(Or): You knew this was going to get weird, didn’t you?

So follow along with me here. You knew I was going to do strange stuff. Even with a helpless little baby, I have to go out on a limb. But don’t worry, if I get carried away his dad can squash me like a bug.

But, just to get things rolling, I give you Steamboat Willy…

Now let me tell you why I love this picture, besides the obvious reasons.

Back in 1990, when Cherilyn was pregnant with our first daughter Jessica, I went to the end of the decade Grateful Dead concert at the Oakland Coliseum with Willy’s dad. It was an awesome show. Bill Graham dressed as a giant chicken, and was lowered from the ceiling sitting on top of a giant egg, which he broke open with his wings to the drum beat of the band. He pulled out thousands of presumably de-thorned roses and scattered them on the crowd below. I was wearing a hand painted hat with an electric glowing rose in the brim… remind me to take a picture of that hat. I still have it in the garage. It went with my long hair.

After the show, John and I got on the Bart train…. that’s Bay Area Rapid Transit, if you care, along with hundreds of other Dead Heads, in various mental states. I was in a various mental state myself, and the fact that I was going to be a dad in a week or so got me thinking. So I asked everybody in the big electric train car this question: If you were going to have a baby, and you could pick the personality of any character in history, real or fictitious, to have be the personality of your kid, who would you pick. The conversation was long and deep and creative and thought-provoking. But in the end, the choice I had made was decided to be the winner.

You know who I picked?

Mickey Mouse.

Because he is sweet, kind, and always stands up for right and the little guy, even when it is dangerous.

Seriously, remind me to show you a picture of my Grateful Dead hat sometime.