Miracle on the 17th Green

This morning I head off to our annual corporate golf outing, once again at the 36 hole four star rated Nemadji Golf Club in Superior, WI. Corporate golf outings are a great way to introduce new people to the game of golf. At our company we form teams and have a scramble format it which everyone plays but not everyone has to carry the team.

The sport of golf is widely believed to have originated in Scotland. Being a MacGregor on me mother’s side thereby makes my attraction to the game a natural.

My dad liked to golf regularly and used to go back behind Stafford School in Maple Heights to practice hitting his irons. I have memories of Dad, my brother and I going to some remote road and running through the underbrush finding golf balls, filling brown paper lunch bags with them. I guess it must have been a particularly nasty hole at a Cleveland golf course where the initial shrubbery discouraged hackers from going deeper into the woods. But further in there was no brush at all and we scampered about like squirrels collecting nuts.

My Grandfather Sandy especially loved the game and played as much as he could after retirement, about four times a week I seem to recall. When I was about eleven he’d gotten a new set of clubs and gave me his old wooden shaft irons in a brown golf bag. He got quite angry with me when we were practicing once and I broke the shaft by duffing one, which I did on at least a couple of occasions.

Beginning at age 15 I spent two summers caddying at a NJ country club, courtesy Mr. McAvoy, a Bridgewater neighbor and likewise avid golfer. The chief benefit of caddying was that I could then go golfing every Monday for free, and golf we did. It was a wonderful experience.

Two years later I was invited to be a bus boy at Fiddler’s Elbow and got a real up close look at the country club culture from the inside. Here, too, we had the opportunity to play for free on Mondays, which I did now and again. The famed Bobby Thomson of the Giants, who hit the “shot heard round the world” to win the 1951 National League pennant, was a member there and I remember once standing in the doorway watching him slowly remove his shoes in the locker room after an 18 hole round.

All these memories come to mind as I prepare for my own round this morning.

A book recommendation comes to mind as well: Miracle on the 17th Green by James Patterson and Peter de Jonge. It’s a relatively fast read. If you like golf and have ever followed any facet of the PGA Tour (My dad was part of Arnie’s Army, I like Gary Player) you will enjoy this inside look at a great sport. It’s about a middle aged guy who is very good at golf who takes a midlife crisis type of stab at making the PGA Senior Tour.

I myself did not know who James Patterson was at the time I read this book years ago. My intro to Patterson was such a turn off because many of his bestsellers are of the gruesome type where imagination is applied in the sickest of ways to come up with new and creative macabre villains. I will admit that I wrote a few such stories myself when young, albeit poorly, but the very first chapter of one of his books was such a put off I have scrupulously avoided him, no matter how many bestsellers he writes.

On the other hand, I thought this review on Amazon.com pretty much summed up my take on the book which I hope you will one day read yourself… No murders, no serial killers. Just a lot of golf, and some fun. Sort of like today at Nemadji.

And congrats from afar to my brother Robert who got his first hole in one two weeks ago. Cherish the moment! I had a nice drive on one hole myself today.

Toward Ever Greater Efficiencies

It really is a whole new world out there. Yesterday I was talking with a friend about the efficiencies the Internet offers. Instead of driving to the bookstore and looking for a book, I can go to amazon.com and read reviews, buy it used or new and never leave my office. The retailers who have “pure” eCommerce businesses never concern themselves with a dressy showroom floor, sales staff standing around waiting for customers or any of that. They have shelves and a warehouse, servers and tech people keeping the show running. Efficiency is the name of the game.

Well, salespeople are learning about efficiencies, too. Instead of platte(sp) books and trips to the library or County Office Building, they have been discovering an increasing variety of web tools to help generate leads, reduce time preparing contact lists, etc.

Here’s an interesting story about a guy in real estate, Justin McClelland, who found a screen scraping tool for harvesting data and organizing it. The product he found is Mozenda and the amazing thing for Justin was that he could do it for two weeks on a free trial basis. What I found interesting is how quickly he learned it, and also how quickly he was eager to share this “secret weapon” with others. He even made a YouTube video to show how easy it is to use.

Evidently the program is so easy to use he didn’t even need to call tech support, though he acknowledges that he has a small measure of programming or computer-related experience.

McClelland’s business is called Schwaps.com and to my surprise I was able to find and follow him on Twitter under the handle Schwaps if you want to follow him.

Maybe you know a few efficiencies yourself. Certainly Google has helped make finding information easy. I routinely found myself calling the library help desk to verify information earlier in my writing career. I can’t remember the last time I called the library help desk.

Efficiency isn’t everything, but it’s something. It helps companies remain competitive in a fast paced world. In Orson Welles’ film adaptation of Kafka’s The Trial the main character works as an accountant at a company in which there are more than eight hundred accountants sitting at desks with ledger books and adding machines. That room full of adding machines has been replaced by a computer today.

The human cost of progress is a major challenge for business owners when it comes to the efficiencies of automation and technology. This was my friend's concern. How far should we go in the adaptation of technologies that replace jobs? On the other hand, in a global economy, to what extent do we have a choice as other countries produce goods with increasing ease and reduced costs?

That was the real discussion yesterday. He said that business consultants are now reading Seneca, the Roman stoic philosopher, in order to have a more humane approach to decisions affecting employees. My feeling is that failing to incorporate efficiencies into a business model is a sure way to doom it so that all your employees' jobs are imperiled.

If I get a chance, I might examine Seneca, but the Golden Rule is pretty good guidance, too, when it comes to treatment of employees: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." And as for efficiency, it is one part of the equation for success that keeps us competitive, helping us to leverage our time so we can do the real work of closing deals, providing good service or producing products needed in the marketplace.

Ask Justin McClelland. Would he rather spend four hours or four thousand hours assembling a list of prospects for his business?

Prohibition and the Drug Trade

While writing about Port of New York yesterday I touched on the manner in which the drug trade is addressed today in Hollywood is much grittier and dark than the film noir period pieces. Another film comes to mind that could have been cited as well: Traffic.

This questions remain, however: Can prohibition work? Can the war on drugs ever really be won without also taking away another value vital to the American people, their freedoms? Are there better ways of addressing this problem?

If someone were to ask me what my political stance was, I would not say Republican or Democrat, Liberal or Conservative per se. I lean Libertarian. The pork barrel politics of our past fifty years are a natural outgrowth of Machiavellian power games and party politics. When it comes to government, less is more.

For this reason we have been long time subscribers to Reason magazine, which takes a reasoned libertarian approach to government, society and culture. Occasionally I have found myself at odds with the Libertarians on certain key issues. They have historically favored drug legalization. But the arguments they make are good ones, cogent and persuasive.

It wasn't alcohol that made Al Capone a powerful gangster. It was Prohibition. After prohibition was repealed where did the gangs and moonshiners go?

To get some wheels turning I wanted to share this article which I stumbled upon in the last couple days, "The Drug Laws Don’t Work," by Michael Huemer. A philosophy professor at the University of Chicago, Huemer's logic is easy to follow here though I do have some questions.

Earlier this summer our waitress at Blackwoods in east Duluth told us she used to work at Falk-Newman's Pharmacy until an armed robber came in, held the manager with knifepoint on throat, and insisted on taking all the Oxycotin. The waitress, I forget her name, then went to work in the sister pharmacy in Lakeside, a safer neighborhood. Two weeks later she was working while another armed robber came in and demanded all the Oxycotin. At this she quit pharmacy work and took up waitressing to put herself through college.

I relate this story because I do not know how ending prohibition will stop these kinds of robberies? Nor do I think drugs like Oxycotin should be sold on the streets as freely as bubble gum.

Which leads to the next question... where do we draw the lines? Maybe there are answers to these things which smarter people than I have already proposed.

Another article (with video clip) I'd like to point out this morning is the interview of Glenn Greenwald by Reason editor Nick Gillespie which appeared in the June issue of the mag, "Drug Decriminalization In Portugal." Greenwald is a civil rights attorney and author of a Cato Institute study titled, "Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Policies." Portugal's drug problems had been escalating and were out of control when the nation conducted a policy experiment out of desperation, decriminalization. The results were surprising. Be sure to check it out.

I agree with Huemer when he cites Voltaire's dictum, "The best is the enemy of the good." It would be nice to eliminate all social problems, but an overtly meddling government often only serves to make them worse. What do you think?

Port of New York

"Hey, do you want to make a deal?" ~Bob Dylan

One of the things that set Dylan apart when he emerged on the scene was his grittiness. At a time when the airwaves were alive with sweet little love ditties and cheery faced folk singers, Dylan approached subjects too nakedly and unsettling. This line, "Hey, do you want to make a deal," from Like a Rolling Stone has a context. It's cold. Like the scene in Ironweed where Streep, reduced to being a street tramp, has to produce a sexual favor to get a needed place to sleep out of the cold... in an abandoned car. It'ugly, but it is an indignity experienced by women on a near daily basis in this world.

Film noir was a style of Hollywood film in the 40's and 50's that sought to expose and exploit that dark side of life. Themes were ambiguous, often not pretty, and occasionally considered scandalous. I just finished watching Port of New York, a movie about smuggling drugs into the Big Apple. Yul Brynner stars as the lead bad guy, the top of the food chain. Ever smooth, careful, calculating and ruthless. He's even got hair.

An old fashioned black and white, the film opens with a narrative along the lines of the Dragnet television show, something akin to "This is the city." The narrator has that serious deadpan, no funny business approach, implying a serious topic is being discussed. In this instance, narcotics being smuggled into New York through its ports. It's a good B-movie for entertainment value, but what a contrast to films on this same theme to films of a more recent vintage. All good guys and bad guys are in suits and ties. You never see anything related to the effects of the drugs themselves. When the final sting occurs, what a small quantity of dope to be getting in such a lather about. The entire shipment was in a satchel.

French Connection with Gene Hackman broke new ground for earthiness and realism. Same theme, intensely different.

But today's drug trade films really bump it up. American Gangster with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe shows the whole drug scene with such vividness it blinds. Blow, with Johnny Depp, likewise shows a full panorama and puts the drug world into a perspective. Yes, there is glamour for some but at great expense in human suffering. Customers of the drug dealers are harrowingly desperate. One must have a cold ruthlessness in the heart to be a player in that game.

Which leads us to Anton Chigurh, the ultimate personification of evil, and relentless pursuer in No Country For Old Men. A brute? Not quite the right word. Disturbing? Definitely. He is a by-product of the times and someone you don't want to mess with. I've encountered his kind a few times, people with no conscious, dangerous and unpredictable. You meet these people when you're somewhere you don't belong. And they are out there.

For a "dark" movie, Port of New York was pretty clean and easy, a short, tight little package of 82 minutes. Like Scorcese's The Departed, the plot involves placing a cop in the inner circle of the gang that controls the ports. It's hard to get too emotionally entangled in the film because it is more about plot than character, unlike Gangster where you actually feel empathic toward both Crowe and Washington because you understand their motivations, understand where they were each coming from.

What's your favorite in the oldie from Hollywood's film noir school? Double Indemnity is a classic that still holds. I had a friend who liked D.O.A. What about you?

Accidents

Man: Did Hemingway ever talk to you?
God: Everybody talks to me… sooner or later.

Circa 1975 I was a security guard at Research-Cottrell working the night shifts at their headquarters in Bedminster, New Jersey. On a beautiful blue sky summer day I'd just gotten off the graveyard shift after celebrating the dawn. At that time I was auditing a class at Princeton Seminary which has one of the most extensive libraries in the world, so I would take out stacks of theology books and study them at place which must have been a Revolutionary War era mansion it seems. My first day, when I was transferred to this building from the manufacturing plant where I had been on guard duty, my heart leapt up at the new place and the verse came to mind, "My Father's house has many mansions."

Another favorite verse at that time was from Psalm 130, "My soul waits for Thee, more than the watchman for the morning." I enjoyed those nights, often singing, reading, praying and drinking a lot of coffee.

So I'd gotten off work this one morning, filled with emotional exuberance, singing worship songs and driving down Highway 202-206, not paying attention as much as I should have evidently because when I came round the bend in the road, the traffic there was stopped in its tracks. Bam!

I'd managed to slow the car but not in time. The front end crunched the rear of the poor fellow in front of me. Traffic was stopped so I got uot, even though we were in the fast lane. In checking the damage I noticed that the nose of my Pontiac had hit directly into the license plate in the center below the truck. These were the days when you filled your gas tank in the rear, the cap hidden by that plate.

As I walked to the driver's door, the windows were down. Four hippies were in the car looking at a man with short hair in a police uniform. A couple were talking fast. I reassured them that I was not a cop, but suggested we should call because there was some damage and it was my fault. "No, man, don't call the cops," they said.

I tried to explain that the gas tank end was bent and they would not be able to refill it. They assured me this was not a problem. No one had cell phones in those days, so when we parted company, it was as if it never happened and I often wonder how they fixed that bent gas tank end. The Pontiac did not even have a dent.

The collision reminded me of another incident in a rear-ended car a few years earlier. I was at Ohio U, my junior year, hanging out with Fred and some other acid heads. Fred was a poet from Chicago who wore a leather jacket that said U R 2 on the back. A girl at the apartments had her father's car for the weekend so we all decided to ride into town. We were very stoned. The apartments sat up on a hill and we had to go down the hill to get onto highway 50 into town. At the bottom of the hill we were stopped at a stop sign when suddenly, bam. We all looked at each other. "I think someone just hit us," one of us said. It was night.

We all got out and saw a car, headlights on bouncing sheen off the back of our Lincoln. A skinny black guy in a striped shirt was moving in a hyperanimated way, his head jerking up and down, checking out the scene, assessing the damage. We, too, were assessing the damage.

"Did you just hit us?" the girl said.

"Hey, man, I'm sorry. Don't call the cops."

"I don't think it's very serious," I said after trying to find the dent.

The others looked hard at the back of the car. It was very difficult to tell what the back of the car normally looked like, but at the time it seemed pretty normal.

"Please don't call the cops, please please please," the man pleaded.

We continued to study the back of the car as other cars drove by. The pleading went on and on and on. It was probably thirty second but seemed like four days. Eventually, we decided there was no damage to the car and the black kid immediately leapt into his own, backed up and then sped off.

I really never knew that girl whose car we were in, but I did hear later from Fred that her dad was more than a little peeved to discover she'd somehow gotten a dent in the rear of his car.

Other accidents are coming to mind, but that's enough for today. I think there are some lessons here.

Enno

SHORT STORY MONDAY

"I have never produced anything good except by a long succession of slight efforts." ~Andre Gide

Enno

We discover ourselves as we interact with others. Through friendships our true selves find the courage to emerge. Through bitter feuds we discover our capacity for conflict, or lack of capacity. Through struggle we define our strength, or -- to our dismay -- learn of our weakness.

In Enno's case, I found all of this and more, for it was Enno who gave me the courage to let my true self find release. Only later did I recognize what the game we had played would cost me.

Had I once been strong? Or did I only believe myself so? Did I once possess the light of life? Or was I only deceived by flashes from illusory sparks on the retina of my eye?

Magenta tapestries, mauve curtains, lace bouquets and sprigs of baby's breath, honeysuckle and sweet nothings splashed across memory's mantle. I weep alone now, frightened by what will never be.

•

The truth never owns itself, but rather, gives itself away. That is to say, we do not possess truth. We only encounter it.

Even so, there is nothing certain, even in the most profound revelations, for is it not true that yesterday's experience is soon but a dream. Gone, like a mist... and verifications escape us. The enigma of time swallowing up itself like the dragon its horny tail.

So you see, he has fallen prey to doubt. (Of course I am speaking of myself here. I am a writer, and it is a habit of ours to speak in third person as if we are speaking of other people.)

No, that's not entirely true, though in large measure it is to the universal in all of us that one hopes to appeal. Certainly it was the universal in me that Enno touched. That is, the universal sense of the tragic... Thus we returned together to his apartment and poured ourselves drinks while dashing all hope against the unpalatable night.

•

He lived alone at that time, in the days before his fame. How could I have known what lay ahead of us then. We tape our hopes to the wall, but we hardly imagine the good thing will come. Years go by and we are left with only the dust taste, the stench of stagnant waters in the cellar of our souls. We conceal our tears, but to no avail. We find little comfort in this solitary stance.

So it is we find our way back to the society of men. We rub shoulders, make small talk, pay attention occasionally, repeat a joke or two and give the appearance of feeling at home in this world, their world, a world not our own.

Then we meet someone rare, someone complete and full of years, who has lived a life not unlike our own, but in a different span of time. We meet in a chance encounter that has the earmarks of Providentiality. We open our hearts and minds and find a resonance so complete it seems to defy probability and chance. Like two long lost friends finding themselves in an alien land, we rejoiced. How strange it seems now, for he alone was the immigrant.

(How foreign I'd always felt myself from that which surrounds me, suffocates and imprisons me.)

•

Our first affinity was books. "When I was a young man in Poland," Enno has repeatedly told me, "I spent all my waking hours in the library."

We were both lovers of books. European authors best, we both agreed. Americans had clever writers, but few great minds. The American experience is a corrupting experience, teaching us to value only the surface of things, causing us to miss the substance of things themselves. Whether it be art or literature, even music, Americans seem incapable of touching anything remotely passionate in the human breast.

He had come through the war and that, more than anything, sets one apart from most of the American experience. Pop psychology has little to say to survivors of the war experience. He had been a survivor of one of man's greatest invented nightmares. And in 1949 he gained his passage to New York City, freedom's shores.

"No one will believe the truth. So we do not talk about the truth any more." He said this many times, too. "People prefer fictions. Fictions require no commitment. Fictions require no risk. Truth is a risk. Truth demands a stance." Thus was his posture fixed, in an attitude of provocation.

CONTINUED

Not Dark Yet

Laconic chords, a simple drum conveying a haunted feeling of sunset rouge sky. A perfect blend of sound and vocal delivery… curled words climbing crags of lament, words that conspire in their explorations of the tragic sense of life.

Pain. Dylan puts everything right out there, capturing a feeling so many have known. “Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb…” Yes, this is how it feels when you are down and out. Not Dark Yet effectively evokes emotions that are harrowingly universal. When the world has crashed, time drags the dregs of our hollowed out souls.

Elizabeth Elliot’s These Strange Ashes comes to mind here. Hemingway’s Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea likewise. I think, too, of Javier Bardem in The Dancer Upstairs.

It will never be a theme song for a sitcom, but it’s easy to see why Hollywood occasionally weaves Dylan’s music into its more sobering films.

The song first appeared on Dylan’s Time Out of Mind album, 1998. A song rich with the angst of unrequited love, alienation and despair, it is the perfect lead-in to Dylan’s Cold Irons Bound rocker.


Not Dark Yet

Shadows are falling
and I’ve been here all day,
It’s too hot to sleep
and time is running away;
Feel like my soul has
turned into steel...
I’ve still got the scars
the sun didn’t heal;
There’s not even room enough to be anywhere
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.

My sense of humanity has gone down the drain
Behind every beautiful thing there’s been some kind of pain
She wrote me a letter and she wrote it so kind
She put down in writing what was in her mind
I just don’t see why I should even care
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.

Well I’ve been to London and I’ve been to gay Paree
I followed the river and I got to the sea
I’ve been down to the bottom in a world full of lies
I ain’t looking for nothin’ in anyone’s eyes
Sometime my burden is more than I can bear
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.

I was born here and I’ll die here against my will
I know it looks like I’m moving but I’m standing still
Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb
I can’t even remember what it was that I came her to get away from
Don’t even here the murmur of a prayer
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.


Bob Dylan
Copyright 1997 ~ Special Rider Music