I Write. You Read.

Recently, Simon and I have hosted a picnic on Sesame Street, visited the moon, avoided an alligator that was slinking around the dark corners of the house and skidooed into Wacky Wild World to find the letters “H-O-M-E” — just like Joe and Blue — and played “scary lion” for a good fifteen minutes straight. On a daily basis, I observe our boy acting out a scene that can only be fully experienced within his mind’s eye. At age two years and seven months, Simon’s imagination is in full effect.

Simon has been pretending for awhile now, but it really didn’t hit me how vivid his fantasies have become until maybe a month or so ago. I was sitting on the couch, watching TV or something, and Simon came running into the living room with his toy-sized basketball, a faux-leather cuff around his arm and a toy gold medal (reading “I’m a Winner!”) around his neck. Before I could comment on his choice of costume, Simon inserted the medal into his mouth, blew, and threw the ball out in front of him. It took me a few seconds, but I quickly realized that he was acting out one of his favorite episodes of Blue’s Clues, the one where Joe is the soccer coach/referee. Simon was pretending to be Joe. The medal was a whistle. The basketball was a soccer ball. I presume the cuff was a watch like Joe used to time the game or maybe a sweat band. The details aren’t as important as the idea that Simon was transporting himself into another world right before my eyes. And he invited me to play along.

Without regard to how he may appear, Simon throws himself into the worlds he creates with abandon. As an adult, I sometimes wish for the same lack of self-conciousness when doing anything creative, but it’s a lot more difficult with nearly thirty-two years of life experience under my belt.

Don’t get me wrong, I still have an imagination. Boy, do I ever. But I rarely have the time or energy to indulge myself with complete immersion into fantasy. I can’t remember the last time I left this world behind and truly visited another one; I used to do it all the time as a kid. Those wrinkled bed sheets and blankets were rocky badlands perfect for my action figures to explore on their ATVs. The big jungle gym in the school playground was, in fact, a multi-decked interstellar starship, complete with a failing hyperspace drive that required contortions and last-second heroics to repair. The danger was real, for a brief moment in time.

As an adult, these wonders are not completely lost to me, but they require a lot more work to create. I play Dungeons & Dragons with a regular group of friends once a week, and it’s refreshing to just play for awhile, without concern for what anyone thinks about it. But that’s based on rules, books upon books full of rules, and demands hours of preparation to keep it going smoothly. Closer to the free-minded mindscapes of yesteryear is creative writing, making up stories out of nothing. Far from the unfettered ramblings of a child, however, writing has become something else that requires work. Time must be set aside, focus must be applied, and energy must be expended. All three seem to have finite quantities, and I find myself continually pulled to the “easy” ways to use them up, just in performing day-to-day activities. At the end of the day, I’ve got very little left for fun.

In the end, I think it’s just a part of parenthood to re-live my glory days through the lives of my children. I’m fortunate enough to share these journeys with Simon–and eventually Phoebe–and see the world through their eyes. It allows me a nice visit, with the added benefit of knowledge that passages into the Land of Make Believe are precious resources, to be treasured, preserved and experienced with genuine wonder, because they become harder to traverse as time stretches into the future.

It was bedtime last night, and Simon needed to get his diaper changed and don his pajamas. After much cajoling he came over to our designated diaper-changing-and-pajama-donning area, but he brought his school bus. He drove the bus over to me and said “poopie” from which I inferred that he wanted me to change its diaper. After confirming my understanding of the situation, I informed Simon that the school bus did not have nor did it need a diaper. Simon pulled down the back door on the bus and indicated that this was its penis.

The longest journey begins with a single step.

That’s paraphrased, not a direct quote, but it sums things up nicely. In case you haven’t noticed, this all looks different. I’ve moved to a new web host, and along the way decided to re-invent my presence on the web. No longer will I try to keep separate outlets for the different thoughts I have bouncing around in my head, segmented by some artificial boundaries to keep things “focused.” I’ve discovered all that does is give me two or three places where I’m not writing. Instead, I’ve consolidated everything here under one banner in the hope that I’ll be more consistent.

Right.

In any case, expect things to at least be changing a lot as I get accustomed to my new digs and fiddle with the furniture and curtains. Or maybe it’s more like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. I guess we’ll find out.

As the piles of small spiral notebooks filled with scribbles scattered around the house will confirm, our little boy loves to draw. Or write. Or whatever he thinks it is. The point is that his favorite activity is to make his mark in colored wax whenever he gets the chance. For all we could tell, it was just random scribbles.

Awhile back Simon made his first recognizable shape, something he and everyone else could look at and agree on its validity as a recognizable object. It was an the letter “O.” Sure, it was a wobbly, not-always-completely-closed “O,” but it was an “O” nonetheless. Awesome.

Over time, the random page-spanning scribbles were refined to smaller, more controlled spots of color. He was steadily gaining proficiency with his medium of choice, and it was only a matter of time before his visions found release on the canvas. In the meantime, he would badger everyone to draw house after house for him, all of which had to conform to his ideal composition based on Blue’s house. Research, I guess.

Earlier this year we bought our budding Rembrandt a set of bathtub crayons, since he enjoys coloring so much and it would give hims eomthing to do in the tub besides splashing. His early works were the usual scribbles, punctuated by the ubiquitous “O” and an occasional “house” that held questionable validity for anyone but Simon.

One night, as I was giving Phoebe her bath and Angie bathed the boy, she informed me that Simon had drawn a face. Like, with eyes and ears and hair and a mouth. Entirely unprompted and without instruction, he had begun drawing faces all over the bathtub. And they looked like faces, too. Super awesome.

I suppose I’ve drawn faces for Simon in the past, just as I’ve drawn countless kitty cats, bananas and especially houses (please, someone save me from the houses), but it’s been awhile and it amazes me that he has learned this deceptively simple skill almost completely on his own. If nothing else this reinforces my utter lack of book-learning when it comes to child development and psychology. How normal is it for a two-year-old to draw faces, even rudimentary ones? Should he be drawing the bodies, too, complete with fingers and toes? I don’t worry about it, but there is definitely a hole in my knowledge base. If anyone can point me to some resources to find out this sort of thing, let me know.

In the meantime, I’ll just sit back and enjoy the art show.

Normally, when I get a call from home that begins with “Simon almost made me cry…,” I expect the worst. 99% of the time Simon is a really good kid; we can’t really complain. But that other 1% is enough to push us to the edge, and it can be especially hard on his mom, who stays home with him and his sister every day. A two-year-old can be difficult to deal with, but a two-year-old and a one-and-a-half-month-old together… Let’s just say I do my best to worship every day at the Shrine of the Supermom.

But today when Angie’s call started out that way, it was something different. Seems our little boy had picked up his Cabbage Patch baby and was “feeding” her with the bottle and generally doting on his little girl. Then he took it that extra step and climbed up in the rocking chair, lying her over his shoulder and soothing her with a “shhhhhhh.” I think it would have made me, cry, too.

Of course, his next step was to try and pull off the doll’s shirt so he could see her belly button, but hey — he’s only two.

Yes, I know. More than a year without a single update. If I were in the military, I should think I’d be court martialed for abandoning my post. Thankfully, I’m not, so the worst I can suffer is the shame of failing to deliver on the implicit promise that I would keep the internets informed of all things Daddy in my life. Shame on me.

It has been all too easy to just use the excuse that I don’t have time to write or upload photos. The daily grind sort of took over. I kept telling myself I didn’t really have time for this blog thing, that there was always something more important to do with my time. Looking back, I realize that I was wrong. My memory is sufficient for the broad strokes of color that paint my life as a father, but most of the tiny brushstrokes that bring out the detail can be lost without some kind of record. I don’t want to forget the details.

Of course I can’t write about everything. But writing about some things is better than writing about no things. Once Phoebe was born, I found myself at a loss; I’d forgotten so much of what it was like when Simon first joined us. Was it this difficult to put him to sleep at night? Did he take the same amount of time to get into a solid sleeping pattern? I just didn’t know, and I wish I’d made more of an effort to record my thoughts way back when (if I’m still young enough to refer to two years ago as “way back when”).

So here I am again, making an effort to improve my record. My goal is volume this time. Not so much with the well-formed essays, and more with the random thoughts and day-to-day life. Things are going to change around here, and hopefully I can keep things going on a more regular basis.

Imagine there is a crisis facing the earth that threatens to wipe out millions and millions of people unless something is done to stop it RIGHT NOW. Suppose the governments of the world are too mired in politics and the drowning weight of bureaucracy to discover, much less implement, an effective solution. Consider the idea that there is a person that monitors everything that’s going on, and that person is committed to saving the world at any cost. Now, finally, imagine that person, that global watchdog, calls you on your cell phone and asks for your help, explaining that only you know the key information, or know the key person, or possess the key skills that will prevent the deaths of millions. If you can picture all of that, you know what it’s like to be on the Global Frequency.

Based upon a limited-run comic book series of the same name, Global Frequency is the best TV pilot that you’ve never seen. Pretty much nobody has seen it, actually, because it was never picked up by a network. Produced last year with the hope that it would be picked up for the 2005-2006 season, this high-concept science fiction story sprang from the mind of Warren Ellis, an author with a knack for mashing together all manner of trends, technologies and speculation into something that entertains without making you feel stupid. While the pilot never ran on television, it’s spreading all over the internets and I tracked it down so I could see it for myself.

The story, thankfully, starts at the beginning. At least, the beginning for our proxy in the Global Frequency world, Detective Sean Flynn. He’s enjoying what appears to be some sort of celebration in San Francisco’s Chinatown, when a noise and flash of light from an alleyway draw his attention. He goes to investigate, and we are suddenly thrust into a world we don’t know or understand. Expecting maybe to find a wino or perhaps the victim of a mugging that needs a hand, we are instead confronted with a fresh corpse that was the victim of…sudden catastrophic weight loss. To say any more would give it away.

In the fast-moving chain of events that follows we are introduced to the Global Frequency. An organization founded by Miranda Zero, apparently an ex-government agent with apparently bottomless resources, the Frequency is devoted to saving the world by any means necessary. From a central HQ that exists somewhere indeterminate, she and her operator, Aleph, are able to contact anyone on the Frequency at any time via their hi-tech cell phones. People on the Frequency are experts in their field, the absolute cream of the crop. If a crisis required help with theoretical quantum physics, no doubt Stephen Hawking would be on the Frequency within moments. The idea is that no central organization or database would be able to cope with every conceivable situation, so it’s more effective to just call up the guy that knows his stuff.

The Frequency’s mechanism for finding information first comes into play in the story when it is discovered that the crisis centers around a Cold War-era Russian sleeper agent, and they need to know more about him. Within moments, Aleph has contacted a multitude of experts (”Mr. Smith, you are on the Global Frequency.”) and tracked down a Russian scientist who might have the information they need. The whole sequence plays out as a montage of dialogue snippets, outlining a hi-tech version of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon until they find their man. (If you’ve ever read the Three Investigators series of children’s mystery books, it’s also kind of like the Ghost-to-Ghost Hookup.)

It just so happens that this Russian scientist is in a top-secret, maximum-security NSA lock-up, so Miranda Zero must break in and get the information they need before time runs out and San Francisco gets wiped off the face of the Earth. This sets up a sequence that fills the quota for super-spy action and cements Ms. Zero as a bad-ass, in case you still need that assurance at this point in the story.

The rest of the plot plays out in a straightforward manner, without any really big surprises, but in my opinion the star of this pilot is not the story but the concept. What we’re supposed to focus on is not the novelty of the rather stereotypical sci-fi-meets-James-Bond plot points but the idea that there is a group of people out there that is committed to saving the world one crisis at a time, regardless of borders, governments or other affiliations. No price is too high (in fact, one gets the idea that giving one’s life for the cause is a rather common event) and no expert is out of reach if they have information that can help. In the event that someone isn’t already on the Frequency, “civilians” are pulled in on an as-needed basis to fill in the gaps. Need a gymnast? Hit the roster of Berkeley’s athletic department to track one down and drag her out of bed in the middle of the night.

Ultimately, I think the Global Frequency pilot shows a lot of potential that should be picked up by someone to develop further. Based on this initial offering, I know I would keep tuning in. Unfortunately, someone passed on it and it’s just floating around out there. I still have hope. If they can bring The Family Guy back on the air, anything is possible.

In the meantime, if Miranda Zero calls, I’ll be ready.

Over Memorial Day weekend, I was holed up with my wife’s family in Arkansas for our niece’s first birthday party. It was fun, I ate some meatloaf, and my son didn’t fall down some steps and crack his skull. On Saturday, I was reluctantly subjected to the horrible kids’ movie Holes. Well, I thought it was going to be horrible.

I remember seeing the promos for this one back in the day (it was released in 2003), and thinking it looked mildly interesting just because of the big name actors that were playing a part, such as Sigourney Weaver and John Voight. But I didn’t dwell on it nor seek out a viewing because it was clearly a “kids’ movie” and not really on my radar. Besides, I’ve seen many otherwise decent actors embarrass themselves for the sake of entertaining children.

To say I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement. Holes was one of the best movies I’ve watched in a long time. It is purely entertaining, from beginning to end. Everything is played straight, without any tongue-in-cheek winks to the camera or obvious references to current events or pop culture. Although there are the usual stinky-armpit jokes and over-the-top bad guys that get their come-uppance at the hands of children, it never rises above my cheesiness threshold.

The main story follows Stanley Yelnats IV, played by Shia LeBeouf, who is mistaken for a thief who had ripped off a famous pair of baseball shoes that had been donated to a homeless shelter. His family is cursed, you see, because of something one of his ancestors did in the Old Country back in Europe. Due to this case of mistaken identity, poor stanley is given a choice by the overbearing Texas judge: jail or Camp Green Lake, which will build his delinquent character. Of course, he opts for the camp.

Once upon a time there was a magical place where it never rained, the end.

— Mr. Sir

Camp Green Lake turns out to be a desert work camp that’s run by work boss John Voight, under the authority of the warden played by Sigourney Weaver. Voight plays it well over the top, but does it straight-faced without hamming it up too much. No doubt due to his creatively-groomed sideburns, his character Mr. Sir reminds me of Tommy Lee Jones as Warden Dwight McClusky from the decidedly non-kids-oriented Natural Born Killers.

The plot involves having the kids in the “camp” dig holes all day, every day, one hole each, 5 feet deep and 5 feet across. Presumably it’s to build character, but we get the idea early on that they’re looking for something. That something is apparently important to the warden, who is also the owner of the dried up lake.

As the warden, Weaver turns in an admirable performance with just enough despicableness to counteract her natural charm. Of course, it’s hard not to seem menacing when you’re sporting fingernail polish laced with rattlesnake venom, which is “perfectly safe when dry.” Her history ties into the backstory in a way that mirrors and supports the Yelnats curse.

The plot is as straightforward as it sounds: kids dig holes, kids find something in a hole, kids dig more and bigger holes looking for something else. There’s a “B” plot that intercuts with the main story and outlines the history of Green Lake, and dovetails nicely into the movie’s ending. Yes, it’s a nice, neat bow, but the fun in this case isn’t the story itself, but the way it’s presented.

You see, it’s a “kids in prison” movie that isn’t at all like a “women in prison” movie. From the beginning when Stanley is railroaded by “the system” into doing time for a crime he didn’t commit to the overbearing, inhuman prison authorities to the “old timers” that have been “in the joint” and sport creative nicknames like Armpit and Barf Bag, Holes has all the trappings of a good prison flick. The new guy gets beat down by everyone but the quiet dude that everyone thinks is stupid, until he unwittingly goes up against someone stronger and earns respect and a nickname of his own. In the end, the delinquents are shown to be good people and undeserving of the harsh treatment they’ve been shown by the Establishment.

Among the highlights of this movie, look for Tim Blake Nelson as Dr. Pendansky, Camp Green Lake’s “counselor,” and Eartha Kitt as Madam Zeroni. Henry Winkler plays Stanley’s father, who is a failed inventor searching for the secret formula to negate sneaker stink.

If you get a chance, I’d recommend you check this one out. Even if the plot is kind of thin and it’s obviously aimed toward children, there is enough to make any fan of good stories and fun movies smile with satisfaction.

I was born a poor black child… Well, I wasn’t, but Steve Martin’s character in The Jerk was. Actually, he wasn’t either, he just thought he was. The world that surrounded him was all he knew, so that’s how he identified himself.

I wasn’t steeped from birth in the teachings of Aristotle or the great literary works of Tolstoy and Thoreau. Some of my earliest memories are of hearing how they took the Chevy to the levee, loved Peggy Sue and held meetings in Fonzie’s office while Scooby and the gang foiled Old Man Winters. I’m not at all sure that I could tell the difference between a sonata and a concerto, but ask me about graphic novels and trade paperback collections and I could talk for hours. I tend to identify myself in terms of the culture which pervades my everyday life.

I’m not going to try to define culture, but I know what I like and I don’t think your run-of-the-mill operas or symphonies will make the cut. I can only watch MacBeth so many times before I start to wonder what it would be like if MacBeth was a drug lord fighting for dominance in the ‘hood, and how about Sharon Stone for Lady MacBeth? Is she available? I do think culture should be defined by the people that own it. I think kids in school be discussing Spider-Man and Harry Potter alongside Oedipus and Caesar.

This blog (how long until there’s a movie about a blogger being chased by the government because he knows too much?) is meant to be your window into my particular view of the world. We can head out together across this Damnation Alley in our flying vintage automobile to chart the landscape and sail the seas of cheese called “pop culture.”

Atomic batteries to power, right turn, Clyde and punch it, Margaret. This is going to be fun.

I couldn’t possibly catalogue all of the “daddy moments” that Simon and I share. A “daddy moment” being a point in time when the full weight and fulfillment of fatherhood descends on me and I just “get” what this is all about. But last night we had one that I can’t help but write about.

It had been another long day for the little guy. After another long night of teething pain (he’s growing three more teeth at present, two one side and one on the other; I think they’re bicuspids), he awoke early to play with his grandfather and GeeGee. No big deal. Then he decided that was so much fun he would skip his morning nap before church, where he could only be pacified by one baby-sized container of Goldfish™ and another of vegetable puffs (technically banana-flavored; is banana a vegetable?), and that only worked part of the time.

After church, we dragged Simon with us to Rockfish for lunch. We ordered him a grilled cheese sandwich, but he was only interested in the fries. Mostly he was interested in letting us all know that he was sleepy (he’d been awake since about 6am at this point, after all) and would like to be addressed as Mr. Cranky-Pants. Eventually we all finished eating and headed back to the house. Simon finally got his nap.

After Mr. No-Longer-Cranky-Pants woke up, his grandfather and GeeGee left for their home, and Simon once again became Mr. Cranky-Pants. Deciding it would be a shame to waste such a beautiful day indoors (sunny and 70-plus degrees), we went shopping. Simon was a real trooper, only letting out the cranky when Mr. Frog or Mr. Moose had fallen from his little hands. Two stores later we arrived at our actual destination, the park.

One might think that a 13-month-old child would find little to entertain him at a playground built for more-than-two-year-olds, but then one would be mistaken. Up stairs, across bridges, under platforms… Simon didn’t care that he couldn’t maintain his footing on the tree-bark playground filler. With Mommy and Daddy close behind (or supporting him so he could walk), Mr. I-Used-To-Be-Cranky-But-WOWLOOKATALLTHISSTUFF explored his suddenly embiggened world. With Mommy and Daddy’s help, Simon even got to ride down the SLIDE. Heaven on Earth, for sure.

After a half-hour or so of playtime at the park, we decided we’d all had enough. Our sister-in-law had called to invite us over for dinner, and so we hit the road for one last stop that wasn’t home. Simon took it all in stride, of course, and crawled around the house searching out new corners he hadn’t yet seen or revisiting old ones with fresh, wiser eyes. A couple hours, one bonked head and one sort-of-smashed finger later, it was finally time to go home. We were all pretty tired, but Simon was pooped.

I was surprised that he didn’t fall asleep in the car. My cell phone clutched tightly in his hand (Mr. Frog was left at home and Mr. Moose was MIA somewhere in the car), he silently endured the car ride without a peep. We arrived home and I started getting Simon ready for bed. He was so tuckered out that he just lay there like a wet noodle, watching as I removed his socks and shoes.

Something moved me to wink, perhaps some latent impulse of fatherhood, and Simon grinned back at me. Just like I probably grinned at my dad back when I was a wee lad, my boy gave me a look that made me feel invincible and infallible. In that moment, I knew what being a daddy is all about.