Joe Rogan on the Balabushka Pool Cue in Fact and Fiction

You know we should go and watch, if you haven't seen it before, watch again, The Hustler. Never seen it. Jackie Gleason and Paul Newman. No, I've never seen it. It's amazing. It's amazing. For what reason? It's just, first of all, it's in the 1960s, like early 1960s, and you're seeing like this part of America, because this is filmed representing the time in which it took place. It's not like they were doing a period movie. So this is like 1960s, like early 1960s, cars, the way they talk and the way they drink. And it's about this guy who's a professional pool hustler, who's been traveling from California to New York City to meet this guy named Minnesota Fats and play him, because this guy's the best pool player in the world. And so they play all through the night. It's based on a, was it Robert Rosen? Is that the... It's based on a very... Did you say Paul Newman in this? Yes, that's Paul Newman, bro. Oh, fuck it is. Look at that. Dude, and Paul Newman plays Fast Eddy Felson. He plays the baddest motherfucker in pool, who wants to come and play Minnesota Fats. Minnesota Fats is Jackie motherfucking Gleason. And he's amazing in this movie. He's so amazing he's got two flowers on his jacket. Bro, the other one's a tie or a hanky, rather. I didn't realize that Paul Newman had multiple pool movies. Well, this was the original. And so what the color of money with Tom Cruise was, was Fast Eddy, who was again Paul Newman, getting back into the world of pool, because at the end of this movie, spoiler alert, it's from the 1960s. He retires. At the end of this movie, he retires. So he comes back with characters. But it's the same character. Okay, all right. Yeah. I've seen color of money. Yeah, I've seen color of money. But you're picking him up again now when he's 60. That's hilarious. Yeah. So this young kid is talking shit, and he doesn't understand that... Because he's a really hot pool player today. But he doesn't understand that this guy in front of him is a legend. Yeah. Wait, I remember the name of his cue was the Balabushka. Is that right? Yeah. Well, yeah, exactly. I can't believe I remembered that. Balabushka was the type of cue that he had in those... Because of this movie, this movie in particular, because they didn't mention it in the first movie, but it was pretty clear they were playing with the Balabushka. This movie, that fucking cue is worth a shitload of money now. There's a lot of great pool cue manufacturers from that era. I know you like craftsmen. I do. Totally. When the world of pool, it's all about cues. It's all about the type of hit you want, the type of wood that's used. The waiting. Yeah. And Balabushka has a very specific kind of hits of her. It's like there's an old school feel to it that a lot of the players that have been playing, like most of their life, love... Companies still around? No. Oh. No, no, no. If you're buying one now, you're buying... It's going to be a shitload of money, man. At this point, it's an art piece. Would you play with it if you had one? Some people do. Some people do. It's like a badge of honor. You know, you show up at a pool hall with a bow. It's not necessarily the best playing cue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like shotguns. You know what I mean? You get the art pieces and the vintagey stuff. There's one right there for $22,000. $22,000. Jeez! Fuck! Yeah. Wow. But moving on that? Let me see what that looks like. Yeah, that looks like a Balabushka. Is that a... Oh, it's got the string on it. It's got the original Cortland Wrap and all those inlays that's mother of pearl. Yeah, yeah. That was all done by the band. Probably ivory down at the bottom, right? No, I don't think so. I think that's this... There's a type of... That might be ivory, actually. If it's old enough, that's probably ivory. It might be ivory. It might be ivory. You might be right. 22 Gs. A lot of times they would use a plastic down there because you wanted something to be durable and you had ivory down there. Yeah, you'd bounce it on the ground or whatever. And they all used ivory that came from the pre-band days because back then when they were making these things, people could go over there and shoot elephants just for their tusks. What does that say? Ebony Points? What's it say? I don't know. Ebony Sleep. That's crazy. That's crazy. Gold bands, Racetrack Mop. What is that? Nameplate? Oh, okay. Racetrack Mop nameplate. Blank between... I don't know. You lost me, but that's pretty cool. It's a blank between the mop dots and the diamonds. Original Cortland Map, mostly falling off. Two original. George Balabushka Shafts. Unusual feature. That's a person's name. Oh, yeah. Well, they've had a bunch of those like that where people would buy them, they would order them and he would engrave their name in it. Yeah, but those... It sounds like a very shotgun-like thing. Shotguns are similar like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a whole one. Like a lot of character. The wood. You go over there and you choose your wood and it's the scroll work and the barrel work and all that crazy shit. A good friend of mine makes pool cubes. They're called Sugar Tree. Uh-huh. His name's Eric Crisp. He makes them all by hand. I'll show it to you afterwards. Or you've got like a dozen of them out here, right? The way he makes things is like super specific. He's an art connoisseur if wood was an art. So like when he looks at like a piece of wood, he doesn't think... It's like a combination of knowing it'll make a good pool cube but also wanting it to look a specific way. Yeah. They have all these gnarly knots in them. Yeah. Weird kind of colors of the woods and just finds them interesting and green. It's like a... It's just like guns, dude. Yeah, I'm sure. It's the same thing. Balbuschka pool cubes were reintroduced in the 1980s with their permission. Yeah, but that's not real. Yeah, once the movie came out, someone asked if they could license it. Yeah. Yeah, it's what happened was there was a company. It's a decent queue, but it's not like a real Balbuschka. It's like a Shelby Cobra, right? You can buy a replica Cobra, but the real one is the real one. You might even like the way that one plays better. I mean, there's people that like the way all kinds of different things play. It might play better than... But it's not. You call it a Balbuschka. Balbusch's got to make it. Yeah. He's got to make it. He's got to make people... He's got to make people... Same thing. Cobras. Yeah. That you could... A brand new replica Shelby Cobra will probably drive a lot better than the ones they were racing at Le Mans in the sixties. But one is 50 grand and one is a million because one is real. Yeah. And to be honest, that wouldn't mean I wouldn't buy one of those newer Balbuschkas either if I wanted a queue to play with. No. They all play good. As long as you know what you're getting, it's fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The thing with queues is like with a lot of things, it's like you wouldn't... If you see a pool cue, like it doesn't even necessarily have to be anything fancy. It's just, you see like the, if it's got nice wood and nice balance to it and you can kind of look at this, like, you look at it, you know, somebody's made that by hand, most likely. Some guy crafted that on a lathe and figured it out. With watches too, you know.