DADWAGON

Like a lot of Christian holidays, Valentine’s Day was likely a co-opting of a pagan holiday, this one called Lupercalia.

How pagan was Lupercalia? It was led by “brothers of the wolves”, who sacrificed not just goats, but also a dog. Then the priests, gathered on the Palatine Hill in Rome–where Romulus and Remus were supposedly nursed by the she-wolf–smeared blood on their foreheads and wiped the knife off on a sheepskin soaked in milk.

Oh, right–then the priests cut strips of the goat and dog skin, ran around naked except for goat-hide loin-cloth (these priests, like Ted Haggard, were clearly “heterosexual with issues“), and began whipping girls and women with the animal skin. The girls lined up for this because (of course) a flogging by these fundamentalists was supposed to increase their fertility. Shakespeare wrote of Julius Caesar urging Marc Anthony to flog Caesar’s childless wife Calpurnia for that reason. That detail, unfortunately, is often overshadowed by a more famous line a few sentences later: Beware the Ides of March.

And don’t bother looking into the early Christian that some think was the real St. Valentine. When flogging didn’t kill him, the Romans just sawed his head off.

This is the true genesis of Valentine’s Day: murder, sacrifice, breastfeeding, betrayal.

And no, I’m not against the holiday. It’s easy to hate something that Hallmark has so effectively branded and commercialized. But at its root Valentine’s Day is about the mess of human relations, the daily struggle that is building a life and a family. We rut and fight and stumble and recover. Nothing is perfect, little comes easy.

That’s why Valentine’s Day–on the Ides of February–is more like Memorial Day or V-J Day for the parents of young children. Remember our losses, and celebrate whatever victories there are to report. Be glad that we signed up for this battle, regardless of the outcome.

As Pat Benatar says: Love is a Battlefield, motherfuckers.

Score two points for the forces of fatherhood and secularism: In France, a dad has just won custody of his sons after their mother kidnapped them, moved to Israel, and joined a community of charedim, or ultra-orthodox Jews. This is pretty significant stuff, as it required the Israeli High Court of Justice to give custody of Jewish kids to a dad who happens not to be Jewish, and in fact I can only find one writeup in English or French, a skeptical take from Yeshiva World News (which doesn’t even name the dad, Manuel Manrique):

Citing the Hague Convention, the dad requested from the family court to have his children returned to France, also citing his wife did not even bother to inform him of the birth of their second child. In the midst of their travels, the mom decided to return to the fold and she became a member of the chareidi community, further complicating matters perhaps.

The family court stated allegations of cruelty were not established and the court gave little credence to testimony from members of the mother’s family, that taking the children away would cause them irreparable emotional damage. This opinion was also accepted by the Haifa District Court and ultimately, the High Court of Justice.

Some of the kibbutz members went so far as to say she “despises chareidim” but felt by joining the community, if the courts are against her, the chareidim would side with her since the father if a goy.

This is great: Mom grabs the kids, absconds to the land of milk and honey, and cynically seeks out the protection of the biggest religious zealots around. Usually, this kind of chutzpah results in a decade of wrangling that messes the kid up for life. But this time, it didn’t work! Hallelujah! Sorry: “Hallelujah”!

Alas, the zealots may keep a hook in the kids. Mr. Manrique, who detailed his efforts on his Website, has reportedly said he “will do everything possible to permit [the kids] to maintain their frum lifestyle.” What is it they’re always saying about the French and surrender?

(Oh, and should I also mention this?)

Note to football players and other high-level athletes: God doesn’t exist, and he certainly doesn’t give a shit about your physical trials and tribulations. And, yes, congratulations to the Saints, but no, your victory does not “prove that football is more than just a game” (it’s a game); nor does it “validate” New Orleans as a city (naked drunk chicks do that); and if the Saints took their inspiration from Hurricane Katrina, as Drew Brees claimed, well, who gives a shit.

And yet, speaking of shit…

Back when JP was first being convinced to lose the diapers, I did perhaps an overenthusiastic job of praising him each time he dropped a load in the toilets rather than his pants. Thus, he would often come out of the bathroom, sprint (still naked from the bottom down) into the living room and proclaim loudly and lustily, “I pooped!” Everyone at home (including the dog) was expected to cheer and then suggest he go back to the bathroom to have his bottom wiped.

Now whenever I see one of these morons thanking God for giving him the money to buy steroids, or saying Lucifer made him beat his girlfriend’s parakeet to death, or when the players celebrate like it’s 1999, I can’t help but compare their level of self-involvement with that of a 3-year-old in the darkest reaches of the anal phase.

We had a massive two-part, two-dozen toddler blowout birthday for Dalia’s fourth birthday yesterday: her classmates in the morning, our friends in the afternoon. There was beer and cupcakes from early on, all day long. Jetlagged, sleep-deprived, child-overdosed, proud of my girl, and exhausted beyond compare, I find that my defenses are shot.

So I watched the Superbowl rooting for the Colts, out of loyalty to MicroKhan and the cursed portfolio of teams he loves. And then I watched Drew Brees and his baby with the ballistic headphones on and almost wept like Brian Schottenheimer. It was a great moment of TV, the MVP whispering to a baby who can’t hear him and wouldn’t be able to understand him anyway, and it reminded me that babies, with their muteness and unconditional love, can make perfect confidants. They keep secrets. They don’t judge. You can tell them anything, and the worst they’ll do is mess themselves a little.

My defenses are still shot this morning, so after a freezing walk through uptown Manhattan, I am indulging in a bit of nostalgia for Seattle, where I used to live and play music and where some of my best friends are now raising children in the rain. I specifically have no defenses against the beauty of this cut from Macklemore. It hit Carlos B., another former Seattleite now doing it with Ping Pong City in Madrid, who sent it around this morning. It must have been the same for him. There’s just something affecting about Northwest anthem hiphop delivered in a floppy grey sweatshirt and sheepskin pimp jacket. It’s about family, community, memory. Good things.