The Crying Room

If the church was built for the Father and the Son, then within that structure, the crying room was built for Daddy and the Dude.

Last weekend, the Dude was tapped to don a tux and be the ring bearer for his aunt’s wedding. As anyone who has ever been to a wedding can attest, the sight of a little guy in a tux walking down the aisle is always a highlight. In fact, for my own wedding, we had no younger family members and I considered hiring a child actor for just this purpose. Supermommy quickly dismissed my ingenious idea, just as she dismissed (rightly so in retrospect) all of my genius wedding planning ideas (hook up an iPod instead of hiring a DJ or having waiters walk around with trays of Pigs in a Blanket throughout the reception and not just during the cocktail hour).

Lately, our churchgoing as been, ah, slightly inconsistent. Okay, we haven’t gone since the Dude’s baptism. But, to be honest, the Dude does not like to sit still unless a Pixar film is on the television. So, I was worried about what the Dude would do when he walked down the aisle. Temper tantrum? Loco legs? Sit down in the middle of the aisle? Point at his lower half saying, “Poo-poo, poo-poo!” to the congregation?

Supermommy was a bridesmaid and she walked the Dude down the aisle, and by all accounts, he did a good job, and everyone oohed and aahed at him because a little boy in a tux is undeniable.

Once he had finished his walk, he was passed off to me sitting in the pew for the duration of the wedding, while Supermommy took her place with the rest of the bridesmaids.  Now the real work (for me) began, because no matter how cute the Dude in his tux was, his time to shine was over, because THE WEDDING IS ABOUT THE BRIDE, ALWAYS. My job was to stop the Dude from even attempting to steal attention away from the bride on her big day during the ceremony. No cute baby jabbering, no dancing, no waiving at everyone, and most importantly, no crying was allowed.

I was armed with all the Dude’s favorite things: his binky (or pacifier-jeez, that’s a whole blog post in of itself), his blanket-dog (a little blanket with a dog head on it, this isn’t rocket science, folks), his stuffed bear, and some other assorted toys and books. I wore a pocket watch too, because, to paraphrase Doctor Who, pocket watches are cool. But the real good stuff was the camera and my cell phone.

Most little kids born in the last few years have hardcore cell phone addictions. Face it, they see their parents on them all the time, they look shiny and cool, and they make all sorts of fun noises. And to repeat, they see adults on them ALL THE TIME.  And they aren’t fooled by the imitation toy versions. They want the iPhone. The Dude can do the touchscreen “slide open to unlock” trick and also send a text. Steve Jobs in his evilest world domination fantasies could not indoctrinate a future generation of consumers as thoroughly as the child’s own parents.

So I let the Dude sit on my lap and push as many fun touchscreen buttons on my phone as he wanted (he managed to delete all my contacts) while the ceremony went on. The second he made a peep; I popped the binky in his mouth like plug, and he was quiet and content for the first twenty minutes of the mass (Catholic weddings last a long time).

As a side note, if you watch enough weddings in TV and movies, you’d know that the two most important and dramatic moments are 1. The personally written vows that the married couple spend an inordinate amount of time worrying over and 2. The bit where the priest/minister asks, “Does anyone in the audience know of a reason these two should not be joined in holy matrimony?” and everyone looks at the groom and then scans the bridesmaids, then looks behind them to see if anyone is going to burst through the door and race down the aisle (I dream of witnessing this one day in addition to it’s cousin the racing-through-the-airport-to-stop-a- boyfriend/girlfriend-from-making-the-biggest-mistake-of-his/her-life-by-getting-on-that-plane-and-dropping-their-luggage-and-running-up-to-each-other-kiss-while-everyone-claps-move).

But, spoiler alert, none of those things actually happen during a Catholic ceremony. No personal handcrafted vows are said and the priest doesn’t ask the congregation for any damning evidence about the couple. The church might have to return the check if the wedding doesn’t go through, and that is definitely NOT going to happen. Plus the priest might want to hit the open bar at the reception.

At the first sign of struggle, I was instructed to whisk the Dude away and take him to crying room.  The Dude started getting wiggly during a strangely jazzy piece of music played for a responsorial. Then when he nearly dialed the mother of the bride, I figured the time had come. Off the crying room we go!

We joined his older (by two weeks) cousin who was the flower girl and her dad already ensconced in the crying room. They were supplied with more toys and all the cookies they could eat (the Dude took this as challenge) and all the stacked plastic folding chairs they could climb (ditto).

There’s an old saying in the Catholic Church, I think it was first said by Pope Pious XII, but I’ll translate it for you from the original Latin, “What happens in the crying room, stays in the crying room.”

We’ll never know quite how soundproof those walls were, but for the rest of the ceremony, the focus was on the bride (and groom okay).

And the children were seen and not heard.

Mr. Swiss Goes to City Hall: Fiction

Growing up Appenzell Innerhoden, the smallest canton in Switzerland, Juergen Zurbriggen dreamt of Chicago.

He dreamt of Michael Jordan taking flight from the free throw line with his tongue out while vanquishing lesser American Dominique Wilkins in the 1988 All-Star Slam Dunk Contest. He dreamt of the Monsters of the Midway, the ivy on the walls of Wrigley, and Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey. He dreamt of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow, Al Capone, Elliot Ness, dead as Dillinger, “Hizzoner” Mayor Dick Daly, Mike Royko’s columns, and David Mamet’s staccato fucks. He dreamt of the riding the L, walking along Lake Michigan, and throwing pennies off the top of the Sears Tower. If he closed his eyes, he could almost taste the deep-dish pizza, the Italian beef sandwiches and the polish sausages.

As a boy, Juergen Zurbriggen rode his bicycle into town, wearing his bright red nylon Bulls Starter jacket, and extorted local bakeries and chocolatiers by offering a protection fee against broken show windows and petty theft. The local shopkeepers paid Juergen in the form of Swiss rolls and hot chocolate, dazzled as they were by the young man’s racketeering scheme.

After his graduation from the University of Zurich, he returned home to rig the Landsgemeinde, the local election to the General Assembly, by arranging half the cemetery vote for him and his newly formed Billy Goat Party. The introduction of Chicago machine-style politics to the virgin snow of the Appenzell Innerhoden local government proved to be an uneasy marriage, and he was tossed out of the General Assembly a mere two weeks into his term for his decision to over salt the roads and sidewalks, melting the snow, and angering the influential cross-country skier’s union.

Chastised but undeterred, Juergen Zurbriggen bought a one-way plane ticket to O’Hare, packed his bags with all the Toblerone chocolate he could pass through customs, and flew to the Chicago of his dreams.

He soon used his bland Swiss charm to secure a government position as an assistant in the Landmark’s Division of the Chicago Department Planning in Development, which staffed for the Commission on Chicago Landmarks. It was in his tiny, cramped office on 33 N. LaSalle Street that his Chicago dream finally came true when two thick-neck Polish toughs walked in holding  suitcases choked with bribe money.

He had lived in Chicago for over a year, but today Juergen Zurbriggen finally felt that he had arrived.

Schadenfreude for Schwarzenegger

Let’s be honest, staying on top of all the latest celebrity gossip can get exhausting. That’s why when I needed the super true truth on the latest Arnold Schwarzenegger paternity bombshell; I turned to my friend and celebrity gossip blogger Jeffrey Wolinski from http://supertruenews.blogspot.com/ for help.

Brendan: So Arnold Schwarzenegger admitted to cheating on his wife of 25 years Maria Shriver and to fathering a “love child” with a household staffer.  People seemed shocked by the news. Should they be surprised the strongman would Jingle All the Way with another woman?

Jeffrey: Arnold is surprised that people are shocked he knocked the girl up.  He always goes Commando!

Brendan: And it’s just the one child as far as we know, right?

Jeffrey: Not many people know this but Arnold actually had Twins with the woman.  One ended up living on an island getting the world's best education and the other looks like Danny DeVito.

Brendan: Let’s face it, the man in 63 years old. Even if the child is 10-years-old, that means he was still 53. And after years of steroid abuse that’s kinda impressive, right?

Jeffrey: He is the Last Action Hero.

Brendan: Could this actually help is viral image?

Jeffrey: If playing Mr. Freeze in Batman and Robin couldn’t put his career on ice, nothing will.

Brendan: Did the public really think that he was perfectly faithful to Maria?

Jeffrey: For years everyone thought Arnold just pumped iron.

Brendan: Do you think that Maria failed to satisfy the Austrian Oak?

Jeffrey: I’ve heard that Maria’s skeletal frame would shatter into a thousand pieces if he even touched her with a plume of smoke from his cigar.

Brendan: Can we assume that Maria will take him to the cleaners?

Jeffrey: It looks like Arnold might get a Raw Deal in the divorce settlement.

Brendan: He’s a Republican. She’s a Kennedy Democrat. It shouldn’t have worked, but for 25 years they pretended it did. If this Hollywood sham marriage couldn’t succeed, what does that say about the future of sham marriages in Hollywood?

Jeffrey: We still have Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon and Tom Cruise is polishing off his third sham marriage. And there’s a deep bench of next generation stars ready to pretend to tie themselves down to someone of the opposite sex for “whatever reason”.

Brendan: Example? Maria is a cougar on the prowl now. Who should be her next prey?

Jeffrey: Jake Gyllenhaal is my pick to click. That boy seems desperate for a sham marriage.

Brendan: What about Arnold and Maria’s children, aren’t they the real Collateral Damage in all this? And doesn’t that remind you of a storyline with Harry Hamlin in Veronica Mars?

Jeffrey: I never watched Veronica Mars.  But I feel no sympathy for the children. They probably don’t have any problems getting their screenplays read by producers.

Brendan: Can we expect any more True Lies to come out?

Jeffrey: Not many people know this but Arnold is the one who actually gave birth to the love child.  He named it Junior.

Thanks, Jeffrey!

L’argent de poche or Why Does My Son Always Bang His Head?

Now available on Netflix Instant is Francois Truffaut’s 1976 film listed under its original and more literal English language title “Pocket Money” though usually known as “Small Change” in the US.

Whether it’s the film’s seemingly modest ambitions, episodic structure or the haphazard viewing availability in the US, Pocket Money/Small Change doesn’t have the same cache as Truffaut’s first three Nouvelle Vague masterpieces: The 400 Blows, Shoot the Piano Player, Jules & Jim or the late period joie de filmmaking summation, Day For Night.

But within a great director’s filmography, there is often an underrated gem that is every bit as enjoyable as the masterpieces. For Truffaut, I think Small Change is that film.

Filmed in Thiers in South Central France and shooting with a cast of untrained actors, Truffaut's unobtrusive camara creates the illusion that he just chanced upon an entire town filled with Antoine Doinels.  A town filled with real children who get in trouble with their parents, clock watch at school, tell dirty jokes, commit petty theft, watch mademoiselles undress through binoculars, and have their first kisses. The film is a primer on the adorable precocious little rascal scamp kids with cute foreign accents genre.

The scene that is most often cited from the film is the sequence where a two-year-old-boy is momentarily left alone in their apartment by his mother and chases their family cat onto the window ledge. As the scene progresses, the viewer sees where this is all going, but can’t believe the movie would let the unimaginable happen. Onlookers spot the baby on the ledge and are frozen in place, shocked.

The baby holds onto the ledge by his fingers, and you think that mommy will grab him. But no, his grip slips and he falls six or seven floors to the ground like Blanket Jackson if Michael actually dropped him off the hotel balcony. This is NOT happening the viewer thinks.

Via an absurd deus ex machina of an edit, we cut to a close-up as the baby lands softly on his butt as if he were only dropped a foot off the ground. The baby says, “Gregory go boom,” and giggles with delight. The onlookers are horrified but amazed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKYSODuFs4k&feature=related

The scene is unrealistic, but the larger point is made in the next scene when one of the neighbors says to his wife, “It’s terrifying to think of the way kids are in constant danger.”

The wife says, “That’s not exactly true. I mean, whereas an adult would have been laid out for good, kids are solid as a rock. They stumble through life, but they’re not hurt. They’re much tougher than we are.”

"Children exist in a state of grace," another character remarks at a different point in the film. "They pass untouched through dangers that would destroy an adult."

My son, the Dude, is almost always putting himself in a perilous situation, whether engaged in some epic climbing expedition or just running full speed into something solid, like a wall for instance. Before I was a parent, I had always marveled at how little kids ran into things and seemingly just shook it off like it was nothing.

Little kids don’t twist their ankles, or wrench their backs or strain their obliques. What does happen is they bang their heads. They hit everything with their head like it’s a guided missile.  And hard too! Really hard it seems. Invariably at some point, the dude will bang his head, and I’ll go, “Oh, shit!” And then look at my wife, Supermommy, like “Did you just see that?”

If you don’t have children, you’re probably saying to yourself, “That’s why you have to childproof the house.” That’s what I thought too. Believe me, there is no childproofing from the forces of gravity. Their little legs will trip them up. They will fall. And they will hit their heads on something hard in a way you had never thought possible.

But what do you do? What can you do? When the Dude goes boom, I pick him up crying and I say, “Are you alright, Dude?” And the Dude's like, “Daddy, what the flip just happened?”

I say in response the only thing that can usually make the pain go away, “Do you want some juice?”

The dude smiles and says, “Duice!”

The pain evaporates, as does the memory of the pain and what risky action caused it. The Dude gets his juice and is off trying to climb the kitchen table.