Your Song

Sting, master lutist and former lead singer of The Police, likes to tell a story about how people will occasionally gush at him about how much they love his song "Every Breath You Take" and how it meant so much to them that they played it at their wedding. "All I could say to them was, 'Good luck then.'"
Mister Sting's standard arrogance aside, it is a kind of creepy song to play at the union of two healthy and sane individuals: Every single day, Every word you say,Every game you play,Every night you stay,Ill be watching you." Much in the same way that Charlie Brown may have gazed longingly at that little red-headed girl just a little too long, there is a line between love and obsession, sweetness and stalking.
I was introduced to the concept of couples having a song by my high school sweetheart. It was her belief that "our song" was the one that we heard at that moment she and I became we. By that measure, I was fairly certain that "our song" was the news on Q103. As the days turned to months and finally years, we renegotiated several times, trying to find a tune that adequately summed up our feelings for one another, but remained just this side of sappy. I filled dozens of ninety minute cassettes attempting to create just the right tone. Songs by Jimmy Buffett, Led Zeppelin, and Dire Straits all had their rotation, but none of them seemed to stick. Consequently, there is a good deal of music that causes me to reflect on that time, even now.
Lugging around that kind of musical legacy made it a bit of a challenge to find a song for my wife and I. She had a vision of having our first dance at our wedding to Etta James singing, "At Last." In a lovely bit of spontaneity, my older brother hijacked the boom box and played Ren and Stimpy's "Happy Happy, Joy Joy" in its place. He got it exactly right.

Gearhead

I know that as a parent I still have a number of thundering reckonings ahead of me. Not the least of these will be when my son learns how to drive. Given the time and fascination that he lavishes on all things automotive in the years before he becomes "legal," I can only assume that he will be even more auto-inclined in his late teens. For a guy who rarely opens the hood of his own car unless he's giving someone else's battery a jump. I wonder how I will respond.
It's not like I'm automotively illiterate. It's just that my understanding is outstripped by my lack of technical abilities. I can explain the operation of an internal combustion engine more easily than I can change my own oil. This wasn't always the case. When I drove my Vega, I learned to change spark plugs, air filters and check all manner of fluid levels and pressures on a regular basis. This was out of necessity. If I didn't take an active role in the maintenance of my car, it might not have lasted as long as it did. That, coupled with the ridiculous things I forced that car to do, kept me intimately involved with the workings of my main mode of transportation.
The same could be said for the Volkswagen that replaced it. Like many Beetle owners, I jury-rigged my own accelerator cable when the original snapped. If only I had been clever enough to understand that "air cooled engine" didn't mean that you just needed to keep driving when your car starts to overheat. You have to add oil.
I tend to avoid driving these days. My wife has looks over the care and feeding of our family vehicle. My son is profoundly interested in seeing us get the best possible mileage for the best possible performance, as reported in the latest issue of "Road and Track" and "Car and Driver." Over the next few weeks, my son and I will be undertaking a new project: We will be constructing a see-through model of a V-8 engine. I'm looking forward to a unique learning experience. Maybe he can explain the difference between "car and driver" and "road and track."

We've Got Spirit, Yes We Do

Last week I got an e-mail from the alumni group at my high school. They were pleased and happy to announce the start of their big fundraising push for the new year: paving bricks. The construction of a new gymnasium allowed for a great deal of excavation, leaving a vast new expanse that needs to be filled back in, and you can buy your own personalized paving brick for as low as one hundred and fifty dollars. As tempted as I might have been to immortalize myself as a Boulder High supporter in stone, or something like it, I stopped short. I found out that the bricks would be "ruby red with white lettering." While this makes sense from a brick-making standpoint, it falls short on the school spirit side of things. Short to the point of being on the opposite side of things. Boulder High School's colors are purple and gold. Our most detested and derided crosstown-rival Fairview High's colors are red and white.
While I suppose I could sense some poetic justice or irony in buying something that would be stepped on by countless students, alumni and staff of Boulder High that reminded me of Fairview, why not create the optimum purple and gold environment? One that would surely overwhelm and intimidate all who enter as casual visitors?
Or maybe it's just because I've been an alumni for so many years, and I was only at the school for three. My niece, who only recently made that big jump, alerted me to another round of silliness occurring at our alma mater: A group of current BHS students want to change the name of the school to "Barack Obama High School." It reminded me of "The Wonder Years," in which Kevin Arnold's junior high school is abruptly renamed, in 1968, "Robert F. Kennedy Junior High." It seemed like the right thing to do, at the time. It is a chance to commemorate history, and at some level I feel compelled to salute the youthful idealism of the "Student Worker" club at Boulder High who spearheaded this movement. Then I feel the weight of history pulling me back: Boulder High is Colorado's oldest high school. Three generations of my family have prowled those halls. It is older, by a year, than the state of Colorado itself.
Acknowledging Barack Obama's historic achievement at this point seems a little hasty. Might I suggest we start with a nice paving brick?

Parental Advisory

My son has been reading a lot of Mad magazine lately. My wife and I discovered a "bathroom reader" collection of vintage cartoons and parodies on one of our last Christmas shopping excursions. It was one of those things that we ended up enjoying so much, we decided to give it to ourselves. Now my son is learning the joys of Don Martin's situation-specific sound effects, the "lighter side" of Dave Berg," and just how funny the word "blecch" can be.
This got me thinking: I started reading Mad when I was younger than my son is now. It helped to shape/warp my vision of the world, and taught me the broad strokes of satire. It also taught me that even a magazine created by "the usual gang of idiots" could have standards. Mad was always better than its poor cousin, Cracked.
And I knew that it was a fairly short trip down the news stand from Mad to National Lampoon. This was quite a quick transition, considering I spent a good many years believing with all my heart that "Family Circus" was edgy because they had a dog named "Barfy." Of course during this time I was also a regular reader of the cartoons in "The New Yorker," so my tastes were constantly evolving.
Now my son has taken to reading Matt Groening's "Life In Hell" comics. Much like his father's experience with George Booth and Charles Addams, there are some jokes that fly harmlessly over his head. We have yet to have any embarrassing heart-to-heart discussions about topics neither one of us is comfortable. Much in the same way that we watch "The Simpsons" together. There are things he laughs at, things I laugh at, and things we laugh at together. That gulf is shrinking. Maybe it's time to get him a subscription to "The New Yorker."

Too Much Is Never Enough

Okay, is there anybody else out there who is becoming numb to all this talk about economic stimulus and bailout? I will assume that the lack of hands just means that you are, in fact, so numbed by all this that you have lost the will to even respond with a simple gesture. Or perhaps there are a number of other gestures that you have in mind, but common decency precludes mentioning them here.
The latest number, the one that I assume the powers-that-be would like us to respond to is three trillion. A quick check of my basic math facts tell me that one million times one million is one trillion. A trillion is a million squared. Today the Federal Reserve and the Senate started tossing around the figure of three trillion dollars more in government and private funds to fight against frozen credit markets and rising joblessness. If you're keeping score at home, we don't even have a trillion people on the planet. Not yet, anyway, so the idea that this sum would be somehow more manageable to consider in those terms doesn't quite wash.
The population of the United States is somewhere around three hundred million people. That works out to be about ten thousand dollars for every man, woman and child. Does this make sense? I've gone past the point of trying to make it make sense. The Lotto Machine is broken, and there will no more tickets purchased from this outlet. If it will take leventy-seben gredullion dollars to fix whatever it is that is wrong with our economy, go ahead and do it. I have stopped caring. Don't try to impress me with big numbers anymore. I am no longer worried. I'm just tired.

Yard Duty

Barry came to me with wide eyes. "They're going to beat him up, Mister Caven."
I had just stepped outside, and even though it was only eight fifteen, I could tell it was going to be one of those days. "Who is going to get beat up, Barry?"
Barry was a second grader, and a kid who generally avoids trouble, so I figured that I had better take him seriously. "Over there," he said, pointing to the boys' restroom, "Craig."
I started to follow him, but was cut off by Sharon, a fourth grader. "He hit me with a rock." This sounded important too, but the lack of tears and a proper noun kept me moving toward the boys' room. I motioned for her to follow along. "Who hit you with a rock?"
"Craig."
Now things were starting to come together. At the door to the bathroom, I stopped and told Barry and Sharon, "Wait here."
Fortunately for me, when I walked in, the scene could not have been more clear: Four fourth grade boys had cornered Craig next to the trash can. A couple of them even did me the favor of making it even more cartoon-like by making menacing gestures with their fists. "Hello Kevin. Hello Curtis. Hello Jerry. Hello Edward." They turned around, surprised and embarrassed. A wave of relief crept across Craig's face. "Hello Craig." I turned to the others, "Will you excuse us for a moment? I need talk to Craig." The fourth graders seemed unsure about their next move. "Alone." And with that, they made for the exit, not looking back.
When I was alone with Craig and the green tile, I asked him, "Why'd you throw that rock at Sharon?"
There was a moment's hesitation, then a wave of stammering.
I rephrased, "You really shouldn't throw rocks at Sharon."
This time there was no noise, just a sad nod of the head.
I walked him out the door to where Sharon stood waiting, arms crossed. "You need to apologize to Sharon."
"I'm sorry."
I reminded him that apologies are complete sentences.
"I'm sorry I threw that rock at you."
"Craig, you've just lost your morning recess, understand?" Sharon smiled smugly. Then I asked her, "Why did you send those guys after Craig?"
The smile disappeared, and then it was her turn to stammer.
"I appreciate that you didn't chase him into the boys' room, but you could have come and told me, or any other adult."
"But he was," her voice trailed off.
"Who was it?" I remembered the ones that I had seen, but was curious if the conspiracy went any deeper.
"Curtis, Kevin, Jerry, Edward," this was not shaping up to be the revenge she had hoped for.
"Thank you. Now why don't you two go and get ready to line up. The bell is going to ring in five minutes."
It was easy to find the Gang of Four. They stood in a row on the bridge of the playstructure, almost like they were waiting for me. "Come on down guys." I was relieved that it took them just a few seconds to meander over to the edge of the mat. I went down the line: "Curtis, no morning recess and you owe me a discipline paragraph. Kevin, no morning recess and you owe me a discipline paragraph. Jerry, no morning recess and you owe me a discipline paragraph. Edward, no morning recess and you owe me a discipline paragraph."
Edward started to whine, "I didn't do nothin'."
I looked at the other three, who weren't backing their buddy on this one. I looked back at Edward. "Nothin'?"
He shook his head. He knew the jig was up.
"Bell's gonna ring in a minute or two. Be in line."
Sure enough, the bell rang at eight thirty, and we all went into our classrooms. The boys all did their time on the bench, and I had three of the four paragraphs handed to me before the end of the day. Edward still owes me his. I'll get it tomorrow.

A Mild And Lazy Guy

I have been accused, from time to time, of not seeing the cracks in the facade of my personal semi-major-demigods. I have made excuses for Bruce Springsteen's Super Bowl appearance, or explained away the hundred dollar ticket price to see this hero of the working man at a venue near me. He did apologize for the "Wal-Mart Greatest Hits" snafu. But I'm not ready to tear down that monument just yet.
The same cannot be said of Steve Martin's recent career choices. I say this with love in my heart, as I found some of the biggest laughs in Tina Fey's "Baby Mama" to be the character he played, fitness guru Barry. But with every giggle, snort, and guffaw, came a twinge of resentment for the same guy opening "Pink Panther 2" this same weekend. A sequel of a remake? Just how diluted do you want your comedy before it comes to you?
A friend of mine and I have had a long-standing bit about the Flintstones movie. We try to envision the pitch meeting for this monstrosity, where someone had to sell the idea that making a live-action film of a cartoon that was based on a TV show that was in turn spawned from a series of sketches originally appearing on a variety show. How many laughs are left per million after that journey? What purpose does this serve, beyond the obvious motivation of greed?
I understand that it's called "show business" for a reason, but is it really necessary to tap dance directly on the grave of Peter Sellers and the legacy of Blake Edwards. Are there no more original ideas in Hollywood? Please forgive that last outburst, as I am already familiar with the answer, but I do think it's fair to point out that Steve Martin is a repeat offender: "Father of the Bride" and "Father of the Bride 2." You can add Spencer Tracy and Liz Taylor to the list of offended parties for those two. Then again, Liz showed up in that Flinstones movie, so maybe that one's a wash.
Will I forgive Steve? Yes, but this one left a mark. A big, pink bruise. I just hope when the time comes he has the strength to turn down the role of George Jetson.