Pause Daddy

“Welcome to the Do It All Dad Year Podcast: What Gen X Dads understand; Dad-friendly entertainment for you and me. I’m your host, Michael Kornbluth.

            Controlling our kids with comedy can make them great again. My three fuss-free kids (most of the time) are living proof of this.

            I’ve been a Stay-At-Home Comedian on and off for a decade, now, although my dad is more old-school and prefers the expression ‘sheltered bum.’ Whenever I’m out with my three kids without their mommy, I hear, “You’ve got your hands full.”             I’ll say, “If any of my books ever become bestsellers and my wife agrees to an open marriage with Susan Sarandon, then my hands will be full.”

            I stopped smoking weed until I thought my daughter was asleep, already, because I felt like a moron answering her super-deep questions about the sticky icky stuff after I thought she was asleep.   She’d ask, “Daddy, if God created the universe, then who created God?”

            I said, “God went back in time in a Time Machine made by Elon Musk.”

            Daughter says, “Real convincing, Dad. Thanks for making me an atheist at age four.”

            Michael Kornbluth, host of the Do It All Dad Year Podcast and proud father of the three most hilariously sweet, snuggle-shine bundles of sunshine known to mankind, adds, “Today, on the Do It All Dad Year Podcast, we have a guest. Which is a rare occasion since the launch of my podcast four years ago, in my pursuit to become the paid star voice behind remote work revolution, before China could hog up all the credit for forcing corporate America to adjust to a remote work way of life to please our commie-controlled corporate masters till our last dying breath.

            “During my pilot episode, I interviewed a UX designer who worked for Apple. I know you’re bored out of your mind already (unless he was Steve Jobs, pumped for the casual grandma-jeans look for all it was worth). My standup performer instinct constantly interjected the moment I sensed my guest lose the audience. This happened automatically, whenever I allowed him to drone out another colorless, brain-reaching, screeching halt reply, so I swore off ever doing another interview on the Do It All Dad Year Podcast ever again.

            “Especially knowing that Do It All Dads who want to work from home based on free will alone, in the impassioned pursuit to make their kids the center of the universe instead of the reverse, don’t grow on freaking Bonsai trees, either.

            “But I decided to make an exception for our, guest Richard Lankfear from Plano, Texas, who is a retired drug counselor and the author of a new book called Addiction, a mind-expanding warning of drug abuse symptoms guide so parents can see if their kids are a frantic manifestation of their crazy hick degenerate gene, with zero concept of moderation in real time or not.

            “Raising drug-free children is important to me because being a druggy dependent is the opposite of feeling free. (Cream lives; holla thank you very much.)

             How can our kids get excited about the pursuit of happiness at home or at school if they are getting high off their loved ones, or from a job well done that isn’t enough (at least until their mid-twenties)?

            “Richard enacts tremendous good from his lifetime service as a drug counselor by making a drug abuse warning guide for parents today who are unaware of what constitutes drug-forming behavior under their allegedly emotionally-present watch.

            “The chilling, sobering stats in the book, such as fentanyl being 100 times more powerful than morphine, speak for themselves, and need to be illuminated with unflinching detail, knowing that either blissful ignorance, dismissive sugarcoating, or mere whitewashing of the opioid epidemic throughout the US as being a mere “white trash ” problem can become the worst fatal mistake a parent today can make.

            “This is especially true knowing how Chinese-made fentanyl, snuck in through our Mexican border, has killed more crackers in this country than Lena Dunham kicking it with Taylor Swift on Instagram.

            “The recurring theme in Richard’s book The Addicted Child is parents becoming reactive firefighters multiple rehab stints later, versus the ideal of becoming proactive troubleshooters before such residual damage has been done, which some families never truly recover from.

            “This book will help more families spot drug habit-forming warning signs by offering actionable insight to prevent their kids from facing such a life-crippling fate. More importantly, the vast breakdown of all types of drug abuse included in the book will give parents the confidence and sense of surging urgency to have the “drugs will kill your brain cells” talk with their kids and their still-developing minds, before those rapidly-deepening drug-forming habits become that much harder to break.”

            Richard, on the side of the Skype podcast interview, is red and flustered in the face, flabbergasted over how the Do It All Dad Year Podcast has made zero effort to give his guest a smidgen of breathing room to promote his book seven minutes into the broadcast, already.

            If only had Richard known of Do It All Dad’s code work trick which his three kids used whenever he went on one of his impassioned rants in one seamless endless breath, with zero auditory relief in sight as his kids long forgot what cool interesting idea, or question, they were to express!         It which was this: “Pause Daddy.” As they pointed an imaginary remote directly at him, they’d say, “Pause Daddy” with warm-hearted smiling-stretchy cheer because it was funny and it actually shut their dad the fuck up for change, whether he was on Adderall or off. 

            Stay At Home Comedian rolls on, adding, “Let’s focus on our guest, now, Richard, who didn’t spend any quality time emoting about the all-star book review I just read for you on Amazon about his book The Addicted Child (which was more than generous, considering what a snooze the book was, as a whole).

            “So, Richard, I just read another book by Lou Gramm, the former leader/signer/howler legend from Foreigner who’s known for co-writing and belting out endless classic rock staple hits such as ‘Juke Box Hero’, ‘Double Vision’, and ‘Long, Long, Long Way From Home’ (being my personal favorites among the pack).

            “In his highly readable book, in comparison to yours, he talks about getting sober and the growing frustration of not even being able to partake in lighting a doobie after killing at freaking Solider Field, on the tour party bus soon afterwards, when everybody else from the band is now in their early forties (they still are).

            “Like the roadie guy says in the movie Rockstar with Mark Wahlberg, “Don’t be half-ass about it. Live out the rock star dream for those who can’t. Or something close to that. 

            “Also, there’s a standup comedian who’s no longer with us; the late great Greg Geraldo, who said that drug use should be encouraged when in your forties more so than your twenties; especially when you learn, during a parent teacher conference, “That your son is a half a ‘tard.”

            “So, my question for Richard is, “What’s an acceptable form of addiction in your book?”    Richard says, “I wish I had a stage light to shine on you a thousand runon sentences ago.”             The Do It All Dad Year Podcast host fires back with, “So, all the Irish thugs who used to beat up nice Jewish kids in the Bronx, calling them Christ Killers and blah, blah…are they what you’d call a special kid of drunk prick later in life, or do you think the concept of a so-called happy drunk doesn’t apply to any Irish alcoholics because their rosy noses give the impression they’re really just more superficially cheery on the surface than the rest?

            “And if the Irish are the best drunk poets, then whatever happened to the Irish Beastie Boys in the Jump Around video?

            “Don’t get me wrong; I don’t thinking being a drunk prick is a strictly an Irish disease. For me, I think a fellow member of my tribe, Michel Rappaport, still sounds like he’s auditioning for the role of Wigger Number Three asshole In the Jump Around video.”

              Richard says, “Are you going to ask any of the questions I gave you?”

            The Do It All Dad Year Podcast Host Michael replies, “Why are parents so afraid to have honest conversations about drugs through their record collections with their kids, Richard? What makes these parents so apprehensive as to point out the dangers of doing shitty Chinese-made coke with Hunter Biden, only hearing the last call from the bathroom stall?

            “Do you feel that sketchy degenerate behavior is born, enabled, or all the above?

            “In the movie Requiem for a Dream, Jared Leto is missing a freaking arm at the end, which is a powerful cautionary message to nail home, on par with reading your kids Allen Ginsburg’s Howl the next time they claim to not scare easily. It describes all the beautiful angels of the light’s mind ravaged by drugs, reducing them to eating stray cats throughout the streets of San Francisco.

            “Why didn’t you share such hardcore scare tactics tips in your book, for parents to use on their kids, so they wouldn’t have to spend a mini-ortune, and take out a new home equity loan on the house to afford your overrated counseling services?”

            Now all of Michael’s three kids come bursting in the room to give their dear Dada a hug after coming back from school, anxious to tell him about their day. In unison, they all point an imaginary remote at their Stay-At-Home Comedian Dad and say, “Pause Daddy.”

            Richard throws up his hands in defeated disgust on the Skype window screen and yells, “That’s it! ‘Pause Daddy’ are the magic words to shut this loudmouth, obnoxious Jew up, already.”   Stay At Home Comedian Dad replies, “When your opinions are deemed worthy enough to interrupt my killer flow, I’ll let you know, jerkoff.            “Never forget controlling our kids with comedy can make them great again. My three fuss-free kids, 95 percent of the time, living proof of it.”

Michael Kornbluth