Category Archives: Golfist Wintertime Diversions

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The Lover

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The Lover

Stress tests are used to determine the quality of things. In medicine, we have a stress test that gives us an idea how strong a heart is. In auto manufacturing, there is the crash test. In professional golf, we now have the sex scandal.

The sex scandal is a stress test most often seen in the realm of politics. But the peccadilloes of a politician became passe after ten solid years going with the tapping of shoes in airport bathrooms sandwiched between Clinton and Berlusconi. This is a stress test that reveals dimensions to Tiger that we’ve never seen before.

Tiger married Elin, a beautiful woman, but his aloofness and occasional public displays -hugging wife/children after win, revealed little. The more cynical among us could only wonder -was this all scripted? There are plenty of wealthy men with exquisite trophy wives who are revealed to have predilections across the sexual spectrum -at least in movies and novels.

So what did the past week reveal. If we are to believe the rumors, Tiger likes women with a certain body type -athletic, muscular legs, size B cups, and serious lips. We also find that Tiger has a misunderstanding about the call history function and contacts program on his cell phone. The US Magazine’s voice mail audio reveals that the purported Tiger is worried that his wife is checking his phone call history and requests the woman that he is calling remove her name from her phone number. The problem is that names are not tagged with phone numbers, but do show up in call histories with names when said names are in the contacts directory. Meaning Tiger kept only one cell phone.

What does this reveal? It confirms Tiger’s legendary miserliness or naivete. Billionaires with mistresses usually keep separate cell phones for booty calls and keep it in the golf bag or with a trusted assistant like Stevie. They keep contacts for Ginger, Misty, and Nicki, under Frank, Otto, and Rocco.

If the rumors that he was assaulted with a golf club are true, that means that he took his punishment like a golfer who hits the ball out of bounds. I frankly think he was running for his life after being hit on the head with Elin slamming the club into the back window as he drove out of the garage. Passing out, he hits tree and hydrant.

But what does all of this say about us? Why all the schadenfreude? Why all the venom? First, there is the issue that if there was an assault, there was a felony, and to hide behind gates and walls of privilege stinks to a public that is economically stressed. Refusing the request of the FHP for an interview and all the second hand communication through blogs and lawyers is a poor substitute for a visit to our society’s confessor, Larry King. The second is our need to destroy heroes, crucify them, worship them when they’re dead but kick them when alive. And finally, the third is the need for men to vocally disown this and for women to narrow their eyes and purse their lips. I for one completely do not condone any of this. The cell phone stuff was given for informational purposes only.

As I have written previously on this blog, the half life of human desire is about 6 months. That romantic love, that dopamine rush of courtship which is pretty much the same reaction people get on crack, dissipates and we bond, replacing dopamine with oxytocin. Children help this bond. Ultimately, the strength of the bond is related to the strength of character of the parties involved. We should not be rubbernecking this terrible crash site, but rather focus on our own game. Keep your head still and your feet on the ground.

It goes without saying, I love my wife very, very much. Bad Tiger, Baaaad Tiger.

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Sony, the graveyard of media formats

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Sony’s ability to turn gold into lead has a long track record. It started with Betamax but continued with MiniDisk, Memory Stick, UMD, and now Blu-Ray. You’d think they won with Blu-Ray, beating back HD-DVD, but it was a pyrrhic victory of one army of muskets over another army of muskets -on the horizon is a bunch of guys with cruise missiles, machine guns, and Predator drones. If you go to the video rental store (they still have these, but not for long) you will see about two racks for Blu-Ray. Who wants to spend for that when you can get just about as good for a lot less. That’s what its all about -remember Pioneer’s LaserDisk? Videophiles cherish the quality and durability of this format that predated DVD’s, but it was a millionaire’s plaything. Not so much with Blu-Ray which is hampered by the fact that to get the movie, you have to go and buy the movie or order it and wait for it to be delivered. With Netflix, Hulu, and iTunes along with a host of others, satisfaction is immediate. I downloaded Star Trek in HD and watched it with great satisfaction in 720p on my HiDef computer monitor. 23inch monitor for two feet away is the front row.

Sony has too many competing interests and kills itself by handicapping its products. Or it fetishizes design over function and delivers actual 4,000 dollar laptops that can’t make a movie with their own digicamcorders (my personal experience). People sneer that MacBook’s don’t have BluRay, but do you want to spend the extra money for that blue plastic cover? Especially when you already own Star Wars in VHS and DVD?

People are getting the notion that content has value -not the plastic case or the shiny disk. This is where Sony fails in clinging to a dying business model rather than adapting. It is the giant three toed sloth struggling in a tar pit.

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NaNoWriMo Update

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Video update of my NaNoWriMo project, Abandonner: A Memoir of Regret. It is taking all of my powers of literacy and observation of women in their natural environment to write this exploration of the feminine psyche from the perspective of men who abandon them. I am writing in the Chick Lit category.

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The Coda

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the planOne of the greatest television shows ever created was Battlestar Galactica as reimagined by Ronald D. Moore.  The Mini-Series brought the core of the show, a story about a nuclear holocaust and the travails of the survivors, and brought it into the present with an examination of our culture at war without and within. It showed the best of humanity and its worst, and showed the Cylons to be far more complex than an army of Terminators. The whole show ended earlier this year with a very memorable and complex finale that capped an opus that stands up there with the best storytelling. So it was with a bit of trepidation that I downloaded and watched Battlestar Galactica: The Plan. Some people panned it as an editors’ cheap trick, a kind of über fan-film of the kind you watch and cringe at on Youtube.

I disagree. It filled several plot holes that never made sense in the original series, such as the appearance and disappearance of the Librarian Six, known as Shelley Godfrey. I enjoyed this because it fills these plot holes. But like the filler that is used to repair actual pot holes, the patch work is noticeable. The scenes visually jump around and older original footage runs into obviously freshly shot footage that tries very hard to look seemless but isn’t. They also left you with a final plot hole -the whereabouts of a dark haired 6.

That said, it is a fitting coda to a great series. They really should stop now. I only hope they don’t try to make a movie. There is a spinoff, a prequel, called Caprica that looks at the origins of Cylons, but it rates only about 6 out of 10 where the original miniseries was an 11.

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Why the Yankees Must Win

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IMG_0140It was 2001 and all the world was rooting for New York. The World Series was playing into November because of the start of the War at the End of the World that would define this decade. The whole team was still there -Joe Torre, Bernie, Paul, Tino, Luis, Scotty along with Andy, Jorge, Mariano, and Jeter. Characters were on that team -Knoblauch the head case, and Clemens the man who chucks lumber in anger because of ‘roid rage.

It was pretty much a done deal it seemed, a fitting tonic to soothe the wounds of a city in mourning. The loss to the tandem ace pairing of Schilling and Johnson was hard but in the scope of the events that had taken place only a few months before, it was unseemly to complain too much. Bully for the ‘Backs. Life will go on, no?

But we lost all those guys the subsequent year, and it was never the same again. From 2001 to the fall of 2008 when the Yankees didn’t even make the post season, it was very clear that no amount of money could buy back the chemistry of the early Torre years. 2004 seemed automatic but revealed the weakness of the Yankees flailing arms and the team seemed broken and grasping for a way out of the cave.

The core was always there, but they seemed apart from a team that was never equal to the sum of its parts. This year, it seems different. That threeway happy dance in the infield of A-Rod, Jeter, and Teixeira at the end of the ALCS is something different and not seen in a long time.

My belief is that the fate of the country, and even the world is tied to the health of New York City, that city of Babel that will prove or disprove humanity’s ability to get along. The Yankees are an important barometer of the city’s health. A Yankee team that is doing the happy dance in the inaugural year of the new stadium is nothing but good news for everyone, even Philadelphians.

I congratulate the Phillies on their pennant, but they must now do their patriotic duty and service to mankind by giving a good show, even win a game or two in Philadelphia, and bring the show back to New York for a final Yankee victory in game 6. It would be the only decent thing to do.

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The iPhonist

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As I have said, the iPhone brings out the creativity in individuals in ways that are unmatched by any other personal gadget. It has become the screen of choice. I have been playing with the iPhone app Brushes which let’s you create compelling artwork. David Hockney recently featured in the NYTimes now does much of his art on the iPhone. Several New Yorker covers have been created on iPhone by Jorge Columbo (link).

My latest piece was done in bed while watching the Yankees lose to the Angels. It’s my view to the right. More to come, but this device does not cease to amaze me and a tablet device will become de rigeur among creative people.

golf literature, Golfist Wintertime Diversions, Naturalism 5 Comments

The Novelist

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docparkThe golf season is over in Iowa. It may be nice this weekend, but flu from the swines have cut short any idea of swinging into a 35 degree wind chill day. Thus, I have decided to try my hand at novel writing. I came across a post about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, link here) which is a challenge to all the unpublished authors to write a 50,000 word novel in one month (or 1667 words a day).

Wow -a medical drama? Wry observations about golf? NO WAY. I asked myself, “What would make me the most money in the shortest amount of time and that means getting onto Oprah’s couch and rubbing my chin and looking serious?”

It means CHICK LIT, baby!

I’ve already set on the title of the novel: “The Abandonner: a Memoir of Regret.” If that doesn’t give you cramps and make you want chocolate, you aren’t a woman! Controversy? Undoubtedly! Best Seller? Dan Brown’s got nothing on me! Who is that masked man? The guy who rocks your Kindle, now come to Papa!

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Idiocracy -the greatest movie created by Fox, and buried by it

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SNC10668I just picked up Idiocracy from Amazon (link), finding this gem for all $4.99. It can be found on Youtube in bits and pieces. It is a brilliant indictment of our cultural decay. After it was made, it was released in only 7 cities and then conveniently buried. Rupert Murdoch, owner of the News Corporation, Fox, Fox News, 20th Century Fox, and much of the pro-Bush media likely had a hand in killing this movie which savages the corporate supported dumbassification of the land.

It can be interpreted as elitist, but elitist in the sense that smart people monopolize intelligence in an unfair way. The genius of this movie is that if you’re really stupid, you will laugh your ass off.

Nobelist Paul Krugman (they hand out those things to everyone these days) and NY Times columnist and Princeton Economics professor discusses the demise of American public education in his column today (link). Education was once celebrated. A generation ago, The Paper Chase was popular. Today, it’s variations on Jackass.