I printed out a bunch of old posts when I was trying to get Raising Hell started, to have a selection of content to start with. Beta found the printout yesterday and read it. She’ll read anything, like a lot of us. Kleenex boxes, toothpaste tubes, whatever’s handy.

So she read that, asking me to explain words now and then. I was hanging around in her room, reading a magazine, wondering whether I’d written anything lame, until it occurred to me, duh, 90% of what I write is lame, that’s my charm.

Anyway. She read it all. She seemed to like it. Hi, Beta, if you’re reading this. At any rate she still talks to me.

We had a Bug-like drive to school again this morning. “I bet you’re gonna blog this,” she said. “I’ll do a Bug,” I said. Real soon.

I bought two albums a couple days ago, Patty Smith “Easter” and Tom Waits “Used Songs”. The Patty Smith I bought because Beta’s class at school is currently doing some sort of dance to a lame remake of “Because the Night” and I wanted to casually pop in the CD on the way to school one day and have her say “hey, that’s the song we’re dancing to, only better!” which is sort of what happened, only it was me saying, “Hey, that’s the song you’re dancing to, only better!”

Tom Waits I bought because I like him, the new songs better, but the old ones on this album are a good collection and bring back memories, or would if I had any, even though some of the time he sounds to me a lot like a white guy trying to sound black and beatnik at the same time.

What struck me about both albums, though, is how young both musicians are on them. How earnest, especially Patty Smith, with her poetry and “Rock and Roll Nigger,” how did I ever listen to that? Otherwise good stuff, though. The Tom Waits stuff, this “best of” album includes a lot of liner notes and reviews/Rolling Stone articles and stuff from 1975 or so; it reminds me of what Frank Zappa said about rock journalism – “people who can’t write writing for people who can’t read.” But the Waits ages better I think, than Patty.

Whatever. I like the way Tom Waits is going with his new stuff on “Blood Money” and “Alice”. He’s a good match with the German expressionism on “Blood Money” and “Alice” works better than I thought it would. And his face, now wrinkly, is starting to match his voice better.

Americans have issued this statement on the war on terror

[Currently available only in non-US media, I think. Via Partial to the bean]

First of all, amen. I’ve always thought that.

I was so thoroughly bewildered in high school. Mostly because of the girls, I think. Remember how terrible girls are? Boys, I mean, learn to belch the alphabet in one go and you’re home free. I never understood how social situations worked, and still don’t. No one ever explained it to me, maybe they didn’t know either.

With my own kids I try to help them avoid this by putting them in as wide a variety of social situations as possible, where they can learn on their own and by providing as much honest information as I can. When I was a kid I lived at the end of a dirt road with a shy father who was gone a lot (bus driver) and a mother who on the one hand would’ve liked to get out more and on the other disdained society. So in my attempts to give my kids a broader education than I had, I try to expose them to team sports, music lessons (including ensembles) and so on, where they deal with other kids and so on. Because a lot of it is simply practice.

The other thing is providing non-bullshit information. The bullshit level in public information has always been high, especially the information provided to kids. Which is sad because they are the people who need good information the most as they try to figure things out. So I try to give the girls value-free information.

Well, that’s not true. I make a strong effort to indoctrinate them with my own value system, I’ll admit that. But I also have to say that it seems to me that they were born pretty fully-formed already and the best I can do is help them, it seems. Hold the bike while they climb on and ride off. I don’t tell them not to have sex, I try to make them not afraid of sex, not afraid to talk about it, not afraid of penises; having information about sex, I think, makes them less likely to run out and get exploited, not more. Less likely to be afraid to buy a condom or whatever. So much is so embarrassing for a kid, simply because they don’t know. Etc etc.

Ignorance is the root of all evil, I think. Kids are smart enough to figure stuff out anyway, and they usually realize fast if you’re snowing them. Want your kids to be disciplined? Be disciplined yourself. They learn most by example. They don’t need to be told what to do, they need to be told how things work. They need to be listened to.

I seem to be rambling. Well, it’s my blog, if you don’t like it go do a google image search for “booty necklaces” or something. Where was I? Listened to. I admit that I fail in this a lot. “Yes, honey,” I say a lot and later can’t remember what I was being told.

Kids are so different too. Beta and Gamma are so different from each other. So different. What you learn raising one has only limited application to the other.

Man it’s hot today. 35 degrees Centigrade, what is that in Fahrenheit?

Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

Question: what do you do when a gang of stupid girls (Barbie types) pick on your daughter and a couple other girls (iconoclastic, studious, free-thinking, intelligent but also athletic and artistic types) and make life hell for them and the teacher does nothing but watch and ignore it?