Scott Says

I’ve finally had some quality time to sit down and work on My Shot, the book I’m writing about my summer in Las Vegas and the poker scene out there. Here is a little three-paragraph peek, a bit of the rough draft from the tentative Chapter 3, which revolves around my interview last June with Jim McManus, author of Positively Fifth Street. “The very worst of it” in the first line refers to the worst of humanity who play poker, as opposed to the majority of poker players (who are, on the whole, good and honest). Enjoy.

McManus has seen the very worst of it. In 2004, he made a final table at the World Series in a limit hold’em event with a player named Ellix Powers. Powers, who was politely described by Norman Chad and Lon McEachern on ESPN as formerly homeless, often bet hands without looking at his cards and would casually stroll outside the casino to smoke a cigarette or make a cell phone call during the final table. In an event with a first prize of over $300,000, such tomfoolery - for want of a better word - is especially pathetic. The broadcast famously caught McManus’s obvious frustration with Powers. McManus told Powers he was disrespecting the game, then tried to catch Powers bluffing by calling him down with queen high. But Powers won the pot with king high, and chided McManus for the play. (more…)

“Knocked Up”
Starring Seth Rogen, Katherine Heigl, Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann
Written and Directed by Judd Apatow

Perhaps the biggest problem facing “Knocked Up” is that it had “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” to live up to. Writer/Director Judd Apatow’s last sentimental comedy tour-de-force was the pleasant surprise of the summer of 2005. Moviegoers walked into theaters with low expectations and happily learned that “Virgin” wasn’t the low-brow cheap-laugh-fest the trailers seemed to promise.

“Knocked Up” did not have this element of surprise. Rogen stars as Ben Stone, a 23-year-old pothead living with his four pothead friends in an apartment that is magically paid for, somehow. Ben has never had a job in his life; he has lived for years on a $14,000 settlement after a vehicle ran over his foot when he was a teenager. One night, Ben and his friends are first in line to get into a nightclub when Alison Scott (Heigl) and her sister, Debbie (Mann), are allowed right in. This annoys Ben’s posse, but not so much that Ben doesn’t hit on Alison while both wait for a busy bartender to fill their drink orders. (more…)