Knowing Things

There are some things that I know that I can honestly say that I never really intended to know. For example, I now know a whole bunch of places in Northern Indiana. Prior to five years ago, I knew three...South Bend, Gary and Fort Wayne...and that only would have been because of traveling on the Interstate while driving through the state. Now, I drive all over the freakin' northern portion of Indiana and can identify roads, routes and towns. I know where Etna Green and Shipshewana are. I've been in Valparaiso multiple times. I know areas of South Bend that don't have anything to do with Notre Dame football.

Even worse, in the role of covering high school sports for a Northern Indiana newspaper -- the Elkhart Truth -- I've been to a ton of high schools in these communities. Not that I have anything against the schools really, but I didn't have it in my life plans to be hanging out at one in Topeka, Ind.

The other thing that I apparently know more about than I thought is country music. Some of my staff at my day job have been listening to country music on a regular basis. I don't necessarily mind, since I can find something to like in most types of music, but I'm a little disturbed when I can identify that a particular older song was sung by Clint Black. I also apparently remember a lot of the catalogs of Alabama, John Connolly, Randy Travis and God knows who else. I went to high school in a rural location and a lot of people listened to country around me. Turns out I picked up a lot of useless trivia during that time, I guess.

I guess that I should be happy when I realize that I know things, but really what I keep thinking is that I should probably be using that space for better knowledge...or at least doing something more interesting with it, like coming up with Internet Ponzi schemes to hep finance my Northern Indiana travel guide.

NPR

Is it wrong that one of my new goals in life is to be interviewed by National Public Radio. Not some little sound bite thing -- I've actually done that once before -- but a full on segment interview.

I know that some of my conservative friends have problems with NPR (to them -- for the record, I don't get to decide where my tax dollars go either, you know), but this isn't about any sort of ideology. As it happens, Amy frequently listens to NPR -- and she's a Republican -- and when I follow her as driver of a vehicle that's usually what's on. I have a tendency to not always notice what I've got on the car radio -- which is why I've occasionally gotten odd looks stop lights because my scan happened to stop on a Spanish language station -- so, I sometimes end up listening for a while.

The interviews, no matter who's conducting them, always end up reminding me of the Anna Gasteyer skits on Saturday Night Live. They're always understated and respectful...and nearly sleep inducing.

However, they also always make the artist or subject that they're interviewing seem much more important than they really are. That's the part that I'm shooting for. I'm not very important, so I could do with having someone make me sound more important than I am.

Besides which, there is no circumstance under which I would be interviewed by James Lipton on "Inside the Actor's Studio," so that would be the closest that I could come. Even if they don't ask me what my favorite swear word is, I'm sure that I would be able to sound appropriately pompous during an NPR interview.

I suppose that I need to do something suitably artistic or newsworthy to warrant the interview, but I'm sure that I can think of something. I'll be expecting a call from Diane Rehm's producer as soon as I do though.

Casey Day

Today is Casey's birthday. He turned six. I'm sure that I should be all nostalgic about his birth, but in all honesty, it wasn't that exciting on my end. Not like Marty's (different story). I'm sure that Amy feels differently, but to me the only interesting part of Casey's birth was the fact that we didn't have a name picked out going in. Just kind of decided on the spot...which really wasn't like us, since we're both kind of control freaks.

Doesn't mean that the last six years haven't been interesting. They have been. Casey is awesome...even if he is mouthy (told me the other day that he was going to keep eating until he was as fat as me, and when I said that I wasn't that fat, he walked up to me, patted my stomach and said, "See that? That's fat.")

Amy got kind of sad that Casey is getting older. I think that's more of a mother thing. I mean, I enjoyed it when he was smaller, but he couldn't participate in discussions about Marvel vs. DC superheroes. The fatherhood experience is primarily an excuse to continue acting like a kid when you want to.

Last week, I was talking to a friend of mine in Los Angeles who, much like me, didn't quite get as far career-wise as he thought he would. When I pointed out that he was still at least living on the West Coast, my perpetually single buddy said that I at least had a family and that must add something to my life. I wasn't really sure how to answer that.

You know what it does add? Little moments.

On Sunday as we were getting ready for the day -- which was basically a trip to Grandma's so that Casey could collect his gifts and cake -- I qued up Paul McCartney's Greatest Hits on iTunes. No specific reason...just seemed like goood "getting ready" music. Then I walked into the living room to find Casey and Amy quietly grooving to "With a Little Luck." Just kind of dancing along to what they were doing.

That's what I get out of this. I get moments that seem like they were written, but they're just real life.

Sidekicks and Villains

Marty recently has become interested in the bad guys of Batman, after spending a bunch of hours playing the Lego Batman video game. Now, as it happens, Batman was my favorite comic book hero when I was growing up. He's dark and brooding, I'm dark and brooding...it comforted me. It's actually always disappointed me that Marty - a fan of Marvel comics - didn't at least like Batman...so I was ready for this conversation.

When he told me that Two-Face was his favorite villain, I was totally ready to discuss the origin story of Harvey Dent. (When he told me that his other favorites were Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn because they're "hot," I was a little less prepared...but that's a different story.)

But, then he decided that he wanted to know about villains for other heroes and he was disappointed that the others were less interesting. So, he decided that he should make some up. He had me grab a pen and paper and this is what he came up with:

The Swimmer - Dove into polluted water, had his mask meld with his face and grew gills.

The Leach - Was bitten by a radioactive leach and can now turn small and suck blood.

Recorder - Wears a body suit that can record and film anything he sees. The suit allows him to appear to look and sound like anyone that he's recorded, and can make him invisible.

Party Animal - Dresses like a clown, but can shape shift into any animal. When he works kids' parties, he turns into a vicious animal before stealing the balloons, cake and presents.

Play Toy - Can turn into any toy. As it happens, he likes to steal toys. He frequently turns into a toy and waits for a store to close, before robbing it.

Rockem & Sockem - Super strong twins that used to be boxers. Can punch through steel.

I don't know what it says about Marty that he seems to identify with bad guys, but it did remind me that when I was a kid, I almost never cast myself as the hero either. Only I used to pretend to be the sidekick/best friend character. Not sure what that says about me either. Even when I took my first shot at a screenplay when I was 12, I wrote the lead character in what was meant to be an 8-millimeter movie for my buddy Billy. It was a "Star Wars" style space adventure. I wrote a Han Solo character for myself...and this was before "Empire" came out and we knew where that character was going.

Maybe the men in my family just aren't the hero types. Well, I guess at least we're the writing about heroes types.

The Galahad Complex

I think I have what I’ve decided to call a Galahad Complex.

Before I explain, let me just say that I’ve always wanted to name a complex, just like I’ve always wanted to start a corporate buzzword. I still have hopes for Linear Quadrangulation and I’m still shocked that The Prick Principle from my best-selling business self-help book, “My Boss Is a Moron, Now What?” didn’t catch on. For those of you that are unfamiliar, that one states that the amount of a prick your boss is relates directly to how much his or her boss loves them, ensuring that there’s no hope of getting rid of them short of murder. And, yes, I did say “his or her”…the principle is not sexist. Some of the biggest pricks I’ve ever met in business were women.

Now, where was I? Oh, yeah…

I have a Galahad Complex. When he’s not talking like a 3-year-old or experiencing some other manifestation of Asperger’s Syndrome, there are times where it seems like Marty might have talents that could surpass my own. He’s creative in ways that seem different than most of his peers. In a lot of ways, the fact that his mind seems to function in a different way is a hindrance, but as a writer there are things that I recognize in him that could eventually really be to his advantage. Plus, since the kid talks repeatedly about wanting to start a production company – down to deciding how frequently he plans to treat his employees – it seems like he might want to do some of the same things that I’ve toiled away at.

As a parent, I of course want nothing but the best for my child. I want him to be as successful as he can possibly be. If that means that he surpasses me as a writer or is much more successful than me financially, I’m ok with that. Sort of.

OK, so I’m only mostly ok with it. The thing is that if my sons are going to surpass me in life, I’d kind of like to set the bar a little bit higher. Give them something to actually surpass. Try to head off comments like, “Well, you’ve outdone your hack writer father…congratulations.”

If your, I don’t know, Steven Spielberg, what do you care if your kid does better than you? In order to manage something like that, they’d have to be one of the best ever at their chosen field. If the kid can do that, then more power to them.

However, I’m closer to being the out-of-work father in the trailer park who’s successful kid pays off not to talk to the press.

I’m never going to be Spielberg, but is there still time to be Brian DePalma? Or not even that. I’d settle for Floyd Mutrux (he directed “American Hot Wax” and “Hollywood Knights”…two movies I used to enjoy on HBO when I was a kid).

I’d be perfectly happy just being a one-hit wonder. Being Gerardo or Sir Mix-A-Lot would be ok with me.

Anything that would keep me from sounding a little less pathetic in my offspring’s bio. You know, like when the Olympics are going on and you find out that the father of a gold-medal winner competed in handball in the 1984 games.

I would like to be able to at least be classified as a has-been. That’s something that any son would be proud to go beyond.

Someday maybe I’ll have the good fortune of hearing my boy point out to the local media that his father once wrote an Amazon best-seller. So, please, for the love of God, start buying up all of the unsold copies of “My Boss Is a Moron, Now What?” Turn it into the self-help equivalent of stores causing Guns N’ Roses “Chinese Democracy” to re-chart by selling off copies for $1.00.

Help a brother be mediocre for his kid.

Hacked!

When I woke up this morning and went to check my email account, I was greeted by page after page of undeliverable messages. It did not take a genius to realize quickly that I had been hacked.

Here’s the thing, I’ve had my same email account for more than 15 years. My address book has something like 2,000 addresses in it. I’m not particularly good at cleaning that out…which is part of the reason that I had so many of the spam messages returned to me.

I did find out that the message that went out from me apparently had something to do with “her pleasure.” (One of my female friends assured me that she didn’t need any assistance with her pleasure.)

Since I had to go to a meeting, Amy spent three hours trying to get that straightened out.

I guess I should be concerned about identity theft, but really, that’s not a concern. If you can do something better with my identity, feel free. So, long as you don’t mind people laughing at you if you want to do something with it.

I’m also not that worried that all of my friends and business acquaintances just got a perverted email message from me. Most of them are familiar with this kind of circumstance and, let’s face it, some of my friends are so used to getting sexual aid emails that they probably didn’t even notice it was from me.

No, my concern has more to do with the fact that my address book had the email address of every agent and producer that I’ve ever had anything to do with. Those people didn’t really want to get emails from me before. Now, I’m relegated to the spam folder. OK, OK, so I was probably relegated to the spam folder long before that, but now there’s an actual reason for it beyond just my marginal talent level.

Next time I’m trying to make contact to pitch a project, I’m going to have even less of a chance. Damn those hackers for ruining my not really successful writing career! They have cursed my career revival. Now, when agents and producers aren’t returning my calls, I’ll be left wondering if it was because of the spam…and not just because of their professed dislike of me.

So much damage from just one little penis enlargement email.

Babysitting

When I was younger, there were two traditional ways for teenagers to make some extra money. For guys, it was doing some yard work. For girls, it was babysitting. Actually, just so that this doesn’t sound sexist, by the time that I was a teenager, either sex was doing those jobs…but they were still the stand-bys.

Apparently, that’s no longer the case. I’m not sure how kids these days make money, but I can tell you that it’s not by babysitting. At least not in the town that I live in.

After being yelled at by my doctor for both the schedule I keep and my stress level – lots of stuff about, “You’re going to have a heart attack,” blah, blah, blah, “Do you mind if I ask your wife out after you’re dead?,” yadda, yadda, yadda – I decided that perhaps Amy and I should try to go out for an evening. We rush around like crazy people most of the time and we’re almost never by ourselves…every so often, it just seems like a good idea.

So, I tried to have Amy find a babysitter. We live in a small town where a lot of people know each other. It didn’t seem like it would be that hard. I figured, at this point, we should be able to find a local teenager that we know one way or another to do the job. That’s when I found out that teenagers are now too busy to do menial jobs like babysitting. Unless you’re offering a standing gig, guaranteeing 20 hours per week and paying more than $10 per hour, they’re not even going to discuss it.

(The same applies to lawn care. Every summer, I try to find some kid to mow either my yard or the lawn at the theater and every year I find out that the kids charge just as much as a professional lawn care service.)

That left us scrambling to find any other parents that would be willing to have our kids spend a couple of hours at their house. That’s not a whole lot easier as it turns out. The other parents are just as busy as us and the teenagers are.

We finally found someone to take the kids, but it was just long enough for us to go grab a bite at an Applebee’s a couple of towns over. Then, when we arrived to get the kids, the boys pitched a fit because they hadn’t gotten to watch “Halloween 3” yet. These are the same kids that believe “Harry Potter” is a horror movie and that “Casper the Friendly Ghost” is too scary. There was apparently some confusion over the name Michael Myers…with my sons figuring that just meant it starred the guy from “Wayne’s World” and “The Cat in the Hat.”

This has been an on-going issue for Amy and I ever since we had children. You barely need more than one hand to count the number of times that either of our children has spent an entire night without us. I know people that ship their kids off to the grandparents or a sibling every other weekend. We struggle to just have an uninterrupted meal.

Apparently, this is why people live close to family members. The nearest family members that we have that would be able to watch the kids live at least two hours away. It was easier to get out-of-work actor friends in LA to watch Marty when he was little then it is to find someone that can watch kids in America’s heartland. Here, everybody else has at least as many kids or grandkids as we do and don’t really want our kids. In L.A., within certain circles, kids are kind of a novelty.

It just seems like it should be easier. Every time I hear one of those relationship specialists saying that couples should schedule time alone with each other, I want to throttle them.

Even better, one of the Nickelodeon channels that the boys watch keeps showing an ad for a website called CollegeInPJs.com that is supposed to help young adults find online college options. Well, as soon as they saw it, both of my son’s exclaimed, “I want to go to college in my PJ’s!”

I now want to throttle the people that run that website as well. If the boys are still living with us when they’re 25, I swear to God that I will hunt those people down and sue the living daylights out of them.

Belieber

My kids are old enough now that they pay attention to music…a subject that I like, even if I’m not particularly good at it. There’s always been music around, mind you. When Amy was pregnant, she used to listen to various mix CD’s of soothing music as she was going to sleep. When Marty was being born, “Angel Mine” by Cowboy Junkies was playing. When I was reviewing music for 2Walls.com when Marty was little, we frequently listened to the CD’s while playing on the floor. And, Marty and Casey have both been to numerous musical productions at theaters…one of the few things that they will sit quietly through.

So, it’s not like I’m saying that they’ve not paid attention to music previously, but now they’re paying attention to some music that’s aimed at their contemporaries. For example, they now not only know who the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber are…they now also know the songs that they sing (which is more than any adult without a teen or preteen child can say).

As anyone who’s ever read my 2Walls reviews would know, I’ve got nothing against pop music. I’ve always been more of a Beatles than Rolling Stones person, and even then, more of a McCartney than Lennon person. (Which is all really splitting hairs…every example I just gave is really pop music…how about this, I was always more Clash and less Sex Pistols…although, “Anarchy In the U.K.” isn’t as far off from pop as they probably meant it to be…but I digress…)

So, I suppose I find their entry into the music of their age kind of fascinating. Oddly, even though Marty has been exposed to more music throughout his life – we probably don’t just slap on music while we’re around the house the way that we once did – Casey is the one that’s a little more inquisitive.

Marty is the one with an iPod, but Casey is the one that goes exploring for music on it. Which leads to moments like walking into a room and finding Casey listening to Frank Sinatra’s “Jingle Bells” in April or him strolling by me blaring Colbie Caillat’s “Falling For You” and yelling, “I love this song!”

The biggest oddity is that both of them like some Nickelodeon show called “Big Time Rush,” which is basically “The Monkees” 40-some years later. So, that is currently their music of choice. It makes me wonder what parents once thought of “Daydream Believer” and “Last Train To Clarksville”…although, I’m pretty sure that Big Time Rush’s music is not being written by Brill Building mainstays. Although, one of their videos does feature Snoop Dogg(which just reminds me again, that he…and Cube and Dre are basically my age) I guess no matter the generation, music and slapstick will always have their fans.

There was a conversation recently between Marty and Casey, where Marty was stating the fairly obvious fact that Justin Bieber is more of a girl thing (“Every girl in the world loves him.”) and not really for boys. That actually offended Casey. “Hey, I like Justin Bieber,” I heard him say. “What? His music is good.” I was half-waiting for him to bring up the fact that Ludacris does a verse on one of the songs to help his cred, but instead he just started playing “Baby” over and over again on the iPod. Later on, Casey told me, “You know, when I’m, like, a teenager, I’m going to have a party in the U.S.A.”

I also caught Casey looking up Queen Latifah on iTunes after discovering that she sings the remake of Was Not Was’s “Walk the Dinosaur” from one of the “Ice Age” movies. Maybe lots of people walk in on their 5-year-old son trying to download “The Dana Owens Album,” but it seemed kind of odd to me.

Thankfully, that’s not the extent of what they listen to…Marty does have an affinity for The Beach Boys, Casey kind of likes Allison Krauss and they both – like seemingly every kid – like The Black Eyed Peas. I’m sure at some point they’ll move on to music that’s meant to be indecipherable by me, and it’s hard to tell whether I’ll like that better or not.

One thing I am pretty sure of though…they’ll probably be easier to get out my head than those damn, catchy Bieber songs.

Life of Raymond

There’s an episode of “Everybody Loves Raymond,” where Ray has a lot of trouble watching his son play youth basketball because he continually runs down the court with his hands thrust down his shorts and coming out of the leg holes. Since Ray is a sportswriter, he feels self-conscious that his son isn’t athletic and doesn’t really care.

I now live that episode on a regular basis.

Marty, who tried team sports one other time and lasted about two weeks at it, has decided to play soccer in what amounts to a parks & recreation league. They don’t keep score and it’s supposed to be about the kids participating and getting some exercise. All that would be good, except that he really doesn’t participate and only occasionally runs.

His little brother is in his second year of T-ball and, while he’s more naturally athletic than his sibling, his level of caring about it is roughly the same. In the year since last season, Casey has forgotten just about everything – where to throw the ball, how to throw the ball, what to do after hitting the ball, etc.

It doesn’t help that his on-again/off-again girlfriend since preschool is on the team with him. He spends most of his time just trying to look cool, and no matter how many times that I tell him that it doesn’t look cool to have the ball hit you in the chest because you’re looking the other way, he doesn’t really believe me.

He spends the other half goofing around with another of his classmates. His friend is African-American and they greet each other when they cross paths with a bro-hug…which is kind of like watching Charlie Brown exchange a handshake with Franklin.

Casey at least listens to what he’s supposed to be doing. Group activities, like team sports, seem to take the “high functioning” designation from Marty’s autism. He might know on some level that he’s supposed to do what they other kids are doing, and we’ve had a talk about the responsibility of being a good teammate, but once he’s out on the field, most of that vanishes.
During his first game, he kept trying to take himself out of the game by going to stand next to his coach. Unfortunately for him, his team has just enough players so the coach kept pushing him back onto the field.

Sometimes he practices karate moves while he’s out there…again, something that would be more understandable if he actually knew karate. I tried to make a rule that when he’s on the soccer field he can only play soccer…not some other imaginary game that he decides to make up. He agreed to this rule, but apparently he believes that since his games are imaginary that I won’t notice him having battles with an invisible nemesis.

In any case, as someone that writes about sports on a regular basis I sometimes have trouble watching the whole thing. Most of the parents (although not all) are extremely supportive of Marty and try to give him plenty of encouragement when he does anything correctly. I try hard to be on board with that, but then part of me always thinks that if Marty just always has low expectations for what he’s able to do…well, what’s going to convince him to push beyond that?

I do, however, realize that the bigger issue just lies with my own self-consciousness though. My kids seem to share my interest in writing, storytelling and comedy…I should be able to handle the fact that they don’t care about sports beyond very nominal interest. But, I can’t. I keep hoping that one of them will suddenly discover some hidden talent…like, sure they’re not good at baseball or soccer, but man, can they smash an overhead serve. Or hit a drive straight down a fairway. Or stick handle with the best of them. Something. Anything.

I probably have no chance of that happening, but if I was going to take that tact I wouldn’t keep buying $10 of lottery tickets every week.

On a largely unrelated note…I only cover high school sports and I’m hardly ever home in the evenings during most seasons. How the heck was a New York sports columnist home every night like Ray Barone was in “Everybody Loves Raymond.” Always liked the show, but never knew quite how he worked that.