News From R.A. Dyer

R.A. "Jake" Dyer wrote me this morning with news of a new website he's created called poolhistory.com. The site is a home for all of his pool-related writing, complete with links to his books, a blog as well as links to other pool websites. Of note is an extensive list of blogspot sites he's created that are dedicated to various players. Also, there's a must-see video from Johnston City, Illinois. Most importantly, Dyer has just written a new book titled "The Hustler & The Champ." In short, the book is about Minnesota Fats and Willie Mosconi. According to his website:

The Hustler & The Champ tells of both men’s hardscrabble march to greatness, of their bitter decades-long rivalry, and finally of the televised shoot-out that revealed pocket billiards to millions even as it exposed the deep contradictions within all of organized competition. Through the 1920s, the Great Depression, and the resurgent 1960s, R.A. Dyer follows the lives of both men and tells the story of America’s conflicted love affair with the sport of rogues.

If Dyer's book "Hustler Days" is any indication, his new book will be an excellent read. Dyer is a phenomenal researcher with a true talent for description and extracting dialogue from his interviewees. All of which add to give the reader a richly textured sense of presence. Dyer, also a columnist for Billiards Digest, is based in Austin, Texas, where he is a state capital reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "The Hustler & The Champ" is due out in October and can be pre-ordered on Amazon by clicking here.

Those looking to whet their appetite until October can look at another one of Dyer's contributions to the sport. He appears in a documentary called "Swimming With Sharks: The Art of the Hustle" that is included on the new two-disc collector's edition DVD of "The Hustler." The new DVD has four featurettes not included on the "Special Edition" DVD. They are "Life in the Fast Lane: Fast Eddie Felson and The Search for Greatness," "Milestones in Cinema History: The Making of The Hustler," "Swimming with Sharks: The Art of the Hustle," and "Paul Newman: Hollywood's Cool Hand." There is an interesting excerpt of an interview with Paul Newman from one of the featurettes that can be seen here.

A12

Crossing Avenue A from Julep is Kelly's Sports Bar. For what was an embarrassing length of time, the sign actually read "Kelly's Sport's Bar." Nice. Before that, according to the Times, it was known as J. P. Warde's. However, on the bar's myspace page it is referred to as JP Wardes. I don't know when it switched to Kelly's, sometime in the past several months I'm pretty sure. The bar has also been gone by names such as Alchymy, Spoon and Jaycox Coal. At any rate, I haven't been able to find anything about the bar under its current name, whether it's new ownership, etc. But there is plenty of stuff online about the bar before the most recent name change. A dodgeball reviewer named J. Crowley complains that the owner "stole my money off the pool table, threatened to kick me out of his bar when I called him on his thievery, blatantly CHEATED in pool then denied it." Wow. I don't know, I feel like this is all dirt about the owner that I don't need to be scooping up. On the other hand, there was plenty of good things to say. Somebody named K.B. says "I knew this was a fun pub when the bartender started doing shots with me & my friends." Case in point. The last time I was there I saw a bartender mix a shot, pour it into the navel cavity of a young bride-to-be lying on the bar, then suck it up to the delight of all her friends. The funniest thing written about the space is the stealth sobriety test, which refers to a tricky incline in the floor at the back of the bar. If you've ever played pool there, you can't miss it.

Julep

Countless times I've walked past bars with pool tables where nobody ever seems to be playing. I always chalk it up to the fact that it's too early in the evening. Julep on Avenue A comes to mind, as does Double Down Saloon (formerly Julep) and Kelly's Sport's [sic] Bar (formerly J.P. Warde's). Whenever I've been knocked off the table at Sophie's after a decent run and I see the list has grown to ten or fifteen names, I'll head down Avenue A on my way home in search of a game at one of said bars with the hope that there are people playing. Recently I played at Julep, which moved across Avenue A. In its new space, Julep's pool table used to be in the very back (right, in photo by Shanna Ravindra), but now it's at the very front of the bar. It is kind of cool playing pool underneath a chandelier, albeit a very dim one. And it's very cramped so the short stick is a necessity. Some online reviewer of Julep referred it as "your regular 'alright' bar." In other words, the kind of bar where nobody freaks out when a beer is placed on the actual table (below). I'd definitely rather have too many "alright" bars with pool tables than not enough.

100-Minute Match

This past Tuesday I had an assignment later in the evening, so I knew I'd need to play early. We won the coin toss and so we had the other team put up first. They put up a 3. I kind of winced at this, and I wondered how smart it would be to put myself up. It would mean that I would have to win four games whereas their player would only have to win two. I probably could have passed and we could have put up a 3 or a 4. But I knew I'd be tense watching somebody else play a potentially long match ahead of mine, and I certainly would have rushed once it was my turn. Plus, we knew that night we'd only have five players total. So I decided to play first. I won the lag and went on to win the first game. Toward the end of the second game I rushed into and botched what would have been an airtight safety, giving my opponent ball in hand. He went on to run out easily for his first win, putting him one win away from victory. That's when I started to regret having put myself up a against a 3. Our third game alone went nine innings and easily lasted 25-30 minutes. But I won it and got the momentum back on my side. There's definitely a mental advantage to winning a game that takes that long. A 30-minute game, with lots of coaches and safeties, can definitely fray your nerves if you come out of it on the losing end.

He racked and went to the restroom. I broke and before I knew it I won the fourth game. As I recall he still had quite few balls on the table. I tried to resist the temptation of thinking that he had given up or was cracking under pressure. As he was racking for the fifth and final game I was in line for the restroom. I told myself to stay focused and not take any risks. At the end of that game we each had two balls remaining. He messed up what I thought was a risky attempt at a safety. His 15 was frozen to my 5 along a rail and it looked like he tried to hide the cue ball behind both of them. In trying to do so he busted them apart and left me open on my 5, leaving us at the situation diagrammed above (approximately, as always). All I remember is that I was left with a dead-on, straight-in shot on the 5 in the corner. My 6 ball was too far out to try to cut it into the same corner pocket. I looked it over a bit, wishing there was a way to "cheat" the pocket a bit in order to give me a better angle on the 6. So at position C1 I got ready for a follow shot, hitting the cue ball on top so that it would follow and hopefully leave me a makeable shot on the 6 into the other corner. Not wanting to follow the 5 into the pocket, I hit the cue ball a tad too softly and it ended up at C2. Cutting the 6 ball into the other corner pocket from there would have resulted in a cue ball scratch. So I opted for the kick shot on the 6. I took my time with it and hit the cue ball with no english. It looked good coming off the rail and made firm contact with the 6 and the 6 went in. The cue ball hadn't even stopped rolling before I marked up the side pocket for a soft tap-in shot on the 8. What's even better, I found out the next day, is that our newly-designated 4 beat a 4 and one of our 3s beat a 6 in the final match to give us a win.

Anybody Need Some Chalk?

I walked into Sophie's Friday night and was stoked to see the table had been recovered. Now, I appreciate an old beat-up bar table. I love seeing how and where the cloth has worn through. We've all played on tables that have been neglected for years. But Sophie's table had been in serious need of repair for months. Because there was one rail (just to the left of where you place the cue ball when breaking) that had come loose. So loose, in fact, that if you slammed the cue ball straight into it you'd barely reach the opposite cushion on the rebound. It was such a nuisance that I would inform visiting teams about it before our matches. Thankfully, the rail was tightened and is springy as can be. Only problem now is, somebody stole the regular 2.25" cue ball. So all weekend we were playing with a grotesquely oversized cue ball that the bar keeps as a spare. And it wasn't even white. It was almost yellowish, with a slight hint of translucency to it. Nasty to look at, nasty when trying to get any kind of draw. But I digress.

My teammate Freddy was bragging about being the first to "de-virginize" the table. And I was talking to Kenny, the bartender, who had watched the pool table repair folks throughout the whole process. He mentioned a huge bag of chalk that had been thrown away, apparently all the chalk cubes that had fallen down to the bed of the table through the pockets. The image of a big bag of chalk instantly captivated my mind's eye. I asked him what they did with it. He said they threw it away, nodding toward the trash in the back. So I enlisted Freddy's help and we started digging through the trash. Fortunately it had only been a few hours, so it wasn't at the bottom of the trash. Lo and behold, the bounty. I couldn't determine if it was six months of chalk or if it was more like several years. Upon closer examination, I've decided it's easily more chalk than has accumulated since the last time they worked on the table. Some cubes were worn down completely, but others were like new. I counted and there are 156 pieces. Actually, there were over 160 because I left five or so at Sophie's but took the rest home. I'll take plenty more back to Sophie's. But I also plan to take a lot of it over to Pitt Street, because the chalk situation there is always dire. Also in the bag of chalk were cloth scraps and a lot of green cloth dust, one penny and one pistachio (uneaten).

Bridge and Tunnel

Back in late April I was the best man in the wedding of my two photographer friends Aris Economopoulos and Julia Xanthos. It was a big commitment for me. I planned a bachelor party, rented a tuxedo, gave a speech, the works. It was a great time, and an honor to be a part of it all. With some time to kill on the way to the rehearsal dinner, in Long Island, we stopped at a great Irish Pub called Trá Fada. It's in Oceanside, NY. Above is a picture of Beka Economopoulos taking aim at a shot while talking to her husband, Jason. In the background is Aris, with his usual Guinness in hand. Considering it just now took me a half hour to remember/look up the name of the place, I'll have to make sure I stop in next time I'm in the area.

Across the Hudson River, there is perhaps the only non-Manhattan bar at which I could be considered a regular. It's the Journal Square Pub, over in Jersey City, NJ. I've been there countless times with Aris (breaking, below), who lives five minutes away. The Pub has an interesting vibe. Largely a blue-collar sports bar, it also attracts a slightly seedy element. I've seen the main bartender, John, jump over the bar with a baseball bat to break up a fight. No matter, because upstairs at the Pub they have a loft area with a serviceable pool table that plays pretty well. Even though the felt is covered with layers of cigarette smoke soot and the balls are pretty grimed up, it's the perfect antidote to Manhattan's weekend crush. Aris and I always make a "gentleman's bet" and play for a dollar a game. We've even played dollar-a-man doubles with strangers. Assuming I'm breaking even on the pool, combined with the absurdly low price of $1.75 per pint, I'm in excellent shape if I can get from door to door and back for around twenty bucks.

Tooting My Own Horn

Last night before our match began I was studying the sheet, as I always do. The first thing I look at is the skill levels of the opposing team's players. Well into my second year of the league, I've got a pretty good idea by now of who is who on all the teams we play. When looking at the sheet, I try to mentally match players, taking into account who played the previous week and who didn't, who's playing well and who isn't, etc. Last night we only had five players total and so I knew everyone would have to play. Whenever I see a lot of 3s and 4s on the other team I think we'll match up well. At some point I looked over to our team's column and noticed an unusual number next to one of the names. It was a 5 next to my name. The feeling of surprise was quickly overshadowed by doubt. I was nervous knowing that I was going to have to "defend" that new skill level.

So it was business as usual and before long the third match had ended with us ahead 2-1. But the other team appeared to be short on players and all the people I recognized had already played. Part of me hoped they were going to have to forfeit the last two games and thus I wouldn't have to defend my new ranking. It was our turn to put up, so I went over and told them I would be playing and asked if they had any players. Sure enough, they did. It was a new player I didn't recognize, a 3. The player had a high/recent APA number so I wasn't sure what to expect. But before I knew it, I was up three games with only the 8 ball on the table left for the win. But I was blocked with a side pocket in the way of a kick shot, so I had to use awkward english. Not only did I miss the 8 ball but the cue ball pocketed my opponent's stripe and then followed it in for a dreaded "S8." All of a sudden it was hill-hill. The longest the games had gone before was four innings. But on the final game there were eight innings, mostly due to me missing the 8 ball I think three times. In the end I was faced with yet another kick-into-the-8 scenario. The above diagram shows it all. A highly unlikely shot, a hail mary. But it was a heck of a way to debut as a 5. We ended the night 4-1 and are currently 6-5 for the season with three consecutive wins.

Palimpsest

Another post from the odds and ends department, a picture of a pool table with very little context. I was going to see if anybody could guess where it was taken, but then I decided I should go into the history of the place. Now that I've dug around a bit I found a better picture with more context (bottom). It's Vasmay Lounge, at the corner of Suffolk and Houston (formerly known as Meow Mix). I was inside Meow Mix once, back in 2002, on assignment for the Voice to photograph two women getting hitched (middle left). That was my introduction to Murray Hill, who presided over the festivities. I remember being amused when I witnessed Murray snatch a full Heineken from the hands of somebody in the front row and chug it down. Some time later Meow Mix closed and nobody knew what was going to happen. It was then that I was assigned to photograph an exterior of the place and have it look lonely and abandoned (middle center). Finally in 2005 the space was reincarnated as Vasmay Lounge. Lo and behold, I got the nod to photograph the new space (middle right). Meow Mix has since moved to Brooklyn and is now known as Cattyshack. I've been to Vasmay a handful of times, rarely with anybody. Most often, I'll be on my way home from the Hamilton Fish Rec Center on Pitt Street and if people are playing I'll stop in. Invariably, I'll have my cue with me but stash it away in a corner before playing. It's not that I want to hide the fact that I play a lot of pool. I don't know, it just seems sort of obnoxious or showy, taking it out of the case and putting it together in a place like that. I'd rather not bring that much attention to myself.

Odds and Ends

When I first started this blog I didn't have much material to go on. I used to have to do a lot of scrambling to come up with pictures, etc. for posts. Now that the blog has been going for a full year, I have accumulated quite a lot of odds and ends. This post is an excellent example: found newspaper or magazine clippings that feature pool. To the right is a photo of Aerosmith's Joe Perry playing pool at Playboy Billiards in Coney Island. (FYI, Playboy Billiards no longer goes by that name). It's from a John Varvatos ad, and the photo was taken by Danny Clinch. Clinch, known for his rock and roll photography, is a photographer I respect a great deal. He works with a lot of bands that I like. And photography is not the only thing he's good at. In fact, one of my favorite songs by the Foo Fighters ("Another Round" on 2005's double album "In Your Honor") prominently features Clinch on harmonica. Since Clinch has so much clout with rock musicians, he was the natural choice for the John Varvatos campaign. An interesting story behind the Coney Island shoot can be read here. And while we're at it, click here for more. EDITOR'S NOTE 8-21-07: Brooklyn Billiards, as it's now known, is not in Coney Island. I paid a visit over the weekend. It's in sort of an obscure area deep in Brooklyn that doesn't have a definite name. According to my Streetwise Brooklyn map, it's in between the neighborhoods of Ocean Parkway and Midwood. It's still a good three miles from the Coney Island boardwalk.

On another note, I came across this other clipping around the same time. It's a Lauren Lancaster shot from the inside of Fat Cat Billiards in Greenwich Village, on the cover of amNY. It was a "guide to haunts for the night owl in you." Apparently they think pool is the ideal night activity. There's definitely some truth to that. I have been to Fat Cat twice and the only thing I remember is that, like Broadway Billiards Cafe, there's virtually no cell phone reception because it's underground. Just two random pictures I came across while walking around recently.

Bleecker

I can't really think of much to say about Bleecker Street Bar. Located on Bleecker at Crosby, I've found myself in the neighborhood many times during the middle of the day and have enjoyed stopping in for a few quick practice racks. They have not one, not two, but three pool tables in the back room. Plus, there's a skylight above the pool tables so you don't feel like you're underwater, missing out on a nice day when you just want to hop in real quick. Unlike in Wichita, three tables in one bar is highly uncommon in New York. So you figure it's got to have some sort of reputation for attracting good players. I know it is one of many bars referred to in Heather Byer's recent book "Sweet: An Eight Ball Odyssey."

Most recently I was there in early July and was pleased to be able to play league rules with a couple players whose names escape me. I've played doubles there before with bridge and tunnel folks, I've played drunk NYU girls, the whole gamut. My most memorable visit was totally not about pool. It was in September of 2002 when I stopped in with fellow photographer and K-Stater Pete Souza, who was in town covering the 9/11 anniversary for the Chicago Tribune. Afterwards we went up to my Stanton rooftop so he could see the night version of the downtown skyline. There was an incredible lightning storm underway that night. The next day it was revealed that a person or some people a few blocks over in Nolita had been killed by lightning while standing on their rooftop doing the same thing.