When Did My Kid Go All Hipster?

I didn’t do this.  I’ve been pushing Republican Lawyer Accountant because they have all the money and power.  Harmonica playing “hipsters” are poor and dirty and use foul language.  I know, believe me.

Granted she is good in algebra and geometry but she also plays the “electric” guitar and professes to want to play the drums.  THE DRUMS?!  Sigh my heavy heart.

All this means is I’ll be paying for her “flat” in Williamsburg (not-in-Virginia-Williamsburg) in 11 years while she runs around like Valhurey and Ari.  Sadly, her mother and I were going to retire to the city once she flew the coup.  Now she’s gonna be acting like she owns the shit.

Already got me buying art supplies…

We got dibs, kiddo.  Dibs!

Big Fat Pigs Have Absolutely No Context

My dad homie, Mark “the mad professor” in San Diego, sent me an emailing to tell me about a New York Times piece on kids and their incessant snacking.

I’ve been saying this shit for years (at least since parenthood). I tell my kids that a snack in my house (as a kid) consisted of rolling up one piece of white bread (generic “Lady Lee” brand) with a banana pepper in the middle. Or, if I was really lucky, some crackers—Sunshine brand, you know, the makers of the knock-off Oreo known as “Hydrox”—with Nucoa Margarine, that shitty Trans Fat laden tub of yellow muck. That was fuckin’ snack in the lower middle class. My kids get 3 snacks a day–1 in school, 1 in after school care, and then they have the audacity to ask for a snack when they get home. Of course, I oblige.

He’s right here, you know.  Snacking.  No lie, it’s all the little fuckers do.   And they act all entitled about it too.  Visiting kids (don’t get me going on the term “play date”) all creepin’ up on me asking, “do you have any snacks?”  And if they get the wrong shit like bowl of grapes flown in from Chile, they’re all snooty and belligerent.  Nigga what?!

Sign up for some school “volunteering” and you’ll see that it mostly consists of bringing some kind of snack.  I made the rookie mistake of bringing oatmeal raisin cookies one time.  Gingerbread house making activity?  Fuckers eat frosting straight from the can.  Halloween and Valentine’s day was invented by candy moguls, shit!

Three words: Girl Scout cookies.

And we wonder why they are all sedentary, unhealthy, fat as hell, ADD, and suck at sports.  All they do is fucking eat.  Eat, eat, eat.  Gogurt.  String cheese.  “Fruit” snacks.  Muffins.  Cheez-Its.  Cereal up the ass.  They act like candy is one of the fucking food groups.  You ever see the little bastards loot a goddamn Starbucks?  The apple fritter has a fat content estimated to be around 80g.  Hey, hey, hey…It’s fat Adin.  Why does Johnny have diabetes?  Because people can’t cut up a damn apple and tell the little shitheads (in their legal custody) to eat it or shut up.  Maybe that’s the jigsaw piece missing from the autism puzzle: High Fructose Corn Syrup.

My kid asked me, “Why is everybody in Africa so skinny?”  Because they don’t graze on sugar all day.  What recession?

I didn’t even read the Times piece.  What?  I’m going to learn something about the shit I see with my own eyes every day?  And it’s not the kids’ fault at all.  It’s the intellectually lazy, emotionally squishy parents who somehow operate on the “I want my kids to have everything I didn’t” paradigm.  Nigga, what?!  How about give them some discipline.  You apparently didn’t have any of that.  I think I may have had a “snack” maybe once a week.  On Saturdays.  After playing for four hours outside and eating lunch.  Then I went back out for the second shift burning calories like Wall Street executives are burning my taxes on hookers and cigars.

Kids don’t have a context.  Humans are born dependent as Haiti.  Their locus of control is highly external; what parents allow and what friends do is what children learn.  So it’s up to us to learn them little parasites a thing or three.  Next time they ask for a(nother) goddamn snack, tell them to get the fuck outta the kitchen and get back on that damn Wii you bought them.  You’re so close to beating daddy’s high score.

I AM OVER MUNO

These are the 5 stages of Yo Gabba Gabba. 1- I hate Toodee and I love Muno. 2- Wait, Toodee is a “cat dragon” who lives in icicle land? 3- Muno fucked everything up AGAIN. Poor Plex. I would lose it if I had to deal with this moron every day. 4- He’s kind of a rip off of Kure Kure Takora. 5- Toodee’s cool. I hate Muno.

PS: Who is the guy in the snowsuit?

Dolphins & Whales, Hurray!

So the kiddo brought home a reading assignment for her “advanced literature” section.  She’s in second grade, right?  I didn’t even have “advanced literature” until high school.  Periodically the kids bring home particular books to read to us “with expression” and to point out “text features” and learn words like “rorquals” and “cetacean” and “hydrophone” and such.  Meh, I got this.

Today’s book was titled, “Whales.”  Shiiiit, negro.  Cute whales and dolphins and such.  I can do this standing on my head.  Look at the pretty little whale swimming around the ocean; smiling.  Isn’t that cute?  Ohhhh, dolphins.  They do tricks!

Naw, son.  This book was the shit.  Had it been about pilgrims or Columbus, I’d be all explaining (and lying) about Smallpox Blankets.  I’m just glad it wasn’t about slavery else I’d be talking about Negro Dialect and whippings and lynching and rape.  I’d have to explain how MLK got aced by an angry white man because he was black.  Oy vey!

Swimming and breathing and body features was cake.  Baleen?  Easy.  Echo-location?  Yawn.  But then came the later chapters…Reproduction, Migration, Hunting, and Protection.  Thanks a lot second grade curriculum jerks.

Today’s Ace Daddy Homies Homework Q&A by Ty Hardaway

Q: [Reproduction chapter] What’s that red stuff?

A: It’s blood.

Q: Why is there blood?

A: Well, when a baby mammal is born, there are a number of fluids involved.  The bubble the baby lives in the mom’s abdomen is called the amniotic sac.  When the baby is born this pops like and lots of fluids, including a little bit of blood, comes out.

Q: What do you mean “pop” like a balloon?

A: Not “pops” but…opens.  OK?

Q: How much blood?

A: I don’t know, I’ve never seen a whale give birth; a little.

Q: How much blood was there when I was born?

A: Very little.

Q: Who was bleeding?  Mommy or me?

A: Uhhh.  Just some blood was…in the process like I said.  There was…this is about whales!

FAIL!

Q: [Nursing chapter] Where does the calf get the milk?

A: All mammals provide milk from breasts.

Q: Like mom’s boobs?

A: Yes, exactly.

Q: How does a whale drink milk under water?

A: Says here that it can’t suckle so it nuzzles for milk.

Q: Suckles?

A: Yes.  To suck.  Mammals–land mammals anyway–suck milk.

Q: Sucks from boobs?

A: Yes. Kind of like that.

Q: Why can’t the whale suckle?

A: Whales have no lips.

Q: So how do the babies get the milk?

A: The babies “nuzzle”–or rub the mom–and the mom squirts it to them.

Q: Cool!  Can mom squirt milk like that?!

A: Uh, no.  Not really.  I mean, should could squirt it a little bit, but not to feed you.

Q: What do you mean?

A: —–

Q: Can we call her at work?

A: —–

FAIL!

Q: [Hunting chapter] What does “whaling” mean?

A: It means to hunt whales.

Q: PEOPLE KILL WHALES?

A: Yes, whales are very useful for food and industry.

Q: But whales are smart, right?

A: Yes, but some people need to eat whale meat, like we eat chickens and cows.

Q: What’s fuel oil?

A: Well, people used to use the blubber to burn lamps.

Q: What?  They burn the whales?

A: Well, kind of–

Q: What are cosmetics?

A: Like make-up and lipstick and stuff.

Q: Made from dead whales?

A: Uh, yeah.  Like I said, some products–It’s like elephants and…never mind.

Q: What about elephants?

A: Nothing.

Q: Pet food?

A: It says that there?

Q: How do they catch the whales?

A: In boats.

Q: How do they get them?

A: What does the book say?

Q: It doesn’t.

A: They catch them in…BIG NETS!  And put them in tanks!

FAIL!

Q: [Protection chapter] What does “extinction” mean?

A: All gone, like dinosaurs.

Q: What happen to the dinosaurs.

A: Long story.  I’ll tell you after we talk about whales.

Q: Are people killing all the whales?

A: Lots of them.

Q: What does “slaughter” mean?

A: To kill a lot.

Q: So we slaughter to extinction?

A: Yes, unfortunately, in some cases.

Q: What else do humans slaughter?

A: —–

FAIL!

I totally suck.  But at least the book saves the day.  Here’s how it ends:

“These days, we do not need whale oil; we use other oils.  We do not need whalebone; we use plastics.  And whale meat is eaten in very few countries.  So we do not need to continue to kill whales.  Whales should be protected by all countries so that no species becomes extinct.”

Thank god for petroleum!  And all those whaling treaties, right Japan?

FINALLY, AN ACTION MOVIE FOR PEDOPHILES

Who is going to go to this? Kids aren’t allowed to go to a movie where the protagonist says cunt and blows people’s heads off. Red-blooded American males don’t enjoy watching a kick-ass tween kick ass. Women hate action movies. Who does this leave? I guess… perverts.

Paternal Hubris Beget Respiratior

View From the Top of Suicide Hill

So while I was shoveling out all the old ladies and uncovering fire hydrants after the “Blizzard of 2009″ (two days ago) my wife took my child “sledding.”  That’s a pretty cool thing for a mom to do, right?  Problem is the mom took the kid to a fucking baby hill: Mansion Hill.  It’s a place where parents do more pushing and pulling in an effort to introduce children the concept of snow and sledding and gravity.  It should be called “learn to sled.”

As a father I was embarrassed that my child was trying to sled down a 5 degree slope with a bunch of toddlers and haus fraus with digital cameras.  I mean I’ve already called the kids her age at Mansion Hill “overprotected retards.”  Now my kid is a retard.  This will not stand.

So the wife had to go to work yesterday (we encourage that, believe me).  It was a snow day for the school kids.  I decided we were going to sled and conquor Suicide Hill.  I mean, it’s just a name, right?  I promised her that we were “going to have fun if it kills us” on this 100 yard run, 30 degree slope (compare sled tracks in images for scale).  Sure there is a slight possibility that you could sled into a freezing lake but those chances are slim.   What could go wrong?

We’re Now Having Dad Fun, Dammit!

I’m a gentleman and a very protective father, so I went first.  It was really fucking fun!  And scary.  And fast!  If I liked it, she’d LOVE it!  That was my reasoning in action.  I’m a logical fellow.  I figured that she’d go a whole lot slower given her tiny weight.

The first time she wiped pretty good.  But came out smiling and declared that it was her turn again.  Fine.  See?  What could go wrong?

When she crashed on her second run (see image above) at about 30 MPH in a crack-thud of white powder and immediately SCREAMED “aghh, daddy, my baaaccCCKKKK!!!” I thought I had a Christopher Reeve on my hands.  I was already scouting where the helicopter should land for medical evacuation.  Then I did the ABSOLUTELY WRONG thing and picked her up and hugged her (her new glasses filled with snow like some weird white cataracts).  This is where the paralysis happens; the pick up.  Fuck me!

I dragged her home on the sled and she complained of back pain, sobbing and hating and getting her story set for therapy twenty years from now – how her father ruined her life.  When we got home she said, “should we tell mom?”  My instinct was to not tell shit but I’ve learned after 11.5 years of marriage to tell everything early and often.  We called the mom (no assistant answering today, straight to the mom).  She grew up in central NY and was all, “yeah, you crash on sleds…can you wiggle your toes?  Then you’re OK.  Put your father on.”

I’ve been instructed to not take out only child to Suicide Hill anymore.  I figure we’ll try next year.

Later that day, the child had me take her to Mansion Hill.  I did it because it would prove she was OK.  Fuck, man…parenthood is humbling.  Retard father – retard child.  It takes a mope to grow a mope.  I was pushing and pulling as giggling moms and slobbering toddlers acted like snow was the best thing since the indoor toilet.

My child survived Suicide Hill.  She survived her father, this time.  Scared the fuck out of me though.  Today is another snow day.  And she’s milking it too.  I’m not the guilty type but she’s completely honed-into my regret over this deal and is dragging me by the dad-balls.  I gave her chocolate chip cookies for breakfast.  Makes me bring her the remote and shit like she’s some goddamn invalid now.

But, at least she isn’t.

WANT ME TO RUIN POLKAROO FOR YOU?

He’s looking out the dot in his neck. Now it’s a guy with a kangaroo hat on his head and some  round, red mesh over his face. It’s no longer a magical creature that everyone loves. Shit, he’s not even that tall.

I went to Yo Gabba Gabba recently and even got to hang out backstage but as soon as I realized they were all looking out of their mouths, I couldn’t look at them. I think 90% of kid’s favorite people are just guys in a suit looking out of the mouth hole. As soon as I told my son that, he had a breakdown. This morning he asked me if Santa is just looking out the mouth hole. I had to tell him the truth.

The Happy House-Husband

NSFW: Negligent Shithead – Female Working

I am a simple man.  Not Mennonite simple but simple for a modern city man in Barack Hussein’s 21st century New America.  Once you strip away all the time devoted to making art, my clients’ needs, my angels who require “maintenance”, and all the duties associated with raising and educating the kid, my wife is the very first person on my to-do list.  I know you think that that 5% of my life is only a tiny morsel, but I am 100% devoted to that 5%.  She deserves the very best!  Well, I kid…not really.

You see, once you peel back those layers, I’m just an everyday house-husband.  I’m in charge of the home (is the term “homemaker” still available because that sounds a lot like “home builder”?).  For example, just the other day: I paid the plumber that I scheduled to visit after I found the leak after I went to retrieve the plunger after my 7 year-old clogged a toilet.  Apparently it had been leaking for a while.  Mission accomplished like a motherfucker.

Remember on Bewitched when either of the Darrins came home and Samantha would have the house all cleaned, dinner made and a drink at the ready?  That’s like my life, but in reverse (and without the performance enhancement of witchcraft).  Well minus the house cleaning part too (there are people I pay for that); and the drink part since she doesn’t drink…I usually have that in the form of about 4 ozs. of beer.  But I have a hot meal ready every single day.  And fortunately I can pick up take-out if I’m too beat from housework to cook.  Sometimes I have special nights where we all go out!  I guess my closest similarity with Bewitched is the cast of witches and warlocks who visit me during the day when the breadwinner is at her office.  But other than that, I’m worked like a mule.

Oh, and I go grocery shopping.  That’s right!  In fact, I know all people at the grocery store.  Marcy at the “Solutions Counter” with the running joke about being “fresh out of solutions.”  Brian, whom I HAVE TO discuss sports with (to the point that I have to read the sports section or go online before I go to the store so I can say something).  But I’m mostly just bluster.  And then there’s Pete.  He’s uh, what’s the PC term now?  Pete’s the retard kid who collects the carts.  Pete is keen on discussions about the weather.

Then there’s the dilemma over which of the three coffee shops with fast WiFi to pick from, which house moms to gossip with, and so as you can see, my days are chock full of domestic duties.  Just today I had to change two tiny light bulbs in the range over the stove.  Range?  is that what that’s called?  As a house-husband I’m more hopeful than desperate, however.  I get shit done.

Our biggest conflict arises when my wife is home.  Weekday mornings, weekday afternoons, and dreaded weekends.  Oy fuck!  I’m a TGIM kind of motherfucker for reals.  Thank God It’s Monday is my religion.  We have ourselves a Role Reversal 101 in here.  She tries so hard to “help out” and “participate” in the business of running this house and raising this child, but she’s just not cut out for it.  Suddenly she thinks she can just pop-in and help with homework?  The kitchen?  Nigga please!  THE KITCHEN?!  BITCH PLEASE!!  I have it under control, OK?!  I don’t wander into her office all telling her how to perform her corporate duties!  All touching stuff and moving stuff and…God!  And all in the name of “helping.”  I have healthy boundaries.  We should maintain our roles.  A woman’s place is in the office.

So I’m here to offer the following tips to my fellow Dad Homies.  Mostly it’s a way to keep the old fem-crabs cool so we can continue to “support the homefront” like the champs we are (or continue to bullshit our way into continued goofing off all day…working from home):

10 Household Tips for the Modern Househusband

1.  Have dinner ready.  Even if it’s totally shitty or take-out, at least have napkins and tableware ready.  Never use the take-out napkins.  Fuck the environment. KFC napkins only make her realize that she could’ve brought this home her damn self.  Set a table.

Make it appear that your effort was well-intentioned and tender.  Practice makes perfect.  Soon you can do it while you IM your pals.  I’m “cooking dinner” right now. Boil faster water!

2.  Clear away clutter.  That is, don’t leave evidence of your day’s activities.  It’s annoying and it’s…anonoying!  Put away paraphernalia, guitars, porn, and snack wrappers.  Throw your nasty clothes into the hamper, etc.

3.  Get yourself ready.  Brush your teeth before the old lady comes home, at least.  Take off your hat.  One word:  Listerine®!  One more: Visine®!  Take a shower even if it is already 5:00 in the afternoon.  She shouldn’t come home to you smelling Swiss or anything.

4.  Do not greet her with your problems or complaints.  She doesn’t care.  She works, jerkwad!  Somebody leaving flyers in your mailbox doesn’t count as a valid complaint.  How people park is not a valid complaint.  Shut the fuck up.

5.  Keep it quiet.  Turn off your shitty music that you know she hates.  Women do not like Frank Zappa.  You don’t have to put on her shitty music.  Just turn yours off.  She’s been on the subway for 3 hours today, give her a break. Soundgarden isn’t that break.

6.  Make her comfortable. Move your PSP off the chair or something.  Quit farting.  Turn off the TeeVee.  Move your “latest masterwork project” from the kitchen table or living room floor.  She doesn’t give a shit.  Seriously, she doesn’t.  She just wants to sit the fuck down.

7.  Listen to her.  This is the hardest one, but you have to try it.  She’s gonna crab out about everything.  All kinds of stupid shit too.  Nod and smile.  Nod and look “empathetic.”  I know, it totally sucks, but at least look her way and say, “uh-huh” every paragraph or so.  Pretend she’s talking about you or something.  Notexting.

8.  Tame the kids.  Chill them mopetards the fuck out.  The last thing you need is for the kids to rat your ass out or annoy the mother.  She going to declare your “living situation experiment” a complete failure if the kids are fucking assholes.  Bribe!  Bribe!  Bribe the little motherfuckers.  At least do something to wear their silly asses out.

9.  Make the evening hers.  Ha-ha!  I know, that’s really dumb and so weak but you have to totally pretend that this is her time.  I know, I laughed typing that.  At least do it until you can chill out in front of the TeeVee and watch 30 Rock with a beer once the kids are asleep.  Fuck, remember:  THIS IS THE HARDEST PART!  THIS IS YOUR LIFE’S WORK!

10. REMEMBER YOUR GOAL:  Make her forget that you’re all “making art” all day.  Don’t let her dwell on the nude young models in your house or the “oregano” your “bandmates” left.  Your job is for her to believe that you scrubbed a toilet, cooked a pot roast, and washed the kids asses.  Play along to get along.  Take out the trash and clean the litter box too.  She’ll love you forever.

THE SOCCER HOOLIGAN AT MY DELI

There are a group of soccer hooligans who hang out at my deli all day harassing customers. It’s as confusing as it is scary. Don’t these kids have jobs? Why are British thugs hanging around a Bodega in Brooklyn? I would ask them myself if I had the courage.

The worst of these bullies is a particularly ornery man who calls himself “Big Wullie.” He is constantly calling me names and knocking stuff out of my hands. When I shaved my beard he yelled, “Look everyone, a gay worm” and his cronies roared with laughter. I’ve threatened to call the police numerous times and all he does is laugh. When I took this photo of him he said, “Oooh, what are you going to do, blog me?” I told him the photo was for police purposes. It makes me sick to my stomach to admit he’s right. I’m too cowardly to do anything but take his endless abuse. I’m so ashamed.

FATHER SON OUTING

THIS ARTICLE IS WRITTEN BY JOSH NOT GAVIN

(Izzy, the burger, and the #1 dad)

I’m having lunch with my son Izzy at this diner in Park Slope because I’ve decided he’s going to make a crafty Birthday card for his mom (he didn’t contribute one felt letter) and the only craft store around is in Park Slope. We’ve taken the day off because he’s sort of sick and I get to take care of him. Which is fine, because he doesn’t seem all that sick minus the hot forehead and occasional elbow cough. We’re eating lunch when these two guys come in and sit down behind me. One is older and is either a cop, a foreman or in the mob. Or both. Or all three. He’s pretty animated and he’s got a thick LI or Brooklyn accent. He likes the spice on the burger. “What is the SPICE on this? I mean I love it. Just neva had a burger like this.” I’m assuming the guy with him is his partner.

I’ve been chatting with Izzy throughout lunch about this/that and it’s time to get the check. Certainly nothing out of the norm. Occasionally, I space out and consider grabbing the NY Post sitting on the counter like any other normal dad. But that would be rude so we chat. I give the waiter my card and Izzy asks why. Which is normal because he asks “why” about 25 times a day (much less than his 2.5 year old brother who asks why about 100 times that). But this isn’t one of those “why did those fireman die in 9/11?”[1] or “why are there rainbows?” [2] type “why” questions. It’s a pretty straightforward one. It’s a credit card and it’s how I pay for things I don’t need. Pretty simple really. He takes it so they can charge me for the 1/4 of the burger you ate. I guess this Dorothy Parkensian conversation finally got to the big guy behind us, because he goes, “That your kid?” and I’m like “Uh, yeah (mind racing with possible never responses).”

“Because, it’s not often you hear a dad talk to his kid like that.” He’s being nice but it’s fucking offensive. Then he introduces me to the guy sitting with him as HIS 24 year old son. And he says it gets better. The older they get the less you have to deal with them. And I’m thinking JESUS FUCKING CHRIST; I can’t imagine how little attention you must’ve paid to your son make you think that a father sporadically talking to his son was a potential kidnapping in progress.

So we pay up. I’m putting Izzy’s jacket on and I wipe his ketchup face, I mean he’s still five and sort of sick, I’m helping out, Christ. Then #1 Dad asks me if I’m a SINGLE DAD!!!

And I tell him, I am now. His mother/my wife and his younger sister were killed in a car crash six weeks ago, and this was the first time we’ve gone out.

I didn’t, but COME THE FUCK ON!! I couldn’t tell if he was trying to compliment me or emasculate me. Is paying attention to your child on a one-on-one lunch this fucking out of the ordinary? Certainly not in Park Slope. He’s lucky I wasn’t breast-feeding him.

Of course I puss out and I laugh when he asks me if I’m a single dad and we joke that I’m not and I’m not normally this nice to the kid. He just caught me in a moment of weakness.

The End

[1] Because four guys flew two planes into the World Trade Center and it caught on fire and collapsed. Always a fun one to answer. That’s the abridged version.

[2] I have absolutely no idea.