Miscellaneous Catching Up

It’s been awhile on a couple of these, so I figured I should jot them down before time erodes them from my memory.

This first story has been getting good traction in my friend and colleague circles. Before I can tell the story, I need to tee it up a little bit. Quinton is obviously a black male being raised among “the whites.” From time to time that causes some conflict in him. He really likes the idea of exploring black culture, but acknowledges that he doesn’t know much about it. One thing he likes to do to try to dip his toe into it is to listen to rap music. While there is a very deep collection of amazing rap songs, many, many of them delve into topics or language that is just a little rough to continually barrage the ears of our five year old, and ten year old as well.

Anyway, much like when Ethan was younger, Quinton and I have interesting conversations whenever we find ourselves in the car alone. Typically when we find ourselves in that situation, Quinton will ask if he can listen to some hip-hop, and since his sister and mother aren’t with us, I will usually turn some on. Now I’m not anywhere near a connoisseur of the style, but I’m getting better and better at identifying a good song and a bad one. Many times while we are listening, I will hear too many N-words or F-words in a row and ask him if we can change the station, and he usually agrees.

On one of our trips a song by Drake came on, and we listened all the way through. It was “All Me,” and you can listen to it here (Parental Discretion Advised):

If you listen to it (or even if you don’t) there is a lyric in there that goes something like “my dick so hard it makes the metal detector go off.” OK, maybe not appropriate, but it resonated with me, and I just started laughing! Quinton glommed on to that, and now that’s sort of become a thing for us - a little inside joke. Very funny lyric!

Fast forward to last May. Weird Al came to town on his “Rediculously Self-Indulgent, Ill-Advised Vanity Tour,” which is basically a Weird Al fan’s only tour. He did mostly originals and barely any parodies. As a side note, it was the best concert I’ve ever seen, but that’s not really part of this story. I purchased the tickets early, because I am among the “Close Personal Friends of Al,” (the fan club), and I bought the maximum number of $100 tickets, 4, knowing I could get rid of whatever I couldn’t use.

On the evening of the concert, Ethan, Quinton, and a friend of Ethan’s joined me, traveling downtown to the Paramount Theater where we first went over to Rock Bottom and had some dinner, then we walked towards the theater. On entry, security was wanding each guest to ensure no unauthorized metal was coming into the venue. After walking through, I stopped to watch Quinton get wanded through. As the security guard passed the wand over his “lap,” I see his face light up and he subtly goes “beep, beep, beep!” Probably the funniest thing I saw all night!

Then there’s Mireille. Along with all of the funny things she does all the time, this is the one that makes me smile the widest. She’s been in Kindergarden for two weeks now, and she loves school. The first week was kind of rough, though. I had to travel, but when I was talking with her on the phone she relayed her concern that they had somebody “grow up” today at school. Digging a little further, she said that the “grow up” was green. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that she was talking about kids “throwing-up” at school…