Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living (13 page)

It was 7:38 when the fuzz finally roused themselves to emancipate your pudding-headed author. Man, they thought they were pretty goddamn funny. I did not have time to join them in their mirth, however. Goliath violated some speed limits, flagrantly, on the way down Green Street to the stage door of the theater and I sprinted into the dressing room with about seven or eight minutes to get it together. Slapped on some makeup and threw on my loafers and yellow cardigan. Alan, remember? Our assistant director, Mike Seagull, a friend, had gotten wind of my predicament and covered for me with some little white fabrication or other, and before I knew it, I was clumsily blubbering through my crying scene in act 2. Most definitely the best crying scene I’ve ever delivered. I was saved! Did I mention that I got lucky every now and again?

The final chapter saw me called in front of a “court” of kindly and august senior citizens, who, I daresay, saw me for what I was: a harmless dumbass. When one sweet grandmother complimented my work in
Picnic
, I knew I was sitting pretty. After sincerely communicating to them that I had learned my lesson, I was gratified to hear that my “sentence” would consist of a mere one hundred hours of community service. I was shown a list of departments to choose from, and I went with Animal Control. Easy. Did anyone ever choose Sanitation? With no exaggeration whatsoever, I can report that I spent some weekends helping sorority girls look at puppies at the Humane Society. It was not too hard to swallow, to be honest. Confirming my absolute reputation as an asswipe, I didn’t even show up for the entirety of the hundred hours, and I never did hear from anybody about it. Yes, you are correct. I was a douche.

Now, friends, what can we take away from this cautionary tale? I do think it’s important to behave rebelliously when leaving the nest and striking out on one’s own, but I would suggest coming up just short of breaking the law. If you are going to burglarize a retail establishment, for Christ’s sake, case the joint ahead of time. Also, don’t ever underestimate the value of Ronnie Milsap.

Be Smart While Getting Stupid

When the work is done, then we deserve to play. After ten sweaty hours in the woodshop, when I’m covered in sawdust, that first Corona tastes like the jizz of the Lord (which has to be the most magnificent beverage, right? The Libation of Glory?), and in my life, one of my greatest leisure-time pleasures has been smoking a bong in the living room before settling down with the new episode of
Twin Peaks
, or maybe a Jim Jarmusch film.
Dead Man?
Heaven. Or some animation or claymation.
Akira?
Wallace and Gromit? Sublime. Therefore, if I had to choose one god to serve, I would choose . . . Dionysus. The Greek god of wine, song, and theater. My Eucharist is found in entertaining people, receiving the bread and the wine of laughter and tears from the crowd, and being brought to catharsis by the work of others. When I take the stage, Dionysus (or Bacchus) sees and hears my ministry and he is muchly pleased. Or she. No reason to stick to the tired dogma of the patriarchy.

I like to engage in revelry. I like to celebrate the human experience through performance. I like to engender mirth. I like to abide pleasure with my body, and one way that we funny monkeys have learned to know delight is through the consumption of intoxicants. All splendid treats in the proper dosage, but, just like religion (the opiate of the masses), you can use them responsibly, and do good, or you can use them like an asshole and ruin it for the rest of us, who just want to get a little high and look at a maple leaf. Let’s have a look at our choices, shall we?

1.
Wine, Beer.
The workhorses. You keep these expendables in stock, like paper towels and salt. And just like salt, you will enjoy them throughout your life, as long as you don’t overdo it. Beer, in all its infinite varieties these days, is obviously one of the staples of life. For a pint of beer, you can never beat Guinness or Old Rasputin. In the life of the theater professional, three pints a night in the local public house is simply part of one’s workday, and it’s nice work, if you can get it. My leisure time was dominated by beer throughout my youth and into my twenties, because wine just didn’t have much of a foothold in my part of the Midwest. Aunt Dee would drink white wine, but then she always was a bit fancy. I never understood what all the fuss was about until my wife bought a really nice bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon on New Year’s Eve 2000. We were at a beautiful cabin in Santa Barbara, and we counted down the last hours of our first eight months together as we sipped this red wine that made my head and body feel like delicious candy. I’m not talking about shitty candy (which also has its place of honor), your Skittles, your Willy Wonka varietals, your PayDays. No, I’m talking about handmade, rich-people candy. This wine—fermented grape juice, mind you—tasted and felt like Edmund’s description of Turkish delight in
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
, and, buddy, I signed up as, and I remain, a card-carrying member of the wine enthusiasts’ club. For, lo, it is some good shit.

2.
Whisky and the Lesser Spirits.
Try to utilize the hard liquors with less frequency than you do beer. Did I spend a period of my youth chugging Jim Beam? Sure I did, as it provided a swift and complete oblivion, which is sometimes what we’re looking for in life. That was a thankfully brief stint, when I was despairing of ever finding a lady who could stand me, and one whom I could tolerate in return. Once I got my head on straight, I learned that bourbons exist to rival even the qualities of Jim Beam! Furthermore, I discovered Irish and Scotch whiskys, to which I remain devoted. For a single-malt scotch, Lagavulin will never disappoint. It’s practically furry. I’ll be happy to further enumerate the admirable qualities of whisky consumption over a glass of the good stuff should you ever catch me out at the bar.

3.
Nitrous Oxide, N
₂
O, Laughing Gas, Whip-Its.
Ahhh, old friend. Not just at the dentist anymore. For those of you who have deprived yourselves of this brief delight, please hustle out to the store and pick up several cans of ready-to-squirt whipped cream, and let the fun begin. The cream remains in the can, fully wasted, as the propellant nitrous oxide enters your lungs, and thereby your circulatory system. You will experience a light-headed euphoria as well as auditory hallucinations, culminating in smiles of glee or laughter. If you want to consume this goodness without wasting all that yummy dairy product, go to the gourmet store and purchase a case or three of N
₂
O cartridges and a whipped cream charger! Or buy a little twist “cracker” at your local head shop and empty your cartridge into a pretty balloon! Load up a hit, put on “Echolalia” by Dead Can Dance, and drink deep, chum. Find a nice place to recline and listen to any good noises—a freight train, a subway, a waterfall, a Wilco show. Just sit where the po-po won’t be hassling you. Good, clean fun. I’ve seen friends fall down and go boom whilst using this stuff, so maybe keep your seat.

4.
Weed.
Sweet, sweet lady. Marijuana is quite possibly the finest of intoxicants. It has been scientifically proven, for decades, to be much less harmful to the body than alcohol when used on a regular basis (Google “Science”). I applaud and support all of the legalization efforts perpetually under way in our country, but I kind of doubt it’s going to make it all the way through the federal legal system until big tobacco wakes up and gets behind it. I’m calling you out, R.J.! Step right up to yo’ face and dis you, Philly Morris! You continue to cling to the legality of your carcinogenic smoking product that has been
outlawed
in most public spaces in America, but do you not see the potential in Marlboro Green? Own it! Regulate it! Tobacco will be going away; you know it! You have seen that writing on the wall! Turn that acreage over to cannabis, my brothas! People are constantly committing crimes whilst under the influence of, or looking for funding for, every other intoxicant besides marijuana. I am a supersweet teddy bear, but when I drink tequila, I want to knife somebody. When a person injects heroin, I’ve read, they want to lie in bed and drool with pleasure, listening to Coltrane’s
Giant Steps
until the fix wears off, then they want to go out and threaten to knife somebody, to get money for more heroin, so they can get back to drooling on their pillow. When I smoke pot, I want to look at nature and laugh about everything and eat some delicious things and then sleep. For Willie’s sake, do the math.

5.
Mushrooms.
Yes indeed. The gentle brother of the hallucinogen family. All the giggles and visuals without the chemical jaw-grinding and speedy aftereffects of big brother LSD. I remember one beautiful day in the woods of Allerton Park near Monticello, Illinois, tripping on ’shrooms with my brother Falcon Smoker, looking at leaves and trees, swimming in the river, listening to the birds and frogs and wood nymphs’ song, gulping in the sweet air and glory of living, then winding down to wait out the waves of sensory bliss so we could head home. Once we were somewhat straightened out, we set off for home, blasting Ennio Morricone’s magnificent soundtrack to
The Mission
, particularly track twelve, called “River.” And in the early dark on the highway, all the other taillights looked like X-wing fighters, which lent a comforting perception of nostalgia to the ride. Treat your intoxicants with respect, and they will do right by you.

6.
Amyl Nitrate, or “Poppers.”
Not worth it. Small head rush, massive brain cell carnage, often followed by a splitting headache. Might as well huff glue.

7.
Glue.
I’ve tried some and gotten the most profound effects from that crazy blue PVC plumbing adhesive, but it’s a very low-grade high. Your head feels dirty inside, probably from all the poison from the glue. Pass. Huffing vapors is the intoxicant of true desperation.

8.
Chicharrón, Cracklins, Pork Rinds.
Not technically an intoxicant, but you couldn’t ever tell me that. My buddy Pat Roberts and I were hooked on those bubbly, crunchy skin chips, and we had it bad. The great thing about this snack food is that it’s mostly protein and therefore much healthier than most of the garbage Frito-Lay is churning out. No offense, Frito-Lay, I love a bag of Doritos as much as the next Midwesterner, but I’ve read all of Michael Pollan’s books, so let’s just call it like it is. To place my pork-skin problem chronologically, let’s just say it went real nice with Jim Beam and Virginia blister peanuts for dessert. Keep the peanut can for loose hardware, and you’ve done your part for Mother Earth today.

Born Again Again

D
uring our last couple of years of high school both Lynette and I worked part-time at Minooka’s video store, Mick’s Flicks. This should serve to date the business just a bit for you: The video store also had two tanning beds in the back (Kool Rays Tanning). I was fifteen or sixteen at the time and my boss, Jeff, was about twenty-two. He had a BMW, which was just insane in Minooka. He might as well have been driving around a spaceship. He was a dashing, young, entrepreneurial guy, and his folks had helped set him up with this video store, which was doing very well. Turned out, people liked movies back then in 1980s Illinois.

Jeff and I took a shine to each other, despite his insistence on calling me “Tricky Nicky.” I have found, in life, that the person signing the paychecks will tend to call you whatever the hell he/she pleases. A couple of other friends also worked there part-time, and the video store was, of course, in a strip mall, so we indulged in meals from the TeePee Hut, two doors down to the right, and sometimes we’d get beers from Minooka Liquors, one door down to the left. If we needed prophylactics or batteries or lube, we could nip next door to the right, to KODO Pharmacy. In other words, we wanted for nothing. As a responsible young chap, I was trusted to be on the receiving end of such dreamy tasks as delivering Jeff’s BMW to him in Chicago and making sure the ladies in the tanning beds had all the beverages they required.

In the days when the VCR was king you can imagine what a big to-do would be made over films like
Aliens, Platoon
, and, yes,
Three Men and a Baby
. We practically had to open a new wing to accommodate all of the VHS copies and cardboard stand-ups of Tom Cruise for
Top Gun
. I enjoyed playing
Highlander
over and over on the in-house system in the hopes that the populace would come to know the pleasures of the Quickening. Little did I dream then that I would one day come to reside on those shelves myself. To date, I think my most popular title in Minooka is
Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous.

* * *

C
ut to: our first semester down at the U of I, where Lynette and I were learning that our affiliation was by this juncture ill-fated. The writing on the wall plainly read that we should part ways, but we (I) weren’t (wasn’t) quite ready to give up my security blanket, by which I mean, of course, her vagina. I could hardly get to sleep at night without curling up in that cozy thicket. Reality continued to splash cold water on our situation, and Lynette finally put her foot down and sent me packing. I went into withdrawal, and although my new friends and my life in theater school made it a bit easier to go on, I just couldn’t shake what turned out to be a bit of an obsession. We still spoke often, which of course helped matters very little in terms of my attempt to quit her cold turkey.

Interestingly, her sister had just won three plane tickets to Jamaica. So Lynette, her mom, and her sister were going to go to the beach for a week. By this point she had commenced with seeing other guys, which only sprinkled sweet gasoline on the flame I continued to fan. She told me about the Jamaica trip, and I very casually asked, “So, is anyone going with you?” No. Just the ladies. Splendid.

An idea was taking shape in the steel trap of my lust-riddled noggin. A goddamn great idea. Over the course of a few conversations, I took note of the pertinent details regarding their travel arrangements. I had seen pretty much every episode of
The A-Team
, so I knew how to hatch a goddamn plan. I knew (Mick’s Flicks) Jeff’s sister Kelly worked at Midway Airport in Chicago, which was from where Lynette and co. were to depart. So, after twenty-four-odd tallboys of Miller Genuine Draft had changed hands (wink), Kelly hooked me up with all the details and a standby ticket to Jamaica, the day before Lynette was to arrive. I would infiltrate the perimeter, perform some recon, get the lay of the land, and then just hunker down to wait.

I had once flown home from North Dakota, but this flight out of the country was major. Added to which, the whole “standby” thing was baffling. Then things suddenly turned from baffling to terrifying when I got the call that my flight was oversold, and I was to be bumped to the next day. TO HER FLIGHT.

There was only one flight a day, and this was a great many years before Expedia.com, not to mention I was a total babe in the woods when it came to airplane travel, but even so, Kelly told me that I really had no choice. It was either fly on the same flight as my target (I mean, the object of my affection), or bail on the plan. To this day, I can never tell if I’m ballsy or just stupid, but by god, I generally tend to go for it.

I went to the airport armed with some items I had borrowed from the costume shop at school. Ironically (in hindsight), I glued on a full moustache, which was very much like my adult moustache. I dabbed some gray into my hair, which was slicked with Brylcreem, and donned aviator glasses. Additionally, I wore a fat suit of two towels wrapped and bound around my middle, along with some of my dad’s more conservative schoolteacher clothes. “Average middle-aged guy going to Jamaica” was the look to which I aspired, with a newspaper and a small duffel bag.

Ignorant of the ways of the boarding gate, I was utterly bewildered when told to stand next to the door whilst all of the ticketed passengers walked past! I held up my newspaper, real cool-like, and managed not to wet my dad’s brown polyesters as Lynette and her party of three sauntered by, laughing.

Once the legit flyers were all aboard, then the standby crowd was assigned seats. So far, so good. I made my way onto the plane, and I’ll be goddamned if I wasn’t seated one seat behind her, one seat to the right. “Okay. Okay. Be cool. You got this, buddy.” I could actually see the right side of her face through the gap between the seats. This was pretty goddamn hilarious so far! During the flight, Lynette got up to retrieve something from the compartment above her, and we actually nodded at each other. I thought, “Man, are you gonna crack up when I tell you about this later!” In my head, I was absolutely living out a fantasy as the cool protagonist in my very own John Cusack superromantic comedy, when in truth, I was 100 percent stalking this poor young dancer. Terrific!

We landed in Jamaica, and, having done the recon back stateside, I knew just where to go. I got in a cab and sped to the beachfront hotel where they were staying. It was all feeling pretty insane, what with the tropical climate, not to mention the big Rasta dude driving a jeep as a cab, blaring some kick-ass UB40. I went into the hotel men’s room and donned my cutoff jean shorts, which were still a pretty acceptable garment in the eighties. The moment of reckoning was drawing tantalizingly near!

As I had correctly surmised, within an hour of their arrival they were down on the beach, an incredibly long stretch of beautiful white sand, at the far end of which I sat reading, incongruously, a book of Thornton Wilder plays. Lynette was walking toward me in a bikini, thankfully with some distance between herself and her mom (who, it bears mentioning, had been a fan, at least up until this point). I walked up to her in my super-Swayze cutoff jeans and, just like I rehearsed, stated, “Hey, Lynette. How’s it goin’?” Her jaw dropped, amazed. She was clearly feeling something powerful, like probably love, and she said, “I don’t fucking BELIEVE you did this. YOU ASSHOLE!” (which means “motherfucker” in born-again speak), and she punched me in the chest.

“I came here to get away from you. This is my vacation from all the crap I have to figure out in my life.”

“Holy shit. Um. I am so sorry. I meant for this to be awesome . . . but I have clearly just upset you. Sorry. You won’t see me again.”

Then, as though seeing them for the first time, she took a good long look at my jean shorts. Then she took in my book of plays by Thornton Wilder. Something shifted behind her eyes and beneath her intestines. Within an hour we were having rub-sex in the shallow water on the beach. I had had a positive feeling that she would appreciate my surprise, and she did. Eventually. But then, after a solid scrump-and-munch session, she said, “Okay, this was really nice, and now you have to leave. I seriously don’t want to see you again, this is my week here. And when we get home, there’s no more. For real.” All right. Okay. All in all, things had gone pretty well up until this point. I wasn’t trying to win her back; I think ultimately we were both just happy to make our final love-time a memorable one. I had happily suffered a chest punch in exchange for a rich, romantic coupling in the Caribbean surf. I couldn’t help but clench an imaginary cigar in my teeth and utter to the B. A. Baracus in my head, “I love it when a plan comes together.”

* * *

U
nfortunately, that was the end of the successfully orchestrated part of my plan. I had been so focused on my big
Say Anything
moment that I hadn’t given much thought to the postcoital accommodations. I mean, I was old buddies with these ladies, so I was sure they’d at least let me crash on the couch. No dice.

Not knowing what to do next, with all of $70 in my pocket, I went in to a pay phone and called Jeff back home.

“Well, Jeffrey, the eagle has landed, and the eagle has been kissed, but now the eagle is homeless and without much bread. I guess I’ll fly home tomorrow. Pick me up?”

“Ah, Tricky Nicky! Ha-HAA! You got some major brass ones, my friend. You got it. I’ll see you at Midway.”

Great. Now what? I looked through the phone book and found a cheap place in the mountains. I called up, and the lady was very nice on the phone. She even sent their jeep to pick me up. Looking back, this was probably a pretty crappy hotel, but for a nineteen-year-old playing hooky from Illinois, it was a crazy paradise. I was completely enamored of the colonial style, situated as it was amongst the jungle foliage. When I arrived, the manager, Maria, with whom I had spoken on the phone, was just as nice in person. There was a big shindig under way with a live reggae band, and everyone was drinking daiquiris. I had never even heard of a daiquiri. Turns out, it was like, strawberry rum booze, all cold and shit. Fucking right on. Jamaica.

I commenced to dancing with the people and feeling like life was not too bad. I was thinking of calling Lynette, because we really enjoyed dancing together, and I thought she would love this music, but then again, this Maria was beginning to be ever more super nice. Long story short, I spent the night with her, and she packed me off to the airport the next morning in the blue and yellow dashiki she had been wearing.

Ultimately, this caper turned out to be a really fun way to wrap up a great teenage romance. When I tell this story, people often accuse me of behaving like a stalker, and even in those pre-9/11 halcyon days of travel, my subterfuge could definitely have been interpreted as creepy. But I hope that the story’s resolution makes it plain that everyone involved came out of the fray with a satisfied smile. The only downside, really, was discovering that I was allergic to something, presumably strawberry daiquiris, judging from the painful red rash all around my crotchal area.

The Moustache Makes the Magick

First of all: Teddy Roosevelt. Pow! How’s that for a punch in the teeth? Or moustache?

As a mere sprout, moustaches always represented, simply, manhood to me, as well as heroes, cowboys, and my uncles Don and Dan, who were already my idols and had moustaches that were flinty, bristly, completely virile, and tough as nails. When I was just a little pisser, I knew that I would only truly become a man upon the day that I could grow a moustache. I associated the notion of those noble whiskers mostly with my uncles, because they owned tractors, wore vise-grip pliers on their belts, and were out in the weather harvesting their incomes by way of cultivating crops in the soil. They were brave, admirable souls to me (they still are), much like Burt Reynolds and Tom Selleck were at the time.

A moustache carries with it a little bit of derring-do. You’re the kind of guy who will come barreling up doing a power slide in your pickup truck and then give a girl a wink. You know your knots. You know what to do with beef tallow. Freddie Mercury was also a major idol of mine, and he had a badass moustache to perfectly complement his whole leather-guy Tom of Finland thing. When I eventually learned that he was gay, I didn’t think less of him, I just thought that gay people must be pretty kick-ass, then, if he was one of them. Before I ever knew anything about sexuality I just thought he was a rough/pretty-looking dude who could sing his face off, and once I began to learn about the varying sexual orientations of we humans,
then
I thought he was a rough/pretty-looking dude who could sing his face off.

I recently had the extreme pleasure of showing my friend the seminal 1986 film
Highlander
, which is REQUIRED VIEWING (for young men, anyway), and I was blown away, yet again, by the amazing Queen songs that make up the film’s soundtrack. Freddie Mercury brought manhood to the stage like few before him and damn fewer since.

A moustache tells folks that you’re willing to take the bull by the horns. You have a certain amount of gravel in your craw, like many of Sean Connery’s characters. Name me one actor since Connery to bring to life such a swaggering sense of manliness, with or without whiskers, but especially with. Can’t do it? Neither can I. But by sporting a moustache, I can bring a hint of that staglike flavor to my own savory life. Later on, Sam Elliott took an awfully fine swing at that feeling with his incredibly aesthetic lip hedge in
The Big Lebowski
. Portraying the Stranger in that film, a man with such life experience, including enough notches on his belt to be able to give advice to THE DUDE, for Pete’s sake, required a brambly thicket of absolute chaparral beneath his nose, and Sam brought that shit. Hard.