Essays by Mark Radcliffe

Dear Luke: A Letter to Lance Armstrong’s Son

fuckedumbrella — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 09:21:11 -0500

Dear Luke:

I don’t know you, I’ll probably never meet you, and I realize right now that, as a 13 year-old, you’re probably in the middle of a hectic and ridiculous year that is the 8th grade. But, in light of your dad’s confessions to Oprah Winfrey over the last two nights, I want to say the following things:

Thank you. Yes, thank you. Because it appears that you—-and not any of the other countless reasons your father had to come clean—-were the one to finally make him do it. Not the testimony of fellow cyclists, or the books of esteemed journalists, or the protests of good people like Greg Lemond, Betsy Andreu, or Emma O’Reilly. But you. When your dad realized that you were defending him, it was something he couldn’t allow in good conscience. We all watched Oprah, waiting for him to break down, and the only time he got there was when we heard him tell about how guilty he felt that you were defending him. So you did what no one else could.

Your father is a deeply flawed man, but he’s also a good man. 90% of what your father did each day was noble: he trained his ass off, he supported cancer victims and the research that would help them, and he set an example to others. It was a very small percentage of his time that he spent being a jerk—-lying to the public, concealing his drug-use, threatening those who dared expose him, and self-righteously denying it to the media. He was only a pathologically offensive man a small percentage of the time.

You don’t have to be like him. You might not ever be a world-class athlete like your father, or a man the entire world reveres for your accomplishments, but you also don’t have to be a liar or bully like he was in his darkest moments. It’s not baked into your DNA. The competitive spirit might be there, but so is that need to support others that your father clearly had (and perhaps still does), where we went above and beyond the call of duty to help fellow cancer victims. Bank your life on that desire to support and serve. Not the need to win, conquer and vanquish. Take from your father that need to address and help the public. Not the need to destroy your competitors.

You also don’t have to hate him. Your dad did some bad things. You seem to be OK with it for now, but in time, as you develop your own personality and opinions, you might become more resentful. And that would be understandable; you’ve grown up beneath a very polarizing and complicated man, a man with a lot of enemies. But as much as you may come to judge his actions in time (as much of America is already doing), you can also choose to forgive him.

You can transcend him. Maybe not in terms of professional victories. Maybe not in terms of global popularity. Maybe not in terms of fundraising success. But perhaps in terms of maintaining your integrity. Maybe you’ll be a middle-ranked cyclist in your local clubs, or maybe you’ll just become a really good math teacher in Plano, Texas and most of the world will never hear any more of you, but those whose lives you touch will. If you live your life profoundly impacting others, you will transcend your father and the tangled web he wove. Your father didn’t let his the sins of his absentee father define him. And you don’t have to let your father’s sins define you.

You can teach him how to be a better man. Age is not the ultimate determinant of wisdom; purity of spirit and purpose is. You might be a lot younger than your father, but you can still be a beacon of integrity to him. And to others. Don’t let your age convince you otherwise.

It’s unfair, but the world will be watching you, Luke, and that’s a tough place to be. But know that you also have much more of our sympathy than does your father. So relax, and be yourself. And trust your own moral compass. Ignore the bright lights and shiny trophies that got the best of your dad. Focus instead on the smiles of the people he inspired. You don’t have to win 7 Tours de France to achieve that. You just have to care about the people on the sidelines.

Lance and the long, uphill climb.

fuckedumbrella — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 16:25:12 -0500

Lance “won” 7 Tour de France titles on the strength of his performances on long, steep, unending climbs like Alpe d’Huez, Ventoux, the Tourmalet, and Col du Galibier. That kind of long, torturous climb is what he’s chosen to engage in again, after his confession of doping and other sins to the high priestess of public justice, Oprah Winfrey.

The big question is whether he’ll ever again reach the summit. According to lawyers, he should have kept his mouth shut, never admitted the doping, accepted the ban and gone away with his estimated $100 million fortune for the rest of his lonely days.

But he decided he couldn’t do it. Is it a desire to compete again? To be in the public eye again? To appease a guilty conscience? Or is it to release his 13 year-old son from the obligation of defending him? (The one subject in the inteview that seemed to bring Lance to the verge of tears.)

We may never know for sure his motives, but we now have his never-thought-I’d-hear-it-from-his-lips admission of doping his way to all 7 Tour de France victories, to bullying witnesses to hell and back, and to full-well knowing he was a jerk and a liar the entire time. And while many of us didn’t want it to be true for so long, we now have to accept it was.

And now the lawyers are circling, preparing to file their suits. After all, in light of his admission to Oprah, he effectively perjured himself in his 2005 court testimony when in litigation with SCA Promotions.

But to me, as a former top junior racer who still rides and loves cycling but has no real idea of what it is to compete at the international level, I’m left marveling at two things: how unreal it was to hear him finally admit to sins that he’d vehemently and self-righteously denied for 15 years; and how he could be such a staunch supporter of millions of cancer victims and yet simultaneously be such an asshole to all those who dared speak the truth against him.

Lance Armstrong is nothing if not complicated, and the difficulty of all of this lies in separating Lance the doper from Lance the Philanthropist. It’s amazing, actually, that they’re the same person. But, over the last two nights, as we watched Lance confess so easily the sins he so stridently denied for so long, we heard a resounding pledge: “I will spend the rest of my life to make this right.”

♦◊♦

If there’s anyone who knows something about long, uphill climbs, it’s the guy who almost died of testicular cancer and then rebounded to win the toughest race in the world 7 times in a row. (Yes, with the aid of a shitload of performance-enhancing drugs—but ones that the rest of the field seemed to be on too.)

And the crazy thing is: as much as I judge the guy for his deception, for his bullying of completely innocent and well-meaning people who tried to tell the truth when subpoenaed by a court of law, I kind of want him to find his way out of all this.

It sucks that we’ve lost a hero. First Mark McGwire went down, then Tiger, now Lance. We don’t have much left. Maybe I’m just another sucker for the American comeback story, where our fallen hero finds his way back to grace. But the thing is, as despicable as Lance’s behind-the-scenes actions were, his in-front-of-the-scenes actions tell me there’s a guy there who wants to help people. I just believe he wanted to protect the perfect story so much he was willing to crush a few souls to potentially save a few million. He chose to believe the ends justify the means.

But for those of us who have studied the Romantic Hero in literature classes, we know it never works out in the end. You have to be pure of spirit if you want to change the world in a lasting way. You can’t be half-in, half-out.

And so here’s where Lance 2.0 (or 3.0?) begins. He’s made his pledge, now we’ll find out how real his commitment is, even if it might take 10 years to really know.

♦◊♦

For now, Lance Armstrong is going to be in the courtroom for a very long time. (Or at least his lawyers are.) Once that calms down, we’ll see how serious he is about the task of trying to make it up to the legions of people he let down. After all, actions speak louder than words. And in his defense, the thing he said that was most crushing was not learning he’d lost what might be $75 million in future endorsements from his sponsors, but that his own charity, Livestrong.org, said they no longer wanted any affiliation with him. That, he said, was his lowest moment.

But what seemed like the lowest moment to me as a spectator was when he realized his campaign of lies had duped his own son, Luke, into defending him in public. It seems that, despite the dozens, even hundreds of people who urged Lance to come clean, the only person who was ultimately able to do that was Luke, who had swallowed every lie his father had peddled. And to Lance’s credit, he eventually told him, “Don’t defend me anymore. Don’t.”

In the end, maybe it’s his attempt to win back and earn his son’s respect that we as a society will benefit from most. Because I certainly hope Lance will make good on his commitment to undo his wrongs. As flawed as he is, I actually believe he has laser-accurate moral insight into what is right and wrong. I just think he was able to dismiss it each and every time under the justification that his actions were serving a higher good.

And now that we—and he—know that isn’t true, let’s see what he’s really capable of. Go through the public humiliation, Lance. Go through the trials. Surrender your millions. Give up all the riches you gained through illicit means. Join your fellow disgraced cycling brethren like Tyler and Floyd and lose it all. Then become a phoenix again, like you did after nearly dying from cancer, and rise from the ashes.

But do it with honesty. And humility. And a pure understanding of cause. And don’t ever think again that you can dodge the truth. As Tyler Hamilton says in his book The Secret Race, “Secrets are poison. They suck the life out of you, they steal your ability to live in the present, they build walls between you and the people you love.”

You’ve opened the door to a possible new future, Lance. But you’ve yet to walk through it, to walk the walk. I, for one, am eager to see you at least try.

Why you shouldn't "fall" in love.

fuckedumbrella — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:30:00 -0500

As a singer/ songwriter, I spend a lot of time thinking about romance.

Hell, I spend a lot of time in romance.

And a lot of it winds up in my music—songs about falling for someone, songs about breaking up with someone, songs about wanting someone back.

Time and time again, it hovers around the experience of falling hopelessly, overwhelmingly in love with someone.

I fall in love quite a lot, actually. Often with women who aren’t even remotely available to me, where nothing will ever come from it other than the joy of knowing how wonderful it is to utterly adore someone. Sometimes I fall in love with something else entirely—a work of art, a film, a book, or another artist’s song. I fall all the time. And I can’t get enough of it.

But I don’t always stay in love.

I even fall in and out of love with music itself on a weekly basis—some days I feel it’s the most empowering thing in my life, and others I’m ready to throw down my guitar and use it for firewood.

And why is that? Is true love impossible to sustain? Is glorious, heart-bursting, head-warping love naturally ephemeral?

Perhaps. But maybe it depends on how we pursue it.

♦◊♦

It’s a curious phrase, “falling in love.” It implies a helplessness. A descension. And a bit of peril, too. Falling is usually a bad thing. But we glorify the fall in this case, that experience of becoming so dizzied by someone, by their entire essence, or their effect on us that we lose our bearings, don’t know which way is up. Maybe it’s because our lives are so rational, so predictable most of the time, that we crave a little disorientation sometimes.

And there are many different ways that sense of falling can begin. For me—and for a lot of men, I feel—what I crave is not just the desire to be hypnotized by someone. It has more to do with a desire to open up someone’s soul in a new way, change them, bring out some side of them that even they never knew existed. To see the effect of your actions on someone else’s face is nothing short of illuminating. It’s like being one of the elements in a chemical reaction. There’s something intoxicating about being that one lone element that can come along and transform her, help release something that was previously dormant. Something infinitely more creative and powerful. Something that everyone around can see. And when the other person has the same effect back on you? Well that’s when you’re falling fast.

And that chemical reaction, that rush of falling, it’s a drug. One which I admit I find rather addicting. In some ways I wish I could just fall in love with someone new once a week for the rest of my life. The problem is, what kind of a story can you write if you’re always starting over?

But behind it all is the desire to experience change, some sort of transformation. As Jack Nicolson’s character in As Good As it Gets says to the object of his affection, “You make me want to be a better man.” And that’s how I want to feel when I fall for someone. And not just for her, but for myself. That only my better side will exist from now on. I will stop complaining. I will be more optimistic. I will be less cynical. I will be funnier. I will follow through on my goals more. I will embrace what I have in my life, be grateful for it, maximize it. I will be a force of good. For her. For me. For the random toddler in the grocery store I smile at and make a little less afraid of the world.

But at some point, the other person can’t provide that momentum. It would be wrong for us to expect them to continually be our motivation, to keep us in some state of falling.

Because you can’t fall forever. If you try, sooner or later you’ll hit the ground. Hard.

So maybe there’s something else we should be pursuing in love.

The older I get, the more I realize we can’t expect change to come from without, from some force beyond ourselves. Well, it can at first—that’s what happens when we meet someone new, someone who captivates us so that we want to see the world through their eyes. But we can’t expect them to keep up that role forever. And we can’t resent them for failing to continually being a force of “new” in our lives. So ultimately the longer-term momentum has to come from within us. We have to do the work. When I was an English teacher, the headmaster of my school was fond of telling students who were struggling with motivation that, “You’re better off trying to act your way into feeling than feel your way into acting.” You’re more likely to generate inspiration by just starting something, rather than by waiting for inspiration to come to you. Love works the same way. Start giving yourself to someone and pretty soon you’ll be inspired by the reaction you create. It has to be conscious action. Not just something that “happens” to you and sends you tumbling.

So really, it shouldn’t be “falling” in love that we seek out. It should be “flying” in love that we try to achieve. Because it doesn’t take any effort to fall. That’s just the gravity of someone else’s beauty acting on us. And it can only last so long before the crash. And then you resent the person who couldn’t provide a perpetual falling experience. So the real goal should be to fly. To continually soar. To stay aloft, and experience the magic of “getting somewhere” together. But flying takes work. Just like relationships. You can’t just lay there. You’ve gotta keep flapping your wings or you’ll sink like a stone.

And it’s only by continually trying to spread our wings that we can reach new heights.

The trick of course is to find someone else who’s willing to flap their wings, too. Because if they just want you to give them a ride? You can only fly so far.

So on this Valentine’s day, here’s to finding the right co-pilot.

Happy flying, everyone.

Billy Cundiff and the art of manning up

fuckedumbrella — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:12:48 -0500

The other night, more than 25 million people watched the NFL AFC championship game end in infamy as the New England Patriots narrowly defeated the Baltimore Ravens.

Did the game end with a triumph of sporting brilliance? A testament to human willpower? A staggering display of athletic prowess?

No. Sadly, it was mostly decided because one guy made a lousy kick.

It was the kind of kick we’ve all screwed up much more badly at some point. In recess. In 3^rd grade. But this kick was screwed up by a guy whose sole job, unfortunately, it is to make great kicks in clutch situations. And despite the relatively easy field goal length of 32 yards, he just plum missed it. And instead of tying the game up, his team lost, and they missed out on going to the Super Bowl.

This man is Billy Cundiff.

And he’s probably got a tough few months ahead of him. Maybe longer.

And it must be said, I’m a Patriots fan. I grew up in New England, and after not seeing much success out of them in my youth, I’m ecstatic that this will be their 5^th time in the Super Bowl in 11 years.

But I didn’t want to see them win like that. Neither did most Pats fans. Hell, I swear I could even see some Pats players wincing in empathy themselves for the man who arguably cost his team a chance at a ring.

And yes, surely the Ravens and their fans didn’t want to see it end that way, either.

But most of all, Billy Cundiff probably sure would have preferred a different ending, too.

♦◊♦

There’s no shortage of stories in NFL history about kickers failing to make the clutch kick. It’s the stuff of folklore, even spoofed in movies like Ace Ventura. The kind of “whoops” you hope never happens to you. The kind that perhaps Buffalo Bills kicker Scott Norwood knows all too well. The kind that most of us commit at least once a week. But when there aren’t 25 million people watching.

The phrase “manning up” usually refers to facing a challenge in life, being bold, not backing down from a fight.

But there’s another kind of “manning up” entirely: the subtle art of recovering from a mistake, accepting responsibility and rebuilding oneself to try again.

We saw the beginnings of that kind of “manning up” in Billy’s post-game conference, as he acknowledged his blunder with calm humility. “I think we can keep things simple: It’s a kick I’ve made a thousand times in my career. I just went out there and didn’t convert. There’s really no excuse for it.”

He knew it was a horrible lapse in skill, and he owned it. The coaches and other team members like Ray Lewis all said the things that should be said, the things that are actually even true, that no one person can lose a game. That the real reason is that the whole team didn’t do enough. That you could point to other moments where someone else screwed up, but it simply didn’t happen in the final 10 seconds of the game.

But Billy knows most of the world won’t see it that way. A lot of people will blame him. Even if they shouldn’t. The competition might trash-talk him about it for years. Hell, he might trash talk himself about it for years.

♦◊♦

As someone who was a competitive ski racer for 10 years, I could relate. I know all about the sting of a momentary lapse in concentration. You can train all season long, for years on end, developing your strength and power, honing your reflexes, refining your technique, tuning your gear, and even put yourself in a first place after the first run. But in the second run, if you start thinking of victory too soon and hook a tip on the third gate from the finish and crash out? None of it matters at all. Some other guy wins and you go home with nothing.

You’ll think about it all season long, how you could have possibly let such a moment slip away. It takes a well-balanced mind to keep those demons at bay, to not beat yourself up, to forgive yourself. Because it’s easy to be a paragon of virtue when everything’s going your way. The true test of a man is when he finds himself face down in the mud.

Billy’s still got a good chunk of his career ahead of him. And it doesn’t have to end this way. This doesn’t have to be the moment he’s remembered for.

So while he’s clearly got a lot of experience “manning up” in the traditional sense in his life (he was voted a Pro Bowl kicker just last year), this one might be his biggest test yet of the other kind.

And based on his most recent post-game comments, I’d say it’s one I say he’s gonna pass. “It’s something that is going to be tough for a while,” he said. “But I’ve got two kids and there are some lessons I need to teach them. First and foremost is to stand up and face the music and move on.”

There are a lot of things a man could be concerned with after failing to deliver the goods in such a crucial moment: his team, his team’s fans, his PR image, perhaps his future contract negotiations. But instead, what’s on his mind most?

His kids. And that he’s got a responsibility to use this as a teaching moment for them, to show them how to get up off the ground and try again.

I can’t wait to see how those kids turn out, Billy. I’ll be rooting for you.

(Just as long as you’re not playing against the Pats.)

Your soulmate isn't who you think it is

fuckedumbrella — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:08:18 -0500

We all have our own romanticized notions of what it will be like when we find true love. How it’ll go. What it’ll feel like. What he or she will look like, sound like, act like. Even kiss like. And every once in a while, we actually meet that person. There they are! In the bar standing next to us! Or down the hall at work! Or in the line at the bookstore! They’re perfect. Everything we imagined. And so we engage. And chase. And pursue. And assume our very best behavior.And fight for a chance at that perfect union we’ve imagined in our heads for so long.And sometimes it works! We get their phone number. And a date! And a second date! And sometimes it even goes a month or two! But then at some point, it runs afoul.

What once seemed effortless becomes arduous.

The perfect conversations suddenly don’t flow as easily.

The shine has worn off the apple. It’s work, now. And who has time for that?

And here’s where many a relationship come to an unfortunate end.

Because the other person thinks it should only be constant magic. That anything else is merely a false symbol.

But we still chase them! We want it back! We think of what we can do to possibly salvage this sinking ship. Should we change ourselves? Adjust our behavior? Change our whole personality? After all: this is love. Surely it’s worth sacrificing for, no?

No, I’m here to say. It’s not.

Because there’s a big, horrible idea out there in the world of romance:

That if it’s not hard, it’s not real.

True romance must be earned, we believe. Struggled for. Barely survived.

If it comes easy, it’s wrong. Shallow. Too simple.

We must suffer for love. We must cry with certain regularity. Lose our faith time and time again only to barely regain it again.

I humbly submit that such a belief is the romantic equivalent of 100% grade-A bullshit.

Perhaps it comes from our culture’s puritanical beginnings. The notion that anything great is worth suffering for.

And while I agree that love takes work, patience and forgiveness, I don’t think it should involve perpetual, ongoing damage-control.

If the relationship you’re in takes constant, ongoing acrobatic maneuvers to keep it afloat, then it’s not a relationship; it’s a doomsday project.

Relationships, in general, should be easy.

If they’re taking a ton of work, a ton of the time, something’s wrong.

Chances are either that:

A) One (or both) of you is not a stable enough person to even be in a relationship to begin with, and you need to go off on your own to learn how to keep yourself perfectly happy with nothing more than yourself to sustain you. (And yes, I’ve been this person many times.)

B) One of you has unrealistic expectations of what the other is supposed to provide them on a regular basis. (And yes, I’ve been this person, too.) They think you’re supposed to keep them constantly entertained. Or wined and dined. Or sexually pleasured. Or emotionally rescued. Or financially bailed out.

Neither of which is sustainable.

Which is why I say the following:

Don’t chase the person you can barely hold on to when you’re at the top of your game.

Seek out the person you can be happy with even when you’re having a bad day. Or week. Or month.

Because those days will happen, many, many times over the course of a relationship.

And the person who’s only happy with you when you’re a superhero will not stick around when you finally become a mortal again and need them to be there for you, instead.

So skip the supermodel. The pursuit of own your personal Jessica Alba or David Beckham. It might be heaven for a week or two, but they’d probably dump you as soon as you failed to be the emblem of perfection for more than 2-3 seconds in a row.

That perfect pairing with the Mister or Miss Right we’ve all imagined in our hearts isn’t going to survive the endless ordinary days that real life is fraught with.

The person who’s truly right for you is probably cleverly disguised as the one you work with every day. Or the one who you’ve casually known in your circle of friends for five years. Who has seen you at your best and at your worst. And is still there, a big believer in your immense potential. And is probably an amazing kisser if you’d just give them a chance.

That’s the person it’s going to be genuinely easy with over the long haul.

So the next time you’re looking for the one, don’t look up on some stage or pedestal for some shining realization of your fantasies. Turn around and look behind you. At the person you might have overlooked. The person who is quietly everything you need them to be and more.

You just have to give them a deeper look.

Why the world needs more Teds than Barneys

fuckedumbrella — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:05:00 -0500

I’ll admit, I’m a huge TV fan these days. Not the reality-show garbage, but the ones with genuinely well-crafted writing. The last few years, I think you could make the case that there’s better writing on TV than on film, and actors like Alec Baldwin, Keifer Sutherland, Glenn Close, Steve Buscemi and Holly Hunter seem to agree, based on the roles they’re choosing. Here, the human condition is finally getting proper representation.

One of my favorite TV comedies is How I Met Your Mother, which follows the romantic misadventures of several 20-somethings in New York. Two of the male leads are Ted (Josh Radnor) and Barney (played brilliantly by Neal Patrick Harris). Together, they represent polar opposites in the male dating pool—Ted is earnest and idealistic, looking for “the one,” Barney is the seasoned player simply out for the score.

In the pilot episode, Ted finds himself head over heels in love with the captivating Robin, and he’s clumsily confessed “I love you” on their very first date. It’s done. Over. He’s crossed the line and Robin is completely freaked out. It’s a situation the calm and collected Barney would never have found himself in. But here’s Ted’s response to her after he’s out on the sidewalk, attempting damage control:

“You know what? I’m done being single, I’m not good at it. Look, obviously you can’t tell a woman you just met that you love her, but it sucks that you can’t. I’ll tell you something though, if a woman, not you, just some hypothetical woman, were to bear with me through all this, I think I’d make a damn good husband, because that’s the stuff I’d be good at. Stuff like making her laugh and being a good father and walking her five hypothetical dogs.”

♦◊♦

It was a scene that struck deep into my heart, both as a fellow romantic idealist and someone who has unfortunately said “too much, too soon” more times in his own life than he cares to admit. Regardless of what you think of the show, it touches on what I consider to be an essential truth of dating:

The guy who’s a great catch in the long run? He doesn’t always make a great first impression.

And the guy who does make a great first impression? In the bar, or wherever? He’s usually an asshole once you get him home and away from the spotlight.

There’s a big emphasis on first impressions in the dating world. We’re lead to believe that you’ve gotta have crazy chemistry right off the bat for things to work. But the truth is often that the flame that burns brightest at first burns out pretty quickly.

And, conversely, it’s the ones that take a little time to catch that can burn the longest.

♦◊♦

The essential problem with why quality people don’t always connect with each other is that the place where most couples meet—the bar, or some other equivalent of a fleeting, chance meet-up in a loud, public venue with lots of distractions, has nothing to do with the real world in which couples live—in the quietude of home, or the car, or the hospital as someone is ill, or giving birth, or attending a loved one.

And so the guy who performs well in the bar might have none of the skills he’ll be required to have once you’re deeply into a relationship, like attentiveness, listening, consideration, empathy, respectfulness, thoughtfulness, caring and patience.

But the guy who’s got all of those qualities? He probably hasn’t spent the hours on the social circuit that it takes to be instantly charming, confident and funny to a complete stranger he just met at the bar.

The bar is a performance hall.

The home is reality.

The bar is where guys who are charming but shallow, inconsiderate and downright selfish can completely hide their demerits just long enough to get a woman home and undressed.

The home is where it matters. But unfortunately no one meets their future wife hanging out in their home. They’ve got to go out into the world. To where you can meet someone you don’t know yet. Where, if you’re focused on more important things, you might not be so skilled.

Because if you are a person of true spirit, one who believes in love, who aches for it, and who can perceive it all in someone else they’ve just met, you often are so forthcoming with your feelings that you commit that one sin that can be the kiss of death—appearing too eager or desperate.

♦◊♦

I’ve heard hundreds of my female friends talk about wanting a guy who’s a supportive and trustworthy soul, with a heart of gold, a great sense of humor, a kind heart, a courageous mind, who will listen to them, care about what they’re feeling and be completely transparent about his feelings. But those very same characteristics will make them run for the hills if thrown out there all at once. They’ll simply walk away. And instead go home with a guy who will lack all of those qualities, but be casual, confident and not too eager (because he genuinely doesn’t care about them) when bellied up to the bar with his wallet open.

Now, before the protests start, I acknowledge—the two can co-exist; the guy who’s a pillar of morality can also be charming and funny and confident in the bar. But not always. Sometimes the guy who’s the equivalent father of the year will be the guy who’s a bit of awkward on first brush. He won’t have the funniest line. Or the loudest voice that everyone’s paying attention to. Or the brightest smile. And unfortunately the ladies won’t always notice him. Or they’ll notice him but write him off as lacking that mysterious X-factor, or ‘shark’ gene.

But meanwhile, that guy who is the funniest/ loudest/ most charming guy in the bar who has your attention? He’s not gonna be there for her tomorrow night. He’ll be back at the bar again, trying to give another girl that same impression.

Because being “on” in a bar is a skill in itself. It takes years to become completely charming, magnetic and at ease amid strangers in a noisy room. It’s almost like becoming a standup comic. But do you really want a guy who’s spent all that time honing those skills? Because if he has, lord knows what he’s not spent his time doing. Volunteering for a local charity? Being a supportive friend? Becoming a good cook? Managing his finances? Being a good uncle? Calling his mother?

♦◊♦

So here’s to the Teds of the world.

The ones with a true soul, who are out there living their lives with pure purpose, with passion, following wherever the heart takes them, professionally, socially, romantically. The Barneys might take the early lead in the chase for the girl of your dreams, but hang in there. He’ll be found in time. And she’ll come looking for something with a little more substance.

And you’ll be there.

Just try to wait at least till the second date before you tell her you love her.

Your wife, your future kids and the world in general will be forever in your debt.

How to get dumped by a Hollywood starlet.

fuckedumbrella — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 16:25:00 -0500

First, be sure to have recently gone through a tough breakup. That way you’ll have no interest in meeting anyone new, which of course women can sniff a mile away and are insanely attracted to, especially women who are rising actresses and used to having men chasing them like rabid dogs.

Then, be on your way to meet an old friend for dinner to talk about said breakup. Better yet—make this friend a gay man, so your friend won’t be on the prowl either (at least not for women).

As you walk up to the restaurant, receive a text from your friend that he’s running 20 minutes late. Fail to notice that a young woman happens to see you approaching through the windows.

Being new to this restaurant, ask the hostess where you can grab a drink while you wait for your friend. She points you to the outside lounge off to the side. Walk in.

Notice immediately that the lounge area is empty. Except for one woman. Sitting alone. Reading a magazine. Casually note that she is annoyingly beautiful.

Grab a seat at the bar nearby her. Peruse the drink menu while trying not to notice her to the side. Admire her now not just for her beauty, but for the fact that she’s confident enough to sit alone in a restaurant—something you almost never see women do. And then you look at the magazine and realize she’s reading The New Yorker. In LA. Accord her another 10 points.

Finally succumb to the need to break the silence and ask what she’s drinking. It’s an off-menu drink, she replies, since the bartender’s a friend. (Another 10 points.) Try to get witty for a second, offering, “By the way—reading The New Yorker in LA? I think you can get arrested for that. You’re not supposed to be developing your mind out here, you know.” She’ll laugh, and will then turn fully around to engage in a conversation. She’ll acknowledge she’s from New York. Mention that you lived there once, too. When she asks about it, mention your brief stint in acting. When she asks why you quit, be honest and say the uncertainty was driving you mad, that you realized you cared more about the writing than the performance. Then realize you haven’t asked her what she does yet. When she tells you she’s an actor, turn an appropriate shade of red.

Ask her if there’s anything you’ve seen her in. She’ll like that you have no idea who she is—because frankly, you’ll later realize, you should have. She’ll cop to a few small roles, but completely hide the fact that she’s been the lead in major motion pictures, one of which was number one at the box office.

Resist the urge to ask her about her career and keep the conversation to New York vs LA, of which she has a lot to say. Let it finally occur to you that she might be waiting for her boyfriend to show up. But be OK with that, too. You’re not on the hunt, after all.

When your friend finally shows up and says our table is ready, be a little upset. But quickly try to figure out some way to stay in touch with her. Since it’s too soon to ask for a phone number, ask if she’s got a MySpace page or something (it’s 2007). She’ll laugh and insist no. Say it was nice meeting her anyway.

Your friend will soon ask who the hell that was and why you didn’t get her number. Insist it’s because your friend has lousy timing. But no worries: five minutes later a waiter will approach your table holding something in his hand, asking, “which one of you is Mark?” Raise your hand and receive a folded-up piece of paper. Let your jaw hit the floor when you realize she’s written her name and number and had it hand-delivered to you. Affirm aloud that you love LA.

♦◊♦

A day later give her a call. End up talking for nearly an hour filled with more laughter and flirtatious energy than you’ve had since college. Agree to meet for a date soon. Decide on an Italian restaurant in Santa Monica.

Casually mention to your friends that you met an actress. Resist the urge to IMDB her. But you don’t have to, because your friends all know who she is, have seen all her films, and can’t believe you don’t know her. And by the way, can they come along on the date?

Try not to get nervous. Try to stay you. Try not to be yet another guy in awe of her success. Do not DVR any of her shows or watch her movies. Remember she’s just a person. Whose name just happens to fetch over two million hits on Google.

Go on the date. Have incredibly easy chemistry. Marvel at how well it’s going. Be even more impressed with her passion, her vivacity for life. Also note her amazing ass. Try not to get ahead of yourself.

Hear about her training at a school for the arts. Learn that she owes her genetic code to a combination of Latin and European DNA. Try not to drool when she speaks Italian with the waiter.

Listen to her gloss over a tough breakup six months ago. Go for a walk on the Santa Monica beach after dinner. Talk off your shoes and stroll by the water under the moonlight. Get into a playful fight where you throw seaweed at each other. Find yourselves strangely close and deliriously connected. Go ahead and kiss her. Nice and long. Even though it’s way too soon and you know it.

Wonder when the lights are going to go on and Ashton Kutcher is going to come out from behind a tree and tell you, “You’ve been punked.” (Again, it’s 2007.)

On the way to her car, walk across the grass. That way, when the sprinkler system comes on, you can pick her up and carry her across the wet grass while she laughs hysterically. Have more extended kisses at her car. Agree to do this again sometime soon. Walk home approximately 15 feet off the ground.

Have a second date a week later and laugh and smile just as much. A little less kissing this time—just to pace yourself.

Pick her up a week later at her house for your next date. Marvel at her house as she shows you around. Let her take you to her favorite restaurant this time. Raise your martini together to toast to her signing with a new manager. Take a first sip and marvel about how lucky you feel. Then it happens. Look across to her and see she’s suddenly turned to stone. She’s staring blankly at the door of the restaurant as if she’s just seen a ghost.

“Everything OK?” you ask her, when you know it’s not.

“Not really,” she’ll confirm. Wait a second for her to elucidate as she keeps staring.

“Someone you don’t want to see?” you’ll ask. But she’s gone now. Totally silent. You don’t want to look too, to avoid drawing more attention. Surely it can’t be the ex-boyfriend, you think. That’s too obvious.

But soon you realize it can’t be anyone else. It’s her favorite restaurant after all, where they probably once ate. Just as you defied all odds by even meeting her, you’re defying all odds again when her ex walks in. With the girl she caught him cheating on her with, you’ll later learn. The waiter will then sit them at the booth next to you.

Swing into action. Quickly get the check, pay for it and get her out of there, like rescuing a child from a burning house. You figure out a new place to go and get the car. (You’ll see a ’65 Mustang next to your car and comment “nice car.” It will turn out to be the ex-boyfriend’s, of course.)

On the way to new restaurant, she’ll have a minor breakdown as she confesses the whole story of how he broke her heart, betrayed her, and this was her first time seeing him again. Go into charm overdrive. Whip out all the chops. Offer to go back and challenge him to a duel. Offer to also drive back there, escort her in, stand at their table and make out for 20 minutes and then pretend to just notice him.

You will rescue the evening. She will soon be past the tears and be laughing again. Order her two martinis this time. Offer to call up your recent ex and have her show up at this restaurant just to even it out. Have a fantastic meal and fill her with happiness.

Find a nearby dive bar afterwards and fill up the jukebox with ten 80’s songs. Make out in a corner booth until she mentions she wants to go dancing. Dance with her right there. To Billy Idol. Decide that keeping this girl smiling is something you want to devote your life to.

Drive her home with the sunroof open, stopping at every light in downtown LA for far too long, making out under the moonlight once again.

Drop her off and silently congratulate yourself on a miraculous save. You did it, you think. You’ve pulled off the unthinkable. Receive a grateful text from her and a promise for a less dramatic date the next time.

Email a few days later about the next date. There are tentative plans, but she has to check her schedule. Try to avoid being nervous when suddenly she’s taking a little too long to get back to you.

After another few days, try her again.

♦◊♦

Two days later she’ll call you back. There is something different about her voice this time. She’s more serious now—like a soldier who’s just returned from war, no longer viewing the world as a lighthearted place. She’ll tell you about the four days after the date, the 20 phone calls the ex made to her to apologize (yes, he saw you). She’ll tell you about her decision to change her number and file a restraining order against him. It will all seem pretty overwhelming.

And then she’ll tell you what couldn’t have seemed possible days earlier: that it’s all brought up a lot of anger for her, and made her realize she’s not ready to date just yet. And how she’s going to have to ask you to let her go. So she can finish processing it all. Maybe down the road she’ll be ready. But not now.

Swallow hard for a second. Then tell her how you feel sorry she’s had to go through this. And offer to just keep things mellow, that this doesn’t have to be a “relationship,” that there doesn’t have to be any pressure. You just got out of something yourself, after all.

But it won’t do much good. She’s already written the next act, has learned her lines by heart. Nothing about her sounds like she could be talked out of it. And you admire her even more for her conviction. You liked her because she was strong and independent when you met her. You can’t ask her to change now.

She’ll say she’ll get in touch when she gets back from a shoot in three weeks.

But she won’t. You’ll email her. Call her once or twice. But you’ll refrain from desperation. Barely.

A few months later, when she still hasn’t gotten in touch, she’ll suddenly be appearing on billboards all over the country for a new project she’s starring in. Friends you told about her will all be asking if you’re still dating her. You’ll fail to get back to them. Multiply this times six months as her show lights up the ratings.

You’ll think to yourself, it shouldn’t hurt this much. After all, it was just a few dates. But you’ll know that that kind of chemistry doesn’t come around too often. And while everyone talks about the heartbreak of long-term relationships that don’t make it, the short-lived ones can hurt just as much. A relationship that never gets to really spread its wings is not unlike a child who dies young; it’s the thought of what could have been that breaks our hearts the most—much more so than the relationships we actually got to take a good swing at. You can’t help but film out in your head how your lives together might have gone. Because at the time of parting—not a single bad thing had happened yet. It was all still perfect. And you’ll make the mistake of thinking it could stay that way forever. For a while you’ll swear that there must have been something else you could have done or said to bring her back. But in time, you’ll chalk it up to a really unsatisfying but ultimately appropriate answer: it was just bad timing.

And you’ll do the only thing you can: write a song about it. You’ll call it “Santa Monica Daze,” about the first night you spent together on the beach. Friends and fans will call it their favorite track.

A year later you’ll get back in touch. She’s engaged to be married now. You try to be happy. And sort of are, given that familiar passion you hear from her. You tell her about the song you wrote. She listens to it and replies back simply with:

And while it’s not much of a souvenir for something that once seemed so unending, you’ll take it. At least you know it was once real.

ps: the song:

http://soundcloud.com/mark-radcliffe/santa-monica-daze

A Ski Academy Grad Looks Back 20 Years Later

fuckedumbrella — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 23:44:00 -0400

In the fall of 1983, I did what many of my friends would liken to winning the lottery: I convinced my parents to let me go to a ski academy. It was something no rational family would consider back then. We were a ski family, but not a ski racing family, which seemed a questionable breed of extremists. But my parents took a chance sent me off, and I still look back on it as the best thing that ever happened to me.

I was in 8^th grade, and had grown up in the small town of Auburn, Maine where there was a remarkable preponderance of successful young ski racers. (This little town would eventually produce 12 Olympic skiers over the years.) A bunch of kids in my neighborhood were in ski families, and went away each winter to something called a “ski academy” where they’d train on a mountain every day, go to school in the afternoons, and race every weekend. These friends of mine were state champions, New England champions, and even went to something I’d never heard of called the “Junior Olympics.” They all had this amazing air of confidence about them, and seemed to take on anything in life without hesitation. And I desperately wanted to be one of them. So while I’d been ski racing for a year already, my results were dismal, and my friends told me, “If you want to really get better, you have to go to a ski academy. We’re skiing every day all winter long. You’re just skiing every other weekend. You’ll never catch up.”

So I brought up the possibility to my parents. They at first seemed to laugh. Surely you don’t think you can be as good as your friends, their looks seemed to imply. My mother was quick to say something diplomatic like, “Well, we’ll have to see.” My dad offered a more practical challenge: “How are you going to get into a good college from a ski academy?” (This was before he knew that schools like Dartmouth, Middlebury and UVM welcomed ski racers with open arms.) I brought up that my best friend Rob Parisien (who would eventually ski at the ’92 Olympics and later become a surgeon) was still able to find time to win the state science fair while also becoming the best 12 yr-old skier in New England. “Well, I’ll think about it,” he replied, returning to paying his bills.

A few weeks later, I’d arranged for Rob’s dad to have a talk with my dad about this then little-known school called Carrabassett Valley Academy (this is long before Olympic champ Bode Miller would graduate from it and make it known around the world) and tell him it wasn’t so bad. Soon after that, my parents were willing to give it a go. “Ok, one winter,” he said. “And then we’ll see how your grades are doing.” He felt certain that he had his out, and would have no trouble exercising it should I fail to meet the mark. When he and my mother dropped me off that November for my 5-month winter session, he shook hands with the headmaster Jeff Byrne and urged, “Make sure he does his homework.” Jeff nodded diplomatically. Just then, a deliveryman crated in a huge load of perhaps 30 un-mounted, brand new Dynastar skis. “Goodness,” my dad said. “Who are those for?”

“The sponsored kids,” Jeff winked, knowing my dad was impressed with this fresh bounty.

“Sponsored?” my dad asked attentively.

“Yeah, most of the top racers get sponsored, and the companies give them free gear for the season.”

Knowing very well the cost of a season’s worth of ski gear, my dad’s eyes perked up, and he quipped to me, “Well, if you get sponsored, you can come back again next year.” He slapped me on the back and headed toward the car.

That winter, I put on 25 pounds of muscle, went from getting 70^th place in most races to top 3 in the state, made the Junior Olympics, won Maine’s “most improved skier” award, and sure enough: got sponsored. By Dynastar.

Since I’d also maintained an A average all winter, my dad begrudgingly let me come back for 9^th grade, too. The whole year this time.

I would eventually move from CVA to the Green Mountain Valley School (both because there was more competition in Vermont, and because GMVS’s longer history appealed to my college-conscious parents) and graduated in 1988 (as the valedictorian, my dad would be proud to claim). I never did become the Olympics-bound hotshot slalom-specialist I once envisioned, but I did maintain a top 20 national ranking, get into Colby College, and eventually captain the division I ski team there, scoring in the top 15 at the Division I championships on my best days. Did it matter that I never really achieved my big goal of making the US Ski Team and securing an international racing career?

Not really.

And I would counsel any parent thinking of sending their kids to a ski academy to not worry about that in the slightest. There are plenty of other, more important reasons to do it.

True, three of my 18 classmates did make the US Ski Team, the most successful of which was Jeremy Nobis, who qualified for two Olympics, then turned his focus to extreme skiing and became one of the biggest stars in the world, completing over 30 films and appearing on countless magazine covers.

But in the end, most of us when on to more traditional lives, albeit very happy and successful ones. From my small class of 18, we boast: an airline pilot, a financial analyst, an entertainment lawyer, a photographer, a real estate developer, an international conference translator, a production company CEO and a Silicon Valley biz consultant. Me? I’ve got two careers here in New York City—as a writer and singer/ songwriter. And we were damn well prepared for all of them. Although many laugh at the possibility that a youth spent skiing could be anything other than cushy and luxurious, what they don’t think of is the sheer amount of discipline, resilience and toughness it takes to get through the endless 6:30am morning runs, the off-season dry-land training and weight-lifting, the getting up on icy slopes day after day, hurling your spandex-clad body down a battered and rutted course that threatens to blow our your knee at every turn, the constant injuries, nor simply the ever-present single-digit temperatures, nor the pressure of daily competition, nor the general expectation that you’re still expected to fit in a normal high school student’s education while you’re physically exhausted and getting ready to spend all weekend in a van traveling to races 200 miles away. I have one ski academy friend who went on to the Marines later in life, and he says being at a ski academy was tougher.

At these shools, you learn several things: the first of which is to suck it up. Complaining isn’t tolerated. And there’s plenty to complain about, whether it’s the wind chill of 20-below that gives you frostbite a few times a month, or the pulled muscle/ bruised hip/ sprained ankle/ or broken finger that your coach tells you you can still make it down the course with, or the fact that the fog rolled in on the mountain right before your 2^nd run, and you had no chance of seeing as clearly as the other guys before you. You are constantly blindsided by unexpected challenges as a ski racer, and you’re expected to deal with them.

But you also pick up countless other traits that help you succeed: we hustle. When you’ve only got 30 minutes to get out of your ski gear, put away your skis, shower, hit lunch and cross campus to you first afternoon class, you don’t dally.

We’re resourceful. We learn how to be our own coach during the off-season. We find a way to jerry-rig our ski boot when a buckle pops off 2 minutes before a race. We learn to do homework and study for an exam while in the back seat of a crowded van coming home from a ski race at 10pm Sunday night.

We don’t wait for others to help us. We just figure out a way to get it done. You just crashed in the middle of the course, you’re bleeding from your face and have a loose tooth and there are no coaches around? You grab a fistful of snow, hold it to your bleeding cheek and ski your ass down to the emergency clinic for some stitches (this happened to me three times—and to another friend five).

We can get more done in less time. The very essence of ski racing is navigating a course of obstacles in as short an amount of time as possible. This ethic continues off the race course, too. The competitive mindset takes over your life. You find a way to get in a 1 hour run before your first class in college while your roommates are still sleeping. You finish the final physics exam quicker than the rest of the class simply because you can’t help it. You take on three extra curricular sports when your friends are just gonna go play video games in the dorm. You use your spring break to go summit El Capitan while others are just gonna “chill at my parents.” And later in your career, your time-management skills enable you to prepare the presentation in half the time it takes your colleague. For me, I still manage to fit in a second career as a musician at nights after I finish my career as a writer during the day. What other people look at and see as exhausting, we think of as exhilarating. We know that you don’t get inspired by lying around.

We’re not content with mediocrity. We’re taught from a young age that you can be better than who you are right now. So we constantly try to go from getting B’s to A’s, from getting 30^th to getting top-10, and then from top 10 to winning. We’re not just trying to become regional director; we want to be president of the whole company. Or just start our own altogether. And we see a way that something can be done better, or faster, or more cheaply, even if no one is calling for it, we’ll find a way to make it happen. When your life is measured in 100ths of a second, you sweat the details.

We dare to take the road less traveled. We get married in the French Alps. We do study-abroad programs in Tanzania. We take jobs as an engineer on an oil rig off the Alaskan coast. We guide helicopter ski trips in Canada. To this day, a few of my friends and I gather in France every other year to follow the Tour de France on bike and ride the same mountains as the greats. Even those of us who carve out quieter lives as parents still do it in towns like Boulder or Burlington, and find time to go skydiving on our birthdays. And we’re all in pretty good shape. Most of us are the same weight at 40 that we were at 18. The habits you pick up at 14 tend to stay with you for life.

We don’t scare easily. When you grow up doing 80mph down double-black diamond trails, the threat of presenting to your boss in your first job out of college doesn’t exactly give you the willies.

And lastly, we’re well rounded. Sure there’s an obsession over ski racing. But since you can’t ski year round, you’d better pick up soccer or lacrosse or running or bike racing to stay in shape. And my school encouraged the arts with a yearly theatrical production. I played guitar for a school band, took on a dance part in a musical, and contributed essays to the school paper. These latter activities formed the basis of my two careers today.

So while going to a ski academy might not have given me a career in skiing, it gave me everything else I love about my life. From inspiring self-reliance, to a driven work ethic, to an endless zeal for life and more, you can pick up a lot more than just better ski technique by spending a few years at some crazy ski academy off in the boonies.

Removing a rat from your apartment. The hard way.

fuckedumbrella — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Here’s the short version:

A rat was living in my house.

So I brained it.

And afterwards, I drank the rat’s blood for spiritual strength and to pay homage to the ancient God of redemption, Sháktü-tiki-tä.

Ok, I made the last part up.

But most of it is true. It went like this:

To begin with, let me say I’ve never really had any animosity towards rats. My dad’s a doctor, my mother a science teacher and my brother’s in med school, so cute little lab rats are just a part of our lives. We even view them as helpful little guys.

But, of course, I’d never had one living in my home before.

And at first, I thought I just had a mouse problem.

I’d heard the frickin’ thing sneaking around in my kitchen each night. (Nothing like hearing a vermin frolicking through your kitchen drawers while you try to sleep. After a while you can even visualize it: “Yep, that must be the forks he’s crawling over now… ooops, he knocked over the salt shaker…”) Twice I even saw it scramble along the walls of my living room as it ran for cover. It wasn’t huge, but it was clearly not just a mouse. Maybe a body of 5-6 inches with a long tail, another 8 inches. With a little research, I found out he was coming in through a space behind my toilet in the bathroom. I plugged it up with a broken umbrella I had, but by the next night he’d chewn through that, leaving scraps of nylon everywhere, and proving to me his tenacity. I gave it another night or two in case he moved on to another abode, but it was clear he was making my apartment his bitch, and there wasn’t enough room for the two of us in my 400 square foot kingdom. So, after a call to my landlord proved fruitless since he was out of town and unavailable to assist in my visitor’s removal, I headed to town to buy murder weapons. I didn’t want to poison him and have him rot in the walls. And soon I’d discover that rat traps are hard to find. So I had to go with small mousetraps. I figured it would still snap the fucker’s neck.

It would of course prove to be a dreadful miscalculation.

I set up the trap and left my apartment for an hour or so. Sure enough, when I came back the punk was snared. But as I went to pick it up and throw him out, I realized the son-of-a-bitch was still alive. Legs kicking, trying to break free. The trap was too small so it failed to pin him from behind his neck, and instead just kind of dented his skull, so he was still alive in some sense. It seemed that if I tried to pick the trap up, it might just slip off his head and he might scramble around my apartment and die in a corner, or just get free and continue to hold my place hostage if he wasn’t really hurt. So I figured I’d shut the bathroom door, just leave it till morning and hope the brain damage killed him.

No suck luck.

When I opened the door to my bathroom in the morning, the son-of a bitch had dragged himself to a different corner of the floor and laid shits all over the place throughout the night. He was apparently not going down without a fight. And I kind of half-respected the bugger.

So: what to do? I couldn’t scoop him up because he was in a corner and I was still convinced that lifting the trap would inadvertently set him free and he would sneak into my bed some night and chew off my penis or whatever else he would select as his revenge. So, as an example of my lack of expertise in this area, I figured I should try to poison him. I scoured through the cabinet for my most toxic liquid. A moment later, I had a bottle of bleach in my hand. (I actually contemplated using my Arm & Hammer baking soda from my fridge, thinking it kind of looked like Anthrax and was good at removing toxic smells—which basically described my rat—but since it was powder, I worried a liquid was required here.) My blood pressure and nausea mounting, I figured I should just get this over with. So I tore into the bathroom and poured bleach on the bastard’s head, somehow hoping enough would go down his mouth, nose, ears, etc, that he’d be dead in a minute. But the toxicity of the bleach instead gave him the strength of a wild rabid wolf, and he began kicking and flopping for his life, trying to break free of the trap. I couldn’t tell if I’d given the fellow a generous enough portion of bleach and should maybe dump some more, but instead I just quickly shut the door and hoped he’d croak soon. Yet from the other side of the door, I could hear him flopping around like a fish out of water. Apparently I’d given him the one final adrenaline rush that would enable him to get free. The sound of him smacking the trap around behind the door was going to drive me crazy or make me vomit if it went on another minute. I opened the door again and looked in. Suddenly, he was upright and starting to free himself. In another minute, he’d be free and all this shit would have gotten me nowhere.

As a decidedly non-violent man, I had refrained from the possibility of just clubbing him right from the start, but the thought was beginning to seem my only option. I’m pretty queasy in general and really didn’t relish the thought of mopping up rat brains from my floor, but now the fucker was going to escape and continue to have free reign over my house—with all the vengeance of a rat version of Rambo. My pulse at approximately 175, I paced through the house for ten seconds and found a piece of wood, a foot-long 2x4 scrap from the cheap kitchen table I was building. With Jack Nicholson in my eyes and Kubrickian abandon in my veins, I ripped open the door one last time, saw him crawling along the floor and starting to kick the trap off his head; he was within seconds of freedom.

But then again, so was I. In fact, I was only one swift, accurate, deadly swing away from getting my life back. Summoned the spirit of Martin Sheen’s character from Apocalypse Now when he went in to bludgeon Marlon Brando to death, I bravely entered the bathroom, in my personal own quest to remove corruption and evil from the world around me.

Steam erupting from my ears, I raised that 2 x 4 over my head and swung decisively, cracking his skull, snapping his neck, and sending him on a one-way trip to oblivion—not, however, without a quick layover at a destination that involved an awful series pre-mortem muscle spasms, including one where his tail stuck straight up into the air for ten quivering seconds. And damn was it really a long tail, maybe 9 inches, I could see now. But 30 seconds later, the beast was slain and I could get on with my life—the most important part of which now would be finding the proper therapist to help me work through my posttraumatic stress. But by the time I’d cleaned up the ‘mess’, I was feeling like a triumphant soldier returning from war. It was if I’d emerged from some primitive, tribal initiation rite to earn sovereignty over my domain. (I may now be a serial killer, of course, so we’ll have to wait and see.) But it felt good. It felt powerful.

So I went out for a 6 mile run.

Fastest I’d run in months.

And I returned home to my apartment. My apartment. Not the-rat’s-and-my apartment.

I even celebrated that night by inviting over a few friends for some beers—though I neglected to inform them why the special occasion.

Later one emerged from the bathroom waving a hand in front of his nose, advising, “Hey man, next time you clean your toilet, go a little easier on the bleach. Oh, and it looks like you spilled chocolate sprinkles in there or something.”

Becoming a Boss fan at Giants Stadium

fuckedumbrella — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 15:45:00 -0400

Now, I’m somewhat of a Springsteen fan, but by no means a superfan. At least until tonight. Sure, I had “Born in the USA” as a teenager (who didn’t?), and loved “No retreat, no surrender” and “My hometown,” but Glory Days and the title track never grabbed me. But I lucked into some last minute tickets to see him on night #1 of his final run at Giants Stadium in late 2009. This was own backyard, for one last party, not holding anything back. (Each night he was going to play one entire album start-to-finish, and this was the night he was serving up “Born to run.”) Here are my observations as one of the 50,000 in attendance.

He starts out the night with a new song he’s never played for anyone before. It’s called “Bring on your wrecking ball,” a pitch-perfect anthem written for Giants stadium herself, as she stares imminent destruction in the face. Less than a minute in, it’s giving me goosebumps. By the end, I think this might be my favorite Bruce song ever. It’s a feeling I will have 5 more times by night’s end.

Lordy max Weinberg looks like he might croak any minute, but he’s givin’ it everything.

Bruce performs like he just lost three brothers in a war, full of all the fight & desperation in the world.

He’s got that hardened quality you normally only see from someone who’s been trapped in a coal mine for 5 weeks and just escaped.

I love that no one in Bruce’s band is under 50. He doesn’t want any pussies on stage with him.

After the 3^rd song, and a pretty good round of screaming applause, Bruce isn’t impressed. He dares the crowd, “Whadya got?” The roar back in double the volume. He still shakes his head. “That ain’t fifty-thousand!” They double their volume again. “That’s more like it,” he says, and strikes up the chords to the next son.

He might be 60, but he’s an 18 yr old kid tonite.

Looking at a closeup of Bruce on the big screen, I don’t care whatcha say, but without Bruce Springsteen, Ben Affleck never happened.

Bruce isn’t a singer. He’s a boxer. With a microphone.

His songs are 100% optimism. I haven’t heard a minor chord all night.

He chastises the crowd, “that ain’t 50,000!!!” if they aren’t singing loud enough.

Nils Lofgeen could stand to lose a few.

Finally, after an hour of warmup songs, he’s starting “Born to Run,” top to finish. He goes to announce it to the crowd, but they already know, have been waiting for this night all their lives. And all 50,000 help him belt out the first verse to Thunder Road. It’s actually louder than the entire stadium PA system.

Between songs, a fan offers Bruce his full beer, and not only does Bruce take it, but he chugs it, and isn’t afraid to let it drip all down his chest. Just like how he drinks in life itself.

The band tears into the opening drums and chords of Born to run and the place nearly self combusts from an explosion of enthusiasm.

The people singing along are reliving the best parts of their lives. They’re giving it 16,000%.

Bruce has the house turn the lights all the way up. It’s a move that would kill the vibe in any other show, but Bruce fans can never get enough of the light. They get energy they catch off of each other is contagious.

Bruce’s voice is like 80 grit sandpaper, rough but with a smooth whiskey finish.

I’ve never seem so Many fists pump so perfectly in unison before.

Bruce breaks a string on his Tele and chucks it to his roadie. Roadie chucks him back an identical Tele, like this is a move they’ve done six thousand times before. He must have 20 of ‘em ready to go back there, like a stockade of rifles ready for war.

A 12 yr-old kid is brought up on stage from the audience to join in on a song. He can’t sing for shit. But Bruce doesn’t care. Gives him a loving nuggie anyway, like he’s just adopted him into his family.

I think if Bruce died, the whole country wouldn’t know what to do with itself for a few weeks straight. People wouldn’t be able to work, the economy would come to halt.

3 hrs into the show, Bruce is running laps around the stage, and demanding of the audience:

“Is there anybody alive out there?”

Dealing with my closet.

fuckedumbrella — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:58:00 -0400

We all have problems we put off dealing with.

Issues that we know need our attention, messes we know we need to clean up, patterns that we know are unsustainable if not corrected. But we just can’t seem to find the motivation to tackle them.

For me, it’s my closet.

It’s a sprawling, ugly, chaotic, unorganized, unmanageable disaster area, and a testament to my lack of organization and inability to get rid of things I no longer need.

It’s not that my closet is too small; it’s huge. Much bigger than most New Yorkers are lucky enough to deal with. But this has only exacerbated my bad habits; because I have the extra space, I can avoid actually organizing and cleaning it out for much longer.

But of course, the problem has gradually gotten worse. More shirts were bought, more shoes, more pants, more sweaters, a suit or two. But nothing was ever judiciously thrown out or given to Goodwill. So the space became more and more cramped. And once I ran out of shelving space, I began the habit of someone truly in denial: I began stacking stuff on the floor. Then stacking stacks on top of those stacks. Until finally, I could no longer actually enter my closet. To reach something on the back shelf, six feet away, would require a serious amount of summiting possibly involving belay equipment and crampons. As a result, there are clothes in the back I haven’t worn in over a year.

And every time I opened that door, it taunted me: You know you need to deal with this. What are you, six years old? Grow up and get your house in order.

But I knew it was not a problem that could be fixed in an hour or two.

It was going to require to a sizeable devotion of time, money and brain matter: one part was ripping out the pathetic single shelf system in there and putting in a much more complicated and space-effective series of wall-mounted shelves. The other was the matter of manning up and once and for all parting with the clothes I had spent good money on but no longer used or liked. The latter being the much more emotionally crippling endeavor. It was a full weekend, minimum.

And when you live in New York city, who has a weekend to devote to something like cleaning your closet? There are parks to visit, bands to see, movie premiers to attend, meals to have, friends to join for drinks!

And so I limped on, for far too long, and each day as I went into the closet to awkwardly fetch my day’s outfit, I was reminded of my ineptitude. My disorganization. My capacity for denial.

And the closet was only a reminder of what other matters in my life I was avoiding dealing with. Organizing my 401k’s, doing that last final edit of my novel, re-doing my website, getting a crown replaced.

But the great (and enabling) thing with a closet is: you can always just shut the door and ignore it.

Truth be told, I’d been in this situation before. I had a huge closet in my place in Santa Monica that I avoided dealing with for nearly two years. I have a lot of crap, and the closet I inherited was large, but had only one shelf at head height. There was tons of unused space. Finally, after two years, I devoted a weekend, tore out the old stuff, went to Home Depot and brought home a ton of parts and mounts and shelves and slowly installed a completely kickass shelving system replete with 10 levels of shelving from ground to floor, shoe racks for 20 pair of shoes (I know, don’t start), and closet bars for a tsunami of shirts, suits and other hangables.

Then I got a job in New York and had to move out a month later. That’s right, after two years of suffering, I only got to enjoy the fruits of my labor for a month.

And of course I inherited another large but completely under-utilized closet with my new place in New York.

I knew when I moved in what needed to be done. But I avoided dealing with it. It was as if I felt I’d already paid my dues to the Closet Gods and shouldn’t have to pay them twice. Like if I just sat there with my arms folded and refused to budge, a new shelving system would magically appear. As if the universe would say, “You know what, you’re right, you earned this.”

But sadly, the universe doesn’t have a karmic closet policy, apparently.

And so I limped along, for far too long, and tried to close my eyes when fishing a shirt or pair of shoes from my closet each day. And every time, I’d have a reason why I couldn’t deal with this now, “I’ve got too much to do today,” “I haven’t seen a movie in months,“ or “I’ve gotta read my friend’s new book.”

And they were all valid. My closet wasn’t urgent. But it was important. And sooner or later you’ve gotta deal with the urgent.

So recently, one weekend when I had plans to go cycling and then join friends for a BBQ I went into my closet to get my gear for the day and just plain couldn’t really even find the stuff I needed. I knew my bike lock was in here somewhere, etc, but it was going to take an hour to find it. And then, as I sat there knowing I was going to be late, I realized what needed to be done. I called them up, and canceled. Then I spent the rest of the weekend doing what I’d done before. I moved out all of my clothes (one hour), ripped out all the old shelving (one hour) drove to Home Depot to do my planning and buy all the parts (3 hours), then installed it (2 hours one night, 2 hours the next day), then began the slow, torturous process of deciding what clothes to keep, and what to dispose of, which required a visit from an ex-girlfriend for consultation) as well as several bottles of wine (4 hours). Then there was just the matter of putting the clothes & gear back in the closet (half an hour).

And instantly, a fog had been lifted. There was purpose to my stride again. I had conquered the demon of inertia, regained a sense of male pride. I now found myself doing other things in half the time. My decision-making was clearer and firmer. My instincts were recharged. It was as if I recalibrated my Chi and was now free of conflict. And I was reminded of two things: One, that when we ignore what we need to do because we “don’t have time,” we actually lose more time. Because we’re trapped in the straightjacket of our own inner conflict and guilt. We can pretend we’re fine with it, but we’re really not. And that makes us less effective out in the world, even when our closet is miles behind us.

The most important lesson is: we’ve all got a closet we’re avoiding dealing with. Something we’re not giving as much attention as it needs. It might be an actual closet. But it’s probably something else. Our finances. Our relationship or marriage. Our health. A friendship in need of repair. Possibly a conversation with a family member we know we need to have. And we can say to ourselves now isn’t a good time all we want. But the longer we put it off, the longer we’re prolonging our own suffering, perpetuating a state of “stuck”-ness.

And the other thing is this: we’re never really done paying our dues. So what if you installed a beautiful closet in your last apartment. You’re going to have to do it again, probably sooner than you think is realistic. Whether it’s a job search, or finding a new romantic partner, or getting our financial house in order, or getting back in shape to lose the 10 pounds we gained over the winter, we’re never really off the hook. On the road of life, there’s always maintenance to be done. You can turn a blind eye and let the potholes build up, but you’ll always be moving at half-speed.

And the sooner we face that thing we’re avoiding, the sooner we can be empowered by having conquered it.

In defense of small-breasted women.

fuckedumbrella — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 19:17:00 -0400

Call me crazy, but I’ve never been a big fan of big boobs.

They’ve just never done a whole lot for me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I know.

In a culture that glorifies the likes of Pamela Anderson and the Swedish Twins, surely I’m gay, right? Or at least in dire need of glasses?

Alas, no. I assure you I’m a visual horndog for the fairer sex.

But it just seems that whenever I fall head over heels for a woman, one of the many things she happens to possess is a small chest.

Now it’s not that that’s what I notice first, or even what I’m looking for. Sure, I’m a visually-driven beast, and yes, I’m a sucker for a pretty face, so I guess it starts there. (Extra points for brown eyes and a perky chin.)

Then her voice. As a singer, a melodious voice goes a long way with me.

And if I’m being honest, I’m easily hypnotized by a great ass. Truly, I’m powerless against them. Problem, is it could take hours—or even the 4th date—before you get a good look at it.

But there’s something about a small-breasted woman that just seems to shine through the crowd for me, pushing all the poseurs away.

And I swear, it’s her energy.

Her passion for life, a type of fearlessness, a bold openness to the world.

And if she doesn’t have that, it doesn’t matter how beautiful she is. The one thing that trumps anything is if a woman looks like she truly loves her life.

For a long time, I wasn’t really aware it was the less-endowed women of the world I was falling for. It was only later, usually, that some guy friend of mine observed, “Cute girl. Kinda small-chested though, huh, dude?”

At first, I wondered what my problem was, since as young men we’re taught the prehistoric notion that bigger is always better, but soon I realized: it didn’t matter to me in the slightest.

And in time, it was something I came to prize. So why is that?

Maybe it’s because that I grew up as an athlete, surrounded by other athletes— ski racers, cyclists, runners, triathletes, gymnasts. So the girls around me were all pretty fit—meaning very muscular, with very little body fat. And when you don’t have much fat, well, hey, you tend to have smaller breasts. But when you work out multiple hours a day, you also have one other thing: A great ass. (And usually a pretty nice set of legs, too.)

And when you spend your days devoted to sports, you also develop a whole set of character traits: You go straight at your goals. You don’t shy away from a challenge. You overcome adversity. You develop humility from all the countless times you’re not among the leaderboard. And you learn to laugh off a set-back. All of which are pretty attractive traits.

So the more time I spent with them, the more I loved athletic women. I saw that they were assertive, confident, and took charge. They didn’t wait around for men to open doors for them. They took me on, challenged me, flirted more daringly. Over time I would see that they would also pursue their dreams and aspirations more aggressively. Even better? They tend to be independent and self-reliant enough so that they not only made their own money, but looked to a man as a partner in life’s adventures, not as a white knight to “rescue” them or hold them up in times of crisis. And in even more time, I would discover they tended to be a little more lively in bed. So eventually, I began to associate the types of behavior and attitudes I liked with small-breasted women.

But not all of the small-breasted women I fell for were athletic. So the other thing that occurs to me is that maybe, without a big chest to gain the instant attention of most men, she had to find other ways to get their attention. By being a more interesting conversationalist. Or having a sunnier personality. Or by asking him to dance, rather than waiting to be asked. Or by having

a funnier comeback than anyone else at the table. Or by simply radiating a kind of energy that exceeds whatever natural assets you’re born with—the kind that can only come from living a bold and interesting life based on your passions.

To be clear, this is not an anti-large-breasted-women stance I have. Lord knows I’ve fallen under their spell, too, at times. But it was a simpler infatuation. It was not due to an attraction to her energy, her mind, her soul—the things that really kept me coming back for more. And let’s face it, most large-breasted women will still have plenty of admirers without me to count on. Although I have heard my largely- endowed female friends complain that it’s harder to trust why a man has fallen for them—especially when it’s often not her eyes he’s staring at. And just because a man is attracted to you doesn’t mean he’s listening to you. So I don’t mean to imply life’s a cake-walk for the well-endowed woman, either.

But I do think small breasted women often have to earn the attention of men more. They’ve gone without the instant adulation that can come with having large boobs. They have to find other ways to draw a man’s interest. And at times, I’ve run into a sense of entitlement from large-breasted women that I don’t find remotely attractive. Some are clearly so used to unconditional adoration from men that if you fail to fall at her feet and heap compliments in her general direction, then you’re simply not worth her time. Which is just fine with me.

So, while the majority of men fawn over the Jessica Simpsons and the Pamela Andersons of the world, gimme a Hilary Swank or an Keira Nightly, please. For me, an A-cup puts you on the A-list, every time.

So fear not, ye of little breadth: you have more admirers out here than you know.

Skip the boob job, ladies. If the guy you’re with thinks you need different breasts, maybe you just need a different guy.

How George Lucas lost his Obi-Wan.

fuckedumbrella — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 16:30:00 -0400

(On the importance of having a “no” person in your life.)

If you’re a Star Wars fan, chances are you’re mostly a fan of the first three Star Wars films, and either barely tolerate or have extreme anger towards the last three. The “prequels,” as they have been labeled, were unilaterally dismissed as lacking any real character development, or emotional engagement. They were technically masterful and visually amazing, but in the end, you didn’t care about any of the characters. And that would never have been said about the first three. So what went wrong? How could one filmmaker have such masterful facility with the audience at one part in his career but then have it so sorely absent in the latter?

Was it simply that he’d gotten too rich? Too isolated from real human experience? Too “successful” to invest the countless drafts and revisions that separate a mediocre story from a compelling one?

The answer is probably something else entirely, I’ve recently learned. The secret to the first three films might have been his then wife and editor, Marcia Lucas—the woman who helped guide and edit the first series, but whose presence was entirely gone from the latter series, because by then they had long since been divorced, and no longer even speaking. You might say she was his Yoda, or at least an Obi Wan, and when they were no longer allied, his judgment seemed to depart as well.

They say true power always lies behind the throne, and it might be especially true in this case. This is of course not to assert that Lucas was a talentless hack who owes all his success to his estranged wife, but by many reports, Lucas’s scripts and editing instincts always leaned toward the cold and unemotional, whereas it was always his wife Marcia who constantly challenged him to involve the audience more. She fought for him to add a bit more humor, more humanity, and more lighthearted moments like Pricess Leia kissing Luke “for luck” just before they evaded the stormtroopers by swinging across a trench on a suspension line. It appears that she was the lone “no” person in George’s life, constantly pushing back on him and saying it wasn’t good enough yet. She not only had a major hand in editing his films (receiving the Oscar for the original Star Wars), but consistently giving him feedback in the multiple draft of his scripts.

And it appeared the younger George welcomed it. Or at least valued her input enough to keep her involved, and even though she’d become a mother by the 3^rd film, insisted she be hired back as one of the key editors. Although, by all reports, he was sparing with his appreciation and was barely able to mutter out “you know, you’re a pretty good editor” in the end.

But alas, whereas Marcia wanted to take their success and millions and relax and enjoy life a bit (she’d worked very hard for years, and now wanted to be a mom before it was too late), George wanted to plow ahead, delving into the other films and beginning to build the all-encompassing Skywalker Ranch, the commitments to which would eventually leave him both physically and emotionally distant from his wife. (It’s been said that even he didn’t actually want this, but felt some strange paranoid need to build an empire around him just to be safe, eventually creating the same kind of huge bureaucratic studio that he and his wife railed against in the beginnings of their careers.) With her husband never around, and seemingly more committed to building his empire than to his family, she one day fell in love with another man, and eventually filed for divorce.

And the film-going public has forever been the worse for it. Because, while the loss hurt George tremendously for years, when he did finally return to filmmaking, it was without the one person who had perhaps been the key difference between technically-brilliant filmmaking and emotionally-engaging filmmaking. And of course, since at this point George was worth billions of dollars and had established an army of supportive people around him (and even had issued policies that most employees were never to speak to him directly), there was no one left to question him and offer criticism like, “Wait, George, you haven’t established enough of a reason for Anakin and Amadala to fall in love yet. You’ve got more work to do before you can roll camera.”

And so in the last 3 films, we got the real George Lucas. One who people say was always a bit emotionally blocked. One who didn’t socialize much, didn’t communicate very well with others (as many crewmembers will attest), and one who was too blind to realize he was neglecting his wife so badly that he was basically driving her to another man. As a result, George has gone out of his way to remove the appearance of her input on all his films and she appears as merely a footnote in most cases.

So what can we learn from all this?

That no matter how talented you might be, chances are you can’t really reach your full potential on your own. That we all need a “no” person in our lives, a partner whose support often comes tinged with constructive criticism, a personal Obi-Wan. Someone who will challenge us, question us, and push us to do one more draft, try a little harder even when we think we’ve already tried hard enough. You have to trust in having someone in your life that you may not always understand or agree with, but somehow can’t help but acknowledge is enhancing your life through some mystical way. And without this person in our lives, rather creating than a roguish, conflicted and interesting character like Han Solo, what do we come up with?

Jar Jar Binks.

So no matter how cocky or successful you get in life, if you wanna stay that way, keep a “no” person around. It might sting a bit from time to time, but in the end, your judgment will be all the better for it.

How to break up with a girl (from a guy who's done it wrong a few times).

fuckedumbrella — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 16:01:00 -0400

One of the most difficult ordeals a guy can face is the delicate matter of ending a relationship that his girlfriend still wants to continue, especially if he still cares for her. There are some good ways to go about it, but infinitely more bad ones, and I’ve certainly plumbed the latter category more times than I’d like to admit over the years. So in there interests of sparing men (and women) the mistakes I’ve made, here’s what I’ve learned from my past:

First, before we can even get on to the delicate matter of how to break up with a girl, there’s the more important question of should you: Is it actually necessary? Are the reasons you think you need to break up legit? Are they instead things that can actually be worked out? Improved in some way through rational and honest conversation?

If you are certain they are not, very well then, let’s proceed:

First off, you had better make sure you’ve earned the right to break up with her.

“Earned?” you ask?

Yes, earned. If you haven’t already had a number of conversations about your misgivings about the relationship, then you’ve got a few steps to go through first.

Because the one thing that will make you an outright asshole is if she’s hearing about these complaints for the first time. Employers can’t fire you without a few warnings first, and the same applies in relationships: you need to establish a pattern here. If you’re too much of a coward to have those tough conversations first and let her respond to what you’re unhappy about (and even let her yell a bit), or are too lazy to work together to change things, then you’re not ready to break up yet. And you’re probably also not ready to be in a relationship yet, either. (And yes, I’ve been both of these guys over the years.) But the point is, you might learn through these conversations that you’re a bigger part of the problem than you realized, and some of the onus of fixing it is on you.

Exemption clause: of course, if you walk in one night and catch her sleeping with your best friend, then sure, no real discourse is needed, you’re fully entitled to hit the eject button. (Or if she accidentally burned your vinyl record collection—I mean, we all have our limits.) But otherwise, if everyone broke up with each other at the first infraction, the human race would never get around to actually reproducing.

Second: Is it a good time for a breakup? Can she handle this right now? If you really care about ending it tactfully, and not causing her immense pain and getting anointed as public enemy number one, perhaps you can wait another week until she’s through passing her med school boards, or till after her sister’s wedding, or till after she’s had that appendectomy. That said, if ‘waiting till it’s a good time’ results in putting it off a year, at some point the trigger just needs to be pulled. There’s never a ‘great’ time for a breakup, just try not to pick the worst.

Third: you’re going to be the asshole no matter what. It will vary in degree, but there’s usually no way you’re going to walk out of this with her giving you an enthusiastic high-five. Be prepared to be the recipient of her fury/ resentment/ or depression. It’s your unique door prize to inherit for playing the role of dumpeur. Man up, and be ready to take the heat. Your reasons may be sound, and in time, when she finally meets the guy she’s eventually going to marry in six months’ time, you’ll be forgiven a bit. But not now.

Forth: try to pick a good place. The important elements are: privacy, a calm environment, a quiet environment, and preferably a place where she can have a bit of a breakdown if the moment requires. It may sound cruel on the surface, but I personally recommend doing it at her place, where most of these elements are in place. That way, you can leave once the conversation seems truly ‘over,’ and she can have the comfort of her own environment to fall apart in. If you do it at your place, then she has the additional hurdle of trying to get herself home. While crying. In downtown traffic. As your favorite U2 song comes on the radio. If it has to be a public place for some reason, don’t pick a restaurant or café or anywhere else where you’re in full public view. Look for a park, or somewhere with a bench away from a crowd.

Fifth: we’ve all probably heard this before, but “I statements” not “you statements” are key here, and are essential if you don’t want the whole thing to turn into an emotional volcano. Say “I feel like I’m not being heard,” not “you never listen to me.” “I feel I can’t be myself around you” rather than “you’re too controlling.” And if it seems that it’s not really working for her either, point that out, so it’s not just about your needs, it’s also about what’s best for her future, too.

Sixth: honesty is important, but only up to a point. There is a point where you can go too far and do irreparable damage. Of course, there’s no point in completely sugarcoating it either, or else she’ll be left in the dark as to why you’re leaving. You can’t just tell her “I just want something new” if the truth is more like “I don’t feel like you support my dreams and aspirations.” There are a few exceptions, I think, such as if you’re not really attracted to her (in which case you’re a jerk, since: what were you doing dating her in the first place?), or is if the sex is lousy. Telling a woman she’s bad in bed (and again, the problem might not be her, it might be your inability to communicate what you like, or that you have different approaches to sex) is about the sharpest knife you can plunge into her heart. She might never recover her confidence from it. “We don’t seem sexually compatible” is about as far as you can go with this one, but if you can focus it on the conflict in values and lifestyles, that’s easier to swallow.

Seventh: give her some indication it’s coming. Don’t blindside her when she thinks you’re just going out to see a movie. I made this awful mistake once, thinking it would be easier, and have regretted it every since. It might be easier for you to stay in lala land before you drop the bomb, but it’s cruel to her. Tell her “I think we need to have a talk” at the very least.

Finally—if you can—tell her you’re open to talking about it some more if she wants to (and if you’re able to handle it). And then walk away. At some point, the breakup talk needs an endpoint, so she can process. And be aware that, just because the talk is over, doesn’t mean the process is over. There will be followup waves. And if you’re truly trying to be a standup guy, you’ll stomach a few of them. Give her the answers she needs, if she wants them, and you can provide them. But at some point, you’ll inevitably need to just cut the cord, at least for a while.

And since we can’t always plan our breakup talks—sometimes they just happen—at least try to handle them with dignity. Rather than place blame, explain how the relationship just isn’t giving you what you need—spiritually, conversationally, romantically, financially, whatever. And remember that even if your time with this woman has come to an end, her romantic life hasn’t, and there will be other relationships that she can apply these learnings to. No matter how unhappy you may be with your relationship, don’t let her sour on love or men altogether. We men all have to realize: right now there’s a guy out there breaking up with a woman we’ll one day date ourselves (or even marry). And just as we don’t want him burning her so hard she puts up a wall we can never get through, let’s all try to do the same for him. Pay it forward by ending things gracefully, so she can love openly again, and hope that the guy who might be dumping your future wife has the maturity to do the same.

Luck, fate and the conservation of energy law.

fuckedumbrella — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 14:01:00 -0400

I’m not a big believer in fate.

But I do a put a lot of stock in science.

One of my favorite laws of the physical world is this one, the conservation of energy law, or first law of thermodynamics:

“Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only change forms.”

For instance: Atoms in the sun undergo fission, the energy from which creates sunlight, which then heats our planet, which helps plants grow, which perhaps gets consumed by cows, who perhaps feed people in steakhouses, who use the energy to grow crops, which become fertilizer, which grows more plants. You get the idea. One big circle of life. Nothing ever truly disappears. It just changes its name & address and gets a face lift.

The same happens on a more metaphorical level in day-to-day life, I like to think.

When a door closes, another one opens; the trick is having the fortitude to search it out and be open to it having a different appearance than the one you were expecting.

The girl from that party you were trying to date won’t call you back? The potential energy got switched to the girl next to you on the subway. You’ve just gotta be open to it and actually look her way. You were really jonesing to make pancakes but are out of syrup? Maybe it means you’re supposed to make some amazing omelet instead. You get laid off from your job as an ACD in a big name NYC ad agency like I did last week? Maybe it means I’m supposed to reinvent myself and bring some of my other professional passions to the foreground.

So when I got laid off recently from my job as an ACD at a big midtown NYC ad agency, I didn’t really fret. I believe my potential for happiness (and income) didn’t really disappear; it just changed its name & address. Sure, I’ve gotta go figure out exactly where it resides now, but I believe it’s out there.

When I endured my first layoff in 2003, it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. I took the time off to get back in the best cycling shape of my life and go over to follow the Tour de France on bike with a bunch of friends. I was kinda interested in interactive at the time so I built a blog site to chronicle my adventures called http://chasinglance.net . My articles & feed ended up getting carried by about 10 newspapers in the Northest and in Lance’s hometown of Austin, TX, and even became the site of the day on Lance’s website once. Perhaps most significantly, when I included it in my portfolio, it became the point of difference that got me a ton of jobs because it showed my facility with digital. So, ironically, it was getting laid off that almost guaranteed the next phase of my career. The cold, hard tarmac I thought I’d crashed on was actually a launching pad.

So I’m trying to see it the same way now. I love advertising. I’ve considered it a privilege to be a part of the industry and actually get paid to come up with ideas all day—something I’d do for free in my spare time anyway. But, it’s not my only love. I’ve been a musician for twenty years, too, performing regularly in NYC & LA with one album already on iTunes, and some of my friends think it should be my main career. Easier said than done, but I did just complete my second album over the winter (using weekends, nights & vacation time to finish it) and am ready to take things to the next level. It’s all mastered & ready, and now, just when I was thinking I could really use a month off to finish the artwork, do the paperwork, re-do my sites & launch it properly—suddenly that’s exactly what I have. (Although, I guess I have a lot more than a month off…) So if anything, it’s almost like life is saying, “Oh yeah? You’re serious about this album, eh? How serious? Let’s take away your job and see.” And now I’ve got no excuse but to hit it hard. Maybe it’s exactly the push I needed.

Hmmm. Come to think of it, maybe I do believe in fate.

If you’re curious to see what I do with this push, track me down on Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, or join my email list at http://markradcliffe.net and see how it all turns out.

Whether it’s the change our industry is going through lately during this tough economy or the transition to digital, the one thing we can count on is change. Here’s to all of us embracing it & reinventing ourselves, rather than sitting around moping about how things don’t stay the same.

A lesson on manhood, courtesy of a Special Olympian.

fuckedumbrella — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 13:30:00 -0400

This is a story about that tender, coming-of-age moment in every young man’s life: his first kiss. And how, for me, it in no way, shape or form resembled the one I’d hoped to have as a young man. But, like many things in life, sometimes it’s the unexpected turns that have the most to teach us.

The story begins in the hills of Maine, where I grew up ski racing. Ever heard of Olympian Bode Miller? Well, I went to the same ski academy as he did. Never made the US ski team, but went through all the same year-in, year-out training and challenges, many of which simply focused on character-building and teaching us responsibility. The headmaster at the ski academy believed strongly that the school and its athletes should give back to its community. So in addition to us helping the mountain out with various efforts like clearing dead trees off of new trails, or leading the late night candle-light parades down the mountain at holidays, we all were also required to spend one day volunteering at the annual Special Olympics event on the mountain. Each and every student was to partner up with one Special Olympian, and give them a personal all-day ski lesson to prepare them for the race. Yes, this struck fear down our spines. We had no idea how to coach, let alone coach people who were severely handicapped, and we were all secretly half-worried we’d just end up laughing at these poor guys. So we were treated to an appropriate amount of sensitivity-training beforehand, and assured the headmaster we’d all behave maturely and patiently, and do the best we could.

My personally-assigned student was named Carl. I assumed he was roughly my age at first, due to his general shyness and height, but would soon find out he was over 30. Like most of the Special Olympians, Carl was fairly impaired, mentally, but could carry on basic simple conversations and had pretty strong physical control of his body. He’d skied a few times before, but never raced, and my job was to teach him the basics of navigating around the gates of a slalom course (a daunting task for any non-disabled adult) and ideally coax some degree of aggressiveness in him that might put him in the running for a medal.

We started off on the bunny slope so I could assess his basic skill level. Right as we were about to snap into our skis, I realized we had a major problem: his ski boots were on the wrong feet. If you know anything about ski boots, wearing them even ‘normally’ is akin to the practice of Chinese foot-binding, so having them on the wrong feet is like something you might undergo in an Iraqi torture chamber. But Carl didn’t seem to notice at all. When I pointed it out to him, he humbly said, “I’m sorry.” I tried to point out that there was no need to apologize, but he must be uncomfortable and maybe we should switch them. But by now he was busy just looking around, absolutely mesmerized at the snow around us. “Where’d they get it all?” he kept asking. I just explained broadly that it fell from the clouds, but he argued vehemently, “No, snow doesn’t come from the sky, dummy! It comes from a snowcone store!” Suddenly I was the one with alleged mental deficiencies here. But I decided that perhaps now was not the best time to get into a lesson on celestial weather patterns and the physics of precipitation. Suddenly he asked, “Hey, can we get a snowcone?!” I quickly improvised, saying “I think the snowcone store is closed today,” then convinced him we needed to fix his boots. He couldn’t have cared less, but I knew if any of my coaches saw me trying to “teach” him how to ski but left him with boots on the wrong foot, I’d be asked to hand in my skis and hit the showers. As changing ski boots is no easy task without a bench and a carpeted floor—neither of which we had in the middle of the slope—I had him just lay back on the snow and changed them myself. The whole thing was not unlike an adult changing a baby’s diaper, I now think back, and must have looked not unlike something from a Monty Python skit to onlookers from the nearby chairlift. I know this because right then, one of the girls from the ski academy—Stacy Bolystead—skied by and fixed me with a critical eye. Stacy was the hottest girl, in the school exactly the type of girl I’d like to have had my first kiss with. “Having fun?” she asked, skiing by with a much more adept partner than I. It was just but one of several uncomfortable moments I’d undergo by the day’s end.

Once we got our boot situation righted and snapped into our skis, we took to the slopes. Carl wasn’t half bad. He had no real “technique” whatsoever, and didn’t understand the concept of pole-planting to initiate each turn, but he had good basic physical stance and balance, and could keep himself upright, which is more than his fellow competitors could say. As I looked around at the many other ‘students’ on the hill that day, I felt comparatively lucky.

And so Carl and I went to work on his technique. I gave various tips in as clearly-as-possible language as I could muster. “Now Carl, to help us turn better, we start off with a pole plant in between each turn to get a little rhythm, like this.” And off I’d go for a few turns to demonstrate, then hike back up the hill to coax him to repeat what I’d just demonstrated. Carl would then proceed to completely ignore my instructions about the pole planting. But I realized he was imitating my up-down motion in between the turns without me even mentioning it. I realize that maybe the trick was to not explain things, but to just do them, and hope some deeper, more subconscious part of his mind would pick up on them visually, rather than auditorily.

Sure enough, as the afternoon wore on, Carl was markedly more confident. Our conversations on the chairlift were utterly hopeless (he never could remember my name, though extended me the courtesy of asking me each time), but he was definitely skiing better. I finally tried him out on a slalom course the coaches had set up for training. I explained the concept of going around each pole and the concept of “rules” that need to be followed; pass one on the left, then the next on the right, back and forth, back and forth. But he just ignored all that and went for a free-for-all, using the poles as a random playground; things that would be fun to ski near or around, but with no real logic governing his navigation thereof. I demonstrated a few turns, but it was clear that in his mind, we were doing the exact same thing, just generally skiing near the poles in some playful fashion. The more runs we took around the poles, the further away we got from him actually following the proper line.

But, damned if he wasn’t having a helluva time. His smile was so big he was literally drooling at the end of each run. I even grabbed a few Kleenex from the dispenser they had at the bottom of the chairlift to clean him up a bit.

And while I worried the coaches would berate me for having “failed” to instruct me properly, I later learned that none of the “athletes” would really be expected to follow the proper line. And I soon relaxed, thinking, “Hell, he’s probably having more fun than he’s had in months.”

It certainly showed in our next conversation on the chair ride up. “Buddy?” he asked, which had become my default name.

“What’s up, Carl?”

“Will you be my girlfriend?” he beamed, smiling as wide as the sky.

My jaw dropped. I barely even knew where to begin. Dumfounded, I replied, “But Carl, I’m a boy. Not a girl.” Surely, after all this time, he couldn’t possibly think I was actually a girl, could he? I mean, all mental deficiencies aside, this was pretty emasculating. The fuck else could possibly go wrong with this day? I thought to myself. I knocked it off to my wearing goggles and a hat, obscuring me. And I did have pretty long hair at the time.

“You won’t be my girlfriend?” he asked, deflated.

I decided to throw him a bone: “Carl, I’d be glad to be your girlfriend if I was a girl, but since I’m a boy, I just can’t. You have to be a girl to be a girlfriend. Those are the rules.” (I was getting fond of invoking this term for clarity’s sake.” He waited a few seconds. I was wondering if the logic was sinking in.

Suddenly he came back to life. “Now will you be my girlfriend?” as if an appropriate amount of time had passed so that the rules now no longer applied, or had recently been rewritten. We were approaching the end of the lift, and I had to get him ready to dismount, so I flatly replied, “No, Carl, I’m a guy, and guys can’t be girlfriends. Let’s go.”

We went about our next run, and he seemed to have forgotten the whole girlfriend matter, thank God, and I figured it was behind us.

Then he spotted one of his friends in the chairlift line. “Charlie!” he belted out, trying to get his friend’s attention. Charlie eventually turned around. “Charlie! Look! This is Matt.” he said, pointing to me. “She’s my girlfriend!” I was trying to remain my composure, and uphold my commitment to carry out the day with patience, understanding and maturity, but there were so many things wrong with the situation I couldn’t even keep count. A) He had failed to remember my name, but had come close with ‘Matt.’ B) But surely he know that ‘Matt’ is not a girl’s name, so how had he discarded that fact in order for me to be his girlfriend? His mind was getting harder to figure out each minute.

Not wanting to embarrass him in front of his friend, I still felt the need to stand my ground. “Carl, I can’t be your girlfriend, since I’m not a girl, remember? The rules?”

“Yep, you my girlfriend now,” Carl nodded, as if he’d settled the matter, consulted with the appropriate authorities and had it written into law. For the next 30 seconds as we worked our way through the chairlift line, he informed a good 10 other people—most of them strangers—that I was his girlfriend. I figured it would only take another 30 seconds to spread across the whole school. But, had to say: he was the happiest stud in the world. None of my protesting made a chink in his newly-found armor of joy.

I looked at my watch, and realized I only had to hang in there 10 more minutes and we would be returning the athletes to their staff, so I figured, “Whatever, I can let this slide for 10 more minutes.”

We rode up in silence for most of the last chairlift ride. Then he said, “Thank you for being my girlfriend.” I thought for a second again about correcting him, and instead replied, “No problem, Carl. Glad you had a good time.”

But I underestimated how this would embolden him. He then leaned over and said, “How bout a kiss?”

I felt like I’d been sucker-punched. I repeated my basic logic about the whole ‘not being an actual girl’ clause, but it didn’t matter to him. He was having the best day of his life and he would not be denied a kiss from his new girlfriend. “Just one kiss?” he asked. “No kiss, Carl,” I said. “Those are the rules,” I reiterated. He quieted down.

Then, sure enough, after waiting a good 15 seconds, he tried again: “Now can I get a kiss? Please?”

Fuck it, I thought. This poor guy’s not exactly gonna be getting a lot of tail in his day. Might be the first damn kiss he’s ever had, at age 30, or whatever he is. I looked around, figured no one was close enough to see anything, and gave in. “Fine, Carl. One kiss.” He went in and planted one on me. That’s when I realized he had a nice furry beginning-of-puberty mustache—as if the whole moment could have gotten any worse. And sure enough, there was still a bit of slobber from his drool-worthy trips down the slopes. Whatever, all we had to do was make it off this chair, then I’d be done with the whole ordeal, and could go try to find a brain surgeon to have my memory permanently erased.

And sure enough, the one kiss was enough. He raised his hands triumphantly as if he’d just won the Gold medal he would be going for tomorrow. Anything after this would just be gravy for him. While I was half-nauseous from this wholly unwelcome romantic adventure, I felt I’d given him something more valuable than any other kid had gotten from the afternoon’s training. He’d have something to brag about for the rest of the year to his friends. (I just hoped he’d continue to misremember my name.)

And while it was certainly not the first kiss I’d had in mind for myself as a 14 yr old, it was one of my first big lessons about being a man: if you can triple someone else’s happiness just by sacrificing your own pride for 30 seconds, you should probably go ahead and do it. As much as the events themselves certainly weren’t filled with joy for me, damn if he didn’t have the happiest day he’d had in years, and there was a certain satisfaction in that. And the other thing it helped me understand about making someone happy: you might set out thinking it’s one thing that will do the job, but often it’s something else entirely.

You just have to listen. And be willing to be a little flexible.

Of course, just as I was saying goodbye to Carl, who in the world should possibly ski by? Stacy Bolystead, who had apparently been a few chairs behind us on the lift.

“Oooh, la-la,” she said. “Get a room!”