Poker News / Short-Stacked Shamus / 20 August 2010 / Leave a Comment

A couple of weeks back I shared a review of Paul "Dr. Pauly" McGuire's new book Lost Vegas: The Redneck Riviera, Existentialist Conversations with Strippers, and the World Series of Poker. The book chronicles McGuire's experiences as a poker tournament reporter, particularly at the WSOP.

I had a chance to catch up with McGuire recently to ask him a few questions about the book and writing, generally speaking.

Short-Stacked Shamus: Lost Vegas obviously grew out of your writing over on your blog, Tao of Poker -- particularly your reports over there from the WSOP. When did you first create Tao of Poker? And what was it that made you want to start a poker blog?

Paul McGuire: I started writing on a blog titled Tao of Pauly in May 2002 at the encouragement of one of my roommates from college, David Simanoff, a business writer for a major newspaper who had been blogging for a couple of years. I also began a second blog, Truckin', to highlight short stories and travel stories that my friends and I could share.

I caught the poker bug around the same time, and the subject of poker started appearing in my daily scribbling on Tao of Pauly. Since the majority of readers (10 out of 12 at the time) were not into gambling or poker, they started a mutiny and demanded that I start a new blog in the summer of 2003 devoted to poker so I wouldn't clutter up the Tao of Pauly and piss off my friends. Thus, Tao of Poker was born.

SSS: When did you get the idea to write a book about the WSOP and Las Vegas? And why a book?

PM: James Baldwin once said that a writer needs to leave a shelf of "his" books behind before he dies. I took that to heart. I have at least ten books/novels in me. I hope to get as many out before I die, or before my creative ability diminishes. A book or two about my adventures in Las Vegas and poker seemed appropriate content. As the saying goes... "write what you know."

After the 2005 WSOP, a friend of a friend recommended me to a publisher. I sent them a proposal for a book about Las Vegas featuring my experiences at the 2005 World Series of Poker (including sections of the book devoted to seeing Phish concerts in Las Vegas in 1998 and 2003). Poker was at the pinnacle of reaching a mainstream audience in 2005 and the publisher was heavily interested in a poker book. He loved the sample chapters. Everything was a go and I wrote a draft titled The Redneck Riviera.

That's when things fell apart. The one poker title that they had published earlier that year failed miserably. Alas, the publishing company soured on poker-related titles and I lost my deal. I was pissed at the time, but looking back, I'm glad the deal fell apart because I was not as strong of a writer as I am today. It would have been a shitty book.

SSS: So Lost Vegas has been a long time in the making.

PM: Yes. The original draft had sat untouched for a year or so when I decided that the book concept was actually three books: the WSOP, Phish, and Las Vegas. The themes were so strong that I really needed three different books to explore them each. I split the project into two and decided to hold off on writing a book about the band Phish. I combined my Las Vegas memoirs with stories I accumulated while covering the WSOP. A second draft was birthed in 2007 that excluded all music-related content. I did not like that draft and took another shot again in 2008.

After partying hard at a Radiohead concert San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, I had a "moment of clarity" or a vision. I finally realized what was wrong with my previous drafts of the book -- it had too much poker and not enough Las Vegas.

SSS: The book does focus on the WSOP, but a major theme is to portray Las Vegas... and, I suppose, show what "Sin City" can do to people.

PM: Right. I had found a new direction and was ready to finish the book. However, it was difficult to find large chunks of time to write and I did what I could as I traveled the world covering the international poker circuit. I did not like the draft I wrote in 2008, but at least I was getting closer to what I really wanted out of the book. In 2009 I made a decision that the completion of a manuscript would be my number one priority. I cleared my schedule and set out to finish a draft -- except it came in at 323,000 words.

I sat on it all summer during the WSOP. When I re-visited the project in the fall, I brought in a good friend to edit the monster draft. I called him The German Butcher because he was precise, but merciless. He trimmed over 65% of the book. I wasn't content so I took two more passes and six months later, the draft was finally complete.

SSS: In my review I made reference to Hunter S. Thompson as a kind of influence for you (or at least an inspiration). I'm not the first to make such a comparison between yourself and the well-known "gonzo" journalist who also wrote about Las Vegas. Is that a fair connection to make? And if so, what is it about Thompson's brand of nonfiction that appeals to you?

PM: You are too kind with your references. He's a hero in many ways, but it's not fair to him to make the connection. Hunter was a true journalist. I shy away from that label because I'm nowhere close to being a journalist. I'm a writer, a sloppy one at that, and I do what I can to tell stories.

I'm a fan of Hunter's nonfiction. The first work of his I ever read was Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail for a Political Science class in college. I was hooked with his captivating, but raw style of writing and his funny, yet gripping ability to tell a story. I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas shortly afterwards and then tried to find as many of his Rolling Stone pieces as I could. I picked up The Great Shark Hunt at a street book seller in NYC's East Village in 1994 and finally had a chance to devour all of his magazine work from various outlets. I still have that copy to this day and reread his piece on the Kentucky Derby before every World Series of Poker.

SSS: What other writers -- both poker writers and otherwise -- would you cite as influences and/or as inspirational for you?

PM: Non-poker influences include Arthur Nersesian, Henry Miller, Charles Bukwoski, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Spalding Gray, Paul Auster, Carlos Castaneda, Jose Luis Borges, Milan Kundera, Lester Bangs, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and Philip Roth.

Poker writers I admire include Jesse May, Andy Glazer, Brad Willis, Stephen Bartley, Adam "Snoopy" Goulding, Michael Craig, Howard Swains, you, and my girlfriend Change100 who writes under Nicole Gordon.

I often find inspiration outside of the literary world, too. Non-writers such as Trey Anastasio (guitar player from Phish), Charles Andresen (painter), Richard Linklater (filmmaker), and Steve McQueen (actor) have been major influences over the years.

SSS: Recently you wrote a post on Tao of Poker in which you suggested anyone interested in working in poker media would benefit from reading Lost Vegas. Talk a little about what you meant there.

PM: Read the book to find out. If you don't have a grasp of what is really the role of the poker media, then I failed to tell you my story effectively.

SSS: Okay, last question. Lost Vegas mostly concentrates on your experiences covering the WSOP from 2005 to 2008. Do you plan to write a sequel that would pick up the story from there? Or have you other writing projects in mind for the future?

PM: It ended at the end of 2008 because when I set out to write the final draft in early 2009, I really thought that the book would be done by October 2009. That's why the 2009 WSOP is excluded. I have aspirations to write an international version of Lost Vegas that encapsulates the hijinks I encountered overseas as a poker writer. Someday, I'll write the continuation of Lost Vegas -- which will be the "tell all" book about poker that everyone is expecting. I'll have to wait another five or ten years before I have time to devote to that project.

I invested five years of my life on Lost Vegas which is too much time for one subject. I'm itching to complete five projects in the next ten years including the publication in 2011 of my first novel Jack Tripper Stole My Dog, which I wrote in 2002 and has been unpublished for almost a decade. I have non-fiction subjects like the border drug wars and the band Phish to keep me occupied the next few years. I also have a screenplay that has been kicking around my head for the last two years. Oh, and then there's the L.A. novel that I already started writing.

As you can tell, I'm confronted with scheduling conflicts. Poker has been the center of my life the last few years, but my creative eye has been wandering over to other subjects.

Much thanks to Paul McGuire for taking the time. For more about Lost Vegas -- including information about how to order -- check out the book's website.

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