My speech and blog…

Ok, here’s the speech for court tomorrow. It is at 3:00 in the afternoon. Understanding that this is supposed to be edited, the basic premise of this speech is an explanation of our situation and to be included are all the details pertaining to the life of my daughter and my time with and without her.

The first thing that I decided was that the purpose of this speech should not be to complain about Tanya though I do want it understood that there are true truly negative things that the woman has done. But at the end of the day, I cannot tell my daughter that her mother does not exist. The truth of the matter is that we do need both a mother and a father. And I never did say that Anya could not be with her mother. I did say that I didn’t like what Tanya does with her. I don’t like how she has been raising her. And frankly I never liked how she was with me or even how she is with anybody. But the real point is that this is not what is important here.

A long time ago at an interesting point of my life I found I had some time to think. I had a lot of time to think actually and maybe there was even a year in which I kind of didn’t do much of anything. I wouldn’t say that I was a bum, and I certainly wasn’t drinking or lost on narcotics, but I did earn my living simply playing my guitar for tips and living as I could. So if that made me a bum, I guess I am guilty. But during this time I met a lot of people and I learned a lot of things. I also dealt with a lot of demons, if that is how you call it. But at some point in all of that, there came a time when some people started to think that I had some wisdom. I don’t know why they thought this but some people thought that I knew something or at least they acted towards me like I did and would come up to me and ask question about life and what they should do about stuff. I didn’t mind it but some of the other want-to-be religious guys kind of took offence. I guess they were jealous or something. But I am off the track here- Anyway, one day this guy came up to me and started to tell me about his relationship with his wife. They had been together for a while and had two children but they were going to get a divorce. I asked him why and he told me that the biggest thing was how she never understood him. He said that though had had always tried to do his best, she just simply could never understand the way things worked and that because he was a man, he needed things to be a certain way and that was all. They had been yelling and screaming at each other and both had grown tired of trying to find some level of peace. And he added in that really, he didn’t care about her and she didn’t need him any more and he wasn’t really interested in what she did with herself. This was his life and he was going to do what he wanted and she could do whatever she wanted. She had even told the kids that she didn’t care and so he had had no choice but to tell the kids that she had already started sleeping with other men and that really, this was who their mother really was- all in the sake of fairness, don’t you know. By the time he had gotten to me he had already talked to all of his friends and she had talked to hers and as he knew that she had spoken to me and because I knew them both, he came to tell me his side and to ask me who I thought was right and who I thought was wrong.

I sat there quietly for a few minutes, played a few notes on the guitar and told him that I thought they were both assholes.

“How much attention do you need, anyway?” I started. “And why aren’t you paying attention, the both of you, to what your kids need? How come the only things you or your wife never think of are your kids?” I went on to say that the moment they had decided to have children, love, no love, or for whatever reason, they were supposed to have thrown away that spoiled, childlike need to be the receivers of the attention. They were supposed to have joined the ranks of the caring, supportive, parenting crowd but seemingly, they had forgotten this and had both gone off in fits of selfishness and pain binges, wasting time and energy that would have much better been spent on something really important. Or in other words, they were irritatingly and mistakenly thinking that they were the important ones rather than the young one's who were depending on them for help. What a load of crap to have to listen to, I said, both of them had effectively thrown away the only real jobs they would ever have in life and in doing so, had insulted the only clients they would ever have to work with.

“Don’t ask stupid questions,” I ended, “you’re both full of shit!”

He got really quiet I remember. Maybe what I had said made some sense to him or at least, he acted like it made sense to him, nodding and squinting up his eyes and acting like he had become all thoughtful. It probably did make sense because he never did come and see me again which, I guess means that he either cherished those words of wisdom or decided that I was a party-pooper and went to go find a more sympathetic ear. I guess it could go either way.

But anyway, this was my advice to him and it has always been my advice to myself in regards to my daughter. And this is going to be my point when I go into court. I did not leave Tanya because I wanted something more for myself. I was trying to pay for everything but she wasn’t helping. She wasn’t helping in any way. And in fact she hasn’t helped any in the last two years or even in the last five or ten. And as Anya is going to be seven, this means she hasn’t been worth a shit for the girl’s whole life. She just doesn’t help. All I wanted was to be able to do the job I needed to do, to pay for everything and to try to have enough energy left over to care about my daughter. And probably her son too. The understanding of this situation though has always been beyond the woman’s comprehension. And this I say because I have had those 10 years to come to this understanding and during those years, with her or without her, the woman has never done a goddamned thing to disprove the theory.

So that’s my point. This is not about Tanya being bad. I am not going to do any more negative selling. There is just no point in this. This speech is supposed to be about me being good. And I am a damned good father. My daughter loves me a lot. And she doesn’t love me because I buy her things, though this has been Tanya’s own jealousy line. My daughter loves me because I am good to her. She loves me because I am smart and because I teach her things she should know. She is smarter and better and feels and acts more alive when she is around me. Tanya’s also screams that it is only because I have money. Well Tanya, I do have some money. But it is not because of America. I have something because I have been working more than 60 hours a week for years to have something in this backwards-assed country. Tanya says the girl only loves me because I let her play with friends. Well hell yes, Tanya, I let her play with her friends. Jesus, of course I let her play with friends. Do you think she likes being stuck up in your goddamned tower? Or maybe she loves me because I taught her music. Or maybe it is because I taught her English or because there are people around me and students and friends, or because the house just isn’t dead. Or maybe it is because I have an open door and she can come and go or because I give her responsibility and trust her to make good decisions. Maybe she loves me because I respect her and ask her, because it is what I expect of myself and anyone who is in my life, to respect herself.

Or maybe it was the day I ripped her training wheels off and said that I thought she could probably ride that beautiful purple bike of hers without them. Now? Right now? Yea, why not? The time from question to removal was less than two minutes. Right now? Yes, right now! And she just did. Alright, you wanna talk about what love is? This was love. That girl's being able to push her own ride around, under her own power for the first time, believe me, THIS made her as happy as anything. Why? Because she had been wanting to do it her whole life. Just like her brother waited to play chess with his grandfather, having watched me riding my bike, or riding with me in her seat up front or on the handlebars so many times to so many cool places; to the music school, to the beach and to the park or just whipping around to beat the heat on hot summer days. Maybe it was those rides to the movies or to and from kindergarten and the jokes and songs and the secret handshake and all of everything that had been there between us for her whole life. Or maybe it wasn’t really the bike but that we had had all of that between us. And happily.

So anyway, it is not going to be about Tanya. The speech is just basically going to say that I am a goddamned great father and I am sick of not being able to take care of my daughter as she needs to be taken care of. And I am tired of having a selfish bitch ruining every motherfucking thing because she doesn’t like her own life, which is the only argument anyone tries to tell me about. As if that was so hard to figure out. I just don’t think that particular fact is anybody’s fault but Tanya’s. No matter what she says crying on the shoulder of some sucker, I know it is not my fault and it is not her ex-husband’s fault or any of the other men who have found themselves stuck in her life including the idiot she has got hooked on the internet even as I write these words. And it is for goddamned sure not my six year old daughter’s fault. And I have never seen why that cool little girl who just wants to be with friends and to be happy, and who has all the potential in the whole world waiting to come out of her- I just can never understand why she needs to have all of her mother’s mental and social problems dropped on her shoulders before she can even read a picture book. I just never wanted that for my girl. And I don’t know why this is so fucking hard for people to understand.

Anyway, that is the general idea if the speech. Good luck to everybody, right?