Tag: books

That “as long as I’m living” part seems ominous

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Toronto Star: Author Robert Munsch, currently 80 years old, approved for MAID which is medical assistance in dying, intends to go out on his own terms

This wouldn’t be the first time Robert Munsch has been brought up in the brog, as at one time, and I still fully believe, that one of his iconic works, Love You Forever, should come with a trigger warning, because for people like me, it’s impossible to make it through reading the book without breaking down into uncontrollable sobbing.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a marvelously beautiful book, and something that all parents who genuinely love their kids should (attempt to) read to their kids in their lives, but at least for me, it’s moving to the point where even just thinking about it right now has gotten my eyes a little bit watery.

Anyway, I came across the news that up in Canada where he lives, he has been approved for MAID, which for lack of a better term is legal assisted suicide, in the sense that he is being allowed to end his own life.  I mean, it’s a lot of murky area and the details are in the terminology, but the end result is that he is voluntarily ending his own life at his choosing.

Ordinarily, I’ve not minced words how I’ve felt about people in time who have committed suicide, which is that I think it’s a coward’s way out.  But all the details around the news of Munsch’s approved MAID are definitely different, and are kind of like, at least for me, uncharted waters when it comes to thinking about how everything is proposed to go in the near future.

Long story short, Munsch is 80, has both dementia and Parkinson’s and has already witnessed what a slow expiration looks like, seeing his brother succumb to ALS.  If there were ever someone who should get a little grace and understanding of why he might want to be able to go out on his own terms, it’s Munsch.

And the more I think about it, in spite of my general disapproval of suicide in general, I think the idea of MAIDs is substantially different, and despite the fact that both end with the expiration of life, the circumstances, intentions and executions seem different enough to where it’s not nearly as, negatively connoted.

Like in the case of Munsch, I’d hope that in the times where he’s still lucid and sound of mind, he’s been getting affairs in order, got all his legal loose ends tied up, wills, trusts, inheritances, etc.  And if and when his afflictions begin to worsen, and in his own words,

when I start having real trouble talking and communicating. Then I’ll know.

…I imagine things will (hopefully) go rather smoothly, albeit no less tragic and devastating at the sheer reality that a life will be ending.

However, here’s the one thing that I do still find a little bit concerning about MAIDs:

He said a date has not been set yet, but he has to choose while he can still actively consent.

Like, how does anyone choose a date in which they voluntarily end their own life?  As progressively compassionate the potential of MAIDs provide, it still seems a little short-sighted and rigid to make a person set a date.  Maybe I’m missing something here, but I feel like this is probably more likely to be a game-time decision, or something very close to it, and not necessarily something that a person has to lock in, weeks, months or even years in advance.

As I said, there’s so much gray area and so many hypotheticals, that way smarter people, and actual legal ones at that, have probably presented the whole idea of MAIDs in the first place as legally tight as they can make it, regardless of the subject matter of the whole concept.

On the flip side, there seems to be potential for a person on their way out to have an unprecedented farewell tour, to life, and it be completely legal, or at least without any personnel trying to stop you.  Hopefully, Munsch and his family have a bucket list of things that they want to experience and accomplish, and it not be too complicated if and when the inevitable proposed go-time approaches.

The bottom line is that as sad as the whole thing is on account of the main thing being the expiration of a life, in this particular instance, I can’t say that I blame Robert Munsch for going in this direction.  I know that if my mind were going, and I couldn’t remember my kids, my wife or my family, and my body were deteriorating to where I was falling regularly, I’d begin to think that maybe I’ve had a pretty full-ass life, and perhaps it would be best for all parties involved that I left the party and everyone else could exhale and move on with their lives without me and all my burdens putting everyone’s lives on hold.

However, I will say that when thinking about the song from I Love You Forever:

I’ll love you forever
I’ll like you for always
As long as I’m living
My baby you’ll be

That third line, as long as I’m living, is something that I don’t necessarily agree with, because I like to believe that even after I kick it, whatever afterlife or aether where my soul or essence of life that might be swirling around somewhere, the love for my kids will still be around, and as I tell my girls regularly, they’ll always be my babies.

And with that, I have to wrap up this post, lest I be reduced to full on start sobbing about this sad topic.

Happy Trails, Roy Hobbs

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

AP: Actor and activist, Robert Redford dies at the age of 89

Throughout the long history of the brog, I’ve been saddened by the passing of many notable figures and shared my words and thoughts for those whom have meant the most to my general existence.  I’ve stated numerous names, of individuals who really had massive imprints on my general state of life, those whom help mold, shape or have a permanent residence at the forefront of my brain.

Guys like Sonny Chiba, Dikembe Mutombo, Kevin Conroy emerge quickly, as people for whatever reason or contributions to the shit I’ve seen in my life, always maintained permanent resident status in my head, and even to this day, guys whom I’ll make references to or think about when it comes to the countless analogies and metaphors and comparisons that I make when thinking about things around the world.

Well, Robert Redford is up there on that echelon of individuals in the world that left an indelible mark in my life, and I’m feeling melancholy about hearing about his passing.  I can’t really say that I’m so much sad about it considering he was 89 years old and had clearly lived a full and prosperous life, but for those that will miss him the most, my heart goes out to.

However, I should be more specific, that my general fandom and appreciation for Robert Redford stems from a role he played in a film, based on a book that also left an indelible impression in my life, which is The Natural by Bernard Malamud.  After falling in love with the book, the movie was enjoyable, which really opened my eyes to who Robert Redford was, as he was portraying the intrepid Roy Hobbs, the former pitcher turned old rookie wunderkind, crushing home runs all over the place with this homemade baseball bat.

And although the film didn’t portray it like the book did, Roy Hobbs was a human vacuum cleaner of a legendary eater, prompting one of my oldest friend groups and I to use his name as inspiration for whenever we wanted to destroy buffets all across Northern Virginia and eat like Roy Hobbs was trying to fill the void left in his heart from the early baseball career he never had.

Furthermore, Roy Hobbs became something of a pseudonym for me through a variety of online endeavors, like the pen name I wrote through on Talking Chop and a variety of other Vox websites, and was usually my go-to when it came to utilizing an online handle on gaming platforms like Xbox Live or League of Legends.

Regardless, through Roy Hobbs I learned Robert Redford, and although Roy Hobbs was but just a single role played in a legendary career, whenever the thought of Roy Hobbs emerges in my brain, it’s Robert Redford that I see, and for that alone, made me a fan of Robert Redford.

It’s funny, because as learned of his existence was I made aware of just how much work he’s done in Hollywood, for Hollywood, and the film industry in general, but it wasn’t until really reading several obituaries and tributes to the man did I realize just how much more he did, as far as his support for independents beyond just Sundance, as well as his activism, trying to make the world a lesser pile of shit than it is on the regular.

Robert Redford was truly an extraordinary human being, and it’s like I discovered him in a reverse order sort of fashion; gravitating towards him on account of a singular role, but then learning more about him after the fact, as opposed to the other way around.

It’s a sad day in Hollywood, film and even literature to hear about the passing of Robert Redford, but at least as far as I’m concerned, he’ll always be relevant and worth mentioning, if for anything at all, being the guy who was Roy Hobbs.

Scooby Snacks are obviously a euphemism for crack

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Chalk this up under things you never noticed as a kid but realize when you’re an adult especially a parent reading to your children.  But I’ve been reading my kids stories from 5-Minute Scooby Doo Stories; these 5-minute story books are like the greatest forms of literature that exists for children, because five minutes is about as much of attention span you’re going to get from kids my kids’ ages, and as I’ve been reading them story after story, I can’t help but come to the conclusion that Scooby Snacks have got to be made out of, crack, based on their sheer ability to get Scooby-Doo and Shaggy to do basically anything in the world, no matter how much they initially do not want to.

Hey Scooby and Shaggy, why don’t you guys go into this creepy cave while Fred, Daphne and Velma don’t do shit.  Like, no way man.  What about for a Scooby Snack?  Deal.

Hey Scooby and Shaggy, why don’t you guys go be bait for this creep riding a stampeding buffalo and might trample you to death, while Fred, Daphne and Velma go back to the Mystery Machine to search for clues that obviously won’t be there?  No?  Not even for a Scooby Snack?  Deal.

Hey Scoob and Shaggy . . . you get my point.

Which is that Scooby Snacks are clearly made out of crack, and Fred, Daphne and Velma are some fucked up asshole enablers who repeatedly exploit the addiction of these two poor hapless addicts to do a bunch of things against their will, while they coast and stay out of harm’s way.

All the goons that the Mystery Inc Gang apprehend are minor villains compared to the truly evil diabolical drug lord enablers that Fred, Daphne and Velma are, and pretty messed up how the entire Scooby Doo series is built off of the crack-addled false bravery of Shaggy and his crack-addicted dog.

And this is why it’s not always the best idea for adults to revisit properties of their own childhoods for the sake of their own kids.

Dad Brog (#131): Con Pollo es mierda

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Look at this photograph of Jennifer Lopez and Jimmy Fallon.  They’re laughing at all the parents whom they duped into buying their “collaboration” book, Con Pollo.  Frankly, I don’t know how my household ended up with this book, we’ve inherited a lot of books and mythical wife has a lot of books from school, and we’re often given books as gifts for the girls, because it’s known just how much we read to them.  I just know that I didn’t purchase it, because if I saw anything “authored” by Jimmy Fallon or Jennifer Lopez, I probably wouldn’t have bought it, especially if it was by both of them.

But somehow, this book exists in my home, and all I can think of it is just how much bullshit it is.  It’s 48 pages of a basic journey of a young chicken doing things throughout the day, but it’s more like 24, because it’s this format where query is asked two times, with the second time in Español.  I haven’t taken Spanish since the 9th grade in high school, but even I can recollect the basic words being spouted in this book.

In all fairness, it contains more words than MAMA or DADA or BABY like all of Fallon’s previous, and unfortunate New York Times bestsellers, which means that Jennifer Lopez probably used her IQ points to insert some basic words, in two languages at their most basic forms into this.

And then they slap their names on it and call it a day, and of course, because there are lots of parents who impulse buy because they see celebrity names on it instead of actually checking to see what the substance of the books themselves, this too is a New York Times bestseller.  Which further emphasizes the sheer lack of merit or sales numbers actually necessary to earn that seemingly important designation.

Frankly, it’s crap like this that exemplifies the notion that celebrities shouldn’t be allowed to write books, other than autobiographies.  Most of the time, they’re wholly unqualified to produce content that might actually have some influence on the young budding minds of tomorrow, as demonstrated by Fallon, who clearly roped J-Lo into putting her name on a turd to help fling it off shelves so that some rich fucks can get even richer.

I look forward to the future book audit where this fails to meet the cut, and ends up in the donation pile, so it can rot someone else’s shelves and collections, and be the fuck out of mine.

I feel like I sacrifice more than an Ultimate Warrior promo

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

With a post title like this, one might think that this was going to be yet another whiny, my-life-is-difficult diatribe where it can be assumed that I’m in a foul mood of some sort.  The thing is, I’m actually not in a particularly bad mood or anything, but it is just something that’s been on my mind a lot lately, and I just felt like typing out some words to see if anything comes to fruition, as that’s something the brog has served for me occasionally throughout the literal decades.

But to get to the point, I feel as if the vast majority of my life these days is spent making sacrifices all the time.  I don’t drive my own car into work most of the time, because my car is the big safe dadmobile with the childrens’ seats already set up in them, and it’s left with my au pair so that she can drop off and pick up my children from pre-K.  I drive our third car, which has served me fine, but it is older, needs more care, and lacks some of the conveniences that my own car provides.

At home, I no longer have an office or a space of my own because of our choice to employ an au pair, which is no knock on them, as I still consider it one of the best decisions we made as parents, and one that I would easily recommend to other parents of young children.  But the point remains, when the house gets crowded, or I feel the want or need to just go somewhere in my own house to hide out and take a breath in, I don’t always have such a reprieve.  This was exacerbated numerous times over the last few weeks with several house guests, and I found myself in a position where I just wanted a little bit of privacy and couldn’t have it.

Most of the time however though, are the sacrifices of my time and general self I feel that I make, and I sometimes ponder if I’m doing it too much.  I basically have no hobbies left because I don’t have time for them because my weekdays are all spent working, parenting and then I have like 3-4 hours a night “off” which doesn’t account of the time it takes to clean up after the kids, reset the house, and prepare a litany of things for the following day, so I really have like two hours a night in which I’m truly free to be off and relax, but not without a clock over my head knowing that I have to sleep at a sensible time, so often times I don’t do anything that substantial or the things I want to commit meaningful time to because two hours a night just doesn’t cut it.

On our most recent “vacation” I sacrificed myself to ensure that our au pair could get to experience some things about Disney World, since it is important to me that she gets to actually live some semblance of life while here, and not just be a nanny to the kids, but what it results in is me taking kid duty and ultimately not getting to really do anything that I might want to do, not that I could think of anything I’d want to do in Disney World anymore these days.

The point is, I feel like I’m always in a state of constant sacrifice that I don’t really know where I’m generally at with my life anymore.  All I want is just a single day in which I can sleep in and not have to be the first one up, preparing breakfast, preparing everything, dealing with the girls’ cranky morning tantrums, and have some substantial time to myself.  It doesn’t sound like a lot, but I haven’t found myself in a position to be able to enjoy such considerations in quite some time, and I’m pretty sure the last time I was able to take some time off, was when I hopped on a plane to go to Texas to visit my brother.  But opportunities like that are few and far between, because I’m financially strapped because I’m always sacrificing everything I make to try to support a lifestyle that might be a little too extravagant for my personal preference.

I read a book not long ago about a half-Korean girl dealing with the passing of her mother to cancer.  Piggybacking off my prior post about crying, I think I was drawn to this book because I knew it was going to be a real tear-jerker and I was seeking out something to help burst my dams, but it was still a good read.  But one of the takeaways from the book, and I’m sure it was really meant to be sage wisdom passed down from a Korean mother to her daughter, but I feel like it could apply to a Korean man like me, was that far too often, there are people who give 100% of themselves to their families.  Such is not necessarily a bad thing, especially at the ages of my children, they need everything I can give to them, but her wisdom was to hold back 10% of one’s selves, and keep it for ourselves.

That stuck with me, because I feel like I’m currently living a life where I’m constantly giving 100% to my family, but in doing so, I’m completely devoid of having absolutely anything for myself.  Recently, I’m trying to look for ways to try and gain back any percentage of myself, and even if I succeed, I highly doubt that I’ll be able to get up to 10%.  I guess I’m just such a sacrifice-er, that if I can get to like 5% of myself back, that should be considered a win.

I tried to treat myself to a new pair of shoes; but like so many indulgences in the world, whenever I find something that I might like, it turns out to be what everyone else tends to like, and the specific shoes that I decided I want a pair of, apparently, they’re so hard to get a hold of, that when Foot Locker gets a new shipment of them in, they’re basically treated like an online queue lottery system that everyone has to fight over, and only the lucky ping lottery winners actually get an opportunity to get.  Seriously, I made it through the virtual queue in three minutes, but my size was apparently already sold out, and within ten minutes, they were sold out of all sizes, presumably because of re-sellers and StockX pirates just grabbing anything they can get their hands on.

So, so much for trying to get any semblance of any % back for myself in that regard, back to the drawing board.  But the bottom line is that I just need to stop sacrificing 100% of myself, and find little ways to keep semblances of me, for myself, otherwise I end up as, well, this.  An angsty, emotionally volatile, usually irritable and mad, deep-fried burnt out dad.

Dad Brog (#116): TW: Love You Forever

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m not a particularly tough guy.  I cry a lot more than any grown man should probably feel comfortable to admitting, and frankly there are times where I wish I could cry even more.  Sometimes, life feels a bit overwhelming and I think about how a tremendous cry session would feel refreshing and maybe help open the emotional gates and purge, allowing me to end up in a better place than which I started, and if/when it does not occur, I’m left feeling disappointed.

TL;DR, I’m a great big crybaby. 

It’s obvious where #2 gets it from.

That being said, there are triggers for me that I’ve managed to get used to, or have hardened up in the face of, where it’s harder for them to choke me up and get the waterworks to start up.  Songs, books, memories, photos, etc, being the sentimental sap that I often am, learning that I’m somewhat of a crybaby should be about as surprising as racial violence in Montgomery, Alabama.

However, there’s one thing that has recently found its way back into the picture that absolutely murders me, emotionally, and that is the book Love You Forever, by Robert Munsch.  My household has like 400 various books for our children, and some books end up on one of the various shelves around the house and don’t get read for a while, but eventually everything cycles in and out of rotation, and recently Love You Forever came back out of the shelves and into #1’s pile of books in her room.

Prior to the arrival of #1, mythical wife had gotten a copy of it, and reading it then was an impossible task, because I could barely get past the fifth page before I was a sobbing, emotional trainwreck.  After #1 was born, and I would spend hours reading to her, I couldn’t finish the book then either, and it was probably even worse, because I was truly learning what unconditional love was with my own offspring, and I probably broke down after the first instance of the song.

Just thinking about these memories alone has already gotten me teary, that’s how potent this book really is.

But it’s back out of the shelves now, and just a few days ago, I took another attempt at reading it, to my now-three-year old daughter, who is whip smart, has a vast vocabulary and is a gamut of emotions and opinions.  I made it past page five this time while managing to keep the hose from turning on, but by the time I got to the part where the mom was unable to finish the song from old age, I was done.  I started crying so hard, I couldn’t even read anymore.

#1’s got this shit-eating grin on her face, amused at seeing dada completely destroyed by a book, wondering why he’s not reading anymore, because he’s too choked up.

“Keep reading” she says, and I’m ugly cry laughing at how callous my daughter is. 

The last three pages are as difficult as the rules to Apocrypha to complete, and I break down again at the part where the child now grown, is singing the same song to his daughter, but I manage to finish the book.  She’s still laughing at me, and I’m laughing too while sobbing uncontrollably, because I love my kids forever.

But holy god, does this book really need to come with a trigger warning on the cover.  Parents shouldn’t be subject to this kind of emotional genocide from a children’s book.

I’ve never been more unafraid of an armed individual in my life

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the weekend, we sent the kids to grandma’s house so that we could get some major organization done at home.  Frankly even with the help of our au pair, there would’ve been a lot of going in and out of the girls’ rooms well into the evenings that made it optimal to just have them not be present in order to maximize productivity.  That being said, it also afforded all of us in the house, to be adults for two days, and on the second evening, we collectively decided to get out of the house.

At one point, we went into a 2nd and Charles to kill a little bit of time; at one point in my life, this place would’ve been my heaven, since I like comic books, video games, books and all sorts of the nerdy crap that they sell and buy there, but at this point in my life, I just want to look and don’t want to actually bring any more shit into my house that I feel is already full of a lot of unneeded crap.

While we were there though, I was looking through comic trade hardcovers, and not far to my left, I could hear some guy doing some serious mansplaining about the differences between the Infinity War in comics versus the MCU.  A smirk emerged on my face at hearing him blather on, because he was perpetuating all sorts of stereotypes of comic book geeks inside the bookstore.

As I passed by him, I couldn’t help but notice that beneath his vest that I have to imagine was put on completely non-ironically, was a holster equipped with what I’m pretty sure was a Glock of minimal size, I’m no expert on the granular details, especially when I could only see the handle.  The point is, the guy was carrying openly, which is completely legal in the state of Georgia.

But as the title of this post states, I don’t think I’ve ever been more unafraid of an armed individual in my life until I saw this guy.  Think about it, the guy is carrying a firearm, presumably loaded, completely in public, at a place of business that probably had upwards of 80-100 people inside of it at the time I saw him.  We live in the age where mass shootings happen at almost a weekly basis in similar conditions, and not only did I feel zero concern for my life, all I could feel were jokes formulating in my brain instead.

Like, this guy got dressed with the express intention of leaving the house, and going to 2nd and Charles of all the places in the Metro Atlanta area, and as he’s mentally inventorying all the things he needs prior to walking out the door, and oh yeah my gun is one of the things on his checklist.

“Honey, we have to get to 2nd and Charles before they close at 8, have you seen my gun?”
“Yeah baby, it’s right next to my Loungefly”

On action television and in film, there are occasionally montages of heroes getting ready to go into battle, and they’re equipping themselves with a gun before they go into the fights of their lives.  And then we have Firearm Fred over here consciously strapping on his holster to go into the nerd store, as if he might have to flex it on someone trying to get the last pack of Yu-Gi-Oh booster packs ahead of him.

Seriously, I was giggling to myself for the rest of the night at the thought of Sidepiece Samuel actually feeling like he had to be carrying a firearm inside of a fucking 2nd and Charles.  I’ve never felt so opposite of concerned or intimidated by another human being’s presence in my entire life.  I felt like even if he were a mass shooter ready to pounce, I could probably take him without there being any loss of life; I know it’s not really a laughing matter, but that’s how seriously felt looking at this guy.

Regardless, my au pair got a kick out of seeing such a sight with her own eyes.  And after we took her to a Hooters for dinner, I told her that she basically had the most American night of her life, having seen an armed individual out in public, followed by the aforementioned Hooters for dinner.  Welcome to America!