Galveston - 4 hours to take off.

I have severely neglected my blogging duties in the last month and ...well I forget how long its been. Since the Shane vs Frost match I know. Shit has been busy. We had an awesome future match up in October blow up in our face only to maybe have a shot at doing it if 2000 things fall into place. That's always nice.

I went to the APA Nationals at the Riv and hung out with all the uber cool peeps at he Mezz / Billiard Life booth along with TAR sponsors Royce and Jessica of OB Cues. Always nice to see friends from all over the country in one place. We are a scattered tribe.

Eric Crisp of SugarTree cues was able to make into Vegas for a few days. We joked about some IMO unwarranted heat he was getting in an AZ thread. I told him he should adopt a motto that a bar manager friend of mine used to use on shall we say undesirable or unruly hooligans. The name of the place was Kip's so when someone acted stupid or overly entitled my man Jim would tell nicely to "Fuck off" But this was just the set up. When they invariably went on the "I am the customer and you are here to serve me..." spiel he would drop punch line. With a big bright shining smile and murder in his eyes he would say "Welcome to Kips! We put the FUCK YOU!! in customer service." Everyone around died laughing and the target usually stumbled drunkenly on his way. Sadly Jim no longer works at Kip's.

Since Eric is not a complete donkey like myself he decided (wrongly IMO) not to adopt Jim's customer service motto. Damn shame if you ask me. Just for the record there isnt a better dude out there than Eric Crisp. All haters can suck a bag of dicks. Hey this is my blog I can be the asshole here if I want.

I also hung out and shot the shit with two of my favorite cue repairmen/comedians Joe Blackburn and Steve Lomax. I had a an old sneaky that needed a tip and ferrule that I had stashed away until these guys rolled back into town. Thats right I actually wait as long as it takes to see theses guys for a tip and ferrule. I have had too many experiences with hacks and would rather shelve a cue and wait than deal with the bullshit of a guy learning his trade on my dime. Before you fire off the emails I know there are a ton of great repairmen out there. I just dont feel like finding them . I know how it is going to turn out when I hand these guys a cue.

Next big thing was the International Cue Collectors Show in Santa Fe, New Mexico. This was the second time we were invited to this show and it is one of my favorite things to do all year. Some of the rarest and most interesting cues in the world are on display. For a cue nut like me it is Disneyland. I was able to meet all of the displaying collectors and to a man they were friendly and very hospitable in sharing their collections. No matter what the type of collection it was cool to see the passion these guys had for the cues.

I got to meet a guy I have had a few run ins with online as well. I met Mr. John Barton of JB Cases. Despite some of the theories online he was not retarded nor did he have horns growing out of head while wiping his ass with the flag. In all seriousness John was a gentleman and very helpful in explaining some vintage cases from the Glenn Collection as well as some of his own creations. On some things we will never see eye to eye on and that is fine. I look forward to the next time we meet so I can learn some more about his craft. Things can take on a tone and life of their own online that never seems to carry over in real life face to face meetings. Every once in awhile I am reminded of this and this was one of those times.

I could go on forever about random stuff and maybe in the future I will write down some funny stories I have left out. But I am here to return to blogging with a vengeance and I will tell you why. There is a little tournament down in Galveston that you may have heard of. It seems the best players in the world have descended on this small island to play tournaments and action matches. It also seems that the only information coming out of this island is via a stream of varying quality (I already used up all my asshole allowance for this post) and the tournament brackets posted by Bad Boys Billiard Productions. There have been a few random updates on AZ as well but those have trickled off it seems.

So my goal is this....wait for it....one blog post a day complete with pictures from Galveston. Tournament, Action, Funny Shit, Bull Shit whatever will be included. I will probably go heavy on the photos since so far I have yet to see one from the venue. That is fucking nuts. Maybe I just don't look in the right places I don't know. I had my issues with this event and I am happy to say on some things I was wrong. Most of the things I thought would cause problems did (Come on its my blog I get an I told you so.)

The thing that gives me real hope and makes we want to help in any way I can is that people I know there say these guys are dead serious and making changes when they can. Changes that benefit the players. So I want to go see what its all about and try to get involved for the next one....and from what I hear they are saying there will be a next one. But even if there isn't these guys deserve a lot of respect for actually doing this thing. I think financially they are gonna lose their entire ass on the deal and they could see that in the final days going into this thing. But they didn't pull the plug, didn't cut and run and for that I give them mad props. It is a simple thing but sometimes a rare one in this upside down pool world.

So...it is 4:30 AM as I write this in a laundromat across from UNLV in the Vegas hood. Yes I am a big believer in procrastination. But hey I am the only guy here so is the big winner? My plane leaves at 7:45AM for Houston and then on to Moody Gardens to see what all the hub bub is about. I will be there till the bitter end or someone kicks me out one or the other. Check back in 24 hours.......