This is a recurring theme, so I'll generalize the interaction- it always runs the same course, regardless of what the person is asking about.
customer: I'm looking for (a subject/book/author)?
me: Okay, if we have (the thing you're looking for) it will be in this section here.
customer: But, I'm looking for (repeats request for subject/book/author).
me: Mmmhm, we'd file that in this section.
customer: Uh, but I'm looking for (elaboration on previous request).
me: Yes, well if we had anything about (the thing you're looking for) it would be right here in this section.
customer: But, do you know what I'm talking about?
me: Yes, you're looking for (subject/book/author), and we would file it right here, in this section.
customer: Oh. But wouldn't it go (somewhere else)?
me: No, when we get that (subject/book/author), this is where it goes.
customer: Are you sure?
me: ....
And no, I'm not exaggerating for effect here....
2.25.2012
Sunset Strip Billboards 1974-1975
Retro-riffic!
and one for the Wife:
Licorice Pizza!
Fire up the wayback machine, Sherman...
Aaaaaand, one for Meek:
The whole set is completely amazing, do click through and browse around.
and one for the Wife:
Licorice Pizza!
Fire up the wayback machine, Sherman...
Aaaaaand, one for Meek:
The whole set is completely amazing, do click through and browse around.
politics: Taibbi's definative piece on the GOP Clown Car primary
A work of art.
This article should be required reading for everyone confused by the epic parade of idiocy on display in the current GOP primary.
and a PS from the equally indispensable Charles Pierce, commenting on the source of the philosophy to which all serious GOP contenders must adhere.
Oh, sure, your average conservative will insist his belief system is based upon a passion for the free market and limited government, but that's mostly a cover story. Instead, the vast team-building exercise that has driven the broadcasts of people like Rush and Hannity and the talking heads on Fox for decades now has really been a kind of ongoing Quest for Orthodoxy, in which the team members congregate in front of the TV and the radio and share in the warm feeling of pointing the finger at people who aren't as American as they are, who lack their family values, who don’t share their All-American work ethic.
This article should be required reading for everyone confused by the epic parade of idiocy on display in the current GOP primary.
and a PS from the equally indispensable Charles Pierce, commenting on the source of the philosophy to which all serious GOP contenders must adhere.
Recall it because now, in 2012, every single one of the four remaining Republican candidates for president essentially have signed onto Charlie Duke's program. Oh, they've shined it up. It's not draped in camo any more, and the four of them are considerably less well-armed than the people who were pushing this 20 years ago, but they've all come around to the basic notion. What was once the province of people who were flirting with armed sedition is now a position that any Republican who wants to have a serious chance at national office has to take. Rick Perry based his entire campaign for presidency on this very point, and now he's heading up a group of Tenther SuperFriends on behalf of N. Leroy Gingrich.
books: how trade works
Most used shops have these weird restrictions on what you can do with trade (weird to me anyway, as our trade is good on whatever we stock), presumably motivated by the fear that people will bring in a bunch of icky, boring books and turn them into an awesome, collectible book. Our late, unlamented competitor was a particularly egregious abuser, disallowing whole sections of the store and formats of books from their trade system. If you brought in, say, pocket books your trade slip was only good on other pocket books.
Completely ridiculous.
If you know what you're doing, if you buy books mindfully and carefully, you shouldn't care what people use their trade on.
Here's an example of someone bringing in a bunch of okay stuff (solid books, or good books with problems) for trade and taking out a "good" book, defined as a very saleable title you don't see very often. The customer in question is one of the scanner trolls who let their phone do their thinking, but a bit more ambitious than most- he also picks up books he thinks he can trade to us. So, a predatory character who wants to turn common stuff he can't sell online into less common stuff he thinks he can.
Today's interaction had him bringing in about a grocery bag of books which the store could really use, salable authors we can never keep in stock, some neat editions of stuff (a Joseph Campbell book with a DJ, a 1st edition of a later Maugham book that wasn't in great shape) and some cool if not very salable items (a history of a particular theater in Ireland).
Grand total, $25 in trade.
He immediately turned it around for a clean copy of Star Strangled Banger, a Ralph Steadman art book.
By itself, a way cooler book than anything we got. But we're a bookstore, not a library- we want to sell stuff, not stockpile it. I mean you obviously want nice books, but in the context of selling them to a happy customer.
From my perspective, this was a great trade- we were happy, he was happy, everybody won.
Why was I happy when he walked away with the "best" book in the deal?
Because the books we got priced out around $100. Of that, roughly $40 comes from books I know will sell fast. So we come out ahead, even if I totally tanked on the rest of the buy and those books just mope around the shelves for a few years.
From a personal perspective, sure I'd rather sell 'fun' books than boring ones- or buy them, for that matter.
But $40 worth of books is $40 worth of books, whether it's one cool 1st edition or a grocery bag of Agatha Christie paperbacks. The business doesn't care what you sell as long as you make your nut.
Also, this is an edge case- 95% of customers pretty much buy what they bring in. Getting all control-freaky about trade is mostly pointless even if you aren't a strong buyer.
Completely ridiculous.
If you know what you're doing, if you buy books mindfully and carefully, you shouldn't care what people use their trade on.
Here's an example of someone bringing in a bunch of okay stuff (solid books, or good books with problems) for trade and taking out a "good" book, defined as a very saleable title you don't see very often. The customer in question is one of the scanner trolls who let their phone do their thinking, but a bit more ambitious than most- he also picks up books he thinks he can trade to us. So, a predatory character who wants to turn common stuff he can't sell online into less common stuff he thinks he can.
Today's interaction had him bringing in about a grocery bag of books which the store could really use, salable authors we can never keep in stock, some neat editions of stuff (a Joseph Campbell book with a DJ, a 1st edition of a later Maugham book that wasn't in great shape) and some cool if not very salable items (a history of a particular theater in Ireland).
Grand total, $25 in trade.
He immediately turned it around for a clean copy of Star Strangled Banger, a Ralph Steadman art book.
By itself, a way cooler book than anything we got. But we're a bookstore, not a library- we want to sell stuff, not stockpile it. I mean you obviously want nice books, but in the context of selling them to a happy customer.
From my perspective, this was a great trade- we were happy, he was happy, everybody won.
Why was I happy when he walked away with the "best" book in the deal?
Because the books we got priced out around $100. Of that, roughly $40 comes from books I know will sell fast. So we come out ahead, even if I totally tanked on the rest of the buy and those books just mope around the shelves for a few years.
From a personal perspective, sure I'd rather sell 'fun' books than boring ones- or buy them, for that matter.
But $40 worth of books is $40 worth of books, whether it's one cool 1st edition or a grocery bag of Agatha Christie paperbacks. The business doesn't care what you sell as long as you make your nut.
Also, this is an edge case- 95% of customers pretty much buy what they bring in. Getting all control-freaky about trade is mostly pointless even if you aren't a strong buyer.
2.24.2012
music: best track- Laurie Anderson
Laurie Anderson - Blue Lagoon by wildwildwitek
The video is execrable, but the sound is impeccable.
Mesmerizing.
I can't count how many mix tapes I put this on. Listening a thousand times in the dark, scuzzy walkman headphones pressed between ear and pillow like dinosaur bones being squeezed into oil. This one and Kate Bush's Pull Out The Pin are a double A side 45 in my memory palace.
2.23.2012
parenting: playgrounds
Fuss likes playgrounds and parks, they're free, so that's where we spend most of our outdoors time.
And when you walk out the front door at the tail end of February only to spin right back around to avail yourself of more weather appropriate attire, namely shorts and sandals, it's an obvious destination.
Today we were rolling with Meek, who curled up in the sun with Joyce Carol Oates
while we rampaged around
And when you walk out the front door at the tail end of February only to spin right back around to avail yourself of more weather appropriate attire, namely shorts and sandals, it's an obvious destination.
Today we were rolling with Meek, who curled up in the sun with Joyce Carol Oates
(why is she wearing a scarf when it's 75 degrees?)
while we rampaged around
(Fuss climbing a slide that's subject to a safety recall)
("Dada, I'm a SCARECROW!")
and finally came to rest
While we were roaming Meek made the acquaintance of a familiar playground character, the disengaged, annoyed parent. I go to run around and play with Fuss, and most parents you meet will be there to do stuff with their kids. But parents who think their job is done once they pull into the parking lot are common- they plop down on the steps or a bench and start playing with their phones.
Up to a point I'm sympathetic- kids are hard, and you have to grab your down time where you find it.
But these sorts are also prone to just flat out ignore their kids, or act all put upon when their child makes a plea for attention.
Meek's specimen was a bench sitter, playing a game on his phone, ignoring pleas for attention or snarling at his kid to get on with it so he could get back to his current round of Angry Birds, or whatever.
I have my problems with Fuss- there are times when I just can't keep playing the same game, or watching him do something for the 800th time, or listen to him repeat the same nonsense syllable for fifteen minutes straight. But, I always make the effort. I may not be able to stick with whatever's going on as long as he's willing to, but I check in long enough to get the gist.
Because the older Fuss gets, the clearer it becomes to me that hippy troubadour Harry Chapin's sap-tacular ode to crappy dada-ing is a window to a dismal future every bit as grim as the one opened by Dickins' Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.
Kids aren't kids that long.
To me, it doesn't seem that long ago I was watching Uncle Tim wipe meconium off Cousin Fiend's dainty doll feet hours after she was born- now she can read and write, draws better than I ever could and wears a training bra.
You have to space out on some of it to stay sane, oh yes.
But you best make sure that when you check out it is for your sanity, or something equally important, and not because you've really gotta three star this one level, or text a friend, or check Facebook for the tenth time in the last 30 minutes.
Kids aren't like writing a paper, where you can fuck off until right before the deadline, crap it out real fast and be fine.
It's sad that understanding something that obvious and basic is pretty much all it takes to make me a "good dad".
True Fuss Tales: Map
Fuss loves maps and every time we tramp through the Elfin Forest he has to stop at the little kiosk and fish out a brochure, which he consults periodically during our journey.
Today he was particularly engrossed, staring at it long and hard while slowly walking up the path.
After a few minutes of intense inspection, he let it fall to his side and declared
"Dada? I'm getting some very strange readings."
I have no idea where this stuff comes from.
Today he was particularly engrossed, staring at it long and hard while slowly walking up the path.
After a few minutes of intense inspection, he let it fall to his side and declared
"Dada? I'm getting some very strange readings."
I have no idea where this stuff comes from.
music: best track- Siouxsie And The Banshees
First in an occasional series spotlighting my favorite tune by some acts I like.
This is one of those tracks that you probably had to catch when it came out to get how crazy it sounded. Nowadays, any kook with a computer can put together an atmospheric soundscape.
Dazzle blew my mind the first time I heard it, and it remains my favorite Siouxsie track.
This is one of those tracks that you probably had to catch when it came out to get how crazy it sounded. Nowadays, any kook with a computer can put together an atmospheric soundscape.
Dazzle blew my mind the first time I heard it, and it remains my favorite Siouxsie track.
Uninhibited Whining
You know what's great?
Taking in your car to fix the turn signals and change the oil and having the mechanic discover your entire drive train is teetering on the verge of spraying across the highway like steel confetti.
Oh wait, I guess I really meant "you know what SUCKS POOPY, UNSHAVED ELEPHANT NUT SACK?"
3k in repairs before it's safe to drive again.
Time to play that fun guessing game Car, or Junkard Trashpile Ornament?
Taking in your car to fix the turn signals and change the oil and having the mechanic discover your entire drive train is teetering on the verge of spraying across the highway like steel confetti.
Oh wait, I guess I really meant "you know what SUCKS POOPY, UNSHAVED ELEPHANT NUT SACK?"
3k in repairs before it's safe to drive again.
Time to play that fun guessing game Car, or Junkard Trashpile Ornament?
music: dr dog?
Is this what they call a jam band?
It sounds kinda like a good Donovan outtake someone found in the basement of a tenement on Haight St, hidden behind moldering boxes of Furry Freak Brothers & Zap Comics.
I like it- should this concern me?
2.21.2012
They WANT Us To Pirate Game of Thrones!
Hahah!
I know the impulse intimately, although in this, our Golden Age of media consumption, the digital bounty streaming directly to my television renders quaint the notion of downloading something to watch on the computer, let alone breaking out the velvet robes, carved staves and fuming censers required by the archaic ritual of burning a physical DVD, with its associated folderol (changing the teevee from HDMI to AV1? Blart! Switching the reciever from Video to CD? Gurnk!).
Years ago, prior to corporate music's uneasy embrace of digital distribution in general and iTunes specifically, there was some CD I wanted. The publisher made a big deal out of some new DRM scheme, which worked so well it was preventing legitimate buyers from listening to their music on a variety of devices, the intent being to STOP PIRACY.
The idea of spending sixteen bucks for a CD with limited performance did not appeal, so I poked around on line. Oh look, there it is on one of the major torrent sites, a lossless copy with several hundred seeders.
I like supporting artistic efforts that I enjoy, I want creators to get paid and paid well.
But when the creation becomes so encumbered by intrusive corporate infrastructure you can barely get at it, then those other, less salutary distributors start looking awfully good.
I know the impulse intimately, although in this, our Golden Age of media consumption, the digital bounty streaming directly to my television renders quaint the notion of downloading something to watch on the computer, let alone breaking out the velvet robes, carved staves and fuming censers required by the archaic ritual of burning a physical DVD, with its associated folderol (changing the teevee from HDMI to AV1? Blart! Switching the reciever from Video to CD? Gurnk!).
Years ago, prior to corporate music's uneasy embrace of digital distribution in general and iTunes specifically, there was some CD I wanted. The publisher made a big deal out of some new DRM scheme, which worked so well it was preventing legitimate buyers from listening to their music on a variety of devices, the intent being to STOP PIRACY.
The idea of spending sixteen bucks for a CD with limited performance did not appeal, so I poked around on line. Oh look, there it is on one of the major torrent sites, a lossless copy with several hundred seeders.
I like supporting artistic efforts that I enjoy, I want creators to get paid and paid well.
But when the creation becomes so encumbered by intrusive corporate infrastructure you can barely get at it, then those other, less salutary distributors start looking awfully good.
books: bookmarks
I just found a fortune cookie fortune someone used as a bookmark.
It reads
WHEN SHATING OVER THIN ICE, YOUR SAFETY IS IN YOUR SPEED
Man, they were thisclose to the greatest Engrish typo of all time.
People use all sorts of stuff as bookmarks, although uninteresting scraps of blank paper are far and away the most common. I've found Opium Dealer Tax Stamps (circa 1925), Iraqi folding money with Saddam's face on it, nude snapshots, green stamps, grocery lists, playing cards, newspaper clippings (usually related to the book or the author of the book), bible tracts & one time a ribbon of condoms, thankfully still in their packages.
Customers always ask if I'm looking for money when I flip through their books, but I'm just checking for loose pages & highlighting. Contrary to urban legend hardly anyone hides money in books- I found a $20 one time, and the boss (with 40+ years in the biz) once found a crisp $100 bill, but that's it.
The largest monetary find came from one of our longtime regulars, Paulette.
She led a merry, globe-trotting life in another age, but is now a frail widow who stops by several times a week as dictated by the city bus schedule. She used to drive me crazy- she's always putting stuff on hold, but she's not sure if she has a copy or not and wonders if she can call us later if she has it and we can put it back?
Eventually I got enough therapy under my belt to realize she wasn't accosting me, she was just lonely- now we get along famously.
Anyway, a while back we bought a large library from a retiring professor, an avid reader and collector his entire life with an emphasis on foreign languages and the classics, which also happens to be Paulette's main areas of interest. In the process of meticulously inspecting one of his books she found an envelope containing $300.
Paulette is old school- even in the reduced circumstances of a pensioner living on public assistance, counting pennies to make sure she can cover bus fare, she marched up to the counter and turned the cash over to the boss.
He tried to persuade her to take it- no dice.
He tried bargaining- you take half, we take half.
No.
He tried giving her a $300 store credit in exchange.
She wouldn't hear of it.
Eventually he took the money, having run out of other options. We do what we can for her, or rather we do what she'll let us do- she won't accept discounts, so we have to try and sneak them past her.
And I don't take her books off hold any more, at least not without checking with her first.
It reads
WHEN SHATING OVER THIN ICE, YOUR SAFETY IS IN YOUR SPEED
Man, they were thisclose to the greatest Engrish typo of all time.
People use all sorts of stuff as bookmarks, although uninteresting scraps of blank paper are far and away the most common. I've found Opium Dealer Tax Stamps (circa 1925), Iraqi folding money with Saddam's face on it, nude snapshots, green stamps, grocery lists, playing cards, newspaper clippings (usually related to the book or the author of the book), bible tracts & one time a ribbon of condoms, thankfully still in their packages.
Customers always ask if I'm looking for money when I flip through their books, but I'm just checking for loose pages & highlighting. Contrary to urban legend hardly anyone hides money in books- I found a $20 one time, and the boss (with 40+ years in the biz) once found a crisp $100 bill, but that's it.
The largest monetary find came from one of our longtime regulars, Paulette.
She led a merry, globe-trotting life in another age, but is now a frail widow who stops by several times a week as dictated by the city bus schedule. She used to drive me crazy- she's always putting stuff on hold, but she's not sure if she has a copy or not and wonders if she can call us later if she has it and we can put it back?
Eventually I got enough therapy under my belt to realize she wasn't accosting me, she was just lonely- now we get along famously.
Anyway, a while back we bought a large library from a retiring professor, an avid reader and collector his entire life with an emphasis on foreign languages and the classics, which also happens to be Paulette's main areas of interest. In the process of meticulously inspecting one of his books she found an envelope containing $300.
Paulette is old school- even in the reduced circumstances of a pensioner living on public assistance, counting pennies to make sure she can cover bus fare, she marched up to the counter and turned the cash over to the boss.
He tried to persuade her to take it- no dice.
He tried bargaining- you take half, we take half.
No.
He tried giving her a $300 store credit in exchange.
She wouldn't hear of it.
Eventually he took the money, having run out of other options. We do what we can for her, or rather we do what she'll let us do- she won't accept discounts, so we have to try and sneak them past her.
And I don't take her books off hold any more, at least not without checking with her first.
true customer tales: 900 pages
I have this sweet little old lady who visits several times a month with a green canvas sack containing five or six books to sell. She's engaged in an existential struggle with her husband over the size of his library and always has an anecdote to narrate her latest extractions from their shelves.
"There was this one book, by some author I've never even heard of. Nine hundred pages! And I wanted to get rid of it. So I showed it to him, and he said he no, I couldn't, because he was going to read it."
She leaned in close across the counter and exclaimed sotto voce,
"Bullshit! He's never going to read it!"
I hope she does get it away from him, now I'm curious to see it.
"There was this one book, by some author I've never even heard of. Nine hundred pages! And I wanted to get rid of it. So I showed it to him, and he said he no, I couldn't, because he was going to read it."
She leaned in close across the counter and exclaimed sotto voce,
"Bullshit! He's never going to read it!"
I hope she does get it away from him, now I'm curious to see it.
2.18.2012
The Only Film Ever Made in Esperanto: Incubus
Listening to NPR on the commute this AM was startled when a typical puff piece interview with William Shatner turned to the subject of Incubus, a film produced in the year of my birth by store regular Tony Taylor- we have a signed picture of Tony & Shatner on the Incubus set hanging behind the register. He was a fascinating guy who met a tragic, lingering end from runaway skin cancer which he attributed to too much of the Malibu high life during his Hollywood days.
Medical bills eventually forced him to liquidate his possessions, including an impressive collection of Beat literature & memorabilia which is where we came in. It was the real deal, the sort of stuff you normally don't see outside auction houses or high end trade shows. The internet wasn't around back then and he wasn't interested in auctioning it off for some reason, so that's where we came in. We bought a few things, we acted as intermediaries in selling the more expensive items to interested collectors or bigger dealers, and generally tried to do right by Tony.
His doctor was local so he was a regular visitor over the years. His health gradually failed him, but his spirits never flagged as far as I could tell. I always looked forward to the next installment of the Incubus saga. The rights to the film were his one remaining asset, and he pursued a restoration through a profoundly convoluted series of events that would themselves make a fine film.
The original print had been destroyed in a fire, but someone discovered a copy of the film in the archives of the Cinémathèque Française and got word to Tony. By that point he hadn't a dime to his name and had to hustle up a restoration & DVD release out of thin air.
Which, demonstrating the sort of relentless resourcefulness I'd expect of a film producer, he eventually did.
Anyway, it was strange and mildly aggravating to hear this artistic artifact Tony had worked so assiduously and relentlessly to recover from the gaping black maw of history made the butt of a casual joke. It is literally all that's left of the man, the mark he made on the culture, however odd and faint.
From my perspective it deserves better than a cozy 'ha ha' between a smarmy host & puffed up star.
Medical bills eventually forced him to liquidate his possessions, including an impressive collection of Beat literature & memorabilia which is where we came in. It was the real deal, the sort of stuff you normally don't see outside auction houses or high end trade shows. The internet wasn't around back then and he wasn't interested in auctioning it off for some reason, so that's where we came in. We bought a few things, we acted as intermediaries in selling the more expensive items to interested collectors or bigger dealers, and generally tried to do right by Tony.
His doctor was local so he was a regular visitor over the years. His health gradually failed him, but his spirits never flagged as far as I could tell. I always looked forward to the next installment of the Incubus saga. The rights to the film were his one remaining asset, and he pursued a restoration through a profoundly convoluted series of events that would themselves make a fine film.
The original print had been destroyed in a fire, but someone discovered a copy of the film in the archives of the Cinémathèque Française and got word to Tony. By that point he hadn't a dime to his name and had to hustle up a restoration & DVD release out of thin air.
Which, demonstrating the sort of relentless resourcefulness I'd expect of a film producer, he eventually did.
Anyway, it was strange and mildly aggravating to hear this artistic artifact Tony had worked so assiduously and relentlessly to recover from the gaping black maw of history made the butt of a casual joke. It is literally all that's left of the man, the mark he made on the culture, however odd and faint.
From my perspective it deserves better than a cozy 'ha ha' between a smarmy host & puffed up star.
books & film: on digital preservation
An excellent, in depth article on the challenges of preserving digital film, applicable to my ongoing cogitating on the encroachment of digital books. Not identical situations, but it explores the divide between the physical and the ephemeral which does apply and has intrigued me for a while now.
A stable physical print of a movie is good for 100 years, they say.
A physical book will last forever, absent some physical catastrophe- ditto a vinyl LP.
Some of my older CDs have already corrupted into unplayability.
To paraphrase one of the SF authors I follow on twitter "in five years the Kindle will look like a floppy disc."
What's likely to happen is a tiered system where mass consumption items exist digitally and ephemerally- the fluffy, disposable junk people like Danielle Steel & Nora Roberts write. Books nobody keeps or cares about, the kind of things that end up clogging the tables at swap meets and garage sales and is perpetually ensconced on the shelves of thrift stores. Physical incarnations will be reserved for things people feel passionately about.
Cinematically, I'd expect Citizen Kane to survive a theoretical future digital Armageddon. Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, not so much.
Anyway, an interesting, thought provoking article.
A stable physical print of a movie is good for 100 years, they say.
A physical book will last forever, absent some physical catastrophe- ditto a vinyl LP.
Some of my older CDs have already corrupted into unplayability.
To paraphrase one of the SF authors I follow on twitter "in five years the Kindle will look like a floppy disc."
What's likely to happen is a tiered system where mass consumption items exist digitally and ephemerally- the fluffy, disposable junk people like Danielle Steel & Nora Roberts write. Books nobody keeps or cares about, the kind of things that end up clogging the tables at swap meets and garage sales and is perpetually ensconced on the shelves of thrift stores. Physical incarnations will be reserved for things people feel passionately about.
Cinematically, I'd expect Citizen Kane to survive a theoretical future digital Armageddon. Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, not so much.
Anyway, an interesting, thought provoking article.
2.17.2012
This is Why You Have Kids
And also why most of my moaning and complaining here over the last three years should be ignored.
I could regale you with any number of horror stories- Fuss has been under the weather, growing faster than the cost of our various national military quagmires and consequently irascible as all get out.
It has been, to drastically understate matters, a challenging several days.
But this afternoon on a visit to Morro Bay he wanted to stop at the Crazy Park instead of the Boat Park.
My preference for the Boat Park has been well chronicled here. The Crazy Park is like the side of Two Face's mug that caught the acid- it sits in the center of a social Bermuda Triangle, bordered on the street side by a major bus stop, on the left by a mangy concrete basketball with one 9 foot rim and one 11 foot rim, and to the rear, the only public restroom north of the Embarcadero. Every indigent, kook and ne'r do well in town has a reason to hang out around that park, and do they ever. Plus it has a tall, ridiculously steep slide that Fuss went down ass-over-teakettle when he was a baby and which we've never forgiven (although he predictably loves it).
After a quick detour to the thrift store across the street (eight bucks spent, $30 in listings realized plus five books for the shop) I returned to find the Wife pushing him on the swings. His thirst for such things is legendary, so I took over and settled myself into a sustainable rhythm for the long haul.
We played a few games- pretending we were dogs, pretending he was a scary ghost and acting horrified every time he said BOO! on the backswing, going "higher and HIGHER", pretending he was a Bomb Bird who exploded every time I pushed him.
Other than Fuss, what I mostly call him is 'Beautiful Boy'. Yeah, I'm letting down the Patriarchy by eschewing "handsome", but he isn't handsome, he's beautiful, like how a sunset or a thousand year old Sequoia or a comet is.
Instead of a family mythology where he's the stupid one, or the bad one, or whatever bullshit projection crappy parents paste onto their innocent, blameless children, Fuss is growing up knowing he's the beautiful one, the smart one, the loving one, the beloved one.
That's what his foundation rests on, and that's how I know I'm doing a good job, in spite of my manifold shortcomings.
I could regale you with any number of horror stories- Fuss has been under the weather, growing faster than the cost of our various national military quagmires and consequently irascible as all get out.
It has been, to drastically understate matters, a challenging several days.
But this afternoon on a visit to Morro Bay he wanted to stop at the Crazy Park instead of the Boat Park.
My preference for the Boat Park has been well chronicled here. The Crazy Park is like the side of Two Face's mug that caught the acid- it sits in the center of a social Bermuda Triangle, bordered on the street side by a major bus stop, on the left by a mangy concrete basketball with one 9 foot rim and one 11 foot rim, and to the rear, the only public restroom north of the Embarcadero. Every indigent, kook and ne'r do well in town has a reason to hang out around that park, and do they ever. Plus it has a tall, ridiculously steep slide that Fuss went down ass-over-teakettle when he was a baby and which we've never forgiven (although he predictably loves it).
After a quick detour to the thrift store across the street (eight bucks spent, $30 in listings realized plus five books for the shop) I returned to find the Wife pushing him on the swings. His thirst for such things is legendary, so I took over and settled myself into a sustainable rhythm for the long haul.
We played a few games- pretending we were dogs, pretending he was a scary ghost and acting horrified every time he said BOO! on the backswing, going "higher and HIGHER", pretending he was a Bomb Bird who exploded every time I pushed him.
Other than Fuss, what I mostly call him is 'Beautiful Boy'. Yeah, I'm letting down the Patriarchy by eschewing "handsome", but he isn't handsome, he's beautiful, like how a sunset or a thousand year old Sequoia or a comet is.
See?
So at some point, on the backswing I started saying "Beautiful Boy!"
And he copied me a few times, saying "beautiful boy!" and laughing.
So I kept it up, and then he changed things around like he does and said
"Beautiful Dada!"
And I started saying "loving boy!"
And he started saying "Loving Dada!" and "Loving Mama!"
That's what you can't get anywhere else, and what makes the whole deranged project of parenthood worth whatever it costs you.
Also, words matter. A few months back I was asking him something and he was ignoring me.
When I asked why he said "I'm not Fuss!"
"Who are you, then?" I asked
"I'm your beautiful boy!"
That's what his foundation rests on, and that's how I know I'm doing a good job, in spite of my manifold shortcomings.
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