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WSOP Housing - Renting Homes for World Series of Poker Lodging


Here it comes! The rush to book the best available homes for WSOP is about to get underway. If you're one of the many thousands of participants coming to Las Vegas for the annual World Series of Poker, then you are probably also one of the potential customers for a home to rent for WSOP. Fear not! We are here to help. Below you will find some of the best ways to secure of good home for the tournament, and some of the really poor ways to get a "good" deal.

What If I Don't Mention WSOP?

Las Vegas is a place where deal making is king. Probably nowhere else in the world, except maybe Hong Kong and Wall Street, has the art of negotiation been mastered as it has in Vegas. So keep that in mind when you come looking for a nice home to rent for WSOP. Owners and vacation rental management companies know well and good that the tournament is the big money making period of the year. Don't expect to hoodwink any naive owners to get a low price. It's not going to happen. They know very well why you are calling about a six week booking that starts June 1st. You'll be one of many calls they get exactly the same dates. See what we mean? Be realistic with your expectations and don't start off your search assuming we wont know why you are calling.

Where Should I Rent A Home For WSOP?

As usual, the World Series of Poker is going to be held at the Rio Casino Hotel. You will want to rent a home for WSOP that is as close to the Rio as possible. The best choices are going to put you within 10 to 15 minutes of the event. The worse choices will put you as far as 45 minutes away depending on the day of the week. Remember, you are here for about 6 weeks. We recommend homes in Southern Highlands, Green Valley and Henderson as well as Summerlin and Spring Valley on the west side. All of those areas are either close to begin with or have great access to the event via major highways and boulevards.

How Much Should I Pay For Good WSOP Lodging?

The answer to that question is really up to you. There is a great list of homes to rent for WSOP on our website that already includes everything in the prices. You can see up front what you will pay for your rental, how far the home is from the tournament, the size of the home, the capacity and number of bedrooms. You can also preview each home on our website and book directly by calling when you are ready. All rentals for WSOP housing must be booked over the phone due popularity of the period and demand for homes  We expect a complete sell out as usual.

Good luck in your search. Visit us and call today to make the whole thing easy!

Male, Female, Giver, Receiver and Money Economy


Lots have been going on and I haven't had time to think about blog posts for a while.  I've had quite a few visitors staying with me, lately.

Ried, Cap, & Spirit

I talked about Ried in my last post.  He came back here from Boulder, Colorado with two more young, wandering moneyless chaps, called Cap and Spirit, and they camped with me for a week or so with their two dogs.  They were grand fun (except for the dogs, I must admit).  They seemed very committed to living without money and plan to continue their moneyless venture on the road.  They went to their respective families for the holidays and then plan to hitch to the international Rainbow Gathering in Palenque, Mexico.  It'll be interesting to see what happens with them.

Lynn

After they left, a 40-something woman named Lynn came from Maryland, and has been camping with me until yesterday, when we started house-sitting.  She is more Bible-oriented than most who come, so we've been discussing Bible more.  That's something I don't get to do often with people.  It's hard to find folks who like to discuss the Bible and are, at the same time, not narrow-minded.  Hard-hearted is the Bible's own word for narrow-minded.

The Guru

Thinking about Ried, Cap, Spirit, and Lynn, I feel deep down that everybody who comes my way is my teacher, my guru, that guru-ship is actually a two-way process.  If it's not, it becomes ego, idolatry.  There is no such thing as one person on earth, ever, being a Guru.  This is the misunderstood enigma of Guru-ship.  The Guru is always between two or more people, and no Guru can exist as a single person, except as a realization that All are One and No Other.   A single person as a Guru is a worthless, meaningless, useless icon, as the figure of Jesus has become.  Jesus himself says, "Where two or more are gathered in my name, there, I Am, in the midst."  Jesus is between two or more people, right here, right now (the same yesterday, today, and forever) but the deluded mind thinks he is a single human who lived 2000 years ago.  No human who ever walked the earth can be worshiped except by the deluded.  But we must bow to everybody in total reverence in the present.  We bow to the Love between us.  Love cannot exist, except between two or more people, and Love is the Only Guru.  There is no other.  And Love is the Name above all names, and it matters not what you call Love.  There is absolutely nothing higher than love.  Love ultimately cannot be spoken, only lived, between two or more folks. 

Bear with me, because I'm continuing the same principle here, and show how it relates to male-female relations, economy, money, and commerce.

Male, Female, Giver, Receiver and Money Economy

While Lynn has been here we've been discussing the idea of the Giver and Receiver, which brings me to the concept of the Feminine Side of God (alluded to in Mark Sundeen's book), and how it relates to the moneyless life, are crystallizing.  It's all coming together!

For anybody who read the The Man Who Quit Money, you might remember the epiphany I had, when I was young, questioning why females are veiled in many cultures, finding the Feminine side of God as I read the passage in the Proverbs in the Bible:

Is your focus on the Snake
 or on the Rock?
There are three things which are too wonderful for me, 
Yes, four which I do not understand: 
The way of an eagle in the air,
The way of a serpent on a rock, 
The way of a ship in the midst of the sea, 
And the way of a man with a maiden. 
(Proverbs 30:18-19)

It dawned on me that we don't get it, because we focus only on the eagle, the serpent, the ship, and the man, and we overlook the air, the rock, the sea, and the maiden!  We don't realize that the power is in the air, the rock, the sea, and the maiden!  We focus on the male, not the female!

Lao Tzu states this principle:

We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon 

We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.
We hammer wood for a house,

but it is the inner space
that makes it 

We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.

(Tao Te Ching 11)


Lao Tzu
The spirit of the valley never dies.
It is called the mysterious female.
The gate of the mysterious female
Is called the root of heaven and earth.
(Tao Te Ching 5:6)

The large country is like the lowest river
The converging point of the world
The receptive female of the world
The female always overcomes the male with serenity
Using serenity as the lower position

(Tao Te Ching 61) 


Not shown, therefore apparent,
Not asserted, therefore known,
Not boasted of, therefore of worth,
Not contentious, so enduring. 
It's because the wise do not contend
That no one can contend with them.
When the ancients said:
‘Bowed down and so preserved’
That was no empty saying.
 (Tao Te Ching 22)

Any Jew, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, or Buddhist will recognize this as the heart of their own religion.  If they don't, they don't practice their own religion.
 
Yes, I saw the philosophy of the East (feminine) as the heart of West (masculine)!  That which we have devalued and even called evil for thousands of years is the very heart of our own religion!

Now, how on earth does this relate to money and commerce and it's off-shoot, institutional "charity"? 

Who Gets the Credit for Giving?  
Who Gets the Debt for Receiving?

We think of the Male as the Giver (e.g. of semen) and the Female as the Receiver (and conceiver of the seed).  So it appears.  So it appears!  But it dawned on me not too long ago that every True Interaction in nature is absolutely Equal Barter, and it is Unconscious Barter!   For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  Exactly simultaneously.  Physics 101.  What appears to be one-sided Giving and Receiving in our culture is absolutely not so!  In True Giving, the Giver is the Receiver!  The True Giver is Between the Giver and Receiver!

By obvious appearances, the Giver is Dominant and the Receiver is Recessive.  Recessive is receptive.  We even name the genes in our DNA as dominant and recessive.  The male Y Chromosome is dominant while the female X Chromosome is recessive.  When the Y (male) and the X (female) are together, it is called male, because male is dominant.  When there are two together, XX (female), and there is no male X with it, is it called female, because the female is recessive.  In our genetics, YX is male and XX is female.  In our traditional culture, the male and the female together are called by the male's name.  This isn't just invented culture and religion, but a reflection of our biology.  Male and Female together are called Adam, in our biology.  And for this reason, because we became superficial pricks, we began to think the one who gets the attention, the male, is the superior one.  Little do we realize that the X is the life of the body, while the Y is more of a marker.  The human body absolutely cannot live without the X chromosome, but it can live without the Y.
Giver and Receiver are One

The root of a plant, unseen, under the ground, is the plant's power, and survives through winter and summer.  When the root is exposed, the whole plant dies.  When giving is done in secret, it is powerful.  When seeds are hidden in the ground, they grow into full glory.  When prayer and meditation are done in secret, they are our power.  When we hide our evil deeds, they, like seeds in the ground, grow and overpower us.  When we expose them to the light, confess them, they die.

This is bothersome in a culture that values the dominant and devalues the recessive, that values the male and devalues the female.   A culture that devalues the recessive devalues and destroys nature.  But, as Taoist philosophy shows, it is the recessive feminine that holds the power.   It is the empty space that makes the cup or the house useful.

In our deluded culture, we give credit to the giver and debt to the receiver, not realizing that the receiver is the deeper giver, that both are equally giver and receiver, and that the True Giver is between the "giver" and "receiver" and deserves all credit, all praise, all price.  In our deluded culture, we value the "rich" and devalue the "poor", not realizing that those who do so live in the true poverty, poverty of self.

There is one who makes himself rich, yet has nothing;  
And one who makes himself poor, yet has great riches.
(Proverbs 13:7)

Picking,
without sense of credit and debt



 If I'm sounding too abstract, and you're getting lost, let's look at an example:

Stark Evidence: the Example of Nature 

I'm always bringing up the model of the raspberry bushes in Alaska, where I realized the true nature of nature's economy.  On my trek, I noticed the raspberry bushes near the trails were plumper, redder, and sweeter than those in other parts, meaning the bushes actually wanted creatures to take their berries.  And the berries I camped near and ate from became plumper, redder, and sweeter than other berries.  They literally were telling me, "Eat me!"  So what's really going on between the raspberry ("giver") and me ("receiver")?

This was my epiphany I will repeat again: the berry bush demanded nothing of me for taking its berries and I took with zero sense of debt toward the bush or toward anybody.  How does the bush get what it needs in return?  Is there an accountant sitting by keeping tabulations of who owes what to whom?  All of nature works this way, and it is balanced.  Our accountants obsessively keep tabs, we have PhD economists, and, after all this, what nation on earth can balance its budget?

Any bicycle rider, tight-rope walker, dancer, or marshal artist knows that if you even think about balance, you lose balance.  Balance only happens when you stop trying to balance, when left stops worrying about right, and vise versa.  Don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.  Walk, right-left.  Breath, in-out, without control, without possession of air, share the atmosphere freely, else it is not healthy breath.  Consciousness of credit and debt is knowledge of good and evil, our fall, our separation from the Grace of Nature. 

Pay-It-Forward or Barter Economy... 
Or Both Simultaneously?
Balance Happens,
without our Control

Now I thought of this as a Pay-It-Forward economy, meaning, the bushes "give" to me, and  I "take" from them.  I digested those berries, pooped them out later somewhere else, meaning I later "gave" poop food to micro-organisms in the soil as well as planting new raspberry seeds, propagating new plants!  For the longest time, because I was looking only at the obvious Giver (male) and the obvious Receiver (female), I could not see Giving and Receiving happening simultaneously.  Until recently, I saw nature only as a Pay-It-Forward economy, where the service and the payment for the service are delayed.  In other words, you pay me, then you get paid later, and I pay something to somebody else later.   

But when our eyes are tuned into the feminine recessive, not just the masculine dominant, we see that Giving and Receiving are One.  It's both pay-it-forward and exact, simultaneous, unconscious barter! 

How so?  By taking the raspberry, I am providing a service to the bush right as I take the berry!  And I am receiving a service from the bush right as I take the berry!  If I see a "homeless" man and feel pity and give to him thinking I'm helping him, I am living in delusion.  But if I give to him as an equal, and my giving is sharing, not really giving, then we are both receiving a service absolutely equal, an absolutely equal barter in the same moment: then I am living in Reality, not delusion!  This is why "charity" has gotten a bad name, because it is delusion.  Our "charity" is condescension, not equal sharing.  In true charity (charis, grace, gratis) there is no giver and receiver, really; there is nobody who deserves credit, really, except the Giver Between Us.  All Credit, all Praise, all Price, all Glory to the Giver Between Us, the Unseen Throne between the Two Cherubim!
Balance Only by focusing on the Center.
Stray not to the Right or Left.
When one Covering Cherub takes focus off the Center
and worries about the other Cherub,
he falls from Heaven.
He is Lucifer becoming the Devil:
Father of World Commerce
[See Pre-Christian Judaism's, Roman Catholicism's and Protestantism's 
traditional Biblical passages on the fall of Lucifer (Heylel):
Isaiah 14:12 & Ezekiel 28:13-18]

In sum, the Law of Nature:
the Infinite, Moneyless World

Creating without claiming,
Doing without taking credit,
Guiding without interfering:
This is the Primal Virtue.
(Tao Te Ching 51)



Walk away from the delusion of commerce (Canaan)
and Give credit where credit is due:
All Credit to the All:
Hallelu-Jah 
      

 

How Does The Music Feel?



A friend of mine told me that at a recent jazz workshop, a very well known drummer said to him (concerning drum students attending the workshop), 'Man, all these guys can really play - and they all sound terrible!' A very funny remark, but with a huge truth contained inside it. As contemporary jazz grows ever more complex - especially in the field of rhythm - and as jazz schools raise the technical level of students to unprecedented heights, there is no doubt in my mind that we are often guilty of ignoring one of the most important elements of all music - its rhythmic feel.

By 'feel' in this context, I don't mean a generic feel as in 'swing feel' or 'Brazilian feel' or something like that, I mean the groove or the rhythmic centering of the music. I notice more and more that the idea of getting a good rhythmic feel - as opposed to playing accurately and in time no matter what the time signature - seems to be further and further down the agenda, if it's on the agenda at all. But the feel of music is incredibly important - it's arguably the most important thing, since it evokes an immediate response from the listener. And most listeners - which is something we musicians often forget - are not players. They're civilians, they're not in the jazz army and they don't care about the complexity (or lack of complexity) of music. They're there to listen and to experience, not to analyse. Most people couldn't care less whether you play in 15/8 and superimpose a 3 feel on top of that. That's the kind of detail that is only of interest to musicians.

Not that I've anything against complexity per se - I've spent a lot of my professional life playing complex music and spent countless hours trying to figure out how to do it and get better at it. I enjoy both simple music and complex music - to me it makes no difference what means you use to get to your message. As long as you actually have a message that is more than just the technique of the music. And there's the rub - I think there's a lot of music around that is solely about the techniques being used by the players, rather than having an overarching intent that is beyond the technique.

Of course this is an argument that has gone on forever in jazz - every generation of jazz musicians has accused the next generation of sacrificing feeling on the altar of technique. There's an element of circling the wagons about this kind of thinking, of protecting something - real or imagined - from the attacks of the avant garde. But this is not really where I'm coming from with this - it's more about the idea that no matter what form of rhythmic expression you choose, that it should feel good!

Feel good? What does that mean? Couldn't it be said to be subjective? Well, ultimately yes. But I do think the idea of something feeling good is not as abstract a concept as it might sound. What I mean by this is that the rhythm of the music should feel as if its coming from a central place, that it should have a weight, an internal energy a kind of groove template from which the music ultimately emanates. Without this central core the music just won't feel good - it may have a lot of detail to it, it may be technically adept and accurately in time, but it won't have that spark, that energy that carries the internal message of the music and that connects it to a tradition of some kind.



This word tradition is important here. Most rhythmic music is, or was at one time, connected to dance. Dance needs a rhythmic core that gives the fundamental energy to the dancers and around which all the music happens. There are so many examples of this - Afro-Cuban music, Belly Dance, Samba, Indian classical music, and of course at one point, jazz.

Jazz moved away from dance a long time ago, and indeed it's hard to make any case for jazz as a contemporary dance music after 1950, but the fact that jazz once was associated with dance has meant that the rhythmic impulse of jazz  always had a central core -  a groove - around which the music moved, and from which the music emanated, no matter how active and complex the music that whirled around this central core was. Despite jazz losing its direct connection to dance, and the rhythmic physicality of playing for dancers, the ghost of the the dance has always been there. This is the 'feel' which I'm talking about when I say that the music should feel good.

It seems to me now that this connection between feel and the music is often lost. Perhaps in chronological terms, the music has moved so far away from its dance origins that the physicality of the rhythm of jazz is something that is being forgotten or buried under the detail of an often complex music. Which would not just be a pity, but would also be dangerous waters for the music to sail into. Jazz has a hard time in the market place these days (or what remains of the market place...), and the permanent removal of a rhythmic feel good factor, would be a tragic loss for the music.




Because this rhythmic feel good factor is part of the music's history and tradition. The ingenious rhythmic placement of Armstrong's lines, Basie's rhythm section, Bird's rhythmic power, Blakey and the Messengers, Miles phrasing, Miles' various rhythm sections, the Coltrane Quartet, Monk, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Headhunters, Weather Report, Wynton's first quintet, Steve Coleman and Five Elements, Wayne Shorter's current quartet, Brad Mehldau. The music of all of these players and bands, despite their often widely different styles and different eras from which they come, exhibit the rhythmic impulse that I'm talking about - a connection to groove and rhythmic physicality around which the rest of their music is formed.

I'm missing that rhythmic and groove impulse in a lot of the music I'm hearing recently. Drummers are hyper-active but often without a foundation - all that clattering piccolo snare drum stuff, fill after fill without any room for an underlying groove to make its presence felt. Bassists playing without connecting with the drummer, pianists and guitarists comping without rhythmically interacting with either bassist or drummer... Soloists with lots of notes but not really locking into the rhythm and the time. Generic grooves played without any understanding of the tradition and impulse from which they originated.

Musicians need to check out the fundamentals of the music and the history of the music. Anyone serious about playing jazz must study the rhythm and the rhythmic impulse of the music, and in particular they should study the feel of the music. Listen to this aspect of the music of the great players past and present and try and identify the rhythmic DNA that circulates through all of their music, giving it its rhythmic strength and feelgood factor. To all serious musicians - don't just ask yourself how your music sounds - how does it feel?

Here are three examples of rhythmically powerful pieces of music, all very different, all of which have a great rhythmic feel at the core of the music.

Wayne Shorter's Quartet - abstract and impressionistic yet rooted




Here's Herbie Hancock, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette swinging mightily while playing both complex harmony and rhythm




Steve Coleman and 5 Elements connecting complex harmony with interlocking odd metre funk