Random dad thoughts

1) Swaddle = Enhanced Sleep Aid.

Sure, at a certain point it is probably illegal, but what’s so illegal about mom, dad, and baby getting a full night of sleep?  Does anyone know when the illegal point is?  Harper is busting out of her — velcro enhanced — swaddle already and starting to not sleep all night.

2) When your kid cries and you are the cause of the tears it really doesn “hurts me more than it hurts you.”

I always thought my parents were making that crap up. Last night I plopped down in my recliner while holding Harper.  Her head bumped into my collar bone and she started screaming. It hurt me bad.

3) Seeing your favorite childhood stuffed animal — in my case Garfield — sleeping next to your baby daughter may cause smiling, crying, or both.

When was the last time you listened to a good book

Everything I write I read aloud. I would hate to think how many hours or times I read WAIW? aloud to myself and sometimes to Annie.

I read aloud as a I write. I real aloud at day’s end to review what I’ve written. I read aloud entire sections and chapters. Once the book was done, I read it aloud several times through. Each time I would make changes. In fact, I’m still making changes. My copy of WAIW? has sentences scratched out and words added.

Because I love things that validate my behavior (who doesn’t), I enjoyed VERLYN KLINKENBORG’s op-ed in the NY Times, The Lost Art of Reading Aloud. Here’s a bit:

“Reading aloud recaptures the physicality of words. To read with your lungs and diaphragm, with your tongue and lips, is very different than reading with your eyes alone. The language becomes a part of the body.”

Their are instances where hearing someone read their work aloud has increased my appreciation for their work. I heard USA Today Columnist Craig Wilson read aloud and now get an even bigger kick out of reading his column. To really solidify this point, I’ve got two words: David Sedaris. His work is hilarious on its own, but if he’s reading it, it is pee-your-pants hilarious.

Still, there is a potential downside. If your reading voice or tone does not match the tone of your written-voice in your reader’s head, the reverse could be true. Thankfully, I don’t have many examples to give here and I choose to keep those to myself.

Dude, you could win an iPod Video Nano

A few days ago I asked if anyone had any good ideas for a giveaway for the relaunch of the blog (which is going to be awesome by the way). Larry Olson at Wiley, my publisher, suggested he would pitch in an iPod video Nano. How cool is that?

I’m a bit jealous. I’m not sure how the giveaway will be decided, but I doubt you’d all let me get by with being the winner. Darn.

This could be your hand…

We are all the class of 2009

“Now, you, Class of 2009, are about to enter the next phase of your life at a time of great uncertainty. You’ll be called to help restore a free market that’s also fair to all who are willing to work.”
-

President Obama to Notre Dame’s class of ’09

(the whole speech is here)

A thousand words…

Welcome to the world Cale Taylor (my nephew)!

A little help here

A very spiffy new version of this blog is only a few weeks a way and I need some help with a number of things:

1) Blog categories – As you can tell from the category list on the right, this blog is a mess. Half of those categories I created and never posted to again. So, the good folk at Rule29 who are designing the pending spiffiness are laying down the law. I only get five categories. Any thought on what they should be? I’ll toss out a few: Travel, Engaged Consumer, This Writer’s Life….?

2) What should I give away? Here’s what I’m thinking:

a. A rare Advanced Reader’s Copy of WAIW?
b. a WAIW? Shopping bag (my publisher is having these printed up)
c. a writing critique – you send me 2,000 words or less and I’ll tell you what I think and pass on a little advice (for what it’s worth) and perhaps a little career advice as well.
d. A CD with all of the radio essays/interviews I’ve recorded that relate to WAIW?
e. ?

Tell me what you think?

American Apparel vs. Woody Allen’s Sex Life

American Apparel, the nation’s largest remaining clothing manufacturer, infamous for ads like this and this and this used Woody Allen’s photo on one of their billboards without his consent.

Allen is suing for $10 million.

American Apparel gave him the “Oh no you didn’t” finger wag and their lawyer Stuart Slotnick (what a great name for a lawyer, if I injured my back or was involved in a motorcycle accident, I’d call him!) countered with document requests and subpoenas digging into Allen’s personal life.

From a story in the Huffington Post:

American Apparel lawyer Stuart Slotnick said the company plans to make Allen’s relationships to actress Mia Farrow and her adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn, whom Allen married, the focus of a trial scheduled to begin in federal court in Manhattan on May 18.

“Woody Allen expects $10 million for use of his image on billboards that were up and down in less than one week,” Slotnick said. “I think Woody Allen overestimates the value of his image.”

He said the company’s belief was that “after the various sex scandals that Woody Allen has been associated with, corporate America’s desire to have Woody Allen endorse their product is not what he may believe it is.”

One billboard featured a frame from “Annie Hall,” a film that won Allen a best-director Oscar. The image showed Allen dressed as a Hasidic Jew with a long beard and black hat and Yiddish text. The words “American Apparel” also were on the billboard.

Allen’s lawsuit said the billboard falsely implied he sponsored, endorsed or was associated with American Apparel.

Slotnick said it was not a cheap shot to bring up Allen’s sex life in a lawsuit over the billboard and Internet ads.

“It’s certainly relevant in assessing the value of an endorsement,” he said.

Allen on why he wouldn’t do an add for American Apparel:

“I’ve always been, from the start of my career, a special taste,” he said. “There have always been people that have loved me and there have always been people that didn’t know what I was about and couldn’t see anything in me.”

Allen also said ads shown to him by American apparel, including his rabbi ad, “have a sleazy quality to them” and were “not classy.”

He said if he were to do a commercial, he would have to be paid a lot and “it would have to be a very clever, kind of witty or intellectual-style” commercial. He said being asked to do an American Apparel ad would be like being asked to do a deodorant or cigarette commercial.

This battle is fascinating because you have a guy, Allen, who has been involved in “grossly inappropriate” (a judge’s words not mine) conduct with his step-daughter suing a company headed by a man, Dov Charney, who has a closet full of well-documented sexual indiscretions. And both sides are slinging poo about the other’s image.

But wait, now Charney is praising Allen:

I have deep respect for Mr. Allen who is a source of inspiration to me. The billboards and images from the Annie Hall movie were intended to be a parody/social statement and comedic satire to provoke discussion and public discourse about the baseless claims that had been made against American Apparel and myself, society’s reaction to lawsuits that delve into an individual’s private sexual life and the media’s sensationalism of such matters.

American Apparel tends to get great mileage out of their controversial billboards. Someone in their marketing department is probably getting a raise for this one. If their intent was truly to be a social statement to provoke discussion about society’s reaction to lawsuits that delve into an individual’s sex life, mission accomplished!