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Fatherhood: Month One

( #fatherhood #babylombardi )


Note: NSFW! This video has very harsh language, so don’t blast it in the office.

My wife and I had a baby last month. This is our first. I set up a little blog for friends and family so I can flood their twitter and facebook feeds with pictures and videos, but I haven’t really written about it. So here are my observations on fatherhood for the first 30 days.

Before we get to the baby, let me talk about the birth. Gentlemen, make sure you bring entertainment for you and your lady. You will be sitting in a room for several hours (a dozen for me) with nothing going on. When the pushing starts things certainly do get interesting, but until then, you just sit around not doing a damn thing to help (nobody tells you that). As a point of contrast, my father disappeared for the entire birth process for me and my sister, returning with a bag of sandwiches… for the doctor. I have to admit there was a certain genius in this move having been through the experience myself.

Once the baby is born, from their perspective, dear-old-dad is still useless. My wife is breast-feeding, so when my son looks at me with this “where the hell is my lunch” look, I just have to pass him back to his mother. Yes I change diapers and hold him as much as possible, but he likes to be close to his food source (and I don’t blame him). So what is my advice to other fathers for a harmonious house? Step up on cleaning and cooking. If you can’t cook, here are some easy recipes. If you can’t clean…yes you can. Buy a damn mop and get to work clown.

All things considered, my wife and I are very lucky. Our son sleeps well. Before he was born, I had several dudes gleefully telling me to get used to being tired. While I expect a full scale disaster once he starts teething, right now he only gets up once during the night because my wife figured out a feeding schedule that knocks him out food coma style. So far, being on pager was WAY worse than having a newborn.

When he is awake and not irate about a soiled diaper, I play music for him. He likes it. If he is in a mood, he usually snaps right out of it to listen. I try to play as much variety as possible (stuff that I don’t even like). Anything that sounds complicated. He hates being in a swing, but likes to be held up over my head. He also hates being naked… go figure.

A few months ago, one of my best friends asked “you aren’t going to be one of those people who post pictures all day on facebook are you?” I responded with a strong “hell no”. I have not kept that promise on my personal accounts, but I don’t plan on making my kid the subject to daily blogging on this site. While he won’t be a daily fixture, I will discuss fatherhood, the changes in my life, and the things I have learned because that is why I have this blog in the first place.

In conclusion… Fatherhood: So far, so good.

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April Fools Day

( @drinkingmadeeasy, #aprilfools )

Yesterday my editor at Drinking Made Easy asked me to publish a fake news report about Drinking Made Easy co-host Steve McKenna. The joke was he quit the show and also drinking. I loved the whole idea (I am a big fan of Google’s AFD jokes) and jumped at a chance to lend credibility to the joke.

Then a funny thing happened… DME Host Zane Lamprey re-tweeted my post and the link blew up. This site got 12,000+ hits in less than 6 hours.

So this is probably going to be the most popular post on this blog…ever… and I didn’t even write it. I am totally not bitter about this fact, because there was a massive amount of run-off traffic to my other posts that I am really grateful for.

So what is the point of this post? If you found my blog yesterday, sorry for tricking you, but I hope you enjoyed the depths the DME Team went to pull it off. I also hope you continue to read this blog and follow my adventures on Drinking Made Easy.

Thanks again for re-affirming day.

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DME: McKenna Quits Drinking and the Show

( @zanelamprey, #SteveMcKenna )

UPDATE: If you didn’t figure it out, this post was an April Fool’s Joke set up by the Drinking Made Easy Editors. For those that didn’t realize this was a joke and posted heart-felt messages to Mr. McKenna… sorry?

I just caught wind of a coup. It’s nothing that will make the headlines, except for the occasional drinking or beard-celebrating blogs. But Steve McKenna, co-host (stunt-drinker, mascot, drinking buddy) of “Drinking Made Easy” on HDNet, formerly of “Three Sheets” on Spike, will be hanging up his mug. Permanently.

Late Friday afternoon, I had a scheduled phone interview with McKenna, to discuss the upcoming one hour special of “Drinking Made Easy”, where Zane, Steve and their monkey mascot , Pleepleus, will be debunking some alcohol myths, and according to McKenna “Getting a little more crazy that usual… And we usually get crazy.”

But McKenna, not in the jovial mood that I expected, told me that the season that’s being capped off by the one hour special (which airs at 8pm on April 11th on HDNet) will be his last. That seemed odd, since Lamprey recently announced that he’d signed up for a third season of the show which will begin shooting 13 new episodes in May.

McKenna told me that he was informing Zane Lamprey’s production company, Inzane Entertainment, and Mark Cuban’s television network, HDNet, that he will not be joining them for season three of “Drinking Made Easy” which will air on the networks new designation, AXS (pronounced ‘access’), this fall. With the success of the show, we have every reason to believe that they show will go on without him. But, we have no doubt that it will affect the format of the show, and leave some repeat viewers disappointed. McKenna has become a fan favorite and a vital part of the weekly 6-Pack Challenge, where McKenna and Lamprey compete against each other in increasingly impressive activities.

So the question is “Why?”. Why, when the network is about to double it’s number of households, would Steve McKenna jump ship and be going Three Sheets to the wind no longer? “It’s actually a lot of work,” McKenna told me on a phone call from his home in Richmond, Virginia, earlier today. “We’re traveling for more than half the year. I’ve sort of been the bar-matt for the show, drinking anything that Zane didn’t. I had fun… Too much fun sometimes. It’s just time for me to go down a different path.”

Has he truly had a higher calling? McKenna explained it to me; “We stopped filming last December. Since then, I’ve had a chance to reevaluate my life, and my direction. I want to be healthy. Right now I’m training for the NYC marathon. I’ve been speaking with the admissions department of NYU to finish up my Masters. I’m getting my masters in Theatre. That was the path that I was on before I started joining Zane in his projects.”

Is there something more? Is he tired of playing second fiddle to Lamprey? I asked him. “Well that’s part of it for sure,” McKenna told me. “I got my undergraduate degree in Shakespeare. When Zane and I met, I was the lead in most of the plays. Then, our senior year, he shows up out of no where. I’d never heard of him. And he took the lead in the main stage performances that the school did that year. I got a supporting role. I guess it’s been like that ever since…”

McKenna told me that this is something that he’s been planning for a while. He was more coherent and articulate than the character that he’s been portraying for the last 50 episodes of “Drinking Made Easy”. As much as I’d like to be impressed, I was a little disappointed. As a writer, I know how difficult it is to catch a break, a plight that I know we share with actors. So why would he squander such an opportunity that he could easily parlay into more substantial roles? As a fan, however, I am very disappointed. I have no doubt that Lamprey can carry the weight of the show on his own shoulders, as he did with “Three Sheets. But it won’t be the same without Steve McKenna.

I called the Inzane Entertainment offices in Los Angeles Friday afternoon to get their take on McKenna’s departure. Mel Schilling, the show’s producer told us that she was unaware of Steve’s recent decision. Lamprey was not available for comment.

Update: There is an active twitter thread happening right now. If you want to comment on this situation, use the twitter button below and use the hash tag #SteveMcKenna

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Book Review: Brains: A Zombie Memoir by Robin Becker

( #zombies, #brains )

I just finished reading a short zombie novel called “Brains: A Zombie Memoir”. This books take a more comedic approach to the zombie genre by having the lead character named Jack (who is undead) retain his memories and ability to think and write. Jack assembles a team of zombies who have managed to retain certain skills like running or shooting a gun and attempt to find the man responsible for the outbreak.

This book is way too similar to another zombie comedy I read a few months ago called “Zombie, Ohio” by Scott Kenemore. Allow me to review the similarities:

  • Both books feature male lead characters that retained their memories after they become zombies.
  • Both characters were college professors.
  • Both characters cheated on their significant other before zombification.
  • Both characters quickly embrace their zombie natures and gleefully eat people (both books make it an almost sexual experience).
  • Both books have the main character assemble and lead a zombie army.

Like “Zombie, Ohio”, “Brains” reads like fan fiction… bad fan fiction. Becker is going for a comedic tone, so there is no tension. She uses terms like “yummy” when the zombies eat brains, and it comes off as childish. Like the zombies she writes about, the plot wanders. Jack the zombie eventually finds his way to the scientists, but by the time it happens you don’t care because Becker moves the reader past it.

While I don’t normally come down this hard on books, I felt that “Brains” could have been much better. “Zombie, Ohio” also had room for improvement, but the author had fun with the environment he created. “Brains” is a paint-by-numbers zombie story that just goes through the motions.

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Book Review: Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card

( #EndersGame )

If you have been reading this blog over the last month, you will have noticed I have been on an “Ender’s Game” kick. I am sure you will be glad to read that Ender is ending with this review. “Ender in Exile” brings readers back to the titular character of Ender Wiggin, who I missed a great deal during the “Shadow Saga”. Exile is an auxiliary book, you don’t have to read it to understand the main storyline in either series, but it does fill in some gaps in the timeline that I actually appreciated.

This book takes place between the last chapter of “Ender’s Game” and the first chapter of “Speaker for the Dead”. Speaker kind of pissed me off because you never really learned about what Ender did with his teenage years or his twenties. This book attempts to fill that gap, but something strange happens along the way…

Most of the book is about Ender’s travel to the first colony (which was eventually named Shakespeare). Long story short, the ship’s captain is a pompous ass that doesn’t think a teenager can run a colony (even if he just finished saving the world). The captain positions himself to take over Shakespeare for himself when they arrive. Card creates an almost comedic tension between the two, I just kept thinking about the Home Alone movies (the kid outsmarts the robbers at every turn). Readers know that Ender gets to the colony so the fact that so many pages were spent on this conflict were a waste. While wasteful, it was nice to read about a youthful Ender taking people down instead of having a terrible marriage and loudmouth adopted children.

The last 30% of the book is spent on the Indian colony that Virlomi established. Bean’s last genetically enhanced child (who was raised by a crazy woman that Achilles hand picked) grows up on the new colony creating problems for that planet’s leadership. Eventually Ender leaves Shakespeare to deal with the situation as a favor to his lost friend. Card basically wraps up that loose plot thread from the Shadow Saga, so if you want to know what happens to Bean’s lost child you need to read this book.

I liked this book even though there really isn’t a solid reason to. Exile is like a mid-season throw away episode of a tv show. Basically you gets some cool character moments, but nothing important happens. Since Card gives up on Ender in the middle of “Xenocide”, I enjoyed reading Ender in his prime again. If you are new to the series, I would definitely read this after the original book because the character you love disappears after “Speaker for the Dead”.