The Bastard-in-Chief

The guy pictured in the center used to be the editor-in-chief of The Minnesota Daily, one of the best college newspapers in the country; he composes the frequently hilarious Red Hot Shop prose for target.com; he's the commissioner of our fantasy football league, and yet, despite this pedigree and these time constraints, he still finds time to Photoshop his head on to the body of an even bigger jackass for the purpose of a fantasy football league "news" story.

It should come as no surprise, then, that he is also the tournament director for an annual golf get-together known as The Bastards (sounds kinda like The Masters, get it?). The event, in its seventh year, entails a bunch of the Bastard-in-Chief's friends descending upon a local golf course for two-man, best-ball scramble. Heckling, drunkenness, and witty T-shirts ensue (this year's slogan was taken from Anchorman: "We've been coming to the same party for seven years. And in no way is that depressing"). This year marked just my fourth appearance in The Bastards, and for the third time my playing partner was the proprietor of this blog. Somehow, we actually won this event a few years ago -- it remains infamous because Rand wore black soccer shoes, while the rest of the competitors dressed, well, less Ragstock-y. Our chief prize for the victory was a pair of red smoking jackets. If you know anything about The Masters, that's funny. Unlike The Masters, however, we had to give the jackets back when we didn't win the following year.

Anyway, this year we got our asses handed to us because, as it turns out, neither Rand nor I can hit an iron. Whenever one of us would start to go down the drain by hitting another execrable approach shot, the other would be swirling right behind him by hitting something even worse. In the end, one of the highlights of the day would turn out to be listening to a loud, profane tirade against NBC golf commentator Jimmy Roberts while we were watching the U.S. Open in the clubhouse after our round. One of our opponents took great offense to Roberts' penchant for melodramatic human interest stories, calling him a "syrupy motherfucker." He continued to torture this metaphor with references to waffles, pancakes and, for some reason, pizza. Watching the final round of the U.S. Open on Sunday, I had to agree with this assessment of Roberts, who I will now call Jemimah Roberts. Toward the end of the round, Roberts did a kind of on-air essay, pontificating on the career of leader Angel Cabrera. Apparently, his nickname is "The Duck," leading to Roberts using the cliche -- not once, but twice -- "water off a duck's back" to describe how the portly, chain-smoking Argentine was shrugging off the pressure of leading the final round of a major.

Cabrera, of course, went on to hold off Tiger Woods and Jim Furyk to win the U.S. Open. It was hilarious to see him smoking as he walked (waddled) down every fairway to try to calm himself down, while behind him, Tiger, whose biceps kick the hell out of his red Nike shirts, couldn't make up ground. In addition to the money, fame, and trophy Cabrera received, he also deserves a red smoking jacket.