Tag Archives: pool

Chalk

Chalk billiards movieDesperation hangs in the smoke-filled air of the Crabtree, the run-down Southern California pool hall that serves as the primary setting for director Rob Nilsson’s 1996 independent drama Chalk. The locale is dirty, dank, littered with beer bottles and empty peanut shells. Thanks to the visual style of cinematographer Mickey Freeman, the air looks and feels sickly. It is no wonder that Watson (Edwin Jones), the Crabtree proprietor and a former heroin addict, spits blood or sleeps in his clothes, or that his son Jones (Johnnie Reese) always seems to be sweating. With its dilapidated centerpiece of a pool table, the Crabtree is a place where Watson’s adopted son T.C. (Kelvin Han Yee) can rule the roost hustling pool, but otherwise is terrified to leave. Which of course is at the heart of Nilsson’s metaphor: the pool hustler lifestyle is something almost cancerous and inescapable.

As one pool hustler shares with T.C., “Pool players don’t make as much as volleyball players–even dart players. If you’re not in the top 10, forget about it.” The hustler (played by “The Road Man” Chris McDonald) goes on to lament that as a result of pool, he lost his house, his wife, everything he had.

It’s an interesting perspective. Within the canon of billiards movies, many of which belie a certain romanticism toward the pool hustler, there is none as bleak as Chalk in its outlook on billiards and as hopeless in its portrayal of the player. Characters do not flash wide smiles, or run fancy trick-shots, or talk smack in the hustler’s argot. They play impatiently, the prey desperately on high school kids, and they wait listlessly for action – for opponents who may never materialize.

The main story, which takes a while to emerge from the haze, involves Jones coercing his brother T.C. to play a high-stakes game of pool against a man named Dorian James (screenwriter Don Bajema), who is a ranked professional with some anger management issues stemming from his violent past. (James is so psychotic that one truly disturbing scene has him screaming at his girlfriend to sodomize him with his own cue stick. Arguably, this scene did little to build fans for the film among the larger billiards community. As Freddy “The Beard” Bentivegna wrote in his “Encyclopedia” of Pool Hustlers, “This is evidently how Hollywood thinks a pool hustler bonds with his cue stick before a big match. [This is a] ridiculously insulting movie.”) T.C. only accepts the $10,000 match when he learns Watson is dying and this could be a chance to prove himself to his adopted father. Only later is it revealed that Jones has convinced his father to bet his entire life savings on the game.

The actual match, which consumes the last 45 minutes of the movie, is the first to win seven games in 9-ball. A variety of different editing and filming styles are used, some clearly an homage to Martin Scorsese for The Color of Money, but none succeed in giving this endless scene much life. As the players trade games, the pool drags on. Even the near rape of T.C.’s girlfriend, and the near death of Watson, don’t puncture the droll of the match. Subbing in for Yee and Bajema respectively are real-world pool sharks Billy Aguero and Chris McDonald, but even the expert billiards playing cannot pump energy into the final third of the film, which deliberately moves at an unnecessarily slow pace.

Chalk billiards movieThough the movie has trouble breathing beneath the weight of the Hollywood conventions it tries to avoid, it is refreshing to know its origin. In 1992, Nilsson, who had gained acclaim for his 1979 award-winning film Northern Lights, moved into a transient hotel San Francisco, motivated by a search for his missing brother. There he helped found the Tenderloin Action Group, a free acting workshop for homeless and inner city residents. Within the group, Nilsson discovered a number of promising performers and wrote Chalk with the help of Bajema, his longtime collaborator, around the talents of many of these nonprofessional actors.   In fact, aside from Bajema and Edwin Jones (who plays Watson), the rest of the cast are nonprofessionals.

Chalk is available to buy on DVD from Rob Nilsson’s website Citizen Cinema.

The Rifleman – “Shattered Idol”

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“The game of billiards has destroyed my naturally sweet disposition.” – Mark Twain, April 24, 1906

Among my literary loves is historical fiction, that malleable genre that permits imaginary, engaging storylines through the creative and (hopefully) well-researched use of real people, places, and events. (If you’re itching for a good read, check out some highly entertaining and educational examples, such as Twelve Fingers by Jo Soares, The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon, or The Alienist by Caleb Carr.)

Shattered IdolThus, I got a bit giddy when I first learned about and watched the December 1961 episode “Shattered Idol” from the fourth season of The Rifleman television series. The Rifleman was an American Western television show that starred Chuck Connors as Lucas McCain, a widowed Union Civil War veteran raising his son Mark (Johnny Crawford) during the 1870s and 1880s. The 30-minute episodes, all filmed in black-and-white, ran on ABC from September, 1958 to April, 1963.

The fictitious “Shattered Idol” episode begins with Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain, played by Oscar nominee Kevin McCarthy), in his trademark white suit, disheveled hair, and overgrown mustache, passing through the town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory in stagecoach, when his vehicle has wheel trouble, forcing a several day layover. Unexplainably crotchety and rude to the local denizens, including the young, author-worshiping Mark McCain, Twain opts to hole up in the town’s inn, with its solitary four-cushion billiards table, removed from any contact with anyone.

So far, so make-believe (and the author’s surliness so intentionally bewildering).

Shattered IdolIn time, Twain emerges from his room and is prodded into making a billiards wager with Mr. Russell, the local cowpoke and pool shark, who says, “Here’s $70 you play billiards as well as you write: rotten.” Twain invites Mr. Russell to set up three balls anywhere on the table and that Twain can make a successful three-cushion shot (i.e., use the cue ball to hit the other two balls while also contacting three cushions). Twain makes the winner-takes-all shot, pockets the winnings, and dismisses his buffoonish opponent.

Twain’s demonstrated billiards acumen is rooted in history. According to biographer Albert Bigelow Paine, who wrote The Boys’ Life of Mark Twain (1916), Twain was passionate about billiards. Paine writes:

Every Friday evening, or oftener, a small party of billiard lovers gathered, and played until the late hour, told stories, smoked till the room was blue, comforting themselves with hot Scotch and general good-fellowship. Mark Twain always had a genuine passion for billiards. He never tired of the game. He could play all night. He could stay until the last man gave out from sheer weariness, then he would go on knocking the balls about alone.

In fact, Twain’s billiards room served as his “office, study and private domain…away from the bustle of a busy household, it was the place where the author would write his great works, fanning the manuscripts on the billiard table to be edited.”[1]

Shattered Idol

The real Mark Twain

“Shattered Idol” includes another historical fact – the early death of Twain’s son Langdon – which is revealed mid-episode to be the source of Twain’s dismissiveness and the rationale for his self-imposed isolation. Twain’s son Langdon died of diphtheria in 1872. In “Shattered Idol,” Twain believes he could have prevented hi son’s death, citing it as his reason to discontinue writing the then-serialized novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. (In truth, Twain did lose interest in writing the famous American classic for several years, but the delay was not attributable to Langdon’s death.)

Fortunately, for Huck, Jim, young Mark McCain, and millions of voracious future readers, the titular rancher Lucas McCain is able to help Twain overcome his grief (and save the imperiled novel) through a rematch on the billiards table.

Twain is once again challenged by the local town hustler to a 5-point game of three-cushion billiards for $100. Lacking concentration and distraught with grief, Twain initially loses. But, when Lucas gives him a pep talk about not living in the past, Twain is able to rebound and makes a stunning, consecutive series of five three-cushion shots, thereby defeating the hustler, winning the wager, regaining his desire to live, and recommitting to finish writing Huckleberry Finn.

The “Shattered Idol” episode of The Rifleman is not currently available online or on DVD.

[1]       https://marktwainhouse.org/about/the-house/HartfordHome/rooms/

Pool Shark Precepts

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Pool Shark PreceptsThe most interesting aspect of Ross Smith’s 2011 Colorado Film School student project, Pool Shark Precepts, has nothing to do with the plot, dialogue, or acting, all of which are pretty unimpressive. Rather, the most interesting aspect is the unusual selection of the word “precept” in the title.

As any good SAT student knows, a “precept” is a “procedural directive or rule,” or more generally, a rule that helps one decide how to behave. Dating from the late 14th century, “precept” is hardly a common word. In fact, on Wordcount.org, which ranks the frequency of word use on the web, “precept” is #31,841 out of 86,800, just behind “webbs” and just ahead of “machynlleth.”

In fact, if Google is any indication, “precept” is waning in colloquial popularity. As the Google NGram chart below shows, back in 1900, the word was almost three times as common in books as words such as “billiards” or “hustler.” Today, that gap has closed significantly.

Pool Shark PreceptsMore revealing is a simple Google search. “Hustler” has 36 million search results, a whopping six times the number there are for “precept.” “Billiards” shows up in almost eight times as many search results.

Alas, the unfortunate truth is that “precept” is more likely to find a home on a standardized exam, as the scholarly minds at Kaplan know in producing the Top GRE Vocabulary List, which includes “precept,” than in any billiards movie. (Or any film for that matter: a quick IMDB search revealed zero titles using the word “precept,” except Pool Shark Precepts.)

Nonetheless, Mr. Smith, in selecting a title for the 6-minute movie he wrote and directed, at least chose his words accurately, for the short film details, albeit unoriginally, the five rules that a young pool shark uses to survive and win cash from his unsuspecting opponents. That quintet of precepts includes:

  1. Don’t get greedy
  2. Let the target come to you
  3. Know when to back down
  4. Don’t drink
  5. See rule #1

The movie was shot at Rack ‘Em Billiards in Aurora, Colorado, and subsequently won Mr. Smith nominations for “Best Editing,” “Best Sound,” and “Best Production 2/16mm” at his school’s 2011 student spring show. The full movie is available to watch here.

But, at this point, I feel comfortable introducing my own precept: steer clear of any film that uses “precept” in its title.

Dog Eat Dog – “Beat the Shark”

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As evidenced by the 32 biographies that comprise David Baber’s 2009 book Television Game Show Hosts, the game show host had been, until recently, a celebrity vocation ruled almost exclusively by men. (Case in point: there are no women featured in Baber’s book.) Then, at the start of the millennium, several women finally grabbed the microphone. They included Anne Robinson, the host of the Weakest Link; Meredith Vieira, the host of the syndicated version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire; and Brooke Burns, the host of Dog Eat Dog, an NBC import that included a famous “Beat the Shark” billiards challenge as part of its first season in July, 2002.

Beat the Shark

Host Brooke Burns (center) with contestant Anastasia Normandin and British billiards sensation Dave Pearson.

While the choice of Ms. Burns helped dismantle the male game show host archetype, the decision to hire the 5’8” former fashion model and star of Baywatch was more likely intended to help NBC build momentum on top of its already popular and superior Fear Factor, a reality game show that similarly tasked eye-pleasing contestants with competing in a variety of physically and mentally challenging stunts (including a billiards-themed sequence in the “Billiards for Gross Eats” episode). Dog Eat Dog, too, often asked contestants to strip down to bathing suits, or in the case of playing Strip Quarterback, disrobe to nothing at all, for a chance to win $25,000. Thus, it’s no surprise that a show marketing the physical bodies of its contestants would, in turn, select a host equally gorgeous and marketable.

Beat the SharkOn each episode of Dog Eat Dog, the six contestants vied in a series of physical competitions, trivia challenges, and assorted games. For the “Beat the Shark” sequence, contestant Anastasia Normandin is chosen by the other players to compete in a round of speed pool against Dave “The Ginger Wizard” Pearson, a British billiards player, who shortly after the airing of the episode set a new Guinness World Record by potting two consecutive racks of 15 pool balls in 82 seconds. (He currently owns four world records, though he has set 20 of them in his billiards career.) In the sequence, Ms. Normandin must sink four balls on her table before Mr. Pearson clears two full tables.

The results are highly amusing and sadly predictable. Mr. Pearson moves around the table like a man on fire, shooting effortlessly and never missing a single shot; Ms. Normandin struggles to set up shots, fumbles with a cue stick, and seems incapable of making even the simplest ball-in-pocket. As a result, she is sent to the “Dog Pound,” like the other contestants who failed before her in earlier games. The full sequence is available to watch here.

In addition to “Beat the Shark,” the seventh episode included “Treadmill Trivia” (answering general knowledge questions while running on a treadmill suspended over a water tank); “Ladder Wheel” (climbing around a large wheel while removing flags); the aforementioned “Strip Quarterback” (trading articles of clothing for footballs which must be thrown through an elevated hole in a tower); and “Hang in There” (suspending from handle bars in the air while “rain” pours down).

Dog Eat Dog only lasted two seasons. (There is speculation that the show’s demise was inevitable after one former contestant sued NBC after he was hospitalized and had alleged brain damage resulting from losing consciousness during a particular underwater stunt.[1])

Since the cancellation of Dog Eat Dog, Ms. Burns had continued to host game shows, most recently The Chase on the Game Show Network. Mr. Pearson has continued to try to break his own world records on the billiards table. Last October, he flew into Ozone Billiards in Kennesaw, Georgia to try to beat his 10 table record in eight minutes and 51 seconds.[2] Unfortunately, I can find no further information on Ms. Normandin. Apparently, the humiliating defeat was more than she could bear.

Special thanks to Mike L for alerting me to this particular billiards television episode!

[1] https://gameshows.fandom.com/wiki/Dog_Eat_Dog

[2] http://www.azbilliards.com/news/stories/11582-the-ginger-wizard-goes-for-world-record-at-ozone-for-cancer-charity/

Il tocco – la sfida

Il Tocco - La SfidaViewing Enrico Coletti’s 1997 Italian crime drama Il tocco – la sfida (also known as Rack Up or The Cuemaster) is akin to watching a billiards movie mashup, blending recognizable tropes and characters from other billiards movies into a film that, while hardly original, remains nonetheless entertaining, especially given its star, Franco Nero, and its emphasis on 5-pins, a popular form of carom billiards in Italy.

The movie begins with the rules of 5-pins shown on the screen, while a cue stick is assembled and the table is set up, including the standing of the pins. (Ten years later, the Mexican billiards movie Carambola used a similar opening technique to explain the game of three-cushion billiards.)

For those unfamiliar with 5-pins, the game is played with 3 balls and 5 pins. One’s cue ball must hit the opponent’s cue ball and the red object ball to knock over one-inch pins to score points, with white pins worth 2 points each and the red center pin worth 4 points, unless falling on its own, in which case it’s worth 10 points. (Five-pin billiards is closely related to goriziana, or nine-pin billiards, which was the focus of the 1983 Italian movie The Pool Hustlers.)

Franco Nero, the Golden Globe nominated actor (for Camelot), who has since become well-known for his marriage to actress Vanessa Redgrave and his portrayal of the evil general in Die Hard 2, stars as Jesus Barro, an immensely talented 5-pins player, who makes the decision to play in a high profile tournament in order to win enough money to rescue his friend Paco from debt and save Paco’s pool hall from the extortionary grip of local mobster Scalesi (the rather unconvincing Imanol Arias).

However, when Barro is asked to throw the game, pride interferes, and he beats the gangster’s stooge, Wan Yo aka “The Monk.” That foolish decision ultimately results in Paco dead and Barro with a broken hand, ruining his billiards career. (Hark the throwback to the thugs that broke “Fast” Eddie Felson’s thumbs in the 1961 billiards classic The Hustler. Of course, the scene was also recycled 6 years after Il tocco – la sfida in Poolhall Junkies.)

Il Tocco - La SfidaUnable to hold a cue stick, Barro hits the bottle until he observes the waitress from Paco’s pool hall, Andrea Sanchez (Ruth Gabriel, winner of the 1994 Goya Award, the main film award for Spain), make some difficult shots. Realizing she is a prodigy, Barro begins to tutor her in the art of both billiards and hustling, hoping she can win back the bar and revenge his reputation. The set-up is a pretty clear rip-off of Fast Eddie “mentoring” Vince in The Color of Money.

As Barro explains to Sanchez, there is “your classic sucker: he’s got money and wants everyone to know it. Usually loses a lot but pretends not to care. Self-restraint is their priority. They are the easiest to beat… [Pointing at a slovenly player] Never trust appearances. He look like a bum, but underestimate him and he will win your money, even your underwear… [Pointing at a menacing player] Now sharks never look you straight in the eye. They love money, not the game itself. They are bad losers and will probably start a fight. Avoid them.”

But, Barro is also aware that “nobody will bet on a woman,” so he convinces Sanchez to pull a Tootsie, cutting her hair (to look eerily like Ralph Macchio in The Karate Kid) and changing her clothes to become a man, since “we are living in a male chauvinistic world of assholes.” Oddly, Sanchez’s voice doesn’t change, though no one seems to notice.

The charade is sufficient to get Sanchez entered into the 32-person Cuemaster (5-Pins) World Championship, in which the winner’s pot is 32 million pesetas (approximately $270,000 in 1997), though the real money is made on side bets (cf. The Color of Money).

Sanchez, who only started playing months ago, is there to compete against real-world 5-pins legends, such as Gustavo Enrique Torregiani, the Argentinian three-time world champion of Italian 5-pins; Vitale “The Terminator” Nocerino, the runner-up to the 1997 World Cup; the “Blue Streak” Giorgio Colombo; and Salvatore Mannone, the 1993 World Cup winner.

Credibility wanes significantly when Sanchez starts beating these champions, moving ever closer to the winner’s circle. The montage of incredible 5-pins shots, including a spectacular eight rail four-pointer, interwoven into the scene more than compensates until the quarterfinals when Barro advises Sanchez to throw the game. With her unconvincing and unimaginative miss, the movie hits its nadir, and has a hard time recovering, even when Barro’s rationale for having Sanchez exit (the little-known “Paragraph 32 of the championship rules”) is revealed, excusing “The Monk” from playing and enabling Sanchez instead to compete in the anticlimactic finals.

More interesting is the film’s ending – an overt reference to The Color of Money (or maybe Rocky III) in which Barro and “The Monk,” both now with clean consciences, can compete one more time to see who is the real best 5-pins player.

Since Il tocco – la sfida is not available to buy or stream, I am extremely grateful to Mr. Coletti for directly sending me a copy of the movie (in English, too!).

Top 10 Billiards Songs and Music Videos

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billiards lyricsI had never paid much attention to Rod Stewart, but I was in my car, listening absentmindedly to “Maggie May” (1971) on Classic Vinyl, when I was KO’d by the lyrics, “I suppose I could collect my books and get on back to school. Or steal my daddy’s cue and make a living out of playing pool.” Alas, the situation does not end so well for our forlorn narrator, but my mind had already forgotten the poor sap and started to wonder what other songs prominently featured billiards, whether lyrically or visually. I therefore present my Top 10 Billiards Songs and Music Videos for your consumption, amusement, and critique. This list consists of 5 songs with great billiards videos and 5 songs with great billiards verses. Enjoy!

  1. “The Pool Shark” (lyrics). Written by Tom T. Hall and recorded by country music artist Dave Dudley in 1970, this lead single tells the story of a hustler getting hustled. The narrator, who had been “known to hustle a few,” misreads his opponent badly. When the narrator raises the stakes, his opponent brings out a custom cue with “gold initials in a leather grip pearly and silver inlaid tip” and proceeds to “make those balls and table talk…speaking English” until the narrator is out “187 bucks and a ring.”
  1. “Stronger Than Me” (video). Dead from alcohol poisoning at the age of 27, the genre-bending, husky-voiced Amy Winehouse released this 2004 debut single from her debut album Frank. The song is about Winehouse debasing her boyfriend for failing to be a more dominant and present partner. The video follows the song’s lyrics, with the boyfriend getting sloppy-drunk while playing pool on purple-felt tables. Winehouse is shown making only one shot in the video, though off-screen she was known for her billiards skills, having posthumously even earned the moniker, “The Demon of the Pool Table.”

  1. “The Snooker Song” (lyrics). In 1986, composer Mike Batt assembled an all-star ensemble, including Roger Daltrey, Art Garfunkel, John Hurt and Julian Lennon, to record The Hunting of the Snark, a concept album based on Lewis Carroll’s poem of the same name. The album was withdrawn but re-released in 2010. Act Two includes “The Snooker Song,” sung by Captain Sensible (who founded the punk rock band The Damned) as the Billiard Maker. The lyrics primarily consist of the Billiard Maker, who is “famed for his aim” and can get a “break of fifty-eight (maybe more?),” repeatedly taunting his opponent by saying, “I’m going to be snookering you tonight.” The “Snooker Song” was also the theme to the British billiards game show Big Break.
  1. “I Can’t Dance” (video). Genesis, the English rock band fronted by lead vocalist Phil Collins, released the 1991 album We Can’t Dance, which included the single, “I Can’t Dance.” Half way through the music video, which is about the artifice and false glamour of television commercials, Phil Collins enters a pool hall where the unctuous proprietor insists he wager his blue jeans in a game of pool if he wants to stay. The sequence is a reference to (and parody of) the 1991 Levi Jeans “Pool Hall” commercial, which featured The Clash song, “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” that was the inspiration for the main riff of the Genesis song. Of course, in the commercial, the pants stayed on; in the video, Collins was not so lucky.

  1. “Rack ‘Em Up” (lyrics). Grammy-winning, American blues guitarist Jonny Lang, who has toured with everyone from the Rolling Stones to Aerosmith, released the 1997 album Lie to Me, which included this four-minute ode to billiards, written by Lang’s pianist Bruce McCabe. The brilliant lyrics talk about the opportunity to go down to Jack’s Pool Hall and play the resident ace, who only ever said “rack ‘em up” until “the day he was dead.” Best line: “I tell him listen son, ain’t no disaster |There ain’t no shame in being beat by a master.”
  1. “Sink the Pink” (video). On their ninth studio album, Australian bad boys Angus and Malcolm Young, the founding brothers of the legendary hard rock band AC/DC, released the 1985 song “Sink the Pink,” which is about sex and alcohol, naturally, with scant mention of pool. The video, however, features the gradual entry of Susie Cue, a high-heeled, pink-clad lady, who brings her own custom pink cue to the barroom, where she first challenges, and later dances, with a local patron. Also featured in the video is a conspicuously pink 3-ball and an animated fly, whose facial gestures are as memorable as Angus Young’s signature school boy shorts. (Note: AC/DC also featured clips of trick shot billiards wizard Florian “Venom” Kohler in the video to their 2014 song “Play Ball.”)

  1. “The Baron” (lyrics). In 1984, Gary Nelson directed famed man-in-black Johnny Cash in the made-for-TV-movie The Baron and the Kid, based on his 1980 tune “The Baron” from his 66th album of the same name. Peaking at number 10 on the US Country charts, “The Baron” tells the story about the pool hall showdown between The Baron and his son Billy Joe to determine who shoots “the meanest game around.” The Baron is repeatedly the 8-ball winner until Billy Joe, in a fit of rage, bets “this ring on one more game against [the Baron’s] fancy stick.” When the Baron realizes the ring belonged to his estranged wife, the family ties crystallize for him, and the deadbeat dad laments that had he not run out on his family, “maybe [Billy Joe] would shoot straighter than [he does].”
  1. “Snooker Loopy” (video). English pop rock duo Chas & Dave released the humorous single “Snooker Loopy” in 1986 with back-up vocals from the Matchroom Mob, a quintet of famous snooker professionals employed by promoter Barry Hearn’s company Matchroom Sport. If the lyrics are absurd (“We’ll show you what we can do |With a load of balls and a snooker cue.”), then the video, which features the five legends — Steve Davis, Tony Meo, Dennis Taylor, Willie Thorne, and Terry Griffiths – acting out the lyrics is downright preposterous, such as when the balding Mr. Thorne chalks his pate because “when the light shines down on his bare crown…it’s not fair giving off that glare.”

  1. “Ya Got Trouble” (lyrics). One of the most recognizable songs from the Tony Award-winning 1957 Best Musical The Music Man is “Ya Got Trouble,” written by composer Meredith Wilson. Sung by the smooth-talking, traveling salesman Harold Hill, who is determined to convince the citizens of River City, Iowa, to fund his idea for a boys’ marching band rather than a pool hall, the song conveys what could happen if they choose the pool hall. The lyrics are genius, with references from everything to three-rail billiards shots to Balkline, though my favorite verse is: “You got one, two, three, four, five, six pockets in a table. | Pockets that mark the diff’rence |Between a gentlemen and a bum, | With a capital “B,” |And that rhymes with “P” and that stands for pool!”
  1. “Bad to the Bone” (video). There was never any question about which billiards video would rule the roost. Of course, that honor goes to the 1982 video “Bad to the Bone” by George Thorogood and the Destroyers. Benefiting from heavy rotation on a nascent MTV, the video featured Thorogood competing in a billiards match with blues pioneer Bo Diddley. Billiards Hall of Famer Willie Mosconi appears in the video at 3:00 to make a large wager on Diddley, but it is Thorogood who prevails with his iconic 8-ball shot in which the ball appears to fall in the pocket as Thorogood flicks a large quantity of his cigar ash onto the floor.

So, there’s my Top 10. Did I slight the Maryland rockers Clutch for not including their single “Mob Goes Wild,” with a video featuring one of the all-time pool-hall beat-downs? Should I have cited the video for “Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik” by Southern hip-hip duo OutKast? Or, what about the lyrics to “Pool Shark” from New York ska pioneers The Toasters? Hopefully, this list provokes thought, if not outrage. And if so, let me know what you would have included on your top 10.

Special thanks to the creators of the following two websites for spurring my thinking:

 

The Waltons – “The Song”

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In competitive billiards, the stakes can be quite high. Archie “The Greek” Karas was known to have played one opponent for $40,000 matches in a Las Vegas pool room, and one night lost $740,000 playing 9-ball.[1] Professional boxer Manny Pacquiao was known to stake-horse Filipino billiards sensation Dennis Orcollo for matches up to $60,000, earning Orcollo the nickname “the Philippines Money-Game King.”[2]

The WaltonsSimilarly, movies and television have witnessed their share of high-risk wagers, including the deed to one’s land (Legend of the Dragon), the Duke boys’ General Lee Dodge Charger (Dukes of Hazzard – “A Little Game of Pool”) and the right to live or die (Twilight Zone – “A Game of Pool”).

On The Waltons, the stakes may not have seemed so perilous in the 1975, third-season episode “The Song,” but remember that this television show centered on a rural Virginia community during the Great Depression. So, when family patriarch John Walton Sr. (Richard Waite) and Grandpa Zeb (Will Greer) join several of the other local men for a 4-day, no-money, winner-takes-all, Walton’s Mountain 8-Ball Tournament, the wagers are reflective of the era and the conditions of the backwoods community. Specifically, the Walton men put up a truckload of firewood between them; Horace (Wilfred Brimely in his career-launching role) offers “six fat hens, Rhode Island Reds, all laying double-yolk eggs”; Zach Roswell bets a 200-pound prize pig named Jews Harp; Easy bets his old .22 rifle; and tournament organizer Ike Godsey wagers a “one-week supply of groceries not to exceed $7” (about $125 of buying power today).

The WaltonsAdding to the gravity of the tournament is that the Walton’s Mountain women consider billiards so odious (“trashy goings-on,” “low doing,” a “gambling game”) that the men risk, at a minimum, their wives’ scorn and opprobrium, and in the case of Zach Roswell, risk their manhood and future, hiding and telling lies to escape his shrewish spouse’s wrath.

Unfortunately, while the billiards in “The Song” is novel in its stakes and familial hazard, it ultimately is too brief and too bland, with little tension forming around the tournament and a minimal amount of pool actually played. Grandpa Walton inserts a couple of polite jeers (“Zach, are you celebrating or mourning?”), and even attempts a behind-the-back shot, but otherwise the game is a McGuffin (and not a very good one).

Perhaps, of greater interest for television trivia wonks is that Erin Moran (aka Joanie Cunningham from Happy Days) has a starring role in “The Song” as one of the titular songbirds. Regrettably, she, too, does not shoot any pool.

“The Song” episode of The Waltons is available on the complete, third-season DVD collection.

[1] http://www.pokernews.com/news/2008/02/sextons-corner-32-archie-karas-part-2.htm

[2] http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/7879307/pool-dennis-orcollo-best-money-game-player-world-espn-magazine

Cake Boss – “Painters, Pool and Pink”

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National Football League defensive end Justin Tuck’s achievements on the gridiron are commendable: two-time Super Bowl winner, two-time Pro Bowl performer, two-time NFC Champion, almost 500 career tackles. But, his accomplishments off the field are equally impressive, specifically the 2008 launch of his charitable initiative R.U.S.H. for Literacy that encourages children to READ, UNDERSTAND, SUCCEED and HOPE and embrace literacy throughout their lives.

To date, R.U.S.H. has raised more than $2 million, with the majority of those funds generated by “Tuck’s Celebrity Billiards Tournament,” an annual event first launched in 2009 and held at the SLATE bar and billiards club. The upscale extravaganza features a who’s-who of athletic and Hollywood royalty, as well as “Buddy” Valastro, the Cake Boss celebrity chef, who produced a magnificent billiards-themed cake for the event in the 2009 Season 2 episode “Painters, Pool and Pink.” The entire episode is available to watch here.

https://youtu.be/2YVbW-7CnlU

TLC’s Cake Boss is one of at least seven cake-based reality shows to have hit the airwaves in recent years. Now entering its sixth season, it is arguably the most popular, with an average 2 million viewers. The show stars Bartolo “Buddy” Valastro Jr., the proprietor of the family-owned Carlo’s Bake Shop in Hoboken, NJ, as well as his immediate and extended family members who work in the shop as bakers, decorators, sculptors and storefront managers. Buddy’s personality is warm and large, contributing to the show’s success, which, in turn, has contributed to the shop’s success and appeal as modern tourist attraction. Carlo’s Bakery Way, at Washington and Newark Streets in Hoboken, is a street renamed in honor of the Cake Boss establishment.

Cake BossCarlo’s Bake Shop fame is attributable to their highly-detailed, one-of-a-kind, themed cakes, which are the focus of the Cake Boss episodes. Those cake themes have included a fire station, an Indricotherium, Mount Rushmore, a roulette board, and a life-size replica of comedian Betty White.

In “Painters, Pool and Pink,” the former New York Giant Mr. Tuck is planning his premier billiards fundraiser and recruits Mr. Valastro to provide (donate) a billiards-themed cake for the event. Mr. Valastro, a self-proclaimed pool star (allegedly once known as the “Hoboken Hustler”), is honored to prepare the dessert, though he also craves a chance to play in the tournament. Speaking to his culinary crew, he says, “You know how much I love to play pool. I’d love to show them how I roll.”

That opportunity emerges when one player drops out, thereby creating the standard pabulum of manufactured reality television tension, since none of his bake squad has confidence in his ability. Says one baker, “What do you know about shooting pool? You’re going to get killed.” And, indeed it appears that way when he goes to practice one afternoon. But, he more than compensates when he is paired with former New York Jet Kerry Rhodes, and accompanied by a good bit of hand-slapping and chest-bumping, makes it as far as the semi-finals.

Cake BossFar more interesting than Mr. Valastro’s pool ambitions is his kitchen team’s ability to create a billiards-themed cake. The base is made out of red velvet cake (“Justin’s favorite”), which is then smothered with cream cheese. The pockets are carved out before layering the cake with green fondant, a sugary dough used to cover cakes, to resemble the baize of the table. Cereal treats are used to build up the walls, which are “dirty iced” before more fondant is applied. Then, to achieve the wood-grain appearance, a special tool and brushstroke is applied for texturing. Finally, cue sticks, chalk and pool balls, all expertly made from fondant, are gently placed on the table, prompting Mr. Valastro to proudly boast that the cake “looked just like a mini pool table…I mean, my kids could have played pool on this table.”

The cake is revealed at the end of the tournament, as celebrities such as Anthony Anderson, Vivica A. Fox, Eli Manning, Kelly Rowland, Michael Strahan, and Osi Umenyiora gallivant nearby. Even Billiard Congress of America Hall-of-Famer Jeannette “The Black Widow” Lee is in on the action. Available to provide on-site expertise to the tournament players and guests, The Black Widow ultimately pops up in the “Painters, Pool and Pink” episode…passing out slices of cake.

Equals Against Devils

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In the world of billiards trick shots, few are as jaw-dropping than Florian “Venom” Kohler’s signature massé-ing with multiple cues or Andy “Magic Man” Segal’s famous “The Pendulum” or Bogdan “The Wizard” Wolkowski’s “The Bottle Shot.”

Equals Against DevilsBut, I’m pretty sure none of these magicians could recreate the “50 balls to create a word” shot that comprises one-fifth of the trick shot competition in the 1985 Hong Kong billiards movie Equals Against Devils (original title: Huo ping lang zi), which was also released with the English title The Desperate Prodigal. In this trick shot, opponents must shoot and stick a series of balls onto an adhesive surface about 30 feet away to create a word (or a letter).

Of course, the shot is ridiculous (and only made using some crude on-screen computer graphics), but then again, everything is in this low-budget, b-rated film from director, writer, and leading actor Roc (Peng) Tien.

The plot (and that is being generous) of Equals Against Devils is that a wealthy man, Black Sinner, who once had his hand chopped off after beating his opponent, White Cloud, in a pool tournament, enlists a rising pool prodigy in his master plan to extract revenge and win $500,000 from White Cloud in a 150-point billiards tournament.

Equals Against DevilsThat prodigy is Alan, who we first meet hustling pool in a local parlor, with Bill Conti’s “Gonna Fly Now” (aka the theme to Rocky) playing in the background. Alan is a soft-spoken player, who lives with his three orphaned friends and is so penurious that when he first visits Black Sinner, Alan requests permission to walk on the rug, having never seen one.

Black Sinner befriends Alan, promising him food, wealth and three months of pool lessons in order to beat White Cloud. Black Sinner’s plan works, which then causes the humiliated White Cloud to devise his own series of revenge schemes. First, he hires Chicken, a white leisure suit wearing hitman, who sports a Bjorn Borg headband and suffers from exotropia, to kill Alan. That idea fails, so he then recruits Sally, a buxom, pin-up who hustles Alan into playing pool for a $15,000 diamond ring. Turns out Sally is a pool shark, but this plan collapses as well, when one of Alan’s associates swaps out the diamond for a fake.

Equals Against DevilsFinally, he sets up a doubles trick shot billiards competition, in which Alan and Black Sinner will compete against White Cloud and a billiards pro named Biyashi. This is arguably the most imaginative part of the movie, even if the pool-playing is completely fake. The first of the five shots involves aiming balls at light bulbs to break them. The second is the aforementioned lexical shot. The third is a variation of William Tell’s famous archery feat, but in this case, it entails knocking a billiards ball into a light bulb atop a person’s head. The penultimate shot involves shooting balls into bells. And the final shot requires the player to massé the cue ball through a series of bottles and land precisely in the middle of a small circle.

Alas, Black Sinner and Alan win the competition, which prompts White Cloud to get old-school with his retaliatory tactics. [SPOILER ALERT!] First, he guns down Black Sinner at his mansion, and then he blows up Alan’s car. But, even that idea backfires, as Alan emerges from the debris, looking like an extra in a George Romero film, and, now (suddenly) an expert marksman, proceeds to assassinate White Cloud and all of his henchmen.

Given this film’s appallingly bad billiards animation, and the over-dubbed sound effects (to emulate the pocketing of the balls), as well as the terrible acting and inane dialogue, I think the real “sinner” in Equals Against Devils is director/writer/actor Roc Tien, for forcing his audience to endure this dreck.

Equals Against Devils is available to rent or buy on DVD. I’m not sure why.

Birds and Fish and Sheep, Oh My!

Though few animals can shoot billiards with the same deftness and ability as the famous palomino in “Ed the Pool Player” from the television series Mr. Ed, the talking equine is not alone in its anthropomorphic pool prowess. On the contrary, the past half century has witnessed a number of animated animals pick up the cue stick, whether with wing, flipper, or cloven hoof, oh my!

billiards cartoonsAt the top of the list for pure pool showmanship is the famous Picadae with the unmistakable laugh, Woody Woodpecker. The red-white-and-blue avian, created in 1940 by Walter Lantz and Ben “Bugs” Hardaway, and the star of almost 200 episodes before calling it quits in 1972, re-emerged in 1999 on a new cartoon entitled The New Woody Woodpecker Show.

In “Cue the Pool Shark,” the six-minute segment kicking off the third and final 2002 season of that new series, Woody saunters into Buzz Buzzard’s Billiards Pool Emporium to play some pool, not realizing the proprietor, Buzz Buzzard (voiced by Jedi warrior Mark Hamill) sees him as “a new customer to con.” After Buzz’s lackey convinces Woody (with some duplicity involving magnetized balls) that his game is quite good, Woody agrees to compete with Buzz in a $79 winner-takes-all game of straight pool to 100 points. But, only a few shots later, Woody suspects he’s been hustled, especially when Buzz successfully calls “all the balls in the corner pocket, bank it off the lamp,” racking up 15 points in a single shot.

billiards cartoonsThat’s when Woody decides to turn the tables by hoodwinking Buzz into squaring off on a series of comically improbable trick shots, from “off the jukebox, over the moose, out the door, and into the mailbox” to “down the (telephone) wire, staircase, waste basket.” But, the raptor doesn’t realize that Woody is using the shots to lure him from “desk, off the clock, up the stairs, down the sink…” and into a jail cell.

It’s a shame that the otherwise humorous episode ends with Woody’s painful lament, “I think I’ll celebrate by playing some golf, Chinese checkers, anything but pool!” – and that’s even after reclaiming his $79. The full episode is available to watch here.

From Buzzards’ Billiards, we can swim over to Neptune Bay, where Wanda the octopus recently purchased a pool table, thinking it might “boost business.” That is the set-up for the 11-minute 2000 “Pool Shark” episode of Rainbow Fish, a children’s animated television series, based on the children’s book Rainbow Fish, written and drawn by Marcus Pfister in 1992.

billiards cartoonsIn “Pool Shark” the baize has barely had time to soak before Chomper’s cousin Slick, a beret-and-shades wearing shark, has taken center stage, effortlessly dispatching his opponents and winning kelp gushers. Rainbow’s not a bad shot, but he’s easily seduced by his fellow piscine pool player, and quickly swears his allegiance as a personal assistant, thereby blowing off his other friends, including Blue, a blue fish, who disdainfully suggests “pool is not even a real sport.” (Boo!!!)

billiards cartoonsUttering a line that might have come right from Finnegan on TruTV’s The Hustlers, Slick shares with Rainbow that the key to winning in billiards is “getting the edge on your opponent.” But, much like Woody, Rainbow starts to suspect that Slick is cheating, especially after he sees him exchange cue balls (an old hustling technique). The key is to catch him in the act. The opportunity surfaces when Rainbow challenges Slick to a game of Pacific 9-Ball (players alternate shots, winner is the first to clear the table), in which the stakes are the “winner stays at Wanda’s, the loser finds a new game.” Slick’s hustle is ultimately foiled when Wanda spies his sleight-of-hand, and the phony cue ball is cracked open revealing a disgruntled fish who is tired of swimming inside the ball and acting as its internal GPS. Slick is quickly forced to leave Neptune Bay, proving once again, kids, that crime doesn’t pay.

The “Pool Shark” episode of Rainbow Fish is available to download from the iTunes store.

Finally, back on dry land, in the “Shaun Goes Potty” episode of Shaun the Sheep, a flock of sheep are delighted to learn that the Farmer has had a new billiards table shipped to Mossy Bottom Farm, where he resides. Shaun the Sheep is a British stop-motion animated series that was spun off from the Wallace and Gromit franchise. The series first aired in 2007 and is currently entering its fifth season after 130 seven-minute episodes.

billiards cartoonsIn the second season “Shaun Goes Potty” episode from 2010, Shaun, the mischievous but clever ovine, challenges Bitzer, the Farmer’s sheepdog, to a game of blackball on the new table. (For the uninitiated, blackball, a game of pool popular in the United Kingdom, is a variant of 8-ball, with 15 solid, unnumbered red and yellow balls replacing their American solid-and-stripe numbered counterparts.) Shaun is a reasonable shot, demonstrating some masse and making a two-in-one carom, before pocketing the cue. He is well-matched by the cocky Bitzer, who runs a handful of balls and even attempts a no-look, before scratching. Down to just the blackball, Bitzer distracts Shaun with an air horn, resulting in a shot (similar to those in The New Woody Woodpecker episode) that goes off a tree, down a roof, down a gutter, into a gopher hole, before being ejected by the angry rodent and thrown back onto the table. Seemingly to have the game in hand, Bitzer confidently lines up his shot, only to get equally distracted by the horn of the Farmer’s approaching auto, and in the process, rips the table’s felt. Fortunately, the animal farm rallies to the rescue, patching the rip with some lawn and mowing it to verdant perfection. The full episode is available to watch here.

https://youtu.be/gjNAc-Wi6CY

So, there you have it…a regular menagerie of pool players, from sharks and rainbow fish to sheep and sheepdogs to woodpeckers and buzzards. Throw in the talking horse, a cat and mouse (cf. Tom and Jerry – “Cue Ball Cat”), and maybe a famous duck (cf. Donald in Mathmagic Land), and we’ve got the founding membership of the future Billiards Congress of America Zoo of Fame.