You Fuck Up Games

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 12, Verse 17

"A good man is known by his truthfulness;

a false man by his deceit and lies."

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

It's fun to pretend, isn't it?

It is, you know.  The world of make believe, of Peter Pan-ery, of faerie dust and cardboard boats escapes before we even know it's gone and, once we do notice its absence, we don't care.  Because we've discovered tits.  Of course, until we get our hands on a pair, there's a rather prolonged and fortuitous return of make believe to help get us through, though we don't call it "make believe".  We call it "the internet".

Today, I pretended like I was going to buy a car.  I had taken the day off work, because my dog needed to be put under anesthesia and I didn't know when she'd be waking up and requiring transport back to our domicile for rest, repose, repast and recuperation, so I had some time to kill.  I went to the bookstore, hit the thrift shop (and scored a dynamite pair of powder-blue Ralph Lauren trousers for $5.00) had lunch with my mother (she still thinks Velveeta is cheese) and then I headed off to the local Toyota dealership and pretended like I was going to buy a car.  

I told them that my Volvo wagon was killing me at the gas pump (this is not part of the make believe) and that I was looking to purchase a bite-sized Prius C because of its outstanding fuel economy (50mpg combined city/highway).  My car averages 16mpg combined, which is pretty abysmal and would make Al Gore want to curb me.  I'm a pretty convincing actor (read: liar), so I gave them my driver's license, insurance, and owner card and they put me behind the wheel of a 2014 Prius C and a 2014 regular Prius.  I loved the Prius C.  It was nimble, agile, frugal and surprisingly comfortable.  Yes, hard plastics surrounded me like Federal troops during Pickett's Charge, but it's 2014 and you're going to be swimming in plastic unless you're piloting a Rolls Royce.  The question is: are the plastics going to be hard or soft to the touch.  

It's all fucking plastic.  Who cares? 

The regular Prius feels heavy and sad.  And it looks like a spaceship inside.  If I want to be at the controls of a spaceship, I'd have cheated off David Kim's science tests in 7th grade with a little more aplomb and consistency.  

I filled out all their forms.  I sat at the table and waited while the salesman had hushed, urgent-sounding conversations with the manager.  I watched their body language.  I did my own research on my phone.  They undervalued my trade.  I got angry.  Nobody insults the car I'm pretending I'm trying to get rid of.  

"We made phone calls to Volvo dealerships-- people aren't jumping up and down to give us $6,000 for your car."

"Jason," I said, leaning in.  Sometimes it's nice when you use people's first names.  Other times, it's condescending.  You decide.  "My car is 13 years old.  No Volvo dealership is going to want a 13 year old car on its lot.  Take a look around this place.  Do you have any 13 year old cars around here, Jason?"

Jason frowned.  

"I'm not a dummy, Jason.  You're going to ship my car off to some auction house in East Moofongong, PA to be bid on by some farmer's wife.  So let's get real, okay?"

Let's get real.  Pretty funny words from someone who's just there trying to kill time until his Basset Hound wakes up at the vet's office.  But, hey-- Jason didn't know that.  

"Let me see what I can do," he said, scooting his chair back.

Ten minutes later, they came back with a better value on my trade, but not much better.  They gave me lease numbers and purchase numbers.  They kept asking for "what number are you looking for" as far as a monthly payment.  I refused to give a figure.  They didn't like that.  There was more negotiating.  Then, abruptly, I announced that "this is a lot to think about" and told them that I needed to talk to my wife, "as our finances are joined-- legally and spiritually."

They didn't laugh.

"Maybe I'll be back tonight-- who knows?"

The funny thing is, if my wife had somehow had a stroke this afternoon before I talked to her about my day's adventures and she said, "go for it", I would, even though I bought the Volvo in October (that's October of 2013, in case you were wondering) because, let's face it, I'm crazy, and I'm trying, apparently, to be the guy who owns the most cars (consecutively) before he dies.  I think I'm up to fifteen or so.  I have no idea really-- I lost count at around 11.  It's disgusting.  Hopefully there's a lot more to come, because, as fun as it is to pretend, there's nothing more fun than the thrill of the chase, watching the guys in the shirt-and-tie combos sweat a little, and shaking hands on a deal.  

Everything I learned, I learned from my father.  Going to car dealerships with him as a boy as the greatest thrill there was.  He was an absolute bloodthirsty animal in an auto showroom.

"DREW!" he once screamed, prowling in between shiny cars and metal desks until he found the one with the name-plate of a salesman who had wronged him in some way, "WHERE THE FUCK IS THIS DREW?!"

"I am DONE with this BULLSHIT!" he screamed at one Saab dealer.

"How can you sit there and lie to me?  What kind of PERSON are you?"

"Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME?!!!" he frothed in the face of a Buick dealer who had the audacity to not offer him the appropriate value on his Oldsmobile Cutlass trade-in.  That salesman chased him down into the parking lot and begged him to come back.

"I DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR THIS!  I DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR YOU FUCK-UP GAMES!"

Of course, I don't roll exactly how he does.  I'm casual.  I'm lazy.  My specialty is appearing disinterested and disaffected.  If they know your heart isn't in it, they know you'll walk like it's no big thing.  I remember when I purchased my Volvo S40, two-or-so cars ago, I walked around the parking lot appearing almost stoned.  A cluster of salesmen were outside chain smoking and one of them pointed at me with a huge grin on his face and said, "Now there's a guy who looks like he's leaving with a new car today-- he could give two shits about what happens here."

And you know what?  Whether I'm pretending or not: he's right.

Let's Go Meditate on Brachback Mountain

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 12, Verse 22

"God loves those who keep their promises,

and hates those who don't."

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

I'm supposed to be meditating right now, but this is far more fun.

AIIIEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

WHOOPIEDOOP-DOOPATY!  

Look at me, way up high, suddenly, here am I, I'm blogging!!!

I mean, seriously.  Meditating?  What's that going to get me?  Inner peace?  Christ.  What do I need that for?  And chances are, I wouldn't get it from meditating-- that's what I eat corned beef for.

I feel bad, though, because I promised my therapist two weeks ago (well, two weeks ago tomorrow) that I would listen to a Tara Brach podcast and meditate.  Actually-- no, that's not even true.  I promised him that I would listen to a lecture by Tara Brach: not even one of her guided visualization meditation exercise.  

"Because," I now remember my therapist saying, "I know you won't do that."  I guess he figured he would try to get out of me what he could.  Sometimes, I don't know what I'm striving for: to be the best patient, or the worst.  Maybe it's both.  I can't quite accept that it might be neither.

I made the mistake of reading Tara Brach's Wiki.  It all went downhill from there.  

Apparently, Tara Brach is an "American psychologist and is well informed about Buddhist meditation. She set up an Insight Meditation Community in Washington. It is a spiritual community that teaches and practices Vipassana meditation. This group's Wednesday night meeting in Bethesda, Maryland, which is taught by Dr. Brach, regularly attracts hundreds of people per week."

Did you read that last part?

"regularly attracts hundreds of people per week."

I know, that's supposed to engender confidence, because hundreds of people who learn at her sandal-enshrouded feet every Wednesday must be onto something.  In my head, though, it says "cult leader."

In sandals.

Want more?

"Brach's talks are downloaded free nearly 200,000 times each month by people in more than 150 countries."

UH-OH!

I'm sure, if David Koresh were around today, his podcasts would be pretty popular, too.  You know, with a certain se(c)t.

I'm sorry, I know I'm being a penis-pimple about all of this, and I also know that a huge part of my reticence has to do with how popular this woman is and my ardent belief that anything lots of people get gooey in the pants over must automatically be full of shit, but it is a philosophy that is so terribly hard to break free from.  I mean, remember how many people liked "Titanic"?

(Estimates have it at between 200-250 million people saw it in theatres, and 60-100 million saw it on DVD.  Sorry, Sandals; you've got some catching up to do.)

I think there is, too, a little bit of the oppositional streak in me at work, too.  I don't like it when people tell me what to do, even if they couch it as a suggestion-- especially if they believe that suggestion is going to be "good for me".  But, my tiny hamster mind thinks, if I've lived with me for thirty-three years and I don't know what's good for me, how the fuck does some handsome guy with a knit bison on his shirt who isn't even half Jewish going to know what's good for me?  Because he has Psy.D. after his name?  Believe me, I have MAEd after my name, but I know sure as shit I shouldn't be let anywhere near a classroom.  Even if hundreds of people wanted to flock to it every Wednesday.

I don't know.  Lying down on somebody's floor kicking and screaming, "I DON'T WANNA!" till your face turns as red as a hemorrhoid just isn't acceptable at my age, even if you've just paid the guy $50 and he's got the sound machine on, but that's what I want to do during my sessions.  I don't wanna take meds, I don't wanna do meditation, I don't wanna "find my inner sanctuary of peace and wisdom in the midst of difficulty" because that's what DIFFICULTY IS.  It's supposed to feel difficult.  Difficulty isn't supposed to feel peaceful and you're not supposed to find wisdom in getting fucked over at work or sprinkling your pants with pee-pee dribble right before a meeting or when some cocksmoke is tailgating you and your family is in the car and everybody has a gun and the lights are all red and the waiter fucks it up and the house is too cold and the money is tight and the girls are all hot and the idiots just want to talk about "Titanic" and how Leo has matured and really come into his own and Vipassana meditation and mindfulness and finding the core and finding center and finding Neverland and Johnny Depp's another one and God give me a fucking break already.

Please.

I don't wanna.

I know I'm going to disappoint my therapist tomorrow when I tell him I haven't done my homework.  Or maybe he won't care one way or the other.  In school, I did the homework I was excited about, and the other homework I either did on the bus on the way to school, and it looked like it was done by my great-grandfather who had advanced stage Parkinson's-- or I just didn't do it at all.  No one ever called my parents, or, if they did, my parents never told me about it.  My teachers were all pretty chill.  They must have meditated like motherfuckers.       

Old Balthasar

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 14, Verse 35

"A king rejoices in servants who know what they are doing;

he is angry with those who cause trouble."

CHIPPED WISDOM:

My wife and I stopped watching "Downton Abbey" after the conclusion of Season 3.  Not because they killed off Matthew Crawley-- we didn't give a shit about that.  We stopped watching it for the same reason we stopped watching "E.R." all those years ago: because helicopters kept falling on that one-armed bastard.  We stopped watching "Law & Order" because, really, how many times can you watch Olivia get raped or Stabler get shot in the shoulder.  In a courtroom.  It's like, I don't know-- there comes a point where it just gets to be too much.  And we had reached that point with "Downton," where Maggie Smith's cutting quips became as predictable and formulaic as the fare on a hospital dinner tray, where characters and situations repeated themselves until they became absurd and, frankly, unwatchable.  Like Muppets getting raped. 

Nobody wants to watch that.

What did stick with me, though, about "Downton Abbey" was a feeling that I very much did and do want a butler.  He'd be leathery-- far more leathery than Carson-- and he'd be impossibly ancient.  He'd be stooped over and bent up like a pretzel, his gnarled and gnurled fingers crippled and his stroke-stricken jaw would be slack.  My butler would drool ever so slightly-- never enough to cause anybody alarm, but just enough that I would give him a barely perceptible look and lift my left eyebrow just a jot and that would be his cue to reach into the threadbare pocket of his black-and-gray wool striped trousers, pull out his yellowed handkerchief and dab his lower lip.  Or shuffle aimlessly over to the living room window curtain and rub his face up against it.

His name would be "Old Balthasar."  Well, what his name is actually isn't important-- but that's what we'd call him.  When you have a butler, you get to name them.  They're rather like guinea pigs in that respect.  And you can make them sleep on the floor covered in pine shavings.  As long as you pay them I'm pretty sure that's legal.  

Old Balthasar would be forgetful and occasionally incontinent-- only of urine-- and he would drop things of moderate value.  His eyebrows would resemble two snow-kissed forests and he would have a war wound, a slight head injury that would cause him to sporadically slip into some mysterious Asian language and fall down the stairs.  At ritzy dinner parties, Old Balthasar would sometimes sit down at the table, preferably on the lap of one of the guests, and butter his lips with a gravy spoon.  He would eat only roots, persimmons, and Lucky Charms.  He would sleep in Dr. Dentons and never button the butt-flap.  Old Balthasar would polish the limousine with a diaper and corn syrup.  He was sure he owned a dog-- it was... somewhere.  His sweater drawer.  Never mind, sir.....

From my description of Old B, I guess you can pretty readily figure out that I don't want a butler for the reasons people traditionally want butlers; you know, to help.  I want Old Balthasar around because nobody else does.  Because people look clear past all the good and value contained therein, and because butlering is meaningful work that has gone from this corner of the world.  Did you know that Asia is the continent with the fastest growing demand for butlers?  And Buicks?  This should surprise no one.  

My mother-in-law saves people-- cast off wretches and borderlines, kids who cut themselves and cut school, kids who've given birth and have been molested and are on drugs.  Kids who are deaf and foreign and homosexual-- the undesirables of the world.  And the reasons for which she performs this Mother Theresa-like service are slightly less-than-saintly, and, yes, I begrudge her for it.  But I suppose there's a little bit of savior syndrome in me, too.  I can't bare to see a quality gentleman like Old Balthasar be put out to pasture just because he sometimes wears his dentures as a hat and makes crepes out of hard taco shells.  Because, in his day, he was sharp as a tack and no helicopter or courtroom shooter could take him out.  So, if he wants to spend his autumn years wiping my ass and pre-chewing my food for me: I'm all over it.  

Balthasar?  Let's roll.

Not Pretending

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 19, Verse 13

"A nagging wife annoys like constant dripping."

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

Eleven years ago, I took a short girl who squeaked a lot out for Kosher vegetarian Chinese food.  Today, she's downstairs on the couch aimlessly trolling Pinterest with her mouth slightly agape, waiting for me to finish this post so we can watch the Olympics together.  At this moment, she's also, once again, digesting Kosher vegetarian Chinese food.  Yes, I re-created (sort of) our first un-chaperoned date today.

Yes, this is your cue to melt into a dithering pile of estrogen-engopulated goop.  Gosh.  Wymym.

This post will be short, because, like I said, the Olympics are on, and watching a bunch of athletigods soar through the air wearing Spandex onesies is way more interesting to me than writing a blog post.  My wife understands that I "need" to blog, and she supports it.  She also is supporting me in my "need" to express myself onstage by flitting and mincing around like some sort of avian abstraction, and is putting her money where her mouth is by giving me her blessing to audition for yet another Gilbert & Sullivan operetta on Wednesday.  

(God, I hope I get it.  How many Aspergers do they need?)

I love that my wife loves the Olympics.  I love that we don't have to have ethical discussions about how Russia oppresses homosexuals and debate about how we're feeding into something negative by tuning in our lowly television set to watch.  I'm glad I can plow through snowbanks on poorly-plowed Philadelphia streets as I aggressively blow past SEPTA buses and that I can yell "COCKSUCKER!" without my wife having a fit.  She does make hearty use of the Oh-Shit handle, but there is very little chastising, no back-seat driving, no censoring.  I'm free to scream what I need to, be who I have to, pass who I've got to.  

It's all very refreshing.  

Part of the time we spent today was passed bee-bopping around South Street and Bainbridge, ducking into cute little antique and thrift shops.  There were overpriced skinny ties and saddle shoes for grown ups (?), blazers with elbow-patches and knurled buttons, glasses your Zayda wore because he had to, not because he wanted to, boots upon boots upon boots after boots, "kooky" acrylic sweaters and those bowls made from old, melted records.  

While we noodled and doodled our way around cluttered shelves and knick-knackery, I did what all heterosexual men, happily married or not, do: I checked out women.  You know, while looking for that perfect six-button vest.  And what I saw was what I saw, and what I saw was what it was.  I saw girls who were ugly and girls who were plain, girls who were nice looking, a couple who were hot, and not really much more than that.  But the thing of it is-- what I saw were girls trying to pretend they were something, or someone, they were not.  Comically oversized glasses, piercings that were pierced, affectations and carefully chosen accessories designed, it seemed to me, at least, to loudly call attention to themselves.  Look at me, drinking out of this mason jar, standing around looking affected by nuclear winter.  Look at me.   

And, you know what?  As I mentioned earlier, I looked.  Because that's what we do-- that's what I do.  But I was never more content, more filled and more fortunate than when I looked across a table at a thrift shop into the eyes of my wife, as she staunched a rampant nosebleed with a pack of vintage Hallmark store $2.40 napkins (they didn't charge us).  She's not pretending.  She is what she is.  And I am so, so grateful for that.

Okay.  It's time to go watch the Olympics with my buddy.  I hope it's the bobsled.  I love that shit.   

Piloting my Father

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 19, Verse 27

"Stop listening to teaching that contradicts what you know is right."

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

(NB: In spite of what you might suspect from the smell of the first paragraph, this isn't a "Daddy Blog.")

My children went through a three or four month period where they slept clear through the night.  We'd put them down at 7:00 or 7:30 and it was smooth sailing all the way through the full 12 rounds of the clock.  This hasn't been the case for a long time.  Now, they awaken anywhere between 11:00pm and 4:00am, and they don't go back down without some, um, interventions which are provided by two bleary-eyed, sleep-stupid parents whose every small-hours movement is by this time mechanized and efficient.  This, for the moment, is how it goes.

Now you might think that two twenty-six-month-old bawling urchins (actually, it's usually just my daughter, but, as any savvy parent of twins will tell you: one up, both up) in the middle of the night sucketh thou heartily, last night, it turned out to be a good thing.  

My daughter announced her raspy Cock-a-Doodle-Doo at 3:31am and I threw the covers off and padded down the hall to her room, picked her Uppie Daddy, cuddled her, and brought her to her mother.  On my way back to our room, I noticed that my cremasteric muscles (girls, you may want to look that up) were in overdrive and that my leg hair was standing up on end.  I handed my daughter off to my wife and said, "Jesus, it's fucking cold."

"I know," she said, "what the fuck?"

We're so Shakespearean at that hour.  I scooped up my still-sleeping son, brought him into our room and immediately went downstairs to turn up the heat which, in the middle of a Nor'easter, was only set at 62.  That's dumb, I thought, turning the dial to the right.  

And.... nothing happened.  So I went to the basement, which felt like an igloo, and proceeded to engage in every Jewish man's worst nightmare, fiddling with unfamiliar things in the dead of winter that have no fewer than four warning stickers featuring the silhouette of a man reeling backwards as the result of an explosion.  

Yeah.  It's like that.  Bye-bye cremasteric muscles.  

After around twenty minutes, I put our children back down and said to my wife, "I need you downstairs with me."  I figured, if I was going to blow the place up, I at least wanted her to be with me when it happened.  You know, so there was no way the medical examiner could say I was trying to kill everybody by myself.  Together, she and I did troubleshooting.  We found hard-to-access panel doors.  We found the pilot light.  We debated about whether trying to light it would blow a crater in the earth and what size it might be.  At one point, she looked at me and said,

"Whose father should we call: yours or mine?"

We are, it's sad to admit, still of that age.  I briefly weighed the pros and cons of either option in my head, the doddering, cerebral psychiatrist who lives over 300 miles away, or the strapping, foreign soldier who lives practically down the street, I settled on a man who's twice been to desert combat, founded his own business, and once called my oldest sister a "FUCKING DICKHEAD!" for letting me play in the ocean as an eight-year-old when I had a cold.  Everyone on the beach that day within six miles of our location heard him.  

He came over at 4:30, because that's what he does.  He asked some asinine questions, because he makes sure to do that, too.  He was helpful in some respects, though he mostly reinforced what we already knew: we were fucked and had to call the emergency number for the heating company, which I did at around 5am.  Outside, it had already snowed approximately eight inches.

The guy on the other end of the phone was understandably unenthusiastic about receiving my call.  I get it-- the proudest prayer an on-call technician or service worker can make is,

"Dear Lord, make my phone silent tonight.  Let everybody out there work it out for themselves.  And let me have score some awesome head tonight and sleep the night away.  Amen."  

Unfortunately, for this guy, it was not to be.  I told him that, after around two hours of fucking around we managed to get the pilot light lit, but it would not stay on.  He said, "Well, sir, I just got up and it's snowing real bad, I mean, I'll get into the office and see if we can get somebody out to you some time today."

That, my friends, wasn't what I wanted to hear.

"Okay, well, I get that it's snowing and it's early but I have two two-year-olds in this house and they can't stay here like this, so you need to get out here.  This is an emergency.  That's why I called your emergency number."

"Sir," he said, his emphasis, not mine, "I will do what I can to get to you."

Ten minutes later, I threw my father out because he was starting to make me nuts.  My wife and I cuddled together under a blanket on the couch.  She fell instantly asleep.  I stared at the muted television watching endless coverage of the storm outside.  It's amazing how much people say the same thing over and over again and think they're doing a great job or something.  Anyway, at some point, my father texted me to ask if the heater was fixed.  I should have ignored his text, but I replied that I hadn't heard from the technician  again yet.  Then I got this:

"I'm sorry ..but at a time like 

that with babies don't Wai for 

ass hole ..t call u .. They r

Red necks illiterate ass holes"

I knew, at that exact moment, my father was calling the heating company and raising absolute fucking hell.  Funnily enough, less than five minutes later, the technician called me to report that his van was stuck in the snow.  I told him to be careful and to get here when he could.  As soon as I hung up, my father texted me again:

"I know u r nit answering..but

I got the head of [heating company's

name]. I'm bringing him to your house."

An hour later, after my father helped dig him out of a snow-bank, the technician was at our house.  He looked like a beat-down dog.  But, in twenty minutes, he had fixed our broken pilot tube and had our furnace a glow in beautiful blue flame.  He apologized multiple times for taking so long, I thanked him and sent him on his way.  Then, I texted my father and said he should call the heating company and apologize for his behavior which, I suspect, was less than gentlemanly.  He replied,

"Sure I'm going to clean his 

ass for A year."

Later that evening, my mother called to check in on all of us.  "Your father is killing me," she said, "I can't believe the way he was talking on the phone to that heating technician-- poor bastard.  I'm going to write a nice letter to the company."  I told her I was going to do the same.

"He just doesn't understand how to behave.  I guess we can never use them again to service our heater.  But you make sure you can save your relationship with the company."  

I'm thankful, at least, that one of them gets it, that one of them doesn't careen through the world with the bullish, uncontrolled entitlement of a beauty queen on steroids and PCP.  While there are a lot of aspects of my personality that I very much wish were different, I think my temperament is pretty well balanced, a nice mix of the aggressive and the passive.  I can turn it up when I need to, but mostly I try to facilitate and appease and negotiate and accept what I need to in order to keep moving along.  We were cold, but we weren't freezing to death.  The problem had to be fixed, and it was.  Did it take a long time?  Yes.  Did the guy maybe stop for a coffee before getting stuck and then coming to us?  I'm sure he did.  Do I begrudge him that?  Nope.  Because he's not a fire fighter or a cop or an EMT, and there was no stench of gas in the air.  Of course, any time the comfort, safety or stability of any one of his family members (even the FUCKING DICKHEAD) is threatened, my father becomes a frothing, rabid maniac who will eviscerate anybody who tries to minimize the situation by not immediately snapping to attention at the sound of his voice.  And I guess there's a part of me that certainly understands that, and maybe there's even even a blue-flamed glimmer inside me that likes that.  But it's sure lost them the good graces (and business) of more than a handful of plumbers, electricians, and HVAC guys over the decades.  It takes a technician who's willing to go chest-to-chest with him, and, in today's people-pleasing, litigious society, most companies won't back up a front-line guy who does that.  And I've done it my fair share of times, and it never has gotten me very far.  

Hmpf.  I guess this turned into a "Daddy Blog" after all-- just not the kind you were thinking.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go watch the Olympics and watch these athletes flex their cremasteric muscles.        

Purple Lenses & Mr. Moo

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 21, Verse 21

"The man who tries to be good, loving and kind finds life, righteousness, and honor."

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

I don't remember when I first saw him-- maybe I was four or five.  He stood there, there on the corner of a busy intersection, dressed in brown slacks-- he looked like the kind of guy who'd call 'em "slacks", a plaid shirt, cardigan, and a tweed flat cap.  The hair that poked out front underneath that cap was gray and puffy-- what was left of it.  He wore a pair of glasses with purple tinted lenses.  When I was a little boy, I didn't know that old men wore purple eyeglass lenses to help them see when they had macular degeneration.  I just thought he was a cool, old black man who rocked out in purple sunglasses.  Because that was his thing.  

Anyway, when we were on our way to somewhere or other-- probably the mall (we were all mall-chicks back in the '80s, weren't we?) our Oldsmobile was stopped at the traffic light at that busy intersection, and that cool, old black man in his purple glasses looked straight at me, he smiled a toothy grin, and he waved.  It was a slow wave, palm extended, fingers spread apart a little bit, from side-to-side.  He had a stub of a cigar in between his first and second finger.  I waved back.

Maybe an hour-and-a-half later, we found ourselves approaching the intersection again.  But our light was green.

"Slow down, Daddy!  Slow down!" I yelled from blue velour bench seat in the back, "it's my friend!"

My father, easily confused but accustomed, from his Israeli army days, to taking orders, gently activated the Cutlass Ciera's drum brakes and the car rolled at a calmer pace and, as we passed old Purple Lenses, I waved frantically from the back seat.  And he reciprocated, a little less enthusiastically, but a wave is a wave.  

We only ever went by that intersection on weekends, but if he wasn't out there every single time we did, it seemed like he was.  

"Does he just stand out there all day, Mommy?" I asked my mother.

"He probably goes in at dinner time," she speculated.  She must be right, I thought; nobody can be that friendly to strangers on an empty stomach.  I wasn't so narcissistic even as a young child to think that I was the only one that Purple Lenses waved to, but I did refer to him as "my friend" and I very, very much did look forward to seeing him.  Not because I didn't have other people in my life who looked forward to seeing me, quite the contrary, but because he had no particular reason to be nice to me, or to like me, or to pick me.  He couldn't wave to thousands and thousands of motorists and their kin-- he had to pick and choose.  And I was one of the chosen ones.  Maybe he liked my Moe Howard haircut, which I faithfully maintained for far, far too long.  Maybe it was the black circles under my eyes from lack of sleep that told him I could use a friend.  

I don't know that I noticed his absence however many years later it was.  He wasn't out there all the time, and maybe I just expected, in the beginning, that he'd be there, you know-- next week.  Next week he'll be there, on the corner, lazily holding his cigar, smiling.  The Mayor of the Intersection.  The Ambassador of the Street Corner.  A few months went by and we took an autumn drive together as a family.  As we approached his corner-- it was his corner-- my mother turned around in her seat and she looked at me, reading my face as only a mother can.  She held her hand out between the seats and offered it to me.

"I think he must have died, Tutty," she said, using my favorite childhood nickname to soften the blow of the news I already knew.  

"Who died?" my oblivious father asked.  

It was hard to accept it when, a few more months later, a real estate sign would mark the lawn in front of his house like a headstone.  

I'll bet he was a good grandfather, I thought, and that was a comforting thought to someone who was a tad lacking in the grandfather department-- one being half-a-world away in Australia, and the other, though far more local, a bit... emotionally inaccessible.  

When I taught, I don't think I really understood when mothers of young boys would come up to me and tell me what it meant for their sons to have "a positive male role model."  In fact, it annoyed me a little bit, because it felt like they were congratulating me for having a penis and truculent facial hair.  But, looking back on my own growing up, I guess I get it.  My friend on the street corner taught me a lot about friendliness, and that it doesn't have to be just restricted to friends.  Mr. Moo, the elderly Asian man who ran the shoe shop on Haverford Avenue was always dressed in a shirt, tie, and vest, with shiny brown shoes and bright silver hair and I liked the way he looked and he always bent down to talk to me.  I didn't have to look up at him, but I looked up to him.  Maybe he's why I like to wear ties-- I don't know, I never really thought about it before, but I would ask my mother if we could go visit Mr. Moo on lazy afternoons when I didn't need any shoes.  And we would take the four minute drive down Haverford just to say hi.  

Sometimes I worry about myself, which keeps me busy and, you know, off drugs.  Well, the illegal ones.  I worry that men like Purple Lenses and Mr. Moo are disappearing and, if they're not, if they are still there, people aren't noticing them.  I don't know that we're noticing each other anymore.  I hate to sound like a fuddy-dud, but if we're sitting in the back seat, staring vacantly into bright screens, mindlessly scrolling our lives away, how will we ever look up to see that old black man in his tweed cap on the corner?

Look up, my loves.  And don't forget to wave.           

Goodnight, Clarice

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 23, Verses 13 & 14

"Don't fail to correct your children; discipline won't hurt them!

They won't die if you use a stick on them!
Punishment will keep them out of hell."

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

Hi!  Have we met before?  I think we have.  You might remember me as "that callous, needle-dicked fuck who blogs while wearing earbuds so he can't hear his two year old daughter screaming like a soon-to-be-murdered housecat in the next room".  

Currently, Antonio Salieri's Symphony in D Major, "Il Giorno Onomastico", is blasting its way through the circuitous paths of my ear canals, and my head is slightly throbbing, and I like it.  Sometimes the violins and the horns are so fucking loud it's like my ears can see stars.  Of course, every time it goes all mezzo piano on me, I can still hear her, which sucks.  It's cognitive dissonance for sure.  I have no doubt that children this age weren't allowed to hear live music at concert halls in Vienna, and if they were, and one started acting out like this, they'd bayonet it.  

Lord knows we tried everything.  My wife went up first, to shush and soothe.  To hug and hold.  Then, after I successfully unclogged the Danube-esque kitchen sink, it was my turn to try my hand at nurturing in the nursery.  I tried the "reset" method; repeat the pre-bedtime ritual-- the books, the cuddles, the night-time song, the tucking the covers in, the whole bit.  My son bought it last week, hook, line, and snorer.  It worked, and I felt like a hero.

My daughter, though?  She didn't bite.  Right now, it sounds like someone's biting her.  Right now, it's Mozart's Symphony No. 39 in E-flat Major, K 453.  Oh, Pandora-- thou doth have a sense of humor!

Perhaps you would not have pegged me for the kind of guy who could engage in a relentlessly narcissistic and self-indulgent pursuit like blogging while his beloved daughter is howling at the moon, tears streaming down her face less than 5 feet away behind a closed door in a dark room, and, to be honest, I wouldn't have thought I was that guy either, but, apparently, I am.  And I don't particularly like admitting that to you.

Then again, maybe I do.  Maybe that is what I like.  Maybe I like exposing my wretched, fetid underbelly to you and point to it energetically, shining a light on all that is foul and mean and cruel, to let you know what an easily manipulated dumbass you are for thinking better of me.

To teach you a lesson.  To let you know that you really don't know.  That nobody knows.  

I can tell myself it's okay.  That she's just overtired and she has to cry it out so she can go to sleep.  That no amount of re-sets or snuggling or goodnight moon is going to do the trick, she just has to knock herself the fuck out.  After, you know, whomever's biting her is done doing that.  But, I don't know-- isn't there always something else?  Something else to try?  Shouldn't I hold her until she collapses?  But, if I do that, as soon as her back even touches that mattress, no-- as soon as she feels her weight shift as I contemplate putting her down, the siren will sound again, the lambs shall scream and scream and scream loud enough to wake the dead night watchman in his pine box.  And we'll have to start all over again.  And it'll be 11 o'clock by then.  

And we'll all be fucked.  My daughter, my wife, Salieri, Wolfgang, and I.  Mediocrities everywhere, I absolve you.  I am their champion.  I am their patron saint.  I am the father of all fatherly fuck ups.  Even Father Duffy.  He was a-full-a-shit.  

Mozart got quiet for a second.  She's still going.  

ff     

That's a music joke!  

HA!

AND EVERYTHING IS GOING FINE!

(Unless you're my next-door neighbor, that is.  She's probably calling the police right now.  Fortunately, her Cambodian or Vietnamese or whatever the fuck she is accent is so thick they won't be able to understand the address and they probably won't come.)

I heard on the radio recently that, when people used to talk about "Bach", they were talking about "C.P.E. Bach", not "Johann Sebastian Bach", which is who people nowadays are talking about when they say "Bach."  He didn't really explain how that happened, how one Bach became a different Bach, how one eclipsed the other and how nobody really gives a shit about Carl Philly E-Dawg, and all I can think of when I think about that is: did either of those powder-headed, stocking-assed motherfuckers have daughters and how the hell did they deal with it when their daughters were two and were exploding their lungs all over their nursery ceilings?

They must have drank.  They must have drank a real. fucking. lot.  

Oh, who am I kidding?  They composed in some villa somewhere while some hired village wench dealt with their offspring.  And everything was going fine.  Because they still drank a real fucking lot.

I'm listening to some jubilant shit by Domenico Cimarosa now.  It's not nearly loud enough for these present purposes.  I mean, there's a refrain that's pretty loud, but then it gets quiet and I have to wait for the refrain to repeat itself before it drowns out the unChristly sounds my daughter is making from inside her crib.  

Maybe it's just the chair he's sitting in, but he looks like a fucking stuffed porpoise.

I shouldn't be making fun, but, honestly?  To me he looks like a guy who never put a crazy two-year-old girl to sleep, so he doesn't get much respect from me.  Besides, Cinnamon Roll: you in my house.  Now, play: and make it forte like SHIT, motherfucker.

Teachable Moments

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 25, Verse 3

"You cannot understand the height of heaven,

the size of the earth, or all that goes on in the king's mind!"

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

In third grade, there was a kid named Ari.  You went to school with Ari, too.  He had a ton of curly blonde hair and, somehow, defying the predominant mental image you are now conjuring up of him in your mind, he wasn't cute.  How you can have your scalp kissed by such golden locks and not be punim-pinchably adorable is an exasperating mystery, but, hey; that's Ari for you.  

Ari drooled.  That mental image changing yet?  It should, because, when you're nine weeks old, drooling's pretty much a given.  But no mother or father wants their nine-year-old son going to Mrs. Griffin's classroom wearing a bib.  Adding to Ari's increasing list of misfortunes was his lisp, which was just about as subtle and endearing as Truman Capote's.  

And, he was chunky.  Not fat, per say.  Just, you know-- fat in the ass.  

As you can maybe see now, all in all, at least outwardly, Ari wasn't quite the prize package, and, sadly, some of his teachers let him know it.  While I don't have too many memories of this particular time of my life, I do distinctly remember one moment in third gradery where Mrs. Griffin was showing us some words on butcher-block paper propped up on an easel.  She had written the words in austere, thick black Sharpie.  

"What's this word?" she asked us, pointing to the word "Determined" with her marker, peering at us from behind her Sophia Lorens.  We looked at the word, then we looked back at her.  Ari might have raised his hand.  Maybe he didn't and she called on him anyway.  Either way, she said his name.  And he said,

"DEETER-MINDED!" 

And we laughed, because that wasn't how you said that word.  Looking back on this display, this obviously would have been the moment where Mrs. Griffin sharply admonished us for making fun of Ari, but the way I recall the event, she rolled her eyes, looked at him and said, "Deeter-minded?  Really, Ari." and proceeded to call on somebody else who gave the correct pronunciation, while Ari quietly contemplated suicide or, more accurately, said to himself, "One day I will be wealthy enough to buy and sell all of you and you, Mrs. Griffin, will be festering and rotting under the ground onto which I shall gleefully piss while my square-jawed chauffeur warms up the Shiatsu massaging Alcantara-hide throne in the back of my Bentley Mulsanne."

I don't fault Mrs. Griffin necessarily.  It's hard to always know what to do and what to say in a given situation, especially when you're an authority figure.  I was once the Assistant Director at a summer camp.  One of the young girls I had as a camper was a sweet girl with albinism.  As with many people with albinism, she had an eye condition called nystagmus, where the eyeballs move rapidly back and forth.  She also had extremely poor vision, and so when she read she had the book almost quite literally pressed up against her face.  And her hair was the color of straw and her skin as pale as 1% milk.  But she was one of my special girls, because, when she was three, my wife had her as a pre-school student, and we had become close with her family.  Well, one day, we were rehearsing a scene and another young girl looked over at her and said, "What's wrong with you anyway?"

Instantly, my body temperature soared to 164 degrees and my spine began to sweat.  I could have torn that little fucker's face right off with my fingers.    

"HEY!" I shouted, my head spinning towards her so fast I thought my neck had snapped, "WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?!  Don't you EVER talk to her like that again, do you understand me?"  

The girl bit her lip and I thought she was going to take a shit in her shorts, which she very well might have done.  And that would have been alright with me, actually, though I probably would have gotten fired.  And maybe I should have anyway.  It wasn't a very good conflict resolution strategy, and I certainly didn't mediate in a positive, affirming way that turned it into a "teachable moment",  and I don't think I did my flaxen-haired favorite any favors either.  But I did what I had to do to stop the situation in its tracks, as I was deeter-minded to do.

And, in that moment, I felt for old Mrs. Griffin, who did wrong by Ari, and by all of us by not showing us the way with grace, skill, and tact.  This from a woman who told a room full of nine-year-olds that the most memorable moment of her recent trip to Australia was when "a drunk Koala I was holding peed all over me", so maybe tact, skill, and grace wasn't her thing.  

It's not my thing either.  Of course, I try.  I try to be good.  I overcompensate with deference and candied words, but if you read me and know me and have spent any longer than a minute-and-a-half inside a car piloted by me then you know.  I can be mean and spiteful and cruel and, if I ran into Ari today, I'm not so sure that I wouldn't say, "Hey, have you learned how to pronounce 'determined' yet?"  I'm not exactly sure I was one of the kids who laughed at him, but I'm reasonably sure I was.  

Unless, of course, I was very different then.