Keeping up with the Jones: My tweet reaches an All Time Low

Seth Jones

An old friend recently asked me why I don’t post on Twitter as much as I used to. I told him, “because I always mess up there!” While I enjoy following along on Twitter, it seems that when I post, I find a way to offend someone. The next morning, I’ll get to work and see the notification that someone canceled their Golfdom subscription. And it’s a free subscription!

But, if you look at my Twitter feed (@SethAJones), I’ve become so innocuous, so vanilla, I’m barely worth a follow. My tweets fall into one of three categories: 1) marveling at my awesome kids; 2) positive reinforcement for my Kansas Jayhawks; or 3) lamenting the state of Kansas City alternative rock radio.

Even with me limiting my Twitter banter to the above three categories, I recently found a way to place my foot directly in my mouth with a Golfdom reader. And, it somehow came on category No. 3.

I’ll retell the beginning of the story here and then direct you to the story “My Son the Rock Star” to fill in the rest.

We had just gone to press with the December issue. I was able to take a deep breath, so I turned on the radio. The song that was on was the same song I keep hearing over and over again … and I finally took my frustration to Twitter with the following message:

Any fellow @Alt965kc listeners notice how often the station plays “Monsters” by All Time Low? It feels like they come out of every commercial break with it. It’s like All Time Low’s mom is the new programming director.

Harmless, right? It’s not like All Time Low’s mom follows me on Twitter.

Then I got a strange reply from Bayer’s Darrin Batisky: Hey Seth, maybe ask @Dudefester2?

I thought, hmm, what’s Darrin talking about? Then, @Dudefester2 replied with: Careful, Seth, that’s my boy!

So, I asked @Dudefester2, aka Mark Merrick, CGCS, if he was an All Time Low superfan, because if he is … he’d love my local KC station, which celebrates the band every hour on the hour. Subsequently, I did what common sense should have told me to do first — I looked at his Twitter feed. And then, I nervously asked, “… or is that literally your boy?”

Aqua-Aid’s Sam Green had a good laugh and replied, “Literally his boy!”

So no, All Time Low’s mom doesn’t follow me on Twitter … but their dad does!

I shook my head in disbelief. How bad am I at Twitter that I can trip over backward right into an awkward situation like this? I messaged Mark and told him I meant no disrespect to his son’s band … that I was just frustrated by the way my local station beats a song into the ground.

And then I asked, maybe we could discuss his son’s band sometime because it sounds like a pretty cool story? Thankfully Mark is a cool dad — he has to be to have a son in a famous rock band, right? — and he was happy to have a Zoom call with me where we talked business, then talked about his rock star son Zack.

Like most stories of successful rock bands, it’s a pretty cool story. The story isn’t going to win any writing awards or convince golfers around the world to fix their ball marks … but I’m pretty pumped to have a rock and roll story in Golfdom.

While my first reaction was embarrassment, after a moment or two, I realized how lucky it was — I wouldn’t have learned of this story had it not been for my foot-in-mouth tweet.

And someday, when the pandemic has passed and I can go to concerts again? Look for a tweet from an old guy front row at the All Time Low concert. That’ll be me.