Most of the hard work of fathering is carried out in the dim, totally boring dankness of non-fame: regular dads raising regular people who will never cause Harvey Levin to smirk or send out his hordes of batshit paparazzi.
Fortunately, celebrity dads–the famous people who famously sired famous kids–are in the news again this week.
Actually, the first news item is about an everyday dad who tried to become a celebrity back in October. For trying to rise above his station in life (and for causing Denver International to shut down), balloon-boy’s father headed to jail on Monday, where he’ll have 90 days to sketch out his next PR stunt on correctional stationery.
Two dads who didn’t need a hoax to get famous, just an unquenchable thirst for publicity, may finally hit bottom–and each other–in May. Who cares that the PacMan-Mayweather fight was called off? Fight fans can now eagerly await Jon Gosselin v. Michael Lohan later this Spring.
Meanwhile, Amy Winehouse’s dad Mitch had taken her to task for getting back together with her coke-smokin’ ex (OK, he’s an alleged coke-smoker. DadWagon doesn’t want any part of those ridiculous UK libel suits). So Winehouse struck back, in a Tweet that was so taut and correctly composed that she could have been sober when she wrote it. Or maybe she was just on coke, which makes me, at least, tweet prolifically and powerfully. Amy’s twitter-venge:
WHY don’t my dad WRITE a SONG when something bothers him instead of going on national tv? An you thought YOUR parents were embarassing [SIC]
A dad who was already pretty famous in Nigeria before his son’s crotch became famous in the skies over Detroit may be feeling some Senate heat to testify in his son’s case. We here at DadWagon, of course, threw a Tantrum last week about whether it was right to rat out your kid. But Theodore pointed out that our whole debate was sorta bullshit, so don’t hold your breath waiting for a follow-up about whether it’s morally permissible to testify against your child in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Let’s end on a grace note for us non-famous folk, though: no one else might think this, but your kid thinks you’re famous and powerful and magical. And some days, that’s almost enough.