Parent Bonding Through Incompetence

It was bright and early on a San Rafael soccer field that we gathered for Game 2 of the U12 soccer playoffs. As you can imagine, tension was in the air as the stakes were high. One of these teams could possibly advance to the level of receiving a trophy or medal that would soon become lost in players' rooms or used as a hat rack. Stakes were high.

By U12, parents are pretty tuned in with the rules of the game. Many of us have already brought up older sibblings through the ranks of soccer, so we've all taken our turn at being a line judge for a game. Unfortunately, the referee we had running the field for the game did not know the rules of the game...at all.

It's not pretty to see a referee lose control of a game, but that's what happened yesterday. The 20-something guy just stood there on the field as mayhem errupted around him. Players yelled at him. Parents yelled at him. Even his own line judges stared at him with disdain. His complete incompetence actually led to something kind of cool, though. Parents from both teams came together and started yelling calls into the ref...even if those calls were against their own childrens' team.

A group of 10-15 parents would scream "Offsides" and the ref would eventually blow his whistle with the realization that maybe, possibly, something whistle-worthy had happened on the field. The parents would make the call and eventually the ref would catch up.

Before we get too critical of the ref, keep in mind that this is a $15/game employee we have here. Burgermeister turned down his application and, thankfully, the San Rafael Youth Soccer Association called with a back-up plan. You can bet at halftime he was texting his friend, "Dude, Parents Up Tite 2Day." And yes, I'm sure that's exactly how he spelled it.

We're lucky in Novato that we have some older dudes that ref because they love it. They really know the rules and they take command of the field. It seems to me that they do it for the game and not the money. I guess that's why we get a little spun up when we go to another city and find a ref that's sort of just phoning it in. I mean, doesn't he get it? This is the U12 playoffs that could possibly lead to the U12 championship that could possibly lead to a trophy that will support a hat until the little soccer player's diecast plast-faux-metalic arm is accidentally broken off about three weeks in the future.

So what is offsides? Oh, come on. This is just a blog that no one knows you are reading. You can admit here that you don't really know what offsides is. It's okay. It only took me about four years on the town's soccer board to understand offsides. Here's a simple explanation you can take to your next youth soccer game. If an offensive player (by offensive, I mean going for the goal, not a player that refuses to bathe) runs behind the defense, he is in an offsides position. Wait, don't blow the whistle yet. Don't scream at the ref yet. Offsides only gets called if the ball is passed to the player in the offsides position or if that player interferes with the goalie in some way. So, a player can be offsides, but the ref will wait to call offsides until the player becomes involved in the play. See, wasn't that easy? Now you can scream your heart out at the next soccer game when you are confronted with the injustice of a missed offsides call.

So, yesterday's lesson was that when a group of adults is confronted with sheer incompetence, they will somehow band together to fill the void. Hopefully, the same is true in other situations, such as nuclear power plant management or microbrewing.

Today's Blind Ignorance Award Goes to (drum roll)...

From time to time this blog will bestow its highest lowest honor, the Blind Ignorance Award. This is not an award given lightly. One has to be truly out of touch to receive this award.

Today's award goes to the mercifully unnamed headline writer at the Marin Independent Journal. He (or she) took a story about women journalists finally getting their recognition as serious journalists and not objects of desire and titled it "Sexy Socialization." Really, I'm not making this up. The headline is in at least 72-point type as it looms beneath images of Lisa Ling, Rachel Maddow, Nancy Pelosi (journalist?) and Jane Fonda (another journalist?). By the way, how could anyone write a story about female journalists and not include Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes. Jane Fonda, journalist, really?

The article, which is about the film "Miss Representation" about female journalists (get it, pun lovers?), actually has the phrase "...in which she excoriates the media for its demeaning portrayals of women as sexual objects, consequently damaging the self-esteem of young girls and blunting their aspirations for leadership roles in American society." This would be a powerful statement if it wasn't under the umbrella of a huge banner reading "SEXY SOCIALIZATION."

One of my first jobs, after spending five years in home construction, was as a reporter at my hometown paper, The Turlock Daily Journal.  I started as an intern while I was in college and returned after graduation as a reporter. To give you a sense of that paper's focus, I can refer you to one of today's headlines on their website, "Farmers Seek Longer Irrigation Season." It was there I was first exposed to the headline writer. This is a person more obsessed with finding something catchy that fits in the space available on the page than actually linking the headline to the content of the story.

I once wrote a story for the lifestyle section that was a profile of a "chiropractor" who only worked on dairy cows. (Still not making this up.) The dairy would call the chiropractor and he would go out there and literally whack the cow with a rubber mallet and a stick and the dairymen would swear that the afflicted cow would then produce more milk. I wrote the story a bit tongue in cheek. I didn't trash the "doctor," but I wrote more about the image of a guy on a step-stool whacking a cow with a rubber mallet than an actual miracle cure for cows.

Sure enough, the headline writer puts something up like "Chiropractor Cures Cattle" over the story and the next thing I know my story is picked up by the Associated Press and printed across the state...well, at least across the Central Valley. My guess is the Los Angeles Times probably skipped the big "cow chiropractor story" that week. The next thing I know I'm getting calls from television news stations wanting to know how to get in touch with this cow miracle worker. The guy ended up being famous and, most likely, pretty well off due to a headline writer not actually reading the story for which she was writing the headline.

Working at a small town, rural paper in the late '80s was interesting. I was fresh out of college and thought that I was going to find and write about my own Watergate someday. I actually ended up writing more about life in the country. I had a brief stint on the "crime beat" and after viewing a car accident with children badly injured as the first-responders arrived, I realized I didn't have the stomach for that. So, I found my niche writing about people and I guess I still enjoy that even though it's not my day job.

The paper had a real live press in the back. It was immense and it really was a rush when it would kick into gear at about 2 p.m. (we were an evening paper) and vibrate the entire building. The entire crew managing the press were drunk. There was a bar behind the Turlock Journal and most of the press crew would be in the bar until someone went over to let them know that the paper was ready to be printed. It's a wonder I never saw someone seriously injured back there. Even drunk, these guys had been doing this so long that they managed to keep their limbs out of the whirring gears and belts that made up the press.

So, dear Marin IJ headline writer, I look forward to tomorrow's story about a five-car pile up on Highway 101 with the headline "Reduced Speed Results in Reduced Emissions on Green Highway."

Porch Terrorist

Halloween is around the corner and it's time once again to figure out just how far to go in creating our haunted porch.

In past years, I've gotten a little carried away and that has led to some uncomfortable situations. The one that comes to mind is my first attempt at the haunted porch. I built a black widow spider that was three feet in diameter with eyes lit by glowsticks. I suspended it from our second story above the porch with fishing line and a little pully.

Not My Porch, But Still Spooky


The idea was that the spider would lower down after the unsuspecting trick-or-treaters had come up to the front door. They take their candy and turn around and, boo, there's a spider with glowing eyes hovering there at their eye level between them and the street.

Okay, admittedly, I was so enthusiastic about the engineering aspect of this that I hadn't thought about the impact it would have on little kids. Though it was nearly ten years ago, I can still picture the two little girls, maybe third-graders or so, that were at the front porch and completely lost it when they turned around to see the spider hovering there behind them. Candy flew as they ditched their plastic pumkins and just stood their screaming.

It didn't take long for the girls' father to come running up to gather the girls up and give me his opinion of my spider surprise. His opinion was along the lines of: (language edited for blog) "Golly, jeepers, why on Earth would you lower a spider down in front of two elementary students?" He was right, of course. It was a dumb thing for me to do. I was so excited that I could do it that I hadn't thought about whether or not I should do it.

In following years, I toned it down a bit. There was the 4-foot ghost that ran down a wire line from the top of the street light across the street to the second story of my house. Glowsticks were again involved and it just sort of non-threateningly whisped through the air above the heads of tricker treaters. This worked great until about an hour after dark, when the wire broke and the ghost plunged into the tricker treaters below. Thankfully, they were older at that hour so it didn't turn out to be Spider: Part Deux. They actually wanted to me to set it up and kill the ghost again, but sadly the ghost had given his all on his first plunge to the concrete.

Another attempt that faired a little better was "Area 51." This consisted of an 8-foot in diameter flying saucer that had "crashed" on our front lawn. It was wood-framed and wrapped an a whole lot of Costco aluminum foil. Since it didn't move or sneak up on people, it seemed to be better received than previous years. As long as the aliens stayed inside of the flying saucer, all was well.

Why do I do these things around Halloween? Well, it comes from my childhood. Halloween was always more about our porch than going trick-or-treating. My dad and I had a routine. We'd set up a speaker in a bush by the front porch and add some scary lighting. My dad would be in my room, which overlooked the porch, with a microphone. While scary "haunted house sounds" (remember that cassette you'd buy at the supermarket?) would play in the background, my dad would use his scary guy voice and make random comments over the fake screams and organ music playing.

When trick-or-treaters would approach, my dad would yell, "Monster, Monster" and I would come running out of another bush costumed as a monster with ripped clothes and a freaky rubber mask. I'd run around, kids would scream, and then I'd pull candy out of my pockets and give it to the kids. Either kids were more sturdy then or I just wasn't very convincing as a monster, because we never had a single parent complain. We were actually kind of a draw.

This year, I've toned it down. The bushes outside of our porch have the obligatory fake spider webs and we have a rubber head on a stake where I've helpfully added a "We're Open" sign to the stake. That's about as scary as we plan to be this year.

Here's hoping your Halloween is free of hovering spiders, plunging ghosts, crashed flying saucers and carried away people like me in general.

Earthquake Etiquette

How polite is one supposed to be in an earthquake?

That was the question on my mind yesterday afternoon. I was crammed into a fairly small library at a law firm with six people having a meeting. About halfway through the meeting an earthquake hit. It was only a 3.8, so not a biggie, but it turned out the epicenter was in nearby Berkeley, so we could really feel it.

The quake came as two sharp jolts and I could actually feel the bookcase that my chair was against move back and forth. At the time, I was wondering if this is the start or the end of the quake. Are we all done or is this going to be like Loma Prieta and keep building and building? While I'm thinking this I'm looking at the little conference table in the middle of the room. It has room for maybe three people under it at the most. So, if things really start shaking, it's three people under the table and the rest fend for themselves in the library.

Now if this was the movie version of my life, the scene would work out like this: Matt Damon, playing me of course, would immediately insist that everyone else get under the table. He would stand on top of the table as the rest quiver below and deflect ceiling tiles and law books as they started raining down while saying what would certainly become the movie's catch phrase, "Bring it on, Tectonic Plate. Bring it on!" Once the quake subsides, he would deflect an unexpected Ninja attack and everyone would be safe.

As this wasn't the movie version, but my actual life, I was in a sort of a quandry. Should I push the people next to me under the table if things start shaking again? Or, should I dive under the table. Really, how much politeness is required during an earthquake. I mean I really don't know these people. I could always say I thought I had dropped my pen under the table and was just retrieving it.

Well, the earthquake didn't return and rather than having to dig down deep and answer the question about who would end up under that table I instead spent the rest of the meeting trying not to stare at the ring pierced through the center of the nose of the woman facing me. It was kind of hard to stay focused with my brain spending more time analyzing the nose ring than the meeting conversation. ("That had to hurt. What if she has a cold? Does it get caught on stuff? If she had her nose pierced, then what else...")

I guess maybe the message is that chivalry isn't dead. It just gets a little strained at times.

Ocupado

Today, I had my own little personal episode of What Not to Wear.

You see, I had some appointments in San Francisco, so I took the ferry down from Larkspur. Tough duty, I know. I walk out of the Ferry Building and between me and the Financial District, where my meetings are, is Occupy San Francisco. It's a tent city that appears to be growing from what I've seen in the newspaper. (It's now much bigger than the picture you see with this blog posting.)

Now, I had a choice. I could go around and avoid the protest or I could go right through the middle. Curiousity got the better of me and I decided to go right threw it. I stopped in the middle to read some signs they had out to try and figure out their main focus. Why are they here? What exactly are they protesting? The signs didn't really help as they were about every topic under the sun from war to greed to the environment. When I looked up from the signs, I realized I had about four people around me and not looking real friendly.

It turns out that a navy pinstriped suit and a yellow "power tie" are not really the appropriate attire for a visit to Occupy San Francisco. I had unknowingly become "The Man." I was the embodiment of what they were there to protest. So, we had a little discussion and I explained to them that I'm more of a "Vendor to The Man" than actually "The Man" myself. They got a little more friendly at that point, so I got to ask them some questions about how things are going at the protest.

Who are they? Are they unemployed San Franciscans? Actually, no. The ones I spoke with were from Humboldt State and told me that others were also "occupying" that campus. Does the city provide bathrooms, showers any type of sanitation? No. They say they find other ways to deal with those needs. (I didn't ask them to elaborate because I was afraid the answer would ruin me for lunch later in the day.)

How do they pass the time? Well, this question I didn't need to ask, because my nose already had the answer. Occupy San Francisco smells a lot like pot...like a lot of pot, actually. I guess that explains why they are all just sitting around. Actually, it's a combination of pot and people who have been without a shower for a while. The combined scent is a lot like mulch. It's not really bad, it's just earthy.

That didn't end my experience as "The Man" today. Later, I was eating a salad with a coworker at a table outside of Mona Lisa on Columbus. We're sitting there crunching and chatting and the next thing I know I've got a guy yelling at me that I should "Go back to check my stocks and raping workers accounts!" I"m not sure I've got that completely right, but the words "stocks, workers" and "raping" were all definitely part of that.

Thankfully, my return trip back through Occupy San Francisco was relatively boring and this time I decided maybe stopping in the middle to read the signs and try and figure out just what they are protesting wouldn't be a smart move.

So, the next time you hear them protesting "The Man," just remember this. Who Da Man? I'm Da Man!

A Plea for Sean

Today's Marin Independent Journal reports that there has been a rash of vehicle break-ins in Ross. And really, if you are going to break into cars, you might as well pick the toniest part of Marin to do that. One can imagine the carnage of broken glass next to the Range Rovers and Priuses lining the mean streets of Ross as their detectives decked out in Armani try to figure out what's going on. "Hmmm. You say there is a bridge from here to Richmond? Hmmm. This is truly a mystery."

So, as a plea for someone I don't actually know, I just want to ask the thieves to please bring back Sean Penn's bong. The guy looks stressed out enough without having to deal with this. His wife left him and from the looks of Vanity Faire is actually doing a whole lot better without him. All he probably does is sit there with his bong at his Ross home waiting for Clint Eastwood to call and say, "Sean, I've got an idea for another movie and this time you are a bad boy, but instead of being a bad boy in Boston you are going to be a bad boy in Chicago. Kevin is already in and it's going to be great."

So, Ross car thieves, you can keep his Prius, but please bring back Sean Penn's bong so Southern Marin can relax again and not worry about Sean showing up at Woodland's Market in a tirade. They're a peaceful group down there, unless of course you break into their Priuses and take their stuff.

It's All In the Details

Hair is not something I think a lot about. Over the past year or so, I was going to a person who would consider himself a "stylist." He was pretty earnest in his effort to give me a hair style of my own...something that says, "This soccer dad, desk jockey has an exciting stylish side that's beyond carrying the folding chairs to and from the soccer field." His own hair is pretty long and somewhat suspended in midair. It's a cool look for him, but not really a fit for me.

What I ended up with was sort of a natural hair turbin. I had grown long enough hair to basically wrap it around my head for warmth and protection. It was gray, long and would really take flight when I'd drive my Midlife Crisis Convertible around town.

So, the time came to end the Long Hair Experiment and go back to my former look. It was time to go back to Supercuts and get the $18 special. The haircut took about 8 minutes and involved electric clippers. I left with about a quarter of the hair I had when I went in there and I was good with that.

I came back to the office and one of the guys who just moved here to work in the home office from conservative Southern California asked me where I got my hair cut. He's new to town and didn't know where to go. So, I sent him to Supercuts.

It honestly just slipped by mind to give him the extra detail about the Supercuts in Novato. I mean when I first went it caught me off guard, but now I just accept it as part of the whole experience. I mean every place has its unique character and our Novato Supercuts is no exception. So, I never thought to mention to my coworker that the guy who cuts hair over at Supercuts is a crossdresser wearing a dress.

Well, my coworker returned to the office a little shell-shocked. "I walked in and there was a guy wearing a dress and I thought this can't be where he goes, so I walked back out and looked around and that was the only Supercuts there," he sort of babbled as he described his adventure in Bay area crossdressing. He did eventually "Man-up" and sit in the chair to get his haircut.

I felt bad. Had I been thinking, all I had to do was say,  "Oh, by the way, one or both of the Asian guys in there will likely be wearing a dress. Just go with it." I would have saved my conservative coworker much angst. Who knows what he was thinking while he was in that chair. "Is it wrong to get a haircut from a guy in a dress? Where does he buy dresses for men in Novato? Is there a Men's Dress Warehouse over next to the Old Navy?" Knowing this particular coworker, he must have been at near panic level while sitting in that chair.

So, the moral of the story is that what may seem like a minor detail to one person might actually be a major issue to someone else. One man's dress may in fact become another man's anxiety attack. I must do a better job of covering the details in the future.

Poor Us

There it was on the front of the Marin Indepent Journal this morning. The group "Occupy Marin" has formed to address the deep economic oppression we all face as residents of Marin.

There was a picture with the article denouncing corporate greed, military spending, as well as a plea to move away from fossil fuels. So which is it? What you they demonstrating against? What are you for? Focus, people, focus!

Can you imagine the issues they had to deal with at the "Occupy Marin" rally in San Rafael? First of all, there's the parking. Where are you going to put all of those BMWs, Lexuseses (what is the plural of Lexus, anyhow?) and Mercedes? My guess is some of those protesters were driving cars that were more than three years old. Then of course, there's the basics. Water would have to be provided in BPA-free reusable water bottles. It's not like Marin protesters are going to drink out of a hose. Then, of course, there's the rest room issue. My guess is the downtown Starbucks had a banner day yesterday. They were probably lined up out the door for a pit stop and a latte.

I've lived in Marin off and on for nearly 20 years. One thing I've noticed is people have a lot of time. Drive through Mill Valley at 11 a.m. and you'll notice people out everywhere. They are jogging, biking, sipping, eating, chatting. What they don't seem to be doing is working. Somehow, they've found a way to fund the other "ings" without the bother of going to an office. So, my guess is when the word was put out that there's going to be an "Occupy Marin" protest that they were grappling with issues like moving their pilates appointment so they could make the protest.

Who exactly are they protesting? If it's the bankers and CEOs that live in Marin, then you might want to march on down to San Francisco where they are working and do your protest there. They're not in Marin in the middle of the day when you do your protest between carpools and a mani/pedi. The only people in Marin that fit your "Nation Ruled by Corporate Greed" sign is the manager of the Starbucks where you just took a pit stop and bought a $4 coffee.

I'm a little suspicious that it's the same folks demonstrating in San Rafael over and over for various issues. The Tweet goes out, "Hey, the weather is great. What are we pissed about today?" I was in San Rafael a few months back to get something at Mike's Bikes and I walked by a group of four protestors with signs depicting President Obama with Hitler's mustache. I have no idea what they were for or against. I just thought to myself that no matter how you differ from the President due to your political views or racial preferences, it's going way too far to depict him as Hitler.

I look at the protesters, the arguing politicians that can't find a middle ground to get anything at all done, and I can't help think that there's just a lot of angry people in the world right now. Is our generation somehow less adept at dealing with adversity and challenges? Our parents went through the Great Depression and yet they still came through it able to raise a generation to be relatively optimistic about the future. Have we lost that?

I don't think we have. I think we all need just a little more Burt Bacharach right now.

What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It's the only thing that there's just too little of
What the world needs now is love, sweet love,
No not just for some but for everyone.
Cheesey song or good advice. You be the judge.

Battling Obscurity

I was listening to the radio on the way into work this morning and I heard that, in San Francisco, Columbus Day is now celebrated as "Italian Heritage Day" with its own "Italian Heritage Day Parade."

So, Christopher Columbus has joined Pluto in the "I was once relevant club." Remember Pluto? When I was growing up it was a full-fledged planet, a far away cold place that would likely be the first stop for any invasionary force from another galaxy. Then, just a few years ago, they decided that Pluto was just sort of a gas cloud out there in the galaxy, a galactic flatulence of sorts.

Now, it's Columbus. Okay, don't try and pursuade me with facts. We all know that Christopher Columbus probably arrived to find a carving on a tree that said, "The Vikings Were Here," and just chose to ignore it. His crew was Spanish, not Italian. So, the edited version of discovering America is that an Italian dude with boats and crew supplied by Spain "discovered" America after the Vikings got here to look around a bit. Okay, granted, that's less compelling as a national holiday and parade than the version I learned when I was in elementary school. But still, it's Columbus. I even know someone named "Nina." Think of how hard this must be on her.

As poor Christopher Columbus falls in status, Steve Jobs rises to Gandhi like status this week. Now of course I wish they had a cure for cancer and Steve Jobs was still alive. I wished him no harm. But, CNN has him personally inventing Pixar, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, etc. Having worked in the Silicon Valley, my guess is some very talented design teams came up with those Apple devices and then pitched them to Jobs and the rest of the executive team as something that would be cool to build. As for Pixar, John Lasseter may just have a little to do with the success of that company. To me, it's ironic that the same week we have protesters demonstrating against the greed of corporate America, we also have impromptu memorials being set up for a departed CEO. What does that say about America? "Greed is bad unless we get cool gadgets?" I don't know.

So, whether it's poor flatulent Pluto, Christopher Columbus or those unnamed designers that came up with the iPod, I guess we are all battling obscurity in our own way.

But Is It Art?

Dude, where's the righteous indignation? Where's the contempt? You're an artist.

Okay, let me back up a step. Last Sunday, I came home from a bike ride to find my wife very excited about an art sale nearby. We went down to one of our local shopping centers and sure enough there was an artist set up in front of the Italian restaurant showing off his art for sale. My wife was right. Most of it was really good stuff with the types of European settings that already occupy many walls in our house.

We avoided the cliche "Oh look, it's the Eiffel Tower, so it must be Paris" and the "Oh look, it's a guy in a gondola, so it must be Venice" paintings and settled on one that over looks a little village on the sea. It's a place I've never been, but would like to visit some day, which sort of fits the theme of the art in our home.

We were all ready to make a purchase when my wife brought up the issue. One of the walls in the room where the painting will reside is purple...really, really purple. It's nearly 30 feet tall and the majority of it is purple. The painting under consideration had red flowers, yellow flowers, but no purple flowers...none at all.

So, in order to bring the painting into alignment with our home, my wife asked the artist if he could add some purple flowers to the painting. This is when I expected the outburst from the artist. After all, he's an artist! This would be like going to a chef and saying "I'd like to have the Osso Bucco, but could you make it with chicken?" The chef would grab the butcher knife and threaten bodily harm. So, I waited for the artist to say, "Dis (implied French accent) is de painting of de place I was at and there were no purple fleurs!"

But, it turned out our artist was from Ashland, Oregon and a really, really happy guy. Really, I can't emphasize enough how happy this guys was. If you look up "blind enthusiasm" in the dictionary, you will see a picture of this artist. My guess is when he is not painting, he is tending to a pretty good sized herb garden up there in Southern Oregon. He didn't blink an eye. He whipped out his paints, did a little mixing and soon there were purple flowers in the village where previously none existed. He did a great job and it is on our wall in our home.

Still, I have to say I was a little disappointed. I mean he's an artist. He shouldn't paint to match furniture. Where's the tempor tantrum? Where's the "How dare you change my artistic perspective" type of talk? Where's the flinging of paint in our direction as we are chased from the porch of the Italian restaurant?

Oh well, I guess times are tough and if it takes a few purple flowers to sell some art, then I guess we can all be a little flexible.