It Barack Obama... No wait....

In school Monday morning I was sitting in my Community College and was treated to Barack Obama making a speech about the importance of voting. No...wait.... he was at the local ball park, and that's not till Thursday. That's not Barack Obama!! That's the academy award winning actor Cuba Gooding Jr. of Snow Dogs. I waited (kind of excitedly with a just came out of my moving picture box kind of feeling) to see him come down the stairs and give a very surprisingly inspired speech about voting. He than rallied the students to come with him across the street to the county building to vote (you can vote early in Ohio). I watched as about 300 students followed him out and across the street to vote. This may sound cheesy but it made me feel good about America, and gave me a little more hope that we can still make a difference. Me and Copper (my school/work cohort) discussed briefly of slapping Cuba as he passed us telling him "that was for Boat Trip, and you know you deserved it" but he had bodyguards and a academy award that no matter how much shower motivated best director acceptance speeches (I'd like to thank all the girls I've loved before) that will never have one. Well maybe not.

Annie, Flight of the Concords and my bleeding ears

We have two songs that are sung around our house at any given time of the day. I find myself typing up some school work, or watching the "steal you life away box" (T.V.) or even trying to sleep at 5:30 in the morning to be suddenly serenade by my three year old daughter with a rousing rendition of Tomorrow from Annie. It is not enough to be sung, but it is accompanied by theatrical stances and just a little bit of Jazz hands. She has also become convinced that "Bet you bottom dollar" is really a hidden political message. Talking on the phone with my current cell phone provider (I hate my phone), the customer service woman was secretly pushed to vote democratic. My daughter ended the room, stage right, singing/yelling "Tomorrow, Tomorrow! Bet Barak Obama ya! I love you Tomorrow!" These out bursts are only subdued by requests to play the theme song to the 70's TV show Wonder Woman. "Wonder Woman to the RESCUE!" But that's another story.
No to be out done by my daughter my wife and I often become a part of the Annie revival. But this is not the song we have always sung. I am a fan of the HBO show Flight of the Concords. If you haven't seen this show, your missing the new Monkeys of our generation. A favorite of ours is a song called Business Time ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN0oDnoc3-c ). To put in a family friendly way, Business Time is the kind of time that led me to have a daughter to write blogs about. Now, a three year old has a balder the size of a tennis ball, but can evidently hold 30 gallons of liquid before the need to "pee pee' is actually needed. Don't ask me it science. So to curd the 30 gallons of juice, milk, water and what ever secret "treats" grandma has in put her tummy, for ending up in you vehicle you need to have you daughter pee pee before you leave the house. To encourage this activity my and my lovely wife can be found dancing around the living room, with a little bit of Jazz Hands, singing "It's Potty, It's Potty time. You know what you got to do, its potty, that's why its potty time."
When our daughter prances from room to room singing Tomorrow, we watch and smile and think about how wonderful she is. When we sing Potty Time our daughter looks at us like we are imbeciles. I think were both right.
This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as an entry for a contest sponsored by Bush’s Beans. Mmmm beans!!! Check it out at http://www.beanchant.com and http://blog.parentbloggers.com.

Weight Management

I'm tired a lot, I eat too much, I don't have a lot of time, and I complain to much. I have a beautiful wife and daughter, who bring me light every day. I have a job that is relatively easy, and pays well, enough to let my wife stay home with Violet (with some pinching). I am doing well in school so far and have a Playstation 3 and friends. I like the PS3 a little better sometimes. It's hard to focus on the good sometimes, even when the good out ways that bad. Sometimes I feel like the bad is so pronounced because the good is as well. The Ying to my Yang. The weight of my body, and the things I have to do pushed on me like a bolder. My weights are quickly moving from the category of 'things I should do' to 'things I need to do'. My wife looks at me worriedly as I look at my weight loathingly in the mirror. She looks at me worriedly when I have problems getting out of the chair because of my back, or when I can't get up the stairs without pain in my knee making it give out. I don't know what to do. When I see people that need to drive scooters around Wal-Mart to by their Ho-Hos, I think to myself 'Stop eating'. This is easier said than done. Of course I don't eat Ho-Hos everyday either. Sometimes answers are not just sitting their obvious, sometimes they take time and effort and work. Sometimes we don't like the answers, like medication or a CPAP machine. Maybe the answer is to stop complaining.

Blackness

As my neighborhood still struggles to regain power and clear streets a week after a wind storm I wonder were all the good things have gone. As I look at the window I see people moving around with no more regard or worry then before. Maybe their used to not having power, or food. I didn't see the out pouring of help and togetherness I read about in New York and New Orleans. Maybe these were just worst situations and there is a level needed before the human gene of a village kicks in. Or maybe the poor, don't help the poor. Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough. Maybe, just maybe misery loves company, and they don't want the company to leave.

The cocktail party was the norm, filled with people and things that thought themselves more important than the person they were talking to. It was a like a bookstore, with cheese and wine. I had spent too much time talking to the millionaire duck and was decidedly finished with his, "So I 'quack' told him to sell the fucking 'quack' idiot." So, I introduced him to a longshoreman and I made my escape.
The party was in full swing. All of the elite of society was there: The president of America, the president of Disney, the president of the International Society of Talking Spiders (I steered clear of them). It was like all the parties I had been too lately pedaling my new book The Life and Times of Typewriters: A study in fact and fiction. It was getting rave reviews in The Post, and Anthropomorphic Animal Weekly. Maybe, I was pedaling myself. The Leopard in the corner looked most beautiful, but her glances were hard to read, sex or hunger?
Getting tired of the same rhetoric I scanned the room. I saw an elephant in the corner standing gloomily; People and animals alike giving her a wide birth. I meandered over to her, narrowly missing the glance of Rebecca the Duchess of Unimportant Providences. The elephant was new, maybe making the party worthwhile.
I greeted the elephant with fake jubilee.
"Great party." I said.
"Hummmph" She replied, looking grumpier.
"Problem?"
"Oh you know how it is. Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink." She said glancing at me with her black marble eyes beneath what looked like a tad too much mascara, even for an elephant.
"I'm sorry I don't follow." I said, because I didn't.
"Well sometimes," she said, "it just feels like everyone here is trying to ignore me, like I'm not even here."
I knew what she meant, but didn't find it polite conversation for the evening so, I decided it was better to not think about it or her.

My daughter and Seven Samurai

I remember the day I first saw Seven Samurai. I was riding my bike downtown and saw the Neon Movies. I had seen this place a thousand times but had never really looked at it. Die Hard, and Star Wars was about my speed in movies. But today as I rode past something caught my eye. I'm pretty sure it was a poster for some scantly clad femme fatal. As I looked thought the windows I was entranced by movies I had never heard of.
At twelve, I thought myself fairly in tune with the movie business. I watched Entertainment Tonight religiously. But this was a world unknown to me. It was playing a Akira Kurosawa marathon, and something at midnight called the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Without thinking I walked up to the counter and asked about the next two movies playing Seven Samurai and "Shichinin no samurai" that I pronounced all wrong. The guy behind the ticket counter smiled at me. He didn't make fun of me, or roll his eyes, or treat me like a twelve year old kid, he told me that it was the same movie, just the original Japanese title.
"Is it like Lethal Weapon?" I asked thinking about the idea of some guy kicking ass and taking names.
"No." he said simply. He looked at my obvious confusion. "Come on in."
He let me pull my bike into the lobby and gave me some very stale popcorn and told me that I could watch the movie for free, but I had to tell him what I thought of it when it was over.
I walked into the theater and was mesmerized. The screen was the biggest I had ever seen. At the time the screen was one of the last Panoramma screens left in the country. There was only about twenty people in the theatre. The lights went down and it began. It was in black and white, which didn't bother me at all. I had recently talked my mother into letting me watch Raging Bull and loved it.
I can't describe what I felt that day. It was something new, exciting. I love it. I went back to the Neon any chance I could get, and was let in free many times, and saw movies I shouldn't have seen at that age, even more times than that. I was changed and have loved movies, all kinds ever sense.
Seven Samurai remains one of my favorite movies to this day, and I dream about showing it to my daughter one day. As we sit on the couch and I turn it on I will feel that excitement of the first time again. We will watch for awhile, and then slowly, hesitantly, my daughter will turn to me with love in her eyes, I will look back hopeing see that excitement returned and I will hear her say.
"Dad this is boring, can we watch something else."

Computer geeks and me worrying less.

Going back to college after many years I was nervous. I'm studying Computer Programing, and was worried that my age, and experience would keep me from getting a good job. A year in, I feel better everyday. Most of the people in my computer classes know more than me, without a doubt. However I do not weight 350lbs and live in my mothers basement. It is sad on a level that I can not convey. Now I'm no small person. My Wii fit tells me I'm obease. And I don't wish to attack people who truly battle with their weight everyday. These are not those people. They sit in front of me, pounding on a keyboard, pounding down the seat, pounding down pound cake and slugging Mountain Dew. These are the fat people who have to take a break going downstairs to get more Cheetos. Their knowledge impresses me, they do not. When I go for an interview and these guys are the ones sitting next to me, I don't think I will fear my chances. On paper, they blow me away, in an interview they are sloppy and painfully socially inept. I am in no way better than they are, well I am in a couple of ways, but I'm sure they beat me in some category, just not being able to count the number of girls they have kissed with more than one hand.
I see the guy calling to set up an interview right now.
"Hello" Mom answers.
"May I speak with Robert Smith please?"
"Billy its for you! And your pizza rolls are ready!" yelling down stairs.
"Just a minute Mommy. I'm just about to get to level 70 in Warcraft!"
"He will be a minute." shes says into the phone.
I thought it was a cliche, now I know its a culture. A sad, sad, scooter, jelly bean eating, pale skinned, man boob, virgin club. I can't get in, and I'm OK with that.