FACBOOK POSTS & BILLIARDS OUTAKES, Volume 1.87:
WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS — TEAM PEP TALK (The Tallahassee Squirrel always talking shit {and backing it up}):
We have been on a winning streak for a while now, and also, I’ve been personally doing better on an individual level, which gives our team a boost.
It’s been fun most of all, being a part of a team with some cool peeps. Andrew, Lee, Ricardo, D Boy, Phil, (Sam, maybe if he ever comes out…lol), and Lee — and we have won now for several weeks straight now. Let me go to the APA website…
Week 3 we won 13-5. Week 4 we won 11-7. Week 5 we missed because of the hurricane, and still need to make up, SO THAT HAS SET US “BEHIND” ALL SESSION, ALTHOUGH THAT MAY NOT BE TRUE.
Week 6 we won again 11-7. Week 7 we won yet again (de ja vu) again 11-7. Week 8, AGAIN 13-5. Week 9 yet again 15-3. Week 10? 9-7. Week 11, straight up 9-8…Week 12, we came on again 13-5.
We won it for 9 straight weeks this session ‘We Are The Champions,’ and we’ve made that name true because we have been the champions up here in the city playoffs twice, against two top notch teams, and more recently winning down in Ft Walton at the Tri-Cups, to advance to the ‘World Qualifier’ early 2019!
The name is kind of a play on words to my cue sponsor, championcue.com at Champion Sport company — top quality cues at great prices.
{I love my pool life, and I love this team and what we have done through several roaster changes, and trying to build it up in a small City with little to do other than go out to eat or the movies, and I feel it gives us a little more diversity and colorful culture to the area, one of kaleidescope colors.}
All the teams and players up here and Crestview get along for the most part, go out each week, and have a good time — although every once and a while that damn Sampey acts out, but he’s been much better of late, and that’s progress, so we will all take it up here, in this Florida panhandle, easy going lifestyle. (Catch you some fish out there in the gulf, rivers, lakes, streams and ocean. Land one for me!)
But I digress.
To my team, I’d like to thank you all for making this one of the best, most fun, cool sessions ever in the APA, and at like 9 points down from first, and looking at a regular match and makeup match, we may just luck up and take first place this session, that cursed Blue sheet we never got forever forgotten — the hurricane Michael overcome at long last.
Strap in players. Sometimes the ride is bumpy, but we always have a good time (or most times). Keep on hitting them balls!
Also, did I mention “My Game Is On!”?
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What do I have to do to make them understand me?
I love the game of billiards, and want to hype it up, so maybe, just maybe, people will begin to see how dynamic and intricate game it is, a sport if you will.
So I say I’m the best, and claim I can beat anyone in 8 ball worldwide (amatuers, not pros), but of course there are many amatuer players that could be pros if they didn’t have day jobs. Part of the problem I see in the game, is there is so little financial incentive to pursue a professional pool career, but perhaps that is changing. I must say, I haven’t followed the tournament payouts, but they should be 100K and up I would hope. They bet that on the buy in on these big time poker tournaments I’m sure.
What can we do about it? Get beer sponsors? Well, yes! Get shoe sponsors? Of course! Why not have pool players endorse some type of comfortable shoe like wrestlers wear? No? Okay, what about Nike? Get them into making cues, and I’ll play with that shit. My sponsor seems to be ignoring me, so apparently I did something wrong. No, I was just lucky to have a cue sponsor, and feel like I play decent, and maybe could win a tournament here or there if I keep getting in them, and people still say, “No Patrick! You can’t do that!” And yet I’ve been proving them wrong my whole life.
Maybe I never will win any major pool tournament, or maybe I’ll get tired of losing in them, but I’ve had some good wins too, and at least put up a good fight against some top players. I’m no pro pool player, and don’t claim to be. I’m not that good. But I say I’m “Pro Am”. Lol. 😉
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***To Some Pool players that may not get me: You do realize I’m playing a persona (pool playing hustler) on my Facebook I hope. Hyping up the game and talking trash. Hey, Minnesota Fats talked mad shit, and never won any major tournaments. “Oh, but he was a money player!” They say. I can play, but not as well as I can write pool articles & not as well as these great champions and pros I write about (I wish). I’m a writer first and player second. But I can play some Jam Up 9ft 9 ball on those Brunswick Gold Crowns down at Starcade Billiards. Or at least as good as most amateurs will ever get, and my best personal game, but I have no illusions that many are better. There are many levels of game in pool, and the calcutta player auction before tournaments is indicative of the top players, and those that go high in the bid, usually are the top finishers in the money of the tournaments. Very seldom does a $20 player win, but I’m sure it happens, just not often. It is what it is. Players all know who the favorite is in the room, and the pecking order, and I don’t know where I fit in, but I know some top players have said I got game, so based off their opinion I’m pretty decent at least…I digress. I just love the game, and sometimes I have APA 5’s and 6’s in the game acting like they can come here, across the country and play some kind of big-time money game with me and they will somehow win. I’ve beaten pros, although they will crush me most times. Just saying, I got lucky, and/or had some weight, but still. (Did I mention mainly I’m a writer in pool, and want to write more about the game?) To sum up, I’m a writer first, and pool player second. I don’t expect too much out my pool game, but my writing, I hope will produce something worthwhile to be read. I have a great subject matter to write about with pool, and hopefully people still read. Lol
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The Grind !!!
The daily grind can get to any living thing, much less any “God” — for quantum mechanics and panpsychism says we may well be immortal — our consciousness having existed forever in the spiral bard Galaxy existence that is in this green hell.
Yeah, in billiards halls where I’ve learned to live and coexist with so many pool players, we have a term called “Grind.” What it means, is you’ve gotta be tough, play for hours, days, weeks and win. Find a way to win. Refuse to lose. Grind.
We grind through it, to get to it — do work on pool tables worldwide. And I see that that type of tenacity is required to more objectively, and less subjectively come to any realization of what the universe exactly is. (Like Bill Clinton said, “It depends upon what the meaning of ‘is’ is.”) So much “God” in one word, and so we’ll refine a philosophy — Grind!
So many people empowered and strengthened by a word — Grind!
Do you grind? Would you be considered a “grinder” or does life grind you up? You gotta be tough, take your lumps and keep moving or you die inside. Once you give up, even for a moment, you lose momentum. At that point, you stagnate, lose energy, fall back. Everything remains in perpetual motion. And in this “pool-hall” life, we must always play the game eternal (grind). Always.
What would you do if you had one opportunity? One shot? Would you miss your chance to blow up?!!! Grind.)
Loving, living, breathing, turning, churning — forever on the GRIND!
“We are not the same I am a Martian So approach my Phantom doors with caution You see them 24s spinnin’ I earned them And I ain’t no preacher but here’s my Erick Sermon So eat this black music, and tell me how it taste now And fuck Jesse Jackson ’cause it ain’t about race now… And I’m grindin’ until I’m tired ‘Cause they say, “You ain’t grindin’ until you die.” So I’m grinding with my eyes wide Looking to find A way through the day A life for the night Dear Lord you done took so many of my people I’m just wondering why you haven’t taken my life Like what the hell am I doing right? My life…” — The Game/ Lil Wayne
Editor: Chris Freeman
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Sponsored by Jacoby Custom Cues
