Why I Blog: For My New Friends

I write this blog because I want my internal ponderings of so many years to be out in the world not just swirling around in my head. I hope at times I assist others on their journey, at times perhaps make you smile and either sense relief from my rantings or motivate you to rant back at me. The pictures I include are the real pleasure of my blogging; I enjoy both finding them and sharing with you.

Recently there has been a big jump in the number of internet friends who visit this blog for the first time. Partly this comes from several online chat rooms I have joined for "professional networking" purposes. I also have begun using the net for some other leisure activities and that means many of my new friends see the facebook promos I put up whenever a blog post goes live. 

Not all of these new friends know that I am a fairly active blogger, so I thought it might be a good idea to introduce this blog to new acquaintances and perhaps to clarify to olde friends exactly why it is that I write this blog.

I hope you enjoy what leaks out from my head, my heart and my soul into this blog, if not; please block my facebook announcements, I know I am not everyone's flavor of the month.

Here is some of what you might want to know about me before investing your time reading this blog:

-I am a writer and I often use the blog to test out ideas for articles, stories, even books;

-I have a wide range of interests; some might even say perhaps a bit too wide;

-I might be considered politically liberal but I often seem too annoy my lefty friends with what I write here; I have lots of olde and new readers from all walks of life spread around the world;

-I do have an advanced degree in psychology and I do sometimes write with big words; on the other hand I like to write on a wide range of topics, in particular my Saturday posts tend to annoy my old academic friends;

-when something interests me, I will often chase it around the internet for several hours or days and report back in a blog post;

-while my political posts are heavily United States oriented, the rest of my material is not, at least I hope it isn't;

-I often tell stories about things that happened to me yesterday or thirty years ago; these stories usually have a point to them, but I often forget to mention what it is;

-There have been over 500 posts since I began in 2007. Should you want to know more, you can find a blogger's list (100 things about me) here.


If you do drop by, I invite you to use the comments section on anything that you like, hate, don't understand, really like or completely detest. I enjoy the feedback or blowback as the case may be.

Most of all - thanks for reading. Writing is such a solitary act, it really helps to know someone is listening.

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Arek blog, my stories, tim lavalli

Upon Not Having an Accent

I don't have an accent, which is unusual because common thinking is that everyone has an accent. Linguists differ on just who does and does not have an accent but their estimates are all very high (96%+) on just how many of us do have one. I do not. I learned this from someone who would know.

In 1968 I was a student in Germany. My professor there was a wonderful gentleman named Guenther Spaltmann. He was a native german, an accomplished artist and an truly gifted linguist. He had taught himself over a dozen languages; he was an interpreter at the peace negotiations after World War II, where each speech had to be translated live into English, German, French, Russian and Italian.

On our first day of german language class, Herr Doktor had us each introduce ourselves in german. 

"Guten Morgen, Ich bin Tim Lavalli."

Dr. Spaltmann would then tell us where we were born or at least where we lived during our language acquisition years. When I spoke, he said: "You were probably raised west of Detroit but not in a close-in suburb or in eastern Iowa just over the Illinois state line." Apparently those are the two areas of the U.S. that have a complete absence of accent. What was called flat accent. 

One might think this is a good quality for public speaking or commercial voice work, but in fact the absence of accent makes one's voice a bit monotonous (as in monotone). You need some inflection and rhythm. When I began teaching in L.A. in the 70s, I added a kind of a cadence to my speech pattern to shake off the monotone. I never really mastered an accent or a dialect but the irregular up and down changes in my voice kept the class awake, most of the time.

For an overwhelmingly cool map of dialects in the US 

with clickable pronunciation guides - look here.

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Arek my stories, tim lavalli, Upon

Las Vegas Boyz Trip 2013

We had one of our Poker Boyz trips to Las Vegas last week. Mike, as always, provides great photos for us and seemingly doesn't mind the intermittent nagging - "Get a shot of my with the stripper!" He also wanders around early morning and late at night for shots like this one. We did stay at the MGM this trip.

If you don't show up for a Poker Boyz trip, you get your head put on a stick and rude sometimes evil photos are produced. Viewing of those more seedy and salacious snapshots is restricted to bona fide PB members and blackmail.

OK, maybe not completely restricted.

Poker was played. This is me making a final table at Binion's. Two-tiered seven-way chop for the poker players out there.

Matty with Chihuly art at City Center.

Me, also with Chihuly.

Amy at our annual visit to the Cat Condos at the LV-SPCA.

me with kittums at spca

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Arek amy calistri, cats, Las Vegas, poker, tim lavalli

Two Years

Two years ago today our book, Check Raising the Devil, was released. It has sold right around 25,000 copies since then and small royalty checks arrive every six months or so. I was talking with my writing partner, Amy Calistri, about this anniversary and what we learned from writing the book.

First we learned a lot about bipolar disorder, ADHD, meth use and conditions in the Clark County jail. I also got some really great poker lessons sweating Mike through numerous tournaments in Las Vegas.

We got ourselves a New York Literary agent and we are thankful to both Sheree and Janet for everything they did getting CRD to a publisher. Plus they have been most helpful on current projects - professional publishing advice is invaluable to new authors. We also learned a lot about how the publishing industry works and unfortunately in these times of economic stress, how it doesn't work as well.

Finally, we learned what a rare treat it is to work collaboratively. In the two years since CRD came out I have tried to work with other writing partners to no avail. Amy and I had a rare working relationship and yes, we are casting about for another project to do together.

For now I am head down focused on finishing my current novel, would that you will have the opportunity to read it in 2012.

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Arek amy calistri, check raising the devil, Mike Matusow, tim lavalli, writing

Favorite Bands/Favorite Songs

While listening to a rock&talk radio show on one of my drives around northern california, I heard a question that seemed too simple to have an easy answer:

"What is your favorite song by your favorite band?"

My thought, of course, was - can you actually have one favorite band? or one favorite song by that band? But lists can be fun, entertaining or revealing so I pose this question to you:

"Name your favorite song by your three favorite bands."

The comment section is open below, let's hear your choices. Here are mine in no particular order.

Yes, that's the Uncle John's Band up there at the top. My favorite Grateful Dead song is China Doll. Links are all to youtube versions of the songs.

I think it's fair in all musical comparison lists to put the Beatles into some sort of emeritus category and make other selections. But I left them in as one of my three and the song: A Day in the Life

My third band is Talking Heads and the song is Heaven.

Heaven, 

heaven is a place, 

a place where nothing, 

nothing ever happens

Your picks?

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Arek music, tim lavalli, trivia of life