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Madcation 2010

2 marginal adults, 2 kids, 9 CDs, one rental car, and a crapload of stuff in the trunk.  No plan of any kind.  An eleven to fourteen hour drive from Murfreesboro, TN, to Madison, WI.  Summertime, when the livin's easy.  Friends. Dogs.  Curds.  Wouldn't have it any other way.

Matt came to see us last week, on a stop-through fun visit while he was in town on business.  We had good times & dinner with him, bullshitted and shared music and books (HE shared food and books, we didn't contribute much), and once he left, we started getting our stuff together; digging out coolers and air mattresses, luggage, and car toys.  This took almost a whole day, the 14th.  We arranged for a rental vehicle, the Hyundai Elantra (which has little compartments for goddamn everything), and shoved all of our stuff into Christie's Saturn the morning of the 15th.  We baked a banana bread ("What were you thinking?"), and were out the door by seven.  Those of you with kids will understand the accomplishment inherent in this act.  We got the rental from surly Budget Rental, transferred our stuff into it, and left C's car in Meredith's driveway.  After McBreakfast, we hit the road for a day of driving, which included Metropolis, Illinois followed hard upon by The Bleak Nothingness of Endless Fucking Soybean Fields, Illinois.

We reached Madison at about eleven or so that night, and installed ourselves into the upstairs room of the most gracious Eric and Diane, our hosts for this trip.  It is quite something to allow four people, three of whom are still learning basic rules of human interaction and decorum, into your home for a week (letting them stay even after you are gone), and to additionally offer up all of your time, food, coffee, resources and space is priceless.  Thanks again to Diane, Eric, and Tito the head dog for putting up with us for days.  I actually don't clearly remember the first night, other than thinking that Eric and Diane had put a lot of thought into where we would sleep, and it was like a little Neil Gaiman dormroom up there.

Friday the 16th.  I am up at dawn, for no particular reason. We got out about midday, had lunch at the Great Dane, and walked the Capitol and surrounding areas.  We went by Representative Mark Pocan's office, and spoke at length with Glenn, getting caught up on everything I've missed over the last seven years or so.  Which is a lot, and I'm sure it still wasn't really everything.  After going up high onto Madison, there was Rockband 2, which would soon become a theme of our trip - punctuating every experience with Rockband 2.  I also finished the book Matt had loaned me, Feast of Snakes.  There are much worse ways to spend one's time.  Our gracious hosts got our dinner at Tex Tubb's, which was awesome, then screened for us Mary & Max, which was even more awesome.  More on the film later.  Another late night was had, and I remember crashing about 2 or so, I think.

Saturday the 17th.  Abby and I are both up with the sun, and we lay on the floor and played with Legos for an hour before joining the world in progress.  Eric made flapjacks for breakfast (and there was some controversy with the flapjacks of which I never fully became aware, but I heard the murmurings) and we hit Westfield's Comics in it's new location.  While looking for Westfields, we unexpectedly found the Jester-Helings at Half Price Books, so we saw them in advance of seeing them, which was nice, though Nora was a little afraid of me at first, I think.  Saturday evening, we traipsed over to their soon-not-to-be-theirs anymore home, where we celebrated Josh's birthday (late) and C's birthday (even later) and there was a Q (I had the jerk chicken - appropriate), and a cake, and it was all delicious and the kids played together really well for the most part and this was all very nice - but.  All of this paled in comparison to the full and wonderful feeling of sitting around the table outside with Josh, Amy, Jon, Colleen, Diane, Eric and Christie and hashing out exactly what it is that remains grossly wrong with the better part of the human race, and nailing down some approaches to fixing it.  The friendship and feeling of being part of that group again, of being heard and enjoying hearing others cannot be underestimated. Joy.  Seriously.  Thanks to all who participated.  We busted up at a time I will call "kid late" and I flopped asleep later on the air mattress with my head in the fan.  I started reading a couple of Eric's books somewhere in here.

Sunday - got up, made arrangements, and met Mike and Sarah Basford and Megin McDonell at Mildred's for conversation, jokes, plans for the collapse of civilization and a brief history of everything else I missed that Glenn hadn't told me about.  Once again - surrounded by people who were happy to see me.  Doesn't happen often enough that I can't treat the instances when it does like a little bit of a special occasion.  I very much enjoyed lunch and conversation once again, long enough that lunch stretched into a three hour plus affair that fucked up the schedules of everyone else for the rest of the day.  Megin and Basfords: I have not forgotten the content or plans contained within our discussion.  The eagle is in the air, the carpet is vacuumed, and the bunker is filled with liquor.  Stay strong.

Sunday afternoon we had our glamorous photo shoot with Amy J, who made us look good and deleted the the other stuff, though we wouldn't know that until later.  That night Diane made dinner, and I'd like to just say that her pesto and not-meatballs are magnificent.  No, but really.  I found excuses to put Diane's pesto on bread, crackers, and eventually, a burrito.  Man.  I can taste it right now.  Dinner was amazing and followed by Rockband 2, obviously.  I think we made our band, Riboflavin Glaybin, that night, and designed our people.  My Squidbag singer has green Elvis hair and a Lemmy beard.  Of course he fucking does.  That's right, I can sing, kind of.  Well enough to play Rockband.

When you vacation during the Summer to see friends and your wife is a teacher, and you stay with another teacher, it becomes easy to forget that other people work and have lives and have to respect things like Monday.  We spent part of our Monday at Ella's Deli, enjoying the food and ice cream and exposing our kids to a Golem and a lot of crazy crap on the walls and shooting out of the ceiling and flying around.  I had a really solid Pastrami there, too.  Later that evening, we headed over to Jon and Colleen's for bookchat and hanging out and more good times, and we met Lilly (Dog) Butler.  There was excellent pizza of unknown (to me) pedigree, and the kids split into little groups and played games.  Ben and Max were enthralled by Jon's iPad, while, if Abby is to be believed, (and she usually is, after you cut through the odd syntax and general strangeness) the girls played something where they were animals sometimes and wore costumes some other times, and weird good fun was the only rule.  The night ended earlier, and we drove around and took some pics of stuff, getting back to see the end of Eric and Diane packing to leave for NJ.  We watched some of The (American) Office (which was new to me) and hung out, and then went to be relatively early, as they left the next morning before 7.

Tuesday was kind of the off day - we originally thought we'd be doing something else that didn't work out, and we ended up waiting a while to see if that would come to fruition.  It didn't, so we spent the first part of the afternoon on State Street, at Noodles and Room of One's Own.  We bought a bunch of books - 'cause what's a trip where you don't return with a bundle of books - and then met Jon Broad for a BS session at this bread place that makes a helluva Danish but drops the ball on oatmeal cookies.  We drove around for a little bit after that doing photos and errands, and basically just killed the afternoon and evening.  Then, some Rockband 2.  As you, by now,  predicted.

We also played it upon waking Wednesday, our last day in Madison.  It's a game, we're addicted.  We started in on laundry and dishes and tidying our host-house, and then met Amy J for picking pictures.  Amy's being generous enough to print some cool wall-hangings for us out of the pictures she had taken previously, and they're going to be beautiful, despite the fact that I'm in some of them.  Kudos and thanks again to Amy for the photo excellence - you rock the big black. (Amy picked up my camera shortly after we arrived in the same way you might pick up and regard a pretty, delicate flower, crystal or furry creature.  "Oh, cute," she did not say aloud but might as well have.)  Afterwards, we found Josh to give a quick hug, and then did the preparing for dinner with Julia errands and the picking up Wisconsin products for people in Tennessee who can't get them errands, and then it was time to go the park and meet Julia.  Literally, we had used up all of our remaining time.  We had dinner by the sunset-dappled lake and fed ducks (inadvertantly creating an abomination when Julia's niece Anna fed chicken to a duck) and then there was much talking and haircuts and I crashed hard while putting Abby to bed.  I got up again and put Rockband away, and then finally retired around 1:30 or so, reading the fourth EP & DLF house book.

We left in the rain.  We were up and out by nine, caught some breakfast on the road, and made better time coming back despite toll road nightmares in Illinois and Indiana.  Max and I learned that Amish men do not wash their hands in bathrooms (three different guys, three different locations), and we ate a lot of dried food - pineapple, wasabi peas (best road trip food ever), trail mix -  and sandwiches on pita.  We pulled into Mer's driveway at 10ish, gave her gifts of beer like alcoholic wise men (we followed like, a star?) and made it home by 11:30, spending the entire next day lazing around, recuperating, having some cheese curds and putting things away.  Max's fish - Rick, Spot & Demon - were all still alive.

There's a new photo album down there on the left - have a look at that.  I want to thank everyone (and your dogs) again who conspired to make this a wonderful visit for us, and say that we all really enjoyed our Madtown time.  it's always nice to feel like you have a home away from home, especially when you've spent more time there than in your current home.  It was good to see all of you again - except for the Ella's Golem and the PDQ Idiot Girl.

Westboro Baptist vs. The Fanboy Legion

I'm sure they were confused.

I first heard about the inbred intolerance of the Westboro Baptist Collection of Assholes related to Fred Phelps back when I lived in Madison, Wisconsin and worked for Mark Pocan.  He introduced me to their mocking Matthew Shepard in Hell page (which my browser seems to have issues with, so I'm not linking to that), and informed me that they would be coming to our town.  I have never been skilled at the form of non-confrontational counter-protesting in which one is meant to engage in these situations, and ended up shouting a small group back about 15 feet before it occurred to me, finally, that I would never pierce the armor of ignorance they all proudly wore.  Since then, the WBC has made it its mission to picket funerals, sites of murders and other deaths, and public events, spreading their message of hate and stupidity far and wide, mostly accomplishing nothing except to galvanize the world with outrage and disgust at their very presence.

Recently, they decided to picket San Diego ComicCon 2010, and the Fanboys and Fangirls were ready for them.  For weeks out, they were discussing strategies, sign placement, and campaigns to raise money for amFAR, the HRC, NCLR, and Equality California.  In fact, there were people who pledged dollar amounts times however long Fred's Fuckers protested, so that the longer they were out there, the more money these charities got.  Sends a little thrill through the nervous system, yeah?

The final result was that the WBC was met by Buddy Christ, Bender, Trekkies, Jedi, and an assortment of Super-People.  Randomness ensued.  In one video, the chant of "Ba-CON, ba-CON, ba-CON!" can be heard, and some of the signs I saw included "GOD HATES JEDI," "SUPERMAN DIED FOR OUR SINS," "FAGS ARE SEXY BEASTS," "GOD LOVES GAY ROBIN," and Bender's "KILL ALL HUMANS."  Pictures and videos, including one with DC writer Gail Simone (She's the Women in Refrigerators woman!) can be found here, here & here.

Awesome.  We really need to keep tabs on Fred's health so we can picket his funeral.

Incidentally Hostile

 I don't get up in the morning looking to have hostile interactions with people.  Well, not every morning.  It's not a deliberate thing.  It just happens.

Most of the time, I wander out into the world fresh, and full of false hope nailed to the thin walls of my soul that today will be different, that I will encounter people who are charming & witty, who have thought things through, who exhibit a modicum of courtesy or at least a passing attempt at being civilized, and who also seem to be making an effort towards interacting with their fellows as though we were all sharing the same spaces together.  People walking around with respect plugged into their relational apparatus.  People looking to be entertained by their day, and who have listened to the quiet brain voices instead of drowning them out with the cacophonous outside noises, flattening their abilities to quickly reason and/or take on new information.  It's hard, and it takes an effort, but it's worth doing.  This is often a vain and fragile hope which flies on gossamer wings, whispering echoes against the hollows on the inside of my head.

And then ugly life happens, and it's filled with shallow, cowardly, arrogant, stupid, simpering pricks who seek to shovel mass amounts of bullshit onto my gently cultivated and already fertilized mind.  Over-fertilized, overwhelmed, the new and tender shoots die before they can support themselves and weeds of hostility rule the field.  The system is delicate - switching metaphors, picture an old and rusty mousetrap, forgotten behind some flour at the back of the pantry - and it snaps back when pushed at, pulled on, or otherwise fucked about with.  It gets more and more delicate as I age, as old things often do.  I have reached a simple point whereat I am completely intolerant of social lies, conversational evasions, euphemistic language, and anything that even seems like small talk.  I have come to believe about 10 percent of what I hear, which is exasperating for those addressing me.  By contrast, Too much self-revelation can push me too far, also, especially if you choose to reveal what a big gaping asshole you are.  I have no more time for that shit.  Choose your fucking stories carefully.  I have put up with too many complesque dickheads who want to scream up at me from the bottom of the well of their lives, or from behind the book of their philosophy.  I am no longer listening.  More to the point, I mostly can't even hear you.  Stand up, and address me clearly from the lectern of yourself, or shut the fuck up.

Simply put: Show me the common courtesy of being even and direct with me, and remove any redundancies and blockades from our interactions.  State it in a concise way, and seek not to regale me with gossip or bullshit.  And that's if you know me.  Everyone else - tread lightly, and if you doubt, leave me alone.  Total stranger?  At your own risk.  Might be worth it.  Have a dogma to spread?  Definitely the wrong tree, puppy.  Piss off.

I am by no means perfect.  This entry alone reveals that I am difficult, intolerant, blunt, nasty, anti-social, and occasionally mean-spirited and hard to be around.  But I know when to keep my fucking mouth shut, and how to treat people in public.  And you should, too.

Emily Post's got nothing on me.

Beth Kille & Julia McConahay LIVE

Awesome, no? Beth is new to me, and can be found here, while Julia is my sympathetic spirit from way back, and makes the world better through music. As demonstrated. She's here. The title of this song is "Release," written by Julia. She's got a new album coming out this month, and she's touring towards the end of the year, so open your ears, hearts, houses and venues.  She's also hosting a music video contest (where you make a video to accompany the track I have below) via Facebook, so check that out, too.  And then play this video over and over.

 All or Nothing_by Julia McConahay

(My monitor's wide, now.  I recommend it.)

Questionable Parenting

I suppose this could apply to anyone who knows anyone who has children.  Which I would guess is almost everybody.

Have you ever gotten to know someone on a surface level -  strictly that polite social obligatory party conversation nonsense level - and they're...okay.  After everything's done, and you're decompressing after the social engagement, either into a journal, your own head, or with a significant other, you decide that, "Yeah, they were all right.  I would hang out with them again."  

Now say that those people are parents, and you've met their kids, whether or not you've seen them interact with their kids. You still think they're okay - most people know how to put on their "Not In Front of the Company" hats, and have taught their kids to do it, too.

And then they just fuck up.

Either a story gets told, or the mom and dad argue in front of the kids, or you see something for yourself, or the dread familiarity goes about breeding its vicious, frothing spawn of contempt, but something they do, some decision they make regarding their kids just rubs you the wrong way, and suddenly, you hate those people.  For other parents, it can be as simple as a "Well, I wouldn't have done it like that" that slowly morphs into a "That was just wrong.  I can't justify that shit at all."  This in turn often becomes "What a stupid motherfucker," which then can endanger a blossoming acquaintanceship.  Or even one not so blossoming.

Speaking personally, the way that I parent is an outgrowth of who I am as a person, and so I believe that this is true of everyone else, too.  When they do something rash or stupid or unloving or flat out bad, two things walk through my head playing kettle drums: "What assholes," followed quickly hard upon by, "raising more assholes.  Great."  It eats my fucking brain.  I have no desire to leap in and raise their kids, but there is a part of me that wants to shout out, "HOLY JUMPING SIDEWAYS FUCK, STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING, RIGHT NOW!!!" It's a squandering of innocence and potentiality on such a huge level - especially if the kids are bright, clever, cute, or endearing in any way - that it makes me crazy for a second.

If I feel this way, I know that I am not alone.  I am not unique enough in the world to have these thoughts and reactions all by my lonesome.  So I am cautious.  Due to this, I am careful to treat my kids in a manner consistent with the discipline they receive at home when we are out.  We are as pragmatic, patient and thoughtful as the situation will allow, and when they are assholes, they're assholes by choice, not by programming.  I can only hope this approach does not erode my relationships with others - which, while not incidental, are distantly secondary - and that I do not engender hostility in outside observers.

Of course, there are people who cannot tolerate either children or breeders, and they are known as shitheels.  I endeavor not to associate with them at all.