A Paranoid Dad’s Blues: Getting Over Myself for the Sake of the Children

Pal, you often say that I worry too much about things that will never happen. This is true. Lately I have been worrying about something that I hope will never happen but I know will. I loose sleep over it. I break out in stress sweats thinking about it. I curl up into a ball in a dark corner of my house and rock back and forth saying to myself, “never let this happen, never let this happen.” It is my nightmare.

Are you ready for this one. My worst fear. My daughters having S-E-crossing-hockey-sticks! Ooiuuughhh! I could barely even type those words.

I don’t want to think about it, but I am forced to when my kids (6 and 9 years old) are in the back of the car singing at the top of their lungs songs from Katy Perry’s latest album.

“Now get into your birthday suit, I want to show you my big balloons”

That is tame compared to what is really out there. At some point they will find what is out there. I am worried about what they have heard already. My 9 year old told me the other day, when we were talking about curse words, that she has heard it all because her friends (who are boys) play Grand Theft Auto and talk about it at school. I have never played it and I hope I am wrong about this, but I heard that in this game you can have sex with a prostitute and then kill her afterwards so you don’t have to pay her. These are 9 year old boys playing this (oh, here I go…stress sweat…increased heart rate).

They may not understand it now, but they will. And if they are getting such good feelings in a video game from screwing and killing a prostitute, won’t that be fostering deviant sexual behaviour? And won’t that deviant behaviour try to get all up in my daughter’s grill? (oh boy…stress sweat turned to flop sweat) Keep in mind that I am their Dad. What will it be like when they are older? What will I be like? I can see it now. Six years in the future. A boy comes calling to the Pal Residence. After a long day of killing prostitutes, this little scuzbag has come to pick up my daughter and take her to the movies. I can see it in his eyes. The same eyes that I had at that age. The same eyes that all my buddies had. Those testosterone filled windows into the soul. Oh, I know what you are thinking you little sperm cannon.

I want to rip out those eyes put them in my skeet shooter, scream “pull!” and shoot them to smithereens.

I get it all the time. Other parents (with sons) telling me to “watch out for your daughter when she gets older”. Fine okay. My daughter is cute and all the boys are going to fall for her. Sounds like a compliment. Is it? What I am hearing is, “your daughter is so cute that my son is going to try to F her when she is older”. Ha ha. Pretty funny. Sheesh.

OK. Lets try to be rationale about it for a second. Sex is a part of life. I know that. As a bowl of Mini Wheats is to breakfast, it is a part if a healthy lifestyle. I do it and am doing fine so why shou..l..dn’nnn…n…. (I couldn’t even finish the thought). At some point in their life they will be at the peculiar and awkward age of deciding how they are going to handle their sexuality. It has the potential to either be: (A) a wonderful expression of Love between two people, or (B) an exercise in victimization that leaves someone questioning their own self worth. I just need to make sure that my daughters make the right choices in life and all of their decisions are filled with confidence and self-respect so the result falls in the A column.

So how do I ensure that? Can I even? I heard about a study where it was determined that it is healthier for the Dad to give “the talk” than the Mom. Not sure why or what ‘healthier’ even means. If I believe movies and T.V., troubled girls are the result of negligent or abusive fathers. I am sure that it is more complicated than that. Regardless, my role is critical to how my daughters develop mentally. I just need to make sure I am in the right headspace to deliver the proper fatherly advise. Right now I may not be.

Maybe I need to self analyze my own issues on this before I decide it is a good idea to gouge out the eyeballs of every teenage boy in the neighbourhood. As a teenager myself, I was not much of a player and was jealous of those who were. Could I be projecting that jealousy onto those unsuspecting future eyeless boys? Is my fear really a projection of my own issues, depravity, and guilt over my own ‘sinful’ thoughts, and am I merely acting out on these boys as a means to make myself feel morally centred? Is this all just an exercise in narcissism?

I am not the only father of two daughters in the world. Humanity has plugged along just fine over the years without having to blind all the 15 year old boys. Wait a second. Humanity did used to do stuff like that. Is this why there has been so many horrible human rights violations over the years, which still occur in some areas? A father’s fear?

There is a father’s role, but also a mother’s. My daughters only need to look across the dinner table to see a self-confident, powerful and well adjusted woman to strive to be like. I know of no other women (or person for that matter) who has as much self respect and as my wife. It is awe inspiring.

I also have the comfort of my kids being pretty awesome in their own right. They are smart and very aware of their social environment. So, it sounds like the problem might be only in my head. I had one of my first tests the other day during a conversation I had with my 9 year old daughter. As a Dad yourself Pal, I would love to know your thoughts on how I handled it.

9: Dad, last year at school I would have conversations with boys about T.V. shows and cartoons. Now it is all boring stuff.
Pal: like what kind of boring stuff?
9: like wine and beer and drunk people
Pal: wait a minute. What drunk people are they hanging around with?
9: you know like Rob Ford and stuff
Pal: well that’s too bad. It sounds like you guys are at the age where the differences between boys and girls are really noticeable
9: I know right. Boys are like…
Pal: boys are just horrible
9: but you’re a boy
Pal: I know, but I always thought that girls were more mature than boys
9: You did?
Pal: Yep
9: not all boys are like that Dad. Jimmy isn’t like that he doesn’t talk about that stuff
Pal: he sounds like a good one. The rest are just awful. (pause) Don’t tell them I said that
9: I won’t. I will never tell them
Pal: just make sure you use that knowledge for when you find a boyfriend
9: okay, but I won’t have a boyfriend until I am a teenager
Pal: I was thinking more like in your 20s
9: I want to be married in my 20s
Pal: I don’t think so. You’re living with me until your 30
9: Daddy!

I asked my wife what she thought about this interaction and she said I should have focused on the “drinking and drunk people” part of the conversation not the “boys are horrible” part. I am sure she is right. Failed the first test. Thank goodness I have a few more years to figure it out. Thank goodness I have some great ladies in my life to help me.

Later Pal.

Philip Seymour Hoffman: A Bitter Farewell to a Master

Hey Pal:

I could be wrong but I’ll bet no one ever said: “Hey, let’s go see the new Philip Seymour Hoffman movie this weekend.”

And that’s a shame because the actor – whose tragic, stupid death of a heroin overdose more than a week ago still stuns me – was one of the very best actors working in Hollywood.

He was not known as a leading man, was not the guy expected to carry a movie to box office gold like a Tom Cruise or a Brad Pitt.

But nor was he your typical character actor either. Character actors are those chameleons you’ve seen a thousand times but you couldn’t name anything they’ve been in; the guy whose job it is to blend into the fabric of a film.

Hoffman sure as hell wasn’t that either. He played far more supporting roles than leading roles, to be sure, but he never faded into the background. When he was on screen, he made his presence felt. He shone through. He could play anyone but he was still always himself.

He won an Oscar for Capote and probably should have won at least two others, and there are about 50 movies you could watch to see the guy’s awesome range, but when I think about Philip Seymour Hoffman I have always, and will always, associate him most strongly with the films of Paul Thomas Anderson.

What a marriage. A brilliant visionary director and a magnificent actor. Here’s a rundown of some of the magic they made together:

Scotty in Boogie Nights

One of Hoffman’s breakthrough roles, playing a loser amongst losers in the late 1970s/early 1980s porn movie industry. He’s a boom operator, merely tolerated by those around him, secretly harbouring lust and love for Mark Wahlberg’s Dirk Diggler. His pent up desire, frustration and hopelessness ooze and twitch out of him in every scene. What a tough role for a new actor to play – to do something where you know you’re going to look your absolute worst.

Phil in Magnolia

Next, Anderson cast Hoffman as the nurse tending to Jason Robards’ dying old man, and who suddenly finds himself with the unenviable task of having to fulfill that man’s very difficult last wish. Magnolia is one of my favourite films – as bold, ambitious and unique as they come – and while it is populated with many lovely, endearing characters, Hoffman is, for me, the big beating heart at the centre of it all.

Check out the scene when he has to say “This is the scene in the movie where you help me out.” In lesser hands such a line could turn to schmaltz, but Hoffman fashions it into a noble, irresistible plea.

Dean Trumbell in Punch-Drunk Love

Hoffman’s pudginess and pale face do not bring to mind a villain, but Anderson had the guts and vision to give Hoffman a crack at being the bad guy in this fantastic, bizarre little romance. His mattress salesman/swindler is a vile prick who is, for a good deal of the movie, menacing. All the sweetness he showed in Magnolia disappears like it never existed.

Lancaster Dobbs in The Master

Finally, there’s the incomparable Lancaster Dobbs in The Master. His cult leader chews apart the scenery and owns every room he’s in, whether he’s being charming and seductive or exploding with fury. Love him or hate him, he is magnetic and commanding throughout, and he is a million miles away from Boogie Nights’ poor bumbling slob Scotty.

    

    

Three things you can say about these roles: they are all indelible, they bear zero resemblance to one another and, despite their dissimilarity, they are all unequivocally Philip Seymour Hoffman performances.

Not many actors can pull that off. Hoffman truly was a master.

It pisses me off that he’s gone. He had so many years of movie-making still ahead of him.

It pains me to think of all the “Philip Seymour Hoffman movies” that we won’t get to see.

Before I sign off, I have to include a link to another tribute to Hoffman. Peter Howell of the Toronto Star says all that I say here and more, and says it better. Check it out: Howell on Hoffman.

Later, Pal.

Philip Seymour Hoffman
July 23, 1967 – February 2, 2014