Ask Uncle Kafka

Dear Uncle Kafka:

Today I was in the administrative offices of the San Francisco Unified School District. All of the toilets in that building have a little sticker over them that says, “Flush the Toilet.” When I pushed on the handle, no water went into the toilet. I tried for several minutes, but there was no water. Why did this happen?

Sincerely,

Andrea

Dear Andrea:

What else did you expect to happen? As the saying goes, “The poop goes click.”

Love,

Uncle Kafka

Forgotten Lyrics

This evening I was informed of the "lost" lyrics to Wheels of the Bus:

The poop on the bus goes click, click, click
The poop on the bus goes click, click, click
The poop on the bus goes click, click, click
All through the town.

Do you see why we need a musical education program in our house?

So where is that project? Here's the line up so far, subject to constant editing:

Respect, Aretha Franklin
I Feel For You, Chaka Khan
Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You, Lauryn Hill
Umi Says, Mos Def
Beautiful, Snoop Dogg
Higher Ground, Stevie Wonder
Shining Star, Earth, Wind & Fire
The Girl From Ipanema, Astrud Gilberto
Sunday Girl, Blondie
Graceland, Paul Simon
(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear, Elvis Presley
Keep the Customer Satisfied, Simon & Garfinkel
Up On Cripple Creek, The Band
On the Road Again, Willie Nelson

I am not thrilled with that S&G selection (not because I don't like them but because it makes the mix more Paul Simon-dependent than I find acceptable), but I am still trying to find something that links Elvis to The Band.

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. I am hampered a bit by not owning all that music, so if you have some technologically legal way of getting it to me, sweet sweetness. I am also working on a hip hop mix, which, upon reflection, is possibly not child-friendly.

UPDATE: Teddy Bear segues into Up On Cripple Creek just fine on its own, thanks.

Mix Tape Redux

A few weeks ago, me and the hubs had a conversation about our children's musical education, and whether it has suffered for want of attention. It was less of a discussion than an agreement. So I am soliciting the best songs for kids to learn, and then I will make a CD (0r CDs) for my kids to listen to. If you don't want to post in the comments, send me an email. (Some may recall that I made my first kid mix tape back in the ponderous 15th month of my pregnancy last year.) I am not looking for the best songs ever, just really good songs kids can listen to but which are not necessarily kids' songs. Here's some to start, based solely on what I thought of when I was listening to the first song on the list:

1. I Feel For You, Chaka Khan
2. Tears of A Clown, Smokey Robinson
3. Graceland, Paul Simon
4. Something by Stevie Wonder
5. Shining Star by Earth, Wind and Fire
6. Something by The Band. Maybe Up on Cripple Creek

Okay, I need more.

Update: In reality, You Can Call Me Al is the song a kid would want to hear from the Graceland album, but the fact is, I am sick of that song. I haven't listened to it in years, but because it conjures Chevy Chase in my mind, I can't dig it. I decided not to overthink it and went with my original choice. Graceland the album shows up the problem with the iPod approach; its a great album in its entirety, and even Al is tolerable in its midst.

Update 2: Ahem, Apple/iTunes employee-readers. Among your library's glaring omissions is a distinct lack of Larry Hargrove's "Leave Bill Clinton Alone". Not that its accessible to children, I was just feeling nostalgic for some Arkansas Red.

5 Random Things

I have taken it upon myself to be "tagged" by tk to have to tell 5 random things about myself. At least, I think that's the exercise. Here goes:

1. I am drawn to this exercise because I love lists. I make To Do lists with things that I have already done on them, so I can cross those things off. In the movie High Fidelity, I was so distracted by the lists (and not by John Cusack's sexuality, which I felt certain was hetero), that I mentally started making my own lists during the movie, in my head. I was also distracted by the Steve Walters rock posters, which impressed me as being so authentically Chicago indie rock that I could almost ignore the geographical inaccuracies in that movie. Other lists have gotten me in trouble. When I went to college, I had a list of guys I had kissed written in a journal and my two best friends discovered it, and I still hear about it (mostly because I am married to one them - the best friends, not the guys . . . I mean, my husband is a guy, but I don't think he was on the list at that time.) I have books full of lists I have made just sitting around.

2. My decision to move to California was motivated in large part by a knee injury I had suffered the winter before I moved out here from Chicago. I was walking Flynn, and I slipped on some of that thick thick gray ice, hyper-extending my knee. Four months of physical therapy. When I got a job offer at this random place in Oakland, one of the first thoughts I had was, "No more ice, no more freezing cold." Strangely, it took a few minutes to think, "What about your boyfriend, your car, the fact you're taking the IL bar???" which I think means I was ready to leave Chicago.

3. When my mom moved my sister and I away from Indiana to New Jersey, I was so angry. In retrospect, I know I was angry about a lot of things, but the way I expressed it at the time was to be angry about leaving Indiana. "You are ruining my life!!" was a common refrain. My feelings of anger and isolation were deepened when my new fourth grade teacher in NJ made fun of me for saying, "Connect-i-cut" rather than "Connett-i-cut" (it's subtle, but say it out loud and you will realize what a rube I was).

4. I've probably never even talked to TK and yet I feel like I have known him for over 13 years, which is how long I've known JFB. Met JB in 1992 at a frat party. He was wearing a Big Black t-shirt, and I thought "flirting" was making fun of Big Black. Ahh, life was simple then. Actually it's even simpler now. JFB has also spoken highly of TK but my lasting memories include such gems as, "What's it like to be a fucking moron?" Truly brilliant, TK. I [heart] your blog.

5. University of Chicago: I went to the U of C for three reasons (another list): a) In The Bell Jar, Plath writes that she met some young men from Chicago and they were very wierd; b) It was far far away from New Jersey, and specifically my classmates at the all-girls' Catholic school I attended; and c) when I was sophomore in high school, E, a senior who I looked up to (she was one of three 'punks' that year) got into Princeton. Her mom rushed to school with the acceptance letter, but when E saw it, she burst into tears and said, "But I want to go to the University of Chicago!" (She did). Other reasons include a decent financial aid package and the rare opportunity to seem like the most socially adjusted person in the world.

Okay, that's it. I tag Seamus, T&A, M and the other M.

Almost As Good As Watching It

Well, not really. But tidbits about the filming of next season of The Wire are starting to pop up. For example, they were filming at The Washington Post offices a few weeks ago. Football fans who are not Wire fans, and vice versa: the Michael Vick cameo news is probably not true, but rather a joke about Method Man's/Cheese's run-in with Bawlmor Homicide. "He was ma dawg."

heh heh. I don't even care if you think I am being annoying about my obsession with this show. I realize that my persisent boosterism of The Wire may actually be preventing you from watching it. In the best light, maybe you are worried that you won't like it, and you'll feel as though you've disappointed me. More likely you think, once you watch it, I will talk about it endlessly to you. Well, I won't. That's what I have a husband, and a blog, for. So watch the damn show. PLEASE. Thank you. Now I'm over it again for a few more months.

Ohmigod.

Is it true? Is John Cusack gay??

Non sequitor: I once saw Joan Cusack at a little restaurant in Chicago, with her husband and two kids. She had just had her second baby. As in, she looked like maybe she had stopped at the restaurant on her way home from the hospital. She seemed like a good mom. This would have been in 2000. Just f your i.

This Week's Experiment in Child-Rearing

Last Friday night, Mr. S proclaimed that Q-ball would need to learn to sleep through the night in his play pen in our room in preparation for moving in with his big brother. Parents know this problem: Getting Your Kids To Sleep (a) Alone or (b) In The Same Room. It's like trying to decipher the Rambaldi Prophesies or something using only sleep deprivation and the odor of pee-pee as your clues. It's one of the many things about parenting where you find yourself thinking (or rather, I find myself thinking): I am a grown-up with several advanced degrees. I can navigate the New York and London subway systems and have driven in LA. I am smart and pretty and my tongue is pink. Why won't this baby/child (INSERT WHAT I WANT THEM TO DO)?

We've had varying degrees of success over the past several nights, and I want to say this: I am sorry to all of our house guests for making you sleep on a pull-out couch where your head is tilted just slightly below your body at all time.

A friend just sent me this link, and I had really high hopes that it would offer some insight into getting kids to stay asleep all night. But the essence of the millions-dollar study described is, parents whose children don't sleep through the night have health problems, including depression, and you should try to get your kids to sleep through the night. Come ON. Throw me a freakin' bone here, people. Please explain what you are (I am) supposed to do when the children's crying becomes an endless feedback loop, and sleep is impossible for everyone.

I realize that this is probably the number one most mundane blog post ever. Tough tatas. It's hard out here for a pimp. Etc etc. Just send advice.

All's Quiet in Whoville

For weeks now, I have been trawling the BPN newsletters in hopes of finding something really outrageous for your reading pleasure. It's been frustrating to not find anything. Okay sure there was some back-and-forth about internet porn, and an almost-good-enough exchange about whether the Berkeley water supply is safe to mix with infant formula. But only one person had this asinine response:

Our water has chloromine in it, which is a mixture of chlorine and ammonia. It kills fish, you have to treat it before replacing aquarium water. I think EBMUD says it's fine to drink, but I have a filter on my tap at home which filters this out (among other things). I wouldn't give it to my baby, child, teenager or friends. I hope that helps.

What about your enemies?

How do people not die from the stress of worrying about all these things?

The next best thing was the person whose mind-warp too-green-to-live problem was that her high efficiency washing machine cannot clean cloth diapers. I wish I had seen the original post so I could say, "go ahead and let your head explode." Finally there's the buzz about the Georgia child who died from her 'vegan' diet (the child was actually starved to death, not fed millet and, you know, wheat germ to death). I am not one to defend vegans, but "murderer" is a bummer of a rap to give people who assiduously avoid killing stuff.

Clean-up

Here's Paris Hilton's dad on parenting.

Question: What is the name of the phenomenon whereby you are more depressed about someone's life than they are? Is there a name for that? Where even the silver linings of their life cause you despair? check out www dot jedavidson dot blogspot dot com. You will have to type it out yourself because I don't want Jan to know my thoughts on her life. That would depress me even more.

Thanks to Ms. Birthday in Paris for the links. Now that you're a member of the blogosphere, though, you should learn to hoard the good links for yourself, the way EOH did with his breastmilk story.

Only the Tiniest of Victories

I have gotten the backlog of emails in my Inbox down to 29. I am so psyched about this.

The Defense Rests

When a friend of mine recently slagged the Aramark staff at the Coliseum (see Executive Orc House. I can't link because I'm "liveblogging" from the beer line), I was half-inspired to defend these off-proud union members 'o mine. But now that I have missed one whole inning and have moved 3 inches ONLY because other outraged consumers have quit the line, I will join the chorus (of one) naysayers in hating the Coliseum crap-slingers.

Negative Wishlist for My Memorial Planner

I went to a funeral today, and it occurred to me that all my last wishes may not be known. Just so its out there:

1. Do not include a reference to the Harry Potter books in my obituary.

2. Do not use the phrase "the romance of a train whistle" in the eulogy.

3. Do not call me a chick magnet.

4. Do not let anyone from my Ham radio club speak.

5. No songs from the soundtrack to Charlotte's Web should be played.

6. Do not let the funeral director speak. Or even attend, frankly.

The Significance of Cultural Memory

I saw a bumper sticker for the Orinda Park Pool today that really drove home for me (no pun intended) the significance, nay, necessity of cultural memory. The Orinda Park Pool acronym suggests that no one in Orinda remembers Naughty by Nature. Alternately, it means that there is a real trickster at play in the Bumper Sticker Department at OPP. Maybe "Sting OPP" was supposed to be moralistic?

Dispatches from Distant Ys

A farflung correspondent writes: “besides doctor's orders for the ymca, there is a whole grand tradition at the worcester branch of the "mens lounge."  you might think you'd catch a few minutes of the red sox there, but you'd need to do it next to overweight guys stark naked who leave bear ass prints in the pleather seats.  its also dank and poorly lit, something from a nightmare.”

 

Wow. That really paints a picture, huh?

Radio Notes

I heard a radio edit version of Kanye West’s All Fall Down today where they blanked out “crack” and “crackhead”. The line is “dealer buy Jordan/crackhead buy crack/white man get paid offa all of that.” I never knew “they” censored “those” words. And who are they? The White Man? Why is “crack” a bad word? It’s a bad thing, but is the word “bad”? My best guess is that they censor words that might cause young children, say three-and-a-half year-olds, ask difficult questions that parents don’t want to answer. For example, I wish I had used better judgment than to show L. this picture,

which immediately resulted in the following questions: Is that pig died? How did he die? Did somebody gun that pig? (and then repeated 6,732 times.)

In other radio thoughts, NPR proved itself a meritocracy today. True talent is the only explanation for how a man named Ira Flay-Toe, with the voice that he has, could be given a radio show. Or extremely effective blackmailing. I didn’t actually listen to the show to confirm his talent, but I will take it on faith that he is excellent at his Science Friday duties.