The Decisions a Man Makes

My wife and I found out several weeks ago that she is pregnant.  Save the condolences; this is a joyous occasion.  But it has really hammered home the concept of being an adult.  And I'm not taking it very well.

Being an adult has many perks.

-For my five-year-old it means that Daddy can play adult video games like Arkham Asylum and God of War III.
-For my mother it means she doesn't worry about me quite as much as she used to.
-For my father it means he can see a man he has helped shape begin to mold himself into his own entity.
-For my wife it means she can feel safe for herself and her family knowing her husband can handle any crisis life may throw at us.
-For my bandmates it means I seem a bit more flaky about practice times and late nights.

But what does it mean for me?

I feel old.  You know that annoying question everyone asks when they find out it's your birthday? Do you feel any older?  Yes I do.  Thanks for bringing it up, Asshole.

That's what being an adult means to me.  Feeling older.

-You're an adult when each new birthday takes you further away from your childhood instead of closer to being grown-up.
-You're an adult when you participate in conversations about 401Ks and life insurance and don't speak in future tense.
-You're an adult when you realize that everyone who told the eight-year-old you that you could be anything you wanted to be when you grew up were all full of shit.
-You're an adult when you finally start to loosen your grasp on the hope that all your dreams can still happen.

That last one is what hit me this year.  I have been obsessed with music for as long as I can remember.  I still remember the first time I heard a truly great song:  Elton John - Rocket Man.

I was raised on country and church music.  There's nothing intrinsically wrong with either genre.  But country has almost always reveled in it's willful ignorance.  And church music is immune from criticism, even if it's terrible.  If you say anything bad about either one then you're either a pretentious asshole or you don't believe in God, neither of which is inherently true, but occasionally both are spot on.  It has recently reached that point when talking about the president or soldiers serving overseas.  Being anti-war or anti-Obama has somehow come to equate being anti-patriotic, or anti-American.  Flight Surgeon Horse Shit.  Does being pro gay marriage make me gay?  Does being pro choice make me a pregnant woman?

But I seriously, seriously digress.

Childhood.  Elton John.  Rocket Man.

I'm sitting at my father's house doing god-knows-what after watching a college football game.  For some unknown reason my dad starts talking about music and suddenly realizes that I'm being deprived of decades worth of classics.  He drags out the turntable and cracks open the cabinet to reveal his collection of vinyl. (For the kids in the audience, these are the giant black discs that only people still concerned with sound quality still listen to.)  He tosses on his Elton John greatest hits album and carefully places the needle near the second set of grooves and proceeds to cause a musical revolution in my ears.  From that moment on all I ever wanted to do with my life was be a musician.  I didn't care about being rich or famous.  I just wanted to be able to make enough money playing music so that I didn't have to get a real job.

Flash forward ~15 years and you'll find a married, father, homeowner, college graduate working a job where he's under-utilized, under-appreciated, and under-paid.  Wait...what the hell happened?

But every bit of that is fine as long as your dream is still alive.  As long as you can make fun of your situation because it will be funny to look back on when you're living your ideal life, then you're fine.  But once your belief that you will achieve your dreams begins to falter, even for a second, then you're screwed.  Every day that passes pigeon-holes you into a little niche in life that becomes your inescapable label.

[Side Note: Today's post brought to you by the letters E, M, & O, with a soundtrack provided by The Cure.]

But watching your childhood dreams get curb-stomped by adulthood also provides you with a new perspective.

I love being a husband and I love being a dad.  I can't think of anything in life that is as difficult/frustrating/rewarding/awe-inspiring.

From my perspective, these are the decisions a man makes.  Family comes first. Dreams come second.  Both are important and both will brutally humble you.

Besides, living vicariously through your children makes the world go 'round.  Amirite pageant moms?

America's Prudish Nature

Hot on the heals (can a month-long gap be considered "hot on the heels"?) of my last sex rant, I come to you with a story (which of course inspired this rant) I saw a little while back.  It's a report about a family in Rahway, New Jersey that was forced to put clothes on a SNOW SCULPTURE after an anonymous complaint.

Can we please stop it with this ridiculous fear of sex?

I can't be the only one who sees the complete hypocrisy of the media.

We live in a country where MMA fights are broadcast on cable television, yet we still have an investigation from the FCC about a nipple that was shown for about half of a second SIX YEARS AGO!  The FCC calls the exposed breast "graphic and shocking".  Wait....I'm sorry....How in the hell is a breast graphic and/or shocking?  And it's more "graphic and shocking" than a guy getting his face beaten in on live television?

Commercials have demonstrated that it's okay to show as much of the top of the breast as physically possible.  TV shows and movie trailers can show the bottoms of the breasts.  Awards shows can zoom in on as much side-boob as they please.  And none of this warrants (not Warrant) a six year government investigation.  But show the forbidden one square-inch of nipple for a fraction of a second and you'll be demonized and portrayed as a detriment to society. 

And television is not the only place where sex is seen as a blemish on society.  Defamer has a long list of movies where the MPAA has either botched the rating or influenced the editing of a movie (which is censorship, I don't care how you defend it).  This kind of thing makes me irate.

Why would a movie like the Dark Knight (great movie) get a PG-13 rating?  Seriously MPAA? You think the Dark Knight would be appropriate for a 13 year-old?  But take three scenes riddled (seewhatIdidthere?) with dead bodies and replace them with two seconds of a topless woman and suddenly Christopher Nolan is a perverted maniac who has to make cuts just to get an "R".

So the message I'm seeing so far is that it's okay to show ridiculous amounts of violence as long as you don't use too many "bad" words or show a boob.

Let me ask the three of you who will read this a question:  Have you ever heard of anyone who was traumatized after seeing nudity in a film?  Even the ones with actually sex scenes instead of just a topless shower scene? I'm talking about mainstream, theatrical movies, not the films your uncle made in college.   I have never personally known a sex scene in a movie to cause anything more harmful than a little excitement or an awkward chuckle.  I've never seen anyone have to close their eyes so they didn't have nightmares about Kate Winslet's breast in Titanic.  But I have known many people, including myself, that find graphic violence hard to watch many times. 

Personally, I would much rather my son see breasts or a sex scene in a movie than see someone shot in the head.  I just cannot fathom how naked bodies can be so despised.  Let's be honest; everyone over the age of 12 is thinking about sex all the time anyway.

Is it just that the masses are all embarrassed that we're a sex driven society and we're always thinking about it?  Is that why we feel the need to condemn it publicly?

Or do some people honestly hate seeing the stunning beauty of the human body at its finest?

Let's Talk About Sex, Baby

I apologize to anyone over the age of 25 for the title of this blog.  You will now need to go cleanse your aural palate with something less condiment inspired.  (For those of you who don't remember 1990, or don't have VH1, please see this)

What I really want to talk about is sex.  Specifically, why our government (and the Vatican) thinks they can stop teenagers from doing it. (Warning: this rant reads much better if you act like a 14 year old boy every time you see the words sex, aspect, or "doing it")

As usual, a news report has sparked my latest rant.  CNN recently did a report on the new health care bill.  I don't want to get started on the entire bill because I don't have 19 hours to type everything I want to say.  Instead, I will focus on one aspect of it that the American government has been trying to shove down our throats for decades:  Abstinence.  CNN reports that there is $250 million tucked away in the new bill to be used for "abstinence-focused" education over a five-year period.  Programs that qualify must "teach that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems". The obvious problem with this statement is that it's almost complete bullshit.  I say almost because they qualify their claim with the word "certain".  Condoms, when used properly, are incredibly effective at preventing most STDs and pregnancy.  I'm not sure what the exact percentage is but you're obviously reading this on an internet-capable device of some sort.  Go Bing it.  (Okay Microsoft.  I tried it and it just doesn't work for me aesthetically or audibly.  Sorry.  I think it may be because it just doesn't make middle school boys giggle like "Google it" does.)  And if you get someone pregnant while you're using a condom then you're either doing it wrong or your son will retire early from his carpentry career to become the David Blaine of 31 A.D. 

Let's try to think of another huge project aimed at our kids with plenty of government funding and media hoopla.  D.A.R.E. you say?  You mean the program to teach kids to "Just Say No" that actually taught kids how to say "Yes"?  Throwing money behind a clever slogan and hoping it sticks doesn't work.  If only we had decades worth of American history to learn from.   And playing the "I'm older and smarter" card sure as hell doesn't work either.  Just try talking to a five year old.

So I guess the American government looks pretty dumb trying to cram the same message down childrens' throats for decades.  But if they look dumb then how does the Vatican look?  They have woven anti-condom rhetoric into their demonizing of sex for just as long.  Despite the fact that allowing their missionaries to hand out condoms in the African villages they visit, or allowing their congregation to use them, would almost certainly cut down on the spread of AIDS and other STDs.  No amount of preaching is going to stop people from having sex.  Surely the Vatican must know this.  And yet, they would rather allow people to pass STDs around than to have them use protection.  That must take a level of dedication that I wasn't aware was possible.  Dedication to belligerently maintaining that their solution is the only way.  But I guess they've gotten pretty good at that in the last couple of millennia.  The same CNN report from above also states that a "January 2009 study in Pediatrics found that religious teens who take virginity pledges are less likely to use condoms or birth control when they become sexually active, and just as likely to have sex before marriage as their peers who didn't take pledges."

Just to recap:  Preaching abstinence doesn't work.  Virginity pledges don't work.  Making sex seem dirty and taboo doesn't work.

Why does it seem like giving a fourteen year old boy internet access and plenty of free time is a better option than any of these?

I didn't really hope to accomplish anything with this rant but I think I did.  It has made me even more adamant that my kids will be taught that condoms will be readily available when they're ready and more importantly, masturbation is a great thing.  You can't get an STD from it.  You never get rejected.  It causes no emotional drama.  I'm not saying I have all the answers (far from it) but who knows how many lives these simple things could have saved?

Tiger Woods

Here goes nothing....How arrogant is this motherfucker?!?!  First, he holds a "press conference", in Florida,  while the Accenture Match Play Tournament is going on, in Arizona.  He reads three words at a time, making Obama sound like the Micro Machines man reciting a tongue twister, and then doesn't take any questions from the press that he hand picked.  Then a few weeks later he tosses out some five-minute interviews where he comes up with new phrases for "I'm sorry.  Please love me again."  And now he's going to do his first "real" press conference on Monday, April 5th.  Hmm, what else is happening that day?  Not much.  Just MLB's Opening Day and the NCAA Men's Basketball National Championship Game.  Yeah.  Does he honestly think anyone in the sporting world would voluntarily go listen to his morally castrated ass talk about moving on, or whatever bullshit he's going to say, when those other events are going on?  Short answer: No.  It's going to be pretty difficult for these reporters to write their piece on Tiger's new-found open honesty or "steely resolve" when their audio recording of the press conference is muddled with the Indians game that was streaming from their laptop in the background and the Duke v. Michigan State game on the TV in front of them.  Mickelson, Ogilvy, and Nicklaus are speaking the next day.  Could he not speak on the traditional day?  I guess not.  I'm sure that would detract from the inevitable media frenzy around him.

Speaking of the media frenzy, Tiger is doing one of two things right now regarding Jesse James.

1. He's sending trucks full of thank you cards and booze.  Because the only thing that makes an anal/waitress/no-condom obsessed serial adulterer look good is a tattoo/Nazi obsessed serial adulterer who cheated on America's sweetheart.

2. He's plotting revenge for stealing the thunder from his tell-all book.  That's the only logical place for Tiger to go now.  Say he returns to golf and dominates (which he probably will), he's still going to catch flack for the rest of his career about something that happened OFF the course.  But if he (and by "he" I mean his ghost writer) pours out his soul in an autobiography that focuses on his "troubled" years, then he can be allowed to move on.  But unless he becomes a super-villain or cures cancer, he's still going to be know as the guy who dominated golf while cheating on his wife with 47 different chicks.  Let's be honest, even if he becomes a super-villain who also cures cancer, the adultery will still makes its way into the conversation.  That's just how the media works.



Let me just say that Tiger Woods doesn't owe the public anything.  If he doesn't want to ever talk about anything other than golf for the rest of his life, then he should be allowed to do so.  What goes on in his personal life is 100% between him and his family.  I honestly don't want to know.  I can't stand the people who feel that it's their right to know what went on.

Let's back up for a minute.  When someone completely and utterly dominates something (sports, music, movie, etc.) there are generally two camps.

The first camp loves said celebrity.  Even if they don't enjoy that celeb's team/songs/movies.  They celebrate watching one person make other people look terrible at their own job.  This camp splinters when a scandal hits.  Either toward denial or camp number two.

The second camp hates said celebrity for the same reason that camp one loves them.  They are making everyone else look bad and it brings down the whole sport/genre/industry.  These are the people who lap up every once of coverage during the celeb's public shaming.

There is a third camp that genuinely likes the person but that's usually only until that person gets traded or puts out a bad album/movie....or cheats on a Swedish model/Miss Congeniality.


Lessons for today's rant:

1.  Fame sucks sometimes
2.  If a past transgression becomes public, at least act humble
3.  If you don't cheat on your wife, you can't get caught. 

Copyright Rant 2.0

This link will take you to an article talking about how BMG, Beyonce's label, has just removed music videos from Beyonce's official YouTube channel for copyright infringement. I cannot confirm how many videos were on the channel before this happened (it's my damn ears that keeps me away) but it appears only one actual video is still up.  I'm not going to go into a long, drawn-out, math-filled rant about how ridiculous this is.  Because that's pretty obvious.  I'm simply going to ask some questions and get out of the way.



How does Beyonce putting up her own videos cause harm to BMG?

Would this not be considered incredibly cheap advertising?

Why would a company want to hinder their artist from reaching new fans?