Father Of The Year candidate, I

Watched the last part of Alan Parker’s The Wall with The Boy tonight, from Comfortably Numb up until the end, from goose-stepping hammers to psychedelic talking anuses and everything in between.

He loved it.

We had been watching David Gilmour Live at the Royal Albert Hall, but I’m sorry, David Bowie’s guest-vocal turn ruined that performance of the song for me. The album version of Comfortably Numb is etched in granite in my memory, like the Ten Commandments; you don’t change one of them to Thou Shalt Not Tickle just because you’ve booked Elmo to deliver a guest homily.

So I put on the The Wall DVD and cued it up to Comfortably Numb, intending to watch only that. But as we were discussing the imagery in the song when it ended, it carried over into the next tune, and The Boy got agitated with me when I tried to fast-forward through it (I was looking for the cartoons at the end). So we ended up watching the whole rest of the film and talking about it along the way.

I mean, I see nothing wrong with that. After all, he’s not going to be four forever.

After that we accomplished all the usual bedtime compulsories; teeth brushed, bladder emptied, etc.

When I tucked him into bed, he demanded a bedtime story of me. Except, as he knows, I don’t do bedtime stories. I’m still new enough to my failing eyesight to resent the hell out of my glasses, no more so than when they come between me and my parental obligations. So I won’t strain my eyes in the dim glow cast by the night-light or spoil the mood by turning on the overhead light. Fuck that. A good bedtime story is all about mood.

So what I’ve done instead is memorize a couple of poems and recite them to him when he’s finally under the covers. At first there was only I Have A Little Shadow which I remember from the third grade, and Lewis Carroll’s The Walrus and the Carpenter, but tonight I added Tom Waits’ The Ocean Doesn’t Want Me to the mix.

For some reason, I was reminded of it when The Boy took his flashlight with him to bed. I snatched it from him and held it up under my chin, giving me the requisite Creature Features effect, and acted out Waits’ macabre spoken-word piece like I was auditioning for Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater:

The ocean doesn’t want me today
But I’ll be back tomorrow to play
And the stranglers will take me
Down deep in their brine
The mischievous braingels
Down into the endless blue wine
I’ll open my head and let out
All of my time
I’d love to go drowning
And to stay and to stay
But the ocean doesn’t want me today
I’ll go in up to here
It can’t possibly hurt
All they will find is my beer
And my shirt
A rip tide is raging
And the life guard is away
But the ocean doesn’t want me today
The ocean doesn’t want me today

Again, The Boy seemed to respond very positively. Only the fullness of the evening, however, will reveal whether I am indeed the Father of the year candidate I think I am, or have instead made a horrible, horrible mistake that will entertain and enrich psychoanalysts for decades to come.