"I Think, Therefore I Ant."
April 25
Keep Your
Head Down
The
following are excerpts from a new anecdotal book of humour entitled, “Keep Your
Head Down” Real golf stories told by real golf pros.
Tork
Bernstein:
This
happened a few years ago, I was teaching a middle-aged man (always the worst,
these guys hate shelling out bucks, don’t take criticism well and treat you like
you were a common prostitute) who was having problems with visualizing.
Every time he stepped up to a hole that had water he ended up in it. Other than
that, he was an okay golfer. I decided to do 9 holes with him and help him with
his problem. A little battle training, if you will… So we arrive at the first
water hole, a 148 yard, par 3 with an elevated tee, a narrow shot to a tight
green with a small pond to it’s left.
“Visualize
the green,” I told him.
He grumbled something about what the hell did I think he was doing and not to
stand so damn close to him – apparently I was making him nervous.
“Forget about the water, as far as you’re concerned it’s not even there,” I
said, “just SEE the ball landing on the green. You can do it.”
He shanked
it into the water and gave me a foul and nasty look that said, this is all
your fault.
“That’s
okay,” I said, the water still rippling from it’s latest catch. “You just
twisted your body too far left, stay away from the left, stay away from the
water.”
“I thought
you said there wasn’t any water,” came his pissed off reply.
“That’s
right. You’re right, good attitude, so let’s see you put this one right one.”
It looked
like it was going to land, I even screamed out something like, “That’s the
shot,” but at the last minute the ball hooked drastically left and landed in the
pond. He hit another ball, he skulled it, it somehow managed to roll in the
water.
The next one looked better, but it caught a tree and kicked left, he was
wet again. The next three shots all landed dead centre in the pond. I suggested
changing clubs, he took out his four iron, hit a lovely shot that took a funny
hop and kicked left into the drink. He fired five more into the water, all the
while muttering to himself about, “fucking visualizing.” When he ran out of
balls, he gave me a nasty look.
I reached into my bag and gave him a dozen Top
Flights; everyone of them eventually drowned. I didn’t know what to say, it was
obvious I couldn’t help him and he sensed as much. I wished him luck, said
something about playing desert courses and barely made my five o’clock
appointment. A frisky blonde who was learning golf so she could have something
in common with her new boyfriend.
It was the next day as I was reading the paper when a small article caught my
eye, it turned out this guy had gone home, strapped his bag and pull cart to his
body and drowned himself in his swimming pool... Apparently several practice balls
were floating on the pool's surface.
Golf, it’s a funny game.
April 24
Keep Your
Head Down
Jack
Shellman:
I had
recently lost my tourney card so in order to pull in some money, (no damn
endorsements for this fellow) I decided to go back to giving lessons. I had a
class of ten students out on the range driving golf balls. It’s hectic work and
tough to make sure everyone gets paid enough of your attention. Anyway, there
was this one guy, he’d been playing for twenty years and was still shooting in
the hundreds on a good day – and that still included several mulligans and lots
of cheating.
Well he’d decided the time had come to see a pro, I should tell you, men are the
worst clients, they acquaint a golf pro with a prostitute – it’s true.
Anyway, after the usual quips about hooks and hookers, he started slashing away.
I immediately saw three major problems and alot of time in the future with this
guy, but the first thing I suggested was that he move his hands more over to the
centre. With that piece of advice I went off to help a friendly young housewife
who was learning the game for her husband. I snuggled up behind her and helped
her on her swing for five or ten minutes and decided to move on. I noticed the
hacker was still having difficulty his shots were spraying everywhere and he
looked like he was having a hard time keeping down a slow boiling anger, so I
called over a few encouraging words.
“This game
is going to kill me,” he roared, stepping toward me and receiving the full
impact of one my student’s backswing right in the centre of his head.
He died immediately. Boy, he sure got that one right.
April 22
What The Queen Did For Her Birthday
I called Liz and I asked her, “So, what did ya do for your birthday – you dusty
and stroppy old toe rag!”
She was actually pretty gracious and gave me a blow by blow account of her day.
”Well Avery, you fucking tosser,” she said, “first thing I had to do was do my
duty and allow that bleeding bounder Phillip to roger me. You’d think it was
his birthday – the bastard! But now wot ‘e’s got all that bloody Viagra, ‘e
wants it all the time. Bloody hell. Anyway, as we was making the beast with two
bleedin’ backs, I lay back and thought of The Queen of England. Which as every
geezer knows is me. Once that foul chore was well over, I called in me
dogsbodies to serve up my birthday breakfast of kippers. It was dead tasty.
After that, I hoped in the carriage and spent the afternoon in the pub knocking
back the pints and watching the horse races. Now that was brilliant! By mid
afternoon, I was right pissed. Don’t remember much of the day after that to be
honest. I kind of recall getting into a fight with some bloke and his bird. I
think I brained him with a pint glass. After that it’s a blank… Which must mean
I had fun!”
April 21
Are You a
Workaholic?
Work addiction is an
unrestrained internal demand for constant engagement in work. Oh, and as far as
I’m concerned it is completely unfathomable.
A person with work addiction – also known as a
sap
or
workaholic – is incessantly
driven and a crashing bore at any social occasion. The good news there is that
they are usually at work and therefore not available to attend social gatherings
where they would talk endlessly about their jobs.
I find these people hard to feel sorry for. At least alcoholics can sometimes
be fun.
For many workaholics,
their job is the only area in which they can establish and maintain their
identities: Which is that of the person who works too much… Which is a very
lousy identity!
Personally, I’d prefer to be known as “the guy who eats all the food at the
buffet table” or hell, even the guy who people point at and say, “who invited
him?”
Unlike the workaholic/sap, these labels provide me with none of the feelings of
inadequacy and ineffectiveness that the workaholic must endure, while alone at
the office night after night.
Before I go on (and I know I do), letīs clarify what a workaholic is not:
Fun
Vaguely human
Around for his/her birthday parties
Addicted to either shopping, sex, or anything else non- work related
Available for Christmas
So... Are you a Workaholic?
Change begins with
ownership. Consider the following 10 questions in relation to your work and your
feelings about your work identity.
1. Are you reading this
at work? (Ha! Just kidding!)
2. When you leave work in the evening, do you then discover it is now morning
and so you must not leave but stay and get an early start?
3. Does the above make you happy?
4. Do you work alone?
5. Do you hide work about the house and do it when no one is looking?
6. Do you tell worried friends and family that you could “quit at any time.”
7. Do you suffer work related black outs?
8. Do you work and drive at the same time?
9. Do you prefer the company of your work pencils over people?
10. Do you have withdrawal symptoms when not working, such as the jimjams,
blood in your stools, lazy eye, or psychotic episodes?
Curing the
Addiction
If you answered yes to
most of those questions, you may be a candidate for workaholics anonymous.
Establish a Boundary
Establish a clear
boundary between your work life and your private life. If you feel guilty or
uncomfortable with taking time off, look at it this way: You’re going to fail
and go back to work, so why not just get back to work?
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