Castle Park Has Moved!

With the near conclusion of Castle Park (The Album), and the ever evolving life in which I live,  I am moving this blog to a new more permanant home:

waitdad.blogspot.com

Content will appear daily, with a blog on Mondays, notes about marriage on Tuesdays, notes about fatherhood on wednesday, random thoughts on thursday, and finish out the week with the Friday Shuffle (Music, movies, books, and more or less).

If you are one of my 11 followers, please sign up for "Wait Dad" too. Everyone else may do as they please.

Habits of Successful People

I caught a Facebook post from a dear old friend as I was killing the final half hour of goodbyes required in order to leave my mother-inlaws-house.

The post was titled "12 Things Successful People Do Differently"

Feeling relatively unsuccessful at the moment, I gave the twelve things a whirl.

And like the guy who finally discovers that the girl he has dreamed about is not just stupid, but bat shit crazy, I gave a gentle sigh, and scrolled to the next post.

When we come across dissatisfying crap, sometimes we are able to let it go. But sometimes the back of our brains, the part that makes us giggle to ourselves, doesn't want to let it go. Sometimes on the ride home we tune out NPR and start to posit alternative things. Sometimes we are giggling to ourselves so loudly that we have to explain to our wives what it is that we are giggling about. Sometimes, we sit at the kitchen table helping our children with their homework, and have to explain again what it is that we are giggling about and have to try to explain S.M.A.R.T. plans to a six year old who only wants to finish his homework so he can have some ice cream. Sometimes wine is involved and we find ourselves sitting at the computer.

So here it is. 12 Things That Successful People do Differently. Followed step by step with things that will actually make you successful.

1. They create and pursue SMART Goals.

Fuck SMART goals. Show up on time with a reasonable amount of enthusiasm.

2. They take decisive and immediate action.

Life is not combat, if it can wait, let it.

3. They focus on being productive, not busy.

Check your email only once a day.

4. They make logical, informed decisions.

Except when they're taking decisive immediate action.

5. They avoid the trap of trying to make things perfect.

They make things pretty

6. They work outside of their comfort zone.

They enjoy the shit out of their comfort zone

7. They keep things simple.

Brevity . . . Wit.

8. They focus on making small, continuous improvements

They know when they're done polishing that turd.

9. They measure and track their progress.

They get tattoos

10. They maintain positive outlook as they learn from their mistakes.

They clear their browser history after master-bating to pornography.

11. They spend their time with the right people.

They spend their time with people that make them laugh.

12. They maintain balance in their life.

They hug a lot, because four feet are better than two.

Now there are, of course, two addendum's that I would like to add to this. First, no. 7 is actually a joke from the Simpsons (so sorry for the plagiarism, but it makes me laugh even damn time) and two, I don't advocate getting a tattoo.

The reason I've written this is because the person who posted the original note on Facebook is one of the few wonderful people in my life who taught me the true secret to success:

Love things. Find beauty. Ache if you must. Then come hug me.

I love you Deb.

Fever

Dad?

Yeah?

Are they going to stab me in the leg?

What? No! What?

Sometimes when we go to the doctor, they stab me in the leg.

Wait. What? Really?

Yeah.

No.

Because it's six o'clock on a Sunday morning and we're on the way to the emergency room. Calvin's fever has been over 103 for three days straight. It's obvious something's really wrong and the advice nurse has told us that there is an appointment available at 11:00am, but maybe we shouldn't wait that long.

Son-of-a-bitch.

I'm tired of sick.

I'm sick of tired.

Flashback to July and I'm laying in bed, and I can't get up. I can't get up because my whole inner frame is in agony. Pain that radiates from my neck to the heels of my feet.

I take a tylenol.

I sip my some lukewarm coffee.

I get up.

I go to work.

I take a tylenol.

I go home.

I cook dinner.

I take a tylenol.

I work on music.

I drink a bottle of wine, or a couple shots of birthday scotch.

I take a tylenol.

I go to bed.

Six months later, I think I have a problem.

I go to see my dad who specializes in this. We're not twenty minutes into a session and he tells me I've got a good year of therapy ahead of me.

Awesome.

Cause dad works cheap.

If you're related.

Which I am.

But all the other days I'm a cranky shadow of myself. There is no audacity of hope. Only the "Fuck You" of pain influenced disinterest.

It's affecting everything around me.  My staff tip toes around me. My wife hides in the room. Calvin is ever present and wants the kind of attention that only six year olds could want:

Constant.

I can hear the exhaustion in my voice with every track on the album. I can even hear the day we recorded and I was forcing back what was left of my first winter cold.

I suck.

The album sucks.

Everything and Everyone sucks.

I even hate you.

I am right now . . .  hating you.

And in all fairness, it turns out that Calvin had both a double ear infection, was carrying a virus called "Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease" on top of an asthmatic cough. So, yeah, life sucked for the little guy too. But when he insisted on worrying about getting stabbed in the leg, I kind of blew up.

Because I'm sick of everyone making mountains out of mole hills. Sick of tempests in teapots. Sick of the "What have you done for me lately" bullshit  that infects the corporate environment that I have so gingerly placed myself into.

"Dude . . . dude! No one is going to stab you in the leg. That was only one time! And you weren't stabbed in the leg. You were poked. You were poked by a tiny little needle. A tiny little needle that contained an immunization against various diseases. Those shots were GOOD, I tell you, GOOD!"

In the rearview mirror I could see Calvin contemplating as only a precocious six year old can contemplate.

His eyes were closed and his mouth was open. His arms crossed against his chest. He coughed.

There was silence.

But only for a moment.

Dad?

Yes?

There is nothing GOOD about getting Stabbed in the Leg!

Fair enough.

A Poor Choice of Words

They called him "The Preacher"

Well, actually the other characters in a Vonnegut novel called him the preacher.

But they called him "The Preacher" because he never used swear words. They would ask him all the time: "Hey Preacher, Why don't you use swear words?"

And he would answer: "Because one day, there will come a time, when your life depends on you understanding exactly what I'm saying to you."

That was war.

And good fiction.

But there was a secret reason "The Preacher" never swore.

The secret reason was something his grandfather told him many years before: "Son, when you use swear words, you give people who don't want to listen to what you're saying, an excuse not to."

That was peace.

And good advice.

And I noticed I've been swearing a lot. Swearing under my breath. Swearing at bad drivers. Swearing for joy. Swearing in defeat. Bursting from my day dreams with swear words. I even noticed that the "F" key on my keyboard has gotten just a slight bit dirtier than the other letters as if I've been hitting it so hard recently that more oils from my finger tips have rubbed off.

And I'm pissed off most of the time.

Not "flat tire" pissed off, I'm talking "kicking puppies" kind of pissed off.

I think I've lost my cool.

Which sucks.

Because I pride myself on my cool. Soft, mellow, water under the bridge, kinda cool. Say what you like, I'm just gonna slip on a pair of shades, toss in a little early Steve Miller Band and let you all fight it out amongst yourselves, kinda cool.

I was up above it.

And now I'm down in it.

To quote Nine Inch Nails.

And every night I toss and turn with rage against the machine and every morning I feel like Sid Vicious standing over a dead Nancy.

Problem is is that I'm just a bit too young to be cantankerous and way too old to be punk. I'm at an age where there is nothing cute about me.

So last week I wrote about something that was really getting under my skin. Something that was driving me up the wall. An episode that was driving me to distraction and I wanted to toss it off my shoulders by throwing out from my soapbox and let the masses deal with it so I could get some peace.

Writing is catharsis and I thought if I let it all fly with reckless abandon I would feel better.

But I didn't.

I just felt sorta mean.

And then I got an eloquent e-mail from a loved one. No blame. Just advice. No hate. Just wisdom.

May god bless you all with that kind of love. If there is a god. If there is love.

See, my stepson is having a tough time.

And he's not handling it well.

Because who does?

And he is having the same reaction to his situation that I am having to mine.

Except he's not getting to the part of Sid standing over a dead Nancy. The heroine hasn't worn off yet.

He just continues to rage. And his rage is getting the best of him, as mine is getting of me.

So I wrote something that I thought was funny and ironic. Cause he is in pain, and his pain is causing me pain, and if he wants to rage, I can rage louder, longer and with an older man's vocabulary. So lets look on one another as master and pupil. Cause I get it. I'm cool.

But the written words didn't convey that.

Cause I've lost my cool.

And the concept of surgical comedy splashed upon the paper like hatchet inspired gore.

I'm sorry.

We all deserve better.

So, Taylor, since one day your life might depend on your understanding exactly what I say, here it is:



I love you.

It gets better.

Much better.

Of Boomerangs and Dad Magic

Calvin asked me the other day how many people I've killed.

I paused before answering.

"More than my fair share, sweetie"

I don't know where he got the idea that I had ever killed people. Maybe its because I told him once how terrified monsters were of me and that's the reason there aren't any monsters that would dare come near our house.

Maybe its because I taught him how to use a sword.

A lesson I learned in drama school. A class I took somewhere between monologues and ballet.

But the most likely reason is this:

Dads . . . for want of a better phrase . . . are badass mother-fuckers.

Nobody is stronger. Nobody is meaner. Nobody can drive better, do more shit, answer more questions, leap taller buildings, fix a bike better, or crush a man with his bare hands with less emotional baggage than dad can.

Dads are magic.

Magic Badass Mother-fuckers.

Oh sure. Moms are pretty good too.

They have soft skin, warmer hugs, spit that can heal wounds and tame hair, and they will always give you a little more ice cream.

But if you need a Badass Mother-fucker,

You're gonna need Dad.

And we're graciously humble about it too.

When Calvin comes to me in his later years and says "Dad . . . you are a badass mother-fucker." my only response to him will be:

"Dude, if you think I'm a badass mother-fucker, you should see grandpa."

It's as if every generation of Dads become lessoned by the generation before.

I'll never be the badass mother-fucker that my father was, just as I am sure, my dad will never be the badass mother fucker that his father was.

Trace the male gene back and Adam must have been ONE BADASS MOTHER-FUCKER.

So Calvin and I go to the park to test drive a boomerang that he had won at one of those pizza places that cater to the younger folk.

I will be the first to admit that I had never been able to get the hang of boomerangs. Sure I could throw a frisbee, but every time I threw a boomerang it would either nose dive into the ground, or fly straight as an arrow. Never could I get the damn thing to whiz up into the air, take that extra long arc into the sky, and spin back and land at my feet.

So I was a little trepidatious.

Dads should be able to throw a boomerang.

No self respecting BAMF could fail with such a unique weapon.

So we got to the park and Calvin handed me the boomerang. His eyes light up and the dimple on his left cheek deepens with anticipation.

I take a deep breath.

and throw.

The throw is low, but the boomerang zooms towards the sun, reaches the apex of it's ascent, curves back down and lands at my feet.

Dad Magic.

Calvin squeals with joy. He races up to my feet and grabs the boomerang in his greedy little hands and makes his first throw.

Crash.

Right into the dirt.

He tries again.

Crash.

Right into the dirt.

"You try" he says.

I try again.

Perfect throw.

This goes on for at least another hour and a half.

But we're having fun. Its a beautiful december afternoon and i'm out with my little boy again, playing in the park.

It takes about 45 minutes before I take a closer look at the boomerang, and I realize that the curvature of this plastic little toy is designed to spin in one direction and not the other.

This just happens to be a boomerang designed for a left handed thrower.

Which I happen to be.

Which Calvin happens not to be.

No dad magic at all.

Just a Korean plastic mold maker who inverted the design.

Which I'm fine with.

I take a deep breath.

Twist my body like a spring for maximum torque and let that baby fly.

Except the last time.

The last time the little plastic edge catches on my finger nail sending to boomerang wildly to my left.

And catches poor Calvin right in the fucking neck.

There is a moment of shocked awe. A moment of breathless panic. And then the screaming begins.

He screams that he can't breathe.

I tell him calmly, that if he can cry . . . he can breathe.

"I want to go home right now" he says.

"Okay." I reply.

We head on home, sobbing fills the tiny little Echo. I carry him from his car seat to the couch where I check his wound. Who knows? I might have collapsed his trachea and then I would be in real shit when mom gets home and finds that she can't heal this particular wound with soft words and saliva. I'm a little worried at this point if I'm going to be spending time in the ER.

Not that I was worried he was seriously hurt, but that I would have to explain the nature of the accident.

"What seems to be the problem?" the nurse would say.

"I hit him in the fucking neck with a boomerang." I would mumble.

"Uhuh, hmm" the nurse would say.

How many times would I have to explain the nature of a left handed boomerang and a long fingernail? And how the combination of the two does not exactly constitute child abuse.

Probably more than my fair share.

But he calms down.

For  few moments.

Then tears well up in his eyes and he starts to cry again.

"Whats the matter now?" I ask.

"I'm never going to eat again!" he screams. Apparently the wound made it difficult to swallow and made him think that this pain would last forever. And if this pain is going to last forever then he was never going to be able to swallow food, which was a bad thing, because he was hungry.

"Of course you're going to be able to eat again." I say. "You just need to start with something soft and eventually you will be able to eat anything. How about trying some cheese?"

"No!"

"How about a banana?"

"No!"

"How about some yogurt?"

"No!"

"Fine then! You'll never eat again."

There was a long pause. The gasps turned to sobs and then the sobs turned to breath and the breath turned to a deep sigh. Then his eyes narrowed and his lips puckered.

His eyes lingered on mine for several moments before he said:

"How about some ice cream?"




Yeah, I know.

He's gonna be one bad ass mother fucker.

My First Mac

The Year . . .

I shit you not . . .

1986.

Orwell was wrong.

(which is a joke you would get if you were alive then and got to see the Macintosh commercial)

We had sold our dust collecting grand piano and bought a Macintosh Plus. Along with an Imagewriter II printer and so much pirated programming that I'm almost ashamed to admit it.

Almost.

I remember building the desk for it. It was the first thing I ever assembled of such magnitude. It required reading instructions, using tools, and carefully applying little wood colored stickers over the screw holes. That desk lived for the next 18 years. It was moved and reassembled 10 times from apartments to houses to apartments to houses to a garage to storage to an apartment to the dump.

During its long and beautiful life, it was the showcase for two Macintosh computers. The Macintosh Plus and the first iMac. Red.

No PCs.

It was at the Macintosh Plus that  I first learned to write. Where I first learned to use swear words. It was the computer I was sitting at during the earthquake of 89, it was the computer I used to write my first college essay.

Think about that. I did my fifth grade homework on the same computer I used to write deconstructions of Shakespeare's sonnets.

The Imagewriter II, a dot matrix printer, was still operable in 2009 when my mother finally had to toss it because there isn't a single computer interface that uses the cable.

The Macintosh Plus had 1k of memory.

1 fucking k

That's one Kilobyte of memory.

Imagine this. Download a song from iTunes. Say you have a hankering for Ozzie and you just need to hear Crazy Train. That's 9.8 MEGABYTES of information. If you do the math, and I know you won't, maybe Matt will, but he doesn't really need to, it would take 9,800 Macintosh Plus' to store Crazy Train.

We only had one.

We were poor.

But that computer lasted over 10 years.

In perfect working condition.

In contrast the only PC I've ever owned lasted three years and nearly destroyed my first album.

In over twenty years of having a personal computer in my house, I've had four Macs. The first taught my brother to read. The Second introduced me to the internet. The third got me through college, helped me write a musical, recorded an album, made my wedding video, and the one I have now has only begun the work that I want it to do.

Steve Jobs died today.

Younger than my dad.

With children young enough to still play soccer.

And in all the blogs you're gonna read, you're  most likely gonna hear about his brilliance with innovation. A brilliance I can attest to since right now I am sitting at my desk with my iMac, iPad, iPhone surrounding me.

Cause I have to write, take phone calls, and check my fantasy football status, all at the same time.

I would have my iPod too, but I only use it now when I am jogging.

So Yeah, you're gonna hear a lot about how innovative the man was.

But here's my favorite story:

The CEO of Nike is in an elevator with Steve Jobs.

Thinking it's kinda cool to have this kind of access to the great innovator, he asks Mr. Jobs what he should do with his company.

And Steve Jobs replays:

"You make a lot of good stuff.

and you make a lot of crap.

get rid of the crap"

end quote.

This is how I want to best remember a great American whose life was cut tragically short.

Here's what I want you to think about every day of your life. Here's what I want you to think about when you write that next paper, when you choreograph that next dance, when you write that next song, when you go to work feeling as if you have no control over your life at all. Because innovation is really neat, brilliance is fine and dandy. But if you want to really make a difference in your life and all of the lives around you, think about this:

We do a lot of good.

We do a lot of crap.

Do less crap.

Moves Like Jagger

Me: I'm starting to really hate that new Maroon 5 single.

Taylor: "Moves Like Jagger" . . .  why?

Me: Cause he doesn't.

Taylor: Oh

That was kind of a conversation killer on the way to drop my son off at the dorms. Taylor doesn't do idle chit chat unless its 1:15am and there's a world wide web involved.

I was thinking about this at the beginning of our drive after reading an article on the 20th anniversary of the release of "Nevermind" and the Nirvana/grunge explosion. 

I was younger then than he is now.

We stood in our combat boots with multiple layers of clothing. Long sleeve flannel shirts and army surplus jackets.

Here we are now. Entertain us.

Now its skinny jeans, V-Neck T-shirts, 

OMG. LMFAO

We both, however, are stupid . . . and contagious.

As we drove in silence, Taylor flipped through his radio presets.

I counted eight Pop radio stations he flipped through, and I am not shitting you, we only heard four songs the entire drive.

1. Friday Night - Katie Perry - The joke with this one is that the first time I heard it I could have sworn it was a cheap Katie Perry knockoff. I thought it was lame and dirty and didn't have the wink and nod of her earlier work. So how red faced was I discovering that it was actually Katie Perry and how sad to see a cute little pop star becoming a knockoff of herself.

2. Drink to That - Rhianna - Lame, but at least the auto-tune kept her usual chalkboard scratching flatness at bay. And then there was the Avril Lavigne sample in the chorus that made me wonder if bubble gum pop has gotten so bored with everything else its decided to start sampling itself. It may one day become so self contained that producers and artists will just start releasing their iTunes playlists instead of albums. 

3. Someone Like You - Adele - Good song, Well produced. Heard four times during a 45 minute drive.

4. Moves Like Jagger - Maroon 5 - After making my little quip Taylor scrolled through his presets until he found a station playing it. Not sure if it was serendipity, but there might be a conspiracy here. Maybe radio stations only play the top five hits so that new songs are as accessible on the radio as their are on Youtube.

Find the song you want and ignore the advertising.

Here we are.

Now.

Give us what we want.

Or someone else will.

So when we get to a song such as "Moves Like Jagger" I start to become an old fuddy-duddy.

Cause he doesn't.

Not only does Adam Levine of Maroon 5 NOT move like Jagger, I'm sort of confused as to why that would be something to openly discuss.

And not kinda creepy.

Telling another person that you have the moves like Jagger should illicit a furrowed brow, a soft tilt to the head, and a look of the eyes that clearly says "Please, you will have no chance of getting laid again if you even begin to think its a good idea to stand up and demonstrate."

Jagger is, and should be, the only person who can get laid moving like Jagger.

Maybe our dear Adam woke up on the floor of his hotel room using a V-Tshirt as a blanket and a pair of leather pants as a pillow and thought to himself "Hmmm. This makes me think of Mick Jagger. I must write a song about him. And use his last name for a lyric. A lyric that won't sit very well in the melody line."

And he continued:

"What is it about Jagger that makes him worthy of homage? Is it his lyric writing? No that can't be, he's not evening singing words. Is it his dynamic vocal range? Nope. If he's ever spread out an entire octave it was only because he fell off the stage and hurt himself. But Jagger wouldn't do that. Nobody moves like Jagger. I wish I could move like Jagger. Then I'd get laid. Chicks dig Jagger for how he moves. And for his V-Neck T-Shirts and leather pants. What's that awful taste in my mouth?"

I could tell him what that taste was. Its the taste of a bad idea that turns into an obsession.

I know that taste because I've had lots of songs like that.

Thankfully I'm not a pop star. Because I would be horrified to have to sing some of those bad idea songs for the rest of my life.

If the devil were to tell me that I could have a wonderfully successful career, and that he wouldn't take my soul, but that he would insist that twenty years from now I would find myself in a Carson City casino singing "Moves Like Jagger" night after night,

I might have to ask him if he would reconsider the soul.

So as Taylor and I finished unpacking the car and loading all his shit into his dorm room I was just about to  place my arm around his and give him some advice.

Son, I would say. You will be here for at least nine months. If you have any chance at all of getting laid, do not, under any circumstances, tell someone that you move like Jagger.

But just then two incredibly cute girls rushed into the room screaming his name and gave him full body hugs, and causally invited themselves to lunch with him.

So,

I'm thinking,

maybe he'll do just fine.