Another Interesting Year

Living in LA is like living in another world. It’s really true. When you are raising a family in LA the normal and mundane collides with the absurd on a quite regular basis. Right now I am staying home with our new baby and will be for the next year or so. But I’m still working in the entertainment industry and living in LA so it never really becomes normal. How do those two things combine? Like oil and water, and here’s the thing: I’m not complaining. I like the unpredictability and excitement in my life but now it’s tempered with routine and a hint of normalcy.

I am just finishing up my book which will be out June 2 called PACIFY ME: A HANDBOOK FOR THE FREAKED OUT NEW DAD. Audge works during the day so after baby duty during the day for me then I’ve been working at night. So we’re both pulling double shifts and have never looked so forward to relatives coming out to visit. “Yes, it’s good to see you, Mom and Dad. Please take these children. We’ll be back in four hours. Maybe.”

But like I said it’s another world. In between taking care of our baby I’ve been writing a book, doing a radio interview here and there, performed on stage in vegas when we can coordinate a visit with a relative to watch the baby for the week, and been working on my website http://www.comedyfilmnerdsdotcom.com/ with my partner comedian Graham Elwood. We find it very fun to play internet mogul once a week in my garage. And yes, Griffin is there for every one of our meetings. Often he participates will loud outbursts during the reading of the minutes, and his opinions are duly noted.

So it could be a very interesting year. Once again a year mixed with hard work, fun, difficulties and unpredictability. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The Cat is Trying to Spoon Me

We have a really weird cat. Her name is Avatar and she was a four month old stray that scared the shit out of Audrey right before we got married. Audge was going out to do laundry in the laundry room of our apartment complex and she came back in scared. I asked her what was wrong. She said a possum just chased her back up the steps. Now we did have possums in the complex, which as weird enough for Park Labrea, but I had never heard of one chasing someone up steps before. When I opened the door to check, a little starving white four month old kitten greeted me, meowing. Obviously the first thing I said was "Does that look like a possum to you?"
"...Well, it did in the dark," my wife replied.

We kept the cat and it was most grateful. She would greet us at the door, sleep in bed with us, and stay on our laps when we watched television. She was our baby.

But then of course we had actual babies. And sadly, pets don't quite get the attention that they are used to when a child or two comes along. Now our cat was cool about it and never showed anything more than disinterest for either child. And still doesn't, really, even though Bella is almost four. As if she made up her mind to ignore our children until they leave for college. Her choice.

But every once in a while the cat lets me know it's not cool. Like last night. Instead of sleeping at the foot of the bed, she snuggled right up into the crook of my arm and then when I turned over I felt her lie down and lean against my back. She was telling me, "I know these little people seemed to suddenly appear and get all the attention, but don't forget who was here first. If you do, I may just "forget" where my litter box is. Consider this your only notice."

So we try to give the cat a little more attention. But we're just so freaking tired. She understands. Okay, no she doesn't. But she should. She sleeps fourteen hours a day, for Pete's sake. She's tired and all she does is stretch, purr, and give us periodic guilt-inducing looks.

The Blog, Book Deals, and Doing Things in Reverse

I am working on the Blog. In more ways than one. I have started to learn about layouts and gadgets and html and all sorts of stuff that is making my head hurt.

The thing is, I did things in reverse. Nowadays it's all the rage to be a big blogger and then get a book deal. Well, I sorta got a book deal first and now I'm working on getting my blog presentable for when the book releases on June 2, 2009. "My Life is Over: A handbook for the freaked-out new Dad" will be out in bookstores just in time for Father's day.

I could not be happier about getting a book deal, obviously. It's something I've been working on for over 2 years, and it feels odd that I'm actually going to have to let it go soon. Kind of like being a parent, I suppose.

So think of my blog as a learning experience. Well, for me. All you have to do is read and judge. Now that I've turned the book in and I am waiting for notes I will have a little more time to devote to it. It will start to get prettier, I swear. I am taking the hands on approach and that will continue until you see a blog post filled with cursing, and then about 2 hours later I will probably hire someone.

I will be updating the blog more and give you the skinny on how the book deal came about and how it's going. I'll also be adding gadgets and all sorts of things that I don't really understand.

So let's take this journey into the dark, dense global village together, shall we? Maybe I can borrow your flashlight.

My Father, the Financial Genius

I haven't been around much. Sorry. I've been working on the book and adusting to becoming a stay at home author/comedian/filmmaker.

But I did manage to write one for Our Milk Money. Enjoy:

http://ourmilkmoney.blogspot.com/2008/11/my-father-financial-genius.html

She Just Ran Right Out of the House

We were getting delivery one night and Bella likes to answer the door with me. As I was paying the delivery man Bella decided, for the first time, she was just going to bolt right out of the house. At first the delivery guy laughed but then as Bella kept running he stopped and walked quickly to his car. It was getting a little uncomfortable, because she wasn’t coming back.

So I chased my daughter who was of course trying to escape. She ran down the driveway and then across the lawn and then into the neighbor’s lawn where I finally caught up to her. She was laughing and thought it was a big joke, and then mentioned that I was gripping her arm a bit tightly.

This was something I was kind of expecting, and dreading. Mainly because short of an electronic collar (which isn’t as bad of an idea as it sounds) a three year old is really capable of going anywhere at anytime.

Everything ran through my head at once, like what if she ran out into the street and was hit by a car, ran and I couldn’t find her, ran and was plucked up into the sky by a giant raven, etc. It scared me and yet I knew those moments were coming. Somehow, that didn’t help.

So we had a talk with her about not running out of the house and while we were having this serious discussion with her we both knew in her head all she was hearing was the theme to The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Still we thought it was important to go through the motions.

The lesson here is that just because your child HASN’T done something doesn’t mean that today isn’t the day it all changes. If you’re quick you can spot the light bulb over their heads and hear the “ding” right before they do something new and most likely dangerous, but most of the time we’re always playing catch up. All I’m saying is always have your running shoes on.

Pause the Book

I was reading to Bella before she went to sleep and she wanted to get a different blanket. She then said to me "pause the book" I started laughing and said, “Sure. I’ll pause the book.”

As she went to get her other blanket from the other room I thought about how technologically advanced our lives had become. Since she is used to DVDs and DVRs, and knows you can pause live television and movies. “Pause the show. Pause the movie.” She used the same term for our “low tech” devices like books.

All the words my three year old is saying are things that didn’t exist when we were children. I know that’s making me sound like I’m a hundred years old. Like the old grandpa joke “We used to walk to school uphill in the snow, both ways….” Of course we live in LA so Bella asked “What’s snow?”

“Cell Phone”, “E-mail”, “Wii Fit”, and “Variable Rate Mortgage” are all words that are new to our language, and our kids pick them up like they were always here.

The good news is that to a child, there is no difference in a video game or an old wooden puzzle. If they are engaged and enjoying it, they don’t care if there is a screen or not. But here’s where the parent comes in. Where do you put the emphasis? We try (most of the time) to put the emphasis on books and playing outside old skool and turn the tech off. And when you do that, something very interesting happens. Your children will be more interested in what is seems to be you’re interested in. Imagine that. If you praise the magic of books and make them magical presents and rewards, your kids will love books. If you do that with ice cream, well then in 20 years they are going to be calling Jenny Craig and blaming you.

So turn off the tech, and explain why books and going outside and riding a bike are still better than watching The Wiggles. Actually, anything is better than watching the Wiggles. Man, do they suck. So in other words, “unpause the book.”

Willy Wonka and Parenting

My daughter has discovered Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Her favorite part is the “blue girl.” “Violet, you’re turning violet, Violet!”

It's always been one of my favorite movies. But watching it now with children adds to the experience. The movie takes on meaning on a whole other level.

I just watched the featurette and it was fascinating. The film was funded by Quaker Oats to promote a candy bar, the Wonka Bar, that had, get this, a design flaw. It melted before it got to store shelves and had to be pulled. So a movie came out to promote a chocolate bar, but there was no chocolate bar. Holy product tie-in fiasco, Batman!

The movie was a bomb when it came out. Parents didn’t like it and found it to be cruel and mean. All those horrible things happening to those kids! They were disappearing, shrinking, being made into giant blueberries! But kids, however, loved it. Here’s the crux of it and this is something the director Mel Stuart and author Roald Dahl knew all along. Kids didn’t find the movie cruel at all. Kids really want boundaries and limits. They don’t really want to do whatever they want. They want to be shown boundaries and they are very much aware of bad behavior and good behavior, regardless of whether they are watching it or engaging in it.

Not only do children want boundaries, they admire the person who gives them to them. That’s why kids never found Willy Wonka scary, while parents did. He’s a big kid himself, but he is also a surrogate parent who tells children where the boundaries are, and what the consequences are for crossing them. And he does it all with candy and a creepy orange skinned rather short workforce. Gene Wilder was simply astonishing in this role, if you go back and really watch him. A sugar coated anarchist with a child’s soul.

Although I will say no one talks about the nightmarish boat scene on the featurette which still is the most disturbing sequence on film in any children’s movie. How Rob Zombie was able to travel back through time and direct that sequence I’ll never know. But I will say I do fast forward through that part and won’t let Bella watch it. I remember it giving me nightmares as a kid. Worms crawling on the face, a chicken getting its head cut off, etc. Someone should have checked the editor’s backpack for his own “candy” before he went into the bay every night.

The book came out in 1964, the movie 1971. And it taught all about the perils of gluttony, being spoiled rotten, too much television and the virtues of reading books and being honest. A timeless tale with timeless lessons. You owe it to your child to put both the book and movie in his or her library. I wonder if Quaker Oats still gets royalties from the movie. “I said Good Day!”