Bash Compactor: Balls Out
I was a junior champion until I was 14, and then I discovered weed, said Will Horowitz with a smile on his face. Id have been able to take any of these guys, Horowitz, the executive chef and owner of Ducks Eatery, was commenting on the collection of world champions playing an exhibition at SPiN New York, the citys premier (and only) ping-pong nightclub.
Hipsters, models, celebs, suits, old Asian people and ping-pong weirdoes gathered at the East 23rd Street club last Wednesday and Thursday nights to watch the champs display their wares. Its the widest demographic other than a cemetery, part owner and aficionado Susan Sarandon told me.
A big believer in the selling power of sport, Sarandon and co-owners Jonathan Bricklin and Franck Raharinosy mentioned that satellites of the club are set to open in Milwaukee and Los Angeles. The L.A. branch will be featured in an upcoming episode of Entourage, and the Milwaukee branch will probably be featured on some sort of local news program in Wisconsin.
Mike Myers, Morgan Spurlock and Carl Lewis crowded the tables as a DJ spun hip-hop and techno. Heather Graham popped in and out before I had a chance to tell her how much of a profound effect her turn in Boogie Nights had on my adolescence.
Drinks were flying across the bar faster than balls on the table and, of course, things started to get weird. Kaz Yokohama, a businessman and top-notch player known for ripping off his suit mid-match and finishing games clad only in a Speedo, showed me and a friend cell phone pictures of cross-dressing costumes he had worn in previous competitions. There were lots of them. There were fishnets involved. It was time to go.
To be fair, however, I had been warned. Pool is so 20th century, Raharinosy told me. Were trying to make ping-pong sexy.