Stories we tell

Doing some clean up on the computer today, I came across the eulogy that I had written for my grandfather's funeral.  He passed away coming up on 5 years ago.

We record so much of our lives nowadays.  I think it is good to take some time, and go thru our digital, virtual shoe boxes of memories.

I miss you Grandpa.


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I have a habit of repeating stories… a lot.  And the thing about repeating stories is that, one, everyone has heard them before and two, I never get them quite right.  Oh, the gist of the story is o.k., but there are always details that are just a bit off.  Add the fog of time to the story, and it gets even worse.  When I’m talking with family, well, that’s when things can get really out of hand.  

With very few exceptions, most elements of the story I am telling get corrected by someone in ear shot, and by the time I finish the story – if I even get that far, everyone has added or subtracted something, and I some cases, completely ‘re-written ‘ my memory of the event.

I think this might be something that I inherited from Grandpa.

  

When Dad and Mom asked a while back, if I wanted to give the eulogy today, I kinda panicked.   I started to think of the types of tributes you hear in the movies, or see written in history books – when the person was born, where they went to school, when they married,  what they did for a living and so on.  So I started putting together questions that I could ask all of you, and combine them with what I know of Grandpa’s life, and voila’,  a text book eulogy.

Then I remembered my habit of telling stories, and I realized that no matter how many of you I talked to get all of the elements of Grandpa’s life ‘right’, I didn’t want to have my memory of Grandpa changed. 

I remember going on camping trips, of lying down in the Volkswagen camper with Grandma, barley able to contain our laughter, as Grandpa’s snores filled the air like some kind of massive grizzly bear, as he slept in the hammock above us. A sense of humor and of sense of self that said it was ok to laugh and make people laugh originates.

Going to the water district offices, drawing pictures on big sheets of paper and playing with the electric eraser, hiking through the trails at the arboretum, hearing stories about Tarzan movies being filmed there.  A fascination with how things are created, how movies are made,  starts a desire to be involved in the entertainment industry.

I remember Grandpa putting the blue headphones on me, and playing Finian's Rainbow or Iso Tomita, and my love of music was begun.

Hiding behind his chair in the living room, playing with the reel to reel recorder, thinking I was being so secretive, now realizing he was being silly just for my benefit, the seeds of my career in video games being planted.

I have this image of him sitting with his head in that weird neck stretching device.  No real reason I bring that up, just something I thought of.

Watching Bennie Hill or Monty Python with him, at least until Grandma came in the room and made him turn the channel - my love for British humor was set in motion.

I received a collection of science fiction stories once, Robert Heinlein’s Juvenile series, and this was the beginning of my lifelong love of reading and the world of science fiction.  My memory is that I got them from Grandpa – whether that is correct or not, I choose to remember it that way.  And if, in fact I got them from one of you here today, I choose to believe that it was Grandpas love of science fiction that spurred whoever got me those books,  to do so.

Sitting on the ice cream maker, freezing my …and yes it was electric, not the hand crank that MY dad had to sit on.

Dinosaurs, well that skipped a generation - it’s my son Jacob Richard, who loves the world of Tyrannosaurs Rex and the velociraptor. 

Drinking a malted milk,  using the long silver spoon with a built in straw…To this day, given the choice, a malt over a shake for me, every time.

Curling up on his lap as he smoked his pipe – I know this sounds cliché but anytime I smell a pipe smoke; I think of Grandpa and smile.

Watching him set up the little portable planetarium, and listening, as he described the constellations all the while using that cheesy little red arrow flashlight to point things out.

In my memory, Grandpa never talked down to me, and I am hard pressed to remember him yelling or angry.

Now I know did did yell and get angry - probably at me  – but now, for today, for me, that is neither here nor there.

As  I was writing down all of these simple little stories, it dawned on me that as I was recounting them today, most, if not all of you, would have clarifications and corrections for me…and that ok.  I am but one voice that is trying to put into words how we all feel about Dad, Grandpa, Great grandpa, Richard White.

Today, we are ALL here to remember and celebrate. Each one of us possesses a myriad of memories, of stories, antidotes an fond remembrances. Your stories, our stories – that is the legacy of Richard White.

"People writing songs that voices never share.."

If you asked me to define my taste in pop culture, be it TV, movies, music or books, I'd be hard pressed to give you a single quantifiable answer. One look at the contents of my iTunes (Foo Fighters, Flock of Seagulls, Bell Fleck...Enya???) or my collection of DVDs/BluRays (The Bourne Trilogy, The Breakfast Club...Veggie Tales???) and you would think that Sybil had a cousin living in Palmdale.

I have always had an affinity for the lyrics of Simon and Garfunkel.  The music is nice enough, but the simple words, woven so effortlessly, have always been able to hit a part of my psyche that few other songs have.

As it has been a while since I 'tripped the keyboard mediocrity', I decided to sit down and just...write.


.........yea....blank....


Then 'The Sound of Silence' came into my head.  The line  "People writing songs that voices never share.." really got me thinking.  This world of not only instant gratification (movies on demand, ATM access to money, Amazon's Same Day Delivery), but one of instant notification and thought promotion.  Have a thought - Tweet it...take a picture - Instagram - eat a sandwich - FourSquare.  We no longer need to wait and process our ideas, thoughts or opinions, we can just broadcast them out to anyone and everyone to digest.

So if everybody is busy pontificating, waxing philosophical, or just ranting...who is left to listen?




One of my favorite sayings is "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt."  There are numerous sources for this quote - Abraham Lincoln, George Eliot, Groucho Marx, Albert Einstein, heck some say it comes from Proverbs 17:28.  No matter.  I've just always identified with the message.  Often, I have been very adept at 'removing doubt'.  This current diatribe may be doing just that...

I'm all for speaking your mind, saying your peace (or piece - I'm not sure which is right), and it is wonderful that so many of us have the ability and the means to do so.  It just seems to me, that if everybody is talking, then it is really hard to listen.  

'Everybody's talking and no one says a word..' 

I've been trying to listen lately.  Perhaps if we all listened a bit more, we might have some really great things to say.

Then again...'I could be wrong, I could be right.'

7/22/12

I can't say where it came from, if it was learned from family or just a part of my mental makeup.  I have never been comfortable eating desert first.  Sure, I've had a treat before a meal numerous times, but as a rule, main course before desert has been a way of life for me.

This order of things has permeated my life, and I have found myself struggling with its current incarnation of work before play.

As card carrying member of the 'I may get older, but I refuse to grow up' brigade (local 1965) I have always been able to mentally kick off my shoes and run thru the grass of care free, deal with it later relaxation, knowing that I could always deal with the 'Real World' and all of its issues...later.

Lately, my standing in the organization has been coming into question. The specter of the real world, with its responsibilities and seemingly never ending list of known and unknown items on the checklist that we all deal with, has walked up to the kid in me, punched him in the gut, and taken away his milk money. He is standing above the once smiling fun seeker, and has said in no uncertain terms " you'll play when your work is done...ALL of your work."

I'm not just talking about work in the classic sense. That a part of it,sure, but I have always treated my career with a level of respect, never taking it for granted. It is everything, and most specifically, the massive inter-connectivity off the items on that cosmic 'to-do' list that has put this giant grey wall around the 'relax' portion of me.

And since the kid in me has been put in the corner, I'm not real fond of the me that is out in the world.

Self confidence has been replace with self doubt, joy with dread, the promise of a new day with the fear of the next problem.

Even the simplest of tasks, like fixing a leaky sink, are mentally punctured by the worry of what will break next.

I know the sum of who we are is not just a mathematical aggregate of our individual actions (and reactions), that we are less than our greatest achievements and more than our worst failures.

Not to go all Annie, but the sun WILL come out tomorrow.

Now, if you will excuse me, I'm taking the kid out of the corner, reintroducing him to my kids, and going to Disneyland.

Written on7/22/12

Koyaanisqatsi ... "Unbalanced Life"

Back in college, before Netflix  or iTunes, watching a movie at home meant going to a video store, perusing the shelves for something that you had missed in the movie theaters, and trying to find something that all of the roommates could agree on.  Some days, the selection was better than others.

On of the days where all of the copies of "Porkey 11 - This time with less sauce", or some other equally vapid 80's teen-splotation flick were all gone, we spied a simple black VHS box with one word, emblazoned on the cover...

Koyaanisqatsi

Being only mildly educated college students, we of course thought that this was some very cool, underground kung fu extravaganza, and perfect for the night's viewing.

Not a kung fu movie....

After nearly 90 minutes of "waiting for the ass kicking to commence" the credits rolled, and we sat in dumbfounded silence. 

Having never seen an 'art movie', I had no frame of reference for what I had just seen.  Phillip Glass' haunting repetitive soundtrack hit a chord that I didn't know I had. The frantic visual landscpe of the film etched a groove in my mind that I still can feel to this day.

But why? 

If you take the film at face value, it is a series of time lapse and slow motion footage set to a droning, repetitive electronic soundtrack.  No dialog, no discernible plot.  Just image and sound.

The word Koyaanisqatsi means "unbalanced life" in the Hopi language.  Numerous time in my life, I have though of  this film, and wondered if, as art has a way of doing, this film was a mirror for me to look at myself, my own unbalanced life.

I know I'm not the only person who has felt that they were on a never ending treadmill, a Road to Nowhere, to pull from the Talking Heads.  That no matter what you got accomplished today, that tomorrow was just going to jump on you and ride you till you drop...and then get up the next day and do it again.

Most of the time, we just keep moving because, well, that's what we do.  

Sometime, you just have to stop.  There is no finish line, there is no 'everything is done', and that ok.

Because if we don't stop every once and awhile, and appreciate what we have, what have done, love those around us, and most importantly allow ourselves to be loved,  we end up  with the weight of the world on our very small insignificant shoulders. That weight can crush the spirit, wound the soul and make us feel that we are lees that we really are.

Do what you can, accept that you cannot do it all.  Revel in your achievements, be humble in your shortfalls, but don't let either one define you.

 

KOYAANISQATSI

Talking Heads - "Road To Nowhere"

 

(A few more than ) 28 Days...Later

“Grappling with fate is like meeting an expert wrestler: to escape, you have to accept the fall when you are thrown. The only thing that counts is whether you get back up.”
― Deng Ming-Dao, Everyday Tao: Living with Balance and Harmony

As it has been about a month since I last "tripped the blog fantastic", 2 movies with similar titles and vastly different stories came to mind:

28 Days  A dramady starring Sandra Bullock - "A big-city newspaper columnist is forced to enter a drug and alcohol rehab center after ruining her sister's wedding and crashing a stolen limousine." 

and

28 Days Later A British sci-fi horror flic  -  "Four weeks after a mysterious, incurable virus spreads throughout the UK, a handful of survivors try to find sanctuary."

The last month has been a whirlwind of new experiences filtering thru a lifetime of previous experiences.  It's been like watching a movie of a story you wrote about an event in your own life, acted out by new characters. Everything seems REALLY familiar, but there is a slight disconnect, like the bad dubbing of a kung fu move from the 70's. All the words are there, but I found myself fighting to understand.

It has taken the better part of a month, the support of a great family and the guidance of a great new mentor to help me get out of my own way, relax and realize that I HAVE been here before.  The mental 'muscle memory' is there, I just have to do what I do and be who I am.

I got back up...

Kinda like a rehab patient, and the survivors of a zombie apocalypse...excepted for the all of the living dead.

  

My Life as an 80's movie music montage

I am unapologetic in my love of pop culture, the cheesier the better. There are few culture touchstones of cheesy that can top the ooie-gooieness of the music montages found in the movies of the 1980's.  No matter how on the nose the song  - Walking on Sunshine from seminal underdog makes good  Michael J. Fox classic "The Secret of My Success" - to the   hauntingly silly Meet Me Halfway from the wonderfully awful arm wrestling epic starring Sly Stallone "Over the Top", these bite size chunks of gouda are, well, just too good.

During my run this morning, I had such an over whelming rush of...I don't know -  Emotions? Endorphins? Senility? Joy? Peace? Contentment? Calm? - that I felt as though I was in my own montage. 

The thoughts running thru my mind were so jumbled and euphonious (look it up!) that at times I just stopped running and began to laugh. 

All the elements in my life seem to be falling into this wonderful rhythm.  Things that in the past would cause me anxiety and panic now are just challenges to overcome. The small pleasures in life now are like the biggest present on Christmas morning.   My family brings me more joy that any man deserves.  My kids, despite my fumbling missteps as a parent, are growing into wonderful, caring, compassionate, funny, smart, beautiful humans.  My beautiful wife is my rock, loving me unconditionally in the face of my oddness.  I marvel every day that she said yes.

Cliches exist.  They are there so that the poet in all of us, when at a loss for our own words, can latch on to a saying to express the complexities of our emotions. Deal with it. 

Life is Good!

And now, for your ear worms and flashbacks for the week, enjoy a small collection of music and video cliches.

Get busy living or get busy...blogging?!?

I've been living!  The pure energy of doing what you love and having that energy spill over into all  aspects of your life is truly the best feeling in the world. 

Now I need to reign in this rediscovered energy, channel it, focus it. 

Thanks Ferris (and Morgan Freeman as Red in the Shawshank Redemption) .

Nurture the Expression

Disney is known for many things...some good, some bad.  Regardless of your own take, I saw something at the park this past weekend, and I think they really highlighted something wonderful.

We sat and watched a Jr. High string orchestra perform for about 30 minutes.  Wonderful musicians, great music, proud parents.  Just  wonderful.

What struck me as we walked away, was that there was a group of people - students, parents, educators, administrators, and others that I cannot think of, that had worked together to allow these young people to express themselves.  Yes it was music, classical music,  a form of expression that has been acceptable for many, many years,  but it got me thinking about all the other ways we express our creativity.

Disney provided a stage, but more than that, they exposed a group of people to creativity and expression.  My hope is that others saw and heard these kids today, and it got them to think about how they can help the kids in their own areas express themselves.  Music, theater, dance, fine art, sports, math, science, hell, ANYTHING...help the people you know express themselves in anyway you can.

You may not understand what they are trying to say, but it is imperative the let them say it!

Brand new App for my 'Smudges

When I started writing this blog, I told you all (all of you that are...interested?) that I may stick my foot in it on occasion, or need to be put back in line, or as my lack of postings over the past few weeks has shown, drop the ball and not write as often as I had planed.  

Well, I'm calling myself out, for the best possible of reasons.

I started a brand new job this past week.  As with every new adventure, I have been buried with the discovery of how things work, where things are, who is who, who does what, and most importantly, how can I be the best possible 'me'.

In just two short days, it has been very apparent that I have found a great new professional home. The energy, the drive and the desire of everyone that I have met and dealt with has been phenomenal.  It has been exhilarating to get back in the game (pun very intended), and I am hard pressed to remember a time in the recent past that I have been as genuinely....excited.(non family events/interactions not included)

I still will write...promise.  Or threat, depending on your point of view.  

Music and Memory

In the late spring, early summer of 1986, I was driving in my silver IROC Z28 Camero (insert small....joke here) from my house in Moorpark over to CLU where I was a junior working on my Communication Arts degree.  It was a really brilliant blue sky warm day.  Nothing really of note was happening that day, just your average, ordinary day.

I had just made a cassette copy of a "Till Tuesday's sophomore album Welcome Home, so on the drive I popped it in.  The first song 'What about Love ' was the big hit off the album (peaking at 26 on the Billboard Top 100)  I halfheartedly listened, humming a bit as I had heard the song several times on the radio, and it was in pretty heavy rotation on MTV- ya know, back when there was MUSIC on MTV...but I digress. 

Then the second song started.

'Coming Up Close' was a fairly simple pop song, but for whatever reason...the lyrics, the melody, Aimee Mann's lilting vocals, the sunshine...I was floored.  This song hit a part of my brain and made such a mark,that to this day, I just have to hear the first few notes, and I am IMMEDIATELY transported back to that sunny afternoon. 

I can vividly recall so many details about that drive...over Tierra Rejada road, past the family farm that had awesome strawberrys and fresh produce, up to the 90 degree right hand turn that I loved barreling into, breaking at the last possible second, up the winding hill to the top of the grade, then back down to Moorpark Road, and over to CLU.  I had on a pair of blue Vuarnets  'cat eye' sunglasses, and a Big Gulp Dr. Pepper in the cup holder.

Now, before you all call my wife to tell here that 1) I have cheesy taste in music (she knows) and 2) I need a CAT scan,  I know that it's not the best song in the world.  It's a bit dated, and the lyrics are fairly generic. I don't go out of my way to add the song to my iPod , nor do I actively seek it out when I'm just at the computer needing to listen to some music.  It is just burned into my brain and it has these wonderful, vivid  memories attached to it. 

More than the first dance song with my wife at our wedding (Harry Connick Jr. 'It had to be You' by the way - I'm not a total git) more than any other song that I can think of.

I don't know why.

So, why am I writing about this today?  Pandora, on my run, in the cold, windy , pre-rainy morning. 2 notes in , and I was 21 years old in my Camero on a sunny day. 

Pretty cool.

For your ear worm of the day, please enjoy.

Mia Culpa (+ 1)

It has been said that you should never say something on the internet that you wouldn't want on the front page of you local newspaper.  Don't panic - I haven't. 

Just a bit of mental/karmic/editorial house keeping:

• Two Latin headlines in a row.  As I am not the Pope, I should expand my vocabulary and not depend on a rich, but somewhat dead language. 
• My last post was a bit on the pity party, woe is me, whiny side of the street.  I stand by my words and thoughts - this is just not the channel that I have created to express them, and more importantly, not the show you put on your online DVR.  Nothing worse than sitting down to watch Mad Men and getting Dance Moms.

Like I said when I started this, "If I stick my foot in it, call me on it."  Well, my foot got a bit muddy, and I called it.

Quid Pro Quo

Our 1 year old high tech washing machine broke down this week.  Since it was still under warranty, I called and set up an appointment to have it repaired.  See if this sounds familiar:

• 2:30 Saturday - call to set up appointment
• Earliest available appointment  - Thursday, between 1:00 and 5:00
• Thursday, 4:54 pm - Technician shows up, takes less than 20 minutes to repair (drive belt failure due to a loose fitting)

Now, we have all had to set aside a block of time for some sort of home based appointment - cable installation, carpet cleaning, delivery of some sort, etc... It can be moderately frustrating to 'waste' hours of time for a stuff like this , but 99 time out of 100, the appointment is kept within the given time frame.  Similarly, we have all spent WAY too much time siting in a doctor's office waiting as the scheduled appointment time goes whizzing by, and the 5 minute follow up is 2 hours after you arrived.  Still, the end result is that you have seen the doctor.

After taking some time off from the "rodent completion", I have been on the hunt for new employment opportunities for the past several months.  During the process, I have set up dozens of appointment, meetings, phone calls, lunches and coffees.  I can say unequivocally, that I have NEVER missed or even been late for any of these events.  It is not a source of pride...it is just who I am .  If I say that I will be at  Jerry's Deli at 12:30 on the 15th...I'm there at 12:15, just because I left early so as not to get hung up in traffic. On the off chance that I am being held up, or have a conflict, a text/phone call/email is sent with as soon as I am able, allowing the party I am to meet with adequate notice of the change.

The interview process is a roller coaster.  With numerous hurdles to overcome just to get the interview - going thru multiple levels of technology to get your name in front of a human being, pre screening with HR/recruiters, coordinating time to have the call/meet in person - the interview is almost a relief.  

It is a common practice to follow up an interview with an email, thanking the interviewer for their time and  (if appropriate) to make a reference to 'next steps' in the process.  This is especially true when at the end of the interview, the interviewer references the next step, ie.."I'll follow up with you next Monday"..or .."We need to get you in hear to meet the rest of the team next week.."

I wish the response process was 1/100th as dependable as the washing machine repair process. 

I have lost count the number of times that I have waited for, and never received the promised follow up.  I'm not counting the soft.."we're looking at other candidates, and we'll get back to you..." or ..."don't call us, we'll call you..." variety.  I'm talking about the hard date, sometimes even time specific statements. 

In once instance, I had 2 separate phone interviews, was told at the end of the second call that.."I want to get you in here next Tuesday to meet the other members of the group.." only to have 3 weeks go by, with 4 unanswered emails, 3 phone messages left, and find out thru an industry web site that the position had been filed.

The very type of behavior that would keep me from getting an interview, or a best, indicate what type of employee I would be, seems to be an common practice from the other side of the desk, and I'm not sure why.

Say what you mean, keep your word, follow up and keep all parties as informed as possible.

I get that I am not going to get every job that I interview for. If I'm not a match, let me know.  I'm a big boy, and you won't hurt my feelings by telling me 'no', for whatever reason.

If you can't make an appointment or circumstances change, a simple email, text, phone call is all that is needed. 

However, don't take the easy way out and just go radio silent.  Call it courtesy or respect, call it professionalism, call it whatever you wish.

Ah, job hunting...it's like jr. high dating for grown ups.

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt"

I tried to attribute this quote to its originator, and ran into a bit of a classic black hole.  I found several sources that gave credit to Abraham Lincoln, some to Mark Train, a few to Woodrow Wilson, as well as George Eliot, Groucho Marx, and even Albert Einstein.  Most of my research pointed back to Proverbs 17:28 as the kernel of the idea :

"Even a fool, when he holds his peace, is counted wise: and he that shuts his lips is esteemed a man of understanding."  

I have a series of shelves in my head, shelves that contain volumes of information. 99.999999% is woefully trivial and utterly banal.  But it is information.  Friends often joke that if they were ever to appear on the TV show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, I would be their 'phone a friend' just for the breadth of useless information contained in my brain.  

Since I've yet to have anyone I know be on any TV trivia game show, I've yet to have a valid outlet for my 'gift'.  That doesn't mean I've kept it hidden. On the contrary, I have been know to spew factoids out at an alarming rate, and most of the time it is harmless fun.  Its not a info-tourettes barrage however.  It tends to be tangentially connected info....sometimes one or two steps away, other times, well...it can turn into 180* of Kevin Bacon.

Just like folks appear to be doing with the recently redesigned Google+ (http://www.slashgear.com/google-refresh-triggers-social-fury-11222491/) the 'white space' or quite times in our conversations can freak people out. So to avoid the uncomfortable feelings, we fill the void with...sometimes nothing more that noise.  

So if you run into me and I seem a bit less talkative, its not that I have nothing to say...I'm just trying to give silence it's due.

365 Lessons (Hopefully) Learned

This past Sunday marked the one-year anniversary of…well, not being a day-to-day member of the working class.  How’s that for a euphemism???  As I adjusted to the copious amount of ‘free time’ that this change has afforded me, I started to compile a few bon mots, pithy sayings, clichés if you will,  that I discovered about the world, and more precisely, about myself.  Some of these you would be hard pressed to find on a bad 80’s tee-shirt or seedy cocktail napkin (where IS the beef..wink wink).  Others really hit me hard between the eyes and are small but important building blocks in the renovation that is me.  Here is a handful – no specific order.

• Most clichés’ about finding a job are true; especially the one that says it is easier to get a job when you have a job.
• As kind as people try to be, sometimes you need a true friend to call you out on your shortcomings, so that you can grow, and not continue to make the same mistakes.
• Regardless of how much you want to blame others for the situation you are in, you have to cop to some responsibility.
•  The simple act of running is pure. 
• Stress not only can kill, but it does a fair job of maiming you as well.
• Gray hair is not a bad thing.
• Embracing the joy of others is far better than cursing your own sadness.
• Give – Take. Same number of letters, WAY different value.
• Loyalty needs to start with you.
• Kids are brilliant – you just need to pay attention.
• It hurts to watch others hurt because of you. Vicious cycle.
• Free time isn’t.
• Sleep can make you tired.
• Pay attention to advice…you don’t have to heed it, but make sure you are aware of it.
• 1 in 30 rule.  If you are the only person in the room that smells something funky…its you.
• Be brave not silent.
• Have an idea, not an opinion (stole that from Kevin Smith’s Dogma).
• “I don’t know” is often your best answer.  It is the most truthful and the least dangerous.
• You have it better than 99% of the world…smile.
• Many times people really do want to help you – let them.
• You’re ½ as funny and twice as annoying as you think you are.
• Fresh oranges are AWESOME!
• Just keep swimming (thanks Dory)
• UB40’s ‘Red Red Wine’ is quite possible the WORST song ever.
• When in doubt, move.  A change in perspective may be the answer.
• It’s a fine line between persistent and stalking.
• Gratitude is underrated.
• Electronic is no replacement for physical.  At best, it augments – at worst, it makes you less human, and we need all the humanity we can get.
• Creativity is a muscle.  Stop sitting on your metaphorical couch.  Stretch.
• Be happy with yourself, or else you will never be happy around others.
• Make new mistakes every day.  Do your best to avoid repeats.

 

And finally, this line from Caddyshack:

Judge Smails: Ty, what did you shoot today?
Ty Webb: Oh, Judge, I don't keep score.
Judge Smails: Then how do you measure yourself with other golfers?
Ty Webb: By height.