Well, one of us, anyway. Right now I'm broadcasting live over at NuPoppa. So if you've ever wondered what I sound like in person, pop over and have a listen. (I'll give you a hint: think David Sedaris inhaling helium.)
UPDATED!!!!! Here's a link to the podcast. It's a half hour long and I only manage to curse twice.
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?"
It's not often that I come across pure genius outside my own daily delusions of grandeur, especially with regard to viral videos. Let's face it...YouTube is chock full of large, steaming piles of donkey poo. So when they chose to remove the "Shreds" videos by user St. Sanders, I was pissed. I had been subscribed to his stream for months, ever since discovering the "Eddie [Van Halen] Shreds" video that had me literally laughing so hard I cried and peed my pants. Apparently, a couple of guitar gods that had been spoofed got their egos taken out at the knee and claimed copyright infringement. YouTube, the spineless douchebags that they are, caved in and removed them.
However, Wired pulled through and is now hosting them on their site. The "Shreds" live - at least for now. Thank you,Wired, the tech Bible that you are. So, if you missed these hilarious spoofs, take a gander and see what all the hubbub was about. Or, if you're lazy, I've set you up with an Yngwie Malmsteen sample below:
I don't pay much attention to Father's Day - I'm an Arbor Day man myself - but Charlene Prince Birkeland asked me to send along some suggestions on what to get the dad who has everything but still wants more, greedy bastard. You'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes, capitalist running dog lackey dad who has everything. Vive la guerra! Anyways. This is what I came up with.
Rounding out the top ten: a jet-powered hang glider, a submarine, a lifetime supply of Triscuits, a couple of hours with Alan Thicke, the original master reels of the Beach Boys' "Smile" (and people laughed at me when I said I was sending my sidekick Kato, a ninja schooled in the ancient art of hypnosis, to pay Brian Wilson a visit. Bidding starts at $320,000; email me if you want in), and a pony.
I haven't piped in over here in a while. Yes, I've been kind of distracted by the sucking black hole that is Flickr's 365 Days group - where your challenge is to take a self-portrait every day for an entire year. I don't even blog every day so trying to come up with a decent picture of myself every fucking morning is quite taxing...and addicting. Yes, it has enveloped me the past couple of weeks.
But you know the real reason I've been kind of quiet? Nothing's happening. I haven't had a bloggable kid moment in I don't know how long. Things are calm, cool, collected and predictable. A couple of boundary reminders here and there interspersed with some funny vocabulary moments and that's all I have to work with. Most of that is hardly entertaining for those out of the loop no matter how much I spin it.
I'm not complaining, mind you. In fact, I look at this period as a mini-reward for all the hard work we put in to both our kids over the past several years. Dividends, for lack of a better word. For those of you still in the trenches of babydom, let this serve as a reminder that there is light at the end of that tunnel. You may be sleep deprived, sex deprived and two Prozacs away from having the boys in white coats chase you down with a butterfly net, but, hang in there. It gets better. Yeah, I know we're looking down the barrel at the next level of parental challenges like menstrual cycles, preschool for the little one, and the inevitable transformation of our wonderfully-behaved eldest in to a raging preteen that curses us with every breath she takes. That will come soon enough. But for now, it's cool.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a couple of hundred photos of my eyeball to sift through.
Whelp...tomorrow evening, I get to make an ass of myself recapture a bit of my youth as my old band gets together for the requisite "10 Year Reunion" show. Those couple of years we were together and touring were so textbook Spinal Tap, it's scary. At least it was scary back then. Now it's just plain old hilarious. I need to write a book on this shit. Anyway, the show will be captured on DVD compliments of the club and I'm really stoked about that. You see, my daughters really haven't had a chance to experience any part of that time of my life except for a couple of photos and some songs [that get overly requested by my littlest one]. Why? Because all my footage from those years is archived on video tape.
Remember that stuff? Those cartridge thingies with a spool of brown stuff in them where you stick them in a contraption called a "V-C-R" which makes this weird whining noise then presents images on your television yet jiggles every once in a while with funny lines in the picture? Yeah, that stuff. <-- This is how my oldest remembers them. Since we haven't had a VCR in years, my youngest may grow up never even seeing one in action. And I don't mind. Video tape always sucked, in my opinion. You got one good play before either 1) the tape wore down or 2) the machine ate it. It's a black mark in our technological history, no doubt.
So, I'll come home tomorrow evening with a shiny little DVD that my girls can sit down and watch with their old man over breakfast the next morning. Finally they'll get a taste of what used to be such a big part of my life - if only an aging and embarrassing rendition of it. Sure, it'll show me all likkered up, screaming and cussing like a sailor, but, let's face it...when am I not?
I've been staying up later in the evening lately as Little Dubya has been...um...how to say this tactfully...NOT FUCKIN' SLEEPING. Is that too harsh? I have been doing this since Mrs. Big Dubya is with child and I'm trying to do my best to let her get as much sleep as possible. However, it's not always easy when the baby monitor is right next to her head and he decides to go into full-on wailing banshee mode. That's when I try, like a bull in a china shop, to scramble lumber quietly up the stairs. I mean well, but sometimes I make as much noise as Little Dub. But that's neither her nor there. My point is that I stay up late.
I just got a new laptop. Mrs. Big Dubya hooked a brotha up and now I have a brand-spankin' new Dell E1705. It's pretty sweet with its Bluetooth wireless, 1GB SDRAM, 100GB hard drive and Intel Core Duo Processor - I likey. Again, that's not really the point, but I'm getting there. As with any laptop, it allows me to use the Web anywhere unlike in the past where I would be tethered to the desk upstairs Sure, I could have used Mrs. Big Dubya's any time, but that's hers and I never really did feel right about it. But, I just never wanted to head upstairs for any long period of time to go on-line. Hence, new laptop. Drawback? I can now spend entirely too much time surfing while I wait for the little guy to erupt in "he's pulling out my toenails with pliers" screams. Too vivid? I say it doesn't even scratch the surface on how loud and brain-piercing it actually is, but, again, I digress.
In my aimless clicking of links quest for knowledge, I stumble upon all sorts of interesting things, as I'm sure many of you do as well. Hey, stop shakin' your head, you know I'm right. First step to recovery is admitting you might have a problem, remember? Anyway, I know Father's Day has come and gone, but ladies, maybe your guy has a birthday coming up? Anniversary? Maybe he put the toilet seat down? Well, if you're looking for something to get him, might I suggest this fine example of American ingenuity and know-how. Perfect for the guy on the slow go. Make sure you check out the picture of the guy at the bike rally at Sturgis - I think that says it all.
Next up - how's your dexterity? Me? I'm about as nimble as a...nimble as a...can anyone help me with an accurate comparison? Nevermind. I'm just not all that dextrous. But if anyone has the time, inclination and patience, I'd love to see the final product on this. Oh, yeah, almost forgot. A smattering of Spanish pudo ser necesario.
Finally, I know Greg posted about the Salon "Kindie Rock" article yesterday, but last night I stumbled on something at elbo.ws which took me here and finally to a blog called (sm)all ages. Some of you might already be familiar (I was not - shame on me), but if you're looking for alternatives to The Wiggles and music of that ilk, it's as good a place as any to start. In fact, Friday, June 23's post includes Sleater Kinney, The Eels and the Chili Peppers - that's something I can get behind.
We here at DadCentric are very excited to announce that we've joined forces with Federated Media. This puts us in good company - Dooce, BoingBoing, Fark, and several other great sites are also along for the ride, and we couldn't have picked a better group of bloggers to sell out and go corporate with.
You can help us realize our dream building a DadCentric Vast Media Empire, by taking part in a brief, monochromatic survey. By clicking here and answering a few questions, you'll enable the marketing and PR wizards at FM to send endemic, high quality sponsors our way. And having endemic, high quality sponsors means that I will no longer have to sell my sperm to pay for my TypePad subscription. Won't you please help stop future generations of Jason-bastards? (Some of you may be wondering if Federated Media has any control over post content. That should answer your question.) Thanks!
If you're a new dad and have neither the time nor the patience to wade through a 350 page doorstop book on parenting, the goodfellas over at Dr. Moz have a solution. Their interactive guide for first-time dads, The Goodfather, offers quick and practical dadding tips, from changing a diaper to adjusting to the enormous changes brought on when a kid's in the picture ("Jerk - How Not To Be One") with a healthy dose of humor. In addition, the CD features a baby name book with over 15,000 entries (Bjordkjerk was not listed; perhaps it'll be included in v2.0) and a Baby Card Maker program which allows you to create your own announcements. (Laugh it up, dads-to-be; wait 'till you see how much those friggin' things cost. You'll change your tune, and may well end up getting calls from Hallmark recruiters once they get wind of your hidden talents.) If you appreciate advice like "Pulling a baby from new grandparents can be a lot like negotiating a wildebeest calf from drooling hyenas", you'll enjoy this great resource.
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