P-Funk and Ranch Dip, A Match Made in Shoprite?

My son and I found ourselves bobbing our heads to a smooth funk line; I could see he was getting ready to bust out his special blend of 4 year old dance moves (think ninja mixed with diabetic seizure).  Not really anything new about that, I defy you to find a 4 year old who doesn’t dig the funk.   What stopped him cold, and brought me out of my funk induced haze; we were standing in the checkout line at Shoprite.  Yep Shoprite had funk in the speakers on a Sunday morning.  

This wasn’t any old funk; James Brown was not in the building…this was the grandmaster of Funk, George Clinton, backed up by Parliament, the Bomb.  Of course it had been Muzakified, (the process by which good music becomes elevator music), and was flat, but it was still funk, the special blend, P-Funk. Judging by my fellow clientele I may have been the only customer who would recognize it for what is was, the geriatrics were already old when funk was born and the cashiers were all in their  teens so while they recognize the tune it’s because some modern hip hop artist sampled it.

Some pretty profound thoughts flooded through me as the funk rolled on, and once I got over my initial shock “Blasphemy, P-Funk in Muzak form!” I wondered “Is George Clinton digging the irony or rolling over in his grave?”  Musicians love to share their vision, but how far do you bend that vision to share it?  Is it better to modify your vision to reach a larger audience, or is it better to stay true?  Did P-Funk sell out or are they just staying relevant?  I’m sure lots of people have run this thought gamut, albeit for larger issues than the corruption of funk in a Shoprite.

Pride, conviction, and confidence are in no short supply in my family.  So it’s easy for me to say “this is the way I want it, go pound sand” however after my experiences with the funk in the grocery store, I became aware of just how many compromises parents make everyday raising the kids.  If we all stood our ground kids would still grow up, but we would have pulled out more of our own hair in the process. 

Think about ranch dip.  Its spices, MSG, salt, and fat held together by emulsifiers and preservatives.  Even the “Healthy Ranch” is garbage for the body, because they take out the stuff you can digest and replace it with stuff you can’t. (How freaky is it that in an effort to make a food “better” for you it becomes less digestible?) The flip side here is people love it, kids love it.  I think it has replaced ketchup as the universal must have dip.  If it takes a garbage coating for the kid to eat a carrot, celery, or lettuce, well that’s the compromise we have to make.

Has Muzack become the Ranch dip of music?  It’s a bit sad, but I think it has.  Kids are not going to get Funk in their music Ed classes, (and if they do it’s much more likely to be Sly and the Family Stone than the Grandmaster himself). Grandma isn’t going to run out and buy the P-Funk box set over Perry Como.  Maybe, just maybe, someone will hear it while overlooking the apples and get curious.  “Let the music free your mind, and your ass will follow” is definitely what George Clinton had in mind.  Meanwhile if you ever need to get an age diverse room of people dancing, turn to the Funk, “P-Funk, Uncut funk, The Bomb….. 500 Thousand kilowatts of P-Funk Power, so kick back, Dig.”

Violence Isn't The Answer; Unless Your a Brother

I am the only son, of an only son; my wife similarly grew up in a family with only one brother.  Why is that important?  Other than the pressures of naming the kids and the family tradition gobbly gook, it simply means my wife and I have no idea of what brotherhood means.  I think boys are fairly straight forward creatures.  Feed them, feed them again, continue feeding them, give them a toy, someplace to hide it and something to organize and they are happy. (I think that most women might agree that men aren’t much different, I know my maturity is constantly in question.)  Watching the boys grow you can see classic male behaviors peak through their forming personalities.  

The train of thought is something like this:

“I have this thing; I need to keep it safe.  The couch will be good to hide it in.  Oh no, but someone might find it, so I will hide there too and defend it.  The couch is now my fort.  But wait, I need a weapon, look that pretzel stick looks like a sword….I have my thing, my fort and my weapon, life is good.  Now I need a bad guy…daddy!!” (1 treasure + 1 fort +1 weapon+ no bad guy= boredom)

Of course I have seen it work backwards:

“I have a stick, I can whack my brother, but I can’t just whack him.  He has to attack me so I can make it look good for mom. OK, I’ll take his favorite toy; run to my fort, when he chases me I can then whack him.” (Boredom+ 1 weapon = planning/ mom + fun)

My wife and I are completely unprepared for this, and have learned to discern the cries of “fair” violence from true mortal combat.  Stranger yet, we find ourselves making rules that are more like the Geneva Convention than the good Christian handbook. “It's ok to hit him back, just not on the face” “you can pounce on your brother, just don’t jump on his head”, “no scratching, punching is ok.”   I have actually said “fight nice!” Stopping the violence is impossible, it’s innate, its part of boys, we just try to preserve critical organs and some semblance of sanity.

What is great about the brotherly violence is its short duration. Take my toy, I punch you, you punch me, we cry, mom yells, some time out time, then we can play together for the next 5 hours, repeat as needed. They get it out of their system and move on.  (Growing up with my sisters I have seen the quiet deep evil that girls can unleash on each other, not pretty.) I have hope that each mini war will help them   stick together even after girls enter and complicate their lives.

At a certain level I can appreciate some of this, I know that men laugh hardest when a buddy gets hurt in a non critical way, we enjoy embarrassing each other. “I’m allowed to call my friend names, you are not” is not at all hypocritical to men.  I get “Jackass”. I try to explain this to my wife, who is a bit shell shocked. She doesn’t understand why teeth brushing time never fails to involve fisticuffs. (One stool+ one tube of tooth paste +one toilet * overarching need by two boys to be first= pain, simple, boy math really.) 

I keep telling my wife she will see the simple action/ reaction of boys as a blessing when they hit puberty.  I try to explain how boys have a certain need to get dirty, fight, figure stuff out for themselves.  She just looks at me scared, knowing that women who raise brothers change, especially those that don’t have daughters to dress in pink, shop with, braid hair, and generally balance out the testosterone.  You have seen them; they are not bad, just different.  They are the mom on the wrestling mat yelling, they learn to appreciate the nuance between a bait container in the fridge and leftovers, they grow accustomed to everyone one else in the house walking around in their underwear.  No less feminine just different.  Moms will always have the key to their son’s heart, boys will be boys, men will be boys and because of that we will always return to food, something moms know best.  

If anyone out there knows brotherhood, I’m accepting guidance.  Not really on how to raise them, just on how to remain sane while doing so.  As for my wife she is a great cook and a great mom.  I’m sure her headaches will pay off, she just needs some Advil.

The 4 G's of Christmas

This past weekend I celebrated my 5^th and final family related Christmas event.  I’m elated. Hundreds of van miles, thousands of dollars, two boxes of Motrin, and untold calories later I can say it was definitely a season where the whole was not greater than the parts.  Love seeing all of the family members and the big meals, hate doing it all between Thanksgiving and MLK day.  So what motivates us to do this?  Give short shrift to Thanksgiving (the greatest and purest of the holidays) and tolerate stores playing Bing Crosby at Columbus Day to get ready for a marathon of insanity. The 4G’s of Christmas make us do it, force us to endure and are crafty enough to make us look forward to it all again next year.  Who are the 4 G’s?  If I were to tell you G. Love, G. Money, G. String, and G. Man you might wonder if I got busted for drugs at an avant-garde strip club, (Music, Money, Woman, Cops).  Nope not that lucky.  The 4 G’s in a particular order are……..

God, Greed, Gluttony, and Guilt.

God:  Without making this a religious discussion, and with no apologies, if it wasn’t for the Romans getting pissed off at the Jews, and then joining the Christians, I wouldn’t be in this mess.  Ok so maybe it isn’t directly gods fault but if god is omniscient and omnipotent god let this happen.  I’m sure a thousand years ago nobody said, “lets make a holiday that will eventually focus on the gifts and force millions to migrate but instead of migrating to be counted like the in this book they will migrate to Malls.”  However it happened, it happened so there is no taking god out of the equation.

Greed: yada yada yada, corporate greed, hallmark cards, credit cards, Christmas blend at Starbucks, Yada yada yada (thank you Seinfeld)

Gluttony: Ok the greed of the corporate machine would stall if it were not for the gluttony of America.  Don’t get me wrong, I embrace gluttony I have at least 300 fishing lures, I love buying in bulk.  I have a turkey fryer, 3 minutes to the pound fridge to table, so fast you can make two.  If it wasn’t for Gluttony we couldn’t have 1 of each cookie, or seconds.  In fact without gluttony the Chinese buffet would be a thing of the past.  I love it but freely call it a problem.  Gluttony is what makes us look forward to it all every year.

Guilt: The driving force behind it all.  If it wasn’t for guilt I think Greed would have a hard time making the list.  I don’t know about you but I'm secretly jealous of those folks who pack the kids up and celebrate Christmas at Sandals.  How they get away from the family guilt is beyond me.  Maybe it’s because I’m the oldest, or raised catholic with all of the associated “healthy guilt” that comes along with it.  (No worries I’m reformed now.)  We had a family Christmas but felt obligated to pack up, drive ahead of the impending blizzard and make it to the parents for another celebration, soup to nuts, gifts to gore.  Wasn’t gluttony because I was full in every sense of the word. Guilt telepathically broadcast from my mother to me made me do it…..guilt sucks.  On top of that when I have resisted it, fought the guilt like a Jedi knight, moms get mad…..passive aggressive, killer sigh of death mad.  I would rather a 4000 pound charging bull to deal with than one passive aggressive jaded mother.

Guilt is contagious.  This season I had a gift in mind for someone, but didn’t give it to them because they were not expecting it and I was afraid they might feel guilty because they couldn’t reciprocate.  So I didn’t buy the gift to avoid the guilt of making them guilty…..insane.  When a gift is expected is it a gift or is it a payoff from guilt? A gift to an official is called a bribe, but a gift to a grandparent that has everything, needs nothing but expects something is called family.

People make me feel guilty for not giving them Christmas gift ideas when I don’t expect a gift.  So follow this. They want to give a gift, but want to avoid the guilt of buying the wrong gift.  Furthermore and more importantly they want to give notice of the impending gift transaction so as to avoid feeling guilty for making me feel guilty due to the reciprocity guilt mentioned above.  (breath) To avoid the personal guilt they make me feel guilty for not wanting anything.  So I have guilt because someone wants to buy something.  Obscenely insane.  Since I typically refuse to play along with this until after Thanksgiving, I get the added guilt for making the gift buyer wait to shop, “you’re the last one I’m waiting for!”  “Where is your list?” Ever try to put things on a Christmas list that are all functional?  Toilet paper and windshield washing fluid, doesn’t fly. So you’re doomed to play along.  Ace Ventura Insane!

It’s a shame the first 4 G’s are not a bigger part of Christmas.  G. Love and Special Sauce like cold beverages.  We all can relate to that.  And who doesn’t at least enjoy the idea of a G. String?  Someone must or Victoria’s Secret catalogs wouldn’t be nearly so common in the Christmas mailbox.  G. Money and G. Man seem happy to play cops and robbers without us, so we are left with good music and sex.  Not too shabby. 

Really I feel bad for those folks who want this time to be a religious, and only want the 1 G, The Big G, G-d, not the lower case g.

 I say you can have it, take it back; take it out of the Malls, off the TV.  Place it securely in the churches, don’t use it for malice.  Enjoy it however you like. Take back the holiday and the greed will take care of itself.  Just when you take it be sure to take the guilt.  I don’t want it, no one does really. I’ll keep the gluttony.  But you keep the guilt, and maybe someday I will be able to return the favor by giving you a gift, guilt free.

"Is there anybody out there? Just nod if you can hear me! Is there anyone home?"

The other evening I was doing some random chores around the home.  As is my habit I put some music on.  I still use CD’s and have a 100 disk changer, so it is easy to pick the tunes to suite the mind, and then listen to an entire album, which I believe many people miss out on today.  Here is a rundown:

Dishes, Led Zeppelin 2

Clean Fish Tank, Green Day, Insomniac

Cook Dinner, James (The Best of)

The point here is not domestic chores but the music.  The music was on and I listened as I worked and didn’t think much of it until later that evening.  The CD player was still rolling through the disks, and in the process left the Rock ‘n’ Roll section and moved to classical.

This time it was Holst “The Planets.”  A piece of music that assigns personality to the planets and then expounds on those qualities musically….amazing.  (Those of you who don’t know it have heard riffs of it copied on soundtracks like Star wars, Pirates of the Caribbean or anything else Hans Zimmer has his hands in.) 

The Holst piece starts soft and builds, its “Mars, the bringer of War” and you can feel the tension build in the music, martial sounding and rhythmic in the back, as the violins swarm over head, a hero is found and the battle joined. Then the piece moves on to “Venus, the bringer of Peace” which of course is different.  Now however I was listening to the music, no chores, no kids, no distractions other than the fish.  As an added bonus this music wasn’t flattened by compression and jammed through tiny speakers, it was full on dynamic cd quality, through speakers large enough to annoy my wife.  Mids, tweets, lows and the gut turning sub woofer.  This is music! And I was truly and finally enjoying it, not the way Holst intended sure, but as close to it as you can get in a living room. It was transcendental.

We are busy people, and use our gadgets to cram more into our lives per minute than is usually healthy.  I have a MP3 player and it has its purposes, as does the radio in the truck, the TV and the clock radio.  Music makes the work seem less mundane, and who hasn’t found themselves driving faster when a good Van Halen tune hits the speakers, or finds the first warm day of spring isn’t sweeter with a Bob Marley song coming through the porch window?

When was the last time you listened? Really listened? For me it had been a long time, I bet for the 16 or so people who read this blog regularly it has been awhile for you as well.  If you’re a music lover I don’t need to expound on the faults of headphones and MP3’s.  Music not your thing? Get outside; find a comfortable spot and sit down and un plug.  Doesn’t even have to be in the woods as cities have their own flavor of sounds, just listen and relax.  Follow your thoughts. Have some real time on your hands?  Try this in the desert canyons, silent except your heart beat and nature. 

Sit someplace bigger than you are, alone for a day, and listen, you will come to piece with yourself.  It will change you. Some people find god, others reject it, some can’t stand to be alone with themselves, but you will know where you stand, just because you listened.