What with savory stage roles in The Ugly Man, The Kentucky Cycle, Golden Boy, The Questioning of Nick, and Ubu Raw, I had such a string of good fortune in 1996 that I felt like I might never top this banner year. This, combined with my film work, led me to consider a move to New York or LA for the first time. Coming into my late twenties also made me realize that I would eventually want to make a little more of a living wage than my Defiant salary ($0/year) was providing. New York had a lot to recommend it, but ultimately all signs were pointing west.
In my Chicago circle at that time, moving to LA was called “pulling the Schwimmer,” because David Schwimmer had left his great theater company (which is still one of the greatest—the Lookingglass from Northwestern). Shortly thereafter he won his life-changing role on Friends (this was completely unfair, of course, as David has always remained a loyal and valuable contributing member of Lookingglass, but you know how people are. Shitty).
So that was the flavor of the moment—that we thespians must disdain sitcoms. But I eventually came to realize that Chicago actors make a habit of bad-mouthing both New York and LA for many reasons, as a defensive mechanism to assuage their own fears about having to move to one of the coasts and give it a shot. One night at O’Rourke’s, when we were both two sheets to the wind, my old pal Pickering pinned me against the wall with his finger and derisively said, “Hey, Nicky, I hear you’re thinkin’ you’re gonna go pull the Schwimmer.”
If my mind hadn’t been made up by that point, that would have certainly done the trick. I owe Steve a debt of gratitude for spinning me a 238-pound cautionary tale, standing it unsteadily upon two feet, and poking its finger into my chest.
Carry a Handkerchief
My wife and paragon of comeliness, a lady of immense talent with pretty sublime taste who goes by the name of Megan Mullally, likes to tell the story of the first night we ever went to dinner together. We had been rehearsing our play, The Berlin Circle, at the Evidence Room theater in Los Angeles. We had known each other for only a few weeks but had become fast friends, with some seed of romance brewing in the fecund incubator that is the backstage area of a live theater. I had been living in the raw basement of some fellow troll-like company members and working piecemeal as a handyman, carpenter, and actor, and so one might accurately have described my circumstance as somewhat “down on my luck.”
I had also been helping to build our new Evidence Room theater space in a warehouse, as well as the stage set for our show, so I’d been working all day in overalls, rehearsing in them, and then, in this instance, wearing them to a nice dinner. I would point out to the ladies and gentlemen of the fashion jury that at this juncture I did possess the wherewithal to change into a clean T-shirt. These were a fine pair of Carhartt canvas overalls, but, regardless of their durable quality, Megan seemed to think that they were not appropriate fine-dining attire. Especially abhorrent to her, for some reason, were the phone numbers which I had inked in Sharpie all over the thighs of said britches (when you’re twenty feet up an A-frame ladder hanging lights, you often need to jot down information on the nearest handily available surface).
I suppose I didn’t help matters any when I pulled up to the table and tucked my napkin into the bib of the overalls. Her aversion to my genteel show of elegance completely baffled me, because I was positive I had seen Jed Clampett execute the exact same nicety on The Beverly Hillbillies, but apparently I was somehow well over the line into the realm of faux pas. With such an auspicious beginning, I am fully astonished and grateful to this day that Megan ever took a chance on me.
She has since straightened out my closet considerably, as she has a talent and a taste for choosing things like garments, poodles, houses, art, and novels. Really, anything but overalls. I hastily learned to dummy up and wear the shirts she put on me, and I’ll tell you what: If I don’t get a compliment on every shirt she’s ever upholstered me in, well, I’ll eat my hat. Naturally, I retain my Carhartts and other work wear for the woodshop and such, but when I go anyplace that I might be expected to look “decent,” “civil,” or “not homeless,” I reach for one of her choices, and welcome the world’s inevitable refrain: “Wow, nice shirt!”
That said, I do have some strong feelings about the world of fashion. In order to chase the brass ring of “prosperity,” I feel that a jackass (like your author) must eschew fashion as much as possible. Definitely allow your significant other to choose your shirt, but leave it there. Jobs that require a suit upset me. They displease me much, as our world is rife with such superficial conformity. As a member of a race of animals who are blithely burning through the natural resources of their beautiful planet, laughing their faces off like beer commercial models as they careen across the water on their Jet Skis, I am pretty well put off by the amount of attention we monkeys can bestow upon things like bang length and pleated fronts and skirt size and shawl collars. I can comprehend why I need brown shoes and belt for some suits and black for others. I comprehend it, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
In a grander sense, I’m quite peeved by the customs that we have allowed, even encouraged, to flourish around our collective appearance and hygiene. First of all, at some point we allowed ourselves to become stinky to one another. Animals, mammals in particular, seem to love the musk of their brothers and sisters, a scent so potent that they can actually communicate with one another through the odors they are giving off. We “people” gave that up centuries ago, and now our natural odor is counterintuitively offensive. This is a failure, people. It’s the fallacious part of our human egos that informs us we’re “better” than nature, which keeps us from enjoying the sniffing of one another’s crotchal areas. I’m not preaching here, I’m one of us just as much as you are, but I’m always at the ready to try getting more stinky.
Additionally, we have somehow determined that men need to shave their faces every day, and now apparently their torsos require denuding as well? How far have we fallen? A hairy chest used to be the actual measure by which a man’s virility was determined, and now we are requiring of our “men” a nubile, naked set of pecs, like some prepubescent teenager? If indeed a shot of rotgut “puts hair on your chest,” why then you’ll be required by modern fashion to have it waxed! Whiskers grow as designed by nature, so how can that be bad? They come standard on every model! They’re like the weeds of the face, and as we all know, there are some very charismatic weeds in the world of flora, like asparagus. Also, “weed” is a weed with a pretty solid fan following. Perhaps, as our modern civilization slowly learns to accept the inevitable goodness of ganja, we can also return to the custom of honoring flocculent men. Look, you can shave all you want. Do as you please, I say, but if some of us want to look a little more woolly, then I would also ask you to let us be. I want to forevermore take “unkempt” as a compliment.
Speaking of the pudenda neighborhood, for glory’s sake, everybody, what about all this waxing going on down south?! Of all the lovingly crafted details sported by Mother Nature’s masterpiece, the human form, the pubic bush is easily the cherry on the, well, the pie, I suppose. That curly forest acts as a flag, signaling to the weary traveler, “Here is a feathery love-tick upon which you may rest your weary pikestaff or love-clutch.” Caressing a mink-like crotch epaulette is one of the most comforting stages in any self-respecting seven-step foreplay strategy. Not to mention, the pubes act as an effective catcher to keep crumbs out of the more sensitive areas when consuming one’s postcoital Scotch egg. For the love of Mike, bring back the bush.
Speaking of—ladies. Ah, beautiful ladies. In order to comply with the implied social regulations, women are required to submit to a much more rigorous program of hygiene than the gents. They shave their legs and armpits and wear meticulously applied paints and powders on their faces in order to appear more “attractive.” It’s a racket. When I see a person without makeup, I think she appears real, like nature made her, which to me is purely beautiful. When a person has app
lied, even expertly, a full face of makeup, then she appears to me to resemble someone on the cover of a magazine or something manufactured, like a doll. Therein lies the rub, methinks, that we as a people have been made to believe that we need to look like these “foxy” people on billboards and bus posters in order to appear “beautiful” and thereby find happiness. I am saddened to inform you that this sickness has penetrated our psyches so nefariously that some of the afflicted have taken to BLEACHING THEIR ASSHOLES. If you are worried about what your visitors will think of the window dressing around the orifice where ordure exits your body, then I’m going to go ahead and suggest you turn around. The stuff you want to pay attention to is on the front side. Men and women alike, if you think that altering the tip of your nose with surgery will make you happier, I would suggest you alter something much more malleable than your flesh, like your priorities, or your friends. Quit looking in the mirror so much. My two cents.
I know this is a clodlike “guy” opinion—I mean, look at me—but by and large, fashion seems like a huge waste of time and money. A good pair of jeans should last for several years. I don’t really give a shit how they hang. They should not pass from favor because their shade of blue is no longer acceptable at the mall, or they don’t hug your buns as tightly as they are required to by the cover shots of Caboose magazine.
Here is all a jackass like you or me needs to get by, fashion-wise:
Underwear is a great idea. Nothing is required, but the clever thing about drawers is that they can act as a repository for accidental (or on-purpose) discharges from the body, and the subsequent stains, without ruining the outer pantslike garment.
A pantslike garment. Jeans, shorts, overalls, dungarees. Pockets are a must, for the storing of your necessaries. Knife, money, tobacco, frogs, string, marbles, bullets. Read your Twain for suggested pocket wares. Pants keep the chiggers from your shins. Pants cloak the stained underdrawers from the world’s prying glance.
Obviously, carry a handkerchief.
Work boots.
A good hat.
12
Subaru Leavings
In my life, I have left my parents’ home in Minooka, Illinois, twice, following that grand old American tradition on both occasions, by taking my leave in shitty used Subarus, once for college and once to move from Illinois to California. In 1988 I purchased a used Subaru BRAT from my friend Joe Stachula, who was in Oklahoma! with me at Minooka High School, for $350. I test-drove it in a field near his house, where we did a lot of donuts and drove through the creek. Kick-ass action? Check. The BRAT is a tiny pickup truck that has four-wheel drive and a roll bar. There are two seats in the tiny bed behind the cab, facing the rear, that have airplane controller/joysticklike handles for the passengers to hold on to when traversing terrain like, well, the creek. It’s built for fun, the BRAT, but it’s also practical. A person can fit a full four-by-eight-foot sheet of plywood in the bed (by simply cutting it into eight conveniently sized smaller pieces).
During my freshman year we once drove it from Champaign to the nearby town of Decatur, Illinois, where Millikin University sits, to see some friends in a production of “the Scottish Play” (Macbeth). We had two guys in the front in the tiny little two-seater cab and two guys riding in the back action seats. On the highway, apparently bored, we began to execute a rotation—everybody moved one seat counterclockwise, with one guy coming in the passenger window, one guy going out by way of the driver’s window, etc.—just for fun. At seventy miles per hour on the freeway, it was pretty big goddamn fun.
The BRAT was a constant location of tomfoolery. In one of Robin McFarquhar’s classes we’d do an exercise where we’d split into pairs with one person blindfolded and the other guiding him/her around campus. It was called a trust exercise, for obvious reasons. Connected at the hip by this point, Joe Foust and I dutifully tottered to the BRAT, whereupon I drove around the quad blindfolded based on Joe’s instruction. We got an A in that class.
That rusty and fantastic Subaru BRAT ended up being very instrumental in the mischief that Joe Foust and I would wreak among the polite communities of Champaign and Urbana. Sometimes Joe and I would just drive up alongside some pedestrians and shower them with Silly String or water balloons, and then drive away, leaving the slightly inconvenienced strangers puzzled at the identities of these hilarious (in their own minds) street clowns.
The BRAT was the final tool in the kit this young man needed to set off into the big, wide world on his own. I’ll never forget my mom’s reaction to my exit, standing in the driveway. As much as my dad is a heroic, Atticus Finch–type figure of the Minooka countryside and my life in general, my mom is his equal lady-Atticus counterpart. They’re very Ma and Pa Ingalls, raising a family and a garden while maintaining and beautifying a household. She was quietly sweet as honey, and she was the more nurturing or “mothering” of the two, as mothers often are. She heroically made some of our clothes from scratch while producing meals with such frugality and acumen in the kitchen. For a few dollars a week she would feed all six of us like kings, all with an air of gentleness and competence. I’ve never met anyone nicer than my mom, and I’ve met Donny and Marie.
It’s because her own family, the Roberts clan, is so affable, and they all share that same sense of competence. By mastering the implements in their immediate surroundings with determination and humor, they have created a dependability within themselves that then provides us all with the room to breathe and laugh. My mom’s mother, Eloise Roberts—or “Grandma El,” or best of all, on the CB radio, “the Gambler”—had a lot to do with my own mom turning out to be such a champion of life and family rearing. With a bit of misbehavior in her own childhood, Grandma El let me know that she generally appreciated a wiseass, encouraging a lot of the silliness that thrived in her grandchildren. Growing up amongst these rock-solid Americans was more valuable to my development and my disposition than any school into which I could have set my muddy boot.
My mom, as a result, has such a great sense of humor. I may be romanticizing, but I feel like this vein of humor that has traveled down the years via her farming forebears is a product of the Depression, wherein one could watch an entire year’s profits be wiped out with one heavy rainfall. In such an instance, you have the option of either blowing your brains out or making a wisecrack. This family was always looking for the light, for any jape they could find in any unpleasant circumstance, and that sensibility really helped me develop my own sense of humor. I (eventually) learned that one doesn’t want to jack around too much, as you are then regarded as a hindrance (also known as a “jack-around”) to getting the work done. Bring just enough wit to any given situation to lighten the load with a grin.
Our family’s humor made the emotional moments that much more poignant then, as I remember my mom in the driveway, crying at seeing one of her little ones go traipsing off to a school two hours south. Mom and Dad had already gone through this with my sister Laurie, a year my senior, but I think that Laurie would agree that since I got so much attention (because I demanded so much attention), and because I was the oldest male child, it would leave a different sort of a hole in the household (although she would argue that it was actually the “hole” who was leaving). Although Laurie could still beat the snot out of me, I was the strongest of the kids in areas like pushing the lawn mower and carrying luggage, not to mention my possessing the most obnoxious voice at the dinner table. Whether one was a fan of my stylings or no, there was no question that family meals would be conducted henceforth in greater silence. It was a very emotional parting for all of us, but my portion was pairing my grief with an excitement at my impending adventure far from the cozy nest. I knew very powerfully then that I needed to set off into the world and try to puzzle out how to become a man.
That particular departure took place in the fall of 1988. Some years later, after I had graduated from the U of I and subsequently served my years in the graduate program of Chicago s
torefront theater, it was time for a strikingly similar leaving on a blustery Christmas Day in 1996. Having planned for some months to move to Los Angeles, I had found in the newspaper a used 1990 Subaru station wagon for about $750. Rusted out and originally maroon, just like the BRAT had been, it was jammed with my worldly goods, which consisted of some boots, some jeans, a shitload of cassette tapes, and my tool kit. That was my dowry, I guess, should I ever find a willing rancher to take me to his marriage bed. Traveling with a good set of tools is a great comfort to the carpenter, because he/she knows that no matter where the wind blows him/her, somebody’s going to need a gazebo, and that means he/she can purchase a sandwich and a pair of Levi’s.
I had a large burrito-pack of goods tied down on top of the wagon as well, wrapped up in ratty old scenic canvas with a papier-mâché boar’s head from Ubu Raw strapped on the front. With the portion of gumption I had been served by my mom and dad, I, like so many fools before me, simply thought, “Well, I reckon I’m driving this thing to California. What the hell. Let’s do this.”
When I had first gone away to college, I knew that the ultimate pinnacle of my career would be to arrive in Chicago and get paid American dollars to act in a play. That seemed, at the time, the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest. Even in Chicago, having summited that particular peak of making a living as a theater professional, during the first three years or so I had no thoughts of ever leaving. At Defiant, we had heard legends of people transplanting a play to LA or New York, but such a quest had not been undertaken by anyone in my immediate circle of acquaintance. Eventually, however, a certain wanderlust had crept into my psyche, and I wondered if a jackass like myself might investigate the treasures of the nation’s coastal cities.
Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living Page 18