For ‘New Music Monday,’ I wanted to wait a few days a do a late edition in order to let the world enjoy the last entry about Son #2 and his sandwich eating habits. Now about a half of a week removed from that entry, it’s time to drop a little science about another addition to the ever-growing catalog of music.

I told myself that one of these days I’d review an album that I wasn’t so biased about. If you look back on my reviews over the last few years, you’ll find three things: One; I tend to listen to one form of music. Two; I tend to only review things I like. And three; I have absolutely no credibility or expertise in musical reviews. Most of the time, I don’t even know what I’m talking about. That being said, this isn’t the review to steer away from my biases.


The melodic hardcore set from Chicago, Rise Against, has just released their much anticipated 6th studio album. So when I say much anticipated, maybe I’m only including myself in the mix as I follow them on Facebook and Twitter and knew it was coming. I would imagine the normal listening public who are enthralled with Lady Gaga and Chris Brown had no awareness that the release of “Endgame” was coming.

“Endgame” comes with a mixed bag of stuff. It’s right on brand with Rise Against but I would conclude that there’s nothing that stands out of unique and original direction here. That’s not a bad thing. I wasn’t looking for something new and different. Rise Against is good at one thing. That’s politically charged, unrelentless, barraging, unforgiving, lyrics and music. “Endgame” is just that and is very solid from beginning to end. While the music carries similar tones throughout and becomes almost monotonous, the lyrics don’t pull any punches from topic to content to delivery.

This is what you would expect from the lead man, Tim McIlrath. He has made a successful career creating and urgent mix of concern and defiance in his intensely metaphorical lyrics. When you listen, you have to pay attention. It’s fast, it’s loud, and it’s deep. If there’s one thing I could sincerely implore on you in my writing about the dire sense of urgency in the socio-political emotionally driven stories here is to wade through the volume and screaming to allow the message to fall upon your soul.

“Endgame,” and all other albums by Rise Against, is a call to emotional arms. It’s a message to brothers and sisters, friends and families, to band together to extinguish the grief and dismay in the world. And while all of this seems inappropriately messaged through punk rock, it couldn’t be any truer.

Help is on the Way – While our nation has all but forgotten the destruction and the emergency response to Hurricane Katrina, the delivery of this song reminds us of how many suffered in more ways than one. “We were told to sit tight because help is on the way but it never came.”

Architects – This song reminds you of your abilities for choice and defining your life through punishing guitar riffs. It’s a welcome reminder that we can change the negativity around us. It’s the flag being raised for standing by what you believe in. "Do you care to be the layer of the bricks that seal your fate; Or would you rather be the architect of what we might create?"

Make it Stop – From the concerted singing of children in the beginning to the narrated names of children who are victims of suicide at the end, this song doesn’t ever let up on your ears. The concept is bullying in our schools and how our youth are tormented so much that they believe ending their lives is the only answer. We’ve created an education system that lacks compassion for being unique and different. "And too much blood has flowed from the wrists from the children shamed for those they chose to kiss.”

Ultimately, “Endgame" stacks up as an epic album of social topic content. Unfortunately, it’ll never get the mainstream press it deserves due to the musical content unleashed through melodic hardcore guitar riffs and screaming. The content is truly an eye opener by addressing everything from Hurricane Katrina to bullying in schools to political improprieties. It’s an emotional calling to arms and minds. While some would say it lacks the marquee closing power of notable ‘singles’ for the radio, I would refute that the strength of the album is in it’s emotional completeness and the awareness it gives the listener. If you didn’t care before, after a listen, you care now. This album is not full of show stoppers or filler. It is full of heart.

When it comes to your children, parents typically have the innate ability to overlook the most odd behaviors and features of their spawn. For example, like when you’re at the airport and you see a family waiting to board their plane to somewhere and their eight year old is digging for gold in his nose while mom and dad bicker about who has the rental car reservation information. Excavation continues until there’s safe removal of what looks to be an appendage of a small alien. Mom and dad glance over but make no mention to the kid about his actions or the examination of the solidified mucus alien arm.

Ignore.

What about ugly kids? I think you know where I'm going with this. As a parent, you have to find beauty in your kid. Lazy eye, gimp, bald, or a pumpkin head, we love them the same. But others don't have the same compassion.

I’m not saying I’m any of the above because I'm not. In fact, I may be worse than those that are oblivious to the goings on with their children. I actually acknowledge the behavior and then write about here for the world to read and have a giant collective internet chuckle.

That leads me to Son #2.

He doesn't get a lot of coverage on the blog. Is it because he’s less interesting than Son #1? No. I've always thought he was a very interesting kid but his attitude sucks. Is it because he’s an unattractive little monster with tendency toward nose picking? Sort of. He’s a good looking kid which is the reason for all of his modeling call backs. But the kid’s right index finger is always lodged firmly into his right nostril.


The reason for the lack of pixilated attention is a direct correlation to the attention he demands. You spend most of your time getting him snacks and milk. The kid can eat and scream when he is unhappy. After you're done tending to his sustenance needs to satisfy his ridiculously loud temper tantrums, you're often done with him. The cuteness has worn off and writing about him is the last thing on your mind. In fact, it's an adult-type drink for you and a closet and muzzle for him.


I love Son #2 and his penchant for eating (or not eating) and talking back during the same session. I don't know many kids that dislike the tastiness of grilled cheese and/or peanut butter sandwiches but Son #2 is one of those rarities. Any time you make him a sandwich for a meal, you get some sort of sass talk in his temper-driven at times incomprehensible language. The funny thing is that when he’s pissed off about being served a meal he has no interest in consuming; he’ll repeat exactly what you say to him as it is some point of emphasis.

Me: "Do you want a grilled cheese sandwich?"
Him: "No grilled cheese sandwich!"
Me: "Eat your dinner."
Him: "No eat your dinner!"
Me: “It’s time for a nap!”
Him: “No time for a nap!”
Me: "Do you want a time out for talking to me like that?"
Him: "No time out for talking to me like that?
Me: “Do you need to be beaten?”
Him: “No need to be beaten!”
Me: “I’m going to sell you to the gypsies!”
Him: “No sell you to the gypsies!”
Me: "That's it!"
Him: "No that's it!"

Eventually, he gets hungry enough that even the coldest and soggiest of grilled cheese is tasty and consumed. The dialogue above isn’t the behavior that I ignore or turn a blind eye toward. In fact, I love this about him. He’s like my own little angry parrot. The behavioral topic to discuss here is his creative method of eating sandwiches.

He’s all about eating the business end of sandwiches, no matter what type. I just don't get it. While most kids would only eat the soft fluffy goodness of bread and the sandwich innards, Son #2 prefers the roughness of the crusty edges. It doesn't matter what kind of sandwich it is, what type of bread it is, or how stale or rotten it is, he’ll motor around the periphery of the sandwich like a little typewriter gnawing off the toasted edges of the grilled cheese sandwich or the dripping jelly saturated crust of a PB&J. It’s just counterintuitive to being a little boy.


Reflecting back on my days as young boy, I can recall being nagged by my parents, family members, and friends to eat the crust off my sandwich. If you want to grow up and be a strong football player, you need to eat the crust, I was always being told. Unbeknownst to them all, I didn't care about being a big strong football player. I just want the middle goodness of my sandwich and my potato chips. Spare me the ‘eat your veggies and the crust on your sandwich so I can grow up and be healthy' urban legends and old wives’ tales. The crust is good for dogs and people that listen to their parents. Not me.


So maybe that's my karma here. Son #2 won't eat the fluffy bread no matter what the threat is. He’s strangely defiant in his obsession with doing things his own way. Who am I to judge him over his blatant disregard for my advice? After all, it’s a sandwich eater’s freedom of choice how he or she consumes a sandwich. It's a funny sight though to watch him eat the edges and only the edges. The carnage left over looks mealy and gnawed on by a rat dog. And just like my crust from years ago, his scraps are suitable enough for our pups.

I’ve been at this for several years now after starting with the intention to be a forum to communicate family experiences. I figured it was a great way to launch a stream of thought while allowing people to peak into our occasionally wacked out life with two insano little boys. When I started this blog, I had only one rule and that was to not edit myself.

As I worked through entry after entry and topic after topic, I began to realize that my unedited thoughts and feelings are sometimes best left unsaid. Or in this case, unwritten. So I moved away from that one rule and moved closer to having guidelines. Things like not naming names, staying away from emotionally questionable topics, only using swearing as a point of emphasis, and using music on the blog to complement the story.

After following that framework for some time, I found myself wanting to write more. Explaining more of how I feel about things, life challenges, and how difficult it is to just be alive. So I began to pen down those elements. While my thoughts and feelings were relevant and challenging, I worried that readers would be concerned over my state of mental and emotional health. So those entries stayed outside the pixels of this blog.

Despite the guidelines to remain relevant, I’ve enjoyed being able to provide a story or two that catch a laugh or get readers to think and feel. For that, I’m grateful for the opportunity to write and have someone read. I’ve lost the desire to draw and visually create these last few years but I’ve found great inspiration and creativity in writing and expressing the uniqueness of my family life here.

That lengthy preface brings me to my topic of the entry. Creativity. Everyone has a degree of it; the only difference is that we each channel it in our own unique way. For me, it’s here in a random story about Son #1 and his imagination.

The story begins with my wife leaving for an obligation and Son #1 and I looking for some way to spend our time during her absence. Christmas was months ago, but not all of the gifts Son #1 received have been opened. The reason? The little dude all ready has too much shit. But as we retire some toys, we open others and add them into circulation. This day, we were advised of the availability of a new toy in one of our closets.


It was a Matchbox product like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Back in the day, Matchbox only made die cast cars. This was like a buildable, outer space ready, dinosaur hunting, wheeled, imagination inspiring, machine. This set had a ton of pieces and could be built in to endless designs of vehicles and machines. We spent the next hour or so, building the various different examples on the packaging. But both he and I reached a threshold where pretty pictures on the box weren’t enough. It was time to go off the grid and exercise our own creativity.

So we broke away from ‘suggested’ designs and crafted our own. I’ve found as I’ve become a parent that I still love playing with toys. However, my play stops when I’m done building. There seems to be a roadblock in place that makes it hard to imagine a story for the toys like I used to be able to fabricate. It’s seems my imagination to play has faded.

After one of our last creations was built, I leaned back against the wall just to take it all in. What I witnessed next was both amazing and disheartening as a father. Let me explain. It was as if Son #1 was born in the land of make-believe. With his new ‘machine,’ he dropped into an imaginative story mode and began to vividly describe where his little explorers and machine were venturing. It was a prehistoric land of dinosaurs and volcanoes where the play table in our bonus room was a cliff over a river. His explorers were on an ‘adventure’ to find a red dinosaur.

But my surprise didn’t end with the description of the adventure from Son #1. He eloquently bounced between story narrative and the dialogue and action of the explorers. And the play of the roles of the explorers included urgency, emotion, perseverance, and teamwork during the adventure. I never thought in my short years as a father that he knew this kind of stuff. It was like a little dramatic action packed screen play brought to me by Son #1.

The balance between the narrative description of the adventure and the actual ‘scenes’ he played out in front of my eyes were just amazing. Such an imaginative little guy. His story played out for the next hour as I watched in amazement. The innocence of imagination and play all rolled together.


But it reminded me of where I am now. Where did our collective imagination go? The innocence of play has deteriorates as we continue to ‘grow up.’ There was a time in my life that hours could be spent with my Legos dumped all over the floor. I could build an entire space fleet, cityscape, or kingdom and play for hours acting out the smallest of nuances. And don’t get me started about G.I. Joe. I could literally play an entire day with my action figures. Acting out recruitment to mobilization to attack to defeat and to death in some cases.

Those days are behind me now which is fine. I don’t need to be the only 37 year old in my new neighborhood playing with action figures in my front yard. Wrong message to send. The concern is the creativity and imagination that are now retired as we age. It comes with some regret to know that our childhood phase of play is gone. The new phase is great too. You get to have the amazement that I mentioned above. While my imagination for play has been tabled, I’m blessed to still have a little bit of creativity and find inspiration in my son’s play. Now I get inspired by him and get to express it in my writing.