Category: humor

Nothin’ But a Good Time: 1985 – 1991

I have always had difficulty making friends. It is still true today. Thankfully, today I do not view this as a negative. I now recognize that for me, depth is more important than breadth, when it comes to friends. When I was a kid, that was not the case. So obviously, the best thing to do for a child who doesn’t make friends easily, is to pick them up and move them away from the only neighborhood they ever knew. Don’t just move them out of the neighborhood, you should take them from the city, and move them to rural America. And that’s how I eventually turned to a life of crime.

Those of you keeping score know that I, in fact, did not turn to a life of crime. At least not yet. However, at 11, with my parents moving us to a tiny community in Northeastern Arizona, it sure felt like a disastrous decision that I would surely pay a high price for…in the form of therapy much later in life. Indeed, it took several years for me to find my place in this new home. Friends were few and far between. But there was kindness and today, I still stay in touch with a few of my classmates from my middle and high school days.

The first kind person to establish a friendship with me was Preston Bigler. I recently reconnected with Preston and I let him know that I appreciated the kindness he showed that new kid back then. I also let him know that I wished I had shown him that same kindness back then, telling him how much I appreciated his friendship. When I look back on those days now, I realize that one of the first bonds we made centered around music. I would learn a valuable lesson from that all too brief friendship with Preston; that of the unifying power of one of the most personal, inner representations of the self we can make as human beings: The music we choose to listen to.

By this time, I was starting to take my sense of self out on more and more test drives. This is when I realized I liked girls. I also really liked music. I started noticing that girls liked guys who made music. If Billy Joel and Ric Ocasek were pairing up with supermodels, there was hope for all of us. Please don’t judge. I was a pre-teen boy, that liked to think about the big picture. With this newfound knowledge, I began to curate my own musical tastes. While I would never leave the Eagles or my Dad’s musical tastes behind, I wasn’t going to land Christie Brinkley with the arrows I currently had in my quiver.

Well time slips away, and leaves you with nothing mister, but boring stories of Glory Days…

I started listening to pop radio for the first time, branching out from the stuff I had been exposed to up to that point. We didn’t have cable/satellite television, so there was no MTV for me. I was relegated to watching “Friday Night Videos” in order to catch 60-90 minutes of music videos each week. It was still fascinating for me. That Christmas, my parents gave me my first, contemporary rock album: Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” From that point on, my discretionary income was usually dedicated to one of two things; music or girls. Oddly, that still mostly checks out.

You know I like my girls a little bit older…

I started buying albums in 1985. Wham’s “Make it Big”, followed shortly after by Tears for Fears’ “Songs From the Big Chair”; they were the first two. “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” was the first song during this time that I obsessed over when I first heard it on the radio. Mr. Mister, Dire Straits and The Outfield soon followed. I still turn up the radio when The Outfield’s “Your Love” is played.

Preston, whom we met a few paragraphs ago, made me copies of albums by Heart, Chicago, and the Thompson Twins. One thing that a less than vibrant social life affords, is an adequate amount of time alone in one’s room to listen to music. And that’s just what I did. Today, certain songs will take me directly back to that tiny, middle school bedroom. I came down with chicken pox at the end of 7th grade and missed the final three weeks of school. I listened to a ton of music in those three weeks. It was around this time that I first started hearing and seeing what would affectionately be called Hair Metal, when watching Friday Night Videos. The first to land their “hook” in me was Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name.”

If you could hear me think, this is what I’d say…

Bands like Poison, Ratt, Cinderella, and Warrant became the center of my music universe. This genre of music was many things. It was brash and rebellious. It was devil may care and created imagery of life being one big party. In attendance at this party: Girls, Girls, Girls. When not singing about girls, they were singing about rebellion and non-conformity. There were nuances between the party vibe of Poison and the more primal sounds of Guns and Roses and Skid Row. Again, I beg of you to remember that as a teenager, my personality had yet to develop into the rich and complex depths it has reached today. Now, I’m just happy to attend parties with one girl.

The world was new and exciting with all of this music to discover. It was also becoming clear that music was my bridge to making friends. It is that universal of a concept. Around the end of middle school, I decided to learn how to play the bass guitar after a brief but, successful affair with the cello. It was all part of my master plan to become the most charming and irresistible man in the world. Please re-read the section above about Billy Joel and Ric Ocasek.

By high school, Def Leppard’s “Hysteria” would become a phenomenon. They were less in your face than most of the other bands I was listening to. By that time in their career, they were a bit older. They threw in a tiny touch of social awareness, and that appealed to me. Plus, the girls really liked them. I implore you for even more forgiveness. The lack of depth in my motivation during this time still carries with it a tinge of embarrassment. I assure you that the sharing of my shallowness is nonetheless accurate.

By my junior year in high school, this decadent and rebellious chapter in my musical odyssey was nearing its apex and rapid, unavoidable demise. The year before, a couple of my classmates had formed a garage band. Two of those guys were in the school’s Jazz Band with me. As it happens, they were looking for someone to play bass. So, music was again a bridge spanning over the canyon separating me from a legitimate shot at a social life. Granted, that social life was in a small town, but it was about as vibrant as anybody else in the town possessed.

Paint a picture of the days gone by…

I graduated high school in May of 1991. Hair Metal was still reigning supreme, consisting of the most requested artists on MTV. I had finally clawed my way up the social ladder, as far as my musical prowess would take me. Few predicted what 1991 would bring to the world of music. We were all still riding high on the party that was The 80s. We never anticipated a gritty, emotionally infused sound, popular in Seattle, would be taking over and defining the soul of an entire generation. On a personal level, I never could foresee the loss I would experience that Fall. The party was coming to an end. Thankfully, music would eventually return to me, building more bridges along the way. My relationship with music would mature. I would mature. The real world was waiting.

Up Next: The Dark Ages: 1991 to 1994

Ode to the Sonoran Seasons

It’s now the middle of April in Phoenix, Arizona.  Born in a Phoenix suburb, with the exception of a seven-year respite in the cool pines of Northern Arizona, I’ve spent my entire life in the Sonoran Desert.  While living in Phoenix has its perks (I haven’t shoveled snow for nearly 30 years), we like to aggressively complain about the grueling Summer we experience in the Valley of the Sun.  I wrote the following, Ode to the Sonoran Seasons, last year and shared it on my Facebook feed. I feel it worthy of revision and introducing it to those that didn’t see it the first time around!

Ode to the Sonoran Seasons

It is April in the Sonoran Desert. Here, seasons don’t follow the typical Hallmark Channel depiction of traditional Northern Hemisphere quarterly orientation towards the sun. No, four rational progressions through the meteorological seasons are far too simplistic for those who dwell in the desert.  What follows is a more accurate description of our Sonoran hope and madness (Thank you, Roger Clyne).   

April through May: Pre-Hell

Our few weeks of what would constitute Summer somewhere else in the United States are finished and we usher in Pre-Hell. Pre-Hell will take us through Memorial Day.  Temperatures hover in the 90s, occasionally flirting with triple digits.  Your backyard swimming pool begins to look very tempting.  You falsely believe that the water is warm enough to jump in and enjoy a respite from the heat.  But no, the water is ice cold.  All at once you’re reminded of what is to come in the form of searing heat while the chlorinated water reminds you that two weeks ago, low temperatures were still in the 40s.  We know the next season, Hell, is laughing mercilessly at us, knowing nothing we do will stop the ever nearing oven. 

June through Mid-July: Hell

Theoretically, life should not exist when highs reach 118 degrees.  Defying all odds, we persist.  Hell is a six to eight week period when the rest of the nation experiences Summer. Common experiences include your shoes adhering to asphalt, 2nd degree burns on the palms of your hands…1st degree burns everywhere else, and the slow agony of a modified grieving process (denial, bargaining, depression, anger, anger, anger, fury, loss of total feeling, hallucinations and total combustion).  Some will wear the experience as a badge of courage (sick people) while others vow to never go through such experience again just to stay around to complain about it, year after year (stupid people, much like myself).  Sometime after the July 4th Independence Day celebrations, strange events begin occurring in the atmosphere.  Towering banks of clouds being to slowly become visible over the Superstition Mountains in the afternoons and the familiar yet all too out of place smell of rain can almost be detected.  A sign of relief perhaps?  No, our desert mistress is merely playing with our naive dispositions.  The reality is a much crueler affair.

Mid-July through Mid-September: Ha Ha, You Thought Hell Was Almost Over

This season is marked by the temporary nirvana of the cool relief of a Monsoon shower, followed by 10 straight days of Hell with the addition of humidity.   If you’re fortunate to have a backyard swimming pool, you’re saddened to know that all the benefits of the said pool are negated by the fact that the water is now like a warm bath on a horrid and humid August day.  We are encouraged though.  Society reminds us that the kids will return to school and soon will be planning their Halloween costumes.  What others experience as Fall is on the way.  Or is it?

Mid-September through October: I Give Up

The promise of college football and post-season baseball lose their luster quickly.  While the rest of the country is experiencing beautiful Autumn days picking apples and enjoying brisk October nights, our struggle continues.  You know relief is on the way, but you also realize that you’ll be trick or treating in shorts and flip flops.

November: Pre-Fall

November will usher in Pre-Fall.  Pre-Fall is our first glimpse at true weather relief.  The high temperatures fall back into the 70s and 80s and you can almost get excited for the upcoming holidays.  We hit the sweet spot with weather that others would generally call Summer. You look outside and you can almost imagine what others around the nation see when they look out their own windows; leaves changing colors.  Of course, that doesn’t really happen in the Sonoran Desert.  We don’t have too many deciduous trees (if only we could harness their intelligence and decide not to live here!).  The following seasons are brief if they appear at all and are more loosely structured.  Half of Canada has now moved to Phoenix, escaping the snow.

Novemberish: Fall

We eat turkey. It’s a 50/50 chance the air conditioning will be on in the house.

December through January: What Might Be Interpreted as Winter

Somewhere between December and January, if we’re lucky, we will experience 3 days of Winter.  I mean, it’s a mild Winter.  Like, I’ve seen ice before.  Once. Fortunately, this “harsh” cold rarely sticks around long.  It may even make a second appearance and we’ll throw some wood in the fireplace.

February through March: Spring

To be clear, we mainly know it’s Spring because Major League Baseball and a slew of Midwestern permafrosted visitors begin to mingle with the Canadians, to watch the Boys of Summer brush off the rust.  It truly is a magical time.  Having quickly forgotten the terrible experience we just went through, we begin to brag to everyone about how lovely the weather is.

The whole experience is surreal.  In April we start again, the dreadful anticipation of what is to come.  Yet we stay, unfortunate prisoners to the desert beauty.  All the while, swearing that this will be the last Summer we are going to put up with.

You Can’t Fire the Boss’s Kid – Using Humor to Help Keep Parenting In Perspective

Being a father is the most difficult endeavor I’ve yet to experience.  While it certainly is rewarding and I wouldn’t trade a moment for anything, it has equally provided me with the most frustrating moments of my life.  One of my most reliable coping mechanisms for that frustration, exhaustion and mental anguish involved in parenting is humor.  I’ve actually found it a valuable coping mechanism for many other of life’s challenges I’ve experienced.

For instance, a while back I searched for the humor in a frustrating moment in parenting.  Looking back, I can’t remember what my daughter had done to act as a catalyst for the mind musings.  It could have been one of the countless times that she totally neglected to take care of her household responsibilities.  It could have been the flooding of her bathroom floor to enable her to slip around like she was ice skating.  The calamities all run together at times. But I digress.

This particular attempt to diffuse the “Dad’s head is going to explode” episode with humor, I came to a realization that my day job’s work of managing a team of employees is noticeably similar to raising a child.  Here was my conclusion:

Raising a child is in essence like managing a semi-belligerant employee who is on a continuous performance improvement plan.  Except you can’t fire the employee, because they are the boss’s kid.  You are just stuck with them until they put in their 18 years and start drawing their college pension.

That’s all it took to diffuse whatever ill feeling I was experience at the time.  Some times, you just have to laugh.  Have you used humor in a similar way to help put things in perspective?  Tell me about your experiences!  Leave a comment below!

Plug In, Monitor For Errors & Don’t Leave Unattended – The Undeniable Fear In Being A Parent

12 years ago next week, on a blistering hot March afternoon, Shani and I put a brand new baby girl in a car sea and ushered her to her new home. At the time I remember thinking that it can’t be this simple for first time parents to leave the hospital with a newborn infant. Nobody inspected the car we were leaving in. Nobody ensured the rear facing car seat was properly installed. There were no licensees to apply for and no one reassuring us that we were going to be okay. It was more like releasing a rescued marine mammal back into the ocean. Go…be free!

The fear involved with parenting has yet to go away. No, it is very much still there today. We won’t even discuss the fear associated with 7 preteen girls taking over our home tonight for “S’s” birthday sleep over extravaganza. I’m talking about the deeply embedded fear that somehow, I’m not doing the whole fatherhood thing right. That same fear I felt 12 years ago while buckling my daughter into her car seat.

The only solace I’m usually able to find is the rational understanding that there is no technical manual to follow on how to be a good dad. Show me an expert on fatherhood and I’ll show you a fool. Yes, there are some underlying principles that can guide us on how to raise healthy and well adjusted children. But those principles are akin to an instruction manual for an appliance telling us to plug it in, monitor for error messages and don’t leave them unattended for too long. Each model we bring into the world is unique and is influenced by far too many variables to accurately give us a proper set of instructions.

Dads (and Moms), it is okay to feel like you don’t know all the right decisions to make. Sometimes, the best we can do is to know ourselves. After all, the little creature occupying your home is part of you and your personality. You can model behavior consistent with your values and you can love. You can provide them with the safety to learn their own life lessons. You can realize that the majority of the hard work involved in turning our children in to successful and caring adults, lies with the child and the decisions they will make. They will ultimately decide how to curate themselves. Somehow, we as parents will need to learn to accept this.

Happy Birthday “S”! One day you may read this and realize how lost Dad felt at times. Someday you’ll figure out that I plugged you in, monitored for errors and didn’t leave you unattended for too long. Someday, perhaps you will experience the same journey.

I’d like to hear from you! Do you have parenting fears or question whether you’re doing it right? Do you have any sage advice to offer as I continue on my own unique journey?