Cities are a little like girlfriends – no matter beautiful they are,  you eventually get sick of their bullshit.   Vancouver was no different.  I lived there for 12 years, and as much I enjoyed it,  the novelty was gone; the cumulative effect of its less-than-charming idiosyncracies had worn me down.    So as wistful as I was when my girlfriend (now Ex) and I moved away,  a part of me was kinda ready to go. And I certainly wasn’t charmed by  the city getting the Olympics.  I thought of it as a remote and ill-defined concept,  made manifest mostly through constant road blocks on Cambie Street as I struggled to cross town.

But as I watched the opening ceremonies in my NOW bachelor pad in Toronto with my  NOW ex-girlfriend, featuring my EX-home looking better than she’s ever been,  I suddenly felt like I was missing something.  Someone was throwing a party at my house while I was out of town.   Just as I decided that it’d be worth it to show up, an old MuchMusic coworker called.  He told me he was going to direct a kind of “We Are the World” (minus the sequined glove) type music video for Haitian relief,  featuring Canadian artists.    It was shooting in Vancouver, since any up-and-coming young Canadian artist worth caring about is currently there.    He wanted my help and the only catch is I’d have to fly out the next day.  I think the word operative word here is “serendipity” and it never felt so, well, dipity.

So here I am, walking the streets of my old hometown.   British reporters can shit all over this event as much as they want – I have never seen the city this alive and it’s thrilling to be here.   I’m well aware of the crises behind these games – the glitches, the Stalinesque security,  the desperate effort to hide the prominent homeless situation – as cold as this sounds,  I don’t care.   As exes go,  Vancouver seems hotter and happier than she ever was when I was around; she’s been to the gym, she’s dressing better and everybody is making a big fuss over her.   As always when this happens, it’s a bittersweet moment;  it makes me proud to have truly loved Vancouver, but at the same time  I’m sad I haven’t been part of her new life.

That type of missing out is a bittersweet feeling which used to cast a pall over me most times;  I hear friends talk about the things they’ve done, and my experience would  seem hollow by comparison.   I always felt like I was missing the right parties, the right jobs, the right dates.   That feeling is partly why I decided to leave Vancouver when I did (because Toronto was supposed to be where it’s at) and that longing is also why I decided to come here and celebrate her make-over. Thankfully, it doesn’t consume like it used to – I’ve come to  realize that things are rarely as good as you imagine them  and the best moments are usually the ones you don’t anticipate.    The most you can hope for is that memories you create for yourself are as good in reality as they are when you describe them to others.

I can project ahead to the day after the Games – the reasons why I can’t stay in Vancouver haven’t gone away and they will hit me like a hangover, once the party ends.   I don’t know if it’s the sign of  me becoming a Better Man, but as glad as I am to be here right now,  I also know this is just a fling… for old time’s sake. When I leave this time though,  I shall wish her well.

Jack Bauer. Jack Bauer can strangle you with a cordless telephone.  Jack Bauer once got a taped confession from a mute. If everyone listened to Jack Bauer, it would be “24. It’d be “12”

Despite his obvious skills, both Jack Bauer and the dude who plays him are conflicted souls.  The difference, I suspect, is that Jack Bauer wants to atone for the shit in his life.  It’s too bad that duty calls and he never gets the chance. His actions in the name of “doing WHATEVER is necessary to do the right thing” are repugnant to most people, but you have to admit, he gets shit done.   The one/two combo of wanting to do good and doing bad when it counts makes him the most noble douchebag of all time.

“The Dude”. There’s something I find so comforting about Jeff Bridges.  He just seems so affable, and he’s  a joy to watch on screen.  He just won a Golden Globe for his role as a washed-up country singer in “Crazy Heart” but in my mind, the role he should be remembered for the most is Jeffrey Lebwoski, aka “The Dude” (or Duderino if you’re not into the whole brevity thing) in “The Big Lebowski.”

The Big Lebowski is by far my favourite film of all time.  The story is ludicrous, but it’s masterfully funny; imagine a Raymond Chandler film noir, except the private dick is a stoner who wears jelly shoes.  To me, it’s like a kaleidoscope, in that I find something new to love about it every time I watch.   And the heart of it all is man in the running for laziest person worldwide…the Dude.

Now, a whole school of thought has sprouted recently that suggests the Dude may be the ultimate Zen Master. There’s even a book, “The Tao of Dude” that explores whether or not the Dude is a modern Buddha (or Duddha). As Jeff Bridges himself put it:

I like to call (The Dude’s approach to life) the Wisdom of Fingernails: the wisdom that gives you the ability to make your hair and fingernails grow, your heart beat, your bowels move.  These are things that we know to do, but we don’t necessarily know how we know how to do them, yet we still do them very well.  And that to me is very Dude. It’s not like he’s a know-it-all, the Dude.  He’s not a guy who figured out the way to be or anything like that, but he’s comfortable with what he’s got, and things turn out pretty well for him.  I guess we can all take comfort in that because….who knows?….things may turn out pretty well for us too.  Recently someone asked me “How would you feel at the end of your career if the role you were most famous for was the Dude” “I’d be fucking delighted,” I told him.

This dude can abide.

Like most guys,  I rarely make it a point to watch the Bachelor, albeit for different reasons.  Most guys just simply don’t give a shit.  I , on the other hand, actively resent the program, and not because it trivializes marriage, or the act of courtship -  although they are justifiable reasons not to watch.

No, I’m pissed at the Bachelor because I’m unlikely to get picked TO BE the Bachelor.   Think about it:  twenty five impossibly beautiful women, all in their prime, all hell bent on getting married, and all vying for YOUR attention. Nobody’s cock blocking,  music isn’t blaring so loud you have to use sign language, and everybody thinks your jokes are funny (otherwise they’re GONE!). This is the closest an average male will ever get to life as a rock star. You don’t have to be witty, you don’t have to bathe if you don’t want to – all you just have to do is show up. For someone like me, who has been both incredibly lucky and incredibly lazy when it comes meeting women,  a better scenario could not  be contrived. (there is the downside of no actual intercourse, lest you’re branded a douchebag on national TV, especially if the girl you poked doesn’t get the final rose)

Sadly, I’m too old, too average, too wide, and too broke to get picked, so in protest,  I refuse to watch.   But is that wise?  Maybe, just MAYBE there is some instructional value to the program -  some lesson, some lucid insight that might help me in my quest to become better.    If I watch, could I possibly find illumination in a single red rose?

Probably not, but I’m going to try anyway (perhaps a sign of how low I am).  I have invited some of the shows target audience (females aged 24-49) to help talk me through some of the parts I don’t understand. I will let you know how it goes….

1.   Hank Moody from “Californication”. The patron saint.   Sure, he’s a fuck-up…but he’s funny, charming, self-aware, good-hearted, well-read, loves women (truly) and strives to be better.  Moody is us. We are Moody.

2.   Johnny Cash. Cash is proof that good men can still make mistakes, and like Moody, he was ultimately redeemed by the love of a good woman.  We should all wish for as much.

3.   Mark Twain. He lost his wife, three of his four children, his best friend, and almost all of his fortune. But he never lost his sense of humour.

4.   Steve McQueen. McQueen devoured his life with unbridled passion and was also a pure shit for most of it. Being raised largely unloved and alone by a selfish, thoughtless mother made him selfish and thoughtless, not to mention feral in his dealings with “the man.” But he had empathy, the way survivors do.  Plus he only loved Brunettes.  Sure he fucked blondes….but he loved Brunettes.

5.   Oscar Wilde.  Another Hank Moody…if Moody had been gay, Irish, and lived in the 19^th century.

6.   Stephen Colbert. Brilliant, brave, and not prone to fits of pique like other artists. Also, no single individual has branded himself so well.

7.   Paul Newman’s character, Luke Jackson, from “Cool Hand Luke”. Best scene: Dragline is beating Luke to a pulp. Dragline says “Stay down. You’re beat.”  Luke says “You’re going to have to kill me.”  Dragline gives up.  Iron fists are no match for an iron will.

8.   George Harrison. The melodrama between Paul and John obscured the fact that George was more interesting, more talented, more balanced, more curious, less self-involved than they were. I bet they knew it too.

9.   Martin Luther King. The guilt over personal indiscretions led him to atone for them by doing great, altruistic things.  That must’ve been a hell of a lot of guilt.

10.  Bill Moyers. The only non-vain man on television.

11.  Rob Gordon from “High Fidelity”. See Hank Moody. Only Sadder.

12. David Bowie. He always had the courage to try new things, and

wasnever bored or boring. Overcame financial ruin, crippling drug addiction, and married an impossibly beautiful woman. Giddyup.

13.  Terence Stamp/Malcolm MacDowell (same thing) Maybe it’s because they’re English, or their hair is white, or they both have heads shaped like bullets,  or they look like they could still kick your ass or fuck you blind at 70…. cool.

14.   Nelson Mandela. A terrible husband and careless father, but what do you expect after 27 years in prison?  That’s a helluva long time to wait for the chance to prove your virtue.

15.    Warren Buffett. He’s largely protected his children from the character distortions that come from being born wealthy, simply by not sharing his money with them.  In doing so, they haven’t become spoiled douchebags. In fact, they are adding to the world in remarkable ways.  Buffett may be known as a financial rock star, but his kids will be his real legacy.

16.     Bono.  It would be just shitty not to put him here. Despite my queasiness about his self-aggrandizing way of bettering the world, he’s still WAY better than me.

17.    Bill Clinton. See Bono, but with edge…instead of the Edge.

18.    Orson Welles Can you be accused of arrogance if you’re truly the best

at what you do?  The man was a genius and he knew it. He gleefully poked Hollywood (and the most powerful media mogul of the time) in the eye, mistakenly believing his brilliance would protect him. It didn’t … but he kept his dignity.  Some things you can’t take away.

19.    Gwynne Dyer He sees the world more clearly than any of us.  I don’t understand why this man isn’t being courted by Heads of State.  I suspect because he calls them on their bullshit.  Heads of State don’t dig that.

20. Winston Churchill. Drank too much, often depressed, led his nation to victory.   Which one do you remember most?

21.    My dad. Capable, decent, selfless, practical, fair, witty, and charming (when he overcame his pathological shyness).  He wasn’t always right, but not often wrong.  Not as brave as I’d like but there ain’t no school like the old school, and dad was the Principal.

This is list is by no means comprehensive, and I invite you to add to it.   Shortly, I will post my list of men who should try to get better with me, along with an open letter to the BETTER MAN OF THE YEAR!

Being a Better Man is really just a state of grace -  here’s my  road map for getting there, in this next year of betterment.

A Better Man is…accountable: “Owning your shit” (as one ex-girlfriend so elegantly put it) isn’t easy in a world where issues are lubricated with excuses and half-truths (“I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” “Saddam has WMDs.” “I wasn’t making a pass at that man, I have a wide stance”).  The world needs more disgraced heroes who show character in defeat… not the David Letterman, contrition-is-good-for-ratings type, but the Tiger Woods,  take-a-nine-iron-to-the-head-lose-your-sponsors-and-give-up-the-game-to-be-‘better’-types.  That’s something I hope to find with…

PROJECT “MY BAD”

• I will retrace my steps and re-visit my mistakes (there are a few), fix what I can, and own what I can’t.
• I will be harsh and unsentimental in my self-assessment,
• I will seek counsel from people I KNOW have an opinion on how I could be better: ex-girlfriends, ex-bosses, my mom, etc.

A Better Man…makes the world a better place. This one seems so obvious, but krikey, where to start? Saving the environment, people, penguins, or heading up the “Blonde Girl Anti-Defamation League?” All worthy causes, but my solution is…

PROJECT “DO ME A SOLID”

• I’ll do a bit of everything, as long as my good deeds can have a DIRECT impact, starting with volunteering
• I’ll go wherever where my help is needed – down the street, or around the globe, mowing a lawn or working with relief efforts in a disaster zone.
• I’ll help patch up a relationship…I mean, why not? I’m turning 40, everyone I know is either getting divorced or on the verge of it. How many families or friends have a grudge that needs mending? Maybe I can help.

So help me help others by sending your ideas or your own needs. Real stuff only please.

A better man…knows how to do stuff. It’s called self-possession; knowing exactly what to do in a crisis, and doing it.   Navy SEALs are self-possessed. Jason Bourne is self- possessed. Leonardo Da Vinci was self-possessed.  Me, a man of all things? No, but it could happen.

PROJECT RENAISSANCE MAN

• I’ll learn to fix my own motorcycle (after I get a new one).
• I’ll become handy, like learning carpentry. Jesus was a carpenter. So was Harrison Ford (and that dude became Indiana Jones).
• I’ll learn to dance…the kind of dancing that people watch D-listers do on TV, the kind that helps a handsome spy get out of  a near-lethal jam.
• Since I’ve spent the last decade devoted to music and living vicariously through its creators, now I’ll take the stage.  I’ll sing in a band (I’m pretty good at karoake) and maybe even write and record a song.
• I will read. Not just what I like, but books that are actually good for me (ones with fewer pictures) and challenge my ideas.

A Better Man…can fight – because he ain’t nobody’s bitch. He can stand his ground and get what he wants, even if he has to crush someone’s larynx to get it.  Call me a reductionist, but I believe knowing how to throw down can help you stand up. I will kick ass in a variety of ways. And if I get my ass kicked –well, there’s value in that too.

PROJECT IRON FIST/velvet glove

• I will learn to fight and I will compete in a mixed martial arts bout before the year is out.  Knowing you can doesn’t mean you must – but it helps.
  
• I will seek out experts to the learn fine arts of negotiation and persuasion, to have my way, and my way with people.
• I will discover how to prevail in the psychological mind-fucking that women seem so good at and I usually get shredded by.

A Better Man…gets involved. My righteous indignation at the state of the world sounds great in theory, but my quips on Twitter and Facebook aren’t going to make ANYTHING better. There was a great one liner that this guy named Obama used to get elected to the most powerful position in the world and captivate the planet: “Yes We Can” change for the better. But have we held up our end of the bargain? Perhaps, if “Yes We Can” means buying the big screen TV (on credit) at Best Buy because “it was on sale.”

PROJECT MODEL CITIZEN

• When it comes to politicians, wouldn’t it be nice to vote for someone who comes across as authentic and not insipid, feckless, or mildly resentful of the very people he claims to represent? That’s why if there’s a federal or provincial election called in the next calendar year, I will run as the candidate I’d want to vote for.
  
• In the meantime, I’ll get active; watch for me at the public meetings (Question Period is out, NOW, thanks Prime Minister) the law courts, and maybe some protests.
• I’ll voice my opinion by writing letters to the editor, posting in forums, being a pundit on panels.
• I’ll take a stand on issues that matter to me, and try to get interested in those that don’t.
• I’ll attempt to right some wrongs, like a superhero but without the cape.

A Better Man…knows what he believes.  Growing up, my mom was a devout Christian, and perhaps a less-than-ideal example of one; judgmental and intolerant of mistakes.  Dad, on the other hand, was a decent man whose principal deities were crossword puzzles and Hockey Night in Canada. Thanks to their example, I don’t know if I believe in God but I’m still afraid of Him.  I sit on a fence, mad at religion and stymied by faith. Well, this year, I pick a side.

THE GOD PROJECT

• I will consult with the experts, from Gurus to Wiccans, Richard Gere to Richard Dawkins, to find the essence of their belief.
• Each Sunday I will make some time for the BIG GUY. I will go to churches, mosques, and synagogues (and not only because I dig the Shebrews).
• I’ll listen to my mom. sigh.

A Better Man would be good to his family. Mom is a lovely woman today, so no one believes me when I tell them she once had a bit of Joan Crawford in her; quick to anger, impossible to please, rigidly married to a picture of family harmony that was at odds with reality.  Growing up, I was TERRIFIED of her and life with my many siblings was much like Communist Russia – I couldn’t  trust them with anything, because at any time they might rat me out to mom in order to save themselves. This year, I stop pretending to like these people I call blood, and find out if I actually do…

PROJECT PRAVDA

• I will scribble on our family’s picture of harmony by exploring all the dark secrets hidden in the recesses of our history
• I will confess to all of the shit I’ve done in my life (they can read it here, actually)
• At the very least, I will remember their birthdays and send everyone a card, on time. We’ll see how it goes from there.

A Better Man would love the right woman right. By all accounts, I have been with the “right” women, in that they were smart, beautiful, talented, compassionate, funny, and agreed to sleep with me more than once. I screwed it up with all of them.  Instead, I’ve obsessed over the wrongs ones; dumb, superficial, self-absorbed, trading on their beauty like it’s their only commodity.  I have zero game with this kind of woman.  Sadly, my inability to bed these ladies lends them an otherworldly mystique not earned in the same way it would be if they had, say, character.  And the right women in my life suffer as a consequence. Of course, this is ridiculous, but  my heart has shit for brains.  I must neuter their power over me, so that I may look at Goddess and know that her wit is more seductive than a boatload of swimsuit models.

PROJECT RUNWAY

• I suspect this could only be achieved by trying to nail as many of those models as I can, and for that I will consult the biggest douchebags around for tips. The way I see it now, (granted, I am not better yet, just trying) only by making peace with their hotness can I make peace with myself.
• I will become the ultimate sexual servant. I will check with the ex’s in a potentially emasculating evaluation to discover my areas in need of improvement.  I think I am pretty good right now,  but I am willing to practice. (Kidding. Kinda. Uh…not really.)
• I will watch Oprah. Can it hurt?

A Better Man would be Master of his Fate. I like having my imagination tested and nothing tests it quite like making television.   I bow to the power of the medium, from shooting to editing, directing to writing — it captivates me. But a lot of TV is dumb, really dumb, and what isn’t dumb is already lousy with talented people. I mean, are they going to recast Californication with me in the lead? Maybe, if Duchovny’s sex addiction finally does him in (man, what a way to go!). Rather than hoping to find the work I love, I will CREATE it instead.

PROJECT DRAPER

• I’ve always admired those people who start something of their own. NOW I join them… starting with this blog.
• I will own the room, pitch MY ideas, and go with my gut because I’ve got nothing to lose.
• I will study from the greats – great successes and even greater failures (failure stalks every successful enterprise, and there is something to be learned from a loser – that’s the whole point of this blog, really)
• I’ll put in long hours schmoozing and drink whiskey while looking amazing, if necessary.
• And IF, in the process, lucrative job offers are tendered, book deals are signed, David Mamet casts me in his next thriller, and parades are thrown in my honour…well, so be it.

And JUST IN CASE we’re all wrong about what is BETTER, I have another project…

I’ve spent most of my life being nice, polite, amicable and agreeable and now look where I am. Looking around, I see a lot of guys out for the greater good who have to pull some prick moves to get things done – Simon Cowell, Rahm Emmanuel, Satan.  Maybe the better man…is an Asshole.

PROJECT ARI GOLD

• I will consult with unapologetic assholes and and learn their principals.
• I’ll put those lessons into practice (AFTER learning to fight, just in case).
• I will reflect on my own jagoffness (interviewing friends and ex-lovers) and then accentuate my inner dickface.
• I will read more Ayn Rand, the patron saint of assholes.

For those of you who’ve read this far, you may be making fun of me at this point.  It’s very likely I could fail, and not even fail spectacularly, but recede into complete obscurity and life as a Starbucks barista.  But the way I see it, the only wrong thing to do is nothing.  So why not join me in pursuit of betterment? When we’re wrong we’ll laugh it off and when we’re right, we’ll just know. Because  a better man doesn’t have to think about the kind of man he wants to be, he simply is THAT MAN.

And so it begins…

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C’mon, you’ve seen “Run Fatboy Run”! Self-improvement starts with trying to get the girl. And the girl in this instance…well, she’s the kind of girl that gets thanked in the liner notes of a Wilco album; the kind of girl that inspires friends to give her bone marrow, or threaten death  if you hurt her in any way. She’s loved by animals and small children. She can tell a joke like Sarah Silverman, knows all the words to “Queen Bitch” (hell, all of “Hunky Dory”) and reads to blind seniors (but would never tell anybody about it). When she passes by, you can sort of hear the theme song to the “Mary Tyler Moore

Show.” She can turn the world on with a smile. She can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile. Seriously.

In so far as my puny, cynical heart will let me believe in love at first sight, I think I have fallen for Goddess (not her real name). I’m not exactly a jumping-on-Oprah’s-couch kind of guy, but in a fit of pique I might have confessed to a close friend that I had met the woman I will marry. Now, if only she felt that kind of drama for me… I can assure you I wouldn’t be here writing about my newly-minted crap life. We would be making the sweet love.

Sadly, you’re reading this because I believe she finds me to be an irritant, like a skin rash. I mean, I thought I was pretty funny to start — clever, self-effacing, even playful. Unfortunately, she will not let me get through even the first date so I can propose to her (any sooner would be just creepy….right?).

Now, I’m not entirely to blame for this…thanks to mutual friends (who were all too happy to betray Goddess’ confidence in this matter) I discovered the poor girl is a victim of serious douchebaggery – not once, not twice, but three times! and all in 2009. I’m not the only one having a shit year.

The result is that she’s sworn off my gender — ALL men — which, apparently, includes me. Three anonymous jerkwads with no appreciation for how good they could’ve had it have now spoiled it for ALL jerkwads, this one in particular. Despite my charming advances, she tells me that she’ll only see me in group outings — that’s right, CHAPERONES, those unwelcomed extras best left to Jane Austen’s gang and school dances.

I figure it must be a sign. I’m simply not ready for her jelly. I mean I’m at my lowest point here, and don’t have much to offer the average beauty, let alone an Angel walking the earth.

I know, I know,  it sounds like the plot for a bad rom-com. At NO TIME in real life have I heard of any guy meeting a girl who was mildly ambivalent/actively hostile towards him, and then softening that girl’s heart such that she falls in love with him. In real life, if they start out ambivalent/hostile, they tend to stay that way and frankly, what guys once called a “challenge” is now referred to as “high maintenance” and  best avoided. Getting through to Goddess will be hard, like a long distance call on two cans with string. But to paraphrase Michael Chabon, my gesture is  doomed but I make it anyway, not on the chance it will be understood, but as if such a chance ever existed.

Besides, most of the stupid, ill-advised things I’ve done in my life I have

done to try and impress a girl. The first time, I was 12, and I did a Back Scratcher off a ski jump to get Tiffany Hagberg’s attention. It was the first time I’d ever done one, and I looked “radical!!” on take off. But a crucial part of any successful Back Scratcher is actually bringing your skis back down, a small fact that in my zeal to win Lady Tiffany’s heart I’d neglected to consider. I landed like a wet hand hitting a table top and slid down the rest of the hill on my face, a lesson in how quickly and violently joyful hubris can turn into wheezing digrace.  It’s been downhill ever since, if you’ll pardon the expression.

(However, I can report that I did get Tiffany to notice me. Just not in the way that I’d hoped.)

Trying to be a better man, getting Goddess’ attention – do these have the same potential for humiliating, soul-crushing disaster? Absolutely.   However, I’m older and presumably wiser now.  I realize that such acrobatics take practice, and if I need to impress other Tiffanys with my “back-scratching” until I KNOW I can stick the landing for Goddess…well, I can do that too.

Betterment is a pursuit, after all….

Man, was 2009 the year to end the decade with or WHAT?  This year held out more promise than a stranger with candy in his van.

It began with my big move from Vancouver to Toronto.  My Girlfriend (of five years) was unhappy and wanted a change, so we uprooted our lives in Lotusland, and came to the Big TO for the kind of success we really deserved. This was going to be life at the infamous next level.

Of course, there was that little hiccup when Girlfriend revealed that it wasn’t actually Vancouver that was making her unhappy, but…me.  “Really? Are you sure about that? Well, the movers are already here, so I guess you’re  sure.” Exit Girlfriend, Enter Misery (an underappreciated Bruce Lee classic, btw).

But I told myself, “C’mon…break-ups happen everyday, right? As David Sedaris says, If I’m looking for sympathy, I can find it between shit and syphilis in the dictionary.  I’ll just lose myself in my work.”

Oh…about that? Yeah, I don’t ACTUALLY have a job. I mean, I HAD some amazing jobs. If what they say is true and work is much a symbol of my manhood as my actual junk, then I was packing serious wood; I got PAID to live the backstage pass of celebrity life; I got PAID to be a dude on TV (minor list MuchMusic VJ), PAID to hang out with rock stars (and yes, it is as awesome as you’d think), PAID to direct professional hockey games (for reals), running with people of power and privilege.  I was as hard as an oak tree.

I refused to be undone by this professional fallow period.   “It’s a recession okay? Everybody’s hurting.  I’ll just ride it out…on my motorbike!” Man, I LOVE that bike…I wipe it occasionally with a clean diaper, it’s just the bes…oh shit, I just remembered…I lost that too. I didn’t even see it coming – the absent-minded woman in a minivan who ran that stop sign, that is.  And Minivan definitely did not see me.  In fact, I’m pretty sure she was completely unaware she’d hit me until I skidded across the pavement in front of her, a tumbleweed of twisting metal and flailing appendages.

This story might’ve ended with me being hosed off concrete EXCEPT I danced away from the wreck with barely a scratch!  It was a miracle, one that lost its patina when I got up to tell Minivan she needn’t carry my near-death on her conscience.  Negligence-in-Crocs yelled at ME for going too fast. Huh?

But hey, I’m over it.  We’re deep in the throes of the holidays now. It’s a time for goodwill towards men, turkey comas, boxes of chocolates (nothing says “I’m re-gifting” quite like chocolate) and for generally shitty things NOT to happen– oh wait! There was this one thing Christmas morning. I woke up to find new underwear in my stocking, a year’s subscription to Men’s Health, and ALL four tires on my car slashed. Instead of praying for peace on earth, I whispered a quiet benediction – that the naughty little elf who did it finds themselves beaten to death with a big lump of coal.  You might say my bad luck has now become a lifestyle, and not just a phase.

So, now that I think about it, I AM feeling kind of terrible…actually my entire soul is undermined. I’m 39, single, largely un-employed in the middle of a recession, renting an apartment in a neighbourhood that smells like urine. I’m cold calling and ass-kissing my underachiever way through a city of people who love working so much they say, “Thank God it’s Monday.”  And after spending a shit-load to move here, I’m poor and perilously close to insolvency. Oh, and my fucking tires are slashed. Hi Ziggy cartoon, want to be friends?

I’m in the midst of an inverted mid-life crisis: I didn’t need to run out and get a motorcycle or a hot girlfriend or a cool job….I HAD those already. My brand of crisis is not just that they’re gone…I’m not sure I want them back (except the motorbike, I want that).  In my 20′s I was focussed and I worked hard to get it all, but I guess the things I wished to achieve didn’t seem all that grand once I’d achieved them, and in the absence of a narrative arc, I just got…careless. I’ve been in therapy for a few months (and by “therapy” I mean “booze, beauties and bitching”)  and I realize now that I skated through my 30’s on just enough looks, smarts and charm to get by.  Success is like tequila;

have enough, and you start to think you’re bulletproof.   But all my meagre “success” did was paper over the cracks in my life, the ones I’d need to fix in order to blossom into an actual grown-up. I was like Bruce Willis in the Sixth Sense, walking around not knowing I was screwed.

Thing is, one or two setbacks can be character building in youth but they become character defining when pushing 40 and you’re just not cute, charming or cunning enough to get away with it anymore.

So new plan – starting today, on my 39^th birthday, I’m pulling up on the rudder and getting my life out its nosedive. I am going to spend the next year of my life doing everything I can — mentally, intellectually, physically, spiritually, sexually – to be a better man.  And I’m putting it all here because  going public may be the only way to keep myself honest and not wimp out. But there is another reason…I need help.   I’m sure there are  guys out there who also want to get better (and let’s not forget the women who love them so much they want to change everything about them).  I think we can help each other, actually; if you bring the ideas, I’m willing to be a self-improvement lab rat, passing on what works and what doesn’t.

So why now? (you cynically ask) Because…well, uh….I just met this girl.  I know, I KNOW, it’s a cliché, but the girl? She’s kind  the kind of woman that makes a man WANT to be better – to shed his excess baggage, get a haircut, buy underwear that makes his unit look bigger and morph into a cross between James Bond and Ekhart Tole (truthfully, I don’t know who he is but I hear Oprah likes him). And all I have to offer is existential angst. It’s a problem.

But there is a “me” part to getting better; losing the plot, nearly losing my life – it’s changed things. As one fucked up dude trying to hold shit together and still get all the action he could once wrote, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”

But I don’t want what I had.  There’s no pride in knowing I did it half-assed. Now I’m left asking myself questions like,

“Did you really ever give life your best?”

“Did you add anything to world?”

“Did you leave it all on the field…even once?”

I’ve never carved out a place for myself, because it was easier to fill in the available spaces.

Now, I want more.  A better man would. Starting tomorrow …