My second day at FringeNYC started off with My Dad's Crazier Than Your Dad: A Scientific Inquiry. I suspected that my daughters might be skeptical of Katharine Heller's hypothesis and I thought this would be a fun show to see. I sent emails to my two older daughters but they couldn't join me for the show. To a certain extent, like Katherine's dad, I'm a bit competitive, and I savor the craziness that I bring to my family.

Early on in the show, Katherine talks about going to folk music festivals as a kid. Yeah, I can compete pretty well in that category. She spoke about her parent's divorce. Been there, done that. But then the show started getting weirder. My ex-wife and I sent lots of time in mediation trying to find a way that we could both be as involved as possible in our daughter's lives. We may have different ideas about acceptable forms of craziness and had reached the conclusion that our styles of madness were incompatible, but we both held on to our belief in each of us providing the best of our eccentricities to our children.

Katherine's dad seems to have missed that. Instead, he didn't stick around to pick up the kids if they were late, and then there's the story about the dead rat in the sick bed on Block Island. I won't go into the details. You need to go see the show yourself.

I just about didn't go. The description in the Fringe program said:

Think your dad's bizarre? Sit in on an interactive, multimedia experiment that dissects the relationship between a diet-guru-turned-Disney-fanatic and his bewildered family. You'll laugh, and cringe, as Katharine attempts to prove her hypothesis.

It didn't sound as interesting as it turned out to be. This 'diet-guru-turned-Disney-fanatic' lacked verisimilitude. Katherine's comparison between Disney and strip joints was funny, well delivered, yet perhaps too kind to Disney. The idea of Katherine's dad and his new wife wearing matching clothes seemed a little strange. The list of books by Katherine's Dad needed verification, as did his website. I won't even go into the Rosie O'Donnell show.

Okay, reluctantly, I will grant that Katherine's dad is stranger than my daughter's dad. It seems like we have different views of what it means to be a good father. Yet through all of his eccentricities, Katherine's dad has given her something very important. A lot of great material to use for her shows, and she does a great job of it.

She ends up with a monologue that reminds me of the great scene Woody Allen's Annie Hall as he tries to make sense of the messed up relationship he had been in

Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about relationships; y'know, they're totally irrational, and crazy, and absurd, and... but, uh, I guess we keep goin' through it because, uh, most of us... need the eggs. 

As final note, Katherine does look really sexy in her lab coat, but my wife knows that I've always had a weakness for smart, witty, self-possessed women in lab coats.