I was working late again and I missed my buddy’s basketball game.  They were missing a travel kid, and the kid who always gets hurt broke his collar bone recently.  I called him after the game and he said that they lost 16-10.

I asked him how many points he scored (it’s usually one or two baskets that he gets on 3 or 4 shots) and he said “ten”, in a very matter-of-fact tone that is his way.

Amazed, I said, “TEN!?…did I hear that right?”  And so on.

He only missed 2 or 3 shots and said it was the best game he ever played.  One shot was from really far out and the coach was yelling  his name in disgust about the shot selection when it went “swish”.  He was animated about that.

Better than that, he is finally stealing balls and tipping passes.  He says he got 4 or 5 turnovers himself and tipped about 8 balls, some of which were turnovers.  He also had 4 or 5 rebounds.  So I really, really wish I could have been there to see this but it was still nice to hear.

In other news, I finally wore the Jeter cologne.  Long story, but the project was going full blast and I decided later in the day that I needed to stay to the night shift to get with the night nurses who work 11pm to 7am.  So I got the suite that we have for the families and worked a 7am to 7pm day and then went to dinner and came back and worked 10 to 3am or so.  By the time I wound down and slept, I really only had about 2 hours of sleep and I didn’t have a change of clothes.  I washed up but after a long day, you begin to ferment a bit.  So I remembered that I had this sample vial of Jeter’s cologne that someone had given me to annoy me last year.  I figured it would cover any “issues” and I think it did–I just smelled like a grapefruit.  Seriously, have you smelled this stuff?  To really be like Jeter, you need to have ALL your co-workers be paid the most in their profession, thus insuring your success.  That way, when everyone catches a whiff of the grapefruit, they can start gushing about how great you are.  And that joke probably went pastadivingjeter…

CueSight Technologies – Better Mousetrap

Click here to open CueSight Technologies (Billiards) in a new window

A while back, we mentioned an innovative company called CueSight Technologies. They are located just out side of Charlotte, NC. The CEO of CueSight has commented on the Pinetar Rag a couple of times and he is an awfully nice guy and was telling us recently that he has sold a few of these cues from folks who read the original post.

Here’s what we were talking about:

To order: the coupon code to take 10% off is “pinetar” (no quotes)

The cue is a wooden cue that is top notch in every way. The only difference is the tip as you can see. The center of the tip has a laser in it and it will show you your aim point on the cue ball. Many, many players do not realize just how much their stroke MOVES their aim point, en-route to the ball.

I for one, realize and work on my tendency to bring my right hand (rear on the cue) in, toward my body as I stroke and that causes my cue tip to move to the right, plain and simple. I also don’t take enough practice strokes to settle myself because after a few of those pure cane sugar root beers they have down at the poolroom, I’m in a jittery, sugary, rush. All in all, it’s bad for my game and my game could use the help.

Now you purists might think the hole in the tip is a terrible thing but think about it. When you need the tip to grab the ball, you are either shooting for good draw, or big follow or even a little swerve. In that case, the contact is going to be off the plum center of the cue anyway, so I don’t think you lose a thing in terms of “contact-friction”, when you actually need it.

There’s one other thing I might be inclined to do with this product and that is to fool around with long shots with no cue ball. Just test your own ability to sight across the table. You know the shot; coast to coast. As TomB said, “…Lotta pumpkin…” (because Tim’s table had pumpkin colored felt). Some nights, that’s all you seem to get left to you. So my thought was to sight across the table at an object ball with the laser and see how well you can keep the laser ON the aimpoint. I’ll bet you the result will shock and horrify you. Then again maybe not.

***

One other point about CueSight Equipment. I found a nice selection of books and videos. That’s not easy. I’ve combed the internet looking for this kind of stuff and usually end up on Amazon slogging through pages and pages of stuff, without knowing where the beginning or end was. Here, they have brought together some decent stuff all in one place.

Click here to go to CueSight Billiards Books and Videos page

Pool is a hard game. Hard. Make no mistake. But you play your whole life and there are many levels. Not all of us want to live over the table and become a road player. You find your level. But to improve is a tricky thing. You can talk to people, and, if they’ll talk you’ll hear all sorts of nonsense. You can watch, and that helps. But a good book can accelerate your development by years. I remember the first pool book I picked up. The first line of that book was “…if you are picking up this book, then you are probably hitting the balls too hard.”

Bingo! Wow. I was impressed. He was right. How did he know? There are times I STILL hit the balls too hard. It’s just a human nature truism, but he came right at you with it. The book was loaded with stuff like throwing the object ball with side English. How bumpers stop working well when they get old or when you hit the ball too hard (a bigger angle? Or does it shallow out?). Now who’s going to tell you all that stuff? The book is.

The other thing I did that improved my game when it was stuck at a level was when my Uncle showed me a game called 21. In that game you can make points by billiard as well as pocketing. Because of the billiard aspect, it was the first time I followed the cue ball closely AFTER the contact with the object ball. [Cue angels singing] I had never really followed it before. The ball banger ALWAYS watches his object ball disappear and ONLY THEN picks the cue ball back up. By then, you’ve missed that crucial billiard angle that it comes off at. You’re never ever going to learn position unless you know that angle the cue ball will come off at. I STILL don’t follow whitey as much as I should.

***

My nephew Max, and I, are developing a new game that is shaping up to be wildly popular (with us anyway). Max is the director of R&D and he has given me the big thumbs up to go and build the prototype. He had fun playing the “proof of concept rig” yesterday with his Uncle. I have been sketching this thing on napkins for 2 years now and decided that it’s time to build the thing or forget it.

Without giving too much away, this is a game that will be about the size of a bumper pool table. It will be floor standing and permanent, like furniture. You can play standing or sitting down. Two people compete at the same time. It can be scored manually (look and see method) or electronically (Max is in favor of some type of auto-scoring system and I told him I could do it). There are many variations of scoring, or game structure that can be devised, much like pool; ie: Rotation, 8-Ball, 9-Ball.

I’ve always felt that golf and pocket billiards (I hate the term “pool”) are cousins and now I think I’ve invented the perfect marriage of the two. A game that will attract both types of enthusiast! A game that could be found in a poolroom as well as the 19th hole at a golf club, not to mention, the potential for home sales and home game rooms.

The thing is not patented, so I must keep my mouth shut. When the prototype is working, I will want some of you NJ locals to come demo it and be my focus group. Scott Taylor, I’d love to show it to you at some point because you have already been down this road and it is an intimidating road, for sure. More to come.

***

One last thing: If you go see the new Rambo movie, well, then, I can’t help you.

Stone Cold Dead In The 1- Hole

An amazing page from “The Bank Shot and Other Great Robberies: The Uncrowned Champion of Pocket Billiards Describes His Game and How It’s Played”. The book is about Rudolph Wanderone, AKA: Double Smart Fats; New York Fats; Minnesota Fats. I had done a post recently on it and yet I can’t resist this story. While reading the book, you know that most of the stories are embellished, but if even half of them are true or if all of them are half true, then gadzooks, this guy is some piece of work. And, he’s of Swiss descent! We have to stick together, you know?

[Here's the cover shot.  All the photos of Fats that I have seen show him as a right hander.  Now how the heck do they reverse the photo that they use on the cover and make him a lefty!?] 

Click here to open the book in a new window via Amazon dot com

Taped in front of a live audience

Taping and striping goes on and on. And on. And then touching up

The question comes up: Why do you keep the tape? Why not throw it out? Well, a couple of reasons. One, it is simply easier to unstick it from your hands if you can just pass it over the other tape and pull away. Functional. Two, it is a nice visual cue that I have done some work when I see all the tape. Psychological.

I’m finally (yesterday) at the point where I’m at peace with the final statue. Is it done? No. But I no longer see more negative things (details that annoy me) than the overall positive impact. Make sense? There’s a point where the piece is 99% unchanging and you either accept it or get mad every time you look at it because, in the words of Tommy LaSorda, you “…swam 4 miles and drowned a yard offshore…” I’m not a big LaSorda fan, but I like the visual. It means you did a lot of work but quit right at the very finish and ruined it all. But you didn’t need me to tell you that.

***
I always thought it would be cool to build my own pool table. I’m not doing it, mind you. I don’t have the (1) space (2) time (3) money etc. But you think about it. And then you think, “…if I’m building it, I’m not limited to traditional shapes.” Why not round? What would that be like…hmm. Then you wonder, “Where would the pockets go?” Or would it be a pocketless billiard table (the way the game was originally invented, where points are scored for contact between cue and object ball and not sinking them in pockets)

Then I found this guy [Click here to launch the math-pool-guy in a new window]

I stole a few of his animated gifs here. My high school algebra teacher would be all over this…

Famous Swiss Americans for $200

I’m currently finishing up this book.  Great book.  New York Fats was an amazing character.  The stories are right out of Damon Runyon, in fact, when Fats was playing on Broadway in the 20s and 30s, Runyon would be in the poolrooms.  And Babe Ruth, and Leo Durocher and Bing Crosby and on and on.  It was a much bigger business and pass time than it is now.  And Fats, apparently, was about the best there was.  Who was THE best?  Mosconi?  Greenleaf?  Lassiter?  Who knows.  Maybe Fats.  At one-pocket anyway, he says he was.  A good, fun read and a look into another, zany time. 

Laser Guided Whats?

(“…Kenny Lofton is swinging for the fences…what’s up with that?”)

Click here to open the Laser Guided site up in a new window

 

I guess I should have imagined. First gunsmiths using lasers to set sights and now this.  Trouble is, the laser will only tell you where you are striking the cue ball and not the object ball.  I suppose for beginners, it could be instructive as to where to hit the cue ball for different shots; stop, follow, draw.  Those are the big three.  I try NEVER to use left/right if I can help it because it just makes the shot so much harder.  But that said, I guess I do use bottom-left and bottom-right at times but true side english?  Hard.  Pool is a hard game.  Like golf, you could torture yourself with it for a lifetime.  It is a beautiful game, however, what with it’s geometry and physics and a healthy mental aspect thrown in.  Oh well, I hope the guy makes a few bucks with it.

Some Creedence for Page

Just ordered the complete Creedence Clearwater Revival boxed set on amazon containing every note they ever put on vinyl as well as some outtakes which are always fun. Fogerty is unique and the playing is great for the sculpting work–long jams that get you in a groove and keep you there. So it’s basically a business expense. It’s amazing how quickly you blow through 11 gigs of music on an MP3 player while sitting/crouching/kneeling/standing around with the tools and wood. So much so that I’ll even take a flyer on some Edith Piaf. Anything.

And musically, I don’t much care anymore about the music that I used to get all worked up about in my youth. In fact, the one overwhelming thought whenever I listen to, or think about the music that I listened too (mostly classic rock, the usual), is embarrassment. Because we took this stuff so seriously and it is SUCH A JOKE! These guys had really very little talent and we just worshipped them all out of proportion with what it was. I see it all from my dad’s perspective now. Dad, you were right. They were a bunch of overpaid bums.

That’s not to say that I still won’t appreciate some artistry from time to time, but for the most part, it’s not worth talking about. Take Jimmy Page for instance. I was listening to the new Zeppelin channel on XM coming into work today and they were playing the live Dazed and Confused and they get to that part where Page plays the electric guitar with a violin bow (cue Spinal Tap). I almost drove off the road laughing and I was laughing at how reverently we kids talked about this act. How much esteem we held this in. It was like Page was Jesus for banging a bow on a guitar and making just the most rudimentary amplified noisy sounds! hahaha! He’s a real Joshua Haifitz, isn’t he? hahaha. What a rocket scientist there. Actually, it was brilliant, just not musically, but rather it was brilliant in the same way that P.T. Barnum was brilliant in that he hoodwinked a generation of some pretty smart people into thinking this was “cool”. I bought in. Now I laugh.

But Page is special musically in some ways still. I laugh at his sloppy play and just horrible technique; particularly live. You can listen to the drugs take his playing as the years go by. It starts out decent and steadily declines all the way from 1970 to 1980, when he was so cooked that he wouldn’t have won a high school talent show (Knebworth). But Page was a great producer of records and he got some great sounds like the tube miking for Houses of the Holy and In My Time of Dying. Good production, sloppy play. But the sloppy play is forgivable because most don’t listen close enough to really hear it anyway and it certainly didn’t hurt their sales.

There is a phrase in the song, In My Time of Dying where Plant is singing in silence, “Oh My Jesus, Oh My Jesus, Oh My Jesus, Oh My Jesus,” several times. On the “Oh”, start counting. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4 etc. Page comes in with the slide on a 3, and I’ve always thought that where he comes in is TOTALLY unexpected, but perfectly brilliant, if such a thing can be. The timing is exquisite. I would never think to DO that, if it were me. And I find that while listening to Page, you follow along and mentally try and anticipate what note should follow and he’s always going to a note that (a) I wouldn’t think to (b) is very pleasing.

So I look at it this way. If you broke everyone’s guitar solos/riffs into one-note-at-a-time, and graded them for each note selected in “pleasingness” to the general public, Page’s batting average would be Ty Cobb high. He just “gets it” and selects the best note most of the time or certainly a high percentage of the time. There’s a reason everybody liked, and still likes, those Zep tunes. You want to say he’s brilliant? Ok, fine, whatever. But leave the bow out of it.

Reading a tremendous book on Kid Delicious called Running the Table. What a great book! You hate to finish it because you just don’t want it to end. It’s interesting reading for me also because of the statue I’m doing. I find a lot of the stuff Delicious deals with or experiences to be similar–very, very, eerily similar, but of course on a much smaller scale. The maniacal aspect of it and the highs and lows of self esteem and mood swings, tied directly to how it’s going. Getting in the zone when time becomes elastic and you just feel like superman for a while. Then also the times where it all seems so elusive and pointless. A very good book. I hope they don’t scroogie up the movie (they will). Kid Delicious should play himself!

Click here to launch Kid Delicious’ site in a new window

Delicious’ Road Partner is a pretty fair painter.  I like the style and I am tough

Stymied

You know, when I started this blog, there were times when I was just OBsessed with posting and looking at the hits and stats but tonight, I find myself totally stymied.  I have nothing.  Nothing that I want to write about.  I am excited about the European Cup Final but that is May 23.  Too far off.  I am excited that I picked up Sheilds in fantasy baseball and he goes 9 shutout innings tonight (but I don’t get the Win or even the Complete Game or the Shut Out because the DRays lost 1-0 in 10).  But beyond that, and the feeling that Ethier, Luke Scott and Orlando Hudson make me look like I know what I’m doing, I am not that fired up about anything.  Ooohh, maybe Curt Schilling’s remarks re Bonds were pithy but then he recanted the whole shootin match.  France shows some life and elects a pro-Bush leader.  Brent Bozell’s Wed column was better than in the past few weeks as he has been slumping.  Coulter was a fun read.  After a long layoff from pool, I beat Ciro at Rotation again!  And played lousy.  But still, somehow, he can’t beat me a race.  Pool could be the most mental game after chess.  Not something to bet on if you have any nerves at all (I don’t so I don’t bet).  I’m pulling a lot of ticks off of McGonnigle, the cat’s, head.  Bad tick year.  My cherry trees are growing.  My tomatoes are in (so are eggplant, cukes, chard and Kale) I’m feeling older than I can ever remember because I am still really hurting from falling on my arse catching a fly in the softball game.  My hip joints are shot and I’m struggling to get comfortable at work sitting and in the car.  If this is 40, I want to punch out by 70.  Whoo ahhhh.  Phil Mushnick sent me an email in response to me telling him he should follow the British fans’ boycott of the concessions at the FA Cup final.  He said that there are only two businesses in the world where you can get away with treating your best customers like dirt: Pro Sports and drug dealing.

Out of all of that, what has me the most juiced?  Well, my nephew threw the ball over the plate today at the traveling team practice.  He made the coach take notice.  That was the best.  –fog 

Can you wear white with white after Labor Day?

Tonight at the poolroom, I lost in 9-ball but had a ball in Rotation, winning the first 3 racks.

Wells has diabetes

Read that in the paper today.  Not a big surprise.  This is a man who had gout and told the media, “I’m not giving up vodka”.