“Being Dad”- Pt. 1 - Um, Sure…
What’s it like to have a camera crew follow you around and film you in your daily life during one of the most beautiful and quite possibly stressful times of your life?
It’s okay.
I mean, what do you say, the absurdly platitudinous “It’s amazing!” or maybe, “I was so honored…” and there’s the other end of the spectrum, “It sucked donkey balls!”
It was a bit of all three I guess.
If you’ve ever been a part of a “Reality” show, then you know, they play fast and loose with “reality.” What you see on the screen has little to do with what actually occurs behind the scenes and is mostly scripted and manufactured, meltdowns and all.
You can really see this “reality” fantasy world on the real estate flipping shows. Oy. What a bunch of silliness. I flipped for 10 years, and I can tell you, if you think you are going to do what they do, well, you ain’t.
However; this show “Being Dad” was pretty true to form. The concept was to follow around several Dads in various stages of “Daddy-dom” and share the lives with the watchers.
It was produced by the Chicken Soup For The Soul Production company.
And it was done pretty darn well.
I know, I was there. Because I was about to be a new dad.
I had never had children, due to a first marriage that ended very badly, right at the time we would have started having children. And thank God I didn’t.
I have to say right now, as a side note, I feel nothing but absolute empathy, sympathy, and in some cases a bit of anguish for those fathers, who had kids with a spouse that completely turned on them - cheated, lied, stole, and whatever else they could do to hurt ya.
And you have to deal with it. For as long as you have children together. All the loss, pain, and heartache has to be overwhelming. I got off lucky.
And I learned a TON!
In fact, after my divorce/bankruptcy/despair spiral/drinking binge/hate fueled workouts/weight loss/relocation/introspection/re-focus/forgiveness/rebuild/empowerment/take charge/fire up/kickass/awww yeeeeah! path, I became a new human.
Some of you may have had a similar path after a bad break up or two.
Once I re-emerged on the dating scene (at 35) as a strong, attractive man again, I trained, learned, studied, and put into practice any and all relationship strategies I could find. I was going to make up for 13 years of lost time.
And I did.
I dated many amazing (no, really!) women over the course of about 7 years. It was a learning experience and quite the training ground for what was to come later. I had great success, and great failures. I garnered wisdom from every encounter.
I did so well, that I wrote a dating/cookbook called “FoodGame: A Man’s Ultimate Recipe For Dating Success.” It went to #1 in 2 categories on Amazon. Feel free to grab a copy - http://bit.ly/FoodGameBK
You should read it, it’s how I dated a Playmate, a Terminator, and a Jedi. Seriously…
During those 7 years, being a somewhat known professional voice actor for many years, I had (and still have) the great fortune to get to speak internationally in front of thousands, at comic/Anime conventions on the dating/relationship/success topic.
And I sometimes do it in silly voices.
I am now also a certified coach in various techniques, and I help people master their communication and connection in their relationships for success in business, life, and love.
And I sometimes do it in silly voices.
All this back story leads me to why I was on “Being Dad” in the first place.
After 7 years in the wild and wooly trenches of the Los Angeles dating world (yes, it is different) I finally found HER!
The one that blew me away, took me off the market, Wow’ed me in all the right ways, and would eventually led me to fatherhood.
Her name is Kimberly, and she is my incredibly beautiful, talented, accomplished, and sexy wife.
In order to praise her accomplishments (and boast a bit for myself), here is a list of some of her achievements:
*Miss Congeniality in the Miss California Pageant
*Produced screen writer for the movie “Bro” with Danny Trejo
*A certified Pilates instructor
*Miss Norway for the Queen of the Universe Charity Pageant
*President of a fitness company
And did I mention, a helluva a dancer, singer, and all around goofy ass gal.
In other words, perfect for me.
There are several more accomplishments that she has attained since then, but this was all going down when I met her. We’ll cover others later.
(Side note: she wrote the foreword for my FoodGame book, and designed the cover!)
We were married 2 years after we met, time was of the essence. She informed me early on of 2 things - there would be children, and the engagement ring would be a karat for each year I waited.
I tell you all of this, not to brag (yeah right), but actually to set up why we were featured on a reality docu-series in the first place.
Kim saw an email for a casting, looking for couples with interesting stories involving being a dad. We had recently found out she was pregnant, so the timing was perfect.
And we had an interesting angle as well.
I am 19 years older than Kimberly.
And I was about to become a brand spanking new dad… At 48 years old.
She entered us in, and we got a call. They interviewed us, said they wanted to follow us around during her pregnancy, and even show the birth.
Kim said it sounded like a great idea.
And I said, “Um, sure.”
And we were off………..