Some things disturb me more than others.
  Granted, the list of things that bother me, even single-spaced and in a very small font, would likely fill a mid-size athletic stadium. There are some items, though, that would definitely warrant a bullet or boldfaced type or something. One of those standout entries is definitely "being used by a parent as a tool of discipline."
  I'm sure you're tired of hearing about how I work in a bookstore, but we're trying to keep this thing relatively stranger-friendly, on the off chance that someone I don't know has wandered in off the street and has gotten this far without wandering out again, clutching a pair of bleeding eyeballs and screaming for an ambulance or a mercy shooting. (Ask the Little Bald Bastard, brought to you in fabulous Run-On-Vision!) At work, I am quite frequently presented with challenging young people. Parenting appears, to my untrained eye, to be getting more indulgent these days, and the frequency of tantrums and disruptive behavior seems to be on the rise. I usually welcome parental intercession, but I dislike being used as a symbol of said discipline.
  The child was climbing on a shelf. Or chewing on a book. Or heading for the exit with a book that she didn't realize wasn't yet paid for. Or something. I don't remember clearly what the infraction was. What I do remember is the child's older male escort (who I assumed was her father) telling his (hopefully) offspring that "the man is going to beat your butt." By "the man," he meant me. I don't exactly know what he meant by "beat your butt," but I'm guessing that it wasn't a euphemism for "buy you ice cream."
  I wanted to believe that this pass-the-bad-guy-mask was better than nothing, but I couldn't do it. Ignoring the question of "butt-beating" as an appropriate child-rearing tactic for the moment, what if I hadn't been in sight? Would he have invoked a phantom "man," with whom to threaten his daughter with corporal punishment? Or would her absent mother have been made the scapegoat? Ooh, maybe it would have been God in the role of butt-beater, which is essentially the part he's been playing in some capacity for thousands of years. Or, would he have sucked up his reluctance and actually relied on his own authority to correct his child's behavior?
  The answer is, of course, that I don't know. (And neither do you, smartie!) Since I'll never see the family in question again, it's a rhetorical question. Still, I can't help but wonder, and my feeling is that he would have passed the butt-beater-buck to something, corporeal or not. From my split-second observation, I suspect that this man, like a lot of parents, dislikes the idea of being the bad guy in a disciplinary situation, so he made me his convenient bogeyman.
  I've voluntarily opted out of the child-rearing game, so I try not to offer advice on the topic. Yet, I am compelled to point out that it is impossible to raise a child right without occasionally making them do things they don't want to do. My belief is that indulging a child's every whim, or chickening out of your role as disciplinarian, is a sure way to raise self-absorbed anti-socialites.
  Then again, I could be wrong. Maybe it's the hormones in the beef or something.

L.A. waist wit' an Oakland booty...
  I went to a cast party on Saturday night. It had been an extremely long day, without much sleep the night before, and Amy and I were really going to just put in an appearance. Anyway, after all of the usual self-congratulatory stuff was over, Amy was catching up with some friends, and I ended up sitting on the couch next to my friend Angie.
  Angie and I worked together in The God of All Things, a performance piece that Amy wrote and directed for a class. I was cast as a middle-aged diplomat, and Angie played my pre-adolescent daughter, quite convincingly, I might add. Her role in the show we were cast-party-crashing was considerably more mature, and she tackled that with equal aplomb. Still, Angie is rather youthful in appearance, even younger than her actual 19 years. I still feel strangely paternal toward her, and I was vaguely proud as we discussed her lack of interest in drinking and her progress in school. Then, things got a little strange.
  As at most theater parties I've attended, the music was extremely eclectic. Although, bonus, no showtunes. Eventually, that classic of my misspent youth, "Baby Got Back," came on. I feel my age when I hear it lately, because it came out as I was firing my boosters and leaving the orbit of high school. Despite its ubiquity as a dance party staple, I identify it with a very specific time in my life, a time during which most of current social group, including my girlfriend, were in middle school. But that's not the strange part.
  Angie knew all the words. This song came out when she was in third grade, and she could sing along with every syllable. She could even make this sort of eerily accurate "wheep" sound and sing along with the record scratches.
  I know I'm probably overreacting, but there's an ironic overtone to the fact that she and I have this in common. I owned... hell, if I look hard enough I probably still own the song on a cassette single. Angie has never even seen a cassette single. To her credit, she didn't laugh at me when I asked her, but still. Of all the things we could have in common, it's Sir Mix-A-Lot that bridges our particular generation gap.
  When I am old and grey (or gray) and so riddled with Alzheimer's that I ask the nurse my middle name after a 20-minute nap, I will still remember listening to Angie proclaim that her anaconda didn't want none unless you got buns hon, and thinking that somewhere in our unlikely musical commonality was the key to solving the riddle of why people suck at getting along with other people. If only I could figure out how to get that message to the world, maybe we could all bond over amusingly cheesy hip-hop. Until then, it'll be our little secret, Angie.