24 Hours To Go

AI-XVI'S AWAITED

Call Me Stan

From the Editor:  The final installment of Reef's Ruminations having been published yesterday, many have asked the obvious question:  'who the fuck is this guy and where the fuck did he come from?'  An excellent question, well phrased and succinctly directed.  AI Publications thus reached out to a reluctant raconteur; a  Salinger of sorts (Steve Salinger, not JD): one Professor Gordon Bruce Bauer for his thoughts on the man behind the pen.
Here now:

REEF - THE RUMINATION RUMINATION

Over the weekend the humming birds got into The Apartment by entering through the open windows, and the flapping of their wings stirred up the sweet time inside, and at dawn on Monday Lewisburg awoke out of its lethargy of years with the warm, soft breeze of a great man, Reef.  With this warp in the space-time continuum, I was able to travel back to the time of our first acquaintance.

Call me Stan. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world of the Susquehanna. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before Edwin Watts, and watching an insipid December golf tournament; and especially whenever my handicap gets such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to the Susquehanna as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to Bucknell. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men and women in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards Bucknell with me.

I knocked on the door of The Apartment, never mind the number, there is only one set of rooms rightfully called The Apartment.  I knocked on the door but heard no answer above Springsteen playing so all Lewisburg could hear.  I opened the door to a smoke filled room, no doubt the result of the location of The Apartment at the North-South, East-West intersection of a great highway and railway both spewing smoke, steam, and dust  through the open windows so that one could barely see to the opposite wall.  Through the haze I dimly saw a man swinging as if playing golf.  The swing was balanced, the plane exquisite, the follow through fluid.  I had never seen such perfection.  Over and over he repeated exactly the same swing.  I quietly closed the door and stepped away, I did not want to intrude on a mystical moment.  This was my first sight of Reef.  We met more formally at a later time when I reached out from under a table where I had conveniently fallen asleep to shake his hand.  I never let him know I had seen the swing.  Over the years, I would from time to time come across him practicing the drive, long irons, short irons, putter, but never with a club or a ball.  I never said anything.  Like Owen Meany, he was rehearsing for greater events to come.

The depth of his commitment became most apparent during a Spring co-ed softball game.  His jaw dropped and his eyes opened wide, as he called to everyone to look at the incredible legs on the right fielder.  We were a bit puzzled.  Reef, I said, my attention has been drawn to legs on occasion, but they have been women’s legs, not that there is anything wrong with looking at men’s legs.  Reef insisted that the right fielder was a woman.  When the burly right fielder came in between innings his maleness was amply confirmed and Reef was clearly chagrinned.  I knew the problem was his focus on golf to the neglect of all other priorities.  I relayed the advice once given to me by my mother:  Gordon, spend your money on alcohol and wild women like other normal young men your age.  Reef, I lied, anyone could mistake men’s legs for women’s, but you do need practice.  Look at more women.  Meet some.  They have attributes you might find to your liking.

I don’t know if Reef ever took my advice to the extent I advocated.  I would still surprise him practicing his swing (there is an excellent opportunity for a single entendre here with a simple swing-stroke substitution, but I have tastefully avoided taking advantage of it).  While many of us were living lives of shallow dissipation, Reef maintained his focus on greater, future events, which he somehow lucidly foresaw.

Skip many years to the future:  The AI Four-ball at Windermere CC, where Reef and his teammate Stan made a miraculous comeback on the back nine.  But, it was all about to be thrown away.  Reef had a treacherous, 6 ft downhill putt to keep his team in the match, an impossible putt under the stressful circumstances.  No mere mortal could have made that putt, but Reef did, delivering a crushing blow to the opposition.  Reef and his partner went on to win the match on the next hole.  The reason for Reef's early focus on golf suddenly became apparent.  He saw this event.  He knew its importance.  He practiced incessantly for it.  (Oddly, the practice was rarely with a golf club or golf ball.  As a matter of fact, I don’t think Reef played a round during my two years at Bucknell.  During the subsequent 20+ years, I think he played as many rounds as Mitch plays in a month.  He no doubt did not want to compromise the Platonic perfection of his swing by actually hitting a golf ball with a golf club).

Skip ahead a few more years, to the waning days of his golf career.  Reef had already attained greatness.  He had nothing to prove.  Nevertheless, he again achieved greatness.  Again we were playing AI Four Ball.  The stark emotionalism of the event has wiped the name of the course from my memory.  Reef unleashed a colossal drive, the longest in AI history, a record that may stand for all time (unless someone gets to hit off the top of a cliff again).  The ball ended up 380 yds from the tee.  The ever humble Reef has pointed out that the hole was a trifle downhill, but it should be noted that nobody else was within 50 yds of him. [Ed Note: or his ball for that matter] “The Drive” as it came to be known, was a fitting capstone to a remarkable golf career that involved almost no golf.

Rumination #5: Summation

From the Editor:

On behalf of everyone at AI Publications, I would like to take this opportunity to thank our resident ruminant, James B. Reifsnyder, for his prose (and his cons).

It is Monday at AI HQ and either the Banquet Director is stirring in the kitchen or a family of raccoons has slipped through the screen door. We are flitting about finalizing preparations for the arrival of Stans from far and farther. So, once again, thanks to the scribe of Pottstown for his entertaining insights into the Apartment Invitational.

And now, without further ado:

RUMINATION #5

The Sweet Sixteenth Apartment Invitational is upon us or, better, near us. It is at 

present in Pottstown, PA, 41 degrees, cloudy, windy, gray-brown, bone-cold damp. 

Did I mention sleet? This is the sleet capital of the northeast. Fine: we’ve had no snow

 to speak of, but still, very few days unlike this one, and when it actually is sunny, it’s a 

cloudless brilliant sunshine and 15 degrees. Yeah, but it’ll soon change for this 

reporter, and here’s yet another thing about the imminent AI: coming from this dismal 

rust-belt town and stepping through the glass-aluminum doors (after having opened 

them, of course) into Orlando…and it’s warm. Warm. Hot even. Freakin palm trees. 

Colors! The AI, when and where it’s sunny and warm. Here’s to #16. I can’t wait.

My heart is with Gordon.
My brain is with Heimsch. 

My soul is with Mitch. 

And my money, in AI-XVI, is on Pease/Paze et al. 

Editor’s Note: To put the last statement in some perspective: Reef’s heart is not even his 3^rd favorite organ; his brain is besotted; his soul damned for eternity and his money?  What money?

Final Numbers

Here than are the final Handicaps for this year's field of intrepid performers according to the GHIN system endorsed by the USGA (except for Gordon, who uses the GIN system endorsed by AA).

HEIMSCH: 11 - 9.4 index (22 ROUNDS since 1/12)
BURKE: 12 - 10.3 index (11 rounds since 1/12)
PAZE: 4 - 3.6 index (LAST ROUND ON 10/11/11)
BAUER: 18 = 18 indes (alleges to have shot 88 on 3/3)

In light of past performance and Paze's golf hibernation, the AI Handicap Committee (picture the Russian Election Monitoring Committee) has made one slight adjustment and will grant 2 shots to Paze meaning he will compete, such as it is, as a 6.

Complaints and whining are encouraged, although they will almost certainly be ignored.

Branching Out

so, the empire continues to grow. Jakarta. Former home of our 44th President. [he was taken there after his birth in Kenya as part of a Manchurian Candidate-esque conspiracy that his Kansas born mother & Kenyan PhD father concocted at the birth of the boy king leading to his inauguration almost a half-century later. Coincidence? You decide]
Our research & development team, always vigilant, sensed an opportunity for a restaurant in Indonesia and it is so. The Apartment. A magnet for the Indonesian cognoscenti; the gourmands of greater Jakarta; no doubt the orangutans of Borneo & Sumatra if only given the chance.
The Apartment. The place to be. To be seen. To make sure others know you should be seen.

But you ask, do they have specials? But of course! Specials?

The Apartment? As our Edie would say: PLEASE

Now an international sensation, The Apartment has attracted attention from media in places that only Heimsch has ever visited:
“STRANGE RESTAURANT MAKES YOU FEEL AT HOME" - Sydney Morning Herald & The Age Melbourne

“THE APARTMENT GIVES NEW MEANING TO THE PHRASE "HOME COOKED MEAL" - National Post Canada

"WHERE DINERS FEEL AT HOME" - Shanghai Daily

"THE APARTMENT MAKES JAKARTA'S DINERS FEEL AT HOME" - ABC News US & The China Post

"4 OUT OF 5 STARS" - Time Out Jakarta

"ULTIMATE SPOT FOR RELAXING" - Rolling Stone

"QUALITY FLAVOURSOME MEALS" - Jakarta Globe


THE APARTMENT is dominating the nightlife scene as one of the top 100 bars in jakarta: Click on this video to see the impact The Apartment is having half a world away:
http://www.jakarta100bars.com/2009/10/apartment-jakarta-rasuna-said.html



We shall never rest until our message is spread to infidels around the world. Just as Mormons posthumously baptize dead Jews, the AI seeks redemption for those poor souls who don't know they need our help.
Amen.

Rumination #4 - SEAN EVA BURKE aka The Weeds

Three centuries ago, when ruminating about the ebb and flow of the universe, Isaac “Fig” Newton observed that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

True: in fact one of the universal truths—and not only in thermodynamics, but in the life and lore of the AI, too. After fifteen years of warm hospitality and uber-generosity, Kathi and Mitch
have to feel as if all of their annual AI visitors could not possibly imagine anything better than four days in the Orlando sunshine—the golf, the food, the deck, the occasionally functional hot tub, the pool, the Men in Black slobbering on your bare feet…paradise for the combatants and their guests, cocktail in hand, zinc oxide on the nose, smell of roasting meat wafting, the music, the videos, even listening to Mitch sing with himself, better than dreaming, all in a cosmic blink of an eye, each and all on the same glorious page, once a year for nigh on sixteen straight years.

However, there is the other side, the flip side—the “equal and opposite” part. Consider if you will, if indeed you can, the sad and ongoing saga of one who was not brushed aside but, tragically, rather swept up in it all, witness to all manner of debauchery and sloth: none of us care to face it now, but poor Sean Eva Burke will carry aboard her diminutive frame the baggage, the equal and opposite part of all this Baby Boomer excess; it continues to affect her; she cannot now escape its dead weight upon her soul.
The story begins, as most of ours do, with a birth, Sean’s in fact, in March of 1988. It was a former friend and colleague, Tireless Tom Dwyer, who shared the great news with me. How and why this clown knew before me remains a mystery, but that’s another story [Ed note: Tireless Tom & I were working together @ MISL HQ in NYC] … I remember (only now sensing the irony) that she was to be a very fortunate person, born as she was to two extraordinary people: bright, ambitious, open minded and both fully versed in the masturbatory habits of rhesus & squirrel monkeys. But the dark seeds were already planted: forget that she had the same name as the goalie for the New Jersey Devils (get it…devils?) because in less than eight short years the sanctity of her very own birthday party would be sacrificed to clear the way for AI-I. And then, as the years swept by, it all got even worse for Sean. Riddled with guilt, her selfish parents tried many times to assuage her bitter disappointment. Half-assed quasi-birthday parties were concocted on the spot—in an Outback Steakhouse one year, an ersatz Jewish Deli the next. The kid kept smiling, but the damage, the silent hidden damage, kept taking its toll.
Early on, just prior to AI-II, in a shameless attempt to co-opt Sean, her father forced her to invite all of her friends over one day. “Hey, did you get invited to Sean’s house on Sunday?” “Should be awesome. I can’t wait.” For a birthday party? Is that what you’re thinking? No freakin’ way. What did Mitch have in store? To make them pose, all of them, for an AI poster--standing in front of the fireplace in the house on Cristina Marie Drive, there they remain, all dressed up for a party, some in pigtails with big braces-filled grins, little shorts, flip-flops or bare-footed, beaming…and ALL OF THEM, each and every little girl, ALL of them giving the Stan Salute.

Not one of those innocent-no-more former friends of Sean’s has ever even spoken to Sean again. And the damage train would soon head downhill, gathering momentum, barreling into the 21st century.
As Sean grew older, much to her credit and a fitting testimony to her strength and fortitude, she decided to just grin and bear it: for four days she could go with the flow. This involved (speaking of those who hibernate), among other gross indignities, allowing Gordon to take over her bedroom. By Monday morning, even the Olsen Twins, whose pictures littered the walls, had covered their eyes. Frequently, Sean’s mother, Kathi, overworked and under humored by it all as Banquet Director, forced Sean as well as her friend Emma, daughter of sous-chef Nora to “wait table,” help clear the dishes, even pick up broken shards of glass recently dispatched by one of her father’s drunk friends while attempting to explain what happened to that errant six-iron. On more than one occasion, Sean was forced to join the Bowling For Sotweeds competition--nothing like dragging a new teen along in a limo full of hammered adults all wearing the same shirts…to a bowling alley lit by disco-balls and black light, full of surly schvartzes and truculent trailer trash, none of whom ever found a trace of humor in the fact that we were all wearing logoed black do-rags. Sadly, Sean did not inherit Grandpa Pat’s genes, but rather her father’s & demonstrated no discernible skill for bowling.
It gets worse. One night, after gluttonously stuffing ourselves on Chinese [Ed. Note: the writer is referring to food], the limo made a surprise stop at one of Sean’s high school lacrosse games. Was there no escaping these gross indignities? There we were, under the lights, seven or eight of us, including Nora and the Savoies, hanging gracelessly on the chain-link fence that ringed the playing field, erupting and bellowing every time the poor kid came anywhere near the ball.

Crestfallen and determined never to be subject to such absurdity again, Sean’s angst turned inward and she opted instead to dislocate her knee cap, inflicting serious pain and discomfort upon herself. For every action…
It’s no wonder then, as Sean prepared to make the all important college decision, that she opted for the best school AS FAR AWAY as possible from home. And off she went to little Wesleyan, nestled in the bucolic splendor of central Connecticut. Because her father had forced her to watch, over and over again, every last Woody Allen film, Sean, at first, considered majoring in film study. She was soon dismayed to realize movies are occasionally made by other than neurotic New York Jews, so she decided, at long last, to rebel. “I’ll double major in Spanish,” she cried & she would learn a language with which neither of her parents is familiar (except, of course, for a few “choice” words with which they could chastise the cleaning woman or the gardener) [Ed. Note: ethnic slur #3]. Seeking places other than Miami to ply her trade, Sean gleefully accepted any opportunity to escape, once as far as the peaks of the Chilean Andes, anywhere to avoid getting roped in to another AI.

So here’s to little Sean Eva Burke, a survivor, one who managed through sheer will to advance through all of this to adulthood. Perhaps, just perhaps, she can encourage her parents and their wanton friends to follow.