My stepdad’s claim to fame

Jerry 1, OPEC 0.

Wrangler-McDonald’s: 1-2

I’m late doing this, but the Buttercups’ undefeated regular season came a cropper on Saturday when they lost to two all-star teams, 6-2 and 7-2. The first team was bigger and faster; the second team was bigger and better at ball control.

But on Sunday, with Memie there to watch, the Buttercups won a thriller 3-2 on a shot by one of Victoria’s teammates with less than 30 seconds left. That other team had a keeper who was built like a fullback; she regularly punted the ball from the front of the box well past midfield. She was good on defense, too, but not quite good enough.

Afterward, we gathered at Coach Ricky’s for pizza and the presentation of trophies. The girls had a blast, and at the moment it looks like everyone is coming back next fall. Thanks again to Coach Ricky and Coach Bob for all their time and hard work, and thanks to the Buttercups for making this season one to remember.

Invasion of privacy?

Although I post frequently here about my kids, it tends to be very surface stuff. I’ve kept it that way even though I could write books about the joys and frustrations and inspiration and despair that go into being a daddy and the many ways in which the kids engender all of those feelings.

A lot of parents blog a lot about their kids, however. Some of them are remarkably good at it. But I’m not them.

My kids are entitled to their own identity, offline and on. Victoria’s teetering on the brink of adolescence, and if there’s anyone who guards her privacy more than an adolescent girl, he/she probably works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Do I have the right to violate her and Hooper’s privacy by writing more about them than I do? Yeah, probably. But is it the right thing to do? No, not for me and not for my kids, I don’t think it is.

So why write about them at all? Because besides my wife they’re the most important people in my life, and so much of what I do every day revolves around them. And some of it is so cool that I have to fight the temptation to share it.

But holding back is my choice, and after six years of blogging here I’m content with it. That said, if I were going to blog a lot more about my kids, I could find some good arguments for it in this.

Pressure Boys reunion

I was a fan of the Pressure Boys from the moment Tony Plutonium brought me a copy of their cassette “Jump! Jump! Jump!” when he came up to New York to visit in the summer of ‘83. They were a band way ahead of their time, and suffered the fate such bands usually suffer.

Last weekend they did two reunion shows at the Cat’s Cradle in Chapel Hill to raise funds for cystic fibrosis, which lead singer John Plymale’s daughter has. Sadly, I couldn’t make either show. But a bunch of people shot video and have posted it to YouTube. Here’s Tony’s shot of the song “Is This Normal?”

Enjoy.

UPDATE: Peter Cashwell (May 5 entry, “You’re Living In My Town”) on the Pressure Boys reunion: “Clearly, the music scene in Chapel Hill in the 1980s was like a cross between Laurel Canyon in the 1970s and the royal house of Thebes in Oedipus Rex.”