Art, Parenting, Pop Culture

The Wiggles, greatest band ever?

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On a two hour road trip this weekend, we played through three Wiggles albums for the first time in years. Fun was had by all, nostalgia was had by three (two parents and son – our daughter born three years later grew up with non-Wiggles music).

The Wiggles are a four-person music-for-kiddies group formed in Australia. Three of the four were early childhood educators, and it shows in their songs. Not brilliant music, but they make an effort to sing about healthful eating, safety lessons, other cultures, and silly things.

Around 2001, we bought a Wiggles videotape and watched it over and over. As our son danced with happiness, and I often danced with him, we adults made short back stories as grown-up minds are wont to do during kid shows. The leader, Greg (yellow shirt), was an affable dork on the surface who subtly but effectively rebuffed any attempt by other Wiggles to take the lead. Anthony (originally green shirt, then blue, and the first Captain Feathersword ’til they found another actor) was a lothario, a permanent beta who WANTED to take charge but couldn’t stop carousing enough at night to pull a coup together during the day. Murray (red shirt) was even dorkier than Greg, and just wanted everyone to get along. Jeff (purple shirt) was a political prisoner held against his will. These backstories/coping mechanisms kept us amused for years.

We took our son to see The Wiggles when he was about two. Great energy in the theater full of toddlers and happy parents. Murray even made it up to the balcony to say hi and delight the kids.

Greg had to leave after several rampantly successful years with shows in many countries, including choice placement on the Disney Channel and huge tours. He had a cardiac problem. He was replaced, but we didn’t track The Wiggles past that point.

But enough of my yakkin’, let’s boogie.

“Hot Potato” is The Wiggles version of “Satisfaction”. If they didn’t perform this song dutifully for their fans, riots may erupt. Video features the friendly pirate Captain Feathersword (he’s the pirate with the feather sword) and “Paul” a chef-looking dude who must be a mate of theirs in real life:

Found an early version, with Anthony in green, that’s much sloppier. This is like finding a lost Stones demo. Watch it for an example of how Anthony seems to be struggling relative to the others.

Less fun (because they’re all sitting) but a better tune is “Fruit Salad”. To continue the Stones analogy, it’s their “Honky Tonk Women”.

Close to my favorite song is “Shaky Shaky”. Video quality here is shoddy (alas, friendly pirated media!) but it’s an Elvis nod. When watching the Disney Channel was a daily occurrence in our home, I noted Disney aired this bit on Elvis’ birthday and the anniversary of his death. Clip is enhanced by the sounds of a toddler in the room:

Yes, I did want to be a Wiggle, and eight or nine years ago would have been ready to don a colored shirt and hit the ground running. Though I’ve fallen out of practice, if called I will serve. Hope you are taking it easy, Greg. And good work. Beauty, mate!

Activity, Art, Parenting, Poetry

Football, kids, Anne Sexton, Nintendo DS

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Driving home from attending a college football game, I traveled with my kids, who had spent the day with a set of grandparents, back to our home city. My daughter was asleep in the backseat, iPod touch probably still playing. My son was playing a word game on his Nintendo DSi XL. I had finished with listening to the football post-game show on the radio, and had switched to an iPod playlist of authors reading their own work. To the sound of Anne Sexton reading poems on the car stereo, my son asked me questions about his game.

Had there been a transcript of one particular point, it would have read like this:

Oh, darling! Born in that sweet birthday suit
and having owned it and known it for so long,
now you must watch high noon enter–

[Son: “Papa, what’s a word for a food that needs sauce?” Me: “Barbecue, maybe?”]

noon, that ghost hour.
Oh, funny little girl–this one under a blueberry sky,

[Son: “It doesn’t work.” Me: “How about spaghetti?” Son: “How do you spell ‘spaghetti’?” Me: “S-p-a-g-h-e-t-t-i.” Son: “That works!”]

this one! How can I say that I’ve known
just what you know and just where you are?

It’s not a strange place, this odd home

[Son: “Papa, how do you spell ‘weight’?” Me: “Like in, heavy?” Son: “Yes.” Me: “W-e-i-g-h-t.”]

where your face sits in my hand
so full of distance,
so full of its immediate fever.

Activity, Eating, Parenting, Reading, Writing

On a ride with my son

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All this week, my daughter was scheduled for Zoo Camp. My son didn’t have anything scheduled.

I had to work, and my mom was willing to have him stay for four days.

Got him back Thursday night, and wasn’t sure what to do. Then decided to cut work and spend Friday with just him.

He’s 11, and signs are accruing that puberty encroaches. Height increasing. Closes the door to his room a lot. More guarded about changing his clothes, bathing, growing sense of privacy.

We dropped his sister off at Zoo Camp, then strolled around the Zoo for several hours. I gave him the map and let him navigate. We weren’t in a hurry.

We boarded the Zoo Train (I hadn’t been on for a decade or so) and I noticed dark hairs on his legs. I said (quietly) “You’re growing up. Your leg hairs are darker.” “Not as dark as yours” “You’re getting there, though. It’s good to see you growing up.” He smiled. We talked about growing up and being able to drive, and going to college, and other milestones only 5-7 years away.

See the bag of green candy? Sour Skittles. He was MISERLY with them. I only got four, once he gave me three. A second time, one. He worked on that regular-size bag for about two hours. Hope he holds to that Golden Mean.

From the Zoo we went downtown. I let him pick lunch (noodles), and we went for ice cream. We read for about an hour and a half in the library (Me – reading on an artwork to write about, J – Fellowship of the Ring). Then he wanted to see if there were books on martial arts. I made him ask at the information desk and he was directed to a shelf of them. After about 20 minutes of browsing, he picked one. Checked it out, we were on our way.

Outside of the library, he asked me what sixth, seventh, and eighth grades were like for me. I told him they were tough for almost everybody. Puberty, confusion, frustration, kids getting more concerned about the body changes and new feelings, and not as attuned to the feelings and needs of others. I also mentioned around 6th grade is when my parents divorced. He listened thoughtfully. I told him he would someday go through those body and feeling changes, and I said I hoped he would come to us with any questions. “I will probably come to you, ” he said, “as it’ll be about boy and man changes.”

Took the light rail back to the Zoo, then sat in the cafeteria and read some more. All four of us met there after my daughter’s Zoo Camp was finished.

Throughout the day, he ran his arm around mine and we walked together arm-in-arm. He said “I don’t feel like holding your hand much anymore, but I do feel like doing this.” I nodded, absorbing the moments.

Later at night, he was speaking with his mom about cell phones. One of his friends recently got one. He wants one, too. “Other kids in class have them, too.” My wife asked: “Do you want one for talking with them?” “No, only my friends.” “Don’t you mean the kids in your class?” “No, I’m not friends with EVERYone in my class.”

Then she discovered he was only friends with the boys in his class. She observed: “That will probably change.”

“Yeah.” He guessed around age 13 he would use the phone to talk with girls. Then around 17 he would be old enough to drive, and then use his phone and car to go pick the girls up.

My man.

Parenting, Pop Culture

X-Men + fatherly pride

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Saw ‘X-Men First Class’ with the family tonight after a dinner of noodles. Movie was fine. James MacAvoy used the phrase “groovy mutation” TWICE in the movie, which is pretty boss. Not a Marvel kid growing up, more DC, but I could recognize most of the characters.

I cannot read your thoughts with mittens on.

But, ugh, two black characters and one of them turns to the bad guys (Lisa Bonet and Lenny Kravitz’ daughter – her celeb pedigree very obvious) and the other dies in service to the other characters. Ugh.

Exiting the theater, we had driven in separate cars. Which kid would ride with whom? I mimicked the movie and said to the kids they could choose the side of cooperation, hope, and peace and follow me, Charles Xavier or their mom, militant and forging a new path like Magneto. Son chose me, daughter my spouse (the usual arrangement) but spouse said that if ANYONE was Magneto, it was me. Family agreed. In the movie lobby, I pulled my shirt over my head so only my face poked out from the neckhole I said: “Stop trying to READ my MIND!” Son came up next to me and did the same. The telepaths thus foiled, they headed to the car on the other side of the mall.

Strolling with my son through the mall, I looked down at his 11 year-old self and saw he was already acquiring an adolescent shuffle and slight slump, hands in pocket, a running stream of verbally summarizing everything. I realized I would not be looking down at him much longer. In the parking lot again, as he was talking about the Wilderness Survival-themed daycamp he was at today, he glanced up at me and I got a glimpse of the teenager to come, but also over that the man he would be someday. I beamed proudly at him. He smiled back and continued with his story. Got in the car, I let him sit in the front seat on the ride home (still a thrill for him).

Okay, January Jones. Betty Draper was a MARVELOUS character the first two seasons of ‘Mad Men’ and she has not had as much to chew on the last two seasons. But, she was a SEXPOT character in ‘X-Men’ with lots of skin and heaving bosom. Is there any actress so beautiful and yet so astonishingly unsexy? Not repellent, but the constant effect of looking at her is: admiration, then feeling I should feel stirred, and yet Eros sits on the floor eating a sandwich. A phenomenon bordering on the medical.

Parenting, Poetry, Reading

A gal I once kissed died today.

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We’ve all had moments where the conversation starts: “Hey, do you remember so-and-so?”

Answer: “Oh, sure!” Cue mental memory of last interaction with that person. What the person was like, what you were like. If fond memories (almost always), a sweet haze surrounds the evocation.

“So-and-so is dead.”

Cue giant scythe swooshing down and cleanly slicing the reverie, slicing the moment to something horrible and abruptly sad.

That didn’t happen today. But I got word someone I once kissed died after a protracted fight with cancer. Same age, endured through her birthday last week and then surrendered following a visit from long-time friends and surrounded by family.

When someone we know dies, we become the sole caretakers of those moments. That person can no longer speak up with a smile or a head shake and say “Oh, yeah! I was there with you.” Even minor moments. A stark experience.

In high school, she was wavo/goth. By junior/senior year, pancake makeup, clove cigarettes. Usually second or third banana. Content to be in the background.

I went to college in another city for two years. Moved back into my hometown where she was by then in regular social rotation with a pocket of long-held friends.

The anthropology of dating was never my forté. I was a keen observer, but a lousy participant in picking up/acting on cues. Shy, easily daunted despite tendency toward extroversion and saying severe things very loudly to the acclaim/dismay of those within earshot.

So, in this small social circle she was initially unattached. She had also really blossomed. Dropped weight, got confident about her appearance. Went out into the sun. Got a retail job. A decent car that she painted colorful fish on. Strong sense of humor. Good listener. Fun to be around – good with a supplemental joke to follow someone else’s start. I got interested.

She had no problem dating. One of her boyfriends was a Deadhead guy who was the typical tightly-wound “It’s all good” mellow affectation, VERY PARTICULAR about the type of mellow to be, and who became highly agitated when his sensibilities were challenged. 22 years later, I wonder if he detected my circling around her and reacted to it, or if I was laying topical landmines for him to step on because I was jealous.

Eventually, I had a chance. I invited her to watch a movie with me at my parents’ house out in the country. I had just moved back and transferred to the hometown state university and hadn’t found a place yet. Can’t remember the movie we watched. She was wearing capri pants and I spent much of the movie semi-absent-mindedly stroking her lower leg, which she had rested on my lap.

I drove her back home to her apartment, dropped her off, and we kissed in the doorway. She put her hands in my pants pockets and said: “Oh, what have we here?” “Keys” I answered with a smile. She laughed. No invite in. Never kissed again.

I was still hanging around in group settings, sometimes hanging out in restaurants. I was still interested. I talked the ears off of mutual friends (thank you for your patience). They knew it wouldn’t work even if it DID happen. I kinda knew it, too. But I still liked her. Hadn’t dated for a while other than her. It was a goal.

She finally admitted to others that she wasn’t interested in me, but did like having me around for the attention. Mutual friends told her it was mean to waste my time like that. She reacted with a shrug. *GASP* was my reaction upon this report. Still I continued to hang around. Can’t recall for how long.

A sister of hers was getting married. Among her sisters, she was the only one NOT yet married or engaged. The Catholic wedding was on a Saturday, but she asked me to go as a date. Met a lot of her family, dull as I was, I was clearly a beard or being used to keep the pressure off her a bit. In advice column parlance, in this phase I had the knack of falling into the “friend” track instead of the “boyfriend” track.

During the wedding, someone had taped letters onto the soles of the groom’s shoes so when he kneeled for Communion it said “Send Help”. Really, really funny.

Later that night, I was to carpool with my brother to meet our parents for a weekend at the beach. As I drove with her to the reception, I mentioned looking forward to the beach. She got huffy and said: “Well, if you’re looking forward to the beach so much, you DON’T have to go the reception!” Then the weeks of being kept around, being a prop boyfriend/fiancé, not getting a thank you for sitting through a wedding all fell into place and I felt a bit of a spine forming. “Okay. I’ll drop you off, then.” Did just that. She slammed the door. I couldn’t wait to tell my friends. Drove to one friend’s workplace. We cracked up. Reported later that she was FURIOUS for days afterward, and they reinforced to her that I got fed up of being dragged around.

Eventually I think she moved to Seattle. Then a long while later I heard she got married.

A year ago I heard she had cancer, and that it was severe.

A few days ago mutual friends gave updates on her condition: fatal. She’s a mother and wife.

One of the friends posted a recent photo of her. The trend toward coming out of her shell continued. She looked radiant, proud, even prettier than when I knew her.

I feel for her grieving spouse and children. A horrible loss for them, and an awful burden for her, to know you will die and not get to see your children become adults. This children you love losing a parent. Your spouse burdened by your permanent absence.

My memories of her will remain true to the time. I’m still proud of my little stand, slow-coming though it was, but I’ve no illusions: that moment in no way fully reflects on the people we each were and became.

News and contemplations like this can lead to new resolve to strive for something inward, or for something outward. As it does in the plots of books and movies. Even now, though, through the sympathy and sadness I still sense myself wanting what I want, as before. Am feeling the impermanence of things more than usual. Slightly increases the resolve of “capture the day” when it comes to projects and other ambitions, but that could fluctuate based on what’s on tv or other distractions. And had the last few lines of Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool” running through my head today:

              We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

Goodbye, S. I regret not knowing you better, but am glad to know you became a mother with a supportive spouse and children. I wish them well, and can imagine the depth of their loss knowing an aspect of you (and being drawn to it), though I will never meet them. Life goes on. Until it doesn’t.

Parenting

Forecasting teen steam

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Oldest turned 11 today. Both kids are old and lanky enough for glimpses into how they’ll be as teenagers. Neurologically, the ability to feel empathy is at its lowest during adolescence. We all know and have lived THAT.

For years, I’ve joked that we take photos of our spawn NOW so we have something to harken back to and browse through while we’re worriedly hold vigil for their teen years late night / early morning returns. But, specifically, how horrible wil it be? Will it be mild? I look at my kids both in the moment and anticipate how I will regard the moment in the future. Trying to remember things as I will be remembering them…

What THING am I doing now that will become THAT THING they complain about to friends – on the phone or texting or chat rooms (holograms?) or in hangouts engaged in some activity they’re not supposed to be doing that will be rightfully mundane once they become of age and it is no longer illicit?

[Spawn] “Yeah, my dad totally did THAT THING again.”

[Peer] “What a drag, slick. Forget about that. Now let’s [insert proposal of resuming/initiating forbidden behavior].”

Best guess of THAT THING: critique/analysis of their pop culture consumption.

Parenting

Twinkies sense & sensibility

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Last weekend at a school auction dinner with a comfort food theme (meat loaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, iceberg lettuce wedge salad) the dessert options were: 1.) Pool bids among your table for a right to jockey in a “dessert dash” for a baked treat of your choice and return it to your table; 2.) A s’mores-type fudge delivered to the table; 3.) A box of 10 Twinkies.

As a kid, Twinkies were AMAZING. In teen years, I noticed that eating them was never satisfying – the dreams of a fulfilling golden-sponge cake never dreamy and never fulfilling with a bizarre burning sensation left in the throat.

In 1991, inspired by an issue of Spy magazine, I bought a box of Twinkies and: A.) Put one in a microwave for a minute (expanded slightly, smelled like burning plastic, “cream” was blackened but the cake was fine; B.) Placed a Twinkie in jar of water (swelled to 3x its size, kept its shape until I shook it then it all dissolved); C.) Left a Twinkie outside on the apartment’s patio railing for the birds (birds came and investigated, never, ever ate any – the Twinkie eventually disintegrated after a few day’s rain living an oblong ring of goo in its wake like a spontaneously exploded golden slug).

At this auction night, I ate a Twinkie. Almost ate all of it. I sucked out the “cream” and left some of the golden sponge cake flesh/rind on the table. Still gross. Spouse ate part of mine, too. Another relative at the table ate one. Took the remaining 8 home for the kids. Spouse said “I don’t think the kids have ever had Twinkies.” then mentioned to relatives “I don’t know that we’ve ever given the kids Twinkies.” Not a boast so much as giving our kids brand-name snacks is typically something we do. A statistical oddity.

Have spent the last 5 days selling the concept of eating a Twinkie to the kids as an after-snack dinner. Visions of sun-dappled moms giving their kids a treat after Wonder Bread sandwiches and Kool Aid drinks in our backyard (why aren’t the dads ever sun-dappled? They’re only shown as frustrated at the BBQ or fucking stuff up). “How about some Hostess treats?” Carefully blended selection of showbiz kids, also dun-dappled and in intense-gamboling mode yet quite sheveled: “Yay!” Small hands from all directions removing all selections from the dessert platter. Mom pleased, smiles at the camera and gives a head shake with a “I’m such a good provider.” and “Kids LOVE cramming artificial foamy lard dollops down their gullets” look in her eyes.

Our kids have declined to eat a Twinkie each day. The expiration date is approaching (contrary to myth, they do expire) and I will happily drop all 8 of these in the garbage. My little birds are ignoring Twinkies, too.

Parenting

Bookended moments

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This morning —

Dropped off J at school, who is almost 11. In the parking lot he made me roll down the car window and gave me a kiss goodbye. When we walk together, he still sometimes reaches out for my hand. Those times are diminishing, but I’m still grateful for them.

Tonight —

Setting L down to sleep, giving her a dream about (done nightly – I suggest an amusing dream) I made a joke about not being useful. She said “Papa, you are very useful. I could talk about the reasons why for 28 hours.”

Gush.