Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves
We'd hear it from the people of the town... Well, the town today is Las Vegas and the new words are now Donkey, Donk and Donkment. And, it has been worn to death. Now, I love and am quite capable of running a cliché into the ground repeatedly. But, formerly good jokes finally become laughing stock: Take my wife...Please!
At the turn of the last century, vaudeville was king. You could develop a killer dance, schtick, whatever. Such acts were nearly timeless and the performer could repeat it for a decade. That changed over the various eras – radio, TV and now the Internet.
Blogger have every right to run a theme into the ground on their little blog. Hell, it is a staple here. But, WSOP hired guns have a higher standard. And, they have a much more difficult job. It may be impossible to be fresh in poker reporting. But, certain terms or ideas have been run into the ground.
Donkment is a prime example. It was funny the first few times. Now that its reached four-figures in the word count, it has become chalk screeching on the blackboard.
Henny Youngman is dead. But, his one liners are fresher these days than WSOP reporting. This is the year of the bad pun. And I don't mean bad pun in the good sense. The context of hand histories will never lead to the next War and Peace; but, it doesn't have to grate. These gigs won't evolve into writing for Conan. Just respect the medium and its limits and get on with being articulate.
We can excuse those in the trenches trying to leave Vegas a money winner based on words and late nights. But, those over on the editorial pages have more leeway. And, like the donkment term, some of their ideas are getting to be overly obvious reruns.
MeanGene manages to keep it properly parsed and avoids redundant. Brad Willis is one of the few that can knock it out of the park with views from varied angles. Some get stuck in the infield but you know he'll bare down in the next at bat. The Poker Shrink found a new approach proving it still is possible.
Formulaic is, for many, a necessity. I respect their time and effort even if it sometimes makes me grate my teeth. But, there are a couple this year that make me shudder. And one that hasn't hit a wow moment and we're half done with this pageant. It pretty obvious he's phoning this one in. I can excuse the grunts in the trenches. Even with the warts, they're doing the best they can. But, there are some spots I don't want downwind.
ADDENDUM:
PokerTracker keeps blowing up on me. Is there anybody out there that can keep this junk box working? I write there support an don't get an answer. The problem is laughingly rudimentary. I can't change the hand history location. I do the subdirectory substitution and it keeps reverting to C:\Poker. No way to use it properly. I can move stuff there and look at the info in a historic context but there is no excuse for such a bug.
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