The Doofus Dad Podcast: Recent Episodes
Mark E. Johnson
Being a dad can be downright scary, and I'm not just talking about the baby stuff. How you appear in the eyes of your impressionable 12-year-old son or daughter can be as terrifying as driving a newborn home from the hospital. Let me explain...
God definitely has a great sense of humor as well as a penchant for practical jokery. In this episode, I look at one of His best jokes related to parenthood.
What is the image you project to the outside world? How we choose to see ourselves is pretty much how we act and how the world views us, so choose wisely!
If you have a scowl on your face every time you look in the mirror, and you're losing friends on social media at an alarming rate, there might be a problem. You may be too political. Here's a surefire way to find out.
Every time a national election rolls around, I'm reminded of the kindness and consideration of social media and how I never, EVER, long for the days prior to Facebook and Twitter. Because life was so much worse then and we're all so enlightened now. No, really.
There are a few reasons I named this blog "Doofus Dad" and they're not all about self-deprecating humor. The American view of fatherhood isn't what it was during the days of "The Andy Griffith Show."
There are definite advantages to being gainfully unemployed if you look hard enough and make several of them up.
It's an uncomfortable topic, but one that needs to be addressed, I think. The process of having children simply affects men and women differently — no matter how tight you are with your soul mate — and no greater is this difference than where it applies to shmex, as my 19-year-old son calls it.
This is a question I hear a lot these days, especially over social media. People have various reasons for voting or not voting for a particular candidate, so I wanted to make a suggestion on how we Americans should approach the process of casting our ballots this year.
This podcast tells the story of my first (and only, to date) fly-fishing expedition. An expert angler at an outdoor writers conference in 2016 was kind enough to take me fishing on the Bighorn River, near Billings, Montana. It was quite an adventure.
This is the podcast version of my most popular blog post to date, written seven years ago this month. I've updated it to reflect my current situation, but all the good stuff is still there. If you either love CrossFit, love to make fun of CrossFit, or just love to make fun of anything, you'll enjoy it.
The Meriam-Webster dictionary defines common sense as, quote, “sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts” unquote. OK. That’s pretty good but let me amend that with an even simpler definition: Common sense means not being a dumbass. Not being a dumbass is in short supply these days. Here's what your Great-Grandpa and I think about things.
Of the many milestones in the life of a parent, sending your kid to college ranks high in terms of both pride and angst. In other words, it will freak you the hell out. Here are my top 6 reasons why.
I wrote the following blog in 2019, back before traveling anywhere further away than your mailbox wasn’t viewed as high-risk activity, and the inside of an airplane wasn’t viewed as the setting of a horror movie where everybody gets eaten by giant bugs.
The year 2020 has been an epic disaster and it is still going. It will probably be a year that will live in infamy for the rest of our lives. But there has been some stuff good, too, and even some funny stuff.
Carnivals, fairs, and amusement parks are some of the more interesting and enigmatic curiosities devised by the human brain. What do we do? We go through the grueling process of loading up young kids with all their various accouterments for the 30 to 40-minute trip to the fairgrounds on a steamy August day. Then, we brave excruciating lines, crazy cutbacks, stomach-churning dips and valleys, wade through the pickpockets and hawkers, and navigate a crushing, sweating, sea of humanity with its nauseating array of organic odors.
And that’s just in the parking lot.
This is the podcast version of a story I've been telling for the past 39 years and counting. It happened to me at the foot of "Booger Mountain," a small peak located in the foothills of Western North Carolina, near Taylorsville. The mountain was named after the spooks, boogers, and haints that were reputed to occupy the area, possibly due to the mysterious disappearance of a 19th-century farm family and/or the sacred Cherokee Indian grave site situated near the peak. I spent many summers in the old, barnwood farm house, and yes, spooky things DID happen. This was one of them, and my favorite.
I'll admit it. The older I get, the more weepy at movies I get, and you may be surprised at some of the ones that get me the most. I bet they get you, too, Big Tough Dad. If I touch a nerve, you've gotta let me know in the comments...
Bigfoot believers are eternal optimists in a cynical world. We like to believe in unbelievable things because...well...it's fun. And life is too short.
It seems that the way we're supposed to live in the 21st century is in a perpetual state of offense, shock, and outrage. So here are my pet peeves, mister!
The Alaskan naturalist and outdoorsman, Dick Proenneke, has been one of my heroes since I first watched the documentary, "Alone in the Wilderness," some 15 years ago. He was the quintessential guy's guy, the fellow that all of us soft, 21st century Doofus Dad wusses wish we could be.
Thanks to an odd combination of extremely profitable overseas investments (I didn't know I made) and a slew of wealthy overseas relatives (I didn't know I had), I'm now absolutely disgustingly rich, according to the many emails I've been receiving lately. Let me tell you about it.
Doofus dads of the world don't ask for much. They want their lawnmower to crank in less than five pulls. They want their kids to not be complete idiots, remember their mother's birthday, and to actually study for a test sometime. They long for at least two consecutive weeks without having to unclog a toilet. And they want to win something, a contest perhaps, at least ONCE in their lives!
Sending your newly legal teenager out alone and behind the wheel of a hurtling death machine is sobering, to say the least. Here's how to cope.
These are the drivers that are responsible for inching me toward road rage, which isn't a good look for anyone. Are you one of these? Please say no...
In this podcast episode, I dig into what makes Steven Spielberg's astounding movie, "Jaws," a classic — for dads specifically, for me personally, and for the world at large.
If you live in the South, you know that the phrase "winter storm" carries a much different meaning than it does in, say, Minnesota. Let's discuss.
Sure, you've heard people discuss "Bohemian Rhapsody" before. But you've never heard ME discuss it. It's time Queen got the Doofus Dad treatment.
This episode, "Talking is hard," isn't really dad-related. It's just me deconstructing the odd challenges of speaking into a microphone, specifically for voiceover work and audiobooks. You might find it interesting, who knows?
PODCAST: This is Chapter 1 of my upcoming book, "Doofus Dad's Foolproof Guide for Working from Home," which doesn't yet have a release date because I haven't gotten around to writing all the other chapters. In light of our current worldwide conundrum driving millions of folks into home offices, I figured I'd better hurry up and release Chapter 1 so that people would have plenty of skewed and tongue-in-cheek information as soon as possible.
If you are blessed with a cool name — Gordon Lightfoot, Ernest Hemingway, or Tiger Woods, for example — life is all downhill the moment you're born and the world is your oyster. But try slugging through life when sharing the same dull name as every practically everybody else, like Mark Johnson. I've decided, however, to beat the system and become THE Mark Johnson.
Teenaged daughters are volatile creatures, much like a wolverine or, perhaps, a honey badger. If a well-meaning dad simply makes eye contact with his teenaged daughter for too long, he may lose a nose or ear. Here is what I recommend, although it's unlikely that any of it will work.
Unfortunately, babies don't come with an instruction manual, and ask my wife — I'm an instruction manual guy. Sure, there are a zillion parenting books out there, but theory and practice are two entirely different things, so I had to implement on-the-job learning. This list of 11 important things for first-time dads gets right down to the nitty gritty of the matter. Just understand, though, that you're still gonna make an idiot out of yourself at some point. Just don't drop the baby on its head.
Critter Chronicles is my "mockumentary" about the wildlife around my home in Tennessee. If you enjoy wildlife and think "This is Spinal Tap" is the greatest movie ever, you'll like this. I think. Maybe not. Who knows...? Anyway, this episode is about our old friend, the 'possum.
Somebody was seriously impaired or, at best, exercised poor judgement when they invented the Tooth Fairy. How this custom ever caught on is beyond me. Cash money for old, used teeth?? The heck?