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.

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.

 

 

The week before last, you would not be out of line for thinking Obama was just another US leader whose actions would never expand to fit the dimensions of his rhetoric.  Maybe you thought he was a paper president who couldn’t figure out how to get out of the partisan headlock those pesky Republicans had put him in.  Or maybe you thought he was a document-forging Kenyan – which would, of course, make you Donald Trump.

So watching the President being presidential this week was probably a head-swiveling spectacle, way better than the press conference Michael Douglas gives near the end of The American President.  All it required was for Obama do the one thing Americans love to see their presidents do…kill.

First, he kills at the White Press Correspondents’ Dinner, mostly by slaying The Donald’s presidential aspirations.  Was there anything more satisfying than watching Trump sitting there, not so much as cracking a smile as the most Powerful Man on Earth mocks his hubris?  It was like watching a bully getting tuned on by your cool older brother (assuming you have one).

Of course, that was quickly overshadowed by a killing of much greater significance than Trump’s ego.   I know it didn’t happen this way, but I like to imagine Obama as though he’s in a Hollywood movie based on a Tom Clancy novel:  Obama returns from the dinner, heads straight the Situation Room in his tux to get briefed by old burly men in uniforms on a top secret operation.  After exchanging a few Sorkin-esque quips about what a featherweight Trump is, they start speaking in vaguely suggestive military sentences like “Team will be inserted into the AO in 30 mikes”.   Then he orders the best-trained commandos on earth to bump off the single biggest symbol of America’s impotence in the War on Terror.

There was also the dignified, understated announcement of bin Laden’s death (it had to be satisfying to insult Trump on Saturday then cut into The Celebrity Apprentice on Sunday); the entirely justified righteous indignation with the Pakistani government upon revealing that Osama was probably a well-treated guest in their country (with the US picking up the tab); and the rather classy visit to Ground Zero while Bush pouted in Texas, having declined the opportunity to draft off the killing and maybe improve his rep in the blue states.

I’ll leave it to pundits to debate the legality of double-tapping an unarmed man in the head.  Others can parse the impact of Osama’s death, especially following the Arab Spring, when thousands of citizens in the Middle East did with protests what al Qaeda couldn’t do with bombs.  Fox News can speculate all it wants as to how much credit the Bush administration deserves for the success of the operation.  Let the jokers at CNN wring their hands over whether or not Obama can sustain his approval ratings through to the next election.

It could be that changes in health care will be ineffective, that the recession has a tail that may yet sting Americans one more time, or Obama may’ve extended tax cuts for the wealthy that will further cripple the US economy in years to come.   It could be that he hasn’t really closed Gitmo, or that he’s off the chain in Libya, and efforts in Afghanistan could prove futile.

At the moment, none of that matters.  People can snipe all they want, but love or hate him, everybody has to agree that this past week Obama walked taller and prouder than any man on earth.  He was THE Better Man.  Every guy would give his left nut to have the kind of week Obama had, including and especially the Combover That Walks Like A Human.

The same night Obama was stomping Trump at the dinner, I got word that a co-worker was in hospital after surviving a helicopter crash.   I sent him a note wishing him well and saying he had to get better – because the only thing more likely to get him laid than telling ladies he survived a chopper crash was telling them he killed Osama bin Laden.   If the President didn’t score with the First Lady at least once this week, he doesn’t deserve a second term.

 

Thanks to the influence of my lovely but overbearing older sisters, I have an encyclopedic knowledge of cultural events from the ’80s that I would’ve taken no interest in, had I been given the choice: I can sing every single song from the Olivia Newton John movie musical Xanadu, I can look at any photo of a young Shaun Cassidy and tell you what issue of Tiger Beat it appeared in, and I was forced awake in the middle of the night 30 years ago to watch the royal wedding of Charles and Di.  At the time, it gave me no joy to be party to these things, but it would be a couple of years before I’d be big enough for my sisters not to beat up. That’s probably why I take a wicked pleasure today in ignoring the recent hype surrounding Prince William’s marriage to Kate Middleton.

Now, I will admit some of my indifference is borne out of sheer envy – just thinking of the approachably hot Kate reminds me of that Young MC lyric from Bust a Move: “The bride walks down to start the wedding, and there’s one more girl you won’t be getting.”   More importantly, though, I think they would want me to ignore their nuptials.   Word around campfire is it was not Wills and Kate’s idea to have an over-publicized, media-blitzed, Beckhams/Elton John/repressive-African-leader-attended wedding.   Wills wanted a humble, modest affair, a desire borne out of his intense disdain for the media- he blames them in no small part for his mother’s death. That, and they usually report on him and Harry when they’re screwing up somehow (more Harry than Wills though – Nazi costume notwithstanding, that red-headed freak looks like he’d be fun to party with).

Rather, this big to-do was the wish of an aging monarchy desperate to retain some measure of relevance with its people. Elizabeth is much closer to the end of her life than the beginning, Charles as King is a singularly unpalatable idea for most Britons, and really – the Royal Family is a little crazy. Not so crazy, mind you, that they don’t realize people blame their profound dysfunctionality on the travails of Diana, who remains ten times more popular now than any Royal (other than her sons) could ever hope to be.   Liz and her inbred kin may be dumb, but they’re not stupid.  She knows that royalty doesn’t matter that much anymore, and she needs something to help whitewash the Charles/Di debacle and put the family back in people’s good graces.  The marriage of her handsome grandson to an attractive, seemingly well-adjusted commoner is just the memory-erasing spectacle required.    So really, this wedding is a Royal Do-Over, a chance for the House of Windsor to draft on the relative normalcy of the bride and groom.

Some may argue that going through an EVENT! WEDDING! against your wishes makes William a dutiful wimp. Personally, I think his choices suggest he may be a Better Man. Sure, all he wanted was for us to leave him the fuck alone so he can fly helicopters and patronize Welsh pubs in peace – it speaks to his low-key regularity (or at least, as regular as you can be when your mom was the most beloved royal martyr in the world, and your dad has the biggest ears).   Choosing to go through with a big wedding anyway has less to do with duty than it does with common sense (he musta got that from Di) – because being left alone to fly helicopters and drink in Welsh pubs is hella more fun when you’re worth millions, courtesy of British taxpayers who are increasingly indifferent to your existence.  William understands the Royal Family is a highly profitable institution whose principal commodity is that it still has weird meaning for people like my sisters. Were that to go, he’d be just another underpaid RAF pilot with a hot wife.  For him to not do his part to prevent the family business from circling the bowl would not be his own interests.

Of course, that doesn’t give me license to pile on and peep his wedding without an invite.  I think I did enough of that in university, when I was so broke I would crash weddings during the summer semester so I could eat at the reception.  So Wills and Kate, if you’re reading this – I promise to ignore you, both tomorrow and into the future, for as long as the rabid media hounds who nip at your heels will let me.  When you tie the knot tomorrow, I shall be asleep, dreaming of Olivia Newton John in leg warmers and roller skates.

But Kate, if it doesn’t work out – call me.  Baby Mama and I have discussed it, and you’re my free pass.

 

My dad died before he could see how much the internet has changed our lives.  Had he lived, however, I’m pretty sure he would’ve felt grateful for his lack of options, particularly when it came to the amount and nature of information out there on how to be a Better Man.   There are an infinite number of sites out there, designed to help men live better lives. Having spent many months cruising them during my self-improvement odyssey, I can assure you most of them are bullshit.

However, after wading through the sluices of interweb, I have found a few I keep returning to, probably because they resonate with me – they speak to my sensibilities, and tastes.  I suppose it’s up to every man to find their own, but if you’re like me and you’re looking for some guideposts as to how to be a Better Man, I’ve found I can’t do much better than the following:

 

Art of Manliness. Perhaps the single best place to go if you’re looking to be more manly, in the truest old-school sense of the word.  AoM has articles on just about every masculine topic imaginable, with tips on everything from cultivating integrity to waxing your mustache to the best way to propose to a woman in snowstorm while making a livable shelter from loose bark and a paper clip.   Admittedly, the prose is a tad earnest, and some of the views expressed may seem somewhat puritan and quaint -  but for AoM founders Brett and Kate McKay, that’s kind of the point.  Brett refers to himself as a “retrosexual” – someone who culls man’s history for his best virtues and finds ways to apply them in post-modern life.  Unlike other men’s sites, AoM isn’t guided by commerce or moral relativism.   AoM is about men choosing to live by a code, no matter how hard that might be.

Valet. Just as the name implies, this site exists to serve.  In this instance, the service is to help guys live as well as they can on the meagre means available to him.  That means no articles or photo spreads featuring products you have no hope of ever affording.  Think of Valet as a practical guide to living the good life on a budget.  Especially good is the daily Edit, a cull of various manly subjects from other sites – basically, it finds the gems lying in the vast steaming turd pile that is the Internet, so you don’t have to waste time getting your hands dirty.  A bit lean on substance, but still smart and definitely stylish.

The Selvedge Yard.  Just as Art of Manliness tries to reverse-engineer the idea of true manliness, TSY founder Jon Patrick does the same thing with style.  Other sites can barf out trends – JP is an historian of good taste.  Through a combination of great photos and simple prose, The Selvedge Yard goes back to the source code, singling out people and events that helped define modern tastes.  The Selvedge Yard shows how true style is about more than what’s on your back.

Bike Exif. This is a motorcycle site, but it’s for more than just gearheads – I think any man who appreciates creativity (but has yet to embrace opera of ballet) will dig it.  The site culls pictures of the most interesting, beautiful bikes in the world.  I wait for each new bike pic like I wait for Christmas.

Popular Mechanics. If you can’t be handsome, be handy – and if you’re neither, then go to Pop Mec’s website.   It won’t turn you into Mike Holmes, but with clever instruction PM can show you how to take on projects around the house, and do them well enough that women won’t look upon you with pity or scorn.

Mr. Bunndini. A haiku-writing dog.  What can I say? I like haiku, and the dog is a friend.

 

Not that anyone would wish for a natural disaster to occur, but were I forced to chose where it happened, I’d have to pick Japan.   Not that I dislike the Japanese – there’s just isn’t anyone on earth as equipped to deal with calamities of this magnitude as they are.   That we’re seeing so much destruction speaks less to their lack of preparation than the sheer size and strength of the 9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami.

Governments in Japan spend billions on disaster mitigation every year, the building codes are the strictest on the planet, and they have the most elaborate earthquake detection system anywhere. The readiness doesn’t stop at the institutional level – just about every Japanese citizen goes through regular disaster drills, and knows what to do in a crisis.   In addition to first responders and self-defense forces, Japan also has a volunteer disaster relief system, something akin to US Civil Defense during WWII.  There is   infrastructure in place not only to deal with disaster, but to soften it’s long-term impact afterwards – it’s unlikely that in five years Japan’s worst-hit city, Sendai,  will look as bad as a blighted, post-Katrina New Orleans does today.

If this weren’t enough, every third person in Japan must be a trained professional cameraman, judging from the amazing (and increasingly harrowing) footage that surfaces every day.  Anderson Cooper could’ve stayed home for this one – not only is there no abject poverty or outright government incompetence (yet) to inspire his usual righteous indignation, he’s simply gonna get outclassed in the news gathering department.

One can’t understate the scale of the disaster, but the fact is had it occurred anywhere but Japan, it would have been much, much worse.   The earthquake in Haiti wasn’t as strong as Japan’s – 7.0 magnitude, compared to 9.0 – yet recent estimates put the casualty rate as high as 300,000 people.  Think of what’s happening in Japan as a catastrophe done right…or as close to right as any catastrophe can be done.

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If you’re a late night talk show host – any kind of talk show host, for that matter – it would be hard to look at Charlie Sheen’s behaviour this week and not feel as though God loves you and approves of what you’re doing.   MaSheen’s drug-addled media rampage will keep comedians, commentators, and mash-up enthusiasts busy for years – his shit practically writes itself.

So many people are having a laugh at Charlie’s expense that I’m forced to wonder if his bowl-circling turd of an existence isn’t really a brilliant and calculated marketing ploy. He’s been the biggest trending topic on Google for weeks now, his maniacal appearances are ratings gold for whichever talk show he’s on , and reruns of his contemptible sitcom 2 1/2 Men are in some cases attracting even more viewers now than the first time they played.    Take this into account, and his demand for a $1 million raise (he’s already the highest paid actor on TV) seems kinda modest.

At least – I hope this is a marketing ploy, because the alternative is far too sad to contemplate, and says a lot more about us than it does about him.   Here is MaSheen – a broken man immolating himself – and we are rewarding his efforts by lavishing him with more attention than he’s enjoyed at any other time in his life.   Sure, we all love good Hollywood washout stories, but most of them usually play out like morality tales – Robert Downey Jr. is arguably one of the best actors of his generation, but because of his addiction and self-destructive nature his career completely cratered (he was on Ally McBeal, for chrissakes).   He had to clean himself up, atone for his actions, and prove himself worthy again before we accepted him back into the fold – which, I suppose, is as it should be.

Sheen, on the other hand, is currently the biggest circus sideshow in the world  (wayyyy bigger than the Elephant Man) which proves that, deep down, we still haven’t lost our primitive taste for grotesque public spectacles, like hangings.  At some point, the angels of our better nature intervened, and we realized that paying attention is the problem.  At the very least, we’d get bored and move onto something else, but that doesn’t seem to be happening here –   Masheen is everywhere and he’s bigger than ever.   He’s even become a role model – I listened to one radio DJ (no doubt trying to be as ironic as he could)  saying that if he was ever fucked up, he’d want to be as fucked up as Charlie Sheen, because apparently being that fucked up can make you rich.

Assuming Charlie isn’t out Joaquin-ing Joaquin Phoenix, and playing the biggest practical joke every perpetrated on American society (and again, I truly hope he is), what then are we left with?  This is a man who desperately needs to get better, but where’s the incentive to be a Better Man when we reward his lunacy?  Admittedly, Sheen is the one who’s gabbing away to whomever will listen, but that doesn’t mean he needs our attention.  I would say it’s absolutely the last thing he needs. If we choose ignore him and he eventually destroys himself – well, that’s tragic.  If we watch intently and only applaud every time he smokes rock, beats a porn star then comes up with another of those amazing non-sequitors – that makes us culpable, if only a little bit.

Trust me, I realize I sound like a prudish stick-up-his-ass moralist with hints of hypocrite thrown in.  All this week,  I’ve had some amazing laughs because of the man.  But as the week ends and I watch Masheen stray into Colonel Kurtz territory, I feel a little ashamed for finding it funny.   Which is not to say that I like Charlie, or think he’s a good actor, or that he’s worthy of grace or redemption.   All I’m saying is that a Better Man would hear the shit coming out of his mouth and at some point have the decency to stop paying attention.  Enough of us do that, and maybe then Charlie can shut up and start getting the help he needs.

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.