Happiness Is A Warm Dad

Nobody’s Opinion: Every year, when I was younger, I looked forward to Paul McCartney’s birthday. My birthday was the day before, on Bunker Hill day--- so I would bake a cake on my birthday and eat it on his. It was the excuse I’d use to make sure that I get two cakes to eat for my birthday instead of one. And when you’re young, eating cake was nothing.

Not anymore. Birthday cakes are right up there with credit card debt, they can leave major psychological stress, if you don’t control yourself. One chocolate birthday cake in June, would take a whole year and 2,000 miles of treadmill to wear off.

I thought I was the only nut who did this sort of thing until I found out a dear friend of mine (and this was a man) would bake a cake on Beethoven’s birthday. That’s the power of music. We celebrated the masters.

And this year, synchronicity once again stuck its daunting head up. Sir Paul’s birthday famous 64th birthday just happened to come on Fathers’ Day. At 64, Paul McCartney is hardly the picture that he presented in his song, but he does seem to be, by all accounts a pretty good dad. All his kids turned out pretty normal.

I was thinking about this today. Since my own father passed away some eighteen years ago: wondering about how Paul McCartney was enjoying having to turn 64 in front of the world, after predicting pretty much that old people were useless in his famous song. It kept me from thinking about having to spend the day without my own father.

Hey, whatever gets you through…right?



Paul, it seems had a great dad, but lost his mum at a very tender age of ten. His dad did not run off, or leave the kids with grandma, (Paul had a younger brother.) but kept the boys together as a family as best he could. That love, mixed with the loss of his mother, is probably at least one of the reasons Paul became so successful. He came from a lot of love.

Now, John Lennon, on the other hand, didn’t even know much of anything about his dad. His mother left him with an aunt. (Who adored him thank goodness.) But still, John was deserted by both parents, which may explain why he completely deserted his first son Julian by his first wife, Cynthia. (The inspiration of Hey Jude) He was a terrible father to Julian. The worst.

He tried to make up for it with his second son Sean, and by all accounts, he was one of the first stay-at-home dads. John stayed at home with Sean for the first five years of his life, while Yoko went to the office and played around with all of John’s money. It worked for them, except Yoko kept wanting to sing…not her strong point.

Yoko always sounded like she was giving birth to an elephant. How we all endured it, is beyond this nobody's comprehention.

Sean will probably make a wonderful father. But it was Julian that got dad’s talent. It seems a shame-- imagine what John could have done to help his first son to develop. Julian sounded so much like his dad, it was almost eerie.

Instead of saving the world, he could have started with his own son.

But now Paul is getting a divorce---with a little girl involved. Unlike Linda, who probably would have done anything that Paul had asked of her, his new wife Heather has a mind of her own. It’s hard enough to have your mom and dad divorce, it’s going to be even harder for little 2-year old Beatrice to grow up with it in the tabloids.

Of course, many of us were out here in nobody’s land saying “Don’t do it Paul! Don’t get married so soon after your wife’s death!”

Paul, I suppose knowing that he was approaching the age of 64, was ecstatic to be in lust again. But to have another child at 64, is not exactly thinking of the child. You might be there for her prom, and her first child, but the odds are not so great that you'll be walking.

I’m sorry guys. Just because you can seed a child at 64, doesn’t exactly mean you should.

Because the role of fatherhood is just as important as motherhood. Kids need much more than money, even if it's as much as Paul McCartney's.

And little Beatrice’s children will probably have to play records of grandpa, unless they can clone him. But hey, Paul might outlive us all. I certainly hope so.

No…I did not bake him a cake. I did not bake me a cake. Nobody in my family bought me a cake. I intend to live to be 64; so instead, I just played old Beatles songs all day.

Sometimes it takes a long time to learn the real secret to happiness...which is having a dad around to pick on you, give you advise, protect you, and just be there...doing what dad's do best.

Which is...giving mom grief...(just kidding)

Happiness…is a warm Dad.


Nobody’s Perfect; Larry King had to spoil all our Fathers’ Day by having Al Gore on his program to tell us we are all going to die. I don’t think Larry had a father. I believe he could be an alien.

Nobody Knows; while listening to the old Beatles songs, I always thought there must have been a “silent” Beatle somewhere. The early songs just didn’t sound like something 4 boys who had spent 8 years living in the red-light district of Hamburg, Germany, would have come up with. “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” was not exactly something one would say to a prostitute.

Nobody Cares; Okay, who cares if the Beatles had probably more secrets than the CIA. What they left the world was a real treasure. I don’t think I ever got over the fact that Paul didn’t marry Jane Asher, and then married Linda McCartney when he could have had ME! I was actually making my living as a drummer at the time! Of course, every other girl in the world was thinking the same thing. Now, every man is thinking ….Angelina Jolie could have had ME!

Face it…the human race is full of sick cookie---makes you think twice about fame, doesn't it?