Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living Read online

  This was insane. I was a former member of swing choir (our version of glee club). Now, out of nowhere, I was the scary one. Instead of relying solely upon my speed, as I had in years past, to avoid confrontation on the field, I now realized that I could fucking decimate these other guys. Except Reische and Edge. And maybe Lance Pelton. (We cool, guys?)

  Poor Todd Reische, most likely our school’s best athlete during my tenure, who would have definitely been sole captain of the football team in any other year, had to arrive during a year when the coaching staff had determined to have three “cocaptains” instead, and so Todd captained the defense from the middle linebacker spot, Tommy Morris captained the offense from the quarterback position, and I captained the secondary defense and special teams. If I could go back and remove this indignity from Todd’s shoulders, I would goddamn not. Are you kidding?

  “Most improved rebounder” Offerman was now a cocaptain of the Fighting Minooka Indians?! I wouldn’t trade those months of athletic prowess, however specialized, for the world. In those golden moments on the football field, I was revered as a frightening, manlike teenager, and I have never forgotten the Bronsonlike confidence this instilled in me. In their defense, many of my teammates were better at sports than I was. In my defense, I set a school record for interceptions in a season. Everybody gets lucky once in a while.

  Hustling to football practice from, say, a rehearsal for Oklahoma! created an interesting situation. Of course, some of the team members were macho, homophobic guys of the sort that have come to be considered the norm for American high school football players, also known as “bullies.” But in reality, most of the team was comprised of really nice guys with whom I had grown up playing sports. However, I do remember one specific bully, a guy my age named Biff, who wanted everyone to know that he was the dominant male in any given situation. Sadly, even then, we all knew that Biff’s family had undergone some turmoil at home, of the sort that was most likely the source of his Steven Seagal–style posturing and preening, but that didn’t make them any easier to swallow.

  Suffice it to say, ahem, that Biff was not happy with the choirboy-cum-cocaptain headhunter. If you read back a paragraph, you’ll notice that Biff was not the name of any of the three cocaptains, even though our Biff had been excelling at football since he was in something called Pee-Wee. Biff worked his tail off, a strong, fast, and gifted running back, but his fate was such that he was maybe the number five guy on the squad.

  Now, this may be distressing news for Ron Swanson fans, but I have never in my life been in a fistfight. Really never even close. The closest I ever came was being taunted by Biff in the locker room or at a couple of barn parties. By the way, Biff was and still is a good guy, overall. In the hallway between classes, we were friends. He recognized his antagonizing tendencies even then, but, like an alcoholic or a fan of the Dave Matthews Band, he ultimately couldn’t control his self-destructive addiction.

  My dad had taught me to never throw the first punch, and so when Biff would want to unload some rage onto my face, I would simply suggest he go ahead and do it. I would say, “I’m not going to fight you, Biff, so you better just beat me up,” while silently shaking in my boots.

  Biff was the kind of person who used the term faggot rather liberally, and really never to describe a smoldering bundle of sticks in the fireplace in a Victorian novel. Biff had a violence in him that was frightening, and I’m very thankful for my dad’s lesson, because if I had ever engaged young Biff in fisticuffs, I fear I would have been very seriously, well, fucked up by him. Instead, he would say something imperious and admonishing, ending with “I thought so, faggot,” before heading back to the keg or his locker, depending on the location. This happened, I believe, three times over eight months or so. It is not the stuff of a coming-of-age film, so, Disney, please don’t option this chapter. It’s just the closest real-life experience I had to some of the violence I now love to pretend to in my day job.

  * * *

  I was to learn later in theater school of Aristotle’s observation that theater is the mirror held up to society. But I was already inadvertently picking up on that heady notion by mere good fortune. By and large, I was learning to be decent to people in real life while engaging in delicious human indiscretions in my performances. Think about it: If you perform A Clockwork Orange onstage, you can be paid cash money to indulge in both ultra-violence and a bit of the ol’ in-out-in-out!

  Meanwhile, I was beginning to get an inkling of what I wanted to be when I grew up. Sophomore year I was in this horrible play called The Prime Time Crime. It was a “wacky caper” play starring Inspector Clouseau, the Pink Panther, Kato, Starsky and Hutch, Kojak, Baretta—it was truly ungodly. Why must high school plays be so ham-handed?! There is so much excellent writing available that must certainly be acceptable to any school board, even creationist idiots. To Kill a Mockingbird? The Crucible? Jesus, I’ll even take some Neil Simon over The Prime Time Crime! The first good play I was in was Up the Down Staircase, from the sixties, in the vein of Blackboard Jungle. I played the sort of brooding James Dean role. It was funny—I took a lot of shit from the football team because I’d have to miss practice to go to a speech competition or band performance, but then those same meatheads (except Reische and Edge—totally cool dudes—not meatheads!) would be screaming and cheering at the curtain call. It seemed that in my small pond I was halfway decent at entertaining people from the stage. That was enough to send me on the road to theater school, where I promptly learned that I sucked. I hadn’t fully discovered the value of my own unique voice.

  One wasn’t allowed to take speech or creative writing classes until junior or senior year, but I really took to them once I got there. I was also a very proficient sax player, but my teachers never took me to the point of inspiration, inspiring me to create my own sound. They simply taught me to read off of sheet music as well as I could. In jazz band you’d get the music for, say, “Sweet Georgia Brown,” and there would be a tenor sax solo for sixteen bars, a suggested solo written in and then chords as well, so an adept improviser could just jam his or her own solo based on the provided chords. No one ever suggested that to me, and I needed the suggestion. I didn’t think to try it on my own, nor did I possess the natural ability, so I’d just play the suggested solo in a kick-ass way (as far as I could tell).

  I got more weird in speech class, where I’d do odd comedy bits for my speeches. The video camera was new on the scene—this was ’84 or ’85, and, stupidly, teachers would let you do a video report instead of writing a paper. Which I think was just idiotic, because we took full advantage of the opportunity to shoot a ten-minute video instead of spending hours writing a dreary report on some boring topic.

  My cousin Ryan and I did an infamous joint video project for French class. I wish I still had it; someone from the class—I think a girl who was sweet on Ryan—stole it (looking at you, Jennifer Groot). It was the two of us in different scenarios, like me sitting in a chair in front of a roaring fireplace with a dog, a newspaper, and a pipe. I’d say in French, “Welcome. You’re probably wondering why I’m sitting in this domestic situation with my pipe, my newspaper, my dog, and a fire. Let me explain. . . .” Then Ryan was happily making pasta at the stove, then he was in the shower, then I was vacuuming, all the while laying out clear French exposition. It was all very deadpan—“Oh, excuse-moi”—as we pleasantly described domestic tasks and personal hygiene. C’est hilarant! Hilarious!

  So we were into making these weird, random comedy videos, but we were about two decades away from understanding that was a thing. It was just us being funny for a class and, more importantly, for ourselves, which is a significant flag by which one can navigate toward one’s “voice,” a flag entirely outside of my comprehension at that point.

  I remember attending these speech contests where I tried the “Extemporaneous” category on for size. There was a kid from the suburbs of Chicago—I think his name was Bix—a
nd he was a very flamboyant, queeny kid who was very, very funny. He was basically doing stand-up at age fourteen, with this incredibly sophisticated, fully written show (hardly extemporaneous, but who’s counting?) with a character based upon Robin Leach from Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Only it was a swishy version, like a Bravo show this kid had created. It was, in a word, amazing.

  Little me, a literal freshman in this arena, thought, “Holy shit, this kid is ready for the big time. He’s like the Uncle Miltie of Grundy County” (if I’d known who the hell Uncle Miltie was). I was presenting material like “Welcome to the Sandwich County Fair. Get ready for the Spitting Contest!” and then I was enacting a spitting contest. I don’t remember the setup, really, but I remember that “wind was an issue,” and at one point I kept “catching the spit on my hand,” which involved some kick-ass mime and sound effects, or “Foley,” work. I was trying to draw from my own strange experience but had yet to learn the lesson of applying hard work to my act, to persevere in the face of the damning criticism of a central Illinois high school speech contest. My bits were certainly unique, but I interpreted those first flops as the ultimate judgment of my voice, so I didn’t try again with that brand of wisecrack for many years.

  Enter Mr. Pat Luther, or “Lex,” as we obviously would have called him. A term of great affection, for remember, kids, this is back when Gene Hackman permanently endeared himself to audiences as a subway-dwelling, bald-headed, charismatic-as-shit Lex Luthor. Mr. Luther was the top-tier English teacher at Minooka, and it was in his creative writing class senior year that I really enjoyed a first taste of what my weird voice could achieve. (PS: He’s the first person who ever said anything to me like, “You should check out the Royal Shakespeare Company. They do this play called Hamlet.” A hero.)

  One day near the end of the year, we assembled in his class for our final exam. He took a one-page essay, printed in a large font—long before we knew the term font—and taped it to the wall in front of the class with about an inch of masking tape. He said, “Here is your subject matter. You have ninety minutes to compose an essay on this.” I did not even read the posted text. Instead, I immediately shat out an entirely fabricated history of masking tape, starting with some Native American origins involving applying sorghum to the leaves of the sumac tree, and so forth. I confidently handed it in and strode from the room.

  You might expect that the next day I would have received some sort of admonition from my man Lex. But if so, you’ll be disappointed, because really for the first time in my life, someone got me! I was seventeen years old, and I knocked the old tea head on his ass! He praised my paper and read it to the class, celebrating my initiative to think outside the box. I’m sorry if this is a little braggadocio, but I believe this to be a noteworthy moment, the first tangible triumph of my nonconformity!

  I had a good season of football, and then I was a smart-ass, and I got an A, and I was singled out by the teacher. Two accomplishments in seventeen years. By god, I was on my way.

  Don’t Be an Asshole

  I find it consistently difficult to get around the notion that we are all, in our very natures, assholes. I am an asshole. I’m afraid you are also. That’s why the conversation about good manners even exists in the first place. We’re cognizant, curious beings, capable of philosophical thought, nuclear physics, repeating Nerf weapons, global consciousness, Glade air fresheners, and sentient automobiles. But we’re assholes first.

  This is because before we can begin to argue mortgage rates and tuition hikes, before we can roll up our sleeves and thread a perfusion catheter into the cholesterol-choked artery of today’s society, we, every one of us, must first replenish our mammalian bodies with food and water, whilst establishing and maintaining a comfortable climate around our bodies through the employment of garments and heating/cooling systems. Before we can arrive at the office to resume our efforts to improve, say, worldwide Muslim-Christian relations or the infrastructure of the Haitian public utilities systems, we must commune and, more to the point, commute with thousands of other animals upon ever-increasingly crowded roadways and public transit vehicle systems. It is during these more basic, elemental steps in our day that we reveal our true colors. As assholes.

  Our bodies tell us frequently, in no uncertain terms, to do things that society has deemed inappropriate, or, quite often, illegal. I’m talking about the animal voice deep inside us all that we’ve learned to repress through socialization. “Hey, Dave. Look at that ripe, young female cheering for the sports team. You should make some babies occur.” Or “Excuse me, Jorge? That other family is in front of you in line at the Reuben Truck. Your own family could claim all of the delicious sandwiches and grow stronger if you simply kill that first family.” We humans contain within us instinctual signals, influencing us toward the perpetuation of our species, specifically our own tribes or family units, often to the detriment of others. That’s just how nature works. What’s amazing is that we have largely contained these urges to the point of successfully checking out of a crowded Whole Foods without decapitating that crunchy, granola-haired hustler dude trying to squeak fourteen items through the express lane WHEN THE SIGN CLEARLY STATES “TWELVE ITEMS OR LESS.” YOU THINK WE AREN’T ALL GOING TO BE COUNTING YOUR FUCKING ITEMS, BRO?! But we don’t strike. We take a deep breath and feel better for another day of carnage-free foraging at the grocery store.

  As civilization developed, we learned to establish some rules and guidelines—“laws,” if you will—to convince ourselves that it’s not right to heed these animal urges. “Okay, everybody, I know we used to just rip one another’s throats out if we wanted to claim, say, a certain hunting territory for our own, but we’re all deciding, in this new committee, or let’s say ‘congress,’ we’ve formed, that that’s not cool anymore. We’re going to lay down some notions about personal property and the ways in which we can violate those notions, and we’re going to establish some punishments to hopefully deter us from, you know, raping and killing one another. Mostly, the weak people.”

  Over the centuries, we have continued to evolve these notions so that every citizen receives a fair shake, and by god, we’re still working on it. For you see, gentle reader, it’s complicated. In a society where “to the victors go the spoils,” it can be difficult for said victors to wrap their heads around fair treatment or “rights” for all the people, especially those who have been defeated or dominated in one sense or another.

  For example: slavery. Although versions of slavery have been prevalent all over the world throughout history, I’ll focus on American slavery during the last few centuries. We “Europeans” were caught up in a system that entailed the brutal, inhuman capture and transport of brown-skinned Africans to the United States, where they would be sold like work animals to perform labor in the fields and houses of farms and plantations. Full-on flagrant, fucked-up assholery. Unthinkable.

  This horribly criminal system existed for hundreds of years before the white folks finally copped to its being not super cool. It took a long time for the whites to wrap their heads around the idea of sharing this nation (which, incidentally, was brutally stolen by them from the indigenous tribes) in equality with the dark-skinned people whom they had once owned like mules. How did this ever occur? Assholes. The rules were being made by assholes. These decisions were handed down from assholes on high and carried out by, you guessed it, assholes. So, thankfully, we got that bullshit straightened out on paper, but we’re still trying to heal the wounds of that and countless other genocides and discriminations and ass-fuckings that we humans have handed one another over the years.

  The early transgressions that our “laws” sought to prohibit involved a violating poleax or spear of one brand or another. Many crimes of action required a sharp bladed weapon with which to pierce the skin or property of the victim, or an actual penis, with which to violate another in the most intimate of breaches. By now, civilization has done, it must be said, a pr
etty stand-up job of reducing these more overt asshole moves with the promise of strict repercussions. Prison, death, what have you. Terrific. But, folks, we have got us a very long way to go.

  I here proffer my opinion that we, the people, are still being raped on a daily basis, but it’s a much longer, much slower fucking. The aggressors are the lobbyists for big tobacco and for guns and for pharmaceuticals and for agribusiness, and their filthy, turgid cocks are enormous, probing ram-shafts made of money.

  But wait, I thought this book was a lighthearted look at living one’s life deliciously? That’s all well and good, fat boy, but you cannot just blithely drift through life in your canoe whilst turning a blind eye to the bullshit going on around you.

  Really, all religious teachings can be boiled down to: “Just be cool. Don’t be an asshole.” The teachings of Jesus, of Muhammad, of Buddha, of Yahweh, Dionysus, Oprah, Yoda, and the rest. Confucius. All we need to be told is that we are all presented with a similar challenge in life, which is, “You will encounter tests every day. You can serve yourself, or you can serve others.” Now, before I dive headfirst off a self-righteous cliff like a motherfucking juggernaut, let me point out that I count myself as not only a human, but a fucking American white guy with a decent brain and set of life skills, which means I am, by birthright, a major asshole. I come by it honest. It’s the first rule of Fight Club. Admitting you’re an asshole. Once I saw this truth and swallowed it, an excellent technique developed, one that I believe makes my life much more calm and much less desperate—therefore, much more delicious.

  The technique is: Let the others go first. At the airport, at the grocery store, at the Pleasure Chest (hey-o!). The calmer I become, the more I enjoy my day. The more I enjoy my day, the more people enjoy me and the more they want to see me in my enjoyment. Eventually, they want to see me enjoying my day on the set of their film playing Holly Hunter’s husband for Diablo Cody. BOOM. Turns out all I had to do was keep my cool.