News from home about my nephew:

The boy during schoolwork:

Me: “OK, spell ‘here.’”

Boy: “Give me a minute.”

Me: “OK.”

Boy: “I’m trying to picture it in my head.”

long pause, face tightened with effort

Boy: “Nope. There’s nothing in my head but dark.”

and

More interesting notes about the boy, this one regarding how bright he is.

We’re driving to Tae Kwon Do yesterday and I’ve got The Pogues–they’re an Irish band, Mom–on the radio. There’s a moment of silence where he listens to the singer and he says, “That guy isn’t American, is he?”

Big props.

I second that!

This Winter Break i ate a lot of food that is not normally in my diet. A few days ago, my body staged a mini-coup to get me to stop eating, but until I had already had a hand in consuming this:

The pizza is a large pepperoni and mushroom from Two Friends Italian Market; the wings (from top center: Regular Hot, Hot BBQ, 24 Karat Gold, Jalapeno Teriyaki, Spicy Peanut and Shanghai Red) and deep fried pretzels are from Eli’s Tavern – still the best place for wings in the world as far as I’m concerned. Keep in mind this was for two of us – my brother and I, not a party as one might suspect. This was the latest in a long series of dietary abuses that had me in bed for over a day. Ah, but what a way to go! Sadly, I didn’t get a picture of the “Best Reuben in Erie” at McGarrey’s Oakwood Cafe. Next year.

I was overcome by traditional values this holiday and decided to bake cookies with my nephew and brother. This is them decorating the sugar cookies we rolled and cut out:





For a kid who doesn’t like to get messy, he got pretty messy. Oddly, he didn’t like any of the cookies we made (to eat), though he liked making them. Oh! And we made Venom gingerbread men. (Dominic’s favorite villain):





All-in-all, it was a wonderful holiday, but next year I’m going to add an all-you-can-eat salad joint to my list of places to go. It’s sad when a man can’t gorge himself of heavily sauced and deep-fried foods to his heart’s content anymore.

From my brother:

Bro:

Dominic drew this and wanted you to have it.

Also, Dominic says, “Can you make a comic book again, please? SpiderMan. I want it to be Dr. Octopus and I want it to tangle Spiderman up and then I want the Green Goblin to punch him and I want you to write POOM! ‘cuz the building I want thme in is very old and part of it blowed up and I want it to be Venom in it putting his web in SpiderMan’s face and then SandMan going around SpiderMan to make him so dizzy.”

Well, there it is. I have a feeling now that the drawing was just to butter you up. The kid does, indeed, know some angles in life. Good luck.

(I told him that you’re in school and might not be able to get to this right away.)

Scott

I won’t be able to get to it for another week or so, but I will do it for him. The kid really does know how to get what he wants.

From my brother:

So Dominic and I are playing today.

D: Let’s do that scene in Spider-Man.

Me: Which one?

D: The one with the Green Goblin on the balcony.

Me: There aren’t that many lines there. Its just him fighting Spider-Man most of the time.

D: No, the scene with MJ.

Me: When MJ is going to fall off the balcony?

D: No. She’s on the edge of the balcony.

Me: Right, where the Green Goblin kills those guys with that bomb?

D: No, the Green Goblin has MJ here (puts arm out) and those people here (puts other arm out).

Me: Oh! That’s not a balcony, little man; that’s a bridge.

D: Oh.

Me: Yeah, he had MJ and those kids on the bridge, right? At the end?

D: Right.

Me: Where he gave Spider-Man a Sadistic Choice. Can you say “Sadistic Choice”?

D: “Sadistic Choice.”

Me: Good.

D: OK. Let’s do that scene.

Me: I don’t know the lines from that scene.

D: (no pause) Me neither.

I really wonder who this kid is going to turn out to be one day.

Via my brother

So Dominic and I are playing “Castle” today. This is a game we play with his castle and teams of knights set up. One player picks a knight to attack another on the opposing player’s team and then rolls a die. If a 1, 2 or 3 is rolled, the attacking knight misses. A 4, 5, or 6 yields a hit and the attacked knight dies and is taken out of the game.

The last time we played, Dominic secured a siege ladder to the castle walls using a rubber band. One of the guys got tangled up in it and hung from the walls. He thought that was cool, so now whenever one of my guys bites it, he gets hung from the castle walls.

So today:

D: I’m going to put this up here and any of your dead guys get hung here.

Me: OK. You know, real kings back in the day would do the same thing to their enemies. To teach them a lesson.

D: What lesson?

Me: Don’t fight the king.

D: (confirming tone) Or he’ll destroy you.

Flawless.

Benjamin Ruth of Rebel Comx is making my nephew’s birthday (maybe Christmas, if the timing doesn’t work out) gift this year. I commissioned him to do a poster of Dominic as a Sith Youngling, and so far, it looks like this:

Stunning, right? Ben works as an artist for a gay greeting card company. Keep an eye on him because he’s gonna be famous before too long.

My brother sent me an email that was dictated by my nephew, who apparently loves all things Spider-Man:

Sean:

Dominic has Spider Man questions:

1) Can Sandman be killed?

2) Does Spider Man have a Spider Car like the one you can ride in the arcade in Niagara Falls?



Us

To which I responded:

dear nephew and brother,

so far in the comics, the sandman has only been captured, not killed. i’m not even sure how someone made of sand could be killed. maybe he’ll just get old and die that way. plus, spider-man isn’t big on killing.

and

spider-man never had a spider-car in the comics BUT there was a toy spider-car made for action figures – http://www.megomuseum.com/wgsh/playsets/spidercar.html. however, superman had the supermobile for a while when he lost his powers – http://sayitbackwards.blogspot.com/2007/06/supermobile.html. cool, huh?

oh oh oh! did you see the pictures of the puppies i’m taking care of?

lovelove,

uncle sean

Tired then of my brother as an intermediary, my nephew addressed his questions to me directly:

Uncle Sean:

Thanks. How did Superman lose his powers?

I gave my best answer, only vaguely recalling the origin of the Supermoble and how it tied into the activation of Amazo:

kryptonite dust got caught in the earth’s atmosphere and robbed superman of his powers. he built the supermobile to continue to work for good. the supermobile had all his powers – strength, heat vision, x-ray vision, flight, super breath – and was pretty cool

lovelove,

uncle sean

But Dominic loves Spider-Man, not Superman, so his next email got the conversation back on track:

Uncle Sean:

Why does SpiderMan not have the Spider Car? What if SpiderMan lost his powers? I was just wondering.

Love,

Dominic

*whew*! The kid asks some pretty good questions for a four-year old. My part is to answer them without overwhelming him with information, knowing that the questions will keep coming if he’s unsure about something. Also, I know my brother and Dominic do arts and crafts like their “monster specimen jars”:

…and “Good Guys of Oz”:





…so, I thought he’d be up for an art challenge:

dominic,

peter parker, the guy under the spider-man mask is not wealthy. he usually rides the subway everywhere or walks or rides a bike. a car is too expensive for him. also, in new york, there is a LOT of traffic. imagine if spider-man got stuck in traffic driving to help someone. oh oh! and one of spider-man’s powers is to climb walls, right? it would be hard to make a car climb walls.

HOWEVER, i think YOU should come up with a story about a spider-car then draw it for me. we can read it together the next time i see you

i think spider-man DID lose his powers in the comic book one time. a friend of his, a superheroine called “the black cat” helped him get them back, but i don’t know how he lost them or how he got them back. i’ll ask my friends who love spider-man what happened.

love you THIS MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!

uncle sean

My challenge was ignored, but sure enough, he wanted to know more:

Uncle Sean:

Why did SpiderMan have to lose his powers in the comic book? Spiders never lose their powers.

Love you, too.

Dominic

God, I love this kid! So, I respond:

dominic,

what hapened was the two of spider-man’s foes – the scorpion and tarantula – created a machine that took away his powers. eventually, with the help of the black cat, he got them back. you’re right, spiders never lose their powers, but spider-man was born a person, not a spider. he got his powers through an accident.

lovelove,

uncle sean

I’m sure this kid knows I’m a pushover. He knows his Mom is a pushover, so why should any other adult be different? So he turns the challenge back on me BUT he gives me a script to follow:

Uncle Sean:

Could you make me a comic book of SpiderMan? Can you put The Sandman in it trying to kill Peter but SpiderMan caught him in the net with his Spidercar and then the Green Goblin shows up and Peter tries to catch him but he can’t because his net is all full and Venom shows up and then MJ throws a brick at Venom and he goes “Nnneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” and then SpiderMan tries to kill Dr. Octopus and then there is a fight and Dr. Octopus dies? He thought he couldn’t but he could. And that’s it.

Dominic

I took a few creative liberties because my art skills have gone down the toilet since I stopped practicing years ago, but also because I’m not going to be the one to introduce him to killing and death (even though he seems to have some awareness of it already). I finished the other day and send this back to him:

For which I got back a simple but lovely:

Uncle Sean:

Thank you!

Dominic

(He had me read it to him twice.)

Awwh! And of course, here’s my little superhero dressed up as his hero:

I love this little guy THIS MUCH!!!!!!!!!

My nephew started doing half days of kindergarten this week, but by yesterday, even the novelty of his Batman bookbag had worn off. According to my brother:

School is going well. However, yesterday morning as he shuffled lazily to the car in order to go to school, he said, “Daddy, how many more days of school are there?”

“Uh, Mom didn’t explain this whole thing to you?”

“No.”

“Well, school goes until next Spring. September until June.”

If he had been less tired, I think he would have pulled a look of horror. He’s settling in, I guess.

But after school, they went to the zoo, so everything was good again.

Occasionally, my brother sends me stories about my nephew’s progress in life and, really, just how scarily smart he is. This came in last night from Scott to me and our mom:

A conversation with the boy this evening:

Daddy: “You wanna stop at McDonald’s for some fries as a snack?”

Dominic: “And some chicken nuggets.”

Daddy: “You can have one or the other.”

Dominic: “OK. Nuggets.”

We get to McDonald’s drive through and he sees the sign advertising the toys in the Happy Meal. (He can’t read, but he can figure this out, for sure.)

Dominic: “Can I get a Happy Meal?”

Daddy: “No, you’ve already had dinner. This is just a snack.”

Dominic: “Daddy, do you know what they call nuggets with no fries?”

Daddy: “What?”

Dominic: (pointedly) “A Sad Meal.”

My son. Your nephew. Your grandson.

The kid cracks me up.

My brother sent me this email today about my nephew:

Hee hee hee hee.

I was rolling in the car tonight on the way back to Dominic’s house. He’s been having the Bible read to him at night and I asked him how it was going.

“Good.”

“Did you get to the flood story yet?”

“The one with Noah’s ark, yeah.”

“Did you like it?”

“Yeah.”

I asked him some questions about the two birds and all that and then said:

“Did you know that there’s another story just like that about a flood?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, except in this other one Noah is called Utnapishtim.”

“Why’s he called Utnapishtim?!?!?!?!?!?”

He pronounced it properly and his enunciation was so perfect that I started laughing my ass off. It was cute as hell. I explained why his name was different, yeah. He wasn’t proud of himself for having said it right. He just kept saying it over trying to get me to laugh again.

I asked him, “Do you remember which animals Noah took?”

“All of them. Except the unicorns were goofing around.”

*pause*…”Is that why we don’t have unicorns anymore?”

“Yeah.”

God, I love that kid!

My brother Scott has some great new pieces up! The first is called “Luna Negra”, and the second is called “The Nightmare of Teeth”. To see more of his art go to his (still-being-built) website www.daedalusrose.com or his myspace page.

Christmas is always a joy for me, but ever since my nephew Dominic has been old enough to rip through wrapping paper like a tornado through Kansas, it’s been that much more special. Christmas is for kids. Having a kid around makes the holiday even better. Here I have a video of Dominic and my brother looking for me during round 100 or so of “Hide & Go Seek”. I’m in my Mom’s closet (go figure…) peeking out through the crack. Notice how even though Dominic has a sword in hand, he is the first to skedaddle when I leap out yelling. Heh. Heh.

Oh, and sorry for the dark quality. I’ve put a (flashed) picture below.