DadCentric

Dadalogues #1: Video Games

Bully

In general, I believe kids default to Good. Not good, as in "you cleaned your room all by yourself" good, but true Goodness, that which keeps them from torturing small animals or lighting their younger siblings' hair on fire. 

I didn't always believe that; there was a time when I'd have told you the opposite was true. Specifically, that time was the first few weeks of sixth grade, when I was informed by a grinning little bastard (whom I'll call Jeff T) that he and five of his friends were going to kick my ass after school, punishment for the crime of being the new kid, and a dorky one at that ("A-Fag", they called me, in their minds a clever play on my last name). What I remember was running. I told my teacher, who talked to the boys; I told my mom, who picked me up from school for several days; I remembering running across the field that lay between my school and my house. It was a straight shot, a couple hundred yards at most, and for several months I ran across that field when class let out, not daring to look back as that would slow me down and they would catch me and beat me to a bloody pulp. I ran as fast as fear would push me. 

We spent yesterday at the pool; our friends belong to a local country club, our boys are close, and we're often invited to hang out with them. The pool was busy; there are two pools at the club, and this one was reserved for the kids, a couple of feet deep, a bored teenaged lifeguard endlessly twirling her whistle around on its string. We bought a cheap inflatable air mattress for Lucas, and he was loving it - it was his pirate ship, then it was his surfboard, then it was his spaceship. Lucas and his air mattress attracted the attention of another boy, a stranger. The kid was Lucas' age, perhaps a bit older. He was brandishing a Super Soaker. At first, he just started spraying Lucas with water. Then he'd spray Lucas with water and take the air mattress from him - Lucas asked him to please stop. The kid grabbed it and took it - of course Lucas protested and took it back, but the kid didn't stop. After watching this a few times, I asked the kid to please stop taking Lucas' air mattress.

Then it escalated.

The Obligatory "Michael Jackson Was A Dad" Post

"When history is personified, and the person behind that history dies, history itself is no longer real." - Greil Marcus, on the death of Elvis

Greil Marcus' quote can easily be applied to Michael Jackson. Live fast, die young, leave a freakish surgically altered corpse, a grieving pet chimp, and the remains of the Elephant Man. So long, Michael Jackson; we hardly knew ye. Or maybe we knew ye too much. Michael Jackson was perhaps the most polarizing performer of the last 30 years; love him or hate him (full disclosure: I skew towards the latter), it's hard to deny the impact he had on popular culture. 

Of course, when any controversial entertainer dies, there's a symbolic as well as actual voiding of the bowels - lots of shit comes out, and it usually ends up splattering the people that were closest to the deceased. Sadly, Jackson's kids may be caught up in the custody battle to end all custody battles - who gets to claim the King of Pop's heirs?

And worse - are they even his?

Bastion of journalistic integrity TMZ is reporting that MJ is not the biological father of any of his kids. Us Magazine claims that Prince and Paris Jackson's father is Michael Jackson's dermatologist. And the Weekly World News? They've got the scoop on Michael Jackson's funeral, President Obama's reaction to his death, and Kim Jong-Il's planned tribute. (I love that The Weekly World News has separate headers for posts about Aliens and posts about Mutants.)

But back to the kids. Personally, I'm convinced that Jackson was up to some pretty sick shit at the Neverland Ranch, and I think that we'll learn more than we ever wanted to know about his penchant for young boys over the next few months. That said, I sincerely hope that someone steps up and looks out for his three kids. They're about to be thrust into a media circus that they never asked for and do not deserve. The sins of the father shouldn't fall on their heads, and after years of what must have been a bizarre (at the very least) and potentially damaging life with a father who clearly suffered from various forms of mental illness, the Jackson children need protection, care, and love. Katherine Jackson, Michael's mother, has filed for guardianship and the kids are currently residing with her. 

And that, sadly, doesn't give me a whole lot of hope for them.

Harley Davidson and The Marlboro Man

I used to be a badass. Distance running, rock climbing, rugby playing, crazy-ass expeditions into the wilderness, surfing before the crack of dawn - that was me before having two kids. At one point, back in my mid-30's, there was even talk - with Beth's support, no less - of dropping the cash on one of these. Now I'm a 40 year old laundry-doing house-cleaning grocery-shopping Stay At Home Mr. Mom, a poster child for the Stop The Pussification Of The American Male Movement. 

I'm mostly not complaining. I of course love my kids, and having the opportunity to spend more time with them is a blessing. And I've done enough Macho Bullshit for a lifetime, so I don't think I have anything to prove in that regard (I've been in a shark cage. Underwater. Nose to nose with real sharks. Big ones. The kind that kill people.) The idea that a Real Man shouldn't pitch in and help with the running of the house and the care of the children seems like something out of The Knuckle-Dragger's Handbook. Still, it occurred to me, one morning when I was sitting on the floor helping Zoe pick out a dress for her doll, a pretty one that would match Dolly's pick toy stroller, that perhaps I was losing touch with my masculine side. Even my blog posts, which used to be full of tales of Manly Fathering Adventure, had been getting weepy and sentimental. I needed to do something to recapture that old dick-swingin' he-man magic. 

I decided I needed to grow a mustache.

My Wife On Me (But Not That Way)

As I've been suffering from a sweet, sweet hangover as a result of the overdose of dad love I received this Father's Day, I asked my wife (you know and worship her as My Love on my personal blog Always Home and Uncool) if she could do me a solid and write this week's DadCentric post for me.

My only instruction to her was that it had to be about me as a father.

Her only response to me was "Mix me a martini and I'll think it over."

Yeah. She is the best.

* * *

You know you are an Always Home and Uncool father when …
Submitted by My Love

You find yourself up at 3 in the morning all hot and stiff … only because you were walking the halls all night trying to put your newborn baby back to sleep.

You hear your kid make that awful regurgitation sound and, rather than run away, you rush forward with hands cupped trying in vain to catch the projectile before it hits the carpet or bed sheets.

You own a green-striped Steve rugby shirt and aren't ashamed to admit it.

You take your minivan instead of your wife's convertible to run an errand because otherwise you'd "have to shower, shave and put on better clothes."

You walk into the elementary school and all your son's classmates hug your pant leg and say excitedly “Hey, Mr. Uncool” … before asking you why you are never at work.

You spend several weeks trying to keep everything together in your sick child's hospital room then go cry your heart out in the parking lot.

A good weekend is defined as rain outs for all the youth sports teams you coach, relaxing with a few uninterrupted pints of fine beer and getting busy with the wife more than once -- but one out of three isn't too shabby.

More Condescending Advice For Dads, Courtesy of CNN/Careerbuilder

Me like read Internet because me like movies of skatebored skateborde skatebord skateboard crashes. But sometime me as dad learn stuff from Internet, like when me read story from CNN about how me should be good daddy while me work job. 

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/worklife/06/22/cb.stay.at.home.dads/index.html

This good article! Me never think of use words to communicate, like article says to do. Me usually jump up and hit self on head or throw poop to make point. Me also think use calendar good idea; me use when need to remember trips on giant shiny metal bird, so me think good use calendar to make time to throw football with boy-child; me pencil him in for two weeks from now, unless WWE Smackdown on TV. Me can also bring family to work; boy-child and girl-child might like watch me lift heavy things. Thank you CNN for make me better dad. Now me go to refrigerator, try to see if me can catch ghost who turn on light when me open door. 

Michael Lewis and Walt Whitman

When I heard the learn'd astronomer...

I've received a few emails asking if DadCentric is planning on reviewing Michael Lewis' "controversial" new fathering memoir, Home Game. You'd be amazed at the number and scope of review requests I get from various PR, marketing, and publishing types - I'm not sure that I'm qualified to review Replens Long-Lasting Vaginal Moisturizer - and I do get a of requests to review Dad Lit books, but there was nothing from Mr. Lewis' people.

Just as well. Full disclaimer - I have not read the book, but after watching Mr. Lewis' recent appearance on The Daily Show, I'm not entirely sure I want or need to. I'd read his series of "Dad Again" columns on Slate, from which the book derives much of its material, and they'd left me a bit cold. "Seventy-six nights and I'd spent zero in the same room with him, unless you counted the night of his birth," he writes in one piece, "and the few times I stayed up until midnight to feed him a bottle of pumped breast milk before handing him over to his mother...His diaper needed changing about as often as he ate, yet I'd done that seven times, and remembered each event." The new book's most oft-quoted line is a revelation that Lewis has after several months with his newborn: "It's because you want to hurl it off the balcony and don't that you come to love it." 

Babies and Drugs

Most of my teenage summers were spent in the wilds of the Texas Hill Country, employed by the Boy Scouts of America to train young lads in the ways of the outdoors, everything from building fires and swinging axes to tying knots and constructing rope bridges. It would have been the perfect job if it hadn’t been for all of those damn kids. One drawback was the schedule, with one batch of kids leaving Saturday afternoon and the next batch arriving on their heels the next Sunday afternoon. But that 24 hour span in-between was ours to do with as we pleased.

One weekend, some of my friends came out to visit and see for themselves this magical patch of acreage that I emerged from every September laden with stories with which to regale them. With no troops around, we were free to camp wherever we wanted, so we snagged a sweet spot right next to the river. Now being teenagers, there was, of course, alcohol. That was just part of the deal, and I would have been righteously disappointed in my friends had they arrived dry. And I even halfway expected them to come packing another party favor, which they most certainly did. What I did not expect them to show up with was hallucinogens.

Did You Forget Something? Hint, It's Mother's Day

You're reading DadCentric right now which is always a good call, but do you feel like you might be forgetting something?  Should your attention be elsewhere?  Look around you.  Is there a woman covered in children giving you some serious stink-eye?  Yes, that one.  What's her deal?

Perhaps you had a big day planned of NBA playoff action, beer and couch.  That's not happening.

Today, you poor sap, is Mother's Day and if you've made it this far you're most-likely screwed and you need our help. 

ABC News Reveals The Truth About Me: I'm Cheap

Ever hear of Push Presents? Yeah, me neither. Apparently there are husbands out there who go out and buy their wives presents after they've had a baby. (After the wives have had the baby. Not the husbands. Shit, if I pushed out the baby, the first thing I'd do, after my ass had healed enough for me to walk, is go out and buy me one of these:

Like I said, I'd never heard of Push Presents until I got an email from Emily Friedman, a writer for ABC News, asking if I'd like to be interviewed on the subject.