Your Awesomenator has spent the last few months becoming the Concord area's most enthusiastic new father! Folks who know me say I glow with pride when I talk about baby Owen, and it's true – though, technically, the glowing is a side effect from the time in high school I was bitten by a radioactive spider. I plan on training with the X-Men so I can focus my glowing pride into some kind of laser weapon I can use to fight crime.
Note that I said above I was an “enthusiastic” father rather than a “competent” one. While I have finally managed to place diapers and bottles each on the correct ends most of the time, I have, owing to a lack of consistent sleep, made an honest mistake or two. For example: According to the will I scribbled out one sleepless night, my son's godparents are Donny Osmond and Stevie Nicks. But those minor mishaps are forgotten when we take an afternoon for Owen's favorite papa-related pastime: stare up at the ceiling for hours while listening to old blues and soul records – a perfectly legitimate hobby if you're 4 months old instead of, say, an out of college 20-something hipster. (Get a job, bro!)
Yes, if nothing else, baby won't say his dad didn't spend enough time with him when he was growing up. In fact, I've found a way for us to spend time together even after he's grown up: father/son business!
But which kind of business?
Should it be bounty hunting, like what Duane “Dog” Chapman does with his family? Or should it be junk salvage, like Fred and Lamont Sanford? Hmm. I'd need to build some muscles for the former, and buy big '70s style suspenders for the latter. Maybe something else fits.
We both like music, so maybe I could be a record label impresario, like Berry Gordy. How I've dreamed of being an impresario! (Actually I was once offered the chance to be an impresario of a Broadway show about breakfast cereal called “Twyla Tharp presents Lucky Charms,” but I turned it down.) If I became the new Berry Gordy, then Owen could follow in the footsteps of Gordy's son, Kennedy, by changing his name to Rockwell and recording the song “Somebody's Watching Me.” Nah, this one's out too.
If anyone wants to hand over the reins of a baseball team, we could be like George and Hank Steinbrenner in New York. For that to work, though, we'd have to practice publicly humiliating ballplayers. Owen's too nice for that, and let's face it, I'm not going to inspire fear and terror in stars like Derek Jeter. Pity, maybe. But not fear.
Clearly my imagination is working too hard here. Maybe I should just take what I do now and add the baby into the mix. Now we're talking. Coming next month: Awesomenator and Son! A column that's half about why you should pattern your life after Mr. T, and half about the pros and cons of spitting up on people.
