Incognito Breeder

Letter to My Insurance Company

Acme Ins. Co.
Post Office Square
Boston, MA 02109

This is a letter to request a change in my auto insurance. Our car died over the weekend, it was
sudden and painless, but a tragedy nonetheless. While she cannot be replaced in our hearts, we must replace her in our driveway—quickly and cheaply. The kind of car we can afford on such
short notice will require neither collision or comprehensive coverage. Please remove these from
my insurance policy.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests a notification of the adjusted insurance rate and monthly payment. This can be sent via email to info_at_incognitobreeder.com, or you may fax the information to (number here.)

Gratefully yours,

I.B. Me

Seventeen

The closer the G-Man gets to being a teenager, the more I feel like one. I've been watching all of these movies from my formative years (see last entry,) listening to tons of old-school punk and rap, and I recently bought a pair of pink DM-style boots with black, side zippers and the anarchy symbol in the tread. I'm definitely regressing.

I thought I might look up some friends I haven't talked to in ages, but when I Googled my date from the junior prom I discovered that there is a hot, new actor on a show about housewives that shares his name. Not much chance of sifting through the fansite hits to find a goofy, Monty Python fan, last seen with a UPC symbol tattooed on his shaved head, training to be a fire swallower.

This all may have something to do with this book I just finished, Hairstyles of the Damned by Joe Meno, if you are, or have ever been a teenager you must read this book. If your teen years coincided with the late 80s/early 90s and you don't read this book you are a fool and should be ashamed of yourself. Read this book.

The amazing thing about the book is that it is so real. Reading it, I didn't feel nostalgic and I didn't feel intensely relieved that those years were behind me, I felt seventeen. I was driving around in a crappy Ford Escort, singing along with a mix tape that was jammed in the stereo. I was awkward at someone's basement party, watching couples hook-up and drunk boys fight. I was witnessing the slow disintegration of my parents' marriage. I was strangely relieved when they finally split up. I was missing the cues of someone's crush on me. I was harboring crushes for people I would never have. And the ones I could have, I didn't act on, because I was worrying about what other people might think. It's all still there, barely beneath the surface, all that drama and confusion, all you have to do is scratch. Hairstyles of the Damned is one itchy mother of a book.

Realization

It is virtually impossible to update this site on a regular basis without Internet access at home. About six months ago I canceled my phone/cable/Internet service. I got a cell phone, I signed up for NetFlix, I found a local free Wi-Fi spot. I saved over $100 a month, and that's after paying for the monthly cell phone and NetFlix bills. And I don't really miss the landline, I don't really miss the TV, it's the Internet that's proven to be indispensable.

The NetFlix has some surprising benefits. I've discovered that since the TV is not our constant companion, sitting down to watch a movie has become (God help me) "Quality Time" for me and the G-Man. At the end of the day, I get him to wind down by curling up on the couch with me to eat some popcorn and watch a movie. We quickly exhausted the "New Releases" that we could watch together, so I started thinking back to movies I enjoyed as a kid that I could share with the boy. As a result, my NetFlix queue has become an introductory course to PG movies of the late 70s through mid 80s; lots of John Hughes, lots of John Cusack, some National Lampoon and Mel Brooks, those D&D inspired fantasy films, Willow, Legend, Labyrinth, etc. It's been a stroll down Memory Lane.

It's also a revelation. My son, my sophisticated son, who likes the Ramones, who can articulate the similarities between Eminem and the early career of Elvis Presley, who has read the first eight Series of Unfortunate Events books, has also demonstrated a remarkable lack of black humor and irony. My son! How did this happen?

Last night, we watched A Fish Called Wanda. I knew there were a few sexual situations that would result in his head buried firmly in a pillow, I was prepared for that. But I never expected his reaction to Michael Palin's predicament. If you remember, Michael plays K-K-K-Ken, the animal lover with the stutter who is charged with taking out the old lady who is the only witness to the robbery. The old lady has three, little terriers, and K-K-K-Ken, in the course of trying to snuff her out, manages to k-k-k-kill all three pooches.

The first is torn up by a rabid doberman, G-Man was horrified. I assured him that the pup wasn't real. He calmed down a bit. The second was run over by a car. This time, G buried his head into my shoulder, I heard sniffles. By the time the third terrier was squashed by a piano, my son had run to the kitchen to get some water, successfully missing the whole thing. I thought we were safe. But in the final act of the film, Kevin Kline's sadistic character, Otto, interrogates Ken about the location of the diamonds. To get Ken to give it up, Otto scoops the fish out of Ken's aquarium and eats them one by one as Ken watches helpless, horrified, with two big french fries sticking out of his nostrils. This is a funny scene, most folks think so. Not as funny as when Ken runs Otto down with the steam roller, but close. A good funny scene.

My nine year old boy, who dresses like 50 Cent, who names the agents in his James Bond video game "DumbAss" and "Half-a-Ball" and then designs creative ways to shoot them down while he and his friends just laugh... That boy, you know the one, he is bawling. He is curled up in the fetal position on the other end of the couch and crying like a lonely, single mother at the end of Jerry Maguire, during the "you complete me" scene. (Not that I'd know anything about that.) He's crying for the fish and for the terriers and for poor K-K-K-Ken who loves them so much. His cheeks are glistening in the light from the TV, wet with tears.

When the movie ends, I lead him to his room, tuck him into bed, and give him his Valentine's Day present, a few hours early. It's a big, stuffed gorilla with red boxing gloves and red boxer shorts covered with hearts. It has a fight towel thrown around it's neck and embroidered on the towel, in red letters it reads, "I'm a Lover, Not a Fighter." That's my boy.