JAY FLEMMA
___________ AVENUE
FOREST HILLS, NY
June 4, 2008
Mr. Dan Jenkins
_____ _____ Drive
Fort Worth, TX
Re: Book Reviews – Slim and None and The Franchise Babe – Golf, God, and Country
Dear Dan:
I just finished your new book, The Franchise Babe, and wanted to congratulate you, to tell you how many times I howled in delight while reading it, and to wish you all the best with it. It’s hysterical and my God is it true to life. By good luck, I had recently finished Slim and None, and was getting ready to do a book review for that when the e-mail announcement for Franchise Babe arrived in my inbox. The timing was perfect. I decided to review both and compare them side-by-side.
It came just in the nick of time; the books on my nightstand have been rugged lately. I have to play golf in Cooperstown and Sleepy Hollow, so I have been re-reading Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper. The stories are great, but the prose is clunky, as eighteenth century English will be.
The next volume was a book of poems by some guy here in New York. What am I doing reviewing poetry? Well, back a few weeks ago, I reviewed two books of poems: one by Robert Trent Jones, Jr., the golf course architect, and one by a poet emeritus from Harvard.
It was one of the dumbest things I ever did. Now every chump, lunkhead, and dingbat who fancies himself the next Walt Whitman has been coming out of the woodwork asking me to review their “work.” You know that old Beatles song “Paperback Writer” where the singer says that it’s a thousand pages give or take a few, I’ll be writing more in a week or two? That’s what some of the “submissions” have amounted to. There was a forgettable train wreck that started “Oh flibbertigibbet!” and I never read the rest. Another lugnut tried chanelling Whitman while getting all long-faced about the Masters. Those were bad enough, but then I got the collection called Peachalot Pumafish, which contained this mess:
My heart before was Birkenstocks and woolen socks
I never felt all Jimmy Choo,
Well-heeled – my soul sports more graceful lines,
Tongue welting and belting –
Shaping a poem to your shoes.
And with that, I ran screaming out of the building, like the narrator at the end of The Fall of the House of Usher.
Anyway, your book’s arrival saved me from further harm. It came to my law office late one afternoon, right at the end of a hectic shift of phone conferences – what a life, a lawyer spends his whole life arguing. I ripped open the package, shoved a pile of files roughly aside, put up my feet, and read the first sixty pages before exhaling. Dan, you made me laugh out loud, swell with pride, and keep me interested in the story, same as always.
First, Dan, you’re like me…and my dad…and the guy down the street…and like the millions of hard-working, good-hearted golfers across America…you know that the secret to life is simple: Honor God, love your spouse, and defend your country. Thanks for having the courage to stick up America: for sanity, self-preservation, and fairness. You know, I take some grief for my preppy-jerk education, but back in the 80’s when I was in school, my preppy-jerk friends and I were free to love our country loudly and proudly. Nowadays, in college, they mark you down for that and call it teaching.
I think the pride we felt as a country in the ’80s started at the top – with Ronaldus Maximus Reaganus. His love of America and his sense of duty were sincere and infectious. I haven’t seen many “Great Americans” – true statesmen and leaders – since The Gipper. Just before I go to Torrey, I’m going to take a detour to Simi Valley, visit his monument, and pay my respects. We’ve only loved our country like that once since Bubba and, that was in one of our darkest moments. I fear we have forgotten.
But while zeitgeist may have forgotten, I haven’t…and my dad hasn’t…and neither have millions of golfers across America. When you point out the hypocrisy of political correctness, I think you speak for anyone who still proudly believes that hard work and family values made this country great…and that means a lot of golfers. People like Jack Brannon and Bobby Joe Grooves reflect the hopes and dreams of everyday Americans and the America they once knew and wish to see again. They speak for a vast generation of people that see, as you put it in your new book, “the world crumbling into ruins,” and know the answers are not what certain politicians want to try – shrugging our shoulders and doing nothing…or selling ourselves out…or capitulating.
That’s perhaps the greatest success of both Slim and None and The Franchise Babe: your heroes and heroines are good-hearted, family-valued, common-sense Americans who triumph over the craziness of a world going mad due to greed and pandering. Thanks for giving us a happy ending. If only we could elect George Grooves to the presidency. And by the way, my doctor also tells me not to talk about Bubba.
Next, I admire your talent as a satirist. Your ability to hold up the “Dorian Gray” mirror to anything and show its true and banal is unparalleled. It’s a critically important literary skill, one I wish I could develop more fully. Jonathan Swift was a titan of literature and a long line of British authors have upheld a longstanding English tradition of excellence in the genre, including a young fellow you should like named Jasper Fforde. Where you satirize the sports world, he lampoons literature. You’ll love him.
Anyway, your depictions of everyone from LPGA officials to players to PR, media, and player relations reps are not just uproariously funny, but they also serve an important purpose. They’re accurate. They remind us that the Tours aren’t lilywhite and if they don’t rein in the rampant “greed is good” and “cover-up” mentality that has infected other sports, they’ll ruin pro golf in the U.S.
It doesn’t serve golf – as a sport and cultural institution – to act in secretive ways, and to simoniacally use the game and its virtue solely as a means to turn the highest profit. People are quick to hide behind golf’s reputation for virtue and altruism when their business practices and decisions are called into question. They think the virtues and hallowed history of the game are there to protect them and help rubber-stamp on their policies simply because of the position they hold. I say their position exists not only to insure the financial well-being of the Tours, but to protect the virtue of the game through a transparent and altruistic example of conduct.
Sadly, the heads of the Tours have fostered only a contrived identity – a crass corporate vulture preying on mass consumer culture coupled with an unbridled hubris and righteousness that would be excessive in an archangel and is indecent in the highest order among ordinary folks.
The omission of HGH from PGA TOUR testing is a perfect example. Rather than run from the possibility of people getting wind of a scandal, and sweeping trouble under the rug quietly, troublemakers should be on notice: embarrass us or the game and you’re gone and there’ll be another guy in your place who looks just like you, except he’ll play Callaway instead of Titleist. Often times, clemency to the crime is more scandalous than the original infraction, especially if the excuse is money.
Anyway, Dan, lastly, you cracked me up: “Lost Goose Country Club” and “my ball kept landing in somebody’s portfolio” and Vashtine Ulberg were uproariously funny. Speaking of Vashtine, if I don’t offer at least one criticism of the book – just for the sake of objectivity – they’ll say the same things about me that she screeched at the USGA officials at the U.S. Open (page 122 of Slim and None for those of you scoring at home). So here goes: Vashtine’s Swedish-English bromides aside, it’s rare that a piece is better because of the f-word or c-word. I have more fun writing around the seven dirty words than I have using them. I’ll admit, I’ve used them orally occasionally (and I’m usually wrong to do it). Just the other day, I told a money-grubbing, power-worshiping, jock-sniffing, knob-polisher who loudly challenged me to an eighteen hole match, that I didn’t think he could take his wheezy butt-buddy’s male anatomy out of his ass long enough to play a full round. A vigorous exchange of discourtesies followed. But as you said in Franchise Babe “they needed killin’ is still a defense in Texas.” Well, we think the same thing in NYC.
Nevertheless, you did teach me a bit of wisdom in each book. For example, in Slim and None, you’re right: stay away from “soul mates” whose highest aspirations in life are to spend money and order in restaurants. I could have used that a couple jumps back. Oh well, live and learn. Thanks, by the way, for introducing me to “Stepping in Shit” and “Spit in the Food,” I’ll be sure to introduce you to “Bowling for Soup” and Ominous Seapods.”
So there it is, Dan – an observant eye and a passionate pen, Golf, God and Country, add a girl and drinks to taste – it sounds good to me. Speaking of that, I gotta go…my shapely, adorable’s waiting for me on the corner of 7th Avenue South and Bleecker so I can take her out for Brazilian Sushi – for real, she wants the avocado-jalapeno-mozzarella roll from “Sushi Samba,” (see the menu at www.sushisamba.com) – and if I’m late, she’ll dip my ass in batter and fry me for dinner. Oh well, two “sake margaritas” should kill the taste of anything.
All the best,
Jay
