Monday, August 09, 2021

Leatherface vs. Tricky Dick: ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ as Political Satire General Release Today!

It's an exciting day here on the farm, as today marks the official "street date" of my new book, Leatherface vs. Tricky Dick: 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' as Political Satire!

The book has been available for a while already, actually, at the publisher's website, Headpress. However today begins the book's "general release," which means people can start ordering it via the usual outlets online like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the like.

There is a paperback version, an e-book, and an audiobook. There's also a cool hardbound version, though that one is available only at Headpress.

I've shared a bit about the book here already, and if you visit the Headpress site you'll find more about it, including excerpts and a couple of other posts. For poker people, there isn't a lot of poker in there, but there is some. The story of how the movie got its title does involve a poker game. And of course there are a couple of references to Richard Nixon's poker playing, which readers of this blog and/or Poker & Pop Culture already know is a special interest of mine.

On the whole, though, the book explores different ways the 1974 horror film appears to reference and even comment in a satirical way politics of the day, in particular the corrupt and criminal Nixon administration and the Watergate scandal that played out just as the film was conceived, written, shot, edited, and produced. Incidentally, today is the anniversary of Nixon's resignation (August 9, 1974) which came less that two months before the movie premiered.

If you're interested in Chain Saw or horror movies, generally speaking, the book definitely has something for you. Even hardcore fans should discover new items about the film, I think, as it presents a minute-by-minute "deep dive" highlighting its references to politics and Watergate but also other aspects of the film and how it was made.

If the most recent president's two impeachments and other scandals piqued your interest to learn more about Watergate, the book does that as well. I've been teaching a "Nixon class" at UNC Charlotte for the last several years in which we obviously cover Watergate, and the book takes a similar approach toward informing readers about the complicated scandal and its many wild details. You'll also learn about how Watergate was experienced by Americans as it played out, and how Chain Saw compares to other contemporary satire of the period criticizing Nixon and his co-conspirators.

I'm excited about a couple of other book-related activities I'm doing soon. One is to participate in this "international conference on slasher theory, history and practice" called the Slasher Studies Summer Camp.

The conference is online and entirely free to attend. It starts this Friday the 13th (natch) and continues Sat. and Sun. My talk about "Leatherface and the Nixon Mask: Political Satire in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is early Saturday the 14th at 7:00 a.m. ET / 12:00 p.m. BST.

There are tons of other great talks and guest speakers and panelists as well, especially if you're into academic inquiry into slashers. You can register for the Slasher Studies conference here.

I'll also be doing a less formal "Q&A" with Headpress on Tuesday, Aug. 17 at 2:00 p.m. ET / 7:00 p.m. BST. That one is also online and also entirely free. Actually that's an "author reading" as well, so we'll start with me reading a bit from the book, then answering questions about it. You can register for the Q&A here.

I'm also likely to appear on at least a couple of podcasts to talk about the book -- not a full-fledged "book tour," but a fun approximation, I guess. Looking forward to all of these and, of course, for the book to get out there once and for all.

If you do pick it up, thanks! And let me know!

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Thursday, May 20, 2021

Leatherface vs. Tricky Dick Now Available for Purchase from Headpress!

Leatherface vs. Tricky Dick: 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' as Political Satire
Hello all. A quick check-in to announce that starting TODAY my new book, Leatherface vs. Tricky Dick: 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' as Political Satire, is available for purchase via the Headpress website!

Today is what they call a "soft" launch, as the book hasn't officially hit the "street," so to speak. The actual publication date is August 9, the anniversary of the day Richard Nixon resigned from office in 1974. But you don't have to wait until then to get it -- you can order it right now from Headpress.

The book presents a minute-by-minute analysis of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre highlighting the film's ongoing commentary on contemporary politics. In particular, I highlight how the film contains many uncanny allusions to the Watergate scandal that played out while the film was conceived, written, shot, edited, and produced. (The movie premiered in early October 1974.) 

I was motivated in part by the filmmakers' own comments about Watergate having in some ways inspired the film. I wrote a blog post for the Headpress website referring to those comments and how they encouraged me to conduct such a deep dive into Chain Saw. You can read that here: "Taking Tobe Hooper's Comment That Watergate Inspired 'Chain Saw' and Running With It."  

You can order the book through the Headpress site as well. Right now you can get the paperback, an e-book version, or a special hardback version (with color photos!) that will only be available via Headpress. Later an audiobook is coming as well. 

Headpress is in the UK, so the prices are as follows: 
  • paperback - £17.99 
  • e-book - £11.99 
  • hardback - £25.00 
If you want to get the hardback, they are running a promotion for the next week. Use the code "1974" when you make your purchase, and the cost is just £19.74. Get it? 

Speaking of 1974, Headpress has created some other fun items to go along with the book -- a "Leatherface 1974 Face of America" shirt and coffee mug. You can find all of that at the Headpress site as well. 

The book will be available everywhere once we get to August, but I wanted to let you know you can get it now. 

(By the way, I've created an Instagram account associated with the book and project, if you're on IG. The account is leatherfacevstrickydick.)

Meanwhile, take a look below at the cool "trailer" Headpress pulled together for the book.

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Thursday, October 01, 2020

Book News: Leatherface vs. Tricky Dick: ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ as Political Satire

Not long ago I appeared on The Poker Zoo podcast to talk about my book Poker & Pop Culture as well as other things concerning the state of the game today. It was a fun conversation covering a lot of topics, including the history and current state of poker blogs.

Near the beginning of the show I gave a quick summary of how this blog came about and where it fit into the larger story of poker blogs circa 2006. I talked about how blogs began to fade away, particularly after Black Friday (April 2011) when this big, global online "community" of poker players to which we all belonged suddenly became fractured, especially from the perspective of those of us in the U.S.

I persisted with Hard-Boiled Poker, however, continuing to post every weekday for another five years or so, then still posting quite frequently after that before slowing down to begin working in earnest on Poker & Pop Culture.

As we talked about on the podcast, writing P&PC is what really more or less moved me off the blog, as I didn't have the time or mental fuel to write about poker both for the book and here. (And the book is a monster, by the way -- 432 pages, 160,000 words.) As I have noted here before, I can't help but view Poker & Pop Culture as kind of a culmination of my poker writing, bringing together a lot of what I was sharing here on the blog and elsewhere over 12 or so years of writing about the game.

I was eager after that to write about something not poker. I had another novel in mind, and in fact was starting to work on it when the novel coronavirus emerged to distract. But by then I already had a different project in the works... and extra motivation, too, thanks to a deal with a house to publish it.

That book is now finished and in "pre-production," you might say. Editing, proofing, formatting, etc. The current schedule has it coming out either end of 2020 or early 2021.

I mentioned the book at the end of another enjoyable interview I did for Club Poker a while back. When mentioning the book there I suggested that with my next project I had decided to follow the "pop culture" path rather than the "poker" one.

In the past, starting a few years before my poker writing, I did some more "academic" writing while teaching full-time. Some of that writing was about horror films, and I placed articles in a few different publications including Film Literature and the Journal of Popular Culture. One of those articles was about The Blair Witch Project. Another concerned The Stepfather and its relationship to an episode in Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon.

Another focused on Halloween III: Season of the Witch and modern horror franchises, more generally speaking. If you're curious what I say in that article, here is a post I wrote for another blog that explains it a bit. You can also check the Wikipedia page for H3 to see a reference to one of the arguments I make in that article.

For a time I was considering a book-length project about horror movies. However that was around the time poker stepped in to create a big life detour that included leaving that idea to the side.

Readers of the blog know I've also had a significant interest in poker-playing presidents, in particular Richard Nixon who earned a lot of space in the "Poker in the White House" chapter in P&PC. Several years ago I began teaching a second American Studies class at UNC Charlotte that focuses on Nixon alongside my "Poker in American Film and Culture" class. In fact, for a while I thought I might write a short book about Nixon, examining his strange and remarkable political career through the lens of his poker playing.

I tell you all of that to help explain how I ended up spending a good part of the last year writing this new book, one that combines my interest in horror films and in Richard Nixon. The book focuses on the 1974 film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and the title gives a good idea of the book's approach:

Leatherface vs. Tricky Dick: 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' as Political Satire.

The idea for Chain Saw first came to director Tobe Hooper near the end of 1972. The film finally premiered on October 1, 1974 (46 years ago today). In other words, the movie was conceived, written, shot, edited, and ultimately premiered exactly as the Watergate scandal unfolded, with Nixon resigning (and getting pardoned) shortly before the first audiences got to see Chain Saw.

Over the years Hooper in interviews frequently made reference to the film's many social and political subtexts, including directly citing Watergate as having "inspired" Chain Saw. His partner and co-writer Kim Henkel has also made reference to the filmmakers' awareness of the contemporary political context when making the movie. Meanwhile the film itself includes many moments and details that further encourage a reading of the movie as a kind of commentary on Watergate, if you can stop being frightened enough to notice them.

My book does a deep dive into those details, providing a minute-by-minute analysis of the movie in order to explore its numerous political messages, many of which pertain to Watergate.

I don't argue away other interpretations of the film, or deny other intentions of those who made Chain Saw (including the primary one to scare the hell out of you). Nor do I suggest the film presents a consistent, ongoing "allegory" of Watergate, although I do often liken Leatherface and his murderous family to Nixon and all the president's men.

It was a very fun book to write, and I'm hopeful readers will enjoy it when it appears. I think fans of Chain Saw should like it, as should those interested in presidential politics and political satire. Speaking of the latter, I delve quite a bit into other examples of Watergate satire along the way (other films, books, columns, comedy records) as I show how Chain Saw also takes a similar, indirect and (darkly) humorous approach in its criticism of Nixon and his administration.

For a film that has been picked over as much as Chain Saw, I do think I was able to cover some new ground with my analysis and comparison of the film to the political horror show happening while it was being made. I also hope the book helps readers understand just how villainous a character Nixon was, and how at the time the film premiered it wasn't at all outrageous to compare him to a mask-wearing, chainsaw-wielding maniac. 

I will be sharing more details here soon regarding a publication date for Leatherface vs. Tricky Dick and how to get it. I also look forward to sharing the fantastic cover created by my publisher, Headpress, which is a scream. Stay tuned!

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Monday, March 23, 2020

Past, Present, and Future

In a remarkably short period of time, the rapid spread of the novel coronavirus or COVID-19 has divided the world’s population into three groups -- the still healthy but vulnerable, the sick but able to recover, and the gravely ill.

The first group is thankfully the largest by far. The second is growing swiftly, both in terms of documented cases thanks to increased testing and actual ones. The third is also increasing and seemingly poised to do so at a more alarming pace, if we are to take what has happened in other countries as an ominous guide.

The healthy can be further divided into three more subgroups, separated according to individuals’ relative awareness and understanding of the pandemic and its potential harm.

Of these, one subgroup consists of those who are aware of the danger but refuse to allow it to alter their behavior, somehow clinging to an idea that the life we lived before has not yet changed. You’ve seen the stories from all over of public gatherings continuing to happen (or these last few casinos in America stubbornly refusing to close). If you’ve ventured out at all you’ve probably also seen people who are also failing to follow the advisory to keep distant from one another. Witnessing these behaviors is one of the most bewildering aspects of the crisis, disturbing enough to cause even the most level-headed among us to question everything.

A second subgroup is made up of those who do recognize there is something very frightening taking place, and who as a result are taking precautions. That’s the group to which I belong, and I would hope the majority of you reading this do, too. We are “hunkering down,” practicing “social distancing,” “sheltering at home,” “self-quarantining,” and so on. Unlike those in the previous subgroup, we are the ones trying our best not to become exposed to the virus, or inadvertently to expose others.

The third subgroup among the currently healthy is by far the smallest, comprised of heathcare providers, epidemiologists, virologists, physicians, and experts in other sciences who have a better idea than the rest of do about what is going to happen next. When they aren’t busy trying to help the rest of us survive, they are also the ones who tend to sound the alarms the loudest.

There’s another way of describing the three subgroups of currently healthy people -- those focused on the past, those focused on the present, and those focused on the future.

Those who are looking ahead know what’s coming, or at least have a good idea what could come and how bad it might be. They are working tirelessly to communicate what they know and to help prevent the worst.

Those who are focused on the present are listening to what those future watchers are saying, and doing what they advise.

Those who are living in the past aren’t paying attention to what is happening around them. They act as though for them today is not much different from yesterday. Whether by conscious denial or unpremeditated ignorance, they are making the present much more precarious, the future more formidable.

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Tuesday, March 17, 2020

The Reality Crisis

I am a sucker for apocalyptic fiction.

I think it has something to do with having been a teenager during the 1980s, the last decade of the Cold War when it occasionally seemed genuinely possible an errant spy plane or some skirmish thousands of miles away could erupt into flat-out nuclear war. At least that’s what all those movies very convincingly suggested in ways that lodged permanently into a certain suggestible teen’s still-forming noggin’.

I’m talking about films like The Day After, Testament, Threads, Countdown to Looking Glass, Special Bulletin, When the Wind Blows, Miracle Mile, By Dawn’s Early Light and others belonging to the “here’s what it would be like” or “here’s how it could happen” categories. More fanciful stuff like Mad Max, WarGames, and Red Dawn also kept the possibility firmly foregrounded. Even silly titles like Spies Like Us used the potential of nuclear confrontation between the Soviets and America as a ready situation for the comedy.

When it comes to nuclear nostalgia, the “Duck and Cover” kids hiding under their desks during the 1950s tend to be referenced more often than whatever it was the children of the 1980s were experiencing as Reagan and Gorbachev’s brinkmanship waxed and waned.

Maybe it was just me, but when growing up it often felt like I was “overhearing” that conversation taking place among adults, us kids being mostly excluded from it all. That is to say, I have no memories of being addressed directly about any of it. No one seemed to be delivering specific warnings to me about fallout shelters, stockpiling two-week supplies of food and water, and other ways to Protect and Survive.

But the movies created an impression. So did books like Brave New World, The Plague, Nineteen Eighty-Four (which I first read in 1984), Day of the Triffids, Fahrenheit 451, On the Beach, The Stand, and the like. I’ve revisited a lot of these in recent years, while picking up others like Alas, Babylon, Z for Zachariah, and Swan Song. I’ve gone back to most of the movies, too, being drawn to them no doubt because of that early exposure (pun intended).

Besides Poker & Pop Culture, I’ve written a couple of novels, and in fact over the last couple of years have spent odd hours here and there plotting and writing early chapters of a third novel which unlike the first two is most certainly apocalyptic fiction.

What I have plotted out kind of follows a similar trajectory as the nuclear war stories in that it begins with an event that affects everyone in a detrimental way, only in my story what happens next is great uncertainty and debate about the event itself (among other conflicts).

That’s kind of abstract, I know, but I’m loathe to be more specific. Especially at this moment, when the real world has unexpectedly provided us with its own version of an order-disrupting, destructive event.

Perhaps because of this particular obsession interest, I started following the news out of Wuhan in the Hubei province of China relatively early on. This weekend I checked my history to see I first searched “coronavirus” on January 25, although I am sure I was reading articles about the then burgeoning outbreak a week or two before. In any case, I definitely followed it each day since, although like others here in America who were similarly doing so it seemed safely distant and thus less immediately concerning.

Don’t get me wrong. It was real and intensely horrific in its details, but thanks to the distance as well as China’s robust control of information about what was happening, it also all seemed well out of reach. Or that we seemed well out of reach, depending on how you look at it.

It wasn’t as though America was ignoring it, though. Starting February 2, foreign nationals (aside from immediate family members of U.S. citizens and permanent residents) who had been in China at any point during the previous two weeks were prohibited from entering the U.S. And anyone coming from Hubei would be quarantined two weeks as well.

I watched the numbers of cases and deaths in China rise and rise, then appear to settle a bit. I heard about the case in Washington reported on January 21, a man who had been to Wuhan. We reached the last days of February with there still only being 15 cases reported in the entire country, not counting ones contracted by Americans who were aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Japan (and who were eventually flown back to the U.S.).

All of the cases were in Washington and California aside one each in Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Texas. None had been reported for the last two weeks. And there were zero deaths. Yet.

I’d like to say I had grown more concerned, being relatively well informed and all as I was. But it wasn’t until Sunday, March 1 that I can say I realized that COVID-19 had arrived in earnest.

Two new cases in Washington had been reported the day before on Saturday, as was the first death. That was Leap Day, February 29. Both were from the same county as the original case in January. However neither of the individuals had been to China, nor had they had any contact with the original patient or with each other. They appeared to be examples of “community transmission,” a phrase and concept with which we have become familiar in the days since.

The next day came a report that researchers examining the virus genomes of both the first confirmed case from January and one of the two new ones found that the latter one was almost certainly descended from the former. A comparison of the genetic sequences revealed both contained a rare variation, almost unique among the nearly 60 samples of the virus they had been sent from China.

What did that mean? It meant that the two cases, despite being separated by six weeks and zero contact between the patients, were almost certainly linked. Further study of the sequences’ similarities enabled the researchers to estimate a range of 150-1,500 people might have been part of the chain of folks who passed it from one to the other, with the most likely range around 300-500.

Hundreds of people, undetected, each becoming a new node from which more (tens? hundreds?) could emanate. That got my attention. I started buying meds and food.

Ten days later we’re all watching basketball and readying for a prime time statement from the Oval Office. There would be a ban on “all travel from Europe to the United States for the next 30 days,” we learned amid mean-spirited shots implying Europe’s culpability for our misfortune. There were additional measures, uncertainly read from the teleprompter and, as it turned out, either inaccurate or not real at all. There were more mistakes and/or misrepresentations than would seem possible in a 10-minute address (never mind one of such consequence), although we wouldn’t know about that until later.

The response was called “the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history.” The virus itself was being strangely characterized as though it were an invading enemy. Or a threat from abroad. It seemed a better fit for one of those movies mentioned above, not for the actual, real crisis.

The speech was unsettling -- not just for its content (as remarkable as it was), but also in the way it provided evidence further confirming a severe lack of leadership.

The short speech had just concluded when we learned Utah Jazz player Rudy Gobert had the virus. Then that Tom Hanks had it. Then that the NBA had suspended its season. All within minutes. Suddenly it felt a little like 9/11 after the Pentagon was hit. What next?

Well, the shutting down of just about everything else was next, for starters. The market spiraling ever downward. More dire news both here and abroad. And deteriorating faith in leadership, with “I don’t know anything about it” (regarding the elimination of the government’s pandemic response team two years ago and not replacing it) and “I don’t take responsibility at all” (regarding the unpreparedness and slow response to providing testing) now destined to become captions describing this moment in our history.

Way, way back in the day -- like eight weeks ago -- I remember the impeachment trial. Do you? Long time ago, I know. And before that other debates involving our current government that often took the form of one side trusting in available, concrete evidence and the other believing in what appeared an entirely alternate reality unfettered by facts.

I remember referring to what was happening as a “reality crisis,” and noticing some others do the same. Many were still accepting objective, provable facts as a guide for our actions and decisions, but there was a surprisingly large percentage of people who were otherwise informed and thus unwilling to accept such evidence at all.

That crisis was frankly the theme I had thought to pursue in my fictional book, with the event itself actually causing havoc by disturbing our ability to comprehend what exactly had happened. Thus the early part of the book would cover the event and immediate effects, then the rest carry things forward to show how the different ways of interpreting the event created different factions opposed to one another and fighting for control over the present and over how we would view the past.

Again, sorry to be so abstract. But hopefully you can see how the story was inspired by this “reality crisis” that has been produced by American politics of the last three years, and how somehow we arrived at a place where a large percentage of us have chosen to believe a fictional version of reality over the real thing.

This divide has often been mistakenly labeled “partisanship,” but that is misleading in that it suggest traditional differences of opinion or even ideology. It isn’t a political disagreement, it’s an existential one.

Now the reality crisis is affecting the way Americans are responding to the spread of COVID-19, with those already accustomed to denying reality comfortably continuing to do so. An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll conducted last Friday and Saturday by and released today shares evidence that supports this observation.

In fact, the poll includes one question directly asking people what they think is real:

“Do you think the coronavirus is a real threat or blown out of proportion?”

Just 56% of adults responded to say they believed COVID-19 was “a real threat,” with 38% saying it was being “blown out of proportion.” That in itself is jawdropping, as anyone who has paid any attention at all to what is happening in other countries and how quickly the spread of the virus and the devastation it causes has taken place should think otherwise.

The reality crisis can be seen in the party identification of respondents -- 76% of Democrats think the threat is real, while only 40% of Republicans do. Meanwhile more than half of Republicans -- 54% -- think the crisis is being overblown, while 20% of Democrats do.

It gets more incredible. This question also appeared on a previous poll taken on January 31 and February 1, when Americans had just begun to hear about what was happening in China and the first travel restrictions were being announced.

Then the overall percentage of adults who thought the threat was real was 66% -- in other words, higher than it is today. In fact, both parties are represented similarly in the earlier poll, with 72% of Republicans and 70% of Democrats saying it is a real threat.

You read that correctly. At the time the earlier poll was taken, there were eight U.S. cases reported and zero deaths. Today there have been nearly 4,700 cases reported and 88 deaths. And today fewer Americans believe the threat is real.

What happened over the intervening six weeks? A lot of downplaying of COVID-19. This effort to make the threat seem less severe (or not “real”) has come from many different sources, but I think anyone who has read this far knows who the most important influencers have been.

Here is the bottom line, though: Those who don’t believe the virus is a real threat are themselves a real threat -- not just to those of us who do, but to everyone.

Not believing in COVID-19 literally makes it stronger. That’s reality.

I’m reminded of a scene from The Day After that takes place about two-thirds of the way into the film, after the bombs have been dropped.

A Missouri family living on a farm has holed up in their basement to avoid being exposed to radioactive fallout. A college student who was trying to hitchhike home when the attack occurred finds the home and the family takes him in. Some days later the older daughter, driven stir crazy by the situation and anxiety over her fiancé, crazily runs out of the house and the hitchhiker goes out to get her.

Surrounded by dead farm animals, he tries to convince her that being outdoors is extremely dangerous. The threat is real.

“You can’t see it. You can’t feel it. You can’t taste it,” he says. “But it’s here. Right now. All around us.”

There are a lot of people in this country and elsewhere who need to be told this, and somehow convinced to believe it.

My novel has been on hold for a while, in part because Poker & Pop Culture got in the way but also because I now have another nonfiction book with an early summer deadline that I need to finish first. Whether or not I’ll be enthused to return to it in June or July is uncertain, given how likely it is that by then reality will have made the fiction I was imagining seem much less interesting. The “novel coronavirus” is challenging the novel, too.

Meanwhile my wife and I are both staying at home on the farm and plan to remain put for as long as is necessary. That means I might well be posting here again from time to time, too. By the way, the photos accompanying this article are from a few months ago and feature one of our fantastic “barn cats,” Nancy, who is equally adept at drama and comedy. (Click ‘em to embiggen.)

Let’s all do our best to stay in touch here, online, for the time being -- with each other, and with reality.

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Sunday, July 14, 2019

The Great Garry Gates

When you have a friend playing in the World Series of Poker Main Event, a $10,000 buy-in tournament considered the most prestigious event in all of poker, you don’t expect your friend to make the final table.

I mean thousands play the sucker. These days, to make the final table means making enough correct decisions and being lucky (and avoiding being unlucky) enough times to survive seven long days of poker -- more than 70 hours of actual play.

Like most years, I knew a few dozen folks playing the Main this time around, and among them could count several good friends. A few were still in there after three or four days. One of them -- Andrew Brokos -- even got all the way to the end of Day 5 (again!) before bowing out.

When Day 7 started with 35 players left from the 8,569-player starting field, I still had one buddy in there. And after another crazy, long, dramatic day and night of poker he’s still part of the story as one of the nine with a chance at the $10 million first prize.

Garry Gates has made the final table of the World Series of Poker Main Event. My friend is one of the final nine. No shinola.

As a poker fan, I’ve followed the World Series of Poker for many years. When I started writing this blog in 2006, the WSOP was a frequent topic about which I couldn’t help but write, including that summer when the Main Event drew 8,773 entrants, the most in its storied history. (This year they nearly eclipsed that mark; next year, I think they will.)

Soon I unwittingly began what would become a full-blown second career as a freelance writer focusing on poker, and during the 2007 WSOP I was writing articles and doing some work from afar for PokerNews to assist them as they provided live updates for the first time. The following summer I was in Las Vegas and reporting on the WSOP myself with the PN team.

Since I was writing every day here on Hard-Boiled Poker and the blog therefore serves as kind of an obsessively-detailed diary recording all of these events, I can read about everything I experienced during the 2008 WSOP. For the entry posted May 28, 2008 and in the midst of several posts mentioning people I was meeting for the first time who would become some of my closest friends, I note how I first met “Garry Gates, PokerNews’ Tournament Reporting Manager and cool guy.”

Garry led the team again the following year 2009, then some time after that moved over to work with PokerStars where I once again had the chance to collaborate with him in various ways. He’s had a couple of positions within PokerStars since then, both as an events manager and as Senior Consultant of Player Affairs, which means we’ve been able to work together many times since that day we first met.

Garry is a cool guy, incredibly friendly and outgoing. Back in ’08 he made things very easy for me as I made what was frankly an abrupt and unusual transition from teaching and writing at home to tournament reporting.

Ask anyone who was part of that group back then, Garry was a tremendous leader, supporting us in numerous ways at every turn. There was one moment in particular during 2009 when I remember Garry having my back when a certain poker player apparently objected to something I had written -- not for PokerNews, but here on my personal blog. I didn’t tell the story until many years later, and when I did I didn’t mention Garry by name, though he was the one who made it clear to me I had zero to be concerned about with regard to the situation.

Here is the post, the title of which gives you a clue regarding the identity of the player involved: “That Time I Learned That Jesus Didn’t Love Me.”

I remember thinking then how much better Garry was as a “boss” than were those in the administration at the school where I taught full-time (and would eventually leave primarily because of that unpleasant work environment). I didn’t always know there whether those above me would support me if the need ever arose, but with Garry there was never any doubt.

I use scare quotes around the word “boss” because Garry very deliberately minimized the idea that he was “managing” us -- rather, it was the reporting he managed, and he did it well. (In fact, Garry exerted significant and positive influence over how tournament reporting would be done going forward.)

As I say, Garry has remained a great friend and colleague ever since. I’ve written about before how those experiences reporting on tournaments can be especially formative. Even working a single event with someone can create a meaningful relationship that lasts well beyond the few days you spend with each other. In my book Poker & Pop Culture, I have a very long list of people I thank in the acknowledgments (Garry included) who helped inspire my interest in poker. I listed a lot of those whom I’ve worked over the years, because those experiences meant a lot to me and I continue to appreciate having had them.

Garry has always been a serious poker player, even if he has only played part-time since having (like me) gotten himself into the “industry” in a full-time way. I remember how in 2011 he played in several WSOP events, and even made a deep run in the Main to finish 173rd.

I specifically recall talking to Garry after he busted that year and what he said to me when reflecting on the experience. The best part about it, he said, was getting to share the fun and excitement with others. It really was as much about everyone else as it was about himself. (Garry cashed two more times in the Main Event in 2015 and 2017.)

You might’ve heard about how Garry was at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas when the horrific shooting took place where 58 died and more than 800 were injured. Six months later Garry opened up to Lance Bradley about it for a piece titled “Garry Gates: One of the Lucky Ones.”

I messaged Garry afterwards, and he let me know he was doing okay. I remember thinking then how Garry was the sort of person who was likely better equipped to handle such a trauma, given the way he instinctively focuses so much on others’ welfare. You learn that in the interview with Lance. For Garry, letting family and friends know that he was okay (and thus lessening their stress) was an immediate focus, and soon after he was finding ways to help others affected by the event.

You’re hearing a lot of people sharing similar sentiments about Garry over the last few days, many of whom are associated with poker in a variety of ways. Garry Gates? Great guy, they say. They were saying that before this crazy run, of course, and will continue to do so after, however things ultimately play out.

I’m starting to imagine watching Garry and the others begin the final table tonight. In one way, it doesn’t even seem real, like some sort of weird “sim” constructed to divert us all. Like I say, no one expected this.

Then again, it makes perfect sense to see Garry in this position, representing (in a way) so many of us who play and love poker and whom he has helped and supported in countless ways.

My friend is playing in the WSOP Main Event. Still!

I’m loving it for Garry. Loving it as well for all of us, too.

#LFGGG!

EDIT (added 7/21/19): Garry ultimately made it all of the way to fourth place for a mind-boggling $3 million cash. I wrote a bit more about Garry and his run for the PokerStars blog here: “Gates, Moneymaker, and how poker brings us together.”

Photos courtesy Neil Stoddart (upper) and Joe Giron (lower), PokerStars blog.

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Friday, June 07, 2019

Book News: Poker & Pop Culture Now Available!

Checking in again to let everyone know my book Poker & Pop Culture: Telling the Story of America’s Favorite Card Game is now out! No more preordering and waiting... order it today and you’ll have it right away.

I received some author copies a short while back, and earlier this week I got a copy of the e-book from D&B Poker as well. Here is a short video that provides a glimpse of both -- take a look:

Valerie Cross also wrote a nice piece about me and the book for PokerNews last week. Check it out: “Martin Harris Shares Inspirations for New Book ‘Poker and Pop Culture.’

Right now you can order the paperback from Amazon, and I imagine the e-book version is going to show up there soon as well. Meanwhile both the paperback and e-book can be ordered at the D&B Poker site. In fact, if you get the e-book from D&B, we’ve added a special bonus “appendix” that includes a list of “The Top 100 Poker Movies” with summaries, memorable quotes, and links to the films’ IMDB entries. (The appendix won’t be included with the e-book if you get it on Amazon.)

Also coming in the near future will be an audio book. Last month I spent many hours in a studio recording the book, and before too long that ought to start showing up as well both on the D&B site and Amazon.

Here are some places online where I’ve found you can buy the book:

  • D&B Poker
  • Amazon
  • Apple Books
  • Books-A-Million
  • Barnes & Noble
  • Book Depository
  • Target
  • ThriftBooks
  • Poker & Pop Culture is also on sale right now at the D&B Poker booth at the World Series of Poker there in the halls of the Rio. I’ll be heading out there next week for a visit, and I’ll surely spend some time hanging out there at the booth, too.

    As I say in the video (and have talked about here on the blog), the book provides both a history of poker and a history of how poker has been represented in American popular culture -- i.e., movies, television, music, fiction, drama, plays, literature, and so on. Thus the book not only tells you when and where and how poker has been played over the last two centuries, but also when and where and how poker has been portrayed, too, and how those portrayals have influenced opinions about poker and the game’s significance to America.

    There to the left is a picture of the list of the book’s chapters. It took me a while to settle on this way of organizing the book, and in fact once I did I had this piece of paper posted by my desk -- kind of a way to keep that “bird’s eye view” before me as I wrote.

    As you can see, each chapter covers a particular place where poker can be found, with that idea being applied broadly to refer to locations in history (e.g., the Old West, the Civil War, etc.), in media (movies, television, music), in society (business, politics), in time (the past, the future) and in literal locations (homes, clubs, casinos).

    The book is roughly chronological, starting with poker’s origins and ending with discussions of the game in contemporary contexts. But what I’ve really tried to do is create a kind of “geography” for poker with each chapter highlighting a different place for the reader to visit where poker exists. That includes real places, made-up ones, and many combining fact and fiction.

    It’s a pretty complicated story, really. One theme that emerges fairly quickly in the book is how poker occupies this very paradoxical place in America as a game both beloved and condemned. There are just as many examples in popular culture of poker being romanticized and celebrated as there are examples of it being censured and demonized.

    I’m not really an unrelenting “cheerleader” for poker in the book, having chosen instead to try to be somewhat objective as I chronicle and interpret all of these examples of poker from American history and culture. That said, I think just by writing a book like this I’m obviously taking the position of someone who thinks the game is worth studying and of historical importance.

    It’s definitely satisfying to have reached this point in the book-making process. Of course, there’s also that difficult sense of “letting go” while knowing I might have said more, or said things differently -- something akin to ending a poker session knowing that while you did your best, there were still hands in which you might have made different (and possibly better) decisions. (To mitigate that feeling, I hang onto the idea of a revised, expanded edition down the road.)

    Thanks to those who have picked up the book already, and thanks in advance to those who plan to do so later. And to you, reader of Hard-Boiled Poker, who inspired me more than you realize to take this interest in the game and writing about it in this direction.

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    Monday, April 15, 2019

    Poker & Pop Culture Now Available for Preorder!

    As I’ve shared over Twitter and Instagram, my book Poker & Pop Culture: Telling the Story of America’s Favorite Card Game is now complete, and in fact has already been sent to the printer in time for publication around late May-early June.

    You can preorder either the paperback or e-book right now from a number of different outlets. (There will also be an audio version of the book coming soon as well.) Ordering from the publisher, D&B Poker, is the most direct way to get it (and the place I’d advise you to go) -- here is the site for that.

    Looking elsewhere, you can also preorder the book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, and probably other places, too, that I’ve yet to discover. No matter where you go, if you buy it now it will be delivered to your doorstep right around the first of June. If I understand correctly, you also won’t be charged until it actually ships.

    I delivered the completed manuscript back in early January, but after a decent amount of editing and additional work I truly didn’t have the sense the book was “done” until a couple of weeks ago. As visitors to this blog have probably surmised, a great deal of my poker-writing energy was poured into that project -- a primary reason why I’ve been scarce over here for a while.

    I’ve appeared on a few podcasts lately to talk about the book. If you’re curious, you can listen to those to get a bit of a preview:

  • House of Cards, Episode 574 (January 20, 2019)
  • Thinking Poker Podcast, Episode 284 (4 Feb. 2019)
  • The Chip Race, Season 8, episode 5 (11 Mar. 2019)
  • There is an extract available over on the D&B site that includes the beginning of the book and part of the chapter “Poker in the Movies.” It also includes the table of contents, which gives you an idea of the book's scope.

    On those podcasts and in other situations, I have been describing the book as having a couple of primary purposes. One is to share the history of poker in America, starting with the very first reports of games and carrying the narrative all of the way to the present. Another important purpose is to tell the story of how poker has been presented in popular culture -- e.g., in the movies, on television, in music, in paintings, in literature and drama, in magazines and in a host of other contexts -- along the way showing how those representations of the game have importantly shaped opinions about poker.

    Regarding the latter (poker in popular culture), a lot of the focus in the book is on poker popping up in “non-poker” contexts. For example, in the chapter “Poker on Television,” I do spend some time talking about “poker television” -- i.e., the WSOP, the WPT, and all of the other “poker shows” that helped increase the game’s popularity, especially during the “boom” years of the 2000s. But I spend even more space describing poker being portrayed in TV westerns, dramas, and comedies -- i.e., not actual poker but fictional poker -- and talk as well about how those portrayals of the game have encouraged certain ideas about poker’s meaning and significance.

    Another way of describing the two goals of the book would be to say Poker & Pop Culture tries to share the true story of poker’s origin, development, and growth while at the same time provide a comprehensive overview of fictional portrayals of poker. It’s a lot to cover, which is one reason why the book is more than 400 pages long.

    When it comes to the true history of poker, a lot has been necessarily hidden, which requires writers like me to dig deep and sometimes be forced to settle for speculative answers to questions about the game’s history. Meanwhile, the fictional portrayals of the game might be a little easier to chronicle, but the “texts” nonetheless require some interpretation in order to figure out just what they are saying about poker and its place in American history and culture.

    I’m very happy with how the book has turned out, and how it kind of represents a culmination of the nearly 3,000 posts I’ve written here on Hard-Boiled Poker as well as all of the other poker-related writing I’ve done over the last 13 years. (The cover is pretty awesome, too.)

    Speaking of, eight years ago today -- April 15, 2011 -- if you had asked me whether I thought I’d still be writing about poker in 2019, let alone publishing a poker book, I’m pretty sure I would have said no. As many of you well remember, that was “Black Friday,” the day playing poker online was essentially removed as an option for American players. In fact, it still isn’t an option for most of us.

    I was in Lima, Peru that day, helping cover a poker tournament for PokerStars. I remember how disorienting that day was, and how a few nights later my friends and I gathered to enjoy each other’s company and contemplate the future, each of us thinking how we’d somehow reached the end of something.

    As it happened, aside from no longer playing online, the changes weren’t nearly as dramatic as we thought they might be. I was able to continue going on such “poker trips” to other countries and around the United States, too, and still do today (though not as frequently). And by continuing to write about poker, the seeds were planted that eventually grew into Poker & Pop Culture.

    In a later chapter the book does cover “Black Friday” and the wild “rise and fall” of online poker in the U.S., a topic that could certainly take up an entire book of its own. Indeed, many of the chapters are like that, in my opinion, capable of being expanded greatly into much longer studies.

    In any case, I’m super excited the book is coming out soon and to be able to share it with everyone. Feels a little like I’ve been dealt a premium hand and am now just waiting -- a little anxious, very psyched -- to see how things develop from here.

    You may be wondering whether or not it is “positive EV” for you to go ahead and purchase the book now or wait until later. I’ve actually studied this situation, and it turns out buying Poker & Pop Culture falls well within your preordering range:

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    Wednesday, July 18, 2018

    World Series of Poker Main Event Final Table Tips

    The 2018 World Series of Poker Main Event is history, with all 78 bracelets having been won. The final table was entertaining from start to finish, although that final night with the marathon heads-up was quite a test for viewers.

    Being able to see every hand including hole cards is of course quite educational for poker players. So, too, were these strategy tips reflecting the changing dynamic that occurs as the table goes from nine-headed to heads-up.

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    Friday, June 15, 2018

    #pokerpopculture

    Starting a short while ago -- a little before I shared here the big news of my new book, Poker & Pop Culture: Telling the Story of America’s Favorite Card Game, which will be coming out via D&B Poker next summer -- I had an idea for something fun to do over Twitter as I continue to work on the book.

    I’ve mentioned here how I’ve found it hard to post on the blog since most of my time and energy has necessarily been going toward the manuscript. But I also find I want to share certain “poker & pop culture”-related items I’ve encountered (or that I’ve discovered and explored before, in some cases long ago) without writing entire blog posts about them.

    I’ve started sharing those items over Twitter, using the hashtag “#pokerpopculture” whenever I do. I’ve delivered about 20 of those tweets so far -- here are a few of them:

    As you can tell, the connecting thread here between the tweets are the way all highlight mentions of poker in the “mainstream” that help highlight connections between the game and American history and culture, generally speaking. That’s a primary thread of my book as well, although there the items are all presented in their appropriate contexts -- hopefully in ways that are both informative and entertaining.

    Anyhow, you can follow me @hardboiledpoker and when you do click on #pokerpopculture for more.

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