“Shoot Pools ‘Fast Eddie,’ Shoot Pools”-With Paul Newman’s “The Hustler” In Mind

“Shoot Pools ‘Fast Eddie,’ Shoot Pools”-With Paul Newman’s “The Hustler” In Mind

              

                             

By Lance Lawrence

“Fast Eddie” Felson was the greatest pool player to ever put chalk to stick and you had better believe that hard fact because I know from whence I speak. In most quarters, among the serious followers of the game, I, Jackie “Big Man” Gleason think that title belongs to me. Think an old tub who learned the game in Hell’s Kitchen at Jackie Kane’s dimly lit pool hall from guys who would break your knuckles if they even had seen a breath of air that you might be hustling them. I never had my knuckles broken but they also never knew when I hustled their carfare home if I had the chance. I was that raw and thought I was that good. Until “Fast Eddie” came strolling in the door one day all hungry and eager to take on “Big Man,” make a name for himself and put me on cheap street. I knew that I would take that strutting bastard down at first but I also knew deep down that whatever the “official” rankings which in those days was how much jack you took from the competition I also knew that someday I would be uttering those words that I just said to start my story about “Fast Eddie”

Maybe you never heard of “Fast Eddie,” never knew the story behind the story of how for a couple of years anyhow, maybe three, he ruled the roost, he was the king of the hill. All I know is from the first moment Eddie entered Sharkey’s Pool Hall, the place where my manager, Bart, and I hustled all comers at the sport of kings, down on 12^th Avenue in the teeming city of New York I was afraid to play him. Afraid he would damage my reputation as the king of the hill. I had never played game one against him but still I sensed something in his swagger, in his bravado that made my hands shake. Shaky hands the kiss of death in our profession.

I don’t know if I can explain that pit in my stomach feeling I am not much given to introspection a word I never heard of before the guy who I first told this story, a journalist, he called himself, and as long as he was not blowing smoke my way I believe him and if this little story ever gets published that my view of fucking hard luck sports reporters who get assigned to interview “retired” sports figure like me will improve greatly. If not, fuck it I just wanted to get the tale told and that is that. This introspection stuff, this thinking about why I had that pit in the stomach and why I worried about cheap street like a lot of other guys, Willie Hoppe, the legendary “Minnesota Fats, “Jersey Fats,” guys like that who had to hang up their hats when they magic left their when a guy like me, like “Big Man” or then “Fast Eddie” came up and took at the dingy pool hall air away. Let me try to give you an idea, okay. I was a guy, a wiseass guy no question, laughing at the idea that some two bit strong arms would miff my play, would do my knuckles in when I was in my Jake. But see I had learned the game, learned all angles and hustles by putting what they nowadays call doing the 10,000 hours of work to perfect whatever skill you were trying to perfect. I knew at any given time on any given night what I could and could not do with the rack when they spread their wings. That and maybe a cynical hustler’s sense of another man’s weaknesses (woman as far as I knew did play, play high stakes pool then at least I never ran across and who wanted to play although I ran into plenty of women was wanted to help me spend my money, and they did).

“Fast Eddie” though the minute he came in the door, the minute he put chalk to stick just had a feel for what to do. Maybe he spent about five minutes doing the work I spent those lonely 10, 000 hours and the rest was pure spirit, karma, Zen whatever the fuck you want to call it. Made me almost pee my pants when he strutted up the table all lean and hungry, a guy named Shakespeare I remember from school or maybe my father who loved the cat, told everybody to watch out for those kinds and avoid them like the plague. Yeah, strutted right up to the table knowing that I was sitting right there with my manager Bart and proceeded to run the rack without stopping to look, closing those damn blue eyes before every fucking shot. So I knew I was done except I also knew, or maybe Bart had a better handle on it just then that I would take him down the first time he wanted to challenge me. He had to be bloodied first before he took over the kingship. There was no other way. Bart and I laughed, maybe a cynical laugh, how we would skin that cat before he even knew what hit him. See young lean and hungry guys, blue eyes or not forget about the barrelful of tricks an old pro had accumulated to keep the landlord from the door.                       

In case you don’t know, and maybe some readers might not having decided to read my homage to “Fast Eddie” based on the “hook” that this was about Paul Newman the movie actor shooting big-time pool, hustling pool in the old days before Vegas, Atlantic City, Carson City started putting up money to have high dollar championships was about more that learning technique, having a vision of where the fucking balls would enter the pockets like your mother’s womb. A lot more. It was about having heart, about something that they would call Zen today but which we called “from hunger” in my day. Eddie’s too. That’s what Eddie had, that is what I sensed, what brought me to cold sweats when that swaggering son of a bitch came looking for me like I was somebody’s crippled up grandfather. It took a while, Eddie took his beatings before he understood what drove his art but he got it, got it so good that I left the game for a couple of years and went out West to hustler wealthy Hollywood moguls who loved the idea of “beating” “Big Man” Gleason at ten thousand a showing just for the sake of playing will a big time pool hustler.             

But forget about me and my troubles once Fast Eddie came through that long ago door after all this is about how the best man who ever handled a stick got to earn that title in my book. Like a lot of guys after the war, after World War II, after seeing the world in one way Eddie was ready to ditch his old life, was ready to take some chances and say “fuck you” to the nine to five world that would be death to a free spirit like him (that “free spirit” would put a few daggers in his heart before he was done but that is for later). Eddie, against my doughty frame, my big man languid frame, was a rangy kid, kind of tall, wiry, good built and Hollywood bedroom eyes like, well, like Paul Newman when he was a matinee idol making all the women, girls too, wet. Strictly “from hunger” just like in my time, the Great Depression, I had been the same before I left Minnesota for the great big lights of the city and “action.” Like I said raw and untamed but I could tell that very first time he put the stick to the green clothe he had the magic, had that something that cannot be learned but only come to the saints and those headed for the sky.           

So Eddie came in with a few thousand ready to take on the “Big Man.” While I feared this young pup I sensed that I could teach him a lesson, maybe a lesson that would hold him in good stead, maybe not, but which would at least give me enough breathing room to figure out what I would do when Eddie claimed his crown. His first mistake, a rookie error that I myself had committed was not having a partner, a manager to rein him in, to hold him back in tough times. He had some old rum dum, Charley, Billy, something like that, who cares except this rum dum was a timid bastard who couldn’t hold up his end. His end being strictly to estimate his opponent and rein the kid in when he was off his game like we all get sometimes. Me, like I said after I wised up, teamed up with Bart, Bart who knew exactly who and who was not a “loser” and who didn’t lose my money by making bad matches or bad side bets (those side bets were the cushion money that got us through hard times and many times were more than whatever we won at straight up games).      

All I am saying is that this kid’s manager did Fast Eddie wrong, let him go wild that first night when he was all gassed up to beat the Big Man. You already know that I whipped his ass or you haven’t been paying close enough attention. But that was all a ruse like I said, all kid bravado and swagger added in so it was like taking candy from a baby that first night. But I knew I was beat, beat bad in a straight up contest. What saved me that night was two things, no three. First, Fast Eddie like lots of kids figured that he could beat an old man with his hands tied behind his back and so he started his “victory lap” drinking, drinking hard high-end scotch even before the match had started. Second, he was cocky enough to declare that the only way to determine the winner was who cried “uncle” first (Bart smiled and whispered “loser” in my ear at hearing that). Third and last he had picked up this broad, some boozer and maybe a hooker named, Sandy, Susie, no, Sarah whom he was trying to impress somehow. She looked like a lost kitten but I didn’t give a damn about that just that Fast Eddie’s mind would be half on getting her down under the sheets, maybe had dreams of getting a blow job for his efforts she looked the type who was into some kinky stuff just for kicks. At least that was the way it looked at the time. As I will tell you later it was very different and I was totally wrong about the dame.          

It took almost twenty-eight hours in that dark dank smelly booze-strewn Sharkey pool hall which looked like something out of the movies’ idea of what a low rent pool hall should look like complete with low-lifes but eventually between the booze, the bravado, and the broad I took Eddie down, left him about two hundred bucks “walking around” money. Left him to cry “uncle.” Cry it for the last time. Between grabbing Fast Eddie’s money and the side bets Bart made I, we were able to lay off for a couple of months (usually after a big score that was standard practice since the one-time suckers who want to brag to the hometown folks that they played hard and fast with the Big Man and almost won scatter to the winds for a while before they inevitably come back for their well-deserved beatings). Bart said, no crowed, that he had had Fast Eddie’s number, a “loser.” Was another gone guy, forget him.  But I had seen some moves, some moves especially before the booze got the better of the kid that I could only dream of trying without looking like a rube.         

This part of the story coming up I pieced together from what Bart told me, what Sharkey had heard, and what little Fast Eddie let on when he came back at me in earnest, in that Zen state or whatever the fuck you want to call it when a guy is “walking with the king.” Eddie went into “hiding,” went licking his wounds, which in the pool world meant that he was trying to put a stake together hustling at pool halls in bowling alleys, places like that where the rubes are dying to lose a fin or double sawbuck and not cry about it. A player at the kid’s level though would have a hard time of making much scratch with the carnival-wheelers so unbeknownst to me Eddie got in touch with Bart who staked him to some dough for a big cut of the proceedings. They made money, a fair amount, but Bart, at least this is what he told me later after I pistol-whipped him before I left for Hollywood and the big beautiful suckers there figured that would just come back to me in the end because Bart still had the kid down as a loser, a big bad loser.         

This part is murkier still. Along the way on this trip that Bart and Fast Eddie took to fleece the rubes this Sarah started to get religion, started wanted to settle down with Eddie, make Eddie settle down. After I had beaten him when he was laying low he moved in with her, they got along okay until Eddie connected with Bart whom Sarah definitely did not like, I guess she was off the bottle for a while but started in again once she saw that Eddie wouldn’t give up his dream, his dream of beating the Big Man. This part is even murkier but one night Eddie was hustling some Bourbon king and Bart and Sarah were left behind to drink the night away. Somehow Bart, who except when negotiating bets and matches was a pretty smooth talker, conned Sarah who was miffed at Eddie like I said into bed. Got her to either take him around the world or let him take her anally (or he forced the issue figuring she was just a bent whore anyway he had odd sexual desires from what I was able to figure out after a few years with him). The boozy haze, the rough sex, being unfaithful to Eddie, maybe her whole fucking life marching before her left her with who knows what angry feelings. In any case that night before Eddie got home she had slit her wrists.     

This last part is not murky, not murky at all. After beating the hell out of Bart he took the bus back to New York and one night he came through Sharkey’s door and I knew I was roasted (Bart had telegramed about what had happened and told me that he would put up fifty thousand dollars against Fast Eddie’s luck). I had no choice but to play the play out. After Fast Eddie took that fifty thousand and another twenty-five that I had put up I cried “uncle.” Cried uncle and left for Hollywood and the bright lights. Left Fast Eddie to play out his string, left Eddie to “shoot pools, ‘Fast Eddie’, shoot pools.”     

A Failure To, Ah, Communicate-Paul Newman’s “Cool-Hand Luke” ( ) A Film Review

A Failure To, Ah, Communicate-Paul Newman’s “Cool-Hand Luke” (1968) A Film Review

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell 

Cool Hand Luke, starring Paul Newman, George Kennedy,

If you want a prime example of 1950s-1960s manliness look no further than the film under review, Cool Hand Luke, to one of the that era’s great male actors Paul Newman who epitomize the “new man” of the post-World War II screen. Gone was the old macho push the edges until it hurt and then double down of the likes of Humphrey Bogart in the Raymond Chandler-Dashiell private detective classics and Robert Mitchum in something like Out Of The Past who took their beating and didn’t cry afterward. But also, did not show the more vulnerable side either. Handsome, almost pretty boy handsome with those piercing blue eyes Newman could take a punch, or as in this film, many punches and come up standing but also shown a side that expressed some doubts about his fate, about how his hurts were not so far from the surface. So not the James Dean sense of serious alienation but a more adult understanding that living in the modern world was a tough dollar even for tough guys. Robert Redford, his pal, later in the decade would exhibit a lot of the same traits and cement that “new man” image for that generation.           

Here’s the play, the rather simple play when you think about it, here. Luke, war be-medaled Luke, had not shaken off that experience, had been drifting along trying to “get by” without thinking too much about his place in the sun, or if he had a place. One drunken night, just for the hell of it, no reason, he went on a spree, a spree of decapitating his city’s parking meters. He got caught as one would expect and was sent to the county farm, the county workhouse for his efforts. Now this was the South that our boy Luke got himself sent away for and so he was in for some hard labor on old Parchman’s farm to express a generic term for what he was up against. He didn’t fit in for a while, also as expected from a loner, a guy who was just drifting along. That did not sit well with Dragline, played by Academy Award winner for his performance George Kennedy, head prisoner “elected” by being the toughest guy out on the prison farm. Even Luke after taking a manly beating where he would exhibit that never give up attitude from Dragline admitted he was beaten even if he could not quit.    

But the rules and regulation of prison life, even the rule and regulations that the prisoners imposed on themselves, did not sit well with Luke and before long he was headed for his new career of episodes of solitary, of the “box” which would break a man after a while. Led to his escapes and captures which the others admired if they could not follow. Led to him being broken inside anyway. Led to Dragline joining him for a minute in his bouts of freedom-seeking. In the end he was hurt but not bowed. Never. Even that fateful last escape where he was mortally wounded. Yeah, that Luke was a piece of work and the guys down on Parchman’s lived for a while on the memory of that “world-shaker.” Kudos Paul Newman on a great performance. You too George Kennedy.             

The Cowboy Angel Rides-Paul Newman’s “Hud” ( 1963) –A Film Review DVD Review

The Cowboy Angel Rides-Paul Newman’s “Hud” ( 1963) –A Film Review

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

Hud, starring Paul Newman, Melvyn Douglas, Patricia Neal, Brandon DeWilde,

In a recent review of another Paul Newman film, Cool Hand Luke, I mentioned that Mister Newman represented in the post-World War II period an emerging different the hard-boiled take no prisoners macho for the sake of macho earlier class of male lead actors like Bogie and Robert Mitchum. The post-war variety was a little vulnerable, a little less virtuous and showing a lot more signs of alienation that their older brothers. Paul New fit that space to a tee bringing his alienated vulnerable, what the hell side out in the film under review Hud (the short name says it all as an emblem of the times).       

Here we have one of the early examples of the way guys raised on a steady diet of Old West legends, everything black versus white in the morality scheme of things surrendering to the ambiguity of the post-war ethos down among the modern cowboys. In a sense this film is a coming of age film since although the action centers of Hud’s wild man gone mad exploits and decisions (or lack of decisions may be better and just drifting along) the other basic story line about his young nephew Lon, played by Brandon DeWilde, coming of age in an age when the Old West was surrendering by the minute to the New West (a New West that will be examined fully in the film The Last Picture Show about a decade later.   

This is how this one pony’s up though. Hud, as already mentioned is a hard-working, hard-loving, hard-drinking,well, everything hard son of the Texas range. A range created by his father, old Homer played by Melvyn Douglas, with whom he is fatally alienated. Old Homer from the Old West rugged individualism school of life can’t abide the fact that Hud just doesn’t give a damn, is out for the main chance-for Hud.  Throw in that by his dereliction he killed Lon’s father and you have a classic love-hate relationship. Homer having given up on Hud has staked everything on bringing Lon up right-and in the end he does wind up being a decent young man.      

But along the way there is nothing but trouble for Lon-first about whether he wants to emulate Uncle Hud and second trying to live up to his grandfather’s expectations. Complicating in this male-household is the housekeeper Alma, played by Patricia Neal whom Hud has a lustful eye on and Lon has affection for as well. Even more worrisome though is the fact that the livestock, the cattle that give life to the ranch have contracted hoof and mouth disease and in the end must be destroyed as a public health issue. (The scene where unknowing cattle are slaughtered and bulldozed to a mass grave is quite hard to take.). In the end old Homer is broken by that loss, by the loss of his livelihood. In the end Hud, after a bad attempted rape scene with Alma, has learned nothing by the old man’s death. In the end Lon walks away from what feelings he had for Hud as a model. Yeah, Hud was a man born after his time, after the Old West had been burned out of the countryside and the new cowboy West had left him disarmed against his own hubris.          

Once More Into The Lion’s Den- Not Fit For Hallmark Channel Prime Time, Maybe -Paul Newman And Bruce Willis’ “Nobody’s Fool” (1994)- A Short Film Review-Of Sorts

Once More Into The Lion’s Den- Not Fit For Hallmark Channel Prime Time, Maybe -Paul Newman And Bruce Willis’ “Nobody’s Fool” (1994)- A Short Film Review-Of Sorts   

[In a recent introduction to this new series, a series based on short film reviews for films that deserve short reviews if not just a thumb’s up or down I noted that Allan Jackson, the deposed previous site manager, required his film reviewers to write endlessly about the film giving the material an almost cinema studies academic journal take on it. That caused a serious decline in the number of reviews over the years which I hope to make up with a flurry of snap reviews for busy people. To see in full why check the archives for November 28, 2018- Not Ready For Prime Time But Ready For Some Freaking Kind Of Review Film Reviews To Keep The Writers Busy And Not Plotting Cabals Against The Site Manager-Introduction To The New Series. Greg Green]

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

Nobody's Fool, starring Bruce Willis, Paul Newman, Jessica Tandy, 1994  

I will not kid the reader that I expected a certain amount of blowback when I even lightly compared a 1930s film Mr. Ibbetson to the fare on the Hallmark vanilla insomniac movie channel. My point had been simply enough to note that that channel did not have a monopoly on dreamy scenes and happy-ending plotlines, especially the ubiquitous Christmas stuff that goes 24/7 full steam ahead with about one variation between the first and last product (usually whether the lead female character dumps her wrong gee beau or he her). I have since learned that about four actresses, the focus of the shows reflecting the demographic, wind up as an unintentional ensemble for a couple of dozen shows. Be that as it may the gist of each show is really a quaint formula some up and coming young professional woman, white, heads home to small town Bing Crosby White Christmas America (and emphatically not 1970s South Boston White Christmas) after having dumped or been dumped by Mr. Wrong.

At home after the obligatory warming up to the old time Christmas spirit she meets some old flame, if not physically the boy next door she grew up with and rejected or ignored on her way out of town she reconsiders her options and the whole thing is sealed by the truly obligatory ending chaste kiss (after several almost attempts). Nice innocuous fare for tough rainy or snowy days or a hard shopping tour. I merely mentioned that one could grow very tired of such fare on the seventh incarnation. That slight comment drew first the ire of my longtime companion Laura Perkins, who is a writer here as well, and an avid devotee of these films.

Laura saw no comparison worthy of the breath between the Hallmark episodes and the fairy-tale -horror show romance between the two ill-fated lovers in that 1930s film. Nor apparently did the enraged mob, mostly female, remember that demographic thing, who bothered, no, pelted our esteemed site manager Greg Green about the comparison asking for my head on a platter or any other surface if necessary. Greg in turn pelted me with a request no, a command, a military style command to back off on Hallmark Channel light as air fare references.

Needless to say, since I am still technically his boss, being the current chair of the Editorial Board established a couple of years ago after an internal fight at this publication in order to insure against site manager overreach, I will nevertheless bring forth another candidate for the Hallmark market and see what flies. Lately that candidate, Nobody’s Fool starring the late Paul Newman (take fair warning on that title sentiment), sort of slapped Laura and me in the face. Meaning whatever ire she showed when I “dissed” that Christmas formula stuff is gone and forgotten now that we have a case we can both support for a Hallmark moment kind of show. Hell, a word not used on those shows in fact nothing stronger than “darn” gets through the stolid screenwriter’s fist, the whole film takes place in deadass winter (note the comment just above) in up-county North Bath, New York during the period between Thanksgiving and the new year.  Ah, Christmas too.    

Of course, any film starring Paul Newman (and Bruce Willis) is going to be filled with manly male talk and actions, especially since this Paul character Sully is an aging working- class guy who has strike out more times in life than had hits from an ill-fated marriage to an abandonment of his son. The whole thing is wrapped around various relationships from frosty (ex-wife) to feisty (ex-boss Willis) to funny (work partner) to fulsome (son) to funky (sex eyes and plays for boss man’s wife). So yes there is nudity, briefly, foul language, on all sides, and some sophomoric tantrums and inside jokes (over stealing boss man’s snowblower). But there is also sincerity (Paul’s landlady’s compassion and wit) and some sense that the world has passed our boy by. Here is the clinching argument though for inclusion in the Hallmark pantheon-Paul had a chance, a once in a lifetime chance to take off with the boss’s wife who was more than willing to fly the coop but he is so wedded to North Bath when the deal goes down he passes on the icing on the cake.

The more I think about it though except for the wintertime visuals this saga of the trials and tribulations of an older man seeking some meaning to his life would not make it pass the Hallmark dream censors. And I am willing to take plenty of heat on that score.                     

“Shoot Pools ‘Fast Eddie,’ Shoot Pools”-With Paul Newman’s “The Hustler” In Mind

“Shoot Pools ‘Fast Eddie,’ Shoot Pools”-With Paul Newman’s “The Hustler” In Mind

By Lance Lawrence

“Fast Eddie” Felson was the greatest pool player to ever put chalk to stick and you had better believe that hard fact because I know from whence I speak. In most quarters, among the serious followers of the game, I, Jackie “Big Man” Gleason think that title belongs to me. Think an old tub who learned the game in Hell’s Kitchen at Jackie Kane’s dimly lit pool hall from guys who would break your knuckles if they even had seen a breath of air that you might be hustling them. I never had my knuckles broken but they also never knew when I hustled their carfare home if I had the chance. I was that raw and thought I was that good. Until “Fast Eddie” came strolling in the door one day all hungry and eager to take on “Big Man,” make a name for himself and put me on cheap street. I knew that I would take that strutting bastard down at first but I also knew deep down that whatever the “official” rankings which in those days was how much jack you took from the competition I also knew that someday I would be uttering those words that I just said to start my story about “Fast Eddie”

Maybe you never heard of “Fast Eddie,” never knew the story behind the story of how for a couple of years anyhow, maybe three, he ruled the roost, he was the king of the hill. All I know is from the first moment Eddie entered Sharkey’s Pool Hall, the place where my manager, Bart, and I hustled all comers at the sport of kings, down on 12^th Avenue in the teeming city of New York I was afraid to play him. Afraid he would damage my reputation as the king of the hill. I had never played game one against him but still I sensed something in his swagger, in his bravado that made my hands shake. Shaky hands the kiss of death in our profession.

I don’t know if I can explain that pit in my stomach feeling I am not much given to introspection a word I never heard of before the guy who I first told this story, a journalist, he called himself, and as long as he was not blowing smoke my way I believe him and if this little story ever gets published that my view of fucking hard luck sports reporters who get assigned to interview “retired” sports figure like me will improve greatly. If not, fuck it I just wanted to get the tale told and that is that. This introspection stuff, this thinking about why I had that pit in the stomach and why I worried about cheap street like a lot of other guys, Willie Hoppe, the legendary “Minnesota Fats, “Jersey Fats,” guys like that who had to hang up their hats when they magic left their fingers when a guy like me, like “Big Man” or then “Fast Eddie” came up and took all the dingy pool hall air away. Let me try to give you an idea, okay. I was a guy, a wiseass guy no question, laughing at the idea that some two bit strong arms would miff my play, would do my knuckles in when I was in my Jake. But see I had learned the game, learned all angles and hustles by putting what they nowadays call doing the 10,000 hours of work to perfect whatever skill you were trying to perfect. I knew at any given time on any given night what I could and could not do with the rack when they spread their wings. That and maybe a cynical hustler’s sense of another man’s weaknesses (woman as far as I knew did not play, play high stakes pool then at least I never ran across and who wanted to play although I ran into plenty of women was wanted to help me spend my money, and they did).

“Fast Eddie” though the minute he came in the door, the minute he put chalk to stick just had a feel for what to do. Maybe he spent about five minutes doing the work I spent those lonely 10, 000 hours doing and the rest was pure spirit, karma, Zen whatever the fuck you want to call it. Made me almost pee my pants when he strutted up the table all lean and hungry, a guy named Shakespeare I remember from school or maybe my father who loved the cat, told everybody to watch out for those kinds and avoid them like the plague. Yeah, strutted right up to the table knowing that I was sitting right there with my manager Bart and proceeded to run the rack without stopping to look, closing those damn blue eyes before every fucking shot. So I knew I was done except I also knew, or maybe Bart had a better handle on it just then that I would take him down the first time he wanted to challenge me. He had to be bloodied first before he took over the kingship. There was no other way. Bart and I laughed, maybe a cynical laugh, how we would skin that cat before he even knew what hit him. See young lean and hungry guys, blue eyes or not forget about the barrelful of tricks an old pro had accumulated to keep the landlord from the door.                       

In case you don’t know, and maybe some readers might not having decided to read my homage to “Fast Eddie” based on the “hook” that this was about Paul Newman the movie actor shooting big-time pool, hustling pool in the old days before Vegas, Atlantic City, Carson City started putting up money to have high dollar championships was about more that learning technique, having a vision of where the fucking balls would enter the pockets like your mother’s womb. A lot more. It was about having heart, about something that they would call Zen today but which we called “from hunger” in my day. Eddie’s too. That’s what Eddie had, that is what I sensed, what brought me to cold sweats when that swaggering son of a bitch came looking for me like I was somebody’s crippled up grandfather. It took a while, Eddie took his beatings before he understood what drove his art but he got it, got it so good that I left the game for a couple of years and went out West to hustler wealthy Hollywood moguls who loved the idea of “beating” “Big Man” Gleason at ten thousand a showing just for the sake of playing with a big time pool hustler.             

But forget about me and my troubles once Fast Eddie came through that long ago door after all this is about how the best man who ever handled a stick got to earn that title in my book. Like a lot of guys after the war, after World War II, after seeing the world in one way Eddie was ready to ditch his old life, was ready to take some chances and say “fuck you” to the nine to five world that would be death to a free spirit like him (that “free spirit” would put a few daggers in his heart before he was done but that is for later). Eddie, against my doughty frame, my big man languid frame, was a rangy kid, kind of tall, wiry, good built and Hollywood bedroom eyes like, well, like Paul Newman when he was a matinee idol making all the women, girls too, wet. Strictly “from hunger” just like in my time, the Great Depression, I had been the same before I left Minnesota for the great big lights of the city and “action.” Like I said raw and untamed but I could tell that very first time he put the stick to the green clothe he had the magic, had that something that cannot be learned but only come to the saints and those headed for the sky.           

So Eddie came in with a few thousand ready to take on the “Big Man.” While I feared this young pup I sensed that I could teach him a lesson, maybe a lesson that would hold him in good stead, maybe not, but which would at least give me enough breathing room to figure out what I would do when Eddie claimed his crown. His first mistake, a rookie error that I myself had committed was not having a partner, a manager to rein him in, to hold him back in tough times. He had some old rum dum, Charley, Billy, something like that, who cares except this rum dum was a timid bastard who couldn’t hold up his end. His end being strictly to estimate his opponent and rein the kid in when he was off his game like we all get sometimes. Me, like I said after I wised up, teamed up with Bart, Bart who knew exactly who was and who was not a “loser” and who didn’t lose my money by making bad matches or bad side bets (those side bets were the cushion money that got us through hard times and many times were more than whatever we won at straight up games).      

All I am saying is that this kid’s manager did Fast Eddie wrong, let him go wild that first night when he was all gassed up to beat the Big Man. You already know that I whipped his ass or you haven’t been paying close enough attention. But that was all a ruse like I said, all kid bravado and swagger added in so it was like taking candy from a baby that first night. But I knew I was beat, beat bad in a straight up contest. What saved me that night was two things, no three. First, Fast Eddie like lots of kids figured that he could beat an old man with his hands tied behind his back and so he started his “victory lap” drinking, drinking hard high-end scotch even before the match had started. Second, he was cocky enough to declare that the only way to determine the winner was who cried “uncle” first (Bart smiled and whispered “loser” in my ear at hearing that). Third and last he had picked up this broad, some boozer and maybe a hooker named, Sandy, Susie, no, Sarah whom he was trying to impress somehow. She looked like a lost kitten but I didn’t give a damn about that just that Fast Eddie’s mind would be half on getting her down under the sheets, maybe had dreams of getting a blow job for his efforts she looked the type who was into some kinky stuff just for kicks. At least that was the way it looked at the time. As I will tell you later it was very different and I was totally wrong about the dame.          

It took almost twenty-eight hours in that dark dank smelly booze-strewn Sharkey pool hall which looked like something out of the movies’ idea of what a low rent pool hall should look like complete with low-lifes but eventually between the booze, the bravado, and the broad I took Eddie down, left him about two hundred bucks “walking around” money. Left him to cry “uncle.” Cry it for the last time. Between grabbing Fast Eddie’s money and the side bets Bart made I, we were able to lay off for a couple of months (usually after a big score that was standard practice since the one-time suckers who want to brag to the hometown folks that they played hard and fast with the Big Man and almost won scatter to the winds for a while before they inevitably come back for their well-deserved beatings). Bart said, no crowed, that he had had Fast Eddie’s number, a “loser.” Was another gone guy, forget him.  But I had seen some moves, some moves especially before the booze got the better of the kid that I could only dream of trying without looking like a rube.         

This part of the story coming up I pieced together from what Bart told me, what Sharkey had heard, and what little Fast Eddie let on when he came back at me in earnest, in that Zen state or whatever the fuck you want to call it when a guy is “walking with the king.” Eddie went into “hiding,” went licking his wounds, which in the pool world meant that he was trying to put a stake together hustling at pool halls in bowling alleys, places like that where the rubes are dying to lose a fin or double sawbuck and not cry about it. A player at the kid’s level though would have a hard time of making much scratch with the carnival-wheelers so unbeknownst to me Eddie got in touch with Bart who staked him to some dough for a big cut of the proceedings. They made money, a fair amount, but Bart, at least this is what he told me later after I pistol-whipped him before I left for Hollywood and the big beautiful suckers there figured that would just come back to me in the end because Bart still had the kid down as a loser, a big bad loser.         

This part is murkier still. Along the way on this trip that Bart and Fast Eddie took to fleece the rubes this Sarah started to get religion, started wanted to settle down with Eddie, make Eddie settle down. After I had beaten him when he was laying low he moved in with her, they got along okay until Eddie connected with Bart whom Sarah definitely did not like, I guess she was off the bottle for a while but started in again once she saw that Eddie wouldn’t give up his dream, his dream of beating the Big Man. This part is even murkier but one night Eddie was hustling some Bourbon king and Bart and Sarah were left behind to drink the night away. Somehow Bart, who except when negotiating bets and matches was a pretty smooth talker, conned Sarah who was miffed at Eddie like I said into bed. Got her to either take him around the world or let him take her anally (or he forced the issue figuring she was just a bent whore anyway he had odd sexual desires from what I was able to figure out after a few years with him). The boozy haze, the rough sex, being unfaithful to Eddie, maybe her whole fucking life marching before her left her with who knows what angry feelings. In any case that night before Eddie got home she had slit her wrists.     

This last part is not murky, not murky at all. After beating the hell out of Bart he took the bus back to New York and one night he came through Sharkey’s door and I knew I was roasted (Bart had telegrammed about what had happened and told me that he would put up fifty thousand dollars against Fast Eddie’s luck). I had no choice but to play the play out. After Fast Eddie took that fifty thousand and another twenty-five that I had put up I cried “uncle.” Cried uncle and left for Hollywood and the bright lights. Left Fast Eddie to play out his string, left Eddie to “shoot pools, ‘Fast Eddie’, shoot pools.”     

On The Centenary Of Tennessee Williams' Birth-Playwright’s Corner- "The Sweet Bird Of Youth"

Thursday, January 15, 2009
Playwright’s Corner- Tennessee Williams’ "The Sweet Bird Of Youth"

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for American playwright Tennessee Williams' "Sweet Bird Of Youth."

Play/DVD Reviews

The Fickle Bird Of Youth

The Sweet Bird Of Youth, Three Plays of Tennessee Williams, New Directions Books, New York, 1959

“Sweet Bird Of Youth” is a case in point of the fickleness of youth. Not for the first time, a seemingly 1950’s style All- American boy Chance who has left his hometown, his home town girl, and his roots behind to drift in that endless spiral toward fame- Hollywood and the movies, naturally- comes back to claim what is his by right. On this little hometown reunion Chance is in the service of one aging and fretful actress who has her own issues with that elusive ‘bird of youth’. On returning to his home town it appears that Chance has stirred up a hornet’s nest with the local political establishment in the person of one red-neck preacher turned politician in order to better do “god’s work”, old Tom Findley. The object of this dispute is one Heavenly Findley, old Tom’s daughter and Chance’s left behind paramour who is now the subject of some scandal (due to the amorphously stated need for female-related medical treatment, an abortion, due to Chance’s irresponsibility). Along the way we get to see how political power is distributed in a small Southern town as well as the inevitable tempting of the fates by Chance in order to win the ‘brass ring’ before it is too late (apparently somewhere over thirty, by my reckoning). At play’s end though, where he is between a rock and a hard place, Chance may not get the chance to be Chance at thirty. Oh, that fickle bird of youth. Still, Chance, go for it.

In the movie version the recently departed excellent actor Paul Newman, a classic example of a 1950’s All-American boy type (among his other acting talents), as the movie star ‘wannabe’ and Geraldine Page as the aging actress recreated their stage performances although with a greater screen presence for Ms. Page. Moreover, Chance’s strivings to reconnect with Heavenly are more central to the plot. More importantly, the endings differ in that, despite some mauling by Tom Findley’s boys Chance takes my advice from the play version and runs, with Heavenly ( a fetching Shirley Knight), just as far and as fast as his now aging legs can carry him.

*Not Ready For Prime Time Class Struggle- “What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate”- “Cool Hand Luke”- A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the famous "failure to communicate" scene from Cool Hand Luke.

DVD Review

Cool Hand Luke, starring Paul Newman, George Kennedy, Strother Martin, 1967I hope, even when we have a much more equitable society than we do now, we still have “free spirits” like Cool Hand Luke (played, and played well with just enough 1960s sneer and ‘devil take the hinter post’ bravado by the late Paul Newman). No, not the hard- scrabble, mad mother-loved, growing up kid part, not the wise, too wise, before his age part that made him cynical, not the world-weary and world- wary before his time part but the crafty, fidgety, authority can go to hell part. That is a trait, as this film makes abundantly clear, no well-valued in current bourgeois society interested as it in the well-oiled machine, and a sullen by-the-numbers mass of humanity.

Of course, as the story line here unfolds, “free spirit”-types take more than their share of beatings in life, and no where is that more true than in a prison. And given old Luke’s brand of free spirit (and edginess) he was bound to wind up in prison, sooner or later, no matter how “street smart” he was, or brave in military service. However, nothing in his resume would make one think that even in prison, a notorious Southern work camp prison to boot, that old Luke would knuckle under. Something has to give. Throw in a sadistic warden (played by Strother Martin of the famous line used in the headline to this entry), some love/hate camaraderie with fellow inmates, especially “big lug” Oscar-winner George Kennedy and you have a volatile mix. Old Luke will keep running that rock up the mountain but you know in your bones, deep in your bones, that rock is coming back down one more time than it is going up. And right over him. Yet Luke still keeps doing it. Here’s one tip of the hat for the “free spirits” though.

Playwright’s Corner- Tennessee Williams’ "The Sweet Bird Of Youth"

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for American playwright Tennessee Williams' "Sweet Bird Of Youth."

Play/DVD Reviews


The Fickle Bird Of Youth

The Sweet Bird Of Youth, Three Plays of Tennessee Williams, New Directions Books, New York, 1959

“Sweet Bird Of Youth” is a case in point of the fickleness of youth. Not for the first time, a seemingly 1950’s style All- American boy Chance who has left his hometown, his home town girl, and his roots behind to drift in that endless spiral toward fame- Hollywood and the movies, naturally- comes back to claim what is his by right. On this little hometown reunion Chance is in the service of one aging and fretful actress who has her own issues with that elusive ‘bird of youth’. On returning to his home town it appears that Chance has stirred up a hornet’s nest with the local political establishment in the person of one red-neck preacher turned politician in order to better do “god’s work”, old Tom Findley. The object of this dispute is one Heavenly Findley, old Tom’s daughter and Chance’s left behind paramour who is now the subject of some scandal (due to the amorphously stated need for female-related medical treatment, an abortion, due to Chance’s irresponsibility). Along the way we get to see how political power is distributed in a small Southern town as well as the inevitable tempting of the fates by Chance in order to win the ‘brass ring’ before it is too late (apparently somewhere over thirty, by my reckoning). At play’s end though, where he is between a rock and a hard place, Chance may not get the chance to be Chance at thirty. Oh, that fickle bird of youth. Still, Chance, go for it.

In the movie version the recently departed excellent actor Paul Newman, a classic example of a 1950’s All-American boy type (among his other acting talents), as the movie star ‘wannabe’ and Geraldine Page as the aging actress recreated their stage performances although with a greater screen presence for Ms. Page. Moreover, Chance’s strivings to reconnect with Heavenly are more central to the plot. More importantly, the endings differ in that, despite some mauling by Tom Findley’s boys Chance takes my advice from the play version and runs, with Heavenly ( a fetching Shirley Knight), just as far and as fast as his now aging legs can carry him.

Playwright's Corner- Tennessee Williams’ Cat On A Hot Tin Roof-A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of the movie version of Tennessee Williams' "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof."

Play/DVD Reviews

Enough Mendacity To Sink A Ship

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, The Theater of Tennessee Williams, Volume Three, New Directions Books, New York, 1955

The first couple of paragraphs here have been used as introduction to other plays written by Tennessee Williams and reviewed in this space. This review applies to both the stage play and the film versions with differences noted as part of the review

Perhaps, as is the case with this reviewer, if you have come to the works of the excellent American playwright Tennessee Williams through adaptations of his plays to commercially distributed films you too will have missed some of the more controversial and intriguing aspects of his plays that had placed him at that time along with Eugene O’Neill and Arthur Miller as America’s finest serious playwrights. Although some of the films have their own charms I want to address the written plays in this entry first (along with, when appropriate, commentary about Williams’ extensive and detailed directing instructions).

That said, there are certain limitations for a political commentator like this reviewer on the works of Williams. Although his plays, at least his best and most well-known ones, take place in the steamy South or its environs, there is virtually no acknowledgement of the race question that dominated Southern life during the period of the plays; and, for that matter was beginning to dominate national life. Thus, although it is possible to pay homage to his work on its artistic merits, I am very, very tentative about giving fulsome praise to that work on its political merits. With that proviso Williams nevertheless has created a very modern stage on which to address social questions at the personal level, like homosexuality, incest and the dysfunctional family that only began to get addressed widely well after his ground-breaking work hit the stage.

“Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” is a prime example of the contradiction that a radical commentator is placed in. The themes of duplicity, latent homosexuality, adultery and dysfunctional families topped off by more than enough mendacity to sink a ship are the stuff of social drama that NEED to be addressed as outcomes in the modern capitalist cultural sphere. However, in the end nothing really gets resolved truthfully here. Old 1950’s-style All-American boy Brick, the ‘great white hope’ of the family, may or may not sober up after the ‘lost’ of his dear friend and fellow football player, Skipper. Saucy and sexy wife Maggie (the cat) may or may not really get pregnant by Brick and save the family heritage for him, or die trying. The only certainty, despite all that above-mentioned mendacity, is that Big Daddy is going to die and that 28,000 acres of the finest land in the Delta is going to need new management, either by Brick, brother Goober (along with his scheming wife and their ‘lovely' brood of children) or some upstart. Off of these possible outcomes, however, I would not get too worked up about the final outcome.

In the movie version, done in the 1950’s as well, which starred the recently departed excellent actor Paul Newman as Brick and a fetching Elizabeth Taylor as Maggie the question of Brick’s possible homosexual relationship with Skipper is far more muted than in the play. The implicit question seems to concern Brick’s fading youth, his search for perfect meaning to life in Mississippi and that one’s existential crisis can be eliminated by reliance on the bottle. The relationship between the dying Big Daddy and his ever suffering wife, Big Mama, is less dastardly than in the play as well. The scheming Goober and wife and family and those ‘lovely’ children, however, run true to form. My sense of the movie, unlike the deeper issues of the play, is that a few therapy sessions would put old Brick back on the right track. The play was far less hopeful in that regard.