My dad doesn't like photos taken of himself. I conned him into doing some digital photos when I stopped in on the monkey summer 2002 tour.

Dad

My Padre and I have always had a little bit of distance between us. I lived with my mother when I was little, but I remember weekend visits to the ranch-like place where he was living. He would teach me math, throw me into the air and take pictures so I'd look like I was flying, and we'd try to play monopoly. When my mom and I went to Iowa and Florida, he visited at least once a year. I remember in Iowa going down into the basement and making glowing liquids from bottles he carried in the trunk of his car. He has a PhD in Chemistry (was a professor at the U of O), is a world traveler and wears cowboy boots. His name is Tom.

My dad got me my first computer and routinely fed my left-brain in all its ravenous glory. At his house he had Cable television and a 8808 PC and my visits to him became more and more about taking in as much media and electronic entertainment as possible. I spent a lot of time over there playing videogames throughout my youth and adolescence, which I guess in a way was a shame since it seemed to limit our actual interaction. Hindsight is 20/20 I suppose.

My father is from Texas, of German extraction. I learned that in his professor days, his students used to call him "The Marlboro Man." We resemble each other more than I like to admit sometimes, a fact I realize more and more as I grow into myself. My first jolt came when I got my license renewed at age 20. I looked at the photo and saw my dad, a bit of a shock. He's a workaholic like me -- used to tell stories about working 90 days straight in an oil field -- and I think I get my respect for responsibility from him as well. We both like football (go Ducks!), are kind of high-level thinkers, and enjoy sharing good food with people.

In my late teens there was of course some rebellion. My dad nudged me into getting my driver's license and supplied me with my first and only car (his old Chevy Corsica, manual transmission, fading paintjob... good old Petra) which greatly expanded my field of possibilities. Along with the car came three rules: no sex, no drugs, no crime. I never figured out women in high school, but I did manufacture fake IDs and throw large cocktail parties. Eventually I got into trouble, right before I was supposed to go off to NYU, and I spent a week doing manual labor in the sun with him to kind of atone for things. Still, the specter of moral repudiation loomed large over our relationship for the next few years... with all the vice on this site, it took me a while to invite my dad to outlandishjosh.com. It's something I had to mull over a little bit. But I did eventually send him a link, and he likes it.

Compare to the above for the obligatory "like father like son" relevation.

College brought a whole new set of problems, mostly financial. NYU's not cheap, and my father has a good deal more money than my mom does. He's always been a circumspect saver and accumulator, using his professor's wage wisely and investing in some duplexes upon retirement. Though the first year I made up for the gap between college cost mostly on my own -- my earnings/savings + the financial aid package + my thinkquest scholarship > $30,000! -- I knew that I would need his support to make it through school in the long haul. But I wasn't a good communicator and I didn't feel that he understood me (yes, I was 20, these things happen) and our relationship began to take on purely fiscal dynamics and a lot of tension to go with them.

Eventually we broke that block, thank goodness. It meant a lot to me that he was able to see The Quick Fix when we came to the U of O. He'd never seen me act before, and he honestly liked the show. These days we discuss life, politics, the way culture is going. My dad has been travelling a lot lately with my wicked step-mother Bonnie (he remarried when I was ten) and so I get to hear about the cool places they've been and their observations on culture. I'm a bit more of a lefty than either of them, so the discussions are always lively. Favorite topics are my distaste for Microsoft and prohibition. They just moved over the mountains to Bend, and got to visit them there on my Monkey Summer 2002 west coast excursion.