How to Piss in Public (34 page)

I didn’t even want to be a writer. Not at first. I wanted to be an artist, but that shit takes forever and I simply don’t have the patience. Even the work-to-reward ratio of drawing comics wasn’t satisfying enough (also, I suck at it). I write because I can’t not write. Like Bukowski said, “Unless it comes bursting out of you, in spite of everything, don’t do it.” I believe life is about figuring out what you were meant to do and pursuing that, by any means necessary. True misery is the ballerina who
was meant to be an accountant or the accountant who was meant to be a ballerina. My generation has been taught that creative jobs are the special ones and everyone else is living a miserable lie, but I’ve got a lot more respect for a proud grout cleaner than some douchebag photographer who uses words like “lexicon.”

It took a lot of trial and error to figure it all out. Selling drugs gave me diarrhea. Playing in punk bands gets old when you get old. I tried hard labor and enjoyed the satisfaction of a job well done, but I simply didn’t have the stamina for it over the long haul. Besides, I was itching to tell stories. Though this vocation was set in stone from day one, I still had choices. I used those choices to peel back the layers and discover exactly what the stone said. It all comes back to that conversation with Dogboy on the roof when I asked him if he really wanted to sink his teeth into something. I knew I did and set off on this path the following day. You can’t just sit on your ass and assume fate is going to tap you on the shoulder.

In high school, we chose to ignore the in-crowd hierarchy and made our own club with our own set of rules. My parents worked hard to get me and my brother away from the danger of the city, and I ran back there the day I turned eighteen. When I graduated from university, there were no jobs so I created one. When Montreal’s bureaucracy started slowing us down, we moved to New York. When my wild oats were sowed, I married the love of my life and settled down. I never complained about people not giving me opportunities. The only time I got mad was when someone stood in my way.

This is where I was always meant to be and I’m infinitely grateful for that. If the reader has anything to glean from this book, I hope it’s “Trust your gut.” If you’re an Amish sailor but you were meant to be a straight drag queen who trains dancing dogs, you’re going to have to bid adieu to your bearded friends and be the Lessandra the Great you were always meant to be. That’s not just something that would make you feel better. It is the very definition of happiness.

Acknowledgments

I
’d like to thank my agent, Byrd Leavell, for pushing this book as hard as he pushed
Sh*t My Dad Says
and
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
. You went way beyond the call of duty and I’m forever indebted to you for that. I’d also like to thank my editor, Brant Rumble, and everyone at Scribner for their endless enthusiasm despite the raucous content. I’m confident this book will do much better than every other you’ve stood behind, including
The Great Gatsby
and all twenty-six Hemingways. Jim Goad inspired me to start writing back in the early nineties and has remained the gold standard ever since. Thanks for helping me punch up the manuscript, Jim. Thanks also to Patton Oswalt for taking time out of his busy schedule to give me invaluable notes on the book.

I’d also like to thank Arvind Dilawar, Benjamin Leo, and Kurt Lustgarten for their notes, as well as Matt Pisane for all those cover ideas.

From left to right:
Totti, Cheese, Szabo, Skeeter (hidden), and me eating lunch in the suburbs. (1984)

Taking a photo with the cops for a scavenger hunt. (1984)

Singing “Use Your Brains Now” with my band Anal Chinook while covered in cow brains. I had a crossed-out swastika on my chest, but the
X
sweated off and by the end it was just a swastika. (1988)

Working on a zine with a French Canadian punk we called Spam. This was before computers. (1988)

My baby brother, Kyle, hanging out with the punks. (1989)

Bringing planters their trees as a foreman. (1991)

Teaching in Taipei. The board says “GOTTA TAKE A DUMP” with “pee pee” and “poo poo” below it. (1992)

A page from issue no. 10 of my comic book
Pervert,
wherein I told the “He’s Gone and Got a Bloody Tattoo” story in pictures. (1993)

Hanging out in Montreal at the peak of my philandering days. My hair is blue and that high-waisted-pants joke always did well with the ladies. (1993)