It’ll make it all worth while. I’d be happy to dump half my chips to Ira Glass.
Yeah there are bigger celebrities, better poker players, and more prestigious human beings out there. I could request a game with Matt Damon, Daniel Negreanu or Barack Obama. But god damn, they’re all just so boring. Not at all like Ira Glass, the abnormally-suave This American Life radio show host.
Too often I complain to my wife about my boredom, my need for male affection. “No one gets me. People bore me. I’m an island. There must be people out there with my exact interests.”
So I tell her the stories about Ira and poker. TAL Episode 192 Meet the Pros, Act Two. Know When to Walk Away, Know When to Run. See http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=192
Here’s where Ira admits to the question, “Should I leave my job to go play poker for a living?” This is Ira Glass! He has the coolest job in the world. He also admits to getting hooked on poker, playing every night and losing “a bit of money” to online poker. I too lost “a bit of money” to online poker. We’re soul mates, right?
I also tell my wife about the Borders.com Shelf Awareness video program where guests are encouraged to browse their favorite sections in the bookstore. Ira choses the poker section. Then he points out all my favorite titles. Brunson’s Super System. Caro’s Tells, Gordon’s Little Green Book.
See http://www.bordersmedia.com/shelfindulgence/glass
“Maybe you could play poker with Ira Glass,” she teased, then turned back to the dishes in the sink. She had no idea she was planting a seed.
I love to play poker. I love to listen to This American Life. And she’s right. Why not combine to two?
I have a monthly poker home game with men who’ve never heard of This American Life. There’s my dad, my brother, my brother-in-law, his father-in-law, and a handful of friends of friends who couldn’t spell NPR. We don’t talk much, nor are we there to talk. But it would be nice to say the names Ira Glass, David Sedaris, Shalom Auslander, Jonathan Goldstein, Bobby Dunbar and The House by Loon Lake without the entire table thinking I’m referencing NBCs Thursday night primetime lineup or a fantasy football lineup. Christ, this is my fantasy poker lineup! Sure, they’re probably not much for folding to a one-outer and this might cause me to lose some money on the river. But what I’d get in return in conversation might be worth the chips.
A man needs to surround himself with like-minded beings with like-minded interests. This allows him the knowledge that’s he’s not all that weird after all.
So, I didn’t tell my wife how Ira sunk his mitts into me the most. Toward the end of Episode 192 he makes his most telling admission yet, “Sometime I’ll be sitting in my office, or out to dinner with my friends and I’ll daydream about poker.”
He daydreams about poker. Of course he does, who doesn’t?
I don’t tell my wife this because I know she won’t understand. I don’t tell my wife this because I know she’ll figure out that I too daydream about poker. This is the kind of thing, the kind of vulnerability that you admit only to people who will definitely understand. This is the kind of information that breathes in self-help meetings. You don’t just say these things out loud. Unless you’re Ira Glass. Then you say it on National Public Radio to millions of present and future listeners.
So here is an invitation to the host of my favorite entertainment program. Here is an open invitation to my poker table to a fellow poker daydreamer. Ira Glass, you always have a chair at my poker table. And with it comes a definite anonymity that might win you an extra bet on the turn.
This post was originally published in February, 2010. See more at http://www.mypatheticblog.tumblr.com/
