Shawn Peters: No Pun Intended

On The Tee: Peters Single (May 16, 2010)

I am a golfer.   

I'm not very good, but I'm not very bad either, which I suppose is saying something. I am an average golfer, equally capable of crisp irons and skulled wedges. As such, I feel comfortable playing with all types of other golfers, knowing that I likely won't slow down better players, nor will I lose my patience with all but the worst hackers and duffers. 

Often, I play alongside people I know in a pre-ordained foursome comprised of friends and family.  But just as often, II head to courses across this nation alone, a "single" in golf parlance, and have my playing partners chosen by fate, timing, and the whims of a golf shop starter who looks down his ledger and looks for open slots to fill.

I've spent dozens of days on the course observing wonderful people with wretched swings, watching them post scores that resemble the weigh-in for a junior welterweight fighter. I've played alongside miserable sons-of-bitches who play the game like self-loathing poets, creating beauty out of shaped shots and elegant backspin, only to tear apart their masterpiece if you dare flatter them.

Most of all, what I've learned is that when you play golf as a single, you tend to remember the characters you played with long after the actual score you shot has disappeared into a scorecard-choked pocket in your golf bag. For years, I've toyed with the idea of profiling my rounds as an unplanned playing partner, painting portraits of the strangers I meet for a span of four or five hours at a time. 

After addressing the ball for far too long, this is my first swing at it.

Ego and the Oracle on Radio

Jim's Big Ego did a set today on WERS (Emerson's Radio Station)   and a portion of it was spent plugging the show and giving the on-air host a customized answer to her question. Click below to listen... and in advance, I apologize for desecrating the airwaves with my nasal twang. (oh, and you can see the whole show Thursday, 8:30 PM at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge... be there or be their.)

Live on WERS 4-13-2010

No Longer Down With the Sickness

"Daddy, I kind of like being sick... except for the sick part."

My daughter may be on the way to being a master manipulator, but yesterday, as she was reclining on the couch with a cup of tea and The Simpsons on our DVR, her slight fever, runny nose and side-order of pink eye had Hazel off her game enough to be honest. 

And if I'm being honest, I knew exactly what she was saying. There was a time when I enjoyed being sick too.

Day 4 - Kicking Lame

Over the years, when I've told people that I met my wife at age 19 and was married when I was 23, I've gotten many responses about the fact that I apparently majored in monogamy with a minor in "don't even think of looking at her."

Some of the common comments and questions include,  "How did you know she was 'the one' for you?" "Wow, that's a long time to be with just one woman." "Was it an arranged marriage?" "Are you crazy? Do you have any idea what you missed?"

Good questions one and all, but they pre-suppose the idea that had I not fallen in love forever at an age when most young men fall in love eleven times a day, I might've met someone else... or multiple someone elses... who would've wanted me. Maybe they're right. Maybe back in my heyday, I was a little bit of a catch. I was healthy, strapping, and totally supported financially by my parents. But even if that was true then, it ain't so now, and personally, I think I made a wise investment and "sold" when my value as a mate was at its peak. I may not have been Enron, but EnShawn ain't too far off.

Day 5 - CritiSchism

If I said to you, "That pasta you made last night was amazing. The scallops were seared perfectly, the asparagus was firm, but tender, and the sauce was absolutely delicate. It was so good, I almost cried when there wasn't enough for seconds." How would you you feel? 

Good? Flattered? Proud? Or would you have  a gnawing feeling that what I was really saying was, "You didn't make enough food and I left the table hungry."

The fact is, people hear what they want to hear, and when it comes to anything critical or, God forbid, negative, it's sometimes all they hear.

Case in point. The Boston sports world is abuzz after the Boston Globe's Dan Shaughnessey, a well known controversy-monger, wrote an article about the team's star first-slash-third baseman, Kevin Youkilis. It started out being about the popular player's versatility, but halfway through, it became a quote-fest of Youkilis criticizing the fans and media in Boston for being negative and reactionary. This, from a guy who sounds like he's getting booed every time he comes to the plate, but only because 35,000 people are cheering "Yooooooooooouuuuuuuuuk!" This is not a guy who is disliked by one but Yankee fans, and who cares what they think.

Day 6 - Birthdazed and Confused

I think I'm ready to stop having birthdays, and believe it or not, it has very little with not wanting to get older. In fact, I think it's all about the inability to get younger, or at least reclaim a little of my youth.

There are entire schools of human psychology that  believe the personality flaws and quirks we have as adults are the result of what we wanted or needed but didn't get as children. That's certainly what Freud believed, though he mucked it all up with a bunch of stuff about pooping and eating and wanting to sleep with our mothers. But once you get past the gross stuff, there's no question he was definitely big into the whole equation of "unrequited childhood desire = grown up therapy sessions."

I'm not sure I agree across the board, but when it comes to my birthday, as the Monkees sang, "I'm a believer" because try as I might... and try as my wife and parents might... there's a better chance of me being named Head of Homeland Security and Bikini Inspection than there is of me being happy and satisfied on the day my age-o-meter turns over.

My birthday is this Sunday, August 30th, and I will celebrate it by boarding a plane to Los Angeles for work. It may sound like a downer, but it's actually more ironic than anything else, because from age seven on, through the rest of my childhood, adolescence and teendom, I lived in Los Angeles and usually celebrated my birthday by getting on a plane... to Boston. 

Day 14 - An Ode to... Oh Dear

95 Degrees and Golfing

With a simple shrug of my shoulders, 

I forget the balls I lost.

No ill will do I harbor towards

the water it failed to cross.

Magnanamous in defeat am I, 

I forgive the club I tossed.

I do not begrudge the unholy hole

For the three-foot putt I missed.

In truth the cup was merely amorous

The only lip I kissed.

No broken heart would I endure,

If I had not broken my wrist.

Nor malice do I hold tonight

though my swing, at times, did slice.

Causing me to roar a "Fore!"

Not once or even twice.

The fairway found was rarely my own

But I roughly pay that price.

So what, you ask, has left this man

With a bitterness his maw?

What injury did golf inflict

That's left him oh so raw?

The chafing... ay there's the rub

That's sticking in my craw.

Day 15 - Bye Lines

This isn't my only new work in print today. I have a 400-word piece (at that length, it's really a piece of a piece) in today's Boston Globe Sunday Magazine. Usually, I write an e-mail to all my friends and family a few days in advance to alert them so everyone can  look out for it and the ones who actually get the Globe can read and frame the article. (To be fair, only my mother does that last part... but she may be the only one reading this post, so I'm playing to my audience.) I also usually give my columns a little run up on my Facebook page as well. It's all part of the paltry PR machine that I run with a minimum of effort.

However, I had to be reminded by that same mother I mentioned earlier that I had a Globe column today. Frankly, I'd forgotten. Part of that has to do with the fact that I've had a "new article" every day for more than three weeks as part of my "38 and Counting" blog-a-thon and birthday task. When you're pimping your wares for 23 straight days, sometimes you forget when you've got a "special" to advertise.

But I think there's another reason I didn't give this latest piece of major media the "major media" treatment. It's because I have learned a small lesson about dangers of letting it feel like a big deal.

Day 16 - The Worrier's Creed

Two days... no Domino.

Sara and the kids left for Maine mid-week, and I was out late on Thursday. When I got home, I was greeted by Mahjmallow, our all-white, demure and  domestic female cat. She wanted some attention and some food and some water, so I obliged. But there was no sign of her brother, Domino. 

No biggie.

Domino, with his black fur, save two white spots on his underside, is more independent, prone to spending the entire day our jungle of a back yard, chasing turkeys and catching smaller prey. Several times this summer, Sara and I have awoken to gory feathered presents left in our bedroom from his nights out hunting. 

But he wasn't around in Friday morning either, even when I refilled the cats' metallic food bowls, each Meow Mix nugget making a telltale "clinkety-plink" that usually calls both felines in a hurry. Domino was a Domi-no-show when I got home last night as well. I opened bags of treats and pleaded with Mahjmallow, "Where is your brother?" Needless to say, if she knew the answer, she wasn't talking.

I waited all night for Domino to turn up, but it never happened, and so as I drifted off to fitful sleep, I worried. I worried about what might have become of Domino, and what I'd tell the kids, and when I should tell them, and whether we'd be allowed to adopt another cat if we were honest about the fact that we let our cats outside. I worried about everything... because that's what I do.

Day 20 - End of an E.R.A.

I spent most of tonight writing about baseball, but only sorta. I wrote about who I'd rather have for the rest of the season and why. I examined E.R.A.s and  O.B.P.s and urged my readers to make offers like there's no tomorrow.

I wasn't exaggerating. In fantasy baseball, there is no tomorrow... at least there won't be after Friday, because that's when the trading deadline will end all dealing for 2009. 

But there's also "no tomorrow" for me as a fantasy columnist for ESPN.com. This marks my last column for the biggest sports website/network in the world.