Falling Out of the Family Tree

Sometimes you think you know everything there is to know about your family, and then one day you get the rug pulled out from under you. You find out that you're adopted. Or your grandfather had a few felony convictions he kept on the down-low. Or that incredibly hot nerdy girl with the vintage glasses who works at the used bookstore downtown just might be your second cousin. For me, it was something less earth-shattering but no less dramatic.

As it turns out, I'm not nearly as German as I thought I was.

"You're only a quarter German," my mother told me last summer.

"I'm what?" I asked, flabbergasted.

"You're also a quarter Swiss," she added. "And you have a little English and Swedish in you, too."

KEEP ON READIN'! DON'T COST NUTHIN'.

I didn't know what to do with this information. For the last 30-something years, I'd been proud of my self-hating, anal-compulsive kraut roots. I liked enjoying David Hasselhoff unironically, and blaming genetics for my irrational attraction to dachshunds dressed as bratwursts, and saying things like, "My people ruined the first half of the 20th Century. Whoopsies. Sorry about that."



But now it turns out I'm a mutt, a genetic goulash, a man without a country (or too many countries). With so much overseasoning to the Spitznagel DNA, what can I expect my future child to look like? A yodeling and emotionally unavailable blonde who loves chocolate, pornography, and poor oral hygiene?

"There's a lot about our family you probably didn't know," my mom continued. "You have a great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather that came to America on the Mayflower."

This was hardly consolation. And to be honest, I didn't believe it for a second. I knew too many people who insisted their ancestors were on the Mayflower. The ship couldn't have been that big. It's like trying to find a Baby Boomer who doesn't brag about being at Woodstock. Sure, sure, you took the brown acid and had mud sex with hippie chicks while Hendrix serenaded you. And my forefathers were puritan sailors who took the first piss off Plymouth Rock and made the U.S. safe for sanctimonious bullshit. Whatever you want to believe.

"And we're also related to a Danish knight," she said.

This gave me pause. "A Danish knight," I repeated. "From Denmark? We have Danish relatives?"

Her eyes drifted across the room, as if she was watching her logic flee the building. "Umm... no."

"So was this just an extremely lost and confused knight, who may or may not have spent some time in Denmark?"

"I'm not sure," she said. "I swear that's what I heard, but I guess it doesn't make sense."

It actually did, knowing my family. It was like those high school guys who claimed to have girlfriends in Canada. It was an airtight alibi. Who was gonna check? Using the same logic, why not claim a Danish knight in your lineage? Hell, as long as you're exaggerating family histories, go crazy. "I'm a direct descendant of Don Quixote." Who's gonna tell you you're full of shit? Just don't brag about it around too many English majors and you'll be fine.

After returning home, I was plagued with guilt. How could I know so little about my own ancestry? For years, genealogy wasn't something I gave much thought to. I had the basic information, mostly related to our medical history. I knew my genetic odds of going bald or developing a tumor. But I couldn't tell you my grandmother's maiden name. And beyond that, god, who knows. There were apparently a lot of Swedes, a few semi-famous pilgrims, and at least one dude who thought he was a knight. You could fill a textbook with what I didn't know about my family's backstory.

In a weird bit of synchronicity, I learned that there's a genealogy library just a few short blocks from my apartment. I didn't bother calling ahead to make an appointment. I just walked straight over to the drab, windowless building, threw open the heavy doors, found what looked like a receptionist's desk, and gave them my best doe-eyed-trembling-lower-lip-kid-scared-and-alone-in-Disney-World-"I-wost-my-mommie" expression.

I must've hit the right combination of charming and clueless, because they took sympathy on me. They called over a woman named Beatrice, who they assured me was the most brilliant amateur genealogist on the south-eastern seaboard. The moment I set eyes on her, I knew she could be trusted. She was middle-aged with a Bride of Frankenstein shock of white hair and the plump figure of somebody who believes that all bread products are just sleeves for meat. I hate to admit it, but at least part of my instant adoration for her was because she spoke with a lazy southern accent - and, okay fine, she was African-American. I don't know why this mattered, but it did. I wanted her to be a female Uncle Remus. When she led me to her office, I half-expected her to pull out a dilapidated book, blow a thick layer of dust from the decaying cover, and open its yellowing pages to the S's.

"It's Spitznagel, ain't that right, honey?" She'd ask in her reassuring drawl. "Ah yes, here we is. Oh goodness, goodness me. I's got a mighty fine yarn for you. How's 'bout I tell you 'bout the time yo' Great-Grammie Abigail outwitted da Meeschevious Fox and his varmint friends?"

But it didn't happen quite that way. Instead, she asked me questions about my family's origins. Which struck me as odd. Wasn't that what she was supposed to be telling me? I did what I could, telling her everything I thought might be even marginally useful.

"My grandparents added a hyphen to their last name during World War II," I explained. "We were 'Spitz-Nagel' for awhile. My dad told me it was because they wanted to sound less German. Y'know, because of the Nazis and the goose-stepping and all that."

"Yes, yes, I see," Beatrice said, smiling at me with forced enthusiasm. "But do you happen to know what region of Germany your family comes from?"

"Germany and Sweden," I corrected her.

"Okay," she said, pretending to write something on a notebook.

"And England and Switzerland. Oh, and possibly Denmark, but that guy was a little, y'know-" I twirled an index finger near my forehead, the universal symbol for nutjob.

"What I need from you is some specifics on geography," she said, her voice growing less friendly and more schoolmarm. "Are you aware of any cities or towns or villages in Germany-"

"Or Sweden," I offered.



"Or England or Switzerland, yes, yes, any of those." She chose her words carefully, like she was stepping over landmines. "If we could narrow it down to a specific region, it would really help us with our search."

I thought long and hard about her question. Somebody in my family must've mentioned something at some point, even in passing. "Oh man, you gotta try this gingerbread. It reminds me of the lebkuchen my grandparents used to make when they still lived in the remote village of Pulsnitz, in the southeast German state of Saxony, approximately twenty-four kilometers from Dresden." But I couldn't remember anything. My relatives had never given me a single clue. When it came to our past, the Spitznagels might as well have been in the witness protection program.

"Well," I finally said, trying not to appear too flustered. "My grandma had my father potty trained by eight months."

She smiled patiently at me, waiting to see where this was leading.

"And she was potty trained by six months."

"I don't think I understand," Beatrice said, her voice growing noticeably tense.

"We're a very anal people," I told her. "Is there a certain region of the world where they're overly neat and have some pretty strict polices regarding toilet training? Because I'll bet there's a lot of Spitznagels there."

She exhaled slowly, letting me know exactly how much I was wasting her time. "Okay," she said, "let's see what we can find." She turned towards her desk and began typing on an ancient-looking computer, which reminded me of something out of a high school computer lab from the mid-80s. I waited and listened to the clacking of keys, big as biscuits, and let my eyes wander across her cramped office. It smelled comforting in there - the mildewy, familiar smell of an antique store or the special collections room of a library. The walls were covered with a massive atlas of the world, which started at the door and wrapped across all four walls, peppered with multi-colored thumbtacks. It made me believe that these people could find anyone, that they took their jobs as seriously as police detectives tracking a serial killer. They'd find my long-lost relatives, and if the perps tried to run, they'd pump 'em full of hot lead.

The keyboard went silent, and Beatrice frowned at the computer screen. "Are you absolutely sure your last name is Spitznagel?" she asked, not looking up at me.

I didn't have any clue how to answer that. Was it a trick question? Did she think that "Spitznagel" was just a lucky guess? Maybe an uncle had mentioned it to me a long, long time ago and I hadn't bothered to write it down, so now I was going solely on memory? Or maybe she thought I'd just made it up entirely. Did this kind of thing happen alot? Were smart-ass teens coming in and asking for help tracing the family tree of "Ivana Tinkle"?

"I... think so," I said tentatively.

She belted out a laugh that sounded like a trumpet being played by an angry orangutan. I was relieved that she wasn't irritated with me anymore, but her unpredictable mood swings were frightening. "You'd be surprised at just how many spelling variations there can be in a surname," she said. "Depending on where your family is from, it could be Spitsnogle, or Spitsnaugle, or Spitznoogle, or..."

She listed well over twelve different surnames, some with umlauts and at least one with an indecipherable symbol that resembled a smiley-face emoticon. I tried to look unfazed, but all I could manage was a resigned sigh. I knew when I was beat. There'd be no answers for me here. Before Beatrice could finish her list, I stood up and thanked her for her time and calmly walked out. It was, I like to think, a very mysterious exit. I was like a less limpy Keyser Soze, my identity an enigma shrouded in secrecy. Was I just a clueless pawn in some metaphorical heist, or was I being purposively elusive, playing an idiot as part of some devious end game? Beatrice would never know. And just like that - poof! I was gone.

If I was going to learn anything meaningful about my family, I'd have to do the homework myself. And I'd do it the same way I learned anything worthwhile in today's modern world. I would use the Internet.

It helped me find midget porn, it could help me research my genealogy.

Google uncovered a lot of fascinating Spitznagel fun facts, but I'm not sure if any of it was useful. According to census records, Ohio and Iowa are filled with people named Spitznagel. But other than passing through on our way to someplace else, neither myself nor any of my immediate family has spent more than a few days in any state that specializes in corn or writing workshops.

Almost every Spitznagel with an online presence, with very few exceptions, is either a pianist or a math professor. Some of them have based their research in pharmacokinetics and have attempted to introduce both statistical and calculus techniques to the study of medicine. Some of them are embarking on a "deep cranium search for the absolute groove." Some of them highly recommend LyME, a software application with a Matlab-compatible language. Some of them own a MOOG synthesizer and aren't afraid to tell you about it.

I was tempted to track down the Spitznagel who recorded a song called "Lunar Chix Doing Their Astro Thing", but I opted instead for Dr. Edward L. Spitznagel, a Professor of Mathematics at Washington University in St. Louis. Like me, he's an author - unlike me, his book, Selected Topics in Mathematics probably doesn't contain a back cover blurb from the female star of Thunder Pussy. What really prompted me to contact him was his name, which is exactly the same as my late grandfather's, right down to the middle initial and doctor cred.

Because I use humor as a defense mechanism, I sent him an email filled with lame jokes, hoping it would break the ice:

"It could be a coincidence that you share a name with (my grandfather)," I wrote. "I seem to remember meeting him on several occasions, and to the best of my knowledge, he wasn't a professor of mathematics, nor did he look anything like you. Also, I'm pretty sure he's dead. Unless there's something you want to tell me. You're not... you know... my real grandfather, are you? That would be weird. Probably not though, right? Were you his doppelganger, or vice versa? Or maybe you were twins separated at birth? Perhaps you stole his identity? Or did he steal yours? If the latter is true, I guess I owe you an apology. But my real question is, what are your plans for the holidays, and would it be okay if I visited?"



He wrote back within a few hours, with an email that nearly destroyed my already fragile ego with its first sentence: "I think I ran across your name several years ago as running a Baywatch fan site????"

Uh.... no.

Though he never directly answered any of my questions, he did share a few intimate details about his ancestry. He's the first in his family to attend college ("so I think I'm not related to your grandfather"), his bartender father died in the Spanish flu epidemic, and his great-grandfather was a saddler. It wasn't much, but I felt like I had finally made a connection with another Spitznagel - sure, a connection with somebody with no ties to my family and no shared history and no real interests in common unless I suddenly developed a working knowledge of algorithms, but a connection nonetheless.

I wrote back and tried to continue our email banter. "Your great-grandfather was a saddler?" I asked. "Does that mean he hung out with actual cowboys? If that's true, is there any way I could defect and join your family? Your Spitznagels sound considerably cooler than my Spitznagels." But he never responded.

I was out of ideas and very close to giving up. But then my mother called.

"So listen," she said, "about that Danish knight..."

(To read Part Two, go here.)

Politics and Tijuana Donkey Shows

There's absolutely no reason why I should get along with my father-in-law. We are as fundamentally different as two people can be. I adore the man, but I'm constantly amazed that we're able to spend an evening together without one of us breaking a bottle over a table and lunging at the other with the shards.

To be fair, there are plenty of good reasons for me to enjoy his company. I love that he refuses to shower indoors, preferring to wash himself with a hose, prison-style, in the back yard. I love that he's the only military veteran I've ever known who owns most of Freddie Mercury solo albums. I love that he shares my affection for Florida biker bars where you can get sloshed on Rum Runners for less than a fin and watch ZZ Top's shorter, fatter twin play sloppy covers of Steely Dan songs. I love that he adores children almost as much as he despises cats. I've seen children of every race and creed gravitate towards him like he's the Pied Piper of Hamelin. But when it comes to animals, particularly cats, he couldn't care less. If a neighborhood cat wanders into his lawn, he'll come after it like a Beverly Hills cop after a Mexican. He's said things to me like, "Did you hear that cat screaming outside last night? Sounded like it was being torn apart by an owl." And then he laughed, and despite my better instincts, I laughed with him, because he said it in such a sweet, amiable way that it was easy to forget he was making a joke about a cat being violently disemboweled.



If it was just felines, cheap rum, and Queen - which, now that I put them all together, kinda sounds like the theme of the best gay pride parade float ever - I could fake my way through any conversation with him. The trouble starts when he starts talking politics.

KEEP ON READIN', IT DON'T COST NUTHIN'

I'm a liberal. I'm so far on the Left that I'd make Michael Moore scream, "Just shutup already, you fucking hippie!" My ideal presidential candidate would be the illegitimate mulatto (and if possible, lesbian) love-child of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who would only begrudgingly enter politics after a failed bid to piss off her parents by quitting college to do poetry slams full-time. I don't just believe that abortion should be legal, I believe that abortion should be mandatory based on your IQ. (Score less than 89 and you're not allowed to reproduce.) I believe that the entire military budget for the United States should be slashed and the money should be used to fund homoerotic art exhibits for Berkeley galleries. I believe that Christians shouldn't be allowed to pray in any public building, and probably not even in their own homes, because prayer leads to superiority complexes, and the belief that you have the God-given right to bomb any nation of poor brown people that disagrees with you.

My father-in-law, as you may've guessed, is a conservative. He does not share my beliefs. In fact, he believes that people who call themselves liberals should be deported. I know this is true because he once said to me, "People who believe shit like that should be deported." He is as knee-jerk for the Right as I am for the Left. I blindly follow everything I'm told in an Al Gore documentary. He blindly follows everything he's told in a Rush Limbaugh radio show. If you want to see the veins pop out in his neck, just mention that you're considering buying a hybrid car, and he'll tell you exactly why you're functionally retarded.

His latest cause du jour is environmentalism - or rather, anti-environmentalism. He does not buy into global warming. He suspects that such conspiracy theories were cooked up by Bill Clinton, possibly while getting teabagged by any number of underage interns. He's so dismissive of global concerns that he goes to great lengths not to recycle. He ignores the blue trash cans provided for him by the city. And to show the "liberal elite" just how unwilling he is to be pushed around by their agenda, he creates more trash than the average person. He'll buy extra reams of paper just to throw it away. He'll go to the grocery store and ask them to "triple-bag it." He'll host parties for the neighbors with the sole intention of producing enough garbage to fill a small landfill.

The Dame, his daughter, (bless her pea-pickin' heart) doesn't buy into his beliefs any more than I do, but she's much better at hiding it. I've learned a lot from her. I've learned that you can waste your time yelling at somebody and explaining exactly why they're wrong, or you can just smile and nod and not say anything and then get them to bend to your will when they're not paying attention. On more than one occasion, we've visited her parents with the sole intention of stealing their recyclables. One minute I'll be enjoying a zinfandel in their back patio, and the next thing I know, the Dame has dragged me out to the garage and she's instructing me to fill our trunk with trash bags.

We've become the Underground Railroad of recycling.

Smuggling garbage out of your in-laws' house is far more frightening than it sounds. I'm never sure what the repercussions will be if we get caught. (Judging from the Dame's wide eyes and anxious whispering, I assume it'll involve leaving the state and undergoing a complete identity change.) And the Dame is nothing if not ambitious. It's not enough for her to pilfer a few discarded cereal boxes and newspapers. She has to haul away every last item that might contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.

"I don't think we have room for anything else," I've told her, as she shoves another trash bag into my arms during an otherwise uneventful family dinner.

"Just move, man," she'll bark at me. "He'll be back any minute!"

When I'm not turning my car into something that looks like Fred Sanford's back yard, I'm trying to avoid stepping on conversational landmines with my father-in-law. This has proven to be especially difficult as of late, since he's determined that the only plausible candidate for president is Rudy Giuliani. Strangely, it has little to do with 9/11, even though that appears to be Rudy's entire platform. He likes Giuliani because he cleaned up New York, so maybe he can do the same for the country. I happen to think that logic is flawed. For one thing, our country's biggest problem isn't too many strip clubs or porn shops. I'd be surprised if people in Bozeman, Montana or Middleton, Wisconsin are thinking, "I don't care if you raise my taxes or continue wasting lives and money on the Iraq War. Just please, somebody get rid of all these hookers!"

And besides, Giuliani cleaned up New York like Mussolini cleaned up Rome. The trains run on time, sure, but not without the occasional anal rape of a Haitian immigrant. (Okay, okay, that's not fair. To the best of my knowledge, Mussolini never anally penetrated a prisoner, Haitian or otherwise.)

I've sat silently as my father-in-law yammered on and on about Giuliani's virtues, and I've tried to listen with an open mind. I don't care about the former mayor's extramarital affairs, or his Disneyfication of Times Square, or his unapologetic racism. I don't even care that he's dressed in drag more than once. (Actually, that's the only reason I'd consider voting for him, but I'd need assurances that he'll be sworn into office while wearing a hot pink muumuu.)

My only real problem with Giuliani can be summed up in four words: He closed down CBGB.

I know that isn't technically true. But he did set in motion a series of events - namely, the political hostility towards underground clubs in New York - that caused CBGB to go out of business. Say what you want about Giuliani, but he's no fan of The Ramones. You might even say that he personally killed Joey Ramone. It might be more accurate to say that lymphoma killed Joey Ramone, but I'm not going to nitpick, or be the one to point out the obvious similarities between Rudy Giuliani and Hodgkin's Disease.

I'll just say this. As far as I'm concerned, Giuliani ended The Ramones. Where I'm from, that's like taking a dump in the Liberty Bell. And I'm sorry, but I just don't think that's acceptable behavior for a future President of the United States of America.

Of course, I've never said any of this to my father-in-law. I'm not stupid. When he talks about how Giuliani could save this country, I just listen quietly. I'm not going to tell him why he's wrong. That's like trying to explain to a firing squad why you're innocent. Sometimes, if I'm feeling generous, I'll even agree with him. Where's the harm in that? If he thinks I'm on his side, he won't raise his voice or pound the table quite so much, and he might even refill my wine glass a little quicker.

But lately, I haven't been able to resist throwing a grenade or two into the mix. Nothing so obvious as "I think Hillary makes some good points." But something that catches him off guard.

"You know what I love about Giuliani?" I'll tell him. "He's strong on national defense."

"That is so true," my father-in-law says, smiling at me like an ally.

"He's going to protect us from the terrorists," I say.

"You got that right," my father-in-law seconds.

"And he's the only candidate that's promised to destroy Mars by 2012."

"It's about time somebody..." But then he stops. Did I just say what he thought I said?

"What's Mars ever done for us?" I continue. "They just keep flaunting their molecular traces of life, like that's enough to keep us from imposing sanctions on them. Whatever, Mars. You're either with us or you're against us. We'll bomb their desert asses back to the stone age if they're not careful. Suck on a mushroom cloud, you Martian towelheads."

There's really no greater pleasure than saying something so utterly reprehensible that it makes your Republican, right wing, conservative father-in-law stare at you with slack-jawed dismay.

The only time he's come close to pushing me over the edge is when he talks about Barack Obama. I intend on voting for Obama, assuming he gets the Democratic ticket. I care enough that I try to avoid all discussion of him with my father-in-law. You don't have to be a regular viewer of Fox News to know where that's gonna lead. "His middle name is Hussein? Is he related to Osama bin Laden?" Ha-ha-ha-ha, that is sooooooo... not in any way funny.

My father-in-law's favorite criticism of Obama is that he's a communist. Actually, for a few months he thought Obama was a socialist, but then he heard some conservative radio commentator talk about Barack's man-crush on Stalin or Lenin, and now he insists Obama has crossed over into full-fledged communism. He's never told me exactly why he thinks Obama is a communist, just that it's obvious to anybody who's paying attention.

"He said as much in his book," he tells me. "The Audacity Of My Father or whatever the hell it was. Obama wants us to bow down to the hammer and sickle. If he has his way, they'll be teaching the Communist Manifesto at public schools."



I don't even know where to begin debating him on this. At first I thought it was just a flippant comment, based more on emotion than rational thinking - like when I call Bush a fascist. (He's not really a fascist, just an idiot from Texas with too much power.) But my father-in-law has said it enough that I think he might be serious. And that's... well, confusing, for starters. And in its own weird way, a little adorable. Accusing somebody of being a communist is like accusing them of being in the Whig Party. Are there any actual communists anymore? I mean besides Cuba and two billion Chinese? But that's mostly out of habit, right? I don't think even Fidel Castro gives a shit about communism anymore. Have you seen him try to give a speech lately? He's like a retiree at a freemason meeting. He's just happy to be out of the house. When your biggest public icon considers it a good day when he has a bowel movement, you're not really a political force to be reckoned with.

I could explain this to my father-in-law. I could tell him that "communist" is one of those antiquated terms like "beatnik" or "flapper" that doesn't really apply anymore. I could tell him that just because Obama thinks it might be a good idea to share some of our national wealth with those less fortunate, it doesn't necessarily mean he's a communist. What he considers communism, I call "not being a dick." But my arguments would fall on deaf ears.

Well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. If my candidate can be so easily dismissed with an absurdly outdated political buzzword, so can his.

"I like John McCain," he told me during our last visit. "I just wish he wasn't so liberal on immigration and tax reform."

"That's right," I agreed. "And he won't come out and admit he's a Hun."

He gave me that look usually reserved for somebody who just farted in an elevator. "Come again?"

“Isn't it funny how the Liberal Media has never reported that? Like the rest of us can't figure out that he's a Hun. He's taken part in so much Hunnish activity."

"Like what?" He asked, the blood rapidly leaving his face.

"Oh, you know, the usual. Raping, pillaging, burning down the towns of his victims. If he wasn't so obvious about it, it wouldn't be a big deal. But that whole 'I will drink the blood of my enemies' speech he gave at the Iowa caucus? That was a little over the top. You have to ask yourself, do we really want a Hun in the Oval Office?"

It got ugly. He eventually figured out that I was making fun of him and, well, words were exchanged. When the Dame walked in, after sneaking away to fill our car with over one hundred empty diet cola cans, she realized that tensions had spiraled out of control. She managed to defuse the situation by separating us, and we retreated to our respective corners to cool off. But it was obvious that there was no turning back. We had crossed a line in the sand. This was a pivotal moment in our relationship. One of us would have to back down or we'd be locked in an epic and endless battle of political alliances that could ruin every family celebration for the rest of our lives.

"Happy birthday. Oh, and by the way, you're fucking wrooooooooooooooooooooong!"

We drank more wine and I listened to the Dame and her mom try to fill the silence with innocuous pleasantries. At some point, more out of accident than design, we were left alone in the same room, and I knew I had to say something. He was still furious at me, his arms crossed like a child in time-out. I cleared my throat and smiled at him, indicating that I was ready to offer an olive branch.

"So," I said, "I hear you saw a woman give a donkey a blowjob."

I was hoping he wouldn't remember telling me this story. He'd shared the whole horrific tale many, many times before. But I needed him to think it was new information, so he could start at the beginning and really get lost in the details. It was a gamble that paid off.

"I never told you about that?" He said with a chuckle, our disagreement immediately forgotten. "Well, you're in for a treat. Where to begin? Well, the year was 1949, and my father worked for a moving company..."

I could have recited the rest of it with him. Though he was only eight years old, he traveled across the country with his father, delivering furniture and lifting chairs and tables easily four times heavier than his own prepubescent body. One of their jobs required moving a three-bedroom home down to Tijuana, Mexico. And as all red-blooded American men are required by law to do when visiting Tijuana, they went to a donkey sex show.

"But you were only a kid," I said, feigning outrage.

"I didn't know what I was looking at," he said with a giggle. "My dad bought me some nachos, so I was happy."

"So you're eating a cheesy snack while a Mexican woman is blowing a donkey a few feet away from you?" I asked, filling in the blanks.

He laughed. This was his favorite part of our overly-rehearsed vaudeville act. "I guess so," he finally said. "Is that weird? It never seemed weird to me at the time. But maybe I was just too young to realize that I shouldn't have been there."

He loves telling me this story. And I love how much he loves telling me this story. It's not shocking anymore. It was the first time, but after so many repeat performances, it's lost some of the edge. He snickers too much during the dirty parts. It could've been the tale of lost innocence, but you can't lose your innocence if you're not paying attention to why all of the grown men around you are hooting and hollering like angry monkeys. I don't think he realized that there was anything unusual about watching donkey sex until he was well into his 40s. And at that point, it's a little late to cry victim.



"Wow," I said, faking enthusiasm like a veteran porn actress. "That's just crazy. You make me feel like I've missed out."

"Why's that?" He asked with a knowing smile. "You've never seen a donkey get blown?"

"I most definitely haven't. And certainly not when I was eight freakin' years old."

This was the part of our man-to-man talk when he would shrug and give me a consolatory pat on the back. "Well, maybe one of these days we'll go down to Mexico together and check it out."

I smiled at him like I did every time, with a grateful expression that said what neither of us wanted to say out loud. "Thank you for understanding that my idea of a father-son relationship means crossing the Mexico border to watch an unpleasant act of bestiality while eating nachos." Make no mistake, we had no intention of embarking on a field trip to Tijuana, but that isn't what true male bonding is about. Sometimes it's enough to agree that we both share the same childish sense of humor, that we're both just stupid and immature enough to think that donkey sex is the most awesome thing ever.

By the time the Dame and her mom returned, we were laughing like frat brothers, muttering filthy jokes under our breath to each other and refusing to repeat them to our respective lady friends. All talk of politics was forgotten, and I knew then that I'd be able to peacefully co-exist with my in-laws. Ever since, at the first sign that my father-in-law wants to talk about Rudy Giuliani's master plan for ridding the world of terrorism, or why Barack Obama wants to send all god-fearing citizens to the gulag "for the glory of the Motherland," I just mention donkey blowjobs and like magic, the unavoidable trainwreck is averted.

Maybe it's a concession. But when I listen to him giddily recount a Mexican donkey's sexual exploits, I feel like I've pulled off a minor political coup. After all, I've somehow convinced the most conservative man I know to tell me, in graphic detail, how the symbol of the Democratic Party would be orally pleasured.

It's a small victory, but I'll take what I can get.

Three More Surprising and Occasionally Shocking Things I Learned While Visiting My Family During the Holidays

(For the first four surprising and occasionally shocking things I learned, go here.)

5. There is Such a Thing as Too Many Pictures of Naked Babies.

My brother and sister-in-law, like all new parents, are a little obsessive about their offspring. The French call it "idée fixe." I call it creepy. Yes, Teddy is adorable. But sometimes I'd like to turn my head and look at something that isn't him. A book, a TV show, another adult with a college education, somebody who doesn't speak Pig Finnish. I'm not picky. But to his parents, a moment spent without Teddy in their immediate sightline is a precious moment wasted. They want to see him everywhere, like they're wandering through the mirror maze in the final scene of The Lady from Shanghai, except with less noir futility and more cheek-pinching adorableness.

I'm not saying they're completely in the wrong. If I had a kid as slap-yourself-in-the-face-he's-so-goddamn-cute as Teddy, I'd probably make his mug a recurring motif in my home decorating scheme too. I'd hang framed portraits of him everywhere, in staggering numbers, so that guests would be instantly unsettled, eventually admitting that "it feels like the eyes are following me." I'd blow up my favorite photo of him to poster size, adorning it with inspiring slogans like "Freedom is Slavery" and "Ignorance is Strength", and then wallpaper the living room with it. My home would become its own sovereign nation, a mini-fascist state which my son or daughter would rule as Imperial Leader.

But I also like to think I'd show a little restraint. I wouldn't, for instance, hang pictures of him in a room where I might have reason to touch my genitals.

KEEP ON READIN' WHYDONCHA!

Wait, let me back up.

My brother and his wife have a weird fixation with their son's naked ass.

It wasn't always this way. It started when they hired a professional photographer to do a family portrait. The results have become the stuff of Spitznagel mythology. Take three reasonably attractive human beings, dress them in white linen, put them on a beach and shoot them in black-and-white, and you're gonna end up with photos with aesthetics somewhere between a Calvin Klein billboard and what Born-Again Christians imagine heaven looks like.



For every photo featuring the happy couple, there are also an abundance of solo shots of Teddy, usually flashing his naked buns for the camera. Now, I have nothing against infant nudity - as long as it's tasteful and doesn't draw too much attention to the scrotum - but I can't help but wonder, at what point during a family photo shoot does a photographer think it's appropriate to say, "Hey, I have an idea, how about the baby loses the pants?"



Don't get me wrong. I'm no prude. I don't have a problem with nudie pics of my nephew. I just wish there weren't so many of them. Sometimes I look around their house and I could swear Pete Townshend lives there. But my main problem is with placement. If I'm going to get an eyeful of Teddy's heinie, I'd like it to be in a suitable environment. A kitchen, say. Or a living room. Even a guest bedroom would be fine. But I don't, under any circumstances, want to see au naturel baby portraits in the bathroom, and certainly not mounted directly over a toilet.



Do you understand why this might be disconcerting? Say I'm taking a refreshing afternoon whiz, and as I'm want to do during such an activity, I'm holding my junk. Not fondling it or anything, but I've found that an accurate aim requires a purposeful grip. So I'm taking care of business and I look up, cock still in hand, and realize - oh sweet gentle Jesus - I'm staring at a picture of my nephew's pasty-white fanny.

And that's just not right, not on any level. I've got a pretty strict "no open zipper" policy when it comes to my family. If I can see them, whether they're standing right in front of me or in representational form - and that includes photos, oil paintings, bronze busts and police sketches - then my barn door stays closed. Eric Junior ain't coming out for a game of peek-a-boo, if you catch my drift. I'm sorry, but that's just how I feel.

6. Vegetarians Are Incapable of Cooking Meat.

My brother recently gave up on vegetarianism.

I can't stress enough just how shocking this news was to the rest of the Spitznagel family. My brother has been abstaining from meat for well over a decade, and he was never what you might call a casual vegetarian. He was militant. Every time you put a plate of food in front of him, he'd start barking, "What the hell is in this?" He was convinced that the moment he turned his back or wasn't paying attention, somebody would try to slip him some meat. We'd take him to restaurants that served only vegetarian fare, and he'd still study every spoonful.

"Is that bacon?" He'd ask, poking at something in his split pea soup that looked suspiciously unmushy. "It looks like bacon to me. Goddammit, I knew these bastards would try to pull a fast one on me!"

To be fair, his paranoia wasn't completely unjustified, at least not while our grandmother was alive. A German matriarch isn't about to let one of her boys waste away because he's not getting the essential nutrition of animal flesh, even if it means putting a pork chop in a blender and trying to convince him it's hummus.

Although he already had more dietary restrictions than somebody with Celiac Disease, he eventually decided to further torture his digestive tract by converting to veganism. As I understand it, veganism involves taking everything delicious in the world and replacing it with beets or sunflower seeds. After just a month of denying himself... well, everything, he developed that healthy glow one usually finds only in frontmen for Manchester rock bands.

But despite (or perhaps because of) his hunger pangs, he always had enough energy for a little righteous moral indignation. He knew more gruesome details about inhumane farming practices than anybody who didn't actually work on a farm should ever want or need to know, and he was more than happy to share these "fun facts" with you during dinner.

And then, seemingly out of nowhere, my brother announced to the family that his ten-year run of eating food that looks like cat litter and wearing "Meat Is Murder" t-shirts to formal affairs was coming to an end. He was becoming a carnivore. His reasons could be summed up with just three simple words:

Animals are assholes.

He had this epiphany shortly after his first child was born. When Teddy showed up and became the center of attention, their dogs - two spoiled pugs named Papageno and Papagena - didn't adjust well to the demotion. They treated Teddy not like a pack leader or somebody with higher social standing, but as the competition. If they thought he was getting too much love, they'd head-butt him out of the way. If Teddy was holding a piece of food - even a carrot, which the Papas crave about as much as premium cigars - they'd leap and snap like gators at a Cajun's leg. My brother, who once held his beloved Papas above reproach, suddenly understood that they had an ugly side. And from there, it was a short journey to realizing that all animals, if given the chance, had the potential to be jerks. They're not the innocent and huggable creatures that PETA brochures and Disney movies had led him to believe.

"Once you figure out that animals are assholes," he told me, "you really don't feel so guilty about eating them anymore."

I'm not sure if I agree with his "it's okay to eat assholes" theory (if you follow it through to its logical conclusion, all roads lead to cannibalism), but I kinda like the new carnivorous version of my brother. He's stopped dragging us to The Soy Hut or whatever that god-awful raw food restaurant was that he liked so much. He now takes me and the family on a tour of LA's reddest of red meat eateries. Just watching him order a steak is a surreal experience. He doesn't want it raw; he wants it bloody. And he'll pay extra if they let him come back to the kitchen and snap the cow's neck.



This was an especially exciting development for Thanksgiving. Too many holiday meals have been ruined with tofurkey - which, I don't care what the vegetarian elite keeps insisting, tastes nothing like turkey and just barely qualifies as edible. It belongs in the same basic food group as SPAM. It's not dinner, it's a war ration. And what's more, tofurkey is an affront to everything Thanksgiving represents. It's an insult not just to the Pilgrims, but to the Native Americans they would eventually slaughter. Ethnic genocide is bad enough, but when it happens after an unsatisfying meal of organic and non-genetically engineered soybeans, nobody wins.

So I was thrilled that we'd finally be able to celebrate Thanksgiving in style. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but when I gather around a table with my family to give thanks for all the blessings of the past year, I want to know that the brown mass on my plate used to have a pulse. I want to be able to point to a hole and go, "Yep, that's where its head used to be. Whaddaya say we eat this bitch?" And to make matters even more appetizing, my brother wouldn't be lecturing me about the unsanitary conditions of commercial turkey farms and the minutiae of how they're slaughtered. If anything, we'd be stabbing at each other's hands with forks, locked in an epic battle for our fair share of the tryptophan-laced flesh.

There was just one small problem. Our mother.

Not long after my brother joined the culinary dark side, my mother followed his lead, mostly out of convenience. It was just easier to cook for him if she was also a vegetarian, and my dad and I didn't care one way or the other. (We thought, perhaps naively, that it was "just a phase.") She was never as militant in her beliefs, but over the years she lost her taste for meat and never looked back. When my brother switched teams, she was disappointed ("Have you talked to your doctor about this?") but begrudgingly supportive. And while she didn't want to partake in our meat orgy, she offered to cook a real turkey for our Thanksgiving feast.

And that's how we learned an important life lesson, one that can mean the difference between a festive holiday season and a family argument that's somewhere between a street brawl and a basement cock-fight. It's really pretty simple. If you don't regularly eat a certain type of food, don't attempt to cook it for your loved ones. You wouldn't ask an Aborigine to drive a car, or an Eskimo to fix your air conditioning, or a Southern Baptist to write a novel about the real world. By that same logic, you should never, ever, ever ask a vegetarian to cook a turkey and expect it to be in any way juicy or succulent.

If you believe nothing else I've told you today, believe this: a turkey that's been cooked by a woman who hasn't eaten meat in over a decade is going taste like cardboard after the flavor has been boiled out of it.

7. I'm Almost Positive I'm Not Related To Any Dirt-Eating Babies.

Upon returning home after the holidays, the Dame and I had our photos developed - we're both too "old school" for digital cameras - and while thumbing through the prints, we came upon this unexpected face.



Have you ever had one of those moments when you're not 100 percent positive you don't have dementia? You're in the shower and you can't remember if you shampooed your hair. You run into somebody on the street that seems to know you but you don't have the slightest idea who she is. Your friends recount a hilarious tale from your college years, but you have absolutely no memory of it. That's what looking at this picture was like. At first, we just skimmed past it, assuming it must be somebody we knew or met over the past few months. But it caught our eye on the second pass, and we studied it more closely.

"Do we know this kid?" The Dame asked me.

"I... don't... think... so," I said slowly, stalling in case I had a flash of recognition.

We traced the photo with our fingers, looking for hidden clues or anything that might indicate our connection to him. Nothing about his appearance suggested why we would or should know this kid. He had curly red Irish hair, a Superman tank top, and perhaps his most defining and puzzling characteristic, an appetite for mud.

He reminded us of those Old English Sheepdogs with the orange mouths. You know, the dogs that always look like they've been eating ass. The Dame and I both have a dog fetish, but even we can't see the appeal of this breed. When we watch the Westminster Dog Show - which we do religiously, usually with heavy wagering - the arrival of sheepdogs is our cue for a bathroom break. Or depending on how much we've had to drink, some very rude catcalls. "Wow, somebody's been giving free colonoscopies backstage. Hey Crustwick, maybe if you spent less time belonking the competition and more time washing the feces off your gums, you'd stand a chance of winning this thing."

But I digress.

We forwarded the photo to our friends and family, and they all asked the same question. "Is he eating mud?" Yes, we'd tell them. He does appear to be consuming a large quantity of watered-down dirt. "Well, he's obviously not related to us. We don't have any mud-eaters in our family."

That's true, thank god. But he's somebody's baby, and as the Dame was the first to point out, "They're apparently pretty proud of how much mud he can put away."

It's thoughts like this that can keep you up all night. This scarlet cherub with the vacant eyes has parents who are unabashedly supportive of his oral eccentricities. But why? It reminds me of that Sam Kinison joke about Ethiopians. "Why doesn't somebody put down the camera and give that starving kid a fucking sandwich?!" The same could be said for Li'l Dirt-Eater's parents. When your child is making a mudpie for lunch, maybe you don't take another picture for prosperity. Maybe you put down the camera and make him a fucking sandwich! That's all I'm saying. If you truly love your son, give him something to eat that requires more prep-work than a hose and a neglected back yard.

The Dame and I have kept the photo. It's taped to our refrigerator, with enough prominent placement to ensure guests notice it. "Hey," they'll say when reaching for a beer. "Who's the baby?"

"We have no idea," we tell them. And then there's such a delicious pregnant pause, as they stare back at us with confused, pinched faces.

I will say this for our mystery kid. He may gorge himself on moist soil, and he'll probably grow up to have some pretty serious gastrointestinal issues, but he did manage to keep his pants on, which is more than I can say for my naturist of a nephew.

Four Surprising and Occasionally Shocking Things I Learned While Visiting My Family During the Holidays

1. Despite What His Mother Thinks, My Nephew Is Probably Not Fluent in Finnish.

My nephew Teddy is just twenty months old and he's already talking up a storm. I hope that doesn't sound too braggy. I don't want to overstate his abilities. He's able to pronounce a variety of impressive and many-syllabled words, but he rarely does it in any specific order, and certainly not in ways most of us would recognize as language.

His father is content with letting him figure it out at his own pace. But his mother, either out of impatience or an overestimation of her child's talents, listens to the random vowels trickling from Teddy's mouth and hears something very different than the rest of us.

"He did it again," she announced to the room during Thanksgiving. She was sitting on the living room floor with Teddy, and because I happened to be the nearest adult family member, she waved me over to confirm her findings. "He just said something else in perfect Finnish."

I knelt next to my nephew and leaned in close. When he spoke again, I was fully prepared to be amazed. But I wasn't. To my ears, it sounded like more baby gibberish.

"Aieeouiiieee," he garbled.

KEEP ON READIN'

"Aiti," she said, repeating what she thought she just heard. She looked to me hopefully. "It's Finnish for mother. Did you hear that? He was looking right at me and he said aiti, clear as a bell."

I smiled and tried to look enthused. "Yeah, I guess, probably." I may not know much about parenting, but I know enough not to challenge a mother who thinks her son has done something spectacular.

He continued talking, and she continued translating his Finnish for the rest of us. In the next few minutes, he apparently asked for a cookie, reminded us that a kitten says meow, and remarked that I have a nose, all in the flawless, consonant-heavy poetry of his Mother Tongue.



My sister-in-law, as should come as no surprise, is Finnish. She's not just Finnish, she's proudly Finnish. She would've gotten married in her family's sauna if my brother had consented. (Yes, her family has a sauna, and I have been in it. In fact, the sauna is where I met her father for the first time, while he was wearing nothing but a thin sheen of sweat and a big Finnish smile.) Before her son was born, she lobbied to name him Ano, which (if she's to be believed) is a common name in Finland. My brother rejected the name almost immediately, on the grounds that he would be teased mercilessly by his peers. It isn't a long journey from "Ano" to "Anus."

Not that my opinion had any weight, but I argued for Ano. Scatological jokes aside, I enjoyed the linguistic possibilities. "Ano" easily turns into "ain't no," which leads to gut-busting comedic wordplay like "Ano Spitznagels 'round here."

Believe me, I would never, ever grow tired of saying that.

They eventually settled on Teddy, which couldn't be a less Finnish name. But my sister-in-law hasn't given up on forging a connection between her son and his Finnish roots. His room is covered in Finnish children's books with titles like Pupu Tupuna and Finn Family Moomintroll. His babysitters are all of Finnish descent, and from what I understand, she pays them a little extra if they speak only Finnish when they're with him. And during Christmas, they even took him to see the Finnish Santa, Joulupukki. Sadly, I wasn't around to witness Teddy's introduction to Finnish-style holiday mythology, but my brother was kind enough to text me the details.

"Yes," he wrote. "Old drunk 7 foot tall Santa covered in animal skins spouting Finnish to children is exactly as frightening as it sounds."

After Thanksgiving dinner, Teddy settled in to watch Bambi, his favorite movie (or at least until he gets a little older and I introduce him to the Russ Meyer oeuvre). Within moments, his mother informed us that Teddy just said hirvi, which I can only guess is Finnish for orphaned doe with eyes big as dinner plates. I smiled and nodded, but I was starting to think she might be crazy. Has anybody who actually speaks Finnish verified this kid's ability? Because honestly, I think a newborn from Finland, fresh out of the womb, probably has a better grasp of the language than Teddy does. He strikes me as being Finnish in much the same way that Mickey Rooney in Breakfast At Tiffany's was Japanese.

"Did you hear that?" She asked excitedly. "He just said kissa. That means kitty. He wants his kitty, and he asked for it in Finnish!"

I could swear I just saw Teddy roll his eyes.

2. Despite What His Father Thinks, My Nephew Couldn't Care Less About Baseball.

There is no doubt in my brother's mind that his son loves baseball. And to prove it, he's purchased enough baseball supplies to support a minor league franchise. Catcher's mitts, aluminum bats, commemorative jerseys from the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers; if my brother thinks it'll reinforce Teddy's interest in sports, it added to his toy armoire. My nephew has more access to baseball paraphernalia than vegetables.

It doesn't always work out the way he's planned. Even when my brother manages to lure Teddy outside, determined to show off his skills on the ballfield, it usually ends badly. Teddy's idea of "ba-ba" - his baby-talk shorthand for baseball (or could it be a Finnish?) - involves smacking the lawn with a bat, followed immediately by chasing butterflies and leaping into the nearest bed of flowers. My brother has tried - oh god, how he's tried - to teach his son the rules, but Teddy could care less. Throw a ball in his general direction and he won't take a swing at it. He'll do a handstand and start improvising songs about bunnies.

But I'll give credit where credit is due. The kid does have a powerful arm. He can pitch a fastball right down the middle with so much velocity it could split an atom. And he's accurate, too. Point to a spot in the middle distance and he'll hit it every time. (And thanks to his dad's coaching, the strike zone is usually in the general vicinity of my testicles.) But I don't know if this means he has an enthusiasm for baseball or just throwing in general. Sure, he likes throwing balls, but he also likes throwing toys, coffee cups, TV remotes, and if they sit still long enough, small dogs.



It's really just my brother who loves baseball, and I think he knows that. But he keeps the charade alive because it allows him to indulge in his boyhood fantasies again. When I visited during the holidays, he dragged me out to the back yard almost every afternoon to play Wiffle Ball. "It's for Teddy," he promised. But soon enough, Teddy would spot an oddly-shaped stick and he'd be long gone. And then it'd just the two of us left on the makeshift ballfield.

Without fail, as soon as his son stops watching, my brother switched into hyper-competitive mode. I've always thought that the entire point of Wiffle Ball - baseball's shortbus-riding cousin - was to make it easy for the batter to get a hit. That's why the balls are big as melons and the bats are the size of a turkey leg. But he'd pitch at me like he thought there were talent scouts peering over the fence, looking to draft him into a professional Wiffle League.

"C'mon," I yelled back at him. "Stop putting so much stink on it! Let me hit one of these fucking things!"

"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" He said with a sneer. "You are goin' down, bitch!"

He meant it literally. It wasn't enough for me to take a swing and miss. He wanted to cause physical trauma. It was like one of those carnival booths where you buy three balls for a quarter and try to hit a clown doll. Except unlike a clown doll, I'm not filled with sand. I'm made of flesh and blood and skin that bruises very easily, especially when it's been repeatedly pounded by a hollow plastic ball.

I know how embarrassing that sounds. A Wiffle Ball is probably the least dangerous object ever invented, second only to pillows. But in my brother's hands, after he's calculated the wind resistance and perfect trajectory, a Wiffle Ball comes at you like shrapnel. And it does pretty similar damage. After awhile, I stopped "playing" in any conventional sense. I was just swinging in self-defense.

I finally gave up and limped towards the house, and my brother became irate. "You're a pussy," he yelled at me. "Come on, just a few more innings! We're just getting warmed up!"

Somewhere inside, Teddy was hurling Lego pieces at the wall, squealing with delight every time they left a decorative welt. Outside, his dad was doing something very similar, although judging from his cursing, the garage proved a less-than-satisfactory replacement for my soft, fleshy abdomen.

Like father, like son.

3. My Mom Might Be a Little Bit Racist.

My mother and late father, it should be noted for the record, are lifetime, card-carrying, bleeding-heart liberals. They voted for Democrats even when Democrats weren't voting for Democrats, and worried that terms like "African-American" might be culturally insensitive. They think Carter was our country's best President, and they never met a social injustice they wouldn't fiercely debate over cold cinnamon buns in a church basement.

But my mom, as she gets older, is becoming a little bit racist.

Not a lot racist. She hasn't started using slurs like "jiggaboo" or "camel jockey". But shades of subtle xenophobia have started to pop up in unexpected ways. Last summer, I got into a heated disagreement with her about whether Native Americans should be called "Indians."

"Oh come on," she groaned. "They need to get over themselves already."

"But they're not from India," I reminded her. "They're from North America. They were native to this continent long before we-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. And then they made a bad deal and lost their real estate. Boo-hoo for them. Next time they should read the fine print. Besides, they get all those casinos and they don't have to pay taxes on any of them. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me."

Four years of a liberal arts education, where I had so much PC rhetoric pumped into my system that it took several years before I felt comfortable dating a woman who shaved her armpits and didn't resemble Edie Brickell, and I had no response to her wildly inappropriate comment besides, "That is so unfair."

And then this December, another nugget of under-the-radar racism slipped out. Our entire family was driving through a sketchy neighborhood in LA, and my mother mentioned, apropos of nothing, how surprised she was that so many Mexicans drank bottled water.

"What are you talking about?" We asked.

"Well, look at them," she said, pointing to various people loitering on the sidewalks, most of them of possible Mexican origin. Sure enough, they were all clutching bottles of Evian. "They love that stuff. I just don't get it."

"Well, they probably drink it for the same reasons we do," my brother suggested.

She was unconvinced. "But the water in Mexico is so dirty. Shouldn't they be used to it by now?"

It would seem my mother believes that everybody in California with brown skin has recently been smuggled across the border in a flatbed truck.

"That's a cultural cliche," I told her. "Not all of the water in Mexico is filthy."

But she'd stopped listening to us. "Wouldn't you develop an immunity to bacteria after awhile?" she asked, more to herself than to us. "They're just wasting money. That bottled water business is a racket. What's next, they're going to charge us for oxygen? I don't get people sometimes."

4. Some Awkward Conversations Just Need a Drum Roll.

When you're spending a solid week with your family, some unintentional comedy is inevitable. But what you recognize as spit-take-worthy hilarity doesn't always translate to your more humor-deprived relatives, no matter how much you stare back at them with slack-jawed disbelief.

Sometimes life needs to take a cue from the Borscht Belt. Here's an example, based on an actual conversation I had with my mother over Thanksgiving:

MOM: "Do you remember your cousin Mandy who died? She had a hole in her heart."

ME: "Really? I didn't know that. Is that what killed her?"

MOM: "No, she choked on some Pad Thai."

(Ba-da-dum.)

See how much better than works? Without the percussive payoff, it's just confusing and a little disturbing. But thanks to a gag-identifying drum roll, it becomes a goofy exchange that could've come straight from the shtick playbook of Shecky Greene.

(To read three more surprising things about my family, go here.)