How to Train Your Child to be an Artist

Our second oldest son is showing some aptitude at being an artist, so we have started to explore ways of fostering his artistic nature.  The risk to reward ratio is pretty high when you want to develop an artist.  Either you will have the next Picasso or Van Gogh, or you will have created the next Hitler or Dahmer.  But civilization depends on parents like you and me fostering our children's artistic aptitude.

First, and most importantly, is chaining them up in a wet, damp basement.  You should do this a few hours every week.  Personally, I have found that Friday and Saturday nights work best.  Not only do I get to go out and have fun, but I am giving my future artist an experience that they can draw from to create great art.  And that's the key, trauma.

The next step helps if you are friends with a funeral director, but there are ways that you can do this even if you are not.  You need to lock your child in a room with a dead body.  If it is a special day at the undertakers, you can even do it with two dead bodies in the room.  You can pretend like it was an accident and your aspiring artist was playing and got lost, but you know that you are doing what it takes to make society better.

Finally, terrify them.  Tell him scary stories all the time.  Tell him there are monsters whenever you are not around, and then go for a walk and leave him home alone.  Tell him there are monkeys in the trees that will come and capture them when nobody is around.  This might sound cruel and unusual, but it is necessary to help your budding artist flower into what you know is his calling.

One thing that usually prevents an artist from developing into who they are designed to be is their parents.  They give in too easily to the screams and cries they hear from the basement, the locked room, or feel guilty about terrifying them.  Don't fall prey to this.  What you are doing is important for the sake of culture.  Don't give up. 

And I'm open to suggestions.  Maybe you have figured out better ways to nurture a young child's artistic spirit.  If so, please share.

Cannibalism...The Path to a Healthy Planet

I bit into a nice, juicy steak off of the grill and had a thought that would change the world. We waste a lot of natural resources by not eating one another when we die. Our concern about the environment stops at the dead body of Cousin Leroy or Grandpa Roger. But should it? Should we let this tradition of not eating the dead flesh of humans stop us from minimizing the environmental impact we make. We have spent a lot of resources feeding Leroy and Roger during their lives. Except for Leroy being 350 pounds and dying in his forties, I cannot imagine that a cow who has never really walked a foot in his life would taste any better than a human like Grandpa Roger.

Now you might be concerned about diseases and the quality of meat you would be eating. Except for the last few years, Grandpa Roger was healthy and walking. He walked way more in his life than any of the caged cows down at the corporate farm. And the drugs they put in those corporate cows to ward off disease; it's like we are eating drugs with a little meat on the side. Grandpa Roger, except for his bout with LSD in the sixties, used far fewer drugs than any of those corporate cows we consume every day.

And imagine the other uses. We could could get wigs from all of the dead people. We could make necklaces out of their teeth - sorry I could not think of anything better to do with their teeth. And we could all have leather coats and boots without having to kill animals. We can use human bones for coffee table legs, so another tree could keep its life. The land we would save by not creating more burial grounds would allow us to make more corn, to make more ethanol, so we can still drive our gas guzzlers in memory of people like Grandpa Roger.

Our dead bodies seem to provide a limitless supply of resources that will help us in our struggle to not destroy the environment while maintaining the same standard of living. The possibilities are endless; our imagination and strangling traditions prevent us from realizing our true potential. If this program works well, we can move on to phase two of saving the environment: Killing people that are a burden to our society and using the resources they provide.

Did I mention that if we consume their bodies, they will always be a part of us? There is a spiritual side to this too. Also, if this works well, we can dig up everyone else and use the resources they provide to minimize our environmental impact.

Save the whales, eat a brother.

Eli and Takeaway - A Child and His Imaginary Monster

We have been dealing with Eli and a monster he calls Takeaway. Takeaway wants to take him away, hence the name, and eat him. He especially scares Eli in the middle of the night when he wakes up to go to the bathroom. Last week, it reached its peak when Eli ran back to the stairway, started holding the door shut, and was yelling for us to come help him with Takeaway. He was very adamant that Takeaway was down there.

I came up with a great plan to deal with Takeaway. I would get a bunch of blood makeup, the kind used at Halloween, and make it look like I got in a knockdown, drag out fight with Takeaway. Then I would tell Eli that I killed Takeaway and he would not be coming back.

The night came. I put all of the makeup on, but I got too wrapped up in the moment. I then ran upstairs, turned on Eli's light so he could see the blood all over me, and screamed at the top of my lungs, "Run, Eli, Run! Takeaway is coming to get you." The I ran around the house like a madman.

Now you might think that is overly mean, but fear is a good thing. And let me tell you, Eli was scared. But it will make him stronger.

In order to keep him strong, I make sure that I call home from work and talk in a mean, demonic voice to Eli as if I am Takeaway. I usually say something along the lines of, "Hi Eli. This is Takeaway and I am going to get you tonight." Kids are just so entertaining.

Needless to say, all of the preceding except the first paragraph is made up. After much prayer, Eli has been saying that Takeaway is no longer around. What made the situation a little scarier, at least to me, is that my research revealed that there is a demon in African mythology named Abiku. They are "Ravenous demons who are partial to children – either as a takeaway snack or to stay inside for extra portions. They can be driven away by the ringing of bells." I prefer prayer to bells. We figure God can stop any silly Abiku or, more likely, just a child's overactive imagination.

The Olympics I want to See - Swimming-inspired Track and Field

Last night I stayed up and watched Michael Phelps. Once again, he won a gold medal. In the end, he broke the Olympic record by winning eight gold medals. Very impressive.

Watching swimming made me think about the arbritrariness of these races. Years ago somebody no longer had to swim away from people killing him and had too much time on his hand. So he came up with decorative swimming like the breaststroke, the butterfly, and the backstroke and declared that he or she wanted to see who was the fastest swimmer using these methods. No longer was it important to just be the fastest swimmer from one point to another. Now the swimmer must do it in a unique way.

I thought I would try to spice up track and field by using the same approach to discovering the fastest people on land. Feel free to suggest better events.

First off is the worm crawl. Who is the fastest worm crawler on earth? Would could even spice this one up by having it done on different surfaces. We could have a worm crawl race in which they start out on dry ground, move to sand, then mud, and finish it up by falling off a ledge ten feet into a pool of water. I would love to watch it.

The next event is heavily influenced by the backstroke - the backwards run. Who is the fastest backwards runner on earth? Now that is a slogan that would keep the viewers attention.

I'm am struggling to come up with a solid third one to create good relays like they have in swimming. All I can come up with is the one legged hopping race. This one could be done by people with just one leg or by people using only one leg.

With these three events, we could then do a relay. First leg could be the worm crawl, followed by the one legged hopping race, then the backwards run, followed by normal running as fast as you can. The track and field medley if you will.

On another note, one swimming event I would like to see that they do not currently do is to see how far someone could swim underwater while holding their breath. I bet you used to do that with friends when you were younger.

Finally, I cannot even believe that trampoline is an Olympic sport. Wow is all I can say to watching people jump up and down on a trampoline as sport. I thought about spicing that event up too. We could combine it with running. If we create a giant trampoline the size of a football field, line up 100 people on one end zone and have them race as fast as they can, at the same time, to the other end zone. They would be bouncing off one another in Olympic glory. It would be great. Did I mention that I would also like barrel-sized holes position frequently throughout the trampoline? That would be Olympic fun.

I'm looking forward to the next Olympics where they implement some of these new variations on the already existing sports. Remember, these might be unusual but I am sure the breaststroke, backstroke, and butterfly were unusual when they first began.

***

You can read the true origin (as long as the person that put it on there wasn't lying) on Wikipedia.

Butterfly Stroke

Breaststroke

No origin listed on freestyle or the backstroke.

Eli and the Red Jimmy Spencer 23 Car

Eli loves his red #23 car. It was lost for around a year. About three weeks ago Lindsay found it, and it made him so happy. Even after three weeks, he still thanks God every time he prays for mama finding his #23 car. He takes that car everywhere he goes and is destined to lose it again.

The other day I was a little depressed and wanted some extra appreciation. I decided to take that #23 car and put it in my pocket.

Then I asked him, "Do you know where your #23 car is?"

He said, "I don't know where it is."

I said, "You better find it."

He despeartely tried to find that car for around 15 minutes. I then told him, "You must have lost it." He started to cry. I felt so bad for him.

He quit moping around and crying about an hour later. An hour after that I pulled the car out of my pocket and said, "Look what I found. Your red #23 car!"

He jumped up and down. "You found it! You found it, daddy!"

I was his hero. I hope he thanks God for me finding his red #23 car now.



Just in case you think I am an evil dad, everything after the first paragraph was made up.