(Second of a five-part series.)

4. A Band is Born: 1974-75

Feeling confident that, along with Ken Sandler, they now had a solid core to work from, Doug and Mark set about to find their fledging band another guitarist, hence the arrival of Ken “The Cat” McDougal (forefront, with Mark on drums at a 1975 practice). In a 1979 interview, McDougal recalled how he was brought into the fold: “It was around ‘73 or ‘74 that Mark - who I already knew from both school and church - mentioned how he and his brother were working on getting a new band together with this other guy named Ken. I only remember this because I can recall thinking we’d then have have two guitarists named Ken! Anyways, not only did I play guitar, but I had my own equipment as well - something that must have obviously impressed [them]. Anyways, it wasn’t long before I began practicing with them.” As for McDougal’s nickname? “That was a Jerry thing”, says Mark (referring to keyboardist Jerry “Keys” Palma, whom McDougal would later recruit for the band). “I don’t remember how or why Jerry gave him that nickname - I doubt it was anything complimentary - but for whatever reason, it stuck.”

Ken Sandler had always been an enigma to Doug and Mark when it came to committing himself to the band they were trying to form. Doug recalls: “It was around this time Ken was starting to break away on his own. I remember visiting him at his new basement apartment in Lowell some time in early ‘74 and trying to get him to formally commit, since he would be hot to join the group one day, then cool the next. When he showed up, I mean it was fantastic! The guy could play almost anything - his musical ear was instinctive by nature - and we worked well together as a group, but he ended up marrying this local chick and that was pretty much the last we saw of him.”

Sandler’s value to the group can best be illustrated by a cassette tape still in existence where the band is working on the Bachman-Turner Overdrive song, “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet”. The group attempts three takes of the song, and, while it is obviously coming along well, the takes are somewhat sterile in nature, remaining quite faithful to the BTO hit. There then follows a fourth take, and it’s clear from the sounds on the tape that Sandler has suddenly arrived on the scene - immediately, the atmosphere sounds charged and the band is clearly psyched. Starting with some meandering Sandler licks behind The Cat’s intro (he’s obviously working on his solo part), the song virtually explodes off the tape and the group nails it to a “T”. Sandler’s solo is crisp, virtuosic, and Fogerty-sounding, and the group gives him plenty of room for an extended workout. As the song comes to a crashing end, the air is filled with whoops and shouts of enjoyment: the band had cooked, and for a single precious moment, all was right with the world.

Unfortunately, that would be the last time Sandler would ever join in with the group, as he shortly thereafter, in Doug’s words, “dropped off the face of the earth”. The group now needed a new guitar player, and it would be through Mark’s boss at Tewksbury Aluminum & Hardware, Al Thibeault, that the legendary guitarist “The Bouch” would join the group. Top Priority was about to be born, and, with a new keyboard player anticipating his arrival, the rock music world would forever remain the same.

5. The Palma/Bouch Era: 1975-76

With Sandler now officially out of the picture, it became obvious that the fledging group would need to add replacement personnel. It was thus in mid-to-late 1975 that three major events in the band’s life took place: 1) The addition of keyboard player Jerry “Keys” Palma; 2) the addition of guitar player “The Bouch”; and 3) Mark’s and Doug’s exposure to The Beach Boys. All three would play a significant role in moulding and shaping the sound of the band that would come to be known as “Top Priority”.

Jerry Palma

History records that it was via The Cat that keyboard player Jerry “Keys” Palma (shown here in a 1976 publicity photo) came into the band. As Doug remembers, “Yeah, Jerry came into the band as a direct result of Ken Sandler’s lack of commitment. Even if Ken had ultimately joined the group, we still would have brought Jerry in. Not only was he a talented player who could play keyboards and a little guitar as well, he was a good guy, and not many bands back then could claim to have a bonafide keyboard player.” The other quality Palma brought to the group was his musical expertise and a wider exposure to pop music that the group was not just lacking, but, in Doug’s mind, sorely needed as well. “Jerry liked music with a little harder edge – music we hadn’t really been exposed to – stuff like Queen, Thin Lizzy, and the like. His feet were still rooted in the same Top 40 sounds that we were; he just liked the songs we ordinarily wouldn’t have normally gravitated to.” Palma’s Sound City electric piano also created a different sonic foundation for the group: the guitar-based rock of the Sandler era was now over, and the band could venture into different kinds of musical ideas.

“The Bouch”

The impact of guitarist “The Bouch” (right, with The Cat at a 1975 practice) on both the sound and the fortunes of the band cannot be overestimated, for it was The Bouch who brought with him a disco hairdo, and a desire to not simply be satisfied making music, but to actually make money playing it. Mark recalls: “It was through Al Thibeault at Tewksbury Aluminum and Hardware that The Bouch was referred to us. Al and I were pretty close - he wanted to hook me up with his daughter - and he knew this guitar player from Lowell who he thought would be a good fit for our vacancy”. Several years later, Jerry Palma would recall The Bouch’s impact and influence on the band: “Yeah, The Bouch. No question ‘dude had a diff’rent outlook on music than the rest of us. I think we were more concerned with playing the kind of music we liked – for us, it was kind of a hobby, really – whereas he was more interested in playing music we’d get paid for. It was also The Bouch who came up with the idea calling us ‘Top Priority’, and putting us in white leisure suits with bell-sleeved, open-necked red shirts. Very ‘70s… he was definitely a man of the times.”

Mark still remembers the debate over the band’s name. “We’d been tossing around the idea of calling ourselves ‘Kittyhawk’, but The Bouch felt that the name wasn’t suitable for the kinds of gigs he thought we should be interested in pursuing, like weddings and dances. Same with Al [Thibeault], who, I think, fancied himself as some kind of enterpreneur and being our Brian Epstein, or something like that. He too thought we should have a more commercial-sounding name as well. So, I guess you could call it our first sell-out. Looking back, it’s probably just as well – we weren’t good enough to make any money as a real rock band, anyways. So, in the end, Doug and I decided we’d show them - we’d paint ‘Kittyhawk Productions Presents Top Priority’ on my bass drum head (along with the chick in the bikini standing in front of the palm tree, but that’s a story for another time…), so we kind of compromised on that.”

The band set up its headquarters in the cellar of Mark’s and Doug’s house. “We used to practice in [the] cellar”, recalled McDougal in a 1979 interview. “It was like our own private club. We painted the walls lime green and hung posters to make it a true ‘band hangout’ – a ‘Jaws’ movie poster, Olivia Newton-John, The Beatles – stuff we liked. Their parents and grandfather used to watch TV upstairs while we’d be practicing, and they sure must have gotten sick of us playing the same songs over and over, and having to turn their TV volume up loud.” The idea of a band practicing right below them couldn’t have made watching television too much fun, but Doug recalls that his parents never made it much of an issue. “God bless them, they always supported our craft and were very patient and understanding, especially since we weren’t very good. I don’t recall too much complaining on their part – maybe a recommendation that we turn the volume down, or perhaps consider trying a different song from time to time – you know, that kind of thing…”

Unlike Ken Sandler’s earthy, improvisational rockin’ style borne out his love for John Fogerty’s swampy blues-rock, The Bouch’s abilities on the guitar were far more, er, measured, and therefore, the band’s sound suffered for it. While he undoubtedly had some talent, it was hard to get him to contribute significantly and lead the group in a particular musical direction, sound-wise. Three decades later, Doug reflects on the differences between Sandler and The Bouch: “Maybe it was just that The Bouch had such crappy equipment and crappy musical taste; I think at one time he even wanted us to play that stupid trucker hit, ‘Convoy’ since he had a CB radio in his car. We were always trying to encourage him to put an edge into his playing, but that was something that was never there. I suppose we could have replaced him with another guitarist, but he had that van [to carry equipment], and we weren’t really good enough to attract any really good players. As it was, Keys was the only one in the group with any real talent, and he just played with us ‘cause he liked hanging around with us.”

The Beach Boys

Unlike the arrival of “The Bouch” on the scene, the impact of The Beach Boys as a musical force and inspiration upon the band was cataclysmic, and cannot be overstated. Doug recalls, “One day in early ’75 my friend Bob Noftle brought over this album, a double album ‘The Beach Boys In Concert’ and tells me something like, ‘you gotta hear this, man, these guys are great!’. The two of us had been close friends in high school and huge Beatles fans, but ever since they had broken up, we had been kinda looking for the next ‘big thing’, music-wise. Mark and I had been big into Pink Floyd for several years – even before ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’, but Bob wasn’t much into their sound. Now, while I had heard some Beach Boys music before, and had even liked a number of their tunes enough to steal an 8-track of one of their ‘Best of’ albums while I worked at Zayre’s department store a few years before, I was totally unprepared for how the music on that album blew me away. I liked their look too – they looked kinda hairy and cool looking, so I immediately went out and bought myself a copy. When I played it for Mark, he was blown away too. We were both totally hooked, just as if we had smoked crack cocaine for the first time. From then on, it was pretty much all Beach Boys, all the time for us.

“Mark and I attended a Beach Boys concert at Boston Garden - it must have been in late ‘75. They had the most incredible stage set we had ever seen! Very retro, kinda like the film ‘Chinatown’. Everything seemed white - white amplifiers, white Fender guitars, a white grand piano with a tiffany lamp on it, palm trees, oriental rugs – the works. Of course, we had to emulate that, so we immediately went out and bought phony palm trees and cheap oriental rugs that we could bring with us as part of our own stage setup. If we could have figured out how, we probably would have repainted our black amplifiers in white. As it was, Mark built a piano stand for Jerry’s keyboard that we of course painted white. The white color for our leisure suits might have also been a result of that concert experience, ‘cause I think a number of the Beach Boys were dressed in white at that concert, and we thought that was pretty cool.”

Mark continues: “We then started buying up every Beach Boys album we could find, and since at that time America was also re-discovering them in a big way, a lot of their late ‘60s/post-surf era stuff was starting to get re-packaged. There were these double album re-issues of their ‘Wild Honey’ and ‘20/20’, and ‘Smiley Smile’ and ‘Friends’ albums, both with watercolor pastel paintings of a bikini-clad girl standing on a beach in front of a big palm tree on the covers. Doug and I both went bananas over this, to the point where I actually ended up painting one of those album figures on my drum head, then accentuating it by rigging up a light that would flash inside the drum so that the girl and palm tree would light up whenever I wanted. The funny thing was, we weren’t really good enough as vocalists or players to do a whole lot of Beach Boys music, but their impact on us at the time was tremendous.”

The Music

As Top Priority, the band came to learn a wide range of music and styles – after all, weddings and dances required a lot of songs and a varied repertoire. Doug remembers, “We were big into Top 40 rock and pop – stuff like America, the Eagles, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Creedence, The Doobie Brothers – you know, stuff that people could either dance to or listen to over dinner. For weddings, we’d load up on instrumentals and soft rock: I remember inventive arrangements of ‘Yesterday’, and Olivia Newton-John’s ‘Let Me Be There’ that we’d enjoy doing, and The Bouch could warble ‘Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Crying’ OK. On top of this, we’d play the usual kind of wedding stuff you still hear today – ‘Tie A Yellow Ribbon’, ‘The Hokey Pokey’, ‘Misirlou’ for the Greek dance, ‘Tea for Two’ for a cha-cha, Bobby Vinton’s ‘Una Paloma Blanca” for a polka, some disco; a little bit of everything. Nothing great, mind you, just a lot of stuff that was passable for a band being paid on the cheap. We were just a little combo playing local gigs here and there that no one else would ever think of doing.”

But, as Mark recalls, that didn’t mean the band wasn’t also capable of some fine performances. “I suppose we considered BTO’s ‘You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet’ and the Bay City Rollers‘ ‘Saturday Night’ our signature tunes, as The Cat did a great job singing both those songs and they always got a good response. Some of our other best stuff? The Beatles’ ‘Get Back’, America’s ‘Ventura Highway’, Creedence’s ‘Green River’, and the Doobie Brothers’ ‘China Grove’. My brother did a great vocal on ‘Get Back’ and Jerry would do The Doors’ ‘Light My Fire’, but The Cat sang lead on most of our stuff, and he was OK.” Doug says the group also prided itself in playing songs that were not so well-known but simply because they liked them. “The Cat really liked Cat Stevens, so we’d do a few of his tunes, like ‘Father and Son’; I also sang lead on Creedence’s ‘Cross-Tie Walker’, and, of course, we did Beach Boys stuff that few people would have heard before, but did them simply for the enjoyment of learning and playing them.”

Next: Glory Days: 1976

—————–

Excerpted from “The Band That Never Changed Rock: The Definitive History of Top Priority” by Victor N. Cugini, soon to be published by Permanent Press.

(First of a five-part series.)

“Top Priority? Never heard of ‘em” – Jan Wenner, publisher, Rolling Stone

1. Origins and Influences

It was the spring of 1969, and America was being torn apart by civil strife. Two years removed from the so-called “Summer of Love” and the Red Sox’ “Impossible Dream” year of 1967, the national spirit of love, peace, and hope had given way to a darker, more violent mood. Vietnam was raging, college campuses across the country were erupting in ever-increasing violent protest, and the positive vibes of “Woodstock” would soon give way to the Manson murders, Altamont, Kent State, and the deaths of Hendrix, Morrison, Janis, and Mama Cass.

In the bucolic town of Tewksbury, Massachusetts, however, all of this seemed far away, indeed. Situated in the Merrimack Valley thirty miles northwest of Boston, Tewksbury in those days was a quiet, middle-class town where families struggled to make ends meet pursuing the “American dream”. The world was a much smaller place then – in the summer, weekends were for cookouts and mowing the lawn, perhaps a family outing to the ocean or a local lake; in winter, the snow would fall and the morning and evenings would be filled with the sounds of snow shovels scraping against driveways and walkways. In short, Tewksbury was like any number of small towns across the country at that time – honest, hard-working, moving along with the tide of the times.

Like most teenagers their age, Doug Richard and Ken Sandler were crazy about rock music. The two had met in junior high school and discovered that whatever differences they might have had in their home lives – Doug’s was just as stable, loving, and nurturing as Ken’s was harsh and dysfunctional – they shared the same musical tastes shaped and molded by the Top 40 radio of the day – The Beatles, The Monkees, the Stones, and Creedence Clearwater Revival were favorites, with popular country artists like Glen Campbell and Johnny Cash adding a little breadth and depth to their musical influences.

After school, Doug would ride his bicycle down to Ken’s house and the two would talk and share their thoughts about music as Ken performed his afternoon chores. Ken played guitar and was actually pretty good at it, honing his technique and skills by listening to John Fogerty’s licks on any number of Creedence 45s he would plop down on his record player over and over, trying to replicate them on his acoustic guitar. While Doug hadn’t learned to play any musical instrument while growing up, he had attained a keen ear for music, having grown up listening to his parents’ Frank Sinatra, Broadway musical, and, most especially, Herb Alpert records. Doug also enjoyed writing, and he and Ken fancied that between them, one day they might learn to write songs together, make millions of dollars, and attract pretty girls.

2. The Instamatic Vibration: 1969-70

It was Ken who first came up with the idea of starting a band. He and another student at Tewksbury High School, John Dunham, a quiet, pudgy kid from the poor Brown Street section of South Tewksbury, had somehow met and discovered that they too had a common interest in making music. How Ken and Dunham had hooked up is lost to antiquity - Doug believes it might have been through the Tewksbury 4H Club - but it wasn’t long after that the two somehow learned of a drummer named Ricky Cefalo, and the three decided to try and put a band together. With two guitars and drums, Ken knew the band needed a bass player, but was unable to find one; hence, he asked Doug if he would be willing to learn to play bass. While Doug was skeptical about the idea, he too had caught the “band bug” and wanted to help out his friend, so the two punched holes in Ken’s old Sears Silvertone acoustic, slapped on a pickup, and Ken began teaching Doug how to play bass using the top two strings of the guitar. The foursome began to practice together, and named themselves “The Instamatic Vibration”.

To this day, Doug recalls the first time he ever experienced the sensation of a band playing live, with him a part of it. “We were set up in the Cefalo’s living room and it was a sight to see – drum kit, guitars, amplifiers, mike stands, cords everywhere across the floor, the amplifiers buzzing, the sounds of Ken and John tuning up, and then Ken and I tuning our guitars up. It all seemed very foreign, yet exciting to me. Then, a four-count in by Ken, the guitars playing those three chords over and over, the snap of a snare drum, and the sound of ‘Gloria’ (your classic garage band three-chord standard) pouring out at an ear-shattering volume. It probably sounded awful – remember, we were just kids who barely knew how to play – but to me, it sounded like heaven on earth. Man, I was hooked!

“I’ve always believed that the experience of playing in a band where everyone’s cookin’ and on the same page, and the audience is diggin’ you as much as you are diggin’ the whole experience is beyond anything I’ve ever experienced – better than sex, better than a religious experience, better than anything. I think that’s why so many musicians go the route of drugs, alcohol, and destructive behavior – they’re trying to recapture somehow that over-the-top incredible high that playing music as part of a band unit brings.”

Unfortunately for The Instamatic Vibration, the early good times didn’t last. Ken Sandler’s work schedule got in the way, and Dunham had no money to upgrade his equipment beyond the rudimentary guitar and amplifier he owned. “His family seemed so poor”, Doug recalls. “I remember the three of us practicing in his house – well, you couldn’t even really call it a house, it was basically a tiny cabin his family lived in. I don’t even think it had rugs or curtains – it was just a wooden cabin with wooden floors and tiny rooms.” Because none of the group could really sing, Ken tried to enlist his girlfriend at the time to sing lead – something that the rest of the group resented, ultimately leading to its demise.

Doug remembers the end all too well: “Well, Ken had tried to get his girlfriend – I think her name was Joyce Boyer – to sing with the group, but no one was really in favor of it. We were a garage band – primarily Creedence, the Beatles, the Stones – that kind of stuff, while Joyce, if I remember correctly, came from a kind of a pop standard or country background – like Anne Murray doin’ ‘Snowbird’, that kind of crap. Anyways, we hadn’t played much before audiences as a group – I think we might have done one thing before some high school assembly or something like that. Anyways, Ken volunteered us for this gig at the 4H Fair in Westford, and there we were, on the Friday night program under the entertainment tent – The Instamatic Vibration! We thought it would be like The Beatles playing Shea Stadium… [Laughs]

“…Ricky must have had a sense of disaster looming and never showed. This was bad, since I, the so-called ‘bass player’ relied on an amplifier he owned in order to play. So there we were, Ken with his guitar and amp, and John with his gathered around one microphone, and since Ricky must have also provided our only other mike stand, I was left to hold the microphone for Joyce while she sang, looking like some total dork - I’ve got a photo of it somewhere. How bad were we? So bad that I can remember us taking a break after something like three songs, Joyce disappearing, and Ken and I calling out for her repeatedly over the 4H grounds PA system: [makes announcer sound] ‘Will Joyce Boyer please return to the entertainment tent by the rabbit cages…’ [laughs]; she was smart – she never returned. And that’s how that all ended.”

3. A New Beginning: 1973-74

Even with the demise of The Instamatic Vibration, Ken and Doug still continued to practice together and even began writing their first original songs. Doug recalls, “I remember Ken and I working on a number of songs – we were really into trying to compose our own music. One I remember distinctly - I don’t know why - was alled “Land of Snow” – it was kind of a folky, Paul Simon-influenced tune:

Alone in a land of snow
No one but you and me
Alone in a land of snow
Mmmm mmm mmmm…

We smile and whisper to each other,
We’re happy to be in love
And yet the cold wind blows…

“OK, it wasn’t great, but I remember the two of us asking my parents to come downstairs and listen to us perform it, and it came out good; two-part harmony. I ended up having a notebook full of song poems that Ken and I planned to put music to, and remember spending a lot of time in study hall during my junior and senior years just working on those songs. Those were exciting times.”

By this time, both Ken and Doug knew that if they were going to attempt another musical venture, they would need to upgrade their equipment - the 4H Fair disaster still looming large in their minds. As Doug remembers, “I wanted more than anything to buy a violin-shaped bass guitar like the Hofner model Paul McCartney used both early on and in the movie ‘Let It Be’. I was a huge Beatles fan, and to this day believe McCartney’s work on ‘Abbey Road’ to be the best single bass performance I’ve ever heard. It was after hearing his bass work on ‘Abbey Road’ that I decided I really wanted to learn to be a bass player. So, whether I paid for it myself in installments, or with the help of my parents, I found me a Greco knock-off and an amplifier, and began to learn how to play the bass properly.”

Fast forward three or four years. Doug’s brother Mark had gotten interested in music and the idea of playing the drums in a band. Mark recalls: “I was working at a place called Tewksbury Aluminum and Hardware, it was right across the street from our house. Anyways, the business was owned by a couple named Hank and Rita Fleury, whose sons had a band that played various lounges and supper clubs in the area - the Bandbox and the 3 Bs in Billerica, the Oaks and the Branding Iron in Tewksbury, small places like that. I remember their son kept his blue drumset in the back of the store where they also had a small music shop - nothing big, just guitars, music, stuff like that. They also had this beautiful red set there, and Doug bought it for me.”

For Doug, the idea of including Mark in a band came naturally: “I don’t recall if it was directly related to me and Ken practicing at the house, or whether we came up with the idea between us - more likely, the latter. I do remember us being hooked on the same kinds of music around 1970-73 – Pink Floyd especially, but other stuff as well, like the Doors, the Eagles and the Beatles’ early solo stuff. We’d take these long drives up to the North Shore and just listen to the radio and our 8-tracks and talk; it was probably during one of those drives that we decided we should just go ahead and start a band of our own.”

Tomorrow: A Band is Born: 1974-75

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Excerpted from “The Band That Never Changed Rock: The Definitive History of Top Priority” by Victor N. Cugini, soon to be published by Permanent Press.

There’s an expression we Goodboys use on the eve of our annual Goodboys Invitational golf tournament: inevitably, on Thursday night when several of us from the northern contingent (Ed. note: even though I live in Arizona, I’m still considered part of this group that lives in the Lowell/Dracut metroplex; as opposed to those members who live either on the South Shore or on the Cape, and are called the southern contingent) gather at the World Cup Driving Range in Hudson, NH to hit balls before going out for dinner and cocktails, Ben “The Funny Guy” Andrusaitis will say something to the effect, “Boys, Christmas morning is almost here!”

And so it is, as tonight begins the festivities associated with Goodboys Invitational weekend. Oh my, Santa’s elves have been especially busy this year:

* Ron “Cubby” Myerow has finished work on the official scoreboard;
* Pat “Doggy Duval” McLaughlin has the Bloody Mary makings and wet bar all arranged for Saturday and Sunday mornings;
* Kevin “Goose” Dwyer has secured our Saturday night dinner reservations;
* Mike “Vegas” Clark has been recording bets on the so-called ‘pigeon sheet’ and has been doing special wrist and finger exercises over the past several weeks so he can accurately and swiftly record the various bets tossed across the breakfast table on Saturday and Sunday mornings;
* Doug “The Great White Shank” Richard has all the paperwork associated with the Mariner Motor Lodge and Captains Golf Course reservations safely stowed in a hermetically-sealed briefcase handcuffed to his right wrist (a critical deviation from the past when he would use his left wrist);
* Steve “Killer” Kowalski has ready the Spielberg Memorial Trophy (the “Holy Grail” of the Gooboys Invitational) and the champions jackets, and has secured Friday afternoon optional golf reservations at Truro’s Highland Links course;
* Ben “The Funny Guy” Andrusaitis has spent weeks sharpening his wit;
* Paul “Possum” Shepter is, um, just planning to show. But - he’s already paid in full, so that’s OK with me.

The Great White Shank will be taking a few days off to enjoy the fun and festivities, and will be happy to report back all the highlights come next Tuesday. In the meantime, enjoy some excerpts of an upcoming book by Victor N. Cugini on Top Priority, ‘The Band That Never Changed Rock’ - a band my brother Mark and I started many moons ago.

Fore!

In keeping with the spirit of Goodboys Invitational week, here’s some more golf wisdom, courtesy of an e-mail from my Aunt Marge and Uncle Don (muchas gracias!):

* Golf can best be defined as an endless series of tragedies obscured by the occasional miracle, followed by a good bottle of beer.

* Golf! You hit down to make the ball go up. You swing left and the ball goes right. The lowest score wins. And on top of that, the winner buys the drinks.

* Golf is harder than baseball. In golf, you have to play your foul balls.

* If you find you do not mind playing golf in the rain, the snow, even during a hurricane, here’s a valuable tip: your life is in trouble.

* Golfers who try to make everything perfect before taking the shot rarely make a perfect shot.

* The term “Mulligan” is really a contraction of the phrase “maul it again.”

* A “gimme” can best be defined as an agreement between two golfers …neither of whom can putt very well.

* An interesting thing about golf is that no matter how badly you play; it is always possible to get worse.

* Golf’s a hard game to figure. One day you’ll go out and slice it and shank it, hit into all the traps and miss every green. The next day you go out and for no reason at all, you really stink.

* If your best shots are the practice swing and the “gimme putt”, you might wish to reconsider this game.

* Golf is like marriage: If you take yourself too seriously it won’t work, and both are expensive.

And, finally, here’s The Great White Shank’s favorite: “Golf is the only sport where the most feared opponent is you.”

It isn’t until The Great White Shank steps into Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport that - at least officially for me - Goodboys Invitational week begins. Which is today, as I’ll be jetting my way east to hook up with the lads for this upcoming weekend’s golf extravaganza.

What, might you ask, is involved with putting together a Goodboys weekend? Well, the complexity is definitely defined by the number of participants. This year - as in most - we have eight players divided into four teams. There have been several years in the past where we’ve had 12, and let me tell you, the work is exponentially more difficult - somewhat akin to coordinating a field trip for four-year olds or herding cats (or rabbits!), but most of the time, it’s an enjoyable thing to put together and the guys appreciate it. Let me take you through the entire planning cycle:

The planning usually begins right around the recently-instituted Goodboys Las Vegas Getaway Weekend (the weekend after the Super Bowl), where much of the conversation over dinner and cocktails involves brainstorming different ideas and approaches to that year’s event. In past years, the winning team would be responsible for coordinating the following year’s event, but now that responsibility is safely secured in the hands of the original ‘Founding Fathers’ - yours truly, Ben “The Funny Guy” Andrusaitis, Steve “Killer” Kowalski, and Pat “Doggy Duval” McLaughlin. By this time, everyone pretty much knows who is planning to be in or out for that year’s event, so the brainstorming ususally focuses in on participants and locales - typically on Cape Cod, where you still feel as if you’re getting away, and the weather is more reliable than it is, say, in the New Hampshire or Vermont mountains. We’ve learned our lesson there!

Come March, it’s time to make the actual reservations. There’s a final check with all the participants presumed to be a part of that year’s festivities and with the Founding Fathers as to where we are staying and playing golf, and then it’s just a phone call and a deposit check. Volunteers are requested to do the scoreboard (usually handled by Ron “Cubby” Myerow), run the ‘pigeon sheet’ for betting, and that kind of stuff. We’ve been doing this so long (this is our 17th year) that volunteers for various duties aren’t hard to come by.

Come May, the e-mail goes out requesting everyone’s deposit - usually $100, but a few players just send you a check for the entire amount.

Come June, the boys try to get together at some locale between the Lowell/Dracut area (northwest of Boston) and the Cape, so that everyone can see who’s game has improved or deteriorated since the previous year. It’s a great time to catch up on what’s new and happening in The ‘Nation. By this time, the teams have usually been chosen, but in some years this has been decided by competition or a blind draw at the very last minute.

And then, before you know it, it’s July, and that’s when the ‘pigeon sheet’ action slowly starts taking off. Inboxes are filled with dozens of e-mails detailing bets, daring others into bets, and basically just setting the stage for the weekend.

We’ve been doing this for so long, once the basics are taken care of, the weekend virtually runs itself. It’s just hard to believe that it’s almost here.

Now if only my golf game would rise to the same level of efficiency this weekend typically operates under, but that’s gonna require a trip or two to the range.

Got this in an e-mail from one of Tracey’s friends. It’s pretty good…

“Whenever God closes one door He always opens another, even though sometimes it’s Hell in the hallway”

Pretty true, I think - no?

Once again, the mainstream dino-media gets a story wrong when it comes to religion. Of course, how could they not? My guess is, you ask any number of AP, AFP, or Reuters employees (we’ll set 99% of the nation’s major daily newspapers and networks like CNN and MSNBC aside for now) when the last time was they worshipped at a church (note I said, “worshipped”, not “attended”) and you’re likely to get a “are you kidding?” kinda look back at ya, as if you asked them if their mother was a watermelon or orangutan or something. The fact is, the major wire services have no clue about religion whatsoever, and, even if they did, they love to take their pointed sticks out whenever the Roman Catholic Church issues a statement or document about anything and everything.

So it came as no surprise this week when, after the Vatican issued a short document reaffirming the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church as “the one true Church of Christ”, and stating that other faiths (namely, the Protestant and Orthodox churches) “lack elements considered essential to the Catholic Church”, there were gasps and rushes to judgment quicker than you could say, Mysterium Ecclesiae. Of course, if one were to take what the mainstream dino-media writes at face value, such strong statements can easily lead to misinterpretation and controversy - especially when a reporter looking for a controversial line without paying any kind of attention to the context in which these statements are offered sticks a microphone in some Protestant pastor’s face, or reads a line back to some Orthodox priest and says something to the effect, “well, what do you think about the Pope calling all youse guys ‘untrue Christians’”, or something to that effect. Well, of course they’ll be a big brouhaha, but that’s just a result of lazy reporting and/or a deliberate misrepresentation of the facts (both of which the mainstream dino-media has perfected to the nth degree over the past two decades).

The fact is, what the actual document states is, as NRO’s Corner blogger Michael Novak writes, a necessary clarification of (and, if you will, a “redefinition” of) the meaning of the word “Church”, designed to uphold the Roman Catholic Church’s sacramental teachings and doctrine after decades of that term being watered down in the spirit of the modern ecumenism movement following Vatican II. Novak nails both the media and the true spirit of the Vatican’s document in one fell swoop:

Following upon the sloppy reporting, once again by the Associated Press, as well as some others, virulent seeds of division have been sown in the Christian world, totally without necessity, it seems almost with malice (although the true cause is probably carelessness). Pope Benedict has been accused of turning back the clock on Vatican II (1962-65), regarding that Council’s teaching on the meaning of the “Church.”

In actual fact, the new document from the Vatican, more precisely the “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith”, under the American William Cardinal Levada, is quite short, not quite ten paragraphs long. It is also quite calm and reasoned in tone. It takes the form of asking 5 brief questions about how Vatican II used the term “Church.” There is really nothing new here. These questions have been asked and debated for at least thirty years now. It is simply a clear exposition, in a realm in which for some years not a few have been seeding low-lying clouds with confusion.

And Novak’s fellow Corner blogger Mike Potemra offers an even clearer picture of what the Vatican’s reasons behind the release of this document at this time might have been:

Before the Sixties, Catholics were generally forbidden even to attend, e.g., Protestant services; now the Pope himself was hosting Lutherans and Methodists. If it’s suddenly OK to be Protestant or Eastern Orthodox, why—many asked—be Catholic? What difference does it make? Today’s Vatican document is intended to clarify, especially for Catholics, the truth claim that continues to be made by Catholicism: that it constitutes the most faithful existing realization of what Christ intended when he founded a Church. This means, according to Catholic doctrine, that Protestant churches are not really the Church. Today’s Vatican document says: “These Communities [i.e., Protestant churches] do not enjoy apostolic succession in the sacrament of Orders, and are, therefore, deprived of a constitutive element of the Church. These ecclesial Communities which, specifically because of the absence of the sacramental priesthood, have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic Mystery cannot, according to Catholic doctrine, be called ‘Churches’ in the proper sense.”

This is the Vatican’s answer to the question, “Why be Catholic?”: In short, because Catholicism is more faithful to what Christ intended. Some will, no doubt, portray this as an arrogant statement, and one that represents a backtracking from ecumenism and Christian unity. But all it is, really, is a making explicit of what Catholicism really teaches. The cause of truth is not served by a failure to be honest on the part of Catholics—any more than on the part of, say, Landmark Baptists, who hold a similar belief that their denomination is the only one that technically qualifies as a “church.” Say what you believe—and then people of good will will try to sort it all out for themselves. And, as far as ecumenism is concerned, even today’s document makes clear that “there are ‘numerous elements of sanctification and of truth’ which are found outside [the Catholic Church’s] structure.” The Protestant churches “are deprived neither of significance nor importance in the mystery of salvation. In fact the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as instruments of salvation.” As a Presbyterian who grew up Catholic, I view today’s Vatican statement as fundamentally an assertion that Protestants aren’t Catholics. Fair enough, and no cause for offense.

In other words, rather than saying the Roman Catholic Church is either: a) dissing the Protestants or the Orthodox, or b) being arrogant, or c) even turning a blind eye to its problems in recent years, a more correct and honest reporting of the Vatican’s release of this document would be to simply say that, by reaffirming itself as the original Christian church with true, unabated apostolic succession, and by asserting that its own practices and doctrinal teachings regarding the sacraments are closest to what Christ Himself and His followers instituted, the Roman Catholic Church is simply restating that it is the ‘true’ Church of Christ, and the fact that all other churches in Christendom have been founded and/or established after or in protest or defiance against it makes them a step or two removed from that ‘true’ Church. In other words, as Potemra summarizes, “Protestants aren’t Catholics”, and that the latter should understand the differences between them and the former.

Exactly. So what’s the big deal?

…my boss sent this to me the other day. It’s pretty funny…

…Hmmm…I’m just hoping he’s not sending some subliminal message to me!

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BTW, my latest posts over at CrabAppleLane Blog can be found here and here They’re pretty good reading, if I do say so myself!

[Announcer:] “…With just one week to go before the 2007 Goodboys Invitational, how are the Goodboys preparing for their upcoming tournament, and what team stands the best chance of winning? Also, is Michelle Wie, a.k.a., “The Quitter” washed up before she’s even old enough for the rinse cycle? And, what will Goodboy Paul “Possum” Shepter be wearing when he takes the first tee a week from Saturday at the grueling Starboard Course at The Captains G.C. on beautiful Cape Cod? All this and more on this week’s The Grey Goose 19th Hole!”

Iain: “Good evening. I’m Iain Page, and along with me here is Charles Davis and Steve ‘The Big Dog’ Duemig.”

Charles: “Hello! Bartender, another Cosmopolitan please…”

Big Dog: “I think Michelle Wie is nothing but a spoiled brat who, by trying to play with the big boys, has ruined her golf swing to the point where she’s now reduced herself to pretty much the female equivalent of Ian Baker-Finch. And it’s not just me who thinks so, Goodboy Doug ‘The Great White Shank’ Richard thinks so as well.”

Iain: “Er, we’ll get to that in a moment, Big Dog….”

Charles: “…Besides, everyone knows the team of Ben ‘The Funny Guy’ Andrusaitis and Kevin ‘Goose’ Dwyer is going to win Goodboys this year…

Iain: “Maybe we can then get Goose on ‘The Goose’…

Big Dog: “You’re a freakin’ barrel of monkeys”, Iain. What I want to know is, what do you think Michelle would shoot at The Captains Port Course on Goodboys Sunday? I’ll betcha she doesn’t break 90.”

Charles: “I’d bet she’d quit after snowman’ing that par-5 8th. That hole is a killer…”

Iain: “Speaking of ‘Killer’, what do you think the chances are for the team of Steve ‘Killer’ Kowalski and The Great White Shank this year? What would you give them, Big Dog, a birdie or a bogey?

Big Dog: “Bogey. The Great White Shank’s game might be suitable for the Great Southwest, but up in the Northeast, where the rough is tough and trees are everywhere, he’s gonna struggle - and I don’t care how many fairway woods he carries…”

Charles: “But Killer’s game is on the upswing, so I give them a birdie. I think they have a chance.”

Iain: “Of course, everyone’s looking forward to the return of Mike ‘Vegas’ Clark and Paul ‘Possum’ Shepter after a year’s absence. This year they’re back and as a team. So, how do you think they do, Charles?”

Charles: “Er, bartender, that Cosmopolitan, if you please?”

Big Dog: “…I give them a birdie. I think they have a heckuva chance. Here’s a better bet - that this is the year Ron ‘Cubby’ Myerow gets lucky on the Cape, and I don’t mean hitting his pitching wedge 150 yeards, either!”

Iain: “Better than Goose and TFG winning it all?”

Big Dog: “Well, better than Cubby’s own team with Pat ‘Doggy Duval’ McLaughlin, that’s for sure….”

Charles: “I think Cubby has a better chance of scoring with Michelle Wie than he has of winning another Goodboys championship this year.” [Laughs]

Big Dog: “I have a better chance of scoring with Michelle Wie than Cubby does of winning the Goodboys Invitational this year!” [Both laugh]

Iain: “OK, so the Goodboys are thinking about instituting another rule at this year’s event. It won’t just be the ‘Gaylord Rule’ [Ed. note: a long-time rule instituted during Goodboys weekend named for a particularly notorious Goodboy, 'Gaylord' Perry. Under the rule, any Goodboy who says 'Gaylord' has to pay a $1 fine. Its gratuitous use over the weekend often leads to a period of open bar time after the final round on Sunday.] this year, but, speculation is, an ‘El Dandito/’Dandy Rule’ as well, commemorating the departure of long-time Goodboy ‘El Dandito’ Drewett. Birdie or bogey - does the new ‘El Dandito/Dandy Rule’ have an impact at Goodboys this year?”

Charles: “Bogey. I think the Gaylord Rule is the only true rule that should be in effect during a Goodboys weekend.”

Big Dog: “Bogey. I agree with Charles - I mean, you start doing that, what’s next? Instituting a ‘Bus Driver Rule’ [Ed. note: Ralph 'Bus Driver' Teneriello, a one-time Goodboy known for his, ahem, golfing prowess]? I mean, for gawdsakes, you won’t be able to talk about anyone!”

Iain: “I guess, Charles, we better not tell Big Dog about our own private rule…”

Charles: “That just cost you a buck, dearie…”

Big Dog: “Hey! C’mon, guys….”

Iain: “Time for last call. This week, it’s Charles’ turn to go first. Charles?”

Charles: “Thanks, Iain. This year will be the 17th Goodboys Invitational - imagine that, 17 years. Throughout that time, a number of men have been privileged to be invited to join Goodboys Nation as a participant in the Gooboys Invitational. Some have taken it for granted, some will never be able to escape it no matter how they try, and others have found the Nation too confining, and have thrown off the ‘Goodboy’ mantle quicker than a 3-foot downhill putt for par on Goodboys Sunday when the championship is on the line. I salute the remaining ‘Founding Fathers’ of the Goodboys Invitational - TGWS, Killer, TFG, and Doggy Duval - for not just keeping this event going, but, more importantly, keeping the spirit of the event going over all these years. To them, I say, ’salute!’ Have a great tournament, fellas…”

Iain: “Thanks Charles. Big Dog? …Oh crap, that just cost me a buck!”

Big Dog [evil eye towards Iain]: “My pick for this year’s championship is the team of The Funny Guy and Goose, and I sure hope it comes to pass. Goose is a good guy, and someone who doesn’t deserve the title of ‘best Goodboy never to win a Goodboys championship’. It’s a funny thing that he’s never been able to win an event. He’s been teamed with some good partners, but somehow it’s always gone down the shi**er for him. The guy’s got game, and certainly one good enough to have won by now. The fact that he’s a favorite and a winner off the course is all well and good; it’s time he took his game to another level, lead his team to his first championship, and get that monkey off his back once and for all. …One final thing - did I mention that Michelle Wie is a spoiled brat whose exploits on the golf course this year have revealed her for the prima donna she truly is? Grow up, Michelle.”

Iain: “Thanks, BD [winks at Charles]. Me, all I’m gonna say is it’s great to have the Goodboys assembling once again, and everyone here is looking forward to it. Oh, and my Goodboys pick is the team of Vegas and Possum - especially if Possum wears that fancy-colored Hawaiian mumu over his golf attire when he arrives at the first tee on Saturday. Thank you Charles, thank you, BD. See ya next time on The Grey Goose 19th Hole!”

Today is Orangemen’s day in Newfoundland. Since I’ve got a lot of Newfie in me (my grandparents on my mom’s side were from Port Blanford and Trinity East), it’s kind of an intriguing and curious thing to me. What, exactly, is Orangemen’s Day, you ask? Here’s an interesting link:

Orangemen’s Day, July 12th, commemorates the day in July 1690 when the forces of constitutionalism won out over the forces of anti-Parliamentarianism at the River Boyne in Ireland: King William of Orange, the Protestant King of England defeated former King James, a Catholic. The Orange Order was established a century after the Battle of the Boyne and steadily grew in the 19th century as a patriotic bulwark against what many Protestants saw as treasonous Catholicism. By the end of the 19th century Orangemen’s parades were commonplace in many Newfoundland communities. The parade was one part of a series of events through the day, culminating in a public dinner and dance (often called a “Time”).

However popular Orangemen’s Day has been, on the northeast coast mid-July is at the peak of the inshore cod-fishery. A single day parading and dancing might mean a loss of ten percent of a fisherman’s annual income. Thus many communities moved their Orange celebrations to the Christmas season, when no work was necessary. Thus we find Orangemen’s Times on St. Stephen’s Day (December 26th) and New Year’s Day, as well as other dates (cf. Hiscock 1997:129-134; 317-318).

A couple of thoughts: my guess this link might be a little outdated, as I don’t think there’s a whole lot of cod fishing going on around “The Rock” since the Canadian government pretty much shut down the fishing industry several years ago to stop the rapid decline of the fishing stocks there. Also, I love that dinner/dance thing being called “a ‘time’” - whenever the old Boston pols like Billy Bulger would have a fundraiser (like the big St. Patrick’s Day breakfast tradition), it’s always called a “time”. Course, the Irish and the Newfies have a lot of crossover when it comes to their cultures.

BTW, my most recent post over at CrabAppleLane Blog can be found here.