Shufflebeard

I am running errands in Clairemont, driving around in one of those post-9/11 dazes that still plague me a few times a week. I used to live in Clairemont, ten years ago. Ten years ago things weren’t so. . . so cluttered: Where goes this war? Is it safe to fly? Who the hell is Ms. Beak and can she be trusted? Christ, there's just so much clutter now.

I find myself near an old favorite Clairemont dive: Peter D’s. "What the hell," I figure. "I’ll have a drink and unclutter myself. See what the old hangout looks like these days -- maybe I’ll even put a coin on the old shuffleboard table and challenge the fogies...

Peter D’s was the perfect dive. It had a square-shaped bar in the middle of the room. Behind it was a raised stage, long since unused. (The only time I saw anyone use it was when some poor old sot with a "Semper fi" tattoo would climb up onto it to slur out fight songs).

On the right were two pool tables and on the left was the best shuffleboard game in all of San Diego. A rarity, really. Most shuffleboard tables are so diseased and ratty they might as well have rabies. Not Peter D’s table though. That stick was clean, baby. And it wasn’t one of those puny, pock-marked 18-footers either. She was 22 long, not a single divot or warp on the whole rail. When you threw the weight, it went where you threw it, and that was that.

Not that you care. 18 feet, 22 feet, it’s still just an oversized drink coaster to most. But to shuffleboard enthusiasts, a good stick is all. And good sticks are disappearing like big-screen movie theaters in this small-screen world.

I park my car, enter Peter D’s, and walk directly to the shuffleboard table. But. . . my shuffleboard is gone! A woman in her early 20s is setting up a karaoke machine on the old stage. I approach the bar, stool up, order a double Cuervo, Heineken back, and watch the massive, rumbling (though quite lovely) ass of the karaoke dame as she bends and twists to set up her equipment.

Karaoke? Here? "Et tu, Peter D's?" I think, and drink, and slink back to a happier time: The Shuffleboard Days...

The Shuffleboard Days stretched from the summer of ‘87 through the summer of ‘88. In a rare example of good timing, my violent, obese, gutter-tongued, hyper horny, mascara-plastered, halitosic, oppressive, acerebral, government-cheese-getting, schizophrenic, tweaker-hag roommate moved out at the same time that my pal from the old New York neighborhood decided he was moving in.

It was great. My boyhood chum and I, together again -- like the old days, but without parents. We played hoops all day and boozed and played shuffleboard against the old fogies all night. We staggered home at 2am and -- to the chagrin of our neighbors -- plugged in my electric guitar. With the four bar chords I knew, we turned Bukowski poems into punk songs:

"O ants crawl my drunken arms. . . And they crawl into my mouth And down my throat I wash them down with wine."

At the end we added a lyric of our own -- "We are the ants! We are the ants!" -- a drunken crescendo chorus.

Karaoke Night at Peter D’s has begun. Some old sot with a "Semper fi" tattoo is singing "Duke of Earl." His droning voice confirms: he is not an experienced singer.

In the early Shuffleboard Days, Tony and I lacked experience. The old fogies used to beat the crap out of us. That is, until we met The Master.

Then everything changed. Then we pummeled the old pricks, snickered when they grumbled from the sidelines that we'd cheated them, basked in the attention of the blue-haired shuffleboard groupies -- how they giggled like girls, and gave us the drip eye.

The Master, who took us under his wing, was a crabby old rummy with a head full of baldness and this magnificent, two-toned beard that dangled from his chin like Spanish moss.

We called him Shufflebeard. And when Shufflebeard threw the disc, it sailed down the board like a pirate ship stalking its prey in the death of night.

Shufflebeard taught us that the puck was actually called a weight and anyone who called it a puck revealed his competitive and mental inferiority.

Shufflebeard taught us to shake hands with our opponents -- no matter how beslubbering they were -- before every game. Anything less was uncivilized.

Shufflebeard taught us side-wheeling (shooting with your fingers on the side of the board for balance) and explained that top-boarders were turd-lickers (his words). He taught us about waxing the table (a shuffleboard table needs to be sprinkled with silicone wax beads). He said most people poured it on like parmesan cheese on a shitty pizza. He said only a blathering idiot (my words) believed that more wax means smoother and faster throws. Not true, he said. Less is more. Too much wax slows the weight down. Just more clutter.

There is no shuffleboard table at Peter D's. The sound of the karaoke machine clutters up the room. It goes, "Boom boom bah."

"Less is more," I think, as the woman on stage, in a tight black skirt, stares unflinchingly into my eyes and sings, "Ooh, baby I love your way. . " Yes, I think: Less is so much more.


EJD
11/21/02