Merrrrrrry Christmas!

There’s a lot to be said for the holiday season. Who, after all, doesn’t enjoy shopping for and wrapping unnecessary yet totally fun toys and goodies, spending time with friends and family that we don’t get to see often enough, and then sitting down to a big Christmas dinner that’s as indefensibly extravagant as it is delicious? I do. Really.

I know of course that there are those who would frame the same events very differently; for some it's more like: Schlepping around to spend money on unnecessary junk, mandatory close proximity to family they usually avoid like the flu, and then yet another awkward meal spent trying to force down over-cooked ham while ignoring drunk aunt Marge and her yapping Pekingese.

I, however, am lucky enough to have great friends and family, so our holidays trend towards the former rather than the latter.- (And a good thing too, because I’m pretty sure I’m allergic to Pekinese. And I know I’m allergic to Aunt Marge.)- Anyway, as well as all the other fun we have, part of our Christmas break is usually spent re-watching the boy’s favorite tube-clogging holiday vids, including my personal fave, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra-holiday-house video.

So sure, you’ve seen it a thousand times, but just on the off chance that you haven’t had your fill of it yet, here ya go. Happy holidays.

Jeez I Hate Judith Warner

There are certainly many things of which I’m rather proud, but one of my favorites is my ability to take umbrage with just about anything I read and then wallow in a bit of cynicism just long enough for it to gestate into a full-blown fit of righteous indignation. Then, if all goes well, that righteous indignation will fuel a finely crafted missive of social commentary that’s rife with pithy insights and withering volleys of logic so elegant that any reader can’t help but be convinced that I am, in short, Right.

This, however, is not one of those days.

Suffice to say that it’s almost Christmas and I’ve got a little too much on my plate at the moment to get up a full head of steam over Warner and her latest bit of misanthropic twaddle. Luckily enough though, the ecosystem of Warner-hating is so rich and varied that anything I had to add would mostly likely be superfluous anyway.

So anyway, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and yours.

(…And if by any chance you happen to be one of the many who appreciate Warner, then good for you and don’t mind me. Perhaps it’s the At-Home-Dad in me that over-reacts to her. And hey, at least she’s no worse than dipwads Charlie LeDuff and Austin Murphy. Merry Christmas again!)

Almost Wordless... Thursday.

Far, far away. And usually it's for the best.

Geek Rock and Synchronicity

If by any chance you have kids, you know all too well that having them around is, if nothing else, a mixed bag. On one hand there certainly is a lot of associated noise, smells and angst, but then on the other hand I find that despite those shortcomings, kids are often useful for any number of things. They do, for instance, tend to be small so they fit into tight spaces when needed; they will eat a surprising variety of things in the fridge that would otherwise go bad, and even better: although they never seem to notice things that you and I assume are blindingly obvious, they do occasionally have insights that are downright uncanny.

To wit: about two weeks ago my older boy and I were in the car listening to an episode of You Look Nice Today which included both Hodgeman and Jonathan Coulton. And then, while we were still giggling like little girls, we passed by the Riverspace theater in Nyack and that sharp-eyed boy ‘o mine just happened to look up at the marquee and announce in his typically minimalist way: “Hey. Jonathan Coulton.” (As always, his economy with words would make any Trappist monk proud.)

And so just like that, in a blinding little flash of synchronicity we happened to be listening to Coulton and then the Riverspace Marquee promised that he would be playing there that very Saturday night. (Which is actually not unlike an incident involving Werewolves of London and Trader Vic’s in L.A.; but that’s a story for a different day.)

Anyway, we went to the show that Saturday and had a great time; I shot a little video and even got my copy of Thing a Week signed. I’m such a nerd. Whatever.

=

Almost Wordless Wednesday

First snow! (Sort of.) Big Bear, here we come!
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Sometimes it's all about me. Sometimes.

There is hardly a day that goes by that it doesn’t occur to me that becoming a parent is a just another of life’s little milestones; much like getting married, graduating from school, or losing your virginity. Although hopefully not in that order.

As I get older though, it’s becoming increasingly clear to me that parenthood is unique in that, if you let it, it becomes the default frame of reference for everything that happens for the rest of your life. You start mentally categorizing events by where they fall on the living timeline that is your progeny, and you remember things in the context of how it affected them. Which, if you have a tendency towards self-absorbed misanthropy as I do, can be a problem. After all, the first 25 or 30 years were all about me weren’t they? But no more; since I became a dad my perspective on most things revolves around the kids. Sheesh, what little need-machines they are.

Anyway, I realized this last weekend that there is at least one benchmark by which I can measure my impending mortality that has nothing to do with the kids: my roughly semiannual trips to Atlantic City with my buddies.

So it used to be, a lifetime ago, that when we were young and on the prowl we would all jump in our cars on any given night and head down to Trump Plaza to gamble, drink and smoke. The routine then mostly involved walking up the boardwalk to the Irish Pub for cheap food and good beer, and then wandering back down the boardwalk hitting every casino on the way until the last of us lost all our money. Then we’d stumble back to the cars around dawn with the stink of vice all over us and just barely enough time for a shower and change before going to work. You know, that kind of fun.

By now though, these trips have evolved into a whole different thing. Long gone is any semblance of spontaneity; these outings to A.C. are planned months in advance. There is no more braving the boardwalk on bitter winter nights; we sit around a table in Puck’s at the Borgata saying how nice it is to be warm. And driving around all night is only a distant memory; now after losing my money I just wander up to a nice, quiet room so I can be snoring by 1 a.m. You know, that other kind of fun.

So sure, I am, in a word, getting old... but at least when it comes to these trips I’m old on my own terms. It’s just me and my buddies, doing our thing, taking one night and not worrying about the kids.

Although… now that I think about it, it won’t be very long before both my boys will be old enough that we can start making our own trips like that. A new tradition of man-fun, if you will. So hey, maybe there’s room for both parenthood and that kind of fun. Huh, another thing to look forward to. Cool.