The Rant of a Missoula Father

How Tigger and Rick James Ruined My Day

By Mark Hebert, Unfiltered 11-22-05

Yesterday, while watching the DoodleBops with my daughter, I came to the realization that I’m no longer cool and the things that I used to think are cool are definitely lame. I know that this is a fact that every father comes too, that at a certain age my daughter will no longer look at me as a superhero but rather a dweeb-nut, but at the age of 34, I didn’t think it would happen so soon.
As the DoodleBops ended with their signature tune, a song so catchy and annoying that once it’s running through my head it makes my scalp bleed and the wax in my ears bubble, and after the credits rolled, on came a commercial pushing a Tigger doll. Sophia, my nearly-three-year-old daughter, loves Pooh and his posse, and likes Tigger more then the rest.

Once the commercial started, Sophia shot off the couch and in front of the set where she danced a jig reminiscent of Sammy Davis Jr. (if he was wearing shoes three sizes to small and on the wrong feet.) Her arms shot into the air, her hands balled into tiny little fists, and as she shucked and jived the song coming from the television knocked the wind out of me.
“Dah nana nut, nah nut, nah nut,� the song washed over me and the images of tight leather pants, gaudy black hair extensions and knee-high boots did the Electric Slide through my mind. Tigger, the lovable little orange and black-striped ball of energy that my daughter adores was doing cartwheels and shaking his furry little rump, and the music coming from the speaker, lodged somewhere in his-made-in-China body, was pumping Super Freak by Rick James.

Oh mama, say it ain’t so.

“She a very freaky girl,� Rick’s voice came to me like the Ghost of Hipness Passed, “the kind you won’t bring home to mother.�

Anyone who knows of Rick James, or the song by the 80’s madman, knows that the self proclaimed “King of Funk� was (he died August 6, of 2005 of a heart attack) about as far from Walt Disney – or anything wholesome – as you can get. He served prison time, was known to try to live-up to his bad boy reputation by forcing tons depressants and stimulants into his body and he once sang a song so eloquently about a little green girl named Mary Jane. In two words – when I knew I was cool – my hero.

“This is the end,� a voice of another rock legend’s words pierced my mind, “my only friend the end.�

If Rick James’ songs can be bought by Disney and used to push their products (and I have no problem with the institution that is Disney) then what’s next. Is it Jerry Falwell doing Sunday service in KISS makeup? Will Bill Cosby get high with Snoop Dogg in a Pudding Pop commercial? Oh lord, please don’t allow Rush Limbaugh to release a sex video on the internet.

On a personal front I was crushed. Sophia continued to rumba as I became one with my sofa and watched as Disney’s Tumble Time Tigger made a mockery of my past. “Dance it up little girl,� I told her. “Soon you’ll be so embarrassed by me that you may never know joy again.�

I went to my closet, grabbed every pair of jeans I own and started to iron them, finished, pulled a pair on and hiked them up so far that my armpits nearly touched denim. I got a pair of black socks, strapped them on and then slid my feet into a pair of flip-flops. I covered the tattoos on my chest with a “Worlds Greatest Dad� t-shirt and sat down for a nice cup of warm milk. Can Florida be far off?

I ended my subscription to Esquire and singed up for Readers Digest. I changed the info on my TiVo so that it no longer records the Daily Show and instead I’ll have tons of fun watching “Precious Memories Medleys� on the Lawrence Welk Show. Out with the Miles Davis CD’s and in with the Polka eight tracks.

When the songs of a drug abusing, womanizing, foul-mouthed P-Funk god are used in the creation of toys that makes my daughter scream like Louey Anderson is standing on her hand every time we pass it in Target, I’m doomed, no longer as cool as I once thought I was and now know it’s time to grow up. I would write more but I think my arthritis is kicking in and 20/20 is starting soon. It’s nearly 7 p.m., way passed the early-bird special and way past my bedtime…i.e., the death of cool.

Come check me out at http//www.clunkparents.blogdrive.com

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