About 7 years ago, I went to see a reunion concert by the modestly successful post-punk band Gang of Four.  These English blokes once meant something to my friends and me. As effete music snobs, we’d try to distinguish ourselves from the regular high school rabble by the obscurity of the music we listened to. In Saskatchewan circa 1986, where everyone dressed like they’d stepped right out of Heavy Metal Parking Lot, it was hard to find a band more obscure than Gang of Four.

Sadly, the group never played the prairies in their heyday, so this reunion tour was the first time I would see them play.  Maybe their sell-by date was twenty years ago, and they had a lot of miles on their odometers, but I still had high hopes.  Those hopes lasted one minute, approximately the time it took for the band’s aging lead singer Jon King to run out onstage, whirl about like Usher as he danced to the opening riff of “Damaged Goods -  then bend at the waist and almost vomit, too winded and out of shape to sing the first verse.    I imagine this was the post-punk equivalent of watching Muhammad Ali box in the 80s, long after he stopping floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee – it made you a little sick inside to witness such a legacy-diminishing spectacle.

Which brings me to the subject of one of England’s newest pensioners – one David Robert Jones, aka David Bowie, aka my other musical man-crush.  Ziggy Stardust turned 65 today – a noteworthy event partly because of the man’s incredible impact on music, and partly because you hardly see him anymore.  His last album was almost nine years ago,  and with the exception of the odd appearance here and there, he’s largely disappeared from view – which, in my opinion, is at it should be.

Now, there could be various reasons for why The Thin White Duke keeps a low profile. He had heart surgery in 2004, and there remains lots of speculation about the effects of his earlier, drug-addled lifestyle on his health.   It could be that (unlike Ali or Gang of Four) he felt he’d done what he needed to and had nothing more to add. More likely, though, Bowie has the self-awareness to realize that his best work is probably behind him.

Bowie himself said he needed to experiment to stay interested in his work, even if those experiments led to the kind of failure that compromised his success.  For a time in the 70s and early 80s, that bravery produced world-changing pop music. From about the mid-eighties onward, however, his gifts seemed to diminish.  His music still showed the same willingness to push boundaries, but those later experiments sounded exactly that – experimental.  A big part of success is making it look easy, and for Bowie the effort was starting to show. Certainly, there was nothing he did between 1983 and 2003 that could tarnish his enormous contribution, but certainly nothing that would add to it either.

Now, Bowie could’ve pulled a Jagger and made even more millions touring the world, basking in faded glory as he drew from his deep well of hit songs, However, as a writer noted in The Guardian today, that is anti-thetical to the man’s work:  “Bowie’s music was never about nostalgia, always the present, or, even better, the future.”

Instead, we have virtual radio silence.  It feels distinguished and elegant, which is in keeping with my perception of Bowie. The silence has had the effect of turning those rare occasions he does show up in public into events of epic proportion.  The Arcade Fire was already a great band with plenty of artistic credibility, but having Bowie get on stage and sing one their songs with them is now tantamount to a papal blessing.  Bigger than a papal blessing.

Herein lies the lesson of Bowie’s example, reaffirmed by plenty of Better Men such as J.D. Salinger or Terence Malick or (the recently-outed) Banksy or my own dad; there is value in a low profile. The less often you speak, the more it means when you do. Bide your time, choose both your moments and your words carefully, and realize that trying to add to something great may only serve to undo its greatness (hello, George Lucas).  You don’t have to be a pop icon to apply that kind of lesson.

 

 

 

 

By now I think we all know that celebrity interviews are complete horseshit.  They exist mostly to help the celebrity promote their latest movie/tell-all memoir/Playboy spread/prison release. Illumination is not a part of the design.

Personally, I’ve been party to the most craven of celebrity interviews – the movie press junket.  Studios will spend millions flying journalists in from Wichita or Reykjavik, put them up at a four-star hotel, and grant them a five-minute audience with the stars of the flick being promoted. In exchange for their largesse, the studios insist the discussion be limited to the movie, and that discussion be rather positive.

Suffice to say, the deepest insight you’re likely to get is how much the celebrity enjoyed working with their co-stars, be they human, penguin or Muppet (spoiler alert: they enjoyed it a LOT!).   The biggest revelations I ever had on a junket were that Jay Mohr does a killer Christopher Walken impersonation and Jennifer Aniston’s nipples are even perkier in real life – not exactly the Nixon Interviews.  Bad as they are, junkets interviews are only slightly worse than the stage-managed candor you see on 60 Minutes, or read about in Vanity Fair.   All of which is kind of sad, because I believe there’s something instructive in the lives of famous people, even if it’s just a cautionary tale.

That’s why I like the regular section in Esquire Magazine called “What I’ve Learned”.  Essentially, it’s a free-form, stream-of-consciousness discussion with famous people about the lessons they’ve gleaned from living unusual lives.  For “What I’ve Learned” Esquire tends choose people who have a few miles on them – which is good, because I don’t give a shit what Justin Bieber or Chris Brown have learned. Guys like Jeff Bridges or Terence Stamp, on the other hand, probably have some bits of wisdom from which we can all benefit.  Unburdened by the need to sell a product or atone for a scandal, these people come across a little more genuine than in other celebrity exposés.  Materially they’ve got less to gain, but a question like “What have you learned?” requires thought, and can really crystallize what it is you believe.  I think that’s the draw – at least, it is for me.

I was reading the most recent issue of Esquire, featuring life lessons from “The Other Guys” – Joe Biden, Gary Oldman, Art Garfunkel, Slash from Guns n‘ Roses, et al -  the kind of people who aren’t famous for being front and centre, who bask in the reflected glory of others.  I can identify with this group, and they inspired me to think about what I may’ve learned in the last few years.  It seems only fitting I should share what I’ve learned with you on this, my forty-first birthday and the second anniversary of this blog.  You may want to think you’ve learned as well – I’d love to see what you come up with.

 

CHRIS NELSON

Low Rent Blogger/

Occasional TV Producer,

41, Toronto 

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t understand why people get down on fear of failure. Few things can motivate me to succeed quite as well.

That said, I’ll always depend on a guy whose failed at least once over a guy with an unbroken string of successes.  The failure won’t lose his head in a crisis.

Don’t get me wrong – failure sucks.  But it’s like getting punched in the face – the pain doesn’t last forever, and you feel perversely proud for getting through it.

Muay Thai is creative problem solving under duress – a skill I both need and suck at.

The best advice I’ve ever received from my Muay Thai coach is this: when your opponent hits you, shake it off.  Never let them know they’ve hurt you. It’ll only embolden them.

Waiting for the ideal situation is both brave and highly impractical. I’m neither of those things. I’ll work with what’s available, and take comfort in knowing I can adapt.

I used to get vanity and integrity confused, but not since my daughter was born.

My dad joked that he never knew what true happiness was until he married my mother – by which time it was too late.  I think of that line whenever I consider my career choice.

I wish I could say I’m too enlightened to feel regret, resentment, or envy. The truth is, right now, I’m too busy to squeeze them in.

I don’t like to watch awards shows. I’m mad I wasn’t invited.

I’m never convinced when someone tells me how much experience they have, or how much respect they deserve.   Speak through your actions. End of story.

Arrogant is a word insecure people use.

The best leaders I’ve met don’t exercise authority so much as make people feel like they’re a part of something greater than themselves.

I’ve had bosses that were inspiring, and bosses that behaved like contestants on The Apprentice.  I can work with both.

Sometimes you do a better job on things you’re not passionate about nor particularly care for.  Your thinking is clear and un-emotional. You don’t take things personally.

Only the brilliant and the persuasive are allowed to be assholes, which is why I’m obliged to be nice.

Real inspiration visits occasionally.  The rest of the time, I’m creating.

If I walk away from what I’m working on and come back later,  I find it’s actually better than I thought it was.

Right now, I’m making a good living writing jokes about entitled women.  I would do that for free.  I’ve got no business complaining about anything.

I never had a career plan – I just tried things that interested me.  Sometimes it worked out, sometimes it didn’t, but at least I wasn’t bored.

My best work is still ahead of me, and I’m glad I still feel that way.

There’s a few people who wish I felt worse about the way I treated them.  All I can say is everybody got the exact amount of contrition they deserved, which may’ve been less than they wanted.

Before, when dads told me how great it was to be a dad, I thought they were saying that to make themselves feel better.   I realize now only some of them were.

Louis Armstrong was right: some people if they don’t know, you can’t tell ‘em.

I know it’s a work of fiction, but To Kill a Mockingbird is hands down the best parenting guide I’ve read so far.

A lot of dads look at their kids and see the things they’ll never get to do. I may not turn out to be the best father, but at least I can look at my daughter and know I haven’t missed a thing.

I rarely cry at sad things, but happy things make me weep all the time.  Since my daughter was born, I haven’t cried so much in my life.

When you find something you like, buy two.

I can’t bring myself to get something unless I get rid of something.  It’s the only way to keep things uncluttered.

Next to my daughter, few things make me as happy as swimming at night in a freshwater lake. Preferably on mushrooms.

You may think it’s just a wristwatch, but really it’s an indicator of how seriously you think you should be taken.

I have serious misgivings about anyone who doesn’t like dogs or cheese.

I keep a running list of Baby Mama’s shoe size, cup size, dress size, favorite colors, designers, etc.   Love is paying attention to the details.

Motorcycles are not the defining passion of my life because I look cool and enjoy going fast – although that’s part of it.

Seriously though – we spend so much time limiting our exposure to things.  You can’t do that on a motorcycle.

If I tell the truth today, it’s mostly because I’m getting too lazy to lie.

I feel like I have a book in me.  I may never write it, but it’s nice to know it’s there.

When I look at my face in the mirror, it’s hard to see how moisturizing has helped.  But I’ll keep doing it.  Just in case.

So I like to dress well and look good…who doesn’t?

When it comes to women, I’m a little like a gambler on a hot streak who thinks he’s winning with skill and not luck.  Fact is I haven’t punched my weight for years.

It’s not flirting if you mean it.

I used to think I knew what I needed from relationships, and then I met the woman I’m with today.

When they gave our daughter to me for the first time, I looked at her, turned to Baby Mama and said “I’m in love with another woman.” She seems okay with that.

Life is good. Why spoil it with expectations?

 

I’m amazed I still have it – a dog-eared copy of Esquire magazine from October 1993. It was a 60th Anniversary edition, titled “60 Things Every Man Should Know”, filled with essays from big thinkers like Norman Mailer and Ice-T, ruminating on such pressing subjects as boxing and sex doggy-style.  It sits in a tin box in my storage unit, along with a stack of somewhat less-distinguished publications, like my signed copy of Playboy with Katarina Witt on the cover, or the low-rent trade journal featuring the first article I ever got paid to write.

To be honest, I don’t know why I’ve kept that Esquire so long, since there’s only one essay in it I really care about, and I can practically recite it from memory.   It’s an essay on hope by then-Czech president Vaclav Havel, who died today.

At the time, I was only vaguely aware of who Vaclav Havel was.  I knew him as something of an Eastern European Nelson Mandela, but since I was neither Czech nor Slovak nor cared that much for velvet,  I paid little attention to his exploits.

Havel’s essay brought him into sharp focus for me. After reading it, I started to learn more about him. I realized Havel was the kind of Better Man I wished to be: brave, principled, idealistic, decent, but above all…hopeful, in precisely the sense he describes below.

The kind of hope he talks about isn’t diminished by failure, or enhanced by success.  Sometimes you hear people say that hope can be a killer, but Havel’s kind of hope gives comfort, because it comes from a deeper, more elemental place. With this kind of hope, the outcome of events has no bearing on its intrinsic value.  No doubt it’s why I’ve returned to this essay many times over the past few years, and why it will continue to resonate with me as I try to teach my little girl about hope.

Probably the most important thing about Havel’s essay is that he puts the burden of  finding hope on each of us – it’s not something anyone can give to you.  Bear in mind Havel was himself a symbol of hope for Czechoslovakians, yet here he is telling people that the meaning they may find in his struggle is nothing compared to the meaning they may find in their own.  As with all things, the answers lie within us. It’s my hope that I can equip Ava with the tools she needs to find hope within herself, just as Vaclav Havel did.  I suspect she’ll find it in the same place as resilience, and integrity.

There’s little more I can add to his words, except to say that I’m grateful for having discovered them, and I’m sad there won’t be more:

Never Hope Against Hope

by Vaclav Havel

Allow me to tell you a little story about the nature of hope and absurdity. In 1989, only a few months before I was to become, to my bewilderment, an actual head of sate, I survived my own death.

I had arrived in the countryside outside Prague at a place called Okrouhlice to visit artist friends. After a feast by a bonfire, I led a friend who had had too much to drink down a dark path toward a house nearby. In this total darkness, though completely sober, I suddenly fell into a black hole surrounded by a cement wall. The fact is, I had fallen into a sewer, into what can only be called, you’Il excuse me, shit.

My attempt to swim in this fundamental mud, this strange vegetation was in vain, and I began to sink deeper into the ooze. Meanwhile, a tremendous panic broke out above me. Local citizens flashed lights, grasped one another’s arms, legs, offering limbs, articles of clothing to grab; a chaos or rescue techniques followed. This brave fight for my life went on for at least thirty minutes.  I could barely keep my nose about this dreadful effluvium and thought this was the end, what a way to go, when someone had the fine idea of putting down a long ladder.

Who could have known I was to leave this unfortunate sewer only to end up in the president’s office two months later? I was not, after all, to have the distinction of becoming the first playwright to drown in shit in Okrouhlice.

What was striking about the sewer experience was how hope had emerged from hopelessness, from absurdity. I’ve always been deeply affected by the theatre of the absurd because, I believe, it shows the world as it is, in a state of crisis. It shows man having lost his fundamental metaphysical certainty, his relationship to the spiritual, the sensation of meaning – in other words, having lost the ground under his feet.  As I’ve said in my book Disturbing the Peace, this is a man for whom everything is coming apart, whose world is collapsing, who senses he has irrevocably lost something but is unable to admit this to himself and therefore hides from it.

Complete skepticism is an understandable consequence of discovering one’s enthusiasms are based on an illusion. This skepticism leads to a dehumanization of history – a history drifting somewhere above us, taking its own course,  having nothing to do with us, trying to cheat us, destroy us, playing out its cruel jokes.

But history is not something that takes place elsewhere; it takes place here. We all contribute to making it. If bringing back some human dimension to the world depends on anything, it depends on how we acquit ourselves in the here and now.

The kind of hope I often think about (especially in hopeless situations like prison or the sewer) is, I believe, a state of mind, not a state of the world. Either we have hope within us or we don’t.  Hope is not a prognostication – it’s an orientation of the spirit. Each of us must find real, fundamental hope within himself. You can’t delegate that to anyone else.

Hope in this deep and powerful sense is not the same as joy when things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather an ability to work for something to succeed. Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It’s not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. It is this hope, above all, that gives us strength to live and continually try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now. In the face of this absurdity, life is too precious a thing to permits its devaluation by living pointlessly, emptily, without meaning, without love, and, finally, without hope.

For years, I’ve been making myself appear smarter and more interesting than I actually am by quoting dialogue from director David Mamet’s films. At some point, anyone who knows me well has been amused/bored/irritated by some of the following nuggets:

From the movie Heist: 

Jimmy: So, is he going to be cool?

Pinky: My motherfucker is so cool, when he goes to bed, sheep count him.

 

[In a bar]

Betty Croft:  Take it easy, baby, that stuff’ll rot your stomach lining.

Fran Moore:  Yeah, but I get to drink it first.

 

From the movie The Spanish Prisoner: 

Jimmy Dell: Always do business as if the person you’re doing business with is trying to screw you, because he probably is. And if he’s not, you can be pleasantly surprised.

 

Nobody talks like characters in a Mamet screenplay.  His prose is a miracle – at once both profane and poetic, thoroughly colloquial and charmingly anachronistic.  But smart. Always smart. And illuminating – like the line from the movie Redbelt that I quoted a couple of posts ago, and especially this monologue from the movie version of Glengary Glen Ross, written by Mamet and based on his famous stage play of the same name:

Now, a little context – Pacino is playing a vaguely amoral real estate salesman, trying to persuade Jonathan Pryce to buy a worthless piece land by playing on his fear he’s done nothing adventurous in his life.   Of all Mamet’s work, nothing resonates with me quite like this monologue, in particular the question “Where’s the Moment?” It speaks to me not because I think my life has been boring – I’ve had several interesting moments in life. I’ve just managed not to be “present” for almost all of them – I was there in body, but not spirit.

Thanks to my work in TV, I’ve been lucky enough to go places and meet some  interesting people – James Brown to Al Gore to Jack Layton to Lady Gaga – but  I can hardly remember any of these encounters. At the time, I was watching things unfold through the viewfinder of a camera, and less concerned with what was being said than if the shot was composed right, or if it was in focus, or if I was recording clean audio. My lack of mental presence has not been without consequences: The normally affable Ben Harper once flipped out on me during an interview because I was so distracted I asked him the same question twice.   It could be I’ve met my hero Mamet himself, and I’d have no fucking clue.

The result is I’m one step removed from a lot of the things I’ve done, which feels pretty much the same as having not been there at all. People ask me what I remember about all the places I’ve been, the people I’ve met, and I tell them I have no idea – I more or less watched the whole thing on TV like everybody else. I was not unlike news photographers killed in Vietnam – viewing the action through a camera rendered them oblivious to the real danger they were in.

(That’s probably why I’m not much of a picture person in civilian life.  When I see people at concerts taking pictures on their smartphones, I feel bad for them. They don’t know what they’re taking themselves away from, and all for a shitty picture that’ll only bore others to see later.)

I haven’t picked up a video camera in a long time, but that doesn’t mean my ability to be present automatically improved.  For a time, that camera was replaced by lingering regrets about the past and worries about the future.  I’d like to think I could push those things out of my mind when I need to, but I could always feel them close by.

Which isn’t to say I remember nothing.   There are some great moments that have stayed with me,  memories that still feel as real as the day they happened; discovering the Beastie Boys could play as a punk 3-piece at Lollapalooza in 1994; racing motorbikes with my uncle in an Eastern Washington desert;  diving in an underwater cave in Mexico and seeing a stalactite that resembled the Virgin Mary; swimming with a six-gill shark off the coast of Pender Island in BC;  a night on Capri I once spent with an ex-girlfriend; kissing the woman I dated after that girlfriend at a concert – The Dears were playing “Lost in the Plot.”

These moments stay with me because I wasn’t holding a camera, or worrying about making a deadline, or ruminating over bad choices – I was just “there.”  I didn’t consciously put things out of my mind, I didn’t meditate (although I’ve tried this, with dubious results) – I just happened to be there when the wheel went round.     Actually, that’s not true – during all those moments I recall being focussed, exhilarated, and full of wonder.

So meditation is one thing, but I suppose the real trick to staying present is to always be doing something you love, something that can still surprise you.   All of which is just a long-winded way of saying that nothing puts me in the moment like being with my infant daughter.  Just today, she giggled as I played with her. It was the first time I’d heard my daughter laugh, and it made me cry.  It’s a funny thing – the world falls away, and it’s me and my little girl, and everything’s just fine.  I’m not missing anything when I’m with her, and that more than makes up for all those amazing events I can’t remember.

 

 

 

 

It’s now been a while now since I started training with my affably sadistic Muay Thai coach, Derwin.   I’m probably a few decades away from stepping into the Octagon with Georges St. Pierre, but nonetheless I’ve improved: my punches come with a nice little snap; I no longer have to remind myself to rotate my hips when I throw punches; I don’t drop my hand and expose my jaw when I initiate a swing kick; and my combinations don’t unravel into series of painfully awkward bitch slaps (as much).   Derwin has used a lot of great methods to achieve this pathetically modest result, but few have proven as effective as when he simply hits me in the head and stomach repeatedly. Seriously – our best workout by far has been when the only thing I’m doing is taking blow after blow.

On its face it sounds a tad perverse, but considering that hits are something of a necessary job hazard for most fighters, knowing how to take one probably isn’t such a bad idea.  Which is not to say a fighter needs to like getting punched, only that taking a knock or two can really teach you something, such as…

1. …You’re Tougher Than You Think You Are. The most illuminating thing about a crack to the melon might be how well you can probably could stand it.   Admittedly, Derwin started light pretty light, but pretty soon he was throwing a few bombs.  He rung my bell more than a few times, and I did spend several days moving my nose around to see if it still ached, but honestly, I thought it’d be much worse. Actually, it probably would be if I’d just stood there and let him tune on me, but thankfully Derwin to took the time to show me how to…
2. …Always Be Prepared.  If you can’t block a punch, then lean into it (not away) – you increase time of impact, and decrease force.  If you’re taking a blow to the gut, tighten your abdominal muscles.  If you’re being hit in the face, clench your jaw, or if you can, lean your forehead into the punch (very hard up there).   Always keep your eyes on your opponent, protect your most vulnerable areas (jaw), and ALWAYS maintain your balance. But being physically prepared is one thing…
3. …What You Do After You’re Hit Is Every Bit As Important As What You Do WHEN You’re Hit.  Derwin hammers (pardon the pun) on this point a lot – martial arts are as much a mental game as a physical one.  Nothing can inspire bad choices quite like getting emotional when you’re hit.  Nothing can embolden your opponent like the sight of you getting angry or down on yourself when they hit you.  The best thing you can do is take it, shake it off, move on.   Keep your cool, and you’re morely likely to avoid costly mistakes, plus your opponent will think his weak ass shit can’t phase you (even if you piss blood afterwards).  There’s another word for this: poise.

I think you can see where I’m going with this – there’s something for a Better Man in every hit, both in the ring and life.  This isn’t news, even to me, but Derwin hitting me relentlessly is such a vividly poignant reminder that it’s almost like a revelation. That’s probably because I’d gone most of my life without getting in a fist fight.  I suppose that’s good, but I also know it made me absurdly afraid of pain.

The thing is, a lot of people are like this: fear of pain is their biggest motivator, and they go out their way to avoid it, putting themselves through all kinds of contortions that are likely worse for them than than the pain they’re trying to avoid.  But if you’re prepared and unflappable when the shit does fly (as it inevitably does), chances are it won’t seem so bad.  You’ll be more able to heed the advice of guys like Al Swearengen, the saloon keeper in the TV Series Deadwood:  “The world ends when you’re dead.  Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back.”

So there you go – next time someone threatens to beat some sense into you, chances are that’s exactly what they’ll be doing. Consider it a favour.

I’ve neglected the blog of late. I could tell you it’s because I’m knee-deep in shitty diapers, trying desperately to console a wailing infant and wondering if I’d be criminally liable in a case of Shaken Baby Syndrome.  But that’d just be an excuse.

The truth is it’s work that’s keeping me from blogging, not my child.  Ava is lovely – quiet, gorgeous, and sleeping most of the night. Admittedly, she does have legendary poos. Baby Mama was recently victim of an IED (Infant Exploding Diaper) – apparently, the force of the dookie blew the diaper right off Ava’s body. I find this more impressive than disturbing.  So I guess having a baby so far has been rather easy, and that, I’m told, is a serious problem.

“Real Babies,” as other, more seasoned parents tell me, are supposed to be incredible amounts of work.  “Real Babies” wail like they’re being water-boarded for hours at a time. “Real Babies” spread their poo around the house like an oscillating lawn sprinkler.  They suck on their mom’s boobs until they look like empty gunny sacks.  “Real babies” rob their parents of sleep, sex, joy, financial security, and eventually – sanity.

Because I don’t have a “Real Baby”, these besieged mothers and fathers tell me I’m not yet a “Real Parent”. In the game of “My Child Is Worse Than Your Child”, I’m a big fat loser.  If parenthood is a character-building experience, then my underachieving child has failed me miserably.

Which is not to say she won’t eventually step up her game, or that I haven’t learned anything.  Quite the contrary – I believe my learning curve has been so steep I need rappelling gear.   Here’s just a small sample of some of the things I’ve learned:

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I worked at MuchMusic for almost a decade, and unquestionably my biggest contribution to music that whole time was being producer/cameraman/bodyguard to Nardwuar the Human Serviette.  I love Nardwuar like an annoying brother – which is to say I appreciate his merits while admitting that few people on earth can frustrate me as much.  Anyone who has watched (or been a subject of) his interviews probably knows what I’m getting at.

In Nardwuar’s defense, the man has no guile. He’s not Sasha Baren-Cohen, playing a polarizing character for laughs.  He’s not malicious, or calculating, or daring.  Nardwuar is just…Nardwuar.  He can’t help the way he is.

When asked what Nardwuar was like, I would tell people he was a litmus test for the entire human race.  You could really discover a lot about a person based on their reaction to Nardwuar. The ones who were insecure or took themselves too seriously tended to react negatively.  The ones who were most comfortable with themselves were the ones who dug him the most. Essentially, they were like Nardwuar in that they too had no pretense – they were just simply themselves.

In this way I can tell you that Beck is a big fucking baby, Dave Rowntree of Blur is a self-absorbed dick who could use either a hug or anger management therapy, and Peter Murphy of the band Bauhaus knows his contribution to pop culture is marginal at best, and is rather dismayed about it.   On the other hand, you’d be hard-pressed to find a single fake bone in the bodies of Snoop Dogg, Josh Homme, or the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne.  Oh yeah – and Jack Layton too.

Jack was on the campaign trail in 2004 when Nardwuar and I bumped into him.   Nardwuar was in the habit of making politicians….well, maybe just watch the clip:

Personally, a lot of what you need to know about Jack is right there: he was gracious enough to talk with the autistic-savant of celebrity interviewers, he possessed life experience broad enough to impress even Nardwuar, and he had the good sense not to answer the doobie question.  I particularly like that he respected Nardwuar enough to actually prep for the interview – the harmonica and chanting “Doot doola doot doo” in unison are giveaways.  Most importantly, though, the man was genuine  – he did the Hip Flip, then made a mildly blue joke about one day playing it home with his wife. I certainly hope that moment wasn’t the start of his hip trouble.

So there you go – gracious, knowledgable, too smart to pander, blessed with a self-deprecating humour, treating everyone the way he’d want to be treated – even someone dressed head-to-toe in plaid who speaks in a mild screech that agitates forest creatures.   Combine that with his sense of principle, his willingness to tussle with the Harper cyborg (whilst being flexible enough to work with the guy if he thought things may improve as a result), plus the élan with which he handled his various illnesses, and I think it’s pretty apparent –  Jack Layton was a Better Man in Full.  I may have described him in a previous post as having the countenance of an insurance salesman, but I confess that was mostly envy over his marriage to one of the least self-serving politicians I’ve ever met.  That a woman with as much clarity as Olivia Chow would stay married to him is a testament to the man’s character.

Everybody knows there are lots of phonies, blowhards and sycophants in politics. Jack Layton was none of those things – the Nardwuar Hip Flip Poll proves it. You may not have agreed with him, but theres no reason you couldn’t aspire to be like him.

 

About a week ago, I was writing a post called “D-Day plus 10”. Essentially, it was a self-congratulatory note on how prepared I was for the imminent arrival of my first child, and how 10 days after the original due date, the waiting had grown tiresome.  It was perhaps one of my best – witty, poignant, self-effacing, with a life lesson for any Man on the road to Betterment.  I can tell you all of this, of course, because I’ll never publish it.  To do so would be moot, since halfway through writing I was interrupted by the arrival of this lady:

This is Ava, and she took her sweet ass time getting here – 12 days late. We’re in the middle of heat wave, so I can only imagine Baby Mama’s coochie has air conditioning or something.  The labour lived up to its name – 30 hours, ending with a suction on Ava’s head as an obstetrician tried pulling her out like she was a cork in a wine bottle.  I’m sure I’m embellishing, but I can’t shake the image in my head of Ava flying through the air like a human cannonball – arms flailing as she’s released from the confines of her “studio apartment”, landing on her face and sliding a few inches, like a runner stealing home base.

Despite her initial stage fright, Ava has turned out perfectly – she’s healthy, gorgeous, even-tempered, and lets her parents sleep through the night with minimal interruption (for now).   She is prone to what I call “splatterpoops” – from time to time, she’ll have a meaty fart, after which little brown angel’s wings will suddenly appear over her shoulders.  I can only assume that once she learns to stand it will look like a Jackson Pollock.

I’m assured this is quite normal, so about the only problem with Ava is she’s given her daddy writer’s block – not from a lack of things to write, mind you, but too many.  My head’s like a clogged drain, which is why I’m going to take a few days to figure out what it is I want to say.    However, I can share two thoughts right now, the first being I wish my dad was here. His death felt a little like someone leaving halfway through a film without finding out how it ends.  If he’d stayed around long enough, he’d know the third act starts off with a lot of promise.

The other thought, I must confess, isn’t really mine, but the Coen Brothers.  Just tonight I was watching No Country for Old Men – a movie I had trouble suspending my disbelief over, since I doubt Texans could be that thoughtful or contemplative.  One of the minor characters has a great bit of dialogue late in the movie: “All the time ya spend trying to get back what’s been took from ya, more is going out the door. After a while you just have to try to get a tourniquet on it.”

So many times, our attention is on the wrong thing.   For the first time, though, I feel I know where I should be looking.  I’ve got my daughter to thank for that.

 

Baby Mama and I went to a movie yesterday – perhaps the last one we’ll see together for a long time (that doesn’t involve Pixar animations).   We saw Horrible Bosses – a benign comedy chosen primarily for Baby Mama’s crush on Jason Bateman.  I didn’t mind it, although I had trouble suspending my disbelief for the part about the guy who hates that his uber-hot boss Jennifer Aniston keeps trying to have sex with him.  During a scene where the guy feels harassed because she’s wearing just a lab coat and panties in the office, one moviegoer in the theatre actually said out loud “How is that a problem?” – thus vocalizing what every straight guy in the place was thinking.

By contrast, I had no trouble at all believing Jason Bateman’s monologue at the start of the movie:  “My grandma came to this country with 21 dollars.  After working hard her whole life and taking shit from no one, she turned that 21 dollars into 2000 dollars.  That…sucks. Grandma’s problem was that she took shit from nobody.  These days, the key to success is taking shit.”

Baby Mama’s boyfriend isn’t wrong – as I learned from my McQueen experiment, standing up for yourself and doing your own thing rarely gets you anywhere (unless you’re Steve McQueen, and he’s dead).  As I mentioned in a previous post, people claim to admire individualists, but in truth they usually try to oppress and kill them. If you’ve read of a true maverick who successfully blazed their own unique trail in life, it’s probably for the same reason you’ve read about a recent plane crash – it happens so infrequently that it’s newsworthy.

For many males, this is perhaps one of the most emasculating truisms of professional life: in the workplace, a handful of us get to call the shots while the rest of us have our shots called by that handful.   In such a top-down management structure,  some shit-taking may be required, and no doubt it’s hard for a man to feel like a man when he’s kissing his boss’ ass – unless, of course, that boss is Jennifer Aniston and he is literally kissing her ass.

Not me, though.  Just like Jason Bateman,  I’ve learned to appreciate the art of going with the flow…basically, of puckering and planting.  Perhaps it’s the failure of my experiments in hubris, or the recognition that fatherhood requires me to place my unborn child (and my responsibility to provide for it) ahead of my own ego – regardless, I now believe there could be few things more manly, more necessary to being a Better Man (and father)  than knowing how, when the occasion demands, to eat shit and call it pudding.

To explain why, it might help to re-frame the discussion using terms other than “eating shit” – that suggests any man who understands the dynamics of his workplace and acts accordingly  is a bit of a pussy.  Really, this is about adaptability, a subject I’ve covered before:  Navy SEALs are expected to adapt to shitty situations all the time, and I doubt they hear people calling them pussies that often.

So maybe it would help to quote some more movie dialogue, this time from a character in the David Mamet film Redbelt: “Everything has a force. Embrace it or deflect it–why oppose it?”  That movie was about jiujitsu, and the character was describing a prevailing concept of that particular martial art.  The meaning is simple enough: resistance is futile.

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I was discussing my looming fatherhood with the producer of the show I’m working on, a lovely woman and mother of two, when she exclaimed “the Belly is the Boss!”  Childless people may regard this as a kind of Tourette’s, but anyone who’s expected children knows my producer was imparting a fundamental truth: that every action you take from the time you’re pregnant – buying the car seat, searching for onesies from Norwegian black metal bands (harder to find than you think), the consumption of banana strawberry donuts – it’s all in the service of a tiny, inscrutable employer whose principal forms of communication are kicks to the stomach and perverse cravings.

My producer was wise not to say that by virtue of possessing the belly,  the WOMAN was the boss.  Some women think pregnancy means having the conch for nine months, but my producer knows better – life is hardest for the willing supplicant of any boss, be it Jack Donaghy or a a sun-starved runt whose skull hasn’t fused yet.   A pregnant mom is Smithers to her belly’s Mr. Burns, Dwight Schrute to its Michael Scott.  While the supplicants may enjoy some special considerations, they’re also prey to the boss’ whims, some of which are less than kind.  I know this because Baby Mama has started to cry when she bites into those banana strawberry donuts – she knows they’re bad, yet can’t stop eating them.

By comparison, fathers get off easy during pregnancy – all we do is wait for shit to happen (literally). One fellow dad-to-be described these nine months like being in elementary school when the class bully came up to him and said “Bike racks, 4pm. BE THERE.”    The mix of dread and anticipation, the fervent wish he could just dematerialize on the spot – “worst day of my life,” he said.  On the upside, he reported, the ass-kicking he got wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be. “So maybe fatherhood is the same,” the poor sap intoned bleakly.

I’d like to think my view of impending parenthood is a bit more sunny.  I will admit there have been pangs of doubt and fear, but for the most part I’m looking forward to shaping my new blob of goo into a contributing member of society.    I’m even thinking being a dad could be “cool”.  This tectonic shift in thinking cannot be understated. Before, I used to think of fathers as convicts, doing 18-to-life in a kind of a minimum security prison.   With the possible exception of my nephews and nieces, children lived on the extreme margins of my existence. I gave them little more thought than you might to a shooting hazard in video games – something you did your best not to kill, but that’s about it.

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