Kevin Mullaney.com Theatre, books, poker, food and dementia

By far, my favorite podcast is This American Life. If I were stranded on a desert island and could only receive one piece of media regularly, it would be TAL. If by chance you aren’t familiar with this show, it’s a weekly radio show by Chicago Public Radio. It’s kind of a documentary magazine format with different stories all revolving around a theme. The stories tend to be personal stories, sometimes told by the participants, sometimes a reporter will edit together different materials, mostly interviews. At times the stories are funny, at other times the stories can be deeply moving. They are almost always interesting.

Every week, the latest episode is available for download free of charge. Also, if you are online, you can listen to their entire back catalog of shows, going back years. Older shows can also be downloaded for 99 cents from itunes.

One of my favorite episodes of recent memory is episode 355, The Giant Pool of Money which was a great dissection of the sub prime mortgage mess, told through individual stories from every link in the chain from home buyers all the way up to Alan Greenspan. This show, made in conjunction with NPR News, spawned another one of my favorite podcasts called Planet Money.

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Milo Delaney’s (age 6) manifesto about art:

All About Art

1. Respect everybody’s pictures.

2. There’s no mistakes in art.

3. Art is special.

4. Art is something everybody can do if they choose to.

5. Art is good for your brain.

Take a look at the rest of Milo’s art.

I thought I might try another way to tell a story about poker. Listen to it below or download it.

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If someone is going to go to all the trouble to practically tell you what their hand is, the least you can do act accordingly.

Recently, my local riverboat casino added poker to their roster of games. This is good news for me. Poker is something that I have missed dearly over the past year and half since I moved home. I had hoped to find some local home games, but never managed to find one that worked for me. So over the last week, I’ve started playing again.

Now a lot of people think poker is a game of deception and that is true to a degree. But in a typical poker game, like in life, most of the time people are telling the truth. It’s hard wired into our brains. Besides, one of the easiest players to beat is the player who lies as a rule. Once you realize that the big bet they make on the river is a usually a lie, you just have to wait for a moderately good hand to take a lot of their money. And you know to fold when they make a smaller bet on the end instead of the usual big bet. That bet they want you to call.

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One day back in 2003 I was walking around the meatpacking district in Manhattan and we wandered into the Chelsea Market. At the back, there was loud Tango music playing and dozens of couples were dancing. I snapped this with my old 35mm camera.

Tango in New York

I think this photo right here sums up why I’d like to learn how to Tango.

I think I’m going to try to take a picture of mom every day that I’m with her from this point forward. I doubt I’ll put them all up here, but I want to take them. These are the pictures for the last couple of days:

Mom with her Christmas Snuggie

with Kevin, the monkey

The monkey is from one of our last day trips out. Last July 4th, I took mom to the zoo. When we were in the gift shop, she seemed to like the orange monkey, so I got it for her. Recently the monkey has made a bit of a come back and has been sharing her chair in the TV room.

When we got the monkey, the home care aide who was with us said that mom should name the monkey. I jokingly said, “Name it anything but Kevin.”

The aide asked mom what she wanted to name it, she said, “Kevin.” Then she giggled. Thanks, mom.

As I pulled up to my mom’s house tonight, I noticed the full moon in the background. It seemed like a good photo opportunity so I took a few shots.

Auto exposure

The best shots I got were using the automatic settings, but the exposure was quite long. It makes the shot a little blurry since it was hand held. I wish I had a tripod handy, but maybe I’ll try again next month.

All week it's been freezing rain

If you enjoy living in the northern part of the country where winters are long and cold, I do not suggest spending a winter in Arizona like I did. After a year in Arizona, I’ve been ruined for winter. This will be my second winter back in Illinois and I really hate it.

Part of me thinks it would be nice to live in Chicago again. It has a great theatre scene, but I’m not sure how I could stand the winters. Perhaps I need to be a snowbird, spending my winters in Arizona or Southern California and the rest of the year in a city like Chicago or New York.

Nearly every Monday, we go to the hairdresser. Mom has been going to Cindy for her hair for something like 15 years.

Mom and Cindy watch the soaps as the rollers come out

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