Laid-Off Dad

Crabwalking toward genius

After that last post, reader Lesley asked about the current state of NeighboRuckus '07. I want you all to know that I haven't been holding out on you; there's nothing to say because nothing's happened.

The good news is, I think I unwittingly sidled into a really good situation with the Menace Below. When I talked to FG the other day about going for coffee, she seemed genuinely interested. But when we left off, she said she'd be the one to knock on 0ur door, rather than the other way around. So I'm the good guy, because I suggested the meeting; she knows I hear her concerns and I want to help assuage them. But she hasn't come upstairs yet, and until she does she's powerless to complain.

She's still fond of cranking the stereo to tell us (and everyone else within 500 feet of her) that she hears us up there, having the gall to locomote from room to room. The last time she did this was a few days ago, at 7:25pm.

Seven. Freakin. Twenty. Five.

I've told her several times that TwoBert is usually in bed by 7:30, and you'd think a normal person would figure out the pattern and hold off on the impotent reprisals, since peace is so close at hand. But that's not her style, because she's two kopeks short of a ruble.

If she keeps up with the music, all that does is make it easier for me not to care whether the noise torments her or not. And each day, I get a little closer to dropping one of these on her doorstep.

Celluloid androids

Sorry for the prolonged absence, everyone, but I'm happy to report that this other writing project I'm working on has unhinged its jaws and swallowed me whole. I met with a few people about it, and the feedback has catalyzed me into a frenzy. So I'm going with it as best as I can, heading right for the PC most nights after the boys have zonked out. I'm also staying up way too late, so I'm gliding through my waking life a little goggle-eyed. A lot like Nicole Kidman at the Oscars last night.

[Oh, snap!]

I did take the night off from writing to catch the Oscars, but I thought I'd be a genius by DVRing it and then beginning the playback about an hour into the broadcast. But there was so little to see that I caught up to the live action awfully quick, and once you've been fast-forwarding a program for an hour or so, it's completely jarring when you can't anymore. For a brief while, you command ultimate power to bend time to your will. But then it fades, and like every other mortal you have to sit through dopey jokes and car commercials and Best Sound Editing. Really takes the wind out of your spinnaker.

I don't remember much about who looked like what, but I do recall how pinched and frail and miserable Nicole Kidman looked when she came out with 007. I also recall the Pilobolus dancers, Ellen DeGeneres's endless yammering, and the usual patter and bunk that sent the show almost an hour long, but it was worth staying up to see Scorsese get his standing-O. I met him once when I worked the Tribeca Film Festival, when his talk on how he selects music for his movies that was supposed to last 45 minutes went on for around 90. He shook hands warmly with all of us badge-and-lanyard types as we led him to and fro, and if the kids hadn't been asleep I probably would have whooped loudly when he won.

And while we're on the subject of movies, I took a big step with Robert on Sunday and watched "Star Wars" with him. It was the strangest thing, too, because we had planned to watch it earlier, but just as I was popping my dusty old tape into the VCR I noticed that HBO was airing the original trilogy back-to-back-to-back. TwoBert was also good enough to take a nice, long power-nap so we could watch all of Episode IV undisturbed. It was as if watching the film was ... our destiny.

Robert was enthralled throughout, and now when we sit down to Legos everything he makes is made for droids and Wookiees and stormtroopers and Grand Moff Tarkins. In other words, his nerd vocabulary just got a major boost.

Papa bear

I stopped shaving after I came home from Colorado, just to remind me how beautiful winter can be. Snow in New York is delightful as it falls, but as soon as it hits the ground it becomes an execrable nuisance because of all the grime and detritus it absorbs. Especially when you live near a garbage cage, where the diner and the grocery store keep their notoriously soggy trash. It gets dragged to the curb on collection day, but garbage trucks tend to be put off by snowdrifts, and they ignore what they can't reach. The result is a startling orogenesis of half-frozen swill that little boys find absolutely fascinating.

I consider myself really lucky to be able to grow a beard with such complete coverage. This current one is a contemplative exercise, but it also comes in pretty damn handy when the cold winds whip their little knives around. In its early stages I didn't think it stood much of a chance to survive, mainly because Robert didn't approve. He said I looked like a dog, and if I grew it any more he'd never play Legos with me ever ever ever again.

When TwoBert first saw the beard he was convinced it was phony, and I spent many afternoons fending off his attempts to rip my cheeks off. Nights, however, were a different story. Before I settle him in his crib, he nestles his head on my shoulder while I sing him a lullaby. A few months ago, he started pressing his ear against my cheek, presumably so the song would reverberate in his fuzzy little head. This became my nightly transcendent moment, when the world melted away and I could hold my little boy and meditate on how incredibly lucky I am.

When the beard got scratchy, TwoBert couldn't get comfortable. He'd brush up against my hairy cheek and return to scratch his nose on my collarbone. I can't have this, I thought. If it's a choice between the beard or the baby, then the short and curlies must die.

But then, one night about a week ago, TwoBert reached up without looking and starting stroking my face. He does this every night now, for about 15 seconds. Just a little dose of unconditional, pre-literate love.

This beard will be around for a while.

Auld lang swine

Depending on whom you talk to, the Chinese lunar year has passed into the Year of the Pig, or the Boar. (Either way, I just know I'll spend the next few weeks writing "Fire Dog" on all my checks. Ha! Does that joke ever get old? Or was it ever funny? Discuss.)

The four of us were invited to what I'm sure was a kick-ass Chinese New Year party, complete with on-site child care. But when it was time to head out, we took stock of the situation: TwoBert was cranky; the freezing wind was blowing people's parkas off; and Robert was transfixed by the Daytona 500. So mama was despatched as our official emissary, and the rest of us hunkered down for an evening of man-centric belly-scratching.

We made the right choice, too, because even though Robert soon realized most real racing is a lot duller than in the movies, we were treated to lots of wrecks and burning cars and a tight finish. For the next hour, Matchbox cars flew around the apartment higgledy-piggledy. 

The boys are in a real drawing phase right now -- according to Robert, anyway, who found some markers that I had stashed away for his birthday. When I said I wanted to give them to him at his party, he was indignant. "But I'm in a real drawing phase right now, and when I'm five I won't want them anymore!" The artwork below is about what you'd expect when car-craziness is your muse.

This is Frowny, a high-speed racer that we're going to use on his birthday invitations. He drew about 10 others, each with a vibrant color scheme and a flounder-shaped chassis, but this one's my favorite:

Later we pulled out the Legos, and Robert told me he wanted to make Lightning McQueen. So he hoarded up every red brick he could find and set to work, while I worked with whatever was left. About half an hour later he showed me this, which I swear has not been re-shaped or re-buttressed by adult hands:

I'm still a bit slack-jawed.

It ain't exactly Pete Townshend's windmill, but it's a start

I ran into FG in the elevator the other day. (Oh, the serendipity!) She seemed calmer and less likely to attack me with a pick-axe, so we made a tentative plan to head out for coffee over the weekend. It might be an uneventful discussion, but I'm steeling myself for the worst. Especially since I've begun my new career in video directing.

It all started when we found the video for "Life Is A Highway" on YouTube (which is here, if you're keen). It's a basic performance piece intercut with scenes from "Cars," with the added artistic innovation of the band members standing in their cars. A startling achievement, to be sure, although if I'd been in charge I'd have found a way to get Ric Ocasek a cameo.

Robert has decided that he and three of his classmates are destined to form a band that will perform this song. And only this song. So he's studied all the guitar work in the video and is already forming his own, unique air-guitar stylings. Basically, he gnarls his left (fretting) hand into a claw and flails his right (strumming) hand like an epileptic penguin.

Robert soon decided he wanted to shoot his own video (which would also feature TwoBert as a background dancer who kind of bobs up and down and ambles in circles). So I hauled out the Handicam and we began shooting a version of the song each night before bedtime. I crank the song up on the computer, the pajama boys gnarl and flail and bob and amble -- and thump like gangbusters -- for five minutes, and then I show the video on the TV screen so they can critique their performances. With each new version, the music gets louder, the boys goofier, and I try all sorts of obnoxious camera tricks that make viewers think their semicircular canals have burst.

These new musical gymnastics are bound to be a sore point with the folks down below, but I think it'll be OK as long as I promise to stop before TwoBert's bedtime. Besides, if Robert aspires to form a seminal new wave band that cranks out five hugely successful albums in six years, breaks up very publicly and violently, and sells out 23 years later just to make that last huge pile of cash before their hips give out, he has to start somewhere.

Chunderdome

Dear Mysterious Unknowable Entity That Purportedly Runs the Universe:

Seriously, what's with all the barfing?

We all lived this chapter a few weeks ago, when a stomach bug blew through the Bert Sanctuary.  I wrote a post about it, and we all had a good laugh. My oh my, we said, look at all that vomit. First the little boy, then the big one, spouting like coke bottles full of Mentos. Then came the diarrhea, and nobody ate anything for a week. Hil-A-rious, with a capital H. And we thought it was over.

But this morning, when I opened the boys' bedroom door, the pukewaft hit me in the face like a frying pan. It was still dark-ish, and I didn't have my glasses on. So I padded apprehensively over the crib, reached in for TwoBert, and my groping hands met with crusty pajamas. That was a nice touch, making him upchuck and sleep in it.

Then tonight, Robert went off to brush his teeth and came back with "bad news": He had spewed all over the bathroom floor. He was right there. He was on his way to the bathroom anyway. And he still shorted the toilet by 18 measly inches.

Why the relapse? What did we do?

Oh, wait. Is it because I DVR'ed the Grammys, and Robert made us watch Rascal Flatts butcher that Eagles retrospective? Yeah, that's gotta be it. Sorry about that. We won't do it again.

All quiet on the subjacent front

Much as I didn't want it to, the weekend came. It was time to face the music and see if some sort of detente could be reached in NeighboRuckus '07. I hemmed and hawed about making the effort, because after all, weren't we at an impasse? Would this discussion bear any more fruit than the previous dozen? And could I possibly parse my words carefully enough so as not to set off FG, who had become so unstable and sleep-deprived from all those noisy mice copulating in the basement?

But then I realized: I had told the planet I was going to do this, and backing out would reduce me to a worldwide welsher/wuss. Was this to be my legacy? Would my boys ever grow up to learn that their dad talked a great game, but deep down he was just a lowdown chickenshit, afraid of a pothead floutist and his tetchy POSSLQ?

As if.

So, armed with a perverse surge of blogger probity, I marched downstairs and knocked on their door. After a few minutes it was clear that either 1) they are avid readers of this blog and had flung themselves under the couch to avoid confrontation, or 2) they weren't home. The bullet was dodged, and I didn't hang around to see if anyone was reloading. Because I had a birthday party to get to, and when the birthday boy is an expert foodie, you don't want to be late.

Why? Because just as you tuck into a meal of truffle pizza and prosecco, you might get involved in an incredibly nerdy conversation about continuity issues in the "Return of the Jedi" with a party guest whom you swear you've seen before but can't place. You and he might chatter on for about half an hour over all kinds of inane topics, and you might think to yourself that you've met a cool new friend, and after he leaves you might realize that he's this guy, and holy crap you wish you had known that because you would have hugged him tightly and thanked him for all the glorious potions he's bestowed upon the world.

A few hours later, the birthday boy might suggest that you pair a Brooklyn Chocolate Stout with a wedge of funky blue cheese, and you might try it and decide that's what you want to have every morning for breakfast because it's so ridiculously delicious. Then you might end up at Gramercy Tavern, sipping vintage beers (like this one, which was so good you could pour it over a stack of pancakes) until 2am, when you might finally notice that your table is the only one without chairs piled on it.

I tippled home as satiated and content as I'd felt in a long, long time. If I had encountered the neighbors at that point, I would have thrown my arms around them and offered to cover my entire apartment with Tempur-Pedic foam.

So I guess the moral of this long, rambling adventure of a post is that if some little shard of life is wedging its way under your fingernails, get out there and live a little. It's great for what ails you.

Because a battle of this magnitude deserves a media-friendly moniker

First of all, thanks to everyone -- including the cranks -- who weighed in so passionately about the Great NeighboRuckus^TM of '07. Thanks also to Holly for that hilarious "Bachelor" idea. The best show I could think of was "Wife Swap," whereby Archie might get a nice trade-in for ol' Loopy-Loo.

OK, that was a cheap shot. But I'm feeling a little frustrated. I want to treat this thing as even-handedly as possible, because I know it's hard to live below noisy people. My upstairs neighbors are avid enthusiasts of 1) musical theater and 2) hardwood floors, and every so often they invite several hundred thousand of their closest friends over for a Show Tune Shing-Along that could wake the dead. One of them also happens to be a grandfather, and whenever the grandkids are over I feel like Alvy Singer living beneath the Cyclone. But I haven't complained, because I know they're courteous people. We get a fair warning before every party, and I know the kid situation can't be helped. Young children are thumpers -- especially when you're trapped inside because it's 10 degrees out and the wind chill is powerful enough to freeze-dry your pancreas.

In the interest of full disclosure, we have a long hallway that connects our living room to our kitchen, and since it's a major artery it could probably do with a bit of carpeting. Aside from that, though, I'm not sure what else I can do. And it's not like it's a constant problem, or that anyone is losing any sleep. Both Archie and FG work, so they're not home until 6. TwoBert's in bed at 7:30, and Robert and I spend the next sedentary hour building Super-Awesome Space Cruisers with Legos. Once the kids are out for the night, we are incredibly boring people. We don't have parties, we don't crank music, and we don't do Riverdance. Anymore.

Weekend mornings are different, obviously, and our rule is Walk Only before 9am. Until 9, the boys and I usually hang out in the living room, building couch forts and/or cleaning "Ask This Old House" reruns off the DVR. And there isn't much thumping, unless Robert has to sprint off for a pee. (And TwoBert must follow, because for him watching men pee in the toilet is an enthralling magical adventure. Like "Siegfried and Roy go to Narnia!")

I want to be tactful about this. But when I think of all the music-cranking, and the "Supernanny" bullshit, and that strange "alternate days" (?), I can't help but get angry. Plus, Archie has said numerous times that he doesn't hear a thing. It's her, this volatile mix of bionic hearing and raging solipsism, causing this unrest.

In one last grab at diplomacy, I'm going to ask FG out for coffee over the weekend. I have no idea how it will go, or even if she'll agree to it. If it goes OK, this might be the end of it. If not, we're all getting tap shoes for Valentine's Day.

And Riverdance shall live again!

The neighbors are restless restive nuts

I have a problem. The downstairs neighbors have gone mental.

We've had a running dialogue with them for a couple years now, but talks have escalated since TwoBert went mobile. Archie still says he doesn't hear anything; the Freak Girlfriend (FG) is the one with the problem, and when the crisis first broke she routinely sent Archie up to remind us, quite easygoingly, that four-year-olds thump when they walk. Weekdays aren't a problem, they said, because of work. But could we keep the kids quiet until around 9am on weekends?

(Isn't it just awesome when people with no experience with kids want to tell you all about how to handle your kids?)

We've tried to explain that keeping two young children immobile for two hours is about as  feasible as collecting squirrels in a pillow case, and the words just bounce off their foreheads and fall to the floor. We understand their plight, and we want to help. We've told them we will do all we can, short of turning our house into a stalag. We even switched the bedrooms, so the kids weren't over the neighbors' heads in the morning. And every so often we'd run into FG in the elevator, and she'd say everything was fine, thanks so much for our courtesy, you're great, you're wonderful, please run for Congress so I can vote for you.

Over the past few months, though, we've gotten signs that they're starting to lose it. It began with the music. Every time one of the boys caused a loud bang, someone downstairs would crank up the 2-billion gigawatt stereo for about a minute. Just to fire a shot across our bow.

Then, about a week ago, I found some paper on the floor in our hallway. I was planning to throw it out until I saw "SUPERNANNY" written across the top. Old dopey me didn't think much of it, but my wife saw the application and put it together right away. (Then I mentioned it at dinner the other night, and all three women reacted with audible gasps and omigods. Because women can recognize right away when someone is waging a War of Passive Aggression, whereas men only think of football and boobies.)

Last night, FG frantically rang our doorbell about a dozen times, and when I opened the door she was fighting back tears. Before I could say hello she launched into a monologue that sounded something like this <deep breath..... >: "Please please the thumping is so loud and I can't concentrate anymore on anything and please all we want is to be your neighbors and live merrily and coexist and you're obviously great parents who know how to discipline your kids and we want to work with you about maybe working out a schedule and maybe the kids can run around on alternate days and can't we please just live merrily and work with each other and OK? Please?" And then she ran off.

I stood in the doorway, blinking. "Run around on alternate days"? Did I hear that right?

I'm feeling stumped. What's left to do, apart from carpeting the place in deep-pile shag? Robert has so far offered this: "If you give me 1,000 ropes, I could stick them to the ceiling and swing around so we don't thump anymore."

This is the best idea I've heard so far, and unless you can suggest anything better I might have to head to the hardware store to see if you can buy carabiners in bulk.

Synergy is a win-win when you think outside the box

And so it goes: One day you're mocking NBC for its abject hackery and malfeasance, the next you're sitting in Conan O'Brien's TV studio with Liz, talking about media synergy and gorging on shrimp cocktail.

Last night, our NBC affiliate --  the one located in the media capital of the galaxy -- held a Blogger Summit to tell us that it needs our help. Resources are limited, budgets are tight, and there are only 22 beat reporters to cover the tri-state area's 23 million people. (You'd think they'd hire that 23rd person, just to preserve a nice, clean, million-to-one ratio. But anyway.) You bloggers are out there, they said. On the front lines. Scraping up stories. Spewing gossip. Ranting. Raving. Photographing celebrity junkparts. How can we help bring these vital clots of content to a wider audience and boost our ratings?

The answer is, You can't. Because local news is dead, cremated, and decoratively urned on the mantel. Everything is the same. The news-team quartets are the same. The banter's the same. The hair and teeth are the same. The sets are the same. And the story sequence is the same: these people were murdered, these buildings burned down, this shit hit that fan, this team won, this team lost, this is the Doppler 4000 futurecast, this was hardly necessary.) It's so deeply entrenched that parodies of parodies have been parodied.

And it's not like they're unaware of this. The highlight of the night came when News Director Dan Forman asked us, point-blank: Why bother producing a TV newscast at all? Why not just migrate it all to the web?

Well, apart from the people who don't have a computer and/or don't know how to use one (and could tell you where they were when McKinley was shot), there's not much reason to have local news on TV. The format is too confining. Newscasts air at specific times, usually when something better is on (Like The Daily Show. Or a Seinfeld rerun. Or Ron Popeil.) Everything is crammed into finite air time, so each story gets reduced to eight seconds of benign froth. And if there's ever something you want to see, you have to wait through all the murders and fires and shit-encrusted fans before your piece comes on.

If you make news interactive, users can customize what they see and when they see it, and since there's no time limit, producers can delve deeper into stories. There's just the little matter of how to pay for it, because way too many people will eagerly bypass news stories in favor of celebrity junkparts.

So good luck and godspeed, WNBC, in your quest to revitalize local news. And a special good luck to Ushery, whose toddler is getting molars and has stopped sleeping. If he ever passes out on the air, you'll know why.