Meet the newest superhero: Idea Man

MY DAD asked me to write his column for him again, which nobody seems to mind on account of they come out way better anyway. Everybody says so. Even my dad.

“I think it’s your amazing sense of empathy,” he says.

“What’s empathy?” I say.

“Don’t be a wiseguy,” he says.

“I’m a girl.”

“Don’t be a wiseguy girl,” he says, displaying his usual gift for words.

This time, my dad’s on another of those Ralph Kramden crusades he goes on every once in a while. Mom says some guys drink to excess, other guys go off on Ralph Kramden get-rich-quick crusades. That doesn’t really explain things to me, since I don’t even know anyone named Ralph Kramden.

“I think he was our 22nd president,” says my brother, who’s a lot better at history than you’d expect.

“Twenty-third,” says my

little sister.

“Whatever,” my brother says.

Anyway, my dad was at the counter this morning, leering at some lingerie ad, getting newspaper ink on his elbows and a little egg on the full-page Macy’s model, when he suddenly blurted out: “I’ve got it!”

“What do you have now, dear?” my mom asked.

“A way to save the industry,” he said.

“What industry is that, sweetie?”

“High-definition newsprint!” he screamed, then went downstairs to his workbench.

Drumroll, please. Another idea that will go absolutely nowhere. Last month it was a microbrewery and nickel beer. Before that it was this idea he had for a reclining toilet. “You know, sometimes you’re on the toilet and you just have the desire to rest a little,” my dad explained at the time. (No, Dad, I don’t.)

Now my lovely and patient older dad is working on a high-def newspaper. He’s down in the cluttered basement, surrounded by dusty boxes of Christmas ornaments and those old Amboy Dukes albums he keeps, no one knows why.

“Where’d Dad go?” asks my sister.

“He’s in the basement,” I answer, “making the world a better place.”

“Again?”

Honestly, it’s kind of entertaining around here, with Tom Edison and his little honey, Mom Edison. I have my own apartment now, but sometimes I like to just come over and watch them. I think it teaches me to be wise in my relationships and extra careful about whom I might spend my life with.

Like when my mom and dad talk, their dialogues aren’t really dialogues at all. He says something, then she says responds with something only slightly related. It’s sort of like those debates you see on

C-SPAN at 4 a.m., only it’s real life.

“I’m going to the hardware store,” my dad says.

“Debbie called, she’s coming over,” Mom says.

“I think the dog has worms,” my dad says, “keep him off my bed.”

Dad says that’s the secret to a long and happy marriage, a certain lack of focus and intensity in day-to-day dealings with one another.

“Wow, Dad,” I tell him, “you should maybe counsel other couples.”

“Don’t think I haven’t tried,” he says.

“What happened?”

“They’re still together, most of them,” he says, then starts to hang some shelves in my

sister’s room.

See? Even coming away from a conversation with him, you’re not sure what the point was. Mom says that’s because my dad’s a creative guy, and his mind is always going a million miles an hour. You know, like that Mozart dude.

“Dad’s creative?” I ask her.

“Mildly,” she says.

“I never noticed,” I say.

“It was more apparent when he was younger,” my mom explains.

Now he spends most weekends puttering around the house or working on one of his “inventions,” like the reclining toilet that he hasn’t really given up on yet, or the high-def newsprint, which he says will make those underwear ads in the newspaper really sizzle and pop and thereby buy print journalism a few more precious years.

“Like they say, sexy sells,” he says.

“If anyone knows sexy, it’s your father,” explains my mom.

“Hey, wanna go to a movie sometime?” he asks her.

“I’m pretty busy,” she says.

“Yeah, so am I,” he says, and off they go their separate ways.

Whew, their honeymoon just goes on and on, doesn’t it? It’s kinda like one of those endless Ingmar Bergman flicks that you don’t really understand but you know there’s a lot happening so you try not to fall asleep.

Seriously, I want to get married someday, but not too soon. What I might do is join the circus first. Wouldn’t that be good preparation for a long relationship?

If I’m lucky, I might meet a nice clown.

Chris Erskine can be

reached at chris.erskine @latimes.com, or at myspace.com/chriserskine. This column was printed on high-definition newsprint.