That's another lesson kids today should learn-tattoos may have been cool five decades ago when the only people who had them were sailors, inmates and lead guitar players. Now? Not so much. You wanna be a rebel nowadays? DON'T get a tattoo. Or a nose ring. Or a pierced anything. Everyone will wonder: what the fuck is up with that guy? He actually has nothing painted on or attached to his body except his limbs and his real skin. What a freak. Plus-for girls? You know what that insane snaky flower or some bullshit Chinese symbol or a set of angel wings above your ass or your pussy makes you look like? A stripper. Ask a drunk uncle to grab your tit and you'll be ready to roll.
Hey-The Drunk Uncles. Good name for a band.
Strip clubs-as a matter of fact-are basically live laboratories for low self-esteem. The dancers, the customers, the bartenders-everyone in there would rather be somewhere else. The dancers would rather be living normal healthy lives, the guys would rather be in a cheap hotel room with the dancers and the bartenders and bouncer would rather be actors or professional athletes. In expensive hotel rooms with the dancers.
Will performing in a strip club or selling drugs damage your child's self-esteem? You bet your ass it will. But low self-esteem is a disease every single kid in this country could use a little bit more of.
When I was a kid one day in grammar school one of the nuns was teaching us about what it took to become the president of the United States. After all the typical bullshit about hard work and dedication and blah blubbedy blah-she took a left turn into the Constitution and spiced it up with a little extra info-that as long as you were born in these United States and had all the other qualifications in place-ANYONE could become the commander in chief once elected. Hey-that was news to me. Up to that point the only things I had spent time dreaming of becoming were a Boston Bruin, a Boston Red Sock or the newest/youngest member of the Rolling Stones.
I walked home from school that day doing the political math in my head: I was born in America / I could-ostensibly-start working hard in school / John F. Kennedy had been the president and HE was Irish and Catholic. Not to mention the fact that he was FROM where I lived-Massachusetts. Not only that-when he was president he had one time driven through our neighborhood on his way to deliver a speech at Holy Cross-a college not more than twelve blocks from where our apartment was.
Needless to say, I arrived home with flashes of my future success illuminating my brain: people waving at me as I drove through their neighborhoods in MY motorcade; my mom yelling at the White House staff about leaving all their supposedly important papers lying around everywhere; me passing laws that would make huge differences in our society, for instance-declaring free candy and no more school for kids everywhere.
When my dad got home from work I ran right up to him.
What's up? he said.
I could barely wait to get the words out:
Sister So And So said that anyone who was born in this country has the God-given right to become the president of the United States.
That's absolutely one hundred percent true, he said.
And then she said that all you had to do was work hard in school and get a college education and get good grades and want to help people and change things and make this world a better safer place.
That's true too, he said.
And then you just get people to vote for you?
Yup.
And then if they do-you get to be president?
Yup.
(Wow. A rush of dreamy blood flooded my tiny blond head. I went in for the ultimate okay.)
So does that mean that I could become-one day-if I did all that stuff-the president of the United States?
There was a long pause. My dad looked down at me with a warm smile creasing his friendly face. Then, he said:
Hell no! Whaddayou-crazy?
Then he started to laugh as he gave me a big hug.
Hey Nars! he called out (that was my dad's nickname for my mom, whose real name is Nora)-Dinzo thought he was gonna be the president one day!
I could hear my mom's laughter bouncing off the dark brown paneling in the hallway outside the kitchen.
Then my dad leaned down and said:
You ain't ever gonna be the president, son. Because you gotta be born here, you gotta work hard in school AND-you gotta be rich. And we ain't rich. Now go get ready for supper.
And that was the end of that dream. Crushed like a bug under the immigrant boot of my no-nonsense old man.
Did it make me sad?
Yes.
Did it knock my adolescent self-esteem down a heavy notch or two?
Yup.
Did it lessen my faith in The Great American Dream?
You bet your patriotic balls it did.
But he was right. There wasn't a chance in hell I was ever going to have even a sliver of a micro-ounce of an atom's testicle of EVER getting elected to the highest office in the land where I lived. I had a better shot at growing TITS than I did living in the White House. Shit-speaking of shots-given my place in American society I was more likely to fire a weapon AT a presidential motorcade than I was to ride IN one.
So I sucked up that fact and started dreaming of being a Bruin or a Red Sock or a Rolling Stone once again.
My precious tiny self-esteem was dealt a severe blow that it desperately needed-a dose of hard-ass reality that more and more parents in this country need to drop on their own offspring: get a grip. Life sucks and is unfair and there are certain facts that will always remain hard, fast and true: pretty, thin chicks with small tits, minuscule brain waves and long long legs will become supermodels-all other chicks will demean and abhor and hate them even as they try to starve/binge/drug their way into the same set of shoes; the fastest, smallest little guy and the biggest dumbest angry guy will both make it into the same professional team sport-no matter what it is-because you can't hit what you can't catch.
My dad taught me in eight seconds what kids nowadays don't know even as they hit their late thirties: not everyone gets to do everything. My dad and my mom worked their asses off just to get to New York City and begin to live and work as illegal immigrants and they adjusted their dream as they went along because they had a family to feed. My dad was a talented musician-he played the accordion in Irish bands on the side when I was growing up. I've always had it easy with music as does my son Jack and I believe the talent comes from my father's side of the family and I'm sure Dad would have loved to make his moolah on the stage but it didn't work out that way so he became a mechanic. He loved working on engines too. He fed his kids. He bought a house. My mom stayed home and made sure we did as we were told. They both made sure we had our priorities all set straight but even more importantly they made our options crystal clear: that's why my dad cut right to the chase when it came to questions about what we could or couldn't "become." When I decided to give acting a try as a senior in high school, much to his credit my dad's response was to say it was known to be a rough road but that I should give it a try. He also told me we had no money for me to go to college and if the acting or college thing didn't work out he could always get me a job down at his company and that he could easily get me into his union. He then showed up at almost every play or show I did in college and as many as he could after I graduated-always coming backstage with a big smile on his face. When I was playing ice or street hockey in leagues as a kid he would show up for a whole game or part of the game almost every time and if I had a bitch about the coach he'd always give me the same response-HE'S the coach, not your father. Shut up and listen.
I'd say when it comes to self-esteem my mother said it best and way more than once to me, my sister Ann Marie, my brother Johnny, my baby sister Betsy, and any and all cousins from this side of the ocean or the other who tried to get above their station in this life.
Pick one:
Just who the hell died and left you in charge, huh?
Well, now-there's another county heard from.
Why can't you be more like (insert smart faggy kid from school's name here)?
Why don't you learn a lesson or two from (insert faggy cousin's name here)?
No one asked you for your opinion mister/missy/smartass.
Shut up, cut the cadology and go to bed!
You wanted self-esteem when I grew up? You had to earn it. The only rights you had were to eat whatever it was they put on the table and sleep in a warm bed and get free clothing as long as you showed up on time. And after you hit eighteen? Time to go out into the real world.
You want some self-esteem?
Then get up off your lazy ass and DO something.
Invent something, make a great catch, learn how to play the piano, cut the goddam lawn, shovel the fucking sidewalk, paint an interesting picture-anything except sit there whining about how no one pays any attention to you.
You know what kids learn when parents insist on making sure that everyone gets a trophy and everyone wins and nobody loses? They learn that losing doesn't suck. Which it does. Which is why no one wants to lose and be called a fucking loser. Jesus. You fall down you get up. That's how you learn how much falling down hurts and how much you never wanna fall down ever again. Christ. Modern moms are desperate to make sure their kids never lose, never get beat up, never get called fat, never get anything negative ever ever ever. It's okay for the kids to do whatever they FEEL like doing-never say no-just yes yes yes.
Another little story about self-esteem and all its iterations-confidence, wherewithal, ingenuity and advancement:
HOW I LEARNED TO ACT
When I was a freshman at Emerson College several of my best buddies and I were told we had to wait in line for the best parts because the juniors and seniors needed to play leading roles before they graduated. Basically that meant not getting onstage on a regular basis in a meaningful role for at least two or three years. Being an understudy, standing in the wings, hoping wishing praying plotting dreaming that one of the stars might maybe perhaps if possible suffer a broken ankle or a pinched neck nerve or a bout of laryngitis or just a full-blown onset of basic-ass stage fright.
But instead of cursing the darkness we lit it up-using the advice of one Dr. James Randall we formed The Emerson Comedy Workshop. Dr. Randall forced the Student Government Association to recognize The Workshop as a legitimate theater group and fund it, thereby allowing us to write all of our own one-act plays, variety shows, mini-musical parodies-whatever came to mind. We even ended up getting credit for all the creative work as well as the set design, lighting design, tech work et al. We did three to four shows a year. We were almost always last on the list for available theater space, but we would take whatever we were given-lecture halls, raw square spaces, even-in my favorite turn of events-a former church-and have to outfit it with a stage, lights, backstage area and seating. Our limitations always became a plus. Our shows were funny, exciting and always on the cutting edge and what began as what some people thought of as an impossibility became the hardest ticket in town-we sold out every single production for every show three theater seasons a year for three seasons running. The Workshop still exists a full thirty-two years later. I'm not telling you this as a form of braggadocio-I'm informing you how our generation of kids refused to accept the status quo. We rebelled and it paid off-big-time.
That's an example of the power of not taking no for an answer. As a matter of fact-taking no and turning it into a giant gleaming Yes. I learned everything I know about experimental original theater and comedy-from acting to writing to painting and building goddam sets-by not taking no for an answer.
Now-part two of the same story. Kind of:
HOW I BECAME A PUBLISHED POET
During the summer certain members of the workshop would travel and perform at other colleges and theaters in and around New England. In order to do so, we had to take jobs that kept us close to Emerson during the summer months. At the end of our junior year, a guy named Eagle-he was bald at age twenty, got hit with the nickname and nobody ever called him anything else but Eagle ever again-said he had a job as the assistant head janitor at the Atlantic Monthly Building. The Atlantic Monthly was and still is a well-respected magazine zoned in on intellectual discussions of cultural and political matters and its offices were located in several brownstones built side by side half a block from the Emerson campus. Eagle needed four guys to work the night shift as janitors during June, July and August. Adam Roth, Chris Phillips, Reagan Kennedy and I volunteered immediately. We'd never been janitors before but between the four of us there had been plenty of experience cleaning up odd puddles of beer, vomit, cheap vodka and just general leftover after-party ooze in the various hellholes we lived in-some of which Eagle had witnessed firsthand, which is to say we were well qualified. So Eagle hired us on the spot.
The pay was good but the best part was yet to come: our first night on the job, Sully The Head Janitor-classic Boston Irish guy, fifty-something, barrel-chested, redfaced with a nose that doubled as a Bushmill's bottle-explained that we were to be on time every evening at five o'clock and we were supposed to clean all four buildings in the following eight hours. However, he said as he handed each of us our own official Atlantic Janitorial Staff short-sleeve button-down shirt (think basic bowling league red and blue), if we chose to work our balls off like slaves on cocaine, we could leave whenever the hell we got the work done.