This year, as a new father, I started wondering about the day in the not too distant future on which I will need to explain to my daughters, Abigail and Fiona, about who Dr. King was and why he was so important. I struggled with the thought a bit; Dr. King may be a hero, but the civil rights era manifested both the best and the worst of America. Learning about that chapter of our history — unlike so many others, which are convenient enough to (literally) whitewash in perpetuity — is quite possibly the unavoidable point at which we begin to lose our innocence (or at least our naivete) as children, and begin to see the world around us in a more complex way. It is a sometimes exhilarating, sometimes heartbreaking society in which we live.

We have come a long way as a country since Dr. King’s time, but we still have miles to go. My kids will grow up in a world where racism (at least within our own national borders) is, by and large, viewed as a cultural psychosis, a disease that we’re desperately trying to cure ourselves of; but it still flares up, and the legacy of the civil rights era (and the great injustices that preceded it) will still attend us well after my children have grown. It’s inevitable that the history lesson I teach my daughters will have present day examples from which to draw, making it all the more necessary.

I was sitting with my girls at home today, watching them play around me after lunch time, and listening to the radio over the internet (KEXP 90.3 FM from Seattle) — as I thought about this. As I listened, the DJ, Cheryl Waters, played this clip, entitled “Fun Town U.S.A.: My Little Girl,” from Dr. King’s 1962 speech to the Zion Hill Baptist Church in Louisiana:

In it, Dr. King recounts how he had to explain the concept of racism and segregation to his own daughter, Yolanda. Just six years old at the time, Yolanda desperately wants to go to the “Fun Town” amusement park — but her father must inform her that he cannot take her, because Fun Town is for whites only. (Side note: the park eventually closed its doors later in the ’60s in part because it refused to integrate.)

King references this incident elsewhere, most famously in his canonical “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, which you may remember from the oft quoted line, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” This was the first time I’d heard the story at length, however. Crucial for me: the conversation references the times that Yolanda rides with her father to the airport; obviously, he traveled frequently (as do I, for infinitely less noble reasons), and so riding with him to the airport is one of the consolations she has won for his being away so often.

I’m a bit of a sap, so this hit me pretty hard. Here I sat, wrestling (kind of ridiculously, I admit) with the idea of some day having to explain racism and bigotry to my children. And here was my hero, recounting how he too had struggled to explain it to his own daughter — albeit, in a context with far, far greater stakes. The plain truth is: it is not, and will never be, an easy subject to explain. Even a master orator like Dr. King, who devoted his life to humanizing the cause of equality and explaining it to others so that they could not just understand it, but feel it, found himself tongue tied when trying to explain the inhumanity of bigotry to his child. And, of course, in this confrontation, he found another lesson.

If you want to take some measure of why Dr. King was a great man, the cause for which he stood can only be part of the equation; the empathy that he engendered on behalf of the people for whom he spoke must play a part as well. The cause of equality is everyone’s cause. I find myself thankful, again today, for Dr. King’s wisdom.

What happened to cause the delay?

In a word: babies.

I believe I mentioned that Katie was pregnant with our twin daughters when I posted in December. They were about 4 months along by that point. When the new year hit (and Katie’s due date drew closer), you’d think I’d have been blogging like a mad man about the whole experience. Instead, I turned inward. Katie posted a string of “Baby Bump” photos and comments to her blog charting her progress, and we left it at that. We had a lot of discussions about how much we wanted to share about the pregnancy online. And, to be blunt, we simply decided that the whole concept of sharing that information online a) robbed us of our ability to make it “ours” (it’s amazing how quickly personal experiences can get co-opted by others, however well-intentioned they may be) and b) exposed us and our girls to some potentially really creepy stuff. I’m about as Internet friendly as they come, but something about putting this information out into the world felt like an invitation to transgression. Not sure why. it just did. Maybe we’ve seen too much Law & Order SVU.

Anyhow, the due date has come and gone, and we are now the proud parents of two beautiful baby girls: Abigail Eileen and Fiona Ann. They were born about a month premature, and went straight from the delivery room into the neo-natal intensive care unit at Kaiser, where a team of baby ninjas brilliantly guided them through their harrowing first few days of life. The girls are healthy and happy and thriving now. That’s them, below.

Abigail and Fiona @ 2 months old

Since then, it’s been all twins, all the time. I returned to work in May, and Katie’s caring for the kids full-time until she returns to work in August.

Here’s something weird: before Katie and I got together, I was completely ambivalent about kids. I agreed to have them because it was a deal-breaker for Katie. No kids, no Katie. So I acquiesced. I knew it would be a HUGE lifestyle change for us once they arrived … we were, after all, big into going to concerts, partying with our friends, and just generally being self-indulgent DINKs. But, once they came (and after a really, really tough break-in period), I’m loving being a dad. Maybe it’s because I get an 8+ hour break every day when I go to work, but man … they are the cutest most fun people to be around, ever. Sometimes.

Other times it’s still a hellish amount of hard work and I wonder what we got ourselves into. But mostly the cuteness and the fun.

More posts in the back half of the year, I promise. I have so much to say about new fatherhood, music and tacos. I will share!

Several of my friends — and a lot of people the world over — didn’t have such a great year. Recessions, earthquakes, hurricanes … you name it, and it happened in 2010. A lot of good people spent the year having, frankly, a pretty lousy time of it.

I’m extremely grateful, then, that Katie and I managed to escape pretty much unscathed. I don’t know what we did right, and I can’t offer an explanation for it other than that we’re very fortunate, and we love each other. Life always seems pretty good when you get to spend every day with your best friend. We’re also extraordinarily lucky to have an incredible group of friends and family around to make life 99.999% fun.

So, on the last day of 2010, I’m choosing to look back on the stuff that made the year great. The crappy memories will just have to take care of themselves. Plus. I realized this week that, after not updating my blog for a year, it might be a good idea to do a big recap … so here goes.

We kicked things off this day last year by ringing in the new year … for science! In honor of our friend Alicia returning home for the holidays from a stint working for the Undersecretary of Science in the Dept. of Energy, our friends Dave and Crystal themed their annual New Year’s Eve party around “science.” This meant lab coats and chemical cocktails for everyone.

A year wouldn’t be complete without our annual trip to the desert for the Coachella Music Festival. Except for 2011. We’re skipping the fest this year to bring two more music fans into the world.

We didn’t really have the budget for a big vacation this year, so we made good use of my family’s condo in Mammoth. Our first trip, to celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary, gave us a chance to visit Yosemite for the very first time. We took our bikes, and spent a full day riding around the entire valley floor. We made sure to take a bunch of pictures, including a great shot of Katie with Half-Dome in the background as we drove out of the park.

Mid-Summer found us able to make a quick trip to Chicago to spend some quality time with Katie’s family. We were especially pleased to visit at length with Katie’s Grandma Groble and parents. Katie and her dad used the time to scan in dozens of old family pictures, and to talk at length with Grandma about the history behind each photo. This is something I never took the chance to do with my grandparents, so I’m really happy that Katie and her dad made the time to do it with their own family.

For our big end-of-summer vacation, we returned to the Eastern Sierras, this time for our first camping trip as a couple. We car camped at upper Rock Creek campground, managed to not get eaten by bears, and spent 3 days enjoying the wilderness. The highlight was a hike from Mosquito Flats (the highest trailhead in the Sierras) to Morgan Pass, well above the timberline. We then spent about 5 days in Mammoth, hiking, and taking day trips to places like Mono Lake (little knowing that NASA would be discovering new life forms there just a few months later).

At the end of the Summer, Katie said good bye to her “Roaring 20s” with a Prohibition-themed 30th birthday party at our house. Our friends all came dressed in their flapper finery, and we proceeded to usher in the next decade of Katie’s life with more than a few libations.

The biggest news of the year, though, was waiting for the day AFTER Katie’s birthday … when we found out that she was pregnant. We’d started trying in mid-August, thinking it would take us a while to conceive. Apparently, we’re more fertile than we thought.

This proved to be doubly true when, several weeks later, our nurse midwife informed us that we were having twins. We now know that we’re expecting two girls in early May.

Speaking of babies, several of our close friends brought new faces into the world this year. Aaron and Gissela introduced the world to their daughter, Zoe. A week later, our good friends Mike & Joni in Chicago welcomed Dexter to earth. And this Fall (on the same day we found out we were having twins), our close pals and neighbors John & Alicia gave birth to beautiful Juliette. We’re thrilled for all of them — selfishly, too, because we get to pick their brains for advice AND because our little girls will have plenty of playmates their age.

We rounded the year off by spending Xmas with my folks here in Tustin, and then with Katie’s family, plus Mike & Joni, Erika & Rick in Chicago.

Phew. That didn’t even account for all the concerts, birthday parties, work crap, house stuff and so on that filled in the countless days and weekends throughout the year. Good stuff.

2011: be good to us, and to everyone.

Happy New Year!

I figured now, the day after xmas, would be a good time to “reboot” the blog for a few reasons. We’ll have a lot to write about in the months ahead as we progress with our baby adventure. We’re currently in Chicago celebrating xmas with Katie’s awesome family. And this is normally the time of year when I play taste fascist and force my picks for the best albums of the past 12 months onto anyone who will pay attention.

Outside of my wife, my family and my job, music is the personal passion that consumes my life. Anyone who knows me will tell you that. Katie and I go to dozens of concerts a year, including an annual pilgrimage to the Coachella Festival in Indio, Calif. (which, sadly, we’re skipping in 2011 so we can tend to the job of giving birth to babies, due on nearly the same weekend as the event). I spent a brief stint as a college radio DJ and an even briefer stint as a music journalist (both amateur and professional), so participating in the vast and meaningless tradition of year-end list making is just one of those things I do.

Anyhow, enough with the preamble. Here’s the list. I would love to see yours, too. Maybe you loved something – or several things — that passed my ears this year).

1. The Black Keys: Brothers
   
   This wasn’t my absolute favorite album of 2010. That honor goes to Beach House’s Teen Dream (which I played obsessively all year long). But I try to order this list not just by what I love, but by what I think is important and what other people should make an effort to hear. And, at the end of the year, Brothers is the one album I’d like to foist on absolutely everyone. Old people, young people, hipsters, conformists, indie purists, mainstreamers, people who normally don’t give a crap about music — man, EVERYONE should own this album. It has real heart, real soul, masterful technique (without overproduction), authenticity (not the manufactured kind), low end swing and just flat out guts. It will make you hungry for similar music, and lead you down roads that are just bountiful with rewards, from garage rock to soul to the entire Stax and Chess catalogs. If “Next Girl” doesn’t make you feel like an absolute bad-ass while playing at top volume in your car, then at least the cover of “Never Gonna Give You Up” will melt your cold, black heart. Get it.





2. LCD Soundsystem: This Is Happening
   I love this band beyond all sense and reason. James Murphy returned my love not just with a beautiful, brilliant album — but by also making it possible for me to see his band live 3 times this year (twice in landmark settings — Coachella and at the Hollywood Bowl) and also generously released a live-to-tape studio session e.p. and a live album this year. That on top of helming DFA Records, which disseminates his studio and pop culture aesthetics far and wide. LCD is arguably the best band in America right now (see them live if you want to dispute that), and they picked this album to call it quits. Sad and triumphant all at the same time.





3. Beach House: Teen Dream
   I mentioned above that I listened to this album obsessively this year, and it’s true. This is one album I was never not in a mood to hear, no matter what my mood or how many times I’d heard its songs. Lush, romantic, reminiscent of ’80s classics from the Cocteau Twins and Kate Bush while still cultivating the band’s own aesthetic, Teen Dream was the one album I heard this year that I felt I could just live inside. The band’s performance on Pitchfork TV was really what sold me on the album. Check out this clip if you’re ready to fall in love too.





4. Arcade Fire: The Suburbs
   A commercial success that was also defiantly independent (Arcade Fire release on the artist owned and operated Merge Records, which also houses Spoon and many other great bands), this was one of those records that could have collapsed under the weight of both hype and its own sense of importance. Both failed to diminish the album’s emotional resonance for people like me though, because — as author Chuck Klosterman pointed out — it mined the rich vein of its listeners’ nostalgia for their past (particularly their youth). I was one of those kids who grew up in the suburbs, writing long hand and riding my bike around the neighborhood with my friends, watching the sprawl voraciously and brutally unfold while I dreamed of a permanent escape. I’m now on the brink of fatherhood, waiting to bring two new children into a world that, while far more advanced, is not better than the one in which I grew up. I’m excited, I’m worried, and I hope that my children follow a similar narrative arc — with all the joy and pain and yearning for something better. If you grow up some place you always love, how will you ever find the ambition to “go” that drives adventure and success? All of this floods my mind when I listen to this album, a testament to its very real emotive powers. And you know what? It’s just flat out good music, too.





5. The Roots: How I Got Over
   I have loved The Roots since Organix, and they remain one of a handful of bands whose albums I buy sounds unheard on the day they release. This may be their finest record yet — soulful without getting sappy, fiercely angry without becoming alienating, the first album in the band’s career that evokes the “great us” of all classics. Liberating in its outward focus (rather than oppressive and suffocating in its introspection, like Kanye’s latest), and unafraid to build bridges to other genres (without sacrificing an ounce of The Roots’ own aesthetic) this may be the most transcendent hip hop record of the decade, much less the year.





6. The Walkmen: Lisbon
   Another impeccable album from the band that is slowly soundtracking my late nights and elbows-on-bars moments of intoxicated self-reflection. These guys are clearly ready to pick up Tom Waits’s torch, should he ever drop it (odd in a way, because they have one of the most distinctive sounds of any band in their general oeuvre). Until then, it’s almost unfair how good these guys have gotten at making raw yet accessible, romantic yet pulsing indie rock.





7. Best Coast: Crazy For You
   Simple lyrics sung right. Best Coast’s music conjures up all the greatness of ’60s girl bands and piles it over top of all the greatness of 21st century garage / surf rock. Drenched in reverb, raw where it needs to be and covered in just the right amount of candy coating, this came dangerously close to being a perfect first record and established frontwoman Bethany Cosentino as a major new voice in rock.





8. Spoon: Transference
   Austin’s finest knock out another great one. The band, lead by weed-wonked genius Britt Daniel, pushed its aesthetic a bit this time, playing with song structure and adventuring into abrupt endings, dissonance / resolution and off kilter time signatures in order to add some weight to their song’s emotional punches — all without ever descending into the impenetrable sonic dungeons of pure art rock. Also, if you didn’t catch them on stage this year, Spoon has become one of the tightest live bands in rock.





9. Surfer Blood: Astro Coast
   What a band baby would sound like if it had been made by Vampire Weekend and the Pixies. These Florida freshman pounded out one of the riffiest, hookiest and least cheesy rock albums of the year, while also selling one of the indie scene’s best t-shirts (a parody of the omnipresent Joy Division Unknown Pleasures cover).





10. Hot Chip: One Life Stand
    Where this failed as an album (it’s quieter moments ironically overshare while failing to connect, and just sort of fall apart in places), it soared as a collection of dance singles, each better than the last, and each solidifying Hot Chip’s immediately recognizable, completely unique nerd-dance sound. Honest, emotional but funny as hell, Hot Chip also ruled as a live band — which, given that they toured with the unstoppable LCD Soundsystem, they sort of had to do in order to avoid getting blown off the stage.
    
    

Honorable Mentions:
Deerhunter: Halcyon Digest
The Joy Formidable: A Balloon Called Moaning e.p.
Quantic presenta Flowering Inferno: Dog with a Rope
Janelle Monae: The ArchAndroid
Gorillaz: Plastic Beach
Local Natives: Gorilla Manor
Morning Benders: Big Echo
New Young Pony Club: The Optimist
Girls: Broken Dreams Club e.p.
Broken Bells: S/T
Dum Dum Girls: I Will Be
School of Seven Bells: Disconnect from Desire
Cut Chemist: Sound of the Police
UNKLE: Where Does The Night Fall?
The Black Angels: Phosphene Dream
Tame Impala: Innerspeaker
Stereolab: Not Music
Off! The First 4 e.p.s

Overhyped Album of the Year
Kanye West: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
You know what? This is a great album, despite the fact that it’s a colossal downer to listen to from front to back. It’s also unforgivably sloppy in spots, packed with songs that are too long by half and consumed by its own sense of self-importance. As such, it’s nearly a perfect mirror of Kanye West as a person as well as an artist. So what? All of its contradictions and flaws help make it something of a masterpiece. You don’t need me to tell you that though, because every single music blog and publication in the history of the universe has already slobbered all over it with praise. Buy it or don’t. But you can’t ignore it, even if you’d really, really like to.

Of course, that was weeks ago … I don’t have a good excuse as to why I haven’t plopped down and pounded something out about the “home stretch” of the big new home experience now that everything’s put away, organized and working properly. My wife was in the exact same boat. Thankfully, after a month of radio silence, her grandmother called her last night to ask Katie if she was still alive. That prompted her to finally sit down and do a quick recap — with pictures!

So, if you’ve been at all curious about the sweet hell of our moving / early homeowning experience so far, I invite you to read, “Lessons from a Dumbass Homeowner.”

I’ll follow up with a post of my own in a little while … promise!

The exterior looks pretty much done on the front, with the blue-gray color coat now on, and shutters framing the upstairs windows. Our neighbors have their places stuccoed now as well, so we now know what our part of the block will look like.

The back of the house has some initial coating and shutters, but still needs the final color.

Heading over, Katie mentioned that she hoped there would be some drywall up, as that’s the point at which she’d start to feel excited. “It will feel real to me, then,” she commented. Well, babe: it’s real. The entire house — all 3 floors — now has drywall in every room.

Big things we expect in the next couple of weeks: the roof, then cabinets & fixtures (although I’m sure there’s still some detail work to do that we’re not seeing).

We also went down to Vintage Design last week to pick out our carpet, tile and other design elements for the place. We have a couple of variables to work out on some upgraded carpet, but we at least committed to investing in an upgraded carpet pad (lifetime guarantee FTW), solar film on the windows (to make the house more energy efficient and reduce fading from UV exposure) and sealant on the granite counter tops (to prevent staining). Those all felt like good sound investments to us — non-cosmetic stuff that will save us money in the long run and help preserve the value of the home.

These will be some of the last elements to go into the home — you don’t want tradesmen walking over your new carpet to put in your cabinets, I suppose — so I imagine the place won’t look “finished” for quite a while (probably until we hit escrow in August).

This proved remarkably fruitful this year. When the weekend before my birthday rolled around, Katie and I realized that we’d booked ourselves into a trifecta of incredible concerts in Los Angeles: PJ Harvey & John Parish @ The Wiltern on June 20; Femi Kuti & Santigold @ The Hollywood Bowl on the 21st; and Wilco, again @ The Wiltern, on my actual birthday (June 22). Seeing as how we’d planned a big triple birthday party with our friends Jill and Sunshine the following weekend (the weekend of our actual anniversary), we decided to combine celebrating our first wedding anniversary with my birthday, and treated ourselves to something special.

Awww … I love this woman.

We picked out an incredible hotel to stay at — The London in West Hollywood — and planned to spend 3 days lounging by the pool eating & drinking, enjoying room service, and venturing out in the evenings for our shows. This proved to be a phenomenal idea. If you’re a Southern California resident looking for a luxurious local getaway (and want to take advantage of some nightlife as well), I strongly recommend The London. Foodies will note that Gordon “Hell’s Kitchen” Ramsey runs the restaurant at the the hotel. We didn’t eat there, and have heard fair-to-middling reviews of the food. We CAN, however, totally vouch for the quality of service from the staff and at the pool. Both made us feel really welcome and special.

Katie lounges poolside at The London.

The London’s outdoor pool — our “home” for 3 days.

Our suite.

The view or the Hollywood hills out our hotel room window … the infamous Viper Room nightclub is below to the right.

The shows were all fantastic as well. I’m always a sucker for PJ Harvey, and she & John Parish tore through a set of their collaborative material that was far stronger than their records together would indicate possible. Saturday’s show at The Bowl (for which we were joined by our friends Sunshine & Gloria — who brought us delicious food from Greenblatt’s Deli) was flat out amazing … Santigold brought along a full band to accompany her and her two-woman dance team, while Femi Kuti proved he can stand firmly outside his father, Fela’s, shadow as the undisputed king of Afrobeat. And I couldn’t ask for anything more of a treat on my birthday than to eat at LA’s landmark Mexican restaurant, El Cholo with our friends Jamie & Ellen, followed by a 2.5 hour set by Wilco (one of my top 5 favorite bands of all time — and maybe the best band playing in America right now).

Wiltern marquee for PJ & John Parish.

PJ Harvey on stage … this was our first time snagging pit tickets at The Wiltern.

PJ Harvey, John Parish and band.

Santigold on stage at The Hollywood Bowl.

The incomparable Femi Kuti on stage at The Bowl.

Femi Kuti lights up The Hollywood Bowl.

Wilco at The Wiltern on June 22.

The front of the house looks ready for some color.

Believe it or not, this will be our first hose valve since we moved out of our parents’ respective houses. We are unreasonably excited about this.

Ducts! Oh, central air, how I have missed you.

Katie pretends to luxuriate in what will someday be our master bathroom shower. Off camera, I am hoping that she’s not singing “Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair” from South Pacific to herself.

We are mystified as to what a “fur wall” is. I mean, it certainly LOOKS furry. FURnace? FURniture? Google is of no help here.

No visit to downtown Tustin this week. Katie vetoed my suggestion to hit BagelMe on Newport Ave in favor of a more immediate caffeine / carb fix at a place close to our current domicile. We’ll get back there in late June.

Also, no visit next week, as we’ll be up in Hollywood celebrating our first anniversary & my 34th birthday. London Hotel, The Wiltern, The Hollywood Bowl and El Cholo all on the agenda. I can’t wait.

However, we did have another special guest star this week: Mom Flinn, who drove out from LaVerne to show us her new puppy (Pippin) and to take a tour of the place. We at least got the chance to show her the building and the neighborhood, and then to walk her through the model home (the folks in the Lennar sales office have got to be sick of us by now … we end up trundling through there a few times a month). So, hopefully she now has a good sense of what we’re digging ourselves into.

We were quite pleased — and a bit surprised — to see that the exterior is already going onto the home. They had the front of the place tented and molded stucco coating had already gone up.

The back of the house was prepped and ready as well … I expect the whole place will be done when we return for next Sunday’s visit.

After the home site visit, we continued our (new) tradition of visiting a new restaurant / shop in the nearby area. This time around, Claro’s Italian Market was our target (we wanted something we could takeaway, so that we didn’t have to leave Pip the Pup locked up in a car for too long). Holy crap, these guys are going to get a TON of our business. You can see by Katie’s Yelp! review that the prospect of fresh sliced Italian deli meats, cheeses and desserts has us both in a constant drool. Highly recommended.

Fortunately, Orange County has some wonderful biking trails near our neck of the woods. My plan was to have us ride along the back side of the Upper Newport Bay ecological preserve, then catch the head of the San Diego Creek Trail, which runs from the bay all the way out to the mountains in the east. This would take us through parts of Costa Mesa, Santa Ana, Irvine and Tustin — a nice little Tour de Orange County.

So, with the weather stuck firmly in “May gray” mode — overcast and cool, perfect for biking, we slapped on our helmets and set out.

I will truly miss having the bay so close to our home (which made it a great place for biking and running) — but now I know it’s an easy bike ride away, at least.

Sadly, our riding plans were scuttled at the halfway mark. Dad somehow broke his bike’s chain just as we were riding up to the new neighborhood, necessitating a rescue mission by our good friends (and soon-to-be neighbors) John and Alicia. At least we made it to the house before the mishap, which meant that we were still able to show Dad the home site and take some new pics.

Dad & Katie pose in front of the house. They’ve now covered the front in pre-stucco paper, a step forward from the yellow moisture guard.

We now have actual windows on all three floors.

Sheetrock has started going up in the stairwells … there are giant stacks of the stuff in each room now, so we imagine this phase will start moving along quickly as well.

After we recovered from the bicycle mishap, we hauled ourselves over to downtown Tustin for a late lunch and a beer at the Tustin Brewing Co, as part of our “try a new restaurant in the new neighborhood every Sunday” plan. Good marks on their IPA.