…with Gary Moss

Archive for April, 2011

taxing |ˈtaksi ng |
adjective
physically or mentally demanding : they find the work too taxing.

The degree to which something is taxing upon an individual is directly proportionate to the degree of that person’s preparedness and/or their attitude.

Have you ever been stuck? It happens to good people all the time. You’ll know if it happens to you because you will surely feel taxed. Something will be making you uncomfortable or unhappy. You may feel that ‘circumstances’ are controlling your life. You may be struggling to define your angst; you may even be covering up your true feelings, sabotaging yourself, in order to avoid having to face things head on.

Scrabble can be that way too. On one hand one would like to become a better player and win more of the games that one plays. One often may find oneself wishing that he/she knew more words. And the answer is as simple as getting back into a study regimen. Even 20 minutes every day can make a stunning difference.

But, but, but. When would I fit it in? What would I give up?, you ask yourself.

But, but, but. When would I begin? Maybe next week, you project.

Nothing ever happens until you make an honest, specific declaration.
~ Gary Moss

“Maybe next week.” doesn’t work

“I’ll try” doesn’t work

Your attitude MUST BE one of Intention.

I WILL BEGIN my regimen on Monday at Noon.

I WILL PERSIST until the task is accomplished.

I CAN DO THIS! / I WILL DO THIS!

Once you make up your mind and begin dealing with your issue/s and take action, life becomes less taxing and life begins to feel good again.

If it had not been for Alfred Mosher Butts I could be spending my days directing Monopoly Tournaments. If it had not been for The Great Depression of 1929, and Butts being an out of work architect, Alfred may have been more well known for the design of some bridge or skyscraper, than designing the game of scrabble.

What would your life be like today without scrabble? What other things would you be doing to fill in the time that you devote to scrabble? Which of your friends and acquaintances would you have never met if it hadn’t of been for scrabble?

How has scrabble enriched your life?

Is there any personal cost that you endure by having scrabble in your life? Just how do you balance your love of the game with your other activities?

Does scrabble ever get in the way of you attending to your responsibilities? Has scrabble ever enhanced or diminished a relationship in your life? Who in your life shares your excitement when you play a triple/triple? Who in your life thinks that you are just plum crazy for devoting so much time to word play?

Do you ever wonder what Alfred would think about the scrabble craze if he were still alive today? Well, even though he no longer owned the rights to the game, he did live up until April 1993 and was a witness to scrabble taking a place on the worldwide scene.

So when you are playing scrabble this week, dedicate your games to Alfred, think of him kindly, and keep his memory alive.

Maybe I’ve just been listening to too much radio. I abandoned listening to AM and FM news where it sounds like our local streets are filled with drive-by shootings and police chasing cars on the streets and freeways of L.A. I went over to NPR (National Public Radio) where I believe I get bi-partisan news and occasional stories of interest. But recently, in keeping with the hot topic of the times, almost all the rap on NPR is on a single subject: The Budget.

Growing up I was taught to pledge to the flag, hold democracy and the ‘free enterprise system’ dear to my heart, and to trust the authorities.

Maybe all that began to change for me a lifetime ago when J.F.K. caught an assassin’s bullet.

When shit happens we basically have two alternatives: Lie down, roll over, and die; or Roll up our sleeves and persevere. I tried to remain optimistic.

Then April 4, 1968; June 6, 1968; August 9, 1974; March 10, 2000; November 7, 2000; March 18; 2003; Nov 26, 2008; Apr 8, 2011.

BUT NOW, I’M SO GOD DAMN MAD! I DON’T WANT TO LIVE LIKE THIS ANYMORE!

Yesterday on NPR, a number of well-healed politicians talked about reducing expenditures in order to reduce the deficit. Among the likely solutions is a reduction in social security benefits, medicare, and medicaid. Yeah, that’s just what we need, a larger group of citizens who don’t have enough money to pay their rent and buy food. Yeah, that’s just what we need, a large part of our society ailing because they can’t afford the health care that they so badly need.

Why don’t we just add a rider to the bill? Let’s legalize ‘euthanasia’ and offer a $100,000 payout to his/her designated heirs when a poor, sick person elects to pass on, to make more room, and avoid any future health care expenditures on his/her behalf.

The people in charge are not in touch with the realities of the cost of living. What does Hilda L. Solis, Secretary of Labor, know about being unemployed and dealing with the day to day challenges of feeding a family off of charity?

Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, may be the exception to the assertion that I have made with my broad brush.

But, what real power do these figure heads really have in making a difference when they have to fight though all the special interest groups and employee unions that influence the allocation of funding, for their own purposes?

It is as futile as trying to rally to get some word added into the OWL2 Lexicon. And all the while, some powerful special interest group of church ladies has approximately 150 words extracted from the dictionary because they are ‘too naughty’. (Purchase the POO LIST).

Elected Officials/Appointed Officials ‘budge it’ for ‘their own reasons’, and the money kickbacks they receive from lobbyists and special interests; not necessarily for the reasons of their constituents.
~ Gary Moss

People call me to obtain advice about how to become a better scrabble player; people spend their hard earned money to purchase JFTSOI scrabble teaching tools; people invest their precious time reading ‘HOW TO’ books; but only a few of the bunch are really committed to making a difference.

Almond Joy : Mounds . . . . . . . Mounds : Almond Joy

Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t.

Committing is all about choosing. There is not enough time to do everything. Committing is about choosing something, while declaring indifference to the other things.

Committing is neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’; it just is. Commitment is an option. For some, commitment comes easy; for others, commitment comes very hard, or not at all.

In the minds of many, ‘commitment’ goes hand-in-hand with ‘until death do part’. In modern day America, ‘commitment’ more often goes hand-in-hand with ‘until I feel differently or have a pang of gas’.

The truth is, in the past there were fewer options. Before Alfred Butts and scrabble there was only Chess, Checkers, Poker, and Mumbly-Peg. (That may be an exaggeration.) But you get it. Today, there is a new distraction every day. I remember that in the 70s I was a devotee of PONG and PacMan. (Oh where have they gone?)

It is no big secret why most scrabble enthusiasts play online using pseudonyms. Losing cuts deep for most of us. Playing head-to-head at clubs leaves us players vulnerable and exposed. Being online and invisible we can come and go as our alter ego and preserve our self esteem. We never have to fully commit.

Yes, maybe the committed forfeit the fun that comes with variety, but they get to experience the other side of the coin that celebrates true belonging and expertise.

Every great inventor, great author, great scrabble champion, paid the price that commitment exacts from them. But each has celebrated the special joys that we generalists will never know.

It is possible to ‘play at scrabble’ without ever being committed to it. You may even win a game here or there. And you may find it to be fun at your level. BUT, to become a good scrabble player, one must adopt a level of commitment to the game that includes developing a study regimen that leads takes you beyond knowing just the basics. The perfect place to make that commitment is the online class, SCRABBLE 101.

See you at the TOP

Once upon a time there were three little pigs whose mother taught them about ‘the joys of scrabble’ as they were growing and learning. And the time came for them to leave home and seek their fortunes.

Before they left, their mother told them ” Whatever you do , do it the best that you can. Develop a study regimen and build your word knowledge because that’s the way to get along in the world of scrabble.

The first little pig built his vocabulary straw-like because it was the easiest thing to do. He played at clubs and told himself that playing once a week was enough to do, in order to build his expertise.

The second little pig built his word arsenal stick-like. He’d scan his OWL2 randomly and pick out a few word-weapons each week. He was usually easily satisfied when finding a few words like ‘eger’ and ‘usufruct’. He never kept track of his successes and failures, so his wins were rather random too. His approach was a little bit stronger than his brother’s straw-like methods.

The third little pig built his house out of bricks (dependable stem technology; fundamental hooks; the advantages of tracking; knowing all 101 2 letter words; and using Zyzzyva regularly.)

One night the big bad wolf, who dearly loved to eat fat little piggies, came along and saw the first little pig and challenged him to a game of scrabble . He said “Let me in, Let me in, little pig. I’ll bingo and double-double and I’ll blow your strategy apart!”

“Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin”, said the little pig.

But of course the wolf did blow his stats off the charts and ate the first little pig for breakfast.

The wolf then came to the house of the second piggy who studied stick-like.

“Let me in ,Let me in little pig. I want to play some scrabble with you. I’ll triple-triple and hook you silly. I’ll Q stick you and have you challenging all of my good words which you do not know.” “Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin”, said the little pig. But the wolf played first and opened with ‘quetzal’ and never trailed in the game, and soon he ate the second little pig too.

The wolf then came to the house of the third piggy.

” Let me in , let me in” cried the wolf. I want to beat you in a game of scrabble. I am good enough to be rated 2011 in 2011. You don’t have a chance against me. I will eat you alive!

“Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin” said the piggy.

Well, the wolf played 4 vowel 6s and played words like ‘hijab’ but this piggy did not flinch or challenge; he could not blow down this brick-like defense.

But the wolf was a sly old wolf and he played ‘avens’ on one turn with the intent to come back with one of the front hooks ( d, m, h, r ) on the next turn. He would have the last laugh.

The little pig saw the wolf setting himself up and lit a roaring fire of his own intention, placing his own ‘d’, hooking ‘avens’, coming down with ‘aardwolf’ to a free standing ‘f’.

The wolf finally found himself in the hole. KERSPLASH! And the big bad wolf never coffee-housed again.

The next day the little pig invited his mother over . She said “You see it is just as I told you. The way to get win at scrabble in the world is to do things as well as you can.” Fortunately for that little pig, he learned that lesson. And he just lived happily ever after attending as many tournaments as his budget would allow.

Prepare yourself to fend off the Big Bad Scrabble Wolves. Enroll in SCRABBLE 101

One of the toughest things about seeing myself as a creative spirit, is that sometimes when I am tired, I want to just sit back and be entertained by other creative people. Finding others who do quality work is as hard for me as standing on my head. Too often I find myself disappointed by the offerings of others.

Not today!

When I opened my email this morning I discovered a wonderful surprise that made my day. The email came from Donna Iliescu, a lovely woman who has played scrabble with us at Club #350. Donna wrote this entertaining piece: An Ode to the English Plural. I know that you will all enjoy this too. So with Donna’s permission, I share
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An Ode to the English Plural

We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and there would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let’s face it – English is a crazy language. There is no egg in
eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren’t invented in England. We take English for
granted, but if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can
work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from
Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write, but fingers don’t fing, grocers
don’t groce and hammers don’t ham?
Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of
them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck but send cargo by ship…
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
in which your house can burn up as it burns down,
in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and
in which an alarm goes off by going on.

And in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother’s not Mop?

Author ~ Donna Iliescu

Thank you Donna.

Growing up, were you one of those kids who loved ‘ginormous’ things? Were you fascinated by the dinosaurs? Did you know and like to say their names? Prenocephale, Anchisaurus, Riojasaurus, and the more familiar Aucasaurus are all kids favorites.

Growing up, were you one of those kids who dreamt of flying, like Peter Pan? Did you possess a vivid imagination that transported you to other places when the teacher’s lesson in class became a little too boring? When the ministers’ sermons were a bit aloof? When your mom and dad just didn’t understand?

Were you able to hold onto any of that imagination and wonderment? Or was it stripped away from you by some ‘well-meaning’, but misguided, teachers and mentors?

I find the world of SCRABBLE to be a place where imagination, wonderment, and learning can flourish hand-in-hand.

Did you know that the ‘average man on the street’ knows less than 6% of the words in the dictionary? That ‘average man on the street’ doesn’t even know how the lack of knowledge limits Him to interact fully on the world scene. (He Doesn’t Know that He Doesn’t Know.) He thinks that learning is hard and a burden. He is happy that he is out of school, pursuing His own pleasures, with blinders fastened tightly, limiting His view to His clan. Most OTHERS he considers to be ‘THEM’.

The world of scrabble is filled with people who ‘KNOW THAT THEY DON’T KNOW’.

When you know that you don’t know, you are usually open to and looking for truth and knowledge.

My parents, maybe like yours, never considered themselves to be bigots. But they lived in their own clan and never interacted socially with people of other religions or races. They were ‘nice’ to everybody. But in their heart of hearts they knew that WE were the chosen people. The ‘red ants’ still war regularly with the ‘black ants’; the neo-nazi, the al qaeda, and every orthodox religion will tell you that they are RIGHT.

Scrabble players share a love of words and learning. The outer masks that we all wear seem to disappear in the scrabble world. It doesn’t matter if you are black or white or green. It doesn’t matter if you are tall or short or skinny or zaftig. It doesn’t matter if you never finished high school or have a Ph.D. It doesn’t matter if you are 9 or 90.

What matters is that you get excited when you learn that ‘graffiti’ can take an ‘s’ as a front hook, making ‘sgraffiti’. What matters is learning that you have things to teach other and things to learn from them too.

Is it possible to become a citizen of the world with vehicles other than scrabble? Of course. Is it possible to develop friendships with a diverse community outside the scrabble circle? Certainly.
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Come join the scrabble world and broaden your perspective of the world.
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Yesterday, 4/2/11, I volunteered to spend a day showing off scrabble stuff and trying to help raise funds for a local community in OC. The organizers of the day were very cooperative by including me in their festival. They provided me a vendor’s booth for gratis.

I arrived early, set up a scrabble board with a ‘Beat The Champ’ activity for potential visitors. I put on my Letter Man costume to attract people to my space and stood ready with a welcoming smile when the visitor poured through the gate at 10AM. I approached people introducing myself as Letter Man, of Youtube fame. Most said hello, as if they had watched my videos. (That could hardly be the case, because there is a counter that counts watchers and I know better.) When I asked, “Are you a scrabble player?”, most people shied away. Some even ran. “I can’t spell”, said most.

During the 4 hours, 10AM thru 2PM, I talked with about 30 passersby. Not a one was willing to take on the scrabble challenge.

What saddened me more than not being able to connect with more potential players was the fact that the booth right next to me drew every young boy and most young girls, like honey attracting flies. The vendor there was selling a version of a gun. His guns shot marsh-mellows. He had a whole spiel about how his gun was safe for children. Parents shelled out from $11 to $25 for one of his blow guns. I’m certain that he sold well over 100 guns yesterday afternoon.

Let’s all blame the teacher for the poor performance of the kids in the schools. Lets all blame drugs and violence on TV and in movies for influencing the troublesome behavior of so many kids in our society.

Observations:

I was surprised by how many people I met who had no idea what scrabble was.

I was surprised by how many kids begged their parents for the guns and how the parents didn’t even object.

I guess we need a lot of help if we’re going to change current practices and attitudes.

But I’m not too surprised. People do things for their own reasons, not mine.

And most people keep on shooting themselves and injure their own kids too.

Tomorrow morning, April 2nd, I’ll be getting up a little earlier than usual, for a Saturday morning, I’ll put on my Letter Man body suit, with all of its special powers, I’ll fasten my cape just so, and then I’ll fly on over to the Up In The Air Festival in Mission Viejo, California. If you are in the neighborhood, come on by between 10AM and 2PM. Watch Letter Man on youtube.

I have volunteered to participate in this event for at least two good reasons. First, I will help Mission Viejo raise some funds for community activities; that’s always a good reason. Secondly, I will inform some of the good citizens of Mission Viejo that there is a whole world of SCRABBLE out there, just waiting for them to show up at one of my nearby clubs and tournaments.

Scrabble players love to know that clubs and tournaments exist. Players are happy to take part the in relatively inexpensive fun filled activities that club play offers. But the job of maintaining and building the clubs fall on the shoulders of 1) the directors and 2) the random chance that some interested scrabble player does a google search, on their own. (There are one or two other, non-director, scrabble cheerleaders out there who help out too.)

Of course, clubs are no longer necessary in order to compete in scrabble. Players have always been able to seek out a friend and arrange a game. In today’s computerized world, one can enjoy competition with players worldwide without ever leaving the comforts of their own home.

But if you are like me, you get a heightened degree of fun and satisfaction playing head-to-head. I find great enjoyment producing Club #350 and The 1st Sunday Tournament, bringing players together.

For some time now, Club #350′s Thursday session at BORDERS in Costa Mesa, California has been suffering from a unique problem. The collective abilities of the patrons is TOO GOOD.

The Scrabble Champion in your family or among your friends usually finds themselves at the bottom of the pile when they first begin playing at a sanctioned scrabble club. Those champions will usually find it tough on their egos to deal with defeat. Many of those champions choose not to take the challenge to compete at a higher level.

So, many novice player come and play a time or two and then fade away. No mistake, they are wanted and desired. No mistake, they will become better over time. No mistake, a seasoned player will never roll over and lose for lack of trying. No mistake, we all have the power to move up in the ranks.

In order to become better at anything one must be committed to keep PLUGGING AWAY. Check out the level of play for participants at CLUB #350 during the 1st Quarter of 2011. CLICK HERE