Logan’s Moving Pictures is back with a journey into smoke-filled pool halls and time spent in our youth. This edition Logan’s writing about Pool Hall Junkies!
There was a time in the late ‘90s and early Aughts when both Ryan and I spent a good bit of our nights in the pool halls of our hometown. Like so many people before and since we’d been enchanted by the weight of the pool cue in our hands, the sound of that cue striking the solid white ball, in turn hitting its multicolored cousins and sending them flying. It’s one of the most satisfying sounds in the world, in my opinion at least. Oddly enough, it wasn’t often that we’d be together in those little adventures, but sometimes fate managed to make that happen.
For the most part my friends and I hung out at a pool hall called Jabbat’s (I believe that’s how it was spelled), off of Macon Road back in my hometown of Columbus. It wasn’t a particularly big place, with maybe 8-10 hourly tables, but more importantly for us, it had a decent number of pay-per-game (the low, low price of $1) tables. Every Friday night I’d get a roll of quarters and we’d head to Jabbat’s and play until the roll ran out. We being my cousin Anthony, our friends Matt and Marquis, and my long time high school friend Brandy. Usually the entire roll got us 10 games, of course, but occasionally we’d get a little bored of playing pool and hit one of the few arcade games the place had. More often than not it was Marvel vs Capcom, for my money the best arcade fighter ever. Once the quarters ran out (usually around 2am) we’d head down the street to the Denny’s, ordering Grand Slams off the menu I’m sure. Maybe the occasional Moon Over My Hammy.
Came across these pics of Ryan some friends and had never seen them before. To the left is our buddy Tom and to the right is Saint, a good friend of Ryan’s.
Denny’s used to be amazing.
Ryan, however, frequented a place a few miles from there called The Golden Cue, which certainly sounds like a better pool hall I’ll admit. I guess the truth of that is in what you wanted from your pool hall. It was filled with people looking to hustle, people looking to drink their bad day away and people wanting to just play a good game of pool, or at least watch one. It was also full of smokers, something that mostly kept me away from there, but for Ryan drinking and smoking went hand-in-hand-in-hand with playing pool, and he loved it there.
There was another local place we’d occasionally both find ourselves at, Players. It was more of a middle ground between the two, and it was much bigger than either of our frequent haunts. Usually, if we were shooting together it was Players that we went to…of course that makes it sound like we had some kind of turf war going on, but really it just boiled down to preferences. I was more a casual player, something to do with my friends on the weekend, but Ryan got pretty serious about it. He was there several nights a week, had his own stick, complete with case, and worked to be proficient at the different types of pool. He was all in on the culture of it, and as such he consumed anything that was related to that.
I’ll never forget him calling me and telling me I just had to check out a movie called Poolhall Junkies. He’d found it on one of his trips to the local Blockbuster (or maybe Movie Gallery, a local chain we had here), and he wouldn’t stop raving about it. It was written, directed by and starred a guy named Mars Callahan, about a pool hustler who lost his chance to go pro because he was being held back by a local shark played by Chazz Palminteri. It featured some fun performances from Christopher Walken, Michael Rosenbaum (right as Smallville was breaking), Rick Schroeder, and Rod Steiger. It’s also got a young Anson Mount, who I didn’t even recognize when I rewatched it. I think I listened to him talk about how great it was for a month before I finally got the chance to watch it. Of course, when I did I liked it as well.
I’ve been thinking a lot about those days lately. So many of the people I thought were so important in my life at that time are no longer in it, and if they are it’s just barely. Ryan’s reason is, well, that he’s no longer here of course, but when it comes to everyone else, I suppose “life happened” is the only real answer for why.
Recently I started using my breaks at work to hit the very small gym we have on site. It’s really just a few treadmills and some weight machines, more like something you’d see in a home than an office gym, but it does the job and helps me manage some time for a little more exercise when I have to work long days. To get to it though you have to walk through a common area with a bunch of couches and lounge chairs, TVs with various sports and movies playing, and sometimes even someone with their game system hooked up getting in a match or a short quest. Past that there’s a pool table, and sometimes I’ll catch a few coworkers playing a short game, but usually it’s empty. So, three or four nights a week I stroll past the table, run my hands on the felt and think about our time as wannabe poolhall junkies. Which, in turn, led me to revisit this film that my brother loved so very much, and had somehow convinced me to love too.
After watching it again though, I’m not exactly sure why. Sure, there are some good performances from its veteran actors (Walken, Palmeminteri, and Schroeder), but everyone else feels like they’re reading off cue cards half the time. The script is a half-hearted mash-up of better movies about pool featuring dialogue that reads like it came from a Kevin Smith film (which would be fine if this were a Kevin Smith film). Callahan’s accent is ridiculous, most especially because no one else is even attempting one, and it’s made worse by his insistence to narrate half the film. Watching it now, all I see are its influences, which wouldn’t be the worst thing if it offered even a hint of originality beyond them, but it doesn’t. Which sort of makes it this perfect encapsulation of both indy film and the late-/early-thirty-somethings of the era.
Looking back now it’s easy to see how stupid we all were. How much time we wasted on people and things that ultimately wouldn’t matter to us even a decade later. Conversations about ridiculous circumstances that somehow meant everything, thinking we had our whole lives ahead of us to figure the rest out, that what was important was right here and right now. It’s where axioms like “youth is wasted on the young” are born.
It’s also easy to say I wouldn’t go back and change it for anything.
As the credits on Poolhall Junkies hit the screen I was hit with a memory of my brother that rocked me in a way I hadn’t felt since he passed. I can’t remember if we’d been out together shooting pool or if I’d gotten a call to come pick him up, but either way, Ryan had been too drunk to drive so I had to take him home. I do remember being terrified that he was going to lose his dinner into the floorboard of my Mitsubishi Mirage, and that I’d either have to clean it up myself or leave it for him to hopefully clean when he was sober the next day. Like so many of our interactions when he was wasted, I was beyond annoyed at him. He was riding shotgun and rambling about so many things, all of it lost to me now, but it was the kind of stuff most drunk people babble on about. He’d go from angry to sad to laughing every other sentence. Then, at one point he starts talking about his fight with cancer, and how we’d done the bone marrow transplant, and how he’d never thanked me.
At this point it had been at least a year since that had happened, maybe two, and he was right, we’d never really talked about it. After that night we didn’t really talk about it again. Ryan rarely got sentimental with me, even when he was drunk. Usually, he’d just get angry at me and tell me how little he thought of me in different ways. But, here we were, in the middle of the night, riding down Veterans Parkway, him telling me how much he owed me for saving his life, and how he’d never be able to repay me. I brushed it off and told him it wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do. He took a pause and then told me that he wanted me to have his pool cue, that it was the least he could do to thank me. I kind of laughed, told him to keep it, and got more annoyed. He insisted.
I thought it was a little ridiculous at the time, and, honestly, it still is. But, it was something that meant a lot to him then. Neither of us had money, and when we did get it we’d waste it on things like having our own cue sticks. So, while it’s funny, I sat on my couch watching this movie that he loved and shed some tears as I thought about that moment. It’s a bit like a toddler offering you their favorite crayon; it meant something to him and he wanted me to have it. The only other time I ever remember him being close to sentimental with me was when he showed up at my bedside in Chattanooga as I was in the middle of my own cancer battle, but that was more fear than anything I think. This was him trying his best to tell me he loved me.
I still have it.
It’s in storage though, mostly because I haven’t played pool regularly in well over a decade, and partly because our relationship was so tenuous that having it around only ever made me feel worse about all the animosity. I haven’t thought about that moment in a very long time, not even when he passed. Remembering it now is bittersweet at best. I wish I hadn’t been so annoyed at the time. I wish I’d said something more. I wish I was back at Players on 54th Street in Columbus, chalking up a cue, flipping for the break, and getting ready to shoot a game of pool with my brother.
Logan’s Moving Pictures is back with a journey into smoke-filled pool halls and time spent in our youth. This edition Logan’s writing about Pool Hall Junkies!
There was a time in the late ‘90s and early Aughts when both Ryan and I spent a good bit of our nights in the pool halls of our hometown. Like so many people before and since we’d been enchanted by the weight of the pool cue in our hands, the sound of that cue striking the solid white ball, in turn hitting its multicolored cousins and sending them flying. It’s one of the most satisfying sounds in the world, in my opinion at least. Oddly enough, it wasn’t often that we’d be together in those little adventures, but sometimes fate managed to make that happen.
For the most part my friends and I hung out at a pool hall called Jabbat’s (I believe that’s how it was spelled), off of Macon Road back in my hometown of Columbus. It wasn’t a particularly big place, with maybe 8-10 hourly tables, but more importantly for us, it had a decent number of pay-per-game (the low, low price of $1) tables. Every Friday night I’d get a roll of quarters and we’d head to Jabbat’s and play until the roll ran out. We being my cousin Anthony, our friends Matt and Marquis, and my long time high school friend Brandy. Usually the entire roll got us 10 games, of course, but occasionally we’d get a little bored of playing pool and hit one of the few arcade games the place had. More often than not it was Marvel vs Capcom, for my money the best arcade fighter ever. Once the quarters ran out (usually around 2am) we’d head down the street to the Denny’s, ordering Grand Slams off the menu I’m sure. Maybe the occasional Moon Over My Hammy.
Denny’s used to be amazing.
Ryan, however, frequented a place a few miles from there called The Golden Cue, which certainly sounds like a better pool hall I’ll admit. I guess the truth of that is in what you wanted from your pool hall. It was filled with people looking to hustle, people looking to drink their bad day away and people wanting to just play a good game of pool, or at least watch one. It was also full of smokers, something that mostly kept me away from there, but for Ryan drinking and smoking went hand-in-hand-in-hand with playing pool, and he loved it there.
There was another local place we’d occasionally both find ourselves at, Players. It was more of a middle ground between the two, and it was much bigger than either of our frequent haunts. Usually, if we were shooting together it was Players that we went to…of course that makes it sound like we had some kind of turf war going on, but really it just boiled down to preferences. I was more a casual player, something to do with my friends on the weekend, but Ryan got pretty serious about it. He was there several nights a week, had his own stick, complete with case, and worked to be proficient at the different types of pool. He was all in on the culture of it, and as such he consumed anything that was related to that.
I’ll never forget him calling me and telling me I just had to check out a movie called Poolhall Junkies. He’d found it on one of his trips to the local Blockbuster (or maybe Movie Gallery, a local chain we had here), and he wouldn’t stop raving about it. It was written, directed by and starred a guy named Mars Callahan, about a pool hustler who lost his chance to go pro because he was being held back by a local shark played by Chazz Palminteri. It featured some fun performances from Christopher Walken, Michael Rosenbaum (right as Smallville was breaking), Rick Schroeder, and Rod Steiger. It’s also got a young Anson Mount, who I didn’t even recognize when I rewatched it. I think I listened to him talk about how great it was for a month before I finally got the chance to watch it. Of course, when I did I liked it as well.
I’ve been thinking a lot about those days lately. So many of the people I thought were so important in my life at that time are no longer in it, and if they are it’s just barely. Ryan’s reason is, well, that he’s no longer here of course, but when it comes to everyone else, I suppose “life happened” is the only real answer for why.
Recently I started using my breaks at work to hit the very small gym we have on site. It’s really just a few treadmills and some weight machines, more like something you’d see in a home than an office gym, but it does the job and helps me manage some time for a little more exercise when I have to work long days. To get to it though you have to walk through a common area with a bunch of couches and lounge chairs, TVs with various sports and movies playing, and sometimes even someone with their game system hooked up getting in a match or a short quest. Past that there’s a pool table, and sometimes I’ll catch a few coworkers playing a short game, but usually it’s empty. So, three or four nights a week I stroll past the table, run my hands on the felt and think about our time as wannabe poolhall junkies. Which, in turn, led me to revisit this film that my brother loved so very much, and had somehow convinced me to love too.
After watching it again though, I’m not exactly sure why. Sure, there are some good performances from its veteran actors (Walken, Palmeminteri, and Schroeder), but everyone else feels like they’re reading off cue cards half the time. The script is a half-hearted mash-up of better movies about pool featuring dialogue that reads like it came from a Kevin Smith film (which would be fine if this were a Kevin Smith film). Callahan’s accent is ridiculous, most especially because no one else is even attempting one, and it’s made worse by his insistence to narrate half the film. Watching it now, all I see are its influences, which wouldn’t be the worst thing if it offered even a hint of originality beyond them, but it doesn’t. Which sort of makes it this perfect encapsulation of both indy film and the late-/early-thirty-somethings of the era.
Looking back now it’s easy to see how stupid we all were. How much time we wasted on people and things that ultimately wouldn’t matter to us even a decade later. Conversations about ridiculous circumstances that somehow meant everything, thinking we had our whole lives ahead of us to figure the rest out, that what was important was right here and right now. It’s where axioms like “youth is wasted on the young” are born.
It’s also easy to say I wouldn’t go back and change it for anything.
As the credits on Poolhall Junkies hit the screen I was hit with a memory of my brother that rocked me in a way I hadn’t felt since he passed. I can’t remember if we’d been out together shooting pool or if I’d gotten a call to come pick him up, but either way, Ryan had been too drunk to drive so I had to take him home. I do remember being terrified that he was going to lose his dinner into the floorboard of my Mitsubishi Mirage, and that I’d either have to clean it up myself or leave it for him to hopefully clean when he was sober the next day. Like so many of our interactions when he was wasted, I was beyond annoyed at him. He was riding shotgun and rambling about so many things, all of it lost to me now, but it was the kind of stuff most drunk people babble on about. He’d go from angry to sad to laughing every other sentence. Then, at one point he starts talking about his fight with cancer, and how we’d done the bone marrow transplant, and how he’d never thanked me.
At this point it had been at least a year since that had happened, maybe two, and he was right, we’d never really talked about it. After that night we didn’t really talk about it again. Ryan rarely got sentimental with me, even when he was drunk. Usually, he’d just get angry at me and tell me how little he thought of me in different ways. But, here we were, in the middle of the night, riding down Veterans Parkway, him telling me how much he owed me for saving his life, and how he’d never be able to repay me. I brushed it off and told him it wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do. He took a pause and then told me that he wanted me to have his pool cue, that it was the least he could do to thank me. I kind of laughed, told him to keep it, and got more annoyed. He insisted.
I thought it was a little ridiculous at the time, and, honestly, it still is. But, it was something that meant a lot to him then. Neither of us had money, and when we did get it we’d waste it on things like having our own cue sticks. So, while it’s funny, I sat on my couch watching this movie that he loved and shed some tears as I thought about that moment. It’s a bit like a toddler offering you their favorite crayon; it meant something to him and he wanted me to have it. The only other time I ever remember him being close to sentimental with me was when he showed up at my bedside in Chattanooga as I was in the middle of my own cancer battle, but that was more fear than anything I think. This was him trying his best to tell me he loved me.
I still have it.
It’s in storage though, mostly because I haven’t played pool regularly in well over a decade, and partly because our relationship was so tenuous that having it around only ever made me feel worse about all the animosity. I haven’t thought about that moment in a very long time, not even when he passed. Remembering it now is bittersweet at best. I wish I hadn’t been so annoyed at the time. I wish I’d said something more. I wish I was back at Players on 54th Street in Columbus, chalking up a cue, flipping for the break, and getting ready to shoot a game of pool with my brother.
Moving Pictures will return with another volume…
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