You might think it would be awesome to be famous, but famous people will tell you that it's not all that great--you know, losers wanting your autograph, late night TV show appearances, having your every move under public surveillance--but this is a bunch of horse manure. In most cases, enduring fame comes from having some talent and finding a way to serve the public interest. This is not so bad, and usually results in being quite wealthy. The problem really comes when famous men* give birth to much less talented people who are forced to face up to the same public scrutiny that their parents did. Much of the time, the children are forced to pay for the sins of the father. Besides all that, their famous parents don't have time to actually raise them, so they end up with all kinds of father figure issues. This makes being the son of a famous man:

Part I: Politics

Well, this section writes itself, doesn't it.

1. Chelsea Clinton

You poor girl. Your father's sexual exploits were the subject of national attention for months, and the subject of national ridicule ever since. Plus, imagine if Bill had followed through on his promise to Monica that he would marry her? Monica Lewinsky seems like she would be, to say the least, a pretty bad stepmother.

2. Bush Twins

Well your father is the president. And you are dimwitted alcoholics and everyone knows it. That sucks. Which brings us to:

3. George Bush

Well your father was the president. And you are a dimwitted alcoholic and everyone knows it. That sucks.

4. John F. Kennedy Jr.

There is the obvious thing: your father's tragic death was witnessed by the whole country and begot decades of bad luck for your family, including one uncle's assassination in a hotel kitchen and another uncle's accidental negligent homicide during a drunken weekend at Chappaquiddick, and your eventual death in an airplane accident over the ocean with your wife. On second thought, that pretty much sums it up.

Part II: Entertainment

1. Prince Michael Jacksons I and II, Paris Jackson

Your dad is pretty much the most ridiculous public figure of all time. He ruined a perfectly good music career (remember "Wanna be startin' somethin'" and "Billie Jean" and "Rock with you" anyone?) with a replacement face, a naked video with his crazy wife (coincidentally the child of a famous person... interesting) and new terrible music career ("Black and white," "Man in the mirror," I can't be the only person in the world who hates these songs). And then your dad got weird, in-vitro fertilizing his freaky maid Debbie Rowe (I could be wrong about this but fact checking is for people with no self-esteem) and when you were born he gave two of you the same name and covered you with full face masks whenever you left the house. Oh and then he almost threw one of you off of a balcony. And he may or may not be a child molester. Great for you, have fun with that.

2. Michael Douglas

Your father was a hugely talented actor and probably still hears people yell "I am Spartacus" whenever he walks down the street in public. However you have absolutely no talent. You inherited nothing from your father except for your weird-looking face and a kind of authoritative-sounding voice, which you apparently used to command the Academy to give you that Oscar for Wall Street and which you used to coax Catherine Zeta-Jones into bed with you. Even though you're rich and your life looks great, I know that you secretly cry yourself to sleep every night wishing you were 1/100th of the man your father is.

3. Frances Bean Cobain

Your dad changed music in the 90s. Awesome. You will never see a dime of the money he made because your mom spent it all on coke last year. To make back some of the money, she tricked the other Nirvana members into selling a boxed set of rarities... and then spent it again on coke, last month. On the bright side, you're going to be the third most famous piece of trailer trash ever, behind Eminem and Kid Rock.

4. Jakob Dylan

How difficult it must be to wake up, open your eyes, and realize at the age of 10 that you will never be as good or as smart as your father, and you are never going to write a song that holds a candle to his worst piece of throwaway, so it would be a good idea to start developing some other talents... and then to discover you don't have any! God, I know that The Wallflowers suck, but I assume you know even better than I do, and I really, honestly, feel for you.

Part III: Sports

1. Kellen Winslow, Jr.

So. Your father was the best tight end of all time and you played TE for the best football school in the country. That's a lot of pressure. But you did a great job living up to it... in college. Unfortunately now you are famous for just two things:

2. Cooper Manning

Archie, Peyton, Eli: All second-place Heisman winners. All NFL quarterbacks. All future Hall-of Famers. All rich beyond description. All able to retire at 35 and live a life of drinking and prostitutes for the rest of their lives.

Cooper: Works as a stock-trader in New Orleans after a freak medical condition left him unable to play football after high school. He seems pretty well-adjusted and all, but it must be really hard to be picked last at Thanksgiving every year.

3. George/George/George/George/George Foreman

God, your dad is an idiot.

4. DJ Strawberry

Which brings us to the pun in the title of this column. I feel for DJ Strawberry, I really do. He's a decent PG and he plays for my school (who lost to my other school tonight, incidentally--go Colonials), so I really do like the guy. And I am sure he loves his father--Darryl had time to raise him what with all the times he got suspended from baseball... But it has to be sad suiting up and heading to the floor twice a week and hearing the entire opposing crowd taunt you by just saying your Dad's name. At that point I bet you would consider giving it all up just to have a normal dad, like mine.

NEXT time: "Having an asshole son: all it's cracked up to be?" by Shaw's Dad.

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