Steps

 Sometimes I think stepparents get a bad rap. I suppose we have those Grimm Brothers and Walt Disney to thank for that. 

Then again, I have seen plenty of examples where, as they were trying to find some port in the storm, newly separated people make terrible choices when it comes to finding a new life partner. What seemed like such a good idea when you were dating turns out to be a terrible plan when it comes to plugging it into a family dynamic. 

Especially when it comes to the kids. 

The new dad shows up hoping to fit right in, but without making any adjustments to his life. He just figures that if it were good enough for the courtship, it's going to be good enough for the long haul. If the new dad in question is an authoritarian and hopes that his word will be the law in his adopted household, things can get unpleasant very fast. 

For example. 

Like the first time the kid crosses new dad and the dad decides the only way to deal with the situation is to ground the kid. And take his allowance away. Which is a pretty nasty trick because as it turns out, the money that was supposed to be for the kid's allowance didn't come from new dad, it was from the money old dad had set aside. Now new dad is using that money to take his buddies out on the town, buying jet skis the kid will never ride. 

And so on. 

Okay, now I've set the stage I can tell you that I am creating a metaphor. I believe the former game show host currently occupying the White House that he has converted into his own private Dave and Busters is the "new dad." Whatever sweet nothings he may have whispered into America's ear during campaign season have all been tossed aside for the abusive relationship in which we now find ourselves. Our allowance is being spent on gold lions and American Flag blue sealant that peels off the bottom of the reflecting pool days after we spent millions of dollars to "fix it." 

Oh, and stepdad's a pedophile. 

Bargain Hunting

 Hey guys! Great news! I just won the lottery. 

Yes, you read that right. I will be paying the state of California three hundred billion dollars.

So, doesn't that seem ridiculous? 

Not if you're a convicted felon whose mental facualties are slipping as fast as his approval numbers. If you can explain to me how opening the Strait of Hormuz, which was open before we started blowing things up in Iran, is a selling point for this "deal," please feel free to explain. The memorandum of understanding details exactly how much each side is giving up, and though I notice a "promise" on Iran's part not to create any nuclear weapons, there is nothing in this document that A any kind of assuranc beyond a diplomatic pinky promise. Which, according to the "very stable genius" who signed our copy of the understanding is okay because, "If I don't like it, if they don't behave, we'll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head."

And doesn't that make the rest of this months-long distraction from the Epstein Files feel like it was worth it? Three hundred billion dollars could fully fund Universal Pre-K for all American children for about 15 years, construct thousands of miles of high-speed rail, or provide over nine hundred dollars for every single person in the United States. Or it could go back into the pot of money that we said we didn't have for USAID. For fifteen years. 

And so on. 

The war itself cost, in long term effects, one trillion dollars. So, I suppose in that case this "peace plan" is a win if it only costs us three hundred billion dollars. Which also seems like a bargain if you're a deranged orange psychopath trying to stay out of jail. 

Annual

 I don't want a cage match on my front lawn. 

Nor do I desire a parade. 

I used to tell anyone who would ask what I wanted or my birthday the same thing: Plastic toys. Mind you I began giving this answer after I had reached the age of eighteen. The flaw in this plan was that once I became a father, the stream of plastic toys was necessarily split between myself and my son. 

Lately, I have been the very happy recipient of Lego sets from none other than the lad with whom I used to have to share action figures. I feel very seen. 

Starting nearly a year ago, my lovely wife set out to discover just how dear it would be to rent a cottage on the Isle of Wight. This being a somewhat limited time offer since I will only be turning sixty-four this one time. Many thanks to John and Paul for putting the idea out there.

So, what do I want for my birthday? 

The comfort of my family. The closeness of friends. A place to put my head at night. Memories of all the plastic toys that my wife will dutifully point out are still someplace slowly decomposing and will surely outlast me and those memories. 

But I suppose the most realistic answer is actually the simplest one. What I want for my birthday is another one. 

Bad Reputation

 I am not what you might call a "joiner." I tend to assiduously follow the assertion made by Groucho Marx who said, "I would never be a member of a club that would have me as a member." Groucho made this case when he turned down a membership to the storied entertainers' group, The Friars Club. This did not keep him from attending the occasional party, especially the celebrity roasts held frequently by this showbiz consortium. 

I joined my high school marching band for essentially the same reason Groucho hung around the Friars Club: for the laughs. 

When I started playing tuba, it was with the intent of being part of its somewhat legendary offshoot, the Pep Band. This required that I be part of the marching band, since membership to the Pep Band was limited to those who played a brass or percussion instrument and were a part, in good standing, of that larger ensemble. Having charted my older brother's path on a similar trajectory I understood that there was a faction of that bigger group that existed, known at that time as "the band baddies." These were individuals who took up a position just outside the emotional center, known as "the band goodies." This worked well in my mind as the acronym "BG" made it easy back in the late seventies to create a distance between myself and anyone called Bee Gees. 

Showing up in early rehearsals with the same last name as my brother who served as drum major in his senior year but never bothered to cowtow to that inner circle, preferring instead to lead from a distance that kept him from joining what he rightly felt was a bit of a cult, with the band director at its center. I traced much of that same trajectory when it was my turn to put on the uniform and walk in step, always with the intent that this was my way of being in the Pep Band. 

I have written here on occasion about the experience of being in the "cool part" of a group that was not considered cool. There was a level of acceptance that I enjoyed by being part of that bigger group that allowed me to have that team feeling that others get from playing varsity sports. I gave my all to the paramilitary program that our band director was laying out, but I kept my distance from the sycophants who spent their free periods in the director's office. 

Instead I kept my distance, hanging out in the practice rooms down the hall. I realize now that this distance seemed like a safe one, but it only kept me mildly insulated. I can see that I was not the daring rebel that I presumed myself to be. I was there to play in a band. On occasion I marched in step with those next to me in straight lines, just for the chance to dress up in costume and play music much faster and louder than we might and for just a while, we weren't inside the lines. 

As noted previously, I didn't make it to the end of my senior year as pep band president. As it turns out, the faculty and staff of my high school had a pretty effective way of shutting me down. I wasn't really in charge. I just got to spread my band id around for a while until things got uncomfortable. In my later years I wonder if I couldn't have just gone along and stuck with the program. I don't mind when a Bee Gees song gets played in my presence anymore. I'm proud of the years I spent in band, in and out of line. 

I guess I wasn't that bad after all. 

Let Them Eat Pizza

 How about a billionaire with the inability to "read the room?" 

Sounds familiar, but in this version of the story it won't be the decrepit felon who hosted a celebrity fight club in front of dozens of paid subscribers.

This one goes out to Mark "The Zuck" Zuckerberg who had this fantastic idea to bring his employees together for an all-day "hackathon" to build team spirit at The Facebook after the dismissal of nearly one tenth of his company's workforce. What is a "hackathon?" It's an intensive collaborative event where programmers, designers and subject matter experts gather to build working software or hardware prototypes. The hopes for this marathon of innovation is that the group or company can create fresh new product to offer up to an excited public. Or in this case, an anxious and frustrated nerd of a boss. 

If this whole thing reads a little like an episode of The Office where self-proclaimed World's Best Boss Michael Scott requires attendance from his crew at a company picnic, then you're not far off. At Dunder Mifflin, the staff tends to roll their eyes at the boss and go along after realizing that these misadventures are a distraction from the otherwise dull grind of a work week. This is not the general feeling at Meta, formerly The Facebook. 

One Meta employee said, “I’m literally preoccupied with keeping the lights on for my team. I have no incentive to participate, let alone have the time to do so.” As if the phrase "Meta employee" weren't discouragement enough, these minions of Zuck were being asked to come in and work feverishly on new AI product that could quite possibly eliminate their own position, then you're starting to get the picture. 

Certainly in a culture spawned in feverish nerd gatherings like a hackathon, this might be a little confusing, but when the boss issues his command to code from behind the walls of his exclusive Hawaiian estate the "fun" of pizza and beer and pulling an all-nighter loses some of its spark, especially after eight thousand of your fellow employees were just laid off to "offset other expenses." 

Other expenses such as hiring a "beach water person" to oversee liquid-based activities at the Zuck Beach House. That and paying for all that pizza. 

Off

 "There's no such thing as bad publicity." - PT Barnum

"There's a sucker born every minute." -  PT Barnum

"The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about." - Oscar Wilde

You might be familiar with these quotes. They come to us from a time long before there was such a thing as social media, so you can imagine how difficult it was to go viral before the advent of telephones. Mister Wilde was an author and gadfly. Mister Barnum was, if you were to believe Hugh Jackman, the world's greatest showman. They lived their lives in the nineteenth century trying to make a name for themselves and, it would seem, they were successful. 

I bring them up here and now in the early part of the twenty-first century to remind us all that everything old can be new again. Or it can just be old again. Like the way the convicted felon continues to live rent-free not just in the ruins of the White House, but inside our brains. I have no doubt that among the various aphorisms and quotes this "very stable genius" has gilded on surfaces that he faces most every day are the words from Barnum and Wilde. 

Or perhaps this is giving him far too much credit. His capacity to retain information is limited to remembering which one is the giraffe. It is our own fault for letting the former game show into our homes in the first place. It is our own fault for believing that he had something to offer us. He is only here for himself. Each word that I write here is only a reminder to us of our willingness to slow down and watch the train wreck that has become our once great nation. Each day is a fresh reminder of just how many suckers have been born here in the United States over the past fifty years. 

This past Sunday I set out to ignore the gaudy spectacle being held on the front lawn of the White House. I tried not to imagine that this twice-impeached cult leader would some how manage to create a media event that would compliment his gladiatorial exhibition, like the long-awaited announcement of a peace settlement to the war that he had started himself to obscure all the other ugliness that thrives within the three ring circus that surrounds him. 

In the midst of all this ugliness, I have completely lost track of where the off switch is. 

Fractally Speaking

I have a deep and abiding respect for physics. You can see it in the title of this blog: Entropical Paradise. Not just a clever play on words, but a solid description of the world in which we live. Things continue to move from an ordered state to a less ordered state seemingly without fail. You could tell yourself that you're staying on top of chaos by sweeping up on a regular basis, but those dustpans full of debris have to go somewhere, and the bristles on your broom eventually wear down until you need to get a new one. And what do you do with the old one? 

More debris. 

There was a time when I was more of a fan of the world breaking down. I found myself rooting on the gradual breakdown of our place in the galaxy. I was amused by the idea that we might somehow slow the disintegration of our planet by conserving or taking care of the nice things we have. In the 1980s, hedonism seemed to have reached some sort of logical extreme, and the notion that the Berlin Wall came tumbling down for freedom was tempered by the need for free enterprise. It was the poet and philosopher Notorious BIG who suggested, "mo' money, mo' problems." Mo' anything means mo' problems. 

We knew about global warming. We knew about polluting the land, the sky, the water. America led the charge: Go big or go home! 

Except we were home. Which might explain all these vain efforts by billionaires to flee our third rock from the sun in hopes that we could find another rock to abuse for a few thousand years. 

Now that I am a parent with a sense of just how badly I have messed up the earth for my son to take it on the next leg of our tour of expiration, I feel bad about every plastic bag I wasted. I wish that I would have considered mortality more fully when it still seemed hypothetical. Like the fact that we are running out of helium. Humans consume it far faster than it can be made. When I think about all the balloons that I inhaled only to make my voice rise momentarily while that precious gas disappeared into space, it gives me pause. It makes all that terror of Mylar balloons seem a little ridiculous since soon there won't be anything to put inside of them.

And someday I expect that I will have a moment left to apologize to my grandchildren and their friends as they sit around their birthday table stacked high with Soylent Green wafers and decorated with worn out brooms. Sorry kids, I'm the reason you can't have nice things.