Living in the Dadows

It doesn't happen often, but there are some dadows (generational shadows cast by near superhuman fathers) that are too large to escape, no matter how grand the child's accomplishments. In My Father's Shadow, the autobiography of Chris Welles Feder creater of the Brainquest empire) details what it is like to be successful in your own life but the child of genius — in her case auteur Orson Welles.

There is almost an affirmative action stigma ("you only got to that place with help...") to any achievement of the daughter or son of a GREAT man. So, even though, for example, Bernice King is accomplished as a reverend and attorney and (combining the two) as a toiler for civil rights, an article "celebrating" her election to president of the Southern Christian Leadership Council says little more about her personally than that she is the daughter of a great man, who was one of those who initiated the group and that her election is under a cloud of suspicion.

So, congrats to both Feder and King, but sympathies too: alas, you'll never be your own man.

Twin Musings

Are twins really twice as much joy, two times the trouble? You could ask the father, but how would he know ... it's not as if he has conducted a scientific experiment to compare his feelings with test and control subjects.

Still, for interesting opinions on new twins, you could probably do worse than to ask Nguyen Duc (a Siamese twin separated from his brother who has just given birth to fraternal twins) or Richard Roden, 71, who impregnated his 25-year-old wife with what have turned out to be twins to the oldest Brit pop of twins and previous father of a mere 10.

So far, though, Roden is offering much more than cliches:

Being a dad at 71 is definitely more tiring than in my 20s, but they give me such a lot of pleasure; and, I wouldn’t swap them for anything – not even winning the lottery. They have made my life complete.

Listen Up

Advice for new fathers come in all forms. There are the columns of collected wisdom such as the easy column for new dad journalists to phone in. And then there are the men who want to talk of themselves as they talk of their kids. Presumably with tongue stuck somewhere in his cheek is unacceptableface, offering "My thoughts on this momentous occasion. Probably one of the most important, inspiring videos on youtube." Including such revelations as:

• Mother and baby both very good. I mean, if I'm forced to choose, I'd probably prefer the baby.
• It was only when I looked at little face that I realized ... quite ... how incredible I am.I created life.
• I'm not saying I'm better than someone who hasn't gotten a child; I obviously am.

Almost reluctantly, he reveals the important stats. Eight pounds (and 40 pence) to pay for parking.

Have a Heart, Pop

Stefani Germanotta bought her dad a heart. First she wrote him a song (Speechless), but, apparently he didn't pay attention to her fears for his death so she spent a bit of her advance against music royalties. Not much newsworthy about this until you add that the father of SG is the pop of poptart Lady GaGa — who will be tattooing how she hearts dad to celebrate the successful surgery.

It would be nice if this idea would catch on — buying, not tattoing, the heart ... to be more specific — specifically in the case of Omar bin laden, who was offered some change to speak up about the father who beat him and encouraged him to become a suicide bomber. It is probably too late, but if some of the money from Growing Up Bin Laden were to be spent on getting a (presumably metaphorical) heart for the evil Osama it certainly couldn't make things worse.

The Genius of Fictional Autobiography

The son loses his father to war without ever knowing him. His mother remarries and the newlyweds rename the boy (both middle and last name), not yet five. He has a learning disorder, but grows up quiet, a bit odd, a wrestler and, eventually, a writer in search of father characters.

Such is the biography of writer John Irving. Such are many of the works of Irving. And, with some variations on his usual themes, such is the new novel, "Last Night in Twisted River," that is a picaresque quest of father and son, begun when the child skillets the cranium of a woman, fearing she is a bear instead of a mistress (and his sitter) looming above his pleasured father in flagrante delicto.

In writing his fictional fathers and sons, Irving is in search of himself. Still, the magic is that his words, somehow also turn out to be the same search — yet unique to each — of many other dads and their children.

Baby Baby Daddies

Baby daddies keep getting younger. Not "baby daddy" as in some unmarried guy who impregnates an unmarried gal. No, here — as in the saga of the anonymous (so far) 13-year-old Brit and his 14-year-old baby mama — we are talking about boys, practically babies, who have done the deed and implanted the seed.

It's very sad. Maybe cake and candles would make it better?

There's a Soup in My Mouse

Television folk often seem like the family. They're not. They're folks who have family of their own. Today, as we say ciao bello to Milton Supman — video anarchist (nihilist?) Soupy Sales, who passed this past Thursday — we also remember his Top 40 hit, this week's objet d'eBay, Do The Mouse.



But the man of The Mouse is also father to two sons, Hunt and Tony Sales, who became the legitimate musicians (although in rock, not his father's beloved jazz) that it seemed daddy Soup always wanted to be.

Here's to part of the Soupster's legacy, Hunt



and Tony Sales.

Shoe (and not you) Blues

In the LOL-crime of the century, adidas won't let Michael Jordan's son step into his shoes. Jordan senior is branded with sneak-maker Nike, while college frosh Marcus is being paid (sorry, scholarshipped) to play basketball for the University of Central Florida, which takes money to make sure all its hoopsters play with three stripes, no swoosh, on their feet.

While unlikely to draw the same headlines, a few other prominent kid-following-in-dad's-footsteps fights are under way. Chris Brubeck, 57, is struggling to get folks in the classic music world to pay attention to jazz and vice versa ... as well as trying to get everyone to accept he and brothers Darius and Dan as musicians with their own work instead of just the kids of "Take Five" and "Blue Rondo" daddy Dave, 88. Beau Biden has returned from war — the Delaware attorney general serves as a reservist in Iraq — and is apparently now fighting about whether or not to fight for his dad (VP Joe's) former senate seat. [Earlier: Veep Daddies]

And then there is Shannon Lee, who lost father Bruce when he was 32 and she was four. Her battle is for his "legacy." Well, maybe not his legacy, more like the $5 to $10 million you can snatch by licensing his image rather than let it being poorly marketed or just used by folks who don't pay the one's who own the iconography of a d(e)ad man.

Can we get sneaker deals all around?