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The whole trip, and my whole point, really came into focus when we were going home. After leaving Tahoe and heading towards the airport in Reno to fly back, we passed a big billboard with my picture advertising the shows. I said “Hey, kids, look. See your old man up there?” They were completely unfazed. It might as well have been a billboard for a local RV dealership. I banged a U-turn and went back for a second lap to see if I could muster a modicum of enthusiasm from the kids. But like so many who have gone to Reno before, I came up snake eyes.
That story might make you think I’m a horrible dad and a greedy asshole ogre. But by the end of this book I also hope to lay out a strong defense for why being a dad in today’s society will drive me insane and possibly to an early grave.
I am reminded of a conversation I once had with Mark McGrath of Sugar Ray. Mark is a great guy and genuinely fu
He’s right. Keeping the lights on, paying the mortgage, feeding the kids, going out and earning all day at whatever profession you have is now a zero. That gets you back to even. This is not an indictment of our families; it’s just how our culture has gone. It’s like smoking pot. Back in the 1950s it was considered an activity second only to bestiality in how deplorable it was. Now everyone is firing up everywhere, no problem. You can’t go to the Mac store without getting a contact high. What would have been unimaginable and shameful back in the day is common and accepted.
Divorce lawyers, start your engines. If any part of this book is going to lead to the end of my marriage, it’s what I’m going to say next. But it has to be said: women are no longer holding up their part of the societal bargain. Men were supposed to bring home the bacon and women were supposed to cook it. That just isn’t the case these days.
One morning, I walked in to see Lynette watching a rerun of I Love Lucy. It was an episode in which Ricky was complaining to Lucy about how hard it was being a working man, and Lucy returning the complaint that it is very hard cooking, cleaning and keeping up a house. Then it went into the hackneyed sitcom premise of them switching roles. I feel like that lame-ass idea was part of every sitcom produced before 1990. Lucy had to get out the help-wanted ads and find a job, which she inevitably failed at, but Ricky also learned a valuable lesson by fucking up the eggs and toast that he had to make for his breadwi
So I’m watching Lynette watch this show about gender roles after having made my own coffee and breakfast, which consisted of dumping some Planters peanuts into a cup. I realized that this premise would never fly today. Men have work-work and housework. It’s demeaning for women to cook and clean. But if a man decided he wasn’t going to go out and earn a living, he’d be considered a deadbeat. My house has a maid, and my kids have a na
Not an exaggeration, by the way. I came home from a gig at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles, probably the biggest venue I’ve ever played, to find green and blue nail polish on So
Nowadays, telling your wife “I have to work” gets you a disappointed sigh. This is the worst period in history to be a dad. It used to be that if you worked and provided that was enough. On the weekend, you tossed the ball around with your boy or had a tea party with your little girl, and that was plenty. Now we’re expected to be present for every kindergarten graduation and bowel movement our kid makes, applauding them the entire time, while simultaneously keeping the bank account full. And all the loser dads who have trust funds or wives who bring home all the money make earners like me look like shit.
So I don’t agree with the assertion that I’m an asshole misogynist because I think it would be nice to smell a little pot roast when I come home. Going through a ten-hour day, and then coming home to flip a coin to see who’s going to head down the hill and pick up the Chinese food that then eliminates the money earned in the last hour of that ten-hour day just sucks.
I suspect that this is because the workplace has changed. At the turn of the last century, guys used to go to work in a hole in the ground or out on a farm or in a factory. They’d come home covered in coal dust, except for the salt outline from their sweat stains. That was if they even came home at all. Work was more dangerous back then, and thus was appreciated. So when their ass hit that wooden chair at the di
My problem is that coming home with makeup on and complaining about the satellite delay to The O’Reilly Factor doesn’t garner me much sympathy. I nearly killed myself doing construction before show business, but the fact is that I’m killing myself now, too. It sucks sometimes, and I need my family to know this.
An example of the disco
The one that took the cake was in Watts. That’s the section of South Central Los Angeles that was destroyed by riots in 1965, and looks like it still hasn’t recovered. This is not a place you want to be. And the place you least want to be in Watts is crammed in a poorly renovated six-by-eight windowless bathroom with two cameramen, blazing hot lights, stuck between an angry Mexican contractor and an even angrier black homeowner. I’m standing there yelling at a contractor, “Look at this open sewage pipe, these people have been breathing this,” and then realizing I’m breathing it in myself.
The only thing that could make my day worse was knowing where my kids were at that moment. The night before, I checked my schedule, and saw that it was time for the Watts bathroom shoot. I was complaining to Lynette about having to go back there and asked her what her plan was for the day. She told me it was Presidents’ Day so the kids were off school. That meant big plans. “Natalia, her friend Cami, Cami’s mom, So