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| Xavier (right) and I (left) before the school Talent Show, clearly stressing-out over all of America's problems. |
It seems like there’s an awful lot of really serious stuff going on right now in the news.
Gay marriage is finally legal everywhere in the United States (which is great) and being black in America is apparently illegal in the eyes of most
police officers (which honestly, isn’t
so great).
Bruce Jenner has officially become my favorite Kardashian
sister, and through his new persona Caitlyn he/she is changing our definition
of gender identity (yes as a nation our gender status update went from being “Single”
as in we identify with one single gender to being “It’s Complicated”).
A tragic race/religion-related mass murder in South Carolina
raised a lot of questions about gun control and people who raise Confederate Flags. In my opinion the problem with guns is that
you can’t control the people who have them and therefore you should make them
harder to get a hold of than a Confederate Flag was this week at a Wal-Mart. Oh yeah, and for the people who still want to
waive the Confederate Flag I don’t get it, you’re supporting the losing
team. There’s a reason that we don’t
wear Buffalo Bill Super Bowl Champion T-shirts from the early 90’s, because
they were the losers and their jerseys belong in the history books and not
waiving on-top of the flagpole in some racists’ front-yard.
Donald Trump (the patron Saint of both American greed and narcissistic
douchebaggery) was able to completely destroy his Presidential hopes and dreams less than a full calendar
week into his campaign by referring to “most Mexicans” as “thieves and rapists.” In response, Latin American television channel
Univision dissolved it’s contract with Mr. Trump to produce this year’s Ms.
Universe pageant. Now I don’t know if
you’ve ever watched Univision but they must really think that Donald is awful
to pull him from television, because their tele novellas are over-dramatic,
brightly-lit to the point of being nauseating and confusing beyond all belief (all of which
could also be said about Mr. Trump’s hair piece) and yet they keep them on the
air.
Let’s face it, Mr. Trump you say that you’ve “built” some of
the world’s most impressive buildings, but you haven’t built diddily squat (“Diddily
Squat ironically enough is the name of Sean “P. Diddy” Combs’ toilet, speaking
of which he’s also in the news for doing some crazy crap, but we’ll save that
story until next time).
Mr. Trump you’ve merely brokered and co-designed a series of
buildings that are as bloated and self-important as their “builder”. You’re merely a run-of-the mill Real Estate
Agent who was born into a family of Billionaires. So instead of putting your
face on bus stop benches as shopping carts you’re putting your chubby mug on
billboards and television commercials.
You know what, you’re not even a common Real Estate Agent, because
anybody who would be smart enough to get a Real Estate License, would also be
smart enough not to alienate the only voting minority block that a Republican Party
had a shot at carrying in the upcoming election. Even if you were put on the ticket, you’re an
arrogant ass-hole who can’t relate to the everyman. Therefore, you wouldn’t
stand a chance. It’s the hands of the
everyman that actually built your buildings and it’s the vote of the everyman
that you just kissed goodbye. If the
Republican Party was stupid enough to endorse you, they’d lose the general
election faster than you lost your credibility.
So with all of these issues weighing heavily on the shoulders
of our great nation, I thought that I’d take it upon myself to discuss the most
important issue that’s facing the nation right now…which of course is how well
my son’s performance at his school talent show went this year.
Yes my oldest son Xavier (pictured with me both above and
below) just wrapped-up his first year of grade school and the highlight of the
year for me was watching young Mr. Spink perform at the Queen of All Saints
(K-8) Talent Show.
Now as a stand-up comedian, when I heard that my son wanted
to perform at the school talent show I naturally assumed that he’d want to
follow in the foot-steps of his old-man and tell some jokes. I remember when Xavier told me at the dinner
table “Daddy, Guess what? This year I’m going to be in the Talent Show.”
I lit-up like a stoner at one of the Grateful Dead’s Farewell
Concerts. I said “That’s great Buddy, what are you going to do for your talent?”
That was a question that I was hoping he would answer by
saying something like “Oh Father, I want to tell jokes like you. I want to follow in your funny foot-steps and
leave my classmates in stitches like a forgetful surgeon. My performance will
be a tribute to your greatness as both a social commentator and fine parent.” That
was the answer that I was hoping for.
The answer that I got was… “Breakdancing.”
I get it, Xavier is half-Filipino, so he was practically born
into being a member of a hip-hop dance crew. However, I’d be lying if I said
that I wasn’t initially a little disappointed in his choice of talent.
I’ve always prided myself on being a pretty great dancer. We all have that one family member who steals
the spot-light on the dance floor at every wedding, bar mitzvah and funeral with
his killer impression of Michael Jackson whenever the song “Billie Jean” comes
on.
Well, in my family I’m that guy. So even though I would have preferred it if
Xavier chose stand-up I felt like I could still help him out quite a bit in his
preparation for the big show.
I asked Xavier “Do you want me to help you plan your moves?”
He replied “No thank you Daddy, I can do it.”
Then I asked him “Are you sure that you don’t want to do
stand-up instead?”
To which he replied “No thank you Daddy, I want to try
breakdancing. I can do it.”
I asked him which song he wanted to dance to and he said “Michael
Jackson…” to which I was instantly delighted, until he followed it up by
getting more specific “…Bad by Michael Jackson.”
Now I’m a huge MJ fan, but I’ve always felt like as a song the
song “Bad” had lived up to it’s name: it’s terrible. “Bad” was the title track to Michael’s album
that followed-up “Thriller” and “Thriller” was at the time the most-successful album
in the history of the music industry. While
“Bad” did become the first album in history to record five different Number 1
Pop Singles, it was largely seen as an artistic and commercial let-down
(selling less than half the number of albums that Thriller sold in the US). And the track “Bad” itself perfectly embodies
that feeling of being let down. The song
is sonically confused, it doesn’t known if it wants to be a pop song, an
R&B track, a hip-hop cut or a New Wave work-out (you could say it has genre
identity issues).
Nevertheless, I was proud that my little boy was feeling
grown-up enough to do what is probably the scariest thing in the world at 6
years old, to get up in-front of your peers and dance. So a week goes by between Xavier’s big
announcement and the Talent Show Audition itself and Xavier has conducted
nothing but closed door rehearsals. He has never taken a dance class or been in
a formal school-yard breakdance battle (those are pretty rare in the halls of
his private catholic kindergarten class) but after a week of rehearsals he
tells my wife and I that he is ready for the audition, but that he doesn’t want
us to go to the audition.
He said (and I quote) “I don’t want to ruin the surprise for
you guys.”
When Xavier came home from the audition he was pretty happy
with how it went and all he told us was “I’m going to be in the show.”
Two more weeks go by
and it’s the day of the big show. We
went out and bought Xavier a Fedora just for the occasion and both my wife and I
skipped out of work a bit early to catch our son’s debut on the big stage.
And what did he do? He killed it.
Xavier chose
to stand still for the first 12 counts of the song in order to make himself
look too nervous to perform, but then when the vocals kicked in he tossed his
Fedora off of the stage and broke into dance. At 6 years old my boy knows how to fool a
crowd by creating false tension and then exceeding all expectations by bringing
an unbridled swagger to the stage.
Xavier’s moves were strong yet graceful, masculine and yet
still in touch with his feminine side (like Caitlyn Jenner’s stride). Xavier
was spinning on the floor like he was the son of a draddle that had a one night
stand with a disco ball.
He was a bigger star than any of the Stars on the Confederate
Flag, and he let the rhythm of the song be the wind that blew through his
tassels. Xavier has all the confidence
of Donald Trump onstage but he actually had the talent and stage presence to
back it up and his moves were bringing people together instead of alienating
them and tearing them apart. And letting Xavier dance to a song that I didn’t
really understand was like the legalization of gay marriage, hard to understand
at first, but in the end it’s a beautiful thing based on love and
understanding.
The show’s DJ was only supposed to play the first 90 seconds
of the song, but Xavier was getting such a strong reaction from the crowd that they
let the whole song play through. The
only problem is that Xavier really had only choreographed and paced himself for
90 seconds of dance…so by the 4 minute mark he was just about ready to pass
out.
At first I had thought that he picked the wrong song, but it
just would have been the wrong song for me. Xavier’s on-stage swagger embodied the
boastful brilliance of “Bad’s” inexplicable self-confidence. After watching Xavier get down I have a whole
new appreciation for the track (and maybe, in the end it’s not so “Bad”).
At the end of the performance Xavier took a bow and got a
standing-ovation. When he made his way
over to his mother and I, I gave him a great big hug and told him “You did it!
I’m so proud of you.”
Then he told me between heavy breaths “I told you I can do
it.”
“You can and YOU DID!” I told him and I hugged him again.
That’s when he dropped the funny bomb on me “Daddy, I’m
tired. Next year I think I’m just going
to do comedy instead.” And that was music to my ears. Talk about timing, this kid was born to be a
comedian (if that’s what he wants).
In the end, breakdancing might not solve all of the world’s
problems, but there is a lesson in there somewhere between the back-spins,
record scratches and B-Boy stances. If
we as a people can look at the problems in our society and really strive to
improve them by making our own way (by dancing to our own song) and by learning
from our Father’s mistakes of intolerance (racial violence, bigotry & sexism)
we can learn to choose the right song for us.
If we can make these
changes, then when it comes to making our world the type of wonderfully safe
and tolerant place that we all know that it has the potential to be we can.. AND
will DO IT.
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| Xavier and I after the Talent Show, very pleased with ourselves for solving our nation's problems through dance. |
