the sticking point

“Sit Tight and Listen Keenly, While I Play For You A Brand New Musical Biscuit”

Preface: What follows are the ravings of an insanely devoted (and easily impressed) new dad.

Our living room houses quite a large collection of records. Vinyl. The collection is about 1,500 strong, from AC/DC's Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (the Aussie import, thank you) to ZZ Top's Eliminator, plus 12“ singles, soundtracks, and comps. Almost ALL of it is within arm's reach of your average one-year-old.

Our ABOVE average (again, thank you) one-year-old recently decided to make his first musical selection. Usually, the record shelving is just a starting point for one of H's amateur walks across the living room floor. (He took his first steps on Mother's Day. The kid's got a showman's flair for the dramatic.) But one day last week, he stared at the records, reached in, and pulled one out.

Alice / Floorshow / Phantom / 1969 - Sisters of Mercy. (French import)

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: ”Shama Lama Ding Dong“ from the album Animal House by Day, Otis & The Nights

Slap Your Mammy Down / Slap Your Pappy Down Again

The Brooklyn Family Sticking Point happened upon a one-block-long "flea market" yesterday. (Here.) That phrase gets quotation marks because all this thing really amounted to was a series of personal stoop sales* strung together in a daisy chain of folding tables stacked with crap.

Alongside the obligatory picture frames, salt shakers, shot glasses, and copies of Life, people in my neighborhood will sell their moldy old shoes (without soles!) for a dollar. They'll sell their old socks ("gently worn!"), three for a dollar. Books with pages dangling out. Single gloves, missing their match. Umbrella handles. Prescription eyeglasses. "Leftover" Flintstones chewable multivitamins. All this junk-drawer detritus is hauled to the curb and tagged at 50 cents, or a buck or two. Because the people in my neighborhood will sit outside their $3 million brownstone homes** on a scalding day in June to make 50 cents from a "Golden Retrievers!" calendar. From 2002.

Mrs. Sticking Point was bored/depressed/freaked out after just 6 minutes, so she and baby H headed off in the direction of the neighborhood toy store. I hung back with the beagle, and looked for the guy on this block who'd be selling records and CDs.

When I approached his table, he told me, "Everything's a quarter now, because it's gettin' fuckin' hot, and I'm tired of standin' out here." He had a lot of cool stuff, and I walked away with a bag full of goodies for less that the cost of a slice and a Coke. The best gets were this Ruts double disc (.50), this 14-year old Ramones trib comp (.25), this Bomp records comp (.25), and this Devo VHS tape. I first saw it on USA's Night Flight program when I was about twelve years old, back in my family's pre-VCR days (when you had to pay attention to what you were watching). The version I got yesterday for a quarter is the 1979, even-longer-out-of-print edition in the enormous black Warner Home Video box. On the Amazon marketplace, it's being sold as a "collectible" for $270. (Or 1,080 times more than I paid.)

The live stuff, and the video clips for "Come Back Jonee" and "Secret Agent Man," are worth every penny.

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Listening: "Something That I Said" from Live and Loud by The Ruts.

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* Called "Garage Sales" in neighborhoods with, uh... garages.

** Please note that I do not own, nor live in, such a home. Wife, child, beagle, and I share a 1000 square-foot rental apartment. (With some mod cons!)

The Kid's Got A Sick Sense of Humor

H and I watched the first 45 minutes of Finding Nemo before (the first time for us both), and he laughed his ass off twice. Once when the mommy fish and all her eggs disappear, and again when the huge scary shark appears.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: “Jump Up, Funboy!” by SkAuR

Talkin' Loud and Sayin' Nothin'

“...and they don't want baby girls, so they give them away.... That's the way they do it over there.... How could you just get rid of something so important? ... That's why I wouldn't do well in China.”

Thus spake the ignorant she-beast on the Utica Avenue-bound #3 train yesterday. Me and S. and H. were on our way down to BAM for the big Dan Zanes homecoming ballyhoo. I was standing against the door, at the helm of H's stroller, when she started spouting her bullshit.

She was talking to a child, one who must have asked “Why doesn't that boy look like his mommy and daddy?” or “Why was he adopted?” Understandable questions from a member of the under-10 set. But the ignorant she-beast had to share her answers EXTRA!  LOUD! Probably to prove how look at me “progressive” she is.

But the eedjit had so much wrong. To begin with, she was mistaking my Korean son for a Chinese daughter. She was mistaking her own half-assed misinformation for an actual understanding of the sociopolitical and societal factors that have led to the preponderance of girls being adopted out of China.

But her most egregious mistake was thinking that families formed through adoption want to listen to total strangers discuss them.

I got... pissed.

Once my wife and I realized what the i.s-b. was talking about, I said, in a stage whisper, “What the fuck kind of conversation is that?!” Standing next to me, a young man who was about to step off at the next station, smirked. Even he knew she was an assclown.

I wanted to say something to her. I wanted to say, listen -- you've only got a half-assed grasp of what you're talking about, so maybe you shouldn't be the one explaining it. Beyond that, you are either rude or ignorant for talking so loud about me and my family. Fuck you.

I didn't say any of that. Instead, (in another stage whisper) I said, “I don't want to hear any more of this ignorant bitch” and wheeled H's stroller a few yards away.

Since then, I've been going back and forth on this: I should have said something to her / I'm glad I didn't. But I know that as H grows older and begins to understand these things and starts to overhear conversations like this, how his mom and dad react is going to play a huge role in his growth and self-image. 

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On iTunes right now: “Mutiny in Jonestown” from the album What Makes a Man Start Fires? by Minutemen

[posted with ecto]

Intentional Walk

This past Saturday, baby H attended his first-ever Yankees game. He saw (well, was there for) a nice one, too. Complete game shutout from his dad's favorite pitcher, Mike Mussina.

And the team's famed "aura and mystique" must have rubbed off on the boy, because he chose yesterday, his mom's first Mother's Day, to take his first-ever actual steps. He walked.

One second he was slamming his palms on his aunt's coffee table, and moments later he was four steps away from it.

Nicely done, H.

Mop & GO!

Alright. A couple months ago, Mrs. Sticking Point and I decided it would be a huge help to hire someone to clean our apartment once or twice a month. Our dear friend Figlet found and recommended a woman to us and we hired her.

Frida* is Polish and, like the woman in Spanglish, speaks almost no English. (But unlike that Spanglish actress, our house cleaner resembles John Cassisi.) She's come to our Brooklyn apartment from Staten Island every other Monday for a couple months, stays for three to four hours, then gets her cash and leaves.

She does a fine job. I can expect the hardwood floors to be squeaky clean when I get home from work, and the random clutter of my nightstand and dresser-top is dusted and neatly stacked.

Yesterday, my wife was in the living room with H. while Frida was doing her thing. In her broken Po-glish, Frida informed S. that our baby doesn't look like her.

We knew that.

Answering her, in sentence fragments -- and isn't it funny how we answer broken English with the same? -- S told Frida that H is adopted, and from Korea.

The Windexian Wonder responded by gesturing to S's stomach and saying, "Oh... no baby?"

Ouch.

And... fuck!

My wife is so cool, though. "Yes," she said, pointing at H, "my baby!"

Well, it was nice while it lasted, but Frida's got to go. I can't excuse her by blaming a language barrier, because I cannot imagine her saying these same things to another Polish woman.

Would you tell any mom that her baby doesn't look like her? No. I know you wouldn't. Because you're sane. (Most of you.)

This woman has seen me on a few occasions, and there are a dozen pictures of S and I around the apartment. Frida either realized H is adopted and was trying to pry for information, or she didn't know, and she's plain stupid.

But, still, who would dare point to a woman's tummy and imply that she's infertile?

Fuckin' A. You ignorant psycho, put the Pledge can down and step out of the apartment, please.

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* This isn't her real name. However, I'm not efforting to protect her identity; in truth, I can never remember her name and always refer to her as "Frida" anyway.

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Postscript:

In a brief discussion last night, Mrs. Sticking Point and I learned that I am MUCH more bothered by this than she. So maybe Frida won't be fired. But....

Orioles 7, Yankees 2

The home team looked shabby today, but their cutest new fan found another game to enjoy.

[posted with ecto]

Pool'd

Today is my last official day of this vacation. It was a good one, if about a month too short. The highlight: H's first swim

lesson. It's a so-called “Mommy & Me” thing at the local gym, but mommy relinquished her spot in the water to me for this first session. It was great fun. My son had never even seen a swimming pool until about 20 seconds before he was in this one with me. He did some kicking, some sporadic paddling, and even survived a couple mouthfuls of pool water. I, on the other hand, discovered that my stock value is pretty good among the neighborhood mommies. I still got it. Of course, that doesn't really matter unless Mrs. Sticking Point noticed the attention I got from a few of the other moms. (Women whom I'd secretly given nicknames like “Mrs. Eddie Bauer,” “Underwearer,” and “Latina Jolie.”)

The week's lowlight provided me with the biggest laugh of my vacation. Yesterday, S yelled from the nursery: “Oh, H., no no! Please no! Tommy, I need your help!”

I found my son standing naked on the changing pad, S holding him under the armpits. And, oh yeah, he was in the process of dropping a deuce.

It. Was. Hilarious.

And then, while my wife wiped and scrambled to clean things up and I tried to keep his feet out of the moist nuglets below, he topped things off by sprinkling a little pee on the whole scene.

Today's F10 did some laps around the iPool.

01. Joe McCarthy's Ghost - Minutemen. (Paranoid Time EP)
02. All My Little Words - Magnetic Fields. (69 Love Songs)
03. Role Model - Helmet. (Meantime)
04. Babysitter - Ramones. (Leave Home)
05. The Cheerleaders - Minutemen. (Project Mersh)
06. Hanging Tree - Bob Mould. (Black Sheets of Rain)
07. Shine on Brightly - Procol Harum. (Whiter Shade of Pale)
08. Machine - Black Flag. (First Four Years) This is a fierce moment from Dez Cadena-era Black Flag. While I was on a recent business trip, an associate told me she is friends with Dez. An introduction is imminent.
09. Dizzy - Luna. (Romantica) Listen carefully. Is that the melody from Van Halen's “Jump”?
10. All Day - Ministry. (All Day / Everyday is Halloween 12“)

As I wrote those notes, I was thinking of SOC's spoof of my Friday Tens last week. I asked him about it the other day when he was in my living room, poking my son on his nose. ”You were making fun of me, right?“ He laughed slyly and said, ”I was so bored.“

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On iTunes right now: Breed from the album Nevermind by Nirvana

[posted with ecto]

Opening Day 2005

Father-forced fanhood.

Table for tunes, please.

Today was the best Friday 10 ever.
I'm off from work, and Mrs. Sticking Point dashed off early to get herself out of jury duty, so me and H bonded over breakfast (his) and a really rocking dimebag of songs. Since baby's welfare demands that iPod and EM3's mustn't be worn during times like these, we made a slight alteration to the standard F10 operating procedure. With the laptop on the table, and baby's elbows on the highchair tray, we listened to our music with iTunes on shuffle.

TODAY'S MENU
Baby oatmeal with pears and apples
Blueberry yogurt
Approximately one (1) dozen Cheerios
01. I'll Keep Holding On - The Detroit Cobras.
02. Paranoid - Black Sabbath. Yyyyyyyeah.
03. I Want Everything - Luna. From the great Lunapark album. I always loved it, but as Luna grew more disappointing in the last few years, I've come to appreciate Lunapark thoroughly.
04. Down on the Street - The Stooges.
05. Problems [demo]- Sex Pistols. As of today, I have 3,789 songs on the iPod. That's nine days worth and then some. So why do I get a track from Spunk every week?
06. In The Wee Small Hours - Frank Sinatra. H's eyebrows went up, and he had a look on his face like, “Daddy, do you hear that?!” He didn't seem to like this voice at all...
But he (oddly) did like...
07. Let's Have A War - Fear.
08. Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out - The Replacements. (From Let It Be.) So, I'm feeding m'boy, and we hear: “Open wide / Ya little brat.” No further comment, your honor.
09. Death Or Glory - The Clash.
10. Rudder - Bettie Serveert. Everytime I hear one of these songs from Dust Bunnies, I'm blown away by how great that album is.

As always, please share your own randomly accessed Friday 10. And how many Cheerios were involved.

[posted with ecto]