It’s a great morning to relax about the state of things, but let’s not get too comfortable. The election bears promise, but there are a couple or three things to be concerned about.
First off there’s that humongous reindeer and glacier infested backwater the Republicans had invited into the inner sanctum …

A Big Sigh of Relief was Heard Across America
I’d been dying to write or say that line for a while now.  You know, just to sound funny. But I’d kept my trap shut because, until today, it would only have been funny to the wrong people.  Under the idea that every …

But the big boy had to push his luck one last time – the same night some of Tim’s NYC pals had come in with a bottle of pure habenero extract. Whatever the fuck that entailed, it was black as evil and smelled like the core of the earth. The little drop I tasted was like having Satan kick in your teeth and jam a cloven hoof down your throat…

 
If anyone is looking for something worth seeing in the Boston music scene then march your fanny over to wherever guitar messiah Jason Goodwin and his band Slimpocket are playing. Exactly where the hell that may be – North Shore, South Shore, in the city or in Tacoma – can …

Turn Your Head and Coffee
A couple of videos involving Ric Barbera who, apart from having a flair for humor, can kick the crap out of any Rooster in a cockfight. I also owe a decent amount of intellectual debt and “monkey nubbin” for the help he’s given me with this other writing …

There are plenty of reasons to appreciate characters with a gay bent on kids TV, but two loud, lisping hysterics with attention deficit issues may be overkill. Throw in a cackling purple neurotic chick and the one thing this show is going to instill in your kids is this: whether you’re a girl or boy the best days in the whole wide world involve handfuls of Ritalin and a penis buffet.

Hence, we arrive at Boudreaux’s Butt Paste. We go through a bunch of diaper rash cream here at the Robertses. That’s due to the fact that Elsie has a habit of not having bowel movements. She’ll hold them for a couple of days until they grow huge and start forcing their own exodus, often in the form of small chunks and poop juice which then burns up her bum skin. To calm the stuttering whimpers and shrieks of “ouchy, ouchy, my bum is stingy!” we reach for the tried and true A-D ointment. Unless, of course, Mom’s not home and there’s another raw ass remedy on the shelf. To my credit, I did pause before tearing into the packet of Butt Paste and gave it some thought. I’d heard people rave about it over the years and the sample had actually been given to us at Elsie’s doctor’s. Gonna work awesome, I thunk, and proceeded to plaster her flaming ravine with the goop. And I wouldn’t be writing any of this if it hadn’t set her off hopping madly in the bathroom while screaming in agony.

We may have forgotten the exhilaration of unfettered expression or the exuberance in silliness but that’s no reason to steer our kids towards our dull state too quickly – they’ll lose their zest for life soon enough. It’s important we keep our negative traps shut within earshot of kids, especially while they’re watching a show we find stupid or annoying. It’s bad form to set your cheerless ass next to your child on the sofa and say, “What? Barney again? That Tyrannosissy is such a freakin’ queer…”

But I couldn’t make it stop and that really sucked a bag of dicks. As a dad you take preventative measures to help your kids from getting hurt, intervene when it seems they’re being mistreated in any way and feel like you’re always ready to rain down hell on anyone who tries to hurt them. But when microbial bullies come to beat the snot out of your child there’s no heroic space for you to step in. Near helpless to stop the assault a parent is left with nothing but a rag, some rehydrating fluids and the painful, pleading look of a kid wondering why the biggest people in his life can’t pull the hurt out of his tummy.

Investigating what other potential toxins or hazards exist in individual households is far more time consuming than trying to focus on a sole suspect. And parents aren’t very forthcoming with their own possible roles in a child’s failing health – it’s not easy getting Mommy to admit she likes Pinot Grigio as much as she does breast feeding. Or that Billy’s folks keep forgetting to lock up the dishwasher detergent he loves to eat. Or that Dad just can’t stop punching the kids in the head when they cry…