The Dorky Daddy

Whose success are we working toward?

The other day I was in the car and flipping through radio stations when I came across a program where a Brit and an American were talking about the term ‘success.’

At one point, the Brit talked about how the perception of what success is, is vastly different in America than in some other countries. I found it fascinating. He talked about how here, in America, we say that ‘everyone has the chance to win the race,’ but then said that by the very definition and nature of a race, not everyone CAN win.

There is the adage of wanting to have your cake and eat it too, an adage which our American culture seems to proliferate. ‘You can be a great parent and be a great CEO,’ ‘you can be a great author and be a great family man,’ but the radio hosts were saying that in most cases, that’s just not possible. By putting all of yourself into one thing, you automatically are not putting your all into something else, therefore, neglecting it, even if slightly.

Before the program ended, the question was raised as to just who was determining what success was, asking whose goals it is that we are working toward – ours or the ones that others have created for us? Are we working toward something because we truly want to, or because someone (whether it be individually or culturally) has told us that’s what we need to do.

It’s a bit like I said when I signed off of broadcasting – it’s not about how much money you make, what you do for a living, what religion you are, how many Facebook friends or fans you have. Those are determinations of success that have been created by others, yet pushed onto so many people via a ludicrous culture with misguided priorities.

All this got me thinking about how my own life’s priorities have changed over the years.

When I was 9 years old, I made no bones about telling everyone that I would one day be working as an animator, putting a love of drawing to work every day.

Years later, in college and for some time after, I would have said nothing was going to stop me from becoming a successful screenwriter and filmmaker. However, I made a conscious decision that I didn’t want to pack up my life and take that leap away from my loved ones.

Time went on. I turned my writing background to journalism. I wasn’t going to be Spielberg or Coppola, but Clark Kent? Sure, I could do that. I’d be the best damn journalist I could.

In time, I got married and we had our son. Eventually, I would leave the journalism world, but it didn’t make me any less of a writer.

I still write. I write this blog. I write the comic book Holidaze. I’m working on some possible small film projects. I’ve always got some other writing project going as well. Heck, I now get paid to be a writer for the institution I work for. Yes, I get to say I’m a paid writer now and that is one of the coolest things in the world to me.

I’m sure the 21 year old, overconfident me would have balked, saying it was a film career or bust. The me in my late 20s would have wondered where a plethora of novels were. The 9 year old me would have wondered why I wasn’t animating ducks for Disney.

However, that 9 year old me, 21 year old me, heck, even the 27 year old me, didn’t have a family, didn’t have a wife and a son, and family members he wanted them by as he grows up.

The younger me didn’t realize how having this little man in my life would change my goals in life as well.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying don’t reach for your goals. Please, for the love of all on this earth, go for it! Have dreams! Live them!

Just make sure they are YOUR dreams and YOUR goals that you’re working towards. And understand that, yes, those goals and those dreams may change. Sure, for some of you, they may be the same goals from when you were 4 to 24 to 34 to the rest of your life.

Or they may not.

They may change as you change. That doesn’t make you any less of a person, that doesn’t mean you ‘gave up,’ and that doesn’t make you a ‘loser.’ Believe me, I’ve gone through many of those feelings before coming to the realizations I have.

What I’m saying is, I can still write, I can still pursue projects, but they no longer are the end goal or the success that I look for. I do them because I enjoy them. Years ago, success may have been to make a living off of being a screenwriter, a comic book writer, an author or a filmmaker.

But today?

Today, success for me is about being around for that little guy when he needs me, when he wants a storyteller, a helping hand, or just someone to play around with or hug. Being a good father, being a present father, giving my all to that, and to him – that’s what a successful life for me will be.

The mecca of Mo

We have been to the mecca – the mecca of Mo, at least.

This summer, we were visiting friends in Massachusetts (for a baby shower of their own little guy) and were just a stone’s throw away from The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. With some careful planning (and some early departure time from home) we made it with plenty of time to spare and before the baby shower, got a chance to check out not only the amazing art of Eric Carle, but the museum’s limited exhibit of the art of Mo Willems.

Aside from the stunning visuals of these great authors and illustrators, the museum kept the fun factor going with scavenger hunts. In the case of Eric Carle, you’re given a list of items (a gorilla, perhaps, or an umbrella) that you check off along the way as you take in all the beautiful work around you. For the Mo Willems exhibit, it was a hunt for different color variations of The Pigeon, peeking out and around from art on the walls.

It was amazing to see.

What also struck me was just how truly wonderful it is that this is recognized for the fine art it is. There’s that age old question, ‘but is it art?’ Yes. Yes, it is.

Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed inside of the actual exhibition halls, but we did get the chance to take some nice photos in the main hallway and of course, with our buddy, The Pigeon.

It was really phenomenal to see the evolution of pages from sketches to line drawings, to full-color pages as that we’re used to for characters like Elephant, Piggie and Pigeon, and even at just one year old, our little guy immediately recognized his favorite characters and was pointing and making noises to bring out attention to ones he liked.

Children’s Book Art is fascinating. A good story draws us in, but lets face it, whether we are a child or an adult, it is the art that grabs our attention in the first place to make us want to peer open that cover and see what adventure awaits us inside.

To see this recognized as an art form with its own museum created a truly happy feeling inside me, as if this was some type of tangible proof that there are many folks out there who feel the same way, and felt children’s books and their art deserved respect and regard.

It was a wonderful time, and we of course, left the museum gift shop with a new addition to our Elephant and Piggie Collection – “I Am Invited to a Party!”

Happy Halloween!

Wordless Wednesday – Too Cool for School

I’m sending this note…to the future!

Sometimes I do something that just pleasantly surprises me when I come across it later (as opposed to the things where I later ask ‘why in the world did i do that?!’)

In September, I took our air conditioners out of the windows. While one is small, the one for our downstairs is rather large and heavy, and comes with a bunch of extra items that need to be packed away (such as attachments for the window sill, and a remote control, the batteries). In order to make sure I never lose any leftover items that I don’t use upon installation, I pack them away in a Ziploc bag and place that bag a drawer in the room where the A/C is.

When I pulled the bag out this Fall, I was surprised when I came across a note to myself from the past to remind me about making sure I grab the right screen for the window out of the basement. My past-self apparently also wanted to check in on how the boy was doing, noting “P.S. – That kid is pulling himself up. He start running around yet?”

Yes, past-self. He certainly has.

It was actually a lot of fun reading that short note and thinking of how much of a difference there’s been between the start of summer and the start of Fall. At the start of summer, he was still crawling, and only learning to stand. Now, our little guy is walking, climbing, and getting more and more vocal every day. I think my past self would have been quite pleased. 🙂 So amazing what a difference just a little time makes.

How Dracula Gets His Groove Back

Yes, every now and then I will do a shameless plug on this blog for other projects. Be warned, this is one.

The latest issue of Holidaze, the comic book series I write about the adult lives of holiday icons at their favorite bar, hits digital newstands today.

I’m very proud of it and have no doubt saying it’s our best issue yet. We all know Dracula and his many changing faces and styles over the years, but any time we’re a slave to trends and fashion, we quickly become outdated. That’s where this latest issue picks up Dracula’s story. Still thinking he’s the creepiest creature on two legs, Drac’ has a date with a waitress go horribly awry. When he can’t bite her and can’t even scare her, he starts to wonder just what has gone wrong that his image has become so ineffectual.

So, at the behest of his friends at the bar, he goes into therapy with noted Therapist, The Headless Horseman (all I can picture is Kelsey Grammer’s voice) to figure out just what happened to Dracula’s creature of the night image.

We really had a lot of fun making it. It’s a fun romp. At only $1.99 for a full 24 page digital comic book, I hope you’ll check it out.

Holidaze – “How Dracula Got His Groove Back” is available on the web, on iTunes (for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch), Kindle Fire, Nook, or any Tablet using the Kindle or Nook apps.

I hope you like it and a very Happy Halloween to you all!

Feels like the first time

Remember your first?

No, no, no. I don’t mean that. (Get your mind out of the gutter.) I mean many moons before that, when some of you picked up your first comic book to give it a read. Chances are that if you’re like me, it stuck and you’ve been reading them ever since.

Everyone has a different story to tell of a different tale read.

I remember mine quite well. I was probably around 5 or 6 years old and was out of school, sick. Both my parents working, I spent most of the day under a blanket at my grandmother’s house. I remember it being very gray outside, the blanket of the clouds and lack of lights on in the house making it seem as gloomy inside as it was outside.

The day would have been pretty boring and forgettable if it weren’t for one moment – when my grandmother reached into the closet and pulled out a stack of comic books and plopped them in my lap to read. There was a wide array in that pile that I would eventually make my way through – a Richie Rich whose cover had him riding in a giant roller skate, a The Brave and the Bold featuring The Flash and Batman at the Disco of Death, but it was that one on top of the pile that would open the door for me.

It was a copy of Uncle Scrooge #124 from December 1975. Titled “North of the Yukon,” and was a reprint of a Carl Barks classic long before I would know who Carl Barks was. (For those of you wondering, he was a cartoonist who actually created Uncle Scrooge and you can read more about him here.)

Little did I know it at the time, but the story was the last that Barks would write of Scrooge’s adventures in the Yukon. It involved sled dogs and was inspired by a real life article Barks had read about a dog named Balto, who participated in the 1925 Great Race of Mercy in order to deliver an anti-toxin that could halt an epidemic of diphtheria.

From that one Uncle Scrooge book, I would dive into the vast world of Disney’s Ducks, making my way over the years from Ducks to do-gooders, as Batman tangled with the Joker, Superman’s Lex Luthor went from Mad Scientist to Bald Billionaire, and me loving every minute of it.

It was my gateway drug into a lifelong love for comic books, and before long, I was forcing my family to stop by magazine kiosks in the mall or any bookstore where I caught a glimpse of a spinning comic rack in the window. This was all before I discovered my first comic book store, of course (an entire store devoted to comics?! A story of discovery for another time).

My reading list is pretty small these days when it comes to comics. Maybe it’s the simple joys that made for more discerning tastes as I got older. I expect to have a story that instills me with that same awe and wonder I did I had on that first read so many years ago.

It isn’t often (J. Torres’ The Copybook Tales did it, Darwyn Cooke’s New Frontier did, much of Sholly Fisch’s work on Batman: Brave and the Bold sure did, as is Batman 66′), but every now and then I’ll come across a book in my adulthood that brings about that pure sense of enjoyment I remember feeling as a kid when I sifted through the pages of a fresh new comic off the rack and in my hands. In other words, it makes you feel like a kid again.

On a recent trip to the store, I came across a copy of a Sesame Street comic book by Ape Entertainment and brought it home for my son. It was partly a joke – ‘hey, honey, look, a comic for him!’ – but it turns out that every now and then he’ll pull it off of his bookshelf and flip through the pages, pointing and laughing at his favorite familiar and fuzzy Muppet characters. Sometimes he’ll hand it to me, indicating he wants it read to him, and I’ll break out the Sesame Street voices I can manage (Grover, the Count, Cookie…I can’t get a handle on Elmo…) and we laugh and have a good time.

Maybe the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I don’t want to force anything on him, and I try to always restrain myself from going too far when presenting him with something because I liked it. But, who knows. Maybe one day he and I will be making a trip to the comic store together and looking through the racks for age-appropriate books he may find fun. Because that’s what comics SHOULD be about – fun.

Decades later, it’s pretty amazing to think that such a big part of one’s life all started with a single sick day on the couch and the richest duck in the world. Sifting through a box in my basement recently, I lit up when I discovered I still have that old book. It’s a little more yellow and a little worse for wear, but it’s still around. It’s probably been more than 25 years since I peered through those pages.

Maybe it’s time to give it another read.

Whether you started age 5, 15, 25, or 45, everybody’s got a first book that started them on their comic path. If you’ve got one, please don’t be afraid to share it with me in the comments. I’d love to hear about it.

Wordless Wednesday – Hostage Situation, Fisher Price Style

Oh no! The Joker's taken this plane of tourists hostage! Thank goodness Superman's on the case. — Oh no! The Joker’s taken this plane of tourists hostage! Thank goodness Superman’s on the case.

When the Bat-Man met the Thin Man

This is one of those posts that’s more dorky than daddy, so prepare thyself for a stop at the intersection where my love for comics meets my love of classic films.

In 1934, a great detective duo made their way into American pop culture, swigging drinks and jabs at each other like no married couple on screen before.

Five years later, in 1939, a great detective who offered up jabs on the chins of criminals would make his debut, dressed in an outrageous costume that resembled a bat.

40 years later, the three would meet, albeit briefly, and The Thin Man would come face to face with The Bat-Man.

Nick Charles was a hard-drinking, fast-talking, retired detective, who, with his beloved wife Nora at his side, constantly found himself pulled back into the crime solving business. Unlike any other couple on screen at the time, The Charles’ comedic rapport and crime solving adventures were such a hit, that they were featured in five sequels over the course of 13 years.

While the original novel that the first film was based on, “The Thin Man” by Dashiell Hammett was referring to the suspect in its title, “The Thin Man” quickly became synonymous with the character of Nick Charles (played by William Powell). It was so synonymous that it was used in the titles of all the sequels: “After The Thin Man,” “Another Thin Man,” “The Thin Man Goes Home” and “Song of the Thin Man.”

While the films blended comedy, adventure and mystery, they usually culminated with Nick Charles gathering everyone involved in the case in a room, and running through every motive and likelihood until the killer was revealed.

A favorite among move fans for decades, the original Thin Man film was added to the National Film Registry and Roger Ebert added it to his list of Great Movies in 2002.

In 1939, just a few years after William Powell and Myrna Loy left their indelible mark on Nick and Nora as well as pop culture, Bob Kane and Bill Finger introduced a very different type of detective in the form of Bruce Wayne, a billionaire playboy by day and a man who dresses like a bat and hunts criminals at night.

To try and sum up Batman’s place in pop culture could not even be contained to one article, let alone a single paragraph, as full books have been written on the topic. So it isn’t too surprising that, even if it was four decades after Batman’s debut, that the Bat-Man would cross paths with Nick and Nora Charles.

It was the late 1970s in Detective Comics #481, during the time when The Batman Family was prominently displayed on each cover of the comic, highlighting an adventure for everyone. Among those is “Ticket to Tragedy,” a tale written by Denny O’Neil and illustrated by the great Marshall Rogers. In it, Batman promises Alfred’s cousin, a renowned doctor in England that he can track down a killer and restore the doctor’s faith in humanity before he burns up his notes for a new technique in heart transplants.

Batman accomplishes his mission, of course, but along the way, while chasing the killer on a train bound for Gotham City, he comes across none other than Nick and Nora Charles. Nora instantly recognizes Batman and Nick asks Batman if he has a moment to compare crime solving notes. In typical loner fashion, Batman gives Nick the brush off.

Thin Man Batman 03 — *A quick, chance encounter, but one that both comic fans and film fans, no doubt enjoyed.*

The Thin Man collection can currently be found in a boxed set or on Amazon Instant Video, while “Ticket to Tragedy” has been reprinted in the “Batman in the Seventies” Trade Paperback.

Stop the clock, I don’t want to get old

I am afraid of getting old.

A few weeks back, my wife’s grandfather turned 92 years old and in honor of that rather impressive achievement, we took the baby with us to pay him a visit in the nursing home. This is where I need to be completely up front and honest – I don’t do well with nursing homes. Hospitals are not up there on my favorite list either, but nursing homes have a way of just sending me into an orbit of fear and depression.

I don’t care how much of a fact of life it is, I don’t want to get old. I know, I know. It happens to all of us. I’m not talking about getting older though. I mean getting old. So old that you can no longer care for yourself.

Just as we arrived at the Nursing Home, we took an elevator to the floor where her grandfather is currently staying. As the elevator doors shut, I caught sight of a group of elderly people, some in chairs, some in wheelchairs, their heads sagging down to their chest, expressionless, sitting around in a semi-circle in front of a large television, while the Today Show with Hoda and Kathie Lee played on. Obviously rounded up by the staff for some ‘entertainment,’ these people were sitting there, those images of the TV flashing before them and a look of lifelessness on their faces.

“This is going to be tough,” I thought.

When we got to her grandfather’s room, he was not there yet. He was still down the hall with her mom. When he made his way down via walker, he plopped himself into a chair and his face lit up at the sight of the baby. Hey, who can resist the smiling laughs of a one year old. To see him laughing, playing peekaboo, and dancing in his chair just to entertain our little guy – my heart melted. Our little man was actually making this man’s day.

As Meg, her mom and her grandfather all talked and the baby laughed, I looked around the room. Photos of family and friends – some long gone, others relegated to an occasional visit. A stack of books on top of a cart that sat next to a motorized bed. At the bottom of the cart sat boxes upon boxes of denture hygiene products.

The smell in the air was funny – I can’t put my finger on it, but if you’ve ever been in a nursing home, you know what I mean.

Another man, several years older – late 90s, I believe – wheeled himself in at some point. Talking rather loudly (he can’t hear well, we’re told), he wheeled himself up to her grandfather’s face to ask why he wasn’t at the dinner table. Then, the conversation veered off about their pills and the man then wheeled off, saying he’d look for him at the next meal. The fellow was concerned about him, which was nice to see. This is what friendship is when in a home, I thought.

As we left, wishing her grandfather a Happy Birthday, he asked if he could have a bath for it. And my heart broke.

Here is a man of the Greatest Generation. A man who fought at Iwo Jima, now unable to move without a walker, wearing sweatpants, talking about pills and asking if he could bathe for his birthday.

I wanted to cry.

I know this is life, but it’s not fair. How can people so strong, so full of pep and leadership, pillars of our society, become so weak, so dependent? Why must they lose control of their own bodies and need to wear diapers, be cleaned by others, wait for someone to change or clean their own bed sheets?! Argh! It just…it frustrates me so much that this happens in life and yet, it happens to so many.

We have one neighbor who is 91 and another who is 95. Just within the past few weeks, the 95 year old took a fall that brought ambulances, police and firefighters to his home. His family doesn’t think he can live on his own anymore and when I see the lights of his home dark while they bring him from family member to family member, deciding what to do next, my heart sinks again.

So many people say they want to live forever. Not me. I don’t ever want to reach that point. When I can’t take care of myself, when I, a person who pretty much has to take a shower every day or it mentally haunts me, can’t keep myself clean, I want to call it a day.

It just leads my mind down a path that becomes too overwhelming to handle or comprehend. It means that one day my own parents are going to get old, a thought I suppress whenever it hits and just have trouble handling. One day I will be old, as will my wife. Will we be old together? Will I be around when she gets there? Where will our little guy be in life when it happens? What kind of a relationship will we have? Will he still be my buddy? Will he be on good terms with his parents? The relationship between my father and his parents fell apart decades ago and never ever recovered, to the point of non-speaking. It’s very easy to say ‘this is different,’ ‘we’re not them,’ but let’s face reality – we all carry with us the traits of our parents, grandparents, ancestors, etc, whether we like it or not. We also ALL have the potential to love or hurt those around us, be they family or friends. How does that factor into equation as life continues? Would my little monkey, all grown up, even want to take care of us, or is our future that of the weird smell in the air, the shouting about pills and just wanting to have your dignity back?

I know it sounds horrible, but for all their sakes (my wife, my son, any other children we may have between now and then), I hope it never comes to that. I don’t mind getting older, but when all dignity is gone, I have a hard time envisioning a life that’s being lived.

Yes, this post was filled with fear, dread, some slight paranoia, and some ranting. I know. Sorry about that.

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