Cocktail Revisionist

On numerous occasions, my cousin has mentioned how much he regrets not growing up around the rest of the cousins.

He grew up in New England, while the rest of us were in Philadelphia. Aside from his immediate family, he didn’t have many relatives around and, to some degree, was jealous that the rest of us were close to and with each other. Though he has turned out to be a remarkable individual, he gives off the impression that his childhood would have been better had he been down here.

Up until today, I never thought much about how that applied to my family. While my dad, siblings, and cousins live here, my children don’t really have any cousins of their own nearby. I have one relative with kids but we only see them on birthdays and holidays and they are moving out of the area next year, anyway.

Meanwhile, in New England, there are many kids in my wife’s family that are around the ages of our children.

I love the area where we live and we’re in a very good school district. We live close to my relatives and to the city. Our neighbors are all very nice and we are comfortably settling into our surroundings. However, I wonder now if this is an important factor that we overlooked.

Her family is tightly knit and, if we lived up there, our kids would be able to grow strong relationships with their relatives. In addition, my wife has more friends who remained in that area who have young kids than we both do down here. I also don’t know how long my siblings will remain near us either. My sister always talks about moving and it’s always possible my brother could move at some point too.

My mother always taught me that family comes first, but whose family? Mine? My wife’s? My kids’? Since she always put us above her own wants and needs, I would assume that she would want us to put our kids first too.

I think my family would be disappointed if we moved away but I also struggle with being so far away from her family. It’s certainly plausible to think that my children will grow up happy and have good lives in either location but is one option clearly better than the other and how would we know which one is right for all of us?

It would be hard to uproot our lives and move to a new area, but if it’s the right choice, I would be willing to do it. It’s not like I would be leaving an active social life behind. At this point, I’m pretty much home with the kids all the time anyway. I don’t see my family members as often as I want either. Really, as long as I can find a way to watch Flyers and Phillies games, I think I would be OK once I adjusted to my new surroundings.

The New York Times has a blog post about Antoine Dodson’s newfound fame and fortune. The author, Robert Mackey, discusses a number effects that have arisen out of this unique situation. I would like to respond to a few of them here.

In an interview with Wired about their hit, Evan Gregory said, “Antoine is participating in all of the revenue from the sale of anything we do [with the song], 50-50.”

I applaud the Gregory brothers for splitting the profits evenly with Dodson. As far as I know, from the second this became a profitable venture, they were fair with him. As Evan’s brother, Michael, said, they are setting a precedent here. As part of that precedent, professionalism takes priority over exploiting an individual — which is not to say that Dodson was never exploited.

In a report on Mr. Dodson’s sudden Internet fame, the Huntsville television station that first put him before the public reported that some African-American viewers had called to complain that “interviews with people like Antoine reflects poorly on the community.”

Why? Because’s he’s flamboyant? I fail to see what he did wrong. He protected his sister from being attacked and then spoke out vehemently in support of her. Maybe if everyone looked out for their family members and friends like Antoine did, our world would be a little safer. If it had been Samuel L Jackson making the same exact statement in a “manlier” manner, would people still think it reflects poorly on the community?

I’m having a difficult time finding one legitimate way to rationalize this.

Mackey also added a quote from Baratunde Thurston, who is the Web editor for The Onion and also co-found the blog Jack and Jill Politics.

As the remix took off, I became increasingly uncomfortable with its separation from the underlying situation. A woman was sexually assaulted and her brother was rightfully upset. People online seemed to be laughing at him and not with him (because he wasn’t laughing), as Dodson fulfilled multiple stereotypes in one short news segment. Watching the wider Web jump on this meme, all but forgetting why Dodson was upset, seemed like a form of ‘class tourism.’ Folks with no exposure to the projects could dip their toes into YouTube and get a taste.

I see Thurston’s point and, to a certain extent, I agree with him. Rape is a very serious situation and he should not be mocked for his personality or reduced to stereotypes.

Personally, I am addicted to the “Bed Intruder” song, but it’s not because I find Dodson to be hilarious. I think it’s legitimately a catchy song and I feel comfortable listening to it because it’s pure. Neither he nor the Gregory brothers set out to make a million dollars by doing this which, in my opinion, makes it more earnest and enjoyable than any overproduced, auto-tuned piece of junk that Justin Bieber, T-Pain, or whomever may be the flavor of that particular day, might release. “Class tourism” won’t get you to #3 on the iTunes R&B chart or #89 on the Billboard Top 100.

But what about Kelly Dodson? She was almost raped. Should we trivialize that? Not at all, and we also shouldn’t overlook the fact that her brother saved her from being raped. Shouldn’t he be rewarded for his bravery? They are both reaping the benefits of this and have made enough money to move to a safer neighborhood. Nobody should ever have to suffer through such a terrifying situation but it happened and we can’t change that. Let’s be happy that their lives are arguably better as a result of this and not worse.

Recently, an old friend happened upon some of my posts on a Yelp thread while searching for something else. It caught me by surprise because I didn’t know they still existed.

I was a member of Yelp for a few years and had about 200 reviews on the site. I participated actively in the talk threads but rarely attended the Elite events. Then, one day, a local tattoo shop took a user’s negative review and used it to market their store. I didn’t agree with the concept but what really bothered me was that Yelp’s community manager at the time praised the business owners for their ingenuity and, in doing so, turned her back on the community she should have been protecting.

Everything turned sour quickly thereafter. I deleted my reviews, made some scathing comments in the talk threads and, eventually, deleted my account. I did not want to find, someday, that I too had been victimized by a business and that Yelp could care less about me, as a member of their community.

As it turns out, I have a history of burning everything behind me.

I started blogging back in 2002 and regularly did so for about five years, but it’s likely that you didn’t know that. Every time I felt the slightest need for change, I would abruptly delete my entire blog and start from scratch on a new domain and with a new persona. As a result, many of the readers I had would disappear and each iteration felt like another, less recognizable reproduction of the original. As a result, I adopted a line from Far’s “Water and Solutions” as a tag line on some of my blogs: “Soon my doubles will pull off all of my stunts.”

There is one site, Daily-get-ready-to-type procedures, that existed for a number of years, though it went through dormant periods. The site is, to the best of my knowledge, no longer in my possession. The Wayback Machine caught some of my history there: Here is my first ever blog post. Eerily, the last update from 2004 it caught was from the day before my mother died.

I don’t know if I get paranoid about revealing too much information online, or am embarrassed by my past, or if it is easier to change something small and external when I can’t change bigger parts of my own life but I think that it is time for me to stop trying to evade my history.

I didn’t give you a chance, Rube. I did not want Pat Gillick to retire. He did an amazing job with the Phillies and cemented his place in local history by building the city’s first championship-winning team in ages. No matter who took over, I knew it would be a step backwards and I was hesitant to see the reins handed over to someone who had been labeled as a company stooge.

The problem is, all I see was your cocky smile and all I hear is your smarmy comments. After many press conferences, I find myself thinking, “You asshole.”

We could debate the validity of my perception ad nauseum but the truth is that you’re the asshole that brought Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, Placido Polanco, and Mike Sweeney, the Phils’ most easily lovable position player since Aaron Rowand.

Maybe you did trade Cliff Lee to save a few bucks, or to restock the cupboard with damaged good. Maybe that decision cost us a couple of wins that could be the difference between making and missing the playoffs. Then again, there’s no way anyone could have anticipated the team would see so many injuries this year either, which also cost us a number of wins.

The truth is, you’re a decent GM but it took me a long time to accept the fact that you’re no Pat Gillick. I’m not sure I like the contracts you’ve handed out or some of the decisions you made but I like the team as it stands now and I think we’ll be in good shape for next season too. It’s likely that I’ll never be your biggest supporter but I won’t be a big detractor either. You are who you are and, thankfully, you’re not Ed Wade.