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All the News About Hal that Hal Deems Fit to Print
=====================================================================
APRIL 1995 ~ Ite in Orcum Directe ~ Volume 4, Issue 2
_____________________________________________________________________
Now The Best Self-Published Newsletter
in New England - Some Guy at the Boston Globe
(Owens went belly-up)
Publisher: Harold Gardner Phillips, III
Editor-in-Chief: Hal Phillips
Virtual Editor: Dr. David M. Rose, Ph.D.
PR Coordinator: Donna Harris-Lewis
Education Editor: Kelly Galligan
Business Editor: Nicholas Leeson
Expedience Editor: Ben Nighthorse Campbell
Assistant Expedience Consultant: Richard Shelby
Deputy Undersecretary of Expedience: Nathan Deal
Spiritual Consultant: Mike Tyson
Editorial Offices: The Harold Herald
30 Deering St.
Portland, ME 04101
Satellite Office: c/o Golf Course News
38 Lafayette St.
P.O. Box 997
Yarmouth, ME 04096
ARCHIVE SITES:
fir.cic.net (pub/Zines/Harold.Herald)
etext.archive.umich.edu (pub/Zines/Harold.Herald)
Subscription requests to drose@fas.harvard.edu
Hal-direct missives to hphillip@biddeford.com
Funding for The Harold Herald is provided by our contributing
readers including:
Mrs. Charles Fowler... $5
Barbara Reeves & Paul A. Phillips.... $10
Tom, Abby, Bennett Rose... Stamps galore
Rich Gibbons & Heather Moss... $10
Gov. David McDonald... $10
Bill 5'18" Paprocki... $25 (zoinks!)
(All this, and still nothing from my own family!)
Submissions welcome
PHILLIPS TO LEAVE DEERING ST.; DRUNKEN MELEE PLANNED
BY HAL PHILLIPS
PORTLAND, Maine - Get to know me. Get to know the spirit of Thomas
Brackett Reed. Get to know the lovely Sharon Vandermay. Get a measure
of social religion. Get legless.
Get while the gettin's good here at 30 Deering St. on April 22. A tri-
level soiree has been scheduled for that particular Saturday night on
the occasion of the fair Ms. Vandermay's birthday. Further, as I'm
moving in with my betrothed birthday girl on June 1, attendees will
have the opportunity to bid farewell to Thomas Brackett Reed house
where I've resided for lo, these past three years - my longest tenure
at any address since leaving for college. Upstairs neighbor "Aroo-
stook" Mary Fowler has generously added her apartment for party use
while access to the roof here at TBR house will allow wondrous views
of Portland's Back Bay. [Let the record show the Herald Legal
Department hereby warns invitees against getting drunk and falling off
the roof.]
All readers should consider this issue of the Herald an invitation to
the party, almost certainly the last social event of any import to be
staged at this 19th century historic landmark. Festivities should
commence around 8 p.m. There will be nibbles, but big-eating folks
would be well served to eat beforehand, if only to line your stomachs.
Various libations - beer, spirits and NABs - will be provided, but
even the most modest liquid birthday gifts (for Sharon, of course)
would be much appreciated. Indeed, a six-pack or bottle of wine would
spur our instant and endless devotion. Let's recap, shall we?
What: A party on three levels
Whose: Mine
Where: Thomas Brackett Reed House, 30 Deering St., Portland; the
corner of Deering and State Street (Route 77).
When: Saturday, April 22 at 8 p.m.
Why: Fair Sharon's birthday and goodbye to TBR House.
Directions: Get to I-95. Get to I-295 towards Portland. Get off the
highway at the Forest Avenue exit, going towards the city. Get right,
into Deering Oaks Park. Get through the light, up the hill, through
another light, and go left on Deering Street. Get a parking spot.
Getting here from Cape Elizabeth is different: Get over the Million
Dollar Bridge and go left on High Street. Get left as you pass over
Congress Street and go left on Deering, across from the Royal Sonesta.
Get a parking spot because 30 Deering is two blocks away. Got it?
Good.
/-/ \-\
ENORMOUS ANTLERS AND FUSED METACARPALS: CHICKS DIG 'EM
By MARK SULLIVAN
The Irish elk that roamed Europe 12,000 years ago had enormous
branching antlers that spanned a dozen feet. The deer-horn equivalent
of the barbecued bronto ribs that upended the Flintstones' roadster,
these cumbersome appendages were considered the most fetching by
female Irish elks.
The Hal Phillips who roams latter-day golf courses from Kennebunk to
Kuala Lumpur was born with fused metacarpal bones, effectively leaving
him without wrists. The condition makes swinging five-irons or typing
a challenge for this golf magazine editor, but renders him nearly
invincible at arm-wrestling.
Science suggests the long-extinct deer and Hal have something in
common. Hal's wrists and the Elk's antlers, physiological departures
that seem to flout practicality, may in fact have enhanced the owners'
ability to reproduce - a paramount factor in the Darwinian scheme.
Further, the evolutionary significance and hereditary impact of Hal's
wristlessness have drawn increased scrutiny since he announced his
intention to wed later this year.
Hal's curious condition is not readily evident. One is reminded of
another famous Harold, the silent film star Harold Lloyd, who early in
his career blew off one of his thumbs with a prop explosive; Lloyd
successfully hid this fact from the camera by means of a flesh-colored
glove fitted with a prosthetic thumb, which he wore even when dangling
from clock towers.
In Hal's case you don't notice his lack of wrists until he begins to
type, in a paddle-paw fashion that suggests a circus bear playing the
piano. On the golf course, Hal finds his fused wrists are "good for
coming out of the rough - the club doesn't turn in my hands." But he
has a difficult time with toll booths. "I can't lean back and make a
smooth, easy transition palming the money," he explains.
Impractical as their design may be, Hal's wrists may fill a unique
role in the evolutionary scheme. In "Only His Wings Remained," an
essay in his 1985 book The Flamingo's Smile, Harvard paleontologist
Steven Jay Gould writes: "Our world overflows with peculiar, otherwise
senseless shapes and behaviors that function only to promote victory
in the great game of mating and reproduction. No other world but
Darwin's would fill nature with such curiosities that weaken species
and hinder good design but bring success where it really matters in
Darwin's universe alone - passing more genes to future generations."
Gould's favorite oddities of this sort are "the tail feathers of
peacocks and the huge, encumbering antlers of Irish elks, both
adaptations in the struggle among males for access to, or acceptance
by, females, but certainly not contributions to good design in a
biochemical sense."
David Rose, PhD, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School, suggests
wrist-lessness may increase the probability of Hal's having children.
"It might make masturbation more difficult, so it increases the
likelihood he will reproduce with something else," observes Rose, who
added: "If we lived in a society where the probability of mating
rested on arm-wrestling skills, maybe he would have an advantage.
Perhaps that explains why he visits Bubba's Sulkey Lounge with such
frequency."
Hal's fiancee, comely exposition organizer Sharon Vandermay, confirmed
that Hal's wristlessness was a distinct attraction. "None of the other
men I dated had no wrists," she said. "It was yet another unique
characteristic that set him apart from my other suitors."
/-/ \-\
TERM-LIMIT DRIVEL DIES GENERATIONAL DEATH
BY HAL PHILLIPS
The term limit debate has peaked and will soon take on the importance
of other burning issues like the House postal code and anything to do
with Lamar Alexander - which is to say it won't matter a lick. The
entire argument never made any sense. To wit, 80 percent of the voting
public is said to favor term limits, yet only 45 percent of the same
voting public participates in elections. Do the math. You can't.
It appears nearly half of those favoring term limits don't bother to
cast ballots - or lie about it - therefore forfeiting the right to
comment on the length of political careers, much less alter The
Constitution forever. Republicans claim the nation damn near demanded
term limits in November. But how are we to interpret that message in
light of so many established senators and congresspeople getting the
sack? Tom Foley opposed term limits, a stand that definitely
influenced his defeat by a virtual unknown. Yet the defeat of Foley,
the first House Speaker to lose an election in 130 years, is also the
most eloquent argument one can make against the need for term
limitation in '90s America. Clearly, we already have term limits. It's
called voting. In Ayn Rand's libertarian treatise Atlas Shrugged, the
author makes it clear the common good is best served when individuals
look out for number one. As much as they might crow about removing
government restriction, only rarely does your ideologue Republican
stumble into a defensible position on libertarian grounds. In this
case, the former minority unwittingly employed libertarian self-
interest to defeat a distinctly alibertarian ideal the GOP itself
espoused - that is, restricting voter choice.
Now in the majority, Republican will see to it the issue slowly dies.
Bear in mind one thing during any debate on limiting the terms of
elected representatives: Remember it has always been and will remain a
minority issue. If the Republicans manage to retain their majorities
for 10 years, a new generation of Democrats will pick up the term-
limit mantle and ride the voter dissatisfaction endemic to a free
society back into office. Once the cycle is complete, self-interest
will continue to prevail and the term limit issue will die a new
death.
And that, Rush, is the way it should be, you fat frothing ideologue.
/-/ \-\
LETTER FROM BRITAIN
(Loathe as we are to the idea of actually assigning stories, for this
issue the Herald staff asked Mr. Ledger to examine the British
phenomenon of Mr. Blobby, a sort of aggressive-but-guileless Barney
jacked on ecstasy. The enormous appeal appears to center around
impromptu meetings with celebrities who chat amiably with Mr. Blobby
until the gourd-shaped polka-dotted mega-muppet becomes so excited he
mauls his company with affection, often knocking them to the ground.
During these "exchanges," the weebl-esque children's TV personality
excitedly exhibits the limited extent of his vocabulary: "Blobby,
blobby, blobby, blobby..." he burbles. Blobbymania has swept the
normally reserved British landscape, triggering record deals and
bemused features in American newspapers, one of which quoted an
English sociologist as saying "Mr. Blobby reveals an aspect of British
culture we're not particularly thrilled to discuss, especially with
Americans." Contributor Trevor Ledger, who files from his Goose
Cottage home in Victoria Lane, comments quickly on the Mr. Blobby
craze before moving on to subjects further afield. We can ask, but we
can't restrict Mr. Ledger's subject matter any more than we can insist
he wash his knickers. On yet another subject he warns, "Stop the
press: Interpol Alert - Adrian Praeter will be in the U.S.A. in July.
Members of the public are advised not to lend him money or allow him
anywhere near your stash of weed. You have been warned, by a victim.")
BRITAIN CLOSES THE CULTURAL TRADE IMBALANCE
BY TREVOR LEDGER
MARKET DRAYTON, Shropshire - Ah! Revenge is sweet. So, Mr. Blobby has
wheedled his way across the Atlantic and turned up on the hallowed
pages of the Sunday New York Times. I'm sorry that you should been
encumbered with a 7-foot,pink and yellow polka dot smegger whose
vocabulary consists of "blobby, blobby, blobby," but let's be honest:
You deserve it. It says something about the English, as a nation, that
we let Mr. Blobby's debut single (adventurously entitled, "Mr.
Blobby") sit atop the hit parade for a month or so. But we shouldn't
be in the least bit apologetic considering the shit we've imported
from Brother Yank for so long: McDonald's, rap, Knots Landing, Trident
Missiles, the O.J. Trial...
The fucking O.J. trial!! What is this shit? I don't know him. I don't
know him. I don't know him, and I certainly don't care what happens
to him (neither does his wife, tee hee hee). Now, if you lot are so
crass as to want to court cultural suicide by making such a spectacle
of a trial, then fine. But I object to having BBC2 programming
disturbed by "Sonja Norbst with an O.J. Update." My proposal? Charge
up the chair, fry the fucker (guilty or not), and let it be a lesson
to 'im. Wanna be famous? Want loads of cash? Okay. But if you waste
anyone, relatives or not, we're gonna shoot 100,000 volts up your
jacksy live on TV. Now that, I'd watch.
One of you better exports is baseball. How ironic, a nation that
stamps all over trade unions for the underprivileged masses allows its
national sport to be held ransom by a union! A union, mark you,
comprised of the mega rich who, given a modicum of common sense, would
only ever have to spend 5-10 years of their lives working (playing).
"The Union forever, defending the right..." Out of interest, the
average first-class cricketer earns L320,000 sterling per year. For
the ignorant, cricket is an older, classier and better version of
baseball.
Stop Press: Is my son a genius? Having endured a very windy morning
walk, the conversation went something like this:
Ieuan: I'm going to kill the wind, daddy.
Me: How are you going to do that then?
Ieuan: I'll turn the low pressure into high pressure. Then the wind
will stop and it'll be sunny.
Me: *!X?*!!
Ieuan David Ledger is four in June and, to my untrained eye, does not
have "666" tattooed on his scalp. And yes, I am showing his
intelligence off, proud father that I am.
/-/ \-\
THE HAROLD HERALD BOOK REVIEW
Sarum: A novel of England, by Edward Rutherfurd
The Shipping News, by Annie Proulx
Mary Renault: Biography by David Sweetman
The Cnamber by John Grisham
SOMEWHERE OVER THE PACIFIC - The only discernible bright side to
spending 24 hours in air transit to Singapore, and 24 back again, is
the chance to read virtually uninterrupted by work, social obligation
or, sadly, sleep. I can't sleep on planes so I had the opportunity to
knock off four books and several periodicals during my late-March
junket to the Pacific Rim. Brief reviews follow:
- Finally finished off Sarum: A Novel of England, by E dward
Rutherfurd, somewhere between Portland and Chicago-O'Hare. This 900-
page historical novel tracks the community living on and around the
Salisbury plain (an area known colloquially as Sarum) from the last
ice age through the 19th century. While the premise at first sounds
absurd in scope, Rutherfurd manages to pull us along with phenomenal
coherence. Of course, English history provides a lengthy, intriguing
timeline, which Rutherfurd decorates with all manner of interesting
fictional devices while furtively slipping the reader not-at-all-dry
details of social history. The birth of English parliamentarianism and
the textile trade are explained as well by Rutherfurd as anyone I've
read. Because virtually all the fictional characters are descendants
of two iron-age men - one tall and dark with long fingers, another
fair and stocky with stubby digits - the author continually strings
eras together, connects Picts with Romans, and offers believable
insight into the English psyche, such as it is. Rutherfurd makes it
clear, for example, that Elizabethan Peter Wilson - with his long,
delicate fingers - is related, however distantly, with the bronze-age
river man, Tark. With these blood ties made clear, what could have
been a awkward, disjointed history becomes, on another level, a pair
of compelling family sagas. Good stuff.
- When you win the American Book Prize and your novel is recommended
by two such disparate characters as my mother and Mark Sullivan, you
surely don't need my affirmation. But let the record show that I
thoroughly enjoyed The Shipping News, Annie Proulx's quirky novel
about growth through retreat on the briny frontier of Newfoundland's
coast. Proulx's writing style is, to say the least, unusual. The
sentence fragments alone are enough to roll the eyes, especially those
of certain Globe columnists. Yet it's a measure of the author's
storytelling skill and ability to craft dialogue that her novel can be
judged on its considerable merits, thereby rising above her aversion
to coupling subjects and verbs not to mention her loopy choice of
character names. Luckily the reader comes to care a great deal about
Tert Card, Billy Pretty and Quoyle, the mono-monickered central
character. Quoyle is a 300-pound, long-suffering loser and widower who
moves his family to The Rock, mysteriously depicted by Proulx as a
sort of Island of Misfit Toys surrounded by the ever-present Atlantic,
at once therapeutic and dangerous. Great choice of setting here.
Quoyle marvels along with us at the prospect of waking up and seeing
an iceberg float by the kitchen window. Quoyle is at first bewildered
by the engaging but thoroughly imperfect Newfoundlanders and their
ability to thrive in this bleak environment. Eventually it empowers
him. He falls for a fellow widower named Wavey, transforms himself
from a tentative, third-rate newspaper reporter into an insightful
editor, and readers go home happy.
- Mary Renault's The Charioteer and Gore Vidal's The City and the
Pillar - both published in 1947 - debunked the myth that homosexual
central characters were not capable of generating mass appeal. While
Vidal went on to become America's foremost man of letters (when he
wasn't calling William F. Buckley a crypto-fascist), Renault moved to
South Africa and churned out an acclaimed series of historical novels
set in Ancient Greece, including the Persian Boy, Bull from the Sea
and Fire from Heaven.. David Sweetman's biography of Renault
(pronounced re-nolt, not like the French car) isn't written with any
great elegance or insight, but the author's life was so full the
reader is sated. Born Eileen Mary Challans in 1905, the British author
was among the first to integrate Oxford, trained as a nurse and
published three rather light, romance novels before leaving for Durban
and Capetown where she brought Theseus, Alexander and Alcibiades to
life, chaired PEN International and actively worked against the
institution of apartheid. All of this she did with a considerable
amount of courage and controversy. Judging from Sweetman's text,
Renault didn't have much use for women. Indeed, Sweetman opines that
Renault honestly considered herself a Man. Though she was a lesbian
and spent nearly all her adult life with a single companion, Renault
clearly eschewed the company of women, much preferring social
associations with gay men. In her novels, virtually all her lead
characters are gay men. Female characters, usually some hero's
overbearing mom, are notoriously bitchy, weak and irrational - not
unlike her own mother. A consistent critic of Afrikaner nationalism
from the outset, Renault ran afoul of fellow PEN members (including
Nadine Gordimer) by opposing the free world's cultural boycott of
South Africa arguing that small-minded Afrikaner needed outside
influence, not a blind eye. * Read my first John Grisham novel, The
Client, on the plane back from Hawaii. I was out of reading material
and borrowed it from a colleague. Sure, it was a page-turner, but one
is required to turn pages in the phone book, too. What a piece of
rubbish! In addition to proving that he writes with all the flair of a
tort lawyer, Grisham proves that it's damn near impossible to write
good dialogue using flat, uninteresting characters. I wasn't expecting
much, figuring I was unconsciously avoiding Grisham because everyone
else seems to love him. I'm gratified to have a legitimate reason to
avoid him further.
/-/ \-\
CD'S AND OTHER RETIRMENT STRATEGIES
WATT GOES SOLO, STINSON GOES SOUTH
By DAVID M. ROSE
If you don't know who Mike Watt is - and most people don't - you've
missed a lot. In the late 70s and early 80s, Watt came of age as the
anchor for the seminal jazz/punk trio, the minutemen, breaking bass
strings in booming counterpoint to singer/screamer d. boon's swirling
guitar leads. After d. boon died in an auto accident in 1985, Watt and
Brockton, Mass.-born drummer George Hurley teamed up with boyish Ohio
native Ed Crawford. The new band, fIREhOSE, was less political and
more subdued, but Crawford proved an able successor to d. boon, and
they approximated the genius that was the minutemen about as well as
anyone could reasonably expect.
A couple of months ago, Watt announced - in Rolling Stone of all
places - that fIREhOSE was no more. After eight years, Watt said, the
members had grown too comfortable with one another. It was time for
something new and on Feb. 28, Watt's first solo effort, "Ball-Hog or
Tugboat" was released. The title refers to two diametrically opposed
roles a musician can play: self-promoting prima donna or nurturing
team player. The solo album format, of course, is the ultimate ball-
hog playpen, so it's refreshing to see Watt take the tugboat approach
and make it work as well as he does.
Watt's metaphor for the process that yielded the album is wrestling;
by calling different participants into the ring for each of the disk's
17 tracks, he essentially ends up with 17 different bands, composed of
51 different performers. Participants range from relative unknowns
(Anna Waronker? Pat Smear?) to the heavyweights of post-punk arena
rock: Evan Dando, Eddie Vedder, King Ad Rock, and Flea. The obvious
danger here is the result will be a disjointed mess, but the thread
that runs through all this is Watt himself; he sings only three songs,
but he produces and plays bass on every track. By virtue of his
unmatched technical proficiency and clarity of artistic vision, he's
able to straddle the ball-hog/tugboat dichotomy as few others could.
Each track is unique, but the whole thing never stops sounding like a
Mike Watt record.
My personal favorite here is probably "Piss Bottle Man", Watt's
tribute to his dad's eminently practical means of avoiding unnecessary
pit-stops on long car trips. It brought back warm memories of the
lemon yellow bottle my parents kept under the front seat of our '64
Chevy station wagon, and it was nice to hear that we weren't the only
ones. Equally effective are "Against the 70's" (a treatise on the
dangers of mindless nostalgia) and the jazzy "Sidemouse Advice",
featuring a very capable Flea on trumpet. Some have criticized Watt
for including such luminaries as Dando and Vedder on the record.
Indeed, one such critic - Kathleen Hanna - appears on the disk,
deriding the project as a "white rock-boy hall of fucking shame" and
urging the arena rockers to get over their "big-white-baby-with-an-
ego-problem thing." Hanna's diatribe is funny, and some of her points
well-taken, but I don't think they have much relevance to BH/T; to a
man, the rock stars seem to have checked their sizable egos at the
door.
As to whether the inclusion of some big names constitutes a sell-out
on Watt's part, I think the music speaks for itself; you won't be
hearing these songs on MTV unplugged anytime soon.
***
There was some sad but not completely unexpected news this past month:
Bob Stinson, lead guitarist for the influential pre-post-punk band,
the Replacements, died of heart failure, presumably the result of drug
use. In their early years, the Replacements - devoted substance
abusers all - were perhaps best known for their drunken live shows,
during which they often abandoned their set list in favor of a long
string of top 40 covers that no one in the band had actually bothered
to learn. With this backdrop, Stinson's ejection from the band in the
late 80's for excessive drug and alcohol abuse was ominous, indeed. I
never saw the Replacements in the early days but my brother, Tom,
caught the original line-up at the now-defunct Channel in Boston. When
the band took the stage, Stinson was nowhere to be found, and the band
was forced to begin playing without him. During the third or fourth
song, Stinson was spotted in the crowd; members of the audience lifted
him up and he was deposited on stage, clutching a fifth of Jack
Daniels. He strapped on his guitar and played the rest of the set and
three encores more-or-less without incident before returning for the
fourth encore completely naked except for his guitar.
He will be missed.
/-/ \-\
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Dear Hal,
Delighted to be on the list to receive your personal publication.
Thanks. I've read other issues at Mary's.
Enclosed is an article connecting Newt with Thomas Brackett Reed I
thought interesting. Didn't you mention in another issue some
fascination about T.B. Reed? Congratulations! And my best to Sharon!
Dawna Fowler
Fort Fairfield, Maine
Ed. Mrs. Fowler, mother of my upstairs neighbor Mary and frequent
visitor to Portland, was kind enough to enclose a Bangor Daily News
feature on Newt Gingrich, Thomas Bracket Reed and James Blaine, House
speakers all - though some with more impressive credentials than
others. The story noted that Gingrich on several occasions has
compared his own revolutionary tactics to those of Reed, who
masterfully rewrote House rules late in the 19th century. Of course,
Gingrich couldn't carry Reed's parliamentary jockstrap (Sorry, Mrs.
Fowler). Indeed, Gingrich bears more of an historical resemblance to
the wordy Blaine, whose political rise was similarly meteoric and
likewise studded with ill-considered off-the-cuff remarks and scandal.
Blaine went on to earn the GOP's 1884 presidential nomination and
serve as Maine's governor. In any case, the continued irony is that
Charles Fowler, Dawna's husband and Mary's dad, is a Reed - distantly
related to Speaker Reed, in whose Portland home Mary and I now reside.
Dear Hal, You pandering excuse for a newsman.
What a shameless display of begging and groveling in the last issue of
the Herald. Knighting the likes of Allan Jones (no offense, Allan) in
response to his mere $30 donation summed it all up. I suppose you have
the capability to boot QEII from her regal stature, drape your readers
in ermine and perch them on the throne were they to donate, say $60?
Monarchy should come so cheap. You make me sick.
On the other hand, I will laud you for having the courage to print the
caustic yet accurate "Letter from Britain." While I agree with
Trevor's insightful analysis of the Herald as a "shitty little rag",
"arsewipe (spoken like a true Brit) of a tabloid" and "self-serving
pile of shit", I add myself to that growing list of "dickheads who are
coughing up." I've been called a hell of a lot worse.
Enclosed find $10 from me and my beautiful wife, Heather. According to
your subscription rules, that should put us in good stead until the
year 2097. After a great deal of deliberation on our part, we will
accept the titles of "Duke and Duchess of Davis, California."
P.S. "Open the pod bay door, please Hal - Heather.
Rich Gibbons
Duke of Davis, California
Ed. Thanks, Rich, for the cash and, Heather, for the completely
original reference to 2001: Space Odyssey. Never heard that before...
Consider your new title and subscription status confirmed. As for the
authentication of Trevor as a "true Brit," you needn't refer to his
spelling habits. Just smell him sometime; or examine his teeth.
Dear sirs,
Enclosed please find a check to help with production and mailing
costs. I realize the high cost of doing business these days (it must
have cost a king's ransom to get the lovely Sharon Vandermay to change
her name to something as bland as Phillips).
I look forward to future issues of the Harold Herald and hopefully,
we'll be able to meet the fair Ms. Vandermay in the coming months, as
we the readers really need to talk to this woman. I am one reader who
became aware just how far Mr. Phillips will go.
One evening while visiting 30 Deering St., I was led out for a few
brews and a fair game of pool. Well, Mr. Phillips really took
advantage of this. First, he pointed out all these really cool clubs
only to take me to this basement [Leo's Billiards] where someone such
as my 5'18" self could only hope to survive a walk through this head-
crushing maze. Later we drank what proved to head-crushing, rot-gut
beer. My point is, I lost at pool, hit my head many times [on low-
hanging pipes], and was late for a meeting the next morning.
Mr. Phillips, on the other hand, was on time for his meeting, never
came close to hitting his head and, of course, won in pool. And lest I
forget - he did not appear to be hung over the next morning. In any
case, please keep the Harold Herald coming, and let us meet the lovely
Sharon Vandermay. She needs to know.
William 5'18" Paprocki
Vernon, N.Y.
Ed. This letter arrived in promising fashion - inside an Augusta
National envelope. I opened it and noticed the check, figuring the
boys down in Georgia had finally considered my offer to serve as paid
press-tent czar at the Masters. Unfortunately, the author, a devoted
reader of Golf Course News, has a sick sense of humor. While we
appreciate his generous contribution to our Circulation Endowment, we
must point out that Leo's was built for homo sapiens of normal build,
not for those who played hoops for Syracuse in the mid-70s. As for the
quality of beer, you'll have to take that up with Mr. and Mrs. Geary.
Besides, "All's fair..." Just ask Sharon, who's keeping her surname.
/-/ \-\
PEJORATIVE CORNER
(Like Homer's Kerouacian central character, Briton Tim Monaghan began
his oddysey on a once-proud island off the coast of a more populous
continental landmass (It could be argued Ithaca has come through its
cultural upheaval with more dignity). In any case, Monaghan's
professional route - he's now an editor at the Springfield Union-News
- has been no less circuitous, beginning in Sudbury and looping
through suburban Boston before heading ever more west. While toiling
at the Middlesex News in Framingham, his lovely wife, Lynn Hatch,
decided to go for her economic doctorate at UMass: "One of the few
North American universities still harboring left-wing economists who
believe that Marx, on the whole, got it right," Tim explains. "As a
sensitive New Age kind of guy, I immediately suppressed any unhealthy
reactions about income loss or life disruption and began searching for
suitable economic bondage in the western part of the state." According
to Monaghan, the Union-News and Sunday Republican are "about as left-
wing as American papers tend to get, and the unfortunate name of the
Sunday edition comes from the earliest history of the paper, when the
founder helped set up the Republican Party and get Abe Lincoln
nominated for president. A very different kind of GOP back then, and
an uncanny Springfield connection.")
By TIM MONAGHAN
Ah, western Massachusetts. Home to more crunchy- earthy types than
you can shake a daikon at, the People's Republic of UMass (PRU), the
Island of Lesbos (Smith College Chapter), and the car-theft capital of
the state, Springfield - also known for its cheerful gang-related
drive-by shootings. Having only lived in the Pioneer Valley for six
weeks and as the only known reader of the Harold Herald ever to have
been a card-carrying member of a socialist party, I am more than ready
to offer judgment on this politically correct, alternate Hub. It
sucks. But not for the facile reasons you might imagine... I began my
bondage in January. It was soon pointed out to me that if I wanted to
go out for a drink after work, at one of the less-uninhibited imbibing
establishments dotting the city, I had better bring cash to work with
me. Going to an ATM machine in the early hours of the morning was an
invitation to robbery, rape and murder.
Surely not? In this socialist paradise? You betcha, bub. Springfield,
it was quickly pointed out to me, is one of the toughest cities in the
Northeast. Holyoke runs a close second, barely surviving its current
white flight. If it's not gang members shooting you down because they
think you're a member of a rival gang or an innocent bystander, it's
the cops drilling you with a 9mm because they mistake you for a gang
member (I learned today that wearing a bulletproof vest while
committing a crime is a felony. Makes it too hard for the cops to nail
you, I guess).
A brief example of the depravity prevalent in urban western
Massachusetts: Immediately across from the card-key exit to the
supposedly secure Union-News parking lot - only last night we were
told not to leave the building until given the all-clear, because the
police were brutalizing some kids found breaking into employee's cars
- a constant procession of vehicles turns into a small parking lot
outside the local Blue Cross-Blue Shield offices. They don't stay
long. Someone gets in or out, there is a brief conversation, the car
speeds off. Innocent me, I thought this must be a local car pool drop-
off.
No way, I was told. That's the local male prostitute pick-up spot.
Guys hot to get HIV are in and out all night looking for the perfect
blow job. Hardly dangerous to sensitive New Age guys with monogamous
life partners, you might argue. As I did.
Think again, my mentors warned. Street bums and gang hoodlums prey on
the male hookers and find it hard to distinguish between cock-sucking
entrepreneurs, their johns, and hardworking lackeys of the imperialist
press. I was regaled with horror stories of colleagues being robbed at
knife- and gun-point as they tried to leave work.
The cops don't patrol the area because they hate the Union-News. The
paper recently published their salaries and asked what they were doing
to earn them. No one cares.
Therein lies the reason why western Massachusetts really sucks. Up in
Amherst and Northampton, the sons and daughters of the relatively
privileged spout their neo-socialist dogma. They indulge in
predilections for ethnic food from countries their parents would never
let them visit and strange tastes in music, recreational narcotics and
sexuality, oblivious to the real world around them. To the south,
working people are struggling to build ordinary lives amid chaos akin
to that of downtown Mogadishu. And never the twain shall meet. But
hey: The Weld administration is too far away to hear the handguns a-
poppin'. And academia is on another planet, zip code lost. My life
partner excepted, of course.
MORE PEJORATIVE CORNER
BY HAL PHILLIPS
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Centuries before the birth of Christ, Indian
and Chinese traders fought for hegemony of the Malaysian peninsula
that lies at the crossroads of Asia's lucrative trade routes. The
Portuguese took control of the area in the late 16th century, only to
be supplanted by the 19th-century English, who stayed on until 1957.
Once you arrive here, you wonder why anyone bothered. Kuala Lumpur,
the modern capital of Malaysia, means "confluence of two muddy
rivers." An updated interpretation might read Kuala Lumpur Schmeg, or
"confluence of two extremely muddy, polluted rivers." It's a filthy
place that lacks the old world charm of Melaka, the old Portuguese
capital to the south. KL is a new city, founded in the 1840s, and one
can only imagine how decrepit it might become 200 years down the road.
Speaking of roads, the master plan of Kuala Lumpur could only have
been laid out in an opium den. Despite the city's relative modernity,
the arteries have no rhyme or reason, which results in a rush-hour
traffic nightmare the likes of which Bostonians have never seen.
Nineteen-century Malaysian planners appear to have set a few cows
loose on the plain and followed them anxiously with buckets of yellow
paint.
- KAUAI, Hawaii - Hard to be pejorative about our 50th state, which is
fairy-tale gorgeous and brimming with outstanding golf courses. It's
even harder not to see the truth in stereotypes about the number of
Japanese there. When I flew in, seven of the eight flights at baggage
claim originated in Japan. There were thousands of backpacked Japanese
milling about with camcorders, filming loved ones as they a) waited
for their baggage; b) pulled baggage off the carousel; or c) walked
away from the carousel with bags in tow. I saw one father filming his
son drinking from a water fountain. Get a life! I traveled in Europe
when the dollar was strong, but I never saw American acting so
unabashedly like tourists. I blame MacArthur.
/-/ \-\
HAL, INK.
ALTERNATIVE NEWSWEEKLY SEES THE LIGHT
By RUDY MARTSKE
"In the low-budget, low-visibility, low-literacy world of electronic
'zines, the Harold Herald stands out as an example of how someone with
an education, a sense of humor and a modem can make a small dent in
the cybersphere."
So wrote Dan Kennedy in the Feb. 24 Boston Phoenix. How happy my
parents must be that my expensive Wesleyan education has been
justified by the city's alternative weekly. Mind you, this was no
back-page blurb buried beneath classified ads for sinewy mixed-race
males with a taste for cool whip and randy adventure. No, Kennedy's
contribution to our growing cult of personality lead the page 2
feature, This Just In, under the headline, "Welcome to Hal's World."
"Informed by a nihilistic political sensibility and sophomoric
crudity," Kennedy continued, "the Portland, Maine-based Herald is
nevertheless one of the funniest, best-written journals on the Net."
Nevertheless?
The staff here was nevertheless flattered by the write-up.
Especially well chuffed was political reporter Mark Sullivan, whose
prose was featured prominently. Turns out he's a friend of Kennedy,
who was particularly taken with Loid's account of the November
Republican sweep and its likeness to a "noxious Old Testament plague
that stopped at every door without an 'R' swabbed in lamb's blood on
the door." Sullivan's breadth of coverage drew considerable praise -
enough to move Phoenix editors to include headshots of Mark's targets
du jour, Lydon LaRouche, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Mickey Mouse.
Conspicuous by its absence was mention of Virtual Editor Dr. David M.
Rose, whose Net acumen electrifies the Herald and prompted the Kennedy
column (examples of Dr. Rose's haunting prose were surely victimized
by the bane of every writer's existence: space considerations). The
Phoenix commentator, who has never seen the print version, bumped his
head on the electronic Herald which floated head and shoulders above
an ash-like collection of motley 'zines. By all rights, given their
off-beat, underground professions, Phoenix editors should have been
first to notice the Herald's innately earthy qualities. Who better to
appreciate self-absorptioin as high art? Instead they are the last of
Boston's journalistic cognoscenti to "get it." We're not even waiting
for Murdoch's Herald, where the buffoons who endeavor to formulate
editorial tone will almost certainly never le comprend.
Boston? Done that. It's time for us to heavily market in uncharted
waters. I've got a feeling they're going to love us in Cobb County.
***
A pre-nuptial congratulations-in-print was discovered in The Highly
Esteemed Howl, that barely post-pubescent newsletter whose suprisingly
conservative staff is secretly pleased as punch to have been called
"little fucks" in a recent Herald. In any case, I thank you for the
warm wishes and generous contribution to our Circulation Endowment
(which is, as always, locked in "accept" mode). However, I must invoke
the memory of Winston Churchill who said something like, 'If you're
old and liberal, you have no head. But if you're young and
conservative, you have no heart.' In these reactionary times rife with
revisionism and xenophobia, never has this been more important to
remember. Nixon was an ineffectual domestic leader, the most
conniving, duplicitous politician of his generation, and a perfectly
monstrous human being. Indeed, crypto-fascist is about the nicest way
to describe Dick Nixon, the most aptly named president of all time.
In any case, your kind words and money have warmed the cockles of my
heart. I call for a respectful truce and would interpret as an act of
naked aggression any posting of Tracy Chapmen CDs. And for the record,
all my pants are happy once I've donned them.
/-/ \-\
(Tim Dibble, a venture capitalist and freelance body shaper, lives in
San Francisco with his wife, Maureen, a shaper of young minds and
would-be society hostess. A Wesleyan graduate, Mr. Dibble comments on
current cinema for the Herald in between cups of expensive coffee and
equally pretentious discussions on the nature of free will.)
FROM SAN FRANCISCO SANS QUENTIN
By TIM DIBBLE
Cinema Critic Ad Eundem Gradum
Not since the arrival of the half-caf/half-decaf double latte has the
nation in general and San Francisco in particular been so enamored and
bamboozled by propaganda as is found associated with Plump Diction,
the latest film from Quentin Tarantino. "Genius violent comic fantasy"
is a label that can be applied to H.G. Phillips' collegiate sexual
tenure, but is not apropos with regard to Plump Diction.
To give credit where credit is due, not since the American Oval Office
has there been a better utilization of unemployed, washed-up
thespians. However, this does not overshadow the glaring holes and
weaknesses found in the film:
Plump: What has happened to John Travolta? He hasn't been the same
since Jamie Lee Curtis dumped him at the end of Perfect. Someone get
that guy a treadmill.
Diction: Why is it, in this age of cultural literacy, that for a film
to smack of art its actors and actresses must express themselves as if
they were attending a Teamster's bachelor party?
Sodomy: It is not the specific act that I find reprehensible. Rather
if Tarantino wants to sell-out the joint, he should make Bruce Willis
the recipient while forcing the Moonlighter to hum the "Battle Hymn of
the Republic."
Pugilistic Carnage: If Bruce Willis is going to kill a man with his
bare knuckles, have it be Mickey Rourke.
Uma Thurman: Uma, after your pied-a-terre in Henry and June, why
bother doing anything else?
Rosanna Arquette: One question: Were you acting?
Harvey Keitel: Harv, you've had a good run lately. But if we can't
tell the difference between you and Tommy Lee Jones, you are not ready
for weak Brando-esque cameos.
Samuel L. Jackson: "Senator, you're no Laurence Fishburne!" (I
actually thought that he was great but was dying to use that line.)
Foot Massage: Quentin, in such a public forum, how could you possibly
divulge the second-best trade secret of the sensitive, pseudo-
intellectual Cambridge bachelor (second only to the Dali restaurant)?
The only positive to the film is that every time I see Amanda Plummer,
she makes my wife look like Lady Di. In sum, any moviegoer with a
modicum of cinematic expertise (and who leaves their latte-sipping
pretensions on the cutting-room floor) will agree that Plump Diction
is an over-hyped, rich man's Dr. Giggles. Boy, you'll be a director...
soon!
/-/ \-\
HAROLD NOTEBOOK...
IN SINGAPORE, YOU DO WINDOWS OR ELSE!
SINGAPORE - Perhaps you've heard of Flor Constacion, the Filipino maid
executed by officials here shortly after being convicted of murdering
another maid and the four-year-old on her watch. It's the latest in a
series of diplomatic flaps generated by the hang-'em-high-but-
whatever-you-do-hang-'em-now regime here in the cleanest, greenest
most orderly and productive totalitarian state in Asia-Pacific.
Michael Fay, his butt and any hackles they may have raised here in
hypocritically righteous America are small potatoes compared to the
indignant snorts now traded between Singapore and The Philippines,
who've recalled their ambassadors and dug in for a political siege.
Defiant Singaporean officials could care less, but the Philippine
government is seething, and ASEAN countries have publicly quarreled
quite this testily.
Word on the street in Singapore, something tendered and received with
trepidation here, sides with the indignant Filipinos who note that Ms.
Constacion had no motive at all. Indeed, no plausible motive or
scenario has been forwarded by any Singaporean official - and it'll
snow on Orchard Avenue when the island nation's only newspaper, the
government-controlled Straits Times, offers anything by the party
line.
Only when I traveled to neighboring Malaysia did I hear confirmation
of the unofficial conventional wisdom:
Apparently, the four-year-old drowned in the Chinese family's swimming
pool. When Dad came home, discovered the body and flew into a rage, he
killed the maid who presumably had been charged with making sure bad
things (like drowning) didn't happen. The desperate father offers Flor
a couple hundred thousand dollars (U.S.) to take the rap, arguing that
- with the grieving family's support - she will only receive
manslaughter and a two-year sentence. She confesses, but the zealous
judicial system in Singapore rules for the death penalty, swiftly
administered. Filipino pleas for a stay, if only to establish some
sort of motive, are ignored.
Despite the country's self-promotion as a peaceful melting pot,
there's an underlying suspicion there are two sets of rules in sunny
Singapore: One for those of Chinese descent and another for everyone
else, and that latter group includes Singaporeans of Malay, Indian and
Tamil descent, not to mention actual foreigners like Filipino maids,
Thai prostitutes and American teenagers. And, of course, anyone at all
engaging in dissent.
Encountered a promo for the "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" while foolishly
interrupting my channel surf on NBC the other day. The 10-second spot
dramatically teased an upcoming episode in which Prince Fresh was
tragically but oh-so topically swept up in the growing urban
phenomenon of gunplay. The closing voice-over was grave: "The French
Prince has been shot." "Finally," I muttered with relief. I'd like to
think I spoke for everybody.
One Man's Baseball Strike Retrospective:
It was like sitting around in post-Alarick Rome reminiscing about when
you could watch Christians disemboweled by large ravenous animals.
Even though it's on the way back, apparently, baseball has been on the
fritz for so long, it seems so far away as to have been before our
time. Just pictures, statistics and film clips of past glories.
SportsChannel America has been running an otherwise fascinating series
of "Baseball's Greatest Games," full-game tapes of various World
Series and playoff thrillers. Always a game of significance, but you
always know who won ahead of time, too. All of baseball has taken on
this nostalgic quality as we rave and moan by turn about foregone
conclusions and negotiative snafus of the past. When we're not
militantly vilifying both sides, we lazily indulge in the maudlin
jingoism/marketing plan that preaches baseball as a kind of group
worship to the pagan god of leisure. Rubbish! If there were a baseball
deity (an American deity, mind you), it would be a benevolent god; a
god that wouldn't subject us to TV contracts that don't show National
League Championship Series games in American League cities. Agrippa,
God of Rosin, would not have allowed Marty Bystrom to come back and
pitch in a major league baseball game.
The Christian equivalent is akin to a New Yorker cartoon I clipped and
saved somewhere: Sitting at his desk in Hell, Satan reaches to his
pager so as to call his secretary - "Ms. Clark, find Joe Stalin and
tell him that communism is dead."
It occurs to me that if you have trouble reading the bottom-left
credits on MTV, it's either time to get glasses, or it's time to stop
watching MTV... The Young Ones are back. After a solid run on MTV
(they laudably broadcast all 10 episodes over and over again), the
ultimate British comedy series is back on cable thanks to Comedy
Central. Talk about sophomoric crudity! Even the crudite is sophomoric
on The Young Ones. I was first exposed to the lads (listen!) at the
University of London in 1985, two years after it had established its
cult status in England. My flatmates - Adrian Praeter, publisher of
the clever but rarely circulated Adrian's Oracle, and Herald columnist
Ledger - quoted liberally from the show and a Young Ones book, which I
never actually saw (if anyone is familiar with this and knows where to
find one, contact me immediately). In any case, the show finally
surfaced on MTV in 1989, then disappeared in 1991. If you've never
experienced the Young Ones, set your VCR to Comedy Central on
Saturdays at 11 p.m.
/-/ \-\
HEY, IT'S MY JOB!
A COMPENDIUM OF THE GRATIS GOLF EXPERIENCES OF OUR ESTEEMED EDITOR
BY HAL PHILLIPS
HOMMASSASSA SPRINGS, Fla. Played my last round here with , the
temperamental clubs Ive used since my old set were stolen from the
back of my car at 11th and Independence, in the shadow of our ,
nations capital. That was 1988. Delta Airlines, not street crime, was
responsible for the latest debacle.
While visiting Orlando in late January I played here at World Woods, a
nice 36-hole Tom Fazio design two hours northwest of Shaqville, near
the Gulf Coast. The last round with the ill-fated clubs - a custom set
of extra-stiff shafted Wilson Staff bootlegs - was a typical gag-job
80 that included bogeys on four of the last five holes. A birdie on
the 18th was all that prevented me from choking to death right there
on the putting surface.
Anyway, clubs were checked in at Orlando International, may have made
it to Cincinnati but definitely never arrived at the Portland Jetport.
After three days they still hadn't shown up, so I called the contrite
Delta baggage guy:
"They're gone, aren't they."
"Yeah, I'd say so."
Sad, but Delta was clearly forcing me to buy a brand new set of golf
clubs, which I did, with their money: Tommy Aaron irons with stiff,
graphite shafts; Big Bertha War Bird driver; Ping 3-wood; and a Ray
Cook putter.
I will miss my Wesleyan golf bag, which contained several items of
sentimental value including the five-year-old, orange Chanukkah
lighter that refused to run out of fluid. Truly miraculous.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Played my first legitimate, 18-hole round of
night golf here at - are you ready? - Kelab Golf Sultan Abdul Aziz
Shah. Pretty nice course actually; a hilly, smartly bunkered designed
by Australians Peter Thomson and Michael Wolveridge. First round in
the former British colony of Malaysia, too. But the cache lay in the
idea of golf after dark: Tee time at 8:15 p.m ., drinks in the bar at
12:30 a.m. Lights line the fairways and continually cast a distracting
four shadows at all times. It is important to keep the ball away from
dark, out-of-the-way places but the mandatory caddies are very good.
They speed along on these special caddie buggies which hold two bags
but no golfers, who are free to walk. The loopers also indulge in a
fair amount of betting on players in the foursome. Interesting because
it's instantly apparent when you've cost them money.
KAUAI, Hawaii - Played the newest addition to my personal top five
here during my first-ever trip to America's 50th state. The Prince
Course at the 45-hole Princeville Golf Club is sweeping romp through
the canyons above Honalei Bay, where holes rise and fall 100 feet or
more by turn and Peter, Paul and Mary smoked some really good weed
apparently. With its gratuitous use of out of bounds stakes, tight
fairways and trade winds blowing at their traditional 25-30 miles an
hour, this Robert Trent Jones Jr. design can be downright
Machiavellian - but still elegant, inconspicuously woven through a
near jungle complete with waterfalls and lush ravines. Wow. I lost at
least five golf balls and shot an 87, the scorecard for which I
wouldn't sign under tournament conditions. But I had a great time!
Sometimes, when I know I'm going to play an historic or scenic course,
I bring along my camera but rarely do I take the time to use it. Many
pictures of The Prince on file here in the Golf Course News/Herald
Photo Archive.
***
Old friend George Howe, who met brother Matthew during his short stay
at UMass-Amherst and later hung with Phresh & the Claymoss crowd, has
resurfaced in San Diego. Out of the blue, George called me in February
to report his stunning double-eagle ace at Steele Canyon Golf Club in
Jamul, Calif., southeast of San Diego. For those of you unfamiliar
with the ultra-rare double eagle, let's put this feat in perspective:
A birdie is one-under par; an eagle is two-under; and a double-eagle
(or albatross) is three-under par! A hole-in-one on a par-3 (a green
you're supposed to hit in one shot) is rare, indeed. An ace on a par-4
(a green you're supposed to hit in two shots) is damned near unheard
of. Bravo, George! I played Steele Canyon, a 27-hole Gary Player
design, in early 1993 while attending to Golf Course News business in
Southern California. Howe recorded his double-eagle at the first hole
on the Ranch nine - a downhill, dogleg right. George was so keyed up
by his Herculean accomplishment, apparently, he whiffed his drive on
no. 2... Now, that's the George I remember from Glen Ellen in Millis!
The Southern California lifestyle has done wonders for Howe's game.
Always a big hitter who struggled around the greens, George reports
shooting 78 the day of his double-eagle, which gave me the chance to
mimic Herb Kenny, my golf coach at Wesleyan. I eagled a hole at our
home course, Lyman Meadows, during a match with Central Connecticut
and Trinity. I shot 79 in the process and was pretty pleased with it.
When Herb heard about the eagle, he bellowed: "You had an eagle and
only shot 79?"
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