Lytleme's Blog

I am that Dad.

lytleme — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 03:56:03 +0000

Another Christmas has passed where I focused all of my holiday efforts on making my little girl happy. The weekend started with us driving the long way from the docks of boon back to Beelzebub’s rectum. This time she didn’t just pass out and sleep the entire way. I was happy she decided to stay awake and shoot the breeze with the old man.
Santa clause did come up. There is a first time for everything and now the erudite quick mind of the eight year-old angel had come to a decision.
“Come on Daddy, all the Santa’s are just dudes they pay to wear the suit.”
She also wanted to know who our family hired to “play” the honorable Mr. Clause at our family party. I didn’t deny it was, in fact, one of our cousins playing the role but when pressed for a name I simply told her I’d point him out when he was out of uniform.
No problem. I did as promised all the while avoiding the admission that Santa was just a long-running scam played on children. Sure, most of the Santa’s she saw were employees and amateur actors, many of them are good-hearted guys who just want to encourage a sense of magic and wonder in the kids they interact with. But some is only a fraction of the Santas she would encounter.
I was pretty medicated after the Christmas eve party, my muscle relaxers were kicking me in the head like mules in satin booties. I was honestly tired when we returned home and we both collapsed into our beds.
The little girl was still excited, her holiday spirit was cranked to eleven. She stared out the window commenting on seeing lights in the distance that “kind of sparkled”. This was just as cute and heart-warming as it reads, I lay for a long time waiting to hear her breath even out, become lighter.
It’s amazing how kids her age can simply shut off and on, simply fall asleep and come awake as if someone had flipped a switch. Eventually the little girl passed out and it was time for me to enact the plan.
I retrieved her gift and stocking from the closet. I then placed the gift in the little space she had placed a sign over indicating, with arrows, where presents were supposed to go. Next to that I hung her stocking and filled it with candy. I also hung a little green stocking next to the bowl home of her fish, Sam and filled that with some candy as well. The hardest part was stuffing some of the cookies she’d left down my maw, it had been a good Christmas party after all – lots of snacks. Finally I took some candy letters used to decorate birthday cakes and spelled out ‘thank u’ with them on the letter where she wished Santa got cookies he liked. The milk went down well. Mission accomplished.
The first thing I heard on awakening was “A Stocking!”, pronounced with the awestruck gasp that only kids can pull off. She shredded the wrapping on her present, making similar exclamations of joy over every item she found. She found the idea of Sam also getting a stocking funny until I reminded her of why that was.
“Remember when you suggested getting a stocking to hang up for Sam when I saw you last? I told Santa about that and he decided you should be rewarded for being such a sweetheart. Now, did you remember to feed Sam food he could eat?”
She nodded, wearing the full honest smile she always does, sitting on the floor surrounded with her Christmas swag. I then told her to get a bath and dress up so we could visit her Grandparents and cousin for more fun.
She remarked at how lucky she was to get “three Christmases” this year. I replied that I was the lucky one for getting to share it with her. Yep. I’m that Dad. Hope your Christmas was near as much fun.

I shouldn’t be surprised it gets better

lytleme — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 03:14:46 +0000

I was recently up later than I usually am. I often find myself heading to bed around half past eleven, so I can wake up around seven and get a start on the day and my beloved coffee. This is another unexpected outcome of growing the hell up, if I had a view into the now from the past I would be astonished for the seven seconds it usually took me to get bored.
Anyway, the Comedy channel on cable started showing ‘Clerks 2′ at midnight and since I hadn’t seen it, I made a point to stay awake. I enjoyed the original Clerks, the movie was a picture of life magnified to ridiculous extremes. It had the feel of someone writing a script which was nothing more than a stitched together hodgepodge of anecdotes. The kind of stories a group of friends would visit together over a case of rotten beer.
This new Clerks seemed put onto my screen by someone who had seen the original and wanted to franchise it. You know what I mean, someone did the same thing with ‘Jaws’. Just latched onto a couple of scenes from the original movie and xeroxed them after magnifying them. The logic seemed to be, “Hey! It was a damn big shark and people were scared of that, let’s give ‘em a bigger shark!”
It seemed to go on that way. I admit I got a kick out of seeing Jason Lee and Ben Affleck. I’m not surprised no mention was made of the Statutory Anal Rapist Ben played in ‘Mallrats’ and I didn’t miss it. I liked the fact that Randall “wrangles” across the restaurant counter, that was fun, but in the end it was becoming too much. I enjoy the movies of the ViewAskewniverse, they’re entertaining and always manage to get me laughing, that said I’ve kind of gone into a different place mentally.
I did not intend to change. I had no plans to do it, I had no real plans to do anything, but somewhere along the way I switched priorities. This goes back to small things, like sleeping manageable hours. It also covers big things, like not finding as much enjoyment in fantasy, sci-fi and RPGs. In the end, it was really this change I saw reflected in Randall and Dante, and that’s the reason I liked the movie.
Randall even says that he wants to live in a time when the whole world was in front of him. The character spends a notable amount of time living in high school, going so far as to punish Jason Lee’s character for something childish that happened to him there. I think this may meld in perfectly with the behavior I see in myself and people around me. People who refuse to mentally leave high school or the eighties are doing so because they miss a time in their life when the universe revolved around them. They miss being relevant.
The angry white trash segment of the Republican party have practically deified Ronald Reagan, and I don’t think it’s because he was a world-changing iconoclast that saved the country from the brink of oblivion. He wasn’t. They hold him in such high respect because he was President when they were kids, when the world was in front of them, when they were a vital necessity to their clique that, by the way, ruled the aforementioned world.
I did like ‘Clerks 2′ at the end because of the zen ending where both Dante and Randall decided they would live in the place they were most happy.
People who refer to the characters as “slackers” would satisfy themselves that the two were living an immature delusion. That delusion reminds me of the religion Bokononism that Kurt Vonnegut created in ‘Cats Cradle’, a faith that calls all faiths ‘foma’ (a made-up word that means ‘lies’). Bokonon calls all to believe whatever foma (lie) that make them into a good member of the human race.
Dante and Randalls delusion was to grow old holding down the roles they were most comfortable and happy with. They needed to end with a cameo by Stan Lee walking in to the shop, looking around and announcing “Excelsior!”

Grow Up, a kindly reminder.

lytleme — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 21:50:39 +0000

Her Mom said this was "creepy".

I try hard to remind myself of things I learn from navigating ‘Dad-hood’. The most recent was during one of the many conversations I have with the little girl I love most. I told her a story of how a little girl like her did something wonderful, amazing and delighting her parents and entire family. My girl replied by insisting I remember something she did recently that was “really cool”. I agreed.

I endeavor to remember to congratulate her before holding forth about anyone else.

Secondly, when she hears news from me, or sees news on a TV program we watch, about something terrible that happened, she gives a similar response to the one mentioned previously. She tells me about a time when she was sick or hurt, and I then assure her that I remember and am very sorry for her trouble.

I must keep her experiences foremost in my roster of memories.

These two things are not tasks I look at with any kind of dread. The opposite here is true. I feel that at this early formative part of her life, she has to be first in her Daddy’s heart and mind. I don’t view that as a difficult task, or a job of any kind.

At a far remove, in no way similar is the reaction I sometimes get from self-professed “adults”. Please forgive me for changing the subject so drastically here. But some of these folks find the need to make remarks of empathy with others into some kind of twisted contest. I was sitting in a coffee bar recently, eavesdropping (I know what a foul practice this is, forgive me again). One of two involved in a conversation mentioned distress and disgust about a show he’d seen on cable documenting the Holocaust. He made some easily understandable remarks about how baffled he was that human beings could do the things done to the Jewish victims of this all-too-recent evil.
Then, the man’s companion contributed to the conversation by (what seemed to me) marginalizing his friend’s views. He mentioned the terrible things done to Africans in this country, kidnapped and dragged here to be made into someones property. Human beings dehumanized, made into farm implements, treated worse than animals. He also brought up the abuse visited on the Irish by the English, most notably Oliver Cromwell, and the troubles of the early twentieth century.
All these episodes in human history are terrible black marks on humanity as a species. These are examples of why it’s important to study history, so one can see similar things about to happen and do what they can to avoid them. Humanity as individuals are really naturally good critters who will do their best by other people when given the chance.
The terrible chapters of our history are all equally bad. There is no ‘pyramid of horror’ or countdown list to organize them. And they sure as hell are not chess pieces to be used to win a conversation.

How Comic Books gauge my life.

lytleme — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 22:46:13 +0000

I recently saw the film interpretation of ‘Watchmen’. It was a well-done movie, nicely put together and well acted. There were some portrayals that I’m not sure would be understood by the part of the movie’s audience that are not old former comic book junkies. The most glaring was the portrayal of Richard Nixon. Yes, I realize Nixon was inflated ridiculously in a way that would insure his appearing as a comic book character based on a real-life person, I got it. I shared a laugh with the movie’s producers at this dark, humorless shambling mound with not a whit of human decency or charity. Reminded me of the disembodied head in ‘Futureama’. Kissinger, by comparison, was not exploded at all.
I watched it, having read the comic book (sorry, graphic novel, the story was a Moore book, and he is a visual novelist) and tried hard not to compare the two. I succeeded because I realized that my point of reference is so much different than the one I occupied twenty years ago.
Back then I read the book as a piece that was making a statement about the world we lived in, the real world. That wasn’t what the book was doing, now I can see how it was a story focused on the people involved. The characters in this book are so well developed. You don’t often see this in a comic book story, but there it was.
Dr. Manhattan was perhaps the most pitiable of all of them. He was making an effort to hold onto any connection with the human race in general and the Silk Specter in particular. He tried to give those around him, anyone observing like the book’s readers, the impression that he had moved on from them. That wasn’t the case and now I can see it. The rest of humanity was moving away from him and he couldn’t keep up, maybe he was distracted living in his quantum world but I don’t know if that’s a good excuse. The flashback scenes of him before the accident gives a view of someone who had made choices that he didn’t understand the consequences of. The results of those choices gifted him with the power of a god. Like any other god, unconnected with mundane humanity, desperate to reach any kind of fellowship.
I thought the murder of several thousand people was a necessary evil twenty years ago. Now I understand the horror of those actions. It ensured the survival of the human race, but the human race rescued was a different animal. Different, not better.
Rorschach’s reaction at the end was something I played off as the behavior one could expect from a crazy man. I didn’t see why he had to die, now I can see that also. This horrific action could have been the only way to proceed as viewed by a monster who would engage in mass murder to correct the human race. In a narrative sense, finally, Rorschach could not be allowed to continue because what he’d observed flew completely against his reality construct, his monochromatic view of good and evil. He could not continue to be an ally of the rest.
I think the movie was very good. The book was an art form, what made it art was the fact that it’s audience cared to interpret it. The remake was the director’s interpretation of the original art that he made art himself. My views of each art form were different but really neither of them were wrong, just an interpretation made by two similar people.

Angry Rant Mark One

lytleme — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 07:04:28 +0000

Here’s an oddball moment.
The tendency of people in my generation is to try and separate themselves from everyone and everything around them and pontificate on things that are irritating them at the time they write. I am an example of this, and so am exhibit one to prove my point. Here’s where I feel the difference arises, I’m going to write a little about the 1990′s. The difference comes where I feel that this is where the decade when people like me were relevant to society as a whole.
That being stated now, where was the relevance?
My generation is one constantly trying to latch on to the teats provided by those who came before. Where is our defining voice? Who are we really? What have we given to the societal culture we were born to that is ours alone?
Everything we can trace to our generation as any kind of contribution was contributed by those who came before us. This is no joke. Thank whatever gods you believe in that you have good kids. Encourage and nurture those kids for the sake of the species, because kids, we didn’t do a damned thing for the world, the universe or the human species. Hallelujah and holy fuck.

Hindsight, not a correction.

lytleme — Wed, 18 May 2011 01:06:37 +0000

I usually go through the postings I’ve made in the past. I do this out of some kind of masochism I think, because I am a vicious self-critic. Honestly, I don’t know if there’s any reason to be critical, this is just a journal/diary/log I use to keep my random thoughts. That being stated, I did find something I want to amend slightly.
A while ago I suggested everyone do themselves a favor and read some of the works written by author Ayn Rand. I stay by that, I honestly believe people should read this, and after reading make their own judgement on Rand’s philosophy.
Objectivism is an interesting idea. Viewed from a distance it looks like a workable system. Never mind the background information, that it is a philosophy written in response and opposition to Communism. Rand’s family was terribly abused by the Bolshevik revolution, and since her family is Jewish it was a good thing they got out before Stalin got to her. She came to the US on a holiday and never returned to the then Soviet Union.
The struggles of the lead characters in both ‘The Fountainhead’ and ‘Atlas Shrugged’ are exceptional creative minds who have their goals blockaded by ‘lesser men’ out of what is presented as their desire to keep everyone on the same low level. It’s similar to the actions of the government in the Vonnegut story ‘Harrison Bergeron’, everyone is mandated equal and people with great abilities have those abilities handicapped. For example, a good dancer may have to wear weights to make their actions clumsy.
The stories are great protests against states who use force to make everyone in society conform to the lowest common denominator. The argument against Communism is valuable, but I think Objectivism goes too far.
The Objectivism that is highlighted in ‘Anthem’, another Rand work, comes off as not just anti-commune but anti-community. It seems to take a total 180 from Communism, while staying, in practice, just as vicious to human culture. Objectivism just seems like Libertarianism except that it’s adherents are more dogmatic and almost mystic, like cult members.
Yes, Objectivism tries to get away from the totalitarianism in practiced Communism, but it’s memebers become just as totalitarian in the opposite direction. Please excuse the simple description, but it’s almost like how some people who followed a popular diet book in the early 2000′s tried to completely remove carbs from their diet instead of just seeking (lets say it all in unison) MODERATION.
Find the middle ground, I know a lot of people reject this, but I really think Aristotle was onto something when he introduced the Golden Mean. The Buddha also taught moderation in all things, the ‘Middle Way’ (Do not misinterpret this mention of Buddha as religious advocacy, I am not Buddhist, I just admire Buddhist philosophy.) Moderation is usually rejected violently by those who have philosophical differences with it. I think this stems from the belief that moderation has to be applied to everything, regardless of how ridiculous that behavior would be. There are some points in life that require immediate, all-out action, but not all points. Objectivism itself focuses on the fact that man is a thinking, reasoning animal. As a reasoning animal, an individual human being should be able to decide on the right way to proceed when faced with any situation.

Just shades of grey

lytleme — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 23:53:07 +0000

Human interaction is a wonderful thing. One of the traits it possesses that makes it wonderful is the fact that it is often a funny thing. Human interaction turns from funny/wonderful to frightening/horrific when you don’t take into account how cultural differences separate us.
Culture is not something I’ve observed as being easy to define, there is just no wide categories you can throw over groups. Cultures, especially in the US of A, encompass smaller and smaller groups. You can take a cynical view, as I have when younger, and look at human interaction being defined by two overall goals:
1) Every person desperately seeks out his/her ‘clique’, that group that is most like that person, has the same reaction to situations, and let’s face it, looks like them.
2) After defining the clique, seek out and destroy any weaker clique around them for having the temerity to be different.
I don’t really believe these are good absolute rules. It fails for the same reason wide-reaching cultural rules fail, it can’t possibly define the number of different groups it seeks to.
So it looks like we’re at an impasse. Well, why not? In most situations it doesn’t cause a giant problem, the only places the impasse causes a problem are with giant moral issues.
There has to be an absolute understanding of what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ that isn’t effected by culture. You should be able to say some things are completely wrong without anyone excusing them by saying that it isn’t considered wrong by some culture. Hell, there were some ancient cultures that bloodily sacrificed children to their tribal gods. You can’t claim that this behavior is moral or just simply because it was what the culture had become used to by generations of being told it was by their priest class.
This kind of thinking always goes back to something I hear a lot out of members of my culture. The priesthood of our culture are gassy adult children who have made a life of ensuring they had more than everyone else. They are the priests of materialism, the true state religion of the Pax America.
When I am amused by the behavior I see reported, ad infinitum, on the celebrity ass-polishing news media, I am told one thing by way of argument.
“Well, they make much more than you ever will.”
Yes they do, you’re right, and if they were making that massive and obnoxious amount of money as compensation for the ridiculous behavior I’m laughing at, your argument would have a point.
How about this as a valid argument.
“That’s terrible they had to make a mistake like that, and especially to make it when they were being watched. Well, as we’re all accident-prone I think we can empathize with them.”
Re-reading that, it seems really soft and not at all funny. A personal mistake I need to correct is taking so much satisfaction from the mistakes of others. Wow, I should really edit this stuff more. Thank the gawds I’m not a legitimate journalist or anything, I just write an online diary that everyone in the world can read.

So it goes. . .

lytleme — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 03:52:58 +0000

I just ran across a Facebook page referring to the Kurt Vonnegut memorial library in Indianapolis. I went to the web site (vonnegutlibrary.org) and found a listing for upcoming events where it seems Dr. Mark Vonnegut will be speaking. I am constantly reminded of how my apathy and indolence has robbed me of good experiences I could have enjoyed.
Kurt Vonnegut is, above and beyond all, my favorite author. The reasons for this are simple really, and the plural ‘reasons’ is innacurate as there is only one reason I can think of. All of Vonnegut’s main characters, the one’s who often tell the story in first person whether he’s supposed to be Kilgore Trout or not, are surrounded by insanity.
The main characters, like the hapless fellow visiting Bokononists on a Caribbean island in Cat’s Cradle, are often just run-of-the-mill shmucks like me. They are made into spectacular examples of humanity by their reaction to the unworldly things that happen at the hands of maniacs around them. Take the aforementioned Cat’s Cradle, a scientist has provided a dictator with an uncommon type of ice (ice-9) stacked in such a way that it is solid and causes whatever water it touches to conform to it.
A chunk of this ice-9 is dropped in the ocean, causing all of the worlds oceans to become instantly solid. Think of the chaos this would cause, global warming altering the tropical jet stream thrown into fast forward is similar to the effect.
The person that discovered and then produced ice-9 thought of the consequences, he knew what it would do and he did it anyway. Kurt’s writing came off this way a lot, the people who did things like this aren’t evil, they aren’t presented as overblown caricatures but instead as faulted human beings.
I do get the impression Kurt flipped often between believing there wasn’t much hope for the human race and the love of mankind for our adorable fallibility. I’m going to miss his writing (they are now releasing his unpublished stuff, so that’s something at least) and I’m always keeping an eye out for the person who will pick up the slack.
They have to be out there somewhere, only a matter of time.

It gets more complex

lytleme — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 02:15:31 +0000

One thing I can state in the age I’ve been able to reach is that things do get better. My perception has changed significantly and I am far removed from the teenage paranoia that everyone is out to get me or wishes me ill. I didn’t realize it, but there was even a noticeable amount of insecurity in my twenties that made relationships with others difficult. Not every interaction with others is a life-or-death competition and those few douches who try to make them into fights bigger than themselves are better left to stew in their own bile. Not my problem.
That being said, one thing does get bigger and demands my attention even more than the petty childish crap I dealt with when younger. Being a parent is tough, it’s a challenge but the rewards that come from seeing it through are satisfying above any of the (once again) petty, small fleeting benefits gained in social interaction among a clique.
Being a Dad is huge, I never realized this before, how could I? Being a Mom looks bigger, that may have something to do with the fact that Mom-hood is outside of my or any man’s ability to comprehend. I hate to write this as if I’m trying to discard the subject casually, the only example I can give in my tiny, tunnel-visioned view is the experience of watching my wife give birth. That was something I could say that I understood mechanically but I don’t want to insult the reader’s intelligence- I knew nothing then and sweet-mother-of-gawd I know nothing now. I wonder if that qualifies me to be a philosopher? How about it, Socrates students?
Complications arise when I am asked questions by my daughter. She asks me, point blank and with no hesitation, why my wife and I divorced. Immediately I had a dozen things going through my tiny brain, the first and foremost was to ensure I give her no reason to believe that it was her fault. It wasn’t her fault, it all came out of the inability of my wife and I to honestly love each other. We don’t hate each other, we have no reason to dislike or resent each other, we simply can’t feel anything deeply for each other.
This is a problem with the little girl, no matter how much I try to seperate her and myself from the issue it’s no good. My actions affect her world view, what I do is about her and there is no separation between points. I have to do more reading and get more insights from reliable sources on this. Most importantly, I will keep in touch with the little girl, I will listen to what she says, answer what she asks and be available whenever and wherever she needs me to be. I will also take an active interest in every aspect of her life, her education and her friends. I have got to be a palpable presence to her and anyone that comes close to her.
I also need to find out what effect, if any, my seeking a relationship with someone else will have on her. I tell her every time I see her that she is my “one and only” and that nothing will change that. Her mother has a new boyfriend but my role might be 100% different to her.
In short, I’m going to owe a psychological counselor hundreds. This I know. I may even need a priest, that I do not know.
It’s going to be a long, rewarding, enjoyable journey.

Roaming with Bards and Troubadours

lytleme — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 00:13:12 +0000

I’ve recently picked up two CD’s that I feel contain the best driving around music. We all know what driving around music is, its that collection of songs that provide the soundtrack that lightens the effect of a banal drive across any midwestern state.
The first I found by accident at the local privately-owned music store here in Da ‘Haute. The somewhat ironically named ‘Headstones friends’ (ironic because the name causes you to expect a certain collection of inventory that they do NOT carry) has a great collection of help working within their walls and they’re always willing to hunt stuff down for you. I located the live CD set containing the concert Flogging Molly did at the Greek theater in Los Angeles in 2010. Both the CD’s and DVD in this set were fantastic purchases, the live performances of their music is accompanied by the oftentimes hilarious commentary of singer David King (the diatribe about the Mick Jagger t-shirt alone is worth the price tag.). The songs are fantastic driving around fare, but be warned, they will become part of your brain.
The other CD is the release by Mumford and Sons, ‘Sigh no More’. It’s organic music; all guitar, banjo and vocals. The singing is that of a wandering band of troubadours, serenading that sounds focused especially to me.
It makes me think of all the ladies in my life, the ones who have been kind enough to share relationships with me. All the sweet, loving hearts that have been made at times to deal with my addled immaturity, my tendency to try and fit them into compartments that would make me comfortable. Strike that last sentence, what I meant to write was make me more comfortable than the usual neurosis I commonly exhibit. The song ‘Little Lion Man’ (track 7) stands as a song that would come close to beginning the apology and statement of appreciation they all are right to expect from me. I recommend that CD to anyone who likes listening to music made by people who sound like they love music, but especially to all of those I still love. They know who they are.