July 19, 2004
open-faced sandwedge
7/19/04
If there's one thing my parents sucked at, it was making sports a priority for their kids. The only thing I ever really learned in my youth was soccer, and that was because I was at school in London when I was 10, and if you didn't play football with the other kids, they'd take it as a betrayal.
I got very good at it and began to love it – then came back to the U.S. in 1980, and nobody was playing. The great Soccer Explosion must have happened in the late 80s, leading to "soccer moms" and now, those vaguely testosterone-addled blondes that walk around college campuses wearing white socks in their Adidas flip-flops. I look at this race of young soccer women and feel like my mom does when she sees the "diaper changing station" in the men's room: what a great new world we live in!
Either way, picture me wearing smelly shin guards, showing up for the summer soccer team that forfeited half the games because we didn't have a backfield. By the time the New York Cosmos and the NASL folded in 1984, I was back to ham radio and furious bouts of masturbation.
Thus, because I was never prodded to be athletic, I missed out on those formative years – from about 11 to 18 – when you can become really good at something. I started my basketball obsession in earnest at age 19, which is a little like starting French at 40; sure, you can speak it, but you're always going to have bad accent.
I took tennis lessons as a kid, but again, only played regularly against Bud and Chip at Carolina, where I'd get so angry at my warped game that I'd destroy racquets by the bagful. In short, I'm a latecomer to everything, and it pisses me off.
Now, in my mid-to-late 30s, I have to come to grips with the following: I probably only have about 15 decent years of basketball left, and it feels like I just started. I'm not sure if they'll let 50-year-olds play in the games we run on Thursdays (god, it feels awful just to write that sentence). Maybe we can have an Old Fart League or something, but I doubt if I'll be able to take it to the rack in 2018 like I can now.
And so, I have done something I previously thought unthinkable: I have begun playing golf. Just so Bud doesn't get the wrong idea, I don't wear plaid pants. And I suck, I really, really suck. But I got a cheap set of good clubs on eBay, bought some shoes with plastic spikes, and Scotty is teaching me how to swing.
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with Scotty before my first try at 18 holes
Why? Because golf is something you can pick up – and be good at – even when you start learning late, and you can play until they throw your sack of bones into the coffin. Tessa's dad Blakey played golf until he was frickin' eighty-eight.
So I consider it an insurance. Something to play with Scott and Jamie, something to get violently angry about clear into the 21st century, until they toss me in the white van and lock the doors.
ian, this post is a horrid misuse of your blog, so feel free to delete this and i'll take the inquiry elsewhere.
i've been hunting an alt-pop song overheard in a gym almost 10 years ago. all i have are a handful of slurred lyrics and the sound behind it, "sound" meaning indie cd stores gather their employees around to hear my warbling attempts so they can say "not familiar with that one" and justifiably laugh for days.
anybody know any sites that will let you do a more comprehensive search, or at least one that doesn't keep pointing me back to that damn milkshake song?
i think you'd be a great golfer.
No soccer in the early 80s?! What? In the mid 70s through the 80s soccer was all the rage (down South at least). With teams were sponsored by pharmacies and insurance companies and soccer fields as far as the eye could see.
Barriers are being broken all over. You've picked up golf and at the same time have no problem putting your arm around a dookie and posing for a picture. Surely, pigs will fly any day now.
Seriously - I started playing golf 5 or 6 years ago and find it very challenging but extremely frustrating. On my last golf outing, I got so mad that I broke "El Deano" - a Carolina Blue putter with the UNC logo on the club head. Not good.
I too have been fearing that I'll have to take up golf in the near future. Golf still isn't a sport tho - not until it becomes a timed event: lowest score + lowest time = winner.
My 4 year old is in his first soccer league this year - he's a little guy, but seems to have aquired my sports obsession/competitiveness. 4 year olds don't really compete - more of a moth to the flame kind of thing - but he did manage to body check a 5 year old out of his way en route to a goal.
Last time I played golf (which was the second time I played golf) I went to the public par 3 in Queens right across from the US Tennis Center. I was with two friends who'd never played. We all sucked so bad that we doubled par for scorekeeping, such that a 6 was a par. We each made one "birdie". I'm not sure I could have a better experience than that.
SB - I think music store employees are the WORST way to find out a song. The best way is to sing it to your friends, or just call me and I'll try to figure it out. My brother Sean and my friend Bud are also very good at deciphering almost-ran pop songs, but that does mean using the phone, so we can laugh at you too.
CBob - Culturally, soccer exploded the year or so after I gave up on the team, at least in Iowa. These things can go ballistic very quickly; I just happened to miss it.
Andy - True, Scott went to Duke. So did my other fave roommate Lars. It is possible to love a tree and hate the forest, I guess.
SB - Why don't you record a clip of you singing the "tune" and your perception of the lyrics, then either post a link or mail it to Ian so he can post it and we can all attempt to help you while not-so-secretly laughing. Or maybe Ian can just record the call :)
SB - Just type your best guess at lyrics into the google box, hit "enter" and voila! Or just post them here and we won't laugh at you. Much.
Music store employees often suck. A pair in NJ actually did laugh at me for not recognizing Madonna's faux-English accent at the beginning of "What it Feels Like for a Girl." Just remember: that's all they have to live for.
Ian, you'd look fabulous in plaid pants. Or at least some Payne Stewart knee breeches. C'mon, work with us here.
And Duke Forest is about all I *don't* hate about Duke. Besides Scott and Lars, of course. And Cameron, a good concert venue. But other than those, Duke sucks worse than record store employees. Or golf. No offense.
Nothing against Scott -- other than his Dookiness -- but in the span of 12 hours Ian, you've written "Scotty is teaching me how to swing" and compared your affection for him to "loving a tree." What exactly is going on with you two?
google keeps giving me some gangsta tune, and i can't even type what i think the singer uttered without laughing at myself. not with me, at me.
no more posting on ambian nights, i promise.
While my affection for Scotty is nothing compared to our 18-year love affair, Jon, he and I are merely "exploring each other" and "taking our liaison to another level."
what the hell's wrong with plaid pants?!