Category: Parenting

  • ODDS and ENDS: Anyone Remember This, Super Bowl, and Sketchbooks

    (Guidelines are for losers)

    Does anyone remember Faces of Death? I’ve never seen it, nor do I want to. But the other day the movie popped in my head. I had a flashback of a memory from high school of finding out that it would be playing at a local dollar theatre at midnight, and how we all had to go. Through a combination of curfews and chickening-out, most of us didn’t go and see it. The handful of guys who did go just ended up arguing about how much of the movie was real or faked. (Turns out most of it was faked.) It’s funny thinking back on how controversial Faces of Death was back in the early 90’s, but also it’s not surprising how we couldn’t keep away from it. And don’t get me started on Banned from TV.

    I pick KC. I will also buy frozen hot wings from Trader Joe’s along with those frozen Mac ‘n Cheese balls this weekend for the game. Don’t give two craps about Usher; not that I have anything against him, he’s a talented man, just never been a fan. So… yeah; super bowl, yeah…

    I haven’t been drawing in my sketchbook lately. I have in my bio that I am a “sketchbook enthusiast,” but with my lack of production lately, I’m not sure if I can call myself that anymore. (It also begs the question; does anyone read bio’s let alone mine?) My daughter got a couple of sketchbooks for Christmas after having been inspired by her art teacher. She tries to draw something every day, and most of what she draws are cartoon characters, which is great. I hope that she establishes this as a habit that she keeps up with. Not that I am expecting her to become some “artist.” I just would like for her to have a creative outlet – a way to express herself and her feelings. Nothing bad comes from that.

  • This is What Dad Does

    I got to do something last night with my daughter that I have been looking forward to for years. We went to a presentation of four works-in-progress puppet shows. The venue was Dixon Place down in the Lower East Side, and the showing was part of their Puppet Blok series. And, it was a school night, so this was a very special occasion. My daughter got to experience the world of puppets that I had been in, and meet some of the people I have been working with for over 15 years.

    The kid has known since forever that puppetry was the “thing” that I did in New York, but for most of the time when she thought of Dad and puppets, she was thinking “Muppets.” Slowly, as she’s grown, and I have shown her videos, and pictures of the type of work I was involved in. Some of it was traditional puppets, and some of it was mime, and other shows were more about movement and physical theatre. I never did marionettes because that is a hard skill to hone, and those guys are crazy.

    Last night, the kid got to have her first experience in seeing what it was that her father did. And I was especially happy that we chose last night because two good friends were showing their work, and both of them are very talented women who I have worked for. I wanted my daughter to see women being themselves, out front, creating art, and leading their projects.

    I was also a little nervous that the kid would get bored with the show. I learned a while ago that just because something is important to me, doesn’t mean it will be important to her. I’m not looking for her to want to become an artist or a performer. I just would like for her to have an appreciation of the arts, and the creative process. And works at this stage can be rough, very much “in progress,” and still a ways from a final form.

    But I needn’t have been concerned. She got it. She was into it. She was a great audience member as well. All four of the pieces engaged her, and lead her not to ask a bunch of questions, but to tell me how each piece made her feel. At the talk back after the show, she was a little shy to give her comments, but she whispered them to me, and I spoke up for her. Yeah, she got it.

    And it was a late night. We were riding the D train home, and she snuggled up next to be with her show program in her hand. I’m pretty sure she had a good time. I got what I wanted, which was to share a part of me with the kid.

  • Rockin’ Out in the Car

    You know how much Taylor Swift I listened to this weekend? And this has nothing to do with the Kansas City/Baltimore game on Sunday. I was the “Dad Taxi” and, oh, did I get my own version of The Eras Tour in the car. Yes, two Tween-girls were eating candy, chatting non-stop between singing Taylor songs, and it was like I wasn’t even there.

    And I couldn’t have been happier.

    I had no idea what to expect when I found out the kid was going to be a girl all those years ago. I had two older brothers, so my childhood was nothing but boy things. I can admit I was nervous about raising a girl, but not afraid to do it. I just knew that I was going to enter a place of parenting that I had no frame of reference, and that’s not bad – it’s just a challenge.

    I know that I only have a few years left of her openly acting like she likes me. I know what will come next and that’s okay. I want her to be her own person, and she has to pull away from me to accomplish that. It’s not like she’s going away, but if she’s just a little bit like the adolescent that I was, then she will be in her room all the time, listening to really “deep” music, and no one will be able to understand her. (I was pretty pretentious and obnoxious all at the same time.) But if she’s also like me, she’ll come to the other side of it, and will still talk to me. I got closer to my parents the older I got.

    But for now, I got be witness her getting excited about music and being with her friends. Maybe I did eavesdrop, but it was surprisingly reassuring to hear her voice her opinions and make some pretty funny jokes. Watching the kid grow up.

  • Walking the City (Unedited)

    I’m not giving anything away here, as my kid’s birthday isn’t too far away. It’s a known secret in our house, and the kid is expecting something from us. And I want to do something for her, because birthdays should be fun, no matter how old you get – Everyone should get to have at least one day a year where they feel special. But being that she is still a kid, birthdays mean that other children will be involved.

    Today, my task was to complete the acquiring of items for the goodie bags. To accomplish this, I would have to leave Harlem and head down to the Lower East Side and the Village. And I was looking forward to this because I don’t leave my neighborhood as much as I used to.

    I don’t mind the subway ride down to Delancey Street, and popping out on the street, I always feel turned around, even though I have been down there hundreds of times. One of the first rehearsals I had when I moved to New York wasn’t too far from there, and in 2006, I think there was only one condo tower around. I walked over to Economy Candy (The greatest candy store on God’s sugary Earth!) to get the treats for the goodie bags, and that joint is just down the street from the Paul’s Boutique corner.

    Over in the Village I stopped by a local party store to pick up signs, and other stuff to decorate. I was struck by how many closed up store fronts were around there, even though there’s lots of construction happening. It seems like people are willing to spend millions on condos down there, but there won’t be anywhere to go and shop, or hang out.

    All that said, even on a rain and not so cold January overcast day, I still enjoy walking around this City. I am still fascinated by the people, and the sounds I hear, and the way each block can have a different vibe and attitude. At one of my lowest points in my life, when my mother was sick and I knew what was coming, I would walk all over Manhattan, and just be in and around people and the City. There is something comforting for me in being enveloped by this place, and just walking along and experiencing it. It was true for Poe, and Whitman, and even Brando and Kerouac; all walking the streets, seeing what they could see.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Worst Week, Worster Week, Worstist Week, and I Quit

    So, the week started off bad with the Cowboys choking, but at least the Eagles collapse was a much bigger story. One might say that there was little solace in that fact, but they would be wrong – I really enjoyed watching the Eagles lose to Tampa Bay. I am pissed about the Cowboys, but this will be the last I write about it. Just can’t believe that no one showed up to play on that team. Sure, every year I think they will win the Super Bowl (that’s how I was raised) yet in a realistic sense, I thought for sure they would make it to the Conference Championship, and then lose to San Francisco or Detroit; whoever made it there. But enough of that.

    Then my wife hurt her back on Monday.  Now, she is one tough woman, and I have been doing my best to comfort her, but there is nothing I can do to take her pain away. It’s a pretty helpless situation to be in, and that goes for both of us. Slowly she’s been getting her mobility back, but it has been rough going. The whole week got shot to hell for both of us, so it feels like we are running behind, too. I know she will be better soon, and we will get thing back on track, but it’s just frustrating.

    And then the kid had a big test at school that she was positive that she wasn’t going to do well on. It’s a reading and writing test, and she’s not wrong, she is having trouble with writing her thoughts down. Part of this is left over effects from Covid causing school closings, and this is the educational crack she fell into. And unfortunately, many other kids did as well. I helped her prep for the test this week, and she can comprehend and do the work, but she just doesn’t have much confidence in herself when it comes to the test. This was another place that I felt very helpless this week. I was trying to encourage her, build up her confidence, and I even used sports metaphors about how you have to believe and expect to win first, then put in the hard work to be successful. I don’t know… We haven’t got the results yet on the test, so it’s agonizing waiting to hear how she did.

    Finally, to shit out my week, I learned yesterday that a good friend of mine from college died suddenly the night before. There was no warning… they were here and then they weren’t. Logically, it’s been twenty years since I was in college, and unfortunately these things will happen now. That’s a meaningless thing to say because logic in these situations never makes anyone feel better. I hadn’t seen them in close to eighteen years. I hadn’t spoken to them in, like, fifteen years. Hadn’t communicated with them in five, and the last interaction we had was about five months ago when we “liked” each other’s pictures. Just thought there would be one more chance. Like the next time I was in Texas, I would head out to the theatre they worked at, and I would see them. And they would be friendly and kind, and hug, because they were kind. The kindest. They were especially kind to me when I was new in the theatre department, and didn’t know anything. They were kind to help me then, and as I see the tributes on social media, I am hearing again about their kindness, and how wonderful they were to everyone.