The Ray/Lee Files VIII: IT’S NOT A COINCIDENCE

In the past at my first blog “What You Are Laughing At” I had begun to chronicle the criminal histories of people, usually men, with the middle names of RAY or LEE. We know many of their middle names due to the media making DAMN sure they identify the correct person, and not ruin the life of some poor John Gacy; Competitive Candy Artist.

For your consideration:

“The 55-year-old Renee Ray Curtiss will be sentenced April 24 in for the 1978 killing of Joseph Tarricone at a home near Puyallup.”

“Lonnie Lee Johnson was freed Monday after spending more than 1 1/2 years behind bars. He was accused of stabbing to death Jessie Drungo, 23, in a Kent parking lot during a scuffle that may have had racial overtones.”

“King County prosecutors expect to file a murder charge by Thursday against Deon Lee Fillmore, 21, said spokesman Dan Donohoe. Meanwhile, a judge has ordered Fillmore held in King County Jail on $1 million bail.”

Still not on board…
Okay S-finger…

Moving on…
I’m not sure if it’s the brevity of the name, or perhaps the fact that people with those names may very well have been named and raised by mono-syllabic-preferring parent(s)… but more than any other middle names in society I would bet a Coors Light Dirty 30 on Lee or Ray being more correlated to violent crimes than any other two names.

Let’s not forget the Arizona freakshow shooter, Jared Lee Loughner.

And it’s happened again.

This nightmare ended today with the safe return of a kidnapped 5 year-old boy. He was kidnapped off a schoolbus last week in Alabama by a gun-wielding psycho…
“He is doing fine,” Richardson told reporters at a late-night news conference. “He’s laughing, joking, playing, eating.”

Dale County Sheriff Wally Olson had no new details about Ethan’s rescue, and when asked if the boy saw his abductor, 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes, killed during the rescue operation, Olson replied, “He’s a very special child. He’s been through a lot, he’s endured a lot.”
Crazy dude with a gun and anti-government views. Nut with a gun threatening children’s lives, HE HAD RUN HIS COURSE AND ARRANGED A VERY EXPENSIVE SUICIDE.

Next up, the story of Chris Kyle’s death, one of the most-decorated snipers in US Military history. (from Yahoo.com’s The Lookout)
“I would love for people to be able to think of me as a guy who stood up for what he believed in and helped make a difference for the vets,” he told the Texan News Service. “You know, somebody who cared so much about them that he wanted them taken care of.”

That mission was tragically cut short on Saturday when Kyle and another man were killed at a gun range in Central Texas. Police said former Marine Eddie Ray Routh, 25, shot the men, who reportedly were spending the day with Routh in an effort to help with his post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).”

Two sad stories, one with a happy ending.
So if you know anybody with the middle name of Ray or Lee, just do the right thing and call the cops on ’em.

February 4, 2013 4

Make Time to Take Time

Hey 7 people reading this…

Thank you, first of all, for taking time to read what’s here. My life is so busy lately that the thought of reading, of letting my brain recognize and associate meaning to letter combos, or “WORDS,” seems a task far beyond my schedule. Between work, family, a new-found appreciation for nutrient-based fitness success, and Christmas Time, this blog has been neglected.

I also perform stand-up comedy as a “second career,” though not enough to sustain a household. No, that level of success requires a dichotomous acceptance that in order to be the breadwinner of the family, one must almost never be near one’s family for more than 3 days. The work of stand-up comedy is everything off-stage; travel, radio, travel, waiting, walking around a new city before the show, napping, “writing,” travel, fighting off pneumonia, fighting off boredom-induced alcoholism, and being a spouse and/or parent. The stage-time is actually a break from everything that fuels the performance. All that stuff, the travel and the weird smelling hotels and the club-owners who try and cut your money because they sold 15 fewer tickets than they thought they would, and the knee-jerk bitchy reactions of flight attendants and gas station attendants and Marie Callendar’s late-shift servers… it’s part of the gig. It has nothing to do with ME or YOU, it’s just how that situation happened that time for you because it was your turn to run into the dumped-on attitude of a life-saddened woman in her late-40’s who is trapped between a rock and double-shift on her kid’s birthday weekend. So fuck you and do you want a roll or soup?

The rest of my life, which is really where Life happens, has been kind of weird. We, meaning all of us not just my household or family… WE all get a bit of drama from time to time. Workplace gossip. Neighborhood police activity. Diarrhea at work that involves the police. Legal marijuana. Same-sex marriages. Kids getting sick. Co-worker’s kids getting sick at the same time every Thursday (just before Happy Hour, really Marcia?).
Drama happens. Shit happens. And the more I live the more I see that the Happening of Shit is “part of the gig.”

I truly believe this statement, which I thought up a few years ago:
Madness takes root in the absence of solitude, and flourishes in the abundance of it.

If we don’t take time for ourselves, we’ll lose ourselves to everything else. We become just part of the scenery instead of allowing ourselves to enjoy it and interact with it. But if we stay separated for too long from it, if we don’t take time to be part of the rest of the world that is Life and People, and build friendships and actively love each other and our communities, then we float the river to CrazyTown pretty comfortably.

If you’re feeling lonely or alone, call a friend, get a beer, get coffee, go volunteer, see a comedy show, SOMETHING. Get out of your own head.
And if you’re around people so much that you can’t remember the sound of your own thoughts then get away for at least 24 hours. No phone, no computer. Maybe some good movies or audiobooks or a something to let your mind do some traveling without your thoughts mucking up the trip.

As 2012 comes to a close, I hope for myself to progress in all the important areas of my life, even if it’s small steps. A little less bodyfat, a little more time with my kids, a little closer to a professional certification, a bit more in the retirement accounts, more time with my wife, more time with my friends. You know…. Make Shit Happen.

Or Shit Will Happen To You.

December 24, 2012 0

Judge Not, Lest… Okay, Ye Judge Me

I judge parents based on the behavior of their child/ren THERE I SAID IT. Feels good to finally log that one in a place nobody ever sees…

Oh… 400 readers last week… Okay…

Judging other parents based on their child’s behavior, I am sorry I even invented it. I feel like such a cornlog for bringing it up. I do, I judge parents. I judge them rarely on what their kid is wearing unless the kid’s naked in the mall or it’s a girl dressed like a girl dressed like a 21 year-old pageant contestant. Behavior says a lot about the kid’s environment. Heck, my youngest son isn’t walking yet at 1 year-plus-2-days, and I feel like a failure as a sprint coach. I judge myself most harshly.

I’m sure nobody has judged me, however. Other parents usually are so very focused on their kid(s) to ever stop and discuss why my son yells “YOU ARE NOT NICE” to kids who take things he was playing with. It’s taken forever to get him to tone it down to that, once we stopped the eye-gouging and F-bombs. And to think that if somebody were to take something of yours in adult life you are moderately within your rights to push them to the ground and reclaim your Nook, pushing your glasses up on your nose with a “GOOD DAY, MADAM.” So knowing I am not being judged makes this even harder to admit to you 5 (over the course of a month) readers.

It’s hard enough raising one kid. Two adults here, and we were finally into a rhythm after 2 years with ONE. Then the little guy came along and holy crap, life is 1.6-times more involved. Not twice as hard, because sniffles and diarrhea aren’t as panic-inducing as with kiddo #1. But when I see parents with one kid who have decided “Yeah, that’s enough,” I’m somewhat envious of the ease of schedule. While things are 1.67-times more complex with 2 kids, it’s also upwards of 50 times more awesome to see little kid-brothers play together and laugh together. It makes my wife’s 49 consolidated hours of labor and extra monthly medical premiums entirely worth it. So when other people say we have good kids or happy boys, I take that with pride, but also wondering HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN JUDGING MY CHILDREN, you horrific monster?

Parenting brings out the Real You. It demands something of you that LIFE may have tried to extract, and now that LIFE is in diapers and hungry and Mom’s tuned into the TV and dad’s beer buzz just kicked in.

Or Mom’s scrambling to get that bottle going because dad had to pick up another shift to make some extra cash and mom’s just worn out but another hour and this kid will be sound asleep. All that kid knows is connection and attention and affection. All mom and dad know is Take Care Of This Baby! Love This Baby!

Sorry parents, I don’t mean to judge you. Most of the time it’s just kids being kids and those kids are pretty awesome. But the 12 year old in the toddler play area, well, you’re a shitty, inattentive parent whose iPhone5 should be crammed up your ass the wide-and-flat way. Instagram that.

Case closed.

November 5, 2012 1

Alone In Public

We spent some time in a small berg in Eastern Washington the other day, picking the day that was both the hottest day of the year AND the most-crowded day of the year in that berg. The effect 11 degrees Fahrenheit can have on one’s ability to throttle age or odor-related epithets in a crowd is REAL, folks. And having a very curious toddler weaving across foot traffic into ANOTHER store selling kettle corn… WHO NEEDS THIS MUCH KETTLE CORN… compounds one’s calm demeanor, even when your dopamine levels should be up.

I don’t know if I have ever had a real panic attack. I feel like I’ve teetered on the edge a few times, and frankly I am over-tired of people who act like my need to excuse myself from cacophonous areas and tightly-packed rooms is a weakness. I am grown up. I am an adult. There are some times I can totally tough it out. And other times I have nothing to prove to a small store full of strangers, none of us making eye contact, while a 3 year-old yanks porcelain figures off the “DO NOT TOUCH EVEN THOUGH THIS IS AT TODDLER LEVEL” display. And as my head filled with white noise and people seemed to gear-down from “sloooow” to “barely moving,” I had to get out. The medical term is “get the fuck out right now.”

The feeling of being stuck is bad enough for me to deal with. There’s something about being penned-in that bothers me greatly, even though I can see there’s NOTHING dangerous happening. I think more it’s the fact that I look at people’s faces and they seem to be totally unaffected by the mass they have created. Same thing in traffic. I know, I’m part of the mass, but why isn’t anybody moving? Why aren’t we moving a little more quickly, even a half-step more? Add to that a kid who is eye-to-butt with a lot of people and is touching things he’s not supposed to only because we’ve made a horrible choice to come into the Crystal Solitude retail outlet, and how about I just scream and run out with my kid over my shoulder like the dam burst? Because that seems more rational than the 8 minute route we’re taking to the exit.

My real issue with this is that my need to loosen up my bounds is looked upon like some personality disorder. For some reason, be it that I don’t like crowds that cannot move properly, or I am an Aquarius and can only take some much of being surrounded, or because I’m somewhat neurotic about keeping my kid from side-arming a $395 ceramic Halloween Gnome across the room, my “must have space” need gets the stink eye from people. And with our society slowing down thanks to technology (I am advocating a roped-off area for all publicly-standing texters) it’s only going to get worse. But not for me.

I am making a pledge right now that I will be more vocal about people slowing things down, walking the wrong way, leaving their grocery carts unattended, staring at their phones, being rude, and in general, acting like they are alone in public. Because that sounds lovely, and if I can’t have it, everybody won’t.

August 23, 2012 0

A Sandwich Too Small

George Carlin once said a lot of dirty stuff you want to scream at people writing checks at a grocery store. He also said “Women are crazy and men are stupid. But women are crazy because men are stupid.” Something like that. I often see little bits & pieces, graphics here and there taking digs at how dumb or helpless men are.

I won’t defend all men. I can’t. A lot of men are dickheads. A lot of men are also great people. Some are incredibly normal and unnervingly personable with no explicit personality issues. Some guys are complete sociopaths and should have died in a Jeep rollover a long time ago and had their organs go to save worthy lives. Some guys, however, are good Men.

They have to get up and go to work every day to keep the lights on and bills paid for their family. They do it with a song in their heart, even if somedays that song is “Necrophobic” by Slayer. And they do it because they love their family. On the way to work they burn an hour in the car. On the way home they burn 75minutes and have to go to the store to get something for dinner because the loves of his life are at home, tired, sick and haven’t had the energy to get dinner together. When he gets home he realizes he’s on patrol to get the kids bathed and in bed while his wife zones out on exhaustion and a chest cold she got from their daughter’s last play date.

Oh wait, shit… he has to iron some shirts for work, too. And fold the laundry and get another load going so the kids have stuff to wear for the rest of the week. It’s only Tuesday. The days run together. Gotta get a sitter for Saturday night, too, so he can take his wife out for anything, even for just two hours of face time. Did the bills get paid? Better check the online bill payer. Get that handled. Kid’s lunches for tomorrow, check. Kids bathed and in bed, check. Shirts ironed, check.

Oh look… it’s 11:40pm. Everybody is asleep except him, who was also up before everybody else today. And everybody is asleep. At home, in their beds, safe, and resting. A good day. Done.

And that’s part of the gig for the moment. Handling a lot of shit. And keeping schedules together. And working and making money and trying to keep Life from digging her heels in and being a bitch, instead of a dance partner.

He made the mortgage payment, car payment, insurance premium, kid’s lunches, doctor’s appointments, and read a couple stories to the kids. He didn’t put together some wet-panty plaque to post on Pinterest about how hard life is. He didn’t make a snarky Facebook update about how he’s running the show. And no, he didn’t make a sandwich.

Maybe tomorrow he’ll treat himself to a meal combo under $5 somewhere.

June 8, 2012 0

Helicopter Parents & GroundPatrol Kids

There are some play areas in public places that are designed for kids around ages “Crawling well-to-4’ish.” They’re based pretty much on a height limit, usually noted by a body-part of a cartoon animal. “If you can suckle from this giraffe, your involvement is a gaffe!” Some-such… and the parents for the most part aren’t really governing the situation. There’s always a kid who’s too tall and too weird for the joint who’s probably just on his parent’s last nerve. That’s why there’s a Lego store.

I take our oldest guy (2.5 yrs) to a few of these places every 6-8 weeks, depending on the weather and time of day. He likes it enough to not want to leave after 30minutes, and it tires him out, builds coordination, gives him a healthy dose of interaction, etc. Also causes me minor panic attacks. Usually the joint’s overrun with kids, the way it oughtta be, and a packed airspace of “Helicopter Parents.” They act as labeled – hovering within feet of their kid’s activity, constantly voice-guiding their child like a sonar ping. “Aiden! Don’t hang on the lighthouse parapet. Aiden! Not YOU, sorry, AIDEN MAXIMUS… NO, NOT YOU, GAAAH! Maddie go get your br… sorry, MadeLINE, go get your brother.” Even better when one kid has 2 parents and a grandparent hovering around, 1 directing while 1 captures burgeoning narcissism and the other documents flowering misanthropy on smartphone cameras.

The worst of the Heli-parents are the Heli-Sippers. Fresh into the play area with knee-high kids running around, what better way to enjoy it than with a steaming-hot, freshly made latte in-hand? Oh, even better, stare at your phone amidst the cacophony of Figure-8 Racing that is a toddler’s play area!

Next-worse are the asshole parents of the asshole kids stuck along the perimeter, phone-thumbing their way through social media while IN A COMPLETELY CROWDED PUBLIC SPACE. Their kid is the one on top of the foam boat, purposely but passively giving kids the kick-back while screaming “I am the CHAM-PEE-ONNN!” Actually, Cade-aid-maximaden, you are 9 years old and need to get your ass off the boat before I engineer a slip-off. It’s always a boy, he’s usually got red hair or a big head, and his parents haven’t had him tested to see which chromosome caused the 11^th-14^th toes.

Nobody ever says anything. Ever. I am beginning to. I’ve told kids who push other kids “You’re not a very nice little boy, are you?” They don’t like that. Or “You shouldn’t push kids, or they will push you.” Huh, what? Responsibility? Accountability what? My son doesn’t touch other kids, but he is telling them now “It’s MY turn” and they move and he says “Thank you” and then won’t go down the F’ing slide and I look like my kid’s scared of everything.

I’m not perfect, soooo far from-far-from perfect. But I am trying to teach my oldest to stay out of other kid’s faces, no pushing, and to verbalize what he’s feeling. Ain’t easy. Eventually a kid from another country will not like his tone and knock him down. Then that kid’s dad will get thrown in a garbage can. StealthFighterDad among Helicopter Parents. I will drill you from high above in the play area. Then I will sanitize my hands with foamitizer and get a cupcake. Because America.

Be present. Say something. Parent, as a verb.

March 26, 2012 5

Eat It

There’s no way I should be hiding all of the truth from people if this is going to be a readable blog, right? Who wants to read regurgitated horse-S from a guy who sorta speaks his mind if it’s probably not going to bother people? Truth is, if you’re bothered then I said something that hit a part of you that you’re likely not happy about. You’ll stop reading or you’ll hate me and come back out of spite. Or you’ll agree and we can say “OK, let’s go forward.” It’s not my intent to offend anybody – that’s just a bonus.

So about these homo’s getting married… KIDDING, loosen up. Every adult should be allowed to enter a legally-recognized civil union and you can call it whatever you want, as long as we’re treated equally and allowed, on our own accord, to screw it up on a case-by-case basis.

It’s my intent to share whatever I can from my personal perspectives on life, parenting, health, and work in hopes it will connect with whomever reads this, and will keep them coming back, and they’ll tell their friends. Hopefully it will be entertaining, either from a comedy or mildly dramatic view. But overall it’s unfair to ask for anybody’s time if this is boring and repetitive and another boring “DadBlog.” I’ve read a few and thought how truly boring the dad’s come across, and wonder if they’re coming off like that to get laid at blogger conferences or if they really are that wussified. I have plenty of Compromise DNA in me, but a few entries on a few other DadBlogs almost made an “innie” out of my scrotum.

Where-to from there? How about food!? Shouldn’t try and ride the horse through highest waters just yet.

We’re having a renaissance of toddler eating habits in our house. With 1 toddler and 1 nurser and everybody working full-time there’s only so much time and so many hands with-which to prepare food. Many experts (I know they are because they wrote it on a website!) about toddler eating have said to give your kid what you’re eating, and they’ll come around to it.

Let/Make them try a lot of things. They won’t starve unless you with-hold all food from them. As parents WE dictate to the CHILD what’s available to eat. It doesn’t have to be dungeon gruel and the last of the ox gristle. But if we gave in to our son’s pouting about meals every time he hit a 7 on the Grumpometer, he’d have a steady diet of cookie-rabbits and juice. While it would ensure zero hassle at meal time, it would probably damage my oldest boy’s physical and emotional development. He’d be on an unhealthy path via nutrition and constant catering to his whims. The world doesn’t work like that, we don’t work like that, so neither will meal time.

In doing so we’ve had a few shortened lunches and dinners while baby carrots were left on the plate and cries came from the booster seat. Sometimes a single floret of broccoli designated the entire table a war-zone. Then eventually a few berries were eaten. Then a lot more. Then some brown rice with chopped vegetables became a staple. And recently the baby carrots diminished by a few by the end of the meal. He actually lived, acted, and slept very well in the aftermath of regularly having various foodstuffs on his plate. We usually have a starring role for a nearly-natural chicken nugget trio, a yogurt-fruit smoothie, applesauce, whole-grain pancakes, and the like. But as a dad who has fought the weight battle my whole life I want to get good nutrition habits into my son from early on. I can’t do that if I don’t eat healthy. I’m not perfect – I’ve had sensuous moments with brownies and slices of pizza that I still think of when I’m hungry – but at the very least I want my boys to try all kinds of food, see what they like, then mash it up into a paste and bake it into a cookie shape so they’ll eat it, stay thin, and have a perfect life. The end.

January 25, 2012 0

Having a Second Baby – A Preview

My wife’s about 11months pregnant right now, and we are beyond ready for this new baby to arrive. Even while our first one is off & on crying in his room instead of SLEEPING THE HELL OUT OF THE NIGHT, we’re pretty happy about the pending arrival. In the preceding months there have been a few discussions with other parents and friends about a 2nd baby. The best way to summarize these talks is “Mostly positive but it’s okay to shut your noisehole.” It’s amazing that some people believe simply having an opinion and a voice make either of them valid in everybody else’s world.

I have seen a lot of seemingly unsolicited voicing of the sentiment “WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP PROCREATING?!” and “I don’t want a baby ever, OMG, what would I do with all the random dick walking around my apartment?!” Hey, kids force you into a role you aren’t really ever ready for, but if your heart’s in the right place, you get ready pretty quickly. In the meantime, you realize that maybe all that dick isn’t in your best interest. Sucks to have your priorities, morals, and ideals shuffled for you. Life will do it if you don’t.

As for kids in restaurants, I feel really sorry for people who hate it when a kid saunters in and makes a little ruckus. Those poor folks think they have the right to a fancy, quiet dinner at Olive Garden! Hey, money-poor assholes, save up a few more bucks and eat elsewhere or head to the bar. The parents are doing the best we can to keep that kid under control, the good ones among us leave if the kid’s losing it, and it sucks ten times as much for us. So keep your stink-eye for your doctor when they say “Hey, how about a little less dick in your life?”

Sure, there are people who do NOT want kids. Some of them already have kids. Some of them don’t want the intrusion into their life of work, school, extended adolescence, I CANNOT FUCKING CONCENTRATE WHEN DANCING WITH THE STARS IS ON, promiscuity, drunken camping, and/or Crossfitting. Other people just don’t have the drive to procreate. Why can I still hear the judge’s scores, AND getting questions about what I’m doing? Leave me alone, I’m talking about how great our life is… faaaaawk…

So here’s the deal…
We’re parents. We parent. We are a family. We aren’t hobbyists when it comes to child-rearing. We’re sold on the idea of soccer practices, sports camps, play-dates, reading books to our kids 20 times a day, and major life prioritization. That’s for us to deal with. When I hear (from a few people) “Man, we think just the 1 kid is too much,” we already know that doing it well for just 1 kid – as there’s no real “Right” way – is hard enough. But we wanted another kid.
And our 2 kids will someday replace the scores of people who don’t want kids. Hell, they’ll replace US. And when the anti-kid folks grow old and diaper-filling, I will present to my kids a list of their names, and say “Yeah, they didn’t want to add to the generation that is now alive to help them in their final days.”

All I can hope is that we’ve taught them to do the right thing and stay out of other people’s business.

October 24, 2011 1

Tag: Parenting