Born In The Middle Of The Second Big Baby Boom
The things I'm hoping to teach my son by having him play Little League this year are myriad and complicated, including sportsmanship, socializing as part of a team, physical coordination... like I said, myriad. It means "many".

The primary impression I'd like him to take away is singular and simple, however: win or don't come home.

It's hard to enforce right now since they don't keep score in T-ball, but I think I've planted the seed. He's already a total dick to his teammates if they fail to field the ball cleanly or tap out weakly or run to second base instead of first base out of the batter's box (a typical T-ball mistake). There are no umpires, but I've trained him to reflexively say "go fuck yourself" under his breath every time he gets out. Now if I can get him to chew the tobacco without a) swallowing it or b) throwing up, he'll be on his way to disgusting obnoxious hard-ass status. That or gum-and-tongue cancer. One of the two.

As with every activity in which I participate--obliquely or directly--T-ball is all about me. Like how I have to go to all the practices and games and hang out with all the other T-ball parents. They're all cheery and happy to be there and shit, just content not to be at work or whatever. Since I don't work, my attitude can be generally described as surly and put-upon. This makes socializing difficult. I've figured out that if I focus obsessively on the performance of my child, though, I can avoid conversation altogether. You know those parents you see at Little League games screaming at their kids and generally making asses of themselves? I suspect that they aren't actually hyper-competitive perspective-challenged troglodytes, oh no. They're actually just trying to avoid making small-talk about traffic or the weather or cute-kid-stories with the smiling parent-mannequins sitting around them. The other parents give them a wide berth, you watch. Genius.

I've also noticed that the other dads, as we're all generally the same age, all subscribe to the same worn-out late '90s personal aesthetic we all should have left behind with our increasingly distant youths. We all have the same short hair covered by a hat of some kind (backward ball-cap preferred), the same two-day stubble, the same facial hair (soul patch, goatee or some other variant confined to the chin), same oversized t-shirt and shorts. Tats and piercings abounds as well.

It's like being in the stands with 10 Fred Dursts.


I'd be lying if I said I didn't look similar, although I do so with no reference with Mr. Durst, he of so little talent (I am highly amused to think that my younger readers will have no idea who Fred Durst is, so quickly and completely has he faded from pop-cultural relevance). I am clean as far as tattoos and piercings, but I do have the facial-hair thing working. It's not for fashion's sake though, it's because I need it. I need my goatee to give the impression that I have a chin.

Without my facial hair to provide the illusion of a break at the bottom of my face, I am literally nose-upper lip-lower lip-neck. No stopping. I barely have a jaw-line, my ears just hover over my collar bone with nothing but smooth skin in between.

The baggy clothes, well, I have no excuse. I'm a lazy bastard. I do what the TV tells me. Or at least what it told me in 1995.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 9.6


Pops


PS- The post's title comes from the Elvis Costello song "Opportunity" which I've just now decided is a perfect song. People who disagree are stupid.
- posted by Pops @ 9:52 AM