Listen Up Boys

To all the young gentlemen in the making out there.

I’m going to make this real simple, real short, and rather sweet for all of you. So sit down, shut up, and pay these words your utmost attention.

Treat her good, better than a king would.

Treat her the way you’d treat the most valuable treasure you’ll ever get to touch, which is very delicately.

I take that back.

Treat her like the rarest jewel you have yet to touch and maybe never will.

Try to think of the most priceless creation on God’s green earth. Something like Van Gogh’s Starry Starry Night, the original manuscript of the Magna Carta, the Hope Diamond, the Blood of Christ, or better yet, Jim Morrison’s leather pants.

Treat her more delicate than those things, then times that by eleven-hundred-and-eleven-teen.

Treat her like she’s just been removed from an unkown crypt underneath the Sistine Chapel and chained to your arm by God himself.

Open every door for her, pull out every chair, hold her purse if she needs you too. And if she happens to leave it in hell, go back and get it for her without skipping a beat and like you own the damned place. Stand up every time she enters a room, maybe even bow your head and bend the knee if you need to. Admire her like said Starry Starry Night painting and not just another Pamela Anderson Limited Edition Playboy magazine.

And if you are lucky enough to spend time with her, look as deep and directly into her eyes as you can. Pay close attention to them. Admire how real and ethereal they are. After all boys, her gorgeous eyes lead to her beautiful mind, which leads to her fragile heart, which meanders all the way down to the drenched depths of her loving soul.

Above all—and I am as militant as I am about anything when it comes to this—do not even think about looking at your goddamn phone.

Leave it somewhere else for fucks sake.

I mean this with every last ounce of fire and brimstone forged into the iron of my boiling blood.

Don’t put it in your lap, don’t set it on the table, don’t keep it in your back pocket, don’t make a trip to the bathroom to send your buddy a text.

If you’re lucky enough to be in the presence of her, make it a point to leave the little demon machine tucked away in your glovebox. Then, put your car in neutral, lock the doors, pour gasoline all over it, hold it to candle and set the damn thing on fire, and push it into the nearest body of water. Or just bury it next to Jimmy Hoffa.

Because you, you lucky son of a bitch, are in public with the one of most timeless pieces of art on the face of the earth—on a sovereign loan from the Louvre. You've made it to the big leagues kid, so act like a gentlemen, because the last thing you should ever do is waste her precious time by not giving her your utmost attention.

Admire how the stage lights define the angles of her angelic face. Contemplate on how the curves of her smile light up her cheeks like gentle moonlight. Memorize the way the wrinkles slowdance upon her forehead when she laughs out loud at one of your stupid jokes.

Listen to her with all of your heart. Let yourself drift away to the harmonics of her voice like you’re about to take a maiden voyage upon some cosmic sea with her favorite blanket and a picnic basket filled to the brim with her favorite flavor Boone's Farm and string cheese.

Ask unique questions. Don’t ask the shallow ones. Be original in wanting to learn every intricate detail that makes her soul the most beautiful entity on the face of this godforsaken planet.

Ask her when the last time she felt dragonflies bouncing around her belly was. Ask her who her favorite poet is, or her favorite poem, or if she even likes poetry, period. Ask her who her favorite painter is. Ask what her favorite museum is, and at what time are they expecting her back. Ask her when the last time was that she cried from a place of joy rather than pain. Ask about her dog and where it sleeps. Does it sleep with her in bed between her legs, or on the cool hardwood floor?

Would she rather go skydiving, hiking, snowboarding, snooping around haunted houses and moonlit graveyards in the middle of the night, or is she content just looking for old classic rock n roll records throughout the city, or maybe a new book at her favorite antique bookshop, or just shopping around for something new and sexy to her at her most trusted neighborhood thrift store?

Ask her about her favorite book? What's it about? Who’s her favorite author? Kerouac, Robbins, Hemingway, Coelho, or Bukowski? Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s? Amazon Prime or Target? Smoked barbeque brisket with mac and cheese, or vegan biscuits and gravy? Corn or flour tortillas with her fajitas? Mint chocolate chip, rocky road, or just plain vanilla ice cream? Does she like Widespread Panic or Lana Del Rey? How does she like her heart and soul to be touched? Rough or gentle, or a perfectly balanced combination of both, kind of like the idea behind that whole yin and yang thing.

These fellas, are just a few of all the little details that are so damn important in the grand scheme of everything that makes up the vintage and timeless beauty of her.

And the less you talk all about yourself kid, will only makes things that much better for you in the long haul. Not because you don’t matter. You absolutely do. But because you don’t have to say too much to prove what kind of man you are to her.

The truth is, the fact that you even got her in the same damn ice cream parlor as you, means that she is already paying too close attention to you for her own good in her delicate mind. And she’s been quietly learning what kind of man you are regardless how much you toot your own arrogant horn.

This is because, women, you’ll see eventually, are the most intelligent species on god’s green earth.

That’s not just my opinion kid, it’s 111% a scientific fact.

Recent medical studies that have been going through trials since the Garden of Eden, have eternally demonstrated that the most spiritual, loving, sexual, and structurally complex organism in the whole wide universe is—brace yourself—the mind, body, and soul of a female.

The second most complex cerebral anatomical architectures belong to that of the bottle-nosed dolphin or the wunderpus photogenicus octopus, I think. Or maybe it’s the North American domesticated Calico house cat. Who really knows?

The answer to that is not near as important as her though.

Either way, they’re extremely bright, observant, and will outsmart the shit of you in any given instance.

You’ve been forewarned, so act accordingly young man.

That’s all I’m saying.

But know, she’s watching your every move.

She’s taking notes on how you treat waitresses, senior citizens, cashiers, and children. She's watching how confident your body language is when talking to, and listening to her. She's watching whether or not you fidget with your grammar when you are nervous, or how well you comeback around to the conversation after fumbling with your punctuation right out of the gate. She always listening to how highly you speak of your mother. How you treat all animals. How excited and raucous your voice gets when you talk about the things that you are passionate about.

That’s why I’m writing this kid. Because I can see you, right now, even though you are only nine years old.

In my mind I'm watching you through a window at an ice cream parlor years down the road. You’re a sixteen year old rebellious little shit like I was. Or maybe seventeen—who knows—yet you are dressed to the hilt. You look almost as handsome as your dad, maybe even more;) You’re on a date at said ice cream parlor, next to some bougie Bistro in town that your dad and his buddy just opened up.

A lovely young brunette with marigold embers blooming in her hair, wearing a little black dress made out of biblical material just sat down, and sits across the table from you. But you don’t even see her for who she really is because you're nervous and too busy looking at a distracting digital screen, trying to calm those nerves of yours by texting your best friend about the almost no hitter you pitched in last night’s game.

And as your humble father, I want you to know, you got this. Go flush your phone down the damn toilet. And know that I’m only writing this just in case I'm not around down the road. And I want to tell you not to screw a really good thing up by missing out on one of the most important moments of your life, or just how damn delicious the ice cream is if you patiently savor it.

Which is having the privilege of getting to know, courting, and then maybe, if you play your cards right, being lucky enough to know the love of such a gorgeous, amazing, smart, funny, and delicate creature.

And if you follow these simple directions kid, she might even let you give her a good night kiss on the forehead when the date is over, and forever think of you when she hears this song.

Love,

Dad