Right now,  I’m writing this from a frosty hotel room in Arkansas (AC is busted). I’ve had some marginal interest in this state, mostly as an historical footnote to a certain former world leader with a fondness for cigars and interns.  I remember the details of Clinton’s time as governor here in the same way I might remember old episodes of Three’s Company or The A-Team – I have a pretty good idea of the plot, even if I can’t remember the exact details.

If you’re in Arkansas it’s probably for a very specific purpose.  This isn’t the kind of place where people indulge vague notions of “fun” or “adventure”.    There’s more room for that in Florida, where I just came from (although for the residents of the city we were in being “adventurous” involves skipping your heart meds for a day or a rare trip to a golf course that might have “negroes” on it.)  A wild vacation in Razorback country isn’t on anyone’s bucket list, probably because it occurs to no one that such a thing is possible.  No offense to Arkansas, but it doesn’t live in people’s imaginations.  Maybe if Tennessee Williams or even John Grisham had written something about the place things would be different.

"oh my, martha...I hope he lets us play through"

If you are in Arkansas it’s because you have business, or family, or a scholarship to a Division I college. I’m in the first category; shooting a reality TV show that features university students making bad choices, the kinds that require police intervention.   In fact, I will be riding with the cops as they respond to this co-ed impropriety.  It is my fervent hope that I will get to document some truly bad decisions, and I’m talking bad;  limiting-your-career-options bad, forfeit-your-pageant-crown bad, not-get-confirmed-by-congress bad, too-hot-even-for-TMZ bad.

Sadly, none of that is likely to happen.   Although the town I’m in has three colleges (making it seem like a target-rich environment for a show with as lurid a pretense as mine) it’s in a dry county.  You have to go 20 miles to buy liquor, the primary catalyst for most college-age indiscretion.   Moreover, I’ve never been anywhere that has so many churches.   There’s even a street in town that has  no less than 12 churches (12!) in a single mile.  Most of them are megachurches with congregations in the thousands, surrounded by parking lots so vast you can see the curvature of the earth.   I’m told one of them even has a food court with a Jamba Juice.  Every second car sports a bumper sticker trumpeting some Christian sentiment – “Jesus loves your aborted baby (even if you don’t)” was my personal favourite.   One of the colleges is even a Christian college.  All this in a community of less than 50,000 people.

This is simply an ironic twist to a recurring pattern in my life of late: things seem almost perfect, but there’s always that one detail that derails everything.   There’s my crisis with the bank, my slashed tires on Christmas Day, my protracted “courtship” with Goddess, even my overeager jiu-jitsu partner who prefers not to wear a cup during training.   Now, the way I can tell if things are going pear-shaped is when everything seems to be lining up perfectly.   I wish I could report that the opposite is true and that when things seem fucked they’re actually okay.  Sadly, once something seems fucked it tends to say that way.

Amazingly, I don’t really mind.   Before I would whinge at my state of things – hell, it’s the inspiration for this blog.  Now, as fewer things turn out the way I expect, I feel curiously liberated.    I used to think that not getting your way was a failure of will or betrayed a poverty of ambition. Not anymore.  I have no attachments to the outcome of anything in my life right now, and it feels absurdly great.  That’s not to say I’ve stopped hoping or caring or paying attention.   All it means is that I’m prepared for both the best and the worst, and I’m unfazed by either.  I may like one outcome more than another but I can accept it, regardless of what it may be.  If I’ve read my Kipling right, that is an important quality in being a Better Man.

So here I am, about to go on a safari for drunken, misbehaving co-eds in the one of the chastest towns in Arkansas.  Let’s get the party started.

Fucker doesn't even look like me.

Amongst the habits of which I need to disabuse myself if I’m to be better is my penchant for cramming – putting off everything until the 11th hour and then staying up all night to get a project done. For me there is no greater motivator than the pressing imminence of a deadline, but something tells me that I can’t cram in the 11th month of my year of betterment and expect any profound metaphysical changes. I must pace myself and show regular improvement, and that is today’s reason for why I’m miserable.

I was re-reading my manifesto today and realized that at my current rate of progress, failure in becoming a better man will be inevitable. I have only nine months left in the year, and I have made little to no forward movement on most of my projects. Moreover, I’m hampered by the fact that I’m in Florida right now, spending 12-14 hours a day DOPing a TV series about cops busting drunken co-eds on spring break.  It’s something of a social study, and I must confess I feel a new respect for the patience of police officers and a growing disquiet about the promise of future generations, or at least their ability to hold their liquor.  This show could turn out to confirm that Jersey Shore is an honest , unvarnished reflection of youth in America.

So by the time I return to my regular life, I will be one third of the way through the year with nothing to show for it. Obviously I will have to get the knees up and redouble my efforts, but even that may not be enough. I need help. I need other Chris Nelsons.

I’ve kept much of things I’m trying to do deliberately broad (I mistakenly thought it would keep my options open) but now I realize that to succeed I will need to outsource some of the effort.  So I did an ego surf – I plugged “Chris Nelson” into Google in hopes of finding some higher-functioning Chris Nelsons than myself, Chris Nelsons who are living fully actualized lives, taking care of business and doing things I need not to in order to become a better man.

Based on their example, I can tell you that Chris Nelson is already

…Running for Congress! Maybe I can shelve Project Model Citizen altogether!  Apparently, I have aspirations to work alongside my fellow cheesedick Republicans to fight health care reform,  the first major social policy shift in America since the New Deal.   However, assuming I get elected I will arrive too late to assist in the effort, and chances are fellow South Dakotan Tom Daschle may have me whacked anyway. Most likely citizens in my district will take exception to my vaguely sinister grin and not vote for me.

…An Expert on “Bear” Photography! For the uninitiated, I’m not talking about photographing grizzlies in the wild. Exceptionally muscular, hirsute gay men are called “Bears” and I published a book of my own photos on the subject. I  was also the editor Bear Magazine, making me the probably the foremost authority on bears anywhere.  Great….got that covered like hair on a bear’s back.   Check it off the list.

…An Adventure Photographer! I’m pissed about this one.  It seems I’ve fulfilled my dream of marrying my passions (snowboarding and motorcycles) with my skill set (shooting stuff on video).   I really wanted to do the sort of things that I’m doing every day, so knowing I’ve got this handled kinda blows.  I have never been so envious of myself before.

…A Major League Baseball player! I have the rare distinction of being the only softball player in the Flin Flon Minor League system to ever score a triple play all by themselves, so it only makes sense that I would go onto be a promising rookie shortstop for the Colorado Rockies – I just hope I stay off the juice, if I haven’t started already. It’s not hockey, but Dad would still be proud.

…the Manager of the Blue Man Group! Does that make me the Blue MANager? Regardless,  I’m so glad I can keep those mute hooligans in line, even if the conversations are a tad one-sided.

…Incarcerated for a Crime I did not commit! Let me just say how glad I am to have this out of the way, no matter how character-building it might have been.  Actually, I don’t know if I did it or not since I’ve only got my own word to go on.  Still, I look a lot like the other guy that I believe did it. And as nice as I’ve discovered cops in America to be, I remain convinced that the best police work in North America is on television. So I may have a case.

…A Possibly Heartless Landlord on par with Old Man Potter in “It’s a Wonderful Life”! Apparently, I bought a heritage apartment building in Vancouver’s West End then raised rents by 38 percent virtually overnight.   Residents (some of whom have been in the building for as long as 50 years) can no longer afford to live there.  So I’m bold and prepared to do whatever is necessary to protect my interests. Sure, they may be elderly and living on a fixed income, but I’ve got the payments on my Bentley to consider, those freeloading ingrates.

…Dead. I was murdered by David Carradine shortly before I could marry Uma Thurman! Okay…so it didn’t go exactly like that.  I just played Uma’s ill-fated groom in Kill Bill.     I’d like to think she and I had some chemistry, and hey – if anyone’s going to take your life, it may as well be Caine from Kung-Fu.

So all Chris Nelsons considered,  I’m a pretty interesting guy.  Of course, this is by no means a comprehensive list. If you know of any other Chris Nelsons distinguishing themselves in ways that I can take credit for, please add them in the comments section.

There are few occasions these days where it’s okay to express unbridled enthusiasm; at sporting events, during sex, if you’re a game show participant – definitely if you’re doing all three at the same time.  For the most part though, expressions of unqualified joy are considered signs of weakness and are generally a cause for mild social discomfort.  I know this because I date women and play poker.

It is okay to lose your composure and be unequivocally joyful when you’re ON television, but when you’re IN television (that is, in the business of making it) being happy without reservation about something is your tell, and there are people who are not above using it against you.   I don’t feel like I’m being cynical here – it’s simply a state of the world, not limited to the TV biz.  Again, I cite the example of dating; the men and women who play it cool are much more interesting than the ones who openly express their preference for you.   By revealing their feelings, the excitable ones have made it easy and somehow less interesting.

I’m thinking about all of this because a show I hosted for Discovery Channel is premiering tonight.  It’s called I Could Do That and basically what we do on the program is take people out of their regular life and let them do something they’ve always wanted to try but never had the chance.   Now, the participants on ICDT had no qualms about getting excited from being on the show, and we welcomed their enthusiasm.  The audience will get to live vicariously through the participants, and while it may never have been a viewer’s dream to pilot a freighter or drive a tank they will no doubt identify with the emotions of those people on our show.

I envy both the participants and the viewers, because they’ve got nothing to lose from a gratuitous display of happiness.   I would like to show that more often, but I’m not sufficiently removed from the outcome to situations that pertain to me.   For example, I could tell Goddess I think she’s immutably great,  in a way that is not contingent on her thinking the same of me.  However, my intuition tells me that kind of unsolicited comment would be met with suspicion, and right now I like her company too much to risk it.  I could tell the producers of my show how it has  added to my life and how I think it adds to the world, and I’m proud to be a part of it.  Of course, were I to do that, I can’t help but wonder if the producers might use that as a bargaining chip in our next contract negotiation.   Mind you, that conversation depends on Discovery green-lighting a second season, and THAT depends on viewers showing unbridled enthusiasm for our show by watching in vast numbers.  I’ve definitely got nothing to lose from their open display of enthusiasm.

Maybe I’m managing my expectations, but for me, I Could Do That will be a reminder of how much good will we sometimes have to keep to ourselves in order to get what we want.   At the same time, I’m grateful to have worked on a show where people get to be wantonly happy with no regard for the consequences.  It’s for these reasons I’ll probably find it bittersweet to watch.

Of course, you should feel free to openly enjoy it as much as you want.

you gotta ask yourself "do I feel peaceful?" Well, do ya?!

Clint Eastwood was recently featured in an issue of GQ magazine (voted “Badass of the Year”) wherein he confessed to meditating daily.   He says it gives him a sense of self-reliance.   I would argue he feels that way by virtue of being CLINT! FUCKING! EASTWOOD! but if he believes meditation has made him a better man, then perhaps it will make me one as well.  So there you go – thousands of years of Eastern philosophy, million of practitioners, a rich religious tradition, and I decide to meditate only because Dirty Harry does it too.

That is how I find myself sitting crossed-legged on the floor of a long room with yellowed windows on one side and threadbare tapestries covering chipped concrete walls on the other.  It smells vaguely of aromatherapy oils and sweat socks.   The man next to me is whistling through his nose so loudly he sounds like a boiling kettle. When a friend recommended this “Buddhist temple” to me, I suppose I imagined something a little, well, grander.   This place has all the meditative ambiance of a visiting room in a maximum security prison.   Were Buddha here, he would tell me that I’m suffering over my environment because I have expectations as to what it should look like.   I’ve lost before I’ve even begun.  Even amongst Buddhists, I’m a loser.

My favorite Buddhist.

There are nine other people in the room besides Whistler and myself, and all of them look like aging hippies.   I’m reminded of that cliché about cops and doughnut shops - it wouldn’t be a cliché if it weren’t also true.  About the only possible exception is the woman who will be leading the meditation. She has the ironically un-Zen look of Kathy Bates in the movie Misery. Her manner, on the other hand, is all Wilford Brimley in Cocoon, jocular and grandmotherly.   When I tell her it’s my first time, she says “Well, I’ll be gentle, then” and winks.  I guess Buddhists flirt like everybody else.

Kathy waddles to the front of the class and explains that since there is “a newcomer among us” (winks at me again) we’ll be starting with a simple breathing meditation.   Kath instructs us to sit cross-legged with our back straight, our hands resting in our lap, one on top of the other.    “Still your mind on the act of breathing,” she says. “Forget all other thoughts and feelings.”    See, I knew this was too easy – thoughts in my head are racing like cars in the Paris-Dakar rally.  I’ll be thinking about my lack of fulfilling job when it’s outpaced by worries over my precarious money situation, which is soon lapped by angst over my growing deficit of dignity.

I put up my hand.  Ms. Bates seems mildly amused “I’m not exactly thinking less. Actually, all I’m doing is thinking. Is that common?”  I ask.    “Oh yes” she replies with a oddly wicked smirk. “Neurotics often feel that way at first.”   I realize Kathy has seen my kind before – slightly manic, over-analytical types who take a paradoxical glee in sifting through the detritus of their life.   She continues in the soothing but stern tones of a cop about to Taser an unruly perp.  “Your mind isn’t busier.  You’re just more conscious of how busy your mind actually is.”  Kathy tells me to resist the urge to follow all those thoughts. If you discover that your mind has wandered, return it to the breath.  “Just keep doing it.  You’ll get it…eventually.”

Okay – stick to the breathing.  I can do this, I say.  Still, thoughts are tempting

nothing comes between me and inner peace...except maybe rachel weisz.

me like Rachel Weisz in a bikini with a six-pack offering a back rub.  I will not be seduced, I tell myself.   “What about the issue with the bank?” Rachel asks. “Piss off, Rachel, I’m meditating,” I reply.   “Yes, but don’t you feel desperately lonely and abandoned by your friends?” she coos.  “Do you mind, Rachel? I’m focused on my breathing over here, and I have no time for self-pity.”   I stay riveted on my flaring nostrils.  In.  Out.  In.  Out.  In. Out.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity fending off their suggestive advances and remaining fixated on that mundane repetitiveness which keeps me alive, my thoughts start to become increasingly less distracting.  In terms of of their ability to command my attention, they seem less like my favorite actress considering a lap dance and more like yapping purse dogs – pesky but not unmanageable. Eventually, even the yapping diminishes. I don’t know at what point it happens, but I’m subconsciously aware of my mind being empty.  This is it.  I’m thinking…of nothing.  This meditation thing? I may have it nailed.  I have drilled deep into the core of my being, through the hard sediment of my skepticism and struck a vast reservoir of inner peace that is gushing all over my field of despair. And then, I’m nudged.  Whistler hisses in my ear, obviously annoyed.   “You were snoring,” he says.   “Have some consideration.  Some of us are trying to meditate.”

I apologize and quietly excuse myself.   Apparently, keeping a straight back is very important in that it keeps you from getting too relaxed and falling asleep, something for which I have a legendary reputation.  Many major milestones on my human safari have been undone by my championship capacity for napping anywhere and at anytime; my first driving exam,  my first carnal experience with a woman and now my first attempt at meditation.

However, I don’t consider this a failure. For the first time in the last few months I have had a moment where I contemplated nothing.  I get that occasionally, usually when I’m on my motorcycle, but even on my bike I’m thinking about how glad I am to be on my bike.   This was a complete absence of anything, and it was a relief,  like a burden had  been lifted, albeit temporarily.  I see what Dirty Harry is getting at, and I feel like one lucky punk.

I can’t say I found God during meditation.  What I discovered instead was some actual peace, a place within myself to get away from myself.   As I walk out onto the street, things look a little sharper, colors seem a little deeper. I know I’ll be coming back here again, regardless of the odor.  Next time, I’ll make sure to have a full night’s sleep.  I just hope Whistler’s happy to see me.

Aristotle and Descartes were pussies.

I was having lunch with a new friend when I got the e-mail.  As I read it, the colour drained from my face, and I started to sweat.   I could feel my heart triple-timing it.   A look of concern spread across my friend’s face, and she asked me if everything was okay.   I lied and told her I was fine – just a little crisis at the bank, I said.

Except, the crisis wasn’t all that little.    I’d just sold my home in Vancouver, and the bank was informing me that the penalty they would be charging for paying off my mortgage early would  be FOUR times what I thought.   That tiny sliver of profit I’d hoped to see from the sale, the profit that would cover all my debts and let me walk away with a feeling that at least I didn’t owe anyone anything…gone, baby, gone. I was selling my house to ease my financial burdens, but now that the papers are signed, I feel as burdened as I was before.  So it would seem that, thanks to my bank, I have just sold my biggest asset for no good reason.  When I suggested this to my banker, she  was indifferent.   When I used to come into the bank, she’d greet me as though I was Norm Peterson on the TV show Cheers, but now she says things like  “Those are the rules.  You should’ve been prepared for this”.    There you have it: happy to give you an umbrella when it’s sunny, but demanding it back at the first drop of rain.

The worst part is she’s right,  I didn’t do my arithmetic properly.  I knew they were going to take something in this deal,  I just didn’t think they would take so much, because now it feels like  more than just money.  I needed a little relief – one tiny break, something that’s lets me catch my breath. I used to expect a lot from life, but right now I’d give anything simply to believe that at some point, hard times will end.  That’s all I want, but it feels like that part of my hope has been stolen, and I am complicit in this theft by virtue of my of erroneously-optimistic math skills. I can accept that my ex-girlfriend no longer finds me lovable. I can accept that employers treat me like a toxic asset. This, though, feels perilously close to my one thousandth cut.

I’ve now joined that not-so-elite fraternity of people who are familiar with the indifference of banks and other vicissitudes of adulthood.   It’s about time, really.   As being a grown-up goes,  I was always something of a fraud.   I’m not unhappily married, I’m not raising offspring who will one day resent me.  I’ve hated a boss or two in my day, but the sheer absurdity of what I did to make money made such complaints seem ludicrous.  So when the bank gave me my first mortgage  it felt downright larcenous, as if I’d tricked those foolish bankers with my boyish charisma.    Of course, there was also the matter of a steady income, a hot real estate market and low interest rates, but the logic of their decision was obscured by my own incredulity, not of them but of myself, an adult imposter.   I kind of liked that feeling, but I assure you it is gone. Nothing makes me feel more “grown-up” quite like having no job, no partner, no prospects, no home and no sympathy from bankers who once seemed so happy to help me.

Now, whose words do I call upon for comfort at this time?  Jesus,  Siddartha Gautama, perhaps?  Do I read from The Prophet, or the Bhagavad Gita?  Maybe seek solace in entreatments to plucky endurance from men such as Churchill?  Nope.  In the midst of all this I’m stuck on the words of…Rocky Balboa.

Bear with me here.  We all know his story,  told beautifully in Rocky and Rocky II,  then with increasing vulgarity in parts III through V.   The easy thing would be to embrace the first two excellent films and try to ignore the remaining terrible ones.  However,  If you want to take a measure of this man’s character, you have to consider all the films in their entirety.    Those first two films were all about heart. The middle three searched for it in vain.  Rocky III, IV, and V were seduced by their own success, and tried to re-heat the original formula over and over. In so doing they sacrificed authenticity, casting a pall over the simple wonder of the original two.    If I had to equate my life to Rocky’s,  I’d place myself somewhere around Rocky V, when the Champ returns from Communist Russia having bested Ivan Drago only to find all the trappings of success have been taken from him, (no doubt from bankers who once sought out his company).   It was a hollow attempt to return Rocky to his hardscrabble roots.   Of all  five films,  Rocky V was the most pandering and the least enjoyable. That’s exactly how I feel today.

However, I can’t help but think that Rocky needed those middle three movies to be terrible, to be filled with superficial excess and robbed of the quiet humility of the originals.  Otherwise  we wouldn’t get to the poignant final act that is Rocky Balboa, the sixth and (hopefully) last film in the franchise.     Rocky started out with nothing, had everything, and then lost it all, only to realize that (with the exception of Adrian, who dies of cancer)  he still has all the stuff that matters, such as his dignity and his personal code.  What he’s re-discovers by the end is the authenticity that defined the first two pictures, and that is unquestionably the most valuable thing he has ever had .   It’s what gives meaning to these words he says to his adult son:

The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!

Today,  I cling to those words like Kate Winslet to a life preserver, although I rue what will have to happen to me next in order for me to say the same thing with as much feeling.   Still,   it’s odd where you find the motivation you need to keep your shit together, isn’t it?

like high school, but more civilized.

Travel and work have conspired to keep me from jiu-jitsu class of late.  It’s just as well, since I’ve yet to find my killer instinct.   Without it,  I am lunch meat for  James (aka Angry McTwerpface),  a guy in my class who can choke me into near-unconsciousness based on his ability to channel the angst of past humiliations at the hands of his nemeses.   If I’m to fight off this little man and his weaponized self-esteem issues,  I must summon my inner agro-douche.  I looked up “nemesis” in the dictionary:  a) an opponent or rival whom a person cannot best or overcome; b) an agent of retribution.    There were several definitions, and I would have continued to read all of them, but really, there was no need.   I know I’ve said Jake Pavelka is my nemesis, but by any definition, that distinction really belongs to Rick, my “best friend”  in high school.

Rick was  a classic tennis club preppy with a penchant for polo shirts, boat shoes and Levi’s,  a uniform he wore with little variation the entire time I knew him.  He had jet black hair that was styled into vaguely unfashionable haircut which I found odd until I realized both his older brother and dad had the very same one, making me wonder if his family had been hatched from pods.  Rick was tall, sinewy, blandly handsome – a Ken doll with testicles.   A fixture at both my high school and my church,  I would see my  friend pretty much everyday. For the most part, it was torture.

Arch-douche Stiffler.

I call Rick a friend because he wasn’t a violent bully, or  a misanthrope.  We had many friends in common, a lot of whom liked us more or less equally. Rick never made specific efforts to ostracize me.   Rather, he was more like Stifler in American Pie,  taking malignant glee in singling out and mocking other people’s shortcomings.  Unfortunately for me,  I gave Rick plenty of material to work with – perhaps I had no more than the usual supply  every awkward high school kid has, but by virtue of our proximity I would hear about them from Rick ALL. THE. TIME. Maybe it’s the cruelty of memory but I don’t think there was ever a social humiliation in my teen years that Rick wasn’t present for, and happy to exploit for his own amusement and the amusement of those around him.

There were my quaint efforts at joining the rugby team,  which I tried to keep quiet in the event of the very real possibility that I did NOT make the team.  Nonetheless I told Rick of my plans, perhaps in a vain attempt to impress him.  What he did was  try out for the team as well, despite little to no interest in rugby.   The last day of tryouts there were only three spots remaining and four guys vying for them,  Rick and I among them.     We had to run 100 metres flat out.  Blessed with natural athleticism, Rick came in first.    Cursed with a body akin to Spongebob Squarepants, I pulled in dead last.   For three weeks Rick would recount how with virtually no effort or desire on his part he’d managed to make a team that for all my passion and hard work I could not manage to get on myself.   Perhaps to add insult to injury,  Rick then proceeded to play with half-hearted interest.  Eventually he stopped going to practices or games altogether .

Then there was Hope.   She was in our youth group at church.    She had blond hair, blue eyes, an arrow for a chin and a sweet demure manner that was so proper it bordered on regal.  She was an inter-varsity Grace Kelly, and I was convinced Jesus had sent her to earth personally, an angel walking among us as a reminder of his everlasting grace.  Naturally I had a crush on her.   I found Hope’s company a welcome respite as she was the antithesis of Rick in every way.   Once again I confessed my crush to Rick,  whereupon he said that monkeys would fly out of my butt before she’d ever date me.

I  realized shortly thereafter that Rick’s opinion was perhaps an informed one, since Rick and Hope started going out.  It was like we were two cold war superpowers and he had unlawfully annexed a neutral country, the last remaining place I might find some relief from him. That Hope could love Rick didn’t just make me seethe with jealousy, it undermined my existence.   I  was forced to think that his  habit for casual cruelty was a ruse to hide some tragic pain that belied an essential goodness.  I had  no wish to acknowledge this, as it would only make it harder for me to vilify him.   Yet it was Rick who was at the hospital when my dad had a near-fatal heart attack.    I was apoplectic, and my mother was unprepared to stabilize the shifting  ground underneath my life as well as her own. She thought it best if I “spend time amongst friends who cared about me.”   So she called Rick (the only friend whose name she could remember), and that fucker came and took me roller skating.    Moreover, he granted me a general amnesty for  a week, about as long as it took for the doctors to confirm that my dad would recover.   I hated Rick for being so uncharacteristically nice, and hated myself for hating him.

Perhaps the only thing more infuriating than the humiliations was the fact that Rick never really singled me out for it.  He was an egalitarian, ridiculing everyone more or less equally.   I suppose if I felt like he was targeting me, it would be for some special reason beyond my social ineptitude.   In a bizarre way I thought it might signal some kind of approval.   He certainly didn’t seem to require mine, or anyone else’s for that matter.  For the most part Rick seemed happy to offend anyone and everyone.   His  sheer lack of consideration seemed like an act of reckless bravery,  and it made him a dashing figure to me and perhaps to Hope as well.

Nonetheless, I owe Rick a debt.  With the exception of the largesse he showed concerning my dad, he was relentless. Every time I would appeal for mercy it would only get worse.   The only option was to sublimate that angst, to soldier on and take it.   So I developed a gift for suppressing rage, for not flinching when he said or did something mean.  I started reading Lenny Bruce, and practicing witty retorts in the privacy of my  bedroom.  It was like Navy SEAL training, and without it I would never have developed the thick skin and sharp wit I needed to defend myself, the same skin and wit that I use today to survive in my contemptible industry.

Moreover, it was Rick’s dubious Christian example that inspired my healthy skepticism.     His investment in religion was less moral than legalistic: follow the rules and you get into Heaven.   As such he ascetically observed such pious ordinances as no smoking, no drinking, and no cursing.   He didn’t dance, as it may have lead to sex.  As far as I know he didn’t have sex standing up as it may have lead to dancing.   I suspect he missed the rule about treating your neighbour the same way you’d want to be treated yourself, although it’s more likely he regarded Christianity as a kind of spiritual alegbra exam – he didn’t have to get everything right in order to pass.   So as I understood it, Rick would inherit to the kingdom of Heaven while it would be denied to someone like my dad- a decent, honest non-believer who lived a life closer to the example set by Christ than Rick ever would.    I couldn’t accept such arbitrariness on the part of God, and over time I grew disenchanted and left church altogether.  Today,  I question everything. I make an effort to understand why the I think the  way that I do,  and I’m open to the possibility of  changing my opinions if new facts come to light.   I can even go so far as to accept that Rick may be a better person than I realized, although such evidence has yet to present itself.

Regardless of my personal feelings for Rick, I am a better man than I would’ve been because of his cruelty and fecklessness.  Not that he would know, mind you – in my senior year, I moved with my family to another city, and I never spoke to Rick again.  I don’t think it would’ve mattered to him anyway.   I’ve found it’s rare for any bully, bad friend and frenemy to have a reflective nature .   Writer Jonathan Goldstein once produced an amazing story on the excellent radio program This American Life , in an episode devoted to “The Allure of Mean Friend”: Is it mean of the ravenous lion to devour the frightened zebra?  As the first terrible bites sink into his legs and stomach, does the zebra look in the lion’s eyes as though to  say “why are doing this to me, friend? and why, by my very nature, have I demanded it?” It occurs to me that only the zebra would do a story (on this subject).  The lion could care less.

Although I haven’t seen him in more than twenty years,  Rick  is still with me, helping me become a better man.  I’ll be thinking of him when I take McTwerpface to the mat.

warren zevon - like me, he knew when his shit was fucked up.

When it comes to writing this blog, I benefit from the assistance of a woman as brilliant as she is long-suffering.   If you look in the comments section, she goes by the handle of “The Producer” and I rarely post a word without having her look at it first.   The result is the stuff you see here is infinitely stronger than if I’d simply posted it on my own.  I am a simian.

One of her greatest skills is that she is a phenomenal nag.   Not content to simply offer sage advice, she usually follows it up with persistent questions as to how I’ve applied it, which she delivers in a did-you-wash-behind-your-ears tone that is as endearing as it is infuriating.  If I actually end up becoming a Better Man this year,   it will be in no small part because of her.    I have had a lot of dark and bitter moments these past few months, and many times the only reason I don’t do a cannonball into a pool of self-loathing is because I remember that The Producer believes in me enough to ride my ass like Secretariat.

Lately, The Producer has been bugging me to post more lists (“readers love them”).   So,  in her honor, this next list is dedicated to her.   I believe everyone’s misery should come with a soundtrack, and this one is mine.   I’m essentially using other people’s music to express how I feel,  something angst-ridden males have been doing since the invention of the cassette.   Strangely, It gave me perverse joy to come up with a  playlist that tries to capture how truly terrible I feel about myself, no doubt a leftover emotion from when I used to make mixtapes for girls on whom I had crushes.

Making this list was an excellent way to avoid writing some posts I’ve been struggling with (and ironically,  I spent twice as long making it as I would if I’d simply knuckled down and finished those posts), so if there’s some odious task you’re  trying to shirk, then I suggest you take the time to read this list and add a few miserable songs of your own.

SAD BASTARD MUSIC (AKA “The Metaphysical Journey I Take Everyday From The Time I Wake Up to Pee to when I Pass Out”)

1)      John Lennon – Nobody Told Me (Wherein I’m surprised to find myself in a wretched state, and am mildly bemused by it.)

2)      Talking Heads – Once in a Lifetime (Bemusement turns to confusion.)

3)      Pixies – Where Is My Mind? (A little more confusion)

4)      Joy Division – Digital (Confusion segues to panic)

5)      Warren Zevon – My Shit’s Fucked Up (Ah! The Better Man theme song)

6)      Nick Cave – Moonland (Okay, trying to feel good about feeling so bad)

7)      Rolling Stones – Miss You (Nick only took me so far, maybe the Stones can finish the job.)

8)      Jimmy Cliff – Many Rivers to Cross (Nope, those didn’t work. I start to toy with the idea of suicide, and I want this played at my funeral.)

9)      Bob Dylan – Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright (The other song I want played at my funeral, which makes me think of the Ex)

10)  George Harrison – Isn’t it a Pity (Wow, REALLY thinking about the Ex)

11)  Solomon Burke – Fast Train (Okay, Zevon was just funny, but seriously, I feel bad)

12)  Johnny Cash – Hurt (Nope.  Nothing funny about this at all.)

13)  Gnarls Barkley – Who’s Gonna Save My Soul Now? (I feel so bleak, I must have groove)

14)  K-os – Man I Used to Be (I don’t really want to be the man I used to be, but I don’t want to be the man I am, either.)

15)  Ryan Adams – Two (Okay, a little less desperate, but still wistful)

16)  Patrick Watson – The Great Escape (Sure, things suck, but at least I don’t feel as shitty as I did when I was listening to Hurt.)

17)  The Dears – I Fell Deep (Sure, I’ve fallen in the well,  but I don’t think I need Lassie’s help.  Okay, maybe I do…)

18)  The Killers – All The Things I Have Done (People can change.  I can change.)

19)  Elvis Costello – (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding (Wait! Why the FUCK do I have to change? Why can’t the world change instead?)

20)  Sam Cooke – A Change is Gonna Come (Oh well,  I have to manifest my own destiny and believe things will change for the better, even if they don’t. Thanks Sam.)