The Good Men Project

"The Good Men Project aims to bring men together. There are stories about love and death, trauma and recover, and, ulitmaely, understanding."

The Providence Journal

March 11, 2010

The Movies’ Best Man

Filed under: Guest Blogger — Tags: , , , , , , — tmatlack @ 7:00 am

By PAUL KIDWELL

I’m not generally a moviegoer. Not including the nights or afternoons we accompanied our son to the latest Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean installments, my wife and I can count on one hand the number of times we have gone to see a movie in the past five years. Now that our boy is 18 and traveling with a pack of friends, we seldom are invited (actually, we’re never invited) to join him and his mates at the local cineplex. So the only movie watching we do these days is in from the couch, in the cozy confines of our living room, when as we order a pay-per-view movie or indulge in an umpteenth viewing of The Godfather or Chinatown.

There is, however, another reason why it has been so easy for me to walk out on the movies: The characters—particularly the male ones—are typically less-than-endearing and/or lack redeeming qualities, or they are larger-than–life heroes. I can’t warm up to any of these men.

Even the best-film nominees featured in Sunday night’s Oscar ceremony didn’t appeal to me enough to usher me into the cinema. However one film that was nominated for a major Oscar, best actress, did strike my fancy. The leading male character, played by Stanley Tucci, was a guy who was truly heroic in his unabashed love for his wife and in his ability to ardently support her life’s passion without paring away any of his masculinity or identity. The movie was Julie & Julia.

Julia Child and her husband, Paul, were not a couple out of central casting. Hunk and hottie would never be used to describe this wonderfully odd couple, but theirs was a love affair that could put all others to shame. It was a wonderful cassoulet of intelligence, humor, passion, respect, and food. All of us should be so fortunate at Paul Child. To be in love with a woman who makes you laugh and weak in the knees at the same time, while she serves you a forkful of sole meuniere. Guys, it just doesn’t get better than that.

Paul Child was an original Renaissance man. He learned the language of every country where he worked as a cultural liaison for the U.S. government. He also held a black belt in judo, painted (art, not houses, although I suspect he did that with aplomb as well), taught mechanical drawing, and was a curator, photographer, gourmand, and, later in life, a wine connoisseur. He had an insatiable appetite for life and learning, and looked forward to whatever came next round the corner. I would love to have spent time with him, and I envy him for living such an enchanting life and having such a captivating relationship with his wife.

For every great woman, I’d like to think there is an equally wonderful man who’s got her back. That certainly was the case with Julia Child, who, without the support of her husband, may have fallen victim to the times and stayed at home to raise a family and tend to the manor. Paul allowed her to fail at bridge, hat making and learning French, before she discovered the glories of butter and inspired legions of people, including myself, who fell in love with cooking through the antics of this big-boned woman with that melodic trill in her voice. Little did I know that I owed thanks to her unassuming, confident and inspirational husband, who had the courage to support and nourish her. In the movie, Paul tells Julia that she is “the butter to my bread; the breath to my life.” Anyone who says that to his wife deserves a special place in the male pantheon, and maybe even an Oscar.

*****

Paul Kidwell is a public relations consultant who lives in Boston with his wife and son.


 

March 9, 2010

What is Best in Life?

Filed under: Guest Blogger — Tags: — tmatlack @ 7:00 am

 

By DAVID ATCHISON 

In the 1982 film Conan the Barbarian, a Mongol general laments that his sons will never understand him. Being a great warrior, the general had conquered most of the surrounding territories and afforded his heirs an upbringing that he himself did not have. In one scene he asks his son, and then his slave Conan, one simple question: What’s best in life?

Mongol General: My fear is that my son will never understand me.
Mongol general: We won again! This is good, but what is best in life?
Mongol general’s son: The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.
Mongol general: Wrong! Conan, what is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.
Mongol general: That is good! That is good.

Conan’s reply is gruesome, but it resonates beyond the actual words themselves. Examining the context of his answer can reveal a lot about success. The Mongol general fears that his son won’t understand what drives him to be a conqueror. His son’s answer disappoints because it reveals that his heir is inundated with the spoils of war, rather than the war itself.

Conan’s answer pleases the Mongol general because the young slave-warrior finds reward in the battle, the work of a conqueror. The Mongol general begins to see Conan as the “son he never had” because Conan understands the “craft” the Mongol general has used to obtain the spoils of war that his son has become so preoccupied with.

In our own endeavors we too must ask, “What is best in life?” Are we too preoccupied with the eventual spoils of the endeavors we undertake? Or are we like Conan, focused on the job at hand and finding reward in the task? Most of the things that people view as success are actually byproducts of success. Varying degrees of economic freedom, notoriety, job security, financial stability, etc. are all byproducts of a job well done.

Those rewards come when a person understands what’s best in his or her own life. Today, I ask you to unleash your inner conqueror. Examine the battlefield of your life. Find what’s best in life about your job, your relationships, your existence, and relish in those things. Go to war with those things, conquer those things, and reap the spoils of your own war.

*****

David Atchison is a writer, producer and journalist whose work has appeared in a variety of mediums. He co-created and writes the Occult Crimes Taskforce with actress Rosario Dawson and illustrator Tony Shasteen for 12 Gauge Comics. OCT was optioned by Dimension Films. Atchison also wrote the Method Man Graphic Novel with hip-hop mainstay Method Man for Grand Central Publishing as well as successfully pitching True Believer, an in-production back door pilot for NBC Universal’s SyFy.

Before entertainment writing, Atchison served as military journalist and photographer for the Air Force and Reserve. Trained at the Defense Information School at Fort Meade, Maryland, he has worked in support of operations in Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq and Southeast Asia.

 

March 7, 2010

The Bamboo Curtain

Filed under: Guest Blogger — tmatlack @ 7:00 am

By MARK ELLIS

Ten years ago, my girlfriend, who we’ll call Sharon for privacy’s sake, planted a copse of bamboo outside my family-room window. I’ve never paid much attention to matters horticultural; indeed, the yard and its myriad life forms were utterly her domain, but I know why she planted the bamboo. It was a response to my neighbor’s removing a venerable elm tree from the location. In Sharon’s world, that was an unpardonable offence and crime against nature.

She was near tears that Saturday morning when she woke me with the news that the “idiot neighbor” had a crew out attacking the elm. I followed her blearily to the window, and sure enough, two limb-jockeys were opening God-awful gashes in the canopy of leaves.

“Why are you doing this?” Sharon assailed the owner who stood by, but he was smart and scurrilous enough to shrug his shoulders and keep his mouth shut. I reckoned his reasons for removing the tree were the usual ones: for increased sunlight and less of the often considerable bother involved in raking leaves and other yard cleanup. But I dared not mention any logical reasons for such a removal to Sharon. No, my best bet was to join with her in the demonization of the tree-slayer, to share her sense of grievance and loss.

I remember damning him over coffee that morning, “Idiot.”  

The view out my window had featured a panoply of the seasons as experienced by an elm. Fallow-branched in winter, it would start a gorgeous cycle of budding growth in spring; come to full, hardy, waxy green eloquence in summer; and turn handsomely in October to all the reds, yellows, and golds associated with fall. Removal of the tree created a view of the neighbor’s mossy rooftop and pedestrian back yard. Sharon was determined to regain our privacy and lot aesthetics in the quickest way she knew how.

Just over the fence from the scene of destruction, which now featured a sad pile of neatly stacked elm firewood, she planted the few bamboo stalks that came in a plastic pot from Home Depot. Within the year the small stand had fanned out over the fence and was reaching for the sky.

Thenceforth the bamboo, which I have since learned is actually a species of grass, grew prodigiously, unstoppably. It is amazingly resilient. Neither summer’s roasting, 100-degree-plus days nor winter’s most intractable freezes seem to have any effect on it whatever. It has turned one entire side of the house into a wilderness area. There’s a gate in there somewhere, though no one has been able to walk through it for years. 

It is said that in tropical climes you can actually sit and watch the bamboo grow. I don’t know about that, but I do know that the copse Sharon nurtured to life a decade ago is now a veritable wall of slender stalks and light green leaves that rustle against the eaves with every gust of wind.  I can tell you this: The sight of my neighbor’s roof and backyard is a distant memory. In fact, the bamboo has outlasted the neighbor who took down the elm. Unfortunately it also has outlasted Sharon, and the joke now is that unless something is done, it will outlast and perhaps overwhelm me. 

*****

Mark Ellis is a writer in Portland, Oregon.

[Photo by rcbodden]

 

March 5, 2010

A Son’s Lament

Filed under: Guest Blogger — Tags: , , , , — tmatlack @ 6:00 am

By SHAWN KIRSCH

I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting recently, much of which I’ve blogged about on my website, That Tall Dude. I kicked it off on a Monday, the anniversary of my return home from Iraq. Nothing that has happened since my return was part of “my plan.” I made many mistakes; I wound up in places I had no plans of returning to; and all of it made me a better version of myself than what I had been.

On that Tuesday, I posted a guest blog on my website, which was simply a paper my sister wrote about me for English 110. As I read through it again, it hit me a lot harder than it had when I read it years ago. I’m a bit older and wiser now, and I am realizing just how much people around us notice what we do, for better or worse. For people like me, who seemingly get involved with everything, there are even more people who see how we act.

The rest of the week, I couldn’t stop thinking about how I’ve changed, how people view me, how my tiniest misstep can change someone’s perception of me. I never realized, growing up, that my sister looked up to me and how my arguments with our parents would leave such indelible images in her mind.

I moved in August. I quickly jumped into a great church and wasted no time getting involved in the community. In a few short months I have become a volunteer with the youth group, a go-to guy for tech support, a sound board operator relentless in making the worship team sound better, and the beneficiary of others’ wisdom in Bible studies.

One of those Bible study groups has a passion for father-son relationships. They put on an annual event called Boys to Men at Crystal Springs Baptist Camp, in Medina, North Dakota. They invite fathers and sons to come and try to provide an environment for them to connect with each other. There’s a little time for teaching and worship, but most of the weekend you’re free to do what you want, and lots of activities are available: trap shooting, ice fishing, four-wheeling, basketball, football, ping pong, board games, dodge ball, roller skating, snowball fights, massive bonfires, and more.

I attended the event at the end of the aforementioned week and was struck though, during discussions with the fathers and sons, how different my relationship with my dad is compared to others. At an age when I should be finding more and more things to talk to him about, I continue to struggle to find common ground where I won’t ultimately feel encouraged, or worse, like a disappointment.

Throughout my junior high and high school years, Dad was a truck driver, so he was gone most of the week and too tired to do much when he was home. Being a teenager, I had my fair share of arguments with Mom throughout the week, and then I had them again every weekend when Dad got home. It was a double dose of getting yelled at every week, and I still struggle to get over it.

Perhaps it would be different if I weren’t the oddball of the family, a major geek among digital neophytes. The only solid connection I seem to have with my dad is the farm we lived on before moving to town. I can talk about that stuff with him. But it seems we have to be driving in the pickup, just the two of us, traveling through areas he is comfortable in, before we can have even those conversations.

By the end of the weekend I had come to a strong conviction that relationships among men need to be set early in life, and they need to be kept positive. As technology advances, there are ever more distractions to come between us. We have the same amount of time previous generations did, but we spend it differently. Is there not something we can cut out of our schedules to spend some quality time with each other?

As I observed others that weekend, I saw fathers who at times were a bit bored, doing activities that can become mundane after 30 years of doing them. But they were also doing them with their sons, who were more than thrilled to be doing things they don’t get to do every day, and doing them with Dad. This was especially noticeable with younger sons. All of the fathers and sons were able to get away from the hectic pace of everyday life and talk about stuff they usually overlook.

As for me, I’m now 90 miles from Dad, who is still gone most of the week, and I have a schedule that keeps me busiest on nights and weekends. It isn’t getting any easier to connect with him. In fact, it’s perhaps more difficult now than ever before. I hope that someday we can work everything out and be as tight as some of my friends and their dads are. I hope that if I ever have a son of my own, I establish a great relationship with him at a young age and never let it sour. It may not always be easy, but from my point of view, it looks like it will be worth the time and effort.

*****

Shawn Kirsch describes himself as a 25-year-old, 6-foot-7 single male, who is a Christian, a drummer, a basketball fanatic (and player), a geek, a freelancer, an early adopter, a music lover, a networker, and a veteran.

[Truck photo by aturkus]

 

March 2, 2010

Endurance

Filed under: Guest Blogger — Tags: — tmatlack @ 7:00 am

By RON MATTOCKS 

When I was a boy, I watched my dad sink an axe blade into his right leg. He was trying to crack a welded join, connecting a pair of fifty-five-gallon barrels, when the axe head ricocheted off a drum and struck him square in the shin. I remember the dull thump of the metal hitting his leg and the bloody splinters of bone hanging from the cut in his jeans; but mostly I remember the calm way in which he went into the house, took a shower, and then drove himself to the hospital. Aside from muttering something about being stupid, Dad never said a word. Still, the pain contorting his face at every jagged step told me how much agony he must have been in.

It took him maybe twenty minutes to clean up, put on a sports coat, and walk out the door just as casually as if he was getting ready for church. When he backed the station wagon out of the driveway, I could hear the crackling of the gravel under the tires—the same sound that woke me the next morning when he left for work.

If there are tougher men than my father, I’ve never met them. The youngest of six and the son of an alcoholic father, Dad had strength that was formed from tough circumstances and years of manual labor on the family’s farm, and it served him well later in life as a decorated Green Beret fighting in the jungles of Vietnam. Now, at sixty, he might be beginning to show the signs of aging, but that hasn’t made him any less durable.

After his doctor repeatedly recommended knee surgery over the years, Dad finally agreed to the procedure—but only on the condition he could postpone it for eight more months, so that his recovery and rehab coincided with college basketball’s March Madness. Dad’s knees had been giving him trouble for God knows how long, and his legs were so bowed he looked like a plastic action figure made specifically to ride on a toy horse. Yet for all the discomfort this caused him, alleviating it could wait. “Winter’s coming,” he explained. “I need to cut and haul wood before it gets here.”

I’ve always hoped to be as strong as my father, but sitting behind a computer most of the day, I find it difficult to see myself as such. When I call my mother to see what Dad’s up to, I feel a twinge of guilt when she says he’s outside shoveling snow from the driveway. Moments like these make me realize there’s almost no comparison between us in this respect, which is why it surprised me when he admitted to something that he couldn’t handle.

“I couldn’t do it,” he said as I told him of the latest difficulties I was having with my ex-wife and her not allowing me access to my three sons. He shook his head. “You’re tougher than I am.”

It was strange hearing him say this, especially since he said it while we were inspecting the length of a fifty-foot wall he had constructed from rocks he hauled in a rusty wheelbarrow from the woods behind his house. I knew his sentiment was sincere, but I downplayed the problem nonetheless. Yes, it was difficult having to contend with the emotions of living hundreds of miles away from my own children while at the same time overcoming their mother’s roadblocks to my involvement in their lives. These were circumstances I had no choice but to live with, like a life-long illness for which you can treat the symptoms but not find a cure. Even so, I hardly considered my situation on par with hacking one’s shin with an axe blade.

Months later I flew to be with my oldest son while he was having his tonsils removed. It would be a quick trip, with little time for me to spend with all three of the boys, and further complicated by the guidelines their mother had laid down. This didn’t matter much to me, though. I was just grateful for the chance to calm my ten-year-old son’s fears before surgery and then to read to him in the recovery room afterward. But as always, the time together was hardly enough, a sample of sweetness that only reminded me of what I was missing.

That evening, I was given one more bittersweet taste of this when their mother agreed to let me visit with the boys before my flight early the next morning. When I walked through the door, my two youngest sons yelled, “Daddyyyy!” as they jumped on me. Their older brother was resting on the couch amid empty Jell-O cups and crumpled juice boxes. While he dozed, my middle son, who’s seven, took me on a proud tour of his house—the playroom, his bedroom, the guest quarters. “This is where you can stay tonight, Daddy,” he said, pointing to the bed. Of all the boys, he had been the most ecstatic over my presence, and there was hope in his voice, as though a long-requested prayer was about to be answered while he stood there holding my hand.

My stomach went sick. In a short while, the happiness in his face would be erased by the crushing reality that I would be leaving him again. Ignoring this, I smiled back, trying to remain focused on the bliss of the present rather than on the imminent future—a moment I think my son knew was coming despite the optimism in his heart.

A few hours later, the instant I got on my knees and gripped his shoulders, tears spilled down his cheeks. “Son…” I could barely cough out the words; the lump I was choking on wouldn’t let me.

“Dad, I miss you more than you know!” he sobbed, throwing his arms around me.

Having to say goodbye to my sons time and again, never sure of when our next chance to hug will come, is devastating. These gut-wrenching emotions play over and over in a hellish loop every time I have to walk away.

We held each other tightly. A tear streaked from my eye as I whispered that I missed him too. “Everyday,” I said, squeezing him, “everyday.” I made all the promises I could, wanting to make more, but knowing I held no sway over the innumerable circumstances working against my power to ever keep them.

After fifteen minutes and many hugs later—the final one shared next to the driver’s-side door of my rental—I backed out of the driveway. I could see the red rimming my son’s eyes as I waved to him, and he reciprocated the gesture with a withering feebleness.

As I drove away, desperation overcame me at the notion that our separation would be permanent, and I cursed myself for creating such a mess. This act of self-pity reminded me of what my father had said earlier—about not being able to deal with what I had to, that I was tougher than him. I replayed the axe cutting into Dad’s leg—the metal against the bone—and I recalled his strength to keep going despite the pain.

This image stopped me from focusing on my self-imposed state of helplessness and sparked a forgotten determination from a fundamental thought. Emotional pain might outweigh the physical, but we still have to ignore those feelings as we draw from that same internal strength that helps us cope with either one. Sometimes we may need to delve deeper to find that strength; and sometimes we don’t find enough, leaving us with no option but to endure and continue limping forward.  

******

Ron Mattocks is the author of Sugar Milk: What One Dad Drinks When He Can’t Afford Vodka, his memoir about being a divorced father of three boys who remarries, inherits two step-daughters, loses his job, and becomes a stay-at-home dad. Mattocks covers fatherhood issues on his blog, Clark Kent’s Lunchbox. 

[Photo by viZZZual.com]

 

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