I can’t believe how sedate I’ve become. I’m writing this Blog about golf. I’ve started playing again. The big man shot a masterful 45 yesterday. We only played nine holes so we had time for lunch’that’s half of a normal round’but I think that’s perfect for me, because my back usually seizes up after about five or six holes anyway.
I played with my chiropractor Dr. David Fisher of Westpark Chiropractic (See the links page for his phone number. His hands have been touched by G-d; just not when he’s holding a golf club). I think that’s the way to go. I may actually staff and travel with a full medical team from now on. I need a group of dedicated specialists and a crash cart standing by. It’s a good thing I didn’t live in a tougher era. I wouldn’t have made it. If you’re a urologist and you don’t mind playing public golf courses, give me a shout. We have a spot for you. I’d hire a nutritionist too but I think she’d just make me feel bad about myself. The urologist won’t care if I have a hot dog on the golf course. He’s used to those things.
When I had a spinal fusion, the year Steve McNair and the Titans were in the Super Bowl’no hacky jokes here, I’m just trying to seem relevant—I quit playing. Actually a few years before that because you know you need back surgery when even golf is too much for you.
I started playing golf when I got out of college. Well really it was one of the summer’s during college when I used to play a little Par 3 course at the beach in Delaware with my friends. We had a sweet little beach house. Eight guys, two bedrooms, and one bathroom, but that’s a Blog for another day. I’ll tell you how serious we were about the game back then. Here’s the owner’s actual quote when he kicked us off the course one day, “you and your beer can just get out of here!”
After college, I lived in Hoboken with a couple of friends and we’d get up at 0 dark hundred on Saturday morning just to put our name on the list for the public course beside the highway on the way to the George Washington Bridge. We’d put our names in, have breakfast, bowl a few games, and then play golf. That was living.
One might not be able to tell, but I’ve worked out for more than 20 years and I’ve been running a little ad hoc experiment all this time to see whom the bigger asshole is. The guy who works the desk at the gym or the starter at the golf course? It’s a tough one. They’re both assholes, intolerant and petty in their own ways. I guess it depends on who bugs you more, condescending Joe Neckbones or crusty overly officious retirees.
I’ve been playing private courses lately too because some of my friends are actually successful. It’s sort of like the Fresh Air Fund for adults getting me out of North Jersey and on the course at Delaware National. My buddy and I rolled in the other morning, ordered egg sandwiches, played 18 holes, ate lunch, and then met his wife and kids at the pool. Not quite as much fun as bowling and golf, but damn close. Except for the class-consciousness, racism, and anti-Semitism, I could get used to country club life.
I know I’m biased but country club people always remind me of the people I used to have to call when I did fundraising for the New York City Ballet. People who would be shocked, just shocked, that a peon like me would deign to call them at home. Like I was happy the paying-my-dues dedication to comedy had led me to be a telemarketer. I knew the frustration had finally gotten to be too much when my pitch, after the hundredth obnoxious Upper East Sider had busted my balls was, “you want to see Swan Lake or you want to get your ass kicked”?
Sometimes people would try to confuse me with rhetoric. One lady told me she no longer permitted solicitation queries of any kind over the telephone. That I’d have to find an alternate way to communicate with her. She didn’t find it funny when I told her to open her window. I was sending a pigeon. I soon learned whom to call. Rich people in Brooklyn are so much nicer than rich people in Manhattan. The Brooklyn Heights limousine liberals may not send their kids to public school, but they always give to the arts.
My buddy’s club is actually my kind of place. Nice people and a porta-potty by the pool, because you can’t be too class conscious when you’re walking into a Johnny on the Spot when you don’t want to go in the pool.