Scooting with scary music

I've made some decisions

I've decided that the next time somebody presents me with some information and then follows it up by saying that I should or should not take what they have just presented to me as "gospel", my response will be, "Oh, so I should/should not take this information that you've presented to me as if it were a set of documents that each describe slightly different but similar versions of the same event, which were written anywhere from 30 to 90ish years after the events they describe, by authors who were not present at the aforementioned events? You got it."

I've decided that the next time somebody refers to a book or a document or a manual or whatever as a "Bible", my response will be something along the lines of "Oh, so I should take this book or document or manual or whatever here as if it were a compilation of many documents by many different authors that were originally written in ancient languages, but have been translated with varying degrees of competency, accuracy, and objectivity into English, that have compiled into a singular work and chosen for their inclusion in this collection by groups of people who wished to present a particular 'take' on the events described within this book/document/manual/whatever, which are subject to countless different interpretations with varying degrees of literalism and whose meanings have been argued about for centuries? No problem."

And finally, I've decided that the next time I answer the phone and it's a telemarketer, I'm going to go into one of the monologues I had in the last play I was in, which began with the line, "You know the thing that most people don't realize about the human body is that the head is a great place to get hit." I'll have to go back and relearn the rest though.

Boy Scouts

So all in all, my first father's day in the role of father was pretty kickass. Me and the Ash and the Henry went to church that morning, and had a big fat parents and babies dinner with some friends in the evening...but in between all that action, I had lunch with my old friend Kenny and his son Trevor. Kenny and I met back when we were teenagers working on staff at El Rancho Cima, which is a Boy Scout Camp and one of the most gorgeous chunks of acreage in the Texas hill country in an area known as The Devil's Backbone. Kenny and I both came up in scouting, we're both Eagle Scouts, we both spent some of the best summers of our young lives working out there, and now we're both fathers to boys. His son is about ten years older than mine, but whatever. Naturally, our conversation eventually came around to reminiscing about those summers, about all the crazy shit we did, some of which one could argue was not exactly scoutlike, but what do you expect from teenagers in the woods hundreds of miles from their parents? Toss in some scouting skills (you know, firebuilding, knot-tying, road sign theft) and you've got yourself the ingredients for some serious troublemaking.

Scouting's one of those things that I'm sort of torn on, especially now that I'm a father to a boy. I know that anybody who read or saw the really fucking dark play that I wrote about Boy Scouts might think that I've written the entire organization off completely, but that's not the case. I didn't write I Am Alpha as some sort of "Wake up America! This is what Boy Scouts really do!" warning message. I was just an Eagle Scout with some fucked up ideas sitting in a black office with a laptop.

But Scouts, yeah.....on the one hand, I had a great time in my years in scouting. I learned a lot of cool stuff and had a lot of truly amazing experiences that I never would have had if I'd not been involved in scouts. And I'm not just talking about the mischief we got into, I mean the actual B.S.A. sanctioned activities too. And earning Eagle Scout, well hell, I may talk some shit, but it meant a lot to me when I earned it, and it still kind of does. I mean, I still have the medal.

On the other hand though, I take serious issue with some of the stances that the B.S.A. has taken, specifically their stance on gays. In case you don't know, the Boy Scouts exclude homosexuals from their ranks, either as members or leaders, a policy that is based on the idiotic belief that homosexual = child molestor. So I have to ask myself, if I put Henry into the Boy Scouts, am I in some way endorsing this idea? Will he somehow pick up this lesson?

Fortunately, I doubt that's the case. It's certainly not a lesson I ever picked up on, and in fact, some of the best staffers we had working at El Rancho Cima were gay (surprise B.S.A.!). And when it comes down to it, a kid's experience has less to do with policy set in a national office and more to do with parents who want to make something really cool for their kids. And the really nagging question is, should I let my politics get in the way of Henry having the kind of opportunities that kids like me and Kenny had, especially if me and (hopefully) other like-minded parents are around to counter the bullshit?

Father's Day. Parenthood. So many questions. And we've barely even got time to do laundry.

And then Henry ate the camera