Radio, Radio

I'm a Philadelphia Eagles fan, by birth. I stress the "by birth" part because I'm not sure why you would choose to be an Eagles fan if you didn't have to be. Like many Eagles' fans their last game -- a inexplicable loss to the Minnesota Vikings -- left me unhappy...and chanting the mantra "It's just a football game" over and over.

Because of my level of disgust, I vowed to not listen to my normal sports radio presets...especially since I'm stuck here in the South Bend area, which is the domain of the Chicago Bears. There is very little in life I dislike more than the Bears and their fans...although, unfortunately, considering where I'm currently living, one of the things that ranks higher is Notre Dame football and its fans.

However, not listening to sports radio kind of left me stuck with the rest of radio. I had forgotten what that's like. Turns out that there is a preponderance of both conservative talk and Christian radio around here. I tried hard to find something interesting in either format, but about the only way that I could be less their target audience would be if I were Muslim.

Then there's a lot of country music stations. I'm not averse to country music -- I actually quite like Lady Antebellum, and not just because the girl's hot -- however, country radio...how can I put this delicately... sucks the big one. They couldn't program any blander if they tried. In the last two days, I've heard Alan Jackson's "It's 5 o'clock Somewhere" and some annoying song by the Zac Brown Band more than anyone should ever have to.

Which has left me futilely flicking through the "scan" option bouncing through the handful of pop and classic rock stations. Two things that I've learned is that they're almost as bad as country radio and, oddly, two of the stations seem to be the exact same only with a five minute difference between them. I could probably figure that out more specifically, but I don't really care.

The other thing that I've learned is that I'm not going to hear three good songs in a row on any of them.

I can also tell that I'm getting old, because of some of the things that now qualify as "oldies" are by bands like REM and U2. I also heard the song "That Thing You Do," from the movie of the same name, being played on an oldies station...which I was amused by since it was written to sound like a '60's pop song and now it's old enough to actually be an oldie in its own right.

My taste in music tends towards the melodic. I'm geared towards the Beatles...probably too much so according to my family (they tired quickly of the reissues earlier this year). That also tends to steer me towards pop music, for good or bad. But from there I'm pretty open...if a song has a strong melody and a good hook, then I'm most likely on board no matter where it's coming from. That's led to consternation from some of my friends, who have in the past felt uncomfortable with me doing things like walking through a shopping mall singing Christina Aguilera songs (her I like...most of her peers are hacks though).

Being forced into listening to the radio has reminded me of some stuff though. As I was driving back from covering a high school basketball tournament, I heard Lou Reed's "Walk On the Wild Side" for probably the first time in 15 years. It caused me to remember back to my younger teen years when I was a proud music snob, sitting around discussing the importance of the Velvet Underground...all of us professing to love their music whether we actually did or not (a situation that I'm pretty sure played out the same way with another generation and The Pixies...don't get me wrong, I don't mind The Pixies, I just think that maybe there was a little too much worshiping).

Back when I would participate in conversations on the writings of Hunter S. Thompson...and perused magazines like Architectural Digest. When we'd get high and do things like listen to Bowie's "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars"...or listen to Zeppelin's "Fool In the Rain," while it was freakin' raining...and deride the state of popular music coming from the likes of Michael Jackson and Madonna, while complaining about the lack of mainstream support for the Psychedelic Furs or Aztec Camera or The Smiths.

Essentially, I was insufferable.

As it happens, I was actually a bit less insufferable in that way then I could've been. My 80's teen counterparts, the ones that John Hughes' tossed bouquets at in his movies, could be seriously obnoxious. I distinctly recall being at some event at Michigan State University with a cross section of "achievers" and being stuck in a discussion group that was made up entirely of some rich suburban kids that I didn't know...and them becoming agitated because I was smart enough to be able to mock them at their own level, without them having a whole lot of recourse. Well, I guess they all stopped talking to me at some point -- which made it less of a "discussion" group -- but I'm pretty sure that didn't actually stop my mocking.

Thankfully, I'm pretty sure that I've grown out of being insufferable. Still obnoxious, sure, but not insufferable. Or at least I don't think that I am, and I don't really care what anyone else thinks.

One quick note about the above reference to Dr. Hunter S. Thompson...to be honest, I usually found reading his work in book form to be a bit tedious. I just think it was too much to consume at one time. However, the man's work as a journalist -- particularly the Rolling Stone stuff -- taken in smaller doses was brilliant.

Also, I'm pretty sure that whatever your musical tastes are at 14, then that's pretty much your musical lot in life. When I was that age, I was the only person I knew that had multiple albums by Fee Waybill's band The Tubes. I heard one of their songs as well during my sojourn into music radio listening...and I still like them. Over the years, the newer bands/artists that I've liked have really just been variations on the bands/artists that I liked when I was 14. So, if you're currently the parent of a 14-year-old that's listening to Justin Bieber, you should probably feel even worse for them.

The Ghost of Christmas Jammin'

It's dawned on me that it's awkward to keep saying things like, "my wife" or "my oldest son," and without wanting to use real names, in true sitcom spirit, I've decided to come up with character names for them. So, I'll call my wife Amy, my 8-year-old son Marty and my 5-year-old son Casey. Anyone else that I need to add in, I'll add names for as I go along.
Let's give it a shot.
On Christmas Eve, Marty decided that he wanted to act out Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." He cast Casey as Scrooge, Amy as the Ghost of Christmas Past, himself as the Ghost of Christmas Present and me as the Ghost of Christmas Future because, and I quote, "you're scary."
He also gave himself another part, that of Scrooge's old partner. However, he told me that he had decided that he didn't like the name "Jacob" and was changing it. The character would now be Bob Marley instead.
Let's just say that the classic story takes an unexpected twist when the ghost foretelling the visits is a reggae legend. Luckily, the ganga smoke that marked his appearance was fake...although I was taken by the fact that he was weighted down by the dreadlocks he had forged in life.
In Marty's version, Scrooge was being punished for taking a Christmas vacation to Hawaii without taking the rest of his family. When I found out the plot, the Ghost of Christmas past got even scarier...because if anyone in my family is shuttling off to the islands for the holidays, it's me.
The reason for the little production stemmed from a conversation the boys had earlier in the week when Marty felt that Casey was being too materialistic and was only concerned about how many toys he was going to get.
"Christmas is not about the toys," Marty said. "It's about love and compassion and being with people that you love."
"I really just want the toys," Casey replied.
Marty had hoped that putting Casey through the Scrooge treatment would cause him to learn the true meaning of Christmas. Didn't work...right afterwards Casey went back to trying to figure out if any of the boxes under the tree looked like they contained a DSi.
Meanwhile, my staff bought me a black Santa hat inscribed with "Bah Humbug." Apparently that little announcement about there being no Christmas presents this year, not even a lousy $5 gift card to Starbucks didn't really go over that well.
Casey got one of those PaperJamz things...the fake guitars that play music or you can pretend to play or whatever. One of the songs on the one he got was the old song by The Vapors, "Turning Japanese." When the song first started, I got a little concerned that I was going to have to explain the lyrics "No sex, No drugs, No wine, No women" to a 5-year-old, but it skipped that part. Oddly, it also skipped the most memorable guitar part of the song...but why would you include that on a toy guitar. It also plays a Fall Out Boy song, because you can't help but notice the guitar work in their music.
At the family gift exchange, I got mocked over a beard that I've allowed to grow on my face. Normally, I look like Mr. Clean...shaved head, clean shaven, all of that. But, I kept cutting a spot on my face so I let the hair and whiskers grow so that I kind of look like a chia pet...a chia pet with a lot of gray hair that normally isn't noticable when I have no hair. During the handing out of the presents, my 17-year-old niece put a gift for my dad in front of me and then looked up and said, "Oh...you're not grandpa." The family laughed and laughed...including Marty, so apparently the Christmas spirit thing doesn't extend to me.
That's ok...my gift at that exchange was a gift certificate to Barnes & Noble. I'll be using it for a book on getting even.

Pee In Eye

Last night, I heard those words that every father can't wait to hear from his son -- "Mom, I peed in my eye!"

This was my 5-year-old son. How exactly did he pee in his eye? We don't know...he was in the bathroom by himself...but the possibilities are bountiful. Was it a ricochet shot off the toilet seat? I mean, was he aiming at a spider or something and just didn't expect the kickback? Was something amiss and he decided to take a look and just forgot to shut down the water works? Luckily, he was getting ready to take a shower at the time.

He is awful fond of pee though. And, poop. If he can work those two words into any anecdote or, heck, even just any sentence he's fine.

His older brother was talking about Valentine's Day and trying to get Mr. Pee Eye to commit to a girl that he liked. ("You know, who's going to be your girlfriend when you're a teenager," my 8-year-old said. "Which one are you going to do in high school?" Unlike a lot of his peers, my son legitimately has no idea what's wrong with that sentence.) Finally, after being sick of the question, my younger son went with his strength and said, "I love poop." After some more prodding, he switched over to loving pee. Someday, people will be talking about how they had a little boyfriend or girlfriend in kindergarten and he'll be relaying stories about peeing in his eye or maybe regaling them with one of the numerous stories of walking out of the bathroom to do his "naked dance."

Bald Headed Freak

I ended up having to go to my younger son's Christmas program by myself, since my wife's still sick. Worse, I had to record it so that she could watch it at home. I have become one of those dad's that sits there like a dope looking at the display on his camcorder. All so that someone else could have the benefit of seeing a bunch of kindergartners mumble the words to "holiday" songs.

I say "holiday" songs because they had to squeeze in both Kwanza and Hanukkah songs. Never mind that Hanukkah's already over. Plus, the Hanukkah songs that the teacher picked where the latkes one and some eight little candles thing. If you're going to have kids singing Hanukkah songs, how can you not do "The Driedel Song"? It's like having a Jewish wedding and deciding not to play "Hava Nagila." Who does that? If you're going to have a song about potato pancakes that reminds me how much I miss the show "Taxi" then at least throw me something...like having the 5-year-olds do Adam Sandler's "The Hanukkah Song."

And, whatever song they had for Kwanza might have been the worst holiday song I've ever heard. Seriously, whoever is in charge of the marketing of Kwanza really needs to do something about that. You can't expect us to go along with a December holiday in this country without a really good song. Just commission Smokey Robinson or someone to write it. I understand that you might not have the budget to get someone like Pharrell to put something together for you, but Smokey's got to have some time on his hands. Or what about Stevie Wonder? The guy used to write 50 songs in a day...he could probably toss off something passable to get you by until you can afford something contemporary (although, what's Dr. Dre doing now? Maybe he could help out. And, isn't T.I. in jail...he's got some time).

But I digress.

So, I watched the kids try to remember the words to "Up On the Rooftop," and then found out afterwards that I was expected (by my son) to go back to a party in their classroom. Now, this program thing was at one school, but my son's class is actually at another building.

I came walking into his class, after they had already been there for a few minutes since I stopped to get gas, and all of the kids were at their tables. My son sits with his back facing the door, so at first he didn't see me. I can up from behind him and stood. He turned his head around and said, "Hello, my bald-headed freak."

Turns out that my 5-year-old knows that you're not allowed to strike a child on school property without them calling Child Protective Services on you.

The little girl on his left said, "Hey! That's your dad! I mean, he is bald..."

Then the little girl on his right said, "What did he say?"

So the little boy on the opposite side of the table said, "He said, 'Hello, my bald-headed big guy."

It went on like that, with my son grinning happily at me the entire time.

I got even with him though. The cookie that he was decorating mysteriously ended up with an inordinate amount of spicy cinnamon hearts hidden under the sprinkles. Oh, and I had a little trouble hearing him while he was asking for a drink of water.

I'm sure he won't consider us even, but what's he going to do? He's only 5 and I'm a light sleeper.

My Holiday Luck

It started off innocently enough. The brake light on my car came on while I was driving to work the Tuesday before last, so I took it to my normal shop and asked them to look at it.

A couple of hours later they called me to tell me that they couldn't find a leak in the brake line -- they just added some brake fluid -- but that they did, in checking, see that the coil spring on one of my rear struts was broken and would pop my tire if not fixed. OK, go ahead and fix it, I said. $450 later, I had my car back. Not the greatest thing in the world having a major repair two weeks before Christmas, but not the end of the world either.

That Friday, I came downstairs to find the house feeling a little chillier than normal. I looked at the thermostat to find it set at 66-degrees but showing 64. So, I tried to turn it up. Silence. I turned it down and then back up. Silence.

Annette went to the breaker to check that. I went into the basement (which is only 5 feet high) to manually turn off and on the furnace. Nothing. And, it's December 10th along the Michigan-Indiana border...where they use terms like "lake effect snow" and "wind chills of -10."

So, I went off to my scheduled breakfast meeting with the number of our normal furnace guy and called him on the way. Told me he'd be there in the early afternoon...showed up at 4:30 p.m. After looking at it for about 20 minutes, he came back to tell me that one of the motors was fried and would need to be replaced but that he didn't have one. It was too late in the day to get one and he'd have to check with the one supplier that's open on Saturday's to see if they had it. They did, but obviously the furnace couldn't be fixed until the next day.

With no heat, we quickly called our normal dog kennel, boarded the dog and then my wife went off to a hotel with the boys, while I went to cover a high school basketball game.

The next day we arrived back at the house and waited for the furnace guy. I eventually had to leave to go do some work, but my wife eventually texted me that the guy was there. Then she texted me that the new part wasn't working. Then she finally texted me that the guy had managed to get it working and for only $350 we had heat again.

Not great, again, but we didn't have a pipe burst or anything (it had only gotten down to about 28 that night), the added expense of the hotel wasn't great, but the kids liked it. And, it wasn't like we needed a completely new furnace.

That Sunday, we started getting some of the storm that caused the Metrodome in Minneapolis to collapse. Thankfully, we had heat.

With the snow flying, the boys went out to play all bundled in their snow pants, coats, mittens, etc. After a while, my older son came inside and went back to playing on the computer. A few minutes later, the dog came in. My younger son, however, stayed out.

We would look out now and again to see where he was and mostly he was just walking around with a stick. The last I had looked, he was trying to climb on the closed turtle sandbox.

Then my wife yelled to me, "Can you yell at him?" Why can't you yell at him, I thought, and asked why. "He's laying in the snow."

"Where?," I asked.

And then the tone of her voice changed.

"There! Over there! He's on the ground face down!"

I looked out the window and sure enough there he was in the middle of the yard, looking as though he was making an angel, but on his stomach.

I opened the door and stepped outside. "Hey, get up!" I called.

Nothing.

I took a few steps outside. "Hey, get up!" I tried again.

Nothing.

At that point, I started sprinting through the snow. I got to him and said something again, with the same result. I knelt down, touched him and still no movement. With my heart stopped, I reached around and turned him onto his back. His eyes were closed and there was still no movement.

One side of my brain began chanting "Please God" over and over again, while the other side started to run through emergency CPR steps and whether I should try to transport him inside. I touched his cheek, which didn't help because he was just in the snow. I started to move his scarf to feel for a pulse, and his eyes slowly opened. "I'm tired," was all he said.

I picked him up and raced inside so that my wife and I could examine him. He showed no signs of trauma. His pupils were fine. His pulse was fine. We still don't know what happened. All he'll say is that he was tired and won't answer any other questions. He snuggled with his mother for an hour or so and then was back up and running around. I, however, was shot for the rest of the day and still have trouble sleeping without seeing that moment of turning him over in the snow with his eyes closed. We've had everyone watching him since, but nothing more has come up. We don't know whether he was trying to play a joke that went awry or if he just fell in his bundled up, Randy-from-"A Christmas Story" outfit, couldn't get up and just thought, "Screw it, I'll just lay here until someone comes to get me."
This past Tuesday, with the remnants of the storm still periodically coming through and multiple local counties declaring states of emergency, I went out to start my car. The battery was strong. It sounded like everything was engaging, but it wouldn't start. I let it sit for a little while and it still wouldn't start. I tried to jump it, just to rule that out, and it still wouldn't start. My wife took the kids to school and then I took her to work and came home to call Triple A. When I finally got through to a representative after being on hold for 45 minutes, they told me that my membership had expired. For $125, I could renew the membership and they would go ahead and send over a tow truck. That being the best option, I went ahead with it.

The car got taken to my normal shop, where they looked at and told me that it needed a new fuel pump. They could have it back on the road that afternoon for just $500. With little choice, I told them to go ahead and went over to my office to tell my staff not to be looking for any Christmas presents this year. (Last year, our company didn't provide any funds for a party or anything and, with the other manager in the area paying some ungodly sum in child support each month, I was the one that had gotten everyone a small Starbucks gift card.)

On Wednesday, my wife, who has been having sinus problems since before Thanksgiving that have never cleared up, left work early because she felt like she had a cold. At just before 4 a.m., I was woken up by her, fully dressed, telling me that she was going to take herself to an urgent care because her throat was swelling up. I said ok and started to go back to sleep. Slowly, it dawned on my what she had said. I went downstairs to find her standing in the dining room. "Maybe, I shouldn't drive myself," she said.

I woke the boys up, got them bundled up and off we went to the emergency room. At first they told her that it was just her normal sinus issues, but luckily a nurse had ordered a standard chest x-ray when we first got there assuming that the doctor would want one. As they were about to discharge her, he finally glanced at the x-ray and found out that she has pneumonia.

Yesterday, when her throat still was feeling tight (her uvula was swollen to about 4 times the normal size), she went back to her normal doctor, and they decided that maybe she was having a reaction to an inhaler they had given her the week before.

I then stood in my snowy lawn and tried to make peace with my God. He was non-committal on whether the testing was over or not. My friends at the newspaper have been debating where I am on the rule of three. Obviously, we're past three...but does that mean that this is a second run of three? How do you count some of them? If they're closely related, is that just one or is it two? It seems that I'm either at five and still have one more, I'm at six and should be safe, or, worst case, I'm at seven and really pretty much screwed.

I hate those people.

Since then, I have barricaded the family in the house, refuse to go near the vehicles, won't answer the phone and have everyone encased in bubble-wrap. I'm going to have a merry Christmas, even if it means that we live as hermits for the next week.

With a friend grieving the death of his wife -- she died three weeks ago at 40 from cancer -- it's easy to keep from losing sight of where this all ranks. The thing with my son was scary, but so far he seems fine. And, my wife's pneumonia isn't something to take lightly, but they're treating it and she's been resting ever since. Everything else is just more annoying than anything. Our daycare provider reminded me of that, saying that with her husband having been laid off for something like 2 years, they would have had trouble just getting the furnace fixed and probably would've abandoned the car or left it sitting in the driveway till spring.

However, I just thought that I would share my two weeks of mishaps. If nothing else, for the time being, I'm now really thankful for each day that comes and goes without someone trying to extract large sums of money from me or where everyone's health is at least as good as it was at the start of the day.

Maybe instead of the three ghosts, I just got a different version to help remind me about the spirit of the season and what's really important.

In any case, barring any other set-backs, that's what I'm going with. It at least sounds better than "my luck sucks."

Pilot

Once upon a time, I was a person of dreams. A creative person. A hob-nobbing person. I was living in Los Angeles -- all over L.A. -- as a struggling would-be sitcom writer. Struggling is a relative term, really. In addition to taking meetings to try to get before this show runner or that, or this better agent or that, I also had a pretty nice job for Warner Bros. with a nice office on the studio lot.

I was hanging out with my writing peers. I was hanging out in comedy clubs catching sets that my friends were doing and feeding off the energy of fellow comedians. I was dating girls significantly younger than myself.

I had it good. I hadn't quite broken through as a writer, but that was just a matter of time. And, then...

I met my wife. Fell in love at first sight. Next thing you know, there's an engagement, wedding planning, a wedding...and before we were even married six months a pregnancy.

Suddenly, I was a dad. My hipness quotient disappeared overnight.

Then my wife's parents got sick. Very sick. My wife's mother had an early onset of Alzheimer's and was quickly losing touch with her memory. My wife said that she wanted to go home and be close by so that she could spend some time with her mother before she couldn't remember her any more.

How do you say no to that?

Next thing you know, I'm leaving my job at Warner Bros. and leaving the LA writing scene, just as I was getting some renewed interest from a play I had written and directed.

Without being fully prepared, I was living in Southwestern Michigan, dealing with "lake effect snow" and median temperatures that are at best half of what I had been used to in my cozy Burbank digs.

I walked into a depressed economy, and instead of writing comedy, I was writing freelance articles for publications like "Fit Pregnancy" or any website that needed content and covering high school sports for a newspaper. And, soon, instead of working on a studio lot full of name brand talent, I was working for a staffing company, managing people that took the job because it was the only real option and dealing with minimum wage factory labor.

Then, the final straw...another pregnancy. I wanted to name the kid after what my reaction to the news had been, but my wife felt that "You've Got To Be Fucking Kidding Me" was too long of a name and not easy to shorten. I suggested that we could just go with "Fuck," since that was the essence of the sentiment, but I was again overruled.

Now, five years later, I've got an older son that's been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, which I'm still trying to figure out exactly what that means. I have been told, however, that the condition is not named after famous deli man, Maury Asperger, and has nothing to do with ingesting too much pastrami on rye...which makes sense because my son hates pastrami. In fact, he's a grainetarian. Doesn't eat meat, doesn't eat vegatables...only eats foods from the "cereal and grain" portion the food pyramid.

I've got a younger son that points out repeatedly that I'm bald, old and may have put on a few pounds. I have the same success rate in getting him to listen to me as Wily E. Coyote has in catching the Road Runner.

My wife pays even less attention to what I say, because she says that I've given up the right to have her listen to me because of my continuous whining about being cold and insisting on not changing my "home" on AOL away from Los Angeles.

And, I've got a job where I'm technically one of the bosses, but no one particularly cares to listen to what I've got to say and my closest peer in management has even more problems than me.

Basically, what it comes down to is that my life has turned into a sitcom, with me cast in the role of befuddled, ineffectual dad who can come up with a good line while the world spins around him. And, unlike other points in my life where this would have been beneficial -- where my real world experiences might have helped me get a staff gig on "My Wife and Kids" or "According to Jim," which I would've since parlayed into a spot writing on "Modern Family," or at least, "The Middle" or "Parks and Recreation" -- now I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere, and the whole thing does me absolutely no good.

Sure, sure...blah, blah, blah...love of my family, enjoying in the richness of watching my children grow, etc., etc. I get it...I'm sorry that I used to picture myself as being more Rob Petrie working for "The Alan Brady Show" in New York City and less Steven Keaton working for a small PBS station upstate.

Yet, that's what my life has become...only substitute small newspaper for PBS station (they both carry about the same level of relevance to be honest). A sitcom that no one watches and no one even has the common decency to cancel. If I'm going to live it, then I'm going to write about it...and what better way to do that than to put it out into the bloated blogosphere.

That's the thought anyway.