Lance Allred the official website of the Lance Allred who is not the professional Poker player

The Pesaro Poems-

I have released my second written piece, THE PESARO POEMS, and you can now buy it online for kindle at amazon.com
THE PESARO POEMS-

I am currently working on publishing the pdf format to be purchased through my/this website, so that the book can be bought for other ebook formats as well as for those who wish to download it and read on computer or simply print it out.

Approximately 130 pages word processor pages, depending on the format.

The Pesaro Poems, is a collection of poems in varying forms, that I use to tell a narrative of my time in Italy last season, in what may have been the darkest, and also most important time of my life. Would I wish to go through it again? Heavens no.
As you read through the book, hopefully you will see the transition that I was forced to undertake. I either had to quit, or shift. I chose the latter.
I am interested in other's interpretations of the poems, as well will answer any questions that one may have. But most likely, if the poems don't make sense to you, you are not, or have not gone through the transition that I speak of. But, I will still do my best to explain.

I thank you all for the support. In the face of being told the paperback edition of LONGSHOT was indefinitely postponed, I had one of two choices- sulk and give up writing, or keep writing, just because I choose to. I write to write. Not for money. But because I simply choose to.

Once again, I appreciate the support, and please check back within a few days for other pdf formats to buy the PESARO POEMS, if you do not have a kindle reader. As well, thank you for recommending my works through your own voices and suggestions to others.

Lance Allred

YOUTUBE!

Mac and Me

I figured it was time to integrate myself a little better into the 21st century, and so I finally opened a youtube account.

Last week I was in New Orleans. Love that city. If you read my book, you will already know that I love that city, but last week I went down to a National P.A.L. convention, pursuing other avenues, mostly in the motivational speaking format, and while I was there, I made many great friends, and great connections. And this time, without the pressures of basketball, I was able to truly enjoy the city. Had a fantastic time. If you are going anytime soon... BE SURE to hit Irvin Mayfield's Jazz Playhouse on Bourbon Street. Best live jazz I have ever heard.

To follow through on the connections I made in New Orleans, and to further push through into this new arena, I decided to capture clips of two productions I participated in within the last year, and convert them onto youtube. Hopefully, you enjoy. And no, I will not be reading the comments on youtube..... lots of mean and lonely people out there in cyberspace.

Thank you for your support, and yes, I am still writing! Lots of stuff churning in the head.

Award winning production from the Massachusetts School of Law

Speech/lecture given at Penn State University

Fever-

So, I woke up with a fever of 102 this morning. I finally decided to go to the hospital. The healthy, holistic route can only go on so long.
As I made it to the hospital here in Montana, I was new and was not in the books. So, with a burning body, a raging headache, and I suspect some frothing in the mouth, I focused as well as I could while filling out the application. All the while, the receptionist is asking me questions, that I have to squint my eyes to recall from memory the answers to. It is about 2 minutes into this process, that I realize she is asking me the same questions that I am struggling to answer on the application.
"Why do I need to write these answers down, when you are already typing them in the computer as we go along?"
"Hospital policy."
"So, twice as much work to get these same answers into one place?"
"Hospital policy."
I take a deep breath as I feel a seizure rumbling beneath the surface.

Dying Young-

Sorry, I know, I know I don't update as much as I should. But does a music artist, put up music for free?
On a serious note, I am a writer, not a blogger. Blogging for me, is more unchecked, rambling thought, and I know myself well enough that when I blog, the ego wants to come out and be one more of the many nameless faces offering their unrequested two cents and rather mean opinions. (Check youtube, it still blows my mind sometimes.) But I guess it is easier for most people to say those type of things if they can remain a nameless face, and not have full accountability for it.
But with that said: Go, Butler. Go, disciplined, scrappy basketball. I hear a lot of people complaining that this year's final four is anti-climactic. Are you serious?! This is the best tournament I have seen in a long while, excepting for the part how the officials are letting Duke back into the game against Baylor. That is no good. But Baylor, are you really going to give Duke 24 offensive rebounds? Really?
We have 3 games left this season. But we are for all intents and purposes, finished. This will be my first season ever, where I am not competing in post-season play. It is an odd feeling- walking out there onto the court, with no ultimate objective, other than to just play and win this game, just for the sake of competing.
But, can I follow through on my commitment to myself, when I returned to Boise this year, to just play, to play. Nothing else, no call-up, no validation? And I have done it thus far, and.... I will do it for these last 3 games of this season, and maybe last 3 of my career. Can I leave it all on good terms? Can I walk away, an athlete dying young, before his gradual demise, and be grateful for the time that I had?
Can I walk away, knowing that my greatest accomplishment in basketball, was not a call-up, but rather being able to return to the d-league, and just playing to play and enjoying myself, for the first time, in a long time, allowing me to bid it farewell, this game that has been my life for more than half-my life now, with no bitterness or remorse, but with gratitude?

To An Athlete Dying Young-

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields were glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.

-A.E. Housman

Brave New World-

It seems I write faster than what the publishing world is ready to publish.... so, I have been having some ideas, dreams even of just publishing myself, and lining it up through kindle/amazon , and eventually through the ipad and other areas. I am furthermore looking through publishing in adobe format, that people can buy and read, and print out on their own printer, if they so choose to, if reading on a digital screen becomes too taxing on their eyes.
Sure, I would love my books to be..... solid books, published by the conventional means. But this digital route this allows me to write at my own pace.
Whereas, while I have been waiting for publisher moves on my other books, I have grown stagnant, and even disinterested in writing, but if I take my own initiative here, I can churn out as much as I like, when I like, still holding the possibility for future publishing houses to pick up my books at later dates.
Soon to come, within the next month, God and Shield.
My historical fiction that I have been working on, off and on, for over 5 years. It is my baby. Based on several true characters, some tied together at my own convenience for purposes of story, between the years 1297 and 1302 AD, the main character travels the european landscape as an errant knight, eventually joining the Teutonic Order, the German based Christian Military Order which crusaded in the Pagan lands of modern day Poland, Lithuania and Russia.
Look for it soon, with details forthcoming of where and how to purchase.

No Man’s Land-

I probably had my worst game of the season tonight.
Just as I was finally beginning to get my rhythm and shooting with confidence, the all-star break came last weekend and we had 10 days off between our next game. The first day back of practice I sprained my ankle.

I have played on far worse, so I figured it was no biggie and I went and played tonight, and was just God-awful. Awful. I missed my first few shots to the left, as I favored my ankle when I jumped and leaned left, thus explaining why I missed it. But then after that, I started thinking, and then I started aiming, rather than just shooting the ball. The flow had left me.

I came home and all the old negative patterns of thought and post-game analysis in my head returned, for the first time in a long time. I started to care again, but for the wrong reasons.

I still care in that I still care about winning. I don’t play basketball to get my ass kicked in front of thousands of people. No, I still play to win. That much I know.

But tonight I started to care, like the Lance of old, and beat myself up, especially over the 2 airballs I shot tonight, and thought, how much did I embarrass myself in front of all of those people, those fans of the home crowd tonight? And furthermore, how bad did I look to scouts if they were watching... And then I stopped myself. It was the first time, in a long time, that I allowed myself to play that game in my mind. I know myself well enough to know that my ego had returned tonight, in full force.
It is still ok to car for my own pleasure and wanting to play well, because I enjoy playing; this is a good kind of caring. But caring what others say or think, or caring for their validation, is purely egoic, my ego, wanting to feel superior, to feel coddled. And when my ego becomes the basketball player, and not me, I forget why I even play in the first place, why I even started to play when I was young- because I enjoyed it.

But when the ego is the one on the court, I am playing for validation, recognition, flattery, and while those may all help me find success from time to time, at the end of the day, it all ends with some sort of suffering, some sort of lack, because all of those things are meaningless in the end, all of those things fade away. The one thing that will never fade, is my sense of self.

I don’t say much anymore, not nearly as much as I used to, because the watcher in me is so alert for the ego, that I feel almost uncomfortable to say anything, watching for bits of the ego creeping into my thoughts, needing to feel separate and unique.

“Why do I need to say this?” I ask myself all the time now. “What will it get me? Am I only saying it to feel special, unique? To gain respect or admiration from another? If so, then that is lacking in humility, and purely of egoic nature.”

And so, I seem to be lost somewhere in a no-man’s land. Still living in a world of basketball, but no longer enamored with all the glitz and glamour of the western world, and those fleeting material possessions, which always fade away, always. I have been to the top, and I saw it, and it has no appeal to me anymore, for it is a world of pain, of egoic consumption, with more, more, more and then some more needed, the ego believes and then it will truly be happy..... but once you get what you want, that elusive destination or possession that you believed would make you happy, it quickly fades. And once again you are swallowed up in the illusion of another possession needed to fill the void within ourselves, believing that will make you happy.

IF you study atoms, it can be argued that everything is an illusion. The atoms in our bodies, are made up of 99.99% space, such is the ratio of the nucleus of the atom to the electrons that circumvent it. The .01% percent is then only felt on a material level in which human body can process. Everything else, is space, filled in by the human mind with its 5 senses. When you see the world this way, you kind of see yourself in a cosmic joke, but not a sad one. And when everyting around us, is thus an illusion, then the only thing that truly exists, is the consciousness in our minds, the Being, that each of us Is.

I was living in the past for a few hours tonight, and I was unhappy. It is only in the present moment, this moment that I have right now, as I type, that I can find happiness. For Now, this moment, is all that I have. The future does not exist, until it exists, and when it does, it will be Now. But until, it does not exist, so why should I hope to find happiness in a place that does not exist? The only place that does exist is now, and therefore the only place I can find happiness, is Now.

I can accept the truth that I am frustrated, and I can be at peace with that. I don’t have to fight it, or be ashamed of it. And when I accept that truth, the feeling actually begins to have space around it, in my mind, like a little thought bubble in comics, separate from the rest of my mind, and no longer running the show, but on the side there. I can acknowledge that the frustration is still there without letting it consume me.

Life seems to be propelling me in a new direction, details of which I am not yet able to share, as they are all still in the works, and not quite concrete, and I can accept that. I can be in a place of least resistance, without myself being passive. For when we fight our reality and argue why, why!?, that is where the most pain comes from. That is where my greatest source of pain has consumed me- fighting what is. It is a fine balance to be in a place of least resistance, without being passive or fatalistic.

Until these other avenues of my life begin to unfold more clearly, I will continue to dwell somewhere in a no man’s land, half awake, still enjoying the game, but no longer interested in the world of basketball itself, for she is dying, eating away at her core from within. A shift is coming, not just in basketball, but all around us.

If you do not understand what I say, then you don’t. There is nothing I can do or say that will help you see it, until you are ready to see it in your own due time. And it is not my job to wake others up, nor is it anyone else's. My job, is to to wake myself up. The same goes for everyone else.

But while I am here in this land of gray, I will still play to play, and play to win, for I love the game that much, and I can love her unconditionally, knowing that she does not have much to offer me anymore, other than the relationships I make, for those are real, and those are lasting, and those are the only things that we take with us. But she still does have something to offer me, but it is only on the court, in the moment, in the Now, when that ball whips through the net. For in that moment, in the Now, I Am. Nothing more, nothing less. I just Am.

I Am, is the light and the way. - Jesus of Nazareth.

Shift-

Shift-

Yes, you have Tolle on your shelf to fake
Us, Lance, but are you Dead enough to read it?
You may be awake, but are you Awake?
-Enough to see the apocalyptic

Truth, that is nothing and everything,
All at once? Can you see the ego fight
With its rabid teeth, holding its being
Separate and unique, special and right?

Are you watching the ego, as it writes
Its own paradoxical eulogy
Which calls for its demise, yet with spite
Its own self-martyred immortality,

With these very words being written here
Now?- A blood trail, to a grand sepulchre,
Where reads, carved and enshrined with special care
“Here rests my identity, remember

Me always, please? I was special. I was.”
I really was though. I was supposed to
Be a hero, an inspiration that does
Or did amazing things- even save you.

I was to be a source of good and light
To help those who had been lost, to be found,
To be right, But alas, I...... I,I,i,i.
That is all that I truly am- a sound.

And being right? Well, that’s overrated.
Once that illusion, your truth, waxes thin
You’ll seek another conflict, with heated
Self-importance to keep you from within;

To keep you from the present- lost somewhere
In that bright past, where you are always right,
Or in that dangerous, hopeful future
Where you will never fade into the night.

Welcome, Lance, to the present, to the Now,
And all that really is- Now. The past does
Not exist: its Now came and went with a bow,
Just as the future will come without fuss.

Now- is all that you truly have. Nothing
Else. Now. No more, no less. Just Now. All else
Is an image in your mind, just a fling
Of emotions that you carve with brain cells

To create a figment- an identity.
A,e,i,o,u and some other sounds,
That’s about it: what our minds can say and see.
Yet you think you can define and ground

God? You think, with only 5 vowels, a few
Vibrations that human vocal chords can
Make with which human ears can hear, that you
Can establish the Universe? Silly Lance.

Welcome to a new place, where the ego
Cannot dwell, cannot judge, cannot fear- Now.
And where is Now? A void- A place of no-
self. And in no-self, what Is, you allow.

You accept, love and most important-
You forgive. And when you truly forgive
The ego dies, for there is no conflict.
And the ego needs conflict to survive,

It needs to be a victim, it needs to
Hold on to the merit badges of past
To make its identity, of who you are.
But be still, forgive, forgive and alas

Go into the void: be nothing. Feel how
You’re nothing and everything all at once.
But, if I am nothing, who I am I Now?
Do I still like Trix? Can I still dance

In the shower to Bryan Adams songs?
Can I still be funny, clever with wit?
Which traits, will my essence then carry on,
When we cross that veil which we so fear? What

Traits are my own Being and not the ego?
My head hurts- Because I am destructing,
And ‘cause my ego is pissed off right now.
But I will continue on, attracting

Others who are Awake, others who can
Hear me, who can see me, beyond the blind
Physical world of confining illusions.
Let the shift begin; Let the shift begin.

And let those who still need to Awake, Awake
In their own due paradoxes of time;
For time only exists- Now. Shift and quake,
Rattle the walls of every paradigm,

And be free; free to die and Be. So, shift!
For the great “unveiling” soon comes: Now, shift.

Boise-

Yes, yes. I have returned to Boise.
And I am happy, very happy to be back.
After wandering aimlessly in a sea of bitterness, with my ego looking for some identity, some collective ego, in which to associate itself, I have now come full circle, back to Boise. And with that, back in Boise, I reserve the right to be happy, and to enjoy Boise; to enjoy stepping on the court and being welcomed; to enjoy being home, my basketball home; to enjoy being able to play for me, nothing else, not for money or acceptance; to play and be happy in Boise, no longer having to feel or believe it a basketball purgatory, which so many of us have been convinced it to be.
No, Boise is my home. And I am proud to be home, and playing close to my family, playing basketball the way I want to play basketball and the way I know how. Money comes, money goes. I have made mistakes with that. But I have learned now. And most importantly, I forgive.
I forgive those who have wronged me. I forgive God and I forgive reality for not being what I or my ego had wanted it to be. And most importantly I forgive myself.
Forgiveness, I have learned, is the most powerful emotion. It does not have to mean you absolve or excuse others of their wrongs, but it does mean that you free yourself, it does mean that you no longer have to find your identity in the pain and bitterness that you harbor, towards whatever that has caused you pain. It means that you can free yourself from your ego. And my ego is vicious.

This last month alone, I have gone places in my mind, quiet places, that I never knew existed. I barely recognize myself anymore when I look in a mirror. At some point I decided whatever feeling of tension, anxiety or conflict that was stirring up within me, had a cause, had a root, triggered by a person or an event.
And when I feel something other than peace, I ask what is causing it, and if it is not a direct person, or if it is a choice I made, I then allow me to forgive myself, and then say “oh well, it is, what it is."
If reality is not what I wish for it to be, I accept it, and forgive it and then accept fully it and then love it.
As well, I forgive God for not making sense. And when there is nothing but forgiveness, there are no merit badges of pain and hurt and sorrow defining me anymore, and therefore the brain and ego go very still. I am empathetic to other people and there problems, but I am not sympathetic, because I am not sympathetic to myself, because at the end of the day, the people that hurt me, will never validate me, so why give them any more? (Natural disasters, like Haiti, currently, are a whole other issue, and that I ache for. I pray for them.)
Instead I can forgive them, those who have done wrong, and not even care if that means they are absolved for their actions or their own karma. This then allows me, and my own- to be my own.
I just say, “oh well,” and shrug, and then say, “I forgive you.” To me, this is maybe the greatest precursor to gratitude, which some say is the most powerful emotion. But to me, you cannot have gratitude without forgiveness; especially forgiveness of my own self and the choices I made. 'Oh well, I forgive you.' Now what is next?
I can forgive now, for truly one's actions towards me are only a manifestation of what is stewing inside of them and if they be of ill will, it only means they have conflict within that forces conflict without and thus it is not about me, but about them. Nothing is ever truly what it seems.
And so, I can forgive, and I forgive out loud, with names being spoken, every time I feel the angst or anger rising, so much so now, that I don't think of them anymore, nor do I care what dues they receive, if at all. For in my reality, I am nothing, yet anything and everything all at once, and I forgive my reality at times for what it is, and I accept it and therefore can love it.

And thus, I am free.

A shout out-

To my former coach, and current head coach of the Louisiana Tech Men's Basketball, Kerry Rupp, and his Bulldogs, who are now 14-2. Can't say I am surprised as to how he has turned that program around. I am proud of him, and always grateful for the lessons he taught me in the short time that we were given together, which seems like a lifetime ago. I will always remember those early morning practices fondly, and often times miss terribly.

It was sad when the University of Utah did not extend him past his interim head coach duties back in 04, but that only forced him to walk a different path, a longer path, to get to where he needed to be now.... and he is all the better coach and better man for it.

Merry Christmas-

I got to spend my first Christmas with my family at home in years.... for example, I spent my last christmas flying to Albuquerque, New Mexico to play a game the next day, but only ended up catching the flu anyway, making it all for naught.

Furthermore, with the downtime that I have very much appreciated, I was able to finish my book, God and Shield, my historical fiction about a teutonic knight. I have actually been working on that book since 2005, so I am grateful I finally finished it. It truly became a love/hate relationship with that book.

Lately, I have had many people run into me or send me emails lately about how much they enjoyed Longshot, but with the truth that they got it from the library. On one hand, I am grateful that they got to hear my story and it helped them in some way, but there is no sort of record that keeps track of how many times my book was checked from the library- only overall book sales. So, while yes, it is nice that people are growing to know my story, it does not help future prospects for more books to be published, when consumers get them from the library or even buy them used on amazon, because in the capitalist market we live in, if my books don't sell, I can't continue to write more books.... it's a vicious catch-22 with the library system and amazon.

Who knew the public library system would actually become my enemy?

Here is to hoping the paperback, which will be much cheaper than the hardback, takes off when it comes out in May. I've always wanted to be a paperback writer.....

Happy New Year, and please do me a favor and don't set a new year's resolution, instead set a resolution today. You don't need some abstract day called January 1st, to make a goal, when you can make one at any moment, whenever you want.