DadCentric

What's old usually stays old...and sometimes forgotten

I am getting old.  No, let me rephrase that.  I am old.  Not Methuselah-old mind you, but I'm pretty sure I have the same aches and pains he did.  I know I've said this/written this/thought this on many other occasions, so I apologize ahead of time for boring you once again with my "Woe is I" crap.  There have just been a few instances over the past few weeks that have brought it all home for me.

#1 - When Crushes Have Kids (Sorta): Nearly everyone I know - both in real life and on this tubes thing - has kids.  So why am I so traumatized by the fact that Molly Ringwald plays a mother on The Secret Life of the American Teenager?  I mean, she recently turned 40, why should this impact me so?  Well, first it's Molly Ringwald dammit!  Sam!  Claire!  MOLLY for crissakes!  If she's playing a mother on TV then that means I really am an adult now.  Not only is she playing a mother, but a mother of teenaged daughters.  Yes, I wrote that correctly...TEENAGED daughters.  So, not only am I an adult now, I'm an old adult.  An adult with peers who have children that have long since shed diapers in the constructive way rather than humorous and who now have real-world problems other than whether to watch Monsters, Inc. or Ice Age.  Can someone please slow this ride down?  I'd like to get off for a few minutes.  I'm getting a tad dizzy.

#2 - Of Course It Still Fits: I keep in touch with my high school and with some of the people I graduated with - albeit electronically, but it's contact.  Some of the guys I speak with now and then I've known since the first grade.  Last week, one of them sent out an e-mail about getting classmates together for some golf - it's become a yearly, reunion-type thing without Jesuits in attendance.  Anyway, his e-mail was littered with 80s references: sweats bi ebe, coaches shoes, the ubiquitous mullet mention, Celtics-Lakers (heh), turned-up collars and pegged pant legs.  No, I am not waxing nostalgic for any of that - except of course the Celtics, but we know how that ended.  No, many of these things were mercifully removed from the landscape - except the mullet - can't we do anything about that?  Anyone?  Anyway, what threw me was not the litany of 80s items.  Those I can deal with even if I long for a Members Only revival.  What threw me was the reunion year coming up in 2010.  25.  Twenty-five.  T-w-e-n-t-y-f-i-v-e.  Two. Five.  Did you know it's actually the first that carries a designation?  It's the Silver in case you wondering.  Five, ten, fifteen, twenty?  Usually nothing.  At least not when I was an alumni director anywhere.  Nope, 25 is the first.  Outside of the fifth, it's also the reunion year with some of the best attendances.  Twenty-five is when you see how much time has ravaged some and been kind to others.  So, it's official, high school was now more than half a lifetime ago.  Sigh.  Please see the last three sentences of #1.

#3 - E-mail Forwards Are True!: I don't know what spurred this conversation between my lovely bride and me and it was somewhat cliche, but we were talking about things that our kids will just never know about or have never li ved without unless they watch the History Channel or do Wikipedia searches.  B&W TVs, vinyl records, rotary phones, cable, microwave ovens, computers - all that shit has been covered in those Gen Y/Millennials/Echo Boomer/Gen Z/Generation If-It's-Not-X-Who-the-Fuck-Cares e-mail forwards.  No, it's now all about social networks, wi-fi, convergence - I imagine standard PCs will be gone and all you'll need is a home server that will do it all - DVR, PC, Internet, gaming, consumable media, etc - no need for an advanced degree or pages of schematics to wire it all either.  Modems, gateways, hubs will all be a thing of the past - if they're not already.  Technology and the like has changed dramatically in just the past 10-15 years let alone since we were kids programming on our Commodore 64s or TRS-80s and doing horrific thumb damage playing Atari 2600.  In 10 years, how will I react when my son quips: "You had a phone that only had a 2 megapixel camera?  Was it black and white too?"

Sturgeon's Law As It Applies to Product Reviews

Being a recognized leader in the dadblogging world (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh, my side.) I get lots and lots of nice emails from nice marketing/PR types asking me to take a look at their clients' stuff. Example:

Dear JASON,

We here at Queso Fundido PR are huge fans of your blog, DADS-CENTRIC, and we know that your readers will definitely love the newest release from Miramax, Sassy Gals, starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Meg Ryan, Jennifer Lopez, Sandra Bullock, and Dame Judi Dench. Sassy Gals tells the story of Jessie Swallows (Meg Ryan), a clothing designer who seems to have it all – a beautiful country home, a rich husband who works at one of those agencies housed in a giant loft where everyone has Macs and glass-walled offices, an adorable 11-year-old daughter and a part-time career as a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for Thirtysomething Trophy Wives magazine. Her best friend, Hope Schtupper (Jennifer Lopez), leads another enviable life – a happily single director of Oscar-winning documentaries, a possessor of a huge closet of shoes and a gal who never has to wait behind the velvet rope, at least not in Cleveland. But when Jessie’s husband enters into an affair with Crystal Meffe (Dame Judi Dench, in the role of a lifetime), a sultry ‘napkin girl’ lurking behind the Saks Fifth Avenue 3rd floor Ladies' Lounge door, all hell breaks loose. Jessie and Hope’s relationship is pushed to the breaking point while their tight-knit circle of friends, including ubermommy Sandra "Sandy" Sands (Sandra Bullock) and author Jennifer Prettyman (Daniel Day-Lewis, in a role that will certainly garner him an Oscar nod), all start to question their own friendships and romantic relationships as well. Laughter, tears, and montages of the Sassy Gals trying on big hats ensue. Please feel free to post the attached JPEG of the film's one-sheet on your blog.

So, no, we don't review every pitch we get. Because Theodore Sturgeon is right. But every so often, stuff will strike me as worthy of a dad's interest. Here are two noteworthy things that I recently received:

The Schick Quattro Titanium Trimmer. This is a nifty gadget. It's a razor with a small, battry-operated clipper on the end. As a proud member of Team Soul Patch, the clipper is the perfect size for me. Beth's happy because now I now longer have to use her lady's model clipper, the one she uses for, ah, personal grooming, to trim my 'patch. Isn't that nice?

Surfwise. Surfwise is an excellent documentary, now playing in select theaters. I received an advance review copy several weeks ago, but like the lazy slackass I am just now got around to telling you about, likely costing the studio millions in ticket sales. Sorry, Magnolia Pictures. Anyway, Surfwise tells the fascinating tale of the Paskowitz family, led by legendary surfer Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz. Paskowitz led what many of us who ride waves consider a dream life; he raised his family (eight boys and one girl, along with his wife Juliette) in a 24-foot camper, roaming the west coast in search of waves and a freedom that 9-to-5'ers would never know. Of course, things got complicated, and the film plays out like The Endless Summer meets The Mosquito Coast. It's a fascinating look at a very unusual family, and definitely worth your time, even if you're a non-surfer.

So there's a couple of good things for you. And for all of you PR/marketing types reading this site, take note: it's called DADCentric for a reason. I'm talking to you, Team Massengill.

Sellin' Out to the 'Soft

There are a lot of perks to being a prominent blogger like me.  First, there's the women.  Second, there's the $0.25 I earned last quarter via Amazon Associates.  Most importantly, though, there's the celebrity status, and it definitely has its benefits.

The fine people at Microsoft, using the same crackin' algorithm in their search engine to identify the blogger who posts most frequently on DadCentric, contacted me and asked if I'd be interested in attending an event in New York to get a preview of some of the "family-inclusive games" that would be coming out this year for the Xbox 360.

Now generally we here at DadCentric try to avoid overt pandering to corporate interests.  But it would take a bigger man than me to turn down a chance to play Madden 09 or Gears of War 2 before the rest of you losers guys.  After all, it is our responsibility to offer timely, useful advice to you, our beloved readers, and if Microsoft wants to provide the brownies and the comfy gaming couches I'm willing to do my part.

Besides, it might give you gentlemen some cover to justify a weekend-long Call of Duty tournament with me and Mr. Big Dubya.

I'm certain some of you (probably female, most likely my wife) stopped reading once you saw "Xbox" in the copy.  But if you're still on the fence you should keep reading, because there's some really cool stuff coming, and it's way more than the photo-realistic blood-sprays when you decapitate enemies with an assault rifle that you've come to know and love.

Some things you, as parents and potential shoppers, should know:

• The Xbox is morphing into a fully-operational media center.  It can stream music from your computer, share holiday photos online with your buddies, and can link to your Netflix account so you can stream movies in you queue directly to your TV.  You can also reorder you queue visually, and it will upconvert movies to the highest quality your TV will allow.  You'll never have to leave the couch to insert a DVD again.
• If Little _______ (insert your child's name here) spends his evenings in front of the Xbox, talking to his buddies on a Backstreet Boys headset and getting fat on cheese doodles while he should be doing homework, you've got a new weapon.  Xbox's will soon come with a parental control that sets a timer on how long the system will run.  That way when you say "you can play for an hour" you can set it up, leave the room, and know the game is gonna end whether he's ready or now.  I think this is a really awesome feature, one which my wife would probably use on me if she had the chance. 
• You can create an avatar.  This avatar will identify you online, and can sneak out of your system at night and beat up all the Mii's that your stupid Wii-owning neighbors created.
• The dashboard itself is being redesigned so it's much more graphical and easier to use.  It sorta looks like what Vista should have been had it not gorged on useless utilities and bad design.  Or, more specifically, it will work a lot like a Mac. 
• Finally, and most significantly, there are some very cool games coming out that you can bring home to the family with a clear conscience.  Obviously there are the sports games like Madden (which, I must say, is sooooo much easier to play now, and looks amazing) and Tiger Woods PGA.  But there's also a virtual karaoke game called Lips, which is basically Guitar Hero with microphones.  The kicker is that you can plug in your own iPod and play the game with YOUR music if you wanted (all AC/DC all the time, in my case).  There was even a party game called You're In the Movies in which you film yourself with an attached camera doing certain motions, and you'll be inserted into a short movie running from monsters or fighting ninjas.  They hinted that you may someday be able to insert yourself into movies you know and love (say, running away from a rolling boulder...)

For those of my brethren who are asking if Xbox is following the Path of Mario to becoming an emasculated virtual tennis machine, I say don't worry.  I'll be posting some brief comments on My Wife Hates My Xbox with my impressions of grittier fare such as Gears of War 2, Fallout 3, Call of Duty: World at War, and Fable 2.  If I knew how to type a drooling sound I'd just use that instead.

Microsoft is going for the same thing that Apple, Sony, and Tivo are going for: complete control of your mind living room.  They're all positioning themselves as a the single multimedia unit that picks up your music, photos, and movies and seamlessly serves them to you.  Few of us would argue that this is a truly noble cause.  If I were a betting man, I'd have said Apple or Tivo had the inside track two days ago.  Today...I'm not so sure.  It's got everything, and it plays Grand Theft Auto IV.   My Tivo can do lots of things, but it can't do that.  Maybe it's time to invest in this "family-inclusive" machine.

Honestly, I'm just surprised it came from John Hodgman.

It's Official - I Am A Bad Parent

Ingraticutitude

I don't talk about Zoe much. However, recently she's taken to saying what I consider to be her first word, and she says it ever time she sees me. "DADADADADADADADADADADADADA!" I consider this to be a high watermark in my dadding career, and an absolute validation of the critical role that a father plays in his children's lives. High five. Her mother, though, is understandably upset, in the vein of "I carried you in my womb for 270 days, consumed approximately 6 ounces of alcohol during that entire long 9 months, let you ravage my boobs, wiped the oxygenated guacamole-looking shit from your ass, held you when you went on your shrieking jags every two hours, replaced numerous nice shirts due to your vomiting all over them, and you don't even thank me with a MAMA."

To this, Zoe says:

Your child's tastebuds could be racist

Does your toddler routinely hold his nose when you serve sashimi?  Throw a tantrum when you're having enchiladas verde?  Shout out Mein Gott! when you roll out the wienerschnitzel?  Well, according to the National Children's Bureau, your child is in need of some re-education because they suffer from oldthink and their dislike of some food is doubleplusungood.

The article states that the Bureau, "which receives £12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care."  This includes children, as young as three mind you, who say "yuk" to unfamiliar foreign food.  Well, hold the phone!  Honey, can you find me the number to the nearest re-education camp?  Junior doesn't like something?  Damn, I just thought he was being a toddler, but apparently he's a racist.  I'm so relieved.  It's not me, it's him.

The 366-page(!?!) report details that even babies need to be paid attention to "in the drive   to root out prejudice as they can "recognise different people in their   lives"."  The 366-page (seriously?!?  366 pages?  WTF?) guide also goes on to say "that children might also "react negatively to a culinary tradition other than their own by saying 'yuk'".  Staff are told: "No racist incident should be ignored. When there is a clear racist incident, it is necessary to be specific in condemning the action.""  Well, yes, I certainly agree with that, but c'mon people.  Can we come back down to earth some time soon?  This stuff is a) silly and b) downright scary.  Why do I say scary?  Well: Nurseries are encouraged to report as many incidents as possible to their   local council. The guide added: "Some people think that if a large number of racist incidents are reported, this will reflect badly on the institution. In fact, the opposite is the case."

Oh, good, we'll start reporting every toddler that looks at General Tso's chicken and closes their mouth tight and soon there will be a nation of Comrade Ogilvys.  Bring on the goodthink!

America, America, God made you gracefully...

In the spirit of the day, here's patriotic country singer C.S. Lewis, Jr. He loves America. Have a great holiday weekend, and remember - M80's, the neighbor's cat, and a case of Bartles and Jaymes are a bad, bad combination. Take it from one who knows.

Usness, Or, Always A Flower Fairy, Never A Bride

Recently, the California Supreme Court overruled a law that prohibited gay people from getting married. Many straight people were stunned to find out that this had absolutely no effect whatsoever on the sanctity of their own marriages. As a straight man married to a straight woman, I was confident that if gay people were allowed to marry, I would still be married, and I would still be straight. In fact, I was pretty sure that gay marriage would really have no negative effect on me whatsoever. And what do you know, I was right. Go figure.

I can't claim to be impartial on this issue. Four years ago, when Lucas was born, we knew that we needed to appoint him a set of godparents. Our requirements were pretty straightforward: whoever we entrusted to raise our kids in the event of our deaths had to be...well, people that we'd want raising our kids. Intelligent. Loving. Tolerant and open-minded. Someone that would be a friend, a mentor, a coach, a teacher, a wonderful parent in every sense of the word. It took us all of twenty seconds to figure out who those people would be. Lucas would eventually call them "CC" and "Hilly". We've known them for...wow, ever, it seems. They are two of our best friends, a devoted and loving couple who, it's safe to say, we'd down our lives for, knowing that they'd do the same for us in return. They have been family to us in every sense of the word, and it was really no choice at all. Lucas and Zoe would have two Godmommies.

This past weekend, Carin and Hillary got married. Beth was their wedding coordinator, and she and I were in the ceremony; we were, according to the program, Flower Fairies. Yep, I walked down the aisle ahead of them, basket filled with rose petals in hand, strewing them along the pathway as we went. (To a rousing round of applause, I might add. Those petals ain't gonna strew themselves, and I took my job very seriously; good spacing, no bunching, no going outside the lines. You can't trust a kid to do this stuff, not if you want it done right.)

Usness. It was a word used during the ceremony, describing Carin and Hillary's relationship, their love for each other. Usness. I like it. The idea that THE person is out there for you, and that the two of you exist on a level that is above the opinions or judgments or approvals of others. That any of us are able to find Usness these days is extraordinary. And what was extraordinary about Carin and Hillary's wedding - CC and Hilly, who we love so much that we would entrust them with our children - was not the fact that it actually happened. I truly believe that the age of fear and ignorance is on the wane, and that the state court's decision is the result of that, and not the catalyst. No, what was extraordinary about CC and Hilly's wedding was how, for lack of a better word, ordinary it was. Two people who love each other deeply, exchanging vows and rings, signifying the permanence of that love. It was a beautiful, simple, traditional (yes) ceremony, in many ways like my wedding, or like yours, or like millions of others. It was a time-honored declaration of Usness from two people who, like the rest of us, all of us, deserve to be happy.

(ETA 7/10/08: Take a stand against bigotry. Go here and add your name to the ever-growing list of folks who are tired of family and friends being treated like second-class citizens.)

Snookles

Long Days and Sweet Nights

I'm sitting outside at 9:40 in the p.m.  It's finally comfortable out, if you can call being swarmed with every flying thing within a six block radius "comfortable."  At least the heat has gone to bed.  It was 110 today.  That's about 25 degrees hotter than it should ever be.  I'm pretty sure there are spots in hell that are cooler than that.

My wife is at work and after a long day, longest actually, I've just cracked open a Red Stripe, turned on some music (this post was written to Band of Horses, Calexico, and Joe Purdy, respectively), and started to unwind, which is really just working for a few hours but outside with bugs and beer.

A little over an hour ago I was sitting at this same table on the same lawn(ish), but I wasn't thinking about writing or deadlines.  I was sitting with my boys, both of them tired and true, always true.  I had made grilled cheese for dinner, per their request.  What they hadn't requested is that I make the sandwiches on some wacky English muffin bread I had picked up at Trader Joe's, or that I use a smoked cheese, or that I slice open whole green chilies and hide them between slices of said cheese, but I did, and they ate them, never the wiser.

We sat here and we had what passes as conversation between an old man, a rapid talking two-year-old and a freshly turned five-year old.  We talked of swimming pools and video games, dogs and the birds of twilight.  There was no rush, no rules and no agenda, just 3 guys that could really use a bath, a good meal and lots of laughter.

This, I thought, is what it is all about.

And here I am an hour later, the boys in bed, the dogs chewing loudly in food bowls they had hoped to ignore, and a layer of bugs upon the screen of my laptop, and it feels like a summer should feel.

I could get used to this.