Living with a Famous Father

My ol' Dad was famous like flashbulbs popping in yer face and pics of the family in the newspaper.  The celebrity aspect was largely because he was a TV science rat before it was fashionable and he was about thirty-five.  He was the smart guy, the bearded stud, and, man, did the girls go crazy.  Most of the girls didn't know his big fame was in genetics where he did major work and that took him global.  There aren't many flashbulbs for genetics, tho.

So, yah, famous guy ... and, in my incredible wisdom, I went into computers which was the same field in which he made his bones or at least a few of the ribs.

Consider, if you will, how long it takes to crawl out from under being the meatball your famous father bore. This is not a lament, it was just a stupid choice! (larfs)

Graduation from the Meatball Academy probably took five to ten years.  Everything with computers was learn as you go because no-one really taught me anything and there really wasn't any guidance from anywhere.

That's not a lament either as I'm proud nothing was handed to me and anything I accomplished was through extensive use of fingernails for climbing the wall.  Yah, I'm proud of that but the aspect of guidance is a general lament for the family as I suspect it's a large part of why we suck at getting along with each other:  no-one knows how to do it ... except ... with people outside the family.  We all have the Alex Gene for that and can charm the living hell out of others.  We usually don't use it on each other, tho.

Don't read that as a shot at anyone.  No-one knows the game and it's all improv.  My parents didn't fail since all of us made it and got sufficient education to do what we wanted to do.  No-one ended up in jail, etc, etc.   My sibs did it improv as well since they didn't know anything about parenting and decided, logically, this is the best way to raise my kid and they did it that way.  Something maybe amusing is they argue about who did it the best way.  NO, I don't want to hear that here (larfs).

Note:  they probably don't do that anymore as the kids are long past the rearing stage.

There was a fail in discipline, however.  The only things I got from the discipline were some funny stories and a lifetime of total contempt for authority.  You can see it in practically every line I write insofar there's little respect for anything unless whatever it was worked like Atlas to earn it.

Note:  this is NOT an invitation to debate but rather is my own perspective.  In my view, online debate is only masturbation but without the tingle.

(Ed:  at least you don't need a shower after!)

You shower after??  Maybe I was doing it wrong.

Maybe I should ask The Raven as I swear that boy is getting more bone time than this entire generation put together.  Holy shit!  I sure hope he has a warrantee on that thing!

Note:  don't read that as making him any kind of a slut.  I know for sure the kid wants to find Her and make many babies.  So far that hasn't happened but no doubt it will.  He also does not leave a string of unwanted babies behind him.

(Ed:  or he changes his mind and does something else!)

Sho' 'nuff as he's young, he's got plenty of time.  Maybe he will suddenly decide to become a sailor.  It's all through the family blood.

Discipline is not something I view as a swat on the ass because the kid is being an unruly pain in the ass in the supermarket.  It's the fastest way to bring the lesson and the purpose isn't to inflict pain but to teach.  Fair enough.

Beyond that it crosses over to what's the appropriate punishment for stealing money to buy fireworks and shooting them at cars by sending them down the street.  You decide some measure of pain needs to be extracted commensurate to the crime.

Whether it was appropriate is, as I say, something I don't want to debate but I do note the result in lack of respect for just about anything.  In some ways, that's strength because it empowers George Carlin's thinking of 'question everything.'  I didn't trust executives and learned the hard way I was right but it's not possible to immunize yourself from them altogether.  Ain't no vaccine for that.

(Ed:  you became one of them!)

Manager, yes, but executive, no.  I had a large budget but it was entirely for staff and there were no strategic decisions made.  The executive time would have started if I had gone for the VP gig but Kannafoot and I decided we would destroy each other if either one of us went for it and we stood down.

(Ed:  you became the authority you did not respect?)

Yep, how about that for strategy and tactics.  As you'll notice, so did our ol' Dad.  I don't believe I was deliberately or even unconsciously trying to mimic his path, it just happened that way.  My only purpose was learning computers so I could do what I wanted with them rather than the boring requirements of the workplace.

"WEBSTER" was one example of that and I take some pride in the old fellow but there's not much of that for any particular accomplishment within the field.  That was only my job but "WEBSTER" was real life.

There were more dreams than that and many of them came true.  Video at that time wasn't even a possibility for a monkey like me but now I've used most of the tools available at the consumer level and can do mostly what I like with it.

That it is met by this or that audience has always been secondary to the purpose of making it as good as I can possibly accomplish.  It's better, in some ways, to have zillions of adoring fans ... but ... they want your time and they want a lot of it.  The result is your own creative time can easily evaporate, leaving you performing all the time but you don't make anything new or not very much.

(Ed:  your fans ran away in droves!)

Yah, they were kind of a fickle bunch, weren't they (larfs).  It's really not a problem except for being broke.  There was a whole lot of selfish crap from them, Bibi showed up and tried to make the scene a petting zoo, others stole a lot of kit, etc, etc.  All in all, I'd say fans are highly-overrated (larfs).

It would be better if people liked the videos but the failure would have been if I did not make them.

(Ed:  great comedy so far!)

Whoa, not even funny about The Raven??  Harsh crowd!