Taken from JRE #1817 w/Fedor Gorst:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7iB407yGUg4DxfkATEkSgL?si=1d1d77603c2d435c

What sharking is, people think of pool shark as being someone who's like really good at pool That's not what we call sharking Sharking for the people that don't know is like if you were about to shoot and I moved and distracted you on purpose Like I wait until you're right about to move and I'll drop my cue.

Or I'll spill a drink, I'll make some noise.

Like people do things on purpose to try to distract people.

When someone does that, that's bitch ass shit.

Well, there's a lot of moves, even when it comes to pro players too.

So I was playing a guy a long race last year.

And for example, everybody knows, like, if you win, so we're playing a race to 100, and every day we're playing a race to 33.

So I ended up winning day 1, and I should be the 1 breaking the balls next day.

So I come in and we're about to begin, and he's like, are we lagging again?

So there was a lot of different moves, like we agreed to play with 1 magic rack and he ended up stealing the magic rack.

And then we were on a break and I broke the balls, made 4 balls on the break and I had that I was dead Out and he's like, are you practicing or what are you doing?

I'm like no, we're playing I just asked you a minute ago.

I was thinking you're Practicing like this

is a professional did this yeah, I think you should say his name Everybody rhyme with huh what is his name rhyme with

Like Bogan rhymes with Rogan Fill everybody rhymes with Diller

everybody will understand it was he was a Filipino, okay, so

You know they're probably gambling a lot of money, right?

Yeah, big chunk of money and people get they get a little feisty.

In gambling, do you think that people take drugs when they gamble?

Yeah, what do you think they play, what do they think they take?

Because you can see, if you go to Derby City Classic, you'll see people play for 2, 3 days straight without any breaks.

That's a heart attack special right there.

And they play some crazy games like- These

aren't the healthiest people in the world either that are taking this Adderall and staying up for days.

Like they're fucking, They're burning it.

They play some crazy ass games like 15 ball bank game where you just, it's an old man game where you just kinda clip the balls and you're just banging balls around for like 50 minutes.

Yeah, but there is a lot of moving part like you just play safety safety safety, right?

Yeah and then After 50 minutes of playing safeties you have a bank shot most likely you're gonna miss it and then it goes over and over and over And they do it for like days and days

it is a big 1 I'm sure people play on cocaine.

I would think cocaine would be a problem.

I've never done cocaine, but from what I understand, it doesn't last that long.

And I've seen, 1 time I've seen the guy was using cocaine instead of the powder for his cue what?

Yeah, he was putting cocaine on his fingers.

I don't know his name, but he was a just an action junkie

Well, like I said about that book Buddy Hall I think it's from rags to riflemen is the name of the book I have a copy of it and it's a very old book and the way it was made it looks like it was self-published like the font would be different sizes on different pages.

It's a rare book you could still find it Like sometimes on AZ billiards someone has a copy of it for sale, but it's pretty valuable now But they all played on amphetamines and they would all play for days and days and days But it fucked a lot of people's lives up because they all got addicted to that stuff.

Yeah I mean I've played a lot of matches that lasted more than 10 hours and for me It's it's really really tough because I never do anything like that I drink water and maybe I'll drink Pepsi if I feel that I need some energy, some sugar.

So yeah, of course it gives them big advantage in matches like that.

Well, there's so many Filipinos came over here and robbed everybody.

When Efren first came over here, he had a fake name.

Efren, when he first came over here, goddammit, what was his name?

So he played his very first tournament under a fake name because he is...

Generally I can remember it But he played under a fake name because even though it was like the 1980s He assumed that someone had been to the Philippines and knew that this guy was the king over there And then can you find it?

The Efren's Just Google Google Efren played Under a fake name.

So that was his name so he came over here under Caesar Morales and robbed everybody and Then When he came back he was Efren Reyes.

It is Cesar Morales stuns the field at Reds Wow, and this was back when he was playing with a $5 pool cue It does look like him, but I don't think it is because Dennis is quite a bit older

younger rather than that guy, but that was in Houston and what year is that

Yeah, so he came out stuns the field he came over here and fucked everybody up They had no idea that he would go on to be the greatest of all time Wade Crane Wade Crane was a bad motherfucker Dave Matlock look at all these guys Yeah, Mike Gugliosi, wow.

Interesting, Bobby Hunter, Danny DiLiberto, all those names.

Yeah, Billy Johnson was Wade Crane's road name.

Well, when the internet wasn't around, that was a big thing, I

He would go around playing as Billy Johnson because everybody had heard of Wade Crane.

And so he would just show up places and, you know, people had no idea, and then he would rob them.

Well, there was a great book called Playing Off the Rail.

Playing Off the Rail was a book by this guy David McCumber, who at 1 point in time was Hunter S.

Thompson's editor when he was writing for a newspaper and they took this guy Tony Anagone who is a really good pro and they went on the road with like $35,000 so like like like taped the money to his body and shit in some places and they did it for a book.

It's well worth it if you're a pool player, if you're into pool, to get this book.

Because David McCumber is a really good writer and it's really well written.

And Tony Anagone became a friend of mine.

And I actually did commentary with him once on a match back in LA back in the day.

And I became friends with him and played with him a bunch of times.

And tragically, I think about a year and a half or so ago he took his own life.

Yeah very sad but in that book they went to Chelsea Billiards, They went to all these different places where they they hustled and they just set up matches and set up games and played people But it just gives you this kind of taste for especially because McCumber such a good writer It gives you this feeling this really interested interesting like depiction of what that life is like.

These guys that do things like that, like Wade Crane did when he called himself Billy Johnson.

That is a whole subset of Americana where these guys would travel around, stay in shitty hotels, and gamble.

Yeah, I mean, it's kind of the same picture nowadays.

You know, it's a it's a really cool part of like this subculture that people don't know about and I've always admired people who did it.

I always thought that was a cool way to live your life.

It's a crazy, reckless, But the people that did it, they were such fucking characters.

I don't know if I would recommend it to my kids.

Maybe you would if pool becomes something really big.

You know, if pool does grow to the point where there's million dollar purses.

You know, I went through a lot of that and it's shady.

Did you ever get in a situation where people pulled out guns or people were robbing people?

No, but my friend did in the Philippines.

He beat the guy out of a small amount of money and the guy didn't want to pay him.

And he wasn't even like pushing him to pay, he was like 100 bucks.

But he was the only foreigner in the building and he had a guy with him that took care of him and kind of made games for him.

And that guy started saying something in Tagalog and Philippine, in their own language.

And the guy pulled his gun and like started shooting in the ear, like trying to say that I'm not playing here.

And there's so many of those guys that are connected to underworld characters.

There's all these, you know, wild gamblers that are...

They're almost all at least 1 step removed from criminals.

If they're not criminals themselves, they might have a criminal who's a backer

Yeah, I mean there is a lot of drug money involved I think in in gambling

oh, yeah, oh, yeah There was always guys that were backing people back in my day when I was hanging around New York, where there were these guys that were drug addicts or drug dealers.

And they had that money, and that was how they burned the money.

Yeah, I remember 1 time we went to Harlem to play this guy Because these pimps they would have a ton of money and they would play big money 1 pocket And so we went down to Harlem And here I am this dorky fresh face.

I was like do Hanging around in Harlem in this like fucking heavy-duty like like hardcore pool room where these pimps would go and gamble big money.

And they'd come in with flashy clothes on, and it was just such a scene, man.

But I was with my friend Johnny and this guy, Mount Vernon Tommy, who was like a real top player from the area, and this guy Juan, who was also this killer.

We'd take this drive down together to Harlem.

And at the time, The garbage workers were on strike.

So when they would take garbage out to the curb, nobody would throw the garbage out.

So there was six-foot-high piles of garbage that lined the whole street.

So you'd walk down the sidewalk and rats would be everywhere.

They would scramble in front of your feet.

Like I grew up in the suburbs of Newton, Massachusetts, right?

That's where I went to high school It's like very nice, you know upper middle-class neighborhood I was fresh-faced little cute kid and I'm wandering around with these degenerate gamblers in a pool hall in Harlem filled with pimps.

But I got out of there, and I wouldn't trade those experiences for the world, because it was so interesting to see that the subculture of these gamblers and pool players, and All they cared about was like, who's the killer?

And they all had these crazy names and everybody had these cool nicknames.

But it's such, That's what scares me about it.

I think it's like it has, it's, right now it's got, like we said, this resurgence, but there was a time where I thought this could go away.


Speaker 0: The Jerogan Experience

Speaker 1: What sharking is, people think of pool shark as being someone who's like really good at pool That's not what we call sharking Sharking for the people that don't know is like if you were about to shoot and I moved and distracted you on purpose Like I wait until you're right about to move and I'll drop my cue. Or I'll spill a drink, I'll make some noise. Like people do things on purpose to try to distract people.

Speaker 0: Yep, that happens a lot. That's some bitch shit.

Speaker 1: That's some bitch shit. Yep. Isn't it?

Speaker 0: Oh yeah, they try it all the time too.

Speaker 1: But it's some bitch shit. When someone does that, that's bitch ass shit. Like, what are you doing? Just play.

Speaker 0: Well, there's a lot of moves, even when it comes to pro players too.

Speaker 1: Is there, like what?

Speaker 0: I don't really want to mention names.

Speaker 1: Don't, You don't have to mention names.

Speaker 0: So I was playing a guy a long race last year. And for example, everybody knows, like, if you win, so we're playing a race to 100, and every day we're playing a race to 33. So I ended up winning day 1, and I should be the 1 breaking the balls next day. So I come in and we're about to begin, and he's like, are we lagging again? So I'm like, no bro, it's my break.

So there was a lot of different moves, like we agreed to play with 1 magic rack and he ended up stealing the magic rack. And then we were on a break and I broke the balls, made 4 balls on the break and I had that I was dead Out and he's like, are you practicing or what are you doing? I'm like no, we're playing I just asked you a minute ago. Are you ready to start? He's like I Didn't say anything.

I was thinking you're Practicing like this

Speaker 1: is a professional did this yeah, I think you should say his name Everybody rhyme with huh what is his name rhyme with

Speaker 0: run with

Speaker 1: was it rhyme with? Like Bogan rhymes with Rogan Fill everybody rhymes with Diller

Speaker 0: everybody will understand it was he was a Filipino, okay, so

Speaker 1: So he was well. You know they're probably gambling a lot of money, right?

Speaker 0: We played for 20 grand, yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 0: Big chunk of money, yeah, especially

Speaker 1: for Filipinos. Yeah, big chunk of money and people get they get a little feisty.

Speaker 0: Yeah

Speaker 1: In gambling, do you think that people take drugs when they gamble?

Speaker 0: Yeah, absolutely

Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you think they play, what do they think they take?

Speaker 0: Adderall.

Speaker 1: Mmm, amphetamines. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 0: Because you can see, if you go to Derby City Classic, you'll see people play for 2, 3 days straight without any breaks.

Speaker 1: That's a heart attack special right there.

Speaker 0: Oh yeah, it is, it is. And they play some crazy games like- These

Speaker 1: aren't the healthiest people in the world either that are taking this Adderall and staying up for days. Like they're fucking, They're burning it.

Speaker 0: Oh yeah, it's unbelievable. They play some crazy ass games like 15 ball bank game where you just, it's an old man game where you just kinda clip the balls and you're just banging balls around for like 50 minutes.

Speaker 1: So it's a bank game? Yeah. 15 balls?

Speaker 0: Yeah, but there is a lot of moving part like you just play safety safety safety, right?

Speaker 1: Until you have a good bank shot

Speaker 0: Yeah and then After 50 minutes of playing safeties you have a bank shot most likely you're gonna miss it and then it goes over and over and over And they do it for like days and days

Speaker 1: So Adderall is the big 1

Speaker 0: it is a big 1 I'm sure people play on cocaine.

Speaker 1: I would think cocaine would be a problem. I've never done cocaine, but from what I understand, it doesn't last that long.

Speaker 0: No, but they're taking breaks. And I've seen, 1 time I've seen the guy was using cocaine instead of the powder for his cue what? That's an expensive powder right there.

Speaker 1: Yeah, he was putting cocaine on his fingers.

Speaker 0: Yeah, and then doing like...

Speaker 1: Oh my God.

Speaker 0: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Cocaine for baby powder? Oh my God, that's insane.

Speaker 0: He was fucked up, like completely.

Speaker 1: Was he playing well?

Speaker 0: He was playing decent. I mean, he's a decent player. I don't know his name, but he was a just an action junkie

Speaker 1: Well, like I said about that book Buddy Hall I think it's from rags to riflemen is the name of the book I have a copy of it and it's a very old book and the way it was made it looks like it was self-published like the font would be different sizes on different pages. It's a rare book you could still find it Like sometimes on AZ billiards someone has a copy of it for sale, but it's pretty valuable now But they all played on amphetamines and they would all play for days and days and days But it fucked a lot of people's lives up because they all got addicted to that stuff.

Speaker 0: Of course. Yeah I mean I've played a lot of matches that lasted more than 10 hours and for me It's it's really really tough because I never do anything like that I drink water and maybe I'll drink Pepsi if I feel that I need some energy, some sugar. So yeah, of course it gives them big advantage in matches like that.

Speaker 1: Well, there's so many Filipinos came over here and robbed everybody. It was amazing. And the best version of that is Efren. When Efren first came over here, he had a fake name.

Speaker 0: Oh, really?

Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Efren, when he first came over here, goddammit, what was his name? It was like a Spanish name. Oh, See if you can find it. So he played his very first tournament under a fake name because he is...

God I can't believe I can't remember it. Generally I can remember it But he played under a fake name because even though it was like the 1980s He assumed that someone had been to the Philippines and knew that this guy was the king over there And then can you find it? The Efren's Just Google Google Efren played Under a fake name. He's a morale. He's a morale.

That's it. So that was his name so he came over here under Caesar Morales and robbed everybody and Then When he came back he was Efren Reyes. Everybody's like oh We got fucked there. It is Cesar Morales stuns the field at Reds Wow, and this was back when he was playing with a $5 pool cue It does look like him, but I don't think it is because Dennis is quite a bit older

Speaker 0: Yeah younger

Speaker 1: younger rather than that guy, but that was in Houston and what year is that

Speaker 0: 85? 1985

Speaker 1: Yeah, so he came out stuns the field he came over here and fucked everybody up They had no idea that he would go on to be the greatest of all time Wade Crane Wade Crane was a bad motherfucker Dave Matlock look at all these guys Yeah, Mike Gugliosi, wow. Interesting, Bobby Hunter, Danny DiLiberto, all those names. Yeah, Wade Crane also had a fake name. He called himself Billy Johnson. Yeah, Billy Johnson was Wade Crane's road name.

Speaker 0: Well, when the internet wasn't around, that was a big thing, I

Speaker 1: think. Yeah. Well, that was his... He would go around playing as Billy Johnson because everybody had heard of Wade Crane. And so he would just show up places and, you know, people had no idea, and then he would rob them.

Speaker 0: It's perfect, yeah.

Speaker 1: Well, there was a great book called Playing Off the Rail. Have you ever heard of that book? Playing Off the Rail was a book by this guy David McCumber, who at 1 point in time was Hunter S. Thompson's editor when he was writing for a newspaper and they took this guy Tony Anagone who is a really good pro and they went on the road with like $35,000 so like like like taped the money to his body and shit in some places and they did it for a book. And the book is still available.

You can still find the book somewhere. It's well worth it if you're a pool player, if you're into pool, to get this book. Because David McCumber is a really good writer and it's really well written. And Tony Anagone became a friend of mine. And I actually did commentary with him once on a match back in LA back in the day.

And I became friends with him and played with him a bunch of times. And tragically, I think about a year and a half or so ago he took his own life. He jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. Yeah very sad but in that book they went to Chelsea Billiards, They went to all these different places where they they hustled and they just set up matches and set up games and played people But it just gives you this kind of taste for especially because McCumber such a good writer It gives you this feeling this really interested interesting like depiction of what that life is like. These guys that do things like that, like Wade Crane did when he called himself Billy Johnson.

That is a whole subset of Americana where these guys would travel around, stay in shitty hotels, and gamble.

Speaker 0: Yeah, I mean, it's kind of the same picture nowadays.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, there's still a lot of that.

Speaker 0: Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah it's It's fucking cool. You know, it's a it's a really cool part of like this subculture that people don't know about and I've always admired people who did it. I always thought that was a cool way to live your life. It's a crazy, reckless, But the people that did it, they were such fucking characters. They were such interesting people.

Speaker 0: Yeah, I mean all of them. It's a crazy lifestyle. I don't know if I would recommend it to my kids. No. But it's, I mean yeah.

Speaker 1: Maybe you would if pool becomes something really big. You know, if pool does grow to the point where there's million dollar purses.

Speaker 0: Absolutely, but not the gambling side. You know, I went through a lot of that and it's shady.

Speaker 1: Did you ever get in a situation where people pulled out guns or people were robbing people?

Speaker 0: No, but my friend did in the Philippines. What happened? Once. He beat the guy out of a small amount of money and the guy didn't want to pay him. And he wasn't even like pushing him to pay, he was like 100 bucks.

But he was the only foreigner in the building and he had a guy with him that took care of him and kind of made games for him. And that guy started saying something in Tagalog and Philippine, in their own language. And the guy pulled his gun and like started shooting in the ear, like trying to say that I'm not playing here. He was like an authority or something.

Speaker 1: For a hundred bucks.

Speaker 0: I mean.

Speaker 1: Imagine what he'd do for

Speaker 0: 51,000. Gambling junkies.

Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the thing. Gambling junkies.

Speaker 0: It's not about the money for him.

Speaker 1: Right. And there's so many of those guys that are connected to underworld characters. There's all these, you know, wild gamblers that are... They're almost all at least 1 step removed from criminals. Yeah.

If they're not criminals themselves, they might have a criminal who's a backer

Speaker 0: Yeah, I mean there is a lot of drug money involved I think in in gambling

Speaker 1: oh, yeah, oh, yeah There was always guys that were backing people back in my day when I was hanging around New York, where there were these guys that were drug addicts or drug dealers. They were selling coke. And they had that money, and that was how they burned the money. They would come in and gamble it.

Speaker 0: Yeah, do the same thing tomorrow.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember 1 time we went to Harlem to play this guy Because these pimps they would have a ton of money and they would play big money 1 pocket And so we went down to Harlem And here I am this dorky fresh face. I was your age. I was like do Hanging around in Harlem in this like fucking heavy-duty like like hardcore pool room where these pimps would go and gamble big money. And they'd come in with flashy clothes on, and it was just such a scene, man. It was such a scene.

It was so cool. It was just so, just to sit there. I mean, I wasn't playing those guys. I sucked. But I was with my friend Johnny and this guy, Mount Vernon Tommy, who was like a real top player from the area, and this guy Juan, who was also this killer.

And we would all go down together. We'd take this drive down together to Harlem. And at the time, The garbage workers were on strike. So all the garbage was stacked outside. So when they would take garbage out to the curb, nobody would throw the garbage out.

So there was six-foot-high piles of garbage that lined the whole street. Not bullshitting. So you'd walk down the sidewalk and rats would be everywhere. I mean everywhere. You'd see the garbage bags moving.

They would scramble in front of your feet. I'm like, oh my God. Like I grew up in the suburbs of Newton, Massachusetts, right? That's where I went to high school It's like very nice, you know upper middle-class neighborhood I was fresh-faced little cute kid and I'm wandering around with these degenerate gamblers in a pool hall in Harlem filled with pimps. Wow.

But I got out of there, and I wouldn't trade those experiences for the world, because it was so interesting to see that the subculture of these gamblers and pool players, and All they cared about was like, who's the killer? Like, who's the guy? You know? And they all had these crazy names and everybody had these cool nicknames.

Speaker 0: Nicknames, yeah.

Speaker 1: Oh my God, it was such an amazing time. But it's such, That's what scares me about it. I think it's like it has, it's, right now it's got, like we said, this resurgence, but there was a time where I thought this could go away.

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Sharking, Gambling, and Drugs: The Dark Side of Pool