Heroes and Villains: UPDATED
Both can be found in Clubland. Which are you?
We the writers of Clubland USA are proud of our success over our first month publishing. Our newsletters have averaged open rates above 60% and there’s enough subscribers to pay roughly the average month of rent in Tennessee. (And maybe that’s even within a short drive of a nice country club!)
Our success has also meant the opportunity to bring a new vernacular to Clubland itself, whether it’s the jester and the killjoy or the Four Children of The Club Seder.
This week’s issue grants us another opportunity in the form of Clubland’s Heroes and Villains. The former being pioneering figures who made Clubland better for all of us, whether that’s in fighting traitors and restricting them from accessing their clubs or expanding access to club life to broader groups of people. The latter being those who make club life out of reach (or expensive) for the rest of us.
Ishaan Jajodia provides a glimpse of the former in Clubland Heroes, while Clubland USA’s second editorial, The Importance of Being Current, explains how shame can be an effective tool to rein in a common Clubland villain.
And, as always, Clubland USA brings the best dispatches from Clubland by Ben Kahn.
Please be sure to forward this Clubland USA issue, brought to subscribers by Double Dot Squash, with everyone who will love it. You’ll be our favourites if they subscribe here, or by using your unique referral link below. —LR
NB: Substack outages prevented changes from synchornising, resulting in an earlier version being sent erroneously. IJ
The Importance of Being Current
An Editorial
Clubland simply cannot afford to go soft here. Debtors skipping out on club bills attacks jeopardizes the financial state of the club and its staff and also means that resources will be wasted on less-than-fruitful efforts to recoup losses. Read: collection agencies.
Club life is needed now more than ever. Let’s all do our part to ensure that it remains by ordering the club’s best entree, a beverage of our choice and paying the bill as promptly as possible.
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Clubland Heroes
By: Ishaan Jajodia
“A man’s London club offers him a fortress,” writes Richard Usborne in a rather clubby book, aptly titled Clubland Heroes. “When Scotland Yard was baffled, inspectors … put through phone calls to Clubland members”. Usborne was writing about the West-End clubs of London. His heroes were fictional, drawn from the English writers Dornford Yates, John Buchan, and Sapper. “I have called this book Clubland Heroes,” Usborne explains, “because the heroes of the books I am examining were essentially West-End Clubmen, and their clubland status is a factor in their behaviour as individuals and groups”.
Every club rat should have their club heroes. Stateside, my club heroes romp across Manhattan instead of St. James in London. We’ve got them all, but the two that I’ll focus on today are a war hero and a caustic writer.
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Dispatches from Clubland
State ⋠ Club? Donald Trump Jr. doesn’t seem to believe in the separation of state and club/ How do we know? He and a group of “private investors” have launched a new private membership club with a $500,000 price tag titled … wait for it … Executive Branch. As with all things Trump, every single thing from the bar rails, toilets, and even the showers will be golden.
It ain’t cheap at the top. Maryland’s nonprofit country clubs raked in around $213 million, per a report from the Baltimore Business Journal. Of the top five, only one—Woodmont Country Club—was in the black by the skin of their teeth.
Victory for Big Smoke! Big Smoke might return to Wisconsin after more than a decade of the state banning new cigar lounges. Bills in both houses of the state legislature, Assembly Bill 211 and Senate Bill 21, seel to allow establishments with a tavern license to sell pipe tobacco and cigars. Consumption on the premises will be allowed. Any tips on Wisconsin clubs installing smoking rooms will be appreciated.
Brawlers in Blazers. It’s been 13 years since the infamous brawl at the New York Athletic Club that resulted in this gem of a headline: In Brawl, Laws May Have Been Broken, but No Dress Codes. At least six club rats left one man with a shattered orbital bone and one woman with a laceration that required stitches resulting in the arrest of three members. Despite attempts by management to suppress the story, it was inevitably covered by the New York Times, the New York Post and others. As for the spark that ignited the conflict? In true Homeric fashion, it was a woman.
Thank you for reading Clubland USA. Our next issue will be Tuesday, May 6 at 3pm.