The Ballad of John and Lou, Part Three

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lfigueroa said:
John, really.



If 15 years ago on RSB I said, "CTE is ca-ca and everyone who believes in it wears tin foil hats and think they can bend spoons with their minds" what does it matter today, 15 years later? As I told you after the match, I would not say things today I said 10, 15 years ago. I would like to think I have become older and hopefully a little bit wiser.



After the match I pointed out to you how I had, by-and-large, abandoned the Aiming Forum -- not because I was told to stay away, I was not -- but because I'm a little bit wiser now.



I also told you that months ago I had been sent a copy of Stan's 2nd DVD and had people *begging me* to review it, as I did his first DVD, and I have not. I would like to think I am a little bit wiser now.



Thorough out the last five months I did not bark back at you, through all the insults ("louser," "fluffier corporation,") the taunts ("Lou won't show," "Lou has no heart") and the lies ("I will take all side bets and stack it at the event"). I would like to think I'm a little wiser now.



And now, after the match, I have struggled to keep it all classy and to give you your due because, I would like to think I am a little wiser now.



But you still want to argue about things long in the past and use them to justify your actions, words, and feelings in the here and now. John, I don't know about you, but I have learned much in recent years. Our match has taught me things about myself and I have taken many good things away from that experience. What has happened in the past is gone or I have let it go. It's too bad you appear to not be able to do the same.



Lou Figueroa
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Good post


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JB Cases said:
I challenge you to find even five instances where I have provoked anyone first.

Just five. I think that there is probably not even one example of me attacking any other person without being provoked first.

To say I am the instigator is ridiculous and wrong.
Click to expand...

This should be fun. I'll start.

1. TheThaiger. I had John Barton firmly in the 'Too Long, Didn't Read' category of posters before he started a fight over my jokey use of a slang Thai word. That has since escalated somewhat. :D

Next?
 
JB Cases said:
Yes Eric started it. Elsewhere. He knew his presence would shark me and I played into it in the dumbest way possible.
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What Eric "knew" or intended is pure conjecture on your part. If you can't see that you imagined (right or wrongly) what his intentions were and used those thoughts (of your own making) to go against yourself and your goals, then you need to take a look.

Every sports trainer, performance trainer of any endeavor, gurus and the like, will tell you that the key to high performance is staying in the moment. Not saying you are a better player than Lou, because you are not, but you could have beat him that night. You used your own baggage against yourself and you lost. And now here you are continuing down the same road.

What's the definition of insanity?

Kevin
 
lfigueroa said:
ah, one of the great sports photos of all times. I remember listening to that fight with my Dad on the radio. Thanks, Nick.

Lou Figueroa
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Your Dad was on the radio? Commentating? So *that* is who that famous quote is from!

-Sean <-- down goes Leinen
 
JB Cases said:
Lou please answer this question. Who started all this between us?

Did you throw the first punch online or did I?



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Click to expand...

This speaks volumes about your physiological make up. Years ago I had a neighbor who felt slighted. It was garbage day and my can was full. Rather than stack the garbage on top I decided to look in his and because his was half empty (note truck was coming by in 30 min) I threw one bag of garbage in his can. He must have seen me and somehow felt slighted because I didn't ask him. Seeing as the truck comes by every week and we don't pay by weight I didn't see the harm in "parking in his spot for 30 minutes". Fast forward a month and I'm pulling into my garage at 2AM after a late business flight. There is my neighbor with his Johnson in hand...peeing on my garden. I look at him and ask, "what the hell are you doing"? His response..."You started it...by putting your garbage in my can".

The world is not against you John. Despite your conduct up to the match (and I'm sure in your mind..."Lou had it coming"), Lou has kept it classy. Trying to go back 15 years and two forums ago, looking for proof of the Big Bang is not worth the sweat equity. You now have two options. Take another match and try and win back your land or move on. Your starting to fight with the walls (and the mods). This only ends one way.

Nick
 
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Lou I have also taken a lot from this match. Your perspective is yours. Mine is mine. But I cannot and will not allow others to rewrite history or use this out of context to paint me as the aggressor here. You used the word cronies earlier. You and your cronies were always the aggressors and the instigators. Own it and don't pretend it was ever otherwise.

I am happy to bury this hatchet but unwilling to allow your cronies (your term) to continue to lie about me and falsify the record.

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Nick B said:
This speaks volumes about your physiological make up. Years ago I had a neighbor who felt slighted. It was garbage day and my can was full. Rather than stack the garbage on top I decided to look in his and because his was half empty (note truck was coming by in 30 min) I threw one bag of garbage in his can. He must have seen me and somehow felt slighted because I didn't ask him. Seeing as the truck comes by every week and we don't pay by weight I didn't see the harm in "parking in his spot for 30 minutes". Fast forward a month and I'm pulling into my garage at 2AM after a late business flight. There is my neighbor with his Johnson in hand...peeing on my garden. I look at him and ask, "what the hell are you doing"? His response..."You started it...by putting your garbage in my can".

The world is not against you John. Despite your conduct up to the match (and I'm sure in your mind..."Lou had it coming"), Lou has kept it classy. Trying to go back 15 years and two forums ago, looking for proof of the Big Bang is not worth the sweat equity. You now have two options. Take another match and try and win back your land or move on. Your starting to fight with the walls (and the mods). This only ends one way.

Nick
Click to expand...

Oh please. Not even close Nick. Again you take everything out of context.



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JB Cases said:
Oh please. Not even close Nick. Again you take everything out of context.



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Which part? Lets Review:
  1. You feel Lou started it____Check Box
  2. Lou kept it classy up to the match while you didn't____Check Box
  3. You feel we are all a bunch of Lou "Cronies"____Check Box
  4. Your fighting with everyone and the mods____Check Box
  5. You lost and it bothers you____Check Box

Nah. I'm good. My context is clean.


Nick
 
kvinbrwr said:
........ What's the definition of insanity?

Kevin
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Sadly, it seems like Az is anymore.

JB Cases said:
......... But I cannot and will not allow others to rewrite history or use this out of context to paint me as the aggressor here. You used the word cronies earlier. You and your cronies were always the aggressors and the instigators. Own it and don't pretend it was ever otherwise.

I am happy to bury this hatchet but unwilling to allow your cronies (your term) to continue to lie about me and falsify the record.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

John, it has to be a burden to carry that around, You stepped up, you played.

Take a break from Az and relax. Make some nice cases.

As somebody said, "Don't sweat the small stuff, and in the grand scheme of things, it's almost all small stuff."
 
lfigueroa said:
“Our long national nightmare is over…”
President Gerald R. Ford
inaugural speech, post Watergate


So finally, after months of build up, it’s done. The match has been played and we can all get back to doing whatever we should be doing.

I have to give props to John. He was tenacious and came with some great shots. To be frank, he played better than I expected he would. I cannot imagine how he felt after the match. In counter point to the high I experienced, his low must have been equally profound. I don’t care who you are, it must be extraordinarily difficult to internalize a defeat like this and he was extremely gracious after the match and held his head up, as well he should. My hat is off to him.

For me, even to this day, as I walk around my neighborhood to shop or get a a coffee, there is a spring in my step that I know would be absent if I had lost my match with John. Fair warning: if playing pool for a huge amount of money is not something you do on a regular basis, there is no way for you to anticipate the costs you may incur -- costs that will extend far beyond dollars and cents.

It is a funny thing: I flew back home and was pretty much numb the first few days. A couple of nights later back at the pool hall, people congratulated me, shook my hand and related watching the match from home, on their phone, or from the office in the back of the pool hall, either crowding around the computer screen or running back every so often to ask, “How’s Lou doing?” Gail, who was in Little Rock while the match was going on (and who hates 1pocket), sweated the entire first night, but tuned in too late to see all of the final game, so we watched it together at home. It was actually only until about a week later that I started to feel pretty good about winning.

Many people have said they have never watched that much 1pocket at one sitting (I am also told we approached 800 viewers at one point or another the first night). Of course they have also said they just couldn’t turn away — it was like a car wreck, with blood and body parts, ambulances, cop cars and fire department, with Ed, Freddy, and Jamison providing their insightful commentary. Thanks guys!

For those that say John and/or I played like crap, I would say to you that unless you are an amateur, who has played for $10,000, just one time, on a tight table that was foreign to you, in front of a live audience, with three cameras sending your every move out to the world: Girl, you have no idea.

Part of it, I think, is that we all get used to Efren, or SVB, or name the pro of your choice, rocketing balls in from everywhere and playing perfect shape, match after match, stream after stream, DVD after DVD. But for most of us, that’s not how we play, particularly when under the gun. I promise you: put yourself in the position John and I were in and every time you step to the table you will question everything you ever thought you knew about pool and your game. Shots you slice, dice, and whiz in at home for whatever amount of money you are comfortable with — fergetabout it. You will study and fret, and, in trying to be extra careful, you will fook up. And that’s one thing that has probably permanently changed for me — I now have an extremely low tolerance playing guys and watching them fire at shots I know they would never roll at playing for larger stakes.

Somewhere along the way John said, "…kudos to Lou. He is playing solid one hole and staying extremely calm outwardly. Whatever zen thing he has going on in his head is working.” The Zen thing Lou had going on was all those years of going to tournaments and playing the likes of Efren, Scott, Alex, Francisco, Rafael, Larry, et al that John sometimes denigrates as me wasting my money and writing pretty stories about. Ultimately it was the pretty stories that came through for me, giving me the luxury of comfortably falling into my tournament zone. I’d been there so often that it was a safe place for me to go during the match. There, it didn’t matter what my opponent did, how long he took to shoot, whether the audience or his team clapped loudly for him, or I just screwed up.

So it’s done.

As he was shaking my hand after the match, Mike said, “You look like you’ve lost 20 pounds off your shoulders.” And I did. Dustin said, “You looked great out there, man. You made me proud.” And that’s the way I felt — proud my game held up well enough and long enough to crawl across the finish line. And when I finally got home and Gail kissed and hugged me she said, “So. This is what winner looks like. It’s great to have you back.” And I knew she was not talking about my physical presence, but that my mind was no longer focused on playing John Barton. I was free, released, and Lou again.

So I’m guessing some of you are wondering: will there be a rematch?

After due reflection, I would say probably not. It is not something I am interested in doing and frankly I have nothing to prove — not about whether I will show up to play, not about whether I can play for $10K, not about whether I can “get in the grease,” not about whether I am the better player, and certainly not about CTE. But, I’m not willing to say never, just: probably not.

As to the CTE stuff, right after the match John said he hopes we can bury the hatchet and asked if I’d be willing to meet with Stan at his house in Kentucky to learn more about CTE, Pro One, and how they really work. And I said, “No, I’m not. I have no interest in doing that.” And then he suggested meeting Stan somewhere halfway. And I again responded, “No.” John asked me why and I replied, “John, you can call it being closed minded if you want but I would no sooner go out to meet Stan to learn about CTE than I would go out to meet a guy who wanted to tell me about seeing Big Foot.” So without a doubt, that argument will go on into perpetuity.

I could not have done any of this without Mike and Dustin. Of course there were others like kollegedave, Arizona Jay, Terry and Mark, owners of The Break, and so many of you that, through emails and PMs, supported me. It was also great to meet Koop (thanks for the Yuengling beers — right after the match, they hit the spot!), Mitch, Jerry, Brian, and Mikey. Ed, you run a class operation.

But most importantly, I could not have done this without Gail. For Christmas, amongst my other gifts, were a stack of Accu-Stats 1pocket DVDs from the 2012 DCC and SBC that she gave me. DVDs I watched, paused and rewound in the weeks leading up to my match with John. I also received a copy of Mark Wilson’s “Play Great Pool” that she had ordered for me. With apologies to Mark I will do something I usually try and avoid and share, in part, a private note he included with the book: “Lou, yes, you have the best pool wife ever, she has sought out my book for you… Thank you for the interest, thank you Gail.” Well, how can I improve on that except to say, thank you, Gail. Thanks for putting up with me as I spun in circles; took time away from us to practice; for listening to me endlessly kevetch about what John would say about me.

It was about a week after the match when I was back home that Gail and I went out to dinner one night and she made the following confession to me. "I didn't want to tell you this before but about a month ago I went searching on AZ for details about your match with John. I felt like I was intruding on your world but I wanted to try and understand why you were so consumed with this match and beating him. And I came across a YouTube video of him in front of a pool table ranting at you for 10 minutes straight. And I started to cry because this man was saying the most horrible things about the man I was married to. And I finally understood."

I have one last quick story to wrap it up. I’m sharing this because amongst all the madness leading up to the match, it was a critical turning point for me, though I didn’t know it at the time.

In mid-February, while we were vacationing in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, late at night we would often find ourselves at out favorite bar at Del Mare, where Arturo, one of the great bartenders of the world, would hold court to an endless stream of American and Canadian tourists and ex pats. As usual the bar was full up and Gail and I fell into a conversation with a gentleman from Minnesota named Tim and somehow the subject of my upcoming match came up. Suddenly Tim looked me in the eye and asked me point blank, “Are you going to win?” And without hesitation I responded, “Yes. I’m going to win.” And Tim replied, “I know you are. In my business I often ask people, ‘Are you going to win, succeed, meet your goal?’ And I can tell by their response whether they’ll succeed or not. You responded without doubt. I know you’re going to win.”

And then he did what I thought was a weird thing. He turned to Gail sitting on the bar stool next to me, looked her in the eye and asked, “Is he going to win?” And Gail, in her usual, guarded manner said, “Well, I hope so.” And Tim shot back, “No. You have to believe in him, Gail. Do you see that woman at the end of the bar? She’s my wife and we were going to get married a few years ago. But I was near bankruptcy and I told her, ‘I don’t want to get married right now. I’m broke and I don’t know what our financial future will be.’ And she said to me, ‘I believe in you. You will succeed and I want to marry you.’ And that’s all it took and we got married and I’m a millionaire now. Gail, you’ve got to believe in Lou and you will fill him with enough love and confidence that he will.”

And from that night in February, Gail was a 100% behind me, listening to me, encouraging me, making me go out to practice, even when I didn’t feel like it.

So thank you, Gail. You believed in me.

Lou Figueroa
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Although in the past you've always been negative to me for no reason...congrats on the win, and your posts on the experience are a good read and well written.
 
Yeah, I heard some dude was talking smack and was asked to leave the poolhall. Was that one of Lou's cronie aggressors?

JB Cases said:
Lou I have also taken a lot from this match. Your perspective is yours. Mine is mine. But I cannot and will not allow others to rewrite history or use this out of context to paint me as the aggressor here. You used the word cronies earlier. You and your cronies were always the aggressors and the instigators. Own it and don't pretend it was ever otherwise.

I am happy to bury this hatchet but unwilling to allow your cronies (your term) to continue to lie about me and falsify the record.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
 
Nick B said:
Which part? Lets Review:
  1. You feel Lou started it____Check Box
  2. Lou kept it classy up to the match while you didn't____Check Box
  3. You feel we are all a bunch of Lou "Cronies"____Check Box
  4. Your fighting with everyone and the mods____Check Box
  5. You lost and it bothers you____Check Box

Nah. I'm good. My context is clean.


Nick
Click to expand...

1. Yes he did.
2. No he did not.
3. I do not. I chose Lou's word to describe some of his supporters. He should explain what he means by it and I would be certain that his definition applies to some of you.
4. I am not. I am stating my position in opposition to some points being made which are in error. There is only one moderator I disagree with and I have clearly stated why.
5. Of course it bothers me that I lost. Is it not supposed to bother me? But it doesn't bother me for the reasons you presume.

Me losing a match does not give you or anyone else the right to run your mouth with lies and falsehoods.

You can certainly voice your opinion that I got spanked or that I deserved it but you absolutely do not get to say I was the aggressor without me challenging that false characterization.



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Hungarian said:
Yeah, I heard some dude was talking smack and was asked to leave the poolhall. Was that one of Lou's cronie aggressors?
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How would I know? I know the dude was aggressive and he stated that he was there to see me get goat f'd.

In any event I dogged it by engaging with him pre-match. I really did not think he would attempt to assault me with a pool ball. I guess if I were a senior citizen he wouldn't have needed a weapon.





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Is it true that Dave Segal was banned for calling someone a nuthugger?

If so really? That is probably the most used term on Azb and half the forum would be banned if this was anything worth being banned over.

I guess its OK that I am called every name including being called a cock with no penalty.

Oh well. In China its called guangxi. Or loosely translated who you know.

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kvinbrwr said:
John

I think everyone on this forum would agree with one thing and that is that you have stated your side of the story in all your disputes plenty.

The thing is, nobody really cares about who thinks who hurt who first. These constant attrmpts to "set the record straight" fall on deaf ears and really just give the folks that want to bait you ammo.

Anybody who has seen any life at all knows that 2 people will remember the exact same event differently. What's the sense of constantly holding up your version of the truth as the only version? Nobody believes that, and even if they did, nobody cares.

Do you think anyone here cares who threw the first blow between you and Lou? And, if you agree that they don't, why hash it out? Who benefits?

Kevin
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I care. I benefit. Those who care about the truth benefit. Sorry but I refuse to be a victim of those who want to spin things and twist facts and outright lie about the course of events.

As long as I am here and I desire to I will state the way it happened as often as I want to. No one is required to read it.

There is no way that I am allowing anyone to make me out to be the aggressor here. I was called a two-bit coward, Lalumiere even went so far as make a website defaming me, a website that is still active, a website where Eric Hu has defamed me plenty. I was ORDERED by Wilson to remove something I put up on another website about a member I was in an argument with, a member that I made up with and respect to this day. But Wilson wants Lalumiere restored even though what he has done and continues to do is far more harmful to me.

Sorry I will not be a victim of these people. I said four years ago that I would play for 10k and I played for 10k when they finally stepped up to make a game. There is zero bad behavior on my part right now, none.

I played and I lost and I accept that. No part of the bet entailed allowing myself to be lied about, to be defamed, to be insulted by Lou or anyone else.
 
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