The Return to Vegas - Part 2

I arrived around 11pm (Vegas time) the night before the final table of the main event. Paul was getting pep talks from all sides. I managed to get some shots of the discussions - inside the Rio double that had become the pre-game war room. Paul's father was proud, you could see it in his soft eyes. Mike Odeh spoke exclusively in hyperbole and waved his arms around like Mussolini. Tom sat quietly off to the side, seemingly unshaken by all of the surrounding hoopla. Paul, in bed, at the center of all of this. His look of focus would occasionally lift into a smile as newly arrived friends and family dropped by.
The next morning I did an interview with Paul. He was relaxed, smiling. If he was nervous, I couldn't see it. He talked a bit about strategy - how he would play extremely tight until it got down to a few players, then pull a 180 and start bludgeoning.

A few people have asked me what I was for Halloween. Here it is, in all of its it-took-me-5-minutes-to-put-this-costume-together glory.



Click here to see the original movie poster.

This story ran in the Pioneer Press this past week. Thanks to everyone who attended the screening on Saturday!



Teens tell their own 'West Side Story'
Neighborhood film will show at Walker
BY TIFFANY CLEMENTS
Pioneer Press

At a film camp last summer, five young St. Paul residents pondered one question: What makes the West Side neighborhood special?

The answers they found are presented in the short documentary "My West Side Story," which will be shown Saturday at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. The film is one of 17 included in a Twin Cities Youth Media Network screening.

The five teens — Camila Davila Alvarez, Natalya Fromm, Julian Garcia-Delaney, Shampayne McKee and Bryant Slack — produced the five-minute film in less than a week.

"They came up with the idea, shot and edited it in five days," said Kevin Kalla, who worked with these students during the St. Paul Neighborhood Network's camp.

The boys and girls spliced images of the area's colorful murals and other community art together with video clips of adults and young people discussing what they think makes the West Side unique.

Film locations included neighborhood playgrounds and the new Wellstone Center for Community Building, which houses the community institution Neighborhood House. To reflect the area's strong Hispanic culture, the group visited a Mexican restaurant and included an interview conducted in Spanish in the film's final cut.

St. Paul Neighborhood Network, a nonprofit that produces programming for five St. Paul television channels, offered young people in four areas of the city — Dayton's Bluff, Frogtown, the North End and the West Side — the chance to produce films during weeklong day camps last summer.

Kalla said the West Side group's work was submitted for screening because it stood out with its positive message of diversity.

Julian Garcia-Delaney, who did most of the filming, said he is looking forward to seeing the movie on the big screen.

"I didn't think much of it" at the time, he said. "But now I'm excited."

Saturday's event will be the second time this year that Walker Art Center has collaborated with area organizations to encourage teen filmmakers to share their work with an audience.

"We want to make it apparent to youth filmmakers that you shouldn't keep films in the closet," said Witt Siasoco, teen programs manager at the center.

Siasoco said many of the youths have shown their films only to friends.

"A lot of the filmmakers are really surprised that there is an audience," he said. "It's encouraging for them."

A core of eight local youth and film organizations, including the St. Paul Neighborhood Network, make up the Twin Cities Youth Media Network.

Siasoco said the network is not formally organized but is working to add some structure. He said he hopes to make the film screenings regular events.

The return of the blog.

It's been a long time coming. I've survived summer video camps, two trips to Las Vegas, a move to Minneapolis, the death of my fish, and the beginning of a new AmeriCorps year. I will do my best to encapsulate the past couple of months into this blog post.

The Return to Vegas - Part 1
I spent 8 days in Vegas in the middle of July. Less than a month later, I found myself there again. Paul Wasicka was one of the guys who I had been living with in the House of Pain. One of Tom's best friends, I had met Paul a few years agowhen he had visited Saint Paul to see Tom.

The Main Event of the World Series of Poker is kind of a big deal. Over 8,700 players bought into the tournament, each forking over $10,000 for a seat. Paul managed to make a pretty deep run. At 4 in the morning on Wednesday, August 9th, I received a voicemail from Tom: "Yo Kevin... he made it. You've got to come out here. Call me when you get your ticket." Paul had made it to the final table of the Main Event of the World Series of Poker. Out of 8,773 players, only the final nine remained. Everyone at that table was walking away a millionaire, with first place receiving $12 million.

I had to scramble when I woke up in the morning and listened to my voicemail. I didn't have tapes. Or a video camera. I didn't have a plane ticket. Or money to buy one. I went to work for the day, and that night I was on a plane bound for Vegas.

Though the ACM conference ended a couple of weeks ago, there's still one thing about it I haven't been able to shake. It's this red thing. We got it when we registered for the conference. And I don't know what it is. Anybody?

Tom woke me up at 11:30 this morning, 5 minutes before we had to leave so we could get to the Rio for his noon tournament (the $1.5k No Limit Hold 'Em event). So here I am in the press room - unshowered, unshaven, helping myself to the pastry platter since I missed breakfast, the only person with a 5 year old laptop, the only person having trouble typing the letter 'n,' and trying to look respectable doing it. I'm cultivating the eccentric journalist look, hoping that they buy it. Occasionally I'll stand up, stretch, and start doing Tai Chi. People fear what they don't understand. If anyone asks who I am, I'll pretend to be shocked they don't know. If you want an update on the poker action, be sure to check out Tom's blog (the link is on the sidebar).

Another day in Vegas. Blogging from this laptop is harder than you might imagine. The 'n' key is sketchy at best. Today's highlights: using my recently acquired press pass to hang out in the media room (complete with refreshments and pastries) and getting a shot of Hollywood icon James Woods eating popcorn while playing in the $2k No Limit Hold 'Em event, a few tables down from Tom.

I'm having so much fun in Vegas I forgot that I'm supposed to be making a movie.

Where to start? I began writing this blog post from the Imperial Ballroom in the Park Plaza in Boston. I’m finishing it from a rental house in Las Vegas. To recap:

This is what happened to my car on July 3rd, less than 24 hours before I was to leave for Boston. I’m not as concerned about the stuff that was stolen as I am about the damage done to the car. Unfortunately, I only have liability coverage on my car insurance, so no help there. I’m really not sure how I’m going to be able to afford to fix it. Maybe I’ll play the nickel slots -- daddy needs a new rear windshield.

Rewind to Boston. I attended the Alliance for Community Media national conference as a representative of SPNN. The conference was held at the Park Plaza Hotel in downtown Boston, and I arrived with two teenage girls in tow. RayLynn and Mai Cha were the two youth chosen from the Set It Up crew to attend the conference. In recent years, there has been a drop off in the youth presence at the ACM conference. In the end, the total registration for youth at this year’s conference was two: Mai Cha and RayLynn. While the number is certainly disheartening, their impact was felt. By the end of the conference, the two had reached quasi-celebrity status. They not only attended but participated in the conference workshops, asking questions and bringing their unique perspectives to the table.

When thinking back on the conference, the word that keeps popping up is “exhausting.” Being the sole adult chaperone, chasing after two teenage girls for sixteen hours a day wore me out. However, it was also unbelievably fun. I had never been to Boston before, and (save for the East Coast attitude and criminally bad driving) the city is fantastic. Our first night, we walked to the river and listened to a live performance by the Boston Pops with special guests Aerosmith, emceed by Dr. Phil (!). This was followed by the most spectacular fireworks display that I have ever witnessed (did you know there are fireworks that explode into wireframe cubes?!).

We walked the Freedom Trail, a red line that twists around downtown Boston (and eventually across the river to Cambridge) and stops at different historical landmarks. We saw the site of the Boston Massacre, the Old South Meeting House where people congregated before the Boston Tea Party, and the graveyard where John Hancock, Paul Revere, and Samuel Adams are buried. We walked around Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, saw the boats along the Long Wharf, and strolled around Boston Commons. We had fresh octopus in Chinatown, clam chowder at the keynote luncheon, and on our last night in Boston, Mike (the executive director of SPNN) took us out to Legal Seafoods. One of the highlights was the dinner boat cruise aboard the Spirit of Boston, where we spent three hours of a gorgeous day out around the harbor.

Fast forward to today. Current temperature: 102. I arrived yesterday evening, was picked up by Thomas Fuller and whisked away to the Rio. Tom’s friend and housemate Pi-master (so named for his interest in mathematics and his affection of pi-themed clothing) was playing in a final table. After a well-fought run, Pi-master was knocked out in third place, netting him $85,904. Needless to say, the experience has been surreal. In the first few hours, I saw Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson, Howard Lederer, Scotty Nguyen, Joseph Hachem, Gus Hansen, and Phil Hellmuth. I even ran into Simpsons co-creator and Mental Engineering panelist Sam Simon.

More to come…