Dads are the New Moms

People are good. Even though I mostly hate them, the are often bearers of the winds of change that can stir up good ideas in one's head. People=moop. Ideas=less moop.

One such person is a man named Cormac, who is a friend of Pickle, who is my very good friend.

While at Donnybrook last night, we were discussing racism, like you do now in this country. Particularly when both your gene pool and your friend pool looks like a less-creepy Benetton ad (or maybe a more-accessible Bennington ad). And I asserted that everyone is racist, at least in this country (I mean, technically, you'd be a moron if you brain didn't discern, classify and remember visual and social cues--it's the judgments that we ascribe to these that are often manipulated, as perceptions often are, and that we must be wary of/accountable for), and that it's really a matter of whether you are the kind of person who is willing/capable of going there, or if your behavioral training--due to your parents or yourself--is otherwise.

I am often impressed by my friends who have been shaped under the heatlamp of white liberal guilt. It's amazing how far they don't go at times... in terms of not pulling out the racist stereotype when it would clearly fit the bill. Being a person of color, I just don't know what that's like, since we are the most racist people on the planet. We revel in it. It's going to be so hard to let go. >

And I don't necessarily always feel like it's them being P.C. or sugar coating things, as much as that is just an area they have been trained that they have no place in. Often that can be part of the problem when trying to engage the conversation--letting people know that they don't have to eat at the kid table, and in fact, they can't anymore. But in other cases, in a very grown up way, they have just learned not to let an easy stereotype prevent them from the human truth of a situation. Cause that's the thing, isn't it. Racism is easier. It's a shortcut. The economic structure underneath it is just so much harder.

But I digress...

The example I gave to support this had to do with relationships--how there are some guys who just really don't have it in them to hit a woman. I mean, physically, it can be done, and often they have probably wanted to. But their girlfriend can have a fight all up in their face, be hitting them, call them a faggot and talk about their mother--all the things that are pretty much at the top of the list of stuff that should get you clocked in the box, and and that guy will just get upset and grunt and curl his lips up and gesticulate but not do what everyone (including that woman, probably) is waiting for. They just learned, or taught themselves that that is not possible.

Point being--going back to the Clock in the Box list--talking about someone's mother is kind of #1 in terms of fighting words. If you escalate the argument to, "everybody knows your momma is a stank ho, " or "your momma didn't say that when she was fucking me last night," you want to start swingin'. That's what you've just asked for.

However, sometimes you want to have a verbal argument with someone, and not actually come to blows. You want to just hurt them on the inside and then walk away like an asshole, or what we call in the fighting world "the winner." I think that dads can be employed for this purpose. Cause being that, aside from progenating and paying for things, it's hard to reckon what dads are actually for--AND, what's more, while everyone is going to side with their momma, just cause she's momma (even if they hate her, YOU certainly can't talk about her), daddy can fend for himself. Plus, dads have nowhere to go but down in the world. If you are a good dad, you basically will get a tie, mug or bumper sticker saying so, and if you're not, you're probably amongst 95% of American dads who are deadbeats, alcoholics, abusers, absentee or just plain arrogant assholes.

All I am saying is, everyone's got one. Why shouldn't it be thrown in your face?

"And thanks for giving me your rosacea too, you inbred lush!"

If you are in the middle of a heated argument with your partner, friend or loathed enemy, and you pull out "you're the reason why your dad hits your mom," you are going to disarm your opponent with a wellspring of bitter, unresolved tears, and walk away with your pretty face intact. If you utilize a well-timed, "at least my dad left before I was born and not immediately after," even on someone you don't know very well, you are quite likely to unlock some kind of daddy dilemma that will work better than pepper spray in the tactic of 'stun and subdue.' If I were in a deathmatch and my opponent asserted that he or she was going to "knock me out faster than I could fuck away my father issues," I would be wounded more deeply than a homemade shiv could get at, as it would be clear that I hadn't yet figured out how to fuck away my father issues, and evident to me that this was common enough knowledge to be easily drawn upon. I would be aghast, reeling, and probably stopping the fight to call my therapist. Or at least I'd be punching through tears. Which would definitely put me at a disadvantage.

All I am saying is, most people in this country are wimps. If you are sitting in front of a screen, reading this, chances are you are working on a healthy fear/improbability of human interaction, and the only punch you want to encounter anytime soon comes in a juice pouch. Now, there is also a meaty center section in a Venn diagram representing people whose childhood memories are a shit-show starring a certain Pater Familias. All I am saying is, fight smarter, not harder. Behind every cooter punch is a deeply-set pair of balls. Let things descend all the way down to dirty daddy, and then start swingin'.