Accounting

Some dads have to work deep in manure and others sewers; some have to come up with great new ways to sell sanitary napkins; others have to go in every day to be mentally abused by a mental [short person] boss; and then there are those who decide to become accountants.

And there is nothing wrong — per se — with being an accountant. Someone has to keep track of money and the fact is almost every dad has that job, too, as part of his family life. Still, it is a sad sight when the man who becomes an accountant has proven he can also bring the fun ... which is where we mention that Eddie Murphy has a new movie coming out in which he plays another father, a type A dad who eventually finds his life in his neglected daughter's imaginary world. In the words of Variety:

Arguably the most innocuous pic of Eddie Murphy's career to date,"Imagine That" is an undemandingly pleasant, mildly amusing fantasy in which nothing -- not even those elements that actually define it as a fantasy -- is ever allowed to get of hand.

It's not his first dud dad role on screen, nor in real life. [Earlier: Back in the Day] However, when there is the material waiting to be created like that for James Caan co-starring with son Scott in a based-on-an-autobiography new film and the shoestring-financed Unknown Soldier — the documentary of New Jersey's John Hulme trying to find the dad who never returned from Vietnam and so never held his son — it is hoped that Murphy would not simply be racking up the pay days as a way to balance the books in his head.

Imagine this: one day his numerous kids will look at him in coffin repose and say, "he was a genius, but then he became a dad and an accountant." It doesn't have to be, for Murphy or any father.

Kilt Feelings

Opportunity knocks today, thanks to this week's objet d'eBay, a daddy/little dude matching sporran set.

Father and newborn can snap up these (sort of) hanging clutches for the kilt with the right bid. It is true that kilting is not cross dressing, but still, father and son should celebrate the moment their bid wins with a beer and bottle as it is likely to be the last time they go shopping together for clothing or accessories.

Keep Me In Your Mind

The fear of the father is to be alone and forgotten in death by his children.

The bad news is that death takes its share and no child can shield his or her dad. The good news is that whether he has died from a heart attack in a van parked illegally on a NYC street; as one of the many troops destroyed in the fight for Omaha beach on D (certainly not dad's) Day (65 years ago, today); or in such a horror show as the concentration camp at Buchenwald, the child will keep searching to connect to the lost father.

As Elie Wiesel said on his return to Buchenwald alongside President Obama and Chancellor Merkel:

As I came here today it was actually a way of coming and visit my father's grave -- but he had no grave. His grave is somewhere in the sky. This has become in those years the largest cemetery of the Jewish people.

The day he died was one of the darkest in my life. He became sick, weak, and I was there. I was there when he suffered. I was there when he asked for help, for water. I was there to receive his last words. But I was not there when he called for me, although we were in the same block; he on the upper bed and I on the lower bed. He called my name, and I was too afraid to move. All of us were. And then he died. I was there, but I was not there. ...

Wiesel returned to his dad, the daughter of the man in the van discovered his end and a son learned solved the lifelong mystery of the soldier who gave him life but never had a chance to meet him. No child staves off a parent's death but each can help give eternal life to his memory.

Multiple-Mania in the Media

It's celeb son in the news day with beleaguered and battering Bobby Brown dropping the news that he has now fathered through his manager and the still loaded Lance Armstrong tweeting his baby boy.

Brown has four older kiddies and Armstrong has three (and, ironically, is rumored to have broken up with Sheryl Crow, who he took up with while married, so as to avoid having a fourth). However, the multiple childmaker most laudably in the news is former heavyweight champ &mash; and gas grill guy extraordinaire — George Foreman, father of five George's and five daughters not all named Georgina.

King George is back in the headlines as III makes his pro-boxing debut this Saturday, not that the elder is making this his thing. As he told 15rounds.com: "You’ve got be careful with the father-son thing.”You can have the best intentions. But you have to know not to cross that line. I have to keep my place and let him be his own man. But you can help him the gym and tell him everything you know about the sport."

Kid Kronikles

Like someone trying to ward off evil by not saying too much good, Michael Lewis tells tales of fatherhood in his new book, Home Game. The book is built for father's day and themed along the lines of his sportswriting background. The work itself is an outgrowth of articles he wrote for Slate — most recently he spoke of how his fathering is finished.

The book is styled as a curmudgeonly appreciation of how he has embraced the youthful invaders into his life. What may not come across to many is how the lite belies the love he really does seem to have for his daughters and son.

The question now is whether everyone takes his talk of his kids at the surface level of his prose or is ready to consider the context of the doting papa. His kids will probably be fine either way.

No Surprise

It is no shame or surprise that the father-to-be may seem a bit awkward, a little unprepared. He may be rushing to sign up for some variation of "baby-illiterate" group of Brentwood-Arlington, Ore.. However, the reality is that such an adventure is basically boy-bonding, but without the beer.

Given some respect, dads-to-be are ready, even as society seems to have a hard time recognizing the real pop from the tv buffoon. The fact is men about to have kids are really (and should be) are ready for anything, even to the extent of pulling over on a bridge and delivering their own son, as did Neversink's (N.Y.) Charles Blume.

Daddy Documentary

"While we loved our father's extravagant greatness," Emily and Sarah Kunstler tell Moving Pictures Magazine while discussing the documentary of their legal bomb thrower father William K., "we also suffered his frailty. And we knew that many other children, especially those who were young when their parents died, take a similar adult journey toward reconciling the parent with the person."

Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe explores a very difficult man with an extraordinary legacy through the lens of two adult daughters who found their life's work among the shadows he cast.

Entertaining Evil

The succession of evil — North Korea's Kim Jung Il to his son Kim Jong Un — can be fascinating, but is not necessarily entertaining. For entertainment you need character depth.

Much more engaging, therefore, is what TV-series Breaking Bad's Walter White is leaving to his son, Flynn. [ Earlier: Dad at the Edge] Despite what his son has written about him (the tv-synced website collects money for real cancer charity), White has — literally in second season finale — caused the sky to fall down around him through the evil he has sown from the depth of his despair and desperation.

From White's character we can only hope for redemption from the evil he has done. From what we know of Kims Jung Il and Jong Un no hope exists.