Okay, I know my previous baby rant may have led you to assume that I’m one of those “baby haters”, but hear me out. I like children. As a matter of fact, the children that are in my life; nephews, nieces, the sons and daughters of close friends, are all wonderful and unique individuals, and I have nothing but fondness and affection for all of them. Heck, if their guts were on fire, I would piss down their throats. (aww shucks, t’werent nothin’) And upon careful introspection, I realize it’s not babies I have this disdain for…it’s parents!
It’s mind-boggling to see the bizarre metamorphosis normal, intelligent adults go through as soon as that wrinkly shit machine passes through the vaginal gates. You know how in zombie movies, this strange wave of mysterious disease sweeps the land and in a split second healthy, normal corpses suddenly rise up with the singular, obsessive intention of eating your brain? Well, it’s kind of like that.
Gone are the late night discussions with friends on politics, art, Groucho, cheesecake and the classic hilarity of getting hit in the nuts. Instead it’s an endless barrage of the new Daddy and Mommy’s fascination with baby’s weight, breast pumps, lactation cycles, its first crib rollover, its eyes focusing on a grape and the ever increasing fecal weight of the diapers. Eventually the shine comes off the apple. If the new parents have any childless friends, they slowly recede into the vaporous memory fields, never to be seen again. It’s a mutual thing; the baby-less couples get bored with the enormous microscope put on the infant’s every waking flinch, and the Mommies and Daddies push them away fearing, not having any baby experience, their childless friends might do harm to little Kayla. Speaking for myself, I’ve only dropped two babies in my whole life (and one survived). And you can’t count that kid I picked up by sticking my thumb in his soft spot, either. My hands were full of groceries, and I couldn’t very well leave my jug of vodka on the porch, now could I?
And so, Mommy and Daddy circle the wagons and socialize only with other Mommies and Daddies. They feel more secure exchanging scintillating ideas about baby formula, soccer camps and mini-vans. They suddenly realize that their diverse, socially aware life in an urban condo simply won’t do anymore. What about the children?! It’s not safe! And off to the suburbs they go. They pack up the Caravan or the Odyssey or the Sienna or the Sodona and they head off to the safe and secluded confines of some massive drywall monstrosity that’s posing as a home sitting in what used to be, up until a couple of weeks ago, a 200 acre corn field in the middle of nowhere. But they’re safe! (And if they’re really lucky, it’ll be a gated community. You know, to keep out the dark-skinned child rapists.)
They do everything in their misguided power to protect the safety and sanctity of their brood. They build community playgrounds, arrange play dates, keep monitors and security cameras in every room of the house, line the walls of the play rooms with colorful padded, anti-concussion mats and, best of all, to protect the undying souls of the little lieblings, they find religion. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve known; smart, well educated, worldly and sophisticated that have succumbed to the evil siren’s song of the church as soon as they entered parenthood. They went from doing beer bongs, having group sex in hot tubs and reading Henry Miller and Naked Lunch to sitting on their knees in pews reciting the Nicene Creed with the rest of the blathering throng. And all for the souls of the little ones.
And this is the sterile environment wherein the poor children have to try and grow up. Being guided by a bunch of neurotic, scared shitless cornfield dwellers. Fearful lemmings who, if I may say so from an outsider’s viewpoint, don’t know the first thing about raising genuinely healthy children.
Case in point; the over-diagnosing and prescribing of behavioral drugs for kids. This really pisses me off. Anytime a child suddenly acts outside of the norm, and maybe makes life a little messy for the Norman Rockwells of the gated communities, they’re suddenly hauled off to the doctor and diagnosed with ADD or AD HD or DHDDD or they’re down with OPP. Mommy and Daddy can’t handle junior’s outbursts, and shoving pills down his throat is way easier than trying to get at the root of the problem. Never mind how it’s going affect him in the long run. We need harmony now!
Did you know that over 75% of the behavioral stimulants prescribed for kids (Ritalin, Metadate, Methylin, Dextroamphetamine, etc.) manufactured in the world, are given to American boys?!
What does that tell you; that we have a massive behavioral problem in today’s male children? I doubt it. I think it’s more the fact that our boys, being boys, are throwing a Y-chromosomed monkey wrench into Mommy’s and Daddy’s perception of what they thought family life would be.
Break it down; girls, biologically, are caring and thoughtful and nurturing (they’re also psychologically cruel and manipulative, but that’s for another rant). It comes from the days when the women were the child raisers, the gatherers, the matriarchs.
Boys, on the other hand, are physical beasts. They run, they bounce, they rage, they stomp. It comes from a time when the men’s role was to protect the family. To fight off wolves and cougars and other scary things that go bump in the jungle night. They were the hunters. That’s why boys are always making weapons out of stuff. Whatever they can get their hands on; sticks, broom handles, toasters, everything becomes a weapon. Heck, I’ve seen a kid actually chew a baloney sandwich into the shape of a gun and start shooting it at his little brother. It’s in our nature.
But, unfortunately, the nature of boys is too messy. It breaks up the clean, pristine lifestyle the Mommy’s and Daddy’s are trying to orchestrate. After all, they have elaborate schedules for soccer and ballet and music lessons and play dates. A place for everything and everything in its place. And loud, active, energetic boys jumping on the furniture and screaming like Mohicans disrupts the flow. Bring on the kiddie- narcotics.
My Mother and Father raised five boys, of which I am the middle one. A day didn’t go by where we weren’t bloodied, battered and bruised. It got to the point where they simply opened the door in the morning and let us run rampant around the neighborhood all day. We ran and fought and climbed trees and hit each other with sticks and basically exhausted ourselves with mindless physical activity. In the evening Mom and Dad opened the door and got us back into the house for dinner. We didn’t have benzphetamine or methamphetamine. Heck, the closest we got to behavioral stimulants was Count Chocula. I won’t say our boyish deeds didn’t have my parents, especially my Mom, at the end of their emotional rope on certain days. We were wild, sometimes. We were messy. We broke things. But they took it all in good stride. They let us be boys. And all of us, to a man, have grown to become responsible, well adjusted, hard working, loving adults. And not despite of our messy behavior, but because of it.
My other peeve is how the whole world is being altered, genericized and white breaded for the sake of the fucking children. Back in the day, when I needed milk or coffee, I’d trundle off to the market, squeeze in between the carts in the narrow aisles and gather my goods. Now, we build huge mega-grocery stores where you could land a fucking Lear Jet in the frozen food aisle. And along come these ghastly, ten foot wide, Fischer Price designed plastic carts shaped like race cars and fire engines where the kiddies get to pretend they’re driving. So I still have to squeeze in between these mutated Disney golf carts just to get a bag of French Roast. But I know I’m being selfish. Dear God in Heaven, we wouldn’t want our children to get bored in a grocery store, now would we? I’ve got an idea, why don’t we install DVD players into the carts so they can watch Finding Nemo for the four millionth time? We have them everywhere else. Or better yet, a Ferris wheel or playground next to the produce section so the kids can get face painted and have balloon hats made by a clown while Mommy tries to get the best price on a rump roast.
We have child-proof caps and “Baby On Board” signs and V-Chips and Orange Alerts and baby sunscreen. Jesus H., a man can’t even get a good look at Janet Jackson’s nipple-slip during the Super Bowl without a public parental uproar! What’s America coming to?!
I realize raising a family is not easy. I hear it from parents all the time; "It's so difficult having kids. You have no idea how hard it is!" Well you get no sympathy from me. These aren't government issued children. They weren't forced upon you at gunpoint because your name came up in some random baby lottery. They're your choice, whether you planned them or not. And they're your responsibility. I don't go out and buy a new car and then complain how hard it is to keep up and fill with gas. I knew the rules going in.
As for It takes a village to raise a child...screw that. Hillary Clinton should have been gagged for making such a statement. Granted, it does take a support network of family and friends to make sure a child grows up right and walks the straight and narrow. But it seems "the village" is always responsible after the fact. Young couples never come to the village and say, "Hey, we're thinking about having a kid. Want to help us out?" Then we could say "Yeah, sounds great. I'm in." or "Hmmm, maybe you guys should hold off a year or two till you save some money." But no, the village is responsible no matter who's having the baby or under what circumstances.
Many readers with children will say, “Well, how can you have a perspective on the subject, you don’t have kids. You don’t know what it’s like to be a parent.” But I think the reverse is true. I have a perspective on this because I’m childless. I don’t know what it’s like to be a parent? Most of you don’t know what it’s like not to. To have a life of choice. To be able to explore things deeply and intellectually without having to limit or curb yourself. To reach outside of a world consisting of strollers and pre-school and actually live in a world with adults. Because I’m childless my world is wide open, free to anything I might want to explore. Because you have children, your world is safe and closed and small.
And along with your world goes your mind.
I’m Anthony Wood. I’m angry. And my house smells like fried fish.
Is it just me, or has half of America’s voting spectrum completely lost its damn mind?
Back in the day, when bread was a nickel and gas flowed out of water fountains free to any kid with knickers and a bucket, this country took pride in electing the most qualified, most experienced, most intelligent people to hold the highest offices in the country.
Oh, how the mighty land has fallen.
According to a recent psychological study that examined the qualities of so-called “great presidents” throughout history, they found that the best candidates tended to have exceptional mental capacity and the ability to absorb enormous amounts of information, facts and figures. Great presidents tended to be open minded. They were attentive to their emotions. They were willing to question traditional values and try new ways of doing things. But, when it came to faith and morals, they tended to rely on leadership from church and religious figures on these matters, rather than bring them into the civic dialog.
Great presidents of the past were more imaginative and more interested in art and beauty than the less successful presidents. They were "tender minded," with great concern for the less fortunate.
Sound like anyone we’ve elected lately? Well, not in the last eight years, anyway.
The great president definition fit the likes of Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Lincoln (although he would never get elected today. “Abraham. Too Jewish.”)
But today’s “informed” electorate has a different, and definitely lower standard when it comes to picking the Prez. Many of the folks who voted George W. Bush in office…twice (it actually hurt my back to type that) went by the notion that Bush was…
A man like us. A simple guy. An everyday Joe. Somebody I’d want to sit down and have a beer with. Somebody like me.
Somebody like you? But you’re an idiot! I don’t mean that to be overly-insulting, because I’m an idiot, too! We’re all, most of us, idiots when it comes to things like advanced economics, foreign relations, taxation and the environment. That’s why we try to set the highest standard possible when it comes to the character and intelligence of our candidates. And to tell you the God’s-honest truth Bubba-Lee, I want the smartest person in the room. I want the Rhodes Scholar, the person who speaks seven different languages and graduated Harvard cum laude. I want a great communicator who can carry on a conversation with anyone from farmers to heads of state. I want that candidate. I don’t want some beer drinking good ol’ boy who reads at a sixth grade level, votes every week on American Idol and whose idea of high humor is lighting his own farts.
Is this what we’ve come to? Are we so dumbed down and insecure that we’re threatened by anyone who has the least modicum of intelligence and isn’t afraid to show it? I think we are. And the Right Wing has played us like a fucking Stradivarious.
Take for example the word “elite.” A harmless word co-opted by the Right to mean: Upper crust. Stuck up. Snobs. The Intelligencia. People who think they’re better than you.
Left-Wing Elitists.
But isn’t “elite” a positive term? If we have a huge brain tumor, don’t we want an “elite” team of doctors to zap it out? When we need to invade a hostile nation and take out it’s leader, don’t we always send in an “elite” fighting force like the Green Berets or the Navy S.E.A.L.S? Isn't the "elite" the top, the A-Team, the best we have to offer? Is “elite” a bi-polar word? Can it mean what you want it to mean whenever you want it to?
Convenient.
So that’s how we got Dull Witted, War-Monger George Dub-Ya in for eight seemingly endless years. He wasn’t one of those Left-Wing “elitists” who were all so smart and educated and knew important things and flew around the world and used them big words with more than two syllables. He was a regular guy. The kind of guy you want to have a beer with. A guy just like us…an idiot.
And now they’re trying the same tactic again. Last week, with much confetti and fanfare, they rolled out Sarah Palin as the new Vice Presidential candidate for the Republican Party. A nobody. A woman with almost two years experience as Governor of Alaska, the least populated state in America, and as Mayor of Wasilla, the state’s second largest city (population 9000)
???
That’s it? It’s a joke, right? Wrong. And did the dull-witted, under-informed voters care that this woman has less experience than a Senate page, has proposed the banning of books from libraries, laws against gay marriage, cut funding from housing for unwed mothers and is so Bat-Shit Religious she actually got in front of people to say that the war in Iraq was “God’s war”? Did they care that, when approached for the position, she really and truly asked what it was that the Vice President actually did? No…no they did not.
They all just love the fact that she’s (here we go again) just like us. She’s a hockey mom. She has five kids (that she constantly hauls out in front of the cameras, only to say “stop focusing on my family” when they get too close). She’s a regular gal with small town values and a great head on her shoulders.
So this qualifies her to be sitting in the second most powerful seat in the world? To be one, fairly certain heart attack away from the Presidency? Is that fact scaring anyone else into severe diarrhea? It should, ‘cause her Uber-Mom dog and pony show has them dead even in the polls.
Barack Obama…you know, the Democratic elitist? The smug, smart guy? His VP nominee was Joe Biden. Experience?
JD, Syracuse University College of Law, 1968 BA,
History/Political Science, University of Delaware, 1965.
Adjunct Professor, Widener University School of Law, 1991-present
Attorney, Private Practice, Wilmington, Delaware, 1968-1972.
Candidate, United States President, 2008
Senator, United States Senator, 1973-present
Council member, New Castle County Council, 1970-1972.
Vice Chairman, North Atlantic Treaty Organization Parliamentary Assembly.
Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights - Member
Foreign Relations - Chair
Judiciary - Member
Subcommittee on Crime & Drugs - Chair
Subcommittee on East Asian & Pacific Affairs - Member
Subcommittee on European Affairs - Member
Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law - Member
Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Refugees - Member
Subcommittee on International Development and Foreign Assistance, Economic Affairs and International Environmental Protection - Member
Subcommittee on International Organizations and Operations, Democracy and Human Rights - Member
Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South and Central Asian Affairs - Member
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security - Member
Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps and Narcotics Affairs – Member
God, what an elitist know-it-all.
So do the math, folks. Would you rather have someone with the insight, seasoning and experience to handle the job of Vice President? Or do you want a radical religious hockey mom with small town values?
I mean, she might not know a Shiite from a Sunni, but her Apple Brown Betty is a hit at the church book burnings.
I’m Anthony Wood. I’m angry. And my armpits smell like beef soup.
Is it just me, or does Dick Cheney look like somebody who goes out every now and again and kills homeless people? You know, just to scratch that itch?
I can see him, every third Wednesday of the month. He puts on a dark trench coat and a fedora and slinks out into the D.C. night.
Out of the shadows of an alley he approaches a down and out fellow named “Dave” (his name is changed to protect the innocent).
“Hey man, got some spare change for some coffee?” Dave innocently inquires.
“Sure, I got your spare change right HERE!”
As quick as a wink from the angel of death Cheney pulls the piano wire from the wristband of his watch and wraps it fast around Dave’s neck. Dave squirms, he writhes, he tries to scream, but the blood from the open laceration fills his voicebox and all that comes out is a warm, scarlet gurgle. Cheney pulls the hapless man close and whispers in his ear, “How’s this for change? You like change? You gonna vote for change, asshole?”
Dave breathes his last.
Dick arrives home. His wife Lynne sits in the den, knitting or making cookies or persecuting gays or some other Republican wife thing.
“How was your walk, dear?”
“Good.” He replies. “Yeah…yeah, real good.”
The front of his slacks are stained with semen.
“Step in a puddle again, Dick?”
“Oh, yeah! Yeah…another puddle. Really raining out there.”
He slinks upstairs to his room, opens a locked bureau drawer with a key and takes out an ornate wooden box. In the box are tiny bits of homeless man flesh, all put into small Ziplock bags and sorted chronologically. He removes the morsel of Homeless Dave tissue from his pocket, licks off the excess blood, puts it in it’s own secure plastic bag, and sets it at the front of the row marked “June”.
Yeah, I know it’s a far-fetched story…but then I watch him on the news, and I’m not so sure.
I’m Anthony Wood. I’m angry. And I’ve got oatmeal in my shoes.
Is it just me, or has the world suddenly become over-run with strollers? Now don’t get me wrong, even though I am a childless by choice individual, I can relate to the overwhelming feelings of warmth and contentment that a joyful child can bring into your—fuck it, no I can’t. Who am I kidding?
What is wrong with this culture that makes it so obsessed with procreation? Human beings have such great potential in art, engineering, mathematics, agriculture and hundreds of other endeavors, but no one, it seems, feels fully satisfied till they hook up with someone who can stand the sight of them, do the unprotected nasty and shove the wailing freight train through the doughnut hole nine months later. From then on it’s a rewarding, whirlwind existence of whining, crying, pissing, shitting and sleep deprivation. What once was a high flying life of promise and fulfillment is suddenly grounded, it’s wings clipped and shoved into a small jail cell where it subsists on a diet of diapers, breast pumps, diaper bags, pre-chewed baby food, diaper services and diaper rash. And did I mention diapers?
There’s nothing more relieving than seeing the face of a new father after his first month of infant bliss; that exhausted, desperate, far away look, the bags under the eyes, the disheveled appearance, the unwashed hair, that expression that says “Holy Sainted Jesus on dry white toast, what did I get myself into?” Nothing makes me feel like I’ve dodged a bullet more.
But the saddest of all participants in this infantile carnival are the teen parents. You see them every day; she, the plump, nose-pierced mommy with the hip-hugger jeans and the lower back tattoo. He, with the Jim Morrison T-shirt, knit hat, hip-hop bling necklaces and a diaper bag over his shoulder. Together they look like dazed Hiroshima victims pushing the plastic stroller in which sits little Kayla or Brelee or Cody or whatever white trash, trailer park, soap opera name they’ve deemed to bestow on the snot-nosed little urchin. Talk about lost potential. Three victims; she had nothing else in her life but a part time job at a candle store and a used Ford Focus. But all her friends were having babies, and they seemed so cute and cuddly and helpless and (here’s the one that makes me want to vomit) they smell so good. They smell good? Hey, I like the smell of Cotton Candy at the fair, but that doesn’t mean I want to carry it around twenty-four hours a day and breast feed it.
And that hapless dude. He didn’t want a family. He didn’t have hopeful visions of daddy-hood in his future. He just wanted to party with his friends, dream about buying a new car and maybe get a little tail on a Saturday night. He was drunk, he was horny and she was every seventeen year old boys dream; a girl who says “yes.” One moment of clarity, one moment of ignoring your over-eager erection, one moment to drop a few quarters into a gas station condom machine and suddenly, life as he knows it doesn’t come to a screeching halt. But it’s always clearer in the rearview mirror.
And that poor baby. Oh, I know what you’re going to say, “Every child has the potential to be something special. If they work hard and apply themselves and follow their dreams, they could even be president.” Well…not really. I mean, let’s face it, we are all benefactors/victims of where we come from. Realistically, who has a better chance of becoming president; the upper middle class child from an emotionally and financially secure family with well meaning and well educated parents? Or the child of a sixteen year old, jobless, drop-out single mom who feeds her baby Ding-Dongs and Mountain Dew and pawns the baby off on her grandmother so she can go out on “dates” with the baby’s father; a part time hip-hop DJ and pot dealer named Daz Freek? Do the math, it ain’t rocket science.
The Pro-Life zealots are fond of saying “It’s a child, not a choice.” Well, actually, it’s both. Any child worth taking up space on this blue marble should be chosen carefully. Prospective Mommies and Daddies should plan carefully, look each other in the eye and decide that the unprotected sex they are about to partake in is responsibly chosen in order to bring life into the world. Till then, if you’re just lighting some candles, drinking some Merlot and gettin’ your freak on, then wrap it, stuff it, jelly it, stick it in a latex straight jacket and take the god damned pill, for Christ’s sake! I realize the “oopsie” factor to having babies probably applies to about three-quarters of the population (including my parents), but let’s get real. And let’s give our young people a chance to live their lives, make some smaller mistakes, learn, love and have children when it’s the proper time. A little sex education goes a long way. Along with safe, free birth control.
Family folks like to quote the Bible as saying “Be fruitful and multiply.” But I think that phrase got altered in translation. It should really read “Be fruitful (COMMA) and multiply.” Or better yet, “Be fruitful then multiply.” Maybe being fruitful doesn’t mean having the babies. Maybe it means making your life fruitful. Establish yourself, get a career, have some experience, discover true love, make some money then have a baby. Even birds build a nest and have some food to regurgitate before they lay eggs.
The fucking sparrows are practicing planned parenthood. Why can’t we?
I’m Anthony Wood. I’m angry. And I’m not wearing any pants.
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