Susan Sarandon ruins something cool

Posted on by

Little-known fact: I’m something of an expert in Table Tennis.

I don’t mean in terms of actually playing the game. I’m just OK at that. What I mean is that I’m probably one of the very few people to have ever been paid to write articles about table tennis, thanks to my old job editing the now-defunct WCSN.com.

And though that website’s new home at Universal Sports has archived such hilarious masterpieces as “Wathelet shocks show jumping world” (read it, it’s pretty amazing), for whatever reason my numerous articles on the techniques and history of table tennis are now somehow no longer available on the Internet.

Anyway, I think table tennis is fun as hell, because it is. And when I read an item in the Daily News’ Gatecrasher section today that the cast of Gossip Girl was seen at Susan Sarandon’s new table-tennis club, I was intrigued.

Now I recognize that I’m not exactly running in the same social circles as the cast of Gossip Girl and any club they’re hanging out at is probably not my speed, but I figured maybe that would be a cool trend to trickle downhill to schlubs like me: a bar filled with Ping-Pong tables.

Why not? All my favorite bars are the ones with something to entertain me in them (besides, you know, booze), like a pool table or skee-ball machine or even, in times of desperation, Trivia Whiz or Photo Hunt.

And Ping-Pong is more fun than all of those things, with the possible exception of skee-ball, so having a bar where I could play it would be sweet. Plus it’d become a pretty obvious place to host beer-pong tournaments, which I never participate in but frequently bet on at parties.

But it turns out, Susan Sarandon’s new table-tennis club is not a “club” in the bar sense of the term “club,” but a “club” like a golf club or a polo club. Check it out: It costs $1000 to join.

Look, Susan Sarandon: Table tennis is awesome. We all agree on that. But part of what makes it awesome is that it’s kind of silly. Yes, it’s really fun to posture after Ping-Pong matches and act like you’ve won something actually important. But it’s not something actually important. It’s Ping-Pong. And you’ve taken that posturing way too far, Susan Sarandon.

And yeah, I recognize that it’s played on the Olympic level and it’s taken really seriously in places that are not the U.S. or Canada. I get that. But people take show jumping and curling and the two-man luge seriously, and those are all really silly too.

Oh, and apropos of nothing other than the interplay between Ping-Pong and sillyness: One of China’s top table-tennis players is named Wang Liqin. No disrespect, but how unfortunate.

9 thoughts on “Susan Sarandon ruins something cool”

  1. Long live WCSN.com! I’ve written some fantastic rowing articles for that beautiful, beautiful website. And who could ever forget the Bode Blog or its progeny.

    Reply ↓

    • It’s really pretty amazing they never noticed how many of their recaps were dripping with sarcasm. I couldn’t find the one in which I called some guy “the Michael Jordan of international sepaktakraw.”

      Reply ↓

      • You mean “Joppich showed how comfortable he was in the two-meter area, and Baldini simply could not compete with the fiery German” has sarcasm in it?

        i was simply referring to the undeniable will to win of a world-class german fencer…

    • In addition to Fat Cat, you can find reasonably priced ping-pong at Brownstone Billiards at the corner of Flatbush and 7th Avenues in Brooklyn (among other places, I’m sure).

      Reply ↓

      • I’ve never been to fat cat, sadly, but I’ll now have to go. I’ve been to brownstone billiards – now Ocean’s – a bunch of times. I used to live a couple blocks away. I always focused on the air hockey while i was there though. The problem with that place is that it’s way more pool hall than bar, which I’m fine with, but it’s always surprisingly difficult to convince people seeking bars to go.

  4. I’ve got a friend who swears he could make the US National Table Tennis Team if he devoted the next few years to the endeavor. I say he’s got no chance in hell. Are the guys playing professionally that good, or does my friend have a chance?

    Reply ↓

    • I’m pretty certain I’ve heard Moses, the above commenter, make the same claims, but I’ve never seen him play. A friend of mine was actually nationally ranked as a junior player, and he was pretty unbelievable at Ping Pong. I considered it a victory if I could get five points off him in a game to 21, and this was years after he quit playing competitively.

      The professional dudes, though, are crazy. I can’t really speak for the Americans, but I know that in most shopping malls in China (and there are a TON of shopping malls in China), there are areas where kids take table-tennis lessons from very young ages. They grow up to stand like five feet back from the table and put all sorts of spin on the ball. It’s funny, at the top levels it becomes kind of like a crafty lefty pitching in baseball, messing with his opponent’s timing and attempting to make the ball travel in all sorts of directions.

      Here’s the aforementioned Wang Liqin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt–WBUnuOI

      Reply ↓

Leave a comment