All My Children

Behind those soulless eyes is a mind plotting feverishly to kill you.

In a little less than a year, I will officially be a severely depressed married man. The days of marathon sessions of masturbatory depravity will be at an end. Long nights spent huddled over a pile of scribbled papers, desperately and obsessively editing my Boys Don't Cry fan fiction will also become a thing of the past. Those fleeting, yet brilliantly hilarious impressions of a Ken doll (in which I pull the loose flesh of my scrotum up and over my penis, creating an androgynous lump betwixt my legs) will have to be put on the back burner. For on that severely depressing glorious day, I will have to do that which I have been dreading and seemingly incapable of on a basic genetic level: grow-the-fuck-up. I'm going to be someone's husband for Chrissake! It's going to be time for me to put the Playstation controller down, shut the comic book, take the batteries out of the Fleshlight. I'm going to have to start taking on some pretty serious responsibilities. Marriage will have it's perks-I'll finally be allowed to legally hit a woman-but it also comes with some pretty big challenges, and I'm going to be forced to confront a plethora of serious questions. Where do I want to live? Should I take that new job? How long into the marriage do I bring up that whole herpes fiasco? But beyond those inexorable questions, one rises above all others. One single question stands tall and prominent, like a psychological monolith: Do I want to have kids? It is a question I have asked myself time and time again. More than "Lotion or bare-handed?" More than "Shit first or shave first?" More than "If I drop this on my face do you think it will hurt?" Now, I'm sure that most couples will have this question answered before their wedding. I'm sure that a lot of couples sit down and have long, complicated discussions about when and if children are wanted, when the right time will be, how much of a financial burden will it be. Other couples, suffice it to say, leave it up to a busted condom or a guy who won't pull out because it feels too damn good. If that's the case you better hope the girl has been staying on those kegel exercises and can push that shit out, otherwise you'll be down there with a straw telling yourself it's just warm orange juice you're sucking out. Anyway, children and marriage go hand-in-hand, so I have to figure out if after becoming a husband, am I ready to become a father too? For years I have had to listen to my own parents say to me, "Eric, I hope you have a kid just like you!" See, I was always crying when I was little, so much so that my mom refused to let my dad into my bedroom at night for fear he might straight up murder my ass. So basically, all the hell that my parents went through raising me, they now are wishing that upon me. So what don't I think I can handle about having kids? For one, I'm always dropping stuff. High school taught me that I can't catch a football or a baseball for shit. Even Nerf slid through my grip. Fuckin Theresa Uchytil could catch Nerf. And I'm dropping dishes all the time. My fiance still hasn't forgiven me for letting a Fiestaware plate slip through my fingers. What would happen if I dropped my baby? "Nice hands, Feet!" I doubt I could just pick up the shards and dump it in the trash and hope Steph doesn't notice that the red one is missing. Plus, you gotta understand, I'm an incredibly shallow person. I'm so consumed by this grating self-loathing that I have to cast immediate judgement on other people just to transfer the hate somewhere. The only reason I'm on Facebook is so I can make snide remarks under my breath about a person's status update. So I have this almost paralyzing fear that my children might be ugly. It could happen, and I think genes have little to do with it. I mean, my older brother Dale looks like the result of a three-way between Adonis, Casanova and a goddam Aston Martin. And me? I have a body that a school nurse described as "pretty fleshy" during a scoliosis screening. So, part of me is concerned with what my children will look like. Another part is how they will behave. I wore sweatpants to school until I was in the ninth grade. I bought White Town's Women in Technology CD, and listened to it religiously! I was the kid who sneezed and farted simultaneously in grade school. I've come to terms with the fact that I'm probably the reason my old man came home from work every night with a fresh twelve pack. I'm not sure I could take having an asshole for a kid. What would I do if my son becomes one of those guys who tucks in a t-shirt! A t-shirt for fuck's sake! What if I have a daughter? The thought terrifies me. How the hell does one make certain that his little girl won't develop "daddy issues." What if I hug her too much? Or too little? Will that send her into porn? I have a retarded World of Warcraft player's understanding of women, so how the fuck can I create and maintain a healthy father-daughter relationship that won't send her flying spread-eagle to the champagne room? What if she's a slut? God, could I ever be so oblivious? I mean, I knew loads and loads and loads of sluts in high school, small towns are ripe with em...sluts are a small town's main export. Every once in a while I would see a father of one of these sluts, and I would think to myself, "Does he even know? Does he even know that his daughter gives head in the parking lot before school? Does he even know she took on three guys at a party last week?" I doubt it. The one thing all these sluts have in common, other than crotch itch, is ignorant fathers, and no amount of soul-raping John Mayer songs can fix a man's head after realizing his daughter is the football team's official sperm bank. You know what? I wish I could just lease a kid. Try one out for a few years and then decide if I want him or not. Why shouldn't you be allowed to swing through an orphanage a pick one out, like a fresh black one, and take it on a test drive. After about five or six years you can either keep it or trade it in. "You know what, I think we'll stick with the African. He's already on his way to becoming our little athlete." Or, "Gosh, you know, I thought I would get along with the female model, but she started developing this nagging...I think I want to try the African." Or how about, "Yeah, it's great. It handles well, barely cries, and cleans up after itself. But it's going on eight and still hasn't got the training wheels off the bike. I think it might be a lemon." Of course, if such a thing existed there would have to be rules, like if the kid comes back to the orphanage molested then you have to buy it...something like that. You see, I think the thing that scares me the most about having children is the permanence of them. Once you have them, they're your responsibility for, like, ten- fifteen years. Christ, I've got tattoos that I regret! What am I gonna do if five years down the line I think, "Ah, why did I get that? It looks like shit. Isn't there some way to remove it?" Also, I'm a projector. I project my neurosis onto other people, especially my fiance. Pregnancy is a serious medical condition, so I know that for nine months I am going to be freaking out about the health of the woman and the health of the baby...smoking and drinking and listening to Tim McGraw's "Don't Take the Girl" on repeat with all the lights shut off. Then the Big Day will come, and I'll have to watch in pure horror jubilation as my wife pisses and shits everywhere (which won't be so bad, as this behavior falls well within my umbrella of sexual fetishes) until a baby does to her vagina what the fucking Cenobites do to a guy who solves the Lament Configuration puzzlebox. Of course, it won't be as bad as I think, after all, a baby will only be the second biggest thing to pass through my wife's vagina. Of course if some type of medical condition arises, or Steph decides she doesn't want her clam to look like a monster in an H.P. Lovecraft story, she might opt for the C-section. But is that any better? All I can picture is Tom Skerrit holding onto John Hurt's hand as a pink and bloody alien rips its way out of the latter's stomach. I assume the comparison is fairly accurate. There is also the possibility that I might not even be able to have kids biologically. I mean, as much as I jerk off, I gotta believe the well is gonna dry up at some point. Hell, a few future presidents and starting Yankee shortstops probably found their way into more than a few pieces of tissue paper. If sterility is a factor, I guess adoption is always an option (Ah, mad rhyming skillz. I still got it!). They say variety is the spice of life, and with adoption you can mix it up a little. Maybe I won't even want a plain ol white baby. With adoption I can get an Asian, a Hispanic, a black, an Indian, a construction worker, a biker, a cop...the combinations are endless! But there is something special about having a son, a real son, not a fake adopted one, that I can pass my name onto, a little slice of myself that will ensure my immortality, at least for another generation. But that's a romantic notion. Back in the day, say four hundred (400) years ago, having sons was a necessity. Back then, women were essentially just pods to grow people in, Matrix-style, so a man needed sons so they could inherit his land and his money. In fact, because the survival rate for infants was so tiny, a man would give his sons all the same name, because he didn't know which one, if any, would survive. God, I couldn't imagine that. Me and six brothers, all named Eric, poised in some drawn out Darwinian battle of survival of the fittest. Thank heaven it's not like that anymore, otherwise I would have died of starvation years ago after discovering the most effective way to get rid of an erection, which is manually. Plus, I really don't have a legacy to pass on to my children, other than a pair of disturbingly small hands and a more-than-slight drinking problem. And do I really want a little baby crying, pissing and shitting, breaking things and monopolizing my wife's nipples? Everyone has heard the cynical legend that after marriage your sex drive decreases, after children you might as well be castrated. "Excuse me, Eric Jr., have you seen my libido?" And my dear son will say, "Actually, Dad, the last time I saw your libido I was strangling it to death with a pair of soiled panties. It's buried in the backyard somewhere." Thanks, son. I guess I have to ask myself if my life will be less enjoyable, unfulfilled, if I don't have children. When I'm seventy, will I look back on my life and wonder, "All those tranquil years of exotic travel and spontaneous sex with the wife, what a waste!" Now, I don't mean to beat a dead horse (A Dead Horse is the name of my penis), but I just rack my brain back and forth over these questions. Kids, no kids. I dunno. Not now anyway. I guess I'll know when I know. With my luck, Steph will get pregnant with triplets on our wedding night. Jesus. Remind me to keep a wire hanger handy.

The Moore You Know: I think of all the fictional celluloid universes that exist in the movies, the most terrifying has to be the one that Steven Seagal's characters inhabit. This is because, at any given moment, Mason Storm or Nico Toscani or Gino Felino, might find themselves in a fight for his life. Nowhere is safe for these men. At least Batman has a cave. Harry Potter has Hogwarts. But these men, these immortal characters created by the equally immortal Steven Seagal, they have no haven, no refuge from the endless parade of short-tempered psychopaths that exist everywhere John Hatcher or Casey Ryback goes. There is a reason, of course, that these men live in a world where every background character is just itching to pull out a switch blade or throw a painfully inept punch. Steven Seagul has the acting ability of a turd sliding slowing against a porcelain landscape into the waiting waters. No one watches a Steven Seagal movie for the emotional depth of his characters, or to see the man put on a motherfucking acting clinic. You watch a Steven Seagal moving because you want to see some goddam Jamaican thugs get their asses kicked, or Tommy Lee Jones get a knife put through his fucking skull. So in order to fill the void that exists between the beginning credits and the part at the end where Michael Caine gets thrown off a building, Forrest Taft and Orin Boyd need an excuse to snap some necks drop some great one-goddam-liners ("I'll take you to the bank...the blood bank."). In order to accomplish this feat, the director has no choice but to make every single character that isn't played by Steven Seagal a potential threat. Think of all the meaningless, arbitrary and totally random fight scenes in a Steven Seagal movie...They're all the same. Jack Cole or Frank Glass is minding his own business, walking the dog, heading to the bank, and while performing these completely normal tasks, he accidentally bumps into a random guy on the street, or maybe he intervenes on a man who is threatening to beat the shit out of his girlfriend way too loudly for being in a public park. Steven's character might say something like, "Excuse me, sir. I didn't mean to bump into you." Or, "Excuse me, sir, but you shouldn't speak to your girlfriend like that." And then, for no apparent reason other than the fact that everyone in a Steven Seagal movie is a bipolar steroid junkie, the stranger will respond with, "WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU SAY TO ME! YOU'RE A FUCKING DEAD MAN!" And then Austin Travis or Jonathon Cold will have to put down the situation with a karate chop to the neck, a kick to the balls, or some cut-the-shit murder. That's what is so scary about the Steven Seagal universe: he has to leave his house every morning not knowing how many people are going to want to kill him for no goddam reason, but he knows that someone is going to want to kill him for no goddam reason.

©Eric Moore - 2011