Jammin' With Jimi

I’m standing ankle deep in the living room shag, legs spread apart, guitar hanging from a strap that crosses my chest like a shoulder bag I’m stowing away from purse thieves. I feel like a Freedom Shopper.

Santa in his jolly elven wisdom brought the children a video game that uses miniature plastic guitars as controllers. That’s like bringing Stephen Hawking a Playskool computer.

Personally, I'm having trouble working up to technology that advanced. Five colored buttons on the guitar correspond to notes on the televison screen. I can type 85 words a minute without so much as a peek at the space bar. So why can’t I play Slow Ride in easy mode without holding the guitar up to my bifocals to help me distinguish the red button from the green?

As the colored numbers disappear down the yellow brick road onscreen, I’m wildly pressing buttons at random, humming “If I only had a brain,” at chipmunk speed in my head. I press the yellow button in time to score a point and figure I’m in the zone. “Jimi Hendrix, eat your heart out!” I squeal, sinking to one knee and head banging with enough gusto to take the curl out of my perm.

“You know Jimi Hendrix?” Apparently I’m earning Mom points with my specialized history knowledge.

“Who doesn’t know Jimi?” I’m in the zone. I feel the music. I also feel pain in my old roller skating injury. “Help me up. My knees are locked.”

I’m just getting into the rhythm of the thing when the song ends. The virtual rock star onscreen shoots me a disgusted look and the audience jeers.

“Gee Mom,” says Son One, ever the encourager. “You got booed by a fake crowd.”

Son Two, heaven’s answer to Eric Clapton, picks up the guitar. “Like this, Mom.” By the time he’s through playing Freebird, we’ve all linked arms and are swaying back and forth. The dog is holding a lighter aloft and wiping a tear from one eye.

Oh sure, kids today have video games that have more moves than the real people we actually knew. But my generation had Jimi before he was an electronic rendition. We had the Beatles live. We had Elvis in his prime. You can’t duplicate that. Not with a plastic guitar and a six inch cartoon figure whose pixels won’t swivel.

GI Just Say No

Frankly, I’m a bit concerned about the strategic national defense of a country who openly solicits assistance from my son. I’m not saying that he’s not capable of fulfilling his patriotic duty, but I just can’t believe that an eighteen year old that goes all white around the mouth and makes the pouty face when his applesauce touches his pork chop is going to be reliable with rations packed into an indestructible Hefty bag.

As soon as my son entered his senior year in high school, the United States Army began a postal crusade to win his affections. Our mailbox was bombarded with pamphlets extorting the virtues of Army life that boasted so many bonuses and benefits it resembled a campaign for a timeshare in an exotic land. One where you could experience the world, earn an education, and operate heavy artillery. All this with a meal plan and government issued fashion accessories.

This kid has remarkable experience with real-life tactical weapons. He masterminded the construction of a working tabletop trebuchet for his younger brother’s science project, and provided ammunition in the form of toy farm animals to launch at the family dog. (Bo survived several near-misses and a plastic cow in his water bowl.) His present stockpile of munitions includes a marshmallow gun made from plastic pipe, three foam rubber swords, and a heavy duty water gun that leaks.

If it’s his video game skills that has the Army all atwitter, I can understand their excitement. To his credit, he has defeated enemy armies and crushed mighty weaponry on practically every game system on the market. He is a virtual expert in guerilla warfare with camo-clad GI Joe types and a definitive power in open battle with earthbound aliens or free-range zombies. But I just can’t believe that worldwide thermonuclear war will pause for him to get a snack and watch reruns of “That Seventies Show.”

Fortunately for those of us who depend on the Armed Forces to maintain peace at the borders and keep terrorists out of the potato salad, Son Number One opted for college life instead of a military existence. Reportedly, Uncle Sam likes soldiers who can take out the enemy without having to stop and reload their controller with AA batteries.

However his brother’s coming along, and he’s a triple threat: He has superior ratings with water balloons, rubber bands, and air guitar.

A Shoe In

Lately the term, “he threw a shoe” is taking on a whole new meaning. Instead of a sleek Saddlebred leaving a horse shoe by the roadside, we’re seeing Nikes and Birkenstocks parting the ozone like the Gulf Stream. Talk about your Air Jordans.

Ever since that foreign sounding guy (if all their middles names are Al, why do they bother with middle names at all? Just go by initials and save yourself some confusion.) lobbed a loafer at George Bush a while back, shoe wars have become more popular than Star Wars. (Imagine Condoleeza Rice in white robes with a hot cross bun hairdo peering at a black-clad Vladimir Putin. “The tighter your grasp, the more stilletos will slip through your fingers.” Then he launches a Manolo Sputnik and gives her a bad hair day to set an example.)

Just today I read that in India these days there are so many shoe launches, they’re hiring air-traffic controllers by the bootload to keep up. Personally, there are a lot of things I’d be tempted to throw at today’s politicians, but my new black leather pumps that make me tall enough to see eye to eye with the wretch who jammed the office copier are staying right here with me. And I’d sooner launch my Hannah Montana wristwatch with the guitar-shaped second hand before I would toss a pair of Reeboks that I had to pay $75 for even on sale.

While we’re at it, we must also consider whether we have to change missiles with the season. In the future will it be considered unseemly to throw white shoes after Labor Day or patent leathers on Spring Break? If I toss a mid-winter strappy sandal will I be held accountable by the press? I think instead of shoes, I’d rather fling the buttons off my blazer. You get more bullets for the buck and that stupid jacket is two Ding Dongs and a Moon Pie past fastening anyway.

I understand that in Mr. Al’s culture, the sole of the shoe is considered the ultimate in cross-the-line insults. But doesn’t it seem as if it would make more of a stinging jab to insult someone in a way they would recognize as offensive? I’ve had to dodge worse projectiles than a low flying Grasshopper when I broke up random skirmishes between “Did Not” and “Did Too” back at the house, and it didn’t even take my mind off what to do with the chicken for supper. If that journalist really wanted to get George W’s attention he should have hopped right up and announced, “Laura has fat ankles and the twins look like Dan Quayle.” Now that would have caused a Texas-style Hoedown.

But why can’t we express our opinions in a more dignified manner? What happened to the days when you simply left an offender off the guest list for your next party? That’s what Samantha did to Lindsey Lohan, who immediately set-to with wailing and gnashing of teeth across the pages of important journalistic endeavors like In Touch magazine and the National Enquirer. There’s just something about getting left out of a party that leaves a lasting impression. Tread marks on your forehead may come and go but a social slight is forever.

Besides, isn’t it nice to be the better person instead of getting involved in a mass sneaker rebellion? Your picture on the front page of the paper sitting coyly in a garden party chair with a plate full of dinner mints and petite fours, your ankles crossed and both shoes on your feet in proper order is going to win more support than the one showing you with a grimace and one armed cocked back in preparation of hurling half a pair of Converse All Stars. Think of all the pictures you’ve ever seen of a baseball pitcher in mid throw. Kind of makes you think of someone in need of a good roto-rootering, doesn’t it? When you finally get your picture on Time Magazine or Martha Stewart Living, you don’t want to look like the middle reliever for the Braves or the guy in the Pepto Bismol ads.

So, let’s all agree to take a civilized stance and show these politicians how to behave. If they can’t act in a manner benefitting a world leader and get down to the business of world peace, we won’t chuck Chucks. We just won’t invite them to our next election.

Let them act like the part of the horse that doesn’t need shoes to begin with. We'll win in the home stretch.

50 Is Not A Speed Trap (It's My Birthday!)

Some of my friends are slowing down for 50. Not me. I'm hitting the gas and leaving three feet of tire marks and twenty dollars worth of fumes behind me. I'm not complaining about my life so far--I'm married to the man of my dreams who hardly ever looks at me like I've taken leave of my senses, and I have two sons who can play Guitar Hero like they were born with Stratocasters in their hands. I just don't want the next 50 years to be the second lap of the same race.

Sure, I'm slower. I'm slower to get angry. And I'm heavier. I’m carrying some wonderful memories along with me. But they don't have a parking space near the Pearly Gates reserved for those that are pokey and fat. So, God willing, I’m gathering myself up to forge ahead, full throttle, without thinking whether this 5-0 bump in the road will send me soaring into the blue or skidding into a ditch.

I'm going flat out, full speed, wide open and see where it takes me. Whether it’s around the next left-hand turn or into the pit, there’s a story waiting to unfold. I’ll have plenty of time later when I'm done with the race and waiting to see who comes in second to check out the rear view and see what I left behind. If I'm still interested.

I'm going to make as many people laugh as I can today, I’ll put off crying until tomorrow, and I’ll learn to dance the can can without throwing out a hip.

I can hunt my walking stick and liniment later. WalMart stays open all night.

Wonder if they’ll rotate my tires.

Teenage Heroes

I got tagged by Erika, my favorite editor, and hardworking and talented developer of The Wham Magazine, for a meme that's thought provoking enough to make me set down my jelly doughnut and think for several seconds at a time. Why do I like to work at home?

I have a part-time job away from home. So why do I worry and work and stay up so late that people think the racoon rings around my eyes are permanetly etched on, laboring to get my at-home writing base up to speed?

Just now there are four teenaged boys in my living room. Their names are Twinkie, Fatt, Mini, and Seth. I’m not sure why they don’t call Seth by a nickname unless it’s because A) he has one, but I’m too old and parently-impaired to be allowed to hear it, or B) there’s not one awesome enough for a boy who can play the guitar with more ease than the rest of us strain spaghetti.

At present these guys are profoundly affected by the actions of several multi-colored creatures cavorting in cartoon-like battle rage on the television screen. Although they will all be eligible to vote come November, right now the actions of a round pink fellow with large, engaging eyes is more important to them than the actions of any of the candidates engaged in the brawl that is this year’s race for President of the United States. If any of the candidates ran on the Wii platform, they would secure the vote of teenagers all across the nation, and probably a few write-ins from outlying territories.

Following is a conversation taken from these actual teenaged boys. (Teenaged girls take note—these are authentic sounds used for communication in the wild. Not once did the subject of hair, nails, or what to wear to the mall enter into the conversation.)

Psychologists might make much of the fact that these guys seem preoccupied with death. But it’s nothing that a Care Package consisting of sodas and pizza can’t cure. Toss a bag of bite-size candy bars in the mix and they’ll swarm like yellow jackets in a State Park picnic zone. And there’s at least one of them that I know is partial to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the crusts cut off.

“We’re all gonna die!”

“Stop shooting me!”

“Ow! Stop killing me!”

"Dude!"

Silence broken only by the bip boop bang of electronic battle noises backed by cartoon music.

“Run in fear!”

“Where am I? I found me! I lost me!”

“I killed myself off by accident!”

“I’m not dead yet!”

“We’re all gonna die!”

“Am I dead?”

“Run!” (Various colored creatures dash in different directions like a box of Crayolas kicked across the playroom floor. Think Pac Man on speed.)

Eventually, these young men grow weary and tired of the trauma of death by colored laser blasts. Then they switch to a challenge that involves a miniature guitar and more colored notes onscreen than sprinkles on a sugar cookie. One of them wields the guitar like a superwizard wields a magic wand, and the powers of good and evil hang in the balance. The others watch in awe and I stop in the middle of my essay on grieving hearts to see this kid play a toy guitar like Clapton performing Cocaine. The song ends in onscreen applause and real life respectful silence broken only by a hushed, "Dude!"

So why do I like to work at home? Because I get interrupted mid-project by gangland activity fueled by carbonated beverages that I just brought home from the grocery store. Because food disappears from the refrigerator like I have an automatic Hoover installation in the door. Because it won’t be long before these young men have families and responsible jobs and haircuts that don’t touch the collar of their pinstriped suits.

So for now, I’ll plan to do a little extra work later on tonight so I can stop to cheer for a fifty note run in a song that was famous when I was in high school.

And maybe I’ll make a peanut butter sandwich and cut the crusts off.

Prozac Politics

At our house we refer to this as the year of Prozac Politics. Confidence in the current group of presidential possibles increases with the level of prescription medication in my bloodstream.

To underscore the serious nature of the political situation, it is important to notify the voting public that the future endeavors of the superpower known as The United States rests solidly in the hands of my teenage sons—and their friends Hungry, Toothpick, and Gumpy.

In one of those amazing cosmic coincidences, sort of like the startling discovery that Hannah Montana can inspire a little girl to tell a Very Bad Lie and win concert tickets and national fame, my sons, and their entourage, will be eligible to vote for the first time in this year’s presidential elections.

Although I am overcome with maternal pride in knowing that someone who would rather run through the neighborhood naked than dish a ladybug out of their bathwater is eligible to pull the lever that guides our future, I can’t help but consider how the rising votership could affect the elections. I just know that hovering on the horizon are political signs that read “I’m Freakin’ Awesome” and that business dress for meetings of world leaders will soon include a black T-Shirt that boasts “I’m Too Sexy For My Shorts.”

While I agree that the children are our future, I can’t help but harbor more than a little concern about the ability of a group of people who are strongly considering writing Chuck Norris in as a potential presidential candidate to select adequate leadership for our country. It is only slightly comforting to know that their opposition represents a grass roots movement that supports Jackie Chan. A close race could be decided with a roundhouse kick.

Also while I’m not entirely ready to endorse any of the current presidential candidates, I’m pretty sure that none of the main contenders should exist only on the business end of a video game controller. The major candidates from the Virtual Party are anyone who can play Iron Man without missing any notes on Guitar Hero, and Master Chief from Halo, whose idea of foreign trade is an exchange of bodies. Come to think of it, Master Chief would be an awesome presence at the G8 summits--or is it G9? I was never good at Bingo.

Now that my teens are voting, it’s up to me to set a good example when selecting a leader for our country. We need somebody who is not afraid to face challenges, who won’t back down from a confrontation, but who is not a bully. We need someone with the creativity and presence of mind to engage in skillful negotiations when the chips are down and the price is high.

Wonder what Johnny Depp is doing for the next four years? We’ve had worse things than a pirate in the White House.