Another Post Like the Last One

May 25,

As I write this, I wonder about the father-son dynamic these days. Things have changed since I was a young pup like you. Take DVDs for instance. They're so skinny. They don't have heft and substance like a good VHS tape. A boy like you stumbling upon his father's stash of secret porn videos just won't get the same reaction coming across those almost not there DVD cases. They don't have that visual impact that a big box of VHS porn would have upon a young mind. But to each their own poison. Mine is of the paper variety. Now there's a stash for a young boy to come upon! With a video, a boy has to try to figure out if he has the balls to take the video out of the case, go to the player, turn the player on, hope the volume isn't so loud that someone notices...too many steps where things could go wrong. Hardly a child out there would even attempt it! Now, coming across your father's stack of porn magazines...easy access. Just open up, and enjoy the confusing feelings you get from looking at them. What boy wants to talk about the birds and bees with his father without thinking about his father's porn in the back of his head? Not any boy in this family.

Flathead Maury stopped by the other day. He and I have been friends since we were your age. The trouble we used to get into! Flathead was there the day you were born! I'll never forget that day, in that taxi, on our way to the casino, hoping to win enough money to cover the medical costs for a baby delivery at the hospital. We waited until the 9 month, you know, because we didn't want to jinx it. Flathead was with us, he called the cab actually, because we were all a little tipsy. Luckily Flathead keeps a backpack full of clean towels on him at all times so that the taxi didn't get too messy. I think we tipped the driver well. It's hard to remember, I was pretty drunk...and angry at your mother for having bad luck that day on the slots. The Pirates Treasure machine never pays off big! Even an amateur knows that. Son, if I ever teach you anything, it should be that you should never waste your time on the slots. Video poker, that's a game of skill, and men in our family live by our wits, not pure fortune.

So Flathead was at the lighthouse. He was looking for a wrench. I don't know why the hell I would have a wrench at a lighthouse. Flathead is like that. You know the old saying, "The man who looks for wrenches in all the wrong places". Well, that's Flathead. He's that guy. You probably know by the time you read this. I'd say he's a character, but I've never quite figured out what people mean when they say that. It usually seems to mean that they're too lazy to point out exactly what it is about a eccentric person that annoys them, so they say they're a "character". Well, I have all the time in the world to tell people exactly what annoys me, so I guess that's why I don't use that expression.