When I went to put songs on my iPod years ago with music from the movie 'Yankee Doodle Dandy' there was an outtake of a speech George M. Cohan made at a Catholic actors' dinner. George recounts how he's improvised the speech, how he and his partner Sam Harris got started in show business, and how he always wanted to play a good game of pool. "Shoot a good stick" as the expression goes.
Today's NYT carries an appraisal to Paul's work as an actor. For me, 'Goodfellas' was his watershed role,. There are several memorable scenes in that movie, but Paulie Cicero's role of cooking an Italian meal, getting the sauce just right and cutting the garlic just so while in a Federal penitentiary is priceless.
And lest you think that scene is pure Hollywood, consider the accommodations given Joe Valachi, the first made member who broke the code of silence—the Omerta— and started talking. Reading Selwyn Raab's seminal doorstopper work, "Five Families; The Rise, Decline and Resurgence of America's Most powerful Mafia Empires" there is part where it is described that singing Joe was housed in a "two-room air-cooled prison suite with couches and a kitchenette," that was built for him at the La Tuna Penitentiary near El Paso Texas. When Ray Liotta's Henry Hill brings the wine and scotch into Big Paulie's cell, the meal begins.
Thinking about that scene, I wonder if Chef Ramsey, Bobby Flay, or Emeril has considered making a show about meals created in prisons by inmates. Hmm. Probably not.
The passing of Paul Sorvino brought back the memory I wrote about in a blog posting when I mentioned how a friend of mine, Dennis, gave Paulie lessons in playing pool at Broadway Billiards, a long ago pool emporium underneath the penny arcade at 52nd Street and Broadway in Manhattan where Dennis, his brother Dave and I could be found most Friday and Saturday nights.
It was a clean, well-lit place that didn't have any "characters" hanging out. The owner, Mr. Monaco ,wouldn't have it. He even installed one or two billiard tables, and would stage professional matches there on occasion. There were lockers for players' cues, and Dennis, being the best player amongst us,—and in the place, really— had his own fairly expensive Balabushka cue stored there, for free. Dave and I always played with house cues, never allowed to use Dennis's.
Dennis's game was straight pool, and basically that's all we played. No 8-Ball or 9-Ball quick gambling games. Dennis didn't gamble, and didn't play in any tournaments, but did once enter a three-cushion billiard tournament at McGirr's and was pitted against Bill Maloney, someone who became a world champion three-cushion player. Dennis had a three ball spot in a game of 15 points, but lost gracefully. It was only when Bill passed away did I read in his obit that he went to the same high school as Dennis and I, Stuyvesant.
At some point, Dennis was teaching Paul Sorvino how to play better pool. How the arrangement got started I don't know. Dennis's brother reminded me of it years ago. Dennis didn't advertise himself as an instructor, but the relationship took hold for a while. I have no idea if Paulie's game improved a lot or not. I don't think Dennis made any kind of real money giving lessons. He might have even done it for free.
As I wrote in that prior posting, I've taken to playing an occasional round of pool with my daughter Susan on mid-week afternoons for about 1½ hours at a nice pool hall, RAXX, in West Hempstead. The place reminds me of Broadway, spacious, clean, with tables individually lit and abacus beads overhead. They even have a kitchen for light meals. They have leagues and tournaments there.
To me it was quite a coincidence that yesterday, the day of Paul Sorvino's NYT obit, that Susan and I were headed to RAXX for what for us is a bit of ball banging playing 8-Ball.
It takes us 1½ hours to play three games of 8-Ball. So far, neither of us has run more than three balls. Yesterday I took her 2 games out of 3. All being close games. Interesting, that Sue and I are also avid backgammon players. Bill Maloney, like a lot of hustlers, also played backgammon for money. Sue and I don't.
When I play pool, it is impossible not to think of Dennis and Broadway Billiards and his brother Dave. Dave passed away in February 2021 and I had the police inform Dennis after I went to the police because I hasn't heard from Dave. Dave was found in his apartment in Bellmore.
Dennis lives in Dublin, Ohio and I haven't seen him for 35 years now. We were only in touch via emails when Dave passed away. Dennis didn't come to New York. He and his brother were often estranged for long periods when they didn't talk to each other. Their sibling rivalry was often fierce. Dave hadn't been married for some time, and had no kids. The Piermont family had no family plot, so Dennis arranged for Dave to be cremated.
Since Dave was a lifelong horseplayer and went to school in Kentucky, frequenting Ellis, Miles, Churchill and Keeneland tracks in college, Dennis and his Presbyterian pastor wife Julia took Dave's ashes and spread them on Kenneland's backstretch. Dublin, Ohio and Lexington, Kentucky are not far apart. Dennis used to come to the races with Dave and I, but drifted away from it early on. After scattering the ashes, he then spent the day at the races, catching up on how the past performances had changed.
It is impossible to play pool and not think of those guys. If our Levitt home had a cellar, there's be a pool table in it. I've always wanted to play a good game of pool.
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