Too bad. It's just too easy to blame the father for his notoriety when a child of fame struggles, yet that's the story you'll often read. Today's examples: Alexa Ray (daughter of pop Hall of Famer Billy) Joel and Mark (son of infamous scammer Bernie) Madoff.
The lady of the news OD'd on some homeopathic remedies without having yet gotten her singing career into second gear and was rushed to the hospital surrounded by comparisons to her very succesful father, who had tried killing himself age 21 — that is, he did it earlier and probably better than she. Of course, it is true that if she weren't the daughter of the spotlight nobody except the local paper's police blotter would even note that a girl who didn't seem to be going anywhere and had just broken up with her boyfriend had a mishap.
The boy we're supposed to feel sorry for is a 40-something-year-old man who while he was on top was the personable, hypochondrical, mood-swinging, arrogant son of a very wealthy man -- who gave him much from the stolen sums. Now, he is unemployable by other firms as a result of what his father did (with some help) and hasn't yet come up with a business idea of his own.
Is it all dad's fault? Wouldn't it be nice if the stories could be written differently, perhaps letting the kids have a little more of their hands in their own shame?
Michael Jackson (the singer, not beer hunter or motivational speaker or any other MJ) is by all reports still dead. And he is threatening to take the dad-ideal with him — well, not him exactly, any more, now its mostly reporting hagiography and hangers-on crawling out to claim some part of his relationship with fatherhood.
Two icky extremes from his songs: 1) in the words of his Billie Jean ("The kid is not my son") and, perhaps neither is the girl as stories surface that he is legal guardian and not biologically related to his children; 2) in the words from Beat It ("They'll kick you, then they beat you/Then they'll tell you it's fair") there is his daddy Joe, who knocked his little boy around to "help" teach him to sing and now wants to ride the death train toward the success of his own music label or at least into some of the money he wasn't supposed to get when he was left from the will.
A crazy father (of some inexplicable sort) has passed. RIP Michael Jackson.
He was the son crazed by his father, Joe. And he was the father who seemed well on the way to crazying his own two boys and a girl. Now, in the final words of Ecclesiastes 3 ("To everything there is a season ...") comes the time to stop trying to understand his transgressions and oddities and remember his talents:
...Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?/Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?
I can't help it. When Thing get a 100 on a test or score a goal, I tell them how proud I am for them, but (truth be told) there's a little bit of me celebrating me going on as well. Fathers see themselves in their children.
And this brings us to today's guessing game: can you match the son with the famous dad, and guess their reaction to the son's success?
Son One is making his way in the movies and on the stage along the same, generally good guy path as his dad. When asked about his association with his dad, he said: "... if I change my name, then I'm going to be asked, 'Why did you feel you had to change your name?' It always comes up, but it wasn't until people started asking me a million questions that I had to sit and take stock of stuff. It is what it is."
Son Two just called his dad "cheap" on television, because he wouldn't bail him out of a $5000 personal trainer bill that the son told the trainer he would pay, just as he had paid previously. (It's not clear anyone ever told the father prior to the billing that he was on the hook.)
Son Three just earned a college scholarship for his basketball play, which may not have meant much to the family checkbook of his multi-millionaire, sky-leaping pop, but did make the son cry for its validation of his hoopsiness.
And the answers for the sons are:
Son One: Colin "son of actor Tom"Hanks, in the news for his current starring Broadway and Hollywood roles.
Son Two: Sean "son of rocker and aged roue Rod" Stewart in the news for an appearance on "Judge Jeanne."
Son Three: Jeff "son of bball icon Michael" Jordan, who takes his first turn in the NCAA men's basketball tournament, coming off the bench for Illinois.
The answers for the dads? Surely, at least two of them are proud, but only a father really knows how much of himself he sees in his kid's actions.
Wired's Geek Dad turned two, with contests and reflections celebrating the paternally and technologically obsessed. What it doesn't do, however, is answer the question of what it means for the child (in general terms) to have a dad who is mechanically minded.
Could technological interests or abilities shadow a child in the same way being a Beatle could? And in exchange, to be fair, how far can a child knock you off your mechanical game, because no matter what he thinks, Roger Federer will have quite the adjustment to his tennis game after baby Fed arrives.
Do the GDs have a tool to accurately measure that?
What to get him? With the fatherhood announcement by Ricky "isn't he gay, not that it will make him either a good or bad dad" Martin, it is time to figure out a belated gift for the baby shower.
What could be better for the single man who now has everything than a parenting book; and what could be more appropriate to put up/pull down from the book shelf than the new title for a book of lessons from a dad who raised kids on his own, to wit, the poetically entitled Parenting Dad (&/or Mom) by the MBA, self-publisher and publicist Lance D. Shaw who seems to have raised his kids since their pre-school years (and, apparently, successfully) in a sort of corporate special projects style.
Good luck in the real la vida loco Mr. Martin. BTW, where exactly were the kids when you were practicing for parenthood?
This week's objet d'eBay, a copy of the 1984 (now honorary Dr.) Feargal Sharkey single "Listen to Your Father," offers an interesting lesson that was probably not part of the original artistic vision. Despite the title, the biggest bass beat comes down on the phrase. "I bet you don't listen to your father." That phrasing is set amid a video that falls flat, a bunch of people doing nothing at all and smiling through it.
So, listen to dad (not Sharkey)so you don't come up with such a blah mess, unless he gets into his head some really idiotic idea like showing you in a sex tape to his friends as a way to defend your innocence on a charge of rape.
This week's objet d'eBay is described as a 50s-ish pic taken around Halloween-time of "Dad with His Scary Clown Son." Anyone can call anything what they want, but if truth be told the kid doesn't actually look that scary.
Speaking All Hallows Eve frightening, the kid is far down the scare-o-meter from "King of Pop"(?) Michael Jackson (described as a "top dad" by bro Jermaine who is hoping he'll pump up a tour to make money for the rest of the family). Jackson — outside his personal life of quirks — did also contribute the so-far greatest halloween video ever ... a 26-year-old blast from the past of a dad hanging with his peeps — from when dad was the scary clown son.
With even the best of scribblers it's words, words, blah, blah, blah .... Not even the most eloquent ever get wholly right the feeling between father and child.
British writer William Leith (author of The Hungry Years) recently penned a gloriously moving essay about being a part-time father (it's related to his upcoming Bits of Me). He tries to communicate his joy to his son, his combination loss and pleasure to his ex-, and the complexity of love to the reader. But even a master wordsmith only explains around his subject: he is unable to define all that he feels for his son.
Similarly, what does one get from the lyrics of "Grafton Street," a song pop princess Dido penned for her late Da. She uses outside things a street, a house, a touch, to try and explain the feelings on the inside. Evocative probably. Provocative maybe. But definitive of her or anyone's experience? Hardly.
Not that the words as symbol of love isn't better than just a symbol. They're much less likely to be misunderstood. After all, what to make of Gwyneth Paltrow not shedding tresses in honor of her dad and then lopping off the blonde to signify a movement from the mourning period?
After all, when discussing dads and kids, misunderstood is one of the last things anyone should promote. And in this case we're absolutely looking at you Dallas Area Rapid Transit with signs promoting domestic abuse shelters publicly demonizing the good and bad dads. What exactly will kids who see the signs think?
It is true, we can't all have the talent of a Leith. And nobody gets it all right. But that doesn't mean anyone shouldn't try or that even a bureaucracy should condone, accept or promote words about fathers that have been set to paper without thought of the consequences. Again, think about the kids and the fathers, if you have time and heart.
Mmmbop, ba duba dop
Ba du bop, ba duba dop
Ba du bop, ba duba dop
Ba du
Yeah
Mmmbop, ba duba dop
Ba du bop, Ba du dop
Ba du bop, Ba du dop
Ba du
Yeah
How will you tell if the person making those noises (lyrics of MMMBop, if that helps) is the dad or baby. Such is the first thought upon the news flash of the birth of John Ira Shepherd Hanson.
Today's objet d'eBay, a collection of fan crap for the long forgotten — hardly known even then — boy group, Hanson, is part of the second thought upon hearing the new daddy news: the sleep deprivation of having your own child might make you old (along with the other aspects of being a dad), but the stake in the heart of your youth is hearing about others' children.
In this case, new dad Zac, was also the baby of boy group Hanson — who knew they were still even touring (?) and, no, apparently not a lot of imagination in the Hanson family when it comes to band names.
So, does the news that the baby of a boy band had a baby depress you? Or has the senior memory thing already kicked in so that you can't even remember that you barely knew any part of this to begin with?
WHY the Mother's Day brunch, but nothing equally iconic for dads?
Barbecue? Letting him out for a non-complained-about round of golf? A tie? Not reminding him of the "honey-do" list? A bottle of scotch? Freud never got the answer on woman. Maybe his time would have been better served discovering "what do dad's want?"
Maybe the happiest Father's Day would be one free from worry. As if .... There is the romantic worrier archtyped by Rogers and Hammerstein in Carousel's "My Boy Bill," and there's the bigger worry — for dads of girls, at least — of not being able to communicate, to losing your daughter and to a new generation of worries from your own "madonna."
HFD.
