A Free Man

It is quite possible that Dr. O’C will kill me for this one, but I think this is the perfect illustration of this pregnancy.

I know for a fact that Dr. O’C and I have differing opinions on this, but for me it has just run away. We’re in the home stretch now and I don’t know where it has gone. With Boy Z in the picture there is little time to wax philosophical or read pregnancy books or stress out or to panic. There have been no antenatal classes and little shopping for baby gear. For the most part, I’ve spent this pregnancy chasing Boy Z around. Now, suddenly, it is July and it is time to start figuring out just what the hell we’re going to do with two kids.

Trying to clean out my e-mail inbox this evening, I ran across one from Nichole suggesting that we do a baby pool. I’m always up for a contest and I feel like we need to do something to mark this pregnancy, so what the hell. As I understand it*, the way these things work is that you the contestant make a bet on the sex, birth date and name of A Free Fetus and the person who comes the closest wins. Easy peasy.

Now typically, each entrant puts in a couple of bucks and the winner takes home the pot. But we’re in a slightly different situation here, so you get to enter the A Free Man baby pool for free. Of course, you get what you pay for so the prize won’t be that good either – how about our antenatal playlist on CD for the winner? It’s a pretty good one. Boy Z and I can probably go and hunt you up a kangaroo scrotum coin purse as well. And, most important of all, glory.

So if you’re interested – leave a comment here with your guess for sex, birth date and name**.

Ah, yes, the official due date is 28 August.

———————-

*I’ve got an e-mail in to Nichole asking for clarification so I may need to change these rules if I’m wrong.

**Dr. O’C, for obvious reasons you are not allowed to enter.

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One of my favorite British acts, The Broken Family Band released their latest LP, “Please and Thank You” earlier this year. If it stands up to 2005’s “Welcome Home Loser” it is worth the purchase price. Get these two and more by the Broken Family Band at .

 

 The Broken Family Band "Where the Hell is My Baby?": Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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I love the winter in Australia. It is just mild enough that all you need is a light jacket most days but cool enough that cuddling up next to a roaring fire is not an unreasonable activity. Rather like the British summer.

As an aside, I was listening to a podcast of the daily news on BBC’s Radio 4 and there was much unsettled discussion of the heat wave plaguing the south of England. Temperatures predicted to soar to a blistering 32°C (90°F). Now admittedly, this is warm for a city like London, but they had a guy who had spent time exploring the Sahara to offer advice on how to cope with the heat.

The high in Adelaide over the summer? 45°C (113°F). I’ve got your Sahara right here.

I felt hot in Oxford exactly once. The first summer we were there, there were a couple of days in July in which the thermometer breached the mid 30’s and with no A/C and a fair bit of humidity, I think I broke a sweat. Once. In nearly four years. 

Right, the Australian winter. That’s what I’m talking about. Yesterday was my weekly stay-at-home-dad day. I can’t stand actually staying at home on these days and having the boy tear the house down, so despite stormy conditions we headed out to our favorite little hideaway/playground.  Barreled up into the hills east of the city. The further up we got, the worse the weather got – horizontal rain, pea soup fog. There is something exhilirating in the vertigo of rounding a sharp corner - looking out of the car window and seeing that you are surrounded by a misty void – nothing in front of you, a rocky hillock to the right and a long drop of nothing to the left.

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As a footnote, Dr. O’C thinks I dress our son like a “redneck/chav/bogan”. (These are synonymous for those of you not fluent in multiple English dialects). Could you all please tell her that she’s wrong? Thanks.

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I’m in the midst of a passionate musical affair with Eels. They’re one of those bands that has always just been simmering below the surface for me and in the last few days I’ve gotten it. They’ve got a new full-length, “Hombre Lobo” out (), but it is “Electro-Shock Blues Show” that has been turning my crank lately. Buy it from .

 

 Eels "Dead of Winter": Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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OK. Let’s try this one more time. I’ve written this damn post three times and published it and unpublished it twice. Apparently when you publish things on the internet and then unpublish them, they don’t go away permanently. This both annoys me and freaks me out. Depending on which version of this post you’re reading you either think I’m losing it entirely or just a dick and now those of you who follow me on Google Reader have discovered that I’m insane. Super.

The irony of me as a blogger is that I’m a fiercely private person. I do not like people to know things about me, to know what is going on in my head. I keep friends and even family (especially family) at arm’s length, plucking tidbits of information like ripe fruit for their consumption and keeping the rest at arms length. This has always been the case, since I was a child I’ve been keeping people out – going so far sometimes as to construct elaborate falsehoods to keep them off of my scent.

Privacy is precious. So, what the hell am I doing publishing my life on the internet for anyone with a phone line to read?

The answer is that A Free Man is, in large part, a fictional character – a Gatsby-esque construct of things embellished and things left unsaid. You read what I want you to read about me – the good things, the mildly amusing, the minor foibles. I still control how much of myself I reveal. The rest, I keep back. Keep to myself or a close confidant or two.

The portrait I paint is not always an accurate reflection of reality. All this handwringing is because right now, there is something going on for me and I’m not going to talk to y’all about it. I’ve struggled with what I want to say today and have made a big damn mess of this post. This post was originally published in a different form, a form that gave some folks cause for concern.  I clearly misunderestimated the impact of a post like this. I guess one can’t pop up, say “Here I am, look at me!”, followed immediately by “Leave me alone, don’t ask me questions. Everything is fine. Really.”

So what to do?  I don’t know. I think I may go over to my pseudonymous corner of the internet and be quiet for a little while.

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Elliott Smith’s “XO” is available from .

 

 Elliott Smith "Bottle Up and Explode!": Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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I’m not actually here.

I’ve put all my blogging energies this week into a guest post for Allie’s Answers. I’m on the food bandwagon again (the chuckwagon?) and after doing some research have discovered that I’m killing polar bears with my diet. Or at least wasting a lot of energy. Go and get your recommended daily allowance of A Free Man here.

Also, to give credit where it is due, Heinz provided the nutritional data that I requested a couple of weeks back. It doesn’t make their food any healthier but it does mean that Heinz is more transparent about the unhealthiness of their food than I suggested. Good-o.

Those of you that have been around for a college football season or two will know how much I despise alligators. So, it is a little ironic that one of my favorite listens this week has been from a band named for that loathsome lizard. The western Washington quintet’s debut, “Piggy & Cups” came out in April on Applehouse Records. It’s compelling indie pop, with echoes of early Radiohead, the Beach Boys and some of the psychedelia of the 60’s. Good stuff. Check out the Alligators‘ “Piggy & Cups” from .

Image credits:

Cow

 

 Alligators "Conqueror" [4:56m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Dr. O’C and I are trying to clean up our language. We’re not sailors or anything, but both are fond of the odd invective to hammer home a point during a heated ‘debate’. But Boy Z has reached the stage at which he repeats, to the best of his ability, everything that comes out of our mouths. I don’t have any moral objection to cussin’ – as they call it where I came from – but I do think it is a bit intellectually lazy. I also think if you’ve got a toddler ‘fucking’ and ’shitting’ himself around day care it reflects kind of badly on the parents.

Thus Operation Potty Mouth has begun. No more cussing in front of the kid. We’re doing pretty good, but in the heat of the moment, we can still slip up.

I would like to point out that Dr. O’C slips up more than I do. It’s an Irish thing.When she gets mad, her face turns as red as her hair and she starts firing obscenities.

(Love you, babe.)

I’m much more even tempered*. When I slip up, it usually involves music. For example, the boy and I were dancing around the living room the other day to Prince. I was singing along happily…

…It’s all about love being in charge of this life
And the next…
Why all the cosmic talk?
I just want u smarter than I’ll ever be
When we take that walk

Come here baby, yeah
U sexy motherfucker
Come here baby, yeah
U sexy motherf…

Oops.

I never really think about song lyrics when I’m belting them out in the car or in the shower or while cooking the dinner. I’ve always thought that Parental Advisory warnings were a bit silly. In fact, I had a problem with Al Gore for the longest time because of his wife’s puritanical crusade against musicians in the late 1980’s – a crusade that was inspired, ironically, by a Prince song.

Now, I don’t think – as Tipper Gore’s PMRC did – that rock music is responsible for “the decay of the nuclear family in America”. Far from it. It’s a big part of my nuclear family. But I’m wondering if I have to start to censor music with explicit lyrics. Runs counter to my beliefs, but my experience thus far as a parent has been all about putting some beliefs on the shelf in deference to the kid’s best interests.

If I do censor, I may miss out on moments like the other night. Putting Boy Z to bed, my iPod shuffled it’s way to The Bloodhound Gang’s “Fire Water Burn”**. Now, I do like this song – but it’s a reasonably foul one. So I just tried to talk loudly and nonsensically through the beginning of the song, sprinkled with lyrical gems like…

The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire
The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire
We don’t need no water let the motherfucker burn
Burn motherfucker burn

But at the end of this particular track, there’s a change in the tempo and tone and I couldn’t resist a little sing-a-long…

Ooh ooh
C’mon party people
Ooh ooh
Throw your hands in the air
Ooh ooh…
Wave ‘em like you don’t care

And with those high pitched ‘oohs’ the boy’s attention was captured. So, I did what any good father would do – I taught him a dance move. I showed him how, if one were a party person, one would throw one’s hands in the air. I demonstrated how one may do so as if not caring.

In short, I taught the boy how to raise the roof. And he loved it. And now all you have to do is say – in a Jimmy Pop falsetto – ‘ooh, ooh’ and he’ll show you how it is done.

But at what cost these fresh moves?

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*It is possible that this statement may elicit some cussin’ from the good doctor – most likely a phrase beginning with ‘bull’ and ending with ’shit’.

**I hold Courtney partially responsible for this. She suggested, I’m assuming with tongue firmly in cheek, The Bloodhound Gang as antenatal music. I haven’t used it, but she did get me thinking about the damn band.

***I know that the soccer photos don’t really apply to the topic at hand, but they’re too awesome not to use.

If you must, The Bloodhound Gang’s “One Fierce Beer Coaster” is available from .

 

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It is not Father’s Day in Australia. So don’t bother telling me what a good Dad I am or scrambling frantically to come up with an excuse as to why you haven’t sent me a gift. But it is Father’s Day in 52 countries, including the United States, so Happy Dad’s day to all you Pops out there – including my own.

I was a weird little kid. I was obsessive – a cataloguer and a collector. My room was filled to overflowing with boxes of baseball cards, rocks, stamps. I was fascinated with statistics and probability. Time and distance and especially the way that things worked. I spent many an after school afternoon disassembling things, breaking them down to their component parts. I was a builder as well, but largely in my head. I assembled elaborate scenarios in my head and made them as real as I could – elaborate alternate worlds in which I was not a squirrely little kid with thick glasses, fantasy baseball leagues in which I was the Cy Young award winning pitcher.

I see a lot of myself in my son. More and more every day. As I watched him stack rocks – in a very particular manner – the other day, I had a flashback to my own childhood. When I stumbled over a perfectly aligned row of Matchbox cars this morning, I realized that – like it or not – Boy Z is going to be a product of his father. And his father’s father. There’s a bond between father and son that is irrevocable – genes, blood, shared experience. No matter whether you languish in it or fight it with all your soul, you are going to become – to some extent – your father.

My Dad didn’t have it easy. He grew up in a mining town in the northern wilderness of Ontario. His Mom took off when he was young, leaving him with his Dad and older siblings. His Dad, while a decent guy, probably wasn’t equipped for the raising of three kids on his own, so my Dad learned self-reliance from a young age. When he graduated high school he headed south for university. He got a degree in metallurgical engineering, a job with Union Carbide and has never looked back. He settled in Florida, about as far away from Northern Ontario as you can get, in 1980 and has lived there ever since.

I am the son of an engineer. I’ve inherited the mind of an engineer, a scientist. I didn’t realize that when I was younger. I spent a good part of my late teens and twenties trying to leave this inherent curiosity of the machinations of the world around behind as the trappings of childhood, but I’ve never been able to. At heart, I’ll always be that shy little boy taking radios apart in my bedroom. Rather than continuing to fight my nature, in my thirties I decided to use what I thought of us childish for my benefit. I became a scientist.  As a geneticist, I’ve exploited that childhood fascination with categorization, statistics and an obsession with the way things work and turned it into a decent living.

I’m also the son of an expatriate. Like my father as soon as I graduated high school I left my childhood home firmly in the rear view mirror. I don’t know what my Dad’s experience in voluntary exile has been like for him, but for me the further away that I get, the more that I realize that the ties that bind are pretty elastic. Wherever you go, there you are. Whatever you are trying to escape generally comes right along with you. Especially since becoming a father myself, I feel that bond with my own father much more strongly. And his father. And presumably his father’s father. Maybe it is because of that hapless little Y chromosome that I hear my Dad’s voice come out of my mouth when I’m talking to Boy Z. Maybe it is something else – common experience, a blood bond – that means when I look in a mirror I increasingly see my Dad looking back.

Whatever it is, I’m luckier than a lot of men.**

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* Come September 6, however, you better have a damn good excuse.

** OK. To be 100% honest I didn’t get my shit together on time to get a card in the mail to my Dad. So, I’m taking the Steve Earle a la ‘Valentine’s Day‘ way out.

The images, for the curious:

• Me in my bedroom with what I recall being a working aircraft carrier.
• My Dad, probably in his early 20’s.
• My sister and I with our paternal (left) and maternal (right) grandfathers. Both great men, both regrettably gone.

Buy more music from Horace Silver at .

 

 Horace Silver "Song for my Father": Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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I’m two years old as a blogger today. It’s my Blogday. My Bloggiversary*. Whatever you want to call it. A Thursday in midwinter.

For me, one of the most tedious type of post is the navel gazing ‘blogging about blogging’ variety. But it is my party and I’ll be narcissistic and self-indulgent if I want to. Truth be told, I don’t even like the word – blog. Sounds lumpy and clumsy and trivial. While certainly trivial, I don’t think the genre necessarily deserves a moniker that sounds a bit like a bodily function. Still and all, better than a ‘tweet’, I suppose.

All this faff and circumstance is designed to mask the central point – I think I might be running out of steam.

I started a blog for the sole reason of keeping my family and friends updated with photos, videos and cute stories about Boy Z. A virtual remedy for the very real distance that I’d placed between us. It served that purpose well.

Somewhere along the way, however, I decided that blogging gave me other opportunities. It afforded me a means to practice my writing – a notebook for the modern aspiring author.  I wanted to branch out from my job as a lab rat into the amorphous field of scientific communication, so I started to use my blog as a sharpening stone to hone my craft. But rather than being good practice, my blog posts tend to be hastily constructed and unedited dumps.

I also discovered the therapeutic power of the media. On days where things were getting out of control,  getting too much for me, I could dump everything onto the internet and get it out of my system. Then people started to read my site and I started to get a bit nervous and uncomfortable about putting so much of myself out there.

And as more people started to read, I began to become addicted to having an audience. I started watching my stats obsessively and tallying up comments as a reflection of the quality of a post. I started to write for my audience, worked out the type of post that would get me the most positive feedback. In spite of being painfully shy in a small group or one-on-one setting, I love a crowd. I love to perform. That’s why enjoy my job – lecturing is little more than a weekly performance. Lately that is what blogging has become for me.

And I don’t know what I’m doing any more.

Maggie, who I love, described blogging as “the modern writer’s bourbon in the bottom drawer”. That thought has been stuck in my head for the last couple of weeks. I’m not sure what the line meant to her, but to me it’s that dark distraction that whispers constantly, quietly “Drink me.” An easy alternative to more productive tasks, more difficult jobs that, while initially soothing, can eat away a day’s work. A golden diversion that leads to nothing except more meaningless words in the ether.

I feel like I need to pull it together – need to focus on something real. Need to write, really write. I’ve had two years of practice. It might be time to get off the proverbial pot. I guess I just don’t know what the point of this is anymore. I’m certainly never going to make a living by running a personal blog. It isn’t improving my writing. I can’t use my blog as therapy anymore and I don’t even think I’m doing a very good job at the original stated purpose of this blog.

So what’s the point?

(I was going to end this post here. Click publish and move on. But then I came up with the answer to that rhetorical question).

One thing that I haven’t considered in this barrage of pointless introspection is the relationships that blogging has opened up for me. The connections. The friendships. I guess that’s what they are.

Some of you were friends in ‘real life’. I’ve met some of you after connecting via blogging and made fast friends. I’ve ‘known’ some of you for so long that I feel like we’ve met. Some of you inspire me with your words - moving me to laughter or tears, even in the same post. Some of us are sharing a journey around the world and some of us a journey round and around (and around) our kids – the maddest among us are doing both. There are those of you with whom I share much more in common than most people know. Some of you have been kind enough to send me tones of home and some of you keep me up to date with new tunes.**

I’m still skeptical of internet relationships. Always will be. I’m not sure if the connections made through blogging are real friendships, but more and more they are starting to feel that way. So, I guess if there is a reason to keep going, these relationships – such as they are – would be it.

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*Where are my presents?

**There was no way I was going to get everyone in here. So, if I missed you out I apologize. It wasn’t intentional.

Josh Ottum’s debut album, “Like the Season” isn’t due until September. But if the debut single is any indication of what the Seattle based singer-songwriter is going to offer, then it will be worth the wait for the LP. Playful indie pop in the vein of Ben Kweller, Josh Ritter and Sufjan Stevens on his radio-frendlier days. Keep an eye out for his debut from Cheap Lullaby Records.

Image credits:

Birthday 1

Birthday 2

Birthday 3

 

 Josh Ottum "The Easy Way Out": Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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My apologies to the arachnophobes out there. I was so caught up in the technical mastery exhibited in yesterday’s spider photo that it didn’t occur to me that some of you might freak out. It should have, really. I worked with the most insect phobic person I’ve ever encountered for a couple of years at Oxford. If a fly buzzed into the lab, she would run screaming and refuse to return to work until there was confirmation that the harmless bug had left the building. I was bored at my job. Very bored. When I’m bored, my inner practical joker is wont to come out. I tortured this poor girl once I determined her weakness – dead wasps on her lab bench, macro photos of insects for her computer wallpaper, false alarms of insect invasions just to see her scamper. She reads this blog and is probably angry at me now…

I’ve got not much to say, but wanted to move my fab spider photo down the page a bit. Aha! How about this. For Mother’s Day, I commissioned a portrait of Boy Z for Dr. O’C. I’m a patron of the arts. Like a renaissance merchant, I am. I left it a bit late, as is genetically dictated by my Y chromosome, but the painting is all but done.

Here’s the original…

…and the portrait.

Jennifer Chevais, who blogs at No Place Like It, was my choice of artist. I love her whimsical illustrations and when she wrote a post about doing commissioned portraits, I knew I had my Mother’s Day present sorted. Dr. O’C’s asked for just a couple of minor touch ups, but we’re both thrilled with the portrait. Can’t wait to get it hung.

So if you’re in the market for a portrait, check out Jennifer’s Etsy site. She does wonderful work at a reasonable price.

In the link love vein, if you come around often you may have noticed that I have rotating header images. I’ve added a new one to the field – a capture from blogging buddy Not Afraid To Use It. She risked life, limb and a smashed up car for this one…

…and I think it makes a great addition.

Happy now, arachnophobes? Don’t scroll down too far…

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I’m hooked on Brooklyn alt-country act the Basement Band’s latest LP. It’s solid, splendidly written Americana in the vein of The Jayhawks and early Son Volt. The Brooklyn quintet is the latest I’ve heard in what seems to be an explosion of talented young country acts that are making the rounds these days – they fit in nicely with The Avett Brothers, A.A. Bondy, The Felice Brothers and others. There’s not a weak track on “Until the Evening Came” and the male-female dual vocals on a number of songs are to die for. Check out The Basement Band’s “Until the Evening Came” on .

 

 Basement Band "On & On" [4:01m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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While not particularly thrilled to find this lady in my letter box this afternoon, I was delighted with the photo opportunity and to have Space’s 1996 Latin tinged classic bopping about in my head for the rest of the day…

A thousand thundering thrills await me
Facing insurmountable odds gratefully
The female of the species is more deadly than the male

The Redback spider (Latrodectus hasselti) – my first siting of one of Australia’s thirty seven million critters that will kill you. Wikipedia informs me that the Redback is one of two animal species in which the much smaller male assists the female in sexual cannibalism during mating – he’s a willing participant in his own demise. Whilst engaged in the act of love, the hapless little boy lowers his bits into his special lady friend’s jaws. With a climactic chomp, the deed – and the dad – are done.

Oh she deals in witchcraft and one kiss and I’m zapped
Oh how can heaven hold a place for me
When a girl like you has cast a spell on me

This voluntary decision to become his lover’s main course gives the poor fellow a reproductive advantage over his undigested colleagues. The lady, sated in more ways than one, is more likely to send other males packing.

Oh she wants to conquer the world completely
But first she’ll conquer me discreetly
The female of the species is more deadly than the male

It’s wintertime in South Australia and love is in the air.

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Space’s 1996 LP “Spiders” is available from .

 

 Space "Female of the Species": Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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As an update to Wednesday’s post:

Nobby’s Pork Crackle – Saturated Fat: 5.7g/100g

Heinz Little Kids Yogurt Meusli Fingers (Sultana Apple) – Saturated Fat 8.1g/100g

In other words, in many ways* you are better off feeding your kid fried pork skin than these Heinz snacks that are designed for toddlers.

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*To be fair, the Pork Crackles have loads of salt. But then the Heinz bars have loads of sugar. Six of one?

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