Hello – once it again it’s time to put aside the crazy amount of work all of us are doing and perhaps consider doing a little something for rad dad 6. It’s gonna be our biggest one yet, and it’ll be part of a rad dad speaking tour my daughter, her best friend, artnoose of kerbloom! fame and I are going to do during the first 10 days of April. So I’ll be personally delivering copies of it up the coast to Canada…
I’m also considering new ways rad dad might grow and would love to hear ideas from others on directions or experiences with something like this.
As for submissions: really anything that deals with fathering from a feminist, anti-authoritarian, radical bent; sounds more ideological than it is: could be a birth story, could explore how fathering changes our identity or could explore notions of masculinity, or how fathering affects our relationships, our sexuality, how it is a political act, how it alters notions of activism, thoughts on discipline, schooling, gender...
As you can see the topic can easily fit the context of individual writers, drawers, photographers…So we need writers, buyers, distributors, and suggestions for thing we haven’t considered before.
I’d like to have it ready by mid-march.
Remember to come see us if we are in your neck of the woods in April – stay tuned for more info as it becomes settled.
See you in the playgrounds…
tomas moniz
editor and writer
rad dad zine
http://raddadzine.blogspot.com/
tom_moniz@riseup.net
Winner of SF Bay Guardian's Best Local Zine and Utne Magazine's Independent Media Award for Best Zine
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Saturday, January 20, 2007
system error
This is an essay from the latest issue of boxcutter:
Going through her eleven year old's new Christmas purse, Andee exclaims that the entire thing is filled with nothing but technological devices: two tamagotchis, one ipod nano, one nintendo ds, one digital camera, one piggy flashlight, and a game holder with three different games. All of us sitting with her kinda laughed and snickered about `these kids these days,' shaking our heads. `Why do they want all this stuff,' we wondered, but soon we fell eerily silent: three sets of parents, three minds realizing how our kids' worlds are just so different than ours was. For example, my kids all wanted technology for christmas, and my partner and I at first balked, thinking we were gonna give them only books and do-it-yourself science toys; you know Good Toys, but soon we gave way to pleas about what all the other kids were gonna get, and we found ourselves saying, `we might as well just buy them what they want, if we're gonna get them anything at all.' Right? What would you do?
So there we were christmas morning, and under the tree appeared so barren, looked so empty because all the presents were in these little boxes; it looked like they barely got any presents. It seemed so pathetic. By the time we got up, got coffee, got to the sofa, they made these tiny piles in front of them. I suddenly got all worried that they didn't get enough. Perhaps though we were the pathetic ones, so caught up in wanting our kids to be happy, to feel loved, to be satisfied. Because presents do that, right? Why on earth do we bother to give presents at all? I hate it. Not just with kids. I was stressing out trying to find things for the adults in my life. How did I get like this: I, who make things. I, who think of myself as so creative, so anti-corporate -- rushing around the day before christmas, so worried that my lover would not like her jacket or if I spent enough on my partner for fear she spent more. And there sat my kids' little frilly boxes underneath the tree. The only thing that saved the apparent lack of presents was the two gifts I bought basically for myself but wrapped anyway -- a basketball and a board game.
This is a panic created by consumerism and technology, but what should we have done? What would you have done? How to fight it when everyone around you especially your kids is so in to it, is so content to participate in our crazy, self destructive culture? It's easy to blame the youth of today but that is wrong. As for technology, this is what they know; it's not the way we grew up, wanting all these little devices. Were there any devices when we were kids? Yes, walkmans, and soon pagers, but did kids want them like they want a cell phone? So do we just say no to anything because it wasn't the way we experienced childhood (I mean who back then could walk around with an Atari and play it on the bart). We live in a different world. Take myspace which seems the utmost in prefabricated realities where you get a list of a hundred or so friends most of whom you don't know; I immediately want to hate on it, but I also realize that in this world of constant surveillance and monitoring, with a lack of public space to hang out in, without getting hassled, watched, where can kids turn to to reclaim there own autonomy: yep, cyberspace. It may be owned by Rupert Murdoch but it is something that they can create, control, invent, talk smack in, try to foster an identity.
So I try to relax while they rip open their presents; as they each squeal and laugh and scream and shout thank yous, I inwardly smile. A few hours later after the techno stuff is pushed to the side, after the cyber pets are sleeping in their little cyber houses, and the music is turned off because the battery needs to be charged, my daughter asks, `what's this game like?' Soon we are all sitting around playing and laughing together.
And then I opened my other present: the basketball and at the end of the day we all stepped out into the street and played with a ball, a real ball, and with our real dog, and we laughed and got angry and teased each other and had a great old time as the sun set on our real lives. Next year though I promise to do something different.
If you need some game suggestions these games have all been played and enjoyed for hours with our neighbors and friends -- get them because they don’t need batteries:
Dominos -- I got my ass spanked by a student in my english class a few semesters ago and have been wanting a rematch ever since, so when my son and I traveled into the jungle of mexico all we brought were books and a set of dominos -- we had monster games, created new slang for ridiculous decisions we made while we both learned to play. It has been a continued source of pleasure to set up and play in our house. It lasts for about 30 - 45 mins...it's cheep to buy, easy to bring along, and perfect for talkin all kinda smack. Oh and I still lost the rematch...
Gobblet – This is an awesome looking game as well – made of wood and really easily set up and stored. It is like a crazy tic-tac-toe and connect four love child. The object is to get four in a row and you can gobble your opponent in the process. Hella fun and good for all ages and easy to learn.
Blokus – It’s a perfect way to kill an extra 20 minutes between cooking dinner and eating or after bath and before bed. Four people can play and as you get to know it more, you can get more strategic, but it is easy to learn and doesn’t take too long to finish. The main idea of Blokus is to get more of your pieces into play than anyone else. It is kinda like tetrus. Since the rules can be explained and learned in less than two minutes anyone can join in the fun with ease.
Going through her eleven year old's new Christmas purse, Andee exclaims that the entire thing is filled with nothing but technological devices: two tamagotchis, one ipod nano, one nintendo ds, one digital camera, one piggy flashlight, and a game holder with three different games. All of us sitting with her kinda laughed and snickered about `these kids these days,' shaking our heads. `Why do they want all this stuff,' we wondered, but soon we fell eerily silent: three sets of parents, three minds realizing how our kids' worlds are just so different than ours was. For example, my kids all wanted technology for christmas, and my partner and I at first balked, thinking we were gonna give them only books and do-it-yourself science toys; you know Good Toys, but soon we gave way to pleas about what all the other kids were gonna get, and we found ourselves saying, `we might as well just buy them what they want, if we're gonna get them anything at all.' Right? What would you do?
So there we were christmas morning, and under the tree appeared so barren, looked so empty because all the presents were in these little boxes; it looked like they barely got any presents. It seemed so pathetic. By the time we got up, got coffee, got to the sofa, they made these tiny piles in front of them. I suddenly got all worried that they didn't get enough. Perhaps though we were the pathetic ones, so caught up in wanting our kids to be happy, to feel loved, to be satisfied. Because presents do that, right? Why on earth do we bother to give presents at all? I hate it. Not just with kids. I was stressing out trying to find things for the adults in my life. How did I get like this: I, who make things. I, who think of myself as so creative, so anti-corporate -- rushing around the day before christmas, so worried that my lover would not like her jacket or if I spent enough on my partner for fear she spent more. And there sat my kids' little frilly boxes underneath the tree. The only thing that saved the apparent lack of presents was the two gifts I bought basically for myself but wrapped anyway -- a basketball and a board game.
This is a panic created by consumerism and technology, but what should we have done? What would you have done? How to fight it when everyone around you especially your kids is so in to it, is so content to participate in our crazy, self destructive culture? It's easy to blame the youth of today but that is wrong. As for technology, this is what they know; it's not the way we grew up, wanting all these little devices. Were there any devices when we were kids? Yes, walkmans, and soon pagers, but did kids want them like they want a cell phone? So do we just say no to anything because it wasn't the way we experienced childhood (I mean who back then could walk around with an Atari and play it on the bart). We live in a different world. Take myspace which seems the utmost in prefabricated realities where you get a list of a hundred or so friends most of whom you don't know; I immediately want to hate on it, but I also realize that in this world of constant surveillance and monitoring, with a lack of public space to hang out in, without getting hassled, watched, where can kids turn to to reclaim there own autonomy: yep, cyberspace. It may be owned by Rupert Murdoch but it is something that they can create, control, invent, talk smack in, try to foster an identity.
So I try to relax while they rip open their presents; as they each squeal and laugh and scream and shout thank yous, I inwardly smile. A few hours later after the techno stuff is pushed to the side, after the cyber pets are sleeping in their little cyber houses, and the music is turned off because the battery needs to be charged, my daughter asks, `what's this game like?' Soon we are all sitting around playing and laughing together.
And then I opened my other present: the basketball and at the end of the day we all stepped out into the street and played with a ball, a real ball, and with our real dog, and we laughed and got angry and teased each other and had a great old time as the sun set on our real lives. Next year though I promise to do something different.
If you need some game suggestions these games have all been played and enjoyed for hours with our neighbors and friends -- get them because they don’t need batteries:
Dominos -- I got my ass spanked by a student in my english class a few semesters ago and have been wanting a rematch ever since, so when my son and I traveled into the jungle of mexico all we brought were books and a set of dominos -- we had monster games, created new slang for ridiculous decisions we made while we both learned to play. It has been a continued source of pleasure to set up and play in our house. It lasts for about 30 - 45 mins...it's cheep to buy, easy to bring along, and perfect for talkin all kinda smack. Oh and I still lost the rematch...
Gobblet – This is an awesome looking game as well – made of wood and really easily set up and stored. It is like a crazy tic-tac-toe and connect four love child. The object is to get four in a row and you can gobble your opponent in the process. Hella fun and good for all ages and easy to learn.
Blokus – It’s a perfect way to kill an extra 20 minutes between cooking dinner and eating or after bath and before bed. Four people can play and as you get to know it more, you can get more strategic, but it is easy to learn and doesn’t take too long to finish. The main idea of Blokus is to get more of your pieces into play than anyone else. It is kinda like tetrus. Since the rules can be explained and learned in less than two minutes anyone can join in the fun with ease.
Friday, January 05, 2007
review of rad dad in clamor magazine
Rad Dad
Issues 2 & 3
Tom Moniz
Self-published, 2005-2006
In mainstream culture, our models for parents are those portrayed in commercials as frantic, protective, and usually white. The stressed out but selfless mother is shown driving a mini-van or SUV carting the kids to dance or karate lessons. The father, when present in popular media, remains the breadwinner who doubles as Little League Coach. Folks like Ariel Gore, Bee Lavender, Ayun Halliday, and now Tomas Moniz are making the prospect of childrearing more appealing to those of us who retch at the image of family presented by magazines like Good Housekeeping.
Moniz, publisher of the zine Rad Dad, shines a light on the need for men to awaken to their responsibility as fathers. But in "Fathering the World," he expands this idea to include accepting the role of father, whether or not they have biological children. Instead of criticizing the individual, he writes, "the society we live in disempowers men to break from the prescribed role of the 'male' parent, the role that supports patriarchy, capitalism, hierarchy, and authoritarianism!" According to the American Psychological Association, "Fathers who batter mothers are twice as likely to seek sole physical custody of their children than are non-violent fathers." If for no other reason, we need to support men like Moniz who are interested in being fathers out of genuine concern for their children, rather than for selfish, manipulative, and abusive motives.
In his second issue, he addresses the stigma attached to public assistance, the emotional aspects of having a vasectomy, poetry, and a reprint of Alfie Kohn's article on thoughtless praise. Again, I am taken by how this zine covers issues so far out of the consciousness of mainstream ideas of parenting. From my perspective as a resident of Hartford--the nation's second poorest city--I see the need for discussion on public assistance. On television, families are represented as middle-class. On occasion, they may struggle with the possibility of job loss, but rarely does that play on the screen. In reality, most of us are not living in luscious penthouse apartments. When children are added to the picture, the financial situation becomes more important. Rad Dad is unlike television or those magazines found in grocery stores - Moniz tells it like it really is, and not how he might fantasize life as being.
The third issue of Rad Dad includes Moniz's struggle with his child's marijuana smoking and subsequent lying, the importance of storytelling, as well as contributions from other writers. Rad Dad, while humorous, deals with real life questions that range from queer parenting issues to raising a child according to anarchist ideals. I would like to see this zine evolve into a glossy companion to Hip Mama magazine.
-Kerri Provost
Issues 2 & 3
Tom Moniz
Self-published, 2005-2006
In mainstream culture, our models for parents are those portrayed in commercials as frantic, protective, and usually white. The stressed out but selfless mother is shown driving a mini-van or SUV carting the kids to dance or karate lessons. The father, when present in popular media, remains the breadwinner who doubles as Little League Coach. Folks like Ariel Gore, Bee Lavender, Ayun Halliday, and now Tomas Moniz are making the prospect of childrearing more appealing to those of us who retch at the image of family presented by magazines like Good Housekeeping.
Moniz, publisher of the zine Rad Dad, shines a light on the need for men to awaken to their responsibility as fathers. But in "Fathering the World," he expands this idea to include accepting the role of father, whether or not they have biological children. Instead of criticizing the individual, he writes, "the society we live in disempowers men to break from the prescribed role of the 'male' parent, the role that supports patriarchy, capitalism, hierarchy, and authoritarianism!" According to the American Psychological Association, "Fathers who batter mothers are twice as likely to seek sole physical custody of their children than are non-violent fathers." If for no other reason, we need to support men like Moniz who are interested in being fathers out of genuine concern for their children, rather than for selfish, manipulative, and abusive motives.
In his second issue, he addresses the stigma attached to public assistance, the emotional aspects of having a vasectomy, poetry, and a reprint of Alfie Kohn's article on thoughtless praise. Again, I am taken by how this zine covers issues so far out of the consciousness of mainstream ideas of parenting. From my perspective as a resident of Hartford--the nation's second poorest city--I see the need for discussion on public assistance. On television, families are represented as middle-class. On occasion, they may struggle with the possibility of job loss, but rarely does that play on the screen. In reality, most of us are not living in luscious penthouse apartments. When children are added to the picture, the financial situation becomes more important. Rad Dad is unlike television or those magazines found in grocery stores - Moniz tells it like it really is, and not how he might fantasize life as being.
The third issue of Rad Dad includes Moniz's struggle with his child's marijuana smoking and subsequent lying, the importance of storytelling, as well as contributions from other writers. Rad Dad, while humorous, deals with real life questions that range from queer parenting issues to raising a child according to anarchist ideals. I would like to see this zine evolve into a glossy companion to Hip Mama magazine.
-Kerri Provost
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