Teeing it up with joking Bob Hope

Mann Overboard

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The future of the PT golf course seems uncertain, but maybe it’s doing its part for world peace. Wha??

There’s an old maxim that one golf-playing nation has never invaded another golf-playing one. (The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman has a similar peace theory about McDonald’s that he calls “The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict.” )

This former golfer used to do a phone interview each November with uber duffer Bob Hope. NBC arranged these phoners so Hope could plug his annual Christmas special.

Once Hope learned I golfed, the conversation quickly shifted to something Hope loved, golf jokes. I was more than happy to play along.

I remember asking Hope how his short game was doing. “Great,” he said in that familiar nasal tone, “But unfortunately, it’s off the tee.”

Another time the comedian told me that officials in a charity tournament had asked him to please move his ball back to the white (men’s) tee.

“It’s my second shot,” Hope said he replied.

I miss those annual Hope golf jokefests.

—More from the sports page: I’ve been watching a lot of the Women’s World Cup soccer matches, rooting for Canada and France (Vas-y, Les Bleus!). But I no longer root against the U.S., now that churlish goalie Hope Solo has been kicked off the American team.

A good place to watch the games here in PT? La Isla. The Mexican eatery has the games on, and in Spanish, which I prefer while inhaling tacos. It’s comfortable watching football while surrounded by knowledgeable, Spanish-speaking fans.

—Fort-i-fied Films: Fort Worden is buzzing with Centrum and other activities each summer, but things get really quiet in the winter.

So here’s a fitting idea for the old artillery base: Each winter, why not stage an Army Training Film Festival in the Wheeler Theatre?

These films, which I saw growing up the son of an army officer, would include such riveting titles as “Field-Stripping the M-16” (great cinematography) and that popular perennial, “Your Friend, The Entrenching Tool.”

It would fit perfectly on an Army base, and these sober black-and-white instructionals wouldn’t be any less humor-impaired than the offerings at the Port Townsend Earnest Film Festival.

—Speaking of humor (or lack thereof) in film, outrageous camp idol/director Jon Waters (“Hairspray”), who was hilarious on Bill Maher’s HBO show the other night, has a new book out. The Seattle Times says that in it, Waters gives a glimpse of his scripts that never got green-lighted.

They include, the Times says, a Waters oeuvre called “Raving Beauty,” which self-proclaimed “filth elder” Waters describes as “a searing comic melodrama about a female star shooting a film on location in Baltimore who’s driven crazy by stalking fans, rabid tabloid reporters, her controlling megalomaniacal director, a vengeful ex-husband, a Tourette’s-Syndrome-suffering personal assistant, a teenage daughter who is only attracted to the homeless, and her radical ACT-UP gay son who relentlessly cruises the Teamsters on set.”

I’d certainly pay to see that.

—One-ferry town: This member of your Ferry Advisory Commision just wanted to remind you that we are just one stray crab pot away from having zero ferries this week.

—Back to golf: Aging, infirm golf legend Jack Nicklaus recently semi-joked: “I’m three strokes under par.”

Along this line, one of the funniest lines of the month comes from a guy with the Twitter handle Here Hold My Beer: “I’m at the age now where I gotta leave them younger girls alone and find me a woman who understands the signs of a stroke.”

(PT resident and humorist Bill Mann once played lots of golf as a sportswriter. He stays close to golf — as a regular swimmer across the street at Mountain View pool).