Check out the new graphic for the site at the top of the page. It was created by my sister-in-law. Thank you, TJ!

Let me know your thoughts and/or if you want to hire her.

Peace.

I am a Libra. I am an only child. I am a father.

My Libra friends tell me us Libras are slow to be impressed, don’t excited by much and lose interest quickly. We also are sensitive, giving souls to a fault. We give people around us enough rope to hang themselves and we preside over these hangings gleefully, without regret, without remorse.

As an only child who was ruled with an iron fist I enjoy the luxury of being able to bask in solitude, draw strength from it and recharge in it. As a married man, solitude is a commodity I value as much as gold, wheat and corn in today's economy. I can appreciate an empty house, I enjoy moments without music or the white noise of always-on television --- mindlessly watched, and always on. Being an only child has its downsides, as do most things. I am prone to moodiness, insistent on space that many times doesn’t exist when living together (and not living in a mansion) and when angered, become uber-independent and ice-cold to those closest to me or those whom I view as hurtful or a threat.

I enjoy being a father. Learning to become the father of my wife’s son was a rocky and challenging experience for a variety of reasons, some of which had to do with not only the changing of my thinking from only child’s, but a single man’s to that of one who is a lot more selfless. My wife didn’t make things easy either. She saw something in me that I didn’t know was there and her impatience, in my humble opinion, overpowered her opportunity to teach me the ways and means and ins and outs of parenting.

Additionally, as many men will attest to, the paternalistic nature that most women seem to be born with doesn’t kick in for men until they bear a child of their own.

When my daughter was born, fatherhood just “clicked”. Like my first kiss, it all came very easily. The fear that, in the beginning, kept me up most nights wondering if I could pull it off, became the motivation I needed to pull it off. And now 8 years since I met my wife, with a 13 year-old and a 2.5 year-old, being dad is something I draw strength from and something that is invaluable to me in a world where not too much truly matters (to me). I enjoy being a father. Sometimes, it’s the one thing I look forward to at the end of long days and weeks.

By Wednesday of this week I will be without children for a month. Free to do whatever I want. Wanton in purpose and weakened with no source of strength.

For Father’s Day I was given a trip to New Orleans taking place this Fourth of July. Unknown to me, my wife was planning the trip for weeks and I love her for it. Unknown to me, my wife was planning to have my parents take my 2.5 year old daughter off our hands for the month of July.

My parents live in Chicago.

When she finally shared the full scope of her plans with me, I was less than happy. When I asked my wife why she would do this without consulting me she quickly announced, “Because I knew you would say no.” She argued that our son goes away every year. He's thirteen. He began going to sleep-away camp when he was roughly six years old. She was a basket case when it first happened. I was there to console and reassure her that he would be fine.

My daughter is two. Her argument fell flat.

Immediately, I knew she meant well, wanting to spend quality time together, in an effort to experience that newlywed love anew that being parents doesn't allow time for. But meaning well and doing well are two completely different things. My wife didn’t know it at the time, but she had a serious problem on her hands that was getting ready to balloon out of control. It takes two words to name it and one word to describe it and two more words to explain its cause:

The name: Eric Payne.

The description: Father.

The cause: Her actions.

For what happens next, check in tomorrow for When A Father Attacks: The Catch-22...part two of this four-part series running through July 3.

Two Fridays ago my son turned 13 years old. We took him and five of his friends to Six Flags Great Adventures and celebrated his official entrance into teenage life. Three years ago I remember telling him, "You're one of the sweetest kids I've ever known...stay that way." He asked me what I meant and I went on to explain he was the funniest, most genuine, polite, friendly young man I'd ever met and I didn't want him to lose any of this as they are potent character strengths for success in life.

Now he's thirteen and he's not so sweet anymore. My son is quite the looker, a young man who has the young girls flocking to him. Unlike me when I was his age, he seems to be turning into a ladykiller (when his hair is cut, his clothes are ironed, and he doesn't smell). I tease him that he will be the king of the first date as he still hasn't mastered eating a meal without wearing his food on his face, hands and a decent amount of his clothing. Lately, his favorite response to my teasing is, "whatever". And "whatever" probably best describes his disposition on everything except Wii, xBox and Jordans.

I've mentioned in several posts that on most days I daydream about choking him, throwing rocks at him, and generally torturing him, probably because I'm not anything close to the disciplinarian my father was when he reared me. But I love my son for who he is and who he is not, what he aspires to be, what he chooses not to be and what he cannot be. He is a young black man in training and I expend a lot of mental energy making sure most of my words to him are worthwhile, and all my lessons truly are lessons. But I also like to have plain old fun with him.

These are the thirteen things about him turning thirteen that perplex, inspire, elate and deflate me.

1. His room is clean only on the day he cleans it.
2. His room smells like burning onions and musty feet.
3. He can send 300 text messages in two weeks time or less.
   
4. He exercises regularly and does his best to eat right.
5. During the week he asks me how my day went --- everyday, without fail.
6. He still wants to do things with me and loves spending time with his family.
7. We talk superheroes, sports, cars and Sponge Bob, Avatar, and Ben 10.
8. Sex.
9. He's picked up my penmanship and every once in awhile, I hear my words coming out of his mouth when he's correcting others.
10. He's polite in public and holds doors open for women.
11. He's my wife's little man, and my daughter's Big Brother.
12. He asks me first about questionable movies, music and television shows and has the discernment to know what is inappropriate despite his belief that he's grown.
13. He's doing a great job being a great kid.

This list could go much longer, but number 13 sums it up. I'm doing best to keep it this way.

Check out the latest poll in the right-hand column of the page (hopefully I'll get this right this time). How young is too young for your kid, or kids in general, to see an R-rated flick?

Vote and comment. Enjoy. After the poll closes I'll have a related post.

Peace.

I took my son to see The Incredible Hulk on Tuesday night and it truly was incredible. I didn’t mind the fact that he didn’t look completely believable (as Iron Man did) as I’m not sure how you can make a 9-foot tall, bulletproof, barefoot, shirtless, green man with more muscle than most countries look believable under any circumstances. Now that Marvel is producing their own films there is a certain realism that they are injecting into superhero movies that just didn’t exist before --- such as the abject horror splayed across the faces of the soldiers who came face to face with a 9-foot tall, bulletproof, barefoot, shirtless, green man who was toppling Humvees, ripping cars in half, downing gunships and roaring like a lion.

Anyway.

The Hulk and Abomination (Hulk’s adversary in the flick) wind up in this climatic battle sequence on 125^th Street, Harlem U.S.A. They lay waste to the street, interesting enough avoiding the Apollo Theatre, all of the new big box stores and overpriced condos that have sprung up thanks to gentrification. And as with any action flick, all hell breaks loose in front of innocent bystanders and what do they do? They run into the trouble, rather than from it. Abomination knocked a handful of people about a city block away from him. Hilarious. Michael K. Williams a.ka. Omar Little of The Wire ran outside onto the street and ran back inside the doorway he emerged from as soon as he saw the chaos. Tankers were blowing up, people were standing around screaming and traffic continued to head toward the chaos. Even a soldier tried to drive away from the scene in reverse with only three wheels on his vehicle versus just getting out and running for his life.

I thought all of this was hilarious. Not because I've seen it at this point dozens of times, but because this time most, if not all of the innocents were black folk. And here's the thing with black folk: we run --- like hell --- at the first sign of trouble. And I'm speaking from personal experience as a person who, as a younger man, attended large outdoor events where too many people were around too many other people. Things go wrong (as they do at all large events) and everyone, including this me, runs like hell.

Which brings me back to the movie.

Had one 9-foot tall, 1,100-pound green behemoth been fighting a 10-foot tall behemoth in present day Harlem, I humbly suggest that this would be the scenario:

• Anyone not driving a Cadillac Escalade or a vehicle with 20+ inch rims would abandon their cars without hesitation.
• Everyone on foot would run like the wind away from the chaos.
• People would kick windows out of buses trying to get off them if they were stuck in traffic.
  
• Any and every cabbie spotted going North, South, East or West of Harlem would be pulled out of their car by mobs, and once people finished fighting each other to get inside the empty cabs, at least 8 people would pile in to go North, South, East or West of Harlem (whether they knew how to drive or not).
• Several cats would bring their lawn chairs to the rooftops of their buildings and watch the festivities on the street. Some of these individuals would even probably begin smoking weed or have a forty with them just to make the whole scene more palatable (or exciting).
• The few illegal street vendors still around would pack up their goods faster than they do when NYPD does sweeps and descend into the nearest subway.
• Mothers and fathers would either drag their children down the street by their arms yelling at them the whole way to "c'mon!" or push their babies full speed in their strollers, making sure their shopping bags were still hooked onto the stroller handles.
• And then a few, because of pride or machismo, would defend their homestead by any means necessary. And they would die.
  

This is just my take on things. I won't say more because I'll give away the rest of the movie for those of you who actually want to see it. I don't believe in spoilers.

This is completely random and has nothing to do with fatherhood, being a man, or a husband.

I simply couldn't resist.

A recent Newsweek article speaks directly to me and what this blog has become for me: therapy. All of us manage our daily crises differently and I do believe we all experience aberrations in our personalities and characters from time to time based on societal influences, personal issues, etc. Unfortunately, we've come to loosely term those who are unable to manage these experiences as crazy. It's a word I often use comically referring to others and sometimes my life, and quietly I view myself as occasionally nuts. Before the blog, I was bottling up a lot. Now, I've become pretty efficient at letting things roll off my back...most things.

Now that Makes Me Wanna Holler has been up for a few months, I'm getting a steady flow of comments on the stuff I muse over. Yesterday, I wrote a general post (and associated poll) regarding a subject that's close to me at the moment. As therapy. As most bloggers know you can control what you want the world to see. Surprisingly, but I guess, not so surprisingly you began to comment. My gut reaction was to leave the post as one that couldn't be commented on, but blogging is about open discourse and in the essence of the forum I didn't want to shut that down. There was a difference of opinion that began to develop and there's nothing wrong with that. Variety, as they say, is the spice of life.

The Newsweek article concludes with the suggestion that it's okay to share as long as you don't share too much and it has been become clear to me that I shared too much on yesterday's question/poll. People sometimes do things without thinking of the repercussions or the feelings that might get hurt. Yesterday and today I am guilty of this error in judgment. With that said, I've taken down the post and in front of all, I apologize to my wife --- the mother of my children --- my best friend --- and unfortunately as of late, my foe. I am sorry for hurting you (should you happen to visit again anytime soon).

For those of you who voted and commented. Thank you, please continue to visit, vote and comment. Keep your eyes peeled for something on the light side. And until I come up with another question, stay tuned. A printer whom I do business at work told me this morning, "The good Lord'll take care of ya, so don't worry about anything and enjoy life." He's an older man with perspective.

I'll take that perspective with a side of fries on the side.

Peace.

Monday's post was from a single woman who poignantly shared her thoughts on successful fatherhood based on her wealth of knowledge and personal experiences with her father and her family.

Now I'd like to hear from the single fathers and a married moms who visit Makes Me Wanna Holler. What is your take on successful fatherhood? Reply in the comments section at the bottom of this post with a brief essay (no more than 600 words) of your thoughts, feelings, opinions, etc., and I will post the one (1) best single dad submission I receive as well as the one (1) best married mom submission I receive with full credit to you, a one sentence bio, and a link to your website (if you have one).

Peace.