THE UNDERWRITER is a beast on the pool table, and you can't see me. The following long-ass blog is a true story that only yours truly can properly tell. Grab a cold beer and relax; this will only take about five minutes, immediately following this image from our sponsors...
And now, on to the story...
I don't even argue or get into deep conversations with Republicans anymore. It's like Fox News. They keep talking crazy until listeners get tired and let them rant. So I just laugh, because I know that beneath the surface, those cats are finally worried. They weren't in 2000 or in 2004, but they are now. And this became clear to me after 20 racks of my favorite game - billiards.
I had a late night pool game session with a Republican youngster (TRIPLE NOLO) about a week ago. Normally, I’m used to thrashing my so-called “competition” on the green table. It’s nothing. But this time, my Slim Shady friend won every rack, like clockwork. I don’t know about you, but when I lose at something, I congratulate the winner and watch him or her like a hawk. This way, you pick up the traits of people who’ve studied something for a lifetime in mere minutes, like Cliff’s Notes.
I learned a lot from my young Caucasian buddy just from watching him shoot and asking questions. He told me something I wasn’t sure I liked hearing: my follow-through was shitty. Wow. It’s funny, hearing that from a white guy who is younger than you, especially when you’re black and it relates to a pool table. You have to check your ego for the sake of figuring out if he’s actually correct. In this case, he was. He told me that I was pushing forward and off to the side when I shot, which meant that my posturing was bad and that my shots were more likely to miss the hole. That’s all I needed to hear, but he continued. He went on to suggest that I should relax my stance a bit, and then he said that my head was too high above the pool stick when I was aiming for my shot. After I missed the next pocket, he gave me an example. “Your chin should touch the stick,” he said, “and your elbow should be close to your side. If not, you’re aiming on a guess.”
Dude continued to win all night, from place to place. We hit three different pool halls, just to see if the tide would change, which it didn't. But since I'm privy to the best secret in America (white people will buy all the drinks if you let them), I took my defeat in stride. And I mentally recorded everything he suggested. As a result, I severely defamed all challengers tonight, a week later at the same pool hall, with an undefeated record of 8-0.
Going back to a week earlier, after cats got tired of pool, we ordered another draft pitcher and started talking drunken politics. Oh, how the tides magnificently turned. Just as I felt that I was on respectable ground on the pool table and was bested, he found out that he was speaking to his superior in terms of political savvy and world affairs. Come to find out, Slim Shady was a true-blood Republican, and was intent on voting for Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas for POTUS. Before that statement, cats had discovered that we actually had a lot in common, as far as upbringing. Still, imagine me being not surprised at all by this revelation. But dude was actually trying to act disappointed by my unofficial affiliation with the DNC, as if I had any logical reason to support a Republican candidate in 2008, if ever.
Just to amuse myself, I asked him why the hell should I be expected to cast my precious vote for a member of the GOP, when the party still employs the tactics of Richard Nixon’s SOUTHERN STRATEGY?
He had no comeback.
Then I asked him how a Republican candidate could win an election when the party's incumbent put us in a recession, while promoting a war that everyone except his friends considers to be one of the worst foreign policy disasters in American history?
Slim Shady nodded. Trust me, I gave him time to speak.
Then I told him that regardless of whether I was right or wrong, Republican turnout in the primaries has been drastically less than Democratic turnout. This meant that the Republicans are on course for a serious landslide, and a karmic shift in power. Oh, and what about the gay scandals? Nolo?
He started turning red, or maybe it was blood orange or hot pink. Anyway, in a frustrated tone, he asked me why I would support Barack Obama or even Hillary Clinton in a general election, and what was the most important issue to me. I told him that the answer was the same for both questions: education. This doosh-flower had the nerve to hit me with that, “Oh, you silly mortal,” laugh. In between the crackles of a faked giggle fit, he repeated the word “education” like it was a joke he had heard months ago from a Katt Williams comedy special. And his delivery came off just as lackluster.
And alas, herein lays the irony. Dude acted like I had called Jesus a Muslim when I told him that education is my biggest national priority. Yet I triumphed over all competitors tonight, in his absence, by using his methods. Not that I probably wouldn't have beat everyone anyway, but I actually used his advice, which worked. By being humble enough to watch and listen, I took his strengths and made them my own. And then I owned him in a one-on-one debate, and it felt great. But if I wasn’t always looking to improve my game, on all levels, I would be reducing confining myself to being a perpetual loser. This is the Republican fate in 2008; they are unwilling to accept change, therefore they are guaranteed to ultimately fail. I choose not to lose, and like I said at the top, I choose not to argue with Republicans. Me and Slim Shady are still cool, and I welcome more of his free beer and pool table politics. But if you want my honest opinion, it's like all those cats ultimately want is war and racism until they're rich enough to kill us all.
Reminds me of that pool scene in Boomerang, where Martin Lawrence explains the subliminal racism of billiards…
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