The Color of Baloney

Speaking of the Color of Money, I caught scientology’s favorite son, Tom Cruise, on Oprah yesterday. No, I’m not an Oprah fanatic – it just happens to be on at 4 PM when I normally eat my dinner. Oh hell, yes it’s true - I am an Oprah fanatic. Oprah, please make my wildest dream come true – give me a brand new custom made cue. The one I’ve been playing with lets out a wimper every time I drive by Wal-Mart. Guess it wants to get back to its Chinese roots. No, Oprah, I don’t need a lifetime supply of insulin and syringes. I can handle the expense with what I make on my website. I don’t need you to pay my hospital bill. I’ve been gnawing away at that and it looks like it will wiped out in another couple months. But, girlfriend, I just can’t justify spending money on something frivolous like a pool cue. So, bring the dream bus, and take me to the cue mall.

Anyway, I’m no expert on scientology. All I know about it I learned from a guy who had risen to a pretty important position in the organization before becoming disillusioned, dropping out and catching Christianity on the rebound. But, that’s another story. What he told me was as a devout scientologist he had surrendered his will to a little demon who directed his life from a perch upon his shoulder. One day, he went to his friend’s house for dinner and the little demon was telling him that he ought to slip the boney baloney to his friend’s wife, right then and there in front of the friend, no less. That’s when he came to his senses and left the cult.

Anyway, when I see Vincent, I mean Tom Cruise, grinning wildly, apparently oblivious to his well documented string of ex-girlfriends, and proudly displaying the latest love of his life, this one barely thirteen years old, while at the same time explaining to Oprah what a wonderful person he is, I can’t help thinking that that’s his little demon talking.

Pool? Well, I dropped my wife off at the mall last Friday and went down DJ’s and played a couple $10 sets with this kid who spots me the wild eight. If the kid’s on, he should win, but he gets careless sometimes and loses focus and when he does I can beat him. No big deal either way, I figure. He’s always quick to let me know he’d rather be playing somebody for a couple hundred. But, on Friday he developed an attitude, complaining about me shitting in balls and saying I was trying to shark him by moving around when in truth I always try to get out of a guys way if I see I’m standing in his line of sight. I mean, if I lose, I lose. I don’t cry about it – I just pay up. Guess there’s no such thing as a friendly $10 game any more.

Friday night, I went to my regular gin mill tournament, got knocked to the loser’s side right away and then won four in a row before getting knocked out. I wasn’t playing that bad from what I recall, just not good enough. I didn’t bother going to the Tuesday night tournament at the bowling allies. Only eight people showed up last week and I didn’t think it was worth wasting the gas. It’s that time of the year when the less serious pool players are finding other things to do - playing baseball and golf, going fishing and camping. Me, I stayed home tonight and watched the second game of the Jeopardy finals. Till next time…