stevesbets

They say almost everything looks better in hindsight and I have come to believe this is definitely true.

I lived in Los Angeles for about a year and a half prior to moving back to Philly in September and I loved my time there…I think. I recently have randomly been reminded of my time there in 3 different ways.  I was watching the most recent episode of Phil Laak and Antonio Esfandiari’s show, “I bet you”, A hilarious half hour show where the two high stakes pros and best friends make wacky prop bets. Throughout the show they panned over the Hollywood and Highland complex, the place that houses the Mann Chinese theater, the Kodak theater and the hollywood walk of fame. I went there multiple times during my time living in Pasadena.

Secondly, I am currently reading a book of short stories called poker fiction which includes one by my favorite author Michael Connelly. In his story, a large element of the crime takes place at Commerce Casino. I probably went to Commerce once a week through my year and a half in Pasadena and I greatly enjoyed playing live poker there, much more so than any other casino I have been too. The images that the book evoked made me miss my weekly trips through the perfect LA weather to the casino with the top down gearing up to play.

Thirdly and most bizarrely, A random late night infomercial popped on where they were doing interviews in an outdoor mall.  I quickly realized that it was set in the paseo colorado (http://www.paseocoloradopasadena.com/) the outdoor mall (such things do not exist on the east coast in quite the same way) on which my apartment (www.terracesapartmenthomes.com) rested. Seeing my old domicile on screen was nothing new as it was featured in a scene from “Knocked up” and is across the street from the Pasadena Civic Auditorium where American Idol does “Hollywood Week” every year (the name Hollywood week being a total misnomer since they actually send the contestants to this auditorium in Pasadena, a solid 20 minute drive from Hollywood). Despite the frequency, the combination of seeing the Paseo along with the other two references really struck a chord with me and made me miss life in Pasadena.

When I think more clearly on the issue, I know that there were many problems there. First and foremost, my family and nearly all of my friends were across the country. Aside from my time at the casino I spent the bulk of my time in my apartment alone and fairly bored. When I was there I very much missed being back in Philly, I almost felt homesickness comparable with Will Smith when he first moves to the Banks’ mansion in Bel-Air, I just wanted a Philly cheese steak with the grease tearing a hole in the bag.

This academic knowledge flies in the face of the nostalgia I’m feeling and the only way to reconcile it is to understand that things are simply always better in hindsight. The bad parts melt away and all is left is a perfect fake image marked on the mind for posterity. It makes me wonder about our history books…

PS I have more to say on the religious debate but I didn’t want to make my blog entirely about that subject so I’ll save it for next time and I promise once again to post more frequently

I received mixed reviews on my last blog which frankly shocked me. I pretty much cannot believe people disagree with what I wrote. I was most shocked when one of my good friends said, “Stick to writing about poker”. When I inquired further as to which thought he disagreed with he said, “Many people have thought way more about the subject than you”. This response comes from one of the smartest people I know and the utter lack of sense in the statement is shocking to me. OF COURSE people have thought more and written more on the subject than me, that would basically be true for just about any subject (except maybe pokerstars heads up sit and goes). Does this mean that no one except the foremost expert in the world has any right to comment on a subject? To me this shows how incredibly smart people may not think clearly on the subject of religion.

A friend of mine who works for the city of Philadelphia informed me today of a real situation that relates to what I wrote about. Apparently there is currently a call for a Federal law against same sex marriage and the constituents are calling for him to get behind it. Their main argument is that it is god’s law and of course this is impossible to rebuke. As soon as they turn to a real world argument though the logic can actually be dealt with and a rebuttal can be attempted. The argument offered against same sex marriage is that it would pave the way for 2 drag queens to adopt a child, and how incredibly awful would that be?!?! There are many obvious retorts but I will go with the one that I can most personally speak about.

I worked in a school in the heart of West Philadelphia while I was in college at Penn. This school had about 40 kids to a class, and a teacher that spent the vast majority of her time trying to make sure that all the kids were accounted for (and she had been the recipient of many awards for top teacher in the area). They had one child who was deemed the technological expert because he was the only one that knew how to turn on the antiquated computers that sat on one of the tables in the classroom. I worked in the 8th grade in which over half the students had already seen someone shot and over half of the girls were already mothers, some of more than one child. These students could not turn on a computer or write coherently, and had almost all been a victim of some sort of major psychological trauma yet our society makes no laws against them being parents. (And I’m not saying we should or shouldn’t). How can anyone argue that in every case or even most cases of drag queens adopting a child that this child will be worse off than the oldest of 7 children of a 10th grade student who is charged with taking care of his siblings by the time he’s 6 years old because his mother is busy either finishing high school, working a minimum wage job or worse.

To legislate on the basis that any group as a whole would make unfit parents is totally absurd in our society today. Maybe, just maybe even the 10th grade single mother will be a decent parent. It’s really all a matter of odds. But hey, god’s law reigns supreme, so many people say our society’s laws should be based on it.

I just saw a hilarious old episode of Roseanne in which her youngest son DJ started randomly going to church and asked all sorts of questions about the morality of his family. He was asking his father Dan about the denominations of his family (they are more or less atheist in the show) and Dan replies, ” well my parents were Lutheran, Roseanne’s catholic, and us, well, we’re just good people” This prompted a hysterical laugh from the laugh track. While I don’t think the point of the laugh was that the idea of having morals while not being religious is absurd, it got me thinking about it anyway.

It is a very common belief that morality comes from god and the reason something is right or wrong is because god says so. Further, many believe that anyone who does not believe in god does not have much of a moral code. I give far more credit to the moral code of those who do not derive it from god and are “just good people” than those who follow “god’s word”.

When someone believes that morality comes from god, pretty much anything goes. Often without the insight or the desire to examine their beliefs, these people will accept what religious authorities tell them quite literally as gospel. They do not need to understand nor justify their beliefs to anyone because they come from the highest possible authority.  God has long been used as a justification for many unspeakable evils. I would not presume to argue that evil people would not find other reasons to do evil things if they were unable to use their god as justification, but it certainly does make it easier for them to still believe they are “good people”. After all, if two people that trust in gods moral authority argue over who is right when one says to blow up innocent people and the other says not to, just how in depth can the argument be when one yells, “god says to do so” and the other says, “no you got it all wrong”.

I have also heard the argument made that people are generally better when the feel they are answering to someone greater than themselves. There is no real way to measure this outside of experience, but in my (admittedly limited) human experience, some of the biggest scumbags are the truest believers (and being around the poker world offers some unique access to scumbags).

On the flip side, a moral person who derives his morals through logic and reason often has a much more complex thought process. I personally have always appreciated the golden rule of treating others how you would want to be treated, but this is fairly amorphous and I learned what I think is a far better way to reach similar values in college. I took an ethics class where we read a number of great writers, I apologize for not giving credit to the author of this thought process but I can’t remember his name. He argued that if humans form a society, unethical behavior will naturally be forced out. Take stealing as an example, in a society in which stealing is fine and accepted, people will naturally snatch the belongings as others. People won’t like having their hard earned possessions taken so they will form into bands that protect each other from such theft. These bands will become new societies in which stealing is immoral.

To me the thought process I just described offers far greater depth and is a far more interesting springboard for discussion than the classic discussion ender, “god says so”.

On a separate but related note I just finished watching this season of the Celebrity Apprentice. Stephen Baldwin was one of the contestants and he was hilarious to watch. He is someone who’s life was so messed up that he turned to religion for help. He became a born again Christian celebrity minister of sorts who I understand has quite a following. One of the highlights of the show for me was Stephen’s blank stare and vacant laugh in response to almost anything anybody said to him. If you are looking for  someone to take life advice from, choosing him seems totally absurd. If you would like a bit of further entertainment, I encourage you to check out the following link that has a list of Stephen Baldwin’s hobbies:

http://www.stephenbaldwin.com/hobbies.htm

Sorry for all the pseudo-intellectualism, my next blog will be about poker