Last, summer (or was it the summer before?) my mother showed up unannounced. She said she gave me a heads up but I told her since you flew across the Atlantic, calling from New York City after you land is not considered a "heads up." What followed was a week of unplanned dinners and outings followed by a second week of unplanned dinners and outings in NYC folowed by a wedding (not mine).
I only recently found my cache of notes/posts from that period. On the eve of yet another family outing (this time half-way around the world) I present Two Weeks of My Mother on Twitter v2.O. (OK, OK this time they were facebook posts, primarily because I needed more characters to describe the madness.) Overall though Ive got to cut her some slack since she's in her early 80s and not early 70s as I had thought.
Got confirmation that my Mom will touchdown in NYC June 15th. Right now she is in Paris trying out her mothering logic on my younger brother. It's like a test run. via Facebook ... ... ...
So it begins. My mother landed in NYC on the 15th — though I can't be sure because she hasn't called, or e-mailed or texted. And of course her cell phone is turned off. You know if the tables were turned I'd get an earful. I guess this is payback.
via Facebook
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Mom is still MIA, or maybe my siblings like keeping me in the dark. Then again they've assimilated the European lifestyle so maybe they're on holiday too. That means I'm free for the 4th. via Facebook ... ... ...
So I found Mom. (who is OK, thanks for asking) But I can't call her back because she keeps calling and leaving 20+ minute messages. Nothing coherent. Just ambient noise of breakfast being eaten. Hang up Mom (and chew with your mouth closed...) via Facebook ... ... ...
"So what do you want to do Mom?" Upon where she answers "I don't know, you decide." Of course I'll make a decision and hours into our outing she'll whisper, "This is not what I really wanted to do."
via Facebook
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My sister worries since my Mom will often walk into a room and forget why she came, I.e. to fetch/do something specific, she may be developing some memory loss. I respond by saying, what we were we talking about again?
via Facebook
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Running around the neighborhood with the iPad in tow to prove to my Aunt that the range of her Verizon FiOS signal is not infinite - and thus she is NOT supplying access for the whole county. via Facebook
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So I find out from my Mom why it's so hard to build the family tree. Laotians didn't have/use last names prior to WW2. So had I been traveling the country at that time and people asked me who I was I would have had to say, "I'm Monirom, son of Sopsaisana, of the tribe that has indoor plumbing and electricity. We come in peace." via Facebook ... ... ...
She comes across the Atlantic...to buy an iPad.
via Twitter
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Why my Mom got stopped by the TSA: because she insisted on bringing an 833g Box of "After 8" Mints across the Atlantic. (833g is the size wholesalers sell to catering companies) Apparently when they melt inside the box, the density is close to peanut butter, or plastic explosives. via Facebook
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My mom remarks Wow you look great. Have you lost weight - if you don't visit your aunt before she dies - you'll be sorry. that's 1 sentence.
via Facebook
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So I call my Mom, who was up until 4am, to get the initial call/guilt over with. And she goes, "Don't call me on the cell, it costs a fortune." and hangs up. This is why I have great powers of deduction. via Facebook ... ... ...
My aunt tells me I should be grateful my mother gave up a night of cards with the Lao women because she loves me. So guess where we are? I'm surrounded by cackling Lao women who believe the louder you yell the more powerful your message. Cards are flying, babies shrieking, toddlers playing fisher price slam dunk, preteens inhaling helium etc. Even my cousin Tray had the good sense to cut and run.
According to Dante I'm in the first ring.
via Facebook
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Countdown to my first (ever) road trip with my Mother (no kidding). Be glad I wont be drexting.
via Facebook
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First know I love my mother before reading this missive: I'm at the intersection of BFE and Where the F Are We — being given driving tips by a woman who has never operated a motor vehicle in her life — who is being assisted by a woman who knows the city of NYC but speaks no English.
via Facebook
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She stops me before I leave to have me clarify my itinerary and purpose. I ask if she would like to accompany me to visit my friend Anne in Pearl River, NY. I'm ready to go! she exaults. Then when informed my friend Anne is neither my girlfriend nor fiancé — and thus we are not likely to get married. My mother declines in favor of the Hall of Science in Queens.
Congratulations, you got through my four-post diatribe on the Vietnam War. Sorry to put you through the wringer. In exchange for taking up so much of your reading time, today we're going to be addressing something a bit less taxing. Marvel Comics.
... ... ... IMAGE CREDITs: Captain America by Joe Quesada ... ... ...
STOP READING, TURN OFF THE LIGHT AND GO TO BED!
One thing my parents never had to worry about when I was growing up was getting me to read. I was absorbing the English language faster than they could provide me with stimulus. I read everything I could get my hands on. Part of it was my natural curiosity about this life, this perspective and this country I was not privy to. Sure I went to the American School in Vientianne but, I really didn't fit in — I was the perpetual "new" kid.
The American kids talked about TV shows that never showed up on my television and they ate processed foods my mom never brought home. The closest I ever got to processed foods was Coca-Cola, Cornflakes, hot dogs and tuna fish. These treats were verboten unless I was having a birthday party or some other event which required the attendance of other kids who would not eat Lao, Thai or Vietnamese food.
Let me put things into perspective for you — I did not discover cheese until I was ten years old.
I remember once coming home and regaling my mother about this new food called "potato chips." I just had to have some in my lunch. Never-mind that my mother made my lunch from scratch with fresh ingredients that were wholesome, delicious and good for me. I had to have those potato chips. So while I was fast asleep my poor mother peeled and deep-fried the type of gourmet potato chips one now finds at food emporiums such as Whole Foods or Balducci's. Needless to say, the next morning I regaled her with all the reasons I could not take these homemade and inferior chips to school for fear of losing face. (In actuality I didn't use the word inferior— I used one of those "get your mouth washed out with soap" words that ryhmes with "shmitty") All I can say is thank god my mother is a patient woman — otherwise I might have been smacked so hard I'd be the only kid in grade school wearing dentures. I have other processed food stories but, lets get back to Marvel Comics.
For me Marvel Comics gave me social currency, it addressed all the father-son dynamics that existed in my relationship with my father and — they were just fun to read. Remember being a kid in the 70s meant you rode bikes and you went swimming and played with toys that required a heck of a lot of imagination. There was no one sitting around at Kenner or Hasbro at that time insisting that kids needed an action figure with poses and outfits for every occasion. You had GI Joe and that was it. He had a million accessories but, only one kung-fu grip. There were no extended hours in front of the TV. Video games as we know them today had not even been invented yet.
Between the library books, the translated Tintin books and Marvel Comics I was never without reading material. I came to know characters like Captain America, the Submariner, Thor, Spiderman and the Silver Surfer. Over time I was able to distinguish between drawing styles and writing styles. I gravitated towards the work of Jack Kirby and eventually John Byrne.
Without a steady stream of material (my father used to bring them back with him in sporadic intervals after "business" trips) I eventually began to imitate the illustrators and over time — design my own comics. That planted the seed, that somewhere out in the undiscovered country known as America, people were getting paid to draw pictures in little boxes with word balloons. Thats what I wanted to do for a living. In the end I didn't end up at Marvel or DC, I ended up in design, advertising, PR and now mobile/app design for iphone, ipad, android, blackberry etc. But, there are days when I would drop everything for a gig at Marvel Comics — should they come knocking.
Until then here's what I promised you in the headline, the arcane and sometimes intriguing facts about Marvel Comics (the Company):
Michael Jackson once came close to owning Marvel. According to Stan Lee's former business partner, Peter Paul - who was jailed in 2005 for stock fraud - Jackson agreed to buy Marvel on Lee's behalf. Paul had met Lee in 1989 and had brought him onboard the American Spirit Foundation, a charitable organisation he ran with the actor James Stewart. Spotting the worth of Marvel's superhero properties, Paul hatched a plan to bring in investors to buy Marvel and install Lee as company's head. In 1991-92, he put together a Japanese/American investment group and approached Marvel's owner, Ron Perelman. with an offer to buy the company for about $28 million. Perelman decided instead to take Marvel public. Paul tried again several years later, this time lining up Jackson as an investor. Jim Salicrup, a former Marvel editor who was present at the meetings Jackson had with Lee and Paul, remembers Jackson saying to Lee: "If I buy Marvel, you'll help me run it, won't you?" Paul said that Marvel's owner at the time, Ike Perlmutter, was unwilling to take less than $1 billion for the company and Jackson eventually lost interest. Stan Lee has a different take on Jackson's interest in Marvel. "I had been to his place in Neverland ... and he wanted to do Spider-Man," he told MTV News in July. "I'm not sure whether he just wanted to produce it or wanted to play the role, you know? Our conversation never got that far along." Lee said that the singer had hoped to buy the rights to Spider-man. "He thought I'd be the one who could get him the rights and I told him I couldn't, he would have to go to the Marvel company."
Casablanca Records helped to create the X-Men hero Dazzler. The record label, which produced hits for Cher, Donna Summer and the Village People, had approached Marvel with the idea of a Disco superhero that they could cross promote. According to Marvel editor Louise Simonson, Casablanca said, "Hey, you make a singer and we'll create someone to take on the persona." However, the collaboration proved fraught and ended with both parties walking away from the deal.
The Pet Shop Boys singer Neil Tennant once worked for Marvel. Between 1975 and 1977, Tennant was an editor at Marvel's UK division, a job that required him to anglicise American spellings and indicate when the more scantily dressed superheroines needed to be redrawn decently.
Jack Kirby, the artist who co-created the Fantastic Four with Stan Lee, was removed from the cover of the Fantastic Four's 20th anniversary issue. The issue's artist, John Byrne, had originally included both Kirby and Lee among the cast of characters squeezed onto the cover but at the behest of Marvel executives Kirby was erased from the final artwork. This may have had something to do with arguments Kirby was having with Marvel at the time over the ownership of his artwork.
The Hulk that appeared in the classic TV series starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno was almost red in colour. In an interview with film website IGN, the show's executive producer, Kenneth Johnson, said: "I asked Stan Lee, 'Man, what's the logic of green? Is he the envious Hulk? Is he green with envy or jealousy?' The colour of rage is red, which I was pushing for because it's a real human colour - you know, when people get flushed with anger." Lee told him that the Hulk had in fact started out grey but due to problems with colour separation, the colour printed differently each time it was used. "Our printer came to us and said we can do a pretty consistent green, so we decided to go with green," Lee said. Thus the Hulk was coloured green from issue two of the Incredible Hulk onwards, although without any explanation. On hearing this, Johnson remembers telling Lee: "That's not really very organic! But that was a battle I could not win. I couldn't make the Hulk red because he was just too iconic already in the comic books."
FOR THE BALANCE OF THE FACTOIDS: Enjoy the work of the Designers at the Online school who have illustrated some of the 70 Facts You didn't Know About Marvel Comics (below) and if you can put down the processed food long enough to click the mouse a second time read the full list at the Sunday Times.
My mother came to visit a few weeks ago. This was a bit awkward because we had never been given a chance to build a bond when I was growing up. The last time we spent a significant amount of time with each other, excluding short vacations, I was nine. Regardless she still dotes on me and loves me unconditionally. Of course, she still thinks I'm nine years old. During the visit I documented our time together, on Twitter and Facebook, which turned out to be very humorous — for my friends. If you missed it here's a recap. Keep in mind that at 77 years old, she is at the age where she doesn't do anything she doesn't want to and really doesn't care what anyone thinks about her or her behavior. It must be very liberating.
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I'm pretty sure today is Fathers Day. Which explains why my Mom is driving me crazy. Sun Jun 20 19:02:43 2010 via TweetDeck ... ... ...
Not all men who drink are poets. Some of us drink because we are not poets. (or because our mother is visiting) Sun Jun 20 19:18:20 2010 via TweetDeck ... ... ...
My mom just dropped by with only 20 minutes notice. Berated me about all the beer (left over from last weeks crab feast) in my fridge, told me that I was getting too fat and then proceeded to ask me what I wanted her to cook when she comes back on Wednesday — with luggage in tow. She will eventually watch me eat. Then insist I have seconds. June 20 at 8:47pm via facebook ... ... ...
What does an Asian mother bring to an overnight visit? 1 toiletry bag, 1 rolling suitcase, her meds AND; 2lbs each of pork, beef, turkey, 5lbs of raw papaya (shredded), 8 packages of rice noodles, 3lbs of uncooked rice, bamboo shoots, ginger, coconut milk, fish sauce, sea salt, mushrooms, shrimp and a host of green leafy vegetables. June 23 at 11:25pm via facebook ... ... ...Fighting the urge to grab a burger since it will infringe on the god-given right of the visiting mother to cook for her son. June 24 at 12:14pm via TweetDeck ... ... ...Did I mention I'm feeling out of place because I can't speak my native language? Such shame. June 24 at 3:30pm via TweetDeck ... ... ...Oh look MSG in 5 kilo bags. Need to stock up! June 24 at 3:31pm via TweetDeck ... ... ... Did I mention 51 varieties of ramen and 30+ kinds of fish sauce? I stopped counting. June 24 at 3:44pm via TweetDeck ... ... ...244,550. The number of journal pages my dad was purported to have filled in his lifetime. I think my Mom needs a new calculator. June 24 at 5:18pm via TweetDeck ... ... ...When your spry 72 yr old mom (my bros. and I were a surprise) says she can hack it walking in DC heat — you should drive. (especially when you find out she's really 77) June 25 at 1:26pm via TweetDeck ... ... ...At 72 yrs old my Mom has no filter and says what she thinks,"Enhanced." "Boobs that big can't exist on a body that small." June 25 at 1:34pm via TweetDeck ... ... ...2nd to Last MOM post of the day. I give the counter woman that "We're not related" look when she questions her about why it costs $22 to hem a pair of khakis. She's not even inquiring for me, she's asking so the guy in front of me won't get ripped off. That guy gives me the Bill Clinton "I feel your pain look." June 25 at 2:59pm via Facebook ... ... ...I get my turn at role reversal. I tell my Mom, "If you don't know what you're looking for close the damn fridge we're not cooling the entire neighborhood." June 25 at 3:00pm via TweetDeck ... ... ...Being forced to watch a Thai soap opera. Regardless of language its all the same; secret babies, cheating spouses and lots of bitch slaps. June 25 at 8:04pm via TweetDeck ... ... ...Just been told my last name, already 14 letters long, is missing an N at the end. Apparently they had form-field issues in 70s INS apps. June 28 at 11:02am via TweetDeck ... ... ...Week 2 of the Mother visit. She returns my iphone telling me its broken. (uh Mom you have to charge the phone overnight). June 28 at 1:30pm via TweetDeck ... ... ...Saying "excuse us" to strangers at the grocery store because my mother refuses to move the cart to one side or the other. What is holding her up is if we should buy 2 or 3 cucumbers. Only reason we are buying cucumbers? She thinks the lettuce is too expensive. June 28 at 7:17pm via Facebook ... ... ...Showed my mother how Twitter and Facebook work. Now everytime I pick up the iphone she gives me the evil eye. June 29 at 6:03pm via TweetDeck ... ... ...Just realized my mothers partial deafness is in whatever ear that is facing me at the time. June 29 at 6:11pm via TweetDeck ... ... ...Opened up the dishwasher to find out my loving mother emptied it while I was away. Then I noticed she rearranged tthe cupboards. She said it's just a tweak. She also REFOLDED my laundry. She is so lucky she cooked dinner too. June 29 at 7:32pm via Facebook ... ... ...Tried to explain the appeal of the XBOX360 to my 72 year old Mom using Call Of Duty. Her response, "This makes no sense to me. Why do you have kill everyone?" June 29 at 8:48pm via Facebook ... ... ...My Mom: "Why are we in washington? I've seen all this before." June 30 at 12:22pm via Facebook
... ... ...Graphic Tee shopping for my nephews with Mom. She hates everything I show her. I tell that's exactly why my nephews will love 'em. June 30 at 3:48pm via Facebook ... ... ...Mom: Everything in the USA is so expensive says my mom re: the euro/dollar exchange rate. Then we walk by Williams Sonoma and all is forgotten. June 30 at 4:34pm via Facebook ... ... ...My mother disapproves of my choice of ride. So impractical. She enjoys herself none the less. Here we're visiting her "other" son. June 30 at 6:31pm via Facebook
... ... ...Asian mothers are like Jewish mothers, always trying to introduce you to your future wife. July 1 at 6:23pm via TweetDeck ... ... ...I'm convinced that my mother has changed her time-table from "please get married in my lifetime" to "please do so before my flight takes off." July 1 at 6:25pm via TweetDeck ... ... ...We've put in excess of 200mi on the car, visited my future wife, where she works and the Chocolate factory, had lunch at RAKU, visited my cousins in North Bethesda (for dinner), caught fireflies, eaten too much, drank too much and now — at almost midnight, my Mom believes the perfect ending to such a long day is to cook up a batch of soup — from scratch. Oy. July 1 at 11:55pm via facebook ... ... ...My Mom asks me to confirm her flight online. Done. She asks me to check her in online. We need to wait until 5pm (24hrs) She asks me to confirm her reservation. We try for almost an hour — no success. Only after wards does she tell me that maybe we can't sign in online because on her SFR instructions it specifically say...s she can only check in: IN PERSON. July 2 at 10:21am via facebook ... ... ...People get into fights w/ their loved ones before they leave to make the separation easier to bear. My Mom cooks. Constantly. Since 6 am. July 2 at 10:42am via TweetDeck ... ... ...My Mom she believes the longer-than-usual shower she took this morning caused the water main break. July 2 at 3:24pm via TweetDeck ... ... ...My mom asks me if I know the name of the young guy who plays basketball for that team who got a really good salary signed right out of college. My response: uh, no. Mom could you be more specific? My Mom's response: "He's Black." July 2 at 3:53pm via facebook ... ... ...Last night my mother ate all the cookies in my pantry that were about to "expire." July 2 at 4:15pm via TweetDeck ... ... ...Just found out my Mom is 77 not 72. She said she never corrected me all these years because she liked how it sounded. Now I apparently owe her five belated birthday presents. July 2 at 5:16pm via TweetDeck ... ... ...Guess who just relieved the restaurant of all of it's sugar packets, napkins and any condiments not nailed down? Hint: she gave birth to me. - Going to need to leave a very big tip. July 2 at 8:22pm via Facebook ... ... ...1/3 United employee assumes my quinlingual mother is an idiot since her English has a lilt. Shoos her away from checkin kiosk. #unitedFail July 3 at 2:50pm via TweetDeck ... ... ...2/3 Undaunted my 77yr old mother waits in the checking line - desk attendant tells her next time she should use the kiosk #unitedFail July 3 at 2:52pm via TweetDeck ... ... ...3/3 Learning of previous slight, new attendant apologizes, offers 2 assist in a choice of language. My mom continues conversation in FRENCH. July 3 at 2:57pm via TweetDeck
... ... ... Prior to boarding her return flight to France, my mother says good by to her/my Facebook friends — in French.
