Roger Goettsch: ‘You have no idea all the shit that I’ve built’

by Hal Phillips 1 Comment
Roger Goettsch and his pride and joy, a ’49 Chevy pickup he restored.

[Ed. I once heard at an Associated Press seminar that anyone, in the right hands, could prove the subject of a prize-winning profile. This one may or may not qualify, but it’s pretty darned good and has been widely shared in golf circles of late. Mostly because the story of Roger Goettsch, even in my hands, is damned compelling. A published version appeared in a 2019 issue of Golf Course Management magazine. See below a slightly longer, more casually profane original draft. Note: The subject here has since moved on to Coto de Caza Golf & Racquet in Trabuco Canyon, California.]

By HAL PHILLIPS
LONGGUN, Hainan PRC (April 9, 2019) — I received the following email from Roger Goettsch, CGCS, in the spring of 2018: I recently designed and built two different wetting forks for applying wetting agents to the soil in our LDS [localized dry-spot] areas. We have had issues getting wetting agents into the soil due to the thatch layer and this seems to have helped… He attached pictures of the wetting forks in action, along with shots of the “Plug Pushers” he also designed and built, to remove cores following aeration.

Goettsch is the head superintendent at Shanqin Bay Golf Club in the small town of Longgun, on the island of Hainan, in the People’s Republic of China. Like many American-trained supers working overseas, Goettsch can’t get his hands on every last piece of equipment his little heart desires. So he just builds what he can, himself, putting to work his AutoCAD skills, his welding and fabrication expertise, and a mechanical imagination born deep in the American heartland. Goettsch has worked all over North America, and now Asia, leaving behind him a trail of custom-designed and custom-built equipment — like breadcrumbs in the woods.

“You have no idea all the shit that I’ve built,” he says, upon compiling for GCM a list of Top 10 Greatest Hits. “Literally, what you’re seeing there are just the big items from the last decade or so. There’s at least another 20 big-ticket items I’ve leaving out and several hundred more I’ve just sort of forgotten.”

Like those sprig planters you built for all those contractors? Or the fairway aerifier you whipped up that one night?

“Well, not one night. We were growing in a Palmer course in Ft. Worth, Texas, working with Arnold’s project architect, Bob Walker. He’ll confirm this story. The soil was horrible there, dark heavy clay. We just had to aerify it. So I decided to build an aerifying machine with my head mechanic, Bill Hess. We had to get this done because I promised Bob Walker I’d have it ready for his next site visit. So me and Bill had been working on it several days, but we worked till 4 a.m. that last night and Bill — I had trained him how to weld — all of a sudden hollers over at me: Roger we gotta quit… I fell asleep welding.”

When pressed for why exactly he’s compelled to build so many things — while simultaneously working full time, taking care of first-class courses from the Gulf to the South China Sea — Goettsch chalks it up to self-reliance, a quality his dad embodied and passed along to young Roger in the farmlands of western Iowa.

“That’s the through line for all this stuff, based on my upbringing — being self-sufficient. You know what they say: The DNA precedes you.”

Roger Goettsch, Heartland Figure

Goettsch was born on a small farm in Holstein, Iowa, a burg of 500 souls, most of German descent, where his parents grew corn, soybean, alfalfa, oats, and clover. “The clover and alfalfa mainly served as feed for livestock,” Goettsch explains. “We sold the other crops locally. We raised cattle, pigs and chickens routinely and had a couple horses on the farmstead.”

Roger, his two brothers and three sisters were involved in all the works. The girls de-tasseled corn in the summer time.

“We grew everything: all the garden vegetables; we had an orchard with peaches, cherries, plums and apples. Our freezer was always full of meat and my mother was always canning something. From the time I was a 5-year-old kid, I was also working on the farm. But my father’s workshop was the most interesting part of that operation. He built everything for us: wagons, cattle chutes, a bail elevator. He also built a riding lawn mower! I have two older sisters who swear that he was the first person to ever manufacturer a riding lawn mower. I have a picture of that I need to dig up. He built so many things.

“In my spare time I used to hang out in his shop. I was more of a pest to be honest. Very curious, always wanting to tear something apart and see how it worked. Typically, I didn’t put things back together, which sorta pissed my dad off. Compared to modern shop, dad’s was so small. He made his own cut-off saw, to saw metal. He didn’t have an acetylene torch like I do today.

“Not only did he build a lawn mower, he took old bicycle frames and built motor scooters for us. He took the bicycle wheels off, then modified the frames, welded a plate on there to mount an engine, and new tires. I could draw you a detailed picture of those things; I’ll never forget riding them around. You put your foot down, it tightened up a belt and you just went down the road! My dad bought my mother a Honda Dream 150cc motorcycle back in 1965. They knew it meant a lot to me, so they willed it to me when they died. My dad also had an Indian motorcycle that he totally refurbished — one of his pride and joys.

“You name it, he could build it. Every time I tell my sister that I’ve built something, she says, You are so much like your dad it is not even funny.”

The young Goettsch took every metal working class he could in high school. He became so good at welding that he was chosen to help construct a metal school bus barn for the local district. “That was the first project that got me thinking this was something I could really do. A career maybe.”

The golf business just sorta happened to Roger Goettsch, the way it does for kids sometimes. In fact, if it weren’t for Dennis Wiebe, Goettsch might be somewhere in America, welding and/or fabricating something right now.

As the story goes, “My friend Dennis dragged me to go golfing one day, even though I didn’t want to go. I might have been around 12 or 13. I fell completely in love with the game. That was all it took. During my junior high school days, folks started to build a 9-hole golf course in town. Cow pasture pool, that’s what my mother always called it.

“I could not wait to be on the golf team when I became a high school freshman. Even though we didn’t have a course in Holstein before that. My friend Dennis — his family had built a house that backed up to this new golf course they were going to build. By then I’m playing regularly with him and I’m not too bad. From then on, I couldn’t play enough. My entire four years of high school, all I wanted was to be a pro golfer.

“I gained another friend, Steve Kofmehl, who lived just three houses away from Dennis. His dad was the key guy who put the whole golf course construction deal together, Charles Kofmehl… So my friend Steve and I would wander over there and walk the [course] site when it was under construction. We were there often and began to volunteer, helping to build the course when we had time. When the course opened for play, we continued to hang around with the new greenkeeper there, a guy named Tim Hupke.”

Hupke was the next key player in this budding golf industry drama. He was one of the best young golfers around, too, and soon he was hired to run the shop and take care of all 9 holes — by himself. He was just out of high school when he landed this job. Goettsch recalls that while Charles Kofmehl and the Board of Directors had pulled together the money to buy Hupke the equipment he needed, “Tim didn’t take care of the golf course that well his first year…

“So the summer after my sophomore year, Tim decides to go off and get married. Because Steve and I were hanging out there all the time, and because his father was involved in building the club, they came to us and said, Would you boys like to take care of this place for 2 weeks while Tim is on his honeymoon? You can work as many hours as you want — and we’ll pay you. Well, we went crazy down there, working sun-up to sundown and they paid us what we considered a king’s ransome.

“That winter, at school, Steve comes running down the hall: Dean Vollmer wanted to talk to us. He was chairman of the green committee. He and his brother Don owned the Chevy dealership in town. So we go down to the dealership after school and Dean says, Boys, I want you to know that the golf course was in so much better shape the 2 weeks you worked there. We want you guys to take care of the golf course this coming season. You want the job as a twosome? You can work all you want, we’ll pay you… and you can play the course all you want.

“Believe it or not, what was rolling through my mind: Would we be able to golf for free? We didn’t wind up playing golf so much — but I used that money to buy my first car, a 2-door hardtop Chevy Impala. Dean sold it to me for $700 and I paid it off in two years. To this day, I have never had so much fun working on a golf course in my entire life. That’s where I decided I wanted this to be my career.”

First, the Oil Business

The rest, as they say, is history. Goettsch went to Iowa State University and studied turf management, interning all four years at Des Moines Golf & Country Club under the legendary Bill Byers (though he also took as many metal-working classes as he could). After graduating (1978) and serving time as an assistant at several courses, he left the golf business altogether to pursue a welding career in the oil fields of west Texas. “I made a lot more money there than I ever made in the golf business,” he recalls. But golf work is steady; the oil business is not. In fact, when it collapsed in 1983, Goettsch went back to growing grass, his welding equipment in tow.

He landed his first head superintendent’s job at Squaw Creek GC near Ft. Worth. Eventually, he would come to specialize in the construction and grow-in of new courses, something he did all over North Texas before landing his first high-profile head super’s gig at the Arnold Palmer Golf Club at Fossil Creek. He moved from there to a regional director’s position with the management company RSL (now Arcis Golf) before going overseas (Thailand and Indonesia) in the early ‘90s for two more construction/grow-ins. He returned home to do the same at The Bandit in New Braunfels, Texas, Blackhorse GC down the road in Cypress, and Redstone Golf Club (now the GC of Houston) in nearby Humble. He was Director of Agronomy at Barton Creek’s 72 holes when he was lured back to Asia in 2014 — first to India, then to China.

But that thumbnail sketch, diverse though it is, leaves out nearly all of his creative, metalworking history.

“Bill Byers had so much faith in my ability, he bought an entire pump station and I did all the fabrication and helped [pump engineer] John Tucker install it at Des Moines Golf & Country Club,” Goettsch recalls. “At some point, after I’d become a super, I went out and bought all my own welding and fabrication equipment — and I brought it all with me from job to job. I do think that was a consistent benefit to my employers. These skills have honestly never got in the way of my relationship with the mechanic. Quite the opposite. I always had a great relationship with the mechanic, because he could see that I could help him and my passion for his work was real.

“At Squaw Creek we hired a mechanic who was a real machine shop guy —he could work a metal-turning lathe. Between him and me, we made things like a mechanical edger for the greens. Built the whole damned thing, because he could do all the shafting. We built some unbelievable stuff at that time… I don’t believe there’s single mechanic I’ve had the pleasure of working with in the golf business who doesn’t absolutely love me. We would collaborate. I built things they would never think of themselves: roll-around benches, shelving, custom things for their shops. You can buy that stuff, sure. But if you got a shop with small rooms, we made it all fit. I built a boat trailer out of aluminum one time — for a pontoon boat. I repaired things out of steel, stainless steel, cast iron. Back in the day cast iron was difficult to weld. You really had to know how to do it. I had one Toro representative who used to yell at me: Goettsch, put that welder away so we can sell you more iron!

“One more thing mechanics loved me for: When you brake or sheer off a bolt flush with the top, there’s a special welding rod that I could use to remove it 9.5 times out of 10 times — saved the company a ton of money each time. Most of my mechanics were pretty amazed at that.”

These skills tend to get the attention of various engineering types, too, whom Goettsch greatly admires. Squaw Creek was where he met P.C. Schedule, who ran a pump station business. Goettsch would end up doing all manner of jobs with/for Schedule and John Tucker, on the side, though he gathered as much as he contributed.

“They’re so smart, those engineers; they’ve got the math. John Tucker has stood by me forever and taught me so much, as did P.C, who has sadly passed away. Lee Niles at Southern Irrigation Consultants was another extremely intelligent guy. Lee hired me at one point and I went to work for him doing GPS and irrigation work. I would help him draw as-builts — and that’s where I learned AutoCAD. After that, I did all my own drawings for all my own stuff. That has really helped me do things quicker, more efficiently. I used to do stuff from memory and just wing it.”

Ignoring Work-Life Balance Came at a Cost

This sort of efficiency should have given a Goettsch a bit more time for himself, for his family. But only recently has he achieved that sort of balance in his life.

“I was a workaholic. It’s probably why I’m single now,” he says. “A lot of golf course supers send everyone home when it rains. I couldn’t wait for it to rain! I would go into the shop and weld, train my guys. Early on Saturday mornings, I’d be there in the shop… That was the old Roger. I was very career driven and it did cost me some things, in my personal life. It did. I’ve always loved what I do and still love it to this day. I just know how to balance it a bit better.”

The past few years, Goettsch takes digital images of all his projects. Pre-digital, it was all old-fashioned photography. Those snap shots — documenting his many, many creations through the years — can today be found in a storage unit outside Dripping Springs, Texas, near Austin. That’s also where you’ll find Goettsch’s enduring pride and joy, a 1949 Chevy pick-up that he helped refurbish (a classic restoration that took 16 years). In Goettsch’s absence, his car buddies still display it at various shows around the American Southwest.

When one looks closely at Goettsch’s lengthy resume and building history, it seems clear this native Iowan’s admiration for self-reliance isn’t the only thing that drives him. That turf roller he built for Daniel McCann at Oak Hill CC in San Antonio… that pontoon boat trailer… those two special Hydro Cyclone Water Separators he and Tucker installed at Lochinvar Country Club in Houston, to clean the drinking water… a BBQ for his GM in China… 90 percent of the hand-made things he has lavished on his mechanic, his maintenance staff, his various employers…

These acts of creation are a form of friendship and intimacy — the same things his dad provided to him, for the same reasons.

“I think there’s some truth to that,” he says. “While I’m building things for the golf course, I’m usually building other stuff for other people. It gives me a real good feeling, building relationships in the process.

“When I did spend a lot of time doing that sort of thing — projects outside the golf course —I guess there might have been a perception that maybe the club wasn’t always getting my full attention, their full money’s worth. But I don’t think the owners ever felt that way. The mechanic definitely never felt that way. And believe me, wherever I’ve been, we’ve had the best greens around.”

Voter Suppression: NC Legislature Earns ‘Commendation’ for Self-Hating Political Mendacity

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

RALEIGH, N.C. (Dec. 10, 2018) — The term Jim Crow is rightly loaded down with socio-racial connotations. But it’s important to recognize that, at its core, Jim Crow was a political system. Yes, a central byproduct was a social system that consigned black folk to second/third class citizenship. But this construct was enabled and perpetuated by overarching political power. At its elemental core, Jim Crow was a system of voter suppression and nullification that allowed a political minority of white southerners to wield unchecked political power and maintain a culture of white supremacy in their respective states — not merely election to election but for a period of some 100 years.

With this in mind and the November elections behind us, pending a few recounts and lawsuits, Republican-controlled legislatures today are busy trying to similarly subvert the will of voting majorities while they still can, however they can. Accordingly, it’s high time we bestowed the next Harris Nightmare Award (HNA) for nakedly self-hating political mendacity.

Our choice for the 2018 post-electoral HNA: The GOP-controlled North Carolina legislature. In the face of U.S. Circuit Court rebukes — and the failure of state and federal investigations to identify meaningful in-person voter fraud — this less-than august body has succeeded in amending its state constitution to permanently suppress the vote via strict voter ID requirements.

This effort alone would not distinguish the NC legislature from dozens of other Republican-controlled bodies across the nation. However, November’s election in North Carolina did manifest what appears to be actual voter fraud — of a kind that 1) the newly ratified amendment would not begin to address; and 2) appears to have been perpetrated entirely by consultants directly employed by Republican U.S. Congressional candidate Mark Harris. His razor-thin victory over opponent Dan McCready was apparently enabled by brazenly illegal efforts centered on absentee ballot vote suppression.

Congratulations and 50 lashes with wet noodles to all the GOP members House member and Senators in North Carolina. Nathan Bedford Forrest would be proud.

Voter Suppression: No Fraud? No Problem!

Republicans generally and the North Carolina legislature in particular have cited rampant in-person voter fraud as foundational to their arguments for requiring photo ID. There remains vanishingly little evidence of such fraud. These claims are rhetorical cover for efforts, in the shameful tradition of Jim Crow, to hold down or nullify the votes of Democrats and independents.

But lo and behold, we’ve finally identified actual voter fraud and it’s specific to NC Republicans themselves!

In a striking note of bipartisan resistance, North Carolina’s State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement — a body comprising four Democrats, four Republicans and one independent — has unanimously voted to postpone certification of the Harris election, which he won by 905 votes, pending an evidentiary hearing scheduled for Dec. 21, 2018.

Named for Dr. Thomas Harris, author of the 1969 pop-psychology treatise I’m OK—You’re OK, The Harris Nightmare Awards call out the cynical, pre-emptively tit-for-tat nihilism that has informed Republican politics since the mid-1990s. In the Age of Trump, this phenomenon has been raised to high art. Hence the need for suitable rituals of public shaming, like the HNAs.

Most folks will be familiar with the title of Harris’ book, which refers to an optimal state of human relations, one that most of us do indeed strive day-to-day to achieve. “Treat they neighbor as thyself” predates the good doctor’s coinage, but they go together. For one cannot hope to treat his/her neighbor well if, to begin with, one does not possess an edifying sense of self-worth.

There are two more middling, less healthy states that Harris used to describe people suffering from undue superiority (I’m OK—You’re Not OK) and undue inferiority (I’m Not OK—You’re OK).

It is the fourth state, I’m Not OK—You’re Not OK, that is generally reserved for inveterate grumps and outright sociopaths. Go here for a more lengthy treatment of why this phrase so cogently describes today’s GOP and the media apparatus that supports it. In short, GOP candidates allege fraud while committing it themselves. Right wing media are more nihilistic. They assert the rampant political motivation and outright fakery of all media. By doing so, they stake out their own position and self-worth quite clearly: “We’re fake; they must be fake.” Or even, “We’re fake because they’re fake.”

I’m Not OK—You’re Not OK.

Shaming the Unshameable

But this phenomenon extends well beyond right-wing media circles. Hence the need for the Harris Nightmare Awards, our humble attempt to shame the unshameable.

Since 2013, The Tar Heel State has, in fits and starts, been home to the nation’s strictest voter ID laws, implemented to curb what Republican backers termed “widespread” voter fraud. Again, fraud of the voter impersonation variety (i.e., fraud presumably addressed by laws requiring photo ID) is so vanishingly rare as to be non-existent. Opponents were quick to point this out, adding that the true goal of this statute was a form of voter suppression, as many of the state’s African-American citizens (who tend to vote Democrat) did not possess such photo ID. Indeed, the 2013 statute also markedly curbed early voting practices — for the simple reason that African-American citizens in N.C. tend to vote early at higher rates than whites.

In July 2016, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down these key provisions of the law, ruling they effectively (and unconstitutionally) “targeted African-Americans with almost surgical precision.”

In April 2017, the State Board of Elections released the results of an extensive, objective audit of the 2016 election. It found that out of nearly 4.8 million votes cast, a single fraudulent vote “probably would have been avoided” with a photo-reliant voter ID law.

In January of 2018, a federal commission formed by President Donnie Trump and administered by serial voter-fraud evangelist Kris Kobach was disbanded after finding similarly vanishing evidence of voter fraud nationwide.

After the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the state’s appeal of the 2016 4th Circuit decision, in 2017, the Republican led legislature in North Carolina went to Plan B: a “legislatively referred” constitutional amendment, whereby the same voter ID provisions were put before voters as a single ballot question. Voters passed that ballot initiative, thereby amending the state constitution, on Nov. 6, 2018, 54-46 percent.

Enter Harris and McCready, whose race would appear to have been crucially affected by voter fraud of a very different stripe, a stripe completely unrecognized by the state audit or federal commission, a stripe left unaddressed by the voter ID law added to the state constitution in November, a stripe that leads directly to the NC Republican Party’s Jim Crow-style determination to rule the state indefinitely, even from a minority position.

Actual GOP Fraud, Complicated & Sordid

The voter fraud alleged to have underpinned Harris’ thin victory is nearly as complicated as it is sordid. See here a thorough roundup of what we know. Suffice to say, according to The New York Times, “Mr. Harris won 61 percent of submitted absentee ballots in Bladen County, even though registered Republicans accounted for only 19 percent of the ballots submitted. To do that, he would have had to win essentially every independent who voted absentee, as well as some registered Democrats. In every other county in the district — even strongly Republican ones — Mr. McCready won the absentee vote.”

Harris’s campaign has expressed shock, SHOCK at this development, a supremely misplaced emotion because it paid more than $400,000 to the consulting firm Red Dome to administer a “get out the vote campaign” that concentrated specifically on absentee ballots. Apparently, this effort involved going door to door and intercepting those ballots, which must, by law, be mailed. Where the intercepted ballots supported Harris, apparently, they were posted to the clerk’s office. Where they did not, ballots were discarded.

At first, Republican legislators in North Carolina fell all over themselves to respond, while resisting the idea that Harris’ victory should not stand. Now they have indicated openness to an entirely new election pitting Harris against McCready — which tells you just how firm the case must be against Red Dome and Harris.

More important to the NC electoral system, GOP legislators have floated the idea of addressing this Republican-style absentee ballot fraud via more stringent voter ID requirements — because that’s the only dog whistle these one-trick ponies seem to know! Whatever is sent to Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper is sure to be vetoed. The legislature’s Republican super majority, achieved via hardcore gerrymandering techniques, is sure to override that veto and amend the state constitution to reflect its political will.

Again, this is the essence of Jim Crow: reducing, disallowing or otherwise invalidating the political will of your opponent, to ensure that your own minority will continue to govern/rule. If you thought the above gerrymandering sentiment was harsh, consider this: According to the State Board of Elections there are 2,694,556 registered Democrats in North Carolina, as of Dec. 1, 2018. There are 2,119,956 registered Republicans (and 2,261,637 unaffiliated voters). Somehow, this mix has resulted in a Republican super majority in both the state House of Representative (75-45) and Senate (35-15). This is a state where the governor is a Democrat; Cooper’s thin, statewide victory 2016 illustrates the extent to which North Carolina is purple, split right down the middle.

And yet, the Legislature is administered by Republicans holding super majorities in the upper and lower houses. This is all the evidence one needs to prove state legislative districts have been massively gamed by Republicans, to favor Republicans. Indeed, so ruled the Supreme Court of the United States, in June 2017, when it affirmed a federal district court decision finding that 28 state legislative districts had been subject to an illegal racial gerrymander — a decision that has been the subject of enough stays to get this 2018 election completed.

Republicans in North Carolina don’t care about any of the niceties involved in heeding Supreme Court decisions, just as James Calhoun and the Nullification Movement didn’t care, just as late 19th century southern whites didn’t care. I’m Not OK—You’re Not OK.

Previous HNA Winners

Fans of the Harris Nightmare Awards will recall that our previous recipient, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, was defeated in November by Democrat Tony Evers. In response, the gerrymandered Wisconsin state legislature has voted into law several measures that effectively restrict the power of the incoming governor — just as the North Carolina legislature did to Cooper upon his election, in 2016. Among other things, the bill blocks Evers’s ability to alter state welfare policy, or withdraw the state from a lawsuit opposing the Affordable Care Act — two things Evers campaigned on, two things a majority of voters demonstrably supported. It also limits the state’s early voting period, a move that would make it harder for Democrats to win future elections in Wisconsin.

The Assembly in Madison is another body that, on account of brazen Republican gerrymandering, maintains a 63-35 majority in the Assembly, and a 17-16 majority in the Senate — despite the fact that Democratic Assembly and Senate candidates together garnered 55 percent of the overall state vote in November.

The same thing is happening in Michigan. We have entered a new, modern era of nullification.

I read a very interesting interview last week with Russian-born Gary Kasparov, the political activist and former world chess champion. Kasparov is vehemently anti-Putin and quite apart from any role the Russians may have played in affecting the 2016 U.S. elections, he sees in this country the slow erosion of voting rights and a gathering disillusion with the entire democratic process. These strike Kasparov as Putinesque developments, which is to say, our will to vote and our trust in the vote are degenerating to the point of indifference.

“Putin’s great advantage is that, unlike Soviet propagandists, he is not selling an ideology,” Kasparov said. “I call him the merchant of doubt. His message is, We are shit, you are shit, and all of this is bullshit. What democracy?”

Dr. Thomas Harris could not have put it better, had he awoken from a nightmare and screamed it out loud.

As Art Imitates Life, so Classic Cartoons ripped off Live-Action Sitcoms

by Hal Phillips 1 Comment
F Troop, animated

NEW GLOUCESTER, Maine (Nov. 14, 2018) — I don’t want to blow anybody’s mind. But here’s the thing: The classic cartoon Go-Go Gophers is further evidence of a little acknowledged but fascinating, mid-century trend in pop culture. Over and Over again, animators actively ripped off popular, live-action television shows of the time, essentially mining and co-opting them for themes, plots and personalities. These cartoons were the stuff of my GenX youth — on Saturday mornings, after school — and I expect much of my cohort will read this and nod dismissively: “Duh. The Flintstones.”

Yes, but it’s way bigger than that.

The Flintstones are the best-known example of this dynamic. It was also the first cartoon ever to air on network television in prime time. Launched in 1960, the show was a blatant rip-off of The Honeymooners. Its 39 episodes had aired from 1955-56, though star Jackie Gleason would intermittently reprise the role and the show for years. Fred and Wilma Flintstone were clear homages to the lead, live-action roles played by Gleason and Dorothy Meadows. Barney Rubble was even more distinctively based on Art Carney’s character, Ed Norton. I think everyone realized what was going on here, even at the time. It was part of the imprimatur that led to featuring The Flintstones in prime time, something unprecedented for an animated series at that time and frankly, still today, apart from The Simpsons.

But cartoonists would eventually prove some of the most facile and prolific rip-off artists in 20th century media history. The Flintstones formula worked. Accordingly, producers reprised the process without shame — to a degree we kids didn’t realize at the time and, I’d wager, few appreciate still today.

Exhibit A? The inimitable Go-Go Gophers, an under-appreciated cartoon and based completely on another live action (and culturally tone-deaf) TV show from that era, F Troop. Indeed, Go-Go Gophers was the cartoon that decades ago tipped me off to this weighty matter.

Classic Cartoons: A bin of Questionable Taste

As a kid, I thought F Troop was sorta funny. It was raucous confection, with a catchy theme song. Its cartoon incarnation did it one better in most every respect. Each episode of Go-Go Gophers begins with one of cartooning’s all-time great theme songs, followed by an uncanny, even cheekier homage to F-Troop’s fertile-if-untoward frontier theme.

One wonders today how anyone could see the opportunity for such broad humor in the slow-moving genocide of an indigenous people. We could include in this bin of questionable taste a sitcom based in a German POW camp. Of course, when Hogan’s Heroes was airing, perhaps folks were similarly dumbfounded by our bygone acceptability of black minstrel humor, like Amos & Andy, just 30 years prior. Three decades from now, we may similarly come to grips with other such untoward manifestations of white supremacy and the patriarchy.

Be all that as it may, the creators of Go-Go Gophers were ad guys from Dancer Fitzgerald Sample. They created the show to allow their client, General Mills, to advertise cereal.  The producers of Go-Go Gophers — Total Television, then CBS starting in 1967, as part of the brilliantUnderdog Show — devised a cast of characters that also did the live-action show one better. The two aboriginal characters, members of the Hakawi Tribe, are straight cribs from the TV show. But you’ll recall the cartoon Colonel inhabits a Teddy Roosevelt milieu, while the Sergeant (played by Forest Tucker on TV) is animatedly morphed into a laconic John Wayne-ish figure.

Larry Storch’s memorable TV character, “Agarn,” didn’t make the cut. Neither did the Colonel’s live-action love interest. She was a sort of Annie Oakley figure clearly inspired by Ellie May from the Beverly Hillbillies. During the 1960s, no matter how incongruous to the sitcom premise, producers were sure to write into the show some hot young blonde. See The Munsters and, for that matter,The Jetsons. Television producers did a lot of shameless things, then and now. They borrowed from any genre or competing show that worked. And so, they could hardly complain when cartoon producers did the same.

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Central European Art Curators Elevate Their Own, Here and Abroad

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

I can’t remember any trip of mine so richly affected by so many formal art exhibits. In the space of five Central European days in October 2018, my family took in shows featuring Gustav Klimt, Andy Warhol, Alfons Mucha, the Maine-trained Donna Huanca, Salvador Dali and Frida Kahlo. Only the Klimt, long a favorite of mine, had been planned. The others we happened upon more or less by chance, as apparently one does in Prague and Budapest. European art observations include:

Ethnography Matters: Austrians naturally claim Klimt for their own; he headlined the Secessionist Movement based in his native Vienna, so it’s no surprise his most famous works remain permanently on show at the Belvedere, an 18th century palace built by the Habsburg Prinz Eugen. Sharon and I went there straight from our morning plane, checked our bags in the cloakroom, and gadded about the grounds before meeting our son Silas and his girlfriend Rene, who’d been backpacking about the Continent since Sept. 7. We treated them to lunch then went back across the strasse to see the Klimt, who didn’t disappoint. The Belvedere curators require tourists (and the place was teeming with them) to roam through 2.5 full floors of oversized Romantic Era shite before getting to the Secession stuff, which included some Munch and Von Gogh I’d never seen. Our hosts knew exactly whom we’d come to see; the entire experience was built around it. There was even a special room where folks could take selfies with an oversized poster version of The Kiss — some 50 feet from the real thing.

In Prague, later that week, we were further struck by the way Slovaks studiously maintain a different sort of claim (but still a legitimate one) on Andy Warhol, born Andrew Warhola, the son of immigrants from Eastern Slovakia. In the various placards his mother was repeatedly referred to as Ruthenian, a reference to Greek Orthodox Slavs who live outside the Rus. This show occupied the third floor of GOAP, the Gallery of Art Prague. The more intimate, dormered fourth floor concentrated solely on Warhol’s young life and his parents’ early days in Pittsburgh where so many Slovaks, Slavs and Poles landed (remember the wedding scene from The Deerhunter?). This was wholly appropriate — the attic is where old family stuff is meant to be stashed.

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Headcheese, Jelly Sticks & Hot Sauce: My Father and his Food Fetish

by Hal Phillips 3 Comments

WELLESLEY, Mass. (Aug. 28, 2018) — So, I try to write each August about my father, the original Hal Phillips, who passed away seven years ago this month and all too soon. Hardly a day goes by when I don’t think of him in some way, shape or form. Many times, that moment comes when I open the refrigerator door and see my collection of hot sauces.

My father was an enthusiastic eater and devotee of exotic, spicy and otherwise full-flavored food. Growing up, we used to kid him that he had essentially deadened his taste buds, such was the relish with which he applied not just hot sauce but relish, salt, butter, condiments and dressings of any kind. He took this ribbing as he took most efforts to curb his foundational behaviors — with good-natured indifference — then went ahead and treated his pig knuckle with another dollop of blazing-hot mustard.

My paternal, Jersey-based grandmother was not an enthusiastic or particularly skilled cook. Whenever we went there to visit, she would serve us the same thing, in great quantities: steak, corn and a black forest cake from Sara Lee. I gather that American cuisine in the 1940s and ’50s — in private homes, in restaurants — was pretty bland. My dad’s reaction to this cultural upbringing was to find himself a wife who, among other things, appreciated and was equipped to prepare a wide variety of food.

For her part, my mom, Lucy Dickinson Phillips, was raised on the West Coast. Because it was still America in the ’40s and ’50s, her exposures were similarly staid on the food front. But Californians did have good Mexican, not to mention proper Chinese. What’s more, my maternal grandmother occasionally cooked things like (gasp!) curry. This proved foundational enough to foster food experimentation all through my parents’ marriage. In this and so many other ways, my mom proved the woman of my father’s dreams.

Perhaps on account of their relatively white-bread upbringings, older American couples today are often satirized for this single-mindedness. How was your trip to New York? “Oh, we found the most wonderful northern Italian restaurant near Washington Square.” My parents routinely answered travel questions in this fashion; mom still does. As a good cook, she grew annoyed when my father would salt or spice food before tasting it. But their 50 years together were a more or less an uninterrupted, gleeful quest for good eats. As such, it has fallen to their children to react in kind — to try and restore some level of sanity and moderation to the food-intake process.

This remains a work in progress.

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I’m OK – You’re OK? Not Hardly. Walker earns Inaugural Harris Award for Political Nihilism

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

NEW GLOUCESTER, Maine (Aug. 22, 2018) — With this communication, we introduce and inaugurate the random presentation of the Harris Nightmare Awards (HNAs). Named for Dr. Thomas Harris, author of the 1969 pop-psychology treatise I’m OK – You’re OK, The HNAs will henceforth call out the cynical, preemptive, tit-for-tat nihilism that has informed Republican politics since Newt Gingrich executed his hostile take-over of the party in the mid-1990s. In the Age of Trump, this phenomenon has been raised to high art. Hence the need for suitable ‘commendations’.

Most folks will be familiar with the title of Harris’ book, which refers to an optimal state of human relations, one that most of us do indeed strive day to day to achieve. “Treat they neighbor as thyself” predates the good doctor’s coinage, but they go together: Because one cannot hope to treat his/her neighbor well if, to begin with, one does not possess a decent, ultimately edifying sense of self-worth.

Harris identified two more middling, less healthy states that describe people suffering from undue superiority (I’m OK I’m OK – You’re Not OK) and undue inferiority (I’m Not OK – You’re OK).

It is the fourth state, I’m Not OK – You’re Not OK, that is generally reserved for inveterate grumps and outright sociopaths. Go here for a more lengthy treatment of why this phrase so cogently describes today’s GOP and the media apparatus that supports it. In short, right wing media have decided there is more to gain politically, in the long run, by asserting the rampant political motivation and outright fakery of all media. By doing so, they stake out their own position and self-worth quite clearly: “We’re fake; they must be fake.” Or even, “We’re fake because they’re fake.” I’m Not OK – You’re Not OK.

I’m OK – You’re OK: Walker, GOP Opt Out

Yet this phenomenon extends well beyond right-wing media circles. Hence our need for the Harris Nightmare Awards. Our first designee is the inimitable Scott Walker, inert presidential candidate from 2016 and two-term governor of Wisconsin now running for a third term. His opponent this fall will be former state superintendent of schools, a Democrat named Tony Evers. Walker remains unfazed.

“I’m not worried about who runs for governor on the Democrat side,” he told a group of followers in Reedsburg earlier this month. “Because they’re all about the same, they’re all just as liberal as the others. What I worry about are outside groups—names like Barack Obama, and Eric Holder’s group, people like Tom Steyer and George Soros, the billionaires from outside the state who are dropping millions of dollars in the state.”

Behold, our first but entirely worthy HNA designee. We resort to that euphemism because politicking this nihilistic produces no “winners”.

To call Walker’s opposition to out-of-state political spending “highly ironic” would be to spectacularly understate the matter. Since his first run for governor in 2009, Walker has been the pet project of billionaire libertarian donors Charles and David Koch, whose views on campaign-finance laws, among other things, Walker has dutifully promoted with legislation in Wisconsin — for a price. Since 2009, the Koch’s very own “outside group,” Americans for Prosperity (AFP), has backed Walker’s three runs (he prevailed in a recall election back in 2012) to the tune of untold millions — untold because in our post-Citizens United era (another AFP pet project), we don’t have any idea how much AFP actually provided.

Outside Spending: Walker’s Middle Name

We do know how much the 2018 campaigns of Walker and Evers have spent so far: Outlays on the Republican side since the primary are about $5.4 million compared with roughly $2.2 million for Democrats. The Republican Governors Association (by definition an “outside group”) has reserved $5.7 million in TV ads for the final two months of the race while the Democratic Governors Association (yet another) has booked another $3.8 million. Americans for Prosperity on Tuesday announced a $1.8 million television and digital ad buy.

In Walker’s warning of “outside groups” unduly influencing Wisconsin elections, we see the longstanding, one-sided dynamic that produced the HNAs — one where right-wingers just assume left-wingers operate as mendaciously as they do, as utter movement soldiers. This attempt at immoral equivalence doesn’t wash, has never washed, but has nevertheless informed right-wing charges of left-wing mendacity in the context of campaign spending, gun-control, media bias, labor law and dozens more realms.

This dynamic stems from a basic tenet, held on the right: Some right winger in a position to favor or otherwise advance a right-wing cause will surely do so, will do whatever it takes — in large part because he/she reasons, cynically and inaccurately, that counterpart left-leaning types are already operating on the same scurrilous level.

I’m Not OK – You’re Not OK.

Until last month, no poll had ever shown Walker trailing a declared Democratic opponent by more than a few points, not in any of his 3-plus gubernatorial races. NBC/Marist released a poll in July showing Evers ahead of Walker by 13 points. Another poll, from Emerson College, had Evers ahead by 7.

On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin! Stand up, Badgers sing!

English Football’s unique Global Following Grapples with yet Another Reality Check

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

MOSCOW (July 12, 2018) — While their close neighbors and erstwhile enemies crow this morning over another anguished English exit from the World Cup, great swaths of the soccer-loving world suffer alongside the Albion faithful. Some of this cooperative hand-wringing is due to the sheer size of the cultural footprint left by the mother country, once an Empire, today a Commonwealth. Yet millions more,  in places that long ago shook off that lighter cohesion (Hong Kong, Singapore, Mumbai, Capetown), follow English football fortunes because the Brits effectively invented global futbol branding, too.

Yes, close neighbors in Ireland, Scotland and Wales couldn’t be happier this morning, after England’s loss to Croatia in Wednesday’s World Cup semifinal.

But billions more pay special attention to English soccer fortunes for reasons better explained by 21st century marketing. Across Asia, the Middle East and the United States, 25 years of English Premier League broadcasts have bred spectacular ratings and merchandize sales. These ephemeral dynamics have ultimately morphed into a peculiar form of allegiance — a fandom nurtured by internet access and fed by the always entertaining, bandwagon-inclined British football media.

For 30 minutes in Moscow on Wednesday, the bandwagon was humming toward destiny. The English would appear to have produced — for the first time in 54 years — a team equal to this global glut of hope and expectation.

To the delight of Gaels everywhere, it was instead Croatia that earned a place in Sunday’s World Cup final against France, claiming a dogged 2-1 victory in extra time. This had been another pillar of English football support Wednesday — the prospect of a cross-Channel, once-more-into-the-breech final, a rematch some 1,054 years in the making! But the indefatigable Croats were deserving winners. They adjusted and persevered where England could not.

English Football: 30 minutes of Heaven

The semifinal’s opening half hour appeared to signal the next in a series of sanguine developments for the English. Kieran Trippier’s splendid free kick put them ahead 1-0 after just 7 minutes. The early goal was part of a delightful narrative: A weak group leading to a preposterously easy side of the tournament draw. A great escape vs. Colombia in the Round of 16 (on penalties of all things) was followed by a thorough bludgeoning of Sweden, a team England had beaten just twice in 16 tries. Up a goal in the semi, the ensuing 20 minutes saw Raheem Sterling, the sprightly Man City striker, run rings around the Croatian defense.

This was the key to the game: England found it so easy to get Sterling in behind Croatian centerbacks Dejan Lovren and Domagoj Vida, another goal seemed just a matter of time. Harry Kane indeed should have made it 2-0 after 15 minutes, having found himself on the doorstep with the option to shoot or slide it to Sterling for a tap-in. He went for goal, had it saved, then clanged the rebound off keeper Danijel Subasic and the post. That ball goes in and there’s no way back for the Croatians, though it seemed of little consequence at the time. The English were that good, that confident on the ball, that in control of this match.

That dominance, in a roundabout way, proved England’s undoing. Instead of continuing to patiently knock the ball around and pick the Croats apart — a side running on fumes after playing two exhausting knockout games in the previous 7 days — England were beguiled by Sterling’s ability to get in behind Lovren and Vida. The last 15 minutes of the half were squandered, as the English eschewed possession and impulsively pumped long balls over the top.

Pundits have claimed that England played an excellent half on Wednesday. They did not. They played an excellent half hour, then muddled their way to the break with a lead only half (or a third) of what it should have been.

Mid-Match Adjustments

Croatia made a vital adjustment before intermission, dropping Lovren and Vida off Kane (and his withdrawn running mate Dele Alli), in order to better cope with the speedy threat of Sterling. After halftime, they changed things up again — pressing England higher up the pitch. All of a sudden, central midfielder Jordan Henderson had no time on the ball. After 45 minutes of expert English distribution out of the back, Croatia took it away.

England made no adjustment at halftime and, much as it tried, could not make one on the fly. The long balls continued, with ever diminishing returns. Faced with this increased pressure, Henderson and the entire English defense were a study in creeping panic — launching hopeful balls forward rather than risk having it taken by the Croats who, the longer this game went (despite their travails), looked the more energetic side. In the first 30 minutes Henderson & Co. looked imperious. After 60, they no longer wanted the ball at their feet. At this level, that is a recipe for just one thing: hanging on for dear life.

All of this analysis ignores fully half the match, which would indeed require 120 minutes to decide. Ivan Perisic, leveled things on 70 minutes and England’s descent into anxiety and fatigue steepened. They were lucky to make it to extra time, where Mario Mandzukic struck the winner some 7 minutes before the onset of penalty kicks.

England made the maximum four substitutions over the last hour, desperately looking to change the game, to change its own footing in and approach to the match. Nothing worked.

Trippier injured his groin after the Mandzukic goal; having exhausted their allotment of subs, England finished meekly, playing 10 v. 11. In the end, the Croats proved more canny, more flexible, more skilled, more confident, more dogged, more fit. They were deserving winners.

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World Cup 2018 Digest: Why refs & linesmen so often get touch line decisions wrong

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

This ball was deemed out of play. Clearly, it was not…

MOSCOW (July 5, 2018) — We’ve reached the first 48-hour break in what has been a delightful frenzy of World Cup matches. The round of 16, our first knock-out stage, concluded Tuesday. Quarterfinals start Friday. Through the magic of YouTubeTV and its DVR function (we cut the cable cord in June), I’ve managed to see most every game. A few observations, starting with why the marginal touch line in/out decision is called wrongly more often than anything else in top-class football.

This may strike one as extremely small bore but possession is, you know, important. And linesmen don’t appear to know the rule. The statute is clear: FIFA’s Rule 9 reads, “The ball is out of play when it has wholly crossed the goal line or touch line whether in the ground or in the air.” The advent of goal-line technology has given us  a new, better perspective on this rule. A birds’-eye view of the ball is what matters; the ball is in play until it’s entirely over the line, until there can be seen (from above) a sliver of green grass between the ball and touchline.

Technology, now in the hands of a Video Assistant Referees (VAR), has brought new accuracy to goal-line decisions, but touch-line decisions remain in the hands of linesmen and the man in the middle. Sadly, they get it wrong way too often. I’ve noticed this for years now but VAR has brought in into clearer focus.

Touch-line decisions are called differently and I think I know why: Linesmen, or referee’s assistant, as they’r now called, aren’t looking at it from above. From a ground level view, if an assistant sees any sort of green between ball and line, he or she will judge the ball to be out of play. Even if the entire ball, according to Rule 9, has clearly not passed wholly over the line — something that would be obvious with a birds-eye view. The lead image atop this post (a screen grab; thanks again, YouTubeTV) provides a perfect example. This ball was called out for a corner.

One can sorta tell the players are increasingly peeved by this double standard and why shouldn’t they be? Players on the ball do have a bird’s-eye view. There appears to be one standard for the goal line and another for every other boundary on the field. I’ve not seen nor heard nor read of VAR ever being used to mete out a touchline decision. I’m not advocating for that. But possession is important and in/out should better hew to the standard spelled out in Rule 9.

World Cup 2018: PKs and SABs

The short-handed Colombians were put out of the tournament by England Tuesday in a Round of 16 affair that was at once pedestrian and completely riveting. That’s what an otherwise punchless World Cup match that goes to penalty kicks can do, especially where England are involved. Just the idea that some 60 million Brits were watching the game — increasingly pissed, in the fetal position, waiting for something catastrophic to happen — imbues all of their knock-out fixtures with that certain, extra-special something. Their boys didn’t disappoint — blowing the game, then rescuing it — and the rest of us duly lapped up the many layers of shadenfreude. The English did indeed have it won before conceding a 94th minute equalizer and sleep-walking through extra time toward penalties, the tie-breaking mechanism that, to date, has put them out of three World Cups and three European Championships. It’s a tragically accurate running joke in England that the national team cannot cope with, much less win, a penalty shoot-out at a major tournament (Tuesday’s win makes them 2-6 overall). It’s harped upon nearly as often as the fact that, “We invented this game.” But they won this shootout, celebrated accordingly, and they’re off to face plucky Sweden in a Saturday quarterfinal where the stakes, the alcohol intake, the national anxiety will be that much higher…

Golden Boy James Rodriquez was the reason Colombia played short-handed Tuesday, having pulled up lame in the last group game. James (pronounced hah-mez) bears a fairly striking resemblance to a young John Harkes, US midfielder from the ‘80s and ‘90s. The Colombian and his coiffure cut a more metrosexual pose than Harkes and his period mullet ever could. But close enough to meet the ‘Separated at Birth’ threshold, eh? Or maybe first cousins? This is the sort of thing an American soccer fan is reduced to when we fail to qualify…

I’ve now watched and participated in hundreds of these penalty shootouts (the Round of 16 produced three in eight matches). I’m surprised goalkeepers, at this elite level, don’t hold their ground at least once in the first couple kicks, if not to account for a Panenka or blast down the middle, then to plant in the heads of subsequent shooters the possibility that he might not be guessing/diving one way or the other as the shootout progresses. For keepers, this guessing has been the long-standing strategy: Shooters are so close that goalies must guess which way a shooter is going with the ball — and hope for the best. Yet so many elite players today basically trust their ability to see the keeper’s movement and, at the very last second, go the opposite way with the ball. A goalie who doesn’t move would completely freak the shooter out – and give every succeeding shooter uneasy food for thought.

Japanese are Snake Bit

More observations from the first two weeks: Poor Japan. They deserved better than a 3-2 Round of 16 loss to Belgium on the last kick of the game. But honestly, WTF were they thinking — committing so many men to a corner kick (tiny team vs. big team) in the 94th minute tied at 2? It was a bold decision, I’ll grant you. But I’d have put a few token dudes in the box, stayed behind the ball essentially, and taken my chances in extra time…

Sweden has played 50 World Cup matches in its history. Only Mexico has played more without winning a Cup. Yet Sweden’s international record is far more decorated. Indeed, Sverige is perhaps the globe’s most underrated soccer nation. This country of just 7 million souls, where one cannot play outside all year round, has produced a World Cup finalist (1958), three semifinalists (1938, 1950, 1994) and two quarterfinalists (1934, 2018). It may well better a last-8 finish this year — all without Zlatan Ibrahimovich, the finest Swedish player of his generation (perhaps of all time) who, though still active (in MLS), petulantly retired from international play two years ago. Sweden’s example is something for American soccer boosters to ponder when reckoning grandiose future goals. The US has reached a single quarterfinal, full stop…

FIFA is as corrupt as they come, but it’s important to recognize the root and nature of that corruption. Since the late 1980s, FIFA’s particular corruption is born of the fact that each and every participating nation (all 211 of them) have a vote in where the World Cup will be held every four years. And make no mistake: Those votes do in fact get bought. But let’s also be real: Without this sort of arrangement (which leads to both coalition-building and corruption), there would never have been World Cups in Africa, or Russia, or the Middle East. Yes, it’s conventional wisdom that Qatar paid through the nose, to literally hundreds of national football federations, order to secure the 2022 event. And yes, repressive regimes benefit from buying such events — but so do the soccer-loving masses in those countries and regions. Ask an African soccer fan if it was worth it to have the 2010 event in South Africa. Ask a Saudi if they’re happy the World Cup is coming to Qatar. Moving the Cup around is good for the world game. Without its particular brand of corruption, the event would be held somewhere in Europe or North/South America every four years, forever…

Mark Geiger, the only American referee participating in this World Cup, drew a very tough assignment in the England-Colombia match. It’s hard to imagine how a more experienced, skilled ref would’ve handled things without killing the game: Colombia deserved to have 2-3 guys sent off for dissent alone following the quite-right penalty kick decision that put England a goal up. Radamel Falcao has complained publicly about Geiger’s performance, claiming he favored the English. But any neutral observer could plainly see the Colombians, down a goal, ratcheted up the physicality in hopes of turning the match back in their favor. Unfortunately, Geiger didn’t want to decide said match by sending anyone off — something the savvy Colombians sensed immediately. In bending over backward to preserve Colombia’s chance of ultimately getting a result, Geiger may have torpedoed his own career at this level.

Now It Can Be Told: When Media Junkets Go Wrong…

by Hal Phillips 1 Comment

JAKARTA, Indonesia (June 18, 2018) — The history of working media seeking to leverage publishing capabilities to secure personal fringe benefits is long and sordid indeed. Traditionally, as befits transactions undertaken by relative paupers, such perks rarely rise above the level of heavy hors d’oeuvres. When they rise to the level of media junkets — the “FAM” or familiarization trips writers accept in exchange for coverage — the stakes and potential shithousery increase by orders of magnitude.

Again, this tawdry exercise in professional barter typically starts out innocently enough. I worked at a daily newspaper back in the late 1980s. The nightly assignment schedule invariably included this Chamber of Commerce reception or that City Hall event — places often devoid of news value, but where free food could be had. Open bar? Well, the entire editorial staff might show up for something like that.

Reporters and editors don’t traditionally make a lot of money; they’re frequently quite young. This is to say, freeloading of this ilk shouldn’t be viewed as particularly untoward or shameful. It’s something of a necessity frankly. One of our many mascots in that same newsroom was a giant cartoon headshot of a Dick Tracy-like character, complete with ‘40s era fedora. Tucked in his hatband was an index card that might have read “PRESS”; instead it read, “I’m with the PRESS. Where’s the FOOD?”

Several links up the food chain in this realm sits the media FAM. There’s no way to spin such junkets according to journalistic standards or ethics. These are flat-out boondoggles whereby some publicity-seeking entity lures reporters and freelancers on some trip — with the understanding that once they’ve been wined/dined and returned home, said media will publish nice stories about the resort property, the golf course or cuisine to be had there, or maybe the broader “destination” itself. In the golf and travel realm, where I’ve toiled for more than three decades now, FAM trips are the ultimate perk because, well, let’s not be coy: In addition to free food & drink, participating media also get complementary air fare, lodging and assorted swag.

Media Junkets & The Barter Economy

The quid pro quo nature of the FAM exercise is little discussed but well understood by all parties. One doesn’t visit a golf course or hotel, on a junket, only to savage the place in print. That would be untoward. As our moms all told us, if you don’t have anything nice to say, say nothing at all — or concentrate on something else that doesn’t suck.

Here’s another FAM trip bylaw: Answer the bell. No matter how much free boozing and carousing was had the night before, media guests have an obligation to show up, on time, first thing the next morning (according to the itinerary) without fail.

There’s one more, less formal understanding re. media trips: Something is sure to go terribly wrong. I’ve been on dozens of these excursions as a working journalist. I’ve organized dozens more, as a PR professional, working on behalf of various clients. When one is devising a week-long itinerary in a foreign country — for one’s own travels — something is sure to be overlooked or go sideways. When organizing for a dozen people, most of whom will be drunk 35 percent of the week? The odds only increase. The mere presence of a dozen journalistic chancers eating, drinking and indulging on someone else’s dime makes the possibility of mishap a mortal lock.

Someone, someday, will write a comprehensive and hilarious book about all the great FAM trips gone awry: who got thrown in jail, what foreign dignitary got naked, why shellfish is always a risky choice… In the meantime, journalists will merely trade these yarns back and forth like war stories. In that tradition I offer up below the itinerary from a single morning gone completely haywire, in Jakarta, during Ramadan, back in 2012. This was a trip I helped to organize and host. I promised the client I wouldn’t breathe a word until a reasonable discretionary period had passed. Still, I have changed the names to protect, not the innocent necessarily, but rather those professional reputations still in play.

This Junket did its Job

In most respects, this particular FAM proved a roaring success. It produced dozens of glowing, published pieces re. the awesome golf product on offer in and around Indonesia’s sprawling capital. To produce this content I had wrangled a genial and cosmopolitan group of 12 media and tour operators hailing from the UK, China, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia and the United States. From the Fond Memory Dept., I could just as easily cite the epic karaoke session we all enjoyed, the compelling version of “Take It To The Limit” I performed with the band at our closing soirée, the five superb rounds of golf we played, or the incredible dinner we organized for 20 at the Four Seasons.

But none of those vignettes would include the burning of tires or police in combat gear.

See below a timeline of events the morning after said banquet. I can vouch for its accuracy because, like James Comey, I was moved to take contemporaneous notes, on my phone — such was the utterly random and alarming nature of the proceedings.

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SI Memories, Developmental & Professional, Come Thick & Fast

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments
Dunes Club Keiser

The late-2017 sale of Sports Illustrated, TIME Magazine and other titles to Meredith Publishing, a deal made possible by an infusion of $650 million from Koch Industries’ private-equity arm, has elicited both howls of indignation — from those who fear the further right-wing weaponization of information — and an ongoing hail of gauzy nostalgia, from those who grew up loving SI and fear the sale will only further its fall from a decades-long perch atop the sports media food chain.

Here I will indulge in the latter, because I’d been meaning to post the above story in some way, shape or form ever since my friend Jammin’ ran across it last September. Sports Illustrated was not merely a staple of my young reading life, alongside The Boston Globe’s superb sports section. It was where I started my freelance-writing career. Indeed, this story above was my very first freelance piece, full stop. It warms the cockles of my heart to see it lovingly preserved online in flipbook fashion deep in something called the SI Vault. Check that: Said version has been recently disappeared. Copy and paste this URL and you can find it more conventional online form: https://www.si.com/vault/1997/10/27/233677/small-wonder-the-dunes-club-our-pick-as-the-best-nine-hole-course-in-the-country-is-twice-the-challenge-of-most-18-hole-layouts#

By 1997, when this piece was published (Oct. 27 issue), I had spent some 10 years as a working journalist, first for a collection of weekly and daily newspapers in Massachusetts, then as editor of Golf Course News, a national business journal published here in Maine. Indeed, taking that job brought me north and rescued me from the nocturnal newspaper grind. Nineteen ninety-seven was also year I left GCN to start Mandarin Media, Inc., with the secondary intention freelancing in earnest. The ensuing years would see my work appear in pretty much every major North American golf and travel magazine (several of which still exist!). That effort started here, with this Sports Illustrated feature.

I had pitched the magazine a piece ranking the best 9-hole golf courses in America, but, as often happens in the freelance milieu, the story ended up being something quite different: a feature on Mike Keiser and his 9-hole masterpiece, The Dunes Club, with a sidebar detailing the country’s other top 9s. The story itself frankly could have been better. I ended up submitting a finished draft, only to have the editor suggest a major rewrite. This I did, and then the bastard ended up running something that quite closely resembled the original version. Some old stories you read with great pride — this, alas, is not one of those. It feels cautious and dry.

SI Memories: Editorial Authority

The sidebar produced a funny moment: When we agreed on this feature and brief ranking sidebar, I launched into some lengthy disquisition on how we’d research and tabulate a proper Top 9 Nines list. The editor interrupted me and simply said, “This is SI. We’ll just tell people what we think the Top 9 is.” Such was the power, some would say hubris, of the magazine in those days.

Despite my failure to reprint this on the 20th anniversary of its publication, the experience was not without its serendipities. For a Boston-bred lad, it was fabulous to be included in any issue with Larry Bird on the cover. What’s more, while I wouldn’t say I discovered Mike Keiser, one would be hard pressed to find earlier coverage of the man who eventually revolutionized the golf resort business. When I first met him in the spring of 1997, the private, 9-hole Dunes Club was Keiser’s only connection to golf development. Today, having created five, award-winning, top-ranked courses in Oregon at Bandon Dunes, he’s also had a major hand in developing additional, no-less-heralded, multi-course projects in Nova Scotia (Cabot Links, Cabot Cliffs) and Wisconsin (the new Sand Valley), with another now planned for Scotland. All are links courses fashioned from sandy sites hundreds of miles from the beaten path. Keiser didn’t just build awesome tracks; he proved that American golfers would pay top dollar — and travel to the middle of freakin’ nowhere — to play this type of golf.

I remember sitting in the modest clubhouse at The Dunes Club with Keiser in the summer of 1997, eating hot dogs and conducting our interview when, at some point, he mentioned that he’d just purchased 2,000 acres of coastal property in Oregon, 2 hours west of Eugene and 4 hours south of Portland. He said that he planned to develop not just one course but a whole complex of them. I thought to myself at the time, “I like this guy, but he’s clearly delusional.”

It would not be the last time I mistook vision for delusion.