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Three Dads are Fathers Two Dads are brothers One Dad's a Living

2004-06-20 - 9:35 p.m.

Happy Father's Day, even though it's pretty much over at this hour. I just got off the phone with Rory, he was out today with my father and my oldest brother Zap, the first relative of mine to be renamed here. As I've said before, key figures in my immediate life are getting concerned with their identity on these pages, and you just never know, according to them. Well ok. Zap is quite an amazing Dad, he has triplets and they're all boys. They were one lb. each when they were born. I have mangos that weigh more than that. He also has great taste in everything and so does his wife, Zapato. She likes shoes. She's the kind of mother who makes three different meals for three different kids (Huey Duey, Louie) and never looks tired. They live in Queens and when I fly home sometimes I stay with them.

One time I was up late talking to Zap and I was crying because he's so balanced (though still nicely neurotic)and I've always been such a nomad. (nomad - noun. member of a tribe or people having no permanent home, but moving about constantly in search of food, pasture, etc. ...) And he said, "Oh yeah? You think this is better?" I nodded slowly. I smoothed the couch with my hand. I felt the rug under my foot. "Is that what you think Ohell? Believe me, sometimes, I'd give anything just to be able to pick up and go away for a while. Take some acid, go to a few concerts, travel. I mean, life isn't bad. I love my wife and kids, I make some decent money. But I don't have that option to just get up and go like you do. I'm telling you, enjoy it."

He made good clear points.

"But you're stable, and I'm not! You get to be near the family. I get to move a lot."

Crying nomad.

"Trust me, stability has it's drawbacks, Hellie."

Side note: Someone upstairs is (for once) playing and singing really good acoustic music currently. I didn't even know they had a guitar, it's always the homemade didjeridoo or the electronic trance keyboard. It must be a guest, those two are too angry to make this kind of music. One time I was encouraged to write a song of my own on the keyboard with upstairs John, and I thought I had perfected the baseball song, the one that they play at the games that only has four notes. The one that gets faster and faster, the electronic keyboard one. I set it to a nice high hat drum and a few other dreamy layers, but I felt John thought it unacceptable for his cranky beats. It was one of the many high points in my tenant career here, but it was stiffly rejected. I think he chalked it up as "cute", when really it was like a fucking rescue boat for the soul, if you want to know the truth.

My brother Bam Bam, who will be released from incarceration in a few months, is a father also, of two. One of the them, Li'l Bam, is graduating high school in a week, so it looks like definitely a summer of endings and new beginnings. Bam Bam's daughter, Snap, is very anxious for him to get home, she's been asking him to teach her tattooing and to ride a motorcycle for years. She recently decided she would like to join the boy's football team, which I would encourage and further, would fly home to see. The triplets were afraid of her in their smaller years, for good reason. She knew wrestling moves at six that they still don't know at twelve.

I'll bet you killions of people were talking on the phone to other people on the phone today about their Fathers. I said Happy Father's Day to My own Dad, and some people I know and love today, but I just don't know how you'd say Happy Father's Day to someone who was a deadbeat Dad or a very bad one.

"Hap -"

"Excuse me, what?"

"Hap -"

"Hap what."

"Ahhm, forget it, it wasn't anything. Have a nice rest of the day."

I had decided Zap was essentially right. I was happy to be here out west, even if I did miss every birthday, wedding, party, death, or birth. And even in my conversation tonight, about the time back in the 1976, when I was six, in the space between losing one Father and gaining another, Rory reminded me of a time when he and I and Bam Bam were listening to a radio station that had a show on called Mother Mellow. You could call in and request a song, and she'd play it and say hello to you. Zap had just turned me on to Frank Zappa (which I'm not thrilled that I just mentioned, because now it seems confusing with all the Zaps and I don't want to have to change his name again) I was loving the Don't Eat the Yellow Snow song so that's what we requested for the three of our birthdays, they were all a week or two days apart. Then Mother Mellow or one of her cohorts got on the mic and announced "Happy Birthday to Bam Bam and Rory and Ohell, We can't (won't) play Yellow Snow for you but we're going to play Puff the Magic Dragon for you instead."

She opted for this cheery children's tale, in other words.

"A dragon lives forever but not so little boys

Painted wings and giant rings make way for other toys.

One grey night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more

And PUFF that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar.

His head was bent in sorrow, green scales fell like rain,

PUFF no longer went to play along the cherry lane.

Without his life-long friend, PUFF could not be brave,

So PUFF that mighty dragon sadly slipped into his cave.

Oh! PUFF, the magic dragon lived by the sea

And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee,

PUFF, the magic dragon lived by the sea

And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee "

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