FINALLY! Someone important recognizes my genius!

Occasionally, I make weak and poorly assembled efforts to publish stories off-blog. Recently, Chicago Parent magazine finally caved and told me they'd publish a story if I'd stop standing in front of their offices with a sign reading "will work for Facebook friends". You can read this story here.

Be sure to visit the site, comment in the comments, and when you write the editor, the following words or phrases are encouraged: genius, brilliant, changed-my-life, here's $20 bucks, and makes-Dave-Barry-look-like-an-illiterate-baboon.

Thanks.

Rapping Rhapsodic on Bohemian Rhapsody with my Bonne Homme

Roon switched schools this week, moving from a parochial school to public, thereby losing his uniform, meaning I had to buy him new clothes.

I thought it was telling that when we went to the store, he didn't care about what pants we bought as long as they were jeans. But he took a long time to pick out three t-shirts. See if you can detect a theme here. The shirts displayed the following pop memes: The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd. He topped them off with an AC/DC cap.

I have to say he's starting off well in his musical snobbery. Those are all good bands and he really does listen to them. He recently started paying attention to my iTunes and put together a playlist labeled "Good Music" (to distinguish it from the baffling crap I usually listen to). I pulled some songs off of it to make him a morning mix tape. Check it out:

1. "Mr. Blue Sky," by Electric Light Orchestra


2. "Park & Beans," by Weezer


3. "Bohemian Rhapsody," by Queen


4. "Dracula from Houston," by the Butthole Surfers


5. "Storm in a Teacup," by the Red Hot Chili Peppers


6. "Science Fiction Double Feature," punked out by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes


7. "Death of a Martian," by Red Hot Chili Peppers


8. "Black Times Bad Times," by Led Zeppelin


9. "More Than a Feeling," by Boston

At first I thought this was a further extension of his newfound rock snobbery but I realized it wasn't really about the music so much as it was about self definition. Roon wanted to define himself to his new school as a rocker, and he wanted to establish his musical taste right off the bat not to lord his 1970s playlist cred over anyone else, but to let them know where his head is at.

This may seem like over intellectualizing t-shirts but it's a completely valid effort on his part to adopt a new uniform: the cobbled-together non-uniform of the Boheme. I don't know how much of that need to define himself played into his decision to switch schools, but it mattered a lot that on his first day in the cradle of public knowledge he was representing Pink Floyd, a band he equates with stellar musicianship, individuality, and intellectualism.

Pink Floyd is his second choice, however, after Queen. If he'd had a Queen shirt, he'd probably never take it off, hoping that their operatic falsetto rock cred would somehow seep into his skin along with dirt, taco sauce, and diet coke stains.

His transition to public school marks a loss for me in one regard--quality time.

I get to spend a lot of time with my spawn because I work at home. But driving them to school has always been important to me because for the eight minutes we had together in the car, remarkable conversations would occur.

The other day we rocked to school under the auspicious and noble refrains of Bohemian Rhapsody, singing at top volume, until Roon killed the song to ask questions about it, to talk about complex rock & roll, Freddy Mercury, gay rock stars, and the song itself.

It's easy to think that the tent-pole conversations are what matters--the sex talk, the dope talk, the Bischon Frieze talk. But I don't buy it. I think it's the sum total of all these little seemingly inconsequential talks--the argument about what 'scaramouch' actually means--that ultimately make up a longer, broader, and permanent body of discussion in the mind of our children that transmits the concepts we truly believe. It teaches them our real philosophy and assists them in building their own.

Now that my daughter is gone so much, I hardly ever get to talk to her except to ask her to please stop singing in the shower at midnight. We quip in passing and she's obviously witty as hell and, like her mom, [My Attorney], a brain on legs. But I don't get much conversation time.

Now that Roon will be walking to school I'm losing face time with him as well. Of course, he'll be walking in the door every day at 3:30 demanding food. It's not like I won't see him. But there's something about the drive time. All you have is driving and talking. At home there's laundry, living room, lunch, dishes, dog walking, laundry, homework, house cleaning, laundry and sometimes laundry. I won't have that brief break where I have nothing to do but drive, that time when we talk about those things that matter. Like gay rock stars.

Thanks for [Mental] Flossing!

Miss Cellania mentioned my new D.I.Y. series in her excellent, perfect, you-must-subscribe-to-this series, Morning Cup o' Links, over at Mental Floss. Thanks, Miss C!!!

First Day of School/First Day of Freedom Epic Fail

Look, what can I say? I had a bunch of people over last night and we had really strong coffee at 8:30 and then about midnight I had a great idea and then I couldn't find that one pen I like and then it was 6:30 in the morning and I hadn't slept.

I had a meeting with a principal I'd never met, a guy with a reputation for piercing intelligence and a take-no-prisoners attitude and my eyes looked like ball gags.

I could barely walk, I could barely think, I could barely complain.

Yet everything went swimmingly except when I got hom I could not fall asleep.

I tried. I laid in bed. I murdered sheep. But no zees obtained.

Finally, around 10, I fell asleep. At 10:05, my yard guys landed their converted 747 on my front lawn. At 10: 30, I fell asleep again. At 11, the phone rang. I leapt out of bed and burrowed through the magazines and overdue bills to find the phone only to have a brief but (I am certain) memorable conversation with a salesperson. From 11:02 to 11:45 I discovered just how many slats of simulated wood are printed on the fake paneling over my bed. At 12:01 my wife called. At 12:45 my alarm went off. At 1:30 my other alarm went off. Between 1:31 and 4pm my phone rang 38 times, my Facebook chime dinged 14, and I was informed I have mail in an even dozen instances. At 5:45 my family collapsed on the kitchen floor with a note pinned to their carcasses demanding food. I served them the remainders of yesterday's repast. They were not impressed. I did dishes. I detailed the dogs. I argued with [my attorney] about the politics of sleepy time and finally, I went upstairs to fall into bed.

And here I am. 32 hours without sleep. Wide awake, poking people on Facebook and Stumbling through UFO websites.

Thankstaking Day

It's my fault. Mine and [My Attorney]'s. We had to go see Rah at Doctor Funacular's

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="283" caption="Music is my life, man."][/caption]

University for Advanced Sneering and Home for Wayward Girls in North Carolina. Like all highly intelligent people, we tried to buy plane tickets the day before we left—you know, the day before Thanksgiving—when the tickets were the cost of a small house in Chicago made entirely of Adamantium. Instead, we drove.

I drove.

And drove. And drove. And. . .where the hell is North Carolina anyway?  I visited every state that seceded and still couldn't find it. Only after we'd gotten a speeding ticket and paid bridge tolls exceeding the GNP of Bolivia did we finally enter the magical world of North Carolina.

As a former Alabamian, I am reluctant to cast aspirations on those with the good sense to be born in the south, but seriously, everyone in North Carolina, West Virginia, and Kentucky, allow me to introduce you to the Garlingtonian Theory of  Motion: The Faster You Go, the Sooner I Get There!

I attempted to explain this to West Virginia but they couldn't hear me over the sound of their state trooper writing me a ticket for going 14 miles an hour over the speed limit. Kudos to Officer Glare for only writing 69 on the ticket, thus avoiding a mountain of paper work and putting me in jail with all the people who stopped at any rest stop within 50 miles of Point Pleasant while displaying the egregious audacity of declining their expensive handcrafted native Mothman DVDs.

It only took us 342 hours of tailgating to get there and back. Had a wonderful time. More on that later. We arrived back in Chicago to find our son, Squatch, had decided to make a controversial decision to turn our house into a participatory exhibit on the cave-keeping habits of unmarried neanderthals.

We were careful to let him know he was being left at home at the tender age of 14 because he had proven his remarkable maturity in the past. We should have been more specific about a few things. The house was  . . . Askew? Tilted? Pukey? Phlegmatic? Words fail me.

But bulleted lists do not:

• Feed the dogs




• Every. Day.




• When we say feed the dogs, we mean the cat too.




• But not on the stairs and maybe throw the cans away. And the lids. Oh my God I just threw up.




• Let the dogs out to pee.




• Every. Day.




• Check the cat sand.




• But remember to leave the door to the bathroom open or the cat will relieve himself on my favorite—JESUS OH MY GOD!




• If the dogs pee in the house, please clean it up.




• As soon as you see i—  At least the same d— Before we get h—Sweet Jesus!




• Please go to school.




• Every. Day.




• Eat the food we left for you.




• A little at a time. Not all in the first hour.




• Here's $100 for emergencies.




• Call of Duty Three is not an emergency.

Bras Cause Cancer!

The daily argument between the teen-manga-rock star and myself went martian today when I gave her her daily admonishment to strap on a brazier.

"You mean put on a straight jacket for my boobs?"

"Yeah. Please?"

"I can't believe you want me to restrain my womanhood!"

"I'm not--your what?"

"Bras cause breast cancer, dad!"

"WHAT!?"

"Everybody knows that."

"No they--"

"Leave me alone! Let my boobs run free!"

I gave up. Sometimes all a parent can do is stare, mouth agape,
high speed electric drill poised over their forehead, and hope that guy from Scrubs doesn't play you in the movie.

----------------------------------

Steaming Zucchini--A Tale of Adventure!

our humble author may be many things, a passable radio talk show host, a halfway decent speller, a pathetic and disappointing dog trainer, but I am not considered to be particularly clumsy. I'm not saying I'm graceful by any measure, but I can walk and chew gum at the same time and when I was skinny, I had fairly rigorous yoga workout¹. But I'm a guy and guys sometimes do stupid things and these stupid things sometimes cause them an undue amount of injury and pain. Granted, they usually deserve it, like when they peer into a gas tank to see if it's topped off--using a zippo. That's just idiotic and the dumbass that does it deserves a few days in a burn ward. However, at least he gets a good story out of it. Not like me.

In order to keep my guy license (which is on tenuous grounds already) I'm going to write the rest of this piece, my injury story, in true GUY form, adventure writing, Hemmingway style, because I don't know how else I can manage to admit that I gave myself whiplash. In my own kitchen.

Steaming Zucchini

A Tale of Adventure!

By
Lt. Dadd Masterson, Bush Pilot

"I laid my spatula on the ground. I wouldn't need it for what I was going to do. I wouldn't need it again ever. I turned with a heavy gaze toward the stove, that massive fiery furnace. Flames licked the bottom of my heavy braising pan like blue tongues. I squared my shoulders. Had it all come to this? To steaming zucchini? Ah, so is the will of God. I am but a man. I raised my trusty tongs, faced the steaming zucchini and ---"

As I lay now in my comfortable hospital bed, I read these words from my diary and wonder what I was thinking at the time. What capricious imp of the perverse conduced me to square off with a pot of steaming zucchini with just my tongs? It must have been the heat. The humidity in the Kitchen can reach unprecedented levels. Stamps won't stick to envelopes. Flies fall to the ground, unable to swim through the dank, jungly atmosphere of the Kitchen. I had been there so long, so much--sweltering over chili mac Hamburger Helper for the boy and bowl after bowl of Smak Ramen for my pre-veggie teen daughter, that I may have lost touch with reality. The strain and dreary automation of working in the Kitchen. Worse, as I created and unboxed wonderous creations for my keepers, I was left to make do on a meager ration of frozen Jenny Craig meals and steamed zucchini. I remember that day, as I mopped my brow and hitched up my pants, I realized I was a slave, I was losing weight, I was wasting away.

17 pounds lighter, I veered in the Kitchen's steamy heat and for a moment came to myself. Is this what it means to be a man? Is this the rigorous, adventurous life I'd set out to have? What's wrong with me!

There was a time when I drove a tricked out fire-engine red 66 Impala. I parked it long ways at Daytona beach and kicked back with my woman in the sun as visiting tourista fathers slowed down to drink in the car, the coolness of it far outstripping their pathetic rented sedans. I remember the look in their eyes as they feasted on the deep shine of Carnuba wax and made that delicious connection between the arc of the fender well and my indifferent, curvaceous girlfriend. I remember dipping my head to peer into their over-air conditioned station wagons as they looked past their wives who were reading Anne Rice and ignoring the screaming sunburnt houligans in the back seat. I remember locking eyes and nodding nearly imperceptibly, knowing it communicated so clearly to them: that's right, buddy, take it all in, awesome car, awesome girl, kicking back on the beach with a couple of brewskies and living the life. There but for the ravages of time go thou.

So many years later, an indentured servant, laying in my recovery. I remember clearly now, the shame I felt, standing there, red spatula in hand (it's good on the non-stick pans), staring at my reflection in the glass-like obsidian finish of the oven--who was this gaunt spectre, this rickety servant? Why was I debasing myself for these miscreant natives who had me under their control, ordering me from the comfort of their comfy couches, lying like insouciant Romans before their 52 inch plasma TV, gorging themselves on my efforts and loudly insulting contestants on American Idol. As I'm thinking these thoughts, one of their reedy voices cuts through the fog like a lash: "Dad, get me a coke."

Resolve burned in my veins. The audacity, the criminal nerve, to keep a man down like this, to enslave him to their indolence. I glared at the gaunt reflection. The heat on the oven door flashed a moment of clarity as the steam evaporated--just for a moment--and the gaunt creature reflected before me resolved into a proper reflection. I spoke to it, perhaps crazed with exhaustion and anger: "Remember the Impala."

A coke. It wants a coke. Well, I'd love to get it a coke but it made me steam zucchini first and it will have to wait. But I know, I know. I've been enslaved for so long, my life of adventure cut short nearly as it began, the Impala lost to time, and I am become that minivan dad, staring out the Kitchen window as some freeman on a Harley charges past, oblivious to demanding teen Overlords. There but for the ravages of . . .

So I laid down my spatula. I faced the hellish steaming pot of Zucchini. If this is my lot, this is then, my lot. I shall embrace it with the courage God gave me. I am a man of the realm, after all. I am a man of courage. I squared my shoulders and raised my tongs. I closed them slightly.

Pain shot through my body. These tongs, cheap replacements for my favorite pair, lost to damage, had bitten into the flesh of my hand between my thumb and forefinger, a pain, perhaps not that different from having your arm bitten off by a wild Tiger--but my reaction, odd and poorly timed, I am shamed to say--was to simultaneously scream, extend my neck, and hunch my shoulders. The muscles in my neck, already weakened by the sad diet of wilted vegetables and that damnable Jenny Craig paste could not relax in pace with my hyper extended head. I actually felt them tear--the same trembling vibration you might feel when tearing towels into rags.

Mortally wounded (it seemed), I stumbled into my keepers' den of luxury and begged them to pause their televised entertainment spectacle and give me relief, massage my neck, for the love of all things holy!

"You look ok to me, Dad."
"Yeah, what are you talking about? Would somebody PLEASE unpause the tv?"

Eventually the oler one, the eldest of my c
aptors, reluctantly, and with dramatic sighing, heaved her reptilian hulk off the couch and slouched toward me. Even in my great pain, the horror of her indifferent approach made me recoil. She laid a single claw against my neck and wiggled it as if attempting to dislodge petrified mucus from her nostril. She continued to stare fixedly at the great televisor, all but ignoring me, causing more damage than relief. I discharged her and sunk into my small chair, which I am forced to share with the dog--whose sexual proclivities cause me no dearth of discomfit--and tried to imagine a better place where self-inflicted whiplash-cum-tong chomping is unknown, where shiny red Impalas lounge insouciantly in the surf and I am, as I once was, a man, indolent and proud.

^{Listen to the Ongoing Adventures of Dadd Masterson!}

¹You don't think Yoga is rigorous? Read "Real Men Do Yoga" and try their beginner set. Call me from the ER.

RADIO RADIO

It appears that Death By Children WILL be a part of the show.

13 Reasons Why Dads Go Crazy

1. Daughters.
2. Sons.
3. Boobs.
4. The thing at the end of this sentence.
5. THE THING AT THE END OF THIS SENTENCE .
6. The elegant and complex curse combinations issuing from my daughter's lips.
   
7. A DVR schedule so replete with Simpson reruns and Dirty Jobs instances that I can't watch Manimal. Again.
8. 9 large trees in my yard, 17 large trees in the adjoining yards=127 bags of leaves each fall.
9. Dog poop. . .
   
10. . . . in the laundry.
11. Finding out the only shaver left in the house before a meeting is a used pink, women's, bikini razor.
12. Remembering it's Columbus day--as you pull up to the closed School at 7:45 am.
    
13. 4 people in a house that can't drive to get:
• toilet paper
• maxi pads
  
• tampons
• poster board
• printer ink (but the store is closed)
  
• Kinkos homework printouts
• twice
  

Google: denied!

Google-centric as I am, I had to take the test related ads off the site because even my fondness for irony won't let me post stories about my kids with ads for "Man Pantie Wearing" bobbling in the ether right next to them. I just don't get it. Do they . . . do they think I'm a porn site?