Being a new dad is just like being a rock god—or something like it. Joe Medler of Developing Dad takes us backstage and behind the diapers.
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I used to think being a dad was trading your high tops for comfortable sneaker-shoes, exchanging drinking ’til 3 and sleeping til noon for reruns of The Big Bang Theory and sweats, and retiring your cock, leaving one with a sad and flaccid penis—once your resplendent staff, now a very utilitarian pee stick.
Now that I am a dad I see that it’s much more like a Charlie Sheen meltdown or the life I imagine to be lead by whoever the fuck, you know, the guitarist from the stones…inspiration for Jack Sparrow. The guy.
I typed this and all of the above while going commando and approaching 36 hours in the same t-shirt while wearing slippers. In public. How do I pull off such brazen disregard for common decency?
Easy. I’m a dad.
(Keith Richards. That shit was bugging me. Which brings me quite organically to the first way being a dad is the same as being a rock god in the 70’s.)
I have somewhere around a hundred lonely, starving, barely surviving brain cells left
Ever seen Festival Express? It’s a great doc made with amateur footage of a festival doomed from the start by romantic designs made in a room with thick, rust colored, shag carpeting with smoke and lava lamps filling the air. The Grateful Dead, The Band, and Janis Joplin hanging out on a train touring across Canada. I think Sha Na Na may have been there too. Why not, this was destined to be a carnival. The scenes at night are incoherent and filled with soulful but bad music and tons of laughter. It’s awesome. Everyone is clearly stoned to the bejesus belt. I feel like now, having had just two boys in the last four years, that I would totally fit in with this crowd of burnouts and eccentrics.
These are now my people.
Personal grooming
I’m talking seriously personal. I used to worry about how that shit looked. I used to keep it high and tight. I may have even dabbled in scents at some point. Must have been the 90s as I’m pretty sure it was Drakkar. In any case, I’m now looking like a 70s pornstar. A European pornstar, even. Seriously, my privates now have what I like to call the “Reggie Watts.” He’s a great comedian and musical genius, or vice versa. Whatever. Google that shit. You’ll see what I mean.
I have groupies
Not at all like Penny Lane with Stillwater, but still. The boys have the ability to manipulate me emotionally at every turn and always do so while reinforcing my male ego by literally thinking I can make the sun come or go. They have confused me with Zeus and I’d gladly stand on a roof, declare myself a “golden god” and jump into the pool before them.
I have no shame
None. I had no idea you could feel this free. I once went a full three weeks without showering.
By the end of the night I’m covered in bodily fluids often of unknown origin
Puke, blood, numbers one or two, boogers: the two year old has become quite a frat boy lately and gets a real kick out of the reaction I have when he spits on my face. I mean, they’re the cute spits, the kind that make a funny sound and are really more like zerbert’s, but it’s still spit. He likes to get it in my eye.
Us dads may not have gotten there in the same way, but really, how much does it matter. I’m a great god and I have and shall retain dominion over my subjects for upwards of a decade. Until then I’m living like Keith Richards. And when people see me they’ll all make jokes about how amazing it is I’m still alive considering the hardcore lifestyle I’m clearly living based on my dishevelled, haggard and clearly coming undone look. This will fill me with a perverse pride of sorts. Until I get in the Volvo, covered in dried, pureed organic fruits with “The Wheels on the Bus” blasting from the speakers.
Screw it. I’m getting these kids to bed so I can watch a TBS marathon of Big Bang.
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Photo: Barbie Promo/Flickr