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Shhhhhh! While everyone else is cursin’ and swearin’ and having a good old time at Netroots %$#@ing Nation, I think I’ll just slip in here quietly and tell a Jamie Story. Below the fold, of course.
Yeah, I know I said I’d be back and posting more often. But it’s turned out to be a summer full of other things, beginning with Janet’s teaching gig in Ireland, which left me doing the single-parent drill at home for the month of June. (Though my charges are now 22 and 16, and they’re a bit more independent than they used to be.) It was good fun, though kind of exhausting at times—because in addition to taking care of the no-longer-kids, I decided to go through the entire house and straighten things up. “Things” included junk drawers, years of school and medical records, hundreds of stray photographs, hundreds of CD cases with no CDs in them, and old videotapes of when the no-longer-kids were tiny and had squeaky little voices—videotapes no longer compatible with any machine we own, and which I decided to convert to DVD format so that the tiny, squeaky-voiced versions of Nick and Jamie would always be at my fingertips. And oh, yes, the garage, which had been taken over by giant flesh-eating insects. In the middle of the month, this essay on gender and housework appeared in the New York Times Magazine, and I had to laugh. “Ha, ha,” I laughed. “Today I’m going to spend half my waking hours looking for things my kids have misplaced, and then I’m going to do their laundry. I don’t have time to read this thing. Ha ha ha.”
So where’s the Jamie story? Right here: last fall, Janet took Jamie and me to Cirque du Soleil’s “Saltimbanco” show for my birthday. We thought it was pretty amazing, all round, and we talked for days afterward about how Cirque du Soleil had more or less saved the circus tradition from itself. (I also talked for days afterward about how it was nice to see Québec contribute something to world culture other than Céline Dion.)
But then Jamie found out that Cirque du Soleil also has a Beatles show, “Love,” and then a friend bought him the CD soundtrack of the show, and for Jamie, well, this was like a perfect storm of great stuff: Beatles and Cirque du Soleil. He had to see it! Yes, well. When I explained that the show is being performed only in Las Vegas, and not in tiny college towns in Pennsylvania, that made it even better, because, as Jamie said, we could go to Vegas “like Austin Powers.” Also, Jamie keeps track of all the states he’s been to, and he quite correctly noted, “Nevada—we’ve never been before! Brand new! They have sharks in Nevada! Do you agree?” I assured them that yes, indeed, they had sharks in Nevada, possibly even sharks with lasers on their foreheads.
That was eight months ago. I thought about it for a long time—it would be really extravagant, but then again, it might be really fun. Finally I priced the trip, and sadly told Jamie we couldn’t quite swing it. He’s been getting better and better at understanding abstract things—he handles time pretty well now, but still has only the most nebulous idea of how much things cost (and whether we can afford them). He sagely suggested that if Las Vegas hotels were too expensive, we could stay in a Motel 6; I replied that I’d keep an eye out for specials and discounts. Janet, for her part, suggested that if Jamie and I did go to Vegas, we should do it while she was in Ireland.
In May, I found a pretty good deal, and told Jamie we could go if he still wanted to. The announcement was met with much hand-rubbing glee. Unfortunately, when I booked the trip after spending all dang morning online, I screwed up and booked it for the weekend of my sister’s wedding. That would have been bad. So after a few panicky seconds of wondering just what kind of preposterous story I would have to invent to explain my sudden inability to attend my sister’s wedding, I cancelled the trip and then spent another hour or two booking it again for the following weekend, at the end of June. And we were on.
We made the three-hour drive to Pittsburgh and the five-hour flight to Vegas without incident, partly because Jamie is an amazingly patient and mature traveler. But when we finally got to the massive rental-car depot, you can guess what happened: every single place was empty—Hertz, Avis, Alamo, Enterprise, the whole gang—except ours, Dollar, which had a line of over fifty people. (I counted.)
I turned to Jamie and said, “look, m’fren’, this is absurd. Our package includes a shuttle bus to the hotel—let’s just take the bus, check in for the night, and come back for the rental car tomorrow.” (For those of you unfamiliar with Vegas, McCarran Airport is practically next door to the strip. It’s just one of the many spatially disorienting things about the place.) But Jamie would have none of it: “Michael,” he protested, “we have to get the car now. We have no other options.” Jamie likes this phrase, and has been trying it out for the past few months. But in this case, I assured him, he was quite wrong, and we did have other options. Still, Jamie wouldn’t budge. I reminded him that it was past 10 pm—that is, 1 am our time—and that the line could possibly take an hour. “It might not be that long,” said the young woman in front of us. “I do this all the time, and my guess is that this is about a half-hour line.” “OK, Jamie, are you up for a half-hour wait?” I asked. “Yes,” Jamie said. “We have to get our car.”
Well, it turned out to be a 45-minute wait, but Jamie was cool with that. At one point, to relieve the boredom I told Jamie that Vegas would be weirder than he could imagine. (I’ve been there once before, in 2000, for a speaking gig at UNLV.) The hotels would be unfathomably huge, with malls that went on forever, and he had to be careful to stick by me and not get lost. (Because that would suck.) And there would be a hotel made up like New York, and another one made up like Paris, and another one made up like Venice, with canals and gondolas. (And also with, I’m pleased to say, a place that sells Italian gelato and Krispy Kreme donuts.) There would be hotels with aquariums and casinos and waterparks—all in the middle of the desert. Why, I said, there will even be a hotel made up like ancient Rome, with a mall inside where you can find people dressed up as ancient Romans!
“And also people dressed up as Christians,” added Jamie.
This totally cracked up the young woman in front of us.
OK, folks, back to your regularly scheduled Pandagon / Netroots %$#@ing Nation. I’ll be back when I can. And if you’d like to hear the terrible, heart-rending story of how I almost ruined the entire vacation at the very last moment before we went to see “Love” at last, let me know. In the meantime, here are two international men of mystery for you. In the Planet Hollywood lobby, about to step out for the evening. Because we too like to live dangerously.
Posted by
Michael Bérubé on 10:06 AM •
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OK, I’m grounding myself. I’ve hurt America with my thinking.
Not your fault, Mr. Punko. I’m gonna tell this story twenty more times before I’m done. I could also throw in Jamie’s bizarre complaint, a few weeks earlier, about having to walk from the science museum in Pittsburgh all the way to PNC Park for a Cubs-Pirates game. (About a ten-minute walk at most.) “We can’t walk that far,” he told me and Nick. “We would be like the Ramones.” The Ramones? we asked, somewhat puzzled. “No, not the Ramones,” Jamie replied, visibly upset with himself for forgetting the right word. “Do you mean the Clash? The Pretenders?” we asked, shooting for Ramones cognates and contemporaries. “It’s not music,” Jamie said, aggravated. “It begins with R?” Nick tried. “Grrrrrrr,” Jamie growled. Finally we determined that Jamie meant Romans. “Uh,” Nick said, “we would be like the Romans if we walk to the ballpark?” ”Nick,” insisted Jamie, “it’s legendary.”
I got a million of ‘em, I tell ya.
(I also talked for days afterward about how it was nice to see Québec contribute something to world culture other than Céline Dion.)
Don’t forget poutine! It’s to cuisine what Céline Dion is to music. 
OK, waiting for the rest of the story, while tapping my foot impatiently. You ARE a tease.
“And also people dressed up as Christians,” added Jamie.
This totally cracked up the young woman in front of us.
this would have also totally cracked me up.
I love it- you were probably about to start guessing ever more obscure punk outfits. And I do appreciate a child’s innocent notion of what constitutes legendary. I still remember this one hike as a kid that I am convinced contained an actionable level of death probability, and I’m sticking to that memory. It was indeed Roman in its legendary state. Does Jamie know morituri te salutant? Because he can bust it out when forced to walk against his will, and good sense, from points A and B that are separated. The expression has the appropriate legendary and Roman character.
Does Jamie know morituri te salutant?
He better not, Pinko, because I think it’s morituri te salutamus, or, in Australian, “we who are about to rock salute you.”
you were probably about to start guessing ever more obscure punk outfits.
I believe we got as far as the Buzzcocks before Jamie waved us off, actually. I don’t think Jamie has heard of the Jam or the Cramps or the DKs yet, though (as always) I could be wrong about this.
You ARE a tease.
That I am. But I’m warning you—the followup story has some real pathos in it. So I have to work myself up properly first.
Don’t forget poutine!
How could I forget poutine? It was the Power of Poutine® that allowed Sadly, No! to pwn me in the great Weblog Awards Battle of 2005. You don’t ever fully recover from a thing like that.
It’s to cuisine what Céline Dion is to music.
Wow, you don’t even like poutine? OMG no wonder you have strayed so far from Our Lord Ceiling Cat…
I don’t understand how anyone could possibly not like poutine. It’s french fries, which c’mon, if you don’t like fries you probably aren’t even human. Plus cheese curds, which I’ll grant are a little hard to explain to people who’ve never had them and the name probably sounds a little gross and reminiscent of Little Miss Muffett, but ultimately heavenly (imagine the sharpest freshest white cheddar, so sharp and fresh it actually makes a squeaky noise when you bite down on it). And gravy, which is probably the only truly odd part, because who thinks to put classic brown gravy on cheesy french fries, but trust me, unless you’re a true gravy hater you’ll love it. I’m a vegetarian, and I know that obviously any gravy worth the name is going to be meat-based, but I lie to myself on this count in order to eat as much poutine as humanly possible anytime I get the opportunity.
Shit, just thinking about the wonder that is poutine makes me want some, and it’s way too hot to even think of venturing out in search of something like that.
I don’t actually mind poutine at all. In fact I wouldn’t mind having some right now. Because that would probably mean I was in Montreal. And I really, really wouldn’t mind that.
Please PLEASE tell the rest of the story! I have to see if Love lived up to Jamie’s expectations.
Also, he calls you “Michael?” Whatever happened to good ol’ “Dad?” I’d really miss hearing “mommy” from my boys.
Opoponax, i heartily agree. All this talk of poutine has made me very hungry, and being in Ottawa I’m in a prime location to acquire some… alas, the heat : (
Oh no, Professor. you don’t get to stop BEFORE you tell us about the Beatles Circus. Come on. We’re all waiting.
Also, he calls you “Michael?” Whatever happened to good ol’ “Dad?” I’d really miss hearing “mommy” from my boys.
“Dad” disappeared from the lexicon shortly after Jamie became a teenager. These days, Jamie’s something more than a teenager, because, at 16, he doesn’t have to get out of the public pool when they whistle at the top of the hour for fifteen-minute “adult swim.” On this rather flimsy basis, Jamie recently declared himself to be an adult. “You’re an adult for the purposes of ‘adult swim’ at the pool,” I retorted. “But you’re still only sixteen. Tell you what—you’re a young man, a jeune homme.” He agreed to that.
Hooray, a conte du Jamie! (Pardon my French if that’s wrong.) I await the remainder, pathos and all.
I don’t like gravy. There. I said it.
You know what those bastards do in Minnesota and Wisconsin? They take cheese curds, they bread ‘em, they deep-fry ‘em, and serve ‘em hot. The version the Culver’s chain sells aren’t as delectable as the cheese curds at Grundy’s Corner Bar in Northfield, Minnesota, so if you’ve had Culver’s curds, you haven’t achieved maximum curd pleasure. Who needs fries when the cheese curds themselves can be fried to such good effect?
Poutine is awful, awful stuff.
However, I may just be odd, as I don’t care for cheese or gravy, and the thought of putting them together is vomit inducing to me.
“almost ruined”
But not totally ruined, right? I mean, pathos is fine, as long as there’s a happy ending, with Jamie having a Roman legendary good time.
I’m not much of gravy person myself, and was even known to turn it down back in my meat eating days. But on poutine it’s a whole different story. Mmmm, poutine. If only it were 10-15 degrees cooler…
I think I had it how Suetonius did, but you know how he was, playin.
Dude! Québec gave us the McGarrigles, and Charles Taylor, and Saul Bellow, and Leonard Cohen, and that other Jew . . . okay, if I can’t remember his name, maybe he’s not a Contribution to World Culture. But Cohen, definitely, and maybe the others (Who’s Céline Dion? Some kind of doo-wop Nazi novelist?).
Good to have you back.
We were somewhere around Altoona on the edge of the Alleghenies when the drugs began to take hold.
I just assume that we will be treated to 200 pages of fast-paced stream-of-conscious writing giving full details of the trip. Don’t tell me that I’m wrong in that assumption.
But not totally ruined, right?
Right. Fortunately, the Cirque du Soleil show was so absolutely wonderful that it rescued what was almost a lost evening. So there is, indeed, a happy ending. But I learned an Important Life Lesson along the way. . . .
We have no other options.
I *love* that!
And yes, please do tell the rest of the story!
I also talked for days afterward about how it was nice to see Québec contribute something to world culture other than Céline Dion.
*Sputter*
Dude! Québec gave us the McGarrigles, and Charles Taylor, and Saul Bellow, and Leonard Cohen, and that other Jew . . . okay, if I can’t remember his name, maybe he’s not a Contribution to World Culture.
Do you mean Mordecai Richler? ‘cause he’s definitely a Contribution to World Culture…
Count me in as another who welcomes any reports on the Dangerous Lifestyle.
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OK, I’m grounding myself. I’ve hurt America with my thinking.