The Internet Is a Wild, Wonderful Place

In the immortal words of Liz Lemon: 

“I want to go to there.”

You would think at this point that we’ve seen it all. Every cat video, every meme, every gif, every ridiculous comment posted online. Especially now, in quarantine, all of us glued to our screens, our device more an appendage than it’s ever been before (seriously, we’ve been preparing for this pandemic for at least a decade, in this regard), it’s good to know that things can still surprise (and potentially delight) you when you’re surfing the Internet. Case in point. This caught my eye and I thought, That sounds kinda fun. Maybe the kids would like it. Then I scrolled down.

Wow. Just … wow.

“Not mine.” That is intense. And hilarious. Of course, I get where he’s coming from, even if I vehemently disagree with his take. For the record, Kylo Ren is a fascinating character and Adam Driver is probably the best actor who’s ever been in a Star Wars movie. (Shout-out to Mal and Jason, intrepid hosts of the Binge Mode: Star Wars podcast, for this insight).

I’m a fan of cataloguing and curating and organizing and that obviously extends to my kids’ interests. I mean, why have kids if you’re not going to create like-minded buddies to hang out with? (It’s not like you’re ever going to see your adult friends ever again.)

So, for instance, we’ll listen to Lithium, the grunge and alternative station on XM Radio, because it’s important for them to be well-versed in ‘90s rock. But there will be no Collective Soul. Or Candlebox. Or Our Lady Peace. We have to have standards.

And yeah, I’ll cosign on the 11-year-old’s burgeoning interest in metal music. With limits. Black Sabbath? Sure. Classic. Slipknot? Nope. I don’t think so.

Yes, I have an 8-year-old who requests I spin Clash records for him on the turntable. That’s a real thing that happens. And he can quote from SNL, too.

Of course, sometimes, things get by me. They like Imagine Dragons, for instance. That’s a failing on my part. I try to console myself with the fact that the 8-year-old thinks the only Elvis is Costello, but still, this is a mark on my record. So, for every one of those songs we hear we’re definitely going to hear two songs by The Decemberists or The National. I have to counteract that garbage that’s rotting their brains. 

It occurred to me recently that I think fatherhood used to be very different. That being a father also made you an adult. It was a position of some authority. And responsibility. Being a father connoted accomplishment. You know, fedoras and pipes and tie clips. Real adult-type stuff.

But now, it’s really just an extended adolescence. Nerd heaven. Especially with boys. Seriously, I’m not sure I ever have to grow up. And it’s every woman’s fantasy. Grow up, get married, and spend the rest of your life living in a comic book shop with three giant nerds.

Think about it. Look around for a second. Star Wars movies and now TV shows. Superhero movies. Weird cartoons. Lego sets and action figures. There’s a new Pearl Jam album out. Adam Sandler is on TV singing goofy songs. Plus, Green Day is still a band. And so is Weezer! There’s a Nintendo system now that has all the games inside of it—no more cartridges. This is what it’s like to be a dad with boys in this day and age. 14-year-old me would be beside himself.

This is fatherhood now. And it’s like it’s 1996. 

Forever.

Look Out, Banksy

I've discovered something about life in quarantine with kids. I learned a valuable lesson and felt I should pass it along. If your child gets interested in anything for more than five minutes while staying at home at this time, just do one thing: Get out of the way.

This is an amazing, fleeting experience. Appreciate it.

Of course, you might get corralled into participating, in order to keep your kid from remembering how bored and cranky they are. Just know: This won’t last forever. And don’t worry. That Zoom happy hour will be here sooner than you know.

I got corralled. I got … conscripted. To be an artist’s assistant for an afternoon. His medium: Street art. His form: Chalk. And no, the driveway was not quite big enough to contain the epic artistic vision of our 8-year-old budding Banksy. Only the street itself would do.

Have you ever been told how to create art by a small child with a Kubrickian level of intensity and an Andersonian eye for detail and specificity? No? I have. And now I think I know what it would have been like to be an assistant at The Factory in the 1970s and being directed by Warhol to urinate on the canvasses. 

I mean, it’s not my vision, exactly, but okay …

Of course there was a story and it was very elaborate. It involved purple, multi-tentacled aliens from some distant planet, zooming down to Earth, and our street in particular, in order to steal the Street Hockey sign that had been his previous masterpiece.

Let me back up.

Quarantine does funny things to kids. Like, they decide that they must play street hockey, even if they have never played it before and the equipment has gathered dust in the garage for months. Possibly years. And because it is called “street” hockey, it must be played in the actual “street,” never mind how expansive or accommodating the driveway already happens to be.

And no sporting activity can be undertaken in this day and age without thinking about branding and a proper logo. Hence, his previous chalk art creation announcing to the world what activity this is, because the net and the sticks and the tennis ball didn’t quite get it across.

And yes, it was such an amazing work of art, the only logical conclusion is that aliens would want to come halfway across the universe and steal it.

I did my best, but he was a very exacting taskmaster and if there are any flaws in this mural, I guarantee you that they are 100 percent my fault.

“I actually made the tentacles thicker, like this.”

“That’s not the right purple.”

“Where are the controls? How is he flying the ship?”

“That’s not the right purple, either. It’s this one.”

“Just let me do it.”

Yes, I was fired from assisting an 8-year-old in making chalk art. How was your week?

The 11-year-old, of course, went his own way. And he’d never admit it, but he gets his taste in music (and everything else) from me. No question.

An Open Letter to Fox

Dear A-Holes,

Are you kidding me with this? We’re all struggling to keep our families safe and healthy, to stay at home, to not go out of our minds. And what are you doing? What kind of nonsense are you contributing to the world at this point? What severe lack of judgment are you showing?

I have kids. Two of them. I’m doing my best to keep them safe and hopeful for a brighter future. And you are not helping.

What in the world are you doing, making us wait all this time for another episode of Lego Masters? Like I said, I have kids. And I’m trying to keep them safe. And sane. But here’s the problem. They’re boys. They’re inherently crazy. And dangerous. And all that has been amped up to 11 at this precarious time in history. Did you know boys like to wrestle? And fight? They’re ridiculous little human beings and they can’t stop sitting on each other or smacking each other or body-slamming each other in the trampoline like they’re at Lollapalooza in ’93.

It is a full-time job (with zero benefits)  to keep these maniacs from murdering one other.

And I can’t take them to a hospital! I can’t take them to get medical treatment of any kind. No clinics, no doctor’s office, nothing. If they get injured, I’m going to have to rig up a rudimentary Civil War-style field hospital in my living room to treat their injuries. And nobody wants that. It won’t go well. Whiskey sedatives and kitchen knives half-cauterized over an open flame are not appropriate elements of medical equipment to heal wounded children.

For one hour a week, they are rapt. They are quiet. They are zombified. They are preoccupied by Will Arnett’s one-liners and the adorable bickering of Sam and Jessica, the hyped-up teamwork of Mark and Boone, the incredible Lego snobbishness of Tyler and Amy. They are not sitting on each other or trying to bend each other into pretzel shapes. For one lousy precious hour each week. And what do you do? You take that hour away from us.

Did I mention they like to sit on top of each other? Like, all the time?

Look, I’m a fan. I appreciate a lot of things you’ve done over the years. Parker Lewis Can’t Lose. 21 Jump Street. Herman’s Head. And what would my generation be without Beverly Hills, 90210? But for all these great contributions to pop culture, this week, you have utterly failed.

Want to make it up to me? I better see Kiefer Sutherland in 24: Pandemic during the 2020-2021 TV season. (That’s a joke, but I do want 10% if that actually happens.) Also, another season of Lego Masters. It’s the least you could do after pulling these shenanigans and letting us all down.

Wait—what?

It airs tonight? And the theme is Star Wars? Yes! Why didn’t you say so?

I’ve still got my eye on you …

Sincerely,

Concerned Dad of Two Raucous Boys

(and Former President of the Midwest Chapter of the Parker Lewis Can’t Lose Fan Club)

Is Parenting a Wormhole?

One of my favorite moments in 2003’s Old School takes place during the elaborate third act where the fraternity must pass a bunch of academic and physical tests to stay on campus. (Side note: This film was made by the Academy Award-nominated co-screenwriter/director of Joker, Todd Phillips—chew on that for a second. The world in 2020 is crazy in so many, many ways.) 

In the debate portion, Frank the Tank (Will Ferrell) goes up against renowned political strategist (at least at the time), James Carville, a ringer brought in the by the university. But Frank turns the tables and delivers an amazing rebuttal on economic issues, shutting Carville down. When told he’s won the debate, Frank says, “What happened? I blacked out.”

Welcome to parenting (during a pandemic … and otherwise).

Being down the parenting rabbit hole is sort of like living in California (speaking from personal experience). There are no seasons, so time never passes. Years go by as if they are months and you are perpetually 23 years old there. It wasn’t until I first looked in a mirror after moving back to Michigan that I learned the truth. I saw my reflection and said, “Who the hell is that guy?”

Seriously, I’m not sure what happened. My last entry was five years ago. I felt I had to update this old masthead because that cute diapered bum belongs to a kid who's started growing a moustache and gets weird when we talk about girls and rocks out to Black Sabbath and Nirvana. 

I’d heard there were tween years, but we seem to have jumped ahead to full-blown teenagerdom in 6th grade. It feels like I’m living with an 11-year-old version of Judd Nelson from The Breakfast Club and he’s cast me as the dweeb principal who’s cramping his style. Fun times.

Now this. It’s like I went out to get Flintstones vitamins and toilet paper at Target and got home to find out that we all now live in a Steven Soderbergh movie. And, by the way, if it had to be that, why couldn’t it have been Ocean’s Eleven? I mean, really. The worst ailment to befall anyone in that movie is a little bit of heartburn experienced by Brad Pitt’s Rusty Ryan in the final scene. To be fair, he brings it on himself. Have you seen the junk he eats throughout the entire movie?

Sorry, where was I? Oh, right. The Academy recognized Todd Phillips for directing a movie. What kind of world do we all live in now?

It’s time for pandemic parenting. We’ve seen all the memes and social posts. Talk about wartime! These are SOS and distress signals if I’ve ever seen them. We’re all slowly (or maybe rapidly) coming to realize something. Kids need to go to school. Because we are not meant to spend this much time with them. They are really not that fun every minute of every day in a confined space. It reminds me of when they were younger and every single episode of Caillou seemed to go on for a painful, interminable length of time. Now it’s like there’s a Caillou marathon and it’s the only thing on TV and you can’t change the channel or turn the TV off. Ever.

Sure, it has its moments. Like, have you ever seen a bunch of 8-year-olds on a group video chat? I don’t think any of them was having the same conversation. It’s like the War Room in Dr. Strangelove. Although, probably slightly more productive.

Of course we bide our time with too many episodes of Clone Wars, too many snacks, and too many wasted hours. But, we did also accidentally manage to encourage and facilitate some creativity, with perhaps the most unlikely of resources in the age of Disney+ and FaceTime:

Cardboard!

So far, we have an 8-year-old constructing a secret lab and collaborating with his 11-year-old brother on an elaborate marble run. They spent hours on this! Maybe we’ll survive after all. When asked what he’s working on inside the secret lab, the kid is very cagey. I think he is building a spaceship to get off this ridiculous planet and away from all the stupid humans.

By the way, this refrigerator box has been folded up in the garage since last summer. Why? Because I got distracted by baseball practice and conferences and trick-or-treating and Lego building and I forgot about it. Parenting genius or lazy bastard who lucked out? 

I’ll let you be the judge.

So, stay safe, stay healthy, try to stay sane. Take this time to reflect. Ponder the mysteries of the universe. Here, I’ll get you started:

The Academy has now given the guy who made Road Trip with Tom Green the exact same number of Best Director nominations as the guy who made Do the Right Thing and Malcolm X.

2020, people.