Neal Pollack's The Maelstrom

Many (two) of you have written to inquire about the sexually stimulating antidepressant that has turned me into a horny 17-year-old senior camp counselor. That magic pill is Wellbutrin. While it doesn't work this way for everyone, my libido has jacked to the skies. Plus, my weight refuses to go over 180, no matter how much I eat, and I'm never depressed anymore unless I smoke someone else's pot. But I'm not a physician. Assuming you're still with health insurance--no guarantee these days if you have a history of depression--consult a trusted medical professional. The first two weeks you're on the drug will be trippy. My entire life flashed in front of me, in reverse order, and I slept about 3 hours a night. But once your mind is done shuffling itself, you should be able to settle into a calmer routine. I know I did, with only a few small side effects. Occasional grumpiness is a price I'm willing to pay for not hating myself all the time.

Now I've concluded the touching confessional portion of the post that also shills for Big Pharma. On to other matters. At this point, I'm probably the last person in the world who's still thinking about Adam Sternbergh's "Grups" article in NY Mag. Greg Allen over at DaddyTypes strikes the bloggy death-blow to that piece here. But I'm still dismayed over Sternbergh's over-reliance on the sneaker trope. I own two pairs of sneakers: One of them is a 14-year-old grass-stained Reebok combo that was never fashionable in the first place, and the other is a pair of functional running shoes.

As a dad, I am much more than the sum total of my footwear. I consider myself my son's foremost teacher (god help him), and have a lot more on my curricular agenda than just making him like the same shitty bands that I do. For instance, I'm determined that he learn properly about evolution. My parents never had to press evolutionary science on me, but then again, I didn't grow up in a time where schoolboards were choosing to teach the Biblical creation myth on the same scientific level as the proven, and still evolving, theory of evolution. I'll be goddamned if I'll let my son fall prey to the anti-science ideas and policies that are smothering this country in a blanket of ignorance.

To that end, Regina and I have begun to lay the groundwork that will allow Elijah to understand exactly where we came from, and how. Monday, Elijah was off from school, so I took him to the zoo. We ate lunch in front of the chimpanzee pavillion and watched the bored chimps show off for the crowd . They ran around and banged on walls, as well as begged amusingly for green onions.

"Elijah," I said. "Who do those chimps look like?"

"Opa," he said.

Opa is my father.

"I won't tell him you said that," I said. "No, they look a little bit like people. And that's because they're in the same family as people."

"Opa is in the same family as me."

"Opa is not a chimpanzee," I said. "But he evolved from one."

To reinforce my teachings, I ordered a volume in the excellent Cartoon History Of The Earth series, which describes how the age of mammals developed after the dinosaurs. It talks about how whales were originally land mammals that took to the water because they loved to eat fish, and about how giant sloths grew tall so they could reach leaves that other herbivores couldn't. It tells of the birth of grasslands and how that led to many new species of animals. Finally, the monkeys begin to appear. Then the men show up, and later there is TIVO.

Elijah doesn't get it all yet, nor should he. But soon enough, he will understand the concepts of metamorphosis and adaptation. His interest in bugs helps. I've been showing him the trippy French bug movie Microcosmos to give him a sense of the wonder and weirdness of nature. It is now his favorite movie, or at least it's in a tie with a highly educational video called The Backyardigans: It's Great To Be A Ghost. Today, we'll watch Winged Migration.

And just to make sure that Elijah doesn't find evolution dry, I've been reading to him from Ricky Gervais' hilarious Flanimals books. They're like Monty Python meets Mr. Tickle. Still, Gervais is a clever, clever man. Despite their infinite silliness, the Flanimals evolve, they devolve, they adapt, or they don't. That is, objectively, the way our world works. And I'm gonna do my best to make sure that my son sees it that way.

Posted by at 9:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (72)

On the one hand, I recognize that it can only be good for my book to have it identified by New York Magazine as a key document of a genuine sociological phenomenon. On the other hand, I sound like a lunatic nimrod in the article. Perhaps I was drunk when Adam Sternbergh interviewed me. Or high, which is sometimes a possibility. Regardless, people are going to read the piece and think that I'm a guy who sits around telling his kid that the TV shows he watches "suck."

To clarify: Most of the time, I just keep my mouth shut and let Elijah watch what he wants, without comment. Occasionally, though, the programming czars will attempt to shove something down our collective gullets that simply insults, and I rebel. For instance, I hate "Little Einsteins," a pretentious, sickly-sweet concoction where four annoying wide-eyed children fly around the world in a magic rocket, solving "missions" and ruining the greatest hits of Western classical music by adding off-key, insipid lyrics to them. One day, I told Elijah that I didn't like the show. He asked me why, and I said, "because the music isn't as good as it should be, and I don't think that TV shows need to tell you to use your imagination, especially when, in your case, you have a great imagination." "Oh," he said, and went back to watching.

Gradually, he lost interest in Little Einsteins, because it sucks, but hasn't lost interest in other shows that annoy me. I see how much he loves Go, Diego, Go!, and I wouldn't dream of insulting that hideous show in front of him. All I can do is expose him to a variety of options, and hope some of the better ones stick. Also, my wife would like me to add that she doesn't share my philosophy of telling kids that their TV shows suck, and never has. That's my own mishugas.

To me, the main tenets of "alternaparenting" are as follows: General skepticism (but not total rejection) of mainstream corporate parenting culture, encouraging creativity and imagination above all else, and, like the New York article hammers home, an unwillingness of the parents to completely put their own youth behind them. But it doesn't neglect the basics, either. Any decent parent of any aesthetic needs to provide their kids with food, clothing, shelter, discipline, and love. It's just that this generation of parents has added "sharing your DVD collection" to that list of essentials. I have trouble seeing how that's a bad thing.

A couple of other points, related to the article: I don't own a pair of jeans that cost more than $30. And I really do reject this idea that our kids are going to "become Republicans." First of all, that statement reduces politics to its most basic, stupidest terminology. My dad is a politically conservative Vietnam veteran, and I'm an almost stereotypical urban liberal. He and I have many differences, and we've done much arguing over the years, but those differences have very little to do with superficial aesthetics and fleeting cultural tastes. We're still both hairy Jewish men who work at home in our underwear, and we're also both committed to taking care of our families above everything else. My son can be whatever he wants, as long as he keeps to that very basic moral value and as long as he's nice to his mother.

So anyway, in the end, I'm proud to be part of this generation of parents, even if I'm already well on my way to being canonized as that generation's most clueless idiot. I don't know why I ever thought I'd be considered anything else.

Posted by at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (89)

Elijah has been a lot calmer this week. Regina suddenly came to the realization that allowing him to eat a popsicle after sundown, even an all-fruit one from Trader Joe's, was probably not a good idea if we wanted sane behavior and a pre-9:30 bedtime. Anything containing any kind of sugar at all is now banned after 5 PM. This has created no behavior problems at all, both because Elijah likes all kinds of cheese and we therefore have easy snack alternatives, and because he's not all coked up on sweets all the time. Don't give your kid crack, and he won't act like a crackhead. Of course, we knew that lesson already, but we had some slippage for a while. Sometimes stuff just sneaks up on you. The key to being a reasonably good parent is then dealing with the sneaky issues accordingly.

For instance, we're still in the middle of an endless potty-training period. Occasionally, Elijah will take a seat on the porcelain. He knows what to do. Now he's just trying to control us. He thinks it's funny that I have to wipe his butt. Technically, he's right. It is funny. But I'm tired of spending money on diapers, and of smelling my son's stinky shit.

Our latest tactic has been to force him to wear King Kong underwear when he comes home from school. When I say latest, I mean "yesterday." I put him in the underwear and said,

"If you pee or poop, it's gonna get in your underwear, and it won't feel good."

"I want a diaper!" he said.

"Nope. No diaper."

Regina backed me up on this.

Elijah then wandered from room to room, moaning, "I want a diaper! I want a diaper! I want a diaper!" We ignored his pleas. When next I saw my son, a few minutes later, he was sitting on the living-room couch. He had taken off his underwear and was playing with himself. Not only that, he was watching Dora The Explorer while doing it.

We had to temporarily put the poop issue aside. It was time to confront our son with an innocent lesson in human sexuality. Fortunately, we'd already discussed how we'd handle such a situation.

"Elijah," said Reg, "It's OK if you want to play with your peenie, but you have to do it in your bedroom."

"Why?" he said.

"Because," I said. "It's not polite to play with your peenie when other people are in the room. That's something private."

"Why?"

"It just is. Only play with your peenie in your bedroom. With the door closed. By yourself."

"Or in the bathtub!" he said.

"Sometimes in the bathtub, too," I said.

He stood up and walked toward his room, without relinquishing his peenie-grip.

Regina and I think that sex is natural, fun, and hilarious. My first book was narrated by a guy who calls himself a "champion fucker" and who boasts about his hundreds of sex partners. Regina makes beautiful paintings that features the figures of bound, headless women against backgrounds of vintage textile patterns. We have a several pieces of tasteful, ungraphic erotic art in our house, including a painting from a friend that depicts a naked woman sitting around with two cats. Our nightstands contain many bottles of edbile oil that we don't get to use very often because we're so damn tired all the time. Our son will probably not grow up prudish.

Anyway, five minutes passed.

"Where is he?" Regina said.

"Babe, you told him to go to his room and play with his peenie. Where do you think he is?"

"Are you sure it's OK that he's doing it?"

"I jerk off nearly every day."

"Yes, but you're on an antidepressant that makes you horny. He's three."

At that moment, I realized that my son was teaching himself to masturbate before he learned how to crap in the john. Well, I thought, we all have our priorities. I wanted to tell him that the two impulses aren't really that far apart. But I realized that particular lesson should probably wait until puberty.

Parents who read this thing: I know you're out there. Bring my comments section to life. I ask you, do you ever encounter situations like this? Does it just keep getting weirder? Please inform.

Posted by at 3:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (32)

From The Arizona Republic, five minutes ago:

"Suns forward Amare Stoudemire could be back in action as quickly as Thursday night. The All-Star big man, out since left knee surgery in October, said the chances were "80-20" that he'd play Thursday night."

Hallelujah! He is risen!

Posted by at 2:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (29)

On the recommendation of a reader, I took Elijah to the La Brea Tar Pits over the weekend. I'd never actually been there myself, so it was exciting for both of us. Our date went extremely well, one of those occasions when the boy and I are totally in sync, like we can read each other's minds, though that's not so difficult when all I think about is sex and baseball and all he thinks about is sharks and poop. Inside the Page Museum (which is where they keep all the excavated bones), Elijah saw the sabertoothed tiger skeleton change into a sabertoothed tiger hologram and back again. I had to reinsert his eyes back into his skull. But otherwise, the day proceeded without incident.

After we learned all about giant sloths, mastodons, and dire wolves, we went to Pink's on La Brea for one of their legendary hot dogs. Actually, Elijah had a hot dog, with pickles and ketchup, while I took another five months off my life by consuming a double mushroom Swiss cheeseburger. Fuck it. I was hungry.

Elijah wanted to show everyone at Pink's the tube of plastic prehistoric animals that I'd purchased for him. Person after person stopped by our table to share their own childhood Tar Pit memories. Here are questions designed to jack up my flagging comments section: Do you have Tar Pit memories? Is there someplace special your parents used to take you when you were a kid?

After we got home, I retreated to my desk in the back of the house with a bottle of Pepto-Bismol, and then I took a nap because I'd woken up with the kid at 6:30. After I de-napped, I had just enough time to take a shower and drive to my poker game, where I got my ass handed to me as the buzzer went off on the second blind. Poker just isn't my game. I got scolded twice by the organizer for eating pita chips too loudly after I'd folded my hand.

Anyway, I didn't see Elijah until about 9 AM the following day. I emerged from my coffin to find him shooting stuff out of his finger, as usual. Only now it wasn't fire. It was goo.

"I'm Goo Man!" Elijah said.

"He's been Goo Man since the Tar Pits," said Regina.

"They call me Gooey!"

"They call him Gooey," she said.

He stuck out his finger.

"You have goo on you!"

"Oh my god! I do!"

"You're the Rhino! And Doctor Octopus!"

Apparently, Goo Man had replaced Spiderman overnight. I swelled with pride. My child had invented his own superhero. Not only that, his hero had the power to smother his enemies (two cats, a Boston Terrier and me) with a "goo blanket." Technically, this was just a blanket off his bed, but if you concentrated hard enough, I found, it could feel like goo.

"Goo Man gets goo all over everything!" said Elijah.

"Your daddy is Goo Man, too," said Regina, deploying a double entendre beyond our son's comprehension.

"No! I am Goo Man!" said Goo Man.

Goo Man was the weekend's most redeeming feature. Otherwise, Elijah got into Regina's little jar of mentholated ointment, mostly putting it in his hair. But he also said he'd eaten some, meaning I had to make what seemed like my weekly call to Poison Control. I talk to those operators more often than I talk to my father. Also, about 10 minutes after he'd watched Regina fold a huge basket of laundry, Elijah went into our bedroom and deliberately overturned it, and sat there cackling as we folded it all over again. These were the major offenses in a weekend full of whining and early rising.

The babysitter showed up at 6 PM on Sunday night. Regina and I went to a mediocre restaurant in West Hollywood and got reasonably drunk. Then it was off to the Troubadour to see Art Brut, a band that can best be described as, oh, Franz Ferdinand fronted by Jonathan Richman. The band rocked quite well, though they wore the pallor, which I knew all too well, of having just spent a week in Austin at South By Southwest. We enjoyed the show, particularly because the doorman, who'd been staring at Regina's breasts the entire time we stood in line, allowed us into the VIP lounge, but only after calling her "mama." Regina found this flattering, but a mite annoying.

"I guess once you clear 30, you're a mama," she said.

Hey, Elijah, I thought, your daddy is a VIP at the Troubadour, but then I realized that Elijah didn't give a shit. But I still kept that feeling close to my chest, until 6:15 AM rolled around the next day, and then l found myself packing a lunch for someone who was simulatenously watching Tiny Planets and trying to smother a cat with a blanket. As Art Brut says, Bang bang. Rock-n-roll.

One more thing. To that smug frat schmuck who filed the lawsuit claiming that men have the right not to pay support for a child they fathered by accident, I have this to say: You do the crime, you do the time, bucko. Being a father doesn't stop you from being a selfish asshead, necessarily, but it certainly opens up other options. Be a man, get it together, withdraw the suit, and call off the media dogs. Or I'm sending Goo Man after you.

Posted by at 11:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (78)

My mother called last night around 7:45 with the news: My youngest sister Rebecca had given birth to a 5-pound, 14-ounce baby girl. Mother and small but not premature child were tired but doing well in a hospital room in Portland, Oregon. I should have rejoiced; this was the very definition of good news. Unfortunately, the second I answered the phone, Elijah, who was having his daily wash, dropped a floater.

"You're Uncle Neal again," my mother said.

"I hope they enjoy themselves now," I said, "because in three years, they're going to be dealing with a roommate who craps in the bathtub!"

"I just thought I'd relay the joyous news."

"Now we have to drain the tub and bleach all his toys. Again! Arrrgh!"

"Why don't we talk later, dear?"

My mother is under the impression that my family exists in a state of constant chaotic crisis. While it's true that we're not silent about our emotions, Regina is, at heart, a Protestant girl, so she has enough stoic resistance to keep us from fully descending into the neurotic emotional goulash that, from my experience, consumes many a fine Jewish family. But my mom always seems to call at the exact moment that Elijah is pulling the cat around by the tail, or on a day, like today, which can only be described as Another Black Friday.

Elijah hasn't been sleeping enough. We put him down around 8 PM every night, sometimes a little earlier if he's sagging, or a little later if storytime runs long. But it usually takes him an hour and a half to get to sleep regardless. Usually during that pre-unconsciousness period, he requests two diaper changes, we grant one, he runs out into the living room giggling at least twice, and spends a lot of time shrieking stuff like "MY BOTTOM HURTS!" to try to lure us into his trap. This would all be fine except that he never wakes up after 7, and is usually up on the early side of 6:30. We can't stop him from waking up, and we can't get him to go to sleep any earlier. The kid is tired, and so are we.

We knew we were in for a long day when we dropped him off at school this morning. It was Shabbat, and, as usual, a band was playing. Parents hung around longer in the classroom, eating challah and chatting with other exhausted people who waited too long to have kids. I looked over. Eliljah was on the floor, bawling hysterically. He had accidentally bonked himself on the forehead with a bucket of plastic fish. We soothed him sympathetically. But we also felt dread. Goofy mishaps are almost always a sign of future trouble.

A little background now: The same girl who wanted to start a band with Elijah last week gave him a dandelion when he went to school yesterday. They stared at each other bashfully for a few seconds, and then started shooting imaginary fire out of their fingers. They are clearly in love.

Why, then, wasn't I surprised to have Regina call me at 3 PM to say that, in an argument with this girl, Elijah had grabbed her neck and scratched her? The director of the school was hanging around to let Regina know personally. We've been through this before. But when Elijah had his earlier problems, which I described at great length in a highly-controversial article for Salon.com, he was a lot younger, and also in a crappy, boring school. This school is neither crappy nor boring. In fact, he loves it there and has many friends.

So we're worried, but we hope that we have more mechanisms available this time. First, the punishment: No ice cream, no juice. The only things he can eat for the next 24 hours, as snacks, are fruit, vegetables, and cheese. This isn't a harsh punishment, but I would say that, until the offense is repeated, denial of pita chips is sufficient. Also, I called the girl's mother after school. Her reaction: "It's a love/hate thing. That's what three-year-old relationships are like."

"It's what a lot of adult relationships are like, too," I said.

She didn't seem particularly offended by that comment, so I proferred:

"We're going to the Tar Pits tomorrow. Do you all want to join us?"

The answer was no. Too much adventure for one day. But there will be a playdate, probably, tomorrow late afternoon. We've told Elijah he has to make something nice for his friend so she knows he loves her. He says he wants to make her a sea creature. I hope this doesn't require a run to the craft store.

Anyway, after I handled that particular situation as best I knew how, playtime was upon us. Elijah ran into his room. We heard cackling. And then some other stuff.

"Is that music?" Regina said.

"Ah ha ha!" shouted Elijah. "Rock and roll!"

He had finally figured out how to turn on his clock radio, which he'd randomly tuned to L.A.'s cheesiest classic-rock station. We went into his room. He was thrashing around madly to Blue Oyster Cult singing "I'm Burning For You." I suppose it could have worse. It could have been Foreigner.

Then he informed us it was time to play "Piggyback Shark." I had no idea what he meant, so I followed directions. I got down on all fours, and then Elijah laid on top of my back. Then he told Regina that she was to get on top of him. She said she didn't want to, because she would crush us. I told her that she didn't need to apply any actual pressure. So she did that and nibbled Elijah's neck, saying, "Ahm nam nam! The shark is going to eat you!" This made Elijah very happy.

He dismounted, went over to his toy kitchen, and announced that was going to make us soup. To the sound of Robert Plant screeching "hey hey mama like the way you move..." Regina got on top of me, started nibbling, and saying "ahm nam nam. Watch out for the shark!"

The gesture offered a lot of promise, assuming we could get the kid to fall asleep by nine.

Posted by at 4:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (22)

The Internet dad collective Dadcentric has named me their Dad O' The Week. Enjoy the interview.

As both of you regular readers know, Dad O' The Week got a TIVO for his 36th birthday, though what he really needed was a cortisone shot in his right knee. My knee was permanently damaged when the drunken teenage girlfriend of my friend Ben in Austin hit it square on with a whiskey bottle while we were all in a hot tub together. This was a few months before Elijah was born. I suppose I deserve the pain.

So yes, TIVO. My own viewing habits are relentlessly predictable: Sports, HBO, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, plus various pickings from Turner Classic Movies. My wife prefers the offerings of the Sci-Fi Network, including, for unknown reasons, Stargate: Atlantis but with a major in Battlestar Galactica. Elijah likes the same crap he's always liked.

Before TIVO, Elijah would occasionally whine that he wanted to watch a particular show "RIGHT NOW!" My response was: "No way! I already watched that episode of the Wiggles where they sing about building the TV set! Go play with your toys!" Now, duelling tantrums must find another focus, because everything is on all the time. And TIVO has this weird feature where it records stuff by guessing what you might like. That's how I've ended up seeing the "spectacled bear" episode of Go, Diego Go! three times, though to be fair, I usually drift off into the other room when it comes on. I have to, lest I go mad. This morning, I discovered that TIVO had mined an episode of Tennessee Tuxedo And His Tales off a low-end local channel. I think it was channel 166. That's what's left for the local stations after basic cable has picked the flesh off the bones of sydication. Tennessee Tuxedo and Mama's Family. Sad days indeed.

I tried to show this program, which I vaguely recall having enjoyed as a child, to Elijah. He was initially interested, since there was a penguin and a walrus (both wearing hats) who were doing the laundry of a bunch of other animals. But his attention soon wandered, and it was back to the better-animated, but more condescening, spectacled bears. Children's television sucks, with few exceptions. But I have a feeling that it's going to wander back toward quality again, and soon. My prediction: A return to the Sid And Marty Krofft aesthetic, but self-aware this time. Meet Yo Gabba Gabba! Please let that pilot get picked up! This will be the TV show around which our movement rallies. Not that we have a movement, mind you, but if we did, this would the the TV show around which it...you get the idea.

Now if I could just get TIVO to stop recording Walker, Texas Ranger. I don't watch that, even ironically.

Posted by at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (58)

Driving along Colorado Boulevard the other day, Regina brought up her latest Internet readings.

"They've been making all these crazy archelogical finds in Egypt," she says. "It's all been in the last year."

"Really?" I said, thinking very hard about my upcoming fantasy baseball draft.

"Yeah," she said. "Like entire new cities and civilizations. We don't really know much about early humanity at all. Really only around the time of the Bible do we start..."

"Don't forget ancient Greece."

"What are you talking about, guys?" said Elijah, from the back seat. We've always operated under the assumption that we should teach him, based on our extremely limited range of knowledge, about whatever piques his curiosity, and that we should respect his intelligence in doing so. Regina began to explain.

"A long time ago," she said, "there were other people living where we do now. And in other places, too. They lived in big cities, but then they all disappeared because of a flood."

"Or drought," I added. "Or war."

"Right," she said. "Or because it got too cold. And then the forest grew over these big cities and people are only just now finding them again."

Elijah pondered this for a minute. Then, instead of asking more questions, he said this:

"Apatosauruses are nice."

"Yes they are," I said.

"Flying dinosaurs are nice."

"Yes."

"They don't eat people."

"They never saw people."

"Dinosaurs are dead," said Elijah.

"That's right," Regina said.

"What else is dead?"

"The dodo bird."

"Dodo bird?"

"Yes."

"Daddy is a dodo bird."

"Yes he is."

"A giant hand came out of the sky and took all the little dinosaurs."

"Is that right? Because dinosaurs were little and people were big?"

"No! It was giant people! And they ate all the little dinosaurs."

"That's as good a theory as any, I guess."

"The big dinosaurs were mad."

"I'm sure they were."

Posted by at 4:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

While I was away at my most recent visit to rock-and-roll fantasy camp, Elijah started acting like, as they say in France, une grande asshole. The phone reports from home shocked me out of my humid, stoned stupor each time. At the worst, they consisted of nothing but Regina shouting, "HE IS DRIVING ME CRAZY! WHAT DOES HE WANT FROM ME?" At the best, it was, "I finally got him to bed and I'm going to watch Battlestar Galactica now." It became apparent that she was wrestling with the devil.

One evening, I learned that Elijah had taken a crap in the tub. This, as those of you who follow this space regularly know, was nothing new. The boy drops a floater almost as often as Regina's senile, cancerous 15-year-old male tabby cat takes a piss on one of my prized possessions. But on this evening, the floater got airborne. According to sources close to the family, Elijah, cackling like a mad hen on greenies, stood up and flung his poop all over the bathroom.

The sad thing is that the report didn't surprise me. Elijah has been pulling that act, periodically, for the last year and a half. The child uses poop as a weapon. To him, shit equals control. Also, I've instilled the unfortunate belief in him that poop is hilarious, which it is, but I never told him that throwing poop is hilarious. I only talked to Elijah once while I was away, but when I did, the only thing he said to me was, "I ate poop!" What a genius I have created!

Last night, back in L.A., I got to see le grande asshole at work for myself. At 5:15, we took him to our crowded mega-gym, and inserted him at Kid's Club, which is a small, carpeted room containing a bunch of plastic toys, a television, and a 75-year-old grandmother whose method of supervising the kids involves playing solitaire on the computer. Then again, what do you want for three bucks a month? After a grueling 35-minute workout, plus 10 minutes of showoffy yoga stretching, I went to fetch the boy. He was playing "mommy and daddy" with a pretty girl at least four years older than him. He is an operator.

The trouble didn't start until dinnertime. Upstairs from the gym is a chain restaurant with the unfortunate name of Souplantation. I've commented to Regina that the company might want to consider changing the name, since those are the kinds of things that lead to a Jesse Jackson protest, and, in this case, he'd have good reason to be pissed. She pointed out that there were many black customers in the Souplantation. I said that it still wasn't right. What if someone opened a Russian-food-buffet called the Souplag? How about the Soupentraction Camp?

"Yes dear," Regina said.

Souplantation is a buffet-style restaurant boasting of food made with healthy ingredients. I wish I could find something to say against the food, but it is, in fact, quite delicious, except for the clam chowder, which was a little chalky. The fact that your kid can eat there for $1.49 makes it an obvious choice, especially if you're just looking to eat someplace where the cat's not jumping on the table. The boy seems to like the place for the most part. But yesterday, as I returned from garnering my second helping of Asian chicken salad with a side of mushrooms, a side of chopped eggs, and a big cup of cream of tomato soup (ahh, the buffet, balm to and curse of the Jewish gastrointestinal tract), I discovered that Elijah had deliberately dumped his glass of water on the table. Regina was making him help her clean it up with napkins. Then, for some reason, he bit her.

"That's it," I said, scooping him up. We've had enough trouble with biting in our lives already, so any offense gets taken very seriously, particularly if I witness it. I carried him out of the restaurant. He squirmed in my arms, whining that he didn't want to go outside.

We stood at the entrance, away from the door.

"You listen to me, Mister," I said. "We do not bite!"

"But I was..."

"No buts," I said. "Biting is wrong and you need to go back in and apologize to your mother."

He looked at me, grinned, and took off down the concrete ramp. I chased after him and scooped him up again.

"Cut the crap, tough guy!" I said, only sort of aware that I was talking to my son as though I were Richard Widmark in a black and white movie.

"I want to play outside," Elijah said.

The disarming began. He tagged me and said, "I am Doctor Octopus and you are the Rhino!"

"I don't want to play Spiderman right now," I said. "I want to finish my dinner. Now let's go inside and you can apologize to mommy. I will play the Rhino at home and I will defeat you."

The promise of horseplay calmed him, and we went back inside. Elijah kissed mommy on the cheek. He told her he was sorry, and also that he'd just pooped his pants. Regina looked at me. Her gaze said, "I spent five days alone with him. You deal with this one."

So Elijah and I went into the bathroom. There was a changing table in the handicapped stall, but a daughter and father were already in there. I could hear their conversation.

"You're changing my diaper!"

"Yeah."

"My diaper is my diaper!"

"Uh-huh."

"I am a diaper! Diaper! Diaper! Diaper!"

"Stand still. We're almost done."

"I don't want to wear my pants!"

"You have to wear your pants."

I'd had that conversation, or something a lot like it, at least 100 times. The guy and his daughter came out of the stall. He looked like someone who would sneak away to the comic-book store on his lunch hour, but only to look at the new Dan Clowes. I nodded at him and said, "It used to be that we could drink a beer after work." He looked at me, sighed, and said, "Times have changed."

I've never actually had a job where I couldn't drink beer during the workday, but sometimes I feel a strange, stereotypical bond with all fathers my age, so I say stuff like that. I'm always seeking common ground with anyone who will admit, occasionally, that being a parent really sucks. When you take your son into the handicapped stall, pull down his pants to find a clean diaper, and discover that he only pretended to crap his pants so he could play with the hot-air hand-dryer, you need to talk to someone who will understand. When will the boy learn that I like to play with the hand-dryer, too? No need to be an asshole, boy, I want to say. Your dad is an asshole, too. All you need to do is ask nicely. Also, don't bite your mother.

Posted by at 2:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (22)

An Alternadad moment: On Thursday night in Austin I went to Home Slice, a pizzeria on Congress Avenue, to get a couple of pies for my band during rehearsal. Home Slice is new in the three months since I left Austin, whose retail mix is evolving quickly in anticipation of adapting to the coming worldwide ecological apocalypse. While I waited, I picked up a children's coloring book that the pizzeria produces. One of the pages said "Kids! Can You Draw Morrissey?" And sure enough, there was a picture of Morrissey in the lower left-hand corner. I looked around. The pizzeria had posted kid-drawn pictures of Morrissey all over the walls.

On the one hand, that's kind of cool. On the other: Jesus Christ on a stick! Why can't this generation of parents (myself included), realize that this subtle "alternative" brainwashing of our kids is going to backfire on us? Can you imagine our parents taking us to Shakey's in the late 70s and asking us to draw pictures of Buddy Holly, or, as I like to call him, "Ira Glass with bad teeth"? Can someone let me off the hipster-parent carousel now? And now it's official. The pot has called the kettle hip.

Meanwhile, the show on Friday night transcended competence. I dare say that we were pretty good, not that our captive audience of 250 graduate-writing-program students and professors would have been able to tell the difference. I thank the fine editors of Post Road Magazine for the big wad of cash that they handed me afterward. There is not a more genuine, laid-back group of people in the literary world, at least not that I've encountered. The fact that they can produce a magazine in the nearly-illiterate city of Boston, a place of few colleges or bookstores, is just a miracle. I thank them for breathing new life into The Neal Pollack Invasion's heaving near-corpse, and I thank the Velvet Spade for not making me clean up the broken glass.

Posted by at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (74)

I took Elijah to school this morning. When we arrived, his little friend Ariel's mother was loading her extra baby into the car seat. It's become apparent to me that Ariel is soon going to figure prominently in this storyline. She and Elijah obviously have some destiny together. Her mother must feel it as well, because she said to me,

"Ariel's in there waiting for Elijah."

"Ariel said she wants to be in a band with me," Elijah said.

"Really?" I said.

The mom confirmed, "She wants to record an album with Elijah. I think she wants to redo a Hard Day's Night."

This was the first I'd heard of this, but I was thrilled. In my mind, I imagined Ariel and Elijah as a three-year-old John Doe and Exene, committed to youthful good times and serious rock-n-roll. We have to find them a Billy Zoom, admittedly, but the core has been established. However, Ariel's mom, if she was gonna be a rock-n-roll show parent, has to ditch the Beatles fixation. I presented her with another option.

"Elijah and I were listening to my rock album in the car," I said.

"You were playing a record for him?"

"No, the album from my band. I used to be in a band. Called The Neal Pollack Invasion."

"I haven't heard of you."

"No one has. We put out an album but most of the copies are being held prisoner in a warehouse in Lawrence, Kansas because our record label went bankrupt.

"Oh."

I neglected to mention that you can download the album, Never Mind The Pollacks, for $4.99 at the itunes music store.

Anyway, Elijah and I had been listening to the album in the car because I have a Neal Pollack Invasion show in Austin this weekend. I have to listen a few times this week, because I've more or less forgotten the lyrics. Actually, I only played "Do The Ostrich" for him, from a live recording we did in Washington, D.C. That's the cleanest of the songs. And I turned off the album before I told a heckler "I'll fuck you if you want, but I'm warning you that I'm going to have to take a piss in the middle."

That would be inappropriate for a child to hear.

When we got to his classroom, Ariel was dabbing paint onto a poster-sized drawing of King Ahasuerus. The Purim season has begun. Rock-n-roll can wait. Then again, Esther and Haman wouldn't be a bad name for the band. Kind of like Belle and Sebastian, but Jewish and probably a little harder-core.
We shall see.

When I got home, I told Regina that the Purim Carnival was coming and that Elijah would have to wear a costume.

"You know what he's gonna want to be, don't you?" she said.

"What?" I said.

"Spiderman."

"Regina, you have to dress like one of the Purim characters. I don't think Spiderman is part of the Purim story. Though it would be kind of cool if he was."

"I didn't know," she replied. "I thought it was like Halloween."

Sometimes I feel like Darrin Stevens, except that my wife is a Protestant instead of a witch.

Now for the advertisement. The Neal Pollack Invasion will perform Friday, March 10, from 5:30 to 7:30 at the Velvet Spade in Austin, Texas. It's for a party thrown by Post Road Magazine, which will be in town for the Associated Writing Programs conference. The party, says Post Road, will celebrate the launch of its latest issue, as well as the inclusion of "The Smile on Happy Chang's Face" by Tom Perrotta from Post Road 8 in the Best American Short Stories 2005, edited by Michael Chabon. And how better to celebrate that accomplishment than by inviting me to play?

I thank Post Road for its brave choice. The complete show will go as such: I will read from Alternadad for a little while. Then the Invasion will play a complete set, including my new song, "I Fucked Raymond Carver." Then I will wander around cadging drinks off people. See you there.

Posted by at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (22)

This town is magic. If you don't believe me, check out how I spent my first Oscar night in Los Angeles. It went as follows:

For the first hour of the ceremony, I was in a station wagon driving back from my parents' house in Phoenix. This drive proved a bit more arduous than our usual trip, despite the welcome addition of XM satellite radio, a technological upgrade that I received for my 36th birthday. I realize that I now have satellite radio but lack health insurance, but then again, XM didn't stop me from purchasing their service because I take antidepressants. Anyway, Elijah had a bit of a cold over the weekend, so we cared for him. That kid has been sick three days in his life, and even on those days, he's gone to the zoo or something equally fun. So while it was a bit heartbreaking to hear him say, in the car, "why does everybody get sick sometimes?", I also wanted to tell him, "buck up, junior. Some people have real problems." But I did not, because that's the kind of shit people used to tell me when I was a kid, not realizing that my sad feelings were real, man. But the point of all this is that you haven't lived until you've rubbed mentholated ointment on your son's chest at a rest-stop in Quartzite, Arizona.

After we got home, we kept the Oscars at bay because I also received TIVO for my birthday. Again, TIVO has no health restrictions for membership. So while my magic dancing television box recorded some bad dance numbers and what amounted to about 15 minutes of bonus Daily Show jokes, I gave Elijah a bath. While he was in the tub, Regina and I ate a gourmet dinner of frozen chicken taquitos, rice, and avocado slices. Then, it was story time.

Elijah doesn't really like narrative books much. Our storytimes usually consist of him bringing me a book about animals, and then of him telling me everything about the animals in the book. Tonight, we did his current favorite, a coloring book of Desert Animals Of The Southwest, as well as the old standby, Sharks And Other Dangers Of The Deep. I think it's pretty cool that he can recognize a kangaroo rat by sight, but then again, he is my kid.

It came time to cut Elijah's nails, which were still soft from the bath. Regina does the cutting, because I've smoked too much pot in my life and I would probably slice off Elijah's fingertips. My job is to entertain him and keep the simpering at a minimum. My job was easy this time. I looked down, and peeking out from underneath the couch was a mini-carrot, or what once was a mini-carrot. This thing had probably been lurking under there for a week, if not a month, and it had become completely shrivelled. It was, I said to my son, a "carrot mummy." He thought this was hilarious, and said,

"It looks like a piece of poo!"

Regina and I shook our heads.

"You can do better than that, Elijah," she said.

"Try again," I said.

"OK," he said. "It looks like a chicken finger!"

"Much better," said Regina.

"Definitely," I said. "A more surprising reference."

Then I showed my son what comedy was all about by placing the carrot on the belly of our cat Teacake, who was splayed out on the couch between me and Regina, who had Elijah on her lap.

"Look," I said. "This is Teacake's peenie!"

Regina moved to protest, but then Elijah started laughing so uproariously that she didn't have the heart to correct me. Nothing on earth, apparently, is funnier than a pretending that a dessicated carrot is a senile cat's penis. While Elijah was distracted, she finished cutting his nails. Then he had a massive quasi-bronchial coughing fit, and we had to re-apply the menthol.

Then he went to bed and then Regina and I watched the Oscars. You all know how that turned out, thanks to the commentary of people better-paid than me who aren't also trying to make some money screenwriting in Hollywood. So let me just say that the movies are magic and I love everyone I've ever met here, except for one person, and you know who you are.

We got through the Oscars quickly enough, and then it was on to my main course: The Suns-Mavericks game, TIVOed from earlier that day. I had the great privilege, thanks to the patronage of my high-school friend Jason Franz, of attending the Suns-Magic game on Friday night in pretty high style. We had eleventh row seats, behind the basket, and got to eat dinner in a reasonable swanky lounge with lots of men who wore bad cologne. I bore witness to a fine display of basketball artistry. I had some criticisms of the Suns early in the season, but it's apparent now that this is a fine-tuned machine run by a genius. I truly think that the Suns are going to win the title this year. Finally, after 30 years of fruitless rooting, I am staked with a team that cannot lose.

We were getting beaten, not by much, but definitely beaten, by a far lesser team well into the fourth quarter. Yet I never felt that the game was in doubt. Mike D'Antoni is a sly dude. He basically tells his team to not play defense until the last six minutes, and then to play all-out. They also take a lot of charges and pull unexpected double-teams. For a team that averages 109 points a game, that's enough.

So yes, they beat the Magic, and I got to lose myself in an 18,000-person like-minded roar of the type that's usually reserved in Phoenix for Tim McGraw or a high-end visiting preacher. But the real test came today on the road against the Mavericks, a team of merit that boasted a 16-game win streak coming in. And again, we hung around, more or less, for 40 minutes, and then we turned up the press and won the game going away. The NBA is spending a lot of time putting LeBron James and Kobe Bryant on the schedule. Next Sunday, again, it's a Cavs game and a Lakers game. Also, there's the option of watching the crappy Rockets in some time zones. But the Suns are the real team to watch this year. They pass, they shoot, they jump real high. They're from France and Canada and Brazil, and some of them are even from the U.S. They are your 2006 World Championship Phoenix Suns, and you heard it here first.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have an Oscar after-party to attend. In my pants. Thank you very much.

Posted by at 1:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I picked Elijah up at school yesterday. His friend Ariel, an adorable, shambling little girl who always seems to be wearing tights that don't quite match her jumper, was in the wooden toy phone booth that's conveniently located between the restrooms. Her mother stood by, looking exhausted as always, with newish baby hanging from a sling draped over her chest. Elijah and I went to get his lunchbox and jacket. Ariel was still in the booth. We chased his friends around the yard for a bit. Still, she was in the booth, chatting merrily. It's quite apparent to me that this girl is going to be a lifelong weirdo, in the best possible way.

"Are you done yet?" said her mother.

"I am not done!" Ariel said.

"Who's she talking to?" I asked.

The mother rolled her eyes and sighed.

"Ringo Starr," she said.

I felt instantly trumped. When Elijah pretends to talk on the phone, it's to his grandma and opa, or his cousin Alli. When we got in the car, I said, "Elijah, we have to call John Cleese when we get home."

He likes John Cleese.

"OK," he said. "Ariel was talking to Ringo Starr."

Well, I thought, we may be raising our children in a country with a "government" that has been utterly seized by the operatives of a shadowy multinational corporation whose only concern is the pursuit of maximum profit, regardless of the loss of human life. But at least our kids will have an interesting reference base. Along those lines, Regina and I are constantly telling Elijah that there is an evil man named George W. Bush who is trying to destroy the world. Elijah now considers "Bush Man" to be a villain, an enemy of Spider-Man's who rivals Dr. Octopus, The Green Goblin, and The Rhino.

"Bush Man must be defeated!" I say.

"Spider-Man can beat him!" Elijah says.

Oh, Spider-Man. Where are you?

Speaking of superheroes, I'm going to Phoenix this weekend for a trip that will include the Suns-Magic game tomorrow night. Shawn Marion is putting up Bill Russell-type numbers. Angered by All-Star Break trade rumors , The Matrix is on an insane rampage, seeking justice like a mid-career Bruce Wayne. He's proving himself the equal of, if not the superior of, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett. Teams are afraid, very afraid of the Suns right now, even though the team has only eight healthy players and its GM just decamped to Toronto.

Now, Toronto a great town for film festivals. In fact, it's one of my favorite cities, while Phoenix is one of my least favorites. But we must see this situation through different eyes. As far as the NBA goes, Toronto is not a desirable destination. Would a newly-minted millionaire want to spend December in a city full of excellent strip clubs, spectacular weather, and golf courses as far as the eyes can see, or in the part of the world that spawned Bob and Doug McKenzie? Godspeed, Bryan Colangelo!

Amare will soon return. Together, he, The Matrix and Steve Nash (who does not need a nickname), will defeat Bush Man. Or at least the Spurs.

Posted by at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (36)