If the recent election cycle has taught me anything it is that people have wildly divergent ideas about what constitutes success. For many, it is purely a dollar amount, punctuated by gold gilt wives, plastic children and fussy furniture. Others define triumph as simply being a decent human who cares deeply about the welfare and comfort of all sentient beings. If I had to pick, I’d probably fall in line with the latter only because I love dogs more than anybody, and I carry spiders outside. In all honesty, I would love to ferry an arachnid to safety while en route to the bank where they weigh my money v. the counting method, which is for poor people. Like myself.
We may never agree on the definition of success, but in our hearts I think we all know it when we see it. In case you’re just a tiny bit unsure, here are 7 clues:
1. More than half the people who know you do not refer to you as an asshole, asshat, assclown or asswipe.
If 51% of respondents think of you in anus-related terms, you are not successful. Oh, you may be richer than god, better looking than a Photoshopped Baltic supermodel and have more friends than a bouncer on ladies night, but you lack a basic element that real winners have, which is most people speak well of them.
I can hear you already, you sayers of nay who don’t think being liked is such a big deal. We shouldn’t have to kiss ass or betray our own dignity in order to be well thought of, but when you don’t screw people over, you value and respect them, and as a default position treat everyone as you would like to be treated, they tend to hold you in high regard. While what others think of us is generally not a litmus test for success, if you are admired it usually means you’re not a complete idiot, and that is good.
2. You can laugh when the chips are down.
This is one of the better kept secrets about truly successful people. The guy who stomps around swearing a blue streak when a seagull poops on his YSL polo shirt is not deep down a happy camper. All successful people are happy campers, btw. Comes with the territory. Maybe not 24/7, but when a seagull poops on his shirt, the reasonably well-adjusted person cracks a smile.
It’s not as rare as being beaned on the head by a satellite part falling out of the sky, but the odds at any given moment that a bird way up high will crap at the exact right speed and trajectory as to make a direct hit on your person is like one in a billion (there is a higher probability near the sea and in the Great Lakes region).
The successful man laughs, rinses and buys a lottery ticket. (Unless he is near the sea or in the Great Lakes region, in which case he is accustomed to being shat upon by sea birds and does not take it as a sign it is his lucky day.)
3. You feel badly if you hurt someone’s feelings.
It can be an accident (How far along you? Oh, you’re not?) or intentional (God, you’re stupid.), but either way when the person’s face falls and her eyes go convex with tears, you feel about two feet tall. A successful human takes no joy in making someone else feel shitty.
If the other person is a tool and deserves seagull droppings on her personage then it doesn’t deduct from your successful person column if you note casually the irony in Matilda getting a guano deposit on her head on the same day as she asked derisively whether you make your own clothes. It’s okay to acknowledge the power and majesty of the universe on those occasions. Otherwise, be nice.
4. You have a solid handshake.
Grasping the other person’s hand so that your thumb cleavage fits his thumb cleavage, squeeze firmly and pump twice, locking eyes the entire time. None of this wimpy finger clutching nonsense, or limp flopping about like you’ve got a piece of flaccid halibut you’re trying to get rid of.
Nothing says loser like a weak handshake. (Gentlemen, I beg of you, please do not employ a different handshake for women than you offer to the menfolk. It is insulting, off-putting and makes you seem floppy and minor league. Plus, it’s just icky.)
Throw those shoulders back, jut out your hand and own that handshake while looking directly into the other person’s eyes. Smile confidently. Step forward and into the handshake, then break it. You don’t want to hold on like he’s got a winning lottery ticket in his paw.
5. You do not have thin skin.
Nothing screams impotent weasel like a person who can’t take criticism, a joke or an insult. My feelings may be hurt and my ears on fire, which immediately spreads to my armpits like a river of molten lava, but I try to keep it together on the surface. Oft times, the insult is unintentional, and by remaining sane I give the other person a chance to rephrase, which they do as soon as the color drains from my face and my ears have burst into flames.
“Oh jeez, I didn’t mean you were actually stupid when I said ‘how stupid can you be?’ Shall I get a fire extinguisher or will those go out by themselves?”
“Whew,” I reply, my armpits cooling down like a nuclear reactor. “For a minute there I wasn’t so sure.”
There are meanies out there who deliberately try to make us feel badly. It makes them somehow feel superior, or at least less inferior, to do so, but all they are really accomplishing is to offer us a wonderful opportunity to exhibit our character.
The next time someone criticizes you in a pointedly non-constructive way, or insults you ‘just because,’ or because the ‘because’ is he is having a crappy day/week/life, take a deep breath and regroup. Think about what’s really important. Do you have enough to eat? A roof over your head and people whom you love and who love you? If so, hard as it may be, let it go. A small advantage to this is perhaps a petty thing, but nothing drives a mean person nuts more than not getting a rise out of you. It’s a beautiful thing to see spittle form at the corner of a meanie’s contorted mouth while you just smile sweetly, innocently, in the immediate aftermath of an insult.
6. Unflappability.
Much of this has been covered in the preceding entries, but I cannot stress enough the importance of remaining cool under pressure. Truly successful human beings do not fly off the handle. They do not pitch fits, go ballistic or rant and rave when things don’t go their way.
It is the hardest thing to do—staying cool, calm and collected when people are lobbing crazy bombs, insults and non-facts your way. Unfair as it may be, for women especially, it is critical to keep the vocal register down and the gesticulation level at or below Italian so as to not appear shrill and hysterical. The reason I don’t tell men the same thing is that I love a good laugh, and there is nothing quite as hilarious as a wildly gesticulating, shrill and hysterical man. I don’t know why—probably the same reason I giggle at funerals and whenever I see men wearing black socks with sandals.
I had a client once whom many would think of as successful. He was wealthy, wore shirts custom made by a tailor in London, took care of his skin and was the client—not the vendor, like us. He was also the biggest tool in the massive asshat Craftsman of the universe. He belittled the camera crew assembled to shoot his commercial. He ridiculed people who had never eaten caviar. He let it be known in no uncertain terms that he was successful, which we, in our “work togs,” would never be. (He called clothing togs. ‘nuff said, right?)
Although we wanted to kill him, it was forbidden, so we put up with his shenanigans, telling ourselves it was just a job and some day it would be over and we could go home and built voodoo dolls wearing striped button down shirts with monogrammed cuffs and goofy Italian loafers.
The kid who drove the 15 passenger van that ferried us around Washington D.C. where we were shooting was so rattled by this idiot that he quit. One morning we gathered at the van in the hotel parking lot and there was no driver. Just a note taped to the windshield that said, “I am in therapy. Good luck.”
We liked that kid, dammit. We were steamed. One of the lighting guys volunteered to drive. “Odd,” I thought. They’re not usually big multi-taskers, but hey. Any port in a shitstorm, right?
As was the way, we’d be assembled like good little sheep at the proscribed call time, and we’d be kept waiting half an hour while the client tooted the last lines of the morning and then bought himself a 64oz. Diet Coke. No one spoke as the client climbed into the van, nor did anyone say a word as he stepped over a camera case on his way to his seat. The lighting guy, who later feigned ignorance as to the “pick up and acceleration” of a 15 passenger van, stomped the gas and the client went ass over tea kettle, literally bathing in 64 ounces of fizzy cola goodness.
Not being the definition of success in our eyes, he went berserk, calling us every vile, evil and hilarious name in his teeny hysterical shrill playbook. No one said a word. No one cracked a smile. Inside—we had achieved success.
Just recently I learned this horrible man had gone broke—pennilessly, wifelessly, mercilessly broke.
7. Truly successful people know the universe will eventually level the playing field.
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The other day, within a span of five minutes, I witnessed two complete strangers act in a manner that suggested they were very angry. I was in the passenger seat of my dad’s car when he nosed out onto a rural highway in order to make a left turn. It was a tricky turn because of a forest obstructing the view of traffic on the little highway, so “nosing out” is really your only option. Trouble is, by the time your nose is out, you are committed. A car was approaching at a safe distance, and pops made the turn. The other driver, upon seeing the “nose out,” sped up rather than slow down, blasting his horn as he swerved around us.
My cousin Brad was following us to our next destination. We passed through a green light at an intersection. Brad drove through the yellow light behind us. A man waiting at the red light shot Brad the bird. The guy was just sitting there. He had zero skin in the game. No animals were injured in the making of. We stopped for gas and Brad asked, “Why are people so angry?”
Why are people so angry?
There are lots of studies and theories floating around as to the reasons people have lost their damn minds:
-Courtesy of reality TV, the haves flaunt their private islands, gold toilet seats and private jets in the living rooms of the have-nots.
-Thanks to mobile devices and Wi-Fi we have instant access to every catastrophe on the globe in real time.
-Stupid people get ahead.
-Nice people get cancer.
-The Green Bay Packers do not win every Super Bowl.
-Politicians.
-Text neck.
Some people believe we’re out of control because our water is fluoridated, our food is poisoned and we listen to hip-hop. Others say it’s because we’re godless or religious, pre-menstrual or post-menopausal, low T or over-caffeinated. You know what I think? It’s not in our water, ears, body chemistry or floating in the sky. It’s linguistic.
I’d like to find the person who decided we must be passionate about everything and punch him in the snout. You can’t write a resume, business letter, commencement speech or recipe without telling the world you’re passionate about whatever it is you’re writing, selling, preaching and eating at any given moment.
Passionate, adjective. Showing or caused by strong feelings or a strong belief. Synonyms: intense, vehement, heated, emotional, heartfelt, excited, adrenalized, fervid, frenzied, fiery, consuming, violent.
Believe it or not there is such a thing as a “passionate chef,” a cook who is adrenalized by mollusks, while others get emotional over kale. I saw a listing for a house in Wauwatosa the other day, a “passionate ranch.” I typed “passionate about” into the Google search bar and the first things that cropped up were passionate about work, life, baking and learning. In that order.
Forget for a moment that the most searched “passionate about” term on Google is “passionate about work.” Work! No wonder we’re grumpy. Next up, passionate about life. What does that even mean–you really really want to live? Most people do, which is why they flounder and thrash when they fall into a lake and can’t swim. I could even buy that a person lives life passionately—implying to me, at least, that they regularly touch other humans, their eyes flash when they’re angry v. those of a mannequin and they can dance the tango.
What word did we use to describe our enthusiasm before we all got so damned passionate? I’d say “love,” but you didn’t hear a lot of people saying they loved math, the study of gum disease or animal husbandry, and yet today people are passionate about all three.
Being a writer has always been my goal. I studied writing in school. I work hard at my craft. When I was in college, I didn’t go around telling people I was passionate about journalism. I also didn’t say I loved poetry, because some of it is disturbing, incredibly morbid and painful. You don’t love a kidney transplant, yet the American Kidney Fund has “over 5,100 passionate patients, friends, loved ones and kidney care professionals” in its network. I envision them all sweaty, rolling around on the floor of the clinic, kidneys in a cooler by the door waiting for the passion to subside.
A couple of months ago I very much wanted a gig writing a screenplay adaptation of a memoir. I busted my butt writing the pitch, which enthusiastically put forth my ideas and vision for the project. The rejection email said they were going in another direction, but they thanked me for my passion. I felt like writing back, “What have you heard?” I hardly writhe or perspire at all when I’m writing.
Symphony conductors may be passionate—waving their arms and leaping about. Painters and rockstars, too. “Passionate about art” seems reasonable to me while “passionate about tax returns” just seems wrong, and yet Brett Sellers has a YouTube video about his passion for accounting.
Dr. Lawrence Hurd is passionate about insects. Speaking of toenail fungus, there’s a Dr. Hecker who’s passionate about treating it non-surgically.
This morning I saw a blog about 5 Things You Should be Passionate About Now, none of which had anything to do with sex, love or people. It was about money management, cleaning your closets, drinking more water, how to ask for a raise and flossing.
If you’re a politician and you don’t follow the words, “I am passionate about” with one of the following: America, freedom, children, the flag, veterans or guns, the others will drink your milkshake.
I think all this passion has made people angry. You can’t go around all hopped up about kale and dental floss and not expect to freak out when someone tries to merge onto the freeway. When a person is passionate about shut-eye (there are blogs, supplements and discussion groups dedicated to passionate sleep), then she is bound to go postal when NBC cancels Best Time Ever With Neil Patrick Harris.
People are angry on Facebook, in the grocery store, all over the news and even in churches, temples, banks, bars and other places of worship. Maybe if we really liked a nicely crafted Manhattan as opposed to being passionate about the cocktail (Passionate Bartender Wanted, Craigslist), we wouldn’t give so many fucks when people with whom we do not agree politically speak loudly about their beliefs in a locker room while we are naked and can neither run away nor asphyxiate them with a gym towel.
If we would reserve our passion for things that call for passion, such as sex, rock n’ roll and anything Italian, perhaps we’d be a less angry bunch, and when my pops tries to make a left turn onto Calhoun Road it won’t piss off a passionate buttwipe driving a maroon F-150 with Wisconsin plates and a “Keep honking I’m reloading” bumper sticker.
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When I was six years old I was crazy about the Beatles. So much so, that my grandpa gave me a diamond ring and told me it was from Paul McCartney. I’m sure the ring came from Murphy’s Five and Dime (or a Cracker Jack box), but with all my little six-year-old heart, I believed that diamond was real and I would marry the cute Beatle as soon as I was allowed to leave the backyard without my mom.
That was probably the last time I believed in “diamonds,” both literal and figurative, and I am so grateful to my grandpa for that gift. I remember the instant I put the ring on my finger–the butterflies, giddiness and the feeling that I could just about fly. Grandpa didn’t tell me I was the prettiest or the sweetest. He told me Paul loved me because I was smart, I had a smile that lit up the room, and my heart was as big as the world. He said I was a princess.
To this day, when I think of princesses I think of charities, defusing landmines, feeding the hungry and giving solace and comfort to the sick. For a very long time the ring “from Paul McCartney” reminded me to do good, so on the occasion of my niece Cielo’s sixth birthday, I hope to bestow upon her the same kind of lasting gift as Grandpa gave to me only instead of a diamond ring, because frankly, you don’t need a mate to be a princess, I am giving Cielo a tiara to remind her that the job of a real princess is to be smart, generous, gracious, kind and loving. I so hope she believes the tiara is real, because in many regards, it is.
Feel free to borrow the following letter to create some magic for the little princess in your life.
Dear Cielo,
We do not speak of it in public, but you are now old enough to know the truth about who you really are. Many, many years ago when dragons roamed the earth, your ancestors were queens and kings, princesses and princes.
They were beautiful people inside and out. They were kind to animals, they made sure everyone had plenty of food to eat, and they were the first ones to help whenever anyone needed helping.
Today, the princesses are very strong. When a big person falls down, the princess can help him up with even her tiny hand, because the love in her heart does the lifting. When you see someone helping an old person across the street, tenderly petting a dog, giving food to someone who is hungry, or sharing what she has with people who have less, you are probably looking at a princess.
Three hundred years ago your people chose to live in ordinary houses instead of castles. They decided not to wear long gowns, heavy jewels and crowns. Instead they look like everyone else so that they don’t stand out. They don’t brag or look down at anyone. They are kind.
The princesses are very smart. They work hard at school so that they can write their own happy ending—however they dream it should be. They read lots of books, make plenty drawings and paintings, some play music, others dance ballet, but they all have one thing in common—and it’s the biggest secret of the true princesses. Her smile is magical.
There is no light bulb or candle that can light up a room like a princess smile. It doesn’t come from a silly joke or a birthday present. Her smile comes from the brightest, lightest most radiant place in the universe—her heart.
Your heart is where your true royalty lies—where the castles and dragons still live, and where you can fly, sing and dance in the clouds, but you must lock it in your heart. Being a real princess might make other people feel less special, and one of your royal powers is making everyone feel good about themselves.
It is important to the family that you behave like a princess at all times. If an older person needs help, you will not hesitate to help her. If someone is very hungry and you have a sandwich, you will share. You will only treat animals with kindness, for the dragons that your ancestors grew up with treated the people with kindness (when they could as easily have eaten them all up). You will study hard. You will be good. And most of all, when you just can’t keep it a secret one more second, you will smile—and without a single word everyone will know that you are a real princess.
Happy birthday, Princess Cielo!
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Lacking instrumentation other than a cell phone and a flashlight, and having nearly crashed into a lake, our aerial cinematography helicopter had landed in a farmer’s field at the end of last week’s blog. Farmer Fritz got the volunteer fire department to guide us to the airport, where we parked the chopper for the night, got into a rusty old Suburban, which I insisted upon driving, and headed to our motel where we’d catch a few hours sleep before a 4AM call time. The plan was to get up, mount the camera to the nose of the helicopter and be over the Apostle Islands in time to get sunrise footage.
En route to the motel, our pilot informed the cinematographer and myself that he was rather peckish, and might we consider stopping somewhere for food. I offered him the pie on a paper plate that Mrs. Farmer Fritz had sent us off with, but he required something more substantial, or as “luck” would have it, liquid.
We pulled up to a sleepy little tavern at 1AM—the only place left open in the town of Bayfield, Wisconsin. While they had stopped serving food, they were still serving alcohol, and that was apparently all the sustenance Captain Arg-More-Rum-For-Me-Mates required.
I went out to the truck and brought in the pie, which the cinematographer and I devoured with our bare hands while Jack Sparrow ordered six shots of tequila. As there were three of us, I assumed he meant for everyone to have two shots before closing time, and while I was just about to decline as I needed to be up in less than three hours, Captain Rumbottom slammed all six so fast his hands were a blur.
“What kind of pilot are you?” was all I could eke out, and he then proceeded to tell us exactly the type of pilot he was.
Of the many combat missions he had allegedly flown in ‘Nam, none were as dangerous, or “rewarding” as the many times he had flown around the tri-State area of Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana. Nearly every single time, some sort of equipment malfunction caused the helicopter he was piloting (I am guessing it was the same one we were getting back into in a couple of hours) to fail, and Yablonski was forced to auto-rotate (a method of reversing the rotation of the chopper blades in order to reduce the speed with which the aircraft smashes into the ground).
I’m sure there was apple pie on my chin and falling out of my mouth—my jaw was, after all, resting on a sticky Formica table top as Yablonski went on to say that in each case paramedics were summoned, as it was thought the pilot must surely be mortally injured.
The really remarkable thing was that each time he crashed the helicopter, instances numbering in the dozen range, the first responders were buxom women wearing tight jumpsuits unzipped to there, who, in order to save his life, administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to an area well south of the standard mouth region, where such medical assistance is usually rendered. Oh lord.
It was at that time my spirit left my body and I hovered over the scene, noticing for the first time that our fellated flyboy was wearing a toupee. It was perfect. I paid the check and the cinematographer and I helped Leonard to the truck, as he was so drunk he could not walk. We had to be in the air in three hours.
At promptly 4AM I met the cameraman at the truck. At 4:10 I went to Yablonski’s room and knocked at his door, but there was no answer. I rapped louder, until finally kicking it as hard as I could.
“What?” came the grouchy reply.
“Uh, up and at ‘em, slugger.” Corny now, but at the time it was all I could come up with other than ‘get your f-ing ass out of bed you drunken sot or I will come in there and kill you and there won’t be any CPR in your future unless we can count beating you senseless with a tire iron as cardio pulmonary resuscitation.’
“Let’s just do this tomorrow,” he replied, and I swear I heard him pull a pillow over his head.
There was ground crew waiting for us later in the day, and a full on marching band all set for a parade scene that afternoon. There was no “tomorrow” on this job. I marched my ass to the office, which at 4:15AM was naturally empty. I rang a little silver bell on the counter to no avail. I went behind the counter, found a key to which the word “Master Key” was taped, and I stomped back to Yablonski’s room and let myself in. I glanced around for something with which to poke him, fearing should I get too close he’d mistake me for a paramedic and think I was there to…it doesn’t matter.
I ripped the pillow off his head, yanked the blankets away and screamed, “GET UP!”
Ten minutes later we were in the Suburban on our way to the airport. The cinematographer had the camera mounted to the nose of the aircraft in nothing flat. We fueled up the chopper and made it over the Apostles just in time to miss a spectacular sunrise.
Next stop on the Wisconsin Death Tour was to be Prairie du Chien, a gorgeous area of cliffs and valleys along the Mississippi River. En route we passed over a gentle hillside of honey blonde wheat, being traversed by a harras of stunning Andalusians, their white white mane flashing in the sun.
“Bank to the right!” I shouted into my headset. Yablonski promptly banked hard, and to the left. “Your other right,” I snarled, and he banked so hard to the right that my arm flew off its spot holding the towel under the motor, and oil splattered my face. By the time I wiped my eyes and could see again, the horses were about 5 miles behind us and had taken cover under a copse of oaks. “Go back!!!” I bellowed, and I swear we did a barrel roll in the Bell Jet Ranger. I grabbed the airsick bag and hurled.
The airsick bag was full, the bath towel was saturated, signaling we needed to add oil, and the horses were nowhere to be found. I vomited again once we were on the ground. Kneeling in the tall grass I looked up to see the Andalusians gallop past. They appeared to be laughing.
“You’ll want to empty that,” Yablonski said, motioning to the airsick bag clutched in my hand. “It’s the only one.”
I know we got some cool shots of the cliffs, hang-gliders, the river and other natural wonders because I have seen the footage, but I do not remember any of that. What I do remember is getting sick over and over because of the smell of the used airsick bag. And I vividly recall the thick fog we got lost in somewhere in the vicinity of the Prairie du Chien Municipal Airport. We literally could see nothing above or below us, and without a radio or functioning instruments we had no way to know our exact position relative to the airport, or the ground.
“We’ve got plenty fuel,” Yablonski informed us. “We’ll just hover here until the fog breaks. I think we’re practically on top of the airport.”
“They land private jets here,” I said, having done my research ahead of time. “Won’t we get crashed into?”
Yablonski’s shoulders went up and down as though he were laughing. “Sweetheart,” he condescended into his headset. “Jets fly at 30,000 feet. We’re hovering at about 1,500. Do the math.”
I did the math. “When they take off and land they must pass through every measurement between 30,000 and zero. We are in that zone!”
“You worry too much” were his last words before he decided he had had enough of being second-guessed and we were informed it was time to “punch through” and see what was below us. Before anyone could ask what “punch through” meant, we began a rapid descent that almost immediately resulted in the chopper jerking to stop, then bouncing up a few feet.
Until now the cinematographer had remained relatively stoic, which I later learned was simply him praying silently. “What the fuck?!” he yelled.
Down near about 40ft, where we were, the fog had thinned considerably, and I was able to see the power lines we had just bounced off of. I mouthed, “Power lines,” unable to make the sound come out, like in a very bad dream. The cameraman had no such trouble.
“Fucking power lines!!!!” he shouted, reaching over and hitting Yablonski in the face, at which time Yablonski yanked the cyclic stick and up we went, only to jolt to a stop. Yablonski fought with the cyclic to no avail. I looked out and saw one of our skids was hooked under a power line. I found my words.
“WE’RE HOOKED!!!!!!”
After some maneuvering, Yablonski unhooked us and managed to put the helicopter on the ground at an abandoned gas station in the middle of nowhere. The cinematographer got on his cell and called a cab, telling them he didn’t care how much it cost, he needed a ride to Milwaukee—181 miles away.
“But we still have stuff to shoot,” I said weakly.
“Have a nice time,” he told me.
Yablonski stuck a forefinger into his mouth, and then held it in the air. “Fog’ll be lifting any minute,” he reported, based on this action. Like a zombie I climbed into the front of the aircraft where the cinematographer had been sitting, I put my headset on, and tried to figure out how the nose-mounted camera worked. By the time the fog lifted I felt relatively confident I could shoot the remaining footage, and we left the cameraman at the abandoned gas station, waiting for a cab. We fueled up at Prairie du Chien, and then headed to Milwaukee.
For all his faults, the one good thing about Leonard Yablonski was his absolute willingness to break the law in order to get me the coolest damn footage ever of downtown Milwaukee, including swooping between buildings only feet above the cars, buzzing boats in the Milwaukee River, and hovering right outside my friend Deb’s high-rise apartment on Prospect Avenue, over-looking Lake Michigan. Len got me so close I could tell Deb hadn’t flossed her teeth.
Len even delivered me to our wrap party. On Milwaukee’s Southside, where the best Mexican restaurants are, he put down in an empty lot across the street from Pepe’s taqueria, like I was a rockstar. I drank ten margaritas in a row and don’t remember anything until the next day when I called Yablonski to tell him I didn’t think we should have to pay the full amount since we missed sunrise over the Apostle Islands and lost our cinematographer half way into the shoot thanks to pilot error.
“Okay,” he said. “Whatever you think is fair.” I sent him a check for half, and then tried to put the whole thing behind me. The cinematographer reported Yablonski to the FAA, but saw him at a trade show a few years later, working his “aerial photo pilot” booth under a different name.
“You’re Leonard Yablonski!” the cinematographer hissed. “Nope. I am not,” Yablonski replied. “I am Sven Yablon.”
The moral of the story is best conveyed by a slogan rejected by the Wisconsin Tourism Association, “Wisconsin. Come here once.” Oh, I almost forgot. You get what you pay for.
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Seconds in lore are splendid. We’ve heard that love is better the second time around, factory seconds are almost as good as factory firsts and everyone deserves a second chance, but a lot of heartache, anxiety and brushes with death have been the result of giving people a second thwack at the piñata.
Many years ago I shot TV commercials for the Wisconsin Tourism Association. In spite of the fact there was a tiny budget, the art director from the ad agency insisted we get aerial footage. We couldn’t afford a “real” pilot and photo plane, so I found a fellow in Chicago who claimed to have flown numerous combat missions in ‘Nam,’ who owned a small helicopter, and was willing to work for about a tenth of what the other guys charged. What could go wrong?
After a day of shooting on the ground, I went to an airstrip in Bariboo, Wisconsin to meet Captain Yablonski, who was wearing what appeared to be a pilot’s Halloween costume, complete with little plastic wings like they give children on airplanes when they meet a real pilot. Captain’s hat tipped rakishly over the requisite “aviator” shades, a lit cigarette dangled from his lips as he filled the 1967 Bell Jet Ranger with jet fuel. Standing in front of a brightly painted sign that said NO SMOKING FLAMMABLE, Cap’n Yablonski assured me jet fuel was not, in fact, flammable. He didn’t look like a reliable authority, but I’m from Wisconsin where we are taught not to judge a book by its’ cover.
I would have been wise to run away at that point. Instead I was handed a filthy bath towel and told I must hold it under the motor while we were in the air, and alert the captain when it became so saturated that oil ran down my arm. (The motor is on the roof of the aircraft, which is not really what that flimsy piece of shit plexi bubble held together with baling wire and duct tape ought to have been called.) Oil dripping off my elbow was a sign it was time to “put down” and add oil. And still I climbed into the contraption, where I discovered more than a dozen filthy bath towels stacked neatly on the floor, with one airsick bag on top. (In fairness to me, I wasn’t the only imbecile flying way up high in the sky with a pilot whose wings read, “Future pilot of America.” The cinematographer got into the aircraft as well, although he was unaware of the severity of the oil leak as indicated by the tall stack of filthy towels.)
The art director who very much had wanted to ride in the helicopter with the cool kids suddenly decided he had work at the office, and ran away screaming, “I have children!” As for Yablonski, it is likely that if he had had offspring, they were killed in a helicopter or toaster accident. He was not qualified to operate either piece of equipment.
There was no radio onboard. “What for?” Yablonski said when I inquired about the standard communication device on a machine that flies from place to place in midair. “I have a cell phone,” he assured us. “Just as good.”
I’m no aviation expert. “Ok,” I said as the cameraman interrupted. “Is there a chute onboard?” he asked. I laughed nervously, now that we had all the bad stuff out of the way.
The plan was to fly about 385 miles north, grabbing some pretty late afternoon shots over the Wisconsin Dells en route to the Apostle Islands where we ‘d pick up stunning sunrise footage over Lake Superior. With its deep, cold waters and isles of dense Blue Spruce, it promised to be a visual symphony in glorious technicolor.
“How long will it take us to get to Hayward (where we planned to put down for the night)?” I asked.
“Damned if I know,” the captain said, lighting a cigarette and flying the helicopter with one hand and a knee.
“Pardon, “ I squawked into my headset. “Didn’t you file a flight plan?”
“What for? We pretty much follow the highway north to Duluth then go right.”
“And you don’t know how long it will take?”
“I’m banking on about two and a half hours,” he replied, half-certainly.
Mental calculations told me we’d have to whiz through the atmosphere at over 150 miles per hour to make it before dark, which was the only plan Yabolonski had, and which I later learned was likely the result of the aircraft’s inadequate lighting and instrumentation. 150mph seemed kind of fast, but again, I’m not an aviator. Sadly, neither was Leonard Yablonski.
The top speed of a Bell Jet Ranger that’s new and not held together with chewing gum is 138 mph. I’d ridden a bicycle downhill faster than our Bell Ranger flew. It grew dark, and I couldn’t help but notice there were no lights on the aircraft but for one on the nose, which pointed straight ahead—like a headlight, which seemed odd. It felt like more lights might be useful. Other than a tiny red light on our tail, we chugged through the night like a very loud invisible sewing machine.
After a few hours, I realized we were flying in circles, and I inquired about this alarming new phenomenon.
“Can’t find the airport,” El Capitan informed us. “We’re gonna have to put down in a field and make some calls. We are running on fumes.” And with that we began a rather rapid descent. It was black as the ace of spades below us, with no actual lights on the aircraft, and all. “Farmer’s field,” Yablonski reported as if reading my mind. “Relax.”
We’d already been through two bath towels, so I wasn’t in the mood to relax. I glanced out the window and bit the tip of my tongue off. “Waaaaaaa!” I screamed. I saw the reflection of the chopper beneath us, getting bigger by the second. “WAWA! WAWA!!!!!”
“Shit,” said Yablonski. Vooomp vooomp vooomp vooomp vooomp went the blades overhead as we rapidly ascended. “There’s a lot of lakes down there.”
Twenty minutes later, in a cornfield where the cinematographer threatened to beat Yablonski to death with a tripod, a pick-up hurtled at us, barely coming to stop before a shotgun-wielding farmer jumped out, most probably expecting aliens. We explained the situation. He told us the guy who works at the airport turns out the lights and goes home at eleven, and would we like to come up to the house for some pie while we figured out what to do next.
Farmer’s wife wore a pink housecoat, pink slippers and had spongy pink rollers in her hair. She thought filming TV commercials was about the most glamorous thing imaginable even after I asked for some paper towels and lye with which to clean the motor oil off my arms. The volunteer fire department was called, and a convoy of fire trucks showed up about half an hour later. The plan was to fly over them as they guided us to the airstrip, which had indeed been shut down for the night. We really only needed one fire truck, but no one in those parts had seen a helicopter land in Fritz Kirschbaum’s field in the middle of the night before, and as comedy goes this was a downright rib-tickler. Mrs. Kirschbaum sent us off with some pie on a paper plate, covered over with foil, and all the way across the field, through the rows of corn, we could hear the volunteer firemen laughing at us.
A pilot friend of mine kept an old Suburban at the airstrip that we could use to get to the motel and back again in the morning. I snatched the keys from the ashtray and insisted on driving. Little did I know that at 12:45AM, our night was just beginning.
Stay tuned for Part II next week. If you enjoy the blog, tell your friends to subscribe. They’ll love you for it 😉
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As our gardens come into bloom and butterflies beat colorful wings against turquoise skies, I am strangely obsessed with an acquaintance who claims to be “in transformation.” I doubt he will ever become a lizard, say. Or a tree. So what does he mean?
Transformation, n. change in form, appearance, nature or character.
We transform ourselves when we lose or gain weight, change our hair, pluck, tweeze, make-up, shave, wear glasses and squeeze into Spanx, but is there such a thing as shapewear for our basic nature?
We all know people who are “working on becoming a better person,” but I’ve yet to meet one who’s said, “I worked really hard to become a better person, and now I am one. Don’t you just love me?” People tell you they’re in the process of losing weight and then one day, they’re svelte. Wouldn’t it then stand to reason that someone would come forth who’d put in the time and effort and actually transformed himself into betterness? I’d settle for a degree of self-improvement. “Oh, this is nothing. I used to be a much bigger asshole.” You never hear that, either.
You also don’t see formerly decent humans who’ve morphed into reprobates. “Remember how nice Mary used to be? Today she told me I looked fat in these jeans then she knocked me down and stole my purse.”
Abraham Maslow, a leading figure in humanistic psychology, developed a theory of self-actualization, which is to maximize your potential and do the best that you are capable of doing, examples of which, according to Maslow, are Abraham Lincoln and Albert Einstein. It’s not so much about transforming into a better person as becoming a happier one, because Maslow knew a leopard doesn’t change its spots.
Maslow’s theory is complex and detailed, so I’m going to focus on 7 traits of self-actualized people from Maslow’s book Motivation and Personality.
1. They accept themselves, together with all their flaws.
I think it’s important to point out that Maslow married his first cousin Bertha while she was still in high school, so this particular tenet may be a skosh self-serving. It also means that the hot guy who hypnotized you into bed while telling you “I’m a bad boy” in a low sexy growl, then never called you again, is just a self-actualized human; accepting, embracing and telegraphing his flaws. (PS If a person goes out of their way to tell you he or she is a bad person and you “shouldn’t get involved,” say ‘thank you’ then run fast as you can in the opposite direction. This is the one time that person is being completely truthful, and you ought to take advantage of it.)
I’m all for loving ourselves—warts, cellulite, PMS and all, but I think Maslow was referring to character flaws, and I’m not so sure that’s such a great thing to embrace in ourselves and accept in others. And no, you do not get to count “overly nice,” “overly generous” or “too good-looking and rich” as flaws. That would just make you sound like a dick, which is a flaw.
2. They enjoy the journey, not just the destination.
My decision to move back to Wisconsin after 20 years in Los Angeles was bittersweet. My friends, work…my life was in LA. It was time to return to my midwestern family, and I was ok with that, but my heart was breaking for all I was leaving behind. My friend Sheryl agreed to keep me company on the drive cross-country, and I am guessing, to delay our goodbyes.
The destination was going to be my home again, and I was looking forward to showing Sheryl where my weird sense of humor was born, my odd turns of phrase (hand me a piece of gum once) and my desire to marry cheese, but it was the road trip itself that was unforgettable. I have never laughed so hard, cried so much or been so grateful for a friend like Sheryl in all my life. The drive to Wisconsin was not really the journey at all. The journey is the friendship. The destination remains locked safely in our hearts.
3. While they are inherently unconventional, the self-actualized do not seek to shock or disturb.
This describes the giant Venezuelan Poodle Moth as much as a self-actualized person, but I get what Maslow’s driving at. Madonna, not so much. Gandhi, absolutely. Now apply to self.
4. They are motivated by growth, not by the satisfaction of needs.
This is evident when you think of Lincoln, Einstein and Gandhi—people who moved the needle on human advancement without sucking the oxygen out of the room. Imagine giving so much to the human race, and living simply? It’s hard to fathom, down in the muck with Kardashians, Trumps and Waltons.
How do we administer this in our own lives? Do good, and shut up about it. You’ll sleep like a baby. Do absolutely no good whatsoever, but satisfy your every pathetic need—please, remain just where you are. When the revolution comes you’ll be easy to find.
5. They are not troubled by the small things.
I think the difficulty here is our inability to recognize small things as small things. We all have triggers. Mine, apparently, are painted on my forehead like targets, in vivid neon paint for all trolls to see. I try not to obsess about the odd insult or sketchy text, but I often fall on my face and forget my mantra, “don’t sweat the small stuff.” The thing that gets me back on track is called perspective.
Spend five minutes on Facebook with people asking for prayers because their children have cancer, parents are dying, dogs have gone missing and kids are going off to war. That’ll self-actualize your ass in a hurry.
6. Self-actualized people are grateful.
This may be the one area where I have achieved a small degree of self-actualization. I’m grateful for sweet Wisconsin summers, friends who lift me up when I’m down, the theory of relativity, acts of nonviolent civil disobedience, honesty, cheese, Spanx and everything in between, even trolls.
7. Despite all this, self-actualized people are not perfect.
“Have no fear of perfection. You’ll never reach it.” ~ Salvador Dali.
Amen.
Happy birthday, Sheryl! You’ve made the journey so much sweeter. XO
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I get that if you haven’t been alive very long you may not yet possess the necessary business acumen to dominate in the business world. Trouble is, I meet a lot of people, young and those who should know better, who confuse bluster, bravado and bullshit with business acumen. Darlings, it is not the same.
While nothing compensates for hard work, there are a few things in addition to breaking a sweat that will ensure your success.
1. Be nice to the client.
Client, n. a customer.
If you perform a task for which someone pays you, even though in every other conceivable way you imagine yourself to be an equal, in this particular case, where she is the one who pays and you are the one who does the work, you are not equals. She is the customer, the boss, the big cheese—the most holy one, never to be insulted, disregarded, talked down to, irritated, made to wait, or god forbid, told she is wrong, even, and especially if, she is wrong.
There are hieroglyphics in a cave in what was once Mesopotamia that archeologists tell us depict the words “the customer is always right” through imaginative rendering of stick people with wheat bundles on their heads and a fat Babylonian in a suit, smoking a cigar.
2. Be nice to the client even if he is an asshat.
“When do I get to tell a client he’s an asshat?” you whine. Well, when you’re at the very top of the food chain and there is no one above you who can do you harm, for example…
I’m thinking…
I got nothing. Even Bill Gates has to answer to consumers and shareholders, and the Pope has someone lording over him (see what I did there?).
No. Wait! Bob Dylan. If you are Bob Dylan you may call out an asshat any time you want, anywhere you like.
3. Make the client happy.
So you’ve got a client. Lucky you! You’ve been nice to him, now what? You must keep the client, and making him happy does this. I see you ramping up to a good pouty pout, but I am here to tell you that clients are not a dime a dozen (unless you are the inventor of the Chia pet, a physician or a coroner, in which case the clients are pretty easy going).
How do you make the client happy, aside from being nice to her? Be courteous, punctual, do good work and employ high standards of hygiene. Nothing gets in the way of customer satisfaction like stink mouth or the smell of onions and meat emanating from the region of your armpits or feet.
4. Listen to what the client tells you.
When a customer tells you she does not want the cheese in the Loaded Veggie Omelet, please do not stare open mawed like she is metamorphosing into a lizardperson right before your very eyes, and squawk, “For reeeeeeeal? No cheeeeeeeze?” Assured the desire not to have cheese is in fact, for real, do not then bring a Loaded Veggie Omelet Hold the Cheese to said client, absolutely oozing with Swiss cheese, then hiss like an ostrich when she sends the fucking omelet back.
We all get distracted, but nothing says, “I don’t give a crap about you, you asshat client” like hissing, rolling of the eyes, various statements of disgruntlement, such as “whatever,” “ugh” and “I shoulda spit in your food,” said under the breath, yet loudly enough for the customer to hear, and then expect the customer to leave a tip. Like, for real, beeeeeeeeeeeach?
The Listen Rule applies to businesses across the board. No one wants a lap band when they asked for a lap dance, and vice verse.
5. Please for the love of all that is good in the world do not be a know-it-all.
Operate on the slim chance that the person who is the client/customer/payer of the bills, just might possibly know something that you, the person whom the client is paying, does not.
When you take the bullet train to Smartypantsville, all high and mighty and sure of yourself, you’ve invited the powers of the universe to focus the laser beam of humility on your head, and there is a very good chance you will become Asshat of the Century. It will be another 84 years before you can pass that baton, so you might think about it before going Kanye-on-Ellen in an attempt to school a client.
6. Respect the client.
When you get old, like, over 30, you might find yourself with a client who is younger than you. Resist the urge to treat him like a subordinate, or worse yet, a buddy, a pal, bro, bae or boo, and especially not “sonny,” “lil shaver,” “Shirley Temple,” or “Dutch.” You don’t have to call him sir, or her Ms., but they have elected to spend their money with you when they could have spent it elsewhere, and that deserves some manners, brahski.
Other ways to respect a client include but are not limited to hitting spellcheck before hitting send, keeping your phone pantsed during meetings, taking the gum out of your mouth, keeping your feet off the furniture and not commenting on the hotness of a client’s son or daughter should you glimpse extreme hotness in a nice silver frame on the client’s desk. It is equally bad form respect-wise to ask whether the client’s assistant is single, and might consider Netflix and chill Tuesday night.
If you find these tips helpful, let me know. I’ve got lots more to share!
Check out David Clark’s fascinating interview with Pam Ferderbar on the Different Strokes for Different Folks show.
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I’ve been doing a lot of interviews lately and a theme has emerged—how I deal with disappointment. (I’d like to thank everyone who helped make me an expert on this topic.)
Yesterday Lana Reid of the Don’t Box Me In radio show asked, “How do you handle so much disappointment?” I thought to myself, ‘what have you heard,’ then Ms. Reid added, “You know, when the whole film deal fell apart.” Ah, that.
Many years ago I sold the film rights to Feng Shui and Charlotte Nightingale to New Line Cinema for a record-breaking sum only to have all my executives fired when AOL and Time Warner merged and took over the studio. When the new people moved in, my project got shelved. How did I deal with the disappointment? I drank a box of wine and cried myself to sleep, that’s how.
Either I’m getting old or I’ve gone crazy (or a quaint hybrid of the two) because now when something happens that 15 years ago would have given me the runs and an epic hangover, I laugh. Literally.
Earlier this week I met a client for lunch and was expecting to collect the deposit for an executive photo shoot we had booked for the following week. We made small talk, which consisted mostly of me nodding gratuitously as he enumerated the reasons for which his ex-wife was a heartless battle-ax that deserved to be thrown into a pen of hungry swine.
I picked up the lunch check, left a generous tip, because it’s the right thing to do, and then sat dumbfounded as the man told me he didn’t see the value in spending money on a professional photographer when his five year old had taken a perfectly “rad” picture of him with a Firefly cellphone while they were at the park feeding the ducks.
My old self, which is ironically my young self, would have bit back the tears and invested in a nice square chardonnay. My emotionally evolved self instead burst out laughing. I banged my hand (and head, truth be told) on the table and bellowed HAR HAR HAR like a Yemeni with cat hair in his esophagus. The “client” pushed back from the table so abruptly that a glass of ice water spilled in his lap, and he ran off looking very much like he had wet himself. At that moment, my glass was half full.
Here are 5 tips for managing disappointment that I find work every time.
1. Laugh it off. (In other words, manage emotion.)
My non-client didn’t know whether I was counting on that job to pay my rent or whether it was mad money, earmarked to purchase extra ammo at the gun range. My cackling made him bolt like a startled greyhound, and that made me feel not so disappointed after all. I managed my emotion by making the other person scared—and it felt good.
2. Flip the script. (Or take a big picture perspective.)
I attended a screenwriting workshop where I learned that if I was ever stuck trying to come up with an original idea I should just take something that had already been done and flip the genre, i.e. 12 Years a Slave, the Musical, or Sophie’s Choice, the smiech-out-loud comedy of the entire shtetl.
Say you were counting on the big promotion only to see it go to your workplace archrival, Jane Wedgewoodworthshire. Reframe your desire to fit the big picture, i.e. the conniving pointy-headed British goddess will have so much extra work that she will no longer have three hours every night to work out, and the backs of her arms will get flabby. Even if your workplace archrival’s arm backs do not go jiggly as hoped, something’s gotta give, and that, my friends, is big picture clarity.
3. Suck it up. (Also known as not taking it personally.)
You worked super hard and super smart and still you didn’t get the promotion. Maybe a relative of Ms. Wedgewoodworthshire threw herself on an Argentinian chef during the Falklands War and saved the boss from eating bad goat. There’s no way to know.
If you did your best and the outcome was not what you had hoped, you must not take it personally, unless the boss says you didn’t get the promotion because you’re too tall or too pretty, which, let’s face it, happens to people like us every damn day. In all other cases, just accept that life will do what life will do and sometimes it just isn’t fair. Like professional wrestling and royalty.
4. Lower your expectations. (This appears on pretty much every list I make, it is that good.)
When you take a hard look at your expectations, you may find you set your sights a little too high. Let’s say you got your eyebrows waxed, watched all 109 Star Trek movies in one binge and you learned to chip, confident you would finally snag the attention of a certain mister. Along comes your dating life archrival Jessica Alba, with her scratch golf game and ability to hold her liquor, and you find it vexing that your dream man would rather play a round with her.
What did you expect? You hate Star Trek movies, can’t abide the sight of a man cleaning his balls, and the unibrow is just who you are, dammit. Perhaps hoping to hook up with Cash Warren was a bit of a reach.
That nice George Clooney wouldn’t ask so much of you, he’s bound to tire of the scrawny chicken he married, and his ass can be mine yours if you play your cards right. This is what I like to call lowering one’s expectations, done right.
5. Change direction.
We all know the definition of insanity; doing the same thing, over and over again, expecting just one time to win, but that’s crazy talk. You’ve got to rethink your goals, switch it up, change horses in the middle of the cry-me-a-river.
Disappointed that you haven’t mastered a light puffy soufflé? Feh. Pop open a Sara Lee pound cake, a nice a box of burgundy and you’re good as gold. Work your butt off, do everything right and still don’t get the promotion? Look for another job. Keep dating the same men—aimless drifters with no prospects or teeth? Kick Eustice Gump to the curb and focus on yourself, and all the reasons you deserve happiness.
Next thing you know, Geoge Clooney will be at the door with a dozen roses and a Trader Joe’s bag filled with Star Trek DVDs. Nobody’s perfect.
Listen to Lana Reid’s hilarious interview with Pam!
Invite your friends!
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After 20 years in Los Angeles this has taken some getting used to—the humility, the big toe in the dirt “aw shucks, who me-edness” of the Midwesterner’s response to a compliment. In L.A., for example, when someone says, “You look nice today,” the reply varies from “Juvederm” to “I just did a six-month kale/kefir cleanse. My knees look thin, right?”
In Wisconsin, when someone tells you, “You look good today,” the response is almost always, “Really? I had like three sixers, a dozen brats and an entire Racine almond Kringle last night. I don’t look a little bloated?”
The other day a friend thanked me for doing her a favor, and rather than simply saying, “You’re welcome. I’m glad I could help out,” I said, “It was nothing. No trouble at all. Hardly worth mentioning.” I had devoted six hours to helping her because she inadvertently mistook a powerful opioid pain killer for her daily multivitamin, which rendered her incapable of driving herself to the eye doctor (which clearly was an overdue necessity), which in turn, due to the dilating eye drops, rendered her legally blind in addition to being high as a kite.
After the eye doctor we went to the pharmacy and then grocery shopping for the weirdest combo of food items ever, highlighted by a conversation that was repeated several times; Me: “Get out of the cart.” She: “Weeeeeee! I’m a banana!”
Why do Midwesterners eschew praise like it’s fat free ice cream when in other parts of the country people just say a big hairy “thanks?” For one thing, we suffer from an affliction known as “the Midwest Humble.”
Some historians believe the Midwest Humble traces back to 19th century England, the writer Charles Dickens to be precise, and his obsequious, humility-dripping character, Uriah Heep, whose “umbleness” was a means to make other people feel important. Heep’s sycophancy was a way to gain people’s confidence, making him the original “yes man.” In David Copperfield he explains his smarminess thusly, ‘People like to be above you,’ says father, ‘keep yourself down.’
Wisconsinites know no one is ‘above us’ when it comes to football, cheese and liquor consumption, and yet we Uriah Heep ourselves into a sinkhole of “umbleness” every time someone says we have good teeth. Why can’t we just say, “you betcha” when a Coloradan accuses us of being cheeseheads? “Damn straight” when some dude from Oregon points out we have the highest cholesterol in the world? And “I’ve been thrown out of better places than this” as a Kewaskum bouncer forcibly removes our personage from a local watering hole?
Following are a few tips on how Midwesterners can graciously accept a compliment in an authentic and convincing way.
The thank you add-on.
Suppose someone says, “Yours is the best tater tot hot dish I’ve ever tasted.” The person eating Midwest Humble pie would pooh-pooh such high praise, electing instead to say, “Aw hell, everyone knows Junie Zimma is the queen of the casserole in these parts.” That would be so wrong. Instead try, “Thank you. I know fifty ways to kill a man with a Yukon gold.”
The “add-on” is disarming, charming and just a teensy bit off-putting—like calling a drinking fountain a bubbler, and over-the-shoe rain boots, “rubbers.”
Embrace flattery then walk away quickly.
Next time a friendly person stops to admire your Christmas sweater, resist the urge to declare, ”It was on clearance at Kohl’s, plus I had two dollars in instore credit, there was a coupon in the Sunday paper, and I found a quarter on the sidewalk. This thing cost ten cents.” Rather, try, “On anyone else it would look absurd, but I’ve got the temperament and the height to pull it off.” Then pull it off, toss it to the floor and sashay away. They will remember you. Not your clothes.
Show gratitude using non-verbal communication skills.
When your friend says you look good in a new pair of jeans, don’t point out how big your butt is, how you can’t eat while you’re wearing them, or that you paid, like, two bucks for them at Kohl’s. Instead, lunge forward, throw your arms around her in a suffocating full nelson, and say, “I lost four ounces this week!” Then kiss her husband on the mouth.
Compliment back.
I once attended a director friend’s movie premier where I was seated toward the front of the theater. The film was in the top two all time worst films ever made in the history of cinema. And it was long, too. A would-be thriller, this flick had fewer thrills than a four-part porridge documentary.
The director and his wife perched in the back row. There was no hope of escape without being seen. Every so often I glanced over my shoulder to see whether they had perhaps stepped out, but they stared straight ahead at the horror (unfortunately not the scary kind) on the screen. Once or twice, they looked like they were about to leave, and I tensed my thigh muscles in preparation for leaping up and dashing out. But they were just shifting their weight. The movie had put their butts to sleep.
When finally, mercifully, the thing ended and I raced for the exit, my director friend stepped in front of me, blocking my escape. “You are talented, smart, beautiful and kind,” he told me.
“Uh, thanks,” I said, trying my best to beat the Midwest Humble rap. Then he came in for the kill. “I want your opinion of my film.”
I had been all big girl pants, and said, “thank you,” and not a word more when he paid me a compliment. I was nearly home free, wearing self confidence and bravado like a twenty dollar sweater. Now I was faced with the most virulent Midwestern affliction of all; the absolute need to be truthful at all times. Sweet baby Jesus, when he said all the nice stuff, why hadn’t I muttered, “My ass is huge, I will never master Mailchimp and one time I did not stop to help a half-dead pigeon off the freeway during rush hour. I still feel that,” then run like a mofo for the exit? No, I stood there like someone from California and said, “Thank you.”
Now tf what? I thought about the 90 minutes I sat in that theater (three hours of my life that I will never get back), and how devoutly I prayed for an opportunity to present itself where someone would create a diversion during which I could zip out the door. And then it hit me. I am self confident, smart and kind.
“I was on the edge of my seat the entire time,” I told him.
“Thank you!” he shrieked. Being from L.A., he had no qualms about accepting a compliment.
Thank you for reading this. XO
Check out Pam’s entertaining interview with Douglas Coleman here.
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With my nephew Elliot and millions of other young people graduating university this weekend, my cousin Melanie asked me what advice I would give my younger self if I were graduating today. Looking back with 20/20 laser vision, here’s my advice:
#1 Run don’t walk.
If you are driving along a country road and see a big hill and think to yourself, ‘Gee, that would be really fun to run down,’ pull over, get out of the car and barrel down that hill. Unless you are en route to the emergency room there is very little that should stand in the way of a joyful moment. One afternoon you will be in your 50s and you will see a big hill and think to yourself ‘Gee, that would be really fun to run down, but if I fall I will break a hip,’ and you will continue on to your 4:30 dinner reservation without even slowing down.
#2 Choose your friends wisely.
Several years ago I realized that I was spending time with a few people who were petty, mean-spirited, selfish and small. They infused my life with drama, anxiety, self-doubt, ugliness and the intense desire to publish my own obituary and join a witness protection program in Antarctica.
Instead, I put on my big girl pants and let Judgmental Jurgen, Bitter Briana, Angry Arianna and Whiny Wyett know that they were bringing me down, when I needed to be up. Culling is difficult, painful, awkward and unsettling, and it can be avoided if you choose your friends wisely.
Here’s a handy list of qualities to look for in a friend: kindness, compassion, empathy, generosity, a sense of humor, ethics and honesty. You can forgive a lack of tact, but someone who cheats, is mean, or thinks they’re better than other people will never be a true friend.
#3 Floss.
I don’t completely understand why, but I know it’s excellent advice.
#4 Seriously, don’t take yourself too seriously.
When I was in my 20s, every misstep and blunder took on significance disproportionate to its actual importance. Of course, I also worried that my feet looked big and I wore shoes a size too small. By the time I hit 40 I realized my feet were proportionate to my height, and the mistakes I made in my 20s helped me develop into a confident, able and humble person.
Your 20s are the very best years for trial and error because your recovery time is short, your bones are still relatively soft, and you’ve got the energy to pick yourself up and keep going. You are genetically engineered for maximum bouncebackability. Don’t underestimate this super power.
#5 Be charitable.
If I have learned anything it is that I am not better than anyone, especially not the homeless woman, the battered woman, the addict or the mom who buys groceries with WIC vouchers. Many of the people we might be inclined to pity or pass judgment on have endured unimaginable suffering, abuse, deprivation and loss. Some are sick, others beaten down and too tired to get back up.
If you can spare a dollar or two, do it. The argument that the person might be scamming you is obscene. Begging is not easier than “working.” Standing on the street asking strangers for money does not bring a sense of worth, contentment, fulfillment or security. No one in his or her right mind would choose to be sneered at, disdained, reviled or pitied.
You do not have to give the less fortunate money. It costs nothing to treat people charitably.
#6 Pay attention.
When you were in the fifth grade it seemed like summer would last forever, right? All of a sudden you’re 35 and running down a big hill sounds like fun and chances are you could still do it without breaking anything, but who has the time, and the next thing you know you’re playing Yahtzee with Amy Fliegelman down at the senior center and you can’t remember your bra size.
Savor a kiss. Memorize the feeling of warm sand under your feet, the sensation of snowflakes landing on your nose, the way your grandma looks at you, and how it feels to hold her hand. Some day, I promise you, those will be the things you want to remember most of all.
#7 Put the phone down.
There are experiences and there are recordings of experiences. The latter, historically, have been used as a tool for people who were not able to enjoy the event first hand, such as a concert, where people play music on a stage, live and in front of you, and it goes straight into your eyes.
I went to tons of concerts back in the (prehistoric/pre cell) day. I’ve also been to a lot of shows with my cell phone. I think about the early times, and whether I would like to have had video and selfies from those events. While it would be cool to see what I was wearing and who I was with, the truth is that I was able to dance, clap, throw double horn hands and party without the anxiety of feeling like I had to cover it all for posterity. It is quite liberating to pocket the phone, and simply be in the moment. \,,/(*_*)\,,/
#8 Be on time.
I skated on a number of infractions because I showed up on time. Many older people, like, over the age of 30, regard it as a personal insult to be kept waiting. If you think about it, making someone wait for you is the equivalent of saying “my time is more valuable than your time.”
You may have overslept, forgot you needed to shower, or simply became distracted by your Yik Yak feed. Whatever the reason, you have been doing something during the period you were expected to be somewhere else. The person who is kept waiting is doing nothing but waiting. Even if you call to say you will be late, there isn’t ample time to schedule another meeting, take on a meaningful task or get a pedicure while they wait for you. There is ample time to fume, seethe and plot ways to disembowel you without getting blood all over the furniture. This is not the optimal outcome in most cases.
#9 Work hard.
I’m going to use my dad’s favorite, oft repeated personal anecdote. (There isn’t a busboy in southeastern Wisconsin who hasn’t heard this at least half a dozen times.) When my pops was in high school he got a job as a busboy at a fancy steak house in Milwaukee where he was paid a dollar an hour—$13.28 in today’s money, nearly double our minimum wage. While my dad busted his butt, the other busboys slacked off, went out the back door for a smoke, content to let the new kid do the heavy lifting.
At the end of the night the restaurant’s owner, Joe Deutsch, called my dad into his office.
“I saw how hard you worked tonight,” he told my pops. “And I saw the other guys goofing off. I’m going to give you a buck fifty an hour.” My dad, a hardworking young man, on his first night on the job, was given a 50% raise, which today would come to $19.93 an hour. Why? My pops learned the value of hard work from his father, and whether you get a raise on your first night on the job or not, people do recognize hard work, and it will take you a lot further than the alternative.
#10 Choose happiness.
You’re young. You have superpowers. The road ahead is a great adventure. It is true that we become set in our ways, so make sure your way is the path of happiness. When you see a really lovely elderly person you can rest assured he was a lovable young person. Similarly, the old cuss who yells at kids to stay off his lawn was once a 25-year-old tool who’d yell at an old lady for moving too slowly in the crosswalk.
We become more of whom we are the older we get, so give yourself a leg up. Be happy now, and the rest is gravy.
Congratulations on this milestone! May the road rise up to meet you.
Check out Pam’s entertaining interview with Douglas Coleman on 5/24/2016 at 3pm ET.
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