Moon and stars protect you, Kevin Hendrickson and Loren Hoskins

One of the perks of having small kids is the excuse to listen to some excellent children's music. It would be cool but untruthful to say the first album I was really into was Somewhere in Time or The Beatles' "Blue" Album: 

To be honest it was more like Mickey Mouse Splashdance, which I must have played over 100 times. Somehow I managed to sneak Girls, Girls, Girls into the rotation as well, though it turned out to be too intense for my younger self:

East LA at midnight.
Papa won't be home tonight.
Found dead with his best friend's wife (HUH!)

My dad was working a 2nd shift back during those Hard Times. The idea of him being anywhere but inside our house at midnight was scary, let alone him turning up dead in some boudoir of iniquity.

As you grow up your musical tastes evolve, from the brash and thrusting (adolescence) to the romantic and  mood-inducing (adulthood) to the melodic and nostalgic (later middle-age).  Yet there is something so joyful and pure about children's music that it never ceases to enchant you no matter what your stage of life (provided you don't overdose on the stuff).  I think The Beatles channel some of this same magic and, come to think of it, several of their most popular tunes (Yellow Submarine, Octopus's Garden) ARE basically children's songs.

Disney has a new show called Jake and the Neverland Pirates, with music by  Kevin Hendrickson (Bones) and Loren Hoskins (Sharky).  The two were performing in their own "pirate rock" band (based on how corny, guileless, and technically intricate any fad is, it can be triangulated down to the exact Portland neighborhood where it was invented) when Disney discovered the two and made them the house-band for their new show.

Kevin and Loren are great, and their first CD is excellent.  It's been a little disappointing, therefore, to see the compromises that have come with success.  Let's not get overly dramatic here.  This ain't Atlantic Records demanding a 3 minute cut of Stairway to Heaven.  Still, it's clear that the Pirate Band's live performances are less energetic and spontaneous than of yore:

How did you like doing the live concert on the Mag Mile?

Loren: It was cool. I miss having a live band though.
Kevin: I do, too.
Loren: I really miss it. At least we’re performing for kids and families again and that’s great, but we’re still performing to track, and it doesn’t feel all the way sincere… I don’t know if I should say that.

No, I understand what you’re saying. Coming from a musical background like both of you do, it must feel very different to play without a live band.

Loren: Kevin and I were always really good about working with the band and playing together, and playing out the moments like, ‘It doesn’t feel right to play this song right now, let’s skip to this one…’ or ‘Let’s just have the band vamp for a little bit, and get the kids yelling yo-ho and stuff.’

Sorry, can't feed off the audience's energy anymore.  Not compatible with the Disney commitment to a consistent buyer experience!

And, of course, the two have been glammed up to be more compatible (gateway product?) with the metrosexual swashbuckler look of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.  Before Loren (Sharky, the fat one) had a lovably scruffy look.  Now he's just another eunuch with ceremonial beard from Game of Thrones:

Moon and stars protect you, Kevin and Loren!  Ride this gravy train for all it's worth, just don't lose sight of where you came from and who your friends are.  Loren, who's a pretty good voice and comedic talent, may be sorely tempted to give Kevin the shiv for a bit part on Cars 3.  Resist, resit!

Spring Cleaning

I wouldn't say Lucy is a neatness freak, buuuuuuuuuuut- she makes Kate Goslin look about as mellow as "The Dude". Still, there are advantages to having such a details-oriented mistress on-premise. Case-in-point: my new-found awareness of battery rot.

Once a wife and kids arrive on the scene, you will quickly find yourself running an electronics Underground Railroad.  Many perfectly functional, even high-quality, pieces of audio and video equipment will go into hiding in the garage because they do not match her decor preferences or are a safety risk to small children.  The audiophile community even has its own term for this.  So anyway, at some point you will have a stash of electronics equipment in the garage, fearfully huddling in anticipation of the day they will be readmitted into polite society.  Their rehabilitation is inevitable because:

• baby will become too big to be crushed to death by tower speakers
• as you drift apart as a couple, you inevitably cede control of whole areas of the house to the other partner, no longer caring what goes on/into those rooms or whether they match the overall style of the home

So don't throw away that audiophile-quality receiver just yet!  But before stashing it away in that damp garage, make sure to take the batteries out:

Disenchantment

Last week, on two separate occasions, Monkey Face said "I hate you!" to both myself and his mother for the very first time. The cause of the outburst in my particular case (to be completely accurate yet concise) was: because the elapsed time between receiving the railroad track he had failed to assemble and me assembling it was greater than zero.

When does disenchantment with a child set in? Not that you don't love them more than anything else in this world, of course, just that you don't even half-believe they are a slice of angel food sent down from Heaven? Here are some likely triggers:

• projectile poops (0-8 weeks)
• poop starts stinking upon end to all-breast milk diet (3-6 months)
• sleep training gone wrong (6-12 months)
• tries fingering the dog (9-18 months)
• tries fingering you! (whole other story)
• plays with their poop (1-2 years)
• EATS their own poop (1-2 years)
• diaper smells like an 80's gas station bathroom (1 1/2-2 years)
• indelible Crayon marks on fireplace stonework (1 1/2-2 1/2 years)
• produces ear wax (2 years)
• potty-training resistant (2-3 years)
• head trauma to younger sibling (2 1/2-3 years)
• thinks its hilarious to squeeze one more out in middle of diaper change (2 1/2-3 years)
• says they "hate you!" (3-4 years)

Never Give up Hand

A normal sire does not seek drama. On most mens' hierarchy of natural pleasures, repose from the fatigues of daily life come in pretty high on the list.

And she said: Don't you wanna - don't you wanna cocai-cocai-Cockaigne?

And so in your greener days, whenever the woman you were with at the time expressed anxiety over some trivial matter ("I'm just terrified you won't like me as much when you realize how terrible I am at: a) mountain unicycling, b) Lebanese fusion cooking, c) leveling up on World of Warcraft") you'd nearly trip over yourself to reassure her it was no big deal, that you'd lover her just the same- more even, given how adorable she was for fretting over such trivialities to please you. Oh, foolish white knight rushing into the teeth of Smaug!

Normal dudes love free lunches, shortcuts, and arbitrage. One of the few things we cannot stop ourselves from dribbling on at the mouth about is some newly discovered win-win: when we realize there's a better, faster, cooler, cheaper way of doing things that has no trade-offs or downside. It's like Quagmire discovering the existence of Internet porn on Family Guy- he has to express disbelief several times in order to receive emotional reinforcement and amplification from his friends, one of the rare instances a normal dude will seek that (OK, there are better clips from Family Guy to illustrate the concept, but in baby-gulag land one doesn't have the luxury of going through a cartoon show's back catalog to find them).

That is why we rush to reassure her. I can turn her frown upside down at no cost to myself? Yeah, go for it! As you become more seasoned in marriage, though, you realize things are never as simple as they appear. #1, the trivial matter can rarely be taken at face value- 99 out of 100 times it is a repackaging of a more fundamental issue in the relationship- usually some anxiety she has about her own desirability/appearance/fabulosity. #2, NEVER GIVE UP HAND. Marriage and relationships are just statecraft in microcosm. Russia is pals with Serbia; North Korea with China. Yet nothing is ever really given for free. Always extract a price for any concession. It demonstrates your lordship (i.e. higher value), not to mention provides you with chips you can cash-in when she goes nuts later (if you have kids together, count on that!).

The Seven Natural Pleasures

As alluded to earlier, there is a hierarchy of needs and pleasures. A fundamental difference between the two is passive vs. active, negative vs. positive. Health is the most bedrock of human needs, but in the wake of its attainment quickly forgotten.  Not for nothing is health often defined as the absence of illness or discomfort. A natural pleasure, of course, means one common to all human beings as human beings. Nice as it would be to hit a walk-off homerun in the World Series, or see that 271st Electoral vote roll in, the satisfaction is too uncommon to be the basis of any meaningful generalizations about ourselves or the nature of our relationships.  Here is my list of natural pleasures, in order of preference:

1. Sleeping
2. Laughing
3. Eating (T-3)
4. Fucking
   (T-3)
5. Imbibing
6. Voiding
7. Talking

The last one I would have entirely passed over had I not needed to draw a contrast between the sexes.  Talking is predominantly a social activity, and so is arguably not a natural pleasure.  Yet language is such a fundamental part of, not just our intuitive notions of what it means to be human, but (as scientists have increasingly come to accept) our very biological hardware, I think it must be allowed.  Or, to give an example- Monkey Face knows the script to Cars pretty much by heart now, and will recite entire scenes to himself.  He is not communicating to anyone when he does this- I hear him going on when he is in another room or through the baby monitor when he is settling down for a nap.  This is not unusual- I used to do the same thing at his age, and even as adults many of us repeat lyrics, jokes, or favorite bits of dialog outloud to ourselves simply for the pleasure of reliving their performance.

Anyway, keep this list for future reference, as it is will be invaluable in your dealings with the fairer sex.  In the throws of post-coital bliss all I really want to do for the next 40-45 minutes is go into a coma.  My wife, of course, wants to.... talk.

Parenthood: The Pyramid Strikes Back

One pyramid to rule them all.  As a horny teenager I never believed there would come a time I would turn down sex.  Then parenthood hit and with it the revenge of Maslow's Pyramid.  The rankings may not be quite the same for everyone, but they're pretty close.  As for me, sleep and homeostasis (health) are definite bottom-line (bottom-feeding?) priorities above everything else.

Wat U Iz

Finally figured out my special demographic category: I'm a married single parent.  Yup...