Dave Barry Is Not Taking This Sitting Down (4 page)

But I have to say that once I got out of the mud, I felt a great deal better than when I was in the mud, and I am confident that one day, if I take enough showers, people will stop edging away from me on the elevator. So let me just close by saying that, although I have made some fun of the wine-country experience here, I really do feel, in all sincerity, that “Pinot Noir and His Nuances of Toast” would be a good name for a band.

L
ike many members of the uncultured, Cheez-It-consuming public, I am not good at grasping modern art. I’m the type of person who will stand in front of a certified modern masterpiece painting that looks, to the layperson, like a big black square, and quietly think: “Maybe the actual painting is on the other side.”

I especially have a problem with modernistic sculptures, the kind where you, the layperson, cannot be sure whether you’re looking at a
work of art or a crashed alien spacecraft. My definition of a good sculpture is “a sculpture that looks at least vaguely like something.” I’m talking about a sculpture like Michelangelo’s
David
. You look at that, and there is no doubt about what the artist’s message is. It is: “Here’s a naked man the size of an oil derrick.”

I bring this topic up because of an interesting incident that occurred recently in Miami. When people ask me, “Dave, why do you choose voluntarily to live in Miami?” I answer, “Because interesting incidents are always occurring here.” For example, just recently (DIGRESSION ALERT) federal agents here arrested two men on charges of attempting to illegally sell weapons.

“Big deal!” you are saying. “Federal agents in many cities regularly arrest people for illegally selling weapons!”

Right. But these were
nuclear
weapons. I swear I am not making this up. The two suspects are Lithuanian nationals; they were allegedly working on a deal to sell undercover agents some Russian-made tactical nuclear weapons.

Call me a Nervous Nellie, but I am concerned about the sale of nuclear arms in my general neighborhood. I say this because of the popular Miami tradition, which I am also not making up, of celebrating festive occasions by discharging weapons into the air. I am picturing a scenario wherein some Miami guy chugs one too many bottles of Cold Duck at his New Year’s party, and when the clock strikes midnight, he staggers over to the closet where he keeps his tactical nuclear weapon—which he told his wife he was buying strictly for personal protection—and he says to himself, “I wonder how THAT baby would sound!”

But my point (END OF DIGRESSION ALERT) is that Miami tends to have these interesting incidents, and one of them occurred a little while ago when Dade County purchased an office building from the city of Miami. The problem was that, squatting in an area that the county wanted to convert into office space, there was a large ugly wad of metal, set into the concrete. So the county sent construction workers with heavy equipment to rip out the wad, which was then going to be destroyed.

But guess what? Correct! It turns out that this was NOT an ugly wad. It was art! Specifically, it was Public Art, defined as “art that is purchased by experts who are not spending their own personal money.” The money of course comes from the taxpayers, who are not allowed to spend this money themselves because (1) they probably wouldn’t buy art, and (2) if they did, there is no way they would buy the crashed-spaceship style of art that the experts usually select for them.

The Miami wad is in fact a sculpture by the famous Italian sculptor Pomodoro (like most famous artists, he is not referred to by his first name, although I like to think it’s “Bud”). This sculpture cost the taxpayers $80,000, which makes it an important work of art. In dollar terms, it is 3,200 times as important as a painting of dogs playing poker, and more than 5,000 times as important as a velveteen Elvis.

Fortunately, before the sculpture was destroyed, the error was discovered, and the Pomodoro was moved to another city office building, where it sits next to the parking garage, providing great pleasure to the many taxpayers who come to admire it.

I am kidding, of course. On the day I went to see it, the sculpture was, like so many pieces of modern taxpayer-purchased public art, being totally ignored by the actual taxpaying public, possibly because it looks—and I say this with all due artistic respect for Bud—like an abandoned air compressor.

So here’s what I think: I think there should be a law requiring that all public art be marked with a large sign stating something like: “NOTICE! THIS IS A PIECE OF ART! THE PUBLIC SHOULD ENJOY IT TO THE TUNE OF 80,000 CLAMS!”

Also, if there happens to be an abandoned air compressor nearby, it should have a sign that says: “NOTICE! THIS IS NOT ART!” so the public does not waste time enjoying the wrong thing. The public should enjoy what the experts have decided the public should enjoy. That’s the system we use in this country, and we’re going to stick with it. At least until the public acquires missiles.

Y
ou’ve surely noticed that a big golf craze is sweeping the nation, as aging Baby Boomers discover the benefits of participating in a sport where the most physically demanding activity is ordering putters by mail.

It has reached the point where, if you don’t play golf, your career can suffer. I know mine has. In my newspaper office, the two senior editors—let’s call them “Tom Shroder” and “Bill Rose”—regularly go off together during business hours to play golf. I’m sure that while they’re out on the “links” whacking their “bogeys,” they discuss important business matters and formulate newspaper policies in conversations like this:

I’m not saying “Tom” and “Bill” discuss exactly these topics. I’m merely saying that, because I don’t play golf, I don’t know WHAT they discuss, and so I’m “out of the loop.” Perhaps you’re “in the same boat.” Perhaps you’d like to learn about golf, so that when your colleagues
talk about it, you can join in and be “one of the persons.” That’s why today’s topic is Basic Questions About Golf, starting with the question that beginners ask most often:

I called Linthicum, and he told me, after some hemming and hawing, that although the story he’d related to columnist Strait was essentially correct, the golf-club part was not 100 percent accurate in the sense of being true. Linthicum also made these points: (1) If you are ever offered a gift of live emus, you would be wise to turn it down, because “those things have feet like something out of
Jurassic Park”;
(2) If it gets printed in the newspaper that you dispatched emus with a 9-iron, even for a good cause, you’re going to hear from some extremely angry animal-rights people; and (3) If a person, for whatever reason, did have to dispatch an emu with a golfing implement, it would make more sense to use a wood than an iron.

Speaking of
Jurassic Park
, another question often asked by beginning golfers is:

No, seriously, according to the
Patriot-News
article, the Pauls contacted a veterinarian, who successfully removed the golf balls. The snake, which the Pauls named “Spalding,” came through the operation OK and has been accepted to law school.

No, I’m kidding about that last part. But I’m not kidding about our final common golf question, which is:

I called Golf In Action and spoke with the founder, Sheila Locke, who told me that her idea has gotten a good public response,
although a lot of the calls are from people who want to join her staff and get paid to play golf.

Me, I love the idea of paying somebody to play golf with your clients, and I’m thinking: Why not take it further? Why not pay somebody to have meetings with your clients, and take your clients to dinner, and smoke cigars and drink brandy with your clients, and then throw up on your clients’ shoes because you hate brandy and cigars? This company could be called: Businesspersons In Action.

So those are your golf basics. Good luck out on the “links,” and be sure to say “hi” to my editors, “Tom” and “Bill,” who will be easy to spot because they get stuck in the sand traps with those high heels.

I
imagine you sports fans are dying to learn the results of my golf tournament.

That is correct: I have a golf tournament. It used to be that you had to be a major star such as a Bob Hope or a Moammar Gadhafi to have one, but now anybody can. It has reached the point where, if you apply for a credit card, the first two blanks on the application are “Your Name” and “Name of Your Golf Tournament.”

Mine is “The Dave Barry Classic,” and it attempts to raise money for the American Red Cross. I’m a fan of the Red Cross, because after Hurricane Andrew devastated South Florida, the Red Cross provided us with the one thing we most desperately needed: showers. This was a godsend, because after a few days without plumbing, we all smelled like Eau de Athletic Supporter.

And so when the local Red Cross chapter asked me if I’d host a golf tournament, my answer, without one instant of hesitation, was: “I don’t play golf.” This is true. I don’t have anything
against
golf; it’s just that, if I’m going to play a sport, I want one that provides more aerobic benefits, such as “Rock, Paper, Scissors.”

But I told the Red Cross people I’d host the tournament anyway, because I sincerely believe in “giving something back” to the community. Plus they said there would be beer.

The Dave Barry Classic was held at Doral Park, which is a residential
golfing community catering to people who enjoy combining the pleasure of living in attractive homes with the pleasure of never knowing exactly when a small, hard, white sphere will penetrate your recreation room traveling upward of 140 miles per hour. This happens routinely because golfers, despite the fact that they are using expensive, modern golf clubs made from space-age materials and engineered to tolerances of thousandths of an inch, have absolutely no idea what the golf ball is going to do once they hit it.

I say this after spending a day observing the golfers in my tournament. These were mostly middle-aged business guys who had come out because they truly believe in the ideals of the Red Cross, especially the ideal of holding a golf tournament on a Friday afternoon.

“I would love to stay in the office wearing a tie and talking on the phone with boring people I dislike,” they probably told their business associates, “but I have an obligation to the Red Cross.”