I love my brother.The herb’s birthday was on St. Patrick’s Day, and yet, another year passes and I couldn’t celebrate with him personally. He’s making big moves at my alma mater, doing everything I didn’t, and hopefully excelling academically. I wish him the very best in his growth as a young man, and as a brother. We didn’t always get along, but he more than anyone else made me want to redeem myself for my past transgressions as an aloof if not dispassionate family member on both my mother and father’s sides. He made me want to be a father someday, too, because of the struggles we went through getting adjusted to each other.

And I already knew he was too big for his britches when I called him up on Monday, and his voicemail was full. Must be all those women (and frat brothers) across the state leaving him crazy messages. I hate to say it, but with 300+ pictures and 600+ friends on Facebook, I admitted to him on Tuesday that he’s getting dangerously close to being more popular than I am, (which is fine because he’s more built for that life). He might have gone to every school I did, but he’s doing everything his way, and despite my nervousness for his future, I’ve come to accept that.

At times, he still needs guidance, but that’s what big brothers are for. Other times, though, my job is to learn from him, too, and not try to outshine him or outdo him wherever I go. Now when I go back to my alma mater, I’m referred to as his brother and not the other way around. It makes me feel old, but it makes me insanely proud. He’s his own star; I can’t always be the brighter of the two. But we’ll forever be part of the same constellation. I have a hard time showing it, but I’m honored that he represents me.

Younger, but not my little brother, Ralf. Happy belated birthday, and keep shining …

jose, the big brother …

p.s. - Joel posted a dope awesome Carnival of Education, so a big shout-out goes to him.

edit: by dope, I mean cool. My slang is very NYC-oriented. Sorry for the confusion. Moving right along.

I wasn’t supposed to write tonight, but I’m moved again.Excuse me for getting a little too personal, but over the last week, I’ve noticed the vital role that fathers play in their offspring’s role. Unfortunately, we still have fathers who won’t own up to being fathers, mothers who berate fathers regardless of how integral a person that man is, fathers who want to be great fathers but never learned, fathers who never wanted to be fathers to begin with but ended up liking it, fathers who love, who kill, who cheat, who work until their bones show, fathers who abuse their positions in life by projecting death, and fathers who despite their faults are fathers to their children.

Some social scientists and psychologists point to how many boys watch their own mothers and sisters go through some sort of abuse and at some point sympathizing with the mother but eventually turning on the victim and wondering how they could allow that to happen. When they grow up, they go on to mimic the behaviors they observed, subconsciously becoming the person they wish they weren’t, but isn’t that the beauty? It leads me to believe that there’s a potential, then, to reverse the negative, and redefine the role of a father, even in the most dire of straits.

This weekend, for instance, I got the chance to go see my fully recovered father in Miami, as I mentioned before. The effect he’s had on his children is profound, even when they don’t realize it themselves. The way they project themselves and treat others has traces of my father all over it. All of his children have a serious sense of humor and a charm about us that translates socially. Yet, each of us have a varying degree of cynicism towards the world, and that comes through in the sarcasm and insecurities some of us display (or displayed). Maybe it’s the way some of us belittle others, or aggrandize ourselves when it’s not that necessary. As water beings, we have a constant need to find a balance of some sort, and by going to one extreme, we can balance out the other extreme. Yet, that’s a reflection of whatever role our father played in our lives, how our mothers reacted to his oscillating presence, and how / if we ever grew from that experience.

Yet, in his most dire moment, close to death, we still made our presence felt near his bed in that ICU, hovering around him, in pain. Fortunately for us, he came back to consciousness. I can’t say the same for one of my good friends. Kel wrote a eulogy to his father on his Xanga, and honestly, it really cut me deep:

However, I did come to know that my father lived life by his own set of rules. And in accordance with his rules decided it was best to pursue his relationship with god on his own terms. In fact, my father said very little to me about life in general. My father never asked me if I did my homework or anything of that nature, which for a child I considered weird. Though my father never said much to me I was fortunate enough to observe his actions and decide for myself if those were actions I wanted to replicate. To some this may be a reckless, haphazard means of parenting, but I will say that it allowed me to become a man in my own right in accordance to my own precepts.

Damn. Underneath his admittedly apathetic exterior lies a man whose soul and heart no one could capture. He lives by his own rules, and thinks as critically as any human being as I’ve ever met. I discover today that influence is paternally genetic. It also makes me wonder if I’m ready to be a father. I’m already a bit of a perfectionist, and my experiences have only led me to believe strongly in the idea of a father, whatever that might mean when I’m ready. I’m far from. I have an ideal for what I want to be as a father, consisting of a boundless list of “not”’s and “don’t”s. Most of my friends have a negative experience with their father, but the ones who had a father in their family are as well-adjusted as people get.

So while I send my friend his condolences over the loss of his father and appreciate the traits I adapted from my father, I try to redefine for myself what a father means these days. Because G_d forbid if I dishonor the title of a father. It’s not just about being 1/2 of someone’s DNA: it’s helping to compose your offspring’s whole humanity.

jose, who’s still trying to understand his own father’s impact on his life …

A few notes of interest:

1. Yes, I cleaned up around here. Click refresh, and tell me what happens to that header. Do it a good 7 more and you’ll get your wishes granted ;-).

2. The oddest thing happened on Friday. One minute, my Feedburner says I have 83-93 readers, and the next, I have 299! Sick. What’s more, it goes back down the next day. Weird.

3. Yes, it’s my birthday on Thursday. Fun.

4. Memes that highlight the differences between men and women / Blacks, Whites, Asians, Latinos, etc. / rich and poor in a defensive and divisive way bore me to tears these days. I used to be enthralled by them when I was younger because I was able to contrast my unsophisticated observations about those differences and the ill-conceived notions of roles different people take in those stereotypes. While I agree that some stereotypes come from real research, I’m more ready to believe that those lists along with hack comedians and delusional, angry people make these lists up to reinforce divisions amongst the sexes, races, and classes when we’re really all people.

5. Cloverfield had an awesome preview, but it was an awesomely bad movie. Great effects, and snide social commentary that in some ways, I found interesting, but that ending was abrupt as all hell. Rather than make us think for a second, it made us think to leave. People in the audience laughed about as much as they were scared and grossed out. I wouldn’t watch it again, and I want some of my money back, but if you do watch, prepare for the worst.

6. Yesterday was my boy Omar’s birthday, and whenever we all get together, it’s just a mess of historic proportions. We went to Carmine’s, a popular Italian restaurant on the Upper West Side with family-style dining. Anyways, Kenny, one of the realest dudes and resident ALM (Angry Latino Man), Mike, my homegirl’s boyfriend, and Omar had a heated discussion (some in the restaurant might have called it an argument, but that’s besides the point). Every so often, I’ll interject with an off-beat joke here and there, but last night, I was more good for a hearty, body-aching laugh.

As I’m observing them, I notice that, on their side of the table, Kenny’s sitting on the left, Mike’s on the right, and Omar’s at front and center of the table, appropriate if not ironic. At first, it was pleasant enough, with each side making their points, but then it got really intense, curses being flung across the table and the rest of us caught in the crossfire. I’m all for political conversation, and all the participants brought up awesome points from their side. Yet, what struck me the most was how, after all of that, they’re still friends.

Of course, I was more on Kenny’s side of the argument, even if I was sitting on Mike and Omar’s side of the table. After all, how can anyone at the table argue against poor people when we were all the sons and daughters of immigrants or poor people? We were all the privileged offspring of people who had just enough of the essentials, and for many of our relatives and neighbors, they weren’t lucky or privileged enough to receive a college education and live on a a much better income than minimum wage. It’s easy to dismiss that when we’ve never had to experience that for ourselves.

Not to say that our fathers were anything like Phillip Banks (of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air fame), but we sometimes get the Carlton and Hillary effect, where the parents consciously protect their children from knowing about those struggles or the children live incongruously from that reality, concentrating solely on case study of self rather than percentage. Will, the hoodlum he is, often reminded them of the position they’re in and from whence they came, which is why Ashley, the most liberal of the three Banks offspring, turns out the way she does. She was still rich, but she got a better sense of what came before her, and that’s important.

But I’m a socialist by nature, so I’m inclined to this opinion, and I’ve already written my stance on all of those matters, but my opinion doesn’t dismiss their contributions to their families or their people. After all, we still shared our personal lives with each other, and ate from the same dishes. There’s still, inevitably, common threads of human decency that run through all of us at that table, and somewhere in between all of our arguments lied the solution: a huge plate of ice cream with all the fixings. We all sat there for a good 5 minutes, quietly letting the food settle. Mike ate the candle apparently, mistaking it for licorice. Omar and I laughed about stupid MySpace people. Kenny started hating on people. We left the restaurant and all went our separate ways, but we’d see each other again. As it should be.

jose, who can’t stop looking at his theme, and has Pearson and Aaron to thank for the inspiration …

A few weekends ago, I went to AnnMary’s crib, where I got to see Ray and my godson, Josiah. He’s a little browner now (as in more brown, people), and has got the ill forehead. It’s adorable how he’s got a big head like his father and his godfather. I told AnnMary that we might make this baby tri-lingual: English, Cantonese, and Spanish. He’d also learn merengue by at least pre-kindergarten from his own godfather ::ahem::, making him a certifiable ladykiller by 6 years old. At first, we laughed it off, but then she said something peculiar: “No, he’s not leaving me. I’ll always love him, and he doesn’t need any other women. Right Jo-Jo? You only need your mommy, yes you do.”

I can’t blame AnnMary; she’s the mom and that’s what moms usually say. Innocent mothers avoid that Oedipal complex as much as their sons do in their youth, but it’s rather unavoidable in its many forms. Our mothers are the first women we fall in love with. As gross as it sounds, it’s the first womb we come out of, and the first sexual encounter we have. Hence, it’s only right that mothers think of themselves as their sons’ first love. Yet, that mentality also creates a false sense of loyalty that inevitably puts most men in a dichotomous relationship between the “main woman” and the “other woman,” even if that “other woman” is not necessarily a romantic relationship.

It usually starts well past the aunts, female cousins, and friends’ moms because they usually pose no threat. He may look towards them sometimes and fancy whether they might make a better parent for them. They may even inspire visions of fornication in his youth, but usually the boy runs right back to his mother. The treat to the relationship between mother and son is that first girl that the boy likes. The mother’s there with her eagle eye, smiling with her full grin, but also shaping how the boy should think about the girl. Usually, the mother’s there giving sound advice on being a gentleman and just asking about his whereabouts, but implicitly letting him know that she’s the first woman, even when she doesn’t recognize it at first.

But the boy gets comfortable, and sees more than one woman, and that’s when the mother tries to pull in the reigns, which causes an equal and opposite reaction from the boy who starts to see his romantic life as a chance to cheat on his first relationship with his mother. That’s why most guys don’t give details of their whereabouts to their mother. The uncanny part is, the mother can pretty much tell all along what’s happening with his son; after all, taking residence in one’s womb for 9 months lets mothers psychologically hook up to the dude’s mental computer.

Once the boy gains some footing, and the mother realizes that her son’s grown up and out of that first relationship, they enter a new relationship where the mother’s still an adviser, but no longer the first woman. He has a relationship, which of course adds to the old axiom “You can tell how he’s going to treat you by how he treats his mother.” Yet, it’s the mother who he runs to for relationship advice, which of course explains, for some of you ladies, why your ex would come back to you and tell you their relationship problems. Even in the relationship, both women (whoever those two happen to be at the point) always make the man choose, and usually at the expense of the other.

Then of course comes the issue of cheating. All these conjectures I’ve made make me wonder if the idea of always having two women to be beholden to may contribute to the idea of cheating. We can always reason it all out by saying that a mother’s love is different from a girlfriend’s love, but indeed we learned the second by the first. We also think about how, after that mother’s love has changed during the growing phases, who fills in the role of the second woman? While we’ve all speculated the many ways a man would cheat, we never really speculate the myriad of reasons it happens.

And really, as a man, the only way to distract yourself from this onerous act of human behavior is to

1) immerse yourself in a non-human love (i.e. your artwork, poetry, etc.)
2) reasoning that the one you’re with is really the best option and there’s no need for anyone else
or
3) starting a family, knowing that the person you’re with might bear fruit to a daughter who will permanently fill in the role of the second lady. Not so much in a perverted way, but love nonetheless. And so begins the cycle of the Electra complex.

I’ve personally observed this with other men too often (not so much me, though I can see hints of this in my own life), and it’s eerie how they treat their girlfriends, and then treat their mothers after having seen them with their mothers over the years. At least their main women. Many dudes who treat their women like crap tend to have a frustrating relationship with their moms, while dudes who never had a mother around shut down so quickly after they get their heart broken.

Then again, little Jo-Jo doesn’t have to worry about that just yet. He can revel in random women pinching his cheeks and wanting to hold him in their bosoms while the men in the family laugh or get jealous at all that attention. And if anything, he knows he’s always got his mother’s love.

jose, who is sure to get a million and one questions, but this is strictly not a conjecture and not based on scientific research … unless someone has scientific research, then I welcome it, thanks …

p.s. - criticisms are welcome, too. i wrote this post over only a few hours of sleep …

I got a gift from my stepfather. It’s weird because frankly I don’t expect anything from him and never have, but indeed I have this wrapped present in front of me, and it’s been sitting there waiting for my approval. I wonder what it is now that I’ve waited this long to lay waste to its wrappings. Certainly, that’s a different tone than has been set in this household for quite some time. While I don’t want to divulge too much of my history, I will say that the nights of loud salsa, rum aura, and angry family members hopefully is a thing of the past, and that has everything to do with me.

See, the problem with Christmas is that, as a child, I was always and forever entitled, hoping this ginormous White dude would suddenly appear in my hallway and slide a gift under my Christmas tree … or two, or three. And then I started noticing that I didn’t have a chimney from which Santa could climb down like in the commercials I saw on Fox Saturday morning. These images conflicted with what I learned about the Season of Giving through my Saturday Catholic classes and my Catholic education. Then, I noticed less presents and less family time. And of course, we had next to nothing, so every time I did get something for Christmas, I was ever grateful …

Until I was 13 when I got my Super Nintendo (I can’t believe it’s been 16 years since I got it). I was such an ungrateful little one. I immediately connected it, and didn’t thank my mom until it was a little too late. For 10 years afterwards, we’ve had oscillating success with this holiday, and ever since then, I’ve been trying to rebuild what I want from my family. Not so much from my stepfather’s side, who seems to have sealed its own fate, but my mom’s side. At the very least, the set of cousins and brothers we have in that collective could form some sort of bond, and maybe we’d get a little snowfall in the process.

After getting my first salaried job as a teacher, I decided to make that particular Christmas the one I forgave everything and everyone for. I kid you not, I gave gifts like I had lost my mind. I started saying grace, which is weird since I don’t really believe in any religion per se. I started to actually have serious conversations with my other family members, at least the younger generation. I started to feel like I had a family again, and this time, it was a feeling I didn’t want to let go of.

Now, that energy has been transmuted back into my elders, and that’s really what these holidays should be about. What’s the point of going to services and masses when the temple inside your home’s a wreck? My spirit replenished and refocused, I can celebrate togetherness all year round, with a special day to keep me on track …

On the 1st Day of Christmas, G_d gave to me
12 gifts from my kids
11 pieces of chocolate
10 comfy sweaters
9 pounds from my fam
8 drinks to choose from
7 calls from my friends
6 plates of good food
5 COMMENTS FROM YOUUUUUUU!!!!
4 people in this house
3 happy males
2 brothers sleeping
and 1 writer spreading the peace …

jose, who’s about as happy as he’s been for any holiday …