It’s been a while but this weekend I was able to put my notes together. When I was in Vegas for the IPT event I noticed Williebetmore’s anonymous pro coach walking through the casino. I introduced myself and ask if we could get together for a cup of coffee and discuss Willie’s progress. We met a couple of hours later at one of the shops in the hotel. Here is a transcript of our discussion.
Breakup: Hi Anonymous Pro, nice to finally meet you. I’ve followed your career for years.
Anonymous Pro: Hi breakup I have to say Willie has described you to me and you are nothing like his description.
Breakup: haha thanks I’m sure that is a complement. ...so how is Willie’s training going?
Anonymous Pro: So much has happened in the last few months I don’t know where to start.
We kind of got off to a false start in the beginning. Initially I was going to try to build on what he already knew using many of the techniques I used for training chimpanzees in the past using the old reward/punishment routine. You see Willie has had some top notch pros try to teach him in the past and I’m sure they were doing their best but he just regurgitates random statements with no understanding what he is saying. He will refer to things like “classic straight pool patterns” or “stroke mechanics” he might as well be saying “Polly want a cracker” if you know what I mean. It took me a while to actually see what was going on but when I did we had to alter our course. First we had to get him to forget all that he thought he knew, luckily he has the memory of a goldfish and within weeks it was like he had never seen a pool table before. He was a blank slate. Now I thought we were ready to get going.
It soon became apparent that I had overestimated Willie’s physical and mental potential so I wanted to get some professional testing for him to see where we stand. Willie went through extensive testing from some of the best sports trainers and psychologists available. All have concluded that Willie’s brain is working at maximum output merely to keep him breathing, digesting food and other normal body processes the rest of us take for granted. One prominent physician gave me the analogy “ if the normal human brain is a 100 watt light bulb Willie is a firefly.
Even though the testing showed some very basic limitations, that is what we have to work with and we will make the best of it. Since we can’t deminish his intellectual capacity any we opted to get him a frontal lobotomy. Williebetmore’s doctor has been recommending this procedure for sometime. After the lobotomy his emotional mood swings and aggressive tendencies have been drastically reduced (without any discernable increase in drooling). When Willie wears his favorite beany with the propeller on top the lobotomy scars are barely visible. The reduced level of emotional outbursts have had such a positive impact on his training that I think he may be ready to start to use an actual cue ball soon (rather than just shooting the balls straight in (at) the hole). This is great news for Willie, everyone in his camp is excited as well.
Breakup: That is great news. Did the lobotomy address any of Willie’s other odd habits?
Anonymous Pro: Oh yes Willie’s behavior never was suitable for small children to be around, now he has become quite an attraction as I will explain in a moment. It is much easier it is to travel by air with him now. Before his lobotomy getting him through security and on a plane was impossible. We used to have to dress him up as a gorilla and ship him in a cage as cargo. We had exotic animal permits for him and everything. Now after his lobotomy we just up the medication and he is like a zombie. He gets to go on the plane like everyone else. Pretty nice. One final thing the lobotomy fixed, you ever see a male puppy before he gets neutered shamelessly running around violating any inanimate object in sight? Well the lobotomy fixed that for Willie too. Whew!! …that was a biggie. We were even able to remove a the padding on the walls around the table which gives us quite a bit more room.
Breakup: Wow Anonymous Pro that is quite a bit, where do you go from here?
Anonymous Pro: One thing that I insisted on was to get Willie to get more accustomed to human interaction. I was not sure what the best vehicle would be to accomplish this but as many other great things this started by accident. First we tried taking him to pro tournaments and dressing him up like an organ grinder monkey with a tin cup collecting donations for charity. The crowds loved “little Willie” but as it turns out the organ grinder monkey union has strict minimum standards of conduct that Willie that just could not meet so we had to give that up that project. On to plan B. Our next try was to excavate one side of Betmore’s basement and replace with a plexiglass wall. Added a parking lot next to the house and a nice walkway for viewing the legendary Betmore’s Basement. Grade school classes come from all over to take field trips to see Willie in his natural habitat. So far it’s working out great, we are selling hot dogs, cotton candy and even have one of those machines where you put a penny in and turn the crank and it rolls it out and imprints “Betmore’s Basement” on one side and an 8 ball on the other. The kids love it. One of the more popular activities is for the kids to put on a mask that looks like Efren, Willie just goes nuts. Sometimes for extra fun we give all the kids a mask that look like Efren ...When Willie sees 15-20 Efrens looking back at him through the glass, you have to see his reaction to believe it! He really gets that tire swing going! As this exhibit became more popular we started construction of a walk through time line that shows the development of Betmores from medieval times of selective breeding in Europe to the present day. It is a very unique design. We have a spiral staircase and in the middle of the staircase is phone pole that represents Willie’s family tree, as you walk up the staircase you go back in time to read the stories of Willie’s ancestors. We are hoping that within a few years this will be a nationally recognized stop off for people traveling through Indianapolis.
Breakup: Any problems with permits or anything?
Anonymous Pro; Funny thing We had a visit from the municipal animal control the other day. For some reason most of the neighbors are complaining that they thought we were raising tigers, …that was weird.
In the big picture we are trying to get Willie identified as an “endangered species” so we could get government funding for his well being. There is a lot of politics involved in getting Willie classified as his own species. But that is in our long term plans.
Breakup: Do you have any special exercises for Willie?
Anonymous Pro: Well he likes to dig in the yard and he has a large sandbox.
Breakup: Are you still using the shock collar?
Anonymous Pro: Absolutely, it still doesn’t help his ability to make balls but it sure is fun to give him the old voltage and watch him jump up. I also have started using M&M treats. He can’t make a ball yet but he has learned to roll over, sit and shake hands.
Breakup: I have heard rumors of a movie deal in the making can you tell us anything about that.
Anonymous Pro: Well a prominent Hollywood studio has contracted the screenplay to be written with the famous actor Steve Martin in mind to play the lead. His previous characters of Ruprect the monkey boy in “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” and Nathan Johnson in “The Jerk” we know Mr. Martin could really breathe life into Willie’s character on the big screen.
Well I’ve got to go breakup, There is a Match I want to see at 2:00.
Breakup: Thanks Anonymous Pro, give my best to Willie.
Breakup: Hi Anonymous Pro, nice to finally meet you. I’ve followed your career for years.
Anonymous Pro: Hi breakup I have to say Willie has described you to me and you are nothing like his description.
Breakup: haha thanks I’m sure that is a complement. ...so how is Willie’s training going?
Anonymous Pro: So much has happened in the last few months I don’t know where to start.
We kind of got off to a false start in the beginning. Initially I was going to try to build on what he already knew using many of the techniques I used for training chimpanzees in the past using the old reward/punishment routine. You see Willie has had some top notch pros try to teach him in the past and I’m sure they were doing their best but he just regurgitates random statements with no understanding what he is saying. He will refer to things like “classic straight pool patterns” or “stroke mechanics” he might as well be saying “Polly want a cracker” if you know what I mean. It took me a while to actually see what was going on but when I did we had to alter our course. First we had to get him to forget all that he thought he knew, luckily he has the memory of a goldfish and within weeks it was like he had never seen a pool table before. He was a blank slate. Now I thought we were ready to get going.
It soon became apparent that I had overestimated Willie’s physical and mental potential so I wanted to get some professional testing for him to see where we stand. Willie went through extensive testing from some of the best sports trainers and psychologists available. All have concluded that Willie’s brain is working at maximum output merely to keep him breathing, digesting food and other normal body processes the rest of us take for granted. One prominent physician gave me the analogy “ if the normal human brain is a 100 watt light bulb Willie is a firefly.
Even though the testing showed some very basic limitations, that is what we have to work with and we will make the best of it. Since we can’t deminish his intellectual capacity any we opted to get him a frontal lobotomy. Williebetmore’s doctor has been recommending this procedure for sometime. After the lobotomy his emotional mood swings and aggressive tendencies have been drastically reduced (without any discernable increase in drooling). When Willie wears his favorite beany with the propeller on top the lobotomy scars are barely visible. The reduced level of emotional outbursts have had such a positive impact on his training that I think he may be ready to start to use an actual cue ball soon (rather than just shooting the balls straight in (at) the hole). This is great news for Willie, everyone in his camp is excited as well.
Breakup: That is great news. Did the lobotomy address any of Willie’s other odd habits?
Anonymous Pro: Oh yes Willie’s behavior never was suitable for small children to be around, now he has become quite an attraction as I will explain in a moment. It is much easier it is to travel by air with him now. Before his lobotomy getting him through security and on a plane was impossible. We used to have to dress him up as a gorilla and ship him in a cage as cargo. We had exotic animal permits for him and everything. Now after his lobotomy we just up the medication and he is like a zombie. He gets to go on the plane like everyone else. Pretty nice. One final thing the lobotomy fixed, you ever see a male puppy before he gets neutered shamelessly running around violating any inanimate object in sight? Well the lobotomy fixed that for Willie too. Whew!! …that was a biggie. We were even able to remove a the padding on the walls around the table which gives us quite a bit more room.
Breakup: Wow Anonymous Pro that is quite a bit, where do you go from here?
Anonymous Pro: One thing that I insisted on was to get Willie to get more accustomed to human interaction. I was not sure what the best vehicle would be to accomplish this but as many other great things this started by accident. First we tried taking him to pro tournaments and dressing him up like an organ grinder monkey with a tin cup collecting donations for charity. The crowds loved “little Willie” but as it turns out the organ grinder monkey union has strict minimum standards of conduct that Willie that just could not meet so we had to give that up that project. On to plan B. Our next try was to excavate one side of Betmore’s basement and replace with a plexiglass wall. Added a parking lot next to the house and a nice walkway for viewing the legendary Betmore’s Basement. Grade school classes come from all over to take field trips to see Willie in his natural habitat. So far it’s working out great, we are selling hot dogs, cotton candy and even have one of those machines where you put a penny in and turn the crank and it rolls it out and imprints “Betmore’s Basement” on one side and an 8 ball on the other. The kids love it. One of the more popular activities is for the kids to put on a mask that looks like Efren, Willie just goes nuts. Sometimes for extra fun we give all the kids a mask that look like Efren ...When Willie sees 15-20 Efrens looking back at him through the glass, you have to see his reaction to believe it! He really gets that tire swing going! As this exhibit became more popular we started construction of a walk through time line that shows the development of Betmores from medieval times of selective breeding in Europe to the present day. It is a very unique design. We have a spiral staircase and in the middle of the staircase is phone pole that represents Willie’s family tree, as you walk up the staircase you go back in time to read the stories of Willie’s ancestors. We are hoping that within a few years this will be a nationally recognized stop off for people traveling through Indianapolis.
Breakup: Any problems with permits or anything?
Anonymous Pro; Funny thing We had a visit from the municipal animal control the other day. For some reason most of the neighbors are complaining that they thought we were raising tigers, …that was weird.
In the big picture we are trying to get Willie identified as an “endangered species” so we could get government funding for his well being. There is a lot of politics involved in getting Willie classified as his own species. But that is in our long term plans.
Breakup: Do you have any special exercises for Willie?
Anonymous Pro: Well he likes to dig in the yard and he has a large sandbox.
Breakup: Are you still using the shock collar?
Anonymous Pro: Absolutely, it still doesn’t help his ability to make balls but it sure is fun to give him the old voltage and watch him jump up. I also have started using M&M treats. He can’t make a ball yet but he has learned to roll over, sit and shake hands.
Breakup: I have heard rumors of a movie deal in the making can you tell us anything about that.
Anonymous Pro: Well a prominent Hollywood studio has contracted the screenplay to be written with the famous actor Steve Martin in mind to play the lead. His previous characters of Ruprect the monkey boy in “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” and Nathan Johnson in “The Jerk” we know Mr. Martin could really breathe life into Willie’s character on the big screen.
Well I’ve got to go breakup, There is a Match I want to see at 2:00.
Breakup: Thanks Anonymous Pro, give my best to Willie.
