Introduction To The Golf Album Blog

                                             

                                                              

Golf. Sound out each letter.  G-O-L-F.  Golf.  There. Perhaps the greatest four-letter word in the English language, right up there with “love” and “beer” (“food”, matched with another four-letter word, “free”, is a strong contender for honors as well.)  The word fairly rolls right off the tongue.  Say it, out loud.  Golf.  It hardly matters if spoken with the Scottish burr of its ancient homeland, or the flat American accent of its adoptive friends across the pond;  its beauty rings true,  loud and clear, all the same.

There are some cultural artifacts which, because they are shared by all people, transcend geographical boundaries and link all humanity at its core.  Music is one.  The SI Swimsuit Issue is another.  Golf is a third.   The true international sport, it is played by as many people in as many cultures worldwide as any other game, including the insufferable football or soccer, as it is more accurately and proudly named in the United States.  Words like “fore” and  “mulligan” and phrases like “out of bounds” “free drop” and “it’s in here somewhere, just give me another minute”  are universally understood, the lingua franca of the civilized world.  Golf has even been played on the moon, the largest hazard this side of Saturn's rings (only slightly less terrifying than the 1,200 bunkers at Whistling Straits – watch where you’re walking!).   And golf's popularity grows every day. 

To some golf is a religious experience, a form of athletic worship.  To others it is recreation, an opportunity to commune with nature and friends in the great outdoors for hours at time.  To others it is simply the greatest game of all.  (Conceptually, of course, golf is impossible.  Let's see, you have to take this little round piece of compressed, rubberish material, balance it on a oversized toothpick, swing a four-foot pole with a block of metal at the end, hit the ball four hundred yards over grass, bushes, trees and big holes in the ground filled with sand, and end up in this tiny hole in the ground.  All this in four swipes, er, swings in order to post the correct score.  Right.  Of course, if you only thought of things conceptually, you might never leave your house (or live in one, for that matter).  You certainly wouldn't drive a car, 1,700 pounds of metal connected to the ground only by four metal rims with some rubber stuck on them, travelling at speeds guaranteed to kill you if you wander even slightly off course, or if some other driver, guaranteed to be cognitively impaired either by legal or illegal drugs, limited intelligence or coordination, or texting, hits you.

For most of us however, there is one fundamental element elsewhere common to the human experience that is not found in the golfing experience in its current state.  And that is, a sense of humor.  Simply put, the institution of golf does not have a funny bone.  Face it, the  next time you laugh out loud at a comment  spoken by an announcer during a golf telecast will be the first. I have been to funnier wakes.  (Gary McCord and  David Feherty are by all appearances eminently charming men, but Seinfeld or Chris Rock they are not- not that there’s anything wrong with that.     Yet each is The Man, the gold standard by whom all are judged, when it comes to humor in golf.) 

However, Nicklaus be praised, that will all change as of today. There is a new kid in town and it is The Golf Album Blog.

 

17,000 year old parodies!

The Golf Album Blog will present commentary and stories from golfing days past.  But woven into each blog entry will be a parody of many rock and roll songs which you should recognize, if not know and love.  The parodies will present lyrics in contextual settings for golfers who will, it is hoped, find such lyrics humorous as the golfer substitutes them for the original lyrics. 

All of you should be familiar with the art form of the parody in some form or another.  Parody has an ancient history, dating back to prehistory.  The Cave Paintings at Lascaux in France, painted by Paleolithic artists 15,000 BC (NOT BCE!!), are clearly parodies of comic books popular among the Fred Flintstones of that era.  Moving along in time, many believe the statue of the Sphinx is simply a parody of the ancient pharaohs, whose idea of a practical joke was to take their entire household, living or dead, with them when they passed on to the great pyramid in the sky.  This included their pets.  No wonder the Sphinx is part animal.  Meooww!

The art form truly matured in the Golden Age of Greece, as such writers as Eumenides,  Euripides, and Eupayfordes wrote one brilliant parody after another.  (At least that's what the critics of the time said.  In fact, none of the surviving plays from that era have generated a laugh since Alexander was merely pretty good.)    

The Romans continued the tradition of parody.  Julius Caesar, while busy conquering the known world, dividing Gaul into three parts and creating the salad that bears his name to this day, was also quite the parodist.  Caesar's signature  line, Veni, vidi, vici (translated by most scholars and bored Latin students as “I came, I saw, I conquered”),  was actually a play on vini, weenie, Wiki, classical Latin for “a little wine, a good red hot and a great deal of unsubstantiated information is all you need in life.”  Toga party!

Once the Roman Empire, tired of lions devouring Christians, crumbled into oblivion, the state of parody also declined.  The Middle Ages did little to contribute to the parodic tradition, and the Inquisition and the Black Death, two events that  punctuated the end of the Middle Ages was actually a bummer for most people with a sense of humor.  Fortunately, the human condition brightened with the onset of the Renaissance, and if people weren't busy painting, sculpting or constructing beautiful buildings, they were busy creating parodies.  Michelangelo's David, whose sensuous body has amazed serious art buffs of all sexual persuasions for centuries, was actually a parody of a famous member of the famous Medici family, Lorenzo the Small.  In fact, Da Vinci had just performed his latest parody for La Giaconda, a riotous translation of Dante's Inferno, where the seventh level of Hell is transformed into the first Starbucks, which is why the Mona Lisa is busting such a gut in her famous portrait. (Of course she's smiling. She just quaffed a Quad Trenta Skinny Caramel Macchiato Extra Dry Splenda.)  

I am not a duffer!

After the Renaissance,  parody survived the Protestant Reformation, the Industrial Revolution, Jim Crow, two World Wars, the Nixon Presidency, reality television and The Tea Bag Party  (at least as of this writing.) 

But you will notice, in this brief history of the parody, no mention of golf is made.  That is perhaps because the Scots, known as the inventors of the game, are hardly known for their sense of humor.  (Look up the word “dour” in the dictionary, and a man in a Scotch plaid kilt  will be pictured.)   Visit their country, and you will know why, in a very brief matter of time.  Quick, name a professional golfer with a sense of humor, other than the aforementioned Feherty and McCord (who has been banned from Masters telecast for an otherwise innocuous reference to greens being bikini waxed – in 1994!!  Oh, brother.  Lighten up, o keepers of the green jacket)  You don't associate the barons of industry who play the game with a sense of humor, either.  (It's called the Art of the Deal, not the Art of the Stand-Up Comedian.) 

Fortunately, after eons of solemnity, interspersed with an occasional nugget of humor (the famously funny quote of Roberto de Vicenzo “What a stupid I am”, for example), the Golf Album has come to the rescue and brought laughter and light to the otherwise largely humorless universe of golf. 

The legion of fans of the Golf Album will recognize the format of The Golf Album Blog.  Like reading the break on greens on your home course, the material will be familiar yet still puzzling, instructive and rewarding if read properly (and it always breaks toward the water).  The medium is a bit different, but hopefully at least if not more pleasurable than the album itself. 

Take that, Irving Berlin!

Those of you who have not had the pleasure of listening to The Golf Album will get the idea soon enough.  Parody is the catch phrase here, as familiar songs (at least to you baby boomers out there) have been transformed through the magic of parody into amusing, if not downright hilarious, takes on the most sacred of pastimes, the game of golf.  (Humility, like tongues in cheek, simply abounds here.)  

The format is as follows: Each blog entry will feature an introduction based on the underlying song and perhaps a story recalled by the music followed by a parody, including the new lyrics that parody the original lyrics.  (For a nice, indeed humorous, description of the technique and the legality thereof, check out Irving Berlin et al. v. E.C. Publications, Inc., 329 F.2d 541 (2d Cir. 1964).  Irving Berlin, he of the “God Bless America", “White Christmas" and transposing piano fame (yes, arguably America’s greatest composer couldn’t read or write music!)   versus  Mad Magazine  (yes, Alfred E. Newman himself -- What, Me Worry?)  Talk about a Battle of the Titans – and Humor won!

You will encounter  such favorites as Fairway to Heaven, Suspicious Nines, Four Jerk, 50 Ways To Break Your Putter, and my personal favorite, Hit That Funky Golf Ball, White Boy!  And the hits just keep on coming.

So, Welcome to The Golf  Album Blog, a mere 26 years in the making.

Play away, and Enjoy!

AMDG


Copyright R.E. Kelly 2012 - 2021