DADWAGON

Just out from Maclaren.

I’m not anti-Beatles, but I find this bizarre.

Can we not find other ways to express ourselves?

Am I missing something?

I worked late tonight, and left the office at 8, dragging myself home and feeling a little like Don Draper (without the promiscuity, alcoholism, or secret past). My wife called me as I was headed for the elevator, and noted that my son was still awake, but that he’d be asleep by the time I got home. “I don’t want to make you feel bad, but he’s saying ‘dada, dada,'” she told me. (Tried to put him on the phone with me, but as those of you with toddlers know, that doesn’t work until late.)

Well, that’s new. He was very late to both “mama” and “dada”–a lot of words preceded those–and although he spends plenty of time fretting and crying for his mother when she’s out of the room or otherwise occupied, he has not, till now, called for his dad. So I swallowed my guilt, and made my way home without rushing–didn’t take a cab, stopped for an errand on the way.

And turned the key in the lock, and heard, from the bedroom: “Dada!” He wouldn’t sleep till I got there. We spent ten minutes playing, and then he went down for the night.

This is wonderful beyond compare, and also portends a big problem. I’m in the office late two nights a week, with little flexibility. If he’s becoming aware of that, I have no idea what to do next. Maybe change his bedtime?

Dear Ms. Grey,

Let me first say that I have no quibble with your chosen profession. As long as there is pornography, there must be porn stars, and though it is clearly a dirty, dirty job (at least when done properly), someone has to do it. In the eyes and hearts of many people, you are that someone. And as I’ve—ahem—heard from authoritative sources, you do the job quite convincingly well.

And, too, let me hasten to add that your name had nothing to do with the name I gave my daughter, Sasha Raven. You, née Marina Ann Hantzis, apparently chose Sasha because of KMFDM. I chose the name Sasha because it sounds Jewy, but not too Jewy. There are coincidences in this world, and the fact that two people have the name Sasha is one of the less remarkable ones.

But I do wish to make a request. (No, it has nothing to do with your performance in “Anal Cavity Search 6.”) Now that you are embarking on a mainstream acting career, with roles in Stephen Soderbergh films and HBO series, you have a new responsibility—not to fuck up my daughter’s middle-school career. That is, according to both our fine commenter The Holmes and The Hollywood Reporter, you may soon be portraying a character named… Raven, “described as a free spirit who helps one of the men realize that nirvana can only be achieved by death.”

That connection alone—of Sasha to Raven—will likely dog my daughter throughout her school days. And for that, of course, you bear no responsibility. Hey, Hollywood comes calling, and you get the roles you get. The only thing I can ask is that you turn out actually to be a good actress. Play your parts well, show some originality, choose interesting projects—above all, please don’t fail. Because if you fail, then you’re just the nasty porn star who happened to do a movie where your character’s name reminds everyone of my daughter. If you succeed, however, you’re, well, maybe not a role model, exactly, but at least not just a filthy girl who has sex on film for money (and I mean that as a compliment of some kind, I think).

Think of it this way: Be the kind of crossover actress who inspires kids like my Sasha Raven to, in the face of mockery based on the similarity of your names, stand up to the mean girls and … I don’t know. Beat the shit out of them? Zing ’em with outrageous one-liners? Or maybe just shrug her shoulders because the only famous actress named Sasha that anyone knows has a couple of Oscars to her credit and makes otherwise risky indies bankable.

Sincerely,

Matt Gross

P.S. Also, please don’t take characters whose names involve the words Jean, Ching-wen, Matt, Benjamin, or Gross. Okay, you can have Gross—but use it well.

I regret to come to this conclusion, but news reports confirm that men like me are deadly and morally bankrupt.

First there was the Times article on the NYC Pedestrian Death and Mauling Report (I think that was the name), which said many things about how and why cars kill people in Gotham.  The biggest topline finding, though, was that 80% of the drivers who are doing the killing and maiming are men.

The Times article points out the big crosstown arterial routes are the most dangerous, as are left turns, and that New York City actually has a universal speed limit of 30 mph (whoops). The original report from the city (which, interestingly enough, is illustrated almost entirely with random Flickr photos of NYC streets) has other gems, though, that the Times left out:

nearly half the casualties in Manhattan live in other boroughs or outside of New York.

New York’s casualty rate is still 1/4 of the national rate, and far better than any other big city (only Portland was safer among all U.S. cities)

Bike lanes make streets safer for pedestrians as well

The most at-risk: older Asians, the foreign-born, and people with a high school degree or less (no, not because they teach pedestrian safety in college)

For everyone, however, 2009 was the safest year on record for pedestrians

Still, I can’t help but think that the report is aimed at exposing that danger that is… me. Not only are 80% of the drivers involved men, but 80% of the cars are private cars, not cabs (so Mohammed Ali is not just a beautiful man; he is safer than you might think). Like most of the offenders, I don’t drive drunk, but I do drive inattentively at times. And failure to yield to pedestrians is something of a principle with me. Now, I haven’t hit anyone yet, but apparently the city thinks it is just a matter of time.

A couple caveats about the gendered breakdown here. I couldn’t find any numbers on what percentage of overall city driving is done by men. I do know that the most chauvinist part of my marriage is the driving. My wife is a fine driver, probably better than me, but I drive almost all the time. Unless I’m drunk. It’s always been that way. And it seems to be that way for almost all the couples I know. So it’s possible that 80% of all the miles driven in the city are driven by men, which would make the 80% perpetrator rate statistically meaningless.

More meaningful, perhaps, is that men seem to walk like assholes, too. The report says that nationwide, 70% of the people who get run over by cars are men. In New York, that number is 58%. I doubt there are than many more men walking the streets than women (this ain’t Afghanistan, right?), so it must be something about the way we walk, or perhaps about how drunk and high we are when we walk.

If the report is to be believed, some changes are coming our way. More enforcement of speeding and red-light-running and texting-while-driving violations. More “daylighting” of left-hand turns, which basically means taking away parking spaces at the end of blocks, because those block visibility and lead to pedestrian deaths. Apparently New Yorkers really do kill for parking.

A final note about men from the world of philandering: apparently men who are outearned by their wives are more likely to cheat on those high-earning wives. Something about reclaiming their manhood or something. In this, then, I am also a prime suspect (regular readers will remember that my wife makes even more than I, the high-powered dadblogger, do).

That’s all for today. I’m off to go driving around the city, where I will make a series of distracted left turns, running over older Asian people, while getting a blowjob from someone who is not my wife.