Neal Pollack's The Maelstrom

Yesterday morning began, like most mornings, with me laying in bed, hearing Regina scream "ELIJAH? WHAT ARE YOU DOING????" from the other room. This phrase gets uttered so often in our house that I rolled over and went back to sleep, but I was still surprised when, half an hour later, I discovered what Elijah had actually done.

1. Begged Regina to make him spaghetti for breakfast.
2. Refused to eat the spaghetti at the table.
3. Dumped the bowl all over a new throw blanket on the couch.
4. When put in his room for punishment, peed on the floor of his closet.

And thus the never-ending hell spiral of banality that passes for my life continued. School's out for summer, and all the cliches apply. Our sanity hangs in the balance.

We've enrolled Elijah, for the week, in an educational camp at the L.A. County Natural History Museum. This week's theme is "Into The Forest." I chose this theme for him because he likes forests, and also because it was the only class that had an opening all summer. All preschoolers must be accompanied by a parent, so I guess I'm also learning about forests this week.

The initial half-hour went well. I quickly determined that I was the only adult male in the group. We met his teacher, a nice young woman with a degree in cultural anthropology. She took us to our large, well-appointed classroom. The kids introduced themselves and said their favorite color. Elijah gave a normal answer. I'm glad he wasn't the kid who said his favorite color is "yellow Flash and red Flash. The yellow Flash is evil and the red Flash is good," to which the teacher said, "oooooo-kaaaaaaay....What about you? What's your favorite color?"

Then she read the kids a story about a deer, and told them that today, they'd be studying temperate forests.

"But first," she said. "You're going to do a craft. Parents, this is the toughest craft you'll do all week. So you don't have to worry."

Existential despair, never far from my surface to begin with, bubbled up in a spasm of fear. At that moment, I knew for certain that life is ruled by cruel and angry gods. In those tender, disco-fueled days when I was a schoolboy, my craft projects, if I even finished them, usually looked like something crapped out by a dying animal. My skills haven't improved any.

The craft turned out to be a backpack, made of paper bags, that Elijah would then use all week as his class went on "expeditions" into the museum. I got the materials, and saw that the teacher had drawn dotted lines into the bags to show us where to cut and fold. She might as well have asked me to translate the plays of Vaclav Havel from the original Czech into Farsi. Elijah was going to have one fucked-up backpack.

We got our materials. I desperately tried to do right by my son. Elijah was no help. He didn't have any interest in decorating the pack, instead preferring to hack at a piece of construction paper with a scissors. He also continually threatened to put glue on his tongue. I'd mistakenly sat at a table with a couple of West Side moms, who probably had a paper backpack-making business on the side, judging by the speed and efficiency with which they pulled together their projects. When the teacher announced "five more minutes," I'd made no progress at all. I raised my hand, near-weeping.

"Um," I said. "I don't have any spatial perception."

"My daddy isn't good at art," Ellijah added helpfully.

"Oh," said the teacher.

"He's good at writing, though!"

"Thank you, son," I said.

Basically, I asked the teacher to do the backpack for me. She went about halfway before she got distracted by the needs of other students. While they all had elaborately designed packs adorned with decorative buttons and leaves, Elijah had a plain brown box. I stapled a couple of straps on, and called it a project.

After a brief snack, we headed out into the museum. Before we could get ten feet from the classroom, the straps fell off of Eliah's pack. If it weren't against social conventions for a grown man to fall to the floor of a museum weeping in despair at his own uselessness, I would have done so. Instead, my son took that role.

"WAHHHHHH!" he shrieked. "MY BACKPACK BROKE!"

I pathetically scrambled to help.

"Fix it, daddy!" he said. "Oh, please!"

"I don't think I can," I said. "Mommy can fix it tomorrow."

"NOOOOO! I WANT MY BACKPACK!"

A mother took pity on me. She had some paper clips in her purse, and managed to somehow attach the straps. But the incident ruined our day. We were already ten minutes behind by the time we got to the gallery of animals. Elijah took a look around, and then the teacher handed him a pinecone. Somehow, his backpack held until we got back to class.

Later, I asked him what he'd learned.

"Temper forest," he said. "Where animals have tempers."

"Sort of," I said. "What kinds of animals were there?"

"Um?" he said. "Musk ox?"

At least we were two hours closer to bedtime.

Posted by at 6:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (34)

Elijah's cousin Allison had her third birthday party today. Her parents, who recently moved back to L.A., have been sending her to hip-hop dance day camp while they attempt to attend to the excessive demands of a voracious newborn. The camp occurs at a place in Tarzana that bears the rather generic name "Studio Experience," and it was here that they threw the party.

Studio Experience is owned by a woman who once wrote several hit songs for Janet Jackson's Control album. Various framed items at the place reveal that she's also worked with Earth, Wind, and Fire and was a Gerber baby in 1968. I've been to my share of generic corporate children's exercise rooms, and this isn't one of them. It has character, even if a good chunk of that character comes from glossy photos, prominently displayed, of Jasmine Guy.

Here I found myself, at 10:30 AM on a Sunday, at a party where children were doing The Chicken Dance, led by a woman with astonishing breasts. There was also pizza, homemade brownies and cookies, and a limbo to "Walkin' On Sunshine."

"Permission to blog?" I asked my brother-in-law.

"You can do whatever you want," he said. "But it's no hot, dirty nightclub in Hollywood where you pay 10 bucks to hop your kids up on sugar."

This was an unveiled reference to Baby Loves Disco. They'd attended the first one when my sister was very, very pregnant. Fun was at a premium that day, and we didn't exactly find that premium.

"They moved it to The Knitting Factory," I said.

"That should be better," he said.

The major difference between this party and Baby Loves Disco, other than the extreme lack of alcohol, was the fact that all the parents of the 19 kids in attendance sat off to the side and observed. Studio Experience didn't consider our good time its first priority. One man, wearing a Budweiser cap and a NASCAR-style mustache, looked especially unhappy. I attempted to join in the party, but I knocked a little girl over while heading for the limbo bar, and decided to head for the pizza instead.

Later, we went back to my sister's house. In attendance were both my sisters, my brother-in-law all three of my nieces, my mother, my father, my Aunt Estelle, my Uncle Larry, my Uncle Rick, my mother-in-law, Elijah, and Regina. It's very strange having so much family in such close proximity. For most of my adult life, I've lived very far away from family, and suddenly everyone is around all the time.

I've no observation more profound than that right now, but everyone is getting to know Elijah quite well. If nothing else, they find him interesting. At some point, he and Ali went into her room to do God knows what. After about 30 minutes, I was dispatched to examine the situation.

They were jumping on her bed, both of them naked.

"What the hell are you guys doing?" I asked.

"We're surfing without our clothes on!" Elijah said.

"Let me guess, Elijah. This was your idea."

"Uh-huh!" he said. "Go away now, daddy! Grownups don't surf naked."

"That's what you think," I said.

The boy has so much to learn.

Posted by at 8:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

As a busy and important week comes to a close, I want you all to forget about the fact that our lunatic President and his pretentious yet ignorant tiny circle of advisers are slowly drawing us into World War III. And forget about the fact that this catastrophic weather, clearly designed to reduce human population on earth, is here to stay. Instead, buy yourself an advance copy of Alternadad. Come January, you'll be glad you did.

Meanwhile, a nice thing has happened to me. I've published a book review in The Nation. It's about the excellent new Timothy Leary biography by Robert Greenfield. I've subscribed to The Nation, on and off, since 1990, and own a collection of Nation writing going back to 1865. It's kind of sad, really, that the likes of me has now been published in a magazine that once printed original pieces by Henry James and the speeches of Dr. King, but I've always wanted to have a piece in the magazine, and now I do. So I'm a proud papa today.

That's all. Don't burn up this weekend. Stay alive, no matter what occurs. I will find you.

Posted by at 1:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (25)

Yesterday afternoon, Regina took a break from her punishing work schedule to go shopping with my mother in the Valley. Every time I think I'm having financial troubles, I'll go back to the previous sentence. Anyway, it was up to me to pick Elijah up from school, give him a snack, and take him to swim lesson.

At around 4 PM, after polishing off a strawberry popsicle and half a dozen crackers, he looked at me and said,

"Daddy, it's time to play rock-n-roll now."

My heart lifted.

"Let me see what I can do," I said.

You must understand that I've been pretty good at keeping up with contemporary music, but it's all on my IPod and I don't have any other way to play my digital files in the house. I say this because otherwise, based on my music selection for Elijah, it'll look like I haven't purchased any new music since 1994.

First, I dug out the Pogues' "Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash," because there are a couple of songs on the album that have made Elijah jump around in the past. Sure enough, "The Sick Bed Of Cuchulainn" and "Sally Maclennane" did the trick. I felt vaguely subversive playing a song that includes the lyrical phrase "spewed up in the church" for my kid, particularly since my mother-in-law is coming tonight, and is staying for a week. There won't be much throwing Elijah on the couch and diving on top of him while Shane MacGowan sings, "so buy me beer and whiskey cause I'm going far away."

Far Away!

We rocked around the living room for a while in glee. And then I brought out the Sex Pistols album, the big guns. I could tell from the wild look in Elijah's eyes that he was ready for "Anarchy In The U.K." As soon as the song came on, he started flailing about the room, his head shaking like someone who's found the spirit in a snake-handling church.

"This is loud!" he said. "And I like it!"

"My boy," I said.

"Is this music from when you were a baby?" Elijah asked.

I tried to imagine my parents playing "Holiday In The Sun" for me, but I couldn't.

"Not quite," I said.

It sounds like "The Ostrich," he said.

Every so often, I play my radio hit, Do The Ostrich, for Elijah. Take a listen for yourself here. He sings along with it, and even makes up his own lyrics:

"Put your head in the sand/Emu!/Shake your tail in the air/Emu!

We're like the Bobby and Barry Bonds of comedy rock. Or maybe the Archie and Peyton Manning. Or, I dunno, the Jerry and Ben Stiller. Regardless, I love him so. Rock on, my son. Rock on.

Posted by at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (19)

Of late, I'm incapable of conducting a normal human conversation. Regina loves it when we're having dinner with friends and I utter my usual comment: "It's the last ten years of human civilization. We'd better fucking enjoy ourselves while we can!"

"That depresses people," she says. "Everyone's worried enough as it is."

"So?" I say. "It's not my fault that they can't handle the truth!"

"What truth?"

"Oh, never mind...hey, look what's on the TIVO!"

But I'm not just complaining about the heat. I'm actively planning to move my son smoothly into the next world order. In order to survive apocalyptic times, Elijah will need certain skills. Therefore I would like to propose:

A Mad Max Training Institute For Children. I think the Road Warrior movies are a solid template for a likely future. This Insitute will teach our children essential post-apocalypse desert-based survival skills. For the first semester:

1. Stealing motorcyles and riding them through fireballs
2. Constructing a bazooka out of whatever you can find at the junkyard.
3. Doing battle to the death while perched on the shoulders of a giant.

And that's just for starters. This will be a "Wiki"-style project, so I'll let you all propose additional courses in the comments section. I, for one, will not deny my son an opportunity to become a lonely vigilante fighting the forces of greed and evil. Let's make our school together.

Posted by at 1:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (29)

Elijah came home from school on Friday talking about Michael, a boy from his class.

"Michael?" I said. "There's no Michael in..."

Regina waved me off, and addressed me in a showy whisper, making exaggerated lip movements.

"Michael is an imaginary friend," she said.

"Oh," I said.

"They say that kids who have imaginary friends are very smart. It's a sign of higher play."

As she said this, Elijah was attempting to hit the dog with a pillow.

"Right," I said. "So Michael, huh? That' s not a very imaginative name."

"Only the boys can see Michael!" Elijah shouted. "Not the girls!"

This fact was only semi-interesting to me. But like good parents, we wanted to know more about Elijah's mysterious new friend.

"I hear there's someone called Michael in your class," I said.

"He moved to Gotham City," said Elijah.

"Oh."

"He wanted to help Batman fight the Penguin."

"OK."

By this morning, though, Michael had returned from Gotham and was back in Elijah's life. In the car on the way to school, I got the full report.

"Michael likes strawberry ice cream," said Elijah. "And vanilla and mint chocolate chip."

"OK."

"He likes to sit in his car seat with his seatbelt very tight, and he likes to get sun in his eyes."

"OK."

"His parents let him roll around in the dirt a lot."

"Really, now?"

"Uh-huh. And he goes to school all by himself. They let him do that."

"I see."

"Can I go to school by myself, daddy?"

"I wish."

It's not exactly Little Jackie Paper and Puff The Magic Dragon, but I suppose it's a start. Gentle readers, please share your imaginary friend stories here.

Posted by at 9:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (28)

I've managed to nose my way into the media once again. In this L.A. Times article about the Baby Loves Disco phenomenon, reporter Shana Ting Lipton says that I've "involuntarily become one of the pioneers of the so-called Grups movement." I suppose there's some truth to that, though the original "Grups" article in New York Magazine made me sound like a cracked-out lunatic who's attempting to turn my son into a cracked-out lunatic. Totally untrue. Those of you who read this site regularly know that's simply Elijah's natural state.

But yes, Baby Loves Disco will party on in L.A. this Sunday at The Knitting Factory. I may or may not be able to attend because I have a previous engagement at a one-year-old's birthday party. My God. What have I become? Anyway, the reporter is too kind to the Larchmont, the previous L.A. venue for BLD. That place was a steaming shithole. I'm surprised there weren't discarded needles on the floor. It wasn't a family atmosphere. It was a Manson Family atmosphere. I've never seen bouncers so large, and so surly. The party ended up being fun anyway, but only because of the strength and energy of the organizers, combined with the collective desire of the attended to have a good time. That venue would have killed lesser spirits; The Knitting Factory, a venerable rock institution that employs janitors and closes by 2 AM, will be a better choice. Come one! Come all!

That said, my son is well-suited to hang out in a place that stinks of piss and sushi gone bad. The other evening, as I slovenly watched the Dodgers game--an experience that lately fills me with dread and ennui, particularly when J.D. Drew is up to bat with runners in scoring position--I heard a familiar voice from the other room.

"ELIJAH! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

A pause.

"NO! DO NOT DO THAT!"

Elijah was in the tub at the time, so this was sure to be interesting. I slowly moved my bones into a sitting position, and then I stood. When I went into the living room, I got this story from the wife.

"I saw him pick up his little watering can, and he started to pee in it. I didn't say anything, because he technically wasn't peeing in the tub and he could have possibly dumped it in the toilet. When he was done, he lifted it up to his mouth. I was like, 'Elijah, are you planning to drink your own pee?' He made a move like he was going to do it. And then I yelled at him, so without saying anything he dumped his pee in the tub. Which I am now draining."

So we had to give a lecture.

"Elijah," I said. "Don't drink your own pee."

"Why?" he said. "Because it will poison me?"

"No, Elijah," said Regina. "But it tastes gross and it might make your tummy hurt.

"Spongebob drinks his pee!"

"No, he doesn't," I said, though I wasn't sure if this was true or not, so I added, "But if he does, he's wrong."

"OK," said the boy.

I went back to watching the game, a medium-sized mistake. The Dodgers have scored 10 runs in the seven games since the All-Star Break. Maybe they should start drinking their own pee.

Posted by at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (43)

As we drove to Hollywood on Sunday night, to meet my aunt, uncle, and cousin Sarah for dinner, Regina and I noticed that Elijah had gone quiet. We looked into the back seat. He sat there, eyes turned upward, gently humming to himself. After a few minutes, we heard.

"Heh heh heh."

"He's cracking himself up," Regina said.

"Space cat," Elijah said.

We knew exactly what he was talking about, for some reason.

"Tell us about the space cat, Elijah," I said. "Does he have an origin story?"

"He fights diarrhea on the mouse planet," said the boy.

"Elijah," said his mommy, "you are one cool kid."

"Space Cat eats Poo Poo Nuts," he said.

"Stop talking nonsense," I said. "Everyone knows there aren't Poo Poo Nuts in space."

"OK," he said. "But Hot Man fights Dr. Boney on the tallest mountain in the whole world, because he is big and strong."

"If you say so, son."

Posted by at 1:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

For the last several days, The Angel Of Irritating And Mildly Disgusting Illness has hung over our house, affecting my wife but not, unfortunately, her cat. I won't describe the nature of Regina's sick, only to say that it's been unpleasant but also that it's on the wane. If I were a lesser Internet writer, I'd post some photos here or perhaps to my inactive Flickr account, you know, because every moment of human experience on earth must be chronicled by a camera or else it doesn't count.

I didn't come to the keyboard today intending to sound like a cranky old Luddite, though I suppose that's my inevitable future voice if not my present one. No, instead I came to tell you that because of my wife's temporary indisposition, I've been taking up a lot of the parenting slack. This I've done willingly. But when a man's child stands up in the middle of a crowded restaurant on a 100-degree day and shrieks like he's being murdered even though he's only spilled a little lemonade on his pants, that man's thoughts inevitably turn to alcohol.

So on Friday night, after getting the boy safely to bed, I headed out on foot to my local tavern, seeking fellowship and fermented calories. Generally, when I walk into my neighborhood bar, I find one of the following: A decaying old man, a fat Mexican prostitute, or some local artists congratulating themselves at having lived in the same zip code for more than two consecutive years. But on this night when I arrived, I found the place had been done up in pirate decorations, and that there were many attractive women walking around, dressed as pirates.

Jackpot.

I ordered a Negro Modelo and sat down, waiting for someone to say, "I've been waiting all week to talk with a bald married guy who's drinking by himself on a Friday night." Instead, I quickly deduced that most of the women present were gay, and not only because they were denying themselves the grand prize of my company. Instead, I came to my conclusion from more concrete evidence. They all gathered around the end of the bar, staring up at the TV, which was showing a women's kickboxing match on ESPN2. A palpable volume of drool puddled at their feet.

After one and a half more beers, I found myself drawn toward home, and TIVO. I asked the birthday girl if I could have one of her balloons, which bore the visage of The Jolly Roger.

"My kid will die and go to heaven if I bring him home a pirate balloon," I said.

She handed it over, and I walked home happily. About a block away from home, I passed by a house where a woman was sitting on her porch, waiting for her dog to have his before-bed pee.

"Evening, miss," I said.

I'm sure she didn't expect to see a guy with a pirate balloon trailing behind him at 11 PM on a Friday, but then again it's kind of hard to surprise people in a city where overturned tractor-trailers are a major source of public amusement,

When I got home, Regina agreed that the pirate balloon would be an awesome surprise for Elijah. I tied it to the back of a chair and went to bed confident of winning major fatherhood brownie points. About eight hours later, I emerged from slumber to find Elijah completely immersed in CBS's pointedly retarded Saturday morning kid's lineup. He barely acknowledged me.

"The balloon scared him," Regina said.

"Oh, for god's sake," I said.

I'd been planning to tell the boy about my night out, and about the crazy birthday party. Then I'd intended to explain to him the concept of lesbianism. This may have been somewhat ambitious considering that Elijah still believes that babies get into their mothers' stomaches because their mothers eat them, but the kid seems overall to be pretty smart and open-minded. Instead, I had to say,

"Elijah, that isn't a scary balloon. It's a funny balloon."

"Go away, daddy," he said. "I'm watching TV right now."

Some men would see this as an insult.

I saw it as a glorious excuse to go back to bed.

Posted by at 11:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

You may have noticed, at the top left-hand corner of the page, that my memoir Alternadad is now available for pre-ordering. Those of you who've enjoyed this site for lo these many months will certainly love the book, which is a prequel of sorts. So if you want to know how Anakin became Darth Vader, click here. I appreciate your support and encouragement.

In other news, Elijah and his friend Sean from school have invented a new snack food. It's called Poo Poo Nuts. This is how Poo Poo Nuts goes:

Dad: Elijah, what do you want to eat for snack?
Elijah: Poo Poo Nuts!
Dad: Seriously, what do you want?
Elijah: I want Poo Poo Nuts!

Other times, it'll come up in conversation unbidden.

"Daddy, do you like Poo Poo Nuts?" Elijah will ask.

"I don't know," I reply. "I've never had them."

"You like them."

"Fine, I like them."

Yesterday, in the car, I finally asked the big question.

"Elijah, what exactly is in Poo Poo Nuts?"

"Chocolate pretzels and vanilla nuts," he said.

"That sounds good. "

"And chocolate nuts and vanilla pretzels."

"Yum."

"And vanilla covered chocolate."

"Well, that..."

"I'm not done yet!"

"Sorry."

"And chocolate-covered vanilla pretzel nuts."

"All right..."

"And nut pretzels with chocolate."

"OK."

"And poo poo!"

"Are you sure there's poo poo?"

"Of course, daddy," he said. "Why else would I call them Poo Poo Nuts?"

Silly me.

Posted by at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

The day was going so well. Regina and I spent the morning and the afternoon in the house, working in harmony, staying out of each other's way. The good career news fairy has been visiting us lately.

Then we went to Elijah's school, for a conference with his teacher. It was supposed to last fifteen minutes, but it only went seven. There was little to discuss. Elijah, according to his teacher, is a very special kid, a natural leader with a great sense of humor who is very smart and curious and plays equally well with boys and girls. Also, we learned that he likes to play with dolls, though only, he later informed us, when they're "naked."

The harmony continued when we returned home, though that may have been because we were so pleased with Elijah's good report that we took him out for ice cream after school. Regina and Elijah did watercolors. I took Hercules to the dog park, where he cavorted with a Golden Retriever.

Later, while Elijah watched a video, I fondled Regina in the kitchen, and it seemed a sure thing that we would make the nik-nik tonight. Until something horrible happened.

I lost the salt shaker.

Just after dinner, there was some confusion. I found myself having to run Elijah's bath, watch the All-Star Game, and eat the leftover rice from the pot, though only the first of those three were under the watchful eye of my commandant wife. The rice, I decided, could use a little salt. At some point, while simultaneously operating in three rooms, I left the shaker somewhere. The last I remember, it was on Elijah's bedpost. And then it was gone.

I tried to tell Regina that the salt shaker had gone missing, but she didn't understand.

"It'll turn up," she said.

After the typical evening of trying to put Elijah to sleep, during which he got up twice to pee, once to poop, once because he'd thrown his socks behind his bed, and once because he claimed the cat was bothering him, Regina and I settled down to watch The 40-Year-Old Virgin on HBO. We'd seen it before, but we were too lazy to approach new material. Popcorn seemed mandatory.

"Where's the salt?" Regina said.

"I told you, I lost it."

At this point, since the boy was asleep, the conversation turned a little Deadwood.

"What the fuck do you mean, you lost the fucking salt?"

"I tried to fucking tell you earlier!"

"That's a nice fucking salt shaker, full of nice fucking salt."

"I didn't fucking do it on purpose!"

"Where was the last place you had it?"

"Um. Maybe in Elijah's room."

"Neal," Regina said. "Why did you take the salt shaker into Elijah's room?"

"Because I was trying to eat some rice?"

"You're an idiot."

"I am not an idiot."

"You know Elijah hid the salt shaker somewhere."

As for my previous plans for the evening, it's 11:40 PM, and I'm blogging fully clothed. Something about looking for a salt shaker in your child's room while your child is asleep dampens the erotic mood around the house. And so we come to the end of another working day.

Posted by at 11:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (17)

A correspondent asked me the other day to tell him something notable about my neighborhood. I pointed him toward this L.A. Times story. It brightens my heart to know that I share geographical space with 500 members of the notorious "Avenues" gang, the type of men who, according to the story, have visible dents in their skulls, "the shape and size of a pistol butt." It's also nice to know that the gang to which these men belong is being tried, under federal hate-crime laws, for a conspiracy to kill black people.

This, then, is the neighborhood to which I moved my family. Jackson Browne, who grew up in Highland Park, wrote a song about the Avenues. One of the choruses goes like this:

Down on a half darkened street
Fathers' and sons' lives repeat
And something there turns them
Down those lawless avenues

Admittedly, these lyrics don't really apply to me, a white F-list hipster celebrity, and my son, a three-year-old who talks to his boogers. But still. Why am I living here again?

The article only touches on the real story of Highland Park these days. It's gentrifying. The Realtor who rented me my house dropped by a couple of weeks ago to let me know that he has regular parties for "artists" who are moving into the neighborhood. It's only now become acceptable for entry-level members of the gentry to drive within ten miles of here. I've begun to hear things like, "I think I was in a party in your neighborhood a few weeks ago. Is that possible?"

Last week, a very nice young couple from New York, who always look like they just came from a Broken Social Scene show, moved into the house behind us. They're very artistic, so the Realtor must love them. They wanted to know a "good place to hang out around here." I was flattered that they'd ask me, a guy who mostly hangs out at places like Amy's Playground and the Los Angeles Zoo, about where to party. The only bars I've been to around here feature toothless waitresses and old men in cowboy hats, but I no longer have any social ambition. So I directed them toward their people.

"Silver Lake," I said.

So on the one hand, brutal gang violence. On the other, normal working people getting forced from their homes. I can't decide which is more annoying.

Actually, this neighborhood is way better than where we lived before. Regina was surprised the other day when she saw a big-rig Coors Light truck roar down our street. It was the first such sighting in six months. In our old place, in Austin, the beer trucks had a virtual all-night parade right in front of our bedroom window. I'm surprised one of them never hit a hooker.

"Someday we'll live in a neighborhood where beer trucks don't drive down the street," Regina said. "Right?"

"What a beautiful dream," I replied.

Posted by at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (48)

Elijah and I were having a lovely conversation as I drove him to school this morning. Lately, he's been spending a lot of mental time comparing sizes of cities based on how many "teams" they have, meaning professional sports teams.

"Austin is little," he said. "It doesn't have any teams."

"Right," I said.

"L.A. has four teams! The Dodgers, the Angels, the Evil Lakers, and the Clips."

"As I taught you."

"Phoenix doesn't have any teams."

"It does, actually."

"Oh," he said. "The Phoenix Suns."

"Right," I said, not considering the Diamondbacks worth an explanation. Elijah replied,

"Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Avocado."

That was the moment his brain short-circuited.

"Avocado isn't a city," I said.

"What city did I say?"

"Did you mean Chicago?"

"NOOOOOOOO!" he wailed. "WHAT. CITY. DID. I. SAAAAAAAAAAY??????"

Holy shit.

At that moment, I made the mistake of driving onto the freeway.

"I DON"T WANT THE FREEWAY!" Elijah shrieked. "TURN AROUND, DADDY!"

"I can't turn around," I said. "I'm on the freeway."

"OH NO! I HATE TRAFFIC!"

By this point, he'd begun to shake his head from side to side. He was in full sob. The nonsequiturs fell in concurrence with his tears.

"MOMMY DIDN'T GIVE ME MY VITAMIN CANDY THIS MORNING!"

We refer to vitamins as "vitamin candy."

"You can have it after school."

"NOOOOOO! MY VITAMIN CANDY! I HATE TRAFFIC! AVOCADO IS NOT A CITY! I WANT MY MOOOOOOOMEEEEEEEE!"

All this because, in January 2002, my wife and I made sweet, magical love for two minutes one afternoon in a rundown townhouse in a transitional neighborhood just north of downtown Philadelphia. I felt sorry for the kid. He didn't ask to be born crazy. It's just in his genes.

However, I stopped feeling sorry for him when he threw his shoes at me.

"GODDAMN IT!" I said. "Jesus Christ impaled on a toothpick! I'm trying to drive here!"

"NOOOOOOOOO!"

"Elijah, I understand that you're very sad right now. I'm sad all the time, too. The world is a horrible place. But you do not throw your shoes at me while I'm driving!"

He sniffled.

"OK," he said.

"Are you calm now?"

"Yeah."

A pause.

"Are snakes nice?" he asked.

Posted by at 1:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)

When I picked Elijah up at school on Monday, he was loudly declaring, "I'm Superman!" This disease has been afflicting many of America's children, who are, apparently, susceptible to billboard advertising, at least until they see Kate Bosworth try to act. But I can't get on Elijah too much, especially when he tells me that "Superman has lots of powers. He's very strong, like you, daddy." I feel sorry for a kid who has to consider me the big strong man in his life, but I find his opinion flattering nonetheless.

Still, I hope this Superman phase withers. Elijah's actual superhero, Hot Man, has developed an amazing new power that has the Man Of Steel beat. I'll let Elijah describe it for you:

"I can take the shirts off of people with my eyes and then I have a machine in my entire body, and I can turn those shirts into hot energy that makes me very strong and turns people into vanilla ice cream. "

Take that, Lex Luthor!

On this day I discovered that Hot Man/Superman had invited himself, and, by extension, me, to a playdate at a classmate's house. The playdate would consist of me, Elijah, two little girls, a nanny, and a mommy. Sadly, I had nothing better to do. It would be another sexy afternoon in my sexy life.

I sat on a green chair in a lawn overlooking the Silver Lake Reservoir. We ate juice popsicles. There was a kiddie pool. Elijah removed his pants to reveal that he'd left his underwear at school. How this had happened, and why, I couldn't quite figure. Something about a hose, or poop. It sounded a bit like an enema to me, so I didn't inquire further.

He got into the pool, and his shorts got wet. We decided that wouldn't do. So the mommy went inside, tossed the shorts in the drier and returned with orange shorts, which she pronounced "unisex."

We went into the house. Elijah immediately removed his orange shorts and began running around naked. I put his shirt on him. It was a purple shirt that bore a swordfish logo. Soon after, we went upstairs into the little girl's room. The mom appeared with a pair of tight bicycle shorts. They were in a zebra-stripe pattern, except pink-and-black instead of white-and-black. Elijah put these on.

"Look at my cool shorts, daddy!" he said.

"They look good on him," the mom said.

"I wish it weren't true," I said.

Back downstairs, the girls pulled a couple of fairy wands out of a toybox. Elijah declared that he, too, wanted a fairy wand. Fortunately, there were extras. The girls ran around saying "Bippity-Boppity-Boo!" Elijah, who's not familiar with Cinderella, just said "Boo!" over and over again. To add to the confusion, somewhere on a stereo, Winter Wonderland was playing. In June. In Los Angeles. I felt my testicles shrivel to the size of macadamia nuts.

My thoughts drifted back a couple of weeks, to when Regina and I took Elijah and his best boy friend, Sean, to Dodger Stadium. Sean is different than Elijah in that he can actually catch and throw a ball without getting distracted by imaginary butterflies. He's a great Dodger fan. At age three, he knows all the players, their positions, and where they fall in the batting order. One moment especially came to mind. The Dodgers were threatening.

"There are runners at the corners," Sean said. "First and third."

"You're right," I said.

"Nomar is batting."

"Also correct."

"Nomar is good with runners in scoring position. Especially after the 7th inning."

"Absolutely true."

I looked at Elijah. He had a rubber snake in one hand and a plastic baseball cup full of ice cream in the other hand. He was dipping the snake into the ice cream.

"Look at me, daddy!" he said. "My snake is hiding."

I wasn't exactly Jack Armstrong, All-American Boy myself when I was a kid. If anyone knows how to handle a son who enjoys running around in pink and black zebra bicycle shorts and a purple shirt while waving a magic wand, it's me. But it would be nice if my kid knew the name of the Dodgers' catcher (Russell Martin). He doesn't have to know his batting average or anything.

Back at the playdate, I referenced the William Wants A Doll song from Free To Be You And Me, another sure sign that I'm the appropriate dad for this kid. I may know a lot about sports, but I also know all the lyrics to all the songs from Annie. As the afternoon ended, the mom offered to let Elijah keep the shorts. Her daughter, she said, never wore them. I accepted the offer, but somehow the shorts stayed up in the little girl's room. Elijah hasn't asked after them since, so I think we're safe.

Posted by at 11:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)