Photo Friday

Playing with the camera on this strange newfangled gadget.



My wife should have never given me her iPhone.

The Days of Camp Bradford

Before my wife and I had kids, we had nieces and nephews. Sometimes during the summer, they would visit us for a week or two. Cheri and I were in our 20s, and so these visits from these little relatives provided a glimpse into a future family life.

In some ways, they were our practice children. Sort of like in Home Economics when they give you a bag of flour to take care of...

Fortunately, the human kids were more durable.

Because of these visits, Cheri and I got to test the waters of parenthood before we decided to take the plunge into pregnancy. (I apologize for those cheesy metaphors, but I am trying to teach my creative writing students that blogs don't need to be perfect.)

Camp Bradford became the nickname for our house during the summer. And Cheri embraced that title by making every day filled with a series of wonderful misadventures.

Megan and Matthew were the first dynamic niece/nephew duo to experience Camp Bradford... followed by our Canadian God-Son Corey (but Corey's exploits will be saved for another blog).

Lucky for us, and our eventual offspring, Megan and Matthew were very friendly, well-behaved youngsters. Life was easy-going whenever these "little angels" joined Camp Bradford. When I was in my early 20s, I didn't think I wanted to be a father. It seemed too serious. Too monumental. Too much of a milestone of my mortality. Yet Megan and Matthew made parenting seem like fun... which meant deep down they were devious little devils because it wasn't long after the first Camp Bradford summer when I finally told Cheri, "Sure, honey, let's have a baby. It'll be a piece o' cake."

I've been exhausted ever since.

I was reminiscing about the days of Camp Bradford, and decided to look for some photographic evidence of the events... but there weren't as many pictures as I had hoped. Still, I did find some highlights which give a hint at just how much fun it was to show these young Washingtonians the joys of southern California.

They were obsessed with swimming pools. They wanted to stay in the water 24/7. Cheri and I didn't have a pool, but our friends in Orange County did, which meant that these kids expected us to drive beyond the Orange Curtain every day. Matthew loved to dive for quarters and Megan loved to splash me in the face and call me Dopey. (That was our thing.) One time, when we were in the car and Matthew kept asking "are we there yet" every three minutes, I said, "You know Matt, there's no water in this pool we're going too."

"There's not?"

"Nope. There was a big crack at the bottom and the water drained to the center of the earth."

"How did it get cracked, Uncle Wade?"

"We're not sure, but it may have been one of your quarters when it sank to the bottom."

It's hard to tell in this photograph, but my good friend John and Nephew Matthew are playing with Star Wars figures. John -- and many of my fellow arch-geeks -- still loved to buy action figures, but did we grown men ever hang around the apartment battling them against each other. No way! (No matter how much we secretly wanted to...)

But then I realized, if you have a kid visiting you, you can full-on play with your toys the same way you did when you were 8 years old, and people say, "Aw... you're so good with kids." When really, it's just an excuse to reconnect with G.I. Joe and Cobra Commander. 

Visiting our relatives at the zoo. 

The Obligatory Pilgrimage to the Giant Rat of Anaheim. 

You pay your own way when you stay at Camp Bradford. These kids shoveled coal into a steam locomotive 14 hours a day. 

And then they slept in a cave, without blankets! At least that's how I remember it... I could be wrong. They seem happy, though, right? These were good days. 

Nowadays, Matthew has been traveling the world. He's grown into a man, but I still recognize that little boy. Can you tell which one he is? 

Megan is in her late 20s... and she's been known to go misadventuring with my daughters from time to time. Here she is (the one with the pink strap), on a volcano island with her fiance, her sister, and her cousins... probably trying to lead my girls near the lava as payback for Camp Bradford. 

Word-Count Wednesdays

So, with this new schedule, I'm going to use Wednesdays to post updates about my writing progress. Here goes:

This week, I revised a picture book three times, and in the process my agent went from "I really like this" to "I love this!" So, that's on the right track.

My goal for next Wednesday... +1000 words of new material.

Theme Days for My Social Media

Inspired by my recent blog post about the Mickey Mouse Club, I've decided to incorporate themes for each day of the week. Cuz, you know... for fun!


Musical / Monologue Mondays -- A day to celebrate theatrical monologues, scenes, and musical numbers.

Teacher Tuesday -- This is when I'll post educational stuff as well as my reflections about my experiences during the semester.

Word-Count Wednesday -- During the middle of the week I will touch base with my progress as an author. I'm aiming for at least 1000 words per week (which is very low, by the way -- but I'll take things up to 4000 words per day during the summer). Word-Count Wednesdays will keep me accountable and help me maintain my creative goals.

Thankful Thursdsay -- Can you tell I love alliteration? This day will focus on gratitude. Be on the look-out for feel-good posts about admirable people who have influenced me in positive ways.

and

Thursday Movie Question -- This is something I've been doing on my Facebook page since 2012 or so. It started out as trivia (which now seems points in the Age of Google) and became a forum for my online friends to share opinions about film.

Photography Friday -- One of my New Year's Resolution is to take more pictures... So far I really suck at taking photos... But if I keep it up I might advance to mediocre.

Saturday Morning Cartoons -- This is where I plan to get nostalgic about the pop-culture world of Children's television programming. They say write what you know, and sadly since my ten-year-old self I rotted my brain with countless hours of cartoons, this seems like something I know how to write about. (Or, I might just decide to post YouTube videos of my favorite Bugs Bunny shorts.)

Sunday Funnies -- My favorite part of the Sunday newspaper has always been the funny papers. I'm trying to channel my inner-Charles Schulz with my ongoing comic strip: Duck Town. 


This might be overly ambitious. It's not easy for me to blog everyday, and if I get really involved in writing a new novel or play, I might throw this list out the window. But for now this looks like a fun way to kick-off a creative 2017.

What are you blogging about?

Sunday Funnies - Jan 15th, 2016

Mickey Mouse Club - Theme Days

As I gear up to begin marketing my upcoming children's book (Around the World in a Bathtub #shamelessplug), I have been going through my office, looking at old notes and journals.

I have noticed something that I've been doing since 2012. At the beginning of each year, I write a list of the days of the week, and give each day a special theme or topic. I never really do anything with that list... I just daydream about writing in my blog so much that I create different themes. The most I have ever done to fulfill this goal has been on Facebook. That's where I have been annoying / entertaining my online friends with "Thursday Movie Question" for the past five years. And I think I have always wanted to expand that list so that my social media presence has some sort of structure.

Why? Why would I want to have a post about "Teaching" every Tuesday? Why would I want to blog about "Musicals" on Monday? It finally dawned on me. It's because of the Mickey Mouse Club.

This old show (that was old even when I was a kid) entertained children five days a week, and each day of the week had its own theme.

MONDAY:

Monday was "Fun with Music Day." I just watched this three minute video and I don't know how much fun it was for me...

It reminds me of a very boring version of the Hairspray kids (admittedly they were probably inspired by Mickey's minions as well as dance programs of the 50s and 60s).

It's also reminiscent of Disney's ride, It's a Small World... and that's always terrifying.

TUESDAY: 

Tuesday was "Gues Star Day." You might call me fickle, but I rather like the production value of this musical routine... But here's the thing, I can't for the life of me remember who they had on as a special guest. I was five years old when I watched re-runs of this show, and there's a good chance that I switched channels in search for cartoons. Humans weren't my thing when I was five. It was cartoons, puppets, or nothing. So I probably watched this segment until they open the door, and when Donald Duck failed to appear I lost interest.

I did a quick Google Search, by the way, and found that some of the guests were familiar faces. But here are a few unfamiliar ones... (at least to me... I bet some of you can guess these stars of the 50s)

For comedians in the 1950s, the bigger the eyes the bigger the laughs. 

WEDNESDAY: 

During the middle of the week, the Mickey Mouse Club decided that Wednesday was "Anything Can Happen Day" or as I like to call it: "No One Knows What the Hell's Going On Day." 

THURSDAY: 

Nearly the end of the week is "Circus Day." You would think this theme would be lively enough to keep my attention...

...but I've always thought the circus was rather creepy. Hmmm... I wonder why. (I'm looking at you, Pink Elephants from Dumbo.)  

FRIDAY:

Of all the Theme Days I have revisited on Youtube today, the "Talent Round Up Day," with its Western dancing and makeshift horses, is hands down my favorite. 

Everything is all going hunky-dory until the eldest member of the Club, +50 year old Roy Williams shows up with guns a'blazing. 

I believe the Friday theme invited non-mouseketeer children onto the show, after winning the talent portion earlier in the week.  Unsurprisingly, most of these guest kids were white, just like the Mouseketeers. But I was pleased to discover a bit of diversity; according to the definitive website on all things Mickey Mouse Club, there were a few African-American children who performed on the show. (Again, it reminds me of Hairspray!) 

Anyway, this has been a long rambling blog post, but back to my original point -- I am thinking of adjusting my blog so that each day has it's own theme. I'll try to finalize my theme list tonight. 

In the words of Jimmie Dodd: "See you real soon!"

  

Picture Books for Grown-Ups

On Wednesday, I gave my creative writing students an overview of writing picture books for children. That's when a couple things dawned on me.

1) Many students may have absolutely no interest in writing a book for young children.

and

2) That's perfectly okay, because there are actually a few wildly successful picture books that are aimed at adults.

* * * 

The most notable one that I'm aware of is written by Adam Mansbach (author of some rather serious looking novels such as Rage is Back and Angry Black White Boy).

The book is called Go the F*** to Sleep. It's currently the #1 Parody book selling on Amazon, and I believe it's been in that spot for over five years now.

Keeping in mind there's profanity on every page, you might find this YouTube video amusing. It's narrated by the one and only Samuel L. Jackson...

Other successful picture books for grown-ups include: 

and

Jory John is one of the co-authors of both books, and it is interesting to note that after his success with these parodies he went on to write other books that are actually for children. 

So, grown-up picture books offer plenty of satire. Sometimes it's political... 

Sometimes it's catering to recent pop-culture trends, such as the zombie craze when Walking Dead was first popular. 

But there are many sophisticated picture books that are more sincere, and that aren't exactly written for adults or children, but for readers of any age. 

Take for example this beautifully illustrated biographic picture book about the life of John Lennon. 

First graders might enjoy reading about everyone's favorite bespectacled Beatle... but I have a feeling that this book targets readers my age, maybe even older (yes, I have a copy on this book). 

And although you could read this book to toddlers, it's really a metaphor about the history of religion and all of the conflicts created by the different interpretations of truth and/or god. (Unless I misread the text and it's just about a turtle and a meteorite that breaks apart in the earth's atmosphere.)

* * * 

Have you discovered a picture book that is marketed to adults? What did you think? Disturbing? Funny? Sophisticated? All of the above?