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.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Monday, November 27, 2006
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.
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.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
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.
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.
Monday, November 20, 2006
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
* * * * *
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
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
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.
* * * * *
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.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
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.
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.
Monday, November 13, 2006
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.Sunday, November 12, 2006
Thanksgiving 1998, part 3
Warning:
This entry has a level of sexuality unusual to the blog. If you are sensitive to this type of material, do not continue reading.
========================================================
Her apartment was painted a deep blue. Cerulean, dark, but dreamier than navy. It had a pulse, like a night sky over city lights. I can't remember if she painted the walls or if her roommate did. Sitting there, trying to pretend she wasn't sliding my pants off, I decided that her roommate must have painted the walls.
I enjoyed the walls. They were comforting.
I needed to be comforted.
She, despite her actions, was not comforting.
I felt guilty for enjoying the walls the roommate picked out. I'm sure she did not intend for me to bask in her impeccable blue walls while carrying on like this. It seemed like a slap in the face.
I was happy for the aqua-green wall-to-wall carpeting covering the apartment and warming my toes. It complemented the walls nicely and seemed a miracle of feng shui.
Does feng shui have anything to do with carpet color?
I was stalling. I was thinking about anything other than the obvious: she had taken my pants off. Boxers too.
I was naked.
The window shade was up.
I was naked in front of a window shade that was up.
Her apartment was on the fourth floor and it was across from other apartments.
I was in her mouth. I couldn't believe that I was given no warning.
This was what they called "third base."
I was positive everyone was watching us through the window, like a peep show. Like Raymond Burr in "Rear Window". I wondered what all the peeping toms thought about my penis. I went from having a secret dick to having a public spectacle for the entire North Side.
One of the best feelings in the world is being extremely cold, wearing only pajamas and dive-bombing into a nice cozy, warm bed. The warmth of wrapping a feather comforter around my head, snuggling my toes into the flannel sheets...
That's what her mouth felt like around my penis.
But "third base" is strange and uncomfortable. Penises are gross and I couldn't imagine it being very fun down there.
I wanted her to come back closer to my face. I wanted to rip her little shorts off, I wanted to kiss her and see that her eyes were no longer red.
I wanted to remember this.
I wanted to remember everything about it.
I tapped her on the shoulder, not knowing the protocol for getting someone's attention when they're down there. I tapped her again on the shoulder, as the top of the head seemed disrespectful. Like she was a small child.
I quickly expelled any further thoughts of small children.
I whispered her name. I wanted her attention, but feared that if I startled her, she'd bite. I whispered it again and tapped her on the shoulder as I did it. I held her red locks and tugged them slightly. Then I cupped her ears and pulled. She finally took the hint and moved up to me.
We immediately kissed and I calculated the percentage of my own penis I tasted in that kiss. I began playing with her breasts again. I was a little more confident now without knowing why. She smiled and stood up, but I still couldn't see her eyes.
I wondered if I was failing her. I wondered if she was enjoying this, if it was real.
She went into her bedroom. I didn't follow her. I'm not sure why I didn't follow her. My head wasn't clear. The blue walls, the peeping toms, the puffy eyelids, the exposed member.
I was reminded of my nudity and of the big open window. I rushed past the recliner and pulled the shade down. She came out of her room, topless but still wearing her shorts. She told me to sit back down.
I was still hard.
She stood in front of me as I sat back on the couch and told me to take her shorts off. I did. There was nothing abnormal about her area.
It was like looking into the face of Jesus – it was an epiphany, but familiar all at once. Like meeting your favorite celebrity or finally remembering the name of the song whose tune you've been humming all week. I'd seen many, many vaginas before, but none were this close, the real.
She was close-cropped but not bald and there were no scars or signs of disease.
It was a condom she retrieved from her bedroom.
Thinking back, I'm not sure why she didn't ask me into her bedroom, but I imagine it had something to do with her penchant for candles. She had an abnormal amount of candles in her room. They surrounded her bed, lit up her room like Rudolph on Christmas Eve. It seemed dangerous to do anything in there with all those candles.
She might also have wanted her roommate to walk in on us.
I might have wanted that too.
Who was I kidding? She'd slipped the condom on and I shook with fear. What could I have possibly wanted with a second girl, when I couldn't handle the first?
She stood over me once again looking at my newly encased penis. I leaned forward - incredibly vulnerable - and rubbed her thighs. She smiled at me and I wished she wouldn't. It hurt. She hurt and her smile just made me more aware of it. I wanted her to be angry. I wanted her to get dressed and cry on my shoulder some more. I wanted her life to be better than it was. I wanted her to say something.
We never said a word to one another.
I smiled. She smiled back. We were ready.
I wasn't, but we were.
I kept rubbing her thighs, they were smooth and tight and safe.
She bent forward, still standing over me, and put both her hands on my chest. I was sturdy and it felt good to be leaned on. She aimed herself at my penis and slipped in easily. I wasn't sure if I was in, but it was suddenly much warmer. She was sitting on top of me.
No going back now. This one was for the books.
I wanted to remember everything.
I wanted to remember everything but the bad parts.
I wanted her to forget the bad parts.
I wanted her smile to signify happiness, not surrender.
She made several pained sounds and I worried I was doing it wrong, hurting her.
I worried that the walls were thin and I wondered what the auditory version of a peeping tom was. An eavesdropper, that's what it was. I wondered if apartments 403 or 405 were eavesdroppers.
She moaned some more.
I pulled her ear close to whisper. I wanted to know if this was okay. She nodded, gyrating her pelvis around. Her eye closed tight, she wasn't smiling. She was grimacing in concentration, moaning breathlessly. She finally looked peaceful. Her face was reddening. Her eyes blended into blush.
Her hair tickled my chest like a spring breeze.
Her anger was manifesting.
I sat there, gripping her from behind. I felt strong sliding my hands from the curve at the small of her back to the backs of her thighs.
She was an Irish girl; red hair, blue eyes, fair skin. Her face was filling with blood and I could feel myself becoming more and more excited. Her sounds were what did it. It was the only indication I had that she was enjoying herself.
I was in shock. Her breasts knocked together making a wet sound, like a hand slapping a marble slab. She kept gasping. Her face growing more.
She was happy.
Success.
She moved faster now and hurt my hips. I didn't care.
I was close.
I wanted everything to be different. I wanted her eyes to open and smile, to match her face. I wanted her life to improve. I couldn't save her, I couldn't save anyone. I wanted a bigger dick. It seemed big enough. I wanted it bigger. I wanted everything as blue as these walls. I wanted the roommate to walk through the door. I wanted to put my clothes back on and start over. I wanted a different ending. I wanted everything to be different. I wanted to see her smiling eyes. Her big blue smiling eyes. I wanted to hold on. I wanted to please her, save her. I wanted to remember everything.
It ended.
She stopped moving and I pressed her close to me.
Her head was buried into my collarbone. I worried that she'd begin crying again and slobber all over my bare neck. I hoped she wouldn't start crying again until I could put my shirt back on.
The stillness ached. So did my hips.
I wanted to see her eyes.
I gently grabbed her head and guided it away from me. Her eyes were closed. She opened them.
The red left her face, but remained encircling her blue-splashed eyes.
They say you never forget your first time; that you remember every little detail for the rest of your life.
I hope they're wrong.
The End.
This entry has a level of sexuality unusual to the blog. If you are sensitive to this type of material, do not continue reading.
========================================================
Her apartment was painted a deep blue. Cerulean, dark, but dreamier than navy. It had a pulse, like a night sky over city lights. I can't remember if she painted the walls or if her roommate did. Sitting there, trying to pretend she wasn't sliding my pants off, I decided that her roommate must have painted the walls.
I enjoyed the walls. They were comforting.
I needed to be comforted.
She, despite her actions, was not comforting.
I felt guilty for enjoying the walls the roommate picked out. I'm sure she did not intend for me to bask in her impeccable blue walls while carrying on like this. It seemed like a slap in the face.
I was happy for the aqua-green wall-to-wall carpeting covering the apartment and warming my toes. It complemented the walls nicely and seemed a miracle of feng shui.
Does feng shui have anything to do with carpet color?
I was stalling. I was thinking about anything other than the obvious: she had taken my pants off. Boxers too.
I was naked.
The window shade was up.
I was naked in front of a window shade that was up.
Her apartment was on the fourth floor and it was across from other apartments.
I was in her mouth. I couldn't believe that I was given no warning.
This was what they called "third base."
I was positive everyone was watching us through the window, like a peep show. Like Raymond Burr in "Rear Window". I wondered what all the peeping toms thought about my penis. I went from having a secret dick to having a public spectacle for the entire North Side.
One of the best feelings in the world is being extremely cold, wearing only pajamas and dive-bombing into a nice cozy, warm bed. The warmth of wrapping a feather comforter around my head, snuggling my toes into the flannel sheets...
That's what her mouth felt like around my penis.
But "third base" is strange and uncomfortable. Penises are gross and I couldn't imagine it being very fun down there.
I wanted her to come back closer to my face. I wanted to rip her little shorts off, I wanted to kiss her and see that her eyes were no longer red.
I wanted to remember this.
I wanted to remember everything about it.
I tapped her on the shoulder, not knowing the protocol for getting someone's attention when they're down there. I tapped her again on the shoulder, as the top of the head seemed disrespectful. Like she was a small child.
I quickly expelled any further thoughts of small children.
I whispered her name. I wanted her attention, but feared that if I startled her, she'd bite. I whispered it again and tapped her on the shoulder as I did it. I held her red locks and tugged them slightly. Then I cupped her ears and pulled. She finally took the hint and moved up to me.
We immediately kissed and I calculated the percentage of my own penis I tasted in that kiss. I began playing with her breasts again. I was a little more confident now without knowing why. She smiled and stood up, but I still couldn't see her eyes.
I wondered if I was failing her. I wondered if she was enjoying this, if it was real.
She went into her bedroom. I didn't follow her. I'm not sure why I didn't follow her. My head wasn't clear. The blue walls, the peeping toms, the puffy eyelids, the exposed member.
I was reminded of my nudity and of the big open window. I rushed past the recliner and pulled the shade down. She came out of her room, topless but still wearing her shorts. She told me to sit back down.
I was still hard.
She stood in front of me as I sat back on the couch and told me to take her shorts off. I did. There was nothing abnormal about her area.
It was like looking into the face of Jesus – it was an epiphany, but familiar all at once. Like meeting your favorite celebrity or finally remembering the name of the song whose tune you've been humming all week. I'd seen many, many vaginas before, but none were this close, the real.
She was close-cropped but not bald and there were no scars or signs of disease.
It was a condom she retrieved from her bedroom.
Thinking back, I'm not sure why she didn't ask me into her bedroom, but I imagine it had something to do with her penchant for candles. She had an abnormal amount of candles in her room. They surrounded her bed, lit up her room like Rudolph on Christmas Eve. It seemed dangerous to do anything in there with all those candles.
She might also have wanted her roommate to walk in on us.
I might have wanted that too.
Who was I kidding? She'd slipped the condom on and I shook with fear. What could I have possibly wanted with a second girl, when I couldn't handle the first?
She stood over me once again looking at my newly encased penis. I leaned forward - incredibly vulnerable - and rubbed her thighs. She smiled at me and I wished she wouldn't. It hurt. She hurt and her smile just made me more aware of it. I wanted her to be angry. I wanted her to get dressed and cry on my shoulder some more. I wanted her life to be better than it was. I wanted her to say something.
We never said a word to one another.
I smiled. She smiled back. We were ready.
I wasn't, but we were.
I kept rubbing her thighs, they were smooth and tight and safe.
She bent forward, still standing over me, and put both her hands on my chest. I was sturdy and it felt good to be leaned on. She aimed herself at my penis and slipped in easily. I wasn't sure if I was in, but it was suddenly much warmer. She was sitting on top of me.
No going back now. This one was for the books.
I wanted to remember everything.
I wanted to remember everything but the bad parts.
I wanted her to forget the bad parts.
I wanted her smile to signify happiness, not surrender.
She made several pained sounds and I worried I was doing it wrong, hurting her.
I worried that the walls were thin and I wondered what the auditory version of a peeping tom was. An eavesdropper, that's what it was. I wondered if apartments 403 or 405 were eavesdroppers.
She moaned some more.
I pulled her ear close to whisper. I wanted to know if this was okay. She nodded, gyrating her pelvis around. Her eye closed tight, she wasn't smiling. She was grimacing in concentration, moaning breathlessly. She finally looked peaceful. Her face was reddening. Her eyes blended into blush.
Her hair tickled my chest like a spring breeze.
Her anger was manifesting.
I sat there, gripping her from behind. I felt strong sliding my hands from the curve at the small of her back to the backs of her thighs.
She was an Irish girl; red hair, blue eyes, fair skin. Her face was filling with blood and I could feel myself becoming more and more excited. Her sounds were what did it. It was the only indication I had that she was enjoying herself.
I was in shock. Her breasts knocked together making a wet sound, like a hand slapping a marble slab. She kept gasping. Her face growing more.
She was happy.
Success.
She moved faster now and hurt my hips. I didn't care.
I was close.
I wanted everything to be different. I wanted her eyes to open and smile, to match her face. I wanted her life to improve. I couldn't save her, I couldn't save anyone. I wanted a bigger dick. It seemed big enough. I wanted it bigger. I wanted everything as blue as these walls. I wanted the roommate to walk through the door. I wanted to put my clothes back on and start over. I wanted a different ending. I wanted everything to be different. I wanted to see her smiling eyes. Her big blue smiling eyes. I wanted to hold on. I wanted to please her, save her. I wanted to remember everything.
It ended.
She stopped moving and I pressed her close to me.
Her head was buried into my collarbone. I worried that she'd begin crying again and slobber all over my bare neck. I hoped she wouldn't start crying again until I could put my shirt back on.
The stillness ached. So did my hips.
I wanted to see her eyes.
I gently grabbed her head and guided it away from me. Her eyes were closed. She opened them.
The red left her face, but remained encircling her blue-splashed eyes.
They say you never forget your first time; that you remember every little detail for the rest of your life.
I hope they're wrong.
The End.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Thanksgiving 1998, part 2
WARNING:
This blog is sexually graphic. If you do not wish to read material more graphic than what usually appears on this site, you best skip this one. You've been warned.
================================================================
She began fiddling with the strap on her bra. I was thankful for this because I had no previous relationship with bras or their straps. I'd seen a few from afar and had theorized how they held into place, but I'd never undone one. I knew I'd just get in the way, so I didn't offer to help. After I let her squeeze snot all over my jacket, undoing her own bra seemed the least she could do.
I focused on myself wherein I realized I was shirtless.
I had no shirt on.
Which, as you know, is another way of saying that I was shirtless.
She had never seen me without my shirt on. It seemed like a good sign that upon first viewing, she hadn't begun laughing or crying.
I wondered whether anyone had ever been rejected based on the appearance of his chest or abdomen.
There was tension in my brain, a tight pain caused by worry. My chest had hair on it, but nothing unmanageable. It's hard to tell how girls feel about that stuff. There are social signals hinting toward how certain girls prefer their men to dress or act or dance. There aren't many signifiers of a girl's predilection toward a boyish figure or a grizzly one.
Luckily, I don't have any weird scars or moles and my nipples are of appropriate size, so really it all comes down to chest hair.
She unlocked (unhinged? unguarded?) her bra while keeping one hand on my chest the entire time she did it. As with my jean button, her bra came off with a simple flick of her wrist. Did she practice this? It seemed like a real talent. I wondered how many wrist flicks it took her to get to this point. How many other pants buttons had she undone before mine?
She slipped the tank top off her head and I forgot whatever it was I had just been pondering.
Breasts.
Up until this point, breasts were always just tits or boobs. Tits are what men call breasts when they are attached to girls they don't know, or what they call breasts when they know they'll never actually get to see them. Boobs are what girls call their own breasts long after the novelty of having them has worn off. Men identify breasts as boobs if they belong to a girl they have no sexual interest in whatsoever.
Sisters, buddies, gym teachers.
What I had in front of me were breasts; the first breasts I had ever seen up close not glossed over by the veneer of "Playboy" magazine.
They were mine and they bounced. My, oh my, how they bounced.
She had tiny erect nipples. No scars. I don't know why I assumed so many people walked around with big awful gashes across their chest, but it must have had something to do with all the G.I. Joes I played with as a kid.
G.I. Joes all had cool scars across their chest.
She had more experience than me. She undid my pants and her bra, managed the flannel fiasco and presented me with the sweet dessert before the meal.
I had done some comforting earlier in the evening, which was about 90 seconds ago, but the interest accrued from all that was spent with the flannel shirt. I had to bring something to the table. She was sitting up on my lap now, looking down at me.
I wanted all of this. I think I did, I wasn't sure if I wanted this or if I was just aware that many other guys in this situation would. I felt trapped, strapped on a roller coaster seconds before it started.
I chose this, but maybe I shouldn't have.
Her eyes were still red, but she was smiling. Taunting me into making her feel good. Daring me not to.
All I knew about breasts I learned from old 80's movies. They don't make movies like that anymore. Nowadays, you need a reason for your actors to get nude and even then, it's usually artistically done. PG-rated comedies from the 80's would have totally naked women in it.
For no good reason.
For fun.
I cupped them gently. It seemed to be the safe move. Hell, it was a move, which at that point was all that mattered.
She threw her hair back and I wondered if she was acting.
She was, after all, an actress.
And if she wasn't acting, she seemed to be preparing for some sort of unimaginable pleasure. Considering that cupping my hands around her breasts was the big news from my holiday weekend, I couldn't imagine I'd be instilling much pleasure in her.
I allowed myself to enjoy feeling her. I kissed her nipples. I wondered in my naïve stupor whether or not I could coax milk out of her breasts. I feared that if I did, it would freak me out beyond recovery.
I knew very little about the female anatomy.
These actions continued and I realized there was nothing stopping us from moving further. She and I hadn't yet moved further, but tonight seemed to be aligning for us.
But let us go back to her breasts.
Staring up at them, I was awed. I'm not someone who would consider himself a breast guy.
I like butts. I cannot lie.
But breasts are the name brand of a woman's anatomy, the leader in their field; the Nike or the McDonald's. Breasts might not be your brand of choice, but it is understood nevertheless that they are going to lead in consumer dollars.
Advertisers entice with breasts, retailers delight in displaying and enhancing breasts, and for a period of time babies live off breasts. And when you have never seen a real pair bouncing directly in front of you...
...Breasts make the headlines.
I massaged them, but it didn't take me long to sense a serious lack of breast activities. I placed both my hands on her back and hugged her close. I couldn't see her face because her head was still thrown backwards, her red hair falling well past my knees.
She seemed more than happy to be hugged, so I continued. I couldn't imagine what she was getting out of it though. Hugs aren't sexy; comforting perhaps. It seemed we'd jumped the "comfort ship" a few minutes ago.
She sat there on my lap sliding slightly forward then slightly back, moaning gingerly each time.
It occurred to me that all this had nothing to do with my stupid hugs, but more to do with the feeling of her thin cotton shorts rubbing against my...
...And this is where we pause for discussion. What should a guy call his penis? "Penis" seems too clinical and sterile and no one wants to think of penile sterility. "Cock" and "dick" seem too pornographic and everything else seems like adjectives from Adam Sandler movies.
We'll just go with "member". Is "member" okay?
Over time, I came to realize that women are very self-conscious about their breasts. It is the one physical feature society puts a lot of pressure on girls to have above all else.
And even if you have them, they have to be a certain size or shape. And if they're not the right shape, society gives women many options on how to deal with their supposed imperfections. Then the nipple has to be right. Not too big, not too pointy and so on.
Sure, you could ignore all that and just be proud of who you are, but this is America and the chances of you getting away with that seem pretty slim.
What breasts are to women, the penis is to men.
As the realization struck that she was I guess, pleasuring herself on the feeling of my member, my mind traveled a billion miles away. I may have been erect, but I wasn't quite enjoying myself.
How could I? In a few short moments, my member would be taking the stage. In physical interactions between men and women, there is no portion of the stripping process more suspenseful than the penis unveiling.
There are two reasons for this - and it should be noted that I came up with both of these ideas as she - more forcefully now - began sliding back and forth on top of my jeans. The first reason is that there are no female parts as taboo as the penis. Breasts are hard to hide and are, in fact, encouraged to be displayed. The penis is just a big (or small) secret. Women in general, are just smoother, sleeker; more contoured than a man, less hair, scars, bruises.
Women are faire.
The second reason is there's nothing riding on breast size – sexually speaking. The breast size of a woman gives no indication as to what kind of intercourse she will provide. The man's penis, on the other hand, can certainly give a general overview.
The solution seemed simple: if I had a big dick, I'd use it and if not, I'd deal with it. The problem was I hadn't a clue as to how big mine was.
A common misconception is that men constantly walk around one another with their wangs hanging out ("wang" being a term I heard in an Adam Sandler movie). I've never seen any of my friends naked. It's something we've strived to avoid. It's never really been discussed, but I've always been fearful of seeing the members of my closest guy friends. Nothing good can come about gaining this information.
The outcome is simple. Either they're bigger then me or they're smaller. The repercussions from such knowledge, however, would be immense. If I were bigger, I'd always have that over them. I'd always get the final word if there were an argument. I'd always have one last burn armed and ready if I needed it. But if I were smaller, I would just want to kill myself. I'd want to kill myself because the very firepower I was just explained would now be locked and loaded against me.
It's also why I could never be with a girl one of my friends had been with first; because she'd know. Like a member of the Academy the day before the Oscars are announced. Knowledge is power.
Somewhere along the line men and boys get it in their head that penis size is the single most important attribute a guy can have.
I blame porn.
Most of the guys doing porno are not attractive men, sometimes they're fat or hairy or have some smug look on their face, but… they've got foot-long penises thick as soup cans.
My penis is not a foot long. There I said it.
Secret's out.
The penis itself plays tricks. I swam at the local YMCA when I was 12-years-old. I remember accidentally catching a glimpse of an older kid, maybe 18 or 19, switching into his swim trunks. His penis was a foot long if it was an inch, but it was real floppy.
The word I'm looking for is flaccid.
It wasn't until health class four years later that I was told that some penises grow much larger when erect while some hardly grow at all, but are larger naturally.
"Growers versus show-ers", I believe it was termed.
What I'm trying to explain is that she was going to finish what she started with the loosened top button of my pants and I was scared to death of her reaction. What's worse, I hadn't even a ballpark clue where I stood – phallically speaking. I've mentioned that she was more experienced than me, she's seen more members than just mine, and she's had a few control specimens to judge from.
I had no idea where I might fall on the scale.
It was all very tricky.
To be concluded in Part 3...
This blog is sexually graphic. If you do not wish to read material more graphic than what usually appears on this site, you best skip this one. You've been warned.
================================================================
She began fiddling with the strap on her bra. I was thankful for this because I had no previous relationship with bras or their straps. I'd seen a few from afar and had theorized how they held into place, but I'd never undone one. I knew I'd just get in the way, so I didn't offer to help. After I let her squeeze snot all over my jacket, undoing her own bra seemed the least she could do.
I focused on myself wherein I realized I was shirtless.
I had no shirt on.
Which, as you know, is another way of saying that I was shirtless.
She had never seen me without my shirt on. It seemed like a good sign that upon first viewing, she hadn't begun laughing or crying.
I wondered whether anyone had ever been rejected based on the appearance of his chest or abdomen.
There was tension in my brain, a tight pain caused by worry. My chest had hair on it, but nothing unmanageable. It's hard to tell how girls feel about that stuff. There are social signals hinting toward how certain girls prefer their men to dress or act or dance. There aren't many signifiers of a girl's predilection toward a boyish figure or a grizzly one.
Luckily, I don't have any weird scars or moles and my nipples are of appropriate size, so really it all comes down to chest hair.
She unlocked (unhinged? unguarded?) her bra while keeping one hand on my chest the entire time she did it. As with my jean button, her bra came off with a simple flick of her wrist. Did she practice this? It seemed like a real talent. I wondered how many wrist flicks it took her to get to this point. How many other pants buttons had she undone before mine?
She slipped the tank top off her head and I forgot whatever it was I had just been pondering.
Breasts.
Up until this point, breasts were always just tits or boobs. Tits are what men call breasts when they are attached to girls they don't know, or what they call breasts when they know they'll never actually get to see them. Boobs are what girls call their own breasts long after the novelty of having them has worn off. Men identify breasts as boobs if they belong to a girl they have no sexual interest in whatsoever.
Sisters, buddies, gym teachers.
What I had in front of me were breasts; the first breasts I had ever seen up close not glossed over by the veneer of "Playboy" magazine.
They were mine and they bounced. My, oh my, how they bounced.
She had tiny erect nipples. No scars. I don't know why I assumed so many people walked around with big awful gashes across their chest, but it must have had something to do with all the G.I. Joes I played with as a kid.
G.I. Joes all had cool scars across their chest.
She had more experience than me. She undid my pants and her bra, managed the flannel fiasco and presented me with the sweet dessert before the meal.
I had done some comforting earlier in the evening, which was about 90 seconds ago, but the interest accrued from all that was spent with the flannel shirt. I had to bring something to the table. She was sitting up on my lap now, looking down at me.
I wanted all of this. I think I did, I wasn't sure if I wanted this or if I was just aware that many other guys in this situation would. I felt trapped, strapped on a roller coaster seconds before it started.
I chose this, but maybe I shouldn't have.
Her eyes were still red, but she was smiling. Taunting me into making her feel good. Daring me not to.
All I knew about breasts I learned from old 80's movies. They don't make movies like that anymore. Nowadays, you need a reason for your actors to get nude and even then, it's usually artistically done. PG-rated comedies from the 80's would have totally naked women in it.
For no good reason.
For fun.
I cupped them gently. It seemed to be the safe move. Hell, it was a move, which at that point was all that mattered.
She threw her hair back and I wondered if she was acting.
She was, after all, an actress.
And if she wasn't acting, she seemed to be preparing for some sort of unimaginable pleasure. Considering that cupping my hands around her breasts was the big news from my holiday weekend, I couldn't imagine I'd be instilling much pleasure in her.
I allowed myself to enjoy feeling her. I kissed her nipples. I wondered in my naïve stupor whether or not I could coax milk out of her breasts. I feared that if I did, it would freak me out beyond recovery.
I knew very little about the female anatomy.
These actions continued and I realized there was nothing stopping us from moving further. She and I hadn't yet moved further, but tonight seemed to be aligning for us.
But let us go back to her breasts.
Staring up at them, I was awed. I'm not someone who would consider himself a breast guy.
I like butts. I cannot lie.
But breasts are the name brand of a woman's anatomy, the leader in their field; the Nike or the McDonald's. Breasts might not be your brand of choice, but it is understood nevertheless that they are going to lead in consumer dollars.
Advertisers entice with breasts, retailers delight in displaying and enhancing breasts, and for a period of time babies live off breasts. And when you have never seen a real pair bouncing directly in front of you...
...Breasts make the headlines.
I massaged them, but it didn't take me long to sense a serious lack of breast activities. I placed both my hands on her back and hugged her close. I couldn't see her face because her head was still thrown backwards, her red hair falling well past my knees.
She seemed more than happy to be hugged, so I continued. I couldn't imagine what she was getting out of it though. Hugs aren't sexy; comforting perhaps. It seemed we'd jumped the "comfort ship" a few minutes ago.
She sat there on my lap sliding slightly forward then slightly back, moaning gingerly each time.
It occurred to me that all this had nothing to do with my stupid hugs, but more to do with the feeling of her thin cotton shorts rubbing against my...
...And this is where we pause for discussion. What should a guy call his penis? "Penis" seems too clinical and sterile and no one wants to think of penile sterility. "Cock" and "dick" seem too pornographic and everything else seems like adjectives from Adam Sandler movies.
We'll just go with "member". Is "member" okay?
Over time, I came to realize that women are very self-conscious about their breasts. It is the one physical feature society puts a lot of pressure on girls to have above all else.
And even if you have them, they have to be a certain size or shape. And if they're not the right shape, society gives women many options on how to deal with their supposed imperfections. Then the nipple has to be right. Not too big, not too pointy and so on.
Sure, you could ignore all that and just be proud of who you are, but this is America and the chances of you getting away with that seem pretty slim.
What breasts are to women, the penis is to men.
As the realization struck that she was I guess, pleasuring herself on the feeling of my member, my mind traveled a billion miles away. I may have been erect, but I wasn't quite enjoying myself.
How could I? In a few short moments, my member would be taking the stage. In physical interactions between men and women, there is no portion of the stripping process more suspenseful than the penis unveiling.
There are two reasons for this - and it should be noted that I came up with both of these ideas as she - more forcefully now - began sliding back and forth on top of my jeans. The first reason is that there are no female parts as taboo as the penis. Breasts are hard to hide and are, in fact, encouraged to be displayed. The penis is just a big (or small) secret. Women in general, are just smoother, sleeker; more contoured than a man, less hair, scars, bruises.
Women are faire.
The second reason is there's nothing riding on breast size – sexually speaking. The breast size of a woman gives no indication as to what kind of intercourse she will provide. The man's penis, on the other hand, can certainly give a general overview.
The solution seemed simple: if I had a big dick, I'd use it and if not, I'd deal with it. The problem was I hadn't a clue as to how big mine was.
A common misconception is that men constantly walk around one another with their wangs hanging out ("wang" being a term I heard in an Adam Sandler movie). I've never seen any of my friends naked. It's something we've strived to avoid. It's never really been discussed, but I've always been fearful of seeing the members of my closest guy friends. Nothing good can come about gaining this information.
The outcome is simple. Either they're bigger then me or they're smaller. The repercussions from such knowledge, however, would be immense. If I were bigger, I'd always have that over them. I'd always get the final word if there were an argument. I'd always have one last burn armed and ready if I needed it. But if I were smaller, I would just want to kill myself. I'd want to kill myself because the very firepower I was just explained would now be locked and loaded against me.
It's also why I could never be with a girl one of my friends had been with first; because she'd know. Like a member of the Academy the day before the Oscars are announced. Knowledge is power.
Somewhere along the line men and boys get it in their head that penis size is the single most important attribute a guy can have.
I blame porn.
Most of the guys doing porno are not attractive men, sometimes they're fat or hairy or have some smug look on their face, but… they've got foot-long penises thick as soup cans.
My penis is not a foot long. There I said it.
Secret's out.
The penis itself plays tricks. I swam at the local YMCA when I was 12-years-old. I remember accidentally catching a glimpse of an older kid, maybe 18 or 19, switching into his swim trunks. His penis was a foot long if it was an inch, but it was real floppy.
The word I'm looking for is flaccid.
It wasn't until health class four years later that I was told that some penises grow much larger when erect while some hardly grow at all, but are larger naturally.
"Growers versus show-ers", I believe it was termed.
What I'm trying to explain is that she was going to finish what she started with the loosened top button of my pants and I was scared to death of her reaction. What's worse, I hadn't even a ballpark clue where I stood – phallically speaking. I've mentioned that she was more experienced than me, she's seen more members than just mine, and she's had a few control specimens to judge from.
I had no idea where I might fall on the scale.
It was all very tricky.
To be concluded in Part 3...
Friday, November 10, 2006
Thanksgiving 1998
WARNING:
This blog is sexually graphic. It is so graphic in fact; I've blocked my mother and my sister from reading it. I don't know why I felt compelled to write about this experience, but don't say I didn't warn you. -Adam
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I wished it wasn't so cold out. It was two days after Thanksgiving, so I shouldn't have been surprised, but the cold really put a damper on what was happening to me right then.
I had too many layers on.
She had gotten my brown jacket off, but my green flannel shirt was stuck. It was stuck on the long sleeves of my "Sasquatch" t-shirt. Had I worn my flannel over a regular cotton tee, she and I would have no problems; the flannel would have slid easily off my bare arms. But that's not what I did.
I felt the need to double-sleeve.
And so now, in a fit of passion, the flannel was chafing against cotton instead of skin and I became convinced that any minute, she would start laughing.
I could stand anything as long as she didn't start laughing.
She was a wreck when I got to her apartment. Parent-issues. I was unclear what had happened, but whatever it was, it happened over the phone and it happened hard.
I came over to comfort her. It's what I understood a good boyfriend to do. I hadn't been in any relationship as serious as this before, so every action I took, I took cautiously. But driving 12 miles to my girlfriend's house because she was feeling bad seemed like a safe way to proceed.
I drove to her house quickly. I liked speed but tended to get caught a lot. I didn't get caught this time. I got a good parking spot, tipped my cap to Charlie the doorman and headed up to the fourth floor of her apartment.
It seemed as if she might've been leaning against the door in anticipation of my arrival because as soon as I knocked on the door and licked my hand to flatten the stray hairs flying off of my head, she opened the door.
She didn't ask why I was quickly wiping spit on the ass of my pants so I pretended I wasn't doing it.
Her eyes were red.
In time, I would come to see her red eyes as devilish and putrid, but tonight, they were just sad and bloodshot. So much crying.
I was in a difficult position because when I got there, I was so horny. I was horny almost all the time; it's a frighteningly typical characteristic in young men. Everything we do seems to be - even in extremely abstract ways - connected to sex. Honestly, the difference between the "nice guys" and the "assholes" is more often than not, that the "nice guys" have the energy to hide their libido from everyone else.
But she was crying. She was wearing a tank top and tiny pajama shorts, but she was crying.
She was naturally beautiful. This is what I thought at this time, standing there in her doorway.
And to be honest, standing in her doorway, watching her naturally beautiful body welcome me into her warm apartment, made me horny. It didn't take much, and it certainly took less than what I was being offered at that point.
But she was crying. And that made my horniness both inappropriate and unfortunate.
We sat on her couch. It was her roommate's couch actually, but her roommate wasn't here, so tonight it wasn't her roommate's couch. I didn't know where the roommate was tonight or why she wasn't home, but I assumed it had something to do with Thanksgiving and I let the rest fall out of my head.
That's not entirely true. I was slightly interested in where the roommate was because she liked me. I went on two dates with the roommate before I decided I liked my girlfriend better.
There was no closure. We'd hung out, but never discussed anything. I didn't feel right about it, but the roommate wore more makeup than my girlfriend and I feared the secrets hidden underneath her blush and her lipstick.
In hindsight, staying with the roommate would've made my life easier.
I don't remember what my girlfriend was saying to me exactly. She was crying and so I held her close, her head mostly buried in my shoulder. But holding her close only caused her to muffle all the words she was already slobbering while explaining what it was that made her so sad.
Again, this was all new to me. I was trying to do the right thing; I kept asking myself questions like, "Should I pat her on the shoulder? Play with her hair?" I was already hugging her, there wasn't much more physical comfort, I could offer.
That wouldn't be the only mistake in judgment made that night.
The problem was, while I was considering the best ways to comfort the girl I kinda, sorta, perhaps one day might love, I was completely oblivious to all she was saying.
In doing my best to be caring and supportive of her, I completely removed myself from the situation.
I just held her. I rocked back and forth for a few seconds, but that's what my parents did to me when I woke up screaming from a bad dream. I was dating this girl not parenting her, so I stopped rocking her.
Then she stopped. Stopped talking, stopped gently sobbing, stopped moving completely. Luckily, her head was buried in my chest and shoulder so I could feel her hot breath and see her back rising and falling underneath my arms. I knew she hadn't died.
She leaned back but kept her head down so I couldn't see her eyes.
Her puffy bloodshot eyes. Her hands clasped my jacket zipper.
I would like to state for the record that the sound of a zipper unzipping slowly is astoundingly sensual when the zipper in question A) belongs to a part of my own clothing but B) is not being unzipped by me.
And that's how my jacket came off.
She threw my jacket on the floor and moved to my pants, which seemed disorderly to me. Like listening to an album on random.
Track three followed by track nine followed by track one.
She undid my pants button with one hand, like a villain in old western movies flicking a lighter. A snap of two fingers and my jeans were loose.
I also remember the elation I felt when I remembered that she was wearing little pajama shorts. No buttons. This was lucky for me too because as I recall, she had a lot of pants with button flys. I may very well have been there for hours trying to flick those Goddamned pants buttons open with one hand all the way down her inseam.
But just as the elation swept over me, it disappeared when she left my pants and attended to my flannel shirt. We know how this goes. Not like the movies. I had spent about 65 percent of my life watching movies where the actors got frisky and took portions of their clothes off, but never once were any of them wearing flannel nor did they have trouble with the stripping.
Maybe Woody Allen did, but I would have hoped to be a little cooler than Woody Allen.
But I wasn't. The flannel shirt got stuck and she kissed my neck in hopes of distracting me from the awkwardness caused by shimmying the flannel shirt down my arms. She straddled my lap yanking this damn shirt off first one arm and then the other while I foolishly leaned forward, arms prostate behind me.
Because of our positioning, I found my face buried in her chest. This embarrassed me tremendously. I didn't know what to do. My mind raced with thoughts both confused and inappropriate. I wondered if I was still under some sort of obligation to be comforting. I wondered if I had done such a wonderful job that the current position of my face was my reward. I wondered if allowing her to painfully strip me of my worn flannel shirt was a continuation of her healing process.
Ironically, through all these thoughts, it never occurred to me that now was not the time to get naked.
After finally wriggling my flannel and my "Sasquatch" tee free, I was shirtless in front of her. The realization of what was happening hit me and I was somewhat jazzed about it.
It was important that I played cool. I wanted to show my excitement, but not get geeky about it. Getting geeky about my own nudity wasn't going to improve a situation that was already as fragile as a glass egg.
My jacket and both my shirts were on the floor. The roommate was gone. I did the math in my head. She'd been gone for at least four days and was the only one in the apartment I'd ever seen clean. I hoped that nothing gross was stuck to my clothes and made a mental note to inspect the floor later.
Later.
...To be continued in part 2.
This blog is sexually graphic. It is so graphic in fact; I've blocked my mother and my sister from reading it. I don't know why I felt compelled to write about this experience, but don't say I didn't warn you. -Adam
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I wished it wasn't so cold out. It was two days after Thanksgiving, so I shouldn't have been surprised, but the cold really put a damper on what was happening to me right then.
I had too many layers on.
She had gotten my brown jacket off, but my green flannel shirt was stuck. It was stuck on the long sleeves of my "Sasquatch" t-shirt. Had I worn my flannel over a regular cotton tee, she and I would have no problems; the flannel would have slid easily off my bare arms. But that's not what I did.
I felt the need to double-sleeve.
And so now, in a fit of passion, the flannel was chafing against cotton instead of skin and I became convinced that any minute, she would start laughing.
I could stand anything as long as she didn't start laughing.
She was a wreck when I got to her apartment. Parent-issues. I was unclear what had happened, but whatever it was, it happened over the phone and it happened hard.
I came over to comfort her. It's what I understood a good boyfriend to do. I hadn't been in any relationship as serious as this before, so every action I took, I took cautiously. But driving 12 miles to my girlfriend's house because she was feeling bad seemed like a safe way to proceed.
I drove to her house quickly. I liked speed but tended to get caught a lot. I didn't get caught this time. I got a good parking spot, tipped my cap to Charlie the doorman and headed up to the fourth floor of her apartment.
It seemed as if she might've been leaning against the door in anticipation of my arrival because as soon as I knocked on the door and licked my hand to flatten the stray hairs flying off of my head, she opened the door.
She didn't ask why I was quickly wiping spit on the ass of my pants so I pretended I wasn't doing it.
Her eyes were red.
In time, I would come to see her red eyes as devilish and putrid, but tonight, they were just sad and bloodshot. So much crying.
I was in a difficult position because when I got there, I was so horny. I was horny almost all the time; it's a frighteningly typical characteristic in young men. Everything we do seems to be - even in extremely abstract ways - connected to sex. Honestly, the difference between the "nice guys" and the "assholes" is more often than not, that the "nice guys" have the energy to hide their libido from everyone else.
But she was crying. She was wearing a tank top and tiny pajama shorts, but she was crying.
She was naturally beautiful. This is what I thought at this time, standing there in her doorway.
And to be honest, standing in her doorway, watching her naturally beautiful body welcome me into her warm apartment, made me horny. It didn't take much, and it certainly took less than what I was being offered at that point.
But she was crying. And that made my horniness both inappropriate and unfortunate.
We sat on her couch. It was her roommate's couch actually, but her roommate wasn't here, so tonight it wasn't her roommate's couch. I didn't know where the roommate was tonight or why she wasn't home, but I assumed it had something to do with Thanksgiving and I let the rest fall out of my head.
That's not entirely true. I was slightly interested in where the roommate was because she liked me. I went on two dates with the roommate before I decided I liked my girlfriend better.
There was no closure. We'd hung out, but never discussed anything. I didn't feel right about it, but the roommate wore more makeup than my girlfriend and I feared the secrets hidden underneath her blush and her lipstick.
In hindsight, staying with the roommate would've made my life easier.
I don't remember what my girlfriend was saying to me exactly. She was crying and so I held her close, her head mostly buried in my shoulder. But holding her close only caused her to muffle all the words she was already slobbering while explaining what it was that made her so sad.
Again, this was all new to me. I was trying to do the right thing; I kept asking myself questions like, "Should I pat her on the shoulder? Play with her hair?" I was already hugging her, there wasn't much more physical comfort, I could offer.
That wouldn't be the only mistake in judgment made that night.
The problem was, while I was considering the best ways to comfort the girl I kinda, sorta, perhaps one day might love, I was completely oblivious to all she was saying.
In doing my best to be caring and supportive of her, I completely removed myself from the situation.
I just held her. I rocked back and forth for a few seconds, but that's what my parents did to me when I woke up screaming from a bad dream. I was dating this girl not parenting her, so I stopped rocking her.
Then she stopped. Stopped talking, stopped gently sobbing, stopped moving completely. Luckily, her head was buried in my chest and shoulder so I could feel her hot breath and see her back rising and falling underneath my arms. I knew she hadn't died.
She leaned back but kept her head down so I couldn't see her eyes.
Her puffy bloodshot eyes. Her hands clasped my jacket zipper.
I would like to state for the record that the sound of a zipper unzipping slowly is astoundingly sensual when the zipper in question A) belongs to a part of my own clothing but B) is not being unzipped by me.
And that's how my jacket came off.
She threw my jacket on the floor and moved to my pants, which seemed disorderly to me. Like listening to an album on random.
Track three followed by track nine followed by track one.
She undid my pants button with one hand, like a villain in old western movies flicking a lighter. A snap of two fingers and my jeans were loose.
I also remember the elation I felt when I remembered that she was wearing little pajama shorts. No buttons. This was lucky for me too because as I recall, she had a lot of pants with button flys. I may very well have been there for hours trying to flick those Goddamned pants buttons open with one hand all the way down her inseam.
But just as the elation swept over me, it disappeared when she left my pants and attended to my flannel shirt. We know how this goes. Not like the movies. I had spent about 65 percent of my life watching movies where the actors got frisky and took portions of their clothes off, but never once were any of them wearing flannel nor did they have trouble with the stripping.
Maybe Woody Allen did, but I would have hoped to be a little cooler than Woody Allen.
But I wasn't. The flannel shirt got stuck and she kissed my neck in hopes of distracting me from the awkwardness caused by shimmying the flannel shirt down my arms. She straddled my lap yanking this damn shirt off first one arm and then the other while I foolishly leaned forward, arms prostate behind me.
Because of our positioning, I found my face buried in her chest. This embarrassed me tremendously. I didn't know what to do. My mind raced with thoughts both confused and inappropriate. I wondered if I was still under some sort of obligation to be comforting. I wondered if I had done such a wonderful job that the current position of my face was my reward. I wondered if allowing her to painfully strip me of my worn flannel shirt was a continuation of her healing process.
Ironically, through all these thoughts, it never occurred to me that now was not the time to get naked.
After finally wriggling my flannel and my "Sasquatch" tee free, I was shirtless in front of her. The realization of what was happening hit me and I was somewhat jazzed about it.
It was important that I played cool. I wanted to show my excitement, but not get geeky about it. Getting geeky about my own nudity wasn't going to improve a situation that was already as fragile as a glass egg.
My jacket and both my shirts were on the floor. The roommate was gone. I did the math in my head. She'd been gone for at least four days and was the only one in the apartment I'd ever seen clean. I hoped that nothing gross was stuck to my clothes and made a mental note to inspect the floor later.
Later.
...To be continued in part 2.
Sunday, November 5, 2006
Feeling Bulletproof
No one should be completely invulnerable. Several days ago, I sat on my bamboo throne being fed peeled grapes by two beautiful women both resembling Catherine Zeta-Jones and realized at that moment that I was unequivocally bulletproof, nothing could touch me.
No one could justify looking me in the eye.
But what fun is that?
So for those of you who've ever wanted to get me in your crosshairs and take me out, I bestow upon you...
The 10 Most Personally Embarrassing Musical Concessions
10. Neil Diamond
I can't even really explain this one. I'm not usually pro-sequined jackets, balding feathered hair or mellowdramatic anthems, but when that overblown crooner begs me to dry my eye, I have no choice but to comply with his commands.
Honestly, I'm worried that I'm gay for Neil Diamond.
Crap. What if Neil Diamond's "got the way to soothe me"...
Or... what if Cracklin' Neil's "got the way to make me happy"?
What was up with all of Neil Diamond's best lyrics involving someone having "the way"?
09. Sassy Girl-Pop.
So just last week I figured out what Fergie's "London Bridge" was. At the risk of my mom or my sister reading this blog, I will not describe what Fergie's "London Bridge" pertains to, but suffice it to say, it's worse than I originally thought.
That being said, I find myself kinda hoping it comes on the radio or plays inside the roller rink I've been frequenting lately.
Why?
Because it's sassy.
I love strong girls acting like men are completely useless to them. Good for Gwen for not hollering back at fellas not deserving of being hollered back at. And good for P!nk for angrily replacing the "i" in her anme with an exclamation mark.
It should be noted that Gwen and P!ink are both married, but that doesn't stop the gloriously erotic theater of headstrong singers.
08. Really sad sappy acoustic love songs.
If most American girls or my friend Chris Gerfin instilled musical talent into John Cusack and asked him to write an album full of songs, I'm sure Cuscak would make a wonderful album.
I imagine he might compare his girlfriend's body to a wonderland or perhaps wax pitiful on how he was having a bad day and how the camera don't lie.
I have a friend named Rickie.* S he's got pirate tattoos fighting for space with the scabs all over her body. She also seems to barf a lot. Anyway, she thinks she's wicked mean and tough, but she also really loves Barry Manilow songs and anything sappy and gay.
I never gave her as much grief for this characteristic as I did for all her other strange peccadillos because I kinda agreed with her leanings.
07. Americana.
I love songs about going to the movies with a girl on your arm. I love songs about apple trees and baseball. I love songs that take place on railroad tracks, farms, drive-ins and dive-bars. That's Americana.
I want to make very clear that when I talk about my soft spot for Americana, I am not including Tobey Keith's ignorant ass in this discussion. Tobey Keith and his songs about sticking a cowboy boot in the ass of the jihad is not what I mean when I talk about Americana.
Oh, and also, John Mellencamp has recently been put on the probation in the Americana club for wrecklessly cooperating with the Ford motor Company's newest POPaganda campaign to co-opt images of Katrina victims, the Vietnam War, factory workers and old Cougar himself sittin' in his pickup.
God, is there any way Tobey and Cougar could just make a porno lying on a bed with American flag sheets, and be done with it?
Anyway, huzzah to apple pies and grandmas.
06. Pro Women Anthems.
I love men as much as the next guy. Well, maybe not the next guy. The next guy might be a homosexual guy and he probably loves men more than me. I bet it's safe to say that I love men as much as the next heterosexual guy, but they just don't celebrate their gender as well as the women do.
Whether it be "Hollaback Girl", X-Tina's "Calling All Girls" anthem, "I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar" or "(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman", there are just too many great lady songs to ignore.
The problem is, when I sing these songs out loud, I get worried looks from the people around me.
Especially when I do it on he train, or naked standing from the balcony of my terrace.
05. Songs About High School.
I'm not over it.
There. I said it. I'm not over high school. I wish I were still there. I wish I remembered the combination to my locker and pined after the same enchanting girl without ever talking to her for four friggin' years. I wish I had a bad haircut and baggy jeans. I wish I had a bookbag that held like, nine textbooks in it and I wish I still had Huskie Pride. I wish my Hawaiian shirts still fit and my car was still owned by mom.
And you know who feels my pain?
Blink 182 feels my pain. You know who else? Good Charlotte and The All-American Rejects and Simple Plan, you jerks! Why don't you just leave us alone so we can go back to a time where the nectar was sweet.
I would also like to mention "College Jamz" as an add-on to my guilty pleasure about high school. For some reason, I hate college favorites like Dave Matthews and Dashboard Confessional, but Blink 182 and The Wallflowers are perfectly acceptable. Go figure.
04. Shakira.
Also Christina Aguilera, Kelly Clarkson and perhaps Rihanna.
Leave me alone.
03. Songs With the Name of My City or State In It.
Why is it when you're at a live concert and in the middle of a set the lead singer says "Hello [the name of your city]!" and the place goes apeshit? Everyone is guilty of it. I am so guilty of it that the bands no longer even have to step foot in my city, they just have to mention it.
Here's a quick list of the three places nearest to my heart:
Chicago.
"Sweet Home Chicago", "Chicago Slow Down", "Born In Chicago" by George Thorogood, "Chicago" (Frank Sinatra and the musical), "The Night Chicago Died", "Dear Chicago" by Ryan Adams, "She Was Hot" (The Rolling Stones mention Chicago), "South Bay Surfer" by The Beach Boys (they ask if we can hear the surfers in Chicago)...
Baltimore.
"Baltimore" by The Drifters, "Hungry Heart" (Bruce had a wife and kid in Baltimore, Jack), "Raining In Baltimore" by The Counting Crows, "Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Change In My Hands" (a plane takes off from Baltimore and touches down on Bourbon Street), " Bright Future In Sales" by Fountains of Wayne.
Boston.
"Dirty Water" by The Standells, "Road Runner" by The Modern Lovers, "Back To Boston" by The Rosebuds, "Tessie" by The Dropkick Murphys who also did "Shipping Up To Boston", "More Than A Feeling", Smokin'", and "Don't Look Back" (all three by the band Boston), "Somerville" by The Pernice Brothers, and "Government Center". "Charlie On the MTA" by The Kingston Trio (thanks Liz).
Alright, you get the picture. I like my cities. Can you think of any from these three cities I've missed? I know there's many.
02. Musical Theater.
Pop. Six. Squish. Cicero. Lipshitz.
525,600 minutes.
I got... pshhh! Steamed heat.
TRADITION!
Into the woods... to grandmother's house!
Greased Lightenin'! Go Greased Lightenin'!
Look, you either know what these statements mean, or you don't. If you do, then I should have no difficulty explaining why I enjoy it all so. If you see the above lyrics as mere gibberish, then I'm fairly certain you'd make fun of me for liking it.
But I'm prepared to kill you for my freedom to enjoy musical theater. Do you hear me? I'll cut your heart out of your chest and dance like Twila Tharp all over it. I'm serious. You see how high I've ranked this concession?
Don't challenge me.
01. Screamo.
I've talked about "screamo" with some friends. Apparently, "Screamo" isn't what I originally thought it was. I thought it was emo songs with yelling (screaming) in it. Like, Jimmy Eat World is emo or pop or crap or whatever you wanna call it, but their song "Sweetness" has a lot of wild screaming in it. Same thing with Fallout Boy's "Of All the Gin Joints". These are emo-ish bands that scream.
"Screamo." Get it?
But that's not what "Screamo" is. Apparently "Screamo" is much harder and darker than Blink 182. So I shouldn't really be ranking "screamo" at #1 'cause I don't really like what "screamo" actually is. But I need to dub my yelling-emo something and now "screamo" is already taken.
"Yello"? No, that's a color.
"Blare-o"? Nah.
"Eem-scream"? How 'bout Eem-scream? "Eem" (like the beginning of "emo", and "scream"... 'cause that's what happens in these songs). Okay. Eemscream it is.
I totally (and guiltily) love EemScream.
Okay. End of list. My God, am I vulnerable. I feel so exposed and weak. I'm gonna need a little alone time now.
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* Rickie is a "she" (short for Erica) and I haven't talked to her in months. Does that still constitute friendship? I'm just trying to figure out if I had a friend Rickie who... or if I have a friend Rickie who...
No one could justify looking me in the eye.
But what fun is that?
So for those of you who've ever wanted to get me in your crosshairs and take me out, I bestow upon you...
The 10 Most Personally Embarrassing Musical Concessions
10. Neil Diamond
I can't even really explain this one. I'm not usually pro-sequined jackets, balding feathered hair or mellowdramatic anthems, but when that overblown crooner begs me to dry my eye, I have no choice but to comply with his commands.
Honestly, I'm worried that I'm gay for Neil Diamond.
Crap. What if Neil Diamond's "got the way to soothe me"...
Or... what if Cracklin' Neil's "got the way to make me happy"?
What was up with all of Neil Diamond's best lyrics involving someone having "the way"?
09. Sassy Girl-Pop.
So just last week I figured out what Fergie's "London Bridge" was. At the risk of my mom or my sister reading this blog, I will not describe what Fergie's "London Bridge" pertains to, but suffice it to say, it's worse than I originally thought.
That being said, I find myself kinda hoping it comes on the radio or plays inside the roller rink I've been frequenting lately.
Why?
Because it's sassy.
I love strong girls acting like men are completely useless to them. Good for Gwen for not hollering back at fellas not deserving of being hollered back at. And good for P!nk for angrily replacing the "i" in her anme with an exclamation mark.
It should be noted that Gwen and P!ink are both married, but that doesn't stop the gloriously erotic theater of headstrong singers.
08. Really sad sappy acoustic love songs.
If most American girls or my friend Chris Gerfin instilled musical talent into John Cusack and asked him to write an album full of songs, I'm sure Cuscak would make a wonderful album.
I imagine he might compare his girlfriend's body to a wonderland or perhaps wax pitiful on how he was having a bad day and how the camera don't lie.
I have a friend named Rickie.* S he's got pirate tattoos fighting for space with the scabs all over her body. She also seems to barf a lot. Anyway, she thinks she's wicked mean and tough, but she also really loves Barry Manilow songs and anything sappy and gay.
I never gave her as much grief for this characteristic as I did for all her other strange peccadillos because I kinda agreed with her leanings.
07. Americana.
I love songs about going to the movies with a girl on your arm. I love songs about apple trees and baseball. I love songs that take place on railroad tracks, farms, drive-ins and dive-bars. That's Americana.
I want to make very clear that when I talk about my soft spot for Americana, I am not including Tobey Keith's ignorant ass in this discussion. Tobey Keith and his songs about sticking a cowboy boot in the ass of the jihad is not what I mean when I talk about Americana.
Oh, and also, John Mellencamp has recently been put on the probation in the Americana club for wrecklessly cooperating with the Ford motor Company's newest POPaganda campaign to co-opt images of Katrina victims, the Vietnam War, factory workers and old Cougar himself sittin' in his pickup.
God, is there any way Tobey and Cougar could just make a porno lying on a bed with American flag sheets, and be done with it?
Anyway, huzzah to apple pies and grandmas.
06. Pro Women Anthems.
I love men as much as the next guy. Well, maybe not the next guy. The next guy might be a homosexual guy and he probably loves men more than me. I bet it's safe to say that I love men as much as the next heterosexual guy, but they just don't celebrate their gender as well as the women do.
Whether it be "Hollaback Girl", X-Tina's "Calling All Girls" anthem, "I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar" or "(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman", there are just too many great lady songs to ignore.
The problem is, when I sing these songs out loud, I get worried looks from the people around me.
Especially when I do it on he train, or naked standing from the balcony of my terrace.
05. Songs About High School.
I'm not over it.
There. I said it. I'm not over high school. I wish I were still there. I wish I remembered the combination to my locker and pined after the same enchanting girl without ever talking to her for four friggin' years. I wish I had a bad haircut and baggy jeans. I wish I had a bookbag that held like, nine textbooks in it and I wish I still had Huskie Pride. I wish my Hawaiian shirts still fit and my car was still owned by mom.
And you know who feels my pain?
Blink 182 feels my pain. You know who else? Good Charlotte and The All-American Rejects and Simple Plan, you jerks! Why don't you just leave us alone so we can go back to a time where the nectar was sweet.
I would also like to mention "College Jamz" as an add-on to my guilty pleasure about high school. For some reason, I hate college favorites like Dave Matthews and Dashboard Confessional, but Blink 182 and The Wallflowers are perfectly acceptable. Go figure.
04. Shakira.
Also Christina Aguilera, Kelly Clarkson and perhaps Rihanna.
Leave me alone.
03. Songs With the Name of My City or State In It.
Why is it when you're at a live concert and in the middle of a set the lead singer says "Hello [the name of your city]!" and the place goes apeshit? Everyone is guilty of it. I am so guilty of it that the bands no longer even have to step foot in my city, they just have to mention it.
Here's a quick list of the three places nearest to my heart:
Chicago.
"Sweet Home Chicago", "Chicago Slow Down", "Born In Chicago" by George Thorogood, "Chicago" (Frank Sinatra and the musical), "The Night Chicago Died", "Dear Chicago" by Ryan Adams, "She Was Hot" (The Rolling Stones mention Chicago), "South Bay Surfer" by The Beach Boys (they ask if we can hear the surfers in Chicago)...
Baltimore.
"Baltimore" by The Drifters, "Hungry Heart" (Bruce had a wife and kid in Baltimore, Jack), "Raining In Baltimore" by The Counting Crows, "Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Change In My Hands" (a plane takes off from Baltimore and touches down on Bourbon Street), " Bright Future In Sales" by Fountains of Wayne.
Boston.
"Dirty Water" by The Standells, "Road Runner" by The Modern Lovers, "Back To Boston" by The Rosebuds, "Tessie" by The Dropkick Murphys who also did "Shipping Up To Boston", "More Than A Feeling", Smokin'", and "Don't Look Back" (all three by the band Boston), "Somerville" by The Pernice Brothers, and "Government Center". "Charlie On the MTA" by The Kingston Trio (thanks Liz).
Alright, you get the picture. I like my cities. Can you think of any from these three cities I've missed? I know there's many.
02. Musical Theater.
Pop. Six. Squish. Cicero. Lipshitz.
525,600 minutes.
I got... pshhh! Steamed heat.
TRADITION!
Into the woods... to grandmother's house!
Greased Lightenin'! Go Greased Lightenin'!
Look, you either know what these statements mean, or you don't. If you do, then I should have no difficulty explaining why I enjoy it all so. If you see the above lyrics as mere gibberish, then I'm fairly certain you'd make fun of me for liking it.
But I'm prepared to kill you for my freedom to enjoy musical theater. Do you hear me? I'll cut your heart out of your chest and dance like Twila Tharp all over it. I'm serious. You see how high I've ranked this concession?
Don't challenge me.
01. Screamo.
I've talked about "screamo" with some friends. Apparently, "Screamo" isn't what I originally thought it was. I thought it was emo songs with yelling (screaming) in it. Like, Jimmy Eat World is emo or pop or crap or whatever you wanna call it, but their song "Sweetness" has a lot of wild screaming in it. Same thing with Fallout Boy's "Of All the Gin Joints". These are emo-ish bands that scream.
"Screamo." Get it?
But that's not what "Screamo" is. Apparently "Screamo" is much harder and darker than Blink 182. So I shouldn't really be ranking "screamo" at #1 'cause I don't really like what "screamo" actually is. But I need to dub my yelling-emo something and now "screamo" is already taken.
"Yello"? No, that's a color.
"Blare-o"? Nah.
"Eem-scream"? How 'bout Eem-scream? "Eem" (like the beginning of "emo", and "scream"... 'cause that's what happens in these songs). Okay. Eemscream it is.
I totally (and guiltily) love EemScream.
Okay. End of list. My God, am I vulnerable. I feel so exposed and weak. I'm gonna need a little alone time now.
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* Rickie is a "she" (short for Erica) and I haven't talked to her in months. Does that still constitute friendship? I'm just trying to figure out if I had a friend Rickie who... or if I have a friend Rickie who...
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