A MODIFICATION CATASTROPHE NARROWLY AVERTED

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My dear friends, while it must often appear that the Enron McHanslaw genetic code is without fault (least of all in the regions of medical abnormalities and vulnerabilities), the simple fact of the matter is that no one on this planet is perfect, not even this internet-based alter ego. Please accept this tale as proof positive.

For what seems like eons, my bedroom-like space at home has been marred by a hideous hobgoblin of uninspired and uninspiring pile of synthetic fibers, my Ping brand golf bag.



Ugh. So drab, so blah, so Colorado State University Rams green... it's a goddamn eyesore (an eyesore that won't fit in my closet I might add, which makes the problem far less ignorable). Well, a week or so ago it dawned on me that un-sucking this bag would make a great project for this fine blog. After a little passive contemplation I decided that my best option was to cover bits and pieces of the bag with cool old t-shirt graphics, so I picked up some washable fabric glue from Hobby Lobby and rounded up a bunch of awesome old shirts I had lying around that I no longer wear (some of my former associates may remember one or two of these as definitive classics from my "he really needs to stop wearing that thing all the time" collection):



Well, I found a good place for the Winger shirt, but after a good amount of trial resulting in
predictable error, it became clear to me that this particular bag just wasn't made to be fucked with. Had it been a black colored bag I'm sure I could have pulled something off, but that mid-70's shag carpet shade of green really made most anything I put on top of it look excruciatingly awful awful and out of place, creating an image even worse than the original bag itself. An unfortunate turn of events for sure, but fortunately I hadn't sliced my shirts up in preparation for gluing them to the bag yet, so it wasn't a total loss.

Though I couldn't figure out how to turn this particular bag into something interesting and not all together unpleasant, I still thought this concept stood on solid legs, and I still wanted a golf bag that'd differ from the rest of those on the course, so I set myself a-searchin' for a cheap black colored bag (by the way, I feel really awkward every time I type that word out... this has been a wholly unpleasant post to compose) that would be more open to modification. That's when I found it.

Buried beneath a pile of overpriced, unspectacular golf bags on craigslist, I found an absolutely cherry Ben Hogan golf bag from the 1960's or 70's. Red, white, and blue to its mutha fuckin core, this vinyl bad boy screamed patriotism and had been sitting untouched in a garage somewhere in Littleton for the past 20 years, so it was in excellent shape. After some heavy dusting and a few coats of Armor All (rule of thumb: Any golf bag that needs to be Armor All-ed is a good golf bag), this bad boy was good to go.





The asking price for this fine piece of sports equipment? A svelte $10... delicious! Another shot for posterity's sake:



So my dear readers, today we have learned a valuable lesson: Repurposing, modifying, screwing with shit... these are all undeniably noble causes, but when all else fails, don't be afraid to procure new crap and use it without modifying it, for not all crap is shitty. Some crap is alright, and other crap is good. Both alright and good crap are usable for things, and you don't have to work at all, which is nice sometimes.

When the Good Rubbish bible enters publication, I'm afraid we'll have to leave that last passage out. Holy mother of God that was awful. There are times when I end postings in grand fashion, this is not one of those times.