You Thought I Was Just Some Dad, Until I Did One Bad Pull-Up on These Monkey Bars

I know what you’re thinking: there goes another Brooklyn dad with his kid at the playground, over the hill, and outta gas. Or that’s what you WERE thinking, until you saw me grab the monkey bars and do one bad pull-up.

Now you’re thinking, “Wait, is that kid’s sexy childless uncle visiting from somewhere cool like Denmark?” But no, I’m not in the states promoting the English translation of a novel called “The Most Reciprocal Lover In Copenhagen.” I’ve been in your neighborhood the whole time, showing my allyship to the non-binary punks at the coffee shop by telling them stories about CBGBs they didn’t ask for and aren’t listening to.

And now you’ll have something to tell them next time you’re in there. You’ll say, “It wasn’t just the pull-up—which would have made any personal trainer quit on the spot in disgust—but the way he did it.” And I have to admit, it was pretty slick. After shooting up from the park bench where I’d been staring at my phone, I shouted, “Micah! Let go of her Mirabel From Encanto Bubble Wand!” and strolled back toward my seat with the panache of Californication-era David Duchovny.

But then, passing underneath the monkey bars, I shocked the world—or at least all the nannies, parents, and older kids who understand gravity. I held my arms up like a victory celebration the likes of which I haven’t performed since my band got invited to SXSW in 2005, and did the damn thing. (SXSW side note: unfortunately we broke up on the van ride down to Austin because of a dispute over who stole my lighter. I still say it was Shawn!)

My torso wriggled like a worm doing the Harlem shake—the last viral dance trend I’ll ever know about—until I got my chin six inches below the bar. “Yeah,” I thought, “I’ve made my point.” I dropped down and dusted my hands off like it was nothin’.

(But between you and me, it wasn’t nothin’. I hurt myself. The only things I pulled during that pull-up were inside my body. They’ll only get better with the help of physical therapy I won’t do and edibles I will. And my atrocious form meant that I didn’t get any of the exercise benefits. But you know what they say: Pain, No Gain.)

You probably feel pretty embarrassed. Until that pull-up—where my body looked like a roasted red pepper suspended between two toothpicks in the unsteady hands of an elderly Sicilian widow—you thought you had me pegged as just another aging hipster dad. Hmm. As we say on my audiophile subreddit, “nice stereo type.”

Well, ya got me. I’m a dad. I had a lot of tour t-shirts that don’t fit me anymore, what was I gonna do, NOT create a smaller version of me?

But I’m not a hipster. Hipsters chase fleeting trends, and the things I liked when I was younger are actually cool again to Gen Z (which is apparently short for Generation Zero Interest In Talking To Me!)

And I’m NOT aging… I’m in the process of becoming underrated.

But listen to me, trying to explain with words what that pull-up said in four excruciating seconds that felt way longer.

Just do me a favor: Make your kid let my kid play with the Mirabel From Encanto Bubble Wand. I want to look at my phone again, I just posted a meme of an Italian chef saying “Now BRAT’s a spicy meat-a-ball”—that’s right, I know about Charli XCXC. Watching the likes trickle in is sure to give me the endorphins I did NOT get from that pull-up.