This photo of Steve McQueen is one of my favorites.  It was taken in 1963 by McQueen’s friend, photographer William Claxton, who actually stood on the passenger seat snapping pictures as McQueen raced down LA’s Muholland Drive at 100 mph.  I like this photo so much I had a 4 x 3 foot print made of it, which sits over my desk at home.  It’s under the constant, unrelenting gaze of St. Steven here that I’ve written most of my blog posts, although more recently I’ve found myself just staring back it him, mind completely blank, praying he might offer some kind of inspiration.

Well, it seems like St. Steven was listening, because as I stared at at this picture it occurred to me I’ve never written about why I find him so admirable.  Anyone who comes over to the house comments on the picture, but rarely do they ask why I’m a fan.   I suppose they think it’s for the same reason everyone else does -  handsome movie star/style icon/anti-hero with a taste for fast cars, fast motorcycles, and fast women.

The thing is, I like McQueen for something else altogether – his hubris.   Webster defines hubris as “excessive arrogance” – a totally flaccid explanation which doesn’t really capture how awesomely descriptive the word truly is.   Hubris actually comes from Greek tragedy – characters cursed by it possessed an excess of ambition or pride. They were out of touch with reality and overestimated their capabilities, which ultimately caused their ruin.

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Those of you who arrived at this site accidentally (which, judging from my analytics, is most of my readership) were probably looking for either the penis enlargement site, or this guy.

Toothy here goes by the name Wayne Levine, and at first glance you might think he’s also selling penis enlargement, through the power of positive thinking.  In fact, Wayne is a counsellor specializing in men’s issues, and has published a book called Hold onto your N.U.Ts.

For the uninitiated, N.U.Ts. stands for “Non-negotiable, Unalterable, Terms”.  Levine says a man needs to define himself by the things on which he won’t compromise.  It could be anything from “I will not lie” to “I will not eat pork” to “I will not jerk off with my left hand, cuz it feels like cheating.”

Levine argues that N.U.Ts can be big or small, but regardless a man must hold onto them.    Being committed to something, to the extent that you refuse to sacrifice it for the sake of expediency – that’s what defines a man’s character and values, and imbues him with self-esteem.   When a man is forced to repeatedly give up his N.U.Ts, it leads to resentment, despair and feelings of worthlessness.   I know this firsthand, and if you doubt me you’re welcome to ask my mom or any of my ex-girlfriends.

I like the concept of N.U.Ts, and not merely because the acronym allows me to write lame double entendres for this entire post.  All men should have N.U.Ts, and for me to be a Better Man, it would help to know what mine were.    So the other day I sat down with pen and paper and wrote them out.

Initially, it was difficult – perhaps a sign of how poorly I knew myself.  Over time, however, it seemed to get easier. After about 3 or 4 hours I’d figured I’d left my N.U.Ts on several pages.

However, upon reading them back I was both amazed and embarrassed at how trite most of them are (i.e. “I will never sell my Anniversary Edition of The Big Lebowski) which is a sign that I was writing about something other than N.U.Ts….G.N.A.T.s is more like it (Generally Negotiable, Alterable Terms).

The things I was writing down weren’t really getting to the heart of the matter.  I’d only been scribbling in the centre of the page, figuratively speaking. To truly know where my N.U.Ts were, I’d have to take my crayon to the edges, find the boundaries, the very limits of what I could accept.   To do that requires imagination, the ability to conceive of worst possible scenarios and how you would react if you found yourself in them (127 Hours, anyone?)

When you think of it that way, you realize N.U.T.s aren’t about bare minimums, or the least you can accept.   They’re not a line in the sand over which you won’t let others cross.   N.U.Ts are for you and you alone, and they should be aspirational.  They should be the kind of terms you try to achieve every day, even if you don’t succeed.   At least, that’s how I see them.

Anyway, imagining worst case scenarios seemed to work – I suppose given my past year I had less trouble than I thought I would.  Some of you may have attention spans as short as your…well, you know…so for you I’ve successfully managed to whittle my list of N.U.Ts to these:

Take a Look at Chris’ N.U.T.s!

1.) I try to understand why it is someone pisses me off. Even if I don’t want to understand,  or can’t expect the same consideration.

2. ) I try to listen to what people have to say, even if they’re mostly full of shit. Who knows – there could be kernels of truth in that turd.

3.) I don’t waste time worrying about the crap that’s happened, and channel my energies into dealing effectively with the mess.

4.) I take care of both my friends and my body. It’s the only way to prevent either from betraying me (too badly).

5.) To paraphrase Da Mayor from a certain Spike Lee joint, “always do the right thing” – even if doing the wrong thing is easier. One must set an example, even in the face of stupidity.

6.) I won’t regret any bad choices I made if I acted decisively using good judgment and the best information available at the time. For those times when I didn’t, please see #5. For those times when #5 doesn’t apply, please see #3.

7.) Trust, but verify.

8.) I remain curious and eager to learn – the more I know, the better I feel. In other words – everything once, no matter how ill-advised.

9.) I will keep my sense of humour, even if I think I’d be better off selling it on eBay.

10.) I will not wallow in despair or cynicism when things are bad. The answer to anyone who asks “why me?” should be “because it’s your turn.” – bad times about the only thing that can help reveal how much you can take.

11.) I will not stop trying to do my best and give more than is asked of me, no matter how much others tell me my best effort sucks.

12.) I will dress well, groom well, eat well, and generally live as well as my meagre means allow. Abandon your tastes, and you abandon your self worth.

13.) I would sooner die on a motorbike than live without one.

Okay –  it’s not exactly Walt Whitman, but nonetheless I have found my N.U.Ts and I hope to maintain a firm grasp on them.  For those of who arrived at my site thinking their big problem is a little penis, perhaps you should ask yourself if the issue isn’t your N.U.Ts instead.

A few posts ago I wrote about the Better Man’s need for a feeling of control – the sense that no matter what kind of crazy badass shit is going down, he’s got the mind set not to freak out, but to come up with a workable game plan.  Call it what you want – confidence, self-possession – it’s the one thing I believe underpins a Better Man’s existence. It’s the key to successfully managing fear and feeling like a man, and it only comes from knowing how to do stuff – I’m talking cool, manly stuff, like building a cabin without nails,  braking in a hairpin turn, or preparing human flesh for the other crash survivors.  2011 is the year I embody that feeling of control, and that’s why every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon I let a semi-pro Muay Thai fighter punch me repeatedly in the head.

The puncher is this guy…Derwin Johnson, a personal trainer.  I befriended him this summer when I was developing a TV show based loosely on this blog.  I was considering him as a judge on the program, and for good reason – he’s got the kind of resume that shivers me testes: former infantry soldier, expert in kempo, muay thai, jiu-jitsu. Oh – he’s also a classically trained pianist.   Suffice to say, the man’s got skills. If there was ever a man to punch some sense into me, it’s Derwin.

Normally, Derwin spends his professional time applying his soldiering skills by leading one of the most strenuous boot camp workouts in town. He declares rather proudly that people vomit in the sessions, as though it’s a selling point.  That perhaps explains why he seems to think he’s doing me a favour as his glove pushes into my nose.

Despite this, Muay Thai training has been a huge improvement from last year’s aborted attempts at jujitsu.  Rockstar-cum-MMA fighter Robin Black had said jujitsu would be perfect for me – he called it “creative problem solving under duress” –  which, to me, is the one skill every Better Man should wish to have.

Unfortunately, about the only creative problem solving I managed to do was trying to figure out how to avoid getting paired up with the angry geek cursed with weaponized self-esteem issues and a penchant for free-balling under his gi. This is no dig at the gym I went to – the trainers were great – but there was a lot of theory and not enough practice.  About the only time I broke a sweat was when the angry geek almost choked me into unconsciousness.   Selfish as it sounds, I needed a class that would be only about me.

So far, much of Derwin’s instruction is punishment-based. But unlike jujitsu’s unanticipated punishment of feeling another man’s testicles on my head, I can see how Derwin’s punishment works to my benefit.    So far, I’ve learned some very important fighting techniques, such as…

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At the start of last year I published the Better Man-ifesto, which outlined the qualities that I believe define a Better Man, and the Projects I planned to undertake in order to achieve Better Manhood.  In hindsight, I wonder if perhaps I wasn’t smoking opium when I came up with it.  Trying to achieve in one year what I’d failed to accomplish in the previous 38 now seems delusional.  Like Clint Eastwood said,  a man’s gotta know his limitations.

Which is not to say that I’m abandoning my Better Man projects altogether – quite the contrary.  I still believe they’re noble endeavours, well worth pursuing, but it’s more likely I’ll develop superpowers from being bitten by radioactive spider on a class field trip than complete all the projects in a single year.  Even completing them in a lifetime seems overly-optimistic, unless Steve Jobs calls to say he’d like to adopt me, or I squeeze more out of my days by foregoing sleep and switching to a steady diet of Red Bull and Crystal Meth (Lemmy from Motorhead survives on whiskey, cocaine, and potato chips, so there is some precedent for this).

For the most part, time and money conspired to keep me from achieving major goals this past year, and perhaps will do so in perpetuity.   However, that’s less likely to happen if I focus and pick just one or two projects at a time.  Now, those of you who might accuse me of being an underachiever, that I’ve set my sights too low – you’re not that far off. However, the project I’m planning to focus on goes straight to core of my nature, and it is big – it encompasses elements from Project Iron Fist, Project Draper, Project Renaissance Man and Project My Bad.    That’s because, ultimately, those projects are about the same thing:  overcoming fear.

Being raised in a devout Christian household by a mother whose behaviour mimicked that of a creature from a Japanese monster movie means fear and guilt have always been the two biggest motivators in my life.   Most of the actions I’ve taken have been because I felt scared about what might happen, or bad about what I’d done.  As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to more or less keep my guilt on the leash.  But fear still runs amok, like a band of marauding Vikings, raping and pillaging their way across the countryside of my psyche.  You might say fear has taken a scorched earth policy with regards to my self-esteem.

Now, my fear isn’t physical danger, per se; I cut and bleed like everyone else, but I’ve calculated my risk and know that many “dangerous” activities really aren’t that bad if you’re careful when you do them.   I used to be afraid of failure, but that was mostly because I’d never experienced it.  Having failed at things repeatedly in the last few years, I’m realizing how instructive and character-building it can be.   I suppose I’m afraid of death for the same reasons everyone else is – that there’s still so much I want to do – but if I look back I’ve done more than most, and some of it was pretty cool, so I feel somewhat sanguine about that at the moment.

No, my particular brand of fear is localized and highly specific, yet it stains every aspect of my life – I’m afraid of confrontation.  My relationship with it is reminiscent of Superman and Kryptonite. And it’s not necessarily physical confrontation, either – I don’t like getting in arguments, even when I think I’m right.  If I see confrontations on TV, I actually cover my face with my hands. I am a dedicated confrontation avoider, even though the monumental, Larry-David-esque contortions I’ve gone through to avoid it has created more problems than solutions.

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In the first year of his presidency, Ronald Reagan spent countless hours trying to persuade congressmen to approve a crucial sale of military planes to Saudi Arabia.  By all accounts, it was a grueling effort that a took a personal toll, so when Congress voted (by a narrow margin) to approve the deal, Reagan turned to an aide and said “I feel like I’ve just crapped a pineapple.”

That’s pretty much describes my feelings all year with this blog.  And just like anything you might expel from your bowels (pineapples or otherwise) I’m not sure if I’m proud of the results so much as glad that the year is over.

To recap: 365 days ago I vowed to become a Better Man by today.  In my first post, I wrote about waking up Christmas morning to find the tires on my car slashed.  It was the final insult in a year’s worth of indignities, and the parallels weren’t lost on me: my easy ride on the wheels of good fortune had been suddenly deflated by the ugly vicissitudes of life.

And so this blog was born, a chronicle of my efforts not only to reverse my fortunes, but to change for the better – to find the wisdom and fortitude to overcome my crises. I’d resolved to do this by taking on several laudable, hare-brained and occasionally dangerous projects, all designed to improve the quality of my character.    In the process,  I learned a few lessons:

LESSON #1: It’s Okay To Make Wildly Unrealistic Plans That You Fail to Achieve.

When Joseph Stalin ruled the Soviet Union, he laid out several Five Year Plans that came with virtually impossible economic targets the workers had to achieve.  We’re talking crazy goals, like wheat production that required more farmland than physically existed in the entire country.  When the workers failed to achieve their targets, Stalin made sure heads rolled…literally. That’s too bad, because in spite of the “failure” the Soviet Union still achieved phenomenal economic growth, outpacing even some capitalist countries.  Cranky, homicidal Joe was so focussed on what didn’t happen that he couldn’t see the progress his country had made.

In my Better Man-ifesto, I came up with nine very ambitious projects, ones with high numbers for both artistic merit and technical difficulty.  I did not stick the landing on most of them.  Project “Do Me a Solid” was all about volunteering, yet the most  I ever volunteered for was seconds at dinner. The God Project was another disaster – although I must admit my heart wasn’t in it. Having grown up going to church, suddenly going back felt a little like going to the fridge for the milk, finding it had gone stale, then putting it back thinking if I return later it might be good again.  In all, I failed to complete ANY of the projects in their entirety,  including the seemingly easy goal of being a Better Asshole (Project Ari Gold).

Now, it’d be easy to pull a Stalin and dwell my failures, but that would mean overlooking the unanticipated successes of this year.  Take Project Renaissance Man (self-reliance and technical aptitude) – I didn’t pick up ANY of the skills I’d set out to learning.  However,  I’ve since compensated for it by discovering my inner Boy Scout – for example, I may not know how to fix my motorcycle, but now wherever I ride I carry a space blanket, canteen, and a survival knife in my saddle bags.  That way if I break down on the highway, at least I won’t die of exposure, dehydration, or bear attacks.  In fact, my house is now littered with how-to guides, and wherever I go I carry tools for most crises, even if I don’t know how to use them.

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In my last post, I wrote about the Ben Franklin Moral Virtue Matrix – a series of charts that Benjamin Franklin designed to turn himself into a virtuous individual. In light of all the man accomplished (after all, he IS the subject of countless rap songs) I figured this was one lofty self-improvement project worth blatantly stealing. So, in the middle of this year, I started putting myself through the Matrix. I vowed to become a Better Man through pure, virtuous living.

Of course, I had misgivings – perhaps I took all my Sunday School classes to heart, but I always thought of myself as highly prone to sin, in spite of my hyper-developed capacity for Christian guilt. I could also recall the indignity of the last time I used a chart to monitor my progress – in Ms. Minter’s grade four class. Ms. Minter had a disdainful, Nurse-Ratchet-like countenance. She looked upon my classmates and me less as young minds for the molding than as a bunch of future violent offenders whose unhealthy impulses required behavioural modification. Ms. Minter was a firm believer in shame-based learning, a daring initiative whose central focus and principal educational weapon was the ‘star chart.’ Whenever my classmates or me answered a question correctly in class, we’d be rewarded with a star, placed on a chart on the classroom wall. It’s a common practice in many classrooms, but in Frau Minter’s re-education camp, with its special emphasis on targeted yelling and surreptitious corporal punishment, the chart took on ominous overtones. For me, it was a kind of ironic humiliation – whenever she asked me a question in class, I would freeze – I was so overwhelmed by panic over having my starless failures chronicled so publicly that I simply couldn’t summon the action needed to acquire even one. I’d like to think Ms. Minter would be proud to see that I’ve come so far as to now endure such humiliation voluntarily.

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In my quest to become a Better Man, I’ve made no secret of my efforts to plunder self-improvement ideas from the greatest men in history.  I figured that if these men were great for reasons other than the inscrutable twisting of their nucleotides, then I had find out what those reasons were.    So far, there’s been lots of examples on how to avoid becoming a Terrible Man – thanks to Jesus, I no longer stone adulterers (terrible habit when I was  younger). Because of Abraham Lincoln, I refuse to keep slaves. I’m sure they didn’t mean for me to take it this way, but thanks to Howard Hughes I’ve chosen to forego napkin loincloths and kleenex box shoes as a style choice, and because of Hitler’s example,  I don’t bake Jews in ovens.

Of course, knowing what not to do isn’t so hard, and usually there’s people around to remind us should we forget that, say, armed robbery is a crime.  Taking conscious steps towards self-betterment, on the other hand…that’s a tougher path, and taking a page from historical figures doesn’t always help.  I’ve combed through several biographies (at great personal risk, I might add…thanks to my bio-reading, I now firmly believe that those who can write, do, and those who can’t, write biographies) and discovered many attempts at self-improvement that can be described as, well, unique: In later life, Gandhi liked to sleep with naked underage girls in order to “test his chastity”.  Mark Twain smoked as many as 500 cigars a month (“helped the writing process”). Einstein used to pilot his sailboat on windless days (“for the challenge”),  and King Leonidas of Sparta would hunt slaves to keep from getting rusty between battles – good practice maybe, but perhaps not all that practical these days.

In short, if an aspiring Better Man is looking to crib “good” habits from historical figures, there’s a strong chance he could get himself arrested or killed.  Thankfully, though I did find an exception – my boy Benjamin Franklin.

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For as long as I can remember, both my brother Mick and my brother-in-law Mike (no joke – Mick and Mike are their actual names)  have sported mustaches.  The follicle slashes above their lips are so fully integrated with my perception of them that on those rare occasions when Mick and Mike shaved them off their “Mos”, I almost couldn’t recognize them. Their smooth, unfettered faces seemed foreign and vaguely sinister, like they’d each sprouted a clone who happens to be French.

Mick and Mike are part of a tiny legion of men who wear mustaches well, men whose faces seem built to wear them. Their genetic gift rises above such petty concerns as fashion or style. It’s as though they were pre-ordained to wear a mustache, and wearing one imparts to them a masculine credibility that’s denied to lesser, clean-shaven brethren.   When I look at their faces, I instantly think of warmth, character, and supreme manly competence.   I think this despite the facts that Mick once took his car to a mechanic claiming “it’s broken”, and Mike is an amateur tinkerer whose well-meaning but hare-brained “projects” around the home regularly endanger the lives of my sister and their children.

So naturally, you can see how the idea of a mustache might appeal to me. Here, I’ve been taking the year to be a Better Man, yet it’s looking highly likely that I will fail to achieve most of my self-improvement goals.  I need a quick fix, a shortcut that will downgrade my failure from “abjectly humiliating” to “mildly disappointing”, and a mustache could be the answer.  Michael Chabon wrote in the excellent book Manhood for Amateurs that an essential part of being a man is to “flood everyone around you in a great radiant arc of bullshit, one whose source and object of greatest intensity is yourself.”   My brothers possess a manly bearing that it is in no way justified by their actual manly skills, all thanks to a four-inch stretch of hair on their face.  If it works for them, then perhaps it could work for me.   I’m almost mad I didn’t think of this sooner – I could’ve grown a Mo in January, declared the Better Man project a success and taken the next 11 months off.

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About four months ago, I was forced to move from my old apartment.  I wish I could tell you it was for something exciting, like staging a ritual pagan sacrifice in the living room or being caught base-jumping from the balcony.  Sadly, the landlord just sold it to someone who wanted to live there.

I regretted leaving that place – I’d grown to like it, as well as my neighborhood, and especially the people who represented me in government.   My federal MP Olivia Chow was a charming pragmatist, a Humphrey-Bogart-esque antihero in amazing boots.  Her world-weary idealism was nicely complemented by the nerdish übercompetence of my city councillor, Adam Vaughan.    They are both urban progressives representing a progressive urban neighbourhood,  quietly going about the drudgery of being a politician.  They say nothing outlandish nor make cynical promises they intend to break.   With the exception of Olivia’s dubious choice in spouses, there is hardly a whiff of scandal between them.   Unless Olivia decides to come out against abortion, or Adam confesses a jones for kiddie porn, their electorate will probably keep returning them to office.

And therein lies the problem of competent elected officials.  Chow and Vaughan are kind of like NASA astronauts – so good at their jobs that they’ve managed to make what could be intensely exciting seem mind-numbingly boring.   They don’t stir up any intense passions in people (although I do find Olivia rather MILF-y).  Perhaps if they were screw-ups like Toronto’s new mayor Rob Ford,  people would might get more emotional.

It’s a funny quirk of Canadian politics that more votes get cast for the mayor of Toronto than our country’s Prime Minister, and this week more Canadians voted for an amateur Chris Farley impersonator than any elected official in the land.   There was lots of hand-wringing in Hogtown over Ford’s candidacy; that he is an artless, scandalous, homophobic bigot, prone to public drunkeness and outrageous promises. Oh, and his head looks like a blood blister.

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Perhaps it’s been the downturn in my fortunes, but lately I‘ve grown fond of planning my own funeral. While some people daydream about spending the vast sums they win in the lottery, or coming home to find Megan Fox vacuuming the rug in the nude, my thoughts linger on that ultimate Going Away Party (I go away, everyone parties). I know it sounds a tad morose, but before anyone starts planning an intervention, please know that I don’t feel suicidal (yet).  In fact,  I’m not really preoccupied with the exact circumstances of my death, although I’d pick a fiery motorcycle crash à la Thelma and Louise if I was certain it could be painless.

Part of my morbid  fascination has to do with that wish every child has when they think they’re in trouble –  to gain the moral high ground by dying (because THEN you’ll be sorry).  Mostly though, I’ve been planning my own funeral because funerals usually suck.

I’m certain I’m not the only one who feels this way. With the exception of funeral directors, no one is jonesing to go to a funeral; there’s no need for a bouncer and velvet rope at funeral parlours, and Owen Wilson will not make a movie called The Funeral Crashers.  Why the antipathy? Well,  there’s that whole “confronting your own mortality” thing, but anyone who’s seen the end of the human safari knows the real reason: funerals are hastily organized affairs done on the cheap – cheap stationery, cheap egg salad sandwiches cut in fours (because that looks fancy), and worst of all…cheap sentiments.

It’s not like we don’t know it’s coming. I suppose most of us don’t give a shit about our own funerals because it’s unlikely we’ll be attending them.   Instead, we’re struck down by an aneurysm, or a drive-by shooting,  and then it’s a mad sprint for our loved ones to get us in the ground before we start smelling like a diabetic hobo on a hot day.  The result is there’s little time to think about how we should truly be remembered. A Better Man would not stand for such a flaccid end to his life.  A Better Man would have a hand in choreographing that moment when the handful of people still alive and willing to admit they knew him come together and celebrate his meagre contribution to humanity.

Like most people, I want the turd polished – a big reason funerals exist is to salvage dignity from a life where none may have existed.  As Bette Davis pointed out, one should always speak good of the dead, even if the dead were assholes in life, and so it should be with my shuffling of this mortal coil.  Of course, a resplendent funeral where the guest of (dis)honour gets big ups is promised to no one. The only way you can ensure that people leave the church/funeral home/Hooters with an image of you that you yourself helped shape is to be very vocal about what you want at your funeral while you’re still living.  Thanks to my current fixation,  I believe I have it down when it comes to planning my viking send-off.

First off, I don’t want a viking send-off – I’m sure the boat will cost too much, plus nothing kills a funereal mood quite like having firefighters on stand-by to put out your funeral pyre once the thing is over.  In fact, anything grandiose is pretty much a non-starter, because no one will want honour it (unless you paid for it in advance).  So unless you’re Hunter S. Thompson,  forget about having your remains shot out of a cannon.

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