Or as Luigi would say, my nom de pool.
The story won't be fascinating or anything like that but I hope others who have acquired nicknames will see fit to add their story here. In that way, those who come after us might see how they were acquired and under what conditions.
My nickname came about quite naturally. It wasn't anything extraordinary like many nicknames it was quite relative. My typical day was I got to work at 8:00 am every morning; I mean the real work. I was a salesman for a large business forms company in New Orleans called Duplex Products. I excelled at selling business forms not from talent but kind of like my pool game, just plain old determination and sticktoitiveness. My sales and order entry were down to a fine science by the time I started hanging out at the Sport Palace in New Orleans and I would normally be finished my day's work by lunch time. Just so you guys and girls don't get the wrong idea about my work ethic: The company paid their salesmen on what they sold only. It was straight commission. No Salary. If you didn't make your draw, you went in the hole and had to earn your way back out of the hole. The company didn't let you sit in the hole for long and they would send you down the road in a heart beat if you weren't productive. Sometimes I would work at night or weekends or whenever it was necessary to keep the orders rolling in. Not once in the 12 years that I worked for them, did I ever go in the hole even once. I always had an extra commission check coming every month above my draw. It wasn't the easiest job in the world but by the time I started playing pool at the Sport Palace I had it down to a science and my boss was quite happy with my productivity. I even carried him a time or two.
At lunch time, I would go over to the Sport Palace and either grab a quick Po-Boy roast beef sandwich or maybe a shrimp sandwich and quickly go over the the pool hall. As soon as I arrived, it was kind of strange, they treated me like I was a celebrity of sorts. (I had a job, money, played pool, enjoyed gambling and had some free time to do what they all liked to do). I wore a suit or coat and tie every day to work and when I would come into the Sport Palace I would leave my coat in the car and come in with my cue and case in hand, with my tie always in tack. I didn't know it at the time and really didn't pay any attention to the reason that the gamblers were attracted to me but they were always fighting to see who would play me that day.
No more than a few minutes would pass before someone would offer me a game I couldn't refuse. Nubby was my favorite pool hustler. He was a drug dealer by trade and had lost one of his hands do to a dynamite explosion or so he always told me. There were many others, Earl Heisler (the big dog) Al Werlein (the road warrior) Ernie Sellers (the Lamb killer and one of the few pool players that made a decent living gambling at pool). Ernie worked at his trade all over the country and he could really play but seldom ever showed his true speed. Racetrack Al and Hotel Al, two different guys from different parts of the world would often be there when I gambled trying to get in some side bets. There were dozens of working stiffs like myself who liked the shadowy underworld of the Sport Palace with the discreet card room in the back where you had to be a member of the Red Rose Social Club (charter and all) to play. Tall Paul, Railroad Willie, Pots and Pans, Joe the Grinder, Mr. Steve (one of my favorites), Louie Knott, LIttle Louie KNott, Little Sal, Eddie Brown, Jim D'Fish, Louie the fisherman, Tenneco, Larry Griff the golfer, Jerome Gambino (I always thought he wsa part of the Louisiana mafia ), PVL, Mike Cummings the baseball player, Country, Mule, Bull, Nut, Red Charlie, Fu Man Chu, Junior the card sharp; God, I could probably go on for another half hour with all of the characters that played pool out of that pool room and most everyone had a nickname. The charter for the card room was a farce and basically it was a means of segretating the gamblers by race but it also kept the law out of the back room unless they had a search warrant or had permission from either Louie Knott or Earl Heisler to go back there. It was what it was and was there before my time. How it existed in the eighties I will never know. There were no racial barriers in the pool room and all races locked horns and gambled with one another with no holds barred. Nubby REALLY liked gambling with me. At the time I first arrived, I didn't even know all of the rules of one pocket, let alone the many shots and strategies that go with the game. The players would give me weight and I would play for five ten or twenty dollars a game every day for a few hours before making my way home.
Nubby knew the game of one pocket quite well but didn't shoot that straight and I knew from the start that he would make a great customer for me. He too knew that I was a man to keep my mouth shut about how much he lost to me (which was important to him) and so each day I would have a game with one of the scores of gamblers that hung out at the Sport Palace. Nubby would rest his cue shaft on the wrist bone just above where his hand once was located and did all right for himself. I kept my winnings and his business to myself as most everyone did in those days. He would occasionally get mad at me (mostly a conjured anger that was just for show) and quit me but he always came back to play again and again for years. I always showed him respect and I think that meant something special to him. The Sport Palace was a tough place to cut your teeth playing pool and respect was something that you earned with prowess at the table. Nubby didn't play poorly, he just had too much money and would always make the game more than fair for me and I always wanted to thank him and so I never said unkind things to him or about him behind his back. He must have liked that because he repaid me many times. I would lose on occasion and it didn't matter if it was twenty dollars, it kept Nubby happy and something for him to hold his head up high. He didn't need much to keep him happy and I didn't give him much except for keeping my mouth shut.
Anyway, after a game and stakes were set, I would walk straight to the pool table without hitting a ball (they all loved that) and set the balls on the table with the ball holding rack under the table. Then I would remove my tie and place it in the ball holding rack and begin play. This protocol was repeated for years and then one day after I had earned enough respect, Hotel Al (a real New Orleans character) who still operates a limousine service in New Orleans at the Hotels, announced that my name was Joey With A Tie and anytime someone wanted to differentiate me from one of the other Joeys, they would simply say, "Joey With A Tie".
Hope you enjoyed it. :smile:
Now let's hear yours.
JoeyA (Joey With A Tie)
P.S. Other nicknames came later but they didn't stick like: The Cannon Killer.
