It’s been a long week, already, so I’m going to unwind by dumping some Bobo on y’all without adding any commentary of my own:
I would say the typical golfer at my local course, the Falls Road Golf Course in Potomac, Md., is a 37-year-old Indian-American guy with a mid-range S.U.V. who works in I.T. at an office park and buys into the dream of white-collar America. He’ll be in a foursome with some of his buddies, then there will be a foursome of high school boys, then there will be two older couples playing together, then four women who play together once a week and finally there will be my wife and me in a pair waiting 20 minutes to tee off while those in front of us bounce shots from one side of the fairway to another.
In my experience, in short, golf is a big thick slice of middle-class America.
I don’t know why this amuses me but it does.
Update. I may as well inflict this upon you as well. In for a penny…
Several years ago, I arrived in Madison, Wis., for a conference. It was Saturday morning, and as my taxi got close to campus, I noticed people dressed in red walking in the same direction. At first it was a trickle, then thousands. It looked like the gathering of a happy Midwestern cult, though, of course, it was the procession to a football game.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
You dump all the Bobo on us you want Dougj and with your commentary. We tease you sometimes, but you are a valued person and front pager on this blog, at least by me, and I think quite a few others here as well.
Sometimes I wonder about Cole though :-)
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
It always amazes me how these pundits (Bobo, Friedman, occasionally MoDo, etc) read such profundity into interactions with middle class americans. It’s almost like they don’t do it very often…
Joseph Nobles
I have to say:
I don’t care who you are, that’s funny.
JGabriel
This makes so glad I hate golfing.
I tried it once. I just could not get the goddamn ball in the hole no matter what. Meanwhile people were lining up getting impatient. It was traumatizing. Fucking lion’s head.
.
The Dangerman
As opposed to my golf game, which is simply a big slice.
ellaesther
You mean aside from the fact that he talks about “the typical golfer” and then goes on to describe at least 14 (possibly 17) other golfers who are nothing like “the typical golfer”?
That amused me!
Or no, wait, what’s the word?
Annoyed! That’s it!
That annoyed me. Very Tom Friedman.
wasabi gasp
Fucking guy probably doesn’t even wash his own balls.
Arkon DougJ
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:
I think that may be it. I can’t put my finger on what is so weird about it. It’s just not the way a normal person would describe other people (mid-range SUV?).
dr. bloor
[Insert obligatory joke about hitting the Applebee’s salad bar after their round here]
Arkon DougJ
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Thanks.
El Cid
Does this make the world flat, or fat, or crooked, or compressed, or foggy, or does it connect a Daewoo and a Eucalyptus?
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
@Arkon DougJ:
It’s very “anthropologist describing a foreign culture” diction. Almost reminds me of Kipling describing India. The feature is especially obvious in this case, but it’s a constant undercurrent in the writings of elite pundits.
Nicole
Bobo writing about golf makes me remember the McCain golf balls. Ah, good times.
Arkon DougJ
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:
There’s a lack of empathy of some kind in his fixation on materialistic details like the SUV. It’s just not how I, for example, would size someone up.
Redshift
@Arkon DougJ: Perhaps the “mid-range SUV” description makes a little more sense if you know that this “slice of middle-class America” is the wealthiest suburb of DC, and one of the 25 wealthiest communities in the country.
AnotherBruce
Obviously I’ve missed out on some of the cheap drama that’s been going on this blog lately.
I’m thinking that’s probably a good thing.
different church-lady
Well, that was certainly a big thick slice of something…
Tattoosydney
If you were Australian, this would make you laugh out loud.
Martin
@Arkon DougJ: I’m a solid middle-class worker and there’s no fucking way I can afford to play. My clubs are sitting in the garage collecting dust.
Bobo still has no fucking clue what constitutes middle class in this country.
Yutsano
All I can think is that Bobo must golf somewhere in Silicon Valley. Cause let’s face it, that’s about the only place I can think of that has an abundance of Indian-American IT guys. Plus they don’t lose touch with their roots that much, they play cricket on the weekends.
@different church-lady: It wasn’t pie, which is what I was hoping for. Color me most disappointed.
@Tattoosydney: Come stai? I head home in about 90 seconds. Woot.
different church-lady
@Martin:
Of course he does, silly: it’s whatever he happens to be looking upon at the moment.
Joseph Nobles
OT: Now that we know Republicans like lesbian bondage clubs, it turns out that they are pushy submissives as well.
slackjawedgawker
He can’t even contain his anger and disgust with the ordinary folks in his way. It reads partly like he’s pissed they haven’t invited his wife and him to play through, and partly like he’s pissed that these amateurs are even allowed on the course.
And really, golf as the quintessential middle class sport?
different church-lady
@Yutsano:
I don’t think it’s anything one would want to put in one’s mouth.
Gian
rather silly when this is during the build up to the golf tourney which happens at a golf club that still has no female members.
same golf club is doing it’s best to protect a famous guy from the media because he seems to like to choke, bite, sodomize and maybe pee on women – who are willing to do it, while knowing he’s married to somone else, and the media think that it’s our business.
my dad used to caddy at a course where he says he couldn’t play because he was of the wrong religion. I’ve a hard time being sold on anything other than the golf is for rich white guys and to quote fuzzy zeller – better not, but to speak about a grown man as a little boy and speculate about which foods he would like based on racial stereotypes – that’s what I think of with the golf. Old white guys, some of whom are bigots, and yes, I’m well aware the wagons are circled on the same person that Fuzzy was talking about.
I am hoping in my time to see a Black Female be born so freaking gifted at this game or sport that she goes five years without anything less than a first place – and to have her be so damn good that she beats the men (heck it’s april fools, if I can’t be foolish now)
Mr Furious
That “conversation” between Brooks and Gail Collins is like a fucking Colbert/Stewart parody.
From Collins trying vainly to stretch her atrophied feminist muscles, to each time Brooks opens his mouth, wondering aloud what it’s like among the rabble, these two fucking morons come off like the two old guys in Trading Places.
Short Bus Bully
I would say the typical golfer at my local course, the Falls Road Golf Course in Potomac, Md., is a 37-year-old Indian-American guy with a mid-range S.U.V. who works in I.T. at an office park and buys into the dream of white-collar America. He’ll be in a foursome with some of his buddies, then there will be a foursome of high school boys, then there will be two older couples playing together, then four women who play together once a week and finally there will be my wife and me in a pair…
So going by his own example out of 18 people 1 to 4 of them are the “typical” golfer (Indian American with used SUV) while all the rest are completely different (spoiled high schoolers, shrivs, and big butt suburbanites MILFs)?
I don’t think “typical” means what Bobo thinks it means.
Elevating broad generalizations and stereotypes into an art form. WTF? This is deep social commentary?
I hope that 2012 is truly the end just so I don’t have to stumble across this stupidity by accident any more.
different church-lady
@Mr Furious:
Except that a Colbert/Stewart parody would be funny.
Steve
Everybody in America thinks they’re in the middle class. That’s why, you know, we can’t raise taxes on anyone making 150k, because in Manhattan that’s barely enough to get by, or something.
Mr Furious
@Martin: Damn straight. My clubs have come out of hibernation exactly twice in ten years—both times for a pre-wedding round of golf with the groom & co.
Even municipal courses are an arm and a leg these days, and there is no way The Average Joe™ is hitting the links like in Brooks’ fantasy world.
Lyle4
The only kind of Indians who play golf are the really rich kind. The middle-class ones play tennis. As an Indian I’m allowed to say this. Therefore Bobo just described a bunch of rich-ass people living in one of the most rich parts of the country. To him middle class is driving a Lexus instead of a BMW.
JasonF
I grew up about 20 minutes from that golf course. Believe me when I tell you — nothing in Potomac, Maryland is a “big thick slice of middle-class America.” The median home price there is well over a million dollars. The median income is well over a hundred thousand.
Redshift
@Yutsano: Note that he doesn’t give any indication he talked to any of these people. He probably just assumes the Indian-American guy works in IT.
t jasper parnell
It seems to me that Brooks’ description of all the golfers on the course undermines his assertion of the typical nature of the mythical “Indian-American” IT foursome, which is to say the man is dumber than dirt.
Mr Furious
@different church-lady:
Fair enough. It’s like an “after the second musical set on Saturday Night Live skit.”
You know, the ones that suck.
Tattoosydney
@Yutsano:
3pm Thursday afternoon. Public holidays Friday and Monday… A case of Portuguese wine sitting in my office next to five new dvds.
It doesn’t get much better.
ed
Why yes. I mean, who would on earth would ever turn on their Blackberry while riding in the cart between holes or waiting for the geezers ahead to get the fucking lead out and make with the god-damned putting already? It’s not like, you know, those highfalutin and thoroughly unengrossing pastimes like pick-up basketball, jai alai, or steeplechase, which are all essentially pathetic excuses to daydream.
Elitist Fuckhead David Brooks is an elitist fuckhead. It’s almost as though he were the George F. Will of the New York Times.
jeffreyw
DougJ: Fuck y’all, I’m gonna quote BoBo. So there. Suck it up.
Zulif tyrese
I just watch Weekend Update anymore.
Nylund
Whenever I’m in Tucumcari, New Mexico, Natchetoches, Louisiana, or Lubbock, Texas all ANYONE talks about is how they did on the back nine. That’s because the median family income in America is ~$50k and all these families ever did is hang out at the country club with David Brooks.
Of course now that “The One” socialized America, they’ll all have to give up that new Callaway 3 wood they were planning on buying.
Fucking hell. The dude spends about 2 hours a week with some folks who make under $1 million a year (or whatever his ridiculous threshold is that separates the rich from the middle class), and all of a sudden he’s down with the common man?
Redshift
@JasonF: Hey, that reminds me of one of my favorite Potomac stories! A few years ago, there was a new housing development being built there. In compliance with county regulations, it included a certain amount of affordable housing. Not low-income housing, mind you, just priced so that people who work at normal jobs in the county could afford to live there.
People in nearby neighborhoods were willing to be quoted in the newspaper whining and complaining about how this would bring in the wrong element, and problems with drugs and crime, and how it was generally terrible.
The houses were priced to be affordable to families making $45,000/year. Which these people apparently thought was they typical income in an inner-city ghetto.
So when Bobo has no idea what “middle-class” actually means, in Potomac he’s got lots of company.
Mike Kay
this is like waterboarding for readers or a scene out of Clockwork Orange.
randiego
Hah, there’s nothing middle class anywhere near Potomac Md, but that course isn’t too bad really. It’s a municipal, run by Montgomery County and reasonably priced as golf courses go.
Played it all the time when I lived in Bethesda. If I knew bobo played there I’da hung out more often, just to tell him what a douchenozzle he is.
Saw Lanny Davis there once.
kdaug
@ed:
Heh. Or Tuesday nights at the billiards league with a couple pints of Guiness and a butt or two.
Of course, I grew up stomping divots on the polo field, so what do I know…
themann1086
My brother and I get out occasionally, there are a few “cheap” courses in the area. But yeah, golf is definitely not a middle class sport. At all.
different church-lady
@Mike Kay:
Except the scene out of Clockwork Orange would make some kind of sense.
Mike Kay
I wonder if the golf course has a salad bar?
wasabi gasp
If there was an alfalfa pellet-filled gumball machine nearby you just know he would’ve dropped a quarter.
nutellaontoast
I am not represented in any of those 5 archetypes. Shit, I thought I was middle class. Guess I’m high class after all. Mom would have been so proud to see me here.
Brick Oven Bill
Plato teaches us:
The people are a third class, consisting of those who work with their own hands; they are not politicians, and have not much to live upon. This, when assembled, is the largest and most powerful class in a democracy.
David Brooks, the conservative from the New York Times, informs us:
“It looked like the gathering of a happy Midwestern cult, though, of course, it was the procession to a football game.”
I have observed this worker-class, and rented my balcony as so they may be influenced by a beer advertisement. Two cases a week. Also sold bratwursts to them.
This is a powerful cult. They like, make stuff.
danimal
How many of those middle class folks are laid-off, working reduced hours, facing bankruptcy or looking at foreclosure? Those are the middle-class folks that the rest of us see. But don’t worry, Bobo, none of them are clogging the precious back 9.
Mike Kay
did he mean “indian” like from central asia or “indian” from “F-Troop”?
Adam
Middle Class America = less than 10% of the population of the USA.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=1006052203716
Brachiator
Sweet Mother of Mercy! Elitist pinhead discovers that American is populated by … actual Americans.
And newspapers actually print this drivel?
Mr Furious
I’ve never seen or heard the phrase “mass college sports” before, and Brooks trots it out repeatedly.
Aside from fencing or intramural squash, the “mass” part of college sports is pretty self-evident.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Shorter Bobo: Why go through the hassle of actually finding these people when you can just make them up?
Jeez what a weez.
OT: Just reading away online and listening to the wife practice her violin in the other room. Nothing like being serenaded with songs from Metallica, Extreme, Eagles, Ozzy, Pachabel, Do As Infinity, Ratt and more, all in the comfort of your own home. Now that’s variety!
She’s a damned fine player who loves all kinds of music. Hearing Metallica (Nothing Else Matters, Enter Sandman) and Ozzy (Crazy Train, Mr. Crowley, No More Tears, Mamma I’m Coming Home) and Ratt (Dance, Way Cool Junior) played with an accoustic electric violin and routed through my rack gear/amp/speakers is pretty kickass. Her Hotel California is absolutely perfect. I am trying to talk her into letting me master a few cuts for her but she is ‘gear shy’. I’m hooking her in with my gear to get her used to it then I’ll sneak off a few samples when she isn’t looking. Maybe that will convince her to let me record a bunch of her stuff.
She plays for pleasure and it shows. I would like to save some of it for the kids and family. They love listening to her play.
kdaug
@Brick Oven Bill:
“happy Midwestern cult”.
Yurp.
I love his “smooth chocolaty head, glazed in man sweat“.
This is getting stupid. And, no, this isn’t supposed to make any sense.
different church-lady
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
It’s a big, thick slice of middle-class America!
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@different church-lady:
Great, now all we have to do is make it to the middle class. ;)
Paul
Bobo seems to have a big fat foursome on his mind…
Morbo
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): Does she do any Korpiklaani?
skippy
well, all i have to say is…
release the kraken!
daveX99
@ellaesther: OMG! You stole my thoughts…before I had them! I actually wrote out a chart to see how many other golfers there were and to see how the Indian-American guy was typical.
I snuck thru college w/out statistics, so I could be wrong, but I WAS an English major. I think the word he might have wanted to use was ‘atypical’, unless of course the foursome of High School kids and the 4 women, blah blah etc. were also Male Indian-American IT workers.
Doug: It’s amusing because he is making shit up.
I guess I’m glad however, that Bobo is mingling with the ‘middle class’ (although where I grew up, golf was not middle class).
sigh.
Gozer
The median income for Potomac, MD is nearly $180k and the median house or condo value is over a million (average $1.2 mil). Not middle class by any stretch.
AngusJackBootedThugOfMeat
Golf course activity as a slice of middle America? Well, maybe in China, where golf is booming.
But by many measures, it’s in decline in the U.S. Courses closing have outnumbered new courses built. Private club memberships decline, and public courses see decreasing traffic.
The number of people who play at least every other week declined from 6.9m to 4.6m in just six years according to National Golf Foundation. This during a time of expansive economics and population growth.
This is Bobo’s big thick slice of America? Yeeaahhh, I don’t think so.
About 8 times as many people are without health insurance, as play golf regularly. The real big thick slice are the people who got screwed by the reign of Republicans until recently.
MikeJ
Real middle Americans watch youtube in text mode.
Try it. This is the way the internet should be.
West of the Cascades
WTF? Does linking to two Bobo columns get you a promotion to Boromander or something? My brain can’t deal with Brooks Overload.
PeakVT
In my experience, in short, golf is a big thick slice of middle-class America.
The modern NYT: dedicated to making the Soviet-era Pravda look like a bastion of good journalism.
Rebecca
Several years ago I lived in Madison, Wisconsin. Upon exiting the library one wintery afternoon I was struck by the realization that my floor length red crushed velvet coat was the exact same color of red as the outerwear of the waves of football fans walking dejectedly across town after a game. It made me feel like nothing so much as a completely clueless vampire. “But I also am wearing red!” We made clueless vampire jokes for days. (“Come with me to the alley. I have BEER in a COOLER.” and “Go Badgers?” all in bad Romanian accents.)
Yutsano
@Tattoosydney: I suppose I could be bitter, but A) I work for a large DVD distributor so I can get just about anything I want for free and B) I go to Arizona in exactly one week so I’m ready for my vacation. You’ll have to tell me what wine though as I have a good wine store near my house that I might be able to snag a bottle at.
BethanyAnne
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): I love Do As Infinity :)
Betsy
@Rebecca:
I’m probably just feeling punchy from trying to finish this goddamn talk I’m working on that has to be done by 4 AM, but this made me giggle. A whole lot.
Royston Vasey
@Tattoosydney: Ah, Tiger went for a root or two!
RV in NZ
Pigs & Spiders
Oh Sweet Flying Spaghetti Monster! The inanity, it burns!
The only thing that keeps me going, that gets me up in the morning and off to work, is the hope that in just a decade’s time all these stupid fucks will have retired and been replaced by those who might have a slightly less “We’re Boomers And We’re Awesome!” attitude.
Jackasses.
GregB
I often choke on my caviar when I realize how much my polo club is just like middle America.
-Remington Sapworth III
Tattoosydney
@Royston Vasey:
And apparently had BoBo as his stand in.
Ugh. I have to go and wash my brain now.
Mark S.
@AngusJackBootedThugOfMeat:
I was wondering that. It seemed to me there are fewer assholes telling me how much they love golf, and do I gold, etc.
Yutsano
@Tattoosydney: I haz brain bleach you can use. It’s the family stash just for situations like this.
binzinerator
@Arkon DougJ:
Yeah that stuck me as odd too. How odd, using consumerist product marketese adjectives in describing people.
It did remind me a bit of Stephen King’s penchant for regurgitating brand names in an attempt to define a character, only it’s even more annoying and flaccidly superficial.
Bobo’s trying to limn a sense of economic place, attempting to find a way to relate to it in his own terms. Hence “mid-range SUV”. Neither expensive nor budget. Ergo, middle class.
Bobo has no real connection to the middle class, any more than the anthropologist has to the Yanomamo. We are reading Bobo’s field notes.
Tattoosydney
@Yutsano:
I’ve found that Portuguese wine is pretty much all good. Anything red from the Douro, Alentejo or Dao is generally quaffable – simple wines with big flavours, and well worth a try.
Unfortunately, like the French, the best stuff never leaves its country of origin. The dozen I bought is from Brites Aguiar. We tasted it in Portugal – had to be opened three hours before drinking, and what tasted like ink on first opening developed into a huge, barely sweet, fruity fuck off of a wine. Simply the best wine I have ever had.
I was so impressed that, in one last hugely extravagant spending spree before I stop being a well paid lawyer, I got this place to courier me a dozen bottles. My credit card provider is very happy.
ETA: If your place has any Portuguese wines, feel free to tell me names – We’ve drunk so much over the years that I have a pretty good feel for what is good and what is the swill they fob off on the estrangeiros.
Cliff
I hate Bobo and I hate golf, so for me this is like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup made out of shit.
mcd410x
If Xander is here, Oz can’t be far behind.
Bad Willow was best.
Aaron
@Cliff:
Don’t forget about the creamy center made from nostalgia and bitter tears of the loss of a past that never existed.
different church-lady
@Cliff:
It’s a big, thick slice of… oh never mind…
Cliff
@Aaron:
I see what you’re saying, but your phrase conjures an image in my head of Richard Cohen and Twinkies.
Athenae
Bobo better STEP THE FUCK OFF Wisconsin fans. My Badger-loving family will kick his ass.
A.
gwangung
The essence of condescension.
They can’t openly do it any more with minorities, so they direct it more openly at their “inferiors.”
Yutsano
@Tattoosydney: I’m meeting up with the folks I do wine comparisons with (the wife is pregnant and not happy but we let her taste for now until she has an orgiastic drinking binge when the young one comes out) and I plan on picking up a couple of bottles for us to play with and sample. I’ll see what I can snag from Portugal, although I was THIS close to picking up an Australian wine a couple of weeks ago just from the name of the winery alone: The Little Penguin. As I’m obsessed with pengies it was really tough to say no.
Wile E. Quixote
Jesus H. Fuck Doug, be careful. Sure, you’re young now, but if you keep exposing yourself to a steady diet of Bobo, Modo and the Sunday morning news shows you’ll damage your brain as surely as you would if you were drinking lots and lots of bathtub gin that had a high methanol content.
Bobo has it totally wrong about the Republicans the Democrats and bondage though. The Republicans are total bottoms. Look at Larry Craig, kneeling at glory holes in airport toilets all over America, or David Vitter putting on diapers. Show me a prominent Republican and I’ll show you someone who has shame-filled cringing submissive written all over him.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Morbo:
Not yet though she has been checking out their stuff on YouTube. She likes to drag me over to see some pretty radical violin stuff and she loves to pick up her baby and play along. Once I introduced her to Cakewalk, Cubase and SoundBlaster back in the 90’s that was all she needed to get her fix. She only uses the MIDI apps to get at the sheet music for specific instruments and transposing. She is using the SoundBlaster X-Fi Elite Pro now and with my Sony multitrack mixer/recorder and rack gear I am hoping to get her to start recording some of her stuff. You should have seen her face when I first proposed that she try some metal and just plain rock. She has always done classical and it never occurred to her to branch out. She really gets into learning a song and for me hearing music like that out of a quality instrument in the hands of a good player is always good.
@BethanyAnne:
Another Inuyasha fan? It’s one of her favorite anime shows and she has the posters to prove it…lol!
Another song she plays extremely well is Journey’s Faithfully. It makes the hairs on my arms stand up its that good.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m trying to figure out who the fuck, at a Big Ten university, would schedule a conference the same weekend as a home football game.
different church-lady
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
Why do I have the feeling Bobo has never been within 3000 square yards of a person who would utter such a statement?
BethanyAnne
…something completely different. This is just pure win. All it needs is a unicorn horn.
http://pictureisunrelated.com/2010/03/14/wtf-photos-videos-hybrid-bike/
Dollared
@Athenae.
This. And if he wants a thick slice of Middle America and get to meet a dental surgeon, he can try to
interview some folksreduce some folks to a stereotype on the way home from the game, after 32 1/2 Leinies and four hours in the sun.Yutsano
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Either a massive idiot or a hopeful coordinator who was hoping for some bleed-over from the game attendees. A conference that Bobo was at though? Somehow I doubt the latter motivation was in the mix.
Wile E. Quixote
Back when he was still funny P.J. O’Rourke wrote the following about golf. From the July, 1979 issue of National Lampoon, the Sports issue.
Of course years later O’Rourke became completely deranged and took up the sport, probably around the same time he stopped being funny to anyone other than habitual readers of The Daily Caller.
Tattoosydney
@Yutsano:
I not heard of that one… I’m scared it might be like Fosters – the stuff we tell Yanks we drink, then snigger behond our hands.
Tattoosydney
@Wile E. Quixote:
The worst kind – give me a defiant, angry submissive any day.
Yutsano
@Tattoosydney: I considered that possibility. It may or may not help that I live in a region that has some of the best wines in the world (according to the climate change models we’re slowly turning into a slightly drier Napa Valley), but junk usually doesn’t make it here. Of course our wonderful redneck population keeps the box wine around, so there are no guarantees. I really should have grabbed it except I THINK it was a merlot. Yeah I’m an anti-merlot snob.
bago
Actually, when I worked out at Microsoft in Friendship Heights, Almost everyone there was Indian, except for the occasional Russian.
bago
Did I mention the office was between a Neiman Marcus and a Brooks Brothers outlet?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@binzinerator:
My first exposure to BoBo was an excerpt of his first book (IIRC), BoBos in Paradise, in The Atlantic. As I remember it was a long mockery of exurban types (I don’t think the term was used then), but what stands out in my memory was a repeated reference to Sansabelt pants to define a certain kind of ‘Heartland conservative’/real American, as opposed to the awful BoBos, who were nonetheless supposed to join BoBo (Brooks) in mocking those slacks-wearing exurbanites. I’ve always seen BoBo as a two-faced douchebag trying to play both (every) side of the political spectrum.
J. Michael Neal
@Joseph Nobles:
There is NOTHING I dislike as much as someone trying to top from the bottom. No wonder I can’t stand Republicans.
bago
DougL: Apocalyptica.
Mark S.
I can’t imagine what a circus the Masters is going to be. Every dipshit tabloid reporter is going to be there. I wonder why Tiger didn’t play in some tournament earlier, just so it might die down a bit.
J. Michael Neal
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Someone at Minnesota. We’ll try just about anything in order to try to forget about our miserable excuse for a football team.
Mark S.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I still have no idea what a bobo is supposed to be. As for Bobo, I don’t understand how he got the most valuable real estate in punditry. I guess he’s just a conservative that northeastern liberals can stand.
Comrade Kevin
@Wile E. Quixote: That was supposed to be funny?
Pseudonym
@different church-lady:
Bobo’s middle-class buddy would be using a SoundBlaster X-Fi Midrange Hardworking Exurban Heartland Family, not some snooty latte-sipping elitist “professional” sound card.
Martin
@Mark S.: Because the Masters is actually geared up to deal with every dipshit tabloid reporter. The lesser tournaments aren’t.
Joel
the whole idea of golf as the “middle class” sport is laughable. a generation ago, the country clubs of america were defined by two sports: golf and tennis. during the seventies and eighties, communities around the country began constructing tennis courts – this was done about as easily as building a basketball court – and middle class america began to play. golf remained a sport largely reserved for the elites and the associated aspirational culture meant big sponsorship dollars for golfers and golf tournaments.
needless to say, if bobo wanted to see “middle america” at the golf course, he could always talk to the ground crews and the waitstaff in the clubhouse.
robertdsc
A Bobo is a Bourgeois Bohemian from Brooks’ book, “Bobos In Paradise”.
I have it but have not read it yet.
asiangrrlMN
I golfed once. One of the most incredibly-frustrating experiences I’ve ever had in my life. Never tried again, never cared to try again. I only watch golf when Tiger is playing (and whatever, I’ll still watch him), but it certainly does not seem like a middle-class sport to me.
@J. Michael Neal: You mean the football team who demanded a brand-new stadium for the eight games a year they play at home? Oh yeah. That sucky team.
P.S. Bobo reads exactly like Friedman. That disturbs me.
asiangrrlMN
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): OK, this is just fucking fantastic. Seriously. If she wouldn’t mind, I’d love to hear a clip of her playing.
Mark S.
I guess Chris Rock decided not to put this on his HBO show several years back. I found it fucking hilarious.
via
asiangrrlMN
@Mark S.: Man, that’s some funny shit right there. You are forgiven for the John Ashcroft link yesterday.
@Mark S.: #Peers suspiciously at you#. What did you do with the books?
Mark S.
@asiangrrlMN:
They are practically indistinguishable. It’s kind of embarrassing, because I used to like Friedman and actually bought some of his books a long time ago (this was well before The World Is Flat and I Learned So Much From Sucking All These CEO’s Off).
Mark S.
@asiangrrlMN:
Hey, no one made you watch that. I’ve never gotten farther than 30 seconds.
asiangrrlMN
@Mark S.: My OCD, it kicked into overdrive, and I just. couldn’t. stop. Shudder. But this more than makes up for it. I watched it twice!
chowkster
How does he know that the IT guy was Indian? He could be a Pakistani or Bangladeshi. Also, middle class INdian guys like me play cricket, not golf.
Mark S.
@chowkster:
That one’s easy. Bobo’s never heard of those other countries.
MikeJ
@Mark S.: He simply refuses to recognize partition.
MikeJ
Second good april fools of the day, the new xkcd command line interface.
different church-lady
@Mark S.:
Hmmm… one has a mustache, one doesn’t… one wear glasses, the other doesn’t… couldn’t be… MULTIPLE IDENTITIES, could it?
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@different church-lady:
Because I don’t like the salad bar at Applebees? ;)
@bago:
Is that the four cellists? She dragged me over to the computer listen to them play Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters like two days ago…lol! As she said “They know how to express themselves through their instruments”.
They rocked out royally on that clip. I love to see good musicians at work (in the Angus Young-vein of getting into what you are doing). Excellent to listen to and beautiful to watch.
@ Pseudonym: “Bobo’s middle-class buddy would be using a SoundBlaster X-Fi Midrange Hardworking Exurban Heartland Family, not some snooty latte-sipping elitist “professional” sound card.”
That’s why I went with the Elite Pro model, just to piss off Real Amurikans.
@ asiangrrlMN: “OK, this is just fucking fantastic. Seriously. If she wouldn’t mind, I’d love to hear a clip of her playing.”
I’m working on getting her over her ‘studio shyness’ which is real odd because she loves to play in front of people yet she hates recording herself because she is her worst critic. I am going to have to be sneaky and snag a few clips of her while she is not aware that the recorder is running so she will relax and keep her mind on playing. She has been playing violin, cello and bass almost all of her life (started at 7 years of age) and has been on all kinds of small stages and parades throughout school including being the soloist (violin) for her high school. Odd to be in fear of gear but I have seen guitarists who are the same way. They love to play for others but hate going into a studio setting for recording.
I have been recording some of my stuff lately (guitarist) and have been leaving the recording gear out where it is behind her while she is playing. I’m being sneaky and going in and out of the room a few times while she is playing so she gets used to it and won’t notice when I hit the record button one of these days. Once she hears herself play without knowing she was recorded I am hoping I can convince her to get over her ‘gear fear’.
Then I will be very happy to post some of her playing. Trust me, it will be worth the wait. :)
fucen tarmal
ok, folks are missing the real reason brooks is out of touch, he is playing golf with his wife, no other couple, just he and his wife, that is a party foul, i don’t care what class you are, or claim to aspire to, or claim to describe….
seriously, how can he be a product of the suburban d.c. mentality when he clearly has no friends?or is golf such an anathema to his friends, that when he was doing “research” the only person he could rope into going along, was his dutiful wife. at least by writing about it, he can write off the whole experience, on his taxes…which is the important thing here…
on the subtopic of republicans being subs, in the whole s&m thing, i find this doubtable. to be a submissive typically is an expression of deep guilt feelings i do not think republicans, by and large, possess.
meh
Bullshit – there are no Indian guys at that course. That is a lily white area of town.
bago
Grr. Stupid spamfilter..
EPIC.
bago
Very Epic.
someguy
Who the fuck died and made you Sarah Cleghorn?
I golf, or at least used to until I moved from a blue collar job (construction, union, thanks) into a white collar job (lawyer, not yours thank Gaia). Most of the guys I used to golf with were upscale blue collar. They had middle class money and got off work at 4:30 or earlier if the construction day started before dark. The parking lot, including the lots at the really good courses, was row after row of pickup trucks. There were a few country clubs and I guess they’re elitist, but golf is really middle class these days. None of the people I work with now have time to golf, though we fantasize about doing so. Maybe when we retire – or semi-retire, nobody knows any fully retired lawyers – there will be time… The doctors in my family don’t have time for golf either. So much for the privileged leisure class.
Now if you said it’s a Republican sport, I’d agree with you.
bago
Amerika! Very OT.
RedKitten
Who in their right mind thinks golf is a middle-class sport? The only people I know who golf regularly are definitely what one would call “comfortable”.
But someone else said, to him, middle-class is anybody who drives a Lexus and not a BMW. In the meantime, those of us driving Fords and Hondas don’t even exist.
It’s really amazing the willful blindness that the wealthy have towards the non-wealthy. When I found out that my prior job was ending, I was discussing my concerns with my (v. wealthy) boss. I said that because I was on mat leave, I would be ineligible for unemployment insurance. And thus, I would have to find a new job by July or else we would not be able to make our mortgage payments and would lose our home. I swear, I might as well have been speaking Farsi for all the comprehension he had. He was all, “Oh, it’s not so bad as that, surely! Heh heh heh!” Even when I disclosed our household income to him, the lights still weren’t turning on. For someone with a million-dollar beach home and an equivalently priced condo in the city, the entire concept of not being able to make your mortgage payments on a modest 3 bedroom home was just not computing.
Jaybird
Bobo and the Moustache of Understanding are matching Bookends of Banality.
I honestly can’t read more than two paragraphs by either one, before I find my self muttering “Jesus Christ, what an idiot”.
RedKitten
@someguy: Probably depends on where you live. Membership rates can be incredibly pricey in some places. Here, they’re not too bad ($800 a year), but still more than I can comfortably pay. In larger communities, it can be much pricier.
Ash Can
@asiangrrlMN:
Friedman, hell. I’m beginning to suspect he’s Brick Oven Bill.
mike
Reminds me of Andy Griffith’s What is was, was football. Go Badgers!
KXB
I know quite a few Indians who golf, my big brother for one. And there are plenty of Indians in the DC area, which by many estimates is the second largest hub of IT entreprenurship after Silicon Valley. Indians still have a soft-spot for government jobs. Being a bigwig at NIH is different and carries a better cachet in some circles than toiling at the dozens of startups in Northern Virginia.
Original Lee
@dr. bloor: There are no Applebee’s in Potomac. Potomac, Maryland is only middle-class the way a Lincoln Town Car is middle-class.
Splendid One
Hey, forget “ball” golf, the game of the future is disc golf, growing 12-15% every year. Costs less in time and money, is more environmentally friendly, and incredibly egalitarian. Trying to describe the “average” disc golfer I know would be hard indeed, since they range from many unemployed trades people to doctors and lawyers.
mousebumples
@mike: My family and I went to a Badger game last year (my sister goes to college there, so she got us tickets), and my sister, my dad, and I were all wearing red. It wasn’t until we started walking into the game that my mom clued in on why we were wearing red – I think she’d worn a purple shirt that day.
Also, Badger games are awesome for all of the fun chants/traditions that the students do. Some are less than PG-13 (the call and response of “Eat Sh*t” / “F-You,” for one), but others are more family friendly – like the repeating of “First and Ten Wisconsin” with each first down that the team scores. And watching the student in the Bucky costume do a pushup for every point the Badgers have scored after each subsequent score is also kinda entertaining.
Anyhow, to echo mike – go Badgers!
Allan
It sure is great for David Brooks that one can come to conclusions about humans without, you know, actually talking to them to find out if they conform to your stereotype.
Mike in NC
Picture him squatting in the undergrowth, peering through binoculars and scribbling in his journal. Probably wearing a pith helmet and safari jacket, too.
daverave
Shorter Bobo:
Less yakking and more hacking, please.
asiangrrlMN
@bago: Just saw this. Seconded. Love them very much.