ve seen this a mile away. Just looking at this clown tells you he couldn’t survive two days in General Population. These yuppie weaklings in the drunk tank don’t even see the thugs in G.P."

Brilliant! That gives me a fantastic idea for my man Chongo. Yo brother, remember that night at 1015 when you pretended to have a seizure and the cops arrested you for being drunk in public and threatened to beat my ass when I tried talking them out of it? Let’s stretch your one night in S.F. County into eight months, say you were the King of Crack slinging five kilos out of The City’s clubs every week. We’ll call it a memoir and say you’ve totally experienced redemption! You and me brother, 50-50. Hell, you won’t even have to write a word, we’ll just cash royalty checks and bail to a Baja beach house. We’ll have tequila for breakfast and wake board the Pacific with Mexican Senoritas. When the truth creeps out I’ll revert to my former life as a PR exec and deny everything! We’ll be rich, bitch!
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Average Joe enters the big time!

It was after getting bounced out of that Reno Hilton poker tournament that I first heard about Joe Hachem’s book project. You might remember, I refused to fold holding a pocket king-queen and this bastard kept raising ‘til I finally went all in and got my ass kicked. Well, that taught me two things. One, you’d better come out hard and raise your opponents instead of calling them, two, I needed to get more strategic and do some reading. Utilize your strengths as an author, ya know? Strolling from the sports book to the café for my fifth cup of French Roast, this middle aged Asian who’d made it to 10th place wanted to exchange war stories.

When I grumbled about needing to read up he said, "I hear Joe Hachem is writing a book." Who? "You know, the guy who won the World Series." Oh yes of course, gotcha, that Joe Hachem. Which leads to lesson number three. Don’t pretend you know everything when you’re just a young rookie. Ask questions and you’ll learn more. Cuz Joe’s comments mirror lesson No. 2. In Texas Hold ‘Em "you have to be the aggressor. You can’t be the caller. If you’re in the habit of calling then you’re losing. You need to be the person forcing other people to make big decisions ... It’s the way a champion plays."

Hmm. So Joe’s got serious game, I just finished my seventh business non-fiction book (published in spring 2006) and his agent at William Morris apparently hasn’t figured out what the damn book’s about. How about this: Combine anecdotes on Poker Strategy/Worldwide Travel/Robot Butlers/Female Vampires Getting Paddled. Holla at me Joe, let’s do this!
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Experimental friction!

Well, well, I see The Sunday Times is in re-run mode. In a little exercise meant to show how the book industry "has become incapable of spotting genuine literary talent" they pulled the same trick someone pulls every year. Submit an award winning novel -- including OMG a Nobel winner! -- to a bunch of agents and guess what happens? They line up to reject the literary turd floating around their slush piles.

Hello, why is this a surprise? Everyone knows 90% of books published each year are garbage so why should an agent snap up great literature? Some agents and trade press even got all defensive cuz naturally, they don’t wanna get fingered as fishermen chumming buckets of blood to the sharks of book publishing central. Then you’ve got the unpublished authors whining that this validates why their little gold nugget was left in the garbage pail. "These damn agents wouldn’t know talent if it hit ‘em on the head," they say.

Ok everybody, take a deep breath chill the fukc out. Agents, you’re not the bad guys of the literary world. We know you’ve brokered amazing deals for some great authors who never would have earned $100 and a bag of crack without your help. We also know you’re in the biznis of making money so go ahead and chum the seas with 90% bloody fish heads and the occasional manuscript that’ll uplift publishing for years.

And authors, ignore the marketplace. It doesn’t change the fact you’ll bleed your little hearts out for years writing your next manuscript, whether it's a formulaic pile of shit or the next Great American Novel. Write the best damn book you can. Murder yourself making it great instead of good, until your brain is shot to silly puddy, your soul is drained and there's nothing left for the world. Then include a naked picture of yourself in a query letter. You'll get published. And rich. Unless you're ugly. Then you'll be unpublished and broke.
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Love and best friends fuel 2006 takeoff!

It’s time to go kids, I miss my wife I never met
Future in space and time, I don’t even fret
We represent humans and you know we seek honor
Love all women, green yellow blue and yo’ moma. -- rap chorus BPM Smith 'performed' at Saturday’s wedding reception

This 2006th year took off like a rocket when my pals Dave and Lisa wed after a five-year courtship of wake boarding, poker and bug eyed infatuation. And they did it pimp style y’all! Anyone can party on New Years since it is rookies night, but the Cresson and Cooke clans did it large all weekend with non-stop fantastic food and wine. I couldn’t count the number of folks who took over the Sheraton this weekend but the place overflowed with big love, from Friday’s rehearsal dinner to Sunday’s post-wedding brunch, where some of us nursed hangovers and others -- mainly the old schoolers -- seemed too damn healthy.

Dave is the first of my original high school crew to get married, prolly cuz he’s gone from the brattiest to the most grownup of us all. Hey, love does that, right? When Dave, Rick, George and I were getting tuxed out in a hotel room it was one of those moments when you realize that the guy who you drove with to Tijuana at age 18 is beginning the mother of all road trips: the big journey that brings new generations to the family tree. Dave will deny any kids are on tap before oh say 2015 but you know the wheels are in motion! Congratulations, kids, and you're both gonna stay close to my heart forever. And ever.
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Christmas is done, it’s time to bring the heat!

The difference between how kids and adults experience the holidays is measured in leisure time. Sure, I spent Christmas weekend gobbling down cookies and tearing open shiny gold and red packages. The Fam had our traditional overnight party in the woods. You can’t beat Redwoods for an authentic Christmas experience. We do not have snow in California, so no images of white-capped trees. Lucky for us, because after eating Mom’s famous lasagna with some Cordier Chateau Plagnac (1995, get the ‘89 for something epic) we went outside in non-freezing temperatures to marvel at her lighted display of reindeers and snowmen and gigantic candy canes lining the yard.

After Christmas itself is done, grownups don't burn the rest of vacation on idle amusements like terrorizing the neighborhood with new wrist rockets (sorry about shooting firecrackers at your sons) and footballs (lost in the window of a passing car). Now it’s all about regrouping so I can bring the heat in 2006! That means catching up on shit that 'responsibilities' scuttled throughout the year: Exercising daily! Rummaging through this year's fortysomething Word & Bass Shows and the soon-to-be operating MP3 software! Studying poker strategy to help bag a gold bracelet! And yes, resuming work on my incomplete novel Bistro De Mars!

This last part is the toughest. I shelved Bistro months ago cuz I’m too damn busy. I don’t know when exactly this happened, but somewhere in ‘05 the progress went from 10 fresh pages weekly to five pages to zero. A new year means a new beginning which means no more procrastinating! To that end, I am lining up a stack of trance and house music to buoy the prose writing flow. This is where I’ve got to express thanks to John Digweed, Oscar G, Armin Van Buuren and Saeed Younan. Your phat sets will get this novel rolling again because without a musical assist BPM Smith cannot pull of any slam dunks y’all. Also, big ups Star 69 Records for sending us beats!
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Sasha & Digweed blast from the past brings nostalgia!

When the inbox had an announcement on this Sasha & Digweed documentary my first reaction was hells yes! On second glance it dropped me right back at 2002, when I rolled to their show at the Cow Palace with Jody, a hot little Latina who doubled as my fiancé for a minute, and her pal Sylvia. My two main reactions to their show was: "WTF, Sasha & Digweed are doing arenas now!?" I am opposed to arenas because it reduces the intimacy of electronic music. High ceilings mean you don’t feel bass waves rolling across your face. And you know I’m all about feeling the bass!

Second reaction was get over it! The visuals were unheard of at the time. I mean, what DJs are gonna hire a video crew to shoot footage of every city on their tour? From an airplane through fog? Cuz no joke, these guys’ did one of the phattest Trance sets ever that night, and one of Digweed's turns impacted my own development as a DJ. Rewinds are popular in D&B but I didn’t learn that shit from Aphrodite. It was the seamlessly precise rewinds of Digweed, that’s the style I go after. Now when somebody asks who influenced me they’re a bit surprised to hear it’s John Digweed and not a Drum & Bass DJ. Regardless of genre all DJing is beats, timing, remixing, creating a vibe, so I’ve got love for all my fellow DJs across genres.

Well, 2002 is long gone. Other than the occasional one-nighter at a NYC club, Sasha evacuated Trance in favor of downtempo electronica. John Digweed’s still going full bore though it’s a bit different without the tag team setup. Jody doesn’t even live in California anymore and her friend Sylvia married some filmmaker and got a second house in Hawaii. Meanwhile I’m still rolling with the D&B at a bombed out studio in Oakland. If you’re in the Bay Area catch it Friday on 104.1 FM starting at 10:30 pm.
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Forget the Paris train wreck, introducing the next 'hot' author!

Alright, I’m the first clown to admit guilt on this bizarre Paris Hilton infatuation that’s spread across America. But for shit’s sake, the girl is now taking over the book and music industries. Two books in two years culminating in a signing at the NYC Virgin Megastore (scroll down for that heads-up). Now I hear she’s got an album on tap that supposedly doesn’t suck major ass with Scott Storch, who’s been wearing my Rayban aviator shades (flossing in Vegas at Saturday's poker tournament!), cutting reggae and hip hop beats.

This weirdly amusing guy is so obsessed with Paris he named a Web site after her and reports her day-to-day movements. Latest news? She did not break up with that Greek ogre. Also, she just got off a plane from Tokyo and partied! That's news? Of course you can party jet-lagged! When my sister got back from Japan she brought a big ass 80 oz. bottle of sake and we drank like fish. But I’ll bet Paris buoyed herself with a Scarface mountain of cocaine. And she probably shares coke with that monkey, that's why it always beats her ass!

Anyhow, enough Paris. It’s time to stop humoring myself with the superficial and refocus on some literary shit. Cuz no doubt I’d have banged out the second novel by now if books and prose took center stage. Time to stop being a media maniac and feeding the addiciton to heavy bass and bald coochies. And since I'm clearly not going to ditch this poker-DJ-work-like-a-jerk routine, let’s discard the hoochies and get a look at the next big author in waiting, Laure Dixon. She’s got good prose! A completed memoir that's like liquefying Chick Lit, pornography and The Escoffier Cookbook in a blender. I even hear a certain flamboyant book executive is now giving her manuscript the once-over. If Laure breaks out in 2006 remember where you heard it first!
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Everything stays in Las Vegas including hangovers!

I wasn’t drunk at the cigar dinner Saturday night, I just drank too much. That’s a side effect of the holidays, one party after another pounding top quality vino and food. The goal is to trade in this lean and mean body for a soft rolly polly one. Proscuitto, brie, lamb, chocolate cake, seafood chowder, duck, bread pudding, the holiday gluttony continues interminably as Manny the Midget shuttles me around in a wheel barrow. Three Christmas parties this week didn’t quite work out since tonight I had to bow out of party No. 3. Pace yourself a bit. We’ve got a half dozen more before closing out 2005. This is a long month and hey, it’s not like there’s any shortage of celebrations.

We’re trading in the vintage wine for some good old Saphire gin and Patron tequila starting Friday night. That is, after the don't-freaking-talk-to-me-on-the-airplane-my-ears-exploded-like-V-8-tomato-juice thing. Thank you Gucci for providing sunglasses to wear at night and Vicodin for proper numbness. Throw in heavy bass by the best DJ in town, a poker tournament and a surprise or two from the fellas and it could only be one place. Cue Elvis and say, "Vivaaaaa Las Vegas!" Don’t expect all the gory details to get blogged though. Cuz what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, biiiiiiiaaaaatch! PS: That’s three poker tournaments in six weeks on a continued upwards climb toward the World Series of Poker, kids! And this time I'm bringing the heat!
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The execution will not be televised!

"If only I could take that moment and stretch it for about sixty years until I died of natural causes, then I wouldn't justify anything. I did not yet realize that life follows you no matter how far from home you run." -- Jesse Kellogg, killer and protagonist of the novel South of a Daydream Wish.

They just killed "Tookie" Williams. Stuck two needles in his arms and shot him up with three different toxic waves of murder. Maybe some folks whose family members died at the hands of Crips gangstas feel better now. Maybe our police state thinks that’ll deter other criminals but I doubt it. If they figure capital punishment has any value as a deterrent to crime then they should televise all executions live. Instead, it happens late at night in an isolated location at San Quentin.

Consequence is one of the key messages in my novel South of a Daydream Wish. Sure, protagonist Jesse Kellogg kills a man. But he starts a new life, discards his past like an iguana shedding skin. Redemption isn’t mentioned though, because Jesse’s faults follow him on the road no matter how fast he drives or how many miles pass under the wheels. He is still Jesse. A killer. Call that a hopeless message if you want, but when the State kills a man who actually did change his ways, denounced violence and overcame himself, that my friend is about as nihilistic a message as you can deliver.
                      __________________________

Silver bells in my head after blowout Christmas dinner party!

Yes, I’m hung over after our Christmas cigar dinner in which a different wine accompanied five courses of French food. Throw in some Saphire martinis and beer and it doesn’t matter how much mineral water you chug, you’re going to feel dreary afterwards. What a fantastic ritual this dinner has become, we’ve got Deb baking incredible chocolate cakes, me cooking lamb with a demi-glaze cream sauce and all of us sharing great holiday times. And hey, you can’t beat Elvis singing Christmas carols.

If you’re thinking we do a gift exchange then you’ve got another thing coming! We shoot craps for presents. No mercy for the weak, even at Christmas! Deb won the most presents while her fiance Brad -- yes, I said fiance cuz they are now engaged -- flamed out either because the gambling gods dislike him or he was just too beat up at 3 am to give a damn.

The best bottles were a 1993 BV Rutherford cabernet and 1983 Krohn port. Monsters y’all! The BV’s tannins were all but wiped out leaving a silky-smooth dinner companion and if nobody’s heard of Krohn well you’ve heard of them now. After 22 years of aging this port could go another 20 years easy. Smoked a Cuban Hoyo De Monterrey Churchill after dessert. It was alright but this cigar is probably the most overhyped smoke ever. Big ups Michelle for wrapping a dozen presents and then passing out on the couch. Also shout-outs to Ben and Brandi for driving hundreds of miles to make our shindig, and shooting the funny video. Unless you use it for extortion. Then it’s thanks a lot!
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Generation Next needs this gangsta alive!

"They've created a system where if somebody steals your weed you can't take them to court." -- The Coup rapper Boots Riley at a screening of Redemption: The Stan Tookie Williams Story

The Terminator is slated to decide the fate of Stan "Tookie" Williams today (December 8) at a clemency hearing in Sacramento. We’ll see if he decides to do the right thing and shelf Tookie’s execution. I hit that film screening Sunday in the Mission District and after talking with a bunch of good folks and hearing him speak via cell phone I’m convinced that Tookie has had a total rehabilitation from his days as an L.A. gangsta. He truly has a desire to uplift these young urban kids and keep them out of gangs. Even more, there’s tons of youngsters who look up to the man as a role model. Sound strange? It’s not when you think of the street cred he’s got.

Young urbanites revere Tookie because -- despite the terrible things he was convicted of doing -- he’s the who started this gangsta shit that permeates American pop culture. The king of all OGs. Yet he swore it off, left it behind for good. If a man sitting in a jail cell can find some wisdom and inner peace then that means these kids who are ducking gunfire, crime, broken families and poverty can find a way out as well. If the state decides to kill Tookie he’ll become just another dead black hero in their minds, on par with Biggie Smalls and the great Tupac. And we don’t need any more nihilism in these tough days. Have your say regardless of your personal views by calling California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at 916-445-2841, or you can drop him an email. Be sure to tell the Guv I said kiss my ass.
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Bass evaporates, Babyface sighting and birthday props!

"You look like a Hollywood cokehead who just rolled out of bed." -- sister Lis, after I flop onto a chair at Saul’s Restaurant with major bedhead and Prada sunglasses.

After missing Thanksgiving weekend’s Word & Bass Show it was a relief blowing the walls off the studio last night. A few listeners shared the love afterwards by complimenting my Drum & Bass mix and I gotta thank them so much. Listening to the set while driving to Berkeley for our ritual Saturday breakfast, it’s cool to see the remixing went off pretty well. Unfortunately, I blew the recording so this is one of those sets that’ll evaporate into thin air, never to be heard again. Kind of a bummer cuz someone recently asked why I haven’t dropped a new D&B mix on the site? Well, I only drop sets here when my man Joe steps into the house since I’m a techie moron. A big assed archive is looming though, so watch for it kids!

Meanwhile, you East Bay folks gotta know that Sam "Supa" Arroyo’s birthday party is happening tonight in Oaktown. Big ups, Sam! And why’d you do this on the night my $500 bet on Bernard Hopkins to regain the middleweight championship will wipe out last week’s poker tournament losses? ;-) Separately, drinking 60 oz. of espresso daily is supposed to make you brilliant but I still forgot to mention a sighting: R&B singer Babyface lurking in the lobby of my office waiting to do a radio interview. He looked just like any middle aged media sloth, except he had a black stretch limo waiting. If not for the cute Asian girl in the elevator saying, "That was Babyface!" I wouldn’t know either way. And yes, Babyface lurked. Those types don’t just stand there ya know.
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Some killer writers just don't get the irony!

Irony alert! Everybody's favorite news source Page 6 reports that Scholastic just published a book by George Sullivan called Built to Last: Building Americas Amazing Bridges, Dams, Tunnels and Skyscrapers. Okay, this title isn't going to have anybody doing cartwheels over to B&N but the funny part is they printed it not in the U.S.A. but in... Singapore. And oh yes, there's a new novel on tap from best-selling author Anne Perry. Something about a killing or maybe an accident, who knows, the damn detective will figure it out like they always do. You book reviewers had better like it or she'll bash your heads in 45 times with a brick!
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Paris and a NYC bagel worth jumping a red-eye flight!

Wow, Manny the Midget rants about the adorable Paris Hilton one time (okay, three or four, nobody’s counting) and before you know it unsolicited info rolls in. A reader in NYC says that Paris not only has a second book out but she’s signing copies on Thursday at the Virgin Megastore on Broadway beginning at 4 pm. What, is she trying to cause gridlock just before rush hour? You know it! Now before anybody e-mails comments like "She can’t write! WTF has Paris Hilton done to become famous?" understand that I don’t care. Never saw that TV show cuz I don’t watch the idiot box. The only exceptions are pro boxing and the NY Knicks! Oh shit, more recently pro poker but whatever!

Paris is the bomb simply because she’s gorgeous. And remember, a writer once said beauty is its own justification and cause for being. Forget about her TV show, movies or the two books, which were probably written by her pet dog or monkey or boyfriend or whatever accessory she’s got nowadays. Page 6 has teased me with her photos since the Millennium and she’s so damn cute I’ve got tunnel vision. Didn’t even react that time I ran into her sister at the Waldorf Astoria cuz Nikki has got nothing on Paris. So hey, if you’re in NYC say hi for me and afterwards walk one block south and pick up a bagel with cream cheese at Times Square Bagels, the best shit you can get. No need to thank me for that heads-up. Just tell Paris to holla at me bpmsmith@wordnbass.com so we can have a one night stand that’ll include us getting married, divorced, and end with Paris' name tattooed on my balls.
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When 23rd place is a victory!

So I’m back from Reno after shedding several hundred dollars via gambling and a quick beauty salon detour. Yeah, I said beauty salon. The place, Adam and Eve Hair Studio, spruces you up with highlights and that’s nothing like the regular barbershop in San Francisco, where a crazy Russian sends the neighborhood gimp on sub sandwich runs. The long holiday weekend also exposed my Achilles heel: coffee. Since this highly anticipated poker tournament started at 10 am I spent the morning getting caffeinated instead of hitting the sports book, where my New York Knicks were 2-½ point underdogs vs. the Sixers. Hello, at MSG? Had I not sat guzzled coffee and a double espressos for an hour straight I'd have recouped my poker and roulette losses. But no, coffee prevented a double celebration, the Knicks winning in overtime and me waving hundred dollar bills at the Hilton clowns who forgot to stock my room with a shower cap! They make good hats ya know.

As for the poker progress report, it’s ok placing 23rd overall since that’s an improvement. Last time I learned to never chase straights, while this weekend I ran a bunch of guys off the table by raising only with strong hands. Problem is after awhile the entire table folded whenever I raised. They became gun shy watching me calmly say "All in" (not yell like last time and not punctuated with ‘bitches!’) while holding pocket queens and spanking a few aggressive players with flushes.

The trick is you gotta wean them in to a bigger pot rather than bludgeon them over the head all the time. And this isn’t just to maximize your winnings. See, after winning six hands and making the cut-off to a new table a guy read that my pocket queen-king was only a moderately strong hand and bounced me out of the tournament with consecutive raises. He knew that was the right time to raise. How? I’d only checked him instead of raising. This is a lesson he’ll wish he’d never taught, especially once this meeting with Johnny Chan happens bwuah ha ha hah!
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Gobble, gobble! Happy Thanksgiving!

It’s that time of year when you jump in a car and drive hours in gridlocked traffic to go home. Home is The Fam, however you define it. For my girl Deb that means flying to her hometown in Tennessee where hopefully they don’t steal her luggage while someone at the day job is hosting a big ass party and doing a "wine tasting" at home. That means guzzling lots of wine! My sister Lis parties all night with the Native Americans at Alcatraz Island, where they play drums and watch the sun rise. Thanksgiving is a dual celebration of cultural tolerance and family ties so if your friends are your family that counts, too. A lot of my old school friends came from all over the world and did some ingenious Turkey Day dinners thousands of miles from their blood family ya know.

For me, Thanksgiving is when I celebrate classic American food, catch up with Mom’s side of The Fam and eat a 50 lb. turkey in 12 minutes flat! Big ups, Sonya! Then Grandpa will play the piano, we’ll chill out and retire to my brother-in-law’s RV and bump some music late while studying this poker strategy book. Cuz that’s right y’all! Friday we’ll brave the Sierra Nevada snow and hit Reno for a poker tournament. I’ll have my man Dave on the headset and say, "Alright, I’ve got two aces, the flop just gave another ace, should I beat these fools down in one move or let them creep up and pummel me like last time?… All in, bitches!" By Saturday you can expect some kind of train wreck where I look like this guy whose shirt doubled as a hat. Only I'll be flossing Gucci shades and newly highlighted hair instead of a dorky baseball cap. What's up with poker dudes in ugly hats anyhow?
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In a literary cat fight my money’s on the writer!

In the red corner, a young talented author debuts and the haters immediately dismiss her as a sign of the times: cult of youth, looks over skills, yada yada. Cutting through the bullshit, I’ve asked Manny the Midget to check in with a dose of reality.

Manny the Midget: "Amanda Marquit is to the book world what a young Julio Chavez Jr. is to pro boxing. She’s got more natural talent than authors who’ve been trying years to ply their craft, so expect a knockout in her sophomore work. Shut The Door is a sign of bigger things, like a Chavez Jr. left hook."

In the blue corner, a young so-called author debuts and publishing execs hope that her brainless TV-head fans will gobble up multiple copies simply because they run two different cover photos. It’s promoted as "a no-holds-barred look at Hollywood's new elite, behind the velvet ropes" but rumors are swirling that she didn’t even write it.

Manny the Midget: "If Nicole Ritchie wrote that novel herself then I’m an NBA point guard and if this girl lost that 30 lbs. by drinking fruit juice then I didn’t just chop up six rails of coke." Cue sound of an elephant. "The winner, by knockout, Amanda Marquit! She is… a knockout… a prodigy… Hey, Paris Hilton just got attacked by her pet monkey!"
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How to survive holiday season without turning into a lard ass!

For those who keep asking, no I haven’t finished the second novel and no, the first one hasn’t been published. These things take time. Also, I’m too busy deflecting black magic and shoveling Beef Wellington and Bordeaux wine down my throat to speed up the process. You want a Big Mac or filet mignon? I’m trying to cook a Philly Cheesteak in a demi glaze sauce and that takes awhile. Reeling from Saturday’s gluttony, tonight I had 300 sit-ups and push-ups as payback instead of writing. Every such meal must be countered with a workout. Follow this holiday rule and you’ll make it through New Years hard instead of fat. Or, write a novel, become a well-paid genius, move to Brazil and party hard with Charlize Theron.
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Synchronicity is another way of saying big ups!

So right when I declare it’s time for Girl Power I hear Stephanie Klein is taking over planet Earth months before her first book is even released. You know I love all women, especially powerful ones, so you go girl! This week it also happens that WORD’N’BASS.com book reviewer Michelle Simon jumped ship at her day job to take a promotion and phat raise at a Bay Area university. Since she’s too nice to say this, I’d like to make the following statement to her former employer: You can’t keep a good woman down, bitches!

Then Saturday morning I'm checking e-mail for new announcements and one is from a well-known party promoter with the headline: "Free OUTDOOR event November 19." Inside is simply a photo of the San Francisco Bay and outlying trees. Point taken: the great outdoors is a never-ending event, get it while you can, kids! Coincidentally, their "announcement" came after Friday’s Drum & Bass set on 104.1 FM, where I went into a typical rant about how y’all gotta turn off the damn TV and go outside, where you’ll find spiritual and physical nourishment instead of a lobotomy. Speaking of the outdoors and Girl Power, San Francisco D&B spinmeister DJ Salex says she’ll have a mix on tap soon for WORD’N’BASS.com! She was one of a dozen DJs spinning at last week’s outdoor rave Hiber Nation.

Last, the ultimate in synchronicity is Dad’s birthday, which happened Thursday, Nov. 17 because, yes, that’s the same date I was born. Apparently Mom decided on a birthday present he’d never forget and well, here’s a few "gifts" received: Returning from a Hawaii vacation to find your house trashed from a weeklong party, beer bottles scattered, candles on the floor and a burned down palm tree. That chain gang incident. And who can forget that time I pulled a 360 while parking at the French restaurant, right? Anyhow, big ups, Dad, for your uncommon tolerance of a brat like me! And it's awesome keeping our 20-year-old birthday tradition going at Le Pot a Feu.
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Girl Power at WORD’N’BASS.com all week!

Eighty-five years after women were given the right to vote you’ve gotta love how far they’ve come to uplift American culture. Straight to the top of politics, art, literature and music. Hell, if women ran the world we’d probably spend less time killing people and staring at the TV and more time doing stuff that counts. Like supporting the arts, for one! So I’m declaring all of this week Girl Power at WORD’N’BASS.com.

First off is DJ Denise, who was my studio guest at the WORD’N’BASS Show on 104.1 FM and is uplifting this Web site with one of her phat House mixes. Also watch for goodies on author Carrie Kabak and Drum & Bass DJ Alley Cat as the week rolls by. Speaking of bass, there’s a theory that women are better equipped for the male-dominated DJing arts than men because their ears can more easily listen and analyze independently. One ear appraises the output while the other ear counts beats in the headphones. Example: Listen to Denise and just try and tell when she’s transitioning records, bet ya can’t! 
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Where's the good indoor courts!

Ok, it's getting cold, rain storms are coming and the playgrounds are gonna empty out real soon. Winter basketball is needed, so those in the San Francisco/Oakland/Berkeley area how about a heads-up on the best gyms for pickup games and lifting weights? I used to hit the USF Koret gym which was great but they're toast now and the Y in Berkeley is a nightmare to find parking. See rant below. Thanks, kids!
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Migrating East Bay apes can't stop ballers and D&B-heads!

The San Francisco natives are getting restless. A decade after the entire planet decided they could strike it rich in a tech- and financial-driven Gold Rush -- forcing real estate prices through the roof and an exodus of City dwellers to the more reasonably priced East Bay -- you can’t get anywhere without a billion people clogging the pipeline! Two examples from the weekend. Friday night we’re rolling to the Knicks-Warriors game but the freeway is so jam packed with migrating apes we end up flying down the industrial streets of Oakland until finally blowing into the arena parking lot bumping Oscar G so loud the seats rattled. The lot attendant gave us a spooked look for some reason, either the bass forced his hair to stand on end or he didn’t like the psycho-kill-all-commuters look in my eye. Inside, things were better so big ups to Warriors exec Tamela for guaranteeing Dave's dinner reservations at every home game, Eddy Curry for bringing monster slam dunks, and Sanae Tomita for her grace and eyeball-popping beauty.

Then Saturday I’m trying to hit Skills DJ Workshop, which btw has been loading up on Drum & Bass vinyl since early ’05, in my old stomping grounds of Berkeley. I will eat my own ass if it didn’t take 30 minutes of scouring every single street to find a parking spot. And that spot was ten blocks away! But a million banana-seeking monkeys will not prevent a D&B-head from replenishing his supply when he needs fresh blood, I mean bass. And oh yeah, as I staggered down Telegraph Ave past Willard School, where we used to roll full court pickup basketball every Tuesday night, I saw that the fence is now chained up. No more basketball! Because they wanna keep crackhead zombies and talentless money-hungry dot-commers from smoking dope and downloading corporate synergies on the playground.
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Trading in turntables for the Knicks!

If you’re looking to bump some Drum & Bass tonight you won’t find it at 104.1 FM since I’m skipping Friday's show in favor of courtside seats at the Warriors-Knicks game. And please, no jokes that my boys’ 0-4 record make them one of three winless NBA teams. It’s all part of the plan, I’m telling you! Come Thanksgiving weekend, not only will a poker tournament break wide open as I floss these Prada shades and go all in holding a Royal Flush, this early season lull will help maximize the impending wealth when my New York Knicks win the NBA Championships at probably 70-1 odds! See you in Bermuda, kids!
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Porn and literature go together like politics and poker!

A lot of young up and coming authors get into Henry Miller for some reason. Maybe it’s the graphic sex, maybe it’s his occasional brilliance like oh, 50% of Tropic of Cancer. Skip through his pseudo philosophical rants and cut to the hilarious characters getting evicted from the seedy flats of Paris. And hey, Miller led to this notion that if you can’t drop brilliant prose on the public just write pornographic drivel. I’m all for that! As for politicians writing novels filled with "voyeurism, bestiality, pedophilia and corpse robbery," well that’s a helluva lot better than whipping out your dick in front of coworkers.

One of you e-mailed asking why the website didn’t get updated since Saturday. "Strung out from getting my ass kicked at poker" resulted in silence. Guess that wasn’t a good enough excuse, so the real story goes like this: 3 am nights over the weekend and yesterday I finally completed a business nonfiction book for the day job. That's the sixth biz NF book to which I was a contributing editor. Been plain tired and during last night's hazy dinner at Fenton's Creamery, where clinically obese people gobbled down hot fudge sundaes, I couldn't help snickering at the irony that these six books have nothing -- nothing! -- on my novels and yet they're published and read by thousands of financial wizzards.

On to fun stuff: A progress report on poker! Drove to the tournament bumping Friday’s Drum & Bass set and screeching, "That's what I'm sayin'! Feel the bass, it rolls up your back in waves!" My man Dave says, "Yes I can feel it, can you turn it down now?" We got pummeled at separate tables in a moment of synchronicity, both yelling "All in!" while holding just an ace and six. Lisa showed that discipline combined with many nights trolling through Indian casinos result in skillz. She placed second and was one of three females making it to the final table. In the wake of this beatdown I now have a book on poker strategy. Reno better get ready ‘cause come Thanksgiving weekend I’m bringing the heat!
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Riots, fascism and bring back our turntables, bitches!

They’re rioting in Argentina in the wake of George W’s visit and Maradona, soccer’s most famous cokehead player ever, outright called him a fascist. Wonder what he snorted before dropping that line on the press. Lots of us shrug off these foreigner ramblings because after all, this is America. We pretend to know little about fascism because that’s for police states who routinely stomp its citizens. Meanwhile, our civil rights have been getting eaten away in small increments since the Millennium.

Look no further than this recent video for proof that the police state is going strong in America. Let me guess, the hillbilly prudes of Utah decided to send a "message" that a free spirited youth movement, artistic expression and (OMG!) parties are three things that cannot happen in their state. "Call in the military, these damn ravers can’t bring their drug abuse and noise to our God-fearing state!" Anyhow, not to get all political but this stuff isn’t limited to hick states like Utah. Some of you remember a certain police ruckus a few years ago where a dozen Oakland cops and federal agents bum rushed our decks with guns drawn. Yeah, they shut us down that night but we’re still doing it, bitches! And I expect the punks to bring back our Technics turntables they stole!
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I coulda been a contender if I’d sued some bastards!

"South of a Daydream Wish is a breezy and rather engaging story but this is too violent." -- a woman at CAA, on turning BPM Smith's novel into a film.

In middle school I wrote a few short stories, mostly about pre-teens throwing eggs at neighbors and adults pursuing kids with chain saws. You could say they were semi-biographical, a trend taken into adulthood with these "engaging but violent" novels that are now baffling publishing industry executives. While I started young, at that point there were no thoughts of becoming a writer since the only true future was as a professional athlete. Baseball, track, cycling and finally boxing were the choices. Boxing was the last chance at this middle school dream, the most breathtaking and existential sport of ‘em all. Eventually, this white boy left California for a casino laden city with eyes on six figure paydays and a chromed out Range Rover.

Unfortunately, life catches up with you in sports and Darwin chooses only the mega-talented to turn into boxing millionaires. The rest of us gotta move on to the next gig: Jail (several ex-stablemates and no I won‘t count ‘em), digging ditches (one), law enforcement (ha ha, two), or corporate America. Little did I realize that those dollars in the fight game are readily available. All you gotta do is sue the bastards who kicked your ass and reduced your future mega-million jack pots. One sec, my lawyer’s on the cell…

Sweet, my lawyer just advised that I can sue my Economics 101 professor, whose failure to give me an ‘A’ resulted in substantial monetary loss. Also, he advised me to sue my ex girlfriend because when she broke up that resulted in a reduced amount of top grade A hoochie as well as malnutrition since I could no longer suck on her boobies. I will also sue Johnny Ruiz for causing me substantial monetary loss after I vomited a $200 bottle of Chateau du Margeaux while watching him crawl on the floor and hug Andrew "Foul Pole" Golota. After all litigation is consumated I'll tell America to kiss my ass and move to a Baja beach house. Patron for breakfast, suntans and wake boarding in the Pacific Ocean daily. I’m gonna be rich y’all!
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Downside to clubbing is meat heads gotta chill out!

When I heard about this DJ Ralphi ruckus it brought back a few memories of clubbing centered around the meat market, liquor and machismo jerks. The police report in New Jersey didn’t talk about a real motive, like did this boxer Freddie try and Mack on Ralphie’s girl or vice versa. I do know that drinking combined with heavy bass evokes primitive impulses in some people, like we’re a bunch of cave men flailing around the camp fire and banging on drums. Maybe it’s one of those cases where a big name boxer who’d been given parades and shit for his conquests felt entitled and it just got out of control.

I remember hanging with my man Ben Furtado at a club with a couple cute girls, when some creepy lechers tried laying down the Mack. The four of us are chilling at a table enjoying drinks and the slime balls roll up wanting to dance like it’s a fukcing free for all. Hello, two guys and two girls at one table means somebody isn’t looking to dance with drunken strangers. It’s obvious they figured something like, "These white boys won’t front ‘cause they’re wimps." Now I’m not saying a guy can’t get his groove on while clubbing, if that’s your thing knock yourself out but show some respect and judgment before bum rushing random girls!
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Happy Halloween to all my zombies and witches!

Yes, it’s that time of year when grownups turn to kids and get sloppy drunk in costume instead of the old days of trick or treating. Can I get a Snickers bar with that Anchor Steam, please? Gotta jump in the shower now since we’re hitting two parties and I'm a cokehead zombie, which is a better life than a zombie worm. Yes, zombies are easy and funny all at the same time: rolled dollar bill in a bloody nose, dark circles under eyes and a bullet hole in the chest. Hopefully my headphones won’t get red crap all over ‘em while mixing some Drum & Bass at Party No. 2 but if so, does anyone really avoid some kind of carnage on Halloween? Since I'm now on vacation for one week it'll be fun defacing one of these collar shirts that normally go with suits. With a bullet hole. From a .45 courtesy of Manny the Midget.
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Sip organic Drum & Bass but beware the floating eyeball with mic!

"Coffee snobs are so funny." -- said in downtown San Francisco by a suit who believes there’s no difference between Peet’s and Starbucks.

My friends, here’s exhibit A on why you should never fukc with low quality coffee beans. Recently, after drinking 1,684 pounds of Peet’s Coffee I decided to mix it up and tried Pony Express coffee because their label advertised in big letters "High Caffeine." Well yes, it was pretty damn caffeinated but it tasted like liquid Dodge Dart exhaust. I tossed the crap in the garbage and began grinding Jeremiah’s Pick Organic French Roast in earnest. That’s a very clean, robust coffee, my friends. But for the past two mornings my coffee still tastes like Ford Pinto vomit juice, so tonight I ground some beans and am leaving them in the grinder until morning to chase away the stench. Bad coffee will lurk and jerk like a Turk, so garbage beans will never happen again!

Unlike coffee aroma, music evaporates into the air and then it’s gone, never to be heard again. Unless you’re in these post dot-com days when everything is archived including my inventions like wheels for three legged dogs and laser film editing, both of which were grabbed by commercial interests using a floating eyeball with mic that someone fluttered around this apartment in order to spy. On the flip side, those of you who missed my D&B set on Pulse Radio last month can hear it by catching the archive! There’s one last invention the capitalist bastards can’t steal: an automatic diaper changer, which I’m waiting to design until 2014, when my future wife will try to whip me by assigning human dump duty.
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Returning from SoCal without a tan? Must have been business!

"Welcome to Ontario." -- stewardess, as plane descended to Oakland, Calif.

Just got back from SoCal and although I wore a hitman’s suit and passed rows of palm trees in cabs I was not acting in the best thriller Hollywood produced last year. Instead, the week flew by as I staggered from press conference to hotel room to cocktail party to private meeting to editors' dinner, where some of my fellow journalists proved that liquor and food can dumb down even smarty pants media types.

Highlights: getting rescued from rain torrents at 1 am and promising not to "knock off anyone" during our cab ride to the hotel; tricking a gullible woman on the plane that she needed her passport to return to the U.S.; and a new spin on the regular Bombay Saphire martini, courtesy of an "industry contact." Mix Tanqueray No. 10 gin, Martini & Rossi dry vermouth on a 50-50 split, add two olives and serve straight up and cold. Don’t forget the cold part. Lowlight: the weird Indian who’d smeared milk of magnesia all over his face and gagged while the rest of us tried to cover a freaking conference. He must have been with Bloomberg News.

Finally ended up at the Oakland International Airport wearing Prada sunglasses in the dark, exhausted and talking on the cell phone to my father who rarely gets calls nowadays. I need sleep but that isn’t happening until Saturday, which is lame cause otherwise I’d catch the new Drum & Bass party that SamSupa and friends launched Thursday. Let’s see, if you wake at 6 am Friday and whirl in the media meat grinder all day can you actually mix a good set of D&B on the radio 16 hours later? If you’re in the Bay Area tune in to 104.1 FM at 10:30 pm tonight for an answer.
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Forget heckling bicycle thieves, I’m flying south!

"It’s been raining for days." -- guy said at 1 am as BPM Smith left the studio complaining that rain had erupted for the first time in weeks.

So late or early this morning I left the 104.1 FM studio after my regular Drum & Bass set and got pounded by rain. Bloody hell, this means winter’s practically here, y’all! Ran out to the car, plugged a recent D&B mix into the stereo and drove off with the bass rumbling. Driving through Oakland a leather jacket-wearing ghetto boy passed riding a bike. That’s odd, unless you’re in the habit of towing a second bike in the middle of the night during rain storms.

Read: Unless you like stealing people’s bicycles when they least expect it. Since it’s nearly impossible locating where this second bike came from, there’s no chance at becoming Mr. Good Samaritan and the Oaktown cops could give a damn, I decided to hassle the dude instead. So with D&B bumping full volume and the windows cracked I drove up behind the guy and followed him. At 10 mph. For three blocks. He got pretty nervous glancing back all shifty eyed while I trailed behind, just headlights and heavy bass lurking like a shark or a zombie or a cop. Finally when it seemed the crackhead was about to collide into a dumpster I zoomed off into the night.

The schizophrenic life that is a DJ/author/journalist is about to kick in ‘cause I’m flying to SoCal this morning. Where I’ll go from thumbing through Commercial Suicide LPs in an Adidas sweatsuit and fukcing with crackhead zombies to flossing an Italian suit, Movado watch and attending cocktail parties and press conferences. But only after surviving another brutal flight. I don’t care if it’s one hour or five, flying sucks ass because there’s always some sick bastard who gags his germs all over the plane and makes half the passengers ill in two days, flat. Vicodin and Gucci sunglasses here I come.
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Here’s how you win the Nobel Prize, and how to spend $1.3 million!

So they pulled some old British guy Harold Pinter out of the literary scrap heap and named him winner of the Nobel Prize of Literature. Like the rest of the world my first reaction was, "Who?" Never heard of him! They say Pinter’s writing is forceful but what they really meant to say is the guy’s been ranting about the British government since the ‘80s, wants Tony Blair kicked out of office and is pissed about this Iraq war. Great, let the dude gimp around and wave his cane at TV cameras. You know his rants will be given a lot more clout now that he’s a laureate. This underscores the fact that the Nobel is more about politics than it is about great writing. Lame! They should give the Novel Prize to the best goddamn writer there is.

Pinter retired from writing back in March so you can bet his retirement is gonna be phat now, kids! Picture old man Pinter with an entourage of gorgeous French women carrying him into the casinos of Monte Carlo. Then he drives his solar-electric powered wheelchair to Bordeaux and guzzles Chateau du Margaux while hiring a staff of personal chefs. Next, his ever growing pack of hangers-on follows him back to London for some serious club hopping. He flings aside the red velvet rope with a solid gold cane that keeps bending under his weight and tells the bouncer, "Do you know who I am? I’m Harold Pinter! Step aside!" He then does the Curly Shuffle to some throbbing house music and snorts lines with Boy George, who just performed an iron man three hour set fueled by 13 bags of blow. Life after winning the Nobel Prize is the bomb!

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