Foul Fathers should GTFO…

For a special Fathers Day edition of GTFO Friday I will be writing about something I have a seriously empathetic spot in my heart for. Something that we all have either experienced directly or indirectly. It affects people throughout their entire lives and some have the damnedest time coping with it. I am talking about terrible fathers.

I have a very diverse set of friends and a large family that spreads across the country. From entrepreneurs to 9 to 5 business folks, from pastors to people who can be considered evil, from the ever positive to the always angry and so on. The one thing that ties that group of people together is that they almost all have some sort of story where a father is not there or the father is in fact not a father to them or their family at all. The fact that this subject comes up so often in my travels as a documentary on life is disconcerting. Way too often is there a story about someone who has not heard from their father or their father is either mentally or physically abusive. As I’ve grown up the stories changed from people having issues with their father, to people having issues making the child’s father be a present and participating party. The consistency in something so damaging is staggering. Now don’t get me wrong, I do hear about the good fathers out there and I won’t say that it isn’t common. In fact the fathers doing what they are supposed to be doing aren’t what you hear about because you shouldn’t be credited or rewarded for doing what you are supposed to be doing. The stories that make their way to the top are the ones that have altered a person’s life and perception on men and what responsibility is. Or the ones that cause deep seeded trust and dependency issues. To watch a person go through life having this burden is like watching a fight video on World Star. You know at some point that it is going to be overwhelming and they will need to be picked up.

As a father myself, it is impossible for me to fathom the life of a man who created a child (or 12 if you’re Antonio Cromartie) and has no intent on them being a priority. I see myself in my kids and my history will not allow anything less than the best for my kids. The thought of never seeing the kids you made and living a happy life escape me as no explanation formed could justify such a thing outside of saving the world.

I really didn’t want this post to be a bashing of fathers. And this is definitely not a topic that needs awareness raised. I think I started this being in pain and since your heart and brain bleed through writing, this is what it has become. I wont go into my issues, but I will say that I am stronger because of it. I actually struggled with trying to write this as an unaffected 3rd party which only led to using backspace more often than actual typing. As I stated earlier, it is something that follows you through life no matter what type of wall you have put up to block out the affecting feelings. No matter the successes that life has brought. No matter the comfort given. And Fathers Day comes around 365 days a year. However since the calendar tells me that this Sunday is Fathers Day any father that feels as though they have been the subject of this blog should…..

The Ramblings of an Insomniac 2

As I write this blog I am nearing the 24th hour of consciousness which probably shouldn’t happen for someone who has to have attention to detail at work. I will take this time to first say that I am making a commitment to my blog as I have had a lot of people who have given me positive feedback and I have not touched it in quite some time. The last time I wrote here it was about my issues sleeping. Well I can say that the issue is still evident and I am a shining example of consistency. I am up when I should be nearing time to wake up. Normally things on my mind never cause me to lose sleep, but tonight is different.

I have a mind that normally moves at the speed of a nervous virgin during his first time with a woman. I am fine with that as it is par for the course for a person that has no rhyme or reason for thinking about the things I think about. Normally I can parry the silliness and just force myself to sleep. Tonight for some reason, my head is a buzz saw of nonsense that I cannot slow enough to even purge from my cerebral stronghold. Any other night I would have a head filled with what can only be described as an acid trip while being water boarded by clowns on the set of a 70’s porn shoot while receiving a Dutch Rudder. Yes….I am fantastically weird and you now have a small glimpse into what makes me the person you all know and hopefully love. However that is not what is going through my head tonight. It seems as though the weird things I can handle with ease but when real dilemmas displace all other ‘regular’ thoughts I am incapable of sleeping until I have devised some sort of game plan to combat the intrusion of normality into my chaotic symphony of a brain.

I again am at the point of counting the time I will be able to sleep if I just immediately fell asleep right this second. Once that seal has been broken, the downward slide from being in bed to looking forward to work is a descent into hatred and raw frustration. I can already tell that the probability of me having a ‘Nigga Moment‘ at work is amazingly high as of right now due to my lack of patience when I am deprived of literally the easiest thing we as humans have to do which is sleep. As I slouch with the best of the worst posture and contemplate how I will make June 12th not be the day that my stellar 15 year streak of not losing my mind  comes to an end; I can only hope that the coffee is laced with Kool-Aid and Monster. Good night and thanks for reading. I will be making sure I keeps the blogs coming.

Sick and Worthless…

Holy shit! The flu is no joke. I was reduced to literally laying down and doing nothing all weekend. Which is kinda terrible when you have hungry kids. Thank Thor it was raining outside this weekend so the sugar they curiously had in their systems wasn’t requested to be de-fueled outdoors. I was an absolutely worthless father ALL weekend. I did nothing for my kids outside of sandwiches and putting  Puss ‘n’ Boots in the Blu-Ray player. And I am sure they will also be sick as I handled their food with the care of  a 3rd world meat kiosk without access to electricity. But what it lacked in care, it made up with in love. And by love I mean I gave them 4 different sandwiches and a bag of chips to buy myself some sleep time. I trust my daughter enough to know that some Disney XD and Cheetos is a day well spent. Its my son who I feared waking up to a re-enactment of any movie where everything was destroyed and there are no survivors. I am glad that my preemptive DVR training for my kids has paid off. They handled On-Demand like some pre-teen champs in my absence.

I am also glad that at this time I am single. No woman would respect a man after the smell of being sick all day has hit the olfactories. I smelled like what I am positive the inside of Wendy Williams’ female body suit smells like. I have since showered, but the length of time betwixt cleansings was unbearably lengthy. I am not ashamed to admit this only because I would like offer my kudo’s to any woman or any man who sticks through next to someone while they are incapable to being able to function due to illness. I mean I can’t say I was at the point where a sponge bath was necessary. But I am sure if someone was there I would have taken way too many liberties with their kindness.

The entire time I was laying in bed sick all I could think about was Jordan put up 38 against the Jazz with the flu. Why can’t I get out of the effing bed? At the very least I feel as though I should have at least been able to sit and watch TV with my kids this weekend. But I felt like an innkeeper for 2 small travelers. Just showed them where to poop and how easy it was to use the ice maker. I am glad that my annual sickness has come and gone. I have no use for being useless. I will make it up to my kids this weekend by buying them something Bieber’esque to destroy (they hate Bieber) and following it up with Icees. I love my youngins.

Had To Start Somewhere…

I would like to say I am new to blogging. But countless forms of social media have been running blogs for me for quite some time now.  I guess a small rant into my history and what got me into blogging would be the norm. But I really don’t think anyone cares about my back story. I feel that in order to post a back story, enough people outside of your own family have to actually give a shit. So until I become a famous blogger or create an embarrassing but famous sex tape (I’m not picky), I will just try to captivate with my writing style and quippy remarks.

The thing that seems to be the opening topic when people see the name Bad Advice Man is, “what the hell does that mean”. I used to be happy to explain the origins of how I garnered such a moniker. That is until I saw that simplicity of it and how it should be common sense to figure out what it means. It is because of responses like that, people would say I come off as a smart ass. And I actually take that as a compliment. The antithesis of me being a smart ass is much less appealing. So I take the greater of the pair and I wear it as a badge of honor. The dumb ass club is a lot easier to get into than the smart ass club (brutal application process).

This blog is hopefully showing one of the main things that I hold dear, which is my randomness. This post is going nowhere fast and I applaud those still reading and hoping for some sort of substance this deep into a first post about nothing on a blog. I will however end the suffering by graciously bowing out. I may at some point have to get some work done since I am in fact at work.