The Worst of all Music

Ahem. Ahem. Everyone settle down. Please. Can we have some order? I've got a few things to say.

There's no worse music than the music your girlfriend likes. Even if you kinda like the music your girlfriend likes, you can't really like it. You can't fully like it. You certainly can't share a lot of the same feelings for her music because frankly... music is our strongest link to the past. And no matter what music your girlfriend listens to, it's music she discovered before she discovered you. It's the music that will always remind her of ex-boyfriends and summer time blues and youth gone wild and wee small hours of the morning.

Something happens to me when relationships start, I have the urge to pretend their pasts never existed. Like it was all pretend. This is an especially odd instinct because have you ever been with someone far too naive for their own good? It's bothersome to say the least.

It's hard to think that they've had great times - perhaps the best of times with someone else. It's not cheating, often times, they never knew you existed and you'd be upset if they begrudged you your own past experiences, but nevertheless, if I hear one more girl tell me she's not that into Springsteen because she once dated a dude who played Bruce all the time and she totally got sick of it and thinks of his crazy ass everytime she hears "Glory Days" I'm going to throw a conniption fit.

S'cuse me Adam, um... hi. Longtime reader, first-time commentor. Isn't it possible - more than possible that you've been the very boyfriend you're referring to? Haven't you played Springsteen for girls causing them to think of you everytime one of his songs come on the radio?

Ahem. Well, that' a fine question. I uh, I'm not sure how you got in here. This was supposed to be a private conference filled with people who would only ask me powder puff questions. But I'm game.

I'd hope that I have never been that guy. My intention has always been to introduce people to certain music without pimping on them.

Frankly, I'm scared to play any music truly important to me, for fear that I will ruin it for someone. Or God forbid, that someone ruin it for me.

Your girlfriend's music is also the worst because eventually you are going to mention a favorite song of yours and realize that someone has already come into her life and given it some sort of meaning. Like a dog aiming to pee on a tree only to sniff the scent of another. And God help you if it's not just a song, but an entire singer or band taken up by someone else. I've been with girlfriends in the past that had wonderful, beautiful music completely soured by some ex-boyfriend or some oppressive boss at work.

Nothing you can tell me will ever make me as mad as if you tell me one of my favorite artists was ruined for you because of some stupid sonuvabitch who probably shouldn't have been listening to that music in the first place.

But Adam, again, aren't you pompously writing about a girfriend's musical history as if you haven't any history of your own? Is it ridiculous to say you may very well have ruined songs and bands for someone else?

No. It's not reasonable. Next question.

As a matter of fact... security, can you remove the person that asked that question? I will not be taken to task at my own press conference.

Would anyone else like to smart off?

Good.

The fact is, music is more a symptom than the entire disease of people's pasts. I'll never be able to listen to a girlfriend's favorite band or favorite song and feel what she feels when she listens to it. It isn't from my time. It's leftovers. Part of me hates this because I hate being out of sync, I hate carrying with me the absolute inability to understand. But another part of me hates it because I know there are those out there who do share those feelings.

They were there.

They helped form her attachments.

I'd hate to think that I ruined Springsteen for someone. Or maybe The Killers. Or The Black Eyed Peas. Or perhaps Streisand. My God, they're all so talented.

Churchin'

"What do people do in this place?"
- Adam, age 8, standing inside a church exposing his guilt-ridden mother's failure at raising a non-heathen.

My mother always said her two biggest regrets in raising me were that she didn't take me to the eye doctor as often as she should have and that we rarely went to church as a family.

I don't have 20/20 vision, but I also don't need glasses. I'm constantly reading and my handwriting is smaller than this font. I'm not sure how often a mother is expected to take her son to the eye doctor, but by most accounts, she did just fine.

The church thing... well, that's another story.

I had blocked tear ducts as a kid that required

two separate surgeries. My mom (lower right) brought me

to see these two nuns who prayed I wouldn't die
I didn't die and my mom repaid the nuns by

never going to church again.

I don't understand church.

And when I say "church," I'd like to include temples, mosques, and all other houses of worship. For the sake of this blog however, I'm going to type "church" because it's easier than qualifying every possible religious facility.

I'd better cool my jets here for a second and clarify that this is not going to be an anti-religion blog. This isn't 1940 and I'm not from Russia. I'm not calling spirituality, one's personal beliefs, or religion itself silly. I don't think those things are silly and even if I did, I'd be in the severe minority and it would be stupid for me to say so.

But the actual ritual of attending church seems silly.

And it isn't as if I've got no church background. Quite honestly, I might have a more well-rounded church background than the average person - I lived in a Catholic nunnery for 11 months for God's sake...!

Well, okay it wasn't for His sake necessarily, but I'm sure He didn't mind.

When I was 8-years-old, my best friend was a boy named Charles. When I'd sleep over at his house on Saturdays, his family would take me to their Baptist church services the following morning. They never really asked if I had any interest in going to their church and I never considered my own opinion on the matter. Frankly, I didn't care. At that point, I didn't really know what church was.

When I got inside the massive house of worship, it was a hullabaloo of excitement. I must have seen church services on old episodes of "Dallas" or "Who's the Boss?" or something because whatever my expectation of church at that point might have been, they were far exceeded that first day of Charles' Baptist church.*

I can't imagine church getting any better than this. Whooping, hollering, jumping, sweating (so much sweating). Isn't this the way church should be organized? Protestants and Catholics and Jews all over the world constantly fall asleep on Sunday mornings, but not the Baptists. The Baptists might pass out (which I believe is called "gettin' gripped" or perhaps "catchin' the Holy Ghost"), but that's different from falling asleep.

When I go to a rock concert, I tend to jump and clap and yell to high Heaven. When I was at Baptist Church, I tended to jump and clap and yell to high Heaven. I've always considered rock'n'roll more of a religion than anything else. Clearly, the Baptists are on the same page.

Many years later I found myself teaching in a Catholic school. I'm not Catholic. I don't have anything against Catholics. Some of my best friends are Catholic. So are some of my worst enemies. Every Monday, the students would begin their day in the school's modest chapel for an hour service. I never felt comfortable solemnly praying in a house of worship of which I was not a member.

I never know what to do when everyone gets up to eat the wafer and drink the wine. It's like a lazy witch-hunt. Those who go for a snack are fine, those standing in the aisle like schmucks with empty tummys are to be burned at the stake after our Godfaring is done.

But I can't just go up there and take the sacrament, can I? That's like, really bad, right? I picture my tongue burning for eternity. Like eating hot salsa every minute until I'm 90-years-old.

Anyway, one September Monday, I opted to sit in the back of the school's church, as I wasn't responsible for any students on this occasion and never felt comfortable demanding that my 6th and 7th graders pay attention to Scripture that I couldn't decipher myself.

Sister Margarita politely allowed me to sit in the rear but feared I'd be setting a bad example for the children. The children were unaware that I was even inside the church and I chalked Sister's words up to knee-jerk Catholic guilt.
The following was written in my journal on 29 September 2003. 9:15 a.m. from the back of St. Katharine's Church:

I'm planning on mapping out the next 40 minutes of church services. Here goes Catholic Mass:

Stand up. Sit down. Little guilt. Cross yourself. Stand up. Sing a song. Sit down. Praise this. Little guilt. Stand up. Sing two more songs. Sit down. Line up. Drink this. Cross yourself. Eat this. Cross yourself. Bow. Sit down. Stand up. Sing some more. Listen while standing. Shake hands. Sit down. Last bit of guilt.

Stand up.

Leave.

Church gives people a structured period of time to step back from the normal distractions of everyday living and focus on their beliefs. For some it's a necessary part of the week. I cannot be considered a part of the population that feels this way. Because when I sit in a church I find myself distracted by the artistic propaganda on the walls, the range of outfits the patrons of my church (and other churches) are wearing,** and the crying babies.

Also, when babies cry and struggle and fuss for an hour straight, I think the rest of us should listen. Think about all those movies and books where the child always tries to warn everyone of danger, but because they are children, the townsfolk just shrug it off and ignore them. Then pure evil comes and eradicates the town and all that is left are the innocent and wise babies.

Babies always cry in church. Why would God allow babies to constantly cry in church and disrupt such holy proceedings? God is totally trying to send us messages via baby tears. We're less than a week from Christmas, a day centered around the baby of all babies - and yet we're ignoring our own.

I bet when baby Jesus cried, someone listened.

There is supposed to be peace, harmony and safety inside the walls of a church but, I feel quite the opposite of safety, as if what I'm doing isn't wrong so much as it isn't right. Most of the time, while in someone else's church, I feel nervous, as if I may be smited at any moment. I just don't know the rules. I was in a Catholic church recently and sat down in a pew without crossing myself or kneeling. When I realized I didn't do it, I kinda half-stood up and slid back into the aisle. I hesitantly bent over like an elderly gentleman who just dropped a quarter, started bending to pick it up, then decided it wasn't worth it.

I forgot which shoulder to touch after I motioned to my forehead while crossing myself, then dejectedly sat down and prayed (really!) that no one saw my dumb ass attempt to fit in. I sat there for the next five minutes imagining God turning to his "Adam's Heaven or Hell Ledger" to tally mark one more in the Hell column.

I also don't know any of the words to any of the songs. I wasn't as worried about this as the kneeling and crossing thing, but it was still disconcerting to hear 15 songs and not know the words to any of them. The last time that happened I was at a Tori Amos concert. And believe me, I was equally uncomfortable and just as sure I was taking several steps closer to Hell by being there too.

And in church, sometimes they have their patrons sing while sitting down. You're not supposed to sing while sitting! It squishes the diaphragm and causes everyone to sing from the throat - which is the absolute worst thing to do to your voice. Hasn't anyone thought about this? Think of all the squished diaphragms, people. Don't sit and sing. This ain't a folk concert.

Let thine voice reach unto the heavens.

Then there's the old saying that describes events as being harder than not laughing in church. Like, "Passing that test was harder to do than not laughing in church." Sayings don't become sayings unless a lot of people sympathize with them. So if a lot of people find it difficult not to laugh in church - what is really being accomplished there that is so important I can't stay home? I don't laugh at home all the time.

And also, I read somewhere that almost 20 percent of married people met at or through their church. That's amazing. That doesn't even take into account the amount of failed relationships or time people spent sneaking peeks at other hot young churchgoers.

Essentially, church is nothing more than a den of lust.

So okay, we've established that my mom and I are going to hell. But I want it stated for the record that I'm not knocking spirituality or religion or anyone's belief in Allah, Kristna, Vitnu, Gozer the Gozerian, Jehovah, God or all those wacky idols freaking out the masses.

I say, pray on my friends.

But church is a total drag to go to and potentially bad for one's health. The kneeling cushions are not nearly as padded as God would have wanted. I'm 6'3" and it's harder than Hell to get up and down off of those things.

================================================================

* I say "first day of Charles' Baptist church" because I went several times until my parents found out that I was being taken to someone else's church without their permission. I'm not sure if my folks were upset that I was going to church processions seperate from our own, or if they were guilty that I was getting my religious infusion from someone other then them. Either way, once my parents found out about Baptist Church, I stopped going to it.

** I once saw a man in a purple suit sitting next to a woman wearing a halter top and cutoff shorts and I do believe I would have given everything from my left elbow downward to read what was going on in both of their minds sitting there at that moment.

Dogs and Diamonds

I was in Abercrombie & Fitch the other day. If you've ever met me, you know I have no business being in one of these stores and I assure you, I wasn't too happy being there.
I was doing some investigating for a paper I'm writing. I'm sure you won't believe that, but it's the truth nevertheless.
I mean c'mon, what other reason could I have for sifting through a store employing only the most attractive teenagers in the area, all of whom are at my every beck and call?
There. That explanation should assuage all doubt that I was only there for business.
But that business made me realize that I'm absolutely no longer part of the college quirk anymore.
I just can't fight it.
It's time to save money and invest it.
It's time to find a career and build it.
It's time to woo a girl and wed it... uh, her.

I fear the ring.

Is there anything more immasculating than the thought of purchasing a wedding ring? Every rule has its exceptions but, by-and-large, those who get married are rarely financially secure. The thought of a large diamond purchase looms largely over my head like impending doom.
Most women say that the size of the ring doesn't matter. That the love represented by it is what matters. I've heard girls say this to fiancees before. On the flp side, I've heard many women, amongst themselves, away from the sensitive ears of their male counterparts, speak quite boastfully and gluttonously about the size of the diamond on their finger.
The ring means something. Maybe not everything, but way more than nothing.
Somewhere along the way, our culture of conspicuous consumption got the better of us - all of us.
It would be well within my style to write an entire blog about how silly and dumb the whole diamond ring phenomena is in our culture. I could do it, but I'm not going to. And I'm not going to because I am a consumer of this phenomena.
I completely buy into the bill of sale stipulating the importance of engagement, wedding and anniversary rings.
DeBeers tells me I don't love her unless I spend half-a-year's salary on something that fits her finger. Jared insists she deserves what eight years as a student and AmeriCorps volunteer (along with an impending career in the newsmedia) dictates I'm going to struggle to afford. And correct me if I'm wrong, but according to Kay Jewelers, I'm gonna have to offer up one of their products before I can even get a kiss from my wife! Why must every kiss begin with them?
That's hardly fair.

People are getting slaughtered in Africa over these damn things. Which is not only troubling moralistically, but translates into higher prices for something that isn't technically worth the price I'm paying.
More than a third of the cost to put a respectable ring on my wife's finger (assuming I get married before prices hop even higher) will be inflated by the death of diamond raiders.
What do corpses and the love I have for my wife have in common?
You guessed it. And they're a girl's best friend too.

Men get dogs.

Diamonds are a girls best friend and man's best friend is a damn dog? What does it cost to get a dog? Like $250 bucks? Maybe $300? I'm not talking a pure-bred showdog, I'm talkin' a mutt. I'm talking about a damn bassett hound.
The kind Elvis might sing to.
It doesn't take five months salary to buy a bassett hound. And I'm pretty sure no one overseas has ever been eradicated trying to procure a terrier.
But dogs have about a 10-20 year lifespan and Zales will be the first to remind us that "diamonds are forever."

I hear 'em.
Like I said, I'm not wagging my finger at anyone more than I'm wagging it at myself. Men buy Ferrarri's to make up for various shortcomings (although I believe that to be a myth), why shouldn't women carry their worth or their man's worth around on their second smallest finger? I want nothing less for my fiancee/wife than the very best. I would be embarrassed for myself and for her if she had anything less than exactly what she desired. Because even if she didn't care, many others out there would.

I was nine-years-old when Nike Air Jordan's became extremely popular. So popular in fact, that a size 6.5 shoe yielded a $100 price tag. My mom, up until that point, hadn't spent more than $25 on shoes for me.
But everyone had a version of these shoes (especially in Chicago, where Michael Jordan was more recognizable than the President of the United States) and I got made fun of for wearing L.A. Gears.
Do you remember L.A. Gears? Maybe, in an ironic sort of way.
Do you remember Air Jordans? Hell yes you do.
I begged and I begged and I begged, and in a rare instance of my mother caving in to constant griping, I got my first pair of Air Jordans.
Now, if this were some bullshitter's blog you were reading, you'd probably read that they didn't improve anyone's basketball skills or that Air Jordans were no more comfortable than a pair of $15 Chuck Taylor's and that the Nikes only lasted two months before falling apart.
But I'm not that bullshitter.
I got picked for the schoolyard teams because I had the Jordans. Touching the ball was better than not touching the ball and by that rationale, yeah... those Goddamn shoes made me a better basketball player. And Chuck Taylors hurt my feet as a little kid; gave me awful blisters. And I wore those black and red Nikes for damn near three years, an unheard of amount of time for a growing child to cling to a pair of sneakers.
I loved those shoes and they made my life better.
Not because the shoes themselves were better, but because the people around me afforded me a better life because I wore them.

And my wife might not care about rings or diamonds, but a large majority of the people she will come in contact with are going to care. They're also going to judge both her and me after they do what every single woman on earth does after someone announces that they're getting married. They say...
(Say it with me folks) "Let me see that rock!"
And no one wants to hold out their finger for a gaggle full of jealous, judgmental women to stand around commenting that the ring is "quaint" or "darling".
"Quaint" is the same as a woman saying, "Oh, your husband must not be very good in bed." "Darling" is the verbal equivalent to "Poor girl, must be settling for fear of dying alone."
I don't want that for my wife.

I've been utterly propagandized. I admit it. And I'm not alone.
Show me a petition to outlaw diamond purchases for wedding rings, I'll sign it. Create a mandate enforcing the exchange of awesome t-shirts instead of rings on wedding days and I'll vocally support the cause. Until then... I'm saving for a ring despite having neither a fiancee nor a wedding date in my immediate future.

But there is an out. There's one escape I've concocted and I pray it works in my favor.
Tradition: the great equalizer.
If I can inherit an antique ring from my grandmother - or better yet, a great grandmother - then I can forgo the ring dilemma.
If it's passed down from generation to generation, it holds just as much cache as a muti-karat* diamond ring. And when those fictionalized, manipulative bitches stare at my make-believe fiancee's wedding ring someday, she can proudly hold her head high and tell them she's wearing an antique ring from the Mesazoic Era (or whenever).
The fictional shrews won't know what to make of that. It'll be great. I won't have to start a drug cartel in order to finance a symbol of the devotion to my wife and she can have a kickass vintage ring.
And although I'm not as educated on wedding rings as I am on t-shirts, I can tell you that I'd take a vintage tee over an expensive brand-name shirt any day of the week, no matter what the Solomon Bros., Tiffany and Co., or Abercrombie & Fitch try to tell me**.


================================================================
* Do you like how I used the term "multi-karat"? Can you tell I haven't got a firm grasp on how many karats is exceptional? I'm just happy I spelled karat correctly.

** Okay, I understand that Abercrombie & Fitch don't really have anything to do with the diamond trade, but I really hate them and wanted to take them out one last time before I ended this blog.

Covering the Ugliness

Well, we're in the full flush of the holiday season, and despite my love for tinsel and merriment, I'm nevertheless upset.
Which can only mean that I've been forced to go into a department store recently.

I hate department stores in March. Hate them in August.
I loathe them in December.

My girlfriend asked me to pick her up a particular product line of blush that she can't find where she lives and of course, I agreed to do it.
I thought I was a good guy to agree to this - turns out I'm a saint.

Nordstrom. High noon. 20 days before Christmas.

I decided before I left to put on a blazer and a pair of shiny shoes. I was fully aware that I hadn't a clue where to look for makeup and that I would end up doing something stupid before I was through. Because of this, I wanted to at least look as if I was respectable in some other facet - outside of shopping for products I never use.
And yes all you smartasses, I am aware that I'm not respectable in any other facet of my life, but the girl spritzing me with gay-smell doesn't need to know that.

And so there I was, wearily traipsing up and down the aisles unsure what a Smashbox is, but positive that it is the brandname of the (Perfume? Lipstick? Eh, we'll go with "stuff") stuff that my girlie wanted.
I had to admit to being fairly proud of her request. She could have asked me to buy Clinique or Estee Lauder which would have required I practice my broken French. And that would have added insult to injury, so I was thankful that she put Smashbox on her face instead of Estee Lauder. I was a little confused though because I was under the impression that Smashbox was a band from my senior year in high school.*
I'm a man, okay? At least I enjoy pretending I am, so you should understand that I'm not just going to walk up to the first person I see and blindly ask for help. No, no, no. I'm much too smartly dressed for that lollygaggery.
No. I'm going to walk up one aisle looking at all the multi-colored displays of meaningless goop and then down the other aisle doing the exact same thing. And because I'm an idiot, I'm going to do this seven or eight times without gaining any new information before I cave in and do what I should have done in the first place.

Ask for help.

I walk up to some girl and immediately fall back on my usual "I'm-a-stranger-in-a-strange-land-please-don't-make-me-beg"-schtick. Luckily, I was given explicit instructions as to what to purchase. In my hand I held a typewritten note instructing me to look for a Smashbox product in the "Soft Lights" line, the shade of which was "Highlight".
None of this meant anything to me, but I was thankful the information existed. Without it, I'd be sunk.
I read the piece of paper verbatium like the dunce in english class reciting a copied version of the plot synopsis on the back book jacket instead of doing a proper book report like everyone else.
The cashier knew where to look and I was relieved, but only a little. See, I 've done these kinds of things before. No matter how much I prepare, something goes wrong.
Have you ever offered to get someone coffee?
I don't drink coffee, but if I did and someone offered to get me one, I'd say, "Thanks," and then that's it. No cream or Splenda or whatever - because that would be too complicated. But people don't mind being complicated when I'm taking coffee orders. I always get a 37-syllable order that I don't understand because half of the request seemed to be in Russian. I write it down, but because I don't know what the Hell I'm talking about, I can't answer the curveballs those tricky coffee baristas inevitably throw.
So yeah. Something's gonna go wrong.

The product's in my hands now. I'm looking at it, it looks familiar - like the version my girlfriend showed me before, so I buy it. The blush (it's blush, right? It was either blush or colorful tobacco snuff. I'm not really sure how to use either) was no bigger than a yo-yo, and I realize that I haven't any idea how much a disk of blush costs.
My first mistake was taking its physical size into consideration. Those shenanigans might work with guys, 'cause when guys buy something big it takes up a lot of space. If I spend $10,000 dollars on something, that something is going to need its own house. When girls spend $10,000 on something, they can wear it or hide it in a handbag (which probably cost $40,000).
The cashier printed up the receipt and wrapped the pint-sized product in the crappy little Nordy's tissue paper. After putting the blush in the bag** she hands me the receipt. I looked at the price and was immediately compelled to glance back into the Nordstrom bag in hopes that the cashier accidentally sold me four or five of these damn things.
Sonuvabitch.
Do you have any idea how many Jr. Bacon Cheesburgers I coulda bought for the price of this... this... stuff that I don't even know the purpose of?
What is blush anyway? Is it supposed to hide the fact that you're blushing or make it look like you're blushing all the time? Does it hide blemishes?
Is blushing considered a blemish?
Did I really just forgo my kid's college education to help my already attractive girlfriend cover a little ugliness?
'Cause that seems like a Goddamned ripoff.

So ah-ha-ha. I live and I learn, right?
But wait. I'm not done yet, 'cause remember what I said? No matter how much I prepare for buying someone something, the purchase always gets messed up.
I'm in my car and I'm calling a loan agency to help me pay for this blush I just purchased when I actually take a close look at the stuff.
It is Smashbox.
It is from the Soft Light line of Smashbox's products, but the color on the box doesn't say Highlight, it says Smashing Highlight.

Smashing highlight?! What the hell...? Is that the same thing? Is it like Highlight only more smashing?
I don't know.
The term "highlight" when describing a color doesn't mean anything to me.
When I look into a crayon box and it says "Grey Oyster", that's okay. I can visualize the grey of an oyster. But what color is a highlight? And is that color different from a Goddamned smashing highlight? Is it like the difference between the green/blue and the blue/green colored pencils?
I don't know.
Smashing highlight.
Christ. So now, if it's the wrong color, I'm gonna look like a typical worthless male because I don't know shit about skin tones.
There. You caught me. I don't know shit about skin tones.
I also don't know if I'm an "autumn" or a "winter" or what.

I'm going to give her the Smashbox-Soft Lights-Smashing-friggin'-Highlight disk of blush and immediately after doing so, I'm going to find the person responsible for naming all these products and I'm gonna lock myself in a room with this fool until one of us is dead.
But I'M bringing a sock full of nickels.

================================================================

* Nope. That's Smashmouth.
** I didn't want a bag. It was shiny and had little string handles. I hate carrying less than five pounds of material in a bag with handles.

The Zero Life

It was a very important part of survival and yet it was never clear. It always happened the same way; I couldn't make the jump, couldn't beat the boss, or got plowed by a stray barrel, and then I found out the hard way...

I didn't have a "zero life".

To the uninitiated, "zero life" is when the life indicator for a video game, whether it be Mario or Sonic or Zelda or Metroid, displayed that you had one life. But for some video games, having one life meant that you had one life after the life you were currently using. Other video games counted the one life as the current life you were using.
As someone who played with many a "one-life" in his day, there was nothing sweeter than getting that "zero life".

While we're on the subject of having no lives, some friends and I brought out the old Genesis and original Nintendo systems last week. I'm not sure why exactly, but most of what I do for fun these days is somehow linked to nostalgia. That and the fact that my buddy had a 1,000 inch HD television and we wanted to see how pixelated "Zelda" looked.
There's something ironic about attaching an ancient bit of machinery to a television from the future.
Playing all the old childhood hits from our youth was fun for about 15 minutes until the memories came flooding back of every sleepover I was a part of growing up, wherein I get my ass handed to me in every videogame I competed in with my friends.
What was I thinking as a kid?
I never had Nintendo.
My parents didn't like the idea that there was an attachment to the television that made it more addictive than before. I guess my folks thought acting out "Ghostbusters", "The Karate Kid", and "Beetlejuice" while watching them on the tube was weird enough, they didn't want to hear the theme song to "Q-Bert" wafting up and down our apartment hallway on a regular basis.
Being deprived of videogames throughout the bulk of my childhood didn't bother me as much as it might have bothered other kids*. Really, I only wanted Nintendo because everyone else had it and spent all their time talking about it. When they weren't talking about it, they were inviting all their friends over to have big video game nights.

I always wondered what pre-teen girls did during their sleepovers. Obviously, once girls became teenagers, they all stripped down to their underwear and giggled about how cute I was while pummeling each other with pillows. But that's not what they did when they were 10 and I'm curious to know what went down.

Anyway, I always got invited to these sleepovers and at the time I wasn't sure why. I wasn't good at videogames. Years later, I finally realized that I was the emotional support center for the rest of my friends. No matter how many times one friend dropped 10 billion Tetris lines on another friend sending him away from the Nintendo crying like a bitch, all anyone had to do was play good ol' Adam and their confidence would restore itself to full health.
I was the Mario mushroom making all my little Italian plumber friends much, much bigger.

There was nothing worse than losing to good ol' Adam in a video game. Losing to me in a video game - any video game - was equivalent to those 80's movies where the scrappy group of tom-boyish girls prove they can play soccer better than the high school boys (all of whom were being played by 35-year-old actors with crazy chest hair).
It was completely improbable and incredibly triumphant. Which was eaxctly what losing to me in "Tecmo Football" felt like.
But see, I had quick thumbs growing up and so I'd be able to pull out a win in "Mortal Kombat" every once in a while. That was the great thing about fighting games, for the most part, they required little skill.
You could be blindfolded and still win as long as you had quick thumbs.
The only problem was, I had no stamina. Not having any video game system throughout most of my childhood caused my thumb-jamming stamina to suffer greatly.
I had weak little baby thumbs. They were quick like babies, but weak like them as well.

Sometimes videogames had wierd effects on my friends. They'd be normal and friendly at school or on the playground, but once they sat in front of a Nintendo, they turned into Rommell. Barking orders like Mussolini, and demanding that you hand over your controller to someone who knew what they were doing (namely themselves). It was scary.
And if they didn't turn into monstrous bullies, they all turned into Tommy. Suddenly, they were unable to talk or hear anything you might be saying to them. They had no other coordination skills other than hand-eye. There was this fourth-dimension develping into a sixth sense and it allowed them to go from earning a D-average in geometry, to accounting for the next 13 lines in "Tetris". A week after owning the game, they were on their way to breaking the record set three days ago by some Asian kid.
It was wierd and creepy and it made me want to go toss a football around.

Videogames weren't all bad. I still say that playing videogames taught more about teamwork than organized sports ever could. In organized sports, the biggest mantra was that it didn't matter whether you won or lost, but how you played the game. I'm not sure how old I was when I realized this mantra was unrealistic, but it was pretty early on in my life.
Videogames never pretended that they weren't about winning, beating the bosses, gathering rings, getting the high score, saving the Princess. Those are life lessons, those are things to strive for.

My favorite video games were the ones with a 2-player simultaneous option. The kind that a friend and I could play at the same time, as a team. The "Streets of Rage", and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle" series were perfect for this. These games were like tennis doubles matches: one player beats up the hoodlums on the top of the screen and the second player takes the bottom. Not that there is a lot of hoodlum fighting in tennis doubles. Brawls in doubles tennis are rare.
My apologies to the sport of tennis.

Unlike pee-wee baseball, where the biggest team objective was not looking like a spaz in front of all the parents, 2-player video games instilled sharing, cooperation and all-for-oneism. If two players came across a power-up, or some sort of energy enhancer, all across the world two friends would ponder the same questions: who is weaker at the moment and needs the health more? And you know what, if the answer was your buddy and not you, you always - always - let your buddy get healthy.
Why?
For the good of the team, that's why.
And if I died and had to burn one of the team's "continues" to keep playing, say what you will about my friends, they never gave me shit for using a "continue". That's friendship.
That's teamwork.

I kept getting jump-kicked to death by the bruiser's in the purple leotards in "Double-Dragon." I could never remember the trick to beating King Hippo in "Mike Tyson's Punch-Out" and frankly, both "Mega Man" and "Metroid" confused the hell out of me, but I could always hold my own when I was on a team.
2-player games were the only time I ever felt a part of my friends' videogame world. Just last week, I kept falling down a water hole in "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" and didn't remember the secret worlds in "Super Mario Bros." and my 26-year-old friends yelled at me unmercifully the exact same way they did 14 years ago - over the same Goddamned games even!!
Christ. Some things never change.

Ah well. God bless Luigi.

=================================================

* I eventually got a Sega Genesis for Christmas. I was excited about it, but I got it about four years after everyone else did. Essentially, I was the guy who accidentally discovers The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper" only to insist that everyone else listen to it because "it's so unbelievably awesome and you won't believe how awesome it is unless you listen to it."

I was that guy with Genesis.

The Metaphysical Marathon

I've been feeling metaphysical lately.
What does metaphysical feel like, you ask?

Hard to define exactly. Feeling metaphysical probably means that I've been thinking about hypothetical situations a lot. It also might mean that I've been listening to Radiohead and Beck. I haven't been listening to Radiohead or Beck, so perhaps I just imagined this metaphysical movement. Maybe I just hypothesized the whole thing and it never really existed.

Which of course, would be a very metaphysical thing to do.

I like to remedy - or perhaps explain - my varying moods through film. If I'm feeling silly and childish, I usually watch a series of Jim Carrey and Will Ferrell movies; maybe some Disney. If I'm feelin' confident and cool, George Clooney inevitably makes his way into my little film festivals.

When I started journalism school, I watched, as preparation: "All the Presidents Men", "His Girl Friday", "Network", "Bruce Almighty", "Goodnight and Goodluck", "Medium Cool", and "The Paper".

So what does one watch when feeling metaphysical? I think my mood started when I went to go see "Stranger Than Fiction" last week. I recommend it highly.
Oddly, Jim Carrey is a good fix for metaphysical feelings as well as silly and/or childish ones. I started with "The Truman Show", and moved on to "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." I ended with "Vanilla Sky" but Carrey isn't in that movie, Tom Cruise was. Perhaps Jim would have made the film even stronger.
I can't be sure.

"The Truman Show"

I like to start my movie marathons on a positive note, and amongst this batch, "The Truman Show" is as positive as it gets.
I love movies that reflect me back on to myself, like looking into a mirror. Not every movie I enjoy does this, but my favorite ones do. This one does.
I've mentioned before my childhood belief that I was watched and videotaped at every moment of my life. "The Truman Show" was released in 1998, but I felt like Truman in 1988.
Sometimes, I really want to believe the world revolves around me.
I know, I know. "Narcissist much?"
I'm not as vain as that last statement must make me sound. If I desired the world pay rapt attention to every muscle twitch, trivial decision and devoid glance I made, I would be a horribly self-serving human being.
I'd be Paris Hilton.*
I like the idea that the world is interested in what I'm doing and why I'm doing it, but not at all interested in knowing that this is going on. My stance on this is exactly the same as every action my daughter choses to take once she turns 16. I'll love my daughter and do what I can, but I don't want to know about the parties she goes to, boys she sees, liquids she drinks, or underwear she buys. I just won't want to know.
I'll form an ideal in my head when she turns 13 and assume that's the case until my wife informs me 25 years later that our daughter is engaged to be married.
That's what all the best parents do.

And like Jim Carrey's Truman, who rejects his "fame" immediately upon realizing he has it, I too reject fame as my driving force. It's not fame or attention I seek, I guess it's influence. I liked the idea, as a seven-year-old, that cameras were watching my every move. That being said, I never actually spotted one of those cameras. And had I done so, there'd be no end to my crippling fear of society. I wanted people to watch, but I didn't want those people to have personalities or faces.
It's kinda like this blog. I write so that somebody might one day read all this garbage, but God forbid those somebodies talk to me about it, I shrivel like a frightened turtle.
What's that about?

"Eternal Sunshine of A Spotless Mind"

I like the idea that no matter what we do, there is a part of us bigger than science.

Both Jim Carrey's character (Joel) and Kate Winslet's character (Clementine) erase one another from their memories. Clementine did it because she was bored and Joel did it because he found out what she had done. But even after science removes them from each other, they reconnect accidentally.
Which brings us to fate.
An idea that - above all others - I'd love to believe in. Believing in fate would require me to let go of a lot of things I'm scared to let go of. It would also require some concession that we aren't in control of what happens.
"Eternal Sunshine" seems to exemplyify "losing control". Clementine and Joel shared a lot of great memories, but life moved on and left them cold toward one another. To be fair, they were cold without one another as well. Joel tried desperately to hang onto Clementine within his own dreams. It seemed that even after we literally erase our memories of a person or event, we can't erase their intangible effect on us?
And anyway, once both Joel and Clementine were rid of one another, they still wandered back toegther like bad pennies or a bottled message floating back to the desserted island.

Writing this, I feel very young and very naive. I picture my Mom disregarding this blog, perhaps wondering why I even care. Maybe that's not fair, maybe my Mom philosophizes and hypothesizes more than I do.

Anyway, I like the idea of fate. I've liked the idea for as long as I can remember, but I don't know that I've ever believed in it.

"Vanilla Sky"

Sometimes when I floss my teeth, I jam the floss hard into my gums. I'm not sure why I do this - it hurts. But this particular pain, it doesn't hurt like breaking an arm or slamming my finger with a hammer, it's a satisfying pain. I can't explain it any better than that I don't mind hurting myself with the floss. It doesn't cut in enough to draw blood or tears, but it could never be described as pleasant. If I wasn't ready for it, I would freak out if someone else administered this feeling in me.
This psychological tendency has something to do with my enjoyment of "Vanilla Sky," a movie that in no way can be seen as a pleasant experience, but deeply moves me everytime I see it.
I only know one other person who liked this film. Following "Jerry Maguire" and "Almost Famous" with "Vanilla Sky" seemed to critics and fans as a misstep for director Cameron Crowe, but for me, it seemed triumphant and maybe even a little genius.
Nah. Not genius, but unexpected and different, which is often confused with genius.
I imagine I like this film because it reminds me of my past relationships. I'm speaking primarily of romantic relationships, but I suppose a multitude of friendships would qualify here.
If you haven't seen the movie, then the rest of this section is going to be confusing as hell because I am barely smart enough to comprehend the film, but nowhere near smart enough to explain it to someone else.
Tom Cruise is in it, and his presence is really the only bad aspect of the film. Penelope Cruz is unusually likeable and managed to stave off her normally lifeless persona in this film. The biggest feat is Cameron Diaz who is horrifying in the film. I love Diaz, but cringed everytime she came on screen.

I think "Vanilla Sky", more than any other film, mirrors my attitude toward my past. Diaz represents the girls that seemed so perfect and without warning turned into... horrible, horrible life lessons.
It should be noted for self-preservation that I do not fashion myself as Tom Cruise-ish in any way. I'm way taller.
So for the record: I don't think I'm Paris Hilton and I don't think I'm Tom Cruise.
Penelope Cruz represents all those that came in and out of my life at the wrong time, or with the wrong objectives, or the wrong outlook. In the film, her lovely romance with Cruise gets cut crushingly short and he spends the remainder of his life longing for her, pining for that small moment of perfection between the two of them.
I dunno. Am I alone in wanting this? Haven't we all experienced moments of pure and absolute perfection and don't we live our lives to retrieve those moments again? Why else do people stay in crappy relationships, stale friendships and dysfunctional families?
Watching "Vanilla Sky" there is always a part of me that wonders where my past went. I'll always have memories (unless I forget them) and a few exported members of my past have been and will continue to be promoted to members of my present, but in general it's gone.
I am all that's left of my past.
I had friends, loved ones, girlfriends and peers that seem so distant now that I sometimes wonder if I dreamed them, as Cruise indeed wonders in the movie.
I mix up memories of trips and experiences with the people I experienced them all with, it becomes amorphous and vague and it's only going to get worse.
"Vanilla Sky" is tragic because only half of what Cruise experiences is real, but he has no idea which half it is and therefore, almost none of it is preserved. It's all gone.

And perhaps you don't agree, perhaps you're more forward-thinking than I am. But letting go of your past is a tragedy second only to forgetting it altogether.

================================================================

* I'm not Paris Hilton and I'd hate for people to end this blog with it in their mind that she and I are basically the same person. Please trust that none of my intentions align themselves with Ms. Hilton's.
I would never carry my dog in my purse.
I would never carry a purse.
I would never own a dog that I was strong enough to carry.
I would also not allow my dog to carry a purse, which isn't somerthing that Paris Hilton has done, but it seems like something she'll do eventually, so I'd like to make a pre-emptive strike against it here.

Datred

So everyone's looking for what?
A house? A car?
We all eventually want two kids? Two-and-a-half kids? Two-and-one-third kids?
A dog? A cat that gets along with the dog? A bigger television than the neighbor?

I'm in competition with everyone. I don't usually watch more than eight hours of television a week, but dammit I want a bigger television than you. I don't drive more than two miles a day to work, but damned if I don't want sweet suicide doors on my car.
Why?
Because your car ain't got suicide doors.

I'm willing to pay thousands of dollars I don't actually have, just to get my grubby paws on a master's degree that says I'm smarter than you. A piece of paper that will prove once and for all who's boss.
Unless you have a master's degree from a school that's better than mine. If that's the case, I'll challenge you to some physical activity of which I can beat you.
Unless I can't beat you. If you out-wrestle, out-swim, out-box or out-javelin me, then I'm going to start dating someone and that someone will be better than whoever you're with... if you're with anyone at all.

And this is where I've seen a lot of battles come to a conclusion.

First of all, I can't explain why - even amongst friends - competition arises. I don't explain why so many people want things they can't explain their desire for. I don't know why two people who might have taken baths together, gone to prom together or played in the same band with one another, would ever be compelled to silently and subtly battle for the upperhand.
I can hear you asking, "Adam, if two people are silently and subtly competing for a better overall existence, why are you so sure there's even any competition?"
Truthfully, it's because I've won and lost many of these battles myself.
I want more than any of you've got and whether you'll admit it or not, you want more than the next guy over.

I've noticed over the last few years, as my generation moves away from toys and clothes as examples of primary status symbols moves towards (*gasp* dare I say...) family and careers that there's a whole new brand of angred and hostile "Haterade" out there and it's getting tossed all over people's backs like they just won the Superbowl.
Dater hatred. "Datred" for short.

It happens all the time, two friends drive to work together, play raquetball, work out, share each others Slurpees, invite one another to their home for tickle parties and "Grey's Anatomy", whatever it may be.
Then one of the two friends goes out on a date, leaving the other one at home to decide whether Izzy or Meredith is cuter - alone.
At first it's okay. No feelings hurt and it's a chance to dish and gossip because - let's face it - most first dates don't end up turning into wedding bells. The second friend is totally supportive.
But, alas (or is it "alack"? Maybe lo and behold? Yeah, I'll go with "lo and behold")... Lo and behold, the first date turns into three, four, eighteen, nineteen dates. And all of a sudden "Grey's Anatomy" alone isn't so cute.
The first friend is happy. Finding someone to go that extra mile with is a comforting feeling. Being inside a relationship is great and safe and somewhat relieving.
But to every ying there is a yang. And more times than not, two friends aren't dating anew at the same time. Either Friend #1 is newly dating and the other is already in a relationship, or Friend #2 is hitting a dry spell.
And if Friend #2 is hitting a dry spell, Friend #1 needs to be very careful how to proceed because the thin ice of friendship underfoot is cracking.
No one wants to see their friend miserable, but misery does love company, make no mistake about it. And there are a lot of people out there with the mentaility that if "I can't be happy, I damn sure don't want anyone around me to be."
So what happens to our hypothetical duet if one suddenly finds romantic happiness and the other is draggin' ass in the dried desert sands of love? Sometimes nothing happens. Friend #2 smiles through the pain, wished for the best and makes due.
But other times, "datred" happens.
Datred sneaks up and jams a big ol' burr in between the saddle of friendship and the horsie of fairness.
Datred ain't nothin' but pointed jealousy at a happy couple.
And there's not a whole lot anyone can do about it. Jealousy happens and everyone has just got to deal with it. You're no different and neither am I. I get jealous all the time.
I wish I had Ryan Cabrera's hair.
I wish I had Tom Waits' voice.
I wish I dressed like Beck.
I wish my parents swam in the same gene pool as The Gyllenhaals.

See? No one is immune and no one is perfect. But whether you're a dealer of datred or just snort it sneaky-style in a nearby alley, you'd be best served to remember that everything passes. Everything evens out.
And there's always a first date around the corner.

Fathers & Sons, part 2

(cont'd from Wednesday November 15, 2005)

* * * * *

So there I was; Barnes & Noble. Audiobooks. Pen and paper scraps. Sweater. Adam's dad. I've got a 20-year-old autistic son.
My very own bouncing baby man-child.
An infant, now into his 240th month.
My new gigantic baby, it's my face he sees more than all others. The most important influence on his life, whether he (or I) like it or not.

I haven't saved nearly enough for his college, as my four visions dictated I would have done by now. Then again, my four visions didn't include having a child whose taste buds are so dulled that he pours ketchup on his Frosted Flakes just to taste something.

* * * * *

At some point, everyone has to come to a decision about God. Is He real? Does He effect our lives? And how much does any of it play into our everyday lives? It doesn't really matter which side of the fence you park yourself on, but it is important to eventually come to some sort of understanding, if for no other reason than to move on with life.
Parents imagine raising healthy babies. Babies that will grow and learn and struggle and succeed. They'll listen to music you don't like, cut their hair in nonsensical ways, think thoughts that you can't imagine ever thinking (but did) and they'll grow out of it all the moment you feel you can no longer take their stupidity and selfishness.
Parents imagine that having a child will eventually produce two things. 1) another member of society able to make this world a better place and 2) someone who will tell you stories further on down the road, when your own stories start getting stale.

I know this is what fathers and mothers think, what parents hope for and imagine, because it is what I hoped for and imagined, as I've made perfectly clear by now, I too am a father.

Questioning God comes into play when that kid doesn't look at 20, the way you imagined. At twenty, your child is scared of thunder and loud noises and watches cartoons and can't fold a pair of pants. You start looking deeper into God, when it seems he handed you a punishment in the place of a miracle. The questioning of God rears its ugly head when the visions you had as a soon-to-be-parent can't possibly happen and the visions you are stuck with carry an air of doom.

* * * * *

I will remind you of my visions from the previous post.

1) Rockwellian fatherhood. (playing catch, shooting hoops).

2) Tough love. (punishments)

3) Influence. (baseball and Springsteen passed on to the next generation)

4) Community. (self-explanatory)

I angered a few of you by leaving you hanging on Thursday. For that I apologize and for your patience, I will illustrate the differences between my la-la land hopes of pre-parenthood and the nastiness of actually going into parental battle.

ROCKWELLIAN FATHERHOOD

I'm not He-Man. I'm fairly certain I'm not gonna be the type of dad who threatens to punch my kid's coach in the stomach if he doesn't give him more playing time. And if I happen to coach a team myself, I'm fairly certain I wouldn't punch some other kid's dad for suggesting I give his kid more playing time. But I do love sports and do find many aspects of sports worthwhile.
My son doesn't see it this way.

I've taken to teaching my kid how to play basketball. He hates basketball and stands a mere 5'7'', so it's not like I have high hopes for his career. But I noticed his affinity for shooting the ball, so it was something to build on.

He refuses to pass.
I've taken to calling him "Grippy" because if you make the mistake of giving him the ball, you can bet he ain't lettin' it go, unless to shoot - wildly.
"I'm open, kiddo," I'd scream this because it was true. I was open. He was open too, we were the only two people playing. But we were running drills and the drill was for him to pass.
"I got it Shafer," he says. This is a wierd way to talk to his father. Had I known him when he learned to talk, I would not have allowed this to go on.
I'd continue to scream, "Kiddo, don't shoot the ball. You've got to learn to pass to your..."
Instead of having enough time to finish my thought, the ball was six miles into the air, over the backboard and into the driveway of the neighbor's house.
"Shooting is only part of the game, buddy. There's passing - which you never do - and dribbling, which you also never think to do. And rebounding, which is your role if you miss a shot."
This kid. My baby boy.
Fruit of my employer's loins.
Apple of somebody's eye that isn't me. He looks at me, but only for a second, because his autism dictates that he cannot make eye-contact with anyone (which is the emotional equivalent of living with a surly 15-year-old forever!) and says, "You rebound Shafer. Tha-tha-tha-that's your role. Your role."
By this time "Grippy" got the ball again, launched it over the hoop and says with a smile and cackle that could peel paint, "I-I-I missed. I missed. Rebound. Rebound. It's your role, Shafer."

We went inside and stopped playing basketball. My vision of Norman Rockwell, gone.

TOUGH LOVE

That wouldn't be the last time I played basketball with my fake son. I play with him almost everyday. Wait...no. That's not exactly true, I guess. I typed that to make myself feel better and to sound as if I were a better father than I am. It's closer to every other day that I play basketball with him.
This whole thing started because of Oprah Winfrey, a woman whom I despise with a capacity deeper than any ocean. Y'see, my son isn't a manly-man. I'm not either. I like daquiries and "feelings" just as much as any gal, but by comparison I could be a street-fighter. Comparitively, I should have tattoos that say "DeathDog" and a mustache with food and blood stuck in it.
Oh, and missing teeth. Missing teeth is pretty tough too.

Anyway, the point I'm making is that I'm way tougher than my son. I'm raising a real sissy. I'm not kidding. I looked up the definition in the dictionary. All it said was,

Sissy. Si-see. adj. Def: see the 20-year-old boy you are raising.

I was shocked, but also impressed with how detailed Webster's is getting.

Anyway, he's soft. And his softness stems from a mother who parked him in front of a television for 18 years during the afternoons and figured Oprah was the best option. So now my 20-year-old son mintzes around, crossing his legs at the thigh, offering to make me cocktails (he has no idea what a cocktail is, but his mother might be a closet alcoholic), describing the meatloaf we make on Mondays as "devine and scrumptious" (two words that should never be applied to meatloaf or anything ending with "loaf") and a prediliction toward ending most of his sentences with "girl".

Two examples: "Shafer, this meatloaf is the best I've ever had, girl." Or, "Giiiirl, I can't wait to see the Judds in concert!"
Like I said, a sissy.

Oprah is killing this kid, this kid's soul. My 20-year-old newborn is already swallowed up in a world that only makes sense when looked at through the myopia that is Oprah.

Grab your basketball, kiddo. We're gonna teach you some new tricks.

I decided that from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. everyday, we'd miss Oprah, opting instead to play basketball (unless he's willing to suggest a better idea, but he never does. He just throws a hissyfit like a three-year-old baby when he realizes he's not watching his favorite show. This reaction is all the proof I need that I'm doing the right thing.) My agreement with him is that if he can beat me in a game of HORSE, we can go inside and watch whatever remains of Oprah.
If he doesn't beat me in the first game of HORSE, we play until he does beat me, or until the sun goes down. Perfectly, the sun happens to set at about 5, right when Oprah is over.
This agreement pissed J.P. off (which, I guess, doesn't make it an agreement at all). He hates this, hates me for doing this and fears the days we play HORSE. And sadly enough, this is exactly how I assumed it would go when doing the tough love act on my kid. I just never thought I'd be doing it to a 20-year-old with a basketball in my hand.

The quirk of this story is that, this same kid, this autistic, limp-wristed, limp-ankled, sissyboy launching every shot onto the neighbor's driveway - this little bastard - beat me.
Sonuvabitch.
H-O-R-S (Adam's son) to H-O-R-S-E (Adam).
I was furious.
The grounds swelled, the earth shook, blood ran from the rivers and frogs rained from the heavens, all because of my epic rage. That little bastard. My boy could do this when he wanted to. When he had to. If we were antelope in the wild, my son would apparently not be the first to fail the "survival of the fittest". He learned what he needed to know. Did what he had to do. Became who he had to in order to maintain his myopic urge to keep current on Oprah's bookclub reading list.
He won the battle. The war, has since been mine.
Now I play harder at HORSE and he doesn't beat me so easily. We've also established several passing and rebounding drills that he must finish before we go inside. Before he misses all of that damn Winfrey.
I no longer rebound his shots in the neighbors driveway. He no longer takes 100% of the shots and much to the chagrin of every small child (or autistic 20-year-old) he's learning the lessons I'm trying to teach him.
The tough way.

INFLUENCE

By now, many of you have heard the story of my trying to get my boy to listen to something other than Wynonna Judd (the only person he loves more than Oprah). I'm not trying to change who my son is, but I am trying to give him some perspective, broaden his horizons.

One day I opened up my cd collection and said, "Pick something, kiddo. It doesn't matter what. Pick anything."
He flipped and flipped and flipped and settled on Bruce Springsteen's Born In the USA. I was ecstatic. Perfect choice. My boy was becoming a man. My influence was taking root. I held up the album cover and let the American flag background soak into my son's consciousness.



That was what soaked into my son's consciousness.
I put the cd on and asked him why, out of all the albums he could have chosen, he picked Born In the USA.
His reply still haunts me to this day.
"He has... he ha-has a cute butt. CUTE BUTT."
!
"Cute butt."
My son.
My heir.
Total. Sissy.

Many of you know that story. He followed that gem up a month later with another dagger to the heart. Devoid of my cd's, we flipped through the radio. We stopped at a station and he started popping his fingers to one of the tunes. It wasn't "snapping" his fingers, because my autistic doesn't snap correctly. It's awkward and unexplainable. "Autistically accurate" as I have learned to term certain things.
But the song he was popping his fingers to was a song by a band named JET. I like this band and was pleased my son seemed to like them too.
Surprised by his enjoyment, I asked, "Dude, do you like this song?"
"I do. I do," he says.
With raised eyebrows, I follow up, "Really? Do you know who sings this?"
"I do. I-I do. It-it-it's Jet. It's the Jet," he says as if aware of how suprised I am.
Had I not been driving a car, I would have fainted. Being in the car, I knew fainting would kill us both, so instead I let my mouth fall open.
How, the hell did this kid know that?! Not much for problem solving, I decided just to ask him how he knew that.
"How'd you know that?"
Smiling now and swaing strangely, he says, "Beautiful voice. I love it. I lo- I love the singing."
"How long have you liked them?"
"For-forever. Forever. Love their voice."
Awesome.
He was aligning himself with my tastes, broadening his horizons. Becoming more complete, bigger, better.
My son.
My son.
Then he stabbed me. Stabbed me cold and ruthless.
He says, "Beautiful voice. She's got such a... she's beautiful. Red hair. Beautiful voice."
No one in JET has red hair and no one in JET is a "she".
"What are you talking about, boy-o? It's a band full of men."
"N-n-n-no it's not. Nuh-uh. Beautiful voices. Wynonna and Naomi. Beau-beautiful."
J.P. didn't say JET or "The Jet". He said "The Judds".

Vision 3. Dead.

COMMUNITY

J.P.'s mother is tired. Why shouldn't she be? I try not to judge her too hard (a failed attempt at times). Sometimes, after working with 14 autistic students for seven hours, I struggle to muster enough energy for another five hours with just one single autistic kid. It really does take a dang village to raise a kid. Hopefully a village without Oprah in it, but I digress.
Fatigued one day, I decided to take my son to see the rest of the villagers: we went to the mall.
*Sigh*
My boy doesn't handle steep slopes very well. He doesn't handle loud noises very well and he hates people. So, we head to the mall, shop at Hollister and ride the escalators three or four times while we're there. And this is what I've learned:
The villagers want nothing to do with the raising of your child. the village is chok full of children, raise your own damn child. If the village wanted more than one kid, they woulda had their own. Now get out of my store and take your weird friend with you.
If you've never been to a Hollister store, relax. You're not missing anything.
It's Gap with dimmed lights.
It's Banana Republic with sexually suggestive slogans on their tee-shirts made for 13-year-olds.
It's Abercrombie & Fitch with less nudity.
But one thing they are good at in Hollister is playing loud music.
Their marketing team is brilliant. I got into the store, walked all the way back and was so harmed by the noise blasting through their speakers, that I grabbed two nearby sweatshirts and pressed them firmly against my ears just to muffle the pain I was going through. The next thing I knew, some 17-year-old prep with "Lick me" stitched onto the back of her track pants was pointing to a sign that read, "If you press it against your ears - you take it home."

I paid $120 for those earplugs and as soon as the receipt rang through, they turned the music down.

My son needs this though. He's been pampered for so long, he needs his feathers ruffled. He wants it, he just doesn't know he wants it. He is horrified of downward escalators. A fact that escaped me at one point, only to come crashing back into my memory when - mistakenly under the impression I was leaving him - he began violently yelling and shaking after I boarded the escalator.
We leave Hollister and head downward. The entire time I'm warning him of our next destination. That destination being "down".
He asks if I would hold his hand.
Can't you just see that? This kid acts like a four-year-old, but believe me - he looks 20. No doubt. We look like friends. Which is not the impression I want to give to strangers. I'm not sure how mentors look, but I want to look like my son's mentor.
What an awful thing for a father to say.

I refuse to hold his hand and promptly get on the escalator. I tell him that if he cries or carries on, no Oprah. If he panics or refuses to go down the escalator, no Oprah. If he asks a stranger to hold his hand, since I won't do it, no Oprah. I'm halfway down the escalator when he takes a leap onto the moving stairs.
He's on.
He's smiling.
He wants me to be proud of him for taking the escalator down. Something he hasn't done in years probably. And in a way, I guess I kinda was proud of him, oddly enough. I don't tell him this, he should be taking an escalator without fanfare. If he can - which he just proved he is able to do - then we shouldn't applaud him for it.
I also don't tell him that I'm kinda happy for Oprah. Without her, we'd still be at the top of that escalator.
He reaches the bottom of the stairs and wants to high five.

What the Hell.
I held out my hand low and he gives it a - whack - echoing from the Macy's down to the Sears. The mall, the community, the village helping to raise my son all turn and look. They see my boy holding his arm, pained and sad. He hurt himself slapping me five.
And you all thought I was exaggerating when I called him a sissy.

The problem is that our fellow villagers, they all look around to see someone seven inches taller than the "retarded kid" holding his arm in pain after hearing a booming slap.
My own community uniformly assumed I just beat up a boy with autism.

* * * * *

This is my day. This is my life. I am paid to be a father. To be proud, embarrassed, hopeful and tough. I don't get paid enough for doing what I do. I don't have the stamina to do it all by myself and to do it well. But it's something.
It's more than he had.
I'm going to abandon my son come August. His mother will have to fill my void with someone else. But he will always be my first child. He will always be the one that caused me to question universal fairness.
He will always be the one who was God's punishment and miracle. He will be the one to prepare me for my own kids, my real kids, my kids from the beginning.

I'll be ready for them. I'll be ready for anything. Let my kids fit my first four visions or my current four realities. Let my kids fit something completely different than either.
I'm prepared, and I'm excited.
My dad had his visions, I have mine. I suppose the fact that our visions can no longer match means that I've regained those 30 years. I suppose that means I can once again don my cutoff jeanshorts.
I suppose knowing my 20-year-old son means that anything is possible and I suppose it means I'll be ready for it.
I guess that means I should pick up my sword and shield and armor and continue on.

The End

Fathers & Sons, part 1

While emptying my inbox of old messages, I came across a duet of e-mails sent to my family over a year ago. Instead of deleting them into the ether, I'd rather expose them for everyone to see on this "canon of nothingness" my blog had become. Humor me.

* * * * *

It's all over.

I've given up, thrown my sword in the dirt, unshackled my chest armor and tossed my shield aside. The battle has been fought, the war won, my enemy the victor.

This white flag is currently being waved standing in the audiobook aisle of a Barnes & Noble bookstore. There I was: pen in one hand, scrap of paper in the other, jotting down audiobook titles I'd be interested in checking out. Not from this bookstore mind you, but from the library. I was also squinting. Perhaps I was standing too far away from the titles, perhaps I need glasses. Either way, it is clear... I have become my dad.

This is who I am:
1) I am too busy to read books anymore.
2) I am so scared of forgetting my thoughts that I resort to carrying around strips of paper with scribbles all over them.
3) I am unable to see the words in front of me.
4) I am more interested in travelogues on Yellowstone National Park than I am in some super-slick murder mystery.

This is who I used to be:
1) I was able to read one book every six days.
2) I used to scoff at audiobooks.
3) I used to shop at ultra-hip independent bookstores where everyone has Buddy Holly eyeglasses and tattoos of Hemingway on their forearm
4) I used to be a rock'n'roller wearing band shirts and Sauconys.

Standing in the bookstore wearing khakis and a sweater pulled over a light blue collared shirt, I realize now I am no longer who I used to be. There is no Adam, there is only Adam's dad. Like George Foreman after he got socked by Muhammad Ali.

It's enough to make me puke pure sadness.

I should cover my bases. Adam's dad is a wonderful man. There really isn't anything of him I can drag through the mud. But Adam's dad is 55-years-old. He's got 30 years on me. 30 years of rock'n'roll concerts and drug experimentation and civil rights movements and Americans dancing around on the moon and eight Celtics championships in a row and a national fascination with long-distance phonecalls.

Being him 30 years from now won't bother me. Being 25 now and checking out non-fiction audiobooks instead of the nudie magazines, does bother me.

Even Adam's dad wasn't really Adam's dad until he was, say 39 or 40-years-old. Shouldn't I get to be Adam a little longer before I morph into my dad? It's just not fair is all I'm saying. I remember a time where Dad wore cut-off jeanshorts* and raced to record stores to get a copy of a aclassic album the day it was released. I was alive for that. I remember that, which means he'd had a kid before the Adam's dad of yesteryear turned into the Adam's dad of today.

I don't have a kid. It's not my time to be my dad yet.

Except that I do have a kid. And if any of you are shocked by that, I hope you believe that I join you in your surprise. Maybe one day you'll meet him, but I doubt it. You see, I'm planning on running away and never seeing my child ever again once next summer rolls around.

You may judge me harshly, but you shouldn't. You see, my kid is 20-years-old and he is autistic. I guess that information is more confusing than clarifying. I didn't even know I had a kid until roughly a week ago and even now, standing in the bookstore wishing I had a pair of spectacles, I remain overwhelmed by it all.

* * * * *

One can never truly know what goes into being a good parent until they are called upon to try it out. Even then, some fail at the task. But the farther along in life you go without a child, the clearer an idea you have of what it's going to take to raise a good one. A few months ago, I had four visions of what a good parent does.
The first vision was a classic Rockwellian display of fatherhood. Playing catch with my boy during the summer or shooting a game of hoops in between homework and dinner. ** My second vision was of tough-love. The "no-T.V.-this-weekend-as-punshment" days, the "no-dessert-until-you-finish-your-liver-and-onions" clause (that clause should hold up real well considering Daddy won't be eating liver and onions either), or the "as-long-as-you-never-let-me-forget-your-mother's-birthday-I-swear-I'll-let-youmove-away-for-college" agreement.
My third vision is of influence. Who my child (read: boy) will grow up to be. How much he'll love Springsteen and baseball and how much I'll teach him to despise U2 for no other reason than his aunt (my sister) loves them...
I can't wait for my third vision. That one makes me smile just thinking about it.
My fourth vision is of community. My wife. The child's teachers. Coaches. Friends. Parole officers. Whoever plays an important role in the life of my boy. My son. My heir.

You all might be worried about my not having a boy, being "stuck" fathering a precious bundle of pink girlyness.
First of all, I'm like a ninja; like a puma in a tree constantly adapting and surviving. I can survive anything - even a baby girl.
And anyway, it's all moot, 'fore you have already forgotten one important news item: I am already a father to a 20-year-old autistic boy. The gender issue is all settled.

And wait 'till you hear how my four visions have already come true.



To be continued Thursday November 16, 2006....

================================================================

* Believe it or not, cut-off jean shorts were once acceptable to wear. Not now though. Now, it's just gross.

** If tragedy strikes and I have a little girl instead of a boy, she and I will spend the bulk of her childhood staring confusedly at one another until Mommy comes home to deal with us. Daddy's gonna defer to Mommy a lot if we have a girl.

Knavery, Gambols, Tampoors and Roguery

I've been grumpy lately. And when I get grumpy, I get destructive. The cause of my "grumptitude" has yet to be decided although I've got several prospective reasons.
Nothing I'm willing to divulge at this time.
Anyway, affecting how I spend my free time.
On Mondays I've got an hour-and-a-half in between my classes. The problem with having a free 90 minutes is that it's not enough time to do anything substantial. I can't go home nor can I take a worthwhile nap or rob a bank or anything.
Mostly, I just end up reading books.
Ironically, the books I read are about napping and robbing banks.
Anyway, sitting around the journalism department gives me ample opportunity to notice patterns in human nature. Having identified many of these patterns, I now exploite them for my own entertainment.

The Porcelain Gambol Most classes at Roosevelt last for two-and-a-half hours and have about 8-15 students enrolled in each. Within that span of time, the professors usually offer a 10-minute break somewhere near the halfway mark of each class. There are three Monday afternoon classes that break while I troll the hallways like Judd Nelson in "The Breakfast Club". When the bathroom break rolls around, my keen journalistic insincts have exrapolated the pattern of men that always seem to high-tail it to the bathroom.
Why it's always the same guys, I don't know. You'd have to ask them and their bladders.
There are three urinals in the 5th Floor bathroom. Lately, on my grumpy Mondays, I try to occupy a space in the hallway where I immediately notice the classes breaking. As the same two guys from each class jet toward the commode , I make sure I enter the bathroom right before them.
Once there, like a jerk, I park myself in the middle of the three stalls and pretend like I'm peeing (once I actually had to pee, so that time I didn't pretend).
I know what you're thinking, you're wondering what the entertainment value of this childish action could be.
1. The look on the guys' face when they calculate that I've broken the cardinal rule of urinal etiquette: NEVER PEE IN THE CENTERMOST URINAL IF OTHER URINALS ARE OPEN.
2. I enjoy tabulating how many dudes would rather be encased in a stall than stand anywhere near a man peeing.
You'd be surprised how often I pee alone, while the stalls are clogged with embarrassed dudes. I think that's why I do it.
I'm not judging them, I'd probably go for the stall too.

Staple Roguery The computer labs at Roosevelt allow you to print as many sheets of paper as you'd like, but dissallow any use of their staplers.
The staplers are for the lab assistants, which is a fancy name for "dude-paid-to-sit-in-the-lab-and-do-homework". Anyway, I've made it a game to use his stapler witout him noticing.
I stand close to his desk for a minute or two until he turns his back or reboots a computer or whatever and then I staple the crap out of my pages.
Sometimes, I staple twice on one page.

The Knavery of Names I've been making up adjectives when in conversation with people. Just last week I described a professor as being "really tampooric". I believe what I said was, "The professor in that class is real tampooric but if you study, you might fail."
Think about that sentence for a minute. What does it even mean? There was no way anyone could deduce what I possibly meant, even after taking into account my tone or inflection. But I said it to two classmates and they both acted as if they totally knew what I meant. Again, I'm not being smug. I'm not better than the urinal wizzers or the stapler guy or my classmates, I'd fall for all of this stuff too.

But if I did fall for it, I'd hope that whoever duped me was having as much of a giggle as I'm having.

The Gyllenhaals

Okay, okay. That's it. That is IT. Honestly, no more.

This is me waving the white flag.

This is me dropping to my knees and giving up.

We get it Mr. and Mrs. Gyllenhaal, okay? Back off. Your genes are awesome. It's unfair and dangerous and you two should be very proud.

God, what must holiday homecomings in the Gyllenhaal household be like? First of all, I imagine a dining room full of mirrors. You just know these beautiful Goddamned people cover their world in reflective surfaces. I also imagine constant one-upsmanship.

_____________________________________

Mama Gyllenhaal: Jakey-poo, did you see how good Mags' is in her role in the new Dustin Hoffman movie? You were simply delightful, weren't you, Mags?
Jake: Ma, "Stranger Than Fiction" is a Will Ferrell movie.
Mama Gyllenhaal: Well, I don't know about that, but Mr. Hoffman was certainly in the film. Wasn't he, Mags?
Maggie: I wish you wouldn't call me "Mags," Ma.
Jake: Remember when I kissed Heath last year, Ma. Pret-ty daring, huh?
Papa Gyllenhaal: I didn't care for that, Jake. You had a fine mustache though.
Jake: Yeah, but I got nominated for an Academy Awar--
Mama Gyllenhaal: Oh hush, Jakey. You had your moment. Maggie's doing just as well as you.
Jake: She wouldn't have a career if it wasn't for "Donnie Darko."
Maggie: Shut up, dingus! Least I wasn't in "Bubble Boy!" Loser.
Jake: Yeah?! Well, I'd rather be in 'Bubble Boy' than gettin' butt-slapped and handcuffed by James Spader!
Papa Gyllenhaal: I didn't care for that either, Maggie.
Mama Gyllenhaal: Why don't we ever have a nice Thanksgiving? You're both so pretty and perfect and talented and beautiful. If you don't believe me, just look in the mirror, or your plates, or in the mirrored water glasses we have, or the mirrored table cloth.
Maggie: I'm sorry, ma. It's not my fault that while I'm doing serious work with Oliver Stone, people still confuse Jake with Tobey Maguire!
Papa Gyllenhaal: I don't care for Oliver Stone, come to think of it.
Jake: Oh, excuse me, sis. Not everyone can be so blessed as to make "Mona Lisa Smile."
Mama Gyllenhaal: Alright you two, that's enough. I won't have you two come into my $4 billion mansion bickering and mussing your beautiful brunette locks. Now just eat your incredibly fancy seafood meal in peace. Beautifully, jealousy-inducing, freakish gene-pool peace.
Papa Gyllenhaal: Naomi, should we try to make some more beautiful Gyllenhaals tonight?
Mama Gyllenhaal: I don't see why not. We seem only to pop out impossibly attractive multi-millionaire entertainers. Couldn't hurt.
Maggie: Aw gross, Mom.
Jake: Heath hasn't called me in like, five months...

_______________________________________________________________________
This blog is dedicated to the gene pool of both Stephen and Naomi Gyllenhaal. Thanks for mating and making the world a much more envious place.