There was a nice pool hall on El Camino just south of Page Mill. It closed about 1988. It was in a quonset-hut style building. It was taken over by the VW/Nissan dealership. Maybe 12 GCs. Rent drove them out. It was not far from Antonio's Nut House.
Tony Annigoni suicide
- Thread starter jay helfert
- Start date
L.S. Dennis
Well-known member
That’s quite a ride!!!
L.S. Dennis
Well-known member
Agreed, the title should be changes out of respect if nothing else.
phreaticus
Well-known member
Agreed, it would definitely be nice if someone changed the title to something a bit more respectful, and it would be even nicer if folks didn't feel the need to use this thread to ramble about totally unrelated insignificant trivia.
Yes I agree. Got carried away thinking about my time living there. I will edit my posts. Thanks for your input..
phreaticus
Well-known member
Sorry - my post was stronger than intended. Thx for helping us all to be respectful, I’m certainly no saint myself. Take care
Adamantine
New member
Damnit- this sucks.
About 4 hours ago I called Tony on his (831) number and someone else answered the phone. The gentleman said that he’d had the number for ’a month or two’ and that he had received quite a few calls for Tony since getting it. I apologized, told the guy to expect more calls, as Tony had had that number since the early 2000s (if not before) and then hung up. I found McCumber’s email and send him a brief note to call me, as I figured that if anyone would have Tony’s number, it’d be David. I tried remembering the name of his latest room, and when I couldn‘t, I figured I’d just Google ‘Tony Annigoni’ and that it would take me to whatever the most recent newspaper article about whatever new(est) room he was involved in, and I’d just call that room.
Then the Google search result yielded ‘Tony Annigoni suicide’ and directed me here…
First and foremost- @kannigoni- my condolences to you and Tony’s son- Tony was a true one-of-a-kind, and, as is evidenced by the numerous and myriad responses and tributes in this thread, he will be fondly remembered and sorely misssed. There are some beautiful and touching tributes and rememberences here, and as Tony was a friend, I feel compelled to add my own.
I first met Tony when he and David Mccumber came through MD while David was writing POTR. We hit it off immediately, and I took them down to Greenie‘s place in Pikesville‘ where Tony lost a squeaker to Junior Harris; years later, that loss still bothered him, but not because it cost him $500, but because it cost me $20, and he said he felt like he let me down (obviously, he didn’t). I then took them down to Jack and Jill’s in Glen Burnie, where he matched up with Danny Green (I’m the ‘Mike’ in POTR whose comment Mccumber credited with having been the origin of the chapter titled The Dew Factor [I can only assume a dry and sardonic wit are wasted on Mccumber
]). I distinctly remember being impressed with not only the breadth of Tony’s knowledge on a variety of subjects, but also his depth of knowledge. I think that’s why we hit it off so quickly and so well- I was kind of a nerdy, scholarly-type, and after some intense discussions about philosophy, religion, economics, and pool (to name just a few), it was obvious that he was no dilettante, and that he not only had a true understanding of these things, but an appreciation for them, and I respected that.
Tony and I stayed in touch pretty regularly over the years, and chatted often. In 2003, he came and stayed with me for a week. I had a Brunswick Centennial 5x10 with double shimmed pockets AND a GC3 at my house, and he wanted to get in stroke for some tournaments without all the distractions back home. I had informed him ahead of time that I’d be gone at work most of the time, and could probably play with him some during the evening, but during the day he’d be on his own. That was fine with him, as he was focused on getting some real quality time in anyway. He’d get up early, play for a while, go back in the house midday for my wife to make him lunch, and then go back out and play. This lasted for a few days, and then we got hit with a real sonofabitch of a snowstorm. We had 3 or 4 feet worth of the shit, and Tony was incredulous- it was almost like he had never seen snow before. Anyway, I ended up stuck at home, so we had 3 days of constant play together (where I was fortunate enough to have him show me some of the ’secrets’ the great Hal Mix had shown him). During those three days, Tony must have gone over 4 different plans, schemes, and machinations to improve pool and make it more like snooker was in the UK [read: more marketable, and by extension- more profitable]. Tony actually had to help shovel the driveway, since the guy who had plowed it had done such a shitty job. He gave me grief about it for years, as it was him and my wife doing the shoveling. (I had shoveled walks as a kid, and had my fill, so as a grown up, I don’t shovel walks or driveways anymore. I didn’t care if it took weeks for that shit to melt, as I didn’t *have* to be at work.)
<Funny, but now also sad, tangent: Just last week, out of the blue, my wife asked me if I had talked to Tony recently. She was cleaning our laundry room, and when I went in to talk to her as she was folding some of her delicates, and she said it made her think of Tony. When I said “What the Hell….?”, she laughed and reminded me that when he stayed with us, he had taken her laundry out of the dryer to put his own in, and, as a courteous houseguest would do, he folded up my wife’s clothes, most of which were her bras and panties. Luckily, my wife has a great sense of humor, and she wasn’t ‘creeped out‘ or disturbed by it because she realized that it was just in his nature to be fastidious. I had forgotten about that until she reminded me about it. I never did bring that up to Tony, for fear that he would have been upset that he might have made my wife uncomfortable (which he didn’t).>
Anyway, as the years wore on, we spoke with less and less regularity, ‘settling in’ on talking about once every 5 or 6 months. However, our decrease in frequency was more than compensated for by our increase in…… ‘passion’. (When I first met Tony and David, I was an apolitical kid. Around ‘08 I ‘got into’ politics, and became quite passionate and involved.) As it wasn’t an area of interest for me previously, it was not a subject that Tony and I had ever discussed to that point. To say that he and I were polar opposites politically is a gross understatement. The last few years worth of conversations were 5-10% pool related, and 90% us cussing each other out over the other’s political opinions and ideations. They’d end with me calling him a delusional socialist dipshit or him asking me what my [deceased, *Kennedy* Democrat] father would think of me being a hard-core right-wing nut job, and we‘d say our ‘&^%# yous’ and our ‘goodbyes’, and then hang up until the next conversation, when we’d invariably do it all again. They were always…. ‘lively’ <ahem> discussions. I liken them to having a sore tooth that you know you *shouldn’t* touch with your tongue, but you somehow cannot help but do just that.
It’s been a few months since I last talked to him. There have been a few times that I thought about calling him, if for no other reason than to rub his nose in Biden’s innumerable failures and missteps. I imagine this probably sounds shallow and sadistic to many reading this, but it was a large part of the dynamic between the two of us. Trust me, every time Trump said something stupid (which was basically every day), I cringed, knowing that Tony had filed it away to bring up to me upon our next conversation. I have been meaning to reach out to him to catch up, and now I am so sad and angry at myself that I didn’t.
Man, I really wish I had *any* idea that the last time we talked would truly be the last time we'd talk…
Rest In Peace Tony- I hope you’re boxing every morning, mentoring kids every day, and up all night playing. I’m sorry this world didn’t offer you what you needed, and I hope the next one does.
My apologies if this stream of consciousness ‘tribute’ rambled on. Brevity has never been my strong suit, and a bunch of things were popping into my head as I typed it.
My deepest sympathies and condolences to the friends and family that were closest to him- the loss to us on the periphery pales in comparison to those of you who knew him best and loved him most.
Mike
About 4 hours ago I called Tony on his (831) number and someone else answered the phone. The gentleman said that he’d had the number for ’a month or two’ and that he had received quite a few calls for Tony since getting it. I apologized, told the guy to expect more calls, as Tony had had that number since the early 2000s (if not before) and then hung up. I found McCumber’s email and send him a brief note to call me, as I figured that if anyone would have Tony’s number, it’d be David. I tried remembering the name of his latest room, and when I couldn‘t, I figured I’d just Google ‘Tony Annigoni’ and that it would take me to whatever the most recent newspaper article about whatever new(est) room he was involved in, and I’d just call that room.
Then the Google search result yielded ‘Tony Annigoni suicide’ and directed me here…
First and foremost- @kannigoni- my condolences to you and Tony’s son- Tony was a true one-of-a-kind, and, as is evidenced by the numerous and myriad responses and tributes in this thread, he will be fondly remembered and sorely misssed. There are some beautiful and touching tributes and rememberences here, and as Tony was a friend, I feel compelled to add my own.
I first met Tony when he and David Mccumber came through MD while David was writing POTR. We hit it off immediately, and I took them down to Greenie‘s place in Pikesville‘ where Tony lost a squeaker to Junior Harris; years later, that loss still bothered him, but not because it cost him $500, but because it cost me $20, and he said he felt like he let me down (obviously, he didn’t). I then took them down to Jack and Jill’s in Glen Burnie, where he matched up with Danny Green (I’m the ‘Mike’ in POTR whose comment Mccumber credited with having been the origin of the chapter titled The Dew Factor [I can only assume a dry and sardonic wit are wasted on Mccumber
]). I distinctly remember being impressed with not only the breadth of Tony’s knowledge on a variety of subjects, but also his depth of knowledge. I think that’s why we hit it off so quickly and so well- I was kind of a nerdy, scholarly-type, and after some intense discussions about philosophy, religion, economics, and pool (to name just a few), it was obvious that he was no dilettante, and that he not only had a true understanding of these things, but an appreciation for them, and I respected that.Tony and I stayed in touch pretty regularly over the years, and chatted often. In 2003, he came and stayed with me for a week. I had a Brunswick Centennial 5x10 with double shimmed pockets AND a GC3 at my house, and he wanted to get in stroke for some tournaments without all the distractions back home. I had informed him ahead of time that I’d be gone at work most of the time, and could probably play with him some during the evening, but during the day he’d be on his own. That was fine with him, as he was focused on getting some real quality time in anyway. He’d get up early, play for a while, go back in the house midday for my wife to make him lunch, and then go back out and play. This lasted for a few days, and then we got hit with a real sonofabitch of a snowstorm. We had 3 or 4 feet worth of the shit, and Tony was incredulous- it was almost like he had never seen snow before. Anyway, I ended up stuck at home, so we had 3 days of constant play together (where I was fortunate enough to have him show me some of the ’secrets’ the great Hal Mix had shown him). During those three days, Tony must have gone over 4 different plans, schemes, and machinations to improve pool and make it more like snooker was in the UK [read: more marketable, and by extension- more profitable]. Tony actually had to help shovel the driveway, since the guy who had plowed it had done such a shitty job. He gave me grief about it for years, as it was him and my wife doing the shoveling. (I had shoveled walks as a kid, and had my fill, so as a grown up, I don’t shovel walks or driveways anymore. I didn’t care if it took weeks for that shit to melt, as I didn’t *have* to be at work.)
<Funny, but now also sad, tangent: Just last week, out of the blue, my wife asked me if I had talked to Tony recently. She was cleaning our laundry room, and when I went in to talk to her as she was folding some of her delicates, and she said it made her think of Tony. When I said “What the Hell….?”, she laughed and reminded me that when he stayed with us, he had taken her laundry out of the dryer to put his own in, and, as a courteous houseguest would do, he folded up my wife’s clothes, most of which were her bras and panties. Luckily, my wife has a great sense of humor, and she wasn’t ‘creeped out‘ or disturbed by it because she realized that it was just in his nature to be fastidious. I had forgotten about that until she reminded me about it. I never did bring that up to Tony, for fear that he would have been upset that he might have made my wife uncomfortable (which he didn’t).>
Anyway, as the years wore on, we spoke with less and less regularity, ‘settling in’ on talking about once every 5 or 6 months. However, our decrease in frequency was more than compensated for by our increase in…… ‘passion’. (When I first met Tony and David, I was an apolitical kid. Around ‘08 I ‘got into’ politics, and became quite passionate and involved.) As it wasn’t an area of interest for me previously, it was not a subject that Tony and I had ever discussed to that point. To say that he and I were polar opposites politically is a gross understatement. The last few years worth of conversations were 5-10% pool related, and 90% us cussing each other out over the other’s political opinions and ideations. They’d end with me calling him a delusional socialist dipshit or him asking me what my [deceased, *Kennedy* Democrat] father would think of me being a hard-core right-wing nut job, and we‘d say our ‘&^%# yous’ and our ‘goodbyes’, and then hang up until the next conversation, when we’d invariably do it all again. They were always…. ‘lively’ <ahem> discussions. I liken them to having a sore tooth that you know you *shouldn’t* touch with your tongue, but you somehow cannot help but do just that.
It’s been a few months since I last talked to him. There have been a few times that I thought about calling him, if for no other reason than to rub his nose in Biden’s innumerable failures and missteps. I imagine this probably sounds shallow and sadistic to many reading this, but it was a large part of the dynamic between the two of us. Trust me, every time Trump said something stupid (which was basically every day), I cringed, knowing that Tony had filed it away to bring up to me upon our next conversation. I have been meaning to reach out to him to catch up, and now I am so sad and angry at myself that I didn’t.
Man, I really wish I had *any* idea that the last time we talked would truly be the last time we'd talk…
Rest In Peace Tony- I hope you’re boxing every morning, mentoring kids every day, and up all night playing. I’m sorry this world didn’t offer you what you needed, and I hope the next one does.
My apologies if this stream of consciousness ‘tribute’ rambled on. Brevity has never been my strong suit, and a bunch of things were popping into my head as I typed it.
My deepest sympathies and condolences to the friends and family that were closest to him- the loss to us on the periphery pales in comparison to those of you who knew him best and loved him most.
Mike
Last edited:
Damnit- this sucks.
About 4 hours ago I called Tony on his (831) number and someone else answered the phone. The gentleman said that he’d had the number for ’a month or two’ and that he had received quite a few calls for Tony since getting it. I apologized, told the guy to expect more calls, as Tony had had that number since the early 2000s (if not before) and then hung up. I found McCumber’s email and send him a brief note to call me, as I figured that if anyone would have Tony’s number, it’d be David. I tried remembering the name of his latest room, and when I couldn‘t, I figured I’d just Google ‘Tony Annigoni’ and that it would take me to whatever the most recent newspaper article about whatever new(est) room he was involved in, and I’d just call that room.
Then the Google search result yielded ‘Tony Annigoni suicide’ and directed me here…
First and foremost- @kannigoni- my condolences to you and Tony’s son- Tony was a true one-of-a-kind, and, as is evidenced by the numerous and myriad responses and tributes in this thread, he will be fondly remembered and sorely misssed. There are some beautiful and touching tributes and rememberences here, and as Tony was a friend, I feel compelled to add my own.
I first met Tony when he and David Mccumber came through MD while David was writing POTR. We hit it off immediately, and I took them down to Greenie‘s place in Pikesville‘ where Tony lost a squeaker to Junior Harris; years later, that loss still bothered him, but not because it cost him $500, but because it cost me $20, and he said he felt like he let me down (obviously, he didn’t). I then took them down to Jack and Jill’s in Glen Burnie, where he matched up with Danny Green (I’m the ‘Mike’ in POTR whose comment Mccumber credited with having been the origin of the chapter titled The Dew Factor [I can only assume a dry and sardonic wit are wasted on Mccumber
Tony and I stayed in touch pretty regularly over the years, and chatted often. In 2003, he came and stayed with me for a week. I had a Brunswick Centennial 5x10 with double shimmed pockets AND a GC3 at my house, and he wanted to get in stroke for some tournaments without all the distractions back home. I had informed him ahead of time that I’d be gone at work most of the time, and could probably play with him some during the evening, but during the day he’d be on his own. That was fine with him, as he was focused on getting some real quality time in anyway. He’d get up early, play for a while, go back in the house midday for my wife to make him lunch, and then go back out and play. This lasted for a few days, and then we got hit with a real sonofabitch of a snowstorm. We had 3 or 4 feet worth of the shit, and Tony was incredulous- it was almost like he had never seen snow before. Anyway, I ended up stuck at home, so we had 3 days of constant play together (where I was fortunate enough to have him show me some of the ’secrets’ the great Hal Mix had shown him). During those three days, Tony must have gone over 4 different plans, schemes, and machinations to improve pool and make it more like snooker was in the UK [read: more marketable, and by extension- more profitable]. Tony actually had to help shovel the driveway, since the guy who had plowed it had done such a shitty job. He gave me grief about it for years, as it was him and my wife doing the shoveling. (I had shoveled walks as a kid, and had my fill, so as a grown up, I don’t shovel walks or driveways anymore. I didn’t care if it took weeks for that shit to melt, as I didn’t *have* to be at work.)
<Funny, but now also sad tangent. Just last week, out of the blue, my wife asked me if I had talked to Tony recently. She was cleaning our laundry room last week, and when I went in to talk to her, she was folding some of her delicates, and she said it made her think of Tony. When I said “What the Hell….?”, she laughed and reminded me that when he stayed with us, he had taken her laundry out of the dryer to put his own in, and, as a courteous houseguest would do, he folded up my wife’s clothes, most of which were her bras and panties. Luckily, my wife has a great sense of humor, and she wasn’t ‘creeped out‘ or disturbed by it because she realized that it was just in his nature to be fastidious. I had forgotten about that until she reminded me about it. I never did bring that up to Tony, for fear that he would have been upset that he might have made my wife uncomfortable (which he didn’).>
Anyway, as the years wore on, we spoke with less and less regularity, ‘settling in’ on talking about once every 5 or 6 months. However, our decrease in frequency was more than compensated for by our increase in…… ‘passion’.(When I first met Tony and David, I was an apolitical kid. Around ‘08 I ‘got into’ politics, and became quite passionate and involved.) As it wasn’t an area of interest for me previously, it was not a subject that Tony and I had ever discussed to that point. To say that he and I were polar opposites politically is a gross understatement. The last few years worth of conversations were 5-10% pool related, and 90% us cussing each other out over the other’s political opinions and ideations. They’d end with me calling him a delusional socialist dipshit or him asking me what my [deceased, *Kennedy* Democrat] father would think of me being a hard-core right-wing nut job, and we‘d say our ‘&^%# yous’ and our ‘goodbyes’, and then hang up until the next conversation, when we’d invariably do it all again. They were always…. ‘lively’ <ahem> discussions. I liken them to having a sore tooth that you know you *shouldn’t* touch with your tongue, but you somehow cannot help but do just that.
It’s been a few months since I last talked to him. There have been a few times that I thought about calling him, if for no other reason than to rub his nose in Biden’s innumerable failures and missteps. I imagine this probably sounds shallow and sadistic to many reading this, but it was a large part of the dynamic between the 2 of us. Trust me, every time Trump said something stupid (which was basically every day), I cringed, knowing that Tony had filed it away to bring up to me upon our next conversation. I have been meaning to reach out to him to catch up, and now I am so sad and angry at myself that I didn’t.
Man, I really wish I had *any* idea that the last time we talked would truly be out last conversation…
Rest In Peace Tony- I hope you’re boxing every morning, mentoring kids every day, and up all night playing. I’m sorry this world didn’t offer you what you needed, and I hope the next one does.
My apologies if this stream of consciousness ‘tribute’ rambled on. Brevity has never been my strong suit, and a bunch of things were popping into my head as I typed it.
My deepest sympathies and condolences to the friends and family that were closest to him- the loss to us on the periphery pales in comparison to those of you who knew him best and loved him most.
Mike
Thanks for a great story
Adamantine
New member
Tony's passing was the last thing on my mind last night as I drifted off to sleep, and the first thing of which I thought when I woke up this morning. I don't have any idea why this thought popped into my head upon awakening this morning, but I'm wondering how this thread made it 13 pages thus far without any mention of Tony's love of boxing? It seems like all of his other passions (snooker, promoting pool, mentoring the underprivileged, politics, business, etc.) have been mentioned, even if just glancingly, but not boxing.
Again, I have no idea why this occurred to me.
For those who didn't know it, Tony was also a boxer, and, as of one of the last times I had talked to him, had been 'boxing' again. While we didn't talk about it other than him mentioning it, I imagine he was doing jump-roping and bag work and [perhaps] light-sparring, as opposed to full-on 'boxing'; he was always in good shape, especially for his age. I have no idea what 'level' boxer he was, but he had once told me that he was 'pretty good', and I had no reason to not believe him. Pugilism is actually a thinking man's game at the higher levels, and it seems like whatever he did, he aspired to do at the highest levels, so it would make sense that he was good at it.
I suppose that it may be the case that I'm overstating the role boxing played in his life? We never talked in-depth, nor terribly often, about it, I just remember him mentioning it a few times, and him being [even-more-than-usually] animated when talking about it, so I assumed that it was a passion of his.
Maybe McCumber or @kannigoni can shed some light?
Mike
Again, I have no idea why this occurred to me.
For those who didn't know it, Tony was also a boxer, and, as of one of the last times I had talked to him, had been 'boxing' again. While we didn't talk about it other than him mentioning it, I imagine he was doing jump-roping and bag work and [perhaps] light-sparring, as opposed to full-on 'boxing'; he was always in good shape, especially for his age. I have no idea what 'level' boxer he was, but he had once told me that he was 'pretty good', and I had no reason to not believe him. Pugilism is actually a thinking man's game at the higher levels, and it seems like whatever he did, he aspired to do at the highest levels, so it would make sense that he was good at it.
I suppose that it may be the case that I'm overstating the role boxing played in his life? We never talked in-depth, nor terribly often, about it, I just remember him mentioning it a few times, and him being [even-more-than-usually] animated when talking about it, so I assumed that it was a passion of his.
Maybe McCumber or @kannigoni can shed some light?
Mike
