Barry's Life in Napa Blog

My mother used to call out in the morning from the kitchen, "Rise and shine!" It came in a sing-songy voice that was intended to make me jump out of bed smiling, I suppose, but being an angsty teen (what other kind of teen is there?) it made me want to strangle her. When I look back on it now, it's easy to see how forced was her early-morning cheer. Up every day at 5 a.m. to make breakfast and pack a lunch for my dad, looking ahead to a day full of laborious repetition to make a home and feed the family - I wonder about the origin and the sincerity of the expression. But I know now that the presentation of a sunny demeanor to her piece of the world was as crucial in her daily agenda as the frying of eggs and the sweeping of floors - no matter what quiet despair she might indulge in after the school bus had come and gone. There is no shortage of persistently pleasant people in the world. You meet them in coffee shops and auto shops and they sell you long distance packages...

(My mother at age 18. ) I feel obliged to write about my mother today. "Obliged" is not the way you are supposed to feel on Mother's Day. I always wanted to be the loving son who doted on his mother but for some reason, some psychologically complicated reason, I could not achieve the level of devotion to her that I always thought she deserved. She was a kind, patient, giving, thoughtful woman who never did anything but love me. I loved her, too, and on an objective scale I don't think I was a bad son but I've never felt I was as good to her as I should have been. Maybe someday I will understand my feelings but today's not that day. Today I am thinking of moments... ...out in the yard with her when she made pickles in huge stoneware crocks, or watching her pluck a chicken, or do loads of laundry by hand in standing galvanized tubs, running the clothes through the wringer and hanging them on the line. ...her excitement on Election Day when our living room was th...

I would like to make the case today that reality is overrated. Reality is chock-a-block with disease, famine, genocide and infomercials. Reality imposes onerous taxation and rules and foisted Geraldo Rivera on the world. Reality has none of the redeeming qualities we seek out in our entertainments - try hard and success will come to you, the triumph of good over evil, true love always wins, bad guys get what they deserve, etc. In fact, reality likes to get right up in your face and make sure you're aware that the sleazy people usually win and have all the money, true love is irrelevant in the face of expediency, and trying hard and success are complete strangers. So in summation, reality can suck it. Counterpoint: reality, and the real people that cause it, can be damn funny. I offer as evidence two recent additions to the menu of amusing time wasters of which I am an aficionado. Shit My Dad Says is the brainchild of Justin Halpern, a guy from San Diego who started keeping track o...