Willow's New Summer, Day 1: She Has Never Attended Happy Hour

It was tough for a while there. It felt like the walls of our house were closing in on me. Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration. There are no negative feelings around here, not really, despite all the crying. Me and Pam and Willow are a family, and it feels fucking great. But I'd be lying if I said that two weeks of barely leaving the house didn't make me a bit claustrophobic.

At its worst, fatherhood has been everything I've expected, and even the worse parts aren't even that bad. A full night's sleep is a thing of the past, sure, but I anticipated that! Mixing a formula bottle, three-quarters unconscious, at three in the morning, feeling like Stu in Rugrats, that shit's fucking a-okay once I get the bottle in Willow's mouth and her disposition turns on a dime and she floats off into milk-drunk heaven.

There's been projectile poop, but there are always some wipes and a fresh onesie ready. There have been hysterics at obscene hours, but only for brief periods, and we're at the point where we know what calms her down (shushing, standing, sucking, swaddling, other S-words).

No, life is not like it used to be, but like I said, I was ready for that. I had made peace with it, and quite a while ago too. I'm not mourning the loss of those crazy weekend nights. They'll be back eventually, and even before that happens, I'm sincerely content chilling with my family, at home, maybe watching a movie, baby propped up on my shoulder sound asleep. It's fucking great, you guys.

But you don't want to hear about that, because it comes off as fucking posturing, right? Like I have to prove my love for my daughter on fucking Puke on Your Birthday.

So let it all suffice to say that, by the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, the (unofficial) first day of the Summer of 2018, me and Pam needed a fucking drink. So the three of us walked down to the local fried seafood tavern, Bait and Switch, for HAPPY HOUR.

Willow had been to a bar or two already, but there was something special about this particular occasion. First, the happy hour prices at Bait and Switch are fucking great, but that doesn't mean jackshit to a baby, so I guess this is the least important point. Second, we were outside, the weather was beautiful, and the bar is practically in our backyard, so we felt like we were home, ya know?

Third, it was the first day of SUMMER, a day that, sure, means less and less the deeper I get into my life, but still, there are some emotions that will never be stripped away no matter how old I get. Summer means FREEDOM. What exactly I feel free from, again, is nebulous at this point, now that I no longer have summers off. But right now, in a house most of the day taking care of a baby, the fact that we were outside, cold drinks in hand, family together, well FUCK dude I certainly felt free.

The title of this post is a farce, of course. We're not going to sludge through another 101 days of summer pretending like Willow is doing new things every day. That was so Summer 2017. Everything Willow does is new, and none of it will probably be worthy of documentation on a blog. (Christ, can you imagine? "Day 38: She Has Never Splattered Poop on the Wall"?!)

But new things or old things or whatever the fuck, it's going to be a great summer hanging out with this little animatronic-looking human. Let's make this the best summer of our lives.

Love,
Joey

The Albums That Matter: Animals

Joe runs through every album on his iPod, mostly in alphabetical order, and offers some brief thoughts. Check out previous columns HERE. Also—still no baby.

Animals

Pink Floyd

1977

Animals is Pink Floyd's most outwardly political album, and possibly its most badass. And probably its most underrated. And FUCK do I love this album.

Pink Floyd grows three sizes when it gets angry, and Animals shows the band at its angriest ("the band" i.e. mostly Roger Waters, though the other members might have unkind words to say about that assessment). The targets of this anger are right there, stated plainly. Yeah, you might need a quick history lesson of late '70s British politics to understand specifically why these people are being called out in Animals, but history repeats itself. You don't need to know who Mary Whitehouse is in "Pigs (Three Different Ones)" to know that the band disagrees with uptight "Christian"-based conservatism.

We see abuses of power in America in 2018 constantly. This isn't new. Our orange president is a pig, the senate majority are dogs, MAGA-hatted white Midwesterners are sheep. Animals is a timeless classic that speaks as much to our current issues as a nation as it did to Thatcher-haters in 1977 U.K.

Not to neglect the music (which I always do, but I shouldn't here especially, because "Dogs" is in the Top Three fifteen-minute-plus songs of all time, "Pigs (Three Different Ones)" somehow makes the talk box cool, "Sheep" is pianist Richard Wright's finest moment in the band, and the "Pigs on the Wings" ditties that bookend the album are great musical palate cleansers), but listening to Animals today gave me hope for whatever music comes out of this crazy moment in American history.

Yes, there's some shitty music to come out of these trumpian times, but look, Pink Floyd put out some timeless shit during a time when they disagreed with the politics of their country! Hopefully our beloved indie bands can put out some Animals-level political unrest-style music.

They just have to remember that the music is the important part. If the tunes are there (like, christ do I love that extended interlude on "Dogs," "stone, stone, stone, stone"), then the music can be timeless no matter how specific you get with the shit-slinging.

Good album.

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If this album sounds interesting, try this song: "Dogs" (I mean, there's not much to choose from here, only five songs—you're either in or you're not with this album)

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Stray Observations

• I kept my trumpian outrage to a minimum, since this is a music post, and everybody can probably agree that I should give my political blatherings a rest at some point.
• I always found it interesting how much the Sex Pistols claimed to hate Pink Floyd. I mean, I get what they are saying on one level; Pink Floyd IS definitely overly-serious and overblown and pretentious... but that's what makes them great!
• I'm not sure if any of this music is good Making Love music, but according to the Sun Kil Moon song "Dogs," Mark Kozelek disagrees.
• FRONT COVER: Say what you will about Floyd, but they have some iconic fucking album covers. The whole idea inflatable pigs being part of the Pink Floyd canon started here, on this cover. Check out the wiki for more info. I thought for the longest time that the cover was a painting, but it's actually a photo. I'm confident I wasn't the only one.
• Former PoYB contributor M*** S****** gave me this album for my birthday one year, maybe in '06 or '07? I can probably count on one hand how many times I received a CD as a gift. Much appreciated, buddy.

NEXT TIME: Another Music in a Different Kitchen by Buzzcocks

PoYB from the Vault: Emotional Haircut

No baby yet. I don't want to just sit here twiddling my thumbs as the days pass with no contractions, so fuck it, here's a blog post from 11/2008. It's very emo. Lately, I've been trying to post stupid shit at the beginning of the week, so that I am motivated to blog more and bury this shit. It works! Here's Emo Joe with some memories:

I got a new haircut, and I fucking hate it. I'm literally saddened to near tears about it. Why, you may ask, are you upset if the hair will grow back eventually? Read on.

I hate Developmental Psychology. I hate toddlers and babies, and thus, I hate learning about how they develop and grow psychologically. It's a drag. Unfortunately, there's one aspect of this subject that has me intrigued—Erikson's Theory of Psychosocial Development. It's the study of "identity" and the journey in finding yourself.

I guess the reason I'm pretty interested in this shit is because it doesn't really have to do with babies and their reactions to petty lab tests; it has to do with people my age, and the identity crises that teenagers my age typically face.

I fucking barely know who I am. I have no idea what I want to be when I get older. I don't know why I'm in school if all I do is slack off and party. I try to do the best I can, but it's hard.

I thought I could be a good boyfriend type, and that's how I knew myself for a while there, I was her boyfriend. And it was nice spending time with her, and we had fun, and I was loving life. But that fell apart and I don't really know where to go from here. I digress.

I decided today would be a good day for a haircut, seeing as I was going to get one three weeks ago anyway but the director of the play I was in said I should wait. So I take the bus to the old neighborhood, but my regular barber is closed, and so I go to a random salon on the corner, and they butcher it. Fucking butcher it.

Honestly, it's not the haircut that sucks. It would look good on other people I guess. But it's not me.

In my journey of become my own identity, I became accustomed to my hairstyle, and it became me. And now, in a week when I lose the play and my girlfriend and my good mood, I lose my hair too. I lose my identity. And that fucking sucks.

So, I'll continue to let people say it "looks good," and I'll continue to let people tell me it'll grow back eventually, and I'll continue to let people try to cheer me up, but the fact of the matter is is that I feel empty inside without these things. There's a hole in my stomach that I can't seem to fill with anything but Natty Light and jungle juice and Hurricane.

I guess, like my hair, I'll just have to let my life grow back.

Final Thoughts, Pre-Parenthood (Plus, Baby's First Song)

I'm typing these words a few days in advanced, and the day you are reading this is the actual due date for Pam. So who knows, maybe this baby is here already. Regardless, I wanted to get some final thoughts out there, and then if the baby isn't born for another two weeks, I'll fill up PoYB with some inane nonsense about music and drinking instead more stuff about the baby. You guys have heard enough. Hit me up in person, I'll talk your ear off.

I guess the thing I was most worried about, as far as having a child, is the fact that I've never truly been comfortable around infants. It's definitely been a mental thing, as far as it being like, holy shit, this little thing weighs six pounds, I hope I don't break it! That type of thing. But we were at a brewery the other night with a couple good friends and their ten-day-old, and I wasn't planning on it, but it just kind of happened that I held that little one in my arms for close to an hour. It was comforting, knowing that I held on to her and kept her safe (and didn't drop her, and so on). It calmed my nerves about being around babies that tiny. I can fucking do this. It was startling how much better I feel about this whole thing after that occurred. It was only an hour around a baby, but that hour was enough to give me confidence that I can be the dad I want to be. LET'S DO THIS SHIT.

These past few weeks have been torture, otherwise, I'm not gonna lie. Tom Petty says "the waiting is the hardest part" and he wasn't lying. I feel like I've been perpetually living with the feeling you get right before you rip off a band aid. It's a sinking feeling, where you gotta psych yourself up for what's next. And the ripping it off is painful (or, likewise, the labor and delivery), but you know you just have to fucking do it to see how well it's healed, ya know? I'm just so tired of living every moment in the BEFORE. I want to get this fucking show on the road.

People keep asking me what I've been up to, how's everything going recently, and I literally have nothing to tell them. I come to work, I go home, I go to sleep, I wake up, I come to work, and every fucking moment of the day I'm just waiting for that call so I can rush out of wherever I am and get home and pack the bag and head to the hospital and start my new life.

Anyways, I feel like I'm repeating myself with a lot of this. I will reiterate my promise that I won't write too much about fatherhood here on PoYB unless I truly have something unique to say. Millions of fathers have done this before me, so I doubt my experience will be any different. I mean, it's gonna feel unique to me, but I doubt I'll be able to shed any new insight to the general public here. I promise I won't harp on any banalities here.

So let's end with what I consider the opposite of banal—a follow-up to Baby's First Song! Here, I will list the five songs that the K***s have narrowed our search to. One of these five songs will be the first music our child hears (without Mom's belly in the way, anyway).

I know this sounds stupid, and I can't imagine this exercise being important to anyone but the child's audiophile father. And I swear this isn't going to be some grand pomp and circumstance thing in the hospital room, where I say "Okay everyone quiet down it's time for BABY'S FIRST SONG!!!" Maybe our second morning in the hospital I'll pop my iPod in and I'll quietly put the song we choose on. I just want to be able to tell the kid when s/he grows up what the first song s/he heard was. I think that would be cool. And I want it to be a good one. That's all. Nothing crazy.

Here are the five possibilities. Some are more likely than others. It'll likely be a game-time decision.

Baby's First Song

1) "Why We Fight" by the Decemberists

2) "Doing It Right" by the Go! Team

3) "Bowl of Oranges" by Bright Eyes

4) "One Big Holiday" by My Morning Jacket

5) "Bamboo Bones" by Against Me!