Oh, the post I was going to write prior to leaving on our vacation. It was going to be, quite simply, epic. You would have laughed, cried and thanked God above for the day you found my site.

Instead, you get this little note. Because it’s 10:30. And I’ve been up since 5:30. And we have to get up at 4:30 so that we can get outta here before Zan wakes up and calls on all of the demons from the Ninth Circle of Hell to stop us.

I’ll post some Twitter updates from the road (those are the “Daddy’s Briefs” things over there on the right), and I’m also planning to push some mobile photos up to my Flickr account, so at least you have those little rays of sunshine to cling to during my absence.

Peace out, yo.

There is a scene in the movie “Almost Famous” during which the star—a young and budding music journalist—approaches the backstage door of a concert venue, rings the buzzer, gives the surly security guard his name and says that he’s there to interview the band.

The guard checks the guest list on his clipboard.

“You’re not on the list,” he says dismissively and slams the door shut.

Undeterred, our young hero rings the buzzer again, and the annoyed security guard opens the door again.

“Sir, I’m a journalist,” the naive youngster says, holding up as a form of identification a copy of the publication for which he is due to conduct the interview. “Here’s a copy of the magazine that I—”

“Not on the list,” the guard says while some nearby groupies chuckle about the boy’s embarrassing predicament.

This scene is, for me, perhaps the most memorable moment of the entire movie, for it is an experience that I have lived through on more than one occasion.

The most recent occurrence happened earlier this year when I took a friend with me to a Chris Cornell concert that I was reviewing. After standing in line, we reached the door to the club, where stationed was the girl holding the ever-present clipboard to which was fastened the mythical “GUEST LIST.”

“Hi,” I said in my most charming fashion. “I’m supposed to be on the list.”

“Name?”

I provided it. She scanned the list, flipping through it until she reached the last page, then let go of the previous pages, which fell back into place.

“Hmmmm. Who are you with?”

I told her the name of the publication. She flipped through the list again.

“I don’t have you on here.”

“Really? Wow. Chris’ publicist just emailed me today and said she’d have me down for a plus-1,” I said, attempting to bowl her over with my knowledge of guest-list lingo. (“Plus-1,” as you can probably surmise, means the reviewer can bring a friend along.)

And it is at that moment that she and everyone in earshot joined in an unmatched display of synchronized telepathy to mentally shout in unison, “Bullshit!”

The thing is, I really was supposed to be on the list … so, rather than slouching over, slinking away into the night and finding a safe haven in which to nurse my ego back to health, I did the Douchebag Shuffle. This is the move where you say, “Well, if you don’t mind me standing off to the side here, I’m going to make a call to see if I can straighten this out,” then step out of the line and shuffle on over to rock-concert purgatory, where you stand on display for the other concertgoers to look at with bemusement as they proffer their own tickets and enter the club without incident while an almost visible cartoon-dialogue thought-bubble hovers in the air, from which successively smaller bubbles trail down to everyone’s heads, and the lone word in the middle of the cloud is “Bullshit!”

And now the game is on, because the guest-list girl and the security guards at the door? They think you’re full of shit, and that your little charade of pulling out your cellphone and calling someone is a weak attempt at saving face. But you know you’re for real, and you have been doing this for years, and this isn’t the first time this has happened, which is why, just before pulling out of the driveway to head to the show, you remembered to run back into the house and program the publicist’s phone number into your cell.

After a short conversation with said publicist, I hung up and informed Guest-List Girl that there was another list on its way, and that my name would be found therein. The dialogue in the cartoon thought-bubble morphed to “Suuuuuuure there’s another guest list on its way.”

But lo and behold, along came a higher-ranking Guest-List Girl, backstage laminate swinging from the lanyard around her neck. She held in her hand several sheets of paper, and my name was, in fact, on one of them. The dialogue in the cartoon thought-bubble morphed into “Well, blow me down. You don’t see that every day.”

Over the years, Wonder Woman and I have been fortunate enough to attend numerous concerts thanks to my job, but the frequency with which I go to shows has diminished greatly since the arrival of our lovely cherubs, and on those rare occasions when I am inclined to do so, I often end up going without her—since, you know, someone’s gonna hafta get up at an ungodly hour the following morning when the Pre-Dawn Duo rises, and, thankfully for me and my career, she is willing to be that someone.

Such was the case for the Nine Inch Nails concert the other night, which took place way out in Worcester, a city to which I would travel for perhaps no other reason than to see a Nine Inch Nails concert. Up until a day or two before the show, I had convinced myself I wouldn’t mind skipping it in order to avoid the hassle–but I had to miss the show the last time NIN was in town, and they are my most favoritest musical act in the whole wide world, and their live shows are always completely spectacular. All of those factors eventually ganged up and convinced me that I wasn’t OK with skipping it after all.

With Wonder Woman recusing herself, I was left to find another date. I offered a free ticket to at least a half-dozen people, but pretty much all of them have kids and jobs and don’t get paid to stay out late at a rock concert.

So there I was, dragging my ass out to Worcester, alone, on a Sunday night.

“Who are your tickets from?” asked the woman behind the glass at the will-call window as she eyed my driver’s license.

“The group’s publicist,” I said, bracing myself for yet another performance of the Douchebag Shuffle. She nodded and walked away from the window. The Will-Call Craps game began. Would I roll a seven or snake eyes?

She returned, handed me an envelope containing my tickets and smiled. Seven! We have a winnah!

Written on the envelope were instructions to head to the security booth located at Door 5, where I would receive my photo pass. I asked a venue staffer where Door 5 was, fully expecting her to ask me who the hell I was and why I needed to know the whereabouts of Door 5. Instead, she did everything short of draw me a map and offer me a piggyback ride. Wow. This was going far too smoothly.

When I finally arrived at Door 5, I expected it to be locked and heavily guarded. There was a goth-girl standing in front of the door with what appeared to be a list.

“Are you handling the photo passes?” I asked her.

“Huh?”

“Do I check in with you for a photo pass?”

“I don’t work here. I’m just waiting for my boyfriend.”

Jesus, what a dork.

I pulled on the handle and Door 5 swung open easily. Inside was a little lobby, where stood several other photographers. Opposite the doors was a large plate-glass window, behind which was the security office. Everyone was just as pleasant as could be.

The two women whom the venue tasked with handling the photographers showed up and went into cruise-director mode—like, full-on Julie McCoy—introducing themselves to each of us, asking us our names and thanking us for being there.

I was looking around for a hidden camera, and trying to decide if I should deck Ashton Kutcher when he came through the door.

But it turns out we weren’t being Punk’d. In fact, the only complaint to be had was that, instead of shooting the first three songs, we had to wait backstage during the first two songs, then shoot during 3, 4 and 5 … which means I missed the beginning of the show. Also, when the band’s liaison finally led us into the security pit at the front of the stage and song number three commenced, its onset was accompanied by a deluge of fake fog that made the band practically invisible. (And here, I shall thank god for Photoshop, which allowed me to milk 40 or so worthwhile photos from the 250 or so that I shot.)

After the shoot, one of the pleasant and bubbly venue liaisons pleasantly and bubblingly escorted us into a service elevator that dropped us off at the seating level—and, serendipitously, right in front of a Sam Adams stand.

So, cold beer in hand, I sat and watched the most impressive lightshow in rock-concert history (seriously; check this, this and this for proof) while listening to live renditions of my favorite songs performed by my favorite band, and contemplated how far I had come since the first time I, metaphorically speaking, rang a backstage buzzer; marveled at the fact that I’ve been doing this for more than a decade now; and thanked my lucky stars yet again that I actually get paid for it.

What I want to say:

“Zan, we’re going to go run a couple of errands and get our hair cut, OK,
pal?”

What I want to hear:

“OK, Daddy.”

BUT … when I say what I want to say, what I hear is:

“NOOOOoOooOOoOoOoOooooo Daddyyyyyy!!!!!!”

AND … after I say what I want to say, and hear what I don’t want to hear, I say:

“Yes, we are.”

A vigorous protest ensues, and Wonder Woman tells me that I’m going about it all wrong, because we have to approach things with our Explosive Child in a different manner than we would with your average, run-of-the-mill 5-year-old.

SO … based on her counsel, what I end up having to say instead is:

“Zan, how ’bout this: We’ll go to Home Depot and you can help me pick out a special trash barrel that the raccoons can’t get into. It’s a really important mission, and I need your help so that I can pick out the right one and we can stop Mr. Racoon from messing up our trash!”

The whining subsides slightly, but I haven’t made it into the end zone yet, so, based on Wonder Woman’s previously mentioned counsel, I up the ante:

“And you know how we were pretending to be carpenters in the basement the other day? Well, how about, while we’re at Home Depot, we get some wood that we can use when we get home for doing some real cutting and nailing. Cool?”

“Yeah!”

“Alright, and then we’ll go get our hair cut, OK?”

“Um, OK.”

Great … except that, now, instead of running into Home Depot and grabbing a couple of raccoon-resistant trash barrels (long story, coming soon) and then high-tailing it out of there to make it to our haircut appointment on time, I am lugging two barrels through the lumber department while I try to find a piece of wood that isn’t 12 feet long so that I can make good on my carpentry-project promise.

“I know, Daddy!” says Zan. “We can get a bunch of these pieces here and build a clubhouse!”

“Oh, ha ha, ho ho, chuckle chuckle. No, pal, I think this time we’re just going to build something small.”

I eventually find some short lengths of wood, use my Jedi mind trick to convince Zan that they are the perfect size for a perfect project of perfectly small scope, and hustle us back to the car.

The haircut appointment comes off without a hitch—except for the part where Mr. Ants In His Pants decides to go all jungle gym on the chair he’s sitting in while I’m getting my haircut, spinning it so hard that he slips off the seat and almost does a header onto the floor of the salon. He narrowly escapes injury, and we are soon freshly shorn and car bound.

What I want to say:

“We’re just going to stop at the post office for a few minutes so I can mail these packages.”

What I want to hear:

“Hot damn, Daddy! That sounds friggin’ awesome! Whatever you need, my man. I know your life these past five years has basically been one long, sleepless lesson in selflessness and sacrifice, all for the good of myself and my sister, so by no means do I want to make things any more difficult for you than they need to be.”

BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAA! Yeah, um, so … what I hear instead is:

“NOOOOooOOOoOOoooo. I don’t wanna go to the post ooooofffffffiiiiiiiiiicccccceeee.”

What I end up having to say instead is:

“Yeah, but, dude, the post office is closed, so we’ll probably be the only ones there, and I’m just going to use the machine in the lobby to mail everything. We can pretend it’s our secret base!”

“OK!”

We arrive at the post office, and my Jedi mind trick has already worn off.

“I don’t want to come in.”

“Well, I can’t leave you in the car, pal. It’s going to take a few minutes, and if I leave you in the car, the police might come and arrest me, which I’m really not up for, so I need you to come with me.”

“But I don’t want to.”

“I know, but look at the building. See it? That can be whatever we want: a secret base, or a space station—”

“Oh, I know! It can be a superhero fortress!”

“—or a superhero fortress! That’s exactly what I was thinking! Perfect! Let’s go!”

Inside the post office, I begin the ordeal of navigating through 10-levels-per-package of touch-screen goodness. (“Are you mailing any live plants used for the manufacturing of narcotics that are wrapped in a high-powered explosive you plan to detonate while carrying out a terrorist plot to overthrow the United States government? Press: Yes or No.”) I am like a touch-screen ninja, flying through the ridiculousness as rapidly as possible, but it takes this goddamn machine longer to print out the postage than it would for me to chisel my own stamp out of solid granite.

“I wanna touch the buttons, Daddy.”

Parental conflict: Of course he wants to touch the buttons, he’s a kid, heck, I’d wanna touch the buttons if I were him, so I should probably let him try … but if he hits the wrong thing in the midst of the 10 levels of touch-screen goodness, this is going to end up taking even longer, which means that both he and I are much more likely to have a meltdown … but still, don’t be a dick, dude.

“Um, OK, here, you can try. Touch that one.”

He taps the screen … but doesn’t remove his finger fast enough, which causes the machine to register a second tap on a different button! AGHHH!

“OK, wait, wait!” I say while I assess the damage. Hmmm. Looks like we can continue on without a problem. Phew.

I navigate to a screen on which there is only one button.

“OK, tap that one.”

He taps the screen again, and again doesn’t remove his finger fast enough, which results in him accidentally telling the machine that I’m all done with my transaction, even though I am so totally not done with my transaction, and, SWEET JESUS H. CHRIST, can someone please give me a break with this shit already??

Now I have to start a new transaction, get my wallet out again, re-enter my credit card, and be a dick.

“No, you can’t touch the screen again, buddy. Sorry. I need to do this myself so that we can get out of here.”

To his credit, he takes this surprisingly well … but now he really wants to get the hell out of here. I recall the superhero-fortress premise.

“OK, dude, so this is our superhero fortress, and I’m working on our super computer to try and track down the bad guys.”

“OK, I’m Wolverine, Daddy. Who are you?”

Me? I’m Aggravation Man, whose special power is the ability to trap himself in one nut-smashingly aggravating situation after another!

“I’m Mr. Fantastic, and he always works the computer, so that’s what I’m doing.”

“OK, I’ll help you,” he says as the slower-than-shit machine wheezes out another postage sticker. “Here, I’ll put the sticker on.” And, uh-oh, it’s stuck on his fingers, and the adhesive area might end up getting stuck to itself, and dear god, please, smote me down, right now, I beg of ye.

“Let me put the sticker on buddy,” I say, removing it from his fingers and sticking it on the package. Think … think … hmmm.

“Oh, you know what, buddy? I just figured something out: each sticker that comes out of the machine has a clue on it that will help us find the bad guys!”

“Yeah? Cool!”

I then finish printing postage for the remaining handful of packages, pretending to read a few words off of each sticker as it creeps its way out of the machine. “It says: ‘The bad guys …’

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, enter zip code, tap, tap, wait, wait, wait, wait, print …

‘are hiding out …’

More tapping and waiting.

‘in your …’

And still more tapping and waiting.

‘back yard.’”

Four packages down, four to go.

“But that’s not true, Daddy. That one’s a trick!”

OK, at least he’s into it.

“Alright, let’s see what the computer says next.”

Fingers, don’t fail me now. Tap faster, motherfucker. For the love of all things holy, tap faster.

“Now it says: ‘You’re right, Wolverine’—hey, you were right! It was a trick!—‘the bad guys are … [tapping, waiting] actually in the … [tapping, waiting] back room.’ Holy smokes, buddy, they’re in the back room of the post office!”

“Whoah! What are we gonna do?”

Um … great question. My best answer is: “Well, I don’t know about you, but returning to psychotherapy some time soon sounds like a great idea to me,” but he’s probably looking for something a little less lofty. And then the machine throws me a bone: It prints out the mile-long receipt, which I forgot would be coming at the end of this ordeal.

“Hey, we finished reading all the clues to find the bad guys, so the machine is printing out the instructions for what we need to do to beat them!” I ad lib.

“Sweeeeet! What does it say???”

“It says: ‘Place the power cells’—those must be the packages, dude!—‘in the metal container and dump them into the back room to trap the bad guys’!”

“Let’s do it!”

I hand him the packages one at a time as he loads them into the metal bin. Once full, we tip it to its upright position and hear the thudding of the packages landing on the other side of the wall.

“We did it! High five, buddy!”

I am exhausted. I don’t feel like I just mailed packages; I feel like I actually did just save the friggin’ universe from evil bad guys who hide out in the back rooms of post offices. Must. Get. Home.

Once home, I flop down in my office chair, because my office is my binky, my security blanket, the place where I go when I want to remember what it feels like to be an adult instead of a rodeo clown.

And if I had been able to just run a couple of errands and get a haircut, I’d probably be able to catch my breath for a few minutes … but I promised Sparky here that we would tackle a carpentry project when we got home, and he, of course, hasn’t forgotten that, no siree, not for a minute, so now it’s down to the basement for some sawing, and drilling, and fastening. Here’s our masterpiece:

I’m thinking about scaling it out to full size, placing it in the back yard and moving in.

If you do not already think that I am a total freak … or geek … or both … and you would like to maintain that illusion, then you will want to stop reading this particular entry right about now.

Whoever’s left: I shall now regale you with the tale of “The Man Who Loved Halloween (Perhaps A Bit Too Much).”

I, quite simply, lose my mind on Halloween — particularly since the arrival in my life six years ago of Mr. Bones.

Mr. Bones is a 4-foot tall skeleton who sports a black grim-reaper cloak, and who has in the back of his skull an electrical input and a microphone input. When one speaks into the microphone, one’s voice is broadcast from a speaker hidden beneath Mr. Bones’ cloak while his jaw moves in sync with the dialogue and his eyes light up.

Wonder Woman purchased Mr. Bones in the middle of August back in 2002 for about $20, and I can say without any hesitation that we have gotten far more than our money’s worth out of his undead ass.

In years past, I have hidden in the bushes with the microphone while Count Dracula (a.k.a. my uncle, the other member of the family who is as fully looney as I am about Halloween) has greeted the children as they come up the front walk and led them to Mr. Bones, who sits in a pseudo-coffin (known the other 364 days of the year as your run-of-the-mill toybox) with the candy bowl in his lap.

Some version of the following exchange then takes place:

“And what is your name, young man?” the Count asks.

“Timmy,” says Timmy with no small amount of trepidation.

“OK, Timmy, come say hello to my friend Mr. Bones,” says the Count, leading Timmy to Mr. Bones’ coffin. “Mr. Bones, say hello to Timmy.”

“Hello, Timmy,” says Mr. Bones (in an accent that, for no particular reason, has evolved into a mix of Transylvanian, Spanish and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog). “So nice to meet you.”

Invariably, the kids are surprised that Mr. Bones has actually used their name.

“He just said my name!” they exclaim disbelievingly. “How did he do that?”

“What do you mean, ‘How did he do that?’ I’m Mr. Bones, man! I’m magic!”

At this point, most kids have a funny look on their face that says, “OK, I know there’s no such thing as talking skeletons with red LEDs for eyes, but holy stromboli, I am totally having a conversation with a talking skeleton with red LEDs for eyes, and I’m trying to decide if this is the coolest thing ever or the freakiest thing ever or both.”

“Now, Timmy, what do you say on Halloween to get some candy?” asks Mr. Bones.

“Trick or treat?”

“Trick or treat! That’s right. Nice. OK, Timmy, take a piece of candy, yes, that’s righ— WAIT! NOT THAT ONE!”

[Child freezes]

“I’m keeding, Timmy. You take it. I’m on a diet. And make sure you brush your teeth after you eat all that candy, man, because if you don’t, your grill will end up looking like mine.”

This year, I realized I was tired of sitting in the bushes, so I got my geek on in a big, big way.

Enter, 25-foot microphone-cord extension from Radio Shack, and hello, me sitting comfortably inside our front room by the big picture window, scoffing down pizza and beer.

“But wait: If you were sitting by the big picture window, couldn’t people see you talking into the microphone?”

Good question: No. I covered the windows with some plastic ghost-mural things.

“But … but … how could you see the trick-or-treaters?”

Another good question: As I said, I got my geek on … to include planting in the bush behind Mr. Bones a baby-monitor camera that allowed me to see all of the action on small, television-like monitor.

“Wow. That is geeky. Can it get any geekier?”

Oh, helllllll yes. In addition to the microphone and the monitor, my newly established indoor mission-control post also included a remote switch for a flood lamp positioned on the left side of the lawn, a remote switch for a strobe light positioned on the right side of the lawn, a remote switch for a fog machine in the bushes behind the Bonester, and a remote control for the boombox from which emanated the obligatory spooky-sounds CD. Throw in two bushels of that fake-cobweb shit (which Wonder Woman so graciously strung up all over the front yard), a giant spider web and accompanying giant spider, some feaux tombstones, my mother dressed as a witch (taking over for the missing Count), my sister dressed like a gypsy seated at a table giving feaux Tarot-card readings, and a full-sized plywood coffin containing this year’s newest addition, Pirate Pete, and you have the mini-Disneyland of our quiet little neighborhood.

Of course, I had to take a half-day off from work in order to have time to string up the 2.5 miles of extension cords and cables required to pull this whole shebang off. But it’s worth it—especially when Wonder Woman tells me that she, while taking Zan and Jayna trick-or-treating, heard kids saying they wanted to go to the “cool house” or the “spooky house.” I’m spooky and cool, yo.

Particularly funny this year was handing the microphone to a pleading Zan, who had watched me deliver my Mr. Bones spiel numerous times, and who, using a funny voice of his own, nailed it while interacting with a couple of young trick-or-treaters. It’s like I’m teaching him the family business.

“Some day, son, all of this crap can be yours!”

Back at the beginning of the month, I was checking my traffic stats for this here website, and noticed that some folks were showing up here via a link at Suburban Turmoil, a blog written by Lindsay Ferrier, and via another link at Petroville, a blog written by Kimberly (just Kimberly). Intrigued, I followed the stats links back to the aforementioned sites so as to see just why it was they were pointing their readers to my humble abode here on the Internets.

Fearing that I might find the links to my site housed within the body of a piece titled “Blogs That Suck,” I instead made the pleasant and unexpected discovery that a third blogger — who goes by E. Peevie, and whose blog is titled The Green Room — had nominated this post of mine as one of the recipients of a Perfect Post Award for the month of September.

Making this even more of a surprise was the fact that the post for which I received the award is one that I felt, at the time I wrote it, was a total throwaway in terms of its value to others, as I had mostly written it simply to blow off a little steam in an effort to lessen my chances of a massive coronary.

So, 29 days later, let me just say “Thank you” to E. Peevie, Lindsay Ferrier and Kimberly. May your blogs thrive, your servers never crash and your ads produce furious click-throughs.

(Meanwhile, on an unrelated note: This year’s annual Scratches Halloween Production is turning into a total fiasco … and you’ll hear all about it soon.)

Zan and I were in the playroom after dinner this evening, at which time the following exchange took place:

“Zan, we need to clean up these Legos.”

“Dad, I’m the sheriff. And you’re the sheriff, too. OK, Sheriff Jon?”

“OK, Sheriff Zan. Hey, Sheriff Zan?”

“Yes, Sheriff Jon?”

“We need to clean up these Legos.”

“But we have to pay money to clean up those Legos.”

“We have to pay money to clean something up?”

“Yeah, George Bush just made that up. Can you believe it?”

I have no idea where he came up with that one, but how fitting.