Greetings from the land of Orville and Wilbur,
As
it turns out, I’m getting ready all this new material ready for the
Fall tour. What better place to do it than the city where...people
live! I’m at a place called “The Funny Bone,” so I’m contractually obliged to take off off my shirt and show people my funny bone at least once per show.
Also off the top of my crane:
My first “I’m in the Future Also” tour dates are fast approaching at the
Newport Yachting Tent and the
Cape Cod Melody Tent,
August 15th and 27th. Gas up your yacht, dust off your tent, and
purchase a six-pack of warm Diet Pepsi. Hoping for no pirates. Also, in
response to some of your emails about Ticketmaster fees, I found out
that with most of the dates you can go to the box office to avoid fees,
but go soon because a bunch of these are almost sold out.
mike b.
And now, a story about Joe Bags....
Dear Journal,
As you know, my brother Joe has always been the entrepreneur in the family. These days he sells shirts with my jokes on them.
But when we were kids it was all about golf balls. One summer my
parents rented a house on Cape Cod. Joe decided that instead of
learning how to golf, he would scour the golf course woods and ponds
for used balls and then set up shop, selling them back to the same
people who had lost them.
Golf Balls = even more boring than golf
I
remember Joe explaining to me on the course, “Mike, sometimes snakes
think golf balls are their eggs, so you gotta reach down into those
snake holes and get’em!”
Another time Joe told me, “Get a good look in those bushes.”
And moments later I was running across a fairway, screaming while being
chased by what seemed like a swarm of yellow jackets in the shape of a
giant arrow.
Sometimes
when we looked in obscure places we would find huge troves of balls.
Like Joe would say, “Mike, I need you to climb through that hedge on
your belly and come out the other side.” And I’d emerge with 44 TOP
FLITES and my mouth, underwear and eye sockets completely filled with
mulch.
Then we’d set up shop. Our shop was the bench next to the 12th tee. If the ranger came by and asked us to leave, we’d just move to another bench: “Oh, we thought you wanted us to get the hell off that other bench.” Some people loved us, but some people were scared by us: “Where do those golf ball orphans come from? Watch your pockets, Ted.”
Sometimes old men would be really patronizing, and say things like,
“I’ll give you one dollar for all of your balls that say Titleist.” And
we’d be like, “Your one dollar better have 40 friends, old man.” We
didn’t actually say that, but we did think of it 22 years later.
No one gave our little golf ball store a lot of respect. We were like golf ball hookers.
At one point we experimented with selling sodas too. But that was way
over the line. The rangers were on our asses immediately. That's like
bringing your own popsicles to sell at Disney World.
At
the end of the summer, the golf ball business folded. The golf course
authorities asked my dad if he could have us not sell balls on the
course anymore. Something about how we were stealing and trespassing.
And a few years later, Ellie sold Dick & Ellie’s to Trader Joe’s. And to make room for their new grocery store, Trader Joe’s tore the flea market down.
And while there may be a supermarket there now, I know that the original trader Joe was Trader Joe Bags.
And that concludes this week’s entry in my secret public journal.