DADWAGON

Last night, in the 90 minutes or so between when the nanny leaves and Jean comes home, I was playing with Sasha. That is, I was lying near-catatonic on the couch watching TV while Sasha ran around destroying things (she loves to tear apart New York Magazine, more than any other publication, for some reason).

All of a sudden, I heard something strange: Alex Trebek announcing a Jeopardy! category: “The New York Times Frugal Traveler”! My nap was over. In a heartbeat, I was 10 inches in front of the TV, fumbling with my iPhone to, first of all, call my mom, who was probably watching “Jeopardy!” as well, and then to videotape the moment, sure to happen seconds later, when the contestants—all college students—leapt all over themselves to select the category.

That, um, didn’t exactly happen. I think the producers must have thought that a budget-travel theme would entice these college kids, but instead the contestants shied away from it almost entirely until the very end of Double Jeopardy. At least they got most of the answers (questions?) right—they only missed one about the city that has Vélib—and at least I managed to capture the footage on my iPhone. The sound is pretty low, and obscured by Sasha’s attempts at plinky-piano-playing (at least one of my editors likes it better that way), but there it is—a weird, amazing, surprising, gasp-inducing minute or two of near-fame.

As my friend Richard Ziglar put it, I am now, “officially, a taken-for-granted cultural meme.” Enjoy:

DadWagoner Matt posted this morning about the British historian Niall Ferguson, who’s reportedly playing Hide the Research Assistant with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, former Dutch MP and Glenn Beck’s hottest guest. In the interest of editorial integrity (yes, there is such a thing at DadWagon, despite this and this), I am calling bullshit on one part of the report, which came from the Mail on Sunday.

I know what you’re thinking: Mail on Sunday? You mean Flo-Rida’s debut album? The one with confessions like “Shorty was hot like a toaster/Sorry but I had to fold her/Like a pornography poster“? How could you call bullshit on that? Flo-rida totally could have folded her.

No, I’m talking about the conservative UK paper, the Sunday edition of the Daily Mail whose article Matt quoted:

The pair are understood to have met at Time magazine’s prestigious 100 Most Influential People In The World party in New York last May. Ferguson and Ms Hirsi Ali, who have both been on the list, were introduced by Belinda Luscombe, the magazine’s art editor.

I thought I’d ask around about this, since I have had my share of free liquor at these TIME 100 events in the past. And word on the street (I love blogging, where that actually qualifies as sourcing) is that Ms. Luscombe had nothing to do with this arrangement, that Ferguson was there with another date, and if this love tryst kicked off as reported, then the sparking happened after that party. Sounds like the Mail on Sunday wanted to write a narrative to fit the photograph they had of Ferguson and Ali from the TIME 100 party.

Small detail, perhaps, but it makes you wonder what else they flubbed on the story. And I’m not terribly surprised to see sloppiness coming from the Mail on Sunday. They concoct trend stories just like the New York Times. They totally cocked up the Ed Balls story. When it comes to sex crimes, they come perilously close to blaming the victim. It is not my favorite paper.

As for Matt’s statement that Tory sex options are limited to hot apostate Muslims or Nazi-themed torture orgies: I totally agree.

Now, I’m not one to necessarily condone leaving your wife of 16 years and your three kids for another woman, but on some level I approve of the mini-scandal echoing out of England (via Cambridge, Mass.): Niall Ferguson, a Harvard professor, hedge-funder, and TV presenter with, as the Daily Mail puts it, “high-level links to the Tory Party,” has thrown over his newspaper-editor wife for Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born quasi-conservative feminist who wrote the script for the possibly anti-Muslim short film that got Dutch director Theo Van Gogh assassinated. Whew!

Says the Mail:

The pair are understood to have met at Time magazine’s prestigious 100 Most Influential People In The World party in New York last May. Ferguson and Ms Hirsi Ali, who have both been on the list, were introduced by Belinda Luscombe, the magazine’s art editor.

The flamboyant Ms Hirsi Ali, who was dressed in an eye-catching cobalt-blue cocktail dress, immediately captivated Ferguson, who was photographed with his arm around her waist.

On the surface, it looks pretty bad, especially since Ferguson allegedly cheated on his wife eight times in the past five years, and is also none too popular among some fellow historians, one of whom claimed, “He has the kind of face you want to punch.”

But here’s why I kind of get it: This is the conservative European version of the game that American husbands and wives play all the time—the “I Get to Fuck a Rock Star” game. You know, like if there was some chance that I could ever sleep with, say, Zooey Deschanel—purely in hope of producing a child with the most frightening eyes in the universe—my wife, Jean, would be okay with that. Right, Jean?

In the Tory universe, however, you’ve pretty much got two choices. You can engage in a Nazi-themed torture orgy, or you can pray you meet an apostate Muslim with conservative politics who also happens to be outrageously hot. And we know how many of those there are around.

All’s I’m saying is: I may not approve, but I understand. I hope Jean will, too.

If Dadwagon were to have a blog motto (and despite all of Nathan’s efforts to create one, we still don’t), if might be this: famous dads are bad dads.

In that light, I give you this photo of Katie Holmes and the android daughter she spawned via the miracle of steroids (for Tom Cruise), alien intelligence, and a single rapid, eyes-squeezed-shut, please-can-we-get-this-over-with fuck (we presume).

What, you say, is there in this picture of Katie and the Cruise youth that would imply bad fatherdom? Nothing! Or, actually, nowhere, as in, why isn’t Tom with his family in the midst of The Great Blizzard of 2010?

Clearly a bad dad..that we sort of love…although he does the same thing in each movie…and he seems kinda crazy.