Cole Miner? Daughter

For the most part, Nat "King" Cole is missing and omnipresent from daughter Natalie Cole's reminisce of her struggles and faith, Love Brought Me Back. The new book is a rather slim (176 pages) look at only two years of her life. Those are the "highlights" of her slide down from the heights she reached singing through electronic magic with her iconic father, she picked up Hep C — possibly through heroin use — and was saved by a liver transplant.

Her second memoir, it seems a strange way to try and revitalize and publicize a career. That said, the oddity of this as a career move may be a result of not knowing how much of her father to include in her work. She achieved a following staying far away from his music, but had her greatest success — and received some of the most stinging criticism — when she duetted with daddy in Unforgettable. And after the peak (chronicled in memoir No. 1, Angel on My Shoulder) came the struggle of whether she truly honored or her father or lived off him ... and the fall into book No. 2.

She has her health again, but the struggle continues. Can she be her own artist or just her father's daughter. And if not one or the other, how does she blend both for career success and personal happiness?

Finding the Right Words

A father doesn't have to be around to make a father proud. Witness the spot-on rejoinder of Roseanne Cash to the senseless invocation of her father's name by Ohio congressman Boehner.

Here We Go Again

It may be true that buying the right gift for dad is an impossible task come Father's Day. However, that doesn't quite justify saying that something is new for dad when it isn't.

With MD gone for the year, 429 records has begun trying to beat a drum for their 2009 father's day exclusive CD, "A Song for My Father." Kids sing dads songs. Vocally talented kids. Wonderfully talented dads. And it turns out to be a nice album ... at least based on a 2007 review, the last time ASFMF was an exclusive, new release, timed just for that year's father's day.



So it may not be a truly, new, exclusive gift. It's probably still better than the tie-socks pairing you gave last year.

Super Bowl Father Faves

Maybe the Patriots have their stories and they just haven't made it to the web ... or are still hidden from the spiders. But right now, the New Jersey Giants have a more sentimental tug on the heart of fans rooting for a Super Bowl XLII winner than the New England Patriots.

Big Blue has more stories of generational father-son bondings and the Giants have had four fathers and sons who have played for them — currently highlighted by long snapper Zak DeOssie, whose father, Steve, was a linebacker and long snapper on the 1991 Super Bowl Champ Giants. (Admittedly, it is hard for the Pats to match either of these as they were only founded in 1960 as the Boston Patriots of the AFL and the "Jints" have been punting, passing and kicking since 1925.)

And while surely, somewhere there are Pats fan stories and they are in the process of creating some for the future, the Giants even begin the SB with a father-child edge as Jordin Sparks, an American Idol and daughter of former blue man Phillippi Sparks, will sing the national anthem. The elder Sparks managed to be on and then off the team in the valley between its 1991 and 2001 Super Bowl appearances.

** Not that sons following in the footsteps of a father -- even to a Super Bowl -- is rare. **