Manifest Destiny

Illness, struggle, comedy and the inexplicable. Such are the manifestations of the dad life.

Robert Schimmel, who asked his dad to kill him, has the wisdom of that man to thank for getting on with his life. Comedian Schimmel was lying in bed with Non-Hodgkins lymphoma that made him feel like his "bones were breaking from the inside out." He asked his father to do him in and, instead, his dad went and got two of Schimmel's kids and said, "tell them what you just told me." So life goes on and recovery included new material in a book, Cancer on $5 a Day.

Another father-of-three now relying on his own father is Client #9, Eliot Spitzer, who has stepped back from the scandal that ended his tenure as NY guv. [Earlier: Eliot ... Eliot ... Eliot; Tsk ... Tsk ... Tsk] Now he's running his father's $500 million real estate empire as his dad convalesces with Parkinsons in a NY hospital.

On the other hand, suffering from a hitherto unnamed malady is celeb dad Charlie Sheen, father already of daughters Sam and Lola and soon — although incapable so far of a committed relationship — to whatever and whoever might someday be formed from within the swell of girlfriend Brooke's belly. A tale also rife with struggle, comedy and inexplicable.

** Comedic suffering or suffering comedy. Which better describes the pop? **