Dance Monkey, Dance!

I had a good conversation with my dad.  A nice change.  Our conversations usually go something like this:

"Just calling to see how you are doing boy"

"Oh I'm doing good, you know"

"Oh, good"

"yep.  Just working, the usual."

"How's Emily?"

"She's good."

"Still like living with her?"

"Yep"

"Doing ok on money?"

"Making it"

"You sound bored"

(sigh) "Nope dad, not at all"

"Well, since you are bored I guess I'll let you go"

"Not at all, but it's your call dad"

"I just wish you'd call me more, is all"

"Sure dad, sorry"

"Seriously, give me a call sometime"

"Ok dad"

"I love you son"

"I love you too dad..."

But today, it was different, satisfyingly.

It was normal.  He grilled for me, thinking cheap beef patties and ball park franks would get me over to the house.  They did.   He even bought relish, a rare extravagance for my father.

Nice thing was my mother wasn't there, so there was no bickering.  No competition for my attention.  No teenage gossip from my parents about each other.  No using me against one another.  It's a nice change.

(I hope moving to Atlanta will allow my parents to grow up and get a divorce, finally.  They probably can't afford it though, in all honestly.  The sad truth of our economy is that divorce is like it was a hundred years ago.  Forbidden.  This time by the bank instead of the state and society.  Who knew it would turn out like this.  But there it is, in the new age of corporate fascism.  Of indentured servitude.  Of slaves who don't know they are slaves.  But we have such high standard of living! Cry the opposition.  For now, says I)

Instead, it was just him and me.  Just father and son.  First, it was:

"What do you want to watch boy?"

The television was turned on coverage of the Casey Anthony trial just settled.

"Anything but this bullshit" I said, after swallowing my food.

"You know," my father said, "I'm glad she was found innocent"

I looked at my father.

"They didn't have anything on her"

"Doesn't matter" I said, taking a large bite of my burger.

Silence again, as I chewed.

"Just another distraction from the corporate media:" I said stuffing the food in one cheek so I could enunciate.

"Oh I agree, definitely."  My dad said, finding the remote under one of the dogs, panting from a long game of catch.

He switched the channel to an episode of "Ice Road Truckers" and explained the premise to me.  A short discussion of the degradation of the history channel ensued.

He changed it again to the most recent episode of "Real Time w/ Bill Maher", and episode featuring the ever-present voice of the right-wing Ann Coulter.

We watched it for a while.  During the watching there was interludes of "Talk boy!" from my father.  Eventually he sparked conversation with:

"I'm glad the space program is finally shutting down."

My mind reeled.  My dad was once the president of a union.  His working class liberalism is the source of my youth oriented anarchism.

"I don't think that's a good thing at all Dad, to be honest."

"All the space program has given us is Memory Foam" my dad said, laughing, sure of himself in this argument.

I stumbled a bit.

"But, but...  Listen, the space program..."

I searched my mind for the perfect words.  This is what came out:

"We are but a species on this planet.  3.2 billion years ago, somehow a single celled organism emerged and from that species of bacteria, we eventually evolved.  And our advantage was intelligent.  And for better or worse, we used the intelligence to reshape and redefine our world completely.  And in 1969 a species that came to be on the planet Earth stepped foot on a celestial body foreign to intelligent life.  Members of our species stepped foot on a surface life was never meant to be on.

That is the greatest achievement in the history of life on Earth.  But we must continue our reach.  We must continue towards Mars and beyond.  Because if we survive the energy crisis and nuclear doom, our ultimate challenge billions of years from now will be the expansion of the sun and the destruction of our home world.  And if we are able to survive and fund things that are beyond our time here, we can survive forever, perhaps, as a species."

"But what happens to the other six billion of us here?" my father asked.

"We die, of course."

"So why care?"

"It's the only thing to care about!  Why did you allow me to live, why did you allow me to live when it meant sacrificing your own quality of life?  Because there is something greater than ourselves.  And it isn't God.  It's the human race."

My dad, without saying anything, went off to the restroom and returned several minutes later.

"The thing about humans" I continued, "is that we are the result of billions of years of evolution.  And we are going to be a species that is one day capable of recreating our own brain completely.  That is, we will know everything about ourselves.  Isn't that amazing?  That evolution is capable of creating a species that will be conscious of itself.  That will create itself virtually.  That will create with machines, humanity has built, a species equal to itself that will live forever, theoretically.

And organically, we can live as well, perhaps.

Our search into the skies is driven by one of the noblest aspects of humanity- curiosity.

And the drive opposite of that, the drive to defend NASA and instead fund wars and Wall Street is driven by the follies of mankind.

So now, and in the future, will reach a choice that will decide the future of mankind.  Expand or die to pettiness.  And I fear the worst." I finished.

My dad's leg was shaking, like mine always does.

"You've convinced me" he said with a smile.

"Why don't you try to be a professor" He said with a hope in his eyes I haven't seen in recent memory.

"There are far cheaper ways of getting things across than that"

"But you said that without stuttering, without condescending.  You said all of that plainly, just like a lecture should be."

"Well..." I said.  I've always been extremely uncomfortable receiving complements.

"Seriously, you've convinced me."

We talked a bit more about college.

"Why don't you tell me a joke, since you want to try stand up?"

"dance monkey dance, huh?"

"The hell does that mean?" my dad said, confused.

"You know, expecting me do to something on command.  Like a monkey."

"Yeah, just do a joke for me"

"Dance..."

"Monkey Dance!" my dad shouted, understanding.

So I did.  I did the best joke from my set and he praised me.

We talked for a while after that, and through the conversation it became clear he was proud of me, even though I haven't accomplished anything tangible.

And I was proud of him, as a father.

It's a nice feeling to have.