DADWAGON

You will have to forgive my hasty translations of all this, but last week when I was in Key West–where the heroic and dissolute Shel Silverstein lived and died–a German Facebook friend posted a poem that looked every bit like something Silverstein would have loved to have written.

To the Children of Berlin (An Berliner Kinder)

What do you think your parents will do at night
After it is time for you to go to bed
And they supposedly have letters to write?
I can tell you: they will kiss
Smoke, dance, feast, imbibe
Let suspicious guests creep in
And hit every depraved level of the night
Up to parrot-sodomy
They will wager an incredible sum
The room will cloud with opium and cocaine
They will screw until their skulls hum
Ah, let’s say no more: filthy, Berlin!

5

The thing I really like about this is that it was written in 1931. By a writer, painter and late-era bohemian named Joachim Ringelnatz (a pen name, although his real name sounds no more or less goofy to my ear) who was born in 1883–you know, a long, long time ago, when Germany was an empire ruled by Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor.

Despite those rather un-playful origins, Ringelnatz wrote this poem and many other sorta brilliant and debauched pieces that are, like some of Silverstein’s best writing, childish but definitely not for children. The book cover above is from a compilation of some of those poems, along with his rather insane drawings, called the Children’s Confusion Book.

The thing is, I can’t find these poems translated into English anywhere. Maybe I didn’t give a good enough look (if they are out there, let me know). But maybe there is not translation. After all, two years after this book came out, he was banned by the Nazis as subversive. He died a year after that at the age of 51. Most of his artwork was lost in the war and his memory certainly didn’t seem to live on very well in the States.

So my plan is to just do my dumpy little translations (his poems really bounce in German) and drop new Ringelnatz on you poor bastards as I can. Do not say you were not warned.

When JP was first born, his mother and I used to discuss what he might do for a living when he grew up. We both agreed that he could do just about anything he wanted, with one exception: what I do.

Now, I’m not doing so badly. I work for a reputable magazine, and every once in a while someone will publish something that I write. No complaints. But I’m not a young writer/editor anymore (I’m 37, still young enough to be one of the 20 under 40, only I’m not), and it took a long time, a lot of effort, and a great deal of failure to reach my level of just-above-total-poverty-and obscurity. I’m a success by certain standards within my industry–but my industry is dying and they never did pay too good nohow.

Which is why we both would say that if JP ever indicated any creative talent, we’d do everything we could to stamp it out. Doctor, lawyer, evil financier–yes. Painter, art therapist, writer–hell, no.

This was a joke between my ex and me, and no mention was ever made as to how we’d stop him from going into the arts if he ever wanted to, but it reflected something genuine from our life together–namely, that making it as a writer is very difficult, especially if your initial goal, like mine, includes writing literary novels and short fiction. I didn’t make the move into full-time journalism until I was 30, and as a result, my twenties boasted no shortage of closed doors, rejection slips, and incidents of me not taking the hint.

Of course it sounds ridiculous in our permissive era to say that we would refuse to allow a child to go into a particular profession, and since my ex and I aren’t on speaking terms, I have no idea whether she still feels as she did when JP was a baby. But yes, I still would prefer if JP never had to endure the fifteen different flavors of rejection that comes with being a writer, and no, I’d rather not worry about his financial future until I die.

So sue me (which he could help with, if he decides to be a lawyer).

I’m gonna keep thrashing Forbes.com surveys until I get a cease and desist from their legal department.

A couple weeks ago I was angered by how they compiled their list of “Best Cities to Live In”. With their new study on Where America’s Money is Moving, though  I’m not mad at their methodology (although it is based on 2008 tax returns); I’m more annoyed at what it tells us about rich folk. The topline result: Collier County, Fla.–a stagnant puddle of money whose biggest town is Naples–had the largest bump in incoming rich folks. I’ll let the article take it from there:

In second place is Greene County, Ga., with a population of just 15,743 at the Census Bureau’s last estimate. The IRS data show that in 2008, 788 people moved to the county, about 75 miles east of Atlanta.

Rounding out the top five: Nassau County, Fla., near Jacksonville; Llano County, Texas, 70 miles northwest of Austin; and Walton County, Fla., 80 miles east of Pensacola

The dominance of the list by Florida and Texas–the former has eight of the top 20 counties, the latter four– makes sense to Robert Shrum, manager of state affairs at the Tax Foundation in Washington, D.C., since neither state has an income tax. “If you’re a high-income earner, then that, from a tax perspective, is going to be a driving decider if you’re going to move to one of those two states,” Shrum says.

Fine, I get the tax thing. You didn’t get rich by wanting to actually, you know, pay your share. But even within Florida and Texas, look at the places these people are going. Not Dallas or Miami, which are at least cities, nor the Keys, which at least lie alongside what Teddy Roosevelt called the “sapphire gulfs of ocean”. But rather they are moving to places like Nassau County, which is “near Jacksonville”, which is to say, it is near nothing at all. In Texas, it’s Llano County, which is 70 miles from Austin, which again means it’s probably great for clearing brush, but not much else.

It’s not that I don’t like rural areas–I’ve spent my time in Sheridan, Wyoming and Omak, Washington and found them pretty amazing places to live. But if the herd mentality of rich people is taking them away, in droves, from the cities, I think that’s strange. Cities need their tax dollars and their civic engagement. To draw a comic book analogy, what would have happened to Gotham if the Wayne family just took off looking for golf and tax breaks in freaking Walton County, Florida? Or from TV: we used to have the Beverly Hillbillies. Now it’s the reverse: the Cedar Cityslickers, a family who packs up the Hummer and moves from LA to Utah for a tax loophole.

So there you have it. DadWagon takes a break from bitching about how rich people ruin everything in New York in order to complain about how they are moving to the sticks. Rich people: you apparently will never appease us.

I’ve had a beer with Gabe Soria. I’ve looked the man in the eye. I must say, I had no idea he was half-Mexican.

I would’ve remembered that because, as readers of DadWagon might know, my wife is also half-Mexican. And she has the same issue Gabe wrote about yesterday: her kids are just way whiter than she, especially her daughter. Of course, they look a lot like her, but it is beyond the imagination of most people to see common eyes, nose or ears, when the skin color is that different.

And it’s Julia’s particular pinch to be half-Japanese as well, which makes her look quite Filipina, which in our neighborhood means that when she’s out walking or playing with this little white-looking girl, she gets her fair share of people thinking she’s the hired help. But that’s not really a problem: as DadinNJ and JessieVT commented on Gabe’s post, it’s all about keeping a sense of humor. And anytime Vermonters and Jerseyans agree on something, it must be true.

Rather, what I find noteworthy about all this is the finding (despite the very small statistical sample of two) that the Mexican gene obviously just vanishes in interracial children. I’m hoping that bit of science news brings comfort to the Lou Dobbs and everyone else worried about the reconquista. Intermarriage may well be the, ahem, final solution to your coming demographic nightmare (et tu, Yakima?).

How can I say that? Because I am the product of that other (actually other other) final solution: the intermarriage of Jews and non-Jews. And the comparison to the Holocaust is not my own. Rather it belongs to Chabad.org, where truth is what you make it. A quote from their superhelpful Key Jewish FAQs:

Intermarriage is, in a sense, an act of treason to our people for, instead of bringing new Jews into the world by marrying a Jewish wife, one would be contributing to the decimation of our people and the “Final Solution” that Hitler and his followers began and nearly accomplished. The horrific rates of intermarriage today constitute a silent annihilation of our people.

OK, so Chabad is loony. And so is Dobbs. But I’m telling you, the fact that they have any pulpit at all makes me want to urge everyone of every color: Find someone who looks different than you and fuck like bunnies.