First Friends…

Two years ago, probably around this time of year even, I met a dude who really helped me get out of a very dark place. Greta was just entering the terrible twos, Mrs. Yeti was desperately trying to get the hang of the delicate work/kid balancing act that has since become her life and I was literally drowning in my newfound role of primary care giver. And though I never did anything really crazy to myself or Greta (thank God!) there were days when I felt like Luke Skywalker facing the darkness of his soul in a hollowed out tree on Degobah. All kidding aside, it got pretty hairy.

I loved Greta with all my heart (and still do, of course) but, there were days when I’d sit and stare at the calendar and think: this is it. What you are doing today is the same thing you’re going to be doing tomorrow and every other day after that until you kid goes to school. Dishes. Diapers. Bottles. Repeat. I felt like I was on a punishing loop with no end in sight.

I tried talking to people about how I felt (family and friends mostly) and I think a few of them actually understood what I was trying to say. But, even with them I held things back for fear of sounding too whiny or ungrateful. I mean, we had tried for five years to have Greta, how could I even think of complaining about anything now that she was here? Plus, at that stage all most people really want are current pictures and cute little anecdotes about which milestones Greta had reached that week. Which is totally understandable. I mean, I love sharing that stuff too. But, deep down, all I really wanted to talk about was how totally crazy and isolated I felt for like, 90% of my day.

I tried talking about it with Mrs. Yeti many times, but, as I’ve said before, she was on the same sinking ship that I was. Except she got much less sleep and had to work a full time job on top of everything else. Probably the best thing Mrs. Yeti ever did for me was to tell me, point blank that she did not have time for my problems. And while it stung at first, I totally got it. I didn’t have time for hers either. It’s like that thing they always say in airline safety videos, put on your own oxygen mask first, then help the person next to you. I know now that she was way too busy fumbling with her mask back then to even think about helping me with mine.

That said, Mrs. Yeti did say something else that ended up really helping me out a lot. “If its really that bad, start a blog. Write about it.” She said. “Or better yet, join a Daddy Meetup group or something.” I ended up doing all three but the thing that really saved me from my crazy-ass self was joining that Daddy Meetup group. As I’ve mentioned before, I had a hard time finding the right fit (yes, I’m talking to you, Burbank/Hollywood Dads!) but once I did, it was awesome.

I joined a group called the West L.A. Stay-At-Home-Dads and even though the Meetups were clear on the other side of town, the guys in the group were the most real, down-to-earth dudes I’ve ever met. There was no bullshit, no egos or Hollywood posturing, these guys were regular working dudes (animators, musicians, stuntmen, graphic artists, even fellow writers) who’d been banging around the industry for a while and were now tackling the hardest job of their careers, being a full time stay-at-home-dad. And even though we rarely talked about anything other than movies or Star Wars — or, more recently, the intricacies and hidden messages embedded in My Little Pony cartoons — the fact that we could all find some time every couple of weeks to hang out with people who truly understood what we were going through was invaluable. Hell, two years later, it still is.

Actually, the meetups today are even better because our kids grew up together, they’ve been friends for almost their entire lives. And the friendships the dads have formed over the past two years are stronger too. We might not have known each other for our whole lives, but, definitely our whole lives as parents, which, often times feels like a lifetime in itself. And though none of us ever really verbalized it, deep down we were all eternally grateful to our “founding father” Corey for starting the group. Most of us were way too busy treading water to even think about stating a Meetup group, but Corey wanted to start “the kind of group he’d want to join” so he built it, and, as the saying goes, we came. In droves!

So it was with a heavy heart that the group said goodbye to Corey and his beautiful daughter Katana on Monday. Corey and his family are moving to the Philippines in a couple of weeks, and though we’re all hoping they come back to L.A. real soon, I’m thinking it might be a while before we share a lazy afternoon chasing after our daughters in our favorite park in Westwood again.

So, thank you, dude. You really did save my life and I will always cherish the many hours and days we spent hanging out in parks all across the Southland with our sweet baby girls (who now insist on calling themselves “big girls”). Katana was and always will be Greta’s first best friend and, despite the miles and timezones between us, you, amigo, will always be mine. Keep on adventuring, brother!

And in case anybody reading this is looking for a stay-at-home-dad group to hang with in the L.A. Metro area, Corey asked me to be in charge of the group now that he’s leaving (here’s hoping I don’t destroy all the good that he’s done!) and you can reach us at our new Facebook Group page here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/WestLAstayathomedads/

So, if you’re interested in joining or know someone who might be, check it out! And thanks again to Corey for starting all this awesomeness…you will be missed, dude.

Inside “The Ricki Lake Show”

Just recently heard the news that The Ricki Lake Show was cancelled a couple of weeks back. As Nelson on The Simpsons might say: “Ha, Ha!” I know that sounds mean, but, now that the show has finally bit the dust — trust me, if you ever watched it, you knew it was inevitable — I can talk freely about what a bad experience actually being on The Ricki Lake Show was. Whew!

Last summer, one of Lake’s producers reached out to a bunch of the guys in my stay-at-home-dads Meetup Group. They were looking to do an in-depth show on the growing trend of SAHD’s. That sounded great to us, so, several of the guys responded to their email query. The next step was to fill out an application stating why we would make good guests on the show. Then came the phone interviews. Yes, I said interviews, plural. All totalled, I think Mrs. Yeti and myself were probably interviewed at least four or five times, a piece, by at least three different people. It was insane.

And while part of the problem was that Lake burned through producers like crazy (I think there were at least three producers hired and fired during the show’s mercifully short run!) and we had to be re-interviewed when the new team came onboard, the real problem was that no one wrote anything down. I’m not kidding, we had to give them the same information dozens of times. I was like: “Hello? Would it kill you to make a file for us on, oh, I don’t know, a computer, perhaps?”

Then we had to shoot a day-in-the-life video of Greta and I doing our thing. As with everything else they demanded along the way, the producers told us we needed to shoot our video and get it to them ASAP. “We needed it yesterday.” were their exact words. So, we busted our hump — actually, my brother busted his hump, we just went about our business while he taped us! — and got them a video in record time. The producer confirmed she got our video, said she loved it and then nothing. For weeks. No calls. No e-mails. Nothing.

Almost a month later, we got a call from a new producer who apparently got our name and contact information from some scribbled notes the former producer left in her office. “[Producer #1] said you guys were a cute couple and that I had to make sure and get you on the show.” Producer #2 said. Flattered, we agreed to move forward. Which meant, you guessed it, more phone interviews where we talked about the exact same stuff we’d talked about before.

Our hook all along was that I wanted to talk about the very real phenomenon of postpartum depression in men. I had been through it — hell, I still go through it! — and I know several of the SAHD’s I hang out with have felt the same way. And while I’m sure some women would call us crazy, I can tell you for a fact that anyone who takes care of a baby all day for any extended period of time feels crazy sometimes. And if they tell you they don’t, they’re lying. It’s the hardest job there is.

Anyway, that was what I wanted to talk about on the show. The isolation that I felt, the depression, the straight-up insanity of it all. And then I wanted to talk about how I got over it. The way meeting and hanging out with other dudes (sorry, ladies, I tried that route too and mostly, I just felt judged) who were in the exact same boat I was, finally lifted me out of the darkness and helped me feel better. Blogging about my experiences totally helped too. It still does!

So, that was our angle. We were the couple with the male postpartum depression. And while I always knew the chances of our story being trivialized or sensationalized on a show like Ricki Lake’s were high, part of me hoped we could actually help people. Or at the very least, help some other crazy shut-in SAHD know that he wasn’t totally alone. That was my hope at least.

What ended up happening was much less exciting. By the time we actually were given a date and time to show up for the taping our episode was called “Blended Families” and the totally random topics on our show were literally all over the place. There was a trash-talking stepmom who hated her stepson, a large group of children whose mom died and left them with their aunt to raise, the gay couple from Tori Spelling’s reality series and their bratty daughter, and then, in the last two segments of the show (which are always the shortest) the producers managed to shoehorn in the topic of SAHD’s. How blended families relate to SAHD’s is beyond me, but, that’s where we ended up.

And then, to add insult to injury, Mrs. Yeti and myself weren’t even allowed to sit onstage with the other SAHD’s. Instead, we were interviewed in the show’s closing seconds from the audience. If you knew how long they spent picking out our clothes (no, we were not allowed to wear our own clothes, crazy, huh?) the fact that you could barely see what we had on made absolutely no sense at all. What a waste of time and effort!

Another highly annoying thing is that they told us not to bring Greta to the taping, but the other two SAHD’s (the ones who got to actually sit on Ricki’s couch!) brought their kids onstage with them. Just kind of annoying.

So, while the first two SAHD’s showed their day-in-the-life videos (neither one of which held a candle to our rocking video, BTW), Mrs. Yeti and I were shuttled into our seats in the audience. And after the next “commercial break” Lake shoved her mic in our faces and interviewed us for maybe two or three minutes. It might have lasted longer had one of the SAHD’s onstage not interrupted me to say that he himself had never felt isolated or judged by SAHM’s. I was so blown away by his totally self-serving comments that I just kinda stood there looking stupid while he talked. But, inside, I was like: “Dude! You had your turn, shut the fuck up!” Grrr!

I checked out his blog later and can safely say that the dude is a first class asshole who gives daddy bloggers a seriously bad name. I mean, come on, man, I’ve got like two minutes to talk to Ricki. Why you gotta interrupt me? Total d-bag!

Luckily for me, the show had an actual doctor sitting in the front row who confirmed that male postpartum depression isn’t just real, but, actually something that several doctors have been studying. Ha! Put that in your blog and suck it, dude on stage! And then, with the clock ticking on the show, Ricki asked Mrs. Yeti if she thought I was a good Dad. Tearing up a bit, Mrs. Yeti replied: “Oh yes, he’s an excellent father!” It was very sweet, and, despite the fact that I was a giggly, sweaty mess, Mrs. Yeti looked absolutely gorgeous onscreen. Seriously, she came off great!

And just like that, the show ended and Lake literally bolted for the door. As far as I know, she never spoke off camera to any of the guests that day. Nice, huh? I understand ditching out on the studio audience, but, come on, would it have killed her to linger a little bit with us backstage? What a joke.

That said, everybody else behind the scenes was lovely. Our “handlers” were great and though the decor and snacks in the green room sucked ass (Three flavors of Pringles? Really?) we still had fun sitting in there eating them with my brother and sister-in-law. And, honestly, it was kinda cool having our names on the green room door even if that green room looked like a single dude’s apartment after a bad divorce. You know: couch, chair, coffee table, Pringles. So lame!

Lamer still was the fact that after all that rush-rush here, rush-rush there, our show didn’t air for another five months. Our episode aired on the Friday before the Christmas break. Yep, it was so bad that they totally buried it. In fact, to give you an idea of just how bad our episode was, Lake’s producers (who had changed AGAIN by the time our episode aired) played the show’s big, fancy Christmas episode the day before our episode. Wow, talk about a lump of coal for Christmas.

Oh, I almost forgot, Lake’s producers did try and do a full episode about SAHD’s later on in the show’s run. They even contacted our Meetup Group again looking for guests — I guess they forgot that most of us had already been interviewed for their show and that Mrs. Yeti and I had even appeared on it! But, this time, no one replied.

So, I repeat: “Ha ha!” Suck it, Ricki Lake…