Wall of death. part 1.
It's 9:00 a.m. Monday morning and I feel like I did after my week at boot camp. They tortured me for two days. I saw a few AZBers, LA ToolMan, Lewis, Dreck Donkey sp?, Cor Dor and maybe BlaineBarcus. It was a whirlwind from the time we got there.
I practiced like hell fire on a Valley Bar Box prior to going to Lafayette for a week to no avail, apparently. Friday night before the tournament I went to bed at 9:00 pm, something I seldom ever do, hoping to fully charge my batteries. I slept until about 6:00 am and woke staring at the clock; forced my eyes closed for another hour and a half. It seemed like an eternity but I wanted as much rest as I could stand.
About 7:30 I got up and readied myself for the weekend tournament, waiting for my road dog Paul Laplace. I called him at 8:45 as we had planned to leave for 9:00 am for the two hour jaunt to White Diamonds. Naturally, he was in the shower and we didn't leave until 9:30 am but it was an easy trip on I-10 with little traffic and plenty of state troopers on the highway keeping the vehicles moving safely except for a few who found themselves completely stopped by the leacherous hands of the law that rules the highways.
We stopped at Paul's attorney friend's home in Breaux Bridge, LA for a quick chat and a key to his office where we would have pool player facilities (shower, couch and other minimal amenities) for Saturday night and maybe Sunday night. Paul's friend had company Saturday night so we didn't want to crowd the big house with our rummy-dumb azzes so when he offered the office, we were all over that. "D", has a penchant for motorcyles and invited us to look over his vintage collection of reconditioned motorcyles in varying states of conditioning. Some were magnificent looking and others looked a bit forlorn sitting there partially dismantled. He even invited us to watch him perform in the WALL OF DEATH, a cylindrical shaped death trap where the motorcylist races the bike getting up enough speed to climb the SIDES OF THE WOODEN WALL and stay there for unlimited amounts of terror time, racing round and round the cylinder with no where to go but down. We passed on the offer to watch him risk his very life in this homemade wooden barrel and moved on to White Diamonds which must have been another 30-40 minutes. More on the death trap later.
We arrived at White Diamonds in plenty of time to witness Chris Miller's auctioneering prowess and for those of you who have seen it, well let's just say, the auction alone is worth the visit. Chris electrifies the place and makes everyone laugh and smile, all the while, pulling HUGE SUMS of money out of the pockets of Calcutta enthusiasts. This tournament proved no different with Chris vacuuming almost $30,000.00 from the pockets of the participants and this was from the first Calcutta alone.
White Diamonds was quite large as Hu reported and QUITE CLEAN, I might add. The grill had TASTY food at very reasonable prices and the bar was stocked with every drink a thirsty woofer could imagine. The kitchen was in full view and was IMMACULATE. They had plenty of staff with attractive girls waiting, politely but efficiently on the tournament goers. The girls always had a smile for each customer but I kept thinking my waitress was just smiling at me so I kept tipping better and better until Paul told me she was smiling at all of her customers. I felt like my world had imploded on me and all was lost. I guess that's what friends are for.
The bar tables were mixed with the other tables and I never distinguised what those other tables were but I am pretty sure they were Brunswick tables, probably 9 foot Gold Crown's but from what era I don't know. They were in VERY good condition and played well and stayed in use the whole tournament, night and day. The bar tables were Valley 7 footers also in very good condition and they used the Aramith cue ball which looks like what they call a mud ball (kind of dirty looking) and feels kind of heavy. It certainly didn't draw as easy as a red circle cue ball but played well enough for the cream to stay at the top.
Just before the tournament NickA from South Louisiana offered to play me a race to 7 on bar boxes but we had barely gotten started when they started announcing the matches. We played on until the last minute shooting as fast as we could with Nick leading by a game or two when we were finally facing the two players that were playing on our table, Nick generously offered, "Want to call it even?" to which I quickly replied, "Sure".
The tournament started at about 4:30 pm that evening after about four hours of Chris belting out exhaltations of the most extreme about each player's prowess to would be Calcutta buyers. He had the ability to start a player out at $50 and move the purchase price to $900. It was phenomenal.
I was number 96 and Paul was 128 on the selection board. (They let you pick your own number out of the hat). This is a good idea because it forces the player to come before the Calcutta buyers to see what condition they are in and also to verify who they are, with Chris exhalting everything about the player including how enegetic they look and their most recent conquests as well as their conquests from decades ago. Paul and I didn't play until late that evening, maybe around 9 or 10 pm. It was a hard day and we hadn't played a game of pool. We both started off with forunate wins over our opponents and so that kept us happy at least for a while. Later on about midnight we each had another match and Paul got clipped and I escaped a very good player's wrath who led me 4-1 but who finally succumbed to my will to win in the end at a score of 7-6.
At about 2:30 am, Chris announced that they were closing and that the police were just down the street. Coming from New Orleans, we thought for sure a raid was in progress. People started moving out of the pool room to their vehicles like rats leaving a docked ship, quickly and with great efficiency. I started moving out the door with the rest of the pack when the tournament director caught my eye, and said, "Not you! We are getting down to the final 32 on the winner's side and you are going to play Nick Vita before you leave". Then I realized that they were getting rid of all of the drinkers, sweaters and visitors and going to lock the doors to finish the schedules matches. This would make the pace quicken and let the police know that they were doing their job of NO DRINKING and closing up at the appointed hour.
At 4:00 am, my name was called and the tournament director didn't chop it up too badly so I reported for my match and Nick came out the gate like burning hell 4-0. Nick felt a little sorry for me as I kept nodding off as he ran out like water and left me a couple of easy outs and he easily beat me 7-4. I felt pretty good that he didn't beat me 7-0.
So at 4:30 as the first day was coming to a close, Paul and I left to get some rest as we had to be back at the pool room for 8:00 am. We headed off to find a restaurant and we drove for MILES AND MILES and not only did we not see a restaurant, there was not one business of ANY TYPE that was open. We couldn't believe it. That's when I thought of the number on my cell phone for White Diamonds. I called and Asheley answered the phone whom I had spoken to earlier. I was glad she knew me from the infamy I obtained from nola.com and she quickly shared two restaurants that were open and Paul and I went to replenish our energy. We hit IHOPS, like two real pool players, getting the Sunrise Special for seniors which consisted of two eggs, hash browns, sausage links and pancakes. We splurged on an orange juice and some coffee, ate like ravenous pigs, tipped the waitress and headed off to get some rest. It was a 40 minute ride if we didn't get lost going to the office where we had a key and another 40 minutes back. By now it was almost 6:00 am so we decided to do what any real pool player would do and headed back to the pool hall. When we arrived at the pool hall there were at least 4 other vehciles spending the next couple of hours in the parking lot at White diamonds. We reclined the seats and I listend to Paul snore like a bull moose in the small confines of the Tacoma, until I couldn't stand it anylonger. I turned on the radio and listened to some Gospel station as I prayed for redemption and renewed energy. At 7:45 Paul was out of the truck headed for the pool room. The place was already abuzz and I tried to sleep but couldn't. My match was scheduled for 9:30 but didn't start until around 11:00 am. By then I was walking, eating another meal and doing some deep breathing exercises to stay away and in shape for my match. My opponent had a slow start out of the gate and I had him 5-2 before my wheels ran off and my younger opponent caught a gear and edges me out at the finish line, 7-6. His name was Ernesto, not the one from California. :wink:
The tournament rolled on. Paul was in action with John Landry for some one pocket. Paul was getting needed weight from John and I approached Paul's table slowly to see what was up and I gave him the thumb's down sign to which he shared some empathy. We were tired from the long day and Paul to his credit told his opponent that he would call it even though he was one game on top. John smiled like a kid on Christmas morning, not caring where the gift came from but that it had arrived at all.
We headed back to New Orleans, feeling like the rented mule, beaten, and put up wet. We stopped at Wendy's and picked up a quick meal for the ride home and when I started nodding Paul took over as he had some napping that he did after he lost his final match for the day at 8:00 am against none other than the owner, Chris Miller who played rather well for a guy with broken foot.
We couldn't give you much information about the results but I see that a few others have chimed in so you are probably up to date on those other issues.
To Kiamco, Corteza, Bartram, Clatterbuck, Townsend and the large number of bar table players out there: Come on down to Louisiana and get yourself some.
Oh! Just before we hit Wendy's we stopped off at D's (Paul's friends house) to return the unused key to the office we were invited to use and say good-by. D invited us in to have a drink and good conversation. D and his wife were doing some gardening and he was eagerly looking for a little respite from the gardening and naturally had to hear about our experience. While we were updating D, he showed us his aging barrel of premium whiskey and offered us a taste or two and I have to say, it tasted just as well as any bourbon whiskey I have ever tasted. The whiskey was aged only 18 months but tasted like premium grade whiskey.
JoeyA
