The Passing of Cousin Marvin

My mother just called me to tell me that my cousin Marvin will be dead tonight. They had just pulled the plugs that were keeping him alive . Although he was still breathing, she said he would be dead before the night was over. This was not a surprise. He fell down a couple of days ago, hit his head, was rushed to the hospital, and had been in a coma with no chance of recovery since the accident. It was his wish that he not be kept alive if he could not live normally.

I loved and respected my cousin. He was an inspiration to me when I was young. He was idolized by my father who considered Marvin one of the smartest guys in America. The story in our family was that he had the fourth highest IQ of any soldier in World War II. He was a lawyer, a movie producer, and ultimately a college professor. He introduced me to Clarence Darrow, one his heroes who ultimately became one of mine. He seemed to know everything about history, politics, and literature, and was a great story teller with literally thousands of stories. He could talk, and usually did for hours, about his time in Japan after the War, his days as an entertainment lawyer, and what it was like growing up in my family during the depression in Newark New Jersey.

He told me about my Uncle Izzy who was a gambler and street person and was always surrounded by beautiful women until he died at age 100. He spoke of my Aunt Fanny who also lived to a 100 Marvin's mother, my Aunt Pauline died at 102. Marvin was only 85 when he died, but he was active until the last day of his life. One of his problems and one of his strengths was that he never complained no matter what was bothering him physically or emotionally. He fell because he did not take his walker with him to a restaurant he was going to with a friend. He felt he was OK and didn't need it. He was the youngest 85 year old person you could possibly know, mainly because he never accepted that he was old.

One of the things that interested me most about him was that he was an atheist who did not consider the existence of God as even possible. Yet he was constantly reading and studying books about Judaism and his best friends were a female congregational minister, and a Muslim women who followed the teachings of the Aga Khan. His second wife who died before him, was a religious Catholic from the Phillipines. For many years with his wife and later with his friends he attended Church on a regular basis. When I questioned him about it he said it was no big deal, although I suspected that he was a little more open than he admitted.

He was a true intellectual, a student and a teacher. Most of those who knew him marvelled at his wealth of knowledge and his unlimited stories. As smart as he was though, and he was really smart he seemed to lose all of his logic when it came to gambling. For the last twenty years of his life, what he primarily wanted to talk to me about were his gambling theories. For the past five years he had been working on a baseball betting system that he believed would make him and me rich. He would call me every few days with an update on his results. He bet every game every day. He spent a couple of days a week at OTB betting the ponies. He actually gave me a tip last year on a horse that won at 9-1. I shared it with my friend Marty who won $1500.00 on the race and was every grateful to Cousin Marvin.

For some reason, I'm not sad at his passing. He had a tough life in many ways but was able to deal with all kinds of problems and bounce back from many different setbacks. He was optimistic and seemed to enjoy himself up until his last days. I guess you can't ask for much more.

Dostoevsky, Roulette, and Visualization

I've always had respect for Fyodor Dostoevsky He was a brilliant writer and a deep thinker. His "Notes from the Underground" is an especially powerful insight into the mind of man and the causes of suffering. What has attracted me to Dostevsky and especially this book is that his thinking is multidimensional. He simultaneously sees that man is out of control but also capable of great courage and nobility. He rejects materialism but does not see spiritualism as the answer for man He is above all, a pragmatist. He tries to see life for what it is, not what it could or should be.

Dostoevsky was a sick gambler. He constantly lost all his money and lived his life in debt, struggling and writing under the most difficult conditions. What interested me about his gambling was his belief that although the laws of probability in the long run will bury you, there are times when these laws are suspended. There are moments where the world does not behave as it should. It is in these moments that you can win.

For years I have searched for these moments. I have come to see that there are times in gambling when the improbable does occur, that heads turns up fifteen times in a row, or there is a four hour role at the dice table. Unfortunately these improbable streaks fall into the laws of probability and it is impossible to tell when they will occur.

Can you win at gambling? I don't think that you can outsmart the laws of probability. I have had two unusual experiences in routlette, though, that have kept my mind open to the possibility that you can win. In both cases, the security guards at the casinos came up to me to question me and try to determine whether or not I was cheating. The first case occurred in Atlantic City. I picked four consecutive numbers. This is a 1.5 million to one shot. I think it was just luck.

The second case though occurred in Puerto Rico and was a little different. I arrived at my hotel around midnight. I was not tired and decided to try my luck. I was feeling very alive and upbeat. I had been day dreaming about gambling throughout the entire plane ride. This was not unusual for me since I hate flying and do whatever I can to distract myself. I must admit I also think about gambling when I am not flying. So I am not sure whether this was unusual or not.

What was unusual was the degree of confidence I had when I approached the roulette table. I decided that I would close my eyes before each roll, visualize the ball spinning around, and see it in my mind land on a number. I would then bet that number. I started off betting about ten dollars on each spin, two on the number and two each on a split bet between the number I visualized and the numbers surrounding it.

I started winning immediately. Within 10 minutes I was up over five hundred dollars and had now increased my bet to twenty-five per spin. I felt like I was in a trance. I kept visualizing and winning. Before long I had thousands of dollars in chips in front of me. It was surrealistic. I felt like I was in a different world. I wasn't excited or nervous. I was very relaxed and comfortable. I had no thoughts about what I was doing. I just kept visualizing, placing my bets, and winning. I finally noticed that there was a crowd of people behind me cheering. My spell was broken and I started to lose. I got up from the table and cashed in my chips. I had won nearly three thousand five hundred dollars.

When I look back now I do believe that there was something special that happened in that moment. I don't believe it was a suspension of the laws of probability. I believe that I had experienced the power of visualization and its ability to influence reality. I don't understand it and it has never happened again. It has cost me a lot of money though trying to recreate that moment. I do believe that there is something to visualization as a way to impact your life, but I don't think gambling is the best vehicle.

Preakness and the Great Stamp Caper

I was considering continuing my discussion on successful consulting. Then I remembered today's the Kentucky Derby; my mind drifts towards horse racing. The Kentucky Derby's a big deal, the first leg of the Triple Crown, which includes the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes. The Triple Crown is special, more than a series of gambling events. Each race has a special significance for me; each brings back a story...

When I first moved to Lancaster, PA. I had very few friends. Lancaster seemed like a different world; being a typical New Yorker, I thought all people from Lancaster were hicks. I thought that people from Lancaster's IQs were at least 15 points lower than New Yorkers'. People from Philadelphia were a little smarter; their IQs were only 5-10 points lower. I later came to believe that people from New Orleans had the lowest IQs of all.

After living away from New York years I now see: it's not a low IQ, but a different a view of reality. New Yorkers have a broader, less superstitious view. They're less naive and their cynicism, although obnoxious, enables them to see the world a little more clearly.

One of the friends I met in Lancaster thought he was more sophisticated than the average Lancaster native. He felt he was more like a New Yorker. I took him into the NYC. He immediately threw up. The energy made him dizzy, disoriented. We bonded, though, on two levels: drugs and gambling. He believed he could make money handicapping. He asked me If I wanted to go to the Preakness Stakes with him, at Pimlico Race Track in Maryland.

We took the bus.

On the way back, after a losing day, he explained to me why today was not a good reflection of his handicapping ability. He then told his plan for making money. He was a truck driver. He drove mostly short term routes in Pennsylvania. One of his assignments was to carry bales of stamps from the Post Office in Lancaster to Harrisburg. Each bale, a giant role consisting of $6000.00 worth of stamps. He told me that the day before, a Friday afternoon, he had intentionally dropped one of the bales on the Pennsylvania Turnpike on his way to Harrisburg. He had noted the mile marker where he dropped it; he later found it, loaded it in his car, and brought it back to his house.

"Do you know anyone in New York interested in buying stamps?" he asked.

Who robs stamps from the Post Office?

And then expects to sell it on the black market?

I tried to explain: it might be difficult to sell "hot" stamps; also, he was the most likely suspect, at least when it was determined that the stamps were missing.

He wasn't concerned. No one saw him do it; they wouldn't miss the stamps. This was Saturday afternoon, a day after he had stolen the stamps.

Monday afternoon he called me. The FBI had just left his house. They had questioned him about some missing stamps. He was the last one known to have had contact with them. He was freaked out. He wanted to know if I would help him. It was a rainy day; he had a great idea. He would drive his truck with the stolen stamps to the Lancaster Post Office late that night, dump the stamps in the back of the Post Office, run over them with the truck, then leave. In the morning someone would find the stamps. Then they would easily figure the stamps had fell off the truck. He'd be off the hook. He wanted me to go with him, to keep him company.

I'm usually a loyal friend. But this was asking a little too much. I told him I couldn't do it. I wished him luck. I didn't speak to him for a few months. The next time I saw him he had become a Jehovah Witness and was going door to door preaching imminent world destruction.

"What happened with the stamps?" I asked.

"God saved me."

I saw his wife about six months later. She was a very nice women and had also become a Jehovah Witness. They had just had a baby. She told me that he had disappeared and hadn't seen him for a while. I never saw him again. I think about this story occasionally, usually at the time of a Triple Crown event.

My story about the Belmont Stakes is outrageous...

Spending Time Wisely

I used to be addicted to craps. It was a very expensive addiction. I never kept records, but I estimate I lost over $150,000 during my twenty year career. This is about $7500 per year, $150 per week. During that time my average income was $2000 per week or more. I am not justifying my losses. Just stating the facts.

I remember nights visualizing the roll of the dice, imagining different scenarios in which I would win hundreds of thousands of dollars. This relaxed me and helped me sleep. No matter what I was doing during this phase of my life I'd constantly think about heading down to Atlantic City. It never was an effort for me to drive two or more hours at any time of day or night to satisfy my craving.

Today I live under six minutes, if there is traffic, from the nearest casino. I have no desire to shoot dice at all. Matter of fact, I don't even enjoy going to the casinos. I'm addicted to poker. I play on the internet; I don't have to leave my house. I don't lose much money either. I don't win, but I estimate my losses are under a thousand per year. The main cost is the amount of time I play, forty or more hours per week. Actually, this is a little misleading. I'm usually watching TV or listening to music on TV at the same time. If I wasn't playing poker I might just be watching or listening to TV.

I'm addicted to poker. When I can't sleep I visualize hands I've played, or hands I imagine I'll play in the future. It helps me relax. The reason I need to relax is because playing poker puts me under pressure. First of all, especially on the internet, there are a lot of bad beats, hands that I am positive I am going to win but lose. Secondly, when I am not playing I feel compelled to play. This puts additional pressure on me.

What helps me relax is to not to play poker at all. When I take a few days off, maybe a week or two, I feel terrific. As if a large burden's been lifted; I'm free to do whatever I want.

Which eventually leads me back to playing poker.

(Even writing about it, looking forward to not playing is beginning to relax me.)

I know, this is a little ridiculous, but I don't think it's much different than the way most people spend their lives.

I could be living in a monastery and spending ten or more hours a day in prayer or meditation. I could be working in the Post Office, boxing mail. I could be in Africa with a spoon carefully digging forty to fifty hours a week with the hope of finding a bone or two. Or maybe I could be a doctor treating sick people sixty hours a week. Many doctors play poker on the internet to relax. What's keeping me from being a doctor is not gambling. I was never good at organic chemistry.

How about trading stocks, writing greeting cards, selling pocketbooks, counseling addicts or neurotics, driving a limousine, training race horses, making important decisions, fixing roofs, or walking across the Appalachian Trail? Would any of these activities be better ways to spend my time? My mother would probably think so. I'm not so sure. I just read that there are more blog writers who make money than lawyers. They spend fifty to sixty hours a week writing their opinions about sports, politics, sex, health, investing, exercise, or how to spend your time wisely. I wish I knew how they get paid. I'm not sure I'd want to do it anyway.

What I would really like to do is sit around with a group of wise men and women in a cafe discussing the meaning and purpose of life. Now that I think about it, though, I'd rather have these discussions in my house while I'm on the internet playing poker. If there are any wise men and women who are reading this and want to come to my house they are more than welcome.

Waiting for Kilderry

My cousin Marvin called me today with a tip on a horse race: Kilderry in the fifth race at Santa Anita. Usually these tips don't pan out, but Marvin called me last year with one which went off at 10-1 and won easily. I won over five hundred bucks. Since there is three hours difference between here and California the race won't go off until six o'clock. I'll head out to the Borgata around five. During that time I'll probably speak to my friends Marty and Campy three or four times to hear their thoughts about the best way to bet this horse. There is an incredible amount of options in addition to the traditional Win, Place, and Show. There are the exotic bets including exactas, trifectas, superfectas, rolling doubles, and pick threes which make the process of betting a little more complicated these days.

I'm writing about thos now for a few reasons. If the horse wins I will have written documentation that I had the winner before the race. Also, I have been writing about a lot of philosophical and speculative ideas. Gambling is much more concrete. Either you win or lose. In a world where most things are unclear one needs a straightforward activity. Finally, gambling, especially horse racing, brings me back to my youth.

I lived fifteen minutes from Aqueduct Race Track. During the racing season, starting when I was fifteen (I think the legal age was eighteen) I hitchhiked to the track at least twice a week. I usually went with ten or twenty dollars. I remember how excited I was, the thrill of walking into the grandstand, eyeing the track. It was awe inspiring. And most importantly, there was always the chance of making a hit.

Aqueduct

I did make a few hits. One time, I won over a hundred dollars. It was the first time in my life that I had a hundred dollar bill. I think it was the first time I ever saw a hundred dollar bill. I folded it in my wallet in a certain way that made it look like a thousand dollar bill. I showed the folded bill to my mother; she almost had a heart attack. When I told her that I had won it at the race track she panicked even more. She immediately thought that I needed to go to a psychiatrist. This was her response every time I did something she didn't understand.

After calming down she called my Uncle Dave. Uncle Dave was a legend in our family. He was one of the original founders of Gamblers Anonymous. Everytime my mother worried that I was becoming a compulsive gambler she brought up how Uncle Dave how ruined his life gambling, lost his first wife, and alienated his children. Uncle Dave had an experience which changed his life and made him give up gambling forever. He had gone to the race track every day for thirty-seven consecutive years. He followed the ponies around the country going to Florida in the winter and Saratoga in the summer. One evening after an especially tough losing day he was eating a spaghetti dinner in an Italian restaurant in Saratoga with some of his fellow gamblers.

One of them looked at him and said, "Dave all you have to do is drive the get-away car, we'll handle everything else."

Upon hearing this Dave said he became sick; he realized how low he had sunk and how miserable his life was. He stood up and pulled the table cloth off the table spilling the spaghetti all over everyone and walked out of the restaurant. He never gambled again; with a few other guys, he founded Gamblers Anonymous based upon the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous. He spent the last days of his life crusading against gambling.

This story was always interesting to me. It never affected my attitude towards gambling, though. I have always enjoyed gambling and probably always will. My main concern right now is Kilderry at Santa Anita. Wish me luck.

Reading, T.V. & Poker

I spent the morning reading an interesting book, The Outliers. The book investigates the reasons that certain people rise to very high levels of accomplishment. It seems that intelligence is important, but only up to a point. What is equally or more important is the circumstances in which you were raised, the time in history you were born, the access that you had to pursue your talents.

Bill Gates, for example, was able, from the time he was thirteen to spend thousands of hours on the computer fooling around with programming. If he'd been born a few years earlier it would have been impossible to do so, considering the limitations in time one could actually use a computer. Also he was raised near a university that enabled him to pursue his interests more easily.

The Beatles incredible level of success, according to Malcolm Gladwell, the author, can be attributed to the time the band spent in Hamburg where, because of unique circumstances, they were able to play together for six or more hours a day refining and perfecting their music. If they had stayed in England, they would not have had this amount of time together hindering the development of their special chemistry.

After reading a few chapters, wondering what special circumstances impacted my life, I moved on to my next activities of the day: television and internet poker. I watched an episode of the Tool Academy and then caught up on the last three episodes of Secret Diary of a Call Girl.

After eliminating ten tools, the Tool Academy is down to the wire. There were only three tools left. In case your not familiar with the show the tool academy is a reality show; it determines which of thirteen horrible and abusive boyfriends has the most hope of actually establishing a meaningful relationship.

Each week one of the guys, the biggest tool, is eliminated for proving that he has no hope for reforming. His girlfriend then must make a decision about whether or not she wants to stay with him. I'm looking forward to the final episode next week.

Secret Diary is an English show (beautifully filmed) about a high priced, intelligent call girl with a big heart who loves her work and is also trying, so far unsuccessfully, to live a normal life. She is willing to do almost anything for money but keeps on getting herself into situations which cause her to question her life style.

The sex scenes and situations are stimulating and well done which is a problem for me because I am simultaneously playing no limit hold em poker on the internet. This requires a high level of concentration, and the pots run into the hundreds of dollars. I am a good poker player, The circumstances of my life meant I started playing at the age of eight, in the hallways of my building in the projects, and have spent thousands of hours over the past fifty plus years honing my skills. I won forty dollars today. I have been playing on the internet for five years and have managed to hold my own, although I can't say that it has been really profitable. Combining poker with quality reality T.V. makes me feel better about how I am using my time.

In case you know me personally, and are reading this blog, and are concerned about my choices, I am planning on making some lifestyle changes. I would like to make some money . I may need to start playing live poker or try to develop my own reality show.

Krishnamurti and poker

In my opinion Krishnamurti is the most important spiritual teacher of the twentieth century. He was chosen at five years old to be the avatar and leader of the world Theosophical Society. He was taken from his family, trained and nurtured by a carefully selected group of teachers in all they key academic, spiritual, and artistic disciplines. He was groomed to lead the world to a higher state of consciousness.

Krishnamurti, groomed and ready

On the day, Annie Besant, his mentor and main advocate, introduced him as the new head of the Theosophical Society, which at that time had millions of followers worldwide, he rejected his role as teacher. He claimed what was needed was not teachers or teachings; individuals, he said, must find their own way. He then proceeded for the next sixty years to write, to express his thoughts about the mind, how we could potentially free ourselves from the bonds of our thoughts and find truth in our lives.

Pupul Jayakar, one of his main students and author of Krishnamurti A Biography was an addicted poker player who spent almost all of her free time when not meditating, writing, or studying Krishnamurti's complex philosophy in smoke filled poker rooms with other hard core gamblers.

Dostoyevsky, one of the great writers of all time, whose "Notes to the Underground" represents one of the clearest explanations of man's spiritual and psychological struggles, was an addicted gambler. His book, "The Gambler" presents one of the best depictions of the mindset of the gambling personality.

Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard to play poker and spend his time on what he considered to be more productive activities, like starting a small business.

I am not advocating gambling or poker as the path to enlightenment or business success but I personally am attracted to games of chance. I find no limit hold-em poker especially to be a challenging and interesting distraction. I also have found that the quality of the people and thought in poker rooms is a cut above what I find in most other venues.

Success in poker requires patience, discipline, flexibility and an ability to be present to the moment. Holding on to the past or worrying about the future doesn't work. In a world of chaos and confusion, where outcomes are not always clear cut, when it's hard to tell whether your decision making is accurate, poker provides an immediate result. The most difficult question is how to prevent yourself from going over the edge into the illusion that you can actually beat the system. No one escapes without payment.

My First Sexual Experience

I had my first gambling and sexual experience on the same day. I was eight years old. My grandfather took me and my mother to Hollywood Park. My grandfather loved gambling on the ponies. My mother loved finding celebrities. My grandfather showed me how to handicap, a skill I immediately and innately understood, a skill that stimulated an instinctual sense of excitement within me, an excitement about predicting the future and making money doing it.

Then, suddenly, my mother cried out: "I see Joe Dimaggio!"

She dragged me to the spot he was sitting, but Joe wasn't here; he had gone to make a bet, I guess. In his place, there sat a blond woman. A strange feeling stirred me, one that later influenced my life drastically. I don't remember if I actually had an erection. But I do vividly recall this blond woman, the attractive force that overcame everything I was experiencing.

Marilyn was something special even to an eight year old.


I started in spiritual work when I was nine. I was walking home from Hebrew School. At the time, I had been having terrible nightmares. My Rabbi had introduced me to the All Powerful Being, the Big Man looking down on me, judging everything I was doing. I was sensitive, and I was very attracted to the idea of an unseen world that ruled our life, even though it initially scared me. It was a dark winter night. I was kicking an icicle on the pavement, entirely afraid of the Being up in the sky looking down on me. Then, for some unexplainable reason, I had this sensation: the Being, I knew, was good and all-powerful. There was nothing to worry about.

I began thinking about money a little later in my life, probably after I had gotten a girl pregnant after knowing her for one day. Nine months later, I looked at her and my one week old baby, sleeping on a mattress on the floor in the one room apartment we were renting in Queens.

That was over thirty years ago.

Since that time I have studied business, gambling, sex, and spiritual work with the idea of formulating a unified theory that might enable me to survive in this chaotic world.

I thought I might share some of my findings.