this is a tangent

I grew up never liking video games much, save Tetris, which is just a great game, period. It’s so great, that for years I kept a Gameboy (yesterday’s version of PSP, remember?) with Tetris in my bathroom.  It was an amazing past time. The only issue with this is losing track of time trying to beat level 9 high 5 only to realize that you’ve been sitting for almost an hour when your legs start to seer with the pain of pins and needles.  This can be problematic and the physical limitations caused by lack of circulation makes for a terribly funny clown act – being on all fours on the gleaming white tile of the bathroom floor, trying to cope by talking the blood back down into your feet, half laughing that, could anyone see you at this very moment, it may very well change their opinion of you permanently.  

Needless to say Tetris is the only video game I played… still play. I am definitely more of an analogue kind of guy.  I hadn’t the slightest idea that I was, but found out when I played foosball for the first time. Foosball - AKA jits, table soccer, babyfoot, canchitas, or any one of a hundred other (odd) names - is a table top soccer game. The field is a glass playing surface and the table has telescopic rods that control a goal tender, (real foosball only has one goal-keep not three, however, this is just my opinion) defensemen, mids, and forwards on either side.  The game can be played with two to four players and proper tables weigh in excess of a couple hundred pounds  - and necessarily so, as they deal with the spastic abuse that four riled up, and most often liquored up, people inflict upon it.

I was one of those people the other night, though definitely not semi lubed with booze - nothing teaches you how to be frugal like not having any money!  I was in fact nursing a Budweiser, which is difficult to do, as Bud is not well known as the kind of beer that one savors slowly for its taste. I was out with brother Kyle. We were both getting cabin fever from being in the house all day and decided to get out, so off to the Done Right Inn we went. 

The Done Right Inn is a small backwoods/hipster bar on Queen Street West where the beer is cheap, the regulars are beyond consistent, and the patio is romantically covered by a giant maple strung with blue Christmas lights year round. Even more, the Done has a hidden gem some rarely pay attention to.  At the back of the bar, just before the door to the patio lives a foosball table that looks as if it has seen much better days. It is stained with beers spilt over the years, the coin operation is terrible when it works, the rubber players have been whittled down from all the games they’ve played. And the table itself has a tilt-a-world lean to the right if you’re playing on the blue side.  Hands down the best table I’ve ever played! 

This is a shot of the Done Right Inn.  I took this mid afternoon one day after having this shot in my mind for a week.  

©Joseph R. Adam

Kyle and I have played there enough times to draw some solid competition. It turns out that others like myself love to play on this table and keep coming back just to do so.  On this particular night my brother and I were challenged by two women, one of whom we’ve played before and know to be a serious force. Turns out her partner is her sister and can play equally well.  I’m playing ‘backs’ (I’m strong on defense), and we are getting our asses kicked, which I can’t stand. We’re playing best of three, full racks. (We play all the points on the rack as opposed to just playing to five as many do).  We lost the first game handily by three points, and in the second game we were losing by three again but somehow staged a comeback to win it by a single point.  I don’t normally get loud when I’m excited, or at least not this loud, but with every goal we scored, I yelled so loudly in sheer excitement that everyone in the place turned to see who the lunatic was.  “Oh its just some ‘foosees’”, I’m sure they thought, and back to drinking they went. 

© Joseph R Adam Photography
This is a shot of some friends playing foosball on the table I ended up buying. 

So it’s tied one a piece.  Everyone around the table takes a break to sip from their drinks, tie some hair back, take a sweater off… it’s time to focus.  This just got very real. This is where Tetris loses to Foosball. I’m sweating because of the speed and intensity of the game. I’m excited and nervous and there isn’t a thing at steak here, however, it seems that everything is at steak.  I’m leaving the bar regardless of what happens because I want to Skype with my girlfriend who is away at school, and I also have to be up early for a model test that I’m shooting. Yet in this moment there is nothing but the ball that is about to be played. Sound even seems to disappear, I’m pretty sure I even stop breathing. 

The ball gets dropped and within seconds its crushed towards our goal with cracking sound a .22 caliber makes in the woods.  
Somehow I manage to get in front of it and make the stop.  The opposing team is impressed and mutter a courteous compliment but there is no time to respond to such niceties.  I pass the ball up to Kyle, who fakes a shot and scores! I yell, yeaaaaaaaaaah, and we try to high five but fail.  My brother and I have never had great success with the high five, at least when it counts, like in this instant. This is really a bizarre and embarrassing thing because back home at Mom and Dad’s, high fives are a common practice in place of hugs.

We draw first blood, however it doesn’t last long. It ends up being a point for point, call and answer game until finally, they take the lead. 

Game ball.

We manage to score to tie the whole thing up.

Now it’s game ball for everyone.  A few patrons have taken notice of the game and are now watching. The ball gets dropped and it’s instantly a frenzy of hard shots, crazy blocks, rebounds, passes, stuffs, banks, near misses, slaps… the ball rockets off the table with the trajectory of a sharp insult. The game resumes quickly and the intensity builds.  The point seems to be a stalemate. Back and forth. Attack and counter attack. Shot, save. Shot, save. Everyone can feel the anticipation... when will it end?  You can feel that it’s fast approaching.  I made an easy save and cleared the ball up to Kyle’s forwards. He hammers away at the ball and the subsequent three rebounds and is somehow shut out.  “Impossible” a voice yells.  Someone is trying to make their way outside but, in order to do so, they have to pass by the foosball table, and more specifically, pass by me. That's not happening.  I hold my ground  both in the game and physically – I see a lane and smash the ball – Goooooaaaaaal!!!! Kyle and I both yell. We avoid the high five to save face. Our opponents aren’t happy and already want a rematch, but that would be all for this night. I let the patient patron finally pass through to the patio. We all shake hands and talk trash for whenever the next game eventually goes down.

For now it was home time. 

Skype time.

I was also really eager to shoot the next morning, which is what this post was originally supposed to be about, and I’d like to do it justice. I shot a good friend of mine, Landy Cannon, for his modeling book. The shoot was styled by Dana Goldenberg – the shots look amazing!

So dear readers, I’ll do my best to get that up soon and it will most likely be my last post for at least a week. I’m working on a short film with some great friends of mine – I’ll have ample stories and pictures to share with you about that… so very soon. 

Ok for now, Selah

JRA