Get to know your fellow board members....

[algunz]

You clearly have a long history of hating English teachers.


What's your script about?

[stuporfly]

Good grief, what a painful story!

[Monklish]

What is the one best piece of advice that you didn't take but looking back wish you would have?

I'm not sure that anyone advised me on this subject, but I wish I'd switched arms while driving cross country a bit.

Seriously though, not really sure. At this point I'm still at a crux where I'm not sure which direction I should have been trying harder in my life. Maybe I should have shut the fuck up and done my schoolwork. Maybe I should have focused more on actually completing creative projects. Only time will tell. I'm pretty sure when all's said and done I won't have a definitive answer in either direction.

You clearly have a long history of hating English teachers.


What's your script about?

Autobiographical, slightly dramatized.

[weeklymix]

You're enjoying a cold drink...

is it with a straw?

[Monklish]

No, except for certain kinds of alcoholic drinks. Generally though I resent those anyway, but if you're drinking a mixed cocktail served in a rocks glass there's so little actual liquid and such a high alcohol:mixer ratio that you might as well stretch the experience out with those annoying little fucker straws.

[Mr. Dylanja]

What's the best casino to play poker at in AC? Do you know of any underground games in NYC, Rounders style?

[Monklish]

What's the best casino to play poker at in AC? Do you know of any underground games in NYC, Rounders style?

Borgata has the nicest poker room but it can be a bitch to get a seat at on busy nights. When busy I prefer the Trop. Doesn't attract too talented of a crowd but don't expect waitresses under 35 or any of that shit. They'll let you get away with a lot more cursing at the table than they do at the Borg though which is very important to me. In my experience the higher end places tend to draw in a lot of annoying chump players with too much money to throw around to make for a decent game. It's not always as easy to fleece those assholes as it should be, and either way it destroys the fun.

I've never really gone to any underground spots in NY, but if I needed to I could certainly find out. I have several gambling addict buddies who now live way too close to the city to be driving down to AC.

[Mr. Dylanja]

That's cool, we'll have to go sit down if we ever end up in Vegas at the same time again. How would you describe your play, mostly aggressive? Do you find yourself calculating pot odds every hand you're involved in or are you more of a 'play the player' type?

[stuporfly]

When you left Los Angeles, you spoke about how refreshing it would be to get away from all the phonies and get back to New Jersey where people were a bit more real*. Now that you've been back east for a bit, do you feel as though you've made the right decision? Has it been difficult to reacquaint yourself to the comparatively shitty weather? Is there anything about the east coast other than familiarity or what you've previously stated that appeals to you? Citing specifics is cool.





*I apologize for condensing your experience into a clumsy pseudo-Salinger/MTV mash-up. I apologize even more if I got it wrong.

[Monklish]

Never really got into the pot odds thing. In no-limit I learned to be more cautious but I'm generally really good at knowing when I can push somebody off a pot, so it tends to go like this: early going playing very cautious, then coming out and betting motherfuckers off of several hands until they get pissed enough to start assuming I'm lying, then back to cautious to snag them when they try and catch me in a bluff. I should really read a book on odds at some point but I have the general concept just from being really good with math and I try to avoid playing poker nowadays.

[Monklish]

When you left Los Angeles, you spoke about how refreshing it would be to get away from all the phonies and get back to New Jersey where people were a bit more real*. Now that you've been back east for a bit, do you feel as though you've made the right decision? Has it been difficult to reacquaint yourself to the comparatively shitty weather? Is there anything about the east coast other than familiarity or what you've previously stated that appeals to you? Citing specifics is cool.

*I apologize for condensing your experience into a clumsy pseudo-Salinger/MTV mash-up. I apologize even more if I got it wrong.

No need for the footnote, you were spot on. Well initially it felt pretty wonderful, although at the same time in the back of my head the whole way getting closer to Jersey I started to wonder what the fuck I was thinking. Then Ivy and I got here and it was all fall and pretty and she even liked the place a bit and we went up to NY for Halloween and had a great time and I realized there was a point to my coming back. LA is a fine place to be isolated and see a lot of concerts and movies in really nice weather and everything, but it's just nowhere to really live.

With this medical setback though I'm having difficulty evaluating through my own concept of karma whether somebody was trying to send me a message about this having been a bad move. Not to mention the fact that now I'm kinda stuck staying with Ma for at least a couple months and have to change the focus of my job search to involve health coverage primarily--in short, a ton of priority shift going on. It's got me pretty concerned to say the least, but fuck it, you should only worry about what you can control.

The weather hasn't been killing me thus far but we're not really there yet. When fucking February rolls around, you're going to see one seriously unhappy Randypants. That shit is rough, especially given that my depressive tendencies are always drastically exaggerated by this time of year (lots of friends and family that died within a month of Christmas, all of them here).

But at the same time, I know that if I was ever going to actually do with my life what I'd thought for so many years was my purpose, it needed to be here and not there. I'm just frustrated as all shit that because of one shitty little vein I have to shift my focus off of "art art art art any way possible art art art" and onto "don't die don't die don't die."

All this being said, I will admit to a couple things I do find stupid about NJ now--the way the streets are laid out is just fucking retarded down by me. It would be halfway to impossible to actually describe to someone how to get anywhere by road names. They change constantly. And toll roads are a serious pain in the ass financially, although I'm starting to think it might be a worthwhile evil when you consider how absolutely terrible the traffic in LA is. Here you can travel the 60 miles from where I live up into NY in about an hour flat anytime except dead in the middle of rush hour, but between the Parkway, Turnpike, and the bridge tolls you're looks at 15 bucks each way. I mean, fuck.

[PassiveTheory]

What do you hate the most about yourself?

[Monklish]

What do you hate the most about yourself?

Hmm. Two things. One I hate that I'm not remotely motivated enough to actually put my talents to proper use. I might have been able to already carry through on my plans for success if I could just get past this block I seem to have in my brain that just made it really hard for me to do as much work as I should have done back when I was younger. Now that I'm a bit older and more desperate to not have all my elaborate plans go to waste, I'd slave over almost any crap you'd put in front of me if it paid enough to live and actually put my talents to use.

The second is that I really wish I didn't feel this onus to be some kind of cultural force or an artist or whatever. I'd love to be an easily satisfied person without any unrealistic hopes or talents to inspire them. And hopefully then I wouldn't be so crazy and could just settle into a regular life.

Sometimes it feels like my "gifts" (if you want to think of them that way) were doom.

[CalmerThanYou]

East Coast/Sickly Randy is way more personable than West Coast/Whatever he was Randy.

[chairmenmeow47]

which male board member would you most likely go gay for and why, pants?

[Mr. Dylanja]

Did you happen to catch the third person randypants reference up there? Good work, Ivyleague, I totally lol'd.

[chairmenmeow47]

i did dy-lan, i did. i also was in a training class today where this guy wouldn't stop talking about "ivyleague" and i thought of you and not me which is weird.

[CalmerThanYou]

Randy, when I briefly met you in the Gobi tent during NASA, were you surprised? Angered? Did you want to lash out at me? Do you remember this?

[chairmenmeow47]

I REMEMBER! <3

*backs out of pants' thread now*

[Monklish]

which male board member would you most likely go gay for and why, pants?

MJA. I think the reasons are obvious. For one, he's fun, and for two based on his preferred EDM acts I think it's clear he can suck a MEAN cock.

[Cdubby]

Did the gay cowboy down by the airport buy you any drinks?

[Monklish]

Randy, when I briefly met you in the Gobi tent during NASA, were you surprised? Angered? Did you want to lash out at me? Do you remember this?

... um, very vaguely. Sorry, my memory sucks, and my memory of that night in particular is hazy though I'm not too sure why. I wasn't angered, I just always feel a little weird running into people at Coach. It's like, "OH, HI... um... well, I don't know what to talk about without attempting a friendly insult which can always turn sour knowing you Cali types, so I'll just try and smile and move on."

[PassiveTheory]

Do you think legitimate or worthwhile art can be created, enjoyed and, I suppose, profited from, without there existing the onus to be some kind of cultural force, as you said yourself? And, slightly related, have you ever read about what Maslow had to say about primary vs. secondary creativity?

[Monklish]

Did the gay cowboy down by the airport buy you any drinks?

Probably.

[Monklish]

Do you think legitimate or worthwhile art can be created, enjoyed and, I suppose, profited from, without there existing the onus to be some kind of cultural force, as you said yourself? And, slightly related, have you ever read about what Maslow had to say about primary vs. secondary creativity?

Um... I don't think great art can be created by someone unless they have that sense of "this is the only thing I can do that will satisfy me in my life." But at the same time there's plenty of people who think that and have no business making art. And no, not familiar with maslow.

[chairmenmeow47]

hierarchy of needs

[Monklish]

Ahh. In that case yes, I'm familiar with that, but I don't know what you mean by primary vs. secondary creativity, Passive.

[PassiveTheory]

Well, he felt that creativity only ends up being intrinsically rewarding when you're in the creative spirit, which is at the level of primary creativity (sort of like being one with your creation). You reach the secondary level of creativity when you begin to alter and critique and judge your art, so I was just curious if you might have read that seeing as it seems like you sort of have a conflict like that.

What are some of your favorite lines of dialogue from film?

[Monklish]

Well, he felt that creativity only ends up being intrinsically rewarding when you're in the creative spirit, which is at the level of primary creativity (sort of like being one with your creation). You reach the secondary level of creativity when you begin to alter and critique and judge your art, so I was just curious if you might have read that seeing as it seems like you sort of have a conflict like that.

What are some of your favorite lines of dialogue from film?

If you're not beating yourself to the brink of insanity critiquing your own work, you don't have the compulsion I was referring to above and you will almost undoubtedly fail. In my opinion, 90 percent of being a good artist isn't knowing what's good, it's knowing what's bad. I learned way more about how to write well from dissecting what makes other pieces bad, or where good pieces fail to cross over into great pieces, and the endless hours I spent torturing myself because I was completely unable to stop thinking about what wasn't working in my script until it was finally finished than you ever could learn from being taught how to write well.

Lines of dialogue I'll think about and get back to you, The Office is coming on.

[malcolmjamalawesome]

Ugh, can we PUHLEASE get back to drug questions