Top 50 Critic is All Wet

We get some unusual e-mails here at Top 50 headquarters, but this is the first one that’s dripped on the carpet:

From the desk of:  Aquaman.

Dear Landlubber: I read your latest missive about Aqua-ranges with much regret. The words, they were as jumbled and unintelligible as the thoughts of a Jolothian sea slug (as only I would know–see my Adventures of, #71). I told Aqualad about your piece (he’s not much on reading but boy, can he put down the shrimp scampi) and he agreed. You couldn’t be more wrong if you were King Neptune himself. (Whom I dethroned in a righteous coup, you may recall, in Adventures of, #52.)

A story about Aqua-ranges without a mention of the Atlantis Golf Range & Giant Squid Ranch, a state of the art facility, is worse than insulting. It’s like an hour without water. Unthinkable. (And incredibly painful — Adventures of, # 7, #12, #21-28, #42 — and dangerous — obviously Adventures of, #99 and #100 featuring the lecherous Scallopsface.) Once again, you have missed the submersible boat. The Atlantis Golf Range & Giant Squid Ranch (or AGRGSR, pronounced agger-gasser in dolphin — the official language of Atlantis, as you know) is not only a lock for the top three on any list of Aqua-ranges — any legitimate list — it is clearly the No. 1 Aqua-range of its kind.

You can ask Aqualad, who spends way too much time there, in my opinion. For one thing, he’s 31 and still living at home in the sea cave and borrowing the keys to the Torpedo Car and watching “Stargate: Atlantis” reruns. Plus, what’s with the Aqualad name? He’s grown up. It’s time to become a man. So I’m going to start calling him Ken.

Aqualad was just at AGRGSR last week to pound a whole conch shell of range balls (still only 4 starfish, the best bargain in Atlantis!) and commented again on the exquisite beauty of the undersea dome where it’s located and the quality of the floaters. (Hope you like that clever pun–that’s our nickname for you landlubbers when you go swimming in saltwater, although the mako sharks prefer to think of you as appetizers). Of course, AquaKen mostly pounded drivers to make himself feel like more of a man instead of working on his short game like I told him, the key to golf. He still can’t beat me on his best day because he’s crap around the greens. If only he spent some focused time on AGRGSR’s 54-hole Minerva Putting Course or the Patrick Duffy (he’s with us now) Short Game School, he might have a sea turtle’s chance in a kiln. But no.

It is a 360-degree range and yes, while that does make it a little toasty (but not as toasty as the attempt by the evil Gatorflame to invade my kingdom — Adventures of, #102, available soon), it provides plenty of room for all the minions of the sea to hit balls and work on their swings when they’re not busy doing exactly what I telepathically command them to do.

Your rankings aren’t misguided. They’re not guided at all. I can’t believe a couple of your landlubber gods like Jupiter and Zeus haven’t straightened you out, or at the very least turned you into a pillar of limestone. A tall pillar, in your case, which could be quite a windfall for a nimble mining outfit ready to pounce (like Aquaman Zirconium & Gravel Inc., est. 1994 — we’ve got T-shirts and our own golf outings and everything).

AquaKen was right. You’re about as useful as a titless mermaid with razor sharp fangs. The citizens of Atlantis ask — no, demand — that you revise your lame rankings to represent reality and immediately install AGRGSR as the No. 1 Aqua-range. Don’t make us aqua-kick your ass (check out what’s left of the Chum Master for details — Adventures of, #37). We’ve got a trident here with your name on it, landlubber. I hope we make ourselves clear.

Until such time as you correct your awful mistake, stay out of the water.

Your loving omnipotent undersea master,

Aquaman.

P.S. We love the photo on your website of the god called Van Sickle biting into a shiny moray eel. An amazing feat of power. Let’s hear more about his exploits. We may want to start worshipping a god as powerful as he. Tell him Ken says “howdy!” I am not sure what that means.

Nobody here at Catch Basin takes this note seriously, but in the interest of caution I have turned it over to the Harbor Police. The course rankings, of course, are what they are, and no form of intimidation — up to and including threats of violence — can influence one’s place in the Top 50. (“Bribery might work” our founder used to say with a chuckle. But he was almost surely joking.) If our snide correspondent wants to pursue this further, he can complain to our corporate sponsor, the Red Lobster restaurant chain.