My friend Marty a classic Italian from New York City and a Vietnam veteran. The first stuff you notice about him is his shock white hair, his piercing blue eyes, and his barrel chest. The next thing you notice is when he speaks, not one piece of it is bullshit. He’s one of the most sincere, charming, and honest folks I know.
I met Marty about four years ago at The Cramps’ gig at Irving Plaza; he and his girlfriend Debbie were hanging out in the balcony and rocking out like kids half their ages or younger. They live life like they mean it. Sometimes when we hang out with them, Xtine and I feel like the grownups and they are the kids. But then they’ll pull out pearls of genius wisdom and we realize that we don’t know anything about anything. They’re both doing something right.
When I put out the call for insights into fatherhood, Marty was the first to chime in…

“I consider myself a shitty role model for dads. My son, Mike, is gonna be 26 years old and I’m still trying to figure the whole father thing out. My philosophy of being a dad was influenced by comments from two people, Lenny Bruce and Francis Ford Coppola.

To paraphrase both:

Lenny: “The problem with how we raise our kids is that we teach them how the world should be and not what it is.”

FCC: “The problem with the younger generation is that they don’t have an understanding of history.”

I forgot to mention a third quote. Don’t know who said it. “Anyone can be a father, but it takes a special man to be a daddy.”

How fucked up is that? Not one quote from the bible or some great philosopher. Nothing from the volumes written on child rearing, by thousands of psychologists, psychoanalysts, doctors, teachers, Dr. Spock (whose own kid was seriously fucked up) or the likable Art Linkletter (whose daughter committed suicide). No, I let my main guiding light be a quote from a junkie stand up comic (OK, he was a social philosopher) married to a stripper. How did his daughter Kitty turn out? Just fine. And, to boot, she loves her late dad. So, taking Lenny as literally as I could, I vowed to show my kid the world as it really was.

Fuck Disneyland. Hello Married With Children and The Simpsons. None of that “protecting my kid from the outside world” for me. Mike learned at very early age that there were scumbags and assholes in this world. I also taught him that 98% of the world was made up of morons. Rather than try and protect him from the evils and hypocrisy of the world, my strategy was to instill in him a radar detector whereby he’d be able to discern these things for himself. So, Alex, there you have it. I taught my kid that the world is made up of mostly scumbags, assholes and morons. The perfect prescription for raising a sociopath, no? Here’s how he turned out:

In 1990, we had to put down our dog of 13 years; a stray that I found 4 years before Mike was born. I found her on New Year’s Eve, 1977 and named her Eve. I stayed with her when the vet put the needle in her paw. She died in my arms. I was devastated. About 3 weeks after she died, I was in the basement of our house in Brooklyn doing laundry. Mike, 9 years old, comes up to me and says “Dad, I know how much Eve meant to you. So, before she died I got you this.” He handed me a plastic bag with a lock of her hair. I always knew Mike was special, but until that day, I never knew how special. (Footnote here: In 1992 we felt we were ready for another dog. We went to North Shore Animal League and Mike picked out a cute puppy and named her Babs. He put her down at 11am this morning.)

On to school and little league baseball:

As a youngster, Mike was always either the smallest or second smallest kid in his class or on his team. And he had a complex about it. What’s a dad to do? Easy. I went to my asshole and moron assessment and let Mike know that the way to beat them was to out-think and out-hustle them. He became the kind of player that even the most sociopathic coaches on the other teams liked to watch play.

To the chagrin of Mike’s mom, my ex-wife, I taught him to play poker at the age of 10. Why? Exercise for the brain muscle.

On the spirit of giving:

Most parents, me included, want their kids to do well in life. I wanted more for Mike. I didn’t want him to end up being some coke snorting, Wall Street yuppie with a seven-figure income and no life. I wanted to show him something that would really reward him in life.

This was a tough one. How do you teach your kid this without going Sally Field on him and thus turning him off? When I worked in Manhattan, I used to go to the main post office before every Christmas and pick out one of those “Letters to Santa.” Most of them were from obnoxious little shits who would present a laundry list of things they wanted. I used to sift through scores of them until I got to one that touched me. I’d them pick out what they wanted and delivered it to their house on Christmas morning. One year, I came across one from a girl, around Michael’s age, who said that her parents were both out of work and all she wanted was this one doll. One lousy fucking doll. The tone of the letter was sweet, modest and sincere. She also lived in a bad Hispanic section of Brooklyn. So, in my never ending effort to teach Mike about the real world and how lucky he had it, I put him in the car Christmas morning and took him with me. He was around 7 at the time. We parked outside the address on the letter and I explained to Mike that this was the neighborhood some kids had to grow up in. We knocked on the door and I showed the mother her daughter’s letter. They couldn’t believe that someone had acted on it. The kid, a doll herself, loved the doll. Heading back to the car, I felt that Mike was proud of me. Fuck sensitivity training. You want to do some good in this world, get up off your ass and do something. Did the lesson stick?

When Mike was attending St. Joe’s University, every spring break, instead of going to whereverthefuckitis in Florida and partying, he went to West Virginia, instead, to take part in “Project Appalachia” to build homes for the poor. I’m sure they had babes, booze and whatever at night, but at least he was doing something worthwhile during the daylight hours.

During Mike’s senior year in college, he was one of the main organizers of “Helping Hands”. This was a one-day festival of amusement park type games and hot dogs, hamburgers and all that other healthy fun food for severely handicapped young adults. Mike invited me down to St. Joseph’s University for the day. I was not only proud of him, but all the other kids that were involved in this.

After college, he took part in the “Habitat Bike Challenge”, a 9-week cross country bike trip from Yale University to Portland, Oregon, to raise money for Habitat for Humanity.

I forgot to mention another person who influenced me: my own father. (This is gonna get complicated.)

I was raised in the old Italian tradition of “children should be seen, but not heard.” I always had a problem with this, and didn’t really realize why until I was 32 years old and Mike was only one year old… I mean, every one of the other kids in the neighborhood, except for the juvenile delinquents, didn’t seem to mind living under this rule. I was never a great student. Let’s just say I had a different view of the world than most people. My family, including aunts, uncles and cousins, (not to mention my father’s acquaintances), thought I was a disrespectful punk. I was.

So, what happened at the age of 32 that showed me why I was different? As a fluke, I took the test for Mensa and passed.

In another calculated gamble, I decided that I would let Mike make his own mistakes in life. Let him figure out things for himself. Instead of pulling his hand away from the fire, so to speak, I’d let him burn himself. If he expressed a thought, I would never dismiss him as being a child and therefore not worth listening to. I’d let him explore what’s going on in his cranium. I even told him once to always do what he thinks if right, even if I disagreed with him.

It hasn’t always been a smooth ride raising Mike. We’re both fiercely independent people (We’re both Aries) and at times, we’ve had some rough going. Here are a few of the highlights and lowlights:

When Mike was part of the Empire State Lacrosse team, my ex and I went to see him play up in Albany. At the time, I was a lot more overweight than I am now. It was a hot day and I was wearing a 50s style shirt that belonged to my father. My gut was hanging out. Mike humiliated me in front of everyone, telling me how disgusting I looked. I can’t begin to explain how hurt I was. I refused to accept his apology later on. I wanted to go home. I did point out to him that one of his teammate’s father (a former Lacrosse player himself and an investment banker) had to leave before the game to go on a business trip. I asked Mike if that’s the kind of father he wanted. He hurt me and for the first and only time in my life, I wanted to hurt him back.

Mike’s reaction when I told him I was leaving his mother and moving out: He threw his arms around me and said “Dad, I don’t blame you a bit. Why do you think I went away to college?” It wasn’t until then that I realized that this kid knew that his mother and I had hated each other’s guts for years. (Mike, if your reading this, I’m sorry you had to grow up in a house like that.)

Now a fun story: It’s the night before Thanksgiving, 2004. I’m expecting Mike to come over, spend the evening, and have Thanksgiving day with us. I fall asleep on the couch waiting for him. I hear a knock at the door. It’s 3am! I ask Mike what happened. He sits on the couch, asks me for a cigarette (Mike doesn’t smoke) and tells me “Dad, I fucked up.” ‘Oh my God,’ I’m thinking, ‘What did he do?’

‘Yeah? What happened?’

Turns out Mike got a little disoriented in the fog, and about 1⁄4 mile from my house, after driving 60 miles from Brooklyn, he got stopped by our local police. I’m thinking, ‘COME ON, MIKE, TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED? DID YOU FUCKING KILL SOMEBODY? WHAT HAPPENED? I’m waiting.’

“Well, dad, I got stopped at this light and this cop found a bud in the car. I’ve been at the police station for the past 3 hours.”

I almost fell off the couch laughing. ‘That’s it,’ I ask him, ‘THAT’S IT? I thought you fucking killed somebody.’

The next morning he told Debbie (a long time pot smoker), what happened and her attitude was “Welcome to the club.” Her two daughters and boyfriends laughed their asses off too. It was a bonding moment for all of us.

I may be wrong, but I think, to this day, he hasn’t told his mother about that night.

Yeah, fatherhood is interesting. I freely admit I’m not the perfect dad and I could have done things better. But, I can honestly say if I die tomorrow, I’ll die without having a worry in my head about where Mike is heading, the life he’s going to lead and the mark he’ll leave on this world.

My heart goes out to all the fathers, who have lost their son’s – their Mike’s – in the senseless wars of Vietnam and Iraq, and the violent streets of this country. My heart breaks for them every day. I wish you could have had the same fortune I’ve had.

Mike’s Dad,

Marty