You can’t shoot pool with a rope, just as you can’t push a string and you can’t push spaghetti. The “shoot pool with a rope” line has become a popular remark about male impotence.
“My sex life is like shooting pool with a rope,” New York-based comedian and actor Rodney Dangerfield (1921-2004) said in 1982. “Sex after ninety is like trying to shoot pool with a rope. Even putting my cigar in its holder is a thrill,” New York-born comedian and actor George Burns (1896-1996) was credited with in 1990. It’s uncertain when both Dangerfield and Burns first used the “shoot pool with a rope” line. The Burns quote has been the more popular of the two.
Google News Archive
4 October 1982, The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec), “No respect but lots of laughs for master comic Dangerfield” by Mike Boone, pg. D-7, col. 2:
Dangerfield pokes fun at his age (...) and, most hilariously, his ineptitude as a lover: “My sex life is like shooting pool with a rope.”
Google Books
The Fourth—and by Far the Most Recent—637 Best Things Anybody Ever Said
By Robert Byrne
New York, NY: Atheneum
1990
Pg. ?:
175
Sex after ninety is like trying to shoot pool with a rope. Even putting my cigar in its holder is a thrill.
George Burns
Urban Dictionary
shooting pool with a rope
trying to have sex without an erection
I drank 16 beers and took her back to my place and it was like shooting pool with a rope.
by brighton71 October 05, 2007
Urban Dictionary
Shoot pool with a rope
when one’s dick cannot become hard during sex due to the amount of alcohol (i.e. whiskey) consumed. a.k.a. “whiskey dick.”
Because of my heavy drinking habits i often shoot pool with a rope when I’m with my slampiece, but its no problem because i always hammer it out in the morning.
by big dh February 11, 2011
YouTube
How to shoot pool with a rope
Jeff Hudson
Published on Dec 21, 2014
How to shoot pool with a rope
Twitter
Jewish Comedians
@JewishComedians
George Burns: Sex at age ninety is like trying to shoot pool with a rope. | #Quotes
7:23 PM - 22 Nov 2015
Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.
Recent entries:
•“‘It’s been a long week.’—Me, in the middle of Tuesday” (4/23)
•“Buying frozen pizza is such a lie. ‘Oh I’ll save this for when I don’t feel like cooking’. Surprise, surprise. Day one” (4/22)
•“Earth Day implies the existence of Moon Night” (4/22)
•“Earth Day implies the existence of Moon Day” (4/22)
•“Earth Day implies the existence of Water Day. Fire Day and Air Day” (4/22)
More new entries...
Above, Big Apple Corner at 54th Street and Broadway in Manhattan. Google Maps. Stolen and missing, 2021-2024.
Above, John J. Fitz Gerald, from the Aug. 15, 1931, Binghamton (NY) Press, pg. 14.
Listen to Robert Emmerich introduce "The Big Apple," a hit song from 1937. Music written by Bob and performed by Tommy Dorsey's Clambake Seven with Bob on piano. Lyrics written by Buddy Bernier and sung by Edythe Wright. Audio provided by Dorothy Emmerich.
Also listen to a 1937 "The Big Apple" song by Ozzie Nelson and his Orchestra. See a 1929 photo of John J. Fitz Gerald and a 1931 photo of John J. Fitz Gerald.
This site is edited by Barry Popik. These are the Cookies and Privacy Policies.