hopeless cases

They're Back!

2009-06-07T17:55:00.004-04:00

A few years ago we had a couple of Carolina wrens build a nest in our shed. I startled the chicks one day and they all scattered about.

I thought I had chased them away.

But a little research told me that they mate for life and are territorial. So I wasn't that surprised to find another clutch of eggs a few months later.

Last year they got an early start laying eggs in mid-April.

So I was surprised to not see my little wrens around this year. They were noticeably absent year both in song and sight. I had discovered one nest by a bush out our front door but that turned out to be a robin's nest. It turns out that they too are monogamous.

Then I discovered a nest outside my bathroom window but the bird's call was distinctly cardinal.

I couldn't help but wonder what happened to my wrens.

And then today, just a short while ago, my son went to get his bike out of the shed and said a bird darted out at him.

Sure enough, my wrens have returned...

Extreme Parenting

2009-04-19T13:34:00.007-04:00

My foray into extreme parenting began way back when I turned my sons on to DEVO.

And then there was the tattoos.

Add many hours of watching Rocket Power and Disney's Recess surely could earn me a trophy worthy of the mantel for my parenting skills.

Last summer there was those heat wave days we spent getting to know the Wildboyz which some said led to a lapse in judgement on my part.

And of course I can't forget the mad cred I got for having a Chest Pains song used in an episode of Rob & Big.

Now my boys are all about Nitro Circus.

I can't fault them for being fascinated by these daredevils.

I myself grew up on Evel Knievel and his many attempts to jump his motorcycle over things so it wasn't a surprise to walk out back the other day and see my boys launching their bike off of a ramp trying to get their old mini BMX bike to jump the creek in our back yard.

Nope. I wasn't surprised at all.

[Nitro Circus airs Sundays at 10pm on MTV... but they show reruns during the day!]

Who Got Da Funk?

2009-03-29T09:40:00.005-04:00

There are two different bus stops I use to catch the Number 10 DATA bus into work. One just has a bench and it out in the open on the sidewalk, the other is covered and can offer shelter from the wind and rain.

Recently it was pouring out so I got a ride to the stop that was covered.

I was standing there just looking at the sheets of rain coming down, sideways at times, when I looked down and spotted something. Always in the habit of carrying my camera around I snapped a picture of it. I wasn't sure what it was but upon closer inspection I deducted it was exactly what I thought it was: poop.

Clearly, someone had to go so bad that they squatted on the edge of the bench and took a dump. Looks like they use a combo of a stick and sliding off the edge to wipe themselves.

I still had a good ten minutes before the bus came and now all I could smell was the nasty stench of human poo.

Then I looked down behind me and saw some on the sidewalk where I was standing.

"Fuck!" I said and started noticing it everywhere.

I took a quick look at my shoes and was quickly relieved to find that I hadn't stepped in it. The thought of shitting on a bus with poo wafting up my face made me gag.

And cough.

God it stunk.

Then I walked out into the rain and rubbed my shoes in the swollen gutter just in case; I had a vision of sitting at my desk at work smelling nothing but this smell all day.

Ugh.

I was reminded of the time I worked as a bellman at Washington Duke Inn, a hotel right across from Duke's West Campus and just down the road from Duke Hospital. These two facts are important to note because it meant that two kinds of people stayed at the hotel - Duke douchebags and rich people in need of care at the hospital.

One fateful day I was unloading leather bags out of a high-priced sports car when I saw an elderly man approaching me. He sported a grimace on his face as he walked my way. I lifted a bag out of the trunk and turned to put it on the luggage cart.

He walked between me and the car.

I turned around to find a shit patty sitting right in front of me.

"Where'd the fu..?" I was about to drop the F-bomb in front of some guest.

In a matter of seconds you could smell the diarrhea.

"Damn!" I said.

I told the guest to hold on so that I could go get a maintenance man to clear it up.

As I walked toward the double doors to enter the hotel I notice two more poo patties on my way.

"Motherfucker," I said under my breath.

And then I opened the double doors...

And saw one in the doorway and then two more in the lobby. Apparently he got the elevator as well.

Needless to say, I spent the rest of the day inhaling disinfectant fumes and the unbearable essence of poo.

Back the the bus stop.

So later that day on my walk to the bus stop I got caught in a downpour and had to run the last five minutes to the bus depot arriving soak to the bone. It was as if I just jumped into the shower with all my clothes on and jumped back out.

My shoes squished as I sat down on the bus.

The rain must have unleashed all that lives in my shoes because ever since then all I can smell is the funk.

The shoe funk.

Damn.

Order Here

2009-03-12T19:26:00.003-04:00

It's been one crazy weekend after another up in the joint.

So until I can process the visit by Dan Esptein, my weekend in Northern Virginia on business when I got snowed in and was force to hang with MVS or the 80 degree weekend here in NC and the family's Eno River hike (and now were bracing for 40s and rain again), I offer you up this photo.

[Galaxy Hut in Claredon, Virginia; February 2009]

Off To The Races

2009-02-08T10:45:00.005-05:00

"I'm ready," said Cole.

"He's ready!!" said the neighborhood kids in unison.

My wife came in from outside.

"He's ready Greg!" she said.

"Okay great," I said. "Cole is ready."

"Quick," she said. "Come take off his training wheels... he's ready to ride a two-wheeler!"

I dropped everything and dashed outside.

Tools where handed to me.

"Wrench," I said.

I felt like a hunky doctor on a popular TV show.

I removed the training wheels safely and checked the tires to make sure that they were inflated to the correct pressure.

Cole saddled up as his friends looked on.

But the backyard proved to be too muddy so we moved our bodies to the front yard. The kids cleaned up all the pine cones just in case so Cole wouldn't fall on them. And then mom gave him a push and he was off, turning around half way down the front yard to see if she was still holding on.

He saw that she was not.

"Again, again!" said everyone.

But the front yard was proving to be too small; it didn't offer up the space he needed especially if he wanted to turn around. So we all walked up to the street and BAM! off he went.

I remembered when Spencer got race fever and demanded that his training wheels be removed. Spencer was 4 at the time, Cole is now 5 and a half.

Now Cole is officially part of the crew, the posse, the OBC.

It's moments like this (and this one and that one) that are the true rewards of parenthood and being a dad.

Dear Blog

2009-02-07T11:46:00.004-05:00

I'm sorry I have neglected you over the recent months.

I know you don't like the fact that I have been spending most of my time with that instant gratification whore Facebook.

I apologize for forgetting your birthday a few weeks back. I was reminded of this yesterday when I got into a discussion with a co-worker about her husband's upcoming vasectomy procedure and it occurred to me that I needed to stop in and say hello again.

It's not that there hasn't been plenty to write about, I mean the bus ride is still full of surprises especially when Shoe Shine gets on (because everybody seems to know Shoe Shine), and researching and writing about beer has yet to bore me.

It's just that by the time I get home and do the dinner with family and homework with the kids, I don't have much left in terms of thinking capacity and energy to jump on and crank out blog posts.

But things should start to pick up again as I feel like I have finally gotten past the transition from being a stay-at-home dad to a 9-t0-5 working stiff...

Rock You Like A Hurricane

2009-01-31T12:37:00.004-05:00

A couple of months ago, I spent the day at the the local hockey arena chasing down a story.

Here it is.

The Sound Of Cracking Ice

2009-01-18T11:32:00.003-05:00

What do you do with your kids when it is like 20 degrees arctic out?

Why you go for a walk.

Our outdoor adventure started in the backyard, where the boys marveled at the ice they were finding everywhere. We spent a good portion of our early morning foray into the wonders of a frigid Mother Nature trying to figure out how thick the ice was in the creek in our backyard.

It was thick enough for the boys to stand on but began to crack when I stepped on it.

"Let's go to the lake!" said Spencer.
"And see if it is frozen."

Curious myself, I agreed to take the five minute walk over to Clark Lake but only after we retreated inside for a spell to warm up.

About an hour later, we once again bundled up to make the hike; it wasn't far by any means but shoot if wasn't freakin' cold out.

On the way the boys were thinking about all the things they could do on a frozen lake like ice skate and play hockey. It didn't matter that they didn't have skates or sticks but such is the joy of young minds.

My wife assured us all that it indeed would not be frozen, that the lake was "too deep" to freeze.

She was soon proved wrong when we walked up and saw the entire lake frozen over.

My and the boys started throwing rocks on the ice and the sound of the rocks hitting the frozen water made this odd reverberation noise.

We all just looked at each other with open eyes - it was a sound they had never heard before and one I hadn't heard in many, many years myself.

It was all we could do to get them to not run out there on the ice.

So I set out to prove a point.

I walked over to the edge of the lake and grabbed the branch of a tree and put the weight of one foot on the ice.

Nothing.

I put two feet on there and stomped with one... and the sound of ice cracking began to bellow out through the air. There's really no other word to chose and that one is poor at best.

Once my foot broke through the ice to make a hole to the water, the acoustics changed and from underneath the ice came an even eerie, inexplicable sound.

At that moment we saw a blue heron fly over the lake.

Awesome.

On the walk back we saw couple of blue birds.

"Freaky," said Cole.
"They are like brown but then when they fly away blue," he said.
"That's weird Dad!"

We went back again today, but the weather had warmed enough that the lake wasn't totally frozen.

We still threw rocks on to the frozen section and listened for that odd sound.

Like a long, steel coil unraveling is the best I can come up with to describe it.

Today was a good day.

Yum, Yum, Yum

2009-01-05T19:32:00.005-05:00

I'm no chef but I like to cook.

This Christmas I got a Thai cookbook, but not just any Thai cookbook - I got the quick & easy thai.

So Sunday night I dove in and made yellow curry chicken with potatoes.

Awesome.

Total ingredients? 8

Coconut milk, yellow curry paste, chicken, chicken broth, potatoes, onion, fish sauce and brown sugar.

Doubly awesome.

Leftovers anyone?

[9 if you include the basil...]

Classic, Just Classic

2008-12-28T16:21:00.005-05:00

So Christmas Day we were sitting out back on our deck playing this game called Catch Phrase.

My tweener niece had asked for it.

Apparently it makes for a good drinking game but you'll have to test that theory for yourself and get back to me on it.

Basically, the holder of the game gets a topic or phrase (like "egg on your face") and has to try and get the group to guess what the phrase is by dishing out clues.

My niece had the game at one point and was all, "ooohh, oooh, like, um, er, like ooohhh, ooohhh this is like, um, um, like something you do at a sleepover!"

Without a beat, my nephew, her teenager brother said,"Get head lice?"

Laughter ensued.

Hardy laughter.

"What? What? For real," he said.
"It's happened twice."

[I have no idea what that is a picture of by the way. Bring on the captions. Photo by Greg Barbera December 2008]

Recycling Bin Of A Beer Magazine Editor

2008-12-28T16:20:00.003-05:00

Unfortunately, no Duff Beer in there.

Spot any of your favorites?

Weird Science

2008-12-21T13:03:00.005-05:00

I spent the last few weekends laying down a new floor in my house with the help of my brother-in-law.

Most of my Thanksgiving holidays were spent on my hands and knees prepping the floor for the installation. I tend to get lost in thought during mindless chores like this (my latent ADHD rearing its ugly head), and pulling staples out of my floor was no different.

I recalled a time when I spent the day (or two or three) as a production assistant on a television commercial for some Japanese company during my early years in Los Angeles.

I had gotten the call because the production of the commercial had lagged past its pre-production schedule creeping into the Christmas holidays. As an East Coast'er living on the West, I didn't have the money to fly home for Christmas. So when half the production manager's staff flew the coupe for the holidays, I got the last minute call for work.

At the time, a day rate of $125 seemed like good money but I would soon find out that day rates suck if two thirds of the crew are unionized.

I was told to pick up a box truck from a rental company in Hollywood and then drive it out to Agoura Hills to some newly built subdivision where the shooting would take place. Call time was at some ungodly hour like 6am so when I rode my bike to the rental company in the bowels of Hollywood the sun had yet to rise.

When I arrived on set and met my contact I was informed that the shoot shouldn't take more than half a day. The previous week had been spent shooting establishing shots and now all that was done was to wait for the talent to show up and shoot the damn commercial.

Talent was a guy by the name of Charlie Sheen.

They had been waiting on him for a week.

So while the director, lighting grips and a gaggle of Japanese business men waited for talent, I was assigned to help the art department. The art department in this case was two guys - one a surfer dude from San Diego and the other a stout Jewish guy from Long Island. Our job for the day was to strip up the floor of the kitchen in one of the house they shot at earlier in the week. Removing the floor meant a lot of time spent on your hands and knees with a putty knife.

And some chemicals.

These guys did nothing but huff (unintentionally) said chemicals and laugh at themselves as they barked out lines from Weird Science.

I had entered the Sci-Fi Zone.

And it wasn't pretty.

Around 3pm we had finished our job of floor removal and walked down the empty subdivision cul de sac to the house where all the production trucks were. But nothing was going on. Charlie was still MIA.

So the douchebag director was trying to get the grip guys to try different lighting scenarios in case Sheen showed up after dark but all they did was sit and smoked cigarettes and talk to each other as if nobody was around.

"What are those guys doing?" I asked my trusty art dept. cohorts.
"They're union," said Surfer Dude.
"So," I said.
"They are killing time," said Long Island boy.
"Why?" I asked.
"In two hours they will be at time and a half," explained Long Island boy.

And sure enough, when the mental money bell rang in these guys' heads, they snuffed out their smokes, crushed their cans of soda and suddenly began to "hear" the director. I think I got home around 11pm that night.

Since Charlie didn't show, everybody trekked it back out to Agoura Hills the next day. And again I spent the day as clean-up errand boy doing the most useless tasks to kill time until something might happened when they might need me to actually do something.

Charlie showed up at dusk the second day.

In a limo.

Stocked with booze.

His driver said he had been on a bender and that you'd better hurry because you probably got about two hours before he turns to shit.

Charlie dressed up in some super hero robot kind of costume and held some ray gun. Apparently, from what I gathered, he was knocking stains out of clothes with his ray gun. But that would all come later in post production.

It was a wrap before Charlie turned to shit.

I had the pleasure of returning the box truck to the rental company in Hollywood. But first I needed to take the art dept. guys to the studio so we could unload it, then give Long Island boy a ride home to his crib in the Valley before I could finish my day.

It was well after midnight by the time I got to the rental company and despite the many reassurances of my production coordinator, I was fully convinced it would not be open. When I got to the office in the dark of night, there was an employee of unknown origins sleeping on the floor with a machete. I startled him awake banging on the door, gave him the keys and signed off on the rental sheet.

"Charlie fucking Sheen," I thought.

I caught the glint of light off the blade of the machete and mumbled to myself "Charlie don't surf" as I walked away.

[Lenny Kersey ponders a pattern for the floor; December 2008.]

That Busy Time Of Year

2008-12-14T09:21:00.005-05:00

Life has gotten so busy.

Crazy busy.

A few months ago I landed a full-time job at a magazine. While I love my new job - I couldn't have asked for a better way to transition from being a stay-at-home dad - the transition has now come without its own growing pains.

I don't have the time on my hands like I used to mull over things to write about like punk rock dad sitcoms and my parenting memoir.

Working in the beverage industry isn't a 9-to-5 job. Sure I pretty much go to the office during that time but brewers keep hours like musicians so a fair amount of my evenings at home are spent following-up with beer blokes on the west coast or in other parts of the world. Toss in the holidays and vacations and suddenly I have to scramble to keep the production of the magazine on schedule.

The good news is that I've got half a year's worth of upcoming issues assigned so the future looks less hectic, but making it through to the next issue to going to be maddening as people disappear into the fog of family obligations, holiday parties and other such seasonal nonsense.

We did managed to score a Christmas tree yesterday. Looking back on my blog archives, I had to chuckle at how we have gotten our tree pretty much the same weekend the last few years.

The holidays always bring up a plethora of emotions for folks - some good, some bad - so I hope everybody out there has fun this holiday season and makes it through unscathed.

Last year I wasn't so lucky.

I've got my fingers crossed that from this date on things will only look up.

Where The Huskies Go

2008-12-01T21:24:00.002-05:00

Gratuitous beer and music post.

Do the math.

This Is A Post About Bacon

2008-12-01T21:23:00.003-05:00

As if I didn't eat enough food the past few days, I had to finish off the weekend with this shrimp dish:

Fry up some bacon.

Take some of the grease
and cook the shrimp in it,
salt and peppered.

Remove shrimp to paper towel'ed plate.
Add more grease to the pan
and toss in a bag of cabbage and

Splash it
with
red vinegar.

Stir cabbage in pan until
almost wilted,
but still crisp.

Now toss back
in the shrimp
with the cabbage.

Serve
and garnish
with bacon bits.

Double Vision

2008-11-28T08:55:00.002-05:00

Over the last few weeks I have started to question my eyesight.

I'm not sure if the need to squint is a sign of age or the fact that I know have a full-time job that requires gratuitous amounts of computer time.

Mostly, these blurred encounters happen in the early morning or late at night, especially during sports when I sometimes have trouble reading the scoreboard from my armchair. But then again, I don't really watch sports that much because my Redskins rarely get the TV time around here. But Heels basketball has started up and I am eager to see if the team can pull off the almost impossible task of an undefeated season.

I probably will make an appointment to get the eyes check once my health insurance kicks in but that won't be until after January so for the moment I just get to hypothesize on the subject and squint a lot.

Yesterday I spent a nice, quiet Thanksgiving with the family.

While I am usually a big fan of the massive get-together it was nice just to enjoy the company of my family this year.

We got up early, put on some Loretta Lynn and started making pie. Loretta segued into side one of The Outlaws, that became Mars Hotel which then led to a big, long Neil Young jag. I could see this was going to be a day where the vinyl was going to stack up at an alarming rate and that's exactly what it did.

After the morning was lost to food prep, we ducked out of the house and took a walk around the neighborhood. Upon returning we noshed a bit and then retreated to the back yard to toss the football around. I came inside to watch the Lions/Titans game (squinting) but that was a total blowout and not the slightest bit entertaining so I channel surfed on over to VH1 Classic only to find a Pink Floyd marathon going on.

I stumbled for a moment trying to find a connection between Pink Floyd and Thanksgiving and then a light bulb went off in my head: tryptophan.

Pleasantly bored, we made another trek around the neighborhood only this time we decided to explore some of the woods nearby as well as crossing over the street to the lake to skip some stones.

Words like bucolic and idyllic came to mind.

Back home we readied for the feast and destroyed the table full of goods in less time that it took to pronounce the day's name.

Stuffed, we al showered and then sat down to watch a post-dinner family movie... Journey to the Center of The Earth.

In 3D.

It pretty much sucked.

The kids loved it of course.

So after 90 minutes wearing those glassed my eyes were toast. After we put the kids to bed and tucked them in, we did the same of ourselves. I turned the Tv on more as a source of light; it is easier to use the remote to turn off the TV than it is to reach over and hit the switch on the light.

I fluffed my pillows and then heard a familiar sound,"So ya thought ya might like ta go to the show...

Nothing like ending your day with tryptophan, Floyd and technicolored dreams seen through your third eye.

Do Work

2008-11-26T15:04:00.002-05:00

My 8-year-old asked me if there was any work to be done around the house.

He's got a book fair at his school coming up and is looking for ways to earn some dough.

I told him that we needed to rake the leaves in the backyard and he agreed to do it for a fee: six dollars and hour.

So after sleeping in, watching TV and then playing some video games, the boys got dressed.

Without me telling them to.

I knew something was up.

I heard the back door slam shut and then creak back open again.

"What time is it dad?" he asked.

"Quarter to twelve," I said.

"I'm gonna earn some money!" he said.

My younger son heard all the commotion and asked what was going and within moments was hooded and hatted and out the back door himself.

I sat there and watched in delight at the thought of these boys getting old enough to do the shit I always do like rake, mow the lawn or shovel snow. Before I could finish my daydream the rakes had been dropped... and I noticed the slide of the treehouse was now covered in leaves and pines needles.

You want to teach your kids the value of money and the hard work it takes to get it but then again you also want your kids not to have to grow up too fast, you want your kids to have kid fun. So I raked around the yard while they entertained themselves.

"What time is it?" my 8-year-old asked.

"Has it been an hour?"

"Probably," I said.

"But you don't get six bucks because you stopped working," I explained.

"Aw man," he groaned.

"I'll give you two bucks, a dollar for each pile you raked."

He seemed content at that.

I raked about a half dozen piles of leaves but left the biggest for last. As I dragged the tarp over to scoop up the pile they both screamed.

"Wait! Wait! Not yet..." said my 8-year-old.

So I sat and watched these two brothers run football plays with their K2, each one ending in a dive into the pile of leaves.

The 8-year-old was trying to finish off the game with a Hail Mary pass to his little brother. He kept razzing his little brother about not catching the ball until I pointed out the quarterback was throwing weak passes to him.

"Don't you be talking about my quarterback!" said my 5-year-old as he ran towards me holding the ball up above his head like he was going to throw it at me.

One more pass turned into two. Then three. And four. Five. Six. Seven...

Then my 5-year-old caught the ball as he fell into the pile. They both screamed as the quarterback came running over and picked him up then dumped the two of them into the leaves.

By the time I raked the mess back up into a managable pile, they were already inside.

Then I heard the door open.

"Dad, how about three dollars?" said my 8-year-old.
"For teamwork, because we worked like a team."

"Okay," I said. "Three dollars."

Rob and Big - MTV Shows

Shoe Shine Man And Other Stories

2008-11-18T21:22:00.002-05:00

I knew there was a full moon coming just by the bus.

Three weeks into commuting and not much had happened.

Sure there was your average bus fare: a drunk guy here, a homeless woman there, wayward teens whittling away their time as best they know how. And there was the simple fact that I was the lone white guy ninety nine percent of the time.

I'm sure some of them think I'm a narc.

But for the most part, it was basically about people getting on, and people getting on the bus with as little interaction as possible.

A few days ago that all changed.

I had caught the 5:30 downtown and boarded the bus to go home. I noticed two white guys in suits and recognized them as the Mormons I saw a few days earlier when it occurred to me after I saw them that I don't see white people riding the bus.

The bus seemed unusually crowded with a handful of folks grabbing the overhead.

And that's when I heard someone yelling out from the back.

"ShhhhuuuuShhhhinnnnnee!" he said. It almost sounded like a yodel.

Just then an older man, one with grey hair and cane, took off his hat and squinted his eyes toward the back of the bus.

""ShhhhuuuuShhhhinnnnnee!" said someone again from the back.

"I hear you but I can't see you!" said Shoe Shine Man.

I caught a reflection in the window behind me of the Caller and the person next to him in conversation but it was inaudible.

The Mormons began to chant a psalm or hum of hymn or whatever reading from prayer books in sing songy unison is called these days. Maybe I have finally put my ingrained Catholicism aside by now because I can't remember.

Shoe Shine looked at them and said something to the Caller; his mouth was nothing but gums.

The Caller called back, "They on a mission ShuShine!"

"So am I!" said Shoe Shine punctuating it with a "ha ha."

"To find the Holy Ghost!" he said

"Yeah, Holy Ghost..." said the Caller.

"Or maybe some wine," said Shoe Shine with a laugh.

That was weird I thought.

And then I recalled how when I was waiting for the bus at the depot I could see in the outside window of the information center.

I saw a woman looking at lingerie on her computer.

***

The other day a fight broke out at the depot. It started off like most altercations with people calling each other names in an increasingly louder cadence until it was clear there was going to be some "commotion." I came to the assumption that two teenage [??] boys had tried to lift something out of another guy's backpack and he called them out on it. Then the threesome sat in the middle of the road mouthing off to each other but it seemed like things we far from getting heated. I wasn't close enough to hear nor did I want to be.

A cluster of two others joined me as spectators.

The older guy said he'd kicked both their asses but one at a time, that two on one is cowardly. Then he came at them hard in the middle of the street, stomping and puffed up like a peacock: " You niggers are a bunch of bitches!!"

Then he said something about guns not making you a man and how fucked up the kids today are because they can't even step up and fight.

The kids then back off and walk away.

"He's ri-aight, tho he's ri-aight," said a fellow standing next to me.

"Dressin' like a gang banger don't make you a gang banger," he explained.

Reading Versus Writing

2008-11-10T19:26:00.007-05:00

I'm been spending entirely too much time reading over at places like Beerinator and Facebook, the latter a modern day version of crack.

My fascination with Facebook is the sheer fact that almost everybody in the world has a profile - from the kids in my neighborhood to kids from my old neighborhood. You type in a name of someone you know and chances are they are going to have a Facebook page. Unlike MySpace where my band has had a page for years and seems to be the domain of musicians, Facebook seems to be all about personal social networking unlike LinkedIn which seems to be for the most part about business.

I digress.

What this post really is about is the simple fact of how one can go forward yet look back at the same time.

One month into working a full-time job again after seven years and I feel I can finally start to digest those years; the waves no longer crash on my mental shores everyday.

Tomorrow is Veteran's Day which means there is no school. Normally this would just been another blip on my radar screen noticed only by a closed bank here or a trip to the doctor's office there. But now there's the scramble to see who will watch the kids, the drawing of straws between my wife and I over who is going to take off work.

I remember the many trips to the doctor's office - there's nothing like going when your kids have tattooed themselves.

Two years ago this November, I went to an At-Home Dad Convention which was one of the most eye-opening and spiritually uplifting things I have done in my life. To meet guys who shared my way of life, who had been through the trauma and the trite stares; endured the bullshit and the banal existence that can come when your life swings completely in the opposite direction was good for the soul. I may have moved on but I have not and will not forget my brothers who still walk the walk and talk the talk in the fight for gender equality when it comes to raising children.

Whether you are forced into it or chose to do it, never let anybody make you feel like you can't or shouldn't be raising your own children.

It wasn't until I embraced the fact that I was a stay-at-home-dad that I was fully able to relish the role. It was shortly after the convention that I started to put being a dad, and an involved one at that, first and foremost. Although I had kept a blog for a year leading up to it, it wasn't until after going to Kansas City that I actually "came out" as a dad blogger to my friends and family. It 2005, it was weird just to say you were a blogger much less a dad blogger.

I'll admit it, sometimes being the parent at home was hell.

But sometimes, Hell ain't a bad place to be...

The Best Day Ever

2008-11-06T21:11:00.005-05:00

I finally wised up the other day.

For the past week, I kept telling myself that I needed to grab one of my kids' mp3 players before I left for work. It would give me something to do while I stood there waiting for the No. 10 bus and drowned out some of the chatter I overhear during my commute.

The sound of cars and squawking birds gave way to the Cars, Cheap Trick, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Ramones.

A little back story is in store here: The only reason we bought some cheap ass mp3 player for our 5-year-old son was because we had gotten an mp3 player for his older brother when he turned seven and that became an obsession for him in so much that he carried it everywhere (so we went with the placating bribe with my younger son to avoid them fighting over it).

I downloaded about 60 songs on it for him.

Then I figured out I could download a shitload of songs (some not age appropriate) and put them in another folder slash playlist. But this summer when we took the great family road trip we ran into a problem where his player would only play my songs but this wasn't discovered until well into the trip.

So there I was trying to remedy the problem while driving through some tunnel on the verge of getting light-headed and ill so that my two kids could listen to their own music in the back seat even though several of their musical choices were housed in the family car's multi-disc changer.

Suddenly the sound of rubber tires on asphalt didn't sound so bad.

Fast forward to the other day: I'm standing at the bus top and groovin' to some tunes. About four stops later on the inbound bus, I deduct that the contraption is running through the playlist in alphabetical order.

Soundgarden came on and I had an epiphany about Kim Thayil and how despite that rhythm section and Cornell's yelp, the band would have been nothing without Thayil's guitar.

I guess that Powerbar I ate ahd kicked in.

The song ended and suddenly Spongebob came on.

I fumbled through my jacket to find the player to try and make sense of the settings but once again looking at it made me light-headed; I'm not one who can read in the car obviously.

The next day I switched out players.

Avail came on at the bus stop.

I mouthed the words to two songs as I watched my shadow bounced in front of me.

The bus came and I climbed on.

Song crazy song that reminded me of the label came on but I for the life of me had no idea who it was; once again I was forced to dig into my jacket to see who the artist was only to be shut out as the player listed song titles only.

I forwarded to the next song.

As I suspected this too was going through the playlist in alphabetical order.

Must have been Clockcleaner I thought.

Next song was some dub reggae.

I tried to check the title, got light-headed and decided to turn the mp3 player off.

So now it's back to car horns, bus stop alerts and random chatter.

But that beats feeling light-headed...

Election 2008 - Obama vs. McCain

2008-11-04T09:05:00.003-05:00

It's election day 2008 folks.

I'll spare you any political rants because you will get enough of them throughout the day.

But also because I need not reveal what a nut job I am when it comes to my political beliefs.

What I will give you is a little dose of punk rock courtesy of my band the Chest Pains.

Right around the time of the last election, I got into a debate about the value of your vote and weather or not John Kerry had the heart.

We all know how that all turned out.

Anyway, I penned this ditty during the weeks approaching the election in 2004, inspired by large doses of D.O.A. and the Dead Kennedys.

And because you may not be able to understand a word I'm saying in the following clip, I've included the lyrics.

Kerry The Torch

Kerry... the torch?
I think not
With idle [idol?] minds
We sit and watch our country rot

Sticks and Stones
Skull & Bones
Stick and Stones
Same face, different name

So you're feeling Bush-whacked
and spiritless
The politik of our country
Is a fucking mess

Four more years?
Four more years?
Four more years!
God No...

Four more years?
Four more years!
Four more years!
Fuck you!!

Jump ship and move away
Amsterdam sounds good today
Maybe I'll move to Mexico?
C'mon everybody! Vamos a playo!!

Is That Like Being Recruited?

2008-11-02T08:45:00.004-05:00

Although the 7/8 Chapel Hill Titans lost their game to defending champs Bethesda over the weekend, my son had two touchdowns.

The first one his team was backed inside their own 20 yard line and on fourth and long he broke around the corner on a sweep and ran 80 plus yards for a touchdown with opponents nipping at his heels the entire time.

After half time, I had to retreat to the hill above the stands to get a better look and to get away from the home team fans - we all shared the small section of bleachers at the field. This game was played at an elementary school unlike the other games which were played on high school football fields and as such had proper bleachers for the home and away teams.

The Titans had started to drive so I moved up to the fence by other parents cheering for Chapel Hill.

There was a bunch-up at the line of scrimmage and then a little head popped up on the far sidelines and started a bee line down the field.

"Is that your son?" said one dad.

"I think so," I said, unable to see the number on the jersey.

After he past midfield I could tell by the cleats and the gallop of his stride that it was my son.

"Go Spence! Go!" I hollered with all of my dad pride.

At about the 20 yard line he turned and looked back, saw they we closing in and kicked into another gear, pulling away towards the end zone for another score.

After the game I was talking to his coach when a father from the other team came over and asked who was the kid that scored the touchdowns.

"He's right here," said his coach as he pointed to my son.

"What's your name son?" asked the dad as he reached out to shake his hand.

"Spencer," he said as they shook hands.

"Nice job boy," he said. "I hope you keep at it. You are the future of Carolina football."

Then he said he'd keep an eye out for his name because he knew he was going to hear more of it in the future.

As we left the field, Spencer turned to me and said, "Was that sorta like being recruited?"

[Photo: Spencer in foreground with little bro Cole in background]

Mr. Jack O. Lantern

2008-11-02T08:32:00.001-05:00

Goblins And Ghouls

2008-11-02T08:31:00.001-05:00

Somebody asked me what me kids were for Halloween on Saturday during one of their football games.

"I don't know," I said.

"You don't know what your kid was for Halloween?" one mom chimed in incredulously.

I laughed.

"They had masks and capes on, but what they called themselves I do not know..."

So how would you describe the boys in this picture?

The Hellacopters Final Curtain Call

2008-10-26T13:22:00.006-04:00

The Hellacopters are throwing in the towel.

While the band has been fairly dormant since 2007, a recent MySpace post announced they would be playing their last shows ever this weekend.

Back in the late-'90s, when I was in the throes of being a music journalist, I was a serious Hellacopters fans. I spent many a year on a garage rock jag, diggin' most of the stuff that came out on labels like Crypt, Man's Ruin, and Estrus. I could get enough of bands like The Quadrajets, Fireballs Of Freedom, The New Bomb Turks and The Dwarves.

When I got my hands onSuper Shitty To The Max I played the hell out of it.

At some point, the band embarked on a US tour with The Quadrajets and The Nomads (another great Swedish band) and I set up an interview with Nick Royale, singer and guitarist for The Hellacopters and wrote a preview piece for the local weekly to promote the show. I sort of hit it off with Nick and before the interview was over I had invited the band over to my place for a pre-show cookout but that was weeks away.

Fast forward to the day of the show.

I get a call from the club owner asking for directions to my house, that The Hellacopters wanted to take me up on my offer. I few minutes later a white van showed up driven by Dave Curran, the bassist from Unsane who was functioning as their tour manager. Beers were consumed, burgers eaten and cultural conversations ensued.

Hellacopters bassist Kenny Hakansson excused himself to use the bathroom.

When he came back he said something to Nick in Swedish then turned to me and asked about the room across from the bathroom that had a drum set and amps in it.

"Can we jam?" he asked.

"Sure," I said and went on to explain that's what the room was for but the concept of house party shows was foreign to them.

So Nick, lead guitarist Robert Fahlquist and drummer Robert Eriksson made their way to the room and rocked the fuck out. Nick, a left hander, played my bass upside down while the two Bobs went ape shit on their respective instruments.

My shitty Kramer guitar and Peavey amp never sounded so good; it's not the equipment folks, it's the musician that can turn lemons into lemonade.

The above picture is from that fateful day.

The Hellacopters would go on to be rock stars of the highest order in their country, put out several albums through Sub Pop and then Liquor & Poker before fading from my horizon. I had kids, lost my job and pretty much stopped writing about music for a half dozen years but I'd still break out The Hellacopters when occasion called for it.

I can't remember how or when it came up but at some point my oldest son asked me what was in his room before it became his room. I explained that we had called it the "rock room" because it stored the stereo, copious amounts of CDs and vinyl LPs and a selection of musical instruments.

And it was left at that for another 18 months until he started to show interest in music (Thin Lizzy and DEVO) and shortly thereafter began to pilfer records from my collection so he could establish his own music library. I brought up The Hellacopters story again only this time I dug through my photo archives and found some slides and a few color prints made from them.

Not having a fucking clue who The Hellacopters were, he was still impressed that a rock band had been in his room, so he took the photo and stuck it up on his wall.

And then The Hellacopters faded into the horizon once again.

Until last Christmas when we got PS2 from my sister-in-law.

And then he one day while playing a video game he heard a Hellacopters song on it and yelled for me.

"Dad! Dad! Listen, it's The Hellacopters!" he said excitedly.

Sure enough, "Bring It On Home" was blaring out of the television.

Oh, and he also eventually would unlock a Hellacopters song playing Guitar Hero.

So today, I raise a toast to a band who has made a lasting impact not just on me but also on my son, a generational double shot of rock 'n' roll.