Tag: Health

Clown School Break Day 21: The Egg Game

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In which Our Hero encounters an eggregious machine.

Walking through the casino today, I saw a brilliant game.
A perfectly engineered one.
A real bad egg.

It’s a slot machine called something like The Egg.

You put in your money. You slap the button.
Standard procedure.
Nothing shell-shocking.

But instead of reels to spin, there’s just an egg on the screen.

Every time you slap, the egg cracks a little more.

And when the egg is fully broken –
crack –
you win a jackpot.

The jackpots (at the $1 play level) range from about $3 to just over $10,000.
All of them are progressive.
They grow the longer you play. 

The egg takes a variable number of slaps to break.

It’s a well-made game.
Eggsactly balanced.

Here’s why.

1. It redefines winning.
You will win.
The only question is when.
Just keep putting money in until the egg hatches.

Winning doesn’t feel like if.
Winning feels like eventually.

2. You feel progress.
Every slap cracks the egg a little more.
You’re getting closer.
A chip here, a fracture there.

Are you actually closer?
Who knows.
But it looks like you are, and that’s all your nervous system needs.

3. Everything is a jackpot.
I watched a man spend $70 chasing one $10 jackpot and two $3 jackpots.

He won three times.
He lost $54.

But emotionally, during the process?
Sunny side up.

After he left?
Fried. 

4. It’s intelligible.
Most modern slot machines are incomprehensible.
You don’t even know what the rules for winning are until you’ve played for a while.

That confusion creates a false sense of mastery:
“I’m learning the game.”

You are—but learning doesn’t help.

The Egg is different.
Egg → crack → jackpot.
No shell game.
No mystery meat.

Immediate understanding.
Immediate hook.
Egg-ceptionally approachable.

A game egg-zactly positioned to attract newbies. 

5. It creates tension – and guarantees release.
The egg will break.
That’s the promise.

When that suspense releases, however,
the yolk (“joke”) will already have been on you. 

6. Your action feels causal.
Slap the button.
The egg jiggles.
A crack instantly appears.

Your body doesn’t care about RNGs or payout tables.
Your body says: I did that.

7. You can mash.
On a normal slot machine there’s a pause between spins.
The Egg?
You can mash the button 30 times in 30 seconds.
(I saw a guy mash 70 times in under 3 minutes.) 

So if you spend $40 and win $20, you feel frustrated.
And to relieve that frustration:
Have you considered mashing the button?

The feedback loop is tight.
The illusion of control is strong.
The design is…
let’s be honest…
eggstraordinary.

That’s it.

I’ve cracked it.

And now I’m walking away, before I get completely scrambled. 🥚

(Author’s note: I did not actually play the game. I am not a fan of slot machines. I did, however, admire it from afar. Here’s a video of someone playing it.) 

Clown School Break Day 18: More than Flavor

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In Which Our Hero Eats Theater for Dinner

“What do you plan to do after clown school?”

  1. Gonzo theater in NYC
  2. Play with children
  3. Live a damn good life

That’s about it.

Other topics?

—

This weekend I attended, for the first time in my life, a Michelin-star restaurant.
A two-star place that, until this year, carried three.

What struck me wasn’t the prestige.
It was the theatricality.

The whimsy. The humor.

They turned a hot dog into a 1 × 1 × 0.5 cm gelatin cube that tasted exactly like a hot dog.
They turned a PB&J into a deconstructed PB&J, complete with hand-peeled grapes.
They opened the meal with torches and epic music.
They ended it by painting dessert onto the tabletop.

My main experience throughout wasn’t taste — it was laughter.

Yes, the flavors were excellent.
Yes, the chemistry and artistry were impressive.

But come on: a tiny gelatin hot dog? A micro-PB&J?
These are jokes. Delicious jokes. High-budget pranks.

For $3 I can go to The Wiener’s Circle and get an actual hot dog.
Here, for $30, I got a hot-dog-flavored Lego brick.

And weirdly: I loved it.

Not because of the taste (though the tastes were good) but because of the experience:
the camaraderie, the conversation, the atmosphere, the emotions.

These were absolutely, unquestionably worth it.

And they had nothing to do with flavor.

The one dish that didn’t land — a caviar-and-chocolatey-coffee concoction — failed for a simple reason:
I didn’t know how to feel about it.

It tasted fine. Interesting. Curious.
But I couldn’t tell whether the intended emotion was awe, nostalgia, whimsy, melancholy, or… “???”

That’s why it faltered.

A performer needs to tell the audience how to feel.
Is this a comedy or a tragedy?
Where are we going?
What’s the poster of this show?

My mother didn’t like Uncut Gems because HOLY SHIT THIS IS NOT WHAT YOU EXPECT WHEN YOU PUT ON AN ADAM SANDLER MOVIE.

It wasn’t the film’s fault.
It was the emotional contract she thought she’d signed.

I like immersive performance art.
I like blurring reality and theater.
I want to perform in vivo, turning ordinary spaces into meta-experiences.

But the key to all of that is simple:
Make people feel the way you want them to feel.

It helps when they know what you’re going for.
Or when the emotional direction is obvious.
But those aren’t required.

At clown school, they never tell us what the outcome should be.
They poke, prod, nudge; but they don’t name the destination.

That’s the challenge.
And the gift.

If they knew where we were supposed to end up, maybe they’d tell us.

But they don’t.

So we must each find our own path.

🤡

Clown School Break Day 5: On Play and Depression

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In which Our Hero muses on the interaction of these forces.

The question came up at dinner:
What’s the relationship between play and depression?
Is play the antidote? Is the lack of play the cause? Or are they simply two dancers who keep stepping on each other’s toes?

My take:

  • I love Play. Play is enlivening and delightful and deeply satisfying.
  • Play is a sign of a healthy environment: one that nurtures the growth and expression of its members.
  • Some environments don’t require play or can’t support it, especially high-stress or high-stakes ones in intense moments.
  • If you lack play long enough, you will feel like crap.
  • If you can’t play with people, you won’t feel good around those people.

Blockers to play:

  • Lack of safety. If you can’t experiment or express, you shrink. The body contracts. The options narrow. The world gets small.

I often think of depression as a kind of flatness. A greying-out of inner movement. And a lot of what prevents play, at least in my own experience, is fear/anxiety. So the loop becomes:
fear/anxiety → no play → depression.
It’s not the only description of the loop, but it’s a fair one.

Another view:

  • Maybe depression is fundamentally the lack of experienced pleasure.
  • If that’s true, then you can find pleasure through play. But also through other avenues, including observation and appreciation.
  • In that framing, play is one antidote, but not the only one. (And it may not be the proper antidote for a specific situation, nor a permanent fix.)

Still, I think social play is necessary for social satisfaction.
It’s a treadmill you have to keep running on—just enough—for the system to stay stable.
Stop for too long, and you get flung off the end, cascading into a wall of lonesomeness. Start running again, and the world comes back into color.

However, you can’t force play. You can only create the context for it to naturally emerge.
Even if you’re a player?
Even if you’re the game.

Clown School Day 7: First Impulse

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In which Our Hero fails via simian ejaculation

“At the sound of the drum, you must make the sound of an animal ten seconds before it has an orgasm,” said our teacher, in his typical Swedish accent.

I chose my animal. I spotted others’ mistakes. I planned my route. I considered the method by which I was likely to fail. And then, when the time came, I failed. Bombed. Flopped. Crashed. Kathunked.

We were playing a game of cannibal chairs. It’s exactly like musical chairs, except your teacher is from Sweden. And when you’re out, if your animal’s orgasm is enjoyable enough, you’re saved.

Some students latch on to the impulse right away. They grab the failure and they start DOing. Prancing about the stage; braying like a donkey; mooing like an aroused cow, etc. Others take a beat. I decided I would be in the second category.

My first impulse is often fear. So I decided I’d wait. Take the second. Build the second wave instead of grasping at the first splash. First impulse is for those who ride external energy; second is for those who find it inside.

I noticed this dichotomy when a friend failed to find a chair, then walked to the side of the room, thunked the wall, and began his performance. The three seconds pause allowed him to collect himself. When he arrived, he arrived. His face was open, eyes shining. We loved him. Life saved.

When I failed, I latched onto the first impulse. I flailed. Yuck.

My first impulse was, as it so often is, fear.

My second impulse. Security. Comfort. Presence. That can be beautiful.

Another lesson I will need to incorporate.

One I have learned before.

Perhaps one day my first impulse will lack fear. Perhaps one day it will be honed enough to succeed. Until then, it is mere panic. And panic has no place in clown.

The Heaviest I’ve Ever Been

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I stepped on the scale today: 188.4lbs, a new record for personal mass. I showered today, too, for the first time in 11 days. My facial hair and fingernails are growing long. My van is disorganized. I say: LET ‘EM GO. 

I’ve heard of someone “letting themself go.” It typically means, “This person used to be attractive. Now they’re fat.” 

I could hit 200lbs. Perhaps I will.

Is this what happens when I release myself? When I live without restrictions? Instead of eating strict carnivore or low carb, it’s ice cream and pizza and…, oh my!

I could be a bigger man. Right now I’m just a bigger man. 

I worry. I don’t want to fall into a hole I can’t get out of. I don’t think I’m there yet though. And I’m enjoying digging. 

This Month’s Treat: 30 Days of Meat. 

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Tonight I begin 30 days as a carnivore. I told a bunch of friends today. Before each conversation, I requested no comments or concerns. Chelsea is excited for me. Jackson wants me to blog about it. Michael believes:
  1. I’m unlikely to cause significant harm
  2. I should take a multivitamin and get my cholesterol checked.

Classic Michael, prioritizing my health over my requests.

At Whole Foods, I purchased $38.79 of meat:
  • 0.63lbs Salmon
  • 1.12lbs Pork Belly
  • 1.08lbs Ground Beef
  • 1.24lbs Ribeye Steak
  • 0.37 lbs Pork Chops
Tonight, at 1am, I complete a three-day fast. Then, for at least 30 days, I shall eat:
  • Meat, obviously
  • Salt & pepper
If I want to “cheat”, I shall expand to:
  • Butter
  • Eggs
My final rung of falling further:
  • Heavy cream
  • Hard cheeses
Huh, these are all the items I tend toward anyway…
…
…
…
Wish me luck.
Want to hear about a specific aspect of this experiment? Send me a message or tack on a comment. It helps me know how to tailor my writing. 

“Thwack!” goes my head, pummeling the van door.

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“Thwack!” goes my head, pummeling the van door.

See bright spots of light. Can’t balance no more.

Closed out my phone call, “I love you. Uh, bye.”

Stumbled to my knees, my head hanging high.

 

Called my chum Em’ly, the reason I’m here

Coordinated as if drunk on beer.

“I’ll call you in ten,” she said and hung up,

so I wondered whether I was wrung up. 

 

Am I concussed? I had seen stars. And my

neck mashed. From whacking it hard and uh, high.

Big ol’ thwackin’! A painful a-whackin’!

I pray the world fades not to, uh, black, and

 

but if it does, at least I’d’ve learned… Not

much of anything. An accident turned

me into a grave. A silly way to

die. In future, I’ll be A-More-Aware-of-Surroundings Guy.

 

I worried about permanent nerve damage for the first time today.

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I worried about permanent nerve damage for the first time today.

On Monday I underwent sleep apnea surgery. I wasn’t afraid. I trusted my surgeon.

I had my first post-op visit today. I’m healing a half-week ahead of schedule. My surgeon removed most of the rubber bands holding my jaw closed. He said my muscles were still too weak to hold my jaw in place. He showed me how to replace bands that snapped.

Two hours later, I moved a band to make my right and left sides symmetrical. My maxilla, lower lip, and parts of my chin went numb. I had recently regained feeling in these parts, having lost it after surgery. Losing it again concerned me. My speech deteriorated. I sweat in fear.

I sent a message to my surgeon. Those can take days to return. I called his office. They close at 5. I called a doctor I knew. She said permanent nerve damage can’t be done overnight.

I believe her. I still feel panicked. Each sensation in the chin prompts terror. Sure, they remind me I have sensation there, but they also feel like a stretched nerve. Worse, I still feel pain from the surgery and can’t separate the normal surgery pain from any pain I might have caused. My mind spins:

  • Will a stretched nerve always regain sensation over time, just as happened in the days post-surgery?
  • If properly-placed bands are holding my teeth in the right position, will I definitely be all right?
  • How much leeway do I have in the band placement? (I.e. I am pulling my jaw forward slightly more than when I left the doctor’s office. Is that safe?)
  • Did I cause myself permanent nerve damage?

I’ve never dealt with questions like this before. They terrify me.

If I die Monday, may my tombstone read,“Died doing what he loves.”

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On Monday I go in for Jaw Surgery. If I die, I want my tombstone to read, “Died doing what he loves.[1]”

I’ve never seen a footnote on a tombstone. Nor ellipses. I’m updating the medium. The joke makes it more palatable.

I joke because I’m afraid. I’m afraid because it’s frightening. I’ve never been closer to death than I will be on Monday.

I’ve always mused on death. I wrote my first auto-obituary at 13. The same way some people use the largesse of space to decrease their anxiety; I use death to accept depression. When I wake up late enough that I feel grumpy, the phrase “death and taxes” echoes in my mind. It reminds me of two crucial elements – timeliness and humor. One makes today matter and the other makes life worth living.

I’m spending tomorrow and Sunday advising a local high school youth group, and Saturday with my dad. If I die, let it be known I went out doing what I loved.

 

[1] Self improvement.

…

…

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Okay, cocaine.