DadCentric

The Dark Side of Dentistry - A Friday Funny

If you've been on the internets this week chances are you've run across David.  David is a little boy that was filmed by his father after a trip to the dentist.  Big deal, you say?  Well, considering that David is hopped up more than Kate Moss on elephant tranquilizers it makes for good television- or YouTubevision as the case may be. The first time I watched this I wasn't sure if I should laugh or be upset that a dad put this on the internet, but after much thought (about 2 seconds) I realized that the dad in question is being quite loving and that the video was not created out of any sort of malice to David, just as a funny memory. The fact that it became huge on the internets isn't the father's fault. It's ours. I'm okay with that.

As is the standard with popular videos, David's moment of fame has been copied and responded to by countless others, Mr. Chad Vader among them.  This is your brain on the dark side:

Remember, good padawans brush their teeth. [via GorillaSushi]

Sailin' Off Into The Weekend

It has not been that great of a week. But when things get grim, I can usually count on surfer/dad Chum to even things out. The ocean, after all, is the world's biggest dose of Perspective. I'd never heard this Tom Waits song before. It's going into permanent rotation. Clear skies and calm waters, y'all.

Any Other Man Stops and Talks

He's the walking man
Born to walk
Walk on walking man
Well now, would he have wings to fly
Would he be free
Golden wings against the sky
Walking man, walk on by So long, walking man, so long

I doubt James Taylor was singing this song for Dan Hughes, which makes him the only one not talking about Dan and his band of merry men.  I like to think that JT would be cool with it.  Does Sweet Baby James read DadCentric?  He should, he's got kids.

The internet has been abuzz with tales of Dan, a blogger and a gentleman from the U.K. (All That Comes With It) and the quest that he and nine friends have undertaken to support a cause close to all of us.

The lads are walking 78 miles through the countryside of England in six days to raise money and awareness for the Joseph Salmon Trust.  As a matter of fact, at the time of this writing Day 1 is already in the books and I assume that their collective feet are soaking and beers are being savored.  So far, so good.

If you are unfamiliar with "The Walk" or the charity they are supporting, then here is what you should know.   The Joseph Salmon Trust has been set up to help parents bereaved of a child.

Joseph Salmon was a happy and seemingly healthy 3-year-old little boy, no different than the two small boys sleeping down the hall from where I now sit. No different than your son or your daughter. No different than we ourselves were so many years ago.

In the words of his parents, Neil and Rachael Salmon, "Joseph was a happy, healthy three year old who loved life. He enjoyed playing with his toy trains, his cars and his pretend kitchen. He had a busy social life, with lots of friends from nursery, friends who lived nearby and his little sister. He enjoyed cooking with his mummy, going on trains and buses with his daddy, and playing outside with anyone who would join in. Joseph had a passion for books and had just started to ‘read’ them to his younger sister.

"It felt like his life was just beginning."

Joseph died on April 1st, 2005.

He died from streptococcal pneumonia. "It’s very rare and it took him, although suddenly, very peacefully," said his mother. "When I went in to him in the morning it was obvious from his posture that he’d just gone into a deeper and deeper sleep and never knew anything about it. This too is what all the medical personnel associated with him told us. There are not many (if any) consolations when you lose a child, but at least he didn’t suffer. And as a parent, it’s one of the things you want most for your child isn’t it?"

Chances are that if you are reading DadCentric you are a parent, and if not there is an even better chance that you are someone's child.  This isn't a charity based on hope and cures.  This is a charity for those that have lost more than anyone ever should.  It is a charity for remembering.

On behalf of DadCentric, thank you, Dan.  Thank you to you and your friends, and best of luck.

For more on "The Walk" including information on donations and daily updates please visit All That Comes With It.

Also:

The Joseph Salmon Trust

The Dales Walk

Ordinary Dads Walking for an Extraordinary Cause

Video Diary

Dom? Mad? Fother? Mather? I'm Confused.

Well, it was bound to happen. Science has finally reached the point where what was once inconceivable will soon be reality. I refer, of course, to the Wachowskis' Speed Racer, coming to theaters this summer. How dope does that look!?

Also, apparently there's a pregnant guy.

This has caused quite a stir in the Dad-O-Sphere. Greg's take on Thomas Beattie is erudite, succinct, and delivered with sensitivity and tact. The Sun's take on him? Well. Also, they totally stole my thunder - I was all set to riff on the almost completely forgotten Schwartzenegger flick Junior, but no point in doing that now. Wait - is that Emma Thompson? Holy shit! It is! Always a surprise when a renowned actor slums it.

Anyway, back to the pregnant dad: I think I can speak for a great many fathers when I say that Thomas Beattie is a  brave guy, sharing his story with the world, and carrying out his desire to give birth. Yes, brave in the sense that he certainly knew, going into it, that he'd be dealing with bigotry and ostracism from narrow-minded folk. But, much more than that, HE'S PREGNANT. Can you name one dad who, after spending nine months with his achy, nauseous, itchy, hormonal, emotional, hairy-where-there-once-was-smoothness, thought "yeah, I'd like to try that! Where do I sign up?" Oh, and once you hit that nine month mark you have to have the baby surgically removed (well, I suppose that's better than passing the kid through either of the two available exit routes. You thought passing that kidneystone hurt? Try pissing out a 10 pound baby!)  Fuck. That. Shit. I am waaaay too much of a pussy to be a biological mom.  And, dads who are reading this, admit it - so are you. Look in the mirror, look deep into your eyes, into the window of your souls, and say this: "May God strike me down if I'm lying - I would like to get pregnant. Because along with the constant back pain, there's a good chance that I'll develop a hemorrhoid the size of a Titleist."  Yeah, I thought so.

Thucydides said that "the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it." So, Thomas Beattie, we at DadCentric salute your courage. All that, plus you have to go to your own baby shower? You deserve the Congressional Medal of Honor, dude.

A Celebration of The Life of Mr. Big Dubya, On This, The Occasion Of His Passing

By now, most of you will have heard that we've lost one of our best and brightest. Mr. Big Dubya, known to his lovely wife and beautiful children as "Warren" and "Father" respectively, known to his friends as Mr. Big Dubya, known to the Pennsylvania legal system as "Paul Murchison", and known to his bookie as "that guy that lost $59,920 on Destination Alpo in the fifth race at Santa Anita", has, sadly, left the confines of this mortal coil. He was 40 years old. Our friendship is, of course, well documented. I remember it well, that fateful day when we first crossed paths. That game of mumblety-peg, the likes of which the people of Lisbon had never seen. The thinly veiled insult (for the record, I do enjoy a good Imitation Krab Salad, as do a great many learned men). Pistols at dawn on the field of honor. That fateful misfire, and the good laugh that followed. Thus was our friendship forged. We shared a bond that few will ever know - him saving my life during that fateful day on the Edmund Fitzgerald, me giving him the last of my Wint-O-Green Breath Savers that one time. Sadly, I'll never get that Breath Saver back. Because, really, $1.00 a pack? Who am I, Croesus?

Mr. Big Dubya was a man of action, not words. Here was a man who every year made the pilgrimage to Salt Lake City to visit the grave of his idol, Wilfred Brimley. (Being informed, years later, that Mr. Brimley was not in fact dead would have broken a lesser man; Mr. Big Dubya took it in stride, and continued to make the trek, a testament to the man's tenacity.) Here was a man who took his duties as an astronaut seriously, and yet never failed to make the men and women of Mission Control laugh, even on the most difficult of missions, with his unique variations on the time-honored "fart in a spacesuit" theme. Running with the bulls through the streets of Pamplona, tracking the yeti across the treacherous slopes of the Himalayas, hunting U-boats in his makeshift patrol boat off the Cuban shores (an act of courage that would later be immortalized in a classic song by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton) - this was a life well lived.

A wise man once said that it's better to burn than fade away; he also said "unda gleeben glauben globen", or some such, and though I have no idea what either of those two things mean, they seem fitting. Farewell, Mr. Big Dubya. 40 years on this earth was far too short a time. Unless you were a dog. Then, fuck, dude. You'd have been a really old dog. (ETA 5/4/07 6:50 a.m.: my intern has informed me that Mr. Big Dubya is actually not dead, but celebrating his 40th birthday. We apologize for the error.)

DadMomCentric

As you may have heard by now, men having babies is all the rage.  It was only a matter of time before science quit worrying about such frivolous pursuits as cures for AIDS and cancer and concentrated on the real (relationship) killer of our time, pregnancy.

Women have unfairly had to do all of the hard work in regard to developing, and in my case, creating, new life.  Then they have been obligated to follow the process with 18-80 years of worrying and creative criticism, while men get off with, well, getting off.  Men have felt really guilty about this for a long time.

That is why we here at DadCentric have decided to bridge the gap.  We are opening ourselves up to you, the readers, to help us make amends.  One of our writers will undergo the proper procedure(s) to become fertile.  Which one?  That's where you come in.  Vote in the comments below.

There are links in the sidebar.  Check everyone out and decide which dad is man enough to get knocked up.  All it takes is your vote, a dash of science and 7 lemoncillos.  Anal sex is optional.

Dad O' The Week: Genuine

Must be the season: I'm sick (head cold), and the end of the year is nigh, a scant ten weeks until 2007. In daddy terms, this means that moving forward every single weekend is booked - parties, visits from relatives and friends, trips to visit parents, nonstop action. Hence the lack of material. New dads out there, be warned: things don't let up for a while. I'm told that life's frenetic pace downshifts to 4th somewhere around the kid's 18th birthday. That'll be nice.

Not that I'm complaining (well, as I just realized that I'll be 55 when the kid turns 18, I may have a small complaint, but I'll save that for a future post. Unless someone can offer me assurance that at that age I'll be driving a flying car and getting a foot massage from my robot maid while watching my son play quarterback for USC on my giant hologram projection device). Most of us generally lead sitcom-flavored lives; every once in a while, we get a Very Special Episode, but for the most part things go...well, if not swimmingly, at least dog-paddlingly. A few of you may know Jim, from The Blogfathers and The Best of Blogs Awards and his own site, Genuine. He's one of the more gracious and gregarious bloggers out there, and I was shocked and deeply saddened to read his account of the turn his life has taken.

One of the unexpected pleasures of being a dadblogger is the camaraderie I've found among my peers. While I may not agree with all of them, and have gotten into some heated debates with some, I get the sense that there's a bond between dads that transcends our differences. So when one of our own takes a tumble, I'd like to think that the rest of us are out there to offer a hand, even if it's a virtuablogospherical one. Please drop by Jim's site and wish him well.

El Padre Libre!

One thing that always pisses me off is the declaration of any given celebrity to be a "great" father.  Now, don't get me wrong.  I don't disparage the celebrities themselves.  I'm sure many of them ARE great parents.

If anything, I blame the tabloids and celebrity publications for feeding the frenzy by continuing to annually publish lists of "Best Dad" polls.  The most  recent incarnation of such a poll just declared that Brad Pitt was Father of the Year. 

In declaring Mr. Pitt this year's honorary winner,  Life + Style editor in chief DEBRA BIRNBAUM decided Pitt was this year's (06) top dad, stating, "He even skipped the Cannes Film Festival in anticipation of Shiloh's birth!" 

Wow!  Talk about the ultimate parenting sacrifice!  Missing Cannes?  Are you fucking kidding me? 

I bring this all up because I was watching an old episode of "Jimmy Kimmel Live" on my DVR the other day and caught the actor Jack Black talking about the recent birth of his son.  While watching him talk about his love of fatherhood, I realized once again why I've always loved Jack Black.  What other celebrity father would go on TV and say the following...

"I already love him and I've only known him for 4 days. It's automatic love.  Totally awesome!"

"He's a barfer.  Just like his daddy.  But he smells so damn good!  The barfs are like a little perfume.  The turds are like a delicious custard.  It's all just so good.  Really, the little things are the best."

"I'm doing all the things that I can do.  I do the diaper changing. Really, there's only two things.  There's the cleaning the ass and then the making sure he gets the foods from the boobies.  Otherwise, I just give the lovings.  The lovings.  The burpings.  It's pretty simple. I give him lovings.  That's my main job."

Jack Black...you're my kind of dude.  Let Brad Pitt, Heath Ledger & Ryan Phillippe have their public accolades from fluffy trash magazines.  You're a real dad and, for that, you're our DadCentric Dad of the Week!

Dad O' The Week: Jack Bristow

Tonight, we say farewell to one of our own. A dad for the ages, he's worn many hats in his day - father, husband, faithful employee of Credit Dauphin, coldblooded spy/assassin/torturer. Here is a man who speaks five languages, holds multiple degrees (physics, engineering, linguistics, cryptology), worked for his old CIA buddy who in reality was his evil genius archenemy, was married to an undercover KGB agent, had a daughter that he sent to a sleeper agent school when she was five, found out his wife was actually a KGB agent and eventually killed her, then found out it wasn't her but a clone created with the technology created by a 15th century mystic/scientist and was greatly relieved because he was still kinda crushin' on her, found out that the real ex-wife had an affair with and a daughter by his evil genius archenemy, hooked up with his not-dead wife's evil sister, killed her, went back to work for his evil genius archenemy after his evil genius archenemy apparently turned good but then continued to spy on good-formerly-evil genius archenemy, and along the way defused numerous ultimate weapons, infiltrated numerous impregnable enemy strongholds, killed a shitload of unpleasant people in nasty ways, and still had to be told what a "spork" was by his IT guy.

So long, Jack. If that is your real name.

Dad O' The Week: A.J. Jacobs

Chances are good that A.J. Jacobs has forgotten more stuff than you or I will ever know. His thoroughly enjoyable book The Know-It-All details his quest to read the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica, all 44 million words of it. I won't spoil the ending - of his book, anyway. The Encyclopedia ends with zywiec. A.J.'s current project: he's spending his days obeying the Bible as literally as possible, and putting it all down on papyrus scrolls. A.J. is also the Editor at Large for Esquire magazine, and is a dad to boot.

The Know-It-All starts with a line that's familiar to many new dads: "I used to be smart." Reading – at least reading books that aren't seven pages long, printed on cardboard, with a talking train as protagonist – often takes a backseat to other, more pressing matters. With your son Jasper in the picture, are you still reading as much as before?

Not quite so much. My son was given about 42 baby encyclopedias, so  sometimes we read those all the way from Anteater to Zebra. Which is probably healthier than reading the Britannica, which goes from a-ak (a type of East Asian music) to zywiec (a Polish town known for its beer). In my spare time, I’m reading different versions of the Bible for my new book.

There's an interesting dynamic in the book between you and your father. Was it hard to be so candid when describing your relationship with him?

Definitely, it was a little tough. I wrote about him in the F chapter, for Freud, since there was a lot of Oedipal stuff going on there. He started to read the encyclopedia when I was a kid, but only made it up to the B’s, around ‘boomerang.’ I wanted to connect with him (and compete with him, I guess), so that was a big motiviation for me reading the encyclopedia. Also, we’re both absurdly repressed, so expressing emotions is hard enough, let alone expressing them in front of someone who's browsing books in Barnes & Noble.

Another aspect of the book that I enjoyed was your (for lack of a better word) affection for the EB. There's a sense today that print encyclopedias are a thing of the past, thanks to the Internet. Is the printed reference book obsolete? And are you worried that Jasper might one day opt to read Wikipedia in it's entirety?

There’s absolutely a sense that the printed encyclopedias are going the way of typewriters and iceboxes and Ricky Martin . The main markets right now are: Libraries, schools, and guys who get book contracts to read the entire EB. Which is kind of a shame. Because there’s something nice about those printed leatherette volumes. The explorer Ernest Shackleton took an entire set of the Britannica with him to Antarctica and ended up using it for kindling. Try doing that with the Internet. And Jasper might have a tough time with the Wikipedia – I hope they give him a big advance.

Your impending fatherhood played a role in the book. Did you find any good parenting advice or stories in the EB?

Well, it did make me feel better about my parenting skills, such as they are. There are a shocking number of fathers who killed their sons, from Ivan the Terrible to King Arthur to various Greek Gods. So compared to them, I’m doing pretty good.

Your current project has you living Biblically. How is this affecting your role as a father?

The Bible says we should talk to our kids about the 10 Commandments, so I’m doing that as much as I can. I tell Jasper not to covet his neighbor’s miniature ukelele or Dora the Explorer backpack. I’m not sure it’s sinking in.
The Bible is also quite pro-corporal punishment, which is something I haven’t been able to bring myself to do.

You're working on the script for the film version of The Know-It-All. (I have a couple of suggestions: get Michael Bay to direct. Montages, explosions, Aerosmith songs, maybe make it a buddy picture - team you up with a middle-aged EB editor on the verge of retirement, and he can keep saying "I'm gettin' too old for this shit!" as you do battle with ninjas. Or get Baz Luhrmann and do a musical/rock opera - call it Brittanica! ). Who would be your pick to portray you?

I love your ideas. Come on board as a producer! Or at least make a cameo as Scandinavian architect Hugo Aalto, the first person to appear in the encyclopedia. As for who I’d pick, I’ll be happy with anyone. I swear. Just as long as it makes it to the screen. I’ll take Armin Mueller-Stahl.