You Know You're A Stay-at-home-dad When...

• ... you remember your annual buzz-cut fondly and seriously consider buying a set of clippers... for your two-year-old daughter.
• ...you got all excited when you saw the first trailers for The Expendables, and then you got really quiet and ended up putting Over the Top on your Nexflix instant queue.  
• ... you have a personal alarm for those days you need to take a shower (Daddy!  You 'tink!)
• ... the APA's "no peanuts" rule pisses you off every day right around lunch time ("What the %*@#! am I supposed to feed this kid?!?)
• ...you're a little angry about the whole "Katy Perry banned from Sesame Street" debacle.  You and I love guest appearances on SS.  The special guests are really there just for the adults who are forced to watch Sesame Street with their preschoolers.  Any guest is a good guest in my opinion.  But they let a fat slob who specializes in toilet humor (Jack Black) on that show (and I loved it!), while a talented and liberated female performing artist is "too sexy" for Elmo?  Don't you think that's just a little sexist?  It was fine to have Rev. Run rap with Elmo (seriously, I laughed out loud at "Hop This Way") because he had the good sense to cover up his boobs with his clerical black uniform, but Katy Perry's summer dress was too much (too little?) for your pre-school aged kiddies?  Did anyone go outside this past summer?  Did anyone go to a beach?  Did you take your children anywhere during the last few months (the hottest summer ever)?  Or, in the interest of shielding their eyes from all the boob-age, did you keep them sequestered inside all summer?  Have you seen the footage?  Do you think your 2-4 year-old cares about Katy Perry's boobs?  What I enjoy is that every once in a while Sesame Street enlists a performer adults might recognize and enjoy so that we don't go insane watching with our toddlers.  So I'm a little angry that Katy Perry got canned for a couple reasons: 1) blatant sexism 2) I would've enjoyed the bit while my daughter freaked out over Elmo. 
• For the record, I'm not what anyone would call a fan of Katy Perry's.  I liked a couple of her songs ("I Kissed a Girl" and "Hot 'N Cold"), but I can't stand the new one ("California Gurls" - ugh.). 

Memory Inventory: Chewbacca

When I was a freshman at Bishop Ireton High School, I discovered I had a talent that few people could claim: I could vocalize like a wookie.   On the bus one day riding to school, we were discussing Star Wars and I let loose a vibrating bellow that was a dead-on Chewbacca from the movies.  For the next three years I produced these sounds on demand for the upperclassmen and then, whenever my friends asked as I neared graduation.  I had many nicknames at the time, and “Chewbacca” became one of them.  

I cultivated and honed my ability through high school and took it with me to college.  I never missed an opportunity to release my inner wookie.   Did it make me more popular or win me more friends?  Probably not.  But it did make me stand out from the pack just a little bit more.  We all have our little things.  Bellowing like a wookie was one of mine.  

I played Chewbacca in a ridiculous variety show my choir used as a fundraiser.  My costume consisted of a brown suede jacket, a belt tossed sideways across my shoulder, and the huge mop of hair I was sporting at the time (another one of my “things”).  Well, as a result, that year for our choir’s Secret Santa Christmas thing, my Santa got me a Chewbacca Pez dispenser and a Chewbacca action figure (from The Empire Strikes Back; he was all covered in snow from the ice planet “Hoth”).  To this day they have remained in a box full of little memories that I have just never gotten rid of.  

I guess I just don’t want to forget certain things, but this little box of stuff has followed me from DC to New Haven to Middletown, CT and back to DC again.  It is time to come clean.  Chewbacca was part of my adolescence that made me feel special, like swimming and singing and drawing.  I could make a lot of weird noises, and Chewbacca was my favorite.  No one else could do it like me.  I’ve even tried teaching people (“just vocalize ‘ahhh’ as you vibrate your soft palate”) but no one gets it like I do.  As an adult, I don’t go all wookie nearly as often as I used to, but I still can.  It’s one of my things.  I’ll never really give it up.  Even if I toss those silly toys in the trash right now, those memories, now committed to the permanent record of digital type, will stay here with me forever.

I have a lot of extra stuff like Chewbacca that I have never bothered to get rid of.  I have sketch books full of old drawings (some of which I’ve posted on this blog), ancient toys and photographs of none but sentimental value.  I have a microphone stand I’ve never used and books I’ll never read again.  Part of the reason we keep these things is because looking at them causes old neural pathways to fire again and strengthen; they are not the memories, but the things actually reignite our memories and strengthen them.  Of course, another way to keep our memories is to write them out, scan them in, or tell someone else.  That’s what I’ll do here from time to time.  I hope those of you who visit don’t mind if I indulge myself once in a while.

The Secret Formula

• one (1) socially awkward individual who is simultaneously one of the best in her/his field, which incidentally or tangentially pertains to law enforcement, medicine, or both.  
• one (1) more or less well-adjusted individual whose methods, personality and (most important) gender are the exact opposite but oddly compatible to those of the individual described above.  
• an assortment of other individuals who buzz around this central relationship while providing humor, seriousness, exposition, and sexual gratuitousness whenever the situation requires.  
• some sort of crime, mystery, illness or other puzzle to be solved in a unique and surprising manner. 
• plenty of sexual tension (as a garnish)

Mix haphazardly (consistency is to be avoided at all costs)
Serve weekly.
Follow with cliffhanger, plot twist (avoid resolution), sentimentality or quirky one-liner.

Pairs well with any alcoholic beverage. 

The above describes at least five hour-long dramas on network television right now (three of which I watch - I'm a sucker, I know).  Can you name them (or others)?

Smallville Review: "Supergirl" (Airdate 10/8/10)

We were treated to the return of Clark's Kryptonian cousin, Kara, on Smallville Friday night.  Frankly, I like her better as a Kryptonian than as a lizard alien on V.  I'm going to try to keep this review a little shorter than last week, since I know most of you could give less than half a crap about Smallville.  If you want to follow the plot, just go to the CW website in a couple days and watch as many full episodes of Smallville as they have.

There were things I liked about last Friday's episode and there were things I did not.
What I did not like:

• After revealing Clark's new look last week and symbolically moving the character into the light, it seems as though they misplaced his fancy new jacket and decided to return him to the shadows while we weren't looking.
• Lois Lane is possibly the best-written and most likable character on the show ever (with the possible exception of John Schneider's portrayal of Johnathan Kent), dressing her up all fem-dom and then tying her up all bondage style seriously cheapens the character and the show.  
• Why is Lois the one trying to keep the heroes from revealing themselves to the world?  Everyone else (except the Suicide Squad) wants heroes to believe in and trust - heroes they can see.  Is Lois being selfish?  Or is she just worried about Clark?

What I did like:

• Kara comes back to earth, to the only family she has left, and shows Clark up in every way imaginable.  All the fanboys out there (who mostly are idiots) are going to be all like, "in the Superman mythos, it is Superman who takes Kara under wing and teaches her what it means to be a hero.. blah, blah, blah...," but in the context of what they've been doing on this show for 10 years, that Kara would help guide Clark to his destiny makes perfect sense.  I hate fanboys.  Fanboys ruin comics and any adaptation of comics by insisting that their own individual assumptions and ideas about a given character are the immutable truth. 
• Flying!  Even a little flying is AWESOME.
• No Tess
• The way they hinted, just barely, at the connection between the dark force and the "Suicide Squad" from last week.  
• Clark makes good points, but recognizes (in the end) where he falls short.  While it seems that he and Kara have come to an understanding regarding "the Darkness" ("I BELIEVE IN A THING CALLED LOOOOOOOOVE!"), we know that, by the end of the season, it will be Clark who faces the dark force threatening the world and we know he will have to overcome his own doubts and fears to do so.  He's not ready yet, but he will be.  This show is about how Clark Kent becomes Superman, not about Superman.  Smallville gives Clark Kent room to make mistakes, learn how to deal with difficult decisions, and get out of his own way in order to become the world's greatest hero.  Superman is the best ever.  Smallville shows us how he became that.

Next week: "Homecoming," and you can check out the preview here.

Drawing from My Distant Past #2

Check this guy out.  No, it's not a drawing of anyone in particular.  Just some guy flying without any hands.  If you can't draw hands, you can always imagine they are living light bulbs soooo bright they can't even be seen!

Note the freakishly high placement of the eyes, the overly severe and heavily shaded cheeks, and (again) the screwed up foreshortening (really, whose knee pints straight down when they bend their leg.  The anatomy is a little better, but not much.  And check out that hair!  No sig on this one... I'd put the date on this somewhere around '91 again.

Smallville Review: "Shield" (Airdate 10/1/10)

There were three basic plot-lines this week: 1) Lois and Cartar (Hawkman) Hall in Egypt drinking whiskey and having a heart-to-heart; 2) Clark meets his new partner at the Daily Planet (Cat Grant) and saves her from an apparent attempt on her life by the wanted criminal "Deadshot"; 3) Oliver (Green Arrow) Queen searches for Chloe who has gone missing and has apparently been erased from the digital record.  Finally, we were introduced to "The Suicide Squad," a group of crime fighters who use kidnapping, torture, and assassination and are determined to keep costumed heroes out of the spotlight.  So far, the viewer has not seen them do any actual crime fighting; just the kidnapping, assassination and torture.

The Lois/Hawkman plotline was well-done and important to the overall development of the relationship between Clark and Lois.  That Cartar discerned almost immediately that Lois knew about Clark and they were able to have an open and honest conversation was very cool.  Michael Shanks did a great job conveying the bittersweet aspects of the Hawkman character and the cycle of life, love, loss, death and rebirth he has to live through.  He sees more clearly than either Lois or Clark the importance of their relationship to Clark's destiny (really Lois's destiny too).  We also learn, almost poignantly, that Hawkman's days in this life are numbered.   This season's portrayal of Hawkman is leaps and bounds better than the bitter (no sweet) old warrior they gave us last season.

Oliver's search for Chloe was well thought out.  He does a pretty good impersonation of Batman in this episode; sneaking around, searching for clues, putting a hurting on the bad guy and figuring it all out in the end.  I was more impressed with the fact that, even though she was not even in the episode, Chloe was represented well.  We may have a better-written Chloe Sullivan this season than we've had for years, and she's only signed on for something like 5 episodes.  Oliver discovered she had traded her freedom for his, faked her own death, and erased all evidence of having ever existed.  This is cool because, in the comics, she has never existed.  Her first appearance in the comic books happened/will happen this month.  As a Superman fanboy, I'm hoping they use this device to at least attempt to bring some of Smallville into the comic book continuity.

Clark's new look

I could have done without the irritating and insipid characterization the show gave us of Cat Grant.  The character had a decent back-story and could have been very sympathetic, even if we disagree with her stance regarding "vigilantes," but the way she was played made me hate her and want Deadshot to take her out.  I loved the remote control bullet and the exploding car rescue.  I even liked that Cat's aversion to vigilantes who skulk around in the shadows helped Clark ditch the black trench look and go back to red and blue.  I thought Deadshot was a cool badguy, and that his attempts to kill Cat were misdirection while his real intention was to "tag" Clark was a cool angle that tied this episode into a broader plot-line.

Altogether, I liked this episode and found it enjoyable despite an utterly irritating portrayal of Cat Grant.  In it, Clark and Lois took a couple tentative steps toward their shared and utterly awesome destiny while and supporting characters like Hawkman, Chloe, and Oliver were moved in positive directions as well.  The introduction of the Suicide Squad means we have another shadowy group gunning for the nascent Justice League.  Hopefully, they will be more compelling than Checkmate was last season.

Drawing from My Distant Past #1

Here's a pic of Wolverine I drew probably about 1992:

Note the huge shoulder pads, tiny head, and prominent "signature."  Heh.  I also had trouble with fingers, thumbs, foreshortening, anatomy, etc.  Frankly, now that I think about it, I still have trouble with fingers, thumbs, foreshortening, anatomy, etc.  Oh well.