A (Phony) Fight to the Death

I went to visit my parents earlier this week, and things got crazy. Before I tell you what happened, here's a little background: My mom is a typical Argentine mother—intensely loving, passionate, incredibly opinionated, and endlessly fearful of life's dangers. She's a catastrophist. When she hears a rustling in the bushes at night, her first thought is never, "Ah, it must be an opossum, how cute." Her first thought is that it's a crazed killer crawling through the bushes, targeting her, my dad, and the four dogs for his next mass murder. Upon hearing the rustling in the bushes, she'll call the police, whispering, "Officer, I do not have barry much time. There ees a keeler outside my weendow. Plez come quickly!!!"

My dad, on the other hand, is fearless, energetic, intensely passionate, and loves to live dangerously. He's also very giving - to a fault. His need to give and his passion for peril have led him to engage in what could be best described as “dangerous acts of kindness.” For instance, he walks around the neighborhood with his lawnmower, scoping out lawns that appear unkempt, muttering, "These lazy neighbors! Toma cinco minutos to make the lawn look nice! Carajo!" He then mows the unkempt lawns when they’re not home, then leaves a note on their porch that reads, "We have mowed your grass for you. Next time it's in this condition, we will consider arrest.” - The Los Angeles Police Department - Clean Neighborhood Division."

Too many times I've watched my neighbors return from work, gaze at their lawns, look around nervously, then walk inside, locking their doors behind them.

This old-fashioned, risqué manner of carrying himself has gotten him into trouble with my mom on numerous occasions, and last week was no exception. He decided he would once and for all find my mom’s old record player so she could listen to her old records (also so he’d stop hearing the constant ". But instead of simply finding it and giving it to her, he opted for one of his classic pranks: pretending there's a home invader, then he defeats that intruder, seizes the record player, and heroically presents it to my mom. Normal prank, right?

"Do you hear that?" my dad asked me. I ignored his query. "What is it? Is it like disco music, no? Coming from the garage?" 

There was no disco music emanating from the garage, but the air of concern made my mom sweat. "Is someone there? In de garage? Who ees it? Ayyy no!” my perpetually anxious, very Argentine mother cried. 

My dad then rose heroically from his chair and announced that he would take care of whoever or whatever broke into the garage to play disco music. My mom screamed curses in Spanish, pleading with him not to go in there, threatening to call the police.

He walked toward the garage, chuckling to himself, while my mom implored him to seek cover. Upon reaching the garage door, he turned to my mom, who was shrieking from the back window, and blew her a kiss. He then entered the garage and immediately started knocking things over and grunting to simulate the sounds of a ferocious battle. As my mom screamed, "HELP!! AYUDA!!!" he'd escalate the intensity of the ruckus.

At this point, my mom was in tears, convinced that at any moment a blood-drenched criminal would emerge from the garage and come for her next. Yet, after an ear-piercing "ROYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!" from my mom, he realized he had gone too far and would hasten the "fight." 

"Never set foot in this house again!" he yelled as he emerged from the garage, wearing his T-shirt backward, hair disheveled, with ketchup splattered on his face and neck, limping toward the back door while clutching a large box.

"I beat him up! He left crying!" he announced upon reentering the house, wiping ketchup from his eyelids. "He was carrying thees. What do you think thees is?" My dad then presented the box to my mom. My mom, wiping tears from her eyes, realizing she had fallen victim to yet another one of his pranks, scolded him while opening the gift.

"Wow, ees my record player. Gracias, loquito. Can joo bring me my Donna Summers record?"

Giving a Speech in Hell

I presented a 30-minute keynote speech at the Product Marketing Summit in Las Vegas. The Product Marketing Summit is like any other conference. People walking around with blazers, doing a really good job at making you feel interesting in 1:1 conversations, only to betray you by trying to sell you some tech solution they built. It is a place of networking, relationship building, excruciating conversations, Patagonia vests, and deceit.

In the hours leading to the presentation, I was feeling excited but also sweating profusely. The sweatiness came from the fact that every presenter before me appeared as AI specimens programed to speak with the gravitas of presidential candidates. Not a single hiccup, stutter, stumble, voice crack…nothing. “Come on! Say something stupidly! Pronounce something wrong! Stumble on your laces!” Through five presentations, my prayers remained unanswered. 

Then, it was my turn. As the MC started to introduce me, I walked on to the stage. As soon as I got up, he stopped for a second, covered his mic, and then whispered in my ear: “you’re not supposed to come up here yet.”

I froze. I stood there grinning for a few more moments, unsure of what to do next. Do I pretend I did not hear him? Do I go to the corner of the stage and hide in the shadows until I’m summoned? I decided to walk back down and pretend I had forgotten something in my backpack. A couple minutes later, the MC started to introduce me again.

At that point, I was not in a position mentally to make good decisions, so instead of using the stairs, I climbed the front of the stage, using my hands and knees to lift me up. I elected to roll on to my stomach instead of propelling myself on to my feet. The MC continued to introduce me as I rolled on to the stage, the microphone rubbing against the floor, creating a powerful rumbling sound that startled the audience. I then got on my knees, forgetting the patellar tendonitis that had been plaguing my existence for the past six months. This shot a surge of pain throughout my body, and I let out a squeak, which the mic picked up. The MC paused momentarily to ensure I was ok, to which I gave a thumbs up. I proceeded to pat the dust off my shirt, forgetting that the mic was latched on the front of my shirt. This in turn generated a pounding sound similar to a psychopath pounding your front door. 

Ok, this is fine. I thought as everything around me caught fire. I started to get dizzy. The room came back in to focus just in time for the MC’s “Without further ado, please welcome Roy Rosell!” 

Hello everybody, my name is Roy Rosell and it is an absolute honor to be here, I will be presenting...

I looked behind me and realized that my slide deck was not displayed. 

What....the.....farkkkkkkkkkkkkkk. 

I decided to make light of the situation by making a joke about my dad and his technology failures and how he would be proud of me, but then the mic started glitching and they couldn’t hear the punchline.

Wait, what? The confused faces of the audiences expressed. 

“Can you hear me now?” I asked into the mic, to a sea of befuddled faces. As the crew fumbled around trying to figure out what was going on, I stood up there. Grinning. Dead inside. I hopped off stage again to talk to the technical crew to determine what was going on. As soon as I hopped off the stage, the presentation flashed on the screen. 

“Can you hear me now?” A few people from the audience gave me a thumbs up.

At that moment, I remembered something my mom would tell me when I would cry myself to sleep the days before presentations at school.

“Roycito, joo are esmart. Joo are fanny. Joo are deeferent. When joo realize thees, joo will be a GREAT speaker.”

I started presenting. I stuttered, I stumbled, I occasionally forgot the point I was making, and found myself laughing at my own (probably inappropriate for this setting) jokes. I changed slides too early, and lingered on some too long. But about a minute in, I realized I was having an amazing time. Two minutes later, I realized the audience was too. It was as if I gave them permission to unlatch their top button, crack open a can of beer, and kick up their feet.

As I finished the presentation and the audience applauded, I paused and mouthed something to myself. 

I am esmart. I am fanny. I am deeferent. 

Thank You, Paps

I want to wish a belated happy Father’s Day to all you dads on this email chain. No, not the dog or fish dads. That’s cute, but it doesn’t count. I sometimes find myself responding to the question “do you have kids?” with “yes! I’m a bun-dad, it’s a full time job!” For the first few seconds after saying it, I feel so clever. Then, after seeing the forced chuckle and nervous neck scratch of the person I’m speaking to, I feel an intense revulsion and I start to sweat nervously, knowing full well I’ve just branded myself as a total dorkus.

There’s a lot I’ve grown to love about my dad. His larger-than-life personality, his inability to keep a secret, his uncanny ability to say the right thing at the absolute worst possible time, his refusal to walk past any human or dog without having an uncomfortably long conversation. I also love his necessity to compliment things he finds beautiful - whether it’s a plant, a car, a landscape, or a woman. When he does compliment a woman, he has to panic justify the compliment by assuring the recipient that he is not a creepy old guy, and that his compliment is purely admiration, like one admires an art piece or an Italian sculpture, and is by no means sexual. He goes on to explain that it used to be ok to compliment a woman, and before he knows it he has dug a hole so deep for himself that no one will be able to hear him by the end of the conversation.

I also have great admiration for his respect for human dignity. Instead of crossing the street to avoid the raggedy, bloodshot-eyed homeless guy shouting at the moon, as most would; he crosses the street to give him a hug and make sure he has enough water and food to get him through the next couple of days (this would send my mom in to a panicked frenzy).

But the main thing I appreciate about my dad is that even though he was tougher with me than I would have liked (ex: in high school, he confiscated my phone and dropped me off at a police station and said “I’ll pick joo up in the morning, pendejo” when he caught me drunk after school), and he’d embarrass me in front of my friends, and he’d threaten to take away everything I loved if I got C’s at school (which I did frequently), he was always…there. Present. Even if it was worrying, scolding, taking my Game Boy; he was there. Raising me, in his own way - doing the best he could do, with the knowledge he had. Having left his home in Peru at 13 to live on his own, he didn’t have much to emulate. But I’d say he did a damn good job. And I will be forever indebted to him for that. 

Love you, paps.