GUEST POST: RYAN & AMY'S WEDDING

The Dream Team, Photographer Edition.
Congratulations to bride and groom, Amy and Ryan White!
‪#‎TetherowGolfClub‬ ‪#‎BendOregon‬
@jonnylong15 @josselynpeterson @josephivanlong

- Meilani Long

photo: Meilani Long ©2015

MOM'S DAY.

Magic,
Countess,
you are magic.
Or at least unexplainable science.
A jolly Mum's day to you.
Thanks for being a treat.
You are kind of neat.

Add caption

MOTHER'S DAY 2014

Sometimes when I was younger, I would worry that my mom might forget about me, or lose me, and that is why I developed an interest in creating systems and processes that solve recurring problems such as this, as illustrated here. The genius of my system has been validated in the decades since, as my mom has rarely forgotten about me, and has always gotten my back, although she's not strong enough anymore to carry me around anymore in a backpack, which is sad and makes me question her physical endurance. 

Mom, there are so many liars out there today that I don't want to compete with, so I'm going to avoid using the B-word and just say: thanks for not merely teaching your kids how to win at games other people have invented, but to create our own games, thus perpetually ensuring success. I still wish you would have taught me how to win at basketball though, because it would feel good to be the best basketball player in the world, and I'm not, so that's definitely an area where you could have done better. Aside from that, you have performed competently, with flashes of magnificence, and in many ways, you remind me of a really good mom, and actually you are. Thanks, and we've got your back too. HMD.

ART: REAL ESTATE, MEN, AND ANGEL.

I stopped by to see my friend Art at the music store this afternoon; took coffee & donut from Blue Star and got a few of his current listening faves:

* The Men - Tomorrow's Hits

* Real Estate - Atlas

* Hospitality - Trouble

* Angel Olsen - Burn Your Fire for No Witness ("think...that old Patsy Cline sound")

We also spoke briefly of Neil Finn and his recent record, Dizzy Heights, which neither of us has heard yet.

____

Blue Star Donuts. What a place. Great donuts, great music, great coffee, great location, great people. Saw Christian this afternoon, who remembered me amidst the many people who pass through.

"Where's the kids?"

He asked.

With their mom at Powell's,

I explained.

We chatted music for a couple minutes, told him about our October arrival, etcetera. Sent me away with a complementary chocolate hazelnut donut.

Have I mentioned I LOVE Blue Star?

SW 13th & Washington.

____

Becca finished up day two of the dental convention. So proud of her and the pride she takes in her profession and in being enthusiastic about learning and ongoing education.

____

EIGHTIES LADIES, MY MATIES.
I have a special place in my heart for rambunctious, loud old women, even when they check me out and make suggestive remarks, and in the case of one, wink at me in the coffee shop and laugh raucously, which is why I smiled back and waved even though they totally objectified me. I am more than a pretty face. But, they were kind of adorable themselves, so...we'll call it even this time around.

MY LITTLE SISTER.

Sister.

We have celebrated decades of birthdays together.

Including this, from ten years past.

May there be years, decades and centuries more.

Love you lots. Plus infinity. 

Ask Micael to surprise you and buy you a big hat for your b-day. 

You should have one. Maybe in magenta.

Happy day.

Jos

UPON THIS ROCK.

SANTA IN ELEVATOR IN WHEELCHAIR.

A Little Boy and His Knives (If I Am Ever Mad at My Son in the Future, I Will Think of This Evening and My Heart Will Grow Soft)

Some children go to bed with their soft teddy bears.
Some children go to bed with their snuggly blankets.
This is my son. He is headed off to bed with his knives.

Yes. These are his knives. Pronounced "knife-EZ." And they go to bed with him. Every single one of them. To snuggle.

Good night, world. 

Johannes and his knives (2013.02.19)

Just to Keep Things in Perspective:


I tucked Johannes in once, and left, and then I missed him. So I went back and whispered to him in the dark:

I love you, buddy.

- I love you, Daddy.

Thanks for being such a wonderful boy.

- Thanks for being such a wonderful boy, he whispered back.

I'll come lay by you in a little bit, okay?

- Mommy's going to sleep with me. You can sleep with Sissy.

****

Message to my cousin Bobby on his 33rd birthday:

from Left: Joseph, Bobby, Josh, Leanna (February 19, 1984)

It was the winter of 1984.
The coast was cold and spirits were high.
Doves crying and Bono was a boy and Foreigner was cool,
and it was the rockingest birthday ever because...well, look at us. 
Iconic. 
Even though you got a bigger piece of cake than I did. Butthead.

Love you, Blood. Hope today has rocked hard, like Tom Waits covering the Carpenters. See you soon and get a big birthday-hug from the Jenny, from me. 

The Most Normal Day in the History of Forever

- Let's have oats for breakfast.

It's not called 'oats,' it's called 'oatmeal!'

The Day Begins / 2013.01.02

Masters of the Universe, Unite! (Some Days, Nobody Understands You Better Than Your Nemesis).

The Day Ends / 2013.01.02

Daddy, Hulk is being rude. He's making a face that  I don't like. He's being mean.

- Johannes, eating oatmeal and inspecting his new Avengers bowl this morning. The superhero pantheon, mashed up with Star Wars, Sesame Street, and various fairy tales, has been on his mind much lately.


Song of the Day : Lo Boob Oscillator / Stereolab

Five Things About the Only First Day of the Only 2013 That Will Ever Exist In This Universe

01.
I wish something bad would happen so I could call 9-1-1.

- Magdelana, 5

Sadly, her wish went unfulfilled.


02. 
A Visual Depiction of the Dynamic Range of Universal Emotions the World Will Experience Over the Coming Year.

2013.01.01

It was a very windy day. 

Windy days do not make everyone cheerful.

03. 

Conversation with Johannes (2.5) at bedtime:

Daddy, is Superman real?

- Umm...well, who do you know that is real?

Batman? Hulk?

- Almost. Try one more.

You are real.

- Yep, that is correct. I am real. 

And owls are real.

- Yep, owls are real.

No, owls aren't real!

- Yep. Owls are real, Johannes.

Oh. And lights are real. Christmas lights are real. And Bob is real.

- Bob? You mean Bob your dolly? The one laying next to you in bed who's already sleeping, like you should be?

Yeah. Bob is real.

- Okay...are you pretending that Bob is real, like we pretend Superman is real?

Yeah. And drumsticks are real. They're for playing drums.

- Yep. 

04.

Great-Grumpy with Children Reading Newspapers.

2013.01.01

05.

Things I did today:

- Made a pot of really good coffee and enjoyed a couple cups with my bride and sister-in-law.

- Weighed myself and remembered I forgot to exercise last year.

- Ate some creamy & delicious potato soup that my mother-in-law invented.

- Played a card game with my in-laws in which my attempts to cheat were foiled, and I lost, as usual, making the beginning of the year a very depressing one.

- Had the shower go cold halfway through, which leads me to suspect that the year ahead really will be horrid.

- Had a coffee date with Becca in order to make a list of resolutions and plan for the year ahead, and the primary thing we figured out is that we need to have many more coffee dates in order to figure things out.

- Am writing this while my wife is paying bills next to me.

- Looking forward to maybe - maybe - starting the Joseph-Gordon Levitt sci-fi thriller Looper this evening. Maybe.

We'll see. Hello, Twenty-Thirteen. I'll be around.

Song of the Day: Rose Rouge / St. Germaine

A TREATISE ON ARCHETYPES AND HOW THE BEASTIE BOYS AND THE BEACH BOYS DON'T ACTUALLY SOUND THAT SIMILAR, IN CASE YOU AND MY DAD ARE WONDERING.

When I was a little kid, I thought my dad was really cool.

Later, when I was a teenager, I thought my dad was really…

cool.

Let me explain.


1990. Me, my Dad, and 11-year old sister Leanna

I would sit by by my stereo, the one I bought with mowing money, and listen to Portland radio station Q105 with a blank cassette tape and my sketchbook, listening for songs to identify, hoping that the DJ would actually mention the artist's name so I'd know who it was. There was no Pandora. There was no Google or Shazam or Spotify. I didn't even have a CD player (those were still early adoption luxury).

I would save up my money from hustling yard work and selling gift wrap door-to-door. I would buy blank tapes to record songs off the radio, and when I discovered a handful of songs I really liked, I would go to the local music store and pore over selections. Van Halen or Danger Danger. Poison or John Waite. Mariah Carey or Milli Vanilli. Bonham or Dio. Taylor Dayne or Alannah Myles.

Came home from school one afternoon with my new purchase. So excited. I played it soft. Played it loud. Mostly loud. Played it for my eight-year old brother Josh. Then I thought of the person I was most excited to play it for, who would think, "Okay, I agree with you Joseph…this is the greatest song ever."

So when my dad got home, I said Dad you HAVE to come hear this song. It is SO GOOD. You are going to love it. You gotta come in here.

So he came out to my room, which was a little conclave off the garage, formerly inhabited by a hairy dog, which I sometimes kept about as clean as that dog probably did. Clicked the cassette into place, and pressed play, and the opening, now unmistakable chords came on. Crunch Pause. Crunch. And then:

The voices, in tandem, kicked in, and I just started smiling, and my dad and I stand there, me smiling, with the Beastie Boys rocking through their fratboy-parodying phase with (You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party).

You wake up late for school - man you don't wanna goYou ask your mom, "Please?" - but she still says, "No!"You missed two classes - and no homeworkBut your teacher preaches class like you're some kind of jerk

If there are two individuals who are more un-like A) the son in this story and B) the father in this story, then it would be the C) two people standing in the bedroom in that very moment listening to the 1986 party pastiche of punk, metal, and rap.

Your pop caught you smoking - and he said, "No way!"That hypocrite - smokes two packs a dayMan, living at home is such a dragNow your mom threw away your best porno mag (Bust it!)

As I later became interested in the pop culture and music histories of my adolescent era, I learned that it was a very particular early phase of the Beastie Boys that they quickly distanced themselves from, as they became political agitators more focused on weighty topics and his honorable Mr. Dalai Llama. But at the time, their party standard was the apex of teenage rebellion; the score for Youth Gone Wild and a billion insurgent fistpumping moments. I didn't realize this until later though. It was a fist in the face of authority and hierarchy that was represented by every person over the age of 20. A song about archetypes.

Funny thing about archetypes is that they rarely exist. They are like a shadow that disappears; once you become familiar with something, you begin to realise it's not really an archetype (archetype = fancier and more specific way of stereotyping something, like the simple, universal character that is instantly recognizable to most people. Think:

ARCHETYPES
the Wise Old Man (Merlin)

the Wicked Stepmother (Cinderella, Parent Trap)

the Eccentric Mentor (Mr. Miyagi in Karate Kid),

the Knight in Shining Armor (King Arthur, Galahad, Qui-Gon Jinn)

the Rebellious Teenager (Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye)

In reality, archetypes are like a second cousin to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in science, which states that you change an event simply by observing it (specifically referring to particles in quantum physics :). Once you examine an archetype, it starts to lose its universality; it changes and becomes specific and detailed. And has a name. It starts to become something with an identity, a specific identity of its own. No longer archetype. The easy-to-classify Rebellious Teenager trope becomes

a 14-year old kid with a name, an identity, and a specific series of motivations, desires, and interests that stand a good chance of being shared if they're taken seriously and respected.


Steve McQueen cool, 1990-style

I never really thought that I represented the kid in the song, and I never really thought that my dad represented the father in the song. It is a great song (probably the Greatest Song Ever), but I don't know why I was convinced, as a 14-year old, that my father would think it was so cool too.

So you're wondering what he did. This is what he did: he listened to it in the same manner that he listened to the Beach Boys or Roger Whittaker, with incredible intensity, head bobbing, tapping his foot, one eye quinted. I imagine many thoughts roaming round his head about how to handle, or how to talk with his teenage son about listening to a song that is the very paragon of teenage rebellion, and in addition to being an antagonistic denouncement of parental authority, also casually references smoking and pornography. So I don't know exactly what he was thinking. For some strange reason, I don't remember feeling discomfort, which seems odd.

At some point, perhaps my teenage son will discover the Beastie Boys du jour, and I would like to think that I will respond sort of like my dad did. Which was:

to tap his feet and bob his head in a really nerdly way, and just be there. In the moment.

Not out of affirmation for the song. Not out of affirmation for the message or lifestyle contained in the song. But out of affirmation for me; his teenage son, and the message he wordlessly conveyed:

"This is important to you. So I'm going to take you seriously. Most importantly, you wanted to share this with me when you didn't have to. You have opened communication with me. I'm going to keep that open. And I'm just going to say something like "Wow That's an awfully catchy song. Thanks for sharing."

That's the kind of choice I hope I can make.

Time to go play the groovy new Trent Reznor Christmas album.

****

The Beastie Boys
(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party)Licensed to Ill
1986

Portrait of An Artist with Bandana and Boots Creating Art

My goal is to do something I have never done before:

Blog every day for a month.

Even if it's just posting a little picture or photograph.

Happy Month of December, universe!

October 19, 2012 / photograph: Joseph Ivan Long

I never tire of watching Johannes pick up pen, pencil, crayon, or marker and begin elaborately, deliberately creating his mini-masterpieces that are usually titled with names like 

Heavy Mans

or

Funny Monster

The ink may run dry and the graphite may break, but the batteries never run out.

Pink (Ode to My Son)

He might like trucks and
he might like dolls.


I hope he helps his dolls
drive his trucks.


Someday his sister's frilly tutu
will fit him
and he might want to wear it
which means we'll have to find one to fit me too.


I hope he will dance like a maniac.


Maybe he'll play football and hit very hard.


Maybe he'll ice skate and leap very high.

I want him to grow up and be
himself all along the way.


And keep the optimism and
curiousity and imagination of


CHILDHOOD


so I can keep clinging to it too.


Boots and blue and ammo belts,
swing a hammer and


BE TOUGH!


Little boys are like this
and
Little girls are like that.


Raise your fist, son,
to those who tell
you The Rules for (y)our gender.


Be Martin Luther,
King, do not bow to old patriarchs,
at venerated notions of manliness.


To be a man is to be yourself.
That is what I want you to be.


Do not prove your masculinity by
disparaging
Hugh Grant and rom coms.


(Thou dost protest too much)


Construct, deconstruct,
do not destruct
yourself or others.


Build up, be a bridge, open doors
for everyone.


There is a time to fix
and a time to listen.


Be a leader, and remember
to let others lead too.


A loud voice doesn't make you a leader. Sing.
Be kind.


There is an art director who got in
     hot water
for photographing her young son
     wearing
bright pink nail polish, which he liked.


     "There's got to be a 
     DIFFERENCE
     between boys and girls,"


the wise ones say.


     "Otherwise it gets confusing.
     We've got to protect those differences
      and keep things un-confusing."


Which made so much sense 
a century ago.


They have their drinking fountain, and
     we have ours,


spoke Plessy vs. Ferguson in 1896. And that's how things were,
for another 58 years.


Hunters and gatherers,
Protectors and warriors
     returning


to the caregivers, the
matrons and mothers and childraisers.


It is embedded from an early age
what toys and colours and traits


      Boys Like,


innocuously, innocently, an open feedback
loop of preconceptions turned into actions that
create self-fulfilling reality.


      Boys argue.
      Boys fight.
      Boys are about Action.


      Girls gossip.
      Girls bicker.
      Girls are about Talking.

My problem is not that there is no historic or biological reasons for differences between gender.


      MY PROBLEM


is when these traits are treated as inviolable facts, as raison d'etre for how one gender or the other responds to a given situation in life.


If Johannes grows up loving yellow Tonka trucks and camouflage attire,
     that is fine.


If Johannes grows up loving pink dolls and purple kilts,
     that is fine.


Being a man is developing the self-confidence to be yourself, to like what you want, to live how you want, to approach life with your own rulebook, not one that's been handed to you by a centuries-old code of gender expectations.


There is a troglodytic paranoia that for a 
little boy
to grow up playing with the wrong things or
liking the wrong toys
will turn him into something not...
     blue-blooded manly.


Be kind. Be respectful. Be curious and imaginative.
Those are my commandments, son.


There is nothing,
     NOTHING
that will ever make me disown, or
turn my back on my son.


MY PROBLEM
is when people make assumptions about what kind of person
he will be.


He is eleven months old,
and the wise ones make their assumptions already, because
that's the way Little Boys are.


Why are so many fathers disengaged from
     their children's lives?


(because)
They grew up with embedded ideas and
expectations of what Men do 
     and what
Women do.


And raising children is still looked at by many
as a Woman's Job.


Dad can step in at some point when the kid's
old enough to start hunting, playing football,
     or dating cheerleaders, and


     catch him up on "the guy stuff."


Another cycle continues.


     "This is who I am expected to be,
     therefore that must be who I am,"


     the implicit idea.


"You're not a normal guy," I have heard,
     an ambiguous compliment?


Thank you, I think.


I am not betraying my gender. I am proud to be a Man.


     Tarzan.
     Korak.
     Conan, I roar.


I am proud to be me.
There are many like me, similar,


     'not normal,'


and with raised melodic gorilla voices,
maybe our sons will someday be the


     New Normal.


Men of strength and kindness, confidence and humility,
     empathy and
     humor,
     proud to acknowledge the beauty in the world
     and


     to build lasting relationships of love and respect.


Son, I love you. Let's go paint our nails.

Bumped

excerpt from 4.25
1.03pm.
Indianapolis Airport. Magdelana and I are an hour-and-a-half early for our scheduled 2.29 flight.

Airports smell good, mostly. Which is good, because airplanes do not smell good, mostly. We buy some gum, tater tots, and water, and admire the installations and sculptures. Also, Magdelana sings, loudly. Nothing specific, just the faux-English, Sigur Ros-channeling dialect she has been developing.

Odie odie hay ong omie omie say /
My say oh my ohsay yoh odie my may

We board our United flight, a few minutes late. The red-haired gate attendant, Katrina, is not friendly. She does not smile, or acknowledge me when I say thank you and inquire how her day is going. It is obviously not a lovely day for her. I notice out of my eye's corner, that the other attendant (I later learn he is Mr. Patel) is returning the phone to its hook with a thundering gracelessness.

Our seats are on opposite sides of the aisle, so I ask a gentlemen with no moustache if he might be willing to switch. He is nice, and does. Magdelana commandeers the window seat, and immediately begins sharing her thoughts on the plane's aroma, loudly.

Phew, it smells really really really awful, she groans repeatedly, not to the amusement of the first class gentleman eating Chinese takeout.



We settle into our seats. Mags peruses the contents of her precious blue bag.

• Stickers
• Art supplies
• Notebook
• Non-working cellphone
• 300 hair ties & scrunchies
• Ten dollars in change she has thieved from my wallet over the last month

We wait. And wait. The flight attendants have a sort of headless chicken aimlessness about them, peppered with an air of panicked irritation. We keep waiting.

Finally, an announcement is made: will somebody give up their seat, in exchange for a ticket voucher and a later flight?
Short version: I ask if they'll double up. We'll give up our two seats and take a couple ticket vouchers, a later flight, meal and hotel, and a suitcase of cash.  Okay, they say, so Mags and I grab our bags. We are heroes. Now, the plane can depart.

To the ticket counter. I meet Mr. Patel, who is slamming the phone down again. No. No. No. Absolutely not! (and then the phone slams)

For the next 45 minutes, we haggle out details. Our original flight soars away, though there still seems to be some issue over a missing flight attendant who stomped off somewhere (seriously).

Our flight is scheduled for five-something the next morning, but Mr. Patel suddenly gets a message, or call, or something from somewhere.

We can get you out tonight...actually, on the next flight. Are you interested?
- Uhh....yeah. 
So we hop in the next line for O'Hare, instead of D.C.




We make the short jog to Chicago. I read aloud Around the World in 80 Days. At O'Hare, we spend $45 in meal vouchers on a veggie sandwich, raisin bagel, eight-dollar peanut butter smoothie, and four Naked juices at $4.25 a pop. Mags is almost sleeping on her feet, but gets a shot of adrenaline* from a bottle of apple juice. We dine on the floor next to a fivesome of United crew. One, a Japanese flight attendant, is sprawled across three seats, sleeping. I aggressively and unsuccessfully work to not pull a double-take, as her slumbering skirt is pulled far above her knees, Abercrombie & Fitch-style while she gracefully rests (I do not sleep gracefully, I am told).  The captain keeps peeking at her, I think. Some things take a conscious effort to do. Or not do. I call Becca and tell her I accidentally looked a second and third and fourth time. She laughs and then gets furious and then laughs and we both laugh.

P.S. She was not furious.



Finally, we board our 5.43. This aeroplane smells too. We read some more. We sit on the tarmac, again. I wonder how long it will be until we take off.

Patience! Magdelana reminds me. Patience!
We fly up, at last. Mags conks out at 6.25, snuggled against me. She is wiped out.

I love her so much, my little adventuring travel buddy.



We arrive at PDX fifteen minutes earlier than our original flight, which is good. And then I get a phone call while we are disembarking and find out that our house has been robbed, which is not good.

The End.

*sugar

A Day in the Forest, a Day in the City

I did not intend to be away all day. But I was. We were. There was bubble-blowing and hiking; parking lot races and window shopping; park swinging and neighborhood strolling. And colours are blooming. Unlike the majority of humanity, I love flowers.

Also, Magdelana found a colony of ants. They were not inside our house, so I liked them.

Uno, Dos, Tres

I will defeat you,
I guaranteed,

glaring at Jonny and Jamey, and
at my bride and daughter.

The match began. Coalitions formed and dissolved.
Cheaters (me) tried and failed.
Bluster, banter, gutsy maneuvers and strategic shenanigans.

In the end, gleeful high-fives from a
fast-dealing cherubim.
Red-Six faceup card.

Adults zero, Daughter one.

Who is ____?

Who is John Galt?

Atlas Shrugged opens with a brakeman on a train whistling a tune. A symphony. A symphony of triumph.  A lady insistently inquires what is this composition he sings.  He brushes her off. She thought: For just a few moments-while this lasts-it is all right to surrender completely-to forget everything and just permit yourself to feel.

Fast forward through endless paragraphs of rhetoric and proselytizing. We are in Ms. Rand's Garden of Superheroes ("Galt's Gulch"), where a utopian compound of the best and brightest seclude themselves from the mediocre and the mundane; punishing the world by removing their genius from it. The composer of the breathtaking symphony, Richard Halley, resides here amongst those who would restart the world's motor. And spirit.

I was working earlier tonight and heard familiar chords pounding from the next room. Jeremy playing piano. One of the joys of having him live with us is getting free concerts every night while he rehearses on strings and keys. I listened, and it was beautiful, as usual. But something different; a fresh composition. I did not recognize it.

I ran to the dark room where he played and stood by his side. I listened and my eyes got a little raindroppy. It had not been a bad day. Just a day, a  decent day. But I stood next to him listening and the memories of a thousand minutes bleeped through in abstract colour as I thought of nothing in particular. Listened, and felt, and tried to capture the two minutes in my mind for eternity. Moments that are impossible to recreate, to recapture, or to relive. Some moments you expect to be momentous, like experiencing the birth of a child.

Other moments just happen in the midst of chaos. There is no time to prepare;  you just know it is something special. You accept the moment as a surprise gift.

I work in the visual arts; my greatest gift as a musician is being a vocal proponent of actual musicians, and occasionally designing stuff to complement their melodies. Music is an art form that is in its own unique and transcendent category in the creative universe. You can have music that makes you think a lot, like Bob Dylan. You can have music that makes you feel a lot, like Jeremy M. Long (there is much of both heart and head, with both sly folksters).

There is something about the ability of the right music at the right time to arrest your soul; to inspire and refresh and leech out toxins of the spirit.

I am glad my little brother makes music. I will do everything possible to support him making it for the world. His compositions should not be hidden, or tucked away, or confined to elite congregations of secret superheroes.

I do not even know if this song has a name yet. He finished and asked what I thought. I did not answer. I did not wish to shatter magic. I never told him what I thought. I did not cry. I left.

Who is Jeremy M. Long?

Rebel With Cause

February 19

Portland

SW 2nd & Pine

Waiting

1. The Greatest / Cat Power
2. Jeanne, If You're Ever in Portland / Casiotone for the Painfully Alone
3. Another One Goes By / the Walkmen

Saturday night 1.15

Billion raindrops race down windshield. Johannes grunt-slumbers in carseat behind, cheerful smileyhead and indispensable fourth leg in our funny family table.

We spend a lot of time driving, riding, getting from place to place. Also spend a lot of time at traffic lights, in grocery checkout lines, and waiting for a million miscellaneous things or people or events to materialise.

Johannes and I are waiting for Becca and Mags. They are in a Missoula Children's Theater interpretation of "Arthur's Quest." We were all going to go, but upon arriving decided that Big Johanni's muscly almost-seven months old wasn't quite big enough for an hour-long performance with a full audience. So Magdelana and Becca bought a twenty-five cent cookie and grabbed seats.

4. Color of the Love You Have / the Sound Team

JXIL and I walked around Washougal High, then stomped back to our automobile, stuck in a 2006 mix of Yo La Tengo, Cat Power & friends, and took a Saturday evening drive through the hills and faux-fjords of Mt. Norway. Rain thundered, we hummed and slobbered, and conversed a bit about Neil Young. Then JX nodded off.

5. Families / Neil Young

Told my lovely sister-in-law Mary recently, "don't write Neil off...just take a listen to 2006's Living With War...he still writes and rocks as hard as ever." Neil has spent a career singing about two things: love and war. Take a guess what this one's about. Seesaw guitars and his straining vocals make my arms explode with chills, particularly on Families and Lookin' for a Leader.





6. When Doves Cry / the Be Good Tanyas

7. Pink Glove / Pulp
Lights up, body goes spastic, arms and legs marionetting, eyes basketball, at sight of me, or Becca, or Magdelana.

Especially Becca.

8. How to Nurse a Bruised Ego / Vive Voce

2003


One of the best things Becca and I ever did for our relationship early on was nothing intentional or deliberate: we just spent a lot of time traveling together. Mostly via automobile, but there was also a memorable 35-hour Greyhound adventure.

Our early motor car travel was spent listening to billions of hours of music. She introduced me to Ben Harper, Nick Cave, and the Monkees; I showed her Joseph Arthur, Lucinda Williams, and the Kinks. We invented mobile Twister variations and made fun of fast drivers and ate Taco Time veggie burritos and made excuses to make extra coffee stops and laughed a lot, and wondered what kind of parents we might be someday. We talked a lot. Little, stupid, ridiculous, and unimportant stuff.

9. Helicopters / the Crayon Fields.

It is millions of conversations about little, stupid, ridiculous stuff that helps pave the way for the occasional deep, meaning-of-life talks. But you can't just go straight to them. You gotta build a foundation of countless little ones.

2006/2004/2005

We filled the in-betweens with fun. We packed those travel hours with joy.

I like all the little things in life, the mundane waystops between destinations. The waiting. The in-between. The wasted space. The chance to hang out with my son for an hour in a drenched parking lot, even if he slumbers while Jarvis Cocker discos through Pink Glove for the third time.

10. Black Flowers / Yo La Tengo
11. Tribute to Linn / Anna Ternheim

I want our children to grow up learning how to discover the joy in waiting; in filling those cracks with excitement.

Johannes is up. Time to dance.

2002 Becca, on our honeymoon

POSTSCRIPT
Magdelana returned from the performance regaling me with tales of dragons, damsels, and giants. She wants to be in a play. So we are going to write one together.